Dr. Evangeline Chen

[Dr. Evangeline Chen]

(Trigger warning for domestic abuse in the history section)

The Basics

Name: Evangeline Chen
Nicknames: Goes by Evie
Age: 43
Orientation: Lesbian

Desired Rank/Job: Doctor

Powers: Adaptation.
Evie's ability is purely involuntary, and works automatically whenever her life is endangered. Her body attempts to adapt to suit the situation she's in - so if she was suddenly under water she would develop gills and the ability to breath underwater for as long as it was necessary for her to do so, or if she ended up suffocated her body would start requiring less oxygen. If she was shot or stabbed the blood flowing around her body would slow down so she wouldn't bleed out, and clot very quickly.

This ability does have some severe limits, and several drawbacks. Firstly, it only comes into effect when Evie is actually dying. If she's just injured, even if she's in a great deal of pain, nothing will happen - and her ability only affects her to the extent of saving her life, any excess injuries or painful aftermaths aren't changed. Secondly, while her body's potential adaptions are numerous (although sometimes, like if she got her head cut off, there's nothing to be done), they aren't limitless - and there are always time limits. The longer she's adapted the more exhausted she becomes. She gets headaches, blackouts and fainting spells - eventually the adaption simply stops, and then she almost certainly dies. Depending on the exact situation her adaption could last for a few days or longer - currently her record stands at four days with a minor adaption. If she has to adapt to more than one situation at the same time (freezing cold and under water, for example) then the time she can survive is severely reduced. Injuries she has before (or sustained from) adapting heal slowly as her body needs more time to recover. Her ability has no effect on old age and diseases that prove both fatal and long-term are also outside her power's ability to save her - although the effects might be slowed a little, it would exhaust and weaken her and prove ultimately useless. Another issue with her power is that if she uses it for too long with more than one adaptation occurring during that time span, her body might find it difficult to adapt back properly when it needs to - for example, if she was stabbed and her blood flow slowed it might stay unusually slow for a period of time, leaving her weak; if she was underwater and developed gills she might need a breathing mask after returning to the surface until she adjusts.


Play By: Ming-Na Wen

The Details

Hair Color: 
Dark brown
Eye Color:
Dark brown
Any Piercings?
Pierced earlobes
Any Tattoos?
None
Any Scars?
One, jagged on the back of her right hand
General Appearance: Evie has dark brown hair, shoulder length when allowed to fall but more commonly tied back and out of her eyes. She's about average height and wiry, the muscles in her arms and legs noticeable but more often than not concealed under her clothes. Not in the least bit ashamed of her scars, Evie never makes any attempts to hide them. 

Evie takes great care with her appearance and rarely leaves the house without a full face of makeup; foundation, mascara and lipstick on a work day but eyeliner and 'shadow if it's a special occasion. As far as clothing goes, Evie prefers skirts and dresses to trousers in casual wear, although switches to suit the occasion. She prefers dark colours and shades of red. Her earrings are typically studs or small pearls, although she has been known to branch out into tiny hoops when the mood takes her. Although fairly sure it's just an urban legend, the genuine fear of ripping an earlobe off if she wears bigger ones and they get caught somewhere keeps her from experimenting with anything larger.

Personality: Evie is a very practical woman, with a blunt way of talking. She prefers honesty to lying, but is a firm believer that personal business should stay personal and gets annoyed when other people don't appreciate privacy, either her own or someone else's. She has quite a laid back approach to rules, but people recklessly endangering other peoples' lives crosses a line in her mind (recklessly endangering their own life isn't so much of a problem for her, provided they understand the risks). Although not quite a coward, Evie is no fan of violence or dangerous situations, and does her best to avoid them as much as possible - having no wish to put her power to the test and find out where the line is and they stop working. 

Evie's sense of humour is typically deadpan, with a little sarcasm thrown in. She tries to keep the latter under wraps, though, to avoid accidentally offending people. One of Evie's main problems is her preference to try and change to fit in with her situation, instead of trying to change the situation to suit herself. She also has a recent fear of intimacy due to her relationship with Camilla, and distrusts people the moment they enter a romantic context for her.

