application: BETE NOIRE

[brainsext]

1. Player Information
Name (or internet handle): scissorbite
Current characters in Bete Noire: n/a

2. Character Information
Name: Isaac 'Cambridge' Moore
Livejournal Username: brainsext
Fandom: The Order (original character)
Image:


http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/112058190/39246464
Reserve: here

3. Character Information II
Age/Appearance:

Thirty year old caucasian male. Five foot ten inches with a light build. Deep hazel eyes that will often just be referred to as 'dark'. Brown hair that's prone to fall in to slightly embarassing curls when it gets too long, although rarely does Cambridge allow this to happen.

Cambridge carries himself well and with an natural upright confidence that makes him appear much taller than his comparatively average height. His face is fairly animated and will often betray his emotions (especially negative ones) before he even has to open his mouth.

He prides himself on his appearance and will make a huge amount of effort to look presentable. He's fond of fashion and designer labels and is rarely seen out of his vast collection of sharp jacket and trousers combinations. Cambridge likes long, sleekly cut suits and would rather die than be seen in 'casual' clothes.

History:
Original character - see below.
Personality:
It's not that Cambridge is a particularly mean person - but he certainly seems to have trouble being nice. Outwardly Cambridge is a caustic, impatient man disinclined to suffer fools gladly; all who fall under Cambridge's acerbic eye are immediately judged and very few are ever seen to pass muster. After working so hard to achieve so much in his own life Cambridge cannot help but deem those who haven't achieved as much as him as comparatively useless - or even worse, stupid - and unworthy of both his time and his pleasantries.
Cambridge’s overly-judgemental personality mostly stems from his upbringing - before he knew anything about the Order. As a middle child in a lower-middle class family from Sheffield young Isaac Moore knew that he would have to prove himself to be above and beyond his peers in order to get anywhere in life. With a largely absent father and an overworked mother Isaac was forced to look to his brothers for any real sense of family and quickly found that there was none to be found. An active resentment of both his older brother’s sporting successes and his younger brother’s popularity fuelled a chronic competitiveness and from an early age he pushed himself to continual self-improvement. His naturally sharp and quick-witted mind made him unpopular with his brothers who in turn resented Isaac’s constant one-upmanship and attempts to put them down in order to better himself. Isaac never really understood why his brothers didn’t like him - even now they live estranged lives and Isaac still maintains the delusion that they just never really ‘understood’ him. This was just the first chapter in a life of chronically denying culpability - a theme that runs throughout all aspects of Cambridge’s personality, be it in fouling relationships or elsewhere. The speed with which Isaac lost his Yorkshire accent in favour of a more cultured and refined (or so he thought) Southern accent exemplified how keen he was to distance himself from his ignoble upbringing. It wasn’t so much that he ever wanted to forget or ignore his roots but rather show just how far he had come.
It was through hard work and sheer force of will that the young Isaac Moore managed to send himself to one of the most prestigious universities in the world and it’s this core work ethic that still defines him to this day. With the rest of his family never making it beyond the city limits of the much-resented Sheffield Isaac thought himself incredibly accomplished. He knows he's a vain and proud creature but as far as he's concerned he's got a hell of a lot to be proud about. The fact that he could play just as hard as he worked and still ace all of his exams only served to heighten the smugness - as an Order operative, Cambridge prides himself on being able to drink and socialise (that is, for a given level of being sociable) whilst still being an accomplished and talented agent.
Cambridge’s attitudes towards his colleagues vary. On the one hand, every single operative has, at one time or another, been seen worthy of becoming an agent and that in itself distinguishes all of them from the usual plebis of society. Yet Cambridge still judges his colleagues harshly - if anything, he reasons, he’s justified in judging them by harsher standards because more is to be expected of them. Never mind his hypocrisy, Cambridge is often prone to making scathing remarks in public about the conduct of his fellow operatives - both in regards to the professional and their private lives. Cambridge isn’t afraid of making enemies amongst his fellows; he’s perfectly confident that he can handle any enmity from anyone who challenges him. If anything he’d like to see other people talking back to him because then at least he could respect them more for having the backbone to stand up for themselves.
In extension of this Cambridge often prizes confrontation and provocation above appeasement and being ‘nice’. Nice, to Cambridge, suggests being boring and easily pleased whereas conflict and confrontation can only serve to push one on to better oneself; complacency, in Cambridge’s eyes, is a terrible thing.
Because Cambridge is so proud of having achieved so much there are several things that he really hates in other people: slothfulness, ignorance and dishonesty. All three are things that he strives to continually keep at arm’s length and if he sees it in other people then he will likewise keep his distance from them as well. Cambridge prides himself on being an honest individual but, as his associates will acknowledge, Cambridge has a terrible habit of being too honest. Blunt and often rude, Cambridge will say things exactly as he sees them and won’t skimp on dishing out his opinions at every opportunity. Likewise, when it comes to general ignorance and stupidity in others he won’t hesitate to point it out and make a scene about it - in some deep level of Cambridge’s subconscious it’s a way of pushing that person on to bettering themselves but really it just makes him look like a callous dickhead.

