Sanctum Business: Permissions and Application
General
Backtagging: Is fine, but if I get a response a week later and can't remember the thread, I'll generally forget to respond.
Threadhopping: Loved.
Injuring my character: Ask for anything more serious than a flesh wound. Unless Break himself has consented, in which case go ahead.
Killing my character: Same, I expect to be talked to OOC.
Using telepathy on my character: Ask first.
Romance/Sexual
Things you'd like to explore: risk aware consensual kink.
Things you do not want/are not comfortable with: Rape or scat.
Anything in between that you feel needs mentioning: I'm generally game for exploring most kinds of edgeplay, even if I don't personally enjoy them. The negotiations themselves are fascinating and rewarding.
Feelings on fade to black: I prefer not to, because I feel you lose a lot of interaction and don't get to see a lot of how two characters will be together. The exception would be ftb within the context of an established relationship. I'm more comfortable with that. I will happily fade if a mun prefers, but if that does happen I'll ask that we both agree the sex was vanilla, comfortable, and mutually satisfying.
Player Information:
Name: Steph
Age: 22
Contact info: knights_say_nih UndrwO on AIM as well as plurk
Characters currently played at Sanctum, if any: None
Character Information:
Name: Xerxes Break (aka Kevin Regnard)
Canon: Pandora Hearts
Canon point: End of volume nine- shortly before the blindness
Age: Physically late twenties, mentally much older, depends whether you count Abyss years or not.
Appearance: http://moe.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/2851-1480576190.jpg Background: http://pandorahearts.wikia.com/wiki/Xerxes_Break
Post-Canon History: NA
Previous Game History: NA
Personality: Break is of medium height, with short white hair and one red eye. The other is missing, and badly scarred. He has a dangerous smile, pale skin, and a very expressive face. He actually changes clothes in canon, but is most frequently seen in a purple shirt and cravat, a white jacket that for some reason doesn’t cover his shoulders, white boots, and black pants. Occasionally he will appear in his Pandora uniform, or a dark blue dress coat and top hat. For formal occasions, he occasionally wears a similar black coat, and some sort of bow or cravat. For the style of the times, his clothing is functional, but with a certain luxury or flare to all of it that gives him just a hint of panache.
Xerxes Break is one of those lovely characters that comes along only once in every few canons, with a shiny, grinning exterior and more layers than an onion. On the surface, he primarily scans as the laughing, amoral guide who knows more than he lets on, likes magic tricks, steals candy and is generally sort of irritating and insufferable. He picks ruthlessly on his subordinates, particularly Liam and Gilbert, torments anyone remotely serious or temperamental, usually Alice, but can generally be trusted to steer Oz in the right direction. Canon takes a leisurely amount of time to reveal his secrets and more serious side.
Once it gets there, it most certainly gets there. Once we’ve peeled back the layer of the man who likes to pop in and out from under beds, out of cupboards, and steals Oz’s cake, we learn about Kevin Regnard, the man who ruthlessly murdered nearly a hundred people to change the past and save the family he worked for. This means that not only is the Xerxes Break clown character at least something of a front, but that he must exist on a day to day basis with a certain level of anxiety, considering the fact that he works for Pandora and has an illegal contractor’s seal underneath his shirt. If he were to be found out, he would probably be killed. It’s also a fairly good indicator of what he’s capable of, when pushed.
We get to see the tremendous guilt Break feels for what happened to the Sinclairs. He sees the entire family dying as being his fault. More than that, he especially blames himself for the death of the youngest daughter, who only became an illegal contractor because he succeeded in going back and changing the past. Even his own attempts to save them are something he regrets; he reframes his actions as selfish attempts to change the past because he couldn’t stand to live in a reality where his family was dead. Consequentially, he exhibits a lot of scorn for the people around him who swear they’re doing something for the sake of another person, and seems to have generally complex and convoluted baggage surrounding the idea of loyalty and self-sacrifice.
