Steven "EXTREME STEVE" Dodds

[Gundham]

Name: Steven "EXTREME STEVE" Dodds
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Hobbies and Interests: YouTube content creation, weightlifting, parkour, skateboarding.

Appearance: Steve stands an average 5’8” tall, weighing a respectable 185 pounds. He often has a slouched or relaxed posture, but when standing he draws himself up to a heady 5’10”, particularly when talking to girls. His skin is a natural pasty white, but he has recently cultivated a pale base tan. Steve has a very muscular build, but his muscular development is haphazard and the muscles lack definition, betraying a lack of a coherent workout plan.

Steve has long, flyaway blonde hair which reaches down to just below his chin. He rarely suffers from acne but is known to use concealer whenever he has a breakout. Steve bleaches his hair a bit from time to time in order to get a bit more of a proper "surfer boy" look. He sometimes wears it in a man bun, but never when he’s filming. Steve has angular features and a strong, squared jawline, coupled with a wide smile and good teeth. His nose is slightly downturned, and he has long eyelashes over his large, ice-blue eyes. He has no piercings or tattoos.

Steve tends to dress in the most current styles that are available to him, usually in bright colors or with neon accents to make him stand out. He frequently accessorizes with baseball caps and sunglasses. He frequently makes sure to include an EXTREME STEVE T-shirt in the ensemble, in order to promote his YouTube channel. His jeans are often scuffed or have holes in the knees from his many escapades, and his sneakers are often battered and dirty.

On the day of the abduction, Steve was wearing a tight-fitting red EXTREME STEVE shirt under a royal blue long-sleeved dress shirt, a dark grey flat-brimmed New York Yankees baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses. He wore blue jeans and black sneakers, messily tied.

Biography: Steve was born as Steven Allen Dodds on November 1st, 2005 to Todd and Rachel Dodds. He has two older sisters, Ann and Kristen. Ann is three years older than Steve, and Kristen is two years older. Both Todd and Rachel are human resources mangers – Todd for a brokerage firm and Rachel for an insurance company. They met at a corporate retreat in the early 1990s and fell hard for each other. They were soon married and with their combined income, settled into a nice house in one of Saint Paul’s upper-mid-level suburbs to raise a family.

Young Steven, who was then called Stevie, was an active child. He rarely played with his older sisters, as he was bored by pretend tea parties and dollhouse games, and they in turn disliked his attempts to liven things up with make-believe explosions and velociraptor attacks. Stevie was too energetic to enjoy the academic portions of school; he was competent enough at the core skills, but didn't find the material engaging or interesting. Instead, Stevie thrived on the social aspects of school, engaging in lively discussions and games with his peers during recesses and lunch breaks. He often enjoyed visiting friends’ houses after school. He was relatively well-liked, but his high energy levels sometimes annoyed other students.

Stevie was particularly fond of playing actives games like tag or soccer, and would organize games if none were already happening. He often started games of street hockey with neighborhood kids. During one of these games, Stevie took a particularly daring slapshot that ricocheted off two other players and a goalpost before bouncing into the goal to win the game. His teammates celebrated wildly and Stevie felt like a hero. His playstyle changed from then on, becoming marked by aggression and an insistence on trying to score flashy or impressive goals instead of passing or taking safe shots. Because Stevie had very little accuracy or talent, his trick shots often missed the mark and frustrated his teammates. The negative feedback initially hurt Stevie, but he decided that he liked having a reputation and being known for something, even if it wasn’t wholly positive, and he embraced his role with enthusiasm.

When Stevie was eight, the Dodds family went to Shoreview Commons Park for a family outing. Stevie wandered over to the Sweetroll Skate Park, and watched some local high-schoolers skateboarding. He was enthralled by the experience, and thought that the skaters looked amazingly cool. After a lot of begging and saving up his allowance, Stevie bought a board of his own and began practicing some of the moves he'd seen the older boys doing. He wasn't very good, but he remained dedicated to it nonetheless.

