Vivian Cho

[Zetsu]

Name: Vivian Cho
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Theatre, drag, cheerleading, pop art

Appearance: Vivian stands 5’4” and weighs 112 pounds. She has a lithe, fit build, with toned arms and legs and minimal body fat throughout her body. Her cool, pale skin is well-moisturized and carefully maintained. Vivian has an oval-shaped face, thin lips, very dark brown eyes, and soft features; when she wears makeup, she generally opts for bold looks, and has a particular predilection for colorful, glittery eyeshadow. Her straight, naturally black hair falls just past her shoulders and has been dyed a pastel pink; it has been styled in a shag with long bangs.

Vivian’s demeanor is alert, and her body language is highly expressive; she is light on her feet, smooth and graceful in her movements. Her voice is smooth, high-pitched, and has a slight lilting quality to it; her speech tends to be somewhat stylized, expressive to the point of slight exaggeration.

Vivian’s outfits are strongly influenced by Decora fashion, and as such tend to be chaotic, busy, and colorful; she prefers neons and pastels, but often assembles outfits with the goal of including as many colors and prints as possible. On the day of the trip, she was wearing a baby blue Sanrio graphic T-shirt; a pastel purple denim vest; rose-tinted heart-shaped glasses; a fluorescent yellow-green newsboy cap; a rainbow-colored novelty print skirt; mid-calf socks printed with a unicorn pattern on a bright pink background; and black converse shoes that have been doodled with a nyan cat design in marker. The vest and cap were adorned with various safety pins, buttons, and pins, and she had accessorized with assorted bead bracelets and necklaces.

Biography: Vivian Min-jung Cho was born on October 2nd, 2007 in Las Vegas to parents Dae-hyun and Ji-yoon Cho, both of whom were pharmacists. Dae-hyun and Ji-yoon met at UC San Diego; Dae-hyun was attending pharmacy school at the time, and, while Ji-yoon was on the pre-med track when the two of them met, she eventually also switched to a pharmacy track; Ji-yoon had been facing considerable pressure from her parents to settle down and have children, and at the time was afraid that she would be too busy to do so while navigating medical school and residency. Ji-yoon and Dae-hyn married when Ji-yoon was in the final year of pharmacy school. They moved to Las Vegas shortly after she graduated, having settled on the destination because it was a fairly close major city that was considerably cheaper than San Diego. Three years later, Ji-yoon gave birth to Vivian’s brother, Brian; seven years after that, Vivian followed.

From a young age, Vivian was somewhat overlooked in favor of her older brother. Dae-hyun and Ji-yoon had high hopes for their firstborn son; as such, they showered Brian with attention and, whenever possible, gave him whatever resources they felt he needed to succeed. They were, however, also very demanding. Both Dae-hyun and Ji-yoon hoped that Brian would go on to attend medical school, and, throughout the course of his childhood, they pushed him toward becoming a doctor. Ji-yoon and Dae-hyun, for different reasons, both regretted not attending medical school; Ji-yoon felt that she had missed out on her calling by following her parents’ advice, whereas Dae-hyun felt that he had been an irresponsible student and that he could have attended medical school had he taken his studies more seriously.

While Vivian was afforded the same opportunities and resources as Brian, she never received quite the same amount of attention as her brother. Her parents spent less time with her, and didn’t praise her as much when she did well in class; however, they also expected less of her, and didn’t push her quite as hard as they pushed her brother. From a young age, Vivian was aware of this dynamic, and while she was grateful for the decreased pressure to some extent, for the most part she was envious. As such, the young Vivian focused on her schoolwork as hard as possible, hoping that by doing so she might outshine Brian and earn her parents’ recognition.

These efforts, by and large, did not work as intended—Ji-yoon and Dae-hyun mostly used Vivian’s successes to chide Brian and encourage him to push himself even harder—but did earn the praise of Vivian’s elementary and middle school teachers. Her excellent grades, combined with her quiet and well-behaved demeanor, meant that her teachers often regarded her as mature for her age; Vivian, hungry for praise, quickly internalized both the label and the associated behaviors. She thereby acquired a reputation for being a teacher’s pet, which alienated her from her peers somewhat; while her peers didn’t specifically ostracize her, none of them regarded Vivian as an especially close friend, and she generally found herself fading into the background in social situations. Vivian came to depend even more strongly on her teachers for praise and validation as a result, and so her pre-existing tendencies gradually intensified over time; as the years passed, she became ever more compliant, cautious, and demure.

