Application for route_29
Mun
Name: Sumi
Livejournal Username: bossborot
E-mail: cait_mog@yahoo.com
AIM/MSN: CaitSithUnit01
Timezone: EST
Current Characters in Route: None yet!
Character
Name: Yayoi Takatsuki
Series: The Idolm@ster
Timeline: Around the events of the Dearly Stars spinoff; Yayoi's made her debut as an idol and has some name recognition among the masses, but she has yet to hit the big time.
Canon Resource Links: Wikipedia for a VERY brief summary of the series, and the Project iM@S wiki for a more in-depth look at Yayoi herself. Also, I'm taking her purely from the gameverse, so nothing from the various manga and/or that one bizarro tangentially-related mecha spinoff Xenoglossia series,
Affiliation: Dirt-poor Trainer.
Personality: Yayoi is one of the ten idols at 765 Productions- and she is, in some ways, uniquely suited to being a J-pop idol. She's naturally sunny, infectiously optimistic, and ridiculously energetic (to the point where she has NO VOLUME CONTROL and has some trouble reining herself in). You literally have to WORK at bringing her down from her constant high- Yayoi is the type of person to bounce back from anything that life throws at her. She's USED to living a life of hard knocks; because Yayoi is the oldest of five children AND because her father can't hold down a job, her family is often hard-pressed to make ends meet. Often times, Yayoi has to skip a few meals for the sake of her brothers and sisters, and she just about always wears old baggy clothing and hand-me-downs; additionally, her whole family is made up of adept bargain sale hunters, and they're all quite aware that every single yen counts.
... these qualities are magnified about tenfold in Yayoi. She has something akin to tunnel vision when it comes to budgeting any money that comes her way; she'll look for the cheapest deals, and anything above that line is SUPER EXTRAVAGANT. Wasting ANY money whatsoever, even down to a ten yen difference in price or useless trinket, will throw her into a deep funk that'll take her days to recover from. Yayoi isn't above asking for loans, no matter how insignificant the amount may be (thirty-eight yen, along with a fervent promise to pay it back wiht twelve yen's worth of interest later)- and she'll even scrounge underneath vending machines for spare change, if it comes down to it.
While Yayoi isn't particularly smart, she's extremely good-natured. She's a tirelessly hard worker who genuinely wants to be as helpful as she can; when her would-be producer went to tell her that she'd been among those chosen to debut as an idol, Yayoi was (of all things) washing the building's windows while she waited to hear back from the company. She also helps to take care of her siblings as best as she can- preparing meals, herding them around, and generally making sure they aren't wrecking the house. On the other hand, Yayoi is extremely naive and gullible; that, coupled with her lack of knowledge about the world in general AND the fact that she very rarely gets angry (and even then, only to her siblings), means that it's not particularly difficult to take advantage of her good nature to run circles around her.
As such, Yayoi didn't want to become an idol simply to earn money (though that's certainly a welcome benefit): her goal is simply to spread as much happiness and cheer to the world as she possibly can. When everything is said and done, Yayoi treasures her friends and values her family above all else. She's very much aware of her own failings, and occasionally has times where she falters, especially when her self-confidence takes more than its fair share of blows. She's not the type of person to let something as small as THAT get in the way, however; Yayoi firmly believes that in the end, everything will turn out alright, ESPECIALLY if she just works a little harder.
Strengths/Weaknesses: Yayoi is actually pretty cognizant of her own strong points and shortcomings: she's not very good at a LOT of things, but she applies herself with (what she calls) 200% energy. While she's neither sharp-witted nor a quick learner, with the proper motivation, Yayoi is very much able to excel through guts, hard work, and sheer brute-strength effort. In Dearly Stars (which is played from a competing idol production company's point of view), Yayoi is nigh infamous for her monstrous stamina, allowing her to outlast just about anyone else during auditions or concerts; she can keep a full head of steam no matter HOW much work she has in front of her.
Yayoi's other strength lies in her positive outlook on life- for instance, it may be hard to live with so many cranky siblings, but her view on it is that life is just so much more enjoyable with such a big family! It's hard to make her sad or pensive unless you're actively bullying her (or are just that much of an insensitive douche). On the off chance that her mood is brought down low, she's very quick to recover.
