Post by Lady on May 3, 2015 4:35:44 GMT 11
JACE KADEN RYDER | ||||||||
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APPEARANCE Maybe you’ll see Jace in a busy train station of Goldenrod City, leaning against the wall with a coffee cup in one hand and a smartphone in the other, or idly trawling the streets with a polystyrene violin case in hand. But your eyes will pass over him, as if he’s invisible--and he may as well be. Plain (maybe leaning towards the handsomer side, but not really) and indistinct, he’s just another face in the crowd, even to those who are familiar with his work. Straight and short hair of jet-black hue tops his head, with bangs that reach his thin eyebrows. Unless on special occasions, this young man hardly bothers to run a comb through his hair every morning, so it’s often slightly unruly, though it lies flat complacently enough. Almond-shaped eyes with irises so dark that they appear as extended pupils are set on somewhat tan skin. They reveal little to nothing about his emotions, so you can’t depend on them to read his feelings. His facial features are a tad sharp and his mouth turns naturally downwards, so when in a neutral expression, he seems to be frowning in mild disapproval. Tall, though not unusually so, for his age, Jace has a lean and wiry build that evidently doesn’t face much strenuous physical exertion. His arms are an exception; every devoted violinist has muscular arms and rough, calloused hands with long fingers, a result from hours of practice and performance. In the way of fashion, he sticks with nondescript, often monochromatic casual wear, though of course he has a wardrobe geared towards formal events. Save for hot summer days, he rarely wears T-shirts, shorts, and the like, since he gets cold quite easily. More often than not, Jace will be holding something or other. Almost every morning, he orders coffee from a cozy coffeehouse in the heart of Goldenrod City and goes for aimless walks through the streets, so he can be seen with a cup of steaming beverage in the early hours. He owns a smartphone as well, and uses it a lot, though not unhealthily so. And, like a signature mark, he totes a soft violin case with his prized Cremona SV-1220 violin pretty much everywhere he goes, regardless of whether he has a performance that day or not. | ||||||||
PERSONALITY Let's face it; Jace isn't much of a people person. It's not that he's shy. Though not considered outgoing, he's affable enough. Rarely does he approach strangers without a particular reason, but he can respond to others with ease. Despite this, people tend to think him as antisocial. That's because this musician is an almost suspiciously polite young man of few words. He's not impassively silent but mellowly, thoughtfully quiet. When he does speak, it isn't for long, saying something succinct before lapsing back into quiescence. This is partially because of his willingness to simply hear others out. An empathetic person who can sympathize with other peoples' troubles, Jace listens attentively, knowing when to nod and when to comment and if he should give advice. His capability to understand is remarkable, and he views every perspective, no matter how much it opposes his own beliefs, with an objective take. Honesty is one of his priorities, though he will lie if he deems it necessary, and he's disturbingly good at it to boot. Though he can be expressive when he wants to be, it's nigh impossible to evince his true feelings from him when he clams up. All that doesn't make for a bad character overall, so to people getting off on the right foot with him (honestly, it's hard to get on the wrong with Jace) there doesn't seem to be a problem with his social skills. However, this young man hold's everyone at an arm's length. Courtesy of his past experiences, he believes that it isn't worth getting too attached to someone. It's not that he detests caring for others in general, but he maintains a steady mindset that he will eventually break everyone who gets close to him, like a clumsy child with paper dolls. If someone seems to be getting too close to him, he'll do what it takes to ward them off, believing that he's just keeping them safe. He'll give people the cold shoulder, do things he ordinarily wouldn't do to make them disrespect him, anything as long as they leave his side. As a result, he's a lonely person with only acquaintances and tentative friends to his name, though he believes it's for the better of everyone. If it wasn't made obvious by the violin case perpetually by his side, Jace is a violinist, and a seriously skilled one at that. Something of a prodigy, he's well-known in the classical music world as a budding star, someone expected to surpass all others and take the stage one day. He's been the concertmaster of numerous orchestras, some region-famous, the soloist in various concertos, the winner of countless competitions. None of that matters to him, though. It's not that he's impossibly modest, but now that he lives comfortably without needing to worry about what will pay the bills or keep him from starving, all he wants to do is play. He wants to hear the music flow from the strings, woven from heartstrings to generate the music that has faithfully aided him through dark times. And, of course, he wants to see the colors. Jace has synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon in which two or more senses (touch, sight, smell, etc.) fuse together. He has the sub-type chromothesia, so he can essentially see colors no-one else sees whenever he hears