Not edited. This ended up being a sort of stream-of-consciousness thing, so I essentially wrote about things as I thought of them.

DISCLAIMER! THE COMMENTS/MESSAGES IN THIS CHAPTER ARE REAL ONES, AND ARE KEPT ANONYMOUS FOR A REASON. IF YOU KNOW WHO HAPPENED TO SAY/POST ANY OF THESE, PLEASE DO NOT POINT THEM OUT UNLESS YOU HAVE THE OTHER PERSON'S PERMISSION TO DO SO. DO NOT ATTACK ANYONE, PLEASE! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO AGREE WITH ME, OR ANYONE ELSE'S OPINION HERE, BUT PLEASE ATTEMPT TO BE RESPECTFUL. :)

ALL COMMENTS/MESSAGES USED IN THIS CHAPTER WERE SELECTED STRICTLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF PRESENTING AN EXAMPLE. I AM NOT GOING AFTER ANYONE HERE, AND I WILL GLADLY LISTEN IF ANYONE WHOSE COMMENT HAS BEEN USED HERE WOULD LIKE ME TO CONSIDER OMITTING IT.

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As writers, a lot of us have learned that, no matter what we think of our characters, not everyone will agree with us. Some people will despise even the most likable protagonist, while others will grow fond of the antagonists that everybody else seems to hate.

It's a fact of life, and something we should all admire about our various readers.

However, sometimes people take things to an extreme, be it intentionally or unintentionally. These are the readers who make writers want to rant, the people of Wattpad (and any other platform) who take it so far that they consistently attack specific characters.

I've known a handful of other writers who went through this experience and, during my time on this site, I've gone through it myself quite a few times.

It can be an experience, to say the least. When someone goes after one of your characters, it leaves you pondering that all-important question.

Why?

There's not really a set answer to this, a universal reason why people attack other people's characters. Still, the most common reason I've come across is psychological.

If a particular reader has never experienced the things that a given character has, or if they've never thought/felt/reacted in a similar manner to that character, they have a more difficult time managing to empathize. They may see the character in question as infuriatingly dislikable, or find themselves impressively annoyed because the character doesn't always react in the perceived proper manner.

So, in today's incredibly long installment of Randomness, I'm discussing a handful of my own characters. As a psychology major who did lots of research even before college, I hope I can give some folks a little more insight on those frustratingly enigmatic characters.

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I'm going to start with the example which has appeared most recently, because I've been hearing about it with a good deal of frequency.

It's Creighton Hastings, from the Perkins School series.

If I had a dollar for every time someone attacked her in a private message, I would be considerably richer by now. I've seen this in my comments, too, several times.

For those of you who have read that series, you know who I'm talking about, and what she's gone through so far in the first two books.

For the rest of you, here's the basic summary...

Creighton saw her best friend die twice, once in a vision and once in real life. She couldn't do anything about it either time.

So, for a considerable amount of the first two books, she's dealing with the aftermath of it all.

Aside from this, her parents are far from empathetic.

So, by late in the second book, some people have pretty much had it with her.

"Dear lord quit crying over everything. CREIGHTON IS NOT THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE ACTING LIKE THIS. Amber is the one who is still going through it!"

The commenter has a point.

Amber is still dealing with her own problems in the second book, too. However, it's hardly fair to compare one character's reaction to that of the other.

Their mindsets aren't similar enough to say, definitively, which is the proper reaction. Honestly, in this case, there's not really a proper reaction.

Given that Creighton knew what would happen to her friend, and couldn't do a thing about it, it's natural that she would feel somewhat responsible for what ended up happening to Amber. It's a matter of perspective, though. Still, it would be hard for anyone to sit by and watch all of this going on without being affected in some way.

I can't imagine what this would be like in real life, though it stands to reason that anyone who went through something like that would be plagued by an impressive amount of guilt.

"... For someone who is supposedly so smart, like the top GPA of her class, how does Creighton do such stupid stuff? Like, any smart person would know that it's not a good idea to be up on the school roof, and that throwing yourself off it wouldn't solve any problems. Aside from that, she annoys me so damn much. Like, quit crying over what happened to Amber, and what's still going on with Amber, and figure out a way to do something about it. She makes it all about her when it doesn't need to be. If anyone in this series is dead weight, you better believe it's Creighton."

Again, the commenter's got a point.

Creighton does, in fact, have the highest grade point average of anyone in her year at the school.

Is this particularly relevant here?

In my opinion, the answer to that would be no.

In some cases yes, being intelligent means you've got a decent amount of common sense, which would also mean that you're less prone to doing things you shouldn't.

And yes, she's smart enough to know that "it's not a good idea to be up on the school roof," but there's another question to look at here.

Does she care?

So, some of you can probably take a guess at that, though as of now I'm the only one who could tell you the true answer to that.

Research and life experience have shown me that, if people end up in an awful enough mindset, they won't necessarily care if what they're doing will cause someone else emotional pain as well.

So, in this instance, is it really 'all about her"?

No, not really.

From a psychological standpoint, she was up there because she felt hopeless about it all, not because she's selfish.

I can say this in full confidence, both because she's my character and because I've actually had to read part of the manual which is used to make a mental health diagnosis.

You can thank my experimental psychology class for that last one, though I'm quite glad I had to do that.

For those of you who have done your research, or who happen to otherwise know enough about psychology, you'll recognize the full extent of why she is the way she is, why her reactions sometimes tend to appear the way they do.

Those symptoms don't, by any means, make her as useless as some people claim she is.

On that note, we're moving on to a similar case.

I get some of the same comments on Shemik, from my 2050 series.

Given the difference in setting Shemik is about thirty-one years younger than Creighton, though Shemik goes through a few of the same things.

Given the time period in which 2050 is set, it stands to reason that Shemik's mindset is a bit worse than Creighton's.

Really, you can't expect to sit back and enjoy the world when you're dealing with consequences of the Third World War, among other things.

Now, Shemik didn't contemplate jumping off a roof, though after the death of Brynn in A Time of Courage, she did have her own plans.

Shemik saw too many people around her meet their demise, a result of the world she lives in. In a lot of cases, there was nothing she could have done to prevent any of it, and she was desperate to avoid watching anyone else whom she cared about die.

So, like Creighton, Shemik was not acting the way she was because she's selfish. Actually, she's pretty far from it.

One person left a comment in A Time of Courage which pretty accurately sums up this topic.

"She can't help being a pessimist just like you can't help your mindset."

Even if we're out to change the way we think, sometimes it's more difficult than simply making the choice to do so.

Speaking of making choices, that brings us to the next character in the discussion today.

Rosalie, from 2050.

A lot of people feel bad for her, and for good reason. The eight-year-old is a victim of the world she lives in, having been tortured as a small child several years before the start of the series.

Some readers, though, have different viewpoints on her than others.

"I seriously don't get it. Sure, she was tortured, but it didn't impact her ability to speak. If she can speak, why doesn't she just do it? It's annoying."

No, being tortured did not directly prevent her from speaking, but it did impact her ability to do so.

After realizing that speaking to those soldiers led her to be tortured for who she was, Rose made the decision to speak only when it is unavoidable. Even throughout the series, years after she was tortured, this hasn't changed.

So, as some still find this to be quite unusual, here's the basic explanation on something like this.

If someone can speak, why don't they do it?

Selective mutism is, on various occasions, seen as a result of something traumatic. The event that leads to it can very, but the point is it is an actual outcome.

People may hold the same philosophy as Rose, believing that speaking can often get them into trouble, leading them to be tortured again in some way.

This particular logic may not be universal, as people choose not to speak for many different reasons as a result of many different experiences.

This should not be seen as annoying, though in fiction this is the occasional case.

So, aside from the examples up above, I have two more instances of characters with controversial psychological influences.

The first is Amber Greene, from the Perkins School series.

Creighton's best friend... Ah, Amber, who's criticized almost as often as the former.

There aren't that many different complaints on Amber, so I tend to get the same few with relative consistency.

"Why can't Amber recognize that people wanna help her, instead of making life hell for everybody else?"

The answer to this message involves multiple layers.

Firstly, Amber (for the first half of Remnants of Reality) isn't herself. This is pretty literal, as for the first thirteen chapters her mind really isn't her own.

She's able to care, to an extent, but she doesn't think others should. She's done things that the old Amber never would have done, and because of that she doesn't believe that she deserves to be helped.

She's also afraid of herself and, because of this, makes a pretty valiant attempt to avoid staying near her friends initially.

She believes she's a monster, and feels she should be treated as such.

Another character of mine who possesses monstrous tendencies is also included down below.

The one and only Alessa Serpico, from 2050: A time of Courage.

Alessa wasn't well liked, to say the least. I remember that when she was first introduced as a villain in that book, several people took the liberty to Curse about her in PMs.

Comments weren't exactly Alessa-friendly, either.

"Excuse you? I want to reach right through this screen and punch you in the face."

I found this comment to be the general opinion of the majority. A lot of people would have liked nothing more than to punch Alessa, it seems, though her fate ended up being much worse than that.

One question I've gotten repeatedly about Alessa is one that, I'm sure, lots of people have wondered about.

"Why did people let Alessa turn into such a sadist? If they saw this happening to her, why didn't they help her, or kill her before it got out of control?"

Alessa wasn't always as bad as she was in A time of Courage. Sure, as a child she had a decent amount of anger, but that side of her became more prominent after she was bitten by an Inhumane in her teen years.

By the time we meet her in A Time of Courage, Alessa is a half-zombie, an anomaly. She was the mystery miracle case, the unexplainable girl who survived, even if she wasn't fully intact afterward.

Yes, she was a sadist, due to the monstrous instincts which often consumed her.

Still, seeing her alive and (sort of) well gave people a sense of hope.

If it happened once, maybe it would happen again. Maybe others could survive a zombie's attack like she had.

This hope, along with her position as a diplomat's guest, gave her protection from those who might have otherwise begged for her death before.

Want me to cover another character, or another topic? Let me know down below, and leave your thoughts on the discussions in this chapter.