[Wrenmae's Scrap] Reanimated Affections

[Gossamer]

It isn’t hard to write a scrap without targeting someone using barely veiled obscurity, and honestly I find the practice a little…unnerving.

Epic fail.

You just did just manage to target a large group of people in a big way. Interesting. Make sure the soap box isn't too high up there in the air. You might fall off and break something serious if the descent is measured in thousands of feet rather than mere inches.

[Wrenmae]

I wasn't meaning to target anyone specifically.

It's a practice I've noticed on other sites as well, places I've frequented down the years of roleplaying. Things end up...personal, and the intention is to collaboratively create.

None of us are perfect and I understand that...to an extent, we all have the potential to rub each other the wrong way...it's just life. But if that's the case, can we not put differences aside to merely write?

I really did write this post targeting no one.

I apologize if you find offense in what I've written...but I largely cannot control perception. We see what we want to in the grand scheme of it all. I was just explaining how I felt.

Again, I apologize if offense is taken...this was meant more as a reflection in my own scrap, not a castigation to anyone.

[Gossamer]

The point is you were writing a scrap about how much you disliked certain types of scraps and in doing so targeted the people that wrote those kind of scraps. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with those types of scraps, but I wanted to point out the irony that in basically hating on something done by a large group you did not name you were doing the same thing.

[Wrenmae]

Oh! I don't 'hate' on them. Everyone is free to write what they desire. I just used to be there myself, writing about other people I found problems with...and it just created unnecessary drama. It burned me out of roleplaying. I think it has that potential, so I just wanted to comment on it.

No one needs to stop writing what they desire, I just want to write with everyone and build fantastic stories. Your point is noted and thanks for making it...I understand that I may have come off a tad harsh. Like I said before though, I don't mean to target anyone...just reflect. Thanks for commenting though, I'm glad somebody checks up on my blathering every once in awhile.

[Wrenmae]

