Monday DE: Childish decisions

[bjornwilde]

 Since we're in the middle of the kid resize plot, what is a decision (for good or ill) your character made as a child that still effects them as an adult?

Comments

[exiled_heir_of_the_eighth]

For Sahaal, it's not paying attention when he was told how to handle a gun. His subsequent accident on a firing range has given him a lifelong hatred of firearms.

Artyom went up to the surface of Dead Moscow at eight years old and accidentally let mutated animals run into the Metro. He nearly destroyed his home station, and he didn't even realize.

[bjornwilde]

Hank's was deciding to hide his mutation.

Sabine has that one science/engineering project. It's something that's haunted her life ever since and not only drove her away from the Empire but into the Rebellion really.

Sam's was deciding to fly. He's always wanted to help people.

Ahsoka's choice to walk away from the Jedi Order likely saved her life. It's tempting to say wanting to be a jedi but she never really had a choice as she was like 3-4 when Plo Koon took her from her home (at her family's request) and brought her to the Temple.

Selina's choice was hiding that she did see who shot Bruce's parents. Don't know how that will shake out or if it will come up again now that she's used it to get out of Protective Services.

I'll have to think on the others

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Deciding that, in the divorce, Takeru should go with their mother Natsuko, the much more attentive and warm parent, and Yamato should go with their father Hiroaki, who's well-meaning but ultimately not cut out for parenting. That a combination of loyalty to his father and out-and-out bullheaded pride caused him to rebuff any kind of contact with his mother for years also didn't help.

[camwyn]

Ellen's was probably deciding to sneak off to the Vault's reactor level and practice shooting her BB gun whenever she got the chance. Pretty sure she'd have been dead within about an hour of leaving the Vault otherwise, assuming Vault security forces didn't kill her before she was able to escape.

[death_gone_mad]

Amascut wasn't exactly a child, but this was early in her life relatively. She let her brother convince her that leaving the planet with him in the middle of a planet-wide war to find warriors to fight on their side was a good idea. They found the Mahjarrat, but she got left behind on their planet in a panicked evacuation, the thing that caused her brother and the Mahjarrat to flee "played" with her, and after she escaped and got back home somehow, the Mahjarrat betrayed her brother and the Kharid became a desert (caused by another major trauma in her life).

The world (and the afterlife) has been suffering because of her and because of the Mahjarrat ever since.

[irish_vagabond]

If we're talking about comics Cassidy, he ran away from home at 16 to join the voluntary rebel army against the English in the Easter Uprising of 1916. He lied about his age and was a shit soldier, even shittier with a rifle, but he thought he was fighting for a good cause. His older brother had to come fetch him and bring him home. Except Cassidy never made it home, because he was attacked by a bog vampire. (If the TV version ups his age to 19 as I suspect they will, it won't be much of a childhood decision. But there ya go.)

Pam also had a turning point as a 16-year-old human. She defied her aristocrat parents for what was the last time before they disowned her and kicked her out.

Floki decided to be a boatbuilder like his father. Well, it was fated anyway, but he accepted it and did his best in his young life to fulfill it.

Emcee had always rolled with the punches, so he didn't really have the luxury of choice during his childhood. I would say that when the ladies of the brothel opened their home to him, of course he decided to stay. He spent his formative years with them, and would never have had a safer and loving environment than that at the time.

[inlovewithwords]

Eriond: Probably that time he totally talked back to UL and insisted the Gods let Garion resurrect Durnik.

Lois: Is a kid herself, so her decision hasn't happened yet, but when it does? It'll be deciding to post on a conspiracy theory forum about the experience she has at fourteen while driving through Kansas late one night of seeing a man fly. It's going to make her a Very Special Internet Friend from Smallville.

Evelyn: When she felt a need to one-up one of her classmates (Jordan, who was later made Tranquil, because Thedas) and accidentally lightning'd herself in the face a bit.

R2: Whatever series of processes led to him surviving and being successful and thus somehow trailing along after the Amidala-Skywalker family in a slightly more personal fashion.

Anakin: "Hello, visitors from someplace other than the (sandy--I hate sand) back end of nowhere! Come stay at my house for a bit! I am nine and will cheerfully offer up my mother's hospitality and tons of help because you're a Jedi and clearly this means you're a Good Guy and here to save us! (and get us away from the sand) And also that's a pretty girl and I like her >_> so I'll totally do life-threateningly risky things for and with you all! Nothing can possibly go wrong! (did i mention i hate sand)"

Tavi: So 'child' is only barely applicable, as he was fifteen, but there was this time, see, that Tavi decided to be a teeny bit irresponsible and put off bringing home his flock of sheep until the next morning so he could get a girl some flowers--flowers she totally didn't even thank him for by returning his affections, by the way. It got complicated.

EDIT: an argument could be made the relevant decision was actually his decision that he wanted to go to the Academy regardless of his lack of furycrafting, money, or social connection and was going to find a way to do it come hell or high water, which led him having those sheep to irresponsibly leave out to try to impress a girl. Even if Second Calderon hadn't happened, going to the Academy would have left him with tons of life changes. But I think Tavi wants to make that argument so he sounds less like a complete idiot.

[misslucyjane]

Steve: His friendship with Bucky. It could--and is, it seems, in fandom circles and outside of fandom--be argued that everything Steve is and stands for has its roots in his relationship with Bucky. (I've deleted far too many words about what that relationship is. Ugh, I could ruminate on these two forever.)

Sherlock: He doesn't know it yet in-bar, but his relationship with his sister changed their entire family, quite possibly set Mycroft on his current path, and probably is what caused his own drug addiction to some degree--self-medicating against a tragedy he doesn't even remember properly. (I don't think this was done well in season 4, but I think I see what they wanted to say with the whole Eurus story.)

[balancingminds]

Charles: When he brought Raven into his family at about age nine.

Cassian: When he first threw rocks at troops which led to him becoming a part of the Rebellion. According to canon, that first action was age six and it changed his life.

Quentin: He began his fosterage at age twelve and his choice to be a good page which led him to Toby.

Sameth: When he first learned how to make things in the forge and became friends with Nick Sayre. I headcanon that both of these happen between ages ten and twelve.

Moist: When he ran away from his grandparents' home at age sixteen.

William: When he ran away to join his father in taking Ben Wade to Yuma, about age fourteen. His father leaving to fight in the Civil War did too but that wasn't a choice for him.

Ivan: At some point, he went from looking out for Miles because he was Miles to because Miles was his friend. I think that happened around ten or twelve.

Will S.: When he became Robin's squire.

Hm, I think for Tumnus, his choices came at an older age, same with Demeter.

[cameoflage]

Aradia is still a teenager, but hers is either agreeing to FLARP with Tavros and the Scourge Sisters in the first place or sending the ghosts of Vriska's victims to get revenge when she attempted to murder Tavros, both of which sent her down the path towards her death. She did find the frog temple while she was alive, but probably wouldn't have made the same use of it if she hadn't been a ghost; SGRUB might never have happened if she hadn't relayed the code to Sollux or had shared everything she knew about what the game did.

[iprotectyou]

Deciding to be friends with Chirrut Imwe.