Dorcas Elena Freebody

[Dorcas Freebody]

NAME: Dorcas Elena Freebody
NICKNAME: Dory, Dork
AGE: 18
GENDER: Female
ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
POSITION: College Student
FACE CLAIM: Abbey Lee Kershaw

POWER:
Animal Attraction 

Dorcas innately attracts animals of all kinds. Dogs, cats, deer, rabbits, pigeons, hawks, mice, frogs. Even wild animals will have a desire to approach her and sit with her, be near her, play with her. She inspires some level of trust in any animal that sees, smells, or hears her. She is also has an immediate understanding of animal body language. She is able to look at an animal and tell how it is feeling, reading its signals like a member of its own species. She is also able to replicate this body language (to the best of human ability) in order to further earn the trust of animals.

Limitations

• her power isn’t the off/on type; wherever she goes, animals are gonna be unnaturally interested in her (ie. ‘let’s go to the park’ turns into ‘let’s cover Dork in dogs’)
• just because animals initially have a positive reaction to her does not mean this reaction is permanent; if she does something to hurt/startle/anger the animal, this trust can be lost
• in addition, the level of trust that she inspires is entirely dependent on the animal; for example, a wild animal or an abused domesticated one isn't going to approach her as eagerly as a friendly domesticated one
• because she is human and human bodies ≠ animal bodies, her attempts to “animal communication” via body language are often fruitless
  
• her power isn’t at all animal control; sometimes animals will be more willing to do something she asks because of their trust, but she cannot force an animal to do anything, anymore than a regular person can
  
• once she is dealing with more then two or three animals at a time, other animals tend to keep their distance a little bit more; almost as if her power has dulled a little bit
  
• animals have to at least be within about a hundred feet of her to feel the effects of her power
  

Side-Effects

• occasionally wires get crossed and she approaches humans with an animal’s body language, has trouble adjusting to human behaviors, or adopts the behaviors of animals that she has been around
• going outside means near instant crowd of insects/other wildlife
• some fatigue/depression when not around animals for an extended period of time
• plagued by paranoia that she is being followed/watched along with claustrophobia when she feels too smothered by the constant attention
  
• being attuned to animal moods makes her susceptible to them; around an aggressive dog, she is more likely to be irritable/aggressive, for example
  
• when overcrowded by animals, she can get headaches or migraines
  

APPEARANCE SECTION: Dorcas usually wears her hair down and keeps it long, past her shoulders. It is naturally a dark blond color but she has been known to dye it different shades; light blond, black, unnaturally colored highlights like blue and pink. But usually, after a few months, she migrates back to her natural hair color. Her eyebrows are the same shade, so it gives her a softer look. Her eyes are blue and her face is round, with block teeth and lips that are slightly turned down. She had her nose pierced in a fit of rebellion at fifteen and occasionally wears a ring in it.

Dork keeps her makeup light most of the time, but some days when she feels a little more striking, she wears heavier eye and lip makeup. She is pretty dang tall for a girl, at 5'11" and pretty dang skinny, at about 120lbs. Shopping can be kind of hard for that reason and Dorcas usually prefers a bit fancier wear; dresses, skirts, that sort of thing, even though it will all inevitably get covered in animal fur. Perhaps it is remnant of her days as a small child, being towed around to academic conferences in little skirt suits.

MUST HAVE APPAREL: If the weather allows for it, Dorcas likes to wear big coats. She has a large collection of them. She likes having a lot of pockets to store things in. Pens, pads of paper, little calculators, Rubik's cubes, and animal treats.

PERSONALITY SECTION: Dorcas is, first and foremost, competitive. There is something about being the best at everything naturally that makes you need to be the best at everything all the time. She loves debates and games like chess, checkers, you name it. She likes showing off her intellectual skill and she likes being better than other people. Simple as that. This lends itself to a cold and bitchy attitude when it comes to people, which doesn't inspire a lot of kindness, so she's also independent. She's the best; why should she need anyone else?

There are only two sides of Dorcas that could be considered remotely endearing, warm, or you know. Human. For one, she's learned to have an appreciate for animals. She is very gentle and kind with them because her power allows her to understand them on a deeper level than she understands people. Around them, she is calm and kind and relaxed. In addition, when there is a puzzle to solve, she turns into a little kid with a toy. She learns all she can about it, looks at it from every angle, before coming up with about a million ways that it could be solved, and then trying all of them. She loves puzzles and her excitement is palpable when she is given a new one.

EXTRA QUIRK: Dorcas has a weird thing for Rubik's cubes. It was one of the first puzzles she figured out as a child, and now she has a collection that is impressive. 3x3s, 5x5s, different patterns, colors, and shapes.


FATHER: Andrew Johnathan Freebody (50)
MOTHER: Sandra Jeanna Freebody (48)
SIBLINGS: Humphrey Andrew Freebody (23)
PET: N/A
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: N/A
WORTHY MENTIONS: N/A


CHILDHOOD: Dorcas was born into a family of high expectations. Her mother was a Harvard graduate, working at a hospital doing brain surgeries while her father had gotten a degree at the University of Pennsylvania for business. Although he did not move on to get his doctorate, he runs a small architecture business out of his home while he played stay-at-home dad for Humphrey and Dorcas when they were young. Both parents expected a lot out of their children and when they had Humphrey, he turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Dyslexic and more artistic than scientific, he wasn't exactly what the Freebodys had expected. But Dorcas went above and beyond their expectations.

Even as an infant, there was something special about her, an innate sort of intelligence and curiosity that her parents encouraged. She entered a gifted preschool at two and kindergarten at four. She skipped two grades (second and sixth) due to her rapidly developing language and mathematical skills. At five, she was reading high school chemistry textbooks; at eight, she won the national spelling bee; at ten, she'd mastered calculus; and at twelve, she came up with the masterful theory of water purification that led to engineers fixing a morbid problem on a small Pacific island. She was a child prodigy, expected to become the next Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein.

Thing went downhill from there.

ADOLESCENCE: After Dorcas made her first big breakthrough in the water purification realm, her parents assumed that she would continue making breakthroughs. That they'd continue touting their daughter around to international conferences for grand awards and recognitions. To the disappointment of all, this didn't happen. Apparently Dorcas had peaked at twelve and despite all her hard work and research, she was never able to solve another title-earning problem. Sure, she continued to be extremely intelligent and curious and all of that, but after you saved the population of an island from death, well. Learning to make a souffle was kind of underwhelming.

Dorcas become an overly competitive and intensely curious teenager, but not in the way that future brilliant headline-names are. At fourteen, she was in the junior class at her high school, and was universally hated. She was on her way to becoming valedictorian with a well-above-average SAT score and college classes under her belt. Her peers hated her just like high schools students hate everyone who is younger and smarter than they are. Her teachers pretended to adore her intelligence, but remained cold and distant. Most of them saw her as a know-it-all nuisance, since she had no qualms about correcting their grammar and lessons during class. Her brother had always held a certain amount of disdain towards her for being everything that he wasn't and her parents, while putting on fake smiles, only saw her as a could-have-been.

Still, Dorcas was dedicated to her studies and would have continued along the Ivy League path she was set on had she not developed her power. At first it was just odd; she'd never been really fond of animals and they'd always kept their distance from her, so when they started following her around everything it was weird. And when one of the squirrels in her yard climbed up on her shoulder, well. Something was up. Still, when the recruiter came to take her to Bellefonte, her family put of a fight. She couldn't leave high school her junior year! What about the six AP classes she was taking and the two college courses? What about her class rank? But Dorcas was dragged off anyway.

And honestly, she liked the atmosphere at Bellefonte. It was away from her parents and her brother and although the atmosphere was not as competitive as she might have liked, there was plenty to learn and plenty of new puzzles to solve (even though she didn’t make a lot of friends). Despite her reservations, she began to adore animals the same way they adored her (more by necessity than any natural inclination). And when it came time to apply to college as an overachieving sixteen year old, she made the choice her parents would hate her for and decided to stay at Bellefonte.

ADULTHOOD: N/A


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USERNAME: Femur 

AGE GROUP: 17

EXPERIENCE: A few years, with a looooong break.

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