Member
Rapture
ErsatzEmpress
Crimson Flame
ULTRA SONIC
Level_5
ColdAtlas
Sep
sandstorm
 _______________________________________________ ELIO “ELI” CASABLANCAS | HOMOSEXUAL | 783DE9 | HUMAN, WIZARD ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ EIGHTEEN | CIS MALE | 5'7 | FIRST YEAR ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ☀ RATIONAL, HONEST, PERCEPTIVE, OPEN-MINDED, PACIFISTIC ☁ BLUNT, OVERLY-EMPATHETIC, LOOSE-LIPPED, EMOTIONALLY REPRESSED, STUBBORN ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ ▿ ▵ LIKES SUMMERTIME HORTICULTURE PIANO-PLAYING COFFEE DISLIKES LOUD NOISES THE TOUCH OF VELVET STRANGE MEN THE COLD  | s k í l l s & w є α k n є s s є s ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ STRENGTHS ☀ In the blood of the Bruja flows peacefulness and restoration. Though a magical novice, Elio has a strong inclination towards defensive and supportive magic, such as counter-spells, "utility" spells, and healing or mending magic. ☀ Eli is intelligent, with the wit to put it into action on the move. He can quite easily grasp new concepts and deconstruct them to their fundamentals, and his memory is equally as sharp as his mind. ☀ From time in the garden with his grandmother, Eli had a head start when it came to Herbology. Thus, he took to the subject quite well. ☀ Eli is emotionally resilient: He works well under pressure, and isn't easily frightened or upset. WEAKNESSES ☁ Elio is woefully disinterested in, and unskilled at, hexes and offensive magic. The best he can do is guard against it and win duels through attrition. ☁ Eli's focus on detail can often come at a detriment—it can be hard for him to zoom out and see the wider picture. ☁ Eli isn't very socially intelligent. He's no sweet-talker, instead having to rely on pure reason to sway opinions rather than gentle, methodical persuasion. ☁ Eli's stubbornness to stand by his opinions can cause friction with prospective allies or teammates. OUTLOOK / IDEALS / PERSPECTIVE ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Eli has yet to be properly, fully introduced to the supernatural world. He regards it on the whole with a sense of guarded intrigue: Like a scientist studying a new specimen, he takes a vested interest, and care to make sure it won't swallow him whole. Of the vampires, Eli is wary. Duplicity seems to be in their nature, and a combination of their insular social circles and the heavy regulations placed upon them is worrying indeed. They could easily be alienated from the rest of society, Eli reckons, pushed further into tribalism and xenophobia. Nonetheless, they're worth looking into—they "get around", so to speak, and make useful confidants. Their favour is worth courting even in a purely pragmatic sense. Of the werewolves, ELi is more open-minded. Still, he remains cautious around them—if only because it's difficult to relax around creatures that could dismember you with a flick of their wrist. He's not exceptionally interested them from an academic perspective, though their history with vampires is certainly an intriguing one. Otherwise, he doesn't treat them any differently to humans. To Eli, humans are fine. He has no exceptionally strong opinions about his own species—though he does find it interesting that, surrounded by all-powerful supernatural beings, it was somehow the witches and wizards that came out on top. AMBITIONS ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ➽➽➽ Eli’s ultimate goal is to find his place in the world—the whole world, not just the supernatural or mundane halves. Rather than give himself entirely over to his magical heritage, or shirk it entirely and live a life of normalcy, he wants to strike a balance. How can he have the best of both worlds, and enjoy all that his life has to offer without making sacrifices? Can it be done? Or will he be forced to choose eventually? Immediately, Eli’s goal in the present is to combat the tempting wiles of the magic world. He’s determined not to let the supernatural seduce him, and thus wants to keep his distance from it where possible. He wants to learn more about it from a logical, unbiased angle, and avoid being mesmerised into ignoring its flaws. In a similar vein, Eli is resolved not to fall too deep into the cliques and inner circles of Hawthorne. Rather, he wants to be an arbitrator—the diplomat that can freely glide from group to group without attracting aspersions or scrutiny. The greater the circle of those who consider him a confidant, the more freely he can learn what he wants to know. Conversely, Eli is not overly motivated to pursue his magical studies just yet. He coasts by just fine, but is not seized by a desire for power or mastery like some of his peers. FEARS ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ➽➽➽ Autophobia - the specific phobia of isolation. Elio’s greatest fear is that he does not, and will never, belong. For much of his life, he has coasted by alone, meeting and interacting with people but never truly interacting with them. He has never had a group or “tribe” he can claim to belong to, nor anywhere he felt truly at home. Consequently, one of Eli’s greatest fears is himself: He fears that something is fundamentally wrong with him, that he is an inherent deterrent to others. He fears the depths his isolation could cause him to sink to, and how difficult it could be to escape it. Atelophobia - the obsessive fear of imperfection. Elio must put his best foot forward, always. If he cannot do something to the best of his ability, he dreads it. He has a compulsive need to prove himself to others: To validate himself as a person deserving of his station in life. If he cannot achieve his best results every time, then why try at all? This phobia is minor alone, though becomes amplified when someone else is observing Eli. в í σ g r α p h ч ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Magically, Elio’s lineage can be traced far back to the dark ages of Spain. There, the Casablancas started as bruja: Witches, well-learned women ostracised from society for their ungendered inclinations about social expectations. Existing outside of both Muslim Almohad and Catholic Hispania society, they were soothsayers, healers, fortune tellers—far from the devil worshippers they’d been branded as, the bruja were devoted to using their powers to improving the lives of their families, and any community that would accept them. While the opposing religious forces skirmished for control of Iberia, they were free to live in relative peace—but that would soon change when the Catholics took control. After the Reconquista, the Spanish Inquisition arrived to deliver their faith from the blade of a sword. The bruja were an obvious target—heathens, occultist pagans that besmirched the good Lord with their sinister magic and permissive thinking. The bruja, though knowledgeable in their chosen field, were not fighters. Their magic was restorative, passive. They couldn’t afford to put up any resistance to the Inquisition—and thus, were helpless against them. To escape the witch trials of Basque, Eli’s ancestors devised a scheme. They cast the one spell that could possibly be used offensively—a hex, strong enough to curse an entire bloodline. But rather than use it to curse the Inquisition, they instead turned the spell on themselves: With this hex, no woman that carried their blood would ever be able to command magic again. All of their future daughters would be completely mundane, incapable of becoming bruja—and thus, safe from the Inquisition. They ultimately did not survive—but their children did, and so were taken into the care of a nunnery to be “saved”. The magic was banished from their blood. Though a tragic decision, it was ultimately a necessary one: Even in death, the bruja could safeguard their daughters. That was the exact word they had used. Daughters. The bruja had, after all, been an all female society. Unconsciously, their magic worked to ensure this, enchanting them so as to only sire girls. The repercussions of their wording had never occurred to them in their haste. Generations passed. Stories passed with them—stories of the bruja, of their fateful hex to save their family. The lineage remained matriarchal, but ultimately fearful of magic and its consequences, especially as organised religion rose to greater prominence throughout the wider world. Sons were born, of course—it would have been a statistical impossibility for them not to be. But over and over, they were told of the dangers of magic. Their mothers were terrified of it, their fathers either agreeing or dismissing its existence entirely. Their disdain for their magic was so deeply ingrained, they would never have dared to explore it. It would be many years later, in the early 20th century, when the tide would begin to change. It was 1965 when Antonia fled her ancestral home in Navarre, escaping the Francoists to take refuge in England. She had fought with the Spanish Maquis for many years against fascism, but was finally forced out as their guerilla resistance began to crumble. A rebel through and through, it was Antonia who finally had the courage to stand against her family’s dogma. She saw the bruja as heroes—women ahead of their time who lead their families and communities against injustice. Why would they besmirch their name when they had made the ultimate sacrifice to keep them safe? As she started a family of her own, Antonia was quick to turn tradition on its head: She celebrated the bruja, telling tales of their valiant deeds and portraying them as noble defenders. Her daughter, Isabela, was less enthusiastic about such things. It was the 20th century, after all—no one really believed in witches anymore. She saw the tales as just that—tales, bedtime stories passed down through the family. Besides, even if they were real, what did it matter? The bruja were done for. Her ancestors had sealed away their magic forever, allegedly. It had no effect on her life in the present, and thus was of no relevance to her. Redemption came soon, though, as Antonia met her first grandchild—specifically, her grandson. Named for his late grandfather, Elios Casablancas—her maiden name, boldly kept by her forward-thinking daughter—was brought into the world facing adversity. He never knew his father—Isabela barely knew him, either. A boyfriend who’d made a mistake and ran from it. But despite their differences, Antonia and Isabela were strong-willed women, and resolved to raise Elio together. Thus, Elio was raised by two very different women—one a dreamer, the other a realist. He was always closer with his grandmother: She regalled him with tales of her time rebelling in Spain, as well as far-flung fantasies of the bruja’s magical exploits. Greater than that, she instilled in him a destiny: He was an oath-breaker. He was the child that could breach the hex, circumvent its conditions and take hold of his magical birthright. His mother, however, took a far more logical stance. She encouraged him not to be bedevilled by fantasies, and to look forward to the future with a logical gaze. Everything was worth scrutinising, everything worth learning more about. Suffice to say that when contact between Hawthorne and Elio was made, he was sceptical. He saw no reason to doubt his grandmother’s stories: It didn’t take much digging to trace their mostly stationary family line back to the witch trials in Navarre. He was more satisfied than surprised when he finally began to correspond with the supernatural world—it was less like a revelation being uncovered and more like a theory being confirmed. His grandmother was the one he chose to confide in—and, unsurprisingly, she was overjoyed. She took great pains to ensure it was kept a secret from her more cynical daughter, helping Eli to spin an elaborate tale of a lucrative job up north to disguise his trip to Scotland. With little resistance, Elio set off for Hawthorne. Already an outsider, he was determined to break through and uncover the whole truth of the supernatural—flaws and all. He’d walk a fine line between the fantasticism of his abuela, and the rationale of his mother. |