#especially since the severity of the anxiety varies between characters

[luna-the-cretar]

If I had a nickel for every time Andy has made a character with anxiety, I’d have 3 nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but I appreciate that it’s become a sort of common occurrence

[cripplecharacters]

Hello!

I have a character I am considering be OCD (or possibly OCPD) and she is the narrator/POV character for a large portion (1/3) of the book. My issue is, if I decide to give her any condition related to compulsions, intrusive thoughts, etc, how do I get across the severity of the condition while neither pounding the readers over the head to the point of boredom/frustration, nor minimizing/erasing her symptoms by just ignoring them until they are relevant to the story? (The plot's focus is not on her disability, but disability is an underlying current through the whole book.)

I think this would be much easier of a balance to strike if it were a short story, especially since i have written short stories before from the POV of characters with similar issues, but this is going to be a full-length novel, and she'll probably be the narrator for like 60,000 words, and that is a lot longer for a reader to keep interest in her.

To be clear, I'm not asking for a list of symptoms or anything like that. I have been doing research and continue to, for that. I'm just wondering how to strike the balance between those experiences and turning off the reader from repetitiveness.

Hi asker,

What I think is you don't always have to describe all the thoughts in detail. If there's common themes/recurring imagery or the like in her thoughts, you could focus on that to minimize repetitiveness.

For example, if one of her themes is that she worries she might accidentally hurt someone, you could describe it in the first times it happens in-story as something like...

"As I walked next to Michael, I worried i might hurt him without intending to. What if I tripped and fell onto him? We were near the road. I always worried. I focused on counting my steps to make sure nothing would go wrong."

As in, you don't have to specify how exactly she's worried it might happen, or that her brain is giving her thoughts that it could happen in way A and B and C. And then, at some other point, when the triggering situation happens again, you can do something like,

"Michael walked next to me. I counted my steps. He told me about...."

However, you can absolutely embrace that repetitiveness as a narrative style. The more repetitiveness you write in, the more anxiety you are conveying, because you're conveying the thought loop that OCD causes.

You can also focus on the emotions your character feels during thought loops and compulsions to varying degrees. Sometimes she might be more distressed than other times. Sometimes she might just be annoyed. Sometimes she believes the compulsions more, sometimes she tries harder to resist them.

I would actually suggest picking up books with protagonists with OCD, just to see how this repetition is played with in the stories.

Books I can recall off the top of my head that I have read that have a protagonist with OCD are Turtles All The Way Down, The Goldfish Boy, and OCDaniel, and I don't remember myself getting turned off by repetitiveness at any point. I recommend them as interesting reads, but I read them all a while ago and can't go into much detail. They are all also YA or Middle Grade just because I enjoy those types of books, haha.

Hope this helps,

mod sparrow

[borkthemork]

Color Symbolism - How Steven’s Shirts Portray Different Portions of His Life

A quiet musing from last night had me thinking about this and I knew I had to do a bit more in explaining. But basically, throughout the three main SU mediums — the main SU show, the SU movie, and SU Future — we all know the main color schemes Steven adorns himself regarding his star shirts. We have salmon pink, bright blue, and the heavy black he likes to tow around, but looking into the way these colors were implemented is what we will dive into.

Color themes and symbolism are very potent with Steven Universe. From the use of pinks, yellows, whites, blues, and the menagerie of other colors we could think of, Rebecca Sugar and the crew put a lot of deliberate thought into the design, especially on a thematic level.

For Steven, not only do his shirts represent a very iconic symbol towards the show as a whole, but it represents the main arcs and emotional statuses of our main character throughout the show’s running.

Edit (11/30/19): For sourcing, I’ll be putting the links to stuff I’m referring to in my reblogs. However, my post already got hit off the radar because of Tumblr’s broken algorithm, so if you liked this post then I would be grateful if you could help reblog and spread the word as well!

And with that, let’s begin.

Pink - The Arc of Innocence and Nurture

Pink harbors a lot of connotations regarding femininity in Western culture (and even a good load of masculine connotations in Eastern tradition) but it has a lot more than that under its belt.

It represents tenderness, cultivation, gentle love, nurture, safety, optimism, strength, but most importantly the color itself is seen as non-threatening, calming to one’s eyes, inviting to people.

But with this optimism comes the consequences of lack of awareness or vision. How do you think the concept of rose-colored glasses ever came about? It’s always the idealism or ignorance of the person that allows them to not see red flags or the reality of it all.

And with that, we could start connecting this to Steven Universe.

Throughout the five seasons, this boy always had this priority of being involved with the people and figures in his life as a therapeutic role model. He wants to heal the corrupted gems; he sees empathy and nuance in people’s struggles, and this mindset definitely kept going up to the point of CYM and onwards.

He sees the best in people and wants to encourage them to get onto the path of improvement and healing. There’s definitely innocence at the start, even if his life and the show’s antagonists challenged him to the brink.

However, the lack of vision could be found way back to the start of episode one. Season one was a slow burn of information since the POV showed that his family dynamic was never challenged to him because y’know, it’s his family, they’re gems, and they fight monsters. It portrays his mother as an amazing person to his parental figures, a martyr who loved everything and everyone. There doesn’t seem much for him to challenge at the start because that’s what his reality is, his status quo. He never questioned it. Why would he challenge something that he believes is the norm?

Of course, this illusion of a perfect family does get chipped away. With each episode that showed his family as flawed — with the world around him starting to expand more with information, his understanding towards the severity of the situation and what his status is gets questioned.

Steven will continue to keep his cheerful paradigm, but weariness has implanted a seed into him (among many other emotional issues from upbringing, but we’ll talk about that farther along).

Blue - Stability and Tranquility

The contexts for blue could vary a lot. Very polarizing definitions such as the relation to inebriation, water, and everything in between could dampen the straight-forward process on how to analyze the color associations further; it makes sense for this polarization since the use of it in the ancient and contemporary world isn’t rare, particularly in its application towards clothing, art, and other forms of creation.

But what we’re going to focus on is the sky (or light) blue, the one that Steven tows around before and amid the SU movie. It’s a color that’s mainly associated with the sky, hence the listed qualities found.

”Light (sky) blue: peace, serenity, ethereal, spiritual, infinity (The origin of these meanings is the intangible aspects of the sky.)” -Color Matters

Jill Morton, a color psychologist, also states that the color has a connection to conservatism, passivity, security, and introversion (which are important for later).

For now, let’s talk about Steven and his main goals.

Steven, throughout his two years of intergalactic diplomacy, became focused on bringing about a new form of Homeworld, cited in the game as him deteriorating the former authority doctrine and allowing people to do activities that aren’t limited by their former caste system. And with this, he brings forth the aim of peace and tranquility.

Cue the events of SU the Movie. Now at 16, Steven has been hinted to have never had full-on rest for the past two years he’s been doing his duties to the Era 3 reformed Homeworld. In his announcement, he declares that he wants to finally go back now that everything with the former empire is stable enough for them to function without him.

His main goal now is to relax, have time for himself, and gain his “happily ever after”. And we all know that this attachment to this idea will be played out for much of the storyline, to where it becomes one factor for him in a whole slew of others that prevents him from channeling his gem capabilities.

The catalyst towards him returning is through the concept of change, the ability for him to grow and adapt even throughout the trauma and pressure; Steven, in this movie, however, didn’t realize this because he was already at a state of his life where he just wanted a break from the morphing status quo. He wants a moment to himself, away from the anxiety of responsibilities placed on his shoulders at the age of bloody 14, and overall, just allowing himself to be a kid again.

Yet, even with him helping Spinel and returning life back to the Earth’s poisoned areas, Steven admits to the prospect of never having a happily ever after, and that he’ll “always have more work to do”.

This is where the color of his shirt changes, and with it, the break of Steven’s ideal stability.

Black - Aggression, Power, and Death

But with the expectation of stability for Steven’s life crushed after the events of the movie, I found it very interesting that his blue shirt wasn’t seen or even used anywhere from the stills and trailer shots we’ve seen.

This could be a deliberate usage on Rebecca’s part to discern SU Steven, SU Movie Steven, and SU Future Steven, but I’d like to believe that in-universe, Steven’s wanting to change into black-colored apparel is a mental choice on his part. For black, in color psychology, is a color that protects...and conceals.

“In color psychology this color gives protection from external emotional stress. It creates a barrier between itself and the outside world, providing comfort while protecting its emotions and feelings, and hiding its vulnerabilities, insecurities and lack of self confidence.” -Empoweredbycolor

A great deal of SU content creators have pointed out that Steven, for the entirety of his own life, has been brought up with the idea that emotional vulnerability, no matter how potent or minuscule, can become a weapon or a pain for not only their own being but for the people around them.

I can’t delve too much into it, sadly, but I will link to posts that commentate more on this in my reblogs.

His upbringing has brought him to the paradigm of repression, where his own priorities and needs are swept to the side for other people — even extending to the whole body of Homeworld because of the way he handled his diplomacy. He had to solve other peoples’ problems; he placed himself rock bottom in importance, and now he’s suffering the consequences for it.

Out of all the pieces of symbolism here, black is the most void and mysterious because of its absence of color. It’s used a good amount of the time as a motif of authority, power, and fear, but the ones I’d like to hone in on are death and the concept of being overwhelmed.

Now, we have no clear indication over how the series will go but hear me out. I don’t think a physical death would apply in this situation but more of a metaphysical death — a death of one’s current self.

We find Steven at a crossroads: it will bring his personal imbalance out in the worst ways, and through the fact that the sypnosis foretells of him handling powers uncontrollable by his cognition, then we know that this is a force that’ll bring him into strife over who he is and what he wants.

What does he truly want for his future and how will he come about it?

In Joseph Campbell’s template called The Hero’s Journey, a hero’s death has to come about by a new revelation, a new form of meaning and objective than what they originally intended. The death of one idea will then lead to the true answer, something new the character hasn’t explored but wants to explore since the concept’s been there from the beginning, yet needed a push for it to be unveiled.

”Black is the end, but the end always implies a new beginning. When the light appears, black becomes white, the color of new beginnings.” -Empoweredbycolor

If Steven has been chasing for a happily ever after for most of his life, then a paradigm shift will have to occur.

He must face the brunt of his problems, and in this, he’ll find the answer.

[yunatheintrovert]

the curious case of Maxim Rykov's many paperweights

“Five minutes, Maximka.”

“Nyet,” he sighed out for the fifth time. His old friend certainly had enthusiasm for this particular objective but...well Leonid had a tendency to get carried away. And considering what happened when his friend was bored...Maxim was reluctant to say the least, “I need the man to be mentally intact. His intelligence must be verified after it is acquired, Lyonya.”

“I can be gentle,” Leonid idly said, tossing his knife in the air before easily catching it. Maxim shook his head. Lyonya was as gentle to a subject as a grenade was in a room full of people.

Looking at the stubborn look in his friend’s eyes, Maxim relented only slightly. If he took too long in acquiring intel from the subject, Perseus would hand the subject over to another...and Maxim didn’t want to have to go to that gas mask wearing bastard for the intel.

But Maxim wasn’t going to let Leonid do whatever he pleased. He knew him all too well to let that happen. For this delicate objective, there needed to be a plan...or rather several backup plans in place as well.

“What do you plan on doing with the subject?” The former para asked before he regretted making this decision. That sentiment only increased as Leonid smiled. What did the Americans say about that?

Ah yes, a smile like that of Cheshire cat, Maxim thought.

Leonid tilted his head slightly as if contemplating it before nodding to himself.

“I will poke him with the knife.” he declared. Maxim blinked.

“Poke?”

He nodded, raising his knife and moving it forward slightly in the air as if the action emphasized his words. Maxim looked on amusedly at the display before deciding to humor his old friend. Lyonya sure did love to put a little play on words, twisting the boundaries of orders bit by bit.

“Demonstrate how poking him with the knife on the thigh would be-”

And just as Maxim was about to reach for the wooden block he had laying around, he heard the tell-tale sound of splintering wood. He turned to see Lyonya’s large combat knife stabbed deep into the rich ebony wood of his desk.

He saw his friend staring expectantly at him as Maxim sighed, “I want the report on my desk by zero hundred hours. You are dismissed.”

The cut in his ebony desk only became more apparent after Leonid pulled out his combat knife that had been stabbed deep into his desk. He was as overzealous as ever in that demonstration.

“Lyonya,” Maxim said suddenly, knowing he should remind his friend of this one important thing.

“Da?”

“Poke him with the knife non-fatally,” Maxim said in his deadpan manner. He wasn’t quite reassured by his friend chuckling at the reminder. But he knew Leonid would ultimately listen.

Once he heard the door close behind Leonid, the former para let himself examine the damage to its full extent.

Maxim Nikolaevich Rykov stared down mournfully at the deep cut in his desk.

Ebony, it was.

It was issued by Perseus to all strike team field commanders for their offices...

But as the Americans would say, there was no use crying over spilled milk...especially if it was already rotten anyways.

With that conciliatory thought in mind, Maxim reached down to pull out the drawer of his desk. He stared down at the drawer filled with many paperweights of varying sizes. He looked over them critically before choosing one in particular that caught his eye in the past.

He strategically placed the paperweight over the deep stab wound in his ebony desk. Maxim nodded in satisfaction at the look of the sky blue glass paperweight in the shape of a bell with the VDV insignia etched into it. Each and every one of the paperweights on his desk were strategically placed there for this one purpose.

As he closed the open drawer of his desk, Maxim thought of the one rule he lived by.

Always be prepared.

_____________________________________________________________

Author's note: This is dedicated to the really sweet anon who kindly asked for funny stuff. I hope you don't mind that it's a funny-ish shenanigan that happens between Leonid & Maxim. I've been having writer's block recently and just a creative block in general and writing these two both brings me the serotonin and it's just easier to get ideas for these two. But I absolutely don't mind writing something else between different characters if you'd like! To the anon who asked for funny stuff, thank you so much for asking! Your asks have really been helping me get past my anxiety about writing and whatnot. I know it's been a long time since I replied (which happened cause I was an idiot), but I hope this little snippet starts to make up for it. ma

[rpmemes-galore]

How to write a character with PTSD / C-PTSD, pt. 2:

a follow-up to my first post here. 

*disclaimer:  this is entirely based on my own, personal experiences with PTSD. it’s to serve as a basis and guide, but not a firm rulebook for writing it. different people can have different symptoms, at varying levels of severity. PTSD is also often tied with depression and / or other generalized anxiety disorders. This will be extremely personal, and has the potential to be triggering to anyone who has suffered abuse / noncon, or has ptsd / c-ptsd.

WHAT IS C-PTSD?

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD; also known as complex trauma disorder) is a psychological disorder that can develop in response to prolonged, repeated experience of interpersonal trauma in a context in which the individual has little or no chance of escape. — wikipedia

C-PTSD is a subset of PTSD. Whereas PTSD is mostly associated with a traumatic event that only lasted for a short amount of time, or only once  ( eg. car accident, sudden loss of a loved one, ect. ) , C-PTSD has to do with prolonged traumatic events  ( eg. ongoing abuse, imprisonment ).   And depending on the severity and conditions of the prolonged event, those suffering with it can have varying symptoms and levels of symptoms. For this guide, I’m going to be focusing on the PTSD / C-PTSD that I, personally, struggle with: severe, caused by abuse and noncon.

In my last post on the subject, I mostly discussed symptoms and gave some personal --- or most common --- examples. In this post, I’m going to focus more on how it feels in order to help you better write your characters emotional state, mental state, and behaviors if they suffer from PTSD, C-PTSD. 

ANGER

In my experience, this comes up the most... anger at the people who hurt you, anger at the unfairness of what happened to you, anger at the childhood you missed out on. But, at least in my case, I’ve found there’s always a distinction between the people that hurt me and the actions. Eg, I hate whate they did to me, but I can never force myself to hate them. It’s a very confusing, and often times frustrating, distinction.... because sometimes I do want to hate them, but especially when the people in question were my own family members or someone I trusted, trying to hate the brings a sense of shame and guilt, despite what they did to me. Which brings us to: 

GUILT

First of all, it is not your fault. Whatever evil people do towards you is NEVER your fault... but, when you have PTSD, it can feel like it is. This feeling is especially strong if the abuse was in your childhood, and if you were told tat it was your fault it was happening... because, at that age, you believe them. And that belief is hard to shake, even into adulthood.  For instance, my parents were extremely abusive, mentally, emotionally, and physically. And they would tell me that what was happening to me was because I deserved it and had acted out / misbehaved. Even in the case of the more extreme punishments, they would pin it on me and act as though I had given them no choice to to punish me harshly. Recently, when I finally broached the subject with my mom, she played that card, again, stating that I was a  ‘ difficult child and they didn’t know what else to do with me. ‘  And despite knowing the truth at that point, and realizing that hat they did to me had no excuse, the guilt and feeling of responsibility was still there and hard to fight off, since it was so ingrained in me. It’s a learned way of self-deprication and it can be hard to unlearn.  A second part of guilt, is the guilt you might feel at speaking up about it or trying to tell anyone. Abusers can be very good at making you feel bad for them and making you feel as though you’re not appreciating them for all the good they do for you. If your parents are the abusers, a common tactic they might use is to say  ‘ i put this roof over your head. i buy you clothes. i buy you food. ‘  building up these necessities they are REQUIRED to give you as gifts and expecting you to be thankful for them and to downplay any bad they do. They may also shower you with love and affection immediately or shortly after a particularly bad bout of abuse, causing you to doubt whether you were abused or to doubt how bad it was, and to try to reassure you that they love you and care about you. They might slap you across the face... then come into your room a few minutes later apologizing, maybe bringing you a snack, ect. They think it excuses them. It doesn’t. But, it makes you think that maybe they are sorry. It makes you think that they didn’t mean it. And most of all, in their favor, it makes you reconsider telling anyone about it because  ‘ they made up for it, so it’s okay ‘.

FEAR

I’ve found there are two kinds of fear with abuse:  the fear of them, and the fear of telling anyone about them. Flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares, aside... fear has a way of seeping into your everyday life. You start reading into things. If someone around you is even a little upset, you brace yourself to be hurt, you expect it. If someone comes walking toward you, you might tense up. If you’re touched suddenly and without warning, you might panic. Certain, completely innocuous phrases or actions might fill you with fear because you associate them with your abuser. You may find it hard to trust anyone and could close yourself off from help... and this fear can put a severe strain on relationships, both platonic and romantic. You find it hard to open up, because you think you’ll be judged or blamed for what happened, or that the person won’t believe you at all. 

And on the other hand, your abuser makes you scared to tell anyone because, as mentioned before, they might make you feel bad for them. And you wont want them to  ‘ get in trouble for it ‘.  Or they might threaten directly or indirectly that bad things will happen to you or them if you tell someone.  Growing up, I was repeatedly told that if I tried to tell anyone about what was happening I would be  ‘ taken away and put into a family that doesn’t love you, and you won’t be able to see your friends, or go to ballet class, ect ’ , and   ‘ you’ll get us in trouble, and you don’t want us to get in trouble, do you? ‘.   They play to the part of you that cares about them and aren’t afraid to use it and the things you like against you, and hold them over your head. And it brings this feeling of helplessness and being trapped. 

I will be making a part 3 to this at some point in the future to add more points and explanations in, but I hope this helps give you a further look into what it’s like to live with PTSD / C-PTSD, to help you better and more accurately portray it in your characters. 

And if you are struggling with PTSD, yourself, please don’t be afraid to reach out and find help. You are loved. And your worth is NOT determined by what other people have done to you.

[synecdochereads]

Six of Crows – review

Someone said, “heist movie but it’s a fantasy setting,” and I’ve been on the lookout for this book ever since. I finally found it in the clearance section of Half Price Books, and then—couldn’t read it. I got through the first chapter, I started the second, I put it down, and I didn’t pick it up again. Not sure why, but frankly this has less to do with the book than with me. I’ve been erratic about reading for, oh, years now – either I can’t focus for more than a few pages at a time, or I spend every waking moment with my nose in the book. There’s no middle ground. There’s no telling which way the cards will fall.

All of this to say, it’s not the book’s fault that it took me so long. But then the show came out, I watched it gleefully with my mom, and somehow having seen the characters onscreen made it easier to slip into their heads on the page. Two days later, I’ve inhaled the entire book as fast as I could get away with, and I’m in love.

This isn’t a regular book review – I’m terrible at ranking things, and the five-star system gives me anxiety. It’s mostly just some Thoughts™ neatly sorted for clarity, and hopefully reading over them will help you decide if you should pick this book up and fall in love with it like I did.

Mind the cut!

Characters

I am in love with them.

It probably helps that I’ve been looking forward to this book for ages, I’ve seen lots of gifsets and the occasional meta post, and of course I did watch three out of six crows swan about being fantastic for an entire season of a show that’s not even about them. But it’s not just that. There are a lot of technical literary ways you can analyze characters – arcs, themes, etc – but quite apart from all of that there’s just…are they compelling? They don’t have to be, for a book to be good, but it sure does help. And these six characters are so compelling.

(Also really likeable, which is even less necessary for a good story but which I do personally value. And I like these kids, I really do. Even Kaz “I commit atrocities without shame or remorse” Brekker. Wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, or even a well-lit avenue! But I care about him and want him to succeed.)

It’s hard to devote equal time to six character arcs while also running a fantasy heist. Bardugo doesn’t try, but even the crows who get less screen time have complexity and depth. They’re all well fleshed-out, with full and distinct personalities and all that – on a technical level, these are really well-crafted characters. Top notch. Plus everyone struggles with different traumas and goals, and handles them in different ways, which gives us wonderfully varied arcs as they each move toward a deeper understanding of themselves, for better or for worse.

It also gives us really varied dynamics – some of them hate each other, some of them love each other, some manage to do both at once, some are just along for the ride. It’s as they pull at each other’s ragged edges that the story forms, in their different desperate needs and in what they can and cannot be for each other.

The show smoothed over a lot of the sharp edges and grey morality, most notably in Kaz. Kaz Brekker is a bad person. He does bad things for selfish reasons. His arc isn’t Learning To Be Good, it’s an ongoing question of whether he might, for the sake of the first person he has (quite accidentally) let himself love, consider maybe perhaps being slightly less of an amoral monster. I’ve seen this book described as “fantasy Leverage episode” but it’s really more Ocean’s Eleven, if Danny Ocean was a vicious bastard and everyone was seventeen.

And that’s great. I love that so much! Especially because the other crows run the gamut from shining idealism to casual self-interest (with a fun detour into “shining idealism but the ideal is violent bigotry”), so we really do get a morally complex story, without any easy black-and-white answers. One of the most kind-hearted people in the whole story has committed multiple murders and dreams of becoming a pirate. Kaz Brekker may do bad things for selfish reasons, but a lot of those selfish reasons boil down to “survive.” It’s complicated! It’s compelling!

Plot

It’s a fantasy heist, what more do you need?

Plots and counter-plots, double-crosses and last-minute improvisations. Magic, though it’s used as just another tool, as impressive and as prosaic as the gunslinger’s pistols. Dramatic climbs, elaborate disguises, cunning grifts, and some good old-fashioned sleight-of-hand. Six wildly competent teenagers, one impossible job, and four million fantasy dollars waiting for them if they can pull it off.

Well, okay, that’s just half of the story – maybe two thirds. The rest is flashbacks, showing us how these characters met and how they came to be the people they are; and stolen moments in between the action beats, where we see how they’re changing each other. It’s woven in really deftly. Our knowledge of the characters expands in time with the forward momentum of the plot, so that both parts of the story – the sorrows of the past and the edge-of-your-seat excitement of the present – get their hooks in you in tandem.

Worldbuilding

There are two settings in this book: Ketterdam, where we begin, and the Ice Court, where the bulk of the action takes place. The wider world outside these two cities is sketched in, alluded to in offhand comments and minor details of backstory. In theory, reading the Grisha trilogy would fill in those sketches, but I suspect it doesn’t matter. This is a heist story, after all: one entrance, one exit, and all the traps laid firmly between the two.

You know that thing authors do sometimes where they use the aesthetic of a real time and place, in the names and the architecture and so on, as a sort of worldbuilding shorthand? I’m a big fan of that. Ketterdam is clearly based on post-medieval Holland, perhaps in the late 17th century or so – a city of canals and commerce, with a ruling merchant class and a thriving criminal underworld, and a stock exchange at the heart of the wealthier district. The similarities feel like they’re just skin-deep – I don’t know that much about post-medieval Holland, but I’m pretty sure Bardugo has her own plans for the political situation in the wider world, which I assume is relevant in the Grisha trilogy. Here it’s not, and we have just enough detail to get a quick feel for the city, with extra importance granted to the politics of the various criminal gangs Kaz needs to worry about.

If I’m honest, I would have enjoyed a bit more detail in the worldbuilding. Ketterdam is vibrant and crowded, but it feels shallow; the only information we get is what relates directly to the characters’ actions. We’re told that it’s a big and complex city, but I don’t really have any idea what goes on there beyond, vaguely, “trade, gambling, and tourism.” But that’s probably just me. I’m unreasonably invested in worldbuilding. And anyway, we do get everything we need to understand the actual story.

The same is true in the Ice Court, the frozen capital of the Fjerdans. It’s a beautiful place, white and gleaming, and the parts that we see are incredibly vivid. We get scant glimpses of history and religion, the faintest suggestion of politics, and exactly enough of the city layout to understand the heist. We do, however, get a much deeper understanding of Fjerdan culture than we did of Ketterdam’s, because one of the crows defines himself utterly by the Fjerdan worldview, and his arc is largely about the difficulty of losing his place in that world and not knowing if or how he can ever get it back.

So yeah, we really do get everything we need to appreciate the story and the characters. I would have liked more, because I like worldbuilding, but what we do get is varied and satisfying.

