application: exsilium

[reconnaissance]

» PLAYER INFORMATION
Player NAME: Bella
Current AGE: 24
Player TIME ZONE: GMT +10hrs
Personal JOURNAL: keysmashes
IM & SERVICE: karmacharging @aim
Player PLURK: n/a
Current CHARACTERS: n/a

» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Ellie Linton
Canon & MEDIUM: Tomorrow book series by John Marsden
Canon PULL-POINT:
Ellie will be coming from book five, Burning for Revenge, just after the kids have successfully pulled off a massive attack on the occupied Wirrawee airfield and are hiding out in Stratton.
Character AGE: 17
Character ABILITIES:
She knows the land and learnt a lot growing up on the farm, so many of her skills are very practical; building fences, birthing cattle, driving a lot of different vehicles. She's a good shot, has built home made explosives out of farmyard items, thinks well on her feet and is pretty good at controlling her fear, and their rag tag mob often looks to her as a leader and someone to keep them all going. In terms of supernatural abilities, there's really nothing - she's just a regular human.
Character HISTORY: • wiki: The Tomorrow series

Character PERSONALITY:
To get a good idea of the kind of person Ellie is, it's necessary to think about a few different factors; who she was before the war, the effects of the war itself and the people she has been surrounded by. Since she is the story teller of the series, the reader is presented with a clear picture of how she views the world and the way things work in her mind. Even the things that she doesn't talk about are pretty telling, in their own way.

The circumstances of her life before the war are pretty standard for someone living in rural Australia. Her parents owned a sheep farm near the town of Wirrawee, surrounded by bushland. Ellie's parents are very strong willed , and she often talks about them and lessons from the farm which she tries to draw strength from and apply to the new situations they are thrown into. For her, being raised on the farm, going to school in Wirrawee, her friends, playing netball, all the normal aspects of life that we come to take for granted, are integral to who she is. As she says herself, people are all made up of stories. Her life before versus her life now, and the conduct of people she admires (or can't understand) are frequently matters of contemplation. To put her childhood briefly, however: the local area is her entire world. She knows it well and respects it. She's tough. She's had to work on the farm, help with cattle and sheep, can drive a lot of vehicles. Ellie's strong, really, and independent. A little stubborn and bossy, though – self righteous, sometimes, too. Before the war, Ellie was a likeable, rough and ready teenager who wasn't afraid to take the initiative and who could hold her own against the farm boys around her area.

The fact that she was chosen to be the record keeper for the group during the war also says something about her personality. She is chosen because, out of the seven, she is the one least likely to skim over unpleasant details. Ellie is blunt, honest, strong willed and determined, all of which are pretty admirable qualities. They are also things that get her in trouble. Ellie is not an easy person to get along with, because she is so strong willed that she won't back down and finds it hard to admit fault. If she says something, or writes something, it's the truth as she sees it. With that aforementioned strong will comes a tendency to see things in black and white. Not all things, of course – a lot of introspection and thought brings her to see some things as grey area, even sympathising with why their country has been attacked and taken over. When it comes to people, however, Ellie has an awful habit of categorising them.

Despite the tendency to make assumptions about people and not pay enough attention to what's going on with them, Ellie is also something of a nitpicker and perfectionist. It seems to be a habit learned from her dad, who from all accounts is rather similar to Ellie. A repeated mantra of hers is “time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted”, which she got from her father.

She isn't fearless by any means. In fact, she is frequently afraid, but forces herself to “think brave,” as suggested by Homer, and it becomes another mantra. Overcoming her fear and carrying on despite it is something she managed to do again and again. Self reliance – and almost an inability to put total faith in the others, at times – come to mean that she volunteers for different challenges again and again. While she doesn't always trust the others to do things as well as she could, she sometimes resents the way they lean on her. She's conflicted between pride at being a leader, and exhaustion at being someone the others turn to. She's just as dependent on the others at they are of her, but tends to resent people for not stepping up and isn't especially forgiving.

As the war goes on, she becomes more judgemental and humourless. The moral dilemmas and constant traumas of the war really break her down a lot, in terms of being a pleasant ball of sunshine. It isn't that she's an awful person, but the war makes her incredibly harsh and closed off, and she has to try really hard to be aware. Alongside that she develops a nasty tendency for mood swings, hypervigilance and some pretty intense anxiety, which sometimes seems to get replaced by an overwhelming apathy, or something just out and out anger at everything and everyone.

When it evens out, Ellie has her good qualities, and her bad ones. The good do seem to outweigh the bad, though that isn't always very apparent, and a lot of it comes from the influence of her friends. Her problems are definitely heightened by being in a war zone, but since Exilium is a very different environment to what she is facing at home, she'll eventually get back to being a bit more like her old self again and not so much of a time bomb.

» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON:
Ellie will be choosing an AK-47 from the Initiative armoury; she's used assault and hunting rifles before in canon, but she won't have either at the time that she arrives in game.
The weapon itself will begin as being silent, without that telltale “uh oh, a shot sure just got fired” sound. In canon, the fear of being seen/caught/killed is a big feature, and something Ellie is frequently struggling with. They often have to make dashes after being spotted or stay still for hours, or just do random and brave/stupid things to keep each other alive and out of danger. As a result of this kind of deeply ingrained fear and awareness of her surrounds from canon, it'd be awesome if her weapon could evolve to gradually grant Ellie stealth powers, with the progression going as follows:

• silent gun (constant)
• enhanced weapon range & eyesight/accuracy (constant)
• silent movement (eg. no footsteps even on gravel • uncontrolled/instinctive ❯ controlled)
• shadow camouflage (ability to blend into shadows • uncontrolled/instinctive ❯ controlled)
• camouflage (ability to blend into immediate surroundings regardless of light • controlled)
• invisibility (controlled)
• invisibility "area of effect" - because of Ellie's desire to protect her group as well as herself, it would be awesome if she could have an “area of effect” type deal with her silence and invisibility so that she is not the only one who can be Ultra Stealthy (uncontrolled/instinctive ❯ controlled)
• imperceptibility (controlled) - it would take Ellie a long time to get to this point, and I'd also be totally willing to discuss with other players so as not to overpower her; I actually think it would be more interesting for Ellie to not know the limits of this and to sometimes be caught out with telepaths and other power wielders, and I'd be sure to communicate with other players on that front. Mostly it'd be kind of cool if she had the capacity to sometimes avoid detection completely in case it should be useful for Plot Things, or something.

With the "instinctive"aspect, Ellie's desire to not be heard/seen, and so on, is something that spikes like crazy sometimes, so I thought that could be a trigger for them to first manifest. I figure it'd take her a while to figure out her advances in powers and how to master them since... what is powers.


Character INVENTORY:
I actually have a list of things that Ellie had in her pocket at this point of canon. Yes. A canon list. I love this book series so dearly.
• biro pen
• a couple of Panadol painkillers in foil
• a tampon
• New Zealand compass
• photo of her parents
• ring that her friend Robyn gave her for her twelfth birthday
• handkerchief
• watch
• folding knife

» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
( voice. )
( there's a bit of a pause before anyone speaks. when the voice does start, though, it's pretty low. flat, almost, like the speaker is tired, and her voice sounds pretty rough and husky-- and distinctly australian. she sounds decidedly... detached from what's just happened, considering it's her first entry. )

I remember, once when I was a kid. One of the shearers bought a kangaroo to the farm – not alive, though. It was roadkill. I couldn't tell you if... he hit it, or if he just found it. I don't know if that matters.

Anyway, he brings this dead 'roo over in the back of his ute, and hauls the thing off his trailer. I'm surprised he got it on there, to be honest. He and my dad, they took it over to one of the sheds and started butchering it. It was already dead, but they still went through all the steps they use for lamb or cattle if we're gonna be using them for food. Slice the throat, first. They took the whole thing apart, until there was just this... steaming carcass, and then they froze the meat for dog food, buried the guts so that the foxes couldn't get at them.

That's a bit what I feel like right now. Like I'm a carcass that someone picked up and dropped off here. It doesn't matter if I was alive or not when they found me. ( She laughs a bit, but it's a bitter sound. ) I'm here now, aren't I? Either I've gone bush crazy and I'll be dead soon, or I'm already dead.

My name's Ellie. Ellie Linton. I don't know if names mean much to the dead, but that's it.


Third PERSON:
Now, so far as going crazy went, Ellie didn't have a whole lot've experience. Some neurosis here and there, panic attacks, massive anxiety. Severe stress, the doctors in New Zealand had said, and don't even get her started on how many times she'd started and had to remind herself Fi wasn't here, let alone in the room. It was tough enough to swallow knowing that Fi had become her human security blanket, especially with her always trying to protect Fi, look after Fi, make sure nothing happened to sweet, innocent, convicted-war-criminal Fi. What she'd do to have Fi around, though.

She had roommates, she'd heard. Or been told. So much information had been crammed in her head that she wasn't too sure what she remembered and what was just bizarre flights of fancy. Roommates that weren't part of her group might take getting used to. “Used to” in the sense of not pulling a knife on them if they caught her off guard, and reminding them not to make sudden movement. They could put up a sign for visitors; BEWARE OF THE ELLIE. She smiles briefly at the thought. About right, she could imagine Homer saying. You're enough of a bloody dog.

Rare were the occasions when she could even think of missing Homer. The last had been in prison, and now it was... here. Just how and what and why this was still felt hazy, though she'd heard the rationale often enough. Initiative, time travel, some other stuff that she hadn't even thought of since the time when flopping down to watch a bit of sci-fi on the telly could happen any night of the week.

She's snapped from her thoughts with a growl from her belly, slowly pushing herself up from the bed and quietly, cautiously pushing the door open to walk towards the common area, the kitchen. Hearing unfamiliar voices was just... bizarre, these days. It takes her a second to psyche herself up before she can stick her head into the kitchen.

“Hey. We got any food?”

Maybe she should've started with hello.

» ADDITIONAL NOTES
Anything else you feel is necessary.