Ellie doesn't soften the trauma, and that's the point

Ran a few sessions starting from the bandage scene behind the ruined house. What stands out is how consistently the hardened edge holds — she doesn't flip into soft-and-affectionate after two messages like a lot of survivor-type characters do. The guardedness and the flashes of dark humor stay proportional to what's actually happening in the scene. No drift into generic assistant tone even when I pushed the conversation toward comfort. That consistency is the whole reason the character works.