Penelope Garcia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
omnisciently) wrote2012-11-17 06:45 pm
omnisciently) wrote2012-11-17 06:45 pm
Ariel App- WIP
□ OOC □
□ Name: Sera
□ Age: 26
□ Contact: draconic.saraph@gmail.com or PM
□ Journal: draconicseraphim
□ IC □
□ Name: Penelope Garcia
□ Series: Criminal Minds
□ Canon point: End of season 7, just after JJ's wedding.
□ History:
My parents were hippies. I think it horrified them.”
Penelope grew up in a normal, loving household in San Francisco. Her parents doted on her and life was good. Her mom divorced when she was young but her step-father formally adopted her, giving her the name Garcia. She is comfortable enough with it that she must have been young but old enough to have seen the changes the new husband had on her mother. She loved them both dearly though, even if the marriage made her no longer an only child but instead the only girl with four brothers and a vast age gap between them. She appears to have taken dance lessons as a child, specifically ballet, and held a fondness for off the wall things from a young age. She is a fan of things like Dr. Who and Star Trek, plays MMORPGs, and dyes her hair wild colors even as a teenager. She's involved in theater and has a love of old films, comic books, and noir romance. She's brilliant and kind of a dork but the kind of dork that takes pride in her oddities and doesn't let anyone get her down.
Penelope was a bit of a wild child when she graduated high school, which it is implied she did a year early. She began taking classes at Cal-Tech and was enrolled there while only being barely 18. She stayed out a lot, partied, had a lot of fun. She was home for break, most likely for Christmas judging by er recounting of the weather. One night she was out past her curfew, for the second time that week, and her parents had gone out looking for her. She didn't get home until nearly 3am and shortly after she got a call that her parents' car had been struck by a drunk driver. They both died in the accident, leaving Penelope alone.
After that she dropped out of school, lived underground, immersed herself in goth culture, and built a name for herself as a hacker. Even without the traditional means of education she was soon on a list for the FBI, something more exclusive than even a watch list. She was among one of a handful of people that the FBI considered to be a potential asset... or a menace. She got herself in a lot of trouble, hacking into the CIA database for information on conspiracy theories for one thing, but was eventually caught and offered a job.
Working for the FBI changes her life, turns it around, gives her a purpose again. Working with the BAU gives her a family again for the first time in a long time and Garcia becomes the heart and soul of the team. She is everyone's best friend and shoulder to cry on. She reminds them of the good things in life and makes everyone smile despite the hell they go through day in and day out.
Her Wiki gives more details on the exact events of the series.
□ Personality:
Derek, if I lose faith in that then nothing in my life makes sense.”
Penelope is an almost painfully optimistic person, a fact which is even more impressive considering the things she sees every day in her work. She is constantly faced with the darkest things humanity has to offer and at the end of the day she still comes out of it knowing and whole-heartedly believing that there is still good in the world, still joy to be had. Which is why she does her best to be part of that good. She volunteers to counsel grieving families that have been victims of crime and running a survivor's support group.
I can’t know that those familes are out there trying to cope and not do something to help.”
She is a very emotional person and she is proud of that fact. It can make her job even harder on her than it is on the others sometimes and she is seen breaking down in tears a few times watching surveillance or videos that she has to analyze. She's been known to get emotional a few times with her boss and even with his boss once. Partially this is due to her sensitive nature but largely it is because of the strength of her feelings for her team. They work long days, sometimes being in the office for 14 hours a day even when they're not on a case and when they are there is no such thing as the end of a shift.
I’m scared Derek. I don’t wanna lose who I am just so I can do this job.”
I know you see that, don’t you?”
You see the beauty in everything and everyone no matter where you go.
That part of you is never gonna change and I won’t let it.”
