Shaun Morrison

Shaun Edward Morrison

31

He/Him

Librarian

Phoenix

April 19th

Tibor Pusch

5 FT 11 IN (1.8 M)

Well Built, Sturdy

Blue

Auburn Red

He intentionally keeps his hair long for a similar reason as his clothing choices. He feeds off the words "Get a haircut, you hippy", but has mastered both braids and the man bun for times when situations call for it. In his LARPing group he is well known for his hair and he doesn't even need a wig to achieve the right look.

Several, mostly of animals, nature, or other fantasy elements, on his arms and shoulders. He doesn't have enough to be considered sleeves and doesn't intend to do many more

Smaller gauges in his ears, labret piercing in his lower lip. He usually takes his labret out for work

Shaun has the ability to dress up and look professional, which he can do on days when directors or investors come to the library. But 90% of the time he chooses to go for either a stoner skateboarder feel, with the band shirts and the chains on his baggy jeans (not ripped, he knows he can't get away with that at work, but if he could he totally would), or almost a fantasy Viking feel with tunics and pants tucked into boots, and belts hanging with a myriad of things that look lifted either straight from Star Wars or a fantasy novel.

His brand is on the wrist of his dominant right hand, and is currently a BIRD IN FLIGHT. It appears in a faded black ink that matches perfectly with the rest of his tattoos, to the point where you wouldn't notice it was new unless you knew Shaun and knew he didn't have a tattoo on his wrist.

He can and does often carry a staff around that is modelled after Gandalf the Grey's staff in Lord of the Rings. (Yes, he does LARP on weekends with a local group out of Fairbanks, if you couldn't tell.) He also has a NERF gun modelled to look like Han Solo's blaster that he also carries around his person on a day-to-day at work. He can and often does shoot misbehaving people with it.

Shaun is an honest guy. He is going to tell you, straight up, and usually without much sugar coating, exactly what his opinion is if you ask him for it. Usually if you don't ask for it, even, although he tends to be kinder and a bit more cautious with those.

He tends to also wear his heart a bit on his sleeve. Though he tends to be snarky and purposefully counter-culture when the Karens and Kyles of the world come at him (especially to those who are prim and stuck up and proper), to people who are more on his level - to kids, to the downtrodden, to the ones struggling - Shaun is compassionate to a fault. He goes as far as to take personal risks and vouch for people, and give second and sometimes even third chances when they make mistakes. He's been where they've been, and he knows the struggle; he intends to be able to give back.

Shaun is constantly making pop culture references, ranging from movies to video games to books. Depending on who it is, he'll either source the reference, or condescendingly explain the reference. Just depends on the audience.

He lives his life a bit as if he is always putting on a show. He's mastered the ability to be candid and mostly himself (as mentioned above) while still maintaining a bit of a front for personal protection. He doesn't make deep personal connections easily; he has 'tiers' of friendships and relationships, and few people reach into a deep enough tier to really expose his raw attitude and feelings. He's spent too much of his life living in spite and disappointment to let the fragile boy through to most people.

☉ Video games
☉ Fantasy novels
☉ LARPing
☉ Costume Design

☉ Boomer Adults, the stereotypical kind
☉ Cheating
☉ History Documentaries
☉ Fancy clothes

Bisexual

Shaun is from a well off, but extremely blue collar family - his father was an oil rig worker who was gone for 6 months out of the year, and his mother worked in the office of her family's logging company. His parents did not get along; they were forced to marry by their respective families when they found out his mother was pregnant, and they divorced when Shaun was in the process of getting his Master's.

Shaun is partially named after his father's brother Edward, or 'Uncle Ed', who passed away shortly before Shaun was born. His entire life, his father's family has been comparing him to a man he never met. They have often been intensely disappointed, and Shaun has mostly cut them off as an adult. Hard to do so completely in a small town, though.

April 19th

CW for minor homophobia references

Shaun was brought up well aware of the knowledge that he was a high school mistake. A summer after graduation sort of mistake. Both his parents came from small town families that did not believe in abortion or adoption, and that since it took two to tango, it would take two to raise the child. But it had never been a secret to Shaun that his parents were never supposed to be together. That they had been forced into a hasty marriage before his mother began to show.

Complicating matters further, Shaun was born a boy, right after the Morrisons lost their youngest son Edward to a car accident. Edward had been the favorite, a brilliant if somewhat spoiled young man, that the Morrison family had believed would go on to do world changing things. Both sides of his family came from low class, blue collar backgrounds; Edward was supposed to change all that. With Edward gone, the new baby Shaun - with the middle name of Edward - was supposed to take his place.

As Shaun is fond of saying now, he lived to disappoint. He was neither especially smart nor particularly strong, he wasn't interested in any of the STEM fields, and he didn't like the manual labor tasks both sides of his family expected him to take up in lieu of becoming a doctor or a lawyer, or some other equally hotshot career.

