Ronnie Tran

Full Name: Veronica “Ronnie” Linh Tran


Gender: Cis-female


Age: 11


Power: Ronnie was born with super strength. She can lift up to a bus full of people over her head without any struggle. This means that anything heavier than this, like two buses full of people, could be lifted with considerable strain and effort—and anything even heavier, like a large aircraft, is impossible to do alone. Other than these limitations for weaknesses, Ronnie doesn’t restrain her strength effectively, which means she tends to break things or injure people accidentally.

Appearance: At 120cm (roughly 3’11”) tall, Ronnie is a young Vietnamese girl with warm, medium-brown skin and a chubby, undeveloped build. She has a face that’s also chubby and round, though it seems slimmer because it’s framed by her deep brown—almost black—wavy hair that reaches just past her shoulders. She usually wears it out, which is why it’s usually messy and tangled. Her eyes are the same colour as her hair, and are large and mono-lidded. These eyes are almost always behind a pair of rectangular glasses with thick, bright purple frames—Ronnie is short-sighted and can’t see far without them. Her nose is flat and round, and her lips are full and heart-shaped. When she smiles with her teeth, you can see she has buck teeth.

As her purple glasses suggest, Ronnie doesn’t own anything that’s black or grey—her clothes are always bright and saturated with patterns or graphics. However, her clothes are very worn, with stitched-up tears and faint stains here and there. She prefers to run around in skirts and shirts with some knee-length tights, but is known to wear bright skinny jeans and long coats in colder weather. She also likes to wear a hat all the time because she’s used to the Australian sun, but these hats change depending on how Ronnie feels—however, in winter, she tends to stick to an ear-flapped beanie that looks like a bear. Really, the only things Ronnie consistently wears are her glasses, some rubber bracelets (both are red—one has a coca cola logo, the other reads “MELBOURNE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY”), and a pair of orange light-up sneakers. She carries her stuff around in a Hello Kitty backpack.

Ronnie carries herself carefully around people, as a hug that’s too tight can lead to serious injury, or even death. Despite her personality, she tries to keep some space between herself and others—not just for their safety, but so that she can still move around without thinking so hard about how she’s moving. When she has her space, her movements are big and expressive—her lies tend to be obvious for this reason, but at least she’s not difficult to interact with on that level. Ronnie also has inability to stay still, and will fidget if made to.


Personality: At her core, Ronnie is a loving person—she’s kind to everyone she meets. She’s very emphatic in that she always tries to understand others, and never wants to let them down. She’s quick to forgive and doesn’t hold her grudges for long. Some would think this means Ronnie is also a bit of a pushover, but she actually understands her personal boundaries well, and isn’t afraid to enforce them with assertiveness. Yes, assertiveness—despite her power’s implications, Ronnie isn’t an aggressive person, and prefers to solve conflicts through conversation rather than violence. For Ronnie, using her power against others should be a last resort… or an accident that is to be apologised for.

It then follows that Ronnie’s charismatic and extroverted. She loves to socialise, and can tolerate any situation or activity so long as she has a buddy. Her first instinct when meeting someone is to become their friend by getting to know them—but to more reserved or timid people, this can be off-putting and a little in-your-face. This extends itself to everything—Ronnie is un-ironically enthusiastic about everything and everyone, even to the point of being over-eager and taking on more than she can handle.

Though she can get lonely quickly, Ronnie enjoys plenty of things outside of socialising: drawing, skipping, dancing, catching bugs, reading, exploring, making forts, and playing make-believe. Generally, Ronnie gravitates towards things that are cost-effective—a habit developed because she’s used to not having a lot of money—and things that stimulate her active sense of imagination. This means that Ronnie tends to zone out when it comes to school, particularly in subjects like maths. However, she does respect adults and obey rules—as stated before, Ronnie doesn’t like disappointing anyone.

Overall, Ronnie seems confident and care-free, but she hides a kind of inward sadness about herself, her power, and the impacts these have made on her mother’s life, which she understands more than she lets on. Her cheerfulness is often an optimistic brave-face against these heavy thoughts. Ronnie has an Australian accent and a childish, confident voice that projects itself easily. She tends to use Australian slang because she often forgets she’s not in Australia any more. Her favourite things are yellow, Chinese egg tarts, and coconut water.


Weaknesses: As stated before, Ronnie’s excitement can be too much for both others and Ronnie herself—it can overwhelm others and drive her past her limit (for instance, she might be so excited about a cake that she eats all of it and has to throw up). She also has a tendency to be melodramatic or trivial—though Ronnie understands what serious problems are like, it doesn’t really make her less-serious problems any less problematic… so she can be melodramatic about turning up to class two minutes late. Her optimistic and loving nature also occasionally can wax naivety, backfire, and put her at risk. On the ability side of things, Ronnie doesn’t underestimate her strength, but she still doesn’t restrain herself properly—she likes to keep a physical distance between herself and everything else so she can be as excited as she wants, but this doesn’t mean people won’t come up behind her. Ronnie’s also doesn’t have any particular talent or skill in anything beyond her power and her imagination—while Ronnie likes to do things like draw and dance, she’s average at them. And of course, Ronnie is useless without her glasses.


Strengths: Ronnie’s obvious strength is her power—even without any training in combat, she isn’t someone to mess with. Besides her power, Ronnie’s greatest strength is her capacity for love. She genuinely cares about others, and sees goodness in everything and everyone. In some ways, this gives her maturity beyond her age—though Ronnie doesn’t often seem mature because she loves childish things, being selfless and forgiving isn’t as easy for a lot of children. Another one aside from her power is her imagination—though Ronnie isn’t particularly good at applying her imagination to outlets like drawing or creative writing, she could potentially be able to with some guidance. Lastly, Ronnie can speak, read, and write in conversation-level Vietnamese—by ‘conversation-level’ I mean she’s more or less fluent; she just doesn’t know any big or technical words.


