Erika Stieglitz

[Shiola]

Name: Erika Stieglitz
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Photography, indie films, video games, environmental activism
Appearance: Erika stands tall at just shy of six feet, though her posture and diminutive frame often make her seem shorter. She is quite thin - not unhealthily so, but she's often been described as the kind of person who might "blow away in the wind." Her features are quite clearly northern European, with light blonde hair and sharp, well-defined facial features. She has a light skin tone, with faint freckles on her face and arms. Her eyes are light gray, verging on blue. If she isn't wearing contact lenses, she has a pair of nondescript thick-rimmed eyeglasses.

Her shoulder-length hair is a frazzled mess of braids, coloured strands, and a few ornament-laden dreadlocks. Though it seems so be so disorganized as to be intentional, she genuinely does the bare minimum of maintenance on it. Befitting her somewhat impulsive nature, she has several ear piercings, a few of which she did herself - a cartilage piercing on the left ear, an industrial in the right, and small spacers in both earlobes. At the insistence of her parents, her eyebrow and lip piercings were professionally done. On any given day she wears little makeup, usually only making use of eyeliner and masking any acne breakouts if necessary. Her arms are usually littered with handmade bracelets, and she wears rings with designs from demon skulls to wildflowers.

In dress, Erika typically wears what one might expect of a typical stoner kid - torn jeans and knit sweaters in the winter, long summer dresses in the warmer months. It is safe to say that the vast majority of her wardrobe comes from thrift stores and Fair Trade websites, and Erika wouldn't have it any other way. Her school bag is a green sack made of hemp fabric and reclaimed military tent canvas, and is littered with environmental activist buttons. As for shoes, she's rarely seen outside of a pair of old black & white vans, though she occasionally breaks out a pair of high necked Doc Martens she affectionately refers to as her "ass kicking" boots.

On the day of the abduction, she is wearing a pair of torn black jeans, a low cut green v-neck t shirt, a knit cardigan that is at least two sizes too large for her, and the aforementioned boots.

Biography: Erika P. Stieglitz was born as Philip Erich Stieglitz to parents Rudi and Irene of Austin, Texas.
Rudi is an academic from Berlin who specializes in German Literature and Political Science, receiving his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. Irene Stieglitz (neé Miller) is a native of Austin and a fellow academic, though she specializes in computer science and has recently taken a teaching position in Chattanooga State Community College.

Though they seemed worlds apart in terms of interests, temperament, and political ideology (Rudi is from East Berlin and wildly left leaning, whereas Irene is an old-school libertarian) they have a happy marriage and an active social life together.

Philip was seen as a kind, quiet child with a creative streak. On family outings he would express a boundless enthusiasm for the outdoors, easily getting distracted and running off into the woods. He very much fit the cliché of a child fascinated by the strange bugs hiding under rocks, and would often come home from school covered in dirt.

As both Rudi and Irene had very busy schedules, they attempted to occupy much of Philip's time with extra-curriculars, and quickly ascertained that typical "boy activities" simply wouldn't do. He was far more likely to pick up a book and read under a tree than run around in a field or toss a ball around. At first they ascribed this to a more intellectual nature on his part, and Rudi tried his best to encourage those kinds of pursuits.

They mostly assumed that Philip took after his parents, themselves both heavily cerebral academics. However, their son's quiet demeanor had a dark side. It became apparent around age eleven that he was as deeply depressed as an eleven year old could be, and withdrew from anything he wasn't expressly compelled to do. When asked the reason for his sullen demeanor, he would often respond with a quiet "I don't know." Pediatricians suggested courses of anti-depressants, which Irene and Rudi were both vehemently against, though they were desperate for some kind of solution.

Myriad other issues began to bubble to the surface, culminating in Philip's running away from home at thirteen years old. After a two-day search, he was found hiding in a park just outside of the city, suffering from wounds from a serious, fifteen-foot fall into the ravine that the bridge spanned across. Philip required nearly a dozen stitches and had broken a rib and his left arm.

After a brief hospital stay, Rudi and Irene finally confronted Philip; Irene had read Philip's journal in desperation while he was missing, and it confirmed their suspicions. While he obviously knew he was a boy, he'd always entertained the notion that somehow, someway, he'd grow up to be a girl. It had to be possible, because any other result would be horrific. When he let this slip to a classmate, he was ridiculed and bullied. The magical thinking he'd been relying on to get through the day was shattered, and it was difficult enough to accept that he felt the need to run far away.

The two academics reassured their son that they were always on his side, and then spent the next month reading every paper on transgender children that they could. Late night debates over whisky and schnapps would often erupt into volatile arguments and tears, and it placed an enormous strain on their marriage. While they accepted the theory behind treatment for gender dysphoria, it was not what they had expected for their son, nor something that they had ever prepared for. Rudi launched into hyperbolic tirades that there was simply no place in this country for someone like Philip, and would loudly declare be driven out of anywhere that they tried to move to. The idea of staying in America, at the time, seemed like a death sentence for his child. He naturally suggested returning to Germany, an action that Irene made clear would be the end of their marriage.

Though Irene liked to think of herself as a socially progressive individual, her own upbringing and hangups over the nature of womanhood gave her an uncomfortable degree of hostility to the notion that she would be raising a daughter. She had a difficult time connecting with other women, as her own mother and sister had been emotionally abusive. Her issues predominantly stemmed from the fear that she would inevitably drift apart from her daughter, as she herself was never tremendously attached to traditional notions of womanhood.

They opted to support Philip's decision regardless, and she chose the name Erika Philip Stieglitz from that point forward. Though her middle name was explicitly masculine, Erika felt the need to at least honour her childhood and to not erase who she had grown up as completely. Connecting with other parents of transgender children and actively reaching out online for support groups helped allay Irene and Rudi's fears somewhat. They are still wildly cautious and protective of their daughter, but make an active attempt not to smother her.

The next few years were quite difficult, though Erika seemed to take on a newfound energy, and took up a variety of interests and hobbies; it became difficult to keep up with her. Every night at the dinner table it seemed like she'd found a new piece of information to regale her parents with. As she dealt with a considerable degree of bullying, she would often retreat into her bedroom and binge-watch independent films from obscure European directors or anything sufficiently low-budget from the late nineties and early 2000s. It seemed difficult to relate to at first, but Rudi eventually started searching for copies of his favourite films and offering them as suggestions to her. They fit the bill of "weird" which Erika was looking for, and they helped her brush up on her German here and there. That she actually took the time to engage with her father in this way did quite a bit to help allay his fears that he was losing his child.

Though her family life remained stable, she still dealt with quite a bit of bullying, even after switching out of her original school. Finding acceptance from her peers, to say nothing of a few school officials, was very difficult. After a few years, the family made the decision to move to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The move was predicated on job opportunities for Irene, as Rudi then earned most of his money through investments. Erika protested the move even as they were loading boxes into a truck, as Chattanooga wasn't exactly the most socially progressive place in the country. The fact was, Irene's career had become increasingly stagnant and her options were limited. As well, her two other possible options (California, New York) had more restrictive gun laws than she, a prolific gun owner, was comfortable with. The tacit agreement was that Erika would stick it out through high school, and they would promise to pay for her to do her post-secondary education abroad.

Erika would arrive with a completely fresh start at the beginning of high school, and welcomed the opportunity to express herself free of the pressure to be as unremarkable as possible. She began to nurse her passions for environmentalism and the natural world, partaking in as many forms of activism as were available to a high school student. Though not ethically opposed to the consumption of meat, she nevertheless opted to become a vegetarian so as to lower her personal carbon footprint. She refuses to be driven to school – taking a bike even in the worst kind of weather. Erika will readily take to any small project that might reduce her impact on the natural world – from making her own clothing and soap to ending her parents' addiction to water bottles.

