K-97
SWRP Writer
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2015
- Messages
- 74
- Reaction score
- 41
Xander Taylwin
FULL NAME: --- Xander Taylwin
AGE: --- 23
SPECIES: --- Human
GENDER: --- Male
EYE COLOR: --- Blue
HAIR COLOR: --- Blond
SKIN COLOR: --- Caucasian
HEIGHT: --- 5' 11" (1.803 m)
WEIGHT: --- 155 lbs (70.5 kg)
MARKINGS: --- None
FORCE SENSITIVE: --- Yes
FACTION: --- Jedi Knights
RANK: --- Padawan
HOMEWORLD: --- Coruscant
"Look, sad as this is to admit, I didn't become a Jedi so I could help others or god forbid follow the Will of the Force. I just wanted a sensible but prestigious job which could get my parents off my back and leave me comfortable when I retire. I expected the height of danger to be the occasional Outer-Rim patrol not the f**king Sith. Do you know what they said when I asked about the Sith back on Courscant? That I had nothing to worry about; that it had been more than a hundred years since the Sith had last been sighted. I didn't ask to be part of a war; heck the only reason I haven't left is because of what my parents would say and the fact I'm crap at pretty much everything else I've done. Oh God why have you put me in this clusterf**k,".
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Psychology
[fancybox2]The image Xander likes to present to the world is one of calculated assurance; someone who has got his life together and seems to know exactly what they’re doing and why they are doing it. But at the core of his being is a single simple fear: that he is and is always destined to be a failure. For the longest time he accepted this as fact without question; acting under the assumption his future would be spent playing Dejarik or buried in a history book while leeching off his family’s money until they grew tired of him and left him out to dry. Even during his Jedi training he was, to his detriment, never quite able to shake this fear and it was only through exposure to Sith Philosophy that he finally begun to confront this fear.To those who know Xander would say he is driven, if veering on obsessive, when it comes to completing his goals. He is all too conscious of his previous failings and ever since leaving the Jedi Order has made all his major life decisions in a frantic attempt to ensure he’d never go down that path again. This is ultimately what led to Xander joining an organization he would in most other circumstances avoid. Even in his short time in the Sith Order he can see that the burgeoning Sith at large do not share his somewh interpretation of their philosophy; as a result he isn’t truly devoted to the Sith Order and their war against the Republic but rather sees them as a means to the apotheosis of his potential. As for the Jedi Order, he bears no ill will towards them however has begun to doubt some of their teachings and as a result of his deep rooted fears feels compelled to discover the truth of them or else live a life of failure.
Outside of work Xander would be considered a reserved, perhaps even isolated, individual. It is not so much that he is an introvert but rather there a few individuals in the Sith Order he has befriended. This is mostly due to the distasteful moral attitudes of the Sith and acolytes he has interacted with; he longs for fellowship out of a desire to make his life among the Sith more bearable and he doesn't wish to remain in an isolation far too reminiscent of his time in the Jedi Order. As a result Xander pays an extraordinary amount of attention to how others view him and how he comes across in an effort to remain constantly aware of his social status; in his interactions he usually tends to take on a friendly but professional attitude and likes to ensure that those he interacts with leave with good impressions of him to a point where he is awfully disappointed when this doesn't occur. Many would say this is an unhealthy behaviour but from Xander's point of view it is a way to help allay his internal fears and to remind himself through external means he is capable of success.
Naturally like many individuals who exhibit this behaviour, the easiest way to antagonise Xander is to in someway remind him of his failures and fears whether it is intentional or unintentional. His reaction will depend on the offending individual in question and the nature of the offence; usually his first response is to try to withdraw from or in someway tactfully end the situation but if that is not possible then he'll most likely internalise the anger resulting in passive-aggressiveness or self loathing. It is only in the most extreme situations that he'll actually externalise his anger and take outright aggressive action.
In summary, Xander is a young perfectionist with a deeply rooted inferiority complex. He strives towards an Ubermensch-like ideal but is unable to satisfy himself with what he has already achieved or move past the shadow of his previous failings. He has already given up everything he has ever known in order to seize upon an unlikely opportunity to fulfill his ambitions but the open question, that even Xander cannot answer, is whether he is capable of doing what is necessary to achieve his ambitions? And perhaps more importantly, should he?
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Biography
[fancybox2] Draft Notes: · Born to a reasonably successful Historian and Librarian. Part of a large family but an only son to his parents. Has always enjoyed reading about history due to his father.
· Black sheep of the family; apart from himself everyone is reasonably successful or talented. He is relegated to the sidelines.
· N.B. Add some mundane examples of failures to illustrate above (First crush etc)
· As his lack of talents became more apparent; his parents became more desperate to find something he was good at. In particular slowly his father’s tolerance and encouragement was replaced by disappointment and to some degree resentment (his extended family were similarly pressuring his parents; his mother defended him but his father began to buckle under the pressure to raise a “successful” son).
· Eventually (maybe around 10) they discover his Force Sensitivity and he is sent to a Jedi Temple; he was somewhat pressured into to it but upon arriving was hopeful his family would finally begin to treat him better and see the value it has. The day he left was the happiest he’d seen his father in ages. Mention daydreaming about a potential future as a Jedi Knight.
· However to his dismay he found dissatisfied; it is true that he was doing better at the Jedi Temple but he still was not truly succeeding. In particular he was somewhat isolated from the other Jedi Padawans and struggled to master even the most basic of skills which led to most of his free time being spent in the Jedi Archives reading; it reminded him of his life back home.
· N.B. He lied to his parents about his lack of progress in order to keep hs family happy.
· As the years past (let’s say around 8 or so as typical) it became more apparent that he wasn’t catching up to his peers and he became more and more resigned to his constant failure. This all culminated as it came closer to the time of his initiate trials, one of his teachers suggested that perhaps he should forgoes the rest of his Jedi Training and should simply join one of the civilian organizations under the preview of the order. His will finally sapped (N.B. in the letter he may blame the Jedi teachings on detachment/no emotion) he simply accepted and began preparations to leave the Jedi.
· During this time he ended up assisting a Jedi Archeologist (most likely befriended in the Jedi Archives; perhaps in some effort to show that life in a civilian organization isn’t so bad) at the Temple; they (being a large expedition) were exploring the ruins of an ancient force user. It was during this that he came across a strange but beautiful Datacron (it is pyramidal; unlike any other holocron/datacron he’d ever seen). For whatever reason he decided to keep it (perhaps he made excuses or justified it in his own mind, or maybe he was curious).
· Upon opening the Datacron; he quickly realized it was a Sith’s writings on the Sith Order’s Philosophies and History. While he was somewhat aware of the Sith Order from wider reading, he had never read anything from the Sith perspective.
· Initially he was going to turn it over to the Jedi Order without even reading further but on further reflection he decided to keep it. Part of it was again curiosity at what a Sith thought of the previous war as well as how the Sith presented their own philosophy. He also highly doubted his viewpoint would change particularly much; he was well aware of the atrocities committed by the Sith Order and figured there was little they could say to justify themselves. Finally he was taught to always consider other point of views and so he employed the Principle of
Clarity.
· However to his surprise he found himself enamored by Sith Philosophy; in particular the concept of conflict and struggle promoting growth and preventing stagnation and the acceptance of passion/emotion in order to drive oneself towards growth.
· It led him to wonder about whether the Jedi teachings had been the reason for his failures with the Force and he felt somewhat betrayed about how they had almost led him to his ruin. So he decided against all advice to participate in the initiate trials in order to prove to himself that he could succeed.
· Embracing his passion, he trained with a new found zeal and against all expectations manages to pass and became a padawan. While he was pleased, it troubled him that it had required embracing his emotions rather than typical jedi methods. He wondered if he could ever be the padawan he was expected to be or if he even deserved the rank .
· But most worryingly the fact his success lay in Sith teachings; while he hadn’t exactly used the Dark Side, he had drawn heavily on his passion in order to push himself through the Trials. It had been drilled into his head for years that embrace one’s emotions would push one closer to the dark side; that by embracing one’s emotions you became more likely to twist the Force to your will rather than follow its will. That to use the dark side is to corrupt one’s body, mind and spirit until all that’s was left was madness.
· He was at an impasse; He wanted to be the ideal padawan and stay on the Jedi Path and yet the idea that some or maybe even all the Jedi teachings could be wrong was hard to shake. An d more importantly if they were wrong then he could be unintentionally holding himself back. He had to find out for himself.
· So a few days after he passed his intiate trails he left in search of answers. He began moving through more “illict” circles passing between secret Sith cults still worshiping them after their defeat almost a century ago. The vast majority of their teachings and traditions seemed based on myths and misinformation led mostly by charlatans who intended to exploit their flocks and the occasional charismatic but naïve fool.
· N.B. The Datacron was how he found it so easy to move between the Sith Cults. He also recorded his experiences among them as it intruiged him and allowed him to reflect on the ways one could look at Sith Philosophy.
· His travels took him into the Mid Rim, where the Sith Cults seemed to be more sincere and accurate in their belief but to his disappointment he still hadn’t learnt anything which could allay his dilemma. It was here that he began hearing whisperings of the reformations of the Sith Order.
· His journey had been interesting but ultimately he hadn’t learned anything important from the Sith Cults. If he wanted his questions answered, he knew that he would need to find this new Sith Order. The little Sith teachings he had learned had done him more good than years of training but he was wary; the Jedi must have had reasons for their teachings and the Sith Order had commited countless atrocities. But he saw potential in their philosophy, or at least his interpretation of it. He wanted to find out more, to find out if the Sith teachings were superior to the Jedi Teachings.
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Other Information
FORCE POWERS: ---
GEAR: ---
PASTIMES: ---
ROLEPLAYS: -- N/A
I like big cats and i can not lie claw drapes, yet plan steps for world domination scamper so poop in litter box, scratch the walls my left donut is missing, as is my right sleep on dog bed, force dog to sleep on floor. Missing until dinner time. Swat at dog meow all night having their mate disturbing sleeping humans but chew iPad power cord if it fits, i sits scratch the furniture for the dog smells bad jump off balcony, onto stranger's head.
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