Darlington

Darlington is a plant tentacle monster with an uncanny obsession for keeping loved ones permanently safe. She is a Freak. Although she is full of fun and energy, she can be one of the more unsettling characters living on Cloud Nine, due to her friendliness mixed with creepy behaviors and dominating behaviour.

Despite this, she is able to live a normal life, as these behaviours are moderately suppressed when she is around others. She teaches at the Freak school, and tends to prefer teaching the younger classes.

In addition, Darlington enjoys knitting greatly, as well as gardening. She regularly gets awards for having the most beautiful garden, as well as being popular for her artistic fabrics she puts on sale.

All in all, Darlington is a sweet, sensual and caring individual who is trying to let go of past events. She is also the ultimate protective mother, and despite her psychotic episodes, children and teens are extremely safe with her - even during psychosis.

She is receiving Individual Support from Katie herself, who is trying to help Darlington let go of her past.

Appearance
Darlington looks like a plant-like woman with a very curvaceous body, and numerous plant-like tentacles for legs, much like Squiggles has tentacles for legs. Her eyes are alluring, and the look on her face is often inviting, especially with her direct eye-to-eye gaze. However, Darlington is extremely large by normal standards, and can easily tower over a human by twice their size. She is wide and tends to have trouble fitting in some doorways, which fortunately she can squeeze through.

She often is seen wearing a corset, a lightweight skirt, and a very large, circular hat that looks like some sort of flower. Her style of dressing is reminiscent of the Edwardian era.

She weighs slightly over a tonne and possesses bulky, strong plant tentacles, making her both the heaviest and naturally strongest Freak in Cloud Nine. Darlington is able to lift almost twice her weight, which means that she could, carry up to the weight of a large truck with her tentacles and still move around.

Normal self
Darlington is extremely friendly and interested in others, and is always delighted to help someone else who is in need. She is often the one to initiate a conversation, especially if someone is on their own. She has a near child-like enthusiasm for life, and it's never a dull moment around her.

When around others, she comes across as a suave, level-headed person.

She has a perfectly healthy self-esteem and realistic sense of self confidence. Because of this, she treats respect with utmost importance, and respects others with the hidden expectation that others will do the same. Anyone who treats her with disrespect or does not take her seriously is likely to start being ignored by Darlington without being given a reason why. Unlike Squiggles, she also does not badmouth others who have bothered her, because Darlington feels like this is a waste of time. Because of her healthy self-esteem, it is very difficult to hurt Darlington's feelings with words, even when playing on her fears and doubts.

However, if anyone is insubordinate to her in a teasing way, she often starts becoming more playful and starts making physical contact, such as grabbing or stroking. The important thing to her is that she knows that the person is joking.

The only thing she will always forcefully demand is anything that relates to safety. She would in no circumstance allow it when someone is about to do something she feels is unsafe, or refuses to take a special precaution against her advice. If someone disobeys her in this case, it will likely throw her into a panic and cause her to get physical and drag them away from the "danger" she perceives.

She is highly uncomfortable with giving specific Freaks too much freedom, especially if they are childlike in appearance, such as Tangles. If Tangles is around, she would not feel comfortable until she knows for sure that he cannot possibly get hurt or be lost.

However, she can trust adult-like Freaks on their own without worrying.

When she is alone with someone adult-like, she can be very sensual and tactile, especially if they are adult-like insects, and especially if they're equally as sensual. She has an unusual interest in the stomach area.

Psychotic episodes
When alone with only child-like or teen-like Freaks and no adults in sight, the more troubling side of Darlington begins to present itself. It only happens when some or all "danger features" are present, namely: For example, Binary is a very unlikely target, because she is as tall as an average human, does not have any cute facial features, has a rough voice, is determined and extroverted, has nothing to do with insects, is indifferent to her, and has no problems that Darlington can help with. Due to this, Binary will be safe with Darlington when alone.
 * Being considerably smaller than average humans
 * Looking cute
 * Having a high-pitched or sweet voice
 * Showing passive or introverted behaviour
 * Reminding her of insects
 * Being friendly to her
 * Having a problem that makes her worried for them
 * Doing something that she thinks is unsafe

However, Whimpers and Tangles cannot be left alone with Darlington, even if together, because they are both considerably smaller than average humans, both look cute, both have high-pitched voices, both have passive behaviour, both remind her of insects, are generally friendly to Darlington like they are to everyone else, and have many problems that Darlington worries about.