At the same time, as much as he seems to try to portray otherwise, Break obviously isn’t totally redeemed of his need to protect and save others. One of his primary roles seems to be as caregiver and companion to Sharon- who, despite being dangerous in her own right, counts on him emotionally throughout canon, and also needs to be outright saved by him. Break makes himself a liar over her; he insists to Oz in one moment that they’re all just using each other to get what they want, that he doesn’t really feel anything for them or trust them. But, when push comes to shove and Break has to give up Cheshire’s bell to Vincent in order to save Sharon’s life, he does it without hesitation. He obviously cares for her a great deal, and is more than prepared to prioritize her safety over his own goals.
Then again, right after doing so, Break is quick to reassert that the only reason he’d done it is that her family would kill him. It’s a kind of compulsive need to keep a distance between his friends and himself. I see this as lingering damage from having accidentally gotten pretty much everyone important to him killed, as a result of past loyalty- this is oversimplifying the reaction a bit, but in a way, by swinging back in the complete opposite direction and insisting that he keeps everyone at arm’s length part of him can make sure he never makes those sorts of mistakes again.
He can also use his apparent amorality to escape the uncomfortable pressure that comes from people trying to care about him and take care of him, which doesn’t jibe comfortably with the self-loathing he still carries around with him. We consistently see flashes of self-destructive, reckless, endangering behaviour throughout canon. Either in the moments where he faces down Duke Barma with a glare, or charging in to fight the Baskervilles, continuing to use Hatter to the point of collapse and eventual blindness, or the very basic fact that he’s chosen to form and keep this second contract, which is essentially a voluntary death sentence, Break utterly fails to protect himself.
And yet, it’d be over-simplifying the character to say he’s suicidally self-sacrificing, or secretly only internally motivated by trying to make amends for past mistakes, because he also continues to do things that are downright disturbing. In a lot of ways, Break is sort of the voice of ‘the ends justify the means’ in the series. He deliberately exposes Oz to the young female contractor in the beginning, so he’ll see her sink into the Abyss and understand what’s ahead of him. He attacks his enemies absolutely brutally, toying with Lotti and Echo like a cat with a mouse, at one point stabbing the young woman right through the hand with his sword. It wasn’t self-defense, it wasn’t an attempt to incapacitate her, it was just flat out frightening. He flat out kills Cheshire, who isn’t an entirely unlikeable character, although he admittedly does have good reason at the time.
Even the major introduction to the character, and one of the most difficult scenes for me personally to see him in, is his getting Alice at his mercy right as she’s pulled out of the Abyss. She may be a chain, but she’s also in the body of a teenaged girl, and Break flat out attacks her with his cane, hitting her repeatedly when she’s unable to defend herself, toying with her and nearly seriously injuring her. These are not the actions of a self-sacrificing, cheerfully redeemable character.
But you can’t quite despise him, either. Because when you boil it all down, Break is protective of his friends. He’s trying to avoid making past mistakes and to help others avoid them too. He’s trying to keep the promise he made to the Will of the Abyss, all those years ago, to help her no longer be the Will of the Abyss, and to save Alice. It’s hard not to see that at the core, he is a good man.
Even if he can be a downright insufferable one, most of the time. I feel like for me to play him well, I want Break to be one of those characters who alienates at least half of the people he interacts with for the first time, through obnoxious behaviour, candy-theft, sneaking up on them, rude comments via Emily and his ventriloquism. But then, past the surface, when they’re put in situations where he has the power to betray trust and seriously harm, he’ll stick to his own moral compass, warped though it may be. His cutting remarks to closer acquaintances will begin be uncomfortable truths that they have to face, and his pranks will be more irritating than hurtful, more silly than cruel.
Unless you get in his way. In which case, much like he is with Vincent in canon, he will be as caustic, cruel, and deliberately awful as possible, refusing to pull a single punch and only barely civil when circumstances demand it.