Stevie continued his attention-seeking behavior throughout elementary school and into middle school. He pushed the limits of his schools’ dress codes as best he could, dressing like YouTubers he enjoyed occasionally sassing teachers in order to gain attention. This behavior got him multiple detentions and this, coupled with his grandstanding behavior in gym classes, got him rejected from most of the sports teams he tried to join. He was accepted onto the badminton team, but chose not to join. Instead, Stevie spent most of his afternoons skateboarding or riding his bike. He is passable at both activities but lacks finesse.

In seventh grade, he decided to start a YouTube channel, mostly videos of himself attempting various skateboard tricks or handlebar footage from bike rides. He had very few views, and his early videos garnered more dislikes than likes. But after uploading some footage of himself hitting a railing and falling into some bushes, Steve saw his likes soar into the hundreds, and he began to experiment with riskier stunts, reasoning that his failures were just as likely to be popular as his successes.

In eighth grade, Stevie started to become interested in girls. He had little fear of rejection and pursued the prettiest girls in his classes. He was almost always turned down but maintained a positive demeanor. He turned to YouTube for solutions, and largely found that physical strength and athleticism were a surefire way to increase his attractiveness. Stevie’s parents were unwilling to spend the money for an expensive gym membership, so Stevie saved up his allowance and bought a set of miscellaneous dumbbells secondhand. He followed various regimens haphazardly, but through consistent lifting he was able to gain a small amount of muscle. He gained one or two dates, which went nowhere in particular, but gave Stevie the confidence to continue both his romantic and weightlifting efforts. He doesn't particularly enjoy weightlifting for its own sake; he finds the activity tedious and repetitive, but he sees it as a means to an end and he enjoys seeing the progress he's made and the strength that he's built as a result.

Stevie spent the following summer with his aunt in South Carolina. He attempted to learn surfing at Folly Beach, but his poor coordination made the sport a bad fit. He met up with a local group of parkour enthusiasts running on the beach. He was fascinated by their movements and grace, and wanted to be able to replicate it for himself. They helped Stevie to learn some of the basics, and despite his poor coordination and multiple minor injuries he was able to master some elementary moves. He filmed a lot of his practice attempts, and as with his skateboarding, his failures proved to be much more popular than his occasional successes. The parkour group had some local notoriety and a number of their fans subscribed to Stevie’s channel. Buoyed by this success, Stevie decided to develop a brand for himself in order to stand out. He filled a few pages of a notebook with possible names, but eventually settled on EXTREME STEVE, spelled entirely in capitals. He hasn't kept up with parkour as much as he'd like to, but still practices the basics from time to time.

When he entered high school, Steve received a tepid reaction to his new persona. Teachers agreed to address him as Steve instead of Stevie, but flatly refused to actually call him EXTREME STEVE or accept that his preferred pronoun was “ya boi.” He joined weight training in the athletics department, and participated enthusiastically. He was haphazard in implementation, but was quick to apply the concepts he learned and add new knowledge to the regimens he’d been trying in his spart time.

Steve does not do very well in school and often slacks off on his studies. He does quite well in gym class and pulls good grades in art, wood shop, and creative writing. He's particularly bad in knowledge-based subjects like the sciences and history, and he often has to study particularly hard to maintain passing grades. He doesn’t fail classes, but is known to completely botch assignments from time to time. He is still known to goof off or make smart remarks in class for attention, but he’s a lot more cautious about it than he was in middle school. Detentions cut into his afternoon gym sessions, or parkour or skateboarding time, so he prefers to avoid it where possible.

Despite his general cluelessness, Steve is known around Aurora Bay as an easygoing and affable presence. He is generally kind to others and likes to make people laugh, though he sometimes fails to read the room and can come off as insensitive. He generally responds to criticism by ignoring it and carrying on doing whatever he was doing. He doesn’t have many close friends, but is on decent terms with most people around school. He has continued his attempts at being a womanizer and has shot his shot with many of the more attractive girls in school. Some attempts have ended in success, but he has little interest in ongoing steady relationships prefers to keep things casual.

