Application for Empatheias.

[risorgimento]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Char (galvantula)
Contact: Catphones // Rakukaja @ AIM, Plurk me or send me a PM on this journal.
Age: 21
Current Characters: None yet!


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Wadanohara
Age: Her age isn't given in canon, but I play her under the assumption she is at least sixteen years old by this point.
Canon: Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea
Canon Point: Post Normal End 1, or the Red Sea Witch ending.

Background: (She has a wiki page, but it's not very helpful and full of highly inaccurate unsourced fanon, so I'm going to give you a brief overview with DA FACTS.

THIS WILL CONTAIN HUGE SPOILERS AND MENTIONS OF ASSAULT. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.)

Wadanohara's actual family and her exact origin is a bit mysterious. What we do know, however, is that the young sea witch was born from an egg. Her father was a great sorcerer by the name of Meikai, a man who loved his ocean home in the Sea Kingdom very, very much. Enough to sacrifice himself to keep it protected during the great war between its two Princesses. Wadanohara was born sometime later and taken in and cared for by the victorious Princess Uomi's aide and her father's close familiar, Tatsumiya, who was an oarfish. The Sea King slept some time ago, leaving the kingdom to Uomi. His other daughter, furious over this decision, led a rebellion and attacked Uomi's forces. The fighting went on for a long time; many lives were taken. It split close people apart. The only way to stop the fighting as it escalated was for Wadanohara's father, Meikai, to seal Mikotsu, Uomi's sister, into the Sea of Death, also known as the Red Sea, a place where nothing can escape or live naturally. No magic can escape it. He also sealed all those on her side within it. To further keep them safe, he put up a barrier of many parts with his magic and created the Cast Pearl that protected their castle. This guaranteed their safety. And so Wadanohara grew up, was raised well, learned her father's magic, and got better and better at it. She eventually met Samekichi, a young shark, who became her first familiar and closest friend. (He had a twin brother who was sealed away with Mikotsu, but more on that in a bit.) Sadly, things do not all go well from there.

As it turns out, a traitor was in their midst, and this traitor was Samekichi's brother. No one was aware Sal WAS his brother, though, as he masqueraded as an albino dolphin and rode the ranks of the Princess' entourage, becoming a high-ranking officer. His plan had him take the scared sword, part of Meikai's various protective enchantments, and attempt to bring the barriers down. To do so he'd need Wadanohara, the only one with access to Meikai's magic, as it was in her blood. Along the way of befriending and fooling her, though, he fell for her in a twisted way. This eventually comes to a head when he fools her into taking him to the Sacred Sword, and he corners her where it's kept, proceeding to attempt to sexually assault and harm her. He is interrupted, thankfully, by Samekichi, who realizes who Sal is and stops him. Sal has one last trick, though: a horrible spell that, should Wadanohara remember all that just happened, she'd die. In order to save Wadanohara, though, Samekichi is forced to make a bargain to act like the "traitor" and treat Wadanohara poorly. So he makes the deal, and her memories of the incident are erased. Samekichi disappears into the sea, doing whatever to bide the time and keep suspicion off Sal, but he's a bad liar. During this time afterwards, Wadanohara meets a young seagull and dolphin, and an octopus, and the three become her familiars and best friends.

Unaware now of what happened and only vaguely feeling that her memories seem misleading, Wadanohara decides to visit the Grand Witch. She eventually went to the witch academy on land to finish her training, too, of course, but more to consult her. She leaves there unsure what to do about it. Meanwhile, she returns home to hear they've been attacked and that her father's barrier parts had all been broken, and were in need of fixing. Each crystal was a crucial part of the barrier that Meikai erected to protect the Sea Kingdom, and normally, only his magic should have been able to fix or destroy any part of it. Knowing this, Sal sets his sights on Meikai's daughter once more, giving the unknowing girl a ring. This ring was a trap, used to siphon her magic and break the barrier crystals every time she was sent to "repair" one. Of course, unaware, she falls for this and accidentally aids him in breaking the barrier when she'd intended to fix each broken crystal. And, in fact, the ring makes it appear that she IS fixing each crystal. Fooling all of them, this task completed, Wadanohara returns home. Unfortunately, while all this is going on, two of the strongest people in the Kingdom (Cherryblod and much before him, Tatsumiya) end up poisoned by Sal, putting them mostly out of commission.

