Third Person Sample: [NOTE: This is a modified version of the third-person sample that I used for my previous application, edited so that it is somewhat more readable and so that it makes more sense in context with the new application. I hope that's okay! If it isn't, please let me know and I will happily write something new.]
Night had fallen, and by then, Yusuke had been on the road for roughly four to five hours, having been pushing on toward Cherrygrape (or whatever it was called) since he'd left New Bark Town earlier that day. It was unpleasantly chilly outside: even though he'd managed to work up enough of a sweat while walking to necessitate having to occasionally pause to pick fabric out from between his shoulderblades and armpits and a variety of other crevices and body parts (some of which were better left unmentioned), he still found himself walking down Route 29 with his shoulders hunched and his arms pressed tightly into his body, trying – to no avail, it seemed – to conserve body heat. His Swablu, of course, was trying to help – or at least, that was what Yusuke assumed it was trying to do, as it had been fairly adamant about nesting in his hair and wrapping its wings around his head. He'd tried to get it to buzz off at first, of course: yelling at it, threatening it, grabbing it out of mid-air and chucking it into the foilage... eventually, however, he got tired of fighting with the stupid thing, and decided to say 'screw it' and let it do whatever it wanted to do. At least it made a pretty decent pair of earmuffs.
(Of course, some might accuse him of having started to feel guilty for abusing it... but that wasn't it at all, okay? He just got sick of it telling it to go away and having it always come back. Really.)
That didn't exactly make up for all the crap that was irritating him, though: as if being stranded in the middle of the frost-bitten freakin' wilderness wasn't bad enough, his legs hurt, his feet were blistering, and the only sign of civilization so far was the beaten path ahead of him. What was worse, his Spirit Gun wasn't working; he couldn't even tap into his spiritual awareness. Oh, it wasn't as if he hadn't tried, of course: after all, when he'd first found himself upstairs in “Mom”'s house and had stumbled down into the foyer, uncoordinated and still half-asleep (when the hell had he fallen asleep!?), he'd been so certain that “Mom” was in cahoots with Sensui that he'd threatened her, telling her, in no uncertain terms, that he'd blow her freakin' head off if she didn't explain herself. Naturally, that didn't work: with a smile and the kind of Heruclean strength he hadn't even begun to expect from a lady in a dumb apron, Mom had simply seized him by the front of his shirt, shoved a book bag at him, and flung him, head-over-ass, out the door and into a snow bank. It was only when he'd pulled himself back out that he realized his powers were gone, and by that point, he was so confused and pissed off by everything that the only thing he could think of doing after that was march back up to Mom's house and try to break back in. Too bad the stupid cop had to intervene.
And now, here he was, walking down a stupid dirt road with a stupid bird on his head and some stupid music playing in the background. If it weren't for the, like, five million people who swarmed in on him to tell him, practically in friggin' surround sound, that the ~World of Pokemon~ was on a different dimensional plane and that he wouldn't have to worry about the world being destroyed while he was strung out here in Happy Cuddly Land and blah blah fucking blah, Yusuke was sure he'd still be freaking out - and to be honest, he still was, a little. Why wouldn't he be, with his best friend suspended in the clutches of some weirdo trying to use him to rip open a portal to Demon World? He didn't really have a hell of a lot of time to pursue that train of thought further, though: as he found himself once again staring the tip of his finger down again (because surely, if he stared at it long enough, his Spirit Gun would just magically return), the path ahead suddenly opened up into a clearing, and Yusuke, seeing the sudden change in scenery out of the corner of his eye, paused and looked up, blinking. There was still forest on either side of him, but now the road he'd been following wound around and eventually disappeared behind a small raised ledge, next to which was an attractive young woman with long brown hair and shiny lipgloss, dressed rather improperly for both the weather as well as the wilderness in a short purple dress.
For a moment, Yusuke found himself rather, ah, intrigued by her – what could he say, he was a young guy with needs, Pissed Off Save-the-Day Superhero Stranded In Bubblegum World or not. That said, his interest was quickly squashed when he noticed her dead, vacant eyes: had Yusuke stumbled upon her whilst walking around back home, he might've assumed she was just doped up or possessed or something, but here, it was clear to him that she was one of those "NPC"s, one of the many vague, repetitive natives to this place who supposedly became a lot more interactive the farther you went. As it was, Yusuke was starting to think that was a load of crap: he'd nearly gotten chased out of the last town for hauling off and shoving one of them into a trash can for being annoying, and hours later, he still had yet to find one that was actually helpful. Besides, they were kind of creepy, in a way – not scary or intimidating, of course, but the whole 'not-breathing' thing was a little unsettling. Whoever programmed those things must've had a love affair with, like, dumb gothic novels or something.
At any rate, it seemed to him that going up that ledge'd be the fastest way to clear this part of the forest, so gritting his teeth and hunching his shoulders, Yusuke proceeded forward, hoping he could somehow sneak his way past before the girl could notice him. Unfortunately for him, it was not meant to be so: in fact, he was only less than five feet away from her when she suddenly jerked upright and stared right at him with wide, manic eyes, startling him badly enough that he tripped and tumbled sideways into a bush. The Swablu, who by then had still been riding atop his head, managed to detach itself just before Yusuke could take it down with him, trilling reproachfully at the NPC. Excuse you, young lady.
Unfettered by the chaos slowly beginning to unfold before her (or indeed, the ticked off Pokemon cussing her out), the NPC smiled broadly and started in on her speech. "Hi! Do you see these ledges?" She asked, her voice filled to the brim with boisterous cheer as Yusuke, sputtering, untangled himself from the foliage. "It's scary to jump off them. But you can go to New Bark Town without walking through tall grass. You can't go back up, though, so be careful!"
Scowling, Yusuke yanked his leg out of the bush. "Oh yeah?" He barked crossly, regaining his footing and shrugging the Swablu away. Now that its trainer had recovered, the Swablu had flown down to busy itself with feeble attempts to pick pine needles out of Yusuke's hair, with a manner not unlike a mother trying to groom its messy, wayward child. Yusuke, however, wasn't exactly appreciative, and made a face at the Pokemon before placing a hand on its head and shoving it away. "Hey, knock it off! You're gonna start pullin' hair out."
So he couldn't go up the ledge, huh? Standing back and eyeing it for a moment, Yusuke's gaze briefly wandered back to the NPC girl before he looked back at the ledge and stormed up to it, scoffing. Now that was a slice. That thing wasn't even half his height! Even a kid could get up that little slope, and even if it was kinda slippery, hell, Yusuke had climbed way worse things than that. Like that time he'd had to follow Genkai up that stupid mountain during training! Damn, had that sucked.
Sliding his bag off of his shoulder and tossing it over the top of the ledge, Yusuke began making his way up. Or, well... he tried to, at least: unfortunately, he was barely able to get two feet on the thing before he suddenly lost his footing, sliding and toppled forward onto his stomach with a loud thump. Cringing, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and stared at the ledge, blinking owlishly a few times before narrowing his eyes. "Well, that's weird," he muttered. He rubbed his jaw and gingerly rose back up onto his feet.
Okay, so maybe the hot robot chick here wasn't kidding about it being kinda difficult to get up this thing. Still, it wasn't like it was a big slope or anything, so Yusuke tried again, taking wider steps this time to see if it'd make any difference. It didn't. He slid again, and just barely managed to keep from falling over this time, his feet briefly getting tangled up in themselves before he clumsily regained his balance and glared at the ledge incredulously, his hands balling into fists. "Dammit, what the hell are these things even made out of, melted butter?!" He shouted, and immediately jerked his head around to shoot the NPC girl an accusing look. She didn't respond, though: seemingly oblivious to Yusuke's ire as well as just about everything else around her (with the obvious exception of the ledges), she merely continued to stand there, swaying a bit on her heels and staring blissfully into the tree tops.
