Beautiful People- Rayne

          I am so excited to join the Beautiful People link up! I've read other people's posts and it always sounded like a lot of fun. And now Beautiful People is up and running again thanks to Sky at Further Up and Further In and Cait at the Notebook Sisters. You guys are awesome. Just saying.

          I had a  hard time choosing a character. Being unable to find a coin, I flipped a guitar pick (not as easy as it sounds). One side for Oddball of. . . Oddball, the other for Rayne of the weird idea.

           Rayne gets the post!

1) What is their full name and is there a story behind why they got it?

           Rayne.

          In Rayne's world, few lay people have last names unless they or their predecessors have created one for themselves or have kept up with their last names. In the times before Rayne, the government sought to destroy self-identity and individualism, claiming that it would make the people more unified pretending to have a 'world peace' sort of effort. The only people with last names are government officials and the favored ones who work for them.

2) How old are they, and when were they born?

           Rayne is about 21ish. She's a winter/spring kid, born on March 28th on an early drizzling morning.

3) Describe their physical appearance.

          She's rather tall for a girl. 5' 9'', almost six foot. Her hair is about shoulder length, "just brown, like dirt," as she would say, nothing outstanding. It's thin and straight. She's slender, but strong and fast. Think like a long spring: strong with wire and quick to pounce. She also has liquid gray eyes. She generally doesn't smile and few emotions show on her face unless she lets them.

(Bonus questions: 1. What is their race/nationality/ethnicity? 2. Do you have a picture of them? If so, include it!)

            Sadly, I do not know her nationality. The majority of people do not know their own ethnicity in her world since self-identity was destroyed. In defiance though, many have sought out their past to find their nationality and others have merely claimed one as their own. Rayne has done neither. She finds the latter ridiculous; if she was going claim a nationality, she'd want it to be correct. The former she has no time for since she has other priorities.

4) Describe your character's personality first in one word, and then elaborate with a few sentences.

           It would either be "conflicted" or "self-repressed."

           She's an extrovert trying to live as an introvert.

           She's very intelligent and knows what she's capable of, but sometimes she buries her feelings so most positive emotions leave her confused and sometimes she doesn't always understand her own motives.

           She has a lot of empathy for people, even strangers, but she doesn't always know how to show it.

           Rayne has a photographic memory. When she was a little kid, it would always run rampant and any small thing could trigger strong flashbacks that would take her away from the present. But she endeavored to control it. Now unwanted flashbacks aren't frequent or sporadic, and when she does have one, she can still function efficiently in her present world. Mentally, she is a very strong person. But when she was younger she had an experience that broke through her mental defenses and shattered her openess with people. Currently she has no idea that it even had happened because she had worked hard to forget it, and is now subconsciously repressing it. She's a bit of a ticking time bomb.

5) What theme song(s) fit their personality and story arc?

Dark Horses by Switchfoot
Sane by for King and Country
Fighting to Survive by Building 429
The Blues by Switchfoot
Crave by for King and Country (definitely)

6) Which one of the seven deadly sins describes your character?

          Definitely anger. She has no problem with confrontation or conflict.

7) If they were an element (fire, water, earth, air), which one would they be?

          The other characters who don't know her well would say fire.

           But really she's water. Because one minute water can be a roaring, churning rapids and the next it can be a gentle, smooth brook.

8) What is their favorite word?

Alive

9) Who’s one person they really miss? (It could be someone who’s passed away, or someone they’re not close to anymore, or someone who’s moved away.)

           She thinks she misses her brother the most. Keth. He's her only blood family. In reality, she misses her dad more, but she doesn't know it.

10) What sights, sounds, and smells remind them of that person?

           She usually tries to ignore memories of her dad on an emotional level. But her dad taught her a lot about how to survive- things like how to fight, how to fix things, how to drive a car, etc. So sometimes memories of his instruction will come back to her. But sometimes, things like the stars, cool, quiet nights, and seeing other fathers and daughters (all of which are rare) will trigger flashbacks also.