Ryland Cook

## History

### **Early Life**

Ryland was born in the Portland area to a nurse and a medical porter. Assigned female at birth, Ryland quickly came to identify as a boy which his father rejected, instead forcing Ryland into strict gender roles.

In 2013, Ryland's mother and him left his father and moved south to the San Francisco bay area. There his mother allowed him to transition and begin taking puberty blockers.

### **Iapetus and Aftermath**

Two years later, Ryland and his Mother decided to go camping on the night the Iapetus Asteroid was expected to hit the earth, but it was destroyed by spaceborne hero before it could.

In the ensuing meteor shower, a fragment of Iapetus landed not far from Ryland who decided to investigate. Upon finding the meteor fragment, a piece of the meteor bonded to him, granting him temporal manipulation abilities which first manifested during a bullying incident at his school.

Following the incident at school, Ryland was taken in by the government for testing and power training. There he met several other 'Meteor Children' people affected by fragments of Iapetus. Among them was Gabriel Brown, a teen of Ryland's age. The two quickly became friends and kept contact after being sent home.

### **First Love**

Ryland and Gabriel would not only go on to be friends but during the summer of 2015 would begin dating. Gabriel having dreams of being a hero convinced Ryland to apply to Ravenhold with him and even gave him his supranym of 'Zeitgeist.'

The two would be rejected in 2015, but would apply again the next year, this time being accepted. Sadly, their acceptance came after Gabriel was mysterious attacked, his fragment taken away and put into a coma he has not awoken from in months.

### **At Ravenhold**

Ryland entered Ravenhold with a heavy heart. Although he considered dropping out, he elected to go as to follow he and gabe's dream and promise.

There he met Kioshi, his roommate whom he immediately became protective of, in a way similar to how Gabriel was of him.

## Character Traits

### **Personality**

Ryland is quite shy and not particularly confrontational, preferring to leave a situation over facing off others. He's a rather kind and sweet boy but also rather anxious and insecure.

### **Appearance**

Ryland is a short and slender blonde boy with bushy wavy hair. Through the past year he put on some muscles. Embedded in his left arm is a deep red gem fragment of Iapetus.

Thanks to taking puberty blockers early enough to stop the most of female puberty, Ryland has only minimal breast growth which doesn't require binding, but he's still insecure about.

Ryland typically wears loose clothing specially made to have no seems or labels and made of soft fabric as he is tactilely hypersensitive.

## Abilities

### **Powers**

Ryland gained the power to manipulate others' relationship with time in three different ways;

1. Freezing them and making them completely impossible to interact with.
2. Accelerating them.
3. Decelerating them.

All three of these abilities have a range of roughly nine feet and last a random amount of time between thirty to sixty seconds.

### **Skills**

As a requirement to allow Ryland to sign up for Ravenhold, his mother required him to take martial arts and self defense classes as well as learn first aid.

## Relationship

### **Family**

* Andrew Cook — Father, no longer in the picture.
* Carolann Cook-Davis — Mother, nurse
* Annette Davis — Grandmother, nurse
* John Davis, Jr. — Grandfather, nurse

### **Relationships**

* Gabriel Brown — Boyfriend, currently comatose after being attacked and having his meteor fragment stolen..

### **Friends**

* Kioshi Sako — Roommate and friend, Ryland feels sorry for him and wants to be nice.
* Grant — Classmate and fellow trans guy.

### **Enemies**

* Nine — Clashed with Nine's alter, Six, but is unaware of Nine suffering from DID.

## Story Appearances

**Origin**

1. Child of the Meteor

Story

1. Broken Dreams

## Trivia

* Ryland has an extremely limited diet, only tolerating fairly bland foods due to his hypersentitivity.
* Ryland finds skin contact quite painful.
* Ryland loves astronomy, camping, painting and literature.
* Ryland's ideal partner is a giant hairy bearded man that's extremely gentle and caring.
* Although Ryland and Gabriel have never had sex physically due to Ryland's sensitivity and dysphoria, the two have engaged in sexting.
* Ryland is well known for wearing onesie pajama, including a big sloth one.