Yayoi's biggest problem is that she simply isn't very smart (as can be shown by her pretty horrible grades). She takes just about EVERYTHING at face value (and as literally as possible), and she assumes the best of every person, meaning that she'll believe most of what they say without question. Additionally, Yayoi isn't good at reining in her energy or the volume of her voice, basically making her the antithesis of every library in existence. Finally, she has a crippling fear of heights, and she's almost as cripplingly conscious of her finances at any one time (as mentioned above).
Pokemon
Starter: Farfetch'd BECAUSE IT LOOKS SO VERY DELICIOUS, nicknamed Scallion. He's as calm and reserved as his trainer is energetic, though his hardy nature allows him to let most of Yayoi's newbie mistakes slide right on by without too many problems.
Samples
(Please note that both samples must take place in Route_29’s setting.)
First Person Sample:
Okay, we just finished breakfast, we're stocked up on items, and we've packed everything else... what's everything! Uu~uu~~!! Scallion, we're going to make it all the way to Violet City today! Let's g-
Huh? There's something going on at the PokeMart? Um, let's see... Potions for P250, buy three... get... one...
... eeeeh!? There's... there's a sale going on today!? Why? How did this happen!? I didn't see anything about any sales! Um, um, if potions go for P300, that's P50 cheaper than usual, and... I bought nine yesterday...
Aaaaah! I... I could've saved P450 AND gotten three more for free!! Wait, so then, that would mean P450, plus P900 for the free ones- I could've saved P1350! Or, wait, if I got three free ones, does that mean I could've gotten a FOURTH Potion for free!? That's... that's almost P1700!!
If I hadn't stocked up yesterday... if I hadn't stocked up yesterday...!! I could've bought some Antidotes, or more Pokeballs, or maybe have something other than bean sprouts for dinner, or, or, or...
Uuuuuuuuuuuuu...
Third Person Sample:
"... and flying-types are strong against, um... bug and ground and grass-type attacks, and... weak against rock, ice, electric, and... water-type attacks! Is that right?" Yayoi looked back down at the chart held in her hands- and her eyes widened with surprise. "Ah... I forgot the strong-against-fighters thing and added the weak-against-water thing again!" she groaned. "And bugs aren't weak against poison, and..."
Scallion listened with half an ear as his trainer continued down the list of strengths and weaknesses that she'd forgotten about and/or added arbitrarily. If the Farfetch'd had been capable of speech, he might've noted that Yayoi was taking this WAY too seriously ever since that one Nurse Joy mentioned that most new trainers, many of them younger than Yayoi, memorized that accursed element-interaction chart in under a week.
"Ah..." The babble of information trailed off as Yayoi paused; she frowned slightly as something occurred to her. "Are fighters scared of heights?"
Scallion stopped inspecting his leek and shot his trainer a look of complete bafflement (one that she utterly failed to notice, of course).
"A lot of flying Pokemon have big wings, right? So when fighters are hit by wings or feathers... they're scared because they think that they'll be picked up and carried up into the sky!" Yayoi's eyes lit up. The more she thought about it, the more it all started to make sense. "So that's why you beat that Mr. Macho so easily... he was scared of falling. Right, Scallion?"
Scallion opened his beak, possibly to laugh at Yayoi's naivety or try and disprove her theory using sign (wing?) language. After a moment of looking into Yayoi's earnest gaze, he closed his beak and nodded before going back to leek inspection. Somehow, he just couldn't bring himself to break her hopes and dreams yet AGAIN- especially not after the past few hours.
Yayoi beamed. Finally, it looked like she was making SOME sort of progress! "Uuuu...! I think I'm finally starting to get this!!" Hardly able to contain her excitement, Yayoi knelt in front of her starter and held up a hand. "High touch?"
With a sigh, the Farfetch'd once again indulged Yayoi's little pick-me-up ritual- he raised one wing, spread its pinions, and gave his trainer a high-five.
"Yay!" And once again, Yayoi looked inordinately pleased as she leapt back up and put her chart away from the umpteenth time. "Okay- again! I'll definitely memorize it this time!! Um, fire-types are weak against water, rock, and ground, and..."
What that one Nurse Joy had failed to mention was that a fair number of trainers got by without memorizing every single elemental interaction out there. However, when Yayoi decided to become a trainer, it never occurred to her to try and be anything but the very best.