ANDERSON, Joshua David

[Joshua David Anderson]

J O S H U A DAVID A N D E R S O N !



an empty room, i'm empty too and everything ,

[/i][/color][/size][/font]
r e m i n d s m e o f y o u. s o m a n y t h i n g s i s h o u l d n 't h a v e m i s s e d. t h e m o r e t h a t i p u s h,
and the more you resist. it's easy to say it's for the best when you want more while you leave me with less.[/color][/font]

Full Name:

[/color] Joshua David Anderson
Nicknames: Josh, Joshy
Age: 14
Birthdate: August 24th
Sexuality: Questioning
Gender: Male
Problem: Suicidal
Grade: 9
Clique(s): Nerds, Loners
Classes:

[/justify][/blockquote][/size]


i know you're fine, but what do i do ?[/i][/color][/size][/font]
i k n o w y o u 'r e f i n e, b u t w h a t d o i d o? i 'm a w a k e, a n d t r y i n g, w h i l e y o u 'r e s l e e p i n g
like a babe beside him. i'm on the ledge while you're so god damn polite and composed.[/color][/font]

Height:

[/color] 5' 6”
Weight: 110 lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Blue
Notable Features: None.
Play-By: Asa Butterfield
General Description: He has the same bright blue eyes as his older sister. He's got dark down hair that he keeps long, but not long by modern standards, which naturally begins to wave at a certain length. He's quite pale, but this has a lot to do with the fact that he doesn't get much sun exposure and that he is quite anaemic from an unbalanced diet. He's always been a finicky eater, but in recent years he just hasn't had an appetite at all. He's a little bit on the skinny side, due to this prolonged and almost entirely self-imposed malnutrition. When he does get out in the sun (usually on his much anticipated trips to the beach) his nose and cheeks are quickly covered in a light dusting of freckles. He isn't very muscular and is easily pushed around by bigger kids. He likes old fashioned clothing and dressing up in military or period costumes. It's just one of those little obsessions he has. It's not like he's into high fashion or anything--- quite the contrary, he's often dressed in a way that looks silly in its context and makes him stand out in a negative way. For example: he might dress up like a dapper gentleman when he is going to the beach, where doing so is ridiculous and probably uncomfortable. He also dresses much too warmly in warm weather because he likes overcoats and suit jackets. People are always asking him 'aren't you hot in all of that' and he wont even realize that he's wearing way too much clothing. He also loves collecting old clocks and watches, even if they are broken and useless, and often carries around a broken pocket watch with 'dad' engraved on it, even though it looks silly since he obviously isn't anyone's father. [/justify][/blockquote][/size]


and i know you see me, and you're making it ,[/i][/color][/size][/font]
l o o k s o e a s y. w h a t c o m e s a n d g o e s, i 'd g o w i t h o u t. i k n o w y o u 'r e f i n e b u t w h a t a b o u t
fallout , fallout , fallout, through the fallout. fallout, fallout, through the fallout. well now there's him,[/color][/font]

Likes:

[/color]
-The Ocean. The sound and smell of the ocean calm him and fill him with an inner peace that he can't find anywhere else.
-Collecting things, like old pennies and pocket watches. He also has a collection of foil chewing-gum wrappers in his sock drawer at home. For a time he collected tiny pine-cones, until his adoptive mother found them and made him put them outside, since many of them were covered in dirt, sap, and bugs.
-Animals. He is far more comfortable around animals than most humans. Especially Dolphins. He went to the aquarium once with his class in elementary school, and he fell so madly in love with the place that he slipped away from his group and hid near the dolphins. The teacher nearly had a heart attack, and they had all of the security people out looking for him. Everyone was furious when he got home, because everyone thought he'd been kidnapped. But, he'd been becoming one with the dolphins. He was never allowed to go on field trips after that.
-Fancy dress and old fashioned clothing. There are only certain types of fabrics he will wear. Some just don't feel right on his skin because of the texture, density, or whatever. He pays close attention to the way he dresses, to the point where he is often times way over-dressed.
-Being near his big sister, Sky. She's the only other person he can feel completely comfortable with. She never fails to cheer him up when he's down.
-Conversations his adoptive brother, Matthew. They used to have a game where they tried to think up the most embarrassing ways to die. (Example: Being run over by a golf cart, peeing on an electric blanket, Viagra overdose, auto-erotic asphyxiation, etc.) Matthew really knew how to make him laugh.
-Books. He could live off of books and sea air alone. He's a very quick reader, and has a habit of always highlighting and underlining in his books. This can become a problem with textbooks, so he uses pencil for them. Underlining helps him absorb what he reads and he feels the need to interact with the text. He has a special relationship with words and letters.
-Biology. Especially marine biology. He is an aspiring marine biologist.
-Mathematics. He's always been very good at it because he has such an odd relationship with numbers. Numbers are almost personified for him.
-Quiet places.
Dislikes:
-Small spaces. He is incredibly claustrophobic.
-Staying away from the sea for too long.
-Being away from Sky for too long.
-Being around people for too long. It makes him very anxious, to the point where he has trouble breathing and chews on his fingernails. Being in large crowds is torture for him.
-Being forced into any sort of social situation.
-Pollution.
-Eggplant.

