- █ █ B A S I C S
█ █ A P P E A R A N C E
█ HAIR ▬ Black
█ EYES ▬ Hazel
█ BUILD ▬ Lean muscle; he looks kind of lanky, despite his considerable muscle mass. His arms look too long for the rest of him. [6"3]
█ TATTOOS ▬ One or two
█ SCARS ▬ One on his face
█ BIRTHMARKS ▬ nah
█ █ P E R S O N A L I T Y
█ THEME SONGS
█ ▬ O1 Blow (Circuit Remix) - Ke$ha
█ ▬ O2 Circus - Britney Spears
█ ▬ O3 Castle - Halsey
█ ▬ O4 I'm So Sorry - Imagine Dragons
█ ▬ O5 Go ******** Yourself - Two Feet
█ ▬ O6 Call me Master - Blood on the Dance Floor (Nightcore)
█ LIKES
█ ▬ His son, Kit. He would do literally anything to keep that child safe and happy. Literally.
█ ▬ Being in positions of power and control, particularly directly over other people.
█ ▬ Chains and Whips excite him.
█ ▬ Teasing.
█ ▬ Also being teased, to an extent.
█ ▬ Being the one calling the shots
█ ▬ Cuddlepiles.
█ ▬ Cute boys (and breaking them in)
█ ▬ A certain amount of sass
█ ▬ Learning; being well-read.
█ DISLIKES
█ ▬ The loss of control. Being ordered, and/or unable to disobey. Being submissive.
█ ▬ Violence; the use of physical force. He uses it when necessary but is just seems so... base.
█ ▬ His roots. A bunch of inbred, uneducated hicks is hardly something to be proud of.
█ ▬ Drama. A certain kind of tension is one thing, but leave the stupid 'he-said-she-said' bs at the trailer park.
█ ▬ Unnecessary questions.
█ PERSONALITY TRAITS
█ ▬ Controlling
█ ▬ Possessive
█ ▬ Domineering
█ ▬ Laid-Back
█ ▬ Casual
█ ▬ Greedy
█ ▬ Protective
█ █ H I S T O R Y
█ BACKGROUND
Bernard was named after his father, Bernard Calloway Jr., and the two couldn't have been more different people. He was raised in a low-income housing unit along with his younger siblings, Phillip and Carolina. As a child, Bernard was always gentle. Too gentle, his father would say. He was the type of child who would hold still for half an hour to try and tempt a bird or butterfly to land on him, and his father always told him it was faggy, and disgraceful. Perhaps because of this disconnect, he never felt particularly strongly for his parents. Like his baby sister, Bernard spent a lot of time away from home, usually running with his cousins, sometimes with Lina to keep her out of trouble. He never spoke much as a child, and occasionally his cousins mistook this for submissiveness and would try and bully him. Bernard was always quick to correct this mistake, putting the more boisterous Calloway cousins in the dirt to assert his position and then lapsing back into his quiet demeanor. His tussles were frequent, but perhaps due to the nature of their upbringing, the other Calloway vampires were endeared by it. His sister, Lina, was no exception. She always seemed happiest when he was punching another vampires face for messing with her. He was scrappy by necessity, not by nature. He never seemed to take any enjoyment out of fighting, not the way the other young vampires did. But what he did enjoy, even as a child, was breaking someone who thought they could tell him what to do. Taking a smug face and twisting it into one of remorse, and submission. But that was noise in the background of his mind, back then. There weren't words for the feelings, nor a need for them. When he wasn't romping around with his cousins, he was walking back and fourth from the public library, always trying to read more, learn more. And he had to do it quietly, outside of home. Because if it wasn't for school then what was he wasting his time for? That's what father would say. for years Bernard bowed his head to his father and his whims and wishes. But when Lina got bigger, big enough to run her mouth off but not big enough to know better, she'd get herself in trouble with him and mom. And when Father hit her, Bernard saw red. Even when he was half his fathers size the young vampire would grapple and twist and punch at the older man. He broke a chair over his back once, shortly before he left home. The moment an uncle offered him a job running product for the Nation he took it and the money offered to move out of his parents home. Lina didn't really ask to come with him. She just sort of assumed she would, packed her bags and followed him out that day. Their parents never said anything, and neither did he. She was only ten at the time, and he was seventeen. Lina spent a lot of time at cousins houses and trailers so that Bern could finish school in between running errands as the newest Blood Nation b***h. Everyone has to start on the bottom. Much as he hated being ordered around, he needed the money to stay independent, away from his father and to keep Lina away from him, too. He'd seen the way the old man looked at her, and he knew if she went back, Bernard would end up wringing the mans neck.
