#or Wukong onto my Yi blog

[vvu-kong-a]

“What have you learned today, Pupil?” Yi asked the Shimon. Gladly Wukong replied, rocking back and forth in his upright, cross-legged position,

“I’ve learned that if I tell people to give me presents, they’ll do it!”

“You...” Yi proceeded to lay his head in his hands, “No...”

“Yeah!”

“By the Stars...” The human said, though Wukong wasn’t exactly sure why.

[yi-dashi-a]

How do you feel yi's personally progressed over time as you've roleplayed him?

//Oh, uh, that’s hard to say really. Yi, in my time roleplaying him, has seen two big shifts in himself that has ensured I’ve never really gotten to RP him through a full character arc. In that respect he has only changed per the lore, so I suppose I’ll do a little breakdown of the different lore incarnations of Yi as I have portrayed him.

Old Lore

When I started RPing Yi, the Institute was still canon. Feral Flare was at its height, and Yi was generally a very reserved and work committed individual. His lore back then specifically stated that he had exited isolation under his own volition, and that he had yet to have a resolution to the anger that had brought about that decision to isolate himself in the first place. He was then subsequently coping with all that had happened to him through his bouts on the Fields of Justice, which let him put up a front decorum when outside of them.

He was less openly witty and sarcastic in those days, preferring to keep these things for when he was in combat and performing for anyone who watched him upon crystal screens, or listened to him on spinning wires. He instead took on a mentor figure to almost everyone he happened across, ensuring to always have an impartial and analytical approach to problems he was presented. His words were pre chosen, long winded, yet completely understandable. He was no nonsense in that way.

He was however younger in those days, just coming on 40 when I started RPing him, and he was very poorly exposed to Valoranian culture and society. As such he often found himself alienated from the majority of other champs and summoners at large, which lead to a lot of seclusion and introspection within his private quarters. He had an almost insatiable want to explore this new world he found himself in, to try and rediscover what life was like outside of his vengeance fueled training, and yet he would be summoned back to a place where he felt just as alone as when he was in isolation.

This led to very volatile shifts in behavior if the situation was stressful enough. Yi was prone to outbursts and overblown bouts of depression, and wasn’t above assaulting people in fits of anger, though he’d chide himself after for ‘violence as a last resort!’ He just hadn’t learned how to get a handle on those sort of emotions yet, and with no one really to relate to culturally (since he didn’t even relate to other Ionians canonically) this lead to some people finding him a well spoken wise man, and others seeing him as a unreasonable, spiteful drunk.

Post Lore Retcon

The abolishment of the League, and a shift in the circumstances of his isolation, did a lot to negate some of the more negative aspects of Yi’s being. He was still younger than now, and still poorly exposed to Valoran as a whole, but he had now had some time, not all he needed still, to explore the place and find himself again. He had had some closure to his anger management problems through Wukong, yet at this point the defining of this closure I felt was a deus ex machina at best. So Yi still had problems, but they didn’t manifest in his interactions so strongly. It was a slow build with these things, generally spurred on by a lot of silent meditation.

But apart from this, Yi in an Institute-less world was more personable, and more extroverted. Some might interpret his ability to engage strangers in idle conversation as annoying or strange, but he didn’t really care. He had his eyes, all of them, on learning and on finding worthy people to pass his teachings onto. Even if it was just in words alone, every ear that would listen was a victory. As such, he cracked jokes more often, said things more likely to confuse in a way most amusing to himself, and challenged others with a very slight but ever-present ego and bravado when it came to his own craft. Maybe he saw people as more a means to an end, but it wasn’t really a conscious thing on his part. Wuju was pervasive in his mind after all. He had no other distractions in his life.

Yi was also easier to offend back in these days, because his understandings of Valoran were not aided at all by any association to an organization. His exposure was more through individuals and the wildlife that surrounded them. This in turn might have spurred on irrational arguments or displays of anger, but they were never as extreme as seen previously. He would have already have to have been at a boiling point to get to that level. Generally if he felt these things coming on, he was more than happy to isolate himself again out in the wilderness to sort things out. He would do this selfishly, without even a thought for others he was trying to maintain friendships with, and this was perhaps the biggest, and still is, reasoning conflict he’s ever had on the blog.

Post Wukong Lore Change

The Wukong lore changes fundamentally shook up Yi’s character, making his character arc during his lore somewhat more complex and storied. Wukong’s lore noted Yi to have been old enough to train multiple disciples pre war, and that Yi had also seen these disciples die at the hands of the Zaunite Alcymists. This not only makes Yi older, but subsequently more adult in his carrying of himself. He is now in his 60′s or 70′s, having lived almost a full life before the war had even started, and this manifests in how he considers the world about him, and his roll in it as a teacher of Wuju who must find more students to take on.

He is more witty, sarcastic, and sure of his abilities than ever before, though this is more a front for the fact that he regrets how much he has seen in his life. He can joke and disregard people because he feels as if he has seen it all before. When not joking or parading his ego, he hearkens back to the old lore days. He is as impartial of a judge he can be in spite of his biases, and he generally feels himself to take a fatherly roll in situations involving other people. His exposure to other cultures is greater, his confidence in his opinions stronger, and his teaching career gives him some tools that help him navigate life and other people’s queries. Generally I think people would most associate him with the wise old master trope that he is clearly based upon.

Wukong’s lore also notes Yi’s devotion to protecting other people, as well as his keen strategical mind through his integral part he played in the Ionian War. These things make Yi come off as a traveling handyman of sorts. Always is he ready to help someone with more practical problems, and those who watch him try to solve things note his keen ability to think outside of the box. In these instances he might come off as rude too – he is more than happy to call someone else stupid for not seeing things his way – but generally he is seen as quite practically intelligent and street smart. He is also more than happy to lay down his life for a stranger, and even if this is seen as blind braver by most to him it’s more a coping mechanism. If he were to die protecting someone, anyone, he would feel his life had meaning.

Of course there are negative aspects too. Yi’s longer life lived give him a certain resentment towards his current situation. He knows what he had before the war, and he knows that he will never have it again. This again creates the slow build of angst that can erupt at a moment’s notice, but once more he’s more likely to isolate himself until these feelings subside. Anger management is also harder than ever, as this Yi has had much more exposure to toxic chemicals during his war service. This leaves him very subtly chemically altered, and this can affect his personality in any number of ways depending what triggers off the warped perception these chemicals cause. Basically, I like to think of the Yi of today as an amalgamation of the past two Yi incarnations.

I hope this answers your question though! A lot of this stuff is hard to write about, because a lot of Yi’s personality just comes naturally to me at this point? In the way that most of his reactions to things are considered on the fly by me as based on my internalized headcanon-ing and… just the fact I have been RPing him for coming on four years at this point. He tries to be a good egg though, and will especially try to be on his best behavior if you offer to pay him a in swords for his services XD