"If you want something, get it. If you don't like something, change it. If you love something, protect it."
âThe Basicsâ
"Nothing out of the ordinary." Corey Ryder
| Nickname |
"Not a lot of things you can shorten Corey to." Most people call him Ryder, few actually know him as Corey.
| Age |
"Old enough to do what I want." Twenty-four years-old
| Gender |
"You have eyes." Male
| Role |
"I only came back for my sister." Human | Falls for December
âThe Disguiseâ
"Women like them so, whatever." Ryder has some pretty amazing eyes. They're a nice hazel color, and seem to grab your attention as soon as you see him. Women are always obsessed with his eyes, and he's continually getting compliments for them.
| Hair Color |
"I got my mother's hair." Ryder's hair is a dark blond that some might even say is brown. However, in the summer, when the sun is always out, it takes on a lighter tone, as the sun's rays bleach sandy highlights in it that make it unmistakably blond. He usually keeps it short because it's just less hassle.
| Skin Tone |
"I like being outside." Corey has darkly tanned skin. He's always loved to be outside, even when he was young, and the only things that take him indoors are weather or nighttime. As such, his skin is resistant enough to the sun that it gets very dark without burning. During the winter months though, he is actually naturally pale.
| Height & Weight |
"You know you want me babe." Corey is not insanely huge, but he does keep himself in good shape, so he's got large arms and perfect abs. Heweighs 190 lbs and stands at a hieght of 6' 1"
| Distinct Markings |
Scars
Being as Ryder has been working with machines and tolls since he was a kid, he has had more than one unfortunate accident, leaving him with various scars. When he was a teenager, he was shot once, so his most traumatic scar is on the front of his right shoulder. It just missed his heart. He also has a scar that runs from the webbing between his thumb and pointer finger across his palm on one side and across the back of his hand on the other. He got this using a saw, and nearly cut his thumb off. He has a couple of burn scars on his left arm from a welding accident, but other than this, his scars are small and not too noticeable.
Piercings
Ryder had his ears pierced as a teen, because he thought it was cool, so he still has the piercings, but he has long-since stopped wearing them.
Tattoos
Often, Ryder thanks that, as a teen, he didn't get any drunk tattoos. He's open to them, but he has none.
âGetting to know meâ
"I like to travel."
â„ Dogs | Bloodhound, Duke | Bulldog puppy Tubs
â„ His family
â„ Working
â„ The shop
â„ Cars
â„ Drinking
â„ Sex
â„ Women
â„ Fighting, though he tries not to
â„ Learning new things
â„ Classic Rock
â„ Cars
â„ Anything mechanical
â„ Travelling
â„ Smoking/cigarettes
| Dislikes |
"Don't throw yourself at me, baby, it won't work."
â Easy girls
â Being told what to do
â Being in one place too long
â Liars
â Annoying people
â Clingy girls
â Having too much expected of him
â Being sober (though he stays that way)
â His temper
â When people get in his way
â People with an attitude
â Kids, especially teens
â Sarcastic assholes, though he is one
â Being ignored
â Pessimists
| Fears |
â Failure â All his life, Corey has been especially talented at everything he did. He's just always excelled. Should he fail, it upsets him, and brings out his temper, whether or not this means literally failing to do something, or failing a family member.
â His old ways â Ryder is not proud of the person he was when he was younger, and this person is part of the reason he left home when he was eighteen. He had to protect his family from who he was, and get away to make himself a better man. However, he feels he's not totally free of the old him, and often slips back into his old ways.
â Losing his family â Ryder loves his family dearly, and, if it weren't for his sister, he wouldn't even be home, so he fears that something will happen to them, for he's extremely protective of them.
âDelve a little deeperâ
"All you need to know about me is that I strongly believe everything can be turned around. No matter how bad." Corey is a strong optimist, or at least tries to be. He doesn't believe in dwelling on the bad. His philosophy for life is to enjoy it. It's that simple. If there's something you don't like about yourself, change it. You can be who you want to be, and your life is only as bad as you think it is.
Ryder believes that, simply by changing your outlook on life, you can change yourself. If you're constantly hating life, and live in fear, you won't ever be happy. He believes that everyone should try to find happiness, and, to do so, you just have to do what you want. Don't care what others think.
Which can get him into trouble sometimes, because, if there's something he wants, he gets it, and if there's something he doesn't, he throws it away.
He does his best to be a good guy. To help out with the community and treat people fairly. To be the person he wants to be, an honest, hardworking man who protects his family above all else. He's trying to make up for the things he's done in the past by being a better man, but it's an ongoing struggle when you're so easily lead astray.