Themes

I can’t really go in depth here without spoilers, so this’ll be a pretty vague section. I haven’t gone full lit-major on this book and I don’t especially plan to, but at a glance, the central theme is the tension between, in short, love and vengeance.

In long, several of the crows have the choice to embrace love as a force for healing and joy, or instead hold onto the (often violent) goals that have driven and defined them for so long. If they embrace love, it’ll mean letting go of the driving purpose that has kept them alive, and risking their whole identity (and possibly their lives) on a new purpose. It’s scary! It might ruin them! And it’s really not as easy as “love conquers all.”

(Big advantage of an ensemble cast: you can explore the same theme in different ways, with different outcomes, without having to settle for a single “answer” to the question posed by the theme. I really love it when that happens, honestly.)

It’s also not just romantic love! I mean it mostly is, but one of the crows has an arc that’s really about self-love, about learning to trust and prioritize not just your survival, but your happiness, your goals, and your ideals. About putting yourself first, not in a selfish way, but in a healthy, loving way. It’s really lovely, and although it has no bearing on the plot (it’s an internal moment of revelation), it’s one of my favorite things about the whole story.

[jetaime-jespere]

2,7,13,16,34:)

#2: Why do you write fanfiction - this has changed a bit over time. I remember making up alternative endings to tv shows in my head in elementary school and wondering if other kids did the same thing. Sometimes I’d write them down but I always thought I was weird. Once I actually started writing, It was something I used to do for fun when I had the desire to, which was sporadic. I rarely ever published anything - for awhile I was really less than confident in my writing skills. I wrote a few things over the years for one fandom but hadn’t really done much else. I’ve always read fan fiction though. Since the pandemic began, it’s become more of an outlet, a way to distract my head from things and turn my brain off from stressors. I really struggle with a lot of anxiety and I’ve found writing is one of my better methods of dealing with my emotions and feelings. I started writing WSNE on July 9th (a really awful day I’ll never forget), and it just went from there.

#6: Element of writing that comes easily: I’d say anything that I have a personal connection to, or anything that is based on a real life experience. There are several parts of WSNE that are based in real life (whether my own or friends of mine) and that has always come very easily. 

#7: Element of writing I struggle with: I would say this varies chapter by chapter, or story by story. Every story has its challenges. Sometimes I struggle with dialogue, especially with characters I don’t feel confident writing. At times the research that goes into certain plot elements (JTF-12 & Interpol for WSNE was overwhelming when I first started it.) Sometimes I struggle with transitioning between certain scenes too. And when I write smut I always end up wondering if’s up to par. 

#13: First fandom: I would have to say ER .. a very long time ago. I used to write ER fics about Carter and Abby. in my notebooks in middle school I remember being so embarrassed about it then (also now because I will only ever ship her with Luka at this point) I’ve written for a ton of things for a bunch of fandoms over the years, I’ve just never either A. Finished it or B. Posted it. 

#16: Favorite Trope: The omg there’s only one bed what are we going to do trope is my favorite. Shameless admission. 

#34: Excerpt: When he finally slides inside of her in one smooth stroke, taking her hands in his and holding them above her head, she knows part of her will miss this , as wrong as it is. He’s helped her forget; made her remember she’s worthy of love, even if this one is the most fucked up kind there is. And for that, she can’t be anything but grateful.

Thank you for the ask 🙂 These were fun to think about!

[scripttorture]

Ok so I have a character that I want to be captured and held for several months for experimentation. She’s never awake for the experiments but when she is awake she’s chained to the ground by her wrists and blindfolded. She’s also an amputee from both of her mid-calves down on her legs and her prosthetic legs have been taken away so basically all she can do is sit down and lay down. If she was able to stand the chains would be just about long enough for her to stand up straight 1/?

I understand that her recovery would be a very long and difficult process, her shoulders would probably be ruined, her legs would be incredibly weak, and she would probably be bruised all over since she doesn’t have any cushioning under her. But my main problem is that I’m not sure what psychological effects she would experience. Every so often someone will come and speak to her but mostly just to agitate her. I plan on her being far more impulsive and easy to anger after she escaped 2/3But I don’t really know what else she would experience in changes of behaviour. Also wouldn’t the lack of light hitting her eyes for so long also mess up her vision?

-

I will give a more thorough answer because I don’t know how to be brief but there are several masterposts that I think could help you.

 I have two posts on medical testing. This one covers the basics of how medicines are tested. This one covers unethical experimentation.

 If you haven’t already I recommend reading the second one for the discussion of the differences between unethical experimentation and pseudo-scientific torture. From your description this scenario could be either.

 I’d caution against showing torture as reasoned, controlled or directed by logic. Because it isn’t.

 I talk about the long term effects of torture on survivors (and torturers) here. I have a post on the effects of solitary confinement here and I highly recommend Shalev’s sourcebook which is linked as one of the sources at the bottom.

 I don’t know whether a total lack of light would have long term effects on her vision.

 One of the possible physical effects of solitary confinement is worse vision. It’s suggested (though not to my knowledge proven) that this could be due to poor cell conditions and living in low light for prolonged periods.

 However, low light is different to total darkness. I know of at least one historical case where a prisoner was kept in total darkness for months and reported no vision problems afterwards.

 One case does not constitute proof and a lack of reporting does not necessarily mean a lack of symptoms. You might get a better answer from an optician. Once again, I’m not a medical doctor of any kind. And I’d rather be clear about what I don’t know.

 Which I think brings us to the main part of the question: the physical effects the character is likely to suffer from and long term psychological effects of torture and solitary confinement.

 Let’s start off with the physical.

 You haven’t said whether the character’s hands are cuffed behind her or in front of her. I’d suggest in front because that would give her a greater range of movement, allowing her to feed herself and reducing the chance of uh- essentially sudden death.

 Because the character’s movement is already significantly reduced by taking her prosthetics away. Having enough mobility to be able to shuffle and crawl would help prevent some of her muscle mass dying off. This in turn reduces the chance of kidney failure.

 Being able to feed herself more easily reduces the chance of death by starvation, dehydration of malnutrition. She’s imprisoned long enough for this to a be a real concern and generally guards are unlikely to take the time to hand feed every prisoner three times a day.

 Your instincts about the character’s long term injuries are generally pretty good, but depending on the type of cuffs used, the weight of the chains and how she’s handled by guards I think nerve damage at the wrists could be more likely then long term shoulder injuries.

 Essentially there are major nerves close to the skin in the wrists that are vulnerable. Thin cuffs, cuffs that are capable of tightening (ratcheting cuffs) and heavy cuffs/chains are all going to put more pressure on the wrists. Which over those months is going to cause irreparable damage to the nerves resulting in less mobility in the hands.

 Long term loss of fine motor control. Struggling with things like turning the pages of a book or doing up buttons.

 Now if that’s not what you’re going for the easiest solution is to describe the cuffs as wide (perhaps as much as a third of the forearm), made of lighter softer material such as leather and closed in a manner that will not tighten further, such as a buckle.

 None of this would necessarily cause shoulder damage. The pressure, the weight, is unlikely to be resting there for long periods of time and the character would have enough mobility to relieve that.

 Chronic pain in the shoulders (and knees) is certainly possible. But it doesn’t necessarily mean there’d be mobility issues or easily identifiable damage.

 If on the other hand you want the character to have long term damage the shoulders there’s an easy way to do that in this scenario. How are the guards transporting her? Dragging her, with a grip on the arm below the cuffs, would cause bruising and put a lot more pressure on her shoulders. Done repeatedly over time I think that could cause damage to the muscles and ligaments of the shoulder.

 As a final not if you haven’t already I’d suggest looking up the ulcers amputees can get on and around their stumps.

 I think that covers the physical effects, let’s move on to the long term psychological symptoms survivors experience. :)

 We don’t have a way to predict who gets which particular symptoms. We know which symptoms are possible but we don’t really understand why some survivors experience some symptoms and not others. We just know that most people don’t experience every possible symptom and what is broadly possible.

 So my general advice is to approach picking symptoms like an author. Think about what adds the most to your character and story.

 Think about which options can have an interesting impact on the plot, create interesting problems for the character or show the audience something about the character.

 What you’ve got so far is a good starting point. But it is a starting point, it’s one symptom when I think the character is much more likely to have something in the range of 4-6.

 That’s a slightly higher range then I quote on the Common Effects of Torture masterpost because the character is also in solitary confinement, which would make the symptoms of torture worse.

 What you’re describing sounds like the mood swings that are a common symptom in solitary survivors. Like I said, that is a good place to start.

 Given the restraint torture being used, the lack of appropriate bedding and the fact she’s a double amputee I think chronic pain is also incredibly likely. It can also fit very well with severe mood swings in a narrative. It can provide ‘reasons’ for shifts that seem really sudden to other characters making the mood swings seem more understandable and relatable to readers.

 Memory problems are incredibly common in survivors but are rarely portrayed well in fiction. Depending on the kind of story you want to tell memory problems could be a good fit.

 Based on what you’ve said I don’t think memory loss would be a good fit with this story. I think it would be hard to detect and have very little impact on the character and plot.

 Forgetfulness might be a good fit, but given the extent of the impact it can have on a survivor’s life it might effect what the character is capable of later in the story. And it might do it in ways you don’t want.

 Intrusive memories and inaccurate memories could both fit very well with this story. Intrusive memories particularly could be linked to the character’s mood swings and (if you use it) chronic pain.

 Again, this could be used to help the audience understand the character’s anger and her mood swings. It could really help put them in her shoes.

 Hypervigilance, anxiety, social isolation and long term personality change would all fit quite well.

 The solitary confinement masterpost has information that also applies to social isolation.

 Long term personality change isn’t very easy to strictly define. It varies widely between individuals. From a writing perspective I think the main thing is trying to balance showing a radical change in the character with making that change understandable to the reader.

 I think you could do that here, especially when you’re using anger and mood swings as your groundwork.

 The NHS website has a pretty good introduction to anxiety disorders here. It also briefly discusses hypervigilance (which it terms hyperarousal) as one of the symptoms of PTSD.

 Both can include physical symptoms like chest pain, heart palpitations and dizziness.

 Wrapping this up, remember that my symptom suggestions are just that: suggestions. If you see something on the symptom list that seems like a better fit for your story or character then use that. You know the story better then I do, you know what fits.

 I hope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 55

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Things have been out of whack in the real world for a bit, so I know I’ve gotten behind on things like updating the Master List for this story, and especially behind on posting it to Wattpad.  My goal for this week is to have all that sorted out by Friday, so keep your eyes open.

Parts of this chapter were inspired by a conversation I had with @baelpenrose. It’s always surprising what things in my life inspire parts of this story, especially the people.

Content warning: Someone yelling and throwing things. It’s a temper tantrum, and no one gets hurt, but just in case, I wanted to give a head’s up.

”Damn it all to HELL!”

I stopped in the middle of what I was telling my sister as we both whipped our heads toward the shout, which was quickly followed by a crash. We glanced back at each other, her wide-eyed expression a mirror of what I imagined my own face looked like.

That shout came from my quarters, with a suspiciously heavy Irish accent.

We dashed to my door, stopping to peer around the corner as slowly as possible. I wasn’t sure about Tyche, but I had seen Conor angry before.  It was rare, and it took a lot, but when it happened, it happened in a big way.   This time, even I was surprised by the sheer magnitude; as we watched, he shouted and threw things, subconsciously careful to avoid hitting any terrariums or people.  Even so, Zach Khan was dodging to hide behind whatever piece of furniture he could impose between himself and my enraged partner.

Taking a deep breath, I stood tall and squared my shoulders, gently pushing down my sister’s arm when she tried to stop me from confronting Conor.  Firmly, I knocked on the threshold of the wide-open entrance before striding in with more confidence than I currently felt.  “You could at least close the door,” I suggested airily, trying to get his attention.

As I hoped, he whirled around to face me, disheveled hair falling in his face. “Sophie,” he started trying to explain. “You could have gotten hurt.”

“Hello to you, too, sweetie,” I smiled before stretching on my tiptoes as he automatically leaned down to let me kiss his cheek.  “I waited until you were on the other side of the room, facing away.  But that doesn’t explain why you’re currently scaring Zach and Tyche.”

All anger gone at this point, he stepped around me and toward my sister.  He crouched and softened his voice like he was coaxing a scared kitten, which I reminded myself firmly not to laugh at. “Oh gods, Tych, love, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t hit you with anything, did I?” He whirled to face me, all color drained from his face. “Please tell me I didn’t hit you with anything?” he begged, hitting his knees.

“Zach, you can come out now. It’s over,” I called softly to the sofa, before walking over, wrapping my arms around Conor, and assure him I was fine. Really, all he had done was make a mess. “Maybe take up boxing,” I suggested softly, brushing his hair back out of his face. “It’s a much healthier outlet for your frustration.”