In honor of the season change and my new immersion into Zeltiva, I thought I would honor Cascade’s request to explain a little more on the psyche of Wrenmae and why I chose to shake him up will all these scattered pieces of self. First, I recognize that playing around with voices in your head is trite. All the cool movies already did fun stuff with it and characters in stories aplenty have lain down their multiple, unique, little lives on the page for writers to read. Frankly, Multiple Personality Disorder (Or Dissociative Identity Disorder) Is an overplayed condition. It can be annoying, it can be uncreative, and it can really stretch the powers of belief in an already fantastical site. Before I changed Wrenmae, I sat down to do some research on mental disorders. All I had to my name was a Psych 100 class and scattered bursts of interest here and there. I knew that Hypnotism was the most likely magic to ‘scramble the eggs’ so to say, but I couldn’t decide how I wanted to spin Wrenmae’s problems. At the time, only Alric compared to Wrenmae in hypnotic power and I didn’t want to tread too closely to his ideas of how the mind magic mixed up his perception of death, loss, and items. I suppose I chose this disorder, at first, because I thought it would be easy to play. Just make new personas right? No. Far different. The more I read into the condition (Which some psychologists still doubt the validity of) the more I found that I had chosen a rather debilitating schism to work with. Unlike the schitzphrenic ‘voices in your head’, D.I.D literally punches you out of the perspective spectrum. Because ones mind is unable to handle a certain stressor or event, it backpeddles and creates a persona that can. But it isn’t a swiss army pocket knife of tricks. The brain isn’t supposed to respond to problems in this way. It develops triggers, ways for that ‘persona’ to come out and deal with problems as they are introduced. After the first split, more are likely to occur as the psyche simply falls back on an ‘all purpose’ kinda plan to just shoot out personalities to deal with different situations. For the patient in question, this can be a terrifying reality. Most have difficulty coping…one of the more famous cases, Sybil, had breaks in reality frequently, some that lasted over a year. It isn’t always a shared vision either. In the case of Wrenmae, when a persona takes over, he loses all concept of self. He IS that other persona for that space of time and until he snaps back to himself, his actions are not his own to decide. When I developed Wrenmae, he was a street-smart thief, plucky, cheeky, and headstrong. Now he stutters, mumbles, and shies away from confrontation. I don’t remember when this started happening, but the PC is literally afraid of life. All his pizzazz has leeched out of him and although bits and pieces show up now and again, most of that confidence only shows up when he isn’t himself. Frankly, Wrenmae is terrified of himself and has all but stopped using Hypnotism. Not that he was a very good hypnotist anyways… The personalities first showed up in a dream thread I originally had going with Stitch. When Stitch left the site, I turned it over to Ulric and we’re now at about the end of the Cheva journey. In that dream, we are introduced to three other ‘selves’ that exist within Wrenmae’s mind. They all seem to be aware of themselves, and Wrenmae is only partially aware of them. The third personality, Shroud, is introduced in this dream and comes out shortly before Wrenmae is taken captive for no reason and held beneath Sunberth for two season, tortured in darkness. Poor kid was already running ragged. His boat to Syliras was bashed apart by sea monsters…he floated on the sea for days, and then wandered through the woods, lost and alone till giant wolves cornered him in an abandoned shack. He only JUST got free long enough to get outside the gates of Sunberth before being clubbed into unconsciousness and dragged underground. Needless to say, he had a rough arrival. Shroud is the first I’ll remark on, and the most prominent figure in my Sunberth threads. Shroud is a defensive personality, like the others, developed in order to combat the situation Wrenmae had been put in and, to a larger extent, the whole of Sunberth. In order to live in the city of anarchy, you must be a victim or a victimizer. Wrenmae is a victim, Shroud is not. Most of Sunberth means nothing to Wrenmae, who can’t remember what happened. Shroud, however, nearly tore apart a mercenary organization, rose to somewhat leadership in two short seasons, and shook up the place a bit. He’s an asshole, arrogant, confident, a frighteningly powerful hypnotizer and manipulator. He values strength over all else and vocally worships Vayt, the god who marked him…not because he likes spreading pestilence, but because he believes that he is the living test to all life on Mizahar. Survive his plague and you earn the right to live. Die, and that’s all you ever were. He forms friends with incredible difficulty, opting more for mutually beneficial relationships rather than anything involving trust. He wants to be free of Wrenmae, the ‘coward’ as he calls him. Shroud, I have a lot of fun playing. It’s enjoyable to be ‘that guy’ that players can rally against. He’s almost universally hated (with the mentally and physically abused exception of Ana), and prefers it that way. If he interacts with you…I can promise it is because he wants something out of you. He will take it and leave, one way or another, and if you manage to interest him prolongedly, you may find a surprisingly useful ally. He’ll never admit he likes you, he’ll never say that he’s a friend, but you will know his loyalty by how he acts. If ever he is inclined to put his own well-being at stake for yours, that’s all the answer you’ll need…and it’s a privilege few, if any, have earned. Weaver existed before Shroud, but hadn’t yet reached the ability to come out till Sunberth. Weaver is a hard character to define and I find myself using him less and less these days, despite how much fun he is to use. Weaver is a storyteller, a man who believes that everyone is a character within a grander story. Meta as that sounds, it’s another defense. If all the world is a story, then there was purpose to Wrenmae being marked with the Blight. By removing oneself from the events with the moniker of a ‘character’, one can emotionally distance themselves from the damage they cause simply by existing. Weaver exists to stir up mischief. Not like Shroud who only seems to work for himself, Weaver identifies and sticks to ‘characters’ that he believes he can help ‘realize’ their place in the grand scheme. He’ll tug at the heartstrings, he’ll test their resolve, he’ll be the impish equivalent of how he views Ionu, never at peace and always creating more stories, more tales, more experiences to enjoy. Weaver sees the world differently than most people. He has to. All the world’s a story, so the sundry emotions of others mean little in the space of what he identifies as ‘narrative quality’. When he kissed Tock, he did it for the benefit OF Tock. She had captured the interest of the crowd, but not their minds. Only the temporary spatter of applause for her spur-of-the-moment poetry. Weaver wanted to make something of her, take her body, her femininity, and abuse it for the sake of being a part of something greater…his story. In his mind, there is no greater honor than to be within the cogs of a tale or pyramid of rising action. The consequences are all but ignored…in fact, one might even say that he did it FOR the consequences thereafter. Tock didn’t even remember Wrenmae’s name when he helped her set up the benches. He left no impression. Weaver did. And Tock will likely never forget that. The last one I’ll remark on (And sparingly at that) is Egyptus. Egyptus is Wrenmae’s real name. Egyptus Murdock. And in heart and mind, that personality is a ten year old child. Before Vayt marked him, before all the madness destroyed his life, Egyptus was a wise little ten year old that regarded the world with caution. I haven’t used him yet, haven’t found a place for the tyke to come out. I want to…but am having trouble. He represents Wrenmae’s innocence, a way to regress back to a time when he didn’t have to worry about grown up issues or petching Vayt knock-knock-knocking on fate’s door. He can go back to before he made the decision to curse his brother and sister in order to live and pretend it never happened. This represents an ultimate escape for Wrenmae, but one he could not use in Sunberth (too dangerous) and that could be just as damaging in Zeltiva (Asylum anyone?) I wanted to give you all a look into how I developed these different personalities of Wrenmae…he’s a messed up kid and worse, he knows it now….he just has no idea how to control it. Perhaps the most terrifying for him is that he doesn’t know which part of him is really him…which aspect of himself he most wants to be, down deep. I wanted to call on those who read my scrap for opinions. I’ll be doing a profile revamp soon, dividing primary skills up according to the personality. For example, Weaver is a better storyteller than Wren who is a better reimancer than Shroud…but Shroud kicks Wren’s ass at Hypnotism. All from the same skill pool, but only some of it can be accessed depending on who’s active. I want to develop triggers, IC triggers that cause these personalities to come out. I know Shroud appears when Wrenmae is threatened or can’t handle himself in a violent situation. Excessive blood or violence from an observer’s standpoint also triggers him. Dya think ya’ll could lend a bit of help to get some other triggers out? It’ll just help me make his condition more debilitating…and some of our threads more fun. As always, thanks for dropping by and reading.

