BASICS: Name: Toby "Fullserve" Freeman Title: The Shoe-shine Boy Age: 20 Birthday: October 26th Class: Blue-collar Residence: Metro - He rents a large house with five other students (male and female) in order. Sexuality: Bisexual with a gay lean Played By: Tom Atkin
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE:
His eyes are predominantly blue, although they're so dark that often they appear almost brown from a distance. It matches his otherwise light colours, with hair that's not quite a strawberry blonde, but has a definite tint of red in it. Usually it comes across as a dity ash blonde when outside, and a lighter colour from harsh indoor lighting. With such thin, light hair, it doesn't have very much of a style at all. Really, Toby tries to just leave it to it's own devices and hopes that it'll be kind enough to do the same with him. Although it's not prone to knotting or tangling abnormally, running a comb through it doesn't seem to do much good at all, and within half an hour it'll be thrown around to the wind to the point that his efforts won't even be visible. He favours bangs to try and hide just how high his forehead really is, although anything else resembling a true style is pure chance. Fullserve has always been a bit on the small side. He's accepted this, mostly due to years of various taller, broader, beefier boys calling him any number of derogatory adjectives (the first and foremost of these boys being his older brothers). He's just a little bit soft around the edges, although his bones tend to stick out with little provocation or change of position, usually at inopportune times when it'd just be the perfect chance to elbow his girlfriend in the face and give her a bloody nose. Although he's never really had a growth spurt, it often seems that he isn't quite at home in his body, moving a little too fast or a little too sharply to be deemed anything other than a bit of a klutz. He burns inside of tans, and truly he was not made for the climate of Picturesque. Still, he seems to enjoy the weather and the sun and survives purely through a steady and strict regiment of sunscreen. Despite his best efforts, however, he's almost always seen with bright cherry-red cheeks and the tip of his nose. When nervous, concerned, faced with a difficult decision or just vaguely thinking about something in particular, Fullserve has a tendency to chew on his bottom lip, often quite viciously. The result is ridiculously chapped lips, and he does his best to try and pre-emptively put on lip-chap when he thinks of it. He has a number of scars on his right forearm from an unfortunate incident with a glass french-door when he was seven. He's since learned the value of actually using doorknobs.
BACKGROUND:
Born while his parents were on vacation visiting family in Florence, Fullserve is a dual citizen of both the United States and Italy, although he's never shown very much interest in his foreign background much to his mother's disappointment. The youngest of three boys, Toby doesn't hesitate to share the sob-story of his life to anyone who has a few hours to listen. Honestly, the boy should be put in front of the camera rather than behind it, judging by his dramatic retelling. His father, a busy work-aholic, spending more time at the office than at home, leaving his mother to dwell in stalwart silence as she cooked him a dinner which would be cold by the time he came home. His brothers, Joseph and Jonathan, roamed the streets at night, ganging up on and pummelling innocent late-night pedestrians, stealing their wallets to pay for their next hit. Occasionally, when feeling congenial, they would toss Toby a few dollars which he would squirrel away to pay for shoes, his current ones in terrible shape. To hear it from the boy himself, he survived his formative years eating nothing but cold gravel and working in the coal mines to pay for the clothes on his back.
None of this is true. Well, some small parts; he does have two other brothers, although neither of them has done anything worse than give someone a split lip while attending college. Sure, his dad did work two jobs to pay the bills while his mother was a waitress at a local cafe, but family was the most important thing to both of them, and their children never suffered from their jobs. Maria even quit her job when she first found out she was pregnant with Joseph in order to ensure him a healthy lifestyle (although she didn't for the following children, mostly due to the pressure it put on their finances). While they could have had more, they didn't truly want for anything in their lives.
Fullserve worked hard through school to try and do well; he never was very good, to be honest. Dyslexic, he had trouble reading from textbooks and taking notes, only excelling in the visual art classes he could take in high school. Still, he managed to worm his way into the filmography and directorial program at Rochester U, where he's still struggling to do well. His determination has improved, however, and he's quite a bit better than he had been during secondary school.
Things are tight. Very tight. More often than he'd like to admit, Fullserve passes on lunch and has ramen noodles for dinner simply due to the fact that he doesn't have a choice in anything else. Despite working his three jobs (only one of which is strictly official), he seems to always find himself behind at the end of the month as he juggles his bills, living from pay-cheque to pay-cheque.
