APPLICATION: ATARAXION
Dec. 7th, 2012 02:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dearlydeceivedP L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Smith
OOC Journal:innocentsmith
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: N/A
Email + IM: earthlygarden@gmail.com
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Leoben Conoy, Claudius, The Master
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Debra Morgan
Canon: Dexter (TV)
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: End of episode 7.01, "Are You..?"
Number: Random!
Setting: Modern day Miami, Florida. Debra Morgan on the Dexter Wiki.
History:
Early life:
Debra Morgan was born in the late seventies into a blue collar family in Miami, Florida. Her father, Harry Morgan, was a homicide detective and a strong personality influence: he was well-known and respected by all in his department, and remained something of a legend for years afterward.
When she was very young, or possibly before she was born, Harry brought home a little boy he'd rescued from a crime scene. Canon is shakey on the exact age difference between Dexter and Debra (in the books Deb is older, in the TV series Dexter is, but it's unclear by how much), but it's safe to say that they grew up together and neither has clear memories of a time when they weren't siblings. They were fairly close, although not unusually so, as children: they bickered and fought, but when she had nightmares, Deb would sleep on the floor of Dexter's room to feel safe.
At some point, however, the dynamic changed. Their mother Doris had cancer, and at around the same time Harry Morgan started concentrating most of his attention and time away from work on Dexter, leaving Deb to fend for herself. Unbeknownst to her, this was because Harry had discovered that Dexter was showing psychopathic tendencies, killing the neighbor's dog and fantasizing about doing more: Harry, in a last ditch effort to try to save his son from what he saw as his inevitable future as a serial killer, had begun to train Dexter to only hunt and killer other murderers, ones who had evaded justice, according to a strict Code. He also laid down many rules of behavior to allow Dexter to blend in as a normal, friendly, harmless guy, despite what they both perceived as a complete lack of true emotions.
Deb, kept purposefully unaware of all of this, only saw that her brother got the majority of her parents' attention. When she was 12, her mother died and the problem worsened: Deb assumed that Harry's apparent lack of interest in her was because she was a girl, or - worse - because she was less smart, less obedient, less...perfect than her big brother. She resented the father-son hunting trips they took without her, and the way Dexter was allowed more information about Harry's cases. Out of a hunger to prove herself worthy, she became determined to become a homicide detective, too. On one occasion, she stole her father's gun and taught herself to shoot by practicing with cans, and was punished by a furious Harry.
During Deb's teen years, Harry began developing heart problems, for which he was hospitalized. He had been growing ever more bitter about the injustices present in the justice system, as murder suspects he knew to be guilty walked free, and also stepping up with his training of Dexter. Dexter's first kill was of a nurse who was secretly slowly murdering her patients, after she targeted Harry.
Harry intended Deb, with her strong moral sense and unambiguous emotions to be Dexter's compass and sounding board. She was also, to some extent, one of the principal tools meant to control Dexter's behavior: if Debra ever found out about who and what Dexter really was, she would be so upset. However, when Harry walked in on Dexter carving up one of his victims, he was himself, overwhelmed with guilt and horror. He killed himself, though it would be many years before either of his children found out his death hadn't been a natural one.
Now orphaned, the Morgan siblings pursued slightly different courses in education. Dexter, generally acknowledged to be the smart one, went to med school and later into forensics; Deb probably majored in criminal justice. In her twenties, she joined the Miami police as a beat cop, and spent several years as a patrol officer and then an officer in Vice.
The Ice Truck Killer:
At the series' opening, Debra has been working in Vice for some time, most recently posing undercover as a prostitute. She's frustrated and feeling stuck in place, wearing skimpy outfits and having her opinions dismissed. A new and spectacular murder - a prostitute from Deb's beat, drained of blood, chopped into pieces, and put on display in a drained motel swimming pool - seems to match the work of two other recent murders in another county. Deb, with her contacts among the Miami hookers, wants to contribute to the case, both as her ticket out of Vice and into Homicide, and to protect "her girls." She brings Dexter, now a blood spatter analyst with Homicide, in to consult with her on the case, begging him to give her the benefit of any "hunches" he might have about the crime.
Together, Deb and Dexter cobble together enough clues to get her put on the case, particularly the fact that the killer has been using an ice truck to transport his victims. Maria LaGuerta, then homicide lieutenant, dislikes Debra for her brashness but transfers her to Homicide after Deb manages to discover one of the trucks in question.
The Ice Truck Killer case is a gruesome and frightening one. A suspect, Tony Tucci, is the subject of a manhunt before being discovered in an abandoned hospital due to an anonymous tip (phoned in by Dexter, who had been directed there by clues left by the ITK): he had been slowly dismembered and left a double amputee. Later, Detective Angel Batista - one of Dexter's closest friends on the force - is stabbed and nearly dies when he wanders too near the truth.
In the meantime, while questioning and looking after Tony Tucci, Deb meets a prosthologist named Rudy Cooper, who takes an interest in Deb. Flattered by the attention of a good-looking, dorkily charming young doctor, Deb flirts and agrees to a date. They enter into a relationship, apparently the first really serious one Deb's had: she's swept off her feet, telling Dexter that Rudy makes her feel strangely safe and comfortable. As the case heats up, so does their relationship ... though Rudy seems oddly interested in asking Deb questions about Dexter, sometimes even in bed, to Deb's confusion and jealousy. When Dexter takes his girlfriend Rita to spend a weekend going through a house left to him by his biological father, Deb and Rudy tag along. They fight about Rudy's insistence on bonding with Dexter to the point of ignoring Deb, but he manages to smooth things over.
Only a few weeks after they first met, at the height of the Ice Truck Killer investigation, Rudy asks Deb to meet him on a boat, where he waits with champagne and a (fake, taken from the finger of one of his victims) ring: he proposes and she, thrilled, accepts. As they sip champagne below decks, however, Rudy asks her: how could she not know, as a cop, when she was right next to the person she was hunting? Rudy is really the Ice Truck Killer: he chokes Deb unconscious, mocking her, then throws her in the trunk of a car. A stolen car, next to the body of its original owner, for hours. Deb screams herself hoarse, only to have her mouth taped and be knocked unconscious again. When she comes to, she's in a strange, plastic-wrapped room, ritualistically tied down naked to a table, with Rudy standing over her with a knife.
