Need some 'twisted' background ideas for a character

[ZippyDSMlee]

I am going with a well meaning teenager who life has hit a dead end parents were sick and died less than a year apart. Life has abandoned him seemingly, but through a twist of fate he gains power. As he settles into his new life he slowly breaks down from the new social world he in it. And goes back to be abandoned by life but with a goal to help others and goes on a journey.

 

[Yureina]

Don't use rape/abuse or parent murder. That stuff is so overused in the development of neutoric or disturbed that it is rather ridiculous. Perhaps someone who lost something dear to them that they held in high regard. Something that they obsessed over until it slowly ate away at their mind, until all that was left was a burning desire of sorts to take from those who this character believed had stolen from them. In other words, a person who decides to solve their own sense of emptiness by bringing that same feeling to others.

Just something that came to mind. Its probably not a good idea. >_<

 

[Eponet]

Well, here one; kind of cheesy, but whatever.

Setting: Generic Medieval Fantasy

Having been born into a life of petty crime, she is offered a way out as the apprentice of a wayward wizard, however, he is cut off from his magic by a priesthood of the goddess of magic due violating several of the rules they had set. After this, he becomes depressive, and more or less refuses to act like himself. After attempts to comfort him fail, she sets off to attempt to murder the entire clergy, and eventually, the goddess herself.

Possible eventual conclusion involves the goddess herself being sorry about the actions of her underlings, as she was unaware of what they were doing and offering to restore the connection. Response being "I'm not here for his sake, I'm here because you hurt me."

 

[Sebenko]

I've got one.

He's just a dick. Because it's funny.

Or maybe you should learn from Ugly Shepard.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

A guy whose job is to execute people on deathrow and had to execute his brother who was falsely accused of murder!

 

[Halceon]

So basically I'm writing this Narrative (for School. Since it's Writing it's fun but with a time limit? No thank you...) and the main goal is to create a character that is motivated psychologically because of his/her past. So any ideas? The more twisted the better! As much as I love rape/incest in background stories please keep those out. I don't want you to do a big effort on this (if you can, be my guest!) just a small thought. I know how creepy you guys are (and I love it)

I know some people here hate these kind of help thread but at least it's not a relationship one it doesn't hurt to ask for some help. If you're going to say "Don't ask this kind of stuff" or something similar you can leave.

I appreciate your co-operation. Last time I asked I got really good replies which boosted my work ten-fold.

Poverty and violence. Engaged in petty street crime, then worked in a slaughterhouse. Has always been taken advantage of by those in power - unfair wages, unfair police attitude, unfair taxes, unfair whatever else. Friends who looked up to him are all more successful and will not help him. Need i add the pain? Junkie mother, absent father, who occasionally comes home to take their money, beat them up and whatnot. Social stigma, racial stigma...

 

[DSK-]

The main character was raised within a nuclear family, his parents were loving, honest, wise and he listened to everything they said and never really spoke or acted out of turn. He pretty much worships them when he is very young.

However, upon seeing other family member's (the protagonist's father's family members - 3 uncles) lean against the family for help and constantly using them (as he grows up) he starts to change and gets angry at why his beloved parents are getting treated this way. Add to this that the family in general is rather poor, his father is stuck in a dead end job and the countless ways life tries to thwart their happiness; it is as though life has it in for his family.

He becomes more and more hateful and angry as these events transpire and begins to think about and imagine the people that wronged him and his family being killed in countless ways and becomes sadistic - but struggles to keep such feelings hidden away from other people. Slowly but surely it starts to eat away at him, despite him doing his best to mind his p's and q's and to follow the teachings of his parents on politeness and courtesy - to act 'normal'.

The outcome is for you to decide

 

[Bobby Newmark]

Born from an egg on a mountaintop? Gamma rays? Family slaughtered by street toughs? Some magic-sword gibberish? I personally wouldn't advocate the latter, no sir. For some years I've been trying to write a "serious epic" about an "embittered swordmaster" who carries a "magical sword" and it doesn't seem to work, not for me anyway. Good luck!

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Since rape/abuse/murder in the past seems to be covered or out of the question I'll try to think up some good creative trama:
-He was forced to resort to cannibalism to survive in a dangerous situation. Perhaps he was forced to eat someone near and dear (maybe even had to pick straws and kill them?)

-Lived the early years of his life in a war-torn area and saw people dying horribly on a near daily basis. It doesn't even have to be people he knows, just random brutal deaths.

-Believes he had a religous experience in his childhood and now has "The Chosen One" complex. Except rather than a Jesus figure he thinks he's the anti-Christ and works for some dark god (which may or may not be fictional).

That's all I got for now. I'm trying to think outside the rape/abuse/murder box.

 

[7moreDead_v1legacy]

Well I managed to get my English teacher to say I needed therapy after I wrote about a guy getting his skin removed by a deranged doctor, could do something along those lines.

 

[snow]

The best way I've always done it, was figure out who your character is, what makes him/her tick.

Create your character, and work backwards. Like as if to say, you created a man who is really afraid of something... Why? Well, he's afraid of this because when he was a young boy these things happened in his life...

That sort of thing. If you can create the character, and ask why they are the way they are, you can easily work out what their past may have been like.

In some of my fantasy writing, I have been able to figure out how certain races cultures would work based on 1 or 2 characters from that culture. It's really neat to go back and fill in those kinds of blanks, and to me it works a lot better than trying to figure it out on an empty piece of paper.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Four words:

The American music industry.

That is all.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Didn't read the part about the rape and such.

Anyway, his dad killed his mom brutally in front of him. Got away with it. He killed his dad.

 

[rekabdarb]

Born underneath a rotting corpse, to be found upon the brink of death by a kind mother, and disappointed father. The mother, shortly after the boy turns 3-5, dies and the father blames the child, claiming she got a disease from saving him. Around the age of 9 the father starts to become physically abusive and eventually sells the boy into protitsution. At the age of 13 the boy picks up a sword/dagger/something and vicously stabs the father over and over until he dies, becoming drenched in blood. The police later arrive (the father had death wails, neighbors called) with the boy sitting in the pool of blood that is in the kitchen laughing/crying hysterically. The police ask what happened, and the boy, not wanting to go to jail, says that someone broke in to "rob" them and he stabbed the dad. (A window had been broken from the stabbing) From then on until he was 18, whatever family he lived with, all the neighborhood animals slowly started to disappear until he turned 18 when his family was "robbed" again and he went missing shortly after.


FUCK i'm twisted

 

[2xDouble]

Okay, somebody needs to read up on his Greek tragedy... Here, this will help [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1946-No-Redeeming-Value].
Within the basic framework, there are infinite possibilities.

 

[Alon Shechter]

Okay. Main characters father (Who is a very eccentric genius) kept the main characters half-brother locked up in a dungeon hidden underneath their abode. The love of his fathers life died giving birth to his half-brother and out of an undying hatred for him he tortures him nightly. He re-married and had the hero of our tale simply because he needs an heir to his strange discoveries and is grooming him to be a genius. The main character is intensely lonely due to being home-schooled and having to spend every day reading books and having information drilled into his head by his father.

Now, quite by accident he discovers the dungeon and begins to go down there to talk with his half-brother. Though mutilated and utterly insane, his half-brother seems quite capable of rational speech and is actually rather charming. He manipulates our hero into keeping their meetings secret and eventually gets him to set him free. His half-brother uses his freedom to slay their father and escape into the world.

20 years later, our protagonist is a scientist/detective with an extremely high opinion of himself who only solves cases that pique his interest. His half-brother suddenly resurfaces as a criminal mastermind who has organized a gigantic crime-ring and plans to take over the world with zombie-robots and diabolic schemes. Thus begins a battle of wits and strangeness that will rip asunder the very fabric of reality!

Some of that may not have been logical, for that I apologize, it was very spur of the moment.

Character was part of a hostage situation early in his childhood in which his uncle was killed; he witnessed everything and his father (uncle was on that side) was never the same. His older brother who was very close to this uncle attempted suicide twice but was never successful. Essentially it seriously screwed up his family and he was forced to deal with this at a very young age (5-10). Its 18 years later and he is trying to lead a normal life but this event always forces its way in somehow, often in the form of night terrors. The man who killed his uncle is released due to "good behavior" and goes on to kill two more people before he is taken back to jail. The character decides to quit his dead end job and become an attorney - ensuring that nothing like this will ever happen again. But that single event from his childhood still haunts him and his new career choice forces him to deal with similar situations on almost a daily basis. He must overcome that event to truly continue on with his life.

Wow... Mind=Blown

Holy cow, that's a lot of effort to put for some dude you don't even know
I'm still getting amazed in here after about 5 months of surfing the website.

 

[b15h4m0n]

A young woman raised in orphanage/step-family, who in her 20s starts to suspect that story of her parents dying in a car accident is made up and wants to discover the truth. She somehow stumbles on the fact her father was obsessed with the concept of immortality and dabbled in the occult to find a solution. He prepared an elaborate, ritualistic plan to woo a much younger woman (character's mother), marry her, make her love him, impregnate her, drug her in the late period of pregnancy, kill her to provide the energy for soul transition (and killed himself to let the transition happen). From his notes she gets to know he specifically wanted a daughter, because in the future he will be able to perform this ritual easier with a child in his own womb, thus his soul will be able to cycle through bodies for all eternity. From this stems the whole tree of doubts - who she really is, who wanted to hide it from her and why, who was her mother, should she consider the arcane path to get that information or will it bring her to madness like it brought father?

(I'm not really sure that this story is about the daughter. It may be about the father as well. Or me.)

 

[DocBalance]

So basically I'm writing this Narrative (for School. Since it's Writing it's fun but with a time limit? No thank you...) and the main goal is to create a character that is motivated psychologically because of his/her past. So any ideas? The more twisted the better! As much as I love rape/incest in background stories please keep those out. I don't want you to do a big effort on this (if you can, be my guest!) just a small thought. I know how creepy you guys are (and I love it)

I know some people here hate these kind of help thread but at least it's not a relationship one it doesn't hurt to ask for some help. If you're going to say "Don't ask this kind of stuff" or something similar you can leave.

I appreciate your co-operation. Last time I asked I got really good replies which boosted my work ten-fold.

You've come to the right place my good man. I'll start with one of my least twisted, and if you need something stronger, just say so.

Character is raised in an African Province. Preferably somewhere like Swaziland where it's still relatively undeveloped in it's more tribal areas, but is also surrounded by industry. The character can be either male or female, both would have inherent advantages so just use what you need. The traumatic background is this: The parents where humanitarian aid workers assigned to an HIV stricken tribe(Thus Swaziland, Swaziland is arguably the worst HIV afflicted region in Africa). This tribe is made up almost entirely of children, most of the orphans. Eventually, they run out of food, and they can't get food because they are stranded in the mountainous region, and their communication equipment has disappeared. One night they return from foraging, after all the other adults have slowly disappeared, and when they return they find the children sitting around a fire in a circle. They ask if they found food, and when the parents reply they couldn't find any, the children's leader replies "You'll do." The children over-power the main character and his/her parents, and slowly drag them towards the fire. At this point the Character blacks out. When he/she wakes up, he/she is alone, in the same spot he/she passed out. He/she escapes, and finds shelter in nearby Lobamba( the capital). The only lingering question is whether he/she was spared because of luck, or because of breaking down and joining the feast...

Tip of the iceberg there. Let me know if it's suitable or ya need more ideas.