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Name: Anming Lin

Nickname: none, though certainly you're welcome to give her one!

Age: 16

Birthday: April 14

Sign: Aries

Gemstone: Diamond

Blood Type: A

Fav. Food: smoothies, blended coffee drinks, saltwater taffy

Hated Food: soy milk, hamburger helper, plain coffee

School: Meadowview High

Hobbies:

Translating -- Being the one out of the family that knows the most English, Anming tends to find herself acting as an interpreter for her parents, who speak more Chinese than they do English (though not for a lack of trying). Anming has also been studying Japanese out of curiosity, due to hearing once that knowing Chinese made it easier, though she often second guesses her translations.

Cooking -- Originally something Anming picked up on a whim,
over the years it went from being a way to occasionally pass the time into a hobby she enjoys. She has a small collection of recipe books, but Anming also tends to look up recipes on the internet or in magazines as well. She enjoys baking primarily for fun, and sometimes will bake things to give as gifts to people, but hasn't particularly considered possibly taking up any sort of career in regards to such yet, however.

butterflies -- Anming is rather fond of butterflies, finding them to be rather pretty and graceful, if not fragile. A few years back, Anming went through a phase during which she embarked on a small butterfly-related collectible shopping binge, buying little trinkets like glass figurines, or a big book of all the known breeds of butterflies. Since then, she's learned to hold onto her money, but occasionally indulges herself from time to time. Her favorite piece that she's bought would happen to be a small blue lapel pin, which she likes to wear when not in school uniform.

Virtues:

Polite -- Anming was brought up to be mindful of her manners, and to be respectful to her elders, lessons she does her best to uphold when interacting with others. Because she knows she wouldn't want to be seen as rude by other people, she does her best to remain polite and calm, and hopes to be treated the same in return. While it can be hard when the other party isn't being civil in return, Anming still does what she can to keep a cool head in these situations.

Modest -- Anming tends to be fairly humble, not letting praise or compliments go to her head, and downplaying them when pressed. She doesn't think of herself as having done anything worth the compliments, as much as just doing a favor, and will generally direct the conversation away from herself. Nonetheless, she'll thank people either way

Helpful -- Do you need help with your homework? Need to know how many cups of flour you need for that cake? Anming tries to be of help when she can, assisting others with various tasks, for various reasons, some stemming from needing to uphold the virtues she was raised to honor, a general sense of wanting to be polite, and possibly simply because she occasionally feels driven to help someone. One of the other reasons she is so insistent on helping people is because she wants very much to be liked. Her range of what she can help with depends on her knowledge of the subject, and her strongest area of helping, not surprisingly, is with baking related issues.

Although Anming tries to help everyone equally, occasionally she will subconsciously favor people she knows more, thus leading to her helping out a friend more than a stranger.



Flaws:

Insecure/Self-conscious -- Anming worries a lot as to how others think of her, though she rarely voices these concerns out loud. She tends to be fairly self-conscious; is she doing the right thing? Is she not helpful enough? Not polite enough? Because of this, she sometimes tends to come off as a bit overbearing with her offers of assistance, seeming to be too insistent on helping out, and becomes easily flustered as well, due to those insecurities.

Passive/weak-willed -- Anming tends to be fairly passive when it comes to situations that put her in a bad spot, or when she otherwise feels she might otherwise lose a friend. Rather than actually handling them or speaking out against them, when dealing with conflicts or arguments, Anming more or less passively deflates under them. If she feels it would be harmful to tell the truth, Anming will find a way to avoid speaking it to a friend. While not everyone is worth staying friends with, possibly, Anming would rather not end up on anyone's bad side.

disorganized -- Despite seeming the opposite, Anming is rather terrible at organization. She has a habit of misplacing things, only to find them somewhere unexpected. While it hasn't caused any truly embarrassing situations so far, the general speculation remains that it is entirely possible for Anming to do something along the lines of mix up salt and sugar while baking, or misplace her cellphone in the laundry hamper.

Physical Description:

Hair: Dark brown, shoulder-length, left down save for two small loops, one on each side.

