NAME AND AGE: Marley Rossum & 33
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Female, She/Her
ORIGIN: Upper Manhattan, New York, USA
OCCUPATION: Behavioral Analyst/Interrogation Specialist // LIAISON
FACECLAIM: AJ Cook
QUOTE: “People interest me, conversations don’t. ”
STATUS: Taken.
They say everyone is lonely sometimes, but Marley was lonely all the time. Growing up in a household where neglect was the number one mode of communication, it bred her to be mistrusting, isolated, and hardened. After her older sister’s sudden death due to SIDS, her parents both became distant and cold, at best. They didn’t dress her or feed her or take her to school field trips. Marley became so closed off, proper socialization flew out the window. She grew up believing she only had herself and she could only rely on herself. Everyone else was simply out to hurt her. It was because of this that she began learning how to read people. She’d always had an innate sense of it, to tell when people were lying, what people were thinking. Soon, she was able to tell almost everything about a person just by watching them for a minute or two. Studying their speech patterns, their ticks, their behaviors. And with this, she learned she could get whatever she wanted out of anybody she wanted. Food, money, sex– anything. The world was her oyster.
After an incident when she was 13, and the only woman who had ever shown her any sense of compassion was killed in a shooting, Marley decided she wasn’t going to let this happen to anyone else. She’d catch the real evil doers, even if she had to skirt the rules and upright moral standards to do it. Who needed morals, anyway? Cici– a prostitute she had cleverly hired to act as her mom at a school conference, in order to keep Social Services off her case– was killed in the street by a man trying to solicit from her after she refused. The police said it was a cold case and that there was no way to find the killer, and this is what drove Marley to become a detective.
Marley chose to go to NYU, literally all the way across the country from her parents’ hometown, and for good reason. It had one of the best Criminal Justice programs in the country and the NYPD was the most glorified police job. Plenty of murderers here to catch. She remained a closed off, cold, and judgemental person all throughout college. Sex and alcohol were her favorite things, with everyone and anyone. But relationships seemed worthless, when she could already predict exactly who they were and how it would go, so– they never happened. It also didn’t help that she seemed to have trouble empathizing with others, understanding their plights and emotions. She knew the technical term– sociopath– but she’d never use it outloud. She was made this way by her situation, and nothing more.
Despite her lack of socialization, she excelled at the academy. She was rigid, hard working, and determined, and she became a detective within six months of graduating. One of the youngest around, though she was a tad disappointed she wasn’t the youngest ever. Win some, lose some. But even on into her adult life, she remained distant from others, including her peers and co-workers, who weren’t quite convinced of her ability in the first place, as an “official” interrogative tactic. Marley didn’t need their approval, though. And who needed friends when you could just manipulate them into doing what you wanted, anyway? People were so easy to read. It was almost getting boring.
When the outbreak began, Marley was out at her usual bar, enjoying a drink and the company of a very beautiful and very drunk girl. Big cities were always affected first, and affected the most. Newly infected began swarming the streets, and Marley had no problem abandoning her company at the bar for her own safety. Though certified to carry one, she had left her handgun back at her loft and only had her police grade tazer on her. It proved effective enough to get her home to her secluded apartment, and barricaded herself in for the night. But she knew she couldn’t stay in the city– she was a realist, a survivalist. If it was some sort of infection, like the TV said before all the electricity in the building went off, then she needed to get out of the city. And fast.
She managed to get out before the real shitstorm hit and cars upon cars started piling up on the bridges. People jumping off as infected raided the streets, people driving into each other in their haste and panic. Idiots, was all Marley thought, as she broke free from the city and found herself driving out into the open. Alone. For the first time in her life, she felt afraid that she was alone. She wasn’t equipped to survive something like this. But that didn’t mean she was going to quit. Her life meant something to her– she’d worked hard to survive in this world, she wasn’t going to stop now. Then again, what good were her abilities– her specialty– in a world where humanity was diminishing?
So she just drove. Drove and drove and drove until her car puttered, empty of gas. Then she rummaged what she could find in other cars, abandoned along the street, and kept walking. Hiding at night, traveling light and fast during the day. She was weary and almost at her end when a car was coming towards her in the distance. At first, she figured she was hallucinating. But when the car stopped a few feet from her and three people climbed out, she knew it was real. People. She was so happy to see people! That was a first, and in this brave new world, she figured it wouldn’t be the last. Maybe a new world meant it was a time for a new Marley…Maybe.
Connor: Psychologists stick together, right? Well, Marley might not be a real psychologist, but she sure as hell took enough psych courses in college to qualify as one. Only makes sense. She likes to heckle Connor a lot, but deep down, she admires his ability to get inside the human mind.
Rhea: Along the same lines, detective meet detective. To some, it might seem like they’d be competition, but Marley isn’t worried about that– she is the best, after all. But hey– trying the whole friends thing is worth a shot, right? She doesn’t share a lot, but Rhea always seems easy to talk to.
kianamaiart
snowghoul
pixelskylines
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
gracieabrams
