How do you effectively write a schizo character or story without it coming off like a half-baked shooter manifesto? Or getting blacklisted by literally everyone?
How do you effectively write a schizo character or story without it coming off like a half-baked shooter manifesto...
Henry Bennett
Luke Wood
Make it a girl. Extra points if she is black or brown. No asians, too attractive.
Cameron Murphy
Do research. Pretty sure YouTube has videos of psychiatrists talking to actual schizos.
Ryder Scott
Research is probably your best bet. Contrary to popular belief, schizo's aren't these obsessed shitheads with terrible opinions who spam boards all day. They're also not conspiracy theorists; at least not in the generally accepted 'Bush did 9/11' way. (They're more like 'the way the towers fell is evidence that the divine hexagon exists and is influencing man,' just theories that make no sense or are completely esoteric to anyone except themselves. This may lend itself to violence, but the motivation will never be something understandable like 'I hate people' or 'this politician sucks.' It'll be absolute nonsense, like 'My coffee machine told me in binary that he was planning to rob me.')
They're people like Terry Davis, guys who are detached from reality and just want to be left alone as a result.
Leo Gutierrez
Do you mean literal schizophrenics? Or le joker/Taxi Driver type characters?
If the former, just do your research. I've been unfortunate enough to see two people close to me develop it. I can tell you that it's not very glamorous and often completely debilitating.
This is a good summary. It's not "cool" in the slightest, it's utter babble. It's honestly a bit horrifying to look into their eyes as they tell you this the most nonsensical thing you've ever heard in your life as is it were gospel. You can see they believe it with every fiber of their being and deep down they know you don't understand it when it just makes *so* much sense to them.
Liam Long
A lot of it seems to be pattern recognition gone array. Like, humans have a natural tendency towards pattern recognition, it helped in ancient prehistoric times (“I know the guys who eat the red berries die, so I will not eat the red berries”), it helps in modern times (“I know buildings with steeples and crosses on them are churches, so even in this town I have never been in before I can go find the church.”) and schizophrenia seems to be just viewing weird patterns and making connections that aren’t there (“I noticed a pattern in my wallpaper that indicates I’m in danger”)
Like, I once saw a crazy homeless woman holding a magazine on the side of the road. She had it open, and it was a completely normal magazine. It wasn’t offensive, violent, pornographic, or anything. It was a completely normal magazine page. And she was screaming “look at this! This is what they do! Are you gonna turn a blind eye to it? Look at this! Look at what they do!”
I don’t know if she was a schizo or what it actually was that she had, but that’s kinda what I think of when I think of actual schizos
Austin Brooks
Depends on the specifics but there are archetypal beats.
One option is a character or Coprotagonist/True protagonist who is the true viewer insert. Falling down has the police detective, se7en has the inspector, etc.
The other is the descent into madness/oblivion tact. Fight Club, Joker, etc. where you're watching the fall.
The shared element is that there is a focus on something that allows the viewer to empathize but not (admit they) agree with the person going full killdozer. You either understand how they got there or watch a character come to the realization of how they got there.
The same applies to real life examples, which is why they resonate. There is more to Terry Davis than shouting about how you should hit the glow in the dark niggers with your car, his videos of developing templeOS document his whole neurological decline to the end. It's hilarious, but it's melancholy.
Less well executed but similar examples include things like Michael Seebach/Schwarzwald from "The Big O" and then who can forget the OG based sociopath
>Rorschach
So to distill it down
>shocking
>entertaining
>secretly right to some degree and/or the one man willing to approach a societal problem even if the methods are monstrous
>not the main character/ direct reader/viewer framing into the story
Ayden Adams
>A lot of it seems to be pattern recognition gone array
It definitely is. It's drawing lines between concepts that have little to no association to each other what's so ever.
If you've ever taken psilocybin (especially in LSD) and it hits you particularly hard you can experience something similar. Drawing lines and being blown away by the connection. If you've ever seen Undone it is actually an incredibly accurate portrayal of schizophrenia from the perspective of the schizophrenic. The doubting yourself, the going in-and-out of mania, random bullshit habits that you justified within your schizo framework, just knowing that you can't be crazy. Really good show. Fuck season 2, though.
Luke Price
Be Alan Moore?
Nicholas Butler
That sounds rather horrific actually.
Levi Nguyen
Yeah, it's just sad really. The worst part is how little can be done about it, you can't reason your way out of being a schizo. Meds help, but they are depressants and feel terrible to be on. The best I've seen from my two personal schizos is a recognizing of symptoms tangential to bouts of mania. When they feel certain way, or their energy levels are at a certain point, they understand that the thoughts they will be having soon won't be comprehensible to others, that they should be keeping their head down and mouth shut for a bit, for lack of a better way to put it.
Brody Sanders
Weaklings.
Ian Powell
>Meds help
Not with what you describe. The only way out of paranoid schizophrenia is to catch loopholes in your own framework and realize there's a possibility you're wrong. It doesn't cure your "habits" nor the thirst for the truth (something I think all human beings suffer from, but apparently not) but it will teach you that putting all your eggs into one basket can be counterproductive.
Asher Garcia
Since it seems this thread is already kinda off-topic and would die if it weren't for my blogposting here is some excerpts from a schizo-friend for those interested. Mind you that he is undoubtedly a very smart guy and this is stuff he shared with me casually with no second thought, more serious or out-there thoughts he'd definitely know to keep to himself, but it shows how hard it is to catch yourself.
>The sistine chapel ceiling painting by Michelangelo is a commentary on Free Will using the metaphor of masturbation, as adam is seen reaching (half-cocked) towards gods outstretched “finger”, and his hand is angled towards his open crotch I just discovered this myself looking at the point-line geometry of a 9-cube grid, representing all possible variations of a 3d cube permuting about in space
>(About the US flag) Maybe if I put these measurements in the letter diagram, it these letters reflected that diagram [and depending on the language diagram the letters will be pronounced different]. I can assumed that the United States flag is a collection of stars because they are independent states.. and The star is represented in the geometry of a cube as it has size points and is composed of two sets of point-line value lines that create planes which delineate interior and exterior spaces of volume consisting of masses and void. The flag is a collection of these composite spaces linked together within some matrix of blue.
Jordan Ward
Interesting. Post some more if possible. Was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic as a kid, feel like the doctor was full of shit years down the line.
Luke Collins
Ahem
Anthony Green
You are just getting filtered. That stuff is not even that schizo, you are just a normalfag that can't deal with any sort of free thinking.
Jose Carter
FYI user, damn near all recordings and photos of medical disorders are taken because it was notable enough to be photographed.
Tyler Morris
It's one of the harder mental illnesses. Schizophrenia is defined by reoccurring psychotic breaks, which in the medical sense is some separation from reality. So, hearing things, seeing things, stuff like that. Feel free to read about it. It's a tough one.
Dylan Hughes
I'd have to dig pretty far back into texts to get more excerpts like those, but I might try for you. I watched him develop it in real-time and it kinda built up to a moment where me and other friends of his had to confront him about it (he didn't listen and ended up in the bin for a week). Now he knows, is medicated (sometimes), and is much more conscious about it, so he tends to not share stuff like that often anymore, at least not over text.
Here's a story to sate you: I'm a very agreeable person, and I like talking to interesting people and playing devils advocate. So when I noticed the increasing nonsense he'd say I did a "bad" and encouraged it thinking he was just memeing or being esoteric on purpose. The moment I realized it was a problem was when he was having a falling out with his girlfriend. He said she was a succubus. I responded flippantly, "Damn, she's a demon, bro!" kind of thing, but he got increasingly serious, talking about spells and rituals until it got uncomfortable. I asked, "Wait, user, do you actually believe that your GF is an unironic, honest to god, no joke, super-natural being with magic powers?" He responded with the fervor of a man wrongfully convicted of a murder, "Yes! But I am, too!". That's when I knew his shit was fucked.
Juan Ross
>Now he knows, is medicated (sometimes), and is much more conscious about it, so he tends to not share stuff like that often anymore, at least not over text.
So he's more self aware now. That's a pretty big step. Good for him! The demon thing, yeah that's pretty out there.
>I did a "bad" and encouraged it thinking he was just memeing or being esoteric on purpose
Not so much bad, it's not like you knew he was that far out. Honestly, and this might be fucked. But sometimes giving a poke into someone in that kind of way is necessary. For either party involved. But then again, I've been digging into my friends metaphorical closet because I've felt like somethings up with him. He's cool with it, I'm just really intrigued by him due to us both having a lot of common ground in fucked shit. Fuck. I went on ramble. I appreciate you looking into texts,it is interesting
Joshua Nguyen
Actually schizophrenic or characters with esoteric beliefs and motivations? The former just takes knowledge on what it's like being schizophrenic. The latter is more complex.
Gabriel Nelson
Is Kevin a good portrayal of schizophrenia?
judging by my distant relatives I agree