Tagged by @dragonracer. Thanks! I've been seeing this go around and have been pretty fascinated by it.

I think one of the most difficult parts of writing a character - or just a story in general - is that urge to make them your idea of ideal, essentially making them into the person you wish you were or wish you had in your life. Of course, perfect doesn't exist, and consistently morally good characters are certainly not a bad thing, but if you want to tell a good story you need to let characters be human and deal with conflict.

Okay, lecture over, let's see why my Rook, Atash, sucks:

(I found the best RBF pic I could. I eventually fixed her eyebrows to look less like Cruella de Vil.)

Fully Internalizes Big Feelings

Several decades of therapy have taught me that it's one thing to not make your problems other people's problems, and another thing to feel like you shouldn't show any big or "difficult" feelings to anyone, ever, ever ever, even when they're tearing you up and you can barely even function.

Atash's mother, Nazay, broke from the Qun as a young woman, and completely disavowed any attachment to it, but you can't just leave behind the way you were raised. It's something you have to consistently and consciously work on. It shows up in the little things as well as big. And in Nazay's case, she - with nothing but good, loving intentions - taught Atash to put herself and her strengths to serve others, as the Qun had taught her. This, in and of itself, is not a bad quality at all. In fact, it's even admirable. But anything pushed too far can turn poisonous, as the spirits and demons of the Fade demonstrate.

In putting herself to service, Atash was also taught not to burden anyone needlessly. This was particularly reinforced growing up as one of 15 kids being raised by her mother. While she was her mother's one biological child, this meant she received even less special treatment, not more, as Nazay did not want any of her children to think Atash was the "favorite". Again, good intentions, maybe not the greatest execution. Atash learned that her feelings always had to take a back seat to everyone else's, and if she ever acted out (as kids often do) she received particularly harsh punishment. She was told over and over that she needed to be a protector and example to those who were smaller and weaker than her, that her big strong body and magic abilities were meant to fill an important role in her family and community. Getting angry, being upset, that was selfish and wrong and made everyone else's life harder. So she had to keep it to herself and handle it in private.

But, as anyone who has ever had feelings knows, that doesn't just go away because you tell it to. Atash got very very good at masking her feelings and putting on a smile, but those big bad feelings remained, bottling up in her heart. When they became too much, she would have terrible panic attacks, and (as a teen) violent losses of temper. When her mother died, Atash completely lost herself, numbing her pain with booze and adrenaline on more and more dangerous Lords expeditions. This eventually became a danger not only to her own safety but those of her crew. Isabela finally sat her down (wrestled her to the ground and pinned her with a foot to the chest) and made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that unless she got her drinking under control and took care of her grief, she was going to be booted from the Lords. Deeply shamed, but surrounded by supportive family and friends, Atash did climb out of the hole she had dug - but only when she was told it was making everyone's lives harder, not because she deserved to be happy and healthy.

Being leader of the Veilguard has been both the worst possible thing for this mentality and also somehow the best possible therapy.

Manipulative/"Selfish Compassion"?

This has gotten better as she's grown, but internalizing big bad feelings has led Atash to take it really really hard whenever she perceives that she has failed - especially when it affects other people. This isn't just in seeing her teammates dying because of an order she gave, but in seeing that someone she's supposed to take care of is upset or sick or just feeling "kind of off". As a young Lords captain, she was constantly worrying and trying to fix all her teammates' problems so that they would always be happy all the time (because, again, Bad Feelings Are Bad Always) , which drove a few to quit. This was only partly out of altruism - she just felt really uncomfortable when people showed big feelings and wanted them to stop, so she could feel better.

She eventually gained enough self awareness to recognize the issue and learn that Bad Feelings Aren't Actually Bad Always, and she often just needed to step back and listen. She still has to suppress the mighty urge to jump in and immediately fix people's problems rather than just let them process and figure things out, but she's slowly learning to be okay with being uncomfortable sometimes and not take it so personally. People need to feel sad or angry or "a little off" sometimes and that is okay.

People Pleaser

Further to the above issue, Atash has a tendency to go overboard with keeping people happy in order to protect herself. As a Qunari, she has had to deal with a lot of racist bullshit from inlanders and learned that the best protection from this was to be as disarmingly happy, peppy, obedient and agreeable as possible, to not appear as a threat. She is genuinely an extrovert who really likes people in general, but she also wraps herself in this quality like armor. She avoids conflict like the plague. There's a big difference between being nice and "being nice", and Atash often goes back and forth over that line in her efforts to get people to like her - or, at least, not spit on her. She has lost a few friendships over this, being completely unwilling to face issues in the relationship or stand up for them when they needed her. She, of course, took those losses hard, and is doing her best to catch herself when she's just "being nice", but it's hard and she's still got a ways to go.

***

Wow, that was a lot. I only did three things because I'm very tired, but these are by no means Atash's only flaws, just the biggest ones.

Name:Mustafa🇹🇷

Age:35

He/Him

Although he seems like a good person, he is actually the greedy man I mentioned before, who kills his victims for money and makes toys from their corpses and sells them. Only Yağmur knows this secret of his, but since that man threatens Yağmur, Yağmur cannot tell it to anyone. When choosing his victims, he generally gains the trust of people who are excluded from society and kills them after ensuring that the society loves that victim and even becomes famous. In short, he is a money-hungry bastard.

Name: Gözde🇹🇷

Age:32

She/Her

She is actually Pelinsu's mother. But Pelinsu's father divorced from his wife after it was revealed that she was cheating on him. But that's not the only reason she's a bad character. She also constantly tries to kidnap Pelinsu and force her to marry someone older than Pelinsu in exchange for money. she also caused to break Pelinsu's legs, and because of Gözde, Pelinsu has been confined to a wheelchair all her life...

Name:Sevim 🇹🇷

Age:36

She/Her

She is the mother of Atakan and Doğa, but she started drinking alcohol constantly after she divorced her husband. He also constantly inflicts violence on his children and puts psychological pressure on them by constantly comparing them with others. So her motherhood is just a matter of words.

Name: Mrs. Gülşen and Mr. Kamil 🇹🇷

Age: (Gülşen) 46

(Kamil) 50

She/Her

He/Him

They are Kader's mother and father. We define them as bad characters because they constantly beat Kader when she was little and tried to force her to marry at a young age. (Don't worry, Kader's current marriage is a marriage of her own will and not a marriage at a young age.) Additionally, Kader realizes that her mother and father did not accept that Lavina was autistic when she was 6 years old and were constantly trying to touch her. When he sees them beating him, he cuts off communication with them. They don't see each other anymore.

Sarah 🇬🇧

Age:14

She/Her

Sarah is generally someone who bullies people, humiliates them, and can even go as far as using violence. In short, she's a spoiled brat. After Yağmur and Öykü die, because Sarah made fun of it, Lavina eventually has a nervous breakdown and loses her mind, and that night she kills Sarah by trapping her in a dead-end street, but then she goes and surrenders in order not to cause trouble for anyone, and is sentenced to death penalty, and Lavina dies because of Sarah.

Name:Mrs.Hilal 🇹🇷

Age:32

She/Her

She was actually Toprak's primary school teacher, but she sexually harassed Toprak when he was still young. After continuing this for a long time, she was released and Hilal harassed Toprak once again. She went to prison again, but while escaping from prison, Toprak was shocked when he saw her while driving and accidentally crushed Hilal to death out of fear. That damn woman is probably in the depths of hell right now.

Amelia 🇬🇧

Age: Died when she was in her 34

She/her

I've told you some things about it before, so now I'll just explain the part I didn't say. In her life before she died, she was actually a teacher for disabled children, but once, someone burned the school while all the children were at school, causing the children to die. Amelia then went crazy and eventually committed suicide. We currently know Lavina as the "Queen of Rules and Goodness" in her dream world, but she is happy in heaven with her students. Actually, she doesn't want to harm Lavina and her friends, but the problem is this: Amelia sees Lavina and the others not as they are, but as people who cause the deaths of the students, so she harms the lives of Lavina and the others. As you can see, she is not actually as bad as I explained before, just life has worn her out a lot.

Christina 🇬🇧

Age: Died when she was 15

She/Her

Christina is not a real girl, but the spirit of her dead self. After years of bullying and violence in her previous life, Mustafa killed her to make a baby. Her spirit generally wanders around the forest areas and does her best to harm the lives of Lavina and the others, but like Amelia, she sees Lavina and the others as they are, not as people who bully her and as the man who killed her for money. After accidentally killing Öykü, she is never seen again, we will never know what happened to her...

@muaviinu Soukoku Switch AU

Chuuya came out very cool with you. I really liked your story. Thank you))

Bonus: