Elementary Contest Entry - Montenegro

For the OC contest over at

Montenegro
Name: Annica Cvetkovic
Nicknames: N/A
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Subject(s): Gym, Textiles

Personality: A no-nonsense young lady who believes that if a job is worth doing at all, it's worth doing right. She can be a bit of a perfectionist sometimes and is painfully aware of how often the people around her fail to meet her standards... and how often she fails to meet her own standards, too. She's not one to mince words and has a tendency to cut straight to the heart of a matter rather than beating around the bush. Annica takes pride in her accomplishments and in the accomplishments of others, however, and when someone does legitimately well she does make a point of congratulating them. (It's just that by her standards this happens rarely, so she can come off as rather standoffish most of the time.) She isn't one to lie to spare someone's feelings, and if you want an honest opinion, she's one of the best people to come to. She has a healthy appreciation for research and stories, and though she would dearly love to transfer to a Subject where she can learn more, she also has a healthy sense of duty: She's well aware that she's very strong physically, and knows she can be of use in the Gym. She has very little patience for careless mistakes and wastes of time, however, and though she'll be polite unless someone gives her reason not to be - she knows they have to cooperate for survival, after all - she holds grudges like nobody's business. Much of her harshness comes from very high expectations and she really could stand to relax a little. When you get her talking, she can be quite fun, but if she starts to realize that she's "playing around" she'll clam up and retreat back into her more formal shell.

Strengths: She can commit. She'll pick a goal and stick to it, and won't waste time quibbling over whether or not she made the right decision. Physically, she's very strong - many of the Dwellers she grew up around were boys, and she's been doing her best to prove she can hold her own with the best of them. She's also very good at bottling up her fear and dealing with the task at hand when in difficult situations; panicking comes later, once it's actually safe to panic. She has a very good memory and an eye for detail, as well.

Weaknesses: She isn't exactly a team player. While she's good at identifying what needs to be done, she's not so good at taking orders (especially if she thinks the order is a dumb one) or working alongside people who push her buttons (Zoran and Valon, for example). This has landed her in hot water on more than one occasion. She's prideful, and this pride leads her to overestimate her own abilities quite often. When she has a problem, she'll often avoid addressing it until it's almost too late, preferring to try and handle it on her own. She also has a rather unfortunate tendency to try and avoid messing up her hair or getting it wet at all costs. If you want to get her to stand down, just threaten to dump a bucket of water on her.

Likes: Literature, theater, songs, dance - basically, anything she considers "cultured." She has a soft spot for oral traditions and enjoys seeing how much of a story she can commit to memory and then tell from memory a good while later. She likes learning new things, and being challenged to grow.

Dislikes: Zoran Okay, that's only half-true. What she really dislikes is his attitude - she has a hard time accepting his pride, which is pretty bad considering how much pride she's got. There's just something about prideful people in general that rubs her the wrong way. She also really dislikes being interrupted from learning or telling a story, loud noises, too much of a mess, and her hair getting wet.

Talents: She's in great physical shape and can run long distances even while carrying heavy objects - which she figures makes her ideal for the Gym. Her memory is very good and, perhaps surprisingly, she's very good at embroidery.

Flaws: She's a massive hypocrite, for one thing. The exact behaviors she condemns in others are often behaviors she exhibits herself. It can take her some time to realize when she's in the wrong, and when she does, an apology comes so easily that it feels almost insincere regardless of how sincere she actually is. She has a temper, holds grudges like nobody's business, and frequently reminds others of their mistakes - she does it mostly to motivate them to do better, but that's often not how it's interpreted.

Relations:
Serbia (Zoran) -  She's known Zoran for a long while and honestly can't decide if she likes him or dislikes him. She certainly dislikes his arrogance, and the rivalry between him and Valon makes her roll her eyes. That being said, even when he's been a royal pain, he's been a consistent royal pain, and she'll be the first to step in if she feels like someone has crossed some sort of line in regards to him. It's okay if she gives him grief, she's known him forever; but someone else doing it is just so not okay.

Albania (Valon) - He baffles her. She's known him for a long time, too, and knowing him has done absolutely nothing to help her understand him. She often winds up more confused than annoyed by him, though she's of the opinion that at times he's being purposely obtuse, and that actually sets her off quite a bit.

Turkey (Sadiq) - She gets along with Sadiq almost surprisingly well - while they're certainly not best friends, he's proven himself to her on some level by showing that he is more than capable of handling himself. (I headcanon that Sadiq was actually one of the Dwellers that encouraged her to stand up for herself more when she was younger - since Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Montenegro's independence.)

Russia (Ivan) - On the one hand, she knows he's a friend of Zoran's. On the other... he's friends with Zoran, so clearly there's no accounting for taste there. She can sometimes find herself agreeing with his more severe ideas in terms of what they should be doing, but she's wary of him too.

Vash (Switzerland) - She respects him by virtue of him being the Subject's leader, and by virtue of him being incredibly capable in his own right, but that's about as far as it goes - respect. She has no strong feelings about him one way or another, except the occasional burst of annoyance when his neutrality causes him to not outright agree with her side of the division in the Gym.

Others in her Subject (Natalya, Gupta, Linh) - She is mostly ambivalent to them. She doesn't hold them in any special regard, but doesn't have any special dislike for them either. Natalya in particular, however, she is a little wary of - for similar reasons that she's wary of Ivan.

Other Dwellers - She gets along well with Lindita, having known her as long as she's known Zoran and Valon, but not so well with Alfred - the former Gym Dweller's attitude bothered her almost as much as Zoran's. She generally holds Science Dwellers in higher regard than others and if she's in the mood to talk, she'll seek out one of them: She's well aware that they'll provide more stimulating conversation than most. Other than that, she's polite to others until they show their ass, basically.

Color-wise, she's actually supposed to look more like this, but I can't use my tablet at the moment and my colored pencil set is rather limited.