Melissa Talmadge

From Relativespace

Contents 1 Basic Character Information 1.1 Entry Point 1.2 Physical Description 1.3 Personality 2 History 3 Additional Information 3.1 Random Facts 3.2 OOC-only Character Information

Basic Character Information

Entry Point

Five (alt 16), who Melissa travels with, has just assassinated Davros, in his version of Resurrection of the Daleks.

Physical Description

Melissa is about 5'5, slender. She's a runner, and used to dance, though she hasn't done so since college. She has brown eyes and long dark brown hair that she usually wears pulled back, though if you coax her to put it down, she will. She thinks it's ridiculously impractical that way, but it is one of her few vanities. Quite pretty, but in a quiet way that doesn't immediately draw attention to it.

She doesn't usually dress to show off or attract attention, prefering comfortable clothes to fashionable ones. She's most likely to be found wearing cargo pants and a tank top, with a sweater if it's cold, and she always has her camera with her, with various accessories stuffed in her pockets. Like with her hair, she can be coaxed into dressing up and she cleans up very well, but it's hard to get her to do so without proper incentive.

Personality

Melissa is very pragmatic and no nonsense. She doesn't suffer fools gladly, and can get highly impatient when she thinks people are wasting her time. She's got a sweet side, but she's buried it and is generally reserved and a little prickly until you get to know her. She has always been very intense and focused on whatever she's doing. When she has a goal, she gives everything she has to it, and the idea of someone who always gives 110% applies perfectly to her. No case of "ooh shiny" for her and she can sometimes see it as a sign of weakness, which leads to underestimating more distracted types.

She used to play as hard as she worked, and might again if you could get her to switch her focus, but a lot of things she dismisses as frivolous and needs to remember what it means to have fun.

The intensity and passion she pours into things transfers to the Doctor, his ideas, and his work. She believes in what he's doing absolutely, and believes he saved her when he took her as his companion. She's desperately in love with him, but would never think to say so or to try and sway him in her direction that way, because she thinks he is a great man who needs to do his work not be distracted by such petty things as one human girl's emotions. She doesn't pine--she's too practical for that--but it's there, and it influences her absolute loyalty to him and the way she won't be swayed in her opinions.

She is headstrong and reckless, not caring nearly enough for her own safety. Making the world, or the universe, a "better" place is her number one priority and she'll give up almost anything to do so.

History

Melissa graduated from NYU with a double major in photography and journalism. Due to her ability to get at the heart of a shot, the clarity she brings to her work from the way she can slip out of time/space to take the shot from angles no one else can see, she never lacked for freelance work as a photojournalist. She got the assignments she wanted after just a couple of years, and headed out to places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia without ever looking back. She frequently put herself in danger on the front lines, trying to tell the stories she thought the world needed to know. In Iraq, she met a British war correspondant, Jason Harper, and they started a relationship. When Jason was killed by friendly fire, Melissa suspected an assassination since he was sending back reports that the Administration didn't want anyone to hear. She tried to get both the British and American consulates to investigate, went to the commanding officer of the brigade Jason had been traveling with, and even went to the Iraqi authorities, but no one was willing to help her, and she met with closed door after closed door.

Disheartened, she went back to Bosnia to work in the refugee camps there, nursing a growing cynicism. When her shots of some of the atrocities she witnessed by those supposed to be caring for the refugees were suppressed, she started sinking toward despair. Everything, everywhere that she saw was nothing but war and deprivation with those in charge seeming to care more about their own agendas than actually helping the people they kept swearing they were protecting. She started taking more risks, getting herself deeper and deeper into the underbelly of the former soviet union, finding herself in the company of anarchists and rebels across Europe. She kept saying she was just documenting the insurgents, keeping records because they trusted her to tell their story when they were ready, but she was quickly getting sucked into their lives. While she was out taking pictures for her more official assignments, a patrol of troops was sent in and decimated the insurgents she had befriended.

Bitter and broken, she went back to London, to visit Jason's grave and try to figure out where she went from there, what was worth fighting for and who she could turn to for help.

That's when she met the Doctor. She was lost and adrift and an easy mark for him to manipulate into turning her passion in the direction of him and his cause. Building a better universe with someone who had the power to do so gave her something to hold on to, to pull her out of her grief. She accepted his offer and left Earth to travel the universe, helping him "save" other worlds, in the hopes that one day they could save hers, too.

She's never looked back.

Additional Information

Random Facts

• Grew up in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia, and despite being the daughter of a lawyer and a doctor, she still holds tight to some of the superstitions of her childhood home.
• Still has her accent.
• Has an ability to see things in a way that people don't, layers over layers of reality, seeing when things don't fit, or where they should fit. She isn't sure why or how to use it and is trying to figure that out.
• Likes scarves. And mittens.
• Is vegan. Might freak out at people wearing fur.
• Has a cat.
• Sometimes likes animals more than people.
• Used to do ballet, but hasn't danced in years.

OOC-only Character Information

• Isn't overly interested in romance, though not adverse. But the normal methods of seduction generally make her roll her eyes.
• Has only been in love twice--Jason and the Doctor.