(no subject)
Don't know what game I'm applying to yet, so I'll just try to keep it simple.
Name: Zoki
Email: bluezoki 8a8at G-mail.
AIM: zokiblue
Journal: azora_mysta
Currently played characters: None.
Character name: Yuna, High Summoner of Spira
Character LJ: leapoffayth
Canon: Final Fantasy X series
Chronology/Canon Point: Post Final Fantasy X-2's Normal Ending. This version didn't earn the Good Ending, so no reunion with Tidus.
History: Since she stars in two games, I'm going to break this into two parts. The first will be longer because there's so much groundwork to lay.
Yuna in Final Fantasy X:
Welcome to Spira, the land of an eternal spiral of death. In this world, civilization has been held back from technological advancements for a thousand years. It's all due to a harbinger of destruction known as "Sin", because the people believe that it appeared due to their disobedience of the teachings of Yevon, the local religion.
Where Sin strikes, it strikes hard. Hundreds die in Sin's attacks on cities that become too advanced every year, and if the deads' souls are not Sent by a Summoner to the "Farplane" beyond, their angry thoughts fester and form into monsters known as fiends. Any intrepid adventure has to face them to progress.
In this story, the adventurer is Yuna. She is a young Summoner, leaving with her loyal guardians from her island home on a quest to defeat Sin, bringing a period of Calm to Spira. To do this, she must travel to and pray at every temple in Spira to receive the blessing of the Fayth spirits, allowing her to obtain a new summon each time. The final destination for a Summoner is the ruins of the great city of Zanarkand, where the Final Aeon, the only hope of defeating Sin, awaits. The ensuing battle with Sin invariably kills the Summoner, and Sin invariably returns. But Yuna fights for the hope of the world, and she will not be deterred.
Of course, summoners need guardians to protect him. Yuna has Wakka and Lulu, both experienced guardians to failed pilgrimages. They behave as her loving older siblings. Also accompanying them is Kimahri, a Ronso who has watched over Yuna since her father died in the battle against Sin ten years prior.
Over the course of this quest, she receives her first taste of love: Tidus the newbie, claims to come from Zanarkand, a city that was destroyed in the machina war 1000 years prior. Over time, he becomes a friend and then a guardian to Yuna, even over the objections of some of her other guardians. Then, they fall in love.
Other guardians join later: Auron, a former guardian to Braska who raised Tidus for the past ten years, and Rikku, Yuna's cousin who is committed to saving the summoner's life. She is an Al Bhed, a race of people shunned by the Yevon religion for using machina that are believed to attract Sin.
A rough patch hits when a Maester (Bishop, approximately) of Yevon, a retired summoner called Seymour, proposes to Yuna that they marry for the political gain of bringing peace to Spira. She accepts, but before the 'happy' wedding can occur, the horrible truth comes out: Seymour's ambitions were dark. He'd killed his own father, Lord Jyscal, and his motives with Yuna were equally dark: he wanted to bring the Calm to Spira by destroying it!
The events in Bevelle revealed that Yevon's highest clergymen disregarded their own teachings---their entire religion was built on a lie. Overwhelmed with this knowledge and fearing her fate now that she had fallen in love, Yuna temporarily faltered on her path to Zanarkand. But Tidus's true love for her prevailed, and the two vowed to stay together always. They would find a way to defeat Sin without killing Yuna. Rikku would join in on this project too.
Soon, more lies are unraveled: Sin always returned because it is the armor that shields Yu Yevon, the force seeking to destroy human progress in vengeance for Zanarkand's defeat in the Machina War 1000 years prior. When Sin is defeated by the Final Aeon, Yu Yevon merges with this new Final Aeon to become the next Sin. Thus a Summoner's defeat of Sin by the time-honored tradition is doomed to be temporary.
