Character meme: Yue!
CHARACTER WRITING MEME BC
Pick a character I’ve written and I will explain the top ~three to five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.
1. Pure (strong) He is Lawful Neutral
2. Closed/contained but not without emotions; hidden emotional life
3. Not human, but made to seem human/live in a human manner; effectively immortal
4. Outside observer (of culture, events); reader; innately passively outlook
5. Canon Yue is grieving and displaced; precanon Yue is "in his right place"
CHARACTER WRITING MEME BC
1. Pure (strong) He is Lawful Neutral
Yue is a pure force, pure as in undiluted. He is a distillation of Clow's ideas about the moon: serenity, beauty, mystery. Purity of purpose and purity of thinking are Yue's ideal state.
Precanon, I also see him as having a kind of innocence. Though a guardian, he was protected when he was with Clow from the "slings an arrows of outrageous fortune" that are part of human life. The great magician Clow Reed was always there to smooth things out one way or another. Clow made the decisions.
I see Yue as valuing order and rules above all else, even his own desires. Rather than simply refusing to accept a new master, he does as he was designated to do, fighting Sakura in the Final Judgement. My headcanon is that he expects her to lose, therefore making him forget Clow, since the Doom is that all who have been touched by the Clow Cards will forget the one they love most. Unlike Kero, he doesn't seem happy about the new master he never wanted, but he bows to Sakura when she wins, and afterward he is loyal. I get the feeling that even though he grows to care about Sakura, he continues to call her Mistress as a kind of reminder to himself. Kero doesn't do this. He has always called Sakura by her first name and treats her the same as always when she is officially the Master of the Clow. I think Yue struggles to accept her as his master except in name. He doesn't accept her casual attitude of being friends. He remains formal with her. If he really accepted her, he *would* call her Sakura. He called Clow by his first name, and he has a demanding attitude toward Eriol when he asks why he had to have a new master.
2. Closed/contained but not without emotions; hidden emotional life
Because he is not human, he keeps himself a little apart. He is aloof by nature. Though he appears unemotional most of the time, the little moments when he loses his cool show me that he has a stormy emotional life under the stoic surface. This is something I strongly relate to, and I keep in mind that Yue isn't a fire sign like me and isn't as volatile as I am. (I think Yue is probably a Capricorn, even though that's not air or water. He was probably born on/around Winter Solstice, and Yukito's Christmas birthday is because of that. His personality absolutely doesn't fit Libra, as one might expect, with the Autumn equinox being a good creation day. Keroberos can be nothing but a Leo.)
3. Not human, but made to seem human/live in a human manner; effectively immortal
Yue is a created person. Although his appearance is human (except for his eyes) and he acts human, he is not shaped by by essential human experiences. He was never a child. He didn't grow from a childish form and experience the physicality of adolescence, so he never related to the world from those realities. He hasn't experienced sickness. He didn't have a reason to consider his own mortality at some point of adulthood. He was never expected to marry, find work, have children. He didn't even have to find purpose, because his purpose was given to him. (Granted, that can also be true of humans in some situations of birth.)
Yukito is a closer semblance of human-ness because he believed that he *was* human. He had fake memories of having grandparents, needing to eat, and expecting to grow older and do adult things himself. (I'm assuming he planned to go to University and was taking necessary classes toward that.) Even still, Yukito is a little odd, because Yue modeled Yukito's personality/sense of self on experiences other than his own. This is a reason why I think Yue is a reader. He has gleaned the human condition from observation of some kind, and that is unlikely to be first hand.
He doesn't have the framework to understand the weakness he's going through when he starts disappearing. That is, he understands the *mechanics* of what is happening, he understands rationally that he is not getting enough magic, but his understanding is primarily cerebral. He seems at an impasse about it. He doesn't tell anyone, not Yukito, not Kero (his magic sibling) or Sakura. (If he truly accepted her as master, he would. A servant doesn't hide things from the master only because he thinks the master can't solve it. Sakura always comes up with a solution, and he didn't even trust her enough to step away from his pride and lay it out before her.) Even when Touya brings him out for their first face-to-face, he doesn't ask Touya for the needed magic. He doesn't even outright say what he needs.
4. Outside observer (of culture, events); reader; innately passively outlook
His long life and many years with Clow are always important in my mind when I write him. He has seen society change over centuries. This would definitely affect how he assesses current events and culture.
He is an outside observer because he is not part of humanity. Although placed as Judge, I don't think he's at all impartial, however. He's not a joiner. He's not gregarious. He keeps himself on the outside.
Even as Yukito, this is true. Yukito has one best friend and a bunch of classmates that admire him and to whom he is friendly. Comppare him to Sakura, who everyone likes, who has a best friend but also has her group of friends. Yukito doesn't do activities with anyone else. Touya is the center of his world. I think that Yukito follows Touya's lead. If Touya had various good friends with whom he went bowling and ate pizza, then Yukito might have done the same. Without Touya, Yukito would not have developed into his own person as he did. He would be the Yukito of my fic "Hunger," who really is a mask.
5. Canon Yue is grieving and displaced; precanon Yue is "in his right place"
At the same time, being an outsider is inevitable for Yue because of his introverted, yang personality. He's displaced in time and environment. He was custom made for Clow and Clow's time and society, Clow's world. Sakura lives in a different time and is a very different person from Clow. Yue will never fit unless he is reshaped or allows others to shape themselves around him, as Kero-chan's easy personality allowed the Sun Guardian to do.
This idea of belonging and developing a place is common in a lot of my writing. It's an important theme for me. It's not just a matter of being chosen, but also about choosing to belong. Friendship (love) is about changing the curves of our outlines to fit in with each other. Mutual change is mutual benefit.
From "Elsa of Corona"
Aunt Primrose called her attention back. “Child, do you know what helps make homesickness go away? Making a place, here where you are, that fits you. It turns out that we’re not pieces of a puzzle. We’re people,” she said, leaning down to catch Elsa in a hug, “and people can fit around each other different shapes.”