Penny is a bitch. At least, that's how she genuinely comes off to people who don't know her. She's introverted - not because she's shy, but because she makes you work a lot harder to earn respect and friendship than most people would. She wants you to prove why you're worth being friends with. She's not particularly trusting, and she honestly has little tolerance for other people. This doesn't make her a "lone wolf" type, not really. She does like companionship, having people to throw ideas at or argue with - mostly for fun, but she is not just ready to rush into any friendship without there being some proper vetting. She's lived a decent amount of her life surrounded by boys on the Internet, and not only developed an incredibly thick skin because of it.

When it comes to motivation, Penny wants to be the very best, that no one ever was. She wants to one up you on any platform. Her earliest dreams were to be a competitive video gamer, in a sport (and don't dare try and call it anything but a sport) dominated by teenage boys still thinking girls couldn't like video games, she had to prove herself over and over again. It became a thing, a competition. A challenge. Challenges drive her, she loves to figure out complicated things. She's far more logical and analytical than she is a artistic, empathetic, or understanding. Penny can veer radically into domineering if given the opportunity.

So overall, she's pretty aggressive. Beneath the hyper-competitive nature and the wariness of people, once you're a friend, that's it. To get to that level you had to do a lot to prove it, and that bond becomes unshakable. You're not really a friend, then, you're her family. She fights for her family, she loves them unconditionally. She can be soft and funny and playful, it's just not a side most people earn the right to see.

Teresa Vargas (Mother) - Budget Analyst, California State University, Monterey Bay
Hector Vargas (Father) - Healer
Desmond Vargas (Brother, Adopted, Not Playable) - High school student

Despite the fact that her father is a Wizard, that didn't really mean much to the family growing up. It was important, of course, given that in all likelihood it would effect their only daughter, but it wasn't overly present in their house. It was a nice balance, but given her father was brought up muggle before he found out he was a Wizard, and her mother having no magical talent at all, her home was quite usual for any other non-magical person. Part of it was because they didn't live in an area overly populated with Wizards, and so all of Penny's friends growing up with muggle children with no magical talent at all. It was a nice, quiet life.

Even as a kid, Penny was competitive and a bit of a loner. She just didn't care for the other kids. She didn't find the things they were interested in important at all. Penny just wanted to do her own thing. She found video games at a young age. In school, a boy was talking about a video game that had just come out and when she asked what it was, he told it didn't matter because girls couldn't play video games. That sparked a passionate fury to learn everything she could about video games, and the small girls competitive nature really started to show. Any game she could get her hands on, she devoured. She did extra chores so she could buy a computer (since consoles were for losers), and started playing a smattering of different multi-player online games - and found out she was pretty good at it. In fact, she was so good that amateur teams started looking at her by age twelve. Unfortunately, with her enrollment at Port Prep, it made it difficult for her to join any.

Still, she wanted to. She wanted to go big - E-Sports were gaining traction and she knew if she could refine her skill (and maybe her temper) and land herself a solid team, she could do it. Even though she was unwanted and told she couldn't do it, Penny would lie to her parents and go to LAN events and small tournaments with pick-up teams or amateur leagues every weekend, every break she had. She won decent money at it, too, particularly for an almost thirteen year old girl. In fact, it was so promising that she didn't want to continue going to a Wizarding school at all. She wanted to give up magic to play video games professionally. Her parents, though, weren't having any of it. They didn't see the potential, the career path it could become. She honestly wasn't sure it would happen for her, either, and when she was kicked off one of her teams she finally quit fighting her parents on it, and through a hefty donation and some friendly reminders of important community ties, Penny was accepted into Gooseberry.

Her sorting wasn't really surprising. Given her competitive nature... well, there really wasn't any other choice. Her entire first year she spent moping, though mostly she was watching. She was testing people. Testing authority. Testing her own abilities. Though she had gone to Port Prep and learned magic in the highly prestigious school, she hadn't ever really thought it was important and didn't initially excel at it. However, after entering into Gooseberry she realized how far behind she was other kids her age, and threw herself into getting her skills up to snuff. If she had gotten into Gooseberry on her own merit, it would likely have been for her inherited affinity towards healing as well. Which is sort of funny, given her tendency to get in physical fights with her classmates, boys and girls.

The only thing in her freshman year that didn't really suck was making the Quidditch team. There, at least, she thought she could let out some of her pent up energy and anger at having to go to Gooseberry and keep her out of trouble. She liked being a Seeker, basically the person who decided who won the game. Being as small as she was, it worked in her favor and she quickly found a spot on the team. However, she was bumped down to reserves for her poor sportsmanship and attitude. Penelope has a tendency to try and lead the whole team, despite not being the captain. She also has it in her head that she could probably play all their positions better than they can. Still, she was not banned or kicked off entirely and though she's incredibly bitter about it, she still loves to play and does whenever the other Seeker gets hurt. Definitely on his own accord.

Now, she's just ready to graduate and try and convince her parents to let her get back into professional gaming, instead of "carrying on the family business" and becoming a Healer, like her father.