application for agoge

[ryuji]

PLAYER
NAME: jay
CONTACT: centerfold
ARE YOU 18 OR OLDER: Yes

CHARACTER
NAME: Ryuji Sakamoto
CANON: Persona 5
AGE: 16 when the canon starts, 17 by the end of it. Since I'm taking him from a later canon point, I'm going to go with 17.
CANON POINT: 12/24, prior to the final boss fight
HISTORY: from the SMT wiki
PERSONALITY: When looking at Ryuji Sakamoto by the first glance, the impression that's invoked is one of a teenage delinquent. He's the type of kid that looks like he's forsaken all societal norms, and doesn't give a single care or thought to what other people think about him. The outward image is a reflection of long winding path of bad things that's happened to him to make him mistrust the society he grew up in, a reaction to the careless world that exists all around him, and it shows in every facet of his demeanor. He perpetually dyes his hair blond (against the conformity of a society where this action is considered rebellious), refuses to accept a rigid dress code at school, walks like he constantly has a chip on his shoulder, and even his posture contains all the hallmarks of indifference toward anyone or anything that approaches him. And maybe it's because he wears all this as a badge of courage rather than a Scarlet Letter, that he just doesn't seem to fit in anywhere he goes. The people he interacts with have low expectations of him, and he complies with that image- going with the flow and letting people assume whatever it is they want to about him. They're the ones with the problem, anyway- right?

However, that isn't exactly the whole of his story- and one would be remiss to not listen to that age old adage of not judging a book by its cover. The problem with someone like Ryuji Sakamoto is that he doesn't really care what people think about him because no one ever expects much out of him to begin with. By and large, he's a disappointment to people who've known him since middle school, save for the sole exception of his loving and caring mother.

Life is just easier for him if he doesn't have to explain himself, as it fits in with an aesthetic he loves so deeply that his entire ego is built around it; the concept that, in order to live a good life, you have to be free. It bolsters a slacker lifestyle, which is obvious to anyone who actually pays attention- his grades in school are abysmal, he has no interest in part time jobs or extracurriculars, and mostly lives in a bubble that contains the things he's only directly interested in.

There's so much more to him, though. Ryuji navigates this life with an outward air of ambivalence just by the merits of how he looks, but that's because no one actually gives him a chance to see past the obvious self-defense mechanisms that he's worked with for the majority of his adolescent life. Looking deeper, there's a genuinely good egg behind the layers of his personality, and even though it follows a trite cliche, the reason he acts and looks this way is all dependent on a really crappy hand he's been dealt with in life. Prior to the start of Persona 5, Ryuji has lived alone with his mother for an undetermined number of years. His father, who's no longer in the picture, was an abusive drunk who liked to take out his anger, and his fists, on his family. It's when you're that young and impressionable, and experience things like that, it makes it hard to grow up without having your fists balled up in anger all the time.

Looking back prior to the events of Shujin High School, though, reveals another side of him that exists, a Ryuji that was very different from the person he becomes over the course of time leading up to the start of the game.

Before Joker (the protagonist and central figure of Persona 5) enters his life, Ryuji is a hard working member of the track team. He has friends, is sociable, has dreams of maybe one day going off to college and working towards getting his run times lower and lower. These friendships are pretty shallow, he even admits at one point, simply because in running, everyone is looking out for their own best interests, pushing themselves to the limit, giving it their all. But there's still a sense of community behind it, and Ryuji had finally found a place where he initially got the taste of that freedom he loved so much. He loves the feeling of testing his body to its limits, the way air rakes against his hair when he's pounding pavement, and the adrenaline rush that comes along with expending every ounce of his energy until he's a sweaty mess. Running was an outlet for him, an allowance for Ryuji to get out his anger towards his life, providing him a safe haven from his home life.

But there are some things that he just couldn't outrun. The coach of their team at the time, Suguru Kamoshida, had it out for them. Kamoshida was an Olympic athlete who competed for a medal in volleyball, and wanted to bring prize and fame to Shujin High School's team- so much so, that he went out of his way to simultaneously coach the track team and work hard to see it dismantled. He pushed the team to the literal point of breaking. Kamoshida targeted Ryuji, knowing full well the circumstances of his home life. It didn't take much to manipulate the teen into redirecting that anger and violence towards a different target: himself. He knew that if he could goad Ryuji into attacking him, that he could take care of two problems: Ryuji's natural talent in running, and single-handedly bringing down the track team, allowing the volleyball team to rise up in familiarity and appraisal at Shujin. He began to use the team surrounding Ryuji to propagate the rumors of how his father wasn't in the picture, how he'd come from a really poor and rough background. And, Ryuji being the brash rushing-in type of person, went straight for Kamoshida, according to his plan. The resulting skirmish wound up as anyone can imagine: poorly. Kamoshida intentionally broke Ryuji's leg, leaving him with a permanent disability, crushing his dreams, disbanding the track team, and breaking the last straw that Ryuji towards his own sense of self-preservation.

That's what had started the change within him, producing a vile taste in his mouth for adults and the shitty attitudes that they toted around. He began to resent a society that could allow and condone adults to do whatever they wanted to do, like corrupt kings who could pass judgment without thinking of the consequence. Nobody took Ryuji's side when he desperately needed it, and that's when he had realized a universal truth about the world. Nobody ever freakin' cares. Coupling that with his friends leaving him behind in anger that he caused the break apart of the track team, the ex-star track member was left to his own devices. Branded an outcast, he donned the personality, and didn't look back. If this world was truly this messed up, then why should he have to play along and live under the guise that it's anything but what he thought it truly was: fucked up.

The first person to actually pay attention to him since those events is none other than Joker. It doesn't take very long for the other to see past the mask he's created for himself- and it's obvious. Deep down, Ryuji is still a very caring, honest, malleable person. He's fiercely loyal, to a fault, and does anything for those around him that actually give him a chance to do so. That doesn't mean that he still doesn't have a lot of faults about him, because he's still that rash, impulsive, defiant kid that had originally fought Kamoshida head on- but when he finds a new purpose in life, it changes the context. When he realizes that he can change the world around him, he wants to take every opportunity in his path to prevent the same thing that happened to him to anyone else.

His motivations for helping Joker form the Phantom Thieves (himself donning the moniker of "Skull" within the team) are compounded upon by his history of violence and abuse. He can't sit still while there are those around him that use their power to manipulate and uneven the playing field in life. He's determined to believe in rooting for the underdog, because mostly he sees himself as one, and some of that passion from his days in the track team is rekindled when he accepts his persona, the embodiment of his psychological ego given power and realization. Better to wave the flag of rebellion than get caught in the undertow. Throughout his friendship with Joker, he learns to start to let go of the past in order to embrace the future- one that's unbound by the strings of fate, one that's truly free and in their grasp. It comes full circle when he confronts the track team and asks them to hit him, if it would help them get over their anger towards him.



Ryuji is a complicated set of paradoxes. On one hand, he helps old ladies cross the street, and yet, on the other, has streaks of extreme vulgarity in his speech that make those around him cringe. His intentions are, for the most part, good, but rarely does he ever really think through the consequences of what he does. It's a strong moral compass that guides him, makes him react the way he does to things, and he listens to it as much as he can. Part of what sets him apart from everyone else though, is that moral compass isn't the same one most people abide by. It's created from his past experiences, unique and solely owned by everything he's had to go through to get to where he is. He may come off as entirely too impulsive, but he's much rather suited for being the type of person to avoid misdirection or working under the guise of secrecy. He's straight-forwarded, somewhat hotheaded, and rather blunt with how he presents himself. And yeah, he's not exactly the smartest person when it comes to tact, so when he lets himself go and finds himself comfortable enough around people he trusts, it ends up with him being a goofy, comical loser. That sense of comedic timing is a major mood lifter for the group, even if it ends up with him being the ass of a lot of jokes around his friends. But he trusts them, implicitly, and they trust him- which, really, is all Ryuji wants out of life as he continues to work under the mantle of the Phantom Thieves.

For someone that's been thrown away by so many people in life (his own father, his track team friends, school, to name a few), he sincerely wants that approval and love from those he trusts... even if it happens to be that there are so few of those types in his life. His biggest fear is feeling helpless or unable to do something. He knows he has a lot of inadequacies and self-image issues, but he wants to work through it, and he wants to make sure that he's valued. As much as that seemingly endless level of confidence shields him from the easy scratches in life, he knows that underneath it all, there's a sensitive person inside himself who gets terrified at the thought of being left behind.

But it's not all doom and gloom when it comes to Ryuji. He's determined to continually improve himself. He works out at the gym as much as he can, and tries to recover slowly from the injury to his leg in hopes that he can start running again. Not for a team- screw that- but just for himself. He trains hard, and even though he might have a slight addiction to carbonated beverages and puts ungodly lacking in health food into his body, he tries to take care of himself in the best way he knows how.

Overall, around people he's comfortable with, he's pretty much a walking goof. He's the type of guy in a group of friends that ends up being the butt of a joke, and sometimes those jokes go straight over his head. Not the brightest person out there, but he's always prided himself on being street smart more than book smart (although honestly, even that isn't as incredibly self-evident as he thinks it is). Most of the time, he can take jeering in an absolutely comfortable stride, like the attention is welcome even if it's slightly negative towards him. He keeps the air around him comfortably light hearted, likes to joke around quite a bit, and tries to ruin overly serious moods around him. There's a small possibility that he has some mild levels of ADHD as well, as he's often found tapping his feet to keep his body in some sort of motion and has issues paying attention to any one thing for extended periods of time. There's a certain of energy that buzzes around him, exemplified even in his magic casting abilities, which are mostly centered around the capability to invoke lightning powered spells to sling at the enemy.

Around his newfound friends, Ryuji is genuinely a happy person. Even though his outward forwardness often pits him against people within his own group, it's never filled with malice or ill-intent. There are multiple points in the story where he's seen being highly compassionate and understanding to the concept of feeling loneliness- even offering to take Yusuke out for a beef bowl to keep him company. Even with all the abrasiveness in his personality, he wants to do good by them, find a spot among them that makes him valuable.

He also has quite the tendency to be a bit of a loud mouth. Not exactly the type of person that should be trusted with any sort of secret, since he gets overly excited about all sorts of little things, and may easily blow the cover of anything that's trying to be kept under wraps. It's not intentional in the slightest; he just has a strong tendency to overreact or assumes that it's easier to connect with people when he's forthright and open about what's going on at the moment. He's probably the worst person in all of Japan to be an actual thief, considering how often he blatantly states that he's a member of Phantom Thieves in public.

His brain is wired differently from other people, too. Aside from his ability to jump to conclusions all too hastily, he tends to connect things weirdly, like how a normal, rational person would think "A, then B," Ryuji is constantly in a state of "C, then A, therefore B." Chances are, speaking to him will always bring a little bit of surprise to the conversation, welcome or not, since he has a unique way of interpreting the world around him. He has a decent level of emotional intelligence, just because he's been through a good deal in life on his own, but he's also not the type of guy to go to for relationship advice or to settle a dispute between two friends. If only he applied some of this passion to his studies, there might be hope for Ryuji to actually excel well in school (which will never happen).

All it takes to understand Ryuji is a little bit of patience, even if there's barely an ounce of that inside the kid himself. He'll have your back in a fight, even if he started it on his own, and doesn't back down when it comes to protecting the people he cares about or the fucked up world in which adults operate without impunity.

A good boy, but mostly misunderstood. And honestly? He's okay with that.

POWERS: As a persona wielder, he harnesses the power of Seiten-Taisei, a mythological trickster that once tried to force his way into heaven using his strength alone. This application assumes a max rank confidant (measure of social bond to the main character that provides individual benefits to the team member).

