Sanford Cunningham

[Sanford Cunningham]

_{i n t r o d u c i n g . . .}

Sanford Alan Cunningham ///

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Full Name~ Sanford Alan Cunningham
Gender~ Male
Age~ 26
Birthdate~ October 18th (Libra)
Location~ Miami, FL
Faction~ The Collective
Celebrity Claim~ Nelson Nieves
Play anyone else?~

Will
List
Later

---

_{m i n d . . .}

what's in my head?

/// SPECIAL ABILITY



Frenzied State


Sanford has the ability to feed upon pain itself. More specifically, when Sanford feels bodily pain, his body will turn the stimulation into enhanced strength, speed, reaction time, all improving proportionally to the amount of pain he feels. In simpler terms, the harder he is knocked down, the harder he comes back, provided he isn't outright killed or incapacitated. The greater the pain he feels, the more exponentially his strength and agility will be enhanced. The ability also includes an unnerving threshold for pain itself that has, through years of 'practice', become something of a masochistic streak.

To a more specific degree, the body is stimulated by pain in such a way that acts as a catalyst and triggers a number of adaptive reactions. Chemicals are released in the brain and body that heighten awareness and focus, and a mixture of adrenaline and bodily control lend great strength and speed to his muscles, setting him in a frenzied state that is something like a 'rush'. The ability itself works something like an adaptive reaction by utilizing several methods to heighten the body, but ultimately, at the root, the ability could be considered an extended control over one's own body that accesses this frenzied state through stimulation.

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/// ABILITY LIMITS



Without pain inflicted upon Sanford, he's an ordinary man. His body may be honed by the sport, but he cannot use his ability without enduring pain first. Once he feels pain, he will become empowered by it, and the more pain he feels, the more powerful he'll become.

Sanford must be able to feel pain in order to be empowered. Abilities that have the potential to numb pain or remove it through healing will disarm Sanford of his increased attributes. For the same reasons, painkillers or other numbing agents will also remove him from his frenzied heightened state.

Although his strength, agility, reaction time, and speed are all increased while stimulated, it takes a great deal of punishment, generally of the life-threatening sort, for Sanford to reach extreme levels of strength or speed. Although it is in these moments that he shines the brightest, it is by walking a fine and dangerous line that endangers his life.

Minor scrapes and pinpricks will not heighten Sanford as they are too minute and insignificant, but actual blows and strikes against him will set him into his frenzied state. Particularly painful wounds caused by cracked or broken bones, lacerations, bludgeoning, etc. may reach levels that would incapacitate an ordinary individual, but instead hype Sanford into a potent machine. Suffering more severe wounds or pain, Sanford may become a blur, moving at cheetah-like speed, and gain the strength to move very heavy equipment or objects, tear through walls, etc.

[/i]

/// PERSONALITY


Sanford is likely one of the most laid-back and indifferent individuals around, to an extent that many wonder if there is simply something loose upstairs. It's not to say he isn't capable of passion or loyalty, but he is generally unphased by, well... most everything. He's not a terribly aggressive person in general, but when antagonized, or riled up by the thrill of a fight, he can be come brutally playful, taking an eerie pleasure in the exchange of blows. As a fighter, it's no secret that the more punishment Sanford takes, the harder he comes back, and it has certainly created a kind of fear among potential opponents. Although very difficult to anger as a person, the kind of playful frenzy he can be whipped up into in a fight is certainly something to respect.

Socially, he's very detached, very casual and nonchalant, and doesn't seem to take anything personally, or succumb to rage or anger. He often comes off as apathetic, which rubs many people the wrong way. Although he's not a very evil person at all, he seems likewise unphased by the kinds of things he has witnessed his benefactors and fellow members of the collective do in order to succeed. Obviously, he's one of the last anyone would suspect of snitching, treachery, or betrayal. His dog-like loyalty to Randall in particular has kept him at the man's side as his bodyguard for a number of years, since his early teenage years in fact.

Randall has more or less been the closest thing to a father Sanford has ever known, and he has broken more bones than he can count in the man's defense. Among the Collective, he is known both as Randall's bodyguard and muscle, as well as the undefeated of the underground fighting ring. He has a passion for fighting, and participates in mixed martial arts matches that are held illegally much to the profit of the collective and other seedy fellows. He's known for being the one to bet on, and in the last few years, has answered fewer and fewer challenges, becoming more of a ringleader to the sport itself. Nonetheless, he does enjoy stepping in the ring from time to time, and will be especially interested in doing so if a fighter catches his eye and intrigues him.