Sexual Preferences/Orientation:
At heart Cambridge is a very judgemental soul and his standards are set impossibly high - if someone is good looking enough, intelligent enough, witty enough and game enough to keep up with him then it’s fairly certain that he will be sexually attracted to them, regardless of sexuality. Furthermore, he’ll be sexually attracted to them whether he likes them or not - there’s a lot to be said for ‘foemance’ when it comes to Cambridge and sex.
Cambridge’s attitude to sex and love are rather special: he’s incredibly fussy about his partners (his high standards are meticulously maintained and he considers chemistry a very important factor) but at the same time he’s an incredibly sexual person with an overactive sex drive. Oxford is his most important sexual partner and Cambridge has been enjoying an ambiguously undefined relationship with him for the past eighteen months. The ‘understanding’ they share is far from monogamous but is the closest thing Cambridge has ever really known to a relationship. Cambridge doesn’t believe in true love and would rather stick needles in his eyes than apply to anyone but he certainly has something for Oxford that he doesn’t have with anyone else. Their friendship is a heated competition that often spills over in to the bedroom but somehow never ties either of them down long enough for them to even consider being mongamous.

Powers:
When Isaac took on the role of Cambridge within the UK Order four years ago he was gifted with the power of technopathy. At its most basic this power allows Cambridge to directly interface with any kind of electronic device only using his brain. If that device then has access to the internet then Cambridge has virtually any kind of access and control over all kinds of electronic systems; within the Order this is mainly used for tracking communications (email, internet banking, coded transmissions, etc) but Cambridge has been known to abuse his power greatly. Outside of the Order he's prone to curiously going through people's personal emails and social networking accounts.
When he first took on the technopath powers Cambridge's range was limited but over the four years that have passed Cambridge has improved to the point where his access to any kind of electronic databases seem to be nearly entirely unlimited - the only person that could possibly keep him from going through your texts and emails is another technopath with greater powers.
Cambridge's weakness is the fact that without some kind of conduit he is unable to practice his powers - that is to say, without a desktop computer, laptop, smartphone or electronic device he is pretty useless. Power outages will also affect him - without an electrical current Cambridge cannot hope to be able to interact with the wider technological planes.

Reason for playing:
Simply put, I'd just like to see Cambridge pitted against a vast array of fandom and OC characters in an environment that is going to actively stimulate the darker sides of his personality. His powers would allow him to keep tabs on all kinds of activity via the city's network and (with a thorough permissions post) I'd like to see him use his technopathy to spy and nose around in other people's businesses. Furthermore, should his colleages Oxford and Dresden be accepted I'd like to investigate how they might try and continue their Order work in Bete Noire. I can see them having to work together to find out more about the city and its inhabitants and I think it'd be interesting to play out their reactions to other people with supernatural abilities. As it is completely impossible in their world for people outside of the Order to have superpowers Cambridge would be incredibly superstitious of, for example, mutants and would try and extract information from them about their conditions and histories by any means possible.
As Bete Noire is the city of sin I'd like to see Cambridge's proud and wrathful tendencies develop even moreso - especially his pride. Cambridge is incredibly proud of his technopathic tendencies but has always been forced to keep them a secret; in the city he would try and maintain the secrecy as long as possible but I can envision him perhaps letting it slip and outting both him and his colleagues, for better or worse.

