Bum Bear
So I'm an alien now
Would love to hear you guys critiques on my characters ^^
Dahlia Manchester
Name: Dahlia Manchester
Nickname: Olivia Malenkov
Age: 24
Race: Human
Nickname: Olivia Malenkov
Age: 24
Race: Human
Sex: Originally Female
Orientation: Pansexual
Birthday: April 16th, 1992
Alignment: Neutral
Orientation: Pansexual
Birthday: April 16th, 1992
Alignment: Neutral
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A Bundle of Secrets
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Dahlia. In the world of flowers it means dignity and elegance, a symbol of an unbreakable bond. Cradled in her mother's embrace she gave her the name hoping that her daughter would personify everything that the flower stood for. Her child was to be as elegant as a flower, but as the world may have it, a name does not pass on it's meaning to the object given to it. Especially not to her.
As a child, Dahlia grew up in a small family that consisted of her mother, father, and older brother in North Carolina. Her mother was your average house wife, the stereotypical mother of old America who took care of the house and kids while her husband was away at his job. Her father was a very respectable man, a certified pediatrician who ran his own practice in the middle of town that seemed to garner a great deal of business. Her brother was your typical boy, nothing abnormal about him in the slightest. Loud, whiny, annoying, active, he was everything you'd expect from a kid his age. Then there was Dahlia, a young girl who played with dolls and equally annoyed her brother. Together the four was the living embodiment of the American nuclear family. Dahlia never had any problems at home. Her parents had a decent relationship with the occasional arguing while she and her brother got along as horribly as you'd expect siblings to. Everything was simple, what more could she have wanted?
Entering school, Dahlia had a hard time adjusting to those around her. Having only known her family, the sudden influx of new faces were scary and often times led to her fumbling her words. Unable to cope with it, her first days were spent playing with building blocks by herself in the corner of the classroom. Her brother, who was only three grades ahead of her would notice how left out his sister had been and in a effort to help her, gave her his secret to making friends. All she had to do was to be cool. Dahlia didn't know what it meant to be cool, but seeing as her brother had a bunch of friends (a bunch being four to five) she decided to try it out. The second week of first grade during recess, a few girls came to talk to her. They asked her to play with them and to their surprise she agreed. Now inside a group, Dahlia discussed how cool her name was. If Dahlia liked anything about herself, her name would be on the top of the list. Her mother would always tell her how she named her after a beautiful flower and the meaning of it. By no means would this have been a bad conversation topic, but with Dahlia's inability to differentiate bragging from everyday conversation the girls felt a bit annoyed.
It wasn't bad at first, they continued to be her friend afterwards which gave her the false idea that talking about her name had worked. However, after continuous bragging, she began to find her stuff missing. Her pencils would suddenly disappear from her pencil case and sometimes the pencil case would be gone all together. She found herself tripping over nothing with the lingering feeling of something hard pushing her forward every time she fell. At times she could swear she felt something hit her head during break time but whenever she asked about it, no one around seemed to know what she was talking about. It was during recess that she realized what was going on. She had been searching for her friends to play with, but when she found them she could hear them talking about her. How her name wasn't all that great and she was gross. Upon hearing their conversation she discovered it was them who stole her stuff. However, just because she knew of it didn't mean she wanted it to be true, so she turned a blind eye to their gossip and feigned ignorance. From there on, the bullying got worse, but it was still nothing but childish antics like stealing her stuff and pushing her. Dahlia would come home with minor scratches and a constant need of new supplies because she'd either lost or broke them. Being a kid, no one thought too much about it. Kids play and lose things, that was a given. It wouldn't be until middle school where she would realize how bad her situation could actually get.