Strengths:
-Intelligence. He has a very high IQ.
-Studiousness.
-Knowledge of science, specifically Marine Biology.
-Good at Mathematics. He sees the numbers in his head differently than other people do. It's sort of like they're singing to him, in a way. It's really beautiful, but only he can see it.
-He is very loyal to the few friends he has, almost to a fault.
-He's very straight-forward. He doesn't even have the ability to be dishonest. Sometimes he is overly honest.
-When he becomes interested in something he has incredible focus.

Weaknesses:
-Social Awkwardness. Actually, it goes beyond mere awkwardness. He legitimately becomes mute around other people. He can't make friends. Because he was not socialized as a child, except by his sister, he has trouble connecting with other people at all. This is probably a result of child neglect as well as Aspergers, at least initially, and was later compounded by the bullying he endured.
-Low self-esteem, due to all of the verbal abuse heaped on him by his father and the bullying he encountered in school on top of that.
-Self conscious about his lisp, which speech therapy has never been able to completely get rid of.
-Though he spends much of his time at the beach, he has never learnt to swim.
-He is very much obsessed with Marine Biology, and can't really talk about anything else once he gets going. It bores people, and everyone finds the way he just keeps on the topic to be a little odd. Sky is the only one he feels comfortable talking to for this reason, and oddly enough, he manages to talk about things other than Marine Biology when he is talking to her.
-He doesn't pick up social cues. Also due to lack of socialization, though in recent years he has begun making an improvement. Perhaps, with more practice, he will become more adept at 'reading' people like other people do. But, with the way his mental state is right now, it is difficult to tell whether or not he will respond to treatment.
-Naive and Over-trusting, though he is less trusting now than he used to be. By being so open and trusting he opened himself up to be destroyed by other children. His honesty made him an easy target and also leads him to say things frankly that may offend other people, without meaning to.
-Has trouble seeing the “big picture” and will become caught up in the minutiae of things. For example, he might be in a lecture but seem distracted because he is focusing on too many things at once. It's not that he's distracted, but that he is focused on many things at once so that the clouds outside the window, the scent of someone's perfume, and strange pigment in a whiteboard marker all occupy his attention just as much as the words coming out of the professor's mouth. He has no mental filter.
-He is disorganized with the exception of his obsessions, and there he is overly organized.
-He becomes obsessed with things and neglects other aspects of his life. Some of his obsessions are passing, others endure. But, they all take up much of his time.

Fears:
-Small spaces, since one of his father's favourite punishments for his children was locking them inside of cupboards until they were certain that they would suffocate.
-People. He has been bullied since he can remember, and as a result has no particular fondness for other children.
-Being away from Sky for too long. He has separation anxiety.
-Clowns and Mimes. Especially those French-mimes. He isn't really that afraid of them, but he finds them incredibly creepy.
-Loud noises. He can't stand fireworks and will hide in his room with his hands over his ears if there are fireworks or thunderstorms.

Disorders: Suicidal (Major Depressive Disorder), Asperger Syndrome
General Description:Though his case of Asperger Syndrome is mild, his symptoms have become more pronounced over the years due to emotional stress and a bad family situation. It is almost impossible for Josh to connect with other people these days. He avoids social interaction as much as possible. When forced into social situation he becomes agitated and can't stop talking about marine biology--- a subject which may be of little or no interest to his audience.

The only person he feels he can really talk to is his sister, Sky. In all of his years of school his only friend was his adoptive brother Matthew. He has communication difficulties on the physical level, and is unable to read other people's body language or social cues much of the time. He has trouble modulating his voice at times, when he does speak, and must be told by Sky to stop shouting when he wasn't aware that he was not speaking at a conversational tone, though this was more of a problem when he was younger. In the months before he began eighth grade, he was actually beginning to make great leaps in recovery and was seeing a therapist to help cope with his depression and Asperger syndrome.

