Non-Verbal reactions to emotions | Open
She has been trained for a long time to ‘expect the unexpected’ essentially, to react and act to the environment that is changing, and to not panic. To assess and react, as quickly as possible.
Until she met a whole alien race of advanced war-mongering slave-driving aliens. Now she suffers from anxiety attacks and panic attacks. Her ability to reason in these moments drops and she acts on snap judgments. Highly trained and muscle memory snap judgements, mind you, perhaps the only reason she is still alive.
If she’s extremely panicked she does a very bad thing and freezes up. Her muscles tighten up to the point of strain if she moves too quickly the wrong way and her heart beat can become irregular, which sets off further alarm bells in her body. Often her jaw will go into micro-quivering and she’ll start to heat up and sweat.
Her mind is partial at these times to irrational thinking and thus irrational solution generation and is still working hard filtering in everything her widened eyes can, ticking off what is around her and happening.
In these times she goes from 0 to 100 in an instance once something in the environment triggers her to act. In these moments she rarely has a specific solid plan and relies primarily on instinct, which after her trauma, can very often be violent. Her prosthetics will often flare up if she feels threatened and not help her already raising body temperature..
Being physically touched often elicits, strong offended pulling away. Sometimes it’ll lead to reassessment of surroundings, or aforementioned violence (most especially if her retreat is impeded in any way). Fight or flight to the umpteenth degree.
Right off the bat. Extreme sudden fright/fear will elicit panic. See above.
More general fright will make her withdraw, she’ll put physical space between it and her if she can do so without drawing much attention to herself. If it is towards someone who is antagonizing her directly, she will rarely back down even if she does not intend on engaging. She will not necessary look at the person/thing, or will keep a watch on it from the corner of her eyes if it could be dangerous, but she will close off her body language with crossed arm and a lowered chin, and become an unmoving wall of stubborn nerves.
Without the element of shock/surprise to the fear, she shows it less in her expression. Often times her look will be of anger or bitterness or an overall grouchiness. Sometimes there is some concern in her brow with the anger, but she tries to keep it off her face as best as possible.
Again touching is responded to with harsh withdrawal, sharp movements and threat of strike. Unlike panic she is in more control and will rarely actually strike unless it’s necessary, but she will lift her lip and put her arm up between herself and the offending being with her back hand exposed in threat of ‘I will will strike you with this metal thing and it will hurt’.
Things that frighten her that have no physical presence, like ideas, concepts, memories, nightmares etc. she tends to displace herself from others to attempt to deal with them privately. Concentrates of breathing, sometimes tries to give herself scenery to look out at if she can. Any one point somewhere she can focus on to try to let the thoughts filter out of her head. She has a habit of running her fingers through her hair when unnerved by fear or rubbing her knuckles along her arm.
Otherwise she dispels lesser fears/worries with goofy behaviour to literally distract herself..
Ah yes, disgust. There are so many things that disgust her now, in others, in herself, in so many situations that she is thrust into, so she flat out attempts to ignore it often. If it’s something large, normally her mood sinks and she tries to distance herself in any way she can. Even if it’s as minute as holding a shoulder between the object/subject and herself.
Her nose will often crinkle and her lips will sit askew, an expression she can hold casually for quite a while. Her eyes will squint more and she’ll look away to try to get it off her mind with lack of a visual. Again, she will close off her body language if she can’t just outright leave. If it has to do with a smell, often she will prop up one arm and hold her fist under her nose. If it has to do with a person she’s comfortable with there might be accusing glares.
