Age: 36
Gender: Male, he/him
Field of Study: Leadership and Management Courses, Film and Television Production
Physical Description: Adam stands at just over 5'9" and weighs 187 lbs. He has an athletic build with a slightly thicker midsection that has become harder to exercise away as he's gotten older. He is Caucasian and has a paler skin tone that reflects his Irish/German ancestry. Adam does not have any hair, shaving his head daily due to the decline of his hairline, particularly in one spot in the middle of his head. When he did have hair, it was a reddish-auburn colour, which is reflected in the neatly trimmed beard that he sports. The beard has the beginning hints of grey in some areas near his lower jawline. Adam's head is an oval in shape and is well-suited to his baldness, with no unusual shapes or bulges anywhere on his skull.
He has high cheekbones and a slightly prominent chin. His face doesn't carry a lot of additional weight, but he has full cheeks that give his face a rounded shape. Adam's nose is slightly large but well-proportioned to his other features. The tip is rounded and the bridge has an ever-so-slight bend to the right from an old injury. Adam's lips are thin and his mouth is matched well to his face. He has a slight scar that runs in a horizontal line between his eyebrows that is hard to perceive unless in shadow. He also has a small scar that runs down the left side of his chin that is difficult to see underneath his beard. Adam has an expressive face and his emotions are often easily visible based on his features.
As Adam is bald, he is almost always found wearing a toque or a baseball cap to aid in protecting his head from the sun. Usually these have a sports team logo on them due to his affinity for sports. In his professional life, Adam is usually found wearing polo shirts or collared dress shirts along with slacks or a well-fitted pair of jeans. In his personal life, he prefers to err on the side of comfort rather than formality or fashion and weather permitting is generally found in jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie. No matter at work or not, Adam is always found wearing a Fitbit Charge 5, with a blue sport edition band. On the day the project began, Adam was wearing a charcoal blue/grey hooded sweatshirt, a black t-shirt with a graphic design on the front, and dark blue jeans. He also wore black New Balance sneakers with green trim and a green and yellow Oakland Athletics baseball cap.
Background:
- Adam Shackland was born in Bellevue, Washington on March 15, 1986 to Pete Shackland, an information systems engineer and Cassandra Shackland, a teacher. Being firmly in the upper-middle class, Adam was a smart, precocious child whose headstrong nature was apparent from a very early age.
- The eldest of three, Adam had a relatively ordinary upbringing and did not want for much. His parents tried their best to give their children a myriad of different experiences as they grew up to try and encourage them to reach their full potential.
- When he was a child, his family would sit in front of the television and watch Star Trek: The Next Generation while they ate dinner, leaving Adam mystified at the fantastic world that he saw on the screen. This helped develop a genuine love of science fiction (and especially Star Trek) that would persist throughout his life. While many of his peers were listening to the radio and watching popular sitcoms, Adam would always search out new science fiction and fantasy television shows and movies to watch, leading to a burgeoning curiosity about how it was all made.
- As a child, Adam's parents enrolled him in numerous sports in the hopes that he would take to one. He was always a very active and athletic child, but it wasn't until he started to play baseball that he started to appreciate the team element of sports. While enjoying baseball, he didn't find much of an aptitude for it, so his parents decided to try ice hockey, a favourite of his grandfather and mother. While the first season was difficult, eventually Adam began to start improving, and eventually stopped playing baseball to stick to hockey.
- When Adam was in the third grade, he tested as gifted and was eligible to move to the full-time gifted program. He was very reluctant to leave his school friends that he had grown up with, and begged his parents not to go and not to change schools. This would prove to be an error, as Adam eventually had a falling out with several of his peers over the way that they handled a disagreement. While achieving very well academically, Adam became bored and depressed due to his social issues, leading his parents to arrange for him to change schools and join the gifted program in the fifth grade.
- This essentially flipped the issues - Adam fit in well socially with the other intellectually advanced children, but as the expectations were higher and the students were graded more strictly, Adam did not do as well in school, becoming a very average student. Nonetheless, he enjoyed his time in the gifted program and felt that he was ready to enter high school.
- Adam did well academically in high school, maintaining an 83 average throughout his grade eleven year. Socially, he was also on good terms with most of his classmates, but tended to float a bit more between social groups rather than sticking with one particular group. Adam was well-known as a good listener and a friendly person to be around, but his lack of confidence overrode any natural charisma that he had.
- In high school, Adam began to take drama classes in the hope that it would help him with his confidence, which had taken a hit when he began to put on weight after one particularly sedentary summer after grade nine. While helping with his public speaking and the ease at which he spoke to others, he still struggled with his confidence.
- The final year of high school was difficult for Adam; his lack of confidence bundled with a lack of effort or interest in his studies saw his grades drop to the point where he was more of a middle-70s student. Putting more focus on social interactions rather than school was something that didn't help his motivation; socially experimenting with alcohol and marijuana helped even less. By the time he was to apply to college, he did not have the grades nor the SAT scores to get into the colleges of his choice. Where most of his friends ended up going away for school, Adam stayed local, managing to gain acceptance to Bellevue College for an undecided major bachelor's degree.
- University did not hold the boon that Adam had hoped it would, as his first year followed much of the same path as his final year of high school had. A lack of effort and an overall lackadaisical attitude to his studies led to poor overall grades, and in fact the first two failing grades of his entire academic career. Poor attendance, a propensity to not finish assignments and a general inability to manage his time left him with minimal post-secondary success. His grades were so poor that the school put him on academic probation and informed him that he would be taking a mandatory year off from school before he would be able to return to Bellevue.
- Having lived at home for his first year of university and not being overly engaged from a social or academic perspective, Adam's failure at his educational pursuits drove his self-confidence even lower and his weight ballooned even further. By the time Bellevue told him to stay home, he was nearing 240 lbs. Things did not seem promising for Adam.
- In the spring of 2005, the same week that he received notice from his school that he would be taking a year off, Adam's father became very ill very suddenly, having flu-like symptoms and then having to be rushed to hospital after becoming unresponsive. He would eventually be found to be suffering from an infection due to a botched wisdom-tooth removal surgery that had made its way to his brain. There was one particular night in which Adam sat in the lobby of the hospital with his mother while the two tried to reconcile the fact that the doctors had informed his mother that Mr. Shackland would likely not survive the night. While walking home from the hospital that evening, something changed in Adam's mind and he realized he would have to grow up and get his act together.
- Incredibly fortunately for the Shackland family, Adam's father would survive that evening and would eventually make a full recovery, though it would take quite a long time for him to feel the same. Throughout the recovery process, Adam tried to be there for his family, being a chauffeur for visits to his father and trying to lend support to his siblings. In one instance he was a parent volunteer for his youngest brother on a field trip and at one point he paid the mortgage payment on their house using money from his part-time job. It was a bit of an awakening for Adam, as he realized that his high school insecurity was something that he needed to leave in the past.
- During his year off of school, Adam turned his part-time job at a video rental store into a full-time position at the company's head office, dealing with customer service and doing outbound sales at the same time. Working full-time was transformative for Adam, as he realized how important time management and responsibility were and could apply those concepts in the 'real world'. While working, he also worked tirelessly to clean up his diet and add as much exercise as possible into his daily routine. By the time 2006 rolled around and he was to re-enroll in school for his second year, Adam had gotten his weight back down to 180 lbs, losing sixty pounds in the year and feeling a lot better about himself. He also came back into school with a newfound drive to do better than he had before and actually take his education seriously.
- While on his year off of school, Adam knew that he wanted to do something to keep his writing skills sharp, so that he would not be missing a step when he did eventually return. As a fan of creative writing, he knew that there were a great many communities online where he might be able to do so. First trying his hand at fan fiction, he found it too dependent upon having a solid idea. One evening while searching the recesses of the Internet, he stumbled upon a website that purported to be a roleplaying game based on Battle Royale, using original characters. Having participated in online "e-feds" based on the wrestling world when he was younger, Adam was immediately intrigued. He kept an eye on the website for a week before finally deciding to sign up, enrolling a character that he wrote based almost entirely on himself. This would prove to be a boon for his writing abilities as well as his confidence, as Adam tended to write with more of a literary style, which caught the eyes of many of the members. His character was relatively popular and after over a year of playing the game and even joining the staff team of the website, Adam's self-inserted character was the first winner of the game, allowing him the opportunity to have his character "escape" and write an epilogue after the fact. The community would have a startling amount of longevity, and Adam would remain a member of it, coming back and forth to it over the course of the next seventeen years.