When alone together, Darlington will start exhibiting these strange behaviours: If actually led to the area alone from others, Darlington will then lose insight completely, and start treating the other as if they were her daughter or son. She will start bringing them treats and toys, asking them how she can make them happier. She will continue improving the area with intention to trap her target inside, and turn the area into a perfect bedroom. She will refuse any requests to go outside, saying that it is too dangerous to go outside ever again. She will spend a lot of time with them, and will drag them into full-body hugs from time to time. If Darlington is approached by anyone else while inside the "Safe Room", she will enter a state of fury and attack the "intruder", regardless of who they are, saying that she'll kill them for trying to take her "child". If Darlington ever catches her "child" trying to escape, she will become sad and scared, and end up concluding that the only way to keep them safe now is to swallow them whole and keep them alive in her belly forever. This also seems to happen when the target repeatedly shows that they just want to go and don't want to stay in the room anymore.
 * Increased touching - such as patting on the head, stroking cheeks
 * Loss of eye contact - a very alarming sign that she is getting into a psychotic episode is when she is talking to someone but is giving that thousand yard stare instead of making direct eye contact like she normally would
 * Kissing on the cheek
 * Treating the target like her son(s) or daughter(s)
 * Massively increased paranoia
 * Unexplained will to take the other to a private place that can either be locked or is otherwise hidden, bringing up a variety of excuses and re-assuring them that they just need a more private place to talk, and that she is getting nervous outside

This kind of disturbing episode has only been documented once, in an unfortunate event involving both Whimpers and Tangles, where Katie and Binary needed to intervene. The entire episode can be averted by having the captives simply informing Darlington that she already makes them feel very safe, which calms her down and brings her back to her normal self. She can have a relapse if she sees that the child or teen is at risk, but will return to her normal self once the child or teen-like Freak shows signs of maturity and self-sufficiency, such as when she witnessed Whimpers cooking and Tangles cleaning after they were freed.

Outside of the episodes of insanity, Darlington is a sweet, good-natured person at heart, as well as being quite level-headed. However, one day, she will be able to let go of her past, through the Individual Support that she is receiving from Katie. Other than that, it is always safe to be around Darlington when around other people, and she can otherwise make for interesting conversations.

Voice, Speaking habits & Examples
Example phrases:
 * She normally has a sensual-sounding, alluring English accent
 * She also has some strange mannerisms in her voice, such as having a "breathy" voice when she is being creepy
 * She tends to sometimes pause and continue her sentences at random intervals, particularly when she is feeling something strongly.
 * She occasionally makes subtle reference to tasting, swallowing, or having something in one's stomach
 * Synonyms of "safe", "protect", "guarantee", "secure", "shelter" and other related words give her immense pleasure when she hears them from others. She also pronounces them with a particular smoothness in her voice.
 * She tends to refer to others using affectionate words such as "Darling" or "Sweetie" when she is particularly interested in them. She tends to refer people by their name when she is not interested in them.
 * Her giggle sounds like it is pronounced similar to "Ahuu-huu-huu!". She tends to partially cover her smile with a hand when she giggles.
 * When talking to the younger-looking Freaks, she sometimes refers to herself as "mommy" instead of "me" or "I"
 * 1) (Smoothly) ''I just want to keep you safe, darling..! Mmmmmhh.." (suddenly breathy voice) "Nice and.. safe..."
 * 2) "Oh, sweetheart, you're making me feel those butterflies in my stomach.." (short pause) "I bet they're all feeling sheltered and protected in there.."
 * 3) "Don't make me blush, sugar pie..! Ahuu-huu-huu..!"
 * 4) (Adamant, but cheery) "You're not going to go anywhere, my honey boo. I don't want you getting kidnapped again!" (creepy breathy voice) "So you're going to stay right in your.. bedroom.. where you're.. all sheltered, and so.. secure.."
 * 5) (Playful) "Ahuu-huu-huu! Oh, touch me, darling.. don't be shy! Just give me the biggest hug you can!"
 * 6) (Panicked) "No.. no! Tangles, stay where I can see you! Whimpers, sit down! Don't go near the stove! Stop playing with the toaster, I'm going to have to remove it now!"
 * 7) (Calmly) "Darling, don't do that.. you could get hurt. And that would make mommy very sad."
 * 8) "Now, now, before you sleep, you're going to have to brush your teeth. I'll be waiting in the bathroom for you to brush your teeth. It's very important."
 * 9) "Having trouble sleeping, Cammie..? Awwh, what if mommy comes to cuddle you sleep? Come on, darling, give me a hug..! There you go.. such good little girl.."

Motives
Darlington is still traumatized by the most tragic moment in her past life as a human, where she had found that her daughter had ran away one day due Darlington's restricting lifestyle. Shortly after, she witnessed her daughter being kidnapped, and after failing to wrestle her daughter back, the kidnapper got away, never to be seen again. The psychotic episodes she has all relate, in one way or another, this moment as well as several other parts of her past life that brought her regret and sadness.

While she is too sensitive about it to ever want to actively think about it and let it go, Darlington constantly seeks to protect and help others from people who intend to harm or take away her loved ones. She strives to teach everyone how to stay safe from kidnappers, even though in the highest form of irony, her psychotic episodes involve kidnapping others to keep them safe from a non-existing kidnapper.

All Darlington wants is a guarantee that nobody will ever go missing from her life ever again, and secretly hopes that she will one day let all of this go. She feels extremely guilty of her overprotective and emotionally indifferent parenting style leading to the running away of her daughter, which indirectly led to the kidnapping, and wants to be alleviated of this guilt once and for all. As an act of redemption, she has become extremely interested in how to be a good parent and a good friend, and regularly exchanges information with Katie.

There is a lot of sadness hidden in Darlington, but she makes it all feel better when she actually manages to help others, get love and hugs from others, and at least succeed in being a good mother on the Island of Freaks.

Gardening
Darlington loves to create a garden of different, lovely looking plants every season. She enthusiastically goes out to adventure to collect rare seeds, as well as import seeds from the humans when she can. She usually takes photos to pose with her plants, and sells her plants to others as decorations.

Knitting and Designing Decorations
Even though it's her main line of work, her knitting is also her favourite hobby and she is passionate about it. The fabrics she makes sell quite well, and she also takes custom orders, such as having someone's name on the fabric, or a design.

Cuddling
Darlington frequents the Cuddle Club because of her immense interest in touching and hanging out with others to catch up on recent events while they hug.

Helping out others
She finds joy in helping out others, whether it's with personal problems, or helping out at the Community Buffet. One way or another, she wants to feel like she is actually helping other people feel happy.

Keeping others safe
Especially with the younger ones, Darlington is regularly worrying about different ways the freaks that she loves can end up getting hurt, and she is constantly on the lookout for anything that can harm them - and won't relax until she's sure that there's nothing that can possibly go wrong. The one thing that makes Darlington feel the most excited and delighted is when someone tells her that she makes them feel safe.

Tier 1: Friendly
Darlington is very friendly, and treats strangers very pleasantly and respectfully.

Tier 2: Interested
One can tell that Darlington is interested in someone when she begins asking more personal questions and especially if she starts offering the person to do things with her.
 * * Being consistently polite for long enough
 * Providing constructive criticism in a gentle way
 * Being responsible
 * Complimenting her gardening
 * Commenting positively or playfully joking about her size
 * Being in at least one club, especially the Cuddle Club or the Survivalist Enthusiasts.
 * Being helpful to Freaks she considers vulnerable (e.g. Whimpers and Tangles)
 * Sharing information about other Freaks

Tier 3: Affectionate

 * * Offering to cuddle with her
 * * Occasionally accepting cuddle sessions that she offers
 * Playful teasing
 * Being sympathetic about her past history
 * Having a topical sense of humor that involves talking about recent or past events
 * Offering to do activities with her besides cuddling

Tier 4A: Lover
When progress towards this stage, Darlington will want to start dating the person involved to get to know them on a deeper level and begin wanting the person to be her lover. She will still visit the Cuddle Club and affectionately cuddle with other Freaks.
 * * Being able to own up to mistakes and apologize
 * * Having a healthy self-esteem
 * * Proving that she can be affectionate and cuddle with others without provoking jealousy
 * * Being able to voice concerns and not bottle up issues
 * * Being able to approach disagreements with a mutual mindset
 * * Having some kind of skill / marketable profession
 * Appearing manly
 * Being well groomed
 * Not having any disabilities

Tier 4B: Motherly Love
It is possible to have her attracted to an individual in a motherly way by exhibiting enough of the following.
 * * Being a 'vulnerable' individual (e.g. sensitive feelings, low self esteem)
 * * Allowing her to help with personal or emotional issues when she offers
 * Being submissive
 * Being innocent
 * Being unfortunate in life
 * Being small
 * Not being manly
 * Not being strong
 * Feeling helpless

Tier -1: Disinterested
Lady Darlington has very high standards, and there is a long list of 'pet peeves' that may botch someone's chances of developing a deeper friendship with her. When disinterested, she will not seek out conversation, but will still help someone if needed.
 * * Insulting someone
 * Lack of proper etiquette
 * Lying
 * Swearing
 * Interrupting her when she speaks
 * Being confrontational
 * Complimenting too much
 * Never complimenting anyone
 * Too much gossip about other people in a negative light
 * Never asking about or not being on good terms with any of her close friends (E.g. Katie, Squiggles, Wally, Whimpers)
 * Trying too hard to impress her
 * History of not having anything to say to her (e.g. responding to "how are you doing?" with "I'm fine" and not having anything else to say.)

Tier -2: No Contact
Due to Lady Darlington's self-image, she will put up with very little bad behaviour - and a history of doing attractive things can very quickly be ruined by doing any of these deal breakers and not making up for it, depending on the severity. When Darlington has gone no contact with someone, she will not actively seek out conversation, and any conversations that are started with her are met with one-line responses, excuses to leave or complete silence. It is very hard to reconcile with Darlington is this state is reached.
 * * Disrespect
 * * Manipulation
 * * Betrayal for three times
 * * Being rude to people too often
 * * Downplaying other people's accomplishments
 * * Endangering or offending someone else and not apologizing
 * * Having a history of only coming to her to ask for favors
 * * Having a history of not owning up to any mistakes, or claiming to be an infallible victim (e.g. boldly claiming "I'm always right")

Pre-freak History
This section is currently being researched.

Post-freak History
This section is currently being researched.

Character relations
This section is currently being researched.

Abilities
This section is currently being researched.