Cory Cartwright

[Dogs231]

Name: Cory Cartwright
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12
Hobbies and Interests: Mathematics, chess, literature, mystery novels, creative writing.

Appearance: Cory stands at a smaller than average 5'6 and weighs in at around 120 pounds, with a small frame. He has dark skin as a result of his African-American background. He has short, curly, and dense hair which is styled as a cropped afro. His face is heart-shaped, with a rounded jaw, straight white teeth, and a narrow, flat nose. He has soft, expressive dark-brown eyes with a round shape, small, downturned lips, freckles, softly angled, thin eyebrows, and an overall youthful appearance that, combined with his diminutive and soft appearance, makes him look slightly younger than he is. He lacks any real amount of facial hair, having no interest or ability in growing it, and has a fairly smooth complexion, with little in the way of acne. He has a soft voice, slightly on the higher end for boys his age.

Cory adheres to the dress code, usually wearing either a buttoned-up shirt with a tie, or combining it with a formal jacket. He wears a pair of small, rectangular glasses a majority of the time due to mild myopia. On casting day, Cory wore his glasses, a pale orange-colored buttoned cardigan with a shawl collar, a white buttoned-up shirt paired with a black tie, and loose, light-blue denim jeans.

Biography: Cory Cartwright was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Iker Cartwright, a mathematics teacher at the local middle school, and his wife Monique Cartwright (née Bailey), an author who found mild success writing mystery novels. Their jobs together provided enough income for the family to live comfortably in the upper-middle class, and the Cartwright household never struggled financially.

Cory was outgoing, curious, and inquisitive as a child, but often failed to find common ground with his peers, lacking similar interests in things like television, movies, and sports, and was often made fun of for a variety of reasons, including his need to wear glasses, his small stature, his intelligence, and his status as a pushover who rarely stood up to himself, making it easy to target him. He became more reserved and withdrawn over time, having regretted attempting to make friends with his classmates.

With his lack of friends to spend his ample amount of time with, Cory buried himself in his schoolwork, and consistently achieved stellar grades, with his strong suit being mathematics, a subject he absolutely loved and in which he greatly outpaced his less academically-gifted peers. His father was thrilled by this, and encouraged him, often helping Cory study, and rewarding him for good grades and test scores by taking him out for food or dessert as a treat. Throughout his early schooling, Cory had little trouble, even in subjects that he preferred less, such as history, helped by a rigorous study regimen that he himself enjoyed.

Going into middle school, his grades continued to soar, culminating with his discovery of a passion for reading. He was often several chapters ahead of the rest of his peers when reading assigned books, and was often reprimanded by his teacher for his perceived inattentiveness, though he did not typically heed her directions to maintain the slower pace that his classmates read at. This led to a report card in which his teacher complained about his inability to simply slow down and read at the rate others did, which frustrated his mother, who told her that she would do nothing in her power to dissuade him from reading.

Cory would often read the eclectic variety of books contained in his family's library, ranging from light-hearted manga to cosmic horror stories. Cory's mother encouraged him to branch out into writing his own stories, something which he did not immediately take to heart. Then, nearing the end of middle school, he read one of her books for the first time, and became truly enamored with the mystery genre. He began to try his hand at the craft, creating little short stories, though he never had the confidence to show them to anyone. He has gradually improved his skills, and often pours his heart into his work, but he still feels his talent is miniscule in comparison to his mother.

Around the same time, Cory began to learn how to play chess, with the help of his father, who began to teach him what he knew of the game. Cory practiced often, and eventually was able to play against his father on more equal footing. As time went on, he continued to improve at the game, becoming a moderately skilled player for his age, though he does not often choose to compete in more competitive games. His style of play is very defensive, taking some inspiration from Tigran Petrosian, a Soviet grandmaster who Cory found out about while reading about chess, and while his safety in playing often gives him an upper hand against more aggressive opponents, he usually fails to capitalize on the mistakes of his opponents, leading to him missing opportunities to gain advantages.

Cory made very few friends in school, and was often bullied throughout his time in the Fort Lauderdale public education system. This led to him becoming deeply cautious and risk-averse, preferring to simply not attempt to make friends over the possibility of failure, a mindset that would remain and spread throughout his life. Over time, he stopped making attempts to reach out, and became withdrawn, choosing to keep his head down and stay out of trouble, which led to less negative attention by his peers.

While Cory made attempts to downplay the bullying he received, to try and avoid drawing attention to himself, his parents quickly noticed, and contacted the school about the problem. While the bullying initially improved, the school had difficulty properly addressing the problem, and few meaningful changes occurred in the long term. Cory also began to become bored with the curriculum, often finishing assignments early and having little else to do in class.

A combination of the bullying Cory faced, his lack of meaningful friendships, and his growing discontent at the relative lack of challenge he faced in public school led his parents to attempt to find other options for his education. They found what they considered the perfect opportunity to try and solve these problems when they learned of a private academy in the next town over supplying scholarships to particularly academically gifted students, and had Cory take the acceptance test for application into Mangrove Garden High School, which he passed with flying colors. As he placed in the top fifty students of his gender, he was given a scholarship to the school, which served to make the fairly long commute to the school more acceptable to his parents.

