[ gp / app ]

[nonvoting]

APPLICATION

OOC

NAME: min.
AGE: 30+.
CONTACT: maehwa.
CHARACTER(S): hua cheng (juhua), keita mori (keita).

IC

NAME: tseng.
AGE: 30.
CANON: final fantasy vii remake.
CANON POINT: end of game.
CRAU: n/a.
OTHER: nothing extra to report!

SUITABILITY: tseng does meet basic age requirements, being 30, and is otherwise a normal human man. he comes from midgar, which is shown in ff7r canon to have a fairly healthy subculture around sex and intimacy (strip clubs, brothels, etc) and while he is not shown engaging in any of those activities, he is also not shown to have any aversions or proclivities against sex. he has a pretty hardboiled job which i feel would give him a realistic and pragmatic approach to the game, and he wouldn't have any particular aversions to playing since that's what the circumstances demand.

ABILITIES:

BODYGUARD: tseng has no magical powers of note; he does have the ability to use materia, but this is an external source of magic and not one inherent to him personally. he is, however, an extremely capable bodyguard. as a member of the shinra black ops force known as the turks, tseng is shown throughout the ff7 compilation media to have an exceptional grasp of combat techniques, including hand-to-hand combat, various weaponry including firearms, and other useful tasks such as stealth, helicopter piloting, and tactical maneuvering.

STRATEGY: another of tseng's strengths is his ability to strategize. as the head of the turks, having inherited the position from verdot, he is tasked with juggling the wellbeing of rufus shinra as well as the safety of his own team and then again the goals and ambitions of the shinra company executives. tseng is constantly walking a razor's edge trying to keep all parties happy, and he is shown to be an expert at playing these various forces against each other to achieve the balance he needs to do his job well and to enable his people to do their jobs too.

VICES:

MANIPULATIVE, CALCULATING: as mentioned above, tseng is a strong strategist, and with that ability to strategize comes an ability to manipulate situations for the outcome he wants. there's one particular cutscene in remake that i think demonstrates this well, and that's the cutscene in the turk lounge just after the sector 7 plate is dropped. first, a note on the timing here: platefall takes place something like 3-4 days after the turks are saved from execution by a rufus shinra hail mary, so tseng is operating in a very narrow margin between "loyalty to rufus & the turks" and "what he has to do to keep the shinra execs happy and keep his people alive." he's told to drop the plate, so he drops the plate, but afterward we have this cutscene of rude and reno stewing in guilt and self-doubt while tseng puts his head down and oes paperwork. when the tension in the room finally boils over, and rude and reno begin to question what it is they've done, tseng puts his pen down and starts to offer increasingly absurd excuses for the mass murder they've just committed. none of these excuses hold any water, and tseng knows that, but what they do achieve is taking the turks' guilt and turning it into anger at tseng instead. he assesses the situation, identifies the problem, and then fairly straightforwardly manipulates his people to reach the result he wants.

RUTHLESS: whatever the situation calls for, tseng will do what must be done. take, for example, the scene in the sewers in before crisis. in this scene, tseng has made a deal with rufus for the location of verdot, who is being held by scarlet in a secret facility until he can be executed on trumped-up charges. he and the turks have found verdot and his daughter, elfe, but are outnumbered and outgunned by shinra troops sent to track them down. the only path that's available to tseng is this: shoot verdot and elfe, and shinra will consider not executing the turks for their insubordination. so what does tseng do? he points his gun at verdot and elfe and he shoots them both dead, one after another. he doesn't hesitate; he executes them both, because the choice is either to kill them and save the turks, or to refuse and kill them all. even though tseng was in possession of a full cure materia at the time, which would allow him to revive verdot and elfe to full health, i think the fact that he didn't so much as blink before shooting them each through the head demonstrates that he's able and willing to do brutal things if that's what the situation calls for.

VIRTUES:

LOYAL: one thing about tseng is that he is absolutely loyal. his trust has to be earned, and that isn't always an easy process, but once someone has given him a reason, tseng will never waver. when the turks are on the hunt for verdot and his daughter, who are being held by scarlet as mentioned above, they know that verdot is being held but they don't know where. but rufus does know where, which makes it an easy thing for rufus and tseng to cut a deal: verdot's location in exchange for terms that rufus will only discuss in secret with tseng. it's not known exactly what the terms of that deal were, because it happens offscreen, but the outcome is clear: from that moment forward tseng and the turks are loyal to rufus shinra, and rufus shinra only. this isn't a decision made blindly—tseng took a look at the situation, discussed with rufus, and came out of that discussion feeling that he could dedicate himself and his subordinates entirely to rufus' protection. this is actually quite a slick move, too, because it allows tseng to align several of his priorities at once—he can remain loyal to shinra, but also protect his people, which is something he's always struggled with balancing against his need to complete missions as assigned. (see below for more on that.)

IDEALISTIC: as a rookie, tseng was actually quite idealistic about his role as a turk. in his early days as a member of administrative research under verdot's guidance, he had a pretty rosy view of the job and at least once proclaimed that he thought there was nothing in the world with more value than a human life. he struggled to balance the demands of the mission with his desire not to let anyone be hurt or killed, and would sometimes put his missions in jeopardy by trying to rescue everyone even when it wasn't possible to save them all. after a mission that failed because tseng prioritized saving verdot's life over actually completing the mission, verdot gave tseng a thorough dressing-down. verdot ultimately had to teach him that to a turk, the mission must come first every time, no matter the human cost. this was a difficult lesson for tseng to learn, and he had a hard time reconciling it for a number of years to come.

