#usually for the slightly eccentric way i dress. sometimes for the earnest and honest way i act.

[valtsv]

that shitty thing some people do where they compliment something about you, only to take it back and reveal that it was meant to be a joke at your expense when you sincerely thank them for it, used to bother me until i realised that you can just. keep it. refuse to hand that power back to them. they are never prepared to deal with this.

[cryptoriawebb]

At long last I have finished Yoru’s biography sheet. It’s a little on the longer side but I’m proud of it.

Anyone checking in for the first time, Gesshoku Yoru is my shinigami OC for the anime/manga Full Moon wo Sagashite.

Shoutout to @starspatter for helping me along the way <3

Trigger warning: mentions of depression and suicide

Background: Yoru exists in a prequel story to both the manga and anime for Full Moon wo Sagashite. This prequel contains a slightly different origin for Shinigami. Instead of ‘hatching’ as adults, those who end their lives reawaken as children again and begin the early stages of their training from a young age. They are called “Fledglings.”

Physical Description: A girl of average height and build with black hair and eyes to match. As a child she wears her hair in two buns. Long bangs parted to the left. She dresses in Victorian-style children’s dresses that are dark (usually black but sometimes blue) in color. Wears either mary janes or small boots with bat wings. Also wears a bat hairclip.

As an adult her hair is short, though she still has her long bangs. They part to the left. Her clothing style is still gothic, but purple and black but takes inspiration from steampunk as well. No gears but lots of buckles and frills. Sleeveless gloves with lace around the wrists. A black and blue corset with belts and a layered dress that’s short in front and flares out in the back. Wears boots that come up to below the knee. Also wears a mini top hat over one of her bat ears, decorated with a purple five-petal flower that resembles the “flower of forgetfulness” in the anime. Her hat also has two feathers: a black and purple plume and a smaller black feather. Again, since she works in the pediatrics unit Yoru has small black bat ears; one is visible and one is covered by her hat. Unlike other Shinigami, Yoru has bat wings.

Yoru’s updated design:

Personality:

Human – shy, crippled by anxiety that often led her to choose the withdrawn/polite response over expressing herself. Tried to embrace her interests and gothic fashion-style but grew discouraged overtime, feeling much like an outcast. Had no close friends so relied heavily on her family for support.

Shinigami – as a fledgling, Yoru was very shy for quite a while. Meroko (and Yoru’s eventual budding feelings for her) pushed her to express herself and embrace the other Fledglings as a new family. Takuto joining also helped; Yoru saw a lot of herself early on in the quiet Fledgling and went out of her way to (politely) include him the way Meroko did her. As an adult doubts and depression follow Yoru around like a dark cloud. Her close-knit support system has strained over the years, though she remains on good terms with the other Shinigami. Her relationship with Meroko grows painful as well as her feelings were never reciprocated, not that she ever told her.

____

Relationships: Shinigami   Meroko – Yoru’s first real friend, her best friend and one she eventually falls in love with. Calls her “Mero-chan” as a child and occasionally in adulthood. Meroko remains in large part unaware of Yoru’s feelings. Though she ends up forgetting Yoru she left the strongest impression, maintaining a sensitive heart. Meroko cries for reasons she in part doesn’t understand when Izumi gifts her a new outfit. In the anime she reunites with Yoru twice: once unaware during her quest for the Flower of Forgetfulness and again, officially, as an angel.

Izumi – A rival for Meroko’s affection. She considers him a friend in adulthood. Isn’t aware Izumi knows of her feelings for Meroko. He sympathizes with her, understanding her dissatisfaction and quest for answers. Witnesses Yoru’s final moments. Her disappearance makes an impression and leaves him cynical and even antagonistic about lasting love of any kind. He’s also the only one who remembers her and this may be in part due to his own retained memories from his human life. He tries in his own ways to get their friends to remember, going so far as to give Meroko an outfit largely inspired by Yoru’s. His nickname for her is “Yo-run.”

Takuto – As the youngest Fledgling of the group Yoru has a soft spot for him and at times dotes him like a big sister would. Is unaware he has a crush on her. In adulthood she finds him easiest to relate to as he triggers the least negativity in her and struggles with his own obstacles as a Shinigami-in training. Nonetheless her presence is painful to him as he still holds a waning candle for her and may suspect why she never returned his own feelings.

Sheldan – The head of Pediatrics and the teacher/primary caretaker of the young Fledglings. Yoru is intimidated by him at first and treats him with a distant respect in adulthood until she starts investigating her human life. Grows secretive around him like the others and paranoid/angry as well. She wonders why he assigned her pediatrics and resents his attitude towards her failures.

