Tai Shi Lanying

Let’s get the basics down first.

Name: Tai Shi Lanying (compound surname: Tai Shi; given name: Lanying)
Nicknames: Lan, Lady Indigo
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Homeworld: Land of Dragons
Alliance: Light

You’re just a puppet aren’t you?

Played By: Aerith
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Contact: PM
Audition Link: N/A
Other:

• Theme Song – I'll Make a Man Out of You from Disney's Mulan
  
• Battle Themes – The Sun Rises from Okami; Wiping All Out from Persona 3 Portable

So tell me a little bit about yourself.

Physical Aspects: Lanying is, like most Chinese women, quite short, the top of her head reaching to a height of only 4 feet, 9 inches. She is athletically thin, not frail by any means, and she often uses her diminutive appearance to mislead potential adversaries. Her hair is black and shimmers with a healthy glow in direct sunlight and moonlight. She keeps her hair long, as she is proud of her femininity, and it falls in straight layers to the middle of her back. She parts it in such a way that her ample bangs sweep over her left eye. She will occasionally wear a jade dragon comb in her hair. She meticulously grooms her elegantly thin eyebrows which serve as frames for her striking emerald eyes.

Since her old clothes were ruined by her trip to Monstro, Lanying received new ones in Traverse Town. A short-sleeved indigo jacket with a pair of pockets near the bottom of the front is layered over a simple light-green camisole edged at the top and bottom in matching lace. The jacket falls straight down to her waist and has an "s"-shaped Eastern dragon stitched on the back in silver thread. She also wears an indigo, A-line skirt that falls to just above her knees and very breathable black stockings underneath that. Very feminine and comfortable flat, black ankle-boots complete her outfit.

For accessories, she wears a pair of jade earrings carved into the shape of small dragons chasing their tails. Around her neck, she wears a thin, silver chain with a medium-sized, white charm in the shape of a pair of lotus blossoms. And her right wrist now sports several thin black leather bands.


Persona:

• Façade: When women are not respected on the same level as men, the few women that do manage to hold places of prominence must maintain an air of power and control. This does not necessarily imply that Lanying has the disposition of a dictator drunk with power. On the contrary, she displays kindness toward those who serve her and also toward nearly everyone else she perceives as good. She is incredibly difficult to provoke, since she draws from an inner well of seemingly inexhaustible serenity. However, when something or someone she cares deeply about is threatened, she is quick to defend it. She is often perceived as serious and stoic—an impenetrable bastion of strength. Other people look to her for guidance and protection.
  
  Her serious nature, though, can be as misleading as her small stature. In the company of familiar and trusted friends, she loves to laugh and will even go so far as to engage in the occasional practical joke. But her relationships tend to go no farther than friendship. She is wary of potential suitors who may seek her heart only for the power and wealth that she holds.
  
  
• Inner Mind: Because her gender is generally thought to be lesser than its male counterpart, Lanying lives with a constant, dull fear of losing everything in an instant. She has a tendency to worry far too much about how other people see her. She is, beneath her carefully constructed layers of strength, a people-pleaser at heart. This obsession with the perceptions of other people can at times border on the realm of paranoia. However, she manages to keep this darker side of herself tucked away, allowing her empathetic nature to shine through. On healthy levels, she truly does desire to help people in any way she can, and she will fight fearlessly for what she believes in.

Empty your pockets and show me what you got

Items: (List any items you wish to purchase)

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Inventory: Any items such as keychains, and Synthesis materials, as well as plot items go here.

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Stand up and fight.

Weapon(s):

• Maelstrom's Dragon – A Keyblade** that has replaced her sword, Allegretto. True to both her heritage and her innate element, the Keyblade features a raging dragon ascending from the water that forms the guard. Clothed in shades of blue and gray, the dragon's open mouth forms the “teeth” of the Keyblade, and bright red, pupil-less eyes provide a small, striking contrast. The keychain is silver with a smaller dragon chasing its tail.
  
