Raymond Sullivan

Hey, didn't I just see you?

This is the place to submit characters for critique and approval for SC3. Please make sure to read all appropriate rules and information prior to submitting a character.

Moderator: Version Staff (SC3)

Post Reply
EllisWilson
Posts: 102
Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2023 11:51 pm

Raymond Sullivan

#1

Post by EllisWilson »

Name: Raymond ‘Ray’ Eric Sullivan
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Hobbies and Interests: Juggalo culture, blacksmithing, horrorcore rap music, skateboarding, petty vandalism, partying

Appearance: Ray Sullivan is a white male standing at 6’0 and weighing 132 lbs, giving him a spare, lanky appearance, with his sloping shoulders adding to his slight physique. The most immediately noticeable feature of Ray is his complete lack of hair, due to his being born with Alopecia Universalis. As such, he is incapable of growing hair on any part of his body, making his bony face even more pronounced. His head is oval shaped, with large ears, a prominent brow, and a long, thin nose. His eyes are a pale blue color and his teeth are a dull shade of yellow due to poor dental upkeep.

His fashion sense falls squarely into the juggalo subculture, with his wardrobe being full of t-shirts, shorts, pants, and jerseys all bearing the hatchet gear brand. As his parents aren’t fond of this, Ray finances these through his own allowance, along with the occasional blacksmithing commission. Ray’s parents have also bought him clothes, but he rarely wears any of them aside from a wide brimmed, green camo patterned sun hat, which he wears constantly for reasons he’s not quite sure about.

Ray becomes cold easily and will wear multiple layers of clothes during the colder seasons, sometimes to the point of wearing shorts under his pants so he can quickly accommodate sudden changes in temperature, and is fond of loose, baggy clothing. While he does not have any piercings, he is known for occasionally showing up to school in full clown face paint, done in the school's colors whenever there’s a big event.

On the day of the attack, Ray was wearing a white with black stripes baseball jersey with the ‘hatchet man’ emblem sitting behind the logo for psychopathic records in the center of it. Under this, he was wearing a white tank top under this, also with the same combination of logos on the chest. He was wearing a pair of beige cargo shorts and black, brooks sneakers. On his head, he wore the wide brimmed, green camo pattern sun hat that he usually wears.

Biography: Raymond Sullivan was born to Clark and Deena Sullivan on January 14th, 2006 in St Paul, Minnesota. Clark is a construction foreman who moonlights as a blacksmith, and Deena is a marketing manager. The two met in college and got married after graduation, having Ray three years later. They would try several more times over the years to have children, but with no further luck. Both are paid well for their respective jobs and are prudent about their purchases, putting the family firmly in the upper middle class.

Due to being their only child, Ray was given his parents full attention in his early years, though their respective positions meant that he would just as frequently be left in the care of a babysitter. When Ray was five, he started kindergarten, which had both of his parents worrying that his alopecia would make him a target of bullying. While this did happen, it was nowhere as universal as they assumed it would be, as Ray was able to make fast friends with a majority of his peers. The incident where kids did bully him for his condition, however, would cause Ray a great deal of emotional distress. A year after Ray started school Clark became fed up with this and, against Deenas wishes, took it upon himself to teach Ray how to physically retaliate, despite the bullying never escalating to that point before.

This resulted in Ray getting in trouble several times for trying to beat up other kids for making fun of him. Deena was livid with Clark over this, with Ray being confused over why everyone was upset about it, considering he was just defending himself like his dad told him to. When it was explained to him– by multiple parties, including his parents– that violence wasn’t the answer, he would stop, but he retained a mixed reputation over the incidents throughout primary school.

Following the conclusion of the above, Clark would be invited to compete on the reality show Forged in Fire, which he accepted. While Ray was not enthusiastic about his father possibly being away for a long period of time, the actual structure of the show meant that Clark spent quite a lot of time at home in between episodes, with one portion of an episode even being filmed at the Sullivan home, where Clark worked on his home forge. Watching his dad work inspired Ray to try and take up blacksmithing, but Clark would not allow him to until he turned 14.