Mystere – Yoru doesn’t know Mystere but she has heard of her, though not by name. As the Goddess of Death Yoru considers the idea of her eerie, mystic and intimidating. Towards the end of her life blames her along with Sheldan, holding her responsible in part for their suffering as Shinigami purely because of her status.

___

Humans: Mother – Yoru’s relationship with her mother changed day to day. Both loved one another very much and Yoru had many fond childhood memories of spending time with her. However, Yoru’s mother was a more traditional woman and did not always approve of Yoru’s peculiar interests and fashion choices. That said, they continued to bond over a love of holidays and holiday parties.

Father – Yoru’s relationship with her father was benign but empty: he spent much of her childhood working so she didn’t see him often and as an adult she was away. Her father largely expressed his love for his children in the form of material gifts.

Little brother – Yoru and her little brother did not always get along just like most siblings. That said she was fond of him and more often than not doted on him the way her parents did her. There were at times some form of jealousy: being the eldest by quite a few years sometimes she felt they favored him over her. When this occurred she’d tell herself that wasn’t true: her parents cared deeply for her, they just showed support in different ways because she was older.

Kouyama Mitsuki – One might argue Yoru’s relationship with the other Shinigami foreshadowed their meeting and helping Mitsuki. Her name parallel’s  Yoru’s surname: “Full Moon” and “Lunar Eclipse.” (or ‘eating the moon’ in Japanese.) They never officially meet but one might argue in the anime they did unofficially as Mitsuki watched Meroko’s journey into the underworld and sang along with her...

____

Life before becoming a Shinigami: Gesshoku Yoru was born in the late 1960s. She was the eldest daughter of an upper-middle class Japanese family. She had one younger brother. Her father worked for a corporate company and he and his family were well-liked by their community. They would throw extravagant holiday parties that Yoru looked forward to every year. The family was close within itself as well and Yoru’s parents doted on her and her brother. Yoru’s father occasionally traveled for work and sometimes brought his family with him. When Yoru was a young teenager she accompanied him to England. Already interested all things dark and spooky she took a liking to the budding gothic fashion and took this interest back with her to Japan.

While the family was close, however, Yoru had difficulty maintaining relationships with her peers. Many of her friendships felt superficial, too polite and/or distant. Yoru suspected the friends she had hung around due to her parents’ job and money. They certainly weren’t interested in any of her passions, least of all her dark/gothic fashion, finding it eccentric and a little creepy.

Yoru lived with her family until young adulthood where she eventually moved into her own apartment. Her parents encouraged this and had money saved for her to live on while she made a start in the world. Yoru lived by herself, further isolating her from potential relationships. Far enough away she couldn’t visit home casually, Yoru looked forward to the family parties: the few times she felt she really belonged.

During the summer of her first year on her own Yoru’s family died while on vacation. The vacation home they were renting caught fire. This devastated Yoru: she’d been looking forward to the yearly Halloween party more than anything else. To make matters worse, shortly after their deaths the company her father worked for was charged with fraud, of which her father participated. When word of this got out the scandal stained her family name and those whom Yoru remained in contact with cut her out completely.

Yoru took her own life early on Halloween. Desperate to bring back her warm memories in some way Yoru tried to host her family’s Halloween party anyway, throwing herself into decorating (as best she could) and sending out invitations. No one RSVP’d. Distraught and alone she visited her empty home that night, hoping guests would show up anyway. They didn’t.  Authorities found her the next day, crumpled on the steps in the front room. She was twenty-one. Cause of death: an overdose of sleeping pills she’d been taking nightly following the death of her family.

____

Life as a Shinigami: Yoru hatched as an amnesiac fledgling, a little girl of six or seven. She was greeted by Sheldan and the tiny Meroko Yui. Yoru took a lot of convincing to come out of her shell—literally and figuratively. Eventually the two brought Yoru to their headquarters where she was given a room and new clothes. Though she wouldn’t remember why, Yoru took a liking to the bat accessories as well as her gothic-victorian dresses. She took a liking to Meroko too. The pink-haired girl was her first earnest, honest friend and that planted the seed for a crush that would one day develop into unrequited love. Sometime before Izumi showed up both grew a tiny pair of wings: feathered for Meroko and bat for Yoru. Yoru was self-conscious about her wings from the start but Meroko encouraged her to embrace them (they suited her well!) Yoru uses her surname for two reasons: as a fledging, her fascination with western culture lingered. Also, the scandal and trauma tied to her family name is what ultimately led to her death. Sheldan decided it might trigger her memory, so chose her given name for her instead.  

Yoru and Meroko were there to greet Izumi, alongside Sheldan, although he didn’t warm up to them right away. Rather Izumi grew to be a pain in Yoru’s side, particularly when he started teasing/picking on/favoring Meroko. He even picked a nickname for her (‘Me-chan’) which to Yoru seemed like a variation of the one she’d given Merko.

Sometime later Sheldan took another Fledgling Shinigami under his wing: a little boy named Takuto. Quiet and smaller than the others he reminded Yoru of herself. She befriended Takuto and tried to make him feel welcome. Subconsciously he also reminded her of her brother and slipping into the big sister role again shed the rest of her shell. Soon enough Takuto shed his own shyness; he never grew wings, however and Yoru found this odd.

As the four Fledglings grew older Sheldan assigned them “junior” missions, pairing them off to see who worked best together. Yoru and Takuto struggled during this period and so when they started working on legitimate missions both trainees were permanently assigned to their more successful peers. Yoru worked with Meroko and Izumi with Takuto.

Yoru did not find success as a Shinigami: her bat wings and ears frightened children; some protested going with her and it in turn caused trouble for Sheldan. This upset Yoru greatly who wanted to succeed. Overtime she started resenting her appearance and slowly obsessed over why she grew bat wings instead of feathers. She began wondering if the answer lay in her human life. Her friends warned her to let it go before it became dangerous…but Yoru’s repeated almost-failures swayed her over their concerns. Yoru in part didn’t mind any would-be consequences; at this point she realized for sure however much Meroko loved her it would never be in a romantic way. That hurt more than any lost soul under her duty.

Yoru at first hid her investigation from her friends; Izumi was the first to clue into what she was doing. He didn’t confront her at first as he had his own secrets. When Yoru’s memories start to came back she hid this as well, along with what was happening to her.

Sometime before Yoru’s death Takuto was sent back to training. After she disappeared Izumi became Meroko’s replacement partner. Out of respect for Yoru and perhaps disgust/disappointment no one else remembered her he kept Meroko at a distance for a long time. Eventually he asked Sheldan to dissolve their team and Meroko became Takuto’s partner.

Though Yoru never received a definite answer by the end of her life she suspected she has bat wings for three reasons: 1) she’s always been interested in the spooky/gothic aesthetic and in some ways felt defined by it. 2) her human memories and sense of self revolved strongly around her parents’ holiday parties. She was looking forward to their Halloween party before they died and left the world mourning it alongside her family. 3) She died on Halloween.

When all of Yoru’s memories returned she conceded to becoming a ghost: there was nothing for her in the human world, nothing in the way of love and no career as a Shinigami. She intended to die alone but Izumi followed her and towards the very end of her life made his presence known. They held one last conversation and made some semblance of peace with one another.

Yoru’s strong feelings—both of love and pain--prevented her from turning into a traditional ghost. Instead her soul rooted itself in the underworld, transforming into the Flower of Forgetfulness which greatly resembled the flower on her hat. Her spirit lurked around it and her suffering manifested itself as dangerous obstacles for any who tried to retrieve it. True to her last name, the flower bloomed only during the Lunar Eclipse…and true to the flower, her childhood friends and supervising Shinigami lost their memories of her. Nonetheless, she left such a strong impression on them, a sense of something warm and lost and it might be why they rally around a girl named after the full moon.

In the anime storyline, when Meroko seeks out the Flower of  Forgetfulness Yoru’s wounded spirit attacks her, trying to push her and the painful memories she triggers away. With Mitsuki’s help, Meroko prevails and when she plucks the flower free she frees Yoru’s soul as well. Picking the flower also restores everyone’s memories of Yoru although they would not realize it until sometime later…

Yoru’s spirit subconsciously follows Meroko to the human world: before the now-angel!Meroko flies away she spots her childhood friend, in tattered clothes and without wings or bat ears. Because she is an angel now Meroko can see ghosts (traditional shinigami cannot.) Meroko and Yoru run towards each other, tears in their eyes. They embrace and apologize—Yoru for losing faith in her best friend and Meroko for forgetting her.

Meroko uses her new angel magic to give Yoru a new outfit: black and gothic but mirroring Meroko’s new look. She takes Yoru’s hand and the two leave the world together.