- The remainder of Adam's bachelor's degree were spent both working as much as he could as well as completing his education. He would eventually settle on a Humanities degree, which while not overly practical, was a good way to finally complete and get his degree. By the time he had reached 2007, Adam had decided that where he truly wanted to be was in school for film and television production. Opting to finish his bachelor's degree first, Adam pulled his grades up substantially, even managing to get A's in several of his more complex third and fourth-year classes. Finally, he graduated from Bellevue in the summer of 2009, with a conditional acceptance back there for the January technical program in film and television production. At this point, Adam's confidence had grown a little, though he was still relatively insecure about his appearance and still carried an awful lot of self-doubt.
- Socially, Adam's friends mainly consisted of his coworkers, though he had also become very close friends with Mitch, a high school acquaintance of his. While not being friends at all in high school, Mitch finished his own college degree at the same time as Adam, and the two started hanging out virtually out of necessity. Mitch was far more confident and more of a 'doer' than Adam, often challenging him to say yes to more experiences and constantly inviting him out for beer at the local bar. More and more, the two spent time together, Adam slowly learning how to open himself up to more experiences. By the time that Adam went back to school in 2010, the two were incredibly close, having formed a very tight friendship.
- On the eve of his second sojourn into post-secondary education, Adam vowed to himself that he would truly reinvent himself and leave as much of his own self-doubt behind as he could. He knew that he wanted to use this as a fresh start, taking risks and not worrying about the thoughts of others. He also wanted to excel, not being seen as an average student. From the very beginning, he tried to put himself out of his comfort zone socially, and was meticulous when it came to his note-taking and his assignments. To his own surprise, this worked, and slowly, Adam started to feel more and more empowered, finally feeling legitimate confidence for the first time in his life. By the time the four-semester program ended in the middle of 2011, Adam had gained many close friends, and graduated with the number two GPA in his entire class, the only person finishing ahead of him being his best friend in the program, Jonathan, with whom he had worked on every project from the beginning. His final film ended up winning two of the end-of-year awards, including the best overall award, and Adam truly felt like he was ready to finally enter the world and be the best version of himself.
- One area in which Adam did not truly have any luck was in dating. While in school, he had many a crush, but nothing that he ever acted on. In the interests of taking more risks as he entered his mid-twenties, Adam finally began to date a little bit, having a few flings, but nothing serious as far as relationship went.
- After finishing school, Adam knew that he wanted to try and enter the film and television industry to be an editor, so he pursued an internship at a post-production facility in Seattle that created lifestyle and reality programming, figuring it to be a good place to start. He worked at the internship over the summer before finally being hired as a full-time assistant editor in the fall. This was exciting for Adam, as he could not wait to officially start his career. This position, however, was an overnight position, which meant he would have to commute from Bellevue to Seattle each day, which was not an easy commute. After a month of doing so, he realized that the overnight lifestyle was not sustainable for him, and so he gave his notice from the job, letting them know that he would be very interested in returning if a position in the daytime ever opened up. This was a risk that he mulled over quite a lot with his parents, but Adam considered that since he lived at home still, it was worth doing, as he might be able to find something that operated in the daytime.
- This risk paid off, as little more than a month later, that same company called Adam back and offered him the same position but in daytime hours. The job was quite busy and the pay was extraordinarily low, but he learned quite a lot and became very proficient with the editing systems and software, not to mention meeting and becoming friendly with a lot of his fellow staff members.
- As the job was starting to bear fruit and it looked like Adam would be able to stay employed for a little while, he decided that the time had come for him to move out. In 2012, Adam and Mitch moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Seattle, Mitch getting tired of commuting to his own workplace in downtown Seattle as well. This was another massive milestone for Adam, as he truly felt like an adult, having the freedom to live life as he pleased. This helped him with regard to his dating life, as he found it simpler to date in a larger city, living with a roommate rather than his parents and family.