Yuna will have no part in continuing this cycle. She essentially tells Lady Yunalesca, the secret-bearer of the Final Aeon, to shove it:
I would have gladly died. I live for the people of Spira, and would have gladly died for them. But no more! The Final Summoning...is a false tradition that should be thrown away. My father wanted...to make Spira's sorrow go away. Not just cover it up with lies! So I... I will live with my sorrow, I will live my own life! I will defeat sorrow, in his place. I will stand my ground and be strong. I don't know when it will be but someday, I will conquer it. And I will do it without...false hope.
And then the party proceeds to kill Yunalesca. Go Yuna!
From this point on, it becomes the party's mission to find a new method for defeating Sin. Eventually, they form a plan: break into Sin with their weapons, calm the Final Aeon within (Tidus's dad had been Braska's, what a lucky coincidence!), summon and defeat Yuna's Aeons to lure Yu Yevon out, and kill Yu Yevon. When they do this, the fayth can rest at last and Spira will have an Eternal Calm.
And they do. Yuna becomes the first High Summoner to defeat Sin and survive her pilgrimage, but at a terrible cost: when the Fayth's dream ends, so does the life of her love Tidus. He'd been a dream all along, created by the Fayth to someday come to Spira and fight, just as his father did.
A short while later, Yuna gives a speech at the stadium. She promises to help everyone rebuild Spira, and implores them not to forget.
Just one more thing... The people and the friends that we have lost, or
the dreams that have faded...never forget them.
Yuna in Final Fantasy X-2:
Two years pass after Sin's final defeat. For most of that time, Yuna resides at her happy home on Besaid Island with the ever-loyal Wakka and Lulu. She loves to see the people so happy again thanks to her victory, but with the adventure of love two years ago she'd had a taste of adventure and living herself. That's missing.
But can she reclaim it? One day, her ever-adventurous cousin Rikku arrives with a sphere, an almost camera-recorded picture of events from many years ago. On it is a man in a cage in Bevelle, demanding to see the summoner. The funny thing? He looks just like Tidus "him".
Intrigued, Yuna decides on an impulse to throw away her life as the High Summoner on display and join the Gullwings, a sphere-hunting group dedicated to uncovering Spira's past as the future unfolds. Joining her are Rikku, her rebellious and thoughtful cousin, Paine, a serious young woman who didn't appear in the previous games, Brother, Rikku's flamboyant brother with an incestuous crush on Yuna, Buddy, a cool-headed navigator, and Shinra, a whiz kid responsible for developing their new technology: dresspheres.
Certain spheres have enough residual memory to provide power to their users in the form of a new job class. Rikku is still a thief, as before, and Paine is a swordswoman, but Yuna's not a timid staff-waving summoner anymore. Nope---she's packing guns! Without Yevon's hypocritical ban on machina in place, the Al Bhed are able to use machina to fill the gaps in Spiran life that were filled by the magic of the fayth before.
For the first little while, the Gullwings are simply enjoying life and working through the conflicts of Spira: between those too attached to Yevon to let go completely and the bold adventurers throwing away every scrap of tradition. Their factions, New Yevon and the Youth League, are in a public conflict tearing families apart. Soon, an even bigger conflict arises: there is unrest in Spira, and the souls of the freed fayth are in danger again. And naturally, Yuna has to help---for all her talk about wanting to live her own life, she still feels a deep need to help Spira in her heart. As Shinra aptly describes her:
"Hero. Summoner. Doormat."
What's the crisis facing the Gullwings this time? Remember that man who looked like "him" in the sphere? As Yuna discovers, his name is Shuyin, and he lived in the real Zanarkand 1002 years ago as a blitzball player---just like "him". His girlfriend was the Summoner Lenne, a beautiful singer who was enlisted to fight in the war.
Outraged over Lenne's fate, Shuyin travelled to Bevelle and attempted to activate Vegnagun, Bevelle's ultimate machina weapon. Its power would have destroyed Spira, but at least he and Lenne would have been free. They were killed before he could enact this sucky plan, but 1002 years later, Shuyin's spirit is back and ready for revenge.
