Jackson Sullivan

[Tonyksin]

Name: Jackson Sullivan
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12th
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Wrestling, Creative Writing, Binge Drinking

Appearance: Jackson is not very tall by most standards, standing at just under 5’5”. He makes up for his lack of height with his well-maintained physique, weighing in at 140 lbs of lean muscle with very little body fat. Jackson has a sleek 30” waist and his chest comes out to about 35” around. Jackson’s chest and abdomen is covered in a light layer of strawberry-blonde hair that ends in a thin happy trail disappearing below his waist. Jackson has a very square-shaped face, with a strong jawline and thin lips. Jackson’s teeth are a bit crooked, and as such he has a small overbite and his canines tend to stick out beyond the rest of his teeth. Jackson has wide-set deep blue eyes with rather long eyelashes for a male, and he has a smaller snub nose, with large nostrils that balances out his face well. He has an almost permanent crease in his forehead, and always looks as if he’s scowling. His wavy hair is strawberry-blond and kept reasonably short and messy. He has large ears that tend to stick out from the sides of his face a bit, and the left ear has become somewhat cauliflowered due to his years of wrestling. Jackson’s facial hair is kept pretty scruffy when in off-season, but it never gets long enough to be a full beard. Jackson also has a small spattering of freckles under his eyes and over his nose, as well as a larger collection on the tops of his shoulders. Jackson is very pale as well, making his freckles stand out all the more, and tends to burn fairly easily in the summer months. His style is not very fashion-forward, as his wardrobe consists of mostly hand-me-downs and thrift buys. On the day of the abduction, Jackson is wearing a plain white crew-neck tee under a worn and faded pair of dark denim overalls. One of the straps to the overalls is a little broken, so he usually only leaves the right side hooked. On his feet are a pair of dark brown steel-toe work boots that have seen better days. On his head he wears a grey trucker cap with the Southern Comfort logo on it.

Biography: Jackson was born on August 15th, 2000, to Seamus and Kathleen Sullivan in Chattanooga Tennessee. Seamus and Kathleen are both Tennessee natives, growing up in the same area on the outskirts of northern Chattanooga, and both were from Irish-Catholic families. The two were high school sweethearts, only a year apart, and were married quickly after graduating. Seamus went into carpentry, joined the union, and became the main provider for the family, making a pretty substantial wage by the time he was 25. Kathleen, for her part, started to work for an egg-food product manufacturing and distribution company in the customer service office, moving her way up to customer service and account manager before long. When Kathleen was 27 she became pregnant with Jackson, and after he was born returned to work as soon as possible, leaving the baby with her mother most days until she was done for the day. The two were both very hard-working individuals, putting all their effort into their fields of choice, but they made sure to not let that interfere with being loving and present parents in their only child’s life. The family took frequent vacations all together, and whenever Kathleen had to go on a work trip, the family joined her when possible and made a mini-vacation out of it. As Jackson grew, his father began to instill a love for sports in him, as Seamus was both a Football player and a state champion wrestler in his youth. Jackson learned how to train his body into a machine from a young age, and worked out alongside his father for many years.

Sadly, when Jackson was 12 years old, his father became very sick. Seamus was a diabetic, and because of the disease, he contracted gangrene in his left leg, resulting in said leg having to be amputated. Alongside his below-the-knee amputation, the family was rattled with the news that his kidneys were failing, and would have to be put on dialysis not even a year after the amputation. Because of these events, Seamus was obviously unable to continue his work as a carpenter, which left Kathleen in the position of now being the main source of income for the family. Even with Seamus’ disability checks, this put an incredible strain on the family's finances, and because of this, stress levels in the household became heightened. Kathleen started to gain a significant amount of weight because of the stress, and Seamus, who was once a pillar of strength, began to slowly wither away from the dialysis. The two had very short fuses, and the littlest thing would set off verbally toxic arguments between the two adults. As he got older, Jackson too would find a way into the arguments, which continued to escalate until someone was physically hurt at times. Afterwards, apologies were always made, and promises to work on things were thrown around, but the level of unconscious resentment and stress in the household always found a way to break out into another horrific fight not too long after.

Because of this, Jackson began to pour all his energy into his sport of choice, wrestling. Jackson was a veritable prodigy in the sport. As a child, his father’s training gave him a leg up on the other kids skill-wise, and because his father was adamant about him taking the sport seriously, Jackson kept his weight as low as he could, as the lighter weight-classes allowed his to use his speed and skill to his advantage far more that the sheer strength matches of the higher weights. Especially when his home life was troubled with stress and constant fights, Jackson used the sport to relieve his some of his pent-up aggression, and because of this, he found himself at the top of his sport throughout middle and high school. His sport career became even more important to him during his high school years, as his grades weren’t the best (mostly Cs and Ds), the only way he was getting into a decent college was through a wrestling scholarship. He wrestled varsity his sophomore year, and placed in the regionals that same year in the 120 lb weight-class. His Junior year he made it to the national competition at 133 lb, and ranked fairly well, but his Senior year was his best, wrestling at the 145 lb weight-class and making it all the way to the semi-finals coming out of the competition with a bronze medal. His success in the sport garnered him quite a few offers to wrestle at a collegiate level, but he finally decided on taking the scholarship Ohio State offered him to join their program.

