Luis

SUMMARY

Luis is a cheerful, joking, goofball with a knack for history who encounters people's past memories that were brought back.

PERSONALITY

Luis is your joking, spunky, fun to be around pal who is not quite sure what life is like for others but does his best to make it fun. He has a penchant for telling stories and puns and jokes he loves that no one else does. He is a sweetheart and is always wearing a smile so it's hard for others to tell him he's not funny. Save for Amy. He also loves sports such as baseball and soccer. He is of Latino heritage like Maria but his Spanish ain't great.

He struggles to see other people's intentions as he's just so unaware. It's quite remarkable how he misses social cues that would be obvious to most people. This leads to him doing and saying things that seem completely innocuous to him but are far out of line for the rest of society. He'll make comments about people that others didn't want said or were said to him in confidence. He's a blabber mouth and cannot keep a secret. He doesn't mean any harm and would feel bad if he inflicted any distress. People will avoid this by changing subjects on him if he's about to say something he shouldn't. He's also known to just ramble about things he likes: girls, tigers, and sports.

HISTORY

Luis had a good early childhood with loving parents. He was very close with his mom and dad. His parents, especially his father liked to instill the courage in Luis to become something great. To be famous and loved. To enjoy every single moment of his life. To make the most of all of his days and nights. His older brothers, 1 and 2 years older than him teased youngest brother Luis but most of it was in good fun. His favorite memory was when he went to the local zoo and saw a tiger cub. It's where he first got to see big animals. It instilled his hyperfixation with tigers. He was able to get up and close (behind a window) to a big Bengal tiger. While the tiger didnt really seem to notice Luis, he was simply awestruck. Life was good for little Luis.

Unfortunately, his mom died when he was 10 years old in a car crash, just a few blocks from his house. His family grieved terribly. He began his use of silly jokes and puns around that time to cope with her passing. His dad fell into a deep depression, locking himself in the master bedroom for hours on end, in effect refusing to take care of his three boys. He developed a severe Fizz addiction. When he was out, he did his best to give Luis advice to make it, so he didn’t ruin his son’s life. But this didn’t work as it just made his brothers jealous. This introduced a large amount of strain into the family. Luis required special needs; he struggled to pain attention in class, behave, do homework, or even listen to the simplest of instructions. He was hyperactive and found fun in being the class clown. Both in his nature and to mask his pain he didn’t understand. To affect change in his home and school life, his maternal grandparents would come over to take care of him and provide everything for him about 6 months after the crash. He adores them immensely. But due to their older age and health complications, they weren’t always available.

Luis was a charming kid. He was upbeat, good at impressions even for how young he was, and generally friendly and kind to everyone he met. As a result, his grandparents babied and treated him best when they came around. This didn't sit well with his older brothers to say the least. Luis was young enough and unaware enough of life to understand his mother's death; the same was not the case for his brothers. Therefore, in a bizarre way at translating their grief of essentially losing both their parents in the span of a few months, they took it out on Luis. They began to tease him more relentlessly. This time, it took on an air of cruelty and condescension. He would be harassed for how he ate his food, how he walked, how he couldn’t pay attention in class, his longer hair, his music choice, his favorite TV shows, onwards and more. When it seemed like he wasn’t as affected as his brothers wanted him to be, they amped it up. They would go after him when he watched TV at home or doing homework and even at school. He began to break and really fall apart when it became clear that they wanted him to feel pain and he does. They’d try and break his toys, physically attack him with gut punches or face slaps. Even resorting to farting in his face. This worsened over the course of the year and maintained its intensity for years.

It became so bad that he would scream for them to leave his room or run away. He'd sneak away from home to a small shack near his backyard. He would cry and scream. The wailing of his child finally got his father out of a depression. His father felt terrible about how he didn’t care for his child. He left the house to get Luis a tiger plush, which helped, and it seemed Luis’ farther was going to be active in his life. Sadly, this was only for a small time. He kept himself sane by running away with that tiger to that shed. When his brothers gained more independence and was out of the house more often, Luis wasn’t driven to leave the house anymore and was drawn to music. Mostly novelty songs or parodies and counterintuitively proto-punk rock of the early 1970s. It just spoke to him. His brothers never really fully stopped when Luis headed off to The Cleanrooms. He just learned to cope through his hyperfixations. These days, he holds no ill will towards his brothers. He just worries they still hate him. His brothers moved away and his dad has tried kicking his Fizz habit.

Aside from his less than stellar later childhood, he had great friends at school, namely another quiet boy, Brad. Brad and Luis are opposites, but they attract rather well. Luis would love to talk to Brad about his hyperfixations of sports, tigers, and history. And Brad just appreciated having someone to talk to at lunch. Luis was also in sports like baseball and basketball. He wasn’t the best, far from it actually; but the school coaches appreciated his enthusiasm. He’s still the same doofus he was while growing up. The biggest worry these days is whether or not he will grow up.