CK09: RA JIN "RJ" BLACKBURN [DECEASED]

#1

DECEASED

Name: Ra Jin “RJ” Blackburn
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12th Grade
Hobbies and Interests: Comedy, Cheese Club, Reading, Writing, Singing, Slasher Movies

Appearance: RJ is a boy on the smaller side of things, in both figure and size, standing at 5’ 6” and weighing in at 125 lbs, neither well built with muscles nor horribly out of shape. He is of Caucasian descent, and has an ivory skin tone to match it. His square-shaped head is complemented by a Grecian nose, bushy eyebrows over his hooded brown eyes, nice white teeth, and freckles peppered on his cheeks and across his nose.

RJ enjoys customizing his appearance in odd ways, encouraging his individuality and purposely trying to stand out in his class. On the day of his casting, RJ’s brown hair was bleached heavily, to the point that it was close to white, and reached just past his shoulders in length and was put into a small ponytail with a silver hair tie. His left ear, the one that’s pierced, had a small black hoop earring with a small black arrowhead hanging from it. RJ was wearing dark blue denim shorts, black sandals, and a white t-shirt with the phrase “I like music more than people” on the front, with several letters being replaced with music notes; the m in music being three beamed quarter notes, the alla breve or cut time symbol for c in the same word, the o in more being a hole note, the n in then being two beamed eighth notes, and the p’s in people being a half note and a quarter note respectively. Additionally, tied around his waist is a dark gray sweatshirt with the words “Haddonfield High, Class of ‘78” on the front in orange and the i being replaced with a large kitchen knife, and he wore a dark blue peaked cap with a black bill and a gold anchor symbol on the front.

Biography: Ra Jin Blackburn was the second child of Johnathan and Jane Blackburn, a dentist and a nurse respectively, who were sweethearts in high school and through college. He was born June 5th, 2003, in Los Angeles California, five years after his older sister, Eris Tandori. Both children were given the names of Gods, not because they had any real meaning to the parents, but because they wanted their children to have something more interesting and unique for their names compared to their own. The parents would've liked unique names themselves, but respected the choices of their own parents too much to do so, and thought it would be disrespectful to go from Jane to Aphrodite, or Jonathan to Osiris. And so, along with each Godly name, they added a foreign name that complemented it well.

Unfortunately for both of them, neither Ra nor Eris liked their names very much, finding them too odd, to the point that it alienated them from their classmates, and would've changed their names legally if they weren't too young to do so. While Eris was fortunate with her name not being too odd, Ra didn’t even get through preschool without classmates making fun of his name, and while the insults weren’t exactly the most clever, they were enough to hurt Ra’s feelings and give him trouble making friends in the preschool. He managed to keep a brave face when near his classmates, near his parents, and even managed to crack jokes and provide snark towards the bullying, but with Eris he allowed himself to cry. It was a lesson that Eris herself taught Ra, not through her bullying him, but because of her own experiences. While she hadn’t experienced bullying for her name, Eris had been picked on for other things, mainly her large front teeth and interest in books over interacting with others. She would go to teachers, even her parents, but rather than actually treating the situation with seriousness, they brushed it off as a part of childhood, some teachers brushing it off because they had been bullied themselves but didn't suffer any lasting consequences, a couple being fooled by the bullies parents into thinking Eris was the badly behaved one, and worst of all, the principal, and her own parents, thinking it was just simple teasing, and Eris was taking it too hard. With not even her parents taking her seriously, Eris learned quickly that the adults in her life were little to no help, and made sure to prepare Ra for it, as well as being the stable, helpful person in his life.

And so Ra didn’t tell his parents of his bullying, and received comfort in Eris reading him stories of many different kinds of genres. From simple fairy tales any kid would hear, to one's Eris had been reading recently, nothing was off the table. He'd hear the ongoing stories of a wizard that used to live under the stairs (Harry Potter), to the adventures of the half-blood son of Poseidon (Percy Jackson), to the frustrating but still intriguing stories of a girl that fell in love with a vampire (Twilight), none of them really went above a young adult novel, but he didn't care. With each book, Ra grew more and more interested in the stories that they held, and tried to write some of his own. The first ones were not the best, mainly trying to expand upon the stories Eris had told him, but she encouraged Ra’s enthusiasm and drive to write, and he continued doing so.

