Survival Of The Fittest

Name: Maria Cedar de Santa Clara Mangahas Dalisay
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Anime, cosplay, sewing and costuming, sketching and inking, digital art, painting, karaoke, rap music, ant farming, academics and self-study.

Appearance: Cedar is 5’0”, with native Filipino heritage that gives her skin a dark olive complexion. She is medically underweight and deals with fluctuations, averaging anywhere from 90-100 lb. Due to this she has a lanky, rectangular body type and barely defined curves, hips visibly defined by bone and not fat distribution. She has a short torso and long legs proportionally. Her skin is sometimes marred by patches that will be some combination of ashy and inflamed red, due to recurrent eczema that most frequently affects the skin around her joints and neck.

She has a round face, with a low hairline and thus a shortened forehead. Her nose is small, sharply angular but with a barely defined bridge. Her lips are dusky relative to her skin tone, and she has chubby cheeks without much definition to her cheekbones. Her eyes are a warm brown, and angular in shape. Her curly hair is naturally jet black, unruly and prone to explosive volume and excessive frizz in most climates. She elects to wear it short for practical reasons, cropping it close to her neck and the sides of her face.

She knows an extensive amount of makeup tricks due to her cosplay experience, but she usually does not bother. Her voice roughly matches her appearance, somewhat shrill and high on the octave. She has clear and strong enunciation, as if Cedar consciously trained her English before. Her singing voice is okay considering her lack of training, and she would be considered an alto to the surprise of some expecting her speaking voice to match. Cedar speaks fluent Bisaya, in addition to English. She also speaks Filipino conversationally.

Cedar dresses with only some care and does not invest a lot of time into matching. Her aesthetic borrows from streetwear while generally being feminine; common tropes include athletic fabric and a love of tatters. She is generally inclined to show skin on hot days to prevent sweat and deter exacerbating her skin conditions. She expresses her geeky hobbies with some eye for taste. On the day of the abduction she wore grey trainers with white soles, red-hued marble pattern activewear skorts, a sideless crop top in white with a stylized black silhouette of Aku from Samurai Jack, over a black sports bra, and over both a button-up half sleeve blue denim jacket. She had a plain metal choker, and stud earrings. She wore no makeup.

Biography: Maria Cedar is the second eldest child born to Vernon and Sarah Jay Dalisay, of six total siblings: Cedar was born roughly a year after eldest sister Maria Paris, then her fraternal twins Eric and Grover born two years after Cedar, then two further births with one in each year following: Maria London and Jacob. The family was based in an impoverished area of the then-developing island of Mactan, a part of Cebu in the Philippines. Vernon was a taxi driver and Sarah Jay a housewife, and the family was increasingly impoverished as years passed due to the burden of the extra children. The large family lived in a ramshackle prefab home helping take care of Vernon’s elderly father, who lived alone. Vernon’s two older brothers and older sister had all moved to the United States to pursue work opportunities.

Cedar experienced this degree of poverty from a young age. There was usually only enough for two meals a day, and those meals would consist of a cup of rice with a can of small sausages or small package of dried fish split among the family every day or every other day depending on government assistance and Vernon’s meager daily salary. Cedar played in a neighboring lot decorated by broken down vehicles parked there and left to rust; she had plenty of playmates her age, as the area had many informal settlers packing into ramshackle huts of whatever quality could be scrounged up.

Cedar was a happy and energetic child. She was aware from an early age of the poor situation and financial stress burdening her parents, though she was unable to contextualize it as all she knew from her surroundings was poverty. Paris and Cedar were a tag-team duo who would take it upon themselves to handle the other younger children as the two of them grew up, learning from a young age to be responsible and help the little ones learn to speak and read. Paris from a young age was the one most likely to be shouted at when either mother or father needed to vent, but Cedar often dutifully stood at her sister’s side, showing solidarity and comforting her sister after the fact. Cedar was confident and headstrong where Paris was nervous and meek.

Cedar was able to join her sister in public school when she became the appropriate age. Supplies and uniform were provided for by a charity program of the local church. Cedar and Paris, and their siblings later, had to walk roughly a mile and a half to school each way, often in hot weather. The family’s children were fed at school, indeed their meals were often better in quality and amount at school, giving the kids something to look forward to. Cedar, while in school, proved an adept learner. Paris could only perform to a passably average degree despite diligence and study, and Paris disliked spending more time on her work than she had to. Cedar by contrast enjoyed intellectual challenges. Disciplinarian teachers found her early love of questions irksome and she would often be reprimanded and shamed in front of the class, leading her to develop a learned tendency to be silent when curious. That aside, her testing ability was spectacular. She developed at an advanced track for her age and was especially good with her language skills. Her English was strong, and she could read above her grade level. She would sometimes socialize and play with the young adult foreigners who came into her school to act as volunteer servers and classroom assistants.

School became a happier place for her than the home. While there were still friends she had back in the informal settlements they often preferred physical games like tag and jump rope, one rope shared among the twenty or so girls who would hang out in the area, and Cedar never had the strongest physical ability, tiring easily from a young age and allergy-prone. They also liked to gossip, which Cedar was okay with, but she found it grew dull and disinteresting after a time. Nobody could engage her youthful inquisitiveness, and she learned to avoid talking too much in this setting.

At home she was also depended on to help with chores, she and Paris both cast from a young age as the responsible elder siblings who had to help their mother out. Cleaning was common, but Cedar also developed early interests in sewing from helping her mom patch the other siblings' commonly ripped and torn garments. The work expected of her was only basic, and the mother, stingy for the sake of practicality, refused to let Cedar play with fabric scraps. Cedar wished she could try to make clothes or do prettier, fancier work with her needle, but she would have to settle for feeling helpful with her existing work as the family’s tailor, and the pride and accomplishment she felt helping out her mother in a way that earned her small praises.

By the time she was in the second grade she preferred to stay in the home to going out to play in her free time. This was often only possible when her father was out of the house working, as he did not like it when the kids weren’t outside as he strongly believed his children needed to build character and be more social. She liked to listen to the neighbor’s radio, they could afford one, and they would play CDs sent from their relatives in the States. Cedar’s music tastes would thus from a young age skew away from the oldies her dad sometimes played for the family with his car radio and more towards the popular music of America in the 1990s through the mid-2000s, specifically hip-hop. Cedar’s taste in music, thus, was defined by a range of artists from Dr. Dre to Soulja Boy. There wasn’t much she could do in the house besides be quiet with her own thoughts, but she preferred this to spending time with the neighboring kids. She would entertain herself with her strong imagination, and sometimes with the ants that would wander the common room of the shanty, observing them, naming them, and pretending they were her pets that she could recognize and tell apart.

The other particularly major part of her week-to-week life besides school and home life was church. Her mother was pious and devoted, and made sure her children were all knowledgeable of important prayers, reprimanding them and punishing them for not keeping up with what she expected them to be capable of if the family could afford Sunday schooling for any of them. Cedar, striving to be good and responsible, took her scripture seriously. She was the one best able to memorize the various texts demanded of her and she helped teach the others so they could avoid difficulties with their mother. While she had the occasional curiosity or question about what she perceived as a contradiction, she was well-experienced in avoiding voicing her concerns to adults.

Her life continued with this general tenor, week after week as she grew older. She sometimes grew antsy, wishing she had more time to herself to do after-school activities, but dutiful in her plentiful house chores. Her siblings younger than her in a way innocently manipulated her- she and Paris were their heroes to the extent that they both refused to let the younger kids of the household take on more chores, allowing them to go out to play more.

The favor of her parents also split. Sarah Jay adored her for her studious nature, and thought she’d make a great wife someday, perhaps even for someone rich. In that way, her mother’s attention unconsciously biased Cedar to view her worth in that limited manner. Vernon, meanwhile, cared mostly for his boys and was somewhat dismissive of the girls in the family having future potential beyond basic high school education. With her parents' influence Cedar was content to assume little of her future and had, at the time, no pretensions that she could make it to college without the ability to afford it.

Things changed when Cedar was halfway through her third grade year. Vernon’s oldest brother Andres visited along with his American wife then of several years, Chelsea Dalisay nee Esserman. Andres had been the success of the family, having earned a scholarship to University of the Philippines Diliman then having moved to America to eventually serve as a combat engineer for the US military.

Vernon and Andres got along well despite having been out of touch for a long time. Up until then, the siblings stateside had only occasionally sent food and toys for the kids. Andres would quickly realize how much more Vernon and his family were struggling than he had thought, and despite arguments caused by Vernon and Sarah Jay’s pride the adults were after a while able to agree that Andres and the other siblings in the States could send more assistance- help the kids get better school supplies, help his younger brother save up for a down payment on a proper house, so on. However, one random idea that had been brought up in one discussion by Vernon would take more than anyone had expected it to.

Andres was going to settle down into civilian life with his planned retirement soon, and the two been trying to start a family, but the two were frustrated and despondent over Chelsea’s issues with infertility. They had been considering adopting, and when brought up Vernon at some point afterwards suggested they adopt one of his own girls. He had been suggesting it mostly in jest, but after some arguments among the adults there was a growing consensus that there was merit to the idea. Andres and Chelsea could provide opportunities to the children that Vernon and Sarah Jay simply could not. Vernon endorsed that the twin boys go, but Chelsea only wanted to take two at most, and Andres and Chelsea were most taken of all with Cedar, who they adored for her mature but still energetic, thoughtful demeanor. They all agreed she would be able to adapt to life in America. In the end, Cedar and Jacob was the compromise Vernon could agree to.

Cedar had found Andres and Chelsea’s many stories of America infinitely fascinating. She had fallen in love with the strange land where anything seemed possible. She thought the two were smart and more fun to talk to in a way than her own family. She had engaged plenty with Andres and Chelsea but had never expected that this would be where it led. She could think about it as long as she wanted, and to decline if she so chose.

Cedar was reluctant despite her open-mindedness to the idea. She did not know how she’d be able to care for her family still when she left, an idea that left her feeling more guilty than anxious over the loss. Jacob was told a little later and seemed more excited about the idea. He mistakenly believed that the whole family would be going, and at three he didn't grasp the full consequences of moving overseas. Cedar was somewhat mollified that she’d have at least one other sibling to watch over, and her parents did their part in convincing her that it was a move considered in love and care for her, for expanding her opportunities for the future. She realized she would possibly be able to go to college, and Andres and Chelsea firmly encouraged her to believe in that future.

She made her final decision to go over the course of a month, certain in herself by the end of it despite the passive pressure from many of her family members, who were varying degrees of excited and sorrowful that she’d be leaving them. Andres and Chelsea stayed at the Vernon household even after acquiring the necessary temporary legal guardianship rights needed in Massachusetts for educational and medical purposes, planning their return to Cedar and Jacob time to have a full summer to adjust before they had to start school.

Upon arriving in Salem Cedar carried on much like she’d done in Cebu, taking on responsibility for Jacob, who quickly turned out to have a similarly flimsy constitution like she herself did and required repeated doctor's consultations due to asthma and allergies. Her English skill allowed her to thrive in classes, but she did not have the easiest time garnering new friends, between her accent and relative worldliness earning teasing and bemusement and her own contending with culture shock. Her close initial friends were not in her class but were fellow Filipino and Fil-am children she was introduced to by her uncle and aunt, Andres having been acquaintances with their parents from his younger years. Cedar’s dynamic with the Pinoy friends she made was more positive, allowing her to be more herself and dote on them with her natural sibling instinct.

Cedar was initially taken aback by the relative lack of busyness in the house, with Chelsea being a full-time housewife and firmly insistent that Cedar spend time playing instead of working. Cedar would often shadow Chelsea in the house. Chelsea had a modest Etsy business where she sold paintings, and this would be where Cedar was first exposed to the possibilities of being an artist. The idea of making her own fantasy worlds with just art supplies appealed to her overactive imagination. She was initially reluctant to ask for supplies of her own, or even to borrow Chelsea’s own, but her adoptive aunt was all too thrilled to spend the quality time with the girl she wished to call a daughter.

The two would spend days after school together, Chelsea introducing Cedar to the fundamentals of painting. Cedar was not especially naturally talented, but her wonderment at the act of creating far overcame frustration, which she was grounded enough to maturely cope with. Cedar progressed through the mediums, and found she most liked the delicate touch needed for watercolor works. She ultimately became more of a sketch artist however, purely because it was the easiest to work on while bored at school. Cedar at one point would admit she liked listening to music in the household, and Chelsea would indulge her by letting her play the sorts of music she liked. Chelsea was a bit taken aback when Cedar was asking for hardcore rappers like Kurupt and Warren G, but Chelsea was open-minded and jovial enough to end up being the cool aunt whose musical tastes evolved with her younger counterparts’.

One particular incident that would endear Cedar to the new mother figure in her life would be when Cedar was caught by Chelsea ant watching in the backyard. This early on into her arrival to America, Cedar was still looking for things to remind her of home. Chelsea was not judgmental and suggested that Cedar could start ant farming in her free time.

Cedar entered middle school, and by then was comfortable with her American lifestyle. She found herself increasingly drawn towards the naturally socially adrift and awkward due to her caretaker instincts, especially with a number of new arrivals to the country around this time joining her band of Filipino friends: the platoon, as they began to style themselves at some point. Many of her closer friends by this time, such as Tenshi Fukushima-Yves, were strongly immersed into geek culture, and Cedar easily followed suit.

Her existing interest in art extended into developing an art style more inspired by cartoons and anime. Her tastes were initially exclusive to popular series but she had plenty of free time on hand to develop a broader palette to the point of most of her favorites being deeper, more obscure series, usually romantic or adult drama-esque. She was particularly drawn to series that had an air of maturity around them, like Spice and Wolf and Revolutionary Girl Utena. At this time in her life most of her habits were indoorsy and physical education was the only class she failed to do well in, as she was already used to not putting effort in and thus was out of shape.

She was further inclined to stay indoors as she began dealing with chronic pain due to recurrent flare ups of eczema. Her condition was severe enough that the irritation would effect her state of mind and make her less inclined socially due to its effect on her appearance. Treatments including a regimen of topical steroids helped to an extent, but the chronic nature of the condition and the need to fight off flare ups would cause the condition to have a long term effect on her mentality in terms of making her disinclined to consider most outings focused on physical activity.

Cedar graduated into high school as a high performer in all non PE classes, though she remained unsure of what she actually was working towards despite having a more encouraging environment, with both Andres and Chelsea confident she had the intelligence and discipline to have a great career path ahead of her. Cedar was distracted with being the entertainment and shoulder to cry on for friends, her sedentary nature and increasingly long hours of sleeplessness meaning she was usually conveniently available for most emotional crises coupled with her natural mentality to help out. She continued to see herself as being a good friend and sister, first and foremost, and was rarely inclined to spend time on fleshing out her own identity and ambitions. She studied and wrote well-organized notes to satisfy her own curiosities about the world, not because she had a distinct career goal she was working towards.

Cedar at this time also became her younger brother's confidante, as he confidently came out as gay when graduating into the sixth grade. The event would be the tinder point for a series of increasingly standoffish arguments with their biological parents and family still in Cebu. Vernon and Sarah Jay had already been leery of Cedar's American lifestyle, Sarah Jay becoming increasingly worried that her daughter was becoming secular, Vernon quietly blaming American diet and alienness to his personal values for Cedar and Jacob's genetic dispositions to sickliness. Jacob coming out of the closet led to the two starting to harangue and critique their younger children about their lifestyle choices during family calls. Cedar and Jacob had developed a self-assured distance from their parents' mentalities and they stood their ground, with the arguments getting heated and nasty enough that inflated threats were thrown by both sides such as self-emancipation and revoking Andres' legal guardianship.

In the end Cedar reached the end of her emotional limits when she realized through Facebook conversations that Paris was likely no longer on her side and had developed a condescending contempt for her younger sister. After a full year's of draining and exhausting back and forth she and Jacob refused to take calls from the family in Cebu any more, starting in her tenth grade year. Their biological parents, on their end, spitefully elected to let their children go their own way and had no desire to force them to return. Andres and Chelsea had tried to play a negotiator role but in the end could only reluctantly accept the new state of affairs, as their all involved wanted to hear no more of it and spoke in the future as if the other party didn't exist. Chelsea in particular got to experience a guilty upside: Jacob and Cedar viewed her as their new rightful mom.

Cedar's falling out with her old family also shook the foundations of her religious faith that she'd maintained since arriving in America. She had remained diligent in daily prayer and study despite increasing apathy and lack of connection to her spiritual roots, feeling obligation to her mother's emphasis on the importance of her faith. Even with her main reasoning no longer holding weight over her she felt guilt in questioning her faith, and to present day she remains hesitant to more clearly define her religious beliefs despite having stopped actively practicing. Her issues with her family and faith are ones she keeps to herself, given her preference being the one listening as opposed to confiding in others she is uncomfortable in moments of intimacy where she is expected to be the one speaking.

Outwardly she remains a cheerful and attentive rock for friends to rely on, a cornerstone of the broad group of friends she has built of fellow Filipino expats and the quieter, more outcast-esque members of John Endecott's population. She's doubled down on her geeky interests and her usual form of outings include fan meets and conventions, particularly Anime Boston, which she started attending and volunteering for in her sophomore year up until the convention's 2020 cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many of the anime she watches nowadays are those with elaborate costuming, even if her personal preference for the show is minimal: for example, she watches and even reads the manga for shows like Rising of the Shield Hero to play with the designs even if she dislikes the actual show proper. In contrast to her fast and loose personal fashion sense she is very particular about her look as a cosplayer- regardless of gender as she has cosplayed both, she is very particular to be as accurate with detailing as she can be. Attending conventions opened an interest in cosplay, and she started to learn how to sew, drape, and design props. She's only as good as one would expect of a two year amateur, with novice construction techniques and many shortcuts taken, but she enjoys the work and keeps at it, especially as she has roped a number of friends into a semi-weekly sewing circle.

Her exposure to the convention scene has led her to start developing an online presence as an artist, inspired by the friends among fan artist circles she made and her own role in encouraging and sometimes teaching fellow artists at school. She takes commissions on Twitter and also does fan art for YouTubers and streamers that she enjoys, and she has enough engagement to be considered an up-and-comer who occasionally gets retweets and engagement from larger internet presences. She is most well known for her digital art skills, but while she is comfortable with a tablet she does not prefer it and Cedar tends to prefer doing paintings most of all when at home and not working on commissions, or sketches at school when casually doing art with friends. Cedar actually only started doing digital art for the purpose of socializing with her online artist friends by sharing a medium, and hadn't intended to otherwise take it up.

Another major hobby specific to her Filipino friends is karaoke, where meetups were frequent even during the height of the pandemic. She does not take the hobby quite as serious as her more competitive friends, and she has no personal illusions about her quality of her voice being above pleasantly amateur, but she enjoys working with her friends and dramatizing the competitions. Influence from her closest friends leads her most regular listens in genre to be keeping up with developments in J-pop and K-pop, however she has few personal favorites in these genres and mostly listens to keep up with conversations with friends. Her love of hip-hop remains predominant, and that is most of what she will put on when by herself.

Loud karaoke is a positive reminder of her rowdy early childhood back in the Philippines. She engages with her cultural background besides this in a very spotty way, and would generally be considered among the most Americanized of her friends, a fact she is sometimes torn emotionally over given her sour and complicated relationship with her heritage.

For example, she at times wishes to cook more Filipino food, but also finds it difficult to cook for herself due to her recent difficulties with IBS. She started dealing with the condition in her junior year, noticing regular intestinal distress and lethargy. These symptoms concluded in a period of weight loss that became severe enough that she required hospitalization for a week, whereupon the diagnosis of her condition was reached and she had to make significant dietary changes to maintain something of a healthy weight and prevent regular intestinal distress. Doctors have encouraged her to exercise more but she struggles with taking the first steps. She otherwise is diligent about her own diet and cutting out most sources of potential irritants, fearful of another significant health scare worrying her loved ones. The combination of her chronic ailments means she can often deal with sick days or having to cancel arrangements with friends last minutes, increasing the amount of time friends will often have to engage with her primarily through social media to where it has become something of a trademark for her.

With more time spent in her own home Cedar has rapidly expanded on her ant farming. She formerly kept only a single formicarium for the aesthetic and nostalgia, but started cultivating additional colonies, along with other ant species that she could get her hands on such as red harvesters. She began to enjoy the art of developing and observing the ant colonies as more than just emotional catharsis. She's started keeping notes on the behaviors of her colonies and started extensively posting about the nuances and subtleties of ant keeping on Twitter, and has allowed them to be used for science classes at the request of her old teachers. Comments from her guardians and friends aside however, she has yet to personally connect her growing interests into career potential.

Coming into her senior year Cedar remains a top performer in school, and both she and Jacob have apparently bright futures with the potential for scholarships. She has applied for some with Andres and Chelsea's guidance, but at times the two of them seem to be steering her more than she makes her own decisions. She declined the potential of going to art school even as her parents expressed that her personal collection of paintings she rarely showed off showed promise, and she eventually agreed to apply undecided and figure it out later on. She remains ambivalent towards taking a more active role in self-advocacy, and nurses a personal discomfort with the thought of graduation and being less able to be present in her friends' and family's lives, having a sense that she is important enough to them that she is guilty that they might lose her. To this end she is focusing on schools in the northeastern United States.

She does not consider art to be a potential full-time path despite the amount of time she puts into it. Romantically she is straight and she has dated before, with a tendency to be interested in the quiet and introverted sorts, but much as she likes being intimate with others she has little insight into the kind of person she might want to settle down with long term.

Advantages: Cedar has strongly developed social skills and a knack for playing the roles of negotiator and mediator, meaning she will have an advantage in navigating difficult situations with her peers. She's likewise maturely confident despite her understated nature and will approach difficulties on island with open-mindedness and thoughtfulness that might enable her to overcome some of her shortcomings.
Disadvantages: Cedar deals with chronic illnesses that leave her lacking in fitness and likely to deal with distracting pain and potentially debilitating inconveniences without the conveniences of modern life to fall back on. In particular her low weight makes her physically weak, and she may possibly have to deal with malnutrition within the time frame of her island stay. She is used to being self-sacrificing for the convenience of others and will likely deprioritize strategies for her own survival in order to benefit friends and others she feels empathy for.

Designated Number: Student No. 055

---

Designated Weapon: Rubber Halloween witch mask

Conclusion: Hey, you never know, maybe she'll get lucky and it'll turn someone's head into bugs and snakes. - Josie Knight