In the meantime, Ray found an interest in skateboarding after seeing some older kids doing tricks while his parents were taking him out to get groceries. He found the tricks they pulled off cool and, wanting to be cool, Ray begged his parents for a skateboard. Deena was particularly pleased about this due to being an avid skateboarder in her youth, which only helped cement Ray’s new hobby. He is generally mediocre at it in the present day, despite regularly going out to practice.

On the school front, his life there was uneventful, and his grades were generally average all throughout primary school. Middle school was much the same, however, Ray became noticeably moodier as he got to the end of his tenure there, resulting in an uptick in confrontational behavior, largely limited to verbal altercations, with the rare physical one being met with stiff punishment, so Ray would gradually attempt to rein himself in. This would have very limited success, however, which frustrated Ray more, in large part because his behavior was also upsetting his parents, which had the unfortunate side effect of making him even easier to set off.

It was in middle school that Ray started getting into the habit of hanging out around town, unsupervised, with his friends, which his parents were fine with, since it was usually people, they were already familiar with. These hangouts slowly began to morph into full on parties, which gave Ray a less destructive outlet for his energy and allowed him to demonstrate a friendlier side to his personality, crass as it may be. In the present day, Ray still attends parties regularly, and is noticeably better behaved at them than elsewhere.

Ray started developing a taste for acts of petty vandalism after a series of negative events over a single day– failing a test, then getting into a fist fight and losing it at lunch– resulted in Ray hurling a rock through a car window. He wasn’t caught, as it was off school grounds and he ran as soon the car alarm went off, and this sort of behavior became a favored act of stress relief for Ray, who appreciated being able to take any anger he had out on something no one would really care about. This mostly manifests as him smashing windows, but he will, on rare occasions, gather up loose garbage and try to light it on fire. However, he sticks to abandoned or already run down areas since the initial incident, as, although he doesn’t feel any guilt over doing it, he realizes the consequences if he gets caught. This specifically is why he keeps his parents in the dark about his activities, and very few people at school know about it outside of friends that he considers trustworthy enough to talk about it, though he doesn’t invite any of them along.

This forward thinking is limited to his vandalism, however, as Ray is still known for being easy to agitate, with his own attempts to control himself continually failing. As such, before he started high school, Ray's parents signed him up for anger management counselling, which he still attends to the present day and have allowed him to get a greater handle on his emotions.

When he began high school, Ray was finally allowed to join his dad in the home forge, which he took to like a fish to water, to his father's delight. Ray had built up an ideal image of being a blacksmith in his head during the wait, and, as far as he is concerned, the real thing lived up to it. Ray likes being able to mold things into an image he wants, exerting a control over his materials that he struggles to have over his own temper. Ray has also been involved in occasional commission work, which he treats with an uncharacteristic professionalism

Clark now regularly involves Ray in his projects but is still cautious about letting Ray use it on his own. This is due to Ray's increased tendency to go off with his friends unannounced, a point of conflict with his parents, who dislike being left out of the loop on such things. Ray himself is defensive about it, not seeing what the actual problem is and assuming his parents just have something against his friends. This issue has noticeably strained the family's relationship, largely due to Ray's tendency to blow up in anger about it and start shouting.

It was around this time that Ray discovered the juggalo subculture, being introduced to it by a friend's older brother during a get together. Ray was enraptured by the aggressive music and striking appearances of groups like Insane Clown Posse and Twizted. Ray dove fully into the juggalo subculture, as well as the horrorcore rap scene in general, adopting a number of colloquialisms, mannerisms, and fashion choices into his image. This concerns both of his parents, Clark especially due to him only knowing about juggalos in the context of them being classified as a gang by the government. Ray, in turn, is unhappy with his parents' lack of acceptance over this hobby. Even with the strain of this and his other behavior, Ray still tries to maintain a positive relationship with his parents, as do they with him.

