What's in a Name?

Karen Roberts

Karen Roberts- Chinese ancestry; Karen Roberts is a calculating and duplicitous girl who is Merissa Lovato's best friend and most frequent companion in her schemes. She is the adoptive daughter of a white upper middle class lesbian couple from the privileged West Village of Manhattan and spent 2 years living in Singapore. Prim and proper, she is a button-down keener on the outside, yet an erratic thrill-seeker on the inside who enjoys living in the moment. She is rather humorous and sarcastic and behaves like a free-spirit, as evidenced in her choosing to experiment with temporary hair dye and the "black metal look" against her parent's wishes. Like Merissa, she has an affinity for heavy metal music and has shown an interest in various countercultures, most notably the growing punk rock scene at her school. She is described as having "a sweet tooth for naughtiness" and lies to her mother about her activities with Merissa and their friends. Unlike most girls her age, she is very interested in blood and gore and doesn't seem to be at all bothered by violence in video games and movies. She regularly curses and is surprisingly fond of Hello Kitty comics, as well as Clint Eastwood and John Woo films. Karen was formerly an insecure child who was concerned with fitting in and tended to be self-deprecating, feeling isolated and being bullied frequently by older girls. She was mild-mannered and shown to be wide-eyed and emotional, causing her to wear her heart on her sleeve as she was growing up. She excelled academically and was formerly enrolled in a preparatory school for girls, as her mothers intended for her to be challenged so that she would eventually attend an Ivy League School. She progressively became more confident in herself however as she slowly grew comfortable pursuing friendships with both genders upon reaching adolescence. 

As a teenager, Karen tends to give less regard to what other people think of her, and when targeting a subject of interest, can be unintentionally blunt to the point of rudeness and vulgarity. She is seen as "a good kind of crazy", as she humors people with her zaniness and sarcasm and is almost characteristically noted for her fondness of mentioning and discussing awkward subjects. While she is seemingly very friendly and laidback to most people, her personality is hard to categorize according to her peers, as she tends to have different personas that are rather contrasting. She will occasionally reveal a chaotic side to herself that appears "loud in your face" and defies her otherwise calm, graceful aura. Karen was in a committed relationship with a Chinese boy whom she met from a different school and dated him steadily for several years, despite her unhappiness in being involved with him. She became more involved in art electives as she matured and defied her family's interests as she expressed desires to be a videographer. Being an avid party animal, she has energy to use and give, which along with her punk style causes her to be seen as fun-loving and rather eccentric. She tries to be caring toward her close friends nonetheless and can be surprisingly empathetic, being willing to put herself in people's shoes and relate to their struggles. Karen is commonly shown to simply be a down-to-earth, kind, and wholehearted person that sticks to herself and rarely shows emotion as a teen, seeking to live a peaceful high school life. If there is one thing that remains constant between her two personas, it is her love for nature and devotion to saving the environment. She is extremely passionate about saving the flora, as she finds what humans and fellow students do to the world to be intolerable and hates that she rarely sees others trying to save it. 

As the daughter of "bourgeoise bohemians", she adopted an alternative lifestyle from an early age and showed an interest in veganism and protecting animal rights, a decision that was largely influenced by her adoptive mother's previous work as a sustainability science researcher for Amazon. Karen enjoys health food and considers her favorite meals to be tofu and brown rice from the local restaurant, as well as tofu and vegetable curry, which she would prepare for her friends at the previous all-girls school she attended. She can usually be seen handing out flyers or organizing eco-friendly activities to encourage people to do small things like sort trash and tend to the flora surrounding the school. She aspires to attend a small liberal arts college in the Northeast and potentially study a course of work related to biochemistry or environmentalism. She also shows an interest in entering the creative field with her love of producing fan made artwork and videos for her favorite cartoon series South Park to post under the username "Herbimetal". Karen knows little about her Chinese origins other than that she was born to a young mother who lacked the proper resources to support her at the time of her birth. Despite her Asian roots, she has largely assimilated to American culture and considers it to be the only true heritage she knows. She stands at around average height at 5 ft. 4 and has long, straight black hair that is usually styled with headbands and falls to her lower back. She wears glasses and has a narrow face with small, crescent-shaped brown eyes, a small nose with a bulbous tip, and a peach complexion. Karen's style tends to be very feminine and has often been described by her peers as "preppy, yet casual" with her love of using pale amaranth lipstick.