Application

[lex_paciferat]

OUT of CHARACTER
Name: Ammy
Other characters: None

IN CHARACTER
Name: Quintus Falxvale
Fandom: The Hunger Games (original character)
Canon point/AU: Present day
Journal: lex_paciferat
PB: Paul Bettany
Age: 36

History: Quintus grew up in District 2 as the son of a Peacekeeper. His family was fairly well-off and he and his younger brother Lurio were originally expected to also have military careers. Attracted by the fame and the promise of honor, Lurio instead decided early in his teen years to become a career tribute. Since this was a prestigious position, his parents supported him and spared nothing in getting him proper training. Lurio participated in the 62nd Hunger Games and was killed when Enobaria, who would become the victor, knocked him partially unconscious and tore his throat out with her teeth. Quintus was deployed in District 11 at the time and did not watch the games live, though he heard about what had happened (he would watch his brother’s death some years later, after having had more time to process it.) The gory and humiliating nature of the death destroyed his parents’ marriage, causing his father to turn to drinking and drug use. Quintus no longer has much contact with either of his parents because of this.

During the following years, Quintus served in a number of different districts. The military life began to grow tedious, so when he would get leave he began to take courses centered on programming and electronics. Eventually, he finished a degree in computer science and began looking for new assignments in the security realm.

Before he could find one, however, about five years prior to the current time, he was severely injured. While he was stationed in District 7, a group of woodsmen went on strike due to food shortages, and when Quintus and a few other members of his unit tried to negotiate with them, they suddenly became violent. Quintus, who was clad in light armor and had the visor of his helmet pulled up at the time, was struck in the face with an axe and then in the side after he fell. The man responsible was quickly shot and the riot ultimately subdued after additional Peacekeepers were called in.

Quintus was transported back to District 2 for treatment. After two weeks of surgeries, he got in contact with the district commander to find out what had happened, and discovered that an investigation had been conducted. The attack had turned out to have been premediated, and some of the individuals behind the plot had been rounded up. The Peacekeepers planned to publicly torture these individuals before sending them out to be avoxed. Though the work on his face wasn’t complete, Quintus volunteered to be the one to torture them, arguing that it would make much more of a memorable spectacle than having one of the other men do it. Agreeing with this logic, the commander gave him permission.

Since wounding them badly would dampen their value as avoxes, Quintus used an electric prod to torture the prisoners. A large crowd witnessed the fifteen-minute scene, made all the more dramatic by him ripping off his bandages and exposing his damaged face while giving an angry lecture about how his injury was also an offense against the state. Afterwards, exhausted and in need of further care, he returned to the hospital in District 2.

While there, he received a visit from his commander, who presented him with a small medal for being wounded in combat and put his name in at the Capitol to be considered for a technical job. He was eventually given a position in local security there, working mainly on electronic surveillance around the city. He enjoyed the work, but felt he could do better salary-wise, and recently ended up securing a job as security coordinator for the Training Center.


Presentation: The first thing most notice about Quintus is the scar on the left side of his face—a thin, hairline mark that arcs along the line of his cheekbone to the corner of his lips, then back towards his ear just beneath the angle of his jaw. It’s a remnant of a surgical incision, the most visible sign of his injuries, and in Capitol society, where cosmetic surgery and body modification is so rampant, it’s a distinctly unfashionable anomaly. With his salary as it is now, he could easily get it removed, leaving only the invisible signs—the pain and numbness from imperfect nerve regeneration, the scarring on his torso hidden beneath his clothes. In his mind, though, he fails to see why he should. He’s not a born and bred Capitolite, and in a masochistic sort of way he wants to live with the reminder.

He still looks the part of a military man, even when not in uniform. He wears his wheat-colored hair clipped short, keeps his outfits subdued, unconsciously maintains straight posture, and in spite of being a few years removed from the troops still has a muscularity to his solid frame. He doesn’t have the physical stamina he used to, not with the limitations of a reconstructed lung, but he doesn’t let his weakness show. There’s a disciplined quality to him, a to-the-point pragmatism evident in the neatness of his habits and the demands he makes as a boss. He’s not the type to be taken in by glitz and glamor, too practical to be deceived by show, and the few times that he has indulged in the hedonism of Capitol culture grate on his memory. He’s a man of strong values, a man who likes to see functionality and results, who doesn’t trust and doesn’t expect to be trusted.

