B007 - Bustamante, Jasper[/DECEASED]

[Slam]

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Name: Jasper Andrada Bustamante
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Grade: 11th
School: Cochise High School
Hobbies and Interests: Marine biology, furry fandom, vlogging, social media, soccer

Appearance: Jasper is on the short side for his age, standing at 5'5" and weighing 127 lbs. He is lean and well-toned from soccer and regular exercise, and is slightly hunched due to copious time spent on the computer. He is of South Asian descent, which shows in his caramel complexion. Jasper's skin is relatively clear, most of his acne breakouts happening in his early high school years. Jasper has wavy black hair kept short enough to keep out of his eyes, which is typically styled into a fauxhawk. He has a rounded face with plump cheeks, making him appear younger than he is. Jasper's lips are full, and he has straight, white teeth thanks to braces and meticulous dental hygiene. His nose is broad-tipped and his almond-shaped eyes are dark brown in color.

Jasper dresses for comfort and his wardrobe is devoid of any variety; he almost exclusively wears hoodies, t-shirts and jeans. In colder weather he throws on another heavy jacket and he switches to cargo shorts during the summer. On the day of the trip Jasper was wearing a red Henley shirt under a dull olive green hoodie, paired with dark denim jeans and well-worn grey sneakers. As a joke, Jasper also wore a pair of IMAX RealD 3D glasses with the lenses popped out, imitating stereotypical hipster glasses.

Biography: Jasper Andrada Bustamante was born on August 16th, 1998, the eldest of two children to Caroline Andrada and Nathan Bustamante. Caroline and Nathan met as law students attending Chapman University School of Law, five years prior to Jasper's birth. The two bonded over their shared Filipino heritage and schoolwork, steadily dating throughout law school before marrying after graduation. Both worked in law firms around Orange County after graduating, though the question of starting a family was raised early on. After talking, the couple decided to start a family in a different part of the country. Both were tiring of city life, and wanted to try living somewhere new. A friend of them recommended living in Kingman, being born and raised there. The two looked into it and took a liking to the city, enjoying its conservative atmosphere. Neither minded the lower-class living there, figuring that they'd make do with what they had and that living modestly would teach Jasper good morals. Jasper was born a year after moving there.

They were relatively neurotic parents, trying their best to make sure Jasper was fine and freaking out at the littlest things. Being lawyers, both parents were busy and when Caroline's maternity leave expired they were faced with the dilemma of where to leave Jasper while they both were at work. They placed him in a daycare center for a brief spell, though they left him at home when a caretaker moved into the house.

His paternal grandfather, Solomon Bustamante, lived in Los Angeles, though after hearing that they needed someone to care for Jasper he offered to temporarily live with them in order to care for and spend time with his grandson, extending his stay once Caroline gave birth to a daughter named Hannah when Jasper was three. Jasper grew up under the care of "Lolo Sol," as he called him, and developed a good relationship with him as a result. While his parents were strict and overprotective, his grandfather gained Jasper's favor for his leniency. His grandfather initially was very hands on in his care, though as Jasper grew older and became a little more independent his attention shifted to Hannah, leaving Jasper in front of the television and only helping him whenever he asked. Solomon would often leave Disney movies like Toy Story or 101 Dalmatians on, and Jasper was hooked. He loved the characters, and would easily get wrapped up in the plot. He became an avid fan of Disney movies, and would beg to watch every new one in theaters. He and his sister were fairly close despite the age gap, growing up in the same home together and spending time with their grandfather.

While Jasper's relationship with his parents wasn't as close as he was with his grandfather or sister, they made the most of the time they had together and his relationship with them was healthy and amicable. One of the few things they did regularly together was attend church, and they also enrolled him in Sunday school to further instill his faith. He was attentive in both church and class, and was a passive follower: he took what his pastors and Sunday school teachers said for word, and didn't dwell on it, preferring to go back to his movies and playing once he was out of church.

Jasper also spent a lot of time around his extended family: whenever his parents had vacation days, they'd take weekend trips to visit a variety of relatives scattered around Southern California, mostly concentrated in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim area. The biggest of these trips was their annual Christmas reunion, when they'd spend time in Los Angeles and divide their time between his mother and father's side of the family. They'd usually spend more time with his mother's side, spending Christmas Eve in the home where Caroline grew up. Jasper got along with his cousins, and respected his aunts and uncles the best he could, though he became particularly close with his Uncle Ryan.

