Oriel Fuentes

**Full Name**: Oriel Fuentes Suárez

**Pronouns**: He/Him

**Orientation**: Asexual Aromantic

**Birthday**: November 3rd

* Pirate: 25
* Modern: 21

**Height**: 5’8”

**Hair**: Black, Cut Short

**Skin** **Color**: Beige

**Eye** **Color**: Brown

**Tattoos and Piercings:**

* Eeyore on his Left Calf - Modern

**Occupation**:

* Pirate: Sailing Master on the Retribution
* Modern: Jewelry Salesman

**Family**:

* María Suárez Amaya - Mother
* Manuel Fuentes Haro - Father
* Jasso Fuentes Suárez - Brother
* A Variety of Cousins

**MBT**: ISTJ-A

**Likes**: Card games (traditional and deck builders), video games (his favourites are real-time strategy), and professional football/soccer (watching and the occasional betting).

**Dislikes**: Most physical affection, the overrepresentation of romantic love in media, and dealing with his brother's one night stands.

**Strengths**: Oriel is known for his level-headedness and his dedication to his passions. He’s excellent to have around during an emergency when cooler heads are needed. He is very clever, especially when it comes to card games, and lucky to the point that some people believe he’s actually psychic.

**Weaknesses**: Oriel struggles with emotional expression and tends to prefer to keep to himself. While he can empathize with people, he doesn’t know what to do when people get emotional around him which makes him quick to run away. He’ll keep almost everyone at arm’s length with the only real exception being his brother and mother. He’s also a pessimist when it comes to people he doesn’t know and their intentions.

## **Biographies**

### **Pirate Universe**

**The Pre-Pirate Years**: Oriel was born in the southwest of Spain in a small fishing village a short ten months after his older brother, Jasso. It was a difficult pregnancy for his mother and as a result, his parents never had another child after him. From the time that he learned how to walk, Oriel became his brother’s shadow. He admired Jasso as did the other boys in the village, and in his eyes, his brother could do no wrong. Or so he thought until the day their father died.

The loss of their father shook the foundations of Oriel’s young world. His father had been as invincible in his eyes as his older brother, and wiser than any other person Oriel knew. He had been teaching Oriel how to navigate the sea by the stars and more modern maps, but even that knowledge had not saved him. In the days that followed, Oriel saw his brother fretting about having to work instead of play and he heard their mother worrying about his eldest’s future. Oriel began to worry as well. Neither his brother nor his mother were prepared for life without his father. Oriel decided that it would be his duty to look after his family from then on. People often told him what a clever boy he was. He could keep them safe.

Oriel asked to attend school in the nearby city that next year, and he threw himself into it with an intense resolve. He would get himself a good job to pay back the family who had paid for his school fees, and then he would provide for Jasso and their mother. He was surprised when he genuinely enjoyed his time learning about numbers and preparing for a future career as a banker. Many of the other boys complained about it being tedious, but he was fascinated by how it all worked and the many ways in which the systems of currency could be exploited. It was in those dormitories that he learned to play cards for the first time which began a lifelong passion for the games. He preferred the card games to the other subjects his classmates took an interest in: girls. Though he understood most men married, he had no interest in it himself and other boys often teased him about his discomfort. Oriel avoided the topic as best he could, but it was clear to him even then that he’d never escape it.

The year that he finished his studies, his mother fell ill and passed away. Oriel came home to see to her affairs and to retrieve his brother. He was determined to start his career and see that his older brother wasn’t left out on the street. They moved away from their hometown and into the city where he made Jasso’s his assistant mostly to keep his brother out of trouble. That only worked for seven months.

**Life at Sea**: Jasso decided to seduce the daughter of one of Oriel’s clients which led to the both of them getting chased off the estate that following morning. Oriel knew that his brother couldn’t stay anywhere close to where the man lived without the threat of his client seeking Jasso out for retribution. His client had too many resources. They had to go far away. Oriel had also discovered that banking was far less enjoyable in practice than it had been in theory. He decided that the both of them needed a career change.

Oriel got them to a port city, though it was Jasso who found them in touch with a ship. Oriel leveraged his navigation skills to get the attention of the captain and from there negotiated for his brother to come along as a general hand on the ship. It was difficult with Jasso being his usual self, but Oriel’s abilities proved to be tempting enough to overlook his lazy brother with a penchant for trouble.

Oriel was only too happy to settle into this new life where he got to hone his old skills while playing card games most of the day when he had free time. He soon learned that the captain was a fair man and the crew rarely bothered him about his non-existent love life. It was the start of a good life.

### **Modern Universe**

**Childhood**:  Oriel was born in Los Angeles, California less than a year after his older brother, Jasso. Due to the difficulties his mother faced during her second pregnancy and their father increasing his workload away from home, his mother decided that Jasso and Oriel would be their only children for a few years until circumstances changed.

He had a happy childhood living only a short fifteen minute walk away from the beach. Oriel followed after his brother and older cousins from the moment he learned how to walk, and together the whole group roamed the neighbourhood in search of their fun. Many of them attended school together, though Oriel wasn’t in the same grade as any of his cousins. All of them would walk to and from school together which led to many fun adventures away from the watchful eyes of their parents.

Little physically changed when, at nine years old, Oriel learned that his father had died in a work accident, but he struggled with the death more than his older brother. Their family came together to help them mourn, and Oriel cried alone in the quiet hours of the night. He had always counted on his father’s return as a sign that all was right in the world. Oriel found himself lost in the world that lacked that certainty. If his father could die so suddenly, that meant that both his mother and Jasso could as well. Nothing was guaranteed. It was Jasso who noticed Oriel’s troubles. One night, he vowed to him that he would never leave him behind, even if it meant living to a hundred years old. Oriel tried to tell him that was silly, and yet Jasso persisted until he got Oriel to smile again. That vow was kept even as the two left childhood behind and life began to change.

**High School**: Soon enough, Jasso took a new interest in girls and spent many of his free hours pursuing them. Oriel had seen his cousins all go through the same transformation, so it wasn’t a surprise when Jasso joined them. They all assured Oriel that he would understand when he got to be older, and Oriel dreaded the day Everything his cousins and Jasso had told him about romance and sex sounded tedious. He had better hobbies than all of that and no desire to give any of them up. Even so, he dutifully waited for the magical day when the switch would flip and he would find himself lost to that same frenzy.

In the meantime, Oriel preferred to spend his time with friends, including Jasso’s new friends Inari and Sebastian. He gamed with Sebastian on the weekends when Jasso was too busy chasing girls, and he had several classes with Inari during the school day. In addition, he formed an afterschool card gaming club with some other friends who were in the same grade as himself. It remained an unofficial hangout until Oriel’s sophomore year when word got out and a few other people asked to join. One of those people was a freshman girl named Kimmy who became the first official female club member. The other boys were ecstatic at this novel opportunity to interact with a girl, while Oriel only cared that she was a good card player. She quickly proved herself a skilled rival for him in poker. The others had to insist on changing the game weekly to avoid the both of them taking over the entire club time with their grudge matches. Soon, Oriel found himself meeting Kimmy outside of school to play at cafes. He introduced her to his brother and their friends after a month, and she surprised him by turning a blind eye when Jasso made a pass at her. She understood like him that romance wasn’t everything.

It all came to a head the day that she suggested they make a real bet on their game. She said that if she won he had to take her out to dinner, and asked what he wanted. He decided to bet the same in the hopes of getting a free meal. They played an intense game and she managed to win. Oriel was disappointed he’d be missing a free dinner, but he wasn’t a sore loser. They agreed to go to a local diner on Saturday. As soon as his friends and family heard, every one of them began to tease him about finally going on a date. Oriel told all of them that they were wrong and it was just a friendly outing. It couldn’t be a date. She would’ve said so.

That night he met her at the diner and found a different girl waiting for him. She was dressed up in a way that made it clear to Oriel she saw their dinner as much more than a friendly outing. Oriel looked very plain beside her and the way her smile dimmed made him feel terribly out of place. They pushed on in spite of that and enjoyed their meal together. Oriel tried to talk to her about the new Magic the Gathering cards that had come out, and yet she was unreceptive. Instead, she kept commenting about how nice he looked and telling him that he had nice eyes. At the end of the night, Oriel agreed to take her home as she had been dropped off. He knew what was coming. He’d thought that when the day came, he’d finally feel differently. All he felt was dread. They arrived at her door and she stood there expectantly. He thought about running, but he didn’t dare to destroy their friendship. He held his breath and leaned over to replicate the gesture he’d seen in a hundred movies. It was terrible. The whole process was slimy and he had no idea where to put his hands. Then she grabbed him around the neck and wouldn’t let go as she squished her face against his harder. It felt like she was trying to push her tongue into his lips which nearly made him push her off him. The moment lasted an eternity before she pulled away blushing and said they ought to do it again sometime. He only nodded and waved as she went inside.