History & Family: As Ronnie socialised and understood that other people had much bigger families and much older mothers, it was impossible for her mother, Khanh, to raise Ronnie with anything but the plain truth. On the 26th of February, 2004, Ronnie was born in Melbourne, Australia to a seventeen-year-old Khanh and an unknown, absent father. When Ronnie’s grandparents found out Khanh had gotten pregnant, she was disowned. Raising Ronnie wasn’t an easy task—Khanh had to drop out of high school, and subsequently lost contact with her friends. They were alone in the early years, aside from each other. But luckily for Ronnie, Khanh loved—and still loves—Ronnie deeply, even after Ronnie started getting stronger. But more on that later.

Ronnie and her mother lived on welfare payments until Ronnie entered kindergarten. From there, Khanh would pick Ronnie up, and they’d go together to Khanh’s second job—waitressing at a Vietnamese restaurant. Initially, Ronnie’s mother made her sit at a table, do her homework, and entertain herself quietly. But asking a four year old to do this was just plain unreasonable, so Ronnie was allowed to do odd jobs and play in the small concrete area behind the restaurant. With limited toys, it was here that Ronnie developed her unlimited capacity for imagination. She would spend hours alone pretending the grandest adventures—but it wasn’t quite as fun as the odd jobs, which allowed her to socialise with the restaurant staff, and even some of the regulars. To Ronnie, the restaurant was like the extended family she never had.

Ronnie’s powers kicked in when she was five years old. At first, it just seemed like Ronnie was going through a clumsy phase, always breaking everything she touched and injuring people. But eventually, the supernatural amount of weight Ronnie could carry gave it away: she was gifted. But life continued almost as normal for Ronnie—everyone accepted her, even when she made mistakes while learning to adjust to her gift. ‘We can’t all be perfect,’ her mother would say. It was difficult—and for a long time, Ronnie didn’t touch anyone—but Ronnie adjusted to her new strength by the time she was seven.

At her primary school, Ronnie wasn’t popular, especially after the many broken objects and injuries she caused with all her accidents. Upon the discovery of her gift, she was often separated from the class to be taught alone. And she wasn’t allowed to participate in P.E. class. Or play drums in the school band. Ronnie still had two friends—their names were Ashley and Madison—but they weren’t close, as Ronnie had to keep her distance when playing with them, and her separation from the rest of her class meant that she didn’t get to see them as often as they saw each other. But regardless, they, her mother, and the restaurant were enough of a support system to keep Ronnie well-adjusted.

In Australia, high school starts at age twelve—so when Ronnie turned eleven, her mother had to consider where Ronnie was going. This was a significant choice, because Khanh wanted the best education possible for Ronnie—and she especially wanted Ronnie to have the high school education she had to drop out of to have Ronnie. But on the other hand, funds were low. There were many great public schools in Melbourne, but assuming Ronnie could pass the entrance exams, there was still the question of textbooks, uniforms, and the occasional fee. The only real option was Foresta Academy, which both Khanh and Ronnie were hesitant about—they had never been so far apart before.

In the end, it was Ronnie who decided she wanted to go. She mostly did it for her mother—after all, Ronnie was no stranger to her mother’s many sacrifices. It was time for her mother to get her own life back. But Ronnie also did it for herself—she longed for adventures like the ones she imagined, and friends who were just like her. And for some reason, she felt like Foresta was calling her…


In Character Sample: Ronnie always liked the sea in person better than in pictures. Pictures could capture the beauty of a beach or a dock, and make it look like a pleasant spot for your quiet wedding, but they didn’t capture everything. At the port, the waves kicked up against the docks and the spray threw itself into the wind. Ronnie stepped onto the ship’s deck with her ears full of gust and signs of life—the crew shuffled around her to get back to work while seagulls fought over scraps of their lunches. She took a deep breath, and could smell and taste the salt. She stretched away the lethargy of jet-unrelated jetlag. Then she felt a light nudge at her shoulder.

‘Keep moving, kid, it’s your stop,’ yelled one of the ship’s crew over the wind, and Ronnie hurried onto the dock, dragging her wheelie suitcase—it was a big, neon green thing that was two-thirds her size, and made her smallness seem even smaller by comparison—behind her.
Her stop was Foresta Academy. Or it was supposed to be—for when she looked ahead, she saw a small, un-school-like town and a forest. It was the forest that took her attention the longest—she could already tell it was nothing like the Australian bush, with trees she only recognised from movies and TV. To someone with as little awareness of the world beyond Australia’s coastlines as Ronnie, the forest was surreal, like she actually was in a movie.

But a movie wasn’t supposed to be her new school. Ronnie was in the wrong place. She turned back to the ship—but it had already set sail. Anxiety quickly set in—oh god oh god she couldn’t already mess things up for mum… she had to find a fix for this, and hopefully it wouldn’t need mum’s involvement. The sounds of the port continued to roar as Ronnie stood still, composing herself. She smiled. It would be fiiiine. She just needed to get help from someone. Ronnie looked around, but all she saw were other crews for other boats and ships—maybe tradespeople, but she didn’t know who was who. She just knew they were showing obvious signs of “too busy to talk to you right now”.

So with suitcase in hand, she wheeled up to someone who didn’t look busy—as far as she could tell, because she could only see their back—and stopped roughly a metre behind them.
‘Hey! ‘Scuse me, but where are we? I think… I’m lost?’

Accepted into Emerald