Rudy is really Brian Moser, Dexter's biological brother, who developed his need to kill from the same brutal murder that damaged Dexter, and has become obsessed with the idea that Harry Morgan stole his little brother. He wants Dexter to join him on a brotherly killing spree, with Debra as their first victim. Dexter, unable to bring himself to kill his sister, refuses, and struggles with Brian for the knife. It's at this point that Deb wakes up fully, though she retains some vague fuzzy memories she dismisses until much, much later: all she sees is her brother, having somehow figured out where the Ice Truck Killer had taken her, heroically fighting him off. The body of Brian Moser, alias Rudy Cooper, is found the next day, his throat cut in an apparent suicide.
The Bay Harbor Butcher and Frank Lundy:
Deb is intensely traumatized by her ordeal with the ITK - not only was she nearly murdered and cut into pieces, but the man she thought she was going to marry turned out to be a serial killer, and she's notorious now as a murderer's dupe and ex-fianceé. Dexter's girlfriend Rita - a former rape and domestic abuse victim who Deb saved during her days as a beat cop, and set up with her brother - tries to offer sympathy, and Dexter lets her stay with him at his apartment, but she's jumpy and angry and self-sabotaging.
A new case, involving the discovery of a huge number of bodies dumped in a local harbor, brings in the FBI's top criminal profiler, Frank Lundy.
A quirky, even-tempered, philosophical man in his late fifties or early sixties, Lundy takes Deb on as a protegeé. She learns a lot from him, even as her relationship with Dexter becomes a little rocky: Dexter is, in fact, the Bay Harbor Butcher, and is trying to desperately cover up and mislead the investigation while also trying to analyze his need to kill in terms of an addiction which he might be able to quit. All Deb knows, however, is that Dexter is cheating on Rita with his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor Lila, a "gross, titty, English vampire" Deb hates on sight (the fact that Lila's topless at the time doesn't help).
Deb and Lundy start up a romance, despite Lundy's misgivings about dating a younger woman whose career might be compromised by him. They continue to collaborate on the case, but are stymied when all the evidence seems to point to James Doakes, a Homicide sergeant who, if always strangely aggressive and suspicious towards Dexter, had always been friendly with Deb. Lundy, with no more case to investigate, is going to leave when Deb offers to go with him on an extended vacation: he offers to meet her at a specific time before leaving town. Deb is on her way when she gets a call that Astor and Cody, Rita's children, had been abducted by Lila, who trapped them in her loft and then set fire to it. Deb rushes there and manages to save the kids, but misses her chance to meet Lundy. Lila apparently escapes.
The Skinner, Anton, and Making Detective:
While investigating the mysterious disappearance of a drug dealer called "Freebo," really killed by Dexter, Debra runs across the trail of a serial killer, dubbed the Skinner for his habit of removing his victims' skin. Freebo owed the Skinner money, and the killer is attempting to track him down by following Deb's investigation and killing those who cross her path.
A CI (confidential informant) named Anton Briggs, originally working with Detective Joey Quinn, gets involved in the case by appearing to know something about Freebo's disappearance. After being kicked off the Freebo case, Deb takes Anton on as her own informant. They strike up an odd relationship, half-romantic, half based on insulting each other. When Anton is kidnapped and tortured by the Skinner, Deb manages to track him down and rescue him. Having made detective, she goes after the Skinner, identifying him as tree trimmer George Washington King, and arrives just in time to find him "committing suicide" (having his neck snapped and then being thrown from a building by Dexter).
Meanwhile, Rita had become pregnant - much to Deb's delight at the prospect of being aunt to "a baby?! a motherfucking rolly-poly chubby-cheeked shit-machine?!" - and moved in with Dexter: at the end of the season, Rita and Dexter are married, with Deb standing at her brother's side as best (wo)man.
Trinity, Lundy, and Rita:
Deb and Anton's friendly but not terribly deep relationship takes a blow with the sudden and unexpected arrival back on the scene of Frank Lundy. Lundy has been tracking a serial killer called the Trinity Killer, for his pattern of killing in threes. Lundy suspects that a recent murder is the first in Trinity's ritual of three, and that the killer - who has been operating for decades, one of the most successful serial killers alive - may be in the area. He and Debra investigate and restart their relationship. As they are leaving Lundy's hotel, they are are both shot. Deb is wounded, but Lundy was shot twice, and died in Deb's arms.
The Trinity case is repeatedly sabotaged from behind the scenes by Dexter, who is fascinated by Trinity and his apparent ability to have it all, as a serial killer and a family man. Lundy and Deb's shooting, which appeared at first to be connected to another case, the Vacation Murders, was, in fact, the work of Trinity's adult daughter, Christine Hill, who had murdered Lundy in an attempt to cover up for her father and win his approval, a fact Hill eventually confesses to Deb's face before committing suicide in front of her.
Deb has meanwhile been working on another messy case, being backstabbed by her new friend/protegeé Cira Manzon and blamed for a firefight and resulting PR mess by LaGuerta. Deb is nearly fired as a scapegoat, and is sent back to work in the fileroom.
And then Rita is found in a bathtub filled with bloody water, the last victim of the Trinity Killer. She was killed by Trinity as an attack on Dexter, who had managed to execute him a few hours before coming home and finding his wife's body, and his baby son crying in the blood.
Grieving, and the Barrel Girls Case:
In the aftermath of Rita's murder, Dexter is dazed and distraught, and Deb has to scramble to take care of both the funeral arrangements and the suspicion that he may have been somehow involved in her death. Dexter acts erratic, disappearing for several hours directly before the funeral, flaking on his responsiblities to his kids, while Deb does her best to support him and keep him together.
A new case shortly thereafter, involving women being killed by a group of serial rapists and then dumped in the swamp in barrels full of chemicals, challenges Deb's sense of right and wrong: the rapists begin turning up dead, and Deb suspects these deaths are the work of a final, escaped victim out for revenge. She can't blame "Number 13" for wanting the men who raped and tortured her, and killed twelve others, dead - can't condemn a victim for seeking justice against monsters. When she manages to track down "Number 13" and her accomplice/lover to the scene of their final vigilante killing, she chooses to let them escape without seeing either of their faces.
