GRAY, matthew (DONE!)

[MATTHEW GRAY]

MATTHEW CHRISTIAN GRAY

I'VE JUST SEEN A FACE

character name:Matthew Christian Gray
nicknames:Matt, whatever else you like.
age:twenty-one
gender:male
sexuality:very straight, yet confused about lust and love in general
pb: adam brody, dears!

THE LONG WINDING ROAD

occupation: A very confused boy who is spending his days trying to figure out how the hell life works for someone like him. He's currently looking for a job that overlooks his social ineptitude.
residence: Balmoral Apartments
been in vegas for how long and why: Although he was content with his perfectly normal life with his family in California, he decided that it was time to leave the thirty people that love him and try and fit in with the normal world. He wanted to grow up, and in doing so, he would have to learn to not depend on the people who knew how to treat him from years of living around him. He needed to deal with people who did not love him or already know him, and in return, learn to deal with them the proper way. He's been in Vegas for a month, trying to get situated in his new living space, and find a place to fit in. Or, a place that will accept him.

FULL OF EXCITING STORIES

likes:

• chocolate cake
  
• mac and cheese
  
• polaroid pictures
  
• oldies
  
• watching people surf
  
• watching horror movies that aren't really scary (i.e. final destination)
  
• his sophmore calculus class (even though it's long over)
  
• his apartment in vegas
  
• his old room in california
  
• those california sunsets
  
• his sister's creative nature
  
• his mothers homemade chicken soup
  
• working on his old best friend's farm
  
• memorizing lists of anything
  
• random facts that nobody knows
  
• spending time with people
  
• being involved
  
• helping people
  
• solving problems
  
• the band 'mae' and amanda palmer
  

dislikes:

• people who over analyze
  
• therapists
  
• being told that 'you're just different, and it's good'
  
• when he miscalculates a person's emotions or body language (which is often)
  
• people who are too surprising
  
• people who are illogical and irrational
  
• someone who can't be honest with him
  
• someone who is boring
  
• being stuck with his loving family for more than three days
  
• being unemployed
  
• when he fails at his artistic endeavors (which is often)
  
• when people make social pop references (because he never get's them)
  
• boy bands

personality:

• impaired sociability
  Matthew's not exactly a complete weirdo, he's just not very good with people. He can successfully know why people do things, and understand human interaction, in fact, he's quite the pro at understanding human motives. If you come up to him and tell him your problems, he's pretty good at giving you good advice to make you feel better and to fix things. His problem comes to when he is involved. He doesn't feel like most people do, and he doesn't have quite as much empathy as others do. He knows what he should do in situations, and tries to do it, he just isn't very good at it.
  
• a slight state of apathy
  Even if he's fantastic at looking at people and situations logically, he is terrible at feeling anything about him. Someone could come up to him crying about how their husband/wife left him, and he'd be able to tell them that they feel terrible and betrayed about it. But he wouldn't feel too bad for you, because he himself isn't going through those emotions. And when it is him going through those emotions, he can feel them, but finds it a lot easier just to ignore them and not act on them.
  
• awkward
  It comes with the territory. Girls can like him because of his good looks, and they can talk to him, and he can be okay with it. He can understand what people should do in these situations, but he can't do what he's supposed to do. He's not exactly a charmer, and usually talks too much about himself. Girls often complain about how easily he can ignore them. He's probably not the best match for someone who needs constant emotional help, because he can't tell them anything meaningful. Sexually, he understands how to do it, what goes where, and can do it. Doesn't mean he's exactly the greatest, and there are probably much better people at it.
  
• outgoing
  He loves to talk to people. He can go up to anyone and talk about anything they want to talk about. He wants friends, and he could be very good at getting them if he could stop rambling about himself. He's one of those people who enjoy a good conversation and strive for some meaningful connection. He just sucks at those meaningful connections.
  
