Mark Twain
From Literepetition
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Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, an American author and humorist. During his lifetime, Twain became a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Twain enjoyed immense public popularity. His keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".
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[edit] Biography
In the mid-1880's, Samuel Clemens (aka: Mark Twain), paid for a young black man's education at Yale Law School. About a hundred years later, this young black lawyer's descendant, Marshall Twain -- some ancestor or another having married into a family with such a name decades before -- and Jane Lampton-Twain (who hyphenated her name because she said it rhymed too ugly otherwise) had a young boy, born in the same year as Halley's Comet passed alongside the Earth. Remembering the story of how Mr. Clemens had been so generous with Marshall's ancestor, they named the baby in his honor, and the world said hello to Marcus Langhorne Twain, born on November 30th, 1986, in Florida, Missouri.
[edit] Childhood
Mark led a deathly childhood. His family did not have much money, and he was the sixth of seven children, though the oldest had died six years before Mark was ever born, and his younger brother Henry was born when Mark was three. After Henry's birth, they moved to Hannibal, Missouri. His sister Margaret died when he was four and his brother Benjamin also died when Mark was seven. His father followed the deathly trend when Mark turned eleven, dying of pneumonia.
[edit] Adolescence
Even though Mark's early life was full of death, he confronted it with a startling degree of humor. He had a keen mind for literature and was often found reading by the banks of the Mississippi, often his namesake's works. He expressed a good head on his shoulders for politics, though not for politicking, as he was a tad too passionate to keep his mouth thoroughly clean when speaking of them, and he made friends slowly, due to his knack for pointing out their marring flaws, even if they were what made them people in his eyes.
It was because of Samuel Clemens that he picked up a correlative love of riverboats, and when he was old enough -- at the young age of fifteen -- he started work on them part time, after school. Tour boats needed help, and he was always glad to be of service. Knowing that he would need more money than his widowed mother would be able to provide to go to a good college like he wanted, as soon as he was out of high school, he started working diligently, full time, both at a local Hannibal newspaper and on the riverboats, learning all he could from those two professions.
In 2006 Mark applied for late admission to Meridian College, and was accepted on a scholarship. Though his first year was uneventful, he hopes his second will come with much more excitement. Besides, now that the elections are over and Obama is president? He can devote his time to other things. Like women, cigars, booze, and maybe if he's got some time left over, his studies.
[edit] Special Notes
The first thing a person notices about Mark, unfortunately, is that he's black. The second thing is that he's rather good looking. He tends to dress sharply, in slacks and sweat-vests and a style perhaps more than a few decades off. It does tons to promote his out-going nature, though. Which brings us to...
... SNARKY. Hoo boy. If he didn't like pussy so much he'd go gay just to have more reason to be bitchy at people. He's genuinely aware that to love someone you have to love them for their faults, and he also thinks that you can't love someone who doesn't love themselves. The end result is that anyone he likes tends to get a huge, heaping dose of 'this is what is wrong with you' along with a bright, charismatic smile and no bitterness.
He leads the ska cover-band Smutty Moll.
[edit] Reputation
Mark is a person of many words, most of them superfluous and said to incite some sort of reaction. He has a reputation for not being shy about anything, good or bad, and he's known for poking at people without any sort of reason or provocation. He also has a reputation for forgiving and forgetting faster than is perhaps healthy. The few women he's courted attest that he can be incredibly romantic to the point of saccharine, and some people say he's the one that started most of the rumors about himself.
[edit] Rumors
Rumor has it...
- ...he's trying to bang his way through every white babe who isn't purely a lesbian on the campus.
- ...he and Wade re-enacted Brokeback Mountain on the Missouri riverboat expedition, and the 'bear' was metaphorical.
- ...he secretly loves Jane Austen in a very Japanese anime fashion, thus the severe snark about her, lest he propose to her in front of everyone.
- ...he's started up a pornographic Star Wars LARP.
- ...he's banging that Canadian guy, Donatien. He was seen spanking him in the middle of Ink Noir.
[edit] Relationships
[edit] Crew Members
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
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Ailey Huxley |
William Arden |
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Percy Shelley |
Ariana Stophanes |
[edit] Some Passengers
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
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Sammie Coleridge |
Shirley Jackson |
[edit] Augh! Cooties!
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
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Jane Austen |
Tom Eliot |
