24 || Bisexual || Officer || January 9th || Chicago
Batwoman || Hero (not super) Comics || Helping People || Fellow Officers || Her Cat || Small Apartments || Winter || Old Trees || The Firing Range || Diners || Milkshakes || Cold Showers || Morning Jogs || Thick-Soled Boots || Baseball || Correct Hunches || Details || Smiles || Detective Movies || Sherlock || Chinese Takeout || New Recruits || Successful Cases
Dislikes:
Crime/Cop Dramas || Crying || Seeing the Victim's Loved Ones || Murderers || Crime || People Killing Children's wonder [Telling them Santa doesn't exist, etc] || Humidity || Southern Summers || Kids Dying || Black and White Perspectives || Big Cities || Asparagus || Cooking || Just-For-Kicks Criminals || Death || Ice Tea || Feeling Helpless || Hot Showers || Sleeping In
Fears
Losing Her Grandparents || The Nightmare [Secretly] || Being Underground || Making a Mistake [In a case, like putting the wrong person behind bars, etc]
+ Highly Observant
+Skilled Marksman
+Good With Interrogation
+Good Intuition "Hunches"
+Works well with others
- Bad With Victim's Loved Ones
- Takes Child-related cases too personally
- Refuses to ride subways, go into sewers, etc
- Poor Liar
- Obsesses Over Cases
Alex has always been the sort to notice things that may slip past others. When she is quiet, it is rarely for a lack of words, but because she is observing things, seeing things. This is a gift of hers that she received from her grandmother whenever she would come to visit her in Oakhedge. Her grandmother was a brilliant, but virtually unknown, artist who painted with intricate, flawless detail. This passion for the importance of seemingly minor things, for what people see only when they are able to stop and truly look, is something that was imprinted on Alex very early on in her life. While other children learned to speak big words, she was being taught how to observe the world around her and understand connections. It is what has made her such an effective police officer, especially regarding the cases where details can be what pushes the task force into understanding the mind of the criminal. She is, due to this, a particularly empathetic person, able to understand the feelings of others. She seems to know when people are hiding things, especially feelings, and can be a bit nosy about this at times. It does help her in the interrogation room, though- she notices little behaviors or slips that can make or break a person.
Unfortunately, her empathy comes as a double-sided blade. The young woman has difficulty distancing herself from cases, and tends to get much more intimate with them than she ought to. It certainly doesn't help when she has to interrogate or keep contact with a loved one of the victim- in fact, she tries to distance herself from that as much as possible, because she tends to begin making promises she will obsess over keeping, and will become too involved with the loved ones of the victim. That's why she can't be sent to console or interview the loved ones of murdered or kidnapped victims. She lets those things get to her head much too easily, though she's otherwise an excellent cop. Alex has the tendency to stay up all night during particularly interesting cases, going over files over and over again until she could probably recite them from memory backwards. Her attachment to cases is definitely her biggest flaw as an officer, though it only increases her motivation in them. She's very passionate about what she does, and how she can help others. It's just that it is nearly impossible for Alex to get a case out of her head until she is absolutely certain everything has been noticed, explained, and solved. Personal time during such a case is but a dream for her.
Over all, Alexandra can be described as someone who simply cares- maybe too much. She can't let things just be business only, and can't leave people who need help alone. She may have been raised in a big city with a monumental crime rate, but she has remained optimistic that she can make some sort of difference. That's why she does what she does- and why she helps people, when she can.
{Observant, Empathetic, Involved, Obsessive/Passionate, Caring}
History:
Alexandra Pond was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, but if asked of her real hometown, she'll say Oakhedge without hesitation, for that is where she spent most of her summers during adolescence, in her grandparents' house backing a wooded area. She was sent there primarily because her father was a detective for the Chicago Police Department, and working on many of the most brutal cases made him a bit paranoid for the safety of his only child and daughter, apple of his eye, Alexandra. So she was sent to a small town every summer, away from a city where making it past the age of eighteen, especially in the neighborhood and school district she lived in, was an achievement of sorts.
Her school life was fairly average. She did well in most of her classes, but had the tendency to notice things that others did not, making her both a good friend and a bad one. Her grandmother may have taught her observation, but from her father she witnessed a lack of competency with emotional matters that was imprinted upon her as well. It wasn't that she couldn't express her own feelings, or that she repressed them, but that she acutely observed the feelings of others and began to have a sense of helplessness when she couldn't do anything about it. Besides that, she was quite terrible when it came to consoling and things like that, because she, as a child, was a bit of a crybaby, and would end up crying for the other person, only making things even worse.
As she grew older, the girl finally got over her crybaby stage, but she never lost her empathy, which seemed to forcibly involve her in the matters of others, and the tendency to obsess over things grew. Freshmen year, it was batfamily comics, sophomore year learning to shoot. Eventually, it would be cases which constantly occupied her mind, begging to be thought about, to be solved. She had spent her adolescence switching between wanting to be an artist or a police officer, like her father. He, of course, spent a lot of time persuading her against following in his footsteps, but when he died her junior year, killed by a serial killer he had been on the case regarding, her resolve strangely steeled. She wanted to take down the sort of people who killed her father- she wanted to protect people.
At the same time, she didn't want to do it in Chicago. The young woman knew that there was perhaps more need for police in a big city, but she had seen enough simply through her father to want to be somewhere smaller, more close knit. She was accepted into a police academy, and trained to be an officer, but never joined the Chicago department. Instead, she packed up and moved to the town of her childhood summers- Oakhedge. After getting a job with them, she found that the night shift fit her like a glove- like family. And here she's been, ever since.
