Nadine Flores

Nadie Flores (art by Yonagoda)

Name: Nadine Flores
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
Hobbies and Interests: Studying, reading, writing (primarily fanfiction), playing the saxophone

Appearance: Nadine is ethnically Cuban, and has tan skin and shoulder-length dark brown hair. She's 5'5" and weighs 127 lbs, with a fairly average build for a girl of her height. She has a long, slightly hooked nose on a face that is otherwise rather soft-featured, with a rounded chin, arched eyebrows, full lips and round eyes that are such a dark brown they look nearly black. She frequently has shadows under her eyes, only somewhat hidden by the large square glasses she usually wears.

At school, her style of dress is on the formal side, and usually a bit masculine and form-concealing. She has a preference for khaki pants and button-up shirts, sometimes accompanied by a tie and possibly a jacket if the weather permits. She does wear more casual clothes, such as jeans and t-shirts, but only outside of school. On Casting Day she was wearing a short-sleeved white button-up, long khaki pants, black socks and black leather shoes.

Biography: Nadine was born in Miami in March of 2003. She was the only child of Emilio Flores and Sophia Flores (née Vasquez). Both were born in 1983, into families who'd immigrated to Miami from Cuba. The two of them began dating while attending high school together in the 1990s. They continued dating while attending university together, and married shortly after graduation. Both eventually became successful in their fields; Emilio became a lawyer, while Sophia became an architect. This success ensured that their family would rarely want for much.

Growing up, Nadine saw little of her parents. Both were workaholics, with a passion for their careers, and so she spent a lot of her time at home alone. Neither of her parents had particularly close relationships with their families, so she usually only saw extended family on holidays or other get-togethers, further leaving her without much of a family life. When they were around, they were anything but unloving; they'd shower her with affection, and she grew up maybe a bit spoiled. Still, she got the sense she was secondary to their careers, and grew a bit resentful of it as she got older.

After she entered school, Nadine was frequently pressured to excel academically, even from a young age. Her parents, particularly Sophia, would often reward her for good grades and encourage her to spend most of her time studying. Nadine had little difficulty with this, as she was naturally curious and enjoyed learning just for the sake of learning; she particularly favored history and English classes, though she maintained high grades in all subjects. This heavy focus on academics, however, caused her to be a bit of a shut-in, and led to her being rather socially inept.

During her free time, she could usually be found reading. Nadine was a voracious reader, eagerly diving into any number of works. She preferred fiction, and over time came to especially prefer fantasy novels; even the lowest quality ones she'd obssessively read until she'd finished. Eventually, she began writing her own stories, largely fanfiction based on her favorite books. Her writings never achieved notable online fame, but she still encountered people online just as passionate about her favorite stories as she was, and made friends over that shared passion. She kept these online circles largely hidden from her parents, not certain they'd understand it.

Outside of reading, she had relatively little interest in other forms of media, especially in regards to the phenomenon that was SOTF. Her parents deeply disliked SOTF due to the violence it inflicted upon its contestants, and discouraged Nadine from viewing it. Nadine, for her part, cared little for it; aside from the disquieting knowledge that the violence and deaths were real, she found the show's attempts at drama rather trashy and uninteresting. She didn't really bother keeping up with it, despite its popularity.

Nadine's busy study schedule, preference for niche media and social inexperience lead to her being rather unpopular in school; while rarely a victim of bullying, other students generally ignored her. Her own words and actions didn't help; she was often thoughtless or unkind in her words, whether that was her intention or not. She felt lonely and alienated from her school peers, but she made no attempts to change her behavior to fit in; if people didn't like her as she was, she figured that was their problem, not hers.

Throughout elementary and middle school, she flipped between many extracurriculars and other enriching activities. Few of them stuck for long; she wasn't well-spoken enough for debate team or theatre, wasn't athletic enough for sports or dancing, and didn't have the singing voice for choir. One thing that did, however, was the school band. She'd picked the saxophone on a whim after signing up for the band, and found she enjoyed it quite a bit. What few school friends she did manage to make came largely from other band kids; she was never particularly close with any of them, but it did help her feel a little less lonely.

Once she hit high school age, she enrolled in Mangrove Garden High School. While her family could've afforded the tuition, she instead gained a scholarship via her excellent scores on the entrance exams. While her grades remained good throughout her time there, she found herself struggling with the school's student rankings; her preference for humanities and social sciences, combined with her lack of socialization, caused her to rank less impressively than other students with similar grades. Her attempts to improve the situation by studying even harder and pouring all her attention into academic performance proved fruitless; mostly, they ruined her sleep schedule and left her rather exhausted. Eventually, she gave up entirely on improving her rank; her grades were still good, and that would just have to be enough for her.

