Ryker Thompson

## **Persona:**

Ryker is an ass, there is no better way to describe the dark skinned, hard headed teen from the Outback of Australia. He is quick to smart off at someone, and even quicker to bring his fists in to solve problems that could’ve been easily solved with words. The deep rooted issues of feeling abandoned and unloved from his family reach deep into his soul, making him feel like his heart is black and his soul has been smashed into a thousand little pieces. He hates his family now, he takes the initiative to choose who his family is now, because the bond of friendship is thicker than the bounds formed by blood. He is also impulsive, the tattoo of the goat on his left forearm is a testament to that, he won’t think about it before he does it, just do it. Despite the hardness that exudes from him, a soft spot is sure to exist somewhere inside of him, it just needs to be opened up by the right group of people who are willing to force him out of his comfort zone.

## **Background:**

Ryker was born to a Australian family that had deep roots in the Outback, his mother had traced their first ancestors to be convicted criminals that had come to Australia to serve sentences in the penal colony. They were crafty though, they ended up escaping their bonds of servitude to escape into the harsh wastelands where they established their own homestead away from civilizations. As time went on, some of their clan would move on to positions in the Queen’s Army where they served against the Japanese Army in the Pacific campaigns of World War Two or returned to the United Kingdom to become business owners and low level politicians. Most of the family remained in the Outback, where they committed petty crimes and did half hazard ranching that barely made ends meet. Ryker’s mother, Samantha was the only one amongst her brothers and sisters to move out of the dusty small town to Brisbane to work as a nurse, Ryker’s father was never in the picture and long gone before his birth. Samantha soon fell in love with a doctor who worked at the hospital, Matthew, they got married and life carried on as normal. Ryker didn’t make life normal though, he was always getting into fights at school or committing petty crimes on the street. His two half brothers, Alexander and Derek, were normal and doing well in school while Ryker flunked basic math and reading. His half sister, Marianne, was an absolute angel and the talk of their families while people just ignored Ryker’s existence. Ryker isolated himself from his family, they didn’t care about him so he didn’t care about them, they only existed in the same house or his mom came to bail him out of trouble when she was around. The only thing that kept Ryker going was soccer, he trained hard and played hard, circulating between different leagues and the school team as often as he could. His mom surprised him with a letter on the last day of his junior year, she had been in contact with the admissions department of Silver Oak Academy and he had been accepted to the school under a scholarship for their soccer team. Ryker was furious, he felt like he was being thrown away across an entire world because his family didn’t love him. It was a bad night, holes were created in the walls and hands were put on each other. The next day, Ryker left to stay with his grandfather for the summer, his mother pushed for the acceptance paperwork that came within the month, sealing Ryker’s fate to leave Australia at the end of the summer. That summer was the best summer Ryker had ever had since he was a toddler, every day was endless fun and hard work on the goat ranch and the nights were equally full of teenager recklessness and debauchery. It broke his heart when the only person to be with him at the airport was his grandfather who sent him off with some good words of advice and a tight hug, reminding him that the ranch was open to him when he returned from America. With cloudy eyes, Ryker crossed the threshold and hopped onto the plane, settling in for a long year abroad with no idea what was going to happen.