Post by Tasha on Mar 1, 2007 22:35:40 GMT
NAME: Tasha Griffin.
NICKNAMES: Tash’, Griff’, or just Griffin. The most commonly used one is Tash’, and for many at the station/lab, this has become a habit.
RACE: Human.
OCCUPATION: Medical Examiner for the Los Angeles Central Community Police Station.
GENDER: Female.
SKIN COLOUR: Very light olive, and tanned.
NATIONALITY: American.
AGE: 29.
CLOTHING: Tasha is feminine, but no-nonsense. She will wear whatever is suitable and comfortable, and when she’s on the job, she wears the scrubs that keep her from contaminating potential evidence, as well as keeping her hygienic and official. If she goes out in the field, she’ll change into something businesslike but not too restricted; a pair of dark pants, or hip-fitting jeans with a blouse or neat shirt. Her colours are usually complimentary to her skin tone and dark hair and eyes; browns, beiges, white, greys and black, with the occasional deep red and dark green. She hates gaudy, loud colours like bright yellow and orange, and refuses to wear pink. She says it doesn’t suit her, and she’s not exactly wrong. In the M.E.’s Office, she’ll wear sneakers that she doesn’t mind ruining, but out in the field where her appearance needs to be more professional and presentable, she’ll wear sensibly-heeled black boots. She has a black thigh-length jacket made of cloth, and likes thin fabric scarves for a bit of decoration and personalisation.
HEIGHT: 5’6.
WEIGHT: 133lbs.
TATTOOS: She has a black ‘burning ace’ above her right ankle, on the outside of her leg.
PIERCINGS: She has pierced ears, but only wears earrings when not working around a body; she doesn’t want her studs or whatever she might be wearing to end up interfering with anything. Away from the morgue, she wears whatever takes her fancy, but never anything ridiculous.
JEWELLERY: Other than the aforementioned earrings, she has a simple silver chain that she wears with a subtle ‘tag’ pendant; she’s never exactly forthcoming with where it came from — a relative, an ex, etc — as she doesn’t think that detail is important. She doesn’t wear rings unless she’s going out for the evening. Everything she wears is silver, or platinum etc; she strongly dislikes gold.
BODY MODIFICATIONS: N/A. Tasha has been lucky enough in life to have no scars from any childhood accidents or anything else.
HAIR.[/i]
LENGTH: Just to her shoulder blades at the back, feathered and layered up around her face softly, to give it body and definition, to frame her features. At the moment, she doesn’t have bangs, but she has been considering them.
STYLE: It carries a loose, natural curl, and if she’s outside of the morgue, she’ll let it hang down; without fail, when working with a cadaver, she’ll have it pulled back into a ponytail or a twist of some kind.
COLOUR: Black.
FACIAL HAIR.[/i]
LENGTH: N/A.
STYLE: N/A.
EYES.[/i]
COLOUR: Brown.
ODDITIES: N/A.
PERSONALITY: Tasha is a dedicated, sensible, intelligent young woman with her head on straight and her career in mind. She loves her job, for all the gore and grit, and never says no to working an extra shift. She knows she is performing a service, and helping others, even if only in the process of mourning and ‘letting go’. She has a deep respect for life, which is actually what drove her into her field, and since she was a teenager, excelling in the sciences, she has known exactly what she wanted. Her focus and drive helped get her to where she is today, and she is proud of her position, and won’t take any crap for what she does.
But she isn’t all business; even when she’s on the job she has her light side, and knows when to smile and laugh, and can even, under certain circumstances, crack the odd joke and quip. It’s easier for her to find her light, easy humour when away from the deceased, and even if she’s just fetching a coffee up in the station’s break room — “invading the cops’ space”, as she puts it — she makes the switch from ‘M.E.’ to ‘Tash’’. She can easily separate work and social… even though she has dated in the workplace. Her relationship with Detective Marcus Rivera actually lasted a few months, much to a few fellow officers’ surprise, and they separated on good terms; she doesn’t like to discuss it, preferring to keep it as what it is — her business, and no one else’s. She gets along with everyone in the station, always keeping her cool and being friendly and polite. Tony Fox is one of her closest friends from the station; she views him as more of a brother than anything else, and deeply enjoys his company, trusting him to be able to reassure her and make her laugh; whichever is needed.
Like everyone, however, Tasha has her pressure points. She has a tough time working on the bodies of children; it feels like an invasion, and even though she manages to keep herself together during such cases, her composure can slip slightly. Usually, she ‘takes five’ in a side room, or slips outside for air. The abuse cases are the worst ones, and secretly, she hates getting them. But her dedication keeps her from backing out.
A creature of habit, she plays music while she works, without fail: Vienna Teng, Radiohead, The Fray — anything suitable as a bit of background noise. She keeps a selection of CDs in her locker, along with a change of clothes and other bits and pieces, and has even gone so far as to buy second copies of her favourites, so she doesn’t have to worry about leaving them ‘at the office’.
Away from work, Tasha is light-hearted, sociable and even a little cheeky, loving to hang out with friends over a beer or a movie, or even just curling up on her sofa with a good book.
WEAKNESSES: Tasha is a human, and as such, completely mortal. Any manner of diseases, wounds and injuries can kill her for a variety of reasons. She is dedicated to her job, and never willing to say no to an extra hour or two, and can sometimes pull double shifts without even meaning to; these can leave her feeling exhausted, and perhaps more than a little sluggish, but she never lets it interfere with her work. As mentioned above, child abuse cases do tend to weaken her resolve, and the more violent they are, the worse this is, but she is professional enough to not let it stop her doing her job. There was a time when she had to step away, in the past; she had an infant on her table, and couldn’t focus. That has been, to date, the only case of such a slip, and she hates talking about it. She respect personal boundaries, and doesn’t like other people sticking their nose in her business; she can get quite testy if really pushed.
ABILITIES: First and foremost, Tasha is in no way a girly-girl; she’s a Medical Examiner, and not only is she meticulous, dedicated and precise, she has a very strong stomach. She can easily stand the sight of a decapitated or mutilated body, and not lose her lunch. She knows every single bone in the human body, and is obviously an expert in biology and anatomy, as well as a whiz when it comes to chemistry; she knows her way around a lab, both of the coroner and CSI variety, though she sticks to the former. She also has an ‘unhealthy’ obsession with The X-Men, and would gladly spend a few hours chatting away about one storyline, character, plot or another, even if the other person ‘zones out’. Her compassion and sincerity make her an ideal, likely candidate whenever families need comfort; she can approach sensitive subjects delicately, and manages to keep emotional relatives from potentially lashing out or getting volatile. Tasha also speaks fluent Spanish, knows how to read sheet music and can hold her alcohol.
WEAPONS: She carries a can of mace and a personal alarm in her bag when out and about, even if she’s not alone. In her line of work, she knows naivety can lead to bad places.
PRIZED POSSESSIONS: She’s actually pretty possessive of the necklace, despite seeming nonchalant about it.
HOME(S): She has a relatively nice apartment on, unbeknownst to her, Cole Stanton’s side of Los Angeles.
HISTORY: The younger of a set of twins born into an unstable household, Tasha Griffin had something of a messy childhood. Her twin brother, Leo, was her ‘guardian angel’, and made sure to shield his sister whenever their father would lose his temper. The twins were quiet children, but the simplest things would send the man off into a rage, and when Tasha was seven, she and her mother watched, helpless and in hysterics, as Leo was viciously beaten; he died en route to the hospital, and the family were broken apart. Her father was arrested, and charged with the death of the elder twin, and when Tasha’s mother fell apart and couldn’t take care of her anymore, she was sent to live with her grandmother, aunt and cousin, Nadine.
Tasha was deeply introverted for months, not knowing what to do in her new, loving atmosphere. It was her cousin Nadine who got her to come out of her shell, treating her more like a sister than a cousin whom she had only previously seen at awkward Thanksgiving dinners and the like. She taught Tasha how to be a child, and a free-spirited one at that. Living in Chicago, they would play in the snow, having fights with the boys from across the street, building snowmen and forts when they had been buried in a heavy downpour the night before. Tasha started to appreciate how to have fun, and her grades started picking up in school, no longer frightened to do her homework for fear of being too loud or ‘secretive’.
It was in high school that she realised her love for science, specifically biology and anatomy, and she began to excel, leaping to the top of her class, acing every test and learning everything her teacher could throw at her so quickly that when parent-teacher meetings came around, they told Tasha’s aunt and grandmother that she was destined for the field of some kind; lab-work fit her so perfectly, there was never any doubt. She knew how to apply herself, and had a mind for puzzles and curiosity. When her interest turned to the work of coroners and medical examiners, a few people were surprised, somewhat, but it seemed she had her heart set on it.
And so she pushed herself, giving everything she had, sailing through exams and tests and years of education, until finally, she ended up landing her dream job. It did, however, mean leaving Chicago for the sunny state of California, but her loving family — they had always been more like a real, immediate family to her; what she had missed in her earlier years — encouraged her to seize the opportunity, and not even think for a second about wasting it. So off she went, packing her things and moving to the bustling, somewhat intimidating city of Los Angeles, where she found herself at the Central Community Police Station.
It didn’t take her long to become engrossed in the highs and lows of the world of Medical Examination, but she thrived. She started forming friendships, learning new, intriguing tricks of the trade, and before she knew it, she had landed herself a position as one of the top M.E.s in the city. But she didn’t let it go to her head. She had to work hard to get where she is today. It took her a long time to earn the trust she has built up from her colleagues, and she even had a five-month relationship with one of the Homicide Detectives she occasionally works with, on the odd case here and there. She remains good friends with Marcus Rivera after they broke off the relationship in order to concentrate on their careers — or that’s what they tell everyone — and she even manages to laugh and joke with the detective’s hardy sister, Katherine.
Tasha loves her job, and the life she has managed to pull together after the shambles that was her early childhood. She wishes it had been different, but she has seen enough to know that she wouldn’t be who she is today without what she went through.