S098 - Vu, Ren [DECEASED]

[Ruggahissy]

Name: Ren Maria Vu
Gender: Nonbinary (AFAB)
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Greco-roman studies, poetry, surfing the web, blogging, making period-accurate clothing

Appearance: Ren cuts a small, compact figure, standing at an even five feet and weighing 104 pounds. Their fat is deposited fairly evenly throughout their body, with a slightly higher concentration in their thighs; they have some slight muscle definition in their arms. Ren is of mixed Vietnamese and Mexican descent. Their warm, light brown skin is occasionally prone to drying out due to their tendency to wash excessively; on the day of the trip, some of the skin on their hands and cheeks is cracked and peeling, though they disguise the latter with makeup. Their round, heart-shaped face typically features little makeup aside from the foundation necessary to cover such blemishes, for they typically lack the energy and motivation to do more. They have brown eyes, a button nose, thin, chapped lips, and generally soft features; their tousled, naturally black hair has been bleached, dyed a pastel lavender, and styled in something between a grown-out sidecut and a long pixie cut. While their ears have been pierced, the piercings have been removed and the wounds have closed over.

Ren typically appears somewhat disengaged; they generally sit with a slouch and their face is somewhat inexpressive, though they frequently bite their lip when thinking. Ren can often be found fidgeting with their hands or bouncing one of their legs, and they often seem tense when they're not allowed to do either. Their speech tends to be careful, hesitant, and slightly choppy, and they speak with a quiet, surprisingly low voice. Their accent, while faintly noticeable, is very difficult to place, and seems to draw on multiple localities.

Ren dresses in a predominantly punk style, though the degree to which their outfits can be considered punk varies on a day-to-day basis (as does the amount of effort they put into their outfit). They typically favor dark outfits with flashes of color, graphic t-shirts, denim jackets, and tight-fitting pants, in combination with an assortment of accessories. On the day of the trip, they were wearing skinny jeans that had been dyed with a red and black plaid pattern; a long-sleeved graphic t-shirt referencing Serial Experiments Lain; a distressed denim jacket; black platform boots; a black leather belt; and a leather choker. Affixed to the jacket are a number of buttons: one features the nonbinary flag colors and text which simply reads "they/them"; another features the trans symbol on a white background; the third, which is somewhat larger, depicts a stylized cartoon cat sleeping next to a snowy window, under text that reads "messenger of spring."

Biography: In the winter of 1999, Ren’s parents, Olivia Juarez and Duc Vu, first met each other as line cooks at a Vietnamese restaurant in Boston. In an odd coincidence, both had grown up in Houston, TX, but had moved to Boston for their own reasons; Duc had been offered the restaurant job by an old friend who wanted his help with starting up the business, while Olivia and her mother had moved to care for Olivia’s ailing grandmother. While Duc and Olivia initially laughed off the coincidence, they soon discovered that they had more in common than that, and they took to spending their breaks together, talking about their experiences as the children of immigrants, their hatred of the Boston cold, and their uncertainty about what the future might bring, as both felt themselves to be in limbo between life phases. Noting the obvious chemistry between them, their co-workers began teasing them about when they were going to finally start dating; after several weeks, they relented. Several years later, they married and moved in together, and, on October 18, 2003, Olivia gave birth to the child who would later become Ren, whom the couple named Maria Vu. Two more children would follow: twin boys, Mateo and Pedro, born 2 years later.

Maria was a bright, inquisitive, friendly child in her early years, constantly peppering her parents, teachers, and peers with an endless stream of questions about every subject imaginable. While this ingratiated her to her teachers, her peers often found this irritating. Maria often had difficulty with reading facial expressions and social cues, and this, combined with her curiosity, meant that she often persisted with asking questions about a topic long after her peers had indicated that they were uninterested in continuing the conversation. This, combined with Maria’s tendency to tic and stim in ways that her classmates found ‘weird,’ meant that most of her peers found her off-putting, and as a result Maria was generally accustomed to being ostracized throughout her early years.

When Maria was 7, Olivia suggested opening their own restaurant to Duc, an idea that was the product of their experiences with cooking together at home, rather than at the restaurant they worked. In addition to being skilled cooks, Olivia and Duc both enjoyed experimenting and coming up with new dishes. Many of these dishes were formed by combining recipes from their respective childhoods, which gave Olivia the idea of opening a Mexican-Vietnamese fusion restaurant. Enthused by the idea, Duc brought it up to the restaurant owner, his boss and friend Benjamin “Benny” Nguyen, and asked for his help in starting up the new restaurant.

