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tushanshu app
Let's start this off with a big fat warning for cannibalism for this character and his whole canon: though he doesn't particularly enjoy it, Tony frequently is made to eat human flesh (both fresh and remains), and all of that will be brought up in this app.
Player Information:
Name: Danni
Age: 21
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
travistouchdicks, purewhiteglastonbury@gmail.com, khajixda @ AIM
Game Cast: Jaime Reyes (DC Comics)
Character Information:
Name: Tony Chu
Canon: Chew (Image Comics)
Canon Point: Before the end of Chew #30.
Age: Unknown, but definitely mid to late thirties. (His age is never stated in canon, but he has a teenage daughter who was born when he was in his early 20's.)
Reference: Meet Tony Chu. (+ Wikipedia)
Setting:
First and foremost? Despite being set in a seemingly normal modern-day setting, the world of Chew is really, really freakin' weird. Strange food powers, plants from space, cybernetic roosters, anti-chicken religions, a would-be apocalypse; bizarre people, places, and events are entirely commonplace and even expected in this world.
The biggest-- or at least the most obvious-- divergence from real world history is the Avian flu, which takes place less than four years prior to Tony's canon point. Where only a few hundred were killed by bird flu in our real world, Chew's version of the disease was a far more widespread and catastrophic epidemic: 23 million people died in the US alone, and 116 million in total died around the world.
As a result, the US government allocates a ridiculous amount of funding and power to the United States Food and Drug Association, making it the most powerful government agency on the planet. (Until all the funds get shifted to NASA, but more on that later.) Chicken and all other poultry products are banned by the F.D.A., with other nations following suit and instituting various forms of poultry-based legislation and red tape. Along with the nationwide chicken prohibition, the F.D.A. also handles most federal level crimes related to food. (And sometimes just the weird stuff.) Unlike our real world F.D.A., Chew's version of the agency has full-blown agents with guns and badges and local offices, sort of like a food-based F.B.I. The chicken prohibition results in a thriving black market economy, with chicken being smuggled, sold, and even served in speakeasy restaurants. Which is where Tony comes in. Prior to joining the F.D.A., he was a cop with the Philadelphia Police Department for at least 14 years; with the bird flu and chicken bans, he's spent a lot of the last 3 of those years doing chicken busts.
Also related to the F.D.A. is the United States Department of Agriculture, which works missions with agents, too-- though they focus on plants and animals rather than directly with food. Because of a tendency for overlap between the two agencies, the U.S.D.A. has a fierce rivalry with the F.D.A., shown when Agent Lin Sae Woo clashes with Tony at Yamapalu for interfering with one of her long-term cases. The U.S.D.A. also happens to be staffed almost entirely by badass busty women accompanied by half-cybernetic animal partners. (Why? Because Chew.) NASA, on the other hand, maintains about as much weirdness as you'd expect in a comic like this: it has agents, as well, one of which is Toni Chu, Tony's twin sister.
Once he is transferred there, Tony's time in the F.D.A. leads him to encounter many people with food based abilities. These abilities tend toward both the strange and the overly specific: men who can make fully functioning weapons out of tortillas or chocolate, a woman with the ability to write so vividly about food that the reader physically tastes it, a man only able to communicate through the dishes he creates, and so on. Tony himself is a cibopath, or someone who receives psychic readings of the history of anything he eats. This ability is extremely powerful, as a cibopath can also absorb the powers of any other person whose flesh they consume. Currently, there are only a few cibopaths in the world: of the ones known are Tony, Mason Savoy (Tony's one-time mentor and current enemy), an unnamed Serbian man, and Tony's daughter Olive. The Serbian man (the "collector" or the "vampire", despite not actually being a vampire) is currently harvesting as many cibo-abilities as possible, leaving dozens of victims in his wake. Mason Savoy is investigating the avian flu on his own terms, working (often violently) outside the law and making an enemy of Tony, who had worked with him while he was affiliated with the FDA. Olive is later taken on as Savoy's apprentice, without her family's knowledge, of course. Cibo-powers apparently run in Tony's family: he had a cibopath ancestor, he knew his daughter would inherit cibopathy, and his twin sister Toni is cibovoyant (she can read the future of any living flesh she bites).
