M03 - DARDEN, FISHER

#1

Name: Fisher Darden
Gender: Male
Age: Eighteen
Grade: Twelve
School: Saint Editha Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Reading, writing, playing sports (hockey and baseball), film production, working out

Appearance: Fisher checks in at 5'9", 165 lbs, and while he isn't a slight individual, he's definitely pretty average in terms of his stature. What he lacks in height, he makes up for with his body mass, as he carries around about 4-5% more body fat than he probably should - the result of being a heavy kid growing up and only shucking most of his weight recently. He has fairly pronounced cheekbones and a prominent chin - most of his features are fairly sharp.

His hair is a light brownish colour, and it tends to stick out beneath his cap in an unruly manner. Fisher usually gets it cut short - the barbers usually cut the top two or three inches and keep the rest shortly trimmed, but he will often go a month or two between haircuts so that it tends to stick up all over the place whenever he takes off his hat. He'll occasionally gel it when going out on special occasions, but doesn't usually put a whole lot of effort in.

That description would probably apply to the rest of Fisher's outlook on fashion and dress. While he's always clean and takes care to ensure that he smells good and has good-looking teeth (brushing twice a day is key!), he's absolutely a comfort-first type of guy, and is almost always found in jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoody. He has what seem to be a thousand different t-shirts, and six different colours of hoodies, so he can just grab one and alternate through. Again, he'll rarely be found in a collared shirt or sometimes in a sports jersey, but this doesn't happen very often.

The ensemble that is Fisher Darden is rounded out by his blue eyes. They aren't piercing, they aren't electric, but instead are a pretty standard shade of dark blue. What you do notice about his eyes is that they betray a mind that's always working. Simply by looking at him and meeting his gaze, one can tell that Fisher is, like his facial features, sharp.

Overall, Fisher considers himself to be a pretty good-looking guy - definitely not ugly, but also not the kind of guy that girls throw themselves at for his looks. He seems himself falling into the middle of the pack, and his self-assessment is pretty well spot-on.

The day of the abduction, Fisher was wearing his school uniform.

Biography: Born to Jack and Emelia Darden, Fisher grew up in a small-town in the United Kingdom, his parents trying to stay out of history's way. Both of the Dardens disagreed with the warmongering from the United States, of course, but just wanted to keep life simple, and so they have kept to the countryside as much as they could.

Showing a large degree of intelligence from a young age, Fisher started reading when he was two and never looked back, his parents quickly realizing that he had a gift for language and comprehension. This was most apparent when they received a phone call after a week of preschool, demanding to know why their son insisted upon wandering the halls of the school, reading all of the signs on the walls aloud. They took this in stride, realizing that their child was undoubtedly curious, intelligent, and thought on a totally different level than most of the other children.

Indeed, as he grew up, Fisher exhibited many signs of intellectual giftedness, and even after being positively tested and determined to have an exceptionally high IQ, continued to be a very innovative type of thinker, constantly working against the grain. Fisher has always looked at problems from a very different angle than most, and that makes him an effective, if not occasionally unusual problem solver.

Fisher's love for reading segued itself into an even bigger love for writing as he grew older. Once he realized that he could create his own fiction just as easily as he could read it, Fisher cultivated this interest and tried to write his own stories in place of assignments for school. It helped that Fisher's imagination had turned out to be very vivid, so the concepts that he would come up with for stories were varied. All of his talents made his parents very proud.

Unfortunately, all silver linings usually have a cloud attached to them at some level, and Fisher's cloud was an unusually low sense of self-confidence. After being confined to his room for a majority of his third-grade summer due to a severe case of mono, Fisher found himself doubting his own capabilities, as he was weaker and less able than some of his peers thanks to his illness. Once he returned to school, Fisher began to have a very hard time believing in himself, and his school work suffered because of it. While he gained his strength and recovered from his illness, the nagging doubt in his mind never seemed to go away. Adding to this was the fact that he was very hard on himself, and his parents grew concerned as the years went by and their son continued to struggle to excel in school. It was here that Fisher began to turn to junk food as a coping mechanism, and started to battle his weight, which amplified his internal struggles.

What seemed like a recipe for disaster turned on its head once Fisher entered high school. The fact that the courses were more varied and structured differently than elementary school, and the sheer amount of people to socialize with helped Fisher start to increase his confidence. Socially, Fisher has never had any issues, and is well-liked and trusted by his peers. He's a good listener, and will often find himself in deep conversations with his peers, which leads to him hearing about all kinds of secrets and gossip, almost all of which he keeps sealed up inside of his own mind. He may hear about a lot, but he feels strongly about holding the trust of those around him.

