Rhys "Himeros" Hawthorne, FINISHED

[MOIRA EILEEN BRENNAN]

RHYS “HIMEROS” HAWTHORNE





"One that loved not wisely but too well"

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Alias: Leffie
Other Characters: Erik Spectre, Sebastian Timothy Martin, Dr. John Watson
Rewritten City Found Via: Sisi, originally
Contact: Skype (lefantomeromance), googledocs (rewrittengirl), pm any account
Comments: I really was dead set on having a blind character. Turned out to be a guy. Go figure. ^^ Sorry for being so not diverse in my characters genders (well, there are only two choices, unless you want to get kinky. ;3). I’m already loving this guy. Oh, and Kay’s the reason I found this particular God. THANK YOU KAY!
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00I. full name Rhys Phillip Hawthorne
0II. canon or original Greek Mythos
III. years of age 19
0IV. orientation Pansexual
00V. social status Lower Class (the upper rim of it, though)
0VI. occupation “Poet for Hire;” runs a sort of business where he spouts love poetry for people over the phone (since he can’t see to write it down)

00I. play by Daniel Radcliffe
0II. body type Slender, but not too slender. Rather short, but well built, rather peaked though, due to his fragile nature.
III. height 5’5” (he’s a shortie)
0IV. eyes color Blue, but grayed out due to being blind.
00V. description Rhys is a rather short guy, which helps him immensely when trying to weave in and out of a crowd due to his blindness. He doesn’t stumble and fall when things get really hectic, he’s able to keep his cool and he always stands straight and tall. He’s rather pale, as he doesn’t go out much. He’s a rather frail creature, since he’s always sick all the time. He has a soft smile that rarely develops into a full on grin, but it is pleasant. His eyes are a bright blue, but grayed out in the middle due to his blindness, but sometimes they’ll look much brighter than they should. His hair is a dark mess, since he can’t really see it to know what to do with it, so he keeps it short enough that he doesn’t have to worry about it, but long enough to run his fingers through it.

His body is always reserved, since he has to watch (figuratively) where he’s going, and you’ll often find him being shy looking and demure, often closed in on himself, but pleasant. He always looks pleasant, basically. Physically, he’s quite sickly, and faints a lot due to anemia and severe panic attacks caused by very simple things. He has a bit of a nervous twitch around people, as it bugs him how he can’t see what they’re doing when he knows they’re doing something. He dresses plainly, due to being blind. He can’t really see what he’s wearing, so all of his clothes are really rather plain and ordinary, usually in shades of blue, gray and green. His shoe of choice is converse, as he likes the friction it gives when he’s maneuvering through a crowd.

00I. overall personality Rhys was born blind, and the affect it has on his personality is evident in everything he does. He is a rather reserved young man, very quiet and shy. He likes people a lot, but doesn’t get along with them too easily. He prefers to show his feelings in his actions for obvious reasons. When he does speak, his voice is usually never above a whisper. He’s one of those types of people who often feel alone in a crowded room. He is stifled by the expectation some people have that he can see, and is often insulted by their insensitivity. Though he is mild mannered, his past has hardened him beyond compassion for those who take sight and having a loving family for granted.

Rhys was taught at a young age to be as silent as possible, lest he infuriate parents. This has spilled over into his new-found adulthood. He tries to be kind to people, but the citizens of NYC often rub him the wrong way. He’s one of those types of people who will get excited to be helpful and useful, then when someone else ignores him or insults his enthusiasm, he’ll blink and walk away awkwardly (like “okaaaaaay...”). He doesn’t necessarily expect people to like him, but he believes that they’re all secretly just as alone as he, so he doesn’t mind trying to make friends and failing. His heart is always in the right place, and is a great listener when he does make a friend.

When Rhys does speak, he is always thoughtful and wordy, his replies to people often sounding like poetry. He’ll often daydream, wherever he is, and even think of his sister when he’s really depressed. His depression is masked by a small smile, and no one really knows how estranged he is from the world. He feels separated from it, and all the happy people living their normal lives. He longs to be normal and loved.

Rhys is a sickly creature. This mostly stems from his mother’s drug use when she was pregnant with him, but recently he’s been suffering from mild to severe panic attacks when he’s embarrassed or put on the spot. His anxiety is justified, as he’s always worried what people are doing around him when he can’t see them. He’s had fainting spells since he was a child due to his anemia, and has been out for days before as if in a coma. He doesn’t eat well, so he usually looks forlorn and sleepy. Unfortunately, he’s a child of Winter, and loves swimming in cold water, and generally being in the cold, and that is not good for his health.