Your classmates never really change much, and for the most part they tend to follow you from the previous grade. Dahlia class was no exception as her friends also came along with her. They played their little friendship game. Dahlia kept ignoring it just as she had done in the past, but now the stakes were higher. Instead of missing pencils, her backpack would disappear only to be found in one of the various trashcans around campus. She got hurt a lot more than usual. Their friendship had devolved into that of a slave-master relationship. At this point Dahlia knew that these girls weren't her friends, but what was she to do about it. It was around this time her parents started to notice a change in her. She stopped talking to them about school and ignored all question that concerned it. She began eating more and more at home as if she hadn't eaten all day but even that stopped eventually. The visible wounds had lessened as they no longer appeared on her legs or arms. Even her personality began deteriorating from a happy go lucky girl to a sullen lifeless child who was more ghost than person. Her father, concerned about her well-being, tried to get her to tell him what was wrong, but she always brushed it off by saying she was fine and that she had only been tired. After multiple confrontations, Dahlia began to show aggression which stopped his prying all together. Her parents decided to leave her alone, against their better judgement, and her brother had been too preoccupied with his life to be concerned with hers. This continued on for the entirety of middle school.
Around 8th grade year, there was a transfer student. A young girl from a well off family who had been transferred there for reasons unknown. Some speculated that it was because she got kicked out of whatever private school she came from, a rumor that was quickly rejected seeing how the girl presented herself. Others claim that her parents wanted her to have the normal life as if this was some kind of b-rated movie. Whatever the case, Dahlia was still the outcast so she didn't bother with her. However, for some reason the newcomer wanted to be bothered with her. It started off with simple greetings as the two were seat mates. Dahlia hadn't particularly treated her nicely so she didn't understand why she wanted to talk to her. The girl's name was Madeleine, a rich sounding name if she had ever heard one. Being new to the school she sought friends and with Dahlia seated next to her she had decided she would be her first conquest. This was met with rebellion at first, but she soon gave in to the princess and became friends with her. Much to the dismay of the other girls who saw their gopher get taken away from them. They attempted to make Madeleine dislike her by humiliating Dahlia in front of her. This failed though, as Madeleine threatened them with her father's influence if she were to ever do something like that again. With that the girls went away something that had intrigued Dahlia. How could she make her problem that had plagued her since elementary go away in an instant? She didn't know, but a nagging feeling began growing in her chest.
They spent most of their time together, and with every passing moment that nagging feeling continued to grow in her chest. Madeleine was well liked and easily made friends with whoever she talked to. She was elegant and had a certain air of authority to her. One could even say she was a Dahlia in both appearance and meaning. Everything Madeleine was was everything Dahlia lacked. She loved her as her friend but hated her equally as much. Why couldn't she be Madeleine? Why was she named Dahlia? There wasn't a single moment in which Dahlia hadn't asked herself why couldn't she be Madeleine. It came to a point where she began thinking that her life would be better if she could just switch her life with that of her best friends. At that moment, her ability awoke within her. As the two girls were eating in their secret place in school, Madeleine began complaining about how her father doted on her too much which urked her. As she talked, Dahlia found herself getting angrier and angrier thinking that Madeleine didn't deserve any of this. At the peak of her anger something strange happened as if her soul had been ripped from her body and into another. When she awoke from this daze she notice something odd. Her clothes felt nice on her body, her legs hairless and unbelievably soft. Turning her head she saw herself, knocked out leaning against the wall. What in the hell? What was going on. As she examined what appeared to be her, she took a closer look at her own and found herself to be in Madeleine. Scared, she began panicking until she passed out from the shock. When she awoke she was in the nurses office, Madeleine unconscious in the bed next to her. She ran her hands all down her body to make sure she wasn't dreaming. Fully awake she ran out of the room and went running home. Dahlia didn't know what happened, but she did know something did.
The next day they went to school, Madeleine complained of having a headache and asked what happened for them to be in the nurse's office. Dahlia lied and said that one of the many boxes in their hiding place had fell and knocked them out. As she explained what happened, Dahlia wondered if she could make whatever happened yesterday happen again. Of course she couldn't. She tried recreating the scenario, but nothing happened. She even went about making Madeleine retell her the story from yesterday, but nothing. She began thinking it was all a dream and forgot about it. However, a couple of weeks before final exams it happened again. The two were walking together, hand in hand as Madeleine was a bit of the clingy type. She talked about having gotten the wrong dress which caused Dahlia to grow jealous once more. She began thinking hateful thoughts, and just as quickly as the thought came they switched, her soul once again being pulled out of body into the other. When she adjusted herself, she found herself lying on the floor. It was happening again. In awe of what transpired, she first had to deal with the problem of her body being on the floor. Not knowing where Madeleine lived and already having agreed to go to her house, Dahlia somehow managed to haul herself onto Madel... her back. She trudged all the way to her house where her mother met her with a scared expression as she thanked her for bringing her child back and asked what was happened to her. Dahlia felt like she was having an out of body experience. Well, she was having an out of body experience! She lied yet again and told her that she had passed out from the heat. A bad lie but it fooled her.
After this Madeleine awoke in Dahlia body only to see herself sitting at the desk next to her. Confused she questioned what was going on in which Dahlia slammed a book to her head in shock, knocking her unconscious once again. After a few hours, Madeleine chauffeur came to pick her up and just as the real Madeleine would, she thanked her parents and went on her way. At Madeleine's house she witnessed something amazing. A mansion with tons of servants answering to her beck and call. She was sent to bed with a five star dinner and promise of the dress Madeleine had wanted originally. Satisfied, she went to sleep only to wake up with a headache inside of her room. Surprise, Dahlia began learning more about this ability of hers. She continued experimenting with it, learning the ins and outs of what she could do. Whenever she switched, the two had always been touching one another through direct skin contact. If her original body felt pain then after they swapped back she would feel it as well. It didn't matter if the other person was sleeping, they would only switch back when she went to sleep or blacked out.
With this in mind she continuously swapped body with an unknowing Madeleine who thought herself to be dreaming. However, her dreams became nightmares as she saw herself ignore her and the girls she had told to stay away from Dahlia had returned, but this time to pick on her. The princess was none the wiser of what was going on, but as this continued and the dream began to hurt as if she was in real life she became scared. Constantly waiting for this dream where she was her best friend to be over. At some point it became too much, and during the time Dahlia had taken over Madeleine's body the princess had done something unthinkable. She had killed herself via car accident. Dahlia, who was still entrapped in Madeleine's body was scared. What was going to happen to her when she went to sleep? Her body was gone and from her study it showed that whenever she went to sleep she would swap, but what happens if there's nothing to return to. Would she be dead and Madeleine alive? Scared, she couldn't sleep. She began locking herself in Madeleine's room, pinching herself as to make sure she didn't go to sleep. However, that could only last so long as she went to sleep on the third day. She didn't wake up until two days later, frantically wailing her arms. When she looked around her, she noticed she was in a hospital tied to IV's. Wait. Did she swap? Did that mean Madeleine hadn't died. In disarray, she pulled the IV drips from her arms and ran to the nearest mirror to see Madeleine's face reflected. Dahlia touched it for awhile before smiling. She didn't die. She was alive and still in Madeleine's body. With this she now learned more about the capabilities of her powers.
She lived like this for years, swapping her bodies whenever she felt it fit. She learned quite a bit as other people, their memories and abilities transferring over to her own consciousness. With that being said, she has committed a handful of murders in order to keep the possession of the bodies she's stolen. Now 24, she parades herself as Olivia Malenkov an American model of Russian lineage.
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Weapon: She has no weapons.
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8th Grade Photograph
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Dahlia. In the world of flowers it means dignity and elegance, a symbol of an unbreakable bond. Cradled in her mother's embrace she gave her the name hoping that her daughter would personify everything that the flower stood for. Her child was to be as elegant as a flower, but as the world may have it, a name does not pass on it's meaning to the object given to it. Especially not to her.