more in-depth info.
Dec. 5th, 2011 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teainsilencepersonality.
Xerxes Break looks like he could not stop smiling even if he tried to. Outwardly he is overly friendly, childish, immature, and more often than not just plain annoying with his dramatic acts and often cruel jokes. He is one of those people who will offer you candy just to snatch it right back when you reach for it, pop it in his mouth and watch your frustrated expression as he munches it in delight. He also has a bad habit of appearing from unbelievable places when you least expect it, such as cupboards or under a table. The way he acts is often playful, and usually even remotely polite, but the things he actually says really aren't: they're downright rude, and cruel, as he can be very, very blunt when he so wishes. Not that many people would truly realize, as the only ways for him to properly communicate are sign language and writing, of which the former is restricted to the few specific people trained in sign language and the latter he just finds too troublesome to actually follow through with most of the time. Instead, he will let his actions and facial expressions speak for him, if it so happens he doesn't have an interpreter with him (who usually end up twisting his words to be at least a little more presentable, not the cruel things his hands actually spell out.) However, he's less cryptic than the other Breaks, mostly because he has to use all his wits to get himself understood at all, and a lot of the time communication with him is limited to yes or no questions almost exclusively. There's just no room for further confusion.
This, of course, is just a front, a mask he puts on. Beneath the carefree surface lies a cold person who means business. Break is capable of much more cruel and sinister things than his foolish facade lets on. He is an honest man, not afraid of letting people know what he really thinks, and has no qualms about admitting he's merely using people to achieve his own goals. He manipulates people for his own purposes, but is also willing to make certain sacrifices himself, if that gets him what he wants. To 15-year-old Gilbert, he proposed an exchange: if the boy would let him use him, "act as his left eye" and work as his spy, Break would let him use him as well. As well as with Duke Barma, he wanted to exchange information for information.
However, Break is not heartless. When he first arrived at the Rainsworth estate, he was mentally in pieces, cold, bitter and distant, attacking anyone who came too close. Like a wounded animal. Not to mention he had to adjust to suddenly not being able to say a word and having to learn how to do without his voice: after all the mental and physical trauma he had gone through, it was no easy task. But gradually, thanks to the kindness of the ladies of the Rainsworth estate, he started opening up. His loyalties belong first and foremost to Shelly, and he won't let anything harm her or members of her family - he was even willing to give up his own dream to save Sharon's life, when a certain Vincent Nightray had poisoned her and in exchange for the antidote, wanted some important memories destroyed. Although Break later claims he only did it to save his own life ("If anything happened to you, Mistress Shelly would surely kill me!"), it is evident that can't be the only reason.
So while he has his serious moments, Break is most of the time seen smiling, whether it's a malevolent grin or a truly happy laugh (a rare occurence, that, but it's been known to happen). He is also very fond of sweet things and tea, anything consisting of sugar really: he always has some candy on him, somewhere, that he will happily eat in front of other people without offering them any. Actually, throughout the series, he is never seen eating anything but sugary things, and it's an eternal mystery why he doesn't have diabetes yet. (See headcanon section for a theory on this.)
What Break really desires is the truth about the Abyss and the Tragedy from a hundred years ago, the incident that started everything - the noble war, his own demise, Pandora's formation... As well as keep the promise he made to the white girl in the deep darkness of the Abyss: to fullfill "Alice"'s wish.
history.
Fifty years prior to the beginning of Pandora Hearts, there was a man called Kevin Regnard, servant of the Sinclair household. One day, he returned home to find the entire family brutally slaughtered, only him and the youngest daughter remaining, as they'd spent the day out. Taken over by his grief and guilt, Kevin took the first chance to redeem himself when a Chain, a monstrous creature from the deepness, offered it to him - a chance to change the past, if he was willing to its bidding.
