Shifu

Given the canon point Shifu is from and the existence of healing magic, there is a high chance that if you are enrolled in Shifu's classes you will get hurt, depending on the skill and attitude of your character. Skill, because Shifu doesn't take it easy on his students and classes with him will involve a lot of hands-on duelling and spell casting, and attitude, because Shifu does not tolerate slackers and/or rude behaviour. Under the disguise of "teaching", Shifu will deliberately submit students he dislikes to sneaky punishments, especially during the practical session of class.

A list of possible injuries, ranging from mildest to most severe. Anything above 2 is usually what Shifu reserves for students he doesn't like, and 5-6 are only for the 5th to 7th year students:

1. Mild Bruises and small cuts.
2. After-effects of mild jinxes and hexes, lasting for a day.
3. Serious bruises.
4. Sprains.
5. After-effects of serious jinxes and hexes (anything taught above 5th year), lasting for a day.
6. Broken bones. (A very last resort, and Shifu will only use this if your character has severely insulted him consistently.)

There are also the usual detentions, forfeit Hogsmeade trips and Quidditch matches, banned from clubs, public humiliation and very angry letters to parents/guardians. Shifu will use everything in his arsenal to drill it into his students that he is their teacher and he is to be respected, even feared, for it.

So! Here's a permission form for your characters to fill out if they attend Shifu's class of very extremely hard knocks, or if they decide to cross Shifu.

Name of character:
Year and House:
How far can Shifu go with your character? : (You can select a number from the list, or type out your preferences)

If you'd also like to discuss things further with me, contact me at fanfictionming@Plurk.

Player Information
Name: Ming
Timezone: GMT+8, GMT+10 in November
Personal Journal: fanfictionming
Players Contact/AIM/MSN/YAHOO: N/A
Email Address: mingrps@gmail.com
Former/Other Characters in the RP: Phil Coulson, Greg Lestrade, Ib Amano
How did you hear about us?: Have three characters in-game

Character Information
Name: Shifu
Canon Origin/Series: Kungfu Panda. Canon point is before the competition for the Dragon Warrior and 18 years after the Tai Lung incident.
Teaching Position and why it suits them: Duelling. It's fine and cool to learn the spells, but applying them in actual situations and duels is pretty different from carrying them out in a class environment. Duelling will focus more on actual duelling, training students to be master duellers that can react and think quickly on their feet, rather than spells, although there is a branch of magic called martial magic that will also be covered in the class. Other charms will be reviewed, but Shifu will leave that to the other professors and concentrate on whipping people into shape.
Suitability: Shifu is noted by Po to be the greatest kungfu teacher in the whole of China, and he's one of the best kungfu practitioners in the canon history. He's more than qualified to teach, with the resume and skills to back it up. People may question his use of corporal punishment and his harsh methods for training (Tai Lung once commented that Shifu pushed him to train until his bones cracked) but Shifu has been told by both Dumbledore and Master Oogway to tone this down when he is teaching at Hogwarts. Shifu himself does not injure his students to the point that they are severely incapacitated, but students should prepare for bruises and potential trips to the Hospital Wing, especially if they misbehave in his class.
Gender: Male
Age: 61
Out of school living location: Eskdale, Cumbria.
Blood status: Halfblood

Personality: From the canon point I'm taking Shifu from, he's noted to be an extremely stern, strict and grumpy old man who is very harsh on his students. Mantis mentions to Po that Shifu can appear to be heartless at times when he's dealing with his students, and Viper backs this up by mentioning that it's only in legends and rumours that Shifu has been seen to smile or laugh. He definitely takes kungfu and training very seriously, but his unpleasant demeanour is visible from the start of the movie where he scolds his students very harshly for their mistakes. Said students are the Furious Five, a group of already talented martial arts practitioners respected by all of China, so Shifu is really pulling no punches when it comes to bettering one's kungfu if even such expert fighters are subject to his sharp and degrading reprimands. Tigress, when she was a young cub, wasn't spared even a smile when she successfully completed a complex martial art sequence. All Shifu did was to wordlessly rap her on the arm to correct her aim and on her leg to correct her position. Shifu was definitely not an easy person to get along with.

