AND WHEN YOU FIND HIM, WE DON’T KILL HIM, WE JUST WATERBOARD HIM; WE KILLIN’ ‘EM FOR FREEDOM ‘CAUSE THEY TORTURED US FOR BOREDOM.
GENERAL DETAILS.
FULL NAME: maria pilar alvarez
NICKNAME(S): ria
AGE: thirty-nine
DATE OF BIRTH: june 9, 1983
PLACE OF BIRTH: lancaster, az
CURRENT LOCATION: lancaster, az
GENDER: cis woman
PRONOUNS: she/her
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: demisexual
ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: demiromantic leaning hetero
RELIGION: former catholic / current atheist
OCCUPATION: part-time mechanic / vice president of the sinful ones
EDUCATION LEVEL: high school graduate
LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: a two bedroom home in the city that belonged to her dad
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.
FACECLAIM: diane guerrero
HAIR COLOR AND STYLE: medium-to-dark brown, varies in length (currently short)
EYE COLOR: hazel-brown
HEIGHT: five foot, two inches
WEIGHT: get bent
BODY AND BUILD: slightly curvy with lithe muscle
TATTOOS: a sparrow on the back of her right hip; a wilting orchid on her front left hip
PIERCINGS: four in either earlobe, helix, daith
CLOTHING STYLE: casual & comfortable OR absolute boss lady
DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: birthmark on her left wrist, a few burn scars from mechanic work on her arms, varied other small scars from scraps
HEALTH.
MENTAL DISORDER(S): depression
PHYSICAL DISORDER(S): none
ALLERGIES: pollen
SLEEPING HABITS: in spurts, generally nude but always strapped
EATING HABITS: whatever is on hand, will eat junk a lot but can cook well enough when she has time
SOCIABILITY: charming, personable, until you cross her
ADDICTIONS: none
DRUG USE: recreational, past
ALCOHOL USE: frequent
FAMILY, RELATIONSHIPS, ETC.
MOTHER: marisol alvarez née gomez (estranged, might as well be dead)
FATHER: dante alvarez (deceased)
SPOUSE: none
BEST FRIEND: xavier ramzi @xavierxramzi
EXES: many
SIBLING(S): none that she is aware of
PET(S): formerly-stray cat named rascal
BIOGRAPHY.
TW: CANCER, DEATH
maria was born and raised in lancaster. her mother, sofia, was out of the picture when she was young — fled to follow some dream or another — but her father, dante, remained and raised her the best he could. they struggled a lot with money and keeping things afloat, but he never let his daughter think that she would go without; he always made it work.
by the time maria hit middle school she was already showing promise in academics, but didn’t pursue any of it. she started to sabotage her own progress on purpose and remained middling, even after her teaches tried to contact her dad about how she had so much potential. he’d talked with her, asked her why she was tanking and go a response he wasn’t expecting: I don’t care about going on to bigger and better things, I’m staying in Lancaster and I’m helping you.
as much as dante wanted his daughter to leave — spread her wings and fly more than out of his life — he’d raised her to do what she believed in and so he couldn’t very well try to force her out of it. he asked that she not fail her classes, that she excel as she would normally, but deny any offers that didn’t appeal to her. he’d hoped one would come along to give her a reason to leave.
he decided, just in case, to spend time with maria and teach her a trade of sorts; he’d always worked odd jobs here and there and briefly at one of the mechanics in town and had a lot of knowledge in that realm… so he taught maria.
maria knew her way around the engine of a motorcycle before she hit high school and, as per their agreement, continued to be exceptional in her classes while still maintaining her work with her father on mechanics.
she had plenty of time to be free and do her own thing, getting into the trouble that most teenagers do and, on more than one occasion, ending up in the back of a cop car because she was not nearly so pale as her co-conspirators; she ended up bitter after a while over this and made sure to keep her nose as clean as possible, so to speak, while still reveling in her youth.
when she was fifteen, dante got cancer, something that had been in him for far too long and had been left to molder until it had spread and eaten much of who he was. they hadn’t had any money or convenience to get him checked before when he was asymptomatic and so everything got out of hand. maria wasn’t handling it well and often got into fights with the nurses, though never actually hitting one, and generally raged against everyone and everything and the cruelty of the system.