Local Hero makes Lieutenant:
While waiting in a restaurant, Deb is on the scene when a fired employee shows up with a gun. She flings herself at him and manages to take him down with no one else being hurt - the (somewhat spectacular) scene is caught on video by an onlooker, and becomes an overnight sensation on YouTube, to Deb's mild, but pleased, bemusement.
Meanwhile, Lt. LaGuerta has just been promoted to Captain, by dint of some sketchy political blackmail against Harry Morgan's old friend, the former Captain Matthews, who was involved in a murder coverup involving his mistress's death. She and everyone else - Deb included - expect her place as Homicide Lieutenant to be taken by Sgt. Angel Batista. Matthews, however, is determined to spite her choice of Batista who he sees as LaGuerta's tool, and turns his influence instead to seeing his old friend's daughter, the local hero, promoted to Lieutenant.
Deb is shocked and thrilled at the offer, and initially unsure of whether to accept. The promotion is a stunning opportunity: she's skipping one major step on the ladder, and will be becoming the youngest Lieutenant in department history. But Angel is her friend, her partner, and a good man, who she knew was counting on the promotion. And is she really ready for such a big advancement in her career? Will anyone even listen to her as a leader? Ultimately she decides that she can't pass up the chance. Angel, despite being disappointed, is ultimately understanding.
Promotion, and Doomsday:
But many of Deb's fears are borne out, as she struggles to adapt to being the boss instead of one of the guys. Debra's whole social circle, at this point, are her fellow cops. She has very little life and few if any friends outside her department, and now instead of being able to bond and blow off steam she's isolated herself from them.
In addition, Joey Quinn, who Deb had been having a casual if sometimes argumentative fuckbuddies relationship with since shortly after Rita's death, chose the time just before her promotion to propose marriage. Not being at all serious in her feelings towards Quinn, Deb is appalled, and grows more so as Quinn takes the rejection hard and blames it on Deb's ambition. He becomes reckless and disruptive to investigations, and repeatedly harasses Deb.
During all this, the department is attempting to deal with a dramatic new case: the Doomsday Killer, who stages elaborate and grotesque tableaus in imitation of events in the book of Revelations, in an effort to bring about the end of the world. The Doomsday Killer case is a public relations nightmare, and Dexter is acting strange, disappearing with no notice for days on end when Deb needs his help.
Deb begins seeing a therapist, at first as required by department procedure, but later because, well. She pretty much needs all the therapy in the world, after everything that's happened. In the course of the therapy sessions, however, it's suggested that part of her problems in both her romantic relationships and her interactions with her brother may be that she has "developed complex feelings" for Dexter. Deb furiously denies the suggestion, at first, but as the Doomsday Case counts down, and Dexter heroically saves her life from an attempt to kill the whole station with poison gas, and her whole career seems to stand in the balance, she reconsiders.
After an attempt by the Doomsday Killer - Travis Marshall - to abduct and kill Dexter's son Harrison leads to his apparent escape (but actual capture by Dexter), Deb returns to the scene of previous crimes, the church Marshall had been using as a hideout. She's heading there to see Dexter, since she was told he was going there to make a final sweep for evidence, and to try to talk to him about her feelings for him.
And then she walks in to find Marshall strapped to the altar with plastic wrap in a way that seems distinctly familiar, just in time to see Dexter plunge a knife into the killer's heart.
Are You...?
Reeling in shock and horror and confusion, Deb asks Dexter to explain what's going on. Dexter claims he killed Marshall in self-defense, and then - when asked about all the plastic sheeting and the sword and so on - says that he "just snapped," and that his training as a forensics expert meant that he somehow just automatically killed Marshall in a way that wouldn't leave evidence.
Deb's first impulse is to call the death in, and to try to find Dexter the best lawyer possible to defend him. But Dexter points out, accurately, that self-defense will be a hard case to make. He manages to convince Deb to help him cover up the death to look like Marshall stabbed himself and then set the church on fire. Deb acts as accomplice, buying gasoline to try to stage the coverup, since she won't let Dexter just "take care of it" himself.
But she can't let go of all the things that are wrong with Dexter's explanation. The evidence that something is very, very off with her brother has been mounting up for years now, and now that she's looking at it she can't unsee it. Deb has flashbacks to being on the table Brian Moser taped her to ... with plastic wrap, just as Dexter had done to Travis Marshall. She goes through the old case evidence. And then she goes to Dexter's apartment, and searches it.
Dexter comes home to find Deb sitting surrounded by his knives, his blood slides, and the missing prosthetic hand from the Ice Truck Killer case, all of which she's found hidden in his apartment.
"Are you a serial killer?" Deb asks.
....
....
....AND THEN SHE GOES TO SPACE AND WAKES UP IN A TUBE OF BLUE GOO YAY.
(Deb will have jump amnesia for the first couple of weeks after arrival, and be unable to remember walking in on Marshall's death. Per discussion with Dexter-mun and Brian-mun, she'll raise holy hell about Brian being a serial killer - but with no hard evidence to back it up. Only after that's all gone down will she remember that, oops, Dexter's maybe also a serial killer?
Because I love to torture my characters.)
Personality:
Debra Morgan is the hero to her brother Dexter's antihero. Creatively foul-mouthed with a mordant sense of humor, she's a deeply moral person - she does see the problems with the system and is frustrated by them, and can even act in conflict (as when she lets Lumen/Number 13 go) but her first instinct is always to go with them and she doesn't believe in vigilante justice or anyone's right to take someone else's life.
At her best Deb's a gifted detective and leader: smart, observant, dogged, protective, and fierce in her pursuit of justice. She's affectionate, funny, loyal, and brave, sometimes to the point of literally flinging herself into danger.
That's the good. But there's bad, too. Deb is self-doubting, self-destructive at times, has serious anger issues, and bad, bad instincts in relationships. Her ability to sense the wrongness of serial killers may be fundamentally broken because the person she trusts most is a serial killer.
