I don't know if y'all are up on this like me, and maybe you are, I truly don't know, but I think Beneath the Mask (with lyrics) is, like, Ren's perfect song. People say he's a blank slate meant to be projected onto, which, in some ways, is very true. However, I think the masked person in Beneath the Mask can be attributed to Ren with great success.
And, in fact, his characterization here is exactly about being a blank slate:
I'm a shape-shifter at Poe's masquerade
Hiding both face and mind
All free for you to draw
He believes himself to be some kind of hollow person, a person who exists only through the eyes of other people and who only can feel like a person when he's earning the trust and confidence of other people. He's entirely external.
This on its own is really cool (and honestly very relatable), but take a look at the next line:
I'm a shapeshifter, what else should I be?
Please don't take off my mask
Revealing dark // My place to hide // My disguise
Isn't that so fucking cool???
Ren doesn't know how to exist without the perception of other people, as mentioned above, and that's iterated well here with "I'm a shapeshifter, what else should I be?" He's literally saying 'I don't know another way to be a person.'
But what's really cool to me is "please don't take off my mask" and "revealing dark // my place to hide" (My disguise is also there but, like, that line is boring). These lines give us an idea of why Ren is like this. He believes that, if the people around him were to see him for who he truly is, this "dark," then they would assumedly react adversely and probably leave him. This is what he's terrified of the most and it's why he puts on this mask. He's a chameleon, a... shapeshifter, if you will, desperately trying to be the person everyone wants him to be/thinks he is in order to appease them.
I know this because he is me. We are the same. God I love this game sometimes when it's not being ridiculously stupid.
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