George Leidman

[Pippi]

Name: George Stanley Leidman
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Hobbies and Interests: Archaeology, swimming, dancing, watching old movies, cleaning

Appearance: George is a tall young man, standing at 6’1”, and his various hobbies have kept him in good shape, leading to him weighing in at around 180lbs. He has well-defined muscles in his shoulders, arms, and legs, but any attention drawn to these is purely incidental as he doesn’t enjoy standing out. He’s Caucasian, with fairly pale skin for most of the year, although he does maintain a decent tan during the summer months.

The rest of George’s appearance, particularly his facial features, are much more average, mostly owing to his lack of interest in maintaining how he looks. He has wholly unremarkable blue-green eyes, a cleft chin, and a thin mouth. His jet-black hair is short in the back, reaching around the nape of his neck, and long in the front - in fact, it's long overdue for a trim, as his bangs often fall in front of his eyes, forcing him to comb them to either side. His hair is mostly straight, but curls a little towards the ends.

George’s choice in clothing is similarly unadventurous, rarely branching out further than a t-shirt and, depending on the weather, shorts or jeans. His t-shirts are either in block colours, or have small, unobtrusive logos or slogans on them, and he has no real understanding of colour theory, meaning he just puts on whatever clothes he grabs first in the morning. He wears generic off-brand sneakers with ankle socks on most days, and no accessories outside of a digital watch.

When he was abducted, George was wearing a forest green, long-sleeved t-shirt, with a small graphic of a T-Rex skull in white in the upper left area. He also wore a pair of tan cargo shorts, white sneakers, black ankle socks, and a grey and orange digital wristwatch.

Biography: George is the only child of Harold Leidman, an accountant, and has lived his entire life in Saint Paul. He sadly never knew his mother, Gina Leidman, as she died due to complications during childbirth. Harold never remarried, heartbroken over the loss of his wife, and struggled heavily with the stresses of being a single father for much of George’s early years. He was able to hire a nanny, or leave his son with extended members of the family, whenever he was at work, but looking after George during the evenings and weekends proved to be a very steep learning curve.

Predominantly, Harold overcompensated for George’s lack of a maternal figure by spoiling him, and making sure he had everything he could possibly ask for, even if this led to his finances taking a hit in the process. While this meant that his home life was a surprisingly pleasant experience growing up, his time at school was a lot less positive. A few of his classmates already saw him as an outsider due to his differing familial situation, while others steered clear of him as he could come off as rather shortsighted due to never wanting for much - for example, talking at length about the expensive trip he'd just been on or showing off a brand new toy or item of clothing around his more financially challenged classmates. Because of this, he didn’t have very many close friends for his early school years.

Instead, George spent most of his free time outside of school with his father, something that Harold was more than happy to encourage. They would frequently go on trips over the weekends to local parks and sporting events, or to places such as the Como Zoo and Conservatory, one of George’s favourites. They would also often watch movies together, with Harold eager to share his collection of classic movies, even ones that George technically wasn’t old enough to watch.

The most notable of these was ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’, which still remains George’s favourite film to this day. He loved the sense of adventure that the film provided, the varied locations that the characters traveled to, and above all, the idea behind a roguish, archaeologist adventurer. He would rewatch the film frequently, along with the others in the series, and still has a yearly marathon of the original trilogy with his dad to this day. He has very little interest in modern films, finding them either lacking in creativity or oversaturated with visual effects, and prefers to pretend that the most recent two Indiana Jones films do not exist.

The more he watched ‘The Last Crusade’ and other films of its ilk, the greater George’s desire to grow up to be just like Indiana Jones became, even going through a brief period where he would copy Indy’s mannerisms and wear a brown fedora just like his hero. He also realised that he needed to become physically fit if he wanted to follow in the footsteps of the adventurers and explorers that had come before him, and so he started dedicating himself to swimming daily in the family’s backyard pool. Harold had been a competitive swimmer when he had been at school, and so was more than happy to give his son as much assistance as he could. It turned out that George was something of a natural in the water, showing particularly proficiency for the backstroke. He continues eking out time each day to swim lengths in the garden pool, only skipping out training when the weather is truly dreadful, but primarily confines his talents to his home, as he has no interest in joining the school swimming team. The way George sees it, swimming serves more as a means to an end in the path of maintaining his fitness than something he truly loves doing. While he finds a measure of relaxation in the water and a personal sense of pride whenever he reaches his fitness goals or breaks his fastest lap time, he greatly dislikes having to expose himself so much - hence why he refuses to swim in public - and finds the routine of having to shower and dry off post-workout very tedious.

As time passed, George realised that the idea of becoming an adventurer-explorer was something of a pipe dream, as there was very little of the world left to actually map out. The field of archaeology, however, persisted in his mind as a goal to strive for. He spent increasing amounts of his free time reading non-fiction books on geology and paleontology, and watching documentaries on natural history. He also started applying himself much more to the relevant classes at school, such as maths and history. Whilst his dream of becoming an archaeologist had initially been nothing more than that, the more he studied and researched what would be needed to pursue it, the more he realised it was an actually feasible goal instead.

