mistress_orchid

Name: Lian Shen

Age: 26

Gender: Female

Type: Aspect

Appearance:

Weighing in at a meager 110 pounds, Lian has always been a bit on the shrimpy side. She stands at 5'3'' and a good portion of her small frame is commandeered by a full head of long, thick, black hair. Lian's dark, expressive brown eyes are her favorite feature and she is never seen without at least a full sweep of mascara on her lashes. During the day, she could be found in anything from a lovely party dress from the night before, to a pair of pajama pants and a loose t-shirt, to her martial arts training clothes.

Personality:

Generally, Lian is very focused on her work. She strives to be taken seriously within the Lotus and if that means she has to flirt with a few business men, slip them one of her powders, and be off with the information she needs, then so be it. She does understand that using her body as a means to an end is fairly contradictory when it comes to being taken seriously, but she's found that it's the quickest, easiest way to get what she wants from her targets. She'll risk a few pinches here and there for the greater good of rising through the ranks of the Jade Lotus.

She is a very different person when spending time with women than she is with men. Generally, she feels more at ease around women. She knows she doesn't have to put on her 'Mistress Orchid' persona and instead can let her guard down, allowing herself to be a little silly, a little more playful, when there is no seduction involved.

Sexuality:

Heterosexual

Constants:

Type- Fairytale. The Evil Queen

Constants:
Vain - Looks matter. They're the most important thing. They might not have mattered when she was younger and had five brothers to run around in the mud with, but they do now that she is so involved in the Jade Lotus. This stemmed mostly from what her job entailed, to be pretty arm candy and distract men, but she found that even on days off, she'd have her face made up perfectly anyway. It's a habit that is now engrained in her and she simply doesn't go out without makeup on. While she has a fairly happy relationship with the women involved in the Lotus, Lian likes to know that she is the 'fairest of them all', so to speak. She's carefully calculated her group of immediate friends to all be slightly less attractive than she is and if another woman is trying to encroach upon her circle of friends, she's only even considered if Lian believes she's less attractive than her.

Ruthless - Lian attributes the fact that she is now a valuable member of the Lotus only to her cold-hearted ability to look past harming others. She doesn't need to know what her targets done that makes the Lotus so interested in dealing with them. All she needs to know is that they are her target and she needs to incapacitate or kill them. Those are orders enough. She is ruthless through and through and no amount of emotional appeal will stop her once she's made up her mind.

Power-Obsessed - Lian is undeniably upset with her brother Jia. He's brought shame upon their whole family with his worthless drug habits and she, the only member of the Shen family still left in Chinatown, needs to put the honor and reverence her family's name once had back into play. She strives to be one of the highest members of the Jade Lotus, knowing that once she's made the transition from gang member to gang leader, it will be much, much easier to right the wrongs that are tacked onto the Shen family name. Not to mention that delegating orders instead of being out there with smelly, touchy-feely men doesn't sound too bad either.

Aspect Village: When Lian ventures to the Aspect Village, she will feel an instant need to gather a following. After all, what is a queen without her subjects? She will thoroughly enjoy the way the others in the village will treat her, with respect and fear, because she is fearful. She's powerful and has no qualms with explaining her power, but she doesn't tend to explain with nice words. Lian is more partial to explanations that come in the form of threats, often times in a veiled threat like, say...oh a candy coated poisoned apple for a child that ruined her dress, for instance, or a poisoned comb for someone with hair prettier than her own. Not that she'll admit someone's hair is prettier than hers. In the Aspect Village, Lian is purely selfish and she is more than ready to hand out lessons on who's the 'real boss' in this village.

City History:

Lian Shen was the happy baby girl of the infamous Shen family, and the only daughter they had. Growing up with five brothers, Lian was taught from a young age how to defend herself with the very basics of martial arts, but as she grew older, many of her brothers became too involved in her family's 'business' to spend much time with her. And so, she clung to her older brother Huo. Huo was the moon, stars, and sun for little Lian and every moment she could spend with him, she did.

