Tina Luz

Name: Florentina 'Tina' Luz

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: 12th

School: Cochise High School

Hobbies and Interests: Sketching, painting, knitting, rap music, baseball, gardening and horticulture, health and fitness.

Appearance: Florentina is 5'6" and weighs in at around 135 pounds. She has strong shoulder definition and her body can be described as an inverted triangle.

Her skin has a tanned, olive shade due to her mix of Hispanic, Native, and Caucasian heritage. Her skin is naturally oily and she often suffers small breakouts of acne over her forehead, however her fitness also keeps her skin healthy and fresh in places where there is no acne damage. Her face is round and chubby with fat deposits in her cheeks. She has a small and upturned nose, and warm brown eyes that are distinctively sharp and defined. She has thick dark lips. Her hair's roots are black fade to a dark brown as they grow out to her shoulder blades. It's naturally wavy, though it has the tendency to become curlier the longer it grows out. She rarely wears makeup, and has a multitude of visible acne scars.

She has little sense for fashion for the most part. She mostly wears baggy hoodies when she can get away with it, otherwise she goes for slightly oversize tees to accommodate her body type. She's almost always in jeans, and they're usually ragged and faded from overuse. On the day of the kidnapping she wore slightly paint-stained work jeans that are ripped and tattered at the knees, battered blue sneakers with dirty white soles, a white and loose camisole, and a thin hoodie sweater in Cochise colors that has the logo of the school Baseball team and honors the '13-'14 team. She also wore a gray knit scarf made by her cousin, Lillian Cadwell, loosely bunched around her neck.

Biography: The second eldest child of the Luz family, Chandler Luz, formed a long term relationship with Maggie Dawson in high school and the two would marry shortly after their graduation. The Luz family lives in an extensive compound on the outskirts of Kingman, built by Florentina's paternal grandparents, Gregory and Avee Luz. Many members of the extended family inherited Gregory's vision of self-sufficiency and identify as preppers, those who prepare for emergencies by stocking equipment that might be difficult to access in times of crisis. As part of this tradition both Chandler and Maggie designed and maintain a series of self-sufficient gardens in the family compound in their free time. Both chose to immediately work to provide younger children of the family the opportunity to go to college. Chandler became a cop and Maggie worked as a secretary for local businesses.

Busy family lives meant the two had no intention to sire children, Florentina and her year younger sister Celine were back to back accidents. They were both born at a period of time where a lot of the other Luz children were also forming families, meaning many of the second generation children of the Luz family are of very similar ages.

Tina was quiet for her first few years of life. She was usually inclined to spend her days playing alone in the Luz compound, shy around even her own many cousins. Her artistic tendencies showed themselves from a young age, as early as she could hold a pencil she would fill notebooks and whatever scraps of paper she could find around the house with abstracts and sketches that were impressive for her age. She enjoyed being talented at something, which is why she has always been interested in developing her art skill. It comes naturally to her, she can't imagine a better use of her time. She was content to plod away at her own creations for hours until called on by one of the family.

Because Tina was so introverted and rarely found reason to stray far from the compound she grew strongly close to her paternal grandmother Avee. Her father was a mother's boy, and the two adults both had the most profound effects on Tina's morality. They instilled in her with many a story and wise saying the importance of loyalty to family The more extroverted of her cousins, including Emma Luz, also reached out to her in turn. An awed Tina slowly overcame her shyness towards her cousins and slowly developed profound attachments to many of them over the course of her formative years.

Over time she'd also grow comfortable with other members of her extended family outside of the compound, as her father would regularly bring her around to those who remained in Kingman. Lillian Caldwell's paternal grandmother taught her knitting. Tina found herself clumsier with the skill compared to her sketching but worked hard to make her grandmother proud. She was also introduced to the Dawsons, who lived in a trailer in Kingman and treated her well, especially a boy a few years her senior, Daniel Dawson, son of Maggie's deadbeat brother. He was friendly and shared her spark of artistic talent, and Tina has always been inclined to call Daniel her closest friend due to their mutual interests, spending hours over at his home when she could.

When she was five her father and mother started including her in their tending to the family gardens, Tina was immensely fascinated and her next few birthdays would be dominated by requests for books, nonfictional about botany and fiction series she was introduced to by some of her female cousins. Tina never particularly enjoyed reading as it was slow and dull for her compared to visual arts, she chose to read to be able to share that experience with her cousins.

When she entered primary school Tina was notably awkward in classes if they didn't have one of her cousins in them, was alone at recess if she couldn't find a cousin to play with. Her father didn't see it as a big deal but her mother was concerned, tried to gently encourage her child to be less socially frigid. She would become stern about it as Tina failed to adapt, but Chandler's more permissive approach was the one Tina preferred to pay attention to. It wasn't until Tina was in third grade that she began to branch out and make the occasional friends outside of the family. She'd happily pass time alone with her art, and thus she never found many close friends outside of home and was never much integrated into extra-familial social circles.

Tina's hobbies continued to develop over the rest of her primary education in dogged parallel of her cousins', she read what they read, modeled them with their consent in her sketches. She continued to knit and still does primarily because it keeps her closer to the family members who introduced her to it, even though she's never been so good at it. She cultivated for herself a reputation as helpful, when any of her cousins needed help or a shoulder to cry on Tina was there. Her presence was sometimes annoying or unwelcome, but usually her intentions and competence were sufficient and she overall tended to be a positive impact in the lives of the other Luz children growing. She'd care for Lillian when she was ill, comfort Emma when she had night terrors and later be available when she started having sleep disorders in middle school.

Tina's graduation into middle school and puberty didn't affect her as much as the transitions would some of her other cousins and peers. Bullying and peer pressure simply had negligible impact on her due to how little she cared for stranger opinions, only a familial concern could really rouse her. Her acne was violent in her middle school and early high school years and she'd be bullied verbally, primarily by other girls, for her looks. She'd be annoyed but nothing further, and often wouldn't even bother to alert an authority or her own family. She developed an early reputation for being stoic and difficult to provoke reactions out of. As a result she fell off the radar of many, socially forgotten and a non factor in middle school. This status followed her into high school as she made no effort to better it. An exasperated Maggie reluctantly accepted her daughter's lifestyle and made no further effort to nag Tina into being a more outgoing girl.

Tina also developed an interest in health and fitness as she observed her body changing through her puberty years and the continued struggle of her cousins Emma and Lily with their respective health problems. Both her parents were health conscious, especially her father as a cop, and they were delighted to have their elder daughter so directly involved. As a family they made a conscious effort to grow more of their own food to cook with in the gardens, moving the fruits of their own labor directly into the kitchens. Celine was less inclined than the rest of the family to eat healthy, more inclined to snack and hold more weight. Tina's taken it upon herself to nag her younger sister about that concern some, though in a manner largely ineffectual. Chandler helped Tina developed a workout plan that kept her fit if not especially athletic or muscular. Tina also developed an interest in baseball as several of her male cousins including Crisanto Luz did or already had. It was a way to stay fit and active, and socialize with others. She was never so good at it, but she'd play pickup games with them sometimes as her workout for a day, and her interest in the sport thus grew.

Tina's relationship with Daniel took an interesting turn as she entered Cochise and he did Mojave Community College. He attended the local community college to study art and became friends with stoners on campus, eventually leading him to directly introduce her to marijuana and the dealers he used. She still considered him her closest friend and allowed herself to be swayed, but she nursed the beginnings of a guilt that would grow as she drifted further down this particular path in life. She liked the influence of the drug, and found she felt more relaxed around others when using it. It made it easier for her to talk. She used the drug only occasionally at first, but her exposure to it gave her an idea.

She used her gardening knowledge to convert parts of Daniel's home bedroom, which is the basement, for growing, and he kept the operation hidden from his parents in exchange for a cut of profit and product. His parents were fairly hands off with him, especially as he was college age, and he even smoked with his friends in his room prior to his venture with Tina. She doesn't grow much, only a few plants, mostly kept hidden under jury-rigged lamp collections using the basement windows for ventilation. Her dealing was a mild success and she enjoyed both the modest funds and the opportunity to hang out more with her cousin and his interesting college age friends. However she avoided dealing within Cochise itself, sticking to the community college crowd and occasionally some of the other high schools in Kingman. She was afraid of running into one of her cousins and all the more guilty for how she was beginning to sneak around them. She began to quietly drift away from some of them, for example Emma, feeling intimidated and alienated by their popularity and social finesse. Others she got closer to, Lily and especially Crisanto. She emotionally supported him with his depression and even began to sneak weed his way as his preferred coping mechanism, he in turn was her confidante as she continued to do things she was positive she couldn't confess to the purer members of her family as a whole. Daniel was her alibi, her increasingly long absences from the home were merely visiting her favorite cousin.

Her time in Cochise was mostly quiet, dealing aside. She did mediocre work in most of her classes, rarely interested in anything more than passing. Academics bores her and she doesn't have the intellectual quality to excel, and she's taken to loading her class schedules with low-impact classes like art and study hall. She's been involved in artistically inclined work around the school and a few of the works on display in the East Wing are hers, besides that she has little school spirit or inclination to be involved. She's told her parents she has no intent to go onto college and they both understand and reluctantly support her, assuming she'll take on a blue-collar job as they both chose to. She has a bare minimum of friends within the school, as she really only feels compelled to talk to those she can be sure share interests in art or baseball. With these friends she's somewhat awkward and distant, her guilt over her less legal activities outside of school often means she's afraid to move relationships with most outside of the superficial nowadays.

She continues to knit and craft with Lillian, though Lillian maintains the superiority in that regard and Tina sometimes elects to sketch or paint instead. Her sister introduced her to rap music, which Tina enjoyed for providing music to do her art to. Celine's tastes along with a lack of intellectual appreciation for lyricism skewed Tina towards enjoying beats above all else, and she often elects to download instrumentals as opposed to full rap songs for her music player. Tina started going to Coyotes games when she was in her sophomore year. She's developed some understanding of the strategy and stats talk, and even runs mock fantasy leagues, one with her friends and another with the crowd she associates with in Mojave. It's an important part of her relationship with Cris, and like art it's something she managed to develop an affinity for, meaning it's a safe hobby to indulge in.

Tina's dealing meant that she often had plenty of contact with the more subversive elements of Cochise culture. She also has at least one cousin with a non-typical identity on the gender spectrum. Tina thus is sympathetic towards progressive values in terms of gender and sexuality politics, though she rarely feels the need to actively lend a hand to the cause. She's also not inclined to talk politics in general, influenced by her father's own lackadaisical nature in that regard.

She also began to develop a smoking habit, having been introduced by the kids in Mojave. Alongside marijuana she enjoyed how it helped her relax in social settings, and carelessly indulged in it until she developed a legitimate addiction, one she has to spend increasing amounts of her limited funds to nurse. When she's smoking she feels more at ease with others and a few more kids in school are her trusted confidantes now, though she's still largely secretive even when her lips are looser. She can go through half a pack in one day at her worst, and she also regularly uses joints and bongs, at times mooched from Daniel and his friends rather than on her own dime. She smokes in private or with Daniel's friends, as she's needed to do it more often she'll often run out of the home and find a secluded place to take a cigarette, so as to keep her ugly habit hidden. She has yet to slip up, though she's had some close calls. Maggie is recently especially suspicious, though Chandler's jovial influence holds her back.

She's also recently learned that she's required to take remedial classes in the summer to graduate. She became increasingly prone to skipping classes in senior year, especially to have extended lunch period to go off campus and smoke, and thus she's missing some key credits. That finally did upset her parents in unison, and a frightened Tina being called out on her actions for a change promised to shape up. She's been thus working hard in school for a change, though she continues to find it difficult and boring. Tina has no intent to move on to college and only vaguely plans to continue dealing and grab a part time job.

She continues to keep a transient social presence and stick mostly to herself, listening to her rap and shutting out crowds when not around one of her school friends, doing artistic activities on her lonesome or with one of her cousins if they're available. She now helps her cousin Lillian with her newly started Etsy business, and continues to go to baseball games, now an almost rabid fan. Her smoking has begun to affect her healthiness and she finds she can't take long hikes or the treadmill quite like she used to, but she pointedly ignores the issue.

Advantages: Tina is naturally well observant of her environment due to a sharp, artistically-trained eye. She's not especially present in the Cochise social scene and has few attachments among her peers, she may thus have the element of surprise and be more willing to take the necessary steps against her peers to survive.

Disadvantages: Her well ingrained loner tendencies may be detrimental to a plan of survival in the long term. She is nursing a full-blown nicotine addiction and withdrawal symptoms will negatively affect her mentally and physically.

Designated Number: Female student No. 047

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Designated Weapon: Man-catcher

Conclusion: That thing looks vicious as fuck. G047 should take advantage of it and use it to catch herself a friend. She'll need one if she wants to survive more than a day.- Josie Knight

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

Evaluations
Handled by: Cicada Days

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