Despite her intelligence and grades, Nadine isn't certain of what she wants to do after graduation. Her parents want her to enter fields that offer high salaries, such as medicine or law. However, those careers hold minimal interest to her and she can't imagine a life centered around such things. She's leaning towards a career as a historian, as it fits with her love for gathering knowledge and her particular academic leanings. She would secretly love to be a published author, selling her own original works, but she's not confident in her writing skills and knows such a career is rather risky.

Advantages: Nadine is quite intelligent, with a fair degree of knowledge in a wide range of subjects. She's a quick learner, often able to grasp the rudimentary aspects of something if given enough time to study it. She's generally stoic, and not prone to extremes of any kind of emotion.
Disadvantages: Nadine is unathletic and has poor stamina for anything physical. She's very nearsighted, requiring glasses to see well past a few feet in front of her. She's often stubborn and rigid in her thinking, believing the way she's used to doing things is the only way they can be done. While not widely disliked by her peers, she's asocial and has few school friends. She's terrible at picking up on social cues, and is sometimes rather blunt and inconsiderate.

Designated Number: Malcolm's Mariners 07 (MM07)

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Designated Weapon: Cordless Electric Nail Gun

Mentor Comment: "It's always the quiet ones! All it takes is one misunderstanding or one awkward confrontation and suddenly the quiet girl in the corner is writing books about how ten kills were worth one life. Am I saying that Nadine is the next Jewel? No. But stranger things have happened! Just remember, when it happens? I NAILED it. Yeah, you'd better believe I went there."

The above biography is as written by almostinhuman. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.

Evaluations

Handled by: almostinhuman

Nadine Flores (sprite edit by Almostinhuman)

Nadine in her fanservice costume (art by Yonagoda)

Nadine Flores (art by Yonagoda)

Kills: Marion Rosales

Killed By: Anthony Golden

Collected Weapons: Cordless Electric Nail Gun (assigned weapon)

Allies: Marion Rosales

Enemies:

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads

Below is a list of threads containing Nadine, in chronological order.

TV3:

• ☪
• 9 PM, Day 1 (open, if you're interested in joining TEAM ESCAPE)
• cheesed to meet you
• When Betting On High Card Pays Off
• First The Sirens, Then The Lights...
• Born to Be Public
• Go for Broke
• If I ever acquire wisdom, I suppose I'll be wise enough to know what to do with it
• I am blue and unwell
• The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

Your Thoughts

Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Nadine Flores. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!

• Nadine is a super cool character for a few reasons, but the core aspects I want to focus on are her essential characterization and her narrative role, which are subjects that actually have a lot of interplay.
  
  One of the most underrated but secretly difficult things to write in an SOTF context is a strong support character—I think it's a skill which frequently gets less than its due because these characters don't usually get as much spotlight or pop or obvious "wow" moments as their more center-stage counterparts. But a well-executed support character does something more valuable: they enable other characters to shine brighter, by pushing them and by playing counterpoint. And in these areas, Nadine is an absolute star.
  
  Throughout her time in TV3, Nadine manages to interact with almost every major escape character, serving in many ways as the glue that binds a sometimes disparate and shifting collection of aspiring survivors together. Nadine has ideas, she has drive to some degree, but critically she is not a leader. She does her best, she listens to what the others say and tries to do her part, but sometimes it's a little grudgingly and often she harbors doubts about whether she's making the right choice or whether it will all amount to anything. This lets her serve both as a character who pushes the escape plot line along (as she attempts to put the plans into action) and also one who grounds it and provides a realistic look at the challenges and traumas lurking on that path (as she struggles with having killed Marion, even though it was at her request, or refuses to clarify her actions out of irritation even when doing so jeopardizes her own safety).
  
  This plays into the ways Nadine is successful on a character level. The key point here is that she's lowkey a character with a lot of bite and attitude—she just expresses it in a different, more subdued way than most of the (quite theatrical) cast. Far too often, characters in the support seat fall into the trap of milling around like drones as they follow orders and just kind of single-mindedly pursue the goals of their group in a blandly nice, inoffensive sort of way. Nadine doesn't do that. Even if her actions are generally in service of the aims of her allies, she always brings a level of doubt, or a slightly slanted view, or an interesting observation, or an unexpected emotional reaction. She's also very good at stepping out of the shadows when the scene calls for it, owning her own moments especially when she's confronted with friend-turned-zealot Anthony Golden, whose ire she could probably have defused... but who she found herself unwilling to deal with due to his descent into hypocrisy.
  
  Nadine has gotten a good bit of credit in TV3 (at least among the folks I've chatted with) but I think she still manages to be somewhat underrated. She's the sort of character who isn't necessarily the first to come to mind when it comes to big explosive moments, but that's because she's performing a far more vital (and quite possibly more difficult) role as one of the characters who makes everything feel real, who fleshes out the cast and gives it its human, emotional core. Almost every version would benefit from a few more Nadines running around in it, and she's an excellent first outing from a handler whose future work I'm very excited to see. – MurderWeasel