Kevin became what is known "an illegal contractor", no more than a murderer in commoner's eyes, and for his deeds he earned a rather fitting nickname: The Red-Eyed Ghost. He sacrificed 116 people to his Chain, Albus, but in the end could do nothing: maybe there never really was a chance. He was sucked into the Abyss, to the deepest level, where he met a young girl called Alice: the Will of the Abyss. She proceeded to gouge out his left eye, wanting to give it to her cat who had none of its own. Kevin was "saved" by the arrival of two children distracting Alice, causing her a kind of mental breakdown with their harsh words. The dimension started falling apart, and Kevin, remembering why he had formed a contract in the first place - to prevent the horrible past of his master dying from ever even happening - called out to the girl, offering his everything if she just would change the past for him. Before the floor gave in under them, she asked him to fulfill her one wish, her deepest wish: to stop being the Will of the Abyss. But before he could answer, the floor gave out under him and he fell into the darkness. And when he opened his remaining eye again, he was at the Rainsworth estate, thirty years into the future.
He then found out that the past had indeed been changed for him, but it was by no means what he'd hoped for: instead of one little girl surviving, all of the family was killed four years later than the original incident. Blaming himself for his foolishness, Kevin abandoned his name, and became Xerxes Break, retainer of the Rainsworths. He later joined Pandora and legally contracted another Chain called the Mad Hatter, one goal in mind: to find out the truth about the Tragedy of Sablier, the incident where an entire city fell into the Abyss a hundred years ago. The incident that started all, the formation of Pandora organization, the noble war that claimed Sinclairs' lives, everything. Currently he is working together with Oz and the others, and plans on continuing his work until his dying day.
His point in canon is from around chapter 32, after his past has been revealed to Alice, Oz, Gilbert and Liam, and they have parted ways with Duke Barma.
disability.
As you already know, this Break is from a slightly altered universe, and has ended up mute because of those alterations made by the mun. The reason behind this is that I find playing disabled characters intriguing, and the idea of how Break would deal with this is especially interesting to me, seeing as he is my favorite character and already falling apart (in more ways than one). I mean no offense to anyone with this roleplay account - if my portrayal of him as a character, or my portrayal of the disability in question seems lacking to you, I have a HMD post up specifically so you can voice your concerns.
When he'd returned from the Abyss and dropped on the Rainsworths' doorstep, bleeding and miserable, Break found that he had lost his voice. To this day he doesn't know for sure what caused it, other than the utter incomprehensibility of the Abyss in general, but it was not just due to mental trauma - because even after 15 years, his vocal cords still refuse to produce a sound. Maybe he spent just a little too long in the Abyss and it changed him, or maybe physical harm was done to him while he was out cold. He'll never know.
Thankfully, just as they helped him with everything else, the residents of the Rainsworth estate provided him with alternate ways of communicating and helped him to come to terms with his state. He always carries a notebook and pens with him and has learned to write quick and informative messages when needed. He is also well versed in sign language nowadays, and uses it as his primary communication method whenever he just can. Besides those, he has learned to use body language and facial expressions to get his point across, and even if all of those fail, you can be sure he will find a way to communicate with you.
Just because he has lost his voice doesn't mean Xerxes Break will stay quiet.
Oh, and Emily is indeed just a doll for him - because he cannot talk, neither can the doll. (For information why he still keeps it around, see headcanon and trivia sections.)
People who in his world understand sign:
Rufus Barma
Liam Lunettes
Elliot Nightray
Gilbert Nightray
Vincent Nightray
Cheryl Rainsworth
Sharon Rainsworth
Shelly Rainsworth
Oscar Vessalius
Oz Vessalius (learning)
trivia.
☻ Break is a loud mute. By which I mean, while is vocal cords don't work, he still has a habit of making as much noise as possible if it just helps him get his point across (or when he just wants to be exceptionally annoying.) Noise includes everything he's still capable of, such as stomping his feet or clapping his hands, whistling, coughing, blowing...
