CLAIM: Zhang Ziyi Player's Name: Tali Character's Name: Zhang Ziyi Character's IJ:zifemmefatale Nationality: Chinese What are they from? Actress
Human/Mutant/Vampire: Vampire Background: Zhang Ziyi grew up in the Shaolin Temple, only child of a Shaolin Wushu master. She never knew her mother, and growing up her time was split between the mountain Temple where she learned martial arts and how to wield a blade, and the nearby city of Dengfeng where she learned to steal and hide and how to take care of herself. She was gifted with an almost unnatural grace and speed, but considering the fact that she had been copying the monks' martial arts since she could waddle around on two feet, it never really drew the attention of others. Her aversion to sunlight also went unnoticed, pale skin that easily burned just as easily protected by the long sleeves of temple garb or the shaded alleys and marketplaces of Dengfeng.
When she was 16 she travelled to Taiwan with her father, where she met her aunt and uncle on her father's side, and formed some sort of friendship with her 11 year old cousin, Henry. The boy both adored and was terrified of the older girl, who moved as silently as a cat and seemed to have the freaky ability to just appear out of nowhere. When she left Taiwan, they kept up semi-regular contact with each other.
At the age of 18, Ziyi decided that the Temple was no longer the place for her. She spent some time in Dengfeng before moving with a friend to Beijing, where the pair took random jobs here and there, until Ziyi eventually landed herself a job as a catering assistant in a fancy hotel.
But when financial crisis struck the hotel and lead to it's closure, Ziyi decided it was time for something more. Something better. Something new. Something daring, because while one half of her was the calm and self-disciplined and mature girl raised by Shaolin monks, the other half of her was still that grubby face, messy haired child that ran bare foot through Dengfeng with the other children, looking for all the world like a street urchin, throwing stones and stealing things and causing trouble.
She settled for taking a risk and not caring about the consquences or the impracticality of it, packing her bags and heading to Las Vegas where a waitressing job in a casino quickly turned into working as a call girl while she put herself through a degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management.
With her degree just finished, Ziyi has moved to New York to find work while she begins to put into motion her plans for her future. She wants to own her own resturant one day, or maybe even her own hotel, but she knows that if she is going to do it right then she has a lot more planning to do and money to save.
She is, thankfully, much better at English than her cousin, who is bordering on terrified of the idea of seeing her again. Henry still remembers her as a quiet, pale skinned, dark haired girl who would suddenly be standing there behind him, waiting for him to turn around, like some kind of ghost out of a horror movie.
Ziyi is a bit of a mixed bag. When working she is a hard taskmaster, on herself as well as everyone else. She expects the best, demands punctuality, and takes on a role of leadership even if it isn't her place. She makes sure that everything is done, and done properly, and done quickly. She is quiet and stern, and while she has endless patience for people who are genuinely trying to learn how to do something right, she has no tolerance at all for people who are just messing around and wasting time. But when she isn't at work she is completely different, she is fun and laid back, easily amused and entertained. She still has no tolerance for total stupidity, but she loves to have fun and when there is no fun to be had then she'll make fun for herself. Romantically unattached, Ziyi has no intentions on finding a boyfriend - or girlfriend - and settling down. Ever. She supposes it might happen one day, in the far future, but right now she has better things to do than try to make a relationship work, or go trying to find one just because she's 25 and should supposedly be thinking about settling down by now.
She's a vampire and she knows it, although maybe not a vampire in the totally traditional sense of the word. As a call girl she played it up for all it was worth - with her grace and her stern silence, pale skin and long black hair, it took only floor-trailing, figure-hugging black dresses and blood red lipstick to make her look every inch a vampire you'd expect to see in a movie, and it had her regulars like putty in her hands. Even now she's not afraid to use the image to help her get exactly what she wants, when she wants it, no matter what anyone else has to say about it. 'No' is not a word that she is used to hearing, nor a word that she likes to hear. It's also not a word she even listens to, knowing that she can make every 'no' into a 'yes', given enough time. She thinks people should just save themselves the effort and just say 'yes' in the first place - but then of course that would deny her of some fun and a challenge, which would be quite sad.
Preferred RP Style: IJ, paragraph, I seriously need to get rid of this question altogether! Anything Else: Noes.