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[henshinyo]

GENERAL

NAME: Sun-mi Aurelia Valdivia Choi
NICKNAMES: She uses Sunny in situations where Sun-mi causes confusion. Which has then become Soleado back home. Also responds to "Hey you". Whatever works.
AGE/DOB: 17 / August 17th
BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Female, she/her
SEXUALITY: Bisexual in theory, homosexual in practice. Sun-mi has a long history of dating or otherwise canoodling with her female classmates.
HOMETOWN: Mexico City, Mexico. Technically, she lives on a dragon reserve hidden inside Izta-Popo Zoquiapan National Park, so it's usually "I live with some dragons and volcanoes near Mexico City."

CONCEPT: Dragon wrangling ballerina ready to fight for love and justice.

PHYSICAL

APPEARANCE:
-Slim with fine musculature from years of ballet training and heavy work around home.
-Prefers to wear the pants version of the school uniform, but wears the skirt version often enough for it not to be noteworthy.
-Out of uniform, her dress style is generally tomboy femme or hard femme. Likes to wear light makeup, earrings, and always has her nails painted.
-Avoids sandals or open toed shoes.
-Tomboy swagger.
-Has no difficulty serving as a base in cheer when needed, though she prefers to be a flyer.
-Speaks with a Spanish accent.

HEIGHT: 5'5"

PB: Kim Ah-young

PERSONALITY

LIKES: Dancing (ballet & street), showing off, flirtatious attention, canoodling, snacking constantly (fruits and veggies!), cute girls (Sun-mi has a very broad definition of cute), all the Step-Up (& similar) sequels in the lodge DVD library, Sunday morning LARP drama gossip sessions, helping out on the family dragon reserve, dodging being eaten by dragons and dangerous plants and other creatures (she would have easily been a Gryffindor), Korean BBQ

DISLIKES: The rules enforcement part of being a prefect, fried foods, having to interact with her bio-mom, cat fur getting on EVERYTHING, never seeing her Korean grandparents,

PERSONALITY:

There are some girls who always seem to get cast as Romeo and take it as a personal slight. Sun-mi is not one of those girls. Sun-mi has always reveled in being treated like "one of the boys". She takes a bold and assertive approach to life and loves to surround herself with similar people. To the casual observer, it's very easy to recognize that Sun-mi isn't just confident, she's also quite cocky - she would argue that she has no interest in downplaying her abilities just to soothe some egos.

While she won't play humble, Sun-mi does manage to offset her cockiness with a fair dose of natural charm. She loves to tease and flirt and play along, is very slow to anger, and described as having grace under fire. Because of this, Sun-mi can easily come off as a careless show off, but she's actually extremely self-disciplined and won't hesitate to forego "fun" if there's still work or practice to be done. She's in her fourth year of independent dance study under Ms. Thrussel's guidance and has a very real shot at joining a professional ballet company after school. She offsets this with a lighter academic schedule than many of her peers, but just because she only has one official class on Tuesdays, you won't see her goofing off around campus.

That said, Sun-mi does have a very, very bad habit of procrastinating for the express purpose of shoving through work while riding the adrenaline rush of having to meet a deadline. If something has to get done, it'll get done, but Sun-mi has never, ever been the person who is off to the library immediately after a paper has been assigned so that she can check off all her work before play time.

Sun-mi will readily admit that she wasn't Head Girl material. She loves being a Prefect and takes the role very seriously, but she's always struggled with the disciplinarian side of the role. Luckily for Sun-mi and Mr. Hightower, Ribbonfin needs a far lighter touch when it comes to rules enforcement. (The jokes about Sun-mi giving Ravi a rubber stamp with her signature may or may not be true.) As much as she tries to be Ribbonmom, she'd much rather be the Cool Big Sister that her classmates can come to for advice and support. This is an area that she excels in and she considers herself the personal cheerleader of every student in Ribbonfin.

Which, of course, manages to get her into trouble in other ways. Sun-mi is full of support and encouragement, but she isn't full of second-guessing or thoughtful decision-making. Sun-mi lives by a mantra of follow your dreams and the heart wants what it wants.. and Sun-mi's heart has fallen a little bit in love with a lot of people. Anyone coming to advice from Sun-mi about whether or not they should do X will basically always be told they should definitely do X ( ...unless X is a blatant violation of school rules or personal safety - she does have SOME sense.)

