The Pub Discussion Board

I’ve decided to post author’s notes for Altered here explaining the rationale behind some of my creative decisions. Obviously, there will be spoilers for the most recent chapters posted, so read at your own peril.

Of Kisses and Mistresses

I’ve always been interested in the corruption of the parent/child dynamic. However, the roots for this specific story drew inspiration from a (very) short story I found on ASSTR called “Jessie’s Doll". It also involved a child prodigy using technology to mind control her mother. However, the premise was much more interesting than the story itself. The girl genius’s only personality trait was not wanting people to know she was a genius, which kind of nullified the most interesting thing about her. The mother was even more bland. Look, it was pure smut, which isn’t bad for the people who enjoy that sort of thing. Although, the story was so short that even the smut was over as quickly as it began.

I don’t want to criticize it too heavily, on the off chance the author finds this. Its premise was my inspiration, after all, so it did something right on the conceptual level at least. After I read it, my mind started imagining alternate routes the story could have gone if given additional chapters or sequels, and slowly these ideas morphed into something far more distinct. It was built on a similar foundation, but had developed its own identity along the way.

One point that was important to me was keeping the child genius feeling like an actual genius. It wasn’t enough to simply have her be smart when the plot demanded she invent something. I did a bit of research into psychology in order to hopefully make her sound like she knows what she’s talking about. I also hope that I still succeeded in keeping her feeling child-like in certain respects, because the “kid" part of the kid genius is just as important as the genius. You can see this in interviews of actual child prodigies who, despite being able to memorize college level facts, still behave like children in many ways.

By the way, I should mention for anyone familiar with Gnostic theology that Sophie naming her implant the Demiurge is not meant to be foreshadowing at any sort of meta level. Rather, I came up with Sophie’s name early on in the planning process, and then SHE named her system the Demiurge. I didn’t really get a say in the matter. As soon as the idea came to me, I realized there was literally nothing else Sophie would name it. For those not familiar, Gnostics believed in divine beings known as Aeons that were emanations of an unknowable God. The most prominent of these beings was one named Sophia who fell from grace and, in her despair, created a malevolent creature known as the Demiurge (who is the Christian/Judaic God) who in turn created the material world. With Sophie’s educated background that would definitely have driven her to research this topic at some point, her desire to be recognized by others, and her God complex, there was no scenario where she named her device anything else.

I recognize that the start of this story is probably a little abrupt. You’re thrown right into the middle of the situation with Sophie and Glimmer, and not given much context for their relationship. One thing I’ll say about subsequent chapters is that this story isn’t going to be told in a way that’s completely linear. You will see Glimmer’s initial awakening later down the line. However, I think that story works better from Sophie’s perspective. In contrast, what I wanted to do here was establish Glimmer as her own person before the readers realized she was an Alter of Sophie’s mother. I felt starting the story from either of the other two points of view would make Glimmer feel less like an individual.

And that last point was another thing I felt was important in this story. I wanted to go in a slightly different direction than your typical mind control stories, utilizing customized multiple personalities instead of straight-up control. (Although there are hints of that too with Sophie being able to instantly put her mom to sleep or block the formation of long-term memories.) Glimmer is under Sophie’s control, but only because of the psychological profile Sophie designed for her is making her predisposed to submit to her. This is also why I wrote the description as I did, without confirming Glimmer’s true identity. Though, I’m likely to revise that in subsequent chapters.

Finally, if you ended up reading this chapter within 24 hours of when it was posted, you read a slightly different version. As a result of editing the story before I posted, I ended up creating a minor continuity error. I rushed the story out because I wanted it to debut on Mother’s Day Weekend, and only realized the error the next day. The first two segments of the chapter are mostly the same, but there were some important alterations in the third, exploring Sophie’s reaction to what happened with Madeline. (In an earlier draft, Sophie didn’t grab Madeline, and didn’t get her hand smacked away. By the time I posted the story, that scene had been added in, but there was no follow-up to it in the subsequent part. It was like it never happened.)

In the future, I plan on waiting a bit longer before posting chapters so that I can fully go over the work. I clearly do not do well with self-imposed deadlines. I just wanted to mention this for transparency purposes. If I edit a chapter after posting, which I don’t plan on making a habit of, I want to provide a clear explanation.