Tonyn (fullname: Zhan Donglin / 詹冬临) is a spirit rat from Dongguan city and serves as a key coordinator of the local spirit animal association. His human identity is an IT admin and amateur artist. He is the appearance designer and guardian of Alice, Leiting’s robot classmate.
Origin
Tonyn was originally a street rat (scientific name: Rattus rattus, conservation status: Least Concerned) from Dongguan City. After learning to understand human speech and read, he realized that he is actually a spirit animal. When he was small, he struggled to find food, so he honored the legendary cook Zhan Shu (Chinese: 詹鼠, Zhan the Spirit Rat) of the Northern and Southern Dynasties (CE 420-589), revered by humans as Zhan Wang (Chinese: 詹王, Zhan the king of all cooks), by adopting the surname “Zhan” and naming himself Tonyn in memory of his winter birth (Chinese: 冬临 = Dong Lin, born in winter).
Personality
Tonyn is usually a calm, stern, and prudent man who prefers to plan ahead and tackle tasks one at a time. But deep inside, he has a short temper and hot-headed nature that sometimes lead to impatience and rage when pushed too far. Leiting likens him to a popping candy.
Despite appearing cold and distant, Tonyn is a kind-hearted person who struggles to refuse requests and often interferes in things that disturb him.
Tonyn likes to integrate traditional cultural elements into his creations, aiming to modernize the core philosophy rather than merely copying its superficial appearance.
Specialties
Tonyn is not an engineer, but he is a handy and resourceful technician with the patience to read documentation. He excels at fixing things and can perform maintenance on Alice’s Lynx 1 body and operating system.
Tonyn’s hobby is drawing. He uses a clean and unassuming art style to depict popular culture subjects. Although he doubts his artistic skills are industry-ready and doesn’t draw often, his work has garnered a following online.
As a native of Guancheng district in Dongguan city, Tonyn is well-versed in the area’s historical anecdotes.
Tonyn is highly skilled in spirit spells and martial arts. As a rat, he must defend himself from predators, honing his abilities on battlegrounds. The local spirit animal association occasionally invites him to coach young spirit animals in these disciplines.
Due to childhood memories of hunger, Tonyn has 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. With his last name honoring the king of all cooks, Tonyn is also a good cook himself.
Tonyn’s spirit power is unstable. Normally strong, his power diminishes when he becomes lazy or indulges in pleasures such as binge eating, causing him to revert to a regular rat. In such cases, other spirit animals must act quickly to protect him from predators and humans. His power can be restored by “starving him for a few days” or “running on the wheel for a few hours.”
Life
Tonyn is not an engineer, but he is a handy and resourceful technician with the patience to read documentation. He excels at fixing things and can perform maintenance on Alice’s Lynx 1 body and operating system.
Tonyn’s hobby is drawing. He uses a clean and unassuming art style to depict popular culture subjects. Although he doubts his artistic skills are industry-ready and doesn’t draw often, his work has garnered a following online.
As a native of Guancheng district in Dongguan city, Tonyn is well-versed in the area’s historical anecdotes.
As an artist, Tonyn chose to transform into a small body in his anthro form to align with the impression of a rat. However, Leiting and other naughty young spirit animals often mock his small size and do not recognize his authority as an adult because of it.
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 so smart,” allowing Tonyn to get away with it.
He usually commutes on a heavily modified mountain bike.
Relationships
Tonyn is a key coordinator for the spirit animal association in Guancheng’s historic downtown, assisting spirit animals with housing, jobs, and technical issues.
Tonyn and Zoey the Spirit Sable were middle school classmates with different talents, interests, and personalities, yet they maintained a close friendship till this day. Alice was created largely through their collaboration. Tonyn often found himself helping Zoey with her ambitious projects and tidying up her messy home during visits.
Tonyn raises Alice as his own daughter, spending much time reading books on parenting and psychology. He is a strict 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 also brings her to his friend’s tailor shop, where she can design and create her own clothing. He sometimes takes Leting, Qiuye and Mingzhu with them, as well.
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.
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. 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.
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