Dee Dixon

Name: Diana "Dee" Dixon
Gender: Female
Age: 16
School: Whittree Secondary School
Hobbies and Interests: Hiking, Wilderness Preservation, Animals, Farming

Appearance: At cursory glance, Dee has both a height and weight that are appropriate for a girl half of her age. She stands at a stunted 4'5 (135 cm) and weighing a lithe 80 pounds (36.3 kgs). Due to childhood hypopituitarism, which led to pituitary dwarfism, Dee's height and weight are closer to a child's than to a teenager's. Dee's hips and thighs are significantly developed, contributing to an hourglass physique. From her routine weekend hikes, Dee's thighs are strong and toned. Due to hormone treatment, Dee has some modest breast development, but otherwise has a very youthful physique.

Dee's round face is accented by her plump, high cheekbones, dashed with a natural rosiness. Resting in-between her cheeks, her petite nose points forwards, with the bridge curving inwards. Dee's eyebrows are thin, light brown arches that sit spaced far apart. There are a few stray hairs that grown down the side of her brow bone, but Dee doesn't mind them enough to pluck them. Her large moss green eyes contort into a squint whenever she smiles. Her smile, a large white toothy smile, is surrounded by a pair of plump pink lips. Currently, these lips are slightly chapped due to her unintentional habit of licking her lips, drying them in the cooler climate. Dee is caucasian with tanned skin as a direct result of her activity outdoors.

Dee's thick brown hair becomes unmanageable without constant combing. As a child, her mother would routinely comb one hundred brushes in order to tame her tresses, but Dee has since grown very lax about her hair care. After washing it, Dee will fashion her hair into an unattractive ponytail fastened at the back of her head. A hair or two might fall out of place, which Dee then fastens back into shape with bobby-pins.

In terms of fashion, Dee is significantly lax. Her size and frame makes shopping most retail difficult, facilitating a need to shop in the children's section of Walmart or Gap Kids. Though her mother tries to get her daughter to wear skirts or colorful khakis from time to time, Dee typically sticks with plaid patterns and jeans. Occasionally, Dee will wear something colorful, like a vibrant yellow t-shirt or a band shirt, but usually Dee wears very plain attire.

On Casting Day, Dee was wearing a dark blue and black long sleeved black plaid shirt from a thrift store, a basic white tank top with the Whittree Bald Eagle labelled on the right breast. She's paired her top with a pair of bootcut jeans from Walmart, and a pair of imitation converse shoes.

Biography: Diana Grace Dixon was born on June 30th, 2004 at 5:16 am in Jackson, Mississippi. Diana was born the youngest, and the only girl of the four children between Leland “Lee” Dixon, a farmer and dairy salesman, and his wife Denise Dixon.

The couple had met in the mid 1990's, when Lee and Denise were high school sweethearts. Both attending Brandon High School, the two were an unlikely couple to result out of an impulsive invitation to prom. Diametrically opposite people, Lee, the oldest son of a local farming family, and Denise, the daughter of a former Miss Rankin County and a pharmacist, seemed to run in completely different social circles. Lee came from a lower-middle class farm, noteworthy for their cheese and dairy, while Denise came from an educated family with high expectations to graduate from secretarial school. Despite their differences, the couple not only won Senior Prom King and Queen, but also wed a mere two months afterwards on July 16th, 1999.

A mere three months after their marriage, the young newlyweds were greeted by twins, sons Garret “Gary” and Laurence “Larry.” The young parents, unable to provide for the income of an unexpected duplication of the assumed single son, were forced to move in with Lee's family farm. While working for his parents after graduation wasn't his ideal dream, the family lived comfortably and made a profit growing individual crops on the farmstead. With the grandma's help, the young couple was able to individually attend night school and earn degrees while she looked after the boys at night. Lee earned a degree in agricultural studies, while his wife earned a degree in cosmetology. While earning their degrees, the couple was again surprised by an unexpected pregnancy, resulting in their third son, Brian “Bee.”

With their degrees offering them more stability, the couple moved out of Brandon, Mississippi across Rankin County to Jackson. In Jackson, the couple purchased a three bedroom apartment in the center of town, and a Jeep. Every morning, Lee would take their Jeep to work outside of Jackson on nearby farmland, while Denise was a stay-at-home mother, working part time as a telemarketer for a cosmetics company. Being able to stay home with her three sons, while rewarding in it's own right, made Denise miss a female presence in the house. Boys proved to be rough and active. Denise secretly wanted a dainty, elegant debutante daughter.