She encounters Samekichi, who tries to get her to leave the Sea many times, often having to fight him. Unaware of what he's doing to simply protect her from Sal, Wadanohara continues onward and returns home. A banquet is had and it's assumed everything is fine, but the opposite turns out to be true as the barrier crystals shatter completely, in the end, exposing their home to danger. This allows the Tosatsu Kingdom, their assumed enemy and one behind all this, to attack them. At first, everyone believes they simply decided to wage war, but it turns out in the end they were tricked, too. Their princess was sent a horrid letter and noticed their soldiers going missing; Sal had apparently been controlling them to attack the Sea Kingdom all along. With a hair-trigger temper, of course, this led Tosatsu to declare an attack on the Sea Kingdom. This letter was sent by someone who betrayed the Sea Kingdom, which as it turns out, happened to be Sal, someone no one suspected. In the struggle that follows, Uomi is forced to confront Tosatsu and calm her down, awakening, and Sal makes off with the Sacred Sword, the last piece he needs, and Wadanohara and company follow him.

Sal the reveals himself as the Ambassador of the Dead Sea; a sort of dark prophet, and the entire Sea of Death begins to corrupt the Sea Kingdom. Sal reveals he was the one who would be tasked with bringing Princess Mikotsu and her supporters back, and corrupting the Sea Kingdom for them all. Unfortunately, both Mikotsu and Uomi had slept much like their father, though Uomi was thought to be awake, this isn't true. Very few people, including Sal, knew she was asleep and that only a great calamity would give her reason to awaken. And once she woke up, so, too, would her sealed, long-dead sister. Using Tosatsu, Sal awakens Uomi truly so that Mikotsu will awaken along with her, so he can bring his plan into fruition.

The Cast Pearl breaks, her father's legacy. Wadanohara is left with only a shard of it, the only bit of her father's power still there. In the end, the Red Sea is brought back along with Mikotsu, and Wadanohara is forced to confront her lost memories. She doesn't die, but nearly ends up controlled by the Sea (and Mikotsu's power), and is briefly put into a nightmare, an endless, incredibly violent dream of "being happy". Thankfully, Meikai is able to reach out to Wadanohara and pull her from Mikotsu's grasp, using his shard and turning it into a powerful magical staff for her to wield. She wakes up, and they all press onward.

The group makes it all the way up the castle (with many trials and a giant squid along the way) while Uomi faces off against her sister. Uomi wins and sends Mikotsu back, but Sal refuses to just give in and corners Samekichi, wounding him severely. Wadanohara ends up alone with just Sal and Samekichi, and even after fighting Sal with all she has, he has the corrupted Sacred Sword and just doesn't seem to go down and die. Sal makes a decision, and presents her an ultimatum: if Wadanohara comes over to where he is, he'll let Samekichi and her entire sea live just fine. Slowly, realizing this is her only option, Wadanohara takes it. She turns her back on Sal when Samekichi calls out to her in fear, however, and Sal proceeds to betray her by stabbing her in the back quite literally, obviously having lied. All he cares about is making Wadanohara his and finishing what he'd started many moons ago. The process of this horrible and lengthy, and Samekichi passes out watching it, unable to bear seeing Wadanohara assaulted and hurt so badly in front of him while he can't do anything. He begs Sal to stop, as does Wadanohara herself during all this, but he refuses, continuing for a long time with his assault. This is the last we see of Wadanohara for the moment, as Samekichi passes out.

Days later, Samekichi is awakened by Sal and shown a different Wadanohara, one who had been tainted by Sal and now claims to be "happy" with their home. The Red Sea takes over the entirety of the Sea Kingdom, turning it into a wasteland, making its inhabitants equally as insane. In the end, Wadanohara ends up Sal's significant other, and Samekichi is imprisoned. Mikotsu takes the throne that she viewed as rightfully hers and is brought to it, and everyone lives "happily" ever after, which is to say, forced into happiness by eldritch algae.

