yooooo, question #7 for every character you've got c ;
Every? EVERY??? DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING IDEA???? H O W F U C K I N G M A N Y ? ? ? ? ?
7. What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?Ok I admit that’s a Good One. I’m gonna go through and find the most relevant ones of the active kids.
RiaOh, so much shit. Half of her chapters are just her whining about her childhood because she saw a fucking bicycle or some shit. External triggers can bring up shit for her—mostly city ambiance (car exhaust, bustling people, car horns and yelling and crowds), and sometimes children/siblings/happy-looking families. But mostly for Ria it’s feelings and mindsets that through her into unwanted memories. This is one of the reasons she steers clear of emotional connection of any kind. The feeling of comfort and dependence on others reminds her of the last time she felt that way, which is something she doesn’t like to recall. Ria’s major coping mechanism, if you hadn’t noticed already, is suppression. So she avoids memories of any kind—even the good stuff. It’s all mixed up with the bad. Any dealing with that kind of stuff distracts her from Getting Shit Done. Unfortunately, she’s SHIT at this, and is often swept up in thoughts of her family, her home, and her past life. A little part of her can’t help but long for these periodic accidental reminiscences—the only times she ever allows herself to truly miss her sister, her father, and her home.
JoAh, another Suppression Gal. Man, my Sotian girls are hot messes. Jo’s current work involves a lot of triggers—field after field of waving heads of golden wheat, the brilliant sun and drenching rains of the lowlands, little farmhouses and barns, smiling families with apple-cheeked kids… Like Ria, Jo tries not to think about the good, because it’s much too close to the bad. And for her, distraction could be deadly. Jo’s a little healthier than Ria about her trauma, though. (Or maybe she’s just better about being unhealthy.) She talks to people she trusts (ie people with a high enough security clearance), like Raja and Althea. Every once and a while she gives herself a night off to go to a bar with colleagues or stay in with a book and a cup of tea. She allows herself to stew in her memories during certain controlled times—so it won’t all build up and come bursting out when it could really cost her.
SanderGod, why are all the kids with Trauma™ at the top of my chart? I could have sworn there were some nice good healthy ones in here somewhere… Sander is mostly hit without nostalgia surrounding his little sis. His biggest trigger, of course, is Grace. It was hard for him to even be around her the first few weeks he lived at [redacted because the name is too embarrassing]. Grace, of course, is drawn by nature to anything she can’t have/anyone who appears not to like her, and so she pursued him to no end. Gradually, Sander developed a connection with Grace, careful not to project his feelings about his sister onto Grace. Nowadays they have a very healthy and adorable relationship, and though Grace still reminds him painfully of his sister sometimes, he’s able to deal with it. Sander doesn’t suppress as much as he minimizes. Raven’s often the one to find him in a mood—staring at a book without reading it, taking too many advil even though it literally does nothing except the potential of giving him liver damage, or fidgeting and bouncing even more aggressively than normal—and yell at him that no it’s not “nothing,” you asshole, what the fuck is up?
FisherWhile he doesn’t get hit with nostalgia too often, when he does it’s usually a pleasant experience for Fisher. Fisher’s a very in-the-moment kind of guy, and he’s a little oblivious to the everyday things that might trigger nostalgia in other people. Visiting home, or anything that reminds him of home—Delosian music, Delosian food, old book smell—always makes him smile. Fisher’s childhood wasn’t all cushy, but he never thinks about the bad stuff. Although you wouldn’t know it from his doomsday conspiracies, Fisher is an incurable optimist. He has the amazing ability not to really care about the bad stuff. Unfortunately, this can sometimes cause him to not even realize when he’s being having a not-so-great time. He might not even realize there was something better out there.
GraceLmao she’s a CHILD. What’s she got to be nostalgic about??
AsheOh man, Ashe is a fucking nostalgia king! Mostly because he just generally overthinks everything. Idiot can’t even jump out a window without a good old-fashioned childhood flashback. Ashe has also inherited my fun penchant for premature nostalgia—the inability to even properly enjoy a moment because he’s too wrapped ip in how much he’s going to miss this later. He’s constantly feeling as though he’s not fully in the moment, as though he’s floating above every scene of joy with a profound sense of missing. He has so much love for his friends, his city, the world, and he hates the temporariness of all of this. He can’t help but feel that every day he gets older and the world around him grows and changes and he is losing things. It’s not that he wishes everything would “go back to the way it was,” but he’s so scared of inevitably forgetting all the little things in every moment, every step of the way—the way Leo’s eyes close as he rests his head in Jason’s lap, how Dani’s hair ripples back behind her when she laughs, the razor-sharp quirk of Jean’s dark eyebrow when he thinks he’s told a particularly good sex joke—it’s all so beautiful but so temporary and Ashe is lost trying to catch it all. It all feels like it’s slipping through his fingers so fast.
RavenOh, Raven. If Raven ever gets nostalgic, no one would know. And if someone did happen to stumble upon Raven in an uncharacteristic slump of reminiscence, they wouldn’t live to tell the tale. I suppose Raven is something of a foil to Ashe (…and all my other characters, let’s be honest) in this respect. He doesn’t just “live in the moment” in the proverbial sense; his existence is so permanently ingrained in the now, now, now. Future Raven is an enigma; past Raven is barely even a specter. Raven is the idyllic teenager in this sense—all that matters is what’s happening, how he’s feeling, who he’s with, what he’s doing NOW. (Side note: this can be quite thrilling and frustrating for his boyfriend.)
Ok that’s enough of them for now. I got quite detailed. Sorry about that. I think my muse is so fucking antsy from me not writing in so long that as soon as I sat down at my computer to type this out she took the opportunity to vomit up some creative energy. Oops. I might be stealing some of this to help breathe some life back into the WIP. ANYWAY THANKS FOR THE ASK AMBER UR THE BEST.
