#my darling bakhya. she is so troubled.

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OC questions! Kuobakhaya for 34, 39,30 and B!

Uncommon OC questions

34. How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt?

Very difficult. Kuobakhaya has a very hard time not feeling guilty about a lot of things, even stupid ones, both when she does need to feel guilty and when she doesn't. Being a recovering drug addict brings with herself a huge baggage of things and a lot of guilt regarding several different things, be it not being a good friend, not being a good enough girlfriend, not being pretty enough/in shape enough (body dysmorphia as a result of her eating disorder), not being funny enough, people not liking her enough in general, not being good enough at recovering, not being grateful enough to Tisha (even though he really doesn't ask for anything besides her trying to be ok!) and so forth.

She makes an effort not to let it shake her up too much but there are days the guilt will eat at her for hours. It is definitely going to be a long time before she will fully be able to handle it, but as it is now, it is very hard for her to do that.

39. How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?

Honestly... ridiculously easy... For an example, personal history aside, the reason she was able to befriend Tisha the way she did when they were children was that Kuobakhaya very very easily will overlook people's faults and flaws, even when it is not beneficial to her or when she knows that they will end up causing her problems one way or another. This hasn't been the case with Tisha specifically, but with many other people she has met it was.

While she doesn't cut slack for her family, who she misses but doesn't regret leaving behind (I have to decide still if I want her to have a brother or two) when she moved to the UK she ended up befriending a lot of untrustworthy folk who took advantage of the fact that she was desperate to fit in and wanted to become as "cool" as possible as the other youngsters were. (She moved with Tisha to the UK when they were approximately barely 18, so they both had no clue what they were doing, just enough budget to rent a dingy apartment and Lots Of Dreams) So, in England Kuobakhaya unfortunately has ignored many people's many many grave flaws due to her being very desperate for some kind of approval, and her drug addiction (heroin) certainly did not help her feel any better even if she felt it did at the time. This unstable period of her life was rendered further chaotic by her awful three ex-boyfriends which in different ways made her life A Good Amount Hell, which I won't get into right now but you have to believe me that dumping each of them individually required Bakhya to build up a lot of courage and she gradually ended up raising her standards little by little.

Even back in their hometown, Bakhya ended up frequenting shady folks - one of the reasons she decided to leave her family behind was exactly because they'd found out about her drug addiction, which at the time was cocaine. Both her and Tisha unfortunately developed addictions when they were both pretty young (the living conditions weren't optimal for either and she used as an excuse the fact she was mourning for the loss of her family pet, which at the time she considered to be her only real friend). This partly also explains why she has a difficult relationship when it comes to her self worth and why she often let others walk over her hoping they would "approve" of her in some way or another. Obviously there is other factors at hand as well.

For reference at the age of 28 (when I usually draw her) to 30 she is actually getting help for her heroin addiction and annexed mental ailments that come from them (principally eating disorders) so she is on her way to recovery, though it is Not easy obviously. But even in a more stable state of mind Bakhya tends to blame herself before she recognizes others' flaws...

30. Who do they most regret meeting?

A lot of people... Though probably most of all she regrets meeting the second of her 3 exes because dealing with him made her psychic ailments a thousand times worse.

It was the kind of toxic situation where Bakhya was desperate for any kind of attention and ended up going to any length to try and make him happy, but unfortunately was not able to do so (the guy was just an asshole full of shit) even when she went as far as to dye her hair blonde since he liked to repeat "how much he likes blonde girls" out loud when she was around.

She knows he was a piece of shit now, but being around him only contributed to making her situation back then worse both with self-esteem, mental health, and drugs, so she will always feel remorse over having considered going out with him at all. Probably the only person in the world she actively always wishes harm against.

B) What inspired you to create them?

This issss a great question! I don't remember actually. Before I decided to rehaul her, Kuobakhaya used to be "Joan", and I made Joan all the way back in 2016 now I think. Crazy to think that it's been 9 years since I've had this OC and only now decided to give her a proper well-rounded revision. I've had to change a lot of things about her.

I think I made her not long after watching Trainspotting, I think, and I was really fascinated with the complexity of characters that are afflicted by addictions, as well as how complicated drugs can make one's life in like, real life, not just in movies. I went as far as to thoroughly research every possible symptoms a character like Bakhya's could have, researching the intersection that comes with switching from cocaine to heroin usage, what are the visible tics, the psychological effects, and so forth. I was further inspired to simply let a tulpa of sorts develop in my brain around the "what if she suffered this and that, how would she react, what would her thoughts be" and gradually it just... Happened.

What was really curious is that I made "Joan" before I ever even watched Twin Peaks, as I now consider Laura Palmer one of the inspirations for Kuobakhaya ('she's just like me fr' situation with Bakhya -> Laura) but trust me when I say I saw the show much later than she was created. Obviously Bakhya's story is not at all a carbon copy of Laura Palmer's (because I made her before I knew of Laura's character, but also because I feel it'd be in bad taste?) but the sentiments, the "philosophy" behind the type of character are both there, in a sense...

This question went sort of nowhere I apologize but I was really just inspired by the idea of a woman tortured by the Mundane demons, not supernatural creatures or anything like that, by how drugs can shape a person and feed into their insecurities and really try and feel how that can change them fundamentally; but not only that, I wanted to explore the idea of recovery, finding yourself again, trying to get back on your own feet after years spent trying to "fit" with the "cool crowd". I had a rp blog for the then-Joan, for like, years, you know.

And I decided to give her a little character arc where she went through recovery and everything. I spent so much effort writing it, too, like, it was really extensive (for my standards) and it involved moving blogs and everything just for that really clean slate feeling -- and literally nobody cared about it, like it was straight up ignored by many people who weren't my friends? I remember that moment completely disenchanting me from the oc roleplay community LOL. Anyway.............