Survival Of The Fittest

Name: Marcia "Marcy" Valerio
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Dancing, Gymnastics, Cheerleading, Delinquency, Socialising

Appearance: Marcy stands at 5'4" and weighs approximately 125 lbs, possessing a lean and athletic build thanks to her active lifestyle, with broad shoulders and toned muscles in her arms and legs. Her light olive skin is smooth and free of blemishes, belying her Italian-American ancestry. Her face is heart-shaped, featuring dark brown eyes with striking eyebrows, a slender nose and expressive lips. She has lately been experimenting with a variety of hairstyles, most recently dying her black hair bright pink and styling it into an asymmetric bob cut. She usually wears makeup, including black eyeliner, pink lip gloss and pink nail polish. She's often found chewing bubblegum, which frequently gets her into trouble at school.

Her choice of attire varies from day to day, though one consistent factor is her strong preference towards bright vibrant clothing, particularly involving the color pink. She prefers to wear mid-thigh length shorts when able, given Nevada's high temperature throughout the year, occasionally wearing tights underneath during winter. She's had her ears pierced since she was 16, frequently wearing heart-shaped silver studs in both lobes, and for her 18th birthday she got her tongue pierced. On the day of the trip, she was wearing a black tank top with pink trim underneath a pink off-shoulder crop top, denim shorts and pink trainers. She additionally has a pink zip-up hoodie and pink bardot jumper packed away in her backpack.

Biography: Marcy was born on the 12th of January 2007 to Bianca and Joey Carrozza, a young Italian-American couple who met whilst studying at UNLV and married shortly after graduating in 2005. Her mother Bianca - the youngest daughter of a wealthy Las Vegas retiree by the name of Rocco Valerio - went on to become an airport gate agent after giving up her dream of becoming a professional dancer, whilst her father Joey was an aspiring stock broker. Four years after Marcy was born, Joey and Bianca had a second daughter named Gabriela.

Marcy's childhood was a tumultuous one. It wasn't long after Gabriela’s birth that it became apparent that their relationship was not one destined to last, despite the initial intensity of their passion for one another. Her father's charm eventually turned out to be superficial, revealing himself to be a sleazy narcissist and reckless spender, whilst her mother's short-tempered nature began to worsen as the stress of family life started taking its toll. Making matters worse was Joey's growing obsession with cryptocurrency, leading to several risky investments that frequently led to heated arguments with his partner. Whilst Marcy and Gabby were mostly spared the brunt of their parents' frustrations, they both grew up with very few positive memories of their parents' volatile marriage.

Marcy and Gabby have always been on relatively good terms, despite how radically different they are in terms of personality. Marcy is an extrovert by nature, never afraid to speak her mind and quick to make friends. Gabby by comparison was very much an introvert, preferring to read books and pursue academic interests, in stark contrast with Marcy's leanings towards the arts and athletic pursuits. Overall Marcy gets along with her sister far more than her parents, her father in particular being a figure whom she started viewing with contempt as she grew older.

It wasn't until 2019 that their parents' relationship soured beyond reconciliation, when it came to light that Joey had on multiple occasions been unfaithful to Bianca. This proved to be the final straw - not only for their parents' relationship, but for how Marcy perceived her father after he had spent years whittling away what little respect she had for him. Joey and Bianca divorced soon after, leading to Bianca and her daughters moving in with her father Rocco. Marcy has since gone to great lengths to distance herself from Joey, blocking him on all forms of social media and refusing any opportunities to see him. The last time she and her father met was in 2021, when an inebriated Joey arrived unannounced at their Las Vegas home in an ill-conceived attempt to bury the hatchet. This however only resulted in him being soundly rejected and issued a restraining order, and he has since moved back to his hometown in California.

Since then, Marcy and her sister have lived with Bianca and her father, spending their teenage years in relative luxury at their grandfather's modest Las Vegas estate. Whilst not exactly living a life of high society, Marcy frequently questions how her grandfather was able to retire with such a fortune at his disposal. Her mother remains tight-lipped on the subject, and whenever asked her grandfather claims that he simply worked security for a number of casinos during the 1970s, always doing so in a manner that leads Marcy to suspect there may be more to his past than he's willing to divulge. In reality her grandfather was involved in the Chicago Outfit during the 70’s and early 80’s, but has long since retired and taken significant effort to distance himself from his past.

In the years since her parents' separation, Marcy's father has remained a sore subject for her. This lingering resentment eventually led to her going through the trouble of legally adopting her mother’s maiden name, in an attempt to distance herself further from her father. Despite this, her relationship with her mother has not been without its hiccups. Like Bianca, Marcy has always been stubborn and hot-headed, something that only became more apparent as she grew older and loud arguments with her mother became more frequent. Nevertheless, whilst she would never admit it outright Marcy deeply respects her mother for always standing up for herself, and it was her mother's passion for dancing that eventually led to Marcy pursuing the hobby as she grew older.

Even at an early age, when she got involved in various sporting activities at elementary school, it quickly became apparent that Marcy had great athletic potential. Physically fit, quick on her feet and possessing an impeccable sense of balance and coordination, it wasn't long before Marcy was recommended to take gymnastics sessions. It was during these sessions that she discovered how much she enjoyed performing in front of a crowd, along with her tendency to take risks and push herself further. Over the years she quickly proved to be an exceptional gymnast, capable of performing at a high level by the time she entered her teenage years. Whilst she enjoys the performative aspects of gymnastics, over time she found herself more drawn to the pomp and circumstance of cheerleading. Nevertheless, wanting her daughter to make the most of her athletic talent, Bianca saw fit to enrol her at Southwest Red Rock High School after learning of their stellar reputation for sports.

Ever the socialite, Marcy was quick to entrench herself within Red Rock's sports crowd as a prominent flyer on the cheer squad, making a name for herself as someone willing and capable of performing high spots with seemingly little concern for her own safety. Marcy’s confident nature and exuberant personality meant she was never short of friends, even if most tended to be on the shallow side, firmly establishing herself as a member of the popular crowd early on. That said, she hasn't been without her detractors, with many off-put by her bossy attitude, fragile attention span and short-temper. Her consistent desire to outdo herself has also earned mixed responses from her fellow cheerleaders, some respecting her talent whilst others see her as an attention seeker. Not helping matters is her tendency to volunteer to perform the most dangerous stunts, frequently taking risks in an effort to push herself even further.

Whilst the cheer squad is of great importance to Marcy, cheerleading is far from her greatest passion at school. That would be her love of dancing, one she's hesitant to admit stems from her mother's passion for the subject, not wishing to appear as though she’s simply following in her mother’s footprints. From childhood to early adulthood, she has continued to pursue dance as a hobby, honing her craft and training in a variety of styles over the years. These range from jazz and ballet to hip hop and aerobics, along with dabbling in other styles to further expand her repertoire. In recent years she's become skilled enough that she's able to blend styles effortlessly, garnering attention from others involved in the school's performing arts scene. This has led to her performing in a number of school productions, along with stints as a backing dancer for some of her more musically inclined classmates. Nevertheless her role on the cheer squad limits the extent of her involvement, though she's made little secret of her desire to pursue dancing on a professional level after finishing high school.

Her budding career however would meet a significant stumbling block when she was 16, when her luck finally ran out during an ill-fated cheer practice session where she performed a dangerous stunt that resulted in a torn ACL. Whilst fortunately she has since healed from the injury, and can perform close to the same level that she could before, the experience left her benched for the majority of her junior year and had a significant effect on her emotional wellbeing.

In the months following the injury she began to mellow out considerably, growing more distant from the various friendship circles that had defined her early years at Red Rock. It didn’t help that she had always struggled when it came to more academic subjects, showing little desire to put in more effort than necessary to get passing grades. Her inability to perform left her feeling severely depressed during this period, her mood spiralling despite her friends and family’s attempts at encouragement.

It wasn't until winter that year that she found her spark again, when a chance encounter led to her falling in with a small crew of like-minded delinquents amongst her classmates. She found herself drawn to them out of her own frustrations with the authority figures in her life, and growing resentment towards the establishment as a whole. This was further exacerbated as she grew closer to the group, drawn in particular to one of its more notable figures: Finn Cooper.

Marcy has had her fair share of romantic engagements during her time at Red Rock, most being brief affairs that amounted to little. Her relationship with Finn however was different. She found herself drawn to his quiet intensity, what started as a simple crush growing into something much more intense, the two becoming deeply infatuated with one another over the coming months. A year on, Finn and Marcy are a firmly established power couple, going so far as making plans beyond Red Rock together.

Her association with Finn and his friendship circle has had a number of knock-on effects, both in terms of how she presented herself and how others started viewing her. She began to experiment with a variety of styles, blending her love of everything and anything pink with her newfound friends' more counterculture fashion choices. This eventually culminated in her current look, her mother taking issue with her decision to dye her hair pink and get her tongue pierced. More concerningly, she's found herself joining her boyfriend and his gang on their various escapades. Usually sticking to petty crime such as shoplifting, vandalism and trespassing, where just as with cheerleading she is eager to take part and prove herself to her newfound friends. On occasion she has even cheered her boyfriend on during his street races, though she has taken great effort to hide her indirect participation in them from her mother and teachers.

Whilst she has thus far avoided getting caught doing anything significantly illegal, her association with the gang is public knowledge, and once her injury healed she began to rein in her behaviour somewhat to avoid risking her spot on the cheer squad. Despite this for many of her former friends the damage to her reputation is already done, with rumours abound about the kind of activities she gets up to with her newfound friends. Nevertheless she's still close to a fair few of her classmates amongst the popular crowd, even as she finds herself stuck between them and the delinquent crowd she’s fallen in with.

With regards to her future, she has never been one for long-term planning, with little desire to pursue further education despite her mother's insistence on her going to college. In spite of the frequent advice she’s received about pursuing a degree in dance, she is sceptical about college and remains convinced that she doesn’t need a degree to become a professional dancer, granted she lacks any plans on how to actually become one. Outside of dancing, the one thing she knows for certain is that she wants to remain with Finn, potentially even start a family with him somewhere down the line.

Advantages: Marcy's a highly talented athlete, possessing a considerable sense of balance and coordination, along with being quick on her feet. She is on good terms with a number of her classmates, with a guaranteed ally in the form of Finn Cooper.
Disadvantages: Marcy is reckless to a fault, her short-temper and impulsivity putting a damper on her long-term survival odds. Her attachment to Finn will eventually cause issues given SOTF's rigid win conditions.

Wild GUNDHAM appeared!

Hello and welcome to the approval process. Marcy looks very promising, but there are a some things to go through before she's fully ready, so she's DENIED pending edits.

This critique may seem long, but don't be daunted. These are mostly minor fixes that are easily corrected, or questions to get more information about Marcy on a character level. If you have any questions of your own, or you want clarification on the fixes we're looking for, don't hesitate to DM me!

One big issue that needs to be addressed is sentence flow - the bio has a lot of sentences that string multiple clauses together. Most of these can be split into multiple smaller sentences, which would make for a much smoother read. Comb through and look for the longer sentences, especially ones that contain more than one comma. Find ways to break up the information and convey it in multiple sentences, where possible. A great way to spot this is to read your drafts out loud, and see where sentences feel awkward. If you can't read it smoothly, find a way to break it up into more manageable chunks!

Another somewhat consistent thing is word usage - it's important to consider whether redundant information is present, or whether sentence connectors like like "Despite" or "nevertheless" are contextually appropriate.

All right, let's get into it!

Her face is heart-shaped, framed by a pair of dark brown eyes with striking eyebrows,

Minor quibble here, but "framed" would refer to the outside of the face, which would mean the hair and jawline. Eyes and eyebrows are generally in the middle of it. "Accentuated by" or "featuring" might be a better way of expressing the thought you're going for here?

She usually wears makeup,

"Makeup" is a single word when describing cosmetics.

She prefers to wear shorts when able

Nevada state dress code specifies that shorts can be worn, but they have to be mid-thigh in length. Given her rebellious nature, is this a rule that Marcy adheres to?

she was wearing a black tank top with pink trim

No need to hyphenate.

a young Italian-American couple who met whilst studying at UNLV and married shortly after graduating.

What year would this have been? Bianca and Joey's marriage seems to have unraveled pretty quickly, so was this before or after Marcy was born? Did her and Gabriela's births help the situation or make it worse?

whilst her mother's short-tempered nature began to exacerbate as the stress of family life started taking its toll on her

"Exacerbate" is used incorrectly here. To "exacerbate" means to make something worse, it's an effect that has to be directly linked to a cause. So, stress can exacerbate her mother's temper, her mother's temper can be exacerbated by stress, but her mother's temper can't just exacerbate by itself, if that makes sense? Also, you can delete the last two words, since they're redundant.

despite how radically different they are in terms of personality

Past tense is used for most things in the biography, but when setting up or describing conditions that persist into the present, you should use present tense. "Were" can be changed to "are", since the sisters' personalities presently continue to be different.

This proved to be the final straw, not only for their parents' relationship but for how Marcy perceived her father after he had spent years whittling away what little respect she had for him. After an ugly divorce that led to Bianca and her two daughters moving in with her father Rocco, Marcy has gone at great length to distance herself from Joey, blocking him on all forms of social media and refusing any opportunities to see him. The last time she and her father met was in 2021, when an inebriated Joey arrived unannounced at their Las Vegas home in an ill-conceived attempt to bury the hatchet, only to be soundly rejected and issued a restraining order.

This paragraph is an example of the sentence flow I mentioned above. It's worth figuring out how to shorten some of these and divide them into smaller sentences. Figure out what information each sentence conveys. If there are multiple topics brought up, it's probably worth chopping it into separate sentences. That'll help things flow better.

Whilst not exactly living a life of high society, Marcy has forever questioned how her grandfather was able to retire with such a fortune at his disposal, her mother remains tight-lipped on the subject. Whenever asked, her grandfather claims that he simply worked security for a number of casinos during the 1970s, but always does so in a manner that leads Marcy to suspect there may be more to his past than he's willing to divulge.

Present/past tense again, since you're describing a pattern of behavior that continues through the present.

In the years since her parents' separation, Marcy's father has remained a sore subject, even going through the trouble of legally adopting her mother's maiden name in an attempt to distance herself further.

The sentence has a dangling modifier and needs to be adjusted to clarify that Marcy's father is a sore subject for her, specifically, and this has caused her to adopt Bianca's maiden name. You may find it easier to split it into two sentences.

It was because of her experience as a gymnast that she found herself drawn to cheerleading, with many suspecting that had she not decided to focus on the latter she likely would've ended up pursuing gymnastics on a competitive level.

Why did Marcy make this move? What does she enjoy about gymnastics, and what drew her away from that and towards cheerleading?

Her recklessness also frequently gets her in trouble with Mrs. Harper, constantly warning her to stop taking needless risks for the sake of putting on a good performance. Said advice was often ignored, eventually with disastrous results.

Put the paragraph about Marcy's torn ACL immediately after this one, since the topics flow into one another. Additionally, teachers generally face scrutiny in incidents where students are injured, and Mrs. Harper takes her role seriously. Cheerleading is a high-risk activity, with high potential for injury, so Marcy blatantly ignoring warnings about risky behavior would probably get her reassigned to less dangerous positions or benched from the squad all together. It'd be better to rework this into Marcy continually volunteering for the most dangerous stunts or something like that.

