Innokentiy "Ina" Tsoy

[lanzandpine]

Name: Innokentiy “Ina” Tsoy
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Food culture, Go, board games, Russian music, singing, sociolinguistics, folklore studies

Appearance: Ina stands at 5’8”, or 177 cms, and weighs 121 lbs, or 55 kgs, which makes him look a little fragile for his age. He is ectomorphic — his arms and legs are long, while his fingers are thin. His skin is a pale and cool beige tone. While he tries to keep a straight back, Ina’s posture often makes him look shorter than he really is. He keeps his dark, jet black hair short, with a messy fringe reaching his eyebrows. His eyes are brown and look weary, the circles underneath them a noticeable purple shade. Ina’s nose is straight and a little small. His skin lacks blemishes and is very smooth. Whenever he smiles, noticeable, but small dimples appear on his cheeks. Ina usually speaks softly and quietly, but his voice is actually a deep bass.

Ina tends to dress for comfort, usually preferring oversized, plain T-shirts, or T-shirts with band logos, and long-sleeves underneath. In colder weather, he wears hoodies. He likes baggy pants and trousers, with flared hems. He often wears clothes of colder colors, such as black or white, usually monochrome. At home and, at times, when going out, he wears T-shirts that he finds a little amusing, such as ones that profess a love for fishing or beer. He wears thin-framed, round glasses, their frame being a neutral grey color.

Biography: Innokentiy Tsoy, often referred to as Ina, was born on May 18, 2007, into a family of Russian Koreans, or more specifically Koryo-saram, in California. His mother, Anna Tsoy, works as a research assistant in the field of historical linguistics, while his father, Mikhail Tsoy, works as a back-end developer. Ina is the middle child in the family — his elder sister, Valentina, was born four years before him, and his younger sister, Nadezhda, was born four years after him. Their family is supported by their relatives, especially Ina’s grandparents, and has resulted in a closed cluster. He grew up bilingual, often speaking Russian at home, while learning English from his mother and at school.

Being the middle child in the family, Ina wasn’t pressured by many expectations or standards, but was nonetheless cared for and loved by his parents. There was little sibling rivalry between him and his sisters, aside from some daily quarrels. However, his parents struggled to pay equal attention to all of their children, and Ina, as a result, was looked after the most by his maternal grandmother and grandfather, with whom he developed a very close relationship. His grandmother told him many stories of their life outside of the USA and California and the many cultural differences and quirks, while his grandfather introduced him to games such as Go and backgammon; both grandparents played an important role in his later interest in folklore studies and board games.

Ina grew up as a reserved, diplomatic child, often regarded as bright and wise for his age. However, as he grew older, Ina felt that his sisters were slowly overtaking him in the family cluster, being praised and relied upon. As his grandparents held more traditional views of gender roles, he felt as if he was disappointing them, believing that they had certain expectations for him. This led him to feel bitter over his abilities, considering himself average in comparison, and he resented himself for his “weaknesses” and felt wronged by his siblings. His relationship with his sisters was, for a time, strained, especially in middle school, due to his newfound competitiveness — Valentina found him to be overly self-conscious and abrasive, while Nadezhda felt disheartened at him turning away from her.

Ina’s struggle with his cultural identity started in seventh grade, although he had been questioning it since elementary school. He didn’t know Korean and didn’t identify himself with a lot of popular South Korean culture, and as a result felt that he wasn’t part of the widespread culture, despite the fact that he was born in a family with some traditional values and ideas of Korea. Ina also didn’t understand whether he should call himself American or Russian, as the countries seemed to be polar opposites, his perception of the drift between them being more acutely felt at an early, formative age. This resulted in him becoming more irritable and reserved, as he was trying to find a place in the world that seemed to look at him as an alien.

Despite his struggles, Ina kept a close relationship with his parents and grandparents. His problems with forming a self-concept were allayed by their combined efforts. His mother introduced him to basic ideas about language, and her descriptivist attitude ended up serving as more material for his interest in folklife. His father listened to Russian music with him — his foray into it was Viktor Tsoi, a popular Koryo-saram singer, and his rock band Kino. Later on, Ina found himself listening to Russian rock, punk, and indie, such as Dayte tank (!), Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Korol i Shut, and Samoe Bolshoe Prostoe Chislo, to name a few.

While the end of middle school seemed to be more hopeful, as Ina amended his relationship with his sisters, he found himself feeling truly lost after the loss of his grandparents, due to natural causes. After this, Ina struggled academically and personally, falling into states of disassociation and having problems with his short-term memory. Thanks to his parents’ and relatives’ collective efforts, which consisted of getting Ina into therapy and consoling him as best as they could, this severe period didn’t last for too long, and he was able to come to a light closure. However, Ina became much more reserved and melancholic.

Ina’s immediate family moved to Las Vegas in 2022, save for Valentina, who stayed in California for work. He was admitted to Southwest Red Rock High School. He felt a little uneasy at the move, but eventually eased into the new environment — no major changes happened in his life after the move, though he continued struggling with and coming to terms with his developing identity.

