SOREN HALFEW

• Species: Human
• Sex: ♂
• Age: 28
• Height: 5ft 9in
• Weight: 200lbs
• Siblings: None

Soren is an original character, and at the time of writing, a supporting one to Charles Mirath. He and Charles have a sexual relationship with one another with the added connection that Soren is fascinated by the sense of freedom that Charles represents. Soren has a corporate job and generally “colours within the lines”, as the saying goes.

Trust & Confidence

Baby

Soren is an only child, the only baby born to his parents. His dad was a workaholic so provided well for his wife and child, which means that while Soren was a child, his mother was free of financial worries while she cared for him, and was therefore free to focus on their bond.

Freedom & Self-Determination

Toddler

As Soren began to look beyond his bond with his mother and expanded the circle of people of whom he was consciously aware, he noticed his father's presence in the household.

To Soren, dad was a curious and unavailable figure, somebody big and mighty - even compared to his mum - and significant to their family, but who also absent much of the time. In fact, despite how important he seemed, he was only present late at night, and that was confusing to Soren. Often Soren went to bed before his father returned from work and he only saw his father for fragments of the weekends and maybe early in the morning, so the pair of them didn't bond particularly fast or well.

When they did spend time together he quickly found that his father was a do-er and an achiever. His father might comment on a picture he was drawing, or perhaps something he was building out of plastic bricks. Rather than praising Soren for these things, his father would comment that he could do better. This information wasn't delivered as derision or dismissal; it was feedback based on the idea that Soren could do better if only he pushed himself a little harder. It was also delivered in the positive, upbeat way familiar with many corporate employees being given feedback by their line managers.

It left Soren feeling somewhat isolated from his dad, but this wasn't a feeling he was able to put a name to, especially at such a young age – especially given that his father lived with his mother and him so was always physically present at some point every 24 hours.

Soren however, didn't feel alone. His mother was very much there for him and as he started to experiment with being more active and capable, went to her for help when he needed it - and had mostly very good experiences with doing so. By the time he reached adulthood, he was so used to being able to approach others about things he wasn't sure about that it became his habit.

On that note, present-day Soren likes having somebody else around to rely on. He's a bit anxious generally but not a crippling level. He mainly copes with this by having somebody else around to check his thoughts, work, and other efforts with, and by giving his projects the once-over and then leaving them be. This isn't a fool-proof response to anxiety: he can end up worrying about projects he's 'finished' in case there's something he's missed, but he'd rather do that than obsessively try to get everything right.

Ambition

Young childhood

Soren's relationship with his mum continued to be contact-full, positive and fulfilling. He liked to show off and she delighted in this. When he started meeting up with other children in pre-school or social groups, he showed off to them too and overall, got a good reaction.

As the years went by and he graduated from this and the next couple of life stages, he kept the habit and refined it to whatever was age-appropriate at the time. As an adult he was proud of his physical appearance and worked out to look after it. He even bulked up quite nicely, although he never got into body-building to an extreme degree.

As far as achievements went, it wasn't just the adoration of others that Soren strove for. He also liked the idea of owning his own company. Given what he saw and heard from his father, it's likely he picked up on his dad's positive feelings and words about being commercially successful. This idea half-took for Soren, and he entertained the idea of owning a business for a long time. However, the hard work that came with it seemed less attractive, and scuppered most of his efforts to get a business off the ground.

Soren's dad was as corporate-inclined as ever. Although there was still much that Soren couldn't put his finger on when it came to explaining why he didn't feel a close bond with his father, he developed an aversion to the idea of hard work. Although corporate work had kept him fed, clothed and in school, and his father was not an unpleasant man, he didn't like it.

The problem was, he never felt quite good enough. He continued to try, he understood the benefits of hard work, and he even managed to distract himself from the idea that he would probably never get to hear that satisfied “Well done!”, but he couldn't quite bear to sell his soul to the corporate machine.

Productivity

Older childhood

Given Soren's father's driven attitude to work to the exclusion of his family relationships, it was only around now that his relationship with his son came into its own, and even then, only to a partial degree.

Soren could see that this was where he needed to begin applying himself at school, so he did. He felt a little haunted by the sense that this wasn't what he wanted, but he resisted it and continued regardless. His decision to work hard despite his un-articulated misgivings was helped along by his mother's encouragement, although he always found it hard to motivate himself to do the more demanding work. To her, he was a good son who had school work to do, and she would encourage him just as much as she had when he was a toddler putting on a performance for her.

Soren was good at being a team player and also felt comfortable working on his own. He developed a good vocabulary and with it, an ability to put forward his ideas about certain subjects. In fact, his presentation skills were a part of that self-image that he had always enjoyed developing so much.

With all of that said, Soren still wasn't a particularly hard worker. He begrudged school, extra-curricular activities and later, work, and he felt rather pushed into doing it, but he understood its value, both to society at large and to himself. In particular he liked having a sense of purpose and it was this, along with the attention he got for good work, that let him push through that sense of being pushed into work.

Adult Selfhood

Adolescence

By the time he and his school-mates reached adolescence, Soren was well-established in his school as a sporty, uneducated type. With that said, his close friends knew that he cared more about his appearance than his enjoyment of sports might have suggested – it wasn't so much the thrill of sport or the freedom to get muddy that appealed to him, it was the status that came with it: not necessarily the stardom, but the flattering image of the fit, dynamic, sporty guy.

Part of his desire to achieve was the deeply held belief that his father wanted him to be a high-achiever, which he had digested enough by this point that he noticed the conflict less than he had before. In any case, as a teenager he was able to get the adulation he wanted from his class-mates.

Soren was 14 years of age when he started to realise that he might not be heterosexual. He kept quiet about this at first, given that he had heard his parents being judgemental (and at times, derisive) about homosexuality. As a result he didn't explore its implications for him so for a while. One attempt to talk to his parents about it was treated as a joke and dismissed before he had even been able to finish making his point, so as such he never came out to his parents.

For a while he dated girls in an effort to deny his orientation, but he didn't feel fulfilled by this.

When he moved out of his parents' home into his own space, he began to explore his own preferences. At first he dated both men and women, before eventually settling on a distinct preference for men.

Charles Mirath turned out to be a breath of fresh air for Soren. Unlike his father, Charles didn't care about achievements, nor about his appearance. In fact, he didn't care about staying within the law.

Sometimes that last issue unnerved Soren, but Charles had a certain charisma when it came to breaking the law and it was fascinating to Soren, who after all had learned more than he may have cared to admit from his father about towing the corporate line and meeting (or exceeding. Of [i]course[/i], exceeding) the shareholders' expectations.

They first met when Soren was 19. In many ways, Charles represented the freedom Soren had wished he'd had as a teenager. Although Soren wasn't particularly used to thinking (or exploring) outside the box, he tentatively did so with Charles, meeting up with him enough times that they eventually developed a relationship.

Closeness in Relationships

Young adulthood

Despite his relationship with Charles, the safety of a reliable career still proved attractive enough that Soren found himself a steady, legal – and boring – job.

He stayed very much in touch with Charles. Whenever they met, Charles continued to give him a sense of freedom from his day to day life that he secretly craved. Charles seemed unleashed in a way that Soren enjoyed, perhaps even envied.

In addition to that, because of his sporty physique Soren was very much used to being treated as a bruiser, an alpha male or a threat, but that didn't suit his anxious, reliability-seeking persona. Charles' lack of concern for status included a disregard for pecking orders of this nature, so when they met, Soren got a much-appreciated break and happily took a submissive role.

Passing on Responsibility

Middle age

Soren hasn't reached this stage of his life yet, but has given some thought to what he is developing now, career-wise, and what he will pass on to the next generation.

He is on the fence about having children and, as always, his conflict is fuelled by the dilemma of whether to do what his parents want (to continue the family line) or what he wants (to stay child-free so that he can continue his relationship with Charles).

As far as his career goes, it's quite likely that Soren will spend his working life in a sensible career and retire with a sense of quiet satisfaction.

End of Life

Old age

Again, Soren hasn't reached this stage of his life, and at the moment is young enough that he mostly still feels a desire to comply for the sake of an easy life. This may change as he ages.