🗽In this "Who is Renee Jonae" video by the J-Dynasty Brand talent agency, Jonae is out of the interview studio. Instead, it starts with a montage of her return to Syrene. It begins with her looking out her tour bus window as they drive into the city, with a serious and almost anxious look to her face.🗽Renee Jonae voice-over: How many homes can one have? I grew up in Miami. I was born in France. I've got Haitian blood flowing through my veins. Sometimes, that feels like a lot. Can I really do right by all these places that have people that cheer me on as one of their own? And if you pick one home to represent, will the others feel like you betrayed them? Some would think, who am I to believe I can handle the housekeeping of having so many places I can go to and call home? Yet, Dystopia has five homes. I'd say that means I'm outmatched, but in actuality,
it means I have at least eight. 🗽In the next view, Jonae is outside making her way through the city. At a distance some fans recognize her. The fans wave, trying to get her attention in the crowd, and Jonae waves back with a smile on her face as she stands on her tippy toes while being ecstatic herself.🗽Renee Jonae voice-over: WWH was the perfect place to begin my career and make my home wrestling company, the agency chose well. For a multicultural woman, a company that often cycles through five cities helped me come to terms with the fact I don't need to feel insecure about if I fully belong in any of the large amount of communities I know I'm worthy of claiming. Because whether we go to Syrene, Night City, or any of the others, every time we come back to a city to perform, we're treated with a welcoming homecoming.
🗽Inside a wrestling ring with what may or may not be familiar faces to the viewer, depending on if they've seen her Syrene videos before, Jonae smiles at a young pair of playfully groan gesturing understudies. Jonae signals for them to bring it on.🗽Jonae voice-over: Deep down, most people aren't that bad.
🗽Jonae repeatedly works over the girl, and while the guy does catch Jonae at times, she eventually slips away as he keeps trying to hit fancy and powerful finishing moves on her clumsily. After one reversal, Jonae kicks the guy in his face with a jumping hook kick.🗽Jonae voice-over: We're all going through our own personal battles, we all have responsibilities, and we know what it's like to feel like there's lots of circumstances we can't control that bear down on us.
🗽The pair manage to hit Jonae with a leg sweep and clothesline combo, then celebrate they got one in on her. Jonae gets up, and they recoil back, but Jonae just claps.🗽
Jonae voice-over: That's why people appreciate sights of hard work, achievement, and perseverance. When someone does their homes proud, instead of the tribes saying one isn't worthy of taking up the mantle of representing their home because they have another, they all share in that pride and love.
🗽Jonae signals it isn't over and the three have much more work to do.🗽Jonae voice-over: You just have to earn it.
🗽Out of the montage, Renee Jonae is seen seated on the ring apron with the young man on her right and the young woman on her left. It's a return to Syrene, thus a reintroduction to being at one of the specialized facilities her sponsor set up in each of the major WWH cities. With Syrene being a tourist spot, it's the place where the J-Dynasty Brand socialites had thrown their weight around to land positions at for a work location. These days, the building is much less populated, and the party atmosphere has diminished dramatically.🗽
Allie Anne: Gosh Ren, you really don't pull any punches. We don't see each other in months, and the first thing you want to do is try to kill us.
Pierre Java: Told you we had to be ready for big sis to come back, she can be scarier than our actual teachers back at home base.
Renee Jonae: Oh, please, I'm nothing compared to those hardasses. Though, if you two had been slacking off on your training this whole time, I might have gotten a tad bit angry. Just had to test you, I think you kids call it a vibe check.
AA: As if we'd be dumb enough to still be here when you got back if we had done nothing since you left.
PJ: Yeah….I think everyone knows how you can get when you get put in a bad mood. We saw that video with how you went off on that guy you believe to be too friendly with someone who is friends with Havoc. You were so possessed and dangerous that when you finally met him in the ring, you beat him with some random killer leg lariat.
Jonae: You have to realize that any move can win a match and not rely just on your biggest maneuvers, that's why I kicked you so hard earlier!
🗽The guy takes an ice pack to the chin as the girls laugh and slap him on the back. Allie Anne and Pierre Java, who had gotten themselves stationed to train here, for a once thought to be a brief time, have remained and evolved since Jonae's last appearance.🗽AA: The times have just got him all wound up.
PJ: It's just...while I won't deny we did come here to see a lot of the attractions I-
🗽Jonae puts on a serious face after he said his reason for first coming to Syrene, and the duo looks concerned. But she just giggles as she was messing with them, and they take a deep breath.🗽Jonae: I always had concerns that both of your "Work hard, play hard" mindsets might lean too hard on the play, but you've grown into your own quite nicely, go on.
PJ: I can't get over the fact I was here trying to find any excuse to have a good time, but now we can't even go back to the school because of the restrictions, and the whole world is all screwed up these days! We were wasting s-
Jonae: You can't think like that, nobody could have expected what this year was going to bring down on us all. I'm glad you held down the fort for me, this is probably the worst hit location for the brand. Raoul went off to cause mayhem to make his debut, and most of the staff here were only around for a good time and skipped town when it got bad.
PJ: We aren't like them, we don't have anywhere to go.
AA: That's why we have to keep up a positive vibe!
PJ: That's your answer to everything! But it did keep me sane, and it was really bad at first since we didn't fit in with those real posh elites. They only let us hang around here because we convinced them we were your favourites.
Jonae: I mean, you two are.
🗽They both looked surprised she outright said it bluntly.🗽AA: This is why I say we'll be the best apprentice mentor combo ever!
PJ: I won't say something so embarrassing, not out loud. Still, to come from less than us, and manage to fit in with those born on top..you really make yourself at home in anything. Is that why you're so zeroed in on that Shogun thing? Your loverboy is half Japanese and runs a whole division called Shogun elsewhere, no way that doesn't mean much to you. You want to feel more at home with your Japanese family in law by doing well in their home country, right?
AA: OH MY GOD SHOGUN REN!!!!
Jonae: Now now, it's too early for that. I won't deny that's part of why I want to go to Japan and win the whole thing, but right around now I have to focus on doing well
for my own family, from birth till death. I have to overcome a beast, one representing my ancestors from Haiti, Becca Wideline.
AA: Oh I heard of her, she's always around Mike Mason, The Mecca of Manhood! Owner of that gym, the Mecca of Muscle!
🗽Allie Anne cheerfully gets in Jonae's face to get the point in.🗽AA: Mecca and Becca, get it? They were made for each other; they fit so well!
🗽Jonae playfully pushes her away after laughing.🗽Jonae: I hope that pun is secretly all that's got her into doing what I HOPE is just an act,
because I'm pretty sure our ancestors didn't become the first country of black people to gain independence from slavery, after they waged their own revolution to be free…..just so that the woman representing the country was a woman being abused by an oppressor,
after all these centuries.🗽Jonae becomes more serious as she looks to the camera to speak to Becca.🗽Becca, sista, I respect where you come from, and it's one love, one blood….black girl magic, all that. And I know you probably don't want to hear any of it, because you have an image to protect as the big bad Beast, the foreign savage from Haiti all stereotypical nightmares are made of in the minds of the ignorant. But I just want you to know that my words don't come from a place of hate nor do I want to belittle you. I want you to know, just as I'll fight my hardest to beat you on Dystopia, I'll do my best to make it all worth it by winning the Shogun Cup, and make the worldwide Haitian diaspora proud. I just believe there's a better way to go for our people, a better representative that still has a chance to win this tournament.
I know what some might say. Renee doesn't even represent Haiti; her Shogun spot is for France!
You and I know that's just as misguided as the average person's thoughts on Vodou.
Let's ignore the fact I have a boutique in Medio City where I poured our culture into the business. Let's act like I don't hit an aptly named "Caribbean Freebird" to remind people of our beauty every chance that I can get. Our people would still find pride in me doing what you can no longer hope to achieve in this tournament by bringing the cup to our hands.
When Naomi Osaka beat Serena Williams and for a time was the number one tennis player in the world, did our people get all nitpicky about the Japan thing and say "we don't claim her"? No, our people celebrated worldwide. My mother called me that night, and she said "Baby, did you hear that one of us beat one of the Williams sisters??", and of course I already heard, because it was that important, it was trending, and I don't know if I've ever seen more Haitian flags being proudly presented on the streets and on social media more than the days after that. With all due respect to her, if she can do all that by having one Haitian parent while repping Japan, I can do just as much representing France while having two of mine being from where our roots connect!
I know you won't lay down, I wouldn't dream of anything less from one of us, but girl I'm going to have to do whatever it takes to win this war.
You call yourself a beast, so don't take it personally if you get put down like one for the people. 🗽Jonae pats herself where the heart is, and then points at the camera in solidarity but clear determination, with her understudies nodding beside her giving her their support.🗽