#it doesnt make him any worse than the other kdis

[allthepandasintheworld]

Quincy Li, the Transformer

Name: Quincy “Qinlin” (aka verdant forest) Li I named him Quincy bc of the visual of Q and bc of the ‘in’ part, not bc Qin sounds anything like Quin lmao

Occupation: mercenary employed by RED (sort of, more in his backstory)

Age: 26 (in 1970 so he’s like... the same age as scout...?)

Height: 5′8″ (standing)

Build: Average. His upper body and core strength is far better than his lower body strength. He is currently still undergoing physical therapy, so he’s working on it. His arms probably get buffer as time goes on simply because of the nature of his disability (paralysis below the knee if thats even a thing lmao either way it has to do with his legs and basically the whole point of his class).

Description: He has fairly standard Chinese features, and his skin is on the tanner side (bc seriously, don’t believe those commercials, far more Asians have darker skin than those vampires you see on TV--his skin tone is actually fairly close to my own). His hair is short, and he generally wears a beanie and fingerless gloves. He usually is found wearing a modified dress shirt with a maroon vest emblazoned with his class logo. He wears a small, stud earring on his left ear. 

Likes: Machines, programming, computers, technology, exploring, cars, motorcycles, listening to folktales

Dislikes: exercise, his physical therapy training, his crutches (even though he understands their necessity), his leg braces, his modified shoes, gender dysphoria

Alignment: True Neutral (gives zero fucks tbh)

Zodiac: Aquarius

DOB: February 2, 1944

Gender: Male

Orientation: I haven’t really thought about it yet tbh although I don’t think it will ever come into play should I ever end up rping as him at any point? but I have a feeling he’d end up bi/pan like most of my muses lmao

Voice: The sound of a 12 year old boy like the kind you meet in tf2 servers tbh His voice sounds gender neutral. Even if you listened very carefully, it is hard to discern whether his voice is that of a mature woman or a boy in his teens.

Languages: English, Mandarin Chinese

Education: He’s fresh outta college dude. Went to a 4 year for a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, then took a few years of grad school until he was taken to Mann Co, where he finished his education under Engie.

Nationality: Chinese American (he has an American passport bc he was born in the US, specifically, San Francisco)

Disorders: Mild PTSD

Habits: Tinkering with things that don’t belong to him. Prone to experimentation with machines, specifically cars and motorcycles. He loves motorcycles bc he can use them to great effect if he mods them a bit to accommodate for his legs. Plus, gotta go fast my dude, and motorcycles are the easiest way for him, a self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie, to get his fill of adrenaline (plus he’s a speed demon i mean what do you expect, being stuck to a wheelchair all day?). Likes trying to “sneak” around as best he can: it’s a habit he developed since childhood, and is especially a challenge bc of his disability.

Positive traits: Intelligent, confident (in some ways, at least), gives good advice despite not following it on his own

Neutral traits: Passive, impartial, talkative

Negative traits: Impulsive, immature/petty, uncaring, selfish, prideful

And, of course, an obligatory explanation of what the fuck this lil kid is doing with these hardened mercenaries:

His family was poor, having immigrated legally to the US after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 (see I do my history) before having him. His older brother, Chiyang Li (aka “scarlet sun” aka Charlie), worked in a factory to help support Quincy and his mother. His mother is a badass bitch okay, she came to the US by herself, while pregnant and caring for a preschooler (she came literally right before having the baby that is fucking insane she... is a fucking... badass, and remember, she came while she had to take care of Charlie, who was no more than 3-4 years old at the time). His father still lives in China, although he is working on securing a way into the US. Of his family, Quincy is the only one so far with an American passport. 

Quincy’s childhood was difficult, to say the least. His mother worked a laundry business, almost as soon as she was strong enough again to wash clothing. Quincy grew up being cared for primarily by his older brother, who also assisted in his mother’s laundry business. As they got older, Charlie quit high school to work in a local factory (I’m thinking San Leandro--they have all these big-ass warehouses, but idk either way they’re in the Bay Area) to get more money for the family and to put Quincy through college. Throughout grade school, Quincy also faced discrimination from his classmates for being the “weird Asian kid”. Although he was never severely bullied for a long span of time, the other children at the school did not like him very much since he was different. When he first entered school, he did not know a single word of English, and had to learn on the fly (since his mother and brother spoke Mandarin Chinese at home).

obligatory content warning for potentially triggering content including mentions of bullying, physical violence, racism, transphobia (mostly a combo of microaggressions and institutionalized misogyny), and body mutilation past this point. You have been warned.

During elementary school, a group of children decided one day to act on the racist stereotypes that many of them had grown up with. Along with the end of WWII, there was plenty of resentment towards those with Asian features. They were nasty, and all around horrible, but never threatened Quincy’s safety until they one day tried to break his legs and feet after teasing, mostly about women breaking and binding their feet, went too far (keep in mind, this was before Quincy realized he was trans, so his mother was dressing him in feminine clothing and hairstyles). They were successful, needless to say, and Quincy ended up with broken feet and lower legs that never healed correctly because his family could not afford to take him to a hospital. He still had to attend school the next day, with Charlie helping him to and from class. Eventually, Charlie and his mother managed to put together enough funds to find a wheelchair for Quincy before the end of that schoolyear. Since then, Quincy has been unable to walk without assistance, especially since that, without proper medical attention, his feet were permanently damaged (he does, however, eventually begin physical therapy, but that’s only after he earned money bc he joined RED).

At first, he was ashamed of himself. He felt odd and out of place, for more reasons than one. His body felt like more of an impairment than anything, especially with growing issues like... literally growing up with a body that didn’t match how he felt. Things like cars fascinated him, even though girls his age were encouraged to play with dolls and tea sets. He just wasn’t interested, and was more interested in playing cars with the other boys his age. In middle school, he began learning about cars and engines, and became fascinated by the idea of mechanical engineering, including space travel, having heard of the launch of Sputnik when he was 13. In high school, he began to study mechanical engineering in earnest, and started to see his wheelchair as more of an opportunity than an impairment. He began experimenting on it, adding things like controls and improving the efficiency of the wheels. Charlie supported him by taking him to the junkyard to try and find scrap materials.

In terms of being trans, he came out to his family at the beginning of high school after he refused to wear the female school uniform (bc I guess he attended one of those schools TM). His brother supported him, even though he didn’t really get it. His mother took a little longer to come around, and still has yet to fully accept/understand Quincy’s identity in the present time (1970). At the end of the day, it was Charlie who prepared Quincy the best and supported him in nearly everything, and that’s Quincy’s motive in joining Mann Co. They paid well, they asked no questions, and they promised him a job for a long time.

Alright, warning is over, feel free to continue reading now.

By the time Quincy graduated college, he had heavily customized the wheelchair (although not to the extent of his time at Mann Co, not yet). He had increased the efficiency of the wheels, created a custom steering system, as well as a get-out-of-jail-free engine thing, although at this point he still needed to manually wheel himself forward most of the time. It was because of this innovation, coupled with his impressive understanding of mechanical engineering demonstrated in college, that Redmond approached him halfway through his time at grad school and offered him a position at RED as the Transformer. He saw Quincy’s potential, and wanted to get a leg up on his brother, Blutarch (of course), and wanted to try investing in college students so he could guarantee a future for when the previous mercenaries retire (or some bs like that tbh i haven’t really thought this through...). He also thought that college students were easier to find and hire, and could therefore learn from the existing classes (or something of the sort). Since Engineer was the closest in profession to Quincy, Engie was sent to teach him (for now, it’ll just be a generic RED Engie that I’ll write on my own although other engies feel free to adopt my small nerdy boy), so Quincy finished his degree while working under RED. He also worked together with Engie to build his current wheelchair, which can transform into 3 forms (similar to how vaccinator can defend against 3 types of damage). The three forms are “Carp”, “Hare”,  and “Bull” (support, offense, and defense in order). They change his ability set (Carp gives him movement speed, hare gives him a charge, and bull gives him hp). It takes 5 seconds to go between forms bc the wheelchair needs to transform itself. He spawns in Carp form. He also has various weapons given to him by Mann Co to compliment his forms, although his loadout is meant to buff certain forms and nerf others (yadda yadda i’ll talk more about his mechanics later).

He is, however, horrified by the everyday violence, and its... Probably factored a lot into his preexisting PTSD stemming from what happened in his childhood. (After being separated from his wheelchair once and being unable to do anything for the rest of the battle until he went through respawn again, Quincy asked Engie to connect his life in Respawn to his wheelchair, so he would never feel the fear of being stranded with no mobility again... It was a bad time :( very angst. He’d rather go through respawn with his wheelchair than feel vulnerable like that again).

And that brings us to present day! Wooo!! backstoryyyyy!!!