The only exception was Master Oogway, the old turtle who had not only taken him as a young boy when his father abandoned him at the steps of the Jade Palace, but who had raised him and taught him Kungfu. Master Oogway is Shifu's only friend and the closest person Shifu has to a father figure. Shifu deeply respects him and is loyal to Master Oogway's every command even if it displeases him. He grudgingly allows Po entrance to the Jade Palace although he dislikes the panda immensely simply because Master Oogway told him to do so. And although the subject of the Dragon Warrior is a hard one for Shifu, he nevertheless sticks to his promise to Master Oogway to believe in Po, even as he finds the panda to be the total opposite of the ideal student like Tai Lung once was before he turned dark. As he explains to Po in the movie on why he had changed his mind on training Po as the Dragon Warrior, "But now, I ask you to trust in your master, as I have come to trust in mine!" Trust and respect in your superiors is something Shifu really believes in and he drills this into each of his students. Even when the Dragon Scroll is revealed to be blank at their time of need Shifu refuses to think that Master Oogway had abandoned them to their fate without a way out.

However while Shifu maybe obedient to Master Oogway, he does have his moments of disagreement with the turtle. Chief example is the initial appointment of Po as the Dragon Warrior. Po was the total polar opposite of Tai Lung and it was a blow to Shifu's broken pride to have the clumsy, seemingly inept and indisciplined panda as the real Dragon Warrior when his own son who had been his pride and joy as a father and a teacher was rejected by Master Oogway. Refusing to disobey his master yet extremely reluctant to train Po, Shifu decided to try and make Po quit of his own volition instead. Shifu demonstrates a cunning and sly mind as he subjects Po to numerous tests intended not to help him grow as a student, but to break him and convince the panda to return back home. He wanted to prove his master wrong while still technically obeying him at the same time.

Shifu's vindictiveness makes him the wrong person to cross. Any slight against him will result in him getting back at you ten times fold. His bitterness over what happened to Tai Lung makes him near abusive to Po. He doesn't stop his students, all heroes to the panda, from insulting and tearing into Po's self-confidence. He threatens Po with the Wuxi fingerhold to obliterate him and he throws Po into training sessions way beyond any beginner's level. Perhaps because the topic of the Dragon Warrior is a very sensitive issue to him, but it does not deny that he can get downright ruthless with getting back at those who have earned his displeasure.

Shifu is also a very proud person. He is confident of his skills and of his students, partly because he is the one who trained them. Much like any parent who loves to see their child grow, Shifu develops a lot of pride for their martial arts abilities. It's both an insult to them and him when Master Oogway selects Po to be the Dragon Warrior instead. Shifu's pride is also, as mentioned above, the reason why he failed to notice Tai Lung's alarming behaviour as he was just so wrapped up in his son's incredible kungfu to notice. His pride can be said to be his stumbling block, as it even affects his judgement on others. He fails to find any good in Po simply because his pride will not let him, choosing instead to focus on Po's faults and utilise them to try and chase the panda away.

However, Shifu's harshness and near heartlessness stems mainly from his regret over Tai Lung. Underneath his cold and hard exterior Shifu does care very much for all his students. He adopted both Tai Lung and Tigress when the former was abandoned as a cub and the latter was isolated for her temper and strength at her orphanage, he was very worried over the Furious Five when they returned injured from their battle with Tai Lung and in time he came to care for Po as well. He not only respects but cares for Master Oogway, and even when his real father was seemingly captured by bandits, Shifu still appeared to rescue him although bitter at his abandonment as a child. Shifu does have a kind and loving heart, but it is this same heart that causes him so much pain when Tai Lung betrays him. Shifu was heartbroken when the cub he had raised not only attacked him, but also laid waste to the village and caused suffering and chaos to everyone around. He regrets so strongly that his pride had been blinding him to the darkness in his student's heart and that he had refused, out of love as well, to correct Tai Lung's behaviour. If he had only stepped in, he could've prevented the whole tragedy from happening. It is a thought that haunts Shifu for twenty years and prevents him from attaining inner peace. He just could not forgive himself, unable to move on from the past and to accept what had happened. Even his relationship with his father is strained because he could not forgive Shirong for leaving him as a child. Shifu regrets and holds on to the past too much, and this affects his personality. He becomes harsher, harder and seemingly less caring to his students as he is reluctant to open his heart for fear of getting hurt so badly ever again.

