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♙Jia Chen♟
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Name: Jia Chen

Nicknames: He tells his teachers and other people at school to call him Ian, but he does not protest if friends want to call him by his Chinese name.

Gender: Male

Age: 16

Birthday: July 8th

Sign: Cancer

Blood Type: B

Fav. Food: Coffee. That's a food, right? Oh, also, his father's twice-cooked pork.

Hated Food: Anything dairy. Milk does not agree with him, so he hates it right back.

School: Meadowview

Gemstone: Moonstone

Hobbies:
Music - Ian learned the piano from a young age, and also picked up the flute in middle school. He still takes band now, and enjoys it, but after his father bought him a guqin on a family trip to Beijing during the Olympics last summer, his heart has been primarily with teaching himself that instrument. Even when he is not playing, Ian likes to have music to listen to. During boring classes (math), he will sometimes have his sweatshirt on with an earbud cord threaded up under it to listen to something nice through one earbud, just to help keep himself awake. Classical music is his professed favorite, but lately he has been listening to a lot of techno, and has some music editing software on his birthday list so he can try a bit of remixing himself. He will listen to pretty much any genre, but prefers to avoid rap because he likes music for the melody first and foremost.

Strategy gaming - He does not play any sports, but Ian is all over chess club. He also spends at least an hour a day online playing things like chess and go over the internet. And his mother has learned to cut out the chess puzzles from the paper every day and pack them with Ian's lunch so he can work on them if he has no one to chat with during lunch period. He takes his competitions seriously, but remains good-natured even when he loses - Ian is hardly the type to hold a grudge, but will remember those who defeat him as worthy rivals. And if he is ever hanging out with friends and no one can decide what to do, Ian defaults to trying to teach them how to play Go, or one of his other strategy video games.

Chinese history - His father's family came to Destiny City from China a few generations back, and then he and his wife adopted Ian, who was born in China. Though Ian moved early enough so that he had no trouble growing up with Destiny City's culture and language, he has developed a great interest in the history of where he was born, and spends a fair amount of his free time reading about it. The great abundance of strategy video games involving the Warring States or Three Kingdoms periods are part of this, so if Ian is not glued to online chess or Go, you can bet he is in front of his Playstation getting his Art of War on. Or reading any number of novels or history books. The boy has no objections to carting around an extra hardbound 300-page translated Chinese novel with him around school with his text books.

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Virtues:
Peacekeeper - When people start getting upset with each other, Ian does his best to step in and smooth things over. He likes to see the good in others, and has found that, if altercations come up between members in a club or a group project, his keen eye for his friends' strengths proves quite helpful - separate the two with problems and praise them for their respective skills, then outline some compromise aimed to allow them both to shine while keeping each out of the other's way. Ian is loathe to have to throw himself into a physical confrontation for fear of being beaten up, but will try to talk tempers down if at all possible. In general, he chooses his battles, but if, say, partners on a project he is involved with are getting up in each others' grills, obviously something must be done so the conflict does not end up hurting everyone's grades.

Let me help you with that - Ian tries to be outgoing and reach out to people when he can, but mostly in a helpful sense. As stated below, he is quite shy, but tries to deal with that by being polite and helpful. He has just found that, in social interactions, he prefers offering help and doing things for others over trying to find other ways to fill that awkward silence. Polite exchanges are pretty scripted, and of course if he is carrying someone's groceries or holding a door, it is not always necessary to talk at all; Ian finds that sort of thing easier and more comfortable than trying to make small-talk. It works pretty well, too: he makes friends, and he feels good about himself for lending a hand, but he has trouble going beyond this first step. As a result, he is distant and nervous, but still a considerate and sincere person. He does his best to avoid being rude to anyone, even if they have been hurtful to him in the past. Ian would prefer avoiding someone entirely over actively antagonizing him.

Strategist - Though he is too shy a person to step up in a leadership role, Ian surprises himself sometimes when he is in a position to act as a strategist. He does his best to learn about his teammates, even if he is fearful of reaching out and actually befriending them, but still puts what information he gathers to good use when it comes to meting out tasks to a group. This sort of interaction is alright for the ordinarily-shy boy because he feels he is not dealing with people directly on a personal level, but is more keeping them out at arm's length while he points out who should work on what. As a result, in spite of his politeness, Ian may come across as bossy, telling people what to do and pretending he knows them but being unwilling to actually befriend his comrades. He will not start altercations with those who disagree with his suggestions, but dissent makes him nervous; Ian defends his opinions on how things should be done, but anyone who is stubborn enough in their own methods would be able to overrule him.

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Flaws:
High-strung - Ian is a bit of a worrier. While he feels he does his best work under pressure, he tends to fret about little things, as well. While some people enjoy adrenaline rushes, Ian prefers not to seek them, and avoids things like roller coasters. When stress gets to him, he can get anxious, and has been known to miss school occasionally with stomach aches or headaches. He also tends to fidget; sitting in class, Ian will always be twirling a pen, tapping his fingers a little, wiggling his foot. Harmless to many, but still drives some people crazy. His nervousness is primarily a social one, though - when met with a slew of assignments with the same due date, Ian will calm down with a coffee and get things done, and his chess and go games find his nerves surprisingly steady. Concern for getting hurt in battle will always make him a bit reluctant to fight as a senshi, but other than that, his feelings for facing the negaverse may vary from fight to fight depending on whether he views the particular engagement as a match of strategy, strength, or diplomacy.

