JL10: LAURA HAKŠTOK [DECEASED]

#1

DECEASED

Name: Laura Beatrice Hakštok
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
Hobbies and Interests: Video games (mostly MOBAs, some RPGs), playing the keyboard, EDM and DnB music, taekwondo, smoking (weed and cigarettes), drug and alcohol use

Appearance: Laura is a small and mousey looking girl, standing at a height of 5’2” and weighing 112lbs, with a figure that would best be described as skinny, rather than slim. She is Caucasian, with her family originating from Croatia, and this, in combination with her penchant for staying indoors, means that her skin is naturally pale. She does tan well, however, and can semi-frequently be seen with a farmer’s tan after spending prolonged periods outdoors. Laura generally doesn’t care for makeup, but she does do her best to keep her skin in good condition, as well as her teeth, which she considers incredibly important due to her frequent smoking habits. She has a small nose and soft, rather watery blue eyes. She’s mildly short-sighted, and requires corrective lenses to combat this, although it seems to be almost entirely random as to whether she’ll wear them on any given day or not, something she can afford to do as she only really needs her glasses for particularly small writing. She's tried using contacts in the past, but dislikes the feeling of having to put them in, so quickly gave up using them. Laura has both of her ears pierced twice, and also has a set of spider-bite piercings, solely because her parents disapproved of them.

Laura has medium length, straight, dark brown hair that reaches to her shoulders; however, she normally ties it up, either into a messy ponytail or braids. Aside from a simple black hair tie, Laura doesn’t put any other accessories into her hair, mostly because she can almost always be seen wearing a dark grey beanie, sporting the very faded logo of ‘Explosion Collar’, her favourite EDM duo. The rest of her wardrobe is of similar dark colours and shades, and is made up entirely of t-shirts, hoodies, jackets and jeans. Many of Laura’s t-shirts, and a few of her hoodies, are custom made, and features phrases or memes from her friend Alaska’s streams, or from very specific contexts, or things she’s overheard that she just finds funny.

When Laura was abducted, she was wearing her Explosion Collar beanie, a faded and scuffed dark pink t-shirt with the text “gg nobos no skill champ collar-chan bronze hardstuck”, navy blue jeans and black Doc Martens. She also wore a black zip up hoody with an image of a traditional Japanese oni holding a club and wearing a biker jacket stenciled in white on the back - the hoody was unzipped when she was taken. She had her hair done up into a side plait. Additionally, she was wearing a navy blue silk scarf around her neck, a simple pair of glasses with black plastic frames, and a pair of black socks with a marijuana leaf pattern on her feet, which she had bought the previous day as a joke.

Biography: Laura is the second child and only daughter of Luka and Susan Hakštok. Luka is a third-generation Croatian-American, who works as an electrician, whilst Susan works as a teaching assistant at Mangrove Garden. Laura also has an older brother, Kristian, known within the family as ‘Kris’, who is an aerospace engineer. Kris is much older than Laura, being 6 years her senior, so the two aren't particularly close, with neither of them having similar hobbies and interests to boot. The Hakštok family is fairly large, and has always lived in Miami, meaning Laura frequently sees her extended family at gatherings and holidays.

By and large, Laura’s childhood was entirely unremarkable. She got on fine with most kids her age, did perfectly acceptably in all of her classes, and complained about her homework. She was a little quieter than most of her classmates, and preferred to spend most of her time indoors playing video games and listening to music, but not to an unhealthy degree. For many years, Laura had a perfectly happy relationship with her parents and brother.

This appeared set to continue into middle school, as Laura maintained her solid grades in all of her classes. She did begin to realise, however, that there was no single class she particularly excelled at, nor one she could call her favourite. Music came the closest, as she would often spend time during lunch in the practice rooms playing music by ear on the keyboard, but she disliked her middle school music teacher, which dampened her enjoyment of the subject.

Laura was initially upset that none of her subjects truly excited her, as she wanted to have a firm idea of what she wanted to study at college, like her brother had. However, she swiftly realised there were other avenues outside of the curriculum that did interest her. She had been aware of Survival of the Fittest for a few years at this point, and although her parents strictly forbade her from watching it, as they did not think it was appropriate for a 12 year old, curiosity got the better of Laura, and she found other means of engaging with the show away from the eyes of her parents. In particular, she started watching YouTube videos focused on the shows; day-by-day analyses of each season, podcasts dedicated to talking about each death in detail, rankings of students, and other topics that fascinated her and brought her further into the show’s fandom.