music. Anytime and every time he hears something considered music in this day and age, like pop or rock or even a voice that's naturally musical, he sees colors threading around him. It's a sensation not dissimilar to fireworks or flower fields, depending on the music he hears. Unsurprisingly, his favorite mix of colors are derived from the violin. Playing an instrument really do something to your perception. You have to leave yourself open to the rest of the musicians. Do the cellos have the melody? Then tone it down a bit. Is the entrance from these measures of rest supposed to be passive? Then slide in without a fuss. Are there accents in a gentle song? Don't press the bow harder, apply a little more vibrato. As a result of this intensive mental training, Jace is unnaturally observant, noticing little details others overlook and taking them into consideration. The violin has fostered a problem-solving aspect to him as well, gifting him with the ability to take control of the situation in most cases. Goals: - Try to move on and recover from Juneau's suicide. - Play his violin. He honestly doesn't care about becoming a bigger name in the music industry, he just wants to play. - Try not to get too attached to people or Pokemon. - Train, maybe win a couple badges if he has time. | ||||||||
HISTORY Every city has its dark side, the crumbling streets mothers warn their children away from, the seedy neighborhoods filled with shifty teenagers, the suspicious areas that policemen avoid. And Jace Kaden Ryder had the luck to be born right smack in the heart of it. He lived in a run-down apartment with walls thin enough for him to hear the occasional gunshots that broke out nearby. His mother was a Team Rocket grunt, some kind of hustler for black market goods, which explained their oh-so-convenient proximity to Team Rocket Headquarters. And as if that wasn't bad enough, his father was some arbitrary guy who had gotten her mother drunk out of her mind in a bar. You can tell what happened next, can't you? As soon as the woman found out she was pregnant, the man disappeared, never to be seen by her again. To her credit, Jace's mother really did care for him. She taught him basic arithmetic, reading, writing, and the like when she could. Dealing with illicit goods was the only way for her to make a living, and there wasn't much she could do about her smoking and alcohol addictions that siphoned most of their already meager money away. "One day," she'd affectionately tell her son once in a while, running her hands through his hair and puffing away at a cigarette, "we'll get out of this ditch. We'll live well. We'll have a roof over our heads and three meals a day, and you can go to school and won't have to steal anymore." And Jace would not and smile, as if he actually believed her. Yes, he stole, starting when he was only five years old. Yes, he felt bad about it the first couple times he did it, but it wasn't like he was purloining priceless artifacts. And what else could he do to take the edge of his and his mother's hunger? After a couple experiences with pickpocketing and swiping from supermarket shelves, it became routine, though never did stop feeling guilty about it. At least he was never caught. Though he didn't have a proper education, Jace grew far faster than a child should have. Bereft of his innocence since the birth that thrust them into this harsh world, his physical growth was stunted, considering his conditions, but his mentality shot up with each passing day. Five-year-old children shouldn't know so much about fear or exhaustion or bleak futures, but he did. He didn't have a great childhood. At that time, his world was grey-scale. There was no music to be heard, so he had no idea of his condition at the time. That changed at six years old when his mother, tired of fretting about her son's well-being while she was at work, decided to take him to the crumbling, faded house of an old friend of her's every morning of every weekday until noon, so she would know that her child was in safe hands while she wasn't there to care for him (though it was more like he was caring for her those days). Jace had no idea what to feel about Adelaide when he first met her. She was a relatively old woman, old enough to be his grandmother, wrinkles creasing her face and black hair graying, but life hadn't left her yet. Never had he seen such a jolly, friendly person before, when he grew up in such a silent and solemn atmosphere. And, what's more, Adelaide played a remarkable instrument of polished wood and gleaming wires, the color of burnished gold. He had never seen or heard a violin before. He asked what it was. It was a violin, Adelaide said. He asked what it did. It made music, Adelaide said. He didn't know how to respond to that, because while he was familiar with the word 'music', what he thought to be some kind of pleasing sound, he couldn't recall a moment in his life where he had heard music before. And anyway, how could such a strange-looking device create music? She showed him, and it seemed like that was the first time in his life he had ever seen color before. Somehow, tight horsehair rubbing against metallic wires in different motions let the wielder of the violin manipulate sound into gorgeous strands of heartrending music. Jace was fascinated, immediately hooked onto the slow, sweet sounds radiating from the magical instrument called the violin. And not only did it produce music, but it wove colors into the air as well. When Adelaide played the first violin song he ever heard before, he