SENTIMENTAL: even after tseng has learned the brutal lesson that the mission must always take priority, he still finds it a little difficult to fully accept. there are parts of him that remain sentimental despite his best efforts to kill them, and i think this comes across most clearly in his relationships with zack and aerith. tseng and zack are friends, which makes it complicated for tseng when he's given the order to take zack and cloud to nibelheim for experimentation by hojo; he doesn't like the order, but he executes it anyway, because his loyalty is to shinra and he's by now learned the lesson that the mission must always come first. however, the sentimental part of him still exists, which means that when zack asks tseng to take care of aerith in his absence, tseng does that the only way he knows how: by collecting all 88 of the letters that aerith gives him for zack and keeping them safe until such a time as they can be delivered. of course, they never do end up being delivered.

SURVEY

▶ I REGULARLY MAKE NEW FRIENDS.
▷ 1; tseng is, by and large, far too busy to think about making friends, and even if he did have the time he would lack the desire. it's difficult to form and maintain emotional connections in a high-stakes job like his, and he would most likely not want to put someone through the possibility that he might not come home.

▶ SEEING OTHER PEOPLE CRY MAKES ME WANT TO CRY TOO.
▷ 1; over the years, tseng has killed a lot of the part of himself that feel empathy for others, and he's far too pragmatic to allow his emotions to get swept away enough to cry just because someone else is crying.

▶ I OFTEN MAKE A BACKUP PLAN FOR A BACKUP PLAN.
▷ 5; tseng is absolutely a planner. he is excellent at analyzing situations and coming up with quickfire responses, but he usually has failsafes in place just in case his original plan doesn't go the way he expects it to. being caught unawares would be unacceptable for him.

▶ I USUALLY STAY CALM, EVEN WHEN UNDER A LOT OF PRESSURE.
▷ 5; when your job is as high-pressure as that of a turk, it's necessary to be able to maintain a clear head under very difficult situations..

▶ I AM VERY SENTIMENTAL.
▷ 3; although tseng really tries not to be sentimental, there are definitely parts of him that are (discussed above), and he can't fully break those habits no matter how hard he tries..

▶ EVEN A SMALL MISTAKE CAN CAUSE ME TO DOUBT MY OVERALL ABILITIES AND KNOWLEDGE.
▷ 1; firstly because tseng rarely makes mistakes, but if he were to make a mistake it certainly wouldn't be enough to outweigh his years upon years of training and hard-won skill. a mistake is just a mistake.

▶ I AM MORE INCLINED TO FOLLOW MY HEAD THAN MY HEART.
▷ 5; tseng strives to be practical and pragmatic in all aspects. he is definitely not the type of person who would follow what their heart says even if their head says something different.

▶ I AM PRONE TO WORRYING THAT THINGS WILL TAKE A TURN FOR THE WORSE.
▷ 2; when making plans, tseng doesn't doubt his own ability, but it's precisely because he imagines the ways in which a situation could be worse that he's able to come up with the backup plans and failsafes that stop plans from going badly..

▶ I ENJOY WATCHING PEOPLE ARGUE.
▷ 3; i don't think tseng takes any particular pleasure in watching people argue, but i don't think he would find it uncomfortable either. more than likely he would watch if it were interesting enough and otherwise would just excuse himself..

▶ I TEND TO AVOID DRAWING ATTENTION TO MYSELF.
▷ 4; while a certain amount of recognizability is expected due to his job, tseng would not be a very good black ops-type operative if he was constantly drawing attention to himself. in fact, his job largely thrives on his ability to keep himself relatively unnoticed while he takes on covert tasks.

▶ I OFTEN DO THINGS AT THE LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT.
▷ 2; when it's not possible to plan, tseng is a quick thinker and good on his feet, but for the most part he prefers to scope out situations and do his best to plan for them where possible..

▶ I FIND IT EASY TO EMPATHIZE WITH A PERSON WHOSE EXPERIENCES ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM MINE.
▷ 3; once again, tseng is not a particularly empathetic persona, but i think he does have a strong intellectual ability to understand why other people behave the way they behave, which allows him to "empathize" with people to a certain extent.

▶ I BECOME BORED OR LOSE INTEREST WHEN THE DISCUSSION GETS HIGHLY THEORETICAL.
▷ 2; being able to explore theoreticals makes it much easier for tseng to develop a comprehensive understanding of a situation and its possible outcomes. .

▶ I RARELY FEEL INSECURE.
▷ 5; he is almost never insecure about himself. he's not arrogant, but tseng is quite realistic about himself both in terms of looks and in terms of skills..

▶ I AM STILL BOTHERED BY MISTAKES I MADE A LONG TIME AGO.
▷ 3; it really depends on the mistakes. there are some that he's already let go and moved on from, such as his first failed mission where he abandoned the task to save verdot and got chewed out because of it; there are also some that he does continue to regret, such as following the order to move zack and cloud to nibelheim for hojo's experimentation..

SUIT REQUESTS: i feel that either diamonds or spades would be the most interesting for tseng. he's very reserved, both emotionally and physically, so giving him a suit that could cause him to behave in ways that are outside the norm for him would be really fun..
RANK REQUESTS: to be honest i think tseng would expect to get a solid middle rank, like a five or six. i'm not against that for him at all, but i also feel like giving him a really high rank would be great to fuck with him because he isn't used to being that visible and would be uncomfortable with the balance of power there.
SAMPLES: rufus shinra (link), janus (link, overflow), sampo koski (link), aerith (link, overflow)