Deb's ability to like someone is based very much on her perception of them as a good person. She has a tendency to get in the faces of people she dislikes (and, okay, also of people she likes, or is ambivalent towards, or has just met) and while she can be brought around to grudging respect and camaraderie if someone seems to her to be trying to do the right thing, she's spiteful and aggressive in hatred. Her hates are founded in believing the other person is bad, selfish or hypocritical or a predator who needs to be taken down.
Which isn't to say she thinks she's all that good a person, herself - she's got a self-loathing streak that's more like a self-loathing interstate highway, at this point. But on a fundamental level, she does see it as her responsibility to save the innocent and put the bad guys away.
Her primary relationship is with her foster brother Dexter - a relationship which is probably best described as intensely codependent. Her smart, dorky, emotionally constipated big brother who had the attention she craved from her father, and always seems to be out of reach or keeping secrets from her, he is the one constant element in her life, the one person she feels she can count on, her safe space.
She's had a huge amount of trouble building healthy relationships - she throws up roadblocks or else tramples through all boundaries. She tumbles into love with Rudy, agreeing to marry him after only a few weeks of knowing him; falls in love with Lundy, her mentor/father figure; has sex with her partner Quinn a minute or two after cleaning the blood of her sister-in-law and closest female friend from the floor.
Most of her trauma she's not over, really at all. She's functional, she made some progress and grown up a great deal, but her life has been hectic in the last few years especially and has left her with little time to mourn. She blames herself for a lot of the stuff she's been through, consciously and unconsciously: a huge number of the horrible things that have happened to her have been connected to Dexter's secret, but having gone for so long without knowing the single central fact nearly all the show's plots turn on - her brother is a serial killer - she concluded that it must somehow be her fault.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Normal human, no special/supernatural powers whatsoever.
Abilities:
Above average intelligence. Can be very observant: good at putting together facts and criminal profiling.
Thinks fast on her feet. Good actor/liar when she has to be; excellent interrogator.
Tough and brave in physical confrontations: she's not any kind of martial arts master, but she's strong and scrappy and has no qualms about fighting dirty, in hand to hard or armed combat. She's had to fight for her life on a number of occasions.
Very good shot. Considerable knowledge of weapons and firearms, though her main proficiency is with handguns.
Fast runner, with a lot of endurance.
Strong stomach for gore and screwed-up situations.
Weaknesses:
Foul-mouthed, blunt, and crude in language. Has trouble expressing feelings. Somewhat socially awkward - doesn't really know how to talk to people who aren't cops.
Uncomfortable with political games and manipulation. Can be vulnerable to people playing on her sense of obligation or on her feelings.
Driven by emotion, impulsive. Makes truly terrible romantic choices. Has had serious anger issues in the past, though she's gotten better.
Occasionally has a serious blind spot for serial killers and weirdos.
Inventory:
Police badge and ID for Miami Metro Police, Homicide Division
Glock 26 duty sidearm, with holster, with 2 boxes 9 mm rounds for it.
6 month supply soft contact lenses and fluid.
Clothes:
1 police dress uniform
1 dressy work suit, silk blouse, and pair of heels
1 casual blazer
2 pairs of jeans
1 button down plaid shirt
1 striped t-shirt
1 belt
Pair of boots
2 sets of underwear (in addition to those she arrives in), socks
1 pair aviator sunglasses
1 MP3 player, with assorted music
Appearance:
Tall - around 5'10". Despite eating her weight in red meat, junk food, and beer, Deb is still beanpole-thin, with long runner's legs. Longish chestnut hair fading to blonde at the ends. Hazel eyes, very fair skin that's been tanned somewhat by constant sun exposure. She's perpetually straddling a line between knockout gorgeous and gawky and odd-looking.
Deb has a scar of a gunshot wound on the right side of her abdomen.
Age: 35
AU Clarification: N/A
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
"Are you a serial killer?" Debra asks her brother. And then the air in the room swims and twists before her eyes. Or maybe it's the memory - she can't hold onto it. Not any of it, the knives and the box of bloodslides and all the other damning evidence in front of her, not the long day hunting down something she didn't want to find. Not the church in flames and the gascan light in her hand as she watches it burn.
She's glad to forget, for a little while.
...Which doesn't mean she's glad to wake up in some kind of body horror alien nightmare with a tube down her throat. Or to land on her ass on a cold metal floor, nauseated and freezing and dripping with...stuff, surrounded by half- or totally-naked strangers on either side. And she's in her underwear, too. Great.
Deb gets to her feet, wobbly and long-limbed as a colt, and loudly summarizes the situation with typical eloquence:
"Motherfucking science fiction bullshit!" Attempting to wipe her face, and spluttering a little: "Fucking blue lube all over me, what the fuck."
Comms Sample:
So, uh, two things. Unrelated to the whole thing with Rudy-slash-Brian-slash-Sick Fuck Who Likes to Murder Women and Cut Them Up, so. All you motherfuckers can put away the popcorn and hot dogs and the Fuck Tha Police signs, these are just normal fucking requests.
[That...maybe wasn't the most friendly way of starting things off? Oh well.]
So, number one. I've got this mp3 player here. Which is great and all, but it hasn't got much more than a few hours' charge, so I want to know if there's a way to move the music from there into this ... communicator iPhone thing. I don't know how the fuck to do it myself, but that'd be great if you could. And since we're 900 years after Earth exploded I'm guessing copyright's up on sharing music, so anybody's welcome if you want any of it. There's. I don't know, there's a lot of classic rock, some new stuff, some of that Cuban shit my brother listens to. Some Chopin and Saint-Saëns.
Uh, second thing. [Gaining confidence and vehemence.] Who do I have to blow to get a decent fucking cup of coffee around here? I'm used to police station coffee, I'm not that goddamn fussy, but this instant shit in my floor's kitchen is like weak tea made from the ballhairs of Satan. There's just no fucking excuse. Help.
Your Name: Smith
OOC Journal:
innocentsmithUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: N/A
Email + IM: earthlygarden@gmail.com
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Leoben Conoy, Claudius, The Master
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Debra Morgan
Canon: Dexter (TV)
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: End of episode 7.01, "Are You..?"
Number: Random!
Setting: Modern day Miami, Florida. Debra Morgan on the Dexter Wiki.
