Séb Charbonneau
{"Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?"}
-John Keats
| Full Name |
Sébastien André Charbonneau
| Nickname |
Séb. English and American tongues tend to pronounce it "Sehb," without the accent. It's a simple shortening of his name, and Sébastien prefers it over his full forename for both its brevity and informality - he feels that "Sébastien" makes him sound haughty and stuck up.
| Birth Date |
October 15th, 1989
| Age |
Sébastien has the appearance of a 24 year old male, although being only 26 years old in truth it makes little matter.
| Gender |
Male.
| Sexuality |
Sébastien identifies as what might be called 'heteroflexible'. He is heteroromantic with bisexual tendencies, preferring women as relationship partners, but not averse to the odd one-night fling with one, or two, other males.
| Relationship Status |
Romantically unattached, and he prefers it that way.
| Occupation |
Sébastien has been something of a drifter, and what little work he does tends to take place behind a bar - they're easy jobs to come by. He hasn't stayed in one place long for kind of a while, though, and most of the time he leaves the till a little lighter than he found it. He is currently working at a semi-busy bar in the town.
| Role |
Coven member
| Coven or Pack? |
Coven
| In Depth Appearance |
Séb's hair and eyes are both strikingly dark against his pale skin. Most of the time, the whites of his eyes are shot with dull red. At its longest, his naturally straight hair brushes his jawline, although he tends to keep it reasonably well trimmed and pushed back away from his face. Séb has a generally attractive and symmetrical face, excepting a small scar, on his lower lip, just right of centre. It's hard to see against his pale skin, unless his lips are pursed or he's laughing. He doesn't remember how he got it.
Standing at just about 6' with a medium, bordering on athletic frame, Séb is a forgettably average size and he blends into the background fairly easily. Prefering to avoid attention, he tends to wear plain, though dark, clothing; he's most often found in dark straight jeans with a dark neutral or black T-shirt, underneath a black Harrington or leather bomber jacket. He doesn't wear designer labels. Occasionally this uniform might be accented with a flannel shirt if the weather's cold enough, but more often than not Séb enjoys the cold.
Although Séb's not really a fan of wearing jewellery - he just can't be bothered - he does have two cartilage piercings in his left ear: one silver stud in his tragus and a silver ring on the outer rim of his ear. They tend to act as distinguishing features, often pointed out by strangers in the absence of much else remarkable about Séb's appearance. Séb acquired both of these piercings during the end of a rebellious phase at the age of nineteen and keeps them out of nostalgia.
Standing at just about 6' with a medium, bordering on athletic frame, Séb is a forgettably average size and he blends into the background fairly easily. Prefering to avoid attention, he tends to wear plain, though dark, clothing; he's most often found in dark straight jeans with a dark neutral or black T-shirt, underneath a black Harrington or leather bomber jacket. He doesn't wear designer labels. Occasionally this uniform might be accented with a flannel shirt if the weather's cold enough, but more often than not Séb enjoys the cold.
Although Séb's not really a fan of wearing jewellery - he just can't be bothered - he does have two cartilage piercings in his left ear: one silver stud in his tragus and a silver ring on the outer rim of his ear. They tend to act as distinguishing features, often pointed out by strangers in the absence of much else remarkable about Séb's appearance. Séb acquired both of these piercings during the end of a rebellious phase at the age of nineteen and keeps them out of nostalgia.
| Habits | Oddities | Quirks |
Immortality gave Séb an excuse to take up smoking. He enjoys the cold air, the taste, the kind of people you strike up conversation with smoking outside of bars and clubs. Although others might see it as a dirty habit, Séb sees it as less of an addiction and more something he just really likes doing. He rolls his own cigarettes, and does so compulsively when uneasy. When he doesn't have tobacco to hand, his second nervous habit is lip biting; faced with a decision he doesn't want to make, or a tense situation, he chews his lip while his mind turns a hundred miles an hour. Often, when his his mouth isn't occupied by smoking or feeding, he'll chew gum. In fact, it would be fair to say that Sébastien Charbonneau has some sort of oral fixation. Séb is also a bit of a control freak and doesn't like being in cars driven by other people, when he could be in his own car, driving himself. He would rather offer someone a ride than take one. Being something of a loner, most people don't know this about Séb, but he can't fall asleep without the window open.
| Hobbies |
Séb loves to drive. He loves dark, solitary journeys, with the sparse headlights of other cars lighting up the interior of his own in ghostly monochrome, late night radio buzzing and cigarette smoke whipping from the open driver's side window. Often driving with no particular destination in mind, it's become a comforting, clarifying passtime for him. He also hikes and forages, having slowly built an understanding of both the practical and poisonous flora of Pennsylvania. His keen eyesight allows him to keep up this hobby even though he can't do it in the daylight hours. He often takes advantage of the opportunity during these trips to hunt, usually for animals.. Recent hostilities between werewolf and vampire groups have curbed his enthusiasm for hiking around the town and surrounding areas, however.
| Likes |
- Being alone. It's not that Séb's 'antisocial' - he just sees himself as being on his own journey through life. He tends to be independant in most of his activities.
- Card games. He tends to carry a pack of cards, either in his car or on his person. When he does choose to be social, there's little he prefers more than a game of poker or cheat with good company.
- Smoking.
- Attractive company, be it male, female, or outside of the binary.
- Nature, particularly under a bright, full moon when plants and prey are more easily seen.
- The open highway.
- Night time and the cold.
- Being a vampire. Even though Séb didn't choose this life, and he struggled to come to terms with what he was at first, he embraces vampirism.
| Dislikes |
- Heat and stuffy rooms are suffocating to Séb. Likewise, he doesn't like to be in brightly lit areas, especially when they're filled with people. It makes him feel exposed and vulnerable. This isn't just a 'creature of the night' quirk, but is definitely exacerbated by the vampirism.
- Whatever the opposite of a sweet tooth is, that's what Séb has. He hates soda, ice cream, chocolate, anything sickly-sweet.
- Uninteresting people, suburbanites, yuppies.
- Shopping centres. See above, RE: brightly lit areas filled with people.
- Wearing socks in bed.
- Being in the passenger seat.
- Religion.
| Fears |
Séb's greatest fear is losing his freedom. Just the thought of being under anyone else's control fills him with fear and anger. The ability to make his own choices, even if they're the wrong ones, is more important to him than anything in his life and he is secretly terrified of that ability being stolen from him. One aspect of this is a fear of being recognised by anyone from his past - the reason he has been drifting for the last couple of years, and the reason he prefers to stay unremarkable. He fears attachment and commitment because he believes that it will infringe on his freedom and his ability to disappear at a moment's notice should things go wrong. Séb also fears the open ocean and what waits beneath the surface - as a child he was fascinated by stories of monsters lurking in the deepest reaches, but has internalised one too many as an adult.
| Personality Traits |
- Playful
- Independant, solitary
- Pensive to the point of broodiness
- Quick to anger when he feels out of control. Could sometimes be described as a control freak.
- Fidgety
- Charming and humorous
- Curious, adventurous
- Flighty
- Séb often toes the line between good and bad. Every now and again he likes to indulge his darker side, and he has few moral reservations about killing humans, although he does so extremely sparingly because he knows that making it a habit will get him into trouble, and get him there quickly.
| Personality |
On the surface, Séb is easy to get along with. He doesn't get into arguments with strangers, and is more than happy striking up conversation with new faces. He can even be quite charming at times, especially when he wants something, and even more so now that he is learning to control his powers of manipulation. He is quick to smile and laugh and has a good sense of humour. For these reasons, he makes for a pretty good bartender. He's also reasonably intelligent - not MENSA level, by any means, but not dull either. Had he chosen to, he could have done reasonably well in university. On a deeper level, he doesn't maintain many friendships. Since becoming a vampire he hasn't really had the opportunity, being wary of prolonged human contact and knowing that attachment to humans is a bad idea when you're a vampire, and a young one at that. It is only since he arrived in Bellingstone and came into contact with other vampires that he has been able to relax his guard a little and make some more meaningful connections. At any rate, he prefers to spend his free time alone, on the open road or in the hills, hiking, foraging and hunting.
Séb tends to find that the noise inside his head gets too loud to bare unless he can get away from people now and again and he finds the quiet, cold darkness of night extremely calming and clarifying. He has a tendancy to disappear for a night or two when regular life gets a bit overbearing for him, and especially when he feels out of control. Séb likes to call the shots in his own life. It is extremely important to Séb that he is the master of his own destiny, and this works its way into the smaller things - like the way he prefers to be in the driver's seat, to live in his own place, to stay romantically unattached. When his darker side comes out to play, it's reflected in his delight at manipulating his prey - he likes to play with his food before he eats it, letting his victim know that he is in complete control. And Séb definitely has a darker side. A young vampire, he doesn't see why he shouldn't enjoy this lifestyle, as long as he doesn't lapse for long enough to rouse the suspicion of the locals. He will usually travel out of town when the urge to indulge his more sadistic tendencies rears its head. Blood slaves are OK, but blood justs tastes that much mre savoury to him when it's saturated with fear. Although taking human victims doesn't hurt his conscience too much, he doesn't exactly see himself as an inherently bad or evil creature; just as any animal following its baser instincts.
| Place of Origin |
Nanterre, Paris
| History |
Sébastien Sauveterre was born in Paris in October 1989. He was the oldest of three children, with a younger brother and even younger sister. His parents were happily married and owned their four-bedroom home in Nanterre, and Séb and his siblings wanted for little except the latest extravagent toy or games console, for which they'd have to wait until Christmas or some other special occasion. Séb's comfortable, secular upbringing yielded a beautifully average teenager - his only real acts of rebellion were the two piercings in his left ear and one ill-fated attempt to dye his hair block red, which resulted in a buzz cut for the teen. Never outstandingly popular, Séb wasn't particularly bookish either, and had a decent handful of friends and reasonable grades at the end of high school. Sébs life was by all accounts totally average, until, the May after his 24th birthday, he met Céleste.
Céleste was not average. Her hair fell around her shoulders in silvery blonde ringlets, her eyes were turquoise framed by feathery dark eyelashes, and her skin was caramel that glowed where the light touched it. Looking back, Séb had known that his average life had ended the moment she had asked him what he was drinking, early that Friday evening while he waited for his friends at their regular bar. The rest of that summer seemed to disappear in a bright blur of heady drunken nights, music, and Céleste. As he slipped deeper under her spell, Séb began to lose days, sometimes whole weeks, coming round to find dozens of anxious calls and texts from his friends and parents, worried that something terrible had happened to him. He'd frequently find himself in rooms he didn't recognise, sometimes even in cities he never realised he'd gone to. Séb didn't know what was happening to him, but he didn't care, as long as there was Céleste. He loved her. No, he craved her - what was it? Her presence? Her attention, her touch? In actuality, it was none of those things. Céleste had created Séb's addiction to her with vampire's blood and hypnotism. Of course, having no idea that Céleste was a powerful and recklessly debauched vampire, Séb didn't have a clue; his secular upbringing had driven it into him that there were no such thing as vampires, demons, witches or the devil.
She was there every day. Séb had quickly become Céleste's favourite toy. His need for her, his devotion to her, meant that she could take anything from him she wanted, and she did. But, just a few months later, and as suddenly as she had decided she liked him, she changed her mind. She tired of his needy-puppy act; she had drained him of all will and challenge. Since he bored her, she drained him of his blood as well. Late July of that year, one heady evening, before the sun had even set, Céleste killed him. Having so willingly become her thrall, there was an obvious expectation that he would join her slowly expanding coven, but as his strength returned to him so did his senses. Knowing she would come after for him unless he ran, he fled Europe, using up what little cash he had, and left his whole life behind him. A missing persons report was filed by his distraught parents, but factoring in his recent behaviour, and just how much the Parisien police already had on their plate with the rash of disappearances and mysterious murders that had struck the capital of late, little effort was put in to find him.
He changed his name from Sauveterre to Charbonneau and drifted from small town to small town, working his way from Maine down the west coast to Pennsylvania over the course of a year. Séb usually only stayed in one place long enough to feed on a couple of humans, or livestock when he didn't want to rouse suspicion, and make enough money working behind bars to move on to the next town. He worked and traveled at night and slept in the day in whatever cheap hotel permitted late check-outs. After a few months he managed to get enough money together to buy an '85 Chevrolet Caprice that he found for sale on a local driveway. In late October 2015 he arrived in the town of Bellingstone, Western Pennsylvania. When Séb realised that he wasn't the only vampire in town, he hastily presented himself to the coven; though the time he'd spent alone had fostered an independant streak in him, he still craved familiarity and acceptance. Being a young vampire he feared human companionship, knowing how thin his will could be and the damage he would inevitably cause. They began to teach him how to control his urges, how to use the abilities given to him by his vampirism, how he could begin to live an almost-normal life even as a vampire. Although he remains quite a solitary person, often on the periphery of the coven rather than at its heart, he is beginning to view the coven as his family and feels that he has a duty to them for accepting him and teaching him. He was not responsible for the disappearances that occurred in 2016.
| Extra |
Personal Song: Prince, by Deftones
Séb's '85 Chevrolet Caprice:
Sébastien Charbonneau
{"Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?"}
⚜ Acquaintances || ☯ Neutral || ☮ Friends || ♫ Best Friends || ♥ Love Interest || ⚤ Boyfriend/Girlfriend || ☠ Enemies
| Caspar Van Slyke | {⚜ / ☠}
"Why is it that every time I come across that man he's got his eye on me? Somehow I doubt it's because he thinks I'm pretty. That cross...but maybe I'm reading too deeply into it. Just...I wish he would stop watching me. I might be being paranoid, but he makes me itch, and I don't like him."
Séb does not like to be noticed, whether he's actively avoiding the attention of others or not, and the few times he and Caspar have been in the same room, Séb has sensed the hunter's gaze on him. They've even locked eyes once or twice. Although he's not quick to suspect that Caspar is a hunter, he's happy to avoid him.
| Raini Yilmaz | {⚜}
"Oh, her. Yeah, she's good looking, good hair. Not from around here, I think. Pretty unremarkable style-wise, though, at first I wouldn't have paid her any attention. But.. the blood I smell on her doesn't belong to her. I guess she works at the hospital or something, but there's more to her than that. Some of the others don't seem to like her much, and I think I can guess why..."
Séb and Raini have crossed paths one or two times, and although they've never exchanged words, Séb knows who she is, even if he doesn't know the full story. He's heard her name mentioned within the coven, and doesn't really know what to make of her, but he feels an instinctive wariness towards her. He senses a hardness to her that he recognises in himself, but by all accounts there's a soft-hearted side to her too. Nonetheless, he wouldn't lose any sleep if they never crossed paths again.
| Rebecca Ackermann | {Potential ☮?}
"Becca? I like this girl. She is crazy. I don't know whether she's nervous, or drinks a lot of coffee, or if that's just who she is, but every time I run into her I'm blown away by her energy. I'm pretty sure I've seen her talking to herself, too."
Séb and Rebecca have spoken a few times. He's pretty sure she's a werewolf, but he likes her anyway. He hopes it won't stop them from being friends, but things are weird since those kids killed that family...hmm. Even if they can't be friends, he looks forward to running into her. He finds her very entertaining and even quite sweet.
| Dan Carver | {☠}
"This guy.. no way, man. You'd think a couple of bartenders would have at least something in common. But no, this guy.. I can feel the hate just rolling off him. Thought it was the gum at first but there's got to be more to it than that. I'm just glad we don't work together; I'll be glad to stay as far away from him as possible."
The first thing Séb noticed about Dan Carver was his size. The second was the cross he wore. Séb is nearly totally certain that Dan is a hunter, and a vampire killer foremost. He's bought a drink at Dan's bar exactly one time. He didn't go back for another. Séb has that kind of dislike for Dan that you only have when you know someone's dangerous - a mix of anger, venom and just a touch of fear. He's not certain that his natural ability would let him best Dan in a fight.
| Father Luca | {☯}
"Surely, this man's a little young to be a Priest? He looks barely a year older than I am. And frankly, I don't get why such a young, good-looking guy would choose that kind of life for himself. Well, he's never stepped on my toes. I doubt he could hurt a fly. But I'm not about to go making friends with him."
Luca's lifestyle does not interest Séb for a moment, except the odd occasion when Séb has wondered exactly what would compel any man to become a Priest. Séb's highly secular upbringing has not made him fond of religion, and the whole vampire thing doesn't exactly help that cause. But Séb doesn't even know the Father's name, having only seen him once or twice, ushering his little flock of sheep into the church. He has no real reason to like or dislike Father Luca.
| Hecate Moreau | {☯ / maybe ♥}
"Hec? To look at her, you'd think she has everything a woman could want. She's beautiful, elegant, charming. She's enchanting. But...what a litte ice princess she can be, sometimes... I haven't made up my mind about her yet, but I'm pretty sure she loves herself enough for the two of us anyway."
Séb is definitely interested in Hecate Moreau. He really does find her enchanting. But he's known enchanting women in the past, and at any rate, he gets the feeling she could be bad news if he got too close, with her sometimes icy and self-centered nature. They have some things in common, and will sometimes lapse into French when they're talking, but there are so many points at which they differ; her pure-blooded lineage, her renown with the locals and her unnatural views towards feeding... It can definitely be said that Séb has conflicting feelings towards Hecate. It hasn't dawned on him that she might not be as into herself as he thinks she is.