𝒹𝑜 𝒾 𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓀 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒾 𝑔𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝒶 𝒻𝓇𝒾𝒸𝓀𝓁𝑒 𝒻𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓀𝓁𝑒?

[vampireapologist]

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・・・ 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓑𝓲𝓰 𝓖𝓾𝓷𝓼 ・・・
❝ 𝒮𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒𝓈 𝒾𝓉’𝓈 𝑜𝓃𝓁𝓎 𝓂𝒶𝒹𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓂𝒶𝓀𝑒𝓈 𝓊𝓈 𝓌𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓌𝑒 𝒶𝓇𝑒. ❞

ɪɴғᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | ʙɪᴏɢʀᴀᴘʜʏ | ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs | ᴀɢᴇɴᴄʏ ʀᴏʟᴇ | ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴇsᴛs | ɴᴘᴄs
ᴘɪɴᴛᴇʀᴇsᴛ | ᴘʟᴀʏʟɪsᴛ | ᴄᴏʟʟᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ | ᴀʀᴄʜɪᴠᴇs | ᴍᴏᴅᴇʟ

𝙱 𝙸 𝙾 𝙶 𝚁 𝙰 𝙿 𝙷 𝚈

— So I want Gwen to have been born in the early 1980s. Because . . . the drama. Idk I know some of the point of our gals was being from the “present” but Ellis Hope has all of those beautiful retro photos that just make me want her to be from another decade!!! And that’s how we got here.

— For some time, I've been thinking of changing her trailer park background. I do think, however, that I'll still keep some of it. What I'm considering instead is . . . her parents were huge partiers that met in the height of the groovy 70s. He { uh this would be a good time to come up with a name. Calvin? } came from old money but hid it under his hippie guise. She { hmm... think I want to call her Mary and she never liked having a common name which is part of why she picked something like Gwendolyn } never had much. The audacity of this man Calvin to pretend he was poor and live off Mary while she was working two or three jobs?! So yeah anyway. Eventually, Calvin’s dad { aka Gwen's grandpa } threatened to cut him off, so he shed his "dirty" lifestyle to be a corporate sellout and keep his inheritance. Strung Mary along because he's a major asshole. Even began elaborately wooing her with all his millions. For a while, this made their partying even more intense. There were probably also some shady things involved!!!! Cue Ren and her P.I. hehe

— Eventually, Gwen's mom basically woke up and realized what she'd become and how she'd sacrificed a lot of her values for this fantasy, etc etc. Got clean. Even tried to help Calvin and get him in the program as well because she "loved" him. However, he was kind of like the temptation she couldn't quit. She wanted to save him bc she believed they could be happy together. But that rich asshole either couldn't or wouldn't save himself. Eventually, Mary decided she would rather not have access to any of his wealth because it was too big a risk of falling back into her addiction. Found out she was pregnant. Never told him. Ran away and didn't look back.

— So Gwen, like the original bio, was born and raised in a trailer park with no idea who her father was, but her mom was clean. They were decently close, all things considered. It was difficult and her mom worked constantly. But they were trying to make it work.

— Unfortunately, Mary still had terrible taste in men and didn't mind using one here or there to pay the bills. Lbr Gwen still met a lot of fucking weirdos. None of them hurt her, but none of them were good people either.

— Gwen and her mother had a more strained relationship the older she got. They didn’t connect as effortlessly as when she was younger. Gwen didn’t want it to be “us against the world.” She wanted to fit in with the world.

— She started getting angry about all the rotating boyfriends. { "Can't you just not bring them home for a change?” } And the way she couldn't afford the same "cute" things her classmates were. Or how her mom never had time to go to PTA meetings or bake brownies for the fundraiser. A part of Gwen wanted to be a part of this normal suburban life that was all around her, but she never felt like she could fit in. Her classmates didn't bully her, really. It was much more subtle. Just like not inviting her to shit. There was always an air that she was an outsider to their world. She didn't find the same jokes funny, she didn't like the same things, etc. etc.

— Gwen spent a few years trying to change herself to be one of them. Began stealing both money and items to do so. But after a few years of emptiness and still not really feeling like she belonged, she basically overcorrected and rebelled like crazy. Cue the craziness of the mid- to late-90s, my dudes.

— Mary tried to reconnect with her daughter before Gwen fell down the same spiral of mistakes. In many ways, they were similar: very little impulse control and quite the temper. But it was like Gwen realized how alike they were and tried to do practically anything to not be the same as her mom. Mary was always committing to men, jumping into the arms of a new one before she was quite done with another. This next guy was always The One! Gwen, frankly, didn’t believe in any of that love nonsense. She wasn’t interested in dating slightly, though she would fool around from time to time. Everything was always casual. Feelings were out of line. Relying on a boy for help of any kind was out of the question.

— Her grades were slipping terribly. She was skipping school at every opportunity. As Mary tried to step back from the long nights of working to parent her daughter more, things got worse. Gwen hated being told what to do . . . not to mention some other nasty things she said to her mother. With all that bottled up angst and anger, Gwen felt like she only had one chance to prove that she wouldn’t be the same “washed-up mistake” { yeah, ouch }: by running away and succeeding all on her own. Three months before the end of her senior year { lbr, it wasn’t likely she would graduate }, Gwen decided to make her move.

— But her survival skills weren’t put to the test for very long. And that’s where things get complicated. She fell headfirst into a Pathway that brought her back to Chicago in the 1920s. Or at least what was left of her.

— Any sensible person that realized their reality shifted from neon-green nineties to art-deco roaring twenties would’ve kept their head down, tried to get a job that was suitable in all time periods { like waiting tables? }, kept their mouth shut about the future, and lived a quiet life. Gwen? Sensible? Of course she found herself wrapped up in the mob. That was how her alias Lydia Jones was born.

— And Gideon . . . well, he was a rather power-hungry guy who had a lot more ambition than anyone had the right to. Gwen had no intention of caring for him, but it was hard not to feel like things were meant to be when the universe literally turned back time to bring them together. She broke all her rules to fall for him. THAT BEING SAID . . . I still think she was just doing general mob shenanigans for 2-3 years before they even got together.

— She didn’t remember jack shit from the high school history classes she either skipped or snoozed through, but that didn’t stop her from wiggling her way into Gideon’s schemes to take over the mob for himself. Should Gwen have known better and realized his name didn’t grace a single one of her lessons for a reason? Probably. But their whirlwind love affair blinded her to the effects that his actions might have on future events. He wanted the world. She wanted to give it to him. And if they had to dirty their hands to get there . . . so be it.

— Gideon’s only real success came in making enemies. Rather than becoming the next big boss, he burned all his bridges. Well, except the one. Gwen still would’ve done anything for him. So Gideon pulled the last ace from his sleeve. In an attempt to recover at least some semblance of connection to his fellow mobsters, she had to be removed from the equation. Gwen was moments away from being killed when another Pathway swallowed her up. It spit her out in 2018 Cairo.

— The Agency, of course, registered the “drop off,” but they didn’t approach Gwen right away. Frankly, it didn’t take them long to figure out that who had accidentally got sucked into the future. How often did people whisper about someone in some kind of bloodied flapper getup? They kept an eye on her to ensure she didn’t cause too much disarray in the timeline, yet this was also an interesting piece of data they could use. How did someone from the past react to all the wonders of the future? Well, Gwen was a bit of an outlier. It was true that the glory of a touch screen computer in one’s pocket blew her mind, but she wasn’t as awestruck as someone from a century in the past would have truly been.

— And that’s when The Agency grew suspicious. Was there more to her than an unlucky flapper? Did she have some answers that would help get rid of some of their more, well, let’s just say, their more personal issues?

— It probably wasn’t the best idea to initiate her by kidnapping her. The battered and bruised agents who had to bring her in would certainly attest to it. But, nonetheless, Gwen was brought in. And nearly right away, a Pathway opened up near her. She got sucked back into Marie Antoinette’s Versailles.

— The Agency panicked. Their top agents were already in the field. All they had to spare was an overly-eager historical specialist who had never been through a Pathway and a part-cyborg that preferred data analysis rather than data collection. It was hardly ideal. It’s true, they contemplated simply leaving her there to die. And it wasn’t their morals that won out in the end but rather the fear that Gwen’s provocative outfit and vulgar manner would leave some kind of unexplainable mark. So they sent the inexperienced crew back — extra historically-accurate outfit in tow — to at least minimize the damage.

— What they never expected was that Gwen and these two girls — Margaret “Maggie” { I figured it would be fun to keep the GRIM bit if we could? Not that we have to but yeah I noticed you changed Margot’s name to Renate which opened up the M name so I just changed Remi??? } and Renate “Ren” — wouldn’t simply come back with a few minor hiccups: they foiled a plot by another mysterious Pathway-traveling group that was trying to keep the French Revolution from succeeding. Aka these ragtags managed to beat the strange rival group that The Agency’s “best” were failing to stop at almost every turn. { Don’t get them started on the 2016 election fallout. }

— For Gwen, it still wasn’t much of a choice. It was clear she had seen too much for them to let her walk away. She had been in the mob before, and she knew how loose ends were dealt with. Falling headfirst into another organization that viewed her as expendable? It was the last thing she wanted. And that’s part of why she vowed to rise to the top. She wanted to prove she was essential; it was the only way to keep herself safe.

— The Versailles success became the first of many missions. The “GRM Squad” { a terrible but beloved nickname that didn’t catch on for anyone else but Gwen liked to force anyway } trio was renowned in the organization. Their work was not without its failure — which is to say, they rarely managed to listen to directions. Maybe they did like one time? That might be stretching it. But in some strange way, their wild adventure would still further The Agency’s cause.

— Everything was going perfectly until Maggie didn’t come back from their mission in { blank, idk }. Gwen and Renate were never quite the same. Their desperation to protect one another outweighed the objective more than once. The girls started getting sent out fewer and fewer times. There was a rotating door of other agents they tried to work with to get things back on track, but no one could handle them. Until Isabeau came along. Beau somehow glued some of their broken pieces back together. Things were looking up . . . { OPTIONAL CONTENT AHEAD } until she went on a mission with another team and didn’t come back the same. Beau has been in a coma ever since. Gwen and Renate are still on the payroll. They’re even given a few fluff missions every once in a while. But it’s clear that things are hanging by a thread for them.

— As anyone would attest to, Gwen was a reckless agent at first: really not worth keeping in the slightest. But she has grown to be nearly formidable, even if she still stubbornly hides her competence under a casual bravado. Gwen is sticking around because this has been the only place she thinks accepts her and knows her. She used to dream of getting out, but losing Maggie made her realize that her team was her family. She would do anything for Renate. Even Beau. Nowadays . . . especially Beau.

— Gwen also wants to, you know, not spend her entire life accidentally getting stuck in other eras without any control. Not to mention that kicking ass of evil entities who want to destroy the “true reality” is the only thing keeping her going at this point. She has to be better for Maggie. She has to find the answer to save Beau before she suffers the same fight. She has to save everyone else so that she can finally save herself.

— There is a matter of . . . speculation. Gwen and The Agency are somewhat under the impression that she has some kind of connection to Pathways. Despite their rather unpredictable existence, they seem drawn to her. Or she’s drawn to them. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, most people can go their entire lives without coming within 100 miles of a Pathway. For Gwen to fall into multiple . . . with no scientific background leading her to them . . . with no knowledge of the truth . . . Well, it’s either she knows something she isn’t saying, or she’s special, right?

— The reality is neither. The Agency originally kept Gwen alive because they thought { and still think } she has some kind of trait that might help them study and understand Pathways better.

— When that first Pathway started to envelop her, Gwen didn’t let herself get pulled into the current. She fought like crazy. Something happened. She can’t really remember. She might have been stuck inside that wormhole for a while. Years? Doesn’t seem likely, of course, yet she would never admit the truth. Gwen can’t explain why she feels this way, but it seems as though a piece of her was left behind in the Pathway. Like she was fighting so hard to stay that some part of her actually managed to hold onto . . . something. That’s crazy, though! And she’s never admitted it out loud. But a part of her wonders if the only reason she seems to be a magnet for Pathways is because that missing piece of her { soul? Are those things even real? She doesn’t know } is trying to find its way back.

— The effects were subtle at first. It took a few years for her to realize that she could glance back at photos and look the exact same. With all the jumping, she’s not quite sure of her real age . . . but she knows the lack of smile lines around her eyes doesn’t reflect it just right. Her idea of a skincare routine is taking her makeup off with a wipe, if that.

— But even time seems to be slipping away from her when she occupies what The Agency calls The Present. Sometimes everything seems to run a little too slowly, like she’s vibrating just a bit faster than the world around her. Other times, she blinks and hours have disappeared; was she running too slowly to keep up with the world? It’s as though she can’t quite click into the reality she’s grounded in. What even is the definition of the present for her? 2021 with her colleagues because that’s the current timeline of where The Agency has declared their home base? Sometime in the 90s or early 00s where she’d bein her normal life? Or is it somewhere else all together? Nowhere feels quite right. At least when she’s on a mission, she doesn’t have to think about it.

— I am not sure how to tie him in yet but I still want her to have recently received a note from Gideon with her real name { instead of how he knew her as Lydia } and! For it to be in 2021! Like oh shit how tf did he get here! And I might still like some of her other ppl but I have to tweak them a bunch and I haven’t looked over them so who knows. Should Calvin work for the Agency? Seems cheesy and yet! Fuck the world maybe he is involved maybe not. Maybe his family bankrolls it but he doesn’t know shit and then his dad — aka Gwen’s grandpa — is involved but then he died dies and Calvin gets introduced to the world as part of the will / just how things work idk / there’s no logic but you know and then yeah idk now technically speaking he is involved with the Agency directly now as well! I’m too tired to think of a good plot re: Papa Calvin rn so pls send any if you have them but also he doesn’t really matter so nbd if he’s just a rich idiot lost in history.

— I do know that I have Gwen as being close friends with some nobleman from Versailles and I think I’m gonna keep that she keeps going back there because she knows his fate is to die and she can’t stop it bc then she’d be playing into the hands of her enemy but also she is running out of ways she can visit him so she’s gonna lose him soon and it hurts so damn bad bc he’s really turned out to mean a lot to her and it’s kind of like a moment where knowing fate hurts just as badly as not knowing it blah blah like destiny is a bitch and stuff and Gwen will be sad once more.

— The way I really don’t have a single happy plot in mind is just * chef’s kiss * but don’t worry there will be cool outfits involved.

— So I still think Gwen’s best traits are killing baddies, making a mess of things, saying something wrong, refusing to wear the correct underwear under her clothes that were accurate when she was handed them but now seem to have a few strategic changes, scoping things out, running reconnaissance, seducing anyone and anything, and just acting as a general bodyguard for people who are doing more diplomatic or scientific bits of the mission lol. Girl likes her weapons. My fave stereotype is that bit where they have to take off all their hidden knives and guns and things and like it just keeps going. That’s her. And it’s quite surprising considering how revealing most of her outfits are. Oh and I almost forgot!! She’s also good at blowing stuff up ♡ Over the years, she’s probably acquired a few more refined skills. But these are still the fun ones she’s known for ;)

— Gwen never backs down from a challenge { for better or for worse } and doesn’t mind being a bit of a guinea pig. Has The Agency taken advantage of that and tested a lot of unknowns on her? Um, yes. And she was aware of like 60% of them. { I don’t care about this happening at all so nbd if you guys aren’t into it. But I was wondering if it could be a bit of a complicated layer in her relationship with one — or both idk — of the gals if they had actually been a part of testing some odd things on an unsuspecting Gwen. Esp if something ended up having a consequence! Bc nothing says true friendship like a little sprinkle of drama and betrayal. }

— She 100000% prefers technology from the 90s and early 00s and will go out of her way to not have to use anything more modern than that.

— Has dirty blonde hair but the fact that she keeps it dyed so much lighter means her roots often look brown. Loves her thick mane even when her roots are grown out af.

— One of the factors grounding her in The Present is her beloved pet snake. He’s an albino corn snake named Adonis. Grace, I don’t care how you feel about snakes. He’s vital ~

— Gwen has never looked up what happened to her mother since she left, nor has she tried to find her in The Present. She is too afraid of the answer. Gwen also has a love / hate relationship with Google in general. Instagram and TikTok, however? She fucking loves that shit. The Agency is always saying that none of the agents should use social media, especially because showing their face could be dangerous. Who knows when their portrait might accidentally show up in the past! Explaining that is no good! But Gwen likes to skirt around rules like that. She doesn’t always show her face, okay? And what are they gonna do: fire her? She’s somewhat succeeded in her goal: The Agency does, in fact, need her. She just doesn’t realize all the ways that wish came true . . .