Shuyin's plan this time? Possess a living Spiran and have them activate Vegnagun. He eventually chooses Baralai, the praetor of the New Yevon faction and a former comrade of Paine's. Having overcome their previous conflict, Paine's other teammates, Nooj and Gippal, form a plan to rescue Baralai. Have Shuyin possess Nooj instead, and then kill Nooj with explosives rigged to his body.
Yuna objects:
I don't like your plan. It sucks.
Your plan is awful. Think about it. It’s no different than what we did two years ago. We destroyed our own allies. We destroyed the aeons who had fought together with us, at our sides. We didn’t have a choice then. We believed that was the only way we could save Spira. Do you know what it felt like to watch them die? Right before my eyes? It was the only thing we could do. It was the only choice we had. I gave in, I accepted, I believed. I allowed it to be true. I thought I’d be able to go through with it without ever doubting myself. But I... It hurts so much....
“We had no choice.” Always “we had no choice.” Those are our magic words. We repeat them to ourselves again and again. But you know... The magic never worked! The only thing we’re left with is regret...I don’t want friends to die or fade away. I don’t want battles where we have to lose in order to win.
So the Gullwings have another plan: Yuna knows that her Songstress dressphere contains Lenne's spirit, and because Yuna and Lenne had such similar stories, Yuna looks almost identical to Lenne while wearing the Songstress costume. She uses this trick to attempt to calm Shuyin in the Farplane, but it fails---and the battle against him starts.
Finally, Lenne's spirit emerges from Yuna and reunites with Shuyin at last. Spira is saved, and the Gullwings are free to embark on their own adventures. This is where Yuna is now: flying high.
Personality: When we first meet Yuna, we get an impression of her base personality. Throughout her adventures, she remains a person willing to give everything she has to the people of Spira. Having watched her father sacrifice himself for Spira when she was a little girl, she soon realized that she wanted to bring that same happiness to everyone again. She listens attentively to everyone's pain, is compassionate to those who have lost their loved ones, and it's her dearest wish to end that pain.
Over the course of the game, though, Tidus her blond blitzer shows her a happier life. He makes her laugh, he shows her a stubborn determination, and he supports her all the way. When Yevon's lies are revealed, then, she's more than ready to throw them away and take charge of her own fate. She won't just die in vain because all the other High Summoners have done so---she'll shape her own story.
By the end of her pilgrimage, she transforms into a leader. Her ideas help shape the final battle plan against Sin, she calls Spira together to help her guardians with their first strike, and she defeats Sin without sacrificing herself. Unfortunately, her lover's life was the price for that victory.
For the next two years, she was duty-bound to provide advice for the people of Spira from her home in Besaid, but a voice lingered in the back of her mind. His. She could be strong like him, she could choose her own life as she did two years ago. And so she does---as a Gullwing, she wants what she wants and claims it, all with that sweet smile still on her face.
But her base personality won't be suppressed for too long. When it becomes clear that the people of Spira are in trouble again, she jumps at the call to help them---a little older, a little wiser, and a little more willing to question bad ideas, but she's still the same heroine beneath all the glitz. By the end of her second journey, the powerful will to save that had marked her first journey is back in full force.
Powers: Yuna can use a small device called the Garment Grid to switch between one of several dresspheres, each granting her different abilities corresponding to a job class. As a basic human, she can punch, kick, and jump her way out of trouble. Her dresspheres have the following effects:
Gunner: She wields two small pistols, wears her default costume, and runs and jumps with decent speed. They're both rapid-fire pistols, and some special bullets can cast status effects (decreased physical accuracy, draining mana) on the target.
Songstress: As a bard, Yuna can perform songs to boost her teammates' stats (strength, speed) or afflict her enemy (slow, silence). She wears Lenne's costume.
White Mage: This one's pretty basic. She can cast curing and revival spells. She wears classic white mage robes.
There are many more dresspheres, but I don't need Yunie too overpowered. Gunner and Songstress are the only dresspheres she uses during the storyline, but I'd also like to keep White Mage since that was her class in Final Fantasy X. She can only be in one mode at a time, and changing takes a few seconds. The vast majority of the time will see her in Gunner mode.
