bark snarl hiss

Not too broad at all! Also, feel free to ask random questions at any time.

Bolton shares some of my opinions on recovery, but in sort of an inconsistent, reflexively-contrarian way.

2. Do you like listening to things while writing/editing/outlining?

I don't just "like" to, it's practically imperative! Less so for outlining than for writing/editing, but yeah. I have specific playlists for different settings and characters, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, I compose some of this "mood music" myself. I'm very sound-oriented so it's genuinely difficult for me to think fluidly without music.

15. Who is your favorite character to write?

Probably Bolton, to be honest. She's just so incorrigibly catty and hypocritical.

18. Favorite piece of advice?

I'm going to discuss two separate OCs here (Alena Galkine and Marielle Silva), because they're the ones currently on my mind (and they're also the two most important characters in the current installment.)

5. Would people say that they're recovered?

This is complicated for me to answer because I have qualms with the very notion of recovery definitions and narratives, but I don't feel like this is the appropriate time to attempt unpacking all that.

People might get the impression of "recovery" from Alena, especially early-chapters Alena. She can maintain composure, momentum, and social cohesion in a crisis. She tends to behave in ways that are legibly forgiving and unselfish, even if she's not all that emotionally available. In reality, her inner world is still at least 75% survivor's guilt. It was like that before she ran away to the Bridgekeeper monastery in her late teens (actually is the reason why she went there to begin with), and it just keeps getting worse. Her generosity and momentum are how she deals with it, but her reunion with her brothers in the upcoming chapters 4-6 will really show the cracks in that. Marielle is a more obvious mess. She is used and abused, but she's still ultimately a corporate heiress. She is largely unsocialized, frequently lashes out, says rude things, and doesn't feel any remorse for it. She tends to care more about people as an abstraction, the people she can't see that she's involuntarily hurting with her very existence more so than the people near her (which, to be fair, some of them are pieces of shit and I can't really blame her). She temporarily gets a little better in terms of building actual connections with people when she gets some exposure to other Saels/psions who were not genetically engineered, but after learning the truth about the relationship between Atlaren's Saels and the Earth-people who settled down in Atlaren, she gets a lot worse. Crumbling Bridge is fundamentally about Marielle Silva getting worse (and Alena trying and failing to help until she herself also gets worse). Anyone who'd say she seems "recovered" is fundamentally misreading 😂

16. What can't they remember?

Alena has a vivid memory of most of the bad things that have happened to her, but she does not remember many of the times she has been physically injured because her psionic repair abilities kicked in spontaneously (not something that happens for most psionics, but she's not special in some mystically-overpowered way; she's just a bit of a medical anomaly! The fact that her body does this is actually not good for her long-term!)

Marielle cannot remember psionically poisoning some of her caretakers in her early childhood. But it happened. A lot.

21. Does what happened effect how they deal with the people around them?

Your OCs have been through a lot. This ask game is just a few questions to help you explore those traumas and the subsequent recovery of your OCs. Trauma can cover pretty much anything so keep that in mind. This is a darker set of OC questions so please add any trigger warnings to your answers.

What would your OC say is their biggest trauma?

What actually is your OC's biggest trauma?

Are they OK to talk about it? Or do they avoid it?

Do they consider themselves recovered?

Would other people say they were recovered?

Do they have healthy coping mechanisms? If so, what are they?

Have they any unhealthy ways of thinking or talking about the trauma in question?

Is there any lingering effects of the trauma they faced?

How did they cope in the immediate aftermath?

Are there any ways their friends or family help them cope? Do they have a support system?

Are they angry about what happened? What are some feelings they have about what happened?

Do they ever blame themselves for any part of what happened?

If death is apart of their trauma, do they feel guilty for surviving when somebody else didn't?

Are there triggers your OC avoids because of the trauma?

What do they remember about the trauma?

What can't they remember?

What do they remember about the immediate time before the trauma?

In their recovery, what do they want to gain back from the experience?

How does their trauma effect their everyday life?

How do they manage their emotions surrounding the trauma?

Does what happened effect how they deal with the people around them?

Is there any way your OC comforts themselves when thinking of the trauma?

Have they any lingering fears due to the trauma that they didn't have before?

Does your OC relive the trauma sometimes?