Despite the unquestionable pride she has for her position on the cheer squad, it was far from her greatest passion at school. That would be her love of dancing, one she's hesitant to admit stems from her mother's passion for the subject. Not to mention the numerous 1980s dancing movies her mother introduced her to when she was growing up, with Flashdance and Dirty Dancing being particular favourites

There's a slightly informal tone here, that needs to be tightened up. No apostrophe required in "1980s" either.

Also, why is Marcy hesitant to admit that she likes dancing because of her mother? They don't get along well, but is there a reason why she's specifically unwilling to acknowledge her influence? Can you unpack that a bit more?

Honing her craft, training in a variety of styles over the years, ranging from jazz and ballet to hip hop and aerobics.

This is a sentence fragment, it needs to be expanded into a complete sentence.

In recent years she's become skilled enough that she's able to blend styles effortlessly, garnering attention from others involved in the school's performing arts scene.

Add "become" here.

This eventually culminated in her current look, her mother taking issue with her decision to dye her hair pink and get several piercings.

Nevada state law prohibits minors from getting piercings without parental consent. In order for Marcy to have pierced ears, she'd need to be accompanied by her legal guardian (in this case, her mother.) So this will either need to be rewritten for her mother to consent, or Marcy will need to wait until she turns eighteen.

More concerningly, she's found herself joining her boyfriend and his gang on their various escapades, often going out of her way to prove her dedication by any means necessary.

What sort of escapades? Are they breaking laws, or just maliciously loitering? This is going to require a lot more specific detail.

Whilst she's started reining in her behaviour somewhat once it became clear that she was at risk of losing her spot on the cheer squad

There's a switch between tenses here that needs to be adjusted. Has Marcy's newfound delinquency affected her participation in cheer and dance? Those are both rigorous activities that expect a fairly high level of discipline. If she's starting to behave rebelliously, is that causing conflict in those areas?

With regards to her future, she has never been one for long-term planning, with little desire to pursue further education despite her mother's insistence on her going to college. Outside of becoming a professional dancer, the one thing she knows for certain is that she wants to remain with Finn, potentially even starting a family with him somewhere down the line.

The are multiple colleges in Nevada that have degrees in dance. If Marcy wants to become a professional, has she considered any of these? If so, will that conflict with her desire to be a delinquent, since she'll probably need to pull up her grades? If not, why not? How does she envision herself becoming a professional?

-------'

And that's everything! I know that it might look like there's a lot here, but it's mostly nailing down little things, giving some clarity, and sanding off some rough edges to help make Marcy into the best possible version of herself. She's already very good, we're making her very great. As I said before, if anything I've said here is unclear or confusing, feel free to reach out. I'm happy to talk anytime!

When you've made the changes, post here again and I'll give her another look-see.

Edits are done, let me know if there's any other alterations/elaborations/etcetarations required.

It's looking much better! Fantastic work so far! One or two little things that still need clearing up:

This proved to be the final straw - not only for their parents' relationship, but for how Marcy perceived her father after he had spent years whittling away what little respect she had for him.

Sentence fragment here, easily cleared up with the above solution.

Whilst not exactly living a life of high society, Marcy frequently questions how her grandfather was able to retire with such a fortune at his disposal. Her mother remains tight-lipped on the subject.

You've done a great job at cleaning up the run-on sentences, this one still needs a little TLC though!

Whilst she enjoys the performative aspects of gymnastics, over time she found herself more drawn to the pomp and circumstance of cheerleading, with many suspecting that had she not decided to focus on the latter she likely would've ended up pursuing gymnastics on a competitive level.

You can probably lose the latter half of this sentence (everything after "cheerleading") since it's mostly speculative.

It didn’t help that she had always struggled

Tense needs to be adjusted here to fit the flow of the rest of the paragraph. It's difficult to explain why without getting deep into the weeds, so just... uh... trust me, bro.

Finally, please change the first "She" in both the Advantages and Disadvantages sections to "Marcy."

Once those are done, post here and I'll take another look!

Aand done.

By the power vested in me by more senior staffers, I hereby dub thee APPROVED