Brave New World Application

[psychicsister]

PLAYER INFO

Name: Ax
Contact Information: axiomaticgrue
Time Zone: EST
Characters Played: Yuuna Sugasawa, Rei Hino, Anko Mitarashi


CHARACTER INFO

Character Name: Yakumo Tsukamoto
Character Canon:School Rumble

History: School Rumble’s overarching plot Yakumo’s personal wiki page

AU History: Yakumo Tsukamoto is the youngest child of a noble family in Union. Her parents, largely absent from her life, left her in the charge of her elder sister Tenma and a household nanny, and she had a fairly unextraordinary upbringing until she turned ten or eleven. She was taught strict manners, raised to be gentle, kind, softspoken, and generally fairly silent. Her temperament was more or less amenable to this kind of molding, so it stuck. At around age eleven, she realized that she could actually hear the thoughts of people around her, particularly people who had strong feelings about her specifically.

Frightened of this ability, she took pains not to mention this to anyone for fear of some sort of backlash, as she’d generally been taught that it was extremely impolite to pry and she saw this as an extremely bad form of spying. In keeping it to herself, though, she began to internalize things and slowly and surely she became more and more quiet. Being around people was generally somewhat awkward, but she was still nice enough that despite how shy she seemed, schoolmates found her to be more and more interesting. It helped that she knew exactly what to say, and when to say it with the majority of them, though she was still incredibly awkward around boys her own age. So, people were simply drawn to her, and that made her close off more and more in an effort to politely shut out the voices she was hearing.


Which is why she sought refuge with things who’s mind she couldn’t read easily: Pokemon. She realized this on a walk home one evening when she happened to find a stray Espurr that looked hungry. Curious, Yakumo went over and attempted to help the cat-creature, and after some work realized that she couldn’t sense it’s thoughts as easily as a person. Which led to a lot of trial and error but eventually she figured out just what the Pokemon wanted: someone to bond with. It was lonely and hungry and tired of living around Union by itself…and when Yakumo finally did manage to make a mental connection with it they were both equally surprised…and delighted. The Espurr, named Iori, stayed with her ever since. She’s eventually come to understand, too, that the only way she can read a Pokemon’s thoughts is if they have strong feelings about her, like Iori or if she concentrates very hard, a thing that she’s used to help care for and nurture the Pokemon around her.

As she started her secondary schooling and she began to focus on Pokemon care, volunteering at the habitat and learning as much as she could about them. Her Ability became somewhat clear to her during the first few weeks, with eggs hatching much more quickly around her. But the most important realization she had was that there were actually humans who’s mind’s she couldn’t read. Specifically: one Harima Kenji.

Yakumo met Harima one fine afternoon after he’d been removed from class for bringing a noisy Swinub with him. He’d ended up in the habitat after, so when Yakumo came to volunteer that afternoon, she just happened to run into him…and imagine her surprise when she couldn’t hear what he was thinking. She didn’t know why, but it immediately attracted her to the delinquent, who seemed to have a similar love for Pokemon, and slowly her own feelings began to (secretly) blossom into something more. She’s begun spending a lot of time with him, gradually realizing that he does like someone else, while in the course of helping him ink his comic. Because of this, Yakumo’s been starting to actually train her Espurr, in an attempt to find a way to impress Harima.

Canon Personality:
Yakumo Tsukamoto is, first and foremost, an extremely quiet person. Canonically, she lives in the shadow of her shorter…much louder…elder sister Tenma. She’s developed into this because of Tenma’s tendency to basically get herself into trouble, and because of their mysteriously absent (as always happens in anime) parents. Tenma just…needs a caretaker, a zookeeper, and someone who isn’t a complete screwup to look after her, so Yakumo adopts that role. We see time and time again throughout the canon that Yakumo just wants the best for her friends and family. She’s incredibly kind, a nurturing person, and generous too.

Yakumo is generally an easygoing person who’ll put up with a great deal of nonsense, particularly from people that she likes or cares about. She doesn’t ever respond angrily to anything, unless certain things are said. These buzzwords tend to be insulting friends and family (particularly Tenma), and will cause her to act uncharacteristically cold or even violent. She swiftly and efficiently solves her problems (both with people and with her situation) by whatever means necessary, or by simply leaving. That’s generally what happens, anyway, though there are several instances where she’s cornered and just freezes up in a panic. Around friends though, she can actually be quite chatty, though not quite as much as her sister. There are a few times she genuinely has an outburst, and they’re all after a great deal of development and in bad situations.

Because of her psychic abilities, Yakumo can come off as shy, or a little awkward. This isn’t really because she’s actually shy, but rather because she knows what people are thinking often. Because of this, she tends to seek out people who’s mind’s she cant read (Harima for instance) so that she doesn’t have to hide that facet of herself. It’s just easier for her, not having to deal with it. That said, it’s hard for this to last because generally people’s feelings grow stronger for her as they spend more time with her, leading to eventual mind-reading complication. She often also seeks refuge with animals, as their thoughts even when they do like her are much simpler and less intrusive.

Finally, Yakumo is a bit of a perfectionist. She excels at nearly everything she tries because she’s naturally gifted, but also because she works hard at it. School, sports, cooking, cleaning, work, she’s just a hard-worker and a helper! She’s modest, but at the same time through her rivalry with Sawachika Eri we see that she has a fire inside. She doesn’t like to lose, she hates giving up, and she’ll actually use some fairly subversive tactics to get her way. An example of this is a point where Eri repairs Harima’s jacket, and she simply undoes all the stitching and redoes it better, presenting it as her own handiwork. Still, at her core she’s quite nice, and her moments like this are fairly rare.


