Yan
| “ | Prescripts are just meant to be followed. It's not a good idea to give extra meaning or have any sentiment for them... | ” |
–Yan | ||
Yan Vismok (얀 비스모크, Yan Biseumokeu) is a Messenger of 
The Index, having only begun to work as one less than a month ago by the time of his first appearance. He first appears in the pre-battle dialog for 
The Carnival.
Ultimately, Yan turns into a Distortion known as 얀샋ㄷ요무 (cipher for Distorted Yan). This originated from his feelings of powerlessness after having seen the truth of the Prescripts, and even after conspiring directly against them by making forgeries of Prescripts, new ones were created from his own, as if they were intended to be created after all. With this, Yan realizes that his own will and the City's are the one and the same, and thus, he has no will of his own. This causes him to blindly turn to the Prescripts for guidance, becoming the one thing he despised the most.
Appearance
Yan is a light-skinned young man sporting white hair with black streaks tied into a long side ponytail. Much like other notable members of the Index, he dons a white cloak fitted with gold ornaments over a black suit. As a Messenger, Yan was bestowed a personalized greatsword adorned with golden chains and a lock.
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Story Spoilers |
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| After distorting, Yan becomes a towering, mannequin-like creature. It bears the white color and gold accents of the Index, along with black ink stains. His skull is broken where his face would be, revealing a gold padlock on its place, and has a similar ponytail made of a cloth tied to the side. On his chest his robe is torn, revealing what seems to be a loom of glowing blue strings, similar to the ones where the Prescripts are created. Instead of limbs, he had a pair of gold chains that connect a pair of gigantic claws drenched in ink, having the same padlock and chains that his greatsword had. Whenever he speaks, his voice is drowned out by the sounds of typewriter keys. |
Personality
Despite being a Messenger of the Index, Yan differs noticeably from his associates, being much more skeptical and choosing to view the Prescripts as a mere ordinance with no higher significance to it instead of revering them. He's largely somber and ceremonious, but he also expresses discomfort at the lengths some citizens have to go in order to carry out their Prescripts as well as sympathizing with their woes. He cares for others, including his enemies, as he pleads with 
The Thumb not to assault the Library, as that would severely weaken their forces on Nest L, even if that'd bring him nearly to death.
It's later revealed that Yan has experiences carrying out abhorrent acts under the guidance of Prescripts before becoming a Messenger, causing him to hate it. He wants to show his free will by forging Prescripts for others instead of letting them follow the Prescripts' will.
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Story Spoilers |
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| After falling into despair and distorting, Yan becomes a mindless drone, having been shown that his own will simply ended up being assimilated into the will of the City, and thus only attempts to find purpose and direction in the Prescripts by following them. |
Story
During his time as a follower of the Index, Yan's faith in the Prescripts was put into question as he carried out dreadful orders, some of which resulted in the deaths of his friends and family, until one day he was bestowed the rank of Messenger. Feeling resentful, Yan took to fabricating Prescripts as an expression of free will.
In The Carnival's episode, Yan is seen delivering a Prescript to the trio of tailors which turns out to be an invitation to the Library. While they initially show resistance in virtue of the invitation not being an official Prescript, Yan eventually convinces them with threatening words regarding what could happen were they to not carry out a Prescript. As he is leaving, Yan runs into three of the 
Kurokumo Clan members, who are quick to point out the strange nature of his behavior right before a Finger Bow-Bell is about to start.
Yan is later seen during the Index Proselytes segment, delivering Prescripts to a multitude of citizens. During one of the encounters, he assists a girl with carrying out the order of sneaking needles into a friend's birthday cake by pointing out that warning her friend about the trap does not go against the Prescript. Yan also attempts to comfort an old man faced with one of the more gruesome orders, and is seemingly pained at a young man's enthusiastic praising of the Index's ways due to receiving a rather easy Prescript, with the Messenger stating that "nothing is truly free in this city." He eventually meets up with the Index Proxies to deliver more orders, including one of his fabricated Prescripts demanding the elimination of the Thumb.
During The Thumb's second episode, Yan intrudes in a meeting of Kalo and his capos. He attempts to reason with the rival group about how the decision to go to the Library may put the Thumb in a disadvantageous position in the midst of the raging battle between their syndicates in L Corp's nest. Yan's warning is taken as an insult, and the Messenger is promptly attacked by the Thumb's members who leave him to a state of near-death, his eyes and jaw destroyed. Yan is later found and patched up by his fellow Index members.
Once the Index Proxies finish carrying out the order to dismember and impale all Thumb personnel in L Corp's nest, Yan is ready to deliver another fabricated Prescript ordering them to head to the Library. Much to the Messenger's surprise, Proxy Esther seems to already know about it, and reveals that the Prescripts told them to obey his Prescripts, implying that they're fake. At this point, Yan laments his past experiences with the Prescripts, having come to the realization that his rebellious acts ultimately amounted to nothing. After a brief exchange with Proxy Esther, Yan is ordered to head to an unknown place by the Prescript.
