Dolly Malestrom (Cataclysmic Gerosha)

Dolores Marion "Dolly" Malestrom / Earwig is a young superheroine in the series Sodality, and a founding member of the Sodality of Gerosha. Various incarnations exist of her in other versions of The Gerosha Chronicles of Dozerfleet Comics.

She debuted in the 2005 version of Ciem as S1 the Bunny, a blue bunny-suited, AI backvisor-mind-controlled minor villain working to assist L1 the Llama. While an only child in Cataclysmic Gerosha, she is described in earlier versions as having a sister named Lindsay Hamilton. Lindsay was married to the also-no-longer-canon Khumar Hamilton, the half-brother of Candi McArthur's husband Donte McArthur. In all incarnations, Dolly is described as the wife of Jeraime Malestrom.

Abilities and accessories
Dolly's mechanical skills learned from her father have proved to come in handy for this blue-eyed brunette. She possesses the experimental "Earwig" suit that was recovered by Darius Philippine after being found in development by the Hebbleskin Gang. Darius had plans for the suit to be modified for use by female combatants and reverse-engineered as a "Meethexo slayer." The one problem Darius had was that he hadn't taken the time to deactivate or neuter the suit's internal AI from how the Hebbleskins had programmed it: as a psychotic murder machine designed to see every Phexo and Arfaas opponent as a target. The suit offers considerable protection, a variety of blades, tasers, miniature missile grenades, and other apparatuses that are customizable. Its one drawback is the inability to fly. The long lines on it look slightly like earwig antennae, thus giving the suit its name.

In addition to all this, Dolly has shown herself quite knowledgeable about organization from working at the library. She has also studied up on various guns and knives, giving her considerable combat skill even without her suit.

Early life
Dolly was born as Dolores Marion Weiss to Gordon and Stacey Weiss on August 5th of 1996, a month and a day after her namesake, Dolly the Cloned Sheep. Stacey named her Dolores specifically so that they could shorten her name to Dolly. Dolly spent a good deal of her elementary school days being teased for the fact that she was named after a sheep. While the Weiss family was not particularly a target of Hebbleskin Gang oppression, they often befriended victims and became involved in anti-Meethlite and anti-Meethexo activism early on.

Dolly took a job as a library assistant in her high school days, unknowingly becoming the "liPo" of legend for her library position. Even Dolly, however, once mistakenly believed that "liPo" meant "Flippo," and that a member of the Flippo family would eventually be the end of Duke Arfaas' legions. Through later research, she discovered the true meaning from a text written by a Meethlite scholar that Arfaas had banned since that scholar's arguments were incompatible with Arfaas' anti-Gerosha and anti-Flippo propaganda. Even then, Dolly spent years believing that her activism would lead to a greater movement that would doom Arfaas.

Family disaster
She considered going to college; but that was when Gordon died. It was discovered that a young Don the Psycho was out to prove himself. He did so by tracking down Gordon after the following of a paper trail suggested that Gordon was behind of lot of contributions to anti-Hebbleskin movements. He made quick of murdering Gordon with a switchblade knife, before vanishing. Stacey told Dolly to stay home and help look after things. Meanwhile, the US economy began to sink due to Obama administration policies. The rage that began to fill her over what Don the Psycho had done and seemingly got away with would come back to fuel her passion for becoming the Earwig later.

Marriage and capture
Young Dolly Weiss eventually moved to the Viron area with her mother, and found work at another library. She became somewhat adept at fixing bugs in the directory software. It was one fateful day there that she ran into a certain Jeraime Malestrom. This wealthy rancher from Texas had taken some time off to work with a Phaelite-sympathizing research firm on ways to deal with Meethexos and rogue Phexos. This research in what he called "Project: Musaran" was fascinating, even though he got sloppy and gave away confidential information to Dolly.

The couple attended services at Hillforest Church up until the point that it was attacked by the new Affadidah regime when the nation imploded and the Muslim Brotherhood took over a quarter of it. Becoming attached to Jeraime and even fighting with him to escape would-be killers unleashed on them by the regime, Dolly decided to elope with Jeraime. Her mother was shocked by the sudden marriage, especially given the recklessness of it. Non-Muslims were no longer allowed to marry under Afadidah, and elopement was a capital crime. However, Dolly blew off concerns and decided to invest herself in Jeraime wholeheartedly. Jeraime, alas, was not allowed to enter back to what became known as Toklisana right away. He was put in the back of line in 2018, meaning Dolly had to wait as well. When the regime then turned its back on all Toklisanans, deciding it preferred to capture and kill them rather than send them home, Jeraime and Dolly found themselves to be among those being targeted for extinction.