Eyes: Dark brown

Face: Thin, roundish, somewhat of a mix of asian and caucasian

Minkowski 2-9, abbreviated M2-9, (and also known as Minkowski's Butterfly, the Wings of a Butterfly Nebula or just Butterfly Nebula, and Twin Jet Nebula) is a planetary nebula that was discovered by Rudolph Minkowski in 1947. It is located about 2,100 light-years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. This bipolar nebula takes the peculiar form of twin lobes of material that emanate from a central star. Astronomers have dubbed this object as the Twin Jet Nebula because of the polar jets believed to cause the shape of the lobes. Its form also resembles the wings of a butterfly.

The nebula has inflated dramatically due to a fast stellar wind, blowing out into the surrounding disk and inflating the large, wispy hourglass-shaped wings perpendicular to the disk. These wings produce the butterfly appearance when seen in projection. The outer shell is estimated to be about 1,200 years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Nebula_M2-9

heart

will probably fix this up some more before I open this for crits, but hooray for filling in everything~

Hi Tsu-chan! My crit suggestions are more "things to think about" than "here's what to change and how to change it," but I hope you find them helpful nevertheless:

1. Your character's Japanese or Japanese-American? That's allowed for customs, but it's still kind of considered something you should think about before doing. Do you have any particular background reason why your character should be of Japanese descent? Would this character really be very different if she was Susie Jones, or Susie Chang or Trinh, instead of Yoshino Akasaka? In addition, she seems to be written as an American character of Japanese descent rather than a Japanese character, which is fine except that it's much more likely that, in that case, she would have an English first name and a Japanese surname: that's just the strongly prevailing trend for second-generation Asian kids. If she's actually a foreigner, then she should have a lot of complicated cultural and language considerations to deal with when living in an Anglophone city.

2. This is entirely subjective, but -- Minkowski may not match our other senshi names, who are astronomical, yes, we but tend to pick astronomical names based on Classical (or other) mythology.

3. Is there some reason she has to be a scholarship student at Crystal, as opposed to a regular Crystal girl? There should, logically, be a limited number of scholarships that Crystal gives out. Most Crystal characters should be full-fledged, bought-and-paid-for students. Unless you have a particular reason to make her a scholarship student, something that factors significantly into her background or character, I would advise you just have her parents have worked very hard to be able to send her to such a school.

4. Her flaws are not especially strong -- flaws are significant only if they affect both your character and other people to their detriment. For instance, "hesitant to fight" is only a problem if she really doesn't want to fight, to the point of not defending innocent people or her teammates. If she has primarily defensive powers, this isn't really a problem anyway and thus barely counts as a flaw. It's not a flaw if she can fight when the midden heap hits the windmill. For a good example of nonconfrontationalness played as an actual flaw, see Sailor Atlas.

5. I think she needs a stronger attack -- if her power is butterfly distraction, then let it be magical butterfly distraction that actually distracts enemies whether they let it or not.

still a wip; I've been going back and editing when I have time, but ahh posting so I can find it later

Attacks ideas:
-allowing flight through a butterfly swarm, buttefly wings, or a single huge butterfly taking Minkowski/a target, either positively (who wouldn't find that useful?) or negatively (it can be a big hindrance to forcefully leave the ground and be dragged around in the air in a chaotic way).
-butterflies are usually known as psychopomps and symbols of death and rebirth: energy draining may be a way to go, whether the stolen energy goes to anyone or not.
-how about playing with cocoons, typically important in these insects' lives? Locking someone into a cocoon that is slowly being made (maybe even by butterflies fluttering around them, making silk threads) is a possibility. Or even put a target/Minkoswki herself into a rejuvenating cocoon that will however prevent any movement and/or take some time before she's fully rejuvenated and can safely get out.
-there's such a thing as the "butterfly effect". You might have her launch a single harmless-looking butterfly that, if it's not stopped fast enough, can trigger a devastating attack (a strong burst of wind may be one way to do it, but careful not to step on other spheres' toes like Tornadoes).