In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts? & If they have an LI, how much of their character is tailored to be compatible to that person?
interview with a cryokinetic / @redheadarcher
i decided very early on that the main jumping off point for kie's backstory was the fact that she can't touch anyone due to her powers and that goes back to her childhood: kie's mother saraswati - or sara, as most people know her - had an arduous pregnancy and nearly lost her life because of it because kie - even as a baby in the womb - kept siphoning heat and energy; after she was born, kie's father could touch her and hold her safely, by virtue of their powers being similar, but he didn't want to because that baby nearly took the love of his life from him, and so he had to be cajoled into it.
the only reason that sara hung on for as long as she did was not because of love for her baby but because, well, she put so much time and effort and energy into all of this already and she'd be damned if it went to waste!
so from a young age, there was a lot of resentment from her parents. her mother resented her daughter for changing her life and changing her body and stalling her career, and her father resented his daughter for almost killing her mother and for being better at wielding their shared element than he ever was.
(this also ties into the fact that, in my headcanons, kie's father got his ass handed to him by barron battle to the point where he had to hang up the cape permanently, shortly before the commander and jetstream showed up to make the arrest. her parents say that this is why they went so hard - too hard, their respective hero supports might say - on her training but it mostly had to do with taking out their frustration on the easiest target there was: their kid.)
not to mention that she, ala rogue in the first x-men movie, kissed yusef abbas for the first time and siphoned his body heat to warm herself up; after it happened, she screamed for help, and yusef's father arrived on the scene, but seeing his son in such a state of acute hypothermia triggered cardiac arrest, meaning that yusef's mother - who arrived shortly afterwards - had to deal with her son and her husband being in dire straits at the same time. luckily yusef made it through (with minor elemental powers and a new moniker) but his father hadn't, leaving yusef's poor mother a widow.
and kie feels so guilty for that. kie feels so guilty for every person she's hurt and for everything she let slip through the cracks (like gwen targeting will - she'll always blame herself for the fact that she didn't see that for what it really was until it was over). kie feels so guilty for her existence and is actively trying to make amends in any way she can, even if she technically doesn't have to.
and a big part of her story is her learning that she doesn't have to feel guilty for her existence and that she doesn't have to be the perfect daughter / cousin / friend / girlfriend / hero to be worthy of warmth and being touched tenderly and love.
which is a perfect segue into her love interest: it's no secret that i'm probably the biggest warren peace x freeze girl shipper on this blue hellsite (shoutout to all the lovely the warren peace writers who let me hang out in their inboxes and/or yap about them forever) but honestly? i just picked up where the movie left off. they started the whole fire and ice bit, after all! ;)
platonic or romantic, their dynamic just means the whole entire world to me and it's not just because he is one of the few people alive who can touch her without getting hurt (though that is a big part of it).
warren as a person feels so steady and dependable to me. like a fire that keeps you warm when you feel the cold deep within your bones. yes, he had a hair-trigger temper in the movie but that was mostly because will unintentionally pressed on a bruise that hadn't healed (and probably will never heal) for warren: his dad. after that, he pretty much did his own thing. and yeah, he can be a raging wildfire but on the whole, i very much see him as a torch against the night.
there is a reason why i keep comparing him to the sun from kie's pov. there is a reason why she is drawn to his warmth like a moth to a flame and could pick it out in a crowd.
he sees her for her, he makes her feel loved and safe. kie is so, so touch-starved and warren gives her the space to get used to those sensations. he gives her space to think and feel and explore and act on her desires, whatever they may be. warren, in general, gives her the space to breathe and be.
and in return she gives him a soft place to land; she sees him not as the son of a notorious super villain, not as someone who needs to be fixed, not as the bad boy out of every teenage person's fantasies, but just as warren. he's not destruction or a simple flame, he's so much more than that and so necessary.
it's not so much that i tailored her to fit him specifically, it's more like that those two characters found each other and slotted into place beautifully through threads and asks and drabbles and discord yapping. which is great for me because i love a good opposites attract situation and have since i watched sharkboy and lavagirl as a kid.
