ooc: about
Basic Info
Character: Estellise Sidos Heurassein ("Estelle")
Series/Fandom: Tales of Vesperia
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Deviance: Deviance 1
Appearance: here
Warnings: I use skitfaces for expressions so I tend to repeat icons a lot.
Extended Info
Psychology: Estelle is the picture-perfect example of the naive, sheltered princess. Until the events of the game, she's never left the castle in which she lives in her entire life. Naturally, she's a bit clueless to how the outside world actually works. She's got her preconceptions, though. She loves to read, for one thing, and sometimes the knights who guard her tell her what it's like outside the castle. She knows the world as she's encountered it secondhand.
Once she actually manages to leave, a large part of her character arc centers around the ways in which her preconceptions and reality conflict. She is shocked to learn of the Empire's corruption, when such a thing is common knowledge to nearly everyone she meets; she had thought that living in the Empire was good for everyone and is surprised to find that some people are not only discontent but actually oppressed. And this is where her innocence and naivety really shows through. Estelle has an unshakable sense of right and wrong, and her insistence on doing good and helping people often ends up inconveniencing her friends and comrades, despite her best of intentions. It takes a long time for her to realize that since she is no longer living as a noble in the castle, she no longer has the privileges that go with that, and that people are not necessarily interested in dropping everything and going along with her whims. She never does this sort of thing on purpose, it just never crosses her mind that people might have other interests that conflict with what she wants to do. Examples of this include attempting to wander into the desert with no real direction to find a mysterious entity that may or may not even live there, getting sidetracked into fulfilling several "just causes" along the way, and dragging her friends along for the whole shebang. This also provides the game writers with quite a bit of filler, but that is neither here nor there.
The point is that while Estelle enjoys life on the outside of cold stone walls for once, it takes a while for her to adjust to the idea that her circumstances will no longer be as convenient or cushy as a result.
The other big part of her character arc is her reaction to obligation and responsibility. Despite the way she might come off, she does not handle it well at all. Even though she is only distantly related to the royal family, she is a candidate for the Imperial throne, though the son of the previous empire is both still alive and perfectly capable of ruling. The reason she is even a candidate is because she is backed by the Council--a ruling body counterpart to the emperor as a sort of judiciary branch--with the justification being that she is a fullblooded descendant of the ancient race that founded the Empire in the first place. However, it was very obvious (to me anyway) that this was merely an excuse, with the real reason being that the Council thought she'd be easier to control than the actual heir: the Empire has been crippled by a power vacuum for the last ten years, and with somebody easily manipulable on the throne, the Council would be able to garner more political sway for themselves.
It is clear that Estelle does not like this role that has been forced upon her. Though she is hesitant at first, it does not take much convincing on Yuri's part for her to leave the castle with him, even as she knows her obligations. In fact, she pretty much invites herself along after they run into each other. At the same time, though, she appears to harbor some guilt or insecurity knowing that she is not personally fit for the role of empress. She calls her traveling with the main party her journey to discover the truth about herself and her mysterious abilities, but in reality it can be simultaneously considered an attempt to escape her responsibilities, an attempt to finally control her own fate, and an attempt to prove to herself that she really can handle taking care of people. This explains much of her desire and willingness to drop everything in order to help everyone and anyone she comes across who might need it. But because she does not usually think these things through before she acts, they have a tendency to backfire on her. In one instance her attempt to heal somebody directly contributes to their death, and had she taken a moment just to think about what she was doing before she acted, she would have realized the consequences in time.
I probably should have covered this first, but as to base personality: Estelle is very open and honest. She is optimistic and idealistic and tends to think the best of people. She likes others and wants to be liked in turn, and will try very doggedly to befriend even people who are clearly not interested. She forgives others easily, but can be very hard on herself when she messes up. When she's upset, you can tell, but not because she's very emotional about it; rather, she becomes very quiet, withdrawn, and antisocial, so that she can try to sort herself out on her own. She truly wants to improve herself so that she can become a better person; she's just not quite sure of the right method to go about doing it. But the key thing is that she tries.
Abilities: The people of Terca Lumireis, the world Estelle is from, use special devices to convert certain particles in the atmosphere into magical energy. Estelle, being a Child of the Full Moon (a descendant of an ancient mystical race), can use magic all on her own, without the devices, but in exchange takes quite a toll on her environment. She specializes in healing (and typical RPG support abilities that are useless outside of the game's fighting system), but can also use some offensive magic. She has also been trained in swordfighting.
