Colleen DunBark

Colleen DunBark

the basics

Colleen DunBark •

nicknames • Teacher, Miss DunBark

age • 20

primary standing • Teacher

secondary standing • Volunteer Nurse

faction • Enchanted Suns

species • Anthropomorphic Canine

gender • Female

sexuality •Heterosexual

the appearance

origin • Robin Hood

height and weight • Colleen is 4’7 at the ears and 120lbs.

overall appearance • Anthropomorphic collie with white and orange markings, folded over ears, brown eyes, a black nose, short fur, and a long feathery tail. She normally wears a light blue blouse and green skirt with no shoes or additional clothing other than her heart-shaped silver locket.

the personality

likes • Teaching, being right, being in charge, learning new things, and being given respect. She also likes the color teal, sugary food, waking up early and roughhousing.

dislikes • Carnivorous animals, but particularly wolves, staying up late, not being taken seriously, bullies, and lack of action.

strengths • Acting quickly, strong sense of justice, never giving up, protective of innocence, sharp-witted, well-educated, fast learner, good with kids. Strong moral compass, a little too much of a social justice warrior.

weaknesses • Not frail, but not physically strong; has never attacked or fought anyone in her life. Emotionally, defenses are always up and she has a chip on her shoulder, so outside of children she’s not very good at making friends. Stubborn and holds a grudge. Untrusting, not a great risk-taker despite liking to learn new things.

dreams • To become a world-renowned professor and prove her father wrong about her.

fears • Failing to become a world-renowned Professor, losing her father, having to go back home, and never being taken seriously. She’s also terrified of closed-in spaces; strong claustrophobia.

overall personality •

Colleen is fiery, spirited, and headstrong. She has ambitions that far outstrip her beginnings and she chases them down doggedly. She’s very protective of her dreams. When she believes she’s not being taken seriously she can get obsessive about proving herself, mostly to her father. This protectiveness flows over into any students or anyone who she perceives to be weaker than herself; she has a bit of a savior complex.

Colleen is ruled by a mixture of passion and logic. She likes for everything to fit neatly into categories she can understand and then she champions the things she believes in, and loses her temper at the things that don’t fit. If she doesn’t understand something her first response is frustration. She holds on to everything, not just positive things like her goals but also negative things like prejudices and grudges.

the history

father • Arthur DunBark, town magistrate, 50.

mother • Amelia DunBark, 30, (deceased.)

siblings • N/A

important people • Abigail Woolensworth, Lady Cluck, Connor Huntford.

overall history •

Colleen DunBark was born in Animalia Scotland, in a tiny village just on the edge of the border, during the English reign of King Richard Lionheart. She was the only child of town magistrate Arthur DunBark and his wife Amelia.

The town was impoverished, mainly a home for farmer sheep and elk and rabbits. The DunBark family had been caretakers or magistrates of the district for generations. Because Lambsley was the only town for miles, it was often plagued by a particular family of ruffians. They were called the Brushwoods, and they were a wolf family. They were bullies, and swindlers, ne’er do wells, every one of them. They would pressure and blackmail and outright steal from everyone in the little community and because of their threat of violence, usually the townsfolk gave them whatever they wanted. Mr. DunBark was downtrodden and used to it, only doing his best to keep everyone safe without provoking the Brushwoods.This incensed his wife, who was as high spirited as her daughter and confronted the Brushwoods and stopped them from mistreating the town baker one day. Later, she was killed in a mysterious town fire which burned down her schoolhouse. Everyone suspected that the Brushwoods, who hated being crossed, were behind it, but there was no evidence. This broke Mr. DunBark’s spirit even further, but it roused Colleen’s for the rest of her life.

After her mother’s death, Colleen’s father raised her under the constant tension of trying to discourage her from standing up to the Brushwoods like her mother before her and trying to water down her ambitions to be a great mind. Under her father’s supervision she couldn’t do anything to change her town’s circumstances and nobody took the young girl dog seriously even as she grew. Her mother had been a friend, in her girlhood, of a chicken named Cluck who had left Lambsley and was now known to be working in the court of the Royal Family as Lady Cluck. Hearing of this, when she turned fifteen, Colleen left her father and the only town she’d ever known and, indeed, all of Animalia Scotland, and began a pilgrimage to Nottingham for a better life.

Instead, her attention was diverted by the merging of the worlds. Whispers of strange new creatures and animals reached Colleen. Her travels took her beyond Nottingham in a desire to learn more about this phenomenon and in particular, one story lifted above the rest. A story of animals like herself that lived in a city far more advanced than anything known to Animalia. After a year, Colleen managed to find the way to the city of Zootopia.

The next three years after Mufasa’s rescue in Africa by Tarzan were spent in this strange land of Zootopia for Colleen. While the war built and ebbed, she used her resourcefulness to begin adopting Zootopian citizens’ culture. The internet and smartphones fascinated her. She could research and write papers faster than ever once she began living in the utopia and putting down roots. It was hard, being the only foreign dog in the city that anyone knew of. But when she turned twenty she managed to win a little recognition for a research article she published about her experiences traveling to Zootopia through the merged worlds. That recognition finally landed her a nice job, specifically in Tundra Town, as the third-grade teacher for wealthy prey-demographic families. She worked, lived, and learned for the next three months, balancing her energy between these things and her desire to eventually return home to little Lambsley and figure out a way to civilize it...most importantly, get rid of the Brushwoods and prove her father wrong.

During this time she met Connor Huntford. He brought one of her most wayward but loveable students back to a class field trip after Colleen had nearly worn herself frantic searching. She was prepared to be appropriately grateful until she saw that he was a wolf. Unable to separate her memories of the horrible Brushwoods from the stranger in front of her she was rude and uncivil, hoping to never see the young wolf again.

Unfortunately, he kept popping up. One reason was that he drove a delivery truck for his parents’ diner and catering business, and his route made a few stops on the same block as her school. The second was that 8 year-old Abigail Woolensworth was obsessed with the guy who found her when she was lost on the field trip and invariably forced the teacher to interact with him. He seemed nice enough, though a little quiet and surly, a sparkle of charming wit kept popping up, and he was nothing if not a hard worker. But the Brushwoods could all pretend to be that way too when they wanted something, and Colleen was sure no wolf could be trusted. Once, when Connor Abigail left recess to actually cross the street where Connor was unloading crates, she lost her temper and very clearly pronounced all wolves as ‘blackguards,’ villainizing Connor to his face. Being hot-tempered and stubborn himself, the young wolf stormed away.

The next time Colleen saw him, it was in the news. He was one of the Missing Mammals, and it was later revealed by Police Officers Judy Hopps and Nicholas Wilde that he hadn’t actually gone savage, but been the victim of a species-targeted plot leading all the way back to Mayor Dawn Bellwhether, a sheep. Colleen was still learning to understand politics, having come from a land of monarchies and aristocracy but she knew this much: Connor wasn’t savage. He was the victim.

She realized how unfair and wrong she had been and although she hated admitting she was wrong, her sense of fairness and justice won out. She began building a quiet, hesitant friendship with Connor as soon as he was released from the hospital. It was going rather well, and he was beating back her prejudices about his species every time they met. She began to believe he was different. Until one week he began to act incredibly tense and odd around her. Uncertain if her apology and changed mind hadn’t come across clearly before, and wanting to further help him understand, she started to open up about her past and the Brushwoods and where her misunderstanding came from. Instead of accepting this, Connor completely snapped and after harsh words, left.

When Colleen’s own temper cooled and she followed him, she wound up realizing why. He wasn’t offended by her. He was guilty. She learned this by visiting his parent’s diner “The Howling Winds” and finding out it was actually a front for their criminal family activity. They were actually a part of a violent illegal gang. Connor, who’d been hoping to apologize to her himself, tried desperately to explain, but Colleen was hurt and betrayed, not to mention horrified, and fled.

Her trust even more battered and her heart iced over, Colleen decided she couldn’t stay in Zootopia. She meant to find the Officer that had helped find Connor when he was hit with the Night Howler Serum, turn him and his blackguard family in, and leave town. Judy Hopps was definitely incorruptible and the dog didn’t feel like she was a good enough judge of character anymore to trust anyone else. But when she reached the ZPD, she was told that the rabbit Officer was out conducting police business in the Merged Worlds.

Colleen quit her job. She decided she would return to the Merged Worlds herself, join the war efforts. There were children in it, after all. Children needed to be taught, and she wanted to bury her confused emotions in research again, get back on track with her dreams. A paper about the Merged Worlds had given her recognition in Zootopia. Maybe joining up on the front lines would help her forget a certain wolf and get back to proving her father wrong about her dreams of academic discovery.

the Role play sample

“...an’ before the lion royal family business started, the worlds weren’t merged. Each realm, with different animals and people, had their own distinct world with it’s own rules. In some, animals could only talk to others of their kind. In others, there were no...ah...human beings at ‘tall. Or dragons, or fairies. The point is, the war is what brought us all together, but we—ach, Hamish, Hubert, are he listening to the lesson?”

Colleen’s accent always came out more harshly when she was angry. She tried to keep it at ‘schoolteacher-stern’ when she was on the job, but these human triplets needed more wrangling than most. In Zootopia she had to watch herself around willful students; her accent was one more thing that set her apart from the more civilized, futuristic mammals around her. Here...in this magic of meshed societies, in the beautiful Arendelle, no one batted an eye. In fact, the triplets actually had her same accent.

While she would’ve loved to spin her mind away into wondering at the scientific and fantastical theories about dimensions and the fabric of reality, the more pressing situation was Hamish. Hamish and his nose full of pebbles, which Hubert was adding to as quickly as possible in an effort to see how many would fit in tiny person-sized nostrils. Honestly, how did their species even smell anything? And were all of their young so difficult?

Colleen clapped her paws together. “Right, maybe it’s time for a break. Now ye all go find your mentors an’ remember, tomorrow I expect ye to be able to tell me the names of each Enchanted Suns general! I don’t care how sore battle training makes ye!”

the role player

alias • Maxine

age •

pronouns • She

how did you find us? • Through Spot but am also friends with Nolybab and Minky and Portal and Corgi!

other characters • if any