Because of the sheer volume of time they spend together and the nature of what they do the entire team is very close. To Penelope the team is her family. They are the most important thing in her life. Her best friends and people that she can't stand to see hurt. Which only makes it harder knowing that every time they go on a case they are putting themselves in danger. There are a number of times when members of the team are in life and death situations and that wrecks her every time. Work can be an emotional roller coaster for her but she does everything in her power to make sure they all get back safely and that she doesn't cry in front of Hotch too much.
Every time you guys go away, I- I know you’re in all kinds of ginormous danger,
and all I can do is sit here in my bubble,
and I hope and I pray and I will my babies to come back to me.
I try to stay positive, but I don’t know how to do this."
Staying positive is possibly her greatest talent. She knows the bad things are out there but she has a streak of naivete. It's not an ignorant kind of naivete though, it is a sheer determination of will power that she refuses to believe that evil can triumph over good. She is quite possibly the only adult in the world that actually believes in The Power of Friendship. Because her friends are her world and she will do anything for them. They have beaten insurmountable odds to bring everyone home safe time and again.
Hotch asked me to try all your numbers, but this is an old listing and you probably don’t even use it anymore,
but if it is you and you're out there come home please.
God Emily, what did you think that we would just let you walk out of our lives?
I am so furious right now!
But then I think about how scared you must be in some dark place all alone,
but you’re not alone okay?!
You are not alone: we are in that dark place with you!
We are waving flashlights and calling your name so if you can see us, come home.
But if you can’t then, then you stay alive because we’re coming.”
She might be good at staying positive but no one is perfect. It doesn't happen often but Garcia loses her way sometimes too. When monumentally bad things happen in her life she reacts with the same amount of emotion as she does with everything else. When she was younger, after her parents died, she turned her entire life upside down. She threw away everything she had going for her, dropped out of school, buried herself in cyberspace and underground goth culture so she didn't have to face reality, face what she ultimately believed was her fault. She's grown up a lot since then but she still doesn't handle things well, neatly or cleanly. Especially if she believes it's her fault. Emily's loss hits her incredibly hard but she can look at it through the rose colored glasses she sees everything through.
Like you.
Somehow you... you always make me smile and...
I don't think I've ever thanked you for that."
Though she does not break as easily as she did when she was 18 there are still lasting scars from the loss of her parents. They were very, very close and without them she was lost. It's never said what happened to her real father, only that her last name is from her step-father. Even so she was devastated when they died, though after seeing what happened to her mom and later to both of them. After what she dealt with and the things she hears from the people in her survivors group she is terrified of letting people get too close to her. She seeks people out, constantly tries to make others' lives better... but when it comes to a serious commitment she's so afraid of losing the people closest to her that she panics when her long time boyfriend starts hinting around about them getting married. She's seen and felt first hand what it does to a person when they lose the one thing they can't afford to lose... and she never wants to be there again. She might not survive it a second time.
And you give and you compromise and then people change and then...
Somebody goes away and you're left empty. And I don't want that.
I don't wanna be empty.”
Despite all the pain and loss and fear her work brings to her though, she never breaks completely. She never loses everything that makes her the bright, bubbly, ball of cheer that she is, that her team needs her to be. She is a direct contrast to everyone else, always full of life and color, bending rules and being unprofessional most times. That's how she likes things, though. She likes being different, being more than what people expect. In a way Rossi is right, she wears her individuality as a shield. It makes her braver, more confident, more capable. She is the kind of person that takes steps to make herself comfortable anywhere and when she is not it affects her ability to concentrate and do her job.
I realised then that you were unique.
And I wouldn’t want you to change that."
And at the end of the day, no matter who it is, she pours her heart into making things better for as many people as she possibly can. Even when that means doing something not strictly legal or pushing herself to conquer fears and reach past her own limitations. She may not be as physically or even emotionally strong as the rest of her team but she is invaluable to them and hers is a subtler kind of strength, a strength of heart that, cheesy though it may sound, is the thing that gets all of them through the day.
"the last thing I'm ever gonna see in this life is the man who killed me",
and I couldn't let that happen to him.
He had to see something good before he died.”
□ Age: 34
□ Gender: Female
□ Appearance:
She wears her individuality like a shield.”
Penelope is a very unique woman. Her attire tends to be rather crazy and over the top. Her hair is rarely one solid color. It is most often a blond base but she has had pink, blue, black, and purple highlights and streaks over the years. She was a redhead for almost a full year as well, a bright fiery, distinctly unnatural red as a matter of fact. She always wears bright colors and loud patterns, big necklaces, plenty of sparkles, feathered hair accessories... she makes herself stand out. She is a very unique woman and she wears that in her attire every day. Her style is bright, fun, and joyous, full of color and life which says a lot about her as a person as well.
Garcia is fairly short and a bit heavy but she is shown to be very precise about what she eats and it is suggested that she tends to hold to a primarily vegetarian diet, though she does make exceptions. So she is healthy but is still heavier than the modern ideal woman and that is another testament to her individuality. It is also something of a defense mechanism because women like her are not the types attacked by the people she spends her days tracking down with the team.
□ Abilities/Powers: Garcia is a normal human being. She has no special powers, though she would insist that her abilities are in the realm of superpowers. Garcia is a Technical Analyst for the FBI, a glorified hacker. She was recruited because of her skills with computers. Her entire system runs on a linux based system that she coded herself, nearly every program she runs is home made. Her system is built from scratch and even her long time boyfriend (and fellow Tech Analyst) can not quite follow all of what she's done. She claims to be a genius and while she is not quite Reid's caliber she is quite intelligent and has given the boy wonder a run for his money a few times. Aside from a heart of gold and some super sleuthing skills though she is a pretty normal.
□ Personal Items:Her go-bag which consists of clothes and supplies for a couple days. Which, considering how extensive some of her outfits are, can be quite a lot between her accessories and makeup kit. She also has at the bare minimum one laptop, her tablet, 3 cellphones, 2 headsets, an external drive, and all of the required cords for all of this. She also carries any number of small plastic figurines, fluffy pens, googly-eyed creatures, toys and god knows what else to "make a space her own".
I understand a lot of her equipment won't be functional until she reaches a higher level but, doing what she does, would it be possible for her to rebuild some stuff from disassembling older, crappier systems? Also would the blocks on her equipment be based in hardware or software?
□ First Person Sample:
[The image that comes on is of utter disarray. The floor of what looks to be the living room of one of the small apartments given to the new inhabitants is strewn with disassembled electronics, tools, wires, and a collection of brightly colored little figurines. A screwdriver goes skittering across the floor with a huff of frustration and topples over a small pink plastic cat.]
Oh! I’m sorry kitty. [A soft feminine voice murmurs before she’s speaking with purpose, swift and determined.] Okay so I get that they’re not exactly forthcoming with the technology here but I would appreciate an upgrade from 1970 any day now. I can’t work like this!
[Another huff and then she’s dragging her laptop onto her lap though she doesn’t open it, just strokes a hand over it as though it’s some kind of security blanket.] That said I was really hoping somebody has some kind of information on who all is here, databases of original towns, dates of abductions, something. We’re keeping track of everyone that’s been brought into this city right? I mean if there isn’t some kind of established census then we’re just taking these people’s words for it and I’m sorry I am not willing to accept that. People are coming here and they don’t know anyone, they don’t have any friends and people could just be falling through the cracks. I mean what if they don’t acclimate fast enough and they decide to just ge- [Okay she’s rambling and panicking a little and talking way too fast but when she stops to take a breath, it’s a gasp of horror.]
Do we even know if it’s safe to eat the food here?! [And she’s scrambling to snatch up a bag of chips that is sitting outside her expanse of electronics, looking at the label uncertainly.] Soylent Green is people. [With that last terrified whisper the feed goes dark.]
□ Third Person Sample:
Garcia on the Test Drive Meme