4. Original Character Supplement
World History:

For the past four hundred years the governments of the world - the parliaments, the senates, the kings, queen, emperors, the fascists and the communists, the proletariats and the bourgeosie - have never really been the ones in control of their countries. Orders - clandestine society of superpowered operatives - have worked tirelessly to ensure the smooth running of hundreds of governments throughout the world. Selecting their operatives according to their own agendas the Orders continue to regulate themselves independently of any governmental involvement whilst maximising their involvement in national affairs at the very topmost political levels.

Each Order assigns its operatives codenames according to various cities within its country and in the UK it's no different: each seat in the Order of Great Britain comes with its own city-related codename and a particular power. The operative assigned the codename St. David's has the role of gifting each new city their superpower and removing it when their time comes to leave. As befits their city, the operative codenamed London is the presiding leader of the Order. With St. David's as their right-hand advisor and the precog Westminster as their left, London has the last word in any decision that the Order makes.

Things have not always run smoothly for the Order. In times past events have escaped their control and come to light to the British public - from the English civil war to Jack the Ripper, there have been times when disagreements within the Order have threatened to destroy them. Orders members have always been political creatures - not only at large and on a national scale but within their own ranks. None of them are strangers to drama - but when you gift some of the brightest men and women of the country inconceivable powers, who could blame them for meddling with each other as much as they meddle with their government?
see the cast page
The world that Cambridge comes from is completely indescernible from any other 'normal' earth except for one crucial difference - the existence of superpowered, supersecret organisations called Orders that control the national governments of the world from behind the scenes. In the past they have been mistakenly called illuminati but agencies generally prefer the term the Order. The very word itself suggests just how operatives like to see the work they do: they move silently amongst the politicians and work tirelessly to bring cohesiveness and discipline to governments around the world who are largely otherwise engaged in bitter in-fighting.
After recruitment each operative is gifted with a certain power that goes with their codename and each Order assigns codenames based on major cities and towns within that country (with the operative with the codename of the capital leading the agency). Each power is carefully assigned to a suitable operative who then goes on to take a position somewhere in the political or judicial infrastructure of the country that best fits their power. As the technopath of the outfit Cambridges have always worked in surveillance capacities and when Isaac took on the job of the current Cambridge it was no different (see character history below).

