#kweenyoc rambles

hmmmmm, I'm thinking that the worst point in their captivity for Sariah happened between the ages of 13-15ish

walk with me here. (if you don't mind the trigger warnings at least)

[tw. nsfwhump, noncon touching, noncon drugging, muzzling, forced prostitution, sexual assault of a minor, dehumanization, minor whumpee, nonhuman whumpee, mutant whumpee, multiple whumpers] [references to - starvation, broken bones, drowning, strangulation, child abuse]

I have been very Sariah-brained recently lol

okay so this is their basic ref sheet and what I imagine them in for most of their time post-rescue. it's really simple/easy clothes that hides most of their injuries/scars since they don't like people seeing them

Scar Ref. Sheet [tw. non-consensual body modification, electrical burns, medical whump, branding, self-harm, power overuse, lung & chest injury, partial nudity (they're in their undies)]

Sariah strikes me as the kind of person who is very very strong, but not in the way that one might usually associate with strength. I think they have a very Cinderella-type of strength. That quiet, determined perseverance to get back up and keep going even when everything is screaming at them to just lie down and stop.

I don't think they're the kind of strong you usually see in female characters either, which is usually some flavor of boss bitch or badass babe archetype. Which like, I love those characters don't get me wrong, but there's something so compelling about the strength of a character who chooses their own peace time and time again.

This is part of why I think they'd be such a good match for Kurt. Most of Kurt's canon love interests have been fellow front-liners from all allegiances, absolute badasses on every front and I love that for them honestly! But it just never stuck me as the type of love-interest Kurt needed.

The current one in the Uncanny storyline, McKenzie I think? She's... close, but the whole thing feels very rushed for my taste and I think her being human leaves her too out of the loop on mutant issues for it to work out long-term.

Granted I have the power to just insert Sariah at the beginning to the X-Men continuity in my AU so I admit that part's a bit unfair, but the rest of their characterization is where the real meat of the matter is.

Sariah isn't a front-liner. They aren't a combatant, the don't fight the big fights or throw themself into danger with the xmen team, and most importantly, they don't put the greater good over their own life.

That's not to say they're evil or that they'll sacrifice the greater good for themself! What I mean is that they won't force themself into a position where they have to sacrifice their own peace for something they can't guarantee. And that takes a kind of strength that isn't really touched upon I think with the self-sacrificial shtick most of the xmen have; that their own happiness is worth protecting.

And I mean yeah, the xmen's whole thing is about protecting mutant kind, I know, but they so often do that at the expense of themselves and Kurt especially. I think that someone like Sariah, someone soft and strong who focuses that strength on choosing their life and all the people they include in it, is exactly what Kurt needs.

Cause the reason most of his canon romances fall apart is because Kurt can't give up his responsibility to mutant kind, and his love interest can't give up their responsibility to whatever it is that they've sworn themself to, which inevitably ends up tearing them apart. With Sariah however, they love deeply and fiercely, and would rather bite off their own tongue than sacrifice their loved ones for anything else.

But they also don't want to be a hero. What they want is a normal life with their loved ones at their side. And I think that sort of groundedness is what Kurt needs in a partner. Not someone he can fight on the battle field with, but someone he can build a home with.

And it takes a very particular type of strength to say 'no. my peace is worth protecting, my loved ones are worth being soft for. I will not let the cruelty of the world bend me into something sharp. My hands are worth more than the violence they can bring about.'

See here's the thing; Sariah, at their core beneath all the trauma, is a fucking teenage dumbass. Like, I love the kid, but they're an idiot.

They can cuss like a sailor and have this incessant curiosity to know everything about everything, All Of The Time. But, they currently have none of the life experience to figure out how and where it's safe to actually apply that curiosity.

They are paranoid about getting 'caught', but they don't actually know how to avoid people trying to find them, and are very liable to trust and latch onto the first person who is nice to them regardless of what their intentions are.

They believe people quickly and react to every emotion they have like it's dialed up to 11 because they aren't used to having to think about anything beyond just. Surviving.

They are heavily fucking traumatized with zero means to cope with that trauma because they are trying to pretend everything is fine despite know that the people who kept them captive their entire life are most likely actively hunting them down.

And now they are attempting to navigate how 'normal' interactions with other people work despite having literally no frame of reference for them, so are just repressing the ever-loving shit out of all their issues and bullshitting their way through every interaction.

Because the thing is, Sariah desperately wants to not remember their trauma. They don't wanna talk about, they don't want it brought up, they don't even want to think about what they went through. They want to pretend it didn't happen at all.

But the issue is, Sariah does remember their time with the gang, and they remember it vividly. They genuinely are just trying to actively repress those memories into the abyss because thinking about them sends them into a panic attack near instantly

They remember their whumpers' faces, they remember Rick's full name, they even remember the vague area in the city the warehouse they were held captive in was located. They remember all of it, but thinking about those memories for longer then a few seconds leaves them panicking so bad they think they're dying

This of course is going to come with it's own problems, because they aren't going to be able to explain to anyone what the hell is triggering them until a while down the line. Mostly, because they're paranoid that if any information they give out about the gang gets back to Rick, the fucker is gonna use it to track them down and drag them back under his thumb kicking and screaming

And like, that is a valid fear for them to have because Rick has done that exact thing to a few other folks who tried to escape the gang in the past. And he made Sariah watch their torture as a threat.

So! Sariah's powers have a couple of major drawbacks I've included to keep them from being too overpowered, since subatomic manipulation is a very broken ability without anything to limit it. A couple of the ones I've cooked up are;

Extreme difficulty transmuting liquids and an inability to transmute gas

Sariah's powers work best on solid objects! The atomic structure of liquids would be difficult for them to 'grasp' and manipulate, with gasses being nearly impossible due to it's loose structure!

Internal temperature drops/Hypothermia/Nerve damage from overuse

When using their power, the 'mist' Sariah produces to break things down is very warm. The more they use their power, the warmer the mist gets. Conversely, in order to balance out the temperature difference from the atomic breakdown generating heat, Sariah's body will start to lower it's internal temperature in the area the mist is manifesting, going at a rate of about -0.25℉ every minute

Increased drawbacks when forcing mist past their palms

Naturally, Sariah's powers only manifest at their palms and eyes. However, with a lot of practice they are able to eventually push the mist into manifesting anywhere on their body. When they do this, their abilities get stronger, but so do the drawbacks because they're now more widespread. Their lower body temperature puts them at a higher risk of hypothermia and their own inability to gauge their limits means they are very prone to pushing themself too far

Fibromyalgia-esque pain in others when healing them

Now I think I mentioned in their intro post that Sariah was forced to heal gang members using their powers. They do this by keeping a hand on a healthy person's body part and using that as a mental 'map' of how to reconstruct a new one on the injured person. The issue comes in with the fact that when Sariah does this, it causes immense pain in the person because now all the nerves are like 0.001 nanometer to the left.

nothing is wrong with the person or their nerves, their body is just freaking out because Sariah did the equivalent of remaking part of it's room from scratch and moving everything an inch to the left

God Sariah would have so many issues around their name it's not even funny

Like on one hand, I don't think they'll ever know if their name was the actual one their parents planned to give them at birth, or just one assigned to them by the Orphanage. And I personally like the angst of keeping that ambiguous

But! The main reason I can see them having issues around their name is because their main whumper only ever called them by it when he was torturing correcting them, otherwise referring to them as a daemon/demon in every other situtation