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Player Information
Name: Claire
Age: 25
Contact details: PM to journal, or superorbital @ plurk
Other characters: Bryn Pendragon
Character Information
Name: Yuuri Wakasa (CRAU: Yuuri Tenmyouji)
Canon: School-Live! (manga)
Canon Point: School-Live!: Somewhere nebulously between chapter 54 ('Life') and 55 ('Scout') – post the events of chapter 54, but not quite chapter 55 yet. Her Airlocked canonpoint is ~2ish years past the end of the game.
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: CRAU
Age: 22
World Information: A normal, modern day world that gets derailed sometime in 2012 in Japan when an outbreak of a zombie virus caused society to grind to a halt. There's survivors scattered around the world but things are looking pretty grim, as of her canonpoint.
As of her CRAU canonpoint, Yuuri is deadass just living in the Persona 5 version of Tokyo, circa 2020. Doncha just love murdergames.
Personal History:
Personality:
If the School Living Club can be called a family, then Yuuri Wakasa – “Rii-san” to her friends – is unquestionably the big sister. Though all of the girls in the club are third years (save Miki, a second year) Yuuri is without a doubt the most mature and capable of the three seniors. She’s kind and patient, attending to her duties with nary a complaint and though she’s known to be strict at times she’s rarely known to really lose her temper. That doesn't mean she's above delivering a scolding when it's called for, of course. On top of this she’s intelligent and adaptable, quick witted enough to come up with plans to get her friends out of danger and conjure up clever fibs to play along with Yuki’s delusions of a normal school life. It’s these qualities along with an air of level-headedness and steadfast determination to protect the people she loves that secures her role as the de facto leader (and the actual president) of the School Living Club. Though there’s no one else around to reinforce that, the girls naturally defect to Yuuri’s leadership and Yuuri herself isn’t afraid to exert its influence to make sure the things she believes are needed get done. It’s a role she takes very seriously – after all her duties include not only planning and cooking all the girls’ meals but managing all the resources in the school and keeping track of everything that gets used. While Kurumi is the one keeping the girls safe on a day-to-day basis with her patrols, it’s Yuuri who keeps the girls alive in the long term.
Essentially, in the absence of a real adult authority figure Yuuri has had to step into that role. The girls were lucky enough to initially be trapped in the school with one of their teachers, Megumi Sakura and in the wake of her death Yuuri found herself having to take “Megu-nee’s” place as teacher, leader and mature big sister. Like the other girls in the club, Yuuri greatly admired Megumi and has modeled much of her behavior as a 'leader' on her idealized version of Megumi. This is evident in the way she communicates with Yuki and manages her during difficult moments. Her patience and her inclination towards being the disciplinarian without raising her voice out of a pleasant lilt very strongly echo Megumi as she was shown to handle Yuki. Even the way she effortlessly manages Yuki’s delusions remind one of a teacher who is used to playing along with a particularly imaginative child and helping them deal with the world and what’s expected of them with their own vocabulary. She takes on the role of Yuki’s teacher quite readily too and is fully prepared to ensure that Yuki continues to learn and have a fulfilling school life even in the confines of the School Living Club.
Of course, in the situation the School Living Club are in no one can be expected to be quite so level headed and perfect all the time. And the fact of the matter is quite simply that Yuuri is not. While she’s done an excellent job of crafting a mask for herself the truth is that Yuuri is nowhere near as strong or stable as she would like people to believe. While Yuki and Kurumi are free to wear their hearts on their sleeves, Yuuri goes to great pains to cover up her own worries and fears. She internalizes dreadfully and boxes up her true feelings without any intention of letting them out. This is in part a survival mechanism. Yuuri knows that in a situation like the School Living Club, everyone is teetering on the edge. She does not deal with her internalized feelings because she can not. The School Living Club needs a leader to survive and in casting herself in that role, Yuuri feels as though she has to be the adult at all times. She forces herself to be the pillar of calm no matter how she truly feels and the weight of all her responsibilities lays heavily on her shoulders. After all, it’s not just herself that Yuuri is trying to keep alive but three other people too. She desperately loves the School Living Club and puts all her effort into being what she thinks they need.
This effort is incredibly admirable - going by the dates in her accounts book, Yuuri has managed to keep the School Living Club going for almost half a year. However, she does so by carefully and delicately maintaining a status quo and keeping the girls in limbo in the school. She is shown often to be rather passive when it comes to the situation they've found themselves in, only leaving the school when they have absolutely no other choice and even talking absently about them being rescued by some anonymous hero rather than the girls taking any steps to try and save themselves. Yuuri, by her own admission, works and feels best when she's able to be in control and in the closed-off world of the School Living Club she blossoms rather admirably. Unfortunately though, when all that effort comes to nothing and the life she’s carefully built for them falls to pieces around her so does Yuuri. Her breakdown is so explosive that she and Yuki essentially reverse roles with Yuki becoming the caretaker who plays along with Yuuri’s delusions to help keep her going. She’s deeply co-dependant in this way, to an unhealthy degree – Yuuri needs other people to truly function, whether her role is a protector or the one being protected.
When stripped of a status quo to keep, Yuuri becomes volatile and difficult to deal with. This peeks out in subtle ways when she’s more in control – for example, when Miki quite rightly points out that the way she treats Yuki’s delusions is unhealthy, Yuuri loses her temper and is on the verge of snapping before Kurumi intervenes. Once Yuuri falls apart this is exacerbated to a great degree. While maintaining a façade of calmness, she becomes much more stubborn and even prone to recklessness. She’s able to keep up her calm front for some time but gradually becomes more short tempered and unwilling to listen to reason. When in this sort of state, Yuuri is prone to growing hysterical over her own failings, perceived or otherwise, sinking into spirals of guilt and self-deprecation over her own powerlessness. Disturbingly, she’s even shown the potential to be violent when provoked in the right way. Among other instances, when Kurumi is infected Yuuri comes within seconds of stabbing her to death to prevent her from turning and is apparently only stopped from doing so when Miki returns to the club.