Character History:
(1981) The young Isaac Moore didn’t have a very happy childhood. It wasn't as if anything spectacularly bad or traumatic happened to him but rather it would always leave a bitter taste in his mouth whenever Cambridge looked back upon it. It was a constant struggle to define himself as something other than ‘just the middle child’ - his brothers had their own individual niche in the family and Isaac was left to drift unhappily between them. His parents had ignoble roots: his father drove long-haul lorries across the continent for haulage firms and his mother slaved away for years in multiple cleaning jobs to provide for her brood of sons in the long, penniless periods while her husband was away.
Striving towards Cambridge University and everything it stood for - intelligence, good breeding, class - was something that defined Isaac’s teenage years. He made a few friends amongst his peers but the friendships didn’t last beyond his acceptance to Cambridge (1999). As soon as he received that proverbial golden ticket he was off like a shot and left both his family and his friends in the dust. Determined to make the absolute most of his time at Cambridge Isaac threw himself in to student life from the very beginning. He purposefully lost his accent in an attempt to fit in more with the classier (and mainly London-based) echelons of the student body at King’s College and applied himself as much to extra-curricular activities and hard drinking as he did to his studies.
The course he had successfully gained entry to was the highly-esteemed and notoriously challenging four-year Masters course in natural sciences. His third year was passed with the equivalent to a high first and he eventually graduated with his Masters with a distinction and a specialisation in metallurgy (2002). During his time at university Isaac had hardly spared a moment's thought for his family back in Sheffield and the prospect of having to return to them post-graduation was physically sickening. Luckily Isaac procured a graduate placement with a certain internationally-reknown British arms manufacturer - a move that not only proved fortuitous for his short term happiness but would later bring him to the attention of the Order and thus secure his future career.
After having only worked as a resident consultant with the arms manufacturer for less than a year Isaac was approached by Jemima Dunstan on behalf of the Order. Dunstan would later reveal herself to be Canterbury, an Order operative and force field generator especially selected to approach Isaac about joining their ranks. After a month of interviews and rigorous mental tests Isaac was inducted in to the Order to replace the previous Cambridge and was gifted with the extraordinary power of technopathy. After devoting his life to studying science - both theoretical and practical - the realisation that there was such a thing as superpowers was a stunning revelation, but a revelation that Isaac took in his stride. He took to his technopathy like a duck to water and threw himself in to experimenting with his powers. Soon it became an extension of his natural curiosity - even to this day he uses his powers freely and relies on them for a whole host of day-to-day activities as well as the important communication spy work that’s required of him as an Order operative.
But most importantly, when Isaac Moore became Cambridge he knew he had found the real family that he felt he had deserved all along.
The heady world of working with the Order was an exciting - and often explosive - cocktail of spying on and meddling in the affairs of some of the affluent and influential men and women that ran British politics. In his role as Cambridge he was expected to deliver information on the thoughts and movements of the arms industry he was so deeply bedded in to. When his time in his placement ran out Cambridge's extensive knowledge of the arms trade made him an ideal candidate to take on an advisory position in the British government's Ministry of Defence. With a combination of his scientific know-how and Oxford's (the Order telepath) help Cambridge aced the interviews and became a civil servant on the UK Defense Council (2007).
Being a high-profile advisor to the British government and a member of the secret Illuminati that rules the country did nothing to relieve Cambridge’s already swollen ego. As far as he was concerned he had truly made it in life - the unfortunate thing was that he obviously couldn’t actually tell anyone about the latter. But Cambridge has maintained both positions with admirable ease whilst also enjoying an active social life.
During his early years with the Order Cambridge formed a close friendship with Durham. Durham was the operative gifted with the power of mnemokinesis (memory manipulation) and charged with the solemn duty of wiping the memories of all operatives as they retire their powers and positions within the Order. Their friendship continued for a year before Cambridge began to drift towards a closer friendship with the newest Oxford operative. Durham had as much of a lax attitude towards the liberal use of his powers as Cambridge and, motivated by jealousy and a dislike for Oxford, Durham didn't hesitate to manipulate Oxford and Cambridge's minds and wipe clean the memories of their first meeting and sexual encounter. Durham had grievously underestimated Oxford's skill even as a newly ordained telepath and was eventually found out. Whilst Oxford has taken to passionately despising Durham for his meddlesome jealousy Cambridge hates him a little less so; there's a little bit of Cambridge that can't help but be morbidly amused by the petty lengths that his old friend had gone to in trying to dissolve his friendship with Oxford. Unfortunately for Durham it was just one of the many things over the years that would cement Oxford and Cambridge's friendship.

5. Samples
First-Person:
dear_mun: thoughts on being sent to a rather exciting-sounding 'city of sin'.
Third-Person:
Cambridge was no stranger to cities. He’d always rather liked them. Despite an acerbic personality that suggested otherwise Cambridge was actually a very social creature: he liked to be surrounded by other people if only because the vast majority of them would remind him of just how truly excellent he was. But yes, this city was different, he would certainly admit that. He didn’t recognise the architecture or the signs... and the people, he thought to himself, had a distinctly un-English attitude: altogether a bit more rough around the edges and confrontational than the more refined breed of humanity that he considered himself a proud part of.
Any and all such nationalistic musings were rudely interrupted by a horrible little nagging feeling in the back of Cambridge’s conscience. It was an insistent tickling that told him something - something terribly important - had suddenly and inexplicably changed. Cambridge recognised that feeling - he knew exactly what it was as soon as it began to itch at his thoughts - and instinctively Cambridge’s hand delved in to his pocket to fish out his smartphone. He frowned and held the phone up to a dim streetlight to better inspect the screen; something very important had changed, it was true.
"...Good Lord."
Cambridge's technopathy was finely tuned enough that it had detected the subtle shift in information and coding that was being processed through the layers and layers of circuitry in his phone as it adapted to its new Network. He shook his head with a look verging on admiration. It took a hell of a program to get past the finely-crafted web of security that Cambridge had crafted around his phone and he couldn’t help but begrudgingly respect whatever - or whoever - it was that had broken in. Through the little phone in his hands he could feel it - the citywide Network. A pulsating web of interlinked devices, seemingly capable of all kinds of different platforms of interaction, somehow run by a source he couldn’t quite make out. It was exciting, certainly. And it was just screaming to be tinkered with.

