Michael, the story teller

Name: Michael.

Age: Three.

Sex: Male.

Family: Although Michael has chosen to disdainfully cast aside his actual family and replace them with his own complex memories, his kin remain, forever, his kin, despite what he chooses to inform others of.

Mother: Lucy. Lucy was not a psychopath. Originally, anyway. In fact, when Michael was born, and throughout his life, Lucy was perfectly sane. It was only later that things became a little hairy for the mother - long after her little boy left. While Michael remained in the care of his family, however, Lucy was a delight to be around; she was beautiful, vapid, obedient and blissfully ignorant.

Father: Gabriel. Gabriel was not a psychopath, either. Neither did he, unlike Lucy, become one. However, Gabriel certainly trod the fine line between imagination and insanity, and fell off at both sides quite frequently. Gabriel was a storyteller and spinner of much yarn, only attracted to his partner because she was his princess. When young, Gabby was the subject of numerous experiments to see if wolves could ever understand humans- ...but you'll find out about that later.

Siblings: Akira, Nuit, Dolce. Akira, Michael's only sister, was a feisty, nasty little piece of work, whose favorite pastime was to attempt to manipulate her mother and brothers. She died accidentally at the age of one after she - ahem - fell from a high rock.

Nuit was the outcast brother. Dolce and Michael shunned him due to his firm position as the runt of the litter, and preferred spending time with each other. Nuit was a favorite of their mother, and mostly neglected by the father that focused on Dolce and Michael. He grew to be as empty and soulless as his mother.

Dolce was most certainly dear Michael's favorite sibling. They were identical twins, of one egg born in the same womb, of the same gender, coloring, and general disposition. The differences between the two, unfortunately, became more and more pronounced as they grew older, and Michael's penchant for savagery led to a falling out over a female. Dolce was the not so horrible of the two, and was slightly less aloof than the wonderful Michael. He also went his separate way from the pack after their squabble.

Personality: Michael is a story-teller, but not just any old story-teller; Michael narrates his own horror story as he advances through the various stages of life, with himself not as the protagonist, but, rather, as the defining dark source behind the atrocities that occur. Very few of said atrocities actually do occur; Michael makes up his own facts and figures to suit his needs and wants. Most of all, he is obsessed with the psychology of fear rather than the violent side of it, and has adopted a very suave, easy-going persona to lay atop his psychotic author personality. While using this persona, he attempts to glean personal information from those he converses with - anything, in fact, that he could possibly use against them if he ever comes across such a chance later.

Your typical sly, tempter snake, Michael has little but contempt for his fellows, and is nothing if not a misogynistic old fag. That's not to say Michael's gay, because he isn't; he is, in fact, horrendously straight in spite of his general hatred of females. He far prefers them to be like his mother; belt up, don't talk, take what's given to you. He has something of a roving eye, and isn't likely to even have a relationship longer than a day, let alone stay faithful in a more long-term one. He finds alphesses to be whimsical and impractical, a figure to laugh and lust at, rather than to admire. Children are treated as irritating but necessary inconveniences, and Michael chooses to pay them very little attention unless they deliberately cross his path... in which case he will sneer and move on.

Submission is not something Michael copes with extraordinarily well; he has been known to sneer at those who dare to label themselves his superiors as 'alphas', and to take his consequential and righteously deserved beating with utter indignation. He has been known to get revenge within a situation like this by using his manipulative imagination and turn of phrase to instigate a riot in impressionable wolves, creating a mob mentality and driving those who dare oppose him far, far away. However, Michael is not exactly a leader himself; he has never accepted any alpha positions, nor attempted to win them - he is perfectly happy as the loner by the sidelines, the malevolent presence that somehow appears around every corner you try to hide behind.

His adoration of psychology came from his father, and was unconsciously instilled in him. This is partially what makes the stories Michael can tell so devastating if he chooses to wind them from fiction to fact; the male will often deliberately play on the insecurities and instinctual prejudices of his fellow wolves to help someone he particularly dislikes on their way to their misfortune. His adoration of manipulation is second only to his absolute love of fairytales. Any story ever told can transfix the wolf and turn him into little more than an eager, doting puppy. However, this vulnerability does not in any way excuse him from his grotesque excuse of a personality.

