Post by Rian O'Casey on Jan 26, 2009 21:11:17 GMT -5
~*~Who Are You?~*~[/u]
Full Name: Riordan Shea O'Casey (Rian)
Age: 21
Birthdate: October 3, 1987
Birthplace: Limerick, Ireland
Hometown: New York City
Picture:
Height & Weight: 5'9", 175
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Physical Description: Rian isn't overly tall or large, but he does have an athletic build from years of playing soccer. He keeps his hair rather long and it sort of curls. Rian also dislikes shaving, so he can usually be seen walking around with a bit of stubble. As far as any distinguishing marks, Rian has a lot of scars from years of being abused by his father, including a rather large burn on his back and a scar from having the bones in his left arm pinned back together. The only other major scar is on from the surgery on his left hip after his accident, although that one is still in the process of healing.
Play By: Hunter Thomsen
Style: Rian tends to dress similarly to his bandmates (and most band guys in general), although his clothes tend to be looser and more relaxed fitting than their wardrobes. He wears a lot of band t-shirts and loose jeans, generally with a pair of Vans or Converse when he isn't running around barefoot. When it's cold, he usually wears an old leather jacket he got in a thrift store on top of his regular clothes and he occasionally throws a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath his band shirts. Otherwise, he only wears a St. Christopher medallion his grandmother gave him and occasionally a pair of black plastic-framed glasses when he doesn't feel like putting in his contacts.
~*~All The Little Details~*~
Personality:
Rian has always been more on the serious side, at least as far as his schoolwork and hobbies go. He’s always been very dedicated and hardworking and has done exceptionally well in school, although his grades have suffered recently because of his poor attendance record. This has probably contributed to his talents with music and art, because he has always been very good about practicing. Some people might misunderstand his seriousness and label him a geek or possibly even obsessive-compulsive, but it’s more of a learned trait than his actual personality. Failure was never an option in his home; his father refused to accept anything less than Rian’s best, and Rian was always afraid to disappoint the man because of his violent personality.
Rian has been rather socially awkward for most of his life; when he was living in Limerick, he had few friends and didn’t really have anyone he could hang out with outside of soccer practices and school. He didn’t live in Florence long enough to actually make any friends. The only real friends Rian ever made were in Norfolk, although he’s lost contact with most of them. He has a hard time talking about things anyway, and his life in the past few months has been so difficult that he hasn’t felt up to actually trying to keep in contact with anyone. Most of Rian’s social problems stem from his father’s abusive behavior and Rian’s attempts to conceal the bruises and other injuries. He can’t bring himself to confide in other people even now, after
Because of his difficult relationship with his father, Rian has never learned to understand what a healthy relationship really looks like. While he has lived with his grandmother in the past, most of his life has been spent in the worst possible family situation and that has affected him a great deal. Love doesn’t mean much to Rian – his father used to always say that he loved Rian, but the man’s actions never showed the emotion he supposedly felt. In some ways, his relationship with his father could be blamed for most of the problems Rian has now.
Orientation: Asexual (this is something that Rian is still trying to come to terms with)
Likes:
~Music, but specifically playing guitar, violin, and piano.
~Football (aka soccer – he lived in Ireland until he was twelve, so he still tends to slip in such colloquialisms)
~Synge’s Playboy of the Western World
~Grieg & Salieri
~Shepherd’s pie
~Walnut Whip & Aero bars (the candies he grew up on are the few things that Rian actually misses about his home country)
~His guitars (a Fender Malibu SCE Acoustic-Electric that his grandmother bought him for his 13th birthday, and the Fender Stratocaster Liam bought him when he moved to New York)
~His violin (it belonged to his father’s mother, and was given to him when she died when Rian was eight)
~Drawing
Dislikes:
~His father
~Alcohol/drugs – he doesn’t even particularly like drinking the communion wine during mass
~Being dependent upon other people
~Himself for being so weak and allowing others to influence him to make poor choices
~Being in pain
~Putting himself out there by allowing his songs to be performed - he doesn't like it, but allows it because he sees it as being the right choice for the band
~Not being able to control his anger when he's depressed
~Not being able to control his depression
Habits:
~Rian writes or draws whenever he gets upset or nervous – he’s already finished panels for at least three graphic novels, and is about halfway through with a fourth (although he’s never shown them to anyone before), and he's filled multiple notebooks with poetry, prose, and song lyrics
~Rian flinches when he hears anyone begin to raise their voice - it's something that is left over from his father's abuse
~Rian’s accent becomes much thicker when he’s upset, and he tends to use more of the slang he grew up on – on occasion, he will even slip up to the point that he ends up speaking in Gaelic
~Rian tends to come off of his medication when he is writing lyrics for a new album because his lyrics tend to be better when he's depressed
Strengths:
~Drawing – Rian has been drawing cartoons since he was eight, and he’s gotten quite good at it
~Music – because he’s always been big on practicing, Rian is also very good at the instruments he plays, even if he can’t play at the moment
~Soccer
~Writing - Rian is the primary lyricist for his band
~Rian speaks Gaelic fluently – his father insisted that he learn the language and speak it at home with his parents
Weaknesses:
~Rian has a hard time controlling his emotions in stressful situations
~Rian isn't good at talking with other people because he was never able to really confide in anyone while his mother was alive
~Rian can’t quite grasp the concept of lust – it’s an emotion he’s never experienced because of his orientation – and it causes some problems with other people his age because he doesn’t understand it himself
~Rian tends to distrust male authority figures because of his relationship with his father – Liam is an exception because Rian’s known him for a long time and has grown to trust him
~*~Didn't Come From Nowhere~*~[/u]
Family:
Erskine O’Casey (father), formerly a police officer and security guard, before he was arrested for murder & child abuse
Onora Kelley O’Casey (mother), deceased
Catrina Donohughe Kelley(grandmother), retired school teacher (she has Alzheimer’s, so she can’t take care of Rian)
Liam Donohughe (2nd cousin/guardian), restaurateur & club owner
History:
Rian was born as the only child of Erskine and Onora O'Casey on October 3rd in Limerick, Ireland. Unfortunately for Rian and his mother, Erskine had inherited the Irish tendency to drink too much, and he was a violent drunk. His father's binges often sent both Rian and his mother running to avoid the flying fists and strings of curses set off by the alcohol. Rian learned at a young age to avoid the man when he came in smelling of liquor, but he was always small and a bit of a slow runner for his age and often wasn’t able to get out of the way in time. He had bruises almost constantly, but he and his mother were careful to cover them and no one really suspected anything. But that was the worst thing they could have done.
When Rian was old enough to begin school, his mother was quick to enroll him in piano, guitar and violin lessons in order to keep him out of the house as much as possible. When Rian was seven, his father was fired from his job as a police officer for drinking while on duty and Rian’s mother was forced to take on more work as a seamstress to keep up with the bills. Rian’s guitar lessons had to be dropped, even though he was doing well on all of the instruments. Rian began doing some small odd jobs around the neighborhood to earn a little bit of extra money to help out, as well as a way to stay out of the house as much as possible, and continued to practice his guitar whenever he got the chance.
Erskine stopped drinking when Rian was eight, but his temper didn’t really improve all that much. While the angry outbursts occurred less often, they were far more frightening simply because they weren’t provoked by alcohol as they had been in the past. Once he was sober, Erskine was able to get his job back and he stayed sober for several years, until Rian was twelve. After watching his partner be shot in the line of duty, Erskine returned to his old ways. This time around, however, he was careful not to drink while on the job and managed to keep the fact that he’d started drinking again from his superiors so that he wouldn’t be fired again. The violent outbursts began to happen even more frequently than they had when Rian was a small child, and after six months he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother in Norfolk, Virginia.
Rian loved living with Gramma Cat, as she preferred to be called. While she wasn't a "normal" grandmother, Catrina Kelley proved to be a good influence on Rian. Under his grandmother's guidance, Rian began attending mass again (something he had fallen out of practice doing shortly after his First Communion), and even began to play piano during the services. He also joined the soccer team, the choir, and the orchestra at his school, doing well in these new activities. And for the first time in his life, Rian was genuinely happy.
This all changed, however, when Rian's father once again lost his job for drinking and his parents decided to move to the United States because of a new job. At the end of his freshman year of high school, Rian was forced to move back in with his parents. It was only made worse by the fact that he was now almost totally alienated from all of the friends he'd made in Norfolk.
