Hey guys, I just wanted to apologise for my lack of activity on Yu lately… I’ve been playing him for years now, and it’s become pretty apparent that his muse has gone off to frolic with cats in the meadows or something while Joker’s kicks down the front door and demands I pay attention.
So with that in mind, I’m going to put this blog on semi-hiatus. I might still pop in and do replies if I feel like it, but I won’t be starting new threads, and said replies probably won’t be very quick. If you want to get in touch with me, go find me over on lercvolutionnaire. Thank you!
Also, my Di.scord is giratina#3465, but please let me know who you are over ask or tumblr IM when you send your requests!!
Kid stays silent, then looks down. “Must be nice ta have friends ta help ya out of a slump.” He confesses.
he had never been very good with the whole art of socializing, getting friends.. and keeping them. He was an oddball when it came to people his age and he had always been more of a loner anyhow.
“Wonder what I could do differently. Though I guess talking to ya is far from the norm I usually do.” He chuckles a little then.
Boy, this coffee and mood… He, heck both of them could use a change of atmosphere.
His gaze dropped there, staring deep into the coffee because he could no longer meet the kid's eyes. "Tell you the truth, I only actually started making any friends in the past couple of months." Yu ran his hand through his hair again. "Before that I was just like you."
"To be honest," he continued, sadly, "I don't know how or why it happened. How do you make friends? I don't really know. So I can't help you."
“But you can’t just keep things bottled up.” quickly, she covered her mouth. She had meant to drop the subject and move on the something else but those words had just escaped before she could stop them. It was just sad that he couldn’t follow his own advice. When the team has rescued her he’d told her almost the exact same.
Still, it wasn’t her place to be making such comments.
“I’m sorry.” she gave a guilty smile. “I’ll drop the subject now, I promise.”
"She's right," offered a voice inside Yu's head, (un)helpfully. Izanagi always got on his case at times like this. "Don't be a hypocrite, you fool — tell her!"
Yu sighed and looked down at Sakura again. He really had wanted to be friends with her... and she seemed like an honest person, so she probably wouldn't tell anyone else... and he didn't want to be a hypocrite, no, so...
"...Do you ever have those days," he began quietly, "where nothing bad has happened, but you keep thinking about things that happened years ago and feeling like they were yesterday? ...This is one of those days."
Hey ny’all, I already said this over on Joker’s blog, but just so everyone knows I’m not going to be super quick with replies for the remainder of this week. I’m starting a new job tomorrow and have a con this weekend so it’s all going to be very busy. Not to mention I haven’t had as much motivation to write for the past few days because of shitty real life stuff. I’ll still be around and everything, but yeah.
Yu Narukami, old house, abyss. These are the keywords. Yu's got quite a list of "old houses", considering his family moved pretty much every year (or even two!), but the one that he lived in before moving to Inaba is the one where the Palace is located, because that was the one where his mental situation was the worst. It's also the one he remembers most clearly. Therefore, it left the most impact on his psyche.
The abyss part has to do more with Yu's perception of himself and the world around him. To this day he has a fear of empty houses, because he spent so much of his life trapped in them. It's near impossible to make friends when you're only living in a place for one year, baby Yu learned, so eventually he stopped trying and began actively trying to push people away — but he was also an incredibly lonely person, an extrovert forced into introversion because of circumstances beyond his control. It really fucked him up, mentally.
His issues are similar to Teddie's in that beneath the way he acts to others, Yu doesn't think that he has any personality, identity, or existence at all. (After Inaba, this changed to "doesn't think he has any personality, identity, or existence at all when he's not around other people".) He's also very desperate to hide these things in the darkness so that none of his friends ever find out, because he realizes how fucked-up they are and is convinced that if anyone sees, it will be the final straw that leads to them leaving him.
And therefore, we have a dark and spooky abyss where Yu's house (and if you ask him, heart) should be.
TREASURE WITHIN THE PALACE
This one is difficult because the real source of Yu’s distortion is not a physical object at all; it’s a culmination of his terrible life experience and his assorted psychological disorders. The only way to express it in a singular concept is void.
So I’m going to say that inside the Palace, Yu’s Treasure is a giant cloak that he wears on his person at all times. Most of it is black, but not just black fabric – it seems like it is woven from a black hole itself. The only distinguishing feature is a strange white insignia on the chest, reminiscent of the flag from a certain card. It just has this deeply unsettling aura about it, as if merely touching the thing will make reality begin to tear at the seams — let alone wearing it. In fact, reality does start to distort a little around it…
Its hood is always up and drawn, making it impossible to see anything except an approximate outline of Yu’s face. Sometimes the ‘approximate outline’ is of someone else’s face. Even though there is a dramatic black cape attached to the cloak that billows menacingly in nonexistent winds, the main garment falls all along Yu’s body, head to foot – it makes distinguishing any sort of movement or body shape very difficult. He often attempts to pull it tighter around himself, as if desperately trying to hide whatever is beneath.
TREASURE OUTSIDE OF THE PALACE
Outside the Metaverse, the cloak disappears. Nothing takes its place. It’s just gone.
SHADOWS' APPEARANCE.
Unlike many other Palaces, the Shadows in Yu’s do not have a significant hierarchy except perhaps for size. In fact, they barely have physical forms at all. Their bodies are constantly twisting and morphing in on themselves in unnatural ways – faces and limbs appear everywhere only to be washed away in the twisting dark energy seconds later. They have almost kaleidoscopic moving patterns on their bodies by “default”, and their forms are vaguely humanoid if you squint, but they do not walk like humans. At any given time, they will have at least one head with a mask painfully stitched to their face. Each mask is labelled with a Roman numeral from I to XXI, and they all seem to smoothly change colour through the spectrum of colors. All of the masks have an expression of abject despair.
If you are seen by any Shadow in this Palace, your screen gradually begins to get darker, the longer you run from them, until all you can see is a black void. Your movement gets more sluggish, too, making it easier for the Shadows to catch you. For that reason, it is highly recommended that you bring stealth-boosting items into this Palace.
The smallest forms kind of resemble Mayas in their appearance and movements, though any sort of head or arms could reach out from the pool of concentrated darkness, often more than one at once. And no, they don’t have to be human, or anything else recognizable for that matter. (In case you couldn’t tell, the Shadows in this Palace have a very high potential for body horror.)
Later, the Shadows begin as pools of dark matter like the other ones, but they are able to pull up entire bodily forms out of the goop and stand on (things that are probably supposed to be) legs. Sometimes you get a face where a foot would be, and the Shadow is putting its entire weight on one of its faces or masks. Sometimes you have a mostly human-ish one, but it’s a TV head with a head far too large for it to balance beneath. More than one mask can appear on these Shadows at a time.
It’s not uncommon for them to turn and look at you but not chase you – if you see one doing this, avoid it at all costs. It is the strongest type of Shadow there is in this Palace, and there is a non-zero chance that it will fucking wreck you. If you accidentally get too close, they will reach out with some of their ungodly eldritch limbs, and if that happens you are helpless; you will enter into a battle surrounded, no matter what. If one of these Shadows has a hold of you, all twenty-one masks will appear on its body at once, and the battle-entrance animation will treat you to a lovely view of all of them deforming at the same time into a slurry of darkness.
SHADOW SELF'S APPEARANCE + PERSONALITY.
Shadow Yu's appearance is described in the Treasure part. He wears a giant cloak that obscures every part of his body, and his face cannot be seen, not even the glowing yellow eyes.
In the beginning, Shadow Yu does not speak much. Or at all. He just stands there with his cloak of darkness and watches, activating traps and summoning monsters to keep the party away from the 'core'. This used to be Yu's first line of defense against 'intruders', shooting them down and making them leave him be, a habit which Yu learned to stop doing after Inaba changed him and his stance on other people — but of course, that 'habit' never went away. It only went to his Shadow.
Once the party reaches the core, a Persona 4 style cutscene and confrontation between Shadow and Other will begin. You don't need to have Yu on your four-member team for this, because he'll show up either way.
Shadow Yu is not interested in making Yu accept him, because Yu has already accepted him. Initially Yu tries to make this exact argument, but the Shadow swats it away, because he doesn't want Yu's acknowledgment; he wants more. He's interested in making the world see him — the identity issues, the depression, the dissociation, everything Yu desperately tries to hide from his friends for fear that they'll be scared and run away. The Shadow addresses the rest of the party more than it does Yu, laying out all of his character flaws in precise detail, and watching as Yu gets more and more panicked. Yu's convinced himself that if anyone finds out about any of this, they'll leave immediately, so having all his friends find out at once is just too much for him to bear.
