Emily Koizumi

i wish i had a metal heart, i could cross the line
Emily is many things to many people: glitter monster, giant spider, adorable imp, princess bee, hyperactive menace, manipulative terror, calculating mastermind, and mommies' little girl. Mostly, she's waiting for you to go to sleep.

i wish i was half as good as you think i am
Standing at the towering height of 5'0" (which is probably 4'11" rounded up) and weighing well under a hundred pounds, Emily cuts a figure imposing to no one except perhaps very skittish kittens and shy babies. That said, she makes the most of the space she can take up, maintaining excellent posture and a brand of irrepressible energy and cheer that comes with a lot of arm-waving, bouncing, and sundry other action verbs. There's no calculation in her movements, and she actually tends to trip over herself and smack into jutting surfaces from time to time, clumsiness she hasn't yet grown out of. Personal space seems to be a thing that...happens to other people, and Emily tries to be minimally invasive of it, but left to her own devices she would be climbing on all of you all the time, or so it would seem.

With a little rounded heart of a face and a pair of enormous dark brown eyes that usually look like they contain less guile than, perhaps, an basket of tiny ducklings, a good first descriptor for Emily is 'adorable'. Her facial features - flat, rounded nose, slightly pouty mouth, delicate jawline, high cheekbones - indicate that once she's older she's going to be a very pretty woman, and she's subjectively a very pretty girl, but the difference is probably not one that has to be explained. Emily takes good care of her skin but still suffers from occasional acne on her nose, forehead, and chin, shapes her eyebrows, and uses minimal make-up--mostly a finishing powder to avoid shine, an illuminator for her cheeks, mascara, and a lip gloss. She has her hair cut short and shaped to curve around her face, with bangs she either sweeps sideways or straightens downwards.

Her voice is high-pitched and will...probably stay that way, and Emily talks with a lilting, breathless cadence that sometimes disguises her light Boston accent and sometimes does not. She largely giggles instead of laughing, because why should anything break the mold, and frequently says awful things in this girlish, charming tone of hers. She dresses the part of 'tiny adorable weirdo' well, in skinny jeans that tend to be a whole rainbow of 'who even makes these', another rainbow of ballet flats, and a series of - shockingly - brightly colored or pastel tops that lean towards graphics and patterns instead of solid color. These clothes are generally of the fair trade, organic, Ethics R Us variety, except for things she bought prior to her blooming activism or gifts from her mothers.

i wish i was as big as you, you'd have to tell the truth
Emily is the daughter of two immigrants: Sumiko Koizumi left Japan when she was sure she was a lesbian, and Danielle Whitman emigrated from Jamaica with her family when she was ten. The two of them met in San Franciso, where Sumiko was studying psychology and Danielle was going about acquiring a business degree, and they became a committed couple shortly after. So committed, in fact, that after graduating and a few years in the workforce to build up the money to support their decision, Sumiko and one of her gay friends, Shiro Yoshida, went about the process of conception. Once Emily's little fetal existence was confirmed, Sumiko and Danielle moved to Dover, Massachusetts, because Danielle had received a job offer from a consulting firm in Boston and it seemed like a good place to build their family.

Emily's birth was one of the happiest days of her mothers' lives, and as she went through infancy and into toddlerhood they doted on her almost ridiculously--they'd agreed that Sumiko would stay home and parent full-time until Emily was old enough for daycare, but Danielle still tried to work the most flexible hours possible to spend more time with them. Emily's home life was basically ideal, and she thrived, growing into a bright, outgoing, talkative child who loved making new friends - which was one of the few things about her that worried her parents, especially after a day when she was four and disappeared at a mall for three hours, and was found having a long conversation with a slightly bemused couple at a fast food restaurant across the busy intersecting road from where she vanished. It was at this point Sumiko and Danielle began placing more restrictions on Emily, which was really the most sensible reaction, and certainly not a bad one.