Rhys has a reason for being pansexual. Basically, he believes that since he can’t see people, who is he to be attracted to one gender or the other? He rather enjoys sex, as its one of the few things that make him feel like he can see. He likes sex with anyone, honestly, he's not fickle about being in love with the person to do it. People say he’s a rather good lover, too, and though he is young, he’s been through a lot that has given him plenty of experience. Rhys longs for love of any kind, some sort of comfort and stability, something he’s never had in his life, and sex is a small moment of peace for him.

Rhys is slightly OCD, and that could be due to his fierce anxiety and his blindness. He has to know where everything in his life is at all times, or else he'll freak out and have one of his panic attacks. Whether it be things he owns or people he knows, he has to be aware of everything at all times. It doesn't help that he can't see what he's fretting over. He doesn't see himself as irrational, but then again, no one does, do they?

Rhys is one of those blind people constantly researching and advocating research to cure blindness. He hates that he's blind, and sometimes hates his mother for doing drugs and drinking while she was pregnant with him, but he says that was in the past, so what can you do? He wants to be able to see the beautiful world described in poetry that surely must be breathtaking and stunning and moving all at once. He wants to know what colors look like, what his sister had looked like, what Richard had looked like, what he looks like. He'll often become viscous and mean when his blindness is made fun of or people are just insensitive about it, or when they even just bring it up, and can't treat him like a normal person.

Living on his own has made him stronger, this past year, and as he becomes more confident in himself, he also feels like he's losing his insecurities and strangeness. He can't help that he basically raised himself and his sister all at once, and never had time to be a child. He doesn't have the same experiences as most people, and because he's so wise, he puts people off. But he's learning to function in the real world, when all his life he'd been living in fantasy, thanks to William Shakespeare.
0II. strengths Writing poetry without actually writing it down, and remembering it as well; plays the guitar; can maneuver in and out of a crowd well, but like I said, he’s no Daredevil; a good swimmer; sexually aware and is a rather good lover for a blind man; fiercely protective of people he cares about; a thoughtful person who has vasts amount of random knowledge for being so young.
III. weaknesses deathly afraid of heights (for good reason, he can’t see where he’s going); doesn’t make friends easily, even though he likes people (he’s slightly creepy, but... lovably so); depressed but in a bearable sense; tends to love the wrong people, people who aren't good for him or who will never love him back; obsessive compulsive disorder, frightfully shy and subdued, hardly ever speaks unless spoken to or he just feels like speaking (which isn't often); mint chocolate chip ice cream (yes, that IS a weakness)
0IV. goals Mainly wants to be loved in return, by anyone and everyone, but is content with just striving for making more money right now, so he can pull himself out of the lower class.

00I. notable family & friends Rhys's mother was named Lucille, and he hardly had a relationship with her beyond being her son, though she treated him better than his father, Mark, who was abusive and quick to use him for financial gain. He had two siblings, his older brother Aaron was caring, but he never saw him again after he left their home. His sister, Ariel, who he loved dearly and took care of like he was her father, died tragically by the hands of their actual father (who was thrown in jail). His only real friend in the world was Richard, who he had been in love with. He died as well, by committing suicide.
0II. overall history Rhys’s mother and father were hardened drug addicts living in Brooklyn, the worst part imaginable. He was not their first, but second child, and his older brother moved away when he turned 18, never to be heard from again. Rhys was 8 at that time. Due to their drug addicted nature, Rhys was born blind to his mother and father, who disdained the ground he walked on since he wasn’t useful to them without sight. He was always excluded from everything, left in his room when his parents were out dealing drugs, and that suited him nicely. When he was younger his older brother took care of him, and promised that when he got out he would come back for Rhys and their soon to be born little sister.

His brother saved up all he could and bought Rhys a radio so that he would have something to listen to when he wasn’t around, and the young blind boy grew up on radio plays from the public broadcasting station, as he could only listen to music so much before he grew tired of it (it was the 90’s, after all). He grew an extensive vocabulary from listening to the likes of Shakespeare and other playwrights, and all sorts of other playwrights. He begged his brother to read him Shakespeare’s sonnets to him, and Rhys began to love poetry at a young age.

His brother left when their sister, Ariel was born in their own home (he was fed up with his mother, who refused to go to a hospital to give birth, lest she be caught drugged). Rhys had named her, since their mother was too high at the time to even think of anything, after the air spirit from Shakespeare’s the Tempest. Rhys was the one to take care of her, as their brother was to him, but their both drunk and druggie father (their mother was a bit more sympathetic, being a mother in general), saw potential to use his daughter and neglected to even teach her how to read (should she gain information about their situation), and since Rhys was blind (they couldn’t afford Braille books), he couldn’t teach her either. She was a healthy child at birth, but grew to be just as sickly as her brother, who began to faint from anemia at age 11.

