Ezra Weiss

[Fenris]

Name: Ezra Gideon Weiss
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Baseball, cheerleading, gardening, journaling

Appearance: Ezra stands at 5’9” and 170 lbs, with a broad chest and shoulders and a narrower waist; his arms and legs are muscular, and he carries a small amount of fat around his midsection. His skin tone ranges from a moderate tan in the summer to a pale beige in the winter, always with golden undertones. He has a square jaw, slightly downturned honey-brown eyes with thick, dark eyelashes, an aquiline nose, and heart-shaped lips. His voice is deep but quiet, and he often has a hard time being heard over his more boisterous peers. He tends to move slowly and deliberately, though anxiety or the cajoling of his parents or friends can force him into quicker action.

Ezra’s hair is chestnut brown with reddish undertones; he wears it in loose, springy curls that fall just over his ears and that frequently need to be pushed out of his eyes. His facial hair grows slowly but is quite dark, and as he dislikes the look of it he shaves daily.

Ezra does not put much thought into his clothing and dresses for practical purposes rather than for appearances. His wardrobe primarily consists of basic t-shirts, hoodies, track suits, and sweatpants in simple colors. He does own a number of pieces of merchandise for his favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, as well as a t-shirt or two for various local sports teams.

On the day of the abduction, Ezra was wearing a navy blue Boston Red Sox t-shirt with their logo emblazoned on the front, along with a bright red hoodie with white drawstrings, a pair of black track pants with red trim, white crew socks, and a secondhand pair of black and white Nike sneakers.

Biography: Ezra Gideon Weiss was born on August 15th, 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada to Rachel and Jacob Weiss. Rachel and Jacob were in their early forties by this time; the pair both attended college in the Las Vegas area and met in their early twenties while Rachel was tending bar at a casino on the strip. By the time of Ezra’s birth, they had three older children—Ethan, who was nineteen by this time, Rebecca, who was seventeen, and Sarah, who was sixteen. Rachel continued to work as a bartender up until she became pregnant with Ezra, while Jacob, after finishing his studies, obtained a lucrative job as an associate attorney at a major local law firm and had made partner by Ezra’s birth. Rachel and Jacob are both Jewish, though it is not a major part of their lives, and they only occasionally attend temple services.

Rachel and Jacob had a happy marriage, but ran into a number of difficulties as the older children were growing up. Rachel, in particular, grew up with very strict parents and wanted to give her children more freedom. They handled their children with a light touch, which unfortunately backfired as Ethan fell into a pattern of delinquent behavior; Rachel and Jacob attempted to backpedal and establish stricter rules with Rebecca and Sarah as they entered their teens, but the girls resented the sudden lack of freedom and began to act out more strongly. At this stage, Rachel especially was despondent, feeling that she was failing as a mother. It was Jacob who suggested they could try again with a fourth child.

When Rachel confirmed her pregnancy, she immediately quit her job and began to focus on her pregnancy to the exclusion of all else, resulting in her neglecting her older children and fostering further resentment. All three older children had moved out of the family home by the time Ezra was old enough to start forming memories. Ethan has had minimal contact with the family since, with Ezra having only met him a couple of times and having a vague impression of him as a short-tempered man with a gambling problem. Rebecca has fully cut ties with her parents and youngest brother and only maintains contact with Sarah. Sarah has in recent years begun to make an effort to reach back out to her parents. Ezra has seen her a few times a year since the start of high school, though she seems to him more like a distant aunt than a sister.

Ezra was doted on by his parents, especially Rachel as his primary caretaker, from birth. He was a particularly friendly and affectionate child from his earliest years, and he was excited to start elementary school and start making new friends. Rachel and Jacob had vowed not to repeat the mistakes they had made with their older children and kept themselves tightly involved with Ezra’s schooling and other activities from an early age; he was not allowed to spend time with friends whose parents they had not met, for example. When Ezra’s kindergarten teacher mentioned offhandedly that he was having a slower start in reading than most of the other students, Rachel immediately hired a tutor to ensure he was up to speed; Ezra has continued to have tutors in various subjects up to the present day to help him keep up the high grades his parents expect of him. At this early age expectations were somewhat limited, but for as far back as he can remember, Ezra recalls feeling some level of pressure from his parents to do well in all things.

Rachel and Jacob were both in agreement that getting involved in a sport would help instill the discipline in Ezra that they felt their other children were lacking; it was Jacob who suggested Little League, as he was a big baseball fan and had never gotten to play himself as a child. Ezra took to baseball quickly, appearing to be quite gifted compared to the other children on his team, instilling pride in Jacob specifically, who tried to never miss a game. For his part, Ezra enjoyed playing with other kids and was happy to be praised by his parents, though he was never highly invested in it for its own sake, and he did not take his father’s claims that he could go pro one day seriously. He did come to enjoy watching MLB games on TV with his dad, who grew up in Boston and was a big Red Sox fan; Ezra, who was not inclined to root for any team in particular but liked seeing his father happy, picked up cheering for the same team.

As Ezra aged into early adolescence and started middle school, he retained a reputation as a friendly and cheerful boy. He became known as someone who would go out of his way to help others, encouraged to selflessness by his parents; he was happy to help his peers with their schoolwork or to assist his teammates on his Little League team with practicing their swing, for example, with more patience than would be expected for a child his age. He was also known as someone who always had something going on and who often had to say no to hanging out with friends because of family obligations, tutoring, or a new club or sport he was trying out. His parents encouraged him to try out a host of different activities, from piano to hockey to horseback riding. While Ezra was loath to disappoint his family, he found the constant stream of new activities exhausting and didn’t keep up with anything his parents suggested for longer than a month. While he was still doing well in school and he felt secure with his group of friends, the pressure from his parents was beginning to weigh on him, though he felt deeply guilty for this feeling rather than resentful as his siblings had once been.

It was when Ezra was in the eighth grade that Rachel returned to her old job as a bartender, to Jacob’s disapproval. This sparked a fight between the two, as Jacob believed Ezra was best served by Rachel remaining a stay-at-home mother until he went to college. While the fight was minor and seemed to pass quickly, some tension remained in the home, as Rachel and Jacob had been a united front for many years, and even this much arguing was unusual for them. Ezra found himself placating his parents more than usual and throwing himself harder into his studies and activities, hoping to distract them with his own accomplishments. This only increased the pressure Ezra put on himself further, but he felt that he owed it to his parents to continue pushing himself to his limits. This situation cemented an already-latent tendency in Ezra to avoid conflict at all costs; even in confrontations he has less personal stake in, he has a habit of internalizing the problem as his own fault and seeking immediate, simple solutions.

As Ezra entered Red Rock, encouraged by Jacob especially due to the strength of the school’s baseball team, he quickly realized he was getting in over his head. While he did not previously find schoolwork overly strenuous, particularly with his tutors’ assistance, he found he had to use significantly more time and effort to maintain the straight-As his parents expected from him. At the same time, he went from a star player on his Little League team to a mediocre one at school; it was obvious that he was outclassed by several other freshmen, let alone older students on the team. Ezra tentatively went to his parents for advice, but they were dismissive, saying that he had always been able to overcome anything by working hard and that he could continue to do so.

Rachel suggested, almost as an afterthought, that he consider keeping a journal to assist with his stress, as she remembered doing so as a teenager. Ezra complied, and quickly he found himself filling the black notebook Rachel purchased for him with more and more text every day. He found the process of emptying his thoughts into his journal to be therapeutic and made a point of writing something down every day, though on some days he was unable to muster the energy to do anything but scribble. He has at this point filled multiple notebooks, all identical but for the dates written on the cover; he keeps the complete notebooks stored safely in a box under his bed.

High school only increased the options Ezra had for extracurricular activities, and his parents encouraged him to continue trying new things, particularly clubs that would potentially look good on his college applications. He found himself wandering somewhat aimlessly between after-school activities, not interested in anything enough to stick with it for long but not wanting to disappoint his parents. It was in his sophomore year that a friend suggested to him that he look into joining the cheerleading squad, as it had a schedule that did not conflict with the baseball team’s, and a number of his friends were already in the squad. Wanting to do something of his own accord and not his parents’ for once, Ezra agreed and quickly found himself absorbed into the group. While he isn’t particularly talented, Ezra genuinely enjoys being part of the cheer squad, as it serves as a social activity as well as one where he doesn’t feel pressure both from within and without to perform at the highest possible standard. He is always happy to take a supporting role and is frankly happiest if the eyes of observers are anywhere but on him; unlike on the baseball team, where he often feels like he is letting his teammates down, as part of the cheer squad he feels as though the team’s success is his own.

While cheer in particular served as a strong form of stress relief for Ezra at school, the lingering tension at home combined with constant cajoling from his parents made being home increasingly unpleasant for him. For as long as Ezra could remember, Rachel kept a small garden in the backyard of their Meadowbrook home; he had never taken any particular interest, but one day after a particularly hard day at school, he came home to find his mother working in the garden and asked if he could join her. Rachel was reluctant to take his attention away from things she considered more important, but she acquiesced as it was rare to see him take interest in something new. She set him up with his own small garden plot, which he has been tending to ever since. He finds the process meditative in much the way he does for journaling. He prefers to grow flowers, as he appreciates them aesthetically and also enjoys pressing them and saving them inside his journals.

It was also around this time that, at Jacob’s suggestion, the family adopted a golden retriever puppy named Simon. While he is ostensibly the family’s dog, Simon has bonded particularly strongly with Ezra. Ezra feels strongly bonded to him in return, finding his unconditional love to be very helpful to his mental state, though as the pressures on him continued to worsen, there was only so much Simon could do.

Going into junior and especially senior year, the pressure Ezra felt from his parents only increased with college looming in the near future. His grades had suffered badly from the mental strain he had been under, with his near-straight A average dipping into mostly Cs by the end of his junior year. Deeply afraid of disappointing his parents and unable to think of a better solution, Ezra took to hiding his grades wherever possible; he has on several occasions edited a grade on a paper or test with red pen before showing it to his parents to further avoid their potential ire. Ezra continues to receive tutoring to this day, though it does not help much, as Ezra’s main academic issues are down to compiling stress and anxiety rather than any actual difficulty with the material.

As of the present day, while Ezra still enjoys being part of the cheer squad and has an active and mostly happy social life, he is floundering academically and lives in a state of constant fear that his parents will find out that he is what he considers a failure. While he has been a consistent part of the baseball team since his freshman year, his performance has never risen beyond mediocre, and he actively discourages his parents from attending his games for fear of disappointing them with his performance; when Jacob cannot be dissuaded, Ezra has come up with a variety of excuses for his unimpressive performance. He has convinced his parents that he has been waitlisted for The University of Texas at Austin, a school his mother encouraged him to apply for despite him being quite sure he would not make the grade, despite having received a denial letter; he knows his parents will be disappointed when he finally tells them that he was not admitted and is trying to put that off for as long as possible. He has actually been accepted to Nevada State University and is hoping to attend in the fall, though he has no real ideas as to what he wants to go to school for. His parents have strong feelings about his path forward, with Jacob wanting him to continue to pursue baseball and Rachel wanting him to start schooling in pre-med or law, but Ezra knows full well that he is not cut out for any of the above, and he feels as though he has never gotten an opportunity to explore his own interests rather than letting his parents pick them for him. He hopes that once he is finally away from home he may finally be able to figure out what he actually wants, but at this point he is so burnt out that he finds it difficult to find much solace in the future.

Ezra has maintained a reputation as a friendly and helpful presence to this day, always eager to lend a hand or listen to a friend in need. He is loath to talk about his own problems and waves off any concerns his friends have about him, and tends to be equally vague about his future plans. He is intelligent but tends to be somewhat naive and easily led, as he has spent his whole life so far under close and unquestioned control of his parents. His friends know him as someone who can be counted on as a friendly ear and who will always do his best in any situation, but who will also wilt quickly under any pressure and will falter in the face of potential conflict. Ezra worries very much about being perceived as a successful and decent person, first by his parents and then by his peers; he lives under a constant cloud of anxiety that his endeavors in this regard have been in vain and that everyone around him can already see that he is the failure he is desperately afraid of becoming.

Advantages: Ezra is physically fit and quite strong. He is generally well-liked and has cultivated a reputation as a helpful and kind person who would make a valuable ally.
Disadvantages: Ezra has developed latent anxiety issues over the years and tends to react to being overwhelmed by shutting down, which could prove fatal on the island. He is quite naive and trusting and could potentially be manipulated or misled by other students.