Tyche came in the room, tentatively at first, then more confident when she saw Conor’s face buried in my stomach.  She started to pick up debris from the floor, but was interrupted. “Put it down, woman,” the muffled admonishment came from my abdomen. “I made the mess, my job to clean it up.  That’s the rule.”

She sputtered in exasperation. “Then what can I do!?  This place is a mess, and my anxiety says to clean or do something to fix it,” she scolded at my back.

“How about some coffee,” I suggested with a chuckle, patting Conor on the shoulder in indication that he should get started with cleanup.

Once everyone got settled – including Zach with a cocoa, seeing as he was practically vibrating with anxiety – and Conor went about restoring order to our living space and apologizing to the plants, I asked, “Are you going to blow up again if I ask what you were so angry about?”

Conor dropped his hands to his side and tilted his head back to face the ceiling. “No, I won’t. And it was Huynh.”

Tyche growled ferociously before elbowing me. Oh.

That was me growling, not her.

He continued blithely. “The diving platforms are showing signs of rust damage.” Frustration was showing in his tone, but not anger. So far, so good. “Since I was head of the project, he is coming down on me hard. Trying to say I cut corners, didn’t coat everything properly, used the wrong materials, basically just bollocked the whole thing.”

“But you were the one who ordered one of the platforms taken out entirely because it was too close to the line for spec…”

“Hey,” he pointed at me firmly. “That thing would have been clearly out of spec if the temperature varied more than about twenty degrees.”

“It’s climate controlled, and that’s my point. You literally went with ‘better safe than sorry’ the entire time, and he got mad at you for wasting materials to meet the guidelines.”

“That’s my point!” he cried in frustration, flinging his arms wide and falling to his back with a thud that made me wince. “And now, he’s reversed course and accusing me of shoddy workmanship. I can’t win!  Even though Mav signed off that everything was dead level, on the nose within tolerance.”

“Wait,” Zach interjected, wrinkling his nose. “Why would Maverick sign off on that? He’s a pilot. That doesn’t make sense.”

Tyche snickered. “He’s a pilot when we need a pilot. Which is nearly never, so he’s more like an insurance policy there – better to have and not need than need and not have.  No, he’s quality control for any equipment in the research labs.”

“That’s just… what? Not tracking.”  Poor Zach looked like he was getting a headache.  I dropped another marshmallow in his cocoa, and he looked like I had answered his prayers. Ah, yes. Marshmallow makes sense in this crazy world.

“He has an insane eye for detail and is a completely arse about precision,” Conor’s tone was so fond it barely escaped being considered cooing.  He shook his head and glowered at the boot wedged under a piece of furniture. “Huynh is calling that nepotism, by the way.”

“But he’s even worse here!” I cried.  Tyche nodded vigorously, having been subjected to a two-hour rant when she put away a fork the wrong way.  Not in the wrong drawer, the wrong direction.

Maverick was permanently in charge of setting the table for every meal.  It was the only way to avoid killing him outright.

“Okay…” Zach trailed off, pinching his nose and vigorously wiggling his mug to beg for more chocolate salvation. “But the platforms are still rusting?”

“All three,” Conor confirmed.  “They’ve warped badly enough that we had to declare them unsafe until we can figure out the issue.”

“Wait. They rusted that badly in four months?” Tyche looked so confused it made my face hurt in sympathy.  “How is that even possible? Even if you didn’t take any measures to prevent rust, it shouldn’t be that advanced.”

“Grey is trying to figure that out. It’s also why Mav is stuck at work and not here for dinner.”

As much as I wanted to laugh at the – very manly – pout I was witnessing, I was also frustrated by the interruption in our routine.  Shaking my head, I tried to steer the conversation away from our errant pilot. “Is there a possibility that one of the lab’s experiments could have caused the issues?”

Conor shook his head before surveying the area for any more storm damage. “If that was the case, it would be so corrosive everything in the habitat would have died, and all the swimmers would be burned.  We would have known almost instantly.” He raked a hand through his hair, turning to face us. “But if anyone can figure it out, it’s Grey.”

“What I don’t understand,” Tyche ventured, “is that the materials were fabricated here on the Ark, right?  The facilities are obviously more advanced than anything we could have managed before.” She waved her hand at the ceiling for emphasis. “So, how could there be any flaws in the materials themselves?”

“The program still has to be written,” Zach groaned as he leaned forward. “You’re right about the system being more advanced, but that also means it’s incredibly finicky and precise. One character out of place, and everything used could be worthless. And before you ask,” he held up both hands defensively, “I personally checked the programming against what it should have been, and there are exactly zero errors. It’s literally the cleanest bit of programming I’ve ever seen.”

Conor nodded, heading to the kitchen for his own coffee. “And before anyone asks, we’ve had the calculations checked over by six different people, plus our mate Noah.  Calculations are accurate, they were programmed in accurately, and Grey’s people have tested to make sure the output is accurate.  Mav has already measured the samples with everything he could get his hands on, and they all show the amount of precision you would expect from an advanced civilization.  No fault to be found in the materials, whatsoever, which is where I come in.”

“Ugh. Huynh needs someone to blame, and since the materials are as perfect as you could ever dream of, he’s putting the fault in the construction?” I may have had my moments of grudging respect, but I never quite managed to like the bastard. Here he was, proving me right.

“Which puts me on furlough until they figure out what the cause is, yeah.” He huffed explosively and flopped down into the seat my sister vacated for him. “At least I can still work in the hydroponics lab.”

“No offense to you, Zach, but have you considered having Derek cross check the program?”

“None taken, and yes,” he sighed. “But he’s been holed up in his quarters for two weeks now, won’t talk to anyone.  I sent him several requests, but never got a response.”

Alarmed, I started to say something, but Tyche cut me off. “I already checked with Noah, and Derek’s okay.  Not sleeping well, but otherwise his physical health is fine.”

I stood anyway, frowning. “That’s good to hear, and I know he goes through periods where he can’t be around people, but two weeks?  It’s not like him.”  Snatching up my purple fuzzy blanket, I headed to the door. “Mac in your quarters?”

“Yeah, but Soph – “

“Nope.  I’m taking him the blanket and the cat.  If he wants to talk, he’ll talk, but at least this way I can see him with my own eyes. I won’t be long, I promise.  Zach, feel free to stay for dinner.  We’re doing pizza tonight.”  With that, I took off, focused on my mission.

It only took me about fifteen minutes to collect my furry co-conspirator and make it to Derek’s quarters. “Hey,” I called softly, praying he still had the outer microphone on. “I heard you’ve been taking some alone time, so I thought I would bring you the blanket and your buddy.  No clue how you managed two weeks without him, but Mac misses you – “

The door slid open, revealing a piled of blankets with a surly, squinting face poking out. The door is keyed to let him in, Derek said impatiently before stepping aside to let me in.

As soon as the door closed behind me, the blanket monster stomped past and dropped on the bed.  I was relieved that nothing about the room immediately screamed for help.  Low lights, white noise in the background, and about as tidy as I could expect from a seventeen-year-old.  Two arms thrust themselves from the heap of fabric on the bed, hands grasping in a gesture that needed no working knowledge of sign language to understand.  Obediently, I handed over the soft purple offering in my hands.  Meanwhile, Mac dropped gracefully next to Derek with a demanding yowl.

“He likes to be invited,” I explained gently.  It was taking every ounce of willpower – and some I was pretty sure I didn’t possess – to keep myself from interrogating him on the length of his isolation.  Instead, I watched him rub my blanket against his face with one hand while the other tugged the large black cat onto his lap and started stroking it.  Despite token resistance, Mac quickly settled in for what was likely long-overdue and well-deserved attention.

I waited a few seconds, in case Derek wanted to talk, then cleared my throat. “Well… let me know if you need me to bring you anything else, okay?  And remember, cheese will make Mac sick, no matter how much he likes it.”  Quietly, I left with clenched teeth and eyes burning from tears I refused to shed.  I was trying to break my habit of smothering people, but it was hard.  Logically, I knew Derek could take care of himself – superficially, he had been doing fine.  But the fact that every blanket he seemed to own was layered over him, even just to answer the door?  He needed comfort, clearly.  Being incredibly touch-averse, I had to restrain my urge to hug him and let Mac and the blankets do the work.

Halfway back to my quarters, my databand chirped.  With a flick, I displayed the screen to see a message from him. “Not sleeping well. Nightmares.  They make me jumpy.  Mac will help.”

The corner of my mouth quirked up, despite my heart wanting to break. “He’s good for that,” I replied. “He eats nightmares, I think.”

“I’m not a child, I don’t need silly stories.”

I scoffed. “I know that. I’m being serious.  I never have nightmares when he’s around, and he always makes that face like he just ate when I wake up. Either he’s figured out how to work a console or he eats bad dreams.”

“I’ll lock down my console and let you know.”

With a deep breath, I told myself Derek would be okay and strolled back into my quarters.  Zach, Tyche, and Conor were in the kitchen, laughing and working on getting the pizza dough going.  It panged my heart not to see Maverick, but a part of me hoped that he would still manage to make it home in time to eat with us.

I’ll make an anchovy pizza, just in case, I told myself.

<< Prev  Masterlist  Next >>

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Hello! I was wondering if you could help me with (MBTI) typing myself since I've been struggling with it recently. Note that I'm a teenager + I'm rather bad at differinating certain traits in myself so I'll rely on what people usually say about me and/or things that nobody beside me can know or judge. When younger I was considered to be introverted/a loner although I'm not sure if it's caused by my natural introversion or by certain circumstances that lead me to lack close friendships.

I’ve been kind of enjoying the answering each part at once method, especially when the answer is going to be a variation “not sure, and this could use a lot of work,” so:

I know I have said multiple times that if you do are not fairly well able to talk about yourself and differentiate your traits, MBTI is not a good idea for you right now. This is fine and normal! Particularly if you’re a teenager! But the best thing for you to do is drop it and come back when you have a good sense of self. I think a lot of people come to MBTI with the attitude of “I don’t know who I am very well and this will tell me” when the fact is you need to know who you are to be able to type with any accuracy.

Also, for teenagers, this goes double, because when you say “when I was younger” you’re often talking about a point where you flat out didn’t have a clear type because you were a kid. Wait instead of asking.

           Most people I befriended back then didn't interest me much so I gave up on those friendships quickly. That made me accept my loneliness - I thought I will be alone forever. At the moment I'm starting it all over again by connecting to people and the perspective of being alone started to be frightening.  I'm rather indecisive, I'd been trying to come up with projects and ideas for a long time, I procrastinate and ignore my bodily needs often.            

This is something where it makes a huge difference if you’re talking about when you were like, 12, or when you were 15, for example. I mean, probably introversion but I wouldn’t discount other causes since this seems pretty intense in general.

Re: indecision, procrastination, bodily needs - probably high extroverted perceiving.

           When it comes to projects, my most craved perfect quality is novelty, originality, something that would twist expected lines of storytelling. I also like to tie them up with certain 'themes' so I have an excuse to learn about the topic as much as possible and make it educational and insightful for the perceivers.  I'm not sure if I have high Fi or Ti, but I lean for Fi for now.             

Also fits high extroverted perceiving. I have serious doubts about high Fi; high Fi users tend to have a good sense of who they are, even while fairly young, but also this could vary depending on if “I’m a teenager” means you’re 14 or if it means you’re 19. If 14, maybe. If 19, not unless you are incredibly unhealthy.

I deeply value knowledge and a lot of my goals and dreams were related to being skilful and knowledgeable about something, to be the master of my activity. So I'm a perfectionist and have rather high ambitions. At the same time it's mixed with insecurity and anxiety: I fear mistakes, prone to overthink, think lowly of myself and can't get motivated enough to do something. In the end if I'm motivated I get impressive amounts of work done in a short span of time but it happens only under stress.            

I am not a mental health professional and I may just be reading this wrong, but there have been a couple things now that make me think you may have some kind of anxiety or depression which also might be messing with your sense of self, and I cannot stress this enough, I think focusing on MBTI is probably not the right thing for you right now. All of this sounds more in line with anxiety and/or depression than high perceiving (except the motivation part, which tracks) and isn’t tied to an introverted judging either).

           I usually enjoy ignoring or rebelling against the rules. I used to be rude and oblivious of social norms so I had a few bad experiences with that. It made me hyper aware of implications of words so I act incredibly polite and awkward at first but grow more rude and straightforward when I get used to people. I can violate my personal borders of rudeness and make comments that come off as non-intended offending so I both make the person feel worse and get away with nothing but I rarely do that.             

Again this is something where if “used to be rude” is referring to when you were 11 means something very different than if it’s referring to when you were (for example) 15. This fits with low Fe more than high Fi; high Fi users can be introverted but they tend to have more people skills, but again, there’s so much else going on here I can’t say anything with much confidence.