History:
Early life:
Debra Morgan was born in the late seventies into a blue collar family in Miami, Florida. Her father, Harry Morgan, was a homicide detective and a strong personality influence: he was well-known and respected by all in his department, and remained something of a legend for years afterward.
When she was very young, or possibly before she was born, Harry brought home a little boy he'd rescued from a crime scene. Canon is shakey on the exact age difference between Dexter and Debra (in the books Deb is older, in the TV series Dexter is, but it's unclear by how much), but it's safe to say that they grew up together and neither has clear memories of a time when they weren't siblings. They were fairly close, although not unusually so, as children: they bickered and fought, but when she had nightmares, Deb would sleep on the floor of Dexter's room to feel safe.
At some point, however, the dynamic changed. Their mother Doris had cancer, and at around the same time Harry Morgan started concentrating most of his attention and time away from work on Dexter, leaving Deb to fend for herself. Unbeknownst to her, this was because Harry had discovered that Dexter was showing psychopathic tendencies, killing the neighbor's dog and fantasizing about doing more: Harry, in a last ditch effort to try to save his son from what he saw as his inevitable future as a serial killer, had begun to train Dexter to only hunt and killer other murderers, ones who had evaded justice, according to a strict Code. He also laid down many rules of behavior to allow Dexter to blend in as a normal, friendly, harmless guy, despite what they both perceived as a complete lack of true emotions.
Deb, kept purposefully unaware of all of this, only saw that her brother got the majority of her parents' attention. When she was 12, her mother died and the problem worsened: Deb assumed that Harry's apparent lack of interest in her was because she was a girl, or - worse - because she was less smart, less obedient, less...perfect than her big brother. She resented the father-son hunting trips they took without her, and the way Dexter was allowed more information about Harry's cases. Out of a hunger to prove herself worthy, she became determined to become a homicide detective, too. On one occasion, she stole her father's gun and taught herself to shoot by practicing with cans, and was punished by a furious Harry.
During Deb's teen years, Harry began developing heart problems, for which he was hospitalized. He had been growing ever more bitter about the injustices present in the justice system, as murder suspects he knew to be guilty walked free, and also stepping up with his training of Dexter. Dexter's first kill was of a nurse who was secretly slowly murdering her patients, after she targeted Harry.
Harry intended Deb, with her strong moral sense and unambiguous emotions to be Dexter's compass and sounding board. She was also, to some extent, one of the principal tools meant to control Dexter's behavior: if Debra ever found out about who and what Dexter really was, she would be so upset. However, when Harry walked in on Dexter carving up one of his victims, he was himself, overwhelmed with guilt and horror. He killed himself, though it would be many years before either of his children found out his death hadn't been a natural one.
Now orphaned, the Morgan siblings pursued slightly different courses in education. Dexter, generally acknowledged to be the smart one, went to med school and later into forensics; Deb probably majored in criminal justice. In her twenties, she joined the Miami police as a beat cop, and spent several years as a patrol officer and then an officer in Vice.
The Ice Truck Killer:
At the series' opening, Debra has been working in Vice for some time, most recently posing undercover as a prostitute. She's frustrated and feeling stuck in place, wearing skimpy outfits and having her opinions dismissed. A new and spectacular murder - a prostitute from Deb's beat, drained of blood, chopped into pieces, and put on display in a drained motel swimming pool - seems to match the work of two other recent murders in another county. Deb, with her contacts among the Miami hookers, wants to contribute to the case, both as her ticket out of Vice and into Homicide, and to protect "her girls." She brings Dexter, now a blood spatter analyst with Homicide, in to consult with her on the case, begging him to give her the benefit of any "hunches" he might have about the crime.
Together, Deb and Dexter cobble together enough clues to get her put on the case, particularly the fact that the killer has been using an ice truck to transport his victims. Maria LaGuerta, then homicide lieutenant, dislikes Debra for her brashness but transfers her to Homicide after Deb manages to discover one of the trucks in question.
The Ice Truck Killer case is a gruesome and frightening one. A suspect, Tony Tucci, is the subject of a manhunt before being discovered in an abandoned hospital due to an anonymous tip (phoned in by Dexter, who had been directed there by clues left by the ITK): he had been slowly dismembered and left a double amputee. Later, Detective Angel Batista - one of Dexter's closest friends on the force - is stabbed and nearly dies when he wanders too near the truth.
In the meantime, while questioning and looking after Tony Tucci, Deb meets a prosthologist named Rudy Cooper, who takes an interest in Deb. Flattered by the attention of a good-looking, dorkily charming young doctor, Deb flirts and agrees to a date. They enter into a relationship, apparently the first really serious one Deb's had: she's swept off her feet, telling Dexter that Rudy makes her feel strangely safe and comfortable. As the case heats up, so does their relationship ... though Rudy seems oddly interested in asking Deb questions about Dexter, sometimes even in bed, to Deb's confusion and jealousy. When Dexter takes his girlfriend Rita to spend a weekend going through a house left to him by his biological father, Deb and Rudy tag along. They fight about Rudy's insistence on bonding with Dexter to the point of ignoring Deb, but he manages to smooth things over.
Only a few weeks after they first met, at the height of the Ice Truck Killer investigation, Rudy asks Deb to meet him on a boat, where he waits with champagne and a (fake, taken from the finger of one of his victims) ring: he proposes and she, thrilled, accepts. As they sip champagne below decks, however, Rudy asks her: how could she not know, as a cop, when she was right next to the person she was hunting? Rudy is really the Ice Truck Killer: he chokes Deb unconscious, mocking her, then throws her in the trunk of a car. A stolen car, next to the body of its original owner, for hours. Deb screams herself hoarse, only to have her mouth taped and be knocked unconscious again. When she comes to, she's in a strange, plastic-wrapped room, ritualistically tied down naked to a table, with Rudy standing over her with a knife.
Rudy is really Brian Moser, Dexter's biological brother, who developed his need to kill from the same brutal murder that damaged Dexter, and has become obsessed with the idea that Harry Morgan stole his little brother. He wants Dexter to join him on a brotherly killing spree, with Debra as their first victim. Dexter, unable to bring himself to kill his sister, refuses, and struggles with Brian for the knife. It's at this point that Deb wakes up fully, though she retains some vague fuzzy memories she dismisses until much, much later: all she sees is her brother, having somehow figured out where the Ice Truck Killer had taken her, heroically fighting him off. The body of Brian Moser, alias Rudy Cooper, is found the next day, his throat cut in an apparent suicide.