If I had to succinctly describe Break’s strengths and weaknesses, I’d say that the things that work to his advantage also frequently turn out to be his greatest weaknesses. He’s ruthless; it helps him get things done, and is incredibly unhealthy. When he wants to be, he’s astonishingly charming; it’s another tool he uses to keep people out, and it’s completely fake. He’s loyal; it results in mass murder. But overall, I think canon gives us a picture of a witty, bright, engaging, sensitive man who has seen and done far too much, lived through some terrible experiences, and come out guarded and cynical, reckless, ill, and tired.
Sexuality: Break is a gay-leaning bisexual man whose predominant interests include sadomasochism and power-exchange. He’s a switch. However, he has only a very basic Victorian-era conceptualization of sex, so is going to have to be educated in how to do these sorts of things safely with partners. In the past, his secrets have prevented him from ever really seeking any sort of meaningful sexual companionship, so when he has gone out to get some it’s usually rough, nasty, shirt-left-on, release of tension sex. He does, however, have a peculiar sort of personal honour code about telling people when he’s using them, and making sure they don’t trust him too much, so when he gets into the environment and starts being able to explore his own sexuality calmly and healthily he’ll at least meet the minimum standards of human decency when it comes to playing. His natural sadism, combined with self-loathing and flagellation mean he’s in for an interesting journey.
I think, however, that under the right circumstances, if faced with someone vulnerable or insecure enough (who didn’t set off his ‘irritating!’ button) Break has the potential to be both encouraging and caring as a sexual partner. Having done some fairly terrible things himself, when human life isn’t concerned he tends towards being pretty non-judgemental, and obviously does believe that people can learn from their mistakes.
Although it makes me severly uncomfortable to play it, I can’t help but recognize that Break is from a pretty sexist time period. However, I see the presence of the Reinsworths in his life as an incredibly positive influence in terms of combating this. He’s lived the past few years surrounded by formidable women in positions of power, at least some of his socially constructed preconceptions have been challenged… besides, canon pretty cheerfully ignores this issue, so I’m going to take that as permission to not deal with it extensively either.
I think, given his nature as a contractor, and the seal on his chest, Break will have some pretty intense baggage surrounding the idea of being marked or leaving them himself. The seal from his contract with Albus is not only an ever-present reminder of his past failures, but is also a constant danger to his life; if it’s discovered, he’s as good as dead. This means, Break will have a lot of clothes-on sex with people he doesn’t trust. He will have peculiar notions and knee-jerk reactions about receiving scars, since the seal is a reflection, sort of, of having been claimed from within by a monster.
It also means, with evidence on him like that, that Break hasn’t had sex in a long while. Everything about him is so geared and focused towards his goals that I can’t see him taking a risk like that. The chance of revealing his seal to a partner, or having them start asking questions why he wasn’t taking his shirt off, would be too great. He has thrived in isolation, in keeping people at arm’s length and refusing to let them near. His sex life reflects that. That said, I don’t see him as virginal. He had a sex life back when he lived with the Sinclairs. My personal headcanon has always been one milk maid, one stable boy, and one slightly sado-masochistic (or at least rather rough, since he wouldn’t have had the words to put to it) relationship with the house’s cook. The glossier avenues for exploring sadomasochism wouldn’t have been available to someone of his status, but a rough tumble in servant’s quarters with a man who wasn’t afraid to give him a swat or two would be the extent of his experience.
Skills and Powers: Break has currently formed a contract with the chain known as the Mad Hatter. This monster can appear when he summons it, and it has the ability to destroy anything magical or supernatural. However, because of his preexisting contract, the strain of having it with him is burning his body out into something of a husk. Even dispelling a simple illusion causes him to cough and spit up blood, and pass out. He won’t use the hatter except as a very last resort. I’m not sure if you’re planning to allow chains in Sanctum, but I’ve played him with and without Hatter and can go either way!
He also carries a sword disguised as a cane, which usually serves him more than well enough. He’s very proficient with weapons, and moves astonishingly fast in general. Especially when stealing cake off other people’s plates.
