Ivan Braginski

T H E C H A R A C T E R

Full Name: Ivan Braginski
Age: 29
Birthday:10 Decemember
Gender: Male
Is this an application for a first or second character: Second

Family: Russian
Position:Head

Strengths:

*He is very tall and very strong. He’s not someone you want to be facing down in a fist fight.

*An excellent chess player, he has a very formal and structured strategy. Sadly he has trouble applying strategy to a larger picture in the real world.

*He can go for long periods without food and feeling little ill effect. This might not be strength in that it means he doesn’t always remember to eat, but in that he can function under sometimes difficult conditions.

*Ivan has an uncanny immunity to other people’s threats. He never takes them seriously which means he tends to have a great poker face, which terrifies those trying to make the threats.

*He is talented with flowers. He can make various species grow in conditions they might not like, having quite the green thumb, but his favorite flower are sunflowers.

Weaknesses:

*Vodka. He really should be kept away from the stuff, but drinks it like a fish. Luckily his alcohol tolerance is fairly high so he doesn’t stagger around in a drunken state all the time, but he does it often enough to cause some problems.

*He has very bad luck. For that reason alone he tends to avoid his own casino even as he takes in vast profits from it.

*Refusal to trust. He really does believe everyone is probably out to get him and is unsure how he could ever get around to trusting anyone again.

*His eyesight in his right eye is starting to fail. It’s part of why he prefers melee weapons to guns. He cannot bear to wear glasses, thinking them a sign of weakness, and cannot abide the thought of anything near his eyes, and thus will not wear contacts either.

*He hates the cold. He feels it very keenly and hates it and hates the snow too. He almost always wears a scarf to help ward off the cold, but he continues to wear it even in the summer.

Personality: At first glance, Ivan looks like a very happy go lucky sort, with a huge smile always on his face. However, that’s really only on a very quick first glance, and as soon as someone starts listening to what he’s saying, that illusion quickly disappears. There is something fundamentally broken within him, some jagged edge that no one can really touch. He can say the most terrifying things with a broad smile on his face, something childish but yearning in his cruelty.

Whatever he does, he means well. At some level he genuinely thinks his actions will help the other person. However, what he finds helpful is considered sheer insanity or cruelty to those he’s “helping.” For example, breaking someone’s hand as an example is helpful for them, because they’ll realize their mistake and never make it again.

When he was young, someone had given him a collection of Oscar Wilde fairytales. There was something about the tragedy of the writing, dressed up as children’s stories that stayed with him ever since. While he usually prefers to read Russian authors as if to use them as a connection to a country he feels like he’s a part of, despite having never seen, he returns constantly to that collection, making it well worn and the book will fall open to the pages he’s read often. Part of him still yearns for love and affection, while he firmly believes it’s all a lie anyway.

History:Ivan was born into the apparent luxury of the ruling family in the Russian House. His parents were distant and cold at best, though he grew up with two sisters as well. Their relationship has always been complex, and Ivan is never really sure what to do with either of them, and he never really has been. The white scarf he wears the most often with his dark suits were a gift from one of his sisters though, and the fact he treasures it more than any of his wealth says no matter how complex that relationship is, he still loves the pair of them.

From a very young age he was exposed to all sorts of harsh violence and squabbles within the house. From the outside, the Russian Highland looks like a rich suburban sprawl, Victorian style townhouses lining the hills, pristine and all but screaming wealth. However, behind closed doors the highlands were a seething mass of violence and power struggles. He learned from a young age what was expected of him, as well as how to take care of himself.

When he was rather young, his father died in mysterious circumstances. Ivan had nothing to do with it, but he suspected it had been someone hoping to off him as well to reach the head of the house. Having always been big on bloodlines, he had always been his father’s heir, rather than any more experienced members of his group. With his father died, Ivan became the de facto head, though it was clear some of his father’s inner circle were hoping to either control or dispose him. He shortly dissuaded them of any such notions, purging most of the circle and terrifying the others into submission.

Since then he’s been ruling the house, fitting into the role he had been raised for, trying to hide the scars such an upbringing had on him.

Other Important Info:

His preferred weapon is a pipe. However, he knows that it’s not practical to carry around most of the time, and when outside the grounds of the house will carry usually at least two guns around his person. But the person who finds themselves at his mercy on his home territory should be aware and beware.

Roleplay Sample:It was only good sense to check all the weapons himself before going out on any business. Or so at least Ivan believed, raising the gun to his eye level and turning it from one side to the other. He then quickly stripped the gun, putting it back together once he was sure it was clean and loaded, setting that one to the side. Several other guns, ranging in size from small to massive machine guns littered the tables around him. He stood in a small basement room in the house, a nearby door leading to the ground’s shooting range.

There was something soothing for Ivan in checking and cleaning the guns, making sure they were in working, even sparkling order. It wasn’t quite as comforting as tending to his flower gardens, nor did it bring him the same level of joy that seeing sunflowers cut from said garden around his room, but it would do. It was certainly a more acceptable occupation for the head of the house and it kept him connected to the shadier side of his business.

Snorting, he moved onto the next gun on the table. All his business was shady and he knew it. But not authorities would dare touch him or his, even if the other houses didn’t much like him. The Russian house was too strong, and honestly from the reactions of other heads, a little too terrifying to go after in any concentrated way. Checking the barrel, he set the gun aside, moving methodically through the table.

O O C I N F O R M A T I O N

Name:victoriousscarf
Timezone:-8 GMT
MSN/AIM;etc:At descretion
You read the rules, right?:
You read the ChatBox rules, right?:Yup!
Anything else?:I listened to “The Plagues” from the Prince of Egypt way too much while working on this. Hopefully some of the epic from that song seeped into the app.

Thank you so much! The picture was lucky because I had described him in dark suits with a white scarf and it was on the second page of the search I did. It was that perfect moment when things fall into place so I'm quite fond of it.