[Victor Lark]

I'm no expert when it comes to character creation, especially in the realm of clinical psychology, but here's my two cents. I apologize if I got off-track.

As the writer of another character whose concept includes a sort of cliche, poorly understood mental disorder, this insight into Wrenmae is pretty refreshing. It's encouraging to find someone who has put so much thought into not only playing one successfully, but turning it into a story that involves more than the singular character and their identity problems. I think the mistake a lot of people make (myself included, at the start) is that they define their character by this super-cool disability, and forget about the repercussions in everyday life, the effect on other characters, and the long term goals that every good character must have to survive the creative process.

You also get a reputation as an evil jackass, but that's a rant for another time.

Wrenmae's DID is actually a product of your ongoing story and not a starting condition of the sake of sheer novelty, so you get points there. But it's still important not to get too caught up in the personalities/their role as plot devices. I don't know a lot about DID, but I think I remember learning that there is usually a dominant one, and Wrenmae has to be that. Shroud and Weaver sort of had their own respective cities and circumstances, so it seems that as he travels the natural progression of things should be to open up Wrenmae to Egyptus, which is inherently a deeper and more intimate part of him than the others... but I personally think that would be a mistake.

These exaggerated fragments of him obviously arose from pieces of the original personality, the one that grew out of Egyptus, that studied the magic that made Shroud strong, that saw the world that Weaver wants to narrate.

Perhaps the most terrifying for him is that he doesn’t know which part of him is really him…which aspect of himself he most wants to be, down deep.

I think we both know that it's not just one of them. I dislike the phrase "I need to find out who I really am" for a number of reasons, mostly because we are what we make ourselves and how others see us. In this case though, Wrenmae already is all of these things you've described; he just needs to choose what he wants to make himself. I think the setting that Zeltiva brings to the table offers the perfect opportunity for Wrenmae to not only look deeper into his various polarized pieces, but figure out how to console them with each other.

At this point, there's really nothing he can do to find peace out of the choices he's made. But I'm of the opinion that further fragmentation isn't the answer. It seems that the goal of picking up the pieces and sorting out a true and central identity will make him more interesting to play, in the long run.

[Cascade]

Just like Victor said, this insight is good. I like that you actually took the time to research on the disorder, and I like that you put a reason and a story behind it all.

The idea of using triggers, and of dividing primary skills up according to personality, will further flesh out the details. I do think that OOCly, this would serve as notes for everyone to better understand the personas in Wrenmae. This will especially be convenient if Wrenmae doesn't strive to interconnect the personas into one being.

In the long run, I wonder how Wrenmae will approach the issue that he has different personas? He can continue keeping a barrier between them, or he can attempt to accept that all of these personas just build up to one being. Interesting!

[Ana Sol Starris]

When I read this, I lose a bit of my will to roleplay with Ana because you put so much time and effort into Wrenmae, his story and problems; shes basically just a knock off of him though you gave me permission (mimicry as you called it.) The idea is completely over-used, over estimated, I'm glad you took the time to research the disorder unlike me who went by 'experience' and limited knowledge I picked up whilst studying it for a class paper in English 2.. hmm.. I believe 2 years ago. I think, I'm not completely sure, I just understand it was for my Freshman years english debate stuff. Anyways, anyways! I want to, in terms "fix" Ana plotwise now, I saw what your character was, I thought it was the O.K. for me to do it as well, but now I'm reconsidering.. But I don't want to stop her completely. I'll work with it and have fun with Motif for now (so yes I'm taking your advice and working to a solution in her problems.)

After such a silly interlude of realization, you wanted triggers for your characters personas? Well, I can see Weaver taking a persons story into acount, drama, how often does Wren ever listen to music? You've such a narrowed veiw on triggers (just sayin) why not have Weaver come out when children are around as well? Ones the look like they're curious and inquisitive to listen to stories? xD Or even anothers persona can trigger him just by being adventurous and story loving as he is? Personally I love Weaver, absolutely adore him, I wish I could have more time with him because he is epically funny and awesome //wiggles// theres just that dramatic tone about him that makes the drama fun to read, yet, not in a bad way, he's not a bad drama, I believe you play him magnificently; I can always hear a deep tone of voice that is clear and concise yet loony at the same time when he talks. (Jelous of Tock. D: He be kissin all them girls! That flirt. ; Oh another trigger popped to mind, what about puppets? They are like a story played from the veiw of a story teller/puppeteer.. >.> I mean like, all our characters are simply puppets played by us, we pull their strings to play a story.)

Shroud, well hes always been a sort of asshole, blood, violence, distress within Wrens mind. >.> But a thought occurred to me, why not have people hes met in Sunberth be his trigger as well? After all, he knows them better than Wren and something they say could possibly trigger him to the forefront, the wheel of the mind. Not because its dangerous, but only because Shroud knows whats being talked about? //shrugs// Otherwise I have no other input for him besides hes constantly in Anas mind (you stockholm syndrome causer! <3)

I'm not even going to comment on Egyptus. >.> I don't know him, so I don't understand what his triggers could be. If hes like the kid personality, wouldn't things from his time as a child before Vayt trigger him? Systematic things that were surrounding him at birth till departure of said home city that actually meant something, they had a strong meaning till the split and were then forever lost to the memory banks of Wrens fragments.

This is extremely belated, but I guess better late than never. xD

I do hope Ana and Wren meet again, if not, I'll work something out and around the timeline to see if she can just barely catch you in Zeltiva. Earliest to leave would be the 55th-60th, latest would be the 80th. >.>; I still want to get on with this kidnapping of Eru and tearing the two lovers Eru and Wren apart because Anas a jelous bitch of her beauty and for being more 'normal' than Ana herself, and how happy they look together whilst shes miserable. (Of course I was told not to plan so far ahead into the future, one that could be so easily changed and fairly quickly.. So this is just musings, if it is strayed off of, okay, fine, I'll find another way to get on the same path but taking a longer, different, more complicated route to get there, one that doesn't abrubtly change into the path beforehand but rather eased into it. >.> If this makes sense?)

D: I don't know, just some random input here and there, ciao lovely, my spidey senses are tingling. >.>;

[Ana Sol Starris]

Here, have a cookie as well!

[Wrenmae]

On Tides of Autumn Leaves: Changes and an Insight As the season changes, I’m assailed with a certain sense of displacement. For the first time, I will not be returning to some sort of educational system. I graduated, I’m working, and while it all seemed to fit pretty well into the scheme of ‘summer drudgery’, it hasn’t really hit me how much things have changed until this month. Most of my friends remain in school, either tagging on an extra year to the senior track or because their majors require more extensive college study for fruition. Moving back home was a jarring reminder that, while I enjoy the familiarity, I detest how relationships become strained the longer time goes on. Ultimately, I’m coming to terms with this new phase of my life. At the end of this month, the paid internship keeping me financially afloat will end. I’m in the process of negotiating another job out of contact web, but I find that bedrock beneath my feet feels more like sand now, that each step I take threatens to plummet me into some dank, cavernous pit from which I am unable to escape. Perhaps that is my greatest devil to best, the fear of change. In a certain sense we all wrestle with the concept of change. The word both excites and repulses people for vastly different reasons. Some relish the opportunity to change their stars, to grasp some other foothold in the horizontal mountain climb of success, or knock in the teeth of horoscope soothesayers and ‘write their own destiny’. Personally, I’d like to be someone who threw myself at more opportunity to be diverse and different. Try some travel abroad, move somewhere else than the Midwest…I have the means to do so, a support network that will allow me to, but none of the drive that would light a fire beneath my seat and send my ricocheting across the continental United States or beyond. I crave that sense of stability lost in the transition between college life and ‘real world’. I want to recapture all the memories I missed out on because I was ‘too tired’ or ‘not in the mood’, that the retrospective glance backward seems filled with missed opportunities. But perhaps that’s just more of the ‘cloud’ and less of the ‘silver lining’ talking. In another sort of way, I’m eager to see what’s next in my life. I look forward to meeting new people, creating new relationships, and pursuing my passions. Most of it is in the theoretical ‘look ahead’, but I enjoy the prospect of imagining and creating. Hell, I’m a roleplayer, aren’t I? I feel I’m not far from that sink or swim moment when I’ll either leap from the metaphorical cliff or back away and settle in a cave somewhere behind me. I’m not sure when the moment will be, only that I can feel its hot breath on the nape of my neck. I can’t pretend things aren’t different anymore. I have to embrace it all one way or another. But before I forget myself and ramble on about somewhat negative topics, I’d like to doff my hat to Poison’s scrap and try something similar of my own, a little ‘numbered list’ of Wren’s personality. As most may not know, there’s a magical manacle around his right wrist that’s drawing his personalities together, eliminating the mental damage sustained with overgiving. Not that the mental damage (Shroud/Murdock) is too thrilled about the concept, but it does leave me with an interesting conundrum. How do I recombine distinct personalities into a whole again? Will it be like old Wrenmae was? Or will it be different? I think with all the experiences accrued, I need to settle on some traits this new recombined Wrenmae will have…and I’d welcome suggestions should you have any. 1. I maintain that Wrenmae was created to become a villain. I’m not sure whose villain he’ll be or what, exactly, he’ll try to accomplish, but I do know that he’s lacking a distinct purpose. Currently as his personalities collide, he has enough to worry about in the short run. He has no ‘antagonist’ no ‘hero’ to strive against, and he certainly doesn’t have the network of contacts needed to sustain himself as an actual villain for use. When he comes together, there’ll be a resounding emptiness inside of him that will force a self-reflective reevaluation of purpose. What does he want? What did he want? What will he want? 2. Analyzing what I know about Wrenmae, I’m given to describe him as a self-centered egotist. Despite his overwhelming power in Hypnotism, he isn’t often given to using it. The more his skill grew, the less he necessitated it from situation to situation. I sense there is a lot of pride there, a certain ‘once bitten’ mentality with the overgiving he suffered while being tortured…and perhaps an overdeveloped ego. For a mage, he’s dangerously reliant on not using magic, or rather, using magic poorly. I’m hoping Sahova and the mages he meets there will give him an opportunity to re-evaluate his talents and abilities, setting them to a different importance in his own mind. 3. Wrenmae is an ally at heart, but a villain in practice. Every thread I throw him into, Wren seems to reach out to those characters he meets and establish some sort of connection. While, on the surface, it might seem purely business, there is a deep and eternal gnawing loneliness in the plagueman’s heart. The healthy wither in his presence, people seem like to not trust him on principle (Despite his best efforts to appear sincere at times), and thus far, no one really knows him. The breakdown with telling Tock about his personalities was one part plot and another frustration. No one seems to care, or are willing to care along his travels. His only real bosom companion is Zan, his familiar, and the guy’s a talking globule of water. Sometimes they’re practically the same person. Wren seeks intimacy, care, and emotional attachment that is continuously dashed by circumstance and betrayal. Despite his track record, he still seems to seek understanding. People are let in easier than they should, and there is a special part of him that mutilates itself whenever someone he cares about falls ill. 4. There is also that secret thrill which comes with being marked with Vayt’s gnosis. New Wrenmae still holds a lot of respect for his god, Vayt. I intend to embark down the path of learning poison before long, following in the footsteps his god prefers. Perhaps Vayt is mostly about the suffering and slow murder of almost all living things, but Wrenmae views it as the strong persisting over the weak. Mizahar is devastated. In five hundred years, all civilization has managed is a loose collection of city states obsessed with individuality. There are no empires, no rising civilization, no peace time or treaties past trade and common travel. Horrible plagues, monsters, and disasters roil along the continent, destroying efforts to build much outside the city-state system. In Wren’s mind, he attributes Mizahar to a frightened collection of pocket races that aren’t quite ready to try again at being a nation. Only the undead and gods would remember the Valterian now, but everyone still walks carefully, maintains most semblances of peace, and try to strengthen the status quo. Vayt abhors the safety that men cling to in their precious walled cities. In Wren’s interpretation of his gods will (And keep in mind, he was ten the last time he saw or spoke to Vayt), he is to unsettle the people, to bring upon them the brutality of infection, poison, and plague tenfold what they might already experience. It isn’t a punishment; it’s a call to arms. He motivates what he hopes is the idea that for all the safety of a city state, for all the support its structure provides, there may be cause to continue progress forward. The weak are trampled underfoot for the strong to make the changes necessary for society to rebuild completely. That is his task…and there is some joy in concealing it, a poisoner by presence, among others. 5. Wrenmae is racist. Although he, as a morpher, takes the shapes of other races, he looks down on most of the other civilizations on Mizahar as unkempt, unclean, or otherwise inferior to his own. Zith peak his scale, followed by Symenestra. He hasn’t had extensive experience with the other races yet, but it stands to reason his attitude is roughly similar. Exceptions to this rule exist, mostly in the form of the industrious Isur, which Wrenmae vastly respects. 6. In the strongest of senses, I seek an atagonistic influence on Wren’s life. He needs defined purpose. I wanted to hook him into the Black Sun, work on Rhysol’s more defined plan of corruption, fragment retrieval, and such…I would even relish the opportunity to match up with a Cordas PC as the gnosis mentions and work on a long arching outsmart plot. Vayt calls his followers to spread his influence, which Wren does by walking. Poison will come to him in Sahova, but in the time after, I want to have him come to this ‘quest’ realization and then pursue it. Perhaps that will come to him, and perhaps I should push the envelope. Ultimately, however, I want to decide where I’ll be going after Sahova with this new Wren…and I’m thinking it may well be Ravok. Thanks for listening in. Better stories and dreams to all you writers. *Takes five* As always, keep writing and keep hungry! :