Post by Shelby on Oct 22, 2016 17:08:58 GMT
BASICS
Name/Nicknames ||
Johnathan Andrew Hall. He has a variety of nicknames ranging from John, Johnny, and Nathan (which he absolutely hates), though the name he goes by most often is John since most people don't take the time to say out his full name. To his students he is known as Professor or Doctor Hall, however more often that not he allows that students to call him Professor Hall rather than Doctor Hall.
Age/Birthday ||
He is 35 years old with his birthday on December 26th.
Reputation ||
To the students that take his lower level courses, he is known as a more lenient professor who grades easier and who is a little more laid back, but to his students who take his upper and advanced level courses he is known as a strict, hard to please professor who expects the best from his students and expects them to excel in the class if they truly care about it. It is no secret that he takes his upper and advanced courses more seriously than his lower level courses, though, despite the toughness of his higher courses, students often give him good reviews as a professor and mention that they learned a great deal of information in the class that they'll likely remember and would recommend him to other students.
Job ||
Art History professor at Metric College.
SCHOOL/SOCIAL INFORMATION
School and Class ||
Johnathan teaches Art History courses at Metric College.
Subject/Age Group ||
He teaches Art History and other forms of that subject to Freshman through Senior students at the college (though the only reason he's been stuck teaching the Freshman is because he generally gets lumped into teaching the lowest level Art History class that most students use as a Fine Arts credit), though he has a few classes for upper level students who are majoring in the subject as well as advanced courses in the subject for students who truly care.
Friend(s) ||
Johnathan, because of his relatively friendly personality, has a good amount of friends that range from his co workers and students who have graduated from the college (for at least a year is his rule).
He knows Susan Summers and Monica Adams due to association through Natalie and due to the fact that those two are generally the ones who take care of Annabelle when ever she needs a babysitter. He appreciates the both of them and usually thanks them often for taking care of Annabelle when him and Natalie just need some time for themselves or when ever they just need someone to watch their little girl.
Westly Coxx is someone that Johnathan considers his closest friend. Despite how childish West may act, and despite the fact that Johnathan may do more babysitting that hanging out with his pal, John knows that, deep down, West is a good guy who just needs to get his act together and put his head on straight. They met in college and have kept in contact since, and even though West will occasionally come to his house unexpected, most of the time at the complete wrong time, Johnathan usually doesn't turn him down. He's the type of guy that's stuck on to Johnathan and he's not willing to shake him off.
Enemies/Rivals ||
Johnathan himself has no enemies, though it's mostly because if he doesn't like someone he'll usually make it a point to avoid them and try to have nothing to do with them. But he figures that there is someone in particular that considers him an enemy: his step-son, Heathcliff Akrwright.
Sexuality ||
Heterosexual.
Relationship Status ||
Happily married to Natalie Hall.
APPEARANCE
Height/Body Type ||
Johnathan stands 5'10" and generally has more of an average body type. He doesn't work out and he doesn't go on runs like other people do, but he does eat healthy (or he tries to, rather) which keeps him from being overweight.
Hair color ||
Dark blond/light brown in color. He likes to keep his hair well kept and managed, and he likes his facial hair, though he usually keeps it trimmed and well managed, just like the hair on the top of his head.
Eye color ||
Brown.
Clothing style ||
When he's not spouting off lectures to a bunch of students in his class, John likes to wear regular t-shirts and jeans to be more comfortable. When he is teaching and lecturing, however, he usually dresses more professional; always wearing a button down shirt with a pair of slacks and dress shoes, sometimes wearing a tie and a jacket to go along with the attire, though most of the time going without during the warmest months of the school year.