Ryan Andrada, Caroline's older brother, lives in Long Beach with his wife and two children. He works as a marine biologist at the Aquarium of the Pacific and deeply enjoys his work. He has a specialization in deep sea creatures, and often talks about it with anyone willing to listen. Caroline has a dislike for her brother, partially borne out of sibling rivalry and his eccentric attitude towards his profession. Jasper's other aunts and uncles also found his enthusiasm off-putting, and Ryan's descriptions of deep sea creatures terrified his cousins. But Jasper and Ryan found common ground, initially bonding when a five-year-old Jasper mentioned his favorite movie was Finding Nemo, and that he had a passive fascination with the ocean as a result. Ryan wasted no time in telling him about his profession and offered to take him to the aquarium.

With his parents' blessing Jasper accompanied his uncle to the nearest aquarium, visiting each exhibit as Ryan spouted trivia. It was Jasper's first time in an aquarium, and he was in awe of all the aquatic life contained in one building. Hearing his uncle explain everything only deepened his fascination. At the end of the trip Ryan let him buy several books from the gift shop, and Jasper poured over them for the rest of their visit. His parents were apprehensive about his particular hobby, associating it with the odd quirks of his uncle. His mother was more vocal about it, having a more intimate relationship with Ryan and stubbornly disliking him. However, they decided to leave him be in hopes that the hobby would just be a phase.

This coincided with the beginning of Jasper's education, and he came back from winter break with new things to talk about. He was a social butterfly, bonding with his classmates and quickly gaining a circle of friends he talked to regularly. Jasper was a very friendly and chatty person, though he could be a little overbearing and annoyed some of his peers with his incessant talking. While he lost some friends after he came back in January and annoyed people by constantly spewing facts about the peculiarities of deep sea life, he still maintained a good relationship with a good chunk of his classmates

During recess in elementary school Jasper fell in with the sportier kids, always joining in whatever sport they were playing that day. Jasper soon fell in love with soccer, enjoying kicking the ball around and competing against others. He became quite proficient at it, and in the third grade he and some similar-minded friends decided to join youth soccer outside of school. Jasper convinced his parents to sign him up for the local youth soccer team, and he and his friends had a blast playing with each other and competing against others. He was an excellent attacking midfielder, being able to kick hard and scoring numerous goals during his time. Once he entered middle school he joined the soccer team and continued his membership to this day, out of enjoyment and a need for physical exercise. He also wants to sharpen his skills.

In sixth grade, Jasper began to notice that most of his romantic attractions were directed at other boys, something he felt uneasy about, since most of his friends were crushing on girls. After doing some research online and thinking about it, Jasper came to the conclusion that he was gay. While he didn't think much of it himself, Jasper stayed silent in fear of the potentially explosive reaction of his friends and family: his friends used "gay" as an insult from time to time, and while his parents avoided the issue with him he assumed they were homophobic due to their strongly conservative views. Jasper is confident with the accuracy of his orientation, though as he entered high school and got a clearer understanding of his feelings he found that none of his attractions were sexual in nature. He discovered he was asexual, specifically homoromantic asexual. He is still closeted to almost everyone he knows, save for a few friends at school.

Around this time, Jasper also grappled with his views on religion. He'd been a passive follower before, but he wasn't sure if he could believe in a doctrine that was commonly used to oppress people like him. He didn't want to leave the church outright, but he wasn't sure if he agreed wholly on their views. After thinking about it more Jasper decided to adopt a more loose, accepting form of Christianity, keeping devout while knowing that his sexuality wouldn't condemn him. In retaliation to the arguments against homosexuality others would present, he has noted that it doesn't negatively affect anyone and has built his ethics around that rule. The only wrong things God would condemn are actions that intentionally and negatively affect others, which things like homosexuality never did. Jasper has loosened up on the rule when applied to people who break it, reasoning that they had it coming. He still regularly attends church with his family, keeping his views to himself in case his parents try to dig deeper into his reasoning behind them and discover his sexuality. He pays attention, though he tends to ignore parts of the sermon he doesn't agree with.

Jasper began spending an increasingly large amount of time on the internet during his middle and high school years, enjoying the convenience of being able to find almost anything with only a click and finding it an open place to talk about things. He uses Twitter as a platform for venting and saying whatever's on his mind, a place he is open about his sexuality and most other things. Jasper also spends copious amounts of time on YouTube, initially creating an account to lurk and follow channels he enjoyed watching. He became drawn into vlogging channels like danisnotonfire, AmazingPhil, vlogbrothers and others. He found the format fascinating and enjoyed getting a peek into others' lives.