Associated abilities include:

HP Max/SP Max: 200 hp/50 sp
◇ God's Hand - Colossal Physical damage to 1 foe. (-50 hp)
◆ Agneyastra - Medium Physical damage to all foes 1x to 3x. (-50 hp)
◇ Maziodyne - Heavy Electric damage to all foes. Rare chance of Shock. (-25 sp)
◆ Matarukaja - Buff party attack power for 3 turns. (-25sp)
◇ Shock Boost - Enhance chance of inflicting Shock status. (passive)
◆ Evade Wind - Triple evasion chance against Wind attacks. (passive)
◇ Adverse Resolve - Increase critical rate when being ambushed. (passive)
◆ Charge - Next physical attack inflicts 2.5x damage. (-50hp)

A few notes on personas, to clarify how invoking the power works:

In the Jungian sense, a persona is just a cover, or a mask, to which most people present themselves to the outside world in. The personality that's projected on a day to day basis doesn't indicate the true desires or the guarded layers within, as most people construct their outward interactions with other people around societal norms that are inherently built upon years of education, experience, and personal conflict. These masks are created in order to cope with and provide a referential background for interaction with other people. Typically speaking, it's rather unhealthy to have the persona meld with the individual, as it would mean that the defense mechanism that's created to keep distance from the true inner self is pushed out and a person becomes imbalanced from the way they see the world with how they interpret themselves. It's like going into a battle without armor.

As far as the Persona series is concerned, it borrows a lot from that concept. The persona that a user wields is a direct reflection of the physical manifestation of those hopes and desires made tangible. These usually take the appearance of a mythological creature that the person inherently is akin to- for example, Ryuji's first persona is that of the famous dread pirate Captain Kidd. It takes an event of accepting the true inner self and letting it come forth from within to allow someone to use a persona like the characters in the game do. For Ryuji, it's accepting the rebellion in his heart and waving it like a flag, proudly. It's born the moment he becomes resolute to confront his past and literally steal the heart of the person who's ruined his life. The persona is an amplification of those inner desires and acceptance of one's true self, and as such, only exists as a part of the user. Just like we go through life, often displaying one face to the people we interact with on a day-to-day basis, he can only harbor and manifest Captain Kidd as an extension of himself. When he learns to fully let go of the past, it causes a change in Ryuji that's so deeply rooted inside his ego, that his persona changes as well- into Seiten-Taisei.

Also worth mentioning is that the ability to summon and use a persona is draining on the user. Whenever the contract is made, and called forth to act upon, whoever is using the persona to attack with supernatural powers takes either a hit to their constitution (if wielding the persona in a physical manner), or their mental state (in the case where magic is being summoned forth). There's a very real consequence of pushing yourself beyond the limit of what you can control, and utilizing these skills past that hard cap can end up disastrous- up to and including death or extreme exhaustion.

Other minor abilities:
-Weak to wind based magic, strong against electric and fire
-Knows how to shoot a shotgun and wield blunt objects as weapons
-Can absolutely destroy an entire bowl of ramen in record time (okay, not an ability, but he's pretty damn proud of it)
-Social ineptness at wearing really dumb t-shirts

SAMPLES
1ST PERSON: [ 1 (does tfln count? I can work on something more of a network post if not. This is only my second game ever, so I'm a little lacking in game-based examples of texts) - 2 (this one is set in agoge world!)]
3RD PERSON: [ 1 , 2 (intro from his last game) , 3 ]

MISC
PLANS: LET HIM BE A TIME COP. Honestly, there's a 50-50 chance that he's going to mess things up, but at least it'll be the interesting type of mess up that may or may not end up with him dying in a past he never got to live in!
ITEM: skull mask, which allows him the use of his persona

CHARACTER @ID SUGGESTIONS: @enterthedragon
HOW DID YOUR CHARACTER JOIN COST? I'd really like to believe that he'd be 150% willing to go straight into COST of his own volition. Maybe someone was watching him and his friends save the world and (mistakenly) thought that Ryuji would be good for a re-up on the whole keeping humanity safe thingy, and here he is. A time cop.