Songerin application

[seemagicshit]

Player: Belmont
Age: 43
Contact: on plurk, draculabackwards
Current Characters: n/a

Character: Tianyou Zhao
Canon: After the post credits scenes of Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Age: somewhere between mid to late 20s and early 30s; no canonical age is given. If an actual age is needed, I would say 28.

Background Information: https://yakuza.fandom.com/wiki/Tianyou_Zhao

Personality:

It's difficult to pin down what makes Zhao tick at first blush. The first time the party meets him, he comes across as unhinged, effortlessly firing off warning shots and casually threatening murder, all without raising his voice. He's dressed flamboyantly and also oozes confidence as the leader of the Yokohama Liumang, essentially a Chinese Triad. In later conversations, he downplays problems he might have without revealing any inner turmoil. He even unnervingly laughs to make people uneasy.

As the plot rolls on, however, we find out that the unhinged Liumang boss was a facade carefully developed by Zhao in order to survive in a position he inherited, but didn't want. It's not to say that he wasn't more than qualified for it. He describes himself as being the sort of man that anything he wanted to try when he was younger, he would excel at. He's recognized as being one of the top swordsmen and kung fu practitioners in Ijincho. He's also smart, being able to run the Liumang's headquarters, a massive and expensive Chinese restaurant called Qing Jin.

However, he never held any drive to become a leader. He mentions a super strict family upbringing that forced him into the role without any input from himself. Knowing this, he promoted a childhood friend named Mabuchi who had everything – brains, brawn and drive – as his second in command. Which leads into another key facet of his personality: he cares way more about the people around him than he lets on.

Ichiban mentions at one point “You're just a big ol' softie, aren't you?” which Zhao denies, but seems to be very much true. Although he never wanted the position of leader, he would always care for those under him, looking out for talent. In the case of Mabuchi, knowing how talented he was, he promoted the man and also stuck his neck out for him way more than needed as he considered Mabuchi a brother. Even when that relationship sours over the course of the game, rather than see his then disgraced brother be killed, he hisses and begs for him to leave because it's only Zhao's good will keeping Mabuchi from becoming very dead. In addition, he pushed through a very unpopular idea of merging the Liumang with a rival gang – the Geomijul – in order to protect the people under him. As a result, he gave up his position and his home so there would be less confusion at the merger.

Being surrounded by a new group of people, Zhao's actual personality is shining through and he can be a goddamn troll, like convincing Ichiban that no double-dipping signs exist because dipping sauces are stupidly expensive. It's entertaining as hell but always quick to needle people and talk up a big game about things he doesn't believe in, like talking about how having a certain food in a dish is essential to a flavor when he personally can't stand it. This can be very annoying but he never ventures into cruelty with his new friends. On the other hand, it's very obvious and he's quite open with some of the darker aspects of what he did, including ordering the deaths of people or executing them himself without a problem, such as when hearing Ichiban go to vocational school, idly wonders if they have programs for assassination.

He's easily the most flamboyant of the group, with an accessory game that's something to behold, along with having the most athletic fighting style. At the same time, as soon as he joins, he becomes the party cook, of all things, happily making meals for the crew that they rave about. Especially chili shrimp. So for things he actually wants to do – fighting and cooking – he still excels at with a group that can appreciate him.

In conversation, he can be very light and upbeat and he downplays anything really wrong with him, but there are dark overtones in his past. Namely that his parents were super strict with his upbringing, to the point of slicing his consoles in half if he played more than an hour a day. Combine that with being forced to adopt a ruthless persona in order to not be killed by his own men and having his right hand man betray him? Having to be rescued from certain death by Ichiban and party and getting beaten up while captured? Also that he immensely dislikes sermons and raising his voice unless it's in the middle of a fight? Like most of Ichiban's crew, he's got some issues.