While this description may suggest that he’s outwardly cold, in truth he has a very snarky sense of humor, a strange ease borne of suffering that permeates through most of his conversations. He broaches heavy topics with sarcastic irreverence as a matter of course, to the point of sometimes making him seem offensive. In truth it’s a means for him to distance himself from things he finds difficult to deal with, from people and places and tough choices. He’s learned the danger of strong attachments, and prefers to temper his relationships with smirks and wisecracks, processing whatever tragedies he encounters through the lens of jest.

He likes to talk and can be fairly amiable, all things considered. He doesn’t often bring up the hard truths of his past, though he’ll joke flippantly about them if the subject is broached, not wanting to make any of his trials out to be a sore spot. He feels that he should be past the emotional toll of what he’s faced, having learned his lessons, and purports himself as being so in spite of pain that remains. Neither does he shirk from discussion of his beliefs—he will quite clearly rationalize any number of horrors for the sake of the state, gory details and all, without beating around the bush. To some extent he doesn’t know how to modulate himself around civilians, being rather out of practice in socializing with them, while the other part of him simply fails to care. The world is as it is, and while there are certain things he doesn’t question as much as he ought to, he’s long ago shed his naivety.


Motivations: Quintus is primarily driven by a desire to help society, which to him is nearly synonymous with controlling society. All the violence he’s seen and suffered has instilled in him a Hobbesian view of the world, convincing him that people are by and large selfish, petty and cruel if left to their own devices. They need strict laws and tight enforcement to stay on the straight and narrow, and when that kind of oversight is absent, chaos is inevitable.

To that end, he takes his work quite seriously and dislikes doing anything halfway. Law, he believes, should serve its purpose in a clear and efficient manner, and a failure to punish wrongs all too often encourages defiance. The concept of honor means little to him—not when his brother’s desire to do the honorable thing resulted in him bleeding to death like a half-eaten rabbit. As far he’s concerned, success is measured by results.

Because of this, he doesn’t always find himself in agreement with the status quo. He appreciates the power of spectacle, having wielded it himself, but the Games seem a bit far removed from the tool of intimidation he perceives them to be. He’s also unsupportive of the self-serving corruption of many Capitol politicians, finding it wasteful and a breeding ground for dissent. Emotionally, there are many things he’s done that don’t sit well with him, regardless of how often he attempts to rationalize his choices. He would like to believe himself a righteous man, aware enough to be a bit above common brutality or unwarranted pity, and he harbors a certain amount of denial in regard to his true feelings.

One of these areas of denial is in regard to his job and the authority it affords him. He doesn’t view himself as particularly ambitious or special, more as a dependable cog in the machine that helps keep society going. In spite of himself, however, he does harbor a certain desire for power, born of the times that he lacked it. As much as he may explain away torturing those rebels, claim that his involvement was so the display would have the greatest impact possible, there is a vengeful anger in him, one that with a bit of prompting might very well broach sadism. He likes not only the prospect of facilitating social control on a wider scale, but also having agency over things and people more immediate to him, as comparatively unimportant as he might tell himself his personal affairs are.

Another area of denial is in regard to his own capacity for compassion. His experiences haven’t quite beaten his basic stirrings of sympathy into submission, and though he sees humanity in general through a cynical lens, he still has a tendency to feel protective over individuals that endear themselves to him or to feel disgusted by violence that he views as entirely needless. Seeing these impulses as a lack of strength, he frequently pretends that they’re nonexistent, or that when he does act on them, he’s doing so for a far more pragmatic reason. As things stand, given the choice between what he feels is right and what seems to him legally and practically right, he’ll always choose the latter.

In all, Quintus is intent on serving his role and staying in his current position, keeping his head down and continuing to delude himself that he is more in line with his ideals than he actually is.


Setting: As mentioned above, Quintus feels rather out of place in Capitol culture. He didn’t grow up in a family of humble means, but the splendor and excess of the Capitol are nevertheless foreign to him and tend to register in his mind as foolish and uneconomical. He made some attempts to integrate upon first moving there, reveling in the freedom of parties and drinking after so many years of structured life as a soldier, but emerged from them ashamed of himself, thinking his behavior no better than his father’s. At the moment, he has a few colleagues he’ll go out with, but most of his time is spent and scheduled around his job at the Training Center.

The game cycles are a bit of a reprieve for him, because they deflect attention away from his area of responsibility. He’ll catch snippets of the games themselves, but doesn’t make an effort to sit down and watch them. He won’t admit to this, but after seeing his brother’s death and being personally attacked with a sharp object, they tend to make him a tad sick.

(In regard to the setting of thegames, I feel it important to note that even though Quintus works in security, his job is mostly of a managerial nature. He has the clearances to watch surveillance feeds in and around the Training Center as he wishes, and can probably hack encrypted network posts, but mostly ends up responding to what problems are relayed to him. This way, I can work with other players on a more case-by-case basis without giving him an unfair advantage. The Arena and its surveillance systems are also entirely outside of his jurisdiction.)