Michael is almost autistic in the way he acts; because he visualizes the world as a stage and those around him as characters and actors of his own devising rather than actual creatures, he finds it easy to disassociate from life and feels little to no grief when he hurts (whether physically or emotionally) another creature. In some cases, he will derive enjoyment or satisfaction from the hurt, perceiving it as entertaining - because he does not think that anyone but himself can actually, really feel anything, he is perfectly at ease with laughing at another's despair, because that creature does not technically 'exist' in a mental sense.

Appearance: Dear Michael is a purebred maned wolf, which accounts in some way for his shortness. Standing at about 2.75 feet at the shoulder, Michael is a little on the short side, but has a much thicker coat than normal maned wolves due to his ventures away from the relative heat of his previous climate. Like all maned wolves, Michael has a skinny body and very long legs, almost like that of a deer. In Michael's case his coat is thicker than usual (as previously stated), which makes his legs look slightly more regular, but still not astonishingly similar to those of the stockier wolf species. His muzzle is smaller and more streamlined than average, with quite a pointed nose and an almost triangular jawline. Very sharp, very white teeth lay inside this mouth, offset by black gums; they are almost like small needles. His eyes are set quite shallowly, though, thankfully, not quite shallow enough to make him 'bug eyed', and almost on an angled slant so that the furtherest corners reach upwards a little. These eyes are a bright, liquid gold in color, flecked with all the metallics you would expect of the precious metal.

As with all maned wolves, Michael has abnormally large ears, rounded rather than pointed, and downy-soft and white on the inside, while vividly copper-red and bristly on the out. His base coat is the same rich, delightful coppery hue that coats his ears; somewhere half between bright crimson and bright, light orange. Running down from inbetween his ears to about his mid-back is a 'mane' of black, bristly hair that is the same length as the rest of his coat. Bunched at his statuesque chin are curls of white like the lace ruffles of the highwaymen of old. His stilt-like legs are coated to thigh in the black so reminiscent of leather boots, and his tail swishes behind him with the grace of a rapier - the end a white diamond while the rest still flashes in gold.

click for a maned wolf; should give you some idea of what Michael looks like

History: Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a wolf pup named Gabriel. Gabriel was a mischievous, constantly curious little thing, and it just so happened that this curiosity got the little puppy in trouble one day. For reasons pup-Gabriel did not understand, his pack had decided to move on and away from the area they were in - and it was here the trouble began. While the pack moved on, Gabriel became entangled in a pithole dug by the very reasons his pack had decided to leave. By the time the pack's confusion was over, they were well away from young Gabby, and, well, far too late to save him in any case. Because Gabriel had already been picked up by the reason his family had vacated the area, and been placed in the very capable hands of a young girl who wanted a pet. The girl's name slips the memory now, but the girl herself was not necessarily the important thing. The important thing was that the girl wanted desperately for her puppy to be able to tell her stories, and so she read to him from all her little fairytale books. From Cinderella to The Princess Bride to The Witches by Roald Dahl. Anything and everything she could get her hands on was read to skirt around Gabriel's fragile brain. Myriads upon myriads of words joined and departed in his head, fueling an imagination almost unparalleled by any other (in the wolven world, anyway). Suffice to say, although he could not communicate this to the girl, he certainly understood every word through trial and error, and his eyes shone with it.

However, all good things must come to an end. Two years later, Gabriel was still very much the storytelling idealist, but he was also quite large, and now a perceivable threat for the adults. Also, unfortunately for poor Gabby, the little girl was growing up and becoming bored of her previously-exciting pet. It couldn't talk to her, couldn't do anything but slobber on her, it seemed. So she began to grow distant from Gabriel, and he, in turn, grew closer and closer to his own thoughts and dreams. He dreamt of freedom; of finding his princess, just like in the stories. So, therefore, when the day came that Gabriel was removed from human society and returned to the wild, he was perfectly happy, if a little melancholy, to be separate from his former human friends. He set out to find his princess - a girl just as silly, vapid and beautiful as those in the stories. And, lo and behold, Lucy popped out of the blue. Not only was Lucy the perfect obedient partner, she was also wise to the wild, unlike Gabriel, and managed all the hunts by herself. Gabriel never wondered what he'd do without her, because that kind of thought simply didn't occur to him, but he probably would have died quite quickly had it not been for his perhaps not-so-stupid-afterall mate.

