S134 - Kieran, John

#1

Name: John Kieran
Gender: Non-Binary
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Video Games, politics, activism, debating, Victoria-era History, electrical guitar, Metal music, Punk music, Cooking.

Appearance: John is 6’0” and weighs 178 lbs. They have a normal, but slightly slim build as a result. They are white, due to their European heritage, and have some blemishes on their cheeks and above their nose.

John has short, brown hair, styled in a side part. They have thick round eyebrows. They are cleanly shaved, and have a long face, hazel eyes, and their nose is wide, as is their mouth.

They usually wear a combination of jeans, denim jackets, and band tees. They also exclusively wear Vans brand sneakers. On some days they wear hoodies or sweaters. On the day of the trip, they wore black vans with white soles, dark blue jeans, an ‘Alien Weaponry’ band hoodie, and a black, white and gray flannel plaid jacket. They are also wearing a pair of fingerless fishnet gloves, and have dark indigo painted nails.

Biography: John Kieran was born on June 27th 2003, to Valerie and Michael Kieran, who both lived a lower middle-class lifestyle at the time of John’s birth. After the birth of their brother, Alex, Michael got a job as a financial analyst and would progressively make more money through raises over time.

Their grades since elementary school have always been B’s to A’s, and their parents were always very lax on grades, as long as John demonstrated that they were putting the effort in to 'try their hardest.' However, while most of the time John showed effort, sometimes their effort slipped and they became lazy, which is something that their parents did not tolerate. That, and a lack of focus in the classroom. Numerous times did their teachers complain about their lack of focus, but that would never really improve. Their parents would never look into this further, and it persists to this day.

The lack of pressure to perform well never really impacted John’s ability in a positive or negative way, and due to their parent’s hardly being on their back, they were able to get into a lot of video games. They started playing Call of Duty on the PlayStation 2, and inherited their father’s old laptop, and were introduced to World of Warcraft by their father and some extended family, which sucked up a lot of their free time. To this day, John still plays World of Warcraft, just less intensely than they did as a child. John’s relationship with video games was one of imagination and immersion. They really loved to immerse themselves in the video games worlds, since sometimes they found the real world boring. They would also play a lot of strategy games, like Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis and various Total War Franchise games, especially Total War: Warhammer. Unlike other video games, John’s love for strategy games isn’t out of immersion or love for the setting, but more out of competitiveness. Unless the game was a Warhammer strategy game, which in that case it was both immersion and competitiveness, John became competitive with online and real-life friends over Hearts of Iron 4 and Europa Universalis 4. However, John would never get very good at either games, and with any other competitive games that they would play with friends.

While in middle school, John got into history, and their large knowledge of history got them a lot of praise from their teachers. John particularly enjoyed learning about history, at a younger age, because they loved imagining the lives of people in the past and how different life is nowadays. Even though they would eventually outgrow this obsession with history, their love for specifically the Victorian era would persist. They particularly like Victorian era history due to its influence on modern geopolitics, believing that it is very important to know the history of many geopolitical conflicts and policies. They also enjoy periods such as the Second World War, the Crusades, Three-Kingdoms Era China, among other periods.

2015 was a turning point for John, because while they had always been exposed to politics even when young, the 2016 election was the first time they became invested. While starting out very conservative, much like an early teen, they bounced around the political spectrum before landing comfortably in the socialist section. John likes to debate, talk policy, and wishes to go to college for political science and public policy. They particularly like these topics because they believe that they should use their energy to help their community and country, being inspired by speakers they like to watch and listen to.

However, later on after 2016, John leaned further and further left after exposing themself to left-wing youtube channels, before fully identifying with the left in 2018. They watched a lot of ContraPoints, Destiny, and later on started watching AdamSomething, Vaush and Keffals. John particularly subscribes to what they call “market forms of socialism” and “libertarian forms of socialist systems.”

Because of their interests in politics, John often debates in school and online. They are very involved in online forums and voice chats, debating with various people, and they also engage in remote forms of activism. For example, they had worked for a few months for the Young Democratic Socialists of America getting people registered to vote, and joining the DSA organization.

John has an okay relationship with their immediate family, usually getting along with them, but recently a rift has been driven through due to their choices in what John wants to study. John's family pushes them to become a lawyer, and often tries guilt in order to do this, but John is incredibly adamant in the more political studies that they want to pursue. That, and also when they came out as pansexual around freshman year, is what is driving the rift, since John's family doesn't exactly accept them for their sexual preference, more just tolerating their pansexuality.

John’s relationship with extended family is also very close, frequently visiting both sides of the family, their favorite always being visits to their fathers side. John’s paternal grandparents, aunts and uncles were very active, in the sense that they loved cooking, and making homemade alcohol. Their parents are very lax about underage drinking, saying it is a “part of teenage growing up,” but tells John to only drink in moderation. This gave them an appreciation for food, frequently trying new things. John loved cooking, mostly because they loved to try new combinations and recipes, but also because they love treating the people they love to a beautiful meal. John's favorite thing to cook was BBQ food, loving to sit outside early in the morning to wait hours for slow-cooking food to finish. They especially loved doing this over a few beers with their father, and other members of their extended family.

John had always experienced confusion with their gender, but had really started questioning at the same time as they moved leftward on the political spectrum. Never really thinking they fit into any gender role, they were depressed about themselves, feeling lost. But, after learning about non-binary genders, John started exploring themself, and soon found themselves to be completely agender. To this day, while they had come out to their friends, they are afraid to come out to their parents due to their opinions on non-binary genders.

John's friends supported them greatly during this period of gender introspection, and because of this, they feel very defensive of their friends, often standing up for them in the face of bullying or interpersonal drama. However, this has gotten John in some sticky situations, with the school, and also outside of school. John has, however, never gotten into a physical fight. John being loyal to their friends has also led to one situation in which they were manipulated by a friend, and soon-to-be significant other, which left John very depressed. However, this did not dissuade John to be less defensive and loyal to friends, but simply led to John being a lot more careful in their choice of friend.

They also focus a lot on playing their guitar, which they had recently picked up in their sophomore year of high school. John wanted to replicate their favorite thrash metal and punk bands. However, later on in life, they gained a larger appreciation for Technical Death Metal, Progressive Metal and Metalcore. They go to many punk and metal shows in the local area, as well as seeing bigger bands such as Gojira, Alien Weaponry and Knocked Loose. John particularly enjoys playing the guitar because they love aggressive music, letting them release a lot of pent-up energy from stress from school and life. Plus, their parents are fans of similar genres, them both being more 90s Nu Metal and Alternative Metal fans, so John would sometimes learn songs from that era to impress them.

Advantages: John is loyal to their friends, and for that reason, would have an easy time finding allies. John is also very logic-minded, and plans many things in advance before doing them.
Disadvantages: John is known to put themself on the line for their friends, which could lead to being caught in difficult situations as a result. John is also very forgiving of people, and could be taken advantage as a result.

Designated Number: Student No. 134

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Designated Weapon: Military Entrenching Tool

Conclusion: Altruism and loyalty are poor qualities in a situation where only one person can survive. The trenching tool would therefore only be good for digging graves. Let this one be the last to be filled. - Boris Petrikov