Benjamin 'Benji' Louis Beecham

[Irredeemable]

Name: Benjamin ‘Benji’ Louis Beecham
Gender: Genderfluid (Assigned Male)
Age: 18
Grade: 12th Grade
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Lacrosse, Parkour, Running, MMA, Activism

Appearance: Benji almost naturally sticks out in a crowd. At 6’3” tall they’re well above the average, and although they weigh a quite normal 163lbs, most of their weight is in the form of compacted muscle which gives them a lean, athletic look. Their chest and stomach are flat yet defined, the faint outlines of muscle groups clearly visible when Benji stretches or flexes. Their light brown hair is short and styled into a neat under shave, whilst their lower face is kept meticulously clear of all facial hair. This allows for their quite sharp and high features to stand out; Benji’s nose is thin and their cheekbones are high, giving them a somewhat haughty appearance, counteracted by full lips and a resting smiling face. Their only piercings are two small silver studs in their lobes, occasionally replaced by clear plastic if the situation demands.

Their clothing choices tend to fluctuate between days and moods, although there is a constant current of athleisure wear to it, with windbreakers, yoga pants and leggings making reoccurring appearances. Most of Benji’s clothing is relatively good quality and not inexpensive, and they buy from both the men and women’s sections of the clothing store, allowing for a wide variety of different colours.

On the day of the kidnapping, Benji was wearing a close-fit grey tracksuit, a blue and white pair of ankle-high running trainers and a matching blue windbreaker with various pride flag badges attached to it over a long-sleeved grey shirt. To accessorise, they also wore a white ballcap with ‘Salem Lacrosse’ printed on the front, over a set of crossed lacrosse sticks.

Biography: Benjamin Louis Beecham came into the world at NSMC Salem Hospital on the 12th of May, 2003 to a family that was confidently incorrect in thinking they were a boy. The younger sibling by three years to their sister, Victoria, Benji lead the life that most very young children do. It wasn’t until they grew older, and started going to elementary school, that some of their most defining features revealed themselves.

As a child, Benji was chastised many times for not focusing in class. Teachers called them a daydreamer, constantly fidgeting and never focusing on words or numbers… But as soon as gym started, they were a different person. With a little genetic assistance, Benji quickly became one of the top sportspeople in their year, and then their small school. Middle school tempered their unusualness- a more populated environment meant more sportspeople, after all, but Benji’s enthusiasm was unperturbed by entering a bigger pond with bigger fish.

As they grew and developed, Benji’s love for sports moved out of gym class, and into the wider world of extracurricular activities. They bounced off of traditional martial arts, especially taekwondo, and were never much for the gridiron, but excelled in soccer and track. Never one for the raw physicality and high-speed impacts of American Football, their speed and the power of their legs lead to them being a formidable presence as an offensive midfielder and striker. Being naturally suited to these roles meant that they received praise and attention for succeeding, which in turn only spurred them on to try harder and succeed more. This same speed was why they were always a fan of track, and, much like with soccer, early successes launched them into a positive feedback cycle.

Their initial forays into martial arts could be considered a precursor to their discovery and subsequent love of MMA later in life, an analysis that wouldn’t be inaccurate. As a youngster fizzing with energy and without much patience, the slower paced and somewhat more performative nature of traditional martial arts often left Benji bored and soured their taste for them later on, whereas MMA was fresh, exciting, and felt, to Benji at least, much more about the here and now than a focus on century-old techniques.

As Benji grew older, they also grew into their academics much more. More outlets for their energy meant they focused more in class, and although Benji’s grades have never been particularly exceptional, they’ve equally never been particularly poor, and they’re a fairly solid B-grade student. Benji’s least favourite subject has always been math, something which has resulted in their math grades occasionally dipping dangerously low, although never low enough to cause serious problems.