Physically, Break is young, but he carries himself like someone much older, and has been alive much longer than his physical appearance suggests. He won’t age another day, but he is definitely near the end of his life. His body won’t be able to take much more, and I will be mindful of his physical limitations and the cost of using Hatter as I RP him.
The illness will be one of his motivations to try to earn a living in the city, through whatever kind of work he can get, in order to continue receiving medical attention for his lungs, and potentially for his failing vision, if he does end up using Hatter.
Items: Along with the cane-sword, he carries a doll on his shoulder that he calls Emily. She’s little and blue, and he practices ventriloquism with her, using her to say obnoxious things about people in the room, then chiding her for it. I totally think ventriloquism is a skill/power.
Writing samples:
Action: All right, all right- I give in. I have a request to make.
I’ll give a jar of my finest jam to someone who can come to my apartment for an afternoon and explain to me what on earth all these- boxes do. I nearly burned the house down with the big one with all the coils on it. But I don’t see any fire. And this other one- is inexplicably cold and I can’t make this one stop humming.
I’m afraid I have a dreadful confession. This one started whistling, and I may have- stabbed it, a bit, only sparks came out and now I can’t help but feel as though they’re all on the verge of killing me in my sleep.
To add insult to injury, the pictures on this one keep changing! I think it’s some sort of code.
Are we absolutely sure it isn’t black magic?
Jam for an interpreter! Strawberry or apricot, your choice.
Third Person Prose: Break has a job. A completely normal, boring, average, non-hunting, non-sex-work, non-ridiculous job. He works, believe it or not, in a bookshop. The sort that trades mostly in smut, because this tends to be that sort of city, although it has a gratifyingly broad definition of the term; everything from tawdry bodice rippers through to deep, psychological explorations of unrequited lust that never quite culminate in mutually explored passions.
He takes those ones home with him… but chooses instead to read the bodice rippers during the day. Sitting behind the cash desk, leaning back in his chair, with his feet propped up, he only ever bothers to look up to launch the occasional abuse at the browsers. You aren’t fooling anyone, dear, the section you’re looking for is two shelves down. Or, you, with the hat, put that away, we aren’t that kind of business. I’m not nearly well paid enough to have to get out the mop. Today, with Break feeling particularly constrained by the reality he’s landed in, Emily joins in and it’s Bend the spine and you buy it, you inconsiderate little twerp. She’s always much meaner than he is, verbally, but very occasionally, he makes up the difference by permitting himself to throw paperclips.
They give him the morning shift, because this is that kind of shop, and he brings the masochists out in droves. It will never be full time work, but he hardly needs it to be, when he’s sufficiently entertaining himself for hours on end by microwaving whatever he can get his hands on. He may face eviction soon for repeated fire alarms, but it will be utterly worthwhile.
In the Rift sample: NA
Plans: As I mentioned before, I’m interested in playing Break, a character from an old-fashioned setting who I truly see as being kinky as all get-out, learning how to operate in that sort of community respectfully and in a way that helps himself and his partners grow. I’ve tried to do this in other settings, but never really been able to play it fully, as a truly sex-positive and educating atmosphere is hard to come by. This isn’t to say there isn’t kink in a Victorian setting… I’m pretty sure they invented figging, amongst many other things. But I want him to know about safewords, and different levels of consent, re-ascertaining it for every new act, about the ethics that come with sexual openness and trust, and how to talk about and understand all of those things. I think that in an environment like Sanctum, a character will have to learn about respect for one’s partner. I think with that lesson comes respect for one’s self, knowing when isn’t appropriate to crack a joke, and what it means to be trusted. All of those things will be very interesting to see Xerxes Break try to cope with.
I’d like to work on him coming to terms with himself a little, possibly through the kind of communication and partnerships that are going to come up in this kind of setting. Ideally, I’m most interested in exploring how a person with such… strict boundaries and issues with holding people at arms length negotiates something that requires so very much communicatio
Backtagging: Is fine, but if I get a response a week later and can't remember the thread, I'll generally forget to respond.