Personality: To understand Wadanohara as she is now, you have to understand how she was raised and what she was like before the "change" Sal inflicted on her. She was born in a home in the ocean, and thus, is a bit naive to many things in the world. She loves everyone there, and is incapable of hating a single soul, even Samekichi when it seems he's betrayed her. She's forgiving, optimistic, and loving to the point of it being a self-fault. People tend to steamroller over her in high intensity situations, because she'd get drowned out, being quiet and reserved. She's not timid by any means, simply a very kind and shy kind of girl. Even so, she's outgoing enough to love exploring and playing with her friends, meeting new people, and so on. Cheerful to a fault, Wadanohara is the sort to always try to find a solution to something, to tackle it head-on and believe in the best result possible. Even during her weakest moments, Wadanohara will always put on a smile and a brave facade of never being shook or hurt by things. She always insists she's fine, that nothing is wrong even when it is, and tends to bottle her emotions or negativity inside. This is an unhealthy habit she's always had, which likely stemmed from how she sort of became the entire Kingdom's "daughter". She had a lot of expectations upon her, after all, and was desperate to fulfill them and be liked as a result. Deep down, however, she's a young girl who has always missed her father, and seems to be trying to escape living in his shadow, to an extent.

However, unlike most people, she admires her father greatly and also, at times, does her best to emulate him, studying his magic and trying to be a witch he'd be proud of. She plays the piano much like he did, happily works on magic like he did, and even shares his stubborn determination to see things through and protect what she loves that Meikai is shown to have. An infinite kindness and determination is something of a family trait, as is bravery in the face of even extremely bad odds. She's brave enough to leave her home and travel great distances via broom or, more commonly, her ship, and has no problem fighting even the biggest enemies that might threaten her. If you threaten anyone from her Kingdom or her familiars, you threaten her as well--she'll ALWAYS defend her home and its people to the best of her abilities. And, by the way, don't call her small or a child, she'll probably be offended. She's got a big personality, thank you, and she's as capable as any older taller person!

Wadanohara prefers not having to use violence unless it's absolutely necessary, as shown in the "roast fowl" incident in the game, where her familiars jump to conclusions over some birds not letting them get a fruit from a tree and decide to fight them without her input or permission, to which she bemoans the entire thing and wonders how she gets into such messes. She can be a bit of a ditz at times, and even a little dense--it's obvious her and Samekichi love each other, and many people attempt to tell her as much, but it always goes right over her head. She's not bad at reading people, it's just that she's a bit oblivious when it comes to romance. In fact, she's also sort of a klutz, prone to accidentally doing a number of things, or assuming something a bit ridiculous makes sense. Even so, she considers even people she just met her friends, and will do pretty much anything asked of her in a heartbeat. She's giving to a fault that she'll go out of her way to do the smallest thing asked of her, even; her nature of being too trusting and too kind is ultimately what ends up stabbing her in the back during Normal Ending 1. She just loves everyone and everything. (And like any young girl, she also loves cute things, particularly ducks and candy and ribbons, wearing braids, skirts. That kind of thing.)

Which brings us how she is presently. A very significant change is over-gone during when Sal assaults her and when we see her next. The exact amount of time is unknown, but the new Wadanohara we see is a girl who has lost all innocence she once had, tainted by blood and pain. Someone pushed so far and hurt so much that she could no longer cope, she snapped, leaving a weak little girl who had to pick up the pieces of her former self all alone. It gets worse, though, because she displays many symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome--in other words, genuinely feeling affection for her captor. Sal managed to convince the poor girl that what he did was for her own good, to make her "happy". As a result, this has caused her to change into someone who doesn't understand what a healthy relationship much IS, or that her actions could be viewed as terrifying, wrong, and morally questionable at best.

The Red Sea Witch is a girl who happily hurts others, whose hobby has become XXX (sex), who will happily use magic on Sal to practice bondage and inflict pain on others just because she's been taught that doing so is how one shows love. Turned into a girl who is, most likely, many shades of sadomasochistic, Wadanohara is now a young woman, no longer just "that girl beloved by all", she's become a symbol of her home's corruption, of a false kindness and happiness that carries no truth to it at all. Someone whose default emotion is "happy" because it HAS to be, or else she'd be unable to cope. Sal was the only one there to pick her up after he harmed her, after all, and so he filled her mind with lies and deception. She's grateful to him, even, believing he "opened her eyes" to a much "better" life, one where no one feels any pain because they've suffered so much that it's broken them, allowing them to become yet another good host for the Red Sea. A world where no one is unhappy because no one CAN be, forced to be "happy" as they are. A world where murder and bloodshed and stagnation is commonplace, and the undead and twisted abominations wander freely.

