Lorenzo/a "Ren" Araya

[Yonagoda]

Name: Lorenzo/a “Ren” Mimi Araya
Gender: Genderqueer (AFAB)
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Music (especially guitars), skateboarding, role playing, cooking, kickboxing, LGBTQ issues, gaming (especially RPGs)

Appearance: Ren is 5’5'' and about 150 pounds, though they have recently lost some weight due to dieting. They have a soft yet muscular frame, with their fat being distributed in an hourglass shape. Their skin changes from a warm beige in winter to a dark golden shade in the summer but has recently been paler from staying inside more frequently. They are also prone to freckling, mostly on their cheeks and shoulders, and have stretch marks on their hips and the back of their legs. They are Chinese on their mother’s side and mixed African-Latino on their father’s side. Ren is incredibly uncomfortable with most aspects of their physical appearance and deliberately dresses to conceal their body, though because they haven’t come out yet, they have to make do with binding using layered sports bras and appearing androgynous instead of as masculine as they want.

Ren’s face is rounded and slightly cherubic. They have upturned, round brown eyes, a snub nose, and an average-sized mouth with full lips. Ren’s teeth are slightly crooked and discolored, although not to a noticeable degree, but they are hyper-aware of it and treat them with whitening toothpaste, to decent success. Their eyebrows are thick and angled, with a few stray hairs. The same lack of treatment is given to their body hair, which they prefer to hide instead of get rid of. Ren wears their dark brown hair in a chin-length bob, naturally curly enough to be considered an afro by some. Due to their effort to pass to those that know they’re transmasculine and appear butch to those who don’t, Ren intentionally uses traditionally masculine manners of speech and body language, though their naturally high voice means they can barely achieve androgyny at best.

Ren’s wardrobe is large and varied, but the clothes that they wear frequently are extremely limited by their dysphoria. As a result, they tend to stick with the same combinations of button-ups and either jeans or plain dark pants, and avoid makeup or accessorizing much. However, they still carefully choose the colors and prints of their clothes to go well together. Despite their appreciation of many counterculture aesthetics, they are only comfortable with band shirts and wearing all black at best. The only piece of jewelry they regularly wear is a golden laurel bracelet that serves as a reference to their name’s meaning, and even then they frequently take it off or choose to forgo it. Although they have prescription glasses, round and gold-rimmed, for slight nearsightedness caused by a lazy right eye, the condition is mild enough that they usually don't wear them out of comfort.

On the day of the abduction, they were wearing an orange tank top underneath a black short-sleeved button up with a pattern of small yellow-orange and white dots, rings, Xs, and four-point stars on a black background, the design visible under an unzipped black hoodie. They had on worn black jeans that their button-up was tucked into and black chunky Heelys with the bracelet on their right wrist.

Biography: Born in Salem to married couple Ai-Ching Lee and Roberto Araya, Ren was an only child for most of their life, and enjoyed the financial stability and doting from them throughout their childhood. As their mother had suffered from fertility issues, Ren’s birth was a welcome surprise. Ai-Ching had just inherited her parents' Chinese buffet and Roberto is a construction manager at a local land renovation company. Both parents tried to work at home as much as possible to take care of Ren, because they believed that raising them themselves would be better than leaving their child to babysitters and nannies often. Ren was particularly loud and social as a child, albeit rather flighty and attention-seeking. Even as a child, they were socially malleable and overemotional, and while they managed to rise to popularity by playing pranks and annoying teachers, it left them with an impression that rebellion and rudeness was something that others looked up to.

As a result, when their attention-seeking and pranks started to target their classmates, they weren’t sure why they were being disliked, and retaliated by amping up their antics. In third grade, they publicly broke down in tears after a confrontation that started with them throwing milk on another student turned physical. While their parents regularly excused their actions due to their young age, that was the breaking point for them. They brought them to a behavioral therapist, and, although their parents would claim that they were much more well-behaved after this, Ren themselves felt like the sessions hadn't addressed the root of their issues. Instead of teaching them how to attract attention in a positive manner, they instead socially retreated after overhearing their parents tell the therapist that they struggle to deal with Ren's antics. They took it as a sign that they were unlikable to be around.

