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[vibing]

★ Character Information ★

Character Name: Yuri Lowell
Character Age: 21
Character Species: Human
Current Health: Physically healthy
Outfit: Black kimono-style shirt with pink trim, black belt (tied poorly) tight black pants, tall black leather boots, a chunky gold bracelet that holds a blastia, one leather fingerless glove

Character Canon: Tales of Vesperia (Definitive Edition)
Link to History: linky with additional headcanon to fill in some gaps
Canon Point: After Pharaoh attacks Dahngrest (2019)
Canon Iteration: Original canon

★ Folkmore Roles & Attributes ★

Skills:
- Sword fighting
- Combat artes
- Empathy
- Making morally sound but functionally ambiguous decisions<
Canon Abilities: No inherent abilities, but he has a blastia that lets him use artes, or fancy magic moves. Yuri is limited to combat artes, which require the use of a sword or an axe and his blastia to complete. He can use arcane and burst artes, which are just stronger forms of artes, some of which are elemental in nature.
Role: Familiar
Role Qualities/Attributes: He can turn into a black cat, and will retain his cat ears and tail as a human.
Role Reasoning: Yuri could be either any of the types: his motivations are good and selfless, but his methods are dark. He masks his emotions, but his emotions are strong and guide him. I’m choosing Familiar because of the canonpoint I’m taking him from: his only function at this point is to help others. His sole goal is to regain the blastia needed to give his community water again. He never rejects anyone’s plea for help, he positions himself as team mom and feels a desperate need to prove that he’s useful. I hope to have Yuri shift into the other types as the game progresses, or if I canon update him, and to have his type reflect his self-perception.

★ Personality ★

Option 2.

What is the most important and defining relationship(s) in your character's life and why?
Yuri’s most defining relationship is his best friend, Flynn Scifo. They are positioned as two sides of the same coin: Yuri is the night, Flynn is the day, a demon and an angel, you get the picture. They grew up together, two orphans who were each other’s only true family, the only people they could truly rely on. They made a pact to change the world together, but chose a path much more suited to Flynn’s strengths: joining the Imperial Knights. Yuri lasted three months before dropping out, and defines himself by Flynn’s success. Because Flynn is successful in the knights, Yuri is a failure because he couldn’t hack it. They push each other, they try to make each other stronger. They see the worst in each other and try to push each other to be better, but often in ways that aren’t actually healthy for either of them. They’re best friends, and Flynn is someone Yuri would die for without a second thought.

What is a headcanon (or two) you feel strongly about and that you prefer playing your character with? How is this supported in canon and why do you think it benefits the character's story?
I play Yuri as demisexual and some flavor of genderqueer. The character who in another game would be positioned as Yuri’s love interest is instead his metaphorical sister (she’s the Child of the Full Moon, and he’s the star Brave Vesperia, and there’s a whole story about how they’re siblings who saved the world from chaos). Yuri is hit on by women and men throughout the game, and shows no interest at all in any of them, often not even realizing that they’re flirting with him. The only time he shows any hint of romance is when he’s monologuing about Flynn, like when he wonders what Flynn thought when he saw the ocean for the first time. I play Yuri as having no real idea of his own feelings or sexuality, and as someone who’s never felt the urge to explore.

As for being genderqueer, honestly it’s more a vibe than anything. He has he vibe. Sure, he has long hair, but so do half the men in the Tales franchise. Yuri doesn’t have a great sense of self, not in terms of labels or how others might define him, and gender is one of those aspects. He’s been told he’s a man, but he doesn’t really care what that label means to others, and isn’t very attached to it himself. Given the chance and knowledge, I’d love to explore this in the game.

What is your character's moral code? Do they have one? Why or why not?
Yuri believes that everyone should have an equal shot in life, and people who abuse others and take away other people’s power are in the wrong. Twice in the game, Yuri is pitted against men who use their power to abuse others (one feeds townspeople to monsters for fun, the other forces townspeople in his care to labor in untenable conditions in the desert). When the law fails to do anything about these men, because of their power and positions, Yuri kills them. He believes this firmly, and by the end of the game, he uses this belief to stop climate change because he believes that everyone, human and not, deserves a chance to live, and not to be killed because of the sins of their predecessors.

Is your character capable of forgiveness or will they hold a grudge until they die? Would anything ever make them change their mind?
Yuri is capable of forgiveness, if someone is worthy of it. If someone makes amends for whatever wrong they’ve done, if they repent and feel remorse, he forgives easily. One of the main party members, Raven, betrays the party and kidnaps Estelle. However, he then sacrifices himself to help the party escape from a crumbling ruin, and when he turns up alive after that, Yuri, along with the rest of the party, forgive him.

However, the woman who tries to kill him, Sodia, is not forgiven, not because she tried to kill Yuri, but because Yuri doesn’t believe that she is living up to the reason and ideal that she used to justify killing him. She tried to kill him to protect Flynn, believing that Yuri is a bad influence on Flynn, and that Flynn puts himself in undue danger to protect Yuri. But when she sees Yuri again after he recovers, she is away from Flynn, seeking the party’s help instead of helping Flynn in a deadly situation. Yuri tells her she needs to live up to her own ideals. If she were to commit herself fully to her ideals and live by the reasons that she tried to kill him, Yuri could eventually forgive her.

What would your character sacrifice to get what they want or to reach their potential? What have they sacrificed already?
Yuri doesn’t believe that he has potential. He lives in the moment, not really taking into account his future or his past (to an extent). He believes that people make choices, and that those choices define them, but that each new choice is separate and can be treated differently.

In fact, Yuri has sacrificed his potential. He had the potential to be a great knight, he had the skills, but didn’t have the discipline, and failing that, he decided that he was worth nothing, spending three years doing very little except helping out around his hometown.

However, he does have a few motivating characteristics that I want to lean into to slowly move him away from being a Familiar, and to shift between the other two types: He is highly competitive, and he is motivated by helping others. He would sacrifice a lot if a. It meant winning, or b. It meant helping someone in need. He can reach his potential accidentally, or through realizing that he needs to shape up to better help those in need.

★ Player Information ★

Player Name: Mads
Pronouns: they/them
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact(s): spudbud
Who Invited You?: Milk
Current Characters: N/A
Permissions: Here
Writing Samples:
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