Archived:Dahlia Carvalho

Personality
I never knew how my parents met. Honestly, I couldn’t be less interested. Hearing stuff like my parents going to bed with someone (even though I know they did or I wouldn’t be here) seems absurd and gross.

Let me begin by the introductions. My name is Dahlia. Dahlia Carvalho. I’m Brazilian, even if people always tell me I look European. They tell me that, but never pick a nationality. It’s really annoying, in my opinion.

Back on subject, I’m a daughter of Apollo. Or was, I died. But that’s near the end of my story and I haven’t even told you the beginning now. I’ll go straight to the point and say my mom once had an affair with Apollo, back in her mid twenties. But it didn’t last, and days later she and my father (I call him father cuz I grew up thinking he was my dad, so screw it if you’re confused) hooked up.

About a month or two after they started dating, she found out she was pregnant. Obviously, she thought it was her boyfriend’s, not her one night stand (sad, sad, sad mistake). Mom and her boyfriend then married because of the baby, but also out of love. When I was born, I looked so much like my mother that the thought that I wasn’t her husband’s daughter never crossed anyone’s minds.

About two years pass and my mom is pregnant again. Before that, I was a spoiled little kid who was loved by both parents and who everyone loved. When the second pregnancy came, all that went down the drain and no one gave a sh*t about me anymore. My mom finally had another daughter, named Lavender, but she was worried.

You see, my little sister never acted like other babies. My parents were desperate, trying to figure out what was wrong. When they finally did, it was a shock. They found out she was autistic. And she had a really bad degree of autism too.

It was truly hell her first years in the world. And it was a hell for me too, who everyone in the family ignored since my sister needed so much attention. In school, everyone teased me because of my hair, which was really curly, and because I was the ‘nerd’. I started hating school, but my mom wouldn’t listen. She didn’t care about me, she was too busy with my little sister.

I grew up lonely and I always felt horrible. When I got into middle school, I kept on being labeled as ‘weird’ and no one talked to me. I hid from reality in the books that filled my house. I always had my nose inside some book and acted as if reality didn’t exist, as if my family was perfect, my father cared for me enough to get his face away from the computer for 5 minutes, that I saw my mother during the week, not just on Saturday lunches when she had to wake up early and act like she was part of my family, that my little sister was normal and that we had the hate-love relationship all siblings have and most important of all, that my life was normal.

It didn’t work for long. I didn’t realize it, but I was sinking in depression and anxiety quickly. I started skipping meals and throwing food away, I didn’t feel like eating. It made me feel fat and I liked the feeling of not eating, it made my head really light and me to feel better about myself, convincing myself I’d get skinny.

It didn’t happen, it was really hard for me to lose weight. In desperation, I started self-harming. I cut the sides of my stomach where no one would notice the cuts and the insides of my thigh. Anxiety filled me whenever I ate, thoughts of getting fat like my parents always lingered on my head.

But, to my disgrace, my parents divorced. And with the divorce, my mother decided to pay attention to me so I didn’t get emotionally ill or anything like that. She started giving me stuff, like a Polaroid camera, new clothes, a new phone and lots of other stuff. When she found out about my skipping meals, she threw me at a therapist.

The woman convinced herself all my troubles came because of my being anti-social and practically forced me to make friends. I told her my best friend was my Polaroid, but she didn’t listen and said a camera couldn’t be a friend. So, to make her shut up, I befriended two classmates of mine who were also quiet like me.

I was about 12 at that time, and my demigod blood should’ve started acting up but like I said, I live in Brazil and Brazil is really far away for any monster to come around and attack me. And I didn’t live in a famous city like Rio, so no monster tourists would find me.

I didn’t know any of that, I was just leading my perfectly f*cked up life. I didn’t need monsters in my plate, it was already full. When my parents started fighting and my dad (not my real dad, but I still call him my dad) left town without so much of a good bye, I broke down.

I wanted to die, my life was too sh*tty for me to ignore it anymore. I acted happy to my therapist but when I got home I cried myself to sleep and often thought of suicide. My therapist said I was good enough to be without treatment and that night I had my first suicide attempt.

It didn’t work out very well, I thought that only two of my mom’s sleeping pills would be enough since I was so small, but it didn’t and she found out when she saw me blacked out on her bathroom floor.

Ever since that day, I couldn’t get anywhere near pills again. My life wasn’t getting any better, nor was my sister. She was getting more and more nervous, hurting people passing by, screaming and crying whenever a meal with anything that wasn’t pasta came up, and things like that. It was driving me insane, I hated her and hated her screaming.

<p class="MsoNormal">My mom started getting unstable too, she told me she was often thinking about suicide. I told her not to do it or no one would take care of my sister (as if my father would lift a finger for her) so she stayed alive. It was tiring to pretend to be a good daughter when she never cared for me before that and it was wasting me. I started falling asleep in classes, failing tests and lots of other stuff.

<p class="MsoNormal">It just wasn’t working and my mom got even more depressed. My anorexia was being kept under control thanks to her constant eye but she was starting to not care, and that made me worried. So, I told my grandmother and she took care of everything. A fter half a year, everything was back to normal.

<p class="MsoNormal">Except me, of course. I was emotionally drained and once again, no one gave a sh*t. My grandmother started saying everything happening to my sister was my own fault, my mom went back to working the whole day and my father never bothered to show his sorry ass in the city. Not to mention in school, everyone was so fake that it sickened me.

<p class="MsoNormal">But then, the light showed up at the end of the tunnel. I met a boy and I fell in love. We were just friends at first, but he was just like me. And when he asked me out, I said yes. We were happy and I felt alive for the first time in years. I forgot about my depression, I tried to look pretty for him and started eating again so he’d be happy.

<p class="MsoNormal">It was perfect.

<p class="MsoNormal">But not for long. After five months, he started ignoring me. And it drove me insane. I kept wondering ‘What did I do? Am I not pretty enough? Is it someone else? Was it something I said? Did I forget to do something important?’ and the thoughts just made me feel worse by the day.

<p class="MsoNormal">The day he broke up with me, realization didn’t hit me. It took me almost a month to realize, it was permanent and he wasn’t coming back.

<p class="MsoNormal">That was the time when I freaked out. I convinced myself everything was wrong with me and my paranoia took over. I got into a really bad crowd and we used to hang out at the city park at night, when all the really bad people came out. The night me and my best male friend got caught up at night after everyone had left because his tire had gone flat, was the night I died.

<p class="MsoNormal">It turns out, Brazil did have one or other monster. Even in a city so forgotten as mine. And a manticore appeared from the trees and grinned at me, a grin so awful and scary that I still have nightmares about it. Me and my friend immediately did the reasonable thing, we ran away. But the beast was too fast and soon my friend had been stabbed by multiple thorns and fell on the grass.

<p class="MsoNormal">Dumb as I am, I stopped to see if he was okay instead of running by myself as I should've. When I was sure he was really dead, the monster took me by the throat and his awful grin widened. I yelled at the top of my lungs, but it was 4am and there was no one to listen to me. He broke my neck in two and I lost conscience.

<p class="MsoNormal">When I woke up, I was in a bright city and a young boy was by my side. He smiled brightly at me and said he was my dad. First thought was obviously, 'what the heck has this guy smoked lately?'. But as he explained all the demigod thingy to me, I understood. More or less, at least. He said that he had been watching me for some time and that when the manticore attacked me, he couldn't do anything because it was prohibited for gods to meddle with their children's lives. But when I died, he brought me back as a nymph so I would be able to live a better life, a happy life. He sent me here to camp so I could have that life and I was sent to the Nymph's Sanctuary to live with other music nymphs.

History
I never knew how my parents met. Honestly, I couldn’t be less interested. Hearing stuff like my parents going to bed with someone (even though I know they did or I wouldn’t be here) seems absurd and gross.

<p class="MsoNormal">Let me begin by the introductions. My name is Dahlia. Dahlia Carvalho. I’m Brazilian, even if people always tell me I look European. They tell me that, but never pick a nationality. It’s really annoying, in my opinion.

<p class="MsoNormal">Back on subject, I’m a daughter of Apollo. Or was, I died. But that’s near the end of my story and I haven’t even told you the beginning now. I’ll go straight to the point and say my mom once had an affair with Apollo, back in her mid twenties. But it didn’t last, and days later she and my father (I call him father cuz I grew up thinking he was my dad, so screw it if you’re confused) hooked up.

<p class="MsoNormal">About a month or two after they started dating, she found out she was pregnant. Obviously, she thought it was her boyfriend’s, not her one night stand (sad, sad, sad mistake). Mom and her boyfriend then married because of the baby, but also out of love. When I was born, I looked so much like my mother that the thought that I wasn’t her husband’s daughter never crossed anyone’s minds.

<p class="MsoNormal">About two years pass and my mom is pregnant again. Before that, I was a spoiled little kid who was loved by both parents and who everyone loved. When the second pregnancy came, all that went down the drain and no one gave a sh*t about me anymore. My mom finally had another daughter, named Lavender, but she was worried.

<p class="MsoNormal">You see, my little sister never acted like other babies. My parents were desperate, trying to figure out what was wrong. When they finally did, it was a shock. They found out she was autistic. And she had a really bad degree of autism too.

<p class="MsoNormal">It was truly hell her first years in the world. And it was a hell for me too, who everyone in the family ignored since my sister needed so much attention. In school, everyone teased me because of my hair, which was really curly, and because I was the ‘nerd’. I started hating school, but my mom wouldn’t listen. She didn’t care about me, she was too busy with my little sister.

<p class="MsoNormal">I grew up lonely and I always felt horrible. When I got into middle school, I kept on being labeled as ‘weird’ and no one talked to me. I hid from reality in the books that filled my house. I always had my nose inside some book and acted as if reality didn’t exist, as if my family was perfect, my father cared for me enough to get his face away from the computer for 5 minutes, that I saw my mother during the week, not just on Saturday lunches when she had to wake up early and act like she was part of my family, that my little sister was normal and that we had the hate-love relationship all siblings have and most important of all, that my life was normal.

<p class="MsoNormal">It didn’t work for long. I didn’t realize it, but I was sinking in depression and anxiety quickly. I started skipping meals and throwing food away, I didn’t feel like eating. It made me feel fat and I liked the feeling of not eating, it made my head really light and me to feel better about myself, convincing myself I’d get skinny.

<p class="MsoNormal">It didn’t happen, it was really hard for me to lose weight. In desperation, I started self-harming. I cut the sides of my stomach where no one would notice the cuts and the insides of my thigh. Anxiety filled me whenever I ate, thoughts of getting fat like my parents always lingered on my head.

<p class="MsoNormal">But, to my disgrace, my parents divorced. And with the divorce, my mother decided to pay attention to me so I didn’t get emotionally ill or anything like that. She started giving me stuff, like a Polaroid camera, new clothes, a new phone and lots of other stuff. When she found out about my skipping meals, she threw me at a therapist.

<p class="MsoNormal">The woman convinced herself all my troubles came because of my being anti-social and practically forced me to make friends. I told her my best friend was my Polaroid, but she didn’t listen and said a camera couldn’t be a friend. So, to make her shut up, I befriended two classmates of mine who were also quiet like me.

<p class="MsoNormal">I was about 12 at that time, and my demigod blood should’ve started acting up but like I said, I live in Brazil and Brazil is really far away for any monster to come around and attack me. And I didn’t live in a famous city like Rio, so no monster tourists would find me.

<p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t know any of that, I was just leading my perfectly f*cked up life. I didn’t need monsters in my plate, it was already full. When my parents started fighting and my dad (not my real dad, but I still call him my dad) left town without so much of a good bye, I broke down.

<p class="MsoNormal">I wanted to die, my life was too sh*tty for me to ignore it anymore. I acted happy to my therapist but when I got home I cried myself to sleep and often thought of suicide. My therapist said I was good enough to be without treatment and that night I had my first suicide attempt.

<p class="MsoNormal">It didn’t work out very well, I thought that only two of my mom’s sleeping pills would be enough since I was so small, but it didn’t and she found out when she saw me blacked out on her bathroom floor.

<p class="MsoNormal">Ever since that day, I couldn’t get anywhere near pills again. My life wasn’t getting any better, nor was my sister. She was getting more and more nervous, hurting people passing by, screaming and crying whenever a meal with anything that wasn’t pasta came up, and things like that. It was driving me insane, I hated her and hated her screaming.

<p class="MsoNormal">My mom started getting unstable too, she told me she was often thinking about suicide. I told her not to do it or no one would take care of my sister (as if my father would lift a finger for her) so she stayed alive. It was tiring to pretend to be a good daughter when she never cared for me before that and it was wasting me. I started falling asleep in classes, failing tests and lots of other stuff.

<p class="MsoNormal">It just wasn’t working and my mom got even more depressed. My anorexia was being kept under control thanks to her constant eye but she was starting to not care, and that made me worried. So, I told my grandmother and she took care of everything. A fter half a year, everything was back to normal.

<p class="MsoNormal">Except me, of course. I was emotionally drained and once again, no one gave a sh*t. My grandmother started saying everything happening to my sister was my own fault, my mom went back to working the whole day and my father never bothered to show his sorry ass in the city. Not to mention in school, everyone was so fake that it sickened me.

<p class="MsoNormal">But then, the light showed up at the end of the tunnel. I met a boy and I fell in love. We were just friends at first, but he was just like me. And when he asked me out, I said yes. We were happy and I felt alive for the first time in years. I forgot about my depression, I tried to look pretty for him and started eating again so he’d be happy.

<p class="MsoNormal">It was perfect.

<p class="MsoNormal">But not for long. After five months, he started ignoring me. And it drove me insane. I kept wondering ‘What did I do? Am I not pretty enough? Is it someone else? Was it something I said? Did I forget to do something important?’ and the thoughts just made me feel worse by the day.

<p class="MsoNormal">The day he broke up with me, realization didn’t hit me. It took me almost a month to realize, it was permanent and he wasn’t coming back.

<p class="MsoNormal">That was the time when I freaked out. I convinced myself everything was wrong with me and my paranoia took over. I got into a really bad crowd and we used to hang out at the city park at night, when all the really bad people came out. The night me and my best male friend got caught up at night after everyone had left because his tire had gone flat, was the night I died.

<p class="MsoNormal">It turns out, Brazil did have one or other monster. Even in a city so forgotten as mine. And a manticore appeared from the trees and grinned at me, a grin so awful and scary that I still have nightmares about it. Me and my friend immediately did the reasonable thing, we ran away. But the beast was too fast and soon my friend had been stabbed by multiple thorns and fell on the grass.

<p class="MsoNormal">Dumb as I am, I stopped to see if he was okay instead of running by myself as I should've. When I was sure he was really dead, the monster took me by the throat and his awful grin widened. I yelled at the top of my lungs, but it was 4am and there was no one to listen to me. He broke my neck in two and I lost conscience.

<p class="MsoNormal">When I woke up, I was in a bright city and a young boy was by my side. He smiled brightly at me and said he was my dad. First thought was obviously, 'what the heck has this guy smoked lately?'. But as he explained all the demigod thingy to me, I understood. More or less, at least. He said that he had been watching me for some time and that when the manticore attacked me, he couldn't do anything because it was prohibited for gods to meddle with their children's lives. But when I died, he brought me back as a nymph so I would be able to live a better life, a happy life. He sent me here to camp so I could have that life and I was sent to the Nymph's Sanctuary to live with other music nymphs.

Passive

 * 1) They can curse others to only speak in rhyming couplets that can take days or even weeks to wear off (depending on strength and number of people in the spell), the longer it lasts the more energy it drains
 * 2) They can curse others to sing everything, that can take days or even weeks to wear off (depending on strength and number of people in the spell), the longer it lasts the more energy it drains
 * 3) They have a minor ability to inspire the musical talents in those around them
 * 4) Their music can calm those around them for a short time
 * 5) As they are nymphs they do not age, remaining eternally young.
 * 6) They have a telepathic/empathetic connection with nature and other nymphs

Supplementary

 * 1) They can sustain a high pitch with their voice, that is so loud it will temporarily stun anyone around them, its effects are temporary and it effects everyone around them, friend or foe. They can also do this with a musical instrument as well.
 * 2) They can infuse magic into their song and ‘charm-sing’ another into doing their will or revealing a secret to them; the person will remain under the control of the charm-sing for a few minutes or until control is relinquished

Defensive

 * 1) They have such a beautiful voice, that when they sing, people can't help but listen, this can often distract enemies while in battle

Traits

 * 1) They can play any musical instrument, even if they have never seen it before
 * 2) They have pitch perfect singing voices