rp tools | hurts, pains and traumas

[pacificates]

As a Spirit of Compassion, Cole has a form of telepathy in which he can reads the minds of others — more specifically their hurts, worries, and traumas. He is drawn to those hurts, in a wish to help them. He can deal with this in handfuls of ways: often offering words of encouragement, or gentle nudging to people to act, or perhaps revealing information the person does not know. Other times he can simply take the hurt away and make a person forget it. Sometimes it may a case be reminding a person of something comforting, like reminding a dying soldier of a soup his mother made to comfort him in his last moments.

Often, Cole comments on those hurts — speaks them out loud as he comes to him, often in cryptic ways. Here are a few examples of such within canon.

"She is bare-faced, embarrassed, and she doesn't know. She thinks it's because of her. He hurts, an old pain from before, when everything sang the same. You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't."
— Cole's comments on a Inquisitor Lavellan romance with Solas, had he removed her vallaslin and then broke off the relationship with her.

"An old name burns inside armor that shouldn't fit, lit by faces of the children he couldn't save."
— Cole's comments on Blackwall and his past actions.

"He sounds right again with the chains in place, but the music makes him sad."
— Cole's comments on Cullen, if he is told to resume taking Lyrium.

"A breath-caught smile from the Enchanter as the candle lights. The walls are safe; she will never be hungry again."
— Cole's comments on Vivienne's relationship with Duke Bastien.

For the sake of sanity/rp purposes, I've included a little fill out form for Cole's abilities to help me write out these pains, due to Cole's nature of speaking them aloud often — or him offering solutions/comfort to others, considering a character's pain doesn't need be something they're actively thinking about for Cole to sense it. Basically, give me food to work with! Please fill out for threads!

For Deer Country players: please feel free to add in game-specific hurts/memories /things in game that would comfort them, as well as canon ones.

<b>Character Name / Journal:</b> character name / journal here <b>Canon:</b> canon here <b>Character Memory/Fear/Pain:</b> name one, name several. feel free to add in details of memories, perhaps things like specific images, or snippets of conversation. symbols, colours, things like that. <b>How can Cole help:</b> is there perhaps insight Cole can give, maybe an explanation relating to the memory (ie. maybe character b lied to protect your character and your character didn't know this) or perhaps something comforting Cole can recall to remind your character of? or perhaps he can simply have your character forget

Comments

[faithfulson]

Character Name / Journal: Luke Skywalker / faithfulson
Canon: Star Wars

Character Memory/Fear/Pain: In general, Luke has some pretty heavy trauma/PTSD coming from being in the middle of a war. He hides it well, but the fact that he's had to kill so many people weighs heavily on his conscience.

More specific events:
- The deaths of his aunt and uncle, and how he found their remains as heavily charred skeletons. I personally believe he buried their bodies himself before he left the homestead for good.
- Watching Obi-Wan die on the Death Star, and how helpless he felt, knowing that the man who had so quickly become his friend and mentor was sacrificing himself so that Luke would survive.
- The battle over the Death Star also led to the death of his childhood friend, so soon after they had been reunited. He and Biggs often flew together on Tatooine, and he was pretty much the only one of his friends that never teased him for his height. Losing him to the man he would later learn was his father was devastating to Luke, especially considering, like with his family and Obi-Wan, he didn't really have the chance to mourn his loss.
- Being hunted by Darth Vader for three years is a trauma Luke could definitely live without. Vader literally killed and/or tortured any member of the Rebellion that stood between him and Luke, adding even more deaths to weigh on his conscience. It all culminated to even Han and Leia being tortured just for the sole purpose of catching his attention, which led to...
- The revelation that Vader was Luke's father. This hurt Luke to his core, to know that the man who had killed so many, who aided in enslaving the entire Galaxy, who he had believed killed his father, was actually his father. It affected him so badly that he allowed himself to fall to what may well have been his death, not caring if he survived or not in that moment. He has since moved past this, come to accept his father, but it made the event no less traumatic.
- Losing Yoda; though Yoda was very old and his passing was peaceful, it didn't hurt Luke any less to lose yet another mentor.
- Torture by the Emperor; the pain of Force Lightning is still fresh in his mind, unhelped by the fact that the scars still haven't gone away. The Emperor deliberately drew out his attempt at killing Luke as well, making sure it was as painful as possible.
- Losing his father; though his father returned from the Dark Side by killing the Emperor and saving Luke, doing so led to his own death. Luke openly cried at his passing, despite the fact the Death Star was bound to explode any second.

How can Cole help: Cole could probably best help by being a comforting presence, and reminding him that war always leads to unnecessary death. Becoming friends would help as well, maybe for them both; despite everything that's happened, Luke is still so compassionate for others and sees the good in most everyone.