Player Name: coco
Age: 24
Contact: vanilladome
Timezone: EST
Other character currently in game: N/A

Character name: Yuna
Age: ~18
Canon: Final Fantasy X
Canon point: Pre The Eternal Calm
History: Wiki link

Three key adjectives: compassionate, driven, sentimental

Influential Events:

BRASKA BECOMES HIGH SUMMONER: Lord Braska, Yuna's father, is a celebrity within her world — a saint, even. He sacrificed himself to defeat Sin, a recurring creature that plagues the world of Spira and wreaks destruction until he is defeated and sated for a number of years. Becoming High Summoner, the one who defeats Sin, is the highest honor you can receive. It also means that you will die. Yuna's mother was an Al Bhed woman, a race highly discriminated against in Spira, who died from an attack from Sin when she was very young. Only a few years later, her father died.

This greatly effected the trajectory of the rest of her life. For one, Yuna became a mini-celebrity in her own right — everyone knows the name of Braska. If she wanted to, she could invoke it to anyone she met and receive admiration. She is very proud of her father, and his sacrifice inspired her want to become a summoner, to follow in his path. Braska's death also spurned her move from the metropolitan cityscape of Bevelle to the cozy island of Besaid, where she met and was essentially adopted by Lulu and Wakka, two of her strongest confidants. Kimahri, a beastman called a Ronso, was also appointed as her permanent bodyguard, and he has watched over her for over ten years.

At age 17, Yuna's acolyte training was completed and she became a full-fledged summoner — she spent days praying to the Fayth within Besaid's temple, without food or water. Being a summoner is an ardurous, physically and mentally taxing role. She stumbled out of the cloister with sweat pouring from her forehead and a smile on her face.

Her heritage as a woman of mixed race connects her to nearly everyone she meets, including her cousin, Rikku, an Al Bhed excavator (who later becomes one of her guardians as well), and sets the tone for the rest of her journey.

MEETING TIDUS: Tidus represents many things in Yuna's story. Most apparently, he represents love. She met him right as she became a summoner, the very day in fact, and soon learned that he was the son of one of her father's guardians, Jecht — surely providence! This only served to bolster her faith, and she grew more and more fascinated by Tidus and Jecht's claims to be from the fabled land of Zanarkand, an ancient society allegedly sacked by Sin for their transgressions. She falls in love with Tidus rather quickly, recording a message for him in the case that she died to confess her love — it wasn't something she could burden him with in life, knowing she would die.

More subtly, Tidus represents doubt. He is unfamiliar with the world and customs of Spira. He questions why practices are the way they are. He abhors Yevon's cruelty and submission to Sin's fearsome wake. He is one of the strongest reasons why she chose to defect from Yevon's teachings, to forge her own path as a heretic and annihilate Sin once and for all. Their brief time together is the reason they are both heroes — they work together to improve one another and mature as equals.

What else can we say about Tidus? Their relationship, in many ways, is simple. They support one another in everything they do, and try their best to make the other question their intentions, their path, their relationships, and approach them in a more mature and honest way. Yuna helps Tidus reconcile his strained feelings on his abusive father.

Their relationship is consummated by a kiss they share in the Macalania Springs. Knowing everything she had been taught was a lie shook her world, and she became unsure of what to do with her false pilgrimage — for a very brief time. This is the moment she decides to find a new path, to defeat Sin without Yevon's teachings. She continues on her path to Zanarkand, expecting to proceed with the Final Summoning.

Tidus eventually faded away as the Fayth all were allowed to pass on, the traditions of Yevon's teachings crushed for good. Yuna is forever an optimist — for days, she returned to the shores of Luca, whistling for him — something he taught her to do, a signal that would spurn them both to come running to the other. She began to emulate him to feel more connected, learning to hold her breath underwater to participate in Blitzball games. Her record was 2 minutes, 41 seconds before her new adventure began.

