everafter

Name: Hal Murphy

Age: 52

Gender: Male

Type: Select One

Appearance:

Hal is a medium guy, all over really. Medium height, medium build, he's just average. He's in pretty good shape for his age, but nothing outstanding, he simply hasn't really let himself go. His brown hair and bushy moustache are starting to become streaked with grey now and he has a look about him that gives off an air that he's seen it all before - something in his blue eyes, hidden as they always are behind thick-framed glasses, that permanent almost-tiredness. He looks like nothing could surprise him, something which is only shored up by the fact that nothing ever does seem to surprise him, the way he takes everything in his stride.

Personality:

Hal always comes across as though he's been around for a long time. He knows where everything is, he knows who everyone is. He's a well of information about the city - the people he works with fact-check with him and if he says something's so, then it's so. He always comes across as someone trustworthy and knowledgeable.

He often feels like he's been around for a long time as well, especially around the paper. He's worked in the business since he was a boy and can't remember a time when he wasn't hanging round this building at one point or another in the day. He can't imagine a time when he won't be working here. He's seen people and stories come and go, he's seen the new rising star of the Echo rise from wet behind the ears hack to editor at least once. He's seen the good and the bad and been through it all. But throughout all of this, at his centre, Hal retains a positive, almost upbeat outlook on life. He's firmly of the belief that everything happens for a reason, even if you can't see it at the time, that nothing is random in the grand scheme of things.

He has a very even temperament - he's slow to anger and he's not prone to dramatics of any kind. He takes a lot of events in his stride, or appears to. It makes him very calm in a crisis, but other people often find him frustrating because it's very hard to get any kind of a rise out of him.

Sexuality:

Heterosexual

City History:

Hal can't remember a time when he didn't want to work at the Echo. He can't remember a time when he didn't know about the Echo. He learned to read early, taught by his mother at home, and took to it like a duck to water. He was reading by himself before he even reached school age. Growing up, he was always hanging around the paper in one form or other. He'd do whatever they'd allow him to - he just do whatever people would let him. At one time or other, he's sold papers, worked print, worked in the mail room - anything and everything that he could do.

These days, he's the paper's copy editor and he's damn good at it - he's just got a knack for making other people's stories sound good. That really rankles with him, because he doesn't want to polish other people's stories - he wants to be writing his own. It's all he's ever wanted to do - to get out there, nose to the ground, hunting out a story. But the simple fact of the matter is that he's not very good at it at all. They let him loose on a story once or twice when he was younger, but he never had the knack for it. He could never hunt the story down, could never look at it in the bud stage and know that there - there was a story. He can't spy where something is going, he can only write it after the event. But still, deep inside, he has dreams that he could do it. That maybe he's matured, that the years have given him the experience - if only they'd give him the chance. Which, they just won't anymore.

He was married, in his youth. Straight out of high school - not that it lasted long. Three years, tops, maybe a little short of that. It wasn't like they didn't get on, it was just that Hal's mind was always on the job, and Valerie got tired. The divorce was amicable, and she went off and married some other guy a year or so later. Hal still keeps in touch, knows both of them, and their kids. They still swap christmas cards, birthday cards, talk from time to time. And she know that she can always come to him if she has issues. Hell, sometimes Valerie quips that he seems more interested in her life now she's with someone else than he ever was when they were together. He has to admit that maybe she could actually be right.

Special Skills and Abilities:

The written word - he's good at turning other people's stories into new items that grab attention and headlines that scream 'buy me'.

Weaknesses:

Hal has an underlying frustration with his life. It's not there on the surface all the time, but it is there. All of his dreams have come to nothing - his career, his failed marriage, nothing seems to have worked out in his life the way he imagined. He never got his own happy ever after and he feels that at his time of life, time is running out to get that. In fact, he kind of things it's just too late for him.

He loves getting involved in other people's lives, but if their stories ever become his (like his marriage), then he just cannot sustain the interest. It's not that he does it on purpose, he's not even aware that he's doing it, but if anything in directly involving his life, he just can't focus on it. He's not close with his family, he's only rekindled an interest in what's going on with his ex-wife since she got married and had kids - he's just not inward-looking at all, and this really impacts on his relationships.

Hal is largely ignored by the people around him. Or perhaps that's not correct - they don't literally ignore him, but they do make assumptions about him. They take him for granted - he's always going to be there. Wherever that it that they need him - he's dependable, especially to those he works with. Even his ex-wife and his friends. Hal can always be relied upon, and people tend to take advantage of that.

He's also generally looked down upon by the people he works with - though nobody would really say it to his face, he's considered to be a bit of a joke. He's a has been, a guy who, by now, if he was going to amount to anything, would have done. But, instead, he's ended up in a dead end job that nobody else wants. He's not even a has been - he's a Never Was.

Strengths:

No matter what life throws at him, Hal faces it with a remarkable resilience. He's an emotionally strong guy.

Family or Connections:

Ex-wife, Valerie, her husband and their children.

Residence:

Hal has a small basement apartment around the corner from the Echo's offices, though a lot of his co-workers believe that the guy probably lives in the bowels of the Echo's building itself.

Career:

Copy Editor, The City Echo

PB: to be chosen!

Other Information:

Hal's handwriting font can be downloaded Here!