  **Huge amounts of praise and adoration go to Dan for drawing the Keyblade for me.
  
  Keyblade Abilities
  
  Abundant Wellspring
  Maelstrom's Dragon provides Lanying with her own portable source of water. No longer must she seek outside sources in order to use her water-related abilities. At her bidding, water will flow from the mouth of the dragon head. However, this water is not endless. At this point, she can only create up to about five gallons of water at a time. This is neither an offensive nor a defensive skill, unless it is immediately used in conjunction with one of her other abilities.
  
  Range: Self
  Speed: The water appears instantly; if the ability is used to its fullest, it takes around a minute for five gallons to flow out of the Keyblade
  Cooldown: 1 posts after water is created
  Uses: Unlimited
  Strength: Weak
  
  
• Resonance – a shortbow made of yew wood and carved with the Chinese characters for power, wisdom, strength, and serenity; she also carries a quiver of fourteen arrows, similarly carved

ABILITIES SECTION:

Lanying possesses an affinity for the water element, which she invokes through singing. She can harness water in both offensive and defensive capacities. Additionally, her new status as a Keyblade Bearer has granted her the ability to harness the element of light.

Shield Raid Cadenza
When near a water source, Lanying can sing and manipulate that water to form a liquid barrier around herself or another which is mostly impenetrable to all strong magical attacks (except lightning-based attacks) and is also capable of considerably slowing down (but not stopping) physical attacks. Should the need arise, she can choose to burst her shield outward in order to reflect physical projectiles with the force of the water. If melee attacks are involved, this same bursting effect can inflict serious damage on anyone unlucky enough to be caught in it. Once Lanying has burst her shield, it is gone, it cannot be used for anything else, and the cooldown period commences. If her shield begins to dissipate outside of this triggered bursting, she can still harness the water as a weapon, shaping it into either one large orb, roughly seven feet in diameter, or splitting it into five basketball-sized orbs which home in on her opponents.

Range: Can extend up to five feet around the object being shielded, allowing for multiple people within the shield at the same time. When burst, her shield extends an additional three feet. The water orbs travel up to a distance of 50 feet before dissipating.
Speed: The shield will form within the same post in which she begins singing, and it will last until the end of her following post. The water orbs can reach speeds of up to 30 mph.
Cooldown: 5 posts (Cooldown period begins after the shield is gone)
Uses: 4 times per battle
Strength: Strong

Soothing Sonata
Invoking the spiritual property of healing in the water element, Lanying is capable of binding mild to moderate wounds almost instantaneously, simply by singing a few notes and passing her hands over the affliction.

Range: Requires direct contact with the wound
Speed: Instantaneous
Cooldown: 3 posts
Uses: 5 times per battle
Strength: Moderate

Eastern Radiance
Eight basketball-sized spheres crafted from the light element form in a circle around Lanying. Using Maelstrom's Dragon, she can strike each of the orbs in turn and send them flying toward opponents. She can choose to hit all eight of them individually, or she can combine multiple orbs together to form an even larger orb for one giant hit of damage. The impact of any of these orbs inflicts temporary blindness for one post, and the larger the orb that impacts, the greater the area of effect for this side-effect. In addition, all of the light orbs have the ability to pierce through any darkness-based attacks, serving both to negate them and attack their users. However, she can also choose not to strike the orbs, keeping them around her and using them as obstacles to deter attacks. If they are not hit, the spheres stay in existence for two full posts after the post in which they were summoned.

Range: The orbs create a circle around Lanying with a radius of roughly five feet; when hit, they can travel up to 50 feet before dissipating. When all orbs are combined, they create a single orb that is 10 feet in diameter. If all the orbs are combined into one, the maximum area of effect for the blindness side-effect is 30 feet in every direction.
Speed: The spheres can form instantly; when hit, they can reach speeds of 40 mph; this decreases to 30 mph when all orbs are combined.
Cooldown: 6 posts (If the spheres are used as shields, the cooldown period begins once they have vanished)
Uses: 3 times per battle
Strength: Strong

Qinglong, the Azure Dragon of the East
One of four spirit animals that protects Land of Dragons, it sealed itself away to prevent its own destruction by the Heartless. Even though Lanying has released it from its self-imposed bonds, Qinglong (pronounced roughly as “king-long,” for you non-Chinese speakers) is in a power-recovery state. He still possesses an otherworldly beauty that marks him as divine—green eyes and scales that shimmer with a mix of blues, greens, and silver. Now that he is slowly regaining his power thanks to his attachment to Lanying's spirit, he stretches to about ten feet in length. He is also capable of carrying only Lanying on his back, even through the air. Because he is a force of balance, he uses two breath weapons, one of fire and one of water, both of which are now available to him. Lanying can harness his water breath for her own abilities. Once summoned, Qinglong fights besides Lanying for the duration of two full posts after the post in which he was called.

