Martha Stock

[Deamon]

Name: Martha Stock

Gender: Female
Age: 17

Hobbies and Interests: Volleyball, gardening, retro sports fashion, sports history, partying with friends

Appearance: Martha is 5’9” and weighs 130lbs. She is Caucasian and has a small round face, which serves to emphasise her large round bright blue eyes. Her hair is a dirty shade of blonde that almost looks brown, she prefers to keep it shoulder length and tied back in a ponytail or in two braids. Her nose is also rather small, further emphasising her eyes. She normally doesn’t wear much make up and when she does it’s mainly lip gloss to make her lips appear plumper. But if she is going to a party or event she puts blush, eyeshadow and eyeliner on, she tends to keep her eye makeup to colours that emphasise her the colour of her eyes. Martha has previously had her ears pierced but did not have any piercings in for the travel portion of the trip. As a result of living in Whistler prior to entering high school Martha has retained much of her natural Canadian accent, which is noticeable whenever she talks.

Martha likes to wear retro sports t-shirts, tank tops, jumpers and jackets that she finds in various vintage stores around Saint Paul. As well as tight-fitting jeans or shorts and a tank top if the weather is warm. She can also be found wearing athletic wear especially if she has volleyball practice that day or is planning to go for a workout or run. She normally accessorises with a baseball cap and wristbands.

On the day she was abducted Martha had her hair in twin braids and was wearing an orange Aurora Bay Generals tank-top along with two of her most recent items purchased from vintage stores with a 90s era forest green and orange Miami Hurricanes hoodie featuring the classic version of Sebastian the Ibis with his pipe stepping over the word Miami outlined in orange along with a purple and turquoise Arizona Diamondbacks inaugural 1992 season baseball cap.As well as many bracelets on her right wrist and a sweatband on her left wrist. On her lower body Martha was wearing dark grey sweatpants with a pair of blue and white adidas trainers.

Biography: Originally born in Whistler, British Columbia to Bryan and Denise Stock, a pair of ski and snowboard instructors who worked in the city. The couple originally met when Denise went to Whistler as a seasonal worker from America after graduating college. Martha is the oldest of four sisters, with Margot, Maryse and Martina being three, four and five years younger respectively. Having to keep track of four different children in four different grades while also managing their jobs led to her parents enlisting Martha’s help with her younger siblings while also adopting a stricter method of parenting. The result of this was that Martha’s younger and middle school years were much more controlled and regimented by the tasks she had to assist with, such as collecting her sisters from school and helping prepare their lunches. This involved Martha walking over to the elementary school to collect her sister’s to take them home, something her parents didn’t see any issue with as they lived close to the school at the time.

At one point when she was young Martha was involved in a car crash due to iced over roads. While no one was seriously hurt Martha ended up stuck inside the car for an extended period of time while bleeding from her head. This was extremely stressful and traumatic for her and led to her developing a fear of both blood and confined spaces. While she was initially resistant to traveling in cars, the realities of life meant she has had to get over this issue and she can drive and be driven around without any issues. Her fear of blood and claustrophobia however are more deep-seated however and something she still struggles with.

Eventually the yearly grind of teaching tourists how to ski coupled with the leaner summer months of Bryan doing freelance carpentry work and Denise picking up seasonal and short-term contracts at summer adventure companies or local stores became too much hassle for the couple. The reliance on seasonal work also meant that during the offseason finances became tighter, which made things more difficult when coupled with having multiple children. The end result was that the family was never truly comfortable as they would be saving up money during the ski season in case work dried up for either Bryan or Denise over the summer months. They also realised having help from Denise’s family in Saint Paul would be beneficial for raising their children so at the age of twelve Martha and her family returned to Denise’s hometown. The move was at first disruptive for the girls and they initially became very insular as they dealt with the culture shock of moving to a much bigger city in a different country. After the move Bryan was able to quickly get a new carpentry job at a local company run by a friend of Denise’s family, while it took Denise a couple of months before finding a job at an accountancy firm.

