do you have any recommendations for writing Rick in character to how he is portrayed? i'm trying to write my first R&M story and i've read many of your Rick and Morty fics and always find that he's always true to character, at least in my mind.
Boy, I can do you one better! I wrote a brief character breakdown thing when I first started writing him, I’ll post it below.
Defining characteristics:
-Cynical/nihilistic/dark sense of humour
- Undiagnosed ‘sociopath’
Rick Sanchez was disillusioned to the world early on, by his own hand or otherwise. He has few true friends, preferring to devote himself to science or the destruction of his own body. He displays classic symptoms of multiple severe mental illnesses, ranging from depression to sociopathy. He has trouble connecting to other people, due to his own perceived self-worth as an entitled narcissist. Any attempts at making headway into a sustainable relationship (usually by Morty) is met with resistance, because Rick doesn’t know how to form healthy relationships from what we’ve seen (particularly with Unity). He does see himself to be more intelligent than other people, which is partially true; however, his emotional and social intelligence is severely lacking. Writing his character would take a lot of insight into the world as he sees it; the world which is always changing dependent on his mood, alcohol levels and company.
- Rick takes Morty on adventures, not only as a shield, but as someone he can show off to
- Morty is Rick’s closest ‘friend’; unhealthy power imbalance
- Rick does his best thinking when he doesn’t actually try thinking; he’s impulsive and reckless, mainly because he doesn’t care for his own life (how would Morty change this?)
- Rick enjoys disillusioning people (about marriage, school, god, etc) to make up for his own lack of faith in anything
- He cares for Morty’s mental well-being - kind of - he lies about the cause of Morty’s breakdown during the Purge Festival and sacrifices things he normally wouldn’t for Morty (small allowances like Morty’s ability to choose adventures).
- Kills for Morty (Jellybean). Rick is possessive, cares for Morty. Doesn’t know how else to help.
- Needy. Needs Morty’s attention, positive or negative, and relishes in the fact that he can get it whenever he wants. Was this from the beginning or did it develop over time?
- He sees emotion and attachments as irrational and weaknesses. From his own failed relationships? Either way, he still forms attachments which causes his loathing for them to bubble inward.
- He believes that his apathy makes him superior over those with more obvious emotions because he doesn’t value emotional maturity or intelligence.
Rick struggles with balancing his pathological need for independence outside of meaningful relationships, with the need for love and affection from his grandchildren and Beth. He cares about them, but he can’t display that to their faces, only in subtle forms (lying about the purgenol). He likes to do things to win. He cares little for the lives of people, whether he’s saving them or killing them, and mainly about his usually petty end goal. He doesn’t like the thought of his family having lives outside of him, and purposefully places himself in positions of power over those he loves. He almost appears to be having a long term existential crisis, over his own place in the universe - he states that nothing in the universe matters but later goes on to claim himself a god, talk about how amazing he is, and how he can’t die, placing any importance in himself and not the universe at large. He scares himself with his own nihilistic worldview and clings to his alcohol and substance abuse problems as a way of coping with his unsureness. He later oversells his intelligence to keep people from questioning him whilst he is questioning himself.
Remember that he’s an asshole, but still human. He does bad things for bad reasons, but he still has reasons: at surface level, they actually tend to be really stupid - like in the dragon episode where he knocks Morty out with gas that ends up knocking himself out too. He’s a genius that lacks the ability to make short-term decisions because he acts on impulse or (vat of acid episode) in order to prove a point. He has little emotional development which we can look at in comparison with his soaring social intelligence in his ability to make meaningless friends in abundance.
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