How traumatized is your main character?

Ace_Sorou

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I just realized that within the span of three days, my protagonist has gone through no less than four near death experiences, and discovered two bodies who were gruesomely mutilated.

Technically four days, since one of the corpses was found in his camp when he woke up. But I'm counting it.

All things considered, he's holding up well.

So... How badly is your MC traumatized?
 
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KaorimoHutsuEnaka

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In her first life, my protagonist experienced bullying, loss, domestic violence, murder, death and self-harm. In her second life, she isn’t particularly traumatised, but she has experienced rape, the loss of her mother and… I think that’s enough. Still, I don’t think she’s completely traumatised – she still manages to smile – and I reckon she’ll bounce back with the help of her fellow adventurers.
 

Jerynboe

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Emrys is a broken shadow of a man and becoming the vessel for an isekai protagonist was probably the best thing that ever happened to him.

Curtis, the isekai in question, is holding up pretty well. Of course, he doesn’t actually remember some of the most traumatic things that happened to him, but he can reframe most things into a positive, to the point that I had him doing so as the chapter titles for all of book one even as he was kidnapped, enslaved, and forced to work on a pirate ship and survive a localized zombie apocalypse.

He still isn’t desensitized to death, especially death he’s responsible for, and he doesn’t want to be.
 

Rolanov

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How traumatized? Interesting.

Let me drop the part of chapter 22 to show it, :blobrofl:

Suddenly, the fabric of the sky tore open. A pitch-black portal materialized above the grass.

Heavy boots crunched against the dirt. A massive, towering man wearing a long, black leather trench coat stepped out of the portal.

I looked up. Our eyes met.

He had bright, glowing blue irises.

My eyes went wide. The heavy iron vault in the back of my mind violently blew open. Decades of repressed, agonizing trauma instantly flooded my brain.


"ARRGGGHHHHH!!! Cl-Clari-Clarice!!!"

Thick blood was being siphoned harshly from my body. My small, child-sized wrists and ankles were bound tightly by heavy leather straps to a cold iron table.

"I—it huu—rrrttt!"



I dropped to my knees in the grass, panting heavily. My entire body tensed, locking up in a paralytic shock. My eyes were glued to the massive man's glowing blue irises. The horrific memories kept flooding in, drowning me.


"KKEEEUAAHHKKHH!"

Bitter, boiling fluids were violently forced down my throat. Every muscle fiber in my small body seized and spasmed. The leather straps bit deep into my skin as my blood was aggressively extracted through thick glass pipes jammed into my wrists.

The boiling fluid they forced me to drink prevented me from passing out. It kept my eyes forced wide open in a state of hyper-awareness. Slowly, I turned my head toward the presence moving beside my table.

But... my vision was completely blurred by pain.



My heart hammered violently against my ribs. I ground my teeth together so hard they threatened to crack. A guttural sound started clawing its way up my dead throat as the agonizing memories kept rolling through my brain.


"CL—AARR—RICE... PLEA—SS-EEE... ST—STOO—PPP!"

The boiling, foreign fluid began violently invading my bloodstream. It flooded my veins, a sharp, crucifying pain simultaneously crushing my chest and my magical core. Finally, the machines stopped extracting my blood.

"Hihihihihi." A soft, childish giggle echoed beside me.

I forced my blurry eyes to focus. A naked figure was standing beside the iron table. She was drinking my extracted blood from a chalice, letting the thick crimson liquid spill over her face and chest like a shower. She laughed happily.

My mind was shattering, completely clouded by agony, but the fluid refused to let my brain shut down.

The woman slowly turned her head toward me. Her face and naked body were entirely painted in my blood. Her bright, glowing blue eyes stared down at me with cold affection.

"Thank you, Ramond. You are such a good boy." She smirked widely, the thick blood dripping from the ends of her raven-black hair.

"C—l—a—r—i—c—e."



A horrific, inhuman sound erupted from my throat. I wanted to scream. I wanted to launch my body at the massive man standing in the grass and tear him apart.

But….

My lips….

…were chanting against my will….



Within the darkness, I crawl as their nightmare

The cries of dying souls, a melody of despair

Their hopes and prayers shattered, begging to spare

Lurker of the light, with no one to share


Feasting the eyes of the weak
with terror and fear

Devouring their blood with judgement by the steel

The Reaper of Life, Honor and Will

The Slayer from the Dark
, for tainted gold of tears


The domain became pitch black, but I could see everything.

The sound was vanished, but I could hear everything.

I was in rage, but my heartbeat was calming.

The bloodthirst was boiling, yet my mind was clear.

My eyes was locking, and my body commanded….



….Kill….
 

Lmae

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For Casimir, he has not gotten over what his godfather did to him. He was not even given a chance to complain about it and was told to get over it. It also ticks him off that many saw what his godfather did to him as an improvement.
 

expentio

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My MC can't ever find me. If they do, I'm done for. That I turned her into a slime, in a rather gruesome transformation, is still one of the, well, not lighter things, but stuff piles up.

Though the girl whose parents I slaughtered in front of her eyes, then transformed her into her very phobia, is doing well... I think.

The others are fine. Only a little bit of trauma, but that should have subsided to mildly inconvenienced.
 

Eldoria

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I feel like this thread is just a way to show off (character) trauma. It reminds me of the Spongebob Salty Spitoon meme...
 

thegingernut

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Well she's had a lifetime of verbal and physical abuse from her transphobic father, drowned, been almost murdered, kidnapped, shot and hunted by killer androids. I'ma gonna say very. She walks with a slight limp and can't put her head underwater without recreating one of the seizure scenes from Logan. Somehow I feel like she's still doing better than should be expected.
 

toapat

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I feel like this thread is just a way to show off (character) trauma. It reminds me of the Spongebob Salty Spitoon meme...
Probably.

---

My main character is someone forced through circumstance and tragedy to become something she is not mentally capable of actually performing, time and again, and breaking until there is nothing less because shes too affraid to change.
 

Kigol

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kidnapped and had to kill emself several times to escape. shot at and buried alive.

all because their go to dinner had too many ppl call out
 

blushiemagic

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Let’s see…

Chapter 1:
Small tendrils shot out from the pulsing wall, and a sickening crack rang through my body as they wrapped around my legs.
I grit my teeth as acid splotched onto my eyelids…. My eyelids dissolved, and my entire face burned….

Chapter 2:
I had no limbs to scratch with, and there was nothing to scratch in the first place. That didn't stop the phantom itching sensations all over. I screamed. There was no mouth or vocal cords, no feeling of release, but I somehow made a sound anyway.

I was hyperventilating. No, I felt like I was hyperventilating. I had no lungs. I couldn't breathe. A suffocating weight fell over me.

Chapter 8:
It raised its paw, made a sniffle that was so incredibly cute despite my terror, and swung its claw straight down to my chest-
I'd gone into a dungeon, gotten beaten up badly, and essentially been killed. That would be traumatizing for most people, but it was actually very tame compared to my nightmares. The nightmares actually made me feel my deaths, unlike the dungeon.

Chapter 10:
Thousands of tiny legs tickled all over me and crushed chitin and unknown fluids were spread out beneath me and they were crawling over my face and they were all biting my skin and they were all biting my wings and they were over and under my clothes and in my hair.
Lillian could see Shayrie. Rayna could see Lillian. But also, Lillian could see herself through Rayna's eyes. And Rayna could see Shayrie through Lillian's eyes.



This was so much worse than double vision.

I had four sets of senses.

Chapter 15:
My right hand sunk halfway into the lava as it passed, and I screamed so loud it echoed across the entire crater. The lava was viscous enough to stop my arm's momentum before the rest of the hand followed, but I hardly noticed; even just such close proximity to the scorching mass was mind-breakingly painful. My arm snapped backwards, and the lava pulled me for about a foot before my hand was freed.
I tried to catch myself, but only ended up losing what remained of my crispy hand and further injuring my arm. Oh. That was a lot of blood.

Trauma? Whatever that is, I doubt they have much of it
 
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