That next spring, puppies were on the agenda. Yes, not only had his princess become pregnant that winter, but she was also carrying not one, not two, but four miniature Gabriel & Lucys. One for darkness, Akira. One for cold, Nuit. One for sweet, Dolce. And one like God - Michael. From the beginning, certain bonds in their offspring were obvious. Dolce and Michael looked exactly the same, ate, slept, even burbled at the same times, and refused to be without one another. Akira seemed to be almost uncaring about her siblings, shunning them for a teat further away. Nuit seemed the runt and outcast of the group; even as a blind, hairless puppy, he seemed as though he was on the outside, looking in. As the puppies grew up, they remained true to this first impression; Dolce and Michael were inseparable, Akira a manipulative and solitary bully, Nuit the most picked on, and the saddest. Gabriel delighted and awed his children with fiction of his life, teaching them in turn how to weave lies and stories, how to get into the minds of others so completely that they never realize what you have done. The latter few things weren't exactly intentional, of course, but this was of little consequence to the puppies.

The two most entranced by the stories, however, were Dolce and Michael. Dolce in particular loved the fairytales with happy endings, while Michael began to show his sadistic and autistic streak early by hankering after the gory, awful stories that their father would rarely consent to tell them. Gabriel fed the flames for the twins, and they became endless machines built only for making up and listening to stories, completely disregarding their mother and other siblings for their father and his fantasy world. Akira grew jealous of Dolce, but, in particular, Michael. She could not get to him the way she could pick on Dolce and Nuit; there seemed like some bit of him simply wasn't... there. Like it never had been; like his capacity for caring about others was nil. So Akira began to test this theory. Whenever she could, she picked on Michael, encouraging the estranged and eager-for-friendliness Nuit to help her. Dolce disapproved, but there was little the twin could do without attracting his sister's attention onto himself. Besides, it never seemed to affect Michael. The Godly one seemed to just let it roll off his back like water from a duck. In time, Akira became increasingly frustrated, loathing her brother more than words could describe. It was just past their first birthday when she made her fatal mistake.

Michael had never responded to her because she genuinely didn't offend him. He had never found her emotional torment particularly witty, or even insulting. To be true, he did not see his sister as real; she was another character in another story, and he was just the narrator. So when she offered to lead him to a place where no one had gone before, he consented amiably, with no concern over what bullying antics his sister may be practicing. They got quite a long way away from the den before he even casually asked what they were doing. Akira simply winked and gave him the age-old line of "you'll see", which Michael was perfectly happy to go along with. He found the fact that Dolce had stayed at the den odd, considering how close they were, but was not unduly worried. Afterall, Dolce was just another character in his script - admittedly, a close one - but still just a character. Finally, Akira stopped, right on the edge of a riverside cliff with a rather steep drop to the rapids and sharp rocks at the bottom. Instantly, his sister turned feral. She threatened to push Michael from the rock, attempted to batter him with her paws, even tripped him up! Oh, the indignity!
"Akira. Stop." He said, pleasantly enough, in the full belief that his sister would actually cease.
"Not until you show some spine! Not un'il you show 'ee you can actually feel!"
They danced an awkward dance around each other, Michael in disbelief, Akira in violent anger, until, without realizing it, Akira's back was facing the edge of the cliff. Michael did not give the consequential events much thought. He nudged her. Akira shrieked and fell, just as Dolce, Nuit, and Michael's parents came running. They were too late, as the sickening crack that little Kira's body made on the sharp rocks proved before the rapids engulfed it.

From then on, Dolce began to become wary of Michael. Thought Nuit and his parents were too busy grieving for the loss of their sister, Michael was a blank canvas; it was as though he didn't understand what had happened. Also, though Dolce would never, ever admit what he thought he had seen to anyone, he had arrived at the scene a fraction of a second before his family. He could have sworn that he saw Michael pus--- but no, the thought was too horrific to comprehend. His own twin brother, murdering his sister? His own other half? Nevertheless, Dolce began to back away, though whether consciously or subconsciously is debatable. By the eve of their third birthday, Michael and Dolce barely knew each other. And MIchael had noticed.

"Dolce."
The night was young, and Dolce had been lounging by the same cliff Akira had been pushed off. The moon was shining sulkily overhead, swathed in cloud, a smattering of silver freckles on either side. The young wolf had been considering many things in life, but, more than anything, he had been considering his brother's behaviour. Now that even Dolce had drifted from him, to make peace with Nuit instead, Michael had become more erratic... More dangerous, and more introverted. He jumped about two feet in the air as the single word reverberated around the small tropical clearing, his golden eyes blinking rapidly at the shadow-form that was his brother at night. He swallowed twice, but made no reply, his hind legs pushing him away from the edge of the cliff as he remembered what he might have seen. In this awful darkness, Michael's eyes seemed to be the only visible part of him, and it was as though they were aflame with disapproval.
"You don't like me anymore, Dolce. I have noticed, you know."
The maned wolf of sweetness backed away from the maned wolf of Godliness, and desperately hoped that his brother wasn't too far gone to recognise that nothing good would come of getting rid of him as well. Finally, he managed to choke out a response.
"I'm afraid of you, Michael. You've become something... else." He finished lamely, too preoccupied with staying alive for theatrics and vocabulary. It crossed his brain as a fleeting thought that their father would disapprove, and, to his horror, he caught himself in the middle of a hysterical giggle. Michael eyed him inquisitively.
"Why are you laughing? Am I entertaining? Please, share the joke. I like to laugh." And though it was perfectly serious, there was perhaps the slightest element of a smirk in those narrowed eyes. "And yes," He considered, cocking his head to one side. "I would guess that you are right to be afraid, dear Dolce." In his head, Michael was thinking up a perfect narration, a perfect twist to this storyline. "You know I killed Akira, after all."

The intake of breath from Dolce was all that Michael needed to hear, and his half-smile became a full blown smirk, his white teeth catching the moonlight and flashing like needles.

"Oh, yes, you've known for the past two years, but you've been hiding it. You make me wonder why, but, alas, I will never know."
The terrified wolf of sweetness managed a stuttered reply.
"W-w-why?"
Michael allowed a full five second pause for dramatic tension, and then gave his anti-climatic reply.
"Because I'm leaving. Mother and Father have given me all I need, and Nuit and you have nothing you could possibly offer me to stay. Oh, that and you just don't want me here."
Dolce could almost feel all his tension departing.
"...Oh?"
Michael gave him a scornful look.
"Don't ask stupid questions, Dolce, you're not an idiot. I grow weary of you all, and your really rather pathetic mourning. I shouldn't be surprised if mother is insane within the year. Anyway, all my best, fond regards etcetera, etcetera, I'll be off now. Try to get a little smarter in my absence."

And with that, Michael left his mother and father, left his two brothers to whatever fate God or whatever deity was out there or up there could possibly imagine for them. They were no longer part of his plan, and, therefore, they were forgotten. But that did not stop him inventing a new history for himself. He had been piecing bits together since he was a puppy, figuring out the plotlines and holes of his own Great Novel; his own history. How could he, the great and Godly Michael, have such a normal and uninteresting background? So Michael spun himself a story. He was born of the Devil - an experiment by humans and witches to make the perfect killing machine. They had contacted Satan himself, bringing back with them an array of features - his red and black coat was a result of the subsequent evil. He had no mother except a human who had donated her own body parts to help create him, and then he had been infused with the soul of a human child. But Satan had decided to take his pet back, and so gave him the suaveness and manipulation skills he needed to escape, so that Michael could forever be free to be the tempter of the animal world, and destroy everything wherever he might go. One has to admit that it was marginally more interesting than being a hack writer.

And so, Michael moved on, causing havoc and spreading despair and disdain, until he arrived at the current, pleasant land.

....and they all lived happily ever after...?


