Here we go! WIP of Sketchie's second character, Samuel Issak.
Name: Samuel Issak (He goes by Sam. His last name is pronounced "Iss-ak," not "I-sac.")
Codename: Voices
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Birthplace: Laverre City
Trainer Class: Coordinator
Appearance: Sam isn't exactly tall, standing about 5'11", but he's exceedingly thin, almost unhealthy thin, so proportionately he looks awkwardly tall. He's a pasty white, due to the lack of sun in his life. He has an angular chin that slopes nicely into a point. His hair is straight, short, neat, and platinum blonde. His eyes are a bit larger than normal, and are a bright sky blue. He is usually clean shaven, and when he isn't, it's usually just unseen stubble. His face is very soft, and his lips are pale and thin. He length-wise he's fairly proportional, although his arms and legs may as well be sticks. He has small, dry hands and feet, and a high tenor voice. He has a couple tattoos: a tardis on his upper left arm, a creeper's face on his left collarbone, and at the base of his neck, the words </head>, <body> (this one is hard to explain, it's easier to
see).
Sam dresses very simply. T-shirts, jeans, and black converse are his usual attire. Most of his t-shirts are gray, and his jeans are dark gray or navy. If he needs to dress warmly, he'll put on a simple dark gray jacket, and a black, wool scarf. His contest attire is much more elaborate. He wears a long, navy coat, with a tall collar and gold trim. He buttons the coat down to his waist, and leaves the rest to dance around his legs. He also wears a cream cravat, and a navy newsy cap. His base isn't as fancy, as under the coat he wears a black collar shirt and black dress pants, as well as black combat boots.
Personality: Sam is a calm, chill person. He's not one to get into fights, and he's perfectly happy agreeing with other people (unless he doesn't agree, but in that case, he'd rather keep it a nice, clean discussion, never wanting it to descend into an argument). He's a smiley guy, and loves making other people happy. He can, however, be a pushover when it comes to making sure people are happy. Sam is kind, and wouldn't purposefully hurt anyone unless they're attacking him. Despite his usual kindness, he does have a breaking point. If you somehow make Sam mad, he explodes like an atom bomb. Sam's also pretty rebellious, and has a distaste for ableist authority.
Sam doesn't talk much, using his voice. He prefers USL (Unovan Sign Language[sup]1[/sup]), and will speak USL unless he absolutely has to use his voice. (He is fluent in both English and USL, and can lip-read.) He loves to read, and he's a huge nerd. He loves watching Doctor Who and Sherlock, and playing video games. Currently, his favorite game is The Last of Us. He wants to name his pokemon after characters of video games. He's good at math and science, although he's not the most athletic kid you'll ever meet. He's good with computers, and has learned how to code and hack. Although Sam likes being social, being around friends and making jokes, Sam enjoys a good think, a period of silence where it's just him and his thoughts, and he can daydream away.
Sam can be a bit of a neat freak. He likes everything organized and uniform. Even his handwriting is more neat than most people. He can be a grammar nazi, nitpicking over every little mistake until it's fixed. He can be overly critical about things, and easily gets frustrated when important work isn't getting done.
History: Samuel was born to Katelyn and Peter Issak, two wealthy business-people. They lived in an mansion near Laverre City. When Sam was born, and after all the tests were conducted, Sam was diagnosed with deafness in his leaf ear, and a rare diseased that cause the hair cells in the cochlea to be more sensitive and vulnerable to damage. Although Sam's parents were a little heartbroken, they consoled themselves with the thought of "at least he can still hear in his right ear." They were grateful that they lived so far away from noise, so their son could live without trauma to his right ear. Sam's parent's weren't home often, often being away for weeks at a time due to their busy business-people occupations, but when they were home, they made sure to spend as much time as possible with their son. Due to the fact his parents couldn't be home often, Peter asked his sister, Lisa, to watch over Sam. Lisa was unemployed at the time, and jumped at the chance.
Mentally, Sam progressed a bit more quickly than other children, but struggled a bit more with balance and staying upright. Eventually, he got the hang of walking, but he preferred to stay in one spot and calmly ponder. He wasn't as fussy as other children, but Katelyn, Peter, and Lisa all agreed that that was a blessing. When Sam was old enough, he would often go outside into the woods, to a small playground near his house he found abandoned, and he would sit on the slide and read or think. Sam was the pride and joy of the Issaks, and they couldn't love him more. Until it happened.
Sam was five years old. It was a bright, autumn day. Sam dashed out the door as usual, running straight to his favorite tree, which way quite a ways from his house. He shimmied up the oak tree, until he got to a specific branch, not too far up, but not too close to the ground. He settled himself down, preparing for a "think," when he decided he was tired, and fell asleep instead. Not an hour later, Peter decided to go hunting. "Sam's in his room, he'll be fine if I go faraway enough," he thought. So he gathered his rifle and ammo, and headed out the door. He walked far, until he thought the gunshot would be faraway and wouldn't cause harm to anyone at the mansion. Peter readied his rifle, waiting for any kind of bird to come his way. He waited patiently under a tree, until --
BAM! A perfect shot, the bird fell clean off that tree and onto the ground. Before Peter could go claim his catch, however, he saw a small drop of blood bounce on his hand. Confused, he looked around. And then up. There Sam was, sleeping peacefully as his right ear dripped scarlet. Peter called out a few times. Nothing. Horrified, he climbed the tree and awoke his son. Sam, dazed, heard his father, but the sound seemed to vanish as soon as his father's face was out of sight.
Peter brought Sam home is his arms and told his mother what had happened. Like any mother would do, Katelyn rushed Sam to an emergency room. Thankfully, the ER wasn't busy, so Sam got in first. It wasn't long before the doctor figured out the obvious -- Sam had lost hearing in his right ear. Katelyn went into hysterics, and sent Sam to the best audiologists in the country, but hope faded quickly over the next month. Nothing could be done. Sam was permanently deaf.
Peter and Katelyn were crushed. Although they wouldn't disown his physically, they disowned him emotionally. They became cold and stoic, rarely talking to their son. Embarrassed that their son was legally disabled, they fabricated a story of how Sam got some rare disease and didn't make it. According to the business world, Samuel Issak was dead. Katelyn even threw a funeral service for him. Lisa wasn't allowed to talk to Sam, but her conscious shone through, and she did it anyway. Katelyn brought in special tutors for their son -- one notable tutor being his math tutor.
His math tutor was a man named Martin Wenger. Martin only had one hand, as his left arm ended at the elbow, but he accepted it. When he learned that Sam didn't know USL, Martin played a double role. After the math lesson had ended for that day, he would give Sam a lesson in USL. A year after Martin started teaching Sam, Sam being the naive little boy he was, Sam asked what he thought was an innocent question. "Would you ever want your left hand back?" Sam asked. Martin smiled. "Would you ever want your hearing back? I'm not disabled, because my nonexistent left hand doesn't disable me from doing things. Sure, it makes some things harder, but anything you could do with two hands, I can do with one." This changed Sam's perspective about being deaf -- "I am not disabled. I am as able as any hearing person -- I just can't hear."
As Sam grew older, his parents grew farther. They refused to learn USL, and they put up a gate around their property (as if that could stop Sam from leaving). When Sam was 11 years old, he decided he had had enough of his cage. He ran to the gate, climbed over, and walked the 5 mile distance between the edge of his property to Laverre City. This was the first time he had been in a major city in 5 years. Excited, he ran straight to the center of the town, and spun around, laughing. Then something caught his eye. A pokemon adoption center. Pausing for a moment, thinking about how lonely he was at his house, he timidly walked to the center. Inside, he saw many different pokemon, but one caught his eye. A froakie was sitting in the corner, looking very left out. Sam walked over and reached out his hand. Before he could pet the blue frog, the caretaker walked over. "Excuse me, but you don't want that pokemon. He's hard of hearing, and won't be able to take commands." Sam grinned, feeling a kinship for the frog. He begged and begged, and eventually his parents gave in, and adopted the froakie for Sam.
Being sheltered from the world does things to a boy. Rebellion set in early for Sam. By the time he was 15, he made a sport of sneaking off to Laverre -- and, when his parents scolded him, he pulled off the whole "I can't hear you" story. Sam quickly got into video gaming, especially online gaming when he could talk to others. He found quite the way to manipulate his parents into getting what he wanted. He threatened to reveal himself as Samuel Issak, the "dead" son of Katelyn and Peter. This threat got him the latest video game models, and the newest games. The online deaf community had accepted him, and had told him how to listen to listen to music. He turned it into a way to tick his parents off -- he would turn his heavy rock music up to the loudest it could go, closed his eyes, and put his hand on the speaker. He couldn't hear his parents yelling at him to turn it off. He didn't care anyways.
Sam grew up hidden away in his manor. His 17th birthday came and went. Another day with the tudors. After homework, plop down on a beanbag in front of the TV, and pick up the Xbox controller. Today, however, would be different. He was 17, and he refused to let it slip by. That night, he slipped past the gates, and down to Laverre. He knew the city quite well, and found out about a tattoo parlor on the outskirts of town. He quickly weaved his way through the streets until he arrived at the tattoo parlor. That day, he got the first tattoo, a creeper's face on his left collarbone. His parents didn't notice, as that week he wore high neckline shirts. A couple weeks later, he got two more tattoos, a tardis on his left arm, and </head> <body> on his neck. While he was there,
Weapons and Equipment:
Anything Else?:
Pokemon
Starter: Froakie (male)
Nickname: Steve [Minecraft]
Short Bio: (Just a quick personality snippet)
Secondary: Espurr (female)
Nickname: Ellie [The Last of Us]
Short Bio: (Just a quick personality snippet)
1 - Due to the fact I believe America doesn't exactly exist in the pokemon world, ASL probably wouldn't exist either. So, because Unova is based off of America (close enough), I'm using Unova. ASL and USL are identical. I'm also going to suggest that, because the regions are close enough together, than USL is the only sign language thing. (Sam's also probably one of the few, if not the only, deaf character used in a Serebii RP.)