Acrylic is a female Dalmatian who lives in Adventure Bay, and Marshall's Timberverse love interest.
Appearance
Acrylic stands at about Marshall’s height, with the typical long-legged build and floppy ears of a Dalmatian. She’s mainly white in coloration, but when it comes to her spots, she’s a surprise - she is a lemon Dalmatian, essentially meaning that her spots are a creamy yellow-brown sort of color. Spots dot all over her body, most notably in freckle-like patterns on her face and almost solid around her black nose. Her right eye has an uneven spot marking around it, and both of her ears are lemon (with a few white spaces as well near the tips). Her eyes are very dark brown.
Her theme color is orchid purple - she can usually be seen wearing a beret of this shade, as well as an ascot tied around her neck to match. Said ascot has white polka dots decorating it, and hidden underneath is her collar in the same color with a silver star-shaped tag.
Acrylic’s voice actress is Kristen Schaal throughout her life - as a young pup, she sounds most like Mabel from Gravity Falls, and as an adult, she sounds like Bella the Bellhop from Amphibia.
Personality
In short? Acrylic is a beautiful little mess of a pup. A bit of a nerd, she rather enjoys graphic novels, watching cartoons (she’s a blubbering puddle when she catches sight of cool animation), and generally getting excited over movies. She loves discussing her favorite things with others and can go on for HOURS. Acrylic is also very sweet; she’d drop everything in a split second just to help out a friend, and leaves her friends and family little gifts scattered about their houses. She’s pretty determined, and can be headstrong, but if she’s given enough reason not to do something, she won’t be too stubborn. In order to be taken seriously about this, she puts on a fierce show to go along with being fiery, though she always tries to direct it away from the ones she cares about. In spite of this, she’s very kind and a romantic at heart - she’s very poetic; can describe a sunset in a thousand beautiful words and paint a picture to match. Sylvia, Timber, and Vis have all asked her to write love letters for them (to their respective love interests) at separate points. She’s...an absolute mess when it comes to describing her feelings or herself, though. Usually she just writes them down somewhere on a piece of paper, cringes at her own writing, then gets even more upset and scribbles over it in some bizarre abstract piece. (She had to have Everest raise an eyebrow at her and say, “...You definitely like Marshall, right? It’s not really a secret,” before she herself realized what that fluttery feeling in her chest was.)
She has a lot of insecurities hidden beneath the surface - on the days that she just can’t take it, she either locks herself away or tries to spend a quiet day watching movies with a few close friends. She is aware of the fact that she looks different from every other Dalmatian, and (especially when she was younger) often had doubts about herself, feeling like she isn't a "real" Dalmatian. Sometimes, she gets overwhelmed when she can’t sleep, and, laying awake, muses, “Who am I? ...Who am I?” in her journey of self-discovery. She actually loves the feeling of very early morning, when the sky is just barely showing hints of light, and will often go outside during this time to do whatever she feels like. Acrylic is intelligent and studious, and has a photographic memory; she can shut her eyes and picture something she’s seen before with near-crystal clarity. She’s loyal to the very end, and won’t give up on her friends and family for ANYTHING. Unfortunately for her, she often overthinks and stresses herself; she really, really just needs to be cuddled some days and told that she’s good enough.
With growing up, to most comes maturity, and Acrylic is no exception. Along with this, she becomes more certain of herself; she’s not much of an insomniac anymore. Of course, she still feels a little cheesy when trying to express herself… so she simply leaves sweet little notes for her husband to find around his puphouse.
History
WIP
Trivia
- Acrylic’s personality was initially based partially on Princess Fiona from Shrek and Eileen from Regular Show, buuuut I may have gone a little overboard.
- My favorite kinds of characters to write are the ones that are absolute messes, so I included this as well.
- Acrylic wears a beret due to the fact that fictional artists are typically portrayed as wearing them. Also, she just likes hats - both she and Marshall wore tophats at their wedding.
- She loves sea turtles, but has a massive phobia of snakes, sharks, and fire.
- Acrylic is constantly making sure that her house (and Marshall’s) is fireproof, fussing over outlets and installing fire extinguishers. Marshall LOVES his safety-smart wife.
- The basic idea for this character came while I was on a camping trip with no internet access to fact-check; I thought, “hey, what if I created an albino Dalmatian with no spots?” and then searched for it when I came home, but a lot of the results were/mentioned lemon Dalmatians. Curious, I looked at those, and decided on Acrylic’s coloration right then and there.
- There have been… multiple occasions where she’s tried to paint Marshall as a gift, but he ended up tripping and nearly destroying her masterpiece. She soon decided to just do a headshot.
- Acrylic oftentimes appears in a reoccurring dream I have, where I’m in a darker (not in tone, just in lighting and colors), empty version of the land of Amphibia, pretending to have amnesia for some reason? Also, SpongeBob characters are there, and we go to Sandy’s Treedome? Anne is on her way to work at the Krusty Krab? I think Polly dies but comes back to life, and nobody notices? My dogs (and Acrylic) are there, trying to get me to remember what I clearly DO remember. I think Sprig tricked a bunch of Vikings into doing… something?
- Possible names for Acrylic included Canvas or Artemisia. I also remember considering Opal.
- I’m not totally sure on her gender - I’m thinking of having her be non-binary? I guess I’m fine with either? Maybe genderfluid or demifemale?
- Acrylic likes to make chalk doodles outside Marshall’s puphouse for him to wake up and find.
- Acrylic, as a pup and even as an adult, has a lot of insecurities regarding her bizarre coloration. When she discovered she was pregnant, she turned to Marshall and barely managed to muster, “But what if they’re… you know...different, like me?” He took her paw and replied with, “Well, they'd be beautiful, just like you.”
- I'm considering having her be Francois's dog - I think they could get along well.
- Acrylic loves making cards and little crafts for her friends.