ZABINI, cynric soren






the playwright
a little about you

alias; Sara
age; Nineteen
gender; Female
roleplay experience; Eight years
availability; As much of my life as I can spare.
other characters; Sirius Black, Charity Burbage, Raoul Vivero, and Juliet Selwyn.

casting call
the basics

full name;

Cynric Soren Zabini

nicknames;

“They call me Cyn. Cyn by name…sin by game.”

age;

“Did someone forget to check whether or not I was legal? Tsk, tsk. But don’t let that stop you, I won’t tell, that would ruin all the fun. Promise.” Sixteen.

birthdate;

“April Fool’s Day. Makes for one hell of a birthday celebration, if you catch my drift.” April 1, 1961.

house and year;

“Really now, could I be anything but a sinful serpent?” Sixth Year Slytherin.

alliance;

“The Dark Lord’s got the right idea and all that, but really. The only Death Eater here is the one below the belt.” Undecided/Supporter to the Death Eaters.

blood status;

“You don’t get this kind of class growing up with heathens.” Pureblood.

sexuality;

“What kind of question is this? Of course I know my duties to Daddy dearest. I’ll marry some vapid little thing who’s been bred not to have a thought in her head, like any proper pureblood woman, I’ll shag her long enough to produce an heir, then leave our bed cold in search of better prospects. That’s the way society works. As for what I am, well, what’s a little depravity between friends?” Omnisexual, with sadomasochistic tendencies.

animal familiars;

A black cat that has been dubbed Lucifer.

canon or original;

Canon

anything else?;

“Don’t you dare say I have uncanny taste in fashion. When you’ve taken as many clothes off people as I have, you learn.”

the costume department
the physical appearance

playby;

Wendell Lissimore

hair;

When allowed to grow out past close-cropped way Cyn keeps it cut, his hair is generally a wild mess. It grows in naturally tight, black curls, and is best kept short to avoid crazy-person frizz.

eyes;

A warm brown, his eyes pick up shades of gold and occasionally green in the right lighting. They’re quite expressive, and framed by eyelashes that are exceptionally long, for a boy. Most of the time, however, those eyes roam, and it’s debatable if that lustful look ever fades.

height/weight;

Six foot one, about a hundred and fifty pounds.

build;

There is absolutely no denying that Cyn is a powerfully built young man, one who keeps himself in excellent shape, his body well-defined and muscular. His height and strong shoulders make him rather formidable, though he still moves with a slink, movements serpentine rather than harsh. He bears something of a resemblance to a cat in this way, motions languid and somewhat lazy, at least until he feels the need to snap into action.

anything else?;

Cyn has a habit of nearly always looking like he’s just fallen out of someone’s bed, and while those eyes roam easily, he is more distinguished by what happens when he stops being such a sanguine person. When nervous or upset, he toys with knives, having one in particular that he sharpens rather obsessively in such instances, a silver dagger that belonged to his mother. He also shakes when angry, usually a subtle tremor, but shake him to his core enough and the spasms will be uncontrollable, largely in his arms. The shaking is a side effect of his childhood, sadly, from one application too many of the Cruciatus Curse.

the role
the personality

likes;

• Challenges, he has yet to back down from one
• Having power over others
• Manipulation, it’s such a lovely pastime
• Pain, it’s both pleasurable and comforting
• Sharp objects, particularly knives
• The sight, scent, and taste of blood
• Shades of the color blue
• Expensive gifts
• Winter, his favorite season
• Sex…well, he is male, isn’t he?
• Conquests, take that however you like
• Himself
• Attention, both good and bad
• The thrill of charming others
• A well-planned lie
• His parents, as far as you know

dislikes;

• There’s the obligatory ones, of course:
• Mudbloods
• Gryffindors
• Hufflepuffs
• Blood traitors
• Half-breeds
• Degenerates
• Anyone else the Dark Lord chooses to hate

• And also the actual ones:
• Being told no
• Having to be disciplined
• Having his authority undermined
• Those who don’t respond to his charm
• Anything he manages to fail at
• Being alone
• Having no release for his high libido
• Fighting with wands, he just…despises the thought
• Those without the spine to do their own fighting
• Pacifism, such a silly notion
• Those who harm their own family
• The notion that he of all people has a heart
• His father Of course he loves his family, don’t be silly.

strengths;

• Strategy
• Intelligence
• Deception
• Maintaining a façade
• Ambitious
• Detached
• Calm
• Compartmentalized
• Sardonic
• Charismatic
• Caring, deep down
• Selfless, very deep down

weaknesses;

• Emotionally deadened
• Cowardly, to a degree
• Deeply masochistic
• Sadistic
• Violent, when properly provoked
• Paranoid on occasion
• Egotistical
• Highly vain
• Distant
• Vengeful
• Childish
• Hypocritical
• Self-destructive
• Has a bit of a martyr complex
• Is often done in by his inability to change

fears;

• Daddy dearest
• What the future might hold
• Being forced to take the Mark
• Drinking himself to death
• That he might be unable to love
• His own capacity for violence
• Dying alone

dreams;

• Killing his father
• Avenging his mother
• Escaping loyalty to the Dark Lord
• Never being forced to use an Unforgiveable
• Finding redemption, somehow
• Dying nobly
• Being able to love, at least once

patronus;

A maned wolf. A predator who is truly a coward, avoiding confrontation, and yet goes unchallenged in its natural territory, the maned wolf fits Cyn’s natural cowardice perfectly. It appears to be a wolf and a fox at once, a powerful hunter and the very image of cleverness, yet is really neither. It bears a mane, vaguely reminiscent of a lion, which serves to make it seem more fearsome than it is. It is a solitary creature, interacting only when it must. Only when frightened or threatened will it attack, but then, it shows a ferocity that’s nothing so much as like Cyn when truly angered. He’s slow-burning, but when you crack him, it is a good idea to run.

boggart;

Cyn’s worst memory is of his mother’s death, and consequently, his boggart is being forced to relive it. The sight of his mother falling, begging softly, trying desperately to fight the spell forcing the knife to her throat, before being forced to kill herself in a truly gruesome fashion, is one that he would really rather not relive. If faced with a boggart playing this scene out in front of him for long enough, his father then picks up the fallen knife and advances on him with it, wand out, waiting to kill him in the same way.

dementor;

As stated before, Cyn’s worst memory is his mother’s death, though the aftermath of it is probably the one that comes in second. After seeing her die, he ran back into his room, but come morning he found his father trying to get the blood out of the carpet, being such a callous man that Cyn couldn’t help but snap. He dared to suggest that maybe the blood wouldn’t come out because it wasn’t meant to, that their family was meant to be tainted by it, and received a slash across his face from his father’s wand in retaliation, followed by a short burst of the Cruciatus. Cyn was left shaking and bleeding on the staircase while his father simply cut the bloodied carpet out entirely and resolved that he’d been meaning to redecorate anyway, then left his son there to the care of concerned house-elves.

amortentia;

Crushed damp grass, black pepper, blood, a warm scent that might be sunlight, and a perfume he has yet to identify.

personality description;

Cocky, egotistical, charming, and manipulative, Cyn is known to others as nothing more than a cad and a consummate libertine, a young man who takes great pride in how utterly shameless he truly is. Always bearing a smirk on his features and a lustful glint in his eyes, he’s certainly more interested in how he spends his nights than in matters of politics or violence. He drifts in and out of just about every group of people, borne by the notion that, while he may be a singularly debauched human being, he is also mostly harmless, and therefore, makes himself into something of a social butterfly. Everyone knows what he’s like, what impulses drive those roving eyes and that predatory smile, and yet somehow, he manages to make being at the mercy of his own vices seem almost fashionable. Well-spoken, calm at all times, and always looking for the next conquest, it is assumed by most that he doesn’t have depth you could wade to your ankles in, and so he continues to float by, under the radar and into the beds of so many.

The truth is, Cyn is an exceptionally gifted actor. On some level, he enjoys wearing that calm expression, manipulating others from behind the mask, and can be a wonderfully cruel human being when in pursuit of another heart, another virtue to destroy. It’s difficult to not love having that kind of power over others, and so long as he has his reserve and his wits about him, he can conceal himself completely. He finds maintaining control in relationships, and certainly in seduction, to be a way to reclaim his hold on life, and so is always looking for a way to manipulate, to own some small part of those around him. He’s also far more strong-willed than others might guess, and while he drifts around the major players rather than joining them, he bows to no one. It’s best to not try and force Cyn to recognize an authority that is not his own, or to try and force him into anything, because his easy charm and languid smiles can turn in an instant to a viciously sharpened tongue and the ability to withstand just about anything that gets thrown at him.

