Royce Chambers

[Palhinuk†]

Name: Royce Chambers
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: Senior (12)
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Photography, Urban Exploration, Skateboarding, Blogging, School Newspaper (photographer), Art Club

Appearance: Royce is the epitome of the lanky teen. Stretching out to about 6'1" at about 147 lbs, his limbs are long, spindly, and tan; usually covered in various band-aids and patches from scrapes and cuts earned from his exploits. Though most are just nicks and scrapes, he has one or two nasty scars on his arms and a large scar running from his knee to mid-shin on his left leg, gained after falling down into large drainage canal. He has messy brown hair that falls flat across his face if he doesn't take the time to tie it back, and squinting, hazel eyes. His face is angular, his nose and chin coming to almost sharp points, accented by his flat cheeks. His outfits usually consist of cargo shorts, a t-shirt from his work, and a pair of skate shoes. He is rarely seen without a camera around his neck.

Biography: Royce was born on April 3, 1995. Always the baby of the family, he was always given big shoes to fill. His brother Vincent, older by 10 years, was the pride of the family, always striving for perfection in whatever he set his mind to. An expert violinist and captain of the debate team, their father always held him as the apple of his eye.  Royce's father Chase is a very well-known plastic surgeon in the Seattle area, having a pair of billboards near the mall and next to the interstate. He mostly deals in facial reconstruction, but is not above tummy-tucks, breast implants, and cosmetic nose-jobs. Very judgmental and scrutinizing, he holds high standards for his kids to live up to, and is rather unreasonable about deviation from them. If his children deviate from his expectations, they can usually expect deriding and sarcastic remarks about their interests, followed by a promise to remove them from his will.  These only increase in frequency and harshness when Chase is drinking, which has recently become a nightly occurrence.

His mother, Melony Chambers is a real-estate agent, flipping houses as best as she can. Though she is very good at talking up houses, when it comes time to play hardball, he demeanor fades and she usually ends up unable to haggle, and is ultimately undone by her lack of stamina when it comes to holding her ground. Her constant inability to stick up for either of them left both of them with an obvious lack of respect for her, especially Royce as he was the biggest target of his father's drunken heckling. For the most part, this left Royce to be influenced by his sister Autumn. He grew to find her more of a mother than their own mother because of her willingness to stand up for him. Autumn was the one to buy him his first skateboard when he turned eleven after noticing his love for the Tony Hawk video games.  He used to spend so much time playing them, idolizing the pros and mimicing their moves on flattened cardboard boxes that she figured a little time on the real thing would do him good. Within a year, he had worn the paint off of the bottom of the deck from all the use. Somewhat surprisingly, Royce and Vince get along relatively well, though years of time in the spotlight has left Vince highly unaware of their parent's neglect.

After being given a kid's Kodak camera on a school field trip when he was in middle school, Royce was never without a camera around his neck. "Borrowing" Vincent's old camera once his original broke from near perpetual usage, Royce became an avid photographer, much to Chase's disapproval. The past year he has saved up all his money earned by taking a part time job at Zumiez at the Lone Pine Mall in order to buy a Canon PowerShot SX40, though he still prefers solid film over digital.  With this, though, he has been able to more easily integrate his photography to his blog. Royce maintains an semi-popular blog, amassing over 200 regular subscribers. In it, he details his urban exploration exploits and displays his photographs. He holds some disdain for the current hipster movement because he feels that, because of things like Instagram, photography is no longer taken seriously.

Royce discovered his love of urban exploration a few years later when Vince first moved out. He found a drainage ditch on the outskirts of town, and felt an almost impulsive need to ride a skateboard down into it and take as many photos as he could. Since then, he has spent every spare second he could scouting out places to investigate, with plenty of scrapes, cuts, gashes, and nicks to prove it. He soon combined his loves of skating and photography with his new-found hobby, finding new sweet spots to hit up in places few would venture to find. He has had one or two instances of being ushered off/away from property by police. Recently, since the completion of the Woodland Skatepark, he has been venturing with his skateboard less and less, instead preferring a spot that doesn't involve potential tetanus risks with every bail.

Academics-wise, Royce is an average student in all aspects, save for Art. He does his coursework in the time before class, and despite his lack of study habits, always manages to make C's or B's on tests. He occasionally helps out the school newspaper with photographs, though this is mostly just out of boredom. His commitment to the Art Club is vague. He enjoys showing off his work and even working with others on projects, but he takes criticism poorly and often times gives up on projects if they're not going the way he sees them.  Socially, Royce tends to be distant.  He isn't unapproachable, but his defensive tendencies tend to keep people from hanging around him too much.  He has begun to realize this means he doesn't have any true friends, and has been trying to be more agreeable lately.  To date, though, he still spends most of his spare time either skateboarding by himself in the parking lot or stuffed in the dark room in the Electives Hall.

Advantages: Royce's natural sense of exploration, and all of his physical activity, including climbing and running are definitely pluses. He also has a decent tolerance for pain, as skating for years has toughened him up a little
Disadvantages: To put it simply, Royce doesn't take criticism well at all. This, combined with the small inferiority complex he has grown under both his father and brother leaves him easily agitated by conflict or critique with and of his ideas.  He has very few, if any friendly connections in his senior class.  He also has issues being stealthy, with his tall and lanky physique making it difficult to find many adequate hiding spots.