not everyone can say they’ve been to the big apple, but athena ryu, a fourty-six year-old cisfemale has lived in park slope, brooklyn for twenty-seven years. This is the city of dreams and she knows it, because they came to nyc to be a pianist. living in the city means they meet all kinds of people, but everyone always seems to think they look like sandra oh. they even got away with free cab fare once because of it! sadie, 21, est, she/her, none.
hi everyone! sadie here coming at ya with my introverted pianist, athena.
CHARACTER BIO LOADING..
B A S I C S
NAME: athena lillian ryu. AGE: fourty-six. DATE OF BIRTH: may 10th. ZODIAC SIGN: taurus. SEXUALITY: bisexual. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single and still grieving. OCCUPATION: pianist (playing for broadway stars and jazz listeners, the occasional recording gig). BIRTHPLACE: rochester, new york. CURRENT RESIDENCE: park slope, brooklyn.
A P P E A R E N C E
HEIGHT: 5′5. HAIR COLOR: black. EYE COLOR: brown. BUILD: thin, slender.
F A M I L Y
MOTHER: unknown. FATHER: elliot ryu. STEPMOTHER: faye sharpe-ryu. SIBLINGS: n/a. STEP-SIBLINGS: WANTED CONNECTION (one male, younger) CHILDREN: n/a.
BIOGRAPHY.
“you scan through the score and put fingers on keys and you play..”
mention of: child abandonment, infidelity, divorce, death, car accident, funerals, injury, ptsd.
from the moment athena was born, she experienced the feeling of abandonment. her mother left her father a year after she was born to chase down a man that she had only just met, driving away as fast as she could until her distraught husband and daughter were simply dots in her rear-view mirror. for most of her early years it was just her and her father, taking on the world together.
athena was always a reserved child, keeping to herself and spending most of her time with her nose in a book. it was an escape for her. even today, her brownstone is overflowing with books: from classic literature to cheesy romances.
when she was four, she first sat at a piano. instantly, the keys felt like home. when she was six, her father started driving her to lessons with the local teacher. quickly, athena picked up the instrument like it was an extension of herself.
when she was ten, her father remarried. while athena was happy for him, knowing that she now had a stepbrother who she loathed was not exactly the most present surprise for a ten year old girl. especially considering he was several years younger than her.
when she was fifteen, she kissed a girl for the first time and felt like she was floating. she came out as bisexual to her father and stepmother about five months later, who were both supportive. somehow, her stepbrother already knew. he was so much younger than her; maybe she wasn’t as smart as she thought.
over the years, athena has become very protective over her stepbrother. he’s completely the opposite to her in every way: loud, confident and popular while she would usually much rather sit in her own little corner or express herself through the keys. that is, unless someone messes with him. then, something switches.
the longer she played piano - the more attention she got. the more attention she got, the more competitions she won. people in her life were entranced by her story: a piano prodigy from their own city.
julliard was the next step, obviously. it made sense. the best music school in the world was holding out its arms, waiting for her. when she got there, the curriculum began to eat away at her, until it chewed her up and spit her out once graduation came around. at least it was over. that’s what she told herself.
at a gig two years later, she met her wife, eloise. she was the singer she was playing for and a damn good one at that. a year later, she was listening to that same voice sing to her at their wedding, falling even harder than she had the day she met her.
a couple of years later, the pair of them were the picture-perfect couple. the pianist and her muse, their brownstone being just the cherry on top of the cake.
everything was blissful, that was, until the accident. while the two of them were using a driving service, a car swerved and hit them. the impact killed eloise and left athena severely injured, having to learn her wife had passed from her hospital bed.
everything since eloise’s funeral has felt like a blur. she goes to and from her gigs every day like a zombie, certainly a shell of her former self, even several years later. she keeps a very small circle of friends, otherwise living a life that appears to be highly reclusive.
she’s getting there, slowly but surely putting herself out there to see what sticks. athena is resigned to the belief that eloise was it for her and that she’ll never experience romance or love again.
currently, she lives in a newer brownstone with her two corgis: oscar and charlie (after oscar wild and charles dickens), surrounded by books and sheet music. besides leaving the house to do gigs, she also occasionally guest lectures as a julliard alumni.















