Creating a Villain who Weaponizes Mind Screw

N, Big Bad in my story, in his spin-off/prequel, goes around in city and commits random terrorism. When he strikes the protagonists, he never kills them himself, but injects them with "fun serum" as he calls it. The effect is random and some of the shots don't even have any effect at all.

The first time the effect is shown is when of the detectives shoot him, right in the head, giving him a Pretty Little Headshots. N just smiles, saying it hurts and cracks his skull open so he could get a shot at his brain directly.

Would it be reasonable for the detective to freak out and run the hell away from him?

What else I can elaborate upon him?

I'd say it's reasonable enough to run away from someone who cracks his skull open for giggles. Unless you have some really heavy weaponry.

(And what exactly is your second question? You want random serum effects?)

That would work. Currently, I have...

• Blank: No effect
• Blanks everywhere: Everyone looks The Blank
• Paranoia....

Well, that kinds of stuff. Oh, and that detective is the one who got hit with hallucination one.

edited 19th Apr '11 7:55:11 AM by dRoy

• You feel vertigo when you look far up.
• You feel like the whole world has now taken a slight angle.
• Your body feels not-so-solid, as if giving a good punch would make your arm dissolve into water.
• Your reactions slow down, and everything around you seems to be getting swifter.
• Voices now sound odd- somewhat "mettalic". They also go up and down in volume.

• You can not see or hear anybody else, but there is a constant sound of giggling and footsteps behind you.
• You can only see the inside of our skull, rather than everything outside of it.

Your senses unpredictably vary from hyperacute to completely gone. One moment you're deaf, next moment a doorbell ringing sends you into agony.

They suffer this

Oh my god, people. Those are some brilliant ideas! Please, PLEASE keep it coming!

Their spatial awareness and perception become compromised?

That sounds amazing/horrifying as well.

What I want here, is that all 10 main protagonists, including the First-Person Smartass, get injected. What makes things interesting here is that N never tells them which one has effect or not. The first victim got hit by a real one, but for the rest, they can't be sure.

The serum is just for the show; N's real weapon is his mind-game with the characters.

A confession time: he's practically a Captain Ersatz of multiple characters, prime ones being The Joker (you know the one), the Scarecrow, and Izaya Orihara.

Also, for his kind of villain, do you think being well suited and cultured or very shaggy and edgy looking appearance is more appropriate? I like both of them, but I prefer the former, because frankly, if I went for the latter, people will scream "Joker rip off!" and such.

The problem here....is that I'm not quite good at writing mind-games.

Well the thing about mind games, I find at least, is that they have to have a goal. Think of N as a torturer. Everything he's going to do to your protagonist has to be because he wants something out of them. So ask yourself, "What does N want?" Does he want to break them? Get them to kill each other? After you figure that out, manipulating your characters is easy. Use lies, misdirection, planted evidence etc. You perhaps have an easier and more inventive way to do since you have a mind altering serum at your disposal. Give them visions, have them overhear conversation that never happen, put them through pain.

As for N's image, I personally would go for a mix between the two extremes. Civilised, but gritty enough to get it across that he is dangerous. An actor you might wanna look up is Norman Reedus.

I looked him up, and my god, he's hot. Unfortunately, he's not what I'm looking for; I want, being an animeheaded idiot, more of a Bishōnen character. Kind of like this version of David Tennant◊, only younger and a bit more clean.

Come to think of it, is there any anime or novel that kinda gives similar feelings with The Dark Knight? Probably the best choice would be reading a comic (is TDK based on any Batman issue or completely original?) but here in Korea, accesibility is...zero. Only (horribly translated) comics I ever read in Korea is The Sandman and The Watchmen. ]

About his motive? Get this, he wants to people getting pushed to their limits so he could either see them break down or muster up heroic willpower to fight him back. Also, he wants to have fun and enjoys messing with people's head. What he wants the most, though, is to see people acting against social norms or stereotypes. For example, he enjoys seeing both seemingly horrible people acting benignly or vice versa. He will Pet the Dog or Kick the Dog pretty much randomly.

Here's his backstory, which is not going to be revealed until in the main work, which is about three years after his debut series.

He's actually from a very affluent and powerful family in Massachusetts (hate spelling that!) and graduated from top private high school and university (currently thinking of Harvard, simply beacuse it's in his home state), and graduated with an MBA and a Ph.D in psychology (I hope it doesn't sound as if I gave him that degrees just to make him sound smart...) in ripe age of 25.

He's a Badass Normal (in the main series, because it's the world full of people who won Superpower Lottery) who has an extremely high capacity in acquiring and processing a huge influx of information around his environment in very short time. He, of course, has a Super Fast Reading. Is it considered a superpower?

edited 20th Apr '11 3:23:06 AM by dRoy

I'd actually recommend that N, while somewhat scruffy and definitely good-looking, should otherwise be disturbingly average. This makes things not only more difficult and confusing when looking for him, but also more anxious: If he were to say, wear a hat, change his clothing, shave even, he would just disappear....

My god, THAT's BRILLIANT!! Actually one of his favorite weapon, other than Mind Screw is his ability to appear and disappear any time he wants. For example, you are just walking in a mostly empty corridor. You hear a footstep, you turn around, and there's nobody. You turn back, and keeps walking, then N taps you on the shoulder and says hi. The catch? He's a mostly normal human (although with extremely high intelligence) without any special training.

Well, if you want dark comics, and you like the ability to blend in: Go grab the first volume of The Question. He's not the villain, admittedly, but the scary part of that character is how easily he could be a terrifying villain. A bad guy version of the Question actually sounds a lot like what you're going for.

Also it's a fantastic read. Seriously, go grab that comic. It's relevant to what you're writing, and brilliant stuff.

I'm actually planning to read that as soon as I can get my hands on them, along with Fell.

Your villain now has the power to materialize white folding chairs out of thin air and subsequently beat the pulp out of his enemies with said folding chairs.

I....uh...what?

I'm sure that's some kind of reference, but even I'm confused. Therefore, you win the game.

DOH!

Yeah, I guess it's some kind of reference but I'm not THAT pop-cultured...

Mostly I just got wrestling from that. But then again, I'm a bit of a nerd for wrestling, so I get wrestling from most things.

That gimmick would totally get over, by the way.

Oh...OOOOH!!! Why didn't I see that coming! It was so obvious!

Still irrelevant, though.

Now, back to the topic. Why would that kind of villain particularly fixate on one protagonist? In my current draft, The Hero has a Superpowered Evil Side, not like The Hulk or anything, but more pragmatic and ruthless side. Would the villain wanting to see it out might justify him messing with him and everyone around him?

Anyone weaponising Mind Screw has to be a little batshit themselves. Maybe he's obsessed by our hero?

Maybe he just wants to amuse himself?

Also, if he's mostly normal, why not mix his traits a little bit with Mikado's love for humanity? A character with similar aspirations as the ones you mentioned before, but with a little bit more of creepy niceness.