☻ He has also come up with some signs of his own, a lot of them very person specific. He feels it gives him an opportunity to have more private conversations with people, if he so wishes.
☻ Every person he frequently deals with has earned a sort of codename from him, so he can easily refer to them in conversations. Usually they consist of an adjective followed by the first letter of their name. So if you fraternize with him a lot, prepare to get a nickname you may or may not like.
Horever, in more official situations, he refrains from using those and instead sticks with the actual names, even if they are longer and annoying to sign.
☻ He will try to get anyone who mingles with him a lot to learn at least the most basic sign, if only to make his life easier.
☻ Break is an exceptionally fast talker. When he gets excited or aggravated, his hands have the tendency to fly. There are about three people who can still properly keep up with him when he starts getting carried away, and even they have problems.
☻ Emily still resides on his shoulder. Her role in his hands is not to make rude remarks, but rather help him communicate - if he has her at hand, he tends to use her to either make himself understood or to emphasise a point. She is very human-like in appearance and works well for demonstrations, after all.
☻ In his pockets, Break tends to carry some pre-written notes about things he finds he has to say often to different people. They change from time to time and depend on where he's going - they're different when he's on duty for Pandora and when at a ball, for example - but there is one that never changes: the note that simply states my name is Xerxes Break.
☻ All the notes he writes, he collects away and hides away in a secret stash. Which means that yes, he has every single note from the previous 15 years hidden away somewhere (and he will start another stash in the Mansion.) They're carefully put away, so don't expect to find them easily - and even if you do, it's just one side of the conversation, which rarely tells you anything. He just wants to keep them from getting into the wrong hands and for future reference for himself.As well as precious memories.
☻ Despite what you might think, his handwriting is very clear indeed. Somehow he manages to keep it perfectly legible and pretty even at the speed he generally writes.
☻ Gameplay-wise, even if it's not outright stated, you can almost always assume Break is being extremely flamboyant, making relevant noises, and especially relevant faces. Even if you are unsure what he means, his facial expression will usually clear that up for you.
Xerxes Break looks like he could not stop smiling even if he tried to. Outwardly he is overly friendly, childish, immature, and more often than not just plain annoying with his dramatic acts and often cruel jokes. He is one of those people who will offer you candy just to snatch it right back when you reach for it, pop it in his mouth and watch your frustrated expression as he munches it in delight. He also has a bad habit of appearing from unbelievable places when you least expect it, such as cupboards or under a table. The way he acts is often playful, and usually even remotely polite, but the things he actually says really aren't: they're downright rude, and cruel, as he can be very, very blunt when he so wishes. Not that many people would truly realize, as the only ways for him to properly communicate are sign language and writing, of which the former is restricted to the few specific people trained in sign language and the latter he just finds too troublesome to actually follow through with most of the time. Instead, he will let his actions and facial expressions speak for him, if it so happens he doesn't have an interpreter with him (who usually end up twisting his words to be at least a little more presentable, not the cruel things his hands actually spell out.) However, he's less cryptic than the other Breaks, mostly because he has to use all his wits to get himself understood at all, and a lot of the time communication with him is limited to yes or no questions almost exclusively. There's just no room for further confusion.
This, of course, is just a front, a mask he puts on. Beneath the carefree surface lies a cold person who means business. Break is capable of much more cruel and sinister things than his foolish facade lets on. He is an honest man, not afraid of letting people know what he really thinks, and has no qualms about admitting he's merely using people to achieve his own goals. He manipulates people for his own purposes, but is also willing to make certain sacrifices himself, if that gets him what he wants. To 15-year-old Gilbert, he proposed an exchange: if the boy would let him use him, "act as his left eye" and work as his spy, Break would let him use him as well. As well as with Duke Barma, he wanted to exchange information for information.