The Swablu, meanwhile, had decided to wait for Yusuke at the top of the ledge, blinking anxiously as it watched Yusuke take several dozen steps back, determination carved into his face. He didn't care how slippery that damn ledge was – he was gonna make it up there, whether the ledge liked it or not! Rolling his sleeves up over his shoulders and bending down briefly to wipe his palms on his thighs, Yusuke locked his eyes on the ledge, counted to three, and charged, flinging his entire body at the ledge with a loud bellow.
He didn't know what exactly happened in the seconds that followed, but somehow he ended up flipping backwards and landing flat on his back with a shock that seemed to reverberate through the rest of his body, the back of his head and his elbows connecting none-too-gently with the forest floor soon after. A moment of stunned silence followed, during which he stared, wide-eyed and thoroughly bewildered, up at the night sky, snatches of which he could see only through the branches of the overhanging trees. It was only until the NPC suddenly turned and bent over him with a smile that he jerked upright, bristling at her as she raised a hand in greeting.
"Hi! Do you see these ledges? It's scary to jump off them. But you can go to New Bark Town––"
"Shut UP!" He snapped, leaping to his feet. Wiping the front of his shirt off, Yusuke cast a sullen look at the ledge and aimed a kick at it, grumbling under his breath. "Stupid ledge..."
It was then that his bag came tumbling down from its perch, and Swablu, looking slightly winded, flew down after it. Scowling, Yusuke knelt down to scoop the bag off of the forest floor and flung it over one shoulder, pointedly ignoring the way his now battered limbs twinged in protest. "Let's get out of here, Puu," he told the Swablu, and with one final, cutting look at the NPC (who, of course, wasn't looking at him at all), he turned away and stormed around the ledge, cursing. He didn't know who the hell it was that kidnapped him – whether it was Sensui or Koenma or some other wise guy – or where his powers had gone, but he swore to god that the minute he got them back, those ledges were gonna be toast.
Yusuke Urameshi | Yu Yu Hakusho | reserve expired | 5/5
[NOTE: This is a modified version of the third-person sample that I used for my previous application, edited so that it is somewhat more readable and so that it makes more sense in context with the new application. I hope that's okay! If it isn't, please let me know and I will happily write something new.]
Night had fallen, and by then, Yusuke had been on the road for roughly four to five hours, having been pushing on toward Cherrygrape (or whatever it was called) since he'd left New Bark Town earlier that day. It was unpleasantly chilly outside: even though he'd managed to work up enough of a sweat while walking to necessitate having to occasionally pause to pick fabric out from between his shoulderblades and armpits and a variety of other crevices and body parts (some of which were better left unmentioned), he still found himself walking down Route 29 with his shoulders hunched and his arms pressed tightly into his body, trying – to no avail, it seemed – to conserve body heat. His Swablu, of course, was trying to help – or at least, that was what Yusuke assumed it was trying to do, as it had been fairly adamant about nesting in his hair and wrapping its wings around his head. He'd tried to get it to buzz off at first, of course: yelling at it, threatening it, grabbing it out of mid-air and chucking it into the foilage... eventually, however, he got tired of fighting with the stupid thing, and decided to say 'screw it' and let it do whatever it wanted to do. At least it made a pretty decent pair of earmuffs.
(Of course, some might accuse him of having started to feel guilty for abusing it... but that wasn't it at all, okay? He just got sick of it telling it to go away and having it always come back. Really.)