Shifu is definitely a hard worker and very determined once he sets his mind to something. He is the best Kungfu teacher in all of China, a title that comes with a lot of long training hours and perseverance. He can single-handedly defeat the Furious Five by himself using a simply flute. When he first starts with the intention of making Po's life miserable he cut no corners, determined to see the Panda walk out the door defeated, and when he has a change of heart he focuses to train Po correctly later in the movie, he renews his drive and ensures that Po grows in martial arts instead of merely breaking down the panda's resolve. He encourages and helps shape Po into the Dragon Warrior, proving that once he looked past his prejudices and his pride, he actually makes a very good teacher. He doesn't give up on Po, determined to follow his master's promise to the end. Shifu sly mind is also used in his fighting and training. Creatively using food as an incentive for Po to train, Shifu's method of training pays off as Po starts to showcase more drive and focus. Shifu is also good at analyzing his surroundings; as he told Po earlier, the best way to beat an opponent is to find his weakness and exploit it. Shifu himself actively uses the environment around him, adjusting to situations fluidly and quickly. Chopsticks are not his weapon of choice, but he is shown to employ his speed and his quick thinking to use them as such.

Shifu also has a fun side to him; it's just been buried by years of regret, anger, disappointment and bitterness. But once Shifu accepts that Po could be the Dragon Warrior and starts believing in him instead of clinging to the past, he starts enjoying the training sessions with the panda. Kungfu is a serious matter to him, and one he pursues with a lot of passion, but it's clear that Shifu can find kungfu fun as well. He chuckles and smiles when he's training Po in the mountains, clearly enjoying the "food fight" between the two and is happily satisfied when Po finally manages to outwit and outfight his master for the dumpling.

Lastly, Shifu has a very strong moral code and has a strong sense of responsibility. It is his sense of justice that keeps him mired in regret for 20 years, fully knowing that Tai Lung's upbringing was his responsibility and that he is partially at fault for the damage done on the day Tai Lung rampaged throughout the valley as the snow leopard was using the skills Shifu had taught him. Shifu also realises that as he is the one who created Tai Lung, so he should be the one to delay him so others can escape. He sees it as him paying for his mistakes, and his view is that no one else should have to suffer for what he did even if it will cost him his life. Shifu can be a hard, harsh and mean person, but in the end his sense of what's truly right and wrong will prevail.

Canon Background: [You can either link to somewhere with information on your character to give us an idea of what the character and canon is like, or write the history yourself, if you prefer.]
Background (AU!Canon; HP): Shifu was born to Shirong and his wife at a time of great uncertainty. With the uproar that came with WW2 Shirong did his best to protect his son and his Muggle wife from danger. When she died due to an airbomb strike and Shirong himself was head-hunted by the authorities for his swindles (Shirong was a master con-man; coupled with his magic this made his swindles even harder to catch. It was only when another wizard exposed him as a fraud did he have to flee for his and his son's life), the father decided to leave Shifu, for the young boy's own safety, at the doorsteps of a famed school for Chinese wizards specializing in martial magic and the art of duelling. Shifu never saw his father again but he was fortunate enough that he was picked up by Master Oogway, one of China's best practitioner of martial magic and the dubbed "Father of Duelling". Master Oogway operated the school and when Shifu started showing tell-tale signs of magic (he accidentally blew up a training room), the elder decided to teach Shifu how to better control his magic and to teach him the art of duelling to protect others. Master Oogway started his training from young and while Shifu did not pick up his wand till he was 11, his master ensured that he learned the theory of spells and practised other aspects of duelling from a very young age, such that by the time Shifu was an adult he was second only to his master when it came to duels.

