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〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Jin Ling
CHARACTER AGE: 17
SERIES: The Untamed (Netflix Series) / Mo Dao Zu Shi (Original Novel). The series is for the most part a very faithful adaptation of the novel, but where there is any conflict I generally follow novel canon.
CHRONOLOGY: End of the Series
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: Random with roommates, any city

BACKGROUND:
When Jin Ling was one month old, his parents were both killed in complicated circumstances involving Wei Wuxian, Jin Ling’s maternal uncle. He was primarily raised by Jin Guangyao, his paternal uncle, who soon rose to power as the head of the Jin Sect. Jin Ling’s grandfather had been the head of the Jin Sect and Jin Ling’s father had been the heir to the Jin Sect, and throughout Jin Ling’s youth the Jin Sect was one of the most highly-regarded cultivation sects, so he was raised in wealth and power, a spoiled little prince. His uncle Jin Guangyao, who was very highly regarded by the cultivation world, was always very kind to Jin Ling, though not particularly attentive.

Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling’s maternal uncle and adopted brother to Wei Wuxian (Wei Wuxian was the adopted one), also had a significant influence in Jin Ling’s upbringing. Jiang Cheng was by then the leader of the Jiang Sect, which was one of the four most powerful sects in the cultivation world, so this put a lot of pressure on Jin Ling, since both of these uncles had no (surviving) children of their own, so they both treated Jin Ling like an heir. Jiang Cheng also blamed Wei Wuxian entirely for the deaths of Jin Ling’s parents, and he reminded Jin Ling of this often.

Both of his uncles placed high importance upon how actions are perceived, and Jiang Cheng especially placed high importance upon pride and always being the best. Most of Jin Ling’s training as a cultivator came from Jiang Cheng, which emphasized success over just about anything else. When Jin Ling was 16 and trying to make a name for himself defeating a powerful monster, Jiang Cheng provided 300 expensive magical nets that Jin Ling used to cover a mountainside, which served less to catch the monster and more to dissuade anyone else from trying to catch the monster in order to make sure that it would be Jin Ling who got the glory.

But shortly after that, Jin Ling’s path started to cross with Wei Wuxian, who had been reincarnated into the body of a lesser member of the Jin Sect. Jiang Cheng immediately suspected Wei Wuxian’s identity and tried to attack or capture him, but Jin Ling felt that his uncle was mistaken and that it was wrong for his uncle to accuse this innocent, so he helped Wei Wuxian to escape. In several more encounters, Wei Wuxian helped to train and protect Jin Ling, making him question many of the things that he’d taken as fact for so long. By the time that Jin Ling finally found out Wei Wuxian’s identity, he felt that he could no longer hate him. At the same time, he found out that Jin Guangyao, who had always been so genuinely kind to him, had been involved with several of Jin Ling’s personal life tragedies, but Jin Ling could not wholly hate the man who had raised him. These major fractures in Jin Ling’s world view twice reduce him to sobbing with pain and anger—once over Wei Wuxian and once over Jin Guangyao—and at the end of canon he is a much more sympathetic young man who is broken-hearted over his own past and has not yet found a way to deal with that.

PERSONALITY:
As the golden son of two majorly powerful clans, Jin Ling has been told constantly of his own natural ability and prestige. He’s been given the best education and combat training, with no expense spared, and drilled constantly until he excelled, all of which gave him an enormous sense of self-importance. He is the best, he will be the best, he deserves the best. He’s a spoiled brat who has been constantly reminded of his own importance until he really believes that he’s going to grow up to be the greatest cultivator in the world. And yet at the same time, Jin Ling is deeply driven by his own insecurity. He lives in constant terror of disappointing his uncles or bringing shame upon his clan, which causes him to lash out at anyone who speaks poorly of him, his uncles, or his clan. Existing in a perpetual state of ‘fight me!’, he is always fiercely ready to attack anyone who disrespects him, because he has a desperate need to be the best.

Being an orphan is a huge sore spot for Jin Ling, and neither of his uncles were very affectionate. Though he was given lots of attention, training, and expensive presents, he cannot remember ever having been hugged. His abandonment issues are a constant underlying source of anxiety, and it makes him absolutely desperate for approval from the authority figures in his life. This makes him generally very obedient toward established authority, because he wants to be acknowledged and rewarded for doing a good job.

Jin Ling is extremely brash and hot-headed. He’s not one to think before he acts, driven largely by temper and instinct. Though he is very intelligent, he’s not particularly wise, and if he gets the wrong idea he’s likely to chase that wild goose to the ends of the earth until someone points out his error. He gets a lot of wrong ideas this way, and while he is not graceful about acknowledging his errors, he is at least smart enough to recognize logic when it’s laid out in front of him. If he stops to think things through, he will generally come to correct conclusions, but in most cases he charges off on instinct long before he has all the facts.