The older he got, the more it seemed that force was the proper way to get anything done. Being quiet was his way, but being forceful was the way of the world. And if you weren't loud, people would push you until you kicked them into the dirt. All Bernard wanted to do was stay home, finish his online college courses, and read. But the Nation demanded ever more and more of his time, and their work was frequently rough. More than once he had to fight off desperate junkies who couldn't pay for their fix, and earned himself a few nasty scars. Even Lina, who was supposed to be on his side, was constantly harping him about being more forceful. She hated his demure nature as much as anyone else, despite how efficiently he protected her from all the evils of the world. Eventually they parted ways when she was old enough, and it worried Bernard sick. Despite how angry he was at her, he did his best to keep someones eyes on her. Like him, she took most of her initial work through Blood Nation, since the organization was practically flooded with their cousins. So, as often as he could, he had his cousins checking in on her, sometimes even spying, when necessary. But they had their own jobs to do, so sometimes Bernard had to do it himself. He became a bit of a stalker, checking in on his sister whenever he was able, always grinding his teeth to find her wrapped around some new (inevitably non-vampire) boy of the week. He found a new avenue opened up to him after some time of careful stalking and gathering information through his cousins; a rather promising career as a private investigator. Through a series of connections, Bern became acquainted with a PI who happened to have an opening for an apprentice (well, 'happened' to need a good connection with the Nation, who liked Bernards efficient work ethic). He studied under the PI for several years, ultimately switching his college major to Criminal Justice. He learned all the tricks of the trade, from lockpicking, what documents to look for, professional level stalking, and more.
When he wasn't working for his PI license part-time, Bernard was still working as muscle for the Nation. He'd moved up from a simple runner and grunt to a guard. He was the one he sent to rough up people who didn't pay, or to pay unwelcome visits to clients who tried to cut them off. If you'd really pissed the Nation off, but not enough to kill you, you were sure to get a bite from Bernard and feel what it's like to have someone else controlling your circulation. It seemed that Blood Nation was a group that rewarded results, and having a small army of loud cousins backing you up didn't hurt, either. His spying experience came in handy for keeping said cousins in line, too. He started digging into his own familys skeleton closets when they started giving him lip, or saying that they had better things to do then keep tabs on his annoying little sister for him. He learned early that everyone, and I mean everyone, had things they needed to keep in the dark. And more often than not, he could dig it up. Soon enough he had the whole of the Calloway vampires brought to heel. They fell in place like dominoes, once he got ahold of the right peoples secrets. With his own network of what he referred to, affectionately, as his redneck vampire army, there were few places beyond his realm of influence. He could place eyes anywhere he needed them, put a person on 24-hour surveillance if he needed to. Soon enough he was spying both within and without the Nation, elevating his own position ever further before leveling out, comfortably, as the head of the Nations 'enforcers.' He started biding his time, moving more slowly and carefully since then. After all, the higher you climb, the longer the fall beneath you gets if you slip.
After obtaining his PI license and finishing up his degree, Bernards next venture was becoming a volunteer firefighter. While, admittedly, it was largely a political move to get him in closer with local law enforcement and emergency responders, it was, in part, for the thrill of it. The older he got the more he found he enjoyed keeping up a physical regimen. Training to become a firefighter did wonders for his physique as well as his mental discipline. It also, of course, got him into the circles of law officers whom he would frequently work closely with in filling out reports and responding to scenes. He's on a first name basis with most of the citys firefighters, and many of the citys cops on the beat. It was around this time that Bernard learned the job also came with a few perks. First and foremost, to him, was that it netted him a lot of.... physical attention. From both genders, really. Bernard had accepted his sexuality fairly early on in his life. He'd hidden the fact that he was gay from his father for as long as he'd lived with him, but as soon as he was established on his own he'd dropped all pretense. He'd been kept too busy to entertain anything serious during his years building himself and his network up from the ground, but having settled into a comfortable position with the Nation, he allowed himself to dabble in these new attentions. He figured things out bit by bit. First; He didn't do well with the typical 'give-and-take' of relationships. It involved a lot of.... emotional depth and commitment that he just wasn't into. Second; he had to be in control. Typical relationship structures didn't work very well for him, so he worked around, dug here and there until he found his niche; being a 'master.' Not to literal slaves, obviously. That was just.... weird, copulating with property. But there were people who wanted to be controlled and collared, tied up and commanded. Those were the people Bernard sought out. Over the years he cycled through different boys every so often. He figured out his type quick enough; small, pretty, lean, effeminate, and young. 'Cute' types with smooth skin and sweet dispositions, of some type or other. It became a major facet of his life. He used his accumulated wealth to support and provide for 'his boys,' often offering total financial support to those who were willing to trade their bodies and souls in exchange. Bernard 'sponsored' several boys so they could make it through college, and let them cut loose once they were finished, moving quickly to fill the gaps they would leave. This became his routine.
So everyone was shocked when, seemingly out of nowhere, Bernard showed up with an infant, claiming it was his son. He had DNA tests to prove the baby was his, but refused to speak of the childs mother, who she was, how they met, or how long he had been seeing her. Like everyone else, there were secrets Bernard wanted kept. He made it very clear that he wouldn't tolerate anyone prying after the situation, and it was quickly dropped. Anyone who pushed the issue was quickly hounded upon by the Calloway Cousins on his behalf. Bernards entire life changed with the arrival of his son, Kit. He reworked every aspect of his life to revolve around the child, seeking out a slave to serve as his nanny and protector whenever he couldn't be present. He relied more on his network and less on doing footwork himself, becoming a puppetmaster from the shadows rather than an agent in the field. He became utterly devoted to the childs wellbeing. He continued his work with the Nation, but began to focus more on training apprentices under him and establishing a legacy of sorts for himself. His sudden refocusing on his family life redirected his attentions on Lina, as well, and in recent years he began to plot ways to secure a stable future for her as well. He was none too pleased when she married that elderly elf, but was relieved when little came from the union other than a few awkward years and a fair enough inheritance. He plotted to have Lina marry another pureblood, and engineer her eventual offspring to serve his son in the Nation in the future.
Vampires needed to think in the long-term, after all. And family is so important.
█ ABILITIES
▬ FEEDING CONNECTION; PUPPETEER
Many vampires have hemokinesis; the ability to control their blood outside of their body. But Bernard has the ability to control other peoples blood via his feeding connection. For up to three hours post feeding on a person, Bernard can manipulate a persons blood (whether inside their body or out) as he pleases. This essentially gives him the ability to (painfully) control a persons motor functions, strangle them with their own blood, make them slap themselves, deny blood to a certain part of their body, or just sap every drop of blood out of them. This ability takes a lot of concentration on Bernards part, so diverting his attention from his victim for even a moment breaks his control. He can regain it, but only during that three hour window.
▬ BLOOD ABILITY; OH GOD IT BURNS
Bernards blood possesses a unique quality to it. Ever seen the movie alien? It's something like that. When Barns blood is splattered over something- or someone- he can cause it to become a sizzling, bubbling, burning acid by whistling. The higher the pitch he whistles, the faster it burns. He can use his blood to burn through ropes and chains, or to sear someones flesh away. However if Bernard is gagged or otherwise unable to whistle, then it's just regular old blood.
▬ REDNECK VAMPIRE ARMY
Bernard has an extensive family of loud, obnoxious pureblooded vampires, the vast majority of whom work for Blood Nation in some form or fashion. Over the years he has rallied the whole lot under his banner through a combination of 'family ties' as well as a complex network of secrets and blackmail all intertwined with one another. He uses these numbers as needed to keep eyes out wherever he needs them. There are enough of them to monitor different parts of the city, or to stalk one or two people 24/7. If Bernard wants to know where you are, what you're doing, and who you're seeing, chances are he can find out.
▬ NINJA s**t
Bernard is a professional private investigator. While he does, technically, operate a public business where anyone could, in theory, hire him, he seldom takes any cases outside of those for Blood Nation, unless he needs a little extra cash flow. But he's a master of hiding in the shadows, stalking, and tracking paper trails of any kind.
▬ BURLY
He's been a volunteer firefighter for years. If you didn't know, a very powerful physical physique is required for that kind of work. As such he has above average physical strength and endurance, bolstered somewhat by his pureblood vampire lineage.
█ EXTRA
- His son is a pureblood vampire named Kit who likes wearing goggles.
- Bernard refuses to talk about Kits mother, who she is, or where she went. It's baffling to everyone, considering that he's been out of the closet since he moved out of his parents' place at seventeen.
-He has been keeping an eye on Carolina secretly for a while now via their cousins in Blood Nation whom she occasionally still contacts for work.
- He wants to set his sister up with another pureblood whom he can trust to take care of her.
- His voice claim is John Rafter Lee as he voiced Meier Link