Name: Zoki
Email: bluezoki 8a8at G-mail.
AIM: zokiblue
Journal: azora_mysta
Currently played characters: None.
Character name: Yuna, High Summoner of Spira
Character LJ: leapoffayth
Canon: Final Fantasy X series
Chronology/Canon Point: Post Final Fantasy X-2's Normal Ending. This version didn't earn the Good Ending, so no reunion with Tidus.
History: Since she stars in two games, I'm going to break this into two parts. The first will be longer because there's so much groundwork to lay.
Yuna in Final Fantasy X:
Welcome to Spira, the land of an eternal spiral of death. In this world, civilization has been held back from technological advancements for a thousand years. It's all due to a harbinger of destruction known as "Sin", because the people believe that it appeared due to their disobedience of the teachings of Yevon, the local religion.
Where Sin strikes, it strikes hard. Hundreds die in Sin's attacks on cities that become too advanced every year, and if the deads' souls are not Sent by a Summoner to the "Farplane" beyond, their angry thoughts fester and form into monsters known as fiends. Any intrepid adventure has to face them to progress.
In this story, the adventurer is Yuna. She is a young Summoner, leaving with her loyal guardians from her island home on a quest to defeat Sin, bringing a period of Calm to Spira. To do this, she must travel to and pray at every temple in Spira to receive the blessing of the Fayth spirits, allowing her to obtain a new summon each time. The final destination for a Summoner is the ruins of the great city of Zanarkand, where the Final Aeon, the only hope of defeating Sin, awaits. The ensuing battle with Sin invariably kills the Summoner, and Sin invariably returns. But Yuna fights for the hope of the world, and she will not be deterred.
Of course, summoners need guardians to protect him. Yuna has Wakka and Lulu, both experienced guardians to failed pilgrimages. They behave as her loving older siblings. Also accompanying them is Kimahri, a Ronso who has watched over Yuna since her father died in the battle against Sin ten years prior.
Over the course of this quest, she receives her first taste of love: Tidus the newbie, claims to come from Zanarkand, a city that was destroyed in the machina war 1000 years prior. Over time, he becomes a friend and then a guardian to Yuna, even over the objections of some of her other guardians. Then, they fall in love.
Other guardians join later: Auron, a former guardian to Braska who raised Tidus for the past ten years, and Rikku, Yuna's cousin who is committed to saving the summoner's life. She is an Al Bhed, a race of people shunned by the Yevon religion for using machina that are believed to attract Sin.
A rough patch hits when a Maester (Bishop, approximately) of Yevon, a retired summoner called Seymour, proposes to Yuna that they marry for the political gain of bringing peace to Spira. She accepts, but before the 'happy' wedding can occur, the horrible truth comes out: Seymour's ambitions were dark. He'd killed his own father, Lord Jyscal, and his motives with Yuna were equally dark: he wanted to bring the Calm to Spira by destroying it!
The events in Bevelle revealed that Yevon's highest clergymen disregarded their own teachings---their entire religion was built on a lie. Overwhelmed with this knowledge and fearing her fate now that she had fallen in love, Yuna temporarily faltered on her path to Zanarkand. But Tidus's true love for her prevailed, and the two vowed to stay together always. They would find a way to defeat Sin without killing Yuna. Rikku would join in on this project too.
Soon, more lies are unraveled: Sin always returned because it is the armor that shields Yu Yevon, the force seeking to destroy human progress in vengeance for Zanarkand's defeat in the Machina War 1000 years prior. When Sin is defeated by the Final Aeon, Yu Yevon merges with this new Final Aeon to become the next Sin. Thus a Summoner's defeat of Sin by the time-honored tradition is doomed to be temporary.
Yuna will have no part in continuing this cycle. She essentially tells Lady Yunalesca, the secret-bearer of the Final Aeon, to shove it:
I would have gladly died. I live for the people of Spira, and would have gladly died for them. But no more! The Final Summoning...is a false tradition that should be thrown away. My father wanted...to make Spira's sorrow go away. Not just cover it up with lies! So I... I will live with my sorrow, I will live my own life! I will defeat sorrow, in his place. I will stand my ground and be strong. I don't know when it will be but someday, I will conquer it. And I will do it without...false hope.
And then the party proceeds to kill Yunalesca. Go Yuna!
From this point on, it becomes the party's mission to find a new method for defeating Sin. Eventually, they form a plan: break into Sin with their weapons, calm the Final Aeon within (Tidus's dad had been Braska's, what a lucky coincidence!), summon and defeat Yuna's Aeons to lure Yu Yevon out, and kill Yu Yevon. When they do this, the fayth can rest at last and Spira will have an Eternal Calm.
And they do. Yuna becomes the first High Summoner to defeat Sin and survive her pilgrimage, but at a terrible cost: when the Fayth's dream ends, so does the life of her love Tidus. He'd been a dream all along, created by the Fayth to someday come to Spira and fight, just as his father did.
A short while later, Yuna gives a speech at the stadium. She promises to help everyone rebuild Spira, and implores them not to forget.
Just one more thing... The people and the friends that we have lost, or
the dreams that have faded...never forget them.
Yuna in Final Fantasy X-2:
Two years pass after Sin's final defeat. For most of that time, Yuna resides at her happy home on Besaid Island with the ever-loyal Wakka and Lulu. She loves to see the people so happy again thanks to her victory, but with the adventure of love two years ago she'd had a taste of adventure and living herself. That's missing.
But can she reclaim it? One day, her ever-adventurous cousin Rikku arrives with a sphere, an almost camera-recorded picture of events from many years ago. On it is a man in a cage in Bevelle, demanding to see the summoner. The funny thing? He looks just like Tidus "him".
Intrigued, Yuna decides on an impulse to throw away her life as the High Summoner on display and join the Gullwings, a sphere-hunting group dedicated to uncovering Spira's past as the future unfolds. Joining her are Rikku, her rebellious and thoughtful cousin, Paine, a serious young woman who didn't appear in the previous games, Brother, Rikku's flamboyant brother with an incestuous crush on Yuna, Buddy, a cool-headed navigator, and Shinra, a whiz kid responsible for developing their new technology: dresspheres.
Certain spheres have enough residual memory to provide power to their users in the form of a new job class. Rikku is still a thief, as before, and Paine is a swordswoman, but Yuna's not a timid staff-waving summoner anymore. Nope---she's packing guns! Without Yevon's hypocritical ban on machina in place, the Al Bhed are able to use machina to fill the gaps in Spiran life that were filled by the magic of the fayth before.
For the first little while, the Gullwings are simply enjoying life and working through the conflicts of Spira: between those too attached to Yevon to let go completely and the bold adventurers throwing away every scrap of tradition. Their factions, New Yevon and the Youth League, are in a public conflict tearing families apart. Soon, an even bigger conflict arises: there is unrest in Spira, and the souls of the freed fayth are in danger again. And naturally, Yuna has to help---for all her talk about wanting to live her own life, she still feels a deep need to help Spira in her heart. As Shinra aptly describes her:
"Hero. Summoner. Doormat."
What's the crisis facing the Gullwings this time? Remember that man who looked like "him" in the sphere? As Yuna discovers, his name is Shuyin, and he lived in the real Zanarkand 1002 years ago as a blitzball player---just like "him". His girlfriend was the Summoner Lenne, a beautiful singer who was enlisted to fight in the war.
Outraged over Lenne's fate, Shuyin travelled to Bevelle and attempted to activate Vegnagun, Bevelle's ultimate machina weapon. Its power would have destroyed Spira, but at least he and Lenne would have been free. They were killed before he could enact this sucky plan, but 1002 years later, Shuyin's spirit is back and ready for revenge.
Shuyin's plan this time? Possess a living Spiran and have them activate Vegnagun. He eventually chooses Baralai, the praetor of the New Yevon faction and a former comrade of Paine's. Having overcome their previous conflict, Paine's other teammates, Nooj and Gippal, form a plan to rescue Baralai. Have Shuyin possess Nooj instead, and then kill Nooj with explosives rigged to his body.
Yuna objects:
I don't like your plan. It sucks.
Your plan is awful. Think about it. It’s no different than what we did two years ago. We destroyed our own allies. We destroyed the aeons who had fought together with us, at our sides. We didn’t have a choice then. We believed that was the only way we could save Spira. Do you know what it felt like to watch them die? Right before my eyes? It was the only thing we could do. It was the only choice we had. I gave in, I accepted, I believed. I allowed it to be true. I thought I’d be able to go through with it without ever doubting myself. But I... It hurts so much....
“We had no choice.” Always “we had no choice.” Those are our magic words. We repeat them to ourselves again and again. But you know... The magic never worked! The only thing we’re left with is regret...I don’t want friends to die or fade away. I don’t want battles where we have to lose in order to win.
So the Gullwings have another plan: Yuna knows that her Songstress dressphere contains Lenne's spirit, and because Yuna and Lenne had such similar stories, Yuna looks almost identical to Lenne while wearing the Songstress costume. She uses this trick to attempt to calm Shuyin in the Farplane, but it fails---and the battle against him starts.
Finally, Lenne's spirit emerges from Yuna and reunites with Shuyin at last. Spira is saved, and the Gullwings are free to embark on their own adventures. This is where Yuna is now: flying high.
Personality: When we first meet Yuna, we get an impression of her base personality. Throughout her adventures, she remains a person willing to give everything she has to the people of Spira. Having watched her father sacrifice himself for Spira when she was a little girl, she soon realized that she wanted to bring that same happiness to everyone again. She listens attentively to everyone's pain, is compassionate to those who have lost their loved ones, and it's her dearest wish to end that pain.
Over the course of the game, though, Tidus her blond blitzer shows her a happier life. He makes her laugh, he shows her a stubborn determination, and he supports her all the way. When Yevon's lies are revealed, then, she's more than ready to throw them away and take charge of her own fate. She won't just die in vain because all the other High Summoners have done so---she'll shape her own story.
By the end of her pilgrimage, she transforms into a leader. Her ideas help shape the final battle plan against Sin, she calls Spira together to help her guardians with their first strike, and she defeats Sin without sacrificing herself. Unfortunately, her lover's life was the price for that victory.
For the next two years, she was duty-bound to provide advice for the people of Spira from her home in Besaid, but a voice lingered in the back of her mind. His. She could be strong like him, she could choose her own life as she did two years ago. And so she does---as a Gullwing, she wants what she wants and claims it, all with that sweet smile still on her face.
But her base personality won't be suppressed for too long. When it becomes clear that the people of Spira are in trouble again, she jumps at the call to help them---a little older, a little wiser, and a little more willing to question bad ideas, but she's still the same heroine beneath all the glitz. By the end of her second journey, the powerful will to save that had marked her first journey is back in full force.
Powers: Yuna can use a small device called the Garment Grid to switch between one of several dresspheres, each granting her different abilities corresponding to a job class. As a basic human, she can punch, kick, and jump her way out of trouble. Her dresspheres have the following effects:
Gunner: She wields two small pistols, wears her default costume, and runs and jumps with decent speed. They're both rapid-fire pistols, and some special bullets can cast status effects (decreased physical accuracy, draining mana) on the target.
Songstress: As a bard, Yuna can perform songs to boost her teammates' stats (strength, speed) or afflict her enemy (slow, silence). She wears Lenne's costume.
White Mage: This one's pretty basic. She can cast curing and revival spells. She wears classic white mage robes.
There are many more dresspheres, but I don't need Yunie too overpowered. Gunner and Songstress are the only dresspheres she uses during the storyline, but I'd also like to keep White Mage since that was her class in Final Fantasy X. She can only be in one mode at a time, and changing takes a few seconds. The vast majority of the time will see her in Gunner mode.