Steve's parents are well-meaning but rather clueless about his activities. They're as supportive as they can be but they don't really understand his YouTube hobby and tend to politely stay out of his way. Todd is not athletic and is generally out of touch with social media. He has made some cursory attempts to get into internet culture as a way of connecting with Steve, but these attempts often serve only to highlight how little he understands. Rachel is more traditional in her approach, and wishes that Steve would behave a bit more normally. She often reminds Steve that the rest of the family doesn't understand words like "yeet" and "rizz", and has forbidden such terms from the family dinner table. Ann is currently away at college in Boston. She is amused by Steve's antics, and she's outwardly somewhat supportive of him, but she knows that he's unlikely to make anything of himself as a content creator. She calls in on Zoom once a week, and sometimes serves as a mediating voice in disputes between Steve and their parents. Kristen still lives at home. She hates being filmed and regards Steve's antics as an embarrassment. She occasionally shows flashes of kindness but in general she dislikes him. He remains affable with her, however, and bears no real resentment towards her for her behavior.

Steve is a tireless self-promoter. He has spent his summers mowing lawns or working at a convenience store near his house, and he often works overtime or picks up extra shifts in order to fund his merchandising efforts. He is most proud of a line of EXTREME STEVE T-shirts, which he sells via a poorly-made Wix site. His merch sells very poorly and can sometimes be found at local second-hand stores. He often wears sunglasses indoors as often as possible, and wears his own merchandise as a means of creating a brand. Steve also films YouTube content at the school: he does gross food challenges in the cafeteria, does tray surfing in the halls, and stages challenges on the lawn. He has been disciplined for this sort of behavior, but he continues on all the same and tries to avoid getting caught.

Steve is unsure of what he wants to do after high school. He plans on continuing his YouTubing activities but is realistic enough to know that if it doesn't pan out into a career he'll need to do something more practical. Both Todd and Rachel have offered him internships at their companies, but since these positions would require him to cut his hair, wear a tie, and sit in an office all day, Steve has no desire to do so. He intends to try and go to college, which will be difficult given his poor grades. He has applied to UofM Twin Cities because it's a top-ten party school but its low acceptance rate means his odds aren’t great. Failing that, he's also applied to the College of Saint Benedict and Winona State. He has not yet heard back from any of them.

Advantages: Steve is reasonably athletic, has decent muscle and has decent speed when he runs. He is likely on good terms with most students in school, and is unlikely to be seen as a legitimate threat. His general willingness to take risks will enable him to find solutions that others might not consider or would otherwise rule out.
Disadvantages: The strength Steve possesses is likely to be offset by his lack of technique or skill. He is unlikely to be taken seriously by other students, and as he will always prioritize spectacle over substance, it's unlikely that anyone will want to depend on him as an ally. His tendency towards showboating and theatrics will also leave him wide open in most combat situations, and he's likely to take risks that could get him killed.

Original Profile: Here
Permission: Own character

[MurderWeasel]

Hey, Gundham! Things are looking pretty good here, just a few changes before you good to go—nothing too EXTREME!

First off, a couple little formatting things: can we get the Appearance, Biography, Advantages, and Disadvantages headers bolded? Also, can we lose the extra line skipped between Original Profile and Permission?

Steve's birth date should be bumped to 2005 to make him 18 in May 2024.

How much older than Steve are his sisters?

Can I hear a bit more about Steve's earlier school years? Aside from his attention-seeking, how was he as a student? Did he get along well with his peers?

Does Steve like weightlifting for its own sake too, or is it purely about making others think better of him?

What about parkour appealed to Steve? Does he still keep up with the sport?

Are there any classes in which Steve performs especially well or poorly, or which require more or less effort on his part? Which?

Can I get one specific detail of Steve's relationship with each of his parents, and with his sister Ann, just to help them stand out a bit more as individuals?

Where does Steve try to sell his merchandise?

This late in the year, Steve should've actually already applied to (and maybe been accepted by) colleges.

Can I hear just a bit more about Steve's poor coordination in his bio? Is it really worse than the average student? If so, how does that interface with his various physical hobbies?

Post when you've got that taken care of, and we'll give Steve another look. Thanks!

[Gundham]

Sorry for the delay but I think I have made the requested edits (or a reasonable facsimile)

[MurderWeasel]

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