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CW - mention of sibling incest
User Name/Nick: Kota
User DW:
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: [email protected]
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Jacob, Sheehan, Iago, Justine; this is a swap for Godric
Character Name: Vauhan Istradez
Series: Machineries of Empire: Raven Stratagem
Age: 67
From When?: Istradez blows up himself and the hexarchs (with the exception of Mikodez, obviously) at the end of Raven Stratagem
Inmate Justification: Istradez has wrapped his identity literally in his brother and his brother’s goals. He would have followed him into any scenario and would have accepted it as is. He has very little regard for anyone outside of his family and if his brother had decided not to help overturn the hexarchate, he would have continued to enforce the order. Istradez is not necessarily a “bad guy,” but he is a tool. A gun, in his own way, and in his own words. Tools and guns don’t care where they’re used, after all.
Arrival: Against his will.
Abilities/Powers: He’s not Shous trained, but he does have some basic self defense training. Otherwise, he’s a fantastic dresser.
Inmate Information: Istradez was born a womanform a year after his brother, Mikodez. The only reason they weren't twins was because their parents wouldn't have been able to handle it. It wasn't until his brother became the youngest Shous hexarch that Istradez offered to become his double. While they were close, even lovers, Mikodez was still surprised at the offer. But no one knows him like Istradez does, and so it made sense. Istradez was changed, modded to look exactly like his brother, and that was that.
Istradez never went to the Shous Academy and was never formally trained, but he understands the workings of his brother’s mind and whims well enough to be a very convincing fake during meetings. His brother was even known to sit in on the same meetings and pretend to be Istradez, playing games and doing extra research and abusing drugs. Istradez took care of him in these moments, sending him to bed, to rest. He was his brother’s caretaker for their entire lives, and he enjoyed the role. That caretaking extended to their nephew, too, but everyone else was forgotten or outright antagonized if he could get away with it.
That's not to say that Istradez didn’t make small efforts to have another life. He asked his brother for clearances to keep girlfriends and lovers, to attend therapy, to do everything he could to create some semblance of an inner life. However, that would be thrown away at any moment, as soon as Mikodez needed him. He did it only to pass time until he could see him again.
Istradez does have a temper, too. More than his brother, certainly. He is very non-Shous, wanting very much to be more aggressive in meetings and with others. He even threatens to seduce someone and ruin a marriage and a reputation, simply because he wanted his brother to sleep. This could be taken as a joke, just him teasing, but Istradez is the sort of person who would (and did) sacrifice the entire world and himself for his brother.
It isn't a great splash of blood that makes Istradez an inmate worthy of redemption. Rather, it is the absence of any sort of core moral rights and wrongs outside of “I love my family, I'm in love with my brother, and I will do everything for him.” The missions and the meetings and the things that Istradez is asked to do are done without much question. Istradez simply doesn't care about the lives that are affected. He even speaks about showing up at the Academy to scare the cadets (his brother famously murdered two in his earlier years) but remarks that he just doesn't enjoy “pranks” like that. He gives up his life and his purpose to further Mikodez's and Jedao's ideas because he knows that his brother would be done with him soon as a double. Rather than retire based on the evaluation of a close therapist, he makes a wild bid for his brother's attentions and affection, assassinating his brother's enemies and killing himself in the process. He is so wrapped up in his brother that as soon as he belives he is no longer useful to him, he will expire.
Path to Redemption: Baby needs an identity of his own. While gender expression is a looser sort of experience for Istradez, he did make some very major bodily changes to become his brother. His brother's body and his brother's identity are very real and true barriers to being who he wants to be. He lived in a place where he could have literally any form, even returning to his old one. He will need to find himself, find his true form, whatever that looks like.
It's also become sort of a trope on the Barge that inmates need to find hobbies they enjoy, but this is very literal for Istradez. Any hobby he has is because his brother did it, and he needed to learn it to fill his role. He needs to find things to do that are different, his own, and very much separated from his brother.
Any warden would likely hit a brick wall in trying to pick apart his actual relationship with Mikodez too early. Judgement for their choice to be together, which has been accepted and encouraged their whole lives, starting with their parents, will be met with confusion at the very least and outright hostility at the worst. However, there is a deep codependency issue that needs to be addressed, starting with the fact that he sacrificed himself for Mikodez without any real knowledge of what it would accomplish.
His reaction to the Barge would be one of indifference, and his mission for redemption would not make sense to him. Istradez doesn't feel as if he needs to make any changes. He would assume that it was because of his aggressive tendencies and his temper, not because of the quieter, less destructive reasons.