What Cyn is, really, is resilient, and his ability to hold the mask in place, to retreat from his emotions until the notion of having real feelings is only a distant memory, is virtually unmatched. He finds emotions to be deeply annoying and utterly pointless. The most anyone is likely to get out of him is a vague affection or some sense of mutual respect in a friendship, or the occasional acknowledgement that the lust he holds for someone is stronger with them than with others. He is rather deadened, emotionally, a holdover from his lovely childhood, where he refused to give his father the satisfaction of having a hold over him. In young adulthood, this has translated into Cyn being a rather cold, distant human being, one who wears his glittering veneer of charm and quick wit as a protective barrier as much as a way to control those around him. If he feels nothing, the theory is, then he will have no weak points, and no one will have the ability to hurt him. Without weaknesses, then he will certainly have the strength to one day overthrow his father.

The cracks in this barrier come in the form of Cyn’s only weak points: his parents. His love for his deceased mother matches only his hatred for his father and his cruelty, and using them against him is the surest way to force him past the masks. Having witnessed his mother’s demise, he despises all those who suggest she was weak, and as the only person he will ever acknowledge having loved, she holds a unique place in his otherwise blackened heart. His father, as his mother’s killer, and the person who tortured him relentlessly throughout childhood until he gained a love of pain and the ability to detach simply to cope, is the one person he hates most. The other way to get a rise out of him, unfortunately, is to tell Cyn to mind his place, something that Uther has been saying to him for years. Remember that you’re only a weakling, only the son of a woman without the strength to keep herself alive, remember that your ultimate place is as one of the Dark Lord’s lackeys, if he even has the strength to be a Death Eater. Tell Cyn to remember his place, and you may well get a knife to your throat in retaliation.

Look past the mask entirely, and you will find yourself facing a deeply bitter, cynical, damaged human being. Cyn has been warped by life with his father, the most notable side effect being his sadomasochistic streak, and has come to associate pain and misery with order in his life. He hates everything about pureblood society, believing that they are bred to never feel, to have no depth at all, to remain pliant and blank and featureless, but he does nothing to change his own conformism, since after all, what choice does he have? The only way he has to rebel against such things is to remain a slave to his own passions, to manipulate and seduce as many people as possible into his bed, and so he does so, repeatedly. He hates his father, who was a libertine before him, and so ultimately, it comes around to him hating himself. He defines his reality by misery and pain, by giving and receiving it, and his greatest fear is that this trait will cause him to turn into his father, to follow in his footsteps and ultimately be without humanity entirely.

Deep down, Cyn is nothing so much as insecure and frightened, though of course he would never admit it. He hides from emotions because he has no idea what to do with them, no clue of what happens when things actually start going right. His entire life, he has been balancing on the edge of an abyss, one that would take him down and make him into a violent man, a Death Eater, or just render him helpless to his drinking and his libido, until finally his vices managed to kill him. He has been skirting around the knowledge that he’ll meet his own death if he continues on this path, if he missteps once, falls at the wrong moment. He has been working for years to avoid losing his heart entirely, yet every day that goes by buries it further, sends him in the direction of being a heartless rogue who revels in the pain of others, and feels nothing at all. He fears becoming this, and yet can’t seem to help himself, always propelled further along this road.

When his heart does come to light, it becomes clear why Cyn might have wanted to hide it all these years. Deep down, he is nothing so much as a martyr, willing to do anything, endure any pain that human imagining could devise, perhaps even die, for someone he loves. He is a deeply compassionate human being, one who wants to care for others, who worries too much for others, even those he shouldn’t. He has been raised with the idea of blood purity all his life, but truly, he sees and feels too much. Beneath all the posturing and lying, Cyn is nothing so much as a blood traitor waiting to happen. He despises the very idea of fighting with wands and using the Unforgiveables on another human being, and while he will cover this with the excuse that he just doesn’t want to be arrested while he’s still underage, the truth is he hates the kind of violence that took his mother’s life, and wants to prevent it from happening. He may be a sadist, and a dangerous one at that, but he cares far too much for his own good when he is allowed to, and would probably get himself killed to save those he harbors deep feelings for, regardless of the cost.