Ethnicity ||
German-American
Playby ||
N/A
PERSONALITY
Likes ||
Painting, drawing, teaching, things being cleaned, organizing, Europe, art museums, romantic comedies (don't judge him), classical music, christian music, looking at art work, spending time with his family, cantaloupe (he'll munch on that all day if he could), crab legs
Dislikes ||
Cooking (he's terrible at it), not being able to draw or paint well, students who don't take his classes seriously, not feeling like he's fully accepted into his new family, messes in the house, things not being organized, when people claim that they have created great 'art' when all they'v done is splattered paint on a blank canvas and deemed that it had a deeper meaning behind it when it really doesn't, seeing people too unhappy, being lied to, being tricked. peanuts and chocolate (he's allergic to them)
Positive traits ||
Ambitious, compassionate, affectionate, attentive, sweet heart (mostly only to Natalie), creative, faithful, honest, helpful, persistent, goofy (really only around close family and friends), family oriented
Negative Traits ||
Harsh (when criticizing someone), strict, hard to impress, impatient, obsessive (mostly with organizing and cleaning), trust issues
Hobbies ||
Leaning how to paint well, looking at artwork when ever he can, spending time with his family by doing activities
BACKGROUND/FAMILY
Family ||
Wife - Natalie Hall - English Professor || When Johnathan met Natalie one day after having her iced coffee spilled on him, he hadn't expected anything to come from it. Even after he started seeing her around the town and offering to help her get around and show her the place, he hadn't expected anything to happen between them. She was a sweet woman, one with a beautiful face and personality, but otherwise he did nothing but be the friendly guy who tried to help her and her son when he found out she had one get better settled into the place. But eventually feelings did begin to develop within him, and he couldn't have been more excited about it either. He listened to her troubles and worries and was always there to lend a helping hand or to be a shoulder for her to cry on if she ever needed it, but through all of it, especially after they started dating, he fell in love with her. And finding out that she was pregnant was the icing on the cake for his feelings. He loves this woman with everything he has and trust her most of all, and he knows that this is the woman that he wants to spend the rest of his life with.
Daughter - Annabelle Hall || Johnathan often jokingly refers to his daughter as the greatest accident that he had ever made, or helped make rather. She had been a lot to deal with while as a baby, often resulting in him being awake with Natalie throughout the night to try and figure out why their daughter could never be consoled by anything they did for her. There were times when he wondered if there was something wrong with her and there were times when he wondered if she even liked them and if the reason behind her crying was because she didn't want to be around her parents, but when the little girl finally calmed and stopped crying for hours on end, he began to appreciate and love her presence. Often times when she was a little baby when Natalie wasn't around, and sometimes when she was, he would lounge around the couch with his little girl and fall asleep with her resting against his chest. Those were and still are the moments that he cherishes most with her, though he's excited to make more memories with his daughter.
Step-son - Heathcliff Hall || At best Johnathan says that the relationship he has with his step son is heavily strained, but at worse he claims that they don't have a relationship with one another at all. John has tried, and still tries, his best to be on his step-son's good side but usually always fails in any attempt to spend time with the boy to learn more about him or to even just talk with him. He knows that marrying the boy's mother was probably something that he didn't agree with especially with what happened to his father, and John can understand that, however he just can't understand why the two of them can't even be civil with one another like he wants them to be, especially when John had made it perfectly clear that he's not trying to be his actual father or take the place of his father. He doesn't appreciate the way Cliff treats his mother and sister and he's confronted the boy on the matter once, only to have the conversation thrown out the window as soon as he tried to start it up and never again has he tried to start that conversation back up. Johnathan wants to have a good relationship with his step son, but as time continues on he's beginning to wonder what the point is seeing as Cliff doesn't even like to be around him.
Other family - Mother, Father, Older Sister (by two years) || Johnathan has a close bond with the rest of the family, the product of them all having been close while he was growing up do doubt. He speaks with his mother and father on a weekly basis, even now, and talks to his older sister every once in a while when she's not busy, or when he thinks she's not busy. It was his sister that created a lot of the nicknames that Johnathan now has, but even though he doesn't like it, she calls him 'Johnny boy' when ever she talks or sees him. When he told his parents about the pregnancy and that he was engaged, they hadn't been too happy with the prospect that he had slept with the woman before marriage and got her pregnant no less, but they were happy to hear that the wedding was going to be before Natalie had the child. At least the child wouldn't be a bastard, they mentioned to him.
Backstory ||
Even if it had been told to Marci and James that the second pregnancy was normally the easiest compared to the first, they hadn't expected how false those words had actually been in terms of their situation. Johnathan Hall had been born and welcomed into the world on December 26th, a week after his due date, in Salem, California to his two loving parents who, at the end of the pregnancy, just counted their blessings over the fact that they no longer had to go through the struggles that they had gone through. They loved their son, oh how they cherished the boy after they were finally able to hold their screaming bundle of skin after he was presented to them in the hospital, but the nine months that they, or Marci especially, had to endure with the extreme morning sickness, fatigue, over 26 hour painful labor, and every other problem that they encountered while Marci was carrying their son, they were just happy for it all to be over with. They had always believed that, because of the troubling pregnancy they had with Johnathan, that he was going to be a difficult child, but he was everything but that.
Generally he was a quiet baby; he hardly fussed and there were even times when his parents believed that something may be wrong with their son due to how calm and quiet he was, but nothing was wrong with him. He was just a calm baby who liked to lay around and do nothing.
Johnathan was born and raised in Salem, California his entire life. It was and still is a place he calls home and it is a place that he is determined to live in for the rest of his life if he can help it. The town is small, the people are, generally, friendly, and it's a place that he knows all about. He went to the elementary school in the area, as well as the middle school and high school when it came time for him to enter into those chapters of his life, but if there was one thing that he hated about the place it was the envy he felt for the students that he had seen leave and enter into the Art's school that was the main attraction of the town. Throughout his life he had been told about it from various people and friends, some saying that they wished to go there while others saying that they wanted nothing to do with the people that entered into the school, and he ended up being one of those people that wanted to go to the school when he went into high school. Hey, what could he say; he wanted to go to the special school. And he figured that he had a viable reason for wanting to go to the school; he loved art.
It was around the time that he was seven that his parents took him and his sister, who argued with one another constantly when they were children because they could never agree on anything, to an art museum just to show them around and just because it looked interesting. Stacy, his sister, found no interest in the artwork that was put on display; she complained to her parents about wanting to leave and wanting to go to the park in the area because looking at all of the paintings was boring, but Johnathan... He had been transfixed. His gaze had been locked on every piece that they walked past, himself always leaning forward to read the little plaque on the bottom of the frame, always staring up at the statues that had been brought into the exhibit. He would turn to his parents and ask them what this was and that was and if they could tell him more about it, which they couldn't, and by the time it was time for them to leave Johnathan was reluctant to go and he had even made his parents promise to bring him back sometime, maybe even that next weekend. They hadn't gone back that next weekend, unfortunately, but Johnathan never forgot about everything that he had seen and it took the better part of two weeks to get him to finally stop talking about it as often as he did.
His interest in art soared from that point on. He had become so fixated with everything around it that he wanted to try and learn to paint and draw himself, which lead him to taking art classes after begging his parents to let him take a few local classes that he had seen being advertised around the town when then they would do their shopping after church. This was his chance, he always thought to himself! He would become this great artist who would go to Metric for the Arts High School, be able to paint something of greatness that would be put in a museum for people to look at and admire, and he would become rich from it all!
Unfortunately, that dream ended up being cut short for the boy after two years of taking the classes and never improving past being 'decent' and a little better than 'average'.
He was never terrible per say, yet his work wasn't anything amazing that would catch the attention of most people other than his parents that continued to tell him that he did a good job and that he shouldn't be so hard on himself. He never believed them; he wanted to but he never was able to. That was the time that he had gotten into his first fight as well, an actual fist fight that he had been brought into with his sister after she teased and continued to poke at his nerves by making fun of his lack of artistic ability. In the end he ended up with a black eye and his sister ended up with a bloody lip and about two months of being grounded.
