Flavor text for Shadowy Guy, first draft
All the non-rules stuff.
Vitals:[sblock]
Jerry Lin, aka Lin Tao, aka Jerry Rowcroft
Male Australian citizen of Chinese descent
Birth Name: Jared “Jerry” Tao Lin
Legal Name: Jared Rowcroft Tao Lin
Age: 15 (DOB: 9-28-1996)
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 130 lbs. (down ten pounds thanks to the changed weight of his "blood")
Hair: Platinum blonde (formerly black)
Eyes: White (pupils remain dark, irises were formerly brown but lost all color)[/sblock]
Description:[sblock]
Jared is a well-built Chinese person with extremely white skin. The color of his skin is a shade slightly darker than his hair. From a distance he appears to be purely white but closer examination reveals that his pigmentation varies in the normal places like the palms of the hands and bottoms of his feet, if within a narrower range than is normal for baselines. Prior to gaining his powers his pigmentation was typical of a person of his ancestry.
Jared’s weighs less than may be apparent, as the shadowstuff that replaced his blood is slightly lighter than air. He would weigh about ten pounds more with normal blood.
Jared prefers to dress in tight, comfortable clothes that emphasize his physique. He’s proud of what years of active life have wrought, but he’ll accept more modest uniforms with good humor. He’s just likely to change into something more to his preferences as soon as he’s able. His personal wardrobe runs heavy to athletic clothes. [/sblock]
Personal History:[sblock]
Jared was born in Sydney and grew up on the beach near his father’s surf shop. The family business was always a marginal affair, making just enough money to keep them in food and pay for his father’s alcohol and marijuana habits. It serves as the local hangout for his father’s friends and anybody else that cares to come in, but the denlike, insular atmosphere keeps most at bay. The two slept in an apartment above the shop.
Jared’s father had his addictions under a reasonable amount of control. He was a heavy social drinker, but fundamentally a quiet, retiring drunk. His parenting style was just not to do anything. As soon as Jared was able to be out on his own he was let run free.
Other people around taught Jared how to swim and surf, and young Jared would have quite happily continued along with that life forever, but as he grew older schooling conflicted with surfing and became more onerous as it shifted from mostly play-focused learning light on the homework to something more intense. He quickly became a major discipline problem and when his father’s non-response to serial truancy and wild misbehavior became clear, child welfare became involved.
Jared was taken out of his home, away from the beach and his friends, during his ninth summer and placed in the first of a series of foster homes. Attempts to discipline him worked no better than they had at school. Rules existed only to be broken and the attention Jared received in punishment only encouraged him.
Jared went through several homes and was clearly on a dangerous path, until he landed with the Rowcrofts, a middle-aged couple that realized becoming upset or punishing him for breaking their rules only rewarded Jared for the behavior. They made no sense to him at first. No matter what Jared did, how often he snuck out, or what he called them, they simply shrugged and expressed mild disappointment. It was as if all his acting out only bored them. But when Jared followed the rules, even accidentally or out of indifference, their praise was ready and eager. That was attention too and after a spring and most of summer struggling with them and getting no response, Jared began settling down.
The Rowcrofts realized that Jared needed something to fill the void where his beach-based life used to be. They could hardly let him roam free where he would surely end up back with his father and his old friends, who thought his old lifestyle was the coolest thing there could be. That would throw away all of their progress. But keeping him from anything like it caused problems too. So they made a deal with Jared. As long as he kept up his schoolwork and showed improvement, they would enroll him in an organized swimming program. He would have coaches, teammates, and responsibilities, but he could also be in the water again and have friends, even a social life. Jared eagerly agreed.
Nothing could have prepared Jared for the program. The sudden insertion into an entirely new social environment that reinforced his deep connection with water and the demanding but nurturing coach made for a difficult to resist combination of the best things of his old life and new. He progressed rapidly into the competitive track and assimilated into the team’s social milieu. Jared still missed surfing, but swimming was becoming the main focus of his life.
A year into his placement with the Rowcrofts, Jared came home from school one day to find a new surfboard waiting for him and with it came another deal. As long as Jared maintained his grades and did not shirk his responsibilities to the team, and didn’t go near his old home or beach, he could surf again. Jared’s old friends, mostly poor kids like he’d been if with more supervision, were nearly two years gone by now and rapidly fading from his mind. It was an easy choice, and surfing resumed a place in Jared’s life.
The Rowcrofts encouraged Jared to discover his heritage. They were white Australians of Anglo-Irish stock, but they did their best to pique his interest and eventually succeeded. His father never talked about their history except for vague mentions of his father being a soldier before he left China forever. He kept no mementos of his childhood and only ever spoke English around Jared. Even having a heritage was a revelation to Jared. He knew he was Chinese, but it was just a word to him. Now he discovered that just by being born he was a part of this gigantic tradition and it meant a great deal to him, and he wanted to be a part of it. When the new school year began, Jared started studying Chinese and got involved in a Chinese youth group.
With Jared having improved so dramatically, it seemed as though the foster care had worked and maybe it was time for him to go home. He’d grown very close to the Rowcrofts, but family was family and even if it wasn’t ideal, child welfare preferred to return children to their birth parents. Jared didn’t want to go and the Rowcrofts didn’t want him to go, but the law was the law. He was no longer at risk and seemed quite stable.
