Nick Reid

B08 - Nicholas "Nick" Reid (art by Yonagoda)

Name: Nicholas "Nick" Reid
Gender: Male
Age: 17
School: Colehurst Secondary School
Hobbies and Interests: Reading, math, science, archery, creative anachronism

Appearance: At 6' even and 145 lbs, Nick is fairly thin and lanky. Strong legs skew the distribution downwards a bit, leaving him with a skinny torso, wiry arms, and spiderlike hands. His participation in archery and mock swordplay has caused a slight unevenness in his build, and a direct comparison would show his dominant left side to be slightly more robust. Overall, Nick cares very little about his appearance; his black finger-length hair is horribly unkempt, he slouches, and his outfit is the same every day; dark jeans, black shoes, a faded and frayed MIT hoodie that might fit well if he was perhaps 60 lbs heavier, and a T-shirt with a bad math joke on it. On the day of the abduction, his shirt is bright orange with a crude brown line drawing of a monkey's head above the words "There's No Right Way to Eat a Rhesus."

Nick's face is dominated by a large, hooked nose. Under his powerful brow ridge and shapely eyebrows, his eyes are a dull color that is indistinguishably blue, green, or even grey. Poor sleeping habits give him persistent dark circles under his eyes, and his face is slightly hollow with visible cheekbones. His lips are also prominent, and even after a couple weeks without shaving, his facial hair shows up only as a faint trace. The overall effect of his appearance is reminiscent of a large, sickly bird.

Biography: Nick knows firsthand that genius has its price. Though by all accounts a normal, if quiet, grade-schooler, he began in middle school to feel an increasingly sharp divide between him and his his peers. While their growth and development sent them off in wildly different directions, the introverted, sentimental Nick was left grasping at straws. The transition to Colehurst was even worse, and Nick found his grades plummeting under the stress, leading him into a vicious cycle. As general malaise into full-blown depression, his behavior was too much to conceal and excuse, and his concerned parents brought him in for a consultation with the family doctor. Two years later, despite the diagnosis, he has made little headway. Dealing with his illness remains a daily battle, one in which victory means putting up a successful front, and all-too frequent defeat brings episodes of sheer melancholy.

Nick is the guy who is always right and he knows it. As a result, he tends to be somewhat abrasive at times. Disliking everyone in general but nobody in particular, he is perfectly friendly on a one-on-one basis, but holds great disdain for the hoi polloi. Despite his incredible mental prowess, his grades are better than average at best and horrible at worst, largely due to his depression. A generally sardonic conversationalist, he is known to throw out cutting remarks and sarcastic canned responses to pointless social niceties. He claims to be a realist, stating that the proverbial glass is merely twice as large as it needs to be, but maintains in reality a pessimistic, if somewhat unconventional, worldview.

When he was still young, Nick had the opportunity at a Cub Scout day camp to try firing a bow. To his immense pleasure (and future displeasure, on having to recount his involvement in the Cub Scouts), he discovered himself to be a relatively good shot. This sparked an interest in archery that has grown throughout the years - as has his skill. He's begun a competitive career, narrowly earning a spot in a recent state championships by defeating fellow highlander Sally Connelly. He continues to practice competitively, but an introduction by some contacts on the range has lead to him devoting increasing amounts of time to combat archery, first in Dagorhir and more recently the SCA. Since starting his new hobby, he has also taken up melee combat, taking advantage of his build to fight with spear or greatsword but holding little interest in hiding behind a shield. Despite this exercise, his naturally skinny frame hasn't bulked up much. He can draw a bow and swing a rattan sword, but is far from what would be considered muscular.

From the first words he read, sometime during preschool, Nick has read everything in sight in a quest for knowledge. From the Magic Schoolbus series in his early years to his more recent perusal of the Feynman lectures, no text is safe from his prying eyes. Along the way, he's snowballed quite a collection of minutiae. On a more cheerful bent, he'll gladly share that his large Adam's apple makes him cock-throppled or that opossums have 13 nipples. Though uninterested in the fiction section during his earlier years, tastes have branched out somewhat, and he enjoys reading into the worlds of the Cthulu Mythos or Discworld.