When Bee turned two, the couple decided to actively try for a fourth child, hopefully a girl. Denise, being a very fertile woman, became pregnant within months of actively trying to conceive. She'd had a feeling that her child would be a girl even before the obstetrician confirmed the fetus' gender. Denise went to immediate work on shopping for feminine articles for her daughter.

Finally getting her wish, Diana was born in a very fast, simple delivery. Named after Princess Diana, who Denise revered for her class and elegance, Diana was welcomed warmly by her brothers and father. For the first three years of Dee's life, everything seemed to be normal. Though Dee had always been on the smaller side, her brothers rapidly outgrew her. Brian, only two years older than his sister, towered over her. Concerned with her slow growths in height, Lee and Denise bounced from pediatrician to pediatrician, only to be assured that she'd eventually catch up. Concerns were raised throughout her early childhood, but the pediatrician's assurance that Dee would catch up seemed to satisfy the parents for sometime.

Ignoring their daughter's delays in height, Dee continued to live a fairly normal life. She would attend public school with her brothers during the school day and attend church on Sunday mornings. Relishing in being able to dress her children up, Denise always made sure the Dixon family looked immaculate; Denise took special interest in dressing Dee in frilly, feminine dresses. Dee grew to hate church, because she would both give up a morning of activity, and would have to wear gaudy church dresses.

When Gary and Larry turned ten, Lee decided it was time that they accompany him on his hunting trips once every two weeks. Though the boys weren't allowed to hunt, or even allowed to touch the group's hunting rifles, Lee tried to instill a love of hunting and sport within his oldest boys. As the children aged, neither Bee or Dee took interest in hunting. While Bee was largely indifferent to any type of outdoor activity, Dee was upset that her father would hunt down innocent animals. Each time he'd leave, she'd plead with him to stay home and not go out and hunt. After years of protests, Lee finally decided to take Dee on one such hunting trip when she herself had come into age at ten. On the car ride up to the woods, Lee went into lengths to explain what happens when deer populations are allowed to grow unchecked. There would be competition for food, and most deer would starve. The deer that didn't starve would wander out into roads and not only be struck by cars, killing themselves, but would injure and harm the drivers, potentially even killing people. When the family finally reached the hunting grounds, Dee eventually relented and saw that, despite killing animals, it was in their best interest for the heard to be culled.

Around the time that Dee was finally allowed to attend hunting trips as an observer, her older brothers began to reach high school age. Gary and Larry shot up immediately to match their father's height of 5'10. Bee, who was a mere three years younger at age eleven, was already well past 4'10. Dee, who'd always been on the shorter side, was barely 3'8. At the age of ten, Denise and Lee could finally not take the word of their local pediatricians and sought help from a variety of other specialists. It took the x-rays of one radiologist to calculate the bone age. Physically, the ten year old Dee had the skeletal make-up of a seven year old. Confirmation from an associated endocrinologist confirmed the doctor's concerns. Dee had been born with an underactive pituitary gland. Symptoms that Dee's parents didn't recognize, such as occasional headaches, exercise induced double vision and inability to sleep through the entire night, were all indicative of the diagnosis. In particular, her anterior portion of the pituitary gland had disfunction in only growth hormone production. Her abilities to produce the five other hormones associated with that portion of the pituitary gland. The posterior half was measured to have normal function. Treatment for this lack of growth hormone would be hormone replacement therapy, administered bi-monthly over the course of three years. In the first year alone, Dee grew a significant five and a half inches, standing at 4'3 on her eleventh birthday. Since then, she's grown a full two inches, before halting significant growth around fourteen. Other symptoms of the inactive pituitary gland, such as the double vision and the headaches, were effectively outgrown.

Due to her small frame, Denise was constantly concerned for her daughter amongst the roughhousing nature of her sons. Denise still attempted to restrict the activity Dee could participate in. However, Lee was equally as adamant that his daughter should be as free to participate as her brothers were. Denise would eventually relent after Dee's tremendous growth during hormone replacement therapy, as well as the doctor's direct reassurance that Dee could interact outdoors like she'd had a tendency to do.

Though Dee had always liked to play outside as a child, Dee's activities mainly consisted of chasing after her brothers, attempting to throw herself into their play. In particular, Dee enjoyed playing hide and seek in the wooded picnic area outside of Jackson. Due to Dee's small frame, she was an expert at sneaking past whichever brother was the seeker. As the children grew older, Gary and Larry grew distant, more absorbed in their high school lives than they were in her, and Bee was a bookish, sedentary boy. With her parents permission, Dee would begin to wander through the picnic area by herself. Because the picnic path was within biking distance, Dee would be able to bike outside to them every other weekend and enjoy a solitary hike. Jackson was a relatively safe area, and Lee was insistent that Dee would be safe with the clearly marked woods.

By the middle of Dee's last year of middle school, the family underwent a dramatic economic shift. The farm where Lee was employed as a farmhand had been subject to poor financial planning and was forced to let a few employees off. Lee, despite his experience, was one of twenty farmhands fired. The six person family had little in the means of nest eggs, meaning that the necessity for a job wore heavily on them. Though Lee was stubborn and hated asking for help once again after finally moving out from his parents' farm, he once again asked for assistance. By that time, Lee's parents had sold their farm and moved to Florida. However, they had had a strong relationship with a farm out in Oklahoma. With a phone call, there was a prominent job offer at a local farm as the head of a small section of the farmhand. Though Lee had experience with dairy and cows, the position called for chicken coop management. After a family discussion, the Dixon family moved to the nearby town of Whittree, Oklahoma. Dee, who'd had few friends back in Mississippi wasn't very affected by the move. She'd miss the farmland that her father had worked on, but was willing to move. Since Gary and Larry were now of college age, the move came at an appropriate time.

At the start of the summer harvest, Lee Dixon started at the local farm. Since a number of farmers had taken some time off for unrelated reasons, a part-time job opened up for Lee's children. Though Lee had tried to encourage his bookish son, Bee, to take a job as a ranch hand, Dee would be the one who'd take him up on his offer. Dee's small frame didn't allow for her to take very much strenuous work, but Lee's boss offered Dee a job working on the spinach fields. The menial job would have her traverse the farmlands and pluck the ripe spinach leaves. Despite wanting to join her father with the more entertaining work of chicken care, Dee earned money her first summer in Whittree plucking spinach. As she proved herself as a hard worker, Lee's boss offered to let Dee return to the farm and work during each of her school breaks. Though still not allowed to do anything too physically demanding, Dee graduated from the spinach patch to the egg hatchery during the winter of her Freshman year. Dee had always enjoyed animals since childhood, so the opportunity to help care for live chickens was very appealing.

Dee's first year in a new school worried Denise and Lee. Though people in their hometown had grown up with Dee for years and recognized her situation, Dee's parents were worried that Dee wouldn't be as accepted here. However, by the end of the first week, Dee had already acclimated to Whittree Secondary School significantly. Those who stared, stared in curiosity. On Dee's first day, she was prompted to introduce herself by her homeroom teacher, and from there she was able to explain her dwarfism, as well as where her accent came from. Having been surrounded by older brothers all her life, Dee naturally gravitated towards boys, particularly the sports teams and the other members of the school's gardening club.

Dee had always been a decent student within the subjects she found the most interesting. She'd hated algebra and related maths with a passion, yet found geometry easy. English was easy when the subject was reading analysis, but creative writing always stumped her. Despite usual difficulties in math, chemistry and physics were also easy subjects for Dee. Her GPA rests comfortably around a B average, with occasional fluctuations depending on what she's required to take. Her work on the farm, as well as her Sophomore year class in environmental science has inspired Dee into the field of wilderness conservation.

Outside of school, Dee has developed a much closer relationship to her father. Since the two go into work together during Dee's school breaks, the two have bonded in a way formerly reserved for Lee and his two older sons. The hunting grounds twenty minutes outside of Whittree is a location that the father/daughter team frequent every other month. Though Dee still has some reservations about hunting deer, she still reminds herself that it's for their own good. However, if given the choice, Dee would much rather go off on her own and go on a hike. Her relationship with her other family has gotten progressively less close as Dee has matured. Dee started to place more value on autonomy, and grew annoyed with Denise's insistence in certain areas. Though the two love each other, Denise and Dee find their diametrically opposite viewpoints hard to consolidate. Similarly, Dee has problems with relating to Bee's bookishness, preferring to see hands on instead of merely reading about it. One area which the family does all relate is around the tv. Despite conflicting interests, Lee and Denise wanted to instill a strong sense of family into their children. Between the hours of 6pm and 8pm, the family all sits around a family meal, glued to the TV. SOTF-TV, something Denise cringes at, is always viewed when it's on. Dee sides more with her mother's aversion to the show, seeing no value in forcing people to kill each other for no purpose. What she can permit with hunting deer and other animals, she can't attribute to killing another person. Lee and Bee, as well as Larry and Gary, on the other hand, are utterly engrossed by the show.

From time to time, a few friends from school will accompany Dee on her hikes, but very few can keep up with the energetic girl. Sometimes she'll go over to her friends' places to hang out. When she's not doing her work, running around in the hiking path, or going on outings with her father, Dee is simply trying to kill time.

Advantages: Due to her hiking activities, Dee has stamina for prolonged periods of walking and hiking. Her ability to climb up long paths gives her an edge over her less fit classmates. Her walks are usually solitary, meaning that Dee is comfortable in her own thoughts and won't necessarily need an ally. Despite Dee's interest in wildlife conservation, Dee has practiced hunting as a means of population control. Though the same might not translate over to human targets, Dee has experience firing a hunting rifle, knowing the basics of how to operate a firearm. The small size that serves as a disadvantage may help her avoid detection and allow her to stealth around the game unnoticed.
Disadvantages: Dee's diminutive size gives her a clear combative disadvantage. Only weighing 80 pounds (36.3 kgs), Dee can be easily overpowered by the grand majority of the other student body. Her upper body strength, while decent for her weight, would not allow her to utilize most heavier weapons. Unless she's exceptionally lucky with a draw, her frame wouldn't allow her to fight back in most situations. Because she prefers to have her hikes as alone time, she might shrug off alliances in the game, preferring to go solo. Since she has no real ability to fend for herself, being alone would work to her disadvantage.

Designated Number: Ivory Sharks 1 (IS1).

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Designated Weapon: Four and a half foot two handed boffer sword.

Mentor Comment: "We all have to start somewhere, but some of us have further to go than others. With some smart play and good strategy, however, there's no reason Miss Dixon can't be a real contender."

Evaluations

Handled By: Shangela, Mini_HELP

Kills: None

Killed By: Remained in a Danger Zone

Collected Weapons: Four and a half foot two handed boffer sword (designated weapon, abandoned)

Allies: Asa Rosen, Louise Luna

Enemies: None

Mid-game Evaluation: Dee awoke near the bowling alley, quickly becoming distressed by her assigned weapon, which was useless to her due to how its large size compared to her short stature. She entered the building and became aware of the standoff between Davis Todd and Christopher Schwartz, listening in as Chris proposed an alliance with Davis, who declined. As Davis left, Dee approached Chris herself, seeking to secure the same deal, but Chris' response was tepid. Inferring that her poor physical presence was the root of Chris' hesitation, Dee took offense and left, wary that Chris might try something.

Dee briefly approached the Sunshine Tower, but the presence of Vahka Basayev and Taylor DeVasher made her nervous, and she quickly moved on, next stopping at the aqua-museum. She lay down on a bench and mulled over her situation, but continued to believe herself largely doomed. Before long, however, she was shaken from her state by the arrival of Asa Rosen, who chastised her for her carelessness. Asa explained that he'd heard commotion and had come to check it out, and the pair bonded slightly over a mutual disdain for their more violent classmates and the SOTF producers. Dee agreed to aid Asa in his plan to attempt to resist the game by sabotaging it where possible.

Before they could get much work done towards this end, though, they were joined by Caroline Leveson. The newcomer asked what they were planning, and the pair explained that, while they lacked any means of escape, they had decided to trash the resort as much as possible in retaliation for being chosen. Caroline expressed some serious skepticism towards this plan, but Asa and Dee doubled down on their idea. Asa stated that they needed to gather appropriate supplies, and so the pair set off, parting ways with Caroline.

Dee suggested that aerosol cans might be useful in their campaign of destruction, and so the pair's next stop was the beauty parlor. There, they found Norma-Jean Torkelson and Genesis Bradley-Baker, who were still in a state of excitement after Sissy pretended to have been attacked. Asa and Dee requested the supplies they were searching for, but Asa's demeanor antagonized Norma-Jean, who warded the pair off with her spear. Dee tried to deescalate the situation, but Sissy took off, causing Norma-Jean to panic and swing her spear, inflicting a minor wound upon Asa. Asa and Dee left, with Asa angrily yelling at Norma-Jean while Dee took a softer approach, telling the girl to stay safe.

The pair moved to the beach, where they set about patching up Asa's injury. Dee raised questions about Asa's long-term plans, and was dismayed to discover that he mostly planned to continue as he had been, which Dee thought likely to end poorly. Dee was upset when Asa stated that he'd be willing to use violence in future confrontations like the one with Norma-Jean, and pushed him further, calling him the bad guy in the situation and blaming him for provoking the girl. With tensions mounting, Asa and Dee dissolved their partnership in an angry argument, going their separate ways.

Dee returned to the bowling alley to use the restroom, and as she was leaving encountered Louise Luna. The girls introduced themselves, then Dee stepped outside to allow Louise a moment of privacy. Once Louise had concluded her business, the pair talked further, with each admitting that their time in the game so far (with a day and the first announcement now behind them) had been difficult. As neither girl was hostile, they allied, spending the night in the bowling alley together. They woke up to the morning announcements and planned to move on, but found that the weather had worsened and instead remained in their makeshift base of operations, talking. At some point, they both fell prey to exhaustion again, and managed to sleep through the third announcement, thus failing to realize that the bowling alley had been declared a Danger Zone. Their collars were soon detonated, with neither waking from their slumber beforehand.

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

• "Sugar snap. Sugar, sugar, mother-lovin' suuuuuugar Snaaaaaaap" - Dee's first words upon awakening
• "Did I hear that you wanted an alliance? A ‘scratch your back, you scratch mine’ kinda thing?" - Dee proposes a partnership with Christopher Schwartz
• "It sounds like you have this whole thing thought out. Hiding out, avoiding rustles until after they’ve up and gone. I wish I had a lick of that sense." - Dee expresses muted admiration for Asa
• "I’m not at all keen on those high cotton jerks in their fancy little offices, neither. Of course they don’t give a lick what we think about being cast on their little show. Plenty of kids would give their left tit to get their shot at fifteen minutes on tv. I woulda been just peachy with bein’ another nobody." - Dee expresses her regret at having been selected for the season
• "Y-You know, maybe I’ll get those ten kills, mister. I can come at them like. . . like. . . Like a flying squirrel!" - Dee objects to Asa's fantasy scenario
• "If you quit shaking like a pug tryin’ to shit out a peach pit, this would be a heck of a lot quicker." - Dee tells Asa to sit still as she patches his wound
• "“So I reckon that this whole ‘getting stabbed by Norma-Jean’ thing wasn’t part of the plan. Neither was walking out of there with our tails between our legs. What now, chuckles?" - Dee questions Asa's planning

Threads

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

The Past

• The Little Chick in the Big Hen House

Sandbox:

• The Breakfast Club
• Counting Pennies

SOTF-TV:

• Kal-El
• Once Upon A Time
• The Tides of March
• Honey Badger Don't Care!
• I Don't Have to Be Your Friend to Survive this Show. This is Not Survival of the Best Friends.
• Reckoning Ball
• Polar Bound

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

• I had some fairly big issues with Dee, but it took a little analyzing upon reread to figure out their source, because the actual meat of her plot is stronger than I remembered and I quite enjoyed Shangela's other TV2 character. Dee has a pretty established character with some legitimate issues at play (she tries to be nice and good because that's what she was taught, but at the same time she's scared and insecure about her chances), but it never quite lands right. The reason for that, I think, has a lot to do with the density of weirdness in both Dee's concept and execution. Dee suffers from a rare medical condition, hails from a particular part of the country foreign to most of the characters in the version, and has a vocabulary largely shaped by her unusual upbringing.
  
  These issues form the core of almost every Dee post, and they don't always feel successfully integrated; I think that the attempt at making Dee a largely-humorous character was somewhat misguided, because her already-unusual traits end up skewing towards caricature. Dee's narrative has some interesting ideas about not judging a book by its cover, but this is undercut by the same narrative trying to have it both ways, repeatedly using Dee's stature and exaggerated Southern speech as punchlines. This is aggravated by a couple of factors. First off, Dee's quirks of diction color both her dialogue and her narrative, filling her posts with (sometimes nonsensical) metaphors that soon serve only to reinforce a characteristic of Dee's that is already well apparent to any reader and to obfuscate what's actually meant. Second, Dee lacks the sort of grounding and normalcy that can complicate characters with these sorts of traits. Dee has only three posts in Sandbox, none of which carry any notable interaction with other characters, and in the game she ends up feeling like an almost total outsider, with no real established relationships with anyone else (except for a brief mention when it comes to Sissy and Norma-Jean), which leaves Dee feeling even more like she lacks grounding—the very thing she most desperately needs. She mostly hangs out with Davison kids, which could be part of it, but she doesn't really feel a part of Whittree either.
  
  I do think that Dee's partnership with Asa is a highlight of her story, because Asa gave Dee both a foil (where she was saccharine-sweet, he was surly and grumpy; where she was largely unsure how to proceed through the game, he had a perhaps ill-considered mission) and a reality check. Asa was willing to call Dee out on her strangeness, and at the same time he was unusual in his own ways, offering Dee the opportunity to be the reasonable one. At the same time, I think it's best for both that their association ended where it did; their split is easily my favorite moment in Dee's story and sets Asa on his path for the rest of the game.
  
  So I guess where I'm going with this is I see some really solid potential in the ideas behind Dee, and I can tell there was some real thought put into her, but I don't think the execution worked out. Dee was already a concept dialed up to eleven, and I think to make that work she really needed a more grounded narrative; instead, hers was pushed to twelve. - MurderWeasel