[quote=Dervish]
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It takes a lot of getting used to. :gray

Honestly, it's as hard as fucking titanium to talk about my conditions, but I do it anyways because I've got stories to tell, and because as much as they're hard for me to go through, they also give me lots of insight into how I want to write my characters without them seeming like they're made of cardboard. Give them layers, like onions. Just like real people.

The closest I really have to any real military experience are the 2 years I served in the Calgary Highlanders army cadet corps, so I can't really say that YOU WEREN'T IN 'NAM, MAN. YOU WEREN'T THERE. Besides, I've already partially explained how I got my own PTSD. But one of my buddies in the furry fandom is a former US soldier who operated tanks in Iraq, and he's given me lots of insight into what military life is like, and how it can really affect somebody. Most of the time in the military, it's just training and routines like carrying supplies from one place to the other, and other stuff like that. Do your duty, do this, do that. No questions asked. But when you're out in the danger zone, it's nothing like the action-fantasy fluff you see in fiction. War doesn't just change countries. It also changes the individuals who end up in them, soldiers and civilians alike.

Honestly, I wish I could talk here about my own furry persona, Wayne Travers, but I've just put so much detail into him as a character that I don't even know where to begin to start on telling his story and and what he's like. Can't really organize my thoughts right now. All I can really say is that instead of making him this idealized hunky-curvy Sue like a lot of other furry characters, I've made him into this vision of what an anthro cougar version of me would have been like if I was 30 by now and had it way worse than I already have had. The best way I can really describe his personality is that he's something of a mildly autistic Trevor Philips, but even then I've just put so much thought into him that he could very well be incomparable to other characters.

Mental illness isn't something I play in characters for shits and giggles. Mental illness is something I use to get into the shoes of my characters more easily while still making them more rounded and layered.