It should be noted that Yuuri reaching her breaking point in such a spectacular way is very much a worst case scenario. The environment of the School Living Club understandably pushes everyone to the edge and Yuuri only truly falls apart when their once safe haven is damaged beyond repair, forcing them to leave the school behind into a world of anxiety and terror. Yuuri can handle danger fine and she can adapt quickly to being thrown curveballs. But she can only handle so much before she starts to come apart at the seams and as she had once said to Miki, they aren’t professionals and there’s only so much they can do to help. While the amount she can take is truly admirable, Yuuri goes to great lengths to ensure that people can’t see her breaking points. Unfortunately, she’s done such a good job at this that Yuuri herself has even forgotten where those breaking points are.
CRAU developments:
- The easiest way to get across the differences in Yuuri pre- and post-Airlocked is that Yuuri in canon is someone only really pretending to have their shit together, while Yuuri after Airlocked is a person actually approaching genuinely having their shit together. ... Mostly.
Her time during Airlocked forced her through a great deal of personal growth very quickly, both as a matter of survival and because it was much safer for her to be able to do so now she wasn't in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Though she initially tried very hard to keep her walls up, she found very quickly that surviving a murdergame isn't quite the same as surviving Suddenly, Zombies and she very quickly found herself not only bonding strongly with people, but starting to examine parts of the tightly structured roles she'd allowed to control her life. She gradually grew much more willing to be open with people, less quick to beat herself up for perceived failures and in general, got to a point where she truly was the capable, reliable young woman she'd been going through the motions of becoming before.
That's certainly not to say that she's perfect, of course. Yuuri's much more willing to be open about her feelings and worries, but she's still a very private girl – that's an issue of nature, not nurture. It can be difficult to try and get into her circle of trust, and if you push too hard then she'll close up completely. She's also a touch overprotective of the people she cares about. For the most part, she tries to limit herself to an acceptable amount of fussing, but if she's not kept in check then she can occasionally escalate into being a bit smothering, and she can take it personally if she's told to tone it down.
It comes from a well-meaning sort of place, though. After having her life turned upside down not just once, but three entire times, Yuuri's come to have an incredibly deep appreciation for how precious the peace she's found for herself is. As of her entry into VT, it will have been over two years since she settled into her life in Tokyo, but she's tried very hard to make sure she never takes any of it, or the people she loves for granted – because she's deeply and painfully aware of just how suddenly, and how very horribly, things can go so terribly wrong. All she can do is enjoy the time she has now and pray with all her heart that it never ends.
Key themes: Recovery from trauma, rediscovery of self-worth, the family you make for yourself.
Main Motivation: In short, survival. As a survivor of a whole load of long-term, traumatic situations, Yuuri's priority in any situation is survival of herself and the people she cares about.
Skills:
- Survivalist: Yuuri has spent an indeterminate amount of time (at least half the length of a Japanese school year, but probably more) surviving in what amounts to an incredibly dangerous siege situation. Not only has Yuuri managed to keep both herself and her friends alive but they have managed to actually create a comfortable life for themselves... well, as comfortable as you can expect to be in a zombie apocalypse. Yuki is the mood maker, but it's Yuuri who does the hard work of keeping their resources plentiful enough that the girls can live with relative ease.
[ARMIGER NOISES]: Thanks to a certain ex-genocidal lunatic (Airlocked!Ardyn), Yuuri has access to part of the Armiger's magic (though only so long as he's generally Around, of course). She can access the Armiger's big ol' hammerspace to materialize (or dematerialize) weapons or any other items she might need, but only things that she's capable of lifting herself. Just for full disclosure's sake, she also has access to the rest of the Armiger's magic (warping, elemancy) but doesn't use them for the simple fact of the matter that she's uhhhh not good at it.
Nanomachines, son!: Yuuri's blood is pumped full of self-replicating nanomachines that promote accelerated healing. Not enough to instantly regenerate or anything quite that ridiculous, but notably quicker than most unenhanced human beings. Additionally, in more mundane settings, these nanites act as universal translators, but that function is of course redundant in VT.
Cooking: Yuuri's an excellent cook, partly through necessity and mostly because she genuinely enjoys cooking. Her particular specialty is Japanese food, but she's just as good at pretty much anything she cares to try her hand at. Let Yuuri Wakasa feed you a delicious dinner.
Green Thumb: Yuuri was a member of the gardening club before the outbreak and is the one who maintains the rooftop garden that provides the School Living Club with vegetables. She does such a good job of it that the girls have a steady stream of good quality vegetables to eat, even in their isolation in the school. Coming into VT, she's also just graduated from a botanical college and started work managing a small flower shop, so Rii-san knows her stuff.
SORDS: While she is Absolutely Not a fighter in her own right, Yuuri spent some time during Airlocked being trained on how to fight using a sword from two pretty experienced teachers. She's long since dropped it and has no intentions of starting to learn again, but if she's in an emergency and that's all she's got to hand, she'd have at least a semi-decent idea of how to handle it.
Item: An up-to-date 2019 Japanese smartphone in a sleek purple case. There's... not really anything super interesting to say about it. RIP in Rii-san.
Sample: Getting the lay of the train with Ardyn on the TDM
Notes: i don't have anything else to add, so have a dumb shitpost