Back to the avian flu, though: there's plenty of people who are suspicious that the bird flu isn't all it's cracked up to be. Many believe that it is a government conspiracy simply covering up something larger (including Savoy, Tony's brother Chow, and even John, though he doesn't pursue it, out of loyalty to Tony). The two biggest factions are E.G.G., a stripe-and-beret-wearing group of political terrorists, and the Cult of the Immaculate Ova. Where E.G.G. are politically based and haven't made a great deal of traction plot-wise, the Ova Cult is a full-blown religious sect.
The Ova Cult was founded by Alani Adobo, a native of the island of Yamapalu. As the Chewniverse is in great need of chicken substitutes, a strange fruit called the Gallsberry was discovered on this island that tasted remarkably-- almost identically-- like chicken when it is cooked. However, when eaten raw (or by a cibopath), it gives strange visions of... space! Civil war broke out on Yamapalu following the governor's ban on chicken; a competing faux-chicken seller (marketing chicken/frog hybrid chogs) had an agent set fire to the Gallsberry trees. (Also, Yamapalu had found a national hero in the ridiculously overpowered fighting rooster, Poyo. Civil war in the name of a luchador rooster? Sure.) In the midst of this chaos, Alani Adobo fled on a cargo boat smuggling the last Gallsberries. For weeks, she survived on nothing but the Gallsberry (now extinct for the most part), and saw what we can only assume are really scary space visions. In her gospel, the chicken-eaters bring the apocalypse upon the world, and they are to be killed for the greater good.
(The Chog manufacturer, by the way? Ray Jack Montero-- knew about the avian flu prior to its occurence almost 4 years ago. How or why hasn't quite been explained.)
Adobo's reliability and power is aided by the fact that the visions let her predict a certain cosmic event before it happened. Remember when I said that NASA overtook the F.D.A. as the most powerful government agency in the world? This happened because, around last Thanksgiving, mysterious and indecipherable flaming text appeared in the skies around the world. No linguist could figure it out, and the one person who did (possessing miraculous problem-solving abilities that were only active while he was eating) became both morbidly obese and driven to madness from whatever he'd realized. Therefore, the food-based agencies lost power that was allocated to NASA to figure out the sky writing. Whiiiich disappeared on its own. But with the government not helping, the Ova Cult has taken enforcing the no-chicken rule into its own hands, violently breaking into chicken speakeasies, poisoning food and drink meant for chicken eaters, and so on.
At this point in canon, all of these plot lines exist together, but have not entirely tied into one. There is something to the Gallsberry, and something potentially cosmic about the cibo-powers, but not everything has been revealed. Not yet.
As for Tony? He and Colby have just been fired from the F.D.A. for screwing up an Ova Cult bust; he was taken hostage by his girlfriend's crazy ex and forced to eat exhumed baseball player bits; he's been hospitalized for several weeks and has just figured out how to (sort of) walk without crutches. All he wants is to get back to putting the puzzle pieces together again.
Personality:
First and foremost, Tony Chu’s most obvious trait is that he is a good cop. Not just a good cop-- THE good cop. Straight-laced, a stickler to the rules, and intolerant of crime to the point of inconvenience, he's almost too textbook good to be convenient or flexible. Only when another person pushes him out of his comfort zone as a law-abiding, rule-following officer-- or in times of extreme distress-- does he allow himself to move outside of the select boundaries. (Watch Tony with John Colby, and the full effect of the good cop-bad cop duo shows clearly.) This isn't to say that he's a poor cop, however. He's simply an idealistic man with a deep dedication to the system—to the way that things “should” work—despite all its failings. As an officer of the law, he doesn't tend to act for his own interests: he's legitimately a guy working to do good for the sake of justice itself. However, as Tony’s unhappily discovered, it takes a lot more than willpower to make the law work for one’s own benefit, and even then, it doesn’t always prevail. Under-appreciated, often disrespected, and just a little bit bitter about how his job doesn’t always make any progress worth mentioning at all, Tony’s typically an unhappy person. Or at least vaguely dissatisfied. Working with the rules as he's obligated himself to do, he doesn't always tend to see justice done in a timely fashion, if at all-- his lawful good idealism is rarely satisfied pushing papers and sifting through old cases.
