Lysergic Bliss

Oh god you must have found my old deviantArt comics

(O Fortuna plays in the background)

U … um! She was a very old character from a veeeeery old version of the story that I scarcely like to recall anymore. I like to think I’ve learned to write stories and characters better since then! By current standards, Elena didn’t have much of a purpose in the plot, and any significance she had was long taken over by Rachel or Lucy. If I recall, Elena was a nice upper-class girl who dated Jekyll for a while.

Notably, this was before I determined that I am really terrible at handling anything even approaching a romantic subplot. I keep that kinda stuff limited to roleplay because I really suck at writing any kind of compelling or convincing romance or sex or anything. Which is why the backstory behind Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Lanyon’s relationship will be a secret FOREVAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!

What can I say? I just want that nose.

That’s kind of seriously the only reason he resembles Brody. I like the man’s hook nose and those sad sad droopy eyes of his. I actually have seen very few movies with him in it and am not enormously attached to him for any other reasons. 

Jekyll also sorta looks like James Macavoy to me. I just like hook noses. :| (Superficial reasons like this are why I really wonder why anyone would consider me for a character design position. I really just like to draw hot people all the time. I’m not even that good at it. I basically only draw hook noses.)

In the current draft of the story, they both remain aware when the other is in control of the body. I believe pretty much all adaptations of the story use this idea to some extent, although usually that is a power afforded only to Hyde: He can taunt Jekyll while Jekyll controls his body, but Jekyll is completely unconscious when Hyde is running about killing things. I think the reason that people set things up that way is to make Hyde the more powerful and threatening character in the story. It also helps to make Jekyll more “innocent” … sort of. I guess these adaptations are arguing that if he can’t specifically REMEMBER killing someone, then he’s not really guilty, right?

My version sticks closer to the original story, I think (in which Jekyll/Hyde share 100% of their memories). A lot of the drama in my story (if I can write it well enough) lies in their direct interaction with one another and how their “relationship” evolves. Hyde is allowed to directly taunt Jekyll, but Jekyll is also allowed to challenge Hyde, to question his motives, to learn his patterns of behavior and develop new defenses against him. 

All of this sounds very fancy and intricate, though in practice it often consists of Jekyll clucking indignantly and Hyde flopping over cabinets and whining. 

Yep! It’s a weird little conceit I’m using to tell who is “in there” later in the story. 

I’m not 100% sure the whole “their physical form becomes unstable and sometimes Jekyll is Hyde and Hyde is Jekyll!!” idea will really work. 8D; I really really like it but it’s kind of a complicated little thing to explain and I haven’t really pitched the idea to anyone yet. I think it reads fairly clearly in the Confrontation video (for the … one shot I remembered to use it in *headdesk*) so ideally it would be just a subtle detail thing that wouldn’t be terribly distracting over the course of the entire story.

That’s a spot of a difficult question! It used to be that Rachel was absolutely in love with Jekyll, but I am actually … not sure now. (I feel like I’m saying this a lot about this story lately.) She definitely finds him extremely attractive and jealously guards his friendship, but I am not sure if she is head-over-heels in love with him anymore. The reason I hesitate is that recently her character has been defined by a fairly profound understanding and acceptance of her place in society, where she came from, and where she wants to be (basically: she came from a very rough upbringing, has always had a great admiration for the upper classes, and is comfortable inhabiting both worlds in her own way). With that in mind, having her pine after her boss seems a bit immature. I’ll havta think about that one. :|

That does remind me that in the current draft, I actually don’t have a great deal of interaction between Rachel and Jekyll! Need to fix that!

Her relationship with Hyde is actually a lot easier to figure out. She grew up with seven other brothers who, in one way or another, all managed to find themselves behind bars. Hyde reminds her a lot of her siblings so she actually tends to relate to Hyde as if he were her younger brother, which irritates him to no end. She likes him a lot, finds his attempts at wickedness and meanness merely amusing, and worries that he will catch a cold.

In the current draft he would be dead at least twice without Rachel’s intervention. She helps him because she is fond of him but also because she wants to give him the second chance that her brothers never got.

I hesitate to use that term, even though technically he is! He would definitely not self-identify as pansexual, because that term flatly did not exist back then. For my own purposes, I just like to use the term “bisexual*” to pretty much mean “could very well be attracted to a person of any gender”. (That’s how I have personally always interpreted bisexuality, and it wasn’t until I stumbled into the wonderful world of tumblr that I learned that some people consider it to be restricted to a binary gender system.) I realize … that is probably the official definition of the word “pansexual.” I just don’t like how the word sounds. XD [/personal hang-up]

Hyde probably self-identifies as “will fuck anything that moves”. This is mostly true, but at some point his instincts for self-preservation will kick in. He would not “fuck anything that moves that will also almost definitely kill him” for instance.

*another term that did not exist back then! derp