MATTERSON, raylon

[Raylon Matterson]

MATTERSON, Raylon

The Basics

Name: Raylon Andrew Matterson
Age: 17
Date of Birth: 6/9/2003
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Homosexual
Hometown: Bentonville, Arkansas
Alter Ego: Nick Andros from The Stand
Similarities: Like Nick, Raylon is Deaf and mute, though he has a cochlear implant unlike the character. He is also an orphan who is quite introverted due to a life of being teased, Similar to Nick's backstory.

The Photographs

Hair: Raylon has an unusual shade of blond hair that rests between golden and white. The very fine locks dip below his shoulders.

Eyes: A light, expressive blue that almost speak for him. When Raylon is happy they seem dance, and when he is sad they make him seem like "a pristine piece of fine china that chipped for the first time," as a worker at the orphanage put it.

Weight & Height: Standing at five foot seven, Raylon falls short of average height. His weight is on the lower end of healthy in the hundred thirty range. However, his slender build makes it all seem natural until one realizes that he can borrow girls' pants.

Facial Features: Raylon is quite pretty for a boy. His soft face has definition in all the right places and the only major complaint he hears is that he looks like a girl (which is an exaggeration, but he does not fit the typical definition of masculine either.)

Other Information: Underneath his hair on he left side rests a cochlear implant. This is actually why he wears his hair long, as it makes an already subtle piece of machinery less noticeable.

Due to his slight frame much of the clothing Raylon wears is quite loose, save for some of his pairs of jeans, which are not form fitting, but still quite skinny. His limbs lack almost any sort of hair.

Playby: Dylan Fosket

The Personality

LIKES & DISLIKES
LIKE 1 Contact: Perhaps because he wasn't hugged enough as a lad Raylon enjoys being held and cuddled. He feels it is the most honest and direct he can be with a person as he does not have to go though his notebook or a computer to do it. Much of the time it is just simple affection, but many would be friends take the actions a flirty or just get uncomfortable. Budding friendships have been clipped by this tendency, so Ray is a bit more careful how handy he gets or whose shoulder he rests his head on.  If he starts clinging to someone, that usually just means he is comfortable around them

LIKE 2 Loud music: Strangely Raylon goes to concerts when possible. While the actual music mixed with the sounds of the crowds through his implant does not do anything for him he enjoys the sensation of the vibrations that sound waves create. There is also the factor that the energy of a concert draws him into the action rather than allowing him to slink to the side like he normally does. It does help that a girl once told him how well he could hear at one, not knowing that he was just reading her lips.

LIKE 3 Lizards: Raylon has a fascination with the scaly beasts, particularly desert dwelling ones. If the dorms allowed it he would have a pet blue tongued skink. As they do not there are just frequent internet searches about them.  On the few trips to the Zoo he's been on the reptile exhibits never fail to instil a childlike wonder within him.


DISLIKE 1 Cars: Raylon's life seems to be a litany of car accidents. His parents' lives were lost in two separate incidents, one of which caused the damage to him that caused his deafness and muteness. A third loss years later cemented this phobia, and Raylon generally will not step into a car, truck, or even bus that has any possibility of moving. This is to the extent where Ray has a special playlist on his phone among a great list of other things to soothe him if he absolutely must take a ride.

DISLIKE 2 Attention: Raylon prefers to interact one on one, without a group watching. In part this is due to the difficulty of five or ten people trying to read a paper at a time. Perhaps the bigger part of things is that he fears what they would convince him to do. Ray has a weakness to peer pressure, and perhaps in his mind at the time he is just trying to fit in, but after the fact he tends to regret his actions.

DISLIKE 3 Being a deaf mute: Understandably Raylon is a bit bitter about lacking things that others take for granted. He would never admit that seventeen years later he still harbors jealousy for nearly everyone on the planet, but to an extent that is exactly the case. This is actually why Raylon has his inferiority complex as well, he feels as if he is only part of a whole. He lets his silence hold him back just as much as he uses it to drive him.