Rian’s first (and only) summer in South Carolina was rather uneventful, at least for him. His father had stopped drinking yet again, only this time he also kept his temper in check. But that changed rather rapidly, after the job he’d moved to Florence for ended rather rapidly due to downsizing within the company. The drinking began again, and the abuse was worse than ever before. By Rian’s fifteenth birthday, he almost constantly had to hide bruises and other injuries from his teachers and classmates. He was quickly branded as strange at school, and didn’t have many friends because he tended to keep to himself to avoid accidentally letting anyone see what was going on. By the end of the month, Rian had quit going to school most of the time to avoid the stares and odd looks he received. Not that it really mattered much; by the second week of November, Rian’s life had changed for good.
It started off as a typical Tuesday evening; his father had come home from searching for a job, once again with no luck, and immediately settled down with a couple of beers. Only those couple turned into six, and then twelve, and it was soon too late for anyone to escape the man’s violent wrath. Rian woke up in the hospital a few days later, completely oblivious as to what had happened after his father had started getting angry. It took various different people to fill in some of the more important blanks for him, but only a few of the things he was told really stuck. His mother was dead, and his father was in jail awaiting sentencing; the man had confessed to his crimes and plead guilty upon realizing all of the horrible things he had done.
As soon as Rian was well enough to leave, his mother’s cousin, Liam, flew down from New York to pick him up. Because of his grandmother’s Alzheimer’s, she was no longer an appropriate guardian and Rian couldn’t go back to Norfolk to live with her. Liam had already packed up most of Rian’s things when he’d come down to visit while Rian was still in the hospital, because the arrangements had already been made. Rian spent two weeks at home before he was enrolled in a small, private high school in the city. Unfortunately, Rian was too far behind to get his grades up enough to pass, and so he was held back in the tenth grade for a second year.
The only good thing about going back to school for Rian was that he had a chance to make new friends. Once the cast came off of his broken arm Rian went back to playing all of his instruments, and a band made up of his classmates quickly recognized his talent. Rian was quickly asked to join the band as a replacement for one of the guitarists, who was moving out of the city with his mother. Rian even started writing lyrics, something he hadn’t done since his mother’s death. A few months after Rian joined the band and they began using his songs, they started gaining recognition from people who really mattered. An A&R rep from a record label came to one of their shows and was so impressed that he started working to get the boys signed. Rian turned sixteen two weeks before the band signed a contract with an independent record label. The band went into the studio during Thanksgiving break, and before school was out for the winter holidays, they had a record. The boys all dropped out of school so that they could tour, determining that they could finish high school during their breaks from touring. Starting in February, the band hit the road in a van, opening up for various other bands. They were well received, and continued to move up the bill. Their first record sold moderately well, and before the touring cycle for that record ended they had their own small headliner.
Touring was hard on Rian. ON top of the usual homesickness that all of the boys shared, Rian also had the insecurity associated with his lyrics being performed in front of others. He felt vulnerable putting himself out there for everyone to see each night, and the stress ended up bringing out the worst in Rian. He had been having trouble with depression ever since his mother’s death, but it got worse towards the end of the touring cycle. And as his depression worsened, so did Rian’s temper. By the end of the tour cycle, all of the guys needed a break from dealing with Rian and the band took two months off before going back into the studio. During that time, Liam forced Rian into therapy and he was put on Prozac to control his depression and, consequently, his anger. It worked, and by the time they went back into the studio Rian was pretty much back to normal..
The band’s second album went well, and was well received. Rian turned nineteen a few weeks after they went back out on tour, and things seemed to be going well at first. But once again, the pressures of touring took their toll on Rian and his depression returned despite the medication. Rian eventually stopped taking his pills, and things got even worse. The anger returned, and Rian got into several fights with various people during the tour cycle. During their last tour before going back into the studio, Rian was arrested after a particularly severe altercation. All of the charges were dropped, but the damage to Rian’s reputation was done. The band dropped out of the remainder of that tour and Rian was encouraged to go back into therapy. He was put back on medication, and again it seemed to work. Only this time, Rian realized that what he wrote while medicated was shit. Luckily, he had enough written before he was medicated to start on a third record.
