POPESCU, SORIN LUCA

Full name: Sorin Luca Popescu
Age and D.O.B.: 18; 19th March, 1995
Sexual orientation: Heterosexual
Occupation: Student
Member group: Newport High School - Senior

Face claim: Anthon Wellsjo
Distinguishing features: Strong facial structure/high cheekbones; a tattoo of an arrow going down the inside of his right lower calf/ankle; small scars on his finger; a slowly fading, circular burn scar (like that of a cigarette) below his left ear

Likes: women, illusion tricks, playing cards, cigarettes, running, dogs, reading, coffee, Romania, sarcasm, arguing/debating, competition, Kit-Kats, relaxed indoor areas, big cities, cooking/baking
Dislikes: spoil sports, know-it-alls, losing, loud and obnoxious noises, overly-bubbly girls, most candy (roughly 98% of it), fast food, snakes, cats, illogical or irrational people, repetitive tapping/clicking noises, laziness
Strengths: out-witting people, illusions, pick-pocketing, running, blocking people out, persuasion
Weaknesses: the English language, knowing when to back down, taking a joke, being sensitive to the needs of others, teamwork
Fears: losing his parents, not being able to apply for US citizenship, snakes, boats, strong and independent women that aren’t his mother
Habits: unconsciously rubbing his burn scar, twisting his hands/fingers when he’s nervous, checking over his shoulder repetitively, messes up his hair for no good reason at all
Secrets: He is partially responsible for the burning of the apartment building next to his old home in Romania. He is a fairly decent baker. He spent a few months in a rehabilitation facility for alcohol addiction when he was sixteen.

Overall Personality:
CLEVER & CUNNING
Sorin is very quick on his feet, both physically and mentally. Sleights of hand, illusions, and pick-pocketing are all high on his list of skills. He is highly observant of situations – not a whole lot gets past him, unless it has to do with the English language. He prefers to sit back and watch what is going on around him before participating. He is also rather manipulative and can be very persuasive. He is already figuring out how to twist other peoples’ words with a bit of success, despite his broken English. In a sense, he knows what he wants, and he’s determined to get it by any means. Sorin is quite self-confident and knows how to make that work for him.

HOT-TEMPERED & AGGRESSIVE
While he does prefer to sit back and watch, he also has a short fuse. He has always been confrontational – rarely opting for passive aggressiveness. Once provocation begins, he rarely thinks about what he says before he says it. If provoked enough, he’s likely to start throwing punches. Even in situations lacking anger, Sorin is aggressive – he likes to push people (figuratively speaking). This aspect of his personality tends to get him in trouble, even if it isn’t for picking a fight.

STOIC
Under average (non-volcanic-eruption) conditions, Sorin is a closed book. He has an exceptional poker face, making it difficult to tell how he feels about a person. There are very few people around which he is candid, most of them being family or very close friends. He doesn’t typically make public emotional displays, unless it’s his temper blowing a gasket.

DAREDEVILISH
He isn’t afraid to take risks and try a lot of new things – he likes the rush most potentially dangerous activities give him. This is part of why a part of him finds enjoyment in picking fights with equally-matched opponents. Motorcycles are another thing that he enjoys that his mother highly disapproves of – he enjoys the freedom that things like this leave him. Sorin also tends to mess around with things that are probably not the best play-things, such as knives (the reason for most of the little scars on his hands).

THE SOFT WHITE UNDERBELLY
Sorin does have a soft side hidden beneath the many layers of rock that he has built up over the years. This is especially evident in his relationship with his mother and his relationships with dogs. He can be quite charming if a person were to care enough to pull it out of him. He just tends to be a very private person who doesn’t offer up his weak points easily. Face it, he can’t try to be macho all the time; he has to indulge his other side – the side that bakes and helps his mother choose outfits. Sorin just prefers to keep that hidden underneath the reputation that he has established as a “gruff foreigner.”

Mother: Emilia Anca Popescu
Father: Stefan Ioan Popescu
Siblings: None
Other: None
Pets: Cosmin, Carpathian Shepherd, 6 months old

Overall History: Sorin was born and raised in his home country’s capital – Bucharest. He spent the majority of his life in that city. Contrary to what one may believe from his actions, he has never had a difficult life through force of nature. In fact, his family has been, and still is, rather well-to-do. Many of the problems in his life are things that he brought upon himself.

Ever since he was young, Sorin has been the socially withdrawn type. He preferred reading to galumphing about with the other children living around him. When he started school, he was a quick-learner. This lead to the inevitable teasing that is so common amongst children up to the point where he hid most of it by the time he reached the equivalent of the American 5th grade. For the most part, he flew under the radar until the beginning of his teenage years, around fourteen or so.

At this time, he began making friends with the kinds of kids that most parents beg God to keep away from their children. Sorin became mixed up in several activities during this time, including drinking, smoking, and recreational pick-pocketing (recreational because he did it because he enjoyed it, not because he needed money). At around fifteen, he began to develop his taste for all things extreme and for fighting, rarely coming home without some new bruise or scratch. He had begun working out in order to hold his own against his rowdy friends. For the most part, his parents turned a blind eye to his habits, not giving him much more than a slap on the wrist. That is, until he stumbled in drunk at two in the morning, age fifteen, and got into a shouting match with his father. His parents shipped him off to a rehabilitation facility to get him to sober up.

When he was released a few months later, he actually did give up alcohol, but almost immediately began smoking again. He got much sneakier when it came to his father after this. Not even his parents know that he started the fire that burned down half of the neighboring apartment building when he was sixteen. His parents were as a lot of single-child couples are – blind to their son’s actions. They figured he was just out being a teenage boy.

Then came the night that Sorin picked a fight that everyone except him knew he would lose. The end result was that he had a nice hospital stay for a couple of broken ribs, a broken nose, and varies cuts and bruises. This same fight also gave him the cigarette burn behind his ear, a second degree burn that is fading very slowly and is likely to leave a scar. This was essentially the last straw for the parents of barely-seventeen Sorin. They had been considering moving to the United States for a while, with this most recent occurrence being the deciding factor.

The Popescu family moved to Newport Beach, where Sorin’s uncle’s family had moved several years earlier. With the three having very little familiarity with the English language (Sorin didn’t pay much attention in his English classes while he was still in Romania), they lived with their relatives for several months. Their relatives helped them get settled into their own home, attempting to teach them English at the same time. Sorin ended up enrolled at Newport High School at the beginning of the next school year, where he is now a senior. His English has advanced rather well during the three-quarters of the year he has lived there; however, he tends to understand it better than he speaks it. His English is typically rather broken and grammatically incorrect. As he becomes more adjusted to California, his old ways are beginning to pop back up again.

Gemma nodded with each answer Audrey gave. She didn’t know if Audrey was expecting her to find the amount of time she spent practicing appalling, because it honestly sounded like only a bit longer than her own cheer schedule, between the school and recreational teams and her biweekly gymnastics classes. “Oh, that’s cool. I could never put up with the same people for so long. I at least get to change groups halfway through.” Gemma was blessed with a quiet, pleasant thirty minute drive between the different practices during which she could clear her mind before taking on the next group of adolescent females.

The dedication required to cheer for Mayview was roughly an hour and a half after classes every week day except for Friday and a weekly visit to the local cheer gym on Saturday mornings. Her recreational cheer practices were three nights a week until three weeks before a competition when they were held every night except Sundays. As a tumbler and a flyer, she also took two hours of gymnastics on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Gemma didn’t like to have too much free time – she preferred to stay busy. She dropped the officiated gymnastics classes during the spring semester to fit in her tennis practices, and during the summer she participated in a recreational soccer league. Her parents were fine to let her do so many things as long as she kept her grades up, which she had managed to do so far with a bit of help.

”Dinner will be served in ten minutes, please find your seats!” Gemma automatically turned around, watching as the sea of slightly similar faces moved toward the tables set up throughout the back half of the bottom floor of their house. She looked around and immediately spotted her little brother trying to sneak upstairs. ”Tyler!” she shouted, causing a few heads to turn in her direction. She ignored them, crossing the floor quickly to her brother, frozen a few steps above her. She grabbed his shirt sleeve, pulling him close so that only he could hear what she said next. “Get down here before you embarrass mom and dad, or I’ll break your X-Box into a thousand tiny pieces,” she growled before turning away and rolling her eyes. She returned to Audrey’s side, ignoring the middle finger that her brother had no doubt given her the second she turned her back in the now nearly empty room.

“Sorry about that. He can be…difficult.” She knew Audrey probably didn’t give a care about her relationship with her brother – it was the alcohol working on her brain. She typically became rambling and overly apologetic when she was under the influence, and champagne magnified these effects. So far she was managing to keep the wandering thoughts inside her head, but the apologies were always ready on the tip of her tongue – they were an inseparable part of her, even when she was sober. “Shall we find our seats?” she asked, taking a step toward the dining room. She knew there were assigned seats at the tables, but she honestly had no idea where anyone was seated. Gemma figured all of the under-eighteens would be seated together as always.

erin; central; 5/6 years off-and-on; none