he only had a year with her, and he had nothing to leave her beside the house. deathbeds are a strange thing and dante, in his delirium, forgot how he’d wanted her to be free to choose… he begged her to sell the house for whatever she could get for it and leave, especially now that he was going to be gone.
only sixteen and having to listen to your father, weak from chemo and barely hanging on, begging you to leave the only home you’ve ever known and leave behind the only family you have on record was too much. even if he passed, he’d still be there, in that place, haunting it in some way or another and she wanted to feel that weight on her.
she lied, she promised to leave and find her own way, to appease him before he died, knowing full well she was staying right there for the remainder of her life. he passed quietly in the night with a smile on his face and his sleeping daughter’s hand in his.
she now owned a house but did not want to end up in the system. she forged a way to stay, leaving school in the process and any of her father’s actually hopes for her there with it; all it took was a little half-assed paperwork and the system thought maria was in new mexico with extended family being looked after. the system didn’t really care about girls like her anyway.
seventeen and on her own in a house and needing to pay the way, she started to take odd mechanic jobs, not actually applying at any one place as it might raise some red flags, but doing off-the-books work to help out when people needed a sub-in, especially at the mechanics that didn’t mind a little under the table work.
the money wasn’t great, all in all, but she managed to survive; she kept the lights on in the house, kept the water running, kept it tidy, and ate (if not well), and she survived. that’s what she did. that’s what she does.
as she turned eighteen and realized that the bills were being paid but she was saving up zero money for any kind of future (even if she planned to remain in town), she turned to the strip club. there were people who would derisively snort at strippers or anyone in sex work, but there was no shame in maria’s game; she knew she was a pretty woman and she knew that taking her clothes off and getting men to pay her bills just for the chance to see her naked was a damn sight better than struggling elsewhere.
she took pride in her work, and when anyone tried to break the no touching rule, she often broke a nose. it would have gotten her into trouble at most jobs, strangely enough, but at that job she was given a nod as a bouncer escorted the bleeding patron away. she felt like herself.
it was only six months in when someone new approached and sat in front of her. she recognized him from one of the shops she moonlighted at for mechanic work — he didn’t work there, she didn’t think, and she hadn’t really seen him around town much but that’s where she saw him — and didn’t let it stop her from doing her thing. there was money given (far more than most) and a piece of paper along with it. someone wanted to talk to her.
the meeting was out of town, not too far but far enough to not be considered lancaster. maria was wary of it and knew that something else was going on but she sat down, she listened, she was offered a position in a club that would rival the wild coyotes and, to her credit, she asked questions. not hard or invasive ones, but she wasn’t keen on leaving lancaster where her father’s ashes had been spread and needed to know more.
she didn’t get it. it wasn’t her place to be asking but she was offered a chance to be involved in something that could change lancaster, and with that promise she was sold. being a prospect was never a fun thing, however.
she suffered at the hands of her seniors, but did so dutifully, finding herself in situations that involved crimes that she didn’t mind committing, even murder in some cases, and didn’t really think about the law-breaking of it all. the law had never been kind of her and she was trying to get her own foothold… become something as her father had wanted, though he likely hadn’t pictured that.
it took a while to get patched in, and in the process she acquired more than her fair share of bruises, scars, cuts, and tattoos; she became a harder person overall, but shrewd and quick witted. she understood the ins and outs of several venues of revenue for the club and offered herself up for as much as she could. she built up a seat of loyalty and dedication to the sinful ones. she served, she evolved, she created, and she was good at it.
it was only a year or so ago that she found herself offered the position of vice president, not hesitating to take that oath and serve the club as she always had. they had designs on lancaster now, and she was going to see her home returned to what it was, rather than what it was forced to be over the years under the wild coyotes as they lost the thread of what they were meant to be.
she and the rest of the club would see it done, you can bet on that.
CONNECTIONS.
friends
childhood friends
former clients at strip club when she worked there
exes
love interest / will they, won't they / slow burn / messy relationship
people after her position
wild coyotes trying to get to her
wild coyotes trying to harm her
