Kikimora (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stressingwitchface) wrote2022-07-13 10:19 am
stressingwitchface) wrote2022-07-13 10:19 am
Application to TLV
User Name/Nick: Allison
User DW: N/A
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: Plurk is cannibalherpes
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Nadja, Trevor Belmont
Character Name: Kikimora
Series: The Owl House
Age: Unknown but presumably adulthood. Kikimora is one of the top officials in the Emperor's coven and acts something like a spokesperson for him in interviews and the like: it's unlikely she wouldn't be of-age and risen through the ranks otherwise. She is likely less than 50 years old because she makes no mention of being around when Belos came to power.
From When?: From the Day of Unity, after the draining spell activates and presumably dissolves her into dust.
Inmate Justification: Kikimora is what happens when you get a person who attaches their whole personality to a person in a position of authority. She craves power, and will do anything to get it, up to and including trying to kill children and choosing a promotion at work over permanent estrangement from her family. She's a desperate, angry, jealous creature who sacrifices every chance she ever had of being a good person in order to make it to the top of Emperor Belos' favor. She needs a warden to break her away from that power-hungry survivalist bootlicker mindset she's locked herself into and help her realize she has other options.
Arrival: Kikimora whole-heartedly agreed to come here. She wants her revenge and wants to live.
Abilities/Powers: As a member of the Emperor's coven and a biped demon, Kikimora would have had access to all different kinds of coven magic. However, canonically she's only displayed an ability to blast offensive magic from circles she draws in thin air. If it were possible to go harder, she would have, so it's likely that she herself is only talented in firing purple bolts of magic. If someone has a sigil on their arm, she can also stop their magic and knock them out: however, only Hunter has a coven mark and she likely isn't strong enough now to defeat him. Physically, she's roughly the size and proportional strength of a small human child.
Considering the only thing she really can do is create fire out of thin air and has no desire to not set her enemies on fire, going to request her to be dropped to baseline human status in order to protect the ship and most of the unfortunate inmates who end up working with her.
Inmate Information: Kikimora thrives on being a useful lackey to the most important person in the room. She has no loyalty; if someone proves to be stronger, she will immediately jump ship. She's a real people-pleaser, so long as the people have something to offer her. Kiki's been a victim of a master manipulator, and as such is extremely paranoid and suspicious of basically everyone. She'll also immediately zero in on Hunter and start working to replace him, seeking to buddy up to the people he's close to and make him look terrible in comparison. This is par for the course for their working relationship: Kikimora has tried to kill Hunter and his friends a few times, and actively works to ascend the ranks by climbing over his body. It's clear she doesn't have any real friends in her life, and even her mother disowns her after she opts to attend a coven parade over a family reunion (never mind that not attending would have gotten her killed)
Be extremely careful about giving her any job or authority. Even if she's working in janitorial duty, Kikimora will make it her mission to sabotage anyone else working alongside her in order to make them look bad and promote herself. She automatically seeks the best and most important positions, so a warden will have to be prepared to rein her back in. Any bit of power will give her megalomaniac tendencies and even graduation will take a backseat if she gets wind of something better. She's clever but not overly so, and is more sly and manipulative than anything.
Kikimora's rare sympathetic moments are tempered with how pathetic she can be about what she's upset about and how quick she is to turn on people. She's had a few moments where she was moved to tears over the thought of being separated from her family in Palm Stings, but in the next few minutes is declaring that the whole place can 'burn for all [she] cares!' because there was an opportunity to get her old job back. While Hunter took a while to come to terms with Belos' true nature, Kikimora had a few minutes of shock before she was able to rally herself: she has a very pessimistic outlook about most people and dumped all her hopes on one terrible person. She doesn't really care much about anyone or anything (that she'll let on), as long as Belos dies. True, she helps the heroes in the end, but it's mainly because she's so furious and craving revenge that she's willing to do whatever it takes to see him suffer.
Kikimora is sneaky and good at listening at doors and getting around unnoticed: she's the one who knew the most about the Collector and was able to use that knowledge to her advantage. She's forever looking out for angles or opportunities to improve her lot in life, and dreams of the day where she won't have to hang onto the biggest person's coattails. Her baseline personality is smug, cautious, and calm, but it doesn't take much to set her off. Enough bullying, enough tripping her up or making her look bad, and she'll start to fall apart, screaming and pointing and generally being a mess of a person.
She's gullible up to a point: Kikimora has faith in a few key observations about the ship - the Admiral is in charge, wardens are her key to graduating, etc - but apart from that, she'll likely believe anything from a warden that doesn't contradict those observations, especially if they feed into her paranoia and anxiety. Anyone in a position of authority can usually get away with at least a few outrageous lies. She's also cowardly, unwilling to put her life on the line for anything except maybe pettiness or spite towards her enemies, and a lot of her actions are fueled by the fear of being replaced, demoted, and dead.
And she has a lot of enemies, because she stomps on anyone she can on her way to the top. Despite being brought down very low, she will scramble to make herself useful to any warden who stands half a chance of graduating her. Be warned: she will likely betray those wardens if she finds she'll have better odds with someone else.
Path to Redemption:
In some parts, Kikimora will appear the model inmate. By dint of her personality, she would consider any warden as a person put here to help her graduate, and would gladly defer to any of them. This is a superficial sort of subservience and how long it takes her to stab her warden in the back depends on whether or not she sees them as someone worthy of respect. Therefore, more powerful wardens will command her good behavior longer but they may not be as effective in kick-starting her eventual break-down than ones who are baseline human. Probably the 'worst' warden for Kikimora would be someone like Hunter: young, someone who rose through nepotism or was born into perceived privilege, not very intimidating in voice or stature.
However, she's someone who's very clearly never been given a third option and, like Hunter, has been the victim of Emperor Belos' manipulations. Everything in the Emperor's Coven is very black and white: obey, or suffer. Even the brief glimpses into her home life are fairly sad: she's browbeaten over the phone by her mother to either come home or be banished from the family forever. She's suffered multiple breakdowns throughout her canon and is coming from her last and biggest one: that the person she most admired and wanted to be like couldn't care less what happens to her and in fact wants her dead. She needs to learn how to make some real, actual friends and not stab them in the back at the first golden opportunity.
A good way for a warden to get through to her is to care about her and ask her how she's doing. It sounds simple on the surface, but Kikimora has been genuinely moved to tears just from her enemies asking what's going on with her. Granted, she'll likely flee to someone else as soon as an opportunity for promotion or power is waved in front of her, but it's a learning curve. Wardens who teach her how to recognize the signs of being duped by power - or better yet, those who can show by example that power isn't all it's cracked up to be - will have the most success in getting her to calm down and work on her issues.
She does best when she has someone to talk to: most of her worst ideas were concocted when she was alone and afraid or angry. A successful warden would be someone who can help her open up about the rage and regret of a wasted life and try to redirect some of that revenge-heavy determination towards something more productive and useful. Just be prepared to get stung a handful of times before she trusts that this isn't some twisted game to get what the warden wants. Get her a hobby that will tire her out, because she's an energy-filled cannonball ready to rumble.
History: History link here
Sample Network Entry / Sample RP: from the Test Drive Meme
User DW: N/A
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: Plurk is cannibalherpes
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Nadja, Trevor Belmont
Character Name: Kikimora
Series: The Owl House
Age: Unknown but presumably adulthood. Kikimora is one of the top officials in the Emperor's coven and acts something like a spokesperson for him in interviews and the like: it's unlikely she wouldn't be of-age and risen through the ranks otherwise. She is likely less than 50 years old because she makes no mention of being around when Belos came to power.
From When?: From the Day of Unity, after the draining spell activates and presumably dissolves her into dust.
Inmate Justification: Kikimora is what happens when you get a person who attaches their whole personality to a person in a position of authority. She craves power, and will do anything to get it, up to and including trying to kill children and choosing a promotion at work over permanent estrangement from her family. She's a desperate, angry, jealous creature who sacrifices every chance she ever had of being a good person in order to make it to the top of Emperor Belos' favor. She needs a warden to break her away from that power-hungry survivalist bootlicker mindset she's locked herself into and help her realize she has other options.
Arrival: Kikimora whole-heartedly agreed to come here. She wants her revenge and wants to live.
Abilities/Powers: As a member of the Emperor's coven and a biped demon, Kikimora would have had access to all different kinds of coven magic. However, canonically she's only displayed an ability to blast offensive magic from circles she draws in thin air. If it were possible to go harder, she would have, so it's likely that she herself is only talented in firing purple bolts of magic. If someone has a sigil on their arm, she can also stop their magic and knock them out: however, only Hunter has a coven mark and she likely isn't strong enough now to defeat him. Physically, she's roughly the size and proportional strength of a small human child.
Considering the only thing she really can do is create fire out of thin air and has no desire to not set her enemies on fire, going to request her to be dropped to baseline human status in order to protect the ship and most of the unfortunate inmates who end up working with her.
Inmate Information: Kikimora thrives on being a useful lackey to the most important person in the room. She has no loyalty; if someone proves to be stronger, she will immediately jump ship. She's a real people-pleaser, so long as the people have something to offer her. Kiki's been a victim of a master manipulator, and as such is extremely paranoid and suspicious of basically everyone. She'll also immediately zero in on Hunter and start working to replace him, seeking to buddy up to the people he's close to and make him look terrible in comparison. This is par for the course for their working relationship: Kikimora has tried to kill Hunter and his friends a few times, and actively works to ascend the ranks by climbing over his body. It's clear she doesn't have any real friends in her life, and even her mother disowns her after she opts to attend a coven parade over a family reunion (never mind that not attending would have gotten her killed)
Be extremely careful about giving her any job or authority. Even if she's working in janitorial duty, Kikimora will make it her mission to sabotage anyone else working alongside her in order to make them look bad and promote herself. She automatically seeks the best and most important positions, so a warden will have to be prepared to rein her back in. Any bit of power will give her megalomaniac tendencies and even graduation will take a backseat if she gets wind of something better. She's clever but not overly so, and is more sly and manipulative than anything.
Kikimora's rare sympathetic moments are tempered with how pathetic she can be about what she's upset about and how quick she is to turn on people. She's had a few moments where she was moved to tears over the thought of being separated from her family in Palm Stings, but in the next few minutes is declaring that the whole place can 'burn for all [she] cares!' because there was an opportunity to get her old job back. While Hunter took a while to come to terms with Belos' true nature, Kikimora had a few minutes of shock before she was able to rally herself: she has a very pessimistic outlook about most people and dumped all her hopes on one terrible person. She doesn't really care much about anyone or anything (that she'll let on), as long as Belos dies. True, she helps the heroes in the end, but it's mainly because she's so furious and craving revenge that she's willing to do whatever it takes to see him suffer.
Kikimora is sneaky and good at listening at doors and getting around unnoticed: she's the one who knew the most about the Collector and was able to use that knowledge to her advantage. She's forever looking out for angles or opportunities to improve her lot in life, and dreams of the day where she won't have to hang onto the biggest person's coattails. Her baseline personality is smug, cautious, and calm, but it doesn't take much to set her off. Enough bullying, enough tripping her up or making her look bad, and she'll start to fall apart, screaming and pointing and generally being a mess of a person.
She's gullible up to a point: Kikimora has faith in a few key observations about the ship - the Admiral is in charge, wardens are her key to graduating, etc - but apart from that, she'll likely believe anything from a warden that doesn't contradict those observations, especially if they feed into her paranoia and anxiety. Anyone in a position of authority can usually get away with at least a few outrageous lies. She's also cowardly, unwilling to put her life on the line for anything except maybe pettiness or spite towards her enemies, and a lot of her actions are fueled by the fear of being replaced, demoted, and dead.
And she has a lot of enemies, because she stomps on anyone she can on her way to the top. Despite being brought down very low, she will scramble to make herself useful to any warden who stands half a chance of graduating her. Be warned: she will likely betray those wardens if she finds she'll have better odds with someone else.
Path to Redemption:
In some parts, Kikimora will appear the model inmate. By dint of her personality, she would consider any warden as a person put here to help her graduate, and would gladly defer to any of them. This is a superficial sort of subservience and how long it takes her to stab her warden in the back depends on whether or not she sees them as someone worthy of respect. Therefore, more powerful wardens will command her good behavior longer but they may not be as effective in kick-starting her eventual break-down than ones who are baseline human. Probably the 'worst' warden for Kikimora would be someone like Hunter: young, someone who rose through nepotism or was born into perceived privilege, not very intimidating in voice or stature.
However, she's someone who's very clearly never been given a third option and, like Hunter, has been the victim of Emperor Belos' manipulations. Everything in the Emperor's Coven is very black and white: obey, or suffer. Even the brief glimpses into her home life are fairly sad: she's browbeaten over the phone by her mother to either come home or be banished from the family forever. She's suffered multiple breakdowns throughout her canon and is coming from her last and biggest one: that the person she most admired and wanted to be like couldn't care less what happens to her and in fact wants her dead. She needs to learn how to make some real, actual friends and not stab them in the back at the first golden opportunity.
A good way for a warden to get through to her is to care about her and ask her how she's doing. It sounds simple on the surface, but Kikimora has been genuinely moved to tears just from her enemies asking what's going on with her. Granted, she'll likely flee to someone else as soon as an opportunity for promotion or power is waved in front of her, but it's a learning curve. Wardens who teach her how to recognize the signs of being duped by power - or better yet, those who can show by example that power isn't all it's cracked up to be - will have the most success in getting her to calm down and work on her issues.
She does best when she has someone to talk to: most of her worst ideas were concocted when she was alone and afraid or angry. A successful warden would be someone who can help her open up about the rage and regret of a wasted life and try to redirect some of that revenge-heavy determination towards something more productive and useful. Just be prepared to get stung a handful of times before she trusts that this isn't some twisted game to get what the warden wants. Get her a hobby that will tire her out, because she's an energy-filled cannonball ready to rumble.
History: History link here
Sample Network Entry / Sample RP: from the Test Drive Meme