Yumi Ishiyama

STAT CARD
NAME: Yumi Ishiyama
AGE: 15
SEX: Female
NICKNAMES: Yumes via Odd, but just Yumi is fine, thank you!
AFFILIATION: Lyoko Warrior
GRADE: 10th grade
CANON: Yes!
PLAYBY: Herself.



CHARACTER FILE



PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
Yumi is the tallest of the Lyoko Warriors, holding herself tall and straight. She is not particularly curvy, but she is slender and flexible, soft-skinned, with long limbs and long fingers. Despite appearances, her muscles are somewhat toned from martial arts training and other physical exertions, especially her legs. Her skin is tanned from time in the sun. She has a very feminine face, with rounded features, arched eyebrows, and the thick-lashed dark Japanese eyes that are usually the first indicator of the heritage she's so proud of. Her face is framed by her straight black hair, cut at chin-length and managed well. She has no bangs, though her hair is parted at the right with the hairline neatly visible.

Yumi makes a point of wearing all black, typically clothes of comfort. She does not at all like frills and color, and tends to scorn some girls who do. She bares her midriff a bit often also, but slim as she is, it looks fine. Her style of dress and the manner with which she holds herself might be a bit off-putting, and her default expression isn't exactly warm. She's very expressive, though. A common mannerism when she's flustered or anxious is to raise her hand to her mouth.

PERSONALITY:
Yumi seems a bit aloof at first. Although she appeals to boys, she's somewhat intense and feisty which can scare a lot of them off. She was a bit of a lone wolf for a long time, caring little for her peers or interacting with them. Even after she has a concrete and loved group of friends, Yumi really values her alone time and her independence. She likes quiet, the atmosphere to think and reflect. All the same, she also enjoys being with her friends, laughing at their wisecracks and offering some of her own-- Yumi's sense of humor is dry and sardonic. She also likes to tease, but has a low threshold for total nonsense and pranks directed on her.

Her seemingly detached loner routine doesn't change the fact that Yumi is compassionate and protective of her friends. She is very mature, and on occasion talks to the others about their issues and feelings-- she can be very reassuring, almost taking on a maternal or 'big sis' role within the group. This might be from practice with her own ultra-annoying younger sibling, though she does love him very much too-- her family is one of her main priorities, she is very attached to them and deferential to her parents. Partially because of them, she is very responsible, in studies and in the group, in crises and on Lyoko. Also thanks to her upbringing are her traditionalist values and her love of Japanese culture.

Just as she takes pride in her culture, Yumi is confident in herself and her abilities, though sometimes she is uncertain and needs a word of encouragement. She usually will do whatever it takes to reach a goal; she is energetic, relentless, dependable and dutiful. However, unlike the others, Yumi is much more of a pragmatist and sees the many dangers in the fight against XANA, making her less gung-ho the majority of the time. She does not enjoy the heroics nearly as much as Odd or Ulrich, and takes it seriously, especially since their situation puts her family in danger, which is terrifying for her. But she does like a challenge. And she doesn't regret their Lyoko experience over all.

In circumstances not regarding Lyoko, Yumi is easily flustered, irritated, angered or upset. So she can be very moody, and then doesn't want to talk about it. It takes her a while to build up trust in people, and can even be considered secretive afterwards, so she holds people to high standards with her secrets. She is usually not confrontational with people, but she snaps at them or gives something of a silent treatment. While she's not mean-spirited, she can be fiery if provoked, although she tends not to go for petty revenge. She is also very stubborn, competitive and somewhat impatient. Although she is a tomboy, she has her girlish moments.

STRENGTHS:
- Yumi is a skilled martial artist, finding much joy in it and having trained extensively. This is really beneficial when fighting XANA.
- Just in general, Yumi is physically inclined, allowing her to fight and run fast. She is especially flexible, too.
- She is cool in a crisis, for the most part, and resourceful. She can be pretty sneaky.
- She's studious, loyal, fearless and focused on the task at hand, although she might get a bit antsy if roadblocks come up.

WEAKNESSES:
- Being so skinny, she's pretty easy to hold or pin down.
- She is the weakest link because her family is within XANA's reach, or for whatever reason, she is the targeted victim a lot.
- She isn't very good at dealing with people who aren't her friends.
- She can be snappish and secretive and argumentative and emotional, which sometimes gets in the way of getting things done.
- She's more cautious and wary than the others; sometimes this is a good thing and other times it impedes progress.

LYOKO: Yumi's Lyoko avatar is a Japanese Geisha-like form. Her newest incarnation has a skintight dark-colored bodysuit with shoulderpads, pink highlights and sakura decor, which is better suited to fighting anyway.

She fights with two sharp tessen fans, which can deflect attacks and are most effective for ranged combat; she can hit two targets or more with one throw if her aim is right, and her aim is pretty impeccable. The fans are sharp and fast, and they come back to her hands like boomerangs.

Her power is telekinesis, which she must concentrate to use properly. The motion is slowgoing and appears to be strenuous, but it comes in handy when saving allies from falling into the sea, and even in cases when she can crush an enemy with a rock.

On Lyoko, she is not as agile as Odd, good at close combat as Ulrich, or adept at manipulating the environment as Aelita-- but she performs well in all of these areas.

