Welcome to part 2 of this list of disabled characters in Reverse: 1999, and I do want to say that this list is quite interesting because there's few characters mentioned here. This post will cover the characters with psychological disabilities.
Yet, there's so much complexities to them, and their stories that reflect their mental states are so well-done. I incredibly appreciate these characters for how their characters are written.
Additionally, some of the characters here were not listed on twitter, but I decided to put them here because I realized that there are more insanely traumatized characters than I thought. Let's get started.
C-PTSD and related conditions: Mesmer Jr., Mondlicht, Pavia, Isolde, Kakania, Lopera
Mesmer Jr.’s character has heavily implied throughout the main story and her own to have OCD as a result of the traumatic experiences she had gone through from her field of work and her family’s history in it. She identifies that she has “incurable” anxiety, which causes her to think differently about arcanists and act a little irrationally from our own perspective. This anxiety results in double checking everything and having a slightly intensive routine.
This routine is created as a means to maintain herself and her own sanity, but an imbalance or interruption can greatly upset her. As a result, she has conflicting ideals, experiences hallucinations and panic attacks, has suicidal thoughts, and actively inflicts self harm as a means to cope with her anxiety. However, she’s calmer and at peace with herself when she’s left alone in a quieter and clean space, away from others, and where nature is heard more than constant buzzing.
Mondlicht particularly experiences secondhand trauma because of her grandmother’s stories about the bloody war between the huntresses and the wolves. She eventually dons the cape and goes out to hunt for wolves on her own. She then experiences her own traumas from it, eventually becoming an incredibly hypervigilant child. She’s often incredibly paranoid of the presence of wolves that she will immediately shoot at the sight of one, whether or not they’re real.
Pavia grew up isolated and alone to the point of his arcane skill awakening through it, and his wolves became a manifest of his own personal comfort from the trauma he experienced. He was isolated until possibly his teenage years, and breaking out placed him on a path of mainly bloodshed. Pavia has very little trust in the people around him and is insistent in working independently from others. He often also pushes everyone away from him as he struggles to form proper emotional connections to others.
Isolde is an incredibly complex character and I personally think that the story’s display of her mental well-being has been shown so well that I firmly believe that it’s better to see it for yourself. However, I’ll try to explain as much as possible anyway.
We find that Isolde’s arcane skill places a great amount of psychological strain among the women of the Dittersdorfs, and Isolde in particular had gone through a lot of traumatic events since childhood and is still being affected by her arcane skill even up to today. She experiences heavy hallucinations and neurological episodes, and has a tendency to dissociate due to her trauma.
Doctors in her era linked her and her family’s struggles with the “wandering womb” and described them as an incurable “hysteria,” but these have modern equivalents today. From @sleeplesssmoll’s analysis here, (which I highly recommend reading to further understand) the modern terms to describe parts of Isolde’s “hysteria” are: Somatic Symptom Disorder, Dissociative Disorder, and Conversion disorder.
Kakania suffered from C-PTSD after the events of Chapters 6-7 as shown in her character story. The overall experience shattered her in entirety, leaving her emotionally numb and lost. She’s been found to subconsciously self-harm and dissociate, and she has frequent flashbacks and hallucinations. Luckily, though, she underwent proper therapy provided by the Foundation, which at the very least allowed her to recover over the course of months. Yet, there’s still this mix of ache and numbness that simply describes how deeply affected she was by what happened.
Much like the Kakania, Lopera showcases very clear signs of C-PTSD and clinical depression after everything she had gone through during her childhood and the events after Chapter 8. This is greatly expressed in her vendetta against betrayal and dishonesty, and she has had frequent mental breakdowns after the events of Tristes Tropiques. Unlike Kakania, though, she feels this more deeply and has no support system to rely on.
She expresses such a profound numbness and attachment to her trauma and fears of betrayal, and it's heartbreaking considering that she is only still a child. We may see more in her character story, which I look forward to in the latter half of 2.2.
Non PTSD-Related characters
Baby Blue - Alice in Wonderland syndrome (Dysmetropsia)
It’s no secret that Baby Blue has Alice in Wonderland syndrome, or in other words dysmetropsia. This affects her perception of reality and her ability to recall, but this in turn makes her arcane abilities all the more powerful.
As a result, she doesn’t realize that she’s growing up, yet it seems she doesn’t mind that much. This doesn’t seem to affect her physically either; In fact, it has a heavy influence on how she displays her arcane skills.
Poltergeist - Social Anxiety
Poltergeist has been known to be anxious in social settings which conflicts with her people-pleasing tendencies. She’s also insecure about herself which adds up to her not wanting to be directly perceived. At the same time, she doesn’t like being left alone as a result of having been ignored and forgotten post mortem. Poltergeist is also elaborate (i.e. not wanting to be looked at for too long) yet awkward at the same time when communicating with them.
However, I’m not sure how to describe Poltergeist’s case quite well, but the idea of her having social anxiety resonates greatly in my mind, so it can be treated as a partial headcanon.
Lorelei - Unnamed psychosis-related disorder
Lorelei suffers from strong visual and auditory hallucinations that seems to have worsened over the course of her life. This “madness” had led her to often hurting herself and others, which greatly stressed her parents.
She also suffered trauma from people committing suicide on the Rhine, but it was repressed by her religiousness and her parents’ intervention. To avoid hurting herself and others again, her parents suited her in a straitjacket; she often insisted on securing the straps in them to maintain the straitjacket’s purpose.
Honorable Mentions
PTSD - Click, Lilya
*I just want to clarify that PTSD is insanely common among the characters in this game, so I only added those who very prominently appear in their character.
Being a victim of war, Click has symptoms that indicate amnesia and PTSD from WWII, as he’s still reminded of things such as landmines and air raids. He also struggles to recollect some memories such as how he died and his fear of those landmines.
As a child soldier, Lilya has been constantly exposed to war and bloodshed, especially in her firsthand experiences in the Juhalerat mission. She has been found mostly drinking, reminiscent of how soldiers tend to drink to forget. (credited from: @/cherilaydi on twt)
Tuesday - ASPD (credited from: @sachisei here on tumblr)
Tuesday is interesting in that she lacks a sense of morals and empathy, and is incredibly desensitized to the social environment around her. (i.e. the motel) While she's not aggressive and even seems relatively gentle, she feels little to no guilt in harming and manipulating others, gaining satisfaction and pleasure from fear. She's incredibly fascinated as to how others approach it too, and would do anything to see its demonstration.
It's likely that these stem from the trauma of her childhood and adolescent years, but she has acted this way for a while now. (given one of her voicelines + her character story) She particularly stands out among other characters as someone who actively harms for her own pleasure. While ASPD is not typically considered a disability, it does hinder Tuesday's daily life and ability to empathize with others, so I think it deserves to be mentioned here.
Notes
I found it insane that there are a lot more heavily traumatized characters than I anticipated, and they all need hugs. For now though, you will find the other two lists down here.
I'm Obsessed with Reverse 1999 right now, so here's some screenshots of every character I currently have in their tiny suitcase forms. There will be at least 1 more set of these, maybe more.
Mondlicht is one of my favorite characters in R1999 due to her fairytale motif. Her design is a reference to red riding hood, the hunter and the wolf. She's a young girl who wears a red hood and hunts against wolves. Ironically, she has a dog for a udimo. She comes from a small villages that is stuck in an endless war against wolves. With all the male hunters dead, the women of the village took on the mantle and joined the bloody battles against the enemy. The war raged on for over a century until only one huntress remained. She handed down her cloak and weapon to Mondlicht who would continue the battle in her stead. She is now the only hunter left.
Her cloak's red hue comes from generations of people staining it with blood during the war. Her silver bullet necklace shares the same name as her and was apparently made from ore that fell from the moon. Mondlicht's fighting style is unique since she uses an axe/shotgun hybrid. Definitely the coolest weapon in the game. Her personality is pretty simple. She's solely devoted to protecting her village from the big bad wolves. She's always on edge for even the remote possibility of a wolf attack. She stays up all night to protect everyone from any attack. There's hardly any trace of childhood innocence to be found in her. Mondlicht is like a child soldier forever devoted to fighting the war. There's a voiceline where she tells the listener not to trust the wolves and don't respond to them. This could imply that the wolves are capable of speaking or have human level intelligence. Mondlicht specifically using a silver bullet brings to mind werewolves, suggesting that the wolves aren't normal animals.
Her arcane skill is ambiguous, but it could be a heighted sense of smell. Her insight 2 variant gives her glowing eyes which could also indicate enchanced vision. I've been told that Mondlicht teleports during Alien T's Anecdote so perhaps that's what her true ability is.
A cute little detail about her is that she's very happy to have Vertin stories to her. It's so sweet and it's one of the few times she acts her age.
