Dr. Genevieve Birch attending NYE at Top of the Standard
Viva normally doesn't do holiday things outside of her home--they're expensive, crowded, and not nearly as good as something intimate and homemade.
This year is different, however. This year, her kid is visiting, and she wants to give them the shiniest, most perfect New York City holiday season to help make up for, well, all the times she wasn't there. This effort, like most of them, are wasted on the kid as they immediately left Viva to go get wasted with other people their age.
Her outfit is deliberately outdated--she can't dress up without feeling like she's dressing up and likes to lean into that with more costume-y attire. Also the whole flapper guise is a "roaring 20s" pun--she thinks she's very clever.
A good 60% of her jewelry is death themed, but she avoids that for this NYE--it feels like bad luck to wear skulls at the birth of the new year.
[ 💍 ] does your muse have trouble committing to others? are they comfortable being this way, or would they prefer to be different?
romantically, it's not so much that she has trouble committing as she doesn't want to commit. Viva has already had one grand romance, one perfect love of her life--she doesn't need or want another. she doesn't want to go through losing another loved one
platonically, her heart is wide open. Viva is a magpie, collecting a beautiful found family of queers, weirdos, and outcasts. it's not really commitment because she doesn't expect much in return--she helps because helping feels good--but she is devoted to her people and it takes less to become one of her people than her prickly exterior would suggest
[ 💀 ] does your muse tend to blame themselves or others?
she doesn't really waste time assigning blame. Viva mostly views things as just happening and only bothers to assign agency when it leads to a clear and easy fix.
practically, this looks like her not taking responsibility for her personality flaws, but also accepting people who have done really heinous shit so long as the circumstances don't seem to line up for them to do something similar again
[ 🥀 ] what are your muse’s standards for a romantic partner? are they realistic? why do they have these standards
Viva has one romantic standard: be my dead wife. This is an impossible standard, and she likes it that way for aforementioned reasons
for casual sex partners, someone just needs to have a sense of humor, not expect anything more than a sex friendship, and for there to be mutual respect. if the vibes are right, she'll sleep with just about anyone, sometimes even men.
she's broken several hearts due to her cavalier attitude, and is always faintly confused by this. didn't she tell them that, no matter what, she wouldn't be interested in a romantic relationship? she gives flowers to all her friends!
[ 🌊 ] does your muse have any specific fears? is there a reason why they fear these things?
she has a small issue with heights, especially really tall staircases. ironically, she prefers taller buildings because of this--you get to take an elevator up.
Viva's never actually fallen down a staircase--her fear of heights is a primal thing with no intellectual rhyme or reason
[ 🧭 ] does your muse consider themselves a good person? why or why not?
this isn't something she ever thinks about. she knows she does good things, but also knows she could be doing more of them. and what even is good?
if pressed, she knows she isn't a bad person because she's seen what bad people do--homicide, corruption, indifference--and she doesn't do those things. she hasn't seen enough good to make a ruling, however
[ 🏉 ] would you say your muse lives up to their potential? are they trying to, or could they care less?
this is something she thinks a lot about. if she could do it over again, she'd probably do medicine for alive people rather than medicine for dead ones because she's just so burnt by all the corruption in the system. she thinks healing people might be a simpler, nobler pursuit than the flawed attempts she's making at justice.
she's also aware that, given the lack of properly trained medical examiners and her belief that public service is a moral good, that this might just be a case of the grass seeming greener on the other side
[ 🫀 ] does your muse make decisions with their head or their heart? perhaps a bit of both?
[ 🫀 ] does your muse make decisions with their head or their heart? perhaps a bit of both?
a decade ago, she would have said head. she was cold, logical, rational--above silly, girly things like emotions.
but now, after Heather's death... she knows head and heart aren't that separate. thinking she was a primarily rational being made her act in impulsively emotional ways and now she knows it's a false dichotomy and part of being a rational person means honoring her feelings
[ 🏛 ] does your muse have any strange interests? do they keep these interests to themselves, or are they comfortable sharing them with others?
well. given her job it's not that weird, but Viva collects taxidermy art and that tends to freak people out if they aren't prepared for it.
she has a dark/macabre sense of humor and is fairly loud about--she figures it's better to be interesting and off-putting than safe and boring
[ ⏰ ] does your muse tend to cling to the past, dream about the future, or look to the present?
she has a significant amount of unprocessed grief about the death of her wife, Heather and hasn't really been able to move on, so she's pretty firmly stuck in the past, at least emotionally speaking.