But being surrounded by people who will accept him for who he is and not what they want him to be appears to be an unexpected lifeline. Especially because without their intervention, Zhao would be very dead. Since he's so good at downplaying feelings, Zhao never comes out and says how grateful he is for the intervention of the party. But it's commented upon that he immediately makes himself at home, banters with the party, cooks for them to make sure they aren't eating crap all the time and basically fits right in?

It seems like he might be grateful for a chance at a new life after all.


Abilities & Inventory:

Inventory
Zhao will be bringing with him his canon outfit, Liu Chinese Saber, his massive accessory game he has going on (rings, bracelets, earrings, necklace, glasses), his phone, bottle of black nail polish, bottle of liquor, a lighter and a gun.

Abilities
Like a Dragon goes hard with ridiculous shit people can learn. Zhao is a master with Chinese Kempo, kung fu and using swords and random shit around to dispatch enemies. The game employs a job class system so there's a base class to every character and a set of job classes you can master as little or as much as you like. All the fun abilities are learned within the first 25-28 levels of a job class and everything else is just a stat boost. Usually if you are currently one job, you have access to everything you've learned in that and a select few abilities in anything else you're working on. Since this is a dream world, I figure Zhao could learn the max abilities of a handful of jobs but in return, severely limit that list to be fair. So there are special attacks you can learn with the job and unblockable attacks called "Essence of..." that are top tier. Each character also has their own personal Essence of Attack that sticks with them regardless of job class. Zhao's is Essence of Deadly Beasts.

Gangster (default job) -- Where all the stabby stabby punchy punchy abilities are, including Kempo, several forms of kung fu and some drunken fist. Includes Essence of Phoenix Blade and Essence of Ladder Acrobatics.

Chef -- Attacking people with tools of the trade, including knives, razor sharp serving dishes and setting people ON FIRE with portable burners. Includes Essence of Human Grater and Essence of Searing

Breaker -- Breakdancing people into submission. Zhao's already fairly acrobatic so this feels like a good job class for him. Includes Essence of Rolling Mixer and Essence of Breakdance Delight

This link here: https://youtu.be/Ad61fnXYJVY shows the Essence of Actions for the whole game and it has it divided so you can see what they are and decide if they should be nerfed. I am totally fine with the Chef Essences being nerfed or eliminated because they're really brutal. Also, if you want to watch the whole thing for hilarity, FYI some of the Essence attacks are NSFW (looking at you NIGHT QUEEN).

Suitability & Plans: Zhao is coming from a very interesting point. For most of his life, he's been forced into a role he really didn't want but didn't have a choice about. With that ripped away from him and surrounded by friends who encourage him to try something else, he's very much embracing the freedom to do what he wants. Especially what that means for a new career.

Although he's grateful for his friends, they haven't been together that long that it will be super painful for him to be without them. It also helps in the game background that he knows where they are and they're perfectly safe.

He'll have an opportunity to try to work with people who don't have any idea about his background, which might be refreshing. Since God only knows when Like a Dragon 2 is coming out (or if Zhao's in it), it's a way for him to explore if he wants to stay in a less than legal world or maybe be more respectable. Even if it's just in his dreams.

Plus, he's had the opportunity to watch his friend, Ichiban Kasuga, interact with people, going out of his way to help out people and inspire their group. You cannot help but be inspired by Kasuga, so there's a bit of trying that out himself -- in his own way -- even without his friends around.

I don't know if any of the trauma he certainly has in his background will come up, but it might be harder to hide in a world of dreams. Also given his violent background, that might be fun to see how that's reflected in dreamotion powers.

Test Drive Sample: https://songerein.dreamwidth.org/545.html?thread=31521#cmt31521 for TDM
https://songerein.dreamwidth.org/545.html?thread=24097#cmt24097 for lengthier thread

Questions: Can Zhao run a bar and/or a restaurant? Let him dream up some alcohol, come on! Also, as a note, in the game, there's an optional business sidequest you can do that unlocks a seventh party member. However, this party member (Eri) is completely optional. As I did not do enough in that sidequest because I was bad at it, Zhao will only mention having 6 members in the party, including himself.