[munday] ch-ch-changes
For today, we challenge you to tell us ways in which your character has changed from their initial depiction/initial concept. If it's an original character, ways in which they've changed as you've written them.
Huzzah late post. I'd like to start this prompt response with a little explanation of definitions, because this is something that seems to confuse a lot of people.
psy·chot·ic/sīˈkätik/
Adjective: Of, denoting, or suffering from a psychosis: "a psychotic disturbance".Noun: A person suffering from a psychosis.
psy·cho·sis/sīˈkōsəs/
Noun: A severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
psy·cho·path/ˈsīkəˌpaTH/
Noun: A person afflicted with a personality disorder characterized by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts and a failure to feel guilt for such acts. Also called: sociopath.
What I'm trying to show you here is that there absolutely and unequivocally is a difference; the simplest way of expressing it is that psychotics don't understand right vs. wrong, whereas psychopaths can't muster the ability to give a rat's ass. This is the difference between Ed Gein and Ted Bundy. The difference between individuals who (ideally) are put into mental asylums, or incarcerated in prisons.
In the very, very initial draft and character sketches of Painted Blind, Richard was psychotic. Delilah was abused in more conventional ways. Things were different, it was ugly and it went absolutely nowhere. I had no sense of the plot and couldn't see any plot that would develop, so after working on it for a year plus, I scrapped the entire thing. Deleted basically every file. I threw up my hands and figured I was done.
Then, sometime later, I couldn't leave the characters alone, so I started this journal for them as an attempt to get to know them better, outline more, maybe develop an actual story. And I did; this time, when I allowed Richard to develop naturally, he was psychopathic. Whereas in the initial version, he believed heavily in a kind of out-of-touch-with-all-reality solipsism, he now believed in nihilism*. Delilah, also, was now happy in her relationship, and though suffered her lover's emotional manipulations and bouts of sadistic romance, became less his captive victim and more his willing pupil. Their relationship overall changed to a very passionate one which recalls near-willing addiction.
Throughout the course of both the RP and the novel, Delilah has grown more than Richard; she has succeeded in becoming less dependent and providing a constant challenge to her husband, more a balancing force than she ever was before. Their relationship is give-and-take, and, while still twisted in little ways, is generally healthier and happier than it was when it began.
They've changed in so many other ways, too, but God I'm so tired. Another time, perhaps.
*Again, there's an issue with understanding definitions, because while the term 'nihilist' conjures up images of pissy teenagers writing dark poetry about the woes of man's pointless existence, that's not what a nihilist is, nor what the philosophy is intended for. Richard is portrayed as taking it at its intention, which is the dissolving of artificial moralities in order to establish one's own and become, as Nietzsche put it, der Ubermensch. One practices nihilism to rise above nihilism. This rising above it is, in a sense, represented both by his sadistic joy in murder, and his relationship with Delilah, but that seems to me like a subject to be expounded upon for another prompt.
Huzzah late post. I'd like to start this prompt response with a little explanation of definitions, because this is something that seems to confuse a lot of people.
psy·chot·ic/sīˈkätik/
Adjective: Of, denoting, or suffering from a psychosis: "a psychotic disturbance".Noun: A person suffering from a psychosis.
psy·cho·sis/sīˈkōsəs/
Noun: A severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
psy·cho·path/ˈsīkəˌpaTH/
Noun: A person afflicted with a personality disorder characterized by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts and a failure to feel guilt for such acts. Also called: sociopath.
What I'm trying to show you here is that there absolutely and unequivocally is a difference; the simplest way of expressing it is that psychotics don't understand right vs. wrong, whereas psychopaths can't muster the ability to give a rat's ass. This is the difference between Ed Gein and Ted Bundy. The difference between individuals who (ideally) are put into mental asylums, or incarcerated in prisons.
In the very, very initial draft and character sketches of Painted Blind, Richard was psychotic. Delilah was abused in more conventional ways. Things were different, it was ugly and it went absolutely nowhere. I had no sense of the plot and couldn't see any plot that would develop, so after working on it for a year plus, I scrapped the entire thing. Deleted basically every file. I threw up my hands and figured I was done.
Then, sometime later, I couldn't leave the characters alone, so I started this journal for them as an attempt to get to know them better, outline more, maybe develop an actual story. And I did; this time, when I allowed Richard to develop naturally, he was psychopathic. Whereas in the initial version, he believed heavily in a kind of out-of-touch-with-all-reality solipsism, he now believed in nihilism*. Delilah, also, was now happy in her relationship, and though suffered her lover's emotional manipulations and bouts of sadistic romance, became less his captive victim and more his willing pupil. Their relationship overall changed to a very passionate one which recalls near-willing addiction.
Throughout the course of both the RP and the novel, Delilah has grown more than Richard; she has succeeded in becoming less dependent and providing a constant challenge to her husband, more a balancing force than she ever was before. Their relationship is give-and-take, and, while still twisted in little ways, is generally healthier and happier than it was when it began.
They've changed in so many other ways, too, but God I'm so tired. Another time, perhaps.
*Again, there's an issue with understanding definitions, because while the term 'nihilist' conjures up images of pissy teenagers writing dark poetry about the woes of man's pointless existence, that's not what a nihilist is, nor what the philosophy is intended for. Richard is portrayed as taking it at its intention, which is the dissolving of artificial moralities in order to establish one's own and become, as Nietzsche put it, der Ubermensch. One practices nihilism to rise above nihilism. This rising above it is, in a sense, represented both by his sadistic joy in murder, and his relationship with Delilah, but that seems to me like a subject to be expounded upon for another prompt.