Chiara Masina

[Laurels]

Name: Chiara Masina
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Makeup and Hairstyling, Photography, Social Media (Instagram), Swimming

Appearance: Chiara stands at about 5'8" and weighs 124 pounds. She has white skin with a very slight tan, that she takes care of, keeping her face clean and blemish free and with minimal freckles. She has a thin figure, being somewhat flat chested and with little body fat, although she is slightly toned around her arms and legs from her swimming. She has light, thin eyebrows she maintains, blue eyes with a beauty mark near the outer corner of her left eye, and a straight nose. She has long, honey blonde hair that she has grown out from a previous bob haircut, reaching her clavicle and flipping up towards the ends. Her lips are thin and her teeth are white and straight.

Chiara takes care of her appearance, usually wearing a full face of makeup every day. While she tends to prefer neutral and earthy tones, she has been known to experiment with bolder and more colorful makeup from time to time. Both her ears are pierced and she tends to wear a few pieces of jewelry on any given day, preferring to keep them simple and minimal in design and material. She prefers to wear dresses that show her arms and legs off, but will wear blouses and pants in colder weather. She also likes to wear comfortable shoes, preferably with smaller heels.

Biography: Chiara Beatrice Masina was born May 15, 2004 as the first child of Rafael and Renata Masina in Verona, Italy. She would be joined by two younger sisters, Anna (two years younger) and Isabella (three years younger). Rafael worked at the University of Verona as a history professor while Renata worked part time at a women's clothing store and taking care of the kids. Growing up, Chiara's home was happy and loving. Chiara herself was a fairly quiet and calm child, preferring to be on her own to read and draw. She had very few friends growing up, something that did make Rafael and Renata a bit worried that she may be antisocial or have an anxiety disorder. They did take Chiara to the doctor's, and while they did believe she had some avoidant personality traits, none of them warranted a diagnosis or treatment. Because Chiara was well-behaved and never acted out, it was suggested she could simply be introverted.

Chiara herself never seemed to have an issue with this. She could be cordial and friendly to others, participating in school functions and social events. However, she had been noted to be a bit unsociable and reserved, making it difficult for her to really form any long lasting bonds with her peers. To at least help her out, Renata tried to get Chiara to bond with her love of fashion. Renata always made sure the girls looked proper and knew how to take care of themselves. From a young age, Chiara seemed the most interested, as Anna was more into soccer and Isabella was more studious like her father.

When Chiara was 10, Rafael received an offer to teach at Salem State University, and the family decided to move to the United States. The move was a bit hard on the Masinas at first. Rafael, who was fluent in English, made sure to raise his daughters to be bilingual growing up, so while there was some challenge to speaking English, Chiara and her sisters could handle it for the most part. Chiara did receive some slight bullying and attention from other students for her accent, but these died down as Chiara didn't really acknowledge or play into the situations, choosing to simply ignore and walk away from those who wanted to bother her.

It was in middle school that Chiara began to expand on her interest in fashion by becoming more interested in hair and makeup. She liked the creativity and experimentation that came from the art, so she began to dive more into it. She began to read fashion magazines and internet videos to learn how to do certain makeup techniques. She also began to put a lot of her time and money into this, buying new or recommended makeup products. She hasn't done anything too drastic with her hair, as she has kept it its natural color, but she has experimented with length and styles since she was 12, going as long as her mid back and as short as a chin length bob.

Around the time she entered high school. Chiara decided to start posting pictures of her hair and makeup online. She primarily posts to Instagram, preferring to post still photos or time lapse videos with royalty-free music. Chiara doesn't talk on her account, preferring to keep to images and minimal text. This has helped her gain a decent following for her work, as well as a bit of a mysterious aura due to how little she shares of herself and her life.

It was also around high school that Chiara got into swimming as a form of exercise and recreation. The Masinas live near a rec center and have passes, so Chiara tends to go there a few times every week to swim laps. Chiara had always been into swimming, but was never interested in competing, so she tends to keep it as her main form of exercise and stress relief.

At school, Chiara is a quiet and well-behaved student. She has managed to maintain an A-B average, with her slight weak points coming to math and science. She always turns her work in on time and is on good standings with her teachers. Socially, Chiara is a bit of a loner. She doesn't have any close friends and doesn't go out of her way to talk to people. This has made her a bit paradoxical to others, considering she takes such pride in her appearance and social media. When in social situations, Chiara tends to remain polite and terse, usually giving positive interactions coming off as calm and reserved, but nothing that really allows for deeper connections to be formed. Despite this, Chiara doesn't really consider herself lonely and simply enjoys her time to herself. This has given her some issues with boys though, as she tends not to respond to subtle flirting and has turned down anyone who has asked her out. Chiara thinks she may be asexual, and doesn't really have any issues with it, as she doesn't really have any desire to date for the foreseeable future.

Chiara's home life is still fairly well. She's on good terms with her parents and sisters, usually acting as the reliable and dependable oldest daughter of the household. Her parents are a bit worried about her lack of a social life, but Chiara tries to not let them feel too worried, showing that she's happy with the way her life is. While Chiara doesn't have too much in common with her younger sisters, she is very patient and kind to them, often helping them with schoolwork and giving them makeup tips if they ask.

By this point in her life, Chiara would consider herself a very content individual. She sees her life as one that's happy and normal as long as she meets her basic needs and has time to work on her interests. She doesn't see much need to expend energy on things that aren't worth it, and likes to simply ignore or rationalize anything potentially troubling around her. If anything personally affects her, she would choose to take a calm, rational approach to her challenges to deal with them, without raising her voice or getting needlessly angry.

Now that she's a senior, Chiara is looking into her options for college. She wants to continue with hair and makeup and is looking into some nearby beauty schools. Her parents, Rafael in particular, would like her to get a bachelor's degree of some kind. She's weighed her options and has applied to both beauty schools and state schools. For state schools, she has looked for courses that teach Italian, as she is still fluent in the language, and has considered getting a degree so she can teach it or be a translator. However, Chiara still intends to keep up with her social media projects and hopefully springboard those into a career.

Advantages: Chiara is a naturally calm person, which could help her in stressful situations. She swims regularly, which has helped her build endurance and keep her in good physical shape.
Disadvantages: Chiara has no close social relations, and the lack of bonds could hurt her in certain situations. Her antisocial nature may also make it difficult for her to form bonds as well.

[VoltTurtle]

Heya Laurels! I'm the staffer critiquing Chiara today, and there's just a few things I want ironed out before she can be approved.

They did take Chiara to the doctor's, and while they do believe she had some avoidant personality issues, none of them were too serious or concerning.

The word "issues" here and the general phrasing of the sentence suggests to the reader that there was a problem with Chiara's behavior or personality that might impact her life (however small). Since doctors and psychologists define disorders and issues with regards to how they impair the person, and given that you go on to assert that this doesn't seem to impair Chiara in any meaningful way (since she's happy and functional being the way she is), I suggest you change this sentence to read:

"They did take Chiara to the doctor's, and while they did believe she had some avoidant personality traits, none of them warranted a diagnosis or treatment."

And, if you want, you can then continue the idea in the next sentence by adding a "Because" before "Chiara" and drop the "so" (though that suggestion is optional, not a necessity).

She's weighted her options

Typo; "weighed".

Chiara is a naturally calm person

This is the only direct mention of Chiara being naturally calm (though everything else you've written implies that), and all advantages + disadvantages should directly link back to the biography.

On that note, I'm interested in seeing a little bit more about how Chiara thinks, feels, and acts. Since she's so introverted and generally shuns social interaction, I imagine she would turn a lot of her energy inwards and have a well-developed way of thinking about the world around her.

With that in mind, could you add a (short) paragraph describing her personality, outlook on life/the world, and any religious or philosophical perspectives she might have? An easy place to insert one would be just before the last paragraph in the biography.

--

And that's it! Post back here when you have those edits made and I'll get back to Chiara for round 2! :3

[Laurels]

Ok, that should be it all.

[VoltTurtle]

APPROVED