yay! @kendelias okay so i have the broad strokes worked out for mariana in most places and some more detailed stuff for others.
mariana is the third of four children, all girls. she’s considered very smart at mckinley and has an incredibly high gpa but she is the least smart of all her sisters and they all know it. (teresa is studying astrophysics and ofelia is studying civil engineering.) so that’s rough for her. as is the fact that she shares a room with her younger sister antonia who is a genius and the smartest of the bunch.
my face claim for her is herizen guardiola.
mariana’s mom (first name tbd) is an afro-latina lawyer from venezuela and her dad (first name also tbd) is dr garcia, he’s from spain. both of them are jewish and they both came to the states to go to college and have a certain amount of similar cultural background but were also treated quite differently.
i’ve decided that puck’s mom, who does not have a stated job in canon, works for mariana’s dad and so she’s known puck who she and her family all call noah and his little sister (who i have named sadie since she doesn’t have a canon name) most their lives. ms. sandoval likes sadie but thinks puck is a bad influence, dr. garcia treats him like the son he doesn’t have and is more indulgent of him.
mariana is a cheerio but she’s frequently seen out of uniform or wearing either the cheerios top with pants or the skirt with a different shirt, symbolizing her lack of commitment to being on the cheerios. her two true passions are soccer, she is also on the mckinley girls’ soccer team, and theatre. but unlike rachel, she wants to do the non-musical side of theater - shakespeare, oscar wilde, tennessee williams, henrik ibsen, etc.
she auditions for glee club in the pilot as one of the original members after the director of the school play fails to give her a part with even one line. technically this means she is the first cheerio to join although because she often doesn’t wear her cheerio uniform outside of practice and competition, it doesn’t come up until the unholy trinity audition.
oh she’s a freshman in s1 so she’s still in high school in s4.
mariana has a tendency to come across “sjw”-y but most of that is actually related in some way to her multiple identities - black, bisexual, jewish & latina - or experience, her mom is a lawyer and her sister ofelia has epilepsy so she knows a bunch about the americans with disabilities act (ada), such as that not providing artie with accommodations to sectionals in s1 is a violation and could get the school sued. (sorry that plotline just bugs me so much! 😖)
* friendships *: she and puck are friends although maybe it’s more accurate to say they have a familial relationship, mariana will tell him he’s being stupid and call him an ass to his face but she also sticks up for him such as when he fights with finn, even when he’s actually in the wrong.
tina is the first person in glee that she already knows. they’re in the same math class. their friendship is little more downlow/subdued compared to others on this list but long-lasting.
mariana likes brittney a lot, more than santana. they probably hang out the most of the friendships here.
she and santana are not infrequently in agreement but they rub each other the wrong way. the few times they work in tandem shows how dangerous they can be together - for example, in s3e12 “the spanish teacher”, mariana is completely in agreement with santana, she also files a complaint about mr. schue, dances with david martinez, and when santana says, “because they don’t know any better,” mariana chimes in, “she’s right!” and then mr schue says, “it was you! you filed the complaint about me.” mariana: “we both did.” (can you tell i just rewatched that ep recently? 😛) (mariana takes either french or italian at mckinley since she has no need to take a spanish class.)
she doesn’t like finn, like at all. and while she’s not as mean or aggressive about it as santana, she’s also very clear about how she feels.
mariana also finds rachel annoying.
artie, kurt and blaine she likes some of the time.
she likes sam and mercedes (and probably shipped them too lol) and rory but she’s not so close with them.
i don’t know where she stands on the newer kids since i haven’t gotten there in my rewatch.
she and emma have a super sweet inter-generational friendship and mariana’s often in her office hanging out and chatting.
(one time sue walks by and sees her there and comes in and asks what she’s doing in there (probably insulting emma in some way) and mariana looks up at her and just deadpans, “i have a lot of problems.”)
she definitely thinks emma is too good for mr. schue but she wants her to be happy.
* relationships *: mariana first dates matt, who stays on the show. i don’t have why they break up worked out but it’s definitely awkward between them for awhile. they eventually manage to become friends and are very sweet ones to each other.
she and quinn are a thing um at some point after quinn has her baby but mariana’s insistence that they make it official, not even public but like not just a hookup, complicates things for them and then they sort of fizzle out as quinn becomes obsessed with getting beth back and mariana doesn’t fit into that ‘happy families’ picture. they do hook up again at mr. schue’s wedding in s4 in place of quinn and santana.
mariana is interested in sunshine and there seems like there might be something between them. she’s furious with rachel for sending her to a crackhouse. they try to make it work for awhile while sunshine is at carmel high but eventually they call it quits because making a long-distance relationship work is hard even when you’re not a sophomore in high school.
my endgame for her is with mike chang loml, but i don’t have all the details worked out since i don’t know how things go for after graduation yet. (since i know you have billie endgamed with mike, in our crossover, mariana and quinn can get together properly and be endgame. ☺️) she always thought he was smart and nice and a very talented dancer. mariana thought he was a great boyfriend to tina and although she listened and was sympathetic and made the appropriate sympathetic responses to tina’s complaints, mariana always thought she would have been happy to have someone treat her the way he did tina.
edited to add: i think mariana hung out with mike and tina sometimes while they were dating (some of which was fun and some of which was awkward thirdwheeling) and mike and brittney sometimes but never just her and mike until after high school.