Basic Information
Name: Tien Châu Cao
(高 珠 仙, Cao Châu Tien)
Nickname/Alias/Etc: 'Dominika Kasia Zielinski - Birthname
'Domi' - Nickname
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 113 lbs
Home District: From out of town
Appearance
Hair Color:Brown
Eye Color:Honey brown
Ethnicity:Vietnamese, Polish
Physical Appearance:While Tien's height may be nothing spectacular when in France, it makes her stick out a bit in Vietnam. Though she sticks out there anyway with her appearance being a combination of her heritage. Beyond the peculiar mix of looks she is actually quite pretty - something that she knows.
Tien's hair is kept long and is a deep brown in colour. It is mostly straight, with a slight wave to it. It curls at the ends. It nowhere near as perfectly straight as her mother's however it isn't particularly wavy either. It is often found tied up in a ponytail. Her face is slim and round. Her large eyes look somewhat odd within it; almond shaped, they are almost identical to those of her Vietnamese mother. The main difference is the slightly lighter colour. They look almost amber, a large difference from her mother's black-brown eyes. Her nose is not a spectacular width, but flat, and her lips are slightly fleshed out. Her skin is yellowish-brown in colour, with a slightly golden hue. It makes it obvious that she isn't 100% Caucasian but is not as dark as most from the South of Vietnam.
Where Tien once had a bit of weight to her from in wealth, a certain roundness from eating rich food, she is now skinny from a sudden change in appetite and lifestyle. Her slender appearance is misleading to how healthy her weight is - she is frail, and growing somewhat sickly because of it. However she is still an active person and doesn't make a big deal of any problems she has due to weight. She is somewhat curvy, average sized in both areas - she took more after the women on her father's side rather than inheriting the slightly boyish figure of her mother. Nonetheless it's nothing spectacular.
Attire: When relaxing Tien will wear jeans and a nice enough top. When out somewhere she will often be found in some kind of nice dress or skirt and top combination. Often this will be used to enhance what she, or her mother, believes are her best features. While most of her clothing is western some more traditional Vietnamese clothing has been added into the mix.
Personality
Innate & Outward Personality:Outwardly Tien is an outgoing young woman. She is the life and soul of a party, managing to socialise with almost anyone. She acts friendly, though she isn't particularly. Along with this she is rather flirtatious - it's a habit that won't be easily broken after the last four years. She isn't particularly fussy with who she will go for in this regard and isn't exactly subtle. But hey, it's worked for her so far.
Tien can be quite loud in some circumstances and is a bit of a force of personality to work with. She likes to pretend to be strong willed and independent even if she really isn't. She can often come across as brash and self centred. She is slightly stuck up in some ways, she did grow up rich, but that has slowly changed over the past few years. Still this doesn't stop her from coming across as arrogant. She is more likely to isolate people when she talks to them for a long period of time than she is to become friends. However, she doesn't feel that she needs long term relationships with anyone.
Contrary to what her outward personality would show Tien is far from independent. She is still caught in the grasp of her demanding, and now somewhat out of it and insane, mother. She doesn't really do anything because she wants to - she does it as a rebellion against her mother or for her mother. It isn't something she can stop. After all her mother has controlled her all of her life. Still one day she would like to be free from it.
Tien is also a somewhat bitter person. She doesn't feel like she has much in life going for her, and she feels that this is unfair. When not trying to win someone's attentions or to get money from them she is sullen and often rude. Her people skills need a bit of work. She is a deeply flawed individual and she knows it. She isn't apologetic about it, however. No point making excuses. She is who she is, after all.
Hobbies/Interests:Dancing
Reading
Baking
Sewing & Knitting
Skills/Talents: Acting / Deception: Though not in the traditional sense of being able to perform in a play or a tv show, Tien is decent at putting on a facade. She is especially good at pretending that she is friendly when she really doesn't want any friends. She can pretend to like someone, when she doesn't. There are many ways she acts to cover up what she's really like.
Seduction: While not an expert the last few years Tien has used her decent looks, along with other things, to get money from men (and women) in certain ways. As a result she has honed a talent to help with seducing people of either gender.
Dancing: Tien is actually a good dancer, the one hobby she enjoyed that her mother also approved of. She did ballet for eighteen years, and still remembers how to do it, along with tap dancing, jazz dancing and other sorts. She hoped to get a job dancing when she first moved to Vietnam but it didn't particularly work out.
Goals/MotivationTien wants to leave her mother. She is torn between creating her own life and wanting to return to Poland to find her father again.
History/Bio:Tien's parents, Henryk and Mai, met when Henryk was in Vietnam for a few months on business trip. As a high up doctor and medical research he was helping in hospitals in the country. His relationship with Mai began early into his time here and was very physical in nature. She ended up pregnant due to this and so he brought her back home with him to Poland when he went back.
Here Tien was born, given the name Dominika at birth. Due to being very successful in his field Henryk had quite a bit of wealth and as a result Tien grew up in a rich household. She wanted for nothing in a materialistic way. However from the start things between her parents were strained. Mai, due to constant nightmares that began a few years into living in Poland, was in a constantly on edge state and rarely found in a good mood. This, added to Henryk's habit of overworking, meant that their relationship was always strained. So while Tien had all she wanted in a material sense home life wasn't always happy.