Beyond wrestling, school itself was pretty rough for Jackson. He never felt like a smart kid, and his grades were a sore spot between himself and his parents, even with his success athletically. This added stress on top of his home situation began to take its toll on young Jackson, and he began to have violent outbursts in school when he was in 8th grade. The school demanded that Jackson be taken to an anger management program following his third outburst, so Kathleen and Seamus did what they could to help their son, both feeling that it was their fault. Jackson ended up in group therapy for adolescents struggling with anger issues, and at first he hated that he was there. After a few moths in the program, he started to open himself up to the process, and his therapist recommended he use a journal of sorts to focus his inner rage and aggression. During a one on one session, his therapist, Dr. Loretta Knox, suggested he use prose to convey his feelings, and perhaps by doing so he’d be able to calm his explosive feelings and temper it into something meaningful. So this is exactly what Jackson began to do. Not only did writing poetry about what he felt actually help him not to have as many outbursts (at least outside of home), but it also helped improve his grades in English and Literature classes. In his Senior Year he even took a Creative Writing elective to improve his hobby. Even though he enjoys his writing immensely, he refuses to let anyone see it. Only his Creative Writing teacher Ms. Prescott has ever read any of his work. He keeps all his notebooks and loose writings locked away in his desk at home, in a drawer only he has a key to.

At school Jackson tends to hang around the other more athletically-inclined kids. He has a few friendly acquaintances outside of that, but for the most part he’s a jock through-and-through. Even at his short stature, he tends to be a bit intimidating to other students due to the semi-permanent scowl on his face, but he does try his best to make himself look more approachable. Jackson’s family’s financial situation is a sore spot for him, so he does his best to hide it from other students, especially the wealthier cliques. However, his wardrobe tends to represent his family’s lack of funds regardless of how he tries to hide it. Most if not all his clothes were either hand-me-downs from older cousins or cheap stuff his mom found at one of the local thrift stores. Because of this, he is a bit embarrassed to hang around the wealthier kids’ houses, and if he was honest he was also quite jealous of their nicer things. Because of the financial situation at home, Jackson keeps a part-time job when not in wrestling season, working at the bookstore on 34th street 3 to 4 days a week.

Outside of work and school, Jackson tries to be as social as he can, allowing himself to be dragged to many parties and other teen-events that his friends enjoy. He’s taken to becoming a pretty heavy drinker in his Senior year, especially at parties that the wealthier kids throw, finding it a good way to cope with how trapped he began to feel in his home life. He usually keeps to himself at said parties, chugging beers and maybe getting involved in some beer pong with his buddies, but bingeing himself on alcohol is his first-and-foremost task when he arrives. During his Senior year his father’s condition worsened considerably, and the tensions and fights at home began to deepen and become more frequent. Jackson soon found himself drinking whenever he could get his hands on it. After some parties, he was always the first to offer to take leftover booze off of the party-thrower’s hands, and he would loiter outside liquor stores in attempt to find someone to purchase the cheapest beer and/or liquor he could get his hands on. This has led to him becoming a bit of a wild card at parties, with other students not knowing if he was going to randomly start an argument over something insignificant, or be the life of the party. Using alcohol as a coping mechanism for his home life only served to aggravate his already hard to manage anger issues, and he often found himself regretting his drunken actions and having to apologize to at least one person after every drunken night. He hardly remembers his actions most times, drinking himself into a blackout, sometimes waking up with bruises and pains he wasn’t sure how he obtained. This pattern has caused his friends to become very concerned, and many people he was close to have begun to take a step back, which has only deepened his depression and alcohol abuse.

After high school, Jackson planned to save up as much money as he could working at the bookstore till he went off to Ohio State to wrestle. As of now he planned to major in English, with a focus on Creative Writing.

Advantages: Jackson is very strong from being a wrestler his whole life. He can easily lift someone twice his weight, and could easily handle some heftier melee weapons. As an athlete, Jackson also has quite a bit of stamina, and can probably outlast many of his classmates for quite a while before getting run-down.
Disadvantages: Jackson is still not the best at controlling his anger issues, especially is a situation as stressful and insane as being trapped on the island, there is a very high possibility he could snap at any point. Without the outlet of drinking, he’s likely to have a short fuse and become easily aggravated, which may make it hard for him to retain allies, especially since his relationships with even his own friend have already become strained. If he does become triggered on the island, he may find himself doing something he regrets in a blind rage.

[Emprexx Plush]

Howdy howdy Tony. I'll be critiquing Jackson this round; he's temporarily DENIED pending some edits. Let's dig in.

Binge drinking is a pretty serious habit to develop so I'd like some more details here. When did Jackson start drinking? You mention he's become a heavy drinker in his senior year, so as he only started in the last school year? If so, why now? Does he drink outside of parties? If so, do his parents know about it, or has he managed to keep it secret from them? How frequently is he drinking? Has he been drinking long enough and frequently enough to develop dependence/addiction?

Jackson's social situation seems a little muddy. He's generally friendly and hangs out with other athletes while avoiding rich kids, but also has a history of starting fights when drunk, so serious that he's banned from certain parties. Has he ever started a fight out of hand enough that the police were called? Do the consequences of his aggression ever come out at school? Do certain people avoid or distrust him because of these incidents? Has he lost friends or other relationships over them? Has he ever been in a fight on school grounds? How does he feel about his tendency for violence when drunk? Is he ever violent when he's sober?

Jackson's advantages and disadvantages are kinda light. I'd like to see one more of each at least.

That's what I've got on this pass. Post when you've tweaked for these notes and I'll give him another look!

[Tonyksin]

Made all the necessary additions and changes.

[Emprexx Plush]

APPROVED