Hannah Choi

[Tapey]

Name: Hannah Eun-Ae Choi
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: 12 (Senior)
Hobbies and Interests: Reading SOTF-TV Forums, Doodling, Listening to Music, Kendo

Appearance: Standing at 5’3” and 118 pounds, Hannah has a smaller built compared with the other girls of her age. Her dark brown hair is at collarbone length, and her bangs are usually swept aside. Her facial appearance mostly represents her Korean descent, as can be seen from her dark brown eyes, small nose, and her pale skin color. She often wears a pair of contact glasses to correct her short-sightedness. She has a beauty mark below the corner of her left eye, which stands out from her appearance. Although not a heavy follower of fashion, she is still aware of her appearance while in school, often wearing light makeup and lip gloss. She is modest with jewelry, only wearing a small, silver pair of star stud earrings on both sides of her ears.

When it comes to her wardrobe, Hannah prefers simplicity over fashion. In school, she usually wears a unicolor top in either grey, white, or black, with some small but simple logo imprinted on it, while pairing with either jeans, shorts, or rarely, a skirt. On the day where she was abducted, she was wearing a grey sweatshirt, with a small, white Nike symbol imprinted on the left chest, black shorts, and a pair of black sneakers with white ankle socks.

Biography: Hannah was born in one of the largest urban areas in Chicago on July 17th, 2003. She is the daughter of Grant Choi and Elizabeth Lee, two Korean-Americans who work as an actuary and a mortgage broker respectively. They met each other at the University of Chicago while studying for their Finance Degrees, and eventually got married a year after they graduated. She also has an older sister, Emily (24), who is currently working as a trainee in a law firm in the UK, after successfully completing her Law Degree. A few months after Hannah was born, Elizabeth was requested by her company to be transferred to a bank located in Miami due to the lack of staff there. In response to this, Grant also requested a transfer to Miami, which was approved. The family soon moved to Miami and has been living there since.

As the younger child in the family, Hannah was given high expectations from her parents due to their reputational background for being well off, and partially because of Emily’s success in academics and competitions. As a result, her childhood was mostly occupied with piano lessons and ballet lessons, though she never had any interest in them. They also had hired a babysitter to take care of Hannah when they were away working. Hannah had a close relationship with the babysitter since Hannah had spent most of the time with her, however, Hannah's memories of her are vague as she grows up.

Growing up, Hannah always felt distant from her parents, as they were busy with work most of the time. She also felt discontent about how they kept forcing her into talent classes, but knowing how strict her parents were, she never spoke out about it. She, however, has a close relationship with Emily, despite the large age difference, since she was usually there when Hannah needs someone to talk to. However, since Emily moved out to continue her studies in the UK, they barely talk much due to them having their own schedule and the time differences. The best they could do to contact each other is through video calls, where they update about their current situation and talk about the latest events.

As she started elementary school, it did not take Hannah long to become well-known for being an intelligent student. Her grades are usually ranging between A+ and A-, and she has won awards from several interschool competitions. However, due to her lack of social interactions with others her age during her childhood, her shyness and bluntness towards others had caused her to be distanced by her classmates. She originally was not aware that her actions had caused the discontent of others. However, it took her a while to realize how her personality had caused her to be lonely in school, as she was starting to be ostracized during group activities or recess. She started talking to others more and learned the importance of keeping and faking her emotions while talking to others.

During her free time, she listens to music to release stress. She usually searches for music playlists randomly on Spotify or Youtube based on her current mood, resulting in her having a wide taste of music, ranging from classical music, pop, to even heavy metal. She usually listens to music through her phone while studying or doing homework, claiming that it helps her to focus and calming down her emotions. When she was bored or feeling down, she also tends to doodle to pass time and to release her personal stress. Since she never takes any form of private art classes before, she usually doodles in the form of simple drawings such as stick figures, flowers, or spirals.

