B33: CASTILLO, DAMION [DECEASED]

#1

DECEASED

Name: Damion Castillo
Gender: Male
Age: 17
School: P.J. Hobbs Senior High School
Hobbies and Interests: Mathematics, coding, soccer, reality TV

Appearance: Damion has dark brown hair. He gels his hair daily to give it a spiky and slightly disheveled appearance. His face is oval but his cheeks aren’t too pronounced. His chin juts out while his nose is prominent and slightly drooping. His eyebrows are thick while his eyelashes are short. Due to his Hispanic heritage, Damion’s skin is brown. His eyes are brown and quite round, which gives off the impression that they’re much larger than they really are. His lips are thin. While his teeth are yellow and crooked, he doesn’t want to wear braces because of how they’d look on him. Damion is slender, with a height of 5’11” and a weight of 139 pounds.

Damion typically wears casual clothes like T-shirts and jeans. Due to the cold climate of New Jersey, he often wears hoodies around wintertime. When he’s playing soccer, he wears a purple and gold jersey and black shorts, along with black Adidas paired with knee-high socks. His jersey is adorned with the logo of their team, which consists of a jackal. He also wears a Timex watch for convenience.

On the day of the abduction, Damion was wearing a white T-shirt adorned with the Abercrombie and Fitch logo, along with dark blue denim jeans, his watch and his black sneakers.

Biography: Damion Castillo was born on April 1, 1998 in Denton, New Jersey to James and Marley Castillo (born Garcia). James and Marley were both teachers at an elementary school when they met. Both were relatively inexperienced with relationships, so they ended up dating for 10 years. During these 10 years, they became close with each other. This closeness was more noticeable with James, and he soon gained an admiration for Marley. This meant that Marley would become the more assertive of the pair.

Marley had wanted to be an actuarian when she first went to college. Her family couldn’t afford the tuition for her university, so she settled for a community college and learned to be a teacher there. While it wasn’t her fault, Marley always blamed the incident on her not trying hard enough. She projected this onto her son, and made sure that Damion did excellent in his academics, especially when it came to mathematics.

Damion’s intelligence soon became his distinguishing characteristic in elementary school. As a result, he was constantly asked for help regarding homework and tests. While at first, Damion was perfectly glad to provide assistance, this changed after he was caught helping a classmate of his by giving him the answers during a quiz in 5th grade. Along with his classmate, Damion was punished and given one day of detention. This infuriated both parents and caused them to give Damion a long lecture regarding not letting others use you. He ignored them at first, but by the time he was in 6th grade, he’d made so many promises to his classmates regarding schoolwork that he found himself being crushed by his burden. He also felt that they were being fake and only pretended to be nice to him so that they could use him again.

In middle school, his mother started becoming more distant, and her standards seemed harder to reach. This was because of the aforementioned incidents in the 5th grade, and also, Damion seemed to be making more and more mistakes in his tests. During this time, she started scolding him whenever he received grades that were lower than usual. This was happening more often since more pressure was being placed on her at her job. Damion had trouble with subjects like history and arts in middle school. During this time, he became closer to his father, who didn’t really care what his performance was, as long as he knew that his son was trying.

As a result of Marley’s behavior, Damion tried pushing himself harder to gain praise not only from her, but also from his classmates. He went about this by participating in activities he felt he had a chance in, such as writing contests or math quiz bees. During math quiz bees, he would enjoy the thrill of being in a competition, especially whenever he and his team won. However, whenever they lost, his behavior would sour. While he’d act nice to everyone, he’d become more easy to anger, especially with the person he thought was responsible for their loss.

During this time, he started logging onto the Internet more often. He wrote stories on websites like Wattpad. His stories tended to be littered with grammatical errors, and more often than not, the characters were stereotypical. Despite these flaws, his stories appeared to be met with positive reception, and he soon gained a small, but loyal fanbase who commented and encouraged him on every chapter he wrote. One day however, he browsed the forums of the website, and noticed one of his online friends refer to his stories as 'sucky'. While this was only a comment made in passing, Damion took it to heart, as he had with his mother’s criticisms. He soon asked his closest friend on the website what he truly thought of his stories. She tried letting him off gently by saying that they ‘weren’t exactly the best’, but he still knew what she meant. Devastated by the comments he got, he lost his interest in writing. He also developed a wariness regarding praise from his peers, and to this day, constantly worries about whether it's genuine or faked.

While Damion now had an aversion to most online websites, he started gaining an interest in coding, especially after 7th grade, where they had lessons in HTML and CSS. So, he started studying these codes by himself and tried testing his limits. He found that he did best in JavaScript. Although Damion realized that programming languages like C++ and Python had more uses compared to JavaScript, he found himself getting confused and overwhelmed with them. Damion now has folders filled with various codes that are meant for various purposes, like web pages and games. He has never published them because he fears that they'll get negative feedback.

His family had a habit of watching The Amazing Race after dinner, and while at first, this annoyed him since it interfered with the cartoons he liked watching back then, he soon grew interested in the show and joined them in watching. Eventually, he grew to like the show, and took an interest in reality TV in general. Nowadays, he prefers watching shows with a serious and competitive tone similar to The Amazing Race, like Survivor and Top Chef. He also tends to follow discussion of these shows on various forums online, although he himself never posts since he wants to avoid criticism.

Due to his mother's temperament and the criticism of his work online, Damion started feeling moody in middle school. He tried his best, however, to keep his friends from noticing, but this wasn't completely successful. He often felt that his classmates relied on him too much. This was because whenever they had group activities, more often than not, he was assigned the leader and he'd be the one to do most of the work. He also started to resent those that performed poorly in class, since they were the ones who tended to request favors from him. In addition, he started believing more in self-reliance, and would end up expecting a lot from his classmates.

Multiple times, especially in the sixth and seventh grade, he’d either walk out or suddenly shout at his groupmates due to them not doing their tasks properly. This eventually resulted in the loss of one of his friends, who found him to be too bossy. This deeply troubled him and forced him to reevaluate his moral stance and his behavior. Eventually, he found that he could not change his opinions, so he decided to find some way to control his anger. Damion eventually found this outlet in soccer.

He was very familiar with this sport since he and his parents would watch matches frequently. After noticing that they were having sign-ups, Damion signed up. He was somewhat decent, and managed to enter the team as a back-up. When Marley found out, she was infuriated due to the fact that it would take away time from his studies. She tried to force her son to quit, but after Damion talked to his father, James was able to convince her that it would be good for him. While the matter was seemingly resolved, this incident proved to be the turning point for Damion and Marley's relationship. Damion started distancing himself from his mother, feeling that she didn't truly love him due to the fact that she never seemed pleased with him. While at first, Marley responded by punishing him and becoming even stricter, she found that this didn't work, and decided to act nicer to Damion in an attempt to repair their relationship. Neither approach worked, and now their relationship is quite strained. Damion is still very close with James, however. With Marley, they only talk on a need-to-know basis, something which has made her regret her past actions. Damion, on the other hand, feels better and slightly more relaxed because Marley doesn't bother him as much, and he finds his father to be much more caring and supportive.

Despite Damion's conflict with his mother, he still places a high focus on studies. This is because he is constantly praised for his intelligence, and this is something he wants to maintain. Also, the mere thought of failing his subjects is something that terrifies him due to his mother's discipline. Although, it must be noted that this fear of failure is much more pronounced with academics than other fields, like sports, for example. While failing in general displeases him, Damion has had high grades in school since elementary, so any failure in academics is viewed by both him and his mother as regression. With other fields, he has not showcased such natural talent, and so, failure is seen as a necessary stumble.

Finally, he has gained an admiration for math and finds it to be the most interesting subject due to the fact that, unlike many other subjects, you use the principles that you learned in kindergarten all the way until high school, something which doesn't occur as much in subjects like social studies.

Although his demeanor changed for the better by ninth grade, the damage was done and Damion had now gained a reputation for being neurotic. Nowadays, Damion is trying to change that, and acts more pleasant in an attempt to change this image. Although he loses his cool every now and then, these incidents are not as bad as they were back in middle school, and now he has gained more friends. Still, whenever Damion gets angry, it only lasts for half a day at most, and when it subsides, he immediately tries to apologize, even if he isn’t the one at fault and even if the person he’s apologizing to is one of the people he doesn’t like. Despite this outward image, his morals are still the same as they were in middle school, and he still has a disinclination towards those that he thinks are not very academically skilled and those that he feels rely on others too much. He is also insecure, and although he desires praise a lot, he is not able to trust his classmates whenever they do so because of the possibility that they might only be saying this to make him feel good. He also constantly regrets his behavior in middle school and tries to make amends with those he offended back then.

In school, he is an avid member of the soccer team. Damion has now improved and is on the main team as a goalkeeper. While he enjoys the sport, he has had troubles due to the fact that he does not take defeat well. This has led to more than one conversation between him and the coach. Also, he feels that he doesn’t exactly belong due to the fact that most of his other teammates are jocks and are part of a different circle of friends. Despite these differences however, Damion gets along well with them.

Damion is mostly a straight-A student. He spends a large portion of his free time studying. When not studying, he is either following up on whatever game show is on or fiddling around with code. While his favorite subject is mathematics, his least favorite subject is English and Social Studies. He enjoys solving problems on his own and analyzing them. With those two subjects, he finds that they simply require memorization, something which bores him.

Damion and his family are Catholic, but they are not devout. They attend church around once a month, and only do so because their neighbors and extended family go to church. They consider Catholicism to be more a part of their cultural identity rather than their faith. However, they still consider believing and having faith in God to be important.

Although Damion is still relatively inexperienced in romance compared to most people his age, he does have a girlfriend at the moment. He had had a crush on her since around 10th grade, but only decided to act on it recently, after finding out she had separated from her previous boyfriend. While his mother disapproves of him dating anyone, finding it to be a distraction from his studies, his father doesn't mind. Damion, on the other hand, views having a girlfriend as a form of rebellion against his mother. Also, he views the affection and praise he gets from her to be mostly genuine, something which is greatly appreciated. As a result, he's very invested in their relationship. Although, while he does still have some insecurities, mostly relating to whether or not he's good enough for her, and whether he truly wants this relationship or not, he keeps these issues to himself to avoid starting any conflict with her.

Damion actually has multiple ambitions for when he gets older. His primary dream is becoming a mathematician, although he realizes that it might not pan out and that mathematics may not be a profitable field, so his secondary ambition is entering the I.T. industry.

Advantages: Soccer may provide him with more stamina. He also had a wide variety of friends in many areas, so this may help him with getting allies. He is also smart, and has a competitive drive.
Disadvantages: Damion has trouble cooperating with his classmates, especially those who he looks down upon as less intelligent, less driven, or overly reliant on others. Also, he gets angry easily, and this may exacerbate any hostile situation he happens to be in.

Original Profile: Damion Castillo (TV2)

Designated Number: Male Student No. 33

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Designated Weapon: FP-45 Liberator
Conclusion: Considering his potential, we should just be glad he got a gun.

DECEASED