Although she had a strict upbringing Martha’s parents tried to allow for any hobbies the girls had and while all of the girls were taught how to ski Martha found herself more interested in volleyball. She found the more deliberate teamwork and fast paced nature of the game appealing and especially enjoyed how reliant on cooperation and communication teams needed to be in order to win. Martha does have a bad habit of losing her focus if the team finds itself ahead and can miss key details, something which has annoyed members of the team as it has cost them games in the past. Despite this she has continued to play and improve at the sport, something her height has helped with, allowing her to be a good defender at the net, a skill she takes immense pride in.

As Martha entered her high school and her parents became accustomed to Denise’s family being around to help, they gradually relaxed some of their rules, such as Martha being required to always collect her sisters when they finished school. This allowed Martha more freedom after school, which she quickly and eagerly embraced. Some of the first friends she made at Aurora High were other members of the volleyball team, and she found herself spending time with them much more and going out more often. Martha soon developed a personal rule of trying to attend as many events and parties that her classmates put on as possible, wanting to make up for what she perceived as lost time. She quickly grew to enjoy the atmosphere and excitement of these events, finding a lot of enjoyment in being able to go somewhere and have fun without any family distractions.

It was after arriving in America that Martha quickly became interested and wrapped up in American sports history. She loved having her grandfather explain to her and her father the intricacies of American Football and the long and storied history of the Minnesota Vikings. The way he told the stories and framed them through what the seasons, games and players represented and meant to the city inspired an interest in all forms of sports history in Martha who remained by his side picking his brain about various sports, teams and players, all while he put on videos of classic games.

This interest further led to her becoming enamoured by the various logos and colours of the teams and Martha quickly found herself wanting to buy clothing similar to the ones she was seeing in the videos her grandfather was showing her. This led to her looking into vintage clothing shops for anything that featured throwback or old school designs. Martha doesn’t have many specific criteria although late-80s and early-90s pieces are her favourites. Her interest in sports history also led to her learning a lot about different seasons and results, but as a result of her grandfather her focus is much more on the overarching narratives of specific teams rather than finding the results themselves interesting. This is led to her interest in teams such as the Buffalo Bills and Atlanta Falcons along with more successful teams like the Showtime Lakers and Big Three Miami Heat.

In terms of her personality while Martha tries her best to be a friendly and pleasant person to be around she can also work herself into into extremely bad moods when she starts to become stressed, these moods can cause her to snap at people who start to annoy her even if the reason behind the annoyance is relatively benign. However, when Martha is not in a bad mood she has a good sense of humour, often making jokes at her own expense as well as making friendly jokes or quips to defuse any tension that may be in the room. She also tries her best to get on with everyone she can partly because she knows what she can get like and also because she genuinely enjoys being around her friends and classmates and doesn’t enjoy the stress that comes with the idea people are unhappy with her.

Despite how well she is doing socially with her classmates Martha’s relationship with her parents is currently stressed as she has reached a point where she feels completely independent and regularly ignores rules that she feels she’s aged out of. This means she has been getting grounded with more frequency for getting drunk and coming home late or not at all due to sleeping at a friend’s house. During these periods where she is grounded she will only be allowed to leave the house to go to school or practice volleyball with the rest of the team, a level of restriction Martha resents and argues against. After having numerous arguments with her parents over what she is and isn’t allowed to do she has resigned herself to her punishments and although it has not lessened her desire to go to as many parties or gatherings that she can. While grounded Martha will still watch sports with Bryan, although this is something he does more as a bonding activity as outside of ice hockey he is not particularly interested in American sports. Meanwhile Martha still gardens and looks after plants alongside her mother although sometimes these days are based more around Martha silently receiving lectures regarding her behaviour as they water and tend to plants.

While she is stuck at home grounded she tends to garden as she finds it a good form of stress relief. She started gardening at a young age when she was frequently taken outside by her mum so that she could get fresh air while she was at home recovering from the car crash. This activity gradually grew to include all of the siblings as whenever Martha was responsible for looking after them she introduced them to it. As a result it has become a long standing sibling activity and they frequently all work together on their own garden or go to their grandparents to help them.

In terms of her relationship with her siblings Martha is closest to Margot as they have the smallest age gap between them, although her sisters are all closer to each other than they are to her. Margot like Martha is on the taller side for a girl and has also taken up volleyball, although she is on the junior team. Despite this the two sisters do still practice together at home and at school, doing drills and working moves with each other. Martha’s youngest sister, Martina is the one most interested in helping Martha with maintaining the garden. She frequently looks for new plants they could add and is often outside when the weather is good with or without Martha. Martha and Maryse are the most distant pairing as they do not share any interests outside of the gardening the siblings all take part in. They do not dislike each other but Maryse is the most introverted and online of the four, while Martha is much more focused on being out doing things, partly as a result of her stricter upbringing with more responsibilities compared to her siblings.

Martha’s school life prior to the families move to America was fairly standard, she was considered a good student, although her struggles with math still existed and were notable even during her younger years. She was also a louder and more excitable child around her friends when she was in elementary school, although she became calmer as she moved into middle school and encountered more people who she didn’t know and weren’t always enthusiastic about her loud behaviours.

In school Martha does well in most of her classes bar math which she struggles at. Her favourite classes are physical education and history, which she enjoys because both link back to her two favourite hobbies. Her relationship with many of her teachers is friendly apart from her math teacher, because Martha has effectively given up on the subject to focus more of her attention elsewhere rather than a subject she’ll never succeed at. Martha has already applied to colleges with her top choices being University of Minnesota, Florida State University or the University of Chicago. Martha is hoping to receive a scholarship offer in volleyball from any college who would do so for her, but is planning on studying sports journalism or sports history wherever she ends up going.

Advantages: Martha has good physical conditioning thanks to her time playing volleyball, she has good stamina and fast reflexes both of which could benefit her on the island. Martha’s friendly nature and caring attitude towards many of her peers could also allow her to defuse tense situations and find allies. She is also a member of the volleyball team who could potentially be allies if she meets them on the island.

Disadvantages: Martha is both claustrophobic and hemophobia, both of which could be detrimental to both her mental wellbeing and ability to function on the island. Martha’s issues with stress could also be exacerbated by the scenario she’ll find herself in on the island leading to her lashing out and pushing away potential friends and allies or escalating conflicts.

Original Profile: https://sotfmini.com/wiki/index.php/Martha_Stock
Permission: Moi à moi

[MurderWeasel]

Hey, Deamon! Martha's looking pretty solid, just a bit to go before she's set.

It sounds like Martha's probably Caucasian, but I'd like to get that made explicit. I'd also love to get a quick general description of her build.

Does Martha have any piercings (especially the very common ear piercings)?

There's a little anachronism going on regarding some of her sports gear that should probably be cleared up, unless she's wearing some sort of ironic bootleg.

At what age did Martha's parents start deputizing her to help care for her siblings? What did that look like—I'm specifically wondering about them being picked up from school by her, since everyone involved would be too young to drive. It doesn't have to go away or anything; I'd just like it to be explained a touch more.

What did Martha's parents do for a living after their move to Minnesota? Also, what were they doing for money in the off-season before the move? What was the family's economic situation overall?

Can I hear a touch more about Martha's early/pre-move life in school? Was she a good student? How did she get along with her peers? Were things different in middle school from elementary?

Could I get a bit more detail about Martha's family situation? Specifically, I'd like to get a key unique detail of her relationship with each parent and sister, so they stand out at least a little as individual characters instead of just functioning as a collective.

This late in the year, Martha should have already applied to schools—if she has and is just waiting to hear back on scholarships, could we get that stated explicitly?

In Disadvantages, we've got a "homophobia" instead of "hemophobia" which should probably be swapped.

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

[Deamon]

Edited