The Beecham family home was always one for talking about politics. Even at a young age, it was difficult to avoid hearing people discuss current events and international news- most of which came from a fairly liberal standpoint. Both the elder Beechams were supporters of Bill Clinton and later, Tony Blair (until the Iraq War, at the very least, which both opposed.) Both Victoria and Benjamin grew up with debates over topical matters being held over the kitchen table… But, when they were around twelve, Benji began to fall down a very different path. They spent nights watching Ben Shapiro and TheAmazingAthiest videos, ‘feminist owned’ compilations and other such alt-right content. The reasons for why, exactly, Benji ended up sliding down this path are unclear even to them- teenage contrarianism, perhaps, the urge to resist their parent’s politics, or maybe their realisation that something about themselves didn’t sit quite right and alt-right content being the easiest escape for it. Luckily for Benji however, they had Victoria- who had noticed her sibling’s slide and took it upon herself to try and challenge their views.

The next few years at the Beecham family home were argumentative ones. Benji’s proto-political beliefs were challenged, the lies they believed brought to the light time and time again, and even to this day, Benji credits these arguments with making them much more of a critical thinker than they ever were before they slanted right.

Entering grade nine and moving to a new high school brought Benji to yet another level of competition. Never before had so much of what they had taken for granted as what they were been placed under such scrutiny. As they formed their nascent political views, they slowly began to realise something else about them as well: puberty had jostled free an attraction to men that even Benji had never been aware of, and a slow, dawning realisation that maybe ‘man’ wasn’t exactly what they were to match. led to a lot of his early teenage years being spent in self-discovery, which they only emerged from at around 16 years old.

This was a difficult time for the youngest Beecham. A lot of their initial emotions were shame. The belief that something was wrong with them, or that they were ‘broken,’ in some way. They spent a not-insignificant amount of time hating themselves for their ‘abnormalities,’ watching gay media then immediately scrubbing all evidence of having done so out of their computer, and internally wrestling over their own love-hate relationship with their body. Two things helped them through this; their sister, Victoria, who once again ended up being Benji’s rock, and a safe, comforting refuge in the form of sports.

They had only barely entered John Endecott when they joined the school’s Lacrosse and Track teams. As both an attackman and a sprinter, they pushed themselves even harder in the face of fresh competition. Having been exposed to MMA by a friend, Benji’s old martial-arts-muscle-memory began to spark and connect itself together, and they found themself legitimately enjoying a combat sport for the first time in their life. In addition, the new gym brought them into contact with a host of new individuals to befriend and learn from, another of whom ended up taking Benji to a parkour taster session. Much like them and lacrosse, it didn’t take long before they were hooked. Benji took to parkour like a fish does to water, rapidly including both new sports into their regimens.

They were fortunate for this refuge in sports, because it was also where many of their now-friends come from. Benji’s social circle has expanded and contracted quite a few times throughout their life: the most dramatic being when they came out, and many of the people they had become friendly with during their alt-right phase didn’t accept them. Luckily, however, they’ve had some firm friends who have stuck with them the whole way through, and have met others through their various extracurricular activities.

Now, at eighteen, Benji’s pretty sure they’ve figured most of what makes them them out. They started identifying privately as non-binary at seventeen, and only recently came out to friends and family (although Victoria insisted, she knew long before they left the closet) to a surprisingly warm acceptance. Their identity has tinged their politics (or, perhaps their politics allowed them to explore their identity,) and although the Beecham family has always been more left-leaning, Benji’s done a lot more than mere online activism, having made the 7-hour drive down to Washington DC multiple times to participate in protests alongside campaigning in election season.

As their high school career draws to a close, Benji has been seriously considering what their options are in terms of their future path. The Beecham family coffers can afford to send them to university, but with no particular area of academic excellence and little clue of what they actually want to do, Benji is stumped as to what they’d do as an undergraduate degree, let alone where they’d do it.

Advantages: Benji’s fit, strong, and healthy, with a well-trained physical body that should grant them the advantage in most confrontations. In addition, their interest in MMA has given them practical real-world experience with hand-to-hand combat and their parkour skills lend themselves well to rapid movement around the island.
Disadvantages: Benji’s training in martial arts has given them a strong sense of duty and carefulness in fighting: Benji is extremely disinclined to actually seriously hurt their opponent, leaving a more motivated attacker with the edge over them.

