Grayson Childress

[NotAFlyingToy]

Name: Grayson Childress
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: Senior
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy.
Hobbies and Interests: Tabletop Games, Laser Tag, Woodworking

Appearance: Grayson stands at five foot nine inches, and weighs 146lbs. He has dark skin that he inherited from an African-American mother and a Spanish father, brown eyes, and high cheekbones. His hair is short and curly, and currently it is dyed a bright purple. He has an indent-scar shaped like a pear on his left cheek, a product of his birth where his head pushed too hard against his mother’s pelvic bone. He wears rimless glasses on his nose.

Grayson likes to wear multiple layers and so prefers clothing that is a size too large. On the day of the abduction, he was wearing a Critical Role T-Shirt that hung below his knees, a silver chain around his neck, dark blue jeans, and brown boots.

Biography: Born to Maria Fields when she was 18, Grayson was raised from infancy to age four by his grandparents and mother. His father, Mateo Marston - 23 at the time - went to prison for armed robbery four months into Maria’s pregnancy, and was never in Grayson’s life. Grayson left his house very little in his formative years, proving to be a shy boy when younger.

When Grayson was four, Maria married Samuel Childress, an IT worker for Pride Rock INC, an energy company that was contracted to install telephone lines in Chattanooga. Samuel had been in Grayson’s life quite often, having been friends with Maria since high school, and so the transition from friend of the family to father was eased somewhat by the previous relationship. Samuel was a big, loud, and fun man who appreciated people, and Grayson came out of his shell around his new father through the years. On Grayson’s 6th birthday, Samuel hosted and planned a Laser Tag day and invited all of Grayson’s school friends. This created a life-long love for the activity, and started a yearly tradition that continued well into high school.

Grayson did well in school - he was never exceptional save for the more creative subjects, such as art and creative writing. When he was 10, he was introduced to GURPS by some school friends who played every Saturday. Finding a crossroads between his blossoming social skills and a passion for creativity, he and his small group of friends kept the hobby up today, despite some of the group having splintered off into different schools. Grayson branched out some, playing Dungeons and Dragons online utilizing voice calling and forum playing. He began his own tabletop group in High School, taking on the responsibilities of running the adventures in 9th grade.

As he kept diving further and further into this hobby, he started having headaches after long sessions of gaming and went to his parents after a particularly bad episode when he was 11. After seeing a specialist, he was diagnosed as being farsighted and a prescription was filled. From this point forwards, Grayson wore glasses.

His love of tabletop roleplay led him to another hobby in woodworking. His hobby started out as making lacquer markers for his tabletop characters when he was 12, which grew into building sets out of styrofoam and wood. Eventually, he and his stepfather began building customized drum blocks out of wood as a hobby, selling them on eBay. The father/stepfather duo called these blocks TurtleBlocks, and would customize the colour, shape, type of wood, and personal engravings. Samuel would take the proceeds from TurtleBlocks and save up for better and better woodworking equipment. In Samuel’s junior year, his garage was a chaotic mess of paint, wood strips, drills, and various other woodworking tools. He would often go out there to blow off steam after long school days.

Grayson has a close knit friend group - mostly consisting of those friends he managed to keep from middle school - and outside of that he tends towards what he would describe as ‘school friends’. As well as the TurtleBlocks, Grayson has a part time job in a lumberyard as a clerk and laborer, and he works full time hours in the summer. He’s unsure of what he wants to do in the future, and his parents both have put very little pressure on him in this direction. The lumber yard has offered him a full time position following graduation, and Grayson has yet to accept.

Advantages: Grayson is well-liked - if quiet - at school, and doesn’t attract unnecessary ire. The labor parts of his job keep him in fairly good shape for moving quickly. He also knows woodworking tools very well, and has developed hand calluses that can aid him.
Disadvantages: Grayson is farsighted, and without his glasses he will have trouble seeing. He doesn’t have anyone at school that he would consider reliable. His lightweight frame means that if a contest of strength were to occur, he would likely fail.

[VoltTurtle]

Heya NAFT! I'm the staffer that has Grayson today, and there's a few things that need to be adjusted plus some major additions before he can be approved. With regards how to structure paragraphs and additions, I'll mostly leave that up to you, but might toss in some suggestions here and there. From the top to the bottom:

School: John Endecott Memorial Academy.