But that was before. That was the Lian that doesn't exist now. When the Jade Lotus 'adopted' her, Lian was told that her family abandoned her and her elder brother, Jia, and it was the biggest devastation she could have thought of. But as she grew older and wiser, she realized that 'abandoned' could very well be code for 'killed' and thus sprouted a new path for little Lian. Find out what really happened to her family, most importantly Huo.

As a child, Lian was a 'runner' for the Lotus from ages 8 to 14. She was basically a messenger girl, which gave her plenty of opportunity to run around the streets with the messenger boys to her heart's content. But as she grew and developed, she was quickly removed from the streets at the first sign of puberty and brought to work in the main headquarters of the Jade Lotus. To the Lotus, it was a natural decision. They had intended to use Lian as a trophy of sorts, the daughter of their once great enemy the Shen family now reduced to nothing more than a servant girl for the Jade Lotus, once she began to grow out of her awkward tom-boy stage and into a more elegant woman. Upon her arrival to the headquarters, she was instructed that now there would be no more running in the halls, no more screaming at the top of her lungs. Now there would only be silence and obedience.

So Lian lived out her days in boring silence, cleaning this, dusting that, making tea for whomever the Lotus elders told her. Until one day, at the age of 14, her life took a complete change. She was carefully balancing an armful of plates and cups on her way back to the kitchen when she overheard a heated conversation coming from the hallway beside her. She pressed herself close to the wall, stilled her breathing, and just listened. What she found out through the course of the argument was that one Chao Li, a fairly important member of the Lotus, had been swindling the gang out of it's well-deserved money. Because he was stealing from them, the Lotus had concocted a plan. To invite Chao Li over that afternoon for tea under the pretense of a very lucrative job offer. They would lull him into a false sense of security and subsequently shoot him in the heart then the head for his acts in dishonoring the Jade Lotus. But Lian had better ideas. Unbeknownst to the elders, Lian had been spending what free time she got in their herb garden and cabinet and she, too, was concocting a plan.

For the hours before Chao Li's arrival, Lian worked the hardest she ever had. With the knowledge she'd been able to grasp from old books about the properties of Chinese herbs and the herbs themselves, Lian mixed together a 'special' batch of tea made specifically for their esteemed guest. It was the moment of truth before she knew it. She brought out two kettles, one large one for her elders, and one smaller one for Chao Li. Pouring the tea, she informed him that she'd spent her entire afternoon working on a special tea for her (with a good dose of fluttering eyelashes that she found came naturally to her). She disliked the lecherous smile she got from him, but thoroughly enjoyed the way he clutched his chest and passed out, dropping like a sack of potatoes to the hardwood floor.

From that moment on, the Lotus elders granted her the right to become part of their gang, and sent her into training with the best herbalists they had. After all, if a 14 year old girl had made a concoction that killed Chao Li all on her own, what could she possibly do with a little training? From that day forward, she became known as Orchid's Venom.

But as she grew, she obtained another name for herself. Mistress Orchid. She is know as Mistress Orchid by the men she is sent to 'entertain'. Her targets. The men that she pretends to be interested in while they yammer on and on about their boring jobs and she slips them sleeping potions in order to make the transport from their nice, smoky bar to the dark, damp warehouse for their 'interrogation' to go more smoothly. Or while she slips them her special concoctions, specifically poisons, to make the whole job of 'disappearing a man' much easier.

In her day to day life, Lian Shen is basically a workaholic. Her cover in the Lotus involves running a Chinese herbal tea shop (a perfect cover for allowing her to experiment on new poisons and mixtures during the day). When she is not working, she is either training or spending her time with the women of the Jade Lotus. When she's not doing that, she is secretly scouring the town and all her resources for any sign of her long lost brother, Huo, since she is holding onto the last shred of hope she has that he is still alive.