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Hi Irredeemable! Before Benji can be given a full critique, please make sure that their profile fully adheres to the template. Specifically, you have an extra line break between Advantages and Disadvantages. Thanks!

[Irredeemable]

Whoopsie! All corrected now

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Alright, time to give Benji the full run-down. They are temporarily DENIED pending a bit of expansion and some tone corrections.

The profile in general needs to have its tone tightened up to be less like prose and more like an objective summary of the character. The first paragraph is a good example of this:

Benjamin Louis Beecham came into the world on the 12th of May, 2003, to a family that was confidently incorrect in thinking they were a boy. The younger sibling to their sister, Victoria, Benji lead the life that most very young children do- pottering about the house, learning what object permanence is, having their parents prevent them from accidental suicide multiple times. A thoroughly average baby, they would continue to be a fairly average toddler, and it wasn’t until they were a bit older before their love for sports began to become apparent.

There's a fair bit of non-essential information and fluff in here, while more relevant information has been left out. If Benji's early childhood was very normal, we don't need this amount of elaboration on how normal it was. A good rule of thumb is that if nothing out of the ordinary happened, you can just say so and move on to the things that were specific to this character rather than what makes them like the average person. More important information like their parents' names, occupations, and their sister's age should be included here.

Was Benji born in Salem? I assume so since there is no mention of them ever moving, but it's not stated.

What, exactly, do they enjoy about the activities that are listed in their hobbies and interests? Right now, there's a lot of mention of things that Benji doesn't stick with or almost did, but not much explanation of what actually drew them to the hobbies they do have.

What are Benji's parents' political leanings? When Benji was looking into alt-right rhetoric, was this a natural progression of things that their parents espoused, or was it more of an exploration of beliefs opposite to the ones in their household? You refer to this as a phase that lasted several years; did Benji engage with alt-right politics in any way besides watching videos on the internet? The timeline here is also quite vague as "when they were a teen" could cover anything from late middle school to the present day. Even if this started when they were 13, if it lasted for several years, then it's only pretty recently that Benji would have started to move away from these beliefs. Was this tied at all to their feelings about their own gender and sexuality? The following paragraph implies that it is, but this needs to be made clear.

Following from that, how did Benji engage in the exploration of their sexuality and gender? It's stated that in high school they realized they were attracted to men and did not feel comfortable identifying as a man themselves, but when? What prompted them to begin considering this, especially since they were previously engaged in politics that generally espouse anti-LGBTQ feelings?

What is Benji's social circle like at school? Both of the previous points addressed would have had a big effect on how they interacted with others during their adolescence. I feel like I don't have a good sense of what Benji's personality is like in general. I know they like sports and that now they're interested in political activism on the liberal end of the spectrum, but I'm not clear on why they like these things or how they have grown as a person throughout the years. Their advantages state that they have a warm personality but I don't see this actually mentioned or demonstrated anywhere before then.

They joined their old standbys of track and field and lacrosse, intensified their running regimes and, having been exposed to MMA by a friend, started visiting a new gym- one that also happened to teach parkour lessons.

Parkour and MMA would rarely, if ever, be taught at the same gym. They're drastically different sports, and you'd more likely find parkour instruction at a gym catering to tumbling and gymnastics, if not one wholly dedicated to parkour by itself. A quick Google search tells me there are at least a couple of parkour gyms in and around Salem that Benji could go to.

How does Benji do in school? What subjects are they good or bad at, and what do they like and dislike? Are they on the school track and lacrosse teams, since it's not specified? What events do they do in track?

Benji's disadvantages are also not covered in the bio. Those need to be there. Additionally, Salem and Massachusetts as a whole are very left-leaning and LGBTQ-friendly locations, so I'm going to need more detail on what exactly makes Benji a polarizing figure.