EXTRA NOTES BECAUSE I FORGOT TO INCLUDE THEM ABOVE:
-loves all the rumors about gooseberry and thinks going out to investigate them is a GREAT idea. it was totally on her prefect route

HISTORY

FAMILY MEMBERS:

Min-kyu Choi, adoptive father and biological uncle. Half-blood. Private Practice Healer. Papá M. Min-kyu suffers from a chronic illness and a massive ego that frequently leads to overexertion. He does his best to keep the various dragon-keepers around the reserve in one piece and occasionally assists on medical issues with the dragons. He is generally a stricter and more reserved parent than Emilio and he doesn't hesitate to make his general distate for dragons known. But alas, the things we do for love. He was also primarily responsible for overseeing Sun-mi's education prior to her attending Gooseberry.
Emilio Valdivia, adoptive father. Half-blood. Dragon-keeper. Papá E. Played Quidditch for the Fitchburg Finches until retiring early to pursue a "quieter" life back home on the family dragon reserve when Min-kyu's health started to deteriorate. He's extremely charming and outgoing and basically every dreamy thing you would expect from a dragon-keeper. Sun-mi has been informed MANY times that he is the "Hot Dad".

Ye-rin Choi, biological mother and adoptive aunt. Half-blood. Ye-rin gave birth to Sun-mi when she was 16 and hasn't seen much of her since moving away after graduation to "start fresh". Ye-rin's biological relationship to Sun-mi has never been a secret, which has led to a lot more strained feelings than if she had remained ignorant. Ye-rin's currently in a stable relationship and they're expecting their first child in February.
Van Nguyen, biological father. Muggleborn. Van was attending Ilvermorny with Ye-rin when their canoodling ended up with her pregnant. Their relationship didn't survive Ye-rin's pregnancy and Sun-mi has never met him. He has since married and established a family.

And a ton of extended family on the MacFusty-related Valdivia side that all live in the general vicinity of the preserve.

HISTORY:

Ye-rin hid her pregnancy from her family as long as she could, but school officials inevitably figured out that she wasn't just putting on a few pounds from extra helpings of lunch. Mama and Papa Choi, who had always been deeply involved in their local chuch, were devastated when they received the news. The news was quickly communicated in a disapproving letter to their eldest son, whose decision to live in sin with another man had left him estranged from his family for years. There was never any question about whether Ye-rin would carry her child to term, at least among her family, but the question of what would happen to the child once it was born was far more complicated.

Against all odds, awkward nerdy Min-kyu and Quidditch hotshot Emilio's relationship had weathered the transition from highschool sweethearts to adulthood. They had fallen into a comfortable domestic routine and while talk of marriage and children was still very, very hypothetical, it was given serious consideration as something people did once they started hitting their thirties. Thirty, however, still seemed ages away at twenty-five, so when Min-kyu resolved that he wanted to adopt his sister's child, Emilio got spooked by the very not abstract, very adult, and very permanent decision of raising a child together. The break-up didn't dissuade Min-kyu and though there was a lengthy legal process to contend with, it was with the biological parents' blessing that Min-kyu brought Sun-mi home from the hospital to begin his adventure as a single father.

Some time during that first year of sleepless nights and changing diapers, Emilio came around, because who could resist a man with perpetual bags under his eyes and spit-up on his shirts? Certainly not the star chaser for the Fitchburg Finches. Min-kyu and Emilio finally married, moved from thier apartment to a nearby small home, and officially became Sun-mi's legal parents during the first few years of her life. The three of them had achieved domestic bliss, or something like it. Sun-mi's fathers were definitely winging it as they went along, but her earliest years were filled with lots of love and nourishment.

Min-kyu had always had an "unhealthy disposition", but his health took a dire turn and he was diagnosed with a rare and chronic wizarding illness (and that's all the detail you need to know about that) shortly after Sun-mi's third birthday. A LOT of very mature and adult discussions happened behind the scenes during this period of time, but the result was this: Emilio's career kept him away from home often and unable to properly care for this change to his family. Though he still had plenty of years left in him, he retired from Quidditch and soon realized he had never given much consideration to a backup career beyond the obvious one of working on his family's dragon reserve. In Mexico. Min-kyu's training as a healer could translate to anywhere, so at three years old, Sun-mi's family left Massachusetts for Mexico, which was a rather daunting prospect since Emilio was the only one who actually spoke Spanish at the time.

So, that's more than enough discussion of her parents. Sun-mi's life really started once she arrived in Mexico. The family dragon preserve had initially been established centuries back when some wizards had thought it would be a bright idea to bring Hebridean Black eggs to the New World. A member of the MacFusty clan volunteered to travel across the sea to help get the situation under control only to discover that the region had its own native dragon known as the Quetzalcoatl. MacFusty worked with the local inhabitants, who were far more familiar with the native flora and fauna, to contain the newly introduced Hebridean Black and a joint effort dragon reserve was established in the foothills of a couple of volcanoes with lots of Anti-Muggle charms in place. And this is where Sun-mi spent most of the formative years of her life.

Like many little girls, Sun-mi became enchanted with the idea of being a ballerina and could not be dissuaded, so her fathers signed her up for classes in nearby Mexico City around the age of five. During this time, she met and became close friends with Rafael Ramirez, son of tabloid darlings. And now insert dancing montage showing the two growing up together and probably skirting injury at the dragon reserve on more than one occassion.

