Caleb Policarpio

Name: Caleb Thomas Delos Reyes Policarpio
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Place of Residence: Hutt Central, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Language/s: English, Tagalog
Hobbies and Interests: Video games, speedrunning, fighting games, streaming, horror, reading, playing the guitar

Appearance: Caleb is a small, skinny young man, standing at 157 cm (5’2”) and weighing 56 kg (124 lbs.). He is of Filipino descent, which shows in his medium olive skin tone and wavy black hair, which he keeps in a crew cut. Caleb has a round face, with a flat nose, full lips, and wide, dark brown eyes.

When Caleb was abducted, he was wearing his school uniform, which consisted of a white short-sleeved polo underneath a red jumper (both bearing the crest of St. Leo’s College), grey shorts, knee-high grey socks, and black leather shoes.

Biography: Caleb Thomas Delos Reyes Policarpio was born on June 12th, 2003 in Hutt Central, a suburb of Lower Hutt, New Zealand, to Alfredo and Teresita Policarpio. He was born nearly a year after his father and two older siblings emigrated to the country from the Philippines to join his mother, who had been working in the country since 1999. Caleb’s conception was accidental, though his parents decided against abortion due to their religious beliefs. Teresita is a nurse and Alfredo is an accountant, and both were able to provide their children with a comfortable upbringing.

Caleb had a quiet, if not lonely childhood. His parents worked long hours and often left him in the care of babysitters. Later on, he was left in the care of his older siblings, Mark Anthony and Jessica Grace. Mark and Jessica are respectively ten and seven years his senior, and while they were responsible caretakers, they were often too preoccupied with their own studies and hobbies to spend time with him. Both of them had left the house by the time he was eleven, so he didn’t develop any particularly close connection with either.

He spent most of his early childhood playing video games on a hand-me-down Game Cube from a cousin in the Philippines, with his favorite being Super Monkey Ball. Despite its difficulty, Caleb was determined to complete the game, and would replay levels over and again until he beat them. He had a similar approach to other games, spending hours exploring the worlds of Super Mario Sunshine and Sonic Adventure 2 and completing any challenge he came across. As he got older, his family got a Wii, and he was similarly enraptured by games like Super Mario Galaxy.

Caleb’s family is devoutly Roman Catholic, and he was sent to parochial schools from a young age. He struggled academically throughout primary school, being a slow learner compared to his peers in subjects like math and science. His parents were unsure of how to deal with Caleb, as both his older siblings had been above-average students. Their ultimate response was to discipline him, believing that it stemmed from a lack of commitment. He would get grounded over middling grades, with his parents taking away his video games until his grades improved. Caleb initially reacted poorly, though he quickly learned that acting out would only bring more punishments. Through hard work, Caleb went from a poor student to decidedly average, which was satisfactory to his parents.

Caleb had a difficult time socializing with his classmates due to his sheltered childhood. He was naturally quiet, and often went unnoticed by his louder or more talkative peers. Caleb drifted between many different friend groups, quietly tagging along during games and other activities without feeling particularly included. His slightly awkward nature also made him an easy target for teasing, which he was particularly sensitive to. Caleb often reacted strongly and lashed out physically on a few occasions. After being reprimanded by his teachers and parents, he was forced to find a different way to deal with bullies. Ultimately, he chose to avoid teasing by avoiding socializing with his peers altogether. He adopted an abrasive personality, reacting to most of his peers with hostility and suspicion. He remained friendless for most of his primary school years and took up reading to pass the time on his own. He became a frequent visitor to the school’s library and developed a taste for fantasy novels.

In an effort to break him out of his shell, his parents pushed him into various extracurricular activities. Caleb bounced between several different sports and activities, most of which he ended up uninterested in or disliking. A particularly disastrous stint in a junior rugby league sticks in his mind, which cemented Caleb’s disdain for any kind of outdoor or physical activity. However, when he was ten, his parents enrolled him in guitar lessons. Caleb was unexpectedly fascinated by the lessons, enjoying both the act of playing itself and the challenge of learning complex chords and songs. He was a proactive learner, often looking up tutorials and learning songs in his free time. Caleb continued to take guitar lessons until he entered secondary school at the all-boys St. Leo’s College, where he began taking music classes there. To this day, music is his favorite classes.

Around this time, Caleb was gifted a laptop as a reward for his improved academic performance. He was thrilled with the gift, and quickly made his first forays onto the internet. One of the first things he found were Let’s Plays of his favorite games on YouTube, which introduced him to platforms like Steam and the wider world of PC gaming. He began to play more games on his computer rather than consoles, which tended to be darker and grittier than the Nintendo and Sega games he grew up with. He grew to love roguelike games like Nuclear Throne and the Binding of Isaac, while retaining a love for more open world games. One of his favorites became Grand Theft Auto V. Due to the games’ graphically violent and sexual content, though, Caleb kept his ownership of these games secret. Thankfully, his parents were not were not the kind of people to go through their children’s computers. His early days on the internet were also his first exposure to horror, by way of horror games like Outlast and SOMA. Caleb was enraptured by both the story and atmosphere, which led him to emulate older games like the Resident Evil or Siren series. His interest in horror branched out into other mediums as well. Horror became Caleb’s favorite genre of movie, with a preference for psychological horror and J-horror. He also began picking up horror novels from the local library, taking a particular liking to Stephen King’s works.

