#eventually idk

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & PERSONALITY

Hair / Eye Color: naturally a darker brown, currently dyed a dirty blonde / brown

Height / Build: 5’6” / athletic

Tattoos: tbd, only has a couple

Piercings: both of her ears are pierced three times along her lobes

Scars: a small horizontal along her forearm from the second time she broke her arm and had to get a few screws put in, a handful of circular burns on the right side of her back she doesn’t ever talk about, a horizontal one that’s not even an inch wide on her chin she doesn’t remember getting, a vertical two inch scar along her left side from being stabbed while on the job

Negative Traits: distrusting, suspicious, critical, blunt, calculating, self-destructive

Positive Traits: resourceful, enigmatic, hardworking, intelligent, practical, loyal

Likes & Dislikes: the smell and sound of the ocean, short flowy skirts, that feeling of accomplishment when she recognizes a pattern, sushi, adam sandler movies, shirts so long pants are unnecessary (not that she wears them much anyway), subtle floral scents, dark chocolate, crossword puzzles, pickles, crunchy peanut butter, hot coffee // being woken up before noon (she is a night shift girl after all), people who litter, ice cream, cold weather (which to her is anything below 75), coffee once its temperature falls below anything that could be considered ‘scalding hot’, sci-fi movies, crying, showing weakness of any kind really, being bad at something, problems she can’t solve, slow drivers, the man who lives above her, most physical contact

FAMILY

Father: unknown

Mother: heather taylor (would be 45 now, deceased at 21)

Sibling(s): no biological ones that she knows of; shady ortiz (foster brother), conall ward (foster brother)

Other Family: n/a

Pets: n/a, unless you count the baseball bat she keeps by her bed named phyllis or the small group of stray cats that show up on her balcony that she feeds

TLDR;

Mackenzie doesn’t remember much of her life before she entered the foster care system. Her mom had her when she was 15 and was promptly kicked out of her home. Things were fine (at least to the toddler), until she came home from kindergarten to find her mom dead on the kitchen floor, surrounded by blood. Mackenzie wasn’t found until the following Monday— when she didn’t show up at school and her mom didn’t show up to work. With no family willing to take her in, she was put into the foster care system and her life quickly became volatile. She was in and out of various foster homes, never being kept longer than a year, until she found her way into Conall Ward’s aunt’s home at 14 years old. She stayed with them until she was 18, finally finding some stability in her life— and while the love of her new “family” was a difficult adjustment, she felt she’d maybe, finally found somewhere she belonged.

After graduating high school in the top 5% of her class, Mackenzie went to college for forensic science— convinced that with her degree she might be able to solve her mother’s unsolved homicide. And despite going to an in-state school and the scholarships and grants she received, Mackenzie still graduated with honors and a plethora of student debt. When she joined the LAPD as a forensic technician she had no intention of turning dirty, but as her debt piled up with no end in sight, she felt she had no choice. Besides, the system was already broken, she’d seen and experienced that her entire life, so why not take advantage of it?

BIOGRAPHY

TW for murder (only very briefly mentioned), blood, crimes?

Born in Los Angeles to a 15 year old mother who wasn’t ready for a child but did her best to raise Mackenzie with the resources she had

When Heather’s parents found out she was pregnant they gave her two options: adoption or abortion, but Heather didn’t want to do either. She wanted to have her baby and raise her, something that enraged her parents and caused them to kick her out

For the duration of her pregnancy Heather stayed with her boyfriend’s family, but when Mackenzie was born her father decided that he wasn’t ready for the responsibility and Heather once again found herself without a home or a place to go

She and her mother were in and out of shelters for the first three years of her life— by the time Mackenzie was 3 and her mom was 18, Heather had saved up enough money to rent a small studio apartment in a pretty bad area; but it was home

For three years the pair struggled, but Mackenzie never knew. All the toddler knew was that she had her mom and her friends and she was happy— until the day it all changed

After getting off the bus one Friday afternoon, Mackenzie had expected to find her mom waiting for her like she always did, but when Heather was nowhere to be found six year old Mackenzie walked herself home and, finding the door ajar, went inside

She found her mother, dead in a pool of blood, in their kitchen— and unsure of what to do, Mackenzie, knowing something was wrong and instantly getting scared, ran to her room to hide

She spent the entire weekend with her mother’s body, only being found by police doing a wellness check Monday evening after she didn’t go to school and her mom didn’t show up to work

That night was her first experience in a foster home, and when everyone the police could find in her mother’s family had been contacted and refused to take her in, and her father’s family unable to be located at all, Mackenzie ended up in the system permanently

Despite being a decently behaved kid (who, admittedly, had her issues, yes), Mackenzie never found the ‘forever home’ every foster kid dreamed of

Instead, she bounced around from home to home, sometimes without placement and ending up in a group home— until she was 14 years old and she found herself in the home of Conall Ward’s aunt

After nearly a decade of homes with locks on the fridge, adults just in it for the check, ‘siblings’ who treated you as their own personal punching bag, and seemingly never being able to exit survival mode she’d found a safe place to land… and Mackenzie, not used to the world around her being soft and stable, didn’t know what to do with it

When she arrived she was a jaded teenager, getting ready to start high school in yet another new school, and she was angry— she expected this placement, like the last four she’d been through in the previous year, to only last a couple of months; but to her surprise they didn’t

Instead of using her negative traits as reasons to push her off on someone else, Conall’s family surrounded her with kindness, with understanding, and with quite a bit of tough love— all things she hadn’t had much of in her life

She thrived in the stability, though she was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop— for the conversation about how she was too much, she wasn’t the right fit for their family, that she was too old, too loud, too disobedient— but it never came

Mackenzie stayed with them until she aged out of the system, graduating high school as the valedictorian and getting into California State University

College was an adjustment, but Mackenzie was focused— she entered into the school’s Criminalist program, convinced that once she graduated with her masters she’d be able to get a job with the LAPD and get access to her mom’s murder files

With her motive being justice for her mother and a good dose of wanting to get revenge on whoever took Heather’s life, Mackenzie found herself thriving in her courses. She’d always been smart, but her attention to detail and ability to find things others missed put her ahead of her peers

After six years of hard work and internships where she made valuable connections, Mackenzie found herself graduating with her masters, once again at the top of her class and with honors

It was no surprise that she was quickly snatched up by the LAPD for a forensic technician position

It was also no surprise that she quickly became the one everyone asked for at their crime scenes, the crime scene tech that was called to all of the high profile and violent crimes, the one they trusted to get every piece of evidence— it was a reputation she earned by working hard and proving her worth, however, what the LAPD didn’t know was that the salary she was paid didn’t outweigh the bills she had stacking up and soon Mackenzie made a choice, one that would set her life down a path she never expected

It started off as an offer, a favor for a friend to smudge the fingerprints from a crime scene so their brother wouldn’t get pinched for a burglary he’d done— something simple and easy with no real downside as the burglary wasn’t even successful. Her friend’s brother was in rehab anyways, so it’s not like jail would have helped him, so she did it

Word quickly got around and soon people were coming to her, offering her money, and she saw a need for a service she could provide… while paying down her student loans and being able to afford an apartment that didn’t have the bedroom sharing a space with the living room

Before she realized it, her services weren’t just attracting the attention of low level criminals and desperate people, but the darker side of the city as well— she had people from the gangs willing to pay a pretty penny to disappear and alter evidence, her jobs increasing along with the number in her bank account

Soon enough she was able to move out of her crappy studio apartment and into a one bedroom with a balcony, a dish washer, and in-unit laundry— all things she’d always considered a luxury— and buy a new car as well as put a significant dent in her student loans

She’s had her moments where she grapples with the morality of it all, but she knew better than most how broken the system really is, and she figures taking advantage of a system set up to fail isn’t really bad… right? 

HEADCANONS

Is a big perfectionist, like big virgo energy tbh. She doesn’t enjoy doing anything she’s bad at— in truth, if she feels like she’s going to fail at something she will give up on it before that happens

Doesn’t enjoy wearing pants/having her legs covered— when she’s home she wears oversized t-shirts with no pants, so show up unannounced at your own risk but she’s not making herself uncomfortable just to make you comfortable 

One of her foster parents put her into traditional therapy and because of her untrusting nature, she refused to open up to the therapist, however they knew she needed the help- the outlet- so they suggested putting her in art therapy— she took to it like a fish to water and has been painting her feelings ever since. There’s a corner of her apartment dedicated to this with an easel and her paints all meticulously kept

Because she grew up in a lot of unkempt households, when she moved into her own place she always kept it immaculate— everything has its place and she WILL know if you moved or touched something. The order helps keep her calm

While working on a crime scene a few years back, one that had allegedly been made safe by other officers already, Mackenzie and an officer were attacked— she was stabbed once in the side, and the officer jumped in and saved her life, sustaining major injuries to his own person in the meantime. While she’s not as traumatized as she was before, it’s something that’s still in the back of her mind at every crime scene she goes to

Her favorite movie is The Wizard of Oz, she probably watches it at least once a week

Always leaves one light on somewhere in her apartment (usually it’s either the light over the stove or the bathroom light)

She absolutely HATES ice cream with a burning passion, but she will enjoy the hell out of some sherbet. Her favorite is specifically Baskin Robbins Rainbow Sherbet

If it’s below 75 degrees outside, she will be wearing a sweater

Is an incredibly good cook and baker, had even briefly debated on going to culinary school instead of college

She finds baking relaxing, the meticulous measurements, the science behind it all— and frequently takes whatever she bakes with her to work for her coworkers and to the fire station her foster brother works at 

The beach is her happy place and she’s quite the skilled surfer (remember, she doesn’t do anything she’s not proficient at)— on the off chance she does wake up before noon, you’ll find her out in the ocean on her board