Sanford doesn't spend much time thinking about the future, setting goals or entertaining dreams. He prefers to focus on the present and live for the moment. In his passive mentality, he believes that everything happens for a reason, and it's rare that Sanford will hold a grudge or act out of vengeance, unless of course it's Randall's vengeance... in which case, orders are orders. Essentially, he doesn't believe a serious threat to humanity could ever come to pass, placing so much faith in the balance of things that he believes everything will play out how it should through to the end.
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Likes~

• Fighting; pain
  
• Loves to be challenged; competition
  
• Loves to drive fast. Real fast.
  
• The full moon
  
• Flashy clothes, sneakers, accessories, etc.
  
• Has a thing for aggressive guys
  
• People with lofty dreams and unusual ideals
  
• Being underestimated
  

Dislikes~

• Those who choose to be helpless
  
• Overly serious people; people with no sense of humor
  
• Old people on the road
  
• Solitude, "peace and quiet"
  
• Commitment, obligation, being tied down
  
• People who won't defend themselves; "wimps"
  
• Being confused or misled (one of the few times he'll get angry)
  
• Plans that involve a lot of patience and biding time
  

Strengths~

• Extremely strong-willed
  
• Very difficult to manipulate
  
• Very quick reaction time
  
• Street smart
  
• A clever and convincing actor
  
• Isn't burdened by regrets, remorse, or self-doubts
  
• Highly adaptive; a survivor
  
• Has incredible physical endurance
  

Weaknesses~

• Does little for his own safety
  
• Fairly easy to outsmart
  
• Has little book smarts
  
• Can't keep secrets very well, from friends at least
  
• Lazy and indecisive
  
• Has subtle, but significant attention issues
  
• Lacks creativity, vision, or direction; has no dreams
  
• Terrible with names, and general social etiquette
  

Skills~

• Boxing
  
• Kickboxing
  
• Street racing
  
• Practices some yoga
  
• Pouring drinks (bartending)
  
• Breaking & entering
  
• Acting, impersonation
  
• Good at cooking on a grill
  

Hobbies~

• Presently in charge of the Collective's underground MMA ring
  
• Working on cars (customizing, upgrading)
  
• Holding & participating in public underground matches
  
• Enjoys picking apart badly-made B-rate movies
  

Habits~

• Chews a lot of gum
  
• Cracks his knuckles and neck
  
• Makes seductive gestures when fighting, to taunt the opponent
  
• Talks with his mouth full
  

Flaws~

• Has quite a masochistic streak; attracted to pain
  
• Has a skin allergy to most any metals that aren't gold or silver
  
• Fear of drowning (avoids swimming)
  
• Grinds teeth when sleeping; suffers occasional anxious nightmares
  

---

_{b o d y . . .}

caught in your sights . . .

Age~ 26
Celebrity Claim~ Nelson Nieves
Sexual Preference~ Gay
Ethnicity~ 1/2 Welsh - 1/2 Nigerian
Hair~ Black
Eyes~ Brown

/// APPEARANCE


Sanford is fairly tall at just over six feet, athletic and somewhat muscular. His black hair is kept buzzed very closely and neatly to his scalp, and he has very deep, dark brown eyes. His caramel complexion holds a deep tan easily due to his mixed ethnicity, and various tattoos adorn his upper body. His face seems often distant, distracted or detached, and often unexpressive, but he does have a charming and seductive smile.

As far as attire goes, a generally sporty and urban style contribute to his 'street boxer' appearance. There is a casual mode for simple tanks, hoodies, jeans, and caps, and shades, but there are formal calls of business among the Collective that may sometimes call for him to wear something more formal. He dislikes suits and will grumble endlessly about it when told to wear one, so often enough, he manages to avoid the affair.

---

_{s p i r i t . . .}

this is where i come from . . .

Faction~ The Collective
Birthplace~ Leeds, UK
Mother~ Lara Cunningham
Father~ Owen Cnningham
Siblings~ n/a
Spouse~ n/a
Children~ n/a
Other Family~ n/a

/// HISTORY




Sanford was born to a wealthy couple enjoying the comforts of the successes of his father, Owen Cunningham. While he was born in Leeds, he spent most of his early years in Birmingham.

