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SDL: Toras' App — Description

“You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
- C.S. Lewis

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Basic Information
Name: Toras Ashton Selznick
Nickname: None yet
Age: 18
Birthday: September 16th
Gender: Male (He/Him)
Height: 5’7”
Hometown: Oakheart City
Personality
| +Empathetic | +Gracious | +Reliable | =Organized | -Awkward | -Quiet | -Spineless |
Though he’s polite and will always take the time to say hello, not many people can say that they know Toras personally. He's naturally withdrawn and a bit slow to warm up to people, but his empathetic nature makes him a wonderful friend once you’ve broken past his shell. The teen is surprisingly funny, and he is incredibly gracious and loving. However, not everything about him is sunshine and rainbows. Though he can be kind-hearted, you’ll quicker see the anxious and insecure side of him. Toras will doubt himself every chance he finds, whether it’s a math problem he just solved or the quip he just delivered. While his penchant for organization helps ease these fears somewhat, it usually does very little to reassure him.

Toras also has very little backbone, and is quick to bend under pressure. He doesn’t mean to be so submissive, but even the slightest bit of authority will have him cowering. Really, what it boils down to is the fear that plagues him every second of every day: being found out as a cyborg and shunned from society because of it. Even when you’ve managed to win his trust, Toras will still have his reservations. Because of this, Toras strives to make himself as reliable as possible: once you’ve told him a secret, it will never slip past his lips and he’ll make sure you’re aware of that. Despite all he’s been through, Toras will still try his best to help others smile.

History (TW: Abuse/Manipulation, Medical Malpractice)
Toras was the child who had his future laid out for him before he was even born. With a loving stay-at-home mom and a brilliant father who worked as an engineer and city planner, life was easygoing. As a young child, Toras showed a great deal of intelligence. He could speak full sentences by the time he was two years old, and he was reading by the time he was four. Despite his asthma and predisposition for illness, he was bright and had an intense hunger for knowledge.
When he was five years old, he started kindergarten and his mother returned to school to pursue a degree in nursing. Many long nights were spent at the kitchen table together, with Toras absorbing all of the information his mother explained while she studied. They were as close as a mother and son could be, and Toras cherished those long nights spent at their kitchen table. His father, for his part, often built small mechanical puzzles for Toras to tear apart and put back together again. Though his father was a busy man, he still made time for Toras, teaching him the ins and outs of mechanics. Robotics was his passion, and the pair spent hours together, building small robots on the weekends.
When Toras was fifteen, his father had an accident at work. He’d been attacked by several wild Pokemon and was hospitalized. He seemed to change overnight. Suddenly his father was much colder and distant than he used to be, and he would fly into a rage over the smallest of things. Toras’s mother cautioned him that it was a symptom of PTSD, and they should be patient and mindful of his father’s condition. Who was he to argue?
As the months passed, his father only seemed to grow worse. The man was obsessed with perfection: Toras’s straight A’s were no longer enough, the boy had to be doing more to prove that he could get into whatever college he wanted. He had to take more extracurriculars, taking on a job would build character, but if he dared let his grades slide he’d earn more than an earful from his father. It was a stressful time, but Toras kept his mother’s words in mind like a mantra: he had to be patient and mindful with his father, who had experienced a great deal of trauma.

No matter what he did, his father wasn’t pleased. If he could build a robot, he didn’t build it fast or efficient enough. If he was sick, as he so often was, he was told he was faking it, and he had to go to school anyway. He couldn’t get good enough grades, he couldn’t work hard enough, and his father often told him he just wasn’t a good son. He was a disappointment.
It was two years after the accident that his mother disappeared in the middle of the night, with no warning or notice. Toras was devastated. His father only grew worse, blaming Toras for his mother’s absence. If Toras were a better son, his mother would still be around.
He managed to graduate a full year early, despite his poor mental and physical health, and suddenly it was time to pack up for college. But did he really deserve to go to college? Toras felt as if he was a sham, who had lied and manipulated his way into being valedictorian and the college of his dreams. He was going to be an engineer, just like his father, but more and more it felt as though he wasn’t smart enough to succeed.
Just before he was supposed to head to college, his father suggested an… experimental surgery of sorts. It would improve his health and help him reach that seemingly impossible goal of perfection. Toras was hesitant, but his father was insistent. A good son would be willing to do anything to make his father happy, wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he want to do something that could only benefit him? Toras felt as though he had no other choice but to agree.
He’d always had a poor heart, having had an undiagnosed heart condition since birth that went almost unnoticed. Exercise was difficult and left him wheezing, and stressful situations often left him feeling faint. What his father didn’t mentioned was that he’d spent the past few years developed a mechanical heart with which to replace Toras’s, and it was finally at an acceptable quality and level of reliability.
When Toras woke up, he was horrified. Tubes were left sticking out of his chest, and although it was easier to breathe… he couldn’t help but to feel violated. His father had refused to tell him exactly what the surgery was, and Toras had been too afraid of asking questions, lest his father devolve into a rage again. Shame and guilt followed him wherever he went, now bound permanently to a backpack that housed the motor for his new heart.
This was too much. Without saying a word to anyone, Toras packed a bag and left home one day. He didn’t know where he was going to go, or what he was going to do, but he couldn’t stay in that home and be a disappointment to everyone in his life anymore. He didn’t know what he was doing. But his mother always had told him that more time outdoors would do him some good, so he might as well try.
It was in those first few weeks that he ran into a friendly trainer. His name was Spencer, and he showed Toras some of the basics of roughing it: how to pitch a tent, how to cook over a campfire, even some of the wonders of the outdoors. It was… refreshing. Toras was charmed by how Spencer talked about the gym circuit, and well… he didn’t have anything else to do, so why not give it a try for himself? Surely it couldn’t be that hard.
Trivia
He learns information very quickly
Knows a lot of random medical knowledge he picked up from his mom. He’s very good at delivering first aid!
Horribly afraid of bug-type Pokemon
Rainstorms are his favorite type of weather. Curling up in front of a cozy fire while it rains is his favorite pastime by far.
Toras has a pretty good knack for directions!
Left handed
Synesthesia!
Sounds are colors (can get overwhelming in loud environments)
Times and numbers are distances
Occasionally smells something that isn’t there
Toras has an artificial heart that is run by the solar panel on his backpack. It can store a charge for up to five days, but he has a back up motor for emergencies.
His shoes are guaranteed not to match. It seems to drive everyone crazy BUT Toras himself.
This boy has a (metaphorical) hollow leg. Feeding him is the quickest way to his heart.

Love Life
Orientation: …ha?
Status: Single AF

“This is so nice! Thank you, thank you so much!”
Loves: Books, Scarves/Gloves

“For me? That’s so nice of you…”
Likes: Food

“Well, um, Pappy always said not to look a gift horse in the mouth…”
Dislikes: Selfies, Sports, Carrots

“Er, thank… you? I think?”
Hates: Swimming, Heart-shaped Trinkets
Updates
9/21/24: Major Update. New app art! Boy's so grown now wahhhhhhh