Empatheias app

[lothrat]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Nivi
Contact:nivisecond
Age: 33
Current Characters: N/A


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character:Ezra Bridger
Age:15 (probably very close to 16) - ETA: Has since turned 17 in game.
Canon:Star Wars Rebels
Canon Point: Mid-Twilight of the Apprentice, just as Ezra plants the Sith holocron in the temple obelisk

Background: Wiki link!

Personality: “He’s undisciplined, wild, reckless, dangerous, and… Gone?” In a lot of ways, this sentence Kanan used to describe Ezra after their first meeting is accurate even to this day. Growing up on the streets with no one to answer to but himself, the only discipline Ezra learned was what it took to survive. Whether that meant picking pockets or hawking tickets to illegal gladiator matches (or both, when he could get away with it), he did it with very little remorse. To be fair, though, he didn’t do it completely without morals, too. Even when stealing, he tried to only take from people who looked like they could afford it.

Or Imperials. Ezra’s held a grudge against the Empire for years. This may have been nurtured by his parents, Mira and Ephraim Bridger, who worked together to speak out against the Empire in a series of public transmissions, but it was cemented when the Empire took the two prisoner, leaving Ezra essentially orphaned on the streets. Since then, and especially since their deaths, he’s struggled with darker emotions, so much so that he ended up being targeted by a former Sith, Maul, who wanted to take him under his wing as an apprentice. Maul zeroed right in on Ezra’s feelings of abandonment, his anger at having everyone and everything he loved taken away, and immediately began working to twist Ezra’s desire for justice and knowledge into a desire for revenge and power. Maul encouraged him to harness his anger in order to make their way through the Sith temple on Malachor, and the longer Ezra spent with him, and the more he used the Dark Side, the harder it became not to be swayed. Maul phrased everything so reasonably, echoing things Ezra feels. Ezra’s weakness to his anger almost led him to kill a helpless victim. Almost. Because he did resist in the end. If Maul had had a little more time and less interference from Kanan and Ahsoka, who knows what might have happened that day?

That doesn’t mean Ezra’s a bad kid, though! On the balancing side of things, he’s had a lot of positive influence from the crew of the Ghost, who he met when he was fourteen. From the levelheaded Hera to the grumpy-but-loyal Zeb, from Sabine’s free spirit to even Chopper’s binary sass, Ezra’s had stable figures in his life for over a year now to help him learn a little more self-control – and he certainly feels like he needs self-control when he has to deal with Zeb and/or Chopper for any length of time. He’s never had a brother figure in his life, older or younger, and in some ways those two fill those roles respectively. Zeb’s picked on and teased him right from the start, gruffly challenging him whenever Ezra crosses lines. Chopper just doesn’t know when to quit pushing his buttons. Between the three of them, the Ghost’s halls are often filled with threats and arguments. As Ezra’s gotten used to it, though, there’s an underlying fondness. (Good luck getting any of them to admit it out loud.) Sabine, in turn, plays a different kind of role – still family, still someone he admires, just in a different way. He’s had a crush on her from almost the moment he laid eyes on her, and wishes she’d return the interest. That’s toned down a little with her consistent lack of reciprocation, but in the time it’s taken for that to sink in, he’s learned to value the role she does play in his life – a friend he can depend on. That goes for all three of them. Goes for Hera, too, but with an undercurrent of something with more authority. Not a mother, exactly, but Ezra’s far more inclined to listen to her and take her seriously (if sometimes grudgingly), responding to her natural leadership of their crew.

And then there’s Kanan. Of all the Ghost crew, Kanan’s probably had the most significant impact on Ezra’s personality. Where the others have given him a framework of relationships he’s never had, or hasn’t had for years, Kanan’s given him a mentor and role model, someone he looks up to and wants to emulate. One could argue he had that with his parents before, but he was only seven years old when his parents were taken. He wasn’t really old enough to start considering who he wanted to be. Now he is, and he’s met a man who can be as cocky and confident as Ezra wants to see himself, who’s proven himself in multiple ways to be capable, and who, let’s admit it, has downright cool abilities – abilities he can teach Ezra. Ezra wants to learn from him, and that’s grown to wanting Kanan to be proud of him. So when Kanan tries to teach him about Jedi emotional control and self-discipline, Ezra at least pays attention. Maybe he’s not always successful at applying those lessons in his life. He’s still young, smart-mouthed, and thin-skinned at times, and still too used to being independent, but with Kanan’s presence in his life, he’s found incentive to grow in new and positive directions.

With the Ghost crew, too, he now has a purpose in his life beyond just simple survival. Being part of the Rebellion, and even just helping people, has taught him responsibility, reinforced his compassion, and has given him a reason to try to focus and learn. Seeing the difference a simple handout of food in Tarkintown made, reuniting a Wookiee child with his father, stealing weapons from the Empire to prevent a repeat of the atrocities Zeb described being done to his people– things like that have taught Ezra how to connect with people and fight for a greater cause.

Is he still a smart aleck with a tendency to jump into trouble head first? You bet he is. Does he sometimes act impulsively – sometimes stealing without thought, sometimes acting on information without looking any deeper, sometimes letting someone goad him with a few words? Most definitely. Does he still have trust issues and doubts, even with the people he’s grown so close to now? YES. Hell, yes. It’s seen mostly at the beginning of the first season, and at the beginning of season three (which is technically after his canon point, but still valid to illustrate that it lingers), but Ezra has a very real fear of being abandoned by or losing anyone he gets close to. He’ll hide it behind sass and sarcasm and general teenage surliness, but it’s still there.

Despite all that, he’s still willing to try.

Because once upon a time, he risked his neck for some people and got ditched for it, abandoned to the tender mercies of the Empire that took his parents.

But then those same people came back for him, risking their necks in turn.

Wouldn’t you put some trust issues aside for that, too?

Some of them, anyway. With people he doesn't know and has been given no reason to trust, he can still be incredibly cautious. He doesn't volunteer information about himself, whether it's that he's an orphan or that he's a Force sensitive, etc., unless he doesn't feel like he has a choice or until he feels comfortable enough with someone to share. In riskier situations, he's even refused to share his name, picking aliases such as "Dev Morgan" and "Jabba the Hutt" to go by until he can get a better idea for how much he can trust them. Some of this stems from being a Rebel, and therefore on the Empire's wanted list, but there's no denying that a larger part of it is just ingrained from living on the streets.

Overall, he’s independent, intelligent, and resourceful, qualities necessary to survive on the streets of Lothal and honed in his time with the Rebels. He’s not afraid to do what he thinks is necessary, often with a cheerful attitude. Or just attitude. Either one works for him. He can be charismatic when he puts his mind to it, and has put that talent to good use during his time as a small-time con artist. Doesn’t tend to work so well with girls, much to his disappointment, but hey, points for trying. He’ll play pranks on others, and isn’t the most mature, especially when bored or irritated (though it could just as easily be part of the façade he throws up whenever he’s trying to hide his true feelings), but he rarely does anything truly malicious. He can be fiercely loyal to anyone he’s managed to form a bond with, though those tend to be few, given how cautious he is about opening up to anyone. With his background, he doesn’t have the strongest altruistic streak, but with the support of the little “family” he’s managed to collect, he’s been getting better.

Abilities: To start with, he’s an accomplished thief and pickpocket. Maybe not the best, but he’s been shown to be able to lift things even from Ferpil Wallaway, the thief who taught him in the first place. He can pick locks with some degree of skill, too, depending on the lock and the tools he has on hand. He’s been shown to be able to build things from scratch, cobbling together a blaster/lightsaber from random spare parts they had.

More notably, Ezra is Force-sensitive, able to feel and manipulate a field of energy that surrounds them and binds the galaxy together. He’s still very much learning how to use this ability, but with it he can enhance his physical abilities, jumping higher and farther than would otherwise be possible, aim with greater accuracy, and respond with faster reflexes. When he’s truly in tune, he can even predict movements, attacks, and the best way to accomplish his tasks.

Even when he’s not actively trying to predict things, though, he has a certain level of natural intuition that comes from just being able to touch the Force. The Force has been known to warn its wielders of sudden danger, alert them to the presence of others, and draw their attention to things that are important. Ezra’s learned to listen to these instincts, even when he didn’t know what they were.

On very rare occasions, he’ll even have visions of the future, though those are usually fragmentary and can be misleading at best.

With the Force he can levitate objects around him, though this is limited both by proximity and strength of will and concentration. Smaller objects, like a lightsaber, are easier than, say, boulders.

In theory, he could learn to read minds, communicate telepathically, and manipulate the will and thoughts of a person, but at this point Ezra’s talent with this isn’t very strong. He has much better luck with animals. (Regardless, I have a permissions post set up here for anyone who doesn't want to deal with this.)

All Jedi are supposed to have faster-than-average healing rates. This isn’t shown much for Ezra, other than watching him get up after getting knocked around a lot and tossed off catwalks, but it’s still worth noting as an ability he likely hasn’t mastered, but could, given time and direction.

In terms of combat abilities, he's self-taught (and pretty good) at using an energy slingshot, and can at least use a blaster, but the only real training Ezra’s had has come from his master, Kanan, and from the lessons stored in Kanan’s Jedi holocron. As such, he has a solid grounding in Form III, a heavily defensive form, but he is by no means a master at it. He’s also begun studying the more aggressive and acrobatic Form IV, likely to make up for Form III’s lack of offensive capabilities, but is even less skilled with this from the canon point he’s from.


Alignment: Sosyne. Ezra’s biggest struggle is with his anger, and with finding the calm of the Jedi teachings.

Other: Ezra has a lightsaber that also functions as a blaster, though its power pack can't handle using both abilities at once. The blaster mode is permanently set to stun.


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

Over here!