Yosuke Hanamura (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
epicfailure) wrote2013-08-04 12:50 pm
epicfailure) wrote2013-08-04 12:50 pm
henlein; app
Mun info
▒ Handle/Name: Em
▒ Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
EmmaBeds
▒ Other Characters: N/A
▒ Proof of Established Activity: N/A
Character Info
▒ Character Name: Yosuke Hanamura
▒ Canon Name: Persona 4
▒ Canon Point: A few weeks after pushing Namatame into the TV, killing him and triggering the game's bad end.
▒ Age: 17, though in his mind post memory loss, he's 16
▒ Appearance:
▒ Setting: wiki
▒ Abilities: Yosuke has the capacity within him to summon a 'persona'. Personae are manifestations of a person's 'Shadow', in the Jungian sense, and act as a 'facade' with which a person interacts with the dangers of the world. In Persona, instead of these being metaphysical manifestations, a person's persona is a very real entity that can affect the world around them. In Yosuke's case, his persona is Jiraiya (or Susano-o, Jiraiya's evolution, though with all that Yosuke's forgotten about his development as a person, Susano-o is not yet on the table for him). He gained Jiraiya after confronting the parts of himself he did not want to show he world.
However, due to all the realizations and developments Yosuke no longer remembers, Jiraiya has reverted back into a shadow. It lives inside Yosuke, setting his clock back to the beginning of the game. He still has the capacity to wield a persona, but it will take some key memories to reawaken that ability. Otherwise, he is a completely average teenage boy.
▒ Personality:
When it comes down to it, Yosuke Hanamura is a kid who doesn’t know what he wants.
He has some idea of what he should want, sure. There's no way to forget what he’s supposed to be doing with his life: get good grades, don’t slack off at work, be responsible and begin the transition into adulthood as smoothly as possible. Be self possessed, sure of himself, and a better man than he could ever really hope to be. But unlike those who rise to their cultures’ high expectations, Yosuke buckles underneath their weight. Where’s the thrill in adulthood? Where’s the freedom in choosing a single path? Yosuke isn’t exactly a free spirit -- far from it, actually -- and his heavy reservations over growing up are based more off a fear of failing those around him by simply being himself. Shaken together in an insecurity cocktail, Yosuke finds himself desperate to meet a standard that his low self-esteem asserts he’ll never attain. He throws everything into winning the approval of others and pushes his own needs to the back burner. But even when he gets the validation he’s after, it never comes with the feeling of relief he hopes for. His nerves are always there in the back of his mind, terrified of making even one misstep and sending his carefully constructed happy-go-lucky, takes-being-the-butt-of-every-joke-with-a-smile, will-totally-pay-for-this-one-guys-no-problem persona toppling over. If anyone ever actually got to know him, Yosuke was positive they would have absolutely no reason to stick around.
And, unfortunately, that fear was something of a self fulfilling prophecy. Yosuke’s over eager behavior and desperateness to please wasn’t only exhausting for him, but for everyone around him. If you sent him a text, he’d respond within thirty seconds (and then another ten minutes later, asking if his text went through. And then another in an hour, asking if everything’s alright. And then another wondering if your phone is broken. And then six more apologizing for being such a needy idiot, lol, sry man jst me being stupd!). If you already have plans when he asks to hang out, it’s hard for him to read it as anything other than a rejection of his entire existence. No matter how you sliced it, it was hard being friends with Yosuke Hanamura. And while it can still be (very) hard, the emphasis there is on 'was'.
Before moving to the small town of Inaba in anticipation of a new Junes location, most of the kids at his Tokyo school are tired of him or were never that close to begin with. Once Yosuke leaves his home in the city (and god does he miss it; the lights, the crowds, the noise), responses to his texts get slower and slower until stopping completely. Combined with being dropped in a town that despises what he and his family symbolize (not much room for local business when everything's great and dirt cheap at your Junes), his loneliness reaches a new low. That isolation is compounded when it’s revealed that the one person who gave him the time of day in Inaba -- Saki Konishi, whom he had a hopeless crush on -- is killed and shown to have secretly been as irritated and exhausted with him as everyone else. His shadow was born of that encounter, and with it a new found sense of self-awareness.
That incident was the kick in the pants Yosuke really needed, and his change from there on out is as important as it is slow going.
Yosuke still separates “people” and “people who he trusts to accept him” in separate categories. Working in retail for his father’s store -- the mega shopping emporium, Junes -- has given him a knack for customer service. It will be an unsettling day when Yosuke realizes just how good a salesman he is. It's this 'persona' that most strangers get; all bright smiles and politeness and how may I help you, sir or madam? Remember, every day is customer appreciation day at Junes!
The people whom he’s close to and trusts get a different picture. Yosuke can be solemn, passionate, proud, insensitive, vulnerable, and intensely furious when riled. However, his inherent snark and clumsy inexperience when it comes to being himself around people can lead to many unfortunate foot-in-mouth moments. His ribbing and teasing can certainly go too far, although being called on it usually leads to an apology (if his defensive teenage streak allows) or a speedy subject change. When it doesn’t, a quick threat of physical violence is a surefire way to send him cowering. If there’s one thing Yosuke avoids unless pressed to his brink, it’s confrontation. Even with all the growing he’s done overtime, the fear of losing all he’s gained still lurks in the back of his mind.
And what does he stand to lose? Only the best friends a guy could possibly luck into. While he has an unique relationship with each of his his teammates -- Chie is like a sister (a really annoying sister who he loves like hell); Kanji triples as his competition, friend and kohai; Rise is the girl of his dreams (and in the real world, a good friend who actually seems to like his jokes); Naoto, the detective who's serious demeanor clashes with his own, making her all the more fun to tease; Yukiko, the girl he'll probably never be as close to thanks to Chie and his own awkwardness, but cares about deeply; and Teddie, his charge, little brother, bear-thing, and the one person he truly feels solely responsible for.
His closest relationship is with Souji, his best friend. Together since the beginning, Yosuke dubbed them 'partners' early on. At first, this was in relation to the case for the most part; they'd made their promise to Teddie to find the murderer and they were going to solve it together, as a team. But as the case wore on, their numbers grew, and their friendship began taking shape into what would be the most important in Yosuke's life, the nickname stuck. In getting closer and working through the leftover ache of Saki's death, Yosuke is unique in that he takes Souji off his pedestal as leader from time to time. He finds him to be 'special', but being true equals is by far his priority. Partners, in the truest sense. Yosuke isn't content to simply act as a leech, pouring all his angst onto Souji without giving anything back in return. That may have been enough for him once, but not now; not when he realizes what it's like to truly have a friend.
All those friendships, all that growth, it all amounts to a teenager on the cusp of adulthood scratching at the surface of who he really is and what he really wants. Things aren’t as bad as they used to be. He has genuine friends now, ones that know who he is and like him anyway. It opens his eyes to the possibility that working and working at making people like him isn’t the necessity he thought it was; that maybe people might actually like him. What a concept! Although he still has a long ways to go and many maturity hurdles to jump before he really gets there, he is getting there. Slowly but surely.
While under Henlein's effects, Yosuke will be reverting back to his personality at the very beginning of the initial P4 title. This means that he will be much more shelled off, fake, superficial, and unaccepting of himself. He will balk at the idea of getting very serious with anyone, and he will jump at anything that catches his interest and relieves him of his boredom on even the basest of levels. He will not remember Souji or any of his other friends; even his memories of his parents and Saki-senpai will rolled back to before her death. His level of responsibility will be at an all time low and his self interest at an all time high. The capacity to grow into a better person will be there, as it always was, but it will be heavily shrouded in immaturity, a lack of self awareness, and an obsessive need to be liked.
▒ Sample: Please include at least one of the following forms of samples:
- ▒ A 350+ word prose sample as above and 2 threads (20 comments each). These threads may come from anywhere on DW and be in any style.
His head was killing him, and that wasn't the worst of it. Everything was hard, and cold, and sort of... dingy, in the way only cold stone could be. That distinct smell of mildew and rot that grew up between small cracks in the masonry. It had to be a dream, right? The smell of fresh laundry and bed linens were still in his nose, even as they were slowly drowned out and erased by everything else.
He drew one shoulder up, balancing himself on his forearm and wincing at the very thought of opening his eyes. This wasn't just an ordinary headache, this was full-blown, yes-I-would-take-an-icepick-to-the-forehead-over-this, migraine-level pain.
"Ngh... so not cool."
Yosuke ran a hand back over his head without thinking, rubbing where the neck met the scalp, only to jump at the clink of metal meeting metal and the cool slotted smoothness under his fingers. He ripped his hand back, staring with freshly opened eyes at the weird bracelet around his wrist. It was with alarm that Yosuke focused in on the M. Murder. Despite the fog covering every other inch of his mind, there was no hesitation when it came to this. He knew what that meant, and suddenly the grim surroundings made all the more sense.
But it was wrong. There had to be a mistake. He wasn't a murderer! He was a teenager, the extent of his crimes were not cleaning his room and speeding on his bike! Even at his most bored and listless, the worst trouble you could get up to in Inaba (at least, all that he'd discovered within the first five interminable months living there) was having the gall to belong to the wrong family. The Hanamura name drew a lot of disdain, but nobody would go as far to set up something this elaborate to get back at him for their parents store closing up... right?
Yosuke stood up, a little shaky but propelled by blind panicked determination. He'd find who was in charge, explain the mistake, and then he'd cruise right back towards home! ... Y'know, wherever home was. And if some small part of him was afire with the prospect of all this, fascinated and alight with curiosity, he tried his best to be sensible about it.
Nothing exciting ever happened to him, after all.
Threads:
(1) (2)
▒ Your Crime: Murder. Yosuke's falsified (non-canon) crime is the murder of his senpai, Saki Konishi. His charge is killing her in the same way she was murdered by the series antagonist, by being assaulted and then pushed into a TV, where she proceeded to die a violent and mentally anguishing death.
Yosuke's memory of this event is through the killer's eyes, feeling and seeing what the killer described to him when recounting it: disdain, lust, frustration, and power. He will not be able to recognize himself completely in the murderer's thoughts and actions, but there will be marked similarities (Yosuke and the antagonist are very clearly foils in the game, right down to their shadows having a similar sense of 'boredom' and endless monotony) that make the event all the more disorienting and troubling if he recalls it.
▒ Handle/Name: Em
▒ Contact:
▒ Other Characters: N/A
▒ Proof of Established Activity: N/A
Character Info
▒ Character Name: Yosuke Hanamura
▒ Canon Name: Persona 4
▒ Canon Point: A few weeks after pushing Namatame into the TV, killing him and triggering the game's bad end.
▒ Age: 17, though in his mind post memory loss, he's 16
▒ Appearance:
▒ Setting: wiki
▒ Abilities: Yosuke has the capacity within him to summon a 'persona'. Personae are manifestations of a person's 'Shadow', in the Jungian sense, and act as a 'facade' with which a person interacts with the dangers of the world. In Persona, instead of these being metaphysical manifestations, a person's persona is a very real entity that can affect the world around them. In Yosuke's case, his persona is Jiraiya (or Susano-o, Jiraiya's evolution, though with all that Yosuke's forgotten about his development as a person, Susano-o is not yet on the table for him). He gained Jiraiya after confronting the parts of himself he did not want to show he world.
However, due to all the realizations and developments Yosuke no longer remembers, Jiraiya has reverted back into a shadow. It lives inside Yosuke, setting his clock back to the beginning of the game. He still has the capacity to wield a persona, but it will take some key memories to reawaken that ability. Otherwise, he is a completely average teenage boy.
▒ Personality:
When it comes down to it, Yosuke Hanamura is a kid who doesn’t know what he wants.
