Daniel Whitten

Daniel as drawn by Violent-Medic

Daniel Bebinator style

Name: Daniel Whitten
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Literature in all forms, metal, soccer, band.

Appearance: Daniel is rather tall and skinny, about 61 and 149 lbs. He's Caucasian, with light-colored skin, which is mostly blemish-free, with the exception of a small mole on his left cheek. He has bright green eyes. Daniel's face is somewhat round, and he has a small, flat nose. His hair is about ear length, and black. He has a scar on the palm of his right hand from accidentally touching a hot stove as a child. He isn't very muscular, but his legs are long and fairly strong.

Daniel tends to favor dark clothing, generally wearing about three layers, with a t-shirt, long-sleeved shirt and a sweatshirt. As his t-shirts tend to be buried by other clothing, Daniel doesn't really care what they look like, and thus throws on anything that fits. He prefers long-sleeved shirts that are either solid or have a simple pattern. Daniel mostly wears plain, dark sweatshirts. He gets cold rather easily, so he also tends to wear a dark blue, somewhat poofy jacket. Daniel almost exclusively wears jeans, finding shorts uncomfortable. He typically wears plain, practical tennis shoes.

On the day of the abduction Daniel was wearing a red Pepsi T-shirt, a white long-sleeved shirt with horizontal back stripes, a black, zippered sweatshirt, jeans, and white tennis shoes.

Biography: Daniel has lived a mostly normal life with his two parents and five-year-older sister, Erica. His mother, Jill, works as a lawyer, while his father, Allen, works from home as a fairly successful mystery writer. Erica was born deaf, which lead to Daniel becoming fluent in sign language from an early age. Daniel's family is, while not exactly rich, financially well-off, and he lives in a nicely furnished two-story house.

Daniel and his parents get along well, and he often spends hours discussing various literature-related things with his dad. He doesn't see his mom often, due to her job, but she makes an effort to get together with the family as often as she can. Erica is rather fond of Daniel, often helping him with school related things and such, though she enjoys teasing him. Daniel often has to act as a translator for his sister when they're out together, a role taken by his parents when they are present.

His proficiency with sign language came in handy when a new family moved into the house next door, when he was about seven, one of them being a deaf boy named Michael Mitchellson, who was around Daniel's age. Michael was happy to find another boy who could understand him, along with being a fellow lover of literature, and the two quickly became close friends, with Daniel translating for Michael when necessary.

He joined the soccer team in elementary school mostly due to his parent's urging, but ended up enjoying it and thus sticking with it throughout his life at school. He tends to play offense, and has scored a respectable number of goals.

Allen is a large fan of metal, often playing music from bands such as Iron Maiden in the house while he works. Daniel was thus exposed to the genre from an early age, leading to metal becoming his favorite genre of music. Daniel's favorite sub-genres are Symphonic and Power Metal, especially the bands Nightwish and Blind Guardian. He finds the intricate, melodic guitar work and often fantasy-inspired lyrics incredibly appealing.

At the start of middle school Daniel joined the band, mostly out of curiosity, as both of his parents had been in their school's bands when they were young. He liked it, and thus stuck with it, but finds practicing tedious and thus tends to avoid it whenever possible, leading to his playing skills being, while not really bad, average at best. Daniel plays the flute, which he picked because he simply liked the way it sounded.

The start of his freshman year, he started an informal "Book Club" with Michael, which at the start was just the two of them talking about books they had read and were reading, much like they did normally anyway. However, they soon ended up recruiting a few classmates, leading to a somewhat organized, if still informal, club. There really isn't any strict format to the club, the members just tend to decide on a book to read together, and talk about it while they read. While Daniel is technically co-leader he almost always follows the lead of Michael, who is the one that handles most of the organization.

At school, Daniel tends to get decent grades, often acing the English and history classes, his favorite subjects. However, he tends to do less well in science and outright struggles with math classes, though he often recruits Michael and Erica to help him with his work, resulting in him achieving mostly B's.

Daniel does not have a large network of friends, though he is on friendly terms with the majority of his classmates. He does, however, have a couple of distant friends on the soccer team and band, and is friends with pretty much everyone in the book club.

Daniel plans on going to a local college and majoring in English, getting a job in the book industry afterwards. At the moment, he is been working as a cashier at Something Borrowed Used Books, heavily exercising his employee discount.

Daniel is a mostly easy-going person, tending to let others take the lead. When he is forced to take command, he will try to step down as soon as possible. Daniel is capable of managing others, as long as he is still working under orders, but if he is faced with the sole responsibility of making decisions the pressure tends to overwhelm Daniel; leading to him panicking and making mistakes.

During his childhood Daniel's parents emphasized courtesy and considering the feelings of others, leading to him adopting a very polite manner of speech; along with hardly ever swearing. Daniel is also very empathetic, often considering the needs of others before his own, occasionally at the expense of his own well being. As a result Daniel is very heavily affected by violence, even feeling heavily physically ill in extreme cases.

Daniel relaxes and loosens up around his friends, though he still keeps his speech slightly formal out of personal preference. He naturally gets along well with most people, and is not easily angered.

Advantages: Daniel is quite athletic due to the soccer team, and is thus excellent at running, being able to both sprint quickly and run long distances without getting winded. He is a friendly person, and thus would probably have a fairly easy time of making allies.
Disadvantages: Daniel has a strong aversion to hurting others, and would likely be incapacitated by nausea after viewing any major act of violence. He's not very good at taking initiative, and would probably be unsure of what to do if left alone.

Designated Number: Male Student No. 074

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Designated Weapon: Officially Licensed Indiana Jones Replica Whip
Conclusion: Thinking positively. He's now got something longer and thinner than him, right? - Abby Soto

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

Evaluations

Daniel Whitten (art by Frogue)

Handled by: dmboogie

Kills: N/A

Killed By: Hansel Williams

Collected Weapons: Officially Licensed Indiana Jones Replica Whip (designated weapon)

Allies: Alexandria Ripley

Enemies:

Mid-game Evaluation: Upon waking up in the lighthouse, Daniel spent an hour or so staying in one place and crying. After convincing himself to get up so that he could find his friends, he met Alexandria Ripley and Gwen O'Connor elsewhere in the lighthouse. They talked for a few moments, and Alex declared her intent to find a way to escape from the island. Gwen told them that she was going to go off on her own to look for her friends, and though Daniel tried to convince her to stay, she went on her way.

Daniel and Alex agreed to stick together, and they left the lighthouse to travel down the bike trails on the coast. Daniel managed to get a ways ahead of Alex before realizing that he had gotten them lost. When he stopped to call out to Alex, he collided with Mara Montalvo. When he stopped to apologize, he was shot in the head by Hansel Williams, who was hiding in the bushes nearby.

Post-Game Evaluation: Just goes to show; all those smarts and good intentions don't mean jack when a meaner kid with a bigger gun comes knocking. - Jim Greynolds

Memorable Quotes: 

• Agh, no! They took my copy of American Gods! - Daniel first waking up on the island, with incredibly straight priorities. 

• "Things are going about as well as they can be at the moment, Alex. It would quite a stretch to refer to it as "okay", but I, uh, guess the term will do for now." - Daniel summing up the situation in game to Alexandria Ripley .

• "Oh, hey, sorry. Didn't think there was anyone else-" - Daniel's last words.

Other/Trivia

• dmboogie chose to swap Daniel for Alice Gilman, when she was rolled in the first set of rolls in V5.
• The time lapsed between Daniel's death post and his killer's murder post was less than thirty seconds, one of the fastest posted deaths in V5.

Threads

Below is a list of threads that contain Daniel, in chronological order.

The Past:

• A Carol of Cookies and Christmas

Pre-Game:

• All Happy Classes are Alike; Each Unhappy Class is Unhappy in their Own Way
• These Dusty Shelves
• Encyclopedia of Ignorance
• The Anime Nerd and the Band Geek
• A Balcony Scene
• Night of Magic

V5:

• Tower of Alexandria
• There ain't no more cowboys, only men with violent hearts

Related Threads in Meanwhile:

• Be a Simple Kind of Man

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 Daniel Whitten. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!

• Aw, poor Daniel. Honestly, I liked Daniel as a person. He was nice, had some self-digs and I feel like he shouldn't have been rolled so quickly. He had plenty of relationships formed in pregame, especially with his friend Michael, and his opening thread established a partnership with Alex. I wasn't a fan of his death, though; it didn't feel like it made sense in Daniel's story, being that he was just sort of shot, without any interaction with his killer whatsoever, though it will have an impact on Mara and Hansel. I feel like Daniel had some wasted potential, but he was definitely a nice character from what little we got to see of him. - Espional
• It's hard when your favourite characters get rolled, and Daniel was one of my top ten. I often went to dmboogie with my excitement and awe about this character's pregame showing, and was a very close follower of his on-island stuff. When it came down to the first rolls, however, dmboogie swapped Mr. Whitten to die in another character, Alice Gilman's, stead. While I was saddened by the maneuver, it allowed dmboogie to exercise a theme that he hammered home in his death post; that sometimes, the deaths are senseless. Daniel's death was a waste of a life because it was snatched from him so young, so early, and for no other reason than to be the second person killed in a twisted game by twisted people. This is exacerbated, I feel, by the fact that there were so many loose threads that dmboogie didn't get to explore - Daniel being overshadowed by Michael Mitchellson, for one - and the waste of potential is a tough theme to explore in a game where we all want to tell a story with weight and longevity. My opinion is that boogie achieved his goal and punctuated it by the fact that Daniel didn't even get to finish his last words. I'll miss him, and I'm honoured that dmboogie chose me to help explore these themes. - NotAFlyingToy
• Daniel was a fantastic example of a supporting character. He served as Michael's right hand man, Maynard's friend, and Rachael's date all in one seemless character. Boogie knew how to add to a scene without attempting to override it. He played fairly with all ofther handlers involved and it always stayed true to character. Certain aspects of Daniel's chaI agree with Naft, here; I'd love to have seen some more of his character development over the island. He's the type that could have really developed in game. Oh well, these senseless deaths are what ground the game in some realism. Just like the real world, death tends to leave a lot of unanswered questions. I just hope Michael is able to hear about his friend's demise without Daniel to serve as translater. Actually, I really hope he can figure out the announcements period. It'd be terrible for his collar to blow up because he can't hear an announcement. -Shangela
• Although there's such a thing as 'too much realism' - where narrative gets cramped in exchange for too much of a focus on being real, the occasional death that's just wham, out of left field, is welcome. There are a lot of deaths in SOTF, by its nature, that are drawn out, very dramatic and go on for a while. However, although Daniel did not get a 'send off', per se (and I agree that there was more potential, but then, rolls), the manner of his death will certainly shake things up for multiple characters, and I think consequences of a death are almost as important as the content of the scene itself. It's kind've pointless if nobody has a reaction after all - I also feel that a lot of tension was provided by what was leading up to the death, so even though it was abrupt, there IS some dramatic build thanks to Hansel's perspective. A nice couple of on island scenes. - Namira
• I liked that Daniel never met Michael on the island. Reading the profile, I was originally afraid that these characters would have mirrored the twins and triplets of the past. Luckily. both characters had enough development to be entirely seperate. Anyway, as for all characters who die early, Daniel's role was very quickly reduced to support character. In his short time on the island, he's been able to affect a good amount of characters, even if that means just dying in front of them. Daniel was handled well, and was a character every handler wanted to be friends with in real life. It was a shame to see him die, especially when his killer didn't even mean for him to die. Alright Hansel... no more being involved in accidental shootings... - Nuggets
• A bit late to the party on the commentary train, but that's better than never, right? Anyway, as my first ever SOTF character (and a partial self insert) I've always had an attatchment to Daniel, and though I wish I could have done more with him, I'm still pretty satisfied by how he turned out, in general.

He had the largest pre-game of any of my V5 kids, but apart from the bookstore and the prom threads that sorta ground to a halt, nothing much of interest happened beyond friendly discussion of literature. I was also definitely still getting a feel for the site, too.

Daniel was always a supporting character, which is even given a nod to in his profile, and he was never meant to live for too long. I got rolled a bit quicker than I expected, and though I definitely don't regret swapping him to save Alice, I do wish that he had been able to get a little more screentime for himself on the island. However, I definitely feel that he died in the best possible way that he could have at the time, both for himself and for those who would be affected by his death. 

Even if Daniel had lived, I had planned to keep him and Michael separate on the island, as fun as it would have been to have them interact, mostly to avoid having Michael overshadow him. Daniel was sort of living in Michael's shadow, in a lot of ways, and it would have been neat to have some time to deal with that, or even to kill Michael off first, in a sort of Kamina-ish situation. Eh, it is what it is. Maybe if we ever have another Second Chances. Anyways, godspeed, Daniel. It was good to have you around. Peace. -dmboogie