Survival Of The Fittest

Mateo de Guzmán

Born in Manila to a relatively wealthy family, Mateo de Guzmán has gone through life being diligently prepared for what will come next. Studying at San Ildefonso Academy to connect with its prominent alumni, taking additional Spanish and French lessons to open up career opportunities, and finally, moving to the USA to secure an internationally recognized education. After his father managed to secure a job offer in the USA, Mateo moved with his father at age 12. Having moved to the US at a relatively late age, though, he still remembers home fondly, even as it becomes a country very different from the one he left. That being said, he’s grown increasingly disconnected from his friends at San Ildefonso and has become a little warier of investing effort in friends who could prove to be unreliable.

[+] Appearance

Mateo is 5’7 and weighs 74 kilograms, and has light brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes. He’s somewhat chubby around the torso due to a lack of exercise and fondness for eating, which he has unsuccessfully tried to eliminate, mainly due to not being able to stick to any diet/exercise plan for long enough. He dresses conservatively, mainly focusing on being modest and inoffensive in his dress; he mainly favors polo shirts with slacks or cargo pants, although he sometimes wears t-shirts at very informal occasions.

[+] Hobbies

Board games, video games, philosophy, reading, watching theater, MUN, Student Council
He has a significant collection of board games (mostly Eurogames) and has probably set up his own board gaming club. He’s very interested in new games though, so he’ll appreciate anyone who can offer any tips or suggestions.
MUN and Student Council are mostly there for the resume potential; he puts in effort to do well, but he treats them more as an additional academic requirement than anything he’s passionate about.

[+] Personality

In general, Mateo works hard to be cheerful and pleasant as much as possible, at least in public. He dislikes tension and hostility and strongly disapproves of people who steer the conversation into what he considers unsafe waters. He is not very emotionally perceptive, and isn’t likely to notice other people’s problems unless they tell him.
However, he is highly competitive when it comes to his studies. In debates, he is polite but stubborn; he’ll question the relevance of your sources or the structure of your logic before he concedes. He works hard on his studies, but he find some subjects more difficult than others. He has recently started seeing a tutor for mathematics, but has tried to get help as discreetly as possible.
Privately, though, the increasing pressure related to college preparations (and the possibility with losing contact with another set of friends) are beginning to wear on him. He has yet to tell anyone of this, considering it to simply be a natural result of his workload.

[+] Attitudes

Politically, he leans towards market liberalism, but heavily influenced by church teachings, making hime relatively conservative on social issues.
While he doesn’t dislike irreligious people, criticizing religion in general or the Catholic Church in particular is a very easy way to get on his bad side.
Mateo generally dislikes people who are publicly cruel or spiteful, and is very supportive of those who work against bullying in some way.
Being nice to him on a personal level is an easy way to improve his opinion of you, even if it's only very limited.
He also approves of those who are diligent and respectful of authority, but tolerates people who don’t as long as they don’t interfere too much with other, more rule-abiding people.

Relationships
He’s open to being friends with anyone, but he’s not going to take the initiative. Romance is also an option, if anyone is willing to persevere in spite of his romantic obliviousness.
I’m currently planning to have Mateo be tutored by an NPC, but if someone can convince him that they can be discreet he’ll probably go with them
People who play boardgames (or anything even slightly adjacent and open to trying something new) are very welcome indeed!

Feel free to ask questions, but I'm generally much more active on Discord, so ask there unless you already have something concrete in mind.

Hey Jan! Got some ideas for ya. :^)

[+] my brain power found in here

• Mateo/Cedar: Platoon!!!! He seems like the sort that she might occasionally worry about because of his emotional obliviousness? Though maybe he's well accomplished enough that she thinks he's doing okay in general. She... might not like the socially conservative bend that much, though she's not the sort to confront people over stuff like that. Like, he might be well integrated into the Platoon enough to know that Cedar had a falling out with her birth parents over religion, among other things, and that she does harbor strong personal critiques of the Church. She's not explicit about those views but I think he might know and not think too highly of her, especially since he came to America a bit later so he's competing with a lot of the other Platoon members who weren't there earlier like she was. Like, I could see Mateo being one of the Platoon members she privately does not like much and vice versa.
• Mateo/Soo-bin: MUN. Church goers (though probably not the same denomination). I'm sure she thinks quite highly of him and his hard work, as it reminds her of her own need to try twice as hard to get anything done in club or in general. Maybe they study together, with that in mind. But since he's doing MUN mostly for the resume boost I can't imagine he matches her passion, so that mismatch might prevent them from being any much closer.

Mateo generally dislikes people who are publicly cruel or spiteful, and appreciates those who

Also this might be a typo? I just noticed while reading through.

Thanks for reminding me about that sentence fragment! Anyways, here's Mateo's side of the relationship.

[+] Cedar Dalisay

Cedar: Mateo probably appreciates Cedar's artistic talents, and may have asked her for drawings at some point. He definitely likes her efforts to help other people. And he appreciates people noticing his existence without prompting as well, so any messages he receives will be highly appreciated.

However, Mateo will probably have made a decision to avoid speaking of religious matters or his social attitudes while he's aware she's in listening range (which might not be all the times she's actually nearby). He's likely uncomfortable with it, but given her Platoon membership I think he'll try and avoid alienating her as long as she doesn't speak out about it. Overall, I think Mateo's probably isn't aware of any negative feelings Cedar has for him in any specific way.

Given she plays tabletop games, he'll probably try to convince her to become a member of the Board Games Club (possibly inviting her to a one-on-one session at some point).

[+] Soo-bin Kim Reyes

Mateo mostly thinks of Soo-bin in two ways: "MUN colleague" and "good Christian". With MUN, he's split between approving of her commitment and being privately envious of how her prep work must be much easier given her passion for MUN. His personal approach to MUN is that of someone more interested in the rhetoric and resolution writing than anything else. At conferences his first concern is winning Best Delegate awards, although he does his best to put on a façade of enthusiasm while at Club Sessions.

With regards to religion, he's probably asked her questions about her specific denomination and beliefs might be, but beyond that he'd be too worried about getting into a religious debate to go any further.

Outside of hobbies, Mateo is probably most interested in having someone to practice foreign languages in, if she speaks Spanish (Mateo will probably avoid humiliating himself by practicing French in public) or asking her for general tips about learning any other languages.