He has some idea of what he should want, sure. There's no way to forget what he’s supposed to be doing with his life: get good grades, don’t slack off at work, be responsible and begin the transition into adulthood as smoothly as possible. Be self possessed, sure of himself, and a better man than he could ever really hope to be. But unlike those who rise to their cultures’ high expectations, Yosuke buckles underneath their weight. Where’s the thrill in adulthood? Where’s the freedom in choosing a single path? Yosuke isn’t exactly a free spirit -- far from it, actually -- and his heavy reservations over growing up are based more off a fear of failing those around him by simply being himself. Shaken together in an insecurity cocktail, Yosuke finds himself desperate to meet a standard that his low self-esteem asserts he’ll never attain. He throws everything into winning the approval of others and pushes his own needs to the back burner. But even when he gets the validation he’s after, it never comes with the feeling of relief he hopes for. His nerves are always there in the back of his mind, terrified of making even one misstep and sending his carefully constructed happy-go-lucky, takes-being-the-butt-of-every-joke-with-a-smile, will-totally-pay-for-this-one-guys-no-problem persona toppling over. If anyone ever actually got to know him, Yosuke was positive they would have absolutely no reason to stick around.
And, unfortunately, that fear was something of a self fulfilling prophecy. Yosuke’s over eager behavior and desperateness to please wasn’t only exhausting for him, but for everyone around him. If you sent him a text, he’d respond within thirty seconds (and then another ten minutes later, asking if his text went through. And then another in an hour, asking if everything’s alright. And then another wondering if your phone is broken. And then six more apologizing for being such a needy idiot, lol, sry man jst me being stupd!). If you already have plans when he asks to hang out, it’s hard for him to read it as anything other than a rejection of his entire existence. No matter how you sliced it, it was hard being friends with Yosuke Hanamura. And while it can still be (very) hard, the emphasis there is on 'was'.
Before moving to the small town of Inaba in anticipation of a new Junes location, most of the kids at his Tokyo school are tired of him or were never that close to begin with. Once Yosuke leaves his home in the city (and god does he miss it; the lights, the crowds, the noise), responses to his texts get slower and slower until stopping completely. Combined with being dropped in a town that despises what he and his family symbolize (not much room for local business when everything's great and dirt cheap at your Junes), his loneliness reaches a new low. That isolation is compounded when it’s revealed that the one person who gave him the time of day in Inaba -- Saki Konishi, whom he had a hopeless crush on -- is killed and shown to have secretly been as irritated and exhausted with him as everyone else. His shadow was born of that encounter, and with it a new found sense of self-awareness.
That incident was the kick in the pants Yosuke really needed, and his change from there on out is as important as it is slow going.
Yosuke still separates “people” and “people who he trusts to accept him” in separate categories. Working in retail for his father’s store -- the mega shopping emporium, Junes -- has given him a knack for customer service. It will be an unsettling day when Yosuke realizes just how good a salesman he is. It's this 'persona' that most strangers get; all bright smiles and politeness and how may I help you, sir or madam? Remember, every day is customer appreciation day at Junes!
The people whom he’s close to and trusts get a different picture. Yosuke can be solemn, passionate, proud, insensitive, vulnerable, and intensely furious when riled. However, his inherent snark and clumsy inexperience when it comes to being himself around people can lead to many unfortunate foot-in-mouth moments. His ribbing and teasing can certainly go too far, although being called on it usually leads to an apology (if his defensive teenage streak allows) or a speedy subject change. When it doesn’t, a quick threat of physical violence is a surefire way to send him cowering. If there’s one thing Yosuke avoids unless pressed to his brink, it’s confrontation. Even with all the growing he’s done overtime, the fear of losing all he’s gained still lurks in the back of his mind.
And what does he stand to lose? Only the best friends a guy could possibly luck into. While he has an unique relationship with each of his his teammates -- Chie is like a sister (a really annoying sister who he loves like hell); Kanji triples as his competition, friend and kohai; Rise is the girl of his dreams (and in the real world, a good friend who actually seems to like his jokes); Naoto, the detective who's serious demeanor clashes with his own, making her all the more fun to tease; Yukiko, the girl he'll probably never be as close to thanks to Chie and his own awkwardness, but cares about deeply; and Teddie, his charge, little brother, bear-thing, and the one person he truly feels solely responsible for.
His closest relationship is with Souji, his best friend. Together since the beginning, Yosuke dubbed them 'partners' early on. At first, this was in relation to the case for the most part; they'd made their promise to Teddie to find the murderer and they were going to solve it together, as a team. But as the case wore on, their numbers grew, and their friendship began taking shape into what would be the most important in Yosuke's life, the nickname stuck. In getting closer and working through the leftover ache of Saki's death, Yosuke is unique in that he takes Souji off his pedestal as leader from time to time. He finds him to be 'special', but being true equals is by far his priority. Partners, in the truest sense. Yosuke isn't content to simply act as a leech, pouring all his angst onto Souji without giving anything back in return. That may have been enough for him once, but not now; not when he realizes what it's like to truly have a friend.
