[Dhal's scrapbook] A Wendigo's Memoirs

[Dhalvasha]

I thought for awhile, curious as to what I should call this scrapbook. In a certain sense it, and many scrapbooks like it, is like a monument to the inner self, the ME behind the character. Without pale skin, lithe figure, fangs, and venomous impregnation abilities, I am hardly the interesting creature Dhalvasha has turned out to be. The closest I come to eating blood porridge is what I loosely call mashed potatoes. Still, if enough people have found solace in writing a few thoughts, why not try for myself?

You'll notice I don't have any pictures here. I was never handy with photobucket, or image surfing, or stumbling on youtube. I played the ole fashioned writer, struggling to remember colored texts rather than the pretty creations so many on Mizahar have enjoyed creating. It isn't to say that I think a skin makes a post, but sometimes I believe people take me less seriously if I don't stylize my work a little. In the past eight or so years of roleplaying I've seen art creep ever closer to being of tantamount importance in forums. I suppose I never evolved, moved on, so to say...something just told me to keep trying with what I had.

And now all I have are white words, letters that are so common place we misthink their meaning. Life is not so much in the words we string together but by the character in which we write. Our passions and emotions can bleed through our writing through something as contrived as phrasing, or as overt as blunt statement. Even so, we live within a one dimensional realm here...words strip away the intonation and body language we base our communications around. In that respect, I suppose adding color tries to bridge that gap...add more to the work as a whole, draw the eyes to more than the familiar stock letters we're used to seeing. I'll hurl my plain lure into the water to stir the depths, but fishing with craft alone isn't what it used to be.

And someone stole my old rod.

I swear I used to be better than this.


A Wendigo (Winidigo, Weendago, etc) is a supernatural cannibal of Algonquin mythology. Supposedly when one consumes human flesh, or gets their body hijacked by a real 'Wendigo' the result is the creature of myth and legend we loosely know from old horrors and tv episodes. Some say the monster grows larger with each person it consumes, a monumental testament to the horrors of Longpork (human flesh for those who aren't savvy with the term). Either way, most of them start out human...regular folks like you or I. Something gets under our skin, tickles the hunger lying dormant there, controls it. Theoretically any reason will suffice so long as the end result is munching on a femur, but it's the principle of the event that gets me. We, as Humans, are a cannibalistic culture. Perhaps we don't dine out on our favorite celebrities, but we consume their work, their image, their personality. In a certain way, we consume each other.

I am a Wendigo of self, savaging my own mind for ideas and formulas to continue churning a creative gear in my minds eye. I feast upon the marrow of my bones, guzzle life blood in the no-mans hours of 4 am, and chew my cerebrum thoughtfully while looking for a new notion to enact. I am a Wendigo of others, seeking new ideas and styles through writing, drinking with my eyes and processing in the soup I call a mind. I eat the distance between people, forcing bony trust between us free of distrustful flesh.

And in such a way, aren't we all Wendigos? Don't we all reach the point where we can write no more? The time when we've poached our own idea-buffalo to near extinction...only to THEN decide we should play the conversationalist and let them reproduce? Life is the complicated decision of what to eat first, of how much one can consume and still keep moving, of how we're supposed to fit everything we want into the time we have.

So some grow desperate and push it off on their offspring.

Cannibalize their childhoods.

And in that respect, on a macro-scale, we cannibalize cultures and people, religions and history. Everything one of us makes can be broken down in the jaws of progress and repurposed into something else. We are Wendigo, each and every one (in our own special way).

Stay hungry readers.

[Runas]

Oh. My. Gosh. Do you know the heart attack I had when I read 'Wendigo'? I came here expecting myself to lecture you. I am not Alqonquin, but Cree, and I know of the Wendigo as the Wendigo, and I was taught that to speak of the Windigo, like speaking of Wesakechak, would draw their attention and bring them to you. Call me superstitious if you may, but really... Who of you here tosses salt over their left shoulder when it has been spilled?

I'm glad you know the lore behind the Windigo, Dhalvasha. I was seriously worried there. Otherwise, I am sorry for disrupting your Scrapbook. I was looking at a few to see how to mold mine and I saw your title.

^^

Other than my initial horror, I much enjoy the thought put into this thread. Very, very creative. It is a good representation of who you are, and I will lower my ridge at the use of that particular spirit.


Keep on truckin'!

[Nil'kayn]

A very nice peace of writeing. Very Philosophical. I loved it.

Count my famished,
~Nilkayn