Cyn also, unfortunately, does not do well with change, nor does he handle things very well at all. His martyr-esque tendencies, combined with his inability to comprehend being liked or appreciated (given that he’s been living with scorn all his life, the notion that he is a good person just does not compute), tends to lead him to destroy himself rather than inflict this on other people. He has this deep-seated belief that he is as dark and twisted as he would like people to believe, that his violent streak will one day consume him, and that he has to thrust everyone away before he hurts them. He can’t handle stepping outside of his comfort zone, dealing with real emotions, or being allowed to be anything but a whore whose father was a bastard and a killer. Ultimately, he would rather destroy himself than face up to what he is, and may well kill himself with his own flaws if someone doesn’t have the foresight to stop him. For the moment, however, he remains safely locked away from feelings, the mask firmly bolted down. The world can only hope he doesn’t trip up and fall in love now.

on-stage
the background

nationality;

English, distantly Italian, and probably originating from somewhere else before this.

hometown;

London, England

parents;

• Alcyone Lovegood Zabini, mother, deceased at 24
• Uther Zabini, father, 47, Ministry worker and Death Eater

siblings;

• ____ Zabini, fifteen, fifth year Slytherin, younger sister

other family;

• Xenophilius Lovegood, 17, seventh year Ravenclaw, distant cousin
• Evan Rosier, 17, seventh year Slytherin, distant cousin

background history;

Long before his son started down the path to being a libertine, Uther Zabini was reknowned as a seducer of innocents, a dangerous, charming and violent man. He was a notorious rake, allowed into the halls of pureblood society for his charisma rather than for his morals, and was already very quietly pledged to the service of Lord Voldemort by the time he met his future wife, Alycone Lovegood. She was an innocent young girl, barely sixteen, guarded carefully by her relatives while in Uther’s company, but a chaperone or two was hardly enough to bar the likes of him. He won her over in secret, teasing her until, not knowing what she was getting into, she begged him to take her away. Her family got wind of the scheme before they could carry it out and locked her in her room, but Uther simply climbed the walls of the house, broke in through the wards, and stole her out her bedroom window. He stole her virtue, and when society broke out into an uproar, decided to marry her.

At the beginning of their union, it all seemed very romantic. Alycone and Uther exchanged goblin-made rings, bound with magic that held them to their vows of love and fidelity, spelled to alert them if one of them were to be unfaithful. It seemed, at least to Alycone, who was quite the innocent by pureblood standards, that they were going to last forever, and when she bore him a son less than a year into their marriage, it all seemed to be falling into place. She named him Cynric, after an ancient king, and was overjoyed to have given her husband an heir so soon. And then, showing his true colors, Uther turned on her. His violent streak, his temper, and his constant drinking became far more evident, spilling over into their home, and while Cyn was handed off to servants and house-elves as an infant, Alcyone took on the brunt of her husband’s rage. When his sister was born a year later, Uther forsook his wife’s bed entirely, furious that he had been given a daughter rather than a second son.

Growing up, Cyn was reared by his mother, when she could, and rarely saw his father, except on rare occasions when he found himself caught in the middle of one of their arguments and got himself backhanded trying to usher his sister from the room. Alcyone was a kind woman, as pureblood-conformists went, and she genuinely did love her children, a rare thing when most members of society are trained that love is a weakness to be purged from oneself. While she did teach him that Muggles were little more than animals whose blood polluted wizardkind, she also allowed him, for a brief span, to express his emotions. He was a bright, ambitious child, who looked on in dismay as, from the time he could remember, his mother would occasionally drop what she was doing, a pained expression on her face, and plunge her hand into a bowl of some strange liquid, which he would later learn was called Essence of Murtlap. The goblin-made rings which his parents wore burned like fire for one when the other was unfaithful, and so every time Alcyone felt her ring scorch, she knew her husband had strayed. Every time his mother hid a cry of pain, Cyn knew he had another secret to keep, especially from his sister, whom he viewed as someone to be sheltered.

When Cyn was seven years old, his mother finally fought back. He was standing beside his father at one of the pureblood gatherings he was forced to attend (and his sister was mercifully spared from attending), trying to very surreptitiously escape to go talk to a child his age, when suddenly his father let out a soft hiss, clutching his left hand. Cyn realized, wide-eyed, that this time his father’s ring was the one burning, and was unceremoniously dragged from the home of Uther’s acquaintance, his father livid with rage. Uther locked his only son in his room and proceeded to break several expensive vases, kill a house-elf, and pace back and forth across the landing outside Cyn’s room, waiting for his wife to return home. When Alcyone finally walked back into the manor, defiant to the last, a screaming fight broke out between husband and wife, during which, as Cyn watched through the key-hole, Uther turned on her with the Cruciatus Curse and she fought back with fire, severely burning him on either side of his face, leaving permanent scars.

