CHANG, MATTHEW FUYU

[MATTHEW FUYU CHANG]

* matthew f. chang ,

* start with basics ,
[ I'M SWIMMING IN THE SMOKE OF BRIDGES I HAVE BURNED ]

FULL NAME matthew fuyu chang

NICKNAMES matt, matty

DATE OF BIRTH february 02

AGE eighteen

GRADE/YEAR college freshman

ELEMENT water

SEXUALITY heterosexual

MARITAL STATUS single

* into the mirror ,
[ AGAINST MY WILL I STAND BESIDE MY OWN REFLECTION ]

CELEBRITY CLAIM taisuke fujigaya

EYE COLOUR brown

HAIR COLOUR light brown-ish

HEIGHT & WEIGHT 5'8", 140 lb.

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES if you're ever lucky enough to catch him without a shirt on, he has a birthmark on his back that vaguely looks like a penguin.

CLOTHING STYLE something like a cross between 'indie hipster', 'geek chic' (whatever that is), and a touch of rock. he enjoys cardigans, sweaters, vests, button-down and V-neck shirts, skinny jeans, the occasional leather jacket, and has boots as far as the eye can see. for a touch of 'dapper gentleman', he also has a rather sizable collection of bowties. but then again, his favorite article of clothing is a furry pink leopard print cardigan, so really, judge how you want.

* deeper than skin ,
[ TAKE EVERYTHING FROM THE INSIDE & THROW IT ALL AWAY ]

POSITIVE TRAITS

• tenacious ; matt is of the firm belief that without tenacity, even talent won't get you anywhere, and hard work has always been his saving grace because the whole school thing was just not something he was tremendously talented in. so instead of smarts, matt uses sheer force of will to get where he wants to be.
  
  
• loyal ; friends are for life, you know? there aren't many things he holds in higher regard than his friends, other than maybe family, because -- especially in a situation where you're away from your parents for an extended amount of time -- the people around you, the friends you make, they end up being your support system. for those that befriend matt, he takes that role seriously.
  
  
• patient ; this is probably a byproduct of both him being incredibly loyal with a mean tenacious streak, but matt has the patience of someone close to being a saint. it wanes and wavers a bit when he's not feeling at his best, but even then, he holds out and knows that good things always come to those who wait
  

NEGATIVE TRAITS

• overprotective ; what can he say? he suffers what most older brothers suffer through -- his baby sister is a baby and will always be a baby and he'll kick a soccer ball into anyone's face who dares try to hurt her. you know. typical older brother stuff.
  
  
• stubborn ; he has a bad habit of thinking he's always right. and what, that's not a bad habit at all because he is right. well he's actually wrong quite a bit, but please don't tell him you disagree because that probably won't end so well.
  
  
• inarticulate ; he's not that great with words. he can carry everyday conversations, and when you get him started on something he really enjoys or if you catch him ranting his frustrations, he probably won't shut up, but when it comes to his personal feelings and matters of the heart, it gets really difficult for him to find the words to express them, and so he'll usually rely on either music or art to help him out instead.
  

LIKES

• marvel comics
  
• art & drawing
  
• soccer
  
• cupcake wars / ace of cakes
  
• dancing
  
• timbits
  

DISLIKES

• country music
  
• zebra print
  
• onions
  
• when shipping & handling costs more than the item bought
  
• people who don't listen (to him)
  
• the new tim hortons jingle
  

STRENGTHS

• learns best hands on
  
• hard worker
  
• athletic
  

WEAKNESSES

• pretty girls
  
• bad with words
  
• random bouts of insecurity
  
• ranty when tired
  

FEARS

• giraffes
  
• going blind
  
• losing functionality in his hands
  
• tim hortons going bankrupt
  

BEST MEMORY when he turned 16, after he first got his driver's license, he took on a part time job and managed to save enough money to buy a dead, non-functional '68 camaro from a family friend with the intent to fix it himself, as this would be the only way his parents would even consider getting him a car of his own. once his father saw the beat up acquisition, he decided he would help his son out and bring the car to life. it took a year and some months of manly bonding whenever he had the chance to go back home to vancouver, but the summer after he turned 17, the car whirred to life. after a shiny new paint job, luke and matt have been inseparable since.

WORST MEMORY the first date he ever went on was when he was twelve. by some sort of miracle -- or perhaps he just had a lot of good karma banked -- the prettiest girl in the grade invited him to the movies to watch the latest pixar movie. by all accounts, it should have been a fairly lowkey event, but due to his own insecurities in the midst of puberty and a freak growth spurt, he couldn't help but question why this girl would pick him, of all people, to go on a date with and promptly insulted her taste, even though he was insulting himself in a way. needless to say, she never called, and he still gets embarrassed whenever he thinks about it.

LONG-TERM GOAL either become a renowned picture book illustrator, or work for marvel comics.

* past reflections ,
[ SOMETIMES I REMEMBER THE DARKNESS OF MY PAST ]

MOTHER kagura chang (43), accountant.

FATHER patrick donghai chang (45), restaurant chef.

SIBLINGS sandra chang (16), student.

OTHER hisao takahashi (grandfather), midori takahashi (grandmother); both live with matt's family.