Which means that, predictably, Tony is one hell of a workhorse. His job is often thankless, he’s pushed around and belittled by a boss that hates him, frequently gets beat up and/or forced to eat terrible things, doesn’t always succeed or get the lead he wants… but despite it all, Tony keeps going. It’s for the sake of finding the truth and exposing/catching criminals as much as it is for never giving up a lead or leaving something he’s started unfinished. He’s persistent to a fault, and he makes it a rule to see all things through to an end, even when the process itself isn't something that makes him all that happy.
This isn’t a good thing all the way around, though. Tony’s a far better cop than he is a parent, a friend, or a sibling. Turns out, throwing yourself fully into work makes it very difficult to socialize or maintain personal relationships! Which is exactly what he wants. The majority of his family either dislikes him or doesn’t care enough to have an opinion on him, and the closest thing Tony has to a friend in canon is Colby, who was assigned to hang around him for the better part of a decade and some change anyway. He’s always been a rather prickly person, but after the death of his wife Min, which is described as the “greatest loss of his life” Tony found fully opening up emotionally to others difficult, and to this day he still hasn’t completely gotten over the death of his first love. (He keeps her toe in the freezer for Reasons. Don’t worry, she gave it to him, and they’re actual and slightly less creepy reasons.) The “things [he had] to work through” after Min’s death are never truly resolved; he distances himself from his family; he lets his older sister Rosemary raise his daughter Olive instead of stepping forward himself. In the end, it’s a hell of a lot easier to bust criminals than to deal with your emotions. Sticking to work over his personal life allows him to avoid having to resolve his problems in the most productive way possible. On the opposite end, though, turning this distant nature into a habit has created the least useful result ever: Tony now takes his loved ones for granted, with the exception of Amelia (as he’s still pretty head-over-heels for her) and a partial-exception for Colby (who keeps getting seriously injured/put in mortal peril for Tony’s sake). He cares about his folks and partner, of course, but he’s gotten more-or-less complacent. Of course nothing will happen to his family again. He’s already lost once, and it seems like they’ve been there and okay forever, so of course they will be there forever—right? (Then his sister dies and everything goes to hell, but that’s later.)
Continuing on his personal life, a whole lot of the bitterness that Tony feels in general stems from his childhood. He's by far the unfavorite amongst his family, having been bullied and teased for most of his childhood (and, well, adulthood) by his older brother Chow. The only people who actively seem to like him are his mother and twin sister Toni. As a particularly geeky preteen and teen with noticeably weird dietary habits (beets, beets, and more beets, thanks to his power), he was also teased at school in his youth, leading him to become a rather verbally defensive person. Until he figured out how to defend himself properly with a weedier frame, it was really all he could put forward to protect himself. Tony never forgets an injustice, and as such, holds grudges easily. (The only exception to this seems to be his partner Colby: over ten years is a long time to spend with someone you can't at least learn to tolerate.) He's quick to take offense or to get annoyed, and he's equally quick to sharpness or sarcasm.
On the other end of the spectrum, Tony is also quick to attach himself to people who treat him well or with some measure of respect. This is how he fell for Min, his high school sweetheart, and for his current girlfriend Amelia, as well as why he trusts his partner John so much: people who treat Tony as anything more than a freak of nature due to his powers are few and far between. (Even if they’re like John, where “treating him normally” means including him in the “indiscriminately be a dick to everyone” umbrella while only sometimes complaining about his weird food powers.) In spite of his bad attitude, if he feels comfortable-- himself-- around someone, it won’t take long for him to deem them a friend. And once this happens, he offers them a rare loyalty and dedication: not quite as much as work, of course, but still.
The weird things that happen to Tony aren’t usually this long-term, but he’ll more or less take being tossed aboard Tu Vishan with stride. Hell, he’s worked with a murderous cybernetic rooster, a giant turtle island is far from the strangest thing that he’s ever encountered. He’s also just gotten fired, and then spent several long weeks in the hospital after an extremely unpleasant hostage situation. Being active and able to do actually useful detective work again will be something he looks forward to, and he’ll do what he can to remain active and vigilant while on the turtle.