• intense
  
• confused
  
• intelligent
  
• logical
  
• rational
  

fears:

• To be stuck in an emotional situation he's never seen before.
  No matter how much he watches people and tries to understand their motives, there will always be those situations that he's never seen before. He himself understands that there will always be something that happens to someone that they weren't prepared for. He's seen people in grief, happiness, anger, and a multitude of other emotions. He usually bases his reactions to things after what he's seen others do. If something ever happens to him, and he's never seen the scene happen to him before, he'll have absolutely no idea what to do. Matt doesn't like not knowing what to do.
  
• To be a complete and total loner.
  Although outgoing, his social skills can't exactly take him far. People might not understand his motives, and they might not understand him. He's worried that people won't ever like him, and that most people he tries to talk to or befriend won't exactly be at all interested in some sort of friendship or relationship with him. He doesn't want people to avoid him. If they do, he probably wouldn't want to talk to anyone else, for fear of a repeat performance. The way he thinks tells him that people can be very predictable.
  
• Women.
  He likes them, because every male does, and they sometimes like him because he can be 'cute', 'funny', or 'good looking'. He doesn't know what to do with them. No matter how many times a girl will talk to him, or a girl will want sleep with him, or a girl will want to befriend him, he'll never know what to do with them. In all honesty, he still doesn't get how they work. All the emotions and the PMS and the everything else. He wishes he could understand them in a normal way. Not a way that says "Oh, she's getting too much hormones. She's unpredictable." He doesn't like unpredictable, and he doesn't like not understanding women.

secrets:

• He actually moved to escape the restrictive hold of his family on his life.
  His family loves him. He loves his family. It something that you can't exactly get away from, but they still think that he's fragile and not ready for the real world. He has come to understand (from watching many movies and reading many books) that they probably will never feel that he's strong enough for the real world. He could see himself being that weird hermit guy who still lives with his mother and has her pick out his clothes every day. Even to someone like him, he doesn't exactly want that to happen. Even though those thirty people who don't give two shits about his bad social skills or intense interests love him, he doesn't want to be ruled by them.
  
• He often acts worse than he really is, to make people he doesn't like ignore him.
  People tend to think that he's a lot worse than he really is before they even meet him. In all honesty, he could just be defined as 'that geeky kid who is just WAY geeky'. Before his definite diagnosis in eighth grade, that's exactly what people thought was wrong with him. And he sometimes uses people's stereotypical views to his advantage. Logically and rationally, if he can get people he doesn't like to stay away from him, he'll have a much easier life. Sadly, it could also make other people think he really is as bad as they think he is.

goals:

• To create at least two very stable friendships in Vegas.
  He's had friends before, but they were usually the kind that were too worried about what other people would think. Matthew doesn't usually give two shits about what some people think, but he wants friends that don't care either. He wants friends that won't mind the fact that he spends all his days asking them why they did this, and how they did that, and who don't mind being seen in public with him. It might be too much to ask, but it doesn't change the fact that he really wants it.
  
• To have at least one good relationship in Vegas.
  He's a little bit scared of women, and a bit awkward around them. He also doesn't know anything truly about them. But he wants that to change. He wants to get rid of his fear, and be a lot more understanding around them. He wants to get them, which probably will never happen. He wants to have at least one girl look at him and say 'yeah, he was pretty great', instead of 'man, that dude was awkward'. Or at least, he wants something special with someone else. He's seen it happen with so many people, his parents, his sister and her long time boy friend. He honestly doesn't believe in love or anything like that, now, but he wants to. He wants to realize what all the fuss is about.
  
• # To be able to be more empathetic.
  He can help people, and he can give them good advice, but these skills come from being able to understand human interaction. He wants to be able to feel what's the right thing to tell someone. Like when his mother gave him the best advice of his life, and he asked her how she did it, and she says 'it felt right'. He wants to relate to people more than he can right now, and that would mean he'd have to feel like them. He wants to be able to tell someone something that 'comes from the heart'.