Special Skills and Abilities:

Lian has a knowledge of all things devious, but she chose from an early age to focus her education into the practice of herbalism. She is a walking rolodex of Chinese herbs and knows exactly how much of one herb to mix with another to create anything from a potent poison to a sleeping tea that can knock you out for days. Recently, she's ventured into the production of compacted 'pearls' of herbs that have found their way into the drinks of many an enemy of the Lotus.

Lian is well-versed in the martial art of Wing Chun.

Weaknesses:

Jealousy - Generally, her jealousy starts when a new girl is encroaching on her space at the Jade Lotus. She's fine with the ones she spends her time with now, but she doesn't like the threat of a new girl sweeping into her territory. Even the girls that the Lotus bring over in shipments from Asia are fine with her, but as soon as someone shows potential for rising through the ranks, Lian knows she has one of two options. Take out the threat, or find a way to mold the threat so that she falls in line behind Lian. Her jealously doesn't stop at just a threat to her power, though. She's often jealous of personal appearance, especially of women who are not of Chinese descent. Sometimes, she wonders what it would like to have a different body type, to be a different person all together, but ultimately knows that she can't change her ethnicity, but she can keep a close watch on the girls in the Jade Lotus to make sure that threats to her vanity as well as power are kept in check.

Arrogance- Lian has no problem stating that she is better than someone. It's something she just knows. She isn't fond of people giving her orders, but she's had to grin and bear it when it comes to the Lotus. Even though she hasn't made it to the top of the organization yet, Lian carries herself with an air of 'I'm better than you' and it's gotten her into a fair amount of trouble with the Lotus elders in the past.

Insecurity - Lian wishes she could be stronger. She trains every day that she can in the art of Wing Chun, a Chinese martial art developed by nuns that favors precision and grace over strength. But she is far from the best in her group. For all her studying and training, Lian simply doesn't have the physical fortitude that the others have and it has embedded a deep rooted insecurity about her size and strength in her. Lian has fairly weak bone-strength and has easily found herself with a twisted ankle or dislocated shoulder after practice. She's broken bones before, but hasn't had one broken in a while (if only because, try as she might, men simply don't respond to a woman with her arm in a sling the same way they would as a woman in a low-cut dress).

Sexist - When she seduces, she seduces because it's her job to seduce. And through these many nefarious encounters with her targets, she's come to learn one thing and one thing only. Men are pigs. This doesn't mean she has any sort of attraction towards women, but it does mean that she doesn't trust men that show that kind of interest in her. She has a high respect for the women in the Jade Lotus, many of them sharing her own feelings about the way men act. She believes anything a man can do, she can do better, and she's dropped a man twice her size with just the right concoction mixed into his drink. Even so, she can't shake the feeling that despite her position in the Lotus, the men only see her as a helpful accessory.

Strengths:

Adaptability - Lian is practiced enough in the art of seduction to know just which way to play it. Sweet and shy, or bold and brazen. Depending upon the situation and the man, she is able to mold herself into the perfect woman for the night. Or, well, at least until the herbs she's chosen to use kick in.

Leader- Lian is the first one to step up to the plate and take a swing. She enjoys being the leader of any given group and believes that she generally knows best for any course of action. She is the happiest when she can be delegating orders to others, though she is still trying to convince the Lotus elders that she is worth the title of a leader in their organization.

Family or Connections:

Benny Shen, although she doesn't know if he's alive or dead, and one older brother (Jia) who is involved with the Lotus as well. The Jade Lotus

Residence:

The Jade Lotus has put her up in a fairly spacious one-bedroon apartment in the building across the street from her herbal tea shop, in Chinatown.

Career:

Saleswoman by day, murderess by night.

PB: Kuroki Meisa

Other Information:

The name 'Lian' means lotus, a fact she finds humorous now due to her involvement with the Jade Lotus. She takes it as a given that, because of the name she was bestowed with, she will one day be the most important player in the Jade Lotus. Whether that is true or not, she does not know, but she likes to believe that Fate left her a very big clue in her name.