Irena Santiago

The convicted felon

Name: Irena Santiago
Age: 19
Sexuality/Gender: Bisexual Female
D.O.B: September 4th

Physical Description
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 140lb
Build: Athletic
Eyes: Green
Hair Color: Dyed red
Tattoos: A compass to symbolize new paths and personal guidance
Scars: N/A

The Good: Playful, Loyal, Organized

The Bad: Judgmental, Proud, Fickle

Irena doesn't consider herself to be a bad person or well, not too bad compared to the people that she has grown up with. Those who can get past her "me, me, me" mentality can usually find a friend willing to give them anything from advice to a month's worth of time. She thrives off of making people laugh and spending time with others. Having lost many of her friends after her house arrest, she understands how hard it is to be alone and though she learned to cope with it she knows that not everyone can do so. Often it clashes with her proud and judgmental persona since she is also very open to inciting conflict when something that someone says or does challenges her personal beliefs. Yes, that includes her personal belief that she is the best at what she does.

Among a larger group of people (particularly those she doesn't know) she'll add an edge of playfulness to put people at ease since people are more accepting of criticism when laced with honey than vinegar. Granted, people are bad at taking criticism regardless, but it's easier to fake plausible doubt (a word she learned in court) when your tone is happy than when it's serious. If one took away all of her charm and spontaneity (read: capriciousness because she's more fickle than anything) they would find a woman who prides herself on the way that she's bounced back from her lack of money and looks for people to do the same. Though (as stated earlier) she empathizes with people who feel isolated she does not pity them and hopes for their sake that they don't pity themselves. She uses advice criticism as a service, not a weapon (in most cases) and if people cannot deal with what they have been given in life, that is their own folly.

If one asks Irena how she learned to do something, she'll just answer with "don't worry about it", especially if one of those things includes hot-wiring vehicles, fixing vehicles, or picking locks. Most of it can be attributed to the things that she learned from her boss, but her athleticism is largely a part of her work out routine. It's nothing special compared to gym junkies, but she considers a seven minute mile and her MMA training pretty darn good.

Equipment:
-A backpack containing:

• Switchblade
• Hina's (her friend) cellphone
  
• Tiny toolkit
• Wallet

-Leather Jacket
-Spiked mop handle

What is there to say about Irena Santiago nee Corazon? Her parents would say that she was a disappointment. Her old best friend would have mocked her for fulfilling a stereotype. Her psychologist wouldn't say anything because of doctor-patient confidentiality. Nonetheless, none of them could deny that she isn't who she was as a child. She seemed to be full of promise as a smart, athletic, and most importantly moral person who didn't get in trouble like all those other kids in the ABQ. Regardless of her obvious distaste for being shoved from practice to practice her parents looked to her as one of the three hopes in the family. Alberto would be the businessman, Irena would be the scientist, and Jessica would be the engineer. As much as she would have liked to blame her parents for pressuring her and never allowing her to express her feelings, everything that Irena did, she did out of her own volition. They weren't going to have enough money for all three of them to go to college and it wasn't like the Corazon family needed everyone to be successful right? Besides it wasn't like she was hurting anyone.

That all factored into the decision of meeting her not-so-reputable boss of the chop shop who utilized her skills from robotics club to transition her to hard mechanics and hot-wiring vehicles. They never hit any rich neighborhoods of course. They usually worked on very cheap, easy to pull apart cars in the area so that they wouldn't have to deal with too many fancy mechanisms (not that she didn't mind a challenge). Every once in a while she'd run into trouble, either with the law or with thieves so when she was finally caught she wasn't worried about her possible prison sentence so much as what her parents would think. At seventeen years old she was supposed to be finishing her last year of high school, not facing felony charges.

Luckily, her lawyer negotiated a deal that gave her a year of house arrest and convicted felony status. It was still pretty bad, but not as bad as it could be. The year off gave Irena time to think and restructure her life and, unfortunately, find out who her real friends her. Pretty much everyone she used to hang out with at school had moved on with their lives and those criminals she hung out with at the garage? They were either in jail or threw people under the bus. Everything fell apart for young Irena until she picked up her first video game. Well, technically it wasn't her first game, but after picking up an MMORPG she started to have some structure to her life: wake up, work out, play games, eat at some point, shower, and sleep.

Two years later, Irena has come out reformed and under a new name (Irena Santiago rather than Irena Corazon) and living by herself.

Why is she in Japan?
As part of her new "clean slate" and new name, Irena decided to vacation to Japan by herself. And as much as she enjoys her fair share of video games, she'd originally come to meet her pen pal in Shinjuku.