WHEN I GET HOME

family:

• Mary Anne Gray. Mother, forty six years old.
  Loves her son with a fierce passion, and didn't want to see him go. She's a very protective woman, and probably has planned to fly out to Vegas twenty times a week just so she can make sure her son is alright. The only reason she hasn't, was probably because of her husband.
  
• Joseph Thomas Gray. Father, fifty years old.
  He's a high school biology teacher, and his children tend to love him. Students who graduate usually end up coming to his anniversary parties, and they are good friends with his kids, and so forth. He's also a very good father to his children, and is one of the few family members that believe that being on his own is good for Matt. He thinks it's one of those 'Men have to grow on their own' deals.
  
• Stephanie Allison Gray. Sister, eighteen years old.
  She's probably the closest person to Matt. Although she's younger than him, she's always been protecting him from other people. When people try to say something about him, do something to him, she's the spitfire that stays up till two A.M. planning to hang their underwear from the school hallways. When her brother graduated high school, she didn't have to do this anymore, but she still carries her protective nature. She visits Matt about once a month, even though he doesn't want her to.

history: Born on June 29, Matt grew up as one of the kids who loved going outside. Although, unlike the kids who shared his birthday, he wouldn't go outside to play with their friends or to jump into pools and lakes and scream and enjoy their summer. Matt went outside to look at things. He would sit on the porch or on the grass or in the trees and just watch. He'd look at the way the people next door argued two times a day, every day, and would predict when the next thing would happen. It could take a second or two, and his thoughts would be true, and then he'd move on. He'd watch as the kids he grew up with who weren't his friends anymore held hands with girls or boys, and he could find they way they were close predictable, like everything else. Matt found human nature fascinating, and his parents found his love for the human nature interesting, until they realized that there was something not quite right.
When he was diagnosed, it was a relief. Something easy to deal with, and he wasn't going to die at some young age because of a bran defect. Matt was just different, and as his mother would always tell him, he was different. The only people who didn't look at him differently, other than his mother and father, was his little sister who looked up to him anyways. He would bring her up in the tree with him, let her sit next to him on the grass, or follow him around the neighborhood. While he was thinking that he was teaching her to look at the way people acted, she was learning instead how to climb trees how to sneak around the neighborhood, and how to become one of the biggest troublemakers in the family. It definitely wasn't what he intended, but later on it became useful.
In elementary school, no one gave any car at all as to how you acted or looked so long as you could play with someone and not be a menace. It got a lot harder, however, as he went on. High school was something of a menace where people wondered what the hell was wrong with the skinny kid with the flyaway black hair. And it was true, what they said about him. He was different. He was just a bit odd. Which was why he didn't get so offended when people told him so at first. After a while, however, it came to be something more than just taunting. People wouldn't speak to him the same, people wouldn't look to him the same. It wasn't people calling him different that bothered him, it was the fact that they wouldn't have anything to do with him.
Eventually he got over the initial sting of rejection. He was able to have a few friends, and although they were only family members they were people who would spend time with him. He delved himself into his studies, getting excellent grades and missing the valedictorian spot by only a .0001 margin. It didn't matter at all to him, because even if he had won, he was sure he wouldn't have been able to stand in front of people and give a speech about the rest of their lives. Other than being able to predict their nature, and how they would live, how in the world was he supposed to tell them about the future? No one knew what could happen. No one knew if it would even matter. So instead, he too his second place seat with a wide smile, graduated with honors, and left high school with no plans for the future.
He would have liked to go to college, but every time he applied his therapist always told him that it was 'a difficult choice to make' and it always ended in him never going.He wanted to be a therapist, somehow, someday. Someone who connected with people and could help them. He found his ability to remove himself from situations and become emotionless a plus, he could never get sidetracked on the job. He'd always think in a rational, logical manner. His therapist, and anyone he talked to, however, told him that it was a lost cause. Even if he could become a therapist or something (which they didn't believe he could), who would send their children or spouses or friends to a therapist who actually had a diagnosed problem? Matt knew that people could surprise you sometimes, but when he was told that, it was enough to get him off that train of thought.
After his one year battle over college, he gave up and decided to just live his life for a while. He stayed at his parents house, spending his days looking out for his sister, and watching with utter fascination how she was able to be so laid-back and easy. She was the big smile and the light of his life back then, and with her he felt particularly normal. With her he wasn't 'Matt the boy who is different', he was 'Matt, the boy with a great sister', and it felt good. It wasn't all good, because his sister was the only one who made him feel this way. Everyone else he loved in his family were still under the old impression that he was a boy who was too different to be treated completely normal, even though he was probably smarter than all of the combined. So he left the home, with the promise of letting his sister visit, and to call his mother, and came to Vegas. The biggest city he could think of that wasn't too far away from home, but was also far enough.
pets: none

FROM US TO YOU

ooc name:kim.
age: in years.
years roleplaying:in years too!
other characters:sara, ftw.
how did you hear about us:london, ftw!
roleplay sample: here's your chance to show us what you've got to offer. a lot of your application is based on how well you write, and if your style will bode well at VIVA LAS VEGAS! you've got to shine; this will either make or break your application! you may use a previously written post for another site if you wish.

there's one for sara, i believe. but i love me some ethan, sooo.

If names really described the soul and image of a person, then Ethan Anthony Bode was very deceiving. In a world where the name ‘Ethan’ was supposed to describe a strong, enduring individual, Ethan would have rather walked away with the name ‘Gideon’. Something that alluded to him being a warrior. He wasn’t self centered by any means, because he had a sister and life to worry about, but never in his life had Ethan ever admitted to being strong or enduring. Imagining himself as a warrior, a person who can barely hold on but fights for something bigger, was always a dream of his. Years before the present, when he was only seven, he would talk to his sister in Gaelic, the native language of their parents, and their conversations always veered into the same direction.

“Vi,” he would begin, staring up at her, staring at his older sister with all the awe that a eight year old would look at an eleven year old. “Why did mom name me Ethan, if she knew she was going to die, I mean…” he shrugged a bit, feeling sheepish as his sister just pulled out a cigarette, lighting it up like there was nothing wrong with the world. “She should have known I wasn’t strong enough for that.” Vi looked down to him. And knew what he would say next, but he said it anyway. “I wish my name was Gideon, Vi.” She’d look up to the sparkling sky, where the stars battled against the sky and he couldn’t reach to them.

“Ethan,” his sister would say as she flicked ash over the railing of the fire escape. Her voice demanded all the attention of an adult, clearly she thought her thoughts more important than his. “Your name is Ethan. Names are fucked up, and you need to stop thinking so much.” Ethan would feel like he was grasping for something then, something that was even more unattainable than the stars. He’d reach out to his sister at these moments, and wrap his fingers around her hand, and although she wouldn’t even look back to him, her hands would squeeze his giving him comfort enough to think that she too was missing something.

“But Vi,” he whispered once, unsure as to if she could hear him. “Your name means alive.” It was a simple statement, but one that made his sister smile in a snaky way, her lips twisting upwards and her blue eyes twinkling mischievously until she would set the bottle of vodka down next to her, and look at him.

“And you, Ethan are a dreamer.” These words echoed a similar love for The Beatles between the siblings, a love that came from a similar understanding that could only be developed between two kids who were completely and utterly alone in the world. Ethan, who was a homebody who wanted to make a name for himself in this town, was a completely different person from his sister, who felt a need to get out that was so strong that she spent her nights degrading herself and her pride just so she could. Even through their differences, they had each other, but when one looked at the bigger picture, they were two kids lost in a sea of too many people. As the years grow on, Ethan and his sister became two very, very different people.

