BASICS
dasha rose clarke (
pronounced DAY-sha )
born june 23rd, cancer zodiac, can be played between 20-30 years old
scot-irish/welsh/german (dad's side) and scandinavian/eastern european (mom's side) heritages, but she grew up living in north america her entire life and has never been outside of the country
full-time workaholic, college graduate with a bachelor's degree in education, minoring in english/language arts. she works about 40-45 hours a week as a waitress at an authentic irish grub-n-pub in the heart of the same college town where she spent the last four years going to school, about two and a half hours from the small town she grew up in. unfortunately, she has not yet been able to jumpstart her career, though her end goal is to become a grade school teacher, possibly even working specifically with special needs kids. every now and then she picks up substitute teaching gigs, but she hasn't really put a whole lot of effort into landing a full-time position just yet.
APPEARANCE
she has muddy green eyes and her natural hair color is dark brown, though she's been dyeing/color-conditioning it for years, always back to the same shade of dark magenta. she takes really good care of her hair, but considering she's been putting so much product in it for the past 5-10 years the texture has become a little more coarse and dry than she would like it to be. her hair is naturally a bit wavy, always cut around shoulder length at the longest, and she normally wears it either down or up in a messy bun.
she stands at about 5'8" and has a narrow, wiry build. she has thin, spidery hands and feet and a quiet, cautious, anxious demeanor that speaks volumes through the way in which she carries herself. being incredibly fair-skinned, she has sensitive skin and tends to burn and scar much too easily. she has her ears pierced twice on each lobe with standard gold hoops and two tattoos: a medium-sized gothic-style cross between her shoulder blades and the cancer constellation on the inside of her left forearm.
she has a few small but deep old scars along her upper body from a car accident she got into a couple of years ago. the most noticeable of these scars is a two-inch slash embedded in her left temple right around her hairline from her head making an impact with the driver's side window, though it's faded to an off-lily white over time, and can easily be concealed beneath her hair if necessary. second-most noticeable is a puffy red stitch-mark along her forearm from a broken arm acquired in the same accident.
her wardrobe consists of plain t-shirts, dark-wash fitted jeans, high-top shoes, comfy oversized sweatshirts and hoodies, and the occasional floral print dress. the only things she consistently refuses to wear is the colors orange and brown, flip-flops, skirts and heels.
PERSONALITY
LIKES:
somber music, movie theaters, cuddling, the smell of lavender, classic console video games (mario kart, smash bros, pacman, etc), flowers, sleeping, books!!!, dogs, coffee shops, peppermint gum, cooking, sightseeing, true crime shows
DISLIKES:
loud noises, humidity, being yelled at, being alone all the time, large groups of people, scary movies, cats, storms, bugs, awkward confrontation
SECRETS:
for much of her life, dasha denied and kept her sexuality a secret; however, in more recent years, she has finally been able to come to terms with the fact that she might be gay. although she doesn't openly advertise her sexuality, she no longer outright denies it either and when asked or confronted on the topic, she will mostly opt to ignore the question altogether citing her reasons for the sake of privacy. she keeps her business to herself and doesn't share her life story with very many people unless she feels that she can trust them. unfortunately, there aren't many people she feels she can trust either, which is to say she's a very quiet, solitary person. in the past couple of years she finally worked up the courage to come out to her father, but things didn't go very well and by the end she almost regrets telling him in the first place.
growing up, her father was openly prejudiced and would constantly spout off ridiculing hate speech about almost any and all minority groups any time the topic of "those people" arose. needless to say, whenever she first confronted her father about her questions of her sexuality, he did not react well. the fight that followed left dasha feeling abandoned by her father and she left his house in tears. on the drive home, she was so upset and crying hysterically that she started to have a panic attack before she could pull over to the side of the road. she lost control of her car and hit a guardrail, then over-corrected so hard that she nearly flipped the vehicle on the highway. this led to a bit a pileup on the roadway, and fortunately, she was wearing her seatbelt but was still knocked unconscious and later awoke in the hospital with a mild concussion, broken arm, and a number of deep cuts and bruises on her face and upper torso from the shattered glass of the windows spraying over her. the hospital staff found her father's number in her recent contacts and reached out to him about her accident.
although her father still refuses to acknowledge her sexuality or accept it at face value, he spent the entire first two nights of her stay in the hospital sleeping in the chair beside her bed. after that, they were able to make up enough to at least put the issue behind them, and now the two speak occasionally, although not as often as they did beforehand. their relationship is ruined (which it always was, but dasha was mostly in denial beforehand) but at least no longer in shambles, and although dasha no longer visits her father as frequently as she used to, they still talk every now and then, which leaves more room for potential than the alternative. the topic of family tends to be the biggest sore spot for her and is indeed her heaviest baggage.
FEARS:
clowns
losing or disappointing loved ones
abandonment
bugs, particularly spiders, centipedes, wasps and bees
WISHES:
- to continually better herself
- to travel outside of the country someday
- have kids
- become a teacher
STRENGTHS:
gentle
caring
kind
pragmatic
intelligent
determined
level-headed
great planning and organization skills
sweet and good-natured
WEAKNESSES:
painfully shy
overly sensitive heart
closed off, doesn't open up to others easily
doesn't stand up for herself very well
too hard on herself, crazy amount of self-doubt
HISTORY
FAMILY LIFE:
father – growing up he was very protective of his daughter but also not the best role model. fortunately dasha survived her childhood and came out a better person for it in the end. her father is hugely prejudiced and a very hypocritical person, essentially encompassing the entire stereotypical personality of your average big ol' southern boy. they don't talk anymore, and this makes dasha a little sad, but they also never had that much in common in the first place.
mother - probably an alcoholic, drug addict, or possibly even homeless by now. dasha hasn't seen her mother since early childhood, as she was born out of wedlock as a result of a drunken mistake, a one-night stand that led to a baby that likely would have grown up in extreme poverty, if her mother hadn't reached out to her father, who in turn wanted to keep the child for himself. he was at least able to give dasha a slightly better life; though she still grew up poor, it was a better life than she would have received if she'd lived with her mother.
she has a half-sister from her mother who is about 4 or 5 years older than herself, but the last time she saw her was when she was around 11 years old. her sister doesn't really talk to anyone in their family, for the same reasons dasha doesn't. she's closed-off and very private, much the same as dasha herself tends to be, but for reasons more related to trauma and resentment, as she grew up with their mother, and therefore very poor.
honestly, she probably has a few other half-siblings too, but cara is the only one she knows about.
OTHER DETAILS:
dasha doesn't smoke or do drugs, although she has tried smoking in the past on a whim... she hates how cigarettes taste and thinks that they are a waste of money for all the destruction they do to your body, though at the same time she understands how they can be so easy to get addicted to because the majority of her family smokes cigarettes. she only ever drinks in social situations but doesn't like the bar atmosphere, and doesn't ever drink to get drunk, usually maxing out at one or two.
she has really bad seasonal allergies but takes medicine for it as-needed
diagnosed with anxiety and clinical depression in her late teens. she takes medicine for this as well, so now the depression is pretty well under control, but not so much for the anxiety. she's been prescribed medicine for panic attacks, but it turns her into a bit of a zombie which is feeling she absolutely hates, so she only takes it as-needed.
she has iron-deficient anemia, so she gets tired and bruises very easily
she owns a three year old rescued german shepherd pup named kayla
doesn't really have any skills for art or music, but is a pretty decent cook and generally quite book-smart. if only she had access to lessons, she would probably be decent at playing the piano or violin, but she never had the opportunity growing up, or the money to invest in it during school.
she worked her way through college with the help of scholarships and grants but also held a part-time job the entire 4 years. she has about 10k in student loan debt, but on top of that a $20k car loan since her accident totaled her old car and she ended up having to get a new one. growing up low-income, she has always struggled a little with being poor and it has never been easy to get out of that mentality, but she's also an incredibly hard worker and more than willing to pick up 50+ hour workweeks if that's what she needs to do to get by and make ends meet. honestly, it doesn't help that the town she lives in now has a much higher than average cost of living due to being a college town, but only having been out of school the past year or so, she hasn't worked up to moving yet either. in large part, this is due to nervousness about starting over, but it also has a lot to do with money, of course.
