Diego Larrosa

[Maraoone]

Name: Diego Larrosa
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
Hobbies and Interests: Writing, reading, gardening, cooking, Filipino culture

Appearance: At 5’3” and 109 pounds, Diego presents a thin, unimposing figure. He goes to the barber twice monthly to maintain his short back and sides haircut, with his straight black hair swept to the left when it grows long and starts hanging over his eyes. His wide, round brown eyes are framed by thick eyebrows, curly eyelashes, and dark gray eyebags. He has a prominent, droopy nose and pointy ears. His lips are plump. Despite both of his parents being Filipino, his skin is pale. His oval face is dotted with blemishes, especially around the chin and upper lip which he shaves clean.

Diego’s attire is rather unremarkable. This is both by design and circumstance, as he usually cannot afford flashy clothes. He makes a point to never wear sleeveless shirts or shorts, so his outfit is usually a combination of T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, and jeans. His shirts tend to be inoffensive, with plain but not attention-grabbing designs, and he has no ripped jeans in his wardrobe. The only pair of shoes he owns is a somewhat worn-down pair of black sneakers. In addition, he wears a silver cross necklace gifted to him by his mother. He is not religious, but it has great sentimental value to him.

When gardening, Diego wears one of three white long-sleeved shirts he bought specifically for the occasion, old jeans, sneakers, and rubber gloves.

On the day of his abduction, Diego wore his necklace, a plain dark blue T-shirt, black jeans, a belt, and his sneakers.

Biography: On December 20, 2005, Diego was born to Armando Marquez and Luzviminda Larrosa in Chattanooga, the youngest of two children. Armando and Luzviminda were both Filipino immigrants that worked blue-collar jobs, with Armando being a construction worker and Luzviminda being a housemaid. They met in a local Filipino restaurant in 2001 and quickly hit it off. Luzviminda had liked Armando for his sense of humor and generally positive demeanor while Armando had liked her for her headstrong personality. Within a few months of meeting, they decided to move in together, finding a small apartment to rent.

Two years after they met, Luzviminda gave birth to their first child, Sarah. Her pregnancy had been unplanned, and she and Armando were not married yet. As both of them were devout Catholics, however, they opted to keep the baby. This caused much controversy with both of their families due to Sarah being born out of wedlock. The couple was well aware of the drama this would cause, and briefly considered a shotgun marriage. However, Luzviminda had only tested herself for pregnancy a couple months after her last period, which meant it was too late for them to have a marriage and conceal the fact that they had had premarital relations. In addition, even with the impending arrival of a child, the couple did not feel ready for marriage, and wanted to have a lavish ceremony if they ever did get married, rather than an impromptu civil procedure.

With Armando's family, the news of Luzviminda's pregnancy simply resulted in more arguments over the phone, as he was his family’s sole source of income and they couldn’t afford to disown him. In Luzviminda’s case, it resulted in her being cut off from the family, as she had gone to America of her own volition, and her family saw this as a realization of their fear of her losing her way.

Both of these events caused significant turmoil between Armando and Luzviminda. Their salaries were barely above minimum wage and were already strained by Armando having to send money back to his family, so the presence of a child added several expenses which they couldn’t afford, forcing them to rely on food stamps. While they tried to stay strong for the sake of Sarah, her presence caused them to slowly but surely drift apart. Armando leaned more into his work while Luzviminda doted on her daughter. The time they spent together was mostly silence, punctuated with the occasional argument. The two blamed each other for the circumstances they had fallen into, and the poor lifestyle they were leading.

Diego’s arrival into the world had also been unplanned. Under significant pressure from his family, and as a result of their deteriorating relationship, Armando walked out on Luzviminda a few months into her pregnancy. She came home from her job one day to find him and his belongings gone, with Sarah left alone in the house. This enraged Luzviminda, and for a while, she tried to determine Armando's whereabouts so that she could press charges on him for child neglect, and also so she could get child support from him. However, she was unable to pursue these outcomes much further as she had no idea how to maneuver family law in a country she had just moved to, and she had very little free time as a now single working mother. To this day, Armando's whereabouts are largely unknown to the Larrosa family, and they have not made any effort since to find out.