Threadhopping: Loved.
Injuring my character: Ask for anything more serious than a flesh wound. Unless Break himself has consented, in which case go ahead.
Killing my character: Same, I expect to be talked to OOC.
Using telepathy on my character: Ask first.
Romance/Sexual
Things you'd like to explore: risk aware consensual kink.
Things you do not want/are not comfortable with: Rape or scat.
Anything in between that you feel needs mentioning: I'm generally game for exploring most kinds of edgeplay, even if I don't personally enjoy them. The negotiations themselves are fascinating and rewarding.
Feelings on fade to black: I prefer not to, because I feel you lose a lot of interaction and don't get to see a lot of how two characters will be together. The exception would be ftb within the context of an established relationship. I'm more comfortable with that. I will happily fade if a mun prefers, but if that does happen I'll ask that we both agree the sex was vanilla, comfortable, and mutually satisfying.
Player Information:
Name: Steph
Age: 22
Contact info: knights_say_nih UndrwO on AIM as well as plurk
Characters currently played at Sanctum, if any: None
Character Information:
Name: Xerxes Break (aka Kevin Regnard)
Canon: Pandora Hearts
Canon point: End of volume nine- shortly before the blindness
Age: Physically late twenties, mentally much older, depends whether you count Abyss years or not.
Appearance: http://moe.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/2851-1480576190.jpg Background: http://pandorahearts.wikia.com/wiki/Xerxes_Break
Post-Canon History: NA
Previous Game History: NA
Personality: Break is of medium height, with short white hair and one red eye. The other is missing, and badly scarred. He has a dangerous smile, pale skin, and a very expressive face. He actually changes clothes in canon, but is most frequently seen in a purple shirt and cravat, a white jacket that for some reason doesn’t cover his shoulders, white boots, and black pants. Occasionally he will appear in his Pandora uniform, or a dark blue dress coat and top hat. For formal occasions, he occasionally wears a similar black coat, and some sort of bow or cravat. For the style of the times, his clothing is functional, but with a certain luxury or flare to all of it that gives him just a hint of panache.
Xerxes Break is one of those lovely characters that comes along only once in every few canons, with a shiny, grinning exterior and more layers than an onion. On the surface, he primarily scans as the laughing, amoral guide who knows more than he lets on, likes magic tricks, steals candy and is generally sort of irritating and insufferable. He picks ruthlessly on his subordinates, particularly Liam and Gilbert, torments anyone remotely serious or temperamental, usually Alice, but can generally be trusted to steer Oz in the right direction. Canon takes a leisurely amount of time to reveal his secrets and more serious side.
Once it gets there, it most certainly gets there. Once we’ve peeled back the layer of the man who likes to pop in and out from under beds, out of cupboards, and steals Oz’s cake, we learn about Kevin Regnard, the man who ruthlessly murdered nearly a hundred people to change the past and save the family he worked for. This means that not only is the Xerxes Break clown character at least something of a front, but that he must exist on a day to day basis with a certain level of anxiety, considering the fact that he works for Pandora and has an illegal contractor’s seal underneath his shirt. If he were to be found out, he would probably be killed. It’s also a fairly good indicator of what he’s capable of, when pushed.
We get to see the tremendous guilt Break feels for what happened to the Sinclairs. He sees the entire family dying as being his fault. More than that, he especially blames himself for the death of the youngest daughter, who only became an illegal contractor because he succeeded in going back and changing the past. Even his own attempts to save them are something he regrets; he reframes his actions as selfish attempts to change the past because he couldn’t stand to live in a reality where his family was dead. Consequentially, he exhibits a lot of scorn for the people around him who swear they’re doing something for the sake of another person, and seems to have generally complex and convoluted baggage surrounding the idea of loyalty and self-sacrifice.
