Darlene Silva

[NoLife42069]

Name: Darlene Silva
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Hobbies and Interests: Reading, badminton, choir, the internet, Guitar

Appearance: Darlene is a girl of slightly below average height and slightly above average weight, standing 5’2” and weighing 135 lbs. She is not particularly athletic, and carries much of her weight in her chest, shoulder, and stomach areas. Her limbs are comparatively rather average. While she is on the school badminton team, Darlene does little exercising outside of that activity, leaving her without much muscle definition.

Darlene’s features are of the sort often referred to as mousey. She has a short, straight, but somewhat broad nose, a narrow face, and cheeks that easily flush when she’s embarrassed. Her teeth are naturally straight, and she takes good care of them, though she rarely smiles widely enough to show them off well. Darlene’s eyes are dark brown, and often baggy from late nights and poor sleep. She is moderately nearsighted, and wears round glasses to correct for that. Her hair is black and straight, and she usually wears it in a braid falling about four inches below her shoulders; she braids her own hair and is only okay at it, despite braiding as a nervous tic, often leaving ends loose or a certain unevenness. Darlene is of mixed Caucasian heritage, with a bit of Hispanic influence, some of her paternal ancestors having immigrated from Portugal long ago, and has a generally pale skin tone.

As far as fashion goes, Darlene is not a standout. She usually pairs knee-length skirts with simple blouses or shirts under bulky sweaters, which she uses to draw attention away from her torso and mask her extra weight. She applies makeup lightly, and occasionally wears small pieces of cheap jewelry, but inexpertly in both cases. Darlene usually wears sneakers; sometimes she’ll try heels but she struggles to keep balanced in them. Her ears are pierced once apiece in the lobe, and she favors earrings with simple designs. On the day of the abduction, Darlene was wearing a bluish-grey sweater over a white blouse, a loose knee-length brown skirt, and brown sneakers. She wore her glasses, silver stud earrings shaped like butterflies, and a matching silver necklace with a silver ring on each hand.

Biography: Darlene was born on December 24, 2005, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to parents Anissa and Roger Silva, an elementary school teacher and a bank teller respectively. The Silva family was just a hair towards the lower end of middle class, and this afforded Darlene, an only child, a comfortable if not lavish upbringing. She was raised primarily by Anissa, who took the spring semester off to focus entirely on her daughter and who was always present during the summers, as well as her paternal grandparents, Dennis and Justine, with occasional further assistance from daycare services of various sorts.

From the beginning, Darlene was a quiet child. She did not learn to speak quickly, and while she threw typical childish tantrums, she tended to quickly quiet, something encouraged by her family, who tended to, if they heard her cry, make sure nothing was amiss and then leave her to wear herself out without much external comfort if there was no source for her protests.

As Darlene grew up, her parents and grandparents were never neglectful, but took advantage of the self-sufficiency she quickly fostered, frequently leaving her to her own devices with minimal supervision or entertainment. A similar role awaited her at school; Darlene was neither a brilliant student nor someone who struggled heavily in class. She did her work as best she could, asked for help only if really stuck, and generally preferred to learn by quietly listening. This made her a very low-maintenance student, but also led to situations in which she would not receive the level of attention she would likely have benefited from. Darlene developed a tendency to deal with stress or difficult situations by avoiding or ignoring them and particularly stressful situations by picking the first solution available to her, skipping tough problems and then never going back to them or else getting hung up on them for so long it negatively impacted other parts of her tests. When was particularly stumped she would put in any answer so she could move on.

Darlene’s favorite part of school was always reading. She loved it both for its solitary quality and for the fantastical worlds it presented. Darlene liked to live vicariously through novels, imaging herself in situations she’d never be brave enough to experience in real life, or in incredible magical worlds. She preferred stories focusing on young women, often rather meek or quiet ones, and tended to especially favor fantasy stories, mysteries, and romances. This love for reading has continued throughout Darlene’s life, and she’s been a member of the book club in every school she’s attended. It does not, however, translate perfectly into success in English classes; Darlene often struggles to approach books from a more objective or analytical standpoint, and to capture her feelings even about her favorites in words.

Darlene made few close friends in elementary school, and while she didn’t seem too bothered by this, her parents hoped to push her out of her shell at least a little and signed her up for a revolving series of activities throughout her middle school years. This became a point of major contention, as Darlene hated being forced out of her comfort zone so regularly and did not take to most of what she tried, reserving special venom for her feelings towards swimming lessons. Finally, a compromise was reached and she remained active only in badminton, one of the activities she had found less objectionable. Darlene enjoys the sport because of its more generally solitary nature, and because, while she wasn’t a natural at it, she found at least marginal success fairly early on. She is on the Aurora Bay High School badminton team, but is not one of the star players; in fact, she’s mediocre at best and falls into the bottom tier of players.

The other major school activity Darlene is interested in is choir, and this she approaches with actual zeal. Darlene’s grandmother, Justine, had been very involved in church choir as a young woman, and while the family had moved away from religion since, she held fond memories of singing. She would sing to Darlene while taking care of her as a child, and in time taught Darlene to sing along with her. Darlene carried this fondness for song and music with her throughout her life, and joined the school choir, enjoying the ability to allow her voice to blend into the masses, creating art while maintaining a certain level of anonymity. That’s not, however, to say that Darlene is incapable of singing on her own; she frequently entertains friends and family with renditions of various songs. She holds a particular passion for Christmas songs, both the sincere and the tongue-in-cheek, having learned many of them from her grandmother; these songs were some that Justine knew from her church days that were still suitable to the more agnostic religious spot she found herself in, as the family still celebrated Christmas. Darlene has also expanded her repertoire in years since, and will showcase it when opportunity arises. This, in fact, is one of the few areas in which she will be more confident and assertive, often irritating her friends by singing a few bars from “Deck The Halls” in the middle of April.

Generally speaking, Darlene is an unknown in the grand order of Aurora Bay High School. She socializes when forced to, but to a bare minimum, and has actually managed to get docked participation points routinely in class. She keeps her grades in the passing zone, scoring mostly Bs and Cs, but from time to time will experience a brief dip or a moment of greater success. She is a straight-A student in choir, and looks forward to it greatly, often staying after school to practice with some of her peers.

The friends she has are drawn primarily from the ranks of choir members, badminton players, and book club members, as these are the people with whom Darlene shares enough common ground to socialize. She tends to be more of a listener than a speaker, and can sit all lunch in silence listening to her friends chatting and walk away feeling satisfied and like she participated. Because of this, Darlene’s relationship with some of her friends is rather lopsided; she’ll feel close to them, while they may feel they barely know her.

Outside of school, Darlene spends most of her free time cooped up in her room, reading, watching TV, or cruising the internet. Recently playing the guitar has also been added, though only her family is aware of the newfound interest. She is absolutely fascinated with the vast breadth of knowledge and entertainment at her fingertips, and loves to read stories, articles, and opinions on various sites. While her core focus is on her favorite topics and hobbies, she frequently finds herself getting diverted by related matters, and can spends hours on Wikipedia, reading up on anything that seems interesting. While this has given her a very wide range of knowledge on a staggering array of subjects, Darlene’s actual understanding of these things is quite limited; she rarely has the desire to delve beyond the basics, and when she does it tends to be in niche subfields.

Darlene’s computer habits have also taken a toll on her health and academic performance. Her parents by and large leave her to her own devices, so long as she checks in with them about her life and eats dinner with the family every night, and this has led to Darlene routinely staying up very late, engrossed in her readings. This has become something of a vicious cycle for her, as her lack of sleep has led her to become nervous about not being properly rested, and one of the only ways she knows to reliably fall asleep is to tire herself out reading. Her parents are aware that she stays up late, but not exactly how late, as they go to bed before she does and she doesn’t make much noise.

The relationship Darlene enjoys with her family is generally good. She gets along with both her parents. She’s closer to her mother, because Anissa is around more often and is more on the same page with her daughter; she’ll frequently sit with Darlene and tell her stories about the kids she teaches, without pressuring Darlene to add more than she’s comfortable with. Roger, meanwhile, has been promoted several times and is often busy with work and then absorbed watching TV when he’s at home, but he does like to keep up with Darlene. Unfortunately, this mostly takes the form of quizzing her about her day, something she finds tiresome and unengaging. Darlene still spends a good amount of time with Justine, who makes a point of always attending every choir performance Darlene is in. Dennis comes along some of the time, but has fallen into more of a distanced grandparent relationship with Darlene, primarily seeing her at family gatherings. Darlene’s maternal grandparents live in Ohio, but sometimes come visit over the holidays, as do assorted cousins, aunts, uncles, and in-laws. Darlene’s biggest moment of family spotlight comes when she sings for the gathering every Christmas, usually accompanied by cousins playing ukuleles.

Darlene is not at all sure what she wants to do with her life. She’s been accepted to a community college, but has no major yet and does not know if she will ultimately transfer to a four-year. She plans to live at home while studying, at least for the first couple years, and probably also seek employment, though she has yet to do so. The vast array of options and comparative lack of guidance for her future has left her nervous and unmoored, and she has repeatedly let deadlines and opportunities pass by dithering, a habit her parents have tried in vain to break her of.

Darlene considers herself Bisexual, but has never dated anyone seriously, and becomes very nervous about the prospect, much as she might fantasize about it. Politically, she is apathetic; most of her family doesn’t vote, and those who do vote Republican less out of ideological stance and more from inertia.

Advantages: Darlene is quite possibly the only sentient creature in the known universe not to be instinctually repulsed by Eartha Kitt’s 1953 single “Santa Baby,” and knows all the words, allowing her to use offensively what would be in the hands of anyone else mutually-assured destruction (M.A.D.). Darlene is quiet and relatively unknown to the student body. She has no real enemies. Due to her lifestyle, she’s more experienced than some of her peers at going without sleep for long periods of time and working off little sleep. Her vast perusal of online information gives her a wide (if decidedly shallow) pool of knowledge on sundry topics.

Disadvantages: Darlene struggles horribly to assert herself or engage with her peers. She has few close acquaintances and little to offer to foster alliances. She’s prone to being drowned out in discussions or ignored completely, and is quite likely to be written off accordingly. She does not handle stress well at all, frequently freezing up with indecision or else breaking down in non-constructive ways and when bad enough she will be desperate for a solution, often picking the worst one.

[MurderWeasel]

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