S113 - York, Oakley [DECEASED]

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Name: Oakley York
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Wikipedia/Wikis, acting, reality television, DIY fashion

Appearance: At 5'10" and 160 lbs, Oakley has a fairly typical build for a fit but not athletic boy. He has a long face, with a pointed nose, wide set eyes under bushy eyebrows, full lips, and square ears. His eyes are dark brown, and his hair is straight and black. Currently, his hair is shaved into a tonsure, something he adopted for a Halloween costume and has maintained since throughout practice for a role as Friar Laurence in a community theatre production of Romeo and Juliet scheduled to take place right after the new year. He has used this as an excuse to wear unusual hats over the past months.

Oakley dresses in a style that highlights his sense of humor and creativity, often incorporating homemade or modified articles of clothing. On the day of the abduction, he was wearing a white t-shirt which read " == Help == : : <nowiki> " on it, carefully written in black paint, blue jeans with a heart-shaped patch over the left knee, black hiking boots, a heavy green windbreaker, mismatched fingerless gloves, the left in black and the right in bright red (though he had both of the matching pairs in his pockets), and a zebra-striped faux fur ushanka.

Oakley is Caucasian. He has no tattoos, piercings, or notable scars. His posture is good due to meticulous practice, and he has a clear complexion.

Biography: Oakley was born on October 17, 2003, to father Daniel and mother Linda York, in a hospital in Boston. Daniel was a dentist, and Linda handled receptionist and administrative duties at his practice; together the couple had an upper-middle-class life, and Daniel never wanted for anything. He was the couple's second and final child, following elder sister Sheri by six years.

Oakley was a social and extroverted child from the start, and was quite excited to begin school, as he had an easier time interacting with kids his age than with his significantly older sister. While he was quickly able to win a measure of admiration from many of his classmates for his quick wit and assertive personality, he also rubbed some of his peers the wrong way, coming across as pushy or losing interest in peers who failed to give him enough attention. Oakley got in a number of arguments and a couple of minor physical confrontations due to this, and was disciplined by his parents, though this mostly made him resent those he feuded with more, as he blamed them for getting him in trouble. All of this left Oakley with a mixed reputation among his classmates; his friends thought he was clever, funny, and a good leader, while some of his less popular classmates thought him petty and casually mean.

Moving into middle school, Oakley discovered a new way to secure the attention of his peers: vagueness. He would tell a story or give an opinion, offering just enough to hook his listeners' interest, then omitting or leaving to implication important aspects. This forced his audience to engage with him to pry out what he actually meant, which reinforced his behavior; while some of his peers had no patience for such things, the increased attention from others more than made up for it.

By the time he started high school, Oakley had secured a less adversarial niche for himself in the social hierarchy, learning to find people who offered what he needed (typically attention and respect) and to keep his engagement with others within socially-acceptable parameters.

A key outlet for Oakley is acting. He became aware of the profession early from watching television with his family, but it only really came up on his radar as something he could be involved with in middle school. He enrolled in his school's acting class, and soon came to favor theater over film, loving the direct connection between performer and audience, the instant feedback, and the practice and routine of learning a role. He still takes acting class, but also acts outside of school with a local community theater group, and has found solid success there. Oakley plays a wide range of roles, but prefers to have at least a notable supporting part. He has come to turn up his nose at background or extra roles, at least in the communities he has long participated in, viewing himself as beyond such beginner fare. He's talented and generally well-behaved enough to have avoided major drama from this so far, though has privately been counseled that if he ever hopes to take his passion further he may want to reconsider his stance.

Oakley is also interested in reality television, in large part because it is in many ways distinct from acting but in others closer than might be expected. He appreciates reality shows for how they put seemingly ordinary people on the spot and then craft narratives from their actions, and especially appreciates the work put in by editing teams to create coherent stories. He first discovered these shows in late elementary school, watching them with his family, and was swept along with the drama especially of Survivor and The Amazing Race. In the years since, he has become much more analytical in his approach, and tries to predict developments based on how various participants are portrayed by the edit. Oakley has very mixed feelings about participants intentionally exaggerating themselves for the sake of these shows; he feels like it dilutes what makes the genre interesting, but also is very aware that he would likely do the same. He has seriously looked into auditioning for some of these shows, and hopes to put together an audition tape for Survivor after high school.