Appearance: one, two, three
Abilities:
Tony Chu was part of the Philadelphia Police Department for over ten years and an agent of the F.D.A. special crimes division for several months; as such, he can use a gun, is clever enough to help solve frequent criminal cases, and is physically fit enough to hold his own in a fight. But Tony really shines in his innate ability: cibopathy.
Like the scan says, Tony Chu is a powerful cibopath, and receives psychic readings of the history of anything he ingests. This includes where plants were harvested, how meat was slaughtered, and, should he be made to eat part of a person's body, flashes of their memories and experiences. More recent memories are favored, and more that he eats, the more that he learns. For example, a bit of an unconscious John Colby's blood on his tongue showed Tony who knocked Colby out and how. The blood of a serial killer spilled into his soup showed Tony the names and fates of the man's two recent victims and jumbled knowledge of eleven others; then several bites off his face gave Tony the names, fates, and locations of all thirteen of his victims. If the flesh eaten is not in good condition, the reading will be affected--cremated human ashes gave Tony only a couple strong impressions, with an overwhelming memory of fire. The only food exempt from Tony's cibopathy is beets, for an inexplicable reason.
Cibopaths are also capable of absorbing the abilities of people whose flesh they eat, though Tony is only just becoming conscious of this power. Thus far, he's used this ability to become double jointed, an expert at knots, and to get a pitching arm worthy of a major league baseball player.
Inventory:
-prosthetic right ear
-cell phone
-wallet
-"Tony Chu" hospital ID band
-green hospital gown that doesn't close all the way in the back
-fuzzy pink hospital robe
Suite:
Metal Sector, one floor! Tony doesn't put a lot of emphasis on luxury or his personal life, but the urban, slightly higher tech surroundings in the Metal Sector will make him feel right at home. (As will the gangs. Once a cop, always a cop: he'll be eager to hop back into busting crime.)
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Another day at work in the F.D.A., another bland lunch of beet salad.
He'd been eating the stuff for years-- since he'd discovered their amazing not-delivering-horrible-visions properties, he'd eaten almost nothing else-- so eating them was about as much routine as brushing his teeth or putting his shoes on in the morning. But it was hard to admit on most days that he really liked them, or even did more than vaguely tolerate them. He was human, wasn't he? And what kind of person didn't like the taste of a good steak (sans flashes of cow slaughter, bloodletting, fire and pain and death)?
Tony prodded at one of the ugly sickly purple discs with his fork. It was funny, really. If he were more poetic of a person, he'd think up some complex metaphor for the beets and his life. But that wasn't his thing. Writing was more Amelia's place, really, so he wouldn't even bother.
Across his desk, however, lay a small box containing something that was even less appetizing. Some poor sucker across town killed by a-- what was it? An exploding hamburger, or something. Applebee, generous soul that he was, had managed to acquire some, er, evidence from the scene, and he was to report back with the results as soon as he'd 'worked up the stones to choke down that damn corpse's thumb, Chu, so help me God, or I will fire you'.
Reluctantly, he set down his fork, and reached for the box. If he was going to be miserable, he may as well be functionally miserable, right?
Across the way, Applebee, sitting at his desk, grinned, angelic.
God, he hated this job.
Network:
[Meet Tony Chu.
Though he used to be Philly PD, his new gig was with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-- which means he was an agent of the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world. And just like when he was a cop, he worked a lot of cases and stops a lot of crime.
Except he was just fired. Now he's a meter maid.
Today, he's stranded on the back of a giant turtle. He isn't happy about that, either.]
Officer Anthony Chu. I've... been in the hospital, and was brought here without my badge, but I promise you, I'm not lying about my position. [Tony's voice is measured and calm, but his face is set in his default scowl.] I've been brought up to speed-- for the most part, anyway-- by the locals, but if I'm going to be able to do my job, I'll need more than that. If you can give me any deeper information about why we're here, what to expect in this city, or how I'm supposed to get in touch with the local government, step forward and tell me what you know. Kidnappings, particularly mass kidnappings, are very serious [dozens of people? really?] and I'd prefer to hit the ground running here.
Furthermore, if any other agents are here, contact me as soon as possible. Through the console will work.