The band got halfway through recording their third album, before Rian’s twenty-first birthday changed everything. Rian’s bandmates threw him a large birthday party, and even managed to convince him that he would be okay if he had a couple of drinks. Rian was halfway through his second beer before he realized what he was doing, and he flipped out. Rian hated alcohol, and couldn’t believe that he’d actually had any to drink. After a serious fight with his bandmates, Rian left the party and drove off. His anger and the alcohol were a dangerous combination, and the rain that started as he was leaving only made things worse. Rian didn’t notice a sharp curve, and his car ended up wrapped around a tree a few hundred yards off the side of the road.
When Rian woke up the next morning, he was trapped in his car and unable to move. His car had been spotted shortly after daybreak by a state trooper, who had been surprised to find that he was still alive. Firefighters and other emergency workers had already surrounded his car, working on freeing him from the twisted wreckage. He was only briefly conscious, just long enough to know that he didn’t remember anything from the night before. Rian lapsed in and out of consciousness over the next several days. When he was awake, the only thing he could acknowledge was pain before he was once again knocked out by the high doses of painkillers. It was nearly a week before Rian was coherent enough to understand the severity of his injuries. His right collarbone was cracked, as were several of his vertebrae. There was also a concussion and multiple broken ribs, as well as a fractured hip. But Rian was lucky; the injuries to his back hadn’t caused paralysis, and once he had surgery on his hip and gave it time to heal he would be able to walk again.
Rian had the surgery the next morning, and then spent two more weeks in the hospital before he was released into the care of his cousin. Rian’s accident put the band’s recording at a stand-still, at least until he was well enough to return to the studio with them. After a month of healing, Rian and his bandmates went back into the studio. But the accident had done a good bit of damage to Rian’s mental health as well as his physical health, and his depression was back with a vengeance. He began taking double doses of his medication, on top of the high doses of painkillers he still used to deal with the pain from his injuries. The band managed to get their album recorded, but before the process was completed everyone was worried about Rian’s behavior. They saw the beginnings of addiction in his behavior, and knew that something had to be done. Without Rian’s input, it was decided that the album’s release would be delayed.
Within a few days of finishing in the studio, Rian’s bandmates and friends confronted him about the amount of medication he was using. The intervention didn’t go well. In the typical fashion of an addict, Rian denied that he had any sort of problem and refused to believe that there was anything wrong with his behavior. His anger over the entire situation drove him to take even more medication than he normally would have. Luck was once again on Rian’s side, and Liam found him passed out in the bathroom. He was rushed back to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped. Rian finally realized what everyone else had been trying to tell him, and he agreed to get help for his problems. The band’s manager arranged for him to go to Camp New Hope as soon as he was back on his feet.
What brings you to Camp New Hope? (this is where you put why your character is here; staff need to include their education & experience)
Rules: Approved by the Admin
~*~Behind The Mask~*~[/u]
Alias: Elle
Age: 20
Other Characters: None ATM
Where'd you find the site? Creator here
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~*~RP Sample~*~
Rian sat down at the empty cafeteria table, setting his backpack in the chair next to his own and unzipped the main part of his bag so that he could pull out the sketchpad he’d brought to school with him. It wasn’t the one he’d been working in with his most recent storyline; this book was more of a journal than anything else. It had started out as just a drawing pad, but he’d started scribbling other things in there as well and it had become something more. It had become the cache for all of his secrets. If anyone else ever found the notebook… it would be pretty bad for Rian.
Rian got his pad out and flipped it open to the last page he’d been working on before pulling out the en he’d been using to darken the image he’d sketched there a few days earlier. It wasn’t anything big; just a simple practice drawing of a character he was thinking of adding to the story he was working on. Drawing was one of the few things he could still do, even with the cast on his arm, and he’d spent all of the time he would have normally spent practicing his instruments working on his drawings instead.
School had been difficult to come back to; after missing nearly two months and transferring, Rian was really far behind. And as much as he needed to be working on getting caught back up with all of the things he now had to learn on his own, he wasn’t really in the mood. It was overwhelming to even think about what had to be accomplished in less than a month, and that was the last thing Rian wanted on his mind in the short time he had away from teachers and classrooms during the day.
Full Name: Riordan Shea O'Casey (Rian)
Age: 21
Birthdate: October 3, 1987
Birthplace: Limerick, Ireland
Hometown: New York City
Picture:
Height & Weight: 5'9", 175
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Physical Description: Rian isn't overly tall or large, but he does have an athletic build from years of playing soccer. He keeps his hair rather long and it sort of curls. Rian also dislikes shaving, so he can usually be seen walking around with a bit of stubble. As far as any distinguishing marks, Rian has a lot of scars from years of being abused by his father, including a rather large burn on his back and a scar from having the bones in his left arm pinned back together. The only other major scar is on from the surgery on his left hip after his accident, although that one is still in the process of healing.
Play By: Hunter Thomsen
Style: Rian tends to dress similarly to his bandmates (and most band guys in general), although his clothes tend to be looser and more relaxed fitting than their wardrobes. He wears a lot of band t-shirts and loose jeans, generally with a pair of Vans or Converse when he isn't running around barefoot. When it's cold, he usually wears an old leather jacket he got in a thrift store on top of his regular clothes and he occasionally throws a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath his band shirts. Otherwise, he only wears a St. Christopher medallion his grandmother gave him and occasionally a pair of black plastic-framed glasses when he doesn't feel like putting in his contacts.
~*~All The Little Details~*~
Personality:
Rian has always been more on the serious side, at least as far as his schoolwork and hobbies go. He’s always been very dedicated and hardworking and has done exceptionally well in school, although his grades have suffered recently because of his poor attendance record. This has probably contributed to his talents with music and art, because he has always been very good about practicing. Some people might misunderstand his seriousness and label him a geek or possibly even obsessive-compulsive, but it’s more of a learned trait than his actual personality. Failure was never an option in his home; his father refused to accept anything less than Rian’s best, and Rian was always afraid to disappoint the man because of his violent personality.
Rian has been rather socially awkward for most of his life; when he was living in Limerick, he had few friends and didn’t really have anyone he could hang out with outside of soccer practices and school. He didn’t live in Florence long enough to actually make any friends. The only real friends Rian ever made were in Norfolk, although he’s lost contact with most of them. He has a hard time talking about things anyway, and his life in the past few months has been so difficult that he hasn’t felt up to actually trying to keep in contact with anyone. Most of Rian’s social problems stem from his father’s abusive behavior and Rian’s attempts to conceal the bruises and other injuries. He can’t bring himself to confide in other people even now, after
Because of his difficult relationship with his father, Rian has never learned to understand what a healthy relationship really looks like. While he has lived with his grandmother in the past, most of his life has been spent in the worst possible family situation and that has affected him a great deal. Love doesn’t mean much to Rian – his father used to always say that he loved Rian, but the man’s actions never showed the emotion he supposedly felt. In some ways, his relationship with his father could be blamed for most of the problems Rian has now.
Orientation: Asexual (this is something that Rian is still trying to come to terms with)
Likes:
~Music, but specifically playing guitar, violin, and piano.
