8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?
Well, haha, actually… funny story.
Mc, namely her rampant thick-headed romantic denial, is based completely on me.
Story time, huh?
Enter stage left: a girl I was friends with in secondary school (uuuhh… i think that’s middle school –> high school period for youst in the colonies) who liked me romantically.I think because I told her I was bi she assumed I’d have to be into her…? She never outright said she liked me, but… she was super touchy despite me saying no. I didn’t like her that way, but I was too young and wobbly to properly tell her to back off. Every time she made a move on me I was uncomfortable, and it got to the point where I became severely haphephobic and adverse to touching of any kind. I couldn’t even hug my own parents. Even after I cut off from her it took me almost a year to get over it.
… But yeah, the whole time I was completely in denial about her liking me romantically. It was a mix of genuine denial, anxiousness and insecurity, and… sort of my way of keeping away from dealing with her feelings? I was scared of her. And I knew deep down eventually I’d have to turn her down and that would start a shitstorm of uncalculatable proportions.
Having been through that made me understand romantic density in a way I don’t think many others do. I’m never frustrated by a character assuming someone doesn’t like them because I’ve been in their shoes. And when writing Aggre, just for once, I wanted to insert myself into a situation where the attention I was receiving was positive and something I wanted- not something that was being forced on me.
