Urduja Salvador

Personality: 

History:  
Urduja was born to a single mother in Cebu (Philippines) who couldn’t afford to raise them. Their father was a player who didn’t stick around to meet Urduja. Instead, Urduja was given to their mother’s mother. Their life was simple and pleasant with their grandma, they were raised to be polite and protective. Urduja’s grandmother was superstitious, and Urduja’s first taste of the unnatural was the story of the “Manananggal”, (a vampire-like mythical creature, usually a malevolent, man-eating and blood-sucking monster or witch capable of separating themselves from the lower part of their body.) Urduja was terrified and enthralled, and at age ten her obsession with all sorts of monsters, urban legends, and cryptids began. It helped a lot that their grandma wasn’t very tech savvy, meaning Urduja practically had unrestricted internet access.  

Urduja Salvador’s obsession made them a target for bullies, they were outcast and friendless for the majority of middle school. Despite that, they obsessively delved into the ‘cryptid’ side of the internet, scouring every document of these strange creatures and the mark they left on their supposed victims. 

Despite never having their own meetings, they began preparing a guidebook for what would occur if they did, by chance, ever come face to face with a cryptid. They carried it around in class all the time, and when their middle-school bullied heard about it- it was stolen.
The pages were broadcast over the speakers of the school intercom, and what would be an embarrassing experience to most barely phased them, it only helped sift out the mean kids from the dorks, who were curious about the guide and befriended Urduja.

When highschool began, Salvador had a solid understanding of their identity- they felt neither female, nor male. Non-binary was a term that Urduja felt most comfortable with, and as for attraction Urduja had fleeting crushes on people of all identities, so pansexual aligned with how they identified. With their personal identity figured out, they could focus more on the important things, cryptids. 

 At the age of sixteen, their grandmother surprised them with a trip to West Virginia, home of the Mothman. (To be continued)

Trivia: 

• multiple odes to cryptids in their design, specifically their jersey-devil tail earring, mothman tie, loch ness monster sweater, and lastly, their bigfoot skirt 

• Playlist linked here!

• Urduja hates anything that paints cryptids as stritctly ravenous, hostile monsters. Not that they can't be those things, but she insists they must have some high intelligence if they've avoided everything but scant sightings, and they should be considered bright! She also has a large plushie of the Tsuchinoko that doubles as a pillow. (suggested by LavenderPhantump)

• Subtly smells of a sort of cleaner that vaguely smells like fruit (suggested by queercoded)