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Story Spoilers |
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| Yan follows the directions given by his Prescript, finding a staircase that goes deep below the City, hiding a massive vault containing a set of machines, all connected to a massive loom with a pendulum over it. There, he meets an outstandingly cheery woman wearing Index robes, who welcomes him as if she had been expecting him all along. When Yan asks who she is, she simply answers that she's a Weaver, and that it's nice to have a guest after spending so much time alone. Yan is shocked that the woman refers to herself with a title that he's never heard before and has a suspicious amount of knowledge about his Prescripts, who explains that nobody could ever find this place without the Prescripts help, and adds that they only invite people they consider exceptional, congratulating Yan.
When Yan asks if this place has anything to do with the Prescripts, the woman happily explains it's "where Prescripts are born". She is amused seeing how Yan is confused by her choice of words, and after properly introducing herself as Moirai, and lamenting how she doesn't have any tea to offer, let alone warm water, she tries to go into more detail on the creation of the Prescripts, but Yan tries to stop her to have his turn to talk, already overwhelmed by Moirai's chattiness. He introduces himself by his first name and last name, and explains that he became a Messenger about less than a month ago, adding that he felt guilty by delivering Prescripts containing gruesome and absurd orders. Moirai simply agrees that the Prescripts can be cruel and knotty at times, giving orders that sometimes end with their recipients killed. Yan expresses anger at her, believing she's the one who wrote all those Prescripts. Moirai explain that she simply manages the machinery in the vault, stopping for a moment and asking Yan if he feels a small tremor on his feet. When he dismisses it as something trivial, Moirai moves on to explain the "birth" of a Prescript: The pendulum swings to the rhythm of the tremor she calls "the heartbeat of the City", making trails of ink over the strings on the massive loom. Yan again dismisses them as being nonsensical, but Moirai calls it the language of the City, something incomprehensible to mere humans like them. Those threads then move to one of the 57 spinning wheels in the vault, where they are woven into cloth and made into Prescripts that can be read by them. She hands one of them to Yan, where it orders a man to follow somebody waving their hand seven times. Yan is shocked, remembering he forged a Prescript to order the latter to wave, but Moirai quickly moves on to stamping that Prescript and sending it, sending it via pneumatic pipes to another Messenger. After seeing the creation of a Prescript, Yan only has more questions and asks who even created the machinery in the first place. Moirai shrugs, excusing herself by having been sent by a Prescript as well, only finding her predecessor who in turn left after being issued a Prescript. Yan is outraged, saying at Moirai if she had ever questioned the Prescripts, having been ordered to kill countless times by seemingly randomly generated words on a piece of cloth, further adding that she could at least tampered with them to not make them as cruel or senseless. Moirai excuses herself that she was only ordered to make and send Prescripts, and if she disobeyed that order, they would kill her. Yan says that she's the one creating and sending them out in the first place, but Moirai holds on to the possibility of another Weaver. Yan starts to reason with himself, saying somebody in particular must be behind the creation of the contents of the Prescripts, but Moirai interjects that'd be the City itself. The pendulum swings to the vibrations of the City above: footsteps of pedestrians; quakes from construction sites, impacts by somebody falling over, echoes of screams, every little movement of the City's denizens, even the sound of the two talking right next to it. She comments that the will of its citizens are ultimately part of the will of the City itself, and the Index is simply another representation of it. Yan wonders why would the Prescripts would be so cruel if they came from the inhabitants of the City, with Moirai responding that'd be because the people are cruel as well, after all, the City was made by its citizens, and their nature would naturally be reflected in their creation. Yan is confused at what she just said, why would the citizens create the City and in turn be shaped by it? Moirai dismisses his concerns, believing that the point of it is that the City cannot be separate from its inhabitants. This further enrages Yan, seeing how Moirai dismisses those heinous acts he creates and sends while she peacefully weaves cloth. In turn, Moirai shrugs: that was all she was ordered to do, expressing that's out of her concern as a Weaver. Moirai moves on to tell Yan about being born out of the citizens' wants; to walk a path given to them, afraid of the consequences and the responsibility of their own actions, knowing they'd only fail if they follow their own will, and they'd rather rely on something else and expect things from it. Moirai says people without purpose yearning for something to open up a way for them. She compares it to the way people long ago created gods; they simply didn't exist because of a single person, it's something that can't be made up or oppressed, people had a need for something greater than them to follow. Moirai further adds that this isn't something Yan can blame somebody for; this is plainly something the City's inhabitants wanted, their fear of failure and their wishes of security culminating in the creation of a god. Yan falls into despair, realizing people, and even himself weren't doing cruel acts simply because the Prescripts ordered to. In the end, that was their own volition as residents of the City. They themselves were cruel and merciless, and that nature in turn made them desperately wish for something safe and sacred, no matter if those wishes were well intentioned or ambitions of power, the Prescripts is what resulted from them. No matter whatever he did, he was just another individual, one that wouldn't stand a chance against the collective wishes of the people. Forging Prescripts and sending the Proxies to wage war against the Thumb and die in the Library could all be traced to the will of the City, even if it was Yan's own. After all, Yan was just another part of the City. Giving in completely to this feeling of helplessness, Yan distorts into 얀샋ㄷ요무 and asks Moirai for the City's next order, where he shortly receive another Prescript telling him to go to the Library. |
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Trivia
- Yan is the only character of Library Of Ruina to have their last name revealed.
Gallery
Dialogue Sprite Sheet
