Luca Thomas

Name: Luca Thomas

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Grade: Senior

School: George Hunter High School

Hobbies and Interests: Basketball, anime, sports & entertainment journalism, discussion boards.

Appearance: Luca is taller than average at 5’9”, though she has a somewhat appearance that makes this less intimidating, as she weighs 132 pounds. She has almost no body fat and a tiny bust, though her legs and arms are notably toned, giving her a very athletic appearance.

She is of mixed descent, with her family tree being enough of a mix to escape specific definition, leaving her with a relatively pale brown complexion. Her skin is relatively soft and unblemished due to the attention she pays to her appearance, the only exception being the freckles which pepper her nose and cheeks, which she doesn’t cover up.

Her face is rather narrow, with a long, flat, prominent nose and wide set dark amber eyes. Her cheekbones and chin are both soft, rounded features, giving her a gentle appearance. Her lips are full, and often covered in a dark red lipstick. She pays a large amount of attention to her makeup, normally wearing foundation and concealer as well as eye-shadow, but tries to ensure the effects of it are subtle.

In terms of dress sense, Luca tends to dress relatively conservatively, preferring to wear skirts, blazers or shirts with simple, soft colours at school and when out in public as she feels it gives the most professional impression to those she meets. In more casual settings, she typically wears basketball or other sports jerseys that refer to players she enjoys watching and sweatpants. On the day of her abduction, she was dressed in a salmon pink blazer, light turquoise shirt and white, knee length skirt. Her shoulder length black hair was tied back into a ponytail with a simple black scrunchie, and a zebra striped bandana wrapped around her hairline.

Biography: Luca Thomas was born on August the 4th, 2000 to the couple of Miriana Blank and Carl Thomas in, who had been dating for a few years prior to Miriana’s pregnancy. The two had decided to stay unmarried due to career reasons, and continued this state of affairs after Luca’s birth, despite pressure from both of their families. This decision had minimal effect on Luca’s home life, and both parents spent a great deal of time with her during the first few years of her life, doting upon her and making sure she was rarely left alone.

This was possible due to both of her parents having jobs which allowed them to control their own schedules, with Carl being a freelance public relations consultant and Miriana being an events manager. As Luca grew up however, the reduced hours they were both working grew to put financial strain on the family, and Carl became less of a presence in the house when compared to Miriana. Luca remained close to both parents despite this, and grew up in a house where both parents mixed work and home life regularly, taking calls during meals and making plans with other people in their respective fields around the family dining table.

Luca came to resent this lack of attention, especially after she started school - which left her with less time with her parents in the first place - and began to act out in subtle ways as she grew up into her early childhood, often trying to distract her parents when they were working. Both parents tried to deal with this without punishing her heavily, but as the behaviour continued, she quickly began to find herself confined to her room. It was here, on the TV that her parents seemed to be happy to leave her with that she discovered anime for the first time, watching through Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh to entertain herself.

As she got older, her relationship with her parents recovered as she began to find more healthy ways of attracting their attention, using her early growth spurts and natural height to her advantage as she joined the Under 11’s girls basketball team. She had very little in the way of technique, and often made rookie mistakes (as most did), but she was able to use her height to her advantage and quickly became a star player on the team. Luca loved the attention of it, and her parents were quick to show her the little column in the local paper that had her name in it, congratulating her on her success.

As she played more, she began to enjoy more than just the attention, finding a rush in being able to see just how much she contributed to the team winning, as well as enjoying having to make lightning quick decisions that would change how everything else played out, finding it something that challenged her both mentally and physically. This was only accentuated by her being the one typically scoring the most points on her team, which made her feel like an integral part of the team unit, helping to give her a strong drive to keep succeeding.

This stardom was not to last, as other girls hit their growth spurts and caught up with Luca, quickly reaching or exceeding her in physical prowess. This took away the crutch that Luca had relied upon, and it quickly became apparent that she had a key weakness that prevented her from being a top player - She was unable to pace herself, always trying to take possession and contest every movement on the other team. Despite effort from the local team’s coach to bring her back to the star position she’d once held, it was clear that she simply lacked the patience and tact to play through a full game without exhausting herself. As such, she was dropped from the starting spot she’d held since joining the team.

This incident was a wakeup call for Luca, and she began to put a lot more effort into practice, trying her best to still help the team win despite not being a starting player. She would often volunteer to take part in practice sessions as an ‘opposing’ player, trying to interfere with passes and helping the rest of the team to have someone to practice against, as well as with. It was through this selfless and helpful attitude that Luca regained the faith of the team, and she was allowed to play again, being subbed in for single periods in order to swap out the small forward for Luca, who played a more point forward position.

Luca excelled in this position, having time on the sidelines to look at how the defence of the opposing team operated, and then using her own energy and knowledge of who they typically looked to anchor their defence to tire their opponents out with relentless pressure, leading to gaps which the other players could exploit. She missed the feeling of being the star for her team, but took pride in being able to help them succeed together, seeing that as just as important.

Upon entering GHHS, the stakes of her Basketball career were abruptly raised, as she found herself amongst incredibly gifted peers, some of whom had never played prior to high school. As such, she continued her previous patterns, but found herself being pushed to the limit even in practice games as she tried to keep up with those around her. This competitive environment suited Luca perfectly however, and she began to treat practice as the place where she could truly shine, as their new coach was less apt to sub her in and ruin the chemistry of the starting 5, especially with Aleksandra as their first flexible player. As such, she tried to make sure she worked as hard in practice as their opponents would work on the pitch, providing a dedicated defender for their offence to hone their skills against.

The lack of game time irked Luca somewhat and whilst she never acted out to her teammates, she did discuss her dismay at not being able to help with her parents, who gave her the idea of writing up game summaries for the school and local paper. This was something she tried and immediately found success in, her parents helping her to edit and publish her first short column as a guest piece in a small local paper that Carl had contacts in, feeling a rush of pride at seeing her work printed.

Following this, she signed up with the school paper and began attending and reporting on the other sports teams of GHHS, such as the American football team and male basketball team. Her writing style was initially shaky, but improved over time as she gained feedback from the more academically minded members of the writing staff, as well as simple rote practice in the act. She predominantly focused on the success stories that came from the school, finding writing about teams that weren’t at the peak of their leagues boring to watch, finding the high-level games where both sides went all out, or stomps where an exceptionally strong team dismantled a weak one her favourite to write about.

As she began to write more, she found that writing about matches forced her to think in more detail about the games as she watched, as she was forced to try and figure out what was going on at a more detached level than the quick heat of the moment action she experienced on the pitch. This helped to spur a deeper appreciation for watching the game over participating directly, and the opportunity to both try and help others gain the same insight, as well as deepen her own is something that motivates her to continue her work.

This introduction to writing was something that spurred a creative spark in Luca, and she began to write more heavily in her spare time, putting together opinion pieces on everything from why she thought other people should watch her favourite anime (Prince of Tennis), to criticising the 2016 Atlanta Falcons for their weak defensive strategy. She rarely sent these pieces out to anywhere, not being happy enough with them to publish them, worried she would embarrass her parents by trying to put something out that wasn’t good enough. Normally the only people to be shown were fellow writers or editors who she asked for help making them better.

In addition to this, she began posting heavily on various sports and anime discussion boards, such as those found on Reddit or Tapatalk. She never took up big roles within these communities, but enjoyed having a place to talk in detail about her hobbies and to test out ideas that she wanted to write about, to see if people were interested in reading them. Recently Luca has begun posting a few of her best opinion pieces independently on a simple, self-made website, and linking them to these areas, gaining her a small audience. She has yet to tell her parents about this, wanting to be big enough to impress them first.

She also began to attend the anime club at GHHS, finding it a different atmosphere from the supportive but ultimately highly competitive team, but enjoying the change of pace and a chance to make new friends whilst talking about her favourite form of entertainment. She primarily enjoys sports based anime, but in general enjoying simple Shōnen style stories with a protagonist fighting to overcome the problems in front of them, finding the mix of an uplifting message amongst grand action scenes particularly appealing.

Outside of her various hobbies, Luca is a relatively quiet girl, preferring to stick to the friends she knows through Basketball or Anime Club. She tries her best to stay on the good side of those she meets, but tends to be passive in conversations with those she doesn’t know, preferring to let others speak their mind than offering her own thoughts. She initially tried to join in with the party scene in GHHS in her senior year after some encouragement from friends, but found the noise and pressure to drink and socialise with people she didn’t know overwhelming, and she quickly stopped coming.

This left Luca feeling a little disconnected from her friends, as she felt like she was missing out on the excitement her friends got up to by not attending them. This led to her trying to catch up with her friends outside of school, meeting up with them for coffee or similar less intense social events outside of school, trying to keep in touch with all of them and enjoying the tales of their adventures at parties, living vicariously through her friends experiences.

Her academics are mostly on the lower end of mediocre, with her finding it difficult to remain interested in heavily theoretical subjects such as Maths and Science, which causes her grades to slip between Ds and Cs in those subjects. In subject with more essay writing involved in them, such as History and Geography, she does significantly better due to her practice with longform writing, although her fact retention in these subjects are still subpar. The one subject she excels at is English, where she regularly manages to make A or B grades, although her improvement in that area came recently as a result of her beginning her hobby of article writing making the lessons seem relevant to her.

Luca plans to continue her writing in college, planning to continue studying writing in any way she can and continue working on building a portfolio of work that she can use to secure a position in sports reporting. She has fantasised about wanting to work in sports broadcasting in the past, but is unsure if she could take the criticism from being in front of the camera, and as such has refrained from making any moves towards this. She is currently unsure if she will need to continue to a full degree in sports journalism, as she has not been able to talk to a professional journalist in detail about the industry, which she plans to do after sitting her exams as she doesn’t want to feel pressured beforehand.

Her relationship with her parents is relatively close, although she continues to wish she could spend more time with them, as Miriana has also now returned to work full time, often leaving Luca alone in the house for dinner or other traditional times of family gathering. This is something that Luca accepts, but resents, feeling like she doesn’t have the same amount of support that her friends at school have.

Advantages: Luca is physically active and has experience with strenuous physical activity, which will give her a physical advantage over others. Luca also has a reputation of being helpful and hardworking, which may help her to acquire allies on the island.

Disadvantages: Luca lacks self-restraint and is unable to pace herself, often wearing herself out or rushing ahead over moving at a steady pace, which may lead to her being easily caught by more patient players. Luca finds it hard to socialise with people she doesn’t know, which may make it harder for her to make allies on the island.

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

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

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