To understand Ryder, you must first realize that he hasn't always been an optimist, and he hasn't always been a good guy. He had a horrible life when he was younger, and it affected him badly. He went through his younger years hating everything and everyone around him, hurting people who were only trying to help because he was afraid they'd give up on him.
However, he changed himself, which is why Ryder believes there is good in everyone. That everyone can be good, but only if they really want it.
This is not always the case for him though, because he can slip. He still falls into his old habits from time to time, and this is his biggest fear. That he'll go back to the person he was. He works every day of his life to avoid ever being that person again and keep his family safe.
Ryder is not unfriendly. He can be sarcastic and blunt at times, telling you flat out if he doesn't like you or your attitude, and this often leads others to believe he's an asshole, but this is not the case. In fact, he's very social, and one of his loves is people.
He's very curious. If there's something that interests him, he'll research it, and learn everything he can about it, and then he'll try to master it. He likes to learn new skills, and can do everything from build an engine, to fold delicate origami. He's a master of all trades, practicing something that interests him until he perfects it, for no other reason than curiosity.
This also applies to people. He's very curious of people, and loves to figure them out and get to know them and, if he can, administer help, because he loves helping people. He finds that helping others is the best way to make up for all the shit and pain he's caused in his life.
Ever since he was young, Ryder has been extremely smart, and, as such, has a keen knowledge of how things work, as well as an eye for detail. He can read people like an open book, registering a small twitch of the fingers as nervousness, and his mother often used to joke that he would have made a very successful cop.
To know Ryder, you must realize that he comes from dark places, but this only means he has experience when he's saying that living negatively is no way to live. He's not simply preaching. He's been there.
âWelcome to my lifeâ
"I may bee young, but I've done a lot and seen a lot." Ryder's life was never easy. In small towns like theirs, everyone knows everyone, and there are certain people who fit stereotypes for the whole town. His father was the town drunk while his mother was the town whore.
Only he thought his mother was the best person in the world because, she may have slept around a lot, but she loved her children dearly and provided for them as best she could with what she had. She slept around because of lack of love, and to provide for her family.
His father was a bitter drunk who beat every member of the family often. He treated his mother like shit, and beat the children to punish her.
He was the second child of three in the family. He had an older brother and a younger sister. They were the poorest in town and the children were treated as charity cases wherever they went because they didn't always have food, or because of their drunk of a father and slut of a mother. They were looked down on.
As a child, it was clear right away that Ryder was brilliant. More than brilliant. He had the makings of a protege. He could teach himself anything in a manner of days, and loved to tinker with things, and understand them. He liked learning how things worked, and loved his schoolwork because he was eager to learn. Building and tinkering were his favorite past times and, by the time he was ten, he'd taken apart, and put back together his first car. He was exceptional, and it became clear early on that he excelled at everything he did.
Only his home life got to him and he started skipping school and hanging with the wrong people. He became perpetually angry at the world for dealing him the hand he'd gotten, and was almost never home. His mother reported him a runaway six times in one year at one point, until the cops no longer took her seriously.
He was into drugs and drinking, and never listened to authority. He was a bitter asshole and hit people and things often to let out his frustration. He took pleasure in hurting people in the worst possible ways, and it was clear that he was more than just a rebellious teen. He was downright out of control. The people he hung with were the bottom of the barrel, shadiest figures in New Orleans.
He was, in all, a horrible person with a terrible temper.
His grades plummeted, and teachers were disappointed in him because, the work he bothered to do was perfect, and tests he actually showed up for were all finished within minutes, and were completely right. He would have breezed through school effortlessly, probably skipped a few grades, had he bothered to show up.
His father died when he was sixteen, leaving the family broken and unable to repair the damage he'd left in his wake. His older brother was twenty at the time and took up ownership of their father's mechanic shop, and the fact that he was using the money to actually help the family instead of buy booze helped quite a bit for the next year.
Then, when he was eighteen, just after graduating, he stumbled home drunk and his mother slapped him for it. He hit her back, causing her to trip and hit her head on a shelf, cracking her skull and killing her.
And that was the end of it.
He couldn't go on living the way he was, because he was a danger to the only people he'd ever loved. Now, the only minor in the family was his younger sister, and his older brother took custody of her, seeing as he was considered "unfit" to care for a child.
Fearing the law, Ryder ran away. He left the country, and never looked back, and never intended to. He went to college, studying for a degree in engineering, but he couldn't commit himself to one place long enough to finish college, so he eventually gave up.
He changed himself during these years, refusing to ever be the person who'd killed his mother again. He quit drugs completely, save for cigarettes, and he tried to quit drinking, but it proved too hard, so he limited himself to a couple of drinks every now and then. Not enough to get drunk. He became a better person, and, as a result, a happier person.
When he was 20, he fell in love, and he thought he was going to marry this girl. She was everything he wanted.
Only she died of cancer before he could propose.
When he was 23, he got a horrible phone call from home. He hadn't heard anything from his hometown in five years, as he refused to make any sort of contact and what he learned floored him completely. His brother had died and his sister was dying of cancer and was only 13. With her legal guardian dead, they needed someone to take custody of her, so Ryder moved back home to care for his sister and take up ownership of his father's shop again.
His return was huge news for the town, as him and his family had caused quite a stirring and had always been the topic of local gossip, and they were curious to see if he'd followed in his father's footsteps. Only he hadn't. He earned respect in the small town, and is looked up to by many. He's very popular among the townspeople as the man who overcame his horrible life and is now, out of the goodness of his heart, taking care of his sick little sister and also taking young men who get in trouble with the law in, allowing them to do community service in his shop so that he can have some influence in their life, seeing a lot of himself in them.
Only, he can't help wishing to be anywhere but stuck back home. All he ever wanted was to get out of the swampy little Louisiana town that seemed to keep people stuck for their entire lives, and he did, and was immensely proud. Now he finds himself right back where he started and is afraid the memories of the place will send him back to what he was before.
âThemesongâ
Believe
The Bravery
The faces all around me they don't smile they just crack
Waiting for our ship to come but our ships not coming back
We do our time like pennies in a jar
What are we saving for [x2]
There's a smell of stale fear that's reeking from our skins.
The drinking never stops because the drinks absolve our sins
We sit and grow our roots into the floor
But what are we waiting for? [x2]
[chorus:]
So give me something to believe
Cause I am living just to breathe
And I need something more
To keep on breathing for
So give me something to believe
Something's always coming you can hear it in the ground
It swells into the air
With the rising
Rising sound
And never comes but shakes the boards and rattles all the doors
What are we waiting for [x2]
[chorus]
I am hiding from some beast
But the beast was always here
Watching without eyes
Because the beast is just my fear
That I am just nothing
Now its just what I've become
What am I waiting for
Its already done
Oh
[chorus]
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
The Bravery
The faces all around me they don't smile they just crack
Waiting for our ship to come but our ships not coming back
We do our time like pennies in a jar
What are we saving for [x2]
There's a smell of stale fear that's reeking from our skins.
The drinking never stops because the drinks absolve our sins
We sit and grow our roots into the floor
But what are we waiting for? [x2]
[chorus:]
So give me something to believe
Cause I am living just to breathe
And I need something more
To keep on breathing for
So give me something to believe
Something's always coming you can hear it in the ground
It swells into the air
With the rising
Rising sound
And never comes but shakes the boards and rattles all the doors
What are we waiting for [x2]
[chorus]
I am hiding from some beast
But the beast was always here
Watching without eyes
Because the beast is just my fear
That I am just nothing
Now its just what I've become
What am I waiting for
Its already done
Oh
[chorus]
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
Last Night
Skillet
You come to me with scars on your wrist
You tell me this will be the last night feeling like this
I just came to say goodbye
I didn't want you to see me cry, I'm fine
But I know it's a lie.
[Chorus:]
This is the last night you'll spend alone
Look me in the eyes so I know you know
I'm everywhere you want me to be.
The last night you'll spend alone,
I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let go,
I'm everything you need me to be.
Your parents say everything is your fault
But they don't know you like I know you they don't know you at all
I'm so sick of when they say
It's just a phase, you'll be o.k. you're fine
But I know it's a lie.
[Chorus]
The last night away from me
[Bridge:]
The night is so long when everything's wrong
If you give me your hand I will help you hold on
Tonight,
Tonight.
[Chorus]
I won't let you say goodbye,
I'll be your reason why.
The last night away from me,
Away from me.
Skillet
You come to me with scars on your wrist
You tell me this will be the last night feeling like this
I just came to say goodbye
I didn't want you to see me cry, I'm fine
But I know it's a lie.
[Chorus:]
This is the last night you'll spend alone
Look me in the eyes so I know you know
I'm everywhere you want me to be.
The last night you'll spend alone,
I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let go,
I'm everything you need me to be.
Your parents say everything is your fault
But they don't know you like I know you they don't know you at all
I'm so sick of when they say
It's just a phase, you'll be o.k. you're fine
But I know it's a lie.
[Chorus]
The last night away from me
[Bridge:]
The night is so long when everything's wrong
If you give me your hand I will help you hold on
Tonight,
Tonight.
[Chorus]
I won't let you say goodbye,
I'll be your reason why.
The last night away from me,
Away from me.
