hc + How Warwick/Vander copes with "two minds" in one body.
Who is more dominant, is the mental load equally shared. How do they access memories. How does the environment affect their mood. What are they like under pressure? Etc.
Before answering the individual questions, I'll start at the very beginning: what "Warwick" is to my muse, since it plays a vital role in all of the answers. Warwick is primarily a defense mechanism gone wrong for my Vander, unintentionally created to protect him from further trauma at the hands of Singed's torture via experimentation.
The reason I say "gone wrong" is because he shields Vander from everyone and everything, not just Singed. He also, essentially, holds Vander prisoner within his own mind -- and in doing so, traps him with his trauma as well as the haunting memories that would normally just come out as nightmares he could wake up from.
Warwick is also a manifestation of and parallel to who Vander used to be when it comes to anger. The point in time where "Warwick" came into actual, full existence as a "separate" being was towards the end of Vander's time with Singed, after he'd seen what had become of himself physically, and when he fully accepted that he wasn't going to be escaping this living hell he'd ended up in. While Vander lost the will to try and fight and resist, Warwick is the embodiment of that will to fight, and of all of that anger -- however, given the augmentations that Singed had done to his body, he's also a being driven utterly mad with constant, excruciating pain.
They're one and the same, while simultaneously being two separate consciousnesses.
Warwick is, absolutely, the more dominant of the two. While Warwick is in control, Vander is dormant deep within; but while Vander is in control, Warwick is always there, at the fringes of his mind, waiting for an opportunity to take control back again.
I'll answer these from the standpoint of my blog's default verse, which is post-Arcane. It's a struggle for Vander. This is especially true when he's under emotional stress and emotional and/or mental pressure. He has to fight against Warwick's intervention and control, because again -- Warwick is that defense/coping mechanism to protect Vander against that sort of thing. Best case scenario, you'll see him unravel as he fights against himself. Worst case scenario, you'll see him get violent against his environment and, most of all, against himself.
When it comes to memories, Warwick has all of Vander's memories, but Vander doesn't have Warwick's. For example, when Warwick is fighting Jinx in Stillwater, Vander's memories of Powder strike that recognition of her within him thanks to her explosive's design, and Vander is able to fully "wake up" as a result. All it takes is the right trigger to bring up memories of Vander's.
But as I said, Vander doesn't have Warwick's memories, at least not as more than confusing, violent, distorted, jumbled flashes of scenes. It's like watching a movie that's in first-person, with the film being torn and scrambled and taped together before it's cut off entirely.
Warwick's memories surface often as nightmares -- most notably the slaughter at Stillwater. Those memories bleed together with the memories of the slaughter on The Bridge of Progress during Vander's failed protest, and it makes it difficult for Vander to sleep most of the time.
So how does Vander cope with all of this? Yes.
