Tonyn the Spirit Rat

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Tonyn (fullname: Zhan Donglin, Chinese: 詹冬临 “Winter Born”) is a spirit rat. His human identity is a computer technician and an amateur artist. He is Alice‘s appearance designer and guardian, as well as a close friend of her chief engineer, Zoey the Spirit Sable. He excels in drawing and repairing electronic devices. A warm-hearted, outspoken, and quick-tempered perfectionist, he also acts as a firm parent.

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Origin

Born as a street rat: Tonyn was originally a street rat (scientific name: Rattus rattus, conservation status: Least Concerned) in Dongguan. After learning to understand human speech and read, he realized that he is actually a spirit animal.

Name: When Tonyn was small, he struggled to find food, so he adopted the surname “Zhan” in honor of the legendary cook Zhanshu the Spirit Rat (Chinese: 詹鼠) of the Northern and Southern Dynasties (CE 583), and named himself Tonyn in memory of his winter birth (Chinese: 冬临 = Dong Lin, “Winter Born”).

Personality

Strong sense of justice and kind-hearted: Tonyn is a kind-hearted person with a strong sense of justice who struggles to refuse requests and often interferes in things that disturb him.

Honest and blunt: Tonyn does not shy away from expressing his true feelings bluntly. He finds it very hard to speak against his will, making him a poor liar.

Stubborn: Tonyn is a stubborn person who rarely changes his decisions.

Perfectionist: Tonyn strives for flawless execution in everything he does and is hesitant to delegate his work to others. This attitude costs him a lot of energy over trivial matters.

Calm on the surface but short-fused underneath: Tonyn typically appears patient and meticulous, with his short-temper nature deeply suppressed. He occasionally snaps when pushed too far. Alice likens him to a frozen volcano.

Love for traditional culture: Tonyn has a strong sense of national identity, often drawing inspiration from traditional culture to “gain strength from the ancestors’ legacy.” However, he embraces future cultural development without clinging to the past.

Specialties

Strong hands-on ability: Although Tonyn is not an engineer, he can patiently read instructions and study documents to handle various equipment. To support his digital painting hobby, he learned to configure hardware and software, allowing him to maintain Alice‘s Lynx 1 body and operating system.

Adept artist: Tonyn is a self-taught artist who enjoys drawing cartoon and anime characters in an elegant, refreshing art style. Despite the positive reception of his work, he does not intend to pursue art as a career.

Good cook and junk food eater: With his surname honoring the legendary cook Zhanshu, Tonyn learned to be a good cook himself. His childhood experience of hunger gave him a natural fondness for food, especially high-calorie junk food. He was once a chubby rat from overeating, but lost weight through more than a decade of hard work. Now he tries his best to stay away from binge-eating.

Solid martial arts and spells foundation: Tonyn is highly skilled in spells and martial arts. As a rat, he must defend himself from predators, honing his abilities on battlegrounds. During his weight loss journey, he initially struggled with improper training methods until he met Amber, an agent from the World Spirit Animal Alliance and also an Interpol officer who taught him proper techniques and introduced him to the world of martial arts. The local spirit animal association occasionally invites him to instruct young spirit animals on these skills.

Unstable spirit power: Tonyn’s spirit power is not very stable. Normally, his spirit power is strong and he is a very skillful spell user. But when he gets lazy and indulges in pleasures such as binge-eating, he quickly loses his powers and reverts to an ordinary rat. In such cases, other spirit animals must catch him quickly to prevent him from being eaten by a cat or stepped on by a human. Tonyn can recover after “being starved for a few days” or “running on the wheel for a few hours.”

Small build and high-pitched voice: Out of his artistic aesthetics, Tonyn chose a small build for his anthro form “to convincingly resemble a rat.” He also uses a high-pitched voice in both animal and anthro forms. However, this often leads other spirit animals to mistake him for a child, despite being an adult. Leiting and other kids frequently tease him for this, so he has zero authority in front of them.

Familiar with local history: As a native of Guancheng district in Dongguan city, Tonyn is well-versed in the area’s historical anecdotes.

Life

Everyone’s handyman: Tonyn is a content editor who also serves as a system administrator due to his computer skills. He occasionally handles electricity and plumbing issues, too. He is often called upon to fix things among friends, making him “everyone’s handyman”.

