Yoshi
Image from the Play Nintendo website circa 2019
Easygoing Eater
Swift Type
Original Media: Super Mario World (video game, 1990)
Story
A creature almost like a dinosaur or a dragon. His name is the same as his species, though he seems to be the only one who goes by the name “Yoshi”.
Yoshi tries around the clock to be pretty selfless; he enjoys helping those in need, and when times aren’t too rough he enjoys being peaceful company to his friends.
Unfortunately, Yoshi’s had his share of run-ins with reckless acquaintances who shun away Yoshi’s help even if they need it more than they think. Cheerful as Yoshi usually is, this kind of problem is a real sour spot for him, and if he faces it, he might even feel a little jaded for the rest of the day.
Voice
General Description
Does not speak in human languages (but is understood by the cast regardless), instead making various noises in a high-pitched, pseudo-nasally voice
Example Voice
Source: Mario Kart Wii (video game, 2008), Mario Super Sluggers (video game, 2008), Super Mario Galaxy 2 (video game, 2010), Super Mario Party (video game, 2018)
Original Context: The voice given to Yoshi as a character in all the games listed.
Behind the Scenes
Despite being probably the most famous pre-existing character I’ve used in my writing, I’ve still found writing Yoshi an interesting experience, in part because while the general idea of his character is consistent throughout Super Mario games, the mostly nonexistent continuity between them meant deciding on his prior life and current abilities in my writing was mostly up to me. One thing I’d like to note is that while most modern media has Yoshi come from the singular island known as “Yoshi’s Island” (something that can be traced back to the 1995 game Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island), I chose to have my version of Yoshi come from the greater archipelago of Dinosaur Land, as was the case in the 1990 game Super Mario World, where he debuted.
Regarding his present life, I started by generally molding Yoshi around the most consistent aspect of his character (besides being voracious) that I could find, that being how he cares about his friends. As simple as the idea was on paper, things began opening up for his character as soon as my writing starting introducing him with characters who challenged this carefree companionship, starting with an incident that made him want to shift his priorities to helping a friend, only for someone else to force him to do something else first. This was the beginning of a general idea of him reacting with frustration when not able to help out others that was taken to the next level when I began grouping him up with another character I wrote, Fang the Sniper: Fang had a clear independent streak and was rather dismissive or even abrasive to the idea of assistance, and Yoshi’s wish to be a good partner being challenged by dealing with someone as uncooperative as Fang fed more into that sense of disillusionment that was being introduced to Yoshi’s character.
I haven’t had as much development with Yoshi since the aforementioned events (I’ve begun making him a little closer to nature in his downtime and in his observations, but not much else), but I enjoy him for how he managed to follow the “limitation breeds creativity” kind of writing many of my characters have relied on, even when he’s such a famous video game character otherwise.
Brash Buster 