Third-Person #2:
There were two things that Cambridge was not particularly good at. The first was being a good loser.
Losing the Boat Race was a yearly risk that both Oxford and Cambridge allowed themselves to get altogether too worked up about (not that they would ever admit it, not even to each other). As far as they were concerned the Boat Race wasn’t just about their respective alma maters it was about them - and they took it very personally. The indignity of Cambridge’s loss sat badly with him especially in the face of Oxford’s gratingly smug look of triumph. Anti-climactic as the race had been for him, Cambridge was determined not to allow himself to seen as the weaker half in anything beyond the day’s rowing: the heated kiss that he planted on Oxford’s lips as soon as they were in the confines of the men’s bathroom was dominant and resolute, followed by an insistent shove against the stall door that asserted that Cambridge would not allow himself to be defeated twice on the same day.
It certainly didn’t take a telepath to realise what Cambridge wanted. To wipe the insufferable smirk off his face was often something Cambridge fantasised doing to Oxford, more often than not with an overwhelming and breathless kiss much like he was crushing against Oxford’s lips now. Determined to be on top at least in love Cambridge had a knotted fistful of the older man’s shirt in each hand as he held him pinned against the bolted door of the single stall. Cambridge’s pride, already severely traumatized by the shameful loss of his university’s team against Oxford’s, would not suffer him to be beneath his colleague. Not today, not this afternoon and certainly not here - not with the mockingly jubilant laughter of students drifting from the bar and down to the restrooms. Cambridge’s kiss, ferocious and with a hint of teeth as he slipped his hands under the hem of Oxford’s shirt, was all frustration and tension and a burning desire to try and claw back some of his own dignity in the face of Oxford's own. And if Cambridge could do that by having his friend, moaning and sweating and begging for Cambridge to fuck him in the grottiest pub toilet in the whole of London, then he would do it.
The second thing that Cambridge was bad at was being patient.
Cambridge was utterly determined to have Oxford right there and then and nothing less than that would suffice. He had no patience for purposeless fumbling and blowjobs were completely lacking in the raw skin-on-skin adrenaline-fuelled release of a hard, sweaty fuck. And besides, Cambridge had no desire to coax Oxford in to kneeling on the floor of a disgusting men’s toilet, not in such finely tailored trousers as Oxford was wearing. Cambridge was mean but he wasn’t cruel - he did admire Oxford’s style - and giving Oxford the chance to later land Cambridge with the dry-cleaning bill was like handing him free ammunition. No, Cambridge wanted sex: sex as revenge, sex as relief, sex as a pain-killer against the throbbing heartache of his ignoble loss in the Boat Race. He jammed his hips forcefully against Oxford’s, slanted slightly at the thrust so as to part the other man’s legs and allow the tantalising frisson of erection-on-fabric-on-erection. Cambridge’s furious kissing only stopped for a strained groan of indecent volume as he paused to savour the sensation.
There was no subtlety to where his hands roamed once he had unknotted them from Oxford’s shirt. They delved and raked their way over the fabric of Oxford’s trousers with speed and insistence: there was no attempt at restraint now; Cambridge was done with passive aggressive flirting and merely being suggestive. His fingers deftly ripped Oxford’s belt buckles aside and snapped his belt away with a crack before he began to work Oxford’s trousers down over his hips.