That didn't exactly make up for all the crap that was irritating him, though: as if being stranded in the middle of the frost-bitten freakin' wilderness wasn't bad enough, his legs hurt, his feet were blistering, and the only sign of civilization so far was the beaten path ahead of him. What was worse, his Spirit Gun wasn't working; he couldn't even tap into his spiritual awareness. Oh, it wasn't as if he hadn't tried, of course: after all, when he'd first found himself upstairs in “Mom”'s house and had stumbled down into the foyer, uncoordinated and still half-asleep (when the hell had he fallen asleep!?), he'd been so certain that “Mom” was in cahoots with Sensui that he'd threatened her, telling her, in no uncertain terms, that he'd blow her freakin' head off if she didn't explain herself. Naturally, that didn't work: with a smile and the kind of Heruclean strength he hadn't even begun to expect from a lady in a dumb apron, Mom had simply seized him by the front of his shirt, shoved a book bag at him, and flung him, head-over-ass, out the door and into a snow bank. It was only when he'd pulled himself back out that he realized his powers were gone, and by that point, he was so confused and pissed off by everything that the only thing he could think of doing after that was march back up to Mom's house and try to break back in. Too bad the stupid cop had to intervene.
And now, here he was, walking down a stupid dirt road with a stupid bird on his head and some stupid music playing in the background. If it weren't for the, like, five million people who swarmed in on him to tell him, practically in friggin' surround sound, that the ~World of Pokemon~ was on a different dimensional plane and that he wouldn't have to worry about the world being destroyed while he was strung out here in Happy Cuddly Land and blah blah fucking blah, Yusuke was sure he'd still be freaking out - and to be honest, he still was, a little. Why wouldn't he be, with his best friend suspended in the clutches of some weirdo trying to use him to rip open a portal to Demon World? He didn't really have a hell of a lot of time to pursue that train of thought further, though: as he found himself once again staring the tip of his finger down again (because surely, if he stared at it long enough, his Spirit Gun would just magically return), the path ahead suddenly opened up into a clearing, and Yusuke, seeing the sudden change in scenery out of the corner of his eye, paused and looked up, blinking. There was still forest on either side of him, but now the road he'd been following wound around and eventually disappeared behind a small raised ledge, next to which was an attractive young woman with long brown hair and shiny lipgloss, dressed rather improperly for both the weather as well as the wilderness in a short purple dress.
For a moment, Yusuke found himself rather, ah, intrigued by her – what could he say, he was a young guy with needs, Pissed Off Save-the-Day Superhero Stranded In Bubblegum World or not. That said, his interest was quickly squashed when he noticed her dead, vacant eyes: had Yusuke stumbled upon her whilst walking around back home, he might've assumed she was just doped up or possessed or something, but here, it was clear to him that she was one of those "NPC"s, one of the many vague, repetitive natives to this place who supposedly became a lot more interactive the farther you went. As it was, Yusuke was starting to think that was a load of crap: he'd nearly gotten chased out of the last town for hauling off and shoving one of them into a trash can for being annoying, and hours later, he still had yet to find one that was actually helpful. Besides, they were kind of creepy, in a way – not scary or intimidating, of course, but the whole 'not-breathing' thing was a little unsettling. Whoever programmed those things must've had a love affair with, like, dumb gothic novels or something.
At any rate, it seemed to him that going up that ledge'd be the fastest way to clear this part of the forest, so gritting his teeth and hunching his shoulders, Yusuke proceeded forward, hoping he could somehow sneak his way past before the girl could notice him. Unfortunately for him, it was not meant to be so: in fact, he was only less than five feet away from her when she suddenly jerked upright and stared right at him with wide, manic eyes, startling him badly enough that he tripped and tumbled sideways into a bush. The Swablu, who by then had still been riding atop his head, managed to detach itself just before Yusuke could take it down with him, trilling reproachfully at the NPC. Excuse you, young lady.
Unfettered by the chaos slowly beginning to unfold before her (or indeed, the ticked off Pokemon cussing her out), the NPC smiled broadly and started in on her speech. "Hi! Do you see these ledges?" She asked, her voice filled to the brim with boisterous cheer as Yusuke, sputtering, untangled himself from the foliage. "It's scary to jump off them. But you can go to New Bark Town without walking through tall grass. You can't go back up, though, so be careful!"
Scowling, Yusuke yanked his leg out of the bush. "Oh yeah?" He barked crossly, regaining his footing and shrugging the Swablu away. Now that its trainer had recovered, the Swablu had flown down to busy itself with feeble attempts to pick pine needles out of Yusuke's hair, with a manner not unlike a mother trying to groom its messy, wayward child. Yusuke, however, wasn't exactly appreciative, and made a face at the Pokemon before placing a hand on its head and shoving it away. "Hey, knock it off! You're gonna start pullin' hair out."
So he couldn't go up the ledge, huh? Standing back and eyeing it for a moment, Yusuke's gaze briefly wandered back to the NPC girl before he looked back at the ledge and stormed up to it, scoffing. Now that was a slice. That thing wasn't even half his height! Even a kid could get up that little slope, and even if it was kinda slippery, hell, Yusuke had climbed way worse things than that. Like that time he'd had to follow Genkai up that stupid mountain during training! Damn, had that sucked.
Sliding his bag off of his shoulder and tossing it over the top of the ledge, Yusuke began making his way up. Or, well... he tried to, at least: unfortunately, he was barely able to get two feet on the thing before he suddenly lost his footing, sliding and toppled forward onto his stomach with a loud thump. Cringing, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and stared at the ledge, blinking owlishly a few times before narrowing his eyes. "Well, that's weird," he muttered. He rubbed his jaw and gingerly rose back up onto his feet.
Okay, so maybe the hot robot chick here wasn't kidding about it being kinda difficult to get up this thing. Still, it wasn't like it was a big slope or anything, so Yusuke tried again, taking wider steps this time to see if it'd make any difference. It didn't. He slid again, and just barely managed to keep from falling over this time, his feet briefly getting tangled up in themselves before he clumsily regained his balance and glared at the ledge incredulously, his hands balling into fists. "Dammit, what the hell are these things even made out of, melted butter?!" He shouted, and immediately jerked his head around to shoot the NPC girl an accusing look. She didn't respond, though: seemingly oblivious to Yusuke's ire as well as just about everything else around her (with the obvious exception of the ledges), she merely continued to stand there, swaying a bit on her heels and staring blissfully into the tree tops.
The Swablu, meanwhile, had decided to wait for Yusuke at the top of the ledge, blinking anxiously as it watched Yusuke take several dozen steps back, determination carved into his face. He didn't care how slippery that damn ledge was – he was gonna make it up there, whether the ledge liked it or not! Rolling his sleeves up over his shoulders and bending down briefly to wipe his palms on his thighs, Yusuke locked his eyes on the ledge, counted to three, and charged, flinging his entire body at the ledge with a loud bellow.
He didn't know what exactly happened in the seconds that followed, but somehow he ended up flipping backwards and landing flat on his back with a shock that seemed to reverberate through the rest of his body, the back of his head and his elbows connecting none-too-gently with the forest floor soon after. A moment of stunned silence followed, during which he stared, wide-eyed and thoroughly bewildered, up at the night sky, snatches of which he could see only through the branches of the overhanging trees. It was only until the NPC suddenly turned and bent over him with a smile that he jerked upright, bristling at her as she raised a hand in greeting.
"Hi! Do you see these ledges? It's scary to jump off them. But you can go to New Bark Town––"
"Shut UP!" He snapped, leaping to his feet. Wiping the front of his shirt off, Yusuke cast a sullen look at the ledge and aimed a kick at it, grumbling under his breath. "Stupid ledge..."
It was then that his bag came tumbling down from its perch, and Swablu, looking slightly winded, flew down after it. Scowling, Yusuke knelt down to scoop the bag off of the forest floor and flung it over one shoulder, pointedly ignoring the way his now battered limbs twinged in protest. "Let's get out of here, Puu," he told the Swablu, and with one final, cutting look at the NPC (who, of course, wasn't looking at him at all), he turned away and stormed around the ledge, cursing. He didn't know who the hell it was that kidnapped him – whether it was Sensui or Koenma or some other wise guy – or where his powers had gone, but he swore to god that the minute he got them back, those ledges were gonna be toast.