SB04: BETHAN GAYLE [DECEASED]

[Wham Yubeesling]

DECEASED


Name: Bethan Maya Tamara Gayle
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
Hobbies and Interests: Cybergoth culture, EDM music, partying, SOTF media, energy drinks, Welsh and Jamaican cooking and culture, travelling

Appearance: Bethan is a little taller than the average height for a girl her age, reaching 5’8” as of her most recent birthday. She’s also somewhat overweight, weighing 173lbs, with her weight distributed mostly into her stomach and hips, giving her a pear shaped figure. She is mixed race, being half-Welsh, half-Jamaican, and the latter is reflected in her dark brown skin tone. Similarly, her accent is predominantly Jamaican, although she can slip into a heavier Welsh one at times, particularly when she’s speaking the language.

Bethan has a round face shape, with a smattering of freckles coating her cheeks and the bridge of her fairly broad nose. Her nose is also pierced, along with both ears; she normally has a single hoop ring in her nose, three piercings in her left ear, and two in her right. Her eyes are large and normally hazel in colour, but Bethan frequently wears coloured contacts to change them to bright blues, greens or pinks. Similarly, she often wears lipstick and eyeshadow in the same bright colours, although she also uses more muted reds and purples, depending on the outfit she’s wearing.

Bethan’s hair is naturally long and dark brown, reaching down to her waist normally. She styles it into box braids with an undercut on the left hand side. She also bleaches and dyes her hair; again, like her eyes and makeup, she favours bright colours, particularly blues and greens. Currently, her hair is dyed a mix of turquoise and light pink.

When it comes to her clothing, Bethan’s wardrobe almost entirely consists of clothing purchased from specialty stores focused on cybergoth culture, in particular the store ‘Cyberdog’, as she has visited it in person multiple times while in the UK. A lot of her clothing falls on the wrong side of the school dress code, so she only wears them to raves and parties; she prefers to do so anyway, as she feels it makes these items of clothing more special and unique. She still has a wide range of crop tops, t-shirts, hoodies, jackets and leggings that she can wear to school or around Miami.

On the day she was selected to participate in Survival of the Fittest, Bethan was wearing a white off-the-shoulder crop top, with pink sleeves and the words ‘Virtual Princess’ across the chest in metallic pink print. She wore a black unzipped, cropped hoody over the top of that, with a neon green circuit board pattern across the back, arms, and hood; this was Bethan’s pride and joy, as it glowed in the dark. She also wore leggings, with one leg light pink and the other sky blue with a pattern of cartoon clouds, and a very expensive pair of black and white trainers. The back of these trainers contained a set of blue LED lights which could be customised to feature any message; on abduction day, Bethan chose hers to say “Stay weird! <3”. Her nose had its hoop ring in, and she had earrings in both of her ears. Her left ear had a neon green heart, a bright pink UFO, and a light blue alien face, whilst her right ear also had a neon green heart and a light pink stud. She also wore a pink and blue wristband with the Cyberdog logo on, on both her wrists, and a white perspex necklace with a cartoon cloud design, along with purple eyeshadow and bright blue lipstick.

Biography: Bethan is the only child of Jason and Lauren Gayle. Jason’s family emigrated from Mandeville, Jamaica, shortly after he was born, and settled in Miami, where they have lived ever since. Jason currently works as a security guard at a casino, but is looking to leave his position to find a job with better working hours and with lower personal risk. Lauren moved from Swansea, Wales, to Miami a few years before Bethan was born, in order to secure a lucrative teaching position at a college in the area. The two met in a bar one night and immediately hit it off, with Bethan being born shortly after they started living together.

Due to her parents’ very different heritages, Bethan was surrounded by culture from both Jamaica and Wales since the day she was born. She was a very curious young child, fascinated and eager to hear stories about life outside of Miami, and her parents were more than happy to tell her about their home countries. They adored their daughter, and loved seeing how fascinated she was by even the most mundane of tales.

The food that her parents grew up with also formed a large part of Bethan’s childhood - and indeed still comprises a good part of it to this day. Jason and Lauren took it in turns to cook, whenever the family wasn’t eating out or ordering takeout, and the majority of dishes made in the Gayle household were Jamaican or other Caribbean dishes, such as fish tea, callaloo, and escoveitch fish. Due to eating it from an early age, Bethan loved the food her parents made and was always eager to help out; she started off by chopping vegetables and pouring out spices, before graduating to preparing the meat and pouring over her family’s handwritten recipe books as she grew older. More recently, she has started preparing full meals for her parents, and on one notable occasion for friends of the family who were visiting. Bethan herself will admit that presentation is the weakest aspect of her cooking, but her food, generally, tastes a lot better than it looks.

Although Lauren didn’t provide as many Welsh recipes as Jason - although Welsh rarebit very quickly became a staple comfort food in the Gayle household - what she did impart on Bethan was a number of tales from Welsh mythology and folklore, often as bedtime stories. Her favourite story was always the tale of Culhwch and Olwen, but the descriptions of medieval Wales excited and intrigued her, and she would frequently pester her parents to take her to see the hills and valleys and castles her mother described.

Fortunately, the Gayles were a well-to-do family, and so were able to visit both Jamaica and Wales fairly frequently, travelling to the latter more often due to most of Jason’s family already living in Miami. They mostly stay in Swansea in order to meet up with Lauren’s parents more easily, but they will take time out to visit a nearby castle, National Trust property, or other landmark or tourist attraction. Bethan doesn’t mention it, because she loves her extended family and doesn’t want to upset them, but these trips are always her favourite parts of the holidays abroad. She’s currently saving up to visit Wales by herself after graduating from high school, with plans to stay in a small seaside town and hit up a number of cultural hotspots.

On one such family holiday to Wales, when Bethan was 15, they stopped off at an ATM after a meal out in Swansea. The ATM was located near a nightclub, which happened to be running a cybergoth theme that night, and a couple of club-goers were standing nearby, decked out entirely in neon and black cybergoth gear. Bethan’s innate curiosity kicked in and she approached them, asking them a flurry of questions about their clothing, their hair, and what they were doing. The duo were bemused, but happy to answer Bethan, but they were only able to talk for a brief moment before she was forced to leave. They told her the name of the subculture they were in, and that information stuck with her all the way through the remainder of her holiday.

She started looking up more information about the cybergoth subculture as soon as she got back to Miami, fascinated by the bright, neon colours and extravagant clothing worn by the two she’d spoken to. Everything about it appealed to her; the colourful and unique outfits, the incorporation of sci-fi and futuristic elements, and the high-energy, pulse-pounding music. She began to delve deeper into everything related to cybergoth culture; her phone, which already contained a good amount of dance and house music, became filled with high tempo EDM music. She began to dye her hair, in fairly muted colours to begin with, but quickly moving to brighter colours once she grew bolder and more into cybergoth culture. It didn’t take long for her to become fully engaged in being known to her peers as a cybergoth.

Bethan was incredibly nervous when she first decided to purchase cybergoth clothing, from a small specialty store in Miami. Fortunately, the clerk working there was incredibly helpful, advising Bethan as to what clothes she would look best in and that she’d feel most comfortable in, as well as informing her of Facebook and other social media groups that would allow her to talk with other members of the cybergoth community within Miami.

Bethan was excited to start going to parties and other meetups, but was worried that her parents would prevent her from doing so. Her fears were unfounded, though; while neither Jason nor Lauren understood their daughter’s change in clothing style and newfound interest in going to parties, they both clearly saw that she was even happier and more exuberant than she had been previously. She was also around the age they had both been when they’d started going to parties and the like, and Jason wasn’t unfamiliar with warehouse raves either. They did make sure, however, that if she was going somewhere new or unfamiliar, that she keep them frequently up to date on where she was and how she was doing, which she diligently followed.

Because she tries to make it to as many parties and raves as she can, Bethan is out of the house almost every single Friday and Saturday evening - as well as some weekdays, depending on circumstances. She’ll return home in the early hours of the morning, but she has a sheer desire to be doing something at any given point, putting off sleep for as long as possible until she physically cannot keep her eyes open any longer. At first, she tried watching episodes of SOTF upon returning home from parties, as many of her friends at school watched it. However, it took her only a couple of episodes to realise she hated watching it; she found it incredibly upsetting and distressing, and she suffered from nightmares and restless sleep the following nights. To this day, she makes every effort to avoid watching it, and even brief unedited clips of the show will put her in an uncomfortable near-panicky state.

However, she also became aware of the many, many forms of media surrounding the show, and she found that she was much more comfortable absorbing this than SOTF itself. She will happily absorb meme videos that replace the audio from the show, fan animations, and Vine compilations that stick the faces of SOTF contestants over the top of the people in the Vines. She enjoys these because they allow her to happily distance herself from the show itself, whilst still allowing her to discuss aspects of it in casual conversation with her friends. Two of her favourite pieces of SOTF media are ‘SOTF: The Abridged Series’, produced by her classmate Stokes Keeper, and ‘SOTF The Anime’, an ambitious YouTube channel attempting to animate every SOTF episode in an anime style; to date, they have produced openings for each season and a single episode from Season 1.

Bethan also started playing the various video games spawned from the SOTF brand. Although Champions and Fighters are the two most well-known SOTF games, she found them both very difficult to get into, the technical demands of MOBAs and fighting games being particularly intimidating to someone with very limited video game experience. She stuck at them, however, as she had plenty of time to do so with her regular 4am bedtime, and while she’s still nowhere near great at them, she can at least pull off a move in Fighters without having her eyes fixed to the input list. Her favourite SOTF video games, however, are the near endless dating simulators she finds online. She adores these as she finds them perfect for a casual gamer like her, and allows the SOTF contestants to be represented in normal, safe environments, rather than fighting one another. She absorbs as many of these as she can, from the most professional quality games to cheap ten minute flash games, and from the most safe-for-work visual novels to the smuttiest dating simulators. Bethan also occasionally streams herself playing games; she often talks to herself while playing, so she figured she might as well do so on a platform designed for such a thing. She didn’t expect many people to watch her, if anybody, but she is delighted at the fact a good handful of people tune in to her every stream; some because she is permanently bubbly and cheerful, some because she frequently streams in her revealing cybergoth gear.

Bethan’s peppy and cheerful nature alone do not allow her to maintain a constant post-4am sleep schedule, of course, and she has always despised the taste of coffee, so she relies on energy drinks to keep her topped up. The mini-fridge in her room is always packed full of Monster, Red Bull, Boost, and other brands of energy drink, in a variety of different flavours. She absolutely adores the taste of the drinks, along with the rush of energy she gets from them, and often drinks them throughout the day, even when not feeling tired. Bethan and her friends often joke that her streams should be sponsored by Monster. However, her love of energy drinks is in all honesty closer to an addiction than anything else. She has no real enjoyment of drinks that aren’t energy drinks, or contain energy drinks such as jagerbombs, and if she goes for a decently long period of time without any, she becomes notably lethargic, and her emotions run much higher than usual.

Although Bethan does her best to prevent her parents from knowing how bad her sleeping patterns are, she has still slipped up on a handful of occasions. On nights when she's expected back home, she'll get back at a reasonable time, then stay up far later, watching videos and listening to music. Her parents have, on occasion, caught her doing this, normally by her being too loud, or by them seeing the light under her bedroom door when they go to the bathroom; on one notable occasion, she forgot to plug her headphones in before turning her music on. Her parents have been forced to punish her on these occasions, either by grounding her and preventing her from going out the following weekend, or by waiting for her to return home the next time she goes out and ensuring she goes to bed at a more reasonable time. Bethan still maintains an excellent relationship with her parents, despite this; she doesn't hold a grudge against them for punishing her, as she knows they have her best interests at heart. They still cook together on most evenings, and will often go out for lunch or to the cinema together on weekend afternoons.

Among her classmates, Bethan is a popular, well-liked person thanks to her cheerful, peppy nature. She has retained her curiosity from childhood, and so if any of her friends are planning something that she’s never tried before, she’s always eager to go along with it. She always has something to talk about, whether it be about the SOTF media she’s absorbed or something related to her family’s heritage, and she’ll often bring snacks like Welsh cakes or Jamaican patties for her friends at school. There are some people, however, who are turned away from Bethan due to her near-permanent ‘on’ switch, along with others who think she’s weird because of her participation in cybergoth culture. There have also been several occasions when people have tried to talk about SOTF with her, due to her apparent knowledge of the show. Bethan will try and play along on these instances, using as much information as she can from the cartoons and memes that she's seen, but this inevitably ends poorly, with a number of people looking down on Bethan, considering her to be fake, and believing she pretends to be interested in the show just to gain popularity.

Bethan is a frequent sight at house parties as well, often arriving in her cybergoth gear no matter the event. She separates her cybergoth clothing into things she’d wear in public and things she’d wear to parties, the latter of which is frequently a lot more revealing than the former. She feels a certain sense of comfort doing this, as it allows her to keep her most unique cybergoth clothing for special occasions, and maintains the feeling of her participating in cybergoth culture as something special as well. Bethan is a frequent partaker of alcohol and party drugs, but only does so at house parties and raves, another way of separating these from her home life and her family. Bethan is a lesbian, and has no real interest in a relationship but is a big fan of casual sex, having one-night stands with a number of people she meets at parties and having a few people at school she’d consider friends with benefits. She doesn’t feel comfortable, however, having sex with people she doesn’t know well enough, so will only do so with people she goes to school with or frequently bumps into at parties.

School itself is a mixed bag for Bethan. She enjoys all of her classes just fine, but there isn’t any one class that particularly stands out to her as her favourite, and she sometimes struggles to pay attention in them, especially after a particularly late night. Notably, she has a very poor record with homework; whilst she rarely fails to hand it in, it is normally very shoddily done and receives poor marks. She shows remarkable grace under pressure, however, when it comes to exams and the like, pouring a huge amount of hours into studying and receiving much better grades here than in her homework. This was particularly notable with the entrance exam to get into Mangrove Garden; Lauren and Jason were fully prepared to pay for Bethan to get in, but she spent a full week of studying anything that might come up on the exam, and so passed with flying colours. However, because of her struggles with paying attention, and her very poor homework record, she is at the lower end of most of her class rankings. Although she doesn’t outwardly show it, Bethan feels quite disheartened by this.

A number of Bethan's teachers have noticed her struggles with homework and her inattentiveness in class, particularly those whose classes she brings an energy drink into. While a handful have just dismissed her as being lazy, others have shown more concern, speaking to her after class to ask her whether she's all right and whether she's sleeping okay. Bethan has always claimed that she's okay, that she's a lot more alert than she might appear, and that she's just having some struggles with the current materials, and while this has been enough for most teachers, there are still some who are keeping a closer eye on her.

Bethan plans to take a year off after graduating before going to college. She’s still not sure where she wants to go, nor what subject she wants to pursue, just that she definitely does want a college degree. She is hoping that the year off will give her a better idea of what exactly she wants. In the meantime, she is still saving and planning for her solo trip to Wales, and is incredibly excited about the prospect.

Advantages: Bethan has a large number of friends from school, each of whom she will feel she can trust and rely on. Her bubbly, peppy, and generally pleasant nature makes it easy for most people to get along with her, which should serve her well in making allies and groups whilst on the show. Bethan also frequently stays up all through the night and deals with irregular sleep schedules in her daily life, so while lack of sleep may still be unpleasant for her, it will not be something she’s unprepared for. Finally, although she does not watch SOTF, Bethan does have some good knowledge of how it works, along with previous winners of the game and the methods they used to survive, thanks to absorbing a lot of media surrounding the show.
Disadvantages: However, Bethan finds actually watching SOTF incredibly upsetting and disturbing, becoming unable to sleep if she even so much as catches a glimpse of a clip from the show. Being put into it may affect her even more severely than her classmates, causing her to become rattled, panicky, or fragile. Although Bethan frequently stays awake into the early hours of the morning, she manages to do so primarily via her addiction to energy drinks. Without a consistent supply, she is likely to be constantly exhausted, and is very liable to crash outright. She’s known for being flakey when it comes to making important decisions, which may harm her in serious situations, and also make it less likely for others to want to trust her. There are also already people at school who try and avoid Bethan due to her eccentric hobbies and lack of an ‘off’ switch.

Designated Number: Stephanie’s Buccaneers 04 (SB04)

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Designated Weapon: Pike (Polearm)

Mentor Comment: "What… happened to fashion after I left school? Like, I know I’ve got pink hair, but… wow. I… don’t really know what to say.

“Wait, no. I, um, should probably actually evaluate this person. They’re on my team. They, um… wow, there is really nothing in here to be optimistic about, is there they’re sociable enough that I don’t think the early stages of the game will be a problem for them. If she doesn’t… crash and burn, then maybe she can reach her team. I don’t really know if there’s anything she can do once she does that, but…

“Sigh. Sorry friends and family of Bethan reading me absolutely trashing on her. I hope she makes it out of this, but I can’t really see anything she has going for her other than hope. Sorry again.”


DECEASED