Ina lives with his parents and his younger sister in Skyline Heights. He still feels weak, unfit, and unsure in his capabilities — because of this, he leads a more secluded life, feeling a little ashamed of his perceived lack of abilities. Despite this, he is academically successful, while not exemplary, thanks to his feeling of independence and the need to always push himself further.

At school, Ina mostly excels in the humanities, such as English and Social Studies, but believes that he is falling a little behind on Mathematics. He would like to study at MIT, UCLA or Berkeley, but has so far only applied to UNR and UNLV, aiming for in-state tuition. As his first choice is MIT, Ina is trying to study more and prepare himself for exams, before he feels ready to apply.

Despite his reserved nature, Ina tends to be polite or friendly to his classmates. He is open to conversation, but tends not to go out of his way to find it, unless it is about music or folklore. He doesn't tend to show interest or smile, but despite this doesn't mind listening or chatting. Ina's nature forces him to distance himself from people that he finds "too good" for him, to avoid burdening them and feeling hurt; for the most part, however, he doesn't show his jealousy, whenever he feels any.

His love and interest for food culture comes from participating in the distinct Koryo-saram culinary sphere, which is unlike Russian or South Korean food. Homemade food brings him joy and a feeling of serenity, and he finds himself very curious about what other people in this world experience when eating “good food”. In a way, this is connected to his interest in folklore studies.

Ina has a deep interest in board games, especially Go. Among others, he plays backgammon, shogi, Xiangqi, mahjong, and chess. As intimate as this hobby is, this is also a field which brings him the most frustration, as Ina feels that he isn’t at all capable of becoming “good” at these games, and they can make him feel inferior. Love for Go was nurtured in him by his late grandfather, and the Go table and stones passed down to him is currently his most prized possession.

While Ina is interested in a range of music, the music closest to his heart is Soviet and Russian, especially Kino. He can’t play guitar, but in his spare time, he goes to karaoke or sings by himself in his room to practice. Ina loves talking to others about music, and it is one of the parts of his life in which he prefers being social.

Being a part of an ethnical minority and struggling with cultural identity, Ina has developed an interest in the lives of people and how language interacts with them. He is highly interested in the ways various groups of people lead their lives, why they speak like they do and why we have such a relationship with language. He wants to major in linguistics after high school. He borrows most of the literature he tries to read from his mother’s library, despite her being specialized in a different field.

Advantages: Ina is diplomatic and compromising and is always ready to put in effort to solve problems. He is reserved and tends to avoid conflict. He has a calculating look on everything and plans well due to his love of strategic board games.
Disadvantages: Ina is not fit or tough — travelling long distances or rough paths may be hard for him, and he is more susceptible to injuries. He can be very passive in certain situations, not taking immediate action. Too much pressure will lead him to become disassociated from reality for a short period.

[Gundham]

*Pops out of a secret hatch in the floor*

Hello, I'm Gundham. Don't worry about that hatch in the floor. It's standard. Anyway, let's get to the critique!

Ina's looking very solid so far, but there are a few grammar tweaks that will be required before he's ready for the big time. Therefore he is Not Approved Yet, but hopefully it shouldn't take long to get him there.

As I always say, don't be daunted by the length of this critique. This profile is very well written, and you've clearly done your research. With the exception of one or two broad questions that might require some deeper thought, and a few requests at the very end for more information, almost all of this is going to be quick cleanup that will only take a few seconds to resolve.

Ina stands at 5’8”, or 177 cms, and weighs 121 lbs, or 55 kgs

For profiles we only need the imperial units (feet/inches, and pounds), but it's fine to leave the other measurements in if you're so inclined.

His skin is a pale and cool beige tone

Using "is of" in this way is really grammatically dicey and doesn't really work with the flow of the sentence. I'd recommend losing the "of." It *can* be employed really well in sections that are more poetic: "Her eyes are of fire, but her skin is of coldest ice," etc, but those work better for prose passages than profile descriptions.

He often wears monotone colors, such as black or white.

I'm a bit confused by this sentence. Is the implication that he tends to wear all white or all black outfits when he dresses? Or just that he prefers clothes that are one color as opposed to a mixture of colors (e.g. he'd prefer a plain white sweater to a white sweater with blue stripes)? Or does he specifically like white and black clothes but dislike other colors? (This doesn't necessarily require any alteration to the profile, I just want to be sure I understand what you mean there.)

his elder sister, Valentina, was born four years before him, and his younger sister, Nadezhda, was born four years after him.

When you're describing a quantity of things that is lower than 101, it is generally better to use the word as opposed to the numeral.

Being the middle child in the family, Ina wasn’t pressured by many expectations or standards, but was nonetheless cared for and loved by his parents.

One thing that's worth noting, from the bit of research I've done, Koryo-saram communities are pretty well rooted in Korean culture, which does tend to place a fair amount of emphasis on traditional gender roles. It seems likely that Ina would probably have had more expectations placed on him than his sisters just by dint of being the only male child in the family. It's possible that Ina's parents are just wired differently and have a more modern way of looking at things, but you do say later in the profile that they have some traditional values and ideas from Korea. If you do want them to be more traditionalist, then it's probably worth revising that a bit.