Jasper contemplated starting vlogs in his sophomore year; he had tried keeping a journal in middle school, hoping to document his life to look back on, but he disliked all the writing and dropped it. He figured that he could do the same thing with vlogging, and decided to go for it. He renovated his channel with a new title and began to post videos, talking about his life, interests and doing the occasional challenge. His channel is relatively unknown with very few subscribers, though he could care less about the numbers and merely thinks it's fun. He is very open about his personal business and sexuality on the Internet, so he tries his best to keep his internet presence hidden from people from school, save for a couple of close friends. In an attempt to further safeguard his identity, he avoids using his real name (referring to himself as Jay or JJ, keeping his surname a secret) and is ambiguous when talking about his personal business and things going on at school, explicitly avoiding naming where he lives, the school he attends or the people he talks about.

As he romped around on the internet, Jasper found himself fascinated by the furry fandom, holding a general interest in anthropomorphic characters and finding them cute. While he doesn't contribute to the fandom with art and stories, he is a general appreciator of it. He is well-aware of the stigma of the label, and it has become a guilty pleasure of his, only shared with a few friends who have the same interest. Jasper is much more open about it online, and self-identifies as a furry to an extent. He does have a fursona: he jokingly said his was a yeti crab once, saying that it was furry despite being a marine animal. Jasper became fond of the animal, however, and kept it.

His taste in movies has remained unchanged since he was a child, still being a fan of Pixar and other animated films. While he is bashful about seeing the newer films in theaters, he catches them online and has branched out his tastes: he has come to enjoy Studio Ghibli and Mamoru Hosoda films, along with several other animated movies that have their fair share of popularity on the internet.

Jasper is a slightly above average student. While he doesn't try hard enough to get As, he does well enough to avoid getting grades below a B. His only real struggle is English class, being a poor writer and preferring to hear or watch stories rather than read them. The only exception is his science classes, which he is genuinely interested in and gets straight As.

To his parents' chagrin, his interest in marine biology hasn't wavered since he was a child. The fact that most of the ocean hasn't been explored yet allures him, the mystery and desire to learn more keeping him interested. He continued to study the topic both on his own and in school, taking biology classes since Cochise doesn't have any courses touching upon marine biology. He also keeps in regular contact with his uncle to talk about it. Jasper hopes to attend California State University, Long Beach after graduating, majoring in marine biology, planning to stay with his uncle during his study there.

His parents are very vocally against it, wanting him to take up a more respectable profession such as a lawyer or doctor. While his mother is more vocal and stubborn about it, his father is more lenient but takes Caroline's side. Jasper dislikes arguing with either of them, and as such avoids talking to them whenever possible. Due to this and having to hide his sexuality, Jasper has grown distant from them. His relationship with his sister is equally apathetic: Hannah is an eighth grader at the local middle school, and despite their closeness as children they grew apart when Jasper was in middle school as their interests diverged, in part because of his sexuality and his skepticism on her open-mindedness. The two of them just keep out of each others' way. Jasper also grew apart from his grandfather for similar reasons, though he was still quite fond of him and was disappointed when he moved back to Los Angeles when Hannah entered middle school. They remain on uneasily good terms, and get along fine at family gatherings.

While his home life is stale, he remains sociable at school, not hesitating to talk to almost anyone about anything. He isn't as well-liked as he was before—he is still somewhat hyperactive and childish, and comes off as an annoying kid to some people. Others are off-put by his lack of social boundaries, or his tendency to ramble on about his hobbies. Jasper has had issues with this for a while, getting caught up in the topics he talks about and rarely giving time for the other person to talk. He can be nosy, but he is careful when keeping secrets and watches what he says. This doesn't mean that he never slips up, and in recent times he has tried to restrain himself. And when he does manage to provoke or annoy someone, he will back off if asked.

He retains a sunny disposition and is on good terms with a lot of people, and doesn't discriminate when it comes to socializing - he'll talk to almost anyone that seems approachable, and thus has a wide range of friends. He has a core group of friends he treats as confidantes, who are the only ones to know his true sexuality and his internet presence. Jasper is a hopeless romantic, crushing on a good amount of boys around the school but is afraid of stepping up in fear of rejection. He tends to admire them from afar, but is unafraid to talk to them like he would anybody else.

Advantages: Jasper has excellent stamina and lower body strength from soccer, and is a fast runner. He is also a very friendly, genial person, and won't find it difficult to find allies. He is also very optimistic and can cheer up his friends.
Disadvantages: He is devoutly religious and stands unwavering by his morals, which may prevent him from adapting to survive. Jasper avoids conflict whenever he can, and doesn't seem to want to fight. He also lacks social tact, and may unsettle someone with his obnoxious behavior.

Designated Number: Male student No. 007

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Designated Weapon: Broken bottle
Conclusion: This kid's been oppressed in one way or another his entire life, but now he'll finally have the chance to be himself. Too bad this is the last place to be an all-loving Pollyanna. - Trent Camden


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