While Nguyen was initially reluctant to lose two of his most skilled employees—Duc, especially, was often consulted in an unofficial capacity before important decisions—Duc was able to eventually convince him to reward the couple for their years of loyal service and helpful advice, and, upon tasting some of the dishes that Olivia and Duc were planning to offer, Nguyen agreed to offer the couple a loan in exchange for a share of the profits. Several months later, they opened their new restaurant, “Pho Real,” in the nearby town of Salem, a location they chose for the lower rent; shortly afterwards, the family also moved their place of residence to an apartment in Salem to lower their commuting time. While business was initially slow, their new restaurant gave Olivia and Duc the direction they felt their lives had been missing, and, through word-of-mouth, their hard work slowly began to pay off.

By the time of moving, Maria had largely internalized the perception that she was annoying and unwanted. As a result she withdrew into herself and made few efforts to make friends at her new school, convinced that any attempts at socialization would be fruitless at best and backfire at worst. Thus, while still ostracized and thought of as odd, Maria was generally found by her new classmates to be aloof rather than annoying. While this resulted in a moderate amount of teasing and bullying, Maria’s refusal to react to their comments meant that her bullies quickly tired of making a target out of her, preferring instead to poke fun at her impassivity behind her back. Maria’s self-perception was worsened by the fact that her parents, busy with running their new restaurant, had little time to parent her or her siblings. While both parents cared for their children and did their best to express it, their inability to spend more time with Maria exacerbated her feelings of being unwanted, and led her to conclude that there was something wrong about her that caused her to be undesirable. As a result, she withdrew even further from her peers, convinced that they deserved better than to have to put up with her.

During this time, the main thing buoying Maria’s sense of self-worth was her relationship with her younger brothers. Due to the demands of moving and opening a restaurant, Maria was often left in charge of her younger brothers and tasked with keeping them out of trouble. While initially resentful, Maria soon found that looking out for her brothers validated her desire to feel needed and valued. Pedro and Mateo were much more mischievous than she was; however, while Maria was a stickler for some of her parents’ rules, she earned the twins’ respect by suggesting ways to diminish the chances of getting caught whenever she felt inclined to turn a blind eye, and occasionally even offered herself as a lookout. At the same time, Maria was careful to admonish any rule-breaking that she considered dangerous, and to ensure that the twins caused no harm to themselves or to others when they broke the rules, which allowed her to feel that she was fulfilling her duty to be responsible for the twins’ behavior.

With an abundance of free time on her hands and few people to interact with aside from her younger brothers, the young Maria began spending increasing amounts of time on the internet in order to distract herself from her isolation. This time was spent mostly on trawling through Wikipedia articles discussing whatever topic struck Maria’s fancy at the time. While most of Maria’s interests came and went in short, intense bursts, one persisted: Greek mythology. Maria was immediately struck by the depictions of fanciful creatures, the outsized personalities of heroes and gods, and, above all, by the idea that people could still connect to stories that were initially told thousands of years ago. After several weeks of hyperfixating, Maria would eventually ask her parents for copies of some of the more famous works and collections, such as the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology anthology. As a child in the latter years of her elementary schooling, Maria found the texts to be frustrating and difficult to understand, and quickly abandoned them; however, she often found herself returning to them, irresistibly drawn to return to her books by the memory of some detail or other, though her returns were generally met with as little success as her first attempt.

It was at about this time that Olivia and Duc began asking Maria to accompany them to work on occasion. This occurred partly out of a desire for another pair of hands in the kitchen—but also out of a desire to connect with Maria on something they both loved. Maria, eager to please her parents, agreed. However, she quickly found the chaotic and painfully cacophonous kitchen workplace to be overwhelming for her senses. Though she initially persisted with the visits in the hope that she would acclimate, Maria soon began looking for excuses to avoid working in the restaurant kitchen. Between her own guilt and her parents’ pestering, however, she often found herself talked into taking on work anyways, and it wasn’t until Maria experienced a significant meltdown that both she and her parents found embarrassing that she stopped coming into the kitchen entirely.