HISTORY to say that their family was generic may be a bit misleading, but to matt, it is all he has ever known. his parents met and fell in love, got married, had some kids, didn't hate their respective in-laws, and dedicated a lot of their time to raising their children and living life, day to day. maybe it was strange to grow up with a few extra languages, but as far as matt was concerned, was it any weirder than knowing your mother could drown a man with a snap of her fingers? probably not. not that he ever told anyone about his mother's ability -- and his, soon enough -- but it gave him something to compare to when he was feeling a little weird some days. his mother has an elemental power. his sister has elemental powers. he has elemental powers. generally speaking, it can't get much weirder than that.

and so life was pretty normal, all things considered, with nary a bump or scrape, save for the obligatory phases most teens seem to go through. matt liked primary school, for the most part. it became apparent that subjects that didn't involve actively doing things, such as social studies and math, were not subjects he enjoyed, and his natural abilities veered towards things like chemistry labs, gym, and arts and crafts. he didn't necessarily do bad in the other subjects, but there was a pretty clear difference which ones he would rather be doing. but, good grades were good grades, so he resigned himself to staying after school and getting help in the subjects he would need the help in and pulled them up so they were, at the very least, acceptable. his teachers began to catch on that he was a doer, and while they couldn't mold the entire curriculum to play with his strengths, they were more willing to assign projects that allowed for interpretation instead of a rigid form; his most favorite project to date is the mini-tapestry he hand sewed for an english class, depicting the parliament of fowls by chaucer.

in the transition period, though, of figuring out how he learned best, and beset with the onslaught of out-of-wack hormones, an unwanted growth spurt, and his voice cracking left and right, matt went through a rather tough self-conscious period. or perhaps it seemed really difficult at the time, but in retrospect, it was just another one of those pre-adolescent phases, but he appreciates how seriously he took it to heart back then, for if he hadn't, he probably would have never picked up a copy of marvel's civil war, and he never would have discovered a whole world to immerse himself in in comic books. they became his main form of stress relief, especially when, in the following year, he discovered his own abilities with the water element, passed down from his mother, and was soon sent away to the academy, away from his family and friends. in time, the self-consciousness was a phase, as was the lanky body and squeaking voice, but comic books stayed.

the academy was a much better fit for matt, anyway, as learning how to control and power your element was as hands on as he could have ever desired, but he never gave up the hobbies he had before he got there, like art and soccer. nor did he want his element to be the epicenter of his life. when high school graduation rolled around, he decided to attend a neighboring university instead, opting to move into an apartment by maple hollow as he was too used to the independence to move back in with his parents...but keeping an eye on his sister is, admittedly, also an added perk. now, as a first year illustration student, matt can safely say he's never enjoyed going to school more than he does right now.

* puppet on a string ,
[ SOMETHING INSIDE ME THAT PULLS BENEATH THE SURFACE ]

YOUR NAME cassie

YOUR AGE well over 13.

RP EXPERIENCE 8 years, give or take a month or so.

HOW'D YOU FIND US? an. :3/

SECRET WORD Correct.

RP SAMPLE

taylor unfastened the clasps on his robes and shrugged them off, tossing them aside so they wouldn't get in the way. "trust me, i'm pretty astonished myself sometimes. i have to deal with him and you," he quipped, shaking his head a little. there comes a point in time where eventually, taylor just stopped listening and simply did what he was expected to do. he figured that it would be one of the only ways to get allen to just shut up and hold still already so taylor could just get this over with. he was already opening and mixing the first box of bleach -- holy fuck did the stuff smell bad -- when he glanced back at his brother and saw him holding a second box, taylor had a feeling that this wasn't going to be as fast as he had hoped. he kind of wanted to just mix the second box and throw it all on, the well-being of allen's scalp be damned, but taylor knew that if it didn't work out this time, allen would just make them do it again and again and again until they got it right. taylor sighed, twisted allen's head so he was facing forward and not moving, and after draping his shoulders with a towel, began applying the bleach to allen's hair. goodbye pretty, pretty black.

"maybe he tried to get rid of his fear of heights again on the quidditch pitch and fell on his head," taylor pitched in conversationally when logan questioned allen's so-called brilliant idea, his mind swimming with the directions and wondering if a heating spell could equate to the heat from a blow-dryer, and there had to have been spells that could've done this in a flick and a swish that could have achieved a similar effect. it might not be as permanent, but it definitely could have been less time consuming. or maybe a spell for hair maintenance? if only lyn was here -- she'd probably know. "does it look like i bleach people's heads for a living? the directions seem pretty simple, though, so how hard can this possibly be?" the question was mostly a rhetorical one, because he knew logan was in gryffindor back in his hogwarts days, and gryffindors weren't really known for their intelligence, so he usually let logan's slip-ups slide. see? he really was a caring brother.

he finished dousing allen's hair in the awful, foul smelling bleach. the next step was to wrap it up in something that could retain heat, and aluminum foil was suggested, but where the hell were they going to get aluminum foil? unless logan had some? well, he ought to, if he ever took home his students' leftovers, which taylor knew for a fact he did. huh. it couldn't hurt to try and ask. "hey, logan, you think you have any aluminum foil? could you accio some?" taylor asked, scratching the back of his head. "why did you insist on doing this the muggle way, anyway?" taylor directed his last question to allen as he fished around in his previously discarded robes for his wand.

[TAYLOR THE CANADIAN]

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* accepted ,

WELCOME___TO THE ACADEMY !

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