Daniel Fernandez*

[Nadir†]

Name: Daniel "Dani" Fernandez
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and interests: Computers, Electronics, SOTF, Chess, Science-fiction, Action films.

Appearance: Dani is 5'7'' tall and weights around 165 lbs. While his surname might hint at Hispanic or Latino descent, he instead looks what some people would call Mediterranean. He has a round face with long brown hair that falls to his shoulders and inquisitive brown eyes, and olive skin. He is what some people would describe as feminine. He tries to exercise as much as he can, and eats as healthy as his lifestyle allows him. He mostly dresses up with dark clothes. His most regular attire is a buttoned dark blue shirt and black jeans.

Biography: Daniel Fernández was born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Canary Islands, a Spanish overseas territory off the coast of Morocco, in Africa. His parents, Javier and Olga, were teenage sweethearts who had married against the will of both of their families, none of which considered the couple to be capable of staying together and raising a child. True to their relatives´ statements, they divorced two years after Dani´s birth, and he moved with his mother in his grandmother´s house.

Olga developed schizoaffective disorder through the years as Dani was growing up, in great part due to the illegal drugs she and Dani´s father had consumed in their younger years. At first, the symptoms were not that apparent, mostly being minor but notable nuisances like trailing off in the middle of a conversation or short periods of depression. However, as the years happened, it turned to more serious ocurrences, like speaking to voices she only could hear, rapid and unstable mood swings, culminanting in self-harming and even a suicide attempt. This also made Dani blatantly being against drugs since he feels they are the cause of his mother´s illness. Dani´s home life was marked by periods of great instability when his mother went off his medication and short periods of tranquility when his mother resumed taking it. In spite of this (or maybe because of this) Dani is relatively close to his mother, but he sees her more as an older, irresponsible sister, than the woman that gave birth to him. Daniel´s maternal grandmother, Amanda, tried to take care of her ill daugher while at the same time bringing up her teenage grandson. While Dani loves her and considers her as his real mother figure, they both find somewhat difficult to understand each other since there is a great generational gap between them that sometimes hinders their communication.

Dani finds hard to fit in with most people. This could be an explanation of why he is morbidly fascinated with SOTF, a show that was hardly known in Spain as well as in the United States. In Spain, like pretty much elsewhere, SOTF was almost exclusively an Internet phenomenon. Spanish mainstream media directed to the public hardly ever talked about the show, so to most people it was still unknown. However, it started being awarded a cult status through the years, especially with young people and high school students. Dani first became aware of the show after reading about it at a forum. His entrance in the SOTF fandom was at the same time as V3 was ending. After the revelation that the show was actually real, Dani didn´t stop watching it. However, he did stop showing appreciation of it in public, for fear people would look at him like a sociopath. But the truth is, Dani liked the show. He liked the show, a lot, and still likes it. He watches it regularly and likes to analize the behaviour of the characters, their histories, their motivations... it was not that he liked to see them die, because he clearly felt pity for them. But it was still an entire world, waiting to be discovered.

At school Dani was regularly bullied due to his small size, his intelligence, and his family history, in particular his mother´s mental disorder. While his family usually kept the nature of Olga's illness a secret, in a neighbourhood where everybody knew esch other like the one Dani lived on Tenerife it was very hard that word didn't simply get out, as most kids were told by their parents or knew about it thanks to rumours. Dani has always been one of the cleverest boys of his class, and has never made any attempts at hiding it. However, while he was considered by most people a nerd, he was not afraid to fight back after boys went too far in insulting him or his family, which landed him a few times in detention. Some of his teachers would describe Dani as full of rage, but tranquil, due to the bullying and teasing that he has suffered through the years. He also discovered early on that he had a knack for electronics too, dismantling home appliances and later rebuilding them. When his mother and grandmother discovered his talent, they considered on having him transferred at a technical school where he could develop it. However, as the family was spending considerable rought times due to the late 2000s economic recession, they decided they could not afford it, and Dani´s dreams were put into hold, again. He also excelled considerably at foreign languages, particularly English, which was compulsory in his high school, something that came in handy when watching SOTF, which was usually not dubbed nor translated.

However, that was all to change very soon, a couple of years later, in 2010, when Dani was sixteen years old.

The day that Dani knew he was moving to the United States was one of the strangest days of his life. He basically doesn´t remember anything about the moment he was told his father has died in a hospital in North America due to cancer. However he does remember his grandmother telling him about his aunt, his father´s sister, Laura. Dani didn´t remember ever meeting her. However, Amanda told him that he might have to move to America to live with his paternal family for a while. Dani didn´t quite understood the reason behind this. He even considered this an attempt by his family to get rid of him, handing him off to a complete stranger who he had never heard of until that same moment. Besides, Dani had really never left his hometown of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, so we was naturally wary of what he could find out there, not only in another town, but in another whole new country.

When Dani landed in Seattle, he was picked up by Laura´s son, his cousin Eduardo, who was a couple of years older than him. The boys bonded quickly, even sharing the same room, thanks to their similar ages and love for action movies, especially the ones starring Steven Seagal. Eduardo even tried to teach Dani some martial arts, mainly Tae-Kwondo and Karate, but the younger boy could not keep his pace, so they discarded it pretty soon. Dani´s life in Seattle was pretty easy compared to his life in Tenerife. He didn´t have to care about his grandmother being overprotective, or his mother being ill. It made him contemplate life on a whole new level. However, he could feel he was sometimes missing his family and his hometown, but he didn´t made this feelings being known by those around him. Dani also already had an adequate understanding of the English language, so the language barrier was not a trouble in his new school. Still, he sometimes struggles with the most vernacular or colloquial aspects of the language.

At Aurora High School, Dani does not have many friends, as he mostly keeps to himself. However, he is considered to be a "nice kid" by most of his classmates, if only a bit strange. One of Dani´s most prized possesions is an iPad his aunt gave to him as a Christmas Present, and one can always see him sitting at lunchtime browing through his film library or his book archives. Another hobby of Dani is science-fiction, wether it be in movies, books or television, which correlates to his hobby of electronics and machines. He basically would like someday to invent one of the things he always sees pictured on television or books. However, he is described by some of his teachers in Aurora High as an underachiever, stating he could be so much more if he was not so focused in his own inner world. One of Dani´s other numerous fascinations is chess, a hobby that he discovered recently also thanks to his cousin, who has taught him an impressive set of movements and defences. Dani has been offered on competing on chess tournaments on ocassion, however, he always declines this offers mainly because of lack of time.

Advantages: He is exceptionally inteligent, always analyzing a situation and trying to ponder all possible outcomes before deciding on which steps to take. He is also capable of keeping his head cool when the situation requires it. He also lacks close relationships with most of his classmates, which also can make him able to take them down without any considerations if they become a threat to him. He has some knowledge of martial arts, however, this might be compromised since it has been a lot of time since he last practised it. His knowledge of computers and electronics also might come in handy if applicable.
Disadvantages: Dani is a loner, pure and simple. While he might have one or two friends at Aurora High, he is not particularly close with neither of them. While none of his schoolmates despises him, a lot of them considers him odd, and may feel alienated by him and his attitude. He can also snap under considerable stress, which may compromise the safety of those who are around him if he manages to enter in a group.