[ ⚰️ ] does your muse believe in an afterlife? if so, what do they believe the afterlife would look like?
despite looking at corpses all day, this isn't something Viva thinks a lot about. she did earlier in life, especially after Heather's death when she first started her residency in forensics, but now figures that it's impossible to know and that believing in an afterlife would make her value the life she currently has less.
Viva wants to live for the now, and believing in any sort of afterlife or reincarnation would get in the way of that
» headcanon memes inspired by things i like, part 3
inspired by little hope
send in a symbol i’ll answer the corresponding question about my muse!
[ 🫀 ] does your muse make decisions with their head or their heart? perhaps a bit of both?
[ 🏉 ] would you say your muse lives up to their potential? are they trying to, or could they care less?
[ 💥 ] is your muse protective of those they care for? if so, how do they show it?
[ 👓 ] does your muse tend to judge others, or are they more open-minded?
[ 💍 ] does your muse have trouble committing to others? are they comfortable being this way, or would they prefer to be different?
[ 🏛 ] does your muse have any strange interests? do they keep these interests to themselves, or are they comfortable sharing them with others?
[ 🧭 ] does your muse consider themselves a good person? why or why not?
[ 🚓 ] has your muse ever been arrested? if so, what for?
[ 🧬 ] how important is family to your muse?
[ 💀 ] does your muse tend to blame themselves or others?
[ 📖 ] does your muse keep a diary or journal? what do they, or would they, write in a journal?
[ 👻 ] what decisions have your muse made that they regret?
[ 🤱 ] does your muse want to have children? why or why not?
[ ⏰ ] does your muse tend to cling to the past, dream about the future, or look to the present?
[ 🚌 ] what haunts your muse? is there any event in your muse’s past that they can’t move past?
[ 🥀 ] what are your muse’s standards for a romantic partner? are they realistic? why do they have these standards?
[ 👊 ] does your muse favour nonviolence? will they be violent if needed? do they revel in violence?
[ 🩹 ] does your muse prefer to keep the peace or rock the boat? are they a mediator, or do they tend to make others upset?
[ 🌊 ] does your muse have any specific fears? is there a reason why they fear these things?
[ 🏭 ] is your muse happy with their job or career path? why or why not?
[ ✈️ ] does your muse like to travel? have they travelled in the past? where would they like to go?
[ ⚰️ ] does your muse believe in an afterlife? if so, what do they believe the afterlife would look like?
[ 🦁 ] is your muse cowardly, or courageous? what would it take for them to act heroically or selflessly?
[ 🔒 ] what are your muse’s most negative traits? how do these traits influence their lives? (ex. if a muse is aggressive, they may have trouble forming lasting friendships.)
Name: Genevieve Huệ Birch, M.D., aka Viva
Age & Birthdate: 39, born November 27th, 1984
Gender, Pronouns & Sexuality: cis woman, she/her, lesbian
Hometown: born in Sugar Land, TX but considers herself a naturalized New Yorker
Affiliation: law enforcement, non-corrupt
Job position: forensic pathologist with the NYPD
Education: bachelor’s in psych and biology, medical doctorate specializing in forensic pathology
Relationship status: widowed, in between hookups
Children: One, estranged (see wanted connections)
Positive traits: altruistic, witty, open-minded, competent, and principled
Negative traits: cynical, self-righteous, fickle, cavalier, and brusque
— BIOGRAPHY
content warning: cancer and death of a loved one
the illegitimate child of a wealthy Houston lawyer, Mark Birch, and a Vietnamese immigrant he was having an affair with. Genevieve was adopted into the Birch family when she was a toddler, after Mark and his wife, Stephanie, had trouble getting pregnant
a few years later, Stephanie and Mark were able to conceive. Genevieve did not welcome having younger siblings–she feared that this meant she was replaceable.
natural intelligence plus a terror of failure caused her to overachieve in school, always on honor roll and in the most prestigious extra curriculars. if she wasn’t perfect she was nothing and Genevieve Birch refused to be nothing. this pattern of success eventually cemented her as her father’s favorite
she discovered she was a lesbian in 9th grade and immediately became “boy crazy” to compensate for this perceived flaw. this obviously did not make her straight but the perceived promiscuity was a source of tension with her family
she fell pregnant as a senior in high school. the father of the baby wanted her to marry him and she wanted to abort. Genevieve took the middle route and gave the baby up for adoption. this is one of her greatest regrets (and also a wanted connection!)