AU Deviation: The biggest deviation here is family. Yakumo’s feelings for family are sort of imprinted onto Pokemon. She still has a family (of NPCs) and she cares deeply for them, but Tenma is a bit more absent from her life, presumably having graduated or moved into a different area of study. There aren’t many more deviations here, though, other than her being slightly more comfortable around people now thanks to being around Harima for a little while now.

Canon Abilities: Yakumo is canonically a fit, fairly athletic teenage girl. She’s not particularly buff or strong, but she’s quick and capable when it comes to sports and is shown to have little trouble beating all but the most athletic characters in her school at running, gymnastics, and other gym activities.

Yakumo is also psychic. In canon she is able to read the minds of anyone who has particularly strong feelings about her, specifically. This includes her cat Iori and her sister Tenma, as well as nearly everyone else in the canon and she is unable to choose when to use it and when not to. The exception to this is Harima Kenji, a delinquent who is so fixated on his affections for Tenma that Yakumo can’t read his mind. It’s a source of relief for her to be around Harima, as she doesn’t have to worry about what he’s thinking, whereas nearly everyone else frustrates her, confuses her, or makes her just feel uncomfortable.

Enlightened Abilities:
Yakumo’s ability is Egg Mastery, and her typing is Psychic/Normal.

Yakumo’s Enlightened Abilities are almost entirely her ability to read minds. Initially, she’ll begin with the ability to simply pick up on surface thoughts, specifically those about her. Even more specifically, the louder the thought the bigger the word bubble over a person’s head. The other abilities she’ll have in her first evolution are Heal Pulse, Captivate, Play Nice, Yawn, and other low level Normal Type status debuffs.

In her second evolution, her mind reading powers will grow, giving her the ability to read more deeply into people’s thoughts with concentration, a mid-grade form of telepathy, as well as blocking out ambient thoughts. Her other abilities will include more Normal type Status debuffs like Sing, along with a few offensive abilities like Swift to represent her learning to actually stand up for herself. Additionally, she’ll learn to Identify ghosts with her psychic powers.

And in Yakumo’s final stage, she’ll unlock her full psychic potential. Advanced telepathy, though still able to be blocked by concentrated effort, but it will require less concentration on her part to maintain. With this comes the ability to actually give psychic nudges or attack if she feels threatened. Her other skills will be more related to her realizing her potential as a person and getting over her various issues and shynesses. The most significant of thing I’d like for her to learn is Miracle Eye, so that she can finally overcome her hangups with Harima (and his Dark typing), but she’ll also learn moves like Uproar, Hidden Power, Mega Punch, and psychic attacks like Psychic and Future Sight (Or roughly equivalent moves relating to her main ability). It’s unlikely she’ll ever use any of these powers outside of really dramatic life/death situations, though.

As a note: her Telepathy will be receiving a permissions post in my journal, and will always fail unless given express permission by a PC, and obviously it’s up to mod discretion on NPCs.


Starter Pokémon: An Espurr named Iori

Notes/Special Considerations: Not that I know of!

SAMPLES

I’ll be replacing both samples with questions!

1) What do you feel your role in Union is? I feel that my role in Union is to help however I can, and because of that…[She goes silent for a moment after the immediate reply…] I…think I should use my gifts with Pokemon, as a caretaker…and maybe a trainer…if there’s time.

2) What do you seek for humanity’s future? Happiness and health, of course. What else would I want? [She smiles brightly, pleased with herself for that response.]

3) What would you say the most important occupation is within Union? I think that medics have the most important job. They help keep when we’re sick or injured, and do the same for the Pokemon who live here.

4) What does the story of the Savior mean to you? I think the story of the Savior is an inspiration. She…did her duty admirably, and I…hmmm, I couldn’t think of a better example of someone to look up to.

5) What aspects and traits do you respect most in your individual fellow man? [This gives her pause, and she takes a deep breath before answering.] I value…I…think…integrity the most. Standing up for what you believe in. I think that’s…noble.

6) In your eyes, what is absolutely unforgivable. I think that abandoning a friend or a family member is absolutely unforgivable. Theres…um…there’s no good reason to ever do that, because those bonds are not supposed to be set aside.

7) -You plunge into the depths of the Old City. What is it that you seek from the past? Treasure, technology, wisdom? I am looking for wisdom. Treasure is fleeting…and technology brought problems in the past, but wisdom is, well, it’s never a waste…and it will stay with you longer than treasure.

8) -What strengths make you most qualified for your role within Union? [Yakumo looks extremely uncomfortable at the question, fretting her lip slightly in thought. Her? Most qualified? Well…if she has to answer.] I…have…a gift for helping people and Pokemon. I know that I’m a good caretaker. And I think that…um, I think that’s probably what makes me qualified, but maybe not the most…

9) What do you do to ensure we never again awaken the wrath of the gods upon humanity? [Again she looks away, and her answer is slow, faltering.] I…try…to just…um, I try to respect all living things. Pokemon are not tools, like they were in the past. But I…I’m just one person. And it’s a b-bigger thing than just me.

10) What area do you seek to explore? The peaceful forest, in search of new, previously overlooked discoveries; the uncharted caves, in search of the unknown; or the wildest of mountain terrain, in search of danger, adventure, and thrills? I…think I would go to the forest. It’d be nice, I think. And…I’m not really someone who looks for danger. [She straightens up and nods more surely after a moment though.] Yes. That’s definitely where I’d want to go. Iori would probably like that best, anyway.