And eventually, even though he knows he shouldn't, he turns to the rest of the party and frantically tries to tell them, "That's not me!"
DEADLY SIN.
Yu’s sin is Sloth, also known as Acedia – and in fact, Acedia is closer to what is actually going on with him. Acedia is a lack of interest, the inability to bring oneself to care about things. According to Wikipedia, initially it was observed in monks who lived a solitary lifestyle and could no longer muster the energy to perform their duties to their people and to God. Sloth is… well, we all know what Sloth is. It’s laziness, or perceived laziness – a refusal to get out of bed in the morning and do things.
In Yu, this manifests as depression. A lack of purpose. The paralysis that washes over his mind and body when he begins to question his reality and identity, and the fear that beneath all of the pretending there is nothing there at all.
The last time this happened, Yosuke was crying at the riverbank. But the arms wrapped around his waist right now seem less for support and more like tight clutching for security. For a few seconds, Yosuke sits there a little dumbfounded until he hears a whimpered apology.
Yu shouldn’t be the one apologizing. It’s not like he did anything wrong. Yosuke’s fairly sure he’s the one that screwed up, but he’s unsure how. They’re partners; he should be building the other up, not send him crumbling over a panic attack.
That’s what this was, right? Like those rainy nights where Yosuke pulls his his knees up to his chest and tries not to breakdown. He understands the feeling even if he doesn’t know the cause. The last thing he’s about to do is leave Yu alone. Embracing the other, he rubs Yu’s back in slow, small circles and speaks quietly against his ear.
“Hey, it’s ok. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not going anywhere. It’s alright.”
Yes, that was pretty much exactly what this was, Yosuke. Usually he's able to get out of a given situation and run somewhere dark and hidden before they occur, meaning no one else has actually ever seen Yu freak out before — except you, now. Feel special!
Yu utterly melts into Yosuke the moment he realizes what the other is doing, ie, not leaving. If he really had any of his logical faculties about him at the moment, he might have realized that his partner seemed very practiced with this sort of thing, but he doesn't. All Yu can really register right now was that his partner is still here, and oh gods, he's so thankful. He hugs Yosuke tighter even as the rest of his body begins to relax. Now at least there was some positive emotions — gratitude, comfort, love — mixed in with the fear.
Eventually, after enough petting and soothing words, he seems to at least begin to calm down. Yu doesn't really want to leave this position, but it was kind of awkward for his body, so he did the next best thing; straightening back up, but not moving away from Yosuke at all, so that the sides of their legs were still touching. Yeah, that was okay.
Wiping at his eyes (of course he was crying for a minute there), Yu took a deep breath to steady himself. "...Thank you, Partner."
He missed him? Sure, he missed someone worshiping the very ground he stepped on, right? Even with such thoughts, he still gave a large grin and a small laugh. “Missed you too.” Easily walking in step even if Yu had slightly longer legs than he did. Almost as if no time had passed at all. “Yeah, it’s not the same without you around either, Partner.” Ugh it really was getting super mushy.
“No plans. Got the day off especially.” Despite some people’s best efforts to get him to go in and cover for them. Nope. Not today. Not when things were actually going to start getting interesting again. “So, I guess I can come help you, maybe, possibly~ If you ask nice enough~”
Yosuke, Yosuke... you really have no idea. Which is a sign that Yu's hiding it well, at least, how much he relies on you and everyone — even if you are a Shadow of the one he knew.
"Really? Thank you so much!" Yu seemed honestly touched by this gesture. He clasped his hands together, turning to Yosuke. "Hanamura-san, I would greatly appreciate it if you would keep me company while I unpack. —How's that?"
The first year could do nothing but stare back at him in concern. Sakura knew it was going to take time for everyone to trust her and she wasn’t going to pray into their personal lives. If they wanted her to know something they’d tell her. But she could still worry about them.
“Alright, Senpai.” She smiled. “But I’m here for you if you need it. Promise. It’s the least I can do.”
"...Thank you." He appreciated the gesture, he really did. The freshman seemed like a good, honest person, so it wasn't like he was thinking she would use the information against him somehow. "But I'm the leader, aren't I? I shouldn't be pressing my problems upon all of you. So don't worry about me, I'll be fine."
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