Ethan grew up on his love for The Beatles and his idolization of all things Lennon. Unlike his sister he can’t bring himself to leave this town, the place where he got his first piano, the place where he played his first concert, and the place where the fire escape on the apartment building on fifth street inspired his first song. Ethan was too nostalgic for something he never had to move and miss something else on top of that. And the pain of possibly loosing his sister in the future, even if she was only moving, was enough to make him realize that that pain would be enough to last him a lifetime.

Vivienne grew on her need to go anywhere, to be anywhere, and to not stay in the boring town her parents had died in. Although they shared a loft for the first three years of Vi’s adult-hood, she was out on her own when her brother finally turned eighteen, not that he could blame her much. Even though he wasn’t his sister, and didn’t agree with her, he understood her like no one else. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, he knew, but it was because she couldn’t stay in this town anymore, or in effect, he’d probably loose her in a whole other way. Taking herself away from him would give him the chance to at least see his sister every month or so, and staying would give him the chance to see himself loose the last person he had left die. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make for himself, and for his sister.

At eighteen, Ethan had enough looks and experience to pass for twenty or older. His black hair was cut into a short style that was gelled to spike at the front of his head. His arms were covered in tattoos, bright, vibrant things that were designed to catch someone’s attention. When Vi had turned eighteen, she had inherited custody of Ethan, in turn, letting him get anything he wanted that she could afford. The skin underneath the ink was pale from too much alcohol and cigarettes, and he had the occasional shadow of whiskers on his face. In his eyebrow there usually was a bronze bar that he had put there when he was seventeen using a shot of Vi’s good tequila and a safety pin when he was seventeen year olds. He was tall, at six foot even, and his lanky form was wired with tight muscles that gave him an almost animalistic look. But it was his eyes that got you, their dark blue clouds could charm anyone into anything, and create dreams with just a glance. When you combined his ability to speak Gaelic, and his ability to whisper sweet nothings into anyone’s ear, Vi called him ‘The Kissing Bandit’, because he couldn’t do anything more out of a sense or propriety he surely didn’t get from his sister.

Tonight, however, Ethan didn’t look like his usual self. The bolt in his right eyebrow was gone, sitting in the back pocket of his dark blue, brand new jeans. His tattoos were hidden by a white dress shirt that was veered by a black suit jacket. His shoes were shined and his hair was freshly cut. It was a wonder to Ethan, what rich people would do for the sake of proper entertainment. When the rich politician he vaguely remembered from news had walked up to him in one of the more expensive café’s downtown, Ethan hadn’t known what to think. But when talk of parties led to talk of needing a pianist for one night, Ethan was only ecstatic to agree. He got a free makeover, a new outfit, a chunk of money big enough to buy weed, alcohol, cigarettes and food for a month, and a chance to make out with one of the mans lovely (older) aids in the changing room. Yes, he was definitely right to agree.

Of course he had to hide his tattoos and his eyebrow bolt, because although it was acceptable to look like a bad ass at the most expensive café in town, it was not okay to look like a bad ass in the presence of a potential governor, or whatever the fuck this man wanted to be. It also, sadly, was unacceptable for him to sing along with his songs, which is what Ethan usually did. Everything about this party made him sick, but he agreed, because he needed the money.

Which was why when the man had asked for his name, Ethan had replied with a grin. “Gideon.” He repeated it because it sounded nice. “My name is Gideon, Sir.”

Now he sat on the edge of his piano seat, a small glass of whiskey by his side as he plucked piano keys. People didn’t ask if he was younger than twenty one, they just assumed that he was older because he had the withered look of a long starving musician. He didn’t think he was really that bad. The music was soft and dwindling, and it made Ethan aware of everything around him. Shiny shoes tapped on the floor, and his body swayed while his eyes searched. In thirty minutes it was his first break, because a speech would ensue, and then dinner, or something. He wasn’t at all a fan of time tables. All he could think about, though, was getting some nice lady to talk to and to charm, and then a bit more alcohol.

[/blockquote]

[LONDON!]

accepted!


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