G074 - Summers, Megan [DECEASED]

[MK Kilmarnock]

DECEASED

Name: Megan Summers
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Fandom, religion, reading, jazz piano

Appearance: Megan is a short, scrawny Caucasian girl, standing at 5'1" and weighing 101 pounds. Her dark brown hair is parted in the middle and runs just past her shoulders; while it is naturally lank, she has recently begun making some effort to curl it, though not to a large degree. Her face is round, and she has full cheeks, a small mouth, and large hazel eyes; she looks somewhat young for her age. Her eyebrows are thin and plucked, but haphazardly so. Her skin is generally quite pale. Though she regularly applies foundation and light pink lipstick, she generally eschews eyeliner. Her nails have been done, but not recently, and are noticeably chipped. Megan simultaneously wishes she were skinnier and that she had more curves; as is, her body shape is fairly average, if noticeably lacking in muscle. Her upper arms and hips bear a number of light scars from self-harm; while most are old and faded, a couple of the scars on her arm are relatively new. Megan's wardrobe varies considerably; she alternates between pastel T-shirts with jeans, pastel goth, and hoodies. Megan likes to adorn her hair with flowers, favoring pink and violet ones; she wore a violet one to the trip. She typically eschews jewelry, apart from her cross necklace and a number of wristbands on her right arm. On the day of the kidnapping, Megan wore black-and-white tie-dyed jeans, black sneakers, black socks, a pink T-shirt with a black heart design on it, and a black cardigan.

Biography: An only child, Megan Summers was born to Adam Summers and Caitlin Summers, both teachers. Her parents, reticent but free-spirited, had met in graduate school at the College of William and Mary, had a quiet courtship, and drifted around the country together for a couple years; they ultimately settled down in Chattanooga, which provided them with a good balance between their shared love of the outdoors and their more cosmopolitan sensibilities. Three years after settling down, Megan was born. Both have found steady employment at the local community college since settling down; while the family can't be considered wealthy by any means, they are comfortably in the upper-middle-class income bracket.

Megan was a shy and fairly clingy child, afraid to be held by anyone besides her parents and fairly timid about playing with other children despite her parents' encouragement. She retained this clingy tendency even in pre-school, where she tended to attach herself to a particularly friendly, mature child and rely on them for security and guidance. Despite her timidity, Megan was a sweet and friendly child, and the assertive children she followed tended to make a point of including her in the group during playtime. During elementary school, Megan became increasingly dependent on these children to feel comfortable in social settings, and she would feel lost and become withdrawn when they were absent, even though everyone else she knew was ostensibly also her friend.

During this time, Megan began to develop an interest in the outdoors, as well as jazz. While her parents, both of whom had retained their bourgeois bohemian tendencies, were generally careful not to impose their interests upon Megan, an attitude that what they were exposing her to was good for her combined with the value Megan placed on her parents meant that she picked up on their interests and attitudes anyways. Megan frequently went on hiking trips with her parents, and while she was never truly passionate about the activity, she found it pleasant enough that she could convince herself that she was. Her interest in jazz came much more naturally, and her clumsy attempts at dancing with her parents to swing music comprise some of her fondest childhood memories.

At the age of five, her parents enrolled her in piano lessons, and, eager to learn to play jazz music, she initially took to it with enthusiasm. However, as time passed, she became frustrated with learning the basic scales and arpeggios, and, impatient to begin learning jazz music, would often improvise before she was ready to do so. Her parents, more interested in seeing Megan have fun than actually developing her musical skills, encouraged this tendency, and Megan eventually stopped taking piano lessons. However, she continued to play on the piano, despite her lack of skill, for the rest of her early years.

Megan's transition to middle school was initially fairly uneventful, but as time wore on she became an increasingly easy target for the male bullies to pick on physically due to how easy it was to spook her. This had the effect of making her even more timid and clingy than she already was, to the point that she was reluctant to interact with people besides her friends, even when her friends were around. Her friends friends faced little social pressure to ostracize her, as they rarely interacted with the bullies—who were primarily jocks. However, as time wore on, they became increasingly embarrassed by Megan's tendencies and, ignorant of the fact that she was being bullied (Megan felt too awkward and guilty to tell them what was going on), began distancing themselves from her.