While George does excellently at all of his classes that he believes might even be tangentially related to a career in archaeology, he is much less successful in other areas at school. He struggles at focusing during lessons that do not interest him, such as English and foreign languages, and will habitually daydream during these classes. This absent-minded nature also causes him to occasionally forget homework - either leaving it at home or neglecting to do it entirely - which has caused him to be reprimanded on these occasions. George realises he is very fortunate in that he is excellent at actually retaining information once he actually puts his mind to it, meaning he can cram for tests at the last minute and receive passing grades for them. Because of this, and because of his habitual nature of spoiling his son, Harold has never seen fit to be concerned about George’s school performances or attempted to discipline him in any way.

These bouts of absent-mindedness also manifest outside of school, with George occasionally forgetting to bring his wallet when going out for lunch, or coming back home from the store without having bought something he’d been meaning to purchase. He also has a habit of leaping into things without fully thinking them through, as best exemplified by his decision of becoming an adventurer-archaeologist after watching a single Indiana Jones movie. It is these two traits combined that led to George’s most recently obtained hobby. Two years ago, he picked up a flyer at school without properly registering what it was for, leaving it in the kitchen and forgetting about it. A couple of days later, his dad asked him whether he was interested in the course advertised on it, to which George responded positively; it was only later that he realised that he had inadvertently signed himself up for weekly swing dance classes.

While he had no real interest in the hobby at first, his dad had already paid the monthly fee for the classes, and George felt incredibly self-conscious about admitting that it had been a mistake, and so ended up going along to the first class. While he was reluctant at first to engage to begin with, and in fact considered quitting for a period, he gradually grew to appreciate what he was being taught. He found it oddly relaxing, as it was so different to his other hobbies and interests and thus allowed his mind to take a break from thinking about them, and his existing fitness from swimming meant he had the stamina for what was, to his surprise, a physically exerting activity. He has now come around to look forward to his weekly classes, although he has told very few people at school about them, as he is worried that he’ll be teased for it.

George is generally pleasant and difficult to dislike, always trying to be polite and courteous to anybody he talks to. However, there are very few people, if any, who would consider him a particularly close friend; despite being overall cordial, he is reluctant to talk about himself and his hobbies, and so frequently struggles to relate to his classmates. George simply dislikes showing off and having the spotlight on himself, as he does not want to come off as vain or self-absorbed, and if this means he sometimes fades into the background, he considers this a worthwhile trade. He has a great internal sense of justice, wanting to stand up for people being bullied or picked on, but very rarely acts on this due to how reticent he is.

George and Harold remain very close thanks to them both maintaining the same hobbies from when George was young, and continue to hang out on weekends whenever they are both free from work. George primarily does the cleaning around the house, as it has always been something his father has struggled at and never found the motivation to get any better at doing so. He secretly quite enjoys doing this, as it means that he is allowed to cultivate his living space in the way that he prefers, and he feels a sense of responsibility in doing so. It also allows him to relax when he’s having a stressful day, where he will put on a history podcast or the like and spend an hour or two deep cleaning the bathroom. Additionally, he considers it a fair exchange, as his dad does all the cooking in the household, something George is especially woeful at.

The dream of pursuing an archaeology degree after graduating from school is still very much George’s goal. He has not considered the possibility of this ambition failing, and he has no real backup plans if this falls through in some way. He does, however, have something of a safety net, in that he knows he will be welcome to continue living with his dad after school in case he wants a break from education or if he fails to get into one of his colleges of choice - he has applied to both Cornell University in New York and to Washington University in St. Louis, and would be ecstatic to get into either of them.

Advantages: George is an athletic young man, with good body strength and stamina from his swimming, and a high level of flexibility and dexterity from dancing. He’s generally pleasant to be around, and has very few enemies from school, which is likely to make it easier to gain the trust of his classmates on the island. His strong sense of justice and heroism may also help lead him to easy allyship, if he is able to actually act on these moral standings.
Disadvantages: Despite his overall good-natured personality, there are very few people at school who would consider George a close friend, due to his reluctance to stand out, and so he may not have as many ready-made allies on the island from the get-go. His habit of avoiding the spotlight and making waves may mean that he avoids taking beneficial opportunities if he considers them too risky. George can be very absent-minded at times, and he has a habit of committing himself to things without properly thinking them all the way through, traits which could prove disastrous on the island.

Original Profile: George Leidman
Permission: Adoptive Handler - I took over ownership of George during V4, and since then, the original handler has made it clear he has no intention of returning to the site and reusing any of his former characters

[MurderWeasel]

Heya, Pip! George is looking largely solid, just a bit to go before he's set.

Could we get just a bit more detail to George's haircut? How short in back/long in front is it? Is his hair straight, wavy, or curly?

It's totally cool for George to be wearing his watch when abducted, and you don't need to change anything there, but just a quick heads-up even small stuff like watches falls under the confiscation list and will likely be removed by the terrorists prior to the game.

"he could come off as rather shortsighted due to never wanting for much." <- Could I get this elaborated on just a bit, maybe with an example?

Does George enjoy swimming in its own right, or is it just a means to the end of physical fitness for him?

Can we drop the quotation marks from ‘adventurer-explorer’ please? I think the meaning is conveyed fine without them!

Has George already applied for college at this point, or is he intending to take a gap year? This late in the year, there's even a decent chance he could've already been accepted somewhere.

Finally, could we get the link to George's original profile swapped to his page on the Mini wiki? It streamlines the process when I go through making SC pages for everyone.

Post when you've got that handled, and we'll give George another look. Thanks!

[Pippi]

noooo my watch how can i enact my epic escape plan now, noooooo

Aside from my dreams being dashed, I think I've got everything asked for here!

[MurderWeasel]

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