- Adam and Mitch would live together for a calendar year, when in 2013, Mitch would move in with his girlfriend. Having to find another roommate, Adam would recruit Ken, another of his close friends, and the two would get a different two-bedroom apartment closer to the core of the city. At this point, Adam would also get a job offer from a former coworker of his. The job was contract-based, but it paid substantially more and he would be assistant editing on one show rather than ten. It was on this show that Adam started to wonder if he truly wanted to be an editor after all. Seeing the way that the editors were treated, along with the other staff members, Adam was starting to have doubts.
- In late 2013, online dating was starting to become more of a thing, and Mitch and Ken convinced Adam to give it a shot. He went on a few dates, but at the end of the year, finally met a girl that he hit it off with and would start dating; his first serious relationship. More humorously, Ken would start dating her roommate, a situation that Adam almost didn't believe was truly real. This relationship would last nine months, eventually done in by a lack of communication and a general sense of incompatibility. Adam was dumped one evening in the summer of 2014 while watching an Aziz Ansari comedy special and was despondent, unable to comprehend why she was doing so. It was a difficult end to his first relationship. He would decide to take some time off from dating in general so as to allow himself adequate time to heal.
- On a whim, Adam submitted his own audition for the role of narrator of the show that he was working on, a show about fishermen that was similar to Deadliest Catch. Much to his shock, he was actually selected and served in that capacity for two years. This allowed for some extra income and the fascinating experience of watching his own voice come out of a prime-time television channel. It also gave him the experience of dealing with Internet feedback - both positive and negative. This was something that he'd dealt with during his online roleplaying days, but never at such a large scale. It tempered his newfound confidence.
- In late 2015, Adam would take another giant risk when he would move into his own apartment, taking over the lease of Mitch's one bedroom that he had been sharing with his now-ex girlfriend. The prospect of living alone had always excited him, but he believed that he had the stable career to fall back on and the life experience to do so. Fate would throw him a curveball at the beginning of 2016, when he was unexpectedly let go and found himself unemployed for the first time in his life. Adam's confidence was rocked, and depression set in as he tried to keep himself financially afloat, paying rent on an expensive place and trying to find a new job. 2016 would be difficult as he struggled with his own mental health. While he would eventually find work again, he bounced from contract-to-contract as an assistant editor, never getting any work that was much past a few months at a time. The year would end on a sour note as he would again be let go prematurely from a contract, letting him sit, unemployed in the month of December. He once again had serious concerns about the viability of his chosen career and ended the year single, unemployed and in debt.
- Vowing to start 2017 in better circumstances, Adam would hit up his network of connections and eventually find a job with a manager that he was familiar with - but not in a positive way. He had to put up with substantial verbal and emotional abuse, but he was working, and he knew that it was important to be earning money. He also was planning to move, as he had found a different apartment elsewhere in the city that was less expensive. The first few months at the new job were difficult, but eventually the superiors saw how toxic a presence the manager was and let her go. This transformed the workplace, leaving Adam as someone who was relied upon, essentially left alone to act at his own boss. The new apartment worked out quite nicely as well, and for the first time in years, Adam started to feel as though he were comfortable in his own home.
- Adam would jump ship to another company once his contract ended and would remain there until 2019, when his contract was prematurely ended once more. This proved to be the last straw. Adam vowed that he would not work in the television industry any more, and decided he would take the entire summer off from working so that he could find a full time, permanent job. It took him several months, but eventually he did so, joining a visual effects company in a permanent position as a facility coordinator. This was a good fit for Adam's production know-how, and his social skills allowed him to succeed in the position. His new supervisor and he hit it off very well, and he started to see in him someone who could mentor him. He was overjoyed with the opportunity that he was being given and he saw great things that were to be ahead as a new decade dawned. Adam knew that 2020 was going to be exciting for him, finally having a steady job. By this point, Adam's confidence was high and the insecurity that he had once felt had all but left his body.
- Adam was, like most of the world, unprepared for the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. After being placed on a three-month layoff in March of 2020, Adam would be essentially trapped in his apartment, alone as the pandemic raged and most people were afraid to leave the house. He would watch helplessly as his manager and almost his entire department at work were permanently laid-off and he was reassigned to another department in the company.