[Tony hesitates: for the briefest of moments his agent facade falters as he realizes he really doesn't know how to end this spiel. He finally mutters a 'thank you' under his breath and promptly shuts off the feed.]
Player Information:
Name: Danni
Age: 21
Contact:
Game Cast: Jaime Reyes (DC Comics)
Character Information:
Name: Tony Chu
Canon: Chew (Image Comics)
Canon Point: Before the end of Chew #30.
Age: Unknown, but definitely mid to late thirties. (His age is never stated in canon, but he has a teenage daughter who was born when he was in his early 20's.)
Reference: Meet Tony Chu. (+ Wikipedia)
Setting:
First and foremost? Despite being set in a seemingly normal modern-day setting, the world of Chew is really, really freakin' weird. Strange food powers, plants from space, cybernetic roosters, anti-chicken religions, a would-be apocalypse; bizarre people, places, and events are entirely commonplace and even expected in this world.
The biggest-- or at least the most obvious-- divergence from real world history is the Avian flu, which takes place less than four years prior to Tony's canon point. Where only a few hundred were killed by bird flu in our real world, Chew's version of the disease was a far more widespread and catastrophic epidemic: 23 million people died in the US alone, and 116 million in total died around the world.
As a result, the US government allocates a ridiculous amount of funding and power to the United States Food and Drug Association, making it the most powerful government agency on the planet. (Until all the funds get shifted to NASA, but more on that later.) Chicken and all other poultry products are banned by the F.D.A., with other nations following suit and instituting various forms of poultry-based legislation and red tape. Along with the nationwide chicken prohibition, the F.D.A. also handles most federal level crimes related to food. (And sometimes just the weird stuff.) Unlike our real world F.D.A., Chew's version of the agency has full-blown agents with guns and badges and local offices, sort of like a food-based F.B.I. The chicken prohibition results in a thriving black market economy, with chicken being smuggled, sold, and even served in speakeasy restaurants. Which is where Tony comes in. Prior to joining the F.D.A., he was a cop with the Philadelphia Police Department for at least 14 years; with the bird flu and chicken bans, he's spent a lot of the last 3 of those years doing chicken busts.
Also related to the F.D.A. is the United States Department of Agriculture, which works missions with agents, too-- though they focus on plants and animals rather than directly with food. Because of a tendency for overlap between the two agencies, the U.S.D.A. has a fierce rivalry with the F.D.A., shown when Agent Lin Sae Woo clashes with Tony at Yamapalu for interfering with one of her long-term cases. The U.S.D.A. also happens to be staffed almost entirely by badass busty women accompanied by half-cybernetic animal partners. (Why? Because Chew.) NASA, on the other hand, maintains about as much weirdness as you'd expect in a comic like this: it has agents, as well, one of which is Toni Chu, Tony's twin sister.
Once he is transferred there, Tony's time in the F.D.A. leads him to encounter many people with food based abilities. These abilities tend toward both the strange and the overly specific: men who can make fully functioning weapons out of tortillas or chocolate, a woman with the ability to write so vividly about food that the reader physically tastes it, a man only able to communicate through the dishes he creates, and so on. Tony himself is a cibopath, or someone who receives psychic readings of the history of anything he eats. This ability is extremely powerful, as a cibopath can also absorb the powers of any other person whose flesh they consume. Currently, there are only a few cibopaths in the world: of the ones known are Tony, Mason Savoy (Tony's one-time mentor and current enemy), an unnamed Serbian man, and Tony's daughter Olive. The Serbian man (the "collector" or the "vampire", despite not actually being a vampire) is currently harvesting as many cibo-abilities as possible, leaving dozens of victims in his wake. Mason Savoy is investigating the avian flu on his own terms, working (often violently) outside the law and making an enemy of Tony, who had worked with him while he was affiliated with the FDA. Olive is later taken on as Savoy's apprentice, without her family's knowledge, of course. Cibo-powers apparently run in Tony's family: he had a cibopath ancestor, he knew his daughter would inherit cibopathy, and his twin sister Toni is cibovoyant (she can read the future of any living flesh she bites).
