Name: Wren (Ren) Matos Occupation: Counter-weight at Earshot, Indie Artist and Urban Explorer Age: 29 Sexuality: (Closeted Trans) Lesbian Species: Human Hometown: Dundee, New Jersey Relationship Status: Single Personality Traits: + + Creative, Loyal - - Unserious, Cynical
tw; mental health, transphobia, gender dysphoria
Growing up a little weird's hard not to do when you're in the system. Ren bounced around his whole life, carrying that heavy question of 'why'.
Why is my life like this?
Why wasn't I good enough to keep?
Why can't I be happy with the way things are?
That heavy burden of why haunted Wren through his early life, bouncing from from family to family in an overworked and undersupported system until, sometime in his teenage years, a rough patch with the Middlesex Police landed him a lucky strike on the anvil of fortune, and connected Wren with the Matos family. It was rocky at first; an unruly teenager with a streak of anti-authority and an inability to really feel safe and steady was, at first, an ill-fit for the couple - but Ren's would-be father saw something of himself in the rough-cut child, and though their struggles and crises were many, both Ren and the Matos managed to find a happy equilibrium.
When Ren graduated High School, he set his sights on art, something that had carried him through the darker parts of his youth. This found him hopping the river from New Jersey to the big Apple, where he found a different kind of freedom, submersing himself in the wild world of New York City Art school.
At NYU he met Aria Boughton, a fellow artist, who had invited him into SHADES, a club for queer students of color. The two became fast friends and confidants, and before too long, they were practically family. They partied together, studied together, bounced work off each other, and confided in each other.
It was like suddenly Wren seemingly had finally gotten the wheels of his plane off the ground - he had a family, a back home, and a future - but his time spent away from home, with Aria, and sucking up all the city culture he could made him realize that that nagging question was still there, still lurking around corners or in the mirror or on the ceiling of his bedroom at night
Why, if everything's so good, does nothing feel right? At first, he'd had a crush on Aria - something that he'd warded off ever being something to press on, but even after those feelings had been put to bed, there was something else - something more than Aria, something that lingered in the back of Wren's mind. It wasn't so much attraction as... well. Envy.
And that envy scared him - because Wren had eyes, saw how the world was, saw how people were, even in places that were supposed to be safe. So he buried it. Being queer was enough. His friends, his family. They were okay with queer. No reason to get more specific. No reason to risk losing things.
And then graduation happened, and after graduation, well... life. Freelance at is hard to make a living on, so Wren becomes something of a jack-of-all trades. Art commissions, murals, freelance design work. He plies a love of music into a DJ Persona, and earns some cash there too. With how expensive the city is though, it feels like treading water and burning increasingly expensive fuel.
Then Aria leaves - the city's choking her out. He understands - maybe not in the same way, but he understands. She's heading for the West Coast. He's going to stick it out here. They both hug and cry and get all snotty, and then just like that, she's gone.
He'd never really had a friend like her before, and it felt like he'd surely never have one like her again. Eventually, the expense of the city outpaces his means, and he has to go back home; his father offers him work, and it's good, steady money, but Wren hates it. Hating it makes him feel ungrateful. Feeling ungrateful makes him feel like shit. Feeling like shit makes him angry, and feeling angry makes him realize that he can't find the one thing he wants most - the answer to that stupid question of why.
Eventually, Wren gets a letter. It's addressed to him, from some place out in Oregon - Port Leiry. It's an call to some sort of art collective; they'd seen his work online, remembered him from school, and wanted to extend the invitation. The letter sits in his room for weeks before he gets another one - one with no return address that claims to be from a member of his birth family. It says that it has to remain a secret, that he mustn't tell a soul, but it too calls him to that same weird town - Port Leiry, Oregon.
He packs a bag, all of his savings, and he high-tails it that night on a Red-Eye, leaving only an apologetic note for his parents.
When he gets there, he decides to take up the art collective on their invitation, and for a while that's a decent enough place to crash, but then a freak Hurricane smashes the place to bits, forcing him to find work and a new place to stay. He gets a job at a record store, and starts trying to find the source of the letter that says he might find his family out here.
And then Aria walks back into his life, and drops some info that leaves him with about a thousand more questions.
CONNECTION IDEAS: PLATONIC SOULMATE 1/1 ( @photoaria ) - A friend that's more family. [ARIA BOUGHTON] is somebody Ren holds dear in his heart. The two came together in a group for queer students of color during their education at NYU and were practically inseparable for a time - Aria eventually left, but the two were seemingly fated to run into each other when they were both swept up in the supernatural happenings of Port Leiry FRIENDS, FREAKS, and COWORKERS 1/x (@devilsvenom) - Ren works at Earshot Records during the day, but on the off hours makes videos exploring out-of-the-way stretches of urban landscape, uploading the videos guerilla style to a youtube channel. At both of these endeavors he is likely to run across and meet new people, thought not always on the best of terms. FAMILY (0/1) * must be of at least half Chinese descent The Long-Lost Family member who sent a letter telling Ren to come to Port Leiry. Can be a mother, father, sibling, or otherwise. Species and motivations open for discussion! Get ahold of me on discord or via DM!
