Character Profile: Wren

Name: Wren Huppe
Species: Human
Setting: Modern, usually when demihumans like lamias exist but can be where they’re common knowledge or remain in secret
Sexuality: Pansexual
Ancestry: Canadian/Austrian
Birthday: August 11th
Stories: Pretty-Eyed Peer Pressure, Dream Staycation Hotel, Coil Class: Lamias on a Plane
Microstories:
Sections
Demihuman Disaster
Bothered Biology
Cryptid Study
Wren Study
Okay but Hear Them Out
They/Them
Hard Work for an Easy Time
Deflated Expectations
Sports
Sails Ahoy
Demihuman Disaster
First things first, Wren does not like demihumans. Lamias, harpies, spiders, kitsunes, no matter what they freak Wren out, but especially lamias. There isn’t a particular reason for it, and Wren tries to rationalize that they have nothing to fear (at least in settings where demihumans are commonly known to be friendly), but Wren is simply put off by their strangeness and freaks out when they have to interact with one.
Bothered Biology
So anyway, knowing full well that Wren doesn’t like it, their colleagues often put them to the task of dealing with demihumans. Wren is a biologist, and they often get stuck with the job of studying demihuman biology, which annoys Wren not only because they don’t like demihumans but because they don’t generally understand their anatomy and often believes it’s suspicious. Why do they tend to get those jobs, then? Because their colleagues think it’s hilarious.
Wren’s colleagues aren’t great.
Cryptid Study
One acquaintance Wren has worked with, though not as an official colleague, is an intern reporter Belle. Usually Belle will contact Wren with details of some cryptid Wren thinks Belle made up, asking Wren to come along to help work out the biology of the creature. Belle’s ideas never make any sense to Wren, but they usually end up going along with it anyway, and then they both get caught either by whatever they’re looking for or some other demihuman Wren is afraid of. Still, Wren just gets caught up in Belle’s own mania.
Wren Study
Wren is short, hardly over 125 centimeters tall, and looks vaguely like their wren namesake. They’re not strong, they’re not fast, and honestly they’re not that clever, so any demihuman looking to catch them will have an easy time. And it turns out a lot of them want to do that! Usually when Wren is sent by their colleagues to study a demihuman in the lab the demihuman wants to study Wren instead. Whether it’s a lamia wrapping them up or a spider holding them in a web, they just end up in these situations they’d rather avoid.
Okay but Hear Them Out
And they really don’t like any demihuman! Just as some examples:
Lamia: They could wrap Wren up and squeeze them too tight, that winding tail sneaking everywhere is scary, plus they have those funky eyes you can’t look away from.
Spiderfolk: Spindly legs and big fangs! They’ll trap Wren in sticky silk and wrap them in a web, leaving them helpless for whatever the spider might want! One even tried to make Wren play a game of Monopoly once!
Slimes: Sticky wet gooey slime coats Wren and gets all in their hair and clothes. Even worse is if the slime is big enough to subsume Wren, how would they breathe? Even wore, what if Wren slipped on the wet floor!
Jinn: All that smoke could choke you, and you hear stories about them being tricky. Wren doesn’t have anything they wanna wish for.
Vampires, mummies, ghosts, and more: Come on! These are literally the subjects of many horror films!
We could go on but that would make this too long. We’ve already established Wren is incorrect about demihumans.
They/Them
Wren is gender fluid, often agender but sometimes feels they’re male or female, it tends to vary from day to day. Which gender were they assigned at birth? They’re not telling. Due to this Wren has a rather varied androgynous wardrobe, some days wearing brightly-colored shirt and pants and other days wearing a monochrome dress. They’re from the colder north, so a lot of their outfit is geared for cold climates.
Hard Work for an Easy Time
Wren is a hard worker. Once given a task they’ll try to put all their effort into finishing it efficiently. This is, ironically, because Wren likes to be lazy. They enjoy napping a lot, so they’ll try to get work done fast so they can relax sooner. (Thus, they don’t want to be hypnotized by a lamia because they need to finish their work before they can nap! Also they don’t want to be hypnotized by a lamia because they don’t want to be hypnotized by a lamia.)
Deflated Expectations
As said, Wren is, honestly, not too bright. They can be quite naive at times and jump to wild conclusions, even when the conclusion doesn’t make much sense, such as believing A means B even when A makes any amount of sense more than B. Due to this naivety they can be tricked by demihumans fairly easily, but they’re so easily spooked their distrust of them can win out. Still, a lot of times they get into situations with demihumans from completely misunderstanding something, such as what coil class would mean.
Sports
Wren themself isn’t very sporty, but they do enjoy watching sports, especially the Olympics. Their favorite sport is curling in the Winter Olympics. That said, if there’s a demihuman section of the Olympics, they’re much less enthusiastic about that.
Sails Ahoy
Another activity Wren enjoys on their time off is sailing. Fishing and swimming are all right, but in particular it’s manning (or themming) the boat and guiding the sails and general upkeep. Wren might even own a small boat. It seems as a child Wren wanted to be a marine biologist, but eventually became a more general one. Still, merfolk are one of the few demihumans Wren is okay with, although they’ll still say they’re stinky.