Ethan Kemp

[DerArknight]

Name: Ethan Harold Kemp
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Hobbies and Interests: Chess, YouTube, movies, Student Health Association, trading card games

Appearance: Ethan is 5'5" tall and weighs 130 pounds. He is Caucasian. He keeps his naturally ginger, curly hair at a length covering the upper half of his ears, but leaves it unkempt unless on special occasions. His skin is pale, his nose is rounded, his jawline is sharp and his eyes are brown. Ethan's posture tends to lean a little bit forward. His voice is low and slow under normal circumstances, but when he is agitated or nervous, he speaks much faster and slightly higher.

Ethan sweats easily and therefore almost always wears short-sleeved and thin clothing, even in winter. His preferred colors are green, blue and yellow. He has no tattoos or jewelry.

On the day of the abduction, he wore a green T-shirt with two black arrows pointing to the right on the front, short jeans with a green stripe running along the leg and dark orange shoes with thin blue socks.

Biography: Ethan Harold Kemp was born on April 12th, 2006 as the only child of Ute and Edgar Kemp in a hospital in Saint Paul, Minnesota. While the name Ethan was chosen because the parents liked its sound, the middle-name Harold was also the name of Ute's late grandfather, who raised Ute after her parents passed away early.

While Edgar had a well-paid office job in Saint Paul, Ute was a stay-at-home mother. However, before settling down with Edgar, she had been a chess grandmaster who had held rank 32 at some point with a yearly income of around 80k dollars. Thanks to her thrifty nature, she still had a small fortune of the money she made back then, giving the family a good financial cushion. While Ute had stopped playing, her name is still known among the chess society.

One day, when Ethan was about three years old, the neighbors of the family, a pair of doctors, asked Ute if she could help babysit their daughter who was of a similar age as Ethan. Seeing no reason against it, Ute agreed. Ethan very fast became friends with the child named Dawn, who would become his best friend until present day.

Once Ute judged them to be old enough, she started to teach both Dawn and Ethan the way of playing chess. While Dawn took to the game very quickly, Ethan had trouble and appeared to lack the natural talent for the game that his mother and Dawn had. But he powered through and still enjoyed playing, although he had a few other interests that he viewed as similarly important. Knowing that trying to push him into chess might result in him growing to dislike it, Ute lessened her attention and lessons, instead concentrating on Dawn when it came to passing on her knowledge. Despite that, he remained a fan of chess and would challenge others regularly, sometimes even passing on professional techniques his mother had taught him. Ethan likes chess for its many possible turns and strategies despite its simplistic rules.

In elementary school, Ethan found himself a wide but loosely-knit circle of friends, including Dawn. Ethan was always very compassionate, with a dislike for violence. He quickly proved himself to be very perceptive of the feelings of others, sometimes approaching those who were troubled and offering his help. Sometimes he would also get adults involved when bullying or fights happened. This was appreciated by the bullied students, but not by the bullies or fighters.

Another interest that grew in this time was Ethan's love for movies. While his parents did well to set boundaries for how much and what he was allowed to see, Ethan saw a lot of movies. However, he proved himself to be a picky watcher, often stopping to watch once he judged the movie to be boring or not good enough. Unlike in reality, he had no problem with fictional violence.

In the fifth year of elementary, Dawn had an accident that resulted in her staying at the hospital for two weeks. When she came back, she told Ethan stories of a new friend she made there. From this point on, she would visit said friend named Anna, who turned out to be a long-term patient of the hospital, as often as possible. Ethan was surprised that his otherwise reserved friend would seek out someone that much and decided to tag along one day. Anna turned out to have a bright and cheerful personality, but Ethan felt that something was off. After a few visits, he managed to talk to Anna without Dawn around and asked her about any worries she might have. Almost instantly, Anna dropped her charade and revealed her inner troubles about her illness. As she explained, her cheerfulness was just a way to cope with her hopeless situation. However, she didn't want others, especially Dawn, to worry about her. Ethan understood and never spoke with Dawn about this. He would still visit Anna, sometimes even without Dawn, and the two got closer as friends. They often talked about Anna's illness and her worries about not having much time left. This led to Ethan also beginning to think about his future and how he wanted to spend his time, something he would talk with Anna about as well.