She first knows about SOTF-TV when she started middle school. Hannah learned about it by coincidence, after accidentally clicking on a reaction video of it while randomly scrolling on YouTube. She remembered how her parents are vocally disagreeing on the SOTF-TV project, seeing it as a negative influence on the younger audience. Despite the disapproval from her parents, she still watches some videos regarding SOTF-TV due to curiosity, and eventually snowballed to watching a few of the previous seasons when she was free. She is not too invested in the show and was not thinking about participating. However, her curiosity grew towards SOTF-TV, regarding their previous contestants, and the motive of the show itself. This is when she started joining online forums about SOTF-TV and discussing with the others about SOTF-TV and its participants. She also began to be active in SOTF-TV forums to know more about the history of the show. To her, it was more of a secret interest, since she actively hides her interest in SOTF-TV from the public.

Her first contact with kendo is when she was 14. It was when her parents signed her up for a taekwondo class in a training center nearby, which did not really draw her attention as she found hand-to-hand combats pretty exhausting. However, the training center also provided kendo classes, which was right after her taekwondo class. When she was waiting for her parents to fetch her after class ended, she would watch the other students practicing in the Kendo class. Soon enough, kendo grew on her as she thought that it looks pretty fun as an exercise. After some convincing with her parents about how she wanted to join kendo instead of taekwondo, and how taekwondo was too exhausting for her, her parents decided to give her a nod, after Hannah purposely bruised herself during one of the taekwondo classes. As time goes on and she participates in more training sessions, she is starting to get interested in kendo as it was effective in releasing her stress and improving her stamina. She is a fast learner, and it did not take her long to participate in her first kendo tournament. Although she did not end up winning, she did earn herself a consolation prize after making it into the semi-finals. This motivates her a lot, as she finally found a target to strive for, to be better at kendo. Though she no longer trains there as a student after entering high school, she usually works there as a volunteer trainer for kendo classes.

As she was a few years away from completing middle school, tensions began to rise between Hannah and her family, since her parents are still being very controlling towards her. Their relationship worsens after a huge fight had happened when her grades dropped from B- to C on average since she was starting to get too invested in participating in forums. As a result, her phone was confiscated, and she was not allowed to gain access to any media until her grades improved. Although the punishment worked, Hannah’s discontent towards her parents grew, and she was eager to move out once she graduates high school.

After completing middle school, Hannah joined Mangrove Garden High School due to the request from her parents. She got herself a full scholarship due to her good grades during the test. Her academic grades are still above average in high school, usually ranking in the top ten percent and her grades range from A to A-and at times, an A+. She excels in subjects that require memorization such as Biology and History. She struggles slightly in Physics, which she puts in more effort to maintain her grades. She refrains herself from expressing herself in class to prevent herself from looking too overconfident, hence she usually requires a bit of motivation to speak up. Her social circle is not big, but it was way much better compared to when she was in elementary school, as she had gained a reputation for her nice and modest personality. Her social circle is a mixed bunch, mostly with people asking her for academic help or people from the Kendo Team. She also joined the school’s Kendo Team as an active member, hoping to represent her school to compete in tournaments.

Her current relationships with her parents are still rather strained. Hannah is pretty distanced from her father as he was usually the one who monitored her studies and is pretty demanding towards her. Her relationship with her mother is also not really close, however, it is way better than her father. This is because as a mother, Elizabeth would sometimes have a one-on-one chat with Hannah when she was free, though it is pretty rare due to her tight schedule. Though Hannah will take the chance to vent about her studies and frustrations, she often hides about how she dislikes her parents' difficult expectations and how much she wants them to let her be.

She was aiming to pursue a Medical Degree since she is quite talented in Biology. She also applied to several universities outside Miami to get away from her parents' tight control. Currently, she had received two offer letters, one from the Medical College of Wisconsin, and the other one from the University of Pittsburgh.

Advantages: Despite being smaller in size, Hannah’s agility and strength were often underestimated, as people tend to forget she has experience in kendo. Her being involved in the school’s Kendo Society also gives her the advantage of being experienced in swordfights. She is also pretty modest and polite towards her peers, making her unlikely to make any instant enemies.
Disadvantages: Growing in a family with high expectations, Hannah suffers from having low self-esteem, which prevents her from speaking up. She also tends to hide her dissatisfactions and issues a lot and is a bit of a perfectionist due to the high expectations of people around her.

[MurderWeasel]

Howdy, Tapey! Hannah's looking pretty solid but is DENIED pending a few edits.

"Hannah is smaller in-built compared with the other girls of her age." is a little awkwardly constructed—maybe something like "Hannah has a smaller build than many other girls of her age." instead?

Are Hannah's earrings studs? Hoops? Do they have any sort of special design?

I notice Hannah's family seem not to have changed their names upon marriage. Was this for a specific reason? Why did Hannah inherit her mother's surname but nothing of her father's?

Did Hannah have the same babysitter all through her childhood? What was her relationship with that caretaker (or those caretakers, if it was a string) like?

What exactly caused Hannah's initial bluntness? What form did it take, and why was it so difficult for her to understand the trouble it caused?

Can I hear a bit more about Hannah's kendo experience? What made it appealing as a martial art for her parents, given its comparatively limited use in self defense (since in most situations swords aren't close to hand)? Or was it more about the exercise and something she thought looked fun? When did Hannah's interest begin to turn genuine, and how has it developed over the years? Right now I think some of what's throwing me is that it sounds like the changes in her attitude were recent, but if she picked up the hobby at age nine she's been doing it for eight years, almost half her life. Maybe her join date could be made a bit more recent, to help the freshness angle fit better and also so it's a little less odd for her parents to be enrolling her in a niche combat sport?

Has Hannah ever tried to bring her doodling more form? Does she take any art classes, or is it purely a low-stress personal thing? Also, what got her interested in listening to such a wide range of music?

Does Hannah actively hide her SOTF interest? Given the show's massive popularity, it tends to come up in conversation or even just casual culture a lot, so someone knowing a bit about it wouldn't raise any suspicions.

I'd like to hear just a bit more about Hannah's current situation. Where does she fall in the class rankings (with mostly A grades it sounds like she'd be on the upper side but probably not the total top)? What classes is she best at? Are there any that she has to work harder in to maintain her good grades? Is she an active participant in class, or does she need to be coaxed into speaking up? What kind of people does she get along best with?

At this time of her senior year, Hannah should actually have applied to schools already and probably have even gotten acceptance letters, unless she's taking a gap year.

Can I also get one distinct aspect of Hannah's relationship with each parent to make them a bit more defined as individuals and less one big unit?

Finally, can I hear a bit more about Hannah's low self esteem and vulnerability to peer pressure in her bio? Right now they come a bit out of nowhere in the disadvantages section.

Post when you've got that taken care of, and we'll give Hannah another look. Thanks!

[Tapey]

Edited!

[MurderWeasel]

Hey again! Hannah's looking much better! Just a couple tiny things left:

"However, due to her lack of social interactions with others during her childhood, her shyness and bluntness towards others had caused her to be distanced by her classmates." <- maybe specify "others her age" since it sounds like she would've had plenty of opportunities to interact with her sister and the babysitter?

"Though she no longer trains there as a student after entering high school, she usually works there as a part-time trainer for kendo classes." <-I'd like to get just a tiny bit more specific here. It sounds like Hannah has moved beyond being a student and now works at the kendo place as a part-time job (presumably keeping up with her training, just not as a paying enrolled student because she is too advanced for that). Is that correct? If so, could we maybe get it rephrased to something like "Not too long after entering high school, Hannah moved beyond the student levels and now has a part-time job helping teach kendo classes." Or, if she's unpaid, replace "job" with "volunteer position."

I'd maybe move Hannah from top twenty in the class to top ten percent, just because the school has been established as very competitive and while she's good she's not getting constant A+s across the board.

Post when you've got that taken care of, and we'll give Hannah another look. Thanks!

[Tapey]

Fixed!

[MurderWeasel]

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