His parents constantly squabbled; Shaun was 7 when his father took up a position as an oil rig worker that meant he would be gone for 6 months out of the year, and even when he was home did his best to be anywhere but at the house. His mother equally tried to be anywhere but home with her son, and carried on numerous affairs in her husband's long absences - careful to avoid pregnancy, this time.

Shaun ended up spending most of his time between grandparents' and aunts and uncles' houses, and while he loved to play with his cousins, the same friction between himself and his parents existed between himself and the adults of his family. Everyone shared some form of the opinion that if he wasn't a mistake, he was certainly a disappointment. Shaun hated going over to his father's family, especially, and by the time he was 10 managed to make the case he was old enough to be on his own and didn't need a babysitter.

Where the lonely boy spent most of his time was in movies, TV, and books. Fantasy and science fiction of all shapes and sizes drew Shaun like a moth to flame. He would spend entire summers in the local library picking out books, and if there was one benefit of having squabbling parents, it was that they often did try to buy his affection. His dad made good money on the oil rig, too good really, so Shaun had the latest in entertainment both TV and video game wise. He was able to use that combined with the fact his parents were never home to lure friends to his house and avoid the 'nerd' label, so dreaded by the time he hit middle school.

He had the opportunity to do somewhat well in school, but by the time Shaun hit junior high he was mostly driven to acting out of spite. He kept his grades intentionally average, became the class clown, acted out in class, and generally embraced the "weirdo cool kid" label he had made for himself. He was the type to make friends with all the different school 'cliques', get detention for rolling down the halls on his skateboard, and could still perfectly quote Shakespeare at you as they chased him down the hall. He was equally at home smoking weed with the other kids in detention as he was in the school's drama club, which of course Shaun threw himself into with abandon.

Still, Shaun managed to avoid the worst of the third degree from his parents and his extended family until he was 15, and the secret got out that he was dating one of his male classmates. Never mind the fact that he wasn't strictly gay, but rather bisexual; it was a blowout to end all blowouts, and for nearly a year Shaun couch surfed until someone pointed out to his father that it was illegal to throw a minor out on the streets and he could be taken to jail. Whether that was true or not Shaun never found out, but he was begrudgingly allowed to return home just shy of his 17th birthday, as long as he never, ever brought any boyfriends in sight of his parents.

The final nail in the coffin between himself and his family came over his choice of school after graduation. His parents' marriage had long since fallen apart, and they were just waiting for him to graduate to finally call an end to things. Perhaps as a parting gift as an apology for the year he was homeless, or just as an apology for his being born in general, his father offered to pay for his bachelor's degree outright if he still wanted to go to school. But only if the Morrisons got to pick the degree. Knowing there was no other way he could afford college, and knowing he could do what he wanted regardless of his undergrad, he agreed.

Shaun got his bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering, and he hated every second of it; but it did provide him some useful, hands on skills, and it allowed him to get a decent enough job while he immediately went back to school to receive his Master's in Library Sciences. He had already banked some years' worth of work at the university library while getting his bachelor's. And by the time he graduated with his MLS, he was estranged from his family and could no longer be held back from what he wanted to do.

He was able to beg his way into Snow Haven's Frontier Library, where Shaun has spent the last 5 or so years. He mostly handles the children's and young adult's departments of the library, along with the heavier fantasy and science fiction genres. His arch nemesis - the Sauron to his Gandalf, as he likes to say - handles the other side of the library. The boring, nonfiction side.

Things had been running smoothly for a while. Things had been good, even. As was usual in Shaun's life, something was bound to come along and mess it up. Pushing the envelope too far was in his nature, after all, so it was only natural that he would push one button too many and end up in the fire. Neither of them expected the ash magic, though. Or the way Shaun suddenly wasn't Human anymore...

Phoenix

Shaun was completely unaware of the supernatural underground until his sudden turning.

Shaun's Phoenix form is that of a RED TAILED HAWK, only with his red tail feathers a more vibrant red, and his other colors various shades of auburn instead of brown.

Shaun is not taking his newly born transition to a Phoenix very well. His control over his ash magic is non-existent and any hot-blooded emotion tends to cause him to set fire to anything in his hands, or, lacking something in his hands, the closest object to him. These fires are self-contained and easy to put out by anyone experienced in fire manipulation magic, but Shaun really struggles.

While he has an easy time shifting between his Human and Phoenix forms, he also can't fly to save his life. He can coast in a strong headwind but anything that involves flapping his wings causes him to plummet to the ground, usually head first. Good things Phoenixes can heal themselves!

Shaun and Jamie have known each other since at least high school, having both grown up in Snow Haven - but they ran in different circles in high school, so they knew of each other more so than knew each other, in that small town way people know each other. They didn't 'meet' until they both attended the same local university and both started working at the university's library in their first few weeks of undergrad.

Shaun asked Jamie out for the first time within the first two weeks of meeting him, and fortunately or unfortunately for Jamie, Jamie has not been rid of Shaun since. Especially not after Shaun got a job working for the Frontier Library, same as Jamie.