SAMPLES

Somehow you ended up privy to a private post just gushing about how much they just LOVE the new games, how they think they are the best thing since sliced bread. Then the poster (Your friend? Some random person from a party who decided they wanted to send you their private thoughts? A rival trying to pin you into an uncomfortable spot?) namedrops you for your opinion on the new format, versus the quaint, old-fashion style of the game.

Everyone on the broadcast is just waiting for your input.

[He makes a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh, giving himself a second to gather his thoughts. There’s only one acceptable answer here, but presentation is everything, especially when you’ve got some measure of responsibility over all those new Tributes.]

I admit I was a little skeptical of it at first. Changing up an old institution like that, a yearly reminder to any dissenters in the districts who’s in charge—it’s a bold move. Obviously after the debacle of the last games something had to be done. My concern was that it’d send the wrong message. The last thing you want your enemies to think is that they’ve got the ability to force you into making concessions. Once you give a bunch of angry people reason to believe you’re weak, well. [He gestures in the direction of his scar with an index finger.]

All that considered, I think it worked out pretty nicely. I’ve been too damn busy to sit down and watch, so I can’t speak to the entertainment value of the thing, but from what I’ve heard it defused some the local tensions. I wouldn’t say we’re in the clear just yet, but if we keep a strong presence stationed in those problem districts then I figure things should settle down soon.


Prose:
This is someone’s idea of a joke, he’s certain of it.

There’s no reason for him to be here—not when he hasn’t committed any sort of offense, when he’s far more useful to the big shots in his current job than running around an Arena. Even from the perspective of entertainment, there’s nothing to be gained. Who would root for a wounded Peacekeeper in lieu of those healthy, good-looking kids? He wouldn’t even bet on himself, truth be told.

Someone must want to shake him up. Well, good for them. He’s not going to let himself look the part.

He gazes at the selection of weapons, knowing that as much as he favors a pistol, he won’t find any firearms here. His eyes glance over an array of knives, and a memory surfaces—Lurio seizing the attacking arm of another Tribute and knocking their dagger from their hand with his elbow. Flawless technique, he’d thought. Dad must have been proud.

He closes his fist around the blade most familiar to him—a standard combat knife with a rubber handle and serrated edge—and approaches the dummy set up in the center of the room, spreading his legs and shifting into stance. Turning his head, he throws the Gamemakers a wry smile.

“Here’s a little something from basic training.”

He lunges at the dummy, shield hand up, the blade slicing across the figure’s torso and darting into the fabric, straight down through where the stomach would be and then up at an angle beneath where he’d expect the base of the ribs. He mimes defensive maneuvers, slashes deep enough to cut imaginary carotids, and brings his arm around to place the thing in a headlock, gritting his teeth as he rips it from his stand and stomps his foot on its back.

For a fleeting moment, he sees Lurio again, lying dazed and riddled with wounds, Enobaria ducking towards his neck. He brings the knife down—once, twice, three times. Overkill, he knows, but he can’t help himself. As he straightens, leaving the weapon embedded in the dummy’s neck, one of the Gamemakers applauds.

“Looks like I’ve still got some fight in me, huh?” he quips between tight breaths.

With a last glance towards the damage, he raises his arm in salute, then turns on his heel and walks out, trying his best to clear his head.


What is your character scored: Were he scored, he would probably receive a 9. As a Peacekeeper, he underwent combat training and has been in more than a few real-life battles. He’s still in good shape and could handle himself well in a hand-to-hand fight, but because of the injury to his torso and the imperfect repair of his left lung, he gets winded and dizzy if said fight lasts more than a minute or two.

Token: Since he’s not a Tribute he wouldn’t have one, but if he did it’d probably be the medal he received for being wounded in combat. He wears it with his Peacekeeper uniform when he has to make official appearances. It looks something like this.

Additional information: As a character written specifically for this setting, Quintus doesn’t have a canon doppleganger. He’d certainly find it unsettling if some version of himself were tossed into the games, though, and interpret it as someone trying to send him a warning message for some transgression.

Because he’s lived in multiple districts over the past decade and no longer has much of a relationship with his family, he doesn’t feel much of an attachment to his home district. Neither is he terribly attached to the Capitol. He prefers living in places that are urban rather than rural, seeing as he grew up with modern amenities and technology, but he goes where he’s needed and doesn’t harbor any particular sentimentality about where he’s been.