"I don't know how to play those games and give those gifts and make you laugh like some guys. But I'll be here when all of them are gone."
BASICS
NAME: Corso
GENDER: Male
PRONOUNS: He/him/his
ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
BIRTHDATE: Late Spring 2753
AGE: 24 as of 2777
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Dragonrider, self-proclaimed gentleman
WING: Minuet Wing
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Dark brown, worn in long-dreadlocks
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 6'0, muscular but not too muscular
PLAY-BY: Corso Riggs (SWTOR)
FULL APPEARANCE: Corso isn't the handsomest man on Pern but he's not bad looking either. He has an athletic build, clearly strong and neither too thick or too thin, rugged features and well-kept dreadlocks that fall midway down his back. He has his share of scars and callouses, from life first as a farmboy and then as a dragonrider, and his skin is too rough for him to ever be mistaken for any fancy lordling. He still carries a strong cothold twang in his voice. Clearly uncomfortable in formal garb, he favors his riding leathers or other comfortable work clothes.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: Corso thinks of himself as an old-fashioned, gentleman rider, who keeps to traditional ideals of chivalry and masculinity. And he is, on the surface, an extremely polite and well-meaning young man- the sort to run chores for the elderly and always hold the door for a lady. He fights threadfall bravely and willingly- seeing it as part of his duty as a dragonrider. He is extremely proud to be a dragonrider and embraces the exciting, adventurous, heroic life the Harpers promised it would be. Five turns as a rider has yet to dull his genuine eagerness for the path. Big dragons and a chance to do the right thing and help people- what's not to like?
That said, much about weyr morality makes Corso squirm. The Harper's tales never spoke of all the...flirting. And women giving away their favors like it was nothing. That is not for Corso. He is extremely clear, to the latest woman of his affections (who always happens to be very hot, somehow exciting and never emotionally available enough to WANT to settle down with him), that he wants them for keeps. He claims that while he may not be as charming or polished as some riders, he's loyal and will treat them better. And if anyone points out he's technically still married and wasn't loyal to his WIFE? Well...she wasn't as beautiful or special or exciting as his weyr girls- which meant he would never abandon THEM. He is gallant, often to the point of being patronizing, as he rarely picks girls who want or need to be taken care of. He is quick to become jealous, if anyone else has an eye on the girl he likes who has made him no promises, and will try to sabotage any other burgeoning relationships, often blaming the girl herself for wanting the wrong things. He moves on from an object of his affections only when his eye has been caught by another woman that is somehow better- as he thinks himself such a romantic he must always have a woman he is attempting to try to win.
Corso can be extremely moralizing, over flirting, criminal behavior or anything else he sees as ill-befitting a rider (especially a woman rider). He often fails to recognize the realities of weyr life (like continuing to insist it's just awful woman of the weyr don't raise their own kids and insisting HIS kids will be raised properly, instead of by strangers, no matter how often it's explained this will only work if he chooses a weyrfolk- which does not deter him from almost exclusively pursuing fellow riders or wherhandlers). He is also quite hypocritical, overlooking his own share of petty sins as just part of the adventures a rider ought to have that don't do any harm to anyone and never acknowledging that, deep down, he finds the "unchaste" behavior of weyr women exciting and a large part of their charm.
Corso has a fondness for the tools of his trade and takes great pride in maintaining and often even naming them. His riding straps are called "Sparkles," his firestone sack is "Torchy" and his best riding boots are "Flashy." He will continue coming up with new names as he acquires new things worth naming.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Farmer parents
A couple of siblings
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Still technically married to Darlene, but she doesn't count and he's actively seeking his special someone
BIRTHPLACE: A cothold outside of Telgar
HISTORY: Corso was born, like many a Pernese youth, to a pair of farmers on a small cothold in Telgar. He had an ordinary childhood, with no great expectations put upon him. Deep down, he also thought he was destined for something more and yearned for a chance to escape the confines of the life he'd been born to.
As he didn't have any special talents and his parents didn't have the marks to set him on a different path, he accepted his lot and set to doing his duty, cheerfully enough and with no real signs of resentment. He helped his parents on the farm and when he turned eighteen, courted and proposed to the girl next door, Darlene. She didn't excite him the way the girls of his dreams always had- but of the few girls near his age in the small cothold, she was the one most willing to have him, and a man needed a wife. They married not long after and settled down to farm their own patch of land.
Everything changed when a searchdragon came to their hold and saw potential in Corso, a little under a turn after his wedding day. He had a chance to be someone. A hero. A DRAGONRIDER. Nothing was going to hold him back from that- not his farm, not his family, not his wife. Over Darlene's loud protests, he left home without looking back. He never formally divorced her- because a gentleman didn't leave a lady in high straights like that- but he ignored all her attempts to send a runner until the messages stopped coming.
Once at the weyr, Corso all but forgot about the life he'd left behind, immersing himself in candidacy. He arrived to a clutch of eggs on the sands and a candidate barracks full of people who just seemed so much more SPECIAL than everything he'd left behind.
And when hatching day came and a green looked in his eyes, as she pouted about all the other female dragons who'd had the audacity to hatch first and take the attention off her on her special day? It was love at first sight for Corso and Zillath.
Weyrlinghood was another adventure, with Corso struggling to learn to read, embracing his flying drills with more enthusiasm than skill and falling in love with at least three different women in his weyrling class, before graduation.
Upon Corso's graduation, he found he liked being a dragonrider immensely. He had a purpose. He was respected. He felt like he was doing something good for the world, each and every day. The sole disappointments of his life as a rider were the persistent immorality of the weyr and how flight after flight, Zillath chose only dragons with male riders. He tried to console him that maybe it would be different, once a woman loved him back.
As Corso's class matured as riders, the entire lot of them started to speak about moving to Semaca, where the weather was better. Corso agreed to move down there with the rest of them, because (he claimed) his female classmates would need protection and a new weyr needed upstanding riders, to help set it on a less decadently immoral path than Telgar had been. Secretly, he was also a bit excited by the prospect of seeing his latest crush in skimpier clothing.
