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Nate Malaqui; a self-insert pls dont bully
Topic Started: May 22 2018, 01:12 PM (117 Views)
Aloha
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Name: Mark Nathan Santiago Malaqui
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Drawing, writing, furry fandom, video editing, social media, podcasts

Appearance: Nate stands at 5’7” and weighs 203 lbs., being of average height but fairly overweight. Most of his fat is distributed around his face, abdomen, and thighs, though he tends to hide the latter two with baggy clothing. He is of Filipino descent, evident in his almond-shaped dark brown eyes and olive complexion. He has an oval-shaped face with a broad nose and thick lips. There is distinctive mole under his right eyebrow. Nate has thick medium-length black hair, with his bangs gelled up and swept to the right. He is currently clean-shaven, although if left unchecked he grows peach fuzz on his upper lip and chin.

Nate primarily dresses for comfort, although in recent years he’s become more conscious of fashion. His wardrobe consists of cool or muted colors out of an old habit to avoid drawing attention to himself. Nate favors graphic t-shirts, and pairs them up with either hoodies, sweatshirts, or flannel shirts, depending on the weather. He usually defaults to wearing jeans and sneakers, although he’ll wear sweatpants on occasion. Nate is also fond of wearing beanies, though in the summers he switches to baseball caps.

On the day of the trip, Nate was wearing a black Pusheen pizza box t-shirt, paired with dark denim jeans, black socks, and grey slip-on Vans. He was also wearing a rainbow wristband on his left arm.

Biography: Mark Nathan Santiago Malaqui was born on October 16th, 1999 to Gregory and Katherine Malaqui (nee Santiago). The couple had met while attending university together in the Philippines, and decided to immigrate to the United States for better job opportunities. Nate was born a year after they settled in Columbia, Maryland. Gregory and Katherine are both computer analysts, and enjoy a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle. Nate is the eldest of three children, with two younger brothers: James Daniel “J.D.” (14) and Ryan William (10).

His family life was hectic growing up. While otherwise caring, Gregory and Katherine were easily frustrated, often resorting to intimidation or snapping at their children to keep them in line. When their angry reached a tipping point, they’d never hesitated to hit their children, which was seen as a reasonable form of punishment in the households they’d grown up in. They used this fact to normalize it to Nate and his siblings, along with a concept of “different house, different rules”, which was usually the answer when they questioned why none of their cousins experienced the same thing. As the punishments were mild enough not to leave bruises, there were no outward signs to alert his peers or teachers. And since Nate both feared and felt like he should respect his parents, he never reported it himself. Despite his inaction, this has planted a deep set fear of his parents, which would morph into inherent distrust as he grew older. To this day, he assumes his parents will turn to aggression and violence as their default negative reaction.

In the shorter term, Nate believed that physical violence was a perfectly reasonable reaction to his problems. He had already been a fussy toddler, though he grew particularly unruly during his early childhood. Tantrums were a common occurrence, and he didn’t hesitate to hit his peers. His elementary school years were marked by strings of disciplinary problems and pronounced incidents. This, in combination with natural introversion, led to Nate being ostracized by his peers at a young age, which led to some bullying in his later elementary school years and early middle school years.

Nate found solace in books, being easily absorbed into stories. He preferred light-hearted, slice-of-life stories, but he also developed a taste for horror through books like Goosebumps. Even when he was unable to read, he would dream up stories of his own creation. His overactive imagination became a pervasive aspect of his life, and of himself. Nate still tends to daydream when left to his own devices.

Despite all of his problems, Nate was an incredibly gifted student. His teachers praised him for his high reading comprehension and quick learning abilities, often telling his parents that he’d make a fine doctor or lawyer one day. His parents were studious in their own youth, so they thought it was only natural that their son would follow in their footsteps. Nate was often reprimanded for poor grades due to these high standards, sometimes resulting in mild corporal punishment if his grades were bad enough. He usually took these punishments passively, and tried his best to meet his parents’ standards.

Throughout his elementary and middle school years, Nate was very fond of drawing. While he wasn’t particularly good in his art classes, he often doodled all over his notebooks and classwork, and wasted a lot of paper at home constantly doodling. Nate most often drew people and characters, mostly of his own creation. It was a hobby he generally kept to himself, and his parents didn’t think much of it at the time. However, they were more than happy to buy him art supplies from time to time, getting him colored pencils and sketchbooks.

Nate’s father bought him a laptop for his tenth birthday, introducing him to the internet. While he originally started out watching videos on YouTube, he quickly began to explore other sites, mainly about art sharing or writing. The internet would prove to be a formative influence in Nate’s life, and later on, a safe haven.

The first was sparking a lifelong passion for writing. With given access to word processors, Nate began to try and write his own stories, putting his daydreams down on paper. He was very fond of writing expository pieces about worlds of his own creation, and often spent more time doing that than writing actual prose. Nate joined a role-playing forum in middle school to write in a more social space, and it has become a consistent outlet for improvement.

Around this time, Nate also discovered the furry fandom. He thought the drawings of anthropomorphic animals he found on deviantArt were cute, and sought out similar content. At first he simply lurked on different art sites, though still considered himself part of the fandom. His fursona has changed several times since he was thirteen, and is currently a black cat. Nate isn’t particularly public about his involvement, though he has become slightly more open about it as of late, often jokingly hinting it around people he’s comfortable around.

A new chapter in Nate’s life started when his family moved from Maryland to Chattanooga before the summer of 7th grade. At the time, his parents had worked in the same department for a company, and had both received transfers. He saw this move as something of a fresh start, to get away from the bullying and negative reputation he had with his old classmates. By now, Nate had a better reign on his temper, although he was still shy and suffered from social anxiety. Nonetheless, he made a couple of friends.

In 7th grade, Nate also developed a better grasp on his sexuality. He realized he was romantically attracted to boys, and went on to label himself a homoromantic asexual. Nate never doubted his sexuality, as he was worried how the people he knew would react. His parents were devout Roman Catholics, and due to their history of short-tempered violence, he feared that he might face physical repercussions if he ever came out. This wariness was extended to his other relatives as well, and made him emotionally distance. He also privately renounced Christianity at this time, disliking its use to discriminate against people like him. Nate is well aware of the general stigma against the LGBT community in Tennessee, and was closeted throughout middle school. In high school, however, he came out to close friends and open-minded cousins, and received generous support. He isn’t romantically active due to being closeted, having a low self-esteem, and lacking interest in his classmates.

In the 8th grade, his relationship with his parents changed somewhat. For a couple of years, they attempted to change the methods with which they dealt with their children, moving away from hitting their children as they started to treat their eldest “like an adult.” While it took some time for him to emotionally mature to mirror their methods, they’d almost phased out physical punishment completely by the time Nate started high school. His parents attempted to apologize to him for their old methods, justifying it as “out of love” and something they’d been raised to believe was justifiable. Nate never truly forgave them for hitting him as a child, though he accepted them at face value to avoid confrontation. While they’d stopped using physical punishments, his parents would still scold and lecture him often, and still get snappy and aggressive when they were frustrated. In addition, the apologies did nothing to fix the emotional rift between Nate and his parents, which had only widened in recent years.

In his sophomore year, Nate began to think about what he was going to do for a living. He’d always been fond of drawing, but up until then didn’t do much of it outside of doodling on his schoolwork. Nate found the prospect of being an animator appealing, attracted to the prospect of drawing and sharing his own characters and stories, inspired by shows like Gravity Falls and Steven Universe. He decided to shoot for a career in the animation industry, and took great steps to improve his art and writing. Finding his own art unappealing, he sought to rapidly improve within the next couple of years, relying on art books and tutorials online. Nate also began to plunge into his own art courses at school and even joined the art club, recognizing the value of fundamentals and how art schools wouldn’t just accept cartoon drawings. Nate genuinely enjoys art and the process of drawing, but often loathes the end product, and constantly feels behind his more skilled and talented peers.

Nate draws much of his creative inspiration from the various shows, games, anime, and webcomics he enjoys. He has a strong preference for plot-heavy stories with elicit a strong emotional response from him. Genre-wise, Nate finds a balance between more light-hearted and comedic stories that provide positive escapism, and darker horror or true-crime based stories that satisfy his morbid curiosities. He is very active in various online fan communities on Tumblr and Twitter, occasionally writing fanfiction or posting fanart.

He is experimenting with other creative mediums in which he could tell stories, most of them digital. Through online tutorials, Nate managed to teach himself some rudimentary 3D modeling skills. He has also dabbled in video editing, and has a YouTube channel where he’s posted a couple compilations and memetic videos, which gather views in the thousands. While he isn’t satisfied with the level of proficiency he’s developed in these mediums, he plans to continue experimenting with them in college and beyond.

Nate hit a particularly dark rut in his junior year. His course load was particularly heavy, which was only exacerbated by his extensive preparation for the upcoming SATs, mostly at his parents’ behest. In addition, he was anxious about impending college applications, and felt inferior to his more academically or artistically talented peers. This stress and anxiety culminated in a mental breakdown towards the middle and end of his junior year, mostly skipping class to cry in the bathroom. He only sought out help after concerned teachers confronted him about his truancy and referred him to the school counselors, who encouraged getting therapy. Nate brought it up with his parents, and while they don’t entirely understand his anxiety issues, were willing to help out their son. He started seeing a therapist infrequently the summer before his senior year, venting about his anxiety and sexuality with them. He saw them on an infrequent basis throughout the summer, though they did help him stabilize his emotions.

During this time, Nate began to listen to podcasts more frequently, usually to pass time while doing a variety of low-effort tasks. Initially, he listened to podcasts about true crime and other paranormal topics, like Serial and the Last Podcast on the Left. Over time, he also began to delve into more light-hearted comedy podcasts, especially those involving the McElroy brothers. While he’s dabbled in numerous shows, he only listens to a few of them regularly, preferring to fill up a backlog of the others he can binge all at once.

His anxieties flared up again during the first half of his senior year, as he struggled to keep up with a full AP course load, especially in calculus and physics. His anxieties turned from college rejection to college recission, which became so extreme he began to have mild suicidal ideation. After talks with his therapist, school counselor, and parents, they decided that it’d be appropriate to lighten his course load before prescribing medication. After transferring into regular math and science classes, his stress lightened drastically, and it was decided that a prescription wasn’t necessary. However, he still attended regular therapy up until a month before the school trip, when he personally felt that he was in a better mental space.

Starting in the second semester of his junior year, Nate began to become more active in the furry fandom, after spending years only lurking online. He began posting stories and artwork of his fursona and other original characters under the username ‘cattiverse’, while simoultaneously reaching out to the community via Twitter. He’s gained a relatively small following, with followers on both sites numbering a little less than a hundred. Through them, Nate has managed to draw a couple of commissions, while purchasing some of his own during special occasions. In addition, Nate has also formed a group of friends within the fandom, mainly consisting of furries his age and in or just out of college.

While Nate has made an effort to become more outgoing, he is still somewhat quiet and awkward around people he doesn’t know that well, or those without any common interests. However, he’s become much more open around students he’s able to easily relate to, namely art kids and geeks. In addition, he’s developed the courage to attend Gay-Straight Alliance meetings, hoping to find solidarity with his peers. Around these people, he can be fairly chatty and joke often, and prone to playful ribbing with some. However, more of his friends are online than in real life: he’s met many people through the furry fandom, various fan communities, and even the roleplaying boards he joined in middle school. Nate considers himself closer with them than he is with people in real life, as they also enjoy his obscure interests and are more trustworthy when it comes to him venting about his parents or sexuality.

Nate finished high school on a mediocre academic note. While he’s managed to maintain As and Bs in almost all his classes, there is no class where he’s been able to keep straight As. In addition, his grades in math have been leaning towards low Bs and high Cs, and he’s likely to get a C overall in the class. While this doesn’t perturb him, Nate is worried about his parents’ reactions, and hopes to put off showing them his grades as long as possible.

His relationship with his parents has improved somewhat over the past year, as he appreciated their genuine concern for him during his emotional struggles. While he’s felt somewhat closer to his parents, he still keeps himself emotionally distant, as he doesn’t trust them enough to fully accept his sexuality. Currently, he remains somewhat indifferent to his parents, although being polite in their personal interactions. His mother in particular is prone to nagging about issues like his weight or his lack of a driver’s license, Nate tends to ignore these. On the inverse, he trusts his father marginally more than his mother for his comparatively laid-back parenting. Deep down, he appreciates his parents, but wants to distance himself from them as soon as possible.

His relationship with his siblings is somewhat rockier. J.D. Malaqui is currently a freshman at George Hunter High School, and is a member of the school’s track team. As he entered adolescence, J.D. becake moody and jaded, keeping his interactions with the rest of his family to a minimum. He avoids associating with his older brother at school, seeing him as too much of a nerd. In return, Nate regards him as rude and disrespectful, and reciprocates the lukewarm feelings. The pair remain on civil terms when they’re forced to interact with each other, and do crack jokes once in a blue moon, though otherwise they’re distant. Nate’s relationship with his youngest brother, Ryan, is somewhat better. While the pair rarely interact, as Ryan is old enough to be left to his own devices, Nate takes the role of responsible older brother.

While Nate still aspires to work in the entertainment industry one day, he has lost interest in working in animation, citing the infeasibility of it and his lack of skill. He plans to double major in English and Visual Arts in college, and is flexible in pursuing various fields for those majors, like graphic design, journalism, or publishing. He hopes to make one of these careers a ‘day job’, and write or draw stories in his free time. While Nate wants to head north for college, he’s going to the University of Memphis for lower in-state tuition.

Advantages: Nate is naturally cautious, and will do well in keeping himself out of danger. Nate is also somewhat capable of throwing his weight around, and has some physical advantage against some of his frailer peers.
Disadvantages: Nate is out of shape and lacks stamina. In addition, he is prone to anxiety and does poorly under pressure.
Edited by Aloha, Jun 8 2018, 02:46 PM.
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VoltTurtle
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Hey Aloha! I'm the staffer that's handling Nate today. Unfortunately, Nate is DENIED pending some fixes and one serious adjustment. My comments are in teal, for ease of reading.

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Hobbies and Interests: Drawing, writing, worldbuilding, video games, furry fandom, video editing, social media, true crime/horror stories, podcasts


A few things. For one, you barely talk about video games at all in the profile, if they are only casual interests for him, then they don't (and shouldn't) be listed in the hobbies section. For two, you don't talk enough about worldbuilding and true crime/horror stories enough on their own- they seem to be mere extensions of his writing hobby and podcasts interest. Delete those two from his hobbies/interests list.

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Gregory and Katherine were short-tempered, often yelling at or hitting their kids when they were frustrated. [...] Nate was often reprimanded for poor grades due to these high standards, sometimes resulting in corporal punishment if his grades were bad enough. He usually took these punishments passively, and tried his best to meet his parents’ standards.


Alright so, the biggest problem in your profile is that you don't really go into detail about this "corporeal punishment" that Nate suffered at the hands of his parents. Physical abuse can have a lot of negative effects on a child's psyche and is straight up illegal. If it was bad enough to leave bruises (as it often is) teachers are required to ask about those injuries and report them to Child Protective Services if the child confirms that their parent was hitting them (which young children often do, and you make it sound like he suffered this even while young). If the bruising wasn't bad or Nate (and both of his siblings by extension!) lied about where they came from (and refused to elaborate no matter how much he was pushed), you need to mention that. Additionally, regardless of how you justify why his parents weren't caught doing this, you need to address the psychological effects they had on Nate in more detail than you already have.

Of course, the easier solution is just to take out the portions about his parents hitting him and just making them more generalized hardasses, but that choice is up to you.

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mostly of his own creations


Typo; creation, not creations.

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A new chapter in Nate’s life started when his family moved from Maryland to Chattanooga before the summer of 7th grade, as his parents’ jobs had transferred them there.


It seems like too much of a coincidence for both of his parents to transfer to the same city. Were they working for the same company in the same department? A more reasonable explanation for a move (since I think that's what you want) would be that either his mother or father got a promotion that came along with a transfer and a significant pay increase- then the other parent would simply find new work in the new location.

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as he was married worried how the people he knew would react


I don't think you intended to have the word "married" here.

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His passive nature ensures that most people won’t see him as a threat in their eyes, and on top of that, he’s extremely loyal.


I feel like this wouldn't actually be enough of an advantage to list, to be honest, and the loyalty aspect comes off as a non-sequitur even if you take the rest of the sentence at face value. Delete this.

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He dislikes the outdoors, and is likely unable to care for himself in the wilderness.


This is what you'd expect for most highschoolers, and thus isn't actually a disadvantage. Delete this.

...and that's it. Post back here when you have those edits made and I'll give Nate another look. :)
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Aloha
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Edits made! I elaborated more on the exact methods and consequences of the physial punishments Nate recieved as a child, and tied in the paragraph about his behavioral issues into the effects. In addition, I've also decided to add a paragraph later on detailing how his parents' treatment of him changed over the years, though his reaction to that was shaped by the initial actions.

I did some prodding, and my parents had actually worked in the same department of the same company when they transferred. I hope it's a coincidence that can slide so that I could keep this self-insert as true to myself as possible, although I can change it if it's too incredulous.
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VoltTurtle
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I did some prodding, and my parents had actually worked in the same department of the same company when they transferred. I hope it's a coincidence that can slide so that I could keep this self-insert as true to myself as possible, although I can change it if it's too incredulous.


Fair enough, still a bit silly but it's not too incredulous.

Besides that, just a few more things:

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Nate is naturally cautious, and will do well in keeping himself out of danger Nate is also somewhat


You forgot a period here.

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Nate never doubted his sexuality, as he was married worried how the people he knew would react.


You didn't fix this.

...and that's it. Fix those and Nate should be ready to go. :)
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Edits made!
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