No period here.

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Appearance:

Grayson stands at five foot nine inches, and weighs 146lbs. He has dark skin that he inherited from an African-American mother and a Spanish father, brown eyes, and high cheekbones. His hair is short and curly, and currently it is dyed a bright purple. He has an indent-scar shaped like a pear on his left cheek, a product of his birth where his head pushed too hard against his mother’s pelvic bone. He wears rimless glasses on his nose.

How are his nose and lips shaped? How is his general complexion? What's his usual posture?

Grayson likes to wear multiple layers and so prefers clothing that is a size too large.

Any other details on how he usually dresses? What is his standard casual attire?

On the day of the abduction, he was wearing a Critical Role T-Shirt that hung below his knees, a silver chain around his neck, dark blue jeans, and brown boots.

What color was this t-shirt; also, since this is a winter trip, what kind of winter gear did Grayson bring (we don't want him getting frostbite, after all)?

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Biography:

Born to Maria Fields when she was 18, Grayson was raised from infancy to age four by his grandparents and mother.

Where (as in, what town) was he born? The easy answer is just Salem, MA since that's where JEM is.

When Grayson was four, Maria married Samuel Childress,

We know Samuel's job, but did Maria ever get her own job, or did she stay at home to raise Grayson?

an IT worker for Pride Rock INC,

This is a real company (that makes clothing, from what I can tell), so you'll need to change this or just leave it vaguely as "an energy company".

contracted to install telephone lines in Chattanooga

Do you, by chance, mean Salem, Massachusetts here? Chattanooga is pretty far away from Salem.

Samuel was a big, loud, and fun man who appreciated people, and Grayson came out of his shell around his new father through the years.

How did their relationship change as Grayson grew? Did Grayson come to view Samuel as his real father vs his biological father?

On Grayson’s 6th birthday, Samuel hosted and planned a Laser Tag day and invited all of Grayson’s school friends. This created a life-long love for the activity, and started a yearly tradition that continued well into high school.

Since this deals with a major hobby, this should be split off into its own paragraph. Additionally, there's more I want to know about this: How regularly does Grayson go out for laser tag? Why does Grayson enjoy laser tag so much?

Grayson did well in school - he was never exceptional save for the more creative subjects, such as art and creative writing.

I want to know more about Grayson's time in school. What was his favorite (and/or least favorite) subject? Did he participate in any school clubs or extracurricular activities? This should likely be split into its own paragraph for expansion, since the rest of this paragraph goes on about his tabletop hobby.

From this point forwards, Grayson wore glasses.

Would be "forward" rather than "forwards" here.

The father/stepfather duo called these blocks TurtleBlocks, and

Also a thing that already exists (and is trademarked, from what I can gather). Same thing as the above comment on Pride Rock INC, make sure to adjust all instances accordingly.

Finally, there are also some major additions I would like to see to Grayson's biography, namely:
1. How was Grayson's early social life (meaning, his time in elementary/middle school)? How did that evolve into his later life (high school)?
2. A paragraph about Grayson's personality. What is Grayson's general outlook on life? How does he generally deal with other people (is he extroverted or introverted)? What's his default mood and general behavior?

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Advantages/Disadvantages:

He also knows woodworking tools very well, and has developed hand calluses that can aid him.

Aid him in what ways? It might be better to replace this with something more generally applicable to a death game. Perhaps something about Grayson's creativity, since it would lend itself to helping him find novel solutions to the unique challenges presented by the game?

He doesn’t have anyone at school that he would consider reliable.

This is somewhat contradicted by him having a close knit friend group, why are they unreliable (note that this kind of detail would need to be added to the bio and not here)?

His lightweight frame means that if a contest of strength were to occur, he would likely fail.

This is somewhat contradicted by him being in good shape. Also, he's not actually that lightweight, his BMI puts him on the beefier side of normal, and he would presumably easily overpower anyone shorter than him (which would be a fair chunk of the class). I would either choose a different disadvantage here, or try to explain better why Grayson would be easily overpowered.

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That's all! Post back here when you have those edits/additions made and I'll give Grayson another look in round 2! :3

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This character biography has had no alterations for more than two weeks and has been put in the abandoned characters forum. This profile is eligible for resubmission by the handler upon alterations requested by the staff.