Katsuki Yuuri (勝生勇利)

"Hello, you've ... um, I mean ... This is Katsuki Yuuri. You can leave a message if you want."

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Rho
AGE: 31
JOURNAL: galatea
IM / EMAIL: ishidaaaugh @ gmail
PLURK: katoptron
RETURNING: Yep! I play Miles and Nico.

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Yuuri Katsuki
CHARACTER AGE: 24
SERIES: Yuri!!! on ICE
CHRONOLOGY: End of the current series
CLASS: Registered! Yuuri really doesn’t have any reason not to register. He’s a figure skater from a sports anime. Really no dramatic reasons for or against playing nice with the government.
HOUSING: Shared please! If Viktor apps/is accepted, please place them together.

BACKGROUND:
Being the protagonist of the series, Yuuri’s wiki page is reasonably detailed. To summarize briefly: after failing miserably at the Grand Prix skating finals, Yuuri thinks his skating career is over until a video of him skating goes viral and causes Viktor, a world-class Russian skater and Yuuri’s idol, to come and coach him. Over the course of several months, Yuuri falls in love with and seduces his coach, and realizes that he wants to see Viktor on the ice again. Yuuri ultimately doesn’t win the next Grand Prix, but he’s a much better (and happier!) skater. Next season he and Viktor will both return to the ice, with Viktor continuing on as Yuuri’s coach, rival, and fiancé.

PERSONALITY:

At first glance, Yuuri Katsuki seems like your typical bumbling anime protagonist: shy, nervous, and inexperienced in pretty much anything that doesn’t involve skating. His self esteem is especially hideous at the beginning of the series, partially due to his performance in the Grand Prix. He doesn’t want to interact with his fans, cries in the bathroom when he loses, and is hideously awkward around his fellow skaters. It’s safe to say that Yuuri has some level of social anxiety with new people. He’s especially scared of trying new things when he doesn’t feel like he deserves to be a part of them. This is exactly how this whole mess started, in fact: Yuuri, despondent over his loss and feeling completely undeserving (as well as anxious) of the rest of the skaters, decided to get completely, ridiculously drunk instead. The resulting dance battle introduced himself to Viktor and put the rest of the series in motion. Yes, that actually happened. The point is that Yuuri’s his own best enemy half the time, and sometimes he manages crazy stuff despite himself.

Similarly, Yuuri is a deeply anxious person. He cares a lot about … well just about everything, but he religiously checks the news/the scores/the other skaters’ performances, or he has to shut them out completely. There’s really no in between. The first time he led at a competition, he was up all night due to nerves; consequently, he did much more poorly the next day. Anxiety is the number one cause of him screwing up, whether it’s skating or relationships. When he’s out on the ice, he has to be careful not to overthink what he’s doing or he will screw up his jumps. Similarly, the more he thinks about how to approach people, the worse he does in actually talking to him. It’s only when he relaxes - or gets so stubborn that he stops caring - that he does the best with them. His anxiety also drives him to work his ass off when he’s nervous. When he gets nervous about his skating battle with Yuri Plisetsky, he goes to his ballet teacher to obsessively practice dancing until he’s sure he’s got his moves right. Yuuri is talented, yes, but he works at it.

Yuuri is actually an excellent skater when he isn’t fighting himself. And similarly, he can be quite stubborn when he wants something. Skating is not just something he falls into; skating is something he loves more than nearly anything in the world, so you’re damn right he’s going to give it everything he’s got. When he’s on the ice, his inner monologue tends towards statements like “I’m the only one who can communicate this” or “My coach is wrong, I’m going to do it like this and be awesome” or “Screw being the passive maiden, I’m going to seduce the playboy myself.” Yuuri is shy and anxious, yes, but those aren’t his whole personality. He is intensely passionate underneath that outer veneer. He just has impossibly high standards for himself. So high, in fact, that he can’t see his own talents until people rub his face in them. He assumes that Plisetsky’s rivalry with him is due to Yuuri not being good enough; it takes until the end of the series for him to realize that Plisetsky actually sees him as the skater to beat. He is also fiercely competitive, especially when in the middle of a competition (amazingly enough). This leads him to be terribly awkward and cold to some of the other skaters as well, specially those that look up to him. It's still weird being an idol for someone else.

Yuuri is known by the other skaters as being “the figure skater with the world’s biggest glass heart.” He feels everything intensely. He is kind and compassionate, and he deeply appreciates all the support around him (even if it takes him time to really get why they’re supporting him and how best to show them his feelings.) And then that heart utterly shatters when things go wrong, hence all the issues with anxiety. Yuuri absolutely hates losing. It makes him afraid of failure to the point where there are situation where he’d rather not try at all. Fortunately that’s where his stubbornness kicks in. Wanting something - or someone - makes him get past that initial hurdle. Anything less than that and he’s more likely to have trouble, but if he wants it enough? He goes for it. His first choreographed routine in the series is about Eros, which seems like a horrible mismatch for the nervous, awkward Yuuri. But he utterly kills it. When push comes to shove, Yuuri gets shit done.