Without the support network she was used to, and now facing verbal and social bullying due to being a social outcast in addition to the comparatively mild physical bullying she had previously faced, Megan increasingly avoided social interaction, taking pains to avoid bullies and spending more and more time searching out and hiding in secluded places where she wouldn't have to interact with anyone at school. She also became increasingly depressed and withdrawn, spending more and more time inside her own head. Her parents, noticing this, asked her if anything was wrong, but Megan refused to point fingers and, as their questioning persisted, began to feign happiness to avoid feeling guilty for worrying her parents. Her parents, trying to be supportive, took her out hiking often during this time period, and Megan, feeling an obligation to be appreciative of their efforts and to show that their attempts at helping her were bearing fruit, hid her depressive tendencies more and more, to the point that her parents assumed that everything was alright.

Between the isolation at school and her need to feign happiness around her parents, Megan was left without a healthy outlet for expressing her depressed feelings. This caused several things to happen. The first thing was that, after having abandoned the piano due to being increasingly conscious of her lack of skill, Megan returned to practicing, more intently than she ever had in elementary school. She used the piano less as an emotional outlet and more as a distraction and a means to make herself numb, escaping into her parents' music room so as to give herself an excuse to avoid interaction, and so as to give herself something to focus on. She avoided the jazz music she loved, afraid on some level that the emotional labor of playing the music she actually enjoyed would detract from the purpose of escaping her feelings.

Similarly, Megan developed an obsessive reading habit during this time as a means of escapism. She would frequently sneak books into classrooms and read under the desk during lectures, and spent most of her free time in the bathroom, reading. Reading, to her, was a way of making school bearable, a way to distract from the bullying and also to make her experiences hiding away somewhat enjoyable. Furthermore, books allowed her to vicariously experience the feeling of connecting with others--both characters within the books and authors themselves--which helped alleviate the feelings of isolation.

The final thing that happened in the aftermath of her social isolation was that Megan began to develop a habit of cutting herself during 8th grade. The reasons for doing so were complicated, but stemmed primarily from a feeling that she needed to externalize, demonstrate, and prove that she was suffering to herself, that the difficulties she had internalized were real and tangible, and not just inside her head. Megan was careful to keep her self-harm habits a secret not only from her parents but also from her peers; she feared not only the social repercussions of being known as a cutter but also felt a need to take what she saw as a moral high ground by not making her bullies feel guilty for bullying her, reasoning that they were callous rather than malicious. However, she secretly hoped to be found out, both so that she could stop pretending to be alright to her parents and so that she could horrify the bullies by showing them the extent to which they had hurt her, and while she still felt obligated to do what she saw as the right thing and hide the state of her mental health, she became increasingly reckless and cavalier about concealing her cuts. This came to a head a few weeks before school ended, when Caitlin was doing laundry and noticed a large bloodstain on a pair of jeans from a particularly careless instance of self-harm. Megan, upon being confronted by her mother, broke down sobbing and told her. In the aftermath of her discovery, Caitlin immediately put Megan in counseling and offered options, including pulling her from school. However, with only a few weeks left and desperate to prove to herself that she could, Megan stuck out middle school to the end.

That summer, Megan allowed her parents to essentially take care of her, relinquishing herself from most of her obligations, both external and self-imposed. Gradually, with the help of antidepressants and much care and support, Megan began to heal. Now left to her own devices for extended periods of time at her own request, Megan spent an increasing amount of time on the internet, where she met for the first time other teens who shared her problems. This led her in turn to Tumblr and its various fandom circles, and Megan became increasingly absorbed in anime, fanfiction, and the like. Her discovery that she was pansexual, helped along by her internet addiction, seemed almost incidental, minor compared to everything else going on in her life. She came out to her parents with little difficulty, finding it hard to worry that they would reject her since they were already doing so much to care for her.

As time wore on, Megan's parents began to worry that she was isolating herself too much, and began trying to get her to leave the house every now and then, seeing her tendency to stay in bed all day as unhealthy. While Megan was resistant to most of the activities they took her to, one seemed to strike a chord with her: church. While neither of her parents were religious, both of them had grown up in church and saw it as a safe, comfortable place that would be good for Megan's mental health. Megan found the notion of an all-loving God to be immensely comforting, and eventually decided to convert. She's not entirely sure that she believes in the Christian God, or even any god, but finds that it is better to believe that there is meaning and purpose to her life and that she is loved, even if she cannot be sure of it. She's continued attending church since and occasionally goes to Bible Study events, although she cares more about her personal connection with God than studying scripture.

High school began soon afterwards, and despite some initial misgivings, Megan decided that taking a break from school would be more harmful than helpful. However, she decided against attending the school that her middle school was supposed to feed into, and thus enrolled in George Hunter High School instead, hoping for a fresh start.

