Emily Nakoa

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Name: Emily Nakoa
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Cheerleading, socializing, reading, photography, yearbook, petty crime

Appearance: Emily is a fairly tall girl, standing at 5'9". At 145 pounds, her build is somewhat slender, with a decent amount of her weight coming from muscle. Emily is of mixed Polynesian descent, with hints of Chinese, German, and Tahitian, which shows through in her facial features and the naturally tan color of her skin. She has a round, friendly face, with thin brown eyes and a slightly rounded nose. Her eyebrows are thin and carefully shaped. Emily's lips are on the thin side, something she tries to work around through frequent application of lipstick. Her ears are small and well-shaped, and each is pierced twice in the lobe. She also has a navel ring. Emily's hair is black and wavy, and she wears it at just past shoulder length, long enough that she can tie it back when she needs to keep it out of the way.

Emily's posture is quite good, and she tends to walk fairly confidently. Her movements, on the whole, display ease and grace. She tends to smile broadly, displaying her well-cared-for teeth, which are perfectly straight due to two years of braces. Emily's voice is clear and loud, and she enunciates well.

Emily is considered fairly attractive, and dresses to accentuate her looks. She favors tank tops, halter tops, and shirts that expose her belly when the weather is warm enough for them, along with short-to-mid-length skirts, shorts, or tight, fashionably-faded jeans. In inclement weather, Emily will wear well-fitted sweaters or raincoats. On the whole, she prefers fairly restrained colors, enjoying dark greens and earthy tones. She has a fairly large collection of footwear, and tends to alternate between sandals, flats, and boots, saving high heels for those times when she truly needs to make an impression by accentuating her already-notable height.

Biography: Emily Nakoa was born on March 7, 1994, the only child of two middle class parents (mother Iolani and father Akela Nakoa). Emily's parents had moved to Seattle in 1992, shortly after their marriage, feeling that they would have better opportunities for a life there than in Hawaii, where they were both born and raised. Akela had gone to college to learn to work with computers, and was able to get a job working for Microsoft in Redmond, near Seattle. His success in the field allowed Iolani to become a stay-at-home mom when Emily was born, something she continued until Emily was in middle school, at which point she began taking on volunteer work to occupy her time. In fact, her father's success was enough that, by the time of Emily's birth, her parents had managed a down payment on a house in a decently nice part of town, in a neighborhood  near Aurora High School. After years of hard work and careful money management, they recently completed paying off their mortgage, leaving them in a fairly good position amidst turbulent economic times.

Emily was very close to her mother growing up, especially since all of her extended family still lived in Hawaii and her father was often out of the house working until late at night. Adjusting to preschool was difficult for her, as she was forced to share attention at the same time that she was first separated from her mother for long periods of time. Before too long, however, she adjusted, blooming into an outgoing, pleasant little girl. She was very active, enjoying playing with her classmates and running around. At the same time, she had quite an imagination, taking a liking to stories and fiction.

As Emily grew up, she quickly learned to read. While she enjoyed spending a lot of time wrapped up in stories, she was at heart an extrovert. If forced to decide between spending time quietly reading on her own or spending time playing with her friends, Emily almost always chose to socialize. She was a bold child, always willing to speak her mind, even if it got her in trouble. In first grade, she was one of the first of her class to learn swear words, from a family friend who had a bit too much to drink at dinner one night. Emily was disciplined by the school and her parents, which taught her the power language could have. To this day, she swears only when she feels that something is deserving of special emphasis.

As she entered middle school, Emily took note of the cliques that began to form. She found herself falling in primarily with the popular girls, united with them by her interest in fashion and her high opinion of herself. As an only child, Emily had always received a lot of attention and support from her parents, and they had always tried to ensure that her self esteem was high. At this stage in her life, Emily had a very high opinion of herself. She was successful in sports, academically, and socially. She had many friends, and she had people to look down on. Her family was decently well-off, and her parents were generous with money with her, so she had plenty of attractive clothes.

It wasn't long before Emily's attitude and outspoken nature again landed her in trouble. She'd become something of a bully, talking down to girls she saw as beneath her, and eventually she was called into the principal's office after reducing a younger girl to tears. Emily was forced to attend several sessions with the school councilor, and her parents became involved, expressing their disappointment in her. Emily was horrified by the change in how she was viewed by those close to her, and also by how much damage she had caused without ever meaning any serious harm. She set about trying to rehabilitate her image, apologizing to her previous victims and paying much greater attention to her words.

Unfortunately for Emily, this didn't win her any points with her core group of friends. Her clique saw her as buckling under the pressure and abandoning them, and became much colder towards her. This was very painful for Emily; while she now realized that her friends could be rather spiteful, they were still her friends, and she didn't want to lose her status and relationships. She legitimately had more in common with them than most of her other classmates, and didn't want to be forced out of her circle or to have to start again from scratch socially.

It wasn't too long before she hit upon a new way to get in her group's good graces. For a brief time after her run-in with the principal, Emily had enjoyed a sort of notoriety, until her change of heart became clear. In her final year of middle school, she discovered that some of her friends respected bravery and defiance of authority, and soon began building her reputation as a sort of rebel. Things started simply, as she found opportunities to talk back in class or crack impolite jokes that did not target other students. Before too long, Emily's behavior began a slow process of escalation. She started committing petty acts of vandalism, adding graffiti to the school bathrooms. At around the same time she started cheating on tests and assignments when she could get away with it.

While Emily had not been subtle during her bullying phase, she proved remarkably good at flying under the radar with her new misbehavior. In part this was due to her discretion; she bragged about her misdeeds to her close friends, but stayed completely silent about it among those she thought might report her, allowing her notoriety to mainly take the form of second-hand accounts.

As she entered high school, Emily continued along the path she'd started upon. While not everyone appreciated her actions, she did find herself with a core group of friends who were impressed by her actions. She escalated her behaviors further, beginning to shoplift small items from convenience stores on occasion. Thus far, Emily has not faced any consequences for her larcenous pursuits because she has been very clever and discreet about them. She makes sure to spread her shoplifting out, to take only small, low-value objects, and to always have enough money to pay for what she steals, so that, if caught (as has happened a few times) she can pretend that she simply made a forgetful mistake, apologize profusely, and offer payment.

Emily has also built her reputation through somewhat wild behavior at parties and in the school social scene. She's dabbled in drugs and alcohol (avoiding anything too serious), and has been through several boyfriends (with varying degrees of involvement/seriousness). She's occasionally found herself regretting her actions or having difficulty keeping things from becoming known to her parents, but has never yet found herself in a situation she couldn't handle.

Emily has kept her reputation secret from her parents with a fair degree of success. At home, she is open and affectionate with her parents, sharing most of her problems with them willingly and helping out around the house. As she is generally responsible at home, and as her parents are both fairly indulgent people with whom she shares a good relationship, she is given a great deal of freedom and trust.

Emily is involved in several school activities, most notably serving on the cheerleading squad. She has been a cheerleader since her sophomore year, and is a dedicated member of the team, participating actively and with great enthusiasm. Emily enjoys being on the cheer squad, in part because she likes the exercise and in part because she likes the attention and prestige it wins her around the school. She also enjoys being able to attend sporting events with the squad, though more because they are exciting opportunities to show school spirit than out of any interest in the actual games or their outcomes.

Emily is also on the yearbook committee. This dovetails well with her interest in photography. Emily enjoys taking pictures, having received a digital camera as a gift on her thirteenth birthday and initially simply toyed around with it on a whim, and, while she is clearly an amateur, her photographs do display some thought awareness of framing and some artistic sensibility. She likes capturing moments, viewing her collection of photos as something of a record of her life, a sort of visual journal. She supplies photographs for the yearbook, and also writes some sections for it. Her spot on the yearbook works well for her, as she is quite knowledgeable about the school's social scene and attends many events.

Emily makes sure to always keep her grades pretty good, despite the effort this involves (while she is still dishonest on assignments from time to time, her cheating is fairly restrained, kept to only those classes where she knows she can get away with it and to only those occasions where she is fairly sure that it will not impact her future understanding too negatively). She does particularly well in her AP English and science classes, and is very successful in her electives. Math is more difficult for Emily, since she has a hard time grasping the various rules and struggles with the more theoretical aspects. History, too, is difficult for her, as she's never quite been able to keep names and dates straight.

Of late, Emily's life has seen some notable changes, and she has found herself unsure about several things. As she has progressed through high school, she's had to work harder to maintain her rebel image, and it's had less impact. More and more of her classmates have outgrown her behavior, often leaving her impressing underclassmen, and she's begun to realize that it's not really a good fit for her, either. She hasn't stopped acting up, as she's afraid that it would lose her what popularity she does still have, but she finds herself often becoming frustrated at having to essentially act to maintain her status and respect. She feels that, while her friendships may be founded upon false grounds, they are at least a positive part of her life and provide her opportunities to make the most of her last few months of school, and she doesn't know what she'd do without them.

Another major change occurred the summer before senior year, when Emily's aunt and cousin, in the aftermath of her aunt's somewhat messy divorce, moved in with Emily's family, staying with them while getting back on their feet and getting used to Seattle. While at first this proved rather difficult for Emily, who was used to being the center of attention and having a lot of space and leeway in her actions, she soon bonded with her cousin, Lahela, helping her integrate in school and showing her around the city. While Emily hadn't really interacted with Lahela much except on a few childhood visits to her extended family, she found the girl quite likeable, and, indeed, was able to drop a lot of her defenses and be herself more around her cousin. She has also taken the opportunity to learn more about her own heritage from Lahela, an area of her life that she'd never had much interest in before (especially since her parents had both been very eager to adopt an urban lifestyle).

Overall, Emily is a girl in transition. She's not entirely comfortable with who she is or who her friends are, but at the same time she's not quite willing to change her life this close to graduation. She is extremely excited for the prospect of college, and has been accepted to Bellvue College, a college which primarily functions as a community college, allowing students to complete their freshman and sophomore years prior to transferring to a four-year university. She hopes to transfer to the University of Washington at Seattle after finishing her time at Bellvue. Emily believes that her life will improve dramatically in college, as she thinks she will be able to get a fresh start, meet new friends, and get a better handle on her future life. She is currently hoping to pursue a degree in English, and has some aspirations towards becoming a teacher, though she is not entirely decided yet.

Advantages: Emily is relatively physically fit. She has some friends, meaning she may be able to fall back on their support. As long as she is with people who are willing to feed her ego a bit, she has good confidence and a proactive attitude. She's also skilled at remaining somewhat discreet about her actions when necessary, and has a good sense for avoiding trouble.
Disadvantages: Emily has of late experienced some major life changes, and is in the middle of some serious personal reassessment and uncertainty, meaning her emotional state is already fairly fragile. While her reputation for acting up may have won her some fleeting popularity in school, she's known as enough of a "bad kid" that she may face some negative prejudice when lives are on the line. Emily can be somewhat needy; her self esteem is rather tied to how others think of her, and she yearns to be liked and accepted, making her potentially quite susceptible to manipulation.