The Bay Harbor Butcher and Frank Lundy:
Deb is intensely traumatized by her ordeal with the ITK - not only was she nearly murdered and cut into pieces, but the man she thought she was going to marry turned out to be a serial killer, and she's notorious now as a murderer's dupe and ex-fianceé. Dexter's girlfriend Rita - a former rape and domestic abuse victim who Deb saved during her days as a beat cop, and set up with her brother - tries to offer sympathy, and Dexter lets her stay with him at his apartment, but she's jumpy and angry and self-sabotaging.
A new case, involving the discovery of a huge number of bodies dumped in a local harbor, brings in the FBI's top criminal profiler, Frank Lundy.
A quirky, even-tempered, philosophical man in his late fifties or early sixties, Lundy takes Deb on as a protegeé. She learns a lot from him, even as her relationship with Dexter becomes a little rocky: Dexter is, in fact, the Bay Harbor Butcher, and is trying to desperately cover up and mislead the investigation while also trying to analyze his need to kill in terms of an addiction which he might be able to quit. All Deb knows, however, is that Dexter is cheating on Rita with his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor Lila, a "gross, titty, English vampire" Deb hates on sight (the fact that Lila's topless at the time doesn't help).
Deb and Lundy start up a romance, despite Lundy's misgivings about dating a younger woman whose career might be compromised by him. They continue to collaborate on the case, but are stymied when all the evidence seems to point to James Doakes, a Homicide sergeant who, if always strangely aggressive and suspicious towards Dexter, had always been friendly with Deb. Lundy, with no more case to investigate, is going to leave when Deb offers to go with him on an extended vacation: he offers to meet her at a specific time before leaving town. Deb is on her way when she gets a call that Astor and Cody, Rita's children, had been abducted by Lila, who trapped them in her loft and then set fire to it. Deb rushes there and manages to save the kids, but misses her chance to meet Lundy. Lila apparently escapes.
The Skinner, Anton, and Making Detective:
While investigating the mysterious disappearance of a drug dealer called "Freebo," really killed by Dexter, Debra runs across the trail of a serial killer, dubbed the Skinner for his habit of removing his victims' skin. Freebo owed the Skinner money, and the killer is attempting to track him down by following Deb's investigation and killing those who cross her path.
A CI (confidential informant) named Anton Briggs, originally working with Detective Joey Quinn, gets involved in the case by appearing to know something about Freebo's disappearance. After being kicked off the Freebo case, Deb takes Anton on as her own informant. They strike up an odd relationship, half-romantic, half based on insulting each other. When Anton is kidnapped and tortured by the Skinner, Deb manages to track him down and rescue him. Having made detective, she goes after the Skinner, identifying him as tree trimmer George Washington King, and arrives just in time to find him "committing suicide" (having his neck snapped and then being thrown from a building by Dexter).
Meanwhile, Rita had become pregnant - much to Deb's delight at the prospect of being aunt to "a baby?! a motherfucking rolly-poly chubby-cheeked shit-machine?!" - and moved in with Dexter: at the end of the season, Rita and Dexter are married, with Deb standing at her brother's side as best (wo)man.
Trinity, Lundy, and Rita:
Deb and Anton's friendly but not terribly deep relationship takes a blow with the sudden and unexpected arrival back on the scene of Frank Lundy. Lundy has been tracking a serial killer called the Trinity Killer, for his pattern of killing in threes. Lundy suspects that a recent murder is the first in Trinity's ritual of three, and that the killer - who has been operating for decades, one of the most successful serial killers alive - may be in the area. He and Debra investigate and restart their relationship. As they are leaving Lundy's hotel, they are are both shot. Deb is wounded, but Lundy was shot twice, and died in Deb's arms.
The Trinity case is repeatedly sabotaged from behind the scenes by Dexter, who is fascinated by Trinity and his apparent ability to have it all, as a serial killer and a family man. Lundy and Deb's shooting, which appeared at first to be connected to another case, the Vacation Murders, was, in fact, the work of Trinity's adult daughter, Christine Hill, who had murdered Lundy in an attempt to cover up for her father and win his approval, a fact Hill eventually confesses to Deb's face before committing suicide in front of her.
Deb has meanwhile been working on another messy case, being backstabbed by her new friend/protegeé Cira Manzon and blamed for a firefight and resulting PR mess by LaGuerta. Deb is nearly fired as a scapegoat, and is sent back to work in the fileroom.
And then Rita is found in a bathtub filled with bloody water, the last victim of the Trinity Killer. She was killed by Trinity as an attack on Dexter, who had managed to execute him a few hours before coming home and finding his wife's body, and his baby son crying in the blood.
Grieving, and the Barrel Girls Case:
In the aftermath of Rita's murder, Dexter is dazed and distraught, and Deb has to scramble to take care of both the funeral arrangements and the suspicion that he may have been somehow involved in her death. Dexter acts erratic, disappearing for several hours directly before the funeral, flaking on his responsiblities to his kids, while Deb does her best to support him and keep him together.
A new case shortly thereafter, involving women being killed by a group of serial rapists and then dumped in the swamp in barrels full of chemicals, challenges Deb's sense of right and wrong: the rapists begin turning up dead, and Deb suspects these deaths are the work of a final, escaped victim out for revenge. She can't blame "Number 13" for wanting the men who raped and tortured her, and killed twelve others, dead - can't condemn a victim for seeking justice against monsters. When she manages to track down "Number 13" and her accomplice/lover to the scene of their final vigilante killing, she chooses to let them escape without seeing either of their faces.
Local Hero makes Lieutenant:
While waiting in a restaurant, Deb is on the scene when a fired employee shows up with a gun. She flings herself at him and manages to take him down with no one else being hurt - the (somewhat spectacular) scene is caught on video by an onlooker, and becomes an overnight sensation on YouTube, to Deb's mild, but pleased, bemusement.