HISTORY: Yumi was born in Kyoto, Japan, and moved to France as a child. She was raised in the influence of her very attentive parents, a businessman and an industrious stay-at-home mother working on a dictionary. Her parents would occasionally argue and fight for stretches of time, which would continue to distress her into her teens because of how close she was to her family.

Perhaps because of her slightly standoffish nature, her pride, her strong ethnic background, or her tendency to judge others, she went through school without forging any close ties, which she was resigned to and content with. She spent a lot of time with her younger brother, agitating as he was, and got by reading or studying or immersing herself in enjoyable physical activities. Without friends as she was, she developed a spirit of independence and self-sufficiency. And she had a lot of time for getting good at hand-to-hand combat, even though her parents were not always supportive of a pursuit they saw as having little merit and being rather masculine.

Then came her first spars with Ulrich Stern, the impetus behind her involvement with the rest of the Lyoko gang. After an attack during a long spar in the gym, she coerced him into taking her to the factory, and from there, to Lyoko. And from there, she joined the group and stopped being so solitary. She was able to ease into the group without much trouble, since they all had a love of adventure and risk-taking, it seemed. That transcended the differences in their ages, or the fact that Yumi wasn't a boarding student, and Yumi was glad to befriend people she saw as being "on her level"-- those with the same fearlessness and values and likes. Even outside of Lyoko matters, she had a lot of fun hanging out with them.

Lyoko stopped being a whole joy very early on for Yumi-- she was the first to almost fall into the digital sea and even saw a polymorphic spectre take her place and almost kill her friends. Despite her many fallouts, Yumi doesn't suffer from uncertainty or a crippling lack of confidence about her abilities to fight XANA. But she began to see that Lyoko was not all fun and games. However, she felt a strong duty to keep going for her friends, especially for Aelita's sake.

Yumi was always sympathetic to Aelita's plight, and she became really close to her over the course of their interactions. As the more cynical of the two, she tried to be a guide for naive Aelita at times and they became like sisters, since Aelita was Yumi's first female friend, and Yumi admired her gentleness and spunk. Yumi and Jeremie had a friendly understanding as the more level-headed members of the group, occasionally talking about their issues with each other. Yumi was often unamused by Odd's antics, but all the same they worked together well and have come to like each other a lot-- theirs is a relationship of mutual teasing.

Yumi's relationship with Ulrich is the most complicated. There are definitely some feelings there on her part, but she was often frustrated by his inability to spit it out and sometimes put off by his immaturity. They both could get pretty jealous and sometimes teased each other about it. Also, she was not sure how prudent it was to be in a relationship when there was a malevolent and manipulative computer program seeking their destruction-- the unresolved romantic tension sometimes strained their relationship and their ability to fight XANA, so Yumi told him that they were just good friends. And they are.

Ulrich especially seemed to get jealous about William for a while, which was a headache for Yumi. William was a new student who she found herself drawn to at first, since he was charming and fun to talk to. But he started hitting on her too intensely, and she took issue with it. Yumi objected most to his joining the Lyoko Warriors, unsure if he could take the responsibility or not. All the same, when William was captured by XANA, Yumi arguably felt the most loss, as he was still her friend and she felt a degree of guilt for involving him.

She's still on a friendly basis with him, even though she deflects his come-ons with impressive ease. Yumi was the most eager to shut down the supercomputer, irritated by her friends' nostalgic and fond views of it. She accepted that she had her good times on Lyoko, but also has confidence that her life and her dear friendships didn't revolve around it. She still makes the effort to hang out with all of her friends regardless of their newfound security. She just has more time for studying now, and is a bit more pressured by her parents.

MISSION CONTROL
SCREENNAME: Pol
Time spent roleplaying: 8 years!
Other Characters: None yet!
RP Sample:
She couldn't help it. It was some impulse beyond her control, but Yumi felt a sense of... sadness, she supposed, about the way her friends treated William. Odd and Ulrich acted like such a thing was ridiculous, and maybe it was, but seeing William sway in a sea of students in the cafeteria tugged at her sympathies. He ended up sitting alone, looking markedly more miserable than his clone used to. Yumi looked away.

Idly twirling her fork in spaghetti, she listened in on one of Odd's stories of taking Sissi down a notch. She laughed with the rest of them, all grins and shared contentment for the time being. It was nice, the typical precursor to a Lyoko mission, which, in their high spirits, they met with earnest readiness. After Aelita and Jeremie explained their latest virtual venture to them, in tandem like they often did, Yumi stood up to set her tray away and leave for the sewers with the rest. William caught her eye, as he as wont to do. Something in his expression, maybe the weight of his blame, annoyed her.

William used to annoy her. He still annoyed her. The great majority of the time they spent together was composed of him annoying her, with outlandish shows of affection, with unwarranted touches and flowery conversations that went nowhere. But they were still friends. Until Xana possibly stuck a wrench in it. She averted her stare, and was at once aware that Odd had seen their exchange-- the blond was making some gesture with his eyebrows at her, and she set her lips into a thin line, rolling her eyes. "Save it," she stipulated in exasperation, handing him her leftover cake slice to put off a quip or worse, a questioning. "We'd better hurry up if we want to catch up with the others." She walked away before he could respond.