- Unable to enjoy hockey, his main hobby, Adam started doing puzzles and trying not to doomscroll. His main concerns were more for his parents than himself, and he tried to keep in touch with them as best as he could. He also started playing Call of Duty: Warzone as a way to keep in touch with some of his close friends - Mitch, Ken and several of his hockey buddies all formed a close-knit group and they would continue playing the game often, even after the pandemic allowed doors back open. At the beginning of the pandemic, Adam also made the decision to shave his head, knowing that it would be a long time before he would be able to get a haircut, while also being a bit concerned with how his hair was receding in several places. He has become fond of the look and does not plan to regrow his hair.
- While not willing to go on any dates during the pandemic, Adam got lonely and started to strike up conversations with different women on some of the dating apps. Nothing went anywhere, until one summer day - coincidentally the day that he went remotely back to work, he received a match request from a woman named Cindy. Believing her to be attractive, he struck up a conversation with her. Quickly, that conversation migrated off of the app, and over the course of the summer, Adam and Cindy found they had much in common, including their attitudes about the pandemic and their overall world-view. The two would eventually have a video-chat date, which went very well. It was followed with another, and then finally, several very long phone calls to go along with their constant text exchanges. After three months, the two finally decided that it was time to meet. While still somewhat nervous as the world remained in the throes of a pandemic, the two met for food and drinks on an outdoor patio space and realized there was an immediate spark. Parting ways with an elbow bump, the two knew that they would need to make plans to meet again. It took very little time for the two to start dating, spending most every weekend together. The relationship got serious very quickly, and due to a pandemic upswing, Adam even spent Christmas with Cindy and her similarly displaced friend, unable to go home.
- By mid-2021, Adam was deeply dissatisfied with his job, feeling as though he were doing a basic, entry-level position that he was not originally hired for. As he still worked entirely from home, he felt very cut-off from his job and felt as though he could be doing more. When his former manager reached out to him and offered him a position in a management role at the company that he had landed with, Adam was overjoyed to accept. At 35 years old, he knew that he was much more capable than what he was doing, and this was a chance for him to finally prove that. With a substantial amount of responsibility also came a large pay increase, both things that Adam knew he was ready for. It took a few months, but eventually Adam started to excel in his new position.
- 2022 brought much change to Adam's life as he moved into Cindy's condo, trying to navigate the nuances of cohabitating with a partner. At the same time, he was promoted into a senior management role, leaving him trying to balance the new demands of his job while also trying to be respectful of his partner. It took several months, but the two fell into an easy rhythm, having a very loving relationship while also both being very fond of joking around and laughing. Neither of their respective families were surprised when they announced their engagement in the summer of 2022.
- In an effort to try and help fill in some of the gaps in his own experience as a manager, Adam signed up for some business management courses at the University of Cascadia once he was promoted and has been taking those throughout the year at night courses. Adam believes that if he can earn his way to the next salary level, it will help him pay for more expensive purchases to come, like a house... or a wedding.
- Adam viewed the cruise as a very easy way to get the last few credits towards his accreditation, but also as a low-key way to take a vacation. As such, he booked two weeks of vacation off from his work from the cruise, knowing that he'll still have a week off over Christmas vacation.
- As an adult, Adam is energetic, but very laid-back. People often mistake his laid-back nature for laziness, but he prefers to look at situations logically first before acting. He is not impulsive and tends to prefer to think about things before he charges into them. He has a good sense of humour and is still an active listener, able to put people at ease while having conversations with them. He is very demonstrative and his emotions are very clearly written upon his face - he has a hard time hiding what he feels. Adam enjoys life quite a lot and has a strong sense of self-preservation. Having been healthy for most of his life, he can become very anxious at the thought of illness or death. Adam is comfortable being either a leader or a follower, and will try to read the room before deciding which approach to take.
Assets: Adam is a logical thinker and has good social EQ. While not a physical specimen, he is very healthy and is reasonably strong. He has experience managing teams and will feel comfortable leading or being in the background. Adam has an extremely high sense of self-preservation and has done a good deal of thinking about how he would be able to survive in a battle royale situation.
Limitations: Adam is stubborn and sometimes has a hard time accepting ideas or advice from others. He is aging and his body is beginning to have a harder time bouncing back from injury. Adam has a lot to lose, and may have a difficult time reconciling that with the situation.
