three negative traits: dogmatic, amoral, narcissistic
three positive traits: driven, jovial, charismatic
fc: ben barnes
additional information:
Content Warning: Death and body horror.
The Roths were a showbiz family: Hiram Roth a producer, and his wife Evelyn an actress. Cyrus always assumed he’d be the same. He wanted to be. He had a feeling that he was different than other people, better and special, and longed for the whole world to know it.
His mother knew it. She always treated him like her little star. She dressed him up and brought him to events, she watched him perform little shows in their living room with rapt attention, she clapped and gasped and smothered him with affection at every possible turn. His father was cold, always out on business, but they didn’t care. The two of them had their own little world, where they were both each other’s god and worshipper.
The one time the family reliably came together was for cancellations. It was an event in the Roth household. They would all curl up on the couch with popcorn and watch the latest fool get what was coming to them. Sometimes they knew the cancelled personally. They would always laugh or tsk at the starlet that squandered her good will or the aging actor who let himself slip into obscurity. They knew what they were signing up for, and they were to blame for their fate. That was the morality that Cy grew up with.
There exists somewhere a tape marked ‘C051992-ER42F’. On it, there is a static shot of a blonde woman tied to a vanity chair in a bedroom. We see her from behind, but in the mirror, we see the reflection of her face. It’s covered in deep slices that mimic those of a face lift and a rhinoplasty. There are the beginnings of more on her chest, dipping below where we can see. She is unconscious. Surprised sounds come from outside the room, we hear a door burst open, and a ten year old boy with dark hair runs into frame. Someone behind the camera swears. The boy runs to the woman and wraps his arms around her waist. He lays his head in her lap and wails. The woman doesn’t move. Someone shouts “What are you doing? Get him the fuck out of here!” Two men step into frame and awkwardly grab the boy. He won’t let go. More shouting. They pry his arms off of her and he struggles in their arms, reaching towards her as they carry him out of the room. He screams “Mom! Mommy!” and the sound drifts slowly further away. The room is silent for almost a full minute. Someone exhales deeply and says “Alright. Jesus. Reset.”
When your world shatters, you have two options: accept the ruins and change your worldview, or fit the pieces back together into a jagged, malformed thing that you can pretend is the same. Cyrus Roth took the latter path. He’d thought his mother was a god, but if Prometheus could take her away, if people could watch them do it and cheer, then Prometheus must be god. Cancellation is god. Death is god. His father, his only remaining family, enforced this. She wasn’t special. She’d signed the contract, just like everyone else. She knew what it meant, and it was her fault for breaking it. She’d been the one to sell her soul, they’d only come to collect what was rightfully theirs.
So, you’re a little boy who thinks he’s special, that he must be special, and your new god is death. What do you do? You kill. You make yourself special at killing. You study the great killers of history and the most important cancellations. You idolize the cancellation department and the man who calls the shots and pulls the trigger. You train with guns and knives and dream up gory rube goldberg-ian contraptions. You kill small things. You kill bigger things. You keep killing them until it’s easy, easy for your hands and easy for your heart. You kill your heart. You kill yourself and are re-born in the image of your god.
Naturally, Cy joined the military when he turned eighteen. He had no use for university, all theoretical knowledge and no hands-on experience. Nothing real. Besides, he was above it. How could he sit in classroom with a bunch of children and pretend he was one of them?
He was a natural fit for military life, all discipline and no sentimentality. It irked him to be treated like an inferior, like one of a faceless crowd of thugs, but he understood. He was patient. In the end, he served two tours as an Infantry Assault Marine. He was good at it. It was a job where everyone agreed with him: death is god. They called him Richie Rich, and he called them brothers and sisters, but when he returned to civilian life he never looked for them again. The part of his life was just a stepping stone, and he’d already moved on.
The next six years of his life were spent as a private contractor. He took high-profile, high pay hits around LA mostly, staying close to his ultimate goal. He made money, a lot of it. He cultivated a social media presence, depicting an enviable life of discipline and luxury. He made connections in the business, and when a spot as a cancellation consultant opened up, he slid right in.
From that position, it was easy for him to present himself as the ideal candidate to replace the already cracking head of the department. He was a weak man, unsuited to the job, unworthy of it. By contrast, Cy was experienced and well-educated in death. He was creative. He took joy in it. He was urbane and charming and already had a modest following online. Most importantly, he respected the process like no one else could. It was absolute. Undeniable. It was his god, and to serve it at the highest level would make him into a titan. He would never betray the system or crack under the pressure. The job was his, long before he actually got it.
If death is god, fame and money are demigods. Not quite as absolute as death, but powerful and worthy of worship and emulation in their own rights. You’ll find Cyrus posing with nervous stars on the red carpet or insisting amicably that talk show hosts call him Cy. Some of those who held his position previously would disapprove of such showboating, but Cy sees it more like evangelizing. He gets the attention and praise he so craves, and the cancellations gain a human element. The more people like him, the more the process is normalized and embraced. Win-win.
From his ostentatious home to the women he is seen with, everything about his life is designed to make other people feel inferior. He is better than you, he shouldn’t have to say it out loud.
Some may be surprised to learn that he has never intentionally tipped the scales in either direction. Some assume he’s saved a colleague or a pretty girl, others think him to be a vicious monster who will do anything for another cancellation. Not so. He’s simply a believer. He trusts the system. He trusts that it will always provide for his needs.
That said, he does use his power unethically when it suits him. He has made false promises to secure a deal, or assured a low-points actor that they were safe shortly before holding a knife to their throat. He doesn’t manipulate the system, but he has no problem with manipulating people.
Cy has been given many names by the public: The Reaper, The Angel of Death, Astaroth… but his absolute favourite is The Editor. After all, if all the world’s a stage, he’s the one making the cuts.
Personality types: Capricorn sun, Scorpio moon, Gemini rising. ESTP-A (The Entrepreneur). Enneagram Type 3 (The Achiever), with a 4-Wing (The Professional). Lawful Evil. Tiger.