She is known for a kind disposition, and her commitment to these causes is as much emotional as it is intellectual. Erika has described feeling physically ill at the thought of a world ravaged by climate change, and feels no small degree of anxiety that the world in might not be fit to live in someday. Furthermore she believes that most things that are environmentally conscious are usually more efficient and economical, and there isn't a particular reason it ought to be a partisan or even a government issue. At least, this is the line she uses on her "fiscally-conservative" mother who often bemoans the idea of government intervention on any issue and is more readily persuaded by arguments that involve private enterprise. The notion of a technological or scientific solution to the woes of climate change appeals to Erika's bookish disposition, and the subjects in school that have met most of her enthusiasm are the hard sciences and math.

Her self-expression primarily takes the form of nature photography, and she has been warming up to Tennessee if only because it provides ample opportunities in that regard. Trips through the Smoky Mountains with her father, an avid hiker, mean that she rarely had to look for a place to shoot. Lately she had been warming up to the idea of taking portraits, provided that she could find anyone willing to pose for her.

Her high school years haven't been completely rosy. Erika continues to suffer from an anxiety disorder as a result of the bullying she received in primary school; to combat this, she has self-medicated with cannabis to a significant degree, first taking the drug in the end of her sophomore year and readily using it ever since. Though it does seem to help her socialize, it is clear that it is something of a crutch. Also, aside from classes that arouse her particular interests her academic performance has become sub-optimal at best. Though her parents have taken her to therapy, she finds the continual rehashing of her mental health issues mostly exhausting. Leaving sessions she usually finds she feels worse than when she went in, and will take any excuse not to go.

Erika and her mother are still close, though they don't often see eye-to-eye on a number of topics. Irene is an enthusiastic gun owner and holds to her self-described feminist ideal that the greatest equalizer among the genders is a gun. The two of them frequently go to a shooting range together, and have occasionally competed in low-level two and three gun competitions. Though not tremendously enthusiastic about this hobby, Erika rarely protests as it clearly makes her mother quite happy. Irene characterizes the activity as a kind of female bonding, and in all likelihood it is a coping mechanism for dealing with Erika's transition - both as a means to ensure Erika's safety and to not lose touch with her daughter.

Typically Erika hangs around activist and stoner crowds, though she quite deliberately doesn't participate in her school's GSA. Her closest friends are her online gaming friends, with whom she frequently plays MMOs and the occasional first-person shooter. It is both the geographic distance between them and the physical distance imposed by an online setting that allows her to be comfortable opening up to these people, and she knows them on a first-name basis as opposed to online handles. It seems to be a form of "safe" socialization for Erika, and the development of these relationships has helped her break outside of her shell slightly in the outside world.

Looking to her senior year, Erika is beginning to find a bit of equilibrium with her free-spirited impulses and a desire to competently live her own life. During the summer, she had begun her first proper search for a part-time job, something previously obstructed by her anxieties and that of her parents. While this has been largely unsuccessful to begin with, she finds the relatively straightforward challenge of finding a part-time job refreshing. She describes her home life as often quite overbearing, and more than anything else she looks forward to the opportunity to go away to college or university. The idea of going away to school has motivated her to improve her grades and cut back on indulging her impulses with drugs and alcohol, though how much success she'll find remains to be seen.

Advantages:The most obvious advantage Erika has is a familiarity with firearms. Even though she isn't particularly passionate about them as a hobby, she has personally shot thousands of rounds of ammunition with her mother and is quite comfortable handling handguns, shotguns, and semiautomatic rifles. Erika is quite charismatic and able to easily ingratiate herself with groups, and won't have any trouble finding safety in numbers.
Disadvantages: Erika has kept many of her peers at a distance, not developing many close attachments. While she makes friends easily, the list of people who would really say that they know or care for her is quite small. That is to say, while she won't necessarily be alone, she will invariably end up as the odd one out in a group. In spite of what might seem like confidence on the surface, she clearly has unresolved issues with anxiety and depression, which could very much impede her chances at survival, or at least her will to. Her reaction to crisis and stress is either to run or shut down completely, and the chances that she'll keep a cool head are slim. Additionally, she isn't the most physically adept person and does little to no physical activity outside of the odd hike; in the absence of a firearm she will find physical confrontation extremely difficult.