He was beginning to open up to people after he'd known them for a while, and had actually made a group of maybe-friends who were actually his brother's friends (many of whom were proud and self-labelled social outcasts). But, he was beginning to feel like one of the crowd, for the first time in his life. But, after he started school again he was bullied by some of his former friends and relapsed, becoming more reclusive than ever. He has made one serious suicide attempt. But, he is still quite young, so there is every possibility of him making a full recovery.[/justify][/blockquote][/size]


and now there's me. the secrets you give ,[/i][/color][/size][/font]
a n d t h e s e c r e t s y o u k e e p. a n d n e v e r t h e l e s s, i t 's n e v e r y o u l e t. t h e m o r e t h a t i g i v e
and the less that i get. don't tell me to fight, to fight for you. after this long, i shouldn't have to[/color][/font]

Mother:

[/color] Amelia Blackstone
Father: Kevin Anderson
Older Sister: Skylar “Sky” Anderson
Younger Sister: Susan “Suzie” Anderson
Adoptive Brother/BFF: Matthew Moore
Adoptive Sister: Christina Moore
Adoptive Parents: Macy and Robert Moore


History:

Josh was born the second child of Kevin Anderson and Amelia Blackstone. It was apparent immediately that he was a 'special' child in more than one way. His eyes were always alert, taking in the world around him. If he was left alone in his crib for too long, he would grow bored and make a fuss. His speech development seemed delayed at first, but when he did begin speaking, he spoke in full sentences. He began reading letters and short words not long after he began speaking, and was giving his father a constant headache by chirping out licence plate numbers rapid-fire whenever they drove anywhere in the car. His mother, however, thought that it was so cute when Josh read to her, and was just generally relieved that wasn't 'a retard'. For all of her shortcomings as a mother, Amelia Blackstone did one great thing by her son: she always took him to the library. Their little house didn't have air-conditioning or central heating, so she may have just gone to the library to escape the elements, but by the time Josh was five or six he'd memorized the entire Audubon Society section of the public library, and had begun to read books on marine biology independently when he began elementary school.

Part of his early reading success might be attributed to the fact that the children's librarian took a particular interest in Josh, having an gifted autistic grandson of her own. She was the one who pushed Amelia to have him tested for autism. Amelia was insulted by the suggestion, but had her own suspicions that she'd never been able to put to rest. So, she did have him tested and was heartbroken when the results came back placing him somewhere on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. However, her sadness was short lived, as Josh's kindergarten teacher had him tested for 'giftedness' and he scored off the charts. This made his mother proud, but didn't seem to mean a thing to his father who had little interest in his son's accomplishments.

Before Suzie was born, Josh was his mother's favourite child, or at least the one she seemed to pay the most attention to, perhaps out of pity. Being Amelia's favourite, unfortunately, didn't mean very much. She did shower him with motherly praise and affection on occasion, but most of the time she was just as distant to her son as she was to her older daughter. Because of this slight deficiency in adult socialization, he and Sky developed a secret language that only the two of them spoke, much like the sort of idioglossia that is commonly shared by young twins. Sky was his best friend, and without her protection and nurturing, he may well have suffered great abuse. However, despite his elder sister's valiant efforts to protect him, both Josh and his younger sister Suzie were occasionally subjected to their father's temper. After Amelia left, things only got worse for Josh.

As a sort of comfort, Josh would sometimes take articles of his mother's clothing or some of her jewellery and sleep while clutching or wearing it, just to feel closer to her. His father, of course, misconstrued this as sexually motivated cross-dressing behaviour and punished Josh for this, but didn't ever manage to completely stop him. To make matters worse, Josh had a lisp; a problem which is not uncommon in young children and seems to be especially common in children within the autism spectrum. His father couldn't help but hear the resemblance between Josh's lisp and the 'gay lisp'. He brow beat Josh about the lisp until his son just stopped speaking around his father altogether. Kevin began locking Josh into cupboards and closets when he didn't want to 'look at' him. Sometimes his father was physically violent and he was always verbally abusive. Sometimes Josh went without food for the entire weekend when Kevin was upset with him. As a result, Josh learned how to ignore his hunger.

When Josh met Matthew it was the first time he'd ever truly clicked with another person, aside from Sky of course. Matthew had severe ADHD and could relate to Josh's outcast status and also shared his singular obsession with science. By the time he was finally adopted by the Moore family, he was nearly two stones under weight, thanks to a lack of nutrition. It took a long time to get him up to a healthy weight even after he had food at his disposal, because he'd lost the ability to sense when he was hungry. But, life did seem to be improving as far as his home situation went. The Moore family had him seeing a therapist five days a week and Matthew included Josh in everything he did.

Life at school was another problem entirely. He was beaten up by bullies for being too small or too strange or too 'gay'. His Asperger's didn't make it easy to fit in. Matthew stuck by his side, but there was only so much his friend could do since they weren't even in the same grade. Matthew got into several fist-fights on Josh's behalf, and Josh felt incredibly guilty about that. Matthew was impulsive and liked to fight anyway, or so he always told Josh to make him feel better. Josh and Matthew sort of completed each other: where Matthew was completely unfocused Josh was hyper-focused, where Matthew forgot the details Josh focused on the details and forgot the big picture. By spending so much time together they both became better at recognizing things that they would have missed before, since they were both outside thinkers but in two totally different universes. Josh clung to Matthew as Sky began to go into her downward spiral of addiction and depression.

Matthew's circle of friends consisted of all of the 'alternative' kids who didn't fit in with the rest of the school. There was actually one other person in the group who had a mild to moderate case of Asperger Syndrome, while the others were mostly just mini-goths, mini-hipsters, and feminists. In the Alt crowd they not only accepted differences, but relished in them. Everything that had made Josh's disorder so unacceptable to other people actually made him cooler in their eyes. He took every relationship very seriously and benefited greatly from the socialization, though it always took a lot of effort to socialize. He was used to being contented on his own, but as he entered adolescence he was beginning to see what he'd been missing out on. He began to crave the company of his friends, and every moment he spent with them made him feel more fulfilled. It looked like he was going to make a full recovery.

In the summer before Josh began the 8th grade, he began 'dating' a girl who was outside of his circle of friends who had contacted him on a social networking website. She talked to him on line, and made him think that she was interested in him. He was surprised but thrilled that such a pretty and popular girl was interested in him, but suspected nothing 'off' about the situation. He began spending less time with his real friends, opting instead to spend his hours in online conversations with the girl. He fell madly in love with her, though Matthew and his real friends told him that she was a bad person and that no good could come of talking to her, he couldn't imagine her being anything other than the sweet person she appeared to be in their chats. He really opened up to her, thanks in part to his disorder, unable to see how certain things were inappropriate to tell anyone, especially online.

She got him to admit all sorts of things, like how he used to cross dress on occasion. In the end, the girl took their chat logs and posted them online for all of the world to see. She'd been messing with his head the whole time. So, he started eighth grade as the laughing stock of the school, and without any friends since he'd alienated all of his real friends when he was 'dating' the girl. Some of the people who used to be his friends even took part in the bullying. Around the same time, Sky was sent off to St. Helena's. She had been the one last person that he thought he could depend upon, even when she was wasted. Matthew was still supportive at home, or at least wasn't hostile, but at school he no longer wanted anything to do with Josh and became angry when Josh tried to approach him at school to talk about their inside jokes.

The bullying was getting worse all the time. Most of the taunts were now centred around Josh's sexuality, thanks to the cross dressing confession. Josh hadn't even thought about sex up to that point, but the accusations lead him to privately question his sexuality, and he found that he might actually be attracted to some other boys. He didn't know if this meant he was gay or what, but the bullying made it difficult to get an objective view on the issue. Josh became very isolated, and shortly after his fourteenth birthday, dreading the prospect of returning to school after a year of misery, decided it wasn't worth the struggle. He walked out to the pier and jumped into the water, his trouser pockets filled with rocks to help him sink. Some good Samaritan witnessed the whole thing, and jumped in after him. It took some time to get him up to the surface, but there was no lasting damage. The next month, he was sent off to St. Helena's.

[/justify][/blockquote][/size]


i know you're fine, but what do i do? i know ,[/i][/color][/size][/font]
y o u 'r e f i n e, b u t w h a t d o i d o? i 'm a w a k e a n d t r y i n g w h i l e y o u 'r e s l e e p i n g l i k e a
babe beside him.i'm on the ledge while you're so god damn polite and composed.[/color][/font]

Alias:

[/color] Simon
Age: 18
Time Zone: Pacific
Other Characters: Simon, Sophie, Harmony, Milo, Élodie, John, Søren, Rich
Code Words: ---[/justify][/blockquote][/size]


this template was made by alice. it uses the lyrics
for "fallout" by marianas trench. do not steal,
alter, edit, or use without her permission or she will
send the evil monkey in her closet after you. you have
been warned.[/i][/center]

[MOUSE]