Emily Sharp

[randomness]

Name: Emily Sharp
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: George Hunter High
Hobbies and Interests: Puzzles, video games, television shows.

Appearance: Emily has a fairly average build, standing at 5'7" and weighing 125 lbs. Emily's face is round, with a prominent nose and clear grey eyes. She wears dark-blue light-frame spectacles. Her dark brown hair falls to about shoulder length, styled minimally, and prefers to wear it down at most times. She tends to overcorrect her posture, something that makes her look stiff and formal at times.

For day to day wear, she prefers to wear muted or light colours, favouring cotton blouses or shirts for tops and capris or jeans for bottoms. She also owns several dresses but rarely wears them outside of Sundays and formal events.

On the day of the kidnapping, she was wearing a grey sweater over a light blue shirt and a pair of black capris as well as a pair of loafers.

Biography: Emily is the only child of Daniel and Carrie Sharp. Carrie had started out as an appellate lawyer at the city court when she met Daniel, a public prosecutor. They had hit it off well, and Daniel was enamoured by her sharp wit and it wasn't long before their relationship turned to romance. They married shortly after, though it would be several more years before they had a child.

Carrie still placed a lot of focus on her career, having set her sights on political office, believing that she could do more setting the agenda than applying it. Despite the difficulties of working while raising a child, Carrie took on her regular caseload upon returning to her office, while taking part in a larger number of community events.

Carrie had already been somewhat involved in the community before this, as part of both church and community organiser groups, but she used it more as a platform now and was elected to the county commission when Emily was four.

Emily was thus always closer to her father, with her mother always busy with some event or other. Emily was a fairly obedient child, yet outspoken and curious. The Sharps reinforced their ground rules consistently, and though they were strict about them, they also tended to be reasonable about them, and Emily found little reason to disobey. When she did though, punishments tended to be harsh, giving her yet more reason to follow rules.

The Sharps were moderately Methodist, church being a near-weekly event for the family. While Emily was never particularly pious, she always found herself putting in her full effort whenever she was involved, finding herself particularly good at memorising bits of scripture and enjoying the opportunities for socialisation she rarely got at home in the years before elementary.

As a student, Emily had above average grades, partially due to a competitive streak, and partially because her parents insisted on her putting in her own effort to try things before they would help. While this instilled some confidence in her own ability to do her homework, Emily also found they took the same attitude towards personal problems. While it was never too much of a problem for her, it was a policy which combined with how busy both parents were, ensured that she never did go to them about her problems.

It was in late elementary that Emily began playing video games, her parents rarely giving her permission to use the laptop outside of schoolwork. Her parents had bought her a console, something meant primarily for use during the summer holidays. While the game selection was limited, she found herself engrossed anyway, loving both the action and the interactive storytelling.

She rarely got to play games outside of summer as a child though, not that she asked about it too often. She thus spent much of her free time simply reading, or just watching the television along with her parents. Despite complying to them though Emily was never too fond of the strict rules of her household. She understood them, of course, her parents had been clear about why they made rules, but the restrictions were still felt stifling, and oftentimes compared to those that her friends had, seemed unfair.

Exacerbating this was the way weekends were often spent at one activity or another, either because her mother was involved in some event or other. While the events weren't bad in and of themselves, politics was never a thing that Emily was keen on, and less so was the ingratiating way that far too many people acted at such events.

More personally, she hated how her mother seemed to show her off at times, and what had at first seemed like well-meaning compliments from these near-strangers started to seem like insincere flattery at best. While her parents never did insist on her going to these events, there always seemed to be subtle pressure from them, saying that going would be good for her, she'd get to learn things, and network and so on. She has resigned herself to simply listening to her parents, though she tries not to stand out too much at these events.

It was in middle school that Emily was introduced to logical and mathematics puzzles, at first through Martin Gardner and his recreational mathematics books, but later through Smullyan and his intricately woven puzzle books. The the way they most of them required a clever insight ow two, and tended to layer upon puzzle solving ideas introduced earlier in the book made them especially intriguing. While quality puzzles are hard to come by, her curremt obsession is with number puzzles from Nikoli, such as Kakuro

Her interest in such puzzles also lead to her joining the Mathematics Olympiad team in her second year of middle school. While it was fun, she found herself easily being outdone by those around her, and it was a constant struggle to keep up. This wasn't helped by the students seemed to mock needing to try, cruising by on what seemed to be nothing but talent. She tried to fit in, hiding her study sessions from her peers, but this only served to make studying more of a frustration and a chore for her.

It was around this time she had gotten closer to Ramsey Cortez, and who she had met in a study session, and she found him a surprisingly good listener, and empathised with his own family problems. His willingness to be open and talk about his problems with her, as well as his demeanour, eventually led to him being one of her closer confidants, and when he finally asked her out, she didn't think twice about the answer.

The two of them shared a strong emotional bond, and being open about their own difficulties, allowed them to help each other through their own problems. Their relationship was thus far more emotional than physical., with Ramsey seeming unwilling to make any advances for some reason or other, making Emily herself hesitant about making any moves.

Still, it was a dull shock for her when Ramsey came out to her nearing the end of Junior Year. At first, she took it as some fault of her own, and believed that she had to do something to salvage an impossible relationship. While she would slowly come to understand what was happening, Emily still struggles to let go and tends to treat issues related to Ramsey as her responsibility, often spending time and attention on his problems at the expense of her own.

This combined with her mother's announcement that she was running for state has sapped into her energy for studying and has been making keeping up with the syllabus more difficult than it used to be. Studying has become more frustrating for her, as it seemed to take more effort to retain the same amount of information as compared to before.

While before, she would use Netflix or gaming breaks to entice herself to finish studying, it was far more difficult to tear herself away from whatever she was watching or playing nowadays. This has led to her trying to study for longer hours before breaks before binging an entire show, cycles of productivity that have only be increasing the stress she has been facing in senior year. Her plans for college are a mess due to this, and while she's made several applications, she isn't entirely sure if she's prepared for it at this point of time.

Emily is sharp-witted and a decent enough orator, her parents having ensured that she had ample opportunity to see people speak in public. This, combined with growing up around lawyers has led to her being able to talk her way through problems and this has helped smooth her occasionally reticent and blunt demeanor.

While her perceptions of politics, and by extension her family, have led to her preferring to stay out of the limelight whenever possible, she still follows through with her parent's expectations and turns up to events. This makes her a familiar if not particularly well-known face in political circles.

She's willing to go the extra mile for her friends, and though some may see it as overprotective and overbearing, she tends to be thorough when she tries to solve problems, refusing piecemeal solutions or temporary patches to them unless she absolutely burns out trying. She can thus be be single minded in her interactions with others, and often holds herself to a high standard of responsibility, feeling the obligation to keep to even her most implicit of promises. Yet, she tends to fulfill them on her own terms, to her own convenience. At the same time, her competitive nature leads to her being overprotective of her own ability, making her extremely uneasy when she sees that people no longer need her help.

Advantages: Responsible and a focused problem solver, Emily's protective nature also keeps her friends close to her. A good speaker, she may be able to avoid making unnecessary enemies.
Disadvantages: Emily is extremely competitive and can find it difficult to work with people who are better than her. She doesn't really know her limits, tending to push herself to the point of burnout.