Meanwhile, Lt. LaGuerta has just been promoted to Captain, by dint of some sketchy political blackmail against Harry Morgan's old friend, the former Captain Matthews, who was involved in a murder coverup involving his mistress's death. She and everyone else - Deb included - expect her place as Homicide Lieutenant to be taken by Sgt. Angel Batista. Matthews, however, is determined to spite her choice of Batista who he sees as LaGuerta's tool, and turns his influence instead to seeing his old friend's daughter, the local hero, promoted to Lieutenant.
Deb is shocked and thrilled at the offer, and initially unsure of whether to accept. The promotion is a stunning opportunity: she's skipping one major step on the ladder, and will be becoming the youngest Lieutenant in department history. But Angel is her friend, her partner, and a good man, who she knew was counting on the promotion. And is she really ready for such a big advancement in her career? Will anyone even listen to her as a leader? Ultimately she decides that she can't pass up the chance. Angel, despite being disappointed, is ultimately understanding.
Promotion, and Doomsday:
But many of Deb's fears are borne out, as she struggles to adapt to being the boss instead of one of the guys. Debra's whole social circle, at this point, are her fellow cops. She has very little life and few if any friends outside her department, and now instead of being able to bond and blow off steam she's isolated herself from them.
In addition, Joey Quinn, who Deb had been having a casual if sometimes argumentative fuckbuddies relationship with since shortly after Rita's death, chose the time just before her promotion to propose marriage. Not being at all serious in her feelings towards Quinn, Deb is appalled, and grows more so as Quinn takes the rejection hard and blames it on Deb's ambition. He becomes reckless and disruptive to investigations, and repeatedly harasses Deb.
During all this, the department is attempting to deal with a dramatic new case: the Doomsday Killer, who stages elaborate and grotesque tableaus in imitation of events in the book of Revelations, in an effort to bring about the end of the world. The Doomsday Killer case is a public relations nightmare, and Dexter is acting strange, disappearing with no notice for days on end when Deb needs his help.
Deb begins seeing a therapist, at first as required by department procedure, but later because, well. She pretty much needs all the therapy in the world, after everything that's happened. In the course of the therapy sessions, however, it's suggested that part of her problems in both her romantic relationships and her interactions with her brother may be that she has "developed complex feelings" for Dexter. Deb furiously denies the suggestion, at first, but as the Doomsday Case counts down, and Dexter heroically saves her life from an attempt to kill the whole station with poison gas, and her whole career seems to stand in the balance, she reconsiders.
After an attempt by the Doomsday Killer - Travis Marshall - to abduct and kill Dexter's son Harrison leads to his apparent escape (but actual capture by Dexter), Deb returns to the scene of previous crimes, the church Marshall had been using as a hideout. She's heading there to see Dexter, since she was told he was going there to make a final sweep for evidence, and to try to talk to him about her feelings for him.
And then she walks in to find Marshall strapped to the altar with plastic wrap in a way that seems distinctly familiar, just in time to see Dexter plunge a knife into the killer's heart.
Are You...?
Reeling in shock and horror and confusion, Deb asks Dexter to explain what's going on. Dexter claims he killed Marshall in self-defense, and then - when asked about all the plastic sheeting and the sword and so on - says that he "just snapped," and that his training as a forensics expert meant that he somehow just automatically killed Marshall in a way that wouldn't leave evidence.
Deb's first impulse is to call the death in, and to try to find Dexter the best lawyer possible to defend him. But Dexter points out, accurately, that self-defense will be a hard case to make. He manages to convince Deb to help him cover up the death to look like Marshall stabbed himself and then set the church on fire. Deb acts as accomplice, buying gasoline to try to stage the coverup, since she won't let Dexter just "take care of it" himself.
But she can't let go of all the things that are wrong with Dexter's explanation. The evidence that something is very, very off with her brother has been mounting up for years now, and now that she's looking at it she can't unsee it. Deb has flashbacks to being on the table Brian Moser taped her to ... with plastic wrap, just as Dexter had done to Travis Marshall. She goes through the old case evidence. And then she goes to Dexter's apartment, and searches it.
Dexter comes home to find Deb sitting surrounded by his knives, his blood slides, and the missing prosthetic hand from the Ice Truck Killer case, all of which she's found hidden in his apartment.
"Are you a serial killer?" Deb asks.
....
....
....AND THEN SHE GOES TO SPACE AND WAKES UP IN A TUBE OF BLUE GOO YAY.
(Deb will have jump amnesia for the first couple of weeks after arrival, and be unable to remember walking in on Marshall's death. Per discussion with Dexter-mun and Brian-mun, she'll raise holy hell about Brian being a serial killer - but with no hard evidence to back it up. Only after that's all gone down will she remember that, oops, Dexter's maybe also a serial killer?
Because I love to torture my characters.)
Personality:
Dexter: That's my foul-mouthed foster sister, Debra. She has a big heart but won't let anyone see it. She's the only person in the world who loves me. I think that's nice.
Deb: Fuckin' a!
Lundy: There's that mouth again.
Deb: Sorry. That's just the way I talk. If we're gonna be together, you better get used to it. I can't change who I am. I'm crass, and dirty, and I have a very filthy mind.
Lundy: You're also pretty adorable.
Debra Morgan is the hero to her brother Dexter's antihero. Creatively foul-mouthed with a mordant sense of humor, she's a deeply moral person - she does see the problems with the system and is frustrated by them, and can even act in conflict (as when she lets Lumen/Number 13 go) but her first instinct is always to go with them and she doesn't believe in vigilante justice or anyone's right to take someone else's life.
At her best Deb's a gifted detective and leader: smart, observant, dogged, protective, and fierce in her pursuit of justice. She's affectionate, funny, loyal, and brave, sometimes to the point of literally flinging herself into danger.
That's the good. But there's bad, too. Deb is self-doubting, self-destructive at times, has serious anger issues, and bad, bad instincts in relationships. Her ability to sense the wrongness of serial killers may be fundamentally broken because the person she trusts most is a serial killer.
Deb's ability to like someone is based very much on her perception of them as a good person. She has a tendency to get in the faces of people she dislikes (and, okay, also of people she likes, or is ambivalent towards, or has just met) and while she can be brought around to grudging respect and camaraderie if someone seems to her to be trying to do the right thing, she's spiteful and aggressive in hatred. Her hates are founded in believing the other person is bad, selfish or hypocritical or a predator who needs to be taken down.
Which isn't to say she thinks she's all that good a person, herself - she's got a self-loathing streak that's more like a self-loathing interstate highway, at this point. But on a fundamental level, she does see it as her responsibility to save the innocent and put the bad guys away.
Her primary relationship is with her foster brother Dexter - a relationship which is probably best described as intensely codependent. Her smart, dorky, emotionally constipated big brother who had the attention she craved from her father, and always seems to be out of reach or keeping secrets from her, he is the one constant element in her life, the one person she feels she can count on, her safe space.
She's had a huge amount of trouble building healthy relationships - she throws up roadblocks or else tramples through all boundaries. She tumbles into love with Rudy, agreeing to marry him after only a few weeks of knowing him; falls in love with Lundy, her mentor/father figure; has sex with her partner Quinn a minute or two after cleaning the blood of her sister-in-law and closest female friend from the floor.
Deb: Well what the fuck do you want me to say? That my life is a train-wreck of a disaster? That my life is a shithole? Well, I already know this, this isn’t news to me, okay? I know that I am broken.
Most of her trauma she's not over, really at all. She's functional, she made some progress and grown up a great deal, but her life has been hectic in the last few years especially and has left her with little time to mourn. She blames herself for a lot of the stuff she's been through, consciously and unconsciously: a huge number of the horrible things that have happened to her have been connected to Dexter's secret, but having gone for so long without knowing the single central fact nearly all the show's plots turn on - her brother is a serial killer - she concluded that it must somehow be her fault.
Jennifer Carpenter, on Deb: I get that she’s a fighter for what she believes in, like her destiny is always on the horizon and she’s chasing it with all her might. She doesn’t always have the vocabulary to say what she means, which is why she has a bad mouth. But her heart is always in the right place.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Normal human, no special/supernatural powers whatsoever.
Abilities:
Above average intelligence. Can be very observant: good at putting together facts and criminal profiling.
Thinks fast on her feet. Good actor/liar when she has to be; excellent interrogator.
Tough and brave in physical confrontations: she's not any kind of martial arts master, but she's strong and scrappy and has no qualms about fighting dirty, in hand to hard or armed combat. She's had to fight for her life on a number of occasions.
Very good shot. Considerable knowledge of weapons and firearms, though her main proficiency is with handguns.
Fast runner, with a lot of endurance.
Strong stomach for gore and screwed-up situations.
Weaknesses:
Foul-mouthed, blunt, and crude in language. Has trouble expressing feelings. Somewhat socially awkward - doesn't really know how to talk to people who aren't cops.
Uncomfortable with political games and manipulation. Can be vulnerable to people playing on her sense of obligation or on her feelings.
Driven by emotion, impulsive. Makes truly terrible romantic choices. Has had serious anger issues in the past, though she's gotten better.
Occasionally has a serious blind spot for serial killers and weirdos.
Inventory:
Police badge and ID for Miami Metro Police, Homicide Division
Glock 26 duty sidearm, with holster, with 2 boxes 9 mm rounds for it.
6 month supply soft contact lenses and fluid.
Clothes:
1 police dress uniform
1 dressy work suit, silk blouse, and pair of heels
1 casual blazer
2 pairs of jeans
1 button down plaid shirt
1 striped t-shirt
1 belt
Pair of boots
2 sets of underwear (in addition to those she arrives in), socks
1 pair aviator sunglasses
1 MP3 player, with assorted music
Appearance:
Tall - around 5'10". Despite eating her weight in red meat, junk food, and beer, Deb is still beanpole-thin, with long runner's legs. Longish chestnut hair fading to blonde at the ends. Hazel eyes, very fair skin that's been tanned somewhat by constant sun exposure. She's perpetually straddling a line between knockout gorgeous and gawky and odd-looking.
Deb has a scar of a gunshot wound on the right side of her abdomen.
Age: 35
AU Clarification: N/A
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
"Are you a serial killer?" Debra asks her brother. And then the air in the room swims and twists before her eyes. Or maybe it's the memory - she can't hold onto it. Not any of it, the knives and the box of bloodslides and all the other damning evidence in front of her, not the long day hunting down something she didn't want to find. Not the church in flames and the gascan light in her hand as she watches it burn.
She's glad to forget, for a little while.
...Which doesn't mean she's glad to wake up in some kind of body horror alien nightmare with a tube down her throat. Or to land on her ass on a cold metal floor, nauseated and freezing and dripping with...stuff, surrounded by half- or totally-naked strangers on either side. And she's in her underwear, too. Great.
Deb gets to her feet, wobbly and long-limbed as a colt, and loudly summarizes the situation with typical eloquence:
"Motherfucking science fiction bullshit!" Attempting to wipe her face, and spluttering a little: "Fucking blue lube all over me, what the fuck."
Comms Sample:
So, uh, two things. Unrelated to the whole thing with Rudy-slash-Brian-slash-Sick Fuck Who Likes to Murder Women and Cut Them Up, so. All you motherfuckers can put away the popcorn and hot dogs and the Fuck Tha Police signs, these are just normal fucking requests.
[That...maybe wasn't the most friendly way of starting things off? Oh well.]
So, number one. I've got this mp3 player here. Which is great and all, but it hasn't got much more than a few hours' charge, so I want to know if there's a way to move the music from there into this ... communicator iPhone thing. I don't know how the fuck to do it myself, but that'd be great if you could. And since we're 900 years after Earth exploded I'm guessing copyright's up on sharing music, so anybody's welcome if you want any of it. There's. I don't know, there's a lot of classic rock, some new stuff, some of that Cuban shit my brother listens to. Some Chopin and Saint-Saëns.
Uh, second thing. [Gaining confidence and vehemence.] Who do I have to blow to get a decent fucking cup of coffee around here? I'm used to police station coffee, I'm not that goddamn fussy, but this instant shit in my floor's kitchen is like weak tea made from the ballhairs of Satan. There's just no fucking excuse. Help.