She realised that the only things that were truly holding her interest long term were outside of the curriculum, and the kernels of a goal and a dream formed in her mind. She wanted to start making her own videos for the world to see, discussing and analysing the media she absorbed, and potentially showing off some of her talents. To this end, she started practicing the keyboard a lot more frequently and with greater focus, attempting to master each piece before moving onto a new one. She also, to her parents’ bemusement, started taking notes when watching films and TV, and reading them over out loud to herself in her bedroom. While they found her behaviour odd, it was also entirely harmless, so they didn’t question it.

Delving into the fandom surrounding SOTF also introduced Laura to the video games based on the show, most notably SOTF Champions. She was interested in the majority of them, due to her spending a lot of her free time as a child playing handheld video games, but Champions drew her in for two reasons. Firstly, it was the most popular and well-advertised SOTF licenced game, so she had the most exposure to it, and secondly, she knew there was an established professional scene for Champions, along with many other livestreaming personalities who played the game, who made a living off of it; something that was right up Laura’s alley. The difficulty of getting into a MOBA, along with the uniqueness of gameplay compared to other genres, almost caused her to give up when she first started playing, but a sleepless weekend of practice led to much improved results. She also discovered a number of her friends played the game - chiefly among them being Alaska Ferguson, who Laura got along the best with - and so would frequently join games with them after school.

Laura’s issues with her family began to crop up when she began high school. To start, both Luka and Susan were insistent that she go to Mangrove Garden; Kris had studied there after successfully passing the entrance exam. Laura was eager to study there as well, but had significant doubts that she’d be able to get in via the exam, due to her mediocre results in class. Although there would be no real penalty or negative repercussions for failure, she was certain that doing so would make her feel utterly miserable; she also didn't see the point of participating in something she was already convinced she'd fail. After a lengthy discussion, her parents agreed to pay the tuition fee to have her enrolled at Mangrove Garden.

Laura was appreciative at first, as Kris had frequently mentioned how much he enjoyed studying there, but this quickly faded as, in her eyes, her parents’ attitude changed. She couldn’t help but feel as though they were disappointed in her for not even attempting the entrance exam, even though she knew that her strengths didn’t lie in academia. To compound this, Kris was well into his aerospace engineering degree by this point, and the Hakštok parents would frequently talk about how proud they were of him, how talented he was, and how well he was doing in all of his classes. Laura was also proud of him, but she couldn’t help but feel as though their comments were directed at her as well, not-so-subtle hints that she should follow in his footsteps and pursue a more worthy goal. She devoted even more time and energy into her dream, but whenever she brought it up around her parents, she felt as though they very swiftly brought the topic back round to Kris again, frustrating and upsetting her.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was after Laura spent a weekend making a video analysing several plot points in one of her favourite films, which she then gave to her father, asking him whether he could look over it. After a week had passed and he hadn’t mentioned anything about it, she prompted him once more, only to find that, due to a busy work schedule, he hadn’t actually looked at the video yet. Despite being incredibly upset about this, Laura didn't bring the matter up again; she had come to the conclusion that neither of her parents had any interest in her project, and that attempts to air her grievances would end up falling upon deaf ears.

Laura was now incredibly distraught, and bitter at how she was being treated by her parents, especially in comparison to Kris. She felt as though no matter what she did, she’d be seen as a disappointment next to her brother, and that her parents didn’t truly have her best interests at heart. In a desperate bid to be noticed by them, she started acting up; doing things such as staying past her curfew, leaving her room a mess, and talking back to them. This failed to have the desired effect, however; Luka and Susan both dismissed it as generic teenage rebellion, and let these incidents slide with little more than slightly stern remarks.

This also had an increased negative effect on Laura; despite the fact it didn’t seem to affect her parents all that much, she enjoyed the sense of freedom that rebelling against them gave her. In addition, now fully disillusioned with her parents as people and full of bitterness at feeling like the family disappointment, she figured that if she was already the black sheep of the family, then she might as well revel in it. She started being actively disruptive to her parents; she would practice the keyboard and play music much louder than necessary well into the night, under the guise that she didn’t realise how loud it was, and stayed up into the early hours of the morning almost every weekend playing video games, before sleeping in until the middle of the afternoon. She also listened out for everything her parents showed a distaste for; when she was 15, her dad offhandedly mentioned how much he hated the smell of cigarette smoke, and she immediately picked up the habit, borrowing cigarettes off of people at school. Although she too hated the smell at first, she realised that it helped greatly to calm her down when she was stressed, and over time, grew accustomed to the smell and sensation. Much more recently, Laura also went behind her parents' backs to get herself pierced; she'd been meaning to do so for a while, after hearing that they didn’t trust people with excessive piercings, but she didn't want to run the risk of infection via amateur, homemade piercings, or from anyone willing to offer piercings to a minor, something she considered too shady to be worth the risk.

Laura’s parents now realised that her acts of defiance were clearly more than just typical teenager fare, and made a much more concentrated effort to try and turn her attitude around, to very little effect. Laura was well aware that she was being disruptive and difficult, and so any criticism of her character or admonishments were met with little more than a wry smile and a sarcastic retort; with little care for how her parents perceived her anymore, she felt free to say anything she wanted to them. Other means of punishment were similarly ineffective; Laura spent most of her free time in her room, so grounding her was practically meaningless, and they could not take away her computer, because, as she frequently reminded them, she required it for homework.

Susan suggested to Laura that she take up a sport, as a way for her to get out of her room more and hopefully learn some discipline. To her surprise, Laura readily agreed to do so, the reasons soon becoming apparent. She chose to join a local taekwondo club, solely due to her mother expressing her hatred for contact sports due to their violent nature. Although it is not her favourite activity in the world, as if given the choice she would rather stay at home and play video games, Laura does appreciate that it keeps her healthy, especially considering her smoking habit, and she does enjoy the sense of power it gives her. She has remained at the same club for 3 years now, and is currently a blue belt in the sport. It is quite likely she would be even better at the sport if she quit smoking full stop, however, as her addiction to nicotine has left her with serious stamina issues. She frequently has to take breaks at her taekwondo club, which she pretends is down to asthma. This also affects her day-to-day life; she can get winded walking long distances, or up long flights of stairs. She recognises this is an issue, but she has no real intention of quitting smoking, as she rarely exerts herself outside of taekwondo.

At school, Laura’s personality shift caused serious conflict with her classmates. They were accustomed to her being a slightly quiet, unremarkable girl, so many were immediately concerned at the fact she had changed into someone so aloof and sarcastic. Any attempts to help were met with little more than shrugs and rude, apathetic remarks, and she quickly ended up pushing most of these people away. Her friend group dwindled rapidly; the majority of them could not stand being around Laura, as she didn’t seem to care about them or anything else that happened to her or them. She would say the first thing that cropped into her head when talking to them, which would usually be intentionally inflammatory or risque as it amused her, and no attempts to change her attitude worked; Laura found these attempts amusing, rather than humiliating.

The main exception to this was Alaska, who Laura is still best friends with to this day. The two shared many similar interests, including playing SOTF Champions, desire to showcase themselves online, and an interest in Survival of the Fittest itself. Laura realised that she actively enjoyed spending time around Alaska, and although she will still say whatever’s on her mind to her best friend, and respond to her with sarcastic jabs and insults, she’ll also make sure that she’s not actively harming her whenever Alaska appears down. Alaska also introduced Laura to smoking weed, and the two would frequently get high together and watch old episodes of Survival of the Fittest or play video games. Laura frequently appears on Alaska’s streams, where they play Champions together, and will often play in very stupid or off-meta ways; mostly on purpose, but occasionally because Laura is too high to realise what role she’s playing. She doesn’t focus on any one role, as her previous intense desire to excel at the game has disappeared; she is now solely focused on playing what would be most amusing to her at the time. Laura also, semi-frequently, streams by herself, either playing Champions or occasionally any RPG with a lot of customisation options, so she can play the game in particularly silly ways. Her sardonic humour and focus on entertainment over actual talent at gaming means her streams are modestly popular, although nowhere near the level of Alaska’s.

Unfortunately, Laura still proves a toxic influence to her best friend, despite her attempts to make sure she doesn’t hurt her. She gets high almost every day, smoking a joint after getting home from school before hopping online; it helps her to relax, similarly to cigarettes, and she also enjoys the fact it releases her inhibitions even further, meaning she doesn’t hold back from saying the most inappropriate things she can think of. Because of this, Laura ends up encouraging a lot of Alaska’s bad habits - most notably, her excessive weed intake and laziness. This has grown particularly bad since Alaska’s break-up with her ex girlfriend, Emmy Soon, as the two best friends have spent even more time together. Although Laura is to some extent aware that it is her influence that is causing Alaska to be so unhealthy, she has no intention of stopping; she doesn’t truly feel it to be all that harmful, and considers it a fair trade-off if they get to spend more time with each other.

Both Luka and Susan are aware of Laura's marijuana consumption, due to the smell that occasionally lingers in her room, and by finding poorly hidden baggies of weed. Luka is not a fan of her habit, but any attempts to scold her are met with complete apathy, whilst Susan is more forgiving, finding it hypocritical to judge Laura when she herself partook in the drug for many years before meeting Luka. They will both, however, confiscate and dispose of any weed they do find, leading to Laura finding more inventive ways of hiding it. Laura gets a portion of her weed off of Alaska and from people at parties, but the rest of her weed intake is funded by her Champions stream and a weekend job where she looks after her neighbour's dogs.

Laura still has very few friends at school, due to her toxic and unpleasant personality. The few she does have are mostly other stoners, fellow fans of SOTF, or people who appear on Alaska’s stream occasionally, but these people mostly only associate with Laura due to their shared interests, knowing full well what she’s like as a person. Despite this, she is a common presence at most house parties, despite rarely being invited to them. She will find out when and where said parties are occurring, then slip in midway through, when most people are too inebriated to care that she’s there. She enjoys spending time at these parties, as the music is often DnB or other forms of EDM, which she enjoys because of its fast and frenetic nature, which she finds the perfect accompaniment to playing Champions, as well as to annoy her parents. She also enjoys partaking in alcohol and party drugs, for similar reasons as to her excessive smoking habits; her lowered inhibitions destroy the remaining few boundaries she has left, and she finds that, when all around her are similarly inebriated, she can get away with saying even more audacious things than normal.

Although she wouldn’t be considered a superfan of the show, and will not religiously tune in every evening to watch each episode, Laura still keeps up with Survival of the Fittest, often watching it with Alaska and pointing out all the mistakes and stupid statements that the competitors do and make. She’ll also spend hours watching meme compilations on YouTube and Reddit, and uses several of her favourite gifs as alerts on her stream. She does still occasionally watch the in depth analyses and rankings that she loved as a younger teenager, but she finds it too painful to do so for long periods, as they remind her off her long shattered dream.

At school, Laura is below average in all of her classes. She still has very little care for academic subjects, and as such, has no intention of going to college after graduating. It is generally a coinflip as to whether she’ll do her homework each night or not, and when she does, it is usually to the baseline, most average standard. She doesn’t really act out in class, not caring enough to do so, but she also doesn’t willingly answer questions or put her hand up; when she is called upon, she’ll usually give a smart-alec or obviously incorrect answer. She’s also a nightmare to work with in group projects, as she will give very little support or help to the rest of the group, and messages in a group chat directed at her will go unanswered for days. Often, the group will be fretting and panicking as to how badly they think the project will go, only for Laura to suddenly appear with her section fully completed; this is one of her favourite ways to mess with people. Because of all this, she can be found towards the bottom of her class rankings in pretty much every subject. This seems unlikely to change, no matter the encouragement or admonishment from her teachers; Laura considers it a symbol of pride.

Advantages: Laura’s greatest strength lies in the fact that pretty much nothing in life fazes her; her apathetic nature and belief that she’s already at the bottom of the barrel means she takes any development, no matter how negative, in stride. Although the events of SOTF are far, far different to her daily life at school and home, there is a good chance that Laura will adjust to her situation much better than many of her classmates. It’s also very hard to alarm, spook, or otherwise unnerve Laura; any criticism of her actions completely wash over her, and she’s become unfazed by common SOTF occurrences through watching the show. Her friend group is small, but she has a reliable ally in Alaska if they meet up; furthermore, if Laura wishes to ally with anyone, she’s not picky and is willing to join anyone who can stand her. She's stronger than her appearance would suggest thanks to participating in taekwondo, and fairly dextrous to boot. Participating in taekwondo for several years also means that she has actual fighting experience, and so should have the upper hand in a one-on-one, close quarters fight with many of her classmates.
Disadvantages: Laura’s apathetic nature is as much a curse as it is a blessing, however. Her lack of respect and care for the world and people around her could manifest whilst on SOTF, causing her to approach dangerous or volatile situations with her usual devil-may-care attitude. She will certainly have limited to no concern for the plights and fears of her classmates, and may in fact exacerbate them with her sarcastic and aloof nature. Because of this, she has few potential allies due to her limited amount of friends, and is unlikely to gain any more with her abrasive personality. Although Laura doesn’t stress out easily, she relies on cigarettes to calm her down on the rare occasion she does. Without a consistent supply of nicotine, she is likely to suffer much worse than normal if something unnerves or stresses her out. A combination of her nicotine dependency and her limited amount of physical activity aside from taekwondo means that Laura has very poor stamina, and cannot run or exert herself for very long.

Designated Number: Jewel's Leviathans 10 (JL10)

----

Designated Weapon: Tannerite Binary Explosive

Mentor Comment: "Wait, she does martial arts? Really? Huh.

"Anyways, I looked up some of the stuff she's streamed online, and it's a very good thing the whole teamwork angle is already a wash. Actually, I think there's a selfish core here that pairs nicely with a really vicious cleverness that could take her far... if that's what she wants. But of course, we're talking a wildcard among wildcards, so I'm not counting on anything. Well, maybe I'd put some money on a large and incredibly disruptive explosion before all's said and done. That seems safe enough."

DECEASED