Character Information
Character Name: Myka Bering
Canon: Warehouse 13
Canon Point: 4x13 "The Big Snag"
Character Journal: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) thedetails
Appearance: Myka is 5 foot 9 and average size. She's a secret service agent so she's in pretty good shape, and she tends to favor comfortable outfits like flowy shirts and stretch pants. Myka has long black hair that she usually wears down in unkempt curls, but she does straighten it occasionally because she can never decide which she likes more. She has two tattoos, an infinity symbol on her outer right ankle, and a Shakespeare quote on her inner right ankle ("Simply the thing I am shall make me live.").
Myka has pretty curly hair.
Although sometimes she wears it straight.
And sometimes she is way sexy.
Age: 31
History: Myka at the Warehouse 13 Wiki
Personality:
Myka is a full-blown nerd. She grew up in Colorado Springs, under the safety of her father's bookstore, Bering and Sons. The Berings had no sons, however, only two daughters. Tracy was the popular and outgoing daughter, while Myka was the withdrawn "weird" one, who favored reading classics and learning languages over fitting in socially. She was also a tomboy, and was a member of the Girl Scouts and took fencing lessons in high school. She never really fit in and this resulted in her developing an icy exterior. When we first meet her, Myka is off-putting to the point of almost being hostile, much to the chagrin of her new partner, the laid-back Pete Lattimer.
But Myka has her reasons; she never felt like she really could impress her father and growing up ultimately friendless, her snippy attitude and work-obsessed drive helped give her an outlet. Even a pre-law and pre-med education never really got her back in her father's good graces, and it wasn't until after she started working at the Warehouse that she was able to reconcile with him. She was recruited into the Secret Service after college, whereupon she fell in love with her (married, but legally separated) partner, Sam Martino. Sam was killed, and for a long time Myka carried the guilt for his death. It wasn't until her time at the Warehouse that she was truly forced to - quite literally - confront Sam's ghost and comes to term with his death, and also admit to herself that it wasn't her fault and she would have been unable to save him due to the involvement of an artifact. Her accepting his death becomes a turning point for her, and the Warehouse - an assignment that she original abhorred - became a safe haven and the home that she never before felt she had.
The Warehouse became Myka's home, and the people within it became her chosen family. Pete, her partner, is someone she deeply loves. The complete opposite of Myka in every way, Pete tends to function off gut feelings and flying by the seat of his pants while Myka prefers precision, planning and detail. He is like the annoying brother she never had, and the two always have each others back and share a special relationship that helps them work almost flawlessly as a unit. Artie is the Warehouse dad; at first, Myka was very distrusting of him and hated the fact that he insisted on withholding information from her. However, Artie has proved himself over the years for being a strong Warehouse supervisor and even though they still occasionally butt heads, they have developed a level of trust between them. Claudia Donovan is the Warehouse little sister; smart, spunky and sarcastic, Myka looks at Claudia as the most adult out of all of them and sees her for the strong, successful Caretaker she is destined to be. The newest arrival, Steve, is still someone Myka is getting to know but she knows how much Claudia adores him and views him as a member of their growing family.
Another important person to Myka - and someone who challenged her relationship with those in the Warehouse as well as her views of herself - is HG Wells. Although they didn't meet on the best of terms, as HG had seemingly allied with a Warehouse enemy, Myka felt drawn to her. It is most likely their shared love of literature that initially bonded them, but they both share a vast amount of similarities, to the point that Pete remarked a few times that the team had "Two Mykas." What Myka developed for HG is very similar to her relationship with Pete; she loves the woman deeply, and vouched for her as a ally of the Warehouse to get her onto the team. However, HG did eventually betray the Warehouse and Myka wore the guilt, much like she did after Sam's death. Myka viewed her assessment of HG as a failure, and this caused her to leave the Warehouse behind for a few months. Eventually she returned, however, realizing that her life was there now and she couldn't leave her family behind. Ultimately, HG returned to assist the Warehouse and saved the team, and Myka became more secure in her friendship with the other woman as well as in her own character judgement of others.
Her experiences in the Warehouse helped her come out of her shell, and Myka is no longer afraid to show her emotions to the people she cares about and trusts. While she is still the most serious of the bunch, she has loosened up considerably and is not afraid to tease, cry, show her affection or state what is exactly on her mind. Although she has gone through some rough experiences, Myka fights to not let them overtake her or change who she is.
Because of her fierce intellect is one of her strongest qualities, Myka is never afraid to show off the information she knows in any situation. Although her fellow agents tend to be very understanding (probably because the information she offers is usually very useful to their investigations), the ridiculous number of languages she speaks and her insurmountable intellect become a running gag in the show. However, Artie does expose this as a point of weakness for Myka, too; she worries that her intelligence comes off as condensation and she is unlikable because of it. It also becomes clear that although Myka comes off as a secure person, she is worried that she is unlovable and will spend her life alone. She clings to the Warehouse so tightly not only because the people she's grown to love are there, but because a hidden part of her is worried that they will be the only ones who will ever really love her and she will continue to be unliked and unaccepted by her peers.
By the middle of season four, Myka finds her life in turmoil once again. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she is faced the reality of her own mortality. She spends much of the episode struggling with how to tell Pete, playing out scenarios in her head of how he will react and constantly afraid of what kind of response it will elicit. When faced by an immortal countess who is struggling to find a way to become mortal, Myka's fears are clearly communicated when she reminds the woman that mortality means eventually death. After breaking down she tells Pete that she has cancer, solidifying that the struggle to truly accept the confines of her own mortality will be a long road for her.
Chosen for Warehouse 13 based on her unyielding attention to detail, Myka is intelligent, well-read and boasts a photographic memory. She is also known for not being afraid to talk about her "feelings," something that Pete does not always particularly appreciate. She takes her losses extremely close to heart and is deeply critical of herself. But through it all, Myka is an extremely driven and persistent woman, and she's not afraid of the person that the Warehouse has helped her become.
Powers/Special Abilities: Myka has a photographic memory. Besides that, she is also skilled in hand-to-hand combat and sword fighting/fencing. She is fluent in multiple languages including English, Latin, French, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic, and Chinese.
River Power: Literary Animation. Myka is able to project narrative stories into reality by reading a book or story out loud. While she will not have any control over the movements or activities of the characters she creates in reality, but she will eventually be able to return them back to their texts on command.
Reason for Character Choice: My roommate got me into Warehouse 13 about a year back, and Myka is totally my type of character. I started playing her at Amat and have had a ton of fun with her, and I've been playing with the idea of bringing her here because I think she would be fun to play with a power and in this environment.
Additional Information: I am leg disabled.
Writing Samples
First-Person Transmission Sample: (from Amat)
[The feed springs to life, showing a woman with a mess of black curls framing her face. Her sweet, youthful look is counteracted by her wide-eyed concern, and her lips peeled back in a nervous grimace.]
Hello? Artie? Pete? Can you hear me?
Am I seriously in Greece? I can't be in Greece. I have something really serious going on here and I don't have TIME for Greece. [She taps the screen on the device, glancing down before clearing her throat nervously.] I'm not sure who is actually on the other side of this thing but a little help here? I need to know if any... one who is seeing this has come in contact with anything strange lately. Like, erm, an antique or something... [She looks around, frowning.] Okay, probably a bad question.
... Does anyone smell fudge?
Third-Person Log Sample: (from Amat)
Myka watched the other woman, her lips pressing together in a line as her eyes followed Helena to the window. She looked strangely regal and elegant, her stance a complete contradiction to the fact that she was wearing a simple button down shirt.
Shaking her head, Myka could feel her emotion stuck in her throat. Helena had just voiced the greatest fear that had been inside of her; even worse than the idea that an artifact was on the outside, because even then, they still had a chance of someone neutralizing it. But Claudia had been looking for an artifact for years with no luck and Myka couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, she was right.
"No way," Myka contradicted, which was stupid and thoughtless because she didn't have any evidence to back that up. "Helena, you don't understand. This has to be an artifact." She could feel that lump rising again in her throat, her tone edging on desperate, almost pleading as if HG somehow had the control to make it real. "I... I have to get home."
Myka felt her breath quickening and she stood up, moving across the room to dump the armful of books and papers in her hand onto the dresser. She kept her back turned to HG, gripping the top of the dresser so fiercely that her knuckles turned white.
"I know it might not be possible," she muttered, her voice wavering with emotion. She knew the truth - if Claudia couldn't find the artifact, if Nate and the Doctor and Leonardo Da Vinci couldn't figure it out - what made her think any of them could? They were trapped here, maybe for the rest of their lives.
"But I can't listen to this right now. I have to believe there's a way out of here." She needed something to live for, something beyond mothering Claudia and she wasn't going to find that here. That was all back home and getting back to her life there, her life at the Warehouse, was the only thing that made all of the shit she went through in the last month worth it. "You don't have to help me look but I can't do the brutal honesty, no light at the end of the tunnel thing right now."
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