Back to the avian flu, though: there's plenty of people who are suspicious that the bird flu isn't all it's cracked up to be. Many believe that it is a government conspiracy simply covering up something larger (including Savoy, Tony's brother Chow, and even John, though he doesn't pursue it, out of loyalty to Tony). The two biggest factions are E.G.G., a stripe-and-beret-wearing group of political terrorists, and the Cult of the Immaculate Ova. Where E.G.G. are politically based and haven't made a great deal of traction plot-wise, the Ova Cult is a full-blown religious sect.
The Ova Cult was founded by Alani Adobo, a native of the island of Yamapalu. As the Chewniverse is in great need of chicken substitutes, a strange fruit called the Gallsberry was discovered on this island that tasted remarkably-- almost identically-- like chicken when it is cooked. However, when eaten raw (or by a cibopath), it gives strange visions of... space! Civil war broke out on Yamapalu following the governor's ban on chicken; a competing faux-chicken seller (marketing chicken/frog hybrid chogs) had an agent set fire to the Gallsberry trees. (Also, Yamapalu had found a national hero in the ridiculously overpowered fighting rooster, Poyo. Civil war in the name of a luchador rooster? Sure.) In the midst of this chaos, Alani Adobo fled on a cargo boat smuggling the last Gallsberries. For weeks, she survived on nothing but the Gallsberry (now extinct for the most part), and saw what we can only assume are really scary space visions. In her gospel, the chicken-eaters bring the apocalypse upon the world, and they are to be killed for the greater good.
(The Chog manufacturer, by the way? Ray Jack Montero-- knew about the avian flu prior to its occurence almost 4 years ago. How or why hasn't quite been explained.)
Adobo's reliability and power is aided by the fact that the visions let her predict a certain cosmic event before it happened. Remember when I said that NASA overtook the F.D.A. as the most powerful government agency in the world? This happened because, around last Thanksgiving, mysterious and indecipherable flaming text appeared in the skies around the world. No linguist could figure it out, and the one person who did (possessing miraculous problem-solving abilities that were only active while he was eating) became both morbidly obese and driven to madness from whatever he'd realized. Therefore, the food-based agencies lost power that was allocated to NASA to figure out the sky writing. Whiiiich disappeared on its own. But with the government not helping, the Ova Cult has taken enforcing the no-chicken rule into its own hands, violently breaking into chicken speakeasies, poisoning food and drink meant for chicken eaters, and so on.
At this point in canon, all of these plot lines exist together, but have not entirely tied into one. There is something to the Gallsberry, and something potentially cosmic about the cibo-powers, but not everything has been revealed. Not yet.
As for Tony? He and Colby have just been fired from the F.D.A. for screwing up an Ova Cult bust; he was taken hostage by his girlfriend's crazy ex and forced to eat exhumed baseball player bits; he's been hospitalized for several weeks and has just figured out how to (sort of) walk without crutches. All he wants is to get back to putting the puzzle pieces together again.
Personality:
First and foremost, Tony Chu’s most obvious trait is that he is a good cop. Not just a good cop-- THE good cop. Straight-laced, a stickler to the rules, and intolerant of crime to the point of inconvenience, he's almost too textbook good to be convenient or flexible. Only when another person pushes him out of his comfort zone as a law-abiding, rule-following officer-- or in times of extreme distress-- does he allow himself to move outside of the select boundaries. (Watch Tony with John Colby, and the full effect of the good cop-bad cop duo shows clearly.) This isn't to say that he's a poor cop, however. He's simply an idealistic man with a deep dedication to the system—to the way that things “should” work—despite all its failings. As an officer of the law, he doesn't tend to act for his own interests: he's legitimately a guy working to do good for the sake of justice itself. However, as Tony’s unhappily discovered, it takes a lot more than willpower to make the law work for one’s own benefit, and even then, it doesn’t always prevail. Under-appreciated, often disrespected, and just a little bit bitter about how his job doesn’t always make any progress worth mentioning at all, Tony’s typically an unhappy person. Or at least vaguely dissatisfied. Working with the rules as he's obligated himself to do, he doesn't always tend to see justice done in a timely fashion, if at all-- his lawful good idealism is rarely satisfied pushing papers and sifting through old cases.