A simple and tidy lifestyle: Tonyn lives in an old house with a small courtyard in the historical downtown Guancheng. He maintains a simple and tidy lifestyle, keeping his home organized and clutter-free.

Alice’s appearance designer and guardian: Tonyn is Alice‘s guardian and she lives in his home. He helps with the maintenance of Alice’s Lynx 1 body cannot do so herself. As a firm parent, he closely monitors her discipline and nurtures her humanistic spirit. In his presence, Alice generally behaves better.

Tonyn sometimes services Alice’s Lynx 1 body in his rat form, as it allows him to reach difficult positions more easily. Alice has seen this “rat engineer” multiple times while using a robotic vacuum cleaner as her body. However, she stubbornly dismisses the rat as a glitch in her visual system, insisting that “a rat can never be that smart,” allowing Tonyn to get away with it.

Although deeply involved in the Alice project, Tonyn is not a UN employee. Initially, he provided sketch designs for Alice at Zoey‘s request. Gradually, Zoey used the “foot-in-the-door effect” to draw him into the project, making him Alice’s official appearance designer and allowing him to choose Alice’s Chinese name. Ultimately, Tonyn became Alice’s de facto guardian. He insisted on participating as a volunteer and refused any subsidies.

Tonyn frequently advises Zoey on Alice’s education. It was his idea to limit her public appearance to prevent her from losing herself in media attentions.

Mingzhu’s instructor: Every weekend, Tonyn offers a free martial arts class to Mingzhu the Spirit Shark, Alice’s classmate, under the arrangement of the local Spirit Animal Association. Leiting the Spirit Loong and Qiuye the Spirit Dhole often join his class as well. After training, Mingzhu often has dinner at Tonyn’s home, where he teaches her cooking skills.

Relationships

Alice, Tonyn’s robot daughter: Tonyn raises Alice as his own daughter, spending much time reading books on parenting and psychology. He is a firm parent who does not tolerate Alice’s naughty behaviors. Alice would behave when he is around.

During holidays, Tonyn takes Alice to museums and cultural landmarks. He sometimes brings her to his friend Luoqi the Spirit Moth‘s workshop, where she can design and create her own clothing.

Tonyn faces a dilemma about whether to address Alice’s stubborn denial about the Spirit Animals. On one hand, her self-deception hinders her growth as a person. On the other hand, maintaining the status quo allows spirit animals to keep their secrets, but lying to his child makes him uncomfortable.

Zoey, Tonyn’s close friend, old classmate and the co-guardian of Alice: Zoey the Spirit Sable and Tonyn were middle school classmates. Despite their different specialties, interests, and personalities, they maintained a close friendship. Zoey enjoys teasing the over-serious Tonyn but also relies on him for help with tasks that he is not good at.

Alice was largely the result of the collaboration between Zoey and Tonyn. Tonyn not only provided Alice’s appearance design, but also took on the main responsibility of her guardianship. However, Zoey and Tonyn have significant differences in engineering and parenting, and they often have arguments because of this.

Zoey appreciates Tonyn’s cooking; whenever he is in Dongguan, Tonyn either invites him over for dinner or delivers meals to him directly. However, Tonyn can’t stand Zoey’s messy apartment resembling a garbage dump, so he occasionally helps tidy it up.

Mingzhu, Tonyn’s martial arts disciple: Under the local Spirit Animals Association‘s coordination, Tonyn trains Mingzhu the Spirit Shark in martial arts and spell casting once every week, sometimes alongside her friends Leiting the Spirit Loong and Qiuye the Spirit Dhole. They share a common interest in food and often exchange information about delicacies in the city. In addition to physical training, Tonyn is also teaching Mingzhu to cook.

Old neighbors in the town: Tonyn, Zoey the Spirit Sable, Libbie the Spirit Oryx and Bailian the Spirit Mouse were old neighbors with a bond so close they felt like family.

Amber, Tonyn’s martial arts instructor: Amber the Spirit Rabbit gave Tonyn special martial arts and spell casting training during his weight loss journey. Since then, Tonyn has always regarded Amber as his master.

Other spirit animals in the historical downtown of Guancheng: Tonyn is a key coordinator for the spirit animal association in Guancheng’s historic downtown, assisting spirit animals with housing, jobs, and technical issues.