Where did you find us? (if lj, what comm): Loooong story.
Your age: 30
Character Name: Sullivan John Marsh
Character Name as you'd like it to appear (if different from above): Sullivan Marsh
Age: 33
D.O.B.: May 31, 1965
Physical Appearance:
Sullivan is tall and well-proportioned, coming in at a respectable 6'4", weighing about 190lb, rather built and toned. His hair is a warm brown color and would strike most as unremarkable except it hangs in glossy curls and waves when allowed to grow out, though in recent years he's kept it cropped close to his head, often bordering on a buzz-cut, sometimes longer, enough to work with. His skin tone is on the medium side, lending towards rather pale in the winter, a light tan in the summer and his face, though handsome and typically masculine, especially influenced by his strong jaw and cleft in his chin, is still somewhat soft and sweet, a baby face. He has what are commonly known as bedroom eyes, deep set and heavy-lidded, a warm dark hazel, bordering on brown. He has an easy smile and quiet, almost smoldering, gaze; due to his height, he has a tendency to hunch a bit, used to years of leaning over to talk to just about anyone.
He has several tattoos, including a trio of boxes on his right forearm, with two filled in, and a Japanese style sleeve covering most of his left arm.
Picture:
Name of person pictured above(PB/face claim): John Mayer
Personality Description [make this at least one paragraph, please]:
Sullivan is extremely easy-going and friendly, almost to the point where one wonders if they're being deceived. However, Sullivan really is this laid-back and forgiving, kind and interested in everyone he meets. He follows a sort of Christian-Zen philosophy of his own design, living life as it comes at the same time as being good to his follow travelers in the world.
This is not to say that he's without a temper, or without a darker side. Sullivan is secretive and manipulative, though in ways he sometimes doesn't even recognize. A romantic, even he is baffled when his relationships fall apart, though anyone with any knowledge of his past and a semester of psych 101 could pinpoint his commitment issues, rooted firmly in his childhood. As it is, Sullivan's left a string of lovers, all of whom likely have mostly good memories of him... you know, except the ones he up and left without explanation. There's more than a few of those, and the bitterness he left is real, though it would surprise him: Sullivan believes so firmly in the fundamental good intentions of humanity, he has a big and dark blindspot when it comes to his own less than savory intentions.
As a Christian, he's either terrible or the most pious in centuries, depending on your version of the faith. Sullivan believes in Jesus, but also fucks around, lies slide off his tongue like water, and he's not above stealing or screwing for money. But, then, how pure was Mary Magdalene? Sullivan has the mark of a true believer, a saving story to tell, and relates it with the wide-eyed sincerity of the converted. When called on his hypocrisy, his reaction doesn't come across as defensive, but calls upon the glass houses clause, the bastion of cowards-- even he knows this, and tends towards being the observer, the shoulder to cry on, instead of airing his own beliefs. Ask him, he'll talk. Otherwise, only the cross on a chain around his neck will give him away.
Likes:
-music (of any type, though he plays guitar)
-tattoos
-sex
-poetry (and books in general)
-coffee
-cigarettes
-traveling
-motorcycles
-old movies
-pool
Dislikes:
-most television (though he has a stupid, secret love of reality television)
-enclosed spaces
-cops
-cold weather
-dressing up
-photographs (of himself, he actually likes turning the camera on others)
-computers
-sports
-drugs
-misinformation
Strengths:
-intelligent
-non-judgmental
-perceptive
-charming
-romantic
Weaknesses:
-overly dramatic
-tends towards martyrdom
-unpredictable
-irresponsible
-self-centered
Fears:
-being at anyone's mercy
-not finding everything out
-dying alone
History/Biography:
Sullivan was born the youngest of three children in 1965 in Haddonfield, New Jersey. His parents, Ella and John Marsh, were solidly middle class, fairly conservative people in their mid-thirties; Ella was a stay-at-home-mother while John worked as a supply salesman for a large national food store chain, a job which required him to travel often. Sullivan has two older sisters: Erica (6 years older) and Hadley (3 years older).
Life was mostly boring and middle of the road for Sullivan's childhood. However, when he was 12, his father committed suicide; upon his death, it was discovered he had been having an affair with another woman in California, keeping an entirely separate family, including two young sons, Jeremy (6 at the time) and Timothy (2 at the time). The surprise rocked the family; Ella spiraled into a deep depression and alcoholism, losing the house and a large portion of the family's money in fairly short order. Erica went off to college on a scholarship while Hadley (now 15) and Sullivan were sent to live with their maternal grandparents in Goodland, Kansas.
The move did little to assuage the grief and shock in the family, and Hadley began acting out, getting in trouble in school and then with the cops, finally being sentenced to juvenile hall for 6 months shortly after her 16th birthday. Sullivan faired better, but found a passion for hitchhiking, an easy thing to do on the long stretches of road between civilizations in Kansas. Wandering became a driving force in his life and he began to disappearing for days, then weeks, at a time, out exploring the country. His grandparents attempted to ground him and even tried to remand him to state custody, but his lack of trouble with the law kept him from being taken. Trips got longer and longer until one day, at the age of 16, he just never returned and his grandparents haven't heard from him since.
Along the road, Sullivan found inspiration in the works of beat writers (mainly, of course, Kerouac's famous On the Road). After a brush with death in a car accident at the age of 20, he found Christ somewhere in the woods in southern Canada. Disagreeing with a large number of tenants of modern Christianity, he instead decided to focus on just the words of Christ as read simply from the Bible. Using this, he created a sort of Christian-Zen philosophy on life. He became a vegetarian and spread the word of his interpretation of the Gospel as he traveled. Seeking what life offered and sharing it with others became his goal in life. Granted, this sometimes involved less than legal means of keeping himself breathing, but one does what they must to stay on this side of alive.
Sullivan rarely stays in one place for too long, not wanting to fail in his mission to learn everything and to live everything. However, through a series of events too long to account here, he now lives with his girlfriend, Momo, and the child he didn't know he had until a couple months ago, Song, delivered to him by his sister, from the boy's dying mother. It's an odd arrangement for a man who has never put down roots, and it often shows. He was recently cast in an independent film, and it remains to be seen what will come of this sudden new path in front of him.
Family: father - John (deceased); mother – Ella; sisters – Erica & Hadley; half-brothers - Jeremy & Timothy; son - Song
Role Play Sample:
Maybe most people didn't kick back on the narrow walkways that ran along the fronts of the motel room doors, but then, Sullivan wasn't most people. He'd dragged one of the metal chairs under his window and deposited himself there some time early in the day-- years on the road had made it impossible for him to sleep past dawn. He only averaged four hours of sleep a night, and perhaps that wasn't enough given the circles he constantly wore under his eyes, but it sufficed; it wasn't as though he really could go to bed with so many hours still available in the night.
It was inching closer to noon by then, and Sullivan had been out in his chair, long legs stretched out on the cement in front of him for several hours. His jeans were rolled up to his knees and feet were bare, soles dusty and decorated with more than one sharp pebble, though he seemed not to notice or care. He'd left the door to his room open, and the canned laughter of a not-so-live audience to a sitcom drifted out every so often, but it wasn't immediately clear if he had intentionally left the television on; he had a cigarette wedged in the corner of his mouth and the sleeves of his t-shirt rolled up, exposing broad, strong shoulders and the ink that covered nearly his entire left arm, the skin shifting and flexing with the movements of the hand in his lap, wielding a pencil over the rough page of a sketch book.
What, you were expecting it to be doing something else?
He smoked with the expertise of a man who'd practically been born with a cigarette in his mouth, inhaling and exhaling out of the other corner of his mouth, without removing the cigarette in between. It was an art, and one that he'd practiced, despite the naturalness of the gesture. One wasn't just born that cool. Born that ridiculously good looking, yes, but the moves were something honed.
No one would believe how awkward Sullivan was as a teenager.
Humming under his breath, he swiped his pencil once more before leaning back to consider the drawing. It was rough, smudged all to hell by the curse of being a lefty-- Sullivan was not naturally left-handed, but had come upon it through a combination of breaking his right wrist as a kid and the need, at the age of thirteen, to be different-- a Japanese garden scene. He'd never been to Japan, as his travels doomed him to be limited to places accessible by foot or car, but the place, language and culture had captured him to such a degree when he was young, he never really could shake it. It was apparent in the tattoos he'd had inked into his skin and it was apparent in his own favored art form, which took detours into fantasy and nature, but always veered right back into the art of Japan. If he was so inclined to believe in reincarnation, he might have even posited a life in the country before.
Finally, a hand came up to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, resting on the arm of the chair as he held up the sketchbook, the studio audience laughing uproariously behind him. Sullivan, for all intensive purposes, had gone oblivious again.
