Empatheias Application

[voiceofnaga]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Ryoko
Contact: lumieresdedragon
Age: 25+
Current Characters: Kylo Ren


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Tiki
Age: 3000+
Canon: Fire Emblem (Archanea Series)
Canon Point: Just before the final blow to Grima.

Background: Here.

Personality:

As a woman who has spent more than a thousand years in a forced slumber and likely centuries more out of a sense of obligation, Tiki is someone who has spent most of her life isolated from others. Due to the power inherent in being Naga's daughter, she was sealed away in the Ice Dragon Temple, and most of her short moments awake during her first millennium were spent in fear and loneliness, with only three other manaketes for company. As a result, when Bantu, her fire dragon guardian, decided to go against Naga's wishes and rouse her from her sleep to take her out into the world and meet people, she was overjoyed; it was a taste of freedom and joy that her life had almost completely lacked up until that point.

Those ten years made it clear what she was missing, and so she didn't want to return to her sleep again, instead wishing to never be alone again. That is why Prince Marth, who came not only to save her from her forced slumber for good but also promised that she could live with him in Archanea, meant so much to her, to the point that two thousand years later she still speaks affectionately of "Mar-Mar." She becomes very attached to those who reach out to her and truly befriend her, and is dedicated to remembering them no matter how much time passes or how much pain it brings her.

The pain of that loss does wear on a person, manakete or not, and that combined with her status as a "holy" figure made her somewhat detached from others on both ends—she needed to put on a particular face as the Voice of the Divine Dragon, and many of Naga's followers saw themselves as unworthy, or simply put Tiki on a pedestal—they could never be an equal or friend to her, merely servants and guardians. With this sort of mindset following her for more than a thousand years, it's no surprise that she would decide to "merely observe" and "never again play a hand in the affairs of others" at one point, only interacting with humans when the world was in danger and needed her help as the Voice of Naga. As a result, she often comes off as distant and quiet.

However, her time in Chrom's army made her realize just how foolish that thinking was; she was depriving herself of the joy of relationships with others, and avoiding all the good that she could do by interacting with humans. So despite her difficulty at reaching out to others, she does want to go out into the world like she did as a child and actively make new bonds, despite knowing that she will eventually lose them.

This desire to make connections despite her status as the divine dragon priestess makes her push against those lofty expectations, and she's a relatively humble person as a result, claiming that she's simply a woman who has lived a bit longer than everyone else and not much more. At one point, she even calls herself a "decrepit old granny" in the hopes of getting Say'ri to lighten up around her. That said, she is certainly capable of feeling embarrassed, and has a certain degree of pride—when she accidentally calls male Robin "Mar-Mar," she immediately apologizes and seems awkward whenever he brings it up again, and when Lucina attempts to force Tiki to wear clothes similar to what she did as a child for a festival, she says she's "never been more humiliated."

The combination of her isolation, long periods of sleep, and her disinterest in expectations have resulted in a surprisingly childish side that sometimes emerges around those she's particularly close to. The aforementioned nickname that she continues to repeat even to this day is one example, and another is when her devout follower Say'ri attempts to scold Tiki for straying from her side and she gives the woman a raspberry in response. Her support with the woman she's known for several years is one of the places that reveals just how little she cares for hiding how she really is for what's expected of her, when it comes down to it, and even when Say'ri is lamenting what people might think if they saw the Voice of the Divine Dragon acting in such a way, Tiki shoves an apple in the other woman's mouth.

While normally a calm voice of reason, it's definitely not impossible to provoke Tiki's temper—her support with Anna shows this clearly, as she directly threatens the woman for using her to take money from her devout followers for things like autographs and speeches. Most of her external anger seems to emerge when Tiki is personally involved in a situation somehow—while she certainly dislikes injustice and suffering, she only seems to lose a bit of that even-tempered demeanor during the aforementioned incident and when Lucina has personally embarrassed her for that costume incident and tries to call Tiki out for trying so hard to get into the costume in the first place. It makes sense due to her relative isolation from people despite watching the events of the world unfold; she is used to seeing loss and unfairness, but she has had far fewer experiences with people actually doing things to her personally, and her emotional reaction is stronger as a result.

That isn't to say she watches wars and catastrophes with no feelings whatsoever—she is dedicated to her role in defeating the Fell Dragon Grima and making certain he doesn't draw the world into ruin. She wants nothing more than to make certain the future that all of her past and current friends (Marth especially) fought for is achieved. The only way to keep her friends alive throughout the millennia is to share their memories and to maintain their hopes. She knows that this will come with grief and struggle, but she is determined to continue to live, and in doing so, let her lost friends live on as well.

Even though she has spent much of her life sleeping or alone, she has still actively lived for much longer than any human, and it comes with a certain amount of wisdom and serenity. She is a sort of mentor towards her younger manakete companions in Chrom's army, advising Nah about the curse of living so long, and she is perceptive enough to read people's feelings even when they try to hide them, such as when Say'ri covers her grief from fighting her brother with a pragmatic outlook. Still, there is always more for her to learn—even at three thousand years old, she is still changing and making new decisions about where to take her life once the war with Grima ends.

Abilities: As a divine dragon manakete, Tiki has been granted certain set of traits: namely, the ability to transform into a dragon via her dragonstone, a longevity that humans could only dream of, and a slow aging process to match. (It is unclear just how long a manakete can live, but the fact that a manakete who appeared as an old man two thousand years prior is hinted to still be living in the present time is indicative of just how stupidly long they can live.) As a dragon, she mostly fights with breath attacks, though her fangs and claws are sharp enough to work as weapons, and her hide is well armored.

As the daughter of the divine dragon "god" Naga, she is a particularly powerful divine dragon, to the point that Naga had to seal her into slumber as a newborn out of the fear that she would not be able to control her power. However, it seems that Tiki is capable of sealing and awakening her power as an adult through the use of a ritual, negating worries about her going berserk. It's unclear how this actually functions.

Additionally, should the current Naga perish somehow, Tiki is capable of taking her place as the new "Naga" of her world, becoming a spiritual protector who can bless certain people to aid them against dark and evil forces and etc.

Alignment: Daimonia. Many of Tiki's conversations center around the joy of being around others and the grief of losing them.

Other: Wheeee

⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

General Sample: Emotion sample is also in the top level here, under the first prompt. Other more recent samples here and here.