Soraya Martinez

[Carrion Queen]

Name: Soraya Martinez
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Place of Residence: Belize City, Belize
Language/s: English, Spanish, some K'iche'
Hobbies and Interests: Diving, swimming, collecting foreign coins and bills, telenovelas, Guatemalan cooking

Appearance: Soraya stands at 162 centimeters tall and weighs 57 kilograms. Her face is round and she has a medium-tan complexion with warm undertones. She has almond-shaped, dark brown eyes that turn up on the corners, a straight nose with slightly flat nostrils, and lips that have a distinct Cupid's bow and slightly larger lower lip than upper lip. She has shiny, dark brown hair that she wears in a bob reaching her shoulders and wears her hair in a part to the right so that it sweeps over the left part of her face, covering one eyebrow. Her eyebrows are thick but are meticulously groomed. She has a birthmark under the outer corner of her right eye. Soraya has a generally muscular body type from her various hobbies and working out. On the day of abduction, she was wearing a white, knee-length dress with a Peter Pan collar and a green tie.

Biography: Soraya was born in Antigua, Guatemala to Maria and Luis and would be their only daughter. Maria was and is a waitress and at the time that Soraya was born, Luis was going to school for hospitality management. They had been dating but were married quickly after finding out that Maria was pregnant. Their relationship was good, though somewhat tumultuous due to their strong personalities. Eventually, Luis was offered a low-level position at a resort in Belize. Wanting to take the opportunity, he accepted the job. Maria was unwilling to move away from her home and family and although they never formally divorced, they separated when Luis moved when Soraya was seven years old. Luis sends back money to support his daughter and tries to talk to her on the phone weekly.

Soraya was spritely and stubborn from a young age. She had many friends as a young child. She was known as very funny and a responsible person who would help set up games or help organize activities if her class wanted to do something. However, she was also very stubborn and would get angry if people challenged what she wanted to do. While popular, she also had a reputation of being bossy. She was also known as a loyal person, sticking by friends and projects no matter what.

Soraya would often be babysat by her maternal grandmother, Akna, who lived nearby. Her grandmother was originally from Chichicastenango, located in the Quiché Department of Guatemala, where K'iche' is one of the most widely spoken languages. Her grandmother occasionally speaking in K'iche' -- along with the fact that the language is the second most dominant language in the country behind Spanish, resulting in her hearing it from neighbors occasionally -- meant that Soraya came to know some of the language. Her grandmother would also make her traditional dishes for dinner and tell her stories, which she enjoyed greatly. She also encouraged Soraya's headstrong personality. When she was 9, her grandmother unfortunately passed away.

After this, she would often be on her own when she returned from school while waiting for her mother to return from work, but was generally responsible and would do her homework and made dinner. When her mother would get home, the two of them would watch telenovelas together -- an activity that continued into her teen years. Soraya loves the intrigue and adventure as well as the twists and turns in these shows. Though responsible, she sometimes daydreams of being a novela heroine. Some of her favorites include Maria Del Barrio, La Fea Más Bella, El Clon, La Madrastra, and Rubi. She especially idolizes the titular main character of Rubi.

In middle school, she continued being generally well-regarded by her peers and had above-average grades. Noticing she was starting to be out of shape, she and her mother agreed she would choose a sport to do. After trying a few, she found that she enjoyed swimming and enrolled in an after school club that meets at a local high school for practice. As a member of the swim team, she would make sure that equipment was put away properly at the end of practice.

When she reached high school, her father had a proposition for her over one of their weekly phone calls. He had been promoted to one of the managers at the resort where he worked. His standard of living was now fairly good and he proposed that Soraya would have more opportunities going to school in Belize, refining her English, and also offered to get her a job at the resort, gaining even more skills.

Her father had become a citizen via naturalization after living in the country after five years. As the child of a citizen, Soraya was entitled to citizenship. However, due to a long-standing territory dispute between Belize and Guatemala, Belize requires those from Guatemala who are obtaining citizenship to renounce their Guatemalan citizenship. At first Soraya was very reluctant to accept this idea. She discussed it at length with her mother, who convinced her that it would be an unmatched opportunity to go to an excellent high school in Belize City and learn about the lucrative tourism industry there from her father. After much discussion, Soraya agreed.

She started high school in Belize City at Belize High School. They were the first school in Belize to utilize the Smart Board and the only high school in Belize where laptops are required in classes. The classes were more difficult than what she had been used to previously. After a dip in her grades initially, she was able to recover and now maintains above average grades in high school as well. Things were awkward with her father at first but became more relaxed as some time went by. They are not as close as she is with her mother, but Soraya and her father are cordial and have a relationship akin to coworkers rather than parent and daughter. On a few occasions, her father has expressed a desire to be closer and less like business associates. Soraya refuses to entertain notions that their relationship needs improvements and insists that their relationship is find as it is. At times when she and her father butt heads about something that they cannot come to an agreement on, they tend to storm to their respective rooms -- with Soraya slamming as many doors as she could and pouting into the next day.

Soraya continued swimming, joining the school team. She continues to help organize things for the team, taking on the role of team manager. Soraya finds swimming to be a calming, familiar activity that is akin to meditation. Although she is generally regarded as someone who does a good job with her responsibilities as a team manager, she is still seen as someone who doesn't take doubts to her decision-making well. Soraya has chewed out some team members who she felt weren't putting away kick boards and fins properly During another incident, she disagreed with a coach about event assignments and flipped a plastic table holding bowls of chips when he would not concede to her point. She earned two weeks detention and was made to clean up the chips. Her events are the 200 IM and 100 Fly during competitions.

When she was 15, her father got her a weekend job at the resort he helps manage. Soraya started out as a gym attendant, checking people in, handing out towels, and noting which people had signed up for which class. Tourists from around the world would throw a few coins into the tip jar by her desk and after some time, she decided to collect these. She maintains a binder with coins from many, many different countries that guests have given her. Soraya likes to look at them and daydream about visiting all of the locales the coins came from.

Eventually, she was given a chance to lead the "Water aerobics for seniors" class on Sunday mornings. One weekend, she decided to take one of the guided diving expeditions that the resort offered for beginners. Soraya found it so much fun that she decided to continue attending. At age 16 she got her diving certification.

As Soraya gets closer to her graduation, she feels more and more guilt for renouncing her Guatemalan citizenship. She feels somewhat that she denied a part of herself and her family in order to put herself in a better situation for success. To try and keep hold of her connection to her homeland, she has made a hobby of making traditional Guatemalan foods at home that her grandmother once made. She likes to make pepian, kak’ik, pupusas, and atol among other things. When she makes and eats these, she feels both happy that she can have these foods again, but guilt for turning her back on her former home.

Soraya plans to go to college but isn't sure what she wants to do. Her current plan is to get her divemaster certification and perhaps travel for a year, making extra money as a dive instructor.

Advantages: Soraya is personable, hard-working, and determined. She knows some first aid due to taking classes for her job. Her stamina and strength are good from swimming.
Disadvantages: She is a stubborn person and does not like to compromise. She sometimes daydreams excessively when unhappy.

[Cicadan]

Hey there, welcome to International! I'll be doing profile critique for ya today.

[+] critiques

she a medium tanned complexion with red undertones

Missing a word there.

However, she is also very stubborn and would get angry

Inconsistent tense with the rest of the paragraph- was.

Soraya is fit, personable, hard-working, and determined

Oddly structured list here, 'fit' doesn't quite fit in with mental attributes, unless you meant mental fitness I suppose, which would probably be best described by another word. If you meant physical fitness then that's redundant and already described by her advantage detailing her swimming stamina.

Some more general things:

I don't believe any of her disadvantages really come across in terms of examples. There's a bit about how she was headstrong and difficult when she did swim club in Guatemala, but that's far enough into the past that I'd also like more recent examples of some of the problems her behavioral tendencies have caused her that justify the way her disadvantages are in their current form. Perhaps issues she's had at work, or at school, or going into further detail into possible difficulties she's had with her father?

She can turn some people away with an insistence that her way is the right way and her personality can be a bit overbearing. She is stubborn and will often not alter course if she's decided on something, even if there is evidence it is no longer a good idea.

Also, this functionally reads to me as the same disadvantage twice, worded differently each time. The first disadvantage is more like a social consequence of her overall being a stubborn person, essentially.

Could you briefly describe when and how she picked up her K'iche' comprehension?

Feel free to ping me on Discord or PM me when you're ready for me to take another look!

[Carrion Queen]

Ready!

[Cicadan]

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you here. Excellent additions there, you're almost done. Still need to fix this sentence though:

'Her face is round and she [has] a medium-tan complexion with warm undertones'

[Carrion Queen]

Sorry about that. Done and done.

[Cicadan]

Approved. Welcome to Mini, Rugga.

[The Honeless Beard]

By handler request, this character has been moved to forfeited/abandoned.

[The Honeless Beard]

This character has been re-entered by handler request.