Application

[denying_gravity]

Player Information
Name: Hibi
Pronoun: She
E-mail: jacqueline.bowen@gmail.com
Other Contact: N/A

Character Information
Name: Ivan "Vanya" Vasilyevich Vorinsky
House: Vorinsky
Birthplace: Moscow, USSR
Birthdate: February 21, 1979
Age: 17
Gender: Male

Physical Details
Hair Color: A dark red that's slightly unnatural to the mundane world, but just comes off looking a little like Hot Topic dye
Eye Color: Green
Height: 5'9"
Body Type: Athletic but slim, with proportions that don't differ dramatically from a girl's -- a fact he takes advantage of when creating illusory disguises.
Appearance Notes: Vanya's right eye is false, and imbued with long-term magic that allows him to see through it. While it's being worn, it's indistinguishible from a real eye, but occasionally needs to be sent in for recharging, at which point Vanya wears an eyepatch in its place. Students who saw him on a daily basis the previous school year would have seen him wearing the patch, while more casual or brand new aquaintences likely would not be aware anything is out of the ordinary about the eye.
PB: Nezumi from No. 6, recolored.

Life Details
Background: Along with his twin sister Lera, Vanya was born to Liana (formerly of House Dracul) and Vasily Vorinsky in 1979. Their family's well-off status allowed Vanya and Lera a happy and carefree childhood, but just before entering their teens, they learned from their father that they had been chosen as partners in the Sealing, expected to fight to the death upon turning 18. This was also how they learned of the Sealing's existence, and the news of their House's true nature and their own eventual fate came as a life-altering shock.

While horrified by the prospect of killing his sister, Vanya had a lot of youthful idealism and confidence, and believed most anything was possible in the future. He promised Lera that he would find them a way out of their situation, and privately made a vow to himself that if the worst happened and he couldn't save them both, he would sacrifice his soul and magic to her rather than kill her so he could live. He came up with many schemes over the years, but his powers couldn't compare to those of adults and each plan was abandoned once its flaws were exposed. Eventually, in desperation, he attacked a cousin who had recently won a Sealing, meaning to take one or both souls that person possessed for himself and Lera.

The attack was a catastrophic failure. Not only did his target survive, but Vanya lost an eye when the cousin retaliated. In the aftermath of the incident, he came perilously close to being turned over as a traitor to be devoured by Vorinus, and came to viscerally understand how much he prized his own life. Paired with the bitterness and humiliation of failure, the realization was enough to make him give up on all the promises he'd made to himself. Maybe someone could have found a way out of the Sealing, but he no longer believed in himself enough to think it would be him. He resolved to fight Lera, and win. Any other ideas, he decided, were a childish fantasy he'd had.

He couldn't face Lera with this decision, though. The idea of telling her he was sorry and that he didn't really want to do it but he had no choice still left a bad taste in his mouth. The resolution seemed too grave to be understood and forgiven. He still saw it as a choice -- the same wrong choice everyone else in his family had made. So after making it clear he intended to fight her, he simply dropped the matter entirely, dodging it whenever it came up, almost to the point of pretending there was no such thing as a Sealing.

He entered Paracelsus last year with this tension still unresolved. Over the course of his first year, his grades were good enough and he worked hard at his magic and swordplay, but in his spare time, he sought out trouble. An avid prankster with the power of illusions, he liked to think of himself as providing "entertainment" for his fellow students, and was often in some kind of trouble with school authorities or club members, as well as kicking off mutually antagonistic relationships with several students. The most notable of his pranks involved changing his lines intentionally during the school play to force the other actors onstage to improvise an outlandish alternate ending.

House Politics: Growing up, Vanya hated his House. He considered the Vorinsky method of survival to be inherently immoral, and looked down on his relatives in all seriousness for having chosen to kill their kin rather than give up their lives in protest.

Strangely, he judges the victims of the system more harshly in this scheme than he does Vorinus. Maybe it was a hard-to-shake impression from his upbringing, but he sees Vorinus almost as a god, albeit an evil or amoral one, a sort of sentient natural disaster. He might have daydreamed about bringing down Vorinus to free the others from his control, but it's the House members complicit in Vorinus' system that Vanya held responsible for the deaths of his kin.

That all changed when he realized he couldn't bring himself to make the ultimate sacrifice either. Now that he can no longer view himself as superior to the rest of his House, he has stopped being a heinous brat to everyone and acts the part of a loyal Vorinsky, but there's a sarcastic, irreverent edge to it. He's happy to play out House rivalries, though, and if someone approaches him with a hostile or cool air because of House politics, rather than smooth it over, all other things being neutral, he'll go out of his way to act like the rival or adversary they seem to be looking for. His loyalty is insincere, though, and if he has a personal need that conflicts with House politics, he'll break character as it suits him.