Much like their undead princess, Wadanohara becomes a witch of her environment. While she retains her kind, caring nature (her hates are STILL listed as ???), it's put to a worse use: thinking she can help others by putting them through similar to what she was put through. Eventually, Sal began to stop satisfying her sexually, and she turned to others, and so on. It became an addiction, a habit. For as much as she presents otherwise, she isn't TRULY happy, and it's a lie she's convinced herself of because she had to. Put through a horrific act and a spell on top of it all broke her terribly, causing her to become numb and empty and desperate to be loved, to be touched, to be cared for. Sal may tell her he loves her, but it's an unhealthy sort of love. He's jealous, controlling, a liar, and abusive. She retreats to acts that make her feel better; domination in the bedroom (be it with rope and other objects or aggression), or falling into the arms of people like Fukami whom she knows now loves her, either way, her entire way of dealing with all of this is quite unhealthy now.

One of the few good things about the event, however, is that it made her much more outgoing, more willing to experiment, learn, create, and try by trial and error. In fact, it made her almost fearless; there is little that can harm her much more than what Sal himself did, and to someone who now views being torn apart as almost normal, it just can't bother her if you hurt her physically. She'll get herself into situations where she flirts openly, will invite strangers to sleep with her, and even play games and do things spontaneously she'd never do beforehand. In fact, she's practically shameless at times with her solicitations if she thinks it'll provoke an amusing reaction. She enjoys gossip and tease, flirting and games, storytelling and art, all things that would have made her younger self pause, big time. She's consistently in denial, and anything to take her mind off of her home situation even briefly is something she tosses herself at in full force. A darling daughter of the ocean, it only makes sense she change with it, after all.

One thing she retained that hadn't changed, at least, was her love for music. She still adores the ocarina Samekichi gave her, still plays the piano, and still goes out of her way trying to be nice and helpful, even if it's a little weird nowadays. Speaking of retaining things, Wadanohara still very much clings to her father's staff, as any piece of Meikai, corrupted now or otherwise, is still something that brings her closer to him. Sadly, he couldn't save her from corruption a second time, something she learned to accept and find to be okay.

Deep down, Wadanohara feels she deserved what happened, that she failed everyone she loves, and that she has actually stained and tarnished the name her father gave her. She fears being open about her emotions, and so puts up an even worse front than before, always forcing herself to be happy. She does it so often that even she's begun to buy how "happy" she is. The Red Sea has a great part in this, yes, but a lot of it is a young girl hearing horrible voices telling her what happened is okay, and that she should be happy about it. From her perspective, even if all this bad happened, her home is "peaceful" again, and "happy", so of course she has no reason to pretend otherwise, even though some part of her knows it's all gone horribly wrong.

All in all, she's a kind, caring girl who lost her naivete about life. She's a flirtatious, almost stereotypical sort of witch nowadays, presenting herself as always smiling and teasing. She tries earnestly to make everyone happy, and still dislikes no one, even the one who did this to her against her will, because she simply can't hate anyone at all. Kind to a fault, her overly-sweet nature has caused her to be hurt, repeatedly. Part of her is defensive over this and refuses to ever let anything take advantage of her again, making her far craftier, at times, than she once was. Her magic is horrible and red, and little of the girl before remains, but what IS left is recognizable enough as "Wadanohara". It's just that it's been twisted into something awful by a parasite and an ungodly act. And when all you have is those horrible things, who can blame a girl for changing to suit them?

She'll always keep smiling. Even if it's a lie. Because she's happy!

Abilities: Wadanohara has a number of abilities due to her being a witch, and some others due to the Red Sea's influence, so I'm probably just going to list them in bullet format.

SPELLCASTING: Wadanohara can cast a number of spells in the game. Here are those, from weakest to strongest:
• Normal Spell: A regular magic attack of fairly weak power.
• Sea Spell I, II, III: A progressing spell that gets stronger depending on the level that attacks with ocean water.
• Anchor Attack: Wada summons an anchor using magic that hits a single enemy and then disappears.
• Anchor Explosion: Summons several anchors onto several enemies, or just one, that explode as if detonated.
• Semaphore Spell (Marine Anchor): An attack directed by using flags, this summons an anchor made of seawater to attack an enemy.
• Magical Helm: Creates a steering wheel that hits one opponent.
• Wish on the Moon (Moon's Light): Magic using the Moonlight that hits one enemy. Much stronger than most other spells.
• Moonlight Seashine: Powerful magic that combines the sea and the moon's powers that will hit all her enemies.
• Healing Tone I & II: Heals HP for one one person, the amount varying depending on which is used.
• Healing Tone III: Heals 150HP for all.

BLOOD MAGIC: Wadanohara, as Sal has forced his power into her, is capable of using magic that utilizes the blood of other creatures, and the water within their bodies. She can turn blood into weapons or clothing, but also stop organs from functioning, block veins, make them bleed, or even drain an enemy of blood completely. She can also use it to revive dead things with her blood magic, but they come back more like zombies than intelligent life.

OBSERVATION POWERS: The eyes on Wadanohara's hat and ribbon all function individually and separately, blinking and looking around. They're sensitive to magic and keep an eye on things around her, alerting her to things of interest. They tend to emote when she does, following suit.

BREATHING IN WATER: Wadanohara herself is able to freely breathe underwater due to being born there, but she can cast magic to make others be able to do so for a short time, too. She can also live in very oxygen-deprived water, as the Red Sea is a place without much of it.

FAMILIARS: Like all witches, Wadanohara is able to take on creatures as familiars, strengthening their bond to her and allowing her to sense them and enable them to use magic, or strengthen them through her own blood and magic. Doing the former, that is, using her blood on a familiar, will give them an insane boost in power and magic, but at the high risk of their death if it's overused.

DEATH: It's... very hard to kill her. Just throwing that out there. The Sea of Death will generally regenerate her, and between that and her healing magic, well, you know.

Other: Uhhh, I can't really think of much more... if her powers need to be nerfed, I doubt it'll be an issue; she's strong, but she's not ALL MIGHTY or anything.


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
First Person Sample: Testdrive Thread 1 | Testdrive Thread 2 | Testdrive Thread 3 | Testdrive Thread 4

Third Person Sample:

She often liked to take long baths. Because the water reminded her of home, and being in this place always made it difficult. She longed for the feel of the ocean currents in her hair, and breathing in the depths and water. She could breathe air just fine, but it didn't stop her from missing it all the same. She missed her friends too, of course, and her lover, but... well, as she considered this, bubbles were rising all around her, and pretty soon she'd accidentally thought up a storm of the things, causing them to billow out of the room into the hallway. This made one of her neighbors in the apartment bang on the door, and she quickly got out of the bath and threw on a towel.

"I-I'm coming, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She said, racing out to answer the front door. Opening it quickly, she sees it's a man. He reminds her a lot of someone she knows, and she can't help being a bit embarrassed someone is seeing her semi-naked. Still, she tries to smile, even though bubbles keep coming from around her even now.

"Could you try to think about something else? None of us can navigate from all the bubbles you're making," the man said irritably, and this caused her to frown.

"S-sorry, I couldn't help it! I just have a really bubbly personality," Wadanohara replied with a smile, perhaps even a slight wink, and the man just frowned, sighing.

"... Uh-huh. Right, well. Try to take care of it." Oh, she would. A vigorous nod would be his reply, and then she'd shake his hand and go on about her name and how sorry she was and how nice to meet him she was. And how happy she was. Yes, how happy she was here. She was happy. The bubbles had stopped, replaced by a quiet chill to the air...

Maybe the truth was much colder than her warm demeanor always suggested. But she was someone who'd hold her secrets to her chest forever, if she could, and so she played it off as the window simply being open.

Questions: Iiii don't have any questions! I just hope all this is okay.