Headcanon 003 - Application.
DETAILED BACKGROUND:
Elianna’s history began almost a decade before she was born. Her father, Icarus, and mother, Priscilla, were from two completely different worlds - literally. Priscilla was working her way up in the ranks of the UNSC while her husband was part of the Insurrectionist movement years before it exploded into war. She didn’t view her husband’s peaceful protests as anything but protests; however, that changed when her sister was caught as a civilian casualty in the Callisto Incident (2494) provoked by a crew of Insurrectionists, of which Icarus was one. That created uneasy tension between the couple, but Icarus managed to keep his heavy involvement a secret for another decade or so.
His secret spilled a few years after Elianna was born in 2503, and that caused a drawn-out, tiring custody battle. Eli ended up in her mother’s care, and her father disappeared in the ranks of insurgents. While growing up, Eli wasn’t kept in the dark about what her father had done in the past (and what he was a part of in the present), but her background didn’t present itself as a problem until her early adolescent years. She was made the center of bullying and was singled out by other kids on the playground - kids who had parents in the military - because her father had made it possible for their parents to go to war.
A victim of unwarranted hate (although, as she grew older, there were vulnerable moments where she deemed it completely justified and right), Eli withdrew into herself, even as her mother enrolled her into CAMS as a way to get her to loosen up around her peers. While she hardly faced discrimination as a cadet, Eli still felt as if she was rather different from her friends and classmates because of how she had, in a way, Innie sympathy in her blood. To combat these feelings, she threw herself into her training, trying to come out perfect. In her eyes, perfection was the only way she could ever free herself from looking in the mirror and seeing all of the crimes her father had committed before her time.
STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES:
[+] Skilled tactician: Eli’s specialty is combat, but she spends a good fraction of her time reading up on battlefield strategies and, for that reason, has a mind geared for planning. She doesn’t give a second thought or glance to deviating from the strategies she’s learned about or been taught, though, since she isn’t one for change.
[+] Expert at hand-to-hand combat: Because of her affinity toward learning and reading up on how to do everything perfectly, Eli has displayed that she’s not someone to be toyed with in the field. One small mistake could cost her, whether it’s in a firefight or one-on-one, so she focuses on having perfect form, training and pushing herself to achieve a level of physical success that won’t fail her in the outside world.
[-] Loner: Despite being surrounded by other cadets on a daily basis, Eli tends to distance herself from her peers. Her squadmates aren’t an exception, but she holds them a fraction closer to her heart than anyone else. She doesn’t hold people at arm’s length on purpose, but she just considers establishing friendships (especially closer relationships) to be very low on her list of priorities.
[-] Emotionally repressed: Simply, feelings just aren’t all that important to Eli. It’s not one of her priorities to acknowledge certain feelings, and she believes that life goes easier for her if she doesn’t waste time on what happens inside her brain. She lives her life very chopped and methodically - everything’s a straight edge and none of the corners are rounded. There’s no room in her mind for distractions.
APPEARANCE:
Born of English heritage (and exposed to relatives with English accents), Eli carries one herself. It’s not particularly strong or heavy, but it is very noticeable when she uses lingo that was often found in Britian back in the days where Earth was the only human colony. Eli has no tattoos or piercings whatsoever; however, she does carry a few scars from training and the like. When she was a freshman cadet, she ended up on the wrong side of a combat knife - by accident, of course - which left a long gash on the underside of her right arm. Besides that, she’s careful enough to avoid the occasional bumping into things hard enough that would bruise her.
FOUR PROMINENT PERSONALITY TRAITS:
[+] Meticulous: Eli is, to say in the least, orderly with everything she does. She strives for perfection to take away from her history and has a permanent urge to prove that if there’s a perfect, she can get to it. Most of her leisure time is spent reading and absorbing information about everything there is she can learn: combat, weaponry, anything that she could possibly improve herself in. Eli often prides herself on getting things done without a hitch - the perfect combat stance so nobody can sweep the rug out from underneath her feet, the perfect shot, the fastest time to run. If she doesn’t get it the first time, she dedicated herself to a thousand more tries.
[+] Cautious: Because of her need to get things done right, Eli is reluctant to charge into any task head first, especially when it comes to training exercises. She hates the thought of failing - or even getting anywhere near a low mark - and believes that if time is taken to go by-the-book and in a logical, safe manner then everything will work out. Often, she frowns upon displays of recklessness and deems the cadets who would rather enter into things guns blazing as somewhat not worth her consideration and time.
[-] Stubborn: As it happens, Eli follows a steady routine of her everyday life, and she prefers guidelines and concrete rules as opposed to a messy disorder. She’s very against change of any sort and, if forced into it, makes her discomfort known. For that reason, she can be extremely hard-headed when it comes to accepting new or different ideas in a plan or anything similar; she’s used to doing things a certain way, and that’s how she wants it to stay.
[-] Conscientious: Tying in with her perfectionist self, Elianna hates failure - if it was a person, she’d throttle it with a rocket launcher. Failure gives her a sense of vulnerability that she can’t handle - not that she’s tried handling it; usually, she’ll wallow then get up and try again until it exhausts her. Out of all of the choices she’s given, Eli would choose success over everything (as most content people would) because failure isn’t an option. She sees a job not well done as not her best effort (and if it was her hardest try, she argues that she could have done much better). Having met failure head-on, mostly in her freshman year as a cadet when she was younger and unskilled, Eli carries with her a sense of wallowing and morbid insecurity that kicks in whenever she can’t - or didn’t, as she says - do her best.