However, his social life remained poor. Cory proved to handle significant changes in his life worse than expected, and for a period of time had trouble adjusting to the new setting, though he remedied this by beginning to transform his study regimen into a more general schedule to follow, which allowed him to adapt somewhat quickly. He did not find as many new friends as his parents had hoped, and while he found like-minded peers amongst the Mathematical Olympiad and the Chess Club, he kept other students at an arm's length, preferring his time-tested strategy of keeping himself out of trouble and keeping his head down. While he succeeded at avoiding the attention of his peers, who scarcely noticed Cory, he remains lonely and unconfident in himself.

Cory has continued to academically excel, and he has recently applied to the University of Chicago's mathematics program, seeking to pursue a career in that field, though he is secretly torn about whether he truly wants to go into mathematics or pursue a career in mystery writing, and this has caused him to question what he wants to do in life. He has applied for merit-based scholarships to help afford the costs of tuition, and has succeeded at gaining a few. It is expected that he'll succeed in gaining admittance.

Cory's relationship with his family remains very positive, and he is close with both of his parents, who have continued to support him unconditionally. However, they worry that their son's isolationist and risk-averse personality may hinder him later in life, and have encouraged him to be more open to his peers. He has not had success romantically or socially at his new school, and remains fairly lonesome, though his participation in extra-curricular activity has led to him achieving some limited connections to others.

Cory maintains a strong moral compass, and while he makes few attempts to involve himself in the lives of his peers, he shudders at the thought of causing anyone else discomfort or distress, and does not like to judge or think ill of other people. He is a kind, calm person beneath his lonely exterior, and is a good sport and offers occasional advice to other members of the Chess Club, though this is infrequent and he prefers to fade into the background.

Cory and his family are troubled by the concept of Survival of the Fittest. His parents hold a dislike for the violent and cruel nature of the show, and find no appeal or worth in the concept, though they are not actively involved in protest movements against it. His mother has considered contributing articles condemning the show to the local newspaper, and while his father has pushed for her to do so, she remains unsure, worried that it may bring negative attention to the family. Cory himself is disturbed by the show and refuses to watch or discuss it in any meaningful capacity, often avoiding conversations that involve it. The show is never played in the house due to the disdain for it by the family, and so Cory knows little about the show other than what he has gleamed from discussions relating to it.

Advantages: Cory is extremely intelligent, and his combination of a calm, quiet disposition and kind personality may help him gain allies. His small frame may help him to hide and avoid his fellow students. His success at keeping his head down and lack of notability may lead other students to count him out, or even forget about him entirely.
Disadvantages: Cory is by no means suited to something like Survival of the Fittest. He is physically weak, notably timid, and feels sick at the thought of causing harm to others. His lack of friendships may leave him without clear allies to look for. He lacks almost any knowledge of Survival of the Fittest due to his and his parent's opposition to the show.

[Namira]

Hi dogs321, welcome to SOTF Mini, and apologies for the delay here! Cory here is good, and just needs a few points elaborated upon before approval.

Going into middle school, his grades continued to soar, culminating with his discovery of a passion for reading. He was often several chapters ahead of the rest of his peers when reading assigned books, and was often reprimanded by his teacher, though he disregarded her directions to maintain the slower pace that his classmates read at. This culminated in a parent-teacher meeting where his teacher complained about his inability to simply slow down and read at the rate others did, which deeply infuriated his mother. She openly rebuked the teacher, and stated that she would do nothing in her power to dissuade him from reading.

The above paragraph comes off a little odd to me and I would like some expansion on the detail. Was Cory being disruptive or inattentive by keeping a different pace in his reading? Essentially I'm struggling to see why this would get him reprimanded and it sticks out strangely as it comes over as the teacher being unduly harsh, especially as the thread is dropped entirely after being enough to bring to a parent/teacher conference.

-
'He would often read the eclectic variety of books contained in his family's library, ranging from light-hearted manga to cosmic horror stories.'

-> Cory would often read

'She encouraged him to branch out into writing his own stories, something which he did not immediately take to heart.'

-> Cory's mom encouraged him


Generally speaking, you tend to start biography paragraphs with the pronoun instead of Cory's name. This isn't really a huge issue--if there was nothing else to comment on, I wouldn't bring this up, but since I'm critiquing--it would improve the profile to trade some of the He/His for just Cory.


Cory has been bullied an awful lot through his life, which seemingly endured from elementary through to middle school and potentially beyond. Have his parents taken much notice? What about school? At the moment it seems all his parents did was send him to Mangrove, which is something at least, but I'd like the bullying problem to be fleshed out more and if it's kept from school and parents both, how Cory did that.

Chess comes into the picture very late in the biography. How and when did Cory get interested in the game? Is he any good at it?

I'd like to see you expand on SOTF-TV in the biography itself. It appears as a disadvantage but is not actually mentioned within the detail earlier on; I'm particularly curious because it's described as Cory and his parents having an opposition to the show. That's a strong piece of phrasing and I am interested in seeing more about that.

Let me know when you've made edits and I'll take another look!

[Dogs231]

I've made edits to the profile.

I edited the section on the reading ahead to be less harsh, reworking a few aspects, I replaced some of the starting He/His to Cory's name, elaborated on his parent's responses to the bullying and why it didn't improve, explained his interest in chess, and elaborated on why the Cartwrights dislike SOTF, and what their responses to it are. I hope that it's looking better now.

[Namira]

Approved.