Stu Redman

NAME: Stu Redman
NICKNAMES: East Texas,occasionally.
AGE: late 30s to early 40s
GENDER: Male
HAIR: brown
EYES: hazel(I think)
HEIGHT: about 6ft
WEIGHT:
BUILD: average

MARITAL STATUS: i guess you'd say common law
SEXUALITY: straight
OCCUPATION: in canon,Free Zone committee chairman

LIKES:being with Frannie, a nice beer,small town life
DISLIKES:Being lied to and kept in the dark, being locked up, Flagg and all the stuff going on in Vegas,the big city life and too many people being around

PARENTS: unnamed,father died when Stu was a boy. His mom apparently died before the book's beginning.
SIBLINGS: a younger brother who died as a child, and another younger brother,Bryce,presumably dead from the plague.

NAME:Mel
AGE:32
AIM: screenname
EXPERIENCE: 13 years original and fandom RP
CONTACT:dropbox
TIME ZONE: Central Time

Stu is one of the other main protagonists of Stephen King's The Stand, along with Frannie Goldsmith, Larry Underwood, and the previously present Nick Andros. He's a little bit redneck,usually fairly friendly though quiet-he likes to listen more than talk,though after what he's experienced, he might be a bit more talkative now- but not a guy you want to make angry.
Although I'm using the Gary Sinise playby, Stu is mostly from the complete uncut novel version-although I only found a few differences between novel and comics. (the film had more differences). Stu is an ordinary man thrown into the most extraordinary of circumstances. He is a small town guy, but he isn't a country hick by any means. He is not book educated beyond high school, but that doesn't mean he isn't intelligent in a lot of ways. He is resourceful when he needs to be, and determined to do what it takes to protect himself and Frannie.

He is normally rather quiet, more of a listener than a talker, earning the nickname 'Silent Stu' from his friends back home. He's usually rather friendly with people he knows, though in the world he's been thrust into, he isn't quick to jump into anything and knows he has to be cautious. He seems to be able to read people fairly well, as evidenced by the way he picked up on Harold's discontent while Frannie was fooled.

He does not take well to having control taken away, and hates being kept in the dark as he was by his captors and the doctors who treated his wife. He did not like being deceived and wished people would just be forthright with him instead of hiding everything. He did eventually come to accept the mission he was called to do and the idea that a higher power was in control of it all, but it was a process of evolution, rather than a quick acceptance.

Stu is not a natural leader and although he was happy to help with the committee, he was initially very nervous when asked to be its chairman. However, as time passed, he came to be more at ease with the role. By the time of the bomb blast, Stu has become much more confident, and even Frannie notices this.

Generally, Stu is a peaceable person by nature, and won't go looking for a fight, but he is more than willing to stand up for himself and to do what he must to survive. He is very protective of Frannie, and even wants to kill Harold after Harold sets off the bomb. His reaction is so dark that it scares Frannie, and she asks him never to give that look ever again. Still, it doesn't mean that things can't psychologically tax him, and it's very hard for him to keep his calm and think clearly when he's escaping the plague facility and faced with so much death and horror.

He's generally a decent man with good intentions, though he still has his vices. His main one is smoking, and he wants more and more to stop, not at ease with the idea of being operated on for lung cancer by the Free Zone's only doctor, a country veterinarian. He does appear to have had a bit of youthful wildness at one time or another, recalling heading to Mexico with his buddies to look for prostitutes either before he married Norma or after her death. Now, however, he's much more mature and is not a man who takes his commitment to his love lightly.

Appearance wise, Stu is about 6ft with brown hair and hazel eyes. He's average build and in good physical shape,having toned up and lost a few pounds with all the walking he did after the plague hit. He tends toward a casual, jean and tshirt style, sometimes with a casual long-sleeve button shirt or jacket over it if it's colder out. He's got an injured leg from his fall in the washout, and he can walk, but uses a cane and wobbles a lot if he tries getting around without it. Stu was born and raised in the town of Arnette, in east Texas. His father, a dentist, died when Stu was a boy, as did his younger brother, who contracted pneumonia. Stu took a job at a meat packing plant at age 14, lying about his age to get in so that he could support his mom and younger brother. Eventually, his brother left town for the big city, and Stu always got the impression that he was looked down on for choosing to stay in a small, dying town. Stu had a chance at a football scholarship in high school, but turned it down to work to support his family.

As an adult, Stu worked at the town's calculator factor, while making extra money when possible working evenings at Bill Hapscomb's Texaco station. He married a woman named Norma, but before long, she was diagnosed with cancer and soon died. They had a single child, but it was born dead and deformed. Even then, Stu was unhappy with the doctors treating his wife, because they did not talk to him frankly and he got the impression they were holding things back to keep him from worrying.

During one of his evening shifts at the gas station, Stu and the men he was working with saw a car coming toward the station, the driver weaving and seemingly drunk. Stu managed to turn off the pumps before the car crashed, and they soon discovered that the car contained a family suffering from a strange and severe illness. They had swollen, black necks, airways overflowing with mucus and the driver, the only one still alive, burned with fever. The smell was intense and deathly. The driver died before the ambulance arrived.

