CK01: KURT THORNE [DECEASED]

#1

DECEASED

Name: Kurt Thorne
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
Hobbies and Interests: Soccer (midfield), football (kicker), Halloween

Appearance: Standing 6'2" tall and weighing 190 lbs, Kurt Thorne has the body of someone who has played soccer at a high level for a very long time. With thick thighs and legs and a lean, muscular frame, Kurt is not an overly imposing specimen until one views him within the context of a sporting event. When in shorts or a short-sleeved soccer kit, it becomes apparent that he is actually quite fit. His pale skin is jarring in the Miami sun, but Kurt was never quite able to establish a tan, likely due to a small iron deficiency to which he has to take vitamins for.

Kurt's hawk-like features give him a more serious and intimidating countenance, though he rarely shows any outwardly large displays of emotion and even his largest smiles tend to only be a smirk. He has a pointed chin, evenly spaced hazel eyes and a pronounced square jaw. His lips are thin but red, and his teeth are well-cleaned, though they have a faint yellowish hue to them which privately frustrates him. Kurt shaves his face daily, and in senior year the brown stubble only takes a little bit of the day to become apparent once again. He has only grown out his beard once, in his junior year when he dressed up as a viking for Halloween. While he used a wig for his hair, his natural beard added an authenticity to the costume that he enjoyed, while actually hating the feeling of having facial hair completely. His hair is cut into a short fade with basic styling, nothing too flashy or extravagant.

Most days, Kurt can be found wearing muted colours, many brown, tan dark blue or dark green tones. Mostly, he wears shorts of the khaki or chino variety, along with a tee or polo shirt. Kurt's shoes are white Adidas ones with a black stripe, matching his muted aesthetic. As his eyes are a bit sensitive to light, he is never found without his black carbon fiber Oakley sunglasses.

On casting day, Kurt was wearing tan khaki shorts, a dark navy blue short-sleeved polo shirt, white ankle-socks and his white Adidas running shoes. He had on a dark blue 'US Coast Guard' baseball cap with the logo and white lettering and his black Oakley sunglasses.

Biography: Born in Miami, Florida on October 31st as the eldest and only child to Rick and Sarah Thorne, Kurt Rudolph Thorne was predestined to have strong feelings about Halloween from the moment of his birth. With Rick making his way in life as a nautical engineer and Sarah a Captain, both serving the United States Coast Guard, Kurt grew up in what could easily be described as an upper-class family. The family lived a stable yet inconsistent existence, as the demands of both of his parents' careers meant that Kurt usually found himself in the care of one or the other and rarely both at the same time. While he was a generally happy child, he often found himself missing the absent parent while being cared for by the other. His pleas to see whichever of his mother or father weren't there would be carefully explained away by the other parent, but after a while, he learned to stop complaining, as the answers were always the same.

As he was brought up in what was mostly an alternating single-parent household, Kurt learned early the value of discipline and in behaving. Both of his parents believed in strict discipline, owing to their own experience in the service, and any time Kurt would act out, there was never a repetition. Discipline in the Thorne household bordered on harsh, but was always explained to him in depth. While he would often become upset while being grounded or sent to bed with a meagre dinner, he would always know the 'why' behind said treatment. Thanks to this upbringing, by the time he reached school-age, behavioural issues were never going to be an issue for Kurt.

While Kurt was an incredibly well-behaved child from almost the second he started school, socialization with his peers was another story. As a child from a strict household, Kurt was very serious, not understanding nor wanting to engage in a lot of the silliness typical of his peers. Instead, he was very focused upon learning. When his peers would be running around playing make-believe, Kurt would be playing on his own with Lego or reading a book. When it was time for group projects, Kurt would often be left with the mish-mash grouping of leftovers, his social skills lacking behind his enhanced discipline. The one spot where he would excel in comparison to his peers was gym class. Kurt took to sports and athletics well, a combination of genetics and interest allowing him to be ahead of the class in that regard. Even as a small child, he was quicker, stronger, and bigger than most of his peers, giving him an uncomfortable degree of popularity. He was never sought out for fun activities or parties, but he was always picked first for team sports and thusly had a strange spot on the periphery of his school's social strata.