At the same time, as much as he seems to try to portray otherwise, Break obviously isn’t totally redeemed of his need to protect and save others. One of his primary roles seems to be as caregiver and companion to Sharon- who, despite being dangerous in her own right, counts on him emotionally throughout canon, and also needs to be outright saved by him. Break makes himself a liar over her; he insists to Oz in one moment that they’re all just using each other to get what they want, that he doesn’t really feel anything for them or trust them. But, when push comes to shove and Break has to give up Cheshire’s bell to Vincent in order to save Sharon’s life, he does it without hesitation. He obviously cares for her a great deal, and is more than prepared to prioritize her safety over his own goals.
Then again, right after doing so, Break is quick to reassert that the only reason he’d done it is that her family would kill him. It’s a kind of compulsive need to keep a distance between his friends and himself. I see this as lingering damage from having accidentally gotten pretty much everyone important to him killed, as a result of past loyalty- this is oversimplifying the reaction a bit, but in a way, by swinging back in the complete opposite direction and insisting that he keeps everyone at arm’s length part of him can make sure he never makes those sorts of mistakes again.
He can also use his apparent amorality to escape the uncomfortable pressure that comes from people trying to care about him and take care of him, which doesn’t jibe comfortably with the self-loathing he still carries around with him. We consistently see flashes of self-destructive, reckless, endangering behaviour throughout canon. Either in the moments where he faces down Duke Barma with a glare, or charging in to fight the Baskervilles, continuing to use Hatter to the point of collapse and eventual blindness, or the very basic fact that he’s chosen to form and keep this second contract, which is essentially a voluntary death sentence, Break utterly fails to protect himself.
And yet, it’d be over-simplifying the character to say he’s suicidally self-sacrificing, or secretly only internally motivated by trying to make amends for past mistakes, because he also continues to do things that are downright disturbing. In a lot of ways, Break is sort of the voice of ‘the ends justify the means’ in the series. He deliberately exposes Oz to the young female contractor in the beginning, so he’ll see her sink into the Abyss and understand what’s ahead of him. He attacks his enemies absolutely brutally, toying with Lotti and Echo like a cat with a mouse, at one point stabbing the young woman right through the hand with his sword. It wasn’t self-defense, it wasn’t an attempt to incapacitate her, it was just flat out frightening. He flat out kills Cheshire, who isn’t an entirely unlikeable character, although he admittedly does have good reason at the time.
Even the major introduction to the character, and one of the most difficult scenes for me personally to see him in, is his getting Alice at his mercy right as she’s pulled out of the Abyss. She may be a chain, but she’s also in the body of a teenaged girl, and Break flat out attacks her with his cane, hitting her repeatedly when she’s unable to defend herself, toying with her and nearly seriously injuring her. These are not the actions of a self-sacrificing, cheerfully redeemable character.
But you can’t quite despise him, either. Because when you boil it all down, Break is protective of his friends. He’s trying to avoid making past mistakes and to help others avoid them too. He’s trying to keep the promise he made to the Will of the Abyss, all those years ago, to help her no longer be the Will of the Abyss, and to save Alice. It’s hard not to see that at the core, he is a good man.
Even if he can be a downright insufferable one, most of the time. I feel like for me to play him well, I want Break to be one of those characters who alienates at least half of the people he interacts with for the first time, through obnoxious behaviour, candy-theft, sneaking up on them, rude comments via Emily and his ventriloquism. But then, past the surface, when they’re put in situations where he has the power to betray trust and seriously harm, he’ll stick to his own moral compass, warped though it may be. His cutting remarks to closer acquaintances will begin be uncomfortable truths that they have to face, and his pranks will be more irritating than hurtful, more silly than cruel.
Unless you get in his way. In which case, much like he is with Vincent in canon, he will be as caustic, cruel, and deliberately awful as possible, refusing to pull a single punch and only barely civil when circumstances demand it.
If I had to succinctly describe Break’s strengths and weaknesses, I’d say that the things that work to his advantage also frequently turn out to be his greatest weaknesses. He’s ruthless; it helps him get things done, and is incredibly unhealthy. When he wants to be, he’s astonishingly charming; it’s another tool he uses to keep people out, and it’s completely fake. He’s loyal; it results in mass murder. But overall, I think canon gives us a picture of a witty, bright, engaging, sensitive man who has seen and done far too much, lived through some terrible experiences, and come out guarded and cynical, reckless, ill, and tired.
Sexuality: Break is a gay-leaning bisexual man whose predominant interests include sadomasochism and power-exchange. He’s a switch. However, he has only a very basic Victorian-era conceptualization of sex, so is going to have to be educated in how to do these sorts of things safely with partners. In the past, his secrets have prevented him from ever really seeking any sort of meaningful sexual companionship, so when he has gone out to get some it’s usually rough, nasty, shirt-left-on, release of tension sex. He does, however, have a peculiar sort of personal honour code about telling people when he’s using them, and making sure they don’t trust him too much, so when he gets into the environment and starts being able to explore his own sexuality calmly and healthily he’ll at least meet the minimum standards of human decency when it comes to playing. His natural sadism, combined with self-loathing and flagellation mean he’s in for an interesting journey.
I think, however, that under the right circumstances, if faced with someone vulnerable or insecure enough (who didn’t set off his ‘irritating!’ button) Break has the potential to be both encouraging and caring as a sexual partner. Having done some fairly terrible things himself, when human life isn’t concerned he tends towards being pretty non-judgemental, and obviously does believe that people can learn from their mistakes.
Although it makes me severly uncomfortable to play it, I can’t help but recognize that Break is from a pretty sexist time period. However, I see the presence of the Reinsworths in his life as an incredibly positive influence in terms of combating this. He’s lived the past few years surrounded by formidable women in positions of power, at least some of his socially constructed preconceptions have been challenged… besides, canon pretty cheerfully ignores this issue, so I’m going to take that as permission to not deal with it extensively either.
I think, given his nature as a contractor, and the seal on his chest, Break will have some pretty intense baggage surrounding the idea of being marked or leaving them himself. The seal from his contract with Albus is not only an ever-present reminder of his past failures, but is also a constant danger to his life; if it’s discovered, he’s as good as dead. This means, Break will have a lot of clothes-on sex with people he doesn’t trust. He will have peculiar notions and knee-jerk reactions about receiving scars, since the seal is a reflection, sort of, of having been claimed from within by a monster.
It also means, with evidence on him like that, that Break hasn’t had sex in a long while. Everything about him is so geared and focused towards his goals that I can’t see him taking a risk like that. The chance of revealing his seal to a partner, or having them start asking questions why he wasn’t taking his shirt off, would be too great. He has thrived in isolation, in keeping people at arm’s length and refusing to let them near. His sex life reflects that. That said, I don’t see him as virginal. He had a sex life back when he lived with the Sinclairs. My personal headcanon has always been one milk maid, one stable boy, and one slightly sado-masochistic (or at least rather rough, since he wouldn’t have had the words to put to it) relationship with the house’s cook. The glossier avenues for exploring sadomasochism wouldn’t have been available to someone of his status, but a rough tumble in servant’s quarters with a man who wasn’t afraid to give him a swat or two would be the extent of his experience.
Skills and Powers: Break has currently formed a contract with the chain known as the Mad Hatter. This monster can appear when he summons it, and it has the ability to destroy anything magical or supernatural. However, because of his preexisting contract, the strain of having it with him is burning his body out into something of a husk. Even dispelling a simple illusion causes him to cough and spit up blood, and pass out. He won’t use the hatter except as a very last resort. I’m not sure if you’re planning to allow chains in Sanctum, but I’ve played him with and without Hatter and can go either way!
He also carries a sword disguised as a cane, which usually serves him more than well enough. He’s very proficient with weapons, and moves astonishingly fast in general. Especially when stealing cake off other people’s plates.