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES
STRENGTH 1
Personable: Raylon gives his all to help others when he can. He finds it easy to make positive acquaintances with people due to a fear of others disliking him. Regardless of the reason, Raylon has learned how to make a good impression on people who actually stop to talk to him.  If he wasn't as shy or "Different" Raylon would have a blooming social life.  finding people wo like being around him is not much of a problem, but maintaining contact outside of the ones he physically has to be around is difficult when he figures that pretty much everyone has more important things to do than talk to him and get nothing back.

STRENGTH 2
Perceptive: Being "audio impaired" gives him a bit of time to watch and learn the gestures of people and read them. In tandem with deafness it actually lets him read what a person says with their body better than what they say with words. That is not to say that it is perfect, However! Ray still largely depends on lip reading and his implant.

STRENGTH 3
Artistic: Being restricted to pen and paper gives Ray an almost constant diversion in the form of drawing.  As a result His pen strokes can form pretty impressive images if he takes the time to make them.  Much of the art takes the form of nature, or if there isn't much time to commit to a drawing he sketches simplistic, Escher-like optical illusions.  This is a talent that is not displayed to others outside his art class, as Raylon feels it would be a bit conceited to show others his sketches.

Weakness 1
Mute: Raylon can not vocalize in any sense of the word. Involuntary yelling out of pain or frustration is also impossible. While somewhat alleviated by a notepad he carries and occasionally finding someone to sign to, It still leaves Raylon easy to ignore.  Blocking him out is as simple as not reading his notes. This muteness, among other things has lead him to be hesitant to assert himself due to the difficulty doing in doing so.

WEAKNESS 2

Deaf:While not as terrible an affliction as it may first seem, Raylon does lack the ability to hear. Thanks to a cochlear implant he can gather things such as the tone and manner in which others speak and he is pretty talented a lip reading to figure out what it is that someone says.However, He needs to be able to see lips to read them, and often does not realize when people talk to him from behind and to the sides. Sometimes gestures and posture can make things difficult to understand as well. If a partner in conversation brings their hands to their face or looks too far downward (just as they might when they read his notes) Raylon may completely miss parts of what they say.

WEAKNESS 3
Low self worth: What is often seen as generosity is actually Raylon's attempts to prove to others -and himself- that he is worth conversing with. He views himself as a background character in his peers' stories and if given a chance to step into the limelight he will deny it. Unless he is pressured that is. Ray can easily be persuaded into doing stupid, sometimes dangerous things if enough people want him to.

Personality

Hopes:

He hopes to overcome the bad hand he was dealt and be successful regardless

Dreams:

In terms of literal dreams Raylon dreams of being able to speak and hear.

Goal:

Finding a nice boy that will accept his physical problems. Of course, it doesn't help that he is not completely at terms with his sexuality.

Overall Personality:

As much as Raylon tries to find personal meaning he struggles to view himself as an equal to all the other people. Others' needs are always seen to before his own, and that is completely fine with him. Regardless of this issue Raylon is a kind, helpful person by nature and if others are willing to dig through the shell he unknowingly erected they will see that.

Personally Raylon knows full well that he is gay, but he is not as comfortable with it as he could be.  Sure, he doesn't hide it, but he also doesn't particularly embrace it.  The refusal to acknowledge this winds up hurting him, particularly when he finds another male attractive.  Often Ray will avoid the feeling (And person) altogether rather than face things head on.

Friends are both hard and easy to come by for Ray. Oftentimes others want to coddle the poor damaged boy, but that is not at all how he wants to be perceived. If anything he desires acceptance and respect, two things he does not give himself. This desire comes with a tendency to make less than ideal decisions when attention is on him.  He will generally buckle to peer pressure pretty quick because of this.  Another issue he faces is the fear of rejection or being ostracized that comes from bad experiences in the schools and orphanages he has attended.

Perhaps because of his dearth of long term friends Raylon has become quite good at analyzing himself and what he wants. How Should he dig himself out of the social hole he created? What should he do with his life to make it better?  There are many questions swirling about in his head with very few answers.  The one thing he knows is that he wants to make others' lives better just as much as his own.