People say my writings are focused on introspective thoughts and feelings a lot and the characters sound realistic but that my ability to properly understand people in real life is way more poor.  I'm told I'm very private. I can be incredibly helpful and accepting when my close ones are facing struggle but I don't know in-between so I either pay too much effort or ignore the bad signs. I rarely act on my thoughts although I can be impulsive. I wasn't sure whether I use Fi mostly because             

 Probably aux Ne, given the low understanding of surroundings and lack of action combined with the other extroverted perceiving signs, but also again, a lot of this just sounds...young.

myself internally (not all the time).  I think about improving and changing myself a lot. I tend to be oversensitive but it might be the teenager years.  I quickly engross in new hobbies and ideas with an intention of using their fullest potential/going in-depth of them but get detached from them quickly. I have a good memory for things I'm interested in - overall I'm ditzy and forgetful.   Sorry if it was not organized properly. I hope I gave you all the necessary information.    

yeah, more of the same - aux Ne.

------------------------------

So in summary - honestly, I think there’s two potential root causes at work here with a few effects that are going to make it incredibly difficult to type yourself:

1. There are several things that I cannot say with any reliability are depression or anxiety, but do sound like it to me, a layperson - isolating yourself from all your peers at a very young age is not really something most healthy people do - and if you are able to get that checked by someone who would know, I would recommend it.

2. If that’s not a factor, it’s also somewhat age/maturity level dependent. If you’re 14 or 15, either INFP or INTP are possible. If you’re 18 or 19, Fi-dom seems really unlikely. If you’re in the middle, it’s still kind of a toss-up based on maturity level and honestly I’d hold off until you’ve found out about potential mental illness.

But in general, it’s hard for a number of reasons for many teenagers to type themselves because a lot of late adolescence/early adulthood is inherently figuring out who you are when you don’t have constant supervision. The amount of change many people undergo their first year of college or in the work force is staggering because they’re to an extent making their own schedule, dealing with real responsibilities with severe consequences*, and making difficult choices possibly for the first time ever. My advice is to give it some time, especially if you’re a younger teenager, and get to know yourself better. MBTI is not going to disappear in the few years that will take.

*occasionally I’ve run into questions from people who are older who do not have many responsibilities, for whatever reason, and there are plenty of good reasons why that might be the case, but it also makes it really hard to type them. It’s not a bad thing or judgement necessarily, but an acknowledgement that again, if you don’t turn in an assignment on time, it’s a different scale of consequences than if you don’t pay rent or buy food for yourself on time.

[sugarstarlights]

14 22. 39 50 57 68

100 Random Character Development Questions

Detail one secret shame your character feels. 

Dozens of times, in varying situations, Madison’s upset his friends in the normal way, that friends do, when just by being themselves they rub the wrong way with someone who isn’t exactly like them. The problem is that he takes these mistakes extremely seriously, blames himself for not knowing exactly what they wanted and acting accordingly, and feels a need to fix himself in order to never upset the given person again in the future. Whether his friends are actually upset and about what is a grey area that he’s constantly drawing assumptions from, and said friends might disagree with his assessment, but in every instance, willing to do anything to keep them all from giving up on him or hurting him to make him go away, as he believes he deserves, Madison promises to do and be better in the future.In his own eyes, he’s broken this promise dozens of times over. All the things he promises to change or stop are neutral elements of his personality and mental illness twisted into unforgivable flaws inside his own head, or inherent urges written into his angel programming that he blames himself for not being good enough to bypass. The fact that he repeatedly makes these “horrible mistakes” and then is incapable of successfully changing or erasing the part of himself that “caused the problem” is seen as a huge flaw in its own right, inherently selfish that he “refuses” to alter his thought processes to make someone he cares about happier. His friends like him the way he is, of course, and rarely seem to take that promise seriously, but Madison knows that he lied to everyone at some point, and the self-hatred and shame from being built of flaws that he seemingly doesn’t care enough to get rid of, even when they hurt those he loves, has eaten him for a long time. The unkeepable promises just add to that; though he’d never remind anyone he made them.

What is the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen?

Mads hasn’t seen a lot of things, and would call a few different unrelated events equally “the most beautiful thing”, including his first sunset, his wife, his ward’s birth, the storm he flew into, most of his friends and their neat abilities, he thinks lots of things are beautiful, stuff like that. But one thing always stuck with him, and though he wouldn’t admit it since it seems self-absorbed and arrogant, witnessing his soul’s healing ability activate for the first time, in the context it did, would rank at the top. He didn’t know it existed at all before the power was urgently needed to save Seculus, but the clouds of colorful buzzing light that surrounded them, combined with Sec’s visible improvement and the knowledge that Madison was the one doing this, that he was finally capable of helping his friend (and finally good for something); that stuck with him. Though, he would say that Sec’s look of joy and relief was the most beautiful thing in this situation.

What do they think is the worst thing that can be done to a person?

Oof! Oof!! In Madison’s professional opinion, robbing a person of their free will and ability to choose is bad enough, but the worst thing is going further, taking their memories, and identity, planting desired patterns of thought and mental blocks and traps to keep them from so much as thinking about specific inconvenient things without pain, conditioning them to have certain feelings toward certain things or maybe none at all, punishing them with temporary nonexistence and reinforcement of this programming for every hint of rebellion, pressing and shaping them into the preferred shape until they’re incapable of functioning whatsoever without being controlled and directed. Until they’re something completely different, empty but conscious, molded into a subhuman tool by whoever thought they had the right. Essentially, the worst thing he believes can be done to a person is to make them not a person anymore, without killing them. He gets very strong feelings whenever he sees a situation resembling this, and if it sounds familiar, it should; it’s a thorough description of brainwashing, and word for word what happened, and is still happening, to Madison himself. Of course, he doesn’t see this as ‘the worst thing’ in his own case; he’s not a person, after all! (The depressing irony is lost on him.)

How does your character feel about their own mortality?

Now this is an interesting one, because technically, Madison can’t die again; voices don’t age or get sick, and Madison’s healing ability prevents him from being killed violently unless every spark of his soul were destroyed at once. Even when voices do die, their soul lingers without form as a highly functional but extremely lonely ghost, for the eternity they would’ve had otherwise. However, a recent discovery revealed that if a voice goes for a little longer than a month without visiting the astral plane, they begin to disappear entirely, without the energy of their home plane to sustain them. Without intervention they’ll simply vanish like they were never there. Madison’s been thinking about this latter scenario a lot. The concept of forever, potentially spent alone, scares him, especially with the knowledge that his family is in an afterlife he’ll never have access to, and with each wave of overwhelming hopelessness, the idea of doing absolutely nothing until he completely disappears has tempted him more and more. The hateful growth taking up residence in his head until recently has made matters much worse. He used to have an intense fear of anyone choosing to kill him at any time, and though that was irrational in the first place for several reasons, that anxiety’s gone now. If Madison were mortal, he’d have probably left a long time ago; he’s died before, what does he have to fear from doing it again?

Has your character ever killed anyone?

No he hasn’t! Not even on accident. Madison’s had a pacifistic mindset since he was with his ward, it’s one of his core principles to never resort to violence when angered or upset, even in small amounts. That said, he’s not exactly capable of murder even if he wanted to, with his poor fighting abilities and anxiety around blood, not that he’s had a chance or desire in the past. Even now that he’s learning to use a proper weapon, he’s intent on only using it in defense of himself and others, and though he’s wished death on several people’s abusers at this point, there’s been no need for it yet. Mads believes that it’s his fault directly that the people in his place of work when he died were killed along with him, however, though there isn’t solid proof of that, and if there were, it would have been unintentional and impossible to predict the outcome when it happened.

How strong is your character’s sense of responsibility? What kinds of things trigger it?

Stronger than any other sense he has, that’s for sure; too strong, in fact. Between what he was built to do as an angel in supporting and helping a person with his whole being, his own intense instincts as a parent and friend, and the extremely high standards he holds himself to, Madison takes responsibility for everyone else’s problems and then some. It’s a consistent, unshakable mindset that when he sees someone struggling, he has to help in whatever way he can, or sometimes ways he can’t, which he then puts responsibility on himself for not being capable of. 

Madison when first introduced to the world was wildly inconsiderate of anyone’s wants, feelings, or concerns outside of his ward; he learned how to care about people from Seculus, another angel with a really bad self-sacrifice problem, and he saw her as such a kind person that aer unhealthy tendencies were taken as law. It took so much effort to get to the level of decency Mads has reached now that any sort of dismissal of others’ pain is interpreted as a huge step backwards into the cruel person he was before, that he needs to immediately make up for. His feelings may differ, but whether it’s familial, romantic, ward-esque or empathetic, he offers up everything when someone has a problem of any sort, especially emotional, and if there’s no fixing it, takes responsibility for its very existence, taking on their pain like this makes anything better. This in itself is ironically self-absorbed, though at the same time the only responsibility he takes for his own issues is to claim that he doesn’t matter enough for them to be a concern to himself or others. It’s irresponsible to worry others with his own problems, when they can’t easily be solved and don’t directly impact those besides himself. Obviously this gets frustrating sometimes.

There is also a gripping need to protect others, especially those he cares about. Witnessing someone in danger sets off his angel dad instincts, the first of which is to throw himself between them and the threat, either figuratively or literally. When they won’t let him, he gets panicked, as it feels like he’s forced to stand there and just watch; there are only a couple of people he trusts enough to let them protect him in return. Putting others in harm’s way for his own sake seems irresponsible. (Also ironic!) This is most of the reason he’s learning swordplay, so that he’s more effective in defending others, as opposed to just being a fragile obstacle.

On a lighter note, he feels the same intense responsibility for most living things, and having a pet in his life has helped his own self-care routines somewhat. His dog is relying on him for food, care, and shelter, and if he allows himself to stop functioning entirely or disappear, Madison will be causing him to suffer; thus, he continues to exist, on his worst days, just so Bo won’t have to be in pain. Being told by people, as well, the pain this would cause them, also forces Madison to stick around, but it’s out of guilt, not reassurance at being cared for.

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Feminist Relevant Themes

<-Previous (Introduction)

To talk about Magia Record’s writing in detail, it helps to understand how the game is structured.

Magia Record has many story modes:

Main Story: The main plot, centered on new protagonist Iroha arriving in the city of Kamihama to search for her missing sister.  Everyone can read this at any time, and new chapters come out every few months.

Another Story: The events of the Main Story, but told from the point of view of the original Madoka Magica cast.  Also always available to everyone.

Magical Girl Stories: short stories centered on one specific magical girl - usually they tell the backstory of the girl’s wish.  Can only be watched after obtaining the character in the gacha.

Mirrors Story: A very slowly updated story unlocked by completing many player vs. player battles.  

Event Stories:  Short stories that come out roughly every two weeks.  Sometimes introduce a new character for the gacha, sometimes related to a seasonal holiday.  Playable to anyone around during the event (and will be stored in the archive afterwards).

Costume Stories:  Tiny story snippets involving a character wearing a special outfit.  Implemented one year in and unlocked by obtaining both the character and the outfit in question.

Good

Female Friendship

As with the better side of magical girl media, the game’s biggest feminist plus is its complex female characters and focus on female friendships, including some great examples of female mentors and role models.  The mechanics of the setting are even tweaked to facilitate this - gone is the TV series’ lonely, competitive system that isolated girls from each other.  Instead, in present-day Kamihama, witches are so strong and plentiful that magical girls are better off forming teams to support one another.  

While this change arguably waters down some of the thematic weight of the original (in that this isolation was another example of how Kyuubey’s system is an easy metaphor for other oppressive systems), I find it a worthy trade-off.  Allowing for magical girl teams to exist results in much richer possibilities for interactions between characters, especially welcome in a sprawling game with far more narrative content than a one-season anime.

And the game takes good advantage of this - no two magical girl teams are exactly alike, both in terms of internal dynamics and how they interact with other teams.

Doppels

The main gimmick of the game’s story is the existence of “doppels” - a mechanic where a magical girl partially transforms into her own witch to unleash a powerful attack.  And from gameplay to story to art, doppels are excellent.  They look cool and they’re rewarding to unlock and use in game.  From a feminist perspective, I also love the idea of reclaiming witches, the “adult” form of magical girls, into a source of salvation and empowerment for girls* instead of a curse.  On a meta-level, it echoes a common magical girl trope of the character transforming into an older version of herself, while specifically to Madoka Magica, it’s a creative way to dismantle the misogynistic implications of Kyuubey’s system!

(*There are supposedly drawbacks to doppels, but that bit of setting mostly serves to make them a ~dangerous forbidden technique~ that shouldn’t be overused.)

Struggling against class prejudice

The tensions between different wards of Kamihama are a key component of the setting, and affect many character interactions.  One aspect the Magical Girl Stories are good at is showing how arbitrary and hurtful this discrimination is, and how difficult it is to overcome prejudice once it has become entrenched.  It’s made abundantly clear that Kamihama would be a better city without these attitudes - the question is, how to get there?

A variety of careers

Several girls make wishes or have backstories centered on what they want to do when they grow up.  What’s especially neat is that most girls ask for the opportunity to follow their passions, rather than having a talent magically granted to them - thus avoiding the pitfall of having a female character’s abilities originate from a power granted by a male character.

