Post by Gemma McCarthy on Apr 29, 2011 9:27:14 GMT -6
Gemma Elizabeth McCarthy
Baby take a seat, eyes on me, this is my show
Your one and only pleasure
All decked in lace and leather
Fantasy, courtesy... on me, baby let's go
Watch me apply the pressure
All decked in lace and leather
Full Name: Gemma Elizabeth McCarthy
Nicknames: ‘Mama,’ ‘Jewel Cakes,’ ‘Flatfoot’
Physical Age: 29
Date of Birth: May 13th, 1981
Hometown: All over
Current Residence: New Orleans
Occupation: Ex-Beat Cop, Private Investigator, Sometime employee of Montegue Inc. and Squire to Brom Fenrisulfr
Relationship Status: Single
Character Type: Unique
Affiliations: Good
Gender: Female
Hair: Normally a curly blond mess that is only tamed with a sturdy hair piece and a couple monster-hair ties.
Eyes: According to Gemma, they’re “cloudy-day gray. Mess with me and I’ll ruin your day.”
Height: 5’4”
Weight: 150 lb
Body Type: Known as ‘the short girl’ for most of her life, it has been Gemma’s goal to make up for her lack of height with the physique of a runner and a fighter.
Best Feature: Her sense of humor.
Worst Feature: Her quick, cutting tongue.
Sexuality: Straight
Personal Style: As a woman used to being on the streets both late at night and during the busiest parts of the day, Gemma will always be found wearing comfortable shoes, loose slacks and collared shirts. Matching professional with practical; that’s her in a nutshell.
Face Claim: Sophia Myles
Abilities: Thanks to a mother that she doesn’t know—or so her father says—Gemma has the ability to find things, whether it be people or inanimate objects. If it has a pulse or takes up corporeal space, Gemma can find it like a pigeon can find a piece of stale bread in a busy street.
Personality:
Cynical and sarcastic as the day is long, Gemma prides herself on having the sharpest tongue in the business. She’s street savvy, likes to think that nothing gets by her, and has the strange tendency to challenge random he-men for shits and giggles. Her sense of humor is dark, bordering on the disgustingly morbid, and she tends to speak before thinking.
At the same time, she is a very loyal, very protective woman who would rather have her thumbs cut off than to let a job go unfinished, especially when said jobs concern missing children. Because of some event in her past, she can become easily obsessed over her cases and goes back and forth from being an eternal insomniac-bitch, to a well rested angel.
Likes: (At least 4)
• Children
• Mysteries
• Documentaries
• A good sparring match
Dislikes:
• Stupid cases; what does she care if some random exec is cheating on his wife?
• Stupid people
• Being told to be quiet
• Her own ego
Strengths:
• Has a mind like a whip
• Can coax information out of Buckingham Palace guard
• Can find anything or anyone
• Packs a punch
Weaknesses: (At least 4)
• Resembles a munchkin
• Her ego
• Hard whiskey
• Being challenged
Mother: Unknown
Father: Captain Jack McCarthy
Siblings: N/A
Others: N/A
Bio:
From the moment that she held a non-baby-ish thought, Gemma knew that she was different from those around her. First off, she was smaller than the average bear- oh, to be the arm rest of everyone in her graduating high school class- she actually had a mind of her own, which cost her more than a few boyfriends, and wasn’t afraid to make her way in the world.
Which was pretty easy, given that her father’s profession basically forced her to see the world.
As a military man, Jack McCarthy dragged his daughter from state to state, high school to high school, life to life. For a long time, Gemma resented the upheaval of her little world every year or so, even going so far as to declare herself an emancipated minor. The papers never got signed, so she stayed within her father’s house, but the war was definitely ongoing between Jack and his daughter.
Things weren’t made much better with the lack of a woman in the house. According to the Captain, Mama McCarthy had up and ran away when her baby girl was born. Nobody, Jack included, knew exactly why, and Gemma proceeded to use the next eighteen years of her life as a jumping board for all kinds of lies and fantasies about the missing woman. Was her mother making a new life for herself, so that she could come and rescue her daughter? Was she an heiress? Had she been kidnapped? Abducted by aliens? A spy?
Either way, the fiery teenager never failed to make her father’s life a living hell; using her inherited independent streak to bring trouble to every town that they settled in.
Then, eight year old Jenny Mathers disappeared one wintery Saturday, and everything changed.
The posters were up all over the little Michigan town, and the sounds of rescue dogs echoed through the quiet streets. Almost everyone was outside in the woods near the child’s house, yelling out their name and carrying blankets for her imminent rescue. Even ‘ol Jack was doing the walk with his fellow townspeople, going so far as to call in a few army buddies into the search.
Gemma, on the other hand, was breaking into the Mathers’ under-construction basement with a crowbar and some energy bars. While the townspeople took a full day to declare Jenny dead, little McCarthy took an hour to prove them otherwise.
It was this feeling; this elation that brought Gemma into the life that she lives today. After seeing little Jenny caught up in her parents’ arms, she knew what she wanted to do with her future, and threw herself into it with the abandon of the McCarthy line.
She joined the Chicago PD when she was old enough to get away from her father, and happily used her gift to help clean up the growing city's streets. But her career didn't last long, as a certain need to help fix things accompanied her ability to find the lost. A man named Harry Vogul captured her heart, claiming to have been wrongly implicated in a string of prostitute murders. There was nothing but circumstantial evidence, he claimed, and with an ease that shocked her future self, wrapped her around his little finger. She'd covered for him, stood up for him, beaten a reporter half to death in 'defense' of him...
And later found out that he'd murdered two women while she lied about his whereabouts. If not for her father, she would have been thrown in prison right along with the lying scumbag, Harry. She lost her badge, her reputation, her livelihood and, also if not for her meddling father, she would have lost her life.
Five years later and still trying to piece together her shattered life, Gemma McCarthy is the proud owner of Mysteries Inc., a private detective firm owned and operated by herself. She specializes in missing persons cases, aiding the police- when they deem it necessary to speak to her- and various other security companies in their investigations. She picks her cases with her ever-so-shrude mind, doesn’t hesitate to tell those angry at being in the ‘go away’ pile to go to hell, and prides herself in having only one goal in life:
Bringing families together. Dead or alive.
And speaking of death and families, along with her jaunts with the local New Orleans PD on missing persons cases, Gemma has also been informed that she comes from a very long line of 'Squires,' or guardians certain somebodies in the supernatural world. She has no idea what her father's gotten herself into, but one thing's for sure: she doesn't like it.
RP Sample:
"Whada we have here, boys?" Putting on her best 'Brooklyn brogue', Arry strolled onto the crime scene, flashing the makeshift badge she'd put together from the credentials recieved her first day on the job. Even after six months of working beside Dr. Ross- Micky Ross; the Chief's 'go to guy' and hands down one of the most respected men she'd met so far- the local detectives loved to play stupid about her 'unnatural' position. It was the in thing, supposedly; pretending that the crazy woman standing behind the nice officers belonged in a straight jacket instead of hip deep in dirty water staring down at a corpse.
Really. Some people, right?
"Another floater," Her boss answered. Tall, dark and handsome, Ross was really a dream come true. He was courteous, honest, brilliant, and really, if he'd ever given her any hints, she'd be all over him like flies on a peanut butter sandwich. But, like most things in her life, it just wasn't meant to be.
The man just HAD to go and bat for the other team. Sure, it wasn't a well known fact- frowned upon, just like her...which was probably why they got on so well- but it was still annoying.
"Really? This' the third one this week!" Slipping out of her sandals, she waded barefoot into the stream, almost perversely enjoying the shocked stares she was getting from the suits around her. "What is this? Bring out your dead and throw 'em into the nearest river?"
"Well, whatever it is, it's stirring up the locals. What do you think the COD is, Miss Valerian?" Ross asked, never pausing from his preliminary inspection.
Standing on her toes, she looked over her boss' shoulder. "Strangulation. There's ligature marks around the neck...which means out guy was dead before he was thrown into the river." Which also matched the MO of the other victims. Hmm. Interesting.
Back and forth went the question and answer- Ross took the 'assistant' part of her job description to the extreme- and for the next forty minutes, she helped bag and tag, obtain evidence, and talk to the other detectives. Twenty-four hours later found our little Arry working quite hard in the morgue, her face pressed up close to the once lively man's liver, blinking at the water saturated organ with a very surprised look on her face as she tried to piece together the new 'job' her boss' superiors had lined up just for her.
"You want me to pretend to be a singer." She repeated. One gloved finger poked at the liver, and she swooped over to the clipboard next to her, scribbling her findings down.
"That's right."
More scribbling. "In one of our city's most notorious gangster's clubs."
"Right again, Miss Valerian."
Another poke. "And see if he's the killer."
"100%, as usual."
Straightening, she blinked at her boss and the officers flanking him, frowned down at the bloated face of the body next to her and proceeded to run out of the room.
Which only served to make her superiors mad.
It seemed that the local assistant ME was going undercover. Oh joy.