Personality: Vanya's primary approach to life is evasion -- he always wanted a clever way out of things or around them instead of through. He doesn't want to miss out on challenges and new experiences, but seeks to resolve them by beating or outsmarting the system. He was the type to come up with answers that aren’t on the multiple choice and thinks he has his own unique, better way of doing things, sometimes ending up looking silly or ridiculous because he doesn’t want to follow the rules -- but often he really does find an unconventional but valid approach. This tendency began as an innocent way to try to show his cleverness and avoid drudgework, but evolved into outright rebellion as the conflict of his life gelled around the Sealing and seemingly heartless and indifferent parental figures.

He is egotistical and not afraid to embarrass himself, with a breezy self confidence -- "oh, I am good at that, oh I am the best at that, oh I am known for that" -- before he has even thought about the challenge at hand. He is happy to try and will laugh at himself if he fails, and is always seeking out new distractions from the doubt and self-disgust lurking in quiet and reflective moments.

He thinks he is talented, fun, funny, almost any good thing you can name he will casually apply to himself... except not even the tiniest bit a good person, which can extend to related traits if he thinks about it too hard. Cowardly? Maybe. He’s not sure, but he suspects that maybe a person who can't give up his life for something important must be a coward. This has turned into something he tries to prove to himself, that he is brave and can face things, and that facing danger and giving up your life outright are very different things and he hasn't forfeited his spirit along with his morality.

He is weak to any accusations that he is a coward, emotionally or otherwise, and will feel compelled to prove them wrong, and if he can’t, will be humiliated and angry and ruminate on the incident at length. This fits in with his thirst for distractions and to prove his worthiness to himself again somehow -- he is generally on the hunt for excitement, entertainment, and trouble. He's a bit of a daredevil and adventure-seeker, and suggestible when it comes to new stunts to attempt.

A part of him is casually convinced that the world hates him and is out to get him -- that because he is a reprehensible hypocrite who is willing to kill his wonderful sister, he could never be liked on personal merits, and should settle for the next best thing, which is to make people laugh, and be famous and cool and notorious instead of liked.

Because everyone is his enemy (except Lera, although she is his enemy too) his approach to people can be detached and cynical, and he's often playacting during his own life, taking on roles that fit his mood or needs rather than trying to forge meaningful connections with people. He can seem somewhat two-faced as a result, or like he's lying, mocking, or being insincere because he wants to get specific things -- or just specific reactions. He still has compassion for others, sometimes even quite a lot, but he is a person of absolutes, and it's important to him that his behavior aligns with the callous monster he discovered himself to be, so he has practiced simply not caring.

However, his antagonism is usually confined to relatively minor issues, as anything too severe, particularly making someone break down and cry, hits a little too close to home and reminds him of the poor victim he sometimes makes Lera out to be in his head. He'll hurt feelings and can be careless and will go all out against someone with the will and means to retaliate, but he's not going to target someone to make their life miserable and will lose interest and drop a rivalry if the other person's spirit flags and he's veering toward just bullying them. Unfortunately for his rivals, he's likely to realize he's taken things too far only after he's taken them too far, so the damage might already be done by the time he feels things are imbalanced and backs off.

Flaws: Since Vanya has given up on himself morally, it kind of opens the door for him to be quite a selfish jerk when his wants or needs run counter to someone else's. What is he hoping to prove if he acts nice? He'll still be a murderer at the end of the day!

He's also pretty careless about the consequences of his actions sometimes, and doesn't like to accept blame when he's done something wrong. He still feels guilty, but will try to diffuse and deflect and make it go away rather than sincerely apologize. He can often overstep his own internal limit on bad behavior, because he's not actually thinking of the long-term ramifications in other people's lives.

Magic and Skill Details
Magic and Skills: Vanya's mundane skill is swordplay. Though he has been classically taught, much of his technique is of his own design, owing to his abilities with self-levitation that he integrated into his fighting style. He is able to attack from any direction, to spin and flip in midair, and to dodge or change direction without regard to gravity -- all with extreme precision -- making his mobility and speed in a fight truly formidable for his opponent. Although his skill in this area is impressive, his departure from formalized styles mean he wouldn't qualify for a formal tournament without having to internalize a rule system and relearn most of his self-taught skills from a teacher specializing in three-dimensional swordplay. As such, he leaves swordfighting club to Lera, and contents himself to boast of his success in informal duels and classroom competitions.

He is also a Pulser, specializing in self-levitation and manipulating the gravity around objects for functional telekenisis. Here, his specialty is focus and precision -- he can control numerous small objects along complex paths, all while he himself is flying, meaning he can have a large number of weapons in play during a battle all at once and split his attention between them with a high level of skill. Though, the exertion of concentration can add up and he's prone to headaches and mental exhaustion after a lot of intense and sustained multitasking. He can also create gravity wells, but this is a lesser-used technique and not as practiced. During the current year of Paracelsus, he'll be working on increasing the weight of objects he can move (heavy lifting is not currently his forte) as well as creating objects made of force.

His final skill is illusion, and he specializes in the type that is perceptible to all passers by rather than a single person's mind. Through his illusion abilities, he has become an accomplished mimic, and can impersonate individuals who have allowed him to make an illusionary copy of them, voices and all. One of these is Lera. As he gains skill with force objects, he'll be able to make illusions that feel solid, but at present they're little more than holograms or masks.