When Ethan entered middle school, his parents decided to allow him more private time on the family computer, something he before then could use only sparsely. Ethan now had the opportunity to engage more with the scene of movie critics, especially with YouTubers who talked about movies. Around this time, Ethan took a liking to horror movies, at first watching many of them because his parents had told him not to, but eventually genuinely enjoying the thrills and atmosphere of horror movies. He favored suspenseful horror over gore, with Poltergeist being his favorite movie. By this time, his interest in movies started to shift from simply watching movies to analyzing them. What fascinated him about movies was that they were often created by many people with different intentions. He found interest in trying to figure out what the intentions of the creators were and often found himself thinking about how he would have made things different. Then he would go on the internet and discuss his thoughts with others. Ethan would also analyze bad movies to figure out what they made wrong or how they could have been better.

In the final year of middle school, when Ethan was around 14, Anna died, just as she had feared the whole time. Despite knowing it would have happened eventually, Ethan was taken aback by her death, not having expected it to happen so soon. In an effort to bring himself up again and move on, he spent the next few weeks less with his usual hobbies and more trying out new stuff. Eventually he ended up trying different board games with some friends. This is how he found out about the world of trading card games and got instantly hooked on Magic the Gathering. During the following weeks, Ethan would spend a large amount of money buying cards and playing in a local store called Larson's Comics and Games. While his parents had nothing against this new hobby, they were furious when they found out about Ethan burning through his savings. He got a hard scolding from Ute about the importance of financial managing that he still remembers today. After that, Ethan dropped Magic and tried out various alternatives. Eventually, Force of Will became his main game, although he also picked up Shadowverse Evolve and Grand Archive when they released. He takes good care and prefers to buy and trade singles instead of pulling from boosters.

One lesson he learned from Anna was that life's too short to coast it. For that reason, he consciously focused his time on his bigger hobbies and friends, resulting in his circle of friends shrinking. He also became less interested in forging new relationships or engaging in topics he had no interest in, resulting in him becoming much quieter in school. However, he deeply treasures the friends he has, including Dawn. They are both in the Student Health Association, doing volunteer work to improve the health of the student body with several information-campaigns and flyers. Ethan, who was convinced to join by Dawn, is not as enthusiastic as Dawn about this, but enjoys their efforts of helping people and takes their activities seriously. Sometimes, he even undertakes activities when Dawn isn't present.

Apart from that, Ethan joined the Chess Club at Aurora Bay High, where he is quite famous for being the son of a grandmaster. This resulted in him becoming the president of the club, a position he feels conflicted about since he was talked into it and believes he only got the job because of his mother. Most of his non-Dawn-related friends are either also in the club, know his YouTube career, or are other regulars at Larson's. The rest of his classmates mostly know him as a quiet but nice and helpful boy who doesn't stand out much unless about specific topics, in which case he knows a lot and is willing to enter longer conversations.

In high school, Ethan finally found the courage to start his own channel on YouTube. His content revolved around reviewing movies. At first, he would rather factually state his opinion about different movies, scared of not being taken seriously. But eventually, he started to loosen up and add some humor into his videos. Most of his early content barely reached more than around a dozen views, but over time, Ethan managed to slowly grow his channel. While he is still far away from success, he has amassed a small audience of around forty subscribers, half of them going to his school. At the start of Ssenior year, he uploaded a video reviewing a documentary about SOTF, focussing on the winner of the first game. This quickly became his most viewed video and got him a good boost.