As an outgrowth of his interest in reading, Nick has developed a keen interest in math and science. Always mathematically gifted, he has managed to scrape passing grades in all of his math classes with little to no homework, and is eager to expand his knowledge through calculus and beyond. Even with his mathematic proclivity, though, his true passion is for science. His dream job would involve particle physics research at CERN, but he occupies himself for the time being reading into Carnot cycles and pi mesons and looking at the material world with an appraising eye.

All in all, Nick is a walking contradiction. A strong contender for National Merit status, he falls short of the honor roll; reserved and intellectual, he harbors a bit of an impulsive streak and loves a good prank. Cool, collected, and eloquent in a prepared speech, he is a horrid conversationalist; brilliant and sharp-witted, he often lacks basic common sense. But the biggest of all is his endless veneration of a deeply flawed mind.

Advantages: Melee combat experience give Nick agility and good body mechanics to make up for his lacking strength. He is also an experienced archer and has quick feet and a quick mind, with iron willpower to back it up.
Disadvantages: Depression has taken its toll on Nick's mind and body. Poor sleeping habits have sapped his endurance, and his mental state lends itself to periods of illogical thinking. Social graces have never been his strong point, and he is generally lacking in skills valuable for turning enemies into allies.

Original profile: B055: Nick Reid

Designated Number: Male Student No. 08

---

Designated Weapon: Box of Condoms
Conclusion: Too bad B08 isn't so good on the social front. Otherwise, he might've at least been able to use his weapon to negotiate a bit of fun before his inevitable horrible, screaming demise.

The above biography is as written by Rattlesnake. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.

Evaluations

B08 - Nick Reid (art by Ryuki)

Kills: Sally Connelly, Adam Reeves, Jennifer Steinman, April Stone, Karl Chalmers, Megan Jacobson

Killed By: N/A

Collected Weapons: Box of Condoms (Assigned weapon), Katana (From Sally Connelly), Colt Single Action Army (From Adam Reeves), Machete (From Jennifer Steinman), Bowie Knife (From Keira MacDonald), Ingram MAC 10 (From Charlene "Charlie" Norris)

Allies:

Enemies: Sally Connelly, Adam Reeves, Jennifer Steinman, April Stone, Karl Chalmers

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes: "I don't think there's any value in trying to talk at this point."

Other/Trivia

B08 - Nick Reid on his journey from V4 to Second Chances, as depicted by his handler.

• Nick is the only SC finalist who did not originate on the SOTF Mini site, coming instead from V4.
• All students whose handlers participated in the game and who scored more than one kill were killed by Nick.

Threads

Below is a list of threads that contain Nick, in chronological order.

Second Chances V1:

• Pressure Point
• They Could at Least Have Left Me Something...
• Let's Go to the Mall!
• Will I Never Be Lonely Again?
• Murder on the Midday Wire
• Valor
• One Bath, Two Bath, Red Bath, Bloodbath
• The Eye of The Storm
• The Twilight of Our Youth

Post-Game:

• Preface

Your Thoughts

Whether you were a fellow handler in Second Chances or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Nick Reid. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!

• Nick really needs another hug.
  
  On notes actually related to his story. I’m a big fan of Nick, and think that if required reading was a thing on SOTF, I’d require anyone who wants to write a player hunter read this version of Nick.
  
  Part of this is that while violent, Nick manages to be a sympathetic and relatable character (some of the descriptions of his depression in his early threads are probably some of the most relatable I’ve seen in a work of fiction), where while he’s doing some very violent things, I was never unaware that this was a teenager put in a bad situation that I was reading. It also helped that while vengeful, Nick never came off as enjoying his actions. He also manages to have some humor throughout his narrative, with his offbeat thoughts making me smile frequently, something that characters more defined by their “randomness” tend to fail to do.
  
  The one minor complaint I have about Nick is that like a lot of characters on mini, the transition from early game to late feels really sudden and abrupt. Having some more material showing the mid-game would have helped I think (not to mention giving more of him to read), but having a developed late game beats the opposite, where a character has a lot of action at the beginning before gradually tapering off. -bacon