Yumiko Takata

**Yumiko "Miko" Takata** is Carly Parker's best friend.

## Background

Yumiko is second-generation Japanese, born in Seattle, WA. Her parents came over from Tokyo shortly after they were married. Yumiko ended up in law school for 6 weeks before dropping out after spending a year abroad and a few months in Silicon Valley, where she created an app in an incubator but hated it. She became best friends with Carly when they were both 5.

After law school, she came back to Seattle, and ended up studying Journalism with Carly. While writing a book that covered multiple subjects, she became obsessed with researching one topic: "Death by Videogame". Before this, Carly noted that while Yumiko was well-educated, she had a habit of getting easily obsessed: she had an Astrology phase, then got into a pyramid scheme involving sound healing, and other strange scenarios.

Yumiko used to live in a large, street-level apartment, in a classic four-floor brick building in an old, friendly neighborhood of Seattle - almost halfway between the PRA studio and Carly's apartment. The front of Yumiko's apartment was a public gathering spot for the arts, and Carly and Yumiko frequented the area.

One month prior to her disappearance, Yumiko got a tattoo on her right thigh that says *love is the every only god* in cursive, quoting an E. E. Cummings poem of the same name. She never told her family about it, and Carly was unable to reach her tattoo artist before he moved to Thailand to live off-the-grid.

On a Sunday, Yumiko was over at Harper's to watch Game of Thrones together and seemed nervous. She asked for Harper's membership to the Burke Natural History Museum. On the day of her visit, Yumiko asked the museum director Ron Palahniuk how long the passenger pigeon exhibit had been going on, and if she could see it.

Carly saw Yumiko several times through her apartment window watching something on a computer screen. Upon one visit, Carly rang the doorbell multiple times until Yumiko opened the door, dazed from watching a video after digging into the old videogame *Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord*. Yumiko discovered something in the code of *Wizardry* while following a lead on a kid's suicide that took her to an old, derelict website linked to an outdated personality test with five questions. She submitted her responses, unlocking a torrent file of the video she'd been watching. She was convinced there was a clue in it to open a door or portal, or what Players called "rabbit holes".

On an overcast, rainy evening, Carly discovers Yumiko has disappeared with her apartment door left open.

## Season 1

#### "**Episode 101: Game On"**

* Carly theorizes that Yumiko may be a Player or Participant in Rabbits.
* With Jones' help, Carly finds four photos of Yumiko that seem to have been taken at the same time, posted on an escort site.

#### "**Episode 102: Concernicus Jones"**

* Before Yumiko disappeared, she was researching the subject of "Death by Videogame" in a book she was writing, and shared her findings with Carly.
* In the screenshot of the escort forum reviews Jones send Carly, Carly guesses the name 'Lysandra' used by username ashley in the screenshot may be a play on 'Lysander', a character in *The Disappointment* *-* a poem written by one of Yumiko's literary heroes Aphra Behn. Lysandra's post also includes what Carly describes is a dead link: lysandraloves.net. The dimensions of the broken image thumbnails in the post match the dimensions of a few of the photos Carly found, and Carly discovers the photos she found likely originated from lysandraloves.net.
* Jones theorizes Yumiko may be unintentionally playing a role in IX, isn't an actual Player, and believes Carly can help Yumiko avoid becoming "lost".
* One of Yumiko's previous clients is named Gary. When Carly interviews him to learn more about their meet-up, he recalls Yumiko asking him, "How many steps to the lighthouse?" When Gary responds he doesn't know, she kisses him on the cheek, texts on her phone, and leaves.

#### "Episode 103: Marigold and Persephone"

* Yumiko's Desktop is wiped clean.
* In her Photos folder, there is only one photo of Carly.

## Relationships

Yumiko previously dated Harper Billings' brother.

**Mr. & Mrs. Takata:** Yumiko's parents flew back and forth from the US to Japan. Yumiko's mother believes, based on her allegedly psychic sister and Yumiko's aunt, that something terrible had befallen Yumiko. Her mother was in Japan to consult a group of mystics her sister had assembled to help find Yumiko in the spirit realm, and help guide her back. They kept in constant contact with Adam, and Adam took care of things in Seattle.

## Resources

To be added.

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry:\_Proving\_Grounds\_of\_the\_Mad\_Overlord
2. ↑ While *Wizardry* is a real, well-known series, the website and linked video Yumiko finds is not.
3. ↑ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43639/the-disappointment
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra\_Behn
5. ↑ lysandraloves.net is a working link and is a registered domain owned by Terry Miles under his company Cinemanovel Films. Instead of the photos Carly references in RABBITS, the website contains an embedded Itch.io text-adventure game. The website reads that the game's internal codename is *Sentinels* and that the developer is South Elk Gaming Company (a play on words of South Elk Trading Company, another domain Terry Miles owns). The game has an alternative codename listed called *Untitled 1993*; this may mean the game was in-universe archived in 1993.