It was when Ra was eight that his life changed greatly. Up to this point, he hadn’t really met any of his grandparents in person, as they had all moved to Miami, Florida when they retired, and the most he could get was video chats and phone calls. The four of them had actually grown up together, in a cul-de-sac in the suburbs, and had always been close. They decided to be together as much as possible, more or less traveling as a unit. From college, to traveling, to finally settling down, even in retirement they want to be with each other, all of them residing in the same three bedroom house for their retirement. Unfortunately, it was this closeness that led to tragedy, as when Ra was just graduating the third grade, the four of them had been caught in a car accident, with only one of them, his maternal grandfather Ernest, surviving, and even then with serious injuries. Both Jonathan and Jane decided that they would not just rush over immediately to attend the funeral, but they’d be moving to Miami to take care of Ernest, emotionally just as much as physically, and staying there permanently. This gave the kids an opportunity that Eris was not letting slip through her fingers. For the entire plane trip from California to Florida, Eris had herself and Ra practice, in whispers, referring to each other, themselves, and answering to nicknames. By the time they landed, Ra could refer to himself as RJ, and Eris was going by Tandy.

From that point on, after they had grieved for their grandparents, life was a lot less stressful for the siblings. Jonathan and Jane were able to find new jobs fairly easily, Jane at a local hospital and Jonathan at a dentist’s office close to Ernest’s home. While Ernest was still recovering from the accident, his presence alone was a good influence on Jane and Jonathan, making them take the concerns of Tandy and RJ seriously, including getting them to refer to their nicknames. Tandy was able to meet classmates with similar interests. Meanwhile, RJ was able to not only avoid attracting bullies, but actually made friends quite easily with his comedy and general friendly demeanor. The two of them even managed to make Ernest feel better, because even if his friends and wife were gone, he could see they lived on in RJ and Tandy, both of them having traits each of the four grandparents had; Tandy could keep up a brave face even when dealing with heartbreak, similar to himself, RJ had a writer's brain similar to Butch, his paternal grandfather, Tandy could be completely absorbed into a book similar to her paternal grandmother, Donna, and RJ could make him smile even in the saddest times, like his Mary Anne. Things were actually getting better for the whole family.

The rest of the world, though, wasn’t doing the best. SOTF-TV had gone into full swing by now, and while Jonathan and Jane liked it, Tandy was appalled, while RJ was confused. Regular murder was still wrong, as a fairly recent winner had proved when she was murdered and her murderer sent to prison. So why were these allowed? To get him more into the spirit of the show, when RJ was 12, Jonathan had the two of them watch John Carpenter’s Original Halloween. This spawned a great interest in slasher movies for RJ, because even if they had a predictable formula, most of them were able to do their own thing to grab people’s interest, and later slasher movies even managed to create interesting twists. Despite his interest in slasher movies growing up, however, RJ only really came to understand SOTF-TV, and still isn’t a fan of it. Whenever he tried watching it, the fact that it was real people that were really dying never left his brain, and he always feels that it’s too personal compared to the cast of a slasher movie. While his relationship with his father still isn't the best, the two of them have a tradition of watching at least one slasher a month, whether it's watching closely to see the action in all it's terrifying glory, being genuinely terrified of the movie (a rare, but not impossible occurrence), or riffing on how ridiculous and crazy they are. It's the one time where the two of them are really able to bond over a shared interest.