Shy - Perhaps he believes the stereotypes too much, but Ian is somewhat shy when meeting others, particularly girls. He has never really dated before, partly from worry at his lack of experience and partly because he knows he is a nerd and is not sure if any girl would want to date him. Self-defeating and self-perpetuating, he knows, but the poor boy has yet to steel himself up and actually make the first move himself. As far as friendships go, his usual modus operandi of "please"-"thank you"-"may I help you with that?" has won him friends, but still worries and tends to let people come to him. In groups of friends or just acquaintances working on a project, Ian will often only speak up if no one else does, or if people ask him directly for his opinion. His New Year's resolution is to work on being more assertive, but it should also be noted that this the third year in a row that he has tried this.

At face value - Because he is a sincere person himself, and because he is an optimist who likes to see the best in people, Ian almost always takes literally what people tell him. He has no more problems than the average high schooler at reading emotional cues from others, but, perhaps because he himself does his best to be very genuine, it often simply does not occur to him to suspect that someone might be lying. Ian also gets nervous around people of the sarcastic sort, as he never knows for sure when they are kidding; as a result, those who toss playful insults often risk inadvertently wounding the young man. Of course, he is not wholly blind - Ian will catch lies if he has enough reason to doubt someone's words, and he will also become mistrustful of those who repeatedly lie to him (though if they wish to regain his trust, they may have great difficulty getting him to believe anything they say!). He may read all day into your chess moves, but if you tell him that you are crying because you got something in your eye to avoid having to talk about your dog who just died, Ian will probably never suspect otherwise. This is a weakness, as it hampers his ability to judge character.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Eyes - Red, single-lidded, and behind a pair of narrow squarish silver-framed glasses.

Hair - Dark red and shoulder blade-length with no fringe, tied back in a low ponytail with a white ribbon.

Face - Heart-shaped with a bit of youthful chub in his cheeks, and a high forehead.

Body - Shorter than average and actually fairly scrawny. Neither of these things bother him - he is pretty cool with how he looks.

Ian as a Knight?
I have a senshi quest for Ian, as well, but I am thinking this may work better for him in terms of character development. Ian is definitely the armchair general type - he is great at planning and plotting and scheming, but can be hesitant or downright fearful when it comes time to act. He would never think of himself as the knight in shining armor type.

As a Knight, there really is no way to fight from the background. Even with support powers, he would need to be up in the thick of things. Sure, he could always walk away from his duties, but Ian would also be loathe to be so irresponsible. He would love to help the forces of good, and goodness knows he has lived out no end of hero fantasies in his video games ... but actually finding himself with a role to play would be a shock to him for sure. Ian would have some growing to do to really be a good Knight.

Red Cliff?
The site of a famous battle during the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history. The land was divided into three kingdoms - Wei in the north, Wu in the south, and Shu in the southwest. Cao Cao, the prime minister of Wei, commanded many troops and held great sway over the emperor. He sought to extend his control southwards into the Wu territory, known for its many rivers, and set out with his armies on boats to invade. Sun Quan, the leader of Wu, went to Liu Bei of Shu for help; Liu Bei, fearful that his own lands would be the next to fall to Cao Cao, agreed to send aid.

Exact accounts of the battle vary, but the combined but still outnumbered forces of Wu and Shu were able to emerge victorious, thereby protecting their homelands. The Wei fleet burned, and the invaders were forced to retreat.

One of the most popular stories describes how the allies were able to burn the Wei ships. The seasonal winds in the area would have blown any flames back onto the allied boats, but the Shu general and genius tactician Zhuge Liang set up an altar and prayed to the winds. They answered his prayers, and reversed direction, allowing the allies not only to attack successfully with fire ships, but the winds also blew the flames to engulf the rest of the Wei fleet.

Part of the great success in burning the Wei fleet came from an idea from another Shu strategist, Pang Tong. He disguised himself and infiltrated the waiting Wei army, where he discovered that the Northerners, unaccustomed to being on boats, were becoming quite ill from the motions of the ships on the water. He suggested to the commanders that the boats be chained together, to provide more stability ... of course, this only made it that much more difficult to disentangle the fleet and save the ships from the fire....

Lots of other fun stories of the battle, too, that I may add later on if I get bored: borrowing arrows; Huang Gai defecting; Cao Cao getting ambushed like 5 times while retreating?

Mars?
I considered Mercury for Ian, since he is a smartypants, but Mars' influence will help push him out of his comfort zone. This is totally all about making Ian slightly uncomfortable, because that's what RP characters are for. twisted

Extra formatting makes everything better 8D; And hopefully actually clearer.

I'd originally been thinking of the telekinesis as like, mental/spiritual influence on the physical, but yeah, it does seem like a bit of a tenuous connection there.

And I liked your idea to make the attacks more similar, too, with an ally spirit link. I hope the limited telepathy makes more sense in this context: I thought it the easiest way to go about "boosting teamwork". I thought of having the link boost the attack power of the linked targets, but it seemed like that could get sticky since I'd have to account for senshi powers vs other knight powers, and also possibly the negaverse? I figured granting a sort of "flawless communication line" via limited telepathy though the spirit-link would be much more consistent regardless of whom Red Cliff was linking?

Thank you kindly for the crit!