~Football (aka soccer – he lived in Ireland until he was twelve, so he still tends to slip in such colloquialisms)
~Synge’s Playboy of the Western World
~Grieg & Salieri
~Shepherd’s pie
~Walnut Whip & Aero bars (the candies he grew up on are the few things that Rian actually misses about his home country)
~His guitars (a Fender Malibu SCE Acoustic-Electric that his grandmother bought him for his 13th birthday, and the Fender Stratocaster Liam bought him when he moved to New York)
~His violin (it belonged to his father’s mother, and was given to him when she died when Rian was eight)
~Drawing
Dislikes:
~His father
~Alcohol/drugs – he doesn’t even particularly like drinking the communion wine during mass
~Being dependent upon other people
~Himself for being so weak and allowing others to influence him to make poor choices
~Being in pain
~Putting himself out there by allowing his songs to be performed - he doesn't like it, but allows it because he sees it as being the right choice for the band
~Not being able to control his anger when he's depressed
~Not being able to control his depression
Habits:
~Rian writes or draws whenever he gets upset or nervous – he’s already finished panels for at least three graphic novels, and is about halfway through with a fourth (although he’s never shown them to anyone before), and he's filled multiple notebooks with poetry, prose, and song lyrics
~Rian flinches when he hears anyone begin to raise their voice - it's something that is left over from his father's abuse
~Rian’s accent becomes much thicker when he’s upset, and he tends to use more of the slang he grew up on – on occasion, he will even slip up to the point that he ends up speaking in Gaelic
~Rian tends to come off of his medication when he is writing lyrics for a new album because his lyrics tend to be better when he's depressed
Strengths:
~Drawing – Rian has been drawing cartoons since he was eight, and he’s gotten quite good at it
~Music – because he’s always been big on practicing, Rian is also very good at the instruments he plays, even if he can’t play at the moment
~Soccer
~Writing - Rian is the primary lyricist for his band
~Rian speaks Gaelic fluently – his father insisted that he learn the language and speak it at home with his parents
Weaknesses:
~Rian has a hard time controlling his emotions in stressful situations
~Rian isn't good at talking with other people because he was never able to really confide in anyone while his mother was alive
~Rian can’t quite grasp the concept of lust – it’s an emotion he’s never experienced because of his orientation – and it causes some problems with other people his age because he doesn’t understand it himself
~Rian tends to distrust male authority figures because of his relationship with his father – Liam is an exception because Rian’s known him for a long time and has grown to trust him
~*~Didn't Come From Nowhere~*~[/u]
Family:
Erskine O’Casey (father), formerly a police officer and security guard, before he was arrested for murder & child abuse
Onora Kelley O’Casey (mother), deceased
Catrina Donohughe Kelley(grandmother), retired school teacher (she has Alzheimer’s, so she can’t take care of Rian)
Liam Donohughe (2nd cousin/guardian), restaurateur & club owner
History:
Rian was born as the only child of Erskine and Onora O'Casey on October 3rd in Limerick, Ireland. Unfortunately for Rian and his mother, Erskine had inherited the Irish tendency to drink too much, and he was a violent drunk. His father's binges often sent both Rian and his mother running to avoid the flying fists and strings of curses set off by the alcohol. Rian learned at a young age to avoid the man when he came in smelling of liquor, but he was always small and a bit of a slow runner for his age and often wasn’t able to get out of the way in time. He had bruises almost constantly, but he and his mother were careful to cover them and no one really suspected anything. But that was the worst thing they could have done.
When Rian was old enough to begin school, his mother was quick to enroll him in piano, guitar and violin lessons in order to keep him out of the house as much as possible. When Rian was seven, his father was fired from his job as a police officer for drinking while on duty and Rian’s mother was forced to take on more work as a seamstress to keep up with the bills. Rian’s guitar lessons had to be dropped, even though he was doing well on all of the instruments. Rian began doing some small odd jobs around the neighborhood to earn a little bit of extra money to help out, as well as a way to stay out of the house as much as possible, and continued to practice his guitar whenever he got the chance.
Erskine stopped drinking when Rian was eight, but his temper didn’t really improve all that much. While the angry outbursts occurred less often, they were far more frightening simply because they weren’t provoked by alcohol as they had been in the past. Once he was sober, Erskine was able to get his job back and he stayed sober for several years, until Rian was twelve. After watching his partner be shot in the line of duty, Erskine returned to his old ways. This time around, however, he was careful not to drink while on the job and managed to keep the fact that he’d started drinking again from his superiors so that he wouldn’t be fired again. The violent outbursts began to happen even more frequently than they had when Rian was a small child, and after six months he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother in Norfolk, Virginia.
Rian loved living with Gramma Cat, as she preferred to be called. While she wasn't a "normal" grandmother, Catrina Kelley proved to be a good influence on Rian. Under his grandmother's guidance, Rian began attending mass again (something he had fallen out of practice doing shortly after his First Communion), and even began to play piano during the services. He also joined the soccer team, the choir, and the orchestra at his school, doing well in these new activities. And for the first time in his life, Rian was genuinely happy.
This all changed, however, when Rian's father once again lost his job for drinking and his parents decided to move to the United States because of a new job. At the end of his freshman year of high school, Rian was forced to move back in with his parents. It was only made worse by the fact that he was now almost totally alienated from all of the friends he'd made in Norfolk.