To this day, Cyn still cannot figure out how the lock on his bedroom door came undone, though he suspects it was probably childhood magic. He ran out into the hallway, witnessing the end of his parents’ duel, as Alcyone fought her husband with a wand in one hand and a silver dagger, her family heirloom, in the other. While Cyn watched, wide-eyed, Uther knocked his wife down the stairs, causing her to break multiple bones in the process. She crawled away from him, still fighting, as he advanced, and Cyn watched helplessly as he cast his final spell, the Imperius Curse. Alcyone fought bitterly, at first refusing to give in to her husband’s orders, but his will overpowered hers as the pain from her injuries set in. At last, with a bloodcurdling scream, she turned the dagger on herself, slicing her own throat open to the spine. She died at her husband’s feet while he stood, laughing, over her, and their son watched in traumatized silence.

Without a wife to take his anger out on, Cyn became the object of his father’s wrath. He was unceremoniously crafted into the emotionless, fabricated person he is today by the endless rounds of abuse and torture, learning that the only way he could fight back was to refuse to react. He learned at an early age that if he didn’t give his tormentor the satisfaction of breaking him, he could remain untouched, shutting his feelings down completely in favor of that glittering veneer of charm and good manners that every pureblood child learns. (There was also the added factor of sparing his younger sister the torment of his father’s rage. So long as Cyn was the whipping boy, she was not.) He took up drinking at the age of nine to ease the shaking that his father’s torment induced in him, relying on the muscle relaxant bit by bit until he developed such a tolerance for the stuff that someone twice his size couldn’t drink him under the table. Those who surrounded the Dark Lord often remarked on Uther’s ruthless ability to torment and to kill with what could only be described as a brutal kind of elegance, never dreaming that he practiced the torture curse on his only son, or worked on his technique with “pets” kept locked in the family dungeons.

Given what he underwent, by the time he reached adolescence, Cyn was what can only be described as severely fucked up. He covered over the deep well of bitterness and anger with charisma and well-placed words, but the layer of cruelty remained underneath it. While he hated his father with a burning passion, was willing to blame his cruel streak on something in his blood, the truth was that he had unconsciously absorbed the legacy. He might want to shield his sister, had hidden many of the depravities from her, but he took on the persona of his father like it was poison that had sunk slowly into his very nature. He sought manipulation as the only way to maintain control over his existence, and when he was sorted into Slytherin at the start of his Hogwarts career, the placing couldn’t have been more perfect. He was cunning, willing to lie low for the first four years, an individual who was difficult to catch in a lie, but was always up to just as many untrustworthy, back-stabbing things as his housemates. He drifted on the fringes of those who wanted to fall in with the Dark Lord, establishing himself as a presence but not a power, biding his time.

When puberty hit, it handed Cyn a way to rebel on a silver platter. He unconsciously followed his father’s legacy by becoming quite the libertine, though he went a step further, becoming a notoriously two-faced cad who was known as both shameless and indiscriminate. He embraced his, shall we say, deviant tendencies, sleeping with men and women alike, uncaring about sexuality or level of sobriety, only relative blood status and attractiveness. Becoming the school cad was a bold move, especially for a pureblood, since they are generally expected to remain straight, discreet, and dignified, but Cyn managed to pull it off by simply not giving a damn. A childhood full of pain molded him into a sadomasochist, his drinking made him capable of holding tremendous amounts of liquor, and so long as he wasn’t skipping and holding hands down the hallway with people his friends didn’t approve of, he could keep his standing and his ‘friends’. To be honest, not many people really liked him, so much as he was tolerated, sought after, or despised. He remained aloof, a heartbreaker and a rogue, and yet somewhere in there lay a heart, a streak of decency. It would just take an iron hand to drag it out – or the right set of strange circumstances.

curtain call
just a bit more...

magic words; –Admin Edit–
member title; • • SIN WITH A GRIN
anything else? ….ninjas.
roleplay sample;

credit goes to doriz, your lovely admin! no stealing unless you want to be chased by a stampede of angry cats...and trust me, it's not pretty.

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