Post by Talau on Jan 11, 2010 19:55:13 GMT -5
Name: Layla Roshanara
Age: 38 (looks more 28 due to cryo)
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Hetero
Race: Human
Occupation: Doctor (Psychology), Sociologist, Translator (Na’vi/English)
Human Physical Description:
Height: 5’ 5”
Hair: Auburn
Eyes: Hazel Brown
Being of Persian and Irish decent, Layla is an odd, if not beautiful, mix of the two. With biology and Putnam’s Square winning out, Layla has dark auburn hair and hazel brown eyes like her mother’s, her skin is a coppery hue only a shade or two lighter than her father’s. Her mid-back length hair is unwaveringly straight, cut into long layers to give it at least a little bit of movement and potential for looking something other than flat and boring. Well groomed and shaped eyebrows arc lightly over almond shaped eyes that peer out at the world with a keen curiosity and constantly working mind, giving them an odd glint every once in a while as she tries to puzzle something out. Oval face showcases a mouth with full lips and a distinctly ‘Arabic’ nose (if such a thing can truly exist). Over all, her most natural expressions are ones of concentration, silent neutrality, curiosity, or a rather happy smile.
Lean and fit, she’s spent a great amount of time doing physical activities. Swimming had her body strong and swift, dance had it lean and toned down the bulky muscles that came with competitive marching band or basic sword classes. Yoga and pilates had her body flexible for dancing and well honed for all manner of contortions while helping to keep her in good health. At average height, she is no impressive persona to behold, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling like she’s as tall as her avatar. Choice clothing is about as far from a lab coat as she can get, preferring jeans, boots, and thin tops that float about her frame…or cling to it, depending on her mood and what she’s doing…and forsaking a head covering much of the time. Skirts and dresses aren’t worn often, as they aren’t exactly…practical…on Pandora, but she has one or two that she wears if the mood strikes her, neither of which are flashy in any way. It is these times that Layla is most likely to be seen wearing a rusari, a scarf to cover her head and hair.
Having grown up with a Persian (Iranian) father and Irish mother, Layla has adopted a more neutral Arabic accent from speaking both Farsi and English. Oddly enough, or perhaps not so oddly, at times Layla almost seems to have a light Irish accent, though it is rarely noticeable enough to mention. Her movements tend to flow one into another no matter what she’s doing (a long practiced skill from dancing), but don’t let her seemingly straight forward and flowing movements fool you. She’s surprisingly agile and swift, stopping on a dime and changing directions if the situation calls for it.
Avatar Physical Description:
Height: 9’5”
Hair color: Black-blue
Eye Color: Coppery-yellow with flecks of green
Tall and lean, her avatar is a prime example of just how appealing the hybrids can be. Long black-blue hair falls to just above her lower back, her queue hanging to just about the same length. Those long locks are most often left to hang loose, a few small braids running along the part in her hair to keep some of the more unruly bits out of the way. These are wrapped at the end with colorful twine to hold them together. Flowing stripes of a darker hue mark her body from head to toe, running like miniature rivers along her skin. Those bioluminescent lights sprinkle her body, following her nervous system like tiny, glittering, stars.
While in her avatar form Layla has become used to wearing clothes similar to those of the na’vi, her thinking being that if one wishes to understand the people, they must seek to emulate them to the best of one’s ability. With this in mind, she is often seen wearing short halter tops of browns, blues, greens, or purples that keep her fully covered and supported where it counts, but leave her narrowed waist exposed and will help her to blend into the jungles more easily. Skin tight, knee length, bottoms of similar colors with a space cut in the back for her tail are also preferred and practical to move about in, keeping her cool and less likely to get caught up on something while moving about in the jungles around the compound. Much to the chagrin of the staff she works with, Layla also seems to refuse wearing boots while in her avatar form, opting instead for a thin pair of her dance shoes that lace up along her legs, allowing her to feel the terrain she’s covering more easily but still having some protection on her feet.
In what very few forays she’s had into the jungle in search of Na’vi, or accompanying others as a translator, Layla has managed to gather together shells, lost/broken off teeth of animals, and small colorful stones which she has fashioned into a choker and a bracelet during her free time…with a bit of wire and some simple tools she managed to temporarily snag from the engineers (hey, she gave the tools back!).
Personality:
“I was a personality before I became a person. I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven.” ~ Barbra Streisand
This is what Layla boils down to…a series of contradictions. While she is, by and large, a happy and gregarious person, no one is happy ALL of the time. A caring soul and humanitarian (that term used loosely as it applies to all sentients for her), she is not without her moments where she would just rather a person (or people) vanish from existence…or have their head explode. Brought up to be a giving and selfless person, she does still have her selfish moments. She’s always been a driven woman, holding herself to long and short term goals, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a knack for being lazy when she wants to be. There are days when she feels like just about the most unattractive being in the universe, but other days….
Like her work demands, Layla analyzes everything, even if she doesn’t always show it or say so, coming up with speculations, questions, theories…it seems to just be part of who she is. A critical person, she holds a great many opinions of others and herself, but because of her kind nature and the upbringing of “if you can’t say something nice…” she attempts to keep those opinions to herself. This isn’t to say that she doesn’t have a breaking point, however, where she will tell just about anyone the truth from her eyes, kind or not…most often not…and most often said when she’s in a foul mood. She dislikes people who see themselves as better than others, especially if they think that way because of race, religion or (now) species and technological ability or knowledge. More often than not, Layla is as likely to give these types of people a swift boot to the rump as she is to try to reason with them…luckily several years of dealing with these exact types of people coming to her office for therapy sessions has allowed her to subdue her urges to put her boot up their rear.
With a passion for the arts, she’s fond of just about anything creative…no matter how poor the attempt is. Despite growing up on a planet with next to no plant or animal life, or perhaps because of it, Layla has a deep love and respect for nature, one of her biggest dreams being to see a place with plants and animals that are more than just specimens or in a zoo. As a humanitarian (again, applying the term to more than just humans), Layla does her best to alleviate tensions between people, stop misconceptions about other races (or now between species), and just generally attempt to keep everyone content and on some sort of equal footing.
Talents:
Analytical/Critical/Speculative: Like most psychologists, sociologists, and those who study humanities, Layla likes to sit back and analyze a situation, person, or…just about anything. While good for her field of interest, it…isn’t always the best idea when it comes to getting close to people, being spontaneous, or enjoying the little things in life without over thinking them. That, actually, happens to be one of her main faults…over thinking. When it comes down to her job though, this particular talent is invaluable, helping to give her insights that others may not see right away.
Empathy: It may not seem like much of a talent, but when you’re a psychologist, doubling as a therapist…well, it really DOES help to understand how your client is feeling. Beyond this, however, she cares about others, wanting to help them feel happy(er), and being empathetic helps her know when not to cross a boundary, when TO cross a boundary, or how to help nudge people in a certain direction for ‘damage control’ in their emotions.
Book Worm: Layla LOVES reading. As such, she spent a vast amount of her childhood and adulthood reading. When the RDA scientists brought back and published reports on Pandora and the Na’vi, she practically gobbled them up…every one she could get her hands on. With this second hand knowledge of the race, she’s gotten just about as comfortable as one can get with their culture, physiology, and social patterns without actually having met one in real life. Her knowledge doesn’t just stop at the Na’vi, however, expanding into rather ‘useless’ knowledge about earth’s history, animals of all kinds (earth and other), all manner of knowledge in psychology and sociology, and…a great deal of knowledge about fantasy and science fiction.
Linguist: Layla may act as Na’vi/English translator, but her knowledge of language doesn’t stop there. Persian, Spanish, Italian, and spattering of French and Latin, Layla grew up bilingual, allowing her to more easily learn other languages. There’s just something about a beautiful language that drives her to learn it, and she hasn’t held back.
Arts Lover: Singing, dancing, acting, drawing/painting, writing, playing an instrument…Layla’s tried her hand at just about all of them. From singing in her church choir, to playing flute in her high school and college bands…learning belly dance to acting at the local theater….drawing (badly) to writing her own stories (decently)….she’s a lover of the arts and has had relative success at all of them. She isn’t a bit shy to sing around others until she’s ASKED to sing, belly dance tends to stay in private, and you’ll never…EVER…see one of her drawings. She’s been drafting a story (which she’s brought with her to Pandora), and from time to time she can be seen scribbling or typing away at it.
Athletic: While not ever having competed, Layla has always enjoyed being outdoors and the activities that come with it. Playgrounds with plastic trees or metal jungle gyms for climbing, swimming pools, tracks to footrace on, basketball, soccer, badminton, flag twirling in color guard, learning some of the basics of swordplay…she wanted to try a bit of everything…right down to taking a few yoga and Pilates classes in college…not to mention her marching band (YES, it IS a sport!). Because of her athletic and active nature, she’s able to keep up with more than a few of the military trained guards…just…don’t give her a gun. She wouldn’t know how to use it anyway.
History:
December 26, 2148…the screams had finally stopped, replaced instead by the cries of a newborn baby. It was quite a Christmas gift the family had gotten as the little girl was placed into her father’s arms just after one in the morning. With a fuzz of soft, dark red, hair and light coppery skin tone, the mewling babe was about the closest thing to perfection her Persian father had ever seen. His tired Irish wife was being tended to by the doctor and nurses and it didn’t seem anything in their world could go wrong.
It had started ten years earlier when Ashtad Roshanara had graduated from a leading scientific college with his doctorate in genetic therapy, a high demand profession for the growing populace of Earth and its colonies. He’d been hired by a company to do further research into the field when he’d met his Irish colleague, Tammera (Tammy) FitzMaurice. The two had hit it off right away and in a year and a half they had married. Gene therapy research paid well, after all, and so the two had few of the financial difficulties that many other newlyweds experienced. There were, of course, difficulties…but most of them were small, inconveniences and nothing more. The years flew by and soon the couple found themselves expecting a child. Nine months later little Layla was born.
With another mouth to feed, things got a bit more interesting (and difficult) for the small family, but they had been planning for her arrival from the time they’d learned about her. She was no surprise, to be sure, and Ashtad had just been asked to work with the teams of scientists on Earth preparing the Avatar bodies in America. The RDA needed them to be perfect, and so they wanted to be sure that any genetic mishaps were resolved immediately. Ashtad jumped at the chance and the family uprooted themselves from Ireland to make the trek to the city continent of America. Now that her father was working on the Avatar project, Layla found herself with plenty of time with her mother as she took a break from work to tend to the little girl. Life was good and the first four years of life, entering preschool at the beginning of the fourth, were happy and full of play and learning.
By the time she’d entered kindergarten, Layla was fairly fluent in Farsi and English (well, as fluent as a five year old can be anyway). She found that, even though she still didn’t like being away from her mother, Layla found that she liked this new type of school quite a bit. She learned more than in preschool, and still got to play with other kids and do fun arts and crafts…even sing and dance! All the way through elementary school the little girl excelled in her classes, entering the GATE program early and transferring to a new school. It wasn’t easy for her, and despite her gregarious personality, she found herself with few friends in it…not like at her other school where friends were easy to make. At age eight, her father was laid off by the RDA because of the disaster on Pandora. They no longer needed the Avatar Program, and so they no longer needed him. There was a drop in their family income, but Tammera had gone back to her job as a researcher for gene therapy and was able to cover the costs of living until Ashtad found a new position with a hospital in his field of expertise.
They were some of the lucky ones.
The economy had taken a turn for the worse, and though things had gotten tighter, Layla felt little of its effects. In her sixth grade year, Layla was awarded the (slightly outdated) “Presidential” Academic Achievement Award…and award based off of the old presidential office of the former “United States.” The award still held its clout, however, recognizing her as one out of only a handful of students to receive one in the “Eastern US” District of the Americas. Middle School followed much the same pattern as her time in elementary school, Layla’s young mind thriving on the new information she was being fed. This was also the first time Layla ever went to a zoo. Now the only places one could see any type of plant or animal (aside from house pets and potted plants of course), zoos were few and far between, not to mention a bit pricey to go to. Layla loved every moment of her time there, not wanting to leave the beautiful surroundings and the calls of real wildlife. The field trip had a profound effect on the girl that still stays with her.
High school was right around the corner and soon enough the teen was struggling her way through the turmoil of clicks, jocks, preps and snobs that looked down on ‘geeks’ like her. Part of the high school band, she had learned to play flute in middle school and carried the talent with her. Putting music and marching together wasn’t easy, but it was fun and helped relieve some of the stress of daily classes and homework. Piling more onto her plate, drama club was added to the list of after school activities in the fall and winter guard added in the winter and spring. With days full of classes, afternoons full of rehearsals, evenings full of study and weekends full of competitions and church, there was no such thing as ‘free time.’ “Dating” didn’t even enter her mind until the end of sophomore year when she started taking saxophone lessons from one of her fellow students.
Frankie Hernandez was a flirt. Everyone knew it, she knew it, but he didn’t flirt with her. In fact, he treated her with some amount of respect and the two became close, spending a bit of time together in school and after rehearsals, during football games when the band was given a quarter off, after lessons…and she found herself growing smitten with him. It was a rude awakening when she approached him one day to actually ask him out to the movies and find him kissing another girl. No, nothing had been certain between them, they weren’t an “item,” but it hurt none the less. When she approached him about it, he seemed disinterested, replying that she just ‘wasn’t his type’ but that he wouldn’t mind staying friends. This sort of situation with men would become common place with Layla throughout her life.
Time passed, and the clever young woman graduated her high school in the top percent of her class, passing the SATs for English in with top scores (though her math left a bit to be desired), and several scholarships for music, academic merit, and science. Upon being accepted into her third college of choice, Layla started a demanding work study program for her general education. Over the course of those first two years she found that she had a passion for psychology, sociology, and creative writing. While she continued to be involved in her college’s music program and study flute, her major turned toward psychology and her minor toward sociology. This didn’t keep her from branching out into other studies, however. Language was a large part of her studies as were history classes, biology, anatomy and physiology, and any classes that had anything to do with Pandora.
She’d heard stories from her father about his work on the Avatar project and seen some old news clips of the research in other classes and she’d practically fallen in love with the place and with the Na’vi people. Layla had a love of ancient civilizations…they fascinated her…and the Na’vi were a living, breathing, working example of those ancient mind sets. She actively hunted down everything she could learn about the planet or the Na’vi through this vast new network of learning that was her college. Upon earning her bachelor’s degree, she started work as a social worker for the local school system as she continued on to get her masters degree in psychology and sociology, stepping up her job into that of a therapist for one of the local hospitals and working toward her doctorate. At 26 she finally received her doctor’s degree as a psychologist and was hired to do research for a branch of a company that seemed interested mainly in scientific studies, including the feasibility of plants from other planets being grown on Earth or its colonies…especially for food resources…at least that’s what she was told.
At the time this meant little to Layla, her primary goal to study the relationships between the way Earth’s people lived and their attitudes toward others in less developed sectors of the world. Added onto this were her weekly reviews of work relations in her facility. Considering she was working with several other Social Sciences researchers there wasn’t much to say…they all got along fairly easily. It wasn’t until the next year, when she was transferred over to the main research facility that Layla really got an idea of just what her work was about. She’d been gathering data on inter-human relations and work relations for a reason, it seemed. The company had been preparing to send a new team of scientists back to Pandora, and they had been using her research to attempt to screen for the most compatible people to send there. They didn’t want an episode like the RDA had with the Na’vi, and so they had been attempting to find researchers who would be less likely to look down on the natives than others, as well as to keep internal strife at a minimum. Of course, they knew Layla’s research was unproven, theoretical, but they felt she’d done enough studies to give them a bit more to work with.
Layla was both thrilled and terrified to learn of the situation. They were sending people back to Pandora, and she’d had a part in it! On the other hand…if her research had gone wrong, if she’d come to poor conclusions…it could make for a dangerous situation out there. That, it seemed, had been the reason for her sudden transfer. The big wigs of the company had done their research also. They knew her father had worked on the original Avatar program, and with a contract that demanded strict silence, he’d been hired to work for them as well…they didn’t want their plans leaking out until they were ready, after all, and they couldn’t risk Layla or her coworkers research being compromised by the knowledge. They also needed someone on the research team who was familiar with the studies she’d been doing for them…someone who could also pass as a therapist for over stressed scientists or defuse problems when they arose effectively and with minimal slowing to the research as a whole. With half a year until they were set to launch the Green Mother, Layla was the best choice they had. She would be a late addition, but she’d squeak past the testing phases for her avatar just before the cut off.
She would be going to Pandora.
Layla was beside herself when she was told the news. Her (formerly) unattainable dream of going to Pandora was going to become a reality! Yes, it was short notice…half a year to settle things on Earth wasn’t much time, but she made due. The testing for her avatar was far from easy either, a battery of tests (mental and physical) was done on her and it was a gorram good thing she was in excellent physical condition. By her 28th birthday, she was able to see the beginnings of her avatar and not long after, she was ushered onto the Green Mother for extended cryo-stasis. Being one of the few linguists aboard, Layla was prepped for either first or second wave waking times. Who knew how the Na’vi would react, after all, but she hadn’t been brought up to date in time to be put onto the negotiations team…she was a back up player for them…a “just in case things go wrong.” It was a shame, really, as she was also one of the very few who had extensively studied the culture and so she might have been an asset to them. Either way, things got done, and ten years after going in, Layla was woken up from her long sleep to finally see a long time dream come true in her waking life.
She was on Pandora at last.
Swiftly setting up a routine, the “thirty-eight” year old (not that her body showed signs of it) began getting to know the people she would be working with. The people she would be studying and keeping a close eye on. For all they knew she was just some crack-pot shrink sent there with them by the company just to keep things relatively copasetic. That sort of thinking was just fine with her…it meant they would open up to her more easily, and (for the most part) they were right. She was simply there to keep things copasetic. Her second task…and more of a self imposed one…was to find out about as much of the Na’vi culture as she could. With semi-regular consultations with her coworkers in place, it was about high time she got to learning how to use her avatar.