High school was, for the most part, far better for Megan than middle school. While there were still bullies around, the high school students had matured with age, and were less accepting of bullying behavior than the students at her old school. In addition, Megan's social baggage was no longer well-known, which enabled her to fly under the radar, for the most part. Finally, Megan was able to find a proper friend group, primarily other shy, nerdy kids and outcasts, who she gradually became close to and who she feels comfortable divulging her secrets to. Between her parents keeping a close eye on her emotional health and her new friend group, Megan found high school to be a much safer, comfortable experience, and while she still has plenty of bad days, and even occasionally relapses into cutting herself, she now has friends who she can turn to in order to support her.

One of the side effects of Megan's friend group is her current taste in fashion. While she tended towards nondescript clothing during her middle school days so as to fly beneath notice, she has since immersed herself in subculture style. She finds herself put off by the angrier, edgier subcultures, however, and thus tends towards pastel goth in terms of fashion. Another side effect is that Megan has only burrowed herself even deeper into fandom, as she now regularly discusses it not only online but also with friends, and occasionally they would get together to binge-watch an anime or tv show.

As a side effect of her improved mental health, Megan has returned to her jazz roots. For the first time since the earlier part of elementary school, Megan genuinely enjoys playing again, and most of her repertoire now consists of jazz standards and free improvisation. She occasionally performs for friends, but only ever for friends; she feels an odd, inexplicable embarrassment about her jazz tastes as well as her talent for the piano, and would be mortified at the idea of playing for a larger audience.

Academically, Megan does well enough in school, though her grades are somewhat polarized as she puts little effort into and sometimes actively resists learning in the classes that she doesn't like. Her grades average in the A- range, with the exception of math and physics, both of which tend to be B's, and English, her favorite class and a consistent A. Her parents are pretty forgiving of the occasional bad grade, and she feels comfortable with slacking off if she thinks that she has something that is more important to do. Megan occasionally clashes with the way classes are taught, finding it irritating to think too hard about things which don't matter or don't merit that much thought, from her perspective. She applies the same mindset to school that she applies to her faith: she sees little need to search for truth if knowing the truth would do little to impact her decisions, just as she would prefer to believe in God regardless of whether there is a god or not. Megan has applied to and been accepted at NYU, where she plans to study psychology. While her parents are worried about how far Megan is moving from them and from her friends, and Megan herself feels unsure about her choice, she remains tentatively committed out of a desire to prove to herself that she is capable of functioning like a normal person, and out of a somewhat-romanticized image of New York.

In the present day, Megan remains fairly timid, except around her friends. While she can interact with people outside her friend group, she feels uneasy unless some members of her friend group are present. Megan is heavily conflict-avoidant, and tends to moderate it as best it can when it becomes unavoidable. However, her general timidity prevents her from being truly effective in this role. She is strongly compassionate and likes to think the best of other people, within reason; years of bullying have taught her to take care of herself first. As such, she usually alternates between a somewhat-forced kind, cheerful, cutesy persona, and quiet observation as she recharges her ability to socialize. Terrified of social rejection and being abandoned, Megan clings tightly to the friends that she has, but is also careful not to become overbearing or exhausting to put up with. Around her friends, and to some extent in public as well, Megan tends to be obsessively honest and open in presenting how she feels, seeing it as an essential part of her self-care, in a way that makes her seem in touch with herself and really self-aware herself in some ways, but which also makes her seem histrionic, and to lack self-awareness in other ways. Megan is out about her sexuality to her friends, though she tends to be fairly low-key about it. While she deeply wants to be in a relationship, she remains fairly inexperienced due to shyness, and generally needs to be pushed in order to make a move.

Advantages: Megan has few enemies, and is on decent to good relations with most of the student body. She is fairly skilled at keeping herself hidden. In addition, she is quite good at planning ahead, having found it necessary for keeping her self-harm habits a secret from her parents, and is also fairly smart. Lastly, Megan is accustomed to the outdoors, and while she hasn't kept up with her outdoors activities, she retains the skill associated with surviving and navigating the outdoors.
Disadvantages: Megan is small and fairly weak. In addition, she is heavily conflict-aversive, and would shy away or freeze if made to confront or engage her classmates. Megan would also find it difficult to cope with a high-stress environment like SotF, and this combined with her overall timidity translates to a tendency to panic at the worst possible times. Finally, her tendency to fly below the radar, while an advantage, could also translate to a lack of allies outside of her fairly small friend group, which is especially harsh given her dependent personality.

Designated Number: Female student No. 074

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Designated Weapon: ArtCreativity Juggling Balls Set for Beginners (Set of 3)

Conclusion: Much like your weapon, I only see you getting tossed around for a little bit before being unceremoniously dumped into a garbage can. - Trent Camden

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