despite her GPA slipping during her pregnancy, Genevieve graduated on time and even made it into Rice for her undergrad. she got to know and accept herself once she was away from the stifling influence of her family, and started going by Viva
Viva met a woman named Heather Kędzierski and fell head over heels–allowed herself to fall head over heels. Heather felt the same way and the two quickly moved in together
the two had grand plans after the graduated–they were going to move to NYC, Heather was going to become a world-renowned sculptor and Viva would be a wealthy doctor.
the first was easy enough–Viva got accepted into NYU med school (but not Cornell or Columbia–Viva was as devastated by the situation as Heather was amused) Heather got a security job at an art gallery and soon started selling her pieces as well
it was a beautiful life. a charmed life. Viva was able to be her full, intense self and Heather was there to soften her edges. Heather could be as raw and vulnerable as she needed to and Viva would protect her
in 2011, a month after Viva started her residency as a cardiologist and a month before New York legalized gay marriage, Heather was diagnosed with cancer. it was fast moving, terminal. Viva dropped her residency and stayed home to nurse Heather full time.
when Heather passed, Viva was broken. she didn’t want to be a doctor anymore, not when there would be patients like Heather, patients who couldn’t be healed, only comforted. against almost everyone’s advice she switched her specialty to forensic pathology. can’t grieve for dying patients when they come to you dead already
Viva’s bullheadedness and cold ambition proved to be an asset when working with the NYPD. corruption may have been an unstoppable force but Viva was an immovable object, and she quickly gained a reputation as one of the most competent and trustworthy members of the forensics department
— WANTED CONNECTIONS / PLOTS
Returning to the Prodigal Mother: Viva’s long lost kid wants go get out of Texas and move to NYC, they end up on her couch
Some Gangs Wear Badges: a criminal is murdered by the police and Viva is in charge of investigating the death. she reaches out to the criminal’s friends and confidantes for information/protection
Friend-in Law: old friends of Heather–possibly working in the media–who are horrified by the fact that Viva’s working for the cops now
You Can’t Corrupt Me: corrupt police or gang members who are trying to turn Viva to their side. she is Too Tired For Their Shit but they are persistent and a strange friendship has formed
Can I Influence You?: someone working in politics or media that Viva is desperately trying to get on her side, either by being a whistleblower or helping them campaign against corruption and for decriminalization
also just general friends, drinking buddies, hookups, etc! if you have an idea, i want to hear it
GLIMPSES OF THE PAST: a headcanon / prompt collection
because sometimes it's not enough to write about your muse's past and how it affects them, you just gotta write a little scene. these prompts are designed to be a little writing prompt related to your character's past, essentially!
send FORGED for a scene from my muse's past that they think made them stronger in the long run
send REMINDED for a scene from my muse's past in which they encountered something that reminded them of a difficult experience / trauma
send CONFESSED for a scene from my muse's past in which they revealed a secret about themselves to someone
send TRICKED for a scene from my muse's past in which they misled, tricked, or lied to someone
send IMPRESSED for a scene from my muse's past in which they tried to impress someone, successfully or not
send ACHIEVED for a scene from my muse's past in which they completed / achieved something they were proud of
send CHANGED for a scene from my muse's past that represented a turning point in their life
send DIFFERENT for a scene from my muse's past that they feel changed their outlook / personality / etc, for the better or worse
send CRITICAL for a scene from my muse's past in which they thought about / were reminded of something they're insecure about
send SCOLDED for a scene from my muse's past in which someone told them off, justifiably or not
send STRAINED for a scene from my muse's past in which they interact with someone they have a difficult relationship with
send SOBBED for a scene from my muse's past in which they broke down in tears
send LOST for a scene from my muse's past in which they felt lost, literally or figuratively
send BLINDSIDED for a scene from my muse's past in which they were betrayed or shocked by what someone did
send INJURED for a scene from my muse's past in which they sustained a significant injury
send AFRAID for a scene from my muse's past in which they were scared / under threat
send HELPED for a scene from my muse's past in which someone helped / saved them
send CAUGHT for a scene from my muse's past in which they were caught doing something they shouldn't
send BLUSHED for a scene from my muse's past in which they received a compliment that really got to them
send VICIOUS for a scene from my muse's past in which someone said something cruel that really got to them
send SWOONED for a scene from my muse's past in which they were infatuated with someone
send PINNED for a scene from my muse's past in which they were stuck somewhere, literally or figuratively
send GRIEVED for a scene from my muse's past in which they had recently lost someone / something
send MORTAL for a scene from my muse's past in which they had a brush with death, either themselves or someone close to them
Let's have a party
A party to remember
The good times it always was a pleasure
Here's hoping they find the ones who did it
A party and everyone's invited
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