But if I ever convinced myself to have me tested for it, I'd more than likely end up on the Autistic Spectrum. Somewhere as a mild form of Aspergers or something. 'Mild' because I seem to be the highly-functional type and because I am less affected by it, the older I get. There are mechanisms you can learn to deal with almost everything, after all.
Using colour, smell, sound and so on to describe characters simply feels more whole to me than using adjectives. I do that, too, so I can be sure to have a precise definition when I need it, but a personality, is, to me, more like a kind of mist in certain colours, that changes form and fills crevices, the way it is expressed constantly changes and adjectives are just too limiting to do it full justice.
It's simply easier for me to think about, say, Karsofin, as someone who is the sound of a not fully dried plank of cedar breaking, has a muted sand-gold-brown colour that is very saturated and a somewhat corduroy feel to her. The solidity, muted saturation and the deep reverberation of the echo underlying the high notes of breaking wood are, what makes her fit in the universe. The other character I mentioned above, the lime-green silver one, is not muted or saturated enough. In Karsofin's and Ferusch's world he would seem like the faded imprint of someone, a memory or ghost. In his own universe, he seems full and strong.
I suppose not using actual words, but a compilation of different sensory impressions to define and recognize a character by, is rather like keeping them as a malleable, flexible thought. You don't think in words all the time, right? You feel emotions, and when you see or touch something, it moves something inside you.
Only when you want to communicate these feelings to someone else do you try to frame them in words, but there is only so much you can express.
So which one is more accurate, the precise word or the vague, multilayered feeling?