For all Yuuri’s support, he’s a young man who felt terribly alone at the beginning of this year’s season. He’d spent five years in a foreign country in order to skate while he finished his degree. And then after that had ended, he’d felt too depressed to return home immediately. Then Viktor came into his life. Viktor, the skater that Yuuri had idolized since he was twelve years old, came to Japan and essentially demanded to be Yuuri’s coach. Over the course of their initial practices, Yuuri came to realize that the theme he wanted to express in this season’s figure skating was love. The love of his supporters, the love he was beginning to feel for his coach. At the time, he hadn’t realized that his feeling for Viktor were romantic. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have seen himself as a worthy romantic object anyway, so it wouldn’t have gone very far to begin with. It takes time over the series, with Viktor building up Yuuri’s self confidence as surely as he builds up Yuuri’s skating ability. Yuuri eventually finds that more than anything else he wants to skate with Yuuri again, not as coach and coachee but as partners. Actually getting to that conclusion is rocky, though. He initially states he wants to retire so that he stops holding Viktor back. It takes missing a gold medal by a few tenths of a point to keep him skating instead.

By the end of the series, Yuuri is still anxious and nervous and prone to being afraid of himself. But he’s also more in touch with his own strengths, and he’s also found love in the form of his coach, Viktor. He’s better off for having challenged himself rather than giving up and retiring like he’d intended to do originally.

POWER:

Skate Anywhere: Yuuri can skate on any surface, with the appropriate bump to speed (and potential for accidents). This is best done with just his feet, though he can extend the effect to make the surface slippery for any vehicle he happens to be in as well. This power does not actually create any ice or change the surface itself; Yuuri still has to contend with the texture of the surface, as well as any other terrain hazards it may present. So skating down a pile of gravel is still probably a bad idea. He can use this to skate on the surface of liquids as well with some extra concentration. (Easier to skate on the surface of a pool than try this trick out on an ocean wave!)

Katsudon Power-Up: After eating katsudon (and only katsudon), Yuuri gets a surge of speed and strength that quadruples his current capabilities. He is also marginally more durable to match, but only so he doesn’t, say, accidentally dismember himself. Otherwise he’s just as vulnerable to being hurt (and potentially moreso since he can actually throw himself into a combat situation). Also he can eat as much katsudon as he likes without gaining weight.

Eros: Yuuri can seduce people with MIND CONTROL!!! Okay no it’s actually a mild influence that he can sort of direct or switch off if he wants to, but mostly will result in a lot of awkward and unwanted attention. Yuuri projects an aura that can convince people that they are suddenly (with varying levels of intensity) in love with him. Whether this works at all is completely up to the individual, and defaults to not working on fellow imPorts at all unless they opt in to the effect. (This will be handled on a thread by thread basis typically, but I’ll toss up a post detailing the effect for people to opt into as well.) The exact nature of the effect will also vary greatly depending on the person in question. Most affected will feel a push to be nicer to Yuuri or a nonsexual urge to proclaim marriage, eternal love, etc. A much smaller portion may feel stronger (possibly sexual) feelings towards him, but again that’s completely up to the player and the character in question. The influence is at its strongest when Yuuri skates and much lower when he’s doing normal everyday things. (And once he figures out that he has it, he’ll be struggling to turn it off.) Regardless of the intensity, the influence is temporary; it usually lasts for a few minutes before fading again.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

[ Oh god. Oh god. Coming to another world was one thing. That’s plenty weird, even if it does resemble a country that Yuuri’s been to before. He even speaks the language relatively well after five years of living in Detroit. But this? This is madness. Agony. Suicide.

Yuuri idly weighs the pros and cons of getting drunk before making his first network post. Cons narrowly win out, if only because he remembers what happened the last time he got ridiculously drunk. Or, more accurately, he doesn’t remember.

When he finally turns on the video, he already has his head bowed. Glasses hiding his eyes, dark hair hanging down over his face. His voice comes out a a mumble. ]

Um … my name is Katsuki Yuuri. [ A quick, awkward little head bow. ] It’s - it’s very nice to meet you. I just … I had a question. Or two.

[ His voice trails off. Get it together, dammit. What’s the worst that could happen? (A lot of things, his mind happily answers him. He forces himself to ignore that little voice.) ]

Is this whole superhero thing real? And the powers? It’s just … [ How to phrase this. ] I think they made a mistake with me. I’m a figure skater.

[ Yuuri’s never thrown a punch in his life. And he doesn’t intend to start now. ]

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

TDM link: http://etcelsior.dreamwidth.org/48142.html?thread=33445134#cmt33445134

FINAL NOTES: Yuuri will be entering with a duffel bag with some basic skating supplies inside. A pair of skates, a couple costumes, workout clothes, that sort of thing. Nothing unusual or unique save the costumes, and those are just clothes.