Rian’s first (and only) summer in South Carolina was rather uneventful, at least for him. His father had stopped drinking yet again, only this time he also kept his temper in check. But that changed rather rapidly, after the job he’d moved to Florence for ended rather rapidly due to downsizing within the company. The drinking began again, and the abuse was worse than ever before. By Rian’s fifteenth birthday, he almost constantly had to hide bruises and other injuries from his teachers and classmates. He was quickly branded as strange at school, and didn’t have many friends because he tended to keep to himself to avoid accidentally letting anyone see what was going on. By the end of the month, Rian had quit going to school most of the time to avoid the stares and odd looks he received. Not that it really mattered much; by the second week of November, Rian’s life had changed for good.
It started off as a typical Tuesday evening; his father had come home from searching for a job, once again with no luck, and immediately settled down with a couple of beers. Only those couple turned into six, and then twelve, and it was soon too late for anyone to escape the man’s violent wrath. Rian woke up in the hospital a few days later, completely oblivious as to what had happened after his father had started getting angry. It took various different people to fill in some of the more important blanks for him, but only a few of the things he was told really stuck. His mother was dead, and his father was in jail awaiting sentencing; the man had confessed to his crimes and plead guilty upon realizing all of the horrible things he had done.
As soon as Rian was well enough to leave, his mother’s cousin, Liam, flew down from New York to pick him up. Because of his grandmother’s Alzheimer’s, she was no longer an appropriate guardian and Rian couldn’t go back to Norfolk to live with her. Liam had already packed up most of Rian’s things when he’d come down to visit while Rian was still in the hospital, because the arrangements had already been made. Rian spent two weeks at home before he was enrolled in a small, private high school in the city. Unfortunately, Rian was too far behind to get his grades up enough to pass, and so he was held back in the tenth grade for a second year.
The only good thing about going back to school for Rian was that he had a chance to make new friends. Once the cast came off of his broken arm Rian went back to playing all of his instruments, and a band made up of his classmates quickly recognized his talent. Rian was quickly asked to join the band as a replacement for one of the guitarists, who was moving out of the city with his mother. Rian even started writing lyrics, something he hadn’t done since his mother’s death. A few months after Rian joined the band and they began using his songs, they started gaining recognition from people who really mattered. An A&R rep from a record label came to one of their shows and was so impressed that he started working to get the boys signed. Rian turned sixteen two weeks before the band signed a contract with an independent record label. The band went into the studio during Thanksgiving break, and before school was out for the winter holidays, they had a record. The boys all dropped out of school so that they could tour, determining that they could finish high school during their breaks from touring. Starting in February, the band hit the road in a van, opening up for various other bands. They were well received, and continued to move up the bill. Their first record sold moderately well, and before the touring cycle for that record ended they had their own small headliner.
Touring was hard on Rian. ON top of the usual homesickness that all of the boys shared, Rian also had the insecurity associated with his lyrics being performed in front of others. He felt vulnerable putting himself out there for everyone to see each night, and the stress ended up bringing out the worst in Rian. He had been having trouble with depression ever since his mother’s death, but it got worse towards the end of the touring cycle. And as his depression worsened, so did Rian’s temper. By the end of the tour cycle, all of the guys needed a break from dealing with Rian and the band took two months off before going back into the studio. During that time, Liam forced Rian into therapy and he was put on Prozac to control his depression and, consequently, his anger. It worked, and by the time they went back into the studio Rian was pretty much back to normal..
The band’s second album went well, and was well received. Rian turned nineteen a few weeks after they went back out on tour, and things seemed to be going well at first. But once again, the pressures of touring took their toll on Rian and his depression returned despite the medication. Rian eventually stopped taking his pills, and things got even worse. The anger returned, and Rian got into several fights with various people during the tour cycle. During their last tour before going back into the studio, Rian was arrested after a particularly severe altercation. All of the charges were dropped, but the damage to Rian’s reputation was done. The band dropped out of the remainder of that tour and Rian was encouraged to go back into therapy. He was put back on medication, and again it seemed to work. Only this time, Rian realized that what he wrote while medicated was shit. Luckily, he had enough written before he was medicated to start on a third record.
The band got halfway through recording their third album, before Rian’s twenty-first birthday changed everything. Rian’s bandmates threw him a large birthday party, and even managed to convince him that he would be okay if he had a couple of drinks. Rian was halfway through his second beer before he realized what he was doing, and he flipped out. Rian hated alcohol, and couldn’t believe that he’d actually had any to drink. After a serious fight with his bandmates, Rian left the party and drove off. His anger and the alcohol were a dangerous combination, and the rain that started as he was leaving only made things worse. Rian didn’t notice a sharp curve, and his car ended up wrapped around a tree a few hundred yards off the side of the road.
When Rian woke up the next morning, he was trapped in his car and unable to move. His car had been spotted shortly after daybreak by a state trooper, who had been surprised to find that he was still alive. Firefighters and other emergency workers had already surrounded his car, working on freeing him from the twisted wreckage. He was only briefly conscious, just long enough to know that he didn’t remember anything from the night before. Rian lapsed in and out of consciousness over the next several days. When he was awake, the only thing he could acknowledge was pain before he was once again knocked out by the high doses of painkillers. It was nearly a week before Rian was coherent enough to understand the severity of his injuries. His right collarbone was cracked, as were several of his vertebrae. There was also a concussion and multiple broken ribs, as well as a fractured hip. But Rian was lucky; the injuries to his back hadn’t caused paralysis, and once he had surgery on his hip and gave it time to heal he would be able to walk again.
Rian had the surgery the next morning, and then spent two more weeks in the hospital before he was released into the care of his cousin. Rian’s accident put the band’s recording at a stand-still, at least until he was well enough to return to the studio with them. After a month of healing, Rian and his bandmates went back into the studio. But the accident had done a good bit of damage to Rian’s mental health as well as his physical health, and his depression was back with a vengeance. He began taking double doses of his medication, on top of the high doses of painkillers he still used to deal with the pain from his injuries. The band managed to get their album recorded, but before the process was completed everyone was worried about Rian’s behavior. They saw the beginnings of addiction in his behavior, and knew that something had to be done. Without Rian’s input, it was decided that the album’s release would be delayed.
Within a few days of finishing in the studio, Rian’s bandmates and friends confronted him about the amount of medication he was using. The intervention didn’t go well. In the typical fashion of an addict, Rian denied that he had any sort of problem and refused to believe that there was anything wrong with his behavior. His anger over the entire situation drove him to take even more medication than he normally would have. Luck was once again on Rian’s side, and Liam found him passed out in the bathroom. He was rushed back to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped. Rian finally realized what everyone else had been trying to tell him, and he agreed to get help for his problems. The band’s manager arranged for him to go to Camp New Hope as soon as he was back on his feet.
What brings you to Camp New Hope? (this is where you put why your character is here; staff need to include their education & experience)
Rules: Approved by the Admin
~*~Behind The Mask~*~[/u]
Alias: Elle
Age: 20
Other Characters: None ATM
Where'd you find the site? Creator here
.~*~RP Sample~*~
Rian sat down at the empty cafeteria table, setting his backpack in the chair next to his own and unzipped the main part of his bag so that he could pull out the sketchpad he’d brought to school with him. It wasn’t the one he’d been working in with his most recent storyline; this book was more of a journal than anything else. It had started out as just a drawing pad, but he’d started scribbling other things in there as well and it had become something more. It had become the cache for all of his secrets. If anyone else ever found the notebook… it would be pretty bad for Rian.
Rian got his pad out and flipped it open to the last page he’d been working on before pulling out the en he’d been using to darken the image he’d sketched there a few days earlier. It wasn’t anything big; just a simple practice drawing of a character he was thinking of adding to the story he was working on. Drawing was one of the few things he could still do, even with the cast on his arm, and he’d spent all of the time he would have normally spent practicing his instruments working on his drawings instead.
School had been difficult to come back to; after missing nearly two months and transferring, Rian was really far behind. And as much as he needed to be working on getting caught back up with all of the things he now had to learn on his own, he wasn’t really in the mood. It was overwhelming to even think about what had to be accomplished in less than a month, and that was the last thing Rian wanted on his mind in the short time he had away from teachers and classrooms during the day.
