#the cracked facade

Alright, lemme start by setting the context. During the battle that banished Jack, he received a blow to the back of the skull after colliding with a barrier. This cracked the skull a little, but gave him a concussion. It wasn’t major, but it was enough to hinder his motor skills and make him easy to dump in the lair.

Fast forward some years, and Jack is fixing some shelves. Unfortunately, the chair he was standing on gave way and he crashed to the ground, cracking his skull off a nearby bookshelf on the way down. This was where the majority of his problems started.

While he was lucky to retain his memories, they were scrambled, and he erroneously believed he was in the lair the entire time. He believed they were events he imagined. This was sorted once outside evidence was presented to him and he was able to fact-check. Sadly, this also refuelled the revenge fire with gasoline but that’s another story entirely.

As part of the skull injury, Jack developed aphasia. While it’s explained in this video really well, aphasia is when a person struggles with the use of language: whether it is written, reading, or orally. They may also struggle with comprehension, or have delays between words. It’s a varying condition that ultimately depends on what areas in the brain are affected. However, the person affected is still as intelligent as the were before the accident or stroke.

Jack’s strand is on the milder half of the scale, though the conditions don’t match entirely due to his not-human status. His speech is slower than before, and can slur if he isn’t careful. He sometimes ‘loses’ words, which forces him to either think of an alternative or describe it. He is also prone to stutters at certain times. His reading is quite good, and I’m currently unsure how his writing is.

This is all rather interesting, you might say, but it’s not really seen in any threads; and you’re absolutely correct. Like I said, Jack being non-human changes things slightly. As you may know, he is capable of magic. He’s been using his magic to ‘hyper-focus’ on his language to attempt to hold it at a level it was at before. This means that for the most part, his symptoms are milder (though the slower speech is a constant), and may go unnoticed. Unfortunately, this isn’t fool-proof. If his concentration is broken (such as being caught off-guard or surprised), the symptoms fluctuate as he scrambles to regain his focus. His emotions can also affect this, and growing too stressed or angry may aggravate certain conditions. Finally, using both his fire and focusing on his language drains his energy, which results in him only being able to manage both for very short periods.

There are some 'Jack-exclusive’ symptoms too, resulting from the crack, the aphasia, or both. The biggest one is he cannot turn into a scarecrow anymore. If he does, the pumpkin head will break nearly instantly. Even if it wasn’t the case, he doesn’t have the energy to transform. If he were to change form (even into the slightly sturdier human form) he’d risk losing his speech entirely, though he doesn’t know that. His movement skills are improving, but it will be a long time before he’s as acrobatic as he used to be. Also, if overwhelmed by stress, his mind can fog up, making it difficult for him to both think straight and comprehend what it being said to him.

The main treatment is speech therapy, but Jack hasn’t been getting it (for obvious reasons). Instead, he viewed his condition as a burden, and forced himself to work through it. He would make himself read long passages of text out loud, because he knew he remembered the words - even if he didn’t at that moment. The hyper-focus may appear to do plenty, but it simply masks his conditions. If he wants proper treatment, he needs to work without this… And that’s not something he’s willing to do.

Honestly, he’s ashamed of it. For someone as intellectual and clever as he, it is a torture within itself to be unable to articulate what you are thinking. Which is why he’s giving me a death glare as I write all this out for everyone to see.