RP Sample:
see Liyani profile
Age: 38 (looks more 28 due to cryo)
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Hetero
Race: Human
Occupation: Doctor (Psychology), Sociologist, Translator (Na’vi/English)
Human Physical Description:
Height: 5’ 5”
Hair: Auburn
Eyes: Hazel Brown
Being of Persian and Irish decent, Layla is an odd, if not beautiful, mix of the two. With biology and Putnam’s Square winning out, Layla has dark auburn hair and hazel brown eyes like her mother’s, her skin is a coppery hue only a shade or two lighter than her father’s. Her mid-back length hair is unwaveringly straight, cut into long layers to give it at least a little bit of movement and potential for looking something other than flat and boring. Well groomed and shaped eyebrows arc lightly over almond shaped eyes that peer out at the world with a keen curiosity and constantly working mind, giving them an odd glint every once in a while as she tries to puzzle something out. Oval face showcases a mouth with full lips and a distinctly ‘Arabic’ nose (if such a thing can truly exist). Over all, her most natural expressions are ones of concentration, silent neutrality, curiosity, or a rather happy smile.
Lean and fit, she’s spent a great amount of time doing physical activities. Swimming had her body strong and swift, dance had it lean and toned down the bulky muscles that came with competitive marching band or basic sword classes. Yoga and pilates had her body flexible for dancing and well honed for all manner of contortions while helping to keep her in good health. At average height, she is no impressive persona to behold, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling like she’s as tall as her avatar. Choice clothing is about as far from a lab coat as she can get, preferring jeans, boots, and thin tops that float about her frame…or cling to it, depending on her mood and what she’s doing…and forsaking a head covering much of the time. Skirts and dresses aren’t worn often, as they aren’t exactly…practical…on Pandora, but she has one or two that she wears if the mood strikes her, neither of which are flashy in any way. It is these times that Layla is most likely to be seen wearing a rusari, a scarf to cover her head and hair.
Having grown up with a Persian (Iranian) father and Irish mother, Layla has adopted a more neutral Arabic accent from speaking both Farsi and English. Oddly enough, or perhaps not so oddly, at times Layla almost seems to have a light Irish accent, though it is rarely noticeable enough to mention. Her movements tend to flow one into another no matter what she’s doing (a long practiced skill from dancing), but don’t let her seemingly straight forward and flowing movements fool you. She’s surprisingly agile and swift, stopping on a dime and changing directions if the situation calls for it.
Avatar Physical Description:
Height: 9’5”
Hair color: Black-blue
Eye Color: Coppery-yellow with flecks of green
Tall and lean, her avatar is a prime example of just how appealing the hybrids can be. Long black-blue hair falls to just above her lower back, her queue hanging to just about the same length. Those long locks are most often left to hang loose, a few small braids running along the part in her hair to keep some of the more unruly bits out of the way. These are wrapped at the end with colorful twine to hold them together. Flowing stripes of a darker hue mark her body from head to toe, running like miniature rivers along her skin. Those bioluminescent lights sprinkle her body, following her nervous system like tiny, glittering, stars.
While in her avatar form Layla has become used to wearing clothes similar to those of the na’vi, her thinking being that if one wishes to understand the people, they must seek to emulate them to the best of one’s ability. With this in mind, she is often seen wearing short halter tops of browns, blues, greens, or purples that keep her fully covered and supported where it counts, but leave her narrowed waist exposed and will help her to blend into the jungles more easily. Skin tight, knee length, bottoms of similar colors with a space cut in the back for her tail are also preferred and practical to move about in, keeping her cool and less likely to get caught up on something while moving about in the jungles around the compound. Much to the chagrin of the staff she works with, Layla also seems to refuse wearing boots while in her avatar form, opting instead for a thin pair of her dance shoes that lace up along her legs, allowing her to feel the terrain she’s covering more easily but still having some protection on her feet.
In what very few forays she’s had into the jungle in search of Na’vi, or accompanying others as a translator, Layla has managed to gather together shells, lost/broken off teeth of animals, and small colorful stones which she has fashioned into a choker and a bracelet during her free time…with a bit of wire and some simple tools she managed to temporarily snag from the engineers (hey, she gave the tools back!).
Personality:
“I was a personality before I became a person. I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven.” ~ Barbra Streisand
This is what Layla boils down to…a series of contradictions. While she is, by and large, a happy and gregarious person, no one is happy ALL of the time. A caring soul and humanitarian (that term used loosely as it applies to all sentients for her), she is not without her moments where she would just rather a person (or people) vanish from existence…or have their head explode. Brought up to be a giving and selfless person, she does still have her selfish moments. She’s always been a driven woman, holding herself to long and short term goals, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a knack for being lazy when she wants to be. There are days when she feels like just about the most unattractive being in the universe, but other days….
Like her work demands, Layla analyzes everything, even if she doesn’t always show it or say so, coming up with speculations, questions, theories…it seems to just be part of who she is. A critical person, she holds a great many opinions of others and herself, but because of her kind nature and the upbringing of “if you can’t say something nice…” she attempts to keep those opinions to herself. This isn’t to say that she doesn’t have a breaking point, however, where she will tell just about anyone the truth from her eyes, kind or not…most often not…and most often said when she’s in a foul mood. She dislikes people who see themselves as better than others, especially if they think that way because of race, religion or (now) species and technological ability or knowledge. More often than not, Layla is as likely to give these types of people a swift boot to the rump as she is to try to reason with them…luckily several years of dealing with these exact types of people coming to her office for therapy sessions has allowed her to subdue her urges to put her boot up their rear.
With a passion for the arts, she’s fond of just about anything creative…no matter how poor the attempt is. Despite growing up on a planet with next to no plant or animal life, or perhaps because of it, Layla has a deep love and respect for nature, one of her biggest dreams being to see a place with plants and animals that are more than just specimens or in a zoo. As a humanitarian (again, applying the term to more than just humans), Layla does her best to alleviate tensions between people, stop misconceptions about other races (or now between species), and just generally attempt to keep everyone content and on some sort of equal footing.
Talents:
Analytical/Critical/Speculative: Like most psychologists, sociologists, and those who study humanities, Layla likes to sit back and analyze a situation, person, or…just about anything. While good for her field of interest, it…isn’t always the best idea when it comes to getting close to people, being spontaneous, or enjoying the little things in life without over thinking them. That, actually, happens to be one of her main faults…over thinking. When it comes down to her job though, this particular talent is invaluable, helping to give her insights that others may not see right away.
Empathy: It may not seem like much of a talent, but when you’re a psychologist, doubling as a therapist…well, it really DOES help to understand how your client is feeling. Beyond this, however, she cares about others, wanting to help them feel happy(er), and being empathetic helps her know when not to cross a boundary, when TO cross a boundary, or how to help nudge people in a certain direction for ‘damage control’ in their emotions.
Book Worm: Layla LOVES reading. As such, she spent a vast amount of her childhood and adulthood reading. When the RDA scientists brought back and published reports on Pandora and the Na’vi, she practically gobbled them up…every one she could get her hands on. With this second hand knowledge of the race, she’s gotten just about as comfortable as one can get with their culture, physiology, and social patterns without actually having met one in real life. Her knowledge doesn’t just stop at the Na’vi, however, expanding into rather ‘useless’ knowledge about earth’s history, animals of all kinds (earth and other), all manner of knowledge in psychology and sociology, and…a great deal of knowledge about fantasy and science fiction.
Linguist: Layla may act as Na’vi/English translator, but her knowledge of language doesn’t stop there. Persian, Spanish, Italian, and spattering of French and Latin, Layla grew up bilingual, allowing her to more easily learn other languages. There’s just something about a beautiful language that drives her to learn it, and she hasn’t held back.
Arts Lover: Singing, dancing, acting, drawing/painting, writing, playing an instrument…Layla’s tried her hand at just about all of them. From singing in her church choir, to playing flute in her high school and college bands…learning belly dance to acting at the local theater….drawing (badly) to writing her own stories (decently)….she’s a lover of the arts and has had relative success at all of them. She isn’t a bit shy to sing around others until she’s ASKED to sing, belly dance tends to stay in private, and you’ll never…EVER…see one of her drawings. She’s been drafting a story (which she’s brought with her to Pandora), and from time to time she can be seen scribbling or typing away at it.
Athletic: While not ever having competed, Layla has always enjoyed being outdoors and the activities that come with it. Playgrounds with plastic trees or metal jungle gyms for climbing, swimming pools, tracks to footrace on, basketball, soccer, badminton, flag twirling in color guard, learning some of the basics of swordplay…she wanted to try a bit of everything…right down to taking a few yoga and Pilates classes in college…not to mention her marching band (YES, it IS a sport!). Because of her athletic and active nature, she’s able to keep up with more than a few of the military trained guards…just…don’t give her a gun. She wouldn’t know how to use it anyway.
History:
December 26, 2148…the screams had finally stopped, replaced instead by the cries of a newborn baby. It was quite a Christmas gift the family had gotten as the little girl was placed into her father’s arms just after one in the morning. With a fuzz of soft, dark red, hair and light coppery skin tone, the mewling babe was about the closest thing to perfection her Persian father had ever seen. His tired Irish wife was being tended to by the doctor and nurses and it didn’t seem anything in their world could go wrong.