As Armando disappeared from their lives at a very early age, his absence has had little to no effect on Sarah, and initially, this was the case for Diego as well. Up to now, little to no mention is made of him in the house, and his absence is simply an accepted fact. Luzviminda, on the other hand, harbored a strong resentment towards him, but she channeled this rage into working harder for her children and striving to live better, as she considered this the best form of revenge. She took on two more jobs to make up for the budget deficit brought by Diego’s arrival and Armando’s departure. Diego and Sarah were left at daycares or trusted friends and neighbors during the days while Luzviminda worked. To make up for the lost time, Luzviminda showed as much love and affection as she could to her children, and would often spend weekends playing with them at playgrounds.

Part of this bonding time that Luzviminda spent with Diego involved her reading him to sleep. This would spark a lifelong interest in reading, as Diego was fascinated with the different universes these reading sessions would take him to. In elementary, he would spend a lot of his free time reading fantasy and adventure books, and learned to read far above his grade level.

From a very young age, Diego’s friend circle was made up of mostly girls. He tended to be more comfortable with them as he was the only guy in his house, and much of his early childhood was spent playing with Sarah and Luzviminda. In elementary school, this led some of the boys in his class to bully him for his perceived femininity, which in turn, forced him to retreat further into his friend circle. His sister Sarah, who had adopted a headstrong personality like her mother, would protect him on the occasions she saw him being bullied, but most of the time, Diego opted to keep silent for two reasons. First, he feared retribution from his bullies if he told on them to either his mother or the teachers. Second, he saw the stress his mother was going through as a result of her multiple jobs and the expenses she had to deal with, and he felt that telling her about this would simply add more stress. This bullying intensified the further he got into elementary school. As his bullies were all males, this solidified his apprehension towards males in general, as all the positive role models and figures in his life were female.

In 6th grade, Diego realized he was gay. This horrified him, as he distrusted males, but he could not deny the physical attraction he felt towards them. Also, his mother was conservative as a result of her faith and had expressed homophobic opinions before, so he feared that coming out to her would result in him being disowned. Hence, he opted to stay in the closet and hoped that he would eventually find a girl that he liked.

Around this time as well, Luzviminda received a call from her mother in Manila, the first communication they had had in over a decade. She had called to inform her that her father, Diego's grandfather, had colon cancer and would most likely be dying within a few years. Luzvminda expressed her strong resentment over the ostracization she had endured over the years, but in the end, she relented and agreed to move back to the Philippines out of a strong desire to see her family again.

She announced this decision to her children. This caused great conflict between her and Sarah, as Sarah felt that her life was being uprooted. Diego, on the other hand, was very excited, as he had never even left Tennessee, much less been to another country, and looked forward to the opportunity to visit a country he had heard so much about but knew so little about, as well. He felt sad about the friends and teachers he'd be leaving behind, but due to his awkward social nature, the connections were distant enough that severing them did not give him as much grief as it had given his sister.

The Larrosa's move to the Philippines brought about several adjustment issues. While English is an official language in the Philippines, Filipino is the main vernacular language used there, and most Filipinos tend to be less comfortable holding conversations in English than Filipino. Also, while Luzviminda's family was never lacking in basic needs, they were not upper class, and as such, they did not have the funds for an international school with an American curriculum, something that would have been an easier adjustment for the Larrosa's. Instead, Sarah and Diego were sent to a somewhat cheaper private junior high school with other middle class students. As a result, they both initially had trouble dealing with the language barrier that existed between them and their classmates.

Finding friends didn't prove to be an issue, however. Since they were both newcomers from a far-away place, Diego and Sarah proved to be objects of curiosity in their classrooms, and so they both found themselves falling into a circle of friends. Diego, for his part, ended up joining the local gardening club on a whim. It took him a while to pick up the hobby, but he came to enjoy it, as he found the tasks involved to be slow but therapeutic, and took pride in harvesting or growing the plants they made, and gaining close friends among the club.

Outside his circle, Diego had more troubles. The friends Diego met in seventh grade were, again, almost entirely girls, and outside his circle, Diego tended to be more withdrawn and awkward. He had a hard time picking up on the rules of socialization, and while this hadn’t been an issue in elementary as his friends there generally accepted him, this caused him to stick out in junior high. He would alternately overshare and speak too much, or not know what to say at all and simply nod or laugh in the background. The former caused people to avoid him or regard him differently, while the latter did not, so he started becoming more silent. This resulted in less bullying, as he was viewed as less annoying and a more boring target than other weird kids in the school. In addition, this allowed him to gain many acquaintances but few friends outside his circle, since people saw him as a quiet but generally harmless kid that they saw no harm in having around.

Another difficulty he had was navigating social attitudes regarding homosexuality. No one in his grade was out, so Diego felt rather isolated in this regard. In addition, the school he was enrolled in was a Catholic school, so whenever the topic of LGBTQ+ rights was brought up, it'd be brought up in a negative light among teachers, classmates, and even some of his friends. This strengthened his resolved to stay in the closet, as he slowly came to understand homosexuality as a personal failing, and something to be ashamed of.

Despite these difficulties, however, Diego and Sarah slowly came to adjust to their new life in the Philippines. They grew close to the friends they made, gained a degree of fluency in Filipino with the help of a tutor their family hired, and grew enchanted with the country their mother had avoided teaching them for so long.

Luzviminda also enjoyed her time in the Philippines, at first. She felt lingering bitterness over her initial disownment from her family, but through a series of long conversations with her parents and her extended family, they came to reconcile and apologize for the circumstances that had led to that incident, and so she was able to spend quality time with her family for a while.

During his time in the Philippines, Diego came to appreciate his English class a lot more. Even with the friends he had found in his school, Diego could not help but feel alienated from his classmates due to his different upbringing, and his preference for speaking English, so English class helped provide to him a reassuring air of familiarity, especially with the American short stories they often discussed there.

One of the assignments Diego had in his English class was to write an essay, and Diego adored the task. He found that both essays and short stories were a satisfying outlet to all the negative feelings he stored inside, especially those he felt he could not disclose to his family or friends. In addition, he savored the opportunity of getting to create those new universes that had captured him in his childhood. He ended up buying a few notebooks and began to write his ideas inside. Up to now, he prefers writing fantasy and science-fiction stories, as these genres most capture the otherworldliness that attracted him to literature.

While Diego, up to now, continues developing his writing style and write in his notebooks, he has not shown his writing to anyone else, though his family knows it is a dear hobby of his, and though one of his dreams is to eventually become a well-known author. His writing often contains personal elements, and so, even if he does not explicitly discuss secrets of his like his homosexuality, he still feels uneasy discussing these topics with anyone. He also fears criticism and, in particular, fears that if he ever received criticism, it'd turn off his affinity for one of the few hobbies he has, so he keeps his stories to himself.

Luzviminda had taken notice of his interest in writing, and also wanted to reward him for his generally good behavior. So, she saved up enough money from her jobs to buy him a laptop for his 13th birthday. This brought him great joy, as it made writing much easier.

Meanwhile, Luzvminda's father's health continued to deteriorate as his illness progressed. Luzviminda, having become one of his main caretakers, witnessed his decline up close, up to and including his death, two years after their arrival in the Philippines. While she was grateful to have reconciled with him before his passing, she also felt heartbroken over the short amount of time they had together. She had her family to mourn and commiserate with, but this wasn't enough to get her out of her state of depression.

In her lowered mood, Luzviminda was reminded again of why she had moved away from the Philippines. While her primary reason had been a general admiration of America, she had also wanted to move away from the poor infrastructure and poverty that marred her home country. She partially blamed her country's lackluster health system for her father's death, and felt that if the hospitals had detected his illness earlier, or if they had had better equipment to treat him with, he might still be alive.

Around the same time, she found an American man named David on a dating website. David was a manager for a life insurance company who was at the tail-end of a year-long round at the Manila branch of the company he worked for. He was immediately smitten with her and, within a few months of their first conversation online, and a couple of in-person dates, offered that she move with him back to Saint Paul, the city his company is based out of. While Luzviminda was aware of how quickly their relationship was moving, she liked him back and, most importantly, he offered her an escape from a country that held too many bitter memories for her at this point.

Luzviminda announced this to her family. Her children, while understanding of the grief their mother was undergoing, both felt she was being too hasty about the relationship. Sarah, in particular, was reluctant to uproot her life a second time, and so, she told her mother she planned to stay with their relatives and finish out senior high school and college in the Philippines. This saddened Luzviminda but, after hearing her daughter out, she understood her reasons and let her be. Her relatives similarly expressed their doubts, but they understood the decision had nothing to do with them, so they too accepted her decision, albeit with reluctance.

This left Diego to choose who to go with. He felt similarly to Sarah with regards to leaving, and did not want to leave his sister and his friends behind. However, he also felt stifled in his Catholic school, felt excited about the prospect of moving to a different place again, and did not want to be separated from his mother. So, after much consideration, he decided to move back to America with his mother and her boyfriend.

They made the move to Saint Paul around the summer of 2019, when Diego was starting eighth grade. The first couple months went well enough. David made enough money to support all of them, so they were able to find a decent two-bedroom apartment in The Links that was large enough for them. Diego also started reaching out to his classmates in his middle school, albeit slowly, given that he was still adjusting with moving to a new place.

He had just started making acquaintances when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in the middle of the second semester. All of a sudden, with schools transitioning to online learning, Diego's interactions with his classmates became severely limited. They seldom, if ever, used the chat available on Zoom, the video-streaming platform of choice for online classes, and he had not been close enough to them to be invited to any group chats. This isolation continued after he graduated from middle school and moved into Aurora Bay High School. However, he had kept in contact with his friends from the gardening club in the Philippines, and joined them in online movie streams, gaming sessions, and the like, thus providing the bulk of his socialization for 2020 and 2021.

At home meanwhile, with David's job also becoming an online job for the time being, he, Diego's mother, and Diego were forced to spend a lot more time together. This quickly proved uncomfortable for Diego. His entire life, he had never had a father figure, and the only other men prominent in his life were his bullies in elementary school and high school, and male relatives in the Philippines who espoused a masculinity he felt he could never live up to, so Diego felt uneasy with David's presence. David, for his part, tried to engage with Diego by having him partake in activities like carpentry and watching football together, things which Diego had no interest in.

He recognized that his mother's boyfriend was a well-meaning person, and was happy that his mother had found someone who cared for her, but he could not help but feel out of place in his own home, with David and Luzviminda constantly doting on one another, and Diego not wanting to interfere. So, over the course of the lockdown, he began staying in his own bedroom more and more, keeping to himself so as not to intrude on them, and spending more time on his computer, drafting and editing his own stories.

When Diego had lived in the Philippines, his relatives took care of running the house, as they wanted him and Sarah to focus more on their studies rather than think about washing the dishes or cooking. So, when the lockdown began, it became apparent very quickly that he did not have many practical skills aside from gardening. At his mother's behest, he began helping out with chores and found that, like most teenagers, he detested most chores. He took a liking to cooking, however. He found the tasks required to prepare and cook the ingredients to be somewhat relaxing and calming, and he felt satisfied with his creations. He also enjoyed being able to lessen some of the work his mother had to accomplish, and cooking made him feel useful.

Minnesota began returning to in-person classes in the second semester of Diego's ninth grade, meaning that, starting tenth grade, he could finally get to know the people he'd been classmates with for almost a year. He had set high expectations for himself, fully hoping to find another circle to join and develop close bonds with. In pursuit of this, he joined the school's local gardening club and writing club. However, he only succeeded at developing acquaintances and not friends. He was viewed positively enough by his peers, but his introverted nature, the lack of in-person communication he'd had throughout the previous two years, and the lack of common ground he seemed to find with his classmates kept most conversations he had awkward and short, preventing him from really bonding with them.

At around the same time, quarantine restrictions were finally starting to relax in the Philippines, and so his classmates began having limited face-to-face gatherings, and generally moving on with their lives. The gaming and movie-watching sessions that had kept him in contact with them tapered down, and although he could still freely contact them on social media, he found himself talking to them less and less, with the interval between messages stretching from days to weeks to months. There was no animosity between him and his friends, simply a drifting apart as a result of the vast difference in their lived experiences at this point.

This has resulted in strong feelings of loneliness and isolation for Diego. He makes sporadic attempts to be closer with his high school classmates, or to strike up conversations with his Filipino friends for old-time's sake, but the prolonged period of isolation during the pandemic years resulted in him becoming more awkward than before, meaning a lot of these interactions end up rather stilted. This, in turn, discourages Diego from initiating interactions more often, and keeps his conversations sporadic and not often enough for him to hone his social skills. So, although no one regards him negatively, he finds himself on the periphery of many circles and in the core of none.

To pass the time outside of his studies, Diego spends a lot of his spare time in his room reading, writing, or watching shows and movies. In particular, he likes consuming media from the Philippines, as he regards his years there as the best years of his life so far, and hearing the language gives him a sense of nostalgia. While he finds mainstream Filipino movies to be somewhat cheesy, as it mostly consists of formulaic romance and comedy movies, he considers them to be guilty pleasures. On the other hand, the Philippine music scene has a thriving indie scene which he discovered thanks to browsing on Reddit, so he has taken to listening to songs from that scene. In addition, there was an uptick in gay romance web series produced in the Philippines during the pandemic, so these also serve as guilty pleasures for him.

He still takes care of plants, though at this point it is less of an active want and more a force of habit. His apartment is littered with around two dozen indoor plants, ranging from vines to succulents. While he does still feel some fulfillment from keeping them alive, he mostly continues taking care of them because they remind him of the time he spent with his friends, and because letting them go would feel like finally accepting that his friends have moved on without him.

In general, Diego feels less fulfillment and enjoyment from his hobbies in general. He feels that he is simply drifting along, idly hoping that the next year will be better, but with this hope never coming to fruition. His inability to make or keep friends leads to him feeling socially inadequate somehow, and he does not know how to express these feelings to anyone, even his sister or his mother. He harbors some resentment to his mother for moving so soon after they'd settled down in the Philippines, and regrets moving to America at this point, as he feels like he would at least have a few friends if they'd stayed, even if his life would be poorer for it. He does not express this though as he still loves her deeply, and he doesn't think he'd be able to speak on it since in the end, he was the one who chose to move to America.

With regards to his sexuality, he prefers not to think about it when possible. He has accepted at this point that he is gay, and that he will most likely never fall in love with a girl, but this only serves to strengthen his feelings of isolation. He feels severe jealousy regarding the active love lives a lot of his classmates lead. He wishes that he could find a boyfriend, or at the very least, talk about his crushes to his friends and family, but he fears that coming out to anyone at all would lead to his mother or her boyfriend finding out his secret. His mother and her boyfriend, both being fairly religious, have expressed negative sentiments regarding the increased visibility of LGBTQ+ people in media and society, and so he fears that coming out to them would result in him being disowned.

He still holds a bias against men, too, including his mother's boyfriend. He has not expressed these feelings to anyone at all for fear of ostracization, as these are feelings he too does not completely understand or know how to explain. It mostly manifests in him making acquaintances with mainly girls, and feeling more comfortable around them. Around men, he does not understand social cues as much and always feels out of place, something that has caused much internal conflict. He finds straight men to be rather brusque, and he feels that he is too much of a wallflower to fit in with queer men. For a while, he wondered if he was transgender based on these feelings, as he felt he did not belong to the male gender in general. In the end, he realized that he was simply feeling an alienation from other men, and that he was secure in his own gender.

Diego does not hold a strong attachment to Catholicism, or any religion in particular. He has some resentment towards religion because of the homophobic views expressed by many faithful, including his mother. At first, he interpreted this as a hatred of Christianity, and considered becoming an atheist, but in the end, he discovered that he could not let go of his belief in God. He prays before eating and goes to church every Sunday, as obliged by his mother, but he does not place any particular importance on any religious rituals.

Luzviminda, for her part, has had a suspicion that Diego was gay based on the fact that his friends were almost all girls. While the idea also horrified her at first, she decided that she could live with it, and has tried to quiet down on her views regarding homosexuality lately, something Diego has not noticed. She also does not want to disown him like her family. She has not confronted Diego about this, however, as she figures he would come out on his own time.

Diego enjoys some success in academics. English literature courses tend to be Diego’s strong suit in school, as well as math. The former has been an interest for several years while the latter is something he has simply been good at since elementary. He does not particularly enjoy it, but it comes easier to him than most of his peers. He struggles most with social studies as the rote memorization often required in that class bores him and leaves him unmotivated. Physical education is also not an ideal subject for him, as he has had a thin, scrawny build for his entire life. His hobbies are largely indoors, and he has always found sports exhausting to participate in rather than exciting, giving him little incentive to improve his physical fitness. His grades tend to be straight A’s, with the occasional B+ in social studies and B- to C+ in physical education.

He has been accepted into the University of Minnesota, which Luzviminda prefers as the campus is only a few miles from where they live. He plans to major in English, and while he wants to become a professional writer, he accepts that it is hard to find jobs in this field, so he will most likely enter law school after. He wishes that he could go back to the Philippines instead for his studies, but his mother has refused this, since she believes education is generally better in America compared to there, and he would be able to earn more money with a degree from an American university.

His relationship with his sister Sarah is still strong, despite their separation, as he views her as a protector figure and the second parent he never had, despite their small gap in age. They maintain regular conversations and calls online in their family group chat, and he hopes that whenever he is able to travel back to the Philippines, whether as a tourist or to live there again, they can spend more time together.

His long-term goal is to move back there once he has sufficient funds, in the hope that he'd get to reunite with his friends. Although he recognized that this is not necessarily likely, the hope of finding somewhere where he feels like he belongs is the one thing keeping him going, and so he has made this goal the main thing to work for for the time being.

Advantages: Diego has a working knowledge of which plants are edible and which are not due to his hobby. To those friends he manages to make, he shows great loyalty which will be valued in a group setting.
Disadvantages: His shyness and apprehension towards socialization will make it hard for him to gain allies. In addition, he has low strength due to a lack of physical activity in his daily routine and his small stature.

Original Profile: https://sotfmini.com/wiki/index.php/Diego_Larrosa
Permission: me

[MurderWeasel]

Hey, Mara! Diego's looking quite solid, just a handful of things to take care of before he's set.

First off, a small formatting thing: the Biography header should be bolded.

With a December 2006 birthday, Diego would actually still be 17 since SC3 is set in May 2024—you probably want to kick his birth a year earlier to 2005, as otherwise he'd be really young for his grade.

If a birth out of wedlock was a big deal, why didn't Diego's parents marry during the first pregnancy?

Did Armando ever pay child support of any sort? Does the rest of the family have any idea what happened to him or where he is now?

Small stylistic thing, but we have a duplicated sentence here:

She announced this decision to her children. This caused great conflict between her and Sarah, as Sarah felt that her life was being uprooted, now that she was being separated from her friends and the only town she'd known.

She announced this decision to her children. This caused great conflict between her and Sarah, as Sarah felt that her life was being uprooted.

Does Diego ever share his writing with anyone?

The math for Sarah's age at the second move doesn't quite line up—if she was born in 2003 (two years after the 2001 meeting of her parents), she wouldn't turn 18 until 2021.

Diego would've actually started high school in 2020, since he's graduating in 2024! This lines up a little oddly with the pandemic timing, so you could potentially either move the return to the US to before 8th grade or else keep it where it is (which might even give still more reason for Diego to have trouble connecting to his new classmates, if he arrived during distanced learning).

In-person learning resumed in Minnesota near the end of what would be Diego's freshman year, rather than the sophomore one.

Can I hear just a touch more explicitly about Diego's low-activity lifestyle in his bio?

Post when you've got that handled, and we'll give Diego another look. Thanks!

[Maraoone]

sorry for the delay but I think that's everything!

[MurderWeasel]

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