Ivan Vorpatril (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ivanyouidiot) wrote2015-10-25 01:39 pm
ivanyouidiot) wrote2015-10-25 01:39 pm
Synodiporia App
C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Ivan Vorpatril
CANON: Vorkosigan Saga
POINT IN CANON: Post-Brothers in Arms
AGE: 22
APPEARANCE: Ivan is 6'1" and the picture model of a Barrayaran aristocrat or recruiting poster for the Barrayaran military. He has dark eyes and brown hair. As well as being quite attractive, he had no problem with the physical regimen necessary to either qualify for or graduate from the Imperial Academy.
CANON HISTORY:
The planet of Barrayar was colonized (by humans) in the 23rd century, via a wormhole that soon proved to be unstable. In the aftermath, the colonists' descendants created a feudal society over the next six hundred years, until contact with the outside world was reestablished via a new jump route. It's been a little over a hundred years since that contact, and Barrayar is still a world driven by its own, often backwater, instincts and its need to survive amidst the galactic reality.
Ivan Vorpatril was born in an abandoned building in the poor part of the city, less than an hour after his father was killed trying to save his mother, in a political power struggle that led his mother, a wealthy socialite who'd spent her life living in luxury, to face circumstances she'd never imagined. The power struggle was ended soon after, restoring Ivan's mother to her place in society and allowing Ivan to be raised as a Lord in the feudal Barrayaran society. There are only three people who would have to die for Ivan to become Emperor — the Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, Aral Vorkosigan, and Miles Vorkosigan. Ivan would very much like them all to stay alive.
Ivan grew up very close to his cousin, Miles Vorkosigan, with whom he only has a couple of months' difference in age. He's a little more distant from his other cousin, Gregor Vorbarra, the Emperor of Barrayar, but that's more a matter of the age difference (Ivan is four years younger), maturity, and Gregor's position as Emperor. The bond of blood is still something that's considered important. Miles, however, was injured before birth in an assassination attempt on his parents which lead to his body being greatly damaged. Ivan served as physical support when Miles needed it, as well as following Miles' orders beyond that.
After childhood, Ivan went to the Imperial Academy, graduated from it, and was posted to a desk job on Barrayar itself (and not the ship job that he'd hoped for). He works mostly on paperwork and low-level things, although after some time he was posted to the Embassy on Earth. There he was involved somewhat in helping Miles foil a plan to replace Miles with a clone of himself.
CANON PERSONALITY:
The first thing that people (or at least men, women tend to see Ivan's charm and flirtatiousness and sometimes, if Ivan's lucky, not much else by way of personality) tend to notice about Ivan is that he isn't very bright. As a child, his name was more often than not accompanied with an epithet, making it Ivan-you-idiot. To some degree this is a deliberately cultivated impression. Only three people would have to die for Ivan to be Emperor. Ivan doesn't have political ambitions, and the best way to avoid being embroiled in politics anyway is to not be bright enough to keep up with them. The rest of it is that Ivan actually is happy to be that much of a fool. He's the picture-perfect version of a Barrayaran officer, so long as he stays out of any situations which would require him to take initiative or think for himself. Ivan, in general, knows just enough about politics and intrigue and intergalactic struggles to know that he's quite happy being a glorified secretary for someone who makes the real decisions.
One of Ivan's undeniably positive traits is his loyalty. He believes in Barrayar, his emperor, and his cousin, and he will do what is asked of him in regards to those. Family also means quite a lot to Ivan. He has no siblings, his father died the day he was born, and his mother dotes on him to a degree that he finds uncomfortable, but his cousin, Miles, means a lot to him, even if Ivan doesn't always show it. Miles is everything that Ivan is not -- clever, extremely self-directed, paranoid, and independent -- and vice versa -- Ivan's tall, handsome and successful with women. Despite this, Ivan's loyalty to Miles is steady, and he lets himself get talked into ventures that he'd normally avoid simply because Miles is the one doing the talking. Family comes first, after all, and even if Ivan is sure a plan will fail he will follow Miles into it so he can help as much as he can.
Ivan's very accomplished when it comes to women. Part of it is that this is an arena that he's not particularly afraid to fail in. There are, in his mind, plenty of women out there, and while he'd like to make a positive impression on and hook up with all of them, if some of them don't want to, he'll simply move on to someone who would be more amenable to the idea. It doesn't really phase him, or hurt his ego, since if at the end of the night he manages to hook up with someone then it doesn't matter how many times he was rejected at the beginning of the night. He also doesn't fear playing even more the fool in front of them, if it gets a laugh. He's also fairly shallow when it comes to women. While he doesn't make most of his sexual decisions based on social status (that would be rather too much like playing into his mother's hands, as far as Ivan is concerned) he does make them based on exterior attractiveness. While he tends towards defensiveness on anyone insulting his cousin's external (and not at all what one would expect of a Barrayaran Lord) appearance, he can be viciously judgmental towards women who aren't attractive. This, to some degree, ties into Barrayaran views of gene lines and mutants. Although he's willing to try and fail, Ivan doesn't always know when he really should just back off. Instead he can be pushy, because that behaviour has sometimes gotten him results in the past, and Barrayar's culture is intensely male-dominated. He doesn't really have the understanding that if he's making someone uncomfortable then he should back off, instead he'll keep pushing in order to, in his mind, help them get over the discomfort. He's not maliciously intended, but he doesn't always know where boundaries are being put down.
Ivan also has a protective side when it comes to women. While he pushes, he doesn't believe in leaving a lady in the lurch and he has a sense of chivalry that's been very deeply engrained in him. He's not looking to get married, but he does believe that both he and the woman he hooks up with should enjoy themselves and that there shouldn't be any regrets come the morning. Should she find herself in any outside danger, he'll happily play the gallant knight and perform a rescue to the best of his abilities. He knows he looks the part, and he's happy to play it as well.
On Earth, Ivan picked up claustrophobia “as a hobby” after being locked in a small room where the rising tide would have drowned him if he hadn’t been rescued in time. For all that Ivan looks the charming hero, he needs rescue a lot more often than he gives it, mostly because he’s either in the wrong place at the wrong time or he is in the shadow of the more brilliant Miles. (He does make a good bargaining chip to be used against his cousin.)
POINT OF DEPARTURE: N/A, OU
ABILITIES:
- physical fitness
- combat abilities
- charm
- making a fool of himself
INVENTORY:
- credit chit
- Barrayaran Imperial dress greens uniform
- boots
- stunner
- comm link
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW? Don’t think so.
S A M P L E S;
ACTIONSPAM SAMPLE:
link 1
link 2
PROSE SAMPLE:
Ivan would be the first one to agree that he'd had a lot of stupid ideas over the course of the twenty-two years that he'd been alive, but he was fairly certain that this one was not his fault. At all, not even a little bit, not even like when he into trouble while trying to grab the attention of a gorgeous woman because it turned out there were hazards in her particular vicinity that no normal man would have to anticipate.
This was not Earth. It was not Barrayar. Ivan would be willing to venture a guess that this was not even Beta Colony, which had to be a sign that what this place was was majorly weird. And that was just the physical reality of it, separate from everything he'd been told about what it meant, about what was really going on behind the curtain.
Nothing was supposed to be going on behind the curtain.
Armed with absolutely no idea whatsoever what he was supposed to be doing and how he was supposed to be behaving and where he was going to find answers that actually made sense, Ivan spared a thought for what Miles would do in this situation. His cousin would almost certainly throw himself into it head-first, nearly start an interplanetary war (so long as there was more than one planetary representative in this place, which Ivan figured there must be, since not everyone else here could possibly be Barrayaran), and end up diverting an even larger disaster that would have gone through had Miles not been in the right place with a willingness to go with the flow.