Owen's approaches to fatherhood were distant and perhaps cowardly. He answered every one of his son's needs by throwing money at it; his precious time was money, and he could never spare it. While this didn't culture a resentment for Owen in Sanford as it would for many children, Sanford did feel a sort of empty apathy toward him for it. There was no bond, no attachment, and it became the primary point of his mother's choice to separate from him and win custody of the boy for herself.

Meanwhile, Lara Cunningham lacked the personal funds, contacts, and resources to stand a chance against Owen on any legal front, and when she lost, she seemed to fade out of Sanford's life immediately, as if beaten and resigned to her defeat.

While Owen hadn't been very personal to Sanford, Lara had tried to be. Unfortunately, she had only been marginally successful. As Sanford's boring childhood marched on, he continued to make consistently mediocre marks in school while occasionally being dragged out to his father's professional events, often dressed up in an expensive suit he'd never wear more than once in his life time, and shown off like a trophy.

There came a day, however, when all of it changed...

SPOILER: Click to show

Around the age of 11, Sanford had become cross with his father over something too trivial to recall in the present time. After an argument between the two, he had been grounded to his room for several hours, and fell asleep out of sheer boredom. Waking up at nearly 1 AM, he snuck out and opted to snoop a bit in his father's office, expecting he would be asleep.

Resolved to steal something or perhaps screw with his father's computer to get back at him, he was soon scared into hiding as his father was muscled into the office by several visitors. It was this day that Sanford witnessed one of the strangest and most frightening occurances he had ever seen.

Among the visitors, a stern, cold older man ordered the others to hold Owen down in the chair as he extended his arm over him, which changed shape, becoming a cluster of prehensile, vine-like appendages that coiled around Owen's head for several minutes.

Sanford recalls the vague, unrevealing vantage point, recalls the words of the man who promised that Owen would 'become his'. He also recalls the unnerving sight of his father struggling, and the horrid gurgling, choking noises...

There came a point when Sanford could bear no more of it and shut his eyes. He came to several hours later, crawled out of the closet before dawn, and found his father gone from the entire house.

When he returned later that evening, Sanford succeeded in convincing himself it had been a dream.

Owen changed drastically. He took on such a renewed interest in spending time with his son that it caused the boy to fear for some sort of imposter. He was soon withdrawn from the expensive private school he'd been placed in (in a weak attempt to improve his grades), and informed that they would be moving to the USA. He boasted to young Sanford that he had severed a number of his highly beneficial business ties, and promised 'happiness' in their 'new life'.

The belief that nothing had happened was soon no more, and in realizing this, he retreated to his room, where he watched his father leave from the window on some trivial errand he would soon be back from. The telephone immediately rang... and rang until Sanford would answer it. When he did, the voice on the other line was that of his mother, warning him: that man was not his father, and that he needed to flee the house immediately for his own safety, and join her down the street.

In a mixture of fear for his father's imposter and the urge to see his mother again, especially in a desparate moment, he quickly did just that, packing a single bag and leaving. After running for several blocks, he was snatched into a car by several men and taken away.

He was barely with the men long enough to learn their names before he got himself into trouble a second time by his snooping. Left to wander in curiosity in one of their drug labs, he caused an accident that pinned him over a crate far heavier than himself. They arrived to help him out just in time to watch him demonstrate uncanny strength in muscling the crate off of himself with a raw brute force that seemed impossible for an eleven-year-old boy.

Although they remained friendly and didn't seem angry with the boy, a sense of urgency to move things along seemed to have taken hold of things and he was soon introduced to a man by the name of Randall, who claimed to know his mother, and assured he'd be safe and cared for in joining him in moving to the US, although not on his father's terms. Wrongly expecting it would lead to being reunited with his mother, he cooperated with the intriguing man who seemed to want to protect him from harm.

Randall also insisted that he had a special gift, and although a misdiagnosis drew out the initial process of teaching him to control it, once they realized that Sanford was powered by pain, he quickly found himself at Randall's side in all affairs. He had more or less become the man's bodyguard. As time passed, his loyalty only grew more and more intense as Randall served as the closest thing to a father he'd ever known; far more of one than Owen had been.

By the age of fifteen, Sanford had killed twice in Randall's defense, and had been greatly desensitized to the harshness of the criminal underworld in Miami, Florida. Eventually, a council formed, known as The Six... and Sanford's loyalty was repaid with a position. He became the third member of The Six, and as time went on, he gradually realized that he had a great deal of power at Randall's side.