Kindergarten was an easy transition after her teacher explained that yes, Emily had two mommies. Sumiko returned to the workforce as a high school guidance counsellor at Dover-Sherborn, the place they'd picked out for Emily when she was old enough, and on school hours she could still spend a lot of time at home keeping an eye on Emily. As she got older, however, Emily apparently calmed down, becoming a girl on the sidelines instead of striving to be the center of attention, and her mothers breathed a sigh of relief. She also began having contact with her biological father and his partner, and then her grandmother, effectively doubling the size of her family, and these relationships were mostly good, if hampered by distance. She kept a B to A average, had plenty of friends, never mentioned any teasing except of the most trivial variety, and had plenty of extracurricular interests, so to all appearances she was perfectly well-adjusted--and the truth is, she was, since a certain amount of discrepancy between what parents know and what their children actually experience is normal, and the fact that Emily was picked on more than she admitted to didn't really faze her most of the time. Pictures of her officiating as flower girl at her mothers' wedding show a smiling, happy child, surrounded by the comforts and privileges of a stable, supportive middle class life.

And that's how things went until Emily was thirteen, in the summer before she started ninth grade. School had just let out and she was invited to the slumber party of one of her best friends, Heather, whose father happened to be her future principal. The night was fun, if maybe not memorably so, until Emily went upstairs to brush her teeth belatedly and her friend's father cornered her in the bathroom.

To say that 'nothing happened' would only indicate that he didn't successfully complete what he was attempting (being interrupted by the sound of feet on the stairs), and that's true, but it was still an event that knocked Emily out of the gentle trajectory her life had been on before that point. Embarrassed, guilty, and confused, she went home the next day having promised not to say anything about what happened, and at first she tried to convince herself it was no big deal. This lasted all of a few days, and at that point Emily got angry--but she didn't see what she could do about it, since she knew from overhead discussion and reading material around the house that the chances of her actually being believed by an authority figure weren't good. She also didn't want to upset her parents or cost her mother her job, and so she continued not to say anything, but she became determined to do something. What happened wasn't right, and it wasn't right that she didn't have a voice to speak up about it, and she wasn't going to be quiet about anything else after that.

Arguably Emily might have ended up acting similarly even without this catalyst; adolesence is a transitional stage when the adult a person will become is hinted at, and Emily had most of the pieces in place for her transformation--a sense of great concern about the state of the world, the self-confidence instilled to believe she could change it, and a talent for reading and engaging with people--but this incident gave it new, heavy weight, like a throwing knife. She turned fourteen that summer, perfected her perky, upbeat smile and behaviors by watching herself in a mirror and recording her voice on her computer for playback, and gave herself a fiercely thorough education in global issues. She built up a strategy for how she was going to go back to school, and it was smoothly put together and maybe even feasible all on its own, but she received unexpected support from one more thing that happened that summer: in early August, she was arguing with one of her friends, and became frustrated enough to will her agreement--and just like that, she won.

Startled, but with a sense it was more than coincidence - she'd felt her friend's resistance crumble - Emily experimented, feeling slightly silly until she realized that it worked, and it worked consistently. Some people, upon realizing they could talk almost anyone into plenty of things (she never asked anyone to hurt themselves or do things that would get them into trouble; she set her own limits), might have either gone overboard or stopped doing it entirely, but as parenthesis indicate Emily just decided to use this knack as ethically as possible--and to make sure she never, ever got caught, leaping to the conclusion that this was the kind of thing that would get her taken away by very scary people if it got out. So she was careful, manipulating people mostly with the suddenly intensified likeability that clung to her and not active pushing, and when she started high school she had already made herself the queen bee of the grade. This change disturbed her parents, as they watched the uninhibited, slightly awkward and out-of-step girl they'd raised turn into a highly motivated achiever, but they reassured themselves with the knowledge she was turning most of this energy and her friends' activities towards very good causes, and that she'd surely grow out of her budding zealotry soon.

She...did not, as ninth grade went on, raising money for numerous causes and campaigning with perky vocalness for changes at the school, something that had her in contact with the school administration frequently. She saw more of the vice principal than the principal himself, but made a point of crossing paths with him as much as she could, and by December she'd decided it was time to implement the next phase of her newly improved plan. When she knew that Heather and her mother would be at a movie, Emily walked to their house and smiled her way inside, before getting the man of the hour to sit down and have a little talk with her.

Emily went home after two hours, tired but satisfied, and she watched from a distance as he tore his life apart--starting by declaring during morning announcements the next day that he was a child molestor. Emily comforted Heather as her parents began divorce proceedings and her father was put on trial for the images on his hard drive, and in the process of this she came to the conclusion she'd pretty much outgrown Dover. She needed new challenges and new ways to use what she could do for the good of the world, and so in early June she asked her mothers if she could go to a particular protest close to her heart.

Danielle and Sumiko said no, on the grounds that Emily was fourteen, they weren't going, and she couldn't provide any reasonable chaperone, and Emily didn't take it well--she could have forced her mothers' permission, but she was uncomfortable with doing that to them, and the simpler solution seemed to be packing a backpack and taking off on her own, with every intention of coming back once she'd accomplish something valuable. She left a note, but only specified that she wasn't gone for good, and hitchhiked her way up to a city whose name she's not allowed to disclose. Hitchhiking being a wonderfully safe activity for an unaccompanied fourteen-year-old girl, Emily had a few close calls on her way up, and the city and protest themselves weren't much safer, but she avoided major injury and kept herself comfortable throughout with carefully applied pressure. It was still fun, all of that aside, and she felt like she was making a real difference by keeping people's spirits up.

This lasted until Emily ended up at the front of a crush between protestors and police, and her attempt to use her ability to defuse the situation ended up creating a small riot in which both sides united in destroying property, a fact curiously absent from media reporting--Emily didn't intend for that result, but before she could start fixing it she was apprehended, had her mouth duct taped closed, and was carted off by those very scary people she'd been worried about. In a small, brightly room away from the chaos, Emily was told she was going to be attending a new school, and despite an escape attempt before school representatives actually arrived she came around to the idea quickly enough. The opportunity to get better at what she does is one Emily embraces, and after things were sorted out with her tearful, relieved, and furious parents, she packed her bags and went off to QCI, where administration promised she'd be under close surveillance at all times.

She celebrated her fifteenth birthday in an orientation room, and Emily is sure that this is just the beginning of what she'll be able to make of herself.

i'd be nothing you could hurt, nothing you could use
Since Emily was originally conceived in WoD, I have no compunctions about stealing the idea of the 'questing essence' from them, even if it applies to mages and not...freaky werespiders. It comes originally from the idea of the knight errant anyway, but I won't pretend my sources are more literary than they actually are, so: Emily embodies pretty well the archetype of the quester, a hero (in the sense of protagonist) informed largely by the ideals they seek to uphold, a paragon of what they believe in. Emily is not anywhere on par with, say, Sir Galahad, but her aspirations do lie in that direction even if she couldn't articulate that in so many words. Being this type of person is demanding work, requiring a lack of ambiguity that necessitates applying ideals to almost every facet of life, and Emily professes to be trying to do exactly that. She believes very strongly in social justice, especially as it relates to the economic aspect, and she's characterized a lot by the way people with a certain degree of empathy react when they understand that the world isn't just unfair, it's deeply so: she wants to put that right, and she has the self-assurance to believe she can--and if she can't, she can't stop anyway, because she has an obligation to exercise her power and rights on the behalf of people who have less security to do so than she does, or no opportunity to do so at all. This is a heavy responsibility to shoulder at fifteen, but Emily seems to not feel the weight.

