April Nguyen

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Name: April Margaret Nguyen
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Swimming, Girl Scouts, fantasy and adventure media, tabletop roleplaying games, body modification

Appearance: April is 5’5” and weighs 138 pounds. She has a build that is mostly lean muscle, with particular definition in her arms, legs, and back. She has broad shoulders and a larger bust, making her slightly top-heavy; she has somewhat of an inverted triangle body shape. She is Vietnamese-American and has a tanned complexion, thick, wavy black hair, and dark brown almond-shaped eyes. Her face is an oval shape, with high cheekbones, a broad nose, and naturally upturned lips. Her eyebrows are fairly thick, and she takes meticulous care to groom them so that they appear thinner. April’s hair is worn in a layered cut that falls just past her shoulders, with sideswept bangs; most often, she wears it up in a high ponytail. She is slightly nearsighted and wears both glasses and contacts depending on the occasion. Her glasses are wire-rimmed with rounded frames. When she wears contacts, she likes to use colored pairs, most often in blue.

April’s outfits tend to either be sporty athleisure clothing or punk-inspired styles, depending on the weather and occasion. She has her ears pierced once in the lobes and a new spider bite piercing on the right side of her lower lip. She prefers small jewelry for her piercings and has a collection of studs and small rings that she likes to mix and match, usually coordinating between her ear and lip piercings. She does not wear makeup unless she is attending a formal event.

On the day of the abduction, April was wearing grey pre-ripped skinny jeans, a light blue racerback tank top, and a long-sleeved black crop hoodie with a graphic of the “evil eye” symbol on the front in shades of blue, white, and gold. She also had on mid-calf height black zip-up combat boots with decorative chain detailing, her blue contact lenses, and she had her glasses on her person. Her hair was styled in its usual ponytail, and she was wearing a pair of small gold hoops in her ears and a set of gold spike studs in her lip piercing.

Biography: April was born to Miranda Nguyen and Luke Hoang on April 13th, 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Miranda is an administrative worker at the William S. Boyd School of Law; while she had worked full-time at the school for several years before April’s birth, she had also written a few modestly successful adult fantasy novels on the side, using a pseudonym. Luke worked as a publicist and events manager for a local publishing house at the time, and he and Miranda met at an event he arranged to spotlight indie authors in the Las Vegas area. The pair dated for a couple of years before Miranda unexpectedly got pregnant.

Despite pressure from their families, neither Miranda nor Luke felt ready to get married. They chose to move in together to raise April after her birth, but their relationship had been casual before, and the stress of an unplanned baby strained it past the breaking point. The pair separated largely amicably when April was only a year old, and as Luke pursued his career by moving to a larger publishing company based in California, he quickly stopped being a regular physical presence in April’s life. He has contributed regular child support throughout April’s life, and he and Miranda remain on good terms, but his role has always been more that of a family friend than a father figure.

Miranda was also career-oriented, and she returned to working relatively soon after April’s birth, usually leaving her daughter in the care of relatives or at daycare. While she wanted to be a good parent, she was often frustrated with the amount of work it took to care for a baby on top of her actual job, and she reasoned that it would be best for April to receive care from people more suited to the task. When April was four, Miranda received a hard-earned promotion and raise at work, and she put some of her new income towards hiring a full-time nanny to look after April in order to provide her with some consistency day-to-day and to give herself some independence from her family, who still criticized her for choosing single motherhood over marrying Luke. Miranda also continued to write on the side; while none of her novels were ever big hits, the sales supplemented her income and further allowed her to provide herself and her daughter with a comfortable lifestyle.

When it was time for April to start school, Miranda enrolled her in a private institution recommended by her coworkers. April was an imaginative and energetic child who enjoyed playing outdoors and roughhousing with other kids. Her favorite games to play were based on fantasy or adventure books and movies. She would come up with elaborate games of make-believe and assign roles to her peers, but she would easily get frustrated if anyone deviated from the instructions she laid out for them. When this happened, her temper often boiled over if she couldn’t convince other kids to fall back in line with her desires, and she frequently ended up in time-out for yelling at or sometimes hitting her classmates during arguments.

April also often felt lonely at home, even when she regularly had a nanny. She internalized the sentiment early in childhood that her parents would both rather be working than spending time with her, and this gradually developed into a resentment towards both them and other kids who had more involved family lives, which would endure throughout April’s life. These negative feelings worsened her behavior; particularly bad days when she felt neglected by her mother tended to also be the days that April ended up in the most trouble at school.

Whenever she was unable to play outside, whether due to a lack of supervision or being in time-out due to her behavior, April voraciously consumed books and movies in the fantasy genre. She was first introduced to such media partly due to it being her mother’s favorite, and partly because of the wealth of such media that was geared towards children, saving Miranda the effort of making sure that she was giving April appropriate entertainment. Over time, April’s tastes would diverge from her mom’s, as April preferred spectacle and high adventure over Miranda’s preference for in-depth, realistic worldbuilding and character relationships, but a fondness for fantasy media in general remained one consistent thing that the pair could bond over. Miranda’s only concern with April’s consumption of such media was when she realized that April’s focus on escapism in fiction might be playing into her issues socializing, such as her difficulty grasping that she couldn’t make people around her behave like characters in a story just because she wanted them to.

Realizing that April needed a healthy outlet for her feelings but feeling that she herself was unequipped to give April the positive attention that she needed, Miranda signed April up for a local Girl Scout troop when she was in the third grade. While initially annoyed that her mom was once again foisting her off on other people, April quickly took to many of the activities that the Girl Scouts enabled her to participate in. She loved the short hiking outings that they sometimes made, and longer stays at summer camp immediately became a yearly affair for her. Swimming was by far her favorite outdoor activity, and she especially loved to race against others whether in pools or lake trips. Girl Scouts also enabled April to take on a more productive leadership role with girls her age, rather than merely being bossy the way that she was with her classmates. She still tended to be controlling when directing others, but the genuine enjoyment she got out of Scout activities motivated her to moderate her behavior enough to stay in the good graces of her troop leaders.

While April flourished in her new extracurricular activities, her school life was rockier as she moved through elementary school and into middle school. She did well with school work when it interested her, but she lacked the discipline to follow through with work when she wasn’t engaged, resulting in grades that fluctuated sharply depending on how much effort she had put in during a grading period. Her conflict resolution skills with her peers also remained subpar; she never really grew out of her tendency to snap at people when she didn’t get her way, though her early childhood incidents of violence did cease. Teachers at her private school relayed their concerns on these points to Miranda, who would talk to April about them, but they typically fell into a pattern of April’s behavior improving temporarily before slipping back into old habits once she was under less scrutiny.

Things continued in this manner until April’s freshman year of high school. While her teachers in elementary and middle school were used to her and had done their best to help her through despite her difficulties, April found that her new teachers in high school were much less lenient. When she was given her first-ever progress report with a failing grade near the beginning of the year, she panicked and hid it from her mom, sparking a downhill slide throughout the rest of the school year. As she tried to get her grades up, panic and stress made April more combative with other students and teachers, which got her in trouble and led to her grades suffering more.

She endeavored to conceal her trouble at school from Miranda for as long as she could, writing Miranda’s signature on forms and turning them back in without Miranda ever seeing them, and lying to teachers that her mom was traveling for work or otherwise too busy to attend any parent-teacher meetings. She managed to keep this up for a few months; Miranda had just been promoted to a senior administrative position at William S. Boyd and was working on another novel, so she was absorbed in work and happy to take April’s word that everything was fine. However, April’s lies inevitably fell apart when it was time for mid-year exams and progress meetings with parents.

Miranda was shocked and upset to learn the truth of what had been going on, especially when she was informed by school staff that due to April’s sharp decline in performance, she was going to need make-up classes in order to pass the year. Additionally, while she wasn’t outright kicked out of school, the private school’s director made it clear that further behavioral issues would result in April not being welcome to return the next year. Upon returning home after their meeting with the school, Miranda and April got into a heated argument that quickly escalated into a screaming match, during which many hurtful words were exchanged, and both of them eventually retreated to their own bedrooms in tears. When Miranda later calmed down, she went to April to apologize; while April was still upset, she was also eventually able to calm down enough for the two of them to have a long talk.

Miranda tried to be less harsh than before, but she made the point to April that private school was a significant financial investment, and that April needed to ask for help if she was struggling in school so that money would not be wasted. April confessed that she hated the strict environment of her private school and felt that her teachers and classmates didn’t like her. She wanted to attend a public school, which she felt would be friendlier and more relaxed. Miranda was disappointed, but she agreed to help figure out the rest of April’s freshman year and to find a good public school in which to enroll her, considering it not worth the financial and emotional burden to try to force April through private school if it was not working for her.

Ultimately, Miranda decided to pull April from her private school over the winter holidays, so as not to spend the money on another term’s tuition if it was unlikely to have a positive outcome. Neither she nor April were happy that April would need to repeat the ninth grade, but Miranda deemed the break necessary for the sake of April’s mental health to recuperate, and April was enrolled in Southwest Red Rock High School at the start of the next fall. This came with stipulations that April would have regular check-ins with a school counselor and tutor to ensure that she didn’t fall behind so drastically again, and that Miranda would be kept up to speed on any problems that did arise.

April did find Southwest Red Rock to be more to her liking, with a larger student body and less strict expectations, plus the fresh start meaning that she was able to shake off her poor reputation from her old school. Some of her new classmates were fellow Girl Scouts, with whom she had an existing and more positive relationship, and her outgoing nature helped her quickly make new friends, though her loud and aggressive personality was still divisive. She joined the school swim team at the first opportunity, enjoying the official competitive aspect that it brought to one of her favorite pastimes, and quickly became one of her coach’s favored swimmers in the butterfly and backstroke events.

April’s interest in fantasy media held steady throughout the years, buoyed by the rise in popularity of young adult fantasy and “romantasy” literature on social media sites like TikTok. She has a preference for action-oriented stories with female protagonists. She doesn’t particularly care about the romantic aspect of most stories, but she takes it in stride as a common feature of the media she likes to consume. Her all-time favorite book series is Vampirates, and she still rereads the series about once a year even though it is aimed at a younger audience.

Early on in her days at Southwest Red Rock, April was introduced to tabletop roleplaying games and was excited by the concept. To her, tabletop roleplaying seemed like a perfect way to further channel her interest in fantasy and adventure, this time by putting herself right into the story as a main character. She is a longtime member of the tabletop club at her school and has dabbled in several systems over the years, though her go-tos are Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition and the World of Darkness games for their relative ease of play and heavy storytelling focus, respectively. April most often plays the same kind of character that she likes to read about, namely a young woman with a troubled past who has had many swashbuckling adventures. Some have pointed out that most of April’s characters are romanticized and exaggerated versions of herself in many respects; she tends to get defensive about this and deny it when it is brought up. April’s competitive streak has also caused some conflict in her games; she is something of a power gamer and has a habit of hogging the spotlight. She has tried to tone down this behavior under threat of being removed from games, but it still creeps in with some regularity.

Things went relatively smoothly for April’s first year at Southwest Red Rock and seemed set to continue that way into the next. However, it was around this time that April developed a crush on a female classmate and fellow member of the swim team. She privately struggled with this for a while, unwilling to bring it up to her school counselor or her mom, worried that they would dismiss her feelings as confusion or possibly think negatively of her. One day after swim practice, she worked up the courage to approach her crush in the locker room and confess, but the other girl took it badly and impulsively told April that her romantic feelings were gross. Upset by this, April unthinkingly shoved her, and the slippery locker room floor resulted in her teammate falling and injuring herself. The fall resulted in only minor scrapes and bruises, but April was quickly pointed out as the instigator of the conflict and the one who made it physical.

Though the fight was overall minor, the aftermath had a negative impact on April’s reputation. Her counselor and principal were especially concerned about her actions in light of her history of troubled behavior at her previous school, but her coach went to bat for her, insisting that the incident had only been a minor argument gone wrong. She pointed out that April was a high-performing member of the swim team whom she didn’t want to lose and otherwise a student of good standing. Neither girl involved was willing to admit that romantic rejection had played a part in the altercation, so this narrative ultimately won out with school authorities. Both of them were suspended for a week in light of Southwest Red Rock’s zero-tolerance policy on fighting, but they did not face any further consequences. Rumors spread throughout the student body however, with some exaggerating how violent April’s actions had been, which hurt her standing with her peers.

