The Voices
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Within Penny's head reside a jumble of voices and personalities. At this point in her life, she typically has control over who is in control and when. While the voices can seem like different entities all together, it is not a possession situation. Each one is akin to a different 'flavor' of the girl that can be mixed and matched.
When working in her favor, these personalities can provide benefits for her such as an extended memory (each one holding on to information they may prioritize), skillsets (some personalities may be more dominant, or confident, sneaky, or charismatic, etc.). However, giving control to the personalities means taking a back seat. The normal Penny is no longer in control and cannot regain control without it either being relinquished by the personality, or certain external activities/stimulus draw her back out. She may or may not be awake and aware when the personality is in control.
Over the years, a few specific personalities have had enough control over Penny to have had a dramatic impact on her life.
Madness (a summary)
Update: The girls have since been able to mostly control Madness, unless they become overwhelmed and lose that control. When harnessing Madness, they typically will only allow part of the personality to merge with their own. The benefit to this is to make the switch from the goofy princess to the spy/assassin.
Madness is Penny's oldest alternate personality.
When the girls become overwhelmed, or their anxiety takes grip of her, the bubbly, energetic Penny takes a back seat to the Madness. The Madness' main concern becomes abducting, by whatever means necessary, unsuspecting people (and occasionally feral critters) and conducting medical experiments on them. There is no real purpose to the experiments, other than to draw blood, fear, and pain from her subjects. The non-Madness Penny has done her best to excuse away her actions by claiming it's for science, but deep down inside, she knows better.
Madness developed as a result of Penny's guilt for the things she has done in the past. Not only is Madness an excuse to say it wasn't her, but also born to punish Penny for these terrible acts she knows she is ultimately responsible for.
Born from the need of a father's love
To touch on obsession (a brief history)
Growing up, aside from mimicking her cousin's social status, Penny's obsession was books. Fantasy books. Science fiction books. Adventure, horror, even a spicy romance on occasion. But to read about it was never enough. She wanted to live it. Neded to live it. And while there were interesting creatures and people on the island, it wasn't the same.
So, the idea came to her to create the world she wanted to live in. Her projects were a failure from the start of course. At the age of 14, Penny began collecting critters from around the island and taking them to a makeshift laboratory that she had created behind one of the many waterfalls of her home. There, she would take them apart, try to learn how they worked, and then put them together in a monstrous manner. Of course, this was done by a teenager with no experience and no real tools. So, every creature she created was put together with needle and thread. Of course, every creation suffered and died at her hands. Penny never gave up, though every failure hit her hard. She never wanted them to suffer, but it was unfortunately necessary.
Penny's luck eventually turned around one day when her father, on one of his visits home, had decided to follow her secretly. Upon discovering her little secret, Sterling was not shocked or mortified, he was proud. Most likely, her father's excitement was because he finally saw some of his own sadistic nature in his daughter, but also because he had discovered a way in to buying her respect and ultimately, another pawn for his games.
Soon after, Penny would receive surgical equipment, medical books, money, creatures to experiment on, and anything else she could ask for - so long as it helped to grow the seed of sadism buried within her. It didn't take long for the seed to blossom and despite Penny having no true success on her creations, her needs changed. The blood, the suffering, the power and the act itself became more important than the final outcome. The driving force behind this need eventually seemed like a completely different entity that Penny began to refer to as her Madness.
Two years after her first experiment, Penny's Madness earned itself a permanent position deep within her brain when her first actual person fell victim to her scalpel. A scoundrel of a man had come to the island as crew on a trading vessel. During this man's shore-leave, he had decided to get himself into a little trouble late in the evening. Luckily for Penny, she had taken to carrying some of her equipment with her, strapped to her legs. She typically carried a knife, a covered scalpel, smelling salts, and even a few shots of thorazine (though Penny had no idea what it was other than it made critters more docile and sleepy). So, when the man came at her out of the shadows, while she herself was sneaking around for her own prey, Penny had been presented with the perfect opportunity.
While the man was certainly strong enough to over-power the small 16 year old Penny, the booze in his system mixing with the drugs she shot into his bicep saved her life that night. He had barely managed to hike up her skirts and pull his own pants down before the sluggishness kicked in and she was able to re-gain control of the situation. Penny kept him alive in her lab long enough to work out her anger, but the infection eventually became too hard to combat. So, the man died as a beautiful art project.
Brat (a summary)
Brat was born shortly after Penny found a collar around her neck.
Finding herself cut off from communication with her father and no longer able to do jobs for him, Penny found herself lacking her most prized currency: her father's 'love' and praise. Eventually, this deficit left a burning need for the girl. It wasn't long before Brat became a genuine entity in her head.
Typically, Brat is content, when receiving affection, being spoiled, and receiving ear scritches, to just wait out her time in control, and then hand the reigns back over to Penny. However, should one of the girls begin to feel neglected for too long, Brat has a chance to take over.
The brat entity is everything that Penny would of imagined a spoiled princess to be. Needy, demanding, loud, but a perfect angel the moment her victim gives in and gives her what she wants.
No fun for anyone.... unless you're into that stuff.
I want it NOW