A few days later, the entire town of Arnette was quarantined. Shortly after, Stu and rest of the residents were taken by soldiers to the Atlanta Centers for Disease Control. Most of the residents died, although the soldiers told Stu little and it was mostly through a combination of what he could glean and his own reasoning that he came to the conclusion. Later, Stu was transferred to another facility in Vermont.

Stu was essentially a prisoner, treated like a lab animal, and he soon became angry with the constant tests and the soldiers' refusal to give him any clear information. Stu was able to glean from things on television and small things he noticed outside his window that the situation was breaking down. The television was removed by the end, but there were still things he saw in the way the doctors and soldiers talked to him and that he saw outside that told him the plague had taken its toll. A soldier was sent to Stu's room with the obvious intent of killing him, but Stu managed to overpower him and escape his room.

After being forced to shoot the soldier in self-defense, Stu made a difficult and emotionally taxing journey through the hallways and stairways of the facility, discovering as he did more dead and dying employees. He found it difficult to keep his focus and think clearly, but he eventually managed to find the way out and free himself.

While inside the facility, Stu had begun to dream of an old black woman named Mother Abigail, telling him to come to Hemingford Home, Nebraska. Not exactly certain what to do now that he was free, Stu did begin to head in a westerly direction. The first person he encountered was a sociology professor named Glen Bateman. Stu stayed at Glen's place overnight, and it was the next day that he met Frannie Goldsmith and Harold Lauder.

Stu felt a connection rather quickly with Frannie, but perceiving Harold as her boyfriend, he initially made no moves. Harold opposed Stu coming with them, seeing him as a threat to his affection for Frannie, but Frannie convinced him to come. Glen initially declined, but joined them later, when they went back to check again. After first going back to the plague center and seeing that Stu was telling the truth about his ordeal, the group headed West, Stu learning that they had also been having the dreams of Mother Abigail.

While camping in Indiana, Stu, despite having no medical knowledge, had to try to do an appendectomy to save another man who'd joined the group, but even with Frannie helping and getting information from a medical book, they were unable to save him. In Illinois, the group had to fight off a group of crazy men holding a group of women prisoner as they tried to attack and take Frannie.

One of the women, Dayna, showed some attraction to Stu after they were freed, spooking Frannie into thinking she'd missed her chance, but shortly after, Frannie found Stu while he was fishing, and they admitted their feelings. Frannie assured Stu that she was not dating Harold, and told him that she was pregnant, despite fearing he might reject her. Stu, however, embraced both her and the baby, much to the dismay of Harold, who neither realized was spying on them.

After arriving in Boulder, Colorado, where the dreams began to say that Mother Abigail had moved to, Stu played a big role in the Free Zone committee, a provisional government that was set up to provide some guidance and help to the people arriving in the settlement. Harold, meanwhile, grew increasingly resentful after being kept off the committee, and though Frannie didn't think he was a threat, Stu sensed that something wasn't right and didn't trust him.

Time passed, and the committee went about restoring some order to the town, as well as deciding to send out spies to hopefully bring back information from Las Vegas, which they had learned from their dreams was under the control of a dark and evil figure known as Randall Flagg, or the Dark Man. Stu was named Free Zone marshal, a job he accepted despite Frannie's firm opposition and fear he'd be killed. There were few problems initially, but Frannie never was able to accept this development.

Things, however, suddenly became much more serious when Harold and his consort, Nadine Cross, set off a bomb inside one of the committee meetings. The death toll was kept low by Nick Andros, another committee member, getting a premonition about the bomb and throwing himself on it, along with a group of motorcyclists riding up outside the house to report that they'd found Mother Abigail, who had mysteriously disappeared several days earlier. Still, Stu and Frannie were both knocked out and Frannie's back was injured.

Shortly after, Mother Abigail told Stu and the other remaining committee members-Larry Underwood,Ralph Brentner and Glen Bateman, to go west, to Las Vegas, where they would make a stand against Flagg. Stu was to lead them, and one would 'fall by the way', but she did not know who. Frannie was reluctant to see Stu go, even though he felt it was necessary, and when they visited the site of the disaster, she had him swear on what she believed was Nick's blood to come back to her. The group left with only what they wore, as Mother Abigail instructed, and things went fairly well until Stu fell and severely injured his leg as the group tried to climb the far side of a ravine beneath a washed-out bridge. Larry was reluctant to lead the group ahead, but Stu convinced him that this was as Mother Abigail had predicted, and that Larry had to lead and take the group the rest of the way to finish what had been started.

Stu became ill lying in the ravine, fearing he might have the flu itself, although it turned out to be pneumonia in reality. He feared he might die, and began to mentally prepare for it, but when he witnessed the mushroom cloud that told him the Dark Man's empire had been destroyed, he decided he had to try and get home somehow, since he might be the only one who knew. He managed to reach the top of the washout and nearly fell back down, but was pulled out by the last surviving spy, a mentally challenged man named Tom Cullen.

Stu managed to find a working car and get them to safety since Tom couldn't drive, but became delirious after they reached a motel and camped. Only with help from Tom, guided by the spirit of Nick Andros, was Stu able to recover and regain awareness. Stu became increasingly worried about Frannie, as he began to have nightmares about the birth of the baby, and became ever more determined to get home.