Zora Morrison

[Buko]

Name: Zora Morrison
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Hip-Hop, creative-writing, track & field

Appearance: Zora stands just under five feet and weighs just under 100lbs appearing both petite in body and precocious in posture. Deep, rich ebony skin is free of blemishes and Zora very rarely wears make-up but moisturizes often which causes a soft and natural glow in her face. She has round and dark-brown eyes paired with large and full lips. Zora has shiny and bright white teeth but her most common resting expression is a tired grimace. That resting expression combined with a surprisingly deep and raspy voice makes her appear older than her height and face suggest. Valuing consistency she has had the same hair style since middle school and considers it a signature look: a big and bouncy pair of afro puffs crown her head.

She is someone who prefers athleisure when it comes to dress and she is most often seen wearing a variety of graphic tees and tracksuits paired with corresponding Converse. Zora dresses with comfort in mind primarily with the messaging of t-shirts meaning more than the trendiness in design. A variety of her shirts and sweaters are hand-me-down from her older siblings. On the day of the abduction Zora was wearing a white t-shirt with the album art of Notorious B.I.G’s Ready to Die on the front along with a red Adidas track suit and a pair of black Converse All-Star sneakers.

Biography: Zora Morrison was born in Salem, Massachusetts eighteen years ago on October 31st as the only daughter and youngest child of three. Her father Maurice “Mo” Morrison was a former Goldman and Sachs stockbroker and currently works at home as an independent consultant. Zora’s mother Keisha Morrison is a homemaker but has a degree in art and practices both painting and sculpture for pleasure and sometimes profit. Along with her parents Zora has two older brothers, ten and twelve years her senior, Kareem Morrison and Malcolm Morrison. Malcolm, her oldest brother, is a Harvard educated lawyer and the second oldest Kareem is an aspiring stand-up comedian. The Morrisons are a supportive family but one in which respectability, image and success are paramount.

Zora’s birth was considered a surprise and a blessing and she was very much spoiled throughout her life when it came to matters of material and matters of attention. Zora’s personality today reflects this upbringing as she can sometimes be very demanding towards people she cares about or she perceives care about her for the purpose of pushing her own agenda and wants. As a child Zora was closest to her brother Kareem and her mother and the three of them would spend a lot of time together joking around or pursuing art. Maurice Morrison was a hardworking man, but he was not tender and seldom affectionate. Even now, working from home, he is someone more comfortable in his study on his own rather than someone active in the day-to-day. The age difference between Zora and Malcolm made it such that he was away in college for a large part of her upbringing. Kareem’s uncertain career had him bouncing in and out of the home and as such he was more of a consistent and constant presence.

From an early age Zora was shown to be in possession of strong verbal skills. Possessing a quick wit and a sharp tongue was something that was rewarded by adults when she was young but tended to alienate her fellow children. Zora’s elementary years were marked with academic success and she was consistently a year or so ahead of her classmates, able to pick up concepts and communicate her mastery of ideas very easily. In spite of her small size, she was somebody who was possessing of a lot of confidence bordering on arrogance. Through her early years she was somewhat of a verbal bully. Her precocious and demanding nature at home translating to somebody who was both bold and boisterous at school. In elementary school Zora was somebody who made the honor roll several times but was very rarely invited to playdates or birthday parties. These social difficulties combined with her small stature and size made her parents hesitant to advance her a grade. Since Keisha was a homemaker there was a conventional wisdom applied that she would be able to enrich and improve her behavior by providing extracurriculars in the home.

One of those extracurriculars happened to be creative writing. As soon as she was literate Zora began writing short stories of her own. The stories themselves often involved versions of herself with various super-powers going on adventures in various imaginary lands. A big resource to this was Zora’s mother and her older brother Kareem who were both encouraging and supportive of her work but also sometimes helped in providing illustrations or suggestions. When Zora would finish schoolwork early she would henceforth begin scribbling and scrawling in her notebook, designing characters and imagining epics. She was still often sarcastic and could be down-right cruel to her classmates, but now she had something to occupy her time when she inevitably got in trouble.

Middle school represented a tough time for Zora. While the majority of her classmates began dipping their toes in romantic relationships and experiencing the throes of puberty, adolescence came late for Zora. Her petite and childlike form combined with her abrasive personality caused for her to be an intimidating and uninviting presence to pre-teen boys. Girls who Zora used to pick on and mock returned the favor. Zora spent her middle school years mostly resentful and isolated from others. It was during this time that she began to fall in love with Hip-Hop music. The hyperviolent and often hypersexual lyrics allowing Zora to express ideas or give voice to feelings that real life often denied. Intellectually, Zora realizes that a large degree of rap music is posturing, and image based, but emotionally that resonates to her. The need to project strength and cleverness along with boldness and desirability are things that exist within her even today. Starting in the 7th grade Zora has maintained rhyme books filled with angry and transgressive raps. She has a box filled with composition books in her closet, filled front to back with her private poems and raps.

The summer before high school brought upon a physical change in Zora but it did not translate to an adult like appearance as she hoped. This physical change, growing in height and widening in hip, provoked an interest in physical fitness. Zora took up running that summer and shortly after the practice took on a meditative bent. This became something invaluable and a way to blow off steam and gain focus that she quickly became reliant on. Zora starts every morning with a mile run, something that she can do today in just under seven minutes. Zora joined the cross-country team her freshman year, but long-distance running was never her strong point. Zora loves to race and the instant gratification that comes with the sprint. Her high school career has never had her win a race, but she’s been very competitive out of the gates within a 100-yard dash. The pandemic has limited how much she could run in school, but it was also something that she was able to do essentially every day during the break. Zora spent a large amount of the pandemic doing individual practice and believes without much proof that the pandemic has made her a faster sprinter.

Zora’s later high school years have been punctuated with a degree of academic success but a corresponding degree of social alienation aided by the time spent learning over Zoom at her home. She is someone who has somewhat the reputation of a mean girl, very much feeling comfortable in making fun and “roasting” others. This however doesn’t pair well with Zora’s own intellectual confidence and personal sensitivity. She doles out quips and japes much better than she takes them in. Zora doesn’t extend herself much outside of school and is usually content to remain in her composition notebook or with her track teammates. With that said, she is also someone who thrives and seeks the spotlight constantly. This causes some contradiction as her ambition doesn’t always match with her awkwardness.

In the areas of romance, Zora is incredibly inexperienced and her experiences with rejection and mockery in middle school have caused her to approach matters of the heart and the opposite sex with reticence. This is a deep insecurity of Zora’s and although she is someone who appears very much abrasive, there is also a desire to be desired and a romanticism that comes with being a poet that she cannot avoid or escape. She is somewhat resentful of her classmates who engage in and have more romantic experience than her, categorizing most high school relationships as shallow and below her intellectual and emotional capacity or interest. She is fairly certain she’s straight but also holds a general fear of being different in social areas and so there is uncertainty even when it comes to orientation. Romantic and interpersonal relationships are shortcomings for this short girl and she shows very little interest in overcoming those gaps.

Her senior year seems to be on the right track. Zora is a fairly good student with a competitive GPA and she is an expressive writer possessing talent. She recently got notice of her acceptance into Howard University, a HBCU in Washington, D.C. and has planned to major in English. Zora is very eager to graduate and get away from Salem and her classmates, determined to carve her own path and start anew free of parental or peer expectation.

Advantages: Zora is a fast sprinter capable of clearing short distances with surprising speeds. Atop this she is someone who possesses above average critical-thinking and a natural charisma which lends itself to effective communication skills. Zora is self-assured and independently minded which provides a certain level of confidence and poise under fire.
Disadvantages: While having a degree of charisma does help she is also someone who can be both abrasive and blunt with others which carries the risk of negative reception. Atop this she is not someone who is physically intimidating and her lack of physical strength and size bears concern when it comes to being overpowered by others. Her self-confidence can border on arrogance and her penchant for independence poses the risk of shunning potential allies or making unnecessary enemies.

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I'm here to judge your child. She's DENIED pending a bit of the usual, so let's take a look.

Zora's appearance section is a bit flowery for the dry tone that we generally aim for in a profile. I think mostly it's the description lingering on her features as sort of their own thing rather than parts of her, so consider rearranging that a bit. Things like this:

Zora is a girl on the cusp of womanhood and her face carries with it a contrast of maturity in the eyes and innocence in her smile. She is someone just as much capable of feeling completely lost in a room as she is feeling at the center.

also feel somewhat out of place. I'd focus more on how the way that she carries herself or her usual expression color this perception of her, instead of the sort of more ephemeral qualities that are currently described.

Since Zora is stated to consistently be about a year ahead of her classmates in ability during elementary school, was there ever any talk of having her skip a grade?

All of Zora's listed hobbies seem to have started in middle school or later. Was there anything that she was interested in during her earlier childhood that carried on to this day, or hobbies that she had and then dropped?

While having a degree of charisma does help she is also someone who can be both abrasive and blunt with others which carries the risk of reception.

What reception? Presumably negative, but specify.

Atop this she is not someone who is physically intimidating and her lack of physical strength and size bares concern.

Again, be specific here. What concerns are there? We can infer, but we want to know for sure. (Also that should be "bears" and not "bares".)

Spelling/grammar:

Zora stands just under five feet and weighs just under 100lbs appearing to being both petite and precocious.

"appearing to being" aside, "precocious" essentially means that someone is mature beyond their time, usually mentally; how does Zora appear to be more mentally mature?

Dark brown eyes border on black but are round and expressive, a pointy nose rests above full lips and a mouthful of small teeth sit pearly and white and ready to be shown in either grin or grimace.

In terms of fashion, she is someone who prefers athleisure when it comes to dress

Redundancy.

On the day of the abduction Zora was wearing a white t-shirt with the album art of Notorious B.I.G’s Ready to Die along with a red adidas track suit and a pair of black converse All-Star sneakers.

Brands like Adidas and Converse should be capitalized as they are proper nouns.

The Morrison’s are a supportive family but one in which respectability, image and success are paramount.

Remove the apostrophe in Morrisons, that's a plural and not a possessive.

Zora’s personality today reflects this upbringing as she can be very precocious and demanding towards people she cares about or she perceives care about her. Often for the purpose of pushing her own agenda and wants.

That last part isn't a complete sentence on its own, so fold it into the previous sentence.

As a child Zora was most close closest to her brother Kareem and her mother and the three of them would spend a lot of time together joking around or pursuing art

While the majority of her classmates began dipping their toes in romantic relationships and experiencing the throes of puberty—adolescence came late for Zora.

Turn that em-dash into a comma or I'll kill you where you stand.

Girl classmates who Zora used to pick on and mock—returned the favor.

This em-dash can be removed entirely, no punctuation is necessary in that space. "Girl classmates" is also an awkward phrasing; I'd replace it with either "Female classmates" or simply "Girls".

Intellectually, Zora realizes that a large degree of rap music is posturing, and image based—but emotionally that resonates to her.

Replace this dash with a comma as well.

Starting in the 7th grade Zora has maintained rhyme books filled with angry and transgressive raps. Her most commonly used medium being a dollar store black and white composition book.

This is another instance where these two sentences can be combined, but the second part isn't really necessary information at all, so it's your call whether you want to combine them or just cut that.

Zora took upon up running that summer and shortly after the practice took on a meditative bent.

Zora is pretty adamant that the pandemic (due to extra independent practice time) made her faster.

This sentence is veering into more prose-like than we want. Remove the italics for emphasis and find a way to rearrange it so that the parentheticals aren't necessary.

She is fairly certain she’s straight but also holds a general fear of being further Otherized or made to feel different in social areas and so there is uncertainty even when it comes to orientation.

I'm not sure that "otherized" needs to be capitalized here. The sentence is a bit redundant anyway, so you could probably cut out the part between "fear" and "made to feel".

Her senior year seems to be on the right track. Zora is a fairly good student with a competitive GPA and who seems to be an expressive and talented writer.

Is it the case that she only "seems to be" an expressive and talented writer, or is it that she is one? Remember that profiles are meant to be written as objective statement, so phrases like "seems to be" are weasel words we want to avoid.

Is self-assured and independently minded which provides a certain level of confidence and poise under fire.

Make this a complete sentence by including the subject.

That's my first take on Zora. Post in here when you have made those edits, and we'll take her for round two!

[Buko]

Alrighty, I think I fixed the tone stuff in the appearance. I added some information in her elementary school years about why she wasn't put forward a grade and that in turn lead into an expansion of her early years in creative writing. I tried to catch all the grammar stuffs and I've eradicated the em-dash!

Onto round 2!

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