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[mm_adiva]

Comment with your pup and mine, and I will tell you:

1) Why they don't get along.
2) How my pup's opinion of yours has changed over time.

Or possibly I'll just ramble at you about interactions. You know how it goes.

Milliways, present and past
Nita Callahan (nita_callahan)
Charles Wallace Murry (thisfatefulhour)
Carmela Rodriguez (i_grenfelz)
Valerie (evryinchbut1)
Tom (re_mybrains)
Kim Merrill (cant_kimNirupam

Comments

[adiva_calandia]

Whoo. It's complicated.

Okay, when Charles first met River, I think he recognized her as similar to himself -- but he didn't really know what had happened to her, why she was different, so he tried to treat her like anyone else. With, eh, varying success, as I recall.

When his own version of the Academy came along, and River warned him off, his view of her changed drastically. For one thing, it gave him some of idea of why she is like she is -- that was an emotional enough scene that I suspect he picked up quite a bit of jumbled information without knowing what he was picking up -- and it also gave him a sense that River cares, at least a little, about what happens to him, and that he owes her something for her warning. Meeting the rest of the Academy kids deepened the understanding of what happened to her, and the sense of indebtedness.

His experience of being thrown wide open has changed things again. He feels, now, that he has to be extra careful around her, watch what he's saying and feeling and thinking, because being open like she is, like he was -- it hurt, more often than not. It was confusing and frightening and overwhelming and painful and he can just barely imagine living like that all the time. So he's trying so hard to be sensitive and not trigger bad memories for River -- but he knows that no matter how hard he tries, he'll probably always hurt her.

Charles wishes they could get along better. So do I. Personally, I think if he'd lighten up and not infuse every conversation he ever has with DEEP MEANING, he might have better luck.

Oh -- I may have mentioned this before? I don't remember. But. River reminds Charles of Zyll, the Old Man's daughter -- more than Taos!Zillah does, actually. Zyll was a dancer; so's River. They both seem inclined to defy gravity. So there's both a joy at seeing someone so like Zyll (in my Millicanon, Charles gets secondhand emotions from Madoc etc sometimes, which doesn't help in lightening him up), but there's also a pang in seeing someone so like Zyll so clearly broken.

(Also randomly, I think that over in Taosverse, their positions would be almost reversed, because Academy!Charles' big thing is that he's left his world and family -- Like father, like son -- and River has Simon, and her crew, and heck, in Milliways she has her parents.)

Okay, enough addenda, I should go back to my midterm.

[river_meimei]

Ooooh. You hadn't mentioned the Zyll thing before, no, and that's interesting. And makes a lot of sense.

(As does the Taosverse thing. Ahaha. And yeah, one of the many, many aspects of River's complicated attitude towards Taos and all its kids is the fact that she knows she was luckier than most of them. She got out first; she has Simon and the crew and even her parents, now. And if some of them are friends she doesn't see very often at all any more, and if her closest friend at the Academy she'll never see again -- they'll never see their parents or their universe, and that's huge.)

Charles wishes they could get along better. So do I. Personally, I think if he'd lighten up and not infuse every conversation he ever has with DEEP MEANING, he might have better luck.

*snickers* Yyyyeah. Oh, Charles. *ruffles his hair* Maybe if he lightens up, it will help, yes! Plus he ought to in general for his own sake. Perhaps someone will teach him.

Right now it's in a way harder that he's trying so hard to be sensitive, because it makes them both hyperaware of everything. If the hurt is inevitable, River would rather just keep moving, and not have to pause to deal with apologies for it and questions about how to avoid it. *grin* Especially since she is very bad at a) having any idea how to avoid it, especially since what hurts isn't always what's actually said anyway, and b) explaining any of this to anyone. So if someone is trying to be very sensitive and careful and thoughtful and walk on eggshells, it tends to annoy her more than anything.

Even if she does understand at least a little of why Charles does.