michelle douglas

beloved daughter ∙ shovelhead caitiff

1978 — 2002

appearance

Michelle's waxy flesh is dull in the failing glow of the city at dusk, hair shining where it falls unkempt at her neck, fine and wispy. She dresses in large, warm sweaters, wide-cut jeans, t-shirts that look a size too big for her bony shoulders and thin, spidery limbs. When she's fed, her nose and ears get pink for a few hours, almost like she's alive again. Her voice is low and brittle, the way someone sounds when they've just woken up after sleeping in late.

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history

In life Michelle was a film student and aspiring scriptwriter trapped in an endless cycle of producorial rejection and academic mediocrity. She spent the last five months of her mortal life as a production assistant on a low-budget vampire movie, working ten hours a day under a cranky, controlling director.A mass embrace at the film's wrap party and an unexpected fire at the director's mansion saw Michelle shovelheaded by an overeager Sabbat neonate and dumped outside the collapsing house as the attackers fled from the flames. The newborn Kindred that slept through the blaze woke into undeath without guidance, half-buried and starving in the backyard, their sires long gone.In her undeath Michelle sees little of her old self. The trauma of her siring and the indignity of her abandonment weigh heavily on her, but undeath is so much of what she'd always dreamed of: mystery hidden just beyond the daylight, freedom from the old rhythms of life, the chance to remake herself. She's uncertain of who she is now, ripped away from all she knew and forced into friendship with colleagues she thought she hated—but she's only a fledgling, and if she's careful she'll have plenty of time to figure it out.

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personality

• Since her Embrace Michelle has developed a habit of chewing her lower lip when she's nervous or in thought. It's often raw and chapped.• Most nights Michelle doesn't rise until at least a few hours after sunset.• Michelle is a messy feeder, and she struggles to control herself once she's at someone's neck. She likes to take a friend along to look out for her and make sure she doesn't go too far when she's cruising for a victim.• Michelle lost her glasses in the chaos of the wrap party. She's looking for another pair, but she doesn't know any Masquerade-friendly optometrists.

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