Jeraime's Project: Musaran project was exposed by Melvin Markus of the Hebbleskin Gang. They decided to have Jeraime targeted for capture for Arfaas' team, making Jeraime both an informant and a guinea pig to bring Musaran to life as the ultimate Centhuen Prototype hunter. Affadidah decided that he agreed with Arfaas that Phexos posed a threat to their regimes, and agreed to cooperate with the Hebbleskins. In 2019, Jeraime and his project were both confiscated by Meethlite gangsters during a successful raid on the Malestroms' house. Dolly was taken by the regime, deciding that they'd behead her at one of their new death camps. Dolly vowed to bring down both regimes if Jeraime didn't live. Her hatred of the regimes was intensified while she was imprisoned, as she was raped repeatedly while waiting for the day of her execution. She prayed that God would grant her one of two wishes: a chance to make her enemies rue the day they made a mockery of her and Jeraime's marriage; or a quick end to her suffering. As she was led to the chopping block after a very large number of women who went before her, she prepared to surrender to her fate. She was convinced this was the answer to one of her prayers.

Escape
The death camp to which Dolly was sent was conveniently the same one that a young Candi Flippo was sent to. Both girls thought their end had come, but a power outage caused by Emeraldon's interference led to the girls being able to escape. As they traveled towards an Exodus Agenda shelter in the ruins of southern Indiana, the two girls began talking and quickly became friends. Candi and Dolly are about to be re-captured by the regime after battling Jawknee. However, Donte manages to find and rescue them in time.

Exodus
Dolly finds herself part of the Exodus Agenda, a band of Toklisanans seeking to hack "the Wall" and make it safely out of Ameristan. In spite having no powers like Candi and Donte, she proves herself quite resourceful in helping Imaki's network out. She shows herself adept at learning new mechanical skills to assist Imaki with his equipment. However, she vows that she will - more than anything - make Arfaas pay for kidnapping her husband.

Regime figures soon learn to fear the woman with pigtails, as it is the last thing they see before dying if they threaten Toklisanans. The day finally comes that Imaki and company are able to breach the wall. A mysterious "Sniperbadger" pitches in to help when the primary hacker who breaches the Hebbleskins' force shield around the border between Ameristan and Netheel is breached. The exiles are immediately assaulted on the Netheeli front, by Ameristani and Netheeli forces alike. Amidst the chaos, Candi and Dolly learn of a plot by Arfaas to attack Houston, while publicly executing some captured Phexos. Donte ends up being captured for that very program, while Candi and Dolly are forced to keep moving. Imaki ends up being shot through the heart, his dying wish for Candi to run to freedom and regroup. Candi flies into a rage, killing hundreds Meethlites during the battle as she progresses south. Dolly gets a hold of a gun and some ammo dropped by one of the fallen. Candi nearly exhausts both her own internal venom supply and one of her Zeran teleporters, so Dolly convinces her to also use a machine gun. The two girls fight their way to an escape route, where they keep running until they've reached the border with Toklisana.

The exhausted women are then taken to safety across the border. They are sent to Austin first, where they are assigned names and allowed to move to Houston to attend college after Candi receives her transferred-over funds. With help from Darius Philippine, Candi is able to change her last name to "Levens," to hide the fact that any Flippos survived from Hebbleskin radar. Dolly is informed, however, that she must still enroll as Dolly Weiss. Her marriage to Jeraime is not legally recognized in Toklisana, so she'll have to remarry Jeraime if she can recover him. Around friends however, she insists on being referred to by the last name of Malestrom.

Career as the Earwig
When Candi first runs into Jack as they are both battling Don the Psycho together, Jack and Candi end up forming the early Sodality of Gerosha under the guidance of Wilbur Brocklyn. Dolly is invited to serve as field backup, but is encouraged to spend time with the radio crew that includes Laurie Pegol. However, the arrival of Milp results in Darius fearing that the Sodality cannot tackle the problem of Milp with just Ciem, Jackrabbit, and Botan the Plant-Man. He instead suggests that Dolly join the field fight. When she insists on testing out the controversial "Earwig" prototype suit, Darius protests. However, Darius is murdered by Milp a short while later. Lex goes against Darius' wishes, and lets Dolly become the Earwig. The AI backvisor inside the suit's helmet proves to be highly aggressive, and Dolly decides to have Lex fix the helmet so that she doesn't lose the ability to tell friend from foe.

With help from new friends Kyle "the Meerkat" Freneti and Charlotte "Mukade" Yamamura, Dolly and the other Sodality members are able to defeat Milp. They eventually succeed at defeating Wayne the Vampire, Don the Psycho, and Cupric. However, Arfaas unleashes Musaran on the city of Houston to keep the Sodality busy while he prepares for his master plan. The Sodality members split up, with Botan rescuing Emily from the Phaletori and Jackrabbit rescuing his girlfriend, Miranda Kanla. Dolly as the Earwig manages to free Donte, who then teams up with Jordan "Sapphire King" Reddelwick to take down Arfaas' doomsday ship. Candi manages to get lucky, freeing Jeraime from the Musaran AI backvisor. However, Jeraime suffers temporary blindness as a result of the means by which he was set free. The Sodality agree to cover up the fact that Jeraime was the one inside the Musaran armor, protecting him from being prosecuted for the AI's murders.

Even though Dolly and Jeraime are reunited, and plan to return to their ranch, Dolly doesn't give up the Earwig armor. Lex eventually agrees to let her keep it, knowing that she'll have to resume being the Earwig fairly soon. As a reunited Candi and Donte also contemplate getting married and moving on, the Sodality is called back into action to defeat Captain Aardwulf and recover or destroy the Ming-Yo. They get some assistance from Sniperbadger, Steve McLaine, Black Rat, and Stung Hornet.

Dolly later becomes the Earwig yet again, when Candi discovers herself to be pregnant and her powers start glitching. With Ciem going dormant, the Sodality needs an Earwig. The Sodality runs into problems when Judge Terry Beliah vows to finish what Duke Arfaas started. However, they are able to recover a lot of the Legends that Beliah captured. The legends immediately join the Sodality, and unite to end the Meethlite and Meethexo threats to Toklisana safety. They also team up to prevent an unholy alliance between Beliah and the Phaletori from destroying Houston when True Centhuens are unleashed.

The Earwig is semi-retired after Beliah's defeat, with the Sodality becoming a sort of council that prepares itself for the next generation. Dolly rests assured that with Extirpon, Navyrope, Pilltar, Strawberry, Mapacha, and the Gray Champion added to the Sodality's roster, it will be in good condition even if she isn't always available. Even so, she keeps her Earwig armor ready - whether to fight a local threat, or to rejoin the Sodality at a moment's notice. Jeraime and Dolly eventually have two children: Fran and Gunther.

Personality
Dolly is shown to be aggressive and domineering. She will take a backseat to Jeraime when he is able to give orders; but she is quick to take charge in the absence of a man she feels can adequately do so. Even so, she realizes that she is not a team leader in the Sodality. Oftentimes, she is the most reckless member. This is in spite having no powers outside her armor. However, she rarely ends up suffering any consequences for her braggadocio demeanor. Originally portrayed as a clueless, humble housewife in the Gerosha Prime version of Ciem, her character evolved into a take-charge and even arrogant heroine around the time that the 2009 version of Ciem 3 was being planned. This latter version endured into the planning for Sodality.

Dolly is shown to be humble and quiet, even subservient, in her early life. However, her family's politics coupled with her father's death are shown to have radicalized her; both in position and in terms of her emotions. She becomes hotheaded and brash, willing to try things on a limb that others would wish to have more time to think through. This is even applied to her marriage, as the fact she went through with it to Jeraime when the two had only known each other a very short time caught many off guard. That she'd also elope at a time when it was dangerous also leads to many questioning her decision. However, she becomes fully invested in Jeraime after marrying him; showing no signs of any doubt or regret. Once committed to him, her undying devotion to save - or avenge - him, makes even Candi feel like she has something to prove. Candi, in spite her stubborn love for Donte, was at least willing to consider the prospect that she might have to move on if she failed to save her man. Dolly dismisses such thought processes as unnecessary, as "making failure an option."

Due to this change in personality, Dolly's being influenced by the flawed Earwig AI was rewritten from "turns from happy housewife into murderous psycho," and made into "makes it hard to tell friend from foe." Her place in the Sodality is justified as her courage being what inspires other members to give more of themselves to the cause. Dolly's theme song is "Click Click Boom" by Saliva. However, she likes to talk big that her theme song with Jeraime is "The Bad Touch" by Bloodhound Gang.

Development
Dolly has come a long way from her crude origins to becoming integral in Gerosha mythology. Initially S1 the Bunny, an extremely minor villain, she evolved in a few years to become the Earwig. Her greater much-greater bloodthirst than Candi's helps her serve as a foil, showing that Candi's more-restrained nature serves a purpose. However, her brash and arrogant demeanor allows her to pull off stunts the other Sodality members are reluctant to try. They are impressed by her courage, given that the suit is all the protects her in some instances from certain death. Others, even with abilities, show more hesitation due to awareness that what they are doing is dangerous.

Gerosha Prime
Dolly began as S1 the Bunny, a blue Social Bunny henchman to L1 the Llama. At first, she was simply going to be an underdeveloped villain that would be easily disposed of as soon as Candi inherited her Ciem suit from Imaki. However, there was a change of heart halfway-through the 2005 version. S1 turned out to be almost the same as Janette the Bunny, and all it took was removing her helmet to restore her sanity. Dolly Prime really didn't do much after being freed; and never got the chance to be anything afterward. This led to a strong desire to make her more relevant in later incarnations.

Classic Gerosha
Despair Gerosha never truly got around to explaining the origins of Jeraime and Dolly, so she was not truly developed until Classic Gerosha. It was decided early-on that Dolly should play an important role in this version, as opposed to her fairly unimportant one in 2005. She was made more resourceful; and her brief stint as S1 the Bunny was only vaguely alluded to rather than depicted or made a real plot point; since there were no sufficient bunny costumes to replace the silly Social Bunny ones that came packaged with the game.

Dolly had an actual Earwig suit painted onto BrassTex's female Mecha Warrior mesh, but it only ever found use in promotional stills for Ciem 3. The male version was revamped ever-so-slightly, and was intended to be used for Musaran II just as it had been used for the original Musaran. It was in this version that the Earwig suit's helmet developed the means to corrupt whoever used it. However, it wasn't until Comprehensive Gerosha that it's methods went straight to instilling straight-up bloodthirst in the user.

In Classic Gerosha, it used negative emotions to feed suggestion to users, taking a slower approach to corrupting them. This is because the original Ciem webcomics were intended to spoof pop culture of the time, aimed primarily at Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. The humor was that Candi's friend had bonded with the alien suit (made of alien tech, rather than the suit and alien being one and the same.) So while Candi herself was not the problem, her friend would have to face the problem and Candi herself could remain in mortal danger anyway.

The fact that an AI backvisor was placed on Botan the Plant-Man by Milp as a way to control him was a direct slap at Spider-Man 3. Instead of Botan willingly joining forces with Milp, he is compelled against his will. It seemed odd that Sandman, which Botan is roughly equivalent to, would be so willing to work with Venom. Candi getting Jeral and Dolly to reconcile and be friends added a layer of complication that was not possible in Ciem 3's most inspirational movie.

Comprehensive Gerosha
For the novel reboot, Dolly's actions in Ciem were more-closely examined. It was determined that her backstory needed more exploring from what little it was given in the webcomic, so as to determine what drove her to the extremes that would enable her to become the Earwig. Her naivety alone did not seem to suffice in later tellings, so she was enhanced to create a more well-rounded character. Dolly's resourcefulness was already developed; but her eagerness to shoot her way through an entire ship to get to safety with Lindsay is a trait first noticed in Ciem: Vigilante Centipede. She was willing to take a dangerous risk with dynamite to escape a prison cell in the 2007 comic, however. Yet, she was not portrayed as being particularly skilled with guns.

Aside from enhanced pragmatics, Dolly is otherwise essentially a complete carry-over from her Classic Gerosha self. Her Generation: Hot Coffee T-shirt is a badge of honor for her to wear from her brief stint as a video game nerd; rather than some random thing she got from a thrift store because it fit. And while Henry Malestrom doesn't exist in this continuity, Dolly doesn't need the thought of killing her nephew to snap her into realizing how dangerous her Earwig suit's AI really is.

Her methods of dealing with Botan were a little different in Ciem: Condemnation, which made for a less-forced ending that seemed a little less like Spider-Man 3 and more like its own thing. She was at one point even going to play a role in Ciem: Nuclear Crisis, whereas Ciem 2 Dolly was virtually non-existent.

It was planned for the Comprehensive Gerosha version of Ciem Tomorrow that she'd at one point have to resume being the Earwig, but would be decapitated in battle while getting her children to safety with Lex and Dana. This is after having, with the aid of Denny pills supplied by Candi, survived her first beheading aboard Arfaas' doomsday ship when it hovered over Evansville in Vigilante Centipede.

Cataclysmic Gerosha
Dolly was almost ground-up reimagined for Sodality. Her aggression and arrogance in the 2007 Ciem webcomic were kept mostly intact. However, she was given a slight adjustment to make her smarter. She was also re-imagined to have been born in 1996, rather than 1988 like in previous versions. Making her shorter and shedding eight years off of her canonical age made her seem more like an equal to Candi socially. It also made her young age of getting married and circumstances more shocking. The conditions under which she gets her Earwig armor were also revised, to make Darius seem more like a clueless idiot as opposed to cowardly jerk. She acts on the realization that her suit's AI is aggressive and broken sooner, rather than waiting until she becomes the female version of Musaran and needs to be saved from herself.

Dolly's Earwig suit is shown to be made of several parts that were essentially kitbashed together. A single, unified, coherent depiction of the Earwig suit has proven hard to agree on. No single incarnation of it is definitive enough. The Sims 2 used BrassTex's Mecha Warrior suit as a template. A different suit in The Sims 3 was recolored and made modest in Photoshop to create the illusion of Earwig armor, as seen in the profile image. A very different (and more generic-looking) Earwig render was also created in HeroMachine. However, the point to Dolly is that she is iconic more for who she is and what she does for the Sodality outside of her suit. The pigtails were always essential to her iconic status.