The School Records

Year: Junior
Graduation: 2022
Classes:
Please add all classes your character is currently taking. Do not include after-school clubs.

• Science
• Art
• Physical Education

Extra Curricular:
Please add all after school clubs or extra curriculars that your student takes. Include any occupations or internships your character has.

• Library Assistant

Best Subject: English
Worst Subject: Science

The Family

Parents:

Olivia and Sylvester Matterson (both deceased.)None.

Other Significant Family:

One grandparent on his mother's side is still alive, but they aren't in touch.

Relationship:

Raylon lacks any significant family to have relationships with.

The History

The biggest event in Raylon's life predated his birth, if only by two weeks. A car accident with his parents in the back seat claimed the life of his father and injured him prenatally. The doctors could not say for certain the extent of the damage, but it seemed he would be born more or less intact. Mentally Raylon was born just fine, with his deafness and inability to speak being completely physical. However, it was a little much to deal with for his mother, who did her best to raise him up happy despite lacking the insurance or funds to help with his issues in medical or surgical fashions.

The poor woman, Olivia, tried finding a man to help ease her woes and help raise her baby boy about two years after he was born.  Often she left Raylon in a special needs day care a few afternoons a week until his mother was killed when a drunk driver swerved onto the wrong side of the road. Raylon is left with little more than a picture of her and half-forgotten memories. The only surviving relative was in a nursing home receiving mental treatment, so Ray was sent away to hopefully be adopted.

Then he found his way through a series of orphanages. Some went bankrupt, some just passed him along. One that Ray stayed in shortly following his mother's accident  that he stopped in early on had the funds to have a cochlear implant put in before he was passed off.  Over the years the orphanages gravitated towards New york  In this time he developed an inferiority complex from believing all the nasty words other children threw at him because they thought he wouldn't know.  Of course, he could tell full well what malicious words were being said.  That pretty much continued for his entire school career regardless of where he spent that particular year

The final place he stayed at was nice. He had another deaf friend, Harrison was his name. They were rarely apart, with Harrison keeping Raylon company on the walks to and from school he made due to his dreadful fear of riding in automobiles. Ray actually learned to sign from him as well. Perhaps he felt something more than friendship in retrospect, but he would never find out where thing would find out as just before junior high graduation Harrison was run down just the same as the others. It was just that he was outside the vehicle this time.

When it came time for school to begin again Raylon was given a choice of two high schools to attend. Due mostly to Blue Moon High School option's flexible enrollment and the factor that he was emotionally still pretty much a wreck from Harrison's death, he opted to start there midway into his freshman year and has stayed in the dorms since.  It didn't hurt that they wouldn't know his reputation as the class weirdo like the other one the rest of his classmates at the time attended.  It took some convincing From Raylon to get permission, but in the end he was allowed to go with some stipulations.  Ray had to see the school counselor weekly for status updates that would be reported to the orphanage in addition to writing letters.  It also took a decent amount of willpower to even make the ride down to Ozryn as it did involve a bus. Before he left it was made clear he was not out of reach if the orphanage wanted to take him back.

The Player

Name: Jon
Age: 20
Characters: Nope!?
Main: First character

The Sample

Raylon began the day like many others. An alarm was vibrating its pieces underneath his mattress to jostle him into the waking world and away from a dream about.. God, what was it this time? It was more than speaking... Was he dreaming about being a pop star? Yes, that was the unfortunate truth of his night time fantasy, and it was time to leave it behind to face the everyday grind.

As was the norm Raylon brushed his bedhead through to bring it to its usual platinum blonde glory. Then came the other preparations for the school day until finally Ray donned a dusty gray hoodie about a size too big and denim jeans that showed off his little bird legs perfectly. Today was the start of a project in Art that he had been looking forward to. The idea was to pick a word to sketch and embellish it with any sort of paint, ink, or ceramic.

