asgardeventide app

[windbreak]

OOC Information;

Name; skarme
Personal Journal; blitzente
Contact; blitzente
Other Characters; N/A

IC Information;

Character Name; Yosuke Hanamura
Canon; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (wiki)
Canon Point; Post True Ending in Golden, pre Arena.
Age; 17

House; Loki
Power; Telekinesis

Personality;
Imagine the platonic ideal of a hopeless but unremarkable teenage boy and you probably already have something that looks a lot like Yosuke. An underachieving high school student and the son of the manager of the local department store, he commands very little respect from either his peers or his coworkers, and it's not difficult to see why: he isn't just pathetic in the sense that he's unimposing, easily flustered and chronically accident-prone, his constant, desperate romantic endeavours are pretty pathetic too. It's hard to call him wholly insensitive - he finds it easy to get along with people, and at times, especially when he's on the clock, he can be considerably more diplomatic and socially savvy than most anyone would give him credit for - but his ground state of being is one with his foot jammed firmly into his mouth, the teasing demeanour he tends to adopt around friends rarely helps matters, and the more worked up he is the more carried away he's likely to get. Amongst the investigation team of high-schoolers that makes up his closest circle of friends, he ends up primary sidekick to the leader more or less by default, but otherwise doesn't particularly stand out; distinctly ordinary compared to most of the people he hangs out with, but too readily persuaded into goofy hijinks to count himself as part of the "actually sensible" contingent, he's by all appearances content to play comic relief and defer the spotlight to those he considers more "executive" when the situation gets serious. He's a pragmatist with a decent head for organisation and deductive logic, if not always the observational skills or focus he'd need to make the best use of it, and that's about the most flattering thing you could say of him at a glance.

However, a major theme of the game is that there's always more to a human being than what they knowingly present to the world, and that goes for Yosuke too. Unlike a more villainous character in the game to whom he could be considered a foil, it wouldn't be accurate to say that his cheerful exterior is a front; he's an extrovert who genuinely enjoys and derives self-fulfillment from the company of others, so he really is happy to cut them a lot of slack in general. All the same, on some level, he remains painfully aware that he isn't the most inspiring person on the planet, and that, at least partly due to his own lack of conviction, he's not leading nearly as exciting a life as he could be. This bitterness fuels a habitual quiet resentment towards anyone who appears to be doing better in life than he is, which in turn is the basis of Yosuke's Shadow, the facet of his personality that he's least willing to admit: the deeply-held conviction that he deserves something more, and screw whatever else might try to remind him otherwise.

The extent to which this immature outlook affects his decisions and actions varies, but it still influences him from time to time even after he's forced to outright confront it as a character flaw. Without enough of a support network (as was the case at the start of the game, when he'd moved from the city to a much more rural area only six months ago and felt decidedly cut off from most of the people in his new home), he'll find excuses to seize on any opportunity that seems to promise less boredom, be it murder investigations, surreal videogame-style dungeon-crawling or bizarre fighting tournaments - anything that can indulge his escapist side by placing him in the role of a hero. This hankering for adventure coupled with his tendency to get carried away can in extreme cases get him so caught up in the narrative that he forgets his empathy for others - an example would be the worst ending of the game, where if the protagonist doesn't intervene he and a couple of other party members essentially murder a man who turns out not to be the killer they were trying to take revenge on after all.

But the negative parts of his personality have their own flip sides, too. Yosuke does have a good heart, and although overcoming a Shadow completely is never a feasible goal, he's committed to working on the flaws that his represents, despite his slip-ups. One key part of this process was his discovery that a life in the country where everyone knows him and can depend on him doesn't have to be as stifling as he used to make it out to be, provided he learns to take his connections to other people seriously. For instance, the death of an old high-school crush near the beginning of the game is one that he carries as a primary motivation long after he learns that she hated his guts, because she nevertheless meant something to him. Another involved his realisation that if he can in turn support the people who support him, he's improving himself at the same time and creating his own meaning, which leaves a lot less room for resenting them. These epiphanies of his could be seen as stepping stones towards the core of Yosuke's character: for all of his childish screwing around, he's naturally inclined to put other people first when the chips are down, and after a year of wrestling with his issues, he finally grows to accept that part of himself not as a vulnerability for those around him to exploit but as a source of real pride.

In summary, Yosuke is a character whose earnestness makes up for many of his insecurities, frequently embarrassing and sometimes an outright jerk but dependable where it counts. In briefer summary, Yosuke is a hopeless teenager, but there are worse things to be.

Samples;

Network Sample; [video]

Yo!

[The object taking up most of the picture appears to be someone's mp3 player, complete with dangling earbuds.]

Pretty sure we haven't met, but whoever this thing belongs to? You dropped it at work this morning. Happens, I know.

Hope you don't mind that I had to hang onto it all day. I figured it was better than watching it get trampled. I wasn't going to go on about where you left it, or, you know, ask any questions...

[...Wait, is that an incriminating thing to say all by itself? Whoops. He hastily plunges on, trying not to sound panicked.]

Uh, but anyways - just let me know when you want to come pick it up, alright? S-See you later.

Log Sample; linked from another game