Oriel went home and hid away in his room hoping that by Monday it would all disappear. There had to be some way to keep his friendship intact without ever having to do that again. After dinner, Jasso appeared to check on him. It only took a few questions before Oriel poured out his woes and was surprised to find that his brother wasn’t making any jokes. He encouraged him to tell the girl his true feelings and not to be ashamed of living outside the norm. If he could like sex but not romance, his brother could not like either. He would love him no matter what happened.

That pep talk led Oriel to seek out the asexual community online where he discovered the terms asexual and aromantic. Both fit like a glove and he gladly claimed them. He let the girl down as gently as he could, but the friendship had soured beyond repair. Oriel gradually dropped out of the club, but found a new one online with other ace people who liked card games as much as he did. Very soon, he had friends from across the ace spectrum who understood him, along with his brother, Inari, and Sebastian.

**Post-High School**: Upon graduating high school, Oriel knew that he wanted to move out of his mother’s house with his brother. He loved her, but he knew that Jasso had been wearing out his welcome and Oriel needed space to decide where his life as an acearo person would take him now that he had determined the traditional path of marriage and children were not for him. He took a job at a local jeweler as a salesman to pay for rent, and then moved out with his brother.

His new job quickly proved to be more than a way to make money, and he decided to start working his way up to a full fledged jeweler rather than go to school. He found himself splitting his time between his new found work, his passion for games, his friends and his family. He was more than content to enjoy the peace of his life while watching the drama of his friends’ lives from afar.

### **Elemental Universe**

Oriel grew up in the capital city of the Fire Region. His life was a fairly ordinary one until his mother began to babysit for the ruler of their entire region which led to his brother Jasso meeting the future heir, River. Oriel soon joined him as a friend to the future heir.

## **Trivia**

* Go to karaoke song - "[I'm Gonna Be] 500 Miles" by the Proclaimers for no other reason than he loves the dada sections and it annoys the piss out of his brother.
* First app in the morning - Gmail to check his emails and see if there's any good coupons for lunch.
* Most played Spotify playlist - 'Random' - a playlist he's slowly constructed with songs from a multitude of backgrounds. Basically whatever catches his ear.
* On one particular day, everyone else is busy, so babysitting duty falls to a very reluctant Oriel. However, it's not all bad. When River and Seb come back later, expecting the worst, they find Oriel teaching toddler Kaisa to play (and cheat at) poker.
* Physical Affection Preferences: Nope. Brother might get a hug on a rare occasion but otherwise he will glare daggers at anyone invading his bubble.
* Preferred Sleeping Position: The back sleeper who always snores. He tends to get woken up by his brother or whoever else is in the room when they get annoyed with him
* Oriel occasionally wakes up after dreams in which he is suddenly thrust into the role of leader and expected to solve everyone's problems. He doesn't need that sort of pressure in his life.
* Oriel is not okay with most children's inability to understand the concept of personal space. Once the kids are old enough to start connecting on an adult level, then he gets to be the cool uncle who lets them get away with way too much to ever be trusted to babysit.
* Oriel teaches the next gen the important things like how to keep a poker face and count cards. Not everyone is blessed with his stupid luck after all. He's still him though so he rolls his eyes at relationship nonsense and, outside of listening to Raphael, ignores most of that shit. They've got plenty of other people to go to about that.
* Oriel has been banned from at least three casinos for card counting (only one charge was true) and won an online tournament once during summer vacation. The money went to getting their mother a new fridge.
* Tattoo Story: Seb wanted practice dummies during his apprenticeship. Jasso isn't a fan of needles so no go there, but Oriel was all the like, "Fuck it, why not?" He had no ideas though and none of Seb's designs really spoke to him so Inari picked something at random - Eeyore.
* Oriel likes socializing on the internet more. He's got friends from all different walks of life on there who he can just message with whenever he's bored. There's no worry about having to go somewhere or having to deal with unpleasant people out in the world. Just him and a phone screen.
* Oriel eventually takes over acquisitions at his jewelry store and ends up going on trips all around the world to buy designs and stones. Jasso and Alyssa usually end up pet sitting for him when he's gone.