Oliver (aged 17) is – how should I put this – odd. He does things to intentionally make people feel uncomfortable. For instance, on the day that he met his only friend (a quiet, distant, and eccentric girl), Oliver ran a plastic knife across his throat, then coughed fake blood. His father killed his mother, so he obviously has a troubled past. His school therapist calls him mentally disturbed and unstable. I honestly have no idea if his behavior is realistic at all, and if it is, what could he be diagnosed with, and how would he interact with people?
Sincerely,
Unable to Diagnose
Dear Unable to Diagnose,
There are people out there who love to go for shock value, and the more uncomfortable the reaction from others, the more it feeds into this behavior. He's more into the macabre, slitting his throat and coughing blood. If it's remotely realistic looking, then he's going to get an intense reaction. This would appear to be mentally unstable, but I don't know a lot about Oliver at this time. He might have a very good reason for doing what he's doing. Did he have a lot of attention growing up? Was he always told to blend into the background, that children are better seen, not heard? Would this be a reaction against this? As for diagnosis, he could have a simple adjustment disorder, depending on when his mother died or if something else traumatic had just happened. Does he have flashbacks to his father's murder of his mother? You haven't really given me enough to diagnose from. But while I haven't met or treated any personally, there are class clowns, if you will, who lean toward the darker side of comedy...so it's feasible. But we'd need to talk more.
Dear Jeannie -
Alice and her four companions are all around the age of 13-15 years old. They have been abandoned in a science facility, left there by the scientists who decided to look out for themselves rather than take care of kids. They are the only ones left who aren't dead already. They experience bouts of going hungry because there is nothing to eat, and fighting for survival in hopes of exiting the facility. They finally are rescued after about a month of living there. What would be the emotional repercussions for the abandonment, isolation, responsibility, and fear placed on these kids?
SciFi Junkie
Dear SciFi Junkie,
What wouldn't be the emotional repercussions? The sky would be your only limitation. I'd believe that lack of trust would rank high on the list. Adults used and abused them as test experiments and then left them. Assuming that it's adults who find them, I'd believe that they would be mistrustful to a high degree. They'd also want to stick together, likely, even if they had arguments between themselves. This type of trauma could form an impenetrable bond between these teens. It's something they went through together, and understand together. They might be hoarders, constantly sneaking and stuffing food into pockets, not quite sure when they will see food again. This is survival mode. Some of the group would likely be more parental than the others. They'd show a large amount of caretaking, keeping law and order, etc. Others are going to be the rebellious acting out type. Think The Breakfast Club. People assume roles that they think they are to assume. Leaders need followers and rule-breakers, etc. It's a broad question, for sure, and you have lots of room to run with it.
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Anonymous · 556 weeks ago
Fred and Dan have grown up together as brothers. Dan is the only heir to his dad's cutthroat politics, and Fred was adopted when the parents realized they couldn't have any more kids. Growing up, they were both wildly different from each other and very close. Dan was cruel to Fred that first year or so (when they were toddlers), but Fred's open affection and loyalty won him over. Family obligation separated them as teenagers (Dan apprenticed with their dad, Fred went to care for an ailing grandpa), and they do not recognize each other when they are reunited as young men. Fred has grown quiet, though he is more patient and giving than anyone remembers. Dan, on the other hand, has become the leader of a loud, rough group of troubled boys. The more they try to involve Fred in their shenanigans, the more he removes himself.
My problem is Dan. As Fred is back in the neighborhood but not participating, Dan becomes increasingly hostile and destructive. Why? I can sort of understand wanting his brother back, but how does he think that picking fights or killing Fred's dog is going to help anything? I don't think Dan is right in the head, but I'm not sure about that. Now that they're adults, Dan keeps assaulting Fred (or Fred's loved ones) in an effort to make Fred come back to Dan's side. And the more he destroys everything he touches, the further away Fred gets. Is there a name--or a treatment--for what's ailing Dan?
Slap-happy in Saluda
Anonymous · 556 weeks ago
Jardin has gone to considerable trouble to become queen. She has built a network of relationships (some healthy, some manipulative) to help her get where she wanted to be, and then took ruthless advantage of a civil war to cement her position. Her family knows her well, and they have tried to maintain some level of closeness and kindness as she has drifted further into politics. But Jardin no longer allows herself intimacies like friendships or trust. Now that the war is over, she is anxious to "fix" her land. Her people, especially her cabinet of counselors, are equally anxious to marry her off so that they can have a king and heirs. On the one hand, the long war and her concern for her people have aged and withered the youthfulness in her that would want to marry. On the other, her intense, proactive feminism has left some cynical scars on her psyche. Is PTSD a reasonable reaction for her, as civilian life returns to her country? Is romance completely alien to a heart that no longer makes time for love?
Recovering in Remington
Gutter Waif · 549 weeks ago
That's when the prince arrives and starts working with the gutter folk and the rest of the town to try to improve things for everybody. I'm thinking he starts by negotiating a deal between the two groups that the merchants and craftsmen will give the gutter folk a chance to work, in exchange for a promise that no street person will ever steal from his or her own boss. Later he can arrange for some sort of classes on basic work ethics, how to manage more money than a day's survival requires, that sort of thing.
At first, the prince is only interested in Narada as one of the gutter folk, but eventually I want the two of them to get married. My question is: how will Narada adjust, or not adjust, to the changes in her life, both when things first start improving and when she finds herself married into the royal family?
Gutter Waif
Silent Spy · 549 weeks ago
17-year-old Ella tends to stuff her emotions, often to the point of not talking--at all--when she's feeling a lot of negative emotion. She grew up (since she was four) at a large boarding school, with hundreds of students in their teens. As her godfather, the chemistry professor taught her to hide her emotions and thoughts from everyone around her, mainly because he is a double agent and so has really needed that skill in his own life. Now she is thrust into being a spy as well, and I'm worried that she will blow her cover by being silent and depressed when the person she's pretending to be would rejoice (maybe when her supposed lord gains a victory in the war). Or she might even reach the point where she cannot hold her emotions in any longer, and explodes to the wrong people. I want her to continue being able to hide her true thoughts and feelings from those she doesn't trust, but how can I get her to open up to somebody she can trust, before it's too late?
Confused in Canada · 541 weeks ago
I have a slightly insane character named Aira. Her parents were brutally murdered in front of her at the age of four, and her younger sister at the age of 5. As the princess of a kingdom that was too young to rule, they brought in temporary replacements to which Aira refers to them as ''my fake parents who never talk to me". At the age of 6, Aira was to hold her first execution and was given an ax to end the mans life. The temporary replacements have made her do plenty since but now, at the age of 17, those replacements are long gone but the emotional scars are still there. I have given Aira some symptoms of OCD for anxiety (repeated words, doing things a specific number of times) and a crazed thirst for revenge on her parents murderers, the ones who caused her this misery. All of this has driven Aira into insanity making her decisions for the kingdom more than questionable. Is this's a plausible way someone would react? What do you think?
Thank you for your time,
Confused in Canada (Canadian for the win)
Anti-Villain Anon · 541 weeks ago
One of my main characters is a brash, pompous, selfish, grandiose semi-hedonist mage who styles himself as essentially an over-the-top supervillain caricature. He's also prejudiced against the main-main character's species, because he spent the first twenty or so years of his life in a hellish world where the parallel equivalent of said species are nigh-eldritch-abominations who control all knowledge of magic and rule with an iron fist. (In this universe, there are numerous different worlds connected mainly by portals, and his isn't exactly a tourist location). He managed to learn magic in secret and escape, after which he spent another ten years or so wandering various small, backwater worlds, and gleefully realizing that--hey! Now HE'S the one who can do whatever he wants! (He's more concerned with feeling powerful and, on a subconscious level, 'punishing' people who he feels don't appreciate the paradise they live in than he is in actually ruling anything. Organized government of any sort makes him deeply uneasy, as it reminds him of home.)
At some point he ended up in the world where the story takes place, which is a lush, populated, central one, and decided to take it over. Long story short, while he's too volatile and impulsive to get any real conquest done, he is dangerous and annoying, and the only reason he ends up being recruited into the main party is because they absolutely must have him to defeat a bigger threat (he's in it to see what he can get out of it, mainly). His character development is mainly kicked off by his attempts to goad/manipulate the main character, only to be faced with a number of perspective shifts, small and large, that lead him to realize how skewed his worldview is. For example, she feels deeply unwelcome in this world and is only here to pay her debts so she can go home, and the idea of the world as something other than some kind of ultimate prize--something not all that desirable, in fact--makes him stop and think about what he's really trying to get from world domination, what void he's trying to fill with power. By the end of the story, they end up becoming a close team, closer friends, and, after the events of the book, married.
I guess my three questions are, does his backstory seem at all like it could end up in his current personality; if not, how might I fix it; and what are some reasonable ways that he might get over his prejudice and general jerkery to have a healthy relationship with the MC?
Anti-Villain Reformer from Texas
Spear-Shaker · 503 weeks ago
CryBaby is a 26 year old Asperger man, with a childhood filled with the alcohol addiction of his mother, the verbal abuse of his sister, the promiscuity of his father and the memories of sexual abuse. He's very anxious and suicidal, feelings he tried to supressed since he was a teenager, as well as his homossexuality, fearing he would be abandoned by everyone he loved because of it. Growing up, he created an alter-ego, the comic and histrionic k.I.k.o to lead with himself and others. At the age of 26, he falls in love with his close friend Boo and under the guise of k.I.k.o, he seduces him and marry him. In the eve of the marriage, out of shame, k.I.k.o kills CryBaby to become the dominant personality and to live a happy marriage, but everything goes down: k.I.k.o is egocentric, paranoid, suicidal and impulsive, manifesting the abuse of his sister, the vice of his mother and the libido of his father. Do you think this is logical: the alter-ego acting like the dominant personality?
The Spear-Shaker
Anonymous · 441 weeks ago
Patrick and his sister Nancy were kidnapped when they were 3 and 7 years old respectively. They grew up believing their parents had sent them away for safety, and that the call to return to their real home would arrive someday. The people whom they stayed with raised them without much love. They were generally demanding and cold toward the siblings. Fast-forward 14 years, where the story starts. Patrick, as the main character, is independent (a little rebellious), friendly, and spontaneous. He seems unaffected by most things that happen to him because he hides it. Also, his moral code, and standards are completely different from the people who raised him.
Is it plausible for him to separate himself from the influences of his childhood, and almost make himself into the person he thinks he should be? Is it possible for him to be empathetic toward others even though he never really experienced empathy from another person?
Sincerely,
Unaffected in Udine