By this time in life, he had also taken a great deal of interest in fighting for sport, and had been previously trained by a friend of Randall's in the art of boxing. By seventeen, he took on kickboxing, but his interest and study in that art fell to a lesser extent of his interest and short attention span. As time went on, he began to use his ability to rake in wager money on fights that might as well have been rigged, with opponents easily twice his size. He soon met a man named Isaac, who became another member of the six, and seemed to take an interest in Sanford.

The two quickly explored their mutual interests and formed an interesting bond, and it was with some of Isaac's clever suggestions that Sanford moved on to create a far more structured underground fight club of his own, reigning over the project as it's undefeated champion for several years and milking it for a great deal of money as interest in it spread and intensified among the underground.

In addition to this, Sanford participated in a number of criminal exploits with other members of The Six and their underground club known as 'the Collective'. In the present day, they stand among a great deal of recognition, having become the most powerful organized crime group in several states, dealing in anything and everything made profitable by the clever application of their member's 'gifts'.






_{c r e d e n t i a l s . . .}

what do you bring to the party ?

/// PLAYER INFORMATION

Name or Alias~ Moonflax
CBox Name~ Moonflax, Switchfire
Contact Info~

AllGearsAndTeeth (AIM)
Moonflax (YIM)
[e-mail] (MSN)
[e-mail] (Email)

Age~ 25
Years of RP Experience~ 15-18
How Did You Find Us?

Y'know... I don't really remember. I've got a hell of a hangover, though...

/// SAMPLE RP

With his thumb, Sanford pressed the paper to the palm of his hand, and flattened it. He read over the numbers, despite the creases formed by the paper having been crumpled in the pocket of his jacket for several weeks. He had nearly put it out of mind, but he wasn't sure why...

Today, though, he remembered. He had a phone call to make.

So he waited until dusk, bored for much of the day spent wasted listening to satellite radio and watching a National Geographic special about the sorts of animals that are native to the deepest parts of the ocean...

Somehow, all the strangeness had brought his mind back to this. Picking the phone up from the reciever of the pay phone, he slid two quarters in and dialled the number, careful to make no errors. He hadn't been this nervous about anything in a long while. It began to ring, and he began to hold his breath, and closed his eyes to tune out the world.

As the phone continue to ring slowly and repeatedly, his thoughts drifted to memories, the day he'd left, the phone call from his own mother.

"Right, miss. Could you put me through to the office of Lara, please?" he requested of the secretary taking the call. She complied, placed him on hold, and gave Sanford a moment to look over the number once more. It had been given to him just a few weeks ago, but it had been years since he had last spoken to his mother. She had become the most elusive mystery of his childhood.

Of course, the new life he found as a result of her warning led to an entirely different spectrum of mysteries and oddities. Hostility between his gang and this company? Would she be in danger? Would he?

"Lara Cunningham, what may I assist you with today?" she answered.

There was a pause as Sanford took in a deep breath, "Mum?" he asked, and created a black hole of a silence over the line. "Mum, is that you? It's me, San..." he attempted to stir a response. The silence returned, and the woman seemed to take in a deep breath before finally breaking it, "We can't speak this way. It's not safe. The line... isn't private."

That was her answer. After several years, the line wasn't private. Standing upright and striking the wall inside of the phone booth, Sanford sigh, "Wait, Mum--"

He started to catch her, but she was gone, and a loud beeping interrupted him and made it clear she had gone. The phone call was now being punctuated by an automated message, and biting his lip, Sanford listened, hoping for any kind of a clue.

"For more help, stay on the line for the operator..." the voice explained, "If your call is over, please press zero."

"Fook!" Sanford growled and mashed the key hard with his middle finger, listening for just a moment longer. "Thank you for choosing AuraFiz. Have a great day."

Hanging the phone up with a bit of force, Sanford raised his other hand, took a good look at the number on the paper, and balled it up again, shoving it into the return coin slot. "Finally found the trail o' bread crumbs..." he huffed in annoyance, "What's so damn top secret about a goddamned soda company?" he growled as he backed out of the phone booth and pulled his jacket up over his shoulders and disappeared down into a dark back alley, onto a series of shortcuts that would lead him where he was going.

He stopped in mid-stride as he heard the distinct sound of a ringing telephone, and stopped to look over his shoulder.

Did you read the rules: Baby, there are no rules.