Caleb also began to watch streamers on Twitch, a few of which happened to be speedrunners. He was fascinated by the whole new dimension speedruns added to video games, and admired the discipline and skill needed to pull off certain strategies. Eventually, Caleb was inspired to do speedruns himself. He dabbled in many games, including classic speedrunning games like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but over time he gravitated towards newer games and games he was nostalgic for. Currently, Caleb is in the middle of running Super Mario Sunshine, Super Monkey Ball, and Hades, which he sporadically streams on Twitch under the name CycloneCaleb. Since he’s a relatively amateur speedrunner who usually streams in New Zealand Standard Time he doesn’t have much of an audience, which is typically in the 10-30 range on Twitch. Caleb has submitted several of his runs to speedrun.com, and he’s in the middle of the pack on a few leaderboards. However, he aspires to rank higher—or even get a world record—and he grinds relentlessly towards that goal in his spare time. Caleb finds the high-pressure nature of speedrunning exhilarating and uses it to motivate himself into improving his skills.

Although he had been raised Roman Catholic, Caleb wasn’t particularly religious, and mostly attended Mass and took part in sacraments because it was expected of him. Any connection he had to his faith, however, was severed when he developed a crush on another boy in Year 8. Aside from a few doubts, Caleb had a relatively easy time coming to terms with his sexuality. His biggest worries came from how his family would react. His sexuality caused him to distance himself from his family even further, out of fear of rejection. Caleb also found himself despising religion, which he viewed as the main catalyst behind his family’s homophobia. Because of all this, Caleb has remained deep in the closet. He continues to take part in religious services out of obligation, finding it easier to go with his family and school rather than against them.

As a result, Caleb ended up feeling alienated from his peers and the wider Catholic community. While he’s not as outwardly hostile as he was when he was younger, his classmates tend to give him a wide berth because of his cold demeanor. He is much more outgoing online. He would often chat with people he met in multiplayer games and joined many public gaming-focused Discord servers. When he was fifteen, he joined a smaller, private Discord server consisting of teenagers around his age. Many members of the server were also queer themselves, which gave Caleb a sense of belonging. The group would frequently play video games together and do voice calls. While he was initially quiet and somewhat awkward, Caleb slowly opened up and showed an inquisitive and passionate (albeit somewhat acerbic) side of him that he rarely shows in real life.

In recent years, being in the Discord introduced Caleb to other genres of games. Lurking in the server’s fighting game channels inspired him to pick up Tekken 7, which was particularly popular among his friends. He is a self-identified Law main, and often employs an aggressive, offensive playstyle. Caleb is somewhat competitive and has an informal rivalry with another person on the server. Caleb doesn’t play much Tekken outside of informal matches on the server, though he’s been meaning to practice on his own in an effort to surpass his ‘rival.’

When Caleb was 16, he began working at McDonald’s part-time as a cashier in order to earn more spending money. Up until that point he had been relying on modest cash gifts from relatives to buy newer games, while emulating older ones. Although Caleb is able to cordially interact with customers and keep up with the fast-paced environment, he finds working in food service exhausting. However, he has been unable to find any other part-time jobs that pay as much or more than his current earnings, so he puts up with it.

In school, Caleb is a driven, attentive student to a fault. He excels in his music and humanities classes, though he struggles to maintain slightly above average grades in his math and science courses. Ultimately, he is able to keep his head above water, although he’s come to loathe the amount of studying that’s required to do so, as well as the education system as a whole. Caleb dreads the idea of continuing his education beyond secondary school, though he feels like has no other options—his parents expect him to go to university like his siblings had and look down on vocations as lowlier work. Now that he’s started his final year of secondary school, Caleb sees university as an inevitability he has to accept.

Caleb is unsure of what he’s going to study in college, as he isn’t particularly passionate about any of his subjects in school outside of music, and his parents don’t consider it a ‘practical’ study. He’s also largely limited to humanities-focused subjects, as he dreads the idea of university-level maths and science courses. Currently, Caleb is considering degrees in communications, English, or a social science, with an added minor in music. College applications open in five months, so he still has time to decide. In the meantime, Caleb is researching programs at universities in the South Island, far from Wellington. Outside of university, Caleb has also entertained the idea of streaming full-time. It’s not something he’s discussed with his parents, as they are largely uninvolved in his hobbies and they’re unlikely to approve of the idea. Nonetheless, he intends to continue streaming while at university, and hopefully grow his audience so it could become a potential source of income.

Advantages: Caleb is driven and ambitious, and will work relentlessly towards any goal he sets his mind to. He is also fairly optimistic and does well under pressure.
Disadvantages: Caleb tends to be withdrawn and somewhat awkward, which will make it difficult to make or maintain alliances. He is also out of shape and dislikes being outdoors.

Designated Number: O21

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Designated Weapon: Akrafena

Conclusion: We were nice enough to provide you with the sword you can fall on. - Polar

The above biography is as written by Aster. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.

Evaluations

Handled by: Aster

Kills: Pranay Shankar, Abel Atkins, Tarren Joseph

Killed By: Clara Micallef

Collected Weapons: Akrafena (assigned weapon)

Allies: Tarren Joseph

Enemies: Clara Micallef, Jevaun Barrett, Pranay Shankar

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads

Below is a list of threads containing Caleb, in chronological order.

• Suburbia Overture
• la guerra de los santos
• Who Pilots All These Crude Machines
• Dirge for Sheperds
• A Boring Dystopia
• The Most Important Thing in the World

Your Thoughts

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