These feelings would finally come to a head in 7th grade, during which Maria was severely lacking for social relations. Barring her brothers, there was nobody whom Maria was genuinely close to, and while the three siblings took care to look out for each other and maintained their good relationships, their lack of shared interests limited their opportunities to bond with each other. Thus, it was then that a desperately lonely Maria turned to the internet to figure out what was broken about her, hopeful that answers would help her develop the social bonds that seemed impossible for her to form. Though Maria considered a number of the disorders that she discovered through research, the one that seemed like the best fit to her was autism, as she heavily identified with the traits described on Wikipedia and WebMD. Soon after reaching this conclusion, she approached her parents in the hope that they would help her get a diagnosis and find a therapist. Her parents were fairly skeptical, believing that their child was looking for excuses to justify avoiding restaurant work and not entirely convinced that mental disorders weren’t some passing fad; furthermore, while finances were less of a concern than they had been when Maria was a toddler, they remained tight enough for therapy to seem fairly expensive to the family. Nevertheless, their own guilt over not having given Maria enough attention in their early childhood led them to acquiesce.

Maria was diagnosed with autism, and in short order was recommended for ABA therapy. While initially eager to attend therapy, Maria found that the sessions were extremely uncomfortable and controlling. She nevertheless continued the sessions for several months, believing that her discomfort was a positive sign that she was breaking ‘bad habits.’ While the changes therapy wrought on her behavior did have the effect of decreasing the amount of teasing that she faced, it did nothing to help her form close friendships. Simultaneously, the therapy began to take a toll on her mental health, as constantly monitoring her own behavior began making Maria feel constantly exhausted and numb. Maria returned to the internet and began reading about the experiences of people who had gone through ABA therapy, hoping for reassurance that her current experience would prove to be a temporary phase. Instead, Maria found that survivors of ABA therapy overwhelmingly shared her feelings, with many describing the practice as unhelpful and abusive.

While Maria was frustrated and initially in denial over having wasted her time and effort trying something that had been worse than useless for her, she was also relieved to come across perspectives that made her feel understood, which gave her some relief from the feelings of isolation that had driven her to seek a diagnosis in the first place. Maria asked her parents to discontinue her therapy shortly afterward, a move that exasperated her parents and confirmed their view that Maria’s autism was the product of an over-dramatic teenage imagination rather than anything real, but which also left them feeling relieved that they would no longer have to pay for Maria’s therapy (while Maria’s internet travails had alerted her to the existence of other kinds of therapy that autistic people actually recommended, her guilt over having already wasted her parents’ money dissuaded her from broaching the topic). To appease her parents, Maria returned to helping out at the restaurant, though she began to wear noise-canceling earplugs in order to better cope with sensory overstimulation while there.

Maria’s experience with reading firsthand accounts on ABA therapy drove her to branch out in her internet usage, as she began spending more time browsing through personal blogs, discussion boards, and social media, primarily seeking out bloggers and accounts that she felt some kind of connection with. While generally too shy and cautious to actively reach out to any of the people she followed, the activity still vicariously provided Maria with a sense of intimacy, and also led to Maria developing another one of her current interests: poetry. A considerable number of the blogs that Maria followed would post poetry, and Maria found herself drawn to them, as she often found that her sense of connection with the poster was strongest when reading their poetry. Indeed, poetry blogs constituted the primary exception to Maria’s tendency to passively read without interacting, as she began taking to leaving positive feedback on the poems of some of her favorite bloggers. This eventually gave Maria the confidence to start her own poetry blog, finding that the form of poetry allowed her to express herself while remaining indirect enough for her to post it with a minimum of anxiety. To this day, Maria maintains a friendly exchange with some of the poetry bloggers she follows, though a careful distance remains in her interactions—neither Maria nor her interlocutors ever pried into each others’ personal lives, even when the poems themselves touched on more personal subjects.

Maria’s online activity was also the beginning of her questioning of her gender identity. Several of the bloggers who Maria followed were trans and/or nonbinary, and while Maria initially approached that facet of their identities from a position of somewhat-detached interest, she found herself identifying with trans experiences to an increasing degree. Maria had never been entirely comfortable with performing femininity, and had often felt resentful when her family forced her to wear dresses for more formal occasions, but up to this point she had always assumed that such feelings were normal and typical. As Maria spent more time reading, however, she began to realize the extent to which her assigned gender at birth made her feel trapped, the extent to which being perceived as a girl interfered with her ability to genuinely connect with anyone. Still raw from her stint in ABA therapy, however, Maria was very cautious about drawing premature conclusions before she had completed her research. While she briefly considered the possibility that she was a trans boy, imagining herself as a boy felt even more disconcerting than being a girl; rather, Maria found herself more closely drawn to the possibility that she was nonbinary. For several weeks, Maria agonized over the question: while she had always felt uncomfortable with being a girl, she also felt that she couldn’t accurately say that she had always been nonbinary deep down, as it hadn’t begun informing her self-image until she learned what it was. It wasn’t until Maria came across advice that encouraged her to see her gender less as something that must be essential and unchanging and more as something that feels comfortable in the present that Maria began to tentatively experiment with being nonbinary, identifying themself as such on their poetry blog, using they/them pronouns for themself internally, and choosing Ren as their new name. After several months, Ren felt comfortable enough in their new gender to embrace it more wholeheartedly, and as such they began experimenting more with their wardrobe by gradually incorporating more pieces of masculine and gender-neutral clothing into their outfits.

The social and parasocial relationships that Ren had cultivated online would prove to be helpful to them in their offline life as well, as they provided Ren with a guide on how to build fulfilling connections with their peers. Starting in high school, Ren, while still generally shy and withdrawn, began tentatively reaching out more often to students who they trusted to accept them for their differences, as well as students who, like them, were on the margins of most social scenes. To their surprise, a number of people were receptive to their advances, and they began the gradual work of building friendships. Despite their difficulty with reading social cues, Ren made for a thoughtful listener, and, keeping in mind their tendency to ramble about Greek mythology, poetry, and other topics important to them, they took care to indulge and facilitate their friends’ interests.

This habit meant that Ren would often end up adopting their friends’ interests over time. Using those hobbies as a way to get closer to and spend more time with people they wanted to befriend caused them to develop a fondness for the hobbies in their own right, especially because they could often use a mutual obsession as the foundation for a mutual understanding. In this way, their current interests in tabletop gaming and anime were acquired. Ren’s time on the internet had left them with a long-standing but unexplored curiosity about both hobbies, and in time these hobbies would help provide them with communities where they felt that they belonged. Queer anime in particular gave them an outlet to broach the subject of their gender with their friends, and playing characters in tabletop gaming in many ways served as a testing ground for their own identity, as they would often incorporate aspects of characters they had enjoyed playing into their own presentation.

Simultaneously, Ren’s interest in Greek mythology developed into a passion for Greco-Roman studies in its entirety. Not only had they finally matured enough to understand and appreciate the more complex myths, but their desire to do so had led to a desire to understand the culture that had produced those myths, and as such Ren began copiously reading into Greco-Roman history and cultural practices. This interest eventually developed to the point that Ren began using most of their allowance to purchase supplies that would allow them to begin making period-accurate classical clothing. Starting off with making chitons, togas, tunics, and other simple fabric attire, they eventually progressed to learning how to make fake armor from craft foam. While they initially made this clothing solely for themself, they soon found that their interest was useful in tabletop gaming and especially LARPing circles, and Ren often found themselves attempting to make cosplay outfits for their friends. Although Ren rarely had the time, resources, and skill to put together a truly excellent outfit, their work was more than adequate for their friends’ purposes, and they nevertheless enjoyed the challenge of trying to put together an outfit with a minimal budget.

Meanwhile, Ren also began to develop an appreciation for non-epic Greek and Roman poets like Sappho and Catullus, connecting it to their love for poetry in general; as time passed, they began attempting to incorporate more and more aspects of Greco-Roman poetry into their own writing. Lastly, Ren developed a fascination for translation when they realized how strongly different translations of the same classical text could contrast, a realization that drove them to study the decisions that inform the translation process. Ren loved to analyze how works could carry different implications depending on how they were translated, and to this end they began studying Latin in their spare time, albeit very slowly, as finding enough time and energy to devote to consistently learning a new language often proved to be difficult.

While generally shy about sharing their interests unprompted, Ren responds enthusiastically whenever others express curiosity about them, a pattern that reflects the overall structure of their social life. Away from their friends, Ren tends to keep a rather low profile, though their visual distinctiveness means that they are easily recognizable. While occasionally still the target of teasing and harassment, Ren had by this time learned to mostly suppress their stims when around intolerant company, and as such tends to evade the notice of all but the most dedicated of bullies. In their own social circles, however, Ren is more well-connected, though not always for positive reasons. Their insecurities over their prior state of friendlessness cause Ren to frequently doubt whether they deserve the friends they currently have, and as such Ren can be compulsively helpful. They often go out of their way to talk their friends through their personal problems, even when unprompted, and particularly pride themselves on helping their friends recognize when they’re being manipulated, abused, or otherwise mistreated, a skill that, in their eyes, helps them compensate for their lack in other kinds of interpersonal intelligence. Additionally, their fear of losing their friends means that they tend to be intensely loyal and forgiving towards them, and while this has helped them form close bonds, it also ironically opens them to manipulation, and to overlook the harm others do to them.

While Ren had always been a good student due in large part to their natural curiosity and meticulousness, it wasn’t until their Greco-Roman interests blossomed that they began placing around the top of their class. Aware that the job market for classicists was small and shrinking, and also aware that they had little passion for other lines of work, Ren had resolved to improve their chances of getting into a top university. Though English and history were the subjects that interested them the most, they also did very well in their math and science classes. Their grades, however, do slip from time to time due to their difficulties with organizing their time and balancing their classes with their social life, their personal interests, and the time they put into their parents’ restaurant; they are often on the verge of burnout in the final weeks of a semester.

When the pandemic began, Ren found themself abruptly cut off from everyone except for their immediate family. Although Ren adjusted to socially distancing and remote schooling well in some ways, the changes still took a toll on them. Generally more comfortable communicating with text than with their voice, they have, by and large, been able to maintain their friendships remotely. However, not being able to go out has nevertheless significantly interfered with their more social hobbies. Without anyone to wear the clothes they made, it was difficult for them to find the motivation to continue with making classical outfits; similarly, while they tried joining anime watch parties on occasion, trying to watch anime while part of a loud and crowded voice chat often overwhelmed them to the point that the experience was more exhausting than enjoyable. For similar reasons, they found attending class through video call highly unpleasant, and throughout the year Ren would struggle with schoolwork, as they often had difficulty paying attention to anything that was said in class. Despite these difficulties, they have, for the most part, been able to keep their grades up, and they have since applied to a smattering of top colleges along with some more local backup options.

Over the years, Ren’s relationship with their parents has become cordial, but distant and tense. Neither party could ever quite bridge the gap between their lack of shared interests, and both feel a mixture of guilt and resentment as a result. Ren’s parents often feel that Ren thinks themself to be better than their uneducated parents while also wishing they had played a greater role in their child’s life; Ren is frustrated by their parents’ inability to connect with them on their terms, but also constantly wishes that they can identify more with their parents’ passions. Ren’s recent applications to college have increased the tension in the household; while their parents aren’t opposed to Ren’s desire for higher education, they don’t see the value in the degree that Ren is planning on pursuing, and all parties are uneasy about the possibility that Ren will be admitted to a college without being offered a scholarship; while the Vu family’s financial situation has drastically improved since Ren’s early childhood, the family still can’t easily afford the full tuition of some of the more expensive colleges that Ren applied to. Another point of tension is that Ren, despite being out to their friends at school, has never informed their parents that they are nonbinary; because of their parents’ attitude towards their autism, Ren is convinced that their gender identity would, at best, be dismissed as another passing phase. Throughout the years, Ren has generally been able to pass off their hairstyle and wardrobe changes as trends that were popular with their friends. Their reluctance to invite any of these friends to their house--born out of the fear that their friends might slip up and use the correct name and pronouns for them around their parents--has, however, begun drawing their parents' suspicion. While they haven't realized that Ren is queer yet, they are aware that their child is hiding something from them, and this unspoken suspicion has only further exacerbated the tension in their household. Their relationship with their brothers, however, is considerably better; while they have refrained from coming out to Mateo and Pedro and rarely spend time with them, the siblings have an easy familiarity and are accustomed to looking out for each other.

Advantages: Their experience with working in their parents’ restaurant and their hobby of making clothes has rendered Ren fairly dexterous. Ren is meticulous and detail-oriented, and as such is good at identifying both their own weak points and those of potential enemies; furthermore, they can be very driven when they have a particular goal that they strongly want. Years of training themself to pass as neurotypical means that they know how to keep a level head under pressure, though they tend to break down once a crisis is over. Finally, Ren is good at seeing through lies and manipulation from anyone that isn’t already a close friend of theirs, and as such would not be easily tricked.
Disadvantages: Ren is small and physically weak, having done little physical activity throughout their life aside from what was necessary. Their loyalty towards their friends can work to their detriment by causing them to neglect their self-interest; furthermore, it can cause them to be willfully naïve, which means that they can be exploited by someone close to them even when they should know better. They also have the capacity to anger someone and ruin a delicate interaction due to their difficulty with reading social cues. Their focus on remaining calm and level-headed in the face of pressure often causes them to freeze up in critical moments, as their attempts to remain in control leave them unable to act. Lastly, Ren is likely to experience sensory overload in an environment as overstimulating as the island, and as such they are vulnerable to being distracted and overwhelmed in critical situations.

Designated Number: Student No. 098

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Designated Weapon: MP-443 Grach (Russian 9mm handgun)

Conclusion: This is the only way you'd have a chance given your stature. Better not freeze when it's life or death. - Cecily Lacoste