Thus for the first time in four years, Jared had to face his father. He got no further than the doorway of the shop, where his father drunkenly chased him away. Jared ran right back to the Rowcrofts and they reported the incident to child welfare, along with their request to adopt him. To the social workers’ surprise, Jared’s father cooperated fully.
His future secured, Jared had little reason to look back. His father’s rejection hurt him more deeply than he’d though possible, but what was done was done. Jared though seriously about changing his name with the adoption process and cutting his ties to the past entirely, but his middle and last names were Chinese and that had come to mean something to him independent of his father and he wanted to retain the connection to his unknown ancestors.
Jared spent the next few years quietly, settling down in school and keeping up his swimming, surfing, and participation in the Chinese Youth League. He finally had a normal, stable life and every assurance that it would remain that way.
Three months ago, Jared was returning from the beach with some friends. He’d been at a youth group party and one of his friends had been trying to convince him to join the group’s martial arts program. Jared didn’t think the Rowcrofts would go for it and much of his free time already went to swimming and homework, but Harry was persistent and one of the closest friends Jared had outside of swimming. Jared agreed to skip his ride and let Xiaobo talk to him about it while they walked home.
The two friends walked through Sydney’s streets and the original purpose of the conversation drifted in and out as they spoke animatedly, not paying a great deal of attention to where they were going. They’d get to their homes eventually and it wasn’t a school night. After a while, Xiaobo was showing Jared moves as they walked. For the fun of it, Jared tried to follow along and both of them missed the changing signal on a crosswalk.
The two stepped out into traffic and right into the blinding headlights of an oncoming truck. Its horn blared and breaks squealed. Both teenagers froze in place, watching their oncoming doom. One moment Jared was drawing breath to scream and the next he plunged into something vast and pleasantly cool, like a dark ocean. It vanished and he was on the far side of the street, safe and watching the truck closing the final meter between itself and his friend. Without thinking about how, Jared mentally plunged back into that black sea and his shadow stretched out across the light, picking Xiaobo up and shoving him to safety.
Jared looked down at his hand and saw it some kind of wispy shadowy stuff dissipating from around it and sat down hard on the pavement, stunned. He was an elite.
Things changed very quickly after that. Over the next few weeks Jared began to feel something new and pleasant inside him, especially when in sunlight. Doctors examined him and discovered his blood was rapidly being replaced by the same shadowstuff that he’d immersed himself into when he got his powers. Jared should be dying but he felt incredible. His new physiology baffled the doctors. It seemed that his body had stopped producing blood and started producing the shadowstuff as soon as his powers manifested. How it carried out the normal functions of blood, they couldn’t figure out.
Jared took everything in stride. His new blood seemed virtually weightless, which helped out a bit in the pool. Losing his pigmentation was confusing, considering how much he’d been investing in his Chinese identity, but that kind of thing ran deeper than skin color as far as he cared. The youth group even accepted members without a drop of Chinese blood, so it hardly upset his social situation. Having his clothes change color was a little bit annoying, since it complicated his wearing a school uniform or his team colors, but at the same time Jared liked that it marked his stuff as his. Learning that he could no longer fairly compete was a bigger blow, but he was still welcome to train with the club and work to improve his times.
When his parents heard about the new school for elites, they had a long talk with Jared. It meant leaving home, but it would be a chance for him to be with other kids like him and experts who understood what was happening to his body. It was probably the best place for him to be. Leaving his life behind would be hard, but the prospect of meeting other elites his age and getting to learn more about his powers appealed to Jared. They sent off an application and Mudaba Adin accepted Jared as a student.[/sblock]
Personality:[sblock]
Jared (Jerry to his friends except for the Chinese youth group where he’s Tao.) is an outgoing, energetic kid. He bears no visible scars of his years of neglect, but retains a deep need for attention and acceptance. Fortunately, Jared’s mostly learned the difference between negative and positive attention, though if he feels like he’s being ignored or neglected he can forget the distinction. Jared’s need for acceptance mostly manifests in his constant desire to be part of things larger than himself, whether it’s the traditional culture of China or a swim team.
Jared has made up most of his lost schooling through hard work, but he doesn’t see himself as much of a scholar. He’s learned to respect learning and managed some of his issues with authority, but friends, fun, and water are all more important. Jared feels a deep, spiritual connection to water whether it’s in the ocean or a swimming pool and if given the choice would rather be wet than dry. The motions of large bodies of water are hypnotic and he can stare at them for hours, when he’s not swimming in them or surfing on them. He feels the same emotions towards the shadowstuff that his powers involve.
Physical activity, especially relating to water, is a very big part of Jared’s life. He likes being active, especially with others. If he has spare time, he’s likely to be thinking about how he can most effectively get some laps in or catch a wave. Failing those options, he’ll settle for other forms of exercise.
Jared is a dutiful student, but unless the subject touches on one of his obsessions (water, China, surfing, swimming, elites, etc) he's not very enthusiastic.[/sblock]