Overall, Ray has developed into something of a delinquent in high school, though his grades have only dipped slightly from their former state. He is a semi frequent fixture of detention due to his habit of skateboarding through the school hallways, but the number of fights he has gotten into has taken a noticeable dive since he started anger management. Verbal altercations have remained largely stagnant, however, but he is much easier to be around than he has been previously, even if his reputation still precedes him.

Outside of his uptick in delinquency, Ray favors auto shop class as he enjoys working with his hands, and his grades reflect this fact. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Ray is extremely poor at mathematics. He is a regular fixture of the party scene, occasionally holding his own when his parents are both out of town.

Ray would prefer to work in his dad's forge after high school, but his parents insist on him going to college. As such, Ray intends to complete an automotive service technician course at Saint Paul college.

Advantages: Ray is no stranger to conflict and is able to handle himself in a brawl through ferocity and dirty tactics. Conversely, Ray has an energetic attitude that helps him make friends quickly, allowing him to gather allies.
Disadvantages: Ray has a combative streak which precedes him, and this reputation will put people on their toes around him. Additionally, Ray will go off half-cocked when he feels out of control of a situation, acting off of impulse as opposed to trying to think things over or compromise with others. This is exacerbated by his anger issues, though he has a better handle on those.

Original Profile: https://sotfmini.com/wiki/index.php/Raymond_Sullivan
Permission: Mine
User avatar
MurderWeasel
Posts: 3442
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2018 9:56 am
Team Affiliation: Jewel's Leviathans

#2

Post by MurderWeasel »

Howdy, Ellis! Ray's looking pretty solid, just a bit to go before he's ready!

First off, at 6'0" and 120 lbs, Ray is significantly underweight—even with an extra 10 lbs added he'd still be underweight and have a lower BMI than 90% of people his age. I'd say if you don't specifically want to deal with him being underweight as a bio component, bump him up to 130 and you won't have to change anything else.

Does Ray have any piercings? Does he ever wear makeup, especially given his Juggalo leanings?

What was Ray's family's economic situation like?

What about skateboarding appeals to Ray? How regularly does he go skating?

Can we get "going out with friends" adjusted to something slightly more specific? Right now there are a few possible uses (hanging out vs. going on dates) and I'd like it to be clear what's going on at first glance—maybe "hanging out unsupervised around town with friends" or something to that effect.

Can I hear a bit more about Ray's vandalism? What sorts of things does he do? Why does it help him blow off stress? Does he feel guilty about it at all/how does he justify it to himself? Does anyone know about his activities?

If Ray was allowed to join his dad in the forge at 14, that would be the beginning of high school, not middle school.

What about blacksmithing does Ray like? Has he made an especially notable creations?

How does Ray finance all his Juggalo merch, especially if his parents don't love it? Does he get an allowance? Does he do commission work with his blacksmithing?

How does Ray feel about getting in trouble at school so much? Have his parents tried anything to get him to calm down? Is he getting any sort of special help—especially with frequent physical fights it feels like someone would be involved (or, alternately, if he's mostly getting into verbal altercations with only occasional actual fighting, I'd like to get that made clear).

I'd also like to know just a touch more about Ray's partying. How did he get involved with it? Does he behave better at parties than at school (or, alternately, why do people invite him if he's someone who often gets aggressive)?

On a related note, I'd like to hear a bit more about Ray's energetic, friendly side, maybe even in reference to the above. We hear a lot about the trouble he gets into, but it sounds like that's only part of the story!

Ray's noted in his Disadvantages to act regardless of the consequences, but elsewhere it's mentioned that he actually is pretty careful to avoid consequences with his vandalism. Both cans till be true, but if so I'd like to hear just a bit more about it—does he plan things carefully when they're on his terms, but go off half-cocked when they're not?

Post once you've got that adjusted, and we'll give Ray another look. Thanks!
Image
Avatar art by the lovely and inimitable Kotorikun
EllisWilson
Posts: 102
Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2023 11:51 pm

#3

Post by EllisWilson »

I think I got eveything.
Post Reply

Return to “SC3 Character Registration”