#can you tell that i'm an amateur psychology kid? it only shows in the Everything that i do

[love-d20-or-die]

Too Many Words | Trying to get into the Bad Kids’ heads

So far, a solid half of the bad kids have faced manifestations of their fears and doubts. And I’ve been wondering what aspect(s) of the other Bad Kids will be reflected and manifested by the Nightmare King?

Adaine faced the shadow creature in her tent - the manifestation of her anxiety and fears of helplessness, silently sitting in the corner unable to act or do anything but wait, paralysed by her anxiety in a manner that truly terrifies Adaine - being helpless against her illness yet again.

Fabian faced the weird Gilear!Fabian in his nightmare - the manifestation of his fears of being like Gilear: unfulfilled, mediocre, a failure. Of being less than unremarkable, just an avatar of powerlessness and failure. Mixed with the fear of not being a part of his father’s legacy, of failing to “write his name on the face of the world” and ultimately being forgotten.

Riz has faced both Baron and the Shadowcat (Kalina), two different but intersecting facets of his fears - not of lying specifically, but of lying for betterment, lying to escape. He lied about Baron to escape the awkwardness of the situation, to try to make himself appear better. Baron reflected the bad and toxic outcome of his lies, and Kalina reflected the kind of person he would be if he continued to try to escape, to seek selfish self-betterment, she is the negative aspect of his rogue nature: the hiding, the lying, the deception - because what is hiding and lying if not a perpetual escape? From the mortal horror of being seen, and dealing with the honest consequences of your actions. Kalina doesn’t care, reflected in her hiding in and movement through the shadows - perpetually escaping from the consequences of her actions and refusing the honesty that requires presence.

Now, for the possibilities:

Will Kristen be forced to face the doubt and confusion and feelings of being lost that comes from her central ideology being based around doubt and unsureness and skepticism? Or will she have to face a manifestation of the devout, blind worship she used to engage in - the scripted, doll-like mannerisms of a zealous follower? Maybe they’ll pivot from Kristen’s issues with her faith and focus on her interpersonal relationships - her rocky relationship with her parents and what they represent to her, her (seemingly) severed connection to her little brothers, her relatively recent but ride-or-die relationship with Tracker that she sometimes seems to flaunt in a weirdly kind of insecure way, her at times concerningly casual relationship with adults and authority figures, her odd interactions with the rest of the Bad Kids mostly evident in season 1 and what that stems from? Or will it focus on her relationship to her own identity as a lesbian - the comparatively unusual journey of self-discovery she went through, the fact that she doesn’t seem to be too hands on with Aguefort Academy’s LGBT community despite being almost desperate at times for connection and feedback, the ways she occasionally flaunts her relationship with Tracker with comments like the 69 thing and the jokes about getting a horse now that she’s gay that could point towards a need for outward validation of her identity that she might crave as she doesn’t get praised as much for being a multifaceted person as she did when she was a fairly standard worshipper and mouthpiece of Helio.

Will Fig’s manifestations of fear follow her nightmare trance in being about hollow fame and the resulting isolation - of being so famous that you stop being a person, that you never have to interact meaningfully again, never need to be open or vulnerable and open to getting burned like she got burned when her horns came in. Will this mingle with Fig’s rocky interactions with those around her, simultaneously completely open and utterly closed off - telling people so much and letting them know how she feels but also closing herself off from important and serious conversations to deflect and joke and pretend. Will it explore her relation to lying and how it ties into her self-worth and feelings of usefulness, how she’s naturally better at things when she’s pretending to be anyone but herself, how this prevents her from the kind of closeness that rewards vulnerability and facilitates growth into a healthier place? Will it explore her complicated relationships with her parents and how they’ve all fucked her over but are trying to be better for her and thereby reflect and be a foil to her own journey of self-improvement and reflection, of learning to be Figeroth Faeth and not whoever people want to see.

Will Gorgug be forced to face the manifestations of his fears of abandonment and lack of self worth - the feelings and fears of being abandoned that stem from being adopted into a family of accepting but very obviously not biologically related parents, from being so very Other in his environments and excluded by those who are not: the self-worth issues that come from wondering why your birth parents didn’t keep you, from constantly being so much bigger and stronger than those around you - from his parents and his house to his classmates in middle school who were implied to be mostly small folk or at least smaller people, all were nowhere near Gorgug’s size or strength. From not really having any friends that stems from that dissonance between him and everyone else he knew. Wilma and Digby are open accepting and loving but in s1 e1 their reactions to Gorgug’s expressions of rage - trying to teach him to sing and repress and not actually deal with any causes of his anger, fixing his bed but not teaching him how to fix it himself. They try to help but they don’t show him how to try to help himself, and so Gorgug often feels reliant on others and lesser than them because he relies on them as purely a berserker that pretty much only deals damage and his self esteem suffers. Will it explore how Gorgug’s desperation for parental validation and acknowledgement may have negatively impacted his perceptions of those around him and his own relationship with his parents, of how his relationship with Zelda seems to have moved pretty far for their shy natures in less than a year to be described as getting “regular [amount of] kisses” and how that may stem from his need for outside validation and reliance on others, and how his severance from this presence in his life has left him fairly sad and far more willing to do wild shenanigans in a reckless manner and how that’s not an entirely healthy response to maybe breaking up with your girlfriend.

Regardless of my attempts to psychoanalyse the Bad Kids at 1AM, I can’t wait to see what the D20 crew will do with this “facing manifestations of your fears and doubts” narrative.