What Ivan wanted to do was find a drink and a real person -- hopefully an attractive woman -- to explain things in a way that made a little more sense.
NAME: Ivan Vorpatril
CANON: Vorkosigan Saga
POINT IN CANON: Post-Brothers in Arms
AGE: 22
APPEARANCE: Ivan is 6'1" and the picture model of a Barrayaran aristocrat or recruiting poster for the Barrayaran military. He has dark eyes and brown hair. As well as being quite attractive, he had no problem with the physical regimen necessary to either qualify for or graduate from the Imperial Academy.
CANON HISTORY:
The planet of Barrayar was colonized (by humans) in the 23rd century, via a wormhole that soon proved to be unstable. In the aftermath, the colonists' descendants created a feudal society over the next six hundred years, until contact with the outside world was reestablished via a new jump route. It's been a little over a hundred years since that contact, and Barrayar is still a world driven by its own, often backwater, instincts and its need to survive amidst the galactic reality.
Ivan Vorpatril was born in an abandoned building in the poor part of the city, less than an hour after his father was killed trying to save his mother, in a political power struggle that led his mother, a wealthy socialite who'd spent her life living in luxury, to face circumstances she'd never imagined. The power struggle was ended soon after, restoring Ivan's mother to her place in society and allowing Ivan to be raised as a Lord in the feudal Barrayaran society. There are only three people who would have to die for Ivan to become Emperor — the Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, Aral Vorkosigan, and Miles Vorkosigan. Ivan would very much like them all to stay alive.
Ivan grew up very close to his cousin, Miles Vorkosigan, with whom he only has a couple of months' difference in age. He's a little more distant from his other cousin, Gregor Vorbarra, the Emperor of Barrayar, but that's more a matter of the age difference (Ivan is four years younger), maturity, and Gregor's position as Emperor. The bond of blood is still something that's considered important. Miles, however, was injured before birth in an assassination attempt on his parents which lead to his body being greatly damaged. Ivan served as physical support when Miles needed it, as well as following Miles' orders beyond that.
After childhood, Ivan went to the Imperial Academy, graduated from it, and was posted to a desk job on Barrayar itself (and not the ship job that he'd hoped for). He works mostly on paperwork and low-level things, although after some time he was posted to the Embassy on Earth. There he was involved somewhat in helping Miles foil a plan to replace Miles with a clone of himself.
CANON PERSONALITY:
The first thing that people (or at least men, women tend to see Ivan's charm and flirtatiousness and sometimes, if Ivan's lucky, not much else by way of personality) tend to notice about Ivan is that he isn't very bright. As a child, his name was more often than not accompanied with an epithet, making it Ivan-you-idiot. To some degree this is a deliberately cultivated impression. Only three people would have to die for Ivan to be Emperor. Ivan doesn't have political ambitions, and the best way to avoid being embroiled in politics anyway is to not be bright enough to keep up with them. The rest of it is that Ivan actually is happy to be that much of a fool. He's the picture-perfect version of a Barrayaran officer, so long as he stays out of any situations which would require him to take initiative or think for himself. Ivan, in general, knows just enough about politics and intrigue and intergalactic struggles to know that he's quite happy being a glorified secretary for someone who makes the real decisions.
One of Ivan's undeniably positive traits is his loyalty. He believes in Barrayar, his emperor, and his cousin, and he will do what is asked of him in regards to those. Family also means quite a lot to Ivan. He has no siblings, his father died the day he was born, and his mother dotes on him to a degree that he finds uncomfortable, but his cousin, Miles, means a lot to him, even if Ivan doesn't always show it. Miles is everything that Ivan is not -- clever, extremely self-directed, paranoid, and independent -- and vice versa -- Ivan's tall, handsome and successful with women. Despite this, Ivan's loyalty to Miles is steady, and he lets himself get talked into ventures that he'd normally avoid simply because Miles is the one doing the talking. Family comes first, after all, and even if Ivan is sure a plan will fail he will follow Miles into it so he can help as much as he can.