If those expectations are placed on him, that does give him a really good reason to feel the bitterness you allude to in the next paragraph, since his parents would probably hold him to a higher standard than his sisters.

Ina, as a result, was looked after the most by his maternal grandmother and grandfather, with whom he developed a very close relationship with.

You've got the word "with" twice here, you can delete the second one.

However, as he grew older, Ina felt that his sisters were slowly taking him over in the family cluster, being praised and relied upon.

I think this is better expressed as his sisters "overtaking" him.

Ina’s struggle with his cultural identity started in seventh grade, although he had been questioning it since elementary school.

As with quantities, you generally want to refer to grades as either "seventh grade" or "grade 7" rather than "7th grade."

After this, Ina struggled academically and personally, falling into catatonia and having problems with his short-term memory.

Catatonia isn't a common side-effect of trauma of this type (from my research, it tends to be more closely associated with physical trauma rather than emotional), and would probably be considered a serious enough issue that he'd have to be screened for conditions like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, and would probably require interventions beyond therapy.

It might be more accurate to describe this as dissociation (which can co-present with memory loss), since it's more common and would be treated a lot less gravely than catatonia, and has therapy as a recommended treatment.

no major changes happened in his life after the move, besides him slowly coming to terms with his newfound identity.

This phrasing makes it sound like the move has caused him to develop a newfound identity, but I don't think that's what you were going for here. If his identity is the personality shift that he's undergone after losing his grandparents, then it'd probably be better described here as something like, "no major changes happened in his life after the move, though he continued coming to terms with his developing identity."

Among others, he plays backgammon, shogi, Xiangqi, mahjong, and chess.

Xianqi is usually capitalized in sentences, just as Go is. Mahjong sometimes is and sometimes isn't, so it's up to you whether you want to or not. The others are fine.

Ina is diplomatic and compromising and can often be more ready than others to talk about ways to solve a problem collectively. He is reserved and less inclined to get into conflict. Ina believes in the importance of effort and is ready to tackle objectives as needed. He has a more calculating look on everything and plans well, thanks to hours of playing strategic board games.

With advantages and disadvantages, you generally want to be concise where you can. Name the skill, and tell us how he got it/how it will be applicable. So, you could feasibly trim this down a bit to something like:

"Ina is diplomatic, compromising, and always ready to put effort in to solve problems. He is reserved and tends to avoid conflict. Thanks to hours of playing strategic board games, he has a calculating outlook and plans things out well."

Do this however you see fit, but generally you want it to be as clear and concise as possible.

It would also be nice to get a bit more fleshing out on a few things.

- Are there any subjects that Ina particularly likes in school, or that he struggles with?
- What's Ina's social life like at school? He's reserved, but he's also interested in people and their stories, so is he out there being friendly to try and learn more about people, or is he more introverted?
- Has he applied to any specific universities to study linguistics?

---------

That's all I've got for you on the first pass. If there's anything here that's a bit confusing or you'd like more clarification on anything I highlighted, feel free to drop me a board PM or contact me on Discord and I'll be sure to respond promptly. Otherwise, post here when you're done the edits and I'll take another look!

[lanzandpine]

Thank you very much for the detailed critique. The size did scare me at first. I edited the profile and added some material here and there that hopefully answers some of the questions.

I decided to keep both units for the appearance. I also changed the part with the colors; coincidentally, it was also something that I was a little apprehensive about at the time of writing, so I tried expanding just a little upon it and changing the wording, accordingly.

You make a very good point about traditions. I imagine that Ina's parents are, ultimately, more removed from both Russian and Korean traditional views, being more "American-ized", but still hold some basic rules or views. Ultimately, I thought that it wouldn't be quite enough to really affect Ina too much, but I decided to add a little bit of incentive in the form of his grandparents, who would surely be more traditionalist.

I also decided to remove the part about catatonia. I researched it a little bit and saw a couple of mentions of "light" instances, so I included it in the end, but I have to agree that disassociation fits better.

I tried to answer the questions at the end as well. Hopefully it's not too rough.

Once again, thank you for your critique! Please tell me where that hatch leads.

[Gundham]

The hatch leads here: 51.7541° N, 1.2540° W

It's a location I am banned from because I put up to many fake posters on the bulletin boards. But enough about me, let's take a look here.

However, as he grew older, Ina felt that his sisters were slowly overtaking in the family cluster, being praised and relied upon.

This sentence is better, but not quite right. Change it to "his sisters were slowly overtaking him in the family cluster" or "his sisters were slowly overtaking the family cluster." Either is fine, the first one probably better expresses the meaning you're going for.

That's it, that's all. Correct that and you'll be on your way. Don't try to get a glimpse through the hatch on the way out. I promise you.

[lanzandpine]

Thank you. I was pretty sure that I wrote exactly that, so I guess it's a typo. Oh well, I fail at many things.

And thank you very much for the coordinates. I will use non-hatch related methods to get there.

[Gundham]

Best of luck finding where the hatch comes out. Beware, they're very stodgy there.

Anyway, you're APPROVED, have a good time!