This is (shockingly!) not the whole truth: while Emily's apparently effortless glittery hyperactivity and relentless, happy determination aren't constructed out of whole cloth, it's impossible to be completely On every waking second, and more of Emily's behavior is a conscious performance than it is for most teenagers her age. The act of Being Emily is an investment in being noticed and liked, since she's too young to pull off dignity well yet, and 'cute' makes her seem harmless. It's not a perfect strategy, and it's more than a little messed up that it is a strategy, but how she's perceived is very important to Emily. All these capital letters aside, Emily is unsure if anyone would like her at all if she were less upbeat and if her power wasn't a factor; to quote A Softer World, 'my super power is everyone smiles at me; I don't know who to trust'. She ties how much people like her into how much she can entertain, serve, or attract them--Emily is all about active effort, and the idea of being liked for who she is as opposed to what she does doesn't jibe with her experience. As a consequence, though, her faith ins her relationships extend as far as she believes she can always make sure they're at 100%, and if this means her effort and investment goes up to 90% percent of what keeps it going, well, that's what she'll do, if it's a relationship she has even slight interest in keeping. Emily will go the distance and then some, because that's what she's good at and good for. This stretches her thin most of the time, but since it comes part and parcel with that whole 'always acting happy' thing it's hard to notice unless you're paying close attention or think about it for more than five seconds.

Emily has a tendency to think in a series of short-term, immediately relevant goals, with a loose sense of how they connect to the bigger picture; to steal directly from my mindtwin in explaining this, Emily can take the lower rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy for granted, because...let's not kid ourselves, someone with the power of almost foolproof manipulation is not going to be hard up for the needs of basic survival or a network of supprt, even if that support is manufactured, as as such she can focus her energy on esteem needs derived from performing her ethical and social work while neglecting self-actualization almost entirely. To continue on this topic, Emily's needs for belonging are technically satisfied in the sense that someone's hunger can technically be satisfied by mostly nutrionless food--she seems to have enough, but she still has cravings for more, and since she doesn't identify the attention she receives as being what's failing to completely meet her needs she just seeks out more input. This is why she is a crazy attention-seeking bouncy ball!

So Emily is a highly motivated fifteen-year-old with clear goals and a tendency to lie and a lack for manipulation supernatural and otherwise, so it probably won't come as a surprise that her grasp of interpersonal ethics as secondary to her beliefs are...slippery and skewed. Teenagers don't tend to be very good at complete empathy without practice, and Emily believes that most people don't actually care about having their choices made for them--pushing someone right instead of left, if right's what good for them or good in the larger sense she holds to, doesn't pose a problem in her mind. As long as she avoids doing certain things she doesn't believe consent is such a big issue, and she refrains from forcing large concessions except for people she feels have surrendered some of their rights to security - like, say, people who have tried to inflict violence on her or someone else. Her power can be subtle when she wants it to be, a slight edge to her already good rhetorical skills, so it's not as if every use of it is crosses into the murky territory of moral dark grey; the line between persuasion and coercion is a fine one, but Emily does mostly stay on the persuasion side of things. She's not a sociopath by any means, but she...has some things to acknowledge and correct, ethically speaking.

Much of her particular fussiness over clear judgments and keeping to her personal code of semi-morality is related to (so far undiagnosed) obsessive-compulsive personality disorder co-morbid with mild obsessive-compulsive disorder, a big jumble of letters that mean similar things--the main distinction between OCPD and OCD is that OCPD thoughts aren't recognized as intrusive by the person who has it, instead being seen as reasonable concern with order and neatness, while the obsessions associated with OCD generally are seen as problematic and stressful. Emily exists on the 'control' spectrum of the disorders, meaning that she favors lists and ordering systems, and she's generally kind of oblivious to the way these behaviors manifest.

Emily would make an amazing cheerleader, if she ever wanted to become one, because she excels (this is, of course, subjective, but she can cheer up the Dread Sarcastic Lord of the Nihilists, so...probably most people will agree) at nurturing and encouraging other people. As someone who strives to be her own best, she looks to help others also achieve that, or at least to make progress along the way towards whatever will make them happy and fulfilled. She genuinely and assertively likes most people, in all their varieties and quirks, and she can get along in almost every social set if she's putting in even a little effort. She's responsive to the needs of other people in ways that usually don't draw recognition for the accomodations they are--it's been said that truly good etiquette is not knowing how to set tables a certain way or possessing a collection of calling cards, but doing your best to make people feel at ease. If this is the case, Emily has amazing manners, even if she can also push the boundaries of comfortability--sometimes helping people means forcing them out of old routines, and Emily is just convinced enough of her own judgment to think she knows when this is necessary.

i want to be dependable, i want to be courageous and good
in-game history

i want to be faithful so that i can be heroic and true
People Emily knows.

i want to be a friend you can rely on you can lean on and trust

 * Max Guevara STEALTH; Max is quietly funny, Emily likes that, and she can totally have a sleepover.
 * Kindle Veda BITCHMAKER; Kindle made her her bitch. Emily loves it.
 * Clara Ford CANDYWRAPPER;
 * Aria Vaughn BURNINATION;
 * Poe Wyman LADY;

i want to understand so i can forgive and be willing to love

 * Liam KeatonPEDANTICLAD;
 * Lear Shapiro FLUFFYCLOUD;
 * Ryan Letowski FUZZY;
 * Shane Hayes SHY;
 * Levi Blakely GLITTERFACE;
 * Alec McDowell MCBONER;
 * Eddie Tinsley QUIET;
 * Ethan Ford HOMEWRECKER;

i wish i wasn't flesh and blood, i would not be scared
Emily's ability is Affective Persuasion. This ability is...not quite described by 'mind control'; a better example of what it's like is Andy McGee in Firestarter, but that still doesn't cover it. Emily's ability manifests both passively and actively: the passive function of her ability is simply to make her attractive, in whatever sense a person would interpret that--if they want a friend, she looks eminently approachable; if they want comfort, she looks empathic; if they want...other things from a teenaged girl, she stands out in the crowd. It also imbues her with an aura of trustworthiness, the sense that she knows what she's doing and what she says can be believed. This ability is obviously useful, but the drawback is that Emily has no control over what kind of attention she attracts, and it makes going unnoticed basically impossible.

This is the set-up for the active side of her ability, which is the ability to sway people's decisions - essentially what Emily does is make her argument, request, or insinuation seem like a very good idea, and the alternatives seem distasteful, creating an emotional impetus to agree with her and do what she says. People can rationalize this in all kinds of ways, and (so far) Emily can't talk anyone into doing something they flatly would never do, and persuading people to do things in contradiction of their strongly held inclinations takes time and effort. She's fairly clever about talking around what she wants - she won't phrase unpleasant things directly, instead building a looping path around to what she wants. Proximity, especially with touch (the more skin-to-skin contact the better), increases the effectiveness of her power. She has fairly fine control of the degree she applies herself, and overwhelming strong dissent or persuading multiple people is draining.

In QCI this will all...uh, obviously be medicated to tininess, especially her ~charismatic aura~, but. Emily is scary, the end.

of bullets built with me in mind, for then i could be saved
Garbage::Begging Bone ''you're just like a dog with your begging bone, you're always chasing psychos down those rabbit holes. you like them the best 'cause they are dangerous, and they get off on you and your subservience. what can i do? can't make a monkey out of you, i can't keep you on a leash, can't lock you in your room. i can't make you perfectly suspicious of the world, can't teach you lessons that you never want to learn. you've started to believe that you're completely unlovable, which makes us want to laugh 'cause you're adorable. you say you've been depressed but no doubt you'll get over it and get back on your feet just like a pugilist.''

Tori Amos::She's Your Cocaine ''she's your cocaine, she's got you shaving your legs, you can suck anything but you know you want to be me. put on your make-up boy, you're your favorite stranger and we all like to watch, so shimmy once and do it again. bring your sister, bring your sister if you can't handle it. she says control it, then she says don't control it, then she says you're controlling, the way she makes you crawl. she's your cocaine, your exodus laughing, and she knows what you are. if you want me to, boy i could lie to you.''

Metric::Monster Hospital ''monster hospital, will you please release me? you hold my hands down, i've been bad. you hold my arms down, i've been bad. i've been bad, i've been bad. i fought the war, i fought the war, but the war won. monster movie, daddy warbuck up against bobby fuller, and he beat him hands down, lead in his head, they put a little lead in his head. i fought the war, i fought the war, but the war won't stop for the love of god.''

Jack Off Jill::When I Am Queen ''when i am queen i will insist, with perfect scars upon my wrists, that everything you once held dear is taken away from you. when i am queen sweet girl scout's face, and not a one will fall from grace, if all their hearts i could replace, but until then i'll have to-- when i am queen on royal throne made out of parts of broken bones of all the devils i have known that suck the angels dry. when i am queen i'll have my way, i'll make it drowning dolly day and all the tears that we have cried will suck back in our eyes, (but until then i'll have to drown, drown, drown myself).''

M.I.A.::10 Dollar ''lolita was a man-eater, clocked him like a taxi meter; fuck gold, she was a platinum digger, shakin-ass making moves on a mover. visa, then a plane ride to ya, peace out, she'll kill you like uma. she skipped away to the shop, she found she didn't have enough, she clocked him looking right at her and sucked on a lollipop.''

Dresden Dolls::Missed Me ''missed me missed me now you've got to kiss me, if you kiss me mister take responsibility, i'm fragile mister just like any girl would be, and so misunderstood (so treat me delicately!) missed me missed me now you've gone and done it, hope you're happy in the county penitentiary, it serves you right for kissing little girls but i will visit if you miss me. do you miss me? miss me? how's the food they feed you? do you miss me, will you kiss me through the window?''

Hannah Fury::Carnival Justice II (The Gloves Are Off) ''my heart is like the moulin rouge, all lit up in subterfuge, but pain is something i can use, but what about you? what's your excuse? you won't know i'm coming until it's too late, you won't know that i'm around, the only thing that you will hear is scarlet satin hitting the ground. the gloves are off, too bad you got soft. the gloves are off, too bad you're so lost. je suis en coeur, je disparais, you are a blur as i walk away. so you love her? that little stain? i'm out of here, but my words remain, so step right up and take a drag on your cigarette, you're just something that got snagged on the hook of antoinette, and you can call it carnival justice it's just my own breed of armistice. you can say i'm crazy like alice, you can call it carnival justice, it's just my own breed of armistice. you can say i'm crazy like alice, but i'll never blow you a real kiss, the gloves are off.''

Lady Gaga::Monster ''he ate my heart (i love that girl) he ate my heart (wanna talk to her, she's hot as hell). he licked his lips, said to me: "girl you look good enough to eat", put his arms around me, i said, "boy now get your paws right off of me"''

Nine Inch Nails/Shirley Manson::Crushingly Close ''i will pray for you, i will pray for you, i will sell my soul for something pure and true (you can have my isolation) someone like you (you can have the hate that it brings). see your face every place that i walk in, hear your voice every time that i'm talking. you will believe in me, and i will never be ignored (help me tear down my reason help me it's your sex i can smell help me you make me perfect help me become somebody else, i wanna-) i will burn for you, feel pain for you, i will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart (you can have my absence of faith) and tear it apart (you can have my everything).''

Dashboard Confessional::Thick As Thieves ''well, listen to yourself, there is a hemorrhage in your mouth, it won't stop bleeding. well, you may be the trigger, i will hold the smoking gun, you'll get away clean, i'll keep your secrets 'til the grave has swallowed me, and i will never tell a tortured soul there burning by my side that i am a sinner, i am a savior, i am a lie. so just keep your mouth shut, keep your guard up. i swear i'll make it right.''

you know it's hard to believe anything that you hear
NO MONEY, NO PROBLEM. Lyrics from "Metal Heart" by Garbage.