The range of career interests depicted isn’t as amazing as it could be  (In a cast of 80+, I would love to have more than three girls representing STEM), but there’s some decent variety.  Many girls aspire to take over their parents’ family business, for example.

And even some characters who follow more seemingly feminine careers (a model, a chef, an artist, etc.) have serious narratives centered on the skill and effort needed to succeed in those highly competitive fields, which is quite refreshing to see.

Mixed

The many different ways to be a girl

The nice thing about having a large cast of female characters is that it gives plenty of opportunities to show how all of these characters are different.  And in general, Magia Record does very well on this front!  One aspect I’ve particularly been enjoying is the how the cast has widely varying tastes in fiction.  Yes, there are girls who like dreamy romances, but there are also girls who bond over their shared love of a hotblooded shounen series!  

Where this falls down somewhat is an overuse of “but look, she has a secret feminine interest.”  Sometimes this plot can work, if coming at it from the angle that superficial judgments can be misleading, or that there’s nothing wrong with having feminine interests.  But when all the more masculine-presenting girls end up with a hidden fondness for stuffed animals, the sheer repetition becomes rather irksome.  It’s as though the game feels the need to insist “but look, she really is a girl!” because the audience wouldn’t believe it without such a trait.

LGBTQ+ characters

In terms of LGBTQ+ content, the game feels rather similar to the original anime and other Madoka spinoffs.  That is to say, there are tons of shippable f/f pairings that get teased, but as of the present, only one new playable character (and a tiny sample of minor characters) are explicitly confirmed to be lesbians.  No trans or otherwise queer characters either, unfortunately.  (Though of course that’s not to stop a good interpretation or headcanon!)

However, as a whole, the game is oddly averse to showing the characters in active, healthy relationships.  One of the early frustrations I had with the new character’s portrayal was that the game’s one mutual gay relationship was never directly shown on-screen and gets broken up in favor of more ambiguous teasing.  That being said, all the het relationships are treated similarly, either never being confessed and requited or never getting shown on screen.  So… I suppose there’s not actually a double standard here, but players hoping for lots of canon yuri content might end up a bit disappointed.

Also, a note on Homura specifically - this game’s version is “glasses Homura,” who hasn’t realized she’s in love with Madoka yet.  So despite what you might expect given Rebellion, in Magia Record there’s nothing beyond heavy hints and ambiguously cute scenes between her and Madoka.

Characters with disabilities

A few characters in the game have difficulty speaking.  It’s not made clear if this is a speech impediment or something like social anxiety (or autism - I know I’ve seen headcanons for that).  There is some depiction of these characters getting bullied, but in each case the character ultimately finds a group of friends who love and support them as they are.

After two years, now there is technically a magical girl who uses a wheelchair. (And it’s a cool custom wheelchair too!)  Unfortunately I hesitate to count this as a full positive, because shortly after she appears in it, the character becomes unable to transform and fight for an unrelated reason, so we haven’t seen her in battle since.  But who knows - the story’s still moving forward on the Japanese server, and there’s likely to be more content with her in the future.

At the end of the day, though, this is a setting with magic wishes and healing effects.  Thus, it’s very common for girls to wish to cure someone’s illness, or to use their abilities as a magical girl to cure themselves, which can easily fall into ableist tropes.

College age magical girls

Yes, really!  Although even the oldest characters are only nineteen.  However, there’s also a subplot about how two of the nineteen-year-olds are losing power because they’re older, which… hm. The message that we all need to accept passing the torch to the next generation is generally a valuable and good one.  Aiming it at older teen girls just on the verge of adulthood is where the implications nosedive into unfortunate.  Young girls already get far too many messages that their worth is entirely dependent on their youth/beauty/innocence and that it’s better to stay a “girl” than to be a fully grown “woman.”

The entire reason it’s exciting to see college age magical girls in the first place is that even now, it’s rare to see adult women as protagonists in these types of fantasy adventures.  By introducing these young adult characters only to caveat their inclusion with“they’re getting too old to be here”, it puts a very sour note on what’s otherwise a welcome expansion of the Madoka Magica universe.

(It’s also hilariously contradictory to other spin offs in the Madoka Magica franchise, including the implications of the anime canon itself, so… whoops?)

Bad

Lack of diversity

(Particularly racial diversity.)

The only non-Japanese magical girls are from the pre-existing Tart Magica spin-off set in medieval France… and Meiyui.  (And maybe Alina.)

Meiyui is a complicated case - her family has ties to both Japan and Hong Kong.  Meiyui herself is a fun character, but she also ticks a lot of the checkboxes for a Japanese stereotype of a Chinese person (a la Xiao Mei in Fullmetal Alchemist).  As a white person only familiar with US culture, it’s not my place to make a judgement call here, but I’d love to hear from someone who knows more!  

The largest disappointment, though, is in wondering what might have been.  The Madoka Magica anime implied that there are magical girls all over the globe from every different time and culture, so the game’s narrow focus on one modern Japanese city greatly limits the setting from its full potential.  And even within that limitation, the sheer homogeneity of the new cast is starting to get awkwardly same-y.  

The arc two’s logo teases what might be girls from several other backgrounds, though, so perhaps this will improve in the very near future.  Of course, success will depend on the writers’ abilities to handle other cultures.  Which, when given the example of Meiyui, might actually be cause for concern...

Revolutionary Girl Utena, this ain’t

In a game full of decent-to-good backstories, you’ll sometimes hit an unfortunate and very disappointing outlier.  

My personal least favorite is the victim-blaming one mentioned in the content warnings.  Another low point is a story where a girl frantically diets as a response to another girl’s comments about her weight.

Then there’s the backstory the above picture comes from.  It involves a girl who has to drop out of sports because her next school only has a boy’s team - and instead of challenging this situation, it’s the inspiration for her to discover she’s actually happier as a cheerleader anyway.  Hm.  

This last case is actually pretty emblematic of the game as a whole.  Whoever’s doing the writing (the credited scenario team is four people, and from the names at least two might be women?) mostly seems to mean well, but they occasionally step hard into the -isms that come from not actually thinking about the problems with the status quo.

So the game isn’t typically hateful, but it doesn’t push the envelope in any revolutionary directions either.  As a result - and it feels weird to say this, but - I really miss having Urobuchi as the writer.  Sure, his writing had its own problems, but in comparison, it was at least genuinely thought-provoking.  The way that even the adult female characters got complexity and screentime, that whole conversation between Sayaka and the misogynistic men on the train, the compelling exploration of consent and determination that underlies the whole anime – even six years later, these aspects hold up and stand out.

Magia Record is an inversion – far more pleasant on the surface, but without the backbone and depth that made the original so thematically intriguing despite all the suffering.

Next (Other Writing Aspects)->

[sleepyfan-blog]

New Friends?

Next installment of the confession series! first chapter here. Previous chapter here. AO3 link

warnings: deception, fighting

characters and pairing: dream sans, swap sans, swap papyrus, nightmare, dreammare

word count: 3,659

tagslist: @anxiety-is-married-to-depression @angelofthehalfmoon @trainwreck-of-skeletons @hisame-amadashi​ @therandomskelekey @capisnotonfire

Dream groaned a little as he stirred, his eye lights activating as he pushed himself up - realizing that he was sitting on a couch as he stared at the unfamiliar room he was sitting in. The positive spirit felt... He felt much stronger than he had since... Since Nightmare had consumed the apples and killed most of the villagers in an attempt to protect the both of them from their lethal intentions. He sensed a couple of people in the room off of the main one on the first floor of this place. He could see the checkered floor and slowly got up to his feet, startled by how much positivity he could feel in the area around him. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, but... The beings that he could sense around him had a great deal more Hope in their auras than he had gotten used to sensing. Dream silently made his way over to the other room, noting that it was a kitchen.

The Sans was in the middle of making something - swiftly chopping up an onion as he continued to speak, "-and I know that our visitor is a little strange, but I'd like to talk to them before we pull any of the others here. We don't want to overwhelm them - you know what Ink can be like."

"That's true." A tall, sweater-clad Papyrus acknowledged, before countering, "But how many people can you name who can open portals between universes? And they had some of Nightmare's goop on their cape, and his magic all over them."

Both of the mortal skeleton's emotive auras were filled with concern, worry and uncertainty. Dream was unsure whether or not he should speak up and reveal himself to be awake... Or just slowly slink out of their house and go home. He shuddered a little as he remembered the awful thunderstorm that still might be rocking the castle, thoroughly embarrassed by his reaction... But... He'd always been afraid of thunder - and how awful his last memory with a thunderstorm had been, Dream really didn't want to go back until the storm had passed. He hoped that Nightmare would understand. The positive spirit walked back to the couch, deciding that he should probably call out - let them believe that he hadn't overheard their conversation. Dream was concerned that he might have found some of his other half's enemies... Then again, most people who spoke of Nightmare were rather terrified of him, unfortunately. He cleared his nonexistent throat and called out, "Uhm... He-Hello? Is someone here? Where... Where am I?" Those were all legitimate questions he had.

The Sans immediately teleported over, his eye lights bright, cheerful stars as he exclaimed exuberantly, offering the other one of his hands, "Hello! I am the Magnificent Sans, although other travelers have called me Blue or Blueberry - call me whatever you like. I also use he/him pronouns. What about you, friend?" He was beaming brightly, and the other's aura was filled with curiosity and a bit of concern.

"It's wonderful to meet you, Sans the magnificent." Dream greeted with a small smile as he shook one of the other's hands firmly "My name is Dream, guardian of positivity. I use male pronouns as well."

Blue blinked at him once, the curiosity in the other's aura increasing. "What do you mean by guardian of positivity? You looked like you were moving in a really big hurry before you face planted in the snow. Oh! And you're in my and my brother's home, in Snowdin."

The positive spirit had been told what the history of the alternate worlds that Nightmare had visited were - and many of them followed several core themes - the humans and monsters had a war that the monsters lost, who were then trapped by a powerful magical soul that required the magical equivalent of seven human mages' souls to unseal, which was too much for said monsters to overcome themselves. Which is why he didn't pester the other with questions about what exactly he meant by Snowdin. It was unfortunate that either the final human to fall underground had yet to come... Or that they were toying with their time-travelling powers, finding it to be a game of sorts to learn about the monsters through doing varying different actions. He hoped it wasn't the latter...

Though Killer and Dust had suffered awfully at the hands of cruel and capricious humans until they'd snapped and destroyed them, trapped in the empty remains of their timelines until Nightmare rescued them. He was... Unsure if he should explain. "I... I am... That's kind of difficult to explain. But I can create positive feelings within other people around me - I can't not, actually. I try to help my other half to keep the emotive balance of the multiverse. I've only recently broken free of the stasis spell that kept me bound for centuries, but the two of us are doing our best to bring peace and prosperity to the multiverse, one AU or Timeline at a time." He answered earnestly, smiling sweetly up at Blue as he spoke. "... From what I've gathered, my mate was rather... harsh with the timelines he had contact with before I woke up. But I've been encouraging him to be more merciful. It's... It's a work in progress, but I really think that it's going well."

The Papyrus asked, leaning against the door frame and tilting his head curiously at him. "Who's this mate of yours? And... You don't have to answer this question if you don't want to, it is kind of personal... Why were you put in a stasis spell?"

"I... He... He is the guardian of Negativity... As for how... I... He'd just gained a lot of power, and I refused to give him the final Positive Apple, consuming it instead, so that there would be at least some positive feelings left in the multiverse... He... He was lost in his base instincts and lashed out at me, trapping me in the stasis spell. B-But he didn't mean to do that! He's apologized for hurting and trapping me." Dream explained quickly, before going quiet. His eye lights widened a little as he sensed their intense distress, anger and uncertainty. He probably shouldn't have said all of that. Nightmare had mentioned that he had dangerous enemies - there were the rebels in some of the timelines that he was helping who disliked having a stranger coming out of nowhere and daring to tell them what to do in exchange for their freedom and/or resources that they needed in order to thrive well. Time to change topics! "How long was I passed out on your couch? Oh, and I've been really rude to you. Uhm, what's your name?" He glanced at the Papyrus curiously, hopeful that he would be able to deflect the topic.

"... What's your mate's name?" The Papyrus pressed, frowning a little at him, his arms folded over his chest "And... I'm not sure that being turned to stone is just something that a simple apology can fix. At least it sure as hell wouldn't for me... I'm Papyrus, though I've also been called Stretch or Honey."

Blue frowned a little at his brother, glaring at him a little bit. "Surely if someone truly meant it when they apologized, they should be forgiven... Oh! You've only been sleeping on the couch for about ten minutes. From how low your MP was, I thought that you'd be asleep for hours."

"There are some things that are unforgivable, Sans." Stretch glowered, shifting a little and huffing. "But I know that you will disagree with me on this, so I don't think we should get into that particular argument again."

Dream was pretty sure that there was a story behind that one - especially from the way that both of the brothers were glaring at one another. The tension was really thick between the two of them, so he spoke up quietly, "Oh, in a place like this, I bounce back pretty quickly, haha..." It's nice to be in a place where there are this many positive feelings in the world around him. He's a great deal more energetic than he's been in months.

"What do you mean by that? Also... Are you okay? You looked really distressed when you first appeared through the portal." Blue asked curiously, concern eclipsing the other's irritation at the odd dig at forgiveness from Stretch.

"I... I gather energy from the positive feelings of others, so the more upbeat people are around me - and not just immediately around me, but in the portion of the world I am in, the more quickly I regain MP, and the more energy I have to use before I need to eat or sleep." Dream explained with a bright smile. "And yeah, I-I'm fine. It's just... There was a really bad thunderstorm going on in my AU and I... I r-really... I'm afraid of thunder..." Dream admitted shyly, a light blush appearing on his face as he glanced away from both of the brothers, feeling silly. "... Some really bad things happened the last time I was in a thunderstorm and the... Th-The panic and fear caused me to run away..." He probably should go back home but... There was every chance that the thunderstorm was still going on and... Dream shuddered a little. He doubted that he would react any better now to the thunderstorm than he had a little over ten minutes ago.

"Thunder... Wait! Does that mean you're from a... A surface AU?" Blue murmured, his eye lights widening a little before turning into stars, an eager grin appearing on his face. Such worlds were relatively rare, at least from what he had encountered as a battle-companion of Ink's.

"Yes, and as far as I know, there was never a monster-human war in my timeline. Then again, I've heard much about the power that Determined Humans have in other worlds, which is so strange to me, as even the most powerful Determination Mage was unable to turn back time in that AU, and that still holds true." Dream murmured quietly, tilting his head a little. Then again, he and Nightmare were the most powerful magical beings - human or monster - in their AU... And that seemed to hold true in the worlds that Nightmare had visited. Then again, neither of them were human nor monster, though their physical forms were skeletal in nature. Dream had asked Nightmare if there were other guardians - but his beloved had gotten a strange look in his eyes and refused to answer.

"I... Okay. There's a lot to unpack in what you just said... Do you think that your presence here prohibits any determined humans from Resetting this timeline?" Stretch asked, shifting a little bit closer to him, fascination, surprise and a quiet sort of desperation in his magical aura that caused Dream to frown a little in concern.

"Brother... They promised not to do so again, and they've been trying really hard to be good! I know that they can make it this time." Blue responded, though he too was curious and hopeful.

"I don't know - but Moonbeam's fought Determined humans in the past - had their soul in his hand, even as they tried to reset, and they were unable to do so in his presence. He's stronger than I am, though." Dream answered as honestly as he could, choosing to use one of the nicknames he had for his beloved, rather than calling the other by his true name. Part of him was worried that he might have accidentally found some of his beloved's enemies who weren't part of the other's empire... And calling him Moonbeam made Nightmare sputter a little and blush cutely, so that's what Dream was going to go with. At least until he figured out if they were friends or foes.

“Moonbeam, who is that?” Honey asked curiously, tilting his head a little at the positive spirit as he continued to observe Dream closely.

“Hmm? Oh, He's my mate.” Dream explained with a smile.

“Awww…. Did you know that your eye lights turn into little hearts briefly when you mention your mate? It's really sweet.” Blue pointed, his own eye lights turning into excited stars, his hands coming up to his mouth as he beamed happily at the positive guardian.

"Hey... Blue, I really think that Dream should probably meet Ink - I mean... Ink is the guardian of the AUs - I'm sure that they should talk for a bit... Unless - Have you and your mate already met him? He's a pretty unforgettable guy." Stretch suggested, a small smile on his face.

Dream shook his head, and answered honestly, "I've never heard of Ink before... But this is the first time I've ever left my home timeline. I've known that I've been capable of it for months now, I just... haven't." He'd very much wanted to explore the worlds - ideally with Nightmare at his side, but the other had wanted him to wait until he was back at full strength in order to do so... And when the negative guardian had some time to do so, as Dream was well aware of just how busy Nightmare was.

"Oh? Is there a particular reason why you haven't left before? Or were you just not in the mood?" Stretch questioned, the easygoing smile still on his face, though there was suspicion in the other's emotional aura.

The positive guardian hesitated for a moment before answering honestly, "I've been trying to catch up on everything that's happened in the three hundred or so years I was trapped in a stasis spell. N-Moonbeam's been very busy while I was stuck and I've been learning what he's been up to!" Dream nearly called Nightmare by his true name, but managed to hold off from doing so as he still was unsure as to whether or not these people were allies, enemies or were unknowing of who his mate was. From what he had gathered, Nightmare had hidden information about who Dream had been while he'd been trapped as a statue, in order to protect him when he was in an incredibly vulnerable state.

"I... I'm not sure, Paps." Blue responded with a small sigh. "Ink's usually quite busy..."

"Awh... You can at least text him? I'm sure that Dream'll be here for the next couple of hours at least - or however long that thunderstorm in his home timeline's supposed to last. I don't mind having someone crashing on the couch for a while. It wouldn't be the first time." Stretch pointed out, still smiling a little. "... Also were you able to tell your mate that you were going to be headed out, or did the sound from the thunder startle you too badly? You should probably call or text him to tell him that you're safe, but out of the universe."

Dream nodded, checking his pockets for the phone that Nightmare had given him recently, hoping that he hadn't forgotten the fascinating little device. The ringtone that he'd spent time picking out for Nightmare started to play... In the couch? Dream carefully pulled up one of the cushions and sure enough, there it was. He told the pair of mortals, "Moon's calling me... I'll take this outside."

He grabbed his phone and walked outside, noting the monsters milling about and making his way to the back of Blue and Stretch's house. Dream answered as soon as he was out of sight of everyone. "Hey Nighty..."

"Dream, where are you?" Nightmare asked, his voice tense and concerned.

Dream could hear a distant, if muffled rumble of thunder and shivered a little as he answered honestly, "I'm in an Underswap AU... I've been talking to the Sans and Papyrus for a little bit. They're really nice! I... I'm sorry for vanishing suddenly... I-I just..."

"You're afraid of thunder." The negative spirit sighed, completing Dream's sentence before he could say it. "I know. I was trying to reach you as soon as I heard the first rumble... But you were moving too quickly and you vanished before I could try to calm you down a little. I've been texting you the whole time... I was worried that you might have forgotten your phone."

"I... Sorry. I don't know why I didn't hear my phone go off. Then again, I woke up not too long ago. Apparently I passed out in the snow in Snowdin, but I'm feeling a lot better now... I-I just... I don't know how I'll react if I try to go home before the storm's over." Dream admitted quietly, shaking a little as he heard another muffled rumble of thunder, and quietly hating the fact that the loud sound was still able to affect him so much. He shoved away the awful memories the sound was bringing up. Things were better now. Nightmare had apologized for attacking him after he'd lost control of himself due to the Negative apples that he'd desperately consumed in order to protect them both.

"... Do the Sans and Papyrus have nicknames that they use when dealing with travelers from outside their world,  or were they taken by surprise at your appearance?" Nightmare asked, his voice neutral - but kind of like he was trying to make himself stay calm.

"The Sans also called himself Blue and Blueberry, and the Papyrus said he's also called Honey and Stretch! Also they mentioned another guardian, by the name of Ink?" Dream answered earnestly. "Do you know who that is?"

Nightmare growled a little at the name and responded, "I need you to go to the giant set of purple doors at the far end of the snowy section of the underground - Hatchet will be waiting for you there. Ink, Blue and Stretch are rather dangerous enemies of mine, and I do not know what they will do if they find out just how dear and precious you are to me, or if they get even so much as a hint of that."

Alarm shot through Dream at the other’s words and he nodded a little before realizing that the other wouldn’t be able to see him do that, and answered verbally. “Of course! Wh-what about once I get to Hatchet?”

“He’ll show you the coordinates to a safe AU for you to head to and stay until the storm passes. I'll come and get you.” Nightmare responded, voice warm and gentle. “I wish I could be with you right now, but…”

“You mentioned that you had to meet with several AU leaders today.” Dream finished quietly, understanding that the other was really busy “I hope that I didn't make too much of a scene…” He was already starting to move through the small town as he talked to his other half. Part of him felt guilty about just vanishing on Blue and Stretch, but Nightmare said they were enemies. The younger man wasn't going to allow himself to be used against the other if he could at all help it.

“No, I was able to smooth things over with them fairly easily.” Nightmare reassured him. “... And I would rather you stay on the phone until you get to Hatchet, but the trek through the forest outside of Snowdin can be long. Also there are sentries posted at regular intervals for humans, so watch out.”

“Okay, I should be able to sense them before they detect me,  but I'll be careful.” Dream promised, a small smile on his face. He could just tell them that one of his mate's friends had arrived in the AU and the two of them would be on their way- as far as he could tell, they were unaware that he even knew Nightmare… But one or both of them might insist on meeting his mate's friend... Or they would be offended that he'd not taking their offer of hospitality as he wouldn't want to inform him that he was saying no because Nightmare was an enemy of theirs as that was just asking for trouble - which Dream did his best not to try to do if he could at all help it. "I'll text you as soon as I reach Hatchet, alright?"

"I... That sounds reasonable." Nightmare answered after a moment, relief obvious to Dream in the other's voice. "I love you darling. Stay safe. I'll talk to you as soon as I can."

Guilt tugged at his soul, and Dream started to move a little bit faster, doing his best to stay out of the main road through town as he answered quietly, "I love you too, Nightmare. I... I-I can try to come home..."

"No, the storm's getting a lot worse, and while the enchantments on the castle will ensure that everyone and everything within will be protected from the elements... The sounds of the storm raging around the place will continue to be heard and I... I don't want to feel your distress and terror when there's another answer," the negative guardian answered immediately and firmly. "Get to Hatchet as soon as you can, and I'll come by when I can - either after the storm has passed, or once I've finished my duties for the day. Whichever comes first."

"I... Okay. See you soon, I hope!" Dream responded, hearing the other end the call before starting to run at a pace that he could keep up for hours if he needed, glancing around to make sure that no one was following him before he finished getting through snowdin. He stopped at the very rickety looking bridge, staring at the far side and teleporting to the other side of it and continuing to jog quickly. He hid in a snow poff as a large, armored monster went lumbering past him, and he teleported to the other side of the clearing, running for a while and dodging from one of bit of cover to the next, as he could sense the occasional monster wandering through the forest.

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2020

#18 - Breakaway, by Catherine Gayle

Mount TBR: 18/150

The Ultimate PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book with a main character in their 20s

Rating: 3/5 stars

[trigger warnings for this review: rape]

There are a lot of things I truly enjoyed about this book, and a lot of things I think were weak and deserved better treatment. They're all tangled together, though, so this is going to be a bumpy ride review.

First, the premise. A hockey-playing girl is gang-raped after one of her games, and years later, after nearly every kind of therapy she can reasonably try, she's recommended by her doctors to try a sex therapist who will both counsel her and also sleep with her, in the name of helping her past her trauma.

So...are those really a thing? I'm almost afraid to research and find out. The idea is very, very squicky to me, and I'm on board with the idea that Dana should not see one of these "therapists." Instead, she goes to Eric, one of her childhood friends. Her brother's best friend. (Hey, free trope squeezed in!) And she asks him to fill that role for her.

Eric turns out to be a great guy, one of the best things about this book. After initial, understandable reluctance, and real concern that this isn't the best thing for her even if it's with someone she already knows and can trust (him,) he agrees to her plan. And as far as I can stretch my disbelief to accept the premise at all, I'm okay with that. It seems at the beginning that he doesn't really think she'll be able to "go all the way" with him, so it's clear he's not using her for potential sex down the road and that he honestly cares about her. As things progress between them, he has to push her away sometimes because he's terrified he won't be able to keep himself in check and he'll end up hurting her--which he accidentally does at a few points, though the severity of her reaction varies, and he feels incredibly torn up about it when it does happen.

So I like that. I'm all about thoughtful, caring, respectful heroes.

What I don't like? I have really mixed feelings about the anxiety representation, and they're difficult to unpack properly. Dana experiences trauma-triggered panic attacks, and a lot of her attack symptoms line up with my own experience--which is good and feels authentic. But on the flip side, the incredible severity of her attacks, and how often she has them, is almost unbelievable. If they're that prevalent in her life, or if she's deliberately exposing herself to her triggers and constantly getting that reaction...well, then, her meds aren't working for her and need to be adjusted, or yeah, hero, you're right and she's really not ready for this yet. I mean, her attacks are constant and debilitating, and yes, that does happen to people even if that's not my experience, but I don't think it's at all realistic to show someone suffering this level of mental illness "curing" herself though exposure to her triggers. And that's the heart of the story, Dana retraining her body to accept that touch can be good.

Which is so freaking sweet and sad and heartwarming and I love it, even though I don't think it's done well. But if her anxiety weren't so debilitating, so that her journey out of it is more believable, then would it be serious enough that she needs this "therapy" at all? It's a conundrum.

But here's the other problem I have with this book: it's a hockey romance and it absolutely does not need to be. There's too much hockey. Hockey, in fact, actually interferes with the pacing of the story, because Dana, a hockey player herself, should have known that dropping this in Eric's lap during the run-up to the playoffs was the worst possible timing. (Even I know that, and I'm not a sports person AT ALL.) So there are long chapters of nothing but Eric on the ice during a game with the narrative doing a play-by-play, and that has nothing at all to do with the romance. If the reader is a hockey fan, great, maybe they're getting something out of it, but if they're not (like me) they're skimming past that because it doesn't have anything to do with the plot. Also, even though I know almost nothing about how to run a sports team of any kind, I found it way past my suspension of disbelief that a) Dana would be okay with literally everyone on the team and staff knowing about her sex life (in that she's attempting to be able to have one someday) in order to travel with the team so that she wouldn't be separated from Eric; and b) I can't believe the team management would go along with that, because it screams UNPROFESSIONAL on every possible level.

Dana's fear turning to growing confidence is beautiful. Eric's concern and tenderness are amazing. Of course the two of them are going to fall in love as they go through this strange and intimate experience together, especially since they were halfway there already because of leftover childhood feelings they never got to act on. For that part of the story, I'm 100% on board.

But everything external that should have been a conflict to their relationship, every real-world concern, had to get minimized or dismissed so that the entire focus could be on the huge, whopping, internal conflict of Dana's own trauma. Even her brother showing up and disapproving of the situation (as brother's best friend romances usually have to have them do at some point) doesn't really make a dent in the story, because he can't object too much or it might be a threat to Dana's recovery. And it's just silly how much a struggling NHL hockey team bends over backwards to make this plot line work.

[sirikyu]

Sun and Moon and character dynamics - a.k.a Ash’s unbelievably many varied types of friendships in this series like holy s

sit down friend, i am about to ramble on about sun & moon’s brilliance in its character writing. i center this mostly around ash because he’s my fave. i love all of them but i have biases from my childhood and i tend to gravitate towards main charact- i mean anyway here we go. (warning: gettin a bit personal but not in a negative way)

one of my many fave things about sun and moon are the characters. the entire main crew of classmates are all different and fun in the own individual ways and they all manage to hold an episode very well, even though they rarely have to do that (and that’s good, because it’s a story about friends and support and family!! never put them alone to deal with a new, scary situation tbh, that’s too dark for me). everyone in the main cast have all managed as the emotional core of the episode, not necessarily because they are all very likeable, which definitely isn’t necessary for good storytelling, but i’d argue that it’s valuable especially in children’s tv, showing good people making mistakes and showing how far a supportive environment goes to help them over that. every individual dynamic between ash and another member of the sumo team is so unique to each other. ash isn’t at the forefront of everything, he’s not “the” main protagonist, and he isn’t what makes this series compelling, but he IS an excellent tether between this group of friends to me, personally, and i think this show has a lot of new ash content i haven’t gotten in many, many series run (ash is great, alright? you guys are just mean.)

im especially glad of sophocles’ and ash’s friendship because their complementary differences are in such a good balance, and i have such a soft spot for sophocles. sophocles is smart and not-sporty, but he isn’t a know-it-all stereotype. i was afraid there would inevitably be a fat joke or nerdy joke, but i don’t remember seeing anything too demeaning or harmful in the light tone they handle sophocles’ nerdiness and roundness. i still remember watching the very early episode where ash and sophocles are still getting to know each other and they get stuck in the mall. even before all the fun character beats as they scramble in the dark (and get short with each other) in that episode, i remember with GREAT fondness when sophocles was very hesitant to admit he’s in the mall to indulge in ice cream. he’s shy about his sweet tooth! i found the excecution very delicate and sweet (pardon the pun), because i don’t think i’ve related in that specific way to a character before in a show? because being fat means that there is an awkwardness and hyperawareness whenever you so much as think about stepping into the candy aisle, and sophocles not wanting to admit to his new classmate-soon-to-be-friend that he’s indulging was, deliberately written that way or not, very real. (not to be a sophocles stan, but he’s a good kid and deserves everything good since episode 1).

but i digress. sophocles steps in to teach his classmates sometimes because he loves learning. he rarely acts condescending to his friends. be the everyman in some crazy situations ash and others get into sometimes (that shrinking episode?? it’s still one of my favourites mostly because of the group of characters they chose for the main conflict. the daredevil pokemon loving duo that is lillie and ash vs. sophocles’ anxiety about the hectic and kinda perilous situation!! it was hilarious). sophocles, to me, seems to value ash’s friendship for similiar reasons clemont used to, in XY. it seems more warm and mutual in this series, thanks to ash’s characterisation. sophocles saves ash in several occasions, which, just! hello!! is the best thing and i love that all these kids are heroes and worthy of admiration. they also remain good. theyre all good. all rangers are equally important. they’re all amazing. okay? alright.

its heartwarming and supportive. they also are like, bonded through their main pokemon being electric mice. isn’t that the cutest?

ash and kiawe on the other hand, they’re a powerhouse couple that egg each other on. they push each other forward and have similiar sense of drive towards pokemon and battles. ever since kiawe gave hint that he battles he found common ground with ash. also he’s such a goofball who gets SUPER emotional about so many things (his sister!! mountains!! determined people!! so many things! he cries openly!) even though he comes across as serious at first, which kind of gives us a character with some similiar traits to ash but who couldn’t ever be mistaken for ash’s personality. they both get fired up in tandem about competing, but they also come from very different lives and backgrounds. I don’t ever think to compare their dynamic to anything else, they’re really unique! they are also mutually supportive, but it has a distinct flavor compared to sophocles and ash. maybe kiawe is a little bit more relatable to ash because of their similiar interest in battling and competing?

ash and lillie are super lovely and i like that lillie has her own story that ash is driven to help her with. and they are similiar in their excitement about pokemon (and yet, in a wholly different way than ash and kiawe are?? lillie has great drive in wanting to help pokemon with knowledge and books, because a hands-on approah wasn’t possible to her in so long, but i think when sophocles learns about stuff, it’s his studious nature and interest in tiny details.) and self-sacrificing hero-type stuff. we got to see lillie fulfill her potential after she figured out her way through her trauma, and we could see that out of her shell, lillie and ash are super similiar, AGAIN in a different way from the others, but never in a less important way. lillie is just a ray of sunshine. she also knows he limitations and works toward overcoming them. her and ash’s frienship comes from going through some very important and life-changing things together. i think ash really wanted lillie to be able to touch pokemon because it’s important to him and it clearly used to be to lillie, which he realises when he sees her old photos.

ash and mallow have this very sweet and family-oriented sibling relationship. they’re not often paired up but i think the times they are, they remind me of my sister and me, which is such a big part of my love for mallow, even if she doesn’t get imo enough spotlight in the big plots. on the other hand, her personal journeys within her own family are so good i cannot be mad at anything. she guides, she’s patient, she’s enhusiastic in a similiar way to ash, but has a more level head. but she also eggs her friends on with her boundless energy. the more i think about her, the more i love her. mallow is awesome!! not least of all, she has such good relationships toward her female classmates. she’s nosy and protective, but not in a smothering way. she’s very supportive and very good at it. (the episode with the mom? killed me.) the way she takes care of her peers in the school is amazing.

ash and lana are both adventurous, i think they really like to get in trouble together lol. lana is also strong and they both ooze main character material with the way they have with pokemon in the wild. it’s awesome. i kind of feel like these two could use a more emotional episode together, but i think i’ll have plenty to be emotional about when this crew parts ways :(((

i made myself sad, but i can confidently say that this show has the most unique and varied and developed set of characters and character dynamics of all pokemon, in a cast this size. the fact that they’re good friends and have none of that bordering-on-mean banter from any of the previous seasons is in fact, a big bonus for me. i love this class, i wish i could hang out in alola indefinitely.

[agameoftragedy]

Writing (and being) people with mental difficulties

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I don’t know how well I’m going to be able to express it, given that that’s part of the whole problem. I myself have developed what seems to be increasing mental difficulties, which makes it harder to explain what you experience to people who don’t know or see.

One of the first things to qualify is that naturally everyone’s experiences will be slightly different anyway; the brain is even more complex than the body and there’s still aspects to it that we don’t understand, but you can certainly read about examples of people who have obviously sustained brain damage to a specific area of the brain and the repercussions of that depending on the area. But, when it’s not so apparent what area is struggling or affected, or if it seems to be somewhat all-encompassing...!

The other thing is, I myself don’t know how you would write somebody who has had severe learning difficulties from birth (Lollys Stokeworth from ASOIAF for example) in the first person. Again, part of why this can be so difficult is because if (some parts of) the brain are that bad it can render you incapable of explaining your experiences to other people in a way they can understand. And if they can’t tell us, it’s left to everyone else to imagine (and make mistakes).

So, bit of background on me, I used to be shy but pretty cogent even face-to-face, and was generally good at expressing myself. I was top of my class in several subjects as a kid (and then went to a school for ‘smarter’ kids as a teenager so I wasn’t so special), went to uni, etc. It’s not 100% clear what’s gone wrong with my body since my early 20s, but it’s certainly neurological as well as physical, and honestly the neurological problems I have are way more troublesome than the pain and physical fatigue. They can’t seem to pin down the problem, but when I had MRI/CT of my head a couple years ago there was apparently nothing evident (though those don’t show everything...).

So, down to business:

- My brain is crap. Now, I know this, because I have also experienced my brain working how it used to, and now it is complete trash in comparison. If you are or are writing somebody who has had trouble from birth, they may not have any such feelings because they don’t know how it feels to have a brain that works differently anyway, except perhaps observing that other people can do things they couldn’t.

- How bad a problem this is varies massively. I was very cerebral and that was used a lot in my hobbies, so it prevents me doing things I love(d). If your character wasn’t like that anyway, it may not bother them as much. If your character has always been this way, everything they do probably already fits with their abilities. It can also literally vary from day to day, one day you’re kinda forgetful and the next you can barely string a sentence together, good days and bad days.

- You still have a personality. In fact, this is probably part of what is interesting, the way personality filters through these problems. Sometimes it can actually make you differentiate yourself more - I was quite shy and reserved, keep my thoughts to myself, but my emotional regulation is faultier now and I’m more likely to just say the thing and/or show how I’m feeling. I like to think I’m nice, and it means I get cuddlier and compliment people, but if your character was an asshole under wraps they could now be more overt about it (or contrast with another character who’s just as bad but covers it up).

- It can mess with your moods. I used to be prone to anxiety, constantly caught up in my thoughts, but that’s often way too much work for my brain now and I find myself more able to just like look at some pretty flowers like ‘ooooh’ with nothing more going on underneath, so I can be kind of happier. On the other hand though...

- It depends on your environment and how you’re treated. Because I’m struggling enough as it is, I’m prone to frustration of anything making my life any harder. I can be happy as a clam in my own little environment I’ve developed, but when you go out into a generally unaccommodating and judgemental world, it makes everything harder. It would be presumptuous to say that it’s worse, but I know I especially suffer as somebody who knows how things could be, because I remember that I used to be able to do these things and I also know how some able people talk and think about (mentally) disabled people when they’re not around.

- If you haven’t always been like this, adjusting is hard, especially if you can remember before (and have a questionable short term memory). To start with it’s hard to remember that you might struggle to do something (because you used to be able to), and then it’s hard to deal with the emotional pain of realising how bad you are in comparison (especially if you have little to no hope of regaining that ability).

- People can be shit and it’s hard to help that. This can often include doctors. In my experience it’s a little like being a child again; I know my judgement can be iffy at times now and I kind of need somebody keeping an eye on me, but it’s trying to get a balance between that and people ignoring and dismissing what you want and say entirely (assuming you can even express it adequately). You can keep your autonomy if you don’t admit you have this problem, but that leaves you in potential danger (from yourself) and gets you no help at all. For me I luckily have a couple of very understanding and supportive people in my life, but without those... I have deep concerns for people, as with neurodivergent kids whose parents don’t take their issues seriously.

- Trouble ‘thinking’ may well not be your only issue. I get a lot of headaches, and ‘episodes’ (there is a lot of discourse over whether they count as seizures) where basically I collapse and can’t move but am still conscious, ocular migraines, tinnitus... You can sprinkle various neurological symptoms really, depending on how a character acquired their difficulties.

- Comparing adult people with difficulties to children is controversial, though I can see some similarities at times in cases like mine. I’d certainly say that if somebody acquired their difficulties as an adult, I’d avoid this - if they were a sexual person before there’s probably still some level of that, they probably don’t insta-child, and there’ll probably be times where they still feel like they’re basically the person they were (until reminded of what’s changed when they try too much).

~~~~~~~~~~~~

This post is unfinished but I’m honestly not certain if I’ll be able to do so. I seizured at this point and have no idea what else I was going to say when I was writing it. If anyone else has input or questions, I’ll receive them happily.