Because of his fail in learning how to paint like the professionals, Johnathan had taken a break from art for a while. He was in middle school, just about ready to head into high school, when he got back into the activity after finding a book that told the history of these masterpieces that had been painted in the past and of the artist that had painted them. It was the spark that brought him back, maybe not fully, but it was a spark that gave him a whole new mindset; he didn't have to know how to paint in order to do something pertaining art, and he didn't have to go to that special school in order to prove that he knew something about art: he just had to learn about it, and that was what he wanted to do. He went to his parents that day, telling them that instead of being a painter he dreamed of being someone who studied art and paintings. They were skeptical of the idea in the beginning, telling him that there really was no job out there for him to do that that would give him a good enough to support him later on in life, but Johnathan took no heed to those words; he was determined.
The first job he had ever gotten was at the art museum that was in town when he was in his Junior year of high school, even though it had been a bit of an accident as to how he had even gotten the job. Because he wanted to see the artwork in the museum, for about the one hundredth time (the staff at the place had grown accustomed to seeing Johnathan being there that they eventually learned his name and greeted him when they saw him), he went and walked around the place, minding his own business and admiring the work once again because he couldn't help it. All of the fine details put into it, all of the color combinations that just worked! He had run into a group of students that had come to the museum on a field trip when he was asked a question because no other staff was in the area at the time. They asked him if he could tell them where the staff was so that they could get more information of this piece of work, and upon seeing what they were pointing at Johnathan smiled, shook his head and told them that they didn't need to staff to tell them about it because he could do it himself.
He was unaware that the general manager and head director of the museum had been walking down the hall that Johnathan and the group were in, and upon listening to the boy go on about the information that he knew, which was a lot, about the pieces he spoke about the two men were impressed. When Johnathan was left on his own after the group left he was approached by the general manager and director, them stopping him and asking him where he knew all of that information from and then after hearing his answer that he just knew a lot of information about different paintings, they offered him a job which he quickly took.
Ecstatic with his new job, Johnathan took his role of a tour guide with vigor and did his absolute best. It was during this time that he learned that he had a love for teaching; he loved being able to educate people on what he knew and was passionate about, and it was then that he determined what he was going to do in college; major in Art History and Education. He became good friends with the director of the museum after the times that they ended up running into each other, and after a year and a half of knowing each other, Johnathan had been invited to go to Italy with him to tour the art museums that were there during his summer vacation before college. He, obviously, took the opportunity and left for three months, even if his parents had been more hesitant with it, and came back home with a whole new mindset.
Johnathan continued on with his goal through college. His Junior and Senior years was spent over in Italy and France with study abroad programs and after graduating he went and finished his master's degree in two years. He had become a professor at Metric College, a school that he used to once envy but was now excited to be teaching there, and he loved it. Teaching about art and at Metric no less... What could be better?
His life had been seeming to go in the right direction from that point on, except, really, it hadn't. A year after he became a teacher at Metric he got himself into a wonderful relationship with a woman that he had come to love and adore. But after almost two years of dating the woman he found out, one night after she ended up butt dialing him somehow, that she was having an affair with another man. It broke his heart to hear that. He broke up with the woman shortly after that and found himself in a slump, one that made him question his life and aspirations. That woman, he remembered, called him boring and told him that all he wanted to do was talk about art, and who wanted to live with someone like that? But did she really have to cheat on him when he had given her his heart? His love life up to that point hadn't really been the best, but every girlfriend, which had only been three before that woman, had all left for the same or similar reason; he was boring because he never wanted to go out and party, they didn't understand his fascination with art, and he was so focused on his work that he never paid enough attention to them.