History: Linked here
Sample Network Entry: & Sample RP: TDM
Special Notes: N/A
User Name/Nick: Kota
User DW:
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: [email protected]
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Jacob, Sheehan, Iago, Justine; this is a swap for Godric
Character Name: Vauhan Istradez
Series: Machineries of Empire: Raven Stratagem
Age: 67
From When?: Istradez blows up himself and the hexarchs (with the exception of Mikodez, obviously) at the end of Raven Stratagem
Inmate Justification: Istradez has wrapped his identity literally in his brother and his brother’s goals. He would have followed him into any scenario and would have accepted it as is. He has very little regard for anyone outside of his family and if his brother had decided not to help overturn the hexarchate, he would have continued to enforce the order. Istradez is not necessarily a “bad guy,” but he is a tool. A gun, in his own way, and in his own words. Tools and guns don’t care where they’re used, after all.
Arrival: Against his will.
Abilities/Powers: He’s not Shous trained, but he does have some basic self defense training. Otherwise, he’s a fantastic dresser.
Inmate Information: Istradez was born a womanform a year after his brother, Mikodez. The only reason they weren't twins was because their parents wouldn't have been able to handle it. It wasn't until his brother became the youngest Shous hexarch that Istradez offered to become his double. While they were close, even lovers, Mikodez was still surprised at the offer. But no one knows him like Istradez does, and so it made sense. Istradez was changed, modded to look exactly like his brother, and that was that.
Istradez never went to the Shous Academy and was never formally trained, but he understands the workings of his brother’s mind and whims well enough to be a very convincing fake during meetings. His brother was even known to sit in on the same meetings and pretend to be Istradez, playing games and doing extra research and abusing drugs. Istradez took care of him in these moments, sending him to bed, to rest. He was his brother’s caretaker for their entire lives, and he enjoyed the role. That caretaking extended to their nephew, too, but everyone else was forgotten or outright antagonized if he could get away with it.
That's not to say that Istradez didn’t make small efforts to have another life. He asked his brother for clearances to keep girlfriends and lovers, to attend therapy, to do everything he could to create some semblance of an inner life. However, that would be thrown away at any moment, as soon as Mikodez needed him. He did it only to pass time until he could see him again.
Istradez does have a temper, too. More than his brother, certainly. He is very non-Shous, wanting very much to be more aggressive in meetings and with others. He even threatens to seduce someone and ruin a marriage and a reputation, simply because he wanted his brother to sleep. This could be taken as a joke, just him teasing, but Istradez is the sort of person who would (and did) sacrifice the entire world and himself for his brother.
It isn't a great splash of blood that makes Istradez an inmate worthy of redemption. Rather, it is the absence of any sort of core moral rights and wrongs outside of “I love my family, I'm in love with my brother, and I will do everything for him.” The missions and the meetings and the things that Istradez is asked to do are done without much question. Istradez simply doesn't care about the lives that are affected. He even speaks about showing up at the Academy to scare the cadets (his brother famously murdered two in his earlier years) but remarks that he just doesn't enjoy “pranks” like that. He gives up his life and his purpose to further Mikodez's and Jedao's ideas because he knows that his brother would be done with him soon as a double. Rather than retire based on the evaluation of a close therapist, he makes a wild bid for his brother's attentions and affection, assassinating his brother's enemies and killing himself in the process. He is so wrapped up in his brother that as soon as he belives he is no longer useful to him, he will expire.
Path to Redemption: Baby needs an identity of his own. While gender expression is a looser sort of experience for Istradez, he did make some very major bodily changes to become his brother. His brother's body and his brother's identity are very real and true barriers to being who he wants to be. He lived in a place where he could have literally any form, even returning to his old one. He will need to find himself, find his true form, whatever that looks like.
It's also become sort of a trope on the Barge that inmates need to find hobbies they enjoy, but this is very literal for Istradez. Any hobby he has is because his brother did it, and he needed to learn it to fill his role. He needs to find things to do that are different, his own, and very much separated from his brother.
Any warden would likely hit a brick wall in trying to pick apart his actual relationship with Mikodez too early. Judgement for their choice to be together, which has been accepted and encouraged their whole lives, starting with their parents, will be met with confusion at the very least and outright hostility at the worst. However, there is a deep codependency issue that needs to be addressed, starting with the fact that he sacrificed himself for Mikodez without any real knowledge of what it would accomplish.
His reaction to the Barge would be one of indifference, and his mission for redemption would not make sense to him. Istradez doesn't feel as if he needs to make any changes. He would assume that it was because of his aggressive tendencies and his temper, not because of the quieter, less destructive reasons.
History: Linked here
Sample Network Entry: & Sample RP: TDM
Special Notes: N/A