Range: Qinglong uses his claws and teeth to attack opponents, which obviously requires him to be in very close range. His breath weapons are a single stream of their respective elements that can travel up to 25 feet before dissipating.
Speed: The summoning takes about five seconds to complete; Qinglong himself can fly at speeds of 30 mph (reduced to 20 mph when carrying Lanying) and he moves along the ground at about 25 mph (reduced to 15 mph when carrying Lanying).
Cooldown: 4 posts (Cooldown period begins after Qinglong has vanished)
Uses: 2 uses per thread
Strength: Moderate

Everybody’s got a weakness or two; what are yours?

Elemental Weakness: Lightning
Other Weaknesses: N/A

What’s your story?

Lanying was born to privilege. Her father was a trusted regent of a portion of the emperor's lands, and so she wanted for nothing. She was constantly surrounded by servants who waited on her every whim. Being the daughter of such an important public figure, Lanying was taught a full range of subjects, from writing to painting, public speaking to acting, cooking to archery. But her favorite lessons were with her music tutor, and she had a natural talent for music, especially for singing. It was said that people from every corner of the world would travel for miles just to hear Lanying lift her voice in song.

Any other girl would have been content with her station in life, but Lanying saw the bruises that would well up on her mother's arms and neck whenever her father would voice his displeasure. Lanying's fear of her father's anger reached almost unbearable levels one night when she peeked into her mother's bedroom and watched her undress. There did not seem to be an inch of unblemished skin on her mother's body.

Her father found her peering in horror at her mother. With one swing of his large hand, he sent Lanying flying into a nearby wall. She tried to regain her wits as he rained curses upon her and upon all women. She could smell huangjiu, the yellow liquor, in his breath. All Lanying could do was stutter a flood of weak apologies for a wrong she did not fully understand. She scampered back to her own chambers before he could hit her again.

Lanying's world inverted suddenly when she was nineteen. She was still living in her father's house, having not yet found a suitable husband, but she had for the most part managed to avoid incurring the wrath of her father. One night, she awoke to a terrible commotion just outside her door. Upon dashing outside, she found bodies strewn everywhere with black demons—what she would later learn were called Heartless—crawling like ants over anyone still breathing. Gathering what courage she had, Lanying managed to escape the hell her father's house had become, now fully reflected in the carnage inflicted by the Heartless.

Fortunately, the Heartless had not yet descended upon the Imperial City, and Lanying sought sanctuary with the emperor. When he learned that Lanying's father had perished in the attack, the emperor named Lanying her father's successor and bestowed on her all the power and responsibility of her new position. For many, this flew in the face of tradition and should not have been done. Thus, Lanying has spent the majority of her last ten years defending herself from personal attacks by naysayers and her people from the threat of the Heartless to the best of her abilities.

It all comes down to this: make your choice.

You are presented with three weapons: a sword, a staff, and a shield. The sword represents the power of the warrior; invincible courage comes with this weapon as well as horrible destruction. The staff represents the power of the mystic; inner strength comes with this weapon as well as wonder and ruin. The shield represents the power of the guardian; kindness to aid friends comes with this weapon as well as a shield that will repel all.

Which one will you choose?

Chosen Weapon: Lanying unwaveringly chooses the Shield.

Defensive Blow
You swing your weapon and then gather yourself into a blocking position, making yourself harder to damage. Until your next post, all damage you are dealt is reduced by one effectiveness point. All regular physical attacks deal no damage, Weak abilities deal damage as a physical attack, Moderate abilities deal 3/4 normal damage, Strong deal 5/6 damage, and super-Strong deal 7/8 normal damage.

Range: Melee
Speed: Swing speed
Cooldown: 4 posts
Uses: 2 uses
Strength: Weak