Phosphor [&]

Something I've noticed about our FL characters is that an awful lot of them seem to deal with some flavor of diaspora:

Rafael is English and London-born, but mixed-race, with a Mexican father who died before he could really get to know him or the culture he came from. His older brother - his sole guardian - tried to teach him what he could. It was limited, a dilution of a dilution, but it was enough for Rafael to understand that how important it was - and enough for him to feel guilt about not feeling a deeper connection to it, about not feeling the "right" way about being disconnected.

Wren is a Khaganian who was orphaned at a very young age and raised by a retired London zee-captain, until the madness of Seeking tore him away. She can't help but be curious about the Khanate. She's tried, and failed, to learn Mongolian. She's convinced herself that she should never go to the Khanate or interact with any Khaganians, because they'd spot her as a fraud almost immediately. She tries to act as if none of this matters.

Nadia, a Snuffer, spent most of her life pretending to be a regular citizen of the Fourth City. When London fell, she adapted a new identity as a London zailor that she's maintained to this day. But her heart still lies with the Fourth City. She has to downplay how much she knows about the Fourth City in order to avoid suspicion. She has to come up with excuses for being able to speak Mongolian, for knowing as much as she does about Khaganian customs. She longs to walk the Khanate's streets, but knows that she'll always be barred from it as an outsider. (As if she wasn't always an outsider. As if she didn't spend her years in the Fourth City hiding her true nature, and wishing, desperately, that she didn't have to.)

The doctor is German. He descended into the Neath fully understanding that he would never see his home again - something he says was a worthy trade. Like hah, they never understood him anyway, and also, who needs the sun!!! But he jumps on news of Germany (particularly Berlin, his home city) rather more eagerly than this sentiment would imply, and he always stops by Mrs. Chapman's whenever there's a soupçon of the Surface. Letters addressed to him in German always get an immediate reply.

Claude is... pretty sure he is French. It's his best guess based off of the fact that he knows how to speak French, and that it comes to him naturally, as a first language. But he spent many years having his mind carved down by the irrigo ministrations of the Game, and he can barely remember anything about his past, including his childhood. He doesn't even know if Claude is his original name. He acts as if it doesn't bother him - until he gets curveballed by a memory that managed to survive the irrigo haze.

(It's really important to us that even for the white European characters, their backgrounds aren't simply fun flavor - that they're something very real and deep-rooted for them, with all the grief, however quiet, that never being able to go back implies. It's something that we don't feel qualified to write in-depth, but we try our best to at least acknowledge it's there and avoid... flanderizing? their nationalities? to the best of our abilities.)