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Maned Wolf
- Posts:
- 5
- Group:
- Admin
- Member
- #14
- Joined:
- September 7, 2011
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| MARK SASS |
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THE BASICS FULL NAME: Markham Edward Sass
NICKNAME: Mark
AGE: 33
BIRTHDAY: March 15, 1978
GENDER: Male
PROFESSION: Director of Jazz Studies, Jazz Guitar, Classical Guitar at Martingale University
PLAYBY: Jensen Ackles
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| THE ANIMAL |
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WE'RE ALL A BUNCH OF ANIMALS SPECIES: Maned Wolf
OVERALL APPEARANCE: Mark's maned wolf is vibrant red and almost foxlike in color. Like Mark, he has a little bit of a paunch started. Unlike Mark, he's gangly and long-legged, and looks a bit as if he were tottering on stilts.
DISTINGUISHING TRAITS: He has a pronounced black patch on the back of his head, and his white bits are dirtier, more of a beige than pristine white. There's also the business of him being a bit overweight, so he's a maned wolf with a round tummy and general thickness in his frame.
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| APPEARANCE |
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PAINT US A PICTURE
HAIR: Chatain (Golden brown)
EYES: Hazel
BUILD: Average height for a man, sturdy but not overly muscled. He's got a nice frame and is pretty healthy from the sheer amount of walking he does every day, but due to his sedentary job and love of food, Mark developed a soft little stomach. His back is a pretty thing for anyone lucky enough to see it, though his rear end isn't going to win him any awards. Good jeans and loose shirts cover most of his physical flaws.
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Large eyes and almost rubbery expressive face. The contortions this man can do with his mouth can be a little shocking.
OVERALL APPEARANCE:
Mark looks... strong, utterly average, and exceptionally goofy. He's one of those people that can strike you as magnetically attractive in person, but when you see his picture, you end up wondering how much you had to drink that night.
He has an outward air of surety and reliability (and maybe a little tang of danger from his predator totem) that goes well with his sturdy build: he's the guy you'd want to come to your rescue.
At least until you realize that he teaches jazz and classical guitar for a living. And that he has sort of bad knees.
Mark's a clean guy, but not overly fastidious. He keeps his hair cut short and dislikes facial scruff, though - shaving is practically a religious rite, performed every morning, and sometimes in the evening if he's planning to go out. As a result, he usually has the faint clean scent of aftershave.
TYPICAL DRESS:
Nobody can convince Mark to wear anything but jeans for his classes. Faculty administrative suggestions and memos went ignored, and nobody in the music department was foolish enough to threaten termination. Mark's argument was that students should focus on the music, and creativity is encouraged in an informal environment. Whether or not that's complete fabrication was never challenged. Mark has been known to wear suits (and even tuxedos!) to concert performances, but outside of those events, he insists on blue jeans and nothing fancier than a dinner jacket.
Mark wears a lot of earth tones, with some dusty blues and greens. He's known on campus for the battered brown faux-leather jacket he wears during the colder months. No pastels, and no white if he can help it.
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| PERSONALITY |
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WHO ARE YOU?
On the surface, Mark is affable with a great sense of humor and a tendency towards making movie, television and book references to explain things. He's an excellent teacher, with a seemingly bottomless store of patience and a sympathy for the students that doesn't leave him a pushover.
Most of Mark's mental process is internal and unshared. He's very caught up in his own head, and he takes a while to process things. It isn't that he doesn't believe in therapy, he's just too self-reliant and paranoid about manipulation to put his secrets in other people's hands. In fact, Mark's such a private person that he's never been able to stand living with someone. Not a lover, not a roommate, not even pets. Without plenty of time alone, Mark gets crabby and irritable. In his work he's generous and patient, but he's pretty selfish and self-centered when it comes to his life after hours.
For all that, he believes in true love. It's never happened to him, but it doesn't stop Mark from believing in it.
Mark isn't happy with his current body image, but he's too obsessed with his work to make much forward motion in changing it, and this is cause for consternation.
He has a few weird personality quirks. He talks to himself, sometimes at length. And yes, he does answer himself, too. Mark also hoards sheet music. The room in his condo where he keeps his collection of vintage guitars also has a closet, and that closet is an epic disaster area of boxes full of sheet music. Mark's also super paranoid about theft. He triple-checks locks, had an extra lock and a peephole installed on his condo door, and added an in-home security system.
One final note: Mark is plagued by nightmares. They're the reason he's so interested in the psychology of dreams, and dream symbolism. Because he stays up late on a regular basis, preferring nighttime to daytime for his creative pursuits, Mark is often too exhausted to remember his dreams by the next morning. As a result, he isn't aware that he's actually having nightmares almost every night.
Mark's hobbies include collecting vintage guitars, archiving sheet music, volunteering for a free guitarist instruction website (think the guitarist section of eHow, but much more expanded, with a Q&A section where artists and students can chat regularly with experts.).
Short Term Goals: Proficiency at Blues-style guitar, finding a small band and/or circle of friends to jam with regularly. Lose some weight/exercise more.
Long Term Goals: Pursuing songwriting, full-time. Guiding a talented student to fame. Finding and purchasing that one guitar of a lifetime.
- STRENGTHS: Creativity, intelligence, logic, patience, practicality
- WEAKNESSES: Tendency to self-isolate, guardedness
- LIKES: Blues, jazz and rock music. Animus science fiction and fantasy authors, television and movies. Horror movies. Symbolism and psychology of dreams. Rings, bracelets and wrist cuffs of all kinds.
- DISLIKES: Cooking, cohabitation, expensive clothes, pretension, lack of appreciation for music and educational music programs, extensive travel
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| HISTORY |
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HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
Mark and his younger brother, Bobby were raised by their father from a very young age. Luke Sass still doesn't like to touch the subject verbally, but his wife and the mother of his children is currently in a mental health care facility. Within two weeks after the birth of her second child, Chanchala (Revoniri) Sass suffered from "postpartum psychosis." Chanchala alternated between ecstatic religious hallucinations and a state of morose, detached confusion. Chanchala was prone to shift into her totem without warning, unable to be coaxed from the form for hours at a time. Her large and panicky horse made her a danger to everyone around her, until Luke made the decision to have her hospitalized. Shortly after admission to the hospital, Chanchala went mute. She hasn't spoken since.
Life got hard. Chanchala's medical bills grew astronomical while Luke struggled to support his family. When it became obvious that Chanchala's condition was not improving and she would need long-term care, Luke swallowed his pride and sought financial help. Meanwhile, Mark and Bobby took jobs as soon as they were able to help pad out the family coffers, from mowing lawns to weeding flower gardens to raking leaves and cleaning rain gutters. Mark had an obsession with music even then, squirreling away a little of his meager income for CDs, headphones, and batteries for his cheap handheld CD player. Later, he was saving money for his first guitar. Then college. Bobby was right behind him, just as determined to survive as Mark. They made it, and Mark's love of the guitar survived the tests of time and travail. No matter how long he worked, or what obligations between work and his education got in the way, Mark practiced. The instrument was his love, his therapy, and in his addiction to it, he improved dramatically. College brought a round of contests, performances and events. Mark pursued his teaching certification as well as the guitar, and after several years of work he earned his place as the professor of guitar in Conor College, where he'd originally gone to school.
Mark is in close contact with his family, and he visits his mother dutifully.
- FAMILY: Bobby Sass (younger brother), Luke Sass (father), Chanchala Sass (mother)
- FRIENDS: Atley Gallard
- LOVE INTERESTS: None currently
- PETS: None
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| THE BEAST |
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NOW, WHO'S THE REAL ANIMAL...
NAME: Jazz
AGE: 28
OTHER CHARACTERS?: Atley Gallard, Tristan Toretto, Cass Archer
TIME ZONE: US Central
BEST METHOD OF CONTACT: PM or email through the forum only, please! |
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