Anna "Roxanne" Herbert

[B]Name:[/B] Anna “Roxanne” Herbert
[B]Gender:[/B] Female
[B]Age:[/B] 17
[B]Grade:[/B] 12
[B]School:[/B] [V7 School]
[B]Hobbies and Interests:[/B] Playing the piano, playing the flute, reading, painting, photography, playing the bass, singing, busking.

[B]Appearance:[/B] Anna is slightly taller than average for her age, standing at 5’8” and weighing in at 146 pounds. She has a banana figure, and is fairly thin, with most of her excess fat going into the back of her arms, legs, and in her breasts. She is Caucasian, skin tone being neither tan or pale as for the most part she spends equal parts both indoors and outdoors. Her face is ovular, having lily-green eyes, with small lips and nose. Her hair is black, curly, and goes to her lower shoulders. It can be described as bush-like, with her rarely trying to take care of it due to how hard for her it is for her to make it straight. Although she does try to take care of her appearance, to a slight extent, she does not wear makeup, finding it to be too much of a hassle to put on in the morning. As such, she has pimples and other blemishes on the top of her forehead and below her nose, but the former is normally naturally covered by her hair.

Anna dresses in a way that invokes her nickname, slightly stand out but not attracting her parent's ire. She achieves this by dressing in plain but boldly colored clothes, with colours such as red, purple, or yellow dominating her wardrobe. She primarily wears clothes such as jackets, jeans, or trousers that cover most of her body, mostly to please her parents who don’t tend to like it when she wears something they consider revealing, such as skirts or dresses. She has no piercings of any kind. On the day of the abduction, Anna was wearing a purple zip up jacket over a blank white t-shirt, blue denim jeans, and black and white Converse sneakers.

[B]Biography:[/B] Anna Christine Herbert was born on the 5th of February, [year], to Jackson and Isabella Herbert. The two had met each other in their first year of education at [an Ivy League School], with a mutual friend introducing the two to each other. The two hit it off, beginning to date near immediately and marrying a couple months after both of them graduated. Anna was the couple’s first child, with her brother, Frederick, being born a year later. The Herberts are a very rich family, as both parents run a chain of hotels across the country. Anna’s relationship with her parents is far from good, having dissipated since her childhood because of their controlling and strict nature. She also does not have a positive relationship with her brother, either, due to his attitude to her and due to her believing that he is just enabling her parents viewpoints and attitudes.

Anna’s early childhood, however, was a fairly happy one. Her parents, wishing for her to inherit the company and gain the success that they had, tried to make her do well in school. This was fun for her, although fairly uneventful; she had fun in the playground with the other kids and didn’t really like getting homework, although she still did it because her parents liked it when she got good marks. The time of the year that she most liked, however, was the Christmas holidays; not just because of her being able to get what she wanted for free but because it was the time when Aria, a family friend, took time off to visit. Aria lived in [town] but was a nature photographer who could work in other countries. However, she was able to stay at the Herbert family home during those holidays, and the outlook that she had on life and the adventures she said she frequently went on mesmerized Anna, giving her a wish that one day she could be able to go to the same places.

During elementary school, one of Anna’s favourite places was the library, which her class got to go to every Tuesday and which she was allowed to enter during lunchtimes. Books and language mesmerized and enchanted her, and she quickly learned to read on her own, so that she wouldn’t need an adult to help her. She quickly developed her skill, and soon had the ability to read books above her own age range. Most of her lunchtimes were spent in the library by herself, and she still enjoys reading to this day, loving the language and the changing styles that each writer gives to her as she turns the pages, with her favourite genres being fantasy and Young Adult Fiction. Although she loves to read, she has not considered doing writing outside of school, her own writing style boring her despite the praise she gets from teachers within creative writing exercises.

As earlier mentioned, Anna was quickly put into piano lessons at a young age as a way for them to develop talent in her. She was taught at a conservatorium, and as soon as she had gotten a hang of the basics was put into piano grade, with a rate of her going up a grade every year since she entered the grade system. As a reward for mastering the basics and entering this grade system, Anna was given a flute for her 8th birthday, and was quickly enrolled into lessons for that instrument. The flute was given to her mostly because Anna tended to listen to them on classical music stations on the radio, with her liking them because of the airy and soothing sound that they created. Her opinion on the flute did not change as she started to play it, and she soon became talented at it as she began to enter the grade system for that instrument, as well.

Things changed slightly for Anna as she transitioned into middle school. Due to mandatory grouping exercises and the environment of the school that she was in, Anna was able to become part of a social group of the more bookish, nerdier girls within her grade level. These were the people who she elected to hang out with during recesses and lunchtimes, when previously she would normally go to the library and either read or study. Some afternoons, instead of her studying quietly in her room, were instead spent with her being over at a friends house, with the permission of her parents. She studied to please her parents but her glades slipped slightly regardless. Her parents disapproved, still set on her academic success so she could inherit the business, and they sternly reprimanded her.

Anna, not wanting to disappoint her parents again, tried harder within the next six months to do well in school, to her success. By the end of the school year, her grades were back up to what they were before, which although it didn’t give her any praise from her parents, stopped them from becoming disappointed with her again, which she was fine with. Aria had visited that year, and decided to show Anna how to use her equipment after catching Anna playing around with it. Anna enjoyed these lessons, and after she received a camera of her own from Aria that Christmas day, she began to pursue photography as a full time hobby, liking it as she considers it somewhat of a dream that she’s achieving for herself. This interest in photography has led into a further interest in other kinds of art, particularly painting, which she grew to like doing as she felt like she was capable at it and loved how she felt when she completed something that she herself was proud of. Typically, at this point, her lunchtimes were spent in either the library or the art room, with her spending her time either painting or interacting with the people who hung out within either room.

However, this time now spent pursuing her voluntary hobbies came at a cost to her time. The time spent doing this was time that was previously spent studying, and Anna quickly found herself falling behind with her schoolwork and classes, something that she didn’t mind too much as she naturally preferred performing her hobbies than studying for subjects she felt that she was doing as good as ever in. However, this was not the case. When her parents got a report with results significantly worse than they expected, they got angry. They marched into her room, demanding to know what she was doing. When she wasn’t able to answer out of surprise, they got more annoyed, and elected to punish her, taking away her camera and art supplies before leaving her alone inside.

After this point, her parents cracked down, becoming more intrusive into their children's lives. Anna was forced by her parents to end her middle school friendships, and at that point had to spend her lunchtimes reading or practicing in one of the music rooms. Frederick seemingly went along unflinchingly with the demands that her parents had put upon the both of them, which was something that irked Anna, as soon after this he became one of the people who she viewed as watching her study as well, with her believing that he has just become a tool of her parents. Although she did not like the measures that her parents took on her, Anna still did what she was told, being too scared of how they would react to say anything or take any action otherwise. She mostly just tried to stay away from other people at this point purely because of this, and at this point had dropped her hobbies in art and photography, being too scared to think of taking any other paths in her life.

In addition to this, they also cracked down on the playing of her instruments, slowly becoming more and more perfectionist regarding her performances and getting angry if she made mistakes. Notably, this has reflected on her a little, with her also having a perfectionist outlook on the music that she plays and believing that the way that her parents were teaching her is ultimately the best way to achieve the perfection that she desires, for herself and for other people who she ends up playing music with. This has resulted in her being very nitpicky while she is practicing with other people, and if the person continues to do what she considers as mistakes her personality can turn abrasive towards them, possibly resorting to shouting or insults to get them to do what she wants. Although she somewhat knows about how she is coming off, and will apologize to the person afterwards if she believes that she went too far on them, she believes that it is a natural sacrifice for her to gain the perfection within music that she wishes to have, and has not made any attempt to fix or stop doing her behaviour.

Nothing had changed for her situation as she had entered high school, and initially, she was known as an extremely asocial student who - while she would freely answer questions in class and partake in class discussions on topics - did not interact with other students outside of group work, and frequently spent her lunchtimes either studying in the library by herself or reading. Although this worried teachers, calls home and queries directed at Anna resulted in them being told that nothing was wrong and Anna was just shy around other people. During this time period though, Anna was not happy. She was too scared of her parents disapproval to try and make friends at school, and at home the fact that her parents seemed to be constantly watching her put her on edge, and she became scared of what they thought of what she was doing. None of her hobbies initially carried over, unless her parents allowed them to. She got a part time job working as a waitress at a local diner, and she performs the job well, but she stayed as socially shut in during her job as she did at school.

This period in her life was not a very enjoyable one, until the annual visit from Aria that year. Under pressure from questions she had been given by Aria, Anna opened up to her, telling her how stressful and fearful home and school life was. Aria, affected by this, opted to give her advice so that she could enjoy her life more, which mainly involved acting out when neither of her parents were watching. This sparked inspiration in Anna, and soon after school started back up again she began to rebel against her parents. She lied about having more shifts at her job than she actually had, and her parents, knowing that she had never lied to them previously, opted to not check to see if she was actually telling the truth. These extra shifts - and lunchtimes no longer spent studying - are typically spent indulging the hobbies that she previously had to drop in middle school, with her using the money from her job to buy a new camera. She also began to learn the bass - an instrument she had always loved the sound of - and still practices it to this day, loving the sound it creates and liking the complexity of the songs she can play on it. In addition, she began to create a personality for times when her parents couldn’t see her, and adopted the nickname “Roxanne,” so that she could differentiate from herself and the persona that she had created. This persona, although initially still friendless due to Anna not wanting to overstep the boundaries she had created, interacted with other people and her hobbies much more often, and shows what Anna considers her true personality, calm and fairly reserved, although as someone who is already forced to act that way at home refuses to let other people boss her around and tell her what to do, and due to her natural perfectionism can become fairly fiery and argumentative because of this.

This personality and the seemingly sudden shift in how she acted, combined with the fact that she still attempted to keep others away from her, meant that she still spent her free time alone. Her lunchtimes were typically spent practicing the bass by herself, or within one of the art rooms following a piece of inspiration that she had, which, although she still wanted to have friends, she was fine with. This changed, however, when one day while she was practicing the bass a student she had a crush on - Alexander Brooke - approached her with the offer to join a band he and some of his friends were in. Due to her crush on him, and the fact that she wanted to socially interact with other people in her year, she accepted, quickly becoming a member of Beyond Human along with Alexander, Beryl Mahelona, Nasrin Alizadeh, and [member 5]. The band’s main genre is synth rock, and Anna’s - as the bassist - main role was to keep the song moving and in time with itself, with her natural perfectionism helping with this. However, due to this, and the personality that comes with her Roxanne persona, she can come off as controlling, and due to the more submissive mindsets of some of the other band members her and Alex can very easily be seen as the people who control the direction that the band goes in. In addition, the issues that come with her perfectionist nature are most typically exhibited here, with her most commonly belittling the more submissive members of the band whenever they’re doing something that she considers wrong.

However, despite this, she still very much respects the other members of the band, considering the other four members her best friends at school. She has opened up on what her home life is like to the group, and due to support from them, began to interact with them outside of practices and finally got the courage to interact with other students within the school. Her main social group in itself was the band, hanging out with them as a group of five if possible and choosing to interact with their own friendship groups whenever the band did not stick together during a lunchtime. Whenever she elected to interact with people not in the band, though, she spent her time with students who shared her hobbies, particularly students who were also artistically or musically aligned. She gets on fairly well with them, with her passion and calm personality meshing well with them, although it is hard for her to not show the issues with her perfectionism, which has resulted in people turning off on her. In addition to this, at a suggestion from other band members, she was able to convince her parents to join the school’s vocal ensemble, picking up singing as a hobby and developing enough skill to occasionally function as a backup singer within the band, with her alto voice functioning well whenever Alex’s voice is too low to be able to perform the song correctly.

Whenever Anna had a false shift, she initially spent them indulging in her hobby of photography. However, eventually, she ran out of inspiration for what photos to take, and the areas that she could feasibly reach provided no further ideas except for photos that she had already taken. Wishing that she could do more within her time spent outside in the local area, she saw a group of people performing, something that gave her inspiration. She began to research the art of busking, and the more she looked at it the more she wanted to do it. She quickly got her license, and now she typically spends at least one night a week performing in a public area, in hopes of getting donations from passersby. She most typically used her flute, and tended to use a mix of songs that she had learned during her music education and ones she had learned by herself specifically for the purpose of street performing. She does fairly well, normally getting 20-30 dollars per night spent busking and occasionally getting compliments from passersby. Although she doesn’t do it much, she still enjoys it, as it was able to renew her interest in the flute and she likes the feeling of fun she gets when she’s performing or whenever someone gives her money for a job they consider well done.

Currently, while Anna isn’t the best at any of her classes, she still excels, academically. Out of fear of how her parents would react if it happened, Anna refuses to come home with anything lower than a B on her report card. This is achieved through a begrudging habit of study whenever she cannot do any of her other hobbies. In regards to her future, Anna isn’t quite sure what to do. As much as she wants to pursue her dream of becoming a professional photographer, or to push the band into becoming professional, she is too scared to make moves to pursue those dreams or mention them to her family, as they wish for her to enter Harvard and pursuing the dreams she wants to take mean that she can’t. She fears the backlash that she will get if she voices them, so she has lied to her family and has stated to them that she wants to take over the business after the both of them retire, which is a lie that they believe. Right now, though, Anna is focusing on living the same life that she has led to this point, doing as her parents say at home, but keeping with her Roxanne persona at school and still pursuing the hobbies that her parents don’t know that she has.

[B]Advantages:[/B] Due to the time spent being constantly watched by her parents, she has learned to be patient, and can easily wait until the opportune time whenever there’s something she needs to do. In addition to this, her time spent lying about her hobbies and her job might also do her good, in a situation where she needs to lie to another person.
[B]Disadvantages:[/B] Anna is someone who suffers from near-constant stress and vigilance due to the actions of her parents, and the sudden lifting of this vigilance and stress brought on by the game starting might cause her to take actions that act as a detriment to her chances of winning. In addition, Anna at school is a person who refuses to let others just boss her around, and can quickly be brought to a state where she is acting angry and belittling others, something that might not help if she is trying to get allies.