saw thin strands of lavender and salmon color glide through the air, like the glide of swans or elegant ballerinas. The dance of colors faded when the music did, though, and he found himself wanting more. Jace bombarded the musician with questions. He asked if violins could play different songs too, in different ways. Of course, Adelaide answered with a laugh, though it depends on the player's song, style, skill, and passion. He asked if violins only produced salmon and lavender colors, or if there were more that varied with each song. That confused the woman. He described what he saw, not knowing that he was the only one who saw colors when he heard music, due to his condition. Deciding that it was simply his way of interpreting music, by converting it into colors in his mind, so she answered yes, colors varied with each song. And, because Jace wanted to hear more music and see more colors, even create them for his own, he asked if he could learn how to play the violin. Thus began the lessons. Luckily, the woman still had her violin from when she was a child. It was of terrible quality, and it went out of tune every couple of minutes, but there was nothing else to use. Still, Jace treasured the little instrument. Slowly but surely, starting with general, basic information about violins, positions and then simple, one-octave scales, he began to weave music and colors into the air. Though he wasn't a natural, his fervor to play, to put sound and color in his grey world, was remarkable, and he learned fast. He devoured Suzuki books, playing more and more difficult songs with the passion of a hundred musicians. Meanwhile, his mother was dying. All of the smoking and drinking was doing her in. Jace knew that something was wrong ever since she started getting more bad-tempered and sluggish, started smoking and drinking more. He had stopped stealing altogether in order to squeeze in a couple more hours of practice every day, so he found himself more and more hungry as the days flew past. He made the correlation between the increased beer and cigarette consumption and his mother's failing health, but he could only stand by and watch as his mother moved around less and less, eventually stopping work altogether so that he was forced to start stealing again. If only he had done something. When he was eight years old, he came home from Adelaide's house to see his mother collapsed on the ground, not moving. Smoke still drifted from the end of the cigarette she was holding. Adelaide took him into her house as her own when she heard the news, but Jace was distraught. Blaming himself for not preventing his mother's death, he stopped playing the violin. He felt as if he didn't deserve the music or the color anymore, because his mother couldn't hear or see any of them anymore. Adelaide was at a loss for what to do. One day, when Adelaide was out of the house doing who knew what (she always avoided the question whenever Jace asked, but it did seem to put food on the table, so he stopped querying after some time), she brought back a girl. She was five years old, three years younger than Jace, with wheat-colored hair and blue eyes that sparkled so much that he thought that they might have been gemstones. Apparently she was alone and parentless, and Adelaide had found her in a grimy alley. Adelaide always did have a soft spot for the lost. Jace never had a sibling before, but the girl, Juneau, stuck to him like glue. He was distracted out of grieving for the death of his mother in order to learn about and care for his newfound little sister. Somehow, though she had been lost and alone not too long ago, Juneau's innocence remained intact. He could scarcely believe her optimism, her joy in life, the spark in her eyes that never left. How he wanted to shield her from the darker aspects of the world, make sure that light was never snuffed out. When Jace was ten and Juneau was seven, Adelaide was watching Jace tune his violin as Juneau slept upstairs, All of the sudden, several bulky men armed with scowls, guns, and bad intentions. Jace was practically shoved into a broom closet as one of the men demanded that Adelaide's time was up, and she had better pay up or she didn't want a bullet to the head. Evidently Adelaide had been borrowing money from suspicious figures when she was out of the house, the reason why they had something to eat everyday. Adelaide insisted on having more time, but the men were having none of it. A gunshot cleaved through the tension-heavy air. It just so happened that a couple policemen were patrolling the area and, hearing the sound, hurried towards the source. The thugs were tasered and put under arrest, but it was too late. Adelaide had taken a bullet straight to the heart. The policemen scouted out the house and found Jace and Juneau, both children mute with shock. Explaining what happened with vague sympathy, they gave the children time to pack up their possessions before escorting them to an orphanage. Tears streamed down Juneau's cheeks and whimpers escaped her lips, but Jace could only stare in disbelief as the woman who had taught him how to create color and music laid still on the cold tile floor, blood seeping through her shirt like a rose in bloom. Once again, Jace felt like he had failed. At the orphanage, when the two of them were alone in their new, cramped room, Juneau broke down. She wept and wept, oceans leaking from her eyes, and all Jace could do was hold her and keep his own tears from spilling. They only had each other now, and he had to be strong for