Throughout the course of her childhood, Vivian was rarely hostile towards Brian. While Vivian resented Brian, she didn’t blame him for the preferential treatment he received, and she recognized that Brian’s status as the family favorite carried with it some unenviable burdens. Brian, for his part, had a protective attitude toward Vivian, and saw it as his duty as the older brother to shield her from their parents’ expectations. As such, the relationship between the siblings was somewhat awkward, but friendly, and both siblings looked out for each other in subtle ways.

In 7th grade, Vivian’s parents were invited by a family friend to see a local production of Legally Blonde; Vivian, accompanying her parents, found the show repellant yet irresistibly compelling. To the uptight and hard-working Vivian, the notion that someone like Elle Woods could find success and happiness without losing her seemingly airheaded, frivolous personality was borderline offensive; yet, buried under that disgust was envy and longing, as Vivian could not help but wonder whether she had unnecessarily forsaken the qualities embodied in Elle. Legally Blonde was also formative for Vivian in another way: it served as her introduction to live theatre. Although she wouldn’t be able to articulate it at the time, the fluidity with which the musical intermingled the space of the stage-world with that of the real world, as well as its playful sense of camp, captured Vivian’s imagination.

Towards the end of Vivian’s 8th grade, Brian died in a car crash after falling asleep at the wheel. While her parents considered pulling her from school for the remainder of the term, they ultimately opted to allow her to finish middle school in the classroom. Vivian, for her part, did not broach the subject at school, as she lacked close confidants and couldn’t figure out how to articulate her complicated feelings on the event. While the news had upset Vivian, she was disturbed by the fact that it had not done so to the extent that she had expected. After some reflection, Vivian realized that there wasn’t a single thing about Brian that she could name that wasn’t, in some way, connected to their shared parents’ expectations for him. Following on from this realization, she eventually came to the conclusion that Brian had been so swallowed by his parents’ expectations that she had never really known him, and so there was nothing about him that she could mourn. Seeing the parallels between Brian’s trajectory and her own, Vivian was taken by the fear that she, too, would die young without having ever enjoyed or expressed herself. As such, she decided to re-invent herself.

The process of re-invention was, for Vivian, a long and considered one. Initially unsure as to where to begin, she eventually decided to start with changing her appearance, as it felt more approachable and tangible than anything else she could change. While Vivian had always to some extent put effort into making herself look good and presentable, she had done so with the goal of doing enough to meet outside standards; never before had she considered fashion and makeup as tools of self-expression. Vivian conducted extensive research on different styles to determine which would best reflect her personality. Initially, she was frustrated; she found that, while a good number of styles appealed to her, the options that felt most fitting for her were consistently the safest, most plain options. After some time, Vivian decided that rather than choosing the style that best fits her personality, she would pick a style she liked, and adjust her personality to match. With this approach, Vivian settled on Decora as her fashion of choice, finding something playfully ironic about how the style emphasizes bright, cheerful colors and ornamentation to such an extreme degree that they cross the line into grotesqueness and border on social unacceptability.

Vivian then shifted to thinking about remodeling her behavior and personality. Throughout middle school, Vivian had observed her more popular peers from afar out of a sense of mixed jealousy and admiration; while she envied their popularity to some extent, what she envied most were their personalities—the girls Vivian looked up to seemed bubbly, carefree, and effortlessly kind and generous. She thus decided to systematically break down the traits demonstrated by the girls and women, both real and fictional, that she admired, so as to better emulate them; to that end, she took up a habit of discreetly people-watching in public using her peripheral vision, and began voraciously consuming media that seemed to offer templates for what she sought; she also began practicing mannerisms and patterns of speech that she noticed in private. Somewhat to her surprise, perhaps Vivian’s greatest fictional inspiration was the character of Elle Woods: Vivian, having reflected on why Legally Blonde had so preoccupied her the previous year, now wholeheartedly embraced Elle’s joyful, intentional frivolity.

Upon entering high school, Vivian found that her re-invention had been, by and large, successful. While some students who knew her from middle school were taken aback by the drastic shift in her personality, she carefully avoided mentioning her brother’s death at school and was able to pass off the changes as part of the ordinary process of growing up. In any case, plenty of students who were less familiar with Vivian took her new personality at face value. Vivian’s social standing quickly rose, as the student body found her new persona to be generally friendly, helpful, and charming. While her new taste in fashion did draw some pointed remarks, Vivian's willingness to play along with any jokes made at her expense without appearing bothered by them meant that such jabs did little to diminish her newfound popularity.

Vivian's transformation was received much less well at home. Dae-hyun and ji-yoon, still reeling from their son's death, had begun paying more attention to Vivian in the months after the car crash, and the abruptness of the shift in their daughter's presentation and personality caused them to feel that they had lost their second child as well. They tried through various means to control and discipline Vivian in the hope that by doing so they would regain the daughter they thought they had, but Vivian quickly proved incorrigible, as she was generally unperturbed by verbal approaches and resourceful enough to work around punishments and restrictions. For her part, Vivian felt that she was only receiving increased attention now because her parents had transferred their hopes and expectations for Brian to her, and resented them for it; as such, she would at times openly flaunt her ability to circumvent the restrictions placed upon her. This dynamic continued for roughly a year, at which point the Cho household settled into an uneasy truce, Dae-hyun and Ji-yoon having largely resigned themselves to the futility of their efforts.

Vivian’s fixation on Elle Woods and Legally Blonde led to her developing an interest in theatre as a whole, and she took to watching recordings of theatrical performances in her free time; she also joined her high school’s theatre group. Vivian quickly found herself to be a talented actress, realizing early on that the skills that had facilitated her re-invention were applicable to acting, and she greatly enjoyed the process of getting into a character’s head and figuring out how to convey their thoughts and feelings in a way that would be legible to a live audience. Vivian’s acting emphasizes presence and immediacy, and she favors productions and roles that are playful yet earnest. Somewhat unusually, she favors a presentational style of acting in both senses of the word: she attempts to experience her roles as though she had become the character, but she also likes to acknowledge and even engage with the audience where possible.

Vivian’s interest in drag first emerged when she watched a recording of a show that incorporated drag queens as characters. This initial exposure piqued Vivian’s curiosity enough that she felt compelled to begin attending local drag shows, despite the difficulties posed by her age and the need to lie to her unsuspecting parents. While watching the various drag queens perform gender, Vivian was bewildered to find that she felt an emotion approaching envy—despite already being a girl, she wished she could engage with femininity in the way that drag queens could. In the years since, Vivian has considered the possibility that what she feels is some form of gender dysphoria, but has so far dismissed it, as she has no issues with being seen as a girl and still takes active pleasure in the way she currently presents herself. She has, however, begun incorporating elements of drag into her appearance and personal presentation, and has enjoyed doing so. She attends drag shows whenever she gets the chance to, and frequently uses them for inspiration on how to present herself, both in her day-to-day life and on the stage.

While reading about the history of drag, Vivian came across mentions of Andy Warhol's studio, the Factory, which piqued her curiosity. She subsequently developed an interest in Warhol and the pop art movement writ large, connecting to its knowingly kitschy sense of artifice and its playful, intentional shallowness. She has since traveled to the Strip on a number of different occasions to view the various art galleries and exhibits inside the hotels. She has also begun experimenting with producing art of her own: while she doesn't draw or paint much, she has experimented with the use of silkscreens and tried her hand at constructing collages and bricolages. Vivian's approach to creating art is casual and unserious, and she creates primarily for fun; as such, she frequently leaves projects unfinished in order to begin new ones, seeing no point in finishing the original project once it has lost her interest. While Vivian primarily creates for herself, she does show her works to her friends on the rare occasions that she completes them.

Another extracurricular that Vivian began taking part in as she entered high school was the cheerleading team. She initially did so partly for the social scene—many of the girls she’d looked up to were on the cheerleading team—and partly because it felt appropriate for the persona she had crafted. Although she lacks passion for the sport itself, Vivian’s quick reflexes, physical awareness, and dexterity enable her to ably fulfill her role as a backspotter for the squad, and she takes genuine pleasure in supporting her teammates and helping to keep them safe.

Presently, Vivian is a disarming, well-liked presence at school. Following the template set by other popular girls has allowed her to develop a wide net of friends and acquaintances. Despite this, she doesn’t take her position in the school’s social hierarchy particularly seriously, and approaches social situations with a general lack of ego. The self-control that was required of Vivian to continuously present herself as she wished has led to her taking a detached, somewhat impersonal perspective on her own feelings, and this detachment makes it easy for her to focus on attending to the feelings of others. As such, she is excellent at looking out for her friends and nudging them in directions she believes would be to their benefit, and is happiest when these efforts of hers go unnoticed. Despite her generally altruistic tendencies and kind nature, Vivian isn’t above needling people whom she believes take themselves too seriously or engage in behaviors that are harmful to other students, as she believes these students are small-minded and lack perspective; she takes care, however, not to step beyond mildly trolling these students.

Vivian’s relationship with her parents remains frosty, but peaceful. Ji-yoon and Dae-hyun still make token efforts to place rules and expectations upon Vivian, but presently there is an unspoken understanding that they won't make any attempts at enforcement as long as Vivian keeps her rule-flouting discreet. They do, however, frequently express their disappointment in the grades that Vivian brings home, as well as their belief that Vivian's extracurricular activities distract her from academics. In truth, Vivian intentionally performs below her capabilities in school settings—this is partly because subpar grades felt appropriate for the personality she displayed at school, but also because they provided her with a way to defy her parents. Despite this point of tension, Ji-yoon and Dae-hyun still attend their daughter's performances, as they are desperate for opportunities to form some kind of connection with their remaining child; Vivian, for her part, has found to her surprise that she is genuinely pleased by their attendance, and by the praise they offer her after her shows.

Vivian has some ideas on what to do once she graduates, but isn’t fully committed to anything. While her grades are below her true capabilities, Vivian took care to do well enough at school that they won’t seriously hinder her college applications, earning mostly A's and B's. She has applied to Nursing programs at UCLA, UC San Diego, and UNLV at the behest of her parents; she has also, secretly, applied to Theater programs at the same schools. Though she would prefer the latter, she suspects that her parents would only financially support her through the former, and is unsure of what she would do if she were admitted for Theater.

Advantages: Vivian is in shape, and has good dexterity and reflexes, and her experiences as a backspotter and a stage actress have given her excellent awareness of her physical surroundings. She is generally well-liked by the student body. She is also considerably smarter than she appears at first glance, which may allow her to catch students who are less familiar with her off-guard. Lastly, Vivian is difficult to faze and has a tight rein on her emotions, which could prove useful in the stressful environment of the island.
Disadvantages: Vivian struggles with taking things seriously, and might not work as hard to survive as she could. Her tendency to prioritize others over herself could hinder her chances. In addition, students who aren’t aware of the fact that her airheaded persona is an act might dismiss her value as a teammate, and the more pragmatic and ruthless among her classmates might see her as either dead weight or an easy target.

[Deamon]

Hey Zetsu! Vivian is looking really good right now, we just have some small grammer and expansion edits before she'll be ready to go! You're an experience hand at this so I don't think it should take you too long.

Vivian’s outfits are strongly influenced by decora fashion

While I personally don't know what Decora is, if it's a name of a style it should be capitalised.

Ji-yoon gave birth to Vivian’s brother, Brian; 7 years after that, Vivian followed.

Can we have this seven as the word please.

Following from this realization

This from feels weirdly placed in this sentence, like it needs an on before it.

she eventually came to the conclusion that Brian had been so swallowed by his parents’ expectations she had never really known him, and so there was nothing about him that she could mourn.

It reads like you're missing a that after expectations.

Vivian, having reflected on why Legally Blonde had so preoccupied her the previous year, now wholeheartedly embraced Elle’s joyful, intentional frivolity.

You need to italicize Legally Blonde here.

A question on the people watching, did anyone ever notice that Vivian was watching them and was watching people in public? If so, did anything happen?

While some students who knew her from middle school were taken aback by the drastic shift in her personality, she carefully avoided mentioning her brother’s death at school and was able to pass off the changes as part of the ordinary process of growing up; plenty of other students took her new personality at face value besides.

This sentence is a tad long and could likely be worded in a cleaner fashion.

How did Vivian's parents feel about her change in personality? Given that y'know, she's now their only child.

While Vivian's personality is probably going to win her friends I can imagine that there are some people at middle school and such who are going to believe she looks somewhat like a clown, were there ever any issues with people making comments about her new style?

I'd like a bit more on the drag interest, as currently the way the profile is written makes it sound like she briefly tries it then moves on to other things, but it is in the hobbies and interests list so should be covered a bit more.

This is kind of true for fashion and makeup as well, so I'd like some further expansion on these.

And that is everything I have for you, so post back here once the edits have been made and I'll take another look at Vivian!

[Zetsu]

All requested edits made, along with a few you didn't ask for! I've logged the ones that are less easy to find below.

- Re: how Vivian's parents reacted to her change, I added this paragraph:

Vivian's transformation was received much less well at home. Dae-hyun and ji-yoon, still reeling from their son's death, had begun paying more attention to Vivian in the months after the car crash, and the abruptness of the shift in their daughter's presentation and personality caused them to feel that they had lost their second child as well. They tried through various means to control and discipline Vivian in the hope that by doing so they would regain the daughter they thought they had, but Vivian quickly proved incorrigible, as she was generally unperturbed by verbal approaches and resourceful enough to work around punishments and restrictions. For her part, Vivian felt that she was only receiving increased attention now because her parents had transferred their hopes and expectations for Brian to her, and resented them for it; as such, she would at times openly flaunt her ability to circumvent the restrictions placed upon her. This dynamic continued for roughly a year, at which point the Cho household settled into an uneasy truce, Dae-hyun and Ji-yoon having largely resigned themselves to the futility of their efforts.

and altered this one to focus more on how Vivian's relationship with her parents has changed since that initial reaction:

Vivian’s relationship with her parents remains frosty, but peaceful. Ji-yoon and Dae-hyun still make token efforts to place rules and expectations upon Vivian, but presently there is an unspoken understanding that they won't make any attempts at enforcement as long as Vivian keeps her rule-flouting discreet. They do, however, frequently express their disappointment in the grades that Vivian brings home, as well as their belief that Vivian's extracurricular activities distract her from academics. In truth, Vivian intentionally performs below her capabilities in school settings—this is partly because subpar grades felt appropriate for the personality she displayed at school, but also because they provided her with a way to defy her parents. Despite this point of tension, Ji-yoon and Dae-hyun still attend their daughter's performances, as they are desperate for opportunities to form some kind of connection with their remaining child; Vivian, for her part, has found to her surprise that she is genuinely pleased by their attendance, and by the praise they offer her after her shows.

- Addressed the question of whether people commented on Vivian's new style here:

While her new taste in fashion did draw some pointed remarks, Vivian's willingness to play along with any jokes made at her expense without appearing bothered by them meant that such jabs did little to diminish her newfound popularity.

- Rewrote the drag paragraph to make it clear that it's a continuing interest
- Removed fashion and makeup from the hobbies/interests list
- I've also added a new hobby/interest (pop art) as well as this paragraph to go with it:

While reading about the history of drag, Vivian came across mentions of Andy Warhol's studio, the Factory, which piqued her curiosity. She subsequently developed an interest in Warhol and the pop art movement writ large, connecting to its knowingly kitschy sense of artifice and its playful, intentional shallowness. She has since traveled to the Strip on a number of different occasions to view the various art galleries and exhibits inside the hotels. She has also begun experimenting with producing art of her own: while she doesn't draw or paint much, she has experimented with the use of silkscreens and tried her hand at constructing collages and bricolages. Vivian's approach to creating art is casual and unserious, and she creates primarily for fun; as such, she frequently leaves projects unfinished in order to begin new ones, seeing no point in finishing the original project once it has lost her interest. While Vivian primarily creates for herself, she does show her works to her friends on the rare occasions that she completes them.

- I also realized belatedly that I forgot to remove some redundant information in my description of Vivian's outfit. That section now reads:

Vivian’s outfits are strongly influenced by Decora fashion, and as such tend to be chaotic, busy, and colorful; she prefers neons and pastels, but often assembles outfits with the goal of including as many colors and prints as possible. On the day of the trip, she was wearing a baby blue Sanrio graphic T-shirt; a pastel purple denim vest; rose-tinted heart-shaped glasses; a fluorescent yellow-green newsboy cap; a rainbow-colored novelty print skirt; mid-calf socks printed with a unicorn pattern on a bright pink background; and black converse shoes that have been doodled with a nyan cat design in marker. The vest and cap were adorned with various safety pins, buttons, and pins, and she had accessorized with assorted bead bracelets and necklaces.

[Deamon]

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