Your Vices

Likes:
o Horror movies and books 
o Cheesy, cliche romances (she watches them to mock and criticize)
o Crime fiction (to mock if they're unrealistic, or actual enjoy if they're good)
o Satires
o Debating ethical and philosophical points of view
o Clothing and makeup
o Spicy food
o Fast food and takeout
o Sunny weather
o Tea (different types depending on her mood)
o Swimming

Dislikes:
o Carelessness
o Arrogance
o Idiocy
o Violence (in real life)
o Cooking
o Being wrong
o Rap and heavy metal music
o Rain and cold weather
o Caramel and sticky toffee

Strengths:
o Multilingual - Speaks fluent Mandarin, English and Spanish, and some Latin
o Knowledgeable in both medicine and criminal investigations (although the latter to a lesser degree)
o Unflappable - she's seen most things from work, and tends to be fairly calm in new situations

Weaknesses:
o Tends to try and sort things out herself, even when she should probably ask for help
o Uses sarcasm to hide her emotions
o Gets angry when people pry into her personal business
o Typically avoids her problems instead of dealing with them face on
o A bit of a prude

Fears:
o That one day her adaption ability won't work (or will work when it shouldn't) and she'll die
o That Camilla will find her again

Secret:
o That she's gay (only to her parents)
o Everything about Camilla (mostly because she's trying to put what happened behind her)

Family Ties

Father:
Jordan Chen
Mother: 
Huang Chen
Siblings:
None
Any Other Important People:
Camilla Devereux (former partner), Nicola Jones (close friend and English detective)

History

Evie was born in Beijing but routinely traveled to California in the holidays to be with her estranged father. Her parents' divorce had been amiable and occurred before her mother had realised that she was pregnant - and they decided by mutual agreement that remarrying and pretending to be in love would be more harmful to Evie than living separately. They were close friends and remained on good terms throughout Evie's life.

The first time Evie used her powers was when she was with her father, aged fourteen. It was a bright summer day and she went out swimming. She went too deep and swam into rapids, going under and not resurfacing for several hours. Her father, despite knowing the effort was fruitless, persuaded a lifeguard to sail out to look for her. To everyone's surprise, she was discovered alive and well and with a pair of gills at her neck. Her father took her to hospital and by the time her mother had flown in two days later, a pair of recruiters from Hammel had arrived to talk to them.

There was talk, at first, of Evie attending the Chinese school, but her parents' were distrustful of a school with such close ties to the military, and used Evie's duel-citizenship to secure for her a place at Hammel instead. When the next school term started, Evie joined the other students there. She was a dedicated and intelligent student, with an aptitude for the sciences.

After graduating at Hammel, Evie took a year out. She traveled the world, spent a lot of time with her mother in China and then joined her father in England where he had moved. She ended up applying for universities mainly in England to study medicine, and was denied from several (including Cambridge, much to her disappointment), but ended up at Bristol, instead. After finishing her studies there she had originally intended to work in a hospital, but a week's work experience in the holiday under a coroner changed her mind and after the minimum requirement of five years working as a GP she switched careers and started working at a police bureau in London. While there, Evie learned a great deal about how police investigations worked, and developed a close friendship with several of the detectives there, as well as a lawyer Camilla Devereux, whom she later dated.

Eventually, Evie and Camilla moved in together. Had their marriage been legal at the time, they would have certainly become wives. As it was, the two lived a perfectly happy life together until everything went horribly wrong. Camilla ended up switching law firms, and Evie moved with her. At first, Evie made the long trip to work and back home again every day, but was eventually persuaded by Camilla to leave work and just live at home. Although Evie loved her job, she agreed to Camilla's insistent because she loved her partner more.

Things slowly changed, however. Camilla would demand to know where Evie was at every moment of her day, and if she was even a few minutes late she would flip out and scream at her. Camilla accused her of cheating and wanting to cheat, and got furious whenever Evie denied it. Evie had kept in contact with a close friend, Detective Nicola Jones, and fourteen months after moving away Camilla forbade them contact. Whenever Evie tried to bring up their problems, Camilla would shout at her or cry and say how sorry she was, but she was just 'a little jealous'. Evie's book reviewing blog (something she had taken up in university, and had accumulated a decent sized number of followers due to her sarcasm, brutal honesty and tendency to pick both very good and very bad books), which Evie had started out of boredom and continued out of love, angered Camilla too, and she was eventually forced to stop posting.

For several years Evie accepted that. However, one day she ended up going to hospital with a large cut on the back of her right hand after Camilla snapped and threw a vase which smashed and impaled her hand. Throughout the ride to the hospital, Camilla apologized and told her repeatedly that she hadn't meant to, and it had been an accident. Evie let it slide as Camilla really sounded sorry, but was worried when the hospital staff mentioned the possibility of filing a police report and called Nicola, who put two and two together and drove down when Camilla was at work and refused to leave until Evie agreed to pack and leave with her.

Evie stayed at Nicola's house for several months while she set herself back up. The other detectives were immensely supportive, all the more so because Evie couldn't tell her parents as she had never come out to them. She found it very difficult to return to work, especially when Camilla actually turned up at the police bureau and accused Nicola of kidnapping her partner. Eventually Evie called Camilla up from the bureau with Nicola and the other detectives there for support to tell her that it was over and she should leave her alone. It was with Nicola's encouragement that Evie eventually reopened her book blog, and although she had to block Camilla and ignore her many anonymous comments, she enjoyed the return to her previous life.

Even after that, Evie just didn't feel safe in England. She didn't trust that Camilla would actually leave her alone, especially when the woman called her to apologize and beg to restart their relationship. Evie ended up getting a restraining order, but, still uncomfortable, decided to move back to America. She got in contact with the Hammel Institute and applied for a job there soon after arriving.

Roleplay Example

Evie didn't quite laugh but it was a near thing. "Really?" she asked, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice.

"Oh, yeah," Nicola said back, laughing easily over the phone. "You should've seen Jeb's face. He had to repeat what the idiot said about four times before he realized he'd just confessed." There was a comfortable pause. "How was the flight?" Nicola asked, and the caution in her tone made Evie cringe.

"The service was adequate, the seat relatively cheap and the plane didn't crash and burn so I'd call it a success," she said as she walked along the street. America had changed since she had last been in the country, or perhaps it had simply been long enough ago that her memories had glossed over the worse parts. She had been in the country for barely fourteen minutes and regretted arriving. She'd called Nicola as soon as she had touched down, despite having parted ways with her at the airport in England not that long ago.

Nicola laughed again. "Well, I'm glad you're having fun," she told her. "You're lucky it's so sunny in the US - it's absolutely dismal down here. Been raining since you left and doesn't look like it'll change any time soon."

"I'm sure it'll clear up soon enough," Evie said.

"It better. I've got a race this afternoon and if the ground's too muddy it'll be cancelled," Nicola sighed. "Ah well. If it's not today they'll probably just postpone it," she said optimistically. "Where are you?"

"Just coming up to the bus stop now," Evie said, smiling as it came in sight. "I've got to go. I'll call you back when I arrive at Hammel?"

"You'd better," Nicola paused. Dimly through the phone Evie could hear her shout, "come on Frank! Ask Aimee. I'm talking to Evie here...Evie? Dr Chen, remember?"

There was another pause.

"Frank says hi."

"You have to go," Evie said, not surprised in the slightest.

"Duty calls," Nicola said apologetically. "Call if you need anything, alright?"

Evie promised that she would and made her goodbyes. There wasn't a bus due for another five minutes, she checked, and the entire bus stop was filled with people. She wondered if any of them were going to Hammel, like her. If they were students or teachers or members of staff. Brushing a stray strand of hair back into her hat, she rested her bag against her leg and leaned against the bus stop's wall to wait.

What About You?

Name: Opis

Age: Late teens

Experience: Not long

How Did You Find Us? rpg-directory

Ready To Play? Well… are you? (No special word needed - this is just for fun.)

[Admin!]

Almost!

Welcome to Hammel, Opis! We love to have new players, and Evangeline looks like a fascinating character, but she requires a few edits before she can be accepted for play.

The first is her power. The power itself is all right as long as you put in two clarifications: 1) That it would not do anything to slow or affect aging (as that is against the rules) and to clarify that the time limit would not be able to overcome an illness like cancer.

With that said, given the more absurdist/light-hearted tone of Hammel, and the way that her adaptation power works, you probably won't have much ability to use it IC. If that was your intention, then you can disregard my note. If you wanted to have the power get more play, there are ways to write adaptation that don't require near-death situations, and I would be happy to help you with that. Just let me know when you bump the application, or you can PM this staff account.

Second, please add some more likes and dislikes. I have some idea of what she likes but a few more could expand her interests. Likewise, everything she dislikes are traits in people, as opposed to things like chunky peanut butter, and it would help flesh out her personality if you added a bit more there.

Last, please clarify how old she was when she first manifested.

When you've edited just bump this topic so staff can take another look!

[Dr. Evangeline Chen]

Edited! I hope it's alright now.

[Admin!]

Accepted!

Thank you for cooperating with our application process. Don't forget to do your claims here and to have fun!