Spelling/grammar:

This allows for their quite sharp and high features to stand out- Benji’s nose is thin and their cheekbones are high, giving them a somewhat haughty appearance, counteracted by full lips and a resting smiling face.

Cutting a sentence off here with a dash where you should use a different sort of punctuation. I'd put a period or semi-colon here instead. This sort of thing appears several times throughout the profile, and the same goes for all of those instances. Ending a sentence with a dash can be a stylistic choice, but it's not one we use in profiles, and it's grammatically incorrect in any case here.

Instances of italics for emphasis and parenthetical information being shoehorned in as asides should be removed. This is another part of the objective tone that we try to aim for in profiles. This paragraph is a big example:

Now, at eighteen, Benji’s pretty sure they’ve figured most of what makes them them out. They started identifying privately as non-binary at seventeen, and only recently came out to friends and family (although Victoria insisted she knew long before they left the closet) to a surprisingly warm acceptance. Their identity has tinged their politics (or, perhaps their politics allowed them to explore their identity,) and although the Beecham family has always been more left-leaning, Benji’s done a lot more than armchair slacktivism, having made the 7-hour drive down to Washington multiple times to participate in protests alongside campaigning in election season.

Slang terms like "slacktivism" should be changed to something a bit more official and objective. You'll also want to specify that the Washington in this paragraph is Washington, D.C., the US capitol city. There's also a Washington state, which is on the other side of the country.

That's what I have on a first pass. Cleaning up the tone will fix several of these issues. I recommend looking at the profiles in the approved section for an idea of what makes good objective tone, such as this one.

Post in here when you've taken care of those edits, and I'll give Benji another look!

[Irredeemable]

Edited.

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Alright, there's still a bit more to cover, and some of the requested edits from last time still need to be made.

There are still tone issues throughout the profile. Let me outline some specific examples:

Benjamin Louis Beecham came into the world at NSMC Salem Hospital on the 12th of May, 2003 to a family that was confidently incorrect in thinking they were a boy.

With a little genetic assistance, Benji quickly became one of the top sportspeople in their year,

Phrases like "a family that was confidently incorrect in thinking they were a boy" and "with a little genetic assistance" are unnecessarily flowery for a profile. We need clear, direct statements about what's going on in a character's life. For example:

"Benjamin Louis Beecham came into the world at NSMC Salem Hospital on the 12th of May, 2003. Though they would later identify as genderfluid, they were assigned male at birth and would be raised as a boy until their later teen years."

"Because Benji was naturally tall and strong, they quickly became one of the best competitors in their class at sports."

These statements have been reworded to relay the most important information without extra fluff and editorializing. I strongly recommend reading through the whole biography and making adjustments through this lens.

Stylistic things like using ellipses to indicate hesitation or suspense also should not be used in profiles. Just state things plainly. For example:

Teachers called them a daydreamer, constantly fidgeting and never focusing on words or numbers… But as soon as gym started, they were a different person.

Change the ellipses here to a comma and combine these sentences.

What are Benji's parents' names, and what do they do for a living?

Benji's time spent playing soccer is given a lot of attention considering that's not on their hobbies list. We still have the issue here where things that are not listed as current or important interests are given a lot of detail in comparison to the actual interests that we need information on. An easy fix for the soccer thing would be to change this to being Benji's early introduction to lacrosse, since lacrosse is currently not mentioned until Benji starts high school and there's no explanation of what drew them to that sport in particular.

Their initial forays into martial arts could be considered a precursor to their discovery and subsequent love of MMA later in life, an analysis that wouldn’t be inaccurate.

The last part of this sentence is redundant and can be cut. The main idea of the sentence has already been stated, and statements in the profile are supposed to be objectively true and accurate, so it doesn't need to be emphasized that it is true.

The reasons for why, exactly, Benji ended up sliding down this path are unclear even to them- teenage contrarianism, perhaps, the urge to resist their parent’s politics, or maybe their realisation that something about themselves didn’t sit quite right and alt-right content being the easiest escape for it.

We try to avoid ambiguity in profiles, so in cases like this, I suggest rewording to make it clear what the likely reasons behind Benji's actions are, even if Benji themselves is not sure of them. You're the writer and have the omniscient perspective on the character's motivations, so avoid using things like "maybe" and "perhaps" in the profile in order to keep things clear.

The next few years at the Beecham family home were argumentative ones. Benji’s proto-political beliefs were challenged, the lies they believed brought to the light time and time again, and even to this day, Benji credits these arguments with making them much more of a critical thinker than they ever were before they slanted right.

This needs elaboration. Most people are not swayed by someone just arguing with them that their beliefs are incorrect, and a young teenager who is developing their own identity separate from their family's, and who is motivated by contrarianism to begin with, especially would be resistant to changing their mind about things when challenged. If Benji was repeating provably untrue things and then changing their mind upon being corrected and shown evidence to the contrary, I would like to know how their family presented opposing viewpoints in a way that actually convinced them.

Entering grade nine and moving to a new high school brought Benji to yet another level of competition. Never before had so much of what they had taken for granted as what they were been placed under such scrutiny. As they formed their nascent political views, they slowly began to realise something else about them as well: puberty had jostled free an attraction to men that even Benji had never been aware of, and a slow, dawning realisation that maybe ‘man’ wasn’t exactly what they were to match. led to a lot of his early teenage years being spent in self-discovery, which they only emerged from at around 16 years old.

The first sentence in this paragraph doesn't seem connected to the rest, and I'm not sure what the second sentence is saying. It's not clear how their political views are connected at all to their realization that they're attracted to men and also don't identify as male themselves. The last sentence looks to be missing a word or two at the beginning, and I think there's a pronoun slip in there also since Benji is referred to with "they/them" rather than "he/him" throughout the rest of the profile.

Having been exposed to MMA by a friend, Benji’s old martial-arts-muscle-memory began to spark and connect itself together, and they found themself legitimately enjoying a combat sport for the first time in their life.

The first section here is an unnecessarily complicated way to say that Benji recalled their old martial arts training. I'm not sure that muscle memory would do very much for them anyway, since as you previously stated in the profile, MMA is notably different from traditional martial arts.

In addition to the issue with lacrosse I cited above, there's no mention of what Benji actually likes about parkour. We also need detail on how they participate in both parkour and MMA. Do they take part in competitions, just attend classes at their gyms, etc.? Parkour in particular is something that can be practiced out in the wild, so to speak; does Benji ever do free-running parkour?

What's their relationship with their family like currently? What is Victoria doing these days, since she'll have been out of high school for a couple of years now?

The Beecham family coffers can afford to send them to university,

"Coffers" is a really weird word choice here. Generally a coffer is an actual, physical store of money, and it's a pretty archaic term. Just say that their parents can afford to send them to college.

I still don't really have a grasp on what Benji's personality is supposed to be. How did they interact with people outside their family during their alt-right phase? How do they interact with people now? They're said to have a pretty big social circle, but why? What makes other people want to be friends with them, and what kind of people is Benji themself drawn to? Have they had any romantic relationships? Do they want to? Do they have any specific aspirations or ideals beyond political affiliation?

Since Benji's undecided on whether they want to go to college, do they have any alternative ideas?

In addition, their interest in MMA has given them practical real-world experience with hand-to-hand combat and their parkour skills lend themselves well to rapid movement around the island.

The advantage cited with parkour here is heavily dependent on the terrain and layout of the island being friendly to whatever style of parkour Benji does (which needs more elaboration in itself, as I mentioned above), so I'm not sold on that being a flat advantage. I'm also not sure why specifically being able to move quickly across the whole island is an advantage. There's not a time limit on getting from one location to the other for the most part, and if you're stuck in the middle of a danger zone, parkour isn't going to be much more effective at getting you out than just running. Being good at parkour does imply that Benji is agile and has good endurance, which would be much better advantages to cite.

Benji’s training in martial arts has given them a strong sense of duty and carefulness in fighting: Benji is extremely disinclined to actually seriously hurt their opponent, leaving a more motivated attacker with the edge over them.

This is not stated clearly anywhere in the biography. It seems a little bit contradictory to the things we're told about why Benji enjoys MMA, actually; they found traditional martial arts boring and like MMA for being more of a physical combat sport, so it seems like they rather enjoy the fighting aspect.

In addition to the above, Benji needs at least one or two more disadvantages. Their reluctance to seriously hurt someone else using martial arts can't be the only thing keeping them from being the ideal SOTF contestant. Are there any particular mental or emotional struggles that would arise for them beyond the expected stress of the situation (developing their personality more will help with this)? How about social disadvantages, regarding enemies they may have made in the past?

Spelling and grammar:

Middle school tempered their unusualness- a more populated environment meant more sportspeople, after all, but Benji’s enthusiasm was unperturbed by entering a bigger pond with bigger fish.

Even at a young age, it was difficult to avoid hearing people discuss current events and international news- most of which came from a fairly liberal standpoint.

The reasons for why, exactly, Benji ended up sliding down this path are unclear even to them- teenage contrarianism, perhaps, the urge to resist their parent’s politics, or maybe their realisation that something about themselves didn’t sit quite right and alt-right content being the easiest escape for it.

Luckily for Benji however, they had Victoria- who had noticed her sibling’s slide and took it upon herself to try and challenge their views.

More instances of ending a statement with a hyphen. All of these should be changed to a period or comma, depending on the sentence structure.

Both the elder Beechams were supporters of Bill Clinton and later, Tony Blair (until the Iraq War, at the very least, which both opposed.)

Remove parenthetical asides. If they're really important information, find a way to incorporate them into the main body of the sentence. If they're not important information, cut it entirely.

Similarly, avoid using quotation marks where possible, unless the thing being quoted is the title of something. For example:

hey spent nights watching Ben Shapiro and TheAmazingAthiest videos, ‘feminist owned’ compilations and other such alt-right content.

The use of 'feminist owned' is actually okay here, because it's the title of what is effectively a genre. In comparison:

As they formed their nascent political views, they slowly began to realise something else about them as well: puberty had jostled free an attraction to men that even Benji had never been aware of, and a slow, dawning realisation that maybe ‘man’ wasn’t exactly what they were to match.

The belief that something was wrong with them, or that they were ‘broken,’ in some way. They spent a not-insignificant amount of time hating themselves for their ‘abnormalities,’

The quoted words in these selections should either have the quotes removed or be reworded. This is another part of keeping a clear and objective tone.

Two things helped them through this; their sister, Victoria, who once again ended up being Benji’s rock, and a safe, comforting refuge in the form of sports.

The semi-colon here should be a regular colon.

They had only barely entered John Endecott when they joined the school’s Lacrosse and Track teams.

The names of sports don't need to capitalized.

Benji’s social circle has expanded and contracted quite a few times throughout their life: the most dramatic being when they came out, and many of the people they had become friendly with during their alt-right phase didn’t accept them.

This colon should be a comma.

Now, at eighteen, Benji’s pretty sure they’ve figured most of what makes them them out. They started identifying privately as non-binary at seventeen, and only recently came out to friends and family (although Victoria insisted, she knew long before they left the closet) to a surprisingly warm acceptance. Their identity has tinged their politics (or, perhaps their politics allowed them to explore their identity,) and although the Beecham family has always been more left-leaning, Benji’s done a lot more than mere online activism, having made the 7-hour drive down to Washington DC multiple times to participate in protests alongside campaigning in election season.

Most of the issues I cited with this paragraph in the previous critique have not been addressed. Italics for emphasis should not be used in a profile; reword the sentence so that it gets the point across without them. Same goes for the italics in the paragraph following this one in the biography. The parentheticals need to be adjusted or removed as I explained above.

Post in here again when you've made those edits, and I'll take another look at Benji!

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This character biography has had no alterations for more than two weeks and has been put in the abandoned characters forum. This profile is eligible for resubmission by the handler upon alterations requested by the staff.