B007 - Roux, Myles [DECEASED]

[MK Kilmarnock]

DECEASED

Name: Myles Asher Roux
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Reality television, horror movies and TV shows, Japanese culture, J-rock and visual kei music, walking, gossip

Appearance: Myles is somewhat short and slim, standing at 5’6” and weighing 129 pounds, which he maintains through a fast metabolism and a preference for walking over other modes of transportation. He has a generally youthful appearance, with an oval-shaped face, a short, rounded nose, and thin lips. His eyes are round and bright green with touches of hazel, though he’s fond of using more dramatic descriptors for his eye color. He is Caucasian and has a pale skin tone, and he is prone to sunburns if not careful. His hair is a light ash blonde color, currently cut in piecey layers to about chin length. It tends to curl out at the ends, especially when allowed to grow out. He sometimes uses dye or hair chalk to add bright colors to his hair.

Myles’s style of dress has a punk flair to it, largely inspired by his favorite musicians and fashion designers and helped by the fact that much of it is purchased secondhand and possesses a natural wear and tear. He prefers to dress mostly in neutrals, with one or two pieces of color to any outfit. He has no piercings, but frequently wears jewelry such as necklaces and rings. He has a preference for wearing a particular black flat-top felt hat, mainly because it is comfortable and goes with any outfit.

On the day of the abduction, he was wearing white distressed denim jeans, a black t-shirt with art of the Dir en grey album Uroburos on the front, a worn white leather jacket, dark gray Doc Marten boots, and his typical black felt hat. He wore a necklace made of large gold-colored chain links and a black metal ring with a gold skull pattern on the ring finger of his right hand. He had used hair chalk to add pink and blue tips to his hair.

Biography: Myles Roux was born on February 20th, 2000, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Oscar and Rena Roux. Both of his parents had been married once before; while Oscar’s previous marriage produced no children, Rena shared custody of her eight-year-old daughter Ava with her ex-husband. The large age difference between them and the fact that they usually did not live together meant that Myles has not had a strong connection with his half-sister for most of his life, but they got along well enough whenever they were together.

Rena took several years off from her job as a retail manager after Myles’s birth to be a stay-at-home mom, hoping that devoting more time to him and Ava would help mitigate the problems that had led to her first divorce. Oscar was consistently employed and earned steady wages at the local Coca-Cola bottling plant, but even after Rena returned to work, the Rouxs were always lower-middle class at best. Rena spent Myles’s early years trying to instill good habits and work ethic in him, encouraging him to be active, healthy, and studious in the hopes that he would be motivated to develop skills that would help him succeed later in life. Neither she nor Oscar had an education beyond community college levels, and they felt that the family’s semi-frequent financial struggles stemmed from this, so Myles’s education was always a priority for his parents.

Due to Oscar’s long working hours and the fact that Rena was Myles’s primary caregiver during his childhood, he was always closer to his mother than his father. His favorite activities during childhood were going on walks to the park or playground and watching TV with his mom, both things they did very frequently. The first was Rena’s attempt to ensure that Myles would get plenty of exercise and be able to interact with kids his age regularly, while the latter was largely because of Rena’s own interest in following TV shows and because it was an easy way to keep Myles occupied for a while if she needed to attend to other things. Early on, he was usually restricted to watching cartoons aimed at children his age, but as he grew older his mother became more relaxed in what he was allowed to watch, partly because it meant that she was able to follow her favorite reality shows while Myles watched with her rather than waiting to do so while he was at school or after he’d gone to bed.

Myles’s elementary school years were quite smooth. He was a reasonably social child and had a decent circle of friends, and the effort he put into his schoolwork at his parents’ behest put him consistently near the top of his class. Many of his friends had an interest in the same television shows as he did, and it was not uncommon for them to try and recreate the challenges from shows like Survivor or Endurance during recess as games. A few of his friends got into anime and manga towards the end of elementary and beginning of middle school, and Myles was introduced to it through them. He was enchanted with the over-the-top nature of many anime shows and would spend much of middle school entrenching himself in otaku subculture.

Part of what fueled Myles’s interest in anime and Japanese culture was his inherent interest in fantasy; from his naïve point of view, the real Japan was as outlandish and intriguing as its portrayal in shows and films, and he devoted himself to learning as much about its culture and subcultures as possible. The other part of his motivation was largely escapism; as he progressed through school and the work became more advanced, Myles found himself having to put in more and more effort to maintain his previous high academic status as he struggled to grasp more complex material. As schoolwork got more intensive, Myles's abilities simply lagged behind, and he somewhat resented the seeming effortlessness with which some of his peers managed their high grades. At times, he would get overwhelmed and retreat into watching his favorite shows and planning out fantasy trips to Japan or other places rather than focus on real life and school.