Over the years, Oakley has cultivated a very distinctive image among his class, frequently turning up in unusual outfits and always on the lookout for new and dramatic accessories and articles of clothing to incorporate into his look. He first started paying attention to how he dressed in late middle school; when the family's washing machine was broken for a week, Oakley ended up being sent to school in an oversized Hawaiian shirt borrowed from his father. While he started the day mortified, he quickly grew to relish the attention it brought him in the form of confused peers, and was able to claim the shirt as his own. From that point on, he's veered towards ever-wilder forms of self-expression, though most of what he's expressing is just a desire to be the center of attention. He tends to treat his outfits as a game, hewing to the letter of the school's dress code while flouting the spirit; his most recent trick is pairing his unconventional haircut with eye-catching hats, enjoying the ability to remove his hat when directed without being any less conspicuous. Oakley sources his clothing from thrift stores and online stores, but frequently modifies it. His sewing skills are rudimentary, and his passion is for the result rather than the process. His parents are content to let him do as he likes so long as he spends his own money, though they often tell him that they'll use pictures of him to tease him years in the future.

Oakley also spends much of his time editing Wikipedia. He first became aware of the site when doing research for class, but also became involved with fan wikis for reality shows. He put some work into editing and updating these, and enjoyed seeing his changes reflected on the site and built upon by others. He soon fell into making edits to Wikipedia proper. Most of Oakley's activity is centered around correcting formatting, tone, and grammar, and he regularly edits articles on subjects he knows nothing about. He finds the practice fulfilling and believes he's making a positive impact on the world, but is also extremely particular in his preferences and has become embroiled in heated arguments with other users over preferred syntax. On some occasions, he has even vandalized pages under an alternate account.

Nowadays, Oakley is in a fairly good spot. He does well in school, though not exceptionally so, with his strongest showings coming in English, acting, and math class, all of which benefit from his attention to detail and control of language. He struggles more with softer science classes and with history, which frequently fail to hold his interest. In class, Oakley can dominate conversations, which sometimes is welcomed by his teachers but sometimes can be slightly disruptive. He generally gets along reasonably well with his teachers, and respects their authority, at least to their face.

His social life is a little more mixed. He's popular among his friends, but tends to take their support and friendship for granted, and has at several points fallen out with those he was once close to in fairly explosive fashion. Most notably, Oakley is very willing to coax his friends (and anyone else he can) into acting to his benefit, usually in the form of providing assistance. In sophomore year, he copied a friend's history test, then blamed his friend for being the one doing the copying and ultimately convinced the boy to falsely admit it, taking the failing grade, by playing to his sympathy and claiming to be doing worse in the class than he actually was. This relationship disintegrated entirely when, a few months later, Oakley openly bragged about the deception to mutual friends. Oakley is also very good at socially cornering his friends into turning up to his shows, pestering them and refusing to allow them to politely extricate themselves from his invitations, whether or not they have any interest in theatre. Outside of his group, Oakley is sometimes considered a little annoying or unpleasant due to his stubbornness, talkative nature, and tendency to beat around the bush, and he has had a handful of disputes even with others outside his immediate circle.

Oakley gets along fairly well with his family. He and his father have bonded over a shared fondness for musical theater, and will often quote the dentist's song from Little Shop Of Horrors to each other. His mother is a fan of reality television as well and often watches it with him, but approaches it from a very different angle; she tends to be more interested in the strategy, and less in the editorial side of things. Oakley's sister lives in New York City with her husband and their newborn daughter, and Oakley talks with her much less than the rest of his family, but he spent two weeks staying with her in the summer between junior and senior year and enjoyed the trip greatly.

Oakley has been applying to colleges, both close to home and further afield, and expects to start undergrad soon after graduating high school. He presently intends to major in acting, and hopes to approach the art on a more professional level, though is weighing taking a more "practical" double major as a fallback option.

Advantages: Oakley is a talented actor and can convincingly fake emotions other than what he's feeling. He has a generally self-centered attitude, and is willing to use others—even his friends—to get what he wants.
Disadvantages: Oakley has a hard time admitting that he's wrong, and tends to be needlessly cagey with others, which will make cultivating trust difficult. His past actions and difficult attitude have earned him a handful of enemies in the class, and a greater number who are wary of him.

Designated Number: Student No. 113

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Designated Weapon: Keys to a snowmobile

Conclusion: Twenty bucks to the first person to steal his hat and slap the top of his bald head. Seriously. I'll arrange to have it air-dropped to the island. Or maybe he'll get real creative and try to use the glare from his head to signal a passing plane? Ooh, or- - Josh Baines

For fuck's sake Baines, it's not that funny. - Matt Richards

Upset because you're thinning a little on top these days, aren't you? - Josh Baines

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