Kurt's natural physical talents and tendency towards introverted behaviour continued as he got older, though as he joined several teams he learned how to interact and contribute to the whole. The first team he joined — and likely the sport that he excelled in more than the others — was soccer. As a child, it was something he could do on his own; practicing dribbling and kicking the ball until he was surprisingly proficient. Playing the midfield position, he tried out for his junior high school team and has been a mainstay year after year ever since. His powerful legs and his excellent hand-eye coordination have made him a lethal addition to the team, where he has played as a starter virtually every year. Alongside of the soccer team, Kurt is also a member of the football team; holding the position of place-kicker. He joined in his second year of high school, being recruited by the football coach in the hopes of improving their kicking fortunes. Kurt has done well, though with his impressive frame the coaches have continually attempted to get him to step onto the field as a defensive end as well, something he has been incredibly reticent about. While he enjoys the finesse and artistry of soccer, the rough-and-tumble style of football does not appeal to him. Nonetheless, during senior year, he has played several games at defensive end due to injury or temporary academic suspension to some of the starting players. While he has been a passable player, it is very apparent that his heart is not in it and he does not play with the same zeal that he does on the soccer pitch.

Academically, Kurt has done very well, his discipline managing to balance his academic and athletic pursuits rather well. Always a high-achieving student, he has not found high school intellectually stimulating, usually doing his work more out of a sense of duty or responsibility rather than a desire to get overwhelmingly high marks. While he tends to score highly on average in the majority of his subjects, he is drawn to the more factually-based subjects like history and science — subjects where the answers are concrete and abstract thinking and biases aren't overtly present while finding the answers. Kurt dislikes speaking in front of a crowd, and so classes like English or Drama in which this is a necessity aren't the ones he generally enjoys.

His teachers find him polite, respectful, and pleasant, but have observed that during the rowdier class periods, he appears uncomfortable. On several occasions, teachers have tried to encourage him to engage in further group activities, but he tends to keep to the periphery, more comfortable to listen and observe rather than be the loudest person in the room. Once he began to participate in athletics and was involved in more of a social sphere, this became less of an issue for his educators.

Most of the peers with whom he socializes the most are fellow soccer players, though he has a small smattering of other relationships with people who he has found common ground with through individual conversation over the years. Kurt is a firm believer that trust is earned, not given, and he is usually very cautious when meeting new people, not one to open up much to begin with. Once he has trusted or befriended someone, he is fiercely loyal, taking any betrayals with similar affront. Social interactions are very much black or white in Kurt's world, with very little room for grey.

As he got older and the demands upon his parents' schedule became lesser, he began to actually start to know and understand them, having actually spent more time together as a family. Many nights he often spends with one or both of his parents, asking them a myriad of questions about experiences, history or general day-to-day minutiae about serving in the Coast Guard. Naturally, a life in the armed forces has been Kurt's goal since he was young, always wanting to give back and emulate his parents. Unlike them, Kurt's focus has always been more towards the Navy. Growing up in a fiercely patriotic home, he appreciates the service that his parents have given to defending America, but believes the Coast Guard to be more of a defensive force, more reactive than active. If there is a threat to his home, he wishes to be the one out actively seeking it out, rather than waiting for something to happen. His parents were pleased that their son decided to seek out a life within the service, though they were chagrined that he desired to join the Navy rather than the Coast Guard. They know that their son wishes to take his own path, and they have encouraged him in that regard. The family remains close, though there is still a level of detachment thanks to the rarity of the three of them existing as a whole family unit at once.