YUNALESCA: When Yuna and company arrived to Zanarkand, she was unsure of what to expect — after all, no summoners that make it to Zanarkand ever return. The process in which they defeat Sin after this point is unknown, borderline taboo to discuss.

Unexpectedly, she met her namesake, the original summoner Yunalesca — she is the one who doles out the Final Summon, a specter from the past that represents the treacheries of Yevon's teachings. The Final Summon requires a sacrifice of a summoner's guardian, who becomes the vessel for the next Sin — this is the reason Sin recurs. The process doesn't destroy Sin, it merely passes on the burden of becoming Sin to another victim.

Enraged, Yuna refuses to go through with it — she resolves to end the cycle. They defeat Yunalesca, meaning that no one could ever become a Fayth for the Final Summon again. It was do or die — if they weren't successful in their alternative method, Sin would never be staved away again, and the world would be destroyed.

They travel headlong into Sin's maw — with the help of Machina, forbidden technology, a further symbol of her alternative method — and confront the trapped soul of Tidus's father, Jecht. To end the dreams of the Fayth, Yuna must do something unthinkable. She must defeat all of her own aeons, all of the celestials who aided in her journey. They were.. her friends, in a way. But they wanted to stop dreaming. They wanted to pass on and forget the legacy of Yevon's evil. She did it without a second thought, sating the Fayth and ending Sin for good. She ushered in a new period of history, an Eternal Calm where people could settle and prosper and enjoy life without worries of mass destruction.

MARRIAGE TO SEYMOUR: Seymour, a maester of Yevon, proposes to Yuna upon their second meeting. Their first meeting involved the annihilation of Operation Mii'hen, a Yevon sponsored attempt to defeat Sin without summoning. Yuna soon realized it was an intentional failure, a reminder to the people of Spira that they could only find salvation through Yevon.

This proposal was allegedly meant to serve as a symbol of hope for Spira. A cause for excitement, a positive event during an era of Sin, much like the Blitzball tournaments. Her true goal is to finish her pilgrimage, and she ensures him she will give him an answer after receiving the aeon from Macalania Temple.

Along the way, a sphere comes into her possession with incriminating information on Seymour — it was filmed directly by Seymour's father, who was murdered only weeks earlier by Seymour, in which he entreats her to stop him. She decides that she will go through with the marriage in an attempt to have him turn himself in for the crimes.

Unfortunately, it goes awry. Tidus uncovers the sphere and he, along with the other guardians, barge in on Yuna's appellation. It ends with Seymour's death — the true beginning of their heretical journey.

Unable to properly send him to the Farplane, Seymour recurs as a constant nuisance and kidnaps Yuna from Home, an Al Bhed sanctuary, then destroys it. Now forced into a marriage ceremony, Yuna steels her resolve and escapes — this directly leads to Yuna and company's arrest.

In a way, Seymour represents both Yuna's naivety and her perception. She was able to see through him from the start — he is a snake, an oppressive man in world governed by doctrine, and without her cleverness she would have been overtaken by him and her pilgrimage halted. Nevertheless, Yuna thought she could change him — she saw a glimmer of humanity that had long since dimmed. His inevitable murder and subsequent arrest shook Yuna's world, and served as an unclouded truth for the state of Yevon and Spira at large.

Without him as a rough pitstop, she may have gone through with her pilgrimage like any other summoner. She may have died, and the cycle of Sin would begin anew. Thank god men are so stupid.


Link to Samples: Link to Sample 1; Link to Sample 2

Chosen path: Druid
5 Abilities: Valefor (can be susatained as a mount, or briefly summoned to use her overdrive), Speak With Plants, Animal Friendship, Moonbeam, Create Bonfire
Why this path?: As a summoner, Yuna has a strong connection to the natural world — summoners enact funerary rites to pass on spirits of the dead, call upon spirits for strength, and fight for the betterment and salvation of the planet. The moon is also one of her main motifs (Yuna translates to moon from Okinawan, in fact).