Mei-ling 'Emily' Chou
Name: Mei-ling "Emily" Chou
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: Senior
Hobbies and Interests: Reading, Writing Fanfiction, Drawing
Gift: Nychtanthropy
Power Details: When put under heavy stress, Emily transforms into a feral bat-like creature, with sharp claws and fangs, as well as approximately twice as much strength, stamina and agility as in her normal state. Her arms develop a set of digits that form leathery bat wings with a span of approximately twelve feet, allowing her to fly for a short duration. Additionally, her hearing becomes extremely sensitive in this form, and she also gains the ability to emit high-pitched sound waves which, when combined with her enhanced auditory perception, allows her to navigate in low-light environments by use of echolocation.
Limitations and Drawbacks: When and where the power manifests is not under Emily's control, and can potentially activate at an extremely inopportune time. The transformation also takes several minutes to complete and is extremely painful, disabling her while it is taking place. While transformed, Emily is not fully conscious of her actions, and operates mostly on instinct, choosing flight over fight in dangerous circumstances unless cornered. Her mouth and vocal cords are incapable of human speech, and she has significant difficulty understanding the speech of others.
Despite being able to withstand somewhat more physical punishment in bat form than normal, she is far from invincible and can be killed as easily as most of her classmates. Flying is extremely exhausting for her, and while she can remain in the air for up to an hour under favourable weather conditions for gliding, doing so would put an significant strain on her body, and as such it is much more comfortable for her to limit her flying time to shorter bursts of at most ten to twenty minutes at a stretch. In addition, the membrane that makes up her wings is fairly fragile and could easily be pierced or torn by any sort of sharp or pointed object, grounding her for the duration of her transformation. Just as she has no control over when the transformation is brought on, she has equally little control over when it ends, which could also leave her vulnerable while trapped in a dangerous situation. While her initial experience with the transformation lasted about six hours, her doctors have theorized that it could possibly vary from four to twelve hours in length, with higher levels of stress, fear and pain potentially prolonging the experience. The transformation requires her to be awake and conscious for it to remain active, and upon sleeping or any other loss of consciousness, the transformation will also come to an end.
Appearance: In her normal form, Emily is 5'3 and rather frail looking. She is of Chinese descent, with tan skin and dark brown eyes. She has a round face with a flat nose, freckles, and a small mouth, along with straight, black hair which reaches down just past her shoulders.
In bat form, she is 5'7 and muscular, with a body covered in black fur. Her ears are large and pointed, and her face contains a bat-shaped nose and red eyes, as well as a mouth containing sharp fangs. Aside from those changes, the shape of her face and its features bear more than a passing resemblance to that of her human form, and those who are very familiar with how she normally looks have a good chance of recognizing her. Additionally, her hands and feet are outsized compared to the rest of her body, with sharp claws on them, as well as long digits sprouting from the bottom of her arms, connected to each other as well as her torso by way of a thin membrane.
She typically wears plain-coloured, baggy clothing, preferring to attract as little attention as possible. On the day of the abduction, she was wearing a purple hoodie with a grey shirt underneath, as well as black jeans and white sneakers.
Background:
- Emily was born in Bend, Oregon as the only child of two well-off, highly educated Taiwanese immigrants.
- Emily's parents have always had high expectations for her, pushing her to excel academically, as well as pushing her to learn to play piano, despite her dislike for the instrument.
- Emily's Gift manifested for the first time one evening in middle school, during a particularly difficult week where she felt overloaded with schoolwork, and had just been rejected by her crush. Terrified and confused, she tore up her room before escaping through the window. After a night of searching by her parents and several concerned family friends, she was found unconscious in a tree in the nearby woods.
- The next few weeks were extremely difficult for the family, as they kept her locked in her room at night while they attended several appointments with specialists to figure out what was going on with Emily. Eventually, she was prescribed power-suppressant medication and her parents were advised to avoid putting her under too much pressure. Her parents took that advice to heart, and have become much more permissive with their daughter, allowing her to cancel her piano lessons as well as spend more of her free time on hobbies rather than schoolwork. Still, despite not having another incident since she was put on the medication, Emily maintains a constant anxiety that it will happen again, and is rather guarded around her peers as a result.
- Upon entering high school, Emily developed a lot of body image issues, partially due to being a late bloomer with puberty and partially due to the thought that her classmates would find her appearance in bat form horrifying if they knew about it. To her classmates, she comes off as a shy and quiet person, and can often be found reading a novel or writing/sketching into her personal notebook during her free time at school.
- Emily spends a significant time on the internet, participating in fanfiction and writing communities, as well as discussing her favourite books and TV shows. She feels much more comfortable and open with her online friends, as the chance of them finding out about her Gift is close to zero.
- Emily hasn't told any of her friends or classmates the true nature of her Gift, instead preferring to describe it simply as having enhanced nightvision. If asked about her power suppressing medication, she says that without them her eyesight is so sensitive that seeing in normal daylight causes her a lot of pain unless takes the medication to suppress the ability.
Personality: Emily is extremely reserved, and has difficulty opening up to others. She suffers from an intense lack of confidence and is very sensitive to rejection, leading her to avoid becoming involved with others unless certain of being liked. When interacting online, she able to put forward a more outgoing persona, though in one-on-one conversations usually ends up reverting to her usual shy, melancholy personality.
Other Skills: Fluent in both English and Mandarin
Designated Number: Student No. 031
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Conclusion: "Oh, um, this seems like it'd just be scary to even have this gift. N-Not being able to control yourself... and this situation is definitely high stress... I-I hope it's not too much for her." - Bear
Evaluations[edit | edit source]
Handled by: Skraal
Kills: David Penders
Killed By: Stephen Sanders
Allies: Ximena Rodriguez, David Penders, Claudia Salgado, Stephen Sanders
Enemies:
Mid-game Evaluation:
Post-Game Evaluation:
Memorable Quotes:
Other/Trivia[edit | edit source]
Threads[edit | edit source]
Below is a list of threads containing Emily, in chronological order.
Memories from the Past:
SOTF: Supers:
- Existence
- Attention
- And So It Goes
- Parasocial Paranoia
- Alone Infection
- Necessary Discrepancy
- Worthless As The Sun Above Clouds
- Gather In The Ashes
- Icarus
Your Thoughts[edit | edit source]
Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF: Supers or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Mei-ling 'Emily' Chou. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!