Romance has not generally been a part of Kurt's life at all. As he is not a social climber nor overly comfortable in group situations, Kurt has generally eschewed any and all romantic notions; though few have ever come over him. Outwardly, Kurt is a straight male who is only romantically interested in women, though does not yearn for female contact at all. In his junior year of high school, he privately considered the option that he might be interested in men instead, though he did not see them any differently than he did women. It has left him mostly indifferent to the concept of a relationship or even casual sex, though whenever asked he declares himself straight, not wanting to jepordize his entry into the navy. While he knows that the world has changed and sexuality is no longer the taboo that it once was, he does not wish to belabour the point, especially since his own identity barely touches it.

As an introvert, Kurt prefers to do his projects on his own and is generally found keeping to himself, nose buried in a book or listening to an informational podcast or audiobook. Even as a teenager, he still prefers not to be in groups, as he finds that the constant discussion is not an effective way to get things done. He prefers to think over a problem and find a solution that makes the most logical sense, and he tends to get frustrated at people who are indecisive.

While Kurt is still primarily an introvert and rarely speaks out, those who know him know that there are two subjects to which he becomes particularly impassioned about, one of those being Survival of the Fittest. Kurt is a strong critic of the long-running reality show, believing it to be a perversion of base American values and something that the country would be better off without. Likewise, neither of his parents are overly enthusiastic about it and would not permit him to watch it growing up. Those who are mere acquaintances of his are always taken aback by the usually soft-spoken athlete engaging in impassioned discourses with teammates or teachers about the sinister nature of the program. He is always polite, always thoughtful, but never positive about the program or its nature. Kurt will not judge his peers for watching or being fans of the program, but his few friends know that he never wishes to discuss it and its proliferation in society as a whole makes him uncomfortable. On occasion, some of his peers have gotten into small arguments with him on the subject; but in not wanting to engage in conflict, he tends to either quickly acquiesce or walk away, on occasion leaving a frustrated opponent in his wake. He is aware that he is seen at times as rigid or frustrating to discuss subjects with, but looks at that more of a failing of other people to understand his viewpoint rather than something that is innately wrong with the way he perceives the world. During his senior year, he has made more of an effort to give his peers leeway during discussions, but has not found it easy, nor necessarily fulfilling to do so.

The second subject to which he feels strongly of is the one of his birth, or more specifically, the holiday of which it fell — Halloween. Kurt has a strong love for Halloween. It is perhaps the one indulgence he allows himself, always being fascinated by the macabre costumes, the elaborate getups and the constant decorations around his neighborhood and his school. Even as a child, Kurt always insisted upon dressing up as something different, and as he has gotten older, his costumes have gotten more elaborate and more impressive. At the beginning of senior year as a magnum opus, Kurt dressed up as 'the Predator' from the classic 1990s film, a costume that was mostly entirely hand-made, outside of a pair of high-end movie-quality custom masks that he saved up to order; one for the actual alien face and another for the mask. After four years of costumes that progressively impressed more of the student body, he was embarrassed at the effusive praise he has received from his classmates throughout the course of the year. With that being said, he has already started to plan for the following year, looking to find a way to top himself during his first year of post-secondary education.

Advantages: Kurt is in peak physical condition, with both strong cardio as well as excellent musculature. He is intelligent and is both thoughtful and disciplined, more prone to considering his options than acting impulsively. Has impressive hand-eye coordination. He is known around the school for his athletic exploits as well as his impressive Halloween costumes and likely does not hold malice towards anyone, nor they him.
Disadvantages: Kurt is introverted and lacks any kind of effusive social nature to speak of. He feels uncomfortable in groups and is not at all a natural leader. He may be deemed a threat due to his physical nature and lacks the ability to persuade others away from that thought. Kurt despises Survival of the Fittest and all that it stands for, and his vitriol could seriously inhibit his ability to make rational and thoughtful decisions. Kurt has few close friends and will likely struggle to find allies.

Designated Number: Claudia's Krakens 01 (CK01)

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Designated Weapon: Zip Ties

Mentor Comment: "You like Halloween, I like Halloween, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. If you...you know...survive."

DECEASED