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Name: Reina Amenomori

Nickname: ...That would be assuming she had friends IRL; her online handle is KiriShika-chan

Gender/Pronoun: She/her

Age: 15

Birthday: January 23, 2011

Sign: Aquarius

Gemstone: Moonstone

Blood Type: A

Fav. Food: Boba tea

Hated Food: Licorice

School/Occupation: Meadowview High School

Hobbies:

Music
Reina has loved music ever since before she can remember, first listening to her mother play, then to other people playing what her mother composed, and then, finally, learning how to play music herself! She's proficient in guitar and shamisen (specifically the tsugaru jamisen tradition), and can sing pretty well, too. Favorite genres are J-rock, folk rock, and some of the softer forms of metal; favorite bands right now include SCANDAL and Wagakki Band. When life has gotten tough for her, music has always been there for her. She's even starting writing some music of her own, though she hasn't shared it with anyone else yet.... While living with her maternal relatives, she has been able to practice music, but that time is in stolen moments, or when her grandmother insists Reina play the shamisen for her in an icy silence.

Kyudo
As a result of playing games, Reina got curious about trying archery, specifically in the form of kyudo, and found it a good way to get away from everything that stresses her out. The rest of the world just kind of goes away in the moment of herself, the bow, the arrow, the target, and the wind. While her race and appearance made her an unpopular addition to her middle school kyudo team, she still managed to become one of the team aces. Due to a history of getting harassed and bullied, she continues to practice alone in secluded places, deliberately aiming for difficult targets, to continue to grow, even if no one else will help her.... Kyudo is something Reina's been able to continue since moving in with her maternal relatives, as her grandmother tersely indicated it was an appropriate activity for a young lady.

JRPGs
Reina loves playing JRPGs, has ever since she was old enough to play games on the console! First game that she can really remember latching onto was Pokemon Ultra Moon on her dad's Nintendo 3DS, before she moved on to the older Pokemon games that she could play on the 3DS that her dad gave her for her 7th birthday. It's another good way to unwind, particularly when she wants a different kind of challenge; the grindy aspect of the games are also a good way to get her mind off everything that troubles her. Plus, the stories are so gooooood. Well. Maybe not Pokemon's stories. But Pokemon is cute. And one of her first loves. So Pokemon gets to stay on the same shelf as the better written titles. Unfortunately, she has not had access to a console since moving in with her maternal relatives; her paternal relatives might prove far more open to the idea of her owning a console.

Anime and Manga
Reina enjoys reading manga and catching anime when she can. Before her father died, she had a subscription to a couple different magazines, and read avidly from her parents' collection of older manga, too. Anime was something she'd do with her parents after homework and before bed, a little ritual she enjoyed with her father in particular; then, as now, the stories were another escape from the bigotry she dealt with in the outside world, places where ethnicity mattered a lot less to people. In an ideal universe, she'd have a personal subscription to the magazines she likes the most, and would have time set aside to watch her anime without interference.

Virtues: These are positive aspects about your character's personality that affect them on a daily basis, and are things your character could be praised and admired for. These traits shouldn’t be too specific or only manifest in specific situations (such as ‘likes animals’), shouldn’t be overpowered (such as ‘Perfect’), and shouldn’t be based on their physical appearance (such as ‘pretty’). Virtues are things that are directly related to how your character behaves. Traits should be balanced, so all profiles need an equal number of Virtues and Flaws and should not contradict each other.

Even-Handed
Reina treats the people around her pretty evenly, letting neither grudges nor favoritism impact how she interacts with people. Even if a person is her enemy, if they ask for help she can give, she gives it; even if a person she's close to has done something wrong, she will do what she can to make sure that justice in some form occurs. After all, everyone is born, lives, dies, and has broadly the same types of needs, even if they get fulfilled in different ways. That said, her even-handedness does have some limits, particularly if a person has wronged her; those people will still get a cold politeness, but not much more than that cold politeness.

Responsible
Reina is a pretty responsible person. She takes care of what she needs to in good time, she generally takes on whatever she's asked to do with little comment, and she's used to doing a lot of things for herself, whether it be cooking or cleaning or anything else. She had to take care of herself a lot of evenings, back when her parents were still alive, as they sometimes worked quite late, and she didn't want her parents to worry about her well-being.

Nurturing
Reina's also pretty good at taking care of others. Back when she had access to FFXIV, she would keep an eye out for newbie players, help them through the early phases of the game; she couldn't keep pets, but, when she saw kittens and puppies left out in the elements, if she could get her hands on anything to help them out, she'd try to improve their circumstances, and she'd do the same for children, if they didn't push her away for not looking Japanese. Fundamentally, Reina likes seeing young and/or inexperienced individuals grow and change to be able to face the challenges of the world around them, whether on their own feet, or with the support of true companions, and will be one of the first people to reach out to such individuals.

Flaws: These are negative aspects about your character's personality that affect them on a daily basis, and are things your character could be disliked or criticized. These traits shouldn’t be too specific or only manifest in specific situations (such as ‘hates kids’), shouldn’t be based on fears (such as ‘afraid of the dark’), and shouldn’t be based on anything that manifests physically (such as ‘clumsy’). Phobias and illnesses (physical or mental) are not viable flaws. Flaws are things that are directly related to how your character behaves. Traits should be balanced, so all profiles need an equal number of Virtues and Flaws and should not contradict each other.

Lonely
Being very visibly only half Japanese in Japan meant Reina didn't have a lot of friends growing up. Oh, she had online friends, mostly in the context of online gaming, and she had her parents, but those were her core relationships when she was younger. Losing her father, her online gaming access, and now her mother, have had a terrible impact on an already very lonely girl. Reina has increasingly lost the people who she felt would stand by her no matter what, it hurts, and her only recourse has been to increasingly isolate herself from other people, even if it worsens the core sentiment. If she's going to have relationships with people who tell her they're going to stick around, she wants them to either do everything they can to follow through, or just go away so she doesn't get hurt again.

Distrustful
Reina doesn't trust a lot of people. The world around her in Japan hasn't been particularly kind to her, due to her ancestry, and it can be very difficult for her to believe that people who tell her nice things about her aren't either lying, or about to insult or hurt her. The end result is that Reina tends to assume that compliments directed at her aren't real, or that help offered to her is by default disingenuous. Or comes with a catch. After all, it's being offered to Reina, of all people....

Hates to Lose
Reina, as much as she's now used to losing the things that matter most to her, hates losing, whether in a game, or in a competition. She'll go back, grind more, practice more, train harder, do what's necessary to not lose next time. However, in certain things, if such effort leads nowhere, she'll retreat, and pick a battle that's more winnable, instead of sticking with a fight she's doomed to lose, such as in the probable event of a fight over her grandmother's inheritance. While these attitudes can help her succeed at some things, it can cause her to come across as overcompetitive and petulant, and may cause her to completely give up on something she may want, simply because she does not think there will ever be a path to victory.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Eyes: Large and dreamy, pale mint at the base melting into a pale periwinkle blue at the top of the irises, with long lashes

Hair: Long silvery hair that falls in waves, with white-gold streaks, like sunbeams through the rain or mist; mostly worn up in a ponytail with a silver barrette set with moonstones; bangs parted over the left side of her forehead in ascending length, from eyebrow length to jaw length

Face: Delicate Japanese features with a small, full mouth

Skin Tone: Cool, dark shade of brown, if possible

Body Type: A little short, but very much in shape for archery; fairly curvy for her build, particularly in the bust

Clothes: Generally cooler, muted (or monochrome) tones, favoring Japanese street fashions...which she hasn't been able to get a hold of since her father passed; mostly owns a very worn out combination of athletic wear, hand-me-downs from scornful maternal relatives, and her scrupulously cared for school uniform from Japan, which was too nice a uniform to get rid of; for preference, a complex admixture of leather, lace, ribbons, and the periodic tasteful bit of brocade, generally in cool/soft/subtle tones

Piercings: Has one piercing in each earlobe, made before her father passed (her mother's family would never have permitted it)

ADOPTION IN PROGRESS

Reina's father died in a freak accident a year or two before now; her mother has only very recently passed away (I haven't decided how). After Reina's father died, Reina and her mother moved in with her mom's family...who were a family of shamisen players, very traditional, very stiff and formal...and with no space for a half Japanese child whose foreigner (and non-Asian) father was dead. The good news was that Reina had her mother. The bad news was that this was inadequate protection against aunts and uncles who'd always been jealous of her mother's talent, and spoiled cousins who had learned from their parents to resent their Aunt Miwako and her child. As seemingly unwanted as Reina and her mother (Miwako) were, Reina's grandmother had always felt that only Miwako and Reina might be suitably gifted to carry on the family traditions, which made them favored candidates to inherit the house and attached music school. Oh, and the money. Of course, the money. Nevermind that Miwako had had a decent bit saved up from her own career composing video game music, such that she didn't really need her family's wealth, she mostly wanted their support helping to raise Reina. Which occurred only grudgingly.

Many of Reina's more prized possessions were moved to a secure storage locker once it became apparent to Miwako and her mother that Reina was likely to lose her most treasured belongings to theft and vandalism at the hands of her cousins, and Miwako's mother held the key, Miwako being aware of the fact that the only thing that Miwako's mother hated more than what Miwako had done with her life was how utterly selfish and entitled her other children and grandchildren were. Some of the things not transferred to the locker before her mother's passing were very quickly confiscated by Reina's grandmother and quietly moved to storage. Unbeknownst to Reina, the family game consoles, game cartridges and discs, musical instruments, and collection of manga and anime are all securely in storage, as well as some other very nice/personal things. Her grandmother had vaguely planned to give Reina the key once Reina moved out, but, with adoption on the table, Reina's grandmother will quietly have the contents of the storage locker transferred to a secure storage locker in Destiny City, with plans to gift that new American key to Reina as a final parting gift.

Meanwhile, Reina's father's older half brother, Tyriq Lyon, had only finally cracked open an old email account he hadn't used in years after finding out from their mother why he hadn't heard from his baby brother in ages, to find, to his utter horror, that there was years worth of emails from his younger half brother, talking about moving to Japan to be a game developer, meeting the girl of his dreams, getting married, having a child, and raising that child. Worse, there were emails from the wife starting in the last half year or so, telling him that she was developing misgivings about the idea of her family continuing to be involved in Tyriq's niece's life, begging him to agree to help if something went wrong, get Reina out of Japan, hell, maybe get mother and daughter both out of Japan.

Tyriq managed to reach out to Miwako before her passing, explaining what had happened on his end, and advised her to reach out to him using the newer email address. She was relieved, but they didn't have much of a chance to plan in advance.

Now, Tyriq has reached out to the Amenomori family, the US embassy, and the Japanese government to try to formally adopt Reina, and bring her to the States.

The process will take a bit of time over the course of the next year, but the following is the basics:

Tyriq will need to get in touch with a few different agencies, including one authorized to work in Japan on such projects, get a US-based provider to conduct a home study to confirm that the Lyon household will be an appropriate home (and then certify this for the Japanese government). Tyriq and his wife Shams will need to fly to Japan to formally adopt Reina, apply for a Japanese passport with the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and apply to the US embassy for an immigration visa.

Six months after this, Reina's living conditions will need to be checked one more time and certified to the Japanese government, at which point her maternal family will lose all claims of custody over Reina.

I intend to RP a significant proportion of this, and have researched what I can of this very bizarre set of circumstances.