How traumatized is your main character?

[Ace_Sorou]

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

I regret asking. I thought my guy had a rough week, but apparently everyone here is running psychological torture facilities.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

What if your character is the trauma?

 

[Ace_Sorou]

What if your character is the trauma?

Then I regret asking even more.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Lets see...
One was a Marine Sniper who served in Afghanistan. Then got executed for killing the guys who raped and almost murdered his sister when he got back home. So, he's pretty traumatized.

One ... woke up to discover he's now a woman. With superpowers. And apparently some grand destiny. Oh, and his old day job too. Moderately traumatized.

One ... has no idea what his background is; all he knows is he awoke after being pulled from the wreckage of a crashed air craft of some kind speaking Russian but who also speaks English (and at least three other languages) with native accents, and is a shapeshifter, who normally looks like a human with dark blue skin, black hair, and amber eyes. And who took over the life of a criminal who was murdered for trying to not only go straight but become a cop. He's not sure how traumatized he is.

One is a former army grunt with an unfortunate name who drinks heavily, smokes heavily, and now finds himself stuck with a quest to defeat a group of extradimensional invaders. Kinda traumatized.

And those are just the "solitaires" I've posted stories of here (though one, the ex-marine, was pulled).

Ones I haven't shared:

A day trader killed in a car accident now stuck in the body of a lesbian supermodel, who suddenly finds out there are real gods and goddesses out there, and some of them have plans for them.

A cab driver. Well, also a mage, but he drives a cab. He was supposed to be the bodyguard of the guy who can keep the door between two worlds opened, but that guy was never born, so he's pretty sure he's out of a job there... So he just drives a cab. He's so traumatized, he lies to the writer, let alone the audience and the other characters.

An alien stranded on Earth after a piece of space junk struck their ship. One of his team was killed in the collision and he was separated from the racial hive mind. Now he's stuck on Earth, growing attached to the creatures he finds there, but knowing the race that sent him to scout out the planet is on its way to conquer it, and two of his former teammates might be lurking out there ... somewhere... Pretty traumatized.

A CFO who lost a bet and now is being pursued romantically by three very different men, all of whom she has feelings for... Moderately traumatized.

On other sites:

A teenager who suddenly finds he has the power to fight giant monsters. And needs to use it. Frequently. Moderately traumatized.

A steadily growing and changing group of people. The initial six at the core consist of three childhood friends, the girlfriend of one of them, a girl who was almost the girlfriend of another but ... things went sideways and now she's a cop investigating a murder he stumbled on. And a warrior from another world. They discover they are part of an ancient prophecy - that will cost at least one of them their life, and impact their descendants. And a military team that gets drawn into their story as well... Most of them are just a bit more traumatized than normal but some have a good deal of trauma in there...

 

[RiceCooker717]

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?

I have a character whose power is connected to pain so I'm order to make his power in highest level, i make him suffer everything, lose of the love ones, rejection, betrayal, dream's fall-down, and other things everyone can think of. In the end, he committed s*ic*de and reborned again. Though he doesn't have his memories right now, i'll create a plot where he remembers them cause it's needed.

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

Much as I hate to add to the Trauma Olympics, I actually don't hate it so let's go:

•Indoctrinated child soldier
•Trained to fight devils
•Nuke ability is literally weaponized trauma
•Watched her first squad die one by one over the course of days
•Blames herself for each one
•Dove headfirst into hell for revenge expecting to join them
•Didn't
•Ran away and was labeled an apostate
•Found a bunch of drunk idiot mercenaries and was invited to join them
•Didn't
•Lost another team
•Got blunt-force therapy at the hands of the original drunk mercenaries
•Bought a fainting goat and had her first birthday at 23 so things are looking up

 

[Ace_Sorou]

I have a character whose power is connected to pain so I'm order to make his power in highest level, i make him suffer everything, lose of the love ones, rejection, betrayal, dream's fall-down, and other things everyone can think of. In the end, he committed s*ic*de and reborned again. Though he doesn't have his memories right now, i'll create a plot where he remembers them cause it's needed.

Okay, Ares. What else are you doing to Kratos?
Ares: "Everything I did, I did to make you goated!"
Kratos: "Did that include hoeing me into killing my wife and child?!"

 

[RiceCooker717]

Okay, Ares. What else are you doing to Kratos?
Ares: "Everything I did, I did to make you goated!"
Kratos: "Did that include hoeing me into killing my wife and child?!"

He never have a romantic relationship, only rejection. Though there is a scene where someone tricked him by showing that she loved him and then picked his friend. I also make him k*lled the person he has the deepest bond with.

 

[Ace_Sorou]

He never have a romantic relationship, only rejection. Though there is a scene where someone tricked him by showing that she loved him and then picked his friend. I also make him k*lled the person he has the deepest bond with.

Still sounds like something Ares would do.

 

[TrutherP]

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?

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?

To the point of no return.

 

[Castoroftheink]

Oh man, my mc starts out heavily medicated and miserable, abandoned by his parents at 17, homeless, before getting a crummy job he can barely keep and an apartment thats more duct tape than plaster. Thats before the story even starts lmao

 

[Dawnathon]

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

It's like a form of advertising, huh?

 

[tomotomo]

My character didn't suffer any physical harm.
She just fought in a space version of the Vietnam War, came home, and immediately went through a space version of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

[CountVanBadger]

Jeremy is fairly trauma-free right now, apart from the inherent trauma of aging thirteen years in the literal blink of an eye, and finding out that the whole world he knew is gone, and that he has to kill monsters or he'll turn into a literal NPC.

Miranda, though? Hoo, boy, Miranda. The last thing she did before the Remaking was to tell Jeremy she hated him. She spent the next four years convinced she'd never see him again, and he was most likely an NPC, so he may as well have been dead two times over. The loneliness and guilt ate away at her, so she became a Thief and used elaborate heists as a way to distract herself from her darker thoughts.

Eventually she ended up (spoilers for things that won't be revealed for at least two more books) joining a party called the Sable Troupe that made their XP by robbing and scamming NPCs. No guilt, literally the only reason the System gives NPCs money is so it can be taken from them. She gets to be really close friends with everyone in the party, especially their leader, Sebastian--and maybe a little more than friends.

But then, just as she's starting to think she could be content with this new life, who does she just so happen to come across, but Jeremy! She immediately wants to wake him up as a Hero like herself and the rest of the Troupe. But Sebastian doesn't want the competition for Miranda's affection, so he uses a mind control spell to try and get Jeremy to kill himself. Miranda finds out, saves Jeremy, and kills Sebastian, giving herself some serious mental scarring. She also leaves Jeremy as an NPC because she knows she wouldn't be able to protect him if he got woken up, aka Big Trauma #2.

After that, she abandoned the Troupe and resorted to nonstop thrill-seeking to bury her guilt, usually in the form of even more heists. They kept getting more and more dangerous until she realized that these were actually suicide attempts, and she had nobody to intervene. The only reason she wasn't dead was because she was such an amazing thief that even when the heist should have been impossible, she would manage to pull it off.

A few months later, she runs into Aaron, another Hero who's trying to join the Underwing guild, who allow their members to awaken one NPC thst they'll take care of as a noncombatant guild member, but only if they do 100 dungeon runs. Miranda joins as well in the hopes of finally being able to wake Jeremy up and provide a safe-ish life for him. She ends up getting partied with Aaron and another Hero named Derrick, and that's how she spends the next nine years.

Fast forward to the beginning of the first book, and Miranda's party is about to run a high level dungeon just outside the city where NPC-Jeremy lives. Miranda goes to see him and accidentally ends up hiring him as an NPC companion. He follows them into the dungeon and gets awoken as a Hero, but in the process the party's rookie gets killed. Miranda's party is pissed and kicks her from the group, destroying the only positive relationships she had and leaving her thinking that she traded a kid's life for her boyfriend's, hitting her with the trauma hammer a third time--and this one's fresh and piping hot from the trauma oven!

And that's not even getting into her crippling fear of abandonment, her imposter syndrome, her lingering adrenaline addiction, or the fact that even thinking about Sebastian or the Sable Troupe we will cause her to have an instant emotional meltdown.

So yeah, she's got her share of wrenches in her gears.

 

[Cookiez_N_Potionz]

Kinda

 

[DarkCrinkle]

My MC is still cooking o - o the trauma is still simmering from a distance so right now... he is just experiencing things beyond his understanding.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

As someone who only wants to read and write lighthearted comedies, this thread appears messed up.

 

[Alfir]

Unheroic Life of a Certain Cape
Main Protagonist: Nicholas Caldwell
Alias: Nick, Eclipse
Superpower: Intangibility
World: A dystopian world made with superpowers
...
..
.
List of traumas and messed-up things in life he experienced (not in any particular order)
* Poverty
* Orphan
* Superpowered minority
* Mom's something like a spy
* Mom died from a conspiracy
* Dropout
* Killed his dad
* Mind-controlled by a psychic fascist freak with control issues
* Personal favorite. Nick watched the fascist boss make an example of his subordinate by beheading said subordinate, while maintaining her consciousness with telepathy even while beheaded. That meant even after being beheaded, the subordinate was still alive! Cool, right? Fascist made his second traitor of a subordinate, then squeezed the still alive head to death with their super strength to have the second traitor redeem himself.
* The fascist’s concubine gave the fascist head while Nick negotiated with the fascist. Yuck, right?
* Forced by a psychic fascist to take his gift (a brainwashed superpowered slave)
* Nick and slave killed fascist, while the latter was climaxing
* The slave became Nick's girlfriend
* Nick named his girlfriend after his mom
* Nick was actually mind-controlled to love or like the girlfriend by the girlfriend herself as the latter's desperate attempt at survival. That was the only reason she was picked. They kind of end up loving each other, but still, it sucked.
* Revealed to have been mind-controlled by an emo gang boss, making him incite a gang war by making him shoot a basically immortal superpowered gang boss.
* Watched his girlfriend die two times. How? It was because girlfriend has split personality. The good personality/memories was erased by emo gang boss. The fun, chaotic personality/memories killed herself through her empathic powers, leaving an empty shell or a new person.
* On the run for a couple of years, because his public identity had been made. The ghosts of his girlfriends literally haunt him, like supernatural ghosts. It was revealed later from the shell left that it was the work of the girlfriend’s powers.
* Watched his closest friend or acquaintance die from being tortured, only to pull powers and become a superpowered artificial intelligence that basically fueled his super bike. Cool, right?
* Joined a mercenary terrorist organization (Nth Contract) to protect himself from the government.
* Ended up killing members of the Nth Contract, because he was just so pissed after learning of the torture, humiliation, and pain that a pair of characters had to suffer. (mother and daughter, basically forced into service.) Lots of messed-up things on that one. Mother’s stuck on the body of a child. The child has missing memories and is stuck in the body of a teenager. Those two almost got graped, honestly. Thank god the prick who caused all that tragedy is dead now.
* Got hunted by a multiversal entity to fulfill the plot of the movie the ‘One’ and the entity almost succeeded.
* Nick got an emotion-support girlfriend who was pretty cool. It was almost traumatic how good he got it. (It would've been perfect if Nick was not a mess.)
* Oh, Nick’s power allows him to possess people and relive their memories, allowing him to farm knowledge or skills. That also meant he could farm traumas in bulk and there was no skip button on them like a cutscene. It’s bad. One time, he possessed this dude who lived in the lawless and as a child lived in a brothel and how there was one time, the boy probably got graped. (It wasn’t written very detailed, just implicitly implied, like all of the grape scenes.)
* What else? Learned how the multiversal entity hunting him was basically the devil, something that literally razed civilizations and was reaping souls for some grand scheme to return the universe to its original shape to undo the first sin.
* At some point, Nick learned that a time-traveling mad scientist designed the first tragedy that kicked off the rest of Nick's tragedy.
* Also, Nick got a godly psychic baby, which is another probable source of trauma in an ongoing sequel.

 

[Snakes_Emperor]

Oula Milena... my beta reader often tell me to spare this poor girl... but yea her life is... quiiiite shitty.
She was experimented on a lab from as far as she could remember until her twelve of fourteen, something like that
she as been somewhat rejected as a defect in an orphanage where the way they experimented on her made her life, and the lives of others around her, miserable
When she reached some kind of stability, the labs started using her like a throwaway blade, in missions using the powers they forced on her that gnaw away at her lifespan. In an idea to do good, she did something that led to the loss of someone she cared for... in her pain, she significantly hurt her closest friend from other side effects of the lab experimentation etc...

Now... she kind of lives every day like her last, cause she is aware that she only has a year and a half to live... ( tortured by the memory of her missions slaughtering innocents for her torturers at the labs... ) and always unsure as to when her slave mark will activate for the labs to further make use of her and burn her life away...

... ... ... Maybe my beta reader is right after all

 

[Alfir]

If it's a contest, I think I've got it in the bag.

JK.