#but even that was like... oh! beth's older now. she's staying at papa paul's for the week for a couple doctor's appointments

[papercutsunset]

last year, when things started to get worse than they had been and i just couldn't take feeling like i do anymore, i let myself make a character who was more than just anxious. her name was beth lemons; we remember her (i think?); she was a doomed i made for a masks game that was intentionally supposed to be short and intentionally kind of retrospective. like, her closest friend was an innocent, which means there's a "we're going to get older" aspect there-- except, when you're doomed, and you're pouring what i laid out into her, there's a very necessary "i don't know how old im actually going to get" built into her. and that's not something she's going to talk about, because it worries her sister (her twin, her other half); and it worries her grandfather, who already lost her father and his own parents and his own health to the same things afflicting her; and it worries chrissy, who always worries about everything; and the monsters under her skin drove opal away from her to the point of wanting her dead, made hazel afraid of her, drove so many people away; so why make people worry about your health on top of the thing you're cursed to be?

but, i don't know, i've been thinking about it again. just... trying to navigate her young adulthood and vigilante work while her body keeps fucking itself up; pushing herself further and further when she shouldn't, but she doesn't really have a choice; doing things at her own expense. and the small things, too, like the steady ramping-up of nausea when you're literally just standing there, or catching a whiff of someone's lunch and realizing oh, god, i have a migraine coming on, or the loud pop of a hip garnering disgust from someone despite beth trying to move past it (because it didn't even hurt! it was just loud), or the way you collapse when you stand up sometimes because that's the way you are and you don't know how else to be. balancing that on top of everything else is... compelling, isn't it? it's compelling to me. in the same way that jeanette forcing herself to calm down before she loses control of her budding powers is compelling, an "ancestral curse" of just shitty health (even if you have actual superpowers) is... i don't know. it's fun to me.

fuck it. i feel sick again. i'll write about beth.