#balloon party reverse 1999

[504py]

WOOOO!! balloon party back on the banner!!! just managed to get P2 getian after i lost 50/50 on the toothfairy banner LOL. i surprisingly don’t have any art of the birdman so have this thing i drew a while back! and yes this is the game that caused my hiatus LMFAO i’ve been obsessed

[takiminada]

she carried me until i got medpoc so it's only understandable that i must draw her once

[wndrvgl]

electricity

[acesw]

Reverse: 1999 : Disabled Characters

The game doesn't stray too far on the neurodivergent allegory for the arcanists themselves. But at the same time, there are also inclusions of other characters who are very much known to be disabled. So for this post I'll delve into that, just a bit.

Now, there are 10 characters that I want to put in the spotlight. These mostly lean towards being canon, but a part of these are also researched upon and shortened so the post doesn’t become way too long.

Cristallo, Rabies, Erick : Chronic Illness

It's quite self explanatory that Cristallo herself has a chronic illness. She was born prematurely, with an added condition that makes her physically fragile. As seen in the game, she needs a life-support system to maintain her health when she's outside. It's also implied that her condition may be a recurrent cancer, as her arcane abilities are tied to a machine that provides cobalt therapy, a known advancement in radiotherapy in the post-WWII era.

Rabies is an odd case. In his stories, it's noted that Adam cured Alicia through unknown means at the cost of contracting rabies himself. However, instead of the virus being acute and guaranteed to be fatal, it becomes a chronic illness to Rabies due to the abundance and use of arcanum. And since the rabies virus attacks the brain, his cognitive capabilities and ability to recall things before the present had been impaired, making him rather docile and animal-like in nature as a result.

Erick, as revealed in her anecdote, has a hereditary blood condition that came with her arcane skill. With her arcane skill making her physically powerful, overusing it will accelerate the effects of her blood condition to the point that it can become fatal. To prevent this, she also inherited an armband from her grandfather, Harald. The armband suppresses one's ability to use arcane skills, but by extension it also prevents Erick's condition getting worse.

Shamane : Amputee

Shamane's circumstances are also self-explanatory. He lost his arm for unknown reasons, but after having lived without it for 20 years, it doesn't bother him anymore. However as we know, he crafted his prosthetic arm as a means to avoid scaring kids. (which I think is quite cool in itself)

Ms. Radio, Bessmert : Blindness

Ms. Radio and our new friend, Bessmert, are both canonically blind. Ms. Radio has stated that she cannot see, and asks Vertin to left in places where she can feel temperatures to make her feel at peace.

And as we know, Yenisei (or in other words, Yenisei's VA) has stated in the 1.6 livestream that Bessmert is known to be blind, but even with that, she's a great researcher and guide to her.

Mesmer Jr. : OCD [Content Warning: Mentions of Self Harm and Suicide.]

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. In short, Mesmer Jr.’s mental health is really complex and would be better if it's explored in a separate post.

Baby Blue : Alice in Wonderland syndrome

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 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.

Balloon Party : Autism and Speech Impairment

Balloon Party as a child had contracted an illness that caused her to have a persistent high fever. In the end, she awakened her arcane skill this way, with her being able to cough up balloons that can be harmful or a cure to anything.

However, it might have also affected her speech because of the physical strain that comes from coughing, it results to BP's speech being a bit slow and having abnormal pauses before she speaks again. Though, this also might be a sign of her possibly also having autism, where rigid and uneven language development is a common pattern in how autism affects one's ability in communication. Her speech also has a pattern of echolalia, having a flat tone, and lack of control of it.

However, speech impediment isn't everything about autism, and there's a lot more about BP's character that also connects with it such as her special interests. I can better explore this in a different post, which will be explained below.

Last Notes

These are the characters I’ve written down, most of these are less headcanon and more of observations I’ve found when looking into these characters. Some people from the lore chat have also added their own insights on some of them. (Thank you lupjo for beta-reading through it and helping me out) 

Of course, there are a few more characters I want to discuss because of the implications of them having autism / ADHD, but these will be written in another post in the future because I still need to research and gather other information. Additionally, it would be an opportunity to talk about the connections between an arcanist’s and neurodivergent person’s relationships with modern society.

Congrats for reaching the bottom of this post, and feel free to add your own ideas or headcanons about the characters here and/or any other ones.

[soysaucepastry]

Balloon party fanart by me ✨️

[child-of-plut0]

Halloween official art!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[diveintoturmoil]

AAAWWW :333

i really need more such slice of life scenes they're all so cute

i'm looking *very* respectfully btw

[hallowwww]

Its the balloons party today ^_^ (ithink)

[hall0www]

Balloon Party :3

[raiyni-dayz]

The silly guys interacting cuz I said so :3

[harrowharr0w]

dump of old wips from the beginning of the year

[slurrypee]

Hiccup!

[uraniumnm333]

>get into reverse 1999

>pull balloon party

“okay shes cute”

>learns there are two other scientist/inventor types

>looks for fics where there all worsties

>find none

“well guess ive gotta write my own”

[wndrvgl]

my daughters switch their clothes

[acesw]

Reverse: 1999 : Neurodivergent Characters

I want to put my official disclaimer here that I'm not diagnosed with any sort of condition. I've taken time to do my research and take insights from my friends who are indeed diagnosed or well-versed in these subjects. So, I will try to be respectful as much as possible.

This is essentially a part 2 of the disabled characters series (which I highly encourage reading first!), but this will mainly focus on Reverse: 1999's characters who are implied to be neurodivergent. The term applies to a variety of conditions, and I found that the parallels mainly draw to autism. Because of this, over half the characters on this list fall under it.

I found that it is easier put out those characters first, and then place down the rest of the neurodivergent characters afterwards. Additionally, this is mainly focused on finding implications, but these are partially headcanons too. And also I apologize for the heavy word vomit that you'll have to endure. Now, lets begin.

Autism

37, Horropedia - The reason why I put 37 and Horropedia on the same line here is because they're incredibly similar to each other. Both of them are characters that embody one of the main stereotypes about autism: Incredibly intelligent characters who fixate on specific subjects. 37's focus is on mathematics, while Horropedia's is the horror genre.

They lace their speech with associations to their topic of interest, and will infodump about it unprompted. The two of them also struggle to pick up social cues, nor can tell if the information they're sharing is unsolicited because the information is normal to themselves. However, the difference between them in this is that Horropedia is more carefree about it, whilst 37 is more self-aware about the fact that she can't come to a mutual understanding with others.

Even outside of this their personalities are quite similar, arrogant yet kind and understanding.

Balloon Party - I explained this previously, but the main reasoning behind placing BP here is that her way of speech is unconventional. Her way of speech is slightly slow and having abnormal pauses, and it tends to be perceived as monotone and having a lack of control.

Like 37 and Horropedia, Balloon Party also tends to utilize her topic of interest (balloons and dreams) as a means of conveying her thoughts through word association and echolalia. She also struggles to catch on to social cues and (over?)compensates by association. (e.g. her praise voiceline describes Vertin being a great "party partner" and the "best kid and adult" despite not being able to exactly define the differences of a kid and adult.)

ADHD

Regulus - With Regulus, it's more of a headcanon than it is backed by evidence, but the main points that can be found for her is her restlessness and her impulsivity. They're common stereotypes in ADHD, and thus they aren't exactly conclusive. But I also found that Regulus also tends to bring her interests to light when navigating through conversations, and this with the reasons mentioned above makes me personally believe that Regulus not just strictly have ADHD, but also generally neurodivergent too.

Marcus - At first I believed that Marcus was autistic based on how she retreats back to reading as a means to calm herself, but the more I learn about her the more I believe that Marcus rather has the inattentive type of ADHD.

Firstly, Marcus heavily relies on having someone to guide them or support her, as she tends to struggle making decisions on her own. And in attempting to, she tends to overthink and get absorbed into it until something or someone snaps her out of her train of thought.

She also tends to take rejection very deeply, as rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) is a common but not definitive part of ADHD. She would resort to immediately coming up with ways to resolve the sources of her being rejected.

Lastly, she also has her impulses. This shows more prominently when she's upset or makes a significant decision. Its mainly shown when she decides to leave the Flannan Isles to the Foundation, to when she tries to fight Heinrich herself when she's enraged, and when reaching out to Kakania upon realizing a solution to her mission.

Eagle (1.9 Spoilers!) - Here, Eagle also seems to have the inattentive type as well, but a more established indicator of her likely having ADHD is that in her anecdote, Eagle was classified as having some sort of attention-deficit.

And throughout the anecdote, Eagle continues acting on her own impulses such as jumping to try to find the missing boy scout, and even helping X if it meant that it progressed her mission. She also doesn't take her rejections from the boy scouts well, and continued to try to join them until she was invited to join the Lorentz.

While these alone aren't conclusive either, they still give me enough reason to believe that Eagle could be implied to be neurodivergent too.

Others

Mesmer Jr. (OCD) - I've already described it in the previous post too, but I will condense it down here. As a result of her traumatic experiences in her line of work, Mesmer Jr. has anxiety, has routines that she strictly follows, and tends to do drastic actions (i.e. self harm) when triggered from stressing situations like routines being disrupted.

Pickles - While I'm not exactly sure if there is any evidence about Pickles being neurodivergent at all, @abyss-idiot pointed out that he was nicknamed as an "indigo pup." While this might be related to his arcane skill, the nickname is also intriguing because its like the term "indigo children."

"Indigo children" are classified as those who are incredibly intelligent and possess special talents or powers according to the New Age concept. However, this classification is closely associated with neurodivergence due to the similar descriptions.

Vertin, AliEn T (AuDHD) - Mentioning Vertin and AliEn T in the same line seem to be incredibly out of place. But from the insights of my friend Bee, it made me realize that the two of them have some commonly shared traits. This will be the longest one so buckle up.

For one, both of them feel their emotions more greatly than others, and the main difference being how it's translated into external reaction. We have AliEn T being noted to be very emotional, while Vertin is a lot more stoic but will be direct with how she feels in some cases like stress.

Another point is that both of them have executive dysfunction, where AliEn T cannot do "simple" tasks and struggles with them. Meanwhile this was more prominent on Vertin as a child where she had difficulty focusing in school and doing more mundane tasks. I also think that Vertin still struggles with this in the present, but has a support system that allows her to work more efficiently.

They also have certain interests that give them an emotional anchor. Where AliEn T's is the general subject of the earth and human society, while Vertin is more focused on wildlife. (i.e. frogs)

Here is where their common points diverge, and I want to talk about both of them separately here.

Starting with Vertin, most of the "obvious" signs are present in her childhood, where she is mainly restless and blunt towards most situations, and has gotten punished often for both of these things. While currently, her main indicators are her tactile tendencies (i.e. tends to touch others out of curiosity) and being absorbed into her thoughts quite often.

On the other hand, we're not entirely sure about how AliEn T's home society is structured, but it can be argued that his and our societies tend to parallel each other. For example, AliEn T is seen as a bit eccentric to his kind like the regional manager and co-workers because of him being emotionally prone and being very fixated on the Earth. (which his society collectively avoids) A lot of his points here imply that in his home society, there is a case where they have their equivalent of some of the struggles found in the neurodivergent experience.

End Notes and Credits

I did say that I would give credit where its due, so this portion is dedicated to that. I want to give thanks to Lupjo, Jager, Bee, and Send Help, and Abyss for their insights and research on this topic. (Especially Lupjo and Jager for providing help with phrasing this entire word vomit still)

Like I've said previously, not everything here is conclusive and these can be speculation or some sort of interpretation. However, every experience is different, and I think these characters here openly show that. Welcome to the bottom of this post, feel free to add your own insights, corrections, and even your own headcanons here. Thanks for reading.

[ace-c4rd]

the lack of love I see for balloon party is disheartening

like

shes just a little german girl who coughs up balloons !!

LIKE LOOK AT HER!!

shes adorable,, (also she's just interesting and i love that of her)