Ariel and Rhys were each others comfort, and they were both melancholy children, but Rhys took care of her like their parents wouldn’t, making sure he fed her as best he could and when she was old enough told her watered down versions of the stories he heard on the radio. He loved her with all his heart, and by the time he was sixteen he wouldn’t let her out of his “sight,” metaphorically speaking.

One day, their father came home in a drunken rage and accused Rhys of stealing money from their stash so that he could purchase the guitar that he was practicing on every day (one his sister had found in the dumpster, brand new). He was rather good, and though he tried to tell his father that Ariel found it, he beat Rhys senseless until he was unconscious. He was out for days, and Ariel wouldn’t stop pestering their father about making sure he was alright. Being a good little sister, she took care of him, but when he woke he threatened to take what his father (his mother was dead by now from the drugs) was doing to the police. In order to keep Rhys from doing this, his father threatened to sell the early bloomer Ariel into child prostitution to pay for his drugs, so Rhys reluctantly agreed to stay.

Unfortunately, in order to keep her sister out of it, eventually Rhys was forced to trade sexual favors for cash for his father in the neighborhood. Ariel, now wise and old enough to comprehend what was going on with her brother, begged him to run away with her and tell the police, like he’d originally planned. Their father, however, was always ruthless, and Rhys knew he’d find them and ruin Ariel. Ariel, the stubborn child that she was compared to her brother’s more gentle demeanor, ran away anyway, promising to come back just like Rhys’s older brother. She didn’t get far when their father found her, staying in the local playground where Rhys and her had often come to play on the swings (she wasn’t a very logical child, as that was the first place their father looked). She tried to run, but the father dragged her back to their home (where he’d locked Rhys in his room so that he couldn’t interfere). The man beat the girl to death right in front of his door. Rhys banged and banged, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Rhys was left in that room for days, knowing his father had done nothing to move the frail body of his deceased sister. He sat at the door for hours, sobbing. Eventually he decided to crawl out of the window of his bedroom, but being afraid of heights, it took him awhile. He ran, knowing the streets well, and asked where the police station was. With nothing left for him at home, he told the police about everything, specifying only that he was allowed to bury his sister. They could put him anywhere he wanted, in a foster home, on the streets, so long as he could bury her. His father was arrested and tried, and thrown in jail for the rest of his life.

Rhys was indeed put into a foster home for the two years he had left as a minor. He felt it ridiculous after a while, knowing he could take care of himself better than any foster home could, and was often neglected in them in favor of kids who could see and do more around the house. Rhys took to his poetry for comfort, something he’d done often for Ariel when she was alive. He’d write them for her and she’d make them into songs, and he’d play them from memory for the smaller kids he lived with in foster homes on his guitar.

Rhys felt more alone than ever in these times. Luckily his foster families were kind enough to hire someone to teach him Braille, so he had something to read. Neglect and longing filled his life, longing for the family he lost in his sister, and a family for the future. He’d pretty much taken care of himself most of his life, and wished for someone to take care of him, be it a lover, a new family, or even a friend.

That someone came in the form of Richard, a boy about his age who was also a foster child in one of the homes Rhys was in. He was incredibly bright but extremely moody and unruly. He was the only person who would hold a conversation with Rhys, which would usually be a discussion on Shakespeare, as Richard had an equal fondness for the Bard. Even though they got along, and though Rhys also came from an abusive past, their personalities were vastly different, and Richard often misused Rhys in the sense that he put him through hell worrying about him, because Richard was always a bit on the suicidal and daredevil end of the spectrum. Rhys was obviously blind in both the physical and metaphorical sense, because he couldn't see how much Richard was damaging himself.

Richard had been through hell and back to get where he was, and that wasn't much in the long run. No matter how Rhys tried to get him to notice how much he loved him (yes, eventually their friendship turned to love on Rhys's part), with poetry and hints dropped everywhere, Richard was just as closed off as ever. He served as a guide for Rhys, something he'd never had before, and he was his constant companion. Eventually, Rhys took a very large risk and deliberately confessed his love (by reciting directly to him Shakespeare's sonnet number 18). Richard was of course stunned, and fled immediately. Rhys was alone again, with no one to guide him.

Richard had left, having just turned 18. Rhys would soon, and vowed to find him once he did. But that wasn't to be. A few weeks later, Rhys heard on the news that Richard had drowned himself. Rhys was devastated, mostly because he felt partially responsible, since he confessed his love so abruptly to an emotional unstable person. His only coping mechanism was his poetry, which he wrote and wrote in his head, reciting them to anyone he could around him in his foster home.

