Thanks for the sum-up, Rose. I'm definitely still in; my sign-up shouldn't have changed at all, so here it is, reposted:
Elizabeth Katherine Grey
Aria - [Level 12]
Gender:- Female
Age:- 23
Country:- Wales
Status:- Player
Appearance
Elizabeth places a great deal of importance on giving off a strong impression. Luckily, her 178cm (5'10") stature and strong proportions help her immensely in this, accenting even the toning benefits of her regular exercise and rigorous posture. On the other hand, this can work against her, considering her sharp facial features and high cheekbones make all of her expressions look naturally more severe than she intends, and Elizabeth has to make a conscious effort to appear as approachable as possible. Much of this generally involves using personal care products to help mask these features, though she hasn't found any equivalent within the SAO system to be nearly as effective as she would like.
Her soft blonde hair helps take a bit of the edge off the rest of her face, resting about her collarbone in front and shoulderblades in back, though more often than not Elizabeth will keep it contained in a french braid with just a few of her forelocks left loose to frame her face. Her slate-blue eyes also suggest a certain calm air about her - though any suggestion of calmness is a bit fruitless given the rest of her attire. Of great concern to Elizabeth is her very pronounced Adam's apple, of which she is highly self-conscious and makes a great deal of effort to hide by always wearing scarves or tops with neck-covering collars.
Not exactly the most well-off in terms of equipment, Aria wears an undecorated but well-fitted white tunic with a high collar and matching leggings, with leather straps running across her waist as a belt and connecting up from her right hip to opposite shoulder to act as a holster for her weaponry. She does have a few pieces of tin armor equipped - a pair of shoulder-plates, gauntlets, and boots - but these cannot provide her full cover. For the bulk of protection, Aria relies on a traditional heater shield about 82cm tall and 70cm wide (32x28in) with a lion's head design on the front in white. She pairs her shield with an aluminum arming spear, bearing both on her back at nearly all times.
Personality
As a direct result of her daily life since school, Elizabeth's first and foremost concern in to appear collected at all times, with all the positive and negative implications this carries. On one hand, her emphasis on making objective, decisive moves and maintaining professionalism gives her a level approach to most situations, keeping her from sustaining major losses in the long run. This attitude has a way of bleeding into her personal interactions, as well - Elizabeth is anxious about the idea of joining up with unfamiliar players, a hypocritical trait in that she is closely protective of her own personal information. She is a bit quick to judge at times based on others' immediate merit, and her measured responses make small talk nothing short of an ordeal with her, though she displays an admirable riposte at pointed topics. Though Elizabeth likes to think that her businesslike tone of conversation begets an air of maturity, but all in all it can have more of a boring effect.
Her weighing of costs and benefits has bred Elizabeth into a creature of habit; to wit, she sleeps precisely from 11:30 each evening to 7:00 in the morning, always buys equipment at the same few shops whenever she can help it, and even drinks exactly the same cup of tea over breakfast every morning. Being so hard-set in many ways makes her slow to adapt to new things, giving her somewhat narrow experience due to lack of variety and making so much as the purchase of new equipment a hefty decision. Thinking that she makes fairly optimal choices, Elizabeth has a zealous sense of pride, making her irritable at direct insult even if she outwardly can restrain herself to grinding her teeth. Contrarily, this makes her a bit prone to slight lies in order inflate her own position, albeit never enough to create what she percieves as a serious risk to herself or others.
Elizabeth has always been a highly conscious person, though since she became trapped in SAO, "conscious" has begun to slip into "tense" for her. Seeing survival as her very first priority now, Aria threw all her efforts into increasing her defensive abilities. As she is largely unfamiliar with MMO-type games, her grasp on certain aspects of the system such as "pulling" and intricate crafting mechanics is notably fuzzy. Still, being able to procure enough col to eat and live comfortably demands that she gain proficiency in at least the more direct combat aspects of the game, and so she has become adept at basic grappling and controlling the space immediately around her by shield and spear. Out of her deep focus on survival, Aria has also invested a great deal in her abilities of detection, both system-guided and otherwise, though its success is slightly muted by her relatively low agility. In an effort to eat away at all the stress she accumulates in this "death game," as some refer to it, she has taken back up playing the cello as a hobby, although her modest ability with it is mostly thanks to the SAO system's assistance.
History
Elizabeth Katherine Grey was born into a split branch of the Grey family, indirectly a fifth-generation descendant of the Earl Charles Grey. What this means, skipping over any discussion of genealogy, is that at some point in her family history, somebody happened upon a particularly pleasant way of brewing tea. However, Elizabeth's immediate family was not even remotely close to heirdom, instead consisting of a quiet couple with two children living in a small town outside of Cardiff.
Of course, not being directly related to "The Tea Man" makes little difference to a child in primary school, so Elizabeth took the fact as a matter of pride when she was young. Expecting her to live in some extravagant estate, Elizabeth's classmates were frequently disappointed to find out that her home life was so overwhelmingly average. This in turn frustrated her, so she chose to keep on behaving as though she were as important as before, diligently keeping up near the top of her class in an effort to demonstrate her superiority, even picking up cello lessons in an attempt to appear cultured. She was in turn regarded as a fine student by her instructors, but came off as nothing but stiff to her classmates.
This benefited her a bit more at the University of Cardiff, where her attentiveness paid off and made her a bit better-regarded among her peers. She attempted to slide in to social circles here and there throughout her tenure, with varying degrees of success, though never enough to make become a regularly welcome part of a group. In a few years, this mattered little to her, as she graduated and moved to the suburbs of the city to become an administrative assistant with a banking firm.
As a formality, she was invited by a few other workers at her office to accompany them in buying the NerveGear when it first hit the shelves. Though she wasn't immediately interested, Elizabeth accepted regardless as a social gesture, and ended up buying a copy of Sword Art Online, expecting to use it with her co-workers. Instead, as soon as Kayaba Akihiko's announcement hit the streets, Aria was abandoned as dead weight, forcing her to learn the game from the ground up. She has progressed slowly but steadily in the time since the announcement, acting with caution and gradually carving out a role for herself as a defensive player.
Skills
- One Handed Assault Spear
- Parry
- Detect
- Musical Instrument: Cello
Sword Arts
- Guard Breaker: 2-hit shield technique. The user glows silver and braces their shield-arm. They then thrust the shield toward their opponent once, draw back, and swipe the shield in a blunt strike from right to left. High chance of staggering opponents of up to human size.
- Impale: 3-hit charged spear technique. The user glows orange and pulls back the dominant weapon arm to gather strength. Then, stepping forward, they strike three times in rapid succession, aiming in a tight circle that corresponds to the upper-right, upper-left, and bottom of a human target's torso.
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