He knew it wasn't ideal to take a break with his teaching and to put his life on hold, but he had to do it. He spent another year in France and wandered around for a while, trying to find out where his life had took a turn. Was he really that boring? Did wanting to know art not appeal to anyone? He wanted a family; he wanted a loving relationship like the ones his parents had and he just wanted to be happy. But was anyone compatible with him? For a while, he thought not, but, eventually, a light did begin to shine at the end of the tunnel that ended up changing his life forever.
When Johnathan was able to bring his mind back to what was important -himself and just being happy- he came back to the states and went back to school to get his PH.D, soon returning back to Metric College to teach again after getting his job back, and, once again, he found peace and happiness in is life. Teaching and art were his passions, and he loved it and they made him happy. Sure, other people didn't understand his passion for it all, but if they didn't understand that meant that they weren't right to be in his life. And he stuck with that mindset, making friends in his field though never getting into a relationship because he was afraid of getting hurt again.
It was two years after going back into teaching and loving what he did that he met Natalie Arkwright, someone who he never would have imagined would end up sharing a name with him in the long run. He had been just about ready to leave the little coffee shop with his coffee in hand when, suddenly, someone bumped into him, a cold wetness coming to his shirt right in that next instant. He looked down to see the stain that had filled the front of his white shirt and then looked up to see the woman in front of him who started to apologize for what she had done, and after seeing the state the woman was in he just laughed, shook his head and told her that he was okay. At least the coffee hadn't been scolding hot! He apologized himself after that, saying that it was his fault for not paying attention to where he was going, and then offered to buy her another coffee.
When he saw her again and noticed that she needed help, he offered it, learning that she was new to the area with her son, and upon learning that he offered to help show her around. He hadn't had any other intentions with asking to help other than to be friends and to help the new people out, because it would be rude to not offer help, right? But soon those little helpings turned into coffee shop outings with one another which eventually lead Johnathan to learn more about the woman and her past. He had been shocked to hear that she had been married (even though he figured he should have suspected it given how she had a son) and that her former husband was deceased, leaving her widowed and alone. In the beginning, he didn't know how to take the information; he had the sudden urge to want to be there to comfort her because of her loss, but then there was another part of him that told him to leave it be because he didn't want to seem like some guy who was preying on a weak woman who lost her husband and was still a little upset about it. It took him a while to deal with those warring thoughts in his mind but, in the end, he decided to just be a friend to her; he would be someone there to listen to her, he would be someone who would help her cope if she needed it, and he would be someone who's shoulder she could cry on if she ever needed to, but, most of all, he would be her friend. He wasn't going to push and pursue anything because, really, he was just happy to be a friend to this amazing woman who had a tragic past.
He confessed things to the woman as well, feeling a bit foolish at times, but ultimately feeling better about it and about himself. He enjoyed Natalie's company, and when they finally decided that they wanted to take this friendship to another level because of the developed feelings that ran through them, John didn't know if he could have been more happy.
There was still a little bit of fear that ran through him in the beginning of their relationship because of his past failed relationships, but he was confident with her. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that she wouldn't be faithful and there wasn't a doubt in his mind that she wouldn't lie to him. Of course, he was always conscious with his own being because he didn't want to be boring and because he didn't want to make it seem as if he cared more about his work than he did about her because he didn't want to lose her out of his life and continue on with his track record of failed relationships. But, apparently, things worked out. He hoped that he hadn't caught Natalie in a weak moment when they started dating, and he hoped that he hadn't been trying to come off as trying to take the place of her first husband because even if he felt himself beginning to fall for this woman, he knew that, no matter what, that other man would always hold a place in Natalie's heart, and he respected that and he never wanted to replace that. Actually, he might have been a little put off if Natalie was able to completely push off Rhett from her mind for him; he had a feeling that if that happened the man's spirit would rise from the grave and haunt him and he was afraid of that. But, overall, he loved the relationship, and he loved her.