Like Rafael, Sun-mi was home schooled, but when she came of age to be eligible to attend Ilvermorny, she began to push her fathers for the opportunity to follow in their footsteps. This was met with overprotective father refusals and insistences that if she really wanted to attend wizarding school, there was always the local day school and she wasn't fluent enough in English and Ye-rin had been a good girl too and look at the trouble she had gotten into. Sun-mi relented, for a time, and continued with her home schooling and ballet training and daily life at the dragon reserve.

Sun-mi pushed again to attend Ilvermorny the summer that she turned 13 and this time her fathers relented. That fall she was packed off for Massachusetts and sorted into Wampus House. Boarding school in English was a major change for Sun-mi and she found herself regretting the decision to leave home pretty quickly, but also feeling far too teenaged stubborn to let her parents know. There was little time to practice ballet while juggling the long established rigid scheduling of Ilvermorny. When Min-kyu became ill over the winter holiday, Sun-mi used it as an excuse to never return to Ilvermorny.

Though Sun-mi was never quite the prodigy that Rafael had been made out to be, her own family connections made her an interesting target for Gooseberry. With Rafael intending to go, Sun-mi was cautiously optimistic that things would be different this time. Min-kyu was flat out against the idea, arguing that her failed stint at Ilvermorny was evidence enough that Sun-mi didn't belong in boarding school, but Emilio took Sun-mi's side in pointing out that this was an alternative high school and one that was fully interested in supporting her dancing dreams.

Compared to everything before it, life at Gooseberry has been rather.. normal? Sun-mi was sorted into Ribbonfin and spent a lot of time in English tutoring sessions with Mrs. Acuña during her Freshmen year to become fluent enough to be confident learning in another language. (Though Mrs. Acuña still gets on Sun-mi from time to time because she knows Sun-mi has intentionally avoided Wizard Lit or History of Magic because she doesn't want to bother with learning how to write proper essays in English.) She also continued her rigorous training schedule alongside Rafael, so things didn't feel that different from back home.

The following summer saw Rafael's career end [and Sun-mi was probably there when it happened/possibly involved?]. Returning to study alone was an unpleasant change, but she gained a prefect badge that year to somewhat distract her from any underlying guilt she had whenever she passed Rafael on the way to the dance studio, knowing that he wouldn't be joining her. She also picked up some other clubs to expand her horizons that year, though Rafael and Ravi continued to fail at any attempts to drag her into LARP.

Junior year saw a lot of becoming more comfortable with the New Normal. If anything, Sun-mi was starting to feel jealous of Rafael's ability to hold down a steady relationship with Quinn and began to wonder if her own short lived flings made her seem shallow. So, of course, the solution was to begin dating the shallow-but-equally-badass Henrietta Gray. They dated exclusively for a few months and Sun-mi dragged Etta along on multiple obnoxious double dates with Rafael and Quinn, since everyone knows dates with three prefects are the best. Eventually both girls decided they were really not cut out for this whole serious high school relationship thing and would much rather be friends with canoodling benefits than serious girlfriends.

Aaaand, now it's senior year and there is thankfully nothing else to say because this got really long, I'm sorry. ♥

SCHOOL

YEAR: Senior (Grade 12)
HOUSE: Ribbonfin (previously a Wampus for half a year)
SORTING: You try living on a dragon reserve and not learning how to keep a level head. Coppertale made a strong arguement, but Sun-mi decided she'd rather keep the dragon wrangling to summers and holidays.
WAND: Ash, amphisbaena hide core, 10 inches, supple.
FAMILIAR: Hércules, a very large, very attention demanding cat.

CLASSES: Charms, Herbology, Outdoor Education, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Magizoology
SENIOR PROJECT: Did you think it was going to say something about dragons here? Because it totally is. Okay, I lied, because I wrote that before she was also a dancer. Sun-mi IS culminating her four years of dance study at Gooseberry with a personally choreographed dance performance.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: Sun-mi's favorite classes are Magizoology and Herbology. The first was to be expected, but Sun-mi really took to Herbology once the dangerous plants were introduced. She's really not fond of Potions, but Papá M insists it's a vital part of any wizarding education.

Sun-mi wants to learn, but she also loves to play chicken with deadlines and academics really aren't her top priority. Her grades are pretty consistently average and it was a bit nerve-wrackling last year about whether or not she would still qualify for Potions.

EXTRACURRICULARS: Cheer, Drama, Duelling & Fencing, Gardening, Outdoor Exploration.

OOC

NAME: Manx
EMAIL: mahoushoujomanx @ gmail.com
CDJ: fugu
OTHER PREFERRED CONTACT: N/A
TIME ZONE: EST