Yuuri Wakasa

Player Information
Name: Claire
Age: 24 (well uh, 24 now but I turn 25 on Feb 1st ?? THAT'S WAY MORE INFO THAN YOU ASKED FOR)
Contact: superorbital | superorbits | mytarget
Other Characters: None

Character Information
Name: Yuuri Wakasa
Canon: School-Live! (manga)
Canon Point: Chapter 61
Age: 19
History:

School-Live! on Wikipedia
Chapter summaries on the School-Live! wiki
Yuuri on the School-Live! wiki

(If these aren't sufficient, let me know and I'll be happy to write out a more detailed history myself!)

Personality:

❝I'm here. And I will always be, from now on.❞

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 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 is 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.

Abilities & Skills:

Survivalist
As of her canonpoint, Yuuri spent almost a full year surviving with her friends in the midst of the zombie apocalypse, in which they were holed up in their school. Not only did she manage to keep both herself and her friends alive but they also somehow actually created a comfortable life for themselves... well, as comfortable as you can expect to be in a zombie apocalypse. Yuki may have been the mood maker, but was Yuuri who did the hard work of keeping their resources plentiful enough that the girls could live with relative ease.

Cooking
Yuuri is the one who cooks all the meals for the School Living Club and there's every indication that she's a very good cook. Despite only having access to limited ingredients and mostly instant food, Yuuri manages to provide the girls with varied meals that are nutritious enough to have kept them healthy the whole time they were trapped in the school. It should also be noted that she's an incredibly efficient cook as well -- she's had to be, given the importance of rationing their meals.

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.

Quick-witted
Yuuri is a remarkably fast thinker and has shown time and time again that she's able to come up with plans and tactics on the fly to get herself and her friends out of danger – this is something that sticks with her even in later chapters where she exhibits more irrational and erratic behavior. She's been responsible for saving lives more than once and she's the primary reason Yuki's delusion of a happy school life was kept alive as long as it was.

Resourceful
Being stuck in Megurigaoka means that Yuuri has been forced to learn to use what she has at hand to get things done. She's limited only to what the school can provide but she shows time and again that she's able to make minimal resources or the tiniest opportunity that's presented to her and make the very best of it. She's incredibly resourceful which ties in well with her quick wits.

Inventory/Companions: Just the clothes on her back – so her regular old school uniform.

Choice: Witch
Reason: Yuuri has a WHOLE LOT of trauma wrapped up in the idea of a forced transformation into something monstrous/nonhuman, so going through a similar transformation herself would be upsetting for her in a way that for me, OOCly, would just be unfun to play. On the other hand, having her as a Witch presents lots of opportunities to both push Yuuri out of her comfort zone as well as playing to her strengths.

also she has a bunch of really cute witchy looking outfits in some of the illustrations the mangaka did of her and i want an excuse to dress her up in game. i am NOT ashamed.

Sample: A TDM thread with Kurumi, but it's pretty short so there's also a PSL thread here! (though a quick cw in the last one for canon-typical discussions of child endangerment)