| App for notmayberry |
[Jan. 18th, 2010|05:28 pm] |
[OOC Info]
Player name:Misha
Time Zone: US - Eastern
AIM/Email: irishsexhair
RP Experience: About five years
[IC Info]
[Basics]
Muse Name: Jan de Vos
Muse Journal: bigdumbgenius
PB: Gary Oldman
[Appearance]
Jan is a man of about average build and height; thick through the middle, but not really muscular and with somewhat scrawny arms and legs. He wears his hair long and usually has scraggly goatee. Usually seen wearing clean, plain clothes in dark or neutral colors. He is generally sort of unremarkable, except maybe for the hair. You don’t see that much anymore.
[History]
Jan was born, raised and lived the majority of his life so far in South Africa, but after living a life there that most would consider pretty shitty, he emigrated to New York City when he was 25. He moved to Mayfield about a year ago, after passing through the town by chance. It reminded him of the small suburb of Worchester where he grew up; without the hills and mountains and with a different climate obviously but it had the same rural farming community and the same sort of creepy and overwhelming presence of white people. Despite how much he hated his hometown when he lived there, he felt strangely nostalgic and curious about the unfamiliar aspects of Middle American living all at once. He could keep the apartment in New York for practical reasons, but certainly this could be a nice, quiet place to spend at least part of the year.
[Personality]
Different people can often get wildly different first impressions of Jan, depending on his mood when he first meets them. Usually, he is a reserved but polite man with a quiet voice and a somewhat aloof manner. As people get to know him, they find him to be more talkative and warm, but he finds it difficult to be so friendly to people right off the bat. Usually, he decides within the first few times of speaking with someone whether he likes them or not and this opinion seldom changes. He has a few close friends, but people tend to go in and out of his life without much ceremony. When he’s in a foul mood, he can become flippant or downright avoidant, sometimes keeping to himself for weeks at a time. He hates being interrupted at his work. His sense of humor is very dry and dark and he has an affection of profanity that doesn’t go over well with everyone.
[Personal Life]
Jan is an artist, not an incredibly famous one (who is anymore?), but well-known and well-respected enough by People Who Know About These Things (i.e. people who read Artforum and attend gallery openings, of which there are slim to none in Mayfield, thank Christ). As such, he is able to support himself quite comfortably with his art and has no need for any other employment. However, he is not a hermit (most of the time) and tries his hardest to be out and about and friendly to the townspeople, lest they think he’s some sort of freaky outsider who talks funny and engages in deviant sex or something. He has no connections in town, but is willing to make them, when in a talkative mood at least.
[Writing Sample]
Jan bought the house in June and moved in in July. Not technically a clapboard house, but it might as well have been; it had the simple, no-nonsense construction he had always pictured houses in America to have when he read stories taking place there as a child. Quaint details, but nothing Grandpa couldn’t do with a piece of wood and a whittlin’ tool. No-frill architecture for a no-frills people.
Jan had no frills. He had tried once, at university, but it was no use. His art may have been strange and unusual but he himself was ordinary. The city was never home for him. He never quite learned how to manage it. It required a speed and a shrewdness he just didn’t have.
But here was the long grass that was so familiar and so strange at once and the shadows of the clouds shimmering over the fields. The flatness was stark, the air was different, the light didn’t even compare…but there was something in the spirit of the place that felt like home.
Did he ever really have a home before? And if he did, why on earth would he want to go back there? The same old questions came back, before he pushed them away, branding them the same old pseudo-psychological bullshit.
Whatever. This was a fresh start. He could be whoever he wanted here. He could be anonymous, plain, simple. And maybe, in some subconscious way, he could remake his childhood. Make it better, this time. Make it happy.
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