Noah Emerson*

[bobjr†]

Name: Noah Emerson
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12th
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests:  martial arts, cross country (on high school team), watching and playing sports and video games

Appearance: Noah is about average in terms of height, being 5'10", and supports an average 150 pound frame with lean muscle from running cross country and performing and practicing martial arts.  He has medium length blond hair, enough to cover his ears, which he feels are too big and likes to hide them. His hair is also naturally straight, along with green eyes that look blue in the right light.  He has been noted as looking younger than his actual age, as most people would guess that he's 14 when they look at him, mostly due to his face, as he doesn't have much facial hair other than a few hard to see strands, as well as a young looking face in general.  Noah had bad acne until about a year ago, and has a few acne scars that are going away with time, and has slightly tanned skin from general outdoor activity.

He usually wears loose clothes, as during his middle school years he was fairly overweight, and wearing loose clothes was a habit he developed since then that never really went away.  He normally goes about wearing a T-shirt with jeans or shorts, depending on the time of year, and wears nothing heavier than a light jacket in the cold.  

Biography: Noah was born on the May 5th, 1995 to Cathy Smith, a history student and Steven Emerson, an accountant at a small but successful accounting agency, where they lived, about an hour south of Seattle.  His parents had been dating for about 3 years before Noah was born, and while Steven was out of college for a year Cathy had just started her senior year of college, and had to drop out before she could finish.  They got married 6 months after Noah was born, and always held a little resent for Noah due to his unplanned nature.  They had 3 more kids over the years, Reagan in 1998, Samantha in 2001, and Lisa in 2004, and all were treated better than Noah, who was sort of the black sheep of the family, something that over the years had always bothered him, but he never got too down about it.  As a result, he developed a strong relationship with his maternal grandfather instead.

Childhood was normal for Noah, as he went to the local school system and had no real problems, he developed fine, learning to read earlier than most kids, and got A's and B's all throughout Elementary school.  In 5th grade, though, things started to change, and Noah slacked off more than he should have.  Instead of the A's and B's before he started to get C's and D's, which resulted in Noah getting grounded and being stuck in his house over the summer, not being allowed to go outside, and outside of his immediate family saw no one but his grandfather, who by this point was his role model, due to teaching him life lessons and how to fix things.  Over that summer though, Noah started gaining weight, and while he was always the short kid, by the end of the summer he was close to 50 pounds overweight, something that surprised a lot of the kids at middle school, and also had him become the butt of many jokes.  Even his family got in on it too, further cementing his status as the unfavorite.  While his grandfather suspected a little mistreatment, Noah hid the worst from him, and wanted to deal with his parents on his own without any help.  So while his grandfather knew he wasn't treated as well as his siblings, he didn't think it was as bad as it really was, but he grew closer with Noah than any other of his grandchildren.

In the summer before 8th grade, his grandfather suggested he do martial arts as a hobby, funded by his grandfather which Noah started and got real into, often practicing 2-3 hours a day.  At the end of 8th grade, the high school cross country coach came and gave a speech about the team, and how they would start training in the summer.  Noah at this point was willing to try it, as by this point he had lost all the extra weight and was starting to develop muscle, so he felt his body could put up with the training.  So that summer he balanced cross country and martial arts, as one took place in the morning and the other took place 3 nights a week, and the more he trained the more fit he became, and by the time high school started, while not muscular, he had a lot of what was called "runner's muscle".  While still short, the bullying stopped with the weight, and over Freshman year he grew 6-7 inches in total, bringing him up to average height.  So after a few years of hell, Noah finally thought he was on the right track.

While Noah got along with everyone for the most part, he never really had an interest in dating.  He had the typical male hormones, but to him high school dating and romance was a clear waste of time, so he instead opted to spend his free time training or working out.  His wide interests and hobby range got him a good amount of friends, but he never had any real close friends, or someone he could actively rely and trust on when things were bad at home.  While he was usually never the cause of fights, which were usually his parents yelling at him for things his siblings did wrong, saying he should be a better role model, or that he should have stopped the problem somehow, regardless of what it was.  Noah is generally well behaved and gets good grades, something that outside 5th grade he never had a real issue with, but he was always dragged into the fighting.  It always made him believe that if he was never born his family would be a lot happier, but outside of a few lingering thoughts after a fight he never lets it get to him much.  To deal with this he doesn't spend too much time at home, and when he does he's in his room out of contact from his family.

As high school continued, he kept up this behavior, progressing though belt ranks in martial arts and improving his time in cross country.  He considered swim team and track, but swim team met too early in the morning and while he had good endurance as a runner, was never a good sprinter compared to the other guys on the team.  Towards the end of Sophomore year he started hanging out with his friend from martial arts, Jim Cunningham, who did not attend Aurora High School but was instead home schooled.  Since they were the same in belt rank, they helped each other in martial arts, specifically self-defense, after one day realizing that while they had the basics, it wasn't good enough.  So they really got into learning self-defense as best as they could, buying fake knives and using sticks for bats to simulate if they ever were attacked by someone wielding a weapon, and actually fighting each other to help learn how to act and defend yourself in a fist fight.  So while he had never been in a "real" fight, he definitely had the experience to handle himself in one.

The next few school years continued on like that, hanging out with his grandfather, Jim, or the cross team.  In the summer before Senior year he finally got his Black Belt along with Jim, with only his grandfather in attendance for him.  However, in October of that same year his grandfather passed away over the course of a month due to natural causes, and it hit Noah fairly hard, as that was his first big loss.  He opened up about it to the cross team before a race, and it helped him develop deeper friendships with the members of the team, and them along with Jim helped him through his loss.  

While Noah is a smart individual, having already been accepted to a number of colleges for Biology, he can act pretty impulsively at times, and is also generally stubborn.  Growing up under his grandfather's advice has helped mold him into a person who will always try and help, but has problems accepting help and trust from other people, though that attitude has just begun to change.  Noah is also accepting of other viewpoints, and hates to argue, even giving up if he feels nothing will come from it.

Advantages: His martial arts and cross country training gives him both fighting and endurance advantages, and while not super social, he gets along with everyone good enough to fit in with most people on the island.
Disadvantages: Lack of trust towards others could have a negative effect towards him if the island gets to him, and while he does have the martial arts and self-defense training, it's only a reactionary thing to him from years of training, and outside of sparring he developed a strict no attacking first policy. so starting a fight would not be an option for him.  His willingness to help others could also be used against him.