World in reverse and star for a character of your choice?
Thank you so much for the ask! I don’t think I have properly met you yet? Hello!! Hope you’re having a good day!
Let’s do Seymour! I do love him very very much.
The World in Reverse: What is your character holding back?
Seymour is a highly intelligent for a 16-year-old teenager. While he preternaturally intelligent when it comes to mathematics and subjects of science, Seymour falls short of emotional and personal intelligence. While he is endlessly curious about the mechanics of the world, Seymour doesn’t turn his natural curiosity in on himself. He lacks a sense of identity outside of the small, controlled space of his own thoughts.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Seymour is fanatic conversationalist. He cares about people and cares about what they have to say. He’s thoroughly genuine in every interaction he has with friends, family, strangers, anyone. He is particularly fond of Hadrian, since they both delight in the kind of unique company any individual can provide them. Seymour also has a lifelong friend in Raif. He considers him as a brother, despite the ten years age difference between them. When it comes to relationships, Seymour is a natural.
What is holding Seymour back, however, is his sense of personal identity. Seymour parrots and imitates others around him, though not overtly. He’ll mimic other’s speech and pick up of their ticks. Hadrian’s verbal tick is saying ‘in any matter!’ and by mid-book, Seymour is also using the phrase.
Seymour was raised by a community of people; a small but influential group of smugglers on the Island of Grey. The leader basically picked up this abandoned baby as claimed him as her own, and he was raised by the entire trope from that point on. But by eight years old, the whole smuggling ring was dead, and Seymour was left to a bookstore owner who didn’t give him enough attention. So Seymour basically raised himself, though his sense of family is a large unit of people--- a community. In the absence of that, he lost his own identity.
If Seymour was allowed to grow into his own person, he would be an amazingly smart, sweet, caring, and adaptable. But because he has yet to get to know himself, there is a part of him that remains hallow.
The Star: When has your character been most hopeful?
Seymour get to the age of 14 and begins to feel trapped on the Island of Grey. It is an autonomous pirate state, a violent and uncaring place. Through the indifference, Seymour survived, but the he knows enough to know that he can’t stay there. He has no idea how he will leave, only that he must someday.
While running an errand for his caretaker, Seymour is taken hostage by a belligerent drunk at knife point. A hooded man stands up from his table and fires off a single round, hitting the man between the eyes in a crack shot. It is Raif, on the Island to help the Waltz Rio resupply, just happening upon this kid being threatened.
Raif walks Seymour back to the bookstore, sticking close to him to make sure he is going to be alright. Over the course of the conversation, Seymour learns that Raif is the helmsmen on an independently run airship. It is in that moment that Seymour is the most hopeful he has ever been. He runs off that night with Raif.
Thank you for the ask!! This was fun (even though it was majorly late!)
It is law that if you shot the mayor of the Island of Grey, you are allowed a fair chance to be the Island’s new mayor. Raif is very, very briefly the mayor of the Island of Grey. He abdicates.)
