Desiree Beck

[RC*]

Name: Desiree Beck
Gender: Female
Age: 19
Grade: Senior year
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Minecraft, caring for her pet chinchilla, tchoukball, mathematics, orchestral music

Appearance: Desiree weighs 115 pounds and is 5'6" tall, appearing to be a small, thin, girl. Her face is round and her lips are thin. She has slightly slanted brown eyes due to her family hailing from Zhejiang, China. She has a small nose and straight shoulder-long black hair. The tips of her hair are dyed yellow.

While she usually wears eye contacts, she owns black, square glasses. On the day of abduction she wore blue jeans and a green button up shirt along with red sneakers.

Biography: Desiree Jiaying Teng Beck was born to Lemmy, an architect, and Marisa Beck, a realtor. The family residing in Hixson was financially wealthy and therefore could afford things to facilitate the upbringing of Desiree. Her parents made her aware of their wealth via buying her the products she wished to have - these primarily being games. Since her childhood she loved to play games, ranging from board games to video games. Her parents or her nanny often played games with her when she was young, such as chess, checkers or card games. After growing up and having been given an iPhone she also played games on her own. Lemmy also owned a Wii and a Playstation 3 so she could play appropiate video games with her friends. She enjoyed playing games with her parents and friends because she always felt good whenever she won and because that she could discover new strategies to win against others.

Once old enough to own a computer on her own, she also installed video games there she could play on her own or with her friends. At first she played strategic games like The Sims or from the Anno series, but her interest quickly switched to playing the indie game Minecraft. Desiree discovered Minecraft through watching a friend play it. After she got permission from her parents to buy it, she started regularly playing Minecraft. She enjoyed to build things in the world and to discover the randomly generated world in Survival Mode. The diversity the game offered fascinated her. She anticipated the new updates that added new content and through browsing the internet she found Minecraft forums and popular Minecraft YouTubers that presented interesting Minecraft mods that brought new content to the game. Through the YouTubers she also discovered several Minecraft servers she could play the game online on. All of this made Minecraft her favourite game.

Lemmy was invited to a classical concert by a colleague and brought Marisa and Desiree to it. Afterwards Desiree told her parents that she liked that kind of music more than pop music played on the radio. She enjoyed the experience as there was nothing between her and the music. It was complex and she could feel the music. She was brought to concerts often and her parents offered to get her lessons in learning an instrument, but Desiree showed no interest, because she did not want to put effort into learning to read notes and an instrument.

While her parents were relaxed on many occasions, they became stricter on the matter of her future, as they worried about that more than Desiree did herself. They especially pushed her to do well in school. Desiree was doing good in school, especially in the subjects literature and maths. However she didn't do well in the domain of science so in an attempt to improve her grades her parents got her a tutor. Desiree did not appreciate the tutoring, as she did not like her school. The fact that she sat all day learning in the facility did not appeal to her; she preferred to spend time at home. While she's friendly towards other people, she secretly disliked some teachers and classmates for their behaviour. She doesn't get along with her classmates and their often childish behaviour and she doesn't think highly of some of the teachers she views as unprofessional such as Mr. Faust or Mr. Terrance, despite the latter teaching her favourite subject. Mathematics is the subject she is most comfortable with considering how easy it is once you fully understand it. It always felt easy for her and she feels smart for being able to succeed in it so she plans to get a degree in mathematics in the future to get a good job. Outside of school she also regularly watches Numberphile videos to understand the more complex topics of mathematics. She had no interest in extra curriculars.

In PE she was an average student. Yet, when the teacher introduced the class to Tchoukball, the fairness, speed and intensity of the game intrigued her. She began liking to play it, although she did not continue playing the game after school. She was still interested in Tchoukball, so she occasionally watched some matches on the internet in her free time and annually followed the championship.

While she paid attention and participated in class, she was afraid of exams and often had trouble in learning information, especially in chemistry. Besides that, procrastination often hindered her ability to learn for her exams.

In exams where Desiree was unsure, she tried to use cheat sheets or to crib to get a better grade in the exam. She always got away not getting caught, because she was trying her best to do it discreetly, not even telling her classmates and friends about it. Her parents also never found out and would never suspect her to cheat during an exam. It also helped that she has made a good impression on the teachers, so they did not suspect her to cheat. But as her exams became more and more important throughout the years, she tried to manage the exams without the cheat sheets, as she was feeling more afraid of getting caught; though she still did not feel bad for cheating. In the course of years she did not need to use her cheat sheets as often, because during her preparation she got better at taking notes and reviewing the content of her classes. Although she got better in exams, her oral exams were not as good as the written down ones.

While Desiree's classmates generally see her as friendly and smart, she isn't very close with many of them. Most are more like acquaintances than friends. Desiree sometimes helps her friends with schoolwork, but usually just gives them answers rather than walking them through it as she isn't good at explaining how to get the solution to her friends most of the time. She also has friends from upper grades, who helped her in school by giving her past their past exams, so she could better prepare.

One day a friend gave her a chinchilla, after asking her to adopt one as she had too many. As a good friend of her she accepted, not expecting it to be a lot of work, naming it Toby. While Desiree usually took good care of her pet, she sometimes became neglectful and her parents had to step in. They are not happy about this and often reminded her to take more care of it. Desiree appreciated the chinchilla and had fun taking care of it, but lacked time to take care of it because she was more invested in video games or school. She was annoyed by her parents who tried to remind her to care more often, but Desiree often replied with excuses, mostly about there being an ‘important exam' she needed to study for. While her parents do not believe her to have no time for the chinchilla, they did not punish her, and do not mind taking care of it.

She spent her free time with playing video games, often while listening to orchestral music, enjoying playing Minecraft more than spending her time with her friends. Yet as she still visited her friends and was doing well in school, her parents were not worried about her playing too much. She started a channel where she used to upload videos of her playing Minecraft on her YouTube channel "Gurkensaru", but due to the lack of views and comments, it went inactive.

Desiree applied and got approved for the Middlebury College, planning to get a major in mathematics.

She looks forward to live on her own and have some distance to her parents. Same goes to the parents, who look forward for her to live on her own.

Advantages: Desiree is good at memorising important content, structuring and organising which might come in handy on the island. She also is aware of her surroundings enough to be deceptive.
Disadvantages: Desiree is not good with handling people and not very social so she can come off as arrogant or alienating, which makes it harder for her to gain allies or convince other people. Her laziness could also hinder her to achieve things. Her general dishonesty could also cause trouble with either her classmates or us.