General Profile Information.
Coming from Rockford, Illinois, Talia Mae Lopez is twenty-three years old and the first born of the Lopez triplets. She is majoring in Journalism at Columbia University for a career in Investigative Reporting. Talia is single, and identifies as bisexual, biromantic. She is a co-host on the 4Score podcast. Talia lives in a two bedroom apartment off-campus with _____. She is portrayed by the one and only Naya Rivera, and is unavailable for auditions.
+ pos. Captivating, Appreciative, Perfectionist, Selfless.
+ neg. Vindictive, Self-Indulgent, Power-Hungry, Overimaginative.
Talia tends to keep her hair long, dark, and perfectly pulled back. Since she has decided on her major, she’s known to be as professional as possible. Talia is often seen in cuffed shirts and dress pants, or modest-looking dresses. Outside of work, Talia would be considered trendy. She often shops at Brandy Melville, Urban Outfitters, Banana Republic, and so on. On a casual day, she goes for boyfriend-style light-wash denim jeans and a comfortable fitting, loose v-neck tshirt accompanied by a jean jacket. Her hair will be found loose and tousled.
Full Character Biography.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: DIVORCE, DISASSOCIATION.
Talia was born and raised in the city. While she lived in downtown Rockford through most of her school years, she commuted to Cherry Valley to attend private school. Rockford was busy. It was loud and crowded. Cherry Valley was her home away from home for twelve years of her life. It was fresh air, kind smiles, and locally owned business.
Talia comes from two loving, supportive parents. Her father is a firefighter for the Rockford Fire Department. Her mother manages a local restaurant/bar, GreenFire. When they got married, they were determined to be responsible. Immediately, they set aside a portion of their paychecks for their future children. When Elizabeth became pregnant, she was shocked to find out that she’d be welcoming not only one beautiful baby girl, but three. Even when the odds were stacked against them, Gabriel and Liz fought through it and made sure that their daughters had nothing but the best. Talia admired that about them. No matter what, they worked through everything.
When they divorced, her perspective changed. She was fourteen and just entering high school. It wasn’t something could have put on her list of expected events. Tal’s parents were never cruel to each other, as far as she knew. They kept their issues to themselves and rarely fought in front of her and her sisters. When her parents sat them down on that wet, soggy day, in their living room to share the news, she felt like the earth under the rain. Defeated, heavy, and sinking. Talia pulled away from her parents, but never enough to where it might worry them. She wanted to skip the post-divorce counseling.
Out of pure luck, they scored her and her sister’s an interview at a semi-prestigious private school in Cherry Valley, Illinois. She started there when she was eleven. In the first few years, her parents were paying her and her sister’s tuitions out of pocket. As soon as the girls were going into their freshman year, the tuition became scholarship based. Talia’s parents instilled in her the importance of education. From the time she was fourteen, Talia’s grades were nothing short of exceptional. She was on the honor roll, debate team, the Spanish honor society, the school’s varsity volleyball team, and participated in several fundraisers and volunteer events. She graduated high school as the school’s Salutatorian, with an outstanding transcript. Even in the hurt she feels toward her parents for flipping her world upside down, she knows that her love of learning comes from what they’ve taught her. And she’s forever grateful for that.
Talia kept to herself often. She had a few good friends in Cherry Valley, as well as a few good friends back in Rockford. Even if she’s only three minutes older than one of her sister’s, and four and a half minutes older than the other, she still takes her roll as ‘big sister’ seriously. Talia plays ‘mom’ in a lot of could-have-been-horrible situations. She would braid their hair back to keep it from falling in their faces when they were hugging a toilet because they had too much tequila. She would be the first to instill hope and hold them when they were sure that their world’s were coming to an end. When their parents got divorced, Talia made a promise to herself that she and her sisters would never be like them. They would never give up on each other, no matter what.
In school, Talia’s favorite subjects were history speech & debate, and economics. In an early history class, she remembers being assigned to read the newspaper and to pick a current event to summarize. That was Talia’s favorite part about Monday mornings in Mrs. Stewart’s class. She would march up to the front of the class, clear her throat, and give the class an update about what’s happening in Ghana without glancing down at her four-paragraph report. It was an adrenaline rush. It was performing - in a way. But, Talia knew she wasn’t interested in getting up and putting on a show for people. She didn’t feel the need to act in a play or sing a song for the talent show. She truly enjoyed informing everyone. She got a kick out of the way people’s eyes widened whenever she would apprise a bit of news that they either didn’t know about, or didn’t agree with. From the first day she cut out her first article - she knew she wanted to be aware of everything going on around the world.
Sunday mornings were spent on the couch with her father, the news on the television while they both skimmed through different sections of the local newspaper. Talia would watch the investigative reporters on the television with such awe. And that’s when she knew what she wanted to pursue as a career. After high school, she applied to about twenty universities. Talia knew that she would miss her home, but could not wait to experience New York first hand. When Columbia accepted her, she couldn’t contain her excitement. She was moved from Rockford and into NYC with a small U-Haul truck and her two cats. It was lonely the first few years, but she learned to love the independence.
The divorce of her parents still haunts Talia. On the outside, she never let it show. She saw both of her parents equally. Her grades didn’t falter, she kept in touch with all of her friends, and she only cried in the shower, when the water hitting the bottom of the tub drowned the noise. It was an internal struggle, but she busied herself. That way, she didn’t have time to sort out how she was feeling. When she’s upset, it doesn’t show. She’s known to be calm, cool, and collected. The divorce shut her off and disconnected her from her emotions. In college, the off switch is a great tool at parties. If Talia was upset enough, she’d get drunk enough to flip the switch and sleep with whoever, without feeling a single pang of regret. She didn’t do well in relationships. If someone was too close for too long, she’d lose interest and call it off a week later. Commitment didn’t sit right with her. After the divorce, it didn’t have meaning. Talia didn’t want to waste her time to fall in love with someone, only to reproduce and make life harder by splitting up rather than sticking to our vows and fighting for what we’ve worked for. It was a waste of time, which landed Talia in some sticky situations. She’s hooked up with her fair share of people. It’s a way to validate her opinion on relationships, and she puts it like this: “I’m fulfilling my needs and getting the hell out of there before I get neck-breathed on by some chick named Mia. I don’t need someone to ask my how my day is going, I already know how it’s going. I like the idea of someone that’s a ‘sometimes’. I don’t need anyone, but if I want you around, you’re there and you leave when we’re done. It’s perfect.”
Talia enjoys being active. In high school, she played volleyball. Even in college, she participated in a few amateur evens - like PowderPuff. She tried to make sure she exercised regularly, and promised herself that, since watching the SuperSize Me documentary, she would never eat anything that wasn’t non-gmo or organic. While she bends the rules somewhat with that promise, she still stays pretty true to maintaining her clean eating habits.
Before Christmas, she had just graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree. Now, she’s back to school as a journalism grad student. She lives in Upper Manhattan, and thanks to one of her communications instructor’s, she snagged a job as an intern at NBC News. At this point, it’s all behind the scenes and intern-y leg work, but she’s grateful for the experience and knows that it’s where she’s mean to be and also, where she has to start off. She lives in a small two-bedroom apartment with a roommate that she has a love-hate relationship with. Other tenants of the apartment include Sparrow and Todd, her two cats. The biggest goal for Talia is to continue to move up in her professional life, but to also make sure her personal life is getting some love, too. She makes sure to allow herself to have some fun during the week, and especially the weekend. Saturday night’s can be spent going out with friends to have a drink, and one night a week every two weeks, she gets to sit down with her podcast group. She never thought she’d find a group of people her age that were as into politics and world news as she was, but she is grateful to be able to discuss issues from different, intellectual points of view. Life is, and has been, unpredictable, but she’s taking it all as it comes. That’s all she’s ever known.
Out of Character Information.
Played by: Bri. She/Her. 21 years old. Eastern Timezone.
Anti-Ships: Talia/No Chemistry.