While he did not have the slightest notion of what the word should be, The concept was exciting to the one who spoke solely in the written word. Maybe a quote would be best? Ah well, Ray had until Art to ponder it.

[The Dean]

Thank you for your interest in joining the family at Ozryn! Currently, there are a few things we'd like you to fix and clarify before you can join in on the fun. Once these items are fixed, simply reply to your thread stating so, and we'll look through it again. If you have any questions or need help, please don't hesitate to contact one of the super friendly staff members!

Raylon looks like a wonderful start to a wonderful character! There's just a few things we're suggestion to make him just one more step awesome!

• Like 3, Dislike 1, Dislike 3, and Strength 1 all need another sentence. I know it sounds challenging, but we're aiming for 4 to 5 sentences, and currently, these only have three.

• You should go through and make sure that the only things highlighted are the strength/weakness/likes/dislikes titles. Also, while you're going through, make sure the only bolded areas are your titles (in yellow).

• To make it even, try to add another strength. You have three weaknesses, and two strengths. I'm sure Raylon is good at something, right? What about art or English or another class he really likes? Could that be a strength?

• We'd really like to see you flesh out your history a little more. We have a lot of interesting questions that we'd like you to think about; you can add them or explain them or whatnot if you want:

1. You said Raylon got nasty comments from kids in middle school, but you don't really touch up on it until then, nor do you bring it up anywhere in his personality. If this is a big area of his alter ego similarities, it should really be an important part of him.
   
   
2. Why didn't the doctors put in a cochlear implant when he was little; why'd they wait until he was almost in high school to do that? If they knew he was prenatally injured because of a car crash, they would be monitoring him since said accident in CASE something like this happened.
   
   
3. Why was he put up for adoption when he has living relatives? Was his grandmother not able to take care of him? Wouldn't he put up for fostering, then?
   
   
4. What made him interested in Ozryn? What brought him to Ozryn? What made him choose Blue Mountain over all the other schools? Why would an orphanage let an underaged kid go to what would be considered a "boarding" school without supervision? Does he keep in contact with the orphanage? Is he obligated to get certain grades, or do volunteer work to get the ability to stay at the school?
   
   

I know that it looks like a lot, but I promise we're only asking you to flesh out and make your character even better! When you're ready to have us read through it again, just drop a line in the thread saying all changes have been made, and we'll take another look at it!
The Administration Team

[Raylon Matterson]

I... Think I made the changes?

[The Principal]

Thank you for your interest in joining the family at Ozryn! Currently, there are a few more things we'd like you to fix and clarify before you can join in on the fun. Once these items are fixed, simply reply to your thread stating so, and we'll look through it again. If you have any questions or need help, please don't hesitate to contact one of the super friendly staff members!

• Like 3 needs at least one more sentence of description.
• Expand on Strength 1. Maybe adding why he has no social life or maybe the struggle of being so personable and the inability of keeping long term friends?
• Also we would love to hear more about the connection to your alter ego. From what we understand, Nick Andros took his disability and made something of it. Changed his life in a positive way. Is Raylon searching to become someone more than he is now or to find a purpose for his life. The reason why he is at Blue Mountain High, besides helping others. Etc. (if you have any questions or want to discuss this further with us please PM one of the admins! ;D)
• Why didn't the doctors put in a cochlear implant when he was little; why'd they wait until he was almost in high school to do that? If they knew he was prenatally injured because of a car crash, they would be monitoring him since said accident in CASE something like this happened.
• What made him interested in Ozryn? What brought him to Ozryn? What made him choose Blue Mountain over all the other schools? Why would an orphanage let an underaged kid go to what would be considered a "boarding" school without supervision? Does he keep in contact with the orphanage? Is he obligated to get certain grades, or do volunteer work to get the ability to stay at the school?

[The Principal]

Congratulations, you've been accepted! We wish you a warm welcome to Ozryn, New York, and we hope your stay is as fantastic as ours is. Now that you've been accepted, you can fill out the face claim, the lit character, and the class claims! If you have any questions, please feel free to message anyone on the admin team!