☆ Player - - -

( Player Name ) : Nessa
( Personal DW ) :

elincia
( Age ) : 20
( Timezone ) : EST (GMT -5:00)
( Other Characters ) : Ilyasviel von Einzbern (

livingvessel ) | Fate/Stay Night

☆ Character - - -

( Character's Name ) : Dist the Reaper / Saphir Ortion Gneiss (or Saphir Wyon Neis, localization problems blah.)
( Character's Age ) : somewhere around 36-37
( Series ) : Tales of the Abyss
( Canon Point ) : roughly one year post-main game, when he is released to help Jade with restarting fomicry research.
( Playability ) : n/a.

( History ) :
(Note: I tend to switch between Saphir and Dist here; this is partly because of events that happened when he was under one name or another, but also because I think that Dist himself believes it to be significant.)

Born and raised in Keterburg, Saphir studied under Gelda Nebilim with Jade and Nephry Balfour, as well as the fourth son of the Malkuth Emperor, Peony. Intelligent since a young age, Saphir often found himself simultaneously in a combination of competing with Jade, being picked on by him, and working with him on their latest exploits. Despite their odd relationships with one another, Saphir did consider them all friends of his. And let's make this clear - he was treated pretty horribly by most standards. When Jade and Saphir first went to go see who had moved into the house in Keterburg (it was Peony), Jade intentionally left Saphir to be caught by the house guards while he met Peony. And once, when the three of them went on a boat and got surrounded by monsters, Jade and Peony threw Saphir in the water to act as bait. Still, by some kind of strange circumstances, they remained in a somewhat good relationship.

However, when Jade attempted to use the Seventh Fonon, he failed and burnt down Professor Nebilim's home, killing her in the process. Together, Jade and Saphir attempted to bring her back to life using the theory of fomicry, but the result was an imperfect replica, a monster who killed fonists to complete herself. Nebilim was eventually sealed away, and both Jade and Saphir were recognized for their skills, leaving Keterburg and entering the Malkuth military forces. Jade was first recruited for his research and intellect, and Saphir soon followed him into the military, not wanting to be left behind. For several years, they continued to work together in the military academy while training as soldiers, as was required of them in order for them to do their research.

After Jade renounced fomicry and ceased all experiments, Saphir, unable to comprehend why his longtime friend and partner would stop trying to reach their goal of resurrecting the Professor, left the military and entered the Oracle Knights. Rising to the rank of Conductor and Locrian Colonel, he commanded the second division and was one of the six God-Generals under the name of Dist. Dead-set on perfecting the technology to revive Nebilim, he played his alliances to his own ends by attempting to manipulate his standing with both Commandant Van Grants and Grand Maestro Mohs, and he tried releasing the replica Nebilim from her seal in Mt. Roneal. Even after receiving a direct blow from the replica of his former teacher, he somehow managed to survive (although leaving the mess for the main cast to clean up). Captured and held prisoner by the Malkuth military forces, Dist was eventually released a year after the defeat of Van, to help Jade with the restart of his fomicry research.

( Personality ) :
There are a plethora of attributes that one would quickly peg Dist as, but the most immediately obvious of these would be that he is obnoxiously vain. Refusing the name of Dist the Reaper, probably given due to his seeming obsession with the dead, he insists on being called Dist the Rose and rejects any other ways of being referenced (especially to Dist the Runny, Jade's particular spin). He often sits on his hovering chair and addresses people condescendingly, since he believes that he is better than everyone else. Even any amount of respect he appears to be giving to others is most likely due to some kind of reward he hopes to gain (or extract) from them.

Dist is incredibly easy to irritate. He immediately gets angry at anyone who doesn't pay him due attention when he introduces himself, and is enraged when people ignore him outright. However, this is also contrasted with the fact that he does not go out of his way to 'hang out' with other people unless it is to gloat about what he has done or can do. He has a lot of pride in his intelligence and his accomplishments, so for someone to completely disregard that is like denying all that he's done. And for someone who's always lived with that sense of competition to do better, it means a lot to him. This pride started building up after being recognized for his intellect in his days at the Malkuth Military Academy, when he felt like he was actually needed.

Following in line with this, Dist can be very whiny when things do not go his way. He often formulates grand schemes in his head of how things are about to go, including all of his theatrics and flamboyant poses and phrases, but since they often don't end up how he wants, he complains and then gets angry about it. He holds grudges very easily as well, and always makes a note that things that anger him will go into his revenge journal.

However, he wasn't always like this, and this overt side to him hides the insecurities that he does have about himself and others. Dist really does treasure friends, although he doesn’t really have people he can call friends any more. For him, friends are people who understand him, and no one really understood him well except for the people he was friends with in his childhood - Peony, Nephry and Jade. He’s someone who probably would feel very lonely without someone he knew, which is why he clings a little desperately to the few people he does know (although he tries not to be obvious about it).

Because Jade was the one who understood him the best, his rejection of fomicry and subsequent distancing came as a big blow to Saphir - a complete betrayal of the bond that the two of them shared. This made Dist rather pessimistic about friendships in general, so he created an exaggeration of his haughtiness and began to use that to distance himself away from people in general, in the form of 'rebirth' as Dist. When people try to approach him and be nice despite that, it really stands out to him, and he then tries his best to repay them somehow in his own awkward way (point being: Anise in Dance Gaiden). Thus, Dist has very awkward approaches to social interactions, torn between feeling like everyone else is inferior and feeling like he does want to actually talk with someone else. He ends up being a lonely person, and unwilling to own up to what he misses.

As seen with his main in-game motivation to revive Professor Nebilim, everything he does works towards certain goals, and he can be very single-minded about them. It is a combination of this single-mindedness and the sense of belonging that he got from researching fomicry that makes him think it is worth it, but he can do this because he has no sense of life's intrinsic worth. Having been immersed on the path to fomicry since a young age, and seeing its work develop in front of him, the human life has been devalued to him even further than the low level of worth it initially had.

This inability to appreciate life, combined with his selfish dream of regaining Jade and Professor Nebilim, leads Dist to commit horrendous crimes without any regard for their severity. He sees no problem with sacrificing others to achieve his goals, in the belief that his are more worthy. At this point he is still without remorse, as he thinks that no one can understand his genius mind enough to agree with him. He doesn't know exactly what transpired between the meeting that Jade had with Peony (where Peony punched Jade to 'snap him out of it'), but he does know that that was what caused Jade to change, and he hates Peony because of it.

He has "a freakish obsession with fon machines" and is often locked away in his own little personal space, tinkering away with his little fon robots. Not wanting to sully his own hands with others' blood, he often sends out his robots into battle in his place, while he sits and watches on his chair. However, Dist also has a very strong fixation on Jade, and while he openly calls him things like a snake, it soon becomes apparent that he's still very interested in the Colonel's doings. He's always been the engineer of his partnership with Jade, leaving the theory to the other man while working on the mechanics of it. In line with this air of creativity, Dist also has an eye for fashion, even if most people find it bizarre. (He insists he's simply avant-garde.)

( Strengths/Weaknesses ) :
ABILITIES
-- strength: Dist is incredibly intelligent and skilled as an engineer, able to use his smarts to build machinery out of what appears to be scraps. He has also had formal training in a military academy, so despite his lazy appearance, he is rather capable of combat himself. He also has 'the tenacity of a cockroach', such that he could take a blast (arguably point-blank) from the Nebilim replica and still survive, not to mention being blasted off into the ocean several times and somehow still being alive for his next confrontation with the main party.
-- weakness: He's not skilled in close combat at all, and he would rather be as far away from battle as he can.
PERSONALITY
-- strength: He has an incredible tenacity personality-wise as well, and won't let things go easily, pursuing things with a single-minded determination. He's also very resourceful and will use the methods he sees fit to solve a situation.
-- weakness: Obnoxious, annoying, whiny, vain... and so the list goes on. He'll snap at anybody who manages to catch him in a bad mood. More importantly, however, is that he's stuck between wanting friends and thinking everyone else sucks, so he has problems approaching social interaction. His pride is also often his downfall, and he is hardly subtle with anything.

( Other Important Facts ) :
A bit of extra headcanon:
-- He used to play with dolls and toys a lot; this is how he and Nephry became friends, and partly where his interest in fon machinery arises. When Jade broke Nephry's doll, Saphir was just as mortified… until Jade then set up the principles of fomicry and replicated it. At this point, Saphir's brain also clicked into motion, and spurred on the mechanics of the technique.
-- Since he had trained in the Malkuth Military Academy as a requirement before entering the military as a researcher, he received instruction in various weapon forms. Because of his steady hand that he developed through working on intricacies in fon machinery, he is most proficient with a gun, and he has custom-built several for self-defence purposes. He's also fairly skilled in the use of fonic artes, though much better with fon technology.
-- Even though he is no longer a God-General, he insists on being called Dist regardless, since for him, becoming Dist was more than just a new disguise. It was taking on a new identity, one with more confidence and poise to excel and succeed, not someone who was cast aside by their friend.

( Sample ) :
[He is extremely displeased.

Whatever sick idea of a joke this is, he doesn't appreciate it one bit. The last thing he remembers is taking a nap in his comfortable hover chair while in the lab, just a quick doze in between working on his latest creation. And now, he's woken up to some unknown scenery, in what looks like an underwater bubble - how preposterous!

And to top it all off, he's completely sopping wet, from his hair - now plastered onto his face rather unpleasantly - to his clothes. His beautiful outfit! How dare someone drench him while he was sleeping!

Unfortunately, some poor passerby is going to suffer his wrath.]

What is the meaning of - of - of this? [He spits the words out to the closest person staring at him, still rather flabbergasted at his own situation. How anyone got him into this situation is one thing, but being soaked is another.] I demand an explanation right this instant!

[There's only one person he knows that could possibly get him into this situation. Only one other person in all of Auldrant could come close to accomplishing whatever just happened to him... and this is so going into his revenge journal.]

( Questions? Comments? Concerns? ) : Abyss cast, please be gentle D: