#( lorelei ; in character )

[anatomical-puppet]

hello heartless nation :) long time no see

[characters belong to @abd-illustrates]

[spear-gsun]

Happy 20 years to the Imperishable Night

[ijsthee]

Diversity win! The weirdest, craziest man youve ever met who poses a danger to himself and everyone around him is gay!

[ari-biri]

stream sketches!!

a nyari and a mystia~

[acesw]

Disabled Characters in Reverse: 1999 - Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of this list of disabled characters in Reverse: 1999, and I do want to say that this list is quite interesting because there's few characters mentioned here. This post will cover the characters with psychological disabilities.

Yet, there's so much complexities to them, and their stories that reflect their mental states are so well-done. I incredibly appreciate these characters for how their characters are written.

Additionally, some of the characters here were not listed on twitter, but I decided to put them here because I realized that there are more insanely traumatized characters than I thought. Let's get started.

C-PTSD and related conditions: Mesmer Jr., Mondlicht, Pavia, Isolde, Kakania, Lopera

Mesmer Jr.’s character has heavily implied throughout the main story and her own to have OCD as a result of the traumatic experiences she had gone through from her field of work and her family’s history in it. She identifies that she has “incurable” anxiety, which causes her to think differently about arcanists and act a little irrationally from our own perspective. This anxiety results in double checking everything and having a slightly intensive routine.

This routine is created as a means to maintain herself and her own sanity, but an imbalance or interruption can greatly upset her. As a result, she has conflicting ideals, experiences hallucinations and panic attacks, has suicidal thoughts, and actively inflicts self harm as a means to cope with her anxiety. However, she’s calmer and at peace with herself when she’s left alone in a quieter and clean space, away from others, and where nature is heard more than constant buzzing.

Mondlicht particularly experiences secondhand trauma because of her grandmother’s stories about the bloody war between the huntresses and the wolves. She eventually dons the cape and goes out to hunt for wolves on her own. She then experiences her own traumas from it, eventually becoming an incredibly hypervigilant child. She’s often incredibly paranoid of the presence of wolves that she will immediately shoot at the sight of one, whether or not they’re real.

Pavia grew up isolated and alone to the point of his arcane skill awakening through it, and his wolves became a manifest of his own personal comfort from the trauma he experienced. He was isolated until possibly his teenage years, and breaking out placed him on a path of mainly bloodshed. Pavia has very little trust in the people around him and is insistent in working independently from others. He often also pushes everyone away from him as he struggles to form proper emotional connections to others.

Isolde is an incredibly complex character and I personally think that the story’s display of her mental well-being has been shown so well that I firmly believe that it’s better to see it for yourself. However, I’ll try to explain as much as possible anyway.

We find that Isolde’s arcane skill places a great amount of psychological strain among the women of the Dittersdorfs, and Isolde in particular had gone through a lot of traumatic events since childhood and is still being affected by her arcane skill even up to today. She experiences heavy hallucinations and neurological episodes, and has a tendency to dissociate due to her trauma.

Doctors in her era linked her and her family’s struggles with the “wandering womb” and described them as an incurable “hysteria,” but these have modern equivalents today. From @sleeplesssmoll’s analysis here, (which I highly recommend reading to further understand) the modern terms to describe parts of Isolde’s “hysteria” are: Somatic Symptom Disorder, Dissociative Disorder, and Conversion disorder.

Kakania suffered from C-PTSD after the events of Chapters 6-7 as shown in her character story. The overall experience shattered her in entirety, leaving her emotionally numb and lost. She’s been found to subconsciously self-harm and dissociate, and she has frequent flashbacks and hallucinations. Luckily, though, she underwent proper therapy provided by the Foundation, which at the very least allowed her to recover over the course of months. Yet, there’s still this mix of ache and numbness that simply describes how deeply affected she was by what happened.

Much like the Kakania, Lopera showcases very clear signs of C-PTSD and clinical depression after everything she had gone through during her childhood and the events after Chapter 8. This is greatly expressed in her vendetta against betrayal and dishonesty, and she has had frequent mental breakdowns after the events of Tristes Tropiques. Unlike Kakania, though, she feels this more deeply and has no support system to rely on.

She expresses such a profound numbness and attachment to her trauma and fears of betrayal, and it's heartbreaking considering that she is only still a child. We may see more in her character story, which I look forward to in the latter half of 2.2.

Non PTSD-Related characters

Baby Blue - Alice in Wonderland syndrome (Dysmetropsia)

It’s no secret that Baby Blue has Alice in Wonderland syndrome, or in other words dysmetropsia. This affects her perception of reality and her ability to recall, but this in turn makes her arcane abilities all the more powerful.

As a result, she doesn’t realize that she’s growing up, yet it seems she doesn’t mind that much. This doesn’t seem to affect her physically either; In fact, it has a heavy influence on how she displays her arcane skills.

Poltergeist - Social Anxiety

Poltergeist has been known to be anxious in social settings which conflicts with her people-pleasing tendencies. She’s also insecure about herself which adds up to her not wanting to be directly perceived. At the same time, she doesn’t like being left alone as a result of having been ignored and forgotten post mortem. Poltergeist is also elaborate (i.e. not wanting to be looked at for too long) yet awkward at the same time when communicating with them.

However, I’m not sure how to describe Poltergeist’s case quite well, but the idea of her having social anxiety resonates greatly in my mind, so it can be treated as a partial headcanon.

Lorelei - Unnamed psychosis-related disorder

Lorelei suffers from strong visual and auditory hallucinations that seems to have worsened over the course of her life. This “madness” had led her to often hurting herself and others, which greatly stressed her parents.

She also suffered trauma from people committing suicide on the Rhine, but it was repressed by her religiousness and her parents’ intervention. To avoid hurting herself and others again, her parents suited her in a straitjacket; she often insisted on securing the straps in them to maintain the straitjacket’s purpose.

Honorable Mentions

PTSD - Click, Lilya

*I just want to clarify that PTSD is insanely common among the characters in this game, so I only added those who very prominently appear in their character.

Being a victim of war, Click has symptoms that indicate amnesia and PTSD from WWII, as he’s still reminded of things such as landmines and air raids. He also struggles to recollect some memories such as how he died and his fear of those landmines.

As a child soldier, Lilya has been constantly exposed to war and bloodshed, especially in her firsthand experiences in the Juhalerat mission.  She has been found mostly drinking, reminiscent of how soldiers tend to drink to forget. (credited from: @/cherilaydi on twt)

Tuesday - ASPD (credited from: @sachisei here on tumblr)

Tuesday is interesting in that she lacks a sense of morals and empathy, and is incredibly desensitized to the social environment around her. (i.e. the motel) While she's not aggressive and even seems relatively gentle, she feels little to no guilt in harming and manipulating others, gaining satisfaction and pleasure from fear. She's incredibly fascinated as to how others approach it too, and would do anything to see its demonstration.

It's likely that these stem from the trauma of her childhood and adolescent years, but she has acted this way for a while now. (given one of her voicelines + her character story) She particularly stands out among other characters as someone who actively harms for her own pleasure. While ASPD is not typically considered a disability, it does hinder Tuesday's daily life and ability to empathize with others, so I think it deserves to be mentioned here.

Notes

I found it insane that there are a lot more heavily traumatized characters than I anticipated, and they all need hugs. For now though, you will find the other two lists down here.

Physically Disabled Characters

Neurodivergent Characters

Thank you!

[nano-konjaku]

[amalgamcorps]

01101111 01100011

[irraydiate]

[quiddling]

silas lorelei; v. human, div. wizard, follower of mystra & his familiar willowmere (:

[heartless-brainrot]

i did things

[startistdoodles]

I actually doodle a lot and realize I don't post the majority of them so here's a collection of doodles from last year -> this year.

feat. guest star Quiver Knight who is @ferahntics's

[arcanistsanctum]

A Series of Dusk In-Game CGs

[astra-knights]

first heartless fanart lets goooo!! i might make a part two lol it was really fun!!

pfp images are by @abd-illustrates bc im lazy lol and original meme below cut in case others wanna do it!!

[chevvy-ryder]

–🖤–✨–✝︎ HAPPY NEW YEAR ✝︎–✨–🖤–

[NC_RES]_00002231 mercs_raab_scharfenberg_002_TG_HW.file ///core:_not_found.file\\\

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⚠️ READ: Please do not repost/reupload any of my art here or to any other platform, or I will be forced to do anything to get it annihilated.

[ijsthee]

what it feels like to play lorelei and the laser eyes

[oneknightstand-if]

I thought it was just me, but it seems many others also suspect Cassandra of being the infiltrator. How interesting. Dear author, do you have any idea why she's the main suspect so early in the story?

I haven't seen any other characters be accused as much as she has been already.

Because mysterious and competent? Because all those "the detective was actually the culprit all along!" tropes floating out there?

But is Cassandra really the main suspect? She's come up a couple times lately, but I also had multiple (--? sometimes its hard to tell with more than half of the people being Anonymous) people mention Gwen and Percy as suspicious as well.

People keep giving the benefit of the doubt to Merlin and Adrian, though.