profile.
basics.
Name. Anne Margaret Gardner.
Age. 29.
Birthday. February 29th.
Location. New York City, New York.
Occupation. Associate Psychologist at Braeburn & Bonds, on the Upper East Side; specializing in child psychology. Currently on the last leg of her PhD via correspondence.
the tale.
Character. The White Queen.
Tale. Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glasss, and What Alice Found There.
Abilities. Backwards memory. She certainly can't see the future, but she does seem to have a rather adept sixth sense for how things are going to turn out.
Relationship. Very close indeed. Anne knew from a very young age what and who she was, though she never quite "realized" it until much later--that tricky backwards memory. She knew that she would eventually figure out what that strange tingling in her head was, but until she actually did, she was perfectly content to simply have it. Anne is less fretful and worrisome than the Queen, but every bit as motherly and patronizing. She has the same fondness for rules and order, and most importantly, is completely attached to the King.
Tale Status. Anne is proud of her Tale, but quietly so. Toby is liable to boast about it to anyone and everyone who asks, but she lets hers come up as a matter of due course: if someone asks, she will oblige them, but she isn't likely to go blurting it out without provocation. This might be due to her desire to dissociate from the Wonderlanders as a whole, who she views as a bunch of disorderly, irreverent, idiotic morons who rely on their ridiculous topsy-turvy rabbit-hole land (The Mirrorland is by far superior; standing with one's skirt over one's head is far more disreputable than simply putting it on backwards) as an excuse for their nonsense. Contrarily, when it comes to putting the rest of Wonderland in its place, she's perfectly happy to tell them that at least one Queen hasn't degenerated into a royal embarrassment.
personality.
First Impression. "What a lovely, charming woman!"
Personality. Above all, Anne is absolutely enamored with order and propriety. She likes things to be just so, for life to follow a certain scheme, for people to act as they ought, and for solutions to present themselves in a timely manner. She was, after all, a chess piece: life has rules that ought to be followed. She was, however, also a queen, and is prone to many of the airs and holier-than-thou mannerisms that queens hold dear. While championing the virtues of everything-in-its-place, Anne is likely to make whomever she's speaking to feel rather younger than they actually are, under the fussing and concerned eye of some kind of mother figure. Her maternalism manifests in a sort of half-detached, half-caring sort of patronization: it stems from both her inherently meddlesome nature and her stern belief that the majority of the world is completely incapable of managing anything on its own (her patients and the Compendium are more than enough to validate this).
She is pragmatic and enjoys getting things done for the sake of getting them done; solutions come to her faster than they do to others, both due to her seeing them before they happen and her detachment from matters providing an objective point of view--the Queen moves in straight, decisive lines, and Anne similarly can see a solution down the road and figure out how to get to it. At the same time, Anne retains that backwardness that was inherent in Mirrorland: while pragmatic and reasonable, she is also constantly in a sort of dream-like state, seeing things before they occur, knowing answers to questions before they're asked, and generally seeming not entirely there. It's only when she cuts in with a blithely sarcastic remark that you realize her head's been right in the foray the whole time.
Where Toby is gruff, loud, and masculine, Anne finds pleasure in being quiet, soft, and feminine. Stereotypically female things--flowers, the color pink, perfume, lace--can often be found in her apartment, if not on her person, and there are few places she doesn't leave some sort of feminine touch. She is unabashedly womanly, and often despairs of women who feel it's their duty to emasculate the men-folk and take their metaphorical phