Raya Loux

[LYourLocalAutist]

Name: Raya Loux
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Mechanics, automobiles & driving, gym-going, spending time with her family

Appearance: Raya is a light-skinned, diamond-faced caucasian girl standing at 6’2" and weighing in at 172 lbs with a toned, athletic build from the exercise she engages in. She has auburn coloured hair kept in loose, unkempt curls that she never lets go past her shoulders. Her eyes are large, round and strikingly green. She possesses a sharp jawline and a smattering of freckles across the ridge of her slightly upturned nose, all framed by her medium-sized ears.

Her taste in clothes always prioritises pragmatism, not being one for style at all. She’s an avid fan of tank tops, weather jackets, steel-toe capped boots and cargo pants. Her work and school clothes have nearly no distinction, and it’s thus common to see her with some oil stain she missed cleaning somewhere. She does, however, have one particular fashion quirk: a tendency towards sleeveless undershirts, to show off her toned arms. Her hands are thick with calluses from her mechanic work, and she commonly has a bruise or scruff on her skin.

Biography: Raya Loux was born and raised in the Skyline Heights area of Las Vegas, marking the start of a somewhat strained home life financially. To raise her comfortably, her parents, Jacob and Sophia Loux, worked tirelessly in their local auto mechanic shop, Autovet. This business is held in good esteem by the local community for the honest service it provides, being something of an icon within it. It was started by Raya’s parents after they quit their jobs at the large city-wide mechanic chain Steam-works following a series of workers’ rights strikes in the 1980s. Steam-works is also where they met, grew closer and decided to get married.

Autovet’s reputation kept the business going, the bills paid and food on the table. Raya's infanthood was a happy one, as she was lathered in her parents’ love and attention. She developed an especially deep attachment to her mother, as it was Sophia who chiefly didn’t want her daughter to grow distant from her parents because of how much they worked, so she tried to spend as much time with Raya as possible. Sophia would play with her, talk to her, and ingrain in her values such as kindness, determination, and altruism, which her daughter would take to heart. Raya looked up to her mother as her truest role model in the world.

With her parents' constant work, she spent the majority of her earlier days with her aunt on her mother's side. When she was indisposed, however, her parents had no choice but to keep Raya in the safest spot they could in their garage as they worked. Thus, she'd spend part of her infancy around all manner of machinery and engines and the like in her parents' garage and shop. She gained a great interest in these machines at a very young age. She was infatuated with the clicking, grinding, ever-orderly inner workings of the machines around her, as well as the sheer awe a newly tuned and customized automobile projected. She always wanted to come closer, see, and touch. Despite their bemusement with this interest, her parents never allowed her to come any closer than glancing distance for much of her life. This annoyed the young girl, but she satisfied herself by listening to her parents’ rudimentary explanations of their functions.

Entering preschool and eventually elementary school, Raya proved a markedly active child. She ran and jumped and climbed over whatever she could, and, with a kind heart and good-natured spirit, quickly developed some close childhood friends who she would continue to see throughout her life. Chief among these was one Clarissa Shoemaker, with whom she developed a deep bond as two daughters of auto mechanics. The two remain extremely close to this day.

After a few years spent raising Raya, Jacob and Sophia agreed they wanted more children, and that they could bear the financial burden as investments in better equipment and advertising for Autovet paid off. When Raya was six, her little brother Jack was born, and two years later came another, Ethan. She took to the role of big sister with glee, doting on them during their infant and toddler years as much as her parents did. Despite the family’s financial struggles, which were slowly being alleviated themselves, Raya’s childhood was a good one. She developed into a confident and cheerful girl, her happiness sky-high.

When Raya was nine, Sophia began to grow sick, her symptoms included fatigue, pain in her sides and gradually increasing nausea. Despite repeated expressions of concern from Jacob and Raya, Sophia insisted she was fine, but the symptoms eventually became too severe for the family to ignore. Jacob took her for a diagnosis and received terrible news. Sophia had pancreatic cancer. When they returned, neither had the heart to tell their children that their mother was slowly dying. Even worse news soon arrived when the parents tried to claim their medical insurance: while coverage was available, the out-of-pocket expenses and co-pays were so high that they were effectively unable to afford the necessary treatments.

Thus, Sophia had no choice but to spend the remainder of her days with her family. For a full year, her condition worsened and worsened before her eyes. Despite her sickness, she continued to try to work to support the family, giving all she had left. It was one of the worst periods of Raya’s life as she watched the woman who had worked so diligently to treat her well and give her a good life waste away before her eyes. It came to the point where she didn’t need to be told; she could recognize in front of her that her mother was going to die soon.

The concept confused and terrified her, especially as she could comprehend the result. Eventually, Sophia’s symptoms worsened, and she was relegated to her bed, where she stayed. It was at this point that Jacob and Sophia attempted to explain to their children their mother's condition, but only Raya was old enough to properly understand. Even then, she tried to keep up a positive attitude and cheer up her family, until the bitter end. Thus, Raya lost her mother at ten years old. The Loux family held a paltry funeral with what little they could give. Raya contemplated how she’d never see her mother again, hear her voice, feel her comfort. It felt like a wretched rot in her stomach and head. A malicious hopelessness began to take root in her, then.

The death of Sophia left Jacob a single father and equally distraught, and he lamented his lack of financial ability to treat his own wife’s deathly illness. With the death of his wife, there was one less person to work the shop—but also one less mouth to feed, meaning the loss wouldn’t stretch them too tight financially. He could’ve easily fallen into a deep and disdainful despondency, if it weren’t for his wife’s parting words to him, making him promise to remain a good father figure and support the family they had built. He resolved to stay determined despite the impact of loss and work harder than ever before for his children, to honour his wife’s last wishes. The first step was helping his children handle it, starting with the ones who couldn't understand the concept in the first place.

Ethan felt confusion and distress. He could notice how his mother wasn’t around anymore, but couldn’t understand what had happened to her, how one of his caregivers had up and disappeared. He became very clingy towards Jacob as his remaining parent at that time, and he tried his best to alleviate his stress through physical comfort. Jack, on the other hand, had more capacity to properly process that she wasn’t there anymore. For a while, he couldn’t grasp the permanence of it, pressing his father with questions of when mom would come back, and why he couldn’t see her anymore. When the loss properly set in, he began to act out and cry much more often, needing constant reassurance from Jacob that he was cared for and safe.

But out of all the siblings, Raya was hit the hardest by the loss of Sophia. She right away comprehended that her mother was simply gone, forever. She felt like nothing in the world was worth doing anymore in the face of this event. She grappled with the existential implications of the fact that this could happen to her, to her friends, to anyone she loved, and she couldn’t stop it. The acute awareness of mortality she gained terrified her. Unable to properly cope with these new feelings and the fact that her mother whom she had looked up to for so long was never coming back, for nearly a year her attitude underwent a complete change. She became much more withdrawn and emotional, barely talking or eating and crying openly.

Her friends and siblings tried to pull her out of it through simple affection and conversation, but these actions had little effect. Jacob especially was heartbroken seeing his daughter in this state, a depression he very much understood. So, determined to bring his daughter back up from her slump, he decided to begin putting much more active effort into supporting her through her grief.

It began with Jacob beginning to teach her how to work the cars she'd constantly seen in his shop. To give her a sense of security and routine, and in an attempt to take her mind off the constant darkness of loss, he’d bring her out to his garage every day after hours and teach her how the simpler machinations worked. Being an active participant there brought her better memories besides the grief, and her attachment to mechanics deepened. He’d also take the opportunity to openly communicate with her despite her social withdrawal, encouraging her to express how she felt to him. This in and of itself worked wonders; Raya felt herself slowly lifted out of an emotional pit and thus began a gradual process of healing.

During their sessions, Jacob would remind Raya of the values her mother taught her. Confidence and kindness, the ability to push forward and do the right thing. With his encouragement, she began to reach out to her siblings and friends once more. She began to take on a role of greater responsibility within the household, especially with her brothers. Taking care of them and seeing how they looked up to her now helped her relieve her grief.

Reaching out to her friends also helped massively. Just like with her father, she was able to vent and express how she felt to them, and hearing and feeling their direct support motivated her greatly. They inspired her, and their help deeply instilled in her values of camaraderie and being there for others when they were down.

With the combined support of her friends and family, and the ability to indulge in her longtime fascination, Raya was eventually able to put herself at peace with her mother’s death, motivated to act in a way the late Sophia would be proud of. However, she was left with a mark on her mental state that would never fade. An innate, latent fear of anyone close to her being taken before their time like her mother was. A sense of overprotectiveness began to form deeply within her.

Throughout middle school, she developed her skill in mechanics under Jacob’s tutelage, gradually moving up to more complicated aspects as Jacob deemed her ready, and them safe enough for her to interact with. She had a knack for tinkering and working with metal even when she lacked the proper tools, improvising alternatives such as vise grips when she lacked a wrench and coins when she lacked a screwdriver. Engineering and metalworking became almost coping mechanisms alongside hobbies, making her feel safe and at home.

This was also the time she began working out. She saw it as a way to become more efficient at her future trade. She’d accompany her father to his rudimentary home gym, where he’d show her strength-building exercises, the proper way to lift weights, and the like. Puberty was already making her taller than average, and the muscles she built up gave her a toned and slightly intimidating body type.

Jacob continued to raise her with her mother's values in mind through middle school, and Raya began to come into her own. She returned to her strong, confident self, unafraid to speak her mind and being a warm, jolly, comforting spirit to those around her. She had a penchant for attempting to reach out to classmates who seemed depressed and downtrodden and help them as her father had helped her all that time ago.

Her developing protectiveness began to shine properly as she came back into the social scene and her new role of responsibility at home. At home, she’d become ever closer to her brothers as she took on a position of role model to them. She’d take care of them, listen to their problems, and be there for them as her mom used to be. Despite the new workload this role brought, Raya approached it with utmost optimism, truly desiring to be there for her brothers whenever possible. Jacob supported her through this as best he could, and Jack and Ethan did come to see her as a role model similar to the one she once saw her mother as.

At school, meanwhile, she’d act markedly fierce toward anyone in the student body who’d mistreated her friends, going to great lengths to stop them. She could usually intimidate these bullies with her strength. When it came to physical abuse towards her friends or herself for her intervention, she’d put that strength to practical use and fight back. Due to her strength, she usually had the upper hand in these fights and made a point of never turning away from one. She rigorously adhered to the principles of determination she’d been taught, leading her to put herself even in situations where she was clearly disadvantaged, such as being outnumbered. She didn’t mind and kept going, fueled by a deep, single-minded desire to protect those close to her. However, these events were not without consequence. Though most were situated outside of school grounds, a few occurred inside, and the school would take disciplinary action. She received detentions and even a suspension, but none of it deterred her. However, at home, her father, albeit initially proud of her tendency towards justice, started to get worried. She came home with bruises and bloody noses too many times and she was getting too close to expulsion for him to ignore as a father. The suspension was the last straw for him.

He began to sternly talk to her about these concerns, trying to encourage her to stay from actually fighting, for her personal and academic sake. He had a latent fear she’d grow too attached to the violence in and of itself. Additionally, he wanted her to be able to continue an academic career at least until graduating from high school. These heart-to-hearts stuck with Raya, and she would begin to try and employ fighting, within the school at least, as purely a last resort even against the physical abuse of her classmates. She still employed her sheer confidence and ability to intimidate to stave bullies off.

Life thus went on mostly the same, and Raya eventually entered high school. Her graduation was marked by her father giving her an official position as an apprentice in Autovet. Instead of simply tinkering and shadowing her father, she could finally engage in some practical work, albeit with his supervision at his discretion. She gained much more experience and enjoyment of her passion as she could now engage in its practical application, assistance turning into the active taking of jobs herself as she aged.

Her desire for self-improvement also surfaced as she utilized the gym facilities of her new school, Southwest Red Rock. It became her regular workout spot, and as she grew and worked further, her muscle density increased. Alongside her practical reasons for working out, she deeply enjoyed the health benefits and rush from lifting weights, and gained a sense of pride in her own appearance, beginning to show off her toned arms with sleeveless clothing.

The increasing age of the people around her added a new facet to her social standing. With an already established reputation as a mechanic, she began to be approached by the vehicle-owning students of all social circles of Red Rock with queries for touch-ups and tuning. Eager to interact with all manner of her fellow students, she’d gladly direct them to Autovet, where she’d work on their requests personally.

This not only gave her a much more positive reputation at the school besides her reputation of intimidation and fighting, which had carried over to high school through word of mouth despite her physical advantages no longer being as prominent but also redoubled her interest in automobiles and their culture as a specific aspect of mechanics. As her experience with mechanics and vehicle customization increased with every new vehicle she interacted with, so did her interest. More than the orderly machinations of the machinery itself, and her attachment to it as a hobby of comfort, she found herself attached to the expression that could be presented through vehicles. She began to grow attached to magazines about cars, and specific aspects of their customization, paint jobs and the like. As soon as she got her license, she began working on a car her father had been restoring as a passion project for years: an old Mustang Boss 429 he'd pulled from a junkyard. With his guidance, she helped bring it back to working condition, cementing her skills in restoration and customization along the way, Jacob officially gifted it to her as a belated 16th birthday present once the work on it was complete. Wanting to show off their work, she'd take it out for casual drives, alone or with her friends, or use it for errands like picking up her younger siblings and getting groceries. She greatly enjoyed the feel of speed and acceleration, as well as the sense of peace and privacy she gained from being able to drive, making it a true hobby of hers.

Meeting new people in high school also contributed to her discovery of her sexuality. Interacting with folks of all genders from all cliques, she found there wasn’t a limit as to who she found attractive, whether masculine or feminine. She went a year or so believing this to be the default human experience before a sexual encounter with a fellow female classmate ended with her having to explain bisexuality as a concept to Raya. She, and her father, whom she shortly after came out to, took this in stride. She holds a very casual attitude to this facet of herself and doesn’t see the need to elaborate on this part of herself to people unless she is asked.

As she stands today, besides her general hate of bullies, she has a positive reputation at school, keeping close with old and new friends alike. She holds little interest in any school subject, maintaining average grades, save for mathematics and physics, which she holds in high regard for their importance in mechanics. She’s as close as ever to her family as well, maintaining a strong bond with her younger brothers, Jack and Ethan. She takes an active role in their lives, often helping them with schoolwork, teaching them basic car maintenance, and spending quality time together. Whether it's taking them out for drives in her Mustang, watching movies, or simply being there when they need advice, Raya sees herself as both a big sister and a mentor. She remains fiercely protective of them, always ready to step in if they face trouble, though she tries to temper her instincts with the lessons she learned from her father about restraint. She still mourns her mother with a monthly visit to her grave every first Friday. Her graduation plan is the same as it’s been all her life: to take over the family business, Autovet. She holds a marked excitement towards this and has her dad’s total support for it.

Advantages: Raya is skilled in metalworking and engineering, with a talent for improvising tools from unconventional materials. Her work with machinery and gym training has made her strong and enduring. She possesses a small amount of street fighting experience from her fights at school.
Disadvantages: Raya's overprotectiveness sourced from her mother's death leads her to take extreme measures to defend those close to her. Combined with her confidence, this can also lead her into situations beyond her ability, often ignoring advice once she has her mind set on a specific goal, likely to her detriment. She could be pushed as far as to mindlessly rush down a person wielding a loaded firearm.

[Deamon]

Hey there L! Before we can give Raya a full critique their profile needs to fully adhere to the template. Currently, you have an extra line break between the hobbies and interests section and the rest of the basic information and there is a line break on the first line of the biography section. Fix this, and someone will be able to get to Raya to give her a proper critique!

[LYourLocalAutist]

Done

[Deamon]

Hi L! Raya is looking good and is almost ready to go, but we have some edits and adjustments that will need to be made before she is ready to go into pregame proper. It's fairly simple stuff though so shouldn't take you too long to sort out.

For the appearance you should add a "Raya is..." to the beginning as otherwise this whole section doesn't feature her name at all, which makes it read very weird.

She’s avid of tank tops, weather jackets, and cargo pants.

An avid fan of

Currently, Raya doesn't wear any shoes, so you'll need to add information on those in.

Despite the family's lower class, Autovet’s reputation kept the business going and kept food on the table

The context of this sentence is a bit weird as I don't know why a families class would have any effect on their business being able to stay running, this may just be a case of you wanted to include that detail, but it doesn't fit with the rest of the sentence.

Having spent most of her early life around all manner of machinery and engines and the like in her parents' garage and shop, where they had to have her in order to keep an eye on her,

This seems like a bad idea, having a young child in a mechanic shop around all of the machinery in there is a recipe for disaster, and would probably violate some form of OSHA. It also doesn't make sense that there wouldn't be some sort of family member that couldn't look after Raya during the day when her parents were working. So this will need some adjusting and explaining.

as it is generally considered a bad idea to let an infant interact with heavy machinery.

This is too casual for a profile so will need to be removed.

with whom she developed a deep bond as 2 daughters of auto mechanics. The two remain extremely close to this day.

If you are going to use numbers please be consistent with the form you use them in for consistency. It's probably better if you stick with two.

This, however, wasn’t to last.

Again, too informal, and we don't need foreshadowing in a profile. It's supposed to be a formal document in terms of style, think like a Wikipedia article.

Fatigue, pain in her sides, gradually increasing nausea.

This is a weird fragment, it will need to be turned into an actual sentence.

The concept confused and terrified her, especially as she could comprehend the result. She was the only sibling in the family at the time old enough to wholly understand and register the event.

These two sentences repeat the same information so you should pick the one you prefer and use that one.

there was one less person to work the shop— but also one less

No space next to the dash.

So, one thing with the brothers grief that confuses me, Sophia was at home in bed as she in the final days of her life, so what exactly did the parents tell the boys at this stage? I have no problem with their grief but this seems like a difficult thing to continue to keep a secret as their mother is dying within the home.

A sense of overprotectiveness began to burgeon deeply within her

Saying began to burgeon like this means you're basically saying something began to begin. It would make the sentence work better to just put form instead of burgeon.

The three paragraphs about her getting into fights in middle school would be better served being combined into one as they are all covering the same topic.

subconsciously showing off her toned arms with sleeveless clothing.

Going off the appearance this doesn't seem to be subconcious at all.

she began to be approached by the vehicle-toting students

You should probably just say owning, as toting means carrying and I don't think anyone at Red Rock is carrying cars around.

This not only gave her a much more positive reputation at the school besides her intimidating, anti-bullying stance but

So not to ruin a part of the character you clearly want to be present, but I don't think being 6'1" at Red Rock is going to be as intimidating as it would be when at middle school. Red Rock is an athletics forward school, so there's going to be a lot of big, athletic kids around. Also the phrasing of this sentence is a bit weird as it makes it sound like her anti-bullying stance is what is intimidating, which I'm not sure how a fairly common sense viewpoint would be intimidating. So this will need some rewording.

Raya currently only has one disadvantage, and ideally, we'd like to see at least two. So if I could suggest one, I'd say that her overprotectiveness of people close to her as a result of her mothers death and/or overprotectiveness against bullies and physical harm could make an interesting one.

A few other general things, we're not actually told why Raya likes working out, it's solely presented as a means to an end rather than a hobby she has any particular passion for, so this will need to be added in.

This is the same for driving as we're given the details of how she enjoys the doing cars up and what she likes about cars themselves, and while driving is mentioned we're not given anything about what she actually enjoys about it.

And that is everything! Throw a post up in here once the edits are made and then I'll take another look at Raya for you!

[LYourLocalAutist]

IIii think I've got them all

[Deamon]

Alright, we're looking better but there's still some parts that need work before Raya's going to be able to enter pregame so lets get to it.

The appearance doesn't mention Raya's name at all. You should add this as it give people context to who exactly the subject of the sentence is, currently it's just a disembodied she. You should at minimum add "Raya is..." to the beginning but I would advise adding her name to each new paragraph in this part.

safety footwear

We need more on this please, safety footwear isn't really telling us anything. Is she wearing work boots, steel-toe capped boots or shoes etc.

