(no subject)
Nov. 19th, 2002 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksThe antagonistish type person of my novel, who would be the villain if there were a villain, has turned up very impressively in my head. I think I may have traumatized the dinner table. I hadn't been expecting any of the nonhuman characters to turn up that impressively, since, after all, they are so completely not human that I don't actually follow their thought processes, I just describe what they do and figure they must have some motivation, maybe. What I hadn't figured on was that this character is presently going by the name/title the Mad One, and terrifically nonhuman psyche + complete and utter derangement of that psyche... does not equal human, but it equals sort of human in mirror image, or reverse, something that can act human and (sort of) (maybe) (on alternate Wednesdays) be understood by a human being. It's fascinating to be in character as. I ran with the acting because I wanted to get a better idea of its daily behavior. The Mad One is a psychopath, but not our sort of psychopath. It (it doesn't admit to a gender and what the hell am I supposed to do, look?) does not express its derangement in the ways that people show derangement. For any of you who may have been at the dinner table, the single most insane thing it did all evening was to pick up a single lima bean on the tip of its fork, stare at it fixedly for about five seconds, and then eat it. That was the thing that would have caused any member of its own species to classify it as incurably nuts. All that crushing-a-hard-boiled-egg-in-its-fist-and-eating-the-shell sort of thing is just how its species behaves.
It is presently trying to decide whether it would be more amusingly ironic to show up again at random and probably completely unpredictable intervals, or never ever to turn up again in person. I am not going to allow it to go the direction it was wanting to, a direction it did go in slightly over dinner, which is the direction of making everyone uncertain at all times as to which of us they are talking to. People kept asking if I'd gone out of character and not getting decisive answers, because it likes playing with perceptions. I consider that subjecting my friends to that would be cruel and unusual punishment.
I find this being fascinating, of course, and really delightful, despite its having done some pretty nasty things to my main character and having killed her husband and all. It can't really be held accountable in the same way humans can; in some ways it's more like a very amused natural disaster. This does not, of course, keep my main character from hating it more than she has ever hated anything else, with a fury that would be homicidal if only the Mad One's species weren't fifty to seventy-five feet long with ten-foot claws.
I love it when the inside of my head turns into a more interesting place for me to play in.
It is presently trying to decide whether it would be more amusingly ironic to show up again at random and probably completely unpredictable intervals, or never ever to turn up again in person. I am not going to allow it to go the direction it was wanting to, a direction it did go in slightly over dinner, which is the direction of making everyone uncertain at all times as to which of us they are talking to. People kept asking if I'd gone out of character and not getting decisive answers, because it likes playing with perceptions. I consider that subjecting my friends to that would be cruel and unusual punishment.
I find this being fascinating, of course, and really delightful, despite its having done some pretty nasty things to my main character and having killed her husband and all. It can't really be held accountable in the same way humans can; in some ways it's more like a very amused natural disaster. This does not, of course, keep my main character from hating it more than she has ever hated anything else, with a fury that would be homicidal if only the Mad One's species weren't fifty to seventy-five feet long with ten-foot claws.
I love it when the inside of my head turns into a more interesting place for me to play in.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-11-19 08:16 pm (UTC)Though not necessarily meeting it. If I do, I want to be someone else at the time, please, so warn me.
But congratulations and all.
Love.
Ruth.
no subject
Date: 2002-11-19 08:53 pm (UTC)Oh, and in case you didn't see: Purr.
no subject
Date: 2002-11-20 06:34 pm (UTC)1.) He wanted to come out and play.
2.) I wasn't thinking correctly, and he always is, and therefore could better tell than me when Lila was in character or not.
3.) You were bound to see him sometime, K. I figured you'd better get used to him.
He says he must have been feeling charitable and let you off easy with the ice cream.
no subject
Date: 2002-11-20 10:06 pm (UTC)-the IW