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title: Trauma Talk!

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# Trauma Talk!

## Intro
**Let's talk about   ``T R A U M A``  !**



I'll be trying to keep an upbeat tone throughout this, which I hope won't be offputting to anyone. It's a conversation that, while reasonably grounded in reality, is primarily intended as **writing advice, __not__ life advice!**

**Please keep this in mind,** because this is primarily a talk about trauma in fiction. I don't enjoy trauma in the context of something real people, myself and others, have to deal with. *However,* with the layer of distance fiction provides, I think it's a lot of fun to write about!

First and foremost, I feel like the golden rule for this is **"everyone handles trauma differently."** There are trends, tells and tendencies, things that are commonly associated with certain types of trauma, but ultimately, things can vary wildly depending on a lot of different factors.  
Trauma is an immensely complicated subject! I can't possibly cover everything, so this is mostly just my experience in writing and living it, and my personal thoughts on what's good when you're trying to write it. Forgive me if it's a mess.~

I'll be using my own characters as examples, since it's easier that way.

## **How does it happen?**
Psychological trauma is incurred when someone is put under extreme stress, either at one moment, or over a long stretch of time. It can manifest in a variety of ways, and is, ultimately, a net negative influence on someone. It wouldn't be trauma if it wasn't!

Just about anything that puts a character under enough stress can leave marks or scars, though some are more resilient than others. They might not be obvious, particularly to the person who's been left with them, but they do exist, and have repercussions.  
A few examples are loss of something significant (a person, status, a home, a body part, etc.), exceptionally powerful negative emotion (think fear, pain, revulsion, and similar), and (a little more difficult to handle) prolonged, significantly negative circumstances. *But these are all affected by how much the character* cares,* *how much it hurts them, and how resistant to trauma they are!*

While someone simply "snapping" under enough stress isn't necessarily realistic, it **is** entertaining! So don't shy away from it. And as I stated before, trauma is a broad subject, so I'll try to give more specific examples as guidelines.

## What does it do?
_A **lot** of things._ Whatever caused it is at the core of the issues that revolve around it, but the effects on someone can be profound. I usually tend towards the dramatic, since again, it's fiction, and it's often more entertaining that way! Changes to habits, portions of someone's personality, avoidance of certain stimuli, development (*and failure*) of coping mechanisms - not all of which are healthy - a lot of things are fair game.

## How does it change someone?
Primarily, it tends to center around associating the experience (and things similar to it) with negative responses! The events that caused the trauma get linked to a number of different details which may or may not be important, and shades of that discomfort and stress return when they're made to confront it.  
That part in and of itself is really complicated - people can change their entire lives to avoid having a certain event happen again, or having certain things that *remind* them of their trauma enter their lives.

**It's important to remember that these responses aren't necessarily rational!** Moreover, **a response to something innocuous might remind someone of something that scarred them particularly badly** - so they might react with fear, anger, or other things associated with their trauma instead of "just" the current circumstances. Smelling smoke from a grill might remind someone of being trapped in a burning building, or a certain type of perfume might remind someone of a lover they watched die. Being separated from someone - even if they're only a few blocks away - might make then anxious and uncomfortable, because they don't know if they'll come back.

**This is where PTSD comes into things!** The way I often write it is as a particularly harsh response to certain things associated with trauma. **For example...**
* Mami can't properly fight anyone who looks like her. Previously, she had to put down Ursa, and essentially felt a piece of herself "die" when she did it; the idea of hurting "herself" makes her think of how everyone involved suffered. Typically, when she tries, stress mounts until she can't even find the will to keep her weapon up. The closer it gets to legitimately hurting them, the harder it is for her to continue.
* Anzu (a Kyoko Familiar) is terrified of starvation, and tends to put immense value on food. This is especially nasty because, unlike Kyoko, 'food' is less 'food' than 'people'. Going without it reminds her of her past, in which she was vulnerable, hunted, and perpetually afraid that someone stronger than her might eat *her.* It's not rational - it's more like a sense that either those things will happen again, or she'll simply wither away and die, which means she's prone to "snapping" and hurting people.

But there are 'softer' examples too -
* Mami's Familiars, during roughly that time period were, in complete violation of their natures, actually afraid of Mami. After all, the Familiar that was killing them looked just like her. Even though they could tell the difference, even though they were *made* to adore Mami's company, they'd all been collectively scarred to the point where they actively tried to avoid her.
    - There's some sense to this - Mami had reason to be angry with them, but that was exaggerated in their minds into "that means she'll want to hurt us, too."
    - On the other hand, eventually they were too far gone to be saved...
* Miki (a Sayaka Familiar) has a very split opinion of herself. She made a very personally damaging decision to help save a world she cared about, but left her unable to properly return to the role she held before. Since then, she's flipped between being proud of herself for her sacrifice, and being deeply upset with herself for having gotten involved.
    - Most of that centers on her appearance - she's visibly rotting, and reminders of this upset her less because *she's rotting* than because she's "too broken to be useful." She's prone to collapsing into tears if it comes up in the wrong context.
    - Or in other words, the fact that she's rotting is something that she can mostly deal with - "it was worth it." But, rather than memories of a certain moment, it's confronting the fact that she can't really go back to serving Candeloro (or Mami) that provokes harsh responses.

## What is it good for?
Depth, plot arcs, conversation, bonding over shared trauma, hinting at history, prompting investigation, evoking sympathy, and other things! Trauma is a important in drama, and can help stir things up or add to a character. But **it can't be all that a character is.** People need more reasons to care than just that! Characters still need to be interesting for more reasons than how they've broken, especially because people can get burned out on this particular type of drama.

Not everyone wants to see someone break down, or snap, or get upset, or get depressed all the time! So try to balance out how often it comes up. If it's minor, then having it come up more is probably okay. If it's major (like most of what I do), then **it's likely to become the focus of a scene,** and should be used sparingly!

*(Yes, I'm terrible at following my own advice, why do you ask?)*