Reality: Terca Lumireis is a planet that functions on aer, which are the special particles I mentioned before. Everything living is powered by it. It's sort of like magical air. Ha!
Anyway. There are three intelligent species living on Terca Lumireis: humans (self-explanatory), Krityans (like elves, only not), and Entelexeia (giant monster-looking dudes who keep to themselves because people think they're scary). A millennium ago or something, humans used to worship the Entelexeia as gods, but to humans now they exist mainly as myths. They're pretty antisocial, because they don't really like humans, and for a very good reason. Entelexeia also subsist primarily on aer.
Most humans live within the Empire, the largest known (to the player) governing body on Terca Lumireis. It's exactly what it sounds like (i.e. an empire). The Empire has issues with serious class divides, and corruption runs deep within the upper echelons, which only serves to worsen the problem: the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor, and since the rich hold all the power, nothing's about to change any time soon. The Empire has also been known to control what information is released to its subjects, with the result that many of the Empire's inhabitants--not just Estelle--are ignorant of the world outside its reach and are misinformed as to its own history. Sick of being under the Empire's control or just interested in seeking opportunities elsewhere, some people leave and join the Union, which is a separate, less organized society (made up of smaller service groups known as guilds) that allows its inhabitants to enjoy more freedom at the cost of living with more danger. The Empire and the Union have historically had a rather hostile relationship. The Krityans, for the most part, live where the humans do.
People use these little devices called "blastia"--as I mentioned--to convert aer into energy they can use. Essentially, magic. The thing is, though, modern society actually doesn't know how to manufacture blastia. Well, they're working on it, but so far they're not quite as effective as people would like. The blastia that most people use are really leftover relics from an ancient civilization called the Geraios, which is coincidentally (or is it?) the same civilization that worshiped the Entelexeia way back when. So, in that way, blastia study is very much entwined with archaeology. But since blastia can't be manufactured yet, they're in limited supply--it basically depends on how much can be dug up. The Empire controls distribution of blastia, or at least the blastia they've unearthed, yet another way they keep their subjects under their thumb.
The thing about blastia, though, is that they use a lot of aer. So they're bad for the environment, and for Entelexeia. Like cars! Since Estelle is a Child of the Full Moon (in clearer terms, a descendant of a mystical race from the Geraios period), she can use magic without using a blastia. In exchange, though, she consumes a ton more aer than the blastia do. This is bad because this makes the aer krene (i.e. springs which aer comes from in the first place)...produce way too much aer. Because Estelle's power stimulates them too much, you see. It makes perfect sense.
I'm lying, it totally doesn't. Thanks writers. Anyway, the combination of too much blastia use and Estelle's continued existence means that Terca Lumireis is, like, getting utterly swamped with aer. And when that happens, a giant sparkly ghost squid will come down from space and eat everyone.
Really.
Ten years ago, this conflict came to a head when a Krityan named Hermes actually managed to engineer a new model of blastia, intended to be more powerful than the ones already in use. Just like Estelle, though, in exchange, this blastia consumed much more aer than models previous, and the Entelexeia decided they'd had enough and essentially declared war on humans. Ultimately, the Empire won (or so it says), and while there were many casualties on both sides, the Entelexeia were pushed to the point of extinction. The significance this event holds for Estelle is that during the war (or perhaps afterward, the game is not entirely clear), the emperor died due to unexplained circumstances, and the Imperial treasure required for inaugurating a new emperor was stolen. Because the Empire is apparently populated by a bunch of traditionally-minded people, they were left technically leaderless for a decade, which led to the succession crisis involving Estelle discussed during the events of the game. Because there is no emperor, control of the Empire has officially been delegated to the Council, but since only the emperor can give commands to the Imperial Knights they're basically free to do as they want (well, as the Commandant wants). This often results in conflict, as you might guess, which is only strengthened by the succession crisis: Estelle's backed by the Council, and Ioder (the rightful heir) is backed by the Knights.
History: As mentioned before, Estelle has never left the capital's castle; it's implied she's lived there for most, if not all, of her life. Later on in her life she befriends an ambitious, up-and-coming young knight named Flynn Scifo, who tells her about the outside world and his BFF Yuri Lowell, who is a lower-class dude (like Flynn himself) that throws rocks at policemen. Estelle thinks Flynn is pretty neat. Shortly before the events of the game, Flynn goes on some sort of pilgrimage apparently important to his duties as a lieutenant, and Estelle somehow overhears that someone is plotting to have Flynn killed.
So she tries to leave the castle so she can warn him, only to be prevented from doing so by the Imperial Knights. But who should show up but our hero, Yuri Lowell! What a coincidence! He got himself arrested for breaking and entering and ended up busting out of jail, and so he and Estelle team up to escape the castle, Estelle telling Yuri that she's just a noble (not a princess). After they successfully escape, they agree to look for Flynn together, and end up yawing all over the Empire in search of him, picking up party members along the way, and moving as quickly as possible since Yuri's on the run. Eventually they track Flynn down and Estelle conveys to him her message. This is done ~in private~ and we never actually learn what Flynn was really in danger from, because Vesperia has plot thread ADD.
Yuri decides to keep on with his original goal (to track down somebody who'd sabotaged an important blastia in the lower quarter, where he's from) and Estelle decides to stick with him since she doesn't really want to go home. The group ends up running into a dead end and getting arrested, and it comes out that Estelle is really a princess. Back within the confines of the Empire, Estelle uses her political influence to get Yuri pardoned, and decides to continue traveling with him so that she can figure out what's important to her, and because she still doesn't really want to go home. Oddly enough, the Imperial Knights are (or at least the Commandant is) okay with this. They do a bit of errand running, Yuri finally achieves what he's out for, and the party is attacked by a big scary talking monster called Phaeroh that calls Estelle poisonous and then flies off. And here the plot of the game finally starts, sort of.
It comes out here that Estelle can use magic without a blastia, which is probably the reason Phaeroh attacked them, so Estelle decides to track him down and find answers. She commissions Yuri and a couple of their friends, who have decided to form a guild, to accompany her, and thus begins her quest to figure out the meaning of her existence or whatever. Yaaay!
Canon Point: Questing around the southern continent! Probably right after discovering Yormgen. "Before Belius happens" is really the key thing here.
Character: Estellise Sidos Heurassein ("Estelle")
Series/Fandom: Tales of Vesperia
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Deviance: Deviance 1
Appearance: here
Warnings: I use skitfaces for expressions so I tend to repeat icons a lot.
Extended Info
Psychology: Estelle is the picture-perfect example of the naive, sheltered princess. Until the events of the game, she's never left the castle in which she lives in her entire life. Naturally, she's a bit clueless to how the outside world actually works. She's got her preconceptions, though. She loves to read, for one thing, and sometimes the knights who guard her tell her what it's like outside the castle. She knows the world as she's encountered it secondhand.
Once she actually manages to leave, a large part of her character arc centers around the ways in which her preconceptions and reality conflict. She is shocked to learn of the Empire's corruption, when such a thing is common knowledge to nearly everyone she meets; she had thought that living in the Empire was good for everyone and is surprised to find that some people are not only discontent but actually oppressed. And this is where her innocence and naivety really shows through. Estelle has an unshakable sense of right and wrong, and her insistence on doing good and helping people often ends up inconveniencing her friends and comrades, despite her best of intentions. It takes a long time for her to realize that since she is no longer living as a noble in the castle, she no longer has the privileges that go with that, and that people are not necessarily interested in dropping everything and going along with her whims. She never does this sort of thing on purpose, it just never crosses her mind that people might have other interests that conflict with what she wants to do. Examples of this include attempting to wander into the desert with no real direction to find a mysterious entity that may or may not even live there, getting sidetracked into fulfilling several "just causes" along the way, and dragging her friends along for the whole shebang. This also provides the game writers with quite a bit of filler, but that is neither here nor there.
The point is that while Estelle enjoys life on the outside of cold stone walls for once, it takes a while for her to adjust to the idea that her circumstances will no longer be as convenient or cushy as a result.
The other big part of her character arc is her reaction to obligation and responsibility. Despite the way she might come off, she does not handle it well at all. Even though she is only distantly related to the royal family, she is a candidate for the Imperial throne, though the son of the previous empire is both still alive and perfectly capable of ruling. The reason she is even a candidate is because she is backed by the Council--a ruling body counterpart to the emperor as a sort of judiciary branch--with the justification being that she is a fullblooded descendant of the ancient race that founded the Empire in the first place. However, it was very obvious (to me anyway) that this was merely an excuse, with the real reason being that the Council thought she'd be easier to control than the actual heir: the Empire has been crippled by a power vacuum for the last ten years, and with somebody easily manipulable on the throne, the Council would be able to garner more political sway for themselves.
It is clear that Estelle does not like this role that has been forced upon her. Though she is hesitant at first, it does not take much convincing on Yuri's part for her to leave the castle with him, even as she knows her obligations. In fact, she pretty much invites herself along after they run into each other. At the same time, though, she appears to harbor some guilt or insecurity knowing that she is not personally fit for the role of empress. She calls her traveling with the main party her journey to discover the truth about herself and her mysterious abilities, but in reality it can be simultaneously considered an attempt to escape her responsibilities, an attempt to finally control her own fate, and an attempt to prove to herself that she really can handle taking care of people. This explains much of her desire and willingness to drop everything in order to help everyone and anyone she comes across who might need it. But because she does not usually think these things through before she acts, they have a tendency to backfire on her. In one instance her attempt to heal somebody directly contributes to their death, and had she taken a moment just to think about what she was doing before she acted, she would have realized the consequences in time.
I probably should have covered this first, but as to base personality: Estelle is very open and honest. She is optimistic and idealistic and tends to think the best of people. She likes others and wants to be liked in turn, and will try very doggedly to befriend even people who are clearly not interested. She forgives others easily, but can be very hard on herself when she messes up. When she's upset, you can tell, but not because she's very emotional about it; rather, she becomes very quiet, withdrawn, and antisocial, so that she can try to sort herself out on her own. She truly wants to improve herself so that she can become a better person; she's just not quite sure of the right method to go about doing it. But the key thing is that she tries.
Abilities: The people of Terca Lumireis, the world Estelle is from, use special devices to convert certain particles in the atmosphere into magical energy. Estelle, being a Child of the Full Moon (a descendant of an ancient mystical race), can use magic all on her own, without the devices, but in exchange takes quite a toll on her environment. She specializes in healing (and typical RPG support abilities that are useless outside of the game's fighting system), but can also use some offensive magic. She has also been trained in swordfighting.
Reality: Terca Lumireis is a planet that functions on aer, which are the special particles I mentioned before. Everything living is powered by it. It's sort of like magical air. Ha!
Anyway. There are three intelligent species living on Terca Lumireis: humans (self-explanatory), Krityans (like elves, only not), and Entelexeia (giant monster-looking dudes who keep to themselves because people think they're scary). A millennium ago or something, humans used to worship the Entelexeia as gods, but to humans now they exist mainly as myths. They're pretty antisocial, because they don't really like humans, and for a very good reason. Entelexeia also subsist primarily on aer.
Most humans live within the Empire, the largest known (to the player) governing body on Terca Lumireis. It's exactly what it sounds like (i.e. an empire). The Empire has issues with serious class divides, and corruption runs deep within the upper echelons, which only serves to worsen the problem: the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor, and since the rich hold all the power, nothing's about to change any time soon. The Empire has also been known to control what information is released to its subjects, with the result that many of the Empire's inhabitants--not just Estelle--are ignorant of the world outside its reach and are misinformed as to its own history. Sick of being under the Empire's control or just interested in seeking opportunities elsewhere, some people leave and join the Union, which is a separate, less organized society (made up of smaller service groups known as guilds) that allows its inhabitants to enjoy more freedom at the cost of living with more danger. The Empire and the Union have historically had a rather hostile relationship. The Krityans, for the most part, live where the humans do.
People use these little devices called "blastia"--as I mentioned--to convert aer into energy they can use. Essentially, magic. The thing is, though, modern society actually doesn't know how to manufacture blastia. Well, they're working on it, but so far they're not quite as effective as people would like. The blastia that most people use are really leftover relics from an ancient civilization called the Geraios, which is coincidentally (or is it?) the same civilization that worshiped the Entelexeia way back when. So, in that way, blastia study is very much entwined with archaeology. But since blastia can't be manufactured yet, they're in limited supply--it basically depends on how much can be dug up. The Empire controls distribution of blastia, or at least the blastia they've unearthed, yet another way they keep their subjects under their thumb.
The thing about blastia, though, is that they use a lot of aer. So they're bad for the environment, and for Entelexeia. Like cars! Since Estelle is a Child of the Full Moon (in clearer terms, a descendant of a mystical race from the Geraios period), she can use magic without using a blastia. In exchange, though, she consumes a ton more aer than the blastia do. This is bad because this makes the aer krene (i.e. springs which aer comes from in the first place)...produce way too much aer. Because Estelle's power stimulates them too much, you see. It makes perfect sense.
I'm lying, it totally doesn't. Thanks writers. Anyway, the combination of too much blastia use and Estelle's continued existence means that Terca Lumireis is, like, getting utterly swamped with aer. And when that happens, a giant sparkly ghost squid will come down from space and eat everyone.
Really.
Ten years ago, this conflict came to a head when a Krityan named Hermes actually managed to engineer a new model of blastia, intended to be more powerful than the ones already in use. Just like Estelle, though, in exchange, this blastia consumed much more aer than models previous, and the Entelexeia decided they'd had enough and essentially declared war on humans. Ultimately, the Empire won (or so it says), and while there were many casualties on both sides, the Entelexeia were pushed to the point of extinction. The significance this event holds for Estelle is that during the war (or perhaps afterward, the game is not entirely clear), the emperor died due to unexplained circumstances, and the Imperial treasure required for inaugurating a new emperor was stolen. Because the Empire is apparently populated by a bunch of traditionally-minded people, they were left technically leaderless for a decade, which led to the succession crisis involving Estelle discussed during the events of the game. Because there is no emperor, control of the Empire has officially been delegated to the Council, but since only the emperor can give commands to the Imperial Knights they're basically free to do as they want (well, as the Commandant wants). This often results in conflict, as you might guess, which is only strengthened by the succession crisis: Estelle's backed by the Council, and Ioder (the rightful heir) is backed by the Knights.
History: As mentioned before, Estelle has never left the capital's castle; it's implied she's lived there for most, if not all, of her life. Later on in her life she befriends an ambitious, up-and-coming young knight named Flynn Scifo, who tells her about the outside world and his BFF Yuri Lowell, who is a lower-class dude (like Flynn himself) that throws rocks at policemen. Estelle thinks Flynn is pretty neat. Shortly before the events of the game, Flynn goes on some sort of pilgrimage apparently important to his duties as a lieutenant, and Estelle somehow overhears that someone is plotting to have Flynn killed.
So she tries to leave the castle so she can warn him, only to be prevented from doing so by the Imperial Knights. But who should show up but our hero, Yuri Lowell! What a coincidence! He got himself arrested for breaking and entering and ended up busting out of jail, and so he and Estelle team up to escape the castle, Estelle telling Yuri that she's just a noble (not a princess). After they successfully escape, they agree to look for Flynn together, and end up yawing all over the Empire in search of him, picking up party members along the way, and moving as quickly as possible since Yuri's on the run. Eventually they track Flynn down and Estelle conveys to him her message. This is done ~in private~ and we never actually learn what Flynn was really in danger from, because Vesperia has plot thread ADD.
Yuri decides to keep on with his original goal (to track down somebody who'd sabotaged an important blastia in the lower quarter, where he's from) and Estelle decides to stick with him since she doesn't really want to go home. The group ends up running into a dead end and getting arrested, and it comes out that Estelle is really a princess. Back within the confines of the Empire, Estelle uses her political influence to get Yuri pardoned, and decides to continue traveling with him so that she can figure out what's important to her, and because she still doesn't really want to go home. Oddly enough, the Imperial Knights are (or at least the Commandant is) okay with this. They do a bit of errand running, Yuri finally achieves what he's out for, and the party is attacked by a big scary talking monster called Phaeroh that calls Estelle poisonous and then flies off. And here the plot of the game finally starts, sort of.
It comes out here that Estelle can use magic without a blastia, which is probably the reason Phaeroh attacked them, so Estelle decides to track him down and find answers. She commissions Yuri and a couple of their friends, who have decided to form a guild, to accompany her, and thus begins her quest to figure out the meaning of her existence or whatever. Yaaay!
Canon Point: Questing around the southern continent! Probably right after discovering Yormgen. "Before Belius happens" is really the key thing here.