OCCUPATION:
A full-time film student at Rochester University; Part-time vendor of the news stand on James and MacNab; Squeegee Boy on John and King; Shoe-shine boy at [Airport]; Toby finds himself quite busy. When he's not in class, he's sitting behind that stupid little corner selling Cosmo and Times while trying to fight his way through a text book or the next student-written screenplay, and when he's not doing that he's wearing a pair of roller skates and forcing his way through traffic at a red light, slapping wind shields with his squeegee and nearly getting run over for his efforts. And, on the off chance that he's not doing anything else, he's usually found at the local airport with a box and a rag, offering last-minute shoe-shines to German businessmen in a rush. He honestly doesn't have a life outside of work or school.
Being a newsboy isn't that bad; actually it's pretty easy. Sure, he's only paid minimum wage and has to put up with drunk guys at midnight while he's trying to close up, but otherwise he gets to spend his whole day sitting on his ass and not doing something. It's usually while at the Stand that he hangs out with his friends; whining until they bring him coffee and some companionship. He got the job through a friend of a friend of a friend's father sort of deal; so far he hasn't been a disappointment, although he really thinks that his boss doesn't much care about it. As for his other positions, he just sort of picked them up for an extra buck or two when he was short on rent. He quickly came to depend on the money from them, meagre as it is, and it doesn't look like he'll be stopping any time soon. In fact, it's from his job as a squeegee boy that he got his nick-name. It was only a matter of time before someone from the university saw him at it, and they quickly started ripping him apart, asking if he gave full service. Taking it with a grain of salt (and flipping them the bird), Toby didn't hesitate to reply that yeah, he did, do they wanna come over and get some 'service'? Then he threw a bucket of soapy water on them and booked it the hell out of there.
While none of his jobs are particularly 'good', Fullserve doesn't really feel like he has much of an option in this regard. It's just something he's got to do until he gets out of school, and which point he has dreams of becoming the next George Lucas or Peter Jackson or Steven Spielburg (if any of these men were hot and young and didn't end up becoming giant flaming sell-out douches. Maybe I should have suggested Romero.)
PERSONALITY:
Toby knows the likelihood that he'll just drift into oblivion after graduation, and the thought terrifies him. He knows how many people move to Hollywood to make it big and end up bussing tables for the stars, whining and pitching their next screenplay. Nothing concerns him more than thinking about the fact that he might become one of those people, given ten years. He focuses on the here and now, instead, doing his best to just tune out everything else that might make him think that his goal is too far to reach.
Fullserve watches movies. Non-stop. Seriously. They're his passion in life, and often he thinks the only thing that keeps him going. Yes, he realizes what a sad statement that sounds like. This boy has a list of 'movies I've seen' that he started ten years ago, and it currently is just passing 2000 movies at approximately four movies a week. Lord knows how he gets the time to do so. When in one of his (often) melancholy moods, Fullserve does his very best to seek solace in the mindless; he watches movies with big explosions and stupid plots and laughs at how terrible the effects are. In particular he enjoys Sci-fi channel made-for-TV movies, or horror movies with no explanation for the gore. It's not uncommon for his room-mates not to see him for a day or two when he comes home late and locks himself in his bedroom to sulk, just as often as he seems to come out afterwards just as talkative and friendly as ever. It's a bit like playing Russian roulette, and none of them cherish having to knock on his door in the morning to see what his mood is like.
Still, he usually comes across as a chatty, all-around nice guy. He does a good job of smiling and laughing with strangers, bringing people into conversations and working to make them feel comfortable. Very empathetic, he's good on picking up on the subtle social cues that people give one another and plays off them unconsciously. A touchy-feely sort, he likes to sling his arm around someone's shoulder or pull them about by the wrist without much thought to how they feel about that. It can take a while before he's comfortable enough with someone to tell them how he truly sees something or what his thoughts are on a matter, and it can often be a huge surprise. When he drops the façade he turned out to be a very serious, and intelligent, young man. This tends to ruin a lot of his close friendships, when they realize that he has things like emotional depth and misplaced teen angst and such.
GOALS:
Fullserve would like to pay his rent, and buy groceries, preferably at the same time. And, I guess, pass that up-coming test. He's not asking for cars and girls and a swimming-pool full of money; instead he'd just like to be able to get by without stressing out about life in general. More than that, he eventually wants to graduate and make a big name for himself, directing movies about zombies in space and guns and explosions that make everything up to him look like complete and utter filth.