Vanessa is a 22-year-old, second-generation Korean-American. She's the daughter of two South Korean immigrants who left the country during the upheaval of the Korean War. They joined the Korean diaspora in Los Angeles and settled into life there quickly. Today the Parks are upper-middle class, with multiple business interests and even some political ties in the local community.

While Vanessa and her siblings didn't lack for love or material comforts from their parents, they were raised with a heavy emphasis on reflecting well on their family. It's mostly for that reason that Vanessa is a standout student in her last year at college as well as a member of the National Guard, coming off JROTC service in high school. She mostly goes along with this, though so far she's fended off their increasingly strong pressure to get married and link her family to another social-climbing or already-connected one.

By implicit agreement with her parents, Vanessa is also allowed to pursue her own hobbies, such as music and writing, so long as she keeps them private and not reflecting on the face she and they present to the public. She's gotten skilled at maintaining a double life after doing it since her privately-rebellious teen years. She's in a band in the musical niche of masked performers, does some play-by-mail and live-action roleplaying, and has even gotten several Dungeons and Dragons modules published. All done under different pseudonyms, of course. In her musical career, the only one where she has to interact or give her "name" as a band member, she goes by Hush.

Physically, by genetic chance Vanessa is slightly taller, at 5'5", as well as curvier than most of her relatives. She's fairly fit - not unusually so but enough to get by at her "weekend warrior" exercises. She has long black hair, often done up in a ponytail or bun, and dark brown eyes. When she's not covertly engaging in her side activities, her fashion sense tends toward the conservative and blending in, while she tends to swing the other direction with her clothes and wear more makeup when she doesn't want to be recognized by chance.