Seeking new boundaries to improve his duelling skills, Shifu requested permission from Master Oogway to travel the wizarding world. Shifu spent 7 years discovering the different ways of magic casting in the West; however, his own pride for his craft and his master caused him to dismiss it as inferior to Chinese magic. As such, he only studied Western magic to defeat the practitioners who challenged him.

It was during these 7 years that he found an abandoned baby near a monastery in Sweden. The pale baby with his ice blue eyes was placed in a situation too familiar to Shifu and thus the man adopted the baby, giving him the name Tai Lung. Shifu raised Tai Lung as his own son and while the life of a traveller was tough on both baby and adult, Shifu was impressed by the resilience that Tai Lung showed in these tough times. Shifu became convinced that Tai Lung was destined for greatness when as a boy Tai Lung started displaying a great amount of talent in martial magic. Shifu had originally started honing Tai Lung's skills at the age of 5, but an unhappy letter from the Ministry of Magic (he was in England at that time) requesting him to stop had him both insulted and enraged by, as he saw it, the narrow-mindedness of the Western world. The cultural differences had him move both him and his son back to China where he continued Tai Lung's training. Shifu was a caring father, but his dream, to see his son become the fabled Dragon Warlock, had him push his son very hard. To compensate, Shifu would tell him stories about the Dragon Warlock's greatness and power, how the legendary warlock would appear from nowhere and defeat all those who went against him, always ending the stories with the promise that the title would be Tai Lung's. As such, Tai Lung grew up with a sense of self-importance that developed into over-bearing arrogance and a thirst for further power and strength. And while Shifu tried to ignore the darkness that was slowly spreading in Tai Lung's heart, his teacher Master Oogway didn't.

When the time came for Shifu to present Tai Lung to Master Oogway, it was a testament to how much Shifu had let his pride and his love for Tai Lung blind him to the facts. Master Oogway rejected Tai Lung as the Dragon Warlock, denying him the treasured Dragon Scroll that was supposed to have the spell that would grant its reader the power to become the Dragon Warlock. Tai Lung was deeply crushed and looked to Shifu for help, but Shifu was loyal to his master and chose instead to respect his master's decision rather than satisfy Tai Lung's desire for the scroll.

Enraged that he was denied what he deemed as his birthright, Tai Lung took to studying the Dark Arts from his European heritage, referring to observations Shifu had made during his travels. His aptitude and his skill meant that he quickly mastered the side of his heritage that Shifu had ignored and with the three Unforgivable Curses added to his spell list, he lashed out, rampaging in the nearby village to both vent and test his mastery of the curses before he turned back to the temple that he had once called home. Shifu tried to stop him but found he could not hurt someone he had raised and truly loved as his own son; he hesitated at a crucial moment and suffered a powerful blow to his right hip when Tai Lung blasted him out of the way. It took Master Oogway to subdue the Dark Wizard, and Shifu's heart was broken as he watched his son carted off to Azkaban, the only place Master Oogway deemed strong enough to keep Tai Lung locked up. Shifu himself had his hip irreversible damaged and forever more walked with a limp.

The betrayal and loss of his son changed Shifu; he became very bitter. His teachings became harsher and while he no longer pushed his students the way he did with Tai Lung, neither did he offer them any praise or recognition for their achievements. He refused to get close to any of his newer students, choosing to close off his heart to avoid getting hurt so badly ever again. He was unable to let go of his own guilt and regret over the past.

After 18 years of pain and hurt Master Oogway finally stepped in, both out of concern for his friend and because of a vision he had regarding the return of Tai Lung and the appearance of the real Dragon Warlock. Shifu still let his regret over the past 18 years colour his actions and Master Oogway wanted to release his student and his friend from that. Furthermore Shifu would be unable to train and unlock the true potential of the Dragon Warlock the way he was now. Master Oogway contacted his Western counterpart Albus Dumbledore, requesting a place for Shifu in Hogwarts in the hopes that a new environment would do him good. Without any reminders of the past Master Oogway hoped that eventually Shifu would be able to let go of his guilt over his adopted son and discover inner peace to guide the future Dragon Warlock .

RP Samples: DR post here and 10 comment thread with Sazh here.