All those friendships, all that growth, it all amounts to a teenager on the cusp of adulthood scratching at the surface of who he really is and what he really wants. Things aren’t as bad as they used to be. He has genuine friends now, ones that know who he is and like him anyway. It opens his eyes to the possibility that working and working at making people like him isn’t the necessity he thought it was; that maybe people might actually like him. What a concept! Although he still has a long ways to go and many maturity hurdles to jump before he really gets there, he is getting there. Slowly but surely.
While under Henlein's effects, Yosuke will be reverting back to his personality at the very beginning of the initial P4 title. This means that he will be much more shelled off, fake, superficial, and unaccepting of himself. He will balk at the idea of getting very serious with anyone, and he will jump at anything that catches his interest and relieves him of his boredom on even the basest of levels. He will not remember Souji or any of his other friends; even his memories of his parents and Saki-senpai will rolled back to before her death. His level of responsibility will be at an all time low and his self interest at an all time high. The capacity to grow into a better person will be there, as it always was, but it will be heavily shrouded in immaturity, a lack of self awareness, and an obsessive need to be liked.
▒ Sample: Please include at least one of the following forms of samples:
- ▒ A 350+ word prose sample as above and 2 threads (20 comments each). These threads may come from anywhere on DW and be in any style.
His head was killing him, and that wasn't the worst of it. Everything was hard, and cold, and sort of... dingy, in the way only cold stone could be. That distinct smell of mildew and rot that grew up between small cracks in the masonry. It had to be a dream, right? The smell of fresh laundry and bed linens were still in his nose, even as they were slowly drowned out and erased by everything else.
He drew one shoulder up, balancing himself on his forearm and wincing at the very thought of opening his eyes. This wasn't just an ordinary headache, this was full-blown, yes-I-would-take-an-icepick-to-the-forehead-over-this, migraine-level pain.
"Ngh... so not cool."
Yosuke ran a hand back over his head without thinking, rubbing where the neck met the scalp, only to jump at the clink of metal meeting metal and the cool slotted smoothness under his fingers. He ripped his hand back, staring with freshly opened eyes at the weird bracelet around his wrist. It was with alarm that Yosuke focused in on the M. Murder. Despite the fog covering every other inch of his mind, there was no hesitation when it came to this. He knew what that meant, and suddenly the grim surroundings made all the more sense.
But it was wrong. There had to be a mistake. He wasn't a murderer! He was a teenager, the extent of his crimes were not cleaning his room and speeding on his bike! Even at his most bored and listless, the worst trouble you could get up to in Inaba (at least, all that he'd discovered within the first five interminable months living there) was having the gall to belong to the wrong family. The Hanamura name drew a lot of disdain, but nobody would go as far to set up something this elaborate to get back at him for their parents store closing up... right?
Yosuke stood up, a little shaky but propelled by blind panicked determination. He'd find who was in charge, explain the mistake, and then he'd cruise right back towards home! ... Y'know, wherever home was. And if some small part of him was afire with the prospect of all this, fascinated and alight with curiosity, he tried his best to be sensible about it.
Nothing exciting ever happened to him, after all.
Threads:
(1) (2)
▒ Your Crime: Murder. Yosuke's falsified (non-canon) crime is the murder of his senpai, Saki Konishi. His charge is killing her in the same way she was murdered by the series antagonist, by being assaulted and then pushed into a TV, where she proceeded to die a violent and mentally anguishing death.
Yosuke's memory of this event is through the killer's eyes, feeling and seeing what the killer described to him when recounting it: disdain, lust, frustration, and power. He will not be able to recognize himself completely in the murderer's thoughts and actions, but there will be marked similarities (Yosuke and the antagonist are very clearly foils in the game, right down to their shadows having a similar sense of 'boredom' and endless monotony) that make the event all the more disorienting and troubling if he recalls it.