Feeling angry and humiliated, April’s behavior did take a noticeable downturn in the immediate aftermath of her suspension. She once again began verbally lashing out at her mom and her peers with little provocation. On occasion, she made threatening comments to people who aggravated her, saying that she’d beat them up like she had her other classmate, despite this not being what had happened in reality. This behavior was quickly noticed and merited further intervention; in another meeting with Miranda and the school officials, April was told in no uncertain terms that continuing to escalate in this way would not only jeopardize her academic career, but also could land her in legal trouble. April felt that she was being punished for things that were not really a big deal and were ultimately the fault of others, but the threat of serious, permanent marks on her record scared her enough to relent.

In an effort to keep April out of further trouble and hoping to teach her some responsibility, Miranda insisted that April get a job upon turning sixteen. Though she initially put up resistance, April did send some half-hearted job applications to local businesses, not expecting much of anything. To her surprise, she received a call back from the Lucky Fish tattoo and piercing parlor, which was seeking a receptionist. At her mother’s urging, April accepted the job.

The Lucky Fish was run by sisters Phoebe and Meera Pei and promoted itself by promising a relaxed, inclusive atmosphere, striving to welcome customers who might not feel comfortable in more traditional shops. Upon starting work there, April quickly formed a rapport with the owners, particularly Meera, who saw April as a kindred spirit thanks to her own troubled teenage years. Meera was always happy to let April vent about her frustrations with school and her mom, and when April showed an interest in the process behind tattooing and piercings, Meera began giving her informal instruction on designing tattoos and the other parts of her work. April was fascinated by the different possibilities for body modification, though the Lucky Fish didn’t provide any procedures more extreme than tattoos and basic piercing. She took to Meera’s lessons with enthusiasm, and has even contributed some designs for patrons to pick from. While April’s artistic skill is somewhat unpolished, given that she only started really practicing after taking on the job, she has a knack for abstract designs and simple florals that the professional artists can build off of. April was extremely proud the first time a customer picked one of her designs to incorporate into a tattoo, and she has gotten into the habit of spending her downtime at work and in class doodling new designs and working to improve her technique.

Miranda has dated off and on over the years, though her dedication to her career, writing, and April’s difficulties made maintaining a long-term relationship difficult. Around the start of April’s junior year, Miranda began seeing Rufus Torres, a younger man working in the local publishing industry much like Luke had been when they met. Miranda formally introduced Rufus and April during April’s senior year, feeling that the relationship was serious enough by that point to do so. April has been reluctant to accept Rufus, disliking that her mother is dating someone several years younger, and doubting that their relationship will last long enough for Rufus to be a meaningful presence in their lives. While she has not openly opposed her mother’s relationship, she has been generally frigid towards Rufus and does not want to be included in activities or outings that involve him. Miranda has encouraged April to give Rufus more of a chance when the topic comes up and hopes that April will naturally defrost towards him over time. If this does not happen, Miranda intends to not let it affect her relationship. She has reasoned that she is allowed to have a personal life that doesn’t solely cater to her daughter’s wants, especially as April is nearly an adult and wants more independence and freedom in her own choices without her mother’s veto.

While April can be said to have corrected course after a few rocky years, her reputation at school remains mixed. She maintains grades that are good enough to secure her ability to participate on the swim team, hovering around middling B’s, though most of her teachers are adamant that she could do much better if she bothered to try. She has a circle of close friends and does somewhat enjoy the fact that younger and more timid students sometimes find her intimidating, but she is also secretly bitter about the fact that many people she has had conflict with in the past are unwilling to give her a second chance. April likes to present herself as rebellious and anti-status quo, and will often loudly declare that she doesn’t care what others think of her. In reality, she has led a comfortable life and benefited from many people cutting her slack over the years due to her family situation or perceiving her problems as behavior that she will grow out of given enough time.

In contrast to the ups and downs of her school and home life, April’s experience in Girl Scouts has been consistently positive. As a long-term attendee at summer camp, she has served as a camp counselor for younger Scouts since her sophomore year of high school. She takes pride in the numerous badges she has earned as a Scout over the years, and in her cookie sale records; thanks to the combination of her natural pushiness and her mother bringing April’s cookie order form to work to take orders from coworkers, April has been a front-runner in her troop for cookie sales nearly every year. At present, she is an Ambassador rank Girl Scout, and her troop leaders have been helping her formulate a proposal to pursue the Gold Award, a highly-coveted recognition given to Girl Scouts who facilitate positive change in their communities. Her plan for this is to head her own summer program introducing tabletop gaming as a social activity for children in low-income or otherwise at-risk households.

Romantically, April has come to the conclusion that she is bisexual, but after her disastrous first crush she has little interest in trying to pursue a real relationship with any of her classmates. She has dated casually, but she will quickly put an end to things if she gets the feeling that her current partner is developing more serious feelings. Currently, she is single.

After high school, April does not have plans to continue her education. Meera has floated the idea of giving her an apprenticeship at the Lucky Fish, and though they haven’t formalized anything, April has decided that she wants to pursue that or similar work. She finds the idea of doing something creative professionally and helping other people realize their ideal selves to be fulfilling, and she has made her own plans to get more piercings and tattoos when she has the money saved up. She would also like to travel before settling down with a full-time job. There is some tension between them due to April’s refusal to apply to college, and Miranda has been firm that April will need to remain employed and pay rent if she wants to keep living under her mother’s roof. Her father Luke has reached out and invited April to stay with him for a while in California following graduation, seeing it as an opportunity to get to know each other better after his spotty presence for most of her life. April is considering taking him up on this and possibly using the trip as a starting point for her own solo road trip. Overall, she is happy to leave her plans for the future open without committing to anything.

Advantages: April is highly competitive and generally selfish, almost always prioritizing herself above others. She is in good shape and enjoys outdoor activity, and she is especially comfortable on and in the water. She has a reputation for being aggressive and escalating conflict, which may motivate others to avoid instigating things with her.
Disadvantages: April has an abrasive personality, poor conflict-resolution skills, and a divisive reputation with her peers, which may drive potentially helpful allies away or incite conflict unnecessarily. She’s slightly nearsighted and will have difficulty making out details from a distance if she loses her contacts and glasses. Her long-term planning skills are lacking; in general, she’s quick to make reckless decisions and double down on them even to her own detriment.

[Deamon]

Hey Zee! Good to see you joining us for V9! April is looking really good right now and is almost ready to go, I just have a few small edits that need to be done before she'll be ready to go but it's nothing major and you're experienced at this process so I doubt it'll take you too long to do, so let's get into it.

provide her with some consistency day-to-today

Your day-to-day has gone a little weird there.

Her favorite games to play were based on fantasy or adventure books and movies,

Was this is anyway influenced by her mums interest in the genre?

Miranda was shocked and upset to learn the truth of what had been going on, especially when she was informed by school staff that due to April’s sharp decline in performance, she was going to need make-up classes in order to pass the year. Additionally, while she wasn’t outright kicked out of school, the private school’s director made it clear that further behavioral issues would result in April not being welcome to return the next year.

Upon returning home after their meeting with the school, Miranda and April got into a heated argument that quickly escalated into a screaming match, during which many hurtful words were exchanged, and both of them eventually retreated to their own bedrooms in tears. When Miranda later calmed down, she went to April to apologize; while April was still upset, she was also eventually able to calm down enough for the two of them to have a long talk.

Could we merge these two paragraphs as they're covering the same event.

Can we have just a little bit more information on April doing some designs for Lucky Fish, are they basic or more involved, is she any good at actually drawing etc?

fellow Girl Scouts, with whom she had an existing more positive relationship,

I feel like an And is missing from this sentence after existing.

How does Miranda feel about April's refusal to accept Rufus?

And that is everything! Post back here once you've made the edits and I'll give April another look!

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Merged that paragraph, fixed the grammar hiccups, and I've expanded on her early interest in fantasy, tattoo work, and her mom's feelings about the Rufus situation. I also took the liberty of specifying that her interest is in tabletop roleplaying specifically in the hobbies list.

[Deamon]

I also took the liberty of specifying that her interest is in tabletop roleplaying specifically in the hobbies list.

Good catch with that as I had not thought to ask for it.

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