Writing Prompt Mental Illness: The Sequel

melbisbelbis

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I got a character archetype. You guys gotta come up with a story for it.

The story and characters can be whatever you guys want, because creative freedom is cool. The only defining feature is that the protagonist has a strange form of multiple personality disorder and can simply swap between some amount of personalities (you choose what they are and how many). You guys can come up with an extra kicker.
An idea I had for this that could be applied is that the separate personalities are "awake" the entire time but only surface and do anything when the current personality chooses to swap with them. This could create some weird situations while still keeping a lot of room for creativity.

Alright, now have fun and bring me back a souvenir!
 

Southdog

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Isn't this just the Split movie? By m night shymalan?
 

TotallyHuman

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I got a character archetype. You guys gotta come up with a story for it.

The story and characters can be whatever you guys want, because creative freedom is cool. The only defining feature is that the protagonist has a strange form of multiple personality disorder and can simply swap between some amount of personalities (you choose what they are and how many). You guys can come up with an extra kicker.
An idea I had for this that could be applied is that the separate personalities are "awake" the entire time but only surface and do anything when the current personality chooses to swap with them. This could create some weird situations while still keeping a lot of room for creativity.

Alright, now have fun and bring me back a souvenir!
Pretty much Being John Malkovich
 

SerikoLee

Chaos Realm Creator/ Chaos God
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There is a yandere personality, a succubus personality is a never touched upon idea , there is also loving or caring personality.
There is the tsundere personality also sadism personality.
All am saying there many personalities and you must know it well to make it interesting.
 

Plus1

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So.. basically someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.)? Eh, I suppose it could be an interesting premise, as long as it takes itself seriously and doesn’t joke around with the issue, but instead properly brings attention to the hardships it brings to those who have it. Mental illnesses are no joke.
 

melbisbelbis

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So.. basically someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.)? Eh, I suppose it could be an interesting premise, as long as it takes itself seriously and doesn’t joke around with the issue, but instead properly brings attention to the hardships it brings to those who have it. Mental illnesses are no joke.
Well, I’m trying to use it as a story concept, so uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
D

Deleted member 45782

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It does sound like DID. Reminded me of Split and Crazy Jane, though they don't really control when their personality swaps I think.
 
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K5Rakitan

Level 34 👪 💍 Pronouns: she/whore ♀
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So.. basically someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.)? Eh, I suppose it could be an interesting premise, as long as it takes itself seriously and doesn’t joke around with the issue, but instead properly brings attention to the hardships it brings to those who have it. Mental illnesses are no joke.
Yep, that's what they call it these days. You might want to talk to someone with DID to see if they are OK being portrayed in this way.
 

PrincessFelicie

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Yeah looking at the OP's premise, just sounds like a plural system with continuous memory and little trouble switching who's fronting. I also assume they're able to communicate with one another in headspace. As long as you like, avoid the extremely tired trope of the "evil headmate" (not saying it doesn't happen, just that singlets are terrible at writing it in a not ableist way), like... have fun I guess?
 

melbisbelbis

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Yeah looking at the OP's premise, just sounds like a plural system with continuous memory and little trouble switching who's fronting. I also assume they're able to communicate with one another in headspace. As long as you like, avoid the extremely tired trope of the "evil headmate" (not saying it doesn't happen, just that singlets are terrible at writing it in a not ableist way), like... have fun I guess?
Oh, rather actually no. My idea is that the personalities are moreso fighting for control over the body. A story-like application could be that they are forced to work together with individual skills due to circumstance, because no body is worse than bickering.
 

PrincessFelicie

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Ah, trying to force themselves to the front. Sure, if the system's a bit dysfunctional and bad at internal communication, that's more than plausible.
 

megu3

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At first, there was nothing wrong with her personality, but due to all stress, bullying, etc. she was going through every day at school, she had locked herself in her apartment and so became a so-called hikikomori. Her original personality was frail, extremely shy, useless, depressed etc.
But, as all she was doing was spend her entire time on her computer, she somehow developed another personality of it. It was the personality of a super hacker that, even though wouldn't be able to deal with people in real life, could do it easily online and, obviously, had excellent hacking skills that she used to make money.

And so, when she's using the PC, her hacker personality has control over the body. When not, the original, shy personality does. Both retain consciousness the entire time and can talk between each other inside her mind.

One day, she encounters a strange rumor (I doubt the hacker would believe something like that, so I might make it an accidental discovery instead) that it is possible to go through a mirror as long as nothing reflects on it and it's perfectly clean. In other words, the room with the mirror has to be perfectly dark. She presses her hand at the mirror, and she's startled when it somehow goes through. That's how she discovers the existence of another, mirror world that looks pretty much the same, except that there's (almost?) no one there.
And what she does there? I have no idea for now. But being shy and afraid of people, the discovery of a world looking exactly like the real one but without people is something that might bring a change of her personality.

And that's how this novel can be counted as an isekai and have some chances of getting a considerable amount of views. Also, that mirror world might somehow affect how her two personalities interact. Maybe they can split into two bodies? I still have to think this story over.
 

melbisbelbis

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At first, there was nothing wrong with her personality, but due to all stress, bullying, etc. she was going through every day at school, she had locked herself in her apartment and so became a so-called hikikomori. Her original personality was frail, extremely shy, useless, depressed etc.
But, as all she was doing was spend her entire time on her computer, she somehow developed another personality of it. It was the personality of a super hacker that, even though wouldn't be able to deal with people in real life, could do it easily online and, obviously, had excellent hacking skills that she used to make money.

And so, when she's using the PC, her hacker personality has control over the body. When not, the original, shy personality does. Both retain consciousness the entire time and can talk between each other inside her mind.

One day, she encounters a strange rumor (I doubt the hacker would believe something like that, so I might make it an accidental discovery instead) that it is possible to go through a mirror as long as nothing reflects on it and it's perfectly clean. In other words, the room with the mirror has to be perfectly dark. She presses her hand at the mirror, and she's startled when it somehow goes through. That's how she discovers the existence of another, mirror world that looks pretty much the same, except that there's (almost?) no one there.
And what she does there? I have no idea for now. But being shy and afraid of people, the discovery of a world looking exactly like the real one but without people is something that might bring a change of her personality.

And that's how this novel can be counted as an isekai and have some chances of getting a considerable amount of views. Also, that mirror world might somehow affect how her two personalities interact. Maybe they can split into two bodies? I still have to think this story over.
I like this premise, though it could definitely use a few revisions. But I’m just here to give story ideas, rather than decide how authors should write their stories.
 

Plantorsomething

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I got a character archetype. You guys gotta come up with a story for it.

The story and characters can be whatever you guys want, because creative freedom is cool. The only defining feature is that the protagonist has a strange form of multiple personality disorder and can simply swap between some amount of personalities (you choose what they are and how many). You guys can come up with an extra kicker.
An idea I had for this that could be applied is that the separate personalities are "awake" the entire time but only surface and do anything when the current personality chooses to swap with them. This could create some weird situations while still keeping a lot of room for creativity.

Alright, now have fun and bring me back a souvenir!
Hahaha you fool, I’ve done it already! In the form of a rewrite of a light novel. Our Death Flags Are the Least We’re Worried About.
I’d advise anyone else doing this to have a magical explanation for multiple identities, or do serious research, since DID is no joke.
 

CL

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So.. basically someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.)? Eh, I suppose it could be an interesting premise, as long as it takes itself seriously and doesn’t joke around with the issue, but instead properly brings attention to the hardships it brings to those who have it. Mental illnesses are no joke.
You're correct that it isn't a joke, but that is no reason why it can't be done. I've commented and bitched on a few stories (none here, but elsewhere) on themes and subjects I did not appreciate for existing and they were being treated either as a joke or worse (child abuse was a major one), but I never told them to stop. I have a belief that shutting someone down, otherwise stunting someone's creativity, is never good. Even if that creativity is malicious, it's not good to kill it. I (that's me, not you or anyone else, just talking about my actions) am not going to tell them to cut it out. I'll try to influence them and have them at least aware of what they are writing is going to be harmful, it will hurt someone, but I won't put a stop to it.

It's my belief that they are writing their story. They have a reason that I can't understand and may not even give it a chance. But it's their imagination, their world, their rules.

(This line is an edited in addition): I want to apologize for bringing this subject up because I know that this sort of interaction would create a hijack of the thread. I don't want that to happen.
 

melbisbelbis

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For the people discussing here, I am of the belief that while these are serious topics, that does not mean that you have to be extremely strict and realistic on the topic. A story without a twist is almost always dead in the water. But, then again, who am I to talk about this?
 

BenJepheneT

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For the people discussing here, I am of the belief that while these are serious topics, that does not mean that you have to be extremely strict and realistic on the topic. A story without a twist is almost always dead in the water. But, then again, who am I to talk about this?
You can get away with drawing casual, even big parallels with real life mental phenomenons for your light-hearted character romps. Just try not to make anything profound out of it if you're intending to make use of it. It's to avoid threading controversial topics under less-than-ideal circumstances.
 
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