Roleplay Example: (This can be from any source, or a new sample)
The night was livid and full of fairies as Michael strutted on doe-like legs through meadows dripping with velvet jewels and the cold caress of crystal water. He blinked his large black eyes at the sky and admired the moon, the ghostly galleon tossed upon those cloudy seas. But oh, what sin was this! No cloud tonight, only a smattering of silver freckles in cruel mockery of Lady Moon, forever teasing her by allowing her to see only tiny bits of her reflection. Dark trees loomed on a dark horizon, but the stilt-legged fox paid no attention to what horrors might emerge; he was the greatest of all horrors - the yarn spinner walking in his own tale. It was with Lady Moon casting a silver sheen on his crimson coat and with the long, untamed grass hiding his long, dark legs that Michael strolled and searched for company. For there was bound to be somebody out here, in this wilderness, that was just dying for someone to talk to.

He danced a merry pattern in the shine of the Lady, providing her with her own entertainment, and tipping his metaphorical hat to the imaginary creature in the sky. She was his guardian angel, his saving grace; he, in turn, was delightful as the dark moon's jester, the Puck of the wolven world, made forever to cause mockery, pain and suffering. The moon was perhaps the only female that Michael could ever have respect for; she was up in those black velvet skies night after night, growing smaller and larger as the world chose to make her. Michael loved Lady Moon, and he sincerely hoped that Lady Moon loved him back with all her heart, because, let's face it, who else could love such a monster?

Who else indeed could feel affection for that which feels nothing but malice? Who could grieve for those who cannot grieve? Who would defend a murderer?

But these are heady questions for a night so young, and Godly Michael had no intention of even attempting to answer them. Instead, he will dance and sing by the light of the moon, casting his sound high into the sky for all those that care to listen. Michael will have his love affair with the Lady and the night, and he will come out of it unscathed and refreshed, for there is always another one night stand to be had when your only conquest is the silver galleon herself, that most unreachable of all prizes.

And so we leave Michael, as he dances there, not for the first time in a world of his own. But leave him, for he is happy - at least until the moon is gone.

That was...so beautifully written.

There seems to be a point in a administrators life that grading things become unecessary and student surpasses teacher. I don't even know what to say. So lets get a comb and try to find little things in an other wise wonderful application.

Family
Everything we look for.

The 'uh' isn't really needed. It adds uncertainty to the sentance, when you are clearly sure of what you are talking about. :)

Personality
Your characterization is wonderful. I was half temped to tell you to add something, but that would only take away from what you have written. There is something as 'too much' so don't add anything. What you have is amazing and you gave exactly what we neeed to see the character. :)

Appearance
The only think I want to see is a setance about his eyes. Eyes to me feel important and you included something about 'golden eyes' in the history, so why not include that here too? <3

History
I don't know if you planned it this way, but the personality was all about how he saw the world as a story, and the history was written just like that. I dunno if it was just me, or if anyone will catch onto that...but anyway...

etcetera, etcetera

And, just a quick question. He finds his life as a story because of his father telling him stories, right? There seemed like a big leap from stories to him changing all of a sudden. I guess that was just because he murdered his sister without really realizing and then he just started to morph from there.
Oh, and why is he so evil at the end? In the personality, I didn't really take him as 'evil' but the end of this history kind of conflicts. I could have missed something because I am really tired or...something.


All in all, that was simply marvellous. I want a roleplay with him and Lucy and he also is going to join Esha whether he really wants to or not. I'm the admin and I can do these kinds of things. So good, I can't wait to see you start roleplaying.

Okay, I've finished everything, and, as a bonus, I ran it through a spellcheck.

In answer to your questions:

Yes, the personality & history link was very much deliberate, so it's nice to know it got picked up on. I wanted to tell his history in an interesting way, and, considering his personality, I decided to go for a fairy-tale-style thing.

As for the other.. Yeah, he does come off as super-evil in the end of the history, but he's not really. He's just a bit PO'd at his brother for being afraid of him, and he grows steadily more distant from his family as time goes on, due to his mild autism.

I'd love him to meet Lucifer - undecided on pack life, though. But, who knows, maybe he'll find himself chuckling quietly under his breath in Escha. Might even be some opportunity for plot there.

I hope I've answered all your questions - feel free to ask away about him, I like answering questions 'cause they give me a chance to explore the character.

Woooonderful! :)

I can tell you obviously spent time thinking about him and developing him. SOOOO...

dun
dun
dun

ACCEPTED.!