As the years passed, RJ found himself interested in more things. Ernest’s impressive collection of records and general piano skills had RJ practicing singing, and he became much more serous about it than just casually singing along with the radio. Ernest even gave him lessons, having been an avid singer himself in his youth. While he grew a great amount of respect for the classic artists, RJ always found himself gravitating to more modern, pop songs. No matter what, though, his skill singing grew as time went on, and RJ earned a reputation for being a pretty good singer. His fondness for music also expanded into fascination for theatre, mainly musicals, though comedies also caught his attention. When he hears of a play being put on in a nearby theatre that he has a chance of being in, RJ tends to audition and get some sort of part, though it’s rare for him to get a big part, with the one time he did being similarly abbreviated name character “J.D.” Jason Dean in Heathers, nailing the sweet spot between psychotic and sympathetic so well he genuinely disturbed some audience members. He's still waiting to get a big break so to speak, as it was a high school production rather than a professional one, and the audience was mainly consisting of parents that wanted to see their kids perform. He doesn't intend on making this his profession, however, and while he enjoys musical theatre a lot, he personally prefers the smaller, not as essential roles over main character roles. Additionally, his knack for comedy grew as well, and while not always the best jokes, his quips were sure to at least lighten the general mood among the people he’s near. Whether it’s light hearted jokes or genuinely funny snark, he’s able to get a smile on someone’s face. More minorly, RJ found himself interested in different types of cheese, from classics like American, Cheddar, and Swiss, to odder ones like blue cheese, montebore, and black bomber cheese. As such, when he found out about it, he joined the cheese club, hoping to one day try every cheese possible.

There was one change about RJ that wasn’t seen coming by anyone. RJ found himself disinterested in his own appearance, finding it boring and common. He was a white guy with a relatively plain face, brown hair, brown eyes, and wore plain clothes. While not exactly a bad thing, he wanted more, to really stand out among his classmates. While standing out had been a problem for him before, he knew he could handle it better now, and had actual friends to back him up if he was bullied. This confused his parents at first, considering they wanted to help him stand out with his name, but with the approval of Ernest they allowed it, reasoning that it was RJ's choice, and they weren't going to stand in his way if this was what he wanted. And so, he changed his appearance. He let his hair grow out, and bleached and dyed it colors, sometimes not even dying it. He got a single ear pierced and, with money earned from doing chores like cleaning toilets, taking care of laundry, and taking care of the lawn, he was able to purchase earrings he liked. He dressed differently to show his interests as well as his friendly, funny personality. And he managed to stand out more with his grades, as someone with a stand out appearance like RJ maintained steady grades of As and Bs. When he graduated middle school, a teacher suggested he take the entrance test for Mangrove Garden High School, and while he didn’t pass with flying colors, he certainly earned his place in the school.

He’s come to regret the choice, just a little bit, however, with how the school has been run by Principal Knox. While he’s happy subjects like science and math aren’t suffering, the fact that his main interests are being mistreated annoys him greatly, and he worries over how the production of Little Shop of Horrors will turn out. The ranking system especially gets him upset, as suddenly grades aren’t as important anymore. While outwardly he still tries to not let it bother him, inwardly he feels paranoid about said ranking and worries about what his friends will think if it slips from his surprisingly high placement. He only voices these fears to Tandy, of course, and though they have to talk through cell phones and video chat with her going to an out of state college to become a lawyer, they still maintain their chats and healthy relationship. He’s glad to be graduating this year, and he plans on never looking back at this school.

RJ planned to go into writing after high school, mainly for entertainment purposes. He has ideas for books, such as a story where the majority of people on earth disappear and a teen has to somehow go on with life, a mystery where a murder happens at a teen’s birthday party and the other teenage guests need to find the culprit, a horror story of a monster that slaughtered crowds but always left an amnesiac sole survivor, and even a dramatic idea of a slasher movie final girl about her life after her slasher movie experience. He planned to also double major in nursing, finding it practical to know in everyday life, as well as having something to fall back on in case the author's life doesn’t work out as well as he hopes. Appropriately, RJ’s been getting some private lessons with his mother on the basics of medicine and medical treatment, and while not an expert still, he has better knowledge of it than most people his age.

RJ's more or less made himself into the kind of person that's friends with everyone in high school, or at least most people. He manages to get on good terms with most people, being the funny, friendly guy that doesn't seem to let anything get him down, though it's at the cost of not really being close to many of them. The people he actually manages to be close to are music lovers, avid readers, or similarly class clown type students, bonding over their shared interests, and in the latter two cases trying out his material to see if a joke or story idea is good, or needs to be thrown out. He doesn't really think about where his friends are on the ranking system as much as he does himself, finding that it's not important to him. He knows this is hypocritical, not caring about where his friends fall on the ranking system but caring a lot about where he falls on it, but those are emotions he has no control over, so he tries not to think about that too much.

Speaking of ranking, he's above average, doing well in most of his classes, excelling in English especially, but Gym Class drags down his standing. It's by far where he struggles most, as he's only barely getting a C-, and more than once has he called the class a form of torture or cruel and unusual punishment in-between gasps for air. He's fortunate in that it hasn't affected him yet in the rest of his life. While his family is concerned about his grades, they don't mind him being on the weaker side, as both professions he is considering going into don't require him being too strong. He's also avoided any trouble from it while performing, as he's not so weak that it's almost comical, and at most it's only caused him to be passed over for parts requiring a more physically imposing actor.

While RJ likely won't admit it out loud, he has trouble with SOTF and it's concept. While he understands that it's backed by the American government, and the rest of the world doesn't seem to have much of a problem with it, he just feels uncomfortable that one of the biggest pieces of media in the world is about a bunch of teenagers from the same school being forced to kill each other. This distaste has even spread to his back up occupation if being an author doesn't work out. The only times he really pays attention to SOTF is seeing their winners, and with how often they're badly beaten and injured, he often feels sympathy for them and what they've gone through, and he wishes he could help them get better. This affected his decision unconsciously, making him feel compelled to learn a way he could help people he's sympathetic towards, and since his mother is a nurse, he went the easy way and got lessons from her as well. Like RJ and Jonathan's movie nights, this does give Jane some time to bond with her son, even if it's minor, and as their relationship is rocky as well, she makes sure not to waste it.

Also of note is why RJ's relationship with his parents is not the best, apart from their separate activities. While they still treated him well, and even gave him softer treatment growing up as he was the younger child, it never truly left his mind how they had treated Tandy. Brushing aside her cries for help, saying that she was just being too sensitive. It makes him afraid to really open up to his parents, believing that doing so will result in them blaming him for his own emotional problems. While he can still interact positively with them outside of their individual activities, those interactions are short and a bit forced compared to interactions with Tandy or Ernest. RJ wants to really talk about these things and actually bond with his parents, but until he gets a sign that they actually do care about his feelings, he's going to hesitate and be unwilling to even try.

Advantages: RJ’s biggest strength is likely his friendly, comedic attitude towards others, something that’s surely already earned him allies, and quickly earn him any new allies he may need. His affinity for slasher movies, as well as his general creativity for writing, could mean that even a joke weapon could potentially become deadly in his hands. Because of his small, weaker figure, people are also likely to overlook him as a threat, someone that they could easily take on in a fight and overpower, and with his previous acting skills, it’s possible for him to go along with that idea, convincing others he can be taken advantage of only to blindside them, or play off any kills he earns as self-defense. Additionally, his experience with medical work, however minor, will likely help him if he or any allies he gains get injured.
Disadvantages: RJ’s biggest disadvantages are likely his own physique, his mindset towards murder, his appearance, and his lack of familiarity to SOTF. While not exactly obese, he does not exercise often, and it’s theorized that he only remain thin because of his metabolism. Said metabolism will also likely be a problem, as he’s likely to run through his provided food quicker than others. As for his feelings towards murder, while he sees no problems with fictional murder, he’s got issues with actually harming others, and will likely hesitate if he does try to kill. Because of his desire to stand out, he’s liable to do just that; stand out in the arena, and among his classmates, which is sure to cause him problems if he runs into any players or enemies that he's made in game or out of it. Finally, as he's not familiar with SOTF as well as his peers, it's more than likely he'll have trouble with its mechanics or general trends, and may need assistance if he wants to survive for very long.

Designated Number: Claudia's Krakens 09 (CK09)

----

Designated Weapon: De Lisle Carbine

Mentor Comment: "I will be ragin' if Ra Jin doesn't get to use that gun. But as long as he sticks to the tropes of the movies he's found of he should do well. Plus plus, he likes the same movies as me and that makes him cool in my book. I'm rooting for you buddy, do it for Jason."

DECEASED