From a young age her mother was incredibly controlling. She couldn't do anything that her mother disapproved of. Her friends at school had to be screened by Mai before she was allowed to properly be friends with them. Her life was very strictly controlled, from her interests to the clothes she wore. She got through it, though, because her father managed to keep it to a small level. And at least her father loved her. She lived for the time spent with Henryk when he wasn't working.
Then, when she was ten, her younger brother unexpectedly came along. By the time she was twelve it was obvious who was her father's new favourite. Time spent with her father, and the strong bond that had helped her through her mother's attentions, began to break. Her mother only grew worse. She had never wanted a son, she said. She had only ever wanted another daughter - one to replace the one she'd had. It was here that Tien began to learn about Lihn, her older half sister.
She wasn't happy so she began to rebel in small ways. Wearing the skirts her mother wore her slightly shorter than they should be. She had her first, secret, relationship at thirteen. She kissed a girl at fourteen, something that would have shocked her mother (she didn't actually enjoy it that much - but that didn't matter). She had sex at fifteen. At sixteen, her power developed.
She didn't notice it at first - it wasn't exactly the most obvious. However soon she noticed that sometimes she would see glimpses of things when she touched people. She didn't realise it was memories until she saw it from her mother. Slowly she developed the power, discovering other aspects and getting better with it. She used it to her advantage a lot.
When she was eighteen her mother and father's relationship finally broke. Her mother, deciding there was nothing more for her in Poland, forced Tien to relocate with her back to Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City to be exact. Her mother managed to find a place for them to stay, for a reasonable price. From there it was up to Tien to make money for the two of them. Her mother essentially made her choose a new, Vietnamese name - though it was her own choice of what she would go by. So she went from Domi to Tien. The past four years the two of them have just been getting by with Tien making money in whatever way she can, while her powers develop more.
Relationships
Family: Mai Cao (Phan) - Mother
Henryk Zielinski - Father
Marcin Zielinski - Younger Brother
Lihn Phan - Half-sister
Dynamics: | Lihn Phan |
|
Neutral |
Half-sister |
"Mother doesn't seem to like her. But then again, when do I ever trust anything she says?" |
Tien has never actually met her sister, Lihn. She knows that she is seven years older than her and that her mother hasn't seen her in years. Her mother complains a lot about how Lihn was always a perfect child, nothing like Tien, and how she was a freak. But Tien doesn't like to believe what her mother says - in fact she's curious about her half-sister considering that she is clearly also a metahuman. Tien hopes to meet her one day.
Abilities
Power Class:Cerebral (Domination)
Power: Memory Manipulation
Memory Reading:The main part of Tien's memory manipulation is the ability to also read other people's memories. Recent memories are easier to read. The further back they are the more difficult they are to read, often impossible. Along with this anyone with some kind of mental block / mind shield can prevent her reading their memories.
Memory Erasure:The first part of her power that Tien discovered and mastered is memory erasure. This erases a specific memory that a person holds. While she learned this first it is, in fact, the most difficult to do. To do this she must know some kind of details memory. So she cannot just delete any random memory. When a memory is deleted by Tien it is as if the target is suffering from amnesia. They do not remember what happened as their memory appears to be 'hazy' or 'foggy.' People with especially strong minds can get over this.
Memory Creation:This part of memory manipulation allows Tien to create a memory and implant this into someone's mind. The more complex the memory the more difficult it is to put into the persons mind. In general Arianne does not use this ability as often as the rest as there aren't many occasions were she would want to create a new memory.
Memory ChangingThe main part of memory manipulation. This allows Tien to make changes to a memory that a person has. The more subtle the changes the easier it is. If she makes major changes it is more likely that someone is going to realise that their memory has been changed and remember the original memory. In terms of time it is rare that Tien can change a memory that someone has from over a year ago.
Limits:Tien is limited by whether she knows a memory or not. While she can read memories she must maintain an incredible concentration to do this, and then keep this concentration to change it at all.
She is also limited in that she must either know the person very well (as in the case with her family) or be able to see them to read/change their memories.
It is rare that she can change or access older memories or those that are over a year old. The more fresh the memory the easier it is to access it.
Sometimes people realise that something is wrong and that their memories have been changed. This is most often meta-humans in the Cerebral class or intelligent people.
Weaknesses/Drawbacks: Tien suffers an equal, but temporary, memory loss to any memory manipulation that she has done. If she slightly changes someone's memory she will forgot small details from recent memories. This scales as the memory changes she makes do. She tries to keep this drawback secret. Along with this she just, in general, has a worse long term memory. She finds it incredibly difficult to remember any of her life from years ago (any memories are fuzzy and constantly changing).
After a certain amount of memory manipulation Tien get's intense migraines. These often become ocular migraines which means she loses her eyesight and is pretty much helpless.
She needs to concentrate very hard to change memories meaning that she must ignore everything else around her (and as a result will not notice anything that might happen to her). This is especially the case when reading memories.
If someone has a particularly bad memory it is most likely to stick with her, particularly in dreams. This leads to temporary insomnia.
Other: - She is still unsure as to whether to go by Tien, or Domi. She still isn't entirely comfortable with the name Tien and doesn't know which she prefers
- Tien speaks fluent Polish and Vietnamese. She speaks near fluent English, but it is spoken with a heavy Polish accent. Her Vietnamese also has a slight European / Polish accent to it.