Stuck between a need for attention and a lack of any real friends, Ren’s early childhood was miserable and they still consider themselves to be irreparably damaged by the amount of bullying, which was kickstarted by the students that they were making fun of and annoying in the first place. Gradually, Ren began to socially retreat, relying on the internet as a way for them to communicate with others. Ren’s online access was the result of a lack of knowledge on their parents’ part and Ren’s own curiosity. They quickly figured out how to turn SafeSearch off, and while their online activity started innocently with Club Penguin roleplaying, further roleplays they joined on Discord and Tumblr catered to teens and young adults. Ren, who pretended to be older online, was exposed to more mature concepts at an early age, ultimately culminating in them being involved in online sexual roleplaying and other inappropriate communities when they were fourteen after frequent peer pressure from worse-off influences and their own curiosity. Ren knew things that most kids their age shouldn't have known and was incredibly precocious when it comes to more adult subjects, a fact that they have struggled with when they grew older.

Although they quickly realized their discomfort and cut their connections, they still hung out with older friends online, where they were introduced to D&D and played electronic versions of board and card games together. They also played video games together, mostly RPGs, which they used to create characters that resembled their ideal versions of themselves for the sake of escapism. As a way to assimilate with these communities, Ren developed a sense of humor that targeted themselves, relishing in the attention they got when they told a good joke but afraid to take shots at others due to not wanting a repeat of what they went through as a third grade. Over time, this habit seeped through to real life conversations, where they would make digs at their own perceived flaws to incite laughter, much to the discomfort of some of their friends. At times, they would exaggerate their issues as both an attention seeking tactic and a way to intensify their jokes, but never saw much harm in that.

During their early teens, when they were the most isolated, Ren began to delve deep into online activism in search of purpose and a need to belong. They first stumbled upon leftist blogs on Pinterest, and formed a small Pinterest board where they repost snippets of Tumblr posts that advocated for equality. Eventually, the contents of the blogs evolved to be mostly centered on LGBTQ activism, which they still engage with. Despite their queer identity, and because of the hostility they encountered online, they hesitate to actually involve themselves into discourse, but they do read about conflicts within the community.

Ren spent a lot of time building relationships online as what they thought to be “practice,” but in actuality they were surprised that they managed to form real-life friendships at all. The first friends they made were all neighbors and those that sat next to them in school, and they played D&D together with a few of them on weekends. Other than that, however, Ren felt like there was a need for socialization within them that they couldn’t fill. Even though they tried reaching out and talking to others, they struggled with becoming over-invested in the other person, before cutting them off in fear of social rejection. This pattern has left them with a reputation for being flighty and inconsistent to this day.

Body dysmorphia and dysphoria started to manifest at the tail end of middle school. It started with their enrollment into a self-defense class aimed specifically for women, where the constant insistence on their safety being at risk because of their perceived gender made them resent their identity, especially when they’ve always been tomboyish despite their parent’s insistence on traditional gender roles. Even now, they frequently practice kickboxing for self-defense and knowing that they could fend off other people gives them peace of mind against the fear of being assaulted- a fear that only became worse when they became aware of their body and puberty’s effects on it. Ren's parents frequently commented on their body, although without malicious intent, but they feel very affected by them pointing out how they should be more feminine and that kickboxing is making them more masculine and unattractive to boys. However, they didn't dislike the fact that they were called masculine, but the fact that their parents calling attention to gender roles onto them in the first place.

As a way to cope, Ren initially began adopting even more masculine mannerisms and hobbies in hopes that their family would get the hint and stop pestering them, having their dysphoria start out as physical before also turning mental. They began to roleplay as characters that are transgender or non-binary as a way to explore their own gender but other than that, they made efforts to hide their transgender status from the people they knew, both online and in-person, for a long time before they came out to a handful of friends on Discord in order to, in their eyes, fit in with the majority and avoid ridicule. When they make new accounts, they usually present as a male named Lorenzo, and avoid showing their face and voice, or, more rarely, they present as genderfluid and frequently switch pronouns on days that they feel less masculine.

Ren’s tendency to change or hide aspects of themselves for the sake of social conformity shows in their habit of adopting the hobbies and mannerisms of their friends in order to fit in. Some of these hobbies were kept over the years by them. Skateboarding was a way for them to exercise regularly and get around, even though they only picked it up to impress an upperclassman when they were sixteen. Although they feel irrational for believing in this, they feel like skating with their friends help suppress their dysphoria as they picked up a skater boy persona, and makes them feel cooler and more aligned with some of their more popular classmates.

Similarly, they only started to be interested in music when a roleplaying partner suggested making playlists for their characters, and they went along with it just to make them happy only to find a form of self-expression in the hobby. Ren enjoys mental and sensory stimulation and constantly listening to music helps with that. Although hesitant to express their musical opinions, they have made very thorough playlists for occasions such as exercise, studying, and theme songs for their characters.

In the beginning of ninth grade, their parents announced that they wanted to adopt. This decision has been in the making for a while now- they wanted to have more children, but the pain of childbirth and fertility issues scared them off. The later arrival of Rosa and Jackson, two children from separated families, were a cause of great stress to Ren. Jackson, who was eight, was put in the system when his parents were arrested for drug charges, while then 12-year-old Rosa’s mother was a 15-year-old when she was born who was pressured by her family to put her up for adoption. Roberto and Ai-Ching were doting on the two, determined to give them a good home, but Ren felt neglected and, despite their guilt at feeling so, was jealous of the two receiving all the attention from their parents. Although glad at the prospect of having new friends and wanting to help them, they had difficulty accepting them as siblings and were frustrated at them, which they tried to hide.

High school, despite their best efforts, ended up becoming relatively underwhelming. Never truly standing out, Ren has resigned themselves to being acquaintances with everyone, never truly feeling like they belonged to any group or subculture. However, in their freshman year, they impulsively picked an aesthetic and an ideal- counterculture and punk- and decided to stick to it, feeling like they shouldn’t spread themselves too thin. They are what most people would consider to be a poser and they knew it- the music they make with the guitar and listen to are usually softer in tone, and although rebellion sounds good to them in theory, they found it difficult to actively rebel. The true reason why they are drawn to the alternative community is because of its acceptance of their genderqueer status and the gender nonconformity that the aesthetics allow. While Ren feels much more comfortable being openly queer online and within others that identified themselves as leftist and, optionally, anti-establishment, they are much less open in real life. They have, many times, tried to come out to their parents, but were always shut down with accusations of being too young to know their identity. As a result of the discouragement, they are not out to most of their classmates and only a few know that they are transgender. Although the name is too feminine for their tastes, they still go by "Ren" as a nickname to avoid suspicion instead of "Lorenzo" or another explicitly masculine name. Ren holds the belief that their appearance and non-passing gender identity makes them both unprepared for adjusting to adult life inherently difficult to love and that they'll never truly live a happy life until they transition, which may never happen.

Ren stress eats as a way to deal with stress, but their dysmorphia makes them very uncomfortable with their own curves. Despite their desire to lose weight, Ren enjoys cooking, although only ever making low-calorie foods for themselves, and feel like it was their responsibility to work in the family restaurant. Recently, they've began to develop an increasingly unhealthy attitute towards food, as their weight increased. Their parents assure them that they can pick whatever career they want, but they feel bound to familial duty. They work as a chef in the restaurant and feel as if it’s the only available career path for them- their grades are all average at best, especially in math and sciences.

Aside from the restaurant, they also help tutor Rosa and Jackson. Their relationship with their siblings is a little rocky, especially as the two look up to them as one of their prime sources of authority. On the one hand, both of them appear to respect their identity and their life choices. On the other hand, however, Rosa likes to throw parties without telling her parents and neglects her schoolwork in favor of partying and has become noticeably rebellious, and, by the tail end of the pandemic where she can go out again, promiscuous. Ren helps out at these parties when they have spare time, making snacks and trying to chat up Rosa’s friends, but is worried about their choice of people to hang out with. Although worried about her, Ren themselves does not know how to deal with her, and just tries their best to educate her on how to stay safe and trying to make sure that her friends are all within her age range of 15 to 16. Although they feel vaguely creepy for enjoying the company of younger children, Ren genuinely feels like kids understand them better and that they are easier to talk to, even though at the same time being seen as an authority figure because of their age feels odd to them. Jackson is very quiet, and they feel a little exasperated at his lack of friends and their communication difficulties, but their main concern as of late has been correcting Rosa's behavior more than his. Sometimes, they feel a little jealous of their siblings not only because they seem to be receiving their parents' attention more, but because Rosa seems to be able to seamlessly fit into social situations in a way that Ren isn't able to, and Jackson is a lot more content with being by himself and doesn't let other people's opinions bother him.

Over the pandemic, Ren’s mental health was seriously damaged. Even with their family, they felt incredibly alone. Being stuck with their parents only made everything worse for them- they felt trapped with people who don’t acknowledge their identity and isolated from those that made them feel safe. They started to pick up new hobbies to distract themselves, such as cinematography, in order to boost their online audience and make videos for their friends, but no amount of online conversations and revisiting old video games could make them feel as happy as they were pre-pandemic. They were glad that the whole ordeal is over, but now, the prospect of having only one more year with their classmates scares them. In fact, they are terrified of graduating and having to be alone, because they've put off on coming out and transitioning, reasoning that it's better to do it when they were older, and now that time is rapidly approaching. Although they knew they should be ready for adult life, they still feel immature and unprepared, as if they are still a child.

Advantages: Ren's slight lack of physicality is more than made up for by their active interest in self defence and experience in kickboxing. Their paranoid tendencies can keep them on guard against those plotting to betray or manipulate them.
Disadvantages: Ren has low self-esteem and believes that they constantly need to accommodate or help others, to the point of sometimes placing others above themselves. They suffer from social passivity, lack of commitment, and emotional repression and can be easily talked into taking actions that lower their chances of survival, especially by large groups. Although well liked, some classmates have begun to think of them as being mentally unwell due to their jokes or unreliable due to their changing opinions. Ren can be emotionally immature at times and relies on the approval of other people in order to be motivated.

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Hello Yona, I'll be giving Ren's final critique today. They look fairly good content-wise and are mostly in need of some grammar and punctuation cleaning and general tightening up.

In general, the biography is in need of a sweep to make sure that you are sticking to one tense throughout the majority of it. Everything taking place prior to the immediate present day needs to be in past tense. Carefully read through the bio and make sure that your verbs agree with each other, as there are some sentences where you start in present or past tense and then switch mid-sentence.

Without much effort being put into maintaining their health, Ren’s teeth are slightly crooked and discolored, although not to a noticeable degree, but they are hyper-aware of their dental health and treat them with whitening toothpaste, to decent success.

This is kind of a confusing sentence. At first it says that their dental hygiene is lacking, then it says that Ren is very aware of their dental health and puts work into maintaining it. This is just in need of some clarification as to which is the case.

Are Ren's parents married? Their mom apparently still goes by her maiden name and there's no mention as to whether they are or not, so I'm just curious.

Does Ren engage with LGBTQ issues in any manner other than the Pinterest board that they maintain? If that's all that they do, or they are mostly interested in the topic because of their own identity, that's not quite a hobby, especially since it's stated that they don't really get involved in discourse or activism.

Additionally, it says that they hesitate to get involved in discourse "despite" hostility that they have encountered online. I'm not sure if you mean that they hesitate to engage because of hostility, or if it motivates them to engage more, and I'd like clarification on that.

I would change "self-defense" to "kickboxing" in the Hobbies & Interests list, since that appears to be the actual activity that Ren takes part in regularly, and self-defense is more of a motivation for it. Similarly, Ren's interest in "food culture" seems to be more of a cooking hobby, rather than interest in food as an artistic or cultural pursuit. These are small differences, but they are different things.

Does Ren play the guitar? There's a very brief mention of it late in the biography, but it's not referenced at all in the paragraph describing their interest in music. That would be a relevant thing to include there.

I don't see social media as a hobby in the biography separate from Ren's roleplaying and Pinterest.

They are what most people would consider to be a poser and they knew it. In truth, they aren’t really sure why they are even pretending to be punk rock- the music they make with the guitar and listen to are usually softer in tone, and although rebellion sounds good to them in theory, they found it difficult to actively rebel. The true reason why they are drawn to the alternative community is because of its acceptance of their genderqueer status and the gender nonconformity that the aesthetics allow.

Aside from the tense-switching and grammar issues in this passage, it is self-contradictory. You say in one sentence that Ren is a poser and doesn't know why they embrace the aesthetic, and in the next sentence you explain why. It seems like the appeal of this is something they would be aware of, given how they interact with their gender identity in other ways.

So Rosa doesn't inform her siblings when she is going to host parties, but what about their parents? Is the situation that Ren is the primary authority figure for their siblings now, with the parents leaving that to them and working more? If not, how is she getting away with this?

Ren's advantages need some workshopping. They're stated to have been a class clown who annoyed others and got bullied for it in childhood, and now they are a social floater who has few close friends and is jealous of people who can easily navigate social situations. This doesn't line up with the advantages saying that they have a good reputation and are capable of emotionally manipulating people. I would also include their physical fitness and specific kickboxing ability rather than just "an interest in self-defense."

Spelling/grammar:

"Role playing" in the Hobbies & Interests list should be "roleplaying".

Although they have prescription glasses- round and gold-rimmed- for slight nearsightedness caused by a lazy right eye, the condition is mild enough that they usually don't wear them out of comfort.

Change the dashes here to commas.

They had on worn black jeans that their button-up was tucked into and black chunky Heelys with the bracelet on their right wrist.

Born in Salem to Ai-Ching Lee and Roberto Araya, Ren was an only child for most of their life, and enjoyed the financial stability and doting from them throughout their childhood.

Ren was particularly loud and social as a child, albeit rather fleeting and attention-seeking.

Do you mean "flighty" here, rather than "fleeting"? Something being fleeting means that it is fast or brief, which doesn't make a lot of sense in this sentence.

They took it as a sign that they are were unlikable to be around.

Ren knew things that most kids their age shouldn't have known and was incredibly precocious when it comes to more adult subjects- a fact that they have struggled with when they grew older.

Change the dash here to a comma.

Although they quickly realized their discomfort and cut their connections, they still hung out with older friends online, where they were introduced to D&D and played electronic versions of board and card games together.

Since it's not necessarily a given that a random reader will know immediately what "D&D" refers to, use the full title, Dungeons & Dragons, the first time it is mentioned.

At times, they would exaggerate their issues as both an attention-seeking tactic and a way to intensify their jokes, but never saw much harm in that.

Ren spent a lot of time building relationships online as what they thought to be “practice,” but in actuality they were surprised that they managed to form real-life friendships at all.

Get rid of the quotes here.

It started with their enrollment into a self-defense class aimed specifically for women, where the constant insistence on their safety being at risk because of their perceived gender made them resent their identity, especially when they’ve always been tomboyish despite their parents' insistence on traditional gender roles.

Even now, they frequently practice kickboxing for self-defense and knowing that they could fend off other people gives them peace of mind against the fear of being assaulted- a fear that only became worse when they became aware of their body and puberty’s effects on it.

Tense-switching aside, I'd rearrange this sentence somewhat to put the last part of the information first, as it informs the reason why Ren continues to practice kickboxing.

However, they didn't dislike the fact that they were called masculine, but the fact that their parents calling attention to gender roles onto them in the first place.

"Calling attention to gender roles onto them" doesn't make sense. I would replace "calling attention to" with "projecting" or something along those lines, but you can reword it in another way.

They began to roleplay as characters that are transgender or non-binary as a way to explore their own gender but other than that, they made efforts to hide their transgender status from the people they knew, both online and in-person, for a long time before they came out to a handful of friends on Discord in order to, in their eyes, fit in with the majority and avoid ridicule.

This sentence runs on. There's two main ideas here: Ren exploring their gender identity online, and Ren hiding their identity for the most part but eventually coming out to some friends. Split those into their own individual sentences.

Similarly, they only started to be interested in music when a roleplaying partner suggested making playlists for their characters, and they went along with it just to make them happy, only to find a form of self-expression in the hobby.

This decision has been in the making for a while now- they wanted to have more children, but the pain of childbirth and fertility issues scared them off.

Change the hyphen to a semi-colon.

However, in their freshman year, they impulsively picked an aesthetic and an ideal- counterculture and punk- and decided to stick to it, feeling like they shouldn’t spread themselves too thin.

Change these to commas.

They are what most people would consider to be a poser and they knew it.

Tense-switching.

Ren holds the belief that their appearance and non-passing gender identity makes them both unprepared for adjusting to adult life[color=red,[/color] inherently difficult to love, and that they'll never truly live a happy life until they transition, which may never happen.

Ren stress eats as a way to deal with stress,

Redundancy. Just saying "Ren stress eats" is sufficient.

They work as a chef in the restaurant and feel as if it’s the only available career path for them- their grades are all average at best, especially in math and sciences.

Change the hyphen to a semi-colon or period.

On the one hand, both of them appear to respect their identity and their life choices.

Use Ren's name here, since there is a "them" referring to the siblings and "their" referring to Ren's life and choices, which is confusing at a glance.

On the other hand, however, Rosa likes to throw parties without telling her siblings and neglects her schoolwork in favor of partying and has become noticeably rebellious, and, by the tail end of the pandemic where when she can could go out again, promiscuous.

Being stuck with their parents only made everything worse for them- they felt trapped with people who don’t acknowledge their identity and isolated from those that made them feel safe.

Change the hyphen to a semi-colon or period.

They were glad that the whole ordeal is over, but now, the prospect of having only one more year with their classmates scares them.

Tense-switching.

Although well-liked, some classmates have begun to think of them as being mentally unwell due to their jokes or unreliable due to their changing opinions.

That is what I have on a first pass. I know it looks like a lot, but just take it a little at a time, and we'll get Ren fixed up in short order. Post in here when you have made the edits, and I'll take another look!

[Buko]

This character biography has had no alterations for more than two weeks and has been put in the abandoned characters forum. This profile is eligible for resubmission by the handler upon alterations requested by the staff.