Since he lacked gentling and positive social influences growing up, Jin Ling has terrible social skills. He’s a total brat who thinks that he’s always right and that everyone else should be grateful to him for telling them the right way to do things. He’s scornful and judgmental toward people who don’t behave as he thinks that they should, and he doesn’t feel that he should bother being polite to people who are of inferior rank. These traits have started to be ameliorated in canon as he’s gotten some gentler authority figures (Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji) and has also started to develop friendships with some of the other clan juniors of his own age, but he still defaults to being defensive and judgmental whenever he encounters a situation that he doesn’t know how to handle.

Though Jin Ling’s pride and hot-headedness can often lead him to being insufferable, vindictive, and even cruel, he has an innate sense of honor and empathy that has recently started growing stronger. Over the course of canon, he becomes increasingly willing to disobey his uncles and to look beyond what he has been taught, choosing to stand up for what he thinks is right. At the end of canon, these few examples of his sense of honor and empathy breaking through his vindictiveness and pride have begun to cause major fault lines in his sense of self. He exists in a crisis point, still trying to cling to the things he’s been taught, because being the proud golden son of the Jin Clan is who he is, but also trying to find a way to cope with the major inconsistencies between what he believed and what he now knows to be true. He feels deeply betrayed by his authority figures and emotionally devastated by everything he’s learned and endured over the course of canon.

POWER:
GOLDEN CORE CULTIVATION
Jin Ling is trained as a cultivator from his series, which involves developing the spiritual energy of one’s soul or ‘golden core’. As a junior in his clan, Jin Ling’s abilities are still very rough and he is effectively still in training.
Restrain Spirits - Can restrain, pacify, and cleanse spirits and demons, usually using paper talismans or drawn sigils.
Enhanced healing - Jin Ling can heal at about four times the rate of a normal human.
Share spiritual energy - Jin Ling can share spiritual energy with other cultivators in order to help them heal themselves or to help boost or stabilize their other spells or meditation.
Wuxia-style martial arts/acrobatics - All the artful Chinese jumping from rooftops with fluttering sleeves and dodging with extra backflips.
Sword Techniques - Jin Ling practices traditional Chinese sword techniques, using mostly the Jiang style sword fighting with some Jin style influences.
Archery - He’s an excellent archer, able to shoot with speed and accuracy. By expending a little spiritual energy (and by compromising on speed and accuracy), he can fire up to four arrows in one shot.
Jiang Clan Silver Bell - Worn hanging from Jin Ling’s waist with a tassel, a silver bell carved with the nine-petaled lotus motif of the Jiang clan. Used to help focus the mind during meditation or restraining spirits, to prevent hallucinations caused by dark spells, and to help prevent the cultivator from being lost in the spell Empathy.
Empathy - Ability to touch a corpse or an item of emotional significance to a person and to learn information regarding to it. If Jin Ling uses this spell on a corpse or a ghost, he’ll be able to see and experience the circumstances relating to their death or the circumstances around which they carry the most resentment. If he uses this spell on an item, he will be able to see and experience the details surrounding the specific emotional significance of that item. Emotional empathy and calm is crucial to using this spell, and if Jin Ling is in a bad mood he will be unable to use the spell or he will risk becoming possessed by the spirit or memories summoned.

FAIRY
Jin Ling’s dog Fairy is a powerful spiritual dog. It has the canon ability to sense magic (not all powers, just powers that are magic/sorcery/necromancy based), ghosts, and the undead, and it’s quite smart (for a dog). In MoM it will also have the ability to hear Jin Ling calling him across any distance and teleport to Jin Ling wherever he is. It won’t be able to teleport anywhere else, and it’ll have to travel away from Jin Ling at normal speeds, but it can teleport back to Jin Ling’s side at any moment, regardless of whether Jin Ling has called for it.

QIANKUN POUCH
A little purse that can carry up to five cubic feet of luggage, as a sort of interdimensional pouch. When Jin Ling ports in, it contains: Bow and arrows, his father’s sword, which is magical and Jin Ling can balance on it and fly like it’s a flying surfboard.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
[A seventeen-year-old boy dressed in ornate golden robes sits cross-legged on a bed in an undecorated room. It’s the middle of the night, but he’s awake, and there’s a restless energy in his fidgeting which hints that he has either just finished pacing or he’s about to start.]
How is it that none of you people have heard of cultivators???
[His tone is bossy and irritable. He has discovered that people are wrong on the network. Thank goodness he’s here now to save you all from yourselves.]
What methods do you use for suppressing the spirits of your dead? You know, if you’re not properly soothing the spirits of your ancestors you’re going to be overrun by ghosts and walking corpses any day now.
Are burial customs different for imPorts than for locals? Has anyone seen ghosts and walking corpses here?
I’m here now, and I’ll be able to help you with everything you’ve been doing wrong. Give me information about how burial is handled in this place.
[Sitting up straight like a little prince, he beckons at the screen, expecting to be brought information like tribute.]

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: https://etcelsior.dreamwidth.org/83107.html?thread=55060899#cmt55060899

FINAL NOTES: