November 13th, 2020

They disarm you and put you at ease

They facilitate sharing so you open up naturally

They make you feel safe and unjudged

They can leap tall buildings in a single bound

They are comfortable with humor to put your at ease

You don't dread visiting with them

They have their own podcast and know how to reddit

Share with the therapist that you feel like you've hit a lull in your personal growth. Don't necessarily blame the therapist, just reflect on feeling stuck as if its a weather system and ask them if they have any ideas or challenges for you to take the next step in your work.

Ask your therapist if you can revisit your goals with them. Tell them you want to identify some new areas to develop in and ask them for suggestions.

If you're not feeling good with your therapist because you just don't feel a good connection to them, or their style isn't really a good fit for you, its ok to go back to the pool and start looking around again. Lots of people do different work with different therapists, and we therapists are pretty comfortable with you cheating on us - er, collaborating with other professionals - on your quest for personal growth.

What does the NPC think of the players?

What does the NPC want?

We were expecting a double cross. You had to, when Doris Finch was involved. The attack came when I was ten feet away, but it wasn’t the attack I expected, not an attack against us, but an attack against them, Doris against Doris. .float-right Book/Worth the Candle

So, you come in with an expectation, a stereotype, and the character lives up to it.

The first scene in Shrek is showing Shrek to live up to the stereotype of an Ogre: he's disgusting, scary, and hates people (except maybe for dinner). A couple of times, it looks like it's going to contradict that, but then: nope, the thing he's painting is a "Keep out" sign.

Similarly, Doris is shown to be a serial defector, and, in the first chapter, lives up to that every step of the way.

Excerpt

You've set up your character as a loathsome creature. The next step is to make it clear that this is miserable for them. So, you take your character and put them in a situation where it's clear that they know the consequences of being loathsome, but are helpless to change. So, you get a sort of sympathy for them, but at the same time, they're no less of an awful person

In Shrek, this is the whole sequence where the swamp gets invaded by the other fantasy creatures, up until the fight in Dulac. He tries to deal with his problems by scaring them away, because he doesn't know any other way of dealing with them. The problem is, he's just not scary enough for that to work on everyone. But he keeps trying, being especially awful to Donkey.

In Book/Worth the Candle, we see a prime example of the pressure that a Doris faces: everything, even a simple magic lesson, is a life-or-death struggle, and if you fail, you die, and some other Doris will live in your place. And all along the way, Doris is still, plainly, thinking of stabbing them in the back.

Excerpt

The character's problem is based on a mistaken apprehension of the world, which gets confirmed. They are betrayed, the way that they have always been betrayed, so, fuck it, go back to the normal way of life.

So Shrek spends a good couple of days with Fiona, and actually starts to think that things could be different... but then he overhears her say something and mistakenly thinks it's about him. He summons Farquaad to pick up Fiona, and goes back to his swamp.

Doris is expecting betrayal, and probably is ready to go on a rampage here. If she isn't let out, she's breaking out, and then she's going to be the one in charge.

I was explaining that the Dorises, as people, are completely fucked up. They’ve been suffering here, for a long time, at their own hands. And for this particular one, who is probably better off never splitting again, if that’s even something she could do, if it even matters given her presumed skill — for her, it’s important that she understands that she’s in a position where it doesn’t have to be how it was. Once she’s there, once she’s traipsed up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, then we can start talking to her about what her life should be like, how and why to break herself of her current terrible habits that have been learned over the course of a lifetime of pain and suffering. But I think what comes first is just saying, ‘hey, it can be okay now’.

In a word: therapy.

Things are at their absolute lowest for Shrek, and we can see that while he's gotten what he says he wants, it's not what he actually wants. Then, Donkey shows up and shows Shrek a different way the world could be. Fighting his instincts (and with the help of people who care about him), he manages to break his habit and actually believe things could be different, and along with a chance to start things over, that's enough to make things better.

Likewise, Blood God Doris is probably among the most traumatized of any of the Dorises, ready to come out and rule as brutally as anything she's been through. That's her next move, even though she doesn't really want that. Then, Juniper comes along and shows her a vision of a world where life isn't just killing yourself over, and over, and over, and gives her a chance to make that vision a reality.

Loathsome, to pitiable, to relatable, to likable (and even someone you'd root for), each layer being peeled away to reveal the next.

Tags:: D&D worldbuilding

Source::

URL::https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/duume6/voting_in_the_house_of_blood/f78atw0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3