While things improved for Fisher as he entered high school, it wasn't until he entered grade eleven that he finally hit a turning point. On a whim (and needing something to fill out his courses), Fisher took a film course, and finally discovered exactly what he wanted to do with his life. The film production process had always fascinated him, but upon taking the course, he felt as though he were energized. His parents had never seen him be so focused and intent in a school course before, and they were blown away when he came home with a report card that read "99%". Doing so well in the course helped with his confidence, and from then on, Fisher was a changed man.

In feeling better about himself and doing well, he felt as though he could do anything - so to put it to the test, he did a self-evaluation. He decided that there were certain elements of his personality that he no longer needed to show; his temper, propensity for holding back socially at times, and general malaise got shoved to the back burner. Fisher began to force himself to go to the gym as well, and the change began to show. Slowly but surely, the boy's confidence grew; seemingly at the same time as his large frame was shrinking.

The Fisher Darden that walks the halls of Saint Editha today is a very different one than the unsure boy who entered. He is much slimmer now, and athletic. Fisher plays on both the school hockey team and the baseball team (though he thinks he's probably better at hockey). He goes to the gym on any day that he's not practicing or playing with his teams, and has applied to several film schools and colleges. His aim for his post-secondary education is to attend film school and start to make documentary features on the war, to try and understand why the United States acts the way it does, and what this might mean for the future. Documentaries have always held an appeal for him, as he has often felt that that real world holds stories that are important, and while maybe not as entertaining as some of the fictional stories that he might read or see in a theatre, real-life stories hold a gravitas that demand exploration.

As someone who is fairly measured, baseball was a sport that attracted him fairly quickly. Playing as a pitcher, Fisher enjoys the strategy behind the game, and enjoys analyzing the tendencies of the hitters that he comes up against. While an average player, he manages to acquit himself well and enjoys how measured the game is. Conversely, he enjoys hockey for a seemingly contrary reason: the game is a free-flowing mix of skill and strategy which is more fluid than baseball. Between the two, Fisher feels that he is able to invigorate both his mind and his body.

Socially, Fisher does very well for himself. He's very well-liked amongst the student body, and is always open to talking to pretty much anybody. He doesn't believe himself to have any enemies - though he knows that usually when someone doesn't like him, they end up hating him, so that's more or less the way he likes it. He's even dated here and there, his last relationship ending somewhat poorly - enough that he's taking a break from dating for a little while.

The kid is definitely a joker, and is witty, sarcastic, and will often throw on silly voices and weird accents for a laugh. Sometimes he's hit or miss but he's gained the ability to laugh at himself, which helps.

Fisher lives at home with both of his parents, and his younger sister Katrina, who is 11. He is very protective of his sister but would never let her know that, as she'd probably shove it back in his face and make fun of him for it. His whole family are very close, and all of them have the same sort of off-kilter sense of humour. His parents both work in a law firm: his father is an IT professional and his mother is a lawyer. They actually met while working for the firm, and they have remained there for their entire career. Fisher's mother is in fact close to making partner, and the whole family is hopeful that this will happen within the next year. As such, the family is fairly well-off, and enjoys a lifestyle that does not allow them to want for much, though they do not flaunt their wealth. Both of the Dardens prefer to live outside of the big city that they work in, hoping that their children will appreciate and learn the value of hard work before they set off to make their own life.

Fisher does tend to get his amiable personality from his mother, who is a social animal, and the two will often joke around, much to the chagrin of his father. Jack is much more of an introvert, and so he tends to be the straight-man in the family dynamic, though he's known to riff off a clever quip or a one-liner that leaves the family in stitches when they least expect it. Fisher believes himself to have inherited the best parts of his parents, and treasures his close relationship with them.

Advantages: Fisher is a certified genius who is an excellent problem-solver. His unique approach to most situations could really help get him out of a bind. He's well-liked and will have a very easy time finding allies. Is physically fit, if not necessarily that strong. Will be very good at keeping morale up for his allies.
Disadvantages: The second that his confidence goes down, Fisher's abilities will falter. If his belief within himself is tested and he loses that internal battle, his self-doubt could destroy him. He can be a little clumsy at times, stemming from the transition that his body's gone through. Fisher can be lazy at times, and he has a hard time taking pretty well anything seriously. His constant joking around and remarks could become grating in such a stressful situation and put himself at risk.

Designated Number: Male Student #3

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Designated Weapon: Laminated copy of the Declaration of Independence
Conclusion: Baseball? There's a good ol' American pasttime! Hopefully the reading material we gave this guy can take his mind off his impending bullet to the head, because smarts are no substitute for self-belief.