My Cousin's Keeper/Tess Naylor

Tess is a main character in the books My Cousin's Keeper and The Last New Start, written as part of NaNoWriMo 2021. In TLNS, she is the protagonist and finds herself involuntarily regressing after moving in with her cousin Gabby, possibly as a result of the way Gabby keeps treating her like she's still a little kid. In MCK, the story is told from Gabby's POV, and it is clearer that Gabby is deliberately tricking and manipulating Tess to force her into a little headspace; including covert use of drugs and hypnosis. By the end of the books, the two perspectives will hopefully be reconciled.

Her parents don't allow her to drink, except for a glass of wine with dinner once at some formal dinner with colleagues. However she has previously drunk with friends twice, and her parents never found out. She gets to mellow-drunk pretty quickly, and has had a mild hangover after Gabby gives her too much wine on her first night.

After that, she gets some advice from Spike and starts leaving a flask of weak ice tea in the fridge. She gets into the habit of taking it up with her when she goes to her room, and going to sleep once it's finished, hopefully forming good habits that might stop her feeling so bad if/when she touches alcohol again (and also preventing her getting carried away chatting to friends late in the evening).

Trivia

• she is active on social media/photo sharing app Clatter; she also has a FriendSpace profile, but only uses it for keeping in touch with a few people like aunts and uncles (mostly on her mum's side of the family). The only active group she's on is for the school choir, who are putting on a concert at the end of the year which will count towards her grade in music.
  • She prefers XV over FriendSpace for most uses. All her friends are on there, and Ffrances sends her a chat request in TLNS chapter 72
• Quite practical - gets a travel mug of coffee before going out, to keep her hands warm on the bus
• Fixes her hair in the bathroom because her room doesn't have a mirror
• Has a very strong perfume called Emeraldine that's fashionable now, in a set with a matching antiperspirant. She would never buy something like that herself, but it was a gift from Aunt Mary. Apparently it's fashionable.
• Has some incense cones and a burner that were a housewarming gift from Kim. One box is citrus and jasmine.
• After she sees Gabby hypnotised for the first time, she's really eager to try it. She does more regression stuff than she would have been interested in because she is getting curious about hypnosis.

Hypnosis

• Set in chapter 34 (ish): If she dresses or acts like a child, then it will be more natural to accept other people treating her like a child. It won't upset her, and will make her more likely to go along with what 'adults' say.
• Bedwetting control trigger.
  • If someone she trusts with that power (explicitly including Gabby) tells her that she won't have an accident, then she won't, and also won't do anything that makes it likely (so, for example, she will remember to use the bathroom before bed), and will feel more confident knowing that she is protected
  • Conversely, if a trusted person tells her that she will have an accident at a certain time, it will happen. This includes making her forget to use the bathroom beforehand, and drink enough that it's possible.
  • In Act II: If she was going to ask Gabby to tell her not to have an accident, the positive trigger makes her forget. She doesn't remember being told, so it's always a surprise, and she will find that the accidents make her slip into little space automatically.
  • In Act III:
    • If she is told she "must" or "has to" have an accident (or not to), she will remember being triggered, and the feeling of helplessness will be heightened. She will enjoy feeling helpless whether or not it's the suggestion she wanted.
    • If she is told she will be "surprised" by an accident (or lack of), she won't remember being triggered, or asking for it. It will feel like a natural occurrence, something to be embarrassed or proud about.
    • If she is told to have an accident (or not) like a big girl, because she's an adult, or despite being an adult, she won't feel any regression or little headspace as a result of it.
    • If she it told to have an accident (or not) "like a baby", she will drop into littlespace extra hard, reacting to her accident (or dryness) like a little kid
    • The trigger now explicitly works at the time the person triggering her specifies, so Tess now knows it will work during the day

Clothes

She's started wearing a lavender robe that was in the room when she moved in. It "looks like the bizarre hybrid of a regular bathrobe and a Disney Fairies halloween costume", but is her size and is pretty comfortable.

She wears a uniform for school, and then changes into comfortable sweat pants and a T-shirt when she gets home most days. She has a few choices of fleece pyjamas, but is happy to go to bed in her T-shirt rather than get changed for bed when she's already sleepy.

Little Outfit

Tess's first little outfit, from the photo, is a set of green skirtalls with buttons around the crotch. This was originally toddler-sized, but was very loose on her. When trying it again, Ffrances has made a larger version that's tight enough for Tess to believe it's from ten years before, but large enough that it's comfortable to wear. She has a stylised flower made from the same material on a hairpin.

Relationships

• Spike Luger – "My Spike", totally not a boyfriend
• School friends – Chloe (+Rachel), Annette, Liz, Kim (+Evan), Tami (+Ashli Mortimer)
• Parents – John & Trish
• Older brother – Stanley Marster
• Gabby Noel – Cousin
• Ffrances Jones – Confidante

Studies

Tess has a usual array of high school classes. She has an almost conversational level in several languages from places where she has lived, but none of them are taught at her school, so she struggles to master French. She takes history, but is almost at the bottom of her class. The one class she really excels in is music.

Languages she understands include Russian, Spanish, and a little Chinese (Mandarin; better spoken that written). She doesn't understand Korean, and doesn't recognise the language when she sees it in the signs/billboards within the Captain Kairo anime.

Room

Tess's room is overwhelmingly pink at the start of the books, having been redecorated by Gabby before she moved in. The walls, blinds, bedsheets, carpet, and furniture are all different shades of pink. There is a bed (which isn't a standard size, being slightly longer and higher so she'll feel small), a changing table, a rocking chair, a desk (pink-painted wood), a desk chair (which looks too small for Tess, but is actually comfortable but the desk itself is a few inches too high). There are also stackable crates filled with toys and decorated with stickers of stars and crowns.

The changing table has little cupboards and drawers, all of which seem to be filled with supplies. Tess could probably have realised by checking the dates on products that have them that all this stuff is practically new. There is a drawer filled with goodnites, packed together. Tess noticed them, and considered wearing one, but refuses to admit that she needs them. She mentions that they have a picture of Moana on the front; but hasn't noticed that there are actually a couple of different sizes with different designs.

Later, Tess gets to change the blinds to pastel yellow ones which have an engraving that makes a princess picture appear as the sun rises; and the light shade is changed to a simple white one. She puts an clock radio beside her bed, and has her phone charging across the room to force her to get up when the alarm goes off (2-3 minutes after the clock alarm).

Her room is opposite both the bathroom and the spare room. The door to the left of hers is a boiler cupboard, where a shelf holds spare bedclothes. Outside her window, the street lights shine through her window and light up the ceiling if she doesn't close the blinds overnight. they're slightly blueish LED lights; and aren't actually on the street. The lights all have motion sensors so they only light up when people are around as part of the city council's power-saving initiative. But the park opposite had a cycle path across it, and the lights on that use the same system – which is frequently activated by trees swaying in the wind.

Tess has stacked some of the crates of toys so they make a flat surface, and has her suitcases open on top of them. She's been unpacking stuff as she needs it. She hung her school uniform on the wardrobe door handle, and takes casual clothes out of the suitcases when she wears them. Worn clothes go in a pile in the corner, before finally moving to a wardrobe or drawer after they've been washed. Similarly, she gets school books and other accessories out of her suitcase as she needs them, and puts them away in the desk drawers or on a shelf afterwards.

Freeing up a shelf for her school stuff meant she had to find new homes for some soft toys. "There were teddy bears, unicorns, a cute family of rainbow-coloured ferrets, and for some reason a set of tiny pandas whose markings included a single letter of the chest of each creature." They're being distributed between the desk and the bed when there's no longer room on the shelf, even though this does make the room feel a little more childish. She has made a habit of having a ring binder or slim box file for each big project she works on, even if the more recent ones contain fewer physical documents – they quickly started up talking most of the available shelf space.

In the corner of the room is a stiff canvas bag which is the right size to hold a single load of laundry. It was a housewarming gift from Ffrances. Tess usually throws her dirty clothes into the bag, and there will often be some scattered around it that she has to pick up before doing laundry.

The door locks from the inside only (like a bathroom door, so she has the illusion of privacy), but it seems that Gabby has no trouble opening it when it's locked. Tess tends to leave it ajar when she's not in the room, unless she's trying to hide something.