Diana McIntyre

SS07 - Diana McIntyrie (art by Yonagoda)

Name: McIntyre, Diana Cassidy
Gender: Female
Age: Seventeen [17]
Grade: Junior [11th]
Hobbies and Interests: Bowling, church, partying, reading, and SOTF-TV.

Appearance: Diana is slightly above average height at 5’6” and average weight at 138 pounds. She has a soft figure, with little tone or definition, save for some burgeoning muscle on her upper arms. Her movements tend to telegraph her emotions quite clearly; slow and methodical when she’s downcast, and quick and exaggerated when happy. She has a deep, slightly husky voice, with a tendency to get quite loud and bombastic when excited. She is a Caucasian of Irish descent, and possesses a pale complexion that darkens only slightly during warmer months.

She has an ovular face with soft features; almond-shaped brown eyes framed by arched eyebrows, an aquiline nose, and full, rosy cheeks. She practices good dental hygiene, so her teeth are white and healthy, albeit slightly crooked. Her make-up is usually quite simple; usually limited to tinted chapstick, evening out her eyebrows, and covering up her acne. However, she does occasionally sport more complicated, glittery make-up — whether it be for a party or just on a whim. She usually leaves her wavy, shoulder blade-length pale blonde hair loose and parted down the middle, or tied up with a scrunchie.

Diana’s style could best be described as ‘soft grunge’. She tends to dress quite monochromatically with occasional pastel accents and likes to mix patterns such as stripes, plaid, or floral prints together. Most of her clothing is hand-me-down or purchased from budget chains and charity stores due to budget restrictions, and tends to have a slightly weathered quality to it. She favours layers due to a tendency to get cold easily, and tends to wrap up in large blanket scarves. For the most part, her footwear consists of study ankle boots. She doesn’t wear a lot of jewellery as it’s outside of her price range, save for a silver infinity ring constantly worn on her right hand.

On Casting Day, Diana was wearing a pale pink t-shirt depicting the face of SOTF-TV Season Sixty-Five contestant Renée Carlson across the front over a long-sleeved sheer black top with light rhinestoning. Below that, she wore lightwashed boyfriend jeans, and worn lace-up heeled black leather ankle boots. Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun with a peach corduroy scrunchie, and she tied an oversized, long-sleeved black and white plaid button-down men’s shirt around her waist. Finally, she brought with her a black sateen bomber jacket with red tartan lining, in case of inclement weather.

Biography: Diana’s parents, Terry McIntyre and Andrea Longfellow, met shortly after graduating college through mutual friends, and bonded over their shared Christian values. After three years of dating, they married and moved to Miami, Florida to live with Andrea’s grandmother, Celeste, who had practically been a third parent to her and had been cited by doctors as only having a few years left to live. Despite initial expectations, Celeste gradually returned to good health, overseeing the birth of Terry and Andrea’s three daughters; Evelyn (now 24), Marian (now 20), and finally Diana, born on the 5th September, 2003.

Terry and Andrea raised their daughters with strong Christian values, raising them with bible stories and ensuring they were involved with the local church from a young age. They were restrictive with the media their children consumed, banning television except for the local news and encouraging them to read instead, from a carefully curated selection of books. Despite the restrictions, Diana took to reading eagerly, with a fondness for fantastical, adventure-based stories like those depicted in The Famous Five.

Shortly after Diana’s seventh birthday, Celeste passed away in her sleep at the age of 93. Although glad she was able to spend so long in close company with her grandmother, Celeste’s death profoundly impacted both Andrea and Terry — whom himself had come to view Celeste in a similar fashion to his own grandparents, who had died when he was a teenager. Driven by a sense of listlessness, Andrea and Terry struck upon the idea of continuing the missionary work Celeste had done in her youth.

They chose to move their family to Uganda for aid work, feeling that despite the extreme change of environment and life position, it would be healing and enable all of them to become closer to God. Marian and especially Evelyn took umbrage at this, but Diana saw it more as an adventure akin to those taken in the stories she was so fond of. Evelyn was popular and did well scholastically and with her extracurriculars, and felt her parents would ruin her life by removing her from a world she’d excelled in and grown very accustomed to.

Terry and Andrea did acknowledge the toll this massive upheaval could have on their children, but felt in the end it would be worth the initial struggle. Marian and Evelyn eventually agreed to their parents’ decision to move after numerous impassioned discussions with the family as a whole and input from their church elders. Marian was legitimately swayed by her parents’ passion and desire to strengthen their faith, but Evelyn’s acquiescence was ultimately all show as she silently vowed to remove herself from their family as soon as she was comfortably able to do so.

In the years the family spent in Uganda, Andrea and Terry found moderate success in their missionary efforts, helping to build houses, organise immunisation drives, and ensure a regular supply of fresh drinking water to the small village in which they lived, all while spreading the Lord’s word at the same time. Being exposed to a drastically different state of life to the one they’d initially grown up with instilled a sense of humility in Diana and her sisters, and she learned never to take her privileges and opportunities for granted.

The three girls were homeschooled throughout their time in Uganda, but were also consistently immersed in Ugandan culture, gaining a strong appreciation for the country. Despite this, Evelyn became increasingly distant from her family during this time, having never quite forgiven her parents for uprooting her from a comfortable social position and well-thought out life trajectory. Their living situation was still comparatively comfortable, but much more of a modest downgrade compared to their life in the United States as the three sisters were forced to share a room and Evelyn and Marian struggled with the newfound lack of privacy. Evelyn often vocalised her complaints about their life in Uganda to Diana, using her as something of a sympathetic ear. Although Diana didn’t relate to Evelyn’s struggles, having adapted the best to life as a missionary, she looked up to and idealised her eldest sister and Evelyn’s statements about their Terry and Andrea’s restrictive parenting and how important freedom and personal agency is took hold of the impressionable young Diana.

After several years of work in Uganda, Terry and Andrea decided to scale back on their missionary work and move back to their native Florida in 2016. Evelyn desiring to return to the United States for college, and the two of them having gotten quite old, and feeling it would also give the now adolescent Marian and Diana more stability all contributed to the decision to relocate once more. Terry and Andrea settled into working for a local church; Andrea as an administrator and event organiser and Terry as a Sunday school teacher and head of maintenance. The two of them find their work for the church fulfilling, if not financially prosperous.

From the time between the family’s emigration back to the US and her freshman year of high school, Terry and Andrea continued to homeschool Diana to smooth over the transition for her. She excelled academically, though struggled with a lack of consistent socialisation; during this time, most of her friends were from youth group at church, and Diana often found she lacked much in common with them besides their faith thanks to spending much of her younger years abroad.

With initial plans to attend the local public high school as a back up, Diana also took the scholarship exam for Mangrove Garden High School. Having been a fastidious academic until this point thanks to her parents’ strict tutelage, Diana scored very highly and was awarded a spot in the upcoming freshman class. Shortly after Diana entered her freshman year and began to befriend her classmates, she came to see the comparatively stronger degree of freedom afforded to her friends. They wouldn’t be chaperoned at gatherings, their parents wouldn’t monitor their screentime or reading habits with as much strictness (if at all), and they weren’t as academically hawk-eyed as Terry or Andrea. After some time observing these differences, Diana began to balk at the restrictive measures her parents had in place. Her time in Uganda had taught her to take advantage of the privileges and opportunities that were on offer to her, and felt that her parents’ rules stopped her from being able to do that. Furthermore, she was spurred on by the memory of Evelyn’s complaints and found herself missing her sister’s guidance.

This frustration began to manifest itself in small, rebellious acts. One such way was in her television and reading habits, which her parents had policed during her childhood, often banning certain pieces on religious or moral-based grounds. She found herself reading books such as Harry Potter during lunchtime in the school library and watching R18 films whenever she was home alone.

This exploration of banned media quickly snowballed, and she found herself drawn towards SOTF-TV. Her parents had sporadically vocalised strong opposition towards the show, and its ever present nature made it difficult to ignore. With a fondness for epic narratives and character studies born from the books she devoured in her youth, she found herself quickly drawn in. Although initially taken aback by the graphic violence, the glitz with which it was portrayed slowly won Diana over. She became particularly invested in the storyline of Stephanie Brooks and Dario Tejada in Season Fifty-Four, following the show predominantly for their alliance, having found herself hooked along the way. She’s maintained a strong interest since, frequenting forums, attending viewing parties, and entering into fantasy leagues every season.

As a result of her more rebellious acts, Diana found herself more emboldened, confident, and ready to expand her social circle. Due to her personable and up-for-anything nature, she found herself invited to parties, starting in her freshman year, both by students in her year and the levels above her. Diana took to partying with ease, finding it a fun way to socialise and meet new people. She enjoys dressing up, so she has a soft spot for themed or costumed parties. If invited somewhere, Diana is a sure bet to be in attendance — although she doesn’t hesitate to bail if the vibe doesn’t meet her expectations.

Diana was introduced to alcohol at these parties, and found she enjoyed the feeling of freedom and unwinding that drinking gives her. She has drunken to excess several times, often getting up to mischief and having to crash at friends’ houses. Diana doesn’t tend to limit herself when drinking, feeling that doing so compromises her ability to let loose and have fun. Although she generally becomes heavily intoxicated, she is quick to point out that she doesn’t view drinking as being a prerequisite for having fun.

Diana kept the extent of her partying under wraps until early in her junior year, where she came home drunk and early from a party one night and wasn’t able to obscure her vomiting. This initiated a conversation with her parents where they realised the lengths she was willing to undertake to rebel and instead of restricting her they decided to practice more leniency in the hopes that she would conceal less and be more honest with them and not go to such extremes. Both Evelyn and Marian had acted up less in their adolescence, but were now more difficult to reach — with Marian finding herself more so distracted by college and friends than having any long standing grudge against her parents, unlike Evelyn. Therefore, her parents reasoned that being less restrictive with Diana might give them the opportunity to salvage their relationship with her. In addition, due to their increased age, they no longer had the energy to exert such authority over her.

In the time since, Diana’s relationship with her parents has markedly improved. She no longer feels the need to obscure so much of herself, and feels she can come to them with problems regarding school work and friendships. She has concealed the depth of her interest in SOTF-TV from them, however, reasoning that revealing that side of herself to them might cause them to revert back to their more disciplinary ways.

In an attempt to develop a closer relationship with her father she’s recently started to accompany him on his weekend trips to the local bowling alley. Having at one point seen it as a boring activity or one better suited as a background to socialising, Diana has grown to enjoy it and it’s begun to instil a rare competitive streak. She enjoys the simplicity of the game, and is currently attempting to form a team with some of her friends. She feels more comfortable talking with her father in a different, more casual context, and feels they can let down some of the walls between them. She has tried to find a mutual hobby with her mother, but has had no luck yet.

In the last couple months, Diana has taken on occasional evening shifts at a local burger bar. She’s enjoyed gaining work experience and gets along well with her colleagues; some of the older ones occasionally supply her with liquor. The income she receives from this work, although small, allows her to express herself more fashion-wise, as she’s no longer completely dependent on hand-me-downs and thrifted clothing. She’s tried to squirrel some money away for college at her parents’ suggestion, but finds it quite difficult to be financially responsible, preferring to spend it now and enjoy the moment.

Diana is quite comfortable with her place within the social stratosphere of Mangrove Garden. She is generally well-known for her presence at parties, and although not firmly in the popular circle she has a solid and varied group of friends. For the most part, she is known for being a reliable, goofy friend who doesn’t take life too seriously and encourages others to adopt the same mentality. Her heavy drinking, moments of fiscal irresponsibility, lackadaisical attitude towards academia, and lack of concern with popularity all come from a sense that life is meant to be enjoyed, although this can mean she can take awhile to get serious when need be.

She has dated a few boys with varying degrees of seriousness and is no longer a virgin; at this point in time, she is opting to focus on studies and her friendships than dating. She identifies as straight, but has kissed a few female friends at parties and has considered experimenting; she feels it would be better to wait until college to pursue that with any substantial conviction.

Diana doesn’t read as often as she did as a child, finding herself otherwise occupied with her other hobbies, schoolwork, and social life, and thanks to gaining a sense of escapism through her partying ways and viewing of SOTF-TV. She has recently joined the Mangrove High book club, though, hoping that the regular meetings will force her to read with more regularity, in addition to perhaps introducing her to other students she wouldn’t otherwise know too well.

Diana’s relationship with her family is steady. Although she struggles somewhat with the fundamentalist mentalities her parents often express, she loves them and knows they honestly want the best for her and her siblings, even if they sometimes falter in delivering. She misses her sisters a lot; although Marian comes home during the holidays, Evelyn is quite distant, citing work commitments as the reason why she can’t be there. Although she does send cards and presents for Christmas and birthdays, it’s been several years since Diana last saw her.

Andrea has a contentious relationship with her own parents. Neither of them were financially or emotionally ready for children when Andrea was born and practised a hands-off approach to raising her, leaving her in Celeste’s care for much of her childhood and adolescence. Although they are both still alive, Andrea doesn’t keep in contact with them beyond perfunctory phone calls and occasional family reunions. As such, neither Diana nor her sisters have much of a relationship with their maternal grandparents, and the negative fashion with which Andrea discusses them means that none of the three girls have much desire to seek out a relationship.

Terry’s mother passed away while he was in college, and it’s her that Evelyn is named after. He has a strong relationship with his father, Aras, who lives in San Castle, Fort Lauderdale. Due to his relatively close proximity, he visits the family on a fairly regular basis. Evelyn, Marian, and Diana all adore him; he was a major factor in ensuring Terry and Andrea thoroughly talked out their decision to relocate to Uganda with their daughters. Now that Diana is the only one of the girls still living at home, Terry tends to spoil her a little bit, oftentimes giving her secret monetary gifts and was the one to give her the infinity ring she regularly wears.

Diana still attends church every Sunday with her parents, oftentimes having to hide her hangovers in the process. She doesn’t feel as connected to her faith as she once was, viewing her religion with a more critical eye over time as she’s surrounded herself with a more diverse group of people. In particular, she sees the church’s stance on sexuality and family dynamics to be antiquated. However, she tends to avoid debating contentious points and tries to cultivate the image with her parents that her faith is as strong as ever to avoid conflict. Despite her growing disillusionment with her religion, Diana still finds comfort in prayer during difficult times.

Despite being on scholarship, Diana doesn’t place a huge emphasis on her grades or academic success. She finds that she can do quite well in most classes with minimal effort; though she’s more than capable of putting in the work if need be. She’s naturally quite strong in English and other humanities like History, consistently achieving high As, and hits more average grades like mid-to-low Bs in her science and math classes. She balks at the class rankings, though more on principal rather than her own middling position, feeling it unfairly pits the students against each other.

Post-high school, Diana doesn’t have too many concrete plans. She’s considering taking a gap year to explore the world and temper the wanderlust her youth in Uganda gave her, but is almost daunted by what an undertaking that would be, especially as a solo traveller. She does plan to eventually attend college and study English Literature, with no real defined career path in mind. She is yet to look into any specific colleges, but is hoping to study out-of-state and is erring towards one in either Washington or Seattle so she may be close to one of her sisters.

Advantages: Diana has an in-depth knowledge of SOTF-TV, including game mechanics and their consistent evolution in recent seasons, and which strategic choices have historically paid dividends. She is friendly and socially astute, and has a wide friendship sphere which includes numerous senior students, putting her in a stronger position than many of her peers when it comes to forming alliances and avoiding confrontation.
Disadvantages: Diana often struggles to take life seriously and has a sense of adolescent invulnerability, and so may have difficulty appraising the reality of her situation. She has a slightly rebellious nature and lingering issues with authority, meaning she may compromise on comfortable alliances or her mentor’s advice if they clash with her personal philosophy, putting her in unnecessary risky situations.

Designated Number: Shiva's Sirens 07 (SS07)

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Designated Weapon: British Sea Service Flintlock Pistol

Conclusion: "When you're young, when you've led a good life, you're invincible. The world can't hurt you.

That illusion always shatters eventually, but I have faith that Miss McIntyre will be able to adequately deal with the fallout, given the support of her team and mentor."

The above biography is as written by SansaSaver. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.

Evaluations

Diana McIntyre (sprite edit by Almostinhuman)

Handled by: SansaSaver, Ohm

Kills: None

Killed By: Gabriela Garcia-Campos

Collected Weapons: British Sea Service Flintlock Pistol (assigned weapon, to Anthony Golden)

Allies: Britnee Joyner, Genevieve Erickson

Enemies: Amanda Brooks, Emmett Purcell, Sofia Kowalski Anthony Golden, Gabriela Garcia-Campos

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads

Below is a list of threads containing Diana, in chronological order.

TV3:

• It Matters if We All Live
• 👁️👄👁️
• 👁️📦👁️
• Wait a Minute!
• Bravado
• On the Way to Anywhere
• I Want Blood, Guts, and Chocolate Cake
• Out on the Sea, We'd Be Forgiven
• 👁️🩸👄🩸👁️
• The Paradox(es) of Heroism

Your Thoughts

Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Diana McIntyre. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!

• Diana was a really interesting character, under both of her handlers. I feel like her start was a little muted due to being involved in one of the most packed and chaotic threads from the opening of TV3, which led to her getting a little of a slower start than some other characters, but she made up for that by picking up a close friend who happened to be a teammate during the affair, which informs the rest of her arc.
  
  Speaking of, the core of Diana's story revolves around her relationship with Britnee and their attempts to navigate the game, first with an eye towards staying safe and under the radar, and then looking towards getting more proactively involved. I'd say this is an evolution that's sold mostly well, because all sides are given strong detail. It's not a secret that I have a major soft spot for PV1's (in)famous tower girls, and the initial play from Diana and Britnee evokes them nicely, but matters are complicated because they lack the sort of easily-fortifiable location to really sequester themselves from the game. This leads to an unsettling encounter with Anthony Golden which is a great beat for both sides; the girls get to recoil from Anthony's inadvertent creepiness, and he gets to reassure himself he's on the right side because he doesn't actually give them trouble. Still, it's enough to dislodge the girls and send them in search of a new hiding spot, which ultimately throws them into a perilous gunfight and shatters their dreams of safety.
  
  On a wide narrative level, this conflict is a key moment. Aspects of the fight itself are a little tricky when it comes to staging, and Diana is adopted in the middle of it, but in a way the chaotic nature of the scene turns to its benefit, really selling the shock and change in perspective as what has been an uneventful game to this point goes haywire in a matter of seconds. And from this, we flow nicely to another quiet scene with Diana and Britnee licking their wounds, once again hidden away from the game, but now with a new purpose bubbling: they decide to set out to make a positive impact, and it's a turn I believe in because of what they've just faced and suffered.
  
  There's a slight stumble with a thread cut short right as it begins (due to inopportune Danger Zone timing, if I recall correctly), but that's not something I'm going to hold against anyone. Then the girls are off to put their newfound resolve to the test, via a showdown with Sofia Kowalski, noted team-killer. This is a strong interaction, and I ultimately enjoy that the showdown is inconclusive, with Britnee and Diana beating a hasty retreat; it would feel strange for them to immediately shift into serious competence and willingness to fight to the death.
  
  The final stage of the girls' story centers around a series of reunions with Anthony. I think this is a very canny narrative choice, because it shores up one of the weaknesses otherwise present in their story—the early phases of isolation work well in terms of grounded, lower-key moments, but the threads themselves were often slow and had inconsistent pacing, and nobody really interacted with them except for Anthony. By tapping him again, however, his earlier appearance gains actual narrative heft, and the changes in both sides are made apparent, as an encounter that by all rights should see those involved on the same page (as all three are ostensibly pursuing similar goals of stopping the violent) devolves into murder due to Anthony's hypocrisy and the bad impression he made in his first meeting. I also appreciate the choice to make Britnee's actual death a smaller scene shared only between herself and Diana, her partner in the TV journey; having the two alone together one last time is just right.
  
  Now on her own, Diana has some very strong moments of doubt and survivor's guilt while she attempts to steel herself for the task ahead: a continuation of the mission she and Britnee had settled on. Tragically, this is cut short; she runs into Gabriela Garcia-Campos and Elliott-Blair Østergaard, and while she's more than content to leave them be to focus on Anthony, he shows up and in the ensuing fight Diana sees her moment of triumph snatched from her by a sneak attack courtesy of Gabriela. I think this is an especially canny choice for an exit on Ohm's part, because it manages to satisfyingly tie up Diana's business with Anthony in a way that her getting killed by Anthony would not, while leaning hard into the arbitrary, less cinematic nature of TV's less predictable moments. It's a fitting and powerful exit.
  
  On the whole, then, I dig Diana. I think her story ends up being an extremely focused one, usually for better, sometimes for worse—the core story of her friendship with Britnee and their evolving relationship with the game and with Anthony is strong stuff, but I do wish we'd gotten more than the couple of threads we have dealing with anything else/encounters with the rest of the game. I like the turn in motivation, and think it's timed well on an out-of-character level, but I wish things had chugged along a little quicker beforehand to help sell the scale and time angle a bit more. Also, for my pettiest gripe, while the emoji thread titles are kind of funny and ugly on purpose, I'm not a huge fan and doubly so because they don't render on my primary reading device. But all of these things are nitpicks, and the core of Diana is a really classic tragic SOTF story of someone trying to stay apart from the game, realizing the futility and instead deciding to work to better its state, and finally being beaten down by it. – MurderWeasel