Throughout the course of the relationship he tried to get a little closer to Cliff, or at least he tried to be a little friendly with the boy when ever he would be around him, but every attempt he made was shot down and buried under the ground. He didn't try to press it after a while. He figured that Cliff may just need some time to come to understand the relationship because he may still be hurt over the death of his father and because he probably didn't appreciate any man trying to get close to his mother. Really, he could understand; Johnathan like to think that he would have felt the same way had he been put in Cliff's situation. So he held back and didn't push.
When the news had been brought to him by Natalie that she was pregnant, while John had thought that he was happy before, he was thrilled and excited after that. Before he could do anything else after pulling her into a hug and telling her how happy he was to hear the news, the next words that fell from his mouth were, "Marry me?" It had been abrupt, really, but with the rush of emotions that flew through his body he didn't take into consideration of how fast he had asked and he hadn't taken into consideration that Natalie may not want to get married yet. But then she said yes. And two days after that he bought an engagement ring, got down on one knee in front of Natalie, and gave her the proper proposal while saying that he loved her and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and it wasn't because she was pregnant. He really wanted to be married to her. His parents hadn't been as excited to hear the news, but his sister had been. His father, while figuring that it was best for them to get married before the child was born so that he wouldn't have a bastard, had asked him if he was only going to marry the woman because she was pregnant. But Johnathan assured him, and everyone else that asked, that he was marrying Natalie because he loved her. The baby just helped speed all of that along.
During the time of his and Natalie's engagement, Johnathan spend a lot of time with Natalie, cooing over her growing belly and doing everything he could to make sure that she was happy and healthy and that their baby was happy and healthy as well. He couldn't count the times that he had gone off on midnight runs to help settle a craving and he couldn't count the times that he had rubbed Natalie's back and feet when she was in pain, but had been happy to do it all and without any complaining on is part. But he also during the time tried to get closer to Cliff, telling him that he wasn't trying to replace his dad and that he was there to make Natalie, and even him, happy. But just as it had been before, his advances and attempts had been thrown aside and not listened to, and Johnathan could only see Cliff's attitude toward him getting worse as the time passed on, especially after the wedding that he hadn't been in full attendance for (which angered him if only because he noticed how upset Natalie had been over the fact) and after the birth of Annabelle. He thought Cliff would have become less cold and standoffish to him, but as time wore on and as he could see that that apparently wasn't becoming a thing, and that Cliff was even growing distant from Natalie and could care less about his little sister. It really is a shame, he figures, because he really just wants the entire family to be together and happy.
After the birth of Annabelle because of the amount of attention she needed his attention slowly went off of Cliff and onto his little girl. His own biological flesh and blood... Though she was a handful, he loves her to pieces and will do just about anything for her. He may spoil her a little more than he should when he can, as well as Natalie, but he can't help it sometimes.
He loves the life that he has now, and he loves the people that are in his life. He continues with his work at the college and he continues to do things with his family to try and bring them closer together so that they can just be happy because happiness and love, in his opinion, are what's more precious in the world. And art, but that's just because he loves it.
OOC NOTES
Johnathan is fluent in both Italian and French due to the amount of times that he has visited those places and due to the amount of time he has spent in those places. He wants to go back to Italy and France at some point in the near future, mostly with his family so that he can show them what all he had seen and what he had done there when he was there, and just so that they can have a family vacation out of the country. He loves the culture in both places, and that was one of the defining reasons, other than having to get around and survive, that made him want to learn their language and history.
He has a tattoo of a cross on his back that he got when he was 23. It had been an impulsive move on his part, but he likes it nonetheless despite the backlash he still receives from his family because of that decision.
He doesn't like messes in the house, and more often than not will be the one to clean something as soon as he sees it. It certainly is a test of his patience with the cleanliness of the house with the dog and the little kid that runs around, but he usually just takes a step back, tells himself that neither of them can help it, and cleans up the mess and dog hair that he sees.