Dia is a woman preoccupied with tech and for good reason. She has a gift that allows her to understand it in a way no one else can. Consumed with a driving desire to learn and create, Dia often ignores her friends, her own needs, and often just ignores reality itself. She's a woman in her head, but the real problems arise when what's in her head begins to make their way into the real world, a world not ready to handle what she's ready to create.
Physical Description
She never goes by her full name, hating how "princess-like" it sounds. She eschews the name, preferring Dia or sometimes just Di.
Female, medium height and build, a little weight but not considered overweight, dark brown (almost black) straight hair. She has light brown skin, slightly slanted brown eyes with a medium-sized, straight nose and thin lips. She would be considered somewhere between Asian and Puerto Rican on Earth. She unremarkable. She fits in and can be mostly ignored, which is how she prefers it.
She generally wears well-made but as ordinary clothes as possible, preferring outfits that don't draw attention. Cardonians prefer long sleeves, an affectation due to living inside a mountain. Women generally wear palazzo pants (pant legs fashioned like a long flowing skirt), with varying flairs, often more colorful than their male counterparts (who stick to slacks, though using the same flowing fabric). Dia does as well, though she prefers muted colors with less flair to draw attention.
Cardonian women are known for their long black, silky hair, and hers is no different. But where most women would accentuate their beauty, often adding subtle braids or weaving ribbons, Dia's hair is normally pulled back into a ponytail or a bun to keep it out of the way, both as a practicality, which would be more noticeable with her hair down (something her mother is constantly on her for). She would cut it if she could but her mother would kill her if she tried.
Background
Born to a lower, middle-class family, daughter of Akai and Shea Kamaka. Her father works as a low-level arms broker that worked his way up from a low-level analyst matching buyers to manufacturers. After some time, he made enough connections to broker his own agreements, but these were, while lucrative, infrequent and far between. More recently, he's begun to make a name for himself matching custom designs with the appropriate manufacturers, even going so far as converting specs, ensuring quality, and suggesting improvements. His grasp of both fundamental and even advanced design has earned him a reputation as the go-to for custom work, from both clients and manufacturers. This is much more consistent and lucrative work, though his firm retains most of the profits.
Cardonia has thousands of manufacturers in the arms sector, ranging from one-person custom shops, to multi-billion chit plants churning out endless copies of lances or casters for the many armies of the Empire's provinces along with the Empire's own army. Each manufacturer has their own strengths and weaknesses, and finding the best manufacturer can have a drastic effect on the end product. Navigating these manufacturers is a matter of tact and connections: thus brokers. And this is where Shea comes in.
Shea is a socialite, endlessly consumed with her (and her husband's) rising social status. She constantly plans dinners and parties, arranges lunches, etc. She's responsible for choosing their home which, in truth, is less home than a showcase for whomever she's invited over. Her social arrangements are the primary driver behind Akai's success. Without the connections he's made from her arrangements, he would still be an overlooked paper pusher who submitted often brilliant, yet mostly ignored analyses.
Shea and her daughter have a tense relationship. Shea loves her daughter but doesn't understand her. She tries very hard to provide Dia with the same kind of opportunities she does for Akai, and for a teenage girl, Shea can think of nothing better than to find Dia a suitable husband. In her mind, she wants Dia to have what she and Akai have. Dia does not see it that way. Preoccupied mostly with her projects, Dia resents her mother's constantly trying to force on her "suitable mates", wasting precious time she could use to further her projects. She finds it "gross" to even attempt to facilitate (or in her mind, force) a relationship like that. She normally looks for every opportunity to avoid or, in the case that's not possible, undermine the opportunities her mother arranges for her.
Personality Profile
Dia shares her mother's sense of order (though not in a way her mother would recognize) and inherited her father's brilliance (and more besides). She is highly intelligent, and she takes it as given. She can be abrasive and often looks down on those whom she views as stupid. She is loyal to those she considers her friends, sometimes to a fault. And despite her arrogance, she is more than willing to admit she's wrong...so long as the one pointing out her flaw has delivered acceptable proof (not an easy task).
Dia is highly driven, often to an obsessive degree. Her drive can put her into danger, as she becomes hyper-focused on her goal. She relies on (and needs) her friends to balance out those tendencies, though she doesn't often see it that way.
Extroversion
Score: 3/10
Dia is highly introverted. She normally presents a witty, often snarky personality to the world, but it exhausts her. She spends most of her time on her projects. While she has friends, all of them were made when she was young, before her parents moved into their current middle-class home. While her mother is constantly pushing for Dia to make new friends at school, Dia has no interest whatsoever. She rationalizes this by characterizing the "new" people she meets as increasingly "stuffy" and "fake", and while this is undoubtedly true for some, her broad characterizations cause her to miss true opportunities. When she does make friends, she makes them one on one, preferring fewer, deeper friendships than many shallow ones.
Neurosis
Score: 8/10
Dia would not consider herself neurotic, and anyone who saw her workshop would not think so either, yet Dia could easily close her eyes and point out every single tool, every project, every discarded piece of wood in the shop. Chaos it may be, but it's her chaos, and she knows it well. Her neurosis manifests not in orderly detail, but in always knowing where everything is. Instinctually, she places tools and projects in the most efficient place, where she can access them with the least effort. She might not consider herself neurotic, but woe to anyone who would mess with her chaos.
Openness
Score: 3/10
She does not desire or need new experiences, and actively avoids them as distractions. Those experiences she seeks out are usually for a specific purpose, and once she establishes a routine, she sticks to it, freeing her mind to focus on the things that truly matter. Given everything she needs, she'd be perfectly content to work on her projects for days, weeks, or even months at a time.
Life doesn't work that way, though, and she often finds herself in new situations purely to seek out something she needs for a project. Her drive, in other words, frequently overcomes her lack of openness. It's a problem.
Aggressiveness
Score: 4/10
Similar to her openness, she's aggressive only for a purpose. Most of the time, though, she'd rather avoid conflict and the drama that results. This results in her acquiescing to others' demands right up to the point that they interfere with her own. This may lead others to believe she's rather easy to push around, which is kind of true, but any who believe this is due to a weak soul will be in for an unpleasant surprise when they push too far.
She is not competitive, mostly because she doesn't care if she wins or not. That, in her opinion, is quite opposed to the point of doing anything, which is the sheer enjoyment she gets out of creating something new.
Ego
Score: 8/10
Dia is intelligent, she knows it, and she's not beyond calling someone out for their perceived stupidity. She generally assumes she's right, and often is. She cannot see, however, that her own beliefs define her reality, instead assuming that she simply knows the truth. Moreover, she's perfectly capable of defending her truth to anyone. This leaves her fragile, and her own mind can trap her in self-fulfilling prophecies.
Character Flaws
- Dia's assumption of always being right makes it difficult for her to change. Once she's convinced herself something, it's almost impossible for anyone to gainsay her. Those who disagree with her are labeled idiots and ignored. This goes for the negative judgments as well; once she's convinced herself of something negative, it is exceedingly difficult for anyone to convince her otherwise.
- Dia's introversion plus snark makes it difficult to make friends. She often chases off the few would-be friends with ill-placed, often improper, commentary. She cannot see the effect of her insults or even recognize them as such. Yet once she makes friends, she does so deeply and is very loyal.
- Despite her introversion, she can be very manipulative...just like her mother. She hates that part of herself, which feeds back into her avoidance of any social situation. Yet, it is that part of her which will help her survive. A part of the the story involves her reconciling herself to who she is.
- Dia finds it easy to rationalize self-destructive behavior.
Control
- When presented with a situation she can't control, Dia will withdraw into the things she can control. In this case, she would dive into her projects or, in case those aren't available, into her mind to solve a puzzle, any puzzle.
Prose
Dia tends to notice space, patterns, and technical details. She's one of the few (only one?) that runs an inner monologue, often full of snark, but also full of technical details. She will notice how things are arranged, angles, shapes, etc. If the sun is shining on the floor, she won't comment on the color, but notice how it bisected the floor at a specific angle.
Spacial and technical precision is important, but not time. She's horrible with time. Her prose should never include precise terms of time.