Ivan's very accomplished when it comes to women. Part of it is that this is an arena that he's not particularly afraid to fail in. There are, in his mind, plenty of women out there, and while he'd like to make a positive impression on and hook up with all of them, if some of them don't want to, he'll simply move on to someone who would be more amenable to the idea. It doesn't really phase him, or hurt his ego, since if at the end of the night he manages to hook up with someone then it doesn't matter how many times he was rejected at the beginning of the night. He also doesn't fear playing even more the fool in front of them, if it gets a laugh. He's also fairly shallow when it comes to women. While he doesn't make most of his sexual decisions based on social status (that would be rather too much like playing into his mother's hands, as far as Ivan is concerned) he does make them based on exterior attractiveness. While he tends towards defensiveness on anyone insulting his cousin's external (and not at all what one would expect of a Barrayaran Lord) appearance, he can be viciously judgmental towards women who aren't attractive. This, to some degree, ties into Barrayaran views of gene lines and mutants. Although he's willing to try and fail, Ivan doesn't always know when he really should just back off. Instead he can be pushy, because that behaviour has sometimes gotten him results in the past, and Barrayar's culture is intensely male-dominated. He doesn't really have the understanding that if he's making someone uncomfortable then he should back off, instead he'll keep pushing in order to, in his mind, help them get over the discomfort. He's not maliciously intended, but he doesn't always know where boundaries are being put down.
Ivan also has a protective side when it comes to women. While he pushes, he doesn't believe in leaving a lady in the lurch and he has a sense of chivalry that's been very deeply engrained in him. He's not looking to get married, but he does believe that both he and the woman he hooks up with should enjoy themselves and that there shouldn't be any regrets come the morning. Should she find herself in any outside danger, he'll happily play the gallant knight and perform a rescue to the best of his abilities. He knows he looks the part, and he's happy to play it as well.
On Earth, Ivan picked up claustrophobia “as a hobby” after being locked in a small room where the rising tide would have drowned him if he hadn’t been rescued in time. For all that Ivan looks the charming hero, he needs rescue a lot more often than he gives it, mostly because he’s either in the wrong place at the wrong time or he is in the shadow of the more brilliant Miles. (He does make a good bargaining chip to be used against his cousin.)
POINT OF DEPARTURE: N/A, OU
ABILITIES:
- physical fitness
- combat abilities
- charm
- making a fool of himself
INVENTORY:
- credit chit
- Barrayaran Imperial dress greens uniform
- boots
- stunner
- comm link
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW? Don’t think so.
S A M P L E S;
ACTIONSPAM SAMPLE:
link 1
link 2
PROSE SAMPLE:
Ivan would be the first one to agree that he'd had a lot of stupid ideas over the course of the twenty-two years that he'd been alive, but he was fairly certain that this one was not his fault. At all, not even a little bit, not even like when he into trouble while trying to grab the attention of a gorgeous woman because it turned out there were hazards in her particular vicinity that no normal man would have to anticipate.
This was not Earth. It was not Barrayar. Ivan would be willing to venture a guess that this was not even Beta Colony, which had to be a sign that what this place was was majorly weird. And that was just the physical reality of it, separate from everything he'd been told about what it meant, about what was really going on behind the curtain.
Nothing was supposed to be going on behind the curtain.
Armed with absolutely no idea whatsoever what he was supposed to be doing and how he was supposed to be behaving and where he was going to find answers that actually made sense, Ivan spared a thought for what Miles would do in this situation. His cousin would almost certainly throw himself into it head-first, nearly start an interplanetary war (so long as there was more than one planetary representative in this place, which Ivan figured there must be, since not everyone else here could possibly be Barrayaran), and end up diverting an even larger disaster that would have gone through had Miles not been in the right place with a willingness to go with the flow.
What Ivan wanted to do was find a drink and a real person -- hopefully an attractive woman -- to explain things in a way that made a little more sense.