Oki so I realized a thing

Not really "realized" cause I knew for a while, and I probably talk about it a lot, but I'm talking about it again cause it's important to me and it hit me hard today for absolutely no reason whatsoever but my mind is jacked up like that

I know for a fact that I talked about little quirks that I share with my characters, whether it be a cocked a head out of confusion or a single eyebrow raised, but it's the same for the deeper things too

Thinking about my own characters, the majority share common traits

•Don't trust anyone or a select few with personal matters

•Hard to really open up in general

•Says one thing, means ten bazillion different other things

•Mentally/Emotionally unstable (some a lot, others not really, especially a diversity in intensities)

•Tend to shut others out, especially when tough times happen, but even then they don't know whether they want to be alone or not

•C L I N G Y AND INTENSELY CARES ABOUT SENTIMENTAL VALUE

•Acts all fine and dandy but you never really know if they are or not, and most likely, neither do they

Oki, about the mental instability, Gilbert and Wilson are two characters that get HIGHLY unstable this way

Gilbert has some sort of PTSD from his father, someone he looked up to for as long as he can remember, disowning him completely, and his mother who didn't want anything to do with him and just wanted to stay with his father and make him happy

She blamed Gilbert for his father's coldness, and ALL of that emotionally scarred him, more so than war itself, which actually wasn't as bad since he grew up expecting what it was gonna be like, and his father took him to see animals to get slaughtered since he was a young child so he wouldn't suffer the shock in his first battle

Xavier was very caring and helpful towards Gilbert, and he's forever grateful, since he even helps him with sudden flashbacks, which I actually took inspiration from his panic attack from my own experiences of flashbacks, but mine is more internal than physically visable, whenever flashbacks happen during the day (which happen more often when I'm alone, more so at home) I don't think anyone notice anything different

They happen literally in a flash, like BOOM everything at once, and Gilbert in the Prologue of the yet to be named story is an accurate representation to how they feel to me, though I can't have the same reaction irl or else I'd be asked a million questions that I cannot answer

The source of Gilbert's mental instability rose when he goes out to the war between Prerissia and Astagalla, where he's forced to leave the person who had been helping him emotionally to a place where people are only worried about surviving and going home to loved ones, which is mentally straining

I could also explain the connection with this one, but I don't want to because there are actually tons of things connected to it - there are tons with the previous one too, that I'm also not gonna talk about cause it'd literally take too long - and both of them also have a lot to do with anything from when I was only a few years old up to now, it's not all bad things I swear, it's hard to explain and it'd literally take hours for me to explain absolutely everything in a single thing I mention, it seems simple but there's been a lot of thought put into these things

Wilson also has a bunch of things going on, some of it more sensitive that I won't even mention here

He's in a life crisis, finishing schooling and stuck between becoming a specialized AIT (Assistant In Training) or staying at home at the farm

There is no farmer here. They're called Agriculturists, cause they're extremely vital for the life of a kingdom to thrive, they get a professional name

Wilson is in charge of the main things that happen on the farm, yet his mothers have the final word, but he still does a heckin lot

He wants to be an AIT so he can help his fam get the money they need, cause they have a smol farm, yet he doesn't want to leave cause he is super duper important

True, Volton and Fulton knew what they were doing, but Volton likes to mess around and Fulton has a hard time keeping his twin on track, and the mother who stays at home is tired and working basically 24/7, so Wilson doesn't know what to do

The whole time, he is torn between the two things, and each side has both good and bad things, and he is unsure with what to do, so he breaks into his sanity and starts to deprecate his self worth, convincing himself that he wasn't as great as everyone said he was and that everything he has done and will ever do will be a disappointment to everyone, which leads to darker scenes and thoughts later on

His self esteem becomes so damaged and he feels so worthless that he doesn't believe that he has done anything useful and that he's incapable of being successful at anything, no matter what goes on

It gets so bad so quickly, since he doesn't have all the time in the world to decide whether or not to be an AIT, and that makes it so much more damaging since he uses all the time he wasted as an excuse to justify his worthlessness, he is a very broken man

This actually comes from a number of things that I've been through, not just one (talking about it like this makes it seems as if my whole life sucks, I promise, it's not all bad, this is just an outlet)

From the top of my head, I can think of three instances that I've been in a situation where I'm torn between two people/groups, and just typing this up I thought of another

Gilbert and Wilson are both very broken on the inside, and that's only two

There are plenty more, with Spira, Crito, Xavier, Michael, Fulton, Volton, Wilson's parents, Crito's parents, as well as Spira's fam

I love giving deeper meanings to why my children are the way they are, cause it makes me feel more connected and less alone mentally

^^That single sentence makes me sound crazy, but I wouldn't be surprised if I am

I'm connected to them cause I feel exactly what they're experiencing cause I gave my experience to them, adjust it to the situation, yet it's still similar enough that I know what they're going through, and they're my precious children

Probably not too nice that I give them these mental strains, but I love them