However, Break is not heartless. When he first arrived at the Rainsworth estate, he was mentally in pieces, cold, bitter and distant, attacking anyone who came too close. Like a wounded animal. Not to mention he had to adjust to suddenly not being able to say a word and having to learn how to do without his voice: after all the mental and physical trauma he had gone through, it was no easy task. But gradually, thanks to the kindness of the ladies of the Rainsworth estate, he started opening up. His loyalties belong first and foremost to Shelly, and he won't let anything harm her or members of her family - he was even willing to give up his own dream to save Sharon's life, when a certain Vincent Nightray had poisoned her and in exchange for the antidote, wanted some important memories destroyed. Although Break later claims he only did it to save his own life ("If anything happened to you, Mistress Shelly would surely kill me!"), it is evident that can't be the only reason.
So while he has his serious moments, Break is most of the time seen smiling, whether it's a malevolent grin or a truly happy laugh (a rare occurence, that, but it's been known to happen). He is also very fond of sweet things and tea, anything consisting of sugar really: he always has some candy on him, somewhere, that he will happily eat in front of other people without offering them any. Actually, throughout the series, he is never seen eating anything but sugary things, and it's an eternal mystery why he doesn't have diabetes yet. (See headcanon section for a theory on this.)
What Break really desires is the truth about the Abyss and the Tragedy from a hundred years ago, the incident that started everything - the noble war, his own demise, Pandora's formation... As well as keep the promise he made to the white girl in the deep darkness of the Abyss: to fullfill "Alice"'s wish.
history.
Fifty years prior to the beginning of Pandora Hearts, there was a man called Kevin Regnard, servant of the Sinclair household. One day, he returned home to find the entire family brutally slaughtered, only him and the youngest daughter remaining, as they'd spent the day out. Taken over by his grief and guilt, Kevin took the first chance to redeem himself when a Chain, a monstrous creature from the deepness, offered it to him - a chance to change the past, if he was willing to its bidding.
Kevin became what is known "an illegal contractor", no more than a murderer in commoner's eyes, and for his deeds he earned a rather fitting nickname: The Red-Eyed Ghost. He sacrificed 116 people to his Chain, Albus, but in the end could do nothing: maybe there never really was a chance. He was sucked into the Abyss, to the deepest level, where he met a young girl called Alice: the Will of the Abyss. She proceeded to gouge out his left eye, wanting to give it to her cat who had none of its own. Kevin was "saved" by the arrival of two children distracting Alice, causing her a kind of mental breakdown with their harsh words. The dimension started falling apart, and Kevin, remembering why he had formed a contract in the first place - to prevent the horrible past of his master dying from ever even happening - called out to the girl, offering his everything if she just would change the past for him. Before the floor gave in under them, she asked him to fulfill her one wish, her deepest wish: to stop being the Will of the Abyss. But before he could answer, the floor gave out under him and he fell into the darkness. And when he opened his remaining eye again, he was at the Rainsworth estate, thirty years into the future.
He then found out that the past had indeed been changed for him, but it was by no means what he'd hoped for: instead of one little girl surviving, all of the family was killed four years later than the original incident. Blaming himself for his foolishness, Kevin abandoned his name, and became Xerxes Break, retainer of the Rainsworths. He later joined Pandora and legally contracted another Chain called the Mad Hatter, one goal in mind: to find out the truth about the Tragedy of Sablier, the incident where an entire city fell into the Abyss a hundred years ago. The incident that started all, the formation of Pandora organization, the noble war that claimed Sinclairs' lives, everything. Currently he is working together with Oz and the others, and plans on continuing his work until his dying day.
His point in canon is from around chapter 32, after his past has been revealed to Alice, Oz, Gilbert and Liam, and they have parted ways with Duke Barma.
disability.
As you already know, this Break is from a slightly altered universe, and has ended up mute because of those alterations made by the mun. The reason behind this is that I find playing disabled characters intriguing, and the idea of how Break would deal with this is especially interesting to me, seeing as he is my favorite character and already falling apart (in more ways than one). I mean no offense to anyone with this roleplay account - if my portrayal of him as a character, or my portrayal of the disability in question seems lacking to you, I have a HMD post up specifically so you can voice your concerns.
When he'd returned from the Abyss and dropped on the Rainsworths' doorstep, bleeding and miserable, Break found that he had lost his voice. To this day he doesn't know for sure what caused it, other than the utter incomprehensibility of the Abyss in general, but it was not just due to mental trauma - because even after 15 years, his vocal cords still refuse to produce a sound. Maybe he spent just a little too long in the Abyss and it changed him, or maybe physical harm was done to him while he was out cold. He'll never know.
Thankfully, just as they helped him with everything else, the residents of the Rainsworth estate provided him with alternate ways of communicating and helped him to come to terms with his state. He always carries a notebook and pens with him and has learned to write quick and informative messages when needed. He is also well versed in sign language nowadays, and uses it as his primary communication method whenever he just can. Besides those, he has learned to use body language and facial expressions to get his point across, and even if all of those fail, you can be sure he will find a way to communicate with you.
Just because he has lost his voice doesn't mean Xerxes Break will stay quiet.
Oh, and Emily is indeed just a doll for him - because he cannot talk, neither can the doll. (For information why he still keeps it around, see headcanon and trivia sections.)
People who in his world understand sign:
Rufus Barma
Liam Lunettes
Elliot Nightray
Gilbert Nightray
Vincent Nightray
Cheryl Rainsworth
Sharon Rainsworth
Shelly Rainsworth
Oscar Vessalius
Oz Vessalius (learning)
trivia.
☻ Break is a loud mute. By which I mean, while is vocal cords don't work, he still has a habit of making as much noise as possible if it just helps him get his point across (or when he just wants to be exceptionally annoying.) Noise includes everything he's still capable of, such as stomping his feet or clapping his hands, whistling, coughing, blowing...
☻ He has also come up with some signs of his own, a lot of them very person specific. He feels it gives him an opportunity to have more private conversations with people, if he so wishes.
☻ Every person he frequently deals with has earned a sort of codename from him, so he can easily refer to them in conversations. Usually they consist of an adjective followed by the first letter of their name. So if you fraternize with him a lot, prepare to get a nickname you may or may not like.
Horever, in more official situations, he refrains from using those and instead sticks with the actual names, even if they are longer and annoying to sign.
☻ He will try to get anyone who mingles with him a lot to learn at least the most basic sign, if only to make his life easier.
☻ Break is an exceptionally fast talker. When he gets excited or aggravated, his hands have the tendency to fly. There are about three people who can still properly keep up with him when he starts getting carried away, and even they have problems.
☻ Emily still resides on his shoulder. Her role in his hands is not to make rude remarks, but rather help him communicate - if he has her at hand, he tends to use her to either make himself understood or to emphasise a point. She is very human-like in appearance and works well for demonstrations, after all.
☻ In his pockets, Break tends to carry some pre-written notes about things he finds he has to say often to different people. They change from time to time and depend on where he's going - they're different when he's on duty for Pandora and when at a ball, for example - but there is one that never changes: the note that simply states my name is Xerxes Break.
☻ All the notes he writes, he collects away and hides away in a secret stash. Which means that yes, he has every single note from the previous 15 years hidden away somewhere (and he will start another stash in the Mansion.) They're carefully put away, so don't expect to find them easily - and even if you do, it's just one side of the conversation, which rarely tells you anything. He just wants to keep them from getting into the wrong hands and for future reference for himself.
☻ Despite what you might think, his handwriting is very clear indeed. Somehow he manages to keep it perfectly legible and pretty even at the speed he generally writes.
☻ Gameplay-wise, even if it's not outright stated, you can almost always assume Break is being extremely flamboyant, making relevant noises, and especially relevant faces. Even if you are unsure what he means, his facial expression will usually clear that up for you.