When his grades began to noticeably slip because of this, Rena and Oscar were concerned that his non-school related interests were interfering with his work ethic. They intervened by restricting his access to the computer and TV after school to motivate him to spend more time on schoolwork before he was allowed to indulge his hobbies. This backfired somewhat, as it lead to Myles finding other hobbies to procrastinate with like spending time outside or just daydreaming instead of completing his homework. His parents saw this as developing laziness and rebellion, and arguments ensued over his refusal or inability to do his work, a few of which got very heated.

Myles was particularly hurt by his mother’s belief that he had just gotten lazy and her inability to understand how he was struggling with schoolwork, since they had previously been very close. This, combined with a few instances during more heated arguments where his parents told him that he’d be unable to get into college and end up stuck working a dead-end job after high school if he did not improve his grades, instilled an even stronger resentment in Myles towards some of his more academically gifted classmates and the school system in general, as well as towards wealthier classmates who didn’t need to work hard in school to ensure a comfortable life. It also bred resentment towards his parents since it seemed to him that they valued his school performance more than anything else about him. At times, he told them that he didn’t care about school at all and instead was going to move to Japan and make a living as a manga artist or actor there. His parents did not take these statements very seriously and responded by pointing out the difficulty and high cost of moving to another country and the low probability of making a reliable income with such jobs. Their aim was to bring Myles around to their point of view with logical statements, but at this time it mostly served to make him feel that they didn’t care about his hobbies or aspirations in addition to hounding him about school.

During his tumultuous middle school years, Myles developed a habit of gossiping and spreading rumors about his classmates as an outlet for some frustrations; he particularly targeted those who excelled academically and those who came from more privileged backgrounds, these being the people he most envied and resented. He justified his gossip to himself with the reasoning that he wasn’t spreading rumors that would do any long-term damage to anyone’s reputation and that it was better than acting out in the classroom or picking fights, which would only increase his parents’ scrutiny of him. He would deny any involvement unless confronted with overwhelming evidence that he had been the one who invented the stories in the first place. Being caught a few times and having some rumors get out of hand once they began to spread among his classmates resulted in the end of some of his friendships, and his developing reputation as a gossip led some others to distance themselves from him. However, almost as many found his stories entertaining and would contribute rumors of their own, and some of his peers began treating him more positively to avoid becoming a target of his gossip, so he did not feel the loss very keenly. He did get in trouble a couple of times when other students brought their grievances to teachers, but with no serious harm done and the excuse that it was typical petty middle school drama, he always got off with a slap on the wrist.

Due to his frequently changing social circle, Myles drifted in and out of several cliques in late middle and early high school. He did not often truly open up to others thanks to the relatively fresh memories of his parents’ dismissal of his interests and his awareness that confiding in the wrong person could set him up to become a target of similar treatment in the gossip mill like he’d given some of his classmates. Most of the friendships he formed during this time did not last, but several of the hobbies that he was introduced to through his various cliques did. Chief among them were his interests in horror media and in punk and metal music, both of which appealed to him with their subversive visuals and themes.

By this time, Myles’s involvement in otaku subculture had mostly faded along with his old friendships, but he still held a fascination with Japanese culture. Thus, it was not very long before he made a connection between his old interest in Japan and his new interest in music and began exploring the world of J-rock and visual kei. He was enamored with the wild visual style of bands in these categories, and felt a connection with the harsh, often angry lyrical content. His favorite bands are X-Japan and Dir en grey, particularly the latter for their wildly varying look and sound and the shock factor of some of their songs and videos. He sometimes explores artists from outside Japan who are influenced by the look and sound of J-rock as well. He began to imitate the looks of his favorite musicians when he could, finding clothes in thrift shops that fit the look he wanted and cutting his hair in imitation of his favorite J-rock artists.

Myles’s taste in movies and TV shows is a bit more varied than his music preferences; his enjoyment of reality TV has continued, though the kinds of reality shows that he watches have gone in a more fashion and entertainment-influenced direction. His favorite shows are Project Runway and Face-Off, and he also follows America’s Next Top Model and RuPaul’s Drag Race, though not as closely. His interest in horror movies and shows leans towards psychological and surreal horror over slasher films and the like; he finds psychological horror to be more interesting and creative than horror which focuses more on violence, though he is tolerant of gore. Much like his music tastes, he has an interest in Asian horror, particularly J-horror, and he generally favors foreign and indie films to mainstream American ones.

Finding new hobbies that he was passionate about helped improve Myles’s emotional state, especially once he reached high school and could start taking elective courses that reflected his interests. Additionally, his parents decided at the beginning of his freshman year that he should sign up for peer tutoring so that he wouldn’t struggle so much with his coursework; because he had not been very receptive to their attempts to help him since their fights throughout middle school, Rena and Oscar hoped that he would react better to working with a classmate. Myles is still frequently frustrated by standard course material, but with regular tutoring he has been able to keep his grades up for most of high school. Abstract thinking is not one of his strengths, though, and he has never been able to recapture the academic high of his early school years. Most of his grades are middling to low B’s, though he routinely achieves A’s in film and music-related electives.

Myles first suspected that he was attracted to boys as well as girls in early middle school, but the personal and social turmoil he was going through at the time meant that he did not prioritize exploring this for a few years. Spending a lot of time on the internet and in various social settings throughout high school allowed him to investigate his sexuality more once he felt inclined to do so, and he eventually came to the conclusion that he was pansexual, attracted to people of any gender so long as he felt that they were compatible. This came as a natural-feeling recognition rather than a huge revelation to Myles, and he has always felt quite comfortable with his orientation.

Despite this, he never officially came out to his parents; during his junior year, he was outed to them by an ex-partner, Blaise d’Aramitz, after a break-up. This was one of the only times that Myles felt truly upset at the idea of anyone finding out about his sexuality, but to his relief, his parents made a genuine effort to be supportive. They gently encouraged him to open up to them about it, and eventually he did. Myles did his best to explain his feelings for other people and how he had come to the conclusion that he was pansexual to Rena and Oscar, and they eventually accepted that though they didn't fully understand the concept, this was an integral part of who he is and not a phase or a crisis of identity. To his embarrassment, his parents also broached the topic of sex during this conversation, but they made the point that they would rather he be honest and safe about it rather than them turning a blind eye. Though the incident ended well, it destroyed any positive feelings that Myles had left for Blaise, and he maintains a strong resentment towards them and anyone who is friendly with them.

Though his sexuality plays a significant part in his life and relationships, Myles does not feel a strong connection to the LGBTQ community. He is not particularly interested in activism and does not enjoy discussing the public and personal struggles that come with an LGBTQ identity, and he rarely brings up his own sexuality unless prompted. His philosophy is that he is attracted to people, not gender, and that it is nobody’s business but his and his partners'. Because his romantic relationships tend to not last long, and because he’s had several friends with benefits and purely sexual encounters, he has developed a reputation among his peers for being somewhat promiscuous. He tends to idealize people, both in platonic and romantic relationships, and several of both have failed largely because the other people involved could not measure up to what Myles had built them up to be in his head. He also develops celebrity crushes very easily, again fueled by his tendency towards fantasy and the fact that it is easy to see famous people as ideals rather than real, flawed people.

Myles’s relationship with his parents had grown less strained over time as his academic problems straightened out, and they have grown a lot closer over the last year or so since he began opening up to them again. His lack of close non-romantic or sexual connections with his peers concerns them somewhat, but they have made a point not to pry or interfere unless they think there is something seriously unhealthy going on. When asked outright if he is happy with the current state of his life and relationships, Myles usually says yes, and that is good enough for his parents.

His contact with Ava is infrequent, especially since she is now married and living in a city a few hours away, but their interactions are generally friendly. Both Myles and his parents spend a lot of time out of the house, and they can often go a few days without spending a significant amount of time together, especially since Myles got a part-time job as a cashier at a local grocery chain. When they are all home at the same time, they usually eat dinner and watch TV together. When he is not at school, home, work, or a friend or romantic partner’s house, Myles can most frequently be found walking around town with his headphones in, for exercise and relaxation.

Myles has a large social circle but few close friends. His general demeanor is friendly enough, but his reputation for gossip and the fact that most do not view him as a particularly welcoming person means that not many people try to get closer to him. He is generally on the periphery of the popular crowd thanks to his quirky appearance and personality and the fact that he can be relied on for gossip. However, outside of his best friend Ivy Langley, even the popular kids consider him to be somewhat two-faced and some of his hobbies to be odd. While he has good emotional intelligence in comparison to his book smarts, he is not very emotionally honest with people and finds it difficult to give genuine reactions, positive or negative. This also leads to him being a bit manipulative, as he will usually react the way that he expects people want him to unless he feels like provoking a reaction or picking a fight.

For the most part, Myles is content with how his high school years have gone, but he is eager to move on and explore the world. He felt pressured to get into college, and while he isn’t completely thrilled at the idea of four more years of school, he reluctantly agrees with his parents that it’s his best shot at securing a better future. During college applications, he mostly applied to out-of-state schools, intending to rely on scholarships and financial aid to get a change of scenery. He was accepted to the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, where he plans to study film design and special effects.

Advantages: Myles is in good physical shape and has decent stamina from frequent foot travel. He has a large social circle which could help him in forming alliances. He has a somewhat manipulative and guarded personality, which could work to his advantage if subterfuge is necessary.
Disadvantages: While Myles is in shape, he is not an athlete and could be easily overpowered by bigger or stronger classmates. Though he has a lot of acquaintances, he has few close friends that he can rely on and a considerable number of enemies, and he is considered untrustworthy by many. He has a tendency to retreat into fantasy and idealism rather than face problems head on.

Designated Number: Male student No. 007

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Designated Weapon: Kiss of death (lipstick gun)

Conclusion: I would pay off everybody here to get the chance to review B007, and I just lucked into it! What's more, he even gets the perfect spy weapon! I'd say B007 is well-rounded with all the tools necessary to make it all the way. Even retreating into fantasy as a bit of escapism isn't that much of a weakness. I mean, it's what I do. - Dennis Lourvey

DECEASED