Her hands are thick with calluses from her mechanic work, and she commonly has a bruise or scruff on her skin.

This can be added to the paragraph above.

Especially, she developed a deep attachment to her mother,

Swapping the especially and the she around would work better here.

When Raya was nine, Sophia began to grow sick. Symptoms included fatigue, pain in her sides, gradually increasing nausea.

Just adding symptoms to the start of this fragment doesn't make it less of a fragment. The best idea would be to incorporate it into the existing sentence such as "Sophia began to grow sick, her symptoms included..." This gives us a full sentence and idea, as the whole sentence is talking about Sophia growing ill. It would also be best to put an and before gradually.

Even worse news soon arrived when the parents tried to claim their medical insurance: they were denied by the company as they claimed the condition was pre-existing.

Now, I know the American medical system is a hellscape, but it seems unlikely that if Sophia already had health insurance that the provider would be able to claim this was pre-existing. In fact the Affordable Care Act made this illegal in 2014 and based on the ages provided this would have been around 2016, so they wouldn't have been able to deny Sophia coverage. So you'll need to rework this section some to reflect this.

She became much more withdrawn and emotional, barely talking or eating, crying openly.

And crying openly.

It looks like you missed my note to combine the three paragraphs about Raya getting into fights into one, so you'll need to do that on this one. For reference it is the three that start like so:

At school, meanwhile,...

Due to her strength,...

However, these events were not without consequence...

as well as the sense of peace and privacy, she wrought from being able to drive,

Wrought is a weird word to use here as it means to make something, saying gained would likely work better.

she’d make passion projects of derelict vehicles which fell into Autovet’s possession,

So there's a bit of an issue with this, as Autovet is a mechanic shop, people aren't going to be taking derelict vehicles to it. That it typically the job of the scrapyard. Which brings about the other issue, it's very unlikely that someone is going to drop a Mustang Boss 429 off at a random mechanic shop, even if it is in bad shape. At the prices, that they sell for they would most likely be taking it to an auction so they can get maximum value out of it. What I would suggest if that if you want there to be a car that Raya has done up you should make it cheaper and have it be something that her father bought and has been working on as a passion project for a while that she helps on. As this is more likely and doesn't strain believability too much.

The detail about Claude's car is confusing as it is not mentioned in his profile where he's given it preowned by his grandad who had been using it and is written as actively driving and using it himself, so this would be best to be removed as it doesn't fit with established information.

We know what Raya's relationship with her father is like in the present day but could we get an update on what her relationship with her brothers is like? Especially as spending time with her family is an interest of hers.

And that's everything from this pass. You know the drill, let me know once you've made the edits and I'll go back over everything for you.

[LYourLocalAutist]

Back to ya, Dea-man.

[Deamon]

Alright, we're nearly there, just a few small edits left, nothing too diffcult.

Raya is a light-skinned, diamond-faced caucasian girl standing at 6’2 and weighing in at 172 lbs with a toned,

If you want to list height like this it should be written as 6'2"

When she was indisposed, however, her parents had no choice but to keep her in the safest spot they could in their garage as they worked.

Because you haven't stated a subject here it sounds like you're referring to Raya being indisposed but then being kept in the garage. It would be best to say keep Raya rather than her.

She developed into a confident and cheerful girl, her morale sky-high.

Morale is a weird word to use here as it's not really something that you apply to a child who is just living, happiness would be a better word to use.

her symptoms including fatigue, pain in her sides and gradually increasing nausea.

As this section of the profile should be past tense it would be included rather than including.

Jacob continued to raise her the way he saw fit through middle school

This sentence is unclear and it would be best to say he continued to raise her with her mothers values in mind.

Her desire to strive for self-improvement

Desire to strive is clunky, desire works just fine by itself otherwise you're just saying she wants to try hard.

Jacob officially gifting it to her as a belayed 16th birthday present when the work on it was complete.

Few things here, again the tense is an issue as it would be gifted not gifting, as well as once instead of when. Belayed is also not the correct word for this context, it would be belated.

Post back here once you're done and we should be good to go.

[LYourLocalAutist]

Mr. Deamonchev, tear down this wall (to the approved characters section)

[Deamon]

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