It had started ten years earlier when Ashtad Roshanara had graduated from a leading scientific college with his doctorate in genetic therapy, a high demand profession for the growing populace of Earth and its colonies. He’d been hired by a company to do further research into the field when he’d met his Irish colleague, Tammera (Tammy) FitzMaurice. The two had hit it off right away and in a year and a half they had married. Gene therapy research paid well, after all, and so the two had few of the financial difficulties that many other newlyweds experienced. There were, of course, difficulties…but most of them were small, inconveniences and nothing more. The years flew by and soon the couple found themselves expecting a child. Nine months later little Layla was born.
With another mouth to feed, things got a bit more interesting (and difficult) for the small family, but they had been planning for her arrival from the time they’d learned about her. She was no surprise, to be sure, and Ashtad had just been asked to work with the teams of scientists on Earth preparing the Avatar bodies in America. The RDA needed them to be perfect, and so they wanted to be sure that any genetic mishaps were resolved immediately. Ashtad jumped at the chance and the family uprooted themselves from Ireland to make the trek to the city continent of America. Now that her father was working on the Avatar project, Layla found herself with plenty of time with her mother as she took a break from work to tend to the little girl. Life was good and the first four years of life, entering preschool at the beginning of the fourth, were happy and full of play and learning.
By the time she’d entered kindergarten, Layla was fairly fluent in Farsi and English (well, as fluent as a five year old can be anyway). She found that, even though she still didn’t like being away from her mother, Layla found that she liked this new type of school quite a bit. She learned more than in preschool, and still got to play with other kids and do fun arts and crafts…even sing and dance! All the way through elementary school the little girl excelled in her classes, entering the GATE program early and transferring to a new school. It wasn’t easy for her, and despite her gregarious personality, she found herself with few friends in it…not like at her other school where friends were easy to make. At age eight, her father was laid off by the RDA because of the disaster on Pandora. They no longer needed the Avatar Program, and so they no longer needed him. There was a drop in their family income, but Tammera had gone back to her job as a researcher for gene therapy and was able to cover the costs of living until Ashtad found a new position with a hospital in his field of expertise.
They were some of the lucky ones.
The economy had taken a turn for the worse, and though things had gotten tighter, Layla felt little of its effects. In her sixth grade year, Layla was awarded the (slightly outdated) “Presidential” Academic Achievement Award…and award based off of the old presidential office of the former “United States.” The award still held its clout, however, recognizing her as one out of only a handful of students to receive one in the “Eastern US” District of the Americas. Middle School followed much the same pattern as her time in elementary school, Layla’s young mind thriving on the new information she was being fed. This was also the first time Layla ever went to a zoo. Now the only places one could see any type of plant or animal (aside from house pets and potted plants of course), zoos were few and far between, not to mention a bit pricey to go to. Layla loved every moment of her time there, not wanting to leave the beautiful surroundings and the calls of real wildlife. The field trip had a profound effect on the girl that still stays with her.
High school was right around the corner and soon enough the teen was struggling her way through the turmoil of clicks, jocks, preps and snobs that looked down on ‘geeks’ like her. Part of the high school band, she had learned to play flute in middle school and carried the talent with her. Putting music and marching together wasn’t easy, but it was fun and helped relieve some of the stress of daily classes and homework. Piling more onto her plate, drama club was added to the list of after school activities in the fall and winter guard added in the winter and spring. With days full of classes, afternoons full of rehearsals, evenings full of study and weekends full of competitions and church, there was no such thing as ‘free time.’ “Dating” didn’t even enter her mind until the end of sophomore year when she started taking saxophone lessons from one of her fellow students.
Frankie Hernandez was a flirt. Everyone knew it, she knew it, but he didn’t flirt with her. In fact, he treated her with some amount of respect and the two became close, spending a bit of time together in school and after rehearsals, during football games when the band was given a quarter off, after lessons…and she found herself growing smitten with him. It was a rude awakening when she approached him one day to actually ask him out to the movies and find him kissing another girl. No, nothing had been certain between them, they weren’t an “item,” but it hurt none the less. When she approached him about it, he seemed disinterested, replying that she just ‘wasn’t his type’ but that he wouldn’t mind staying friends. This sort of situation with men would become common place with Layla throughout her life.
Time passed, and the clever young woman graduated her high school in the top percent of her class, passing the SATs for English in with top scores (though her math left a bit to be desired), and several scholarships for music, academic merit, and science. Upon being accepted into her third college of choice, Layla started a demanding work study program for her general education. Over the course of those first two years she found that she had a passion for psychology, sociology, and creative writing. While she continued to be involved in her college’s music program and study flute, her major turned toward psychology and her minor toward sociology. This didn’t keep her from branching out into other studies, however. Language was a large part of her studies as were history classes, biology, anatomy and physiology, and any classes that had anything to do with Pandora.
She’d heard stories from her father about his work on the Avatar project and seen some old news clips of the research in other classes and she’d practically fallen in love with the place and with the Na’vi people. Layla had a love of ancient civilizations…they fascinated her…and the Na’vi were a living, breathing, working example of those ancient mind sets. She actively hunted down everything she could learn about the planet or the Na’vi through this vast new network of learning that was her college. Upon earning her bachelor’s degree, she started work as a social worker for the local school system as she continued on to get her masters degree in psychology and sociology, stepping up her job into that of a therapist for one of the local hospitals and working toward her doctorate. At 26 she finally received her doctor’s degree as a psychologist and was hired to do research for a branch of a company that seemed interested mainly in scientific studies, including the feasibility of plants from other planets being grown on Earth or its colonies…especially for food resources…at least that’s what she was told.
At the time this meant little to Layla, her primary goal to study the relationships between the way Earth’s people lived and their attitudes toward others in less developed sectors of the world. Added onto this were her weekly reviews of work relations in her facility. Considering she was working with several other Social Sciences researchers there wasn’t much to say…they all got along fairly easily. It wasn’t until the next year, when she was transferred over to the main research facility that Layla really got an idea of just what her work was about. She’d been gathering data on inter-human relations and work relations for a reason, it seemed. The company had been preparing to send a new team of scientists back to Pandora, and they had been using her research to attempt to screen for the most compatible people to send there. They didn’t want an episode like the RDA had with the Na’vi, and so they had been attempting to find researchers who would be less likely to look down on the natives than others, as well as to keep internal strife at a minimum. Of course, they knew Layla’s research was unproven, theoretical, but they felt she’d done enough studies to give them a bit more to work with.
Layla was both thrilled and terrified to learn of the situation. They were sending people back to Pandora, and she’d had a part in it! On the other hand…if her research had gone wrong, if she’d come to poor conclusions…it could make for a dangerous situation out there. That, it seemed, had been the reason for her sudden transfer. The big wigs of the company had done their research also. They knew her father had worked on the original Avatar program, and with a contract that demanded strict silence, he’d been hired to work for them as well…they didn’t want their plans leaking out until they were ready, after all, and they couldn’t risk Layla or her coworkers research being compromised by the knowledge. They also needed someone on the research team who was familiar with the studies she’d been doing for them…someone who could also pass as a therapist for over stressed scientists or defuse problems when they arose effectively and with minimal slowing to the research as a whole. With half a year until they were set to launch the Green Mother, Layla was the best choice they had. She would be a late addition, but she’d squeak past the testing phases for her avatar just before the cut off.
She would be going to Pandora.
Layla was beside herself when she was told the news. Her (formerly) unattainable dream of going to Pandora was going to become a reality! Yes, it was short notice…half a year to settle things on Earth wasn’t much time, but she made due. The testing for her avatar was far from easy either, a battery of tests (mental and physical) was done on her and it was a gorram good thing she was in excellent physical condition. By her 28th birthday, she was able to see the beginnings of her avatar and not long after, she was ushered onto the Green Mother for extended cryo-stasis. Being one of the few linguists aboard, Layla was prepped for either first or second wave waking times. Who knew how the Na’vi would react, after all, but she hadn’t been brought up to date in time to be put onto the negotiations team…she was a back up player for them…a “just in case things go wrong.” It was a shame, really, as she was also one of the very few who had extensively studied the culture and so she might have been an asset to them. Either way, things got done, and ten years after going in, Layla was woken up from her long sleep to finally see a long time dream come true in her waking life.
She was on Pandora at last.
Swiftly setting up a routine, the “thirty-eight” year old (not that her body showed signs of it) began getting to know the people she would be working with. The people she would be studying and keeping a close eye on. For all they knew she was just some crack-pot shrink sent there with them by the company just to keep things relatively copasetic. That sort of thinking was just fine with her…it meant they would open up to her more easily, and (for the most part) they were right. She was simply there to keep things copasetic. Her second task…and more of a self imposed one…was to find out about as much of the Na’vi culture as she could. With semi-regular consultations with her coworkers in place, it was about high time she got to learning how to use her avatar.
RP Sample:
see Liyani profile
