Ivan Rodriguez

[The Honeless Beard]

Name: Ivan Rodriguez
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: Senior (12)
Hobbies and Interests: SOTF-TV, track and field, airsoft, MOBAs, management simulators

Appearance: Ivan has dark skin and dark brown eyes, being of Cuban descent. Ivan has dark hair that he keeps short and in a low fade, with the top of his hair kept in tight twists. He has thin eyebrows, dark hooded eyes, and a wide nose that juts prominently outwards, looking like a beak in profile. He also has thin lips that twist downwards on the left side of his face.

Ivan stands at 5’10” and weighs 180 lbs. His body tends towards the lean side, shaped by his hobbies in high jump, wind sprints, and long distance running. On his left hand, the skin on his knuckles is notably darker than on his right from an accident with a grinding wheel a few months ago, and the skin is nearly fully healed. He has long legs and a short torso.

Ivan’s proud of his level of fitness and displays it by wearing shirts that are frequently too small on his frame, showing off his chest and back. On casting day, Ivan was wearing a grey t-shirt with the words “I can explain it to you but I can’t understand it for you” in white, faded from many washes and a size too small. He was also wearing comfortably worn grey jeans, Hurley branded high top sneakers, and a simple gold chain around his neck.

Biography: Born to Manuel “Papi” Rodriguez and Isabella DiPietro, co-founders of the Papi Podcast Network, Ivan grew up an only child in Fort Lauderdale, wealthy and privileged. Papi Rodriguez found fame and fortune by hosting an SOTF-TV centric podcast discussing the show, the drama behind the show, and having a rotating cast of friends of his from college days mixed with experts in MMA, firearms, the medical field, and the occasional winner of the season. With the explosive popularity of recent SOTF-TV, they live quite comfortably. Before finding this success, Papi worked as an on-air producer in Miami’s sports scene, and Isabella was an editor specializing in audio work for two short lived sitcoms that played in the local market. Their financial situation was comfortable, but not flashy off of these dual incomes, and their work gave them the tools they needed to start the podcast in 2006, and the network connections they needed to launch the Papi Podcast Network in 2007.

Ivan’s formative years were surrounded by discussion of SOTF-TV by his parents, from what was seen on the screen to the mechanics of how the show operated and was produced. He has been watching full seasons of the show since he was very young, and to this day retains a very good knowledge of even early seasons, upon various re-watches and analysis. Ivan’s parents both had equal hand in his raising, though with Papi’s ascent to stardom, Papi tended to be the more present parent in Ivan’s life, as Isabella’s role in the podcast became more and more demanding between booking guests, editing and sound mixing, and bringing more and more talent and content to the network. Ivan’s schooling didn’t prove a challenge, as he was always a bright boy when it came to numbers and statistics. When it came to creativity, he was less than enthusiastic, oftentimes gritting his teeth and getting through, not seeing the point of such exercises. Due to his love of SOTF, Ivan got into SOTF Champions upon its release, loving both the reflexes required and the stat-tracking elements of it. He mains Travis “Bug” Hood, but can flex to top as Wargrave if bans don’t go his way. Eventually, Ivan realized that statistic tracking and optimization was relaxing for him and so took up games like Merch Manager or WNBA Manager in his free time.

When he was 8 years old, he decided that what he wanted to be when he grew up was a winner of SOTF-TV. His parents, despite hitching their livelihood to the show, tried to quell this desire in him off and on throughout his life - out of concern for his obsession and the looming realism of how slim the chances of being cast actually were. As part of this attempt, Papi introduced him to Gerald O’Neal, winner of Season 10, who’s most famous for winning one of the worst seasons in SOTF history, when Ivan was twelve. Papi believed that Ivan would learn the horrors of SOTF - even winning - and be dissuaded, but the conversation incentivized Ivan even more, having been a huge fan of the winner’s tactics in the dying hours of the season as well as the infamy he achieved from them.

Ivan’s dedication to being cast eventually led him to begin taking care of his body, having often heard his father and guests discussing how physically fit cast members tended to go further in the early game. He started running track and participating in the high jump at school, and found he actually enjoyed physical activity. Most of his summers were spent on a loose training regimen when he was fourteen - modelling his workouts on previous winner Christian Greene’s level of fitness and buoyed by the advice of Sterling Mitchell, a personal trainer usually employed by SOTF-TV producers in order to have the winners looking their best.

Airsoft also called Ivan when he was in middle school, him seeing it as the closest he’d be in an actual firefight. He was hooked on it ever since an event he attended had a Battle Royale theme, and the rush of the ever tightening circle and thrill of the combat had him begging for equipment, membership access, anything he could get his hands on. The agreement made with his parents was that as long as he both maintained a high grade average and pass the scholarship test to Mangrove, he would be bought his own set of gear and would be able to continue playing Airsoft. This has motivated his high grade average all through high school, and became much easier when he could select his courses and stick to sciences and maths - he currently sits in the top 25% of mangrove students. Many summers were dedicated to Airsoft tournaments and events, and Ivan is a local name in Miami, consistently considered a tough out by his opponents but not a perennial winner.

In high school, Ivan has few friends and is largely regarded as a very intense person. Most of his positive relationships have been made via online forums, mostly dedicated to SOTF-TV and discussions on the show. Currently, he considers himself to be in a relationship with a girl from Missouri a year younger than himself named Janet, who goes by BaredClayton online. They met during a three day Airsoft retreat the previous summer, and their relationship has lasted a little over a year. They have never met face to face again, though have video chatted extensively and he talks to her online nearly every day. They are taking it slow, which gives him some anxiety as to whether she takes the relationship as seriously as he does. He also has several friends he met through SOTF themed forums and discord channels, though his constant arguments in which his opinion is treated as the objective truth does alienate a lot of the community in which he circulates. This has resulted in more than one ban to a community due to intense argument on a point, sometimes resulting in personal attacks if he feels the pushback is strong enough on SOTF related discussion. His father’s role in the SOTF-TV media machine has led Ivan to believe that he knows the most about the show, and people should bow to his insight. He’s learned to mask this approach as time has gone on.

As a result of these online relationships, Ivan doesn’t put a lot of effort into connecting with his high school peers unless about the topic of SOTF-TV, which he is extremely passionate about. He takes the stance of knowing everything about the show, and while he engages with his peers regarding the subject, he more uses the opportunities to flex his knowledge to impress or dominate, which often results in alienating them. On other topics like sports or Airsoft, he’s much more amenable and personable. On group projects, Ivan often finds himself in the objectionable spot of doing most of the heavy lifting, due to finding common ground quite difficult for him. His peers find him unpleasant to achieve goals with due to his insistence that his way is the correct way, and he much prefers going it alone.

Advantages: Ivan is very physically gifted, and is especially good at running long distances and moving quickly. Ivan’s experience with airsoft should provide a limited amount of experience in a gunfight.
Disadvantages: Ivan’s standoffish nature and abrasive personality put him at a disadvantage with his peers with regard to making alliances or appeals to emotion. Ivan isn’t someone who changes his mind easily once he has decided on a course of action - he prefers to stick to the initial plan, viewing changing course due to flaws as a form of compromise.

[MurderWeasel]

Greetings Mysterious Mr. G and welcome to SOTF Mini!

Ivan is like a solid start but he is DENIEDE pending some edits and expansions.

What color specifically are Ivan's eyes? They're stated to be dark twice, but dark brown? Dark blue?

At 5'10" and 195 lbs, Ivan's actually pretty hefty—in the top 20% by weight for his height and age. Can I maybe hear a bit more about his build to explain why he's lean despite being comparatively heavy (is his weight just super concentrated in muscle?) or see it knocked down ten pounds or so or both? Also, we don't need the weight to a decimal point; people's weight fluctuates day by day and as long as it's to the closest five pounds or so that's fine.

Can I hear a bit more about what Ivan's parents' life/financial situation was like prior to SOTF/at the time of Ivan's birth? At 17 in 2021, Ivan would've been born in 2003 or 2004, and SOTF-TV didn't launch until 2006 (and it presumably took a little while even then for the podcast to achieve critical mass).

I'd also like to hear a bit more about why they tried to discourage his SOTF dreams. Did they think he was leaning down the wrong road? Did they just realistically note that his odds of being picked were miniscule? Have they ever tried to impress upon him just how brutal the game can be (and has Ivan, given their access, ever gotten to interact with anyone who's been there, to possibly shape his perspective)?

I'd like to hear some more about Ivan's early life. Who took care of him when he was young? What was his early school life like? What did he do with his free time up until his early teens, when it seems like his current hobbies most came into focus?

Did getting good grades come easily to Ivan, or was it a struggle? What subjects is he best at? Are there any he especially has trouble with? Also, how good is he at airsoft?

I'd like to hear a bit more about a few aspects of Ivan's life, in school and outside of it. Can I maybe get one specific defining element to each parent's relationship with Ivan so they're less functioning as a single unit? Is he an only child, or does he have siblings (and if he does can I hear about them)? What's his girlfriend's name, and how did they meet? Have they ever interacted in person, or are they purely long-distance? What does their relationship look like? Are Ivan's feelings reciprocated (right now it's phrased pretty ambiguously)? How does it go when he has to interact with classmates in collaborative settings (say, group projects)? Did he get into Mangrove Garden via the scholarship test, or through his parents paying admission?

Also, can I maybe get one hobby or interest for Ivan that doesn't center around SOTF? Even if he's super focused, surely he takes a night off now and then!

When it comes to disadvantages, I don't quite follow Ivan's difficulties with behavior prediction—do you mean he struggles to predict others, or that he's difficult for them to predict?

"Ivan believes he has a plan for any outcome, which results in awry plans failing him." <- This is also a little tricky to parse. What sort of plans does Ivan have? What specifically happens when they fail? How has this manifested and given him difficulty in his normal life? What makes it especially disadvantageous?

Post when you've got things tweaked, and we'll give Ivan another look. Thanks!

[The Honeless Beard]

Changelog v1:
Appearance section:
-Added 'brown' to eye colour
-Removed 15lbs from Ivan's weight
-Removed decimal place
Biography section:
-Added clarification regarding the Papi Podcast Network and Ivan's parent's financial situation before the podcast gained fame
-Added more discouraging discourse disregarding dapper Ivan's defiant determination to deep-dive on SOTF.
-Added more school stuff.
-Took any chance I could get to make WNBA manager a canon game.
-Added more details on who Ivan mains in SOTF Champions
-he's an airsoft god now, he rules the beads, he hides in bushes and gets hit in trees
-Added more details on his girlfriend/their relationship
-Added clarifications around his school peers
Disadvantages section:
-Rewrote the whole thing

Let me know what you think.

[MurderWeasel]

Hey again!

Ivan's looking better, but a few issues persist!

First off, I missed this last time, but that semicolon in the age field should be an actual colon instead. I'm sure this was just an errant slip of the shift key and not any sort of sneaky test whatsoever.

We can lose the fraction when it comes to Ivan's weight! SOTF-TV isn't as stringent about weigh-ins as other combat sports, so a ballpark figure is just fine.

Can we maybe get Ivan's only child status moved earlier in the paragraph for flow purposes? Right now it kind of feels out of place. Perhaps after "wealthy and privileged."?

In the interests of avoiding adding cumbersome amounts of world-building, I'd like to suggest/ask that either Isabella's sitcom experience be left vague (that is, not given specific show names) or that we get a little more detail on the shows, ideally placing them somewhere nice and niche that clarifies they're fairly local and not super well-remembered, so it's not strange when other characters don't necessarily reference/recognize them.

Right now, Ivan apparently started airsoft in his junior year of high school, but also his continued playing is contingent upon his passing the entry scholarship exam for high school. This presents a slight chronological hurdle; maybe his interest can be kicked a couple years earlier and his first set of gear can become a reward for getting the scholarship?

Also, while we're at it, Mangrove Garden has traditional grades but also uses a ranking system which gets more attention from the teachers. Can I hear about where in the grand scheme of the class Ivan ranks? Top twenty percent is quite good, and top ten or so would make him quite the academic.

I'd ideally like to see it clarified that StoolEvans is Janet's screen name—the phrasing right now is fairly clear but a little awkward. Can I also hear a little more about what drew them together? How did they meet and start dating?

We don't need to specifically know that the couple hasn't said "I love you" yet unless it's a specific important factor to Ivan (and if it is, I'd like to hear just a bit more about why and also to see it rephrased to remove the direct quotation, which suggests importance through an unreliable narrator and thus makes the profile slightly more difficult to follow). Also, Ivan's online relationships are referred to in the plural—is this a typo, or are most of his platonic friends also online?

Why do Ivan's peers find him an unpleasant partner in projects?

Can I hear more about Ivan's inflexibility in his biography? Where does it crop up in his normal life, and what sort of trouble does it cause him?

Post when you've got that taken care of, and we'll give Ivan another look. Thanks!

[The Honeless Beard]

Changelog v2:

Age section:
-Replaced the semi-colon with a colon, having taken advantage of your sleepy state
Appearance section:
-Fixed the fraction in the weight section, also didn't use a decimal
Biography section:
-Moved Ivan's lonely child status to the top of the paragraph, for flow purposes.
-Removed the titles of the sitcoms, changed 'long-running' to 'short lived', added that they played in the local market
-Took up MurderWeasel's great suggestion regarding the Airsoft equipment/academics enquiry. MurderWeasel suggestions have kept me sustained. MurderWeasel's suggestions made me who I am. All hail MurderWeasel.
-Added more on StoolEvans - classic MurderWeasel, focusing on the shoutout to his own garbage winner. I no longer hail MurderWeasel.
-Added more details regarding inflexibility.

[MurderWeasel]

Ivan's getting closer, but a few wrinkles still persist!

I'd like to have his weight in American standard pounds, rounded to the nearest multiple of five, as that makes for the most immediately understandable unit of measurement for other handlers.

Ivan is stated to have met Janet on an airsoft retreat (which implies in-person) but later to have never met her face to face. Which is it, or if both are true, how did that work out precisely?

Also, while we're at it, since your note clarified that Janet's username is a reference to the Season 66 contestant, that creates a slight anachronism—Season 66 aired starting in mid-December 2020, and the TV3 kids are taken in mid-April, only four months later. This makes it an odd username to have for over a year! It can either shift to something less anachronistic, or she can have changed from something else (in which case I'd be curious to hear what her old UN was).

How did Ivan feel about getting banned from various communities? What is the root cause of his certainty that he's always in the right?

Post when you've got that taken care of, and we'll give Ivan another look. Thanks!

[The Honeless Beard]

changelog v3:

Appearance section:
-changed his weight to american standard pounds, rounded to the nearest five.
Biography section:
-Fixed Time Crime
-Fixed meeting whaoosits
-paused to look at the calendar and wonder where the last 5 days went
-elaborated on bans

[MurderWeasel]

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