Physically, Break is young, but he carries himself like someone much older, and has been alive much longer than his physical appearance suggests. He won’t age another day, but he is definitely near the end of his life. His body won’t be able to take much more, and I will be mindful of his physical limitations and the cost of using Hatter as I RP him.
The illness will be one of his motivations to try to earn a living in the city, through whatever kind of work he can get, in order to continue receiving medical attention for his lungs, and potentially for his failing vision, if he does end up using Hatter.
Items: Along with the cane-sword, he carries a doll on his shoulder that he calls Emily. She’s little and blue, and he practices ventriloquism with her, using her to say obnoxious things about people in the room, then chiding her for it. I totally think ventriloquism is a skill/power.
Writing samples:
Action: All right, all right- I give in. I have a request to make.
I’ll give a jar of my finest jam to someone who can come to my apartment for an afternoon and explain to me what on earth all these- boxes do. I nearly burned the house down with the big one with all the coils on it. But I don’t see any fire. And this other one- is inexplicably cold and I can’t make this one stop humming.
I’m afraid I have a dreadful confession. This one started whistling, and I may have- stabbed it, a bit, only sparks came out and now I can’t help but feel as though they’re all on the verge of killing me in my sleep.
To add insult to injury, the pictures on this one keep changing! I think it’s some sort of code.
Are we absolutely sure it isn’t black magic?
Jam for an interpreter! Strawberry or apricot, your choice.
Third Person Prose: Break has a job. A completely normal, boring, average, non-hunting, non-sex-work, non-ridiculous job. He works, believe it or not, in a bookshop. The sort that trades mostly in smut, because this tends to be that sort of city, although it has a gratifyingly broad definition of the term; everything from tawdry bodice rippers through to deep, psychological explorations of unrequited lust that never quite culminate in mutually explored passions.
He takes those ones home with him… but chooses instead to read the bodice rippers during the day. Sitting behind the cash desk, leaning back in his chair, with his feet propped up, he only ever bothers to look up to launch the occasional abuse at the browsers. You aren’t fooling anyone, dear, the section you’re looking for is two shelves down. Or, you, with the hat, put that away, we aren’t that kind of business. I’m not nearly well paid enough to have to get out the mop. Today, with Break feeling particularly constrained by the reality he’s landed in, Emily joins in and it’s Bend the spine and you buy it, you inconsiderate little twerp. She’s always much meaner than he is, verbally, but very occasionally, he makes up the difference by permitting himself to throw paperclips.
They give him the morning shift, because this is that kind of shop, and he brings the masochists out in droves. It will never be full time work, but he hardly needs it to be, when he’s sufficiently entertaining himself for hours on end by microwaving whatever he can get his hands on. He may face eviction soon for repeated fire alarms, but it will be utterly worthwhile.
In the Rift sample: NA
Plans: As I mentioned before, I’m interested in playing Break, a character from an old-fashioned setting who I truly see as being kinky as all get-out, learning how to operate in that sort of community respectfully and in a way that helps himself and his partners grow. I’ve tried to do this in other settings, but never really been able to play it fully, as a truly sex-positive and educating atmosphere is hard to come by. This isn’t to say there isn’t kink in a Victorian setting… I’m pretty sure they invented figging, amongst many other things. But I want him to know about safewords, and different levels of consent, re-ascertaining it for every new act, about the ethics that come with sexual openness and trust, and how to talk about and understand all of those things. I think that in an environment like Sanctum, a character will have to learn about respect for one’s partner. I think with that lesson comes respect for one’s self, knowing when isn’t appropriate to crack a joke, and what it means to be trusted. All of those things will be very interesting to see Xerxes Break try to cope with.
I’d like to work on him coming to terms with himself a little, possibly through the kind of communication and partnerships that are going to come up in this kind of setting. Ideally, I’m most interested in exploring how a person with such… strict boundaries and issues with holding people at arms length negotiates something that requires so very much communicatio