He found that people seemed to like these poems, and asked him to write them some. He did, and he became slightly well known from them passing the poetry around. When he was finally phased out of the system when he turned 18, he set up his own business where people call him asking for poetry, describing the person its for, whether it be a family member or friend or lover, or just anything, and he’ll write it off the top of his head for them. Each poem costs a certain amount of money, and he gets a lot of business, but not enough to pull him out of the lower class. Just enough to get him to have power in his small apartment and food in his fridge. He’s still alone, been the same way for a whole year, but he’s fine with it. Really, he is.

Though his nightmares of his sister and Richard often keep him well awake at night.

III. sample post

Waking up.

Rhys awoke with a start. The park bench had been comfortable, for some reason. It must have been the cold, the way it wrapped him in a blanked of hardened brilliance. It was nice, though unfortunately the wind was becoming unbearable, on both his body and his hearing. It was noisy and loud, and he thought he might be blown away with it.

He rose stiffly from his sitting position. He'd been to Central park many, many times, and knew the way like the back of his hand... Though he didn't know that all that well to begin with.

Should he go left, or right? He didn't think any people would be out and about on a day such as this, and he mentally cursed himself for sleeping on the bench the night before. He must have looked like some sort of bum, making the park his home. He had a home, even if it was small and quiet. But he loved the park, he loved the sounds it made when children played and birds sang. He'd come expecting all that, but unfortunately forgot that it was starting to become winter now, and the birds would be flying south, the children would be tucked warmly inside their homes, with parents to love them and tell them stories and make them hot chocolate.

So after he remembered all that, he sat on the bench and cried, just slightly, only a little, not enough to alert anyone of his presence should they notice a blind man feeling sorry for himself.

Pathetic, utterly pathetic. He sighed and dug his shoe into the ground, spinning on his heel and heading left, the artisan's direction. Left must be the only place for him then. He had no real world knowledge, no practical abilities that would propel him forward in life like a normal human being. Just his poetry and music, just his art that made him enough money to get by.

He trapezed across the park's pathways, until he forgot where he was going. He moved back to the right, back to the bench and sitting down. Then he got up again, going right, the businessman's way, the conservative way, and he felt the weight of knowing where he was going pressing down on his back. Not a pleasant feeling, honestly. Finding one's way in the wilderness is a fantastical feat, when you're not blinded (metaphorically) by your own fear.

He stopped, and the wind stopped with him. He could hear himself think again. Where was he going? Home? That must be it, he had nowhere else to go.

Home was left, wasn't it? Or was it North, or South? He was forgetting things, the wind had disoriented him. He thought the cold was comforting, but now it was confusing and devastatingly morose.

He didn't know what time it was. He was standing in the middle of the park, now with grass crunching underneath his feet, and he had no idea where he was, what day it was, or if he was the last man on earth. He sighed. This was the price of being blind.

Not that he'd payed it or anything, but Rhys had a penchant for the over-dramatic.

"Excuse me? Are you lost, mister?"

Down below, it was a little girl tugging at his sleeve. At least he thought it was a little girl by her voice. He tilted his head down, as if he was looking at her, blinking. "Uh... Um... A little." He pried her fingers off of his sleeve, smiling awkwardly and shrugging. "Aren't you?"

The girl didn't reply, must have been shaking or nodding her head so that he couldn't see. She did, however, grab his hand, and she sped off into a different direction, towing him behind her.

"Wait!" he cried, fumbling to get his hand out of hers, but she was determined to guide him someplace, not that he knew what that place was.

After a few trips and falls, and hearing the girl laugh, she finally stopped and gasped for breath. He heaved for air, gasping and clutching his chest. He shouldn't run like that, he could faint, or worse. Die.

Rhys felt his hand being moved toward something, and soon he touched cold metal, like a pole.

"Here you are, mister, at the intersection," the girl said after he realized he was out of Central Park and heading toward the rest of the city. "Bye now!" she exclaimed, and she was off again.

He was alone again, and just waking up from the peace. He clutched the pole, and heard the hustle and bustle of the windy streets. He loved this city, thankful that it had enough excitement to fill his days of longing with content, but sometimes it wasn't enough. The kindness of strangers, like that little girl, who reminded him oh-so-much of his little Ariel was what he lived for. He knew that their kindness was their, watching him and waiting for him to see for the first time.

There was waking up, and then there was really waking up.

SYR INTEGRA of CAUTION 2.0 created this, modified by Yols with Shakespeare lines.

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[||ADMIN NESSIE||]

I'm so sorry it's taken so long to get to this app, Leffie.

This is an absolutely fascinating character, from his history to the fact that he is blind (not to mention his playby!). I must also add that I love the Othello quote you've picked for his custom title. Super stuff.

ACCEPTED.