I am working on deepening the pasts of my characters, in particular my operative protagonists, in A.T.X.D. One of the characters who I might need some help with is Capatain Jordana "Jordan" Ceva-Ankers: a member of Alpha Team and one of Ashley Miller's closest friends.
Here's what I have in summary: Jordan is a Latina born to a Brazilian-American mom and a Columbian father. She is trilingual in English, Spanish, and Portugese, though I've written all of her dialogue in English for the time being. She served in the U.S. Coast Guard prior to being recruited in A.T.X.D., and I am considering adding in that she was almost recruited to the DEA but A.T.X.D. got to her first. During her time in the Coast Guard, she intercepted a weapons smuggling op that was unofficially licensed by the U.S. Government, but the weapons were of extraterrestrial design; triggering a response from A.T.X.D. who then intercepted and confiscated the weapons; mind-wiping Jordan and her fellow guardsmen. Besides her accuracy, her close quarters skills set involves moves from Jiu-Jitsu and Aikido.
Here's the conflict of interest:
Jordan is a sweet and friendly officer especially when she's around Ashley: a real gung-ho tomboy with a flashy girly flavor to her attitude. But when she's in the field, she has a cold, dauntless, and almost emotionless personality the likes of Nina Williams from the Tekken series.
To put it simply, Nina is an assassin character in Tekken from Ireland who was raised by an assassin father, so she has a very cold "nothing personal, just business" attitude to her surroundings.
Jordan is not quite so heartless, but she is cold and has a similarly icy, sharp look that naturally occurs in her eyes. As she is Latina, I am determined to avoid stereotyping her past as being associated with gangs and/or drugs. I also, however, don't want to stray towards making Jordan raised into a family of assassins, beyond just the fact that it would be copyright infringement of Nina Williams.
I am open to suggestions.
Here is are a couple of character inspirations that visually show what Jordan would look like:
