B011 - Vee, Sven [DECEASED]

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DECEASED

Name: Sven Alexandria Bartholomew "Library" Vee
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Grade: Senior
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Art (making and analyzing), yoga, meditation, philosophy, Go

Appearance: Sven stands at 5'10" and weighs 190 lbs, leaving him roughly average in height and slightly heavyset. His build is a bit stocky, and he carries his extra weight mostly around his middle and in his thighs and upper arms. Sven has straight, dark brown hair that falls to a couple inches below his shoulders; he usually wears it tied back to keep it out of his face. His eyes are dark brown, and close inspection reveals that his left eye is artificial; while generally convincing, its mobility is not perfect and its pupil does not dilate in any fashion. Sven tends to wear sunglasses where vaguely appropriate to disguise this fact. Sven is Caucasian, and doesn't spend too much time outdoors so rarely gets too tan, even in the summer.

His face is round and his nose large, showing evidence of having been broken. The left side of Sven's face is badly scarred, particularly along his jaw line, but he grows out his facial hair to hide this; while there are several patches that don't grow hair properly, the full growth in other parts of his face lets him more or less mask these areas. Sven thus usually sports a neatly-trimmed beard about an inch and a half in length.

Sven dresses in an understated fashion, favoring blue jeans and long-sleeved shirts. On the day of the abduction, he was wearing dark blue jeans, a dark green and chartreuse plaid flannel shirt, black shoes, brown-lensed square-framed sunglasses. black shoes, and a hemp bracelet. His hair was tied back, and he had two extra hair ties in his pockets, along with his wallet and a number of coins and knickknacks. Sven was naturally left-handed, but now often favors his right hand and can use both generally equally well.

Biography: Born on December 12, 1998, to Sally and Thomas Vee, a pair of middle class retail executives, Sven Alexandria Bartholomew Vee—given one middle name by each parent when they found themselves unable to compromise—had a fairly easy childhood. His family's financial situation left his parents able to see all his needs met, and while sometimes they parked him with extended family or a babysitter, they always made sure to also give him direct and personal attention. Even at an early age, however, it became clear that the two had conflicting ideas of who they wanted Sven to be. Thomas favored a more traditionally masculine role for his son, exposing him to sports and dressing him in blue. Sally, on the other hand, was keen to cultivate sensitivity and intellect in Sven, and it was her tendencies which ultimately won out. Sven did not take easily to athletics, spending longer than many of his peers working out a residual childhood clumsiness. When it came to language and expression, however, he was far ahead of the curve, quickly learning to read and articulate himself coherently.

This led to Sven establishing a somewhat unconventional role in the social hierarchy of elementary school. Where he might have been picked on for his introspective nature and disinterest in what most of the other boys cared about, thanks to his father's tutelage he was able to talk the lingo when he had to. He held little interest in the pursuits of his nerdier peers; science fiction and fantasy struck him as childish, a character trait that even at an early age his disliked being associated with. What he did love was art. Sven was fascinated by the ability of art, especially visual art, to communicate. He was particularly intrigued by how those communications could often be veiled or coded. Sven proved adept at a wide range of art, but especially realist drawings and paintings. He received much praise for his talents, both from his school and from Sally, though he always aspired to improve; measuring himself against his favorite works, he invariably found something lacking. He dabbled in other forms on and off, but his favored medium remained constant.

As Sven grew, he soon developed a somewhat chubby figure, due to a distaste for exercise combined with a hearty appetite. This was cause for concern to Thomas, who for a time pushed Sven hard to improve his activity. This resulted in a number of clashes between the two, with Sven feeling unfairly criticized and unable to improve. Finally, Sally brokered a compromise, in which Sven agreed to sign up for a physical activity three times a week; the activity he chose, however, was yoga, selected for its relatively solitary and low-cardio nature. Sven soon found that he actually did enjoy yoga, which gave him structure yet room to think and improved his flexibility. While Sven and his father still clashed over his health periodically, the token effort did at least a little to temper their conflicts, and Sven has kept with yoga ever since.

An offshoot of this has been an interest in meditation, and later in philosophy. Sven came to meditation through exposure at the ends of his yoga classes, and enjoyed how it offered him an opportunity to mentally reset and cleanse himself. By increasing his awareness of himself, the universe, and his place within the order of things, he was able to better come to terms with his arguments with his father, and also to better accept what he could and could not change about himself and others. Sven has done fairly extensive research into different meditative and philosophical traditions, but does not subscribe to any single path; he picks favorite aspects from the traditions he studies and assimilates them into the loose, liberal quasi-Christianity shared by his family. While they consider themselves Christian, all have drifted from active practice, only attending church sporadically on holidays.

For most of middle and high school, Sven had an easygoing but intense demeanor; he was content to drift through most interactions, but when his areas of interest came up tended to debate and expound with great passion. It was during middle school that Sven earned his nickname, "Library." His history class touched on the Library of Alexandria, and a classmate drew a connection to one of Sven's middle names and began to refer to him as such. His restrained and bookish nature made the moniker somewhat apt, and while it's not universally used and Sven is actually somewhat ambivalent about it, it's carried through to turn up even in some of his high school circles.

Sven's friend group was primarily a close circle of other artists with a philosophical bent. Outside of school, Sven tended towards a generally restrained set of activities; much of his free time was spent in study, personal readings, or the creation of art—a solitary activity for Sven, who quickly determined that collaborative projects were not up his alley given his preference to directly handle every aspect of a project to best match his exacting visions. His grades were good; he was not at the top of his class, but sat in the next tier down. While naturally inclined towards academics, Sven still put a lot of effort and study into his achievements. He was prone to bursts of inspiration in his art as well, frequently sacrificing sleep in favor of study or his creations.

This came to a head early in the second semester of his junior year. Sven had borrowed his mother's car for a study meeting with friends at the local library, after failing to sleep the night before. While driving home, he drifted off at the wheel for a few seconds, awakening as the car slid off the road. He was unable to regain control in time to avoid colliding with a large tree, totaling the car and sustaining severe injuries, concentrated primarily along the left side of his body, which was lacerated and partially crushed by a large branch. Sven lay there, half-conscious, for some time before paramedics arrived and pulled him from the wreck. Ultimately, the accident resulted in a severe concussion, whiplash, the loss of Sven's left eye, and a number of fractures and severe cuts to Sven's arm, ribs, face, and leg.

Sven spent long months in recovery following the accident, dealing with the physical, mental, and social fallout. The healing process took Sven out of school for long enough that he ended up having to repeat his junior year, which served to separate him from a number of his friends. Further, his injuries caused him significant mobility issues at first, and he required intensive physical therapy to return to a vague semblance of normalcy; he's still slower and weaker than most of his peers, and prone to pain from overexertion. The loss of an eye was also devastating to Sven's artwork. With hindered depth perception and manual dexterity, he found himself forced several steps backwards, unable to even see the world in the same way he used to. Sven knew that many of the philosophies he followed would urge him to accept his situation and move on, but found himself unable to do so; instead, he attempts to view his impairment as a challenge to overcome, though his success at maintaining this mentality is sporadic at best.

Far more severe have been the mental repercussions of the accident. Sven was horribly traumatized by what he experienced, and also sustained a serious head injury. He has grappled ever since with PTSD, which tends to manifest as episodes of dissociation and derealization. In the grips of one of these spells, Sven will often experience a disconnect between mind and body, feeling as though he is watching someone else move rather then doing so himself and sometimes experiencing the delusion that he is not in control of his own actions, instead guided by some unknowable outside force. Sven is in therapy for these issues, attending sessions multiple times a week and working with grad students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to try to understand and mitigate his symptoms. His interest in meditation and mindfulness has allowed him some progress in at least recognizing and sometimes anticipating attacks, though he still frequently attempts to isolate himself until they pass; he's a regular visitor to the nurse's office at George Hunter.

Sven is to a degree wracked by guilt and frustration over the accident. He realizes how easily things could have turned out far worse, but also feels that one moment of weakness and carelessness has permanently altered his life. He's still fascinated by art, but has tended towards darker interpretations, often stretching further than he did previously and coming across as more dogmatic in his discussions. Sven's friend group has also undergone some notable shifts, particularly when it comes to those who fall outside the norm. Others facing trauma of an uncommon nature, suffering rare diseases, and so forth tend to serve as triggers for episodes of derealization for Sven, as he gets caught up in probabilities and obsessive reckonings with the misfortunes of others and is left unable to accept the reality of his situation. Sven also spends much less time with his artistic friends, though he still feels quite warmly towards them; he struggles with a measure of jealousy and self-doubt when comparing himself to them, and prefers to avoid such feelings if possible.

Sven's demeanor changed notably due to the accident and what followed. Where he'd always been quiet, he now found himself staying silent not out of some tranquility but from a desire to avoid notice. His friends had also mostly been in his own class or the year ahead of him, so he found himself socially isolated among the younger students. His grades slipped, and at times he came close to failing classes, buoyed only by disability concessions and an understanding faculty. All of this further weighed on his mind, and played a role in a number of depressive episodes. While he'd planned to go to college immediately after high school, Sven now intends to put that on hold indefinitely. He hopes to pull back a little from the intensity of high school life and ease back into a routine, ideally by working a part-time job (though he has yet to apply anywhere). Privately, however, he thinks he may end up floating without any real plans for a few months at least and is quite apprehensive about accepting any responsibilities.Now at the age he'd planned to be a freshman, he is instead struggling with the final months of his senior year, and doesn't want to pretend his life is anywhere near on track.

In the grips of some of Sven's darker moments, he turned to research on the wide range of wrongs and atrocities in the world. He tended to pass this off as inspiration for his artwork or as some activist cause, but never created works or took any actions due to his readings. He found the Survival of the Fittest attacks particularly vexing and intriguing due to the age of the students involved and the nature of their suffering. Sven made no attempts at any stage to view SOTF outside the most widely distributed images and clips found in the mainstream media, but he did read a number of accounts and summaries of past versions. His parents and therapist monitored this phase very closely, but Sven's interest eventually tapered off and he almost never brings the subject up in conversation.

One point of comfort for Sven has been his discovery of and passionate focus on the game Go. Initially something he took up with a fellow patient in the hospital to pass the time, Sven found that the game gave him a good opportunity to focus his mind without featuring overly complicated rules or movements; he can usually teach others the basics in short order, and playing provides him a structured social experience with a veneer of normalcy, without evoking his pre-trauma life. He brings a travel-sized board with him to school, and sometimes opens up more to classmates over games.

Sven's parents were both supportive of him following the accident, but in different ways. His mother was first and foremost worried about him, but with an edge of disappointment underlying that worry. This was aimed in part at Sven's future prospects, but in part at himself and his irresponsible decisions. She thought the accident entirely avoidable, and carried guilt of her own revolving around her failure to notice or regulate Sven's behavior or in some fashion intervene to prevent his injuries. Thomas, on the other hand, was angry, but never at Sven. He became much more involved in Sven's life, driving him wherever he wanted (Sven won't even consider attempting to relearn how to drive) and talking with him at length about his feelings and the goings-on in his days. For the first time, Thomas took a constant and active interest in his son's hobbies and thoughts, often spending hours playing Go with him while listening to him muse about philosophy. Sven has thus become slightly distanced from his mother due to the unspoken but omnipresent tension, but much closer and more open towards the man he spent so much of his childhood fighting.

Sven has no romantic history of note, and in fact considers himself asexual. He publicly identifies as such on the rare occasions such topics come up, though has privately struggled with a certain measure of doubt over his identification; he has always had somewhat poor self confidence when it comes to his body image, and sexuality doesn't cleanly integrate with his artistic and philosophical ideas, so he sometimes wonders if he merely wishes he was asexual. Sven has held loose romantic feelings/crushes towards people regardless of gender, but does not publicize or act on such feelings.

Advantages: Sven is smart and has significant experience calming himself down due to his meditation. His personal philosophy is one of acceptance of life's circumstances, so while he may struggle to apply it in a situation as extreme as SOTF he has at least a loose ideological edge when it comes to accepting the new realities of the island. He has already experienced a larger than average amount of suffering and tragedy, leaving very himself aware of his coping. He is a relatively unknown quantity to most of his class, due to his friends mostly having been in higher grades, and has no real enemies. Sven knows a lot more about SOTF than the average student, with an awareness of major events and the rough progression of previous versions.
Disadvantages: Sven is still suffering significant mental and physical repercussions from his accident. He's blind in one eye and his strength and dexterity on the left side of his body are compromised. He suffers from PTSD-related dissociation and derealization, episodes of which could prove catastrophic in a situation such as SOTF. Sven lacks a wide friend group and may be assumed easy pickings due to his injuries, which are common knowledge around school and indeed all that some students know about him. He strives to accept the challenges life throws at him, but this risks leading to apathy or a lack of drive to push back against dangerous or distressing situations he finds himself in.

Designated Number: Male Student No. 011

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Designated Weapon: Plastic Lightsaber

Conclusion: Sorry guy, looks like the universe has decided that you didn't get fucked enough. Bend over and get ready for some more. - Veronica Rai

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