Which means that, predictably, Tony is one hell of a workhorse. His job is often thankless, he’s pushed around and belittled by a boss that hates him, frequently gets beat up and/or forced to eat terrible things, doesn’t always succeed or get the lead he wants… but despite it all, Tony keeps going. It’s for the sake of finding the truth and exposing/catching criminals as much as it is for never giving up a lead or leaving something he’s started unfinished. He’s persistent to a fault, and he makes it a rule to see all things through to an end, even when the process itself isn't something that makes him all that happy.
This isn’t a good thing all the way around, though. Tony’s a far better cop than he is a parent, a friend, or a sibling. Turns out, throwing yourself fully into work makes it very difficult to socialize or maintain personal relationships! Which is exactly what he wants. The majority of his family either dislikes him or doesn’t care enough to have an opinion on him, and the closest thing Tony has to a friend in canon is Colby, who was assigned to hang around him for the better part of a decade and some change anyway. He’s always been a rather prickly person, but after the death of his wife Min, which is described as the “greatest loss of his life” Tony found fully opening up emotionally to others difficult, and to this day he still hasn’t completely gotten over the death of his first love. (He keeps her toe in the freezer for Reasons. Don’t worry, she gave it to him, and they’re actual and slightly less creepy reasons.) The “things [he had] to work through” after Min’s death are never truly resolved; he distances himself from his family; he lets his older sister Rosemary raise his daughter Olive instead of stepping forward himself. In the end, it’s a hell of a lot easier to bust criminals than to deal with your emotions. Sticking to work over his personal life allows him to avoid having to resolve his problems in the most productive way possible. On the opposite end, though, turning this distant nature into a habit has created the least useful result ever: Tony now takes his loved ones for granted, with the exception of Amelia (as he’s still pretty head-over-heels for her) and a partial-exception for Colby (who keeps getting seriously injured/put in mortal peril for Tony’s sake). He cares about his folks and partner, of course, but he’s gotten more-or-less complacent. Of course nothing will happen to his family again. He’s already lost once, and it seems like they’ve been there and okay forever, so of course they will be there forever—right? (Then his sister dies and everything goes to hell, but that’s later.)
Continuing on his personal life, a whole lot of the bitterness that Tony feels in general stems from his childhood. He's by far the unfavorite amongst his family, having been bullied and teased for most of his childhood (and, well, adulthood) by his older brother Chow. The only people who actively seem to like him are his mother and twin sister Toni. As a particularly geeky preteen and teen with noticeably weird dietary habits (beets, beets, and more beets, thanks to his power), he was also teased at school in his youth, leading him to become a rather verbally defensive person. Until he figured out how to defend himself properly with a weedier frame, it was really all he could put forward to protect himself. Tony never forgets an injustice, and as such, holds grudges easily. (The only exception to this seems to be his partner Colby: over ten years is a long time to spend with someone you can't at least learn to tolerate.) He's quick to take offense or to get annoyed, and he's equally quick to sharpness or sarcasm.
On the other end of the spectrum, Tony is also quick to attach himself to people who treat him well or with some measure of respect. This is how he fell for Min, his high school sweetheart, and for his current girlfriend Amelia, as well as why he trusts his partner John so much: people who treat Tony as anything more than a freak of nature due to his powers are few and far between. (Even if they’re like John, where “treating him normally” means including him in the “indiscriminately be a dick to everyone” umbrella while only sometimes complaining about his weird food powers.) In spite of his bad attitude, if he feels comfortable-- himself-- around someone, it won’t take long for him to deem them a friend. And once this happens, he offers them a rare loyalty and dedication: not quite as much as work, of course, but still.
The weird things that happen to Tony aren’t usually this long-term, but he’ll more or less take being tossed aboard Tu Vishan with stride. Hell, he’s worked with a murderous cybernetic rooster, a giant turtle island is far from the strangest thing that he’s ever encountered. He’s also just gotten fired, and then spent several long weeks in the hospital after an extremely unpleasant hostage situation. Being active and able to do actually useful detective work again will be something he looks forward to, and he’ll do what he can to remain active and vigilant while on the turtle.
Appearance: one, two, three
Abilities:
Tony Chu was part of the Philadelphia Police Department for over ten years and an agent of the F.D.A. special crimes division for several months; as such, he can use a gun, is clever enough to help solve frequent criminal cases, and is physically fit enough to hold his own in a fight. But Tony really shines in his innate ability: cibopathy.