his little sister. There weren't many kids in the orphanage. Juneau began to recover when she met Mercy, another parentless girl her age, becoming fast friends with her. Jace mostly kept to himself, confiding in only Juneau, though he did acquaint himself with some of the other children. The head of the orphanage, seeing Jace's talent (though not his condition, as he mostly kept that to himself now that he knew no-one else saw colors the way he did), urged him to enter a competition or two when he was thirteen. He agreed, just to humor her. He won two city competitions for young mucisians, and then moved up to region level, and somehow won those too. At international level, he placed third on one and fourth on the other. Encouraged by Juneau's urges, he took part of as many competitions as possible. Several he won, and as a result, he was asked to play as a soloist for several major orchestras. The prize money flowed in, and while half he gave to the head of the orphanage in gratitude, the other half he saved away. When he was fifteen, he worked up the nerve to ask the court if he could become a legal adult early. They consented to give him a trial run of sorts: if he could support himself and Juneau for three months without trouble, then he would be considered a legal adult. He got to work. Jace rented out a small but cozy apartment in the heart of Goldenrod, of course bringing Juneau with him. Juneau was delighted, though, unlike Jace with his tentative friends, she remained in touch with Mercy and visited her ever so often. After setting up a website selling his violin-playing services, he immediately began getting requests to play in concerts, weddings, and the like. Three months passed, and it became evident that he could support him and his little sister fully well. Many sheets of paperwork later, Jace became a legal adult. Juneau, twelve at the time, enrolled in the local middle school. Jace decided against going to school, deciding instead to pursue a life in the classical music industry. Everything was going swell, but then Juneau started acting erratic. She cut her long locks of hair she was so proud of and started giving a couple of her possessions away, including her precious bike. She started skipping classes and wasn't home as much as she should have been. Jace was worried, but Juneau put up a good show. She was always lively and energetic as always around him, though sometimes her eyes seemed troubled. Jace didn't know what to do, so he just hoped that her worries would clear up soon. Evidently they didn't. At sixteen years old, Jace came home late at night from a concert one day. The apartment was still, and he opened the bathroom door to see his little sister hunched over the toilet, wrists bleeding, razor nearby, dripping so much red, oh Arceus how could the innocent bleed so much- He dialed the ambulance, but by the time the sirens came, it was too late. Juneau was dead. When he came home from the hospital, mute with shock (deja vu, anyone?) he discovered, among dried pools of blood, a video camera in the bathroom. Inside he knew would be her last words, and he couldn't stand that. He didn't want to hear the reason why the guiding star in her life killed herself. Was it because of him, somehow? He should have known something was wrong, like with his mother. Should have, could have known. Contrary to pushing the violin away from him, as he did with his mother's and Adelaide's death, he poured his griefs into the soothing instrument. He played more than ever, colors darting this way and that, pouring and pouring until it seemed that his heart was empty. How could he care for anyone anymore, when all of them shattered in his presence? Two years passed, life continued. Jace recovered, to some extent. It seemed that Juneau would haunt his every thought, though, filling him with guild every time he thought of her. And he still hadn't watched that suicide video, either, the video camera that had captured it tucked away in the corner of his basement. At eighteen years old, while walking home from a concert, he noticed a little lizard with a flaming tail in a dark alley. When he approached it, it shrunk away in fear. He had to purchase a small loaf of bread from a nearby bakery to lure the Charmander home, where he took care of it with the intention to set it free later. After a couple days, though, when Jace tried to drive it to a Pokemon adoption center, the Charmander wouldn't leave his side. He tried to peel it off his leg and hand it over to the amused woman manning the counter, but to no avail. Giving up, he returned home with the lizard, not knowing what to do. It was then he suddenly recalled that Juneau had expressed hopes of becoming a Pokemon trainer when she got older, when she was alive, of course. Jace wasn't too into the idea himself, but, on a whim and in honor of his deceased little sister's memory, he decided to give it a shot. He had plenty of leisurely days between concerts to train the lizard (female, he discovered, so he decided to call her Comfort), so he began to take up training as a hobby. This is where we see him now. | ||||||||
MISC. Trainer Type: Casual trainer. It's really more of a hobby than anything for him at the moment, and his occupation is still centered wholly on the music business. Sooner or later his interest might pick up, though. | ||||||||
appearance based off of shintaro kisaragi from kagerou project found through an advertisement silverfire posted on a site [completed] |
MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS