Post by Ophelia on Mar 7, 2007 0:14:55 GMT
Name: Ophelia Ellis Stone.
Nicknames: There aren't many ways to shorten 'Ophelia', the most common is 'Phee' which is a lot less of a mouthful than her full name and the one she normally goes by around friends. At the precinct it's common for her to just go by 'Stone'.
Race: Human.
Occupation: Vice Division Detective.
Gender: Female.
Skin Color: Caucasian; very fair.
Age: 34.
Clothing: Partially because of working in a male dominated department, and partly due to her own preference and need for mobility Ophelia opts for pant suits exclusively for work. She is always smart and presentable and even 'tough' looking. As a Vice Cop she is often on the move throughout the city and while flat, comfortable shoes are a must she doesn't like sneakers and refuses to wear them. She'll lean away from black suits day in and day out because she doesn't like to 'look like an undertaker', or feel like one for that matter so they tend to vary into greys and navy blues. Outside of work she's pretty average in terms of style; she likes jeans and t-shirts, practical outfits with a feminine edge to them.
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 133lbs.
Tattoos: None.
Piercings: Ophelia has her ears pierced once.
Jewellery: When she's working, she tends not to wear jewellery at all other than a watch and stud earring; long/dangly earrings and necklaces get in the way and she tends to lose pieces. Without anything of particular significance, she will usually wear something that accentuates an outfit if she's dressing up for some reason.
Body Modifications: Ophelia was shot in the left shoulder and has a rather impressively small scar from the incident, the injury hasn't led to much muscle damage thankfully but the scar is obviously visible and obvious in its origins when she chooses to wear tank tops for instance.
Ophelia's Watch
Hair
Length: Long, reaching approximately mid back.
Style: Being serious and professional about her job, Ophelia always keeps her hair tied up while she's working. Though the shorter layers are almost always escaping the bindings and the half fringe she has at the front they serve to soften her features and add femininity to her work image. When not working she will happily wear it loose where it hangs straight down her spine.
Color: Blonde, with natural highlights.
Facial Hair
Length: N/A
Style: N/A
Eyes
Color: Green/Grey.
Oddities: N/A
Personality: Ophelia has a dry, even dark sense of humour that has been with her since childhood and only accentuated with her years as part of the LAPD. As one would expect she's something of a hard nut to crack, she has to be in the largely male dominated sector of the force and with the things she deals with on a day to day basis. At the same time though, she is always open to forming friendships with people working the same side as her and is generally able to slip in and out of her 'game face' when it's appropriate.
For a cop she's actually a very balanced individual, she doesn't work too hard, and she definitely knows how to have a good time and kick back. She takes the gritty, dirty world of organized crime and all the nasty branches that come with it in her stride; Ophelia has an iron stomach for that sort of thing, she's seen a lot and though she wouldn't say nothing shocks her any more, she'd bet there was very little out there that would. She has accepted the capacity humans have for inflicting pain and destroying lives and has some to sincerely revile it; she has a dim view of criminals and can lean towards being a little bit black and white about it on occasion, though she does try to remain objective as much as possible. She is good with families, has a good personal rapport with people but on occasion has a difficult time dealing with younger sisters. She trusts her partner and good friend to keep her in the lines of propriety when it comes to those situations.
Ophelia comes from 'Blue Blood' and that is perhaps one of the reasons she is so inherently dedicated to her job and so intent on doing it well. She has a great respect for the law and wants to live up to the image she has of her father in up keeping it; she wants to know that what she is doing would make him proud. She is loyal to a fault when it comes to her fellow officers ad treats the force very much like a second family, Ophelia would drop everything to help someone in that family out of a jam andshe takes a very dim view of those who don't give the camaraderie the full respect it deserves. If one of 'her own' is in trouble she sees it as an almost personal attack, physcally or otherwise, and in such situations she will become very defensive and terse.
Beneath the surface there is something of the idealistic about Ophelia; she has very specific reasons for going into the Vice Division and isn't ashamed of them. She believes that one person can make a difference and it's her duty to do as much as she can with the time and abilities she has.
Weaknesses: Ophelia is completely mortal so any number of human diseases and/or wounds can potentially kill her. She was in a minor car accident as a child and her left ankle has been a problem for her ever since them. The ligament is weak, making it easy to twist and/or sprain it should she go over on it. This makes running when not absolutely necessary something the Detective tries to stay away form; the last thing she needs is to be hindered in her work.
Her sister, Bianca, is frankly one of her major emotional weaknesses. Ophelia is, in her own words, constantly cleaning up after her and one of the major reasons she left Philadelphia was because she felt a need to just be away from the negativity of her family. She is always worrying that her sister is going to burst back into her life at the drop of a hat with another sob story and another relationship on the rocks. Like every other time, no matter how much she tells herself that she's not going to pick up the pieces, she always does; at the end of the day she loves her sister. It just takes a lot for it to show. This in turn has an impact on her ability to deal with the younger sisters in cases she works, and is frankly something beyond her control try as she might to overcome it.
Abilities: Having gone through detective training and the regulation years as a uniformed officer, Ophelia has access to all the skills that have been engrained in her over the years: accuracy with a firearm, knowledge of hand-to-hand and self defence as well as the typical training in criminology and procedure. She is also street smart and knows Los Angeles like the back of her hand, the districts her work takes her to the most at least.
To cap it off, she's rather fond of tinkering with engines, especially those of older cars like her MG and if she's not in her apartment it's a good bet she's in the parking garage with her car and a toolbox. She makes a mean Stir Fry, has a poker face akin to her name and had been known to happily take money at the odd game of pool.
Weapons: Detective Stone has a police issue GLOCK. 22 which she wears on her hip at all times when on duty. Her personal fire arm is a Smith & Wesson double-action .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol, she doesn't tend to carry it while working, keeping both weapons well and truly independent of one another.
GLOCK. 22.
Smith & Wesson 45.
Prized Possessions: Most importantly Ophelia has her Dad's old shield from his uniform and keeps it safe in her apartment along with photographs of him with his police buddies which she proudly displays in an almost shrine like setting. She loves her car, a 1972 MG Midget in metallic blue and Peaches; her cat.
1972 MG
Peaches
Home(s): An apartment in Building C on Cole's side of town, though she is unaware of the fact.
History: Ophelia Ellis Stone (named after Shakespeare's Hamlet) was born into a family of oddballs and had little hope of ending up 'normal' from the beginning. Her mother, Yvette, was and is an actress and both her daughters thank that profession for their somewhat unconventional names. Her sister Bianca, (named after Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew) is seven years younger and has always been the rebellious one in the family. Once in her late teens she began to resent Ophelia's following of their father's footsteps openly, not understanding her sister or her desire to become a police officer. She was much more her mother's daughter, a little eccentric and flighty even; quick to fall in and out of love. As the girls progressed through their twenties they grew progressively apart, their personalities shifting to opposite ends of the scale.
They spent their childhoods in the Devil's Pocket district of South Philadelphia. Most of the areas Ophelia frequented as a kid weren't the type of places a parent would like to think their child had to play. Overrun with bookmaking and prostitution and other unsavoury activities, it was common for kids to be mature before their time whether that was for better or worse. In the elder Stone sibling's case, she always had her wits about her and knew that the things going on around her were highly illegal and actually disgusting to her. Once Ophelia discovered which department of the Police Force these activities fell under she knew that was where she wanted to work, to put a stop to the stuff she and her friends had been haphazardly exposed to.
Perhaps the most influential person in her early life therefore was her father, Devin Stone. He spent his life as a beat cop in Philadelphia, apparently contented in walking the streets rather than try for the detective status that his daughter had always known she'd wanted. He kept the more distasteful figures of the city 'safe' while they worked their corners and kept an eye on the neighbourhood kids. It was a small comfort to the family that he was killed 'in the line of duty'. Working a notoriously dangerous beat he was caught up in a drive by shooting and didn't even survive the ride to the Hospital. He was hailed as a hero, having been attempting to get a young man to safety when the shots had started ringing out through the open basket ball court.
At eighteen, the loss of her father and role model only solidified Ophelia's determination to get into the force and become a detective. She was aiming high and despite her mother's lack of support and even occasional attempts to dissuade her from her aims, she remained solid and driven. She moved as soon as she was ready to begin her police training which she wanted to do in LA, what was essentially the birth place of the Vice Division as a whole and the source of many of the branches of organized crime that connected to her home town. She was keen to kill the heart of the 'monster' by working in LA, rather than chopping off one of its many ugly heads on the sidelines of Philly.
Ophelia lives alone, except for her cat, in a respectable apartment on what is Cole's side of town, though she's unaware of the fact. Her sister has appeared on the doorstep more then once and though she loves Bianca dearly the two of them in the same room as been described as "explosive" before; they can be anything from snappy to downright mean to one another. She divides her time as equally between work and play as she can and is generally contented to be going from day to day into the comfortable routine she has settled into.