Ethan's content also grew in quality. By reading all feedback seriously and reflecting about his own actions, he managed to improve his reasoning over time and better articulate his opinions in the videos. Once he finishes his education, he plans to make a career by becoming a professional movie critic. If that fails, he plans to become a journalist. After some deliberation, he decided against studying at a college since he doesn't like the current political atmosphere. His parents are onboard with Ethan not going to college, albeit they sometimes remind him that he can always change his mind and attend college later, thanks to the financial cushion the family has.

In school, Ethan excells in language and social classes while struggling in science classes. His grades in the former are high B's and A's while his grades in the latter are often low B's and C's.

Ethan is on very good terms with his parents. The family will sometimes go on small trips during the weekends, which range from visiting a zoo to watching a movie in the cinema. He often plays chess against his mother will a win ratio of about 50:50, albeit Ute always takes huge handicaps to make the matches fair. One day, Ethan got confident and asked his mother to play seriously. His following defeat was very humbling.

His relationship to his father Edgar is slightly less deep, but the two go along well. Edgar's favorite hobby is fishing, something Ethan has little interest in. He still accompanies his father on trips sometimes, which often involve a lot of talking.

His friendship with Dawn is still going strong. Both have very similar classes and often hang out even outside of school. Dawn also visits the Kemp house now and then, albeit no longer as often as when she was a child.

Ethan has a calm personality and a positive outlook on life. He believes that it is important to know one's own priorities and to stick to them to make the most out of it.

Advantages: Ethan's classmates have an overall positive picture of him, giving him good chances of finding trustworthy allies. He has some medical knowledge, especially in regards to first aid, thanks to his work in the Student Health Association. Thanks to chess and his videos, he is used to analyze and question his own actions, which might help him keep a clear head.
Disadvantages: Ethan has a strong dislike towards violence and prefers to talk any problems out, which might not always work in a killing game. Furthermore, his habit of self-analyzing could result in him hesitating to commit morally questionable actions, even when necessary to survive. He also cares a lot about those close to him, meaning that the loss of allies and friends will hurt him greatly.

Original Profile: Ethan Kemp (V8)
Permission: "Hey DerArknight, can I write Ethan in SC3?" "Sure DerArknight, go ahead!" "Thanks, DerArknight, you are awesome!" "I know ;D"

[MurderWeasel]

Heya, Arknight! Sorry for the delay! Ethan's looking pretty solid, just a bit to go before he's ready.

First off, a little formatting thing: can we get a full line skipped between the Hobbies And Interests section and the Appearance section?

How long exactly is Ethan's hair? Medium can cover a pretty wide range—does it reach his ears? Cover them? Reach almost to his shoulders? Also, is it straight, curly, or wavy?

I'm pretty sure Ethan is Caucasian, but I'd like to get it explicitly stated.

What sort of shirt was Ethan wearing on the day of the abduction? A t-shirt? A short-sleeved button-down?

With an April 12, 2006 birthday, Ethan would actually be 18 (since the game starts a few weeks after his birthday).

"While Edgar had a well-paid office job in Salem" <- this should be Saint Paul.

What sorts of situations did Ethan get adults involved in when helping others in elementary school? Was this appreciated by his classmates?

How old was Ethan when Anna died? Did he know it was coming soon, or was it a surprise to all of them?

Is Ethan only in the Student Health Association due to Dawn? What keeps him in the group?

How do Ethan's parents feel about his decision not to attend college? Does he have any sort of fallback plan if his movie criticism falls through? Also, how are his high school grades? What classes does he do best in, and where does he struggle?

Does Ethan's mother go easy on him in their chess games, or maybe take handicaps of some kind? I mostly ask because, with her stated peak rank, she'd probably be one of the ten best female chess players of all time, so if Ethan's matching her regularly with no sort of advantage he'd be incredibly good.

Can I hear about Ethan's dislike of violence a little in his bio. When did that start? How does it come up? How does it square with his love of horror movies (it's totally fine if he's cool with pretend violence but not real violence; I'd just like to get that stated).

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

[DerArknight]

I made the edits.

[MurderWeasel]

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