Like the scan says, Tony Chu is a powerful cibopath, and receives psychic readings of the history of anything he ingests. This includes where plants were harvested, how meat was slaughtered, and, should he be made to eat part of a person's body, flashes of their memories and experiences. More recent memories are favored, and more that he eats, the more that he learns. For example, a bit of an unconscious John Colby's blood on his tongue showed Tony who knocked Colby out and how. The blood of a serial killer spilled into his soup showed Tony the names and fates of the man's two recent victims and jumbled knowledge of eleven others; then several bites off his face gave Tony the names, fates, and locations of all thirteen of his victims. If the flesh eaten is not in good condition, the reading will be affected--cremated human ashes gave Tony only a couple strong impressions, with an overwhelming memory of fire. The only food exempt from Tony's cibopathy is beets, for an inexplicable reason.
Cibopaths are also capable of absorbing the abilities of people whose flesh they eat, though Tony is only just becoming conscious of this power. Thus far, he's used this ability to become double jointed, an expert at knots, and to get a pitching arm worthy of a major league baseball player.
Inventory:
-prosthetic right ear
-cell phone
-wallet
-"Tony Chu" hospital ID band
-green hospital gown that doesn't close all the way in the back
-fuzzy pink hospital robe
Suite:
Metal Sector, one floor! Tony doesn't put a lot of emphasis on luxury or his personal life, but the urban, slightly higher tech surroundings in the Metal Sector will make him feel right at home. (As will the gangs. Once a cop, always a cop: he'll be eager to hop back into busting crime.)
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Another day at work in the F.D.A., another bland lunch of beet salad.
He'd been eating the stuff for years-- since he'd discovered their amazing not-delivering-horrible-visions properties, he'd eaten almost nothing else-- so eating them was about as much routine as brushing his teeth or putting his shoes on in the morning. But it was hard to admit on most days that he really liked them, or even did more than vaguely tolerate them. He was human, wasn't he? And what kind of person didn't like the taste of a good steak (sans flashes of cow slaughter, bloodletting, fire and pain and death)?
Tony prodded at one of the ugly sickly purple discs with his fork. It was funny, really. If he were more poetic of a person, he'd think up some complex metaphor for the beets and his life. But that wasn't his thing. Writing was more Amelia's place, really, so he wouldn't even bother.
Across his desk, however, lay a small box containing something that was even less appetizing. Some poor sucker across town killed by a-- what was it? An exploding hamburger, or something. Applebee, generous soul that he was, had managed to acquire some, er, evidence from the scene, and he was to report back with the results as soon as he'd 'worked up the stones to choke down that damn corpse's thumb, Chu, so help me God, or I will fire you'.
Reluctantly, he set down his fork, and reached for the box. If he was going to be miserable, he may as well be functionally miserable, right?
Across the way, Applebee, sitting at his desk, grinned, angelic.
God, he hated this job.
Network:
[Meet Tony Chu.
Though he used to be Philly PD, his new gig was with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-- which means he was an agent of the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world. And just like when he was a cop, he worked a lot of cases and stops a lot of crime.
Except he was just fired. Now he's a meter maid.
Today, he's stranded on the back of a giant turtle. He isn't happy about that, either.]
Officer Anthony Chu. I've... been in the hospital, and was brought here without my badge, but I promise you, I'm not lying about my position. [Tony's voice is measured and calm, but his face is set in his default scowl.] I've been brought up to speed-- for the most part, anyway-- by the locals, but if I'm going to be able to do my job, I'll need more than that. If you can give me any deeper information about why we're here, what to expect in this city, or how I'm supposed to get in touch with the local government, step forward and tell me what you know. Kidnappings, particularly mass kidnappings, are very serious [dozens of people? really?] and I'd prefer to hit the ground running here.
Furthermore, if any other agents are here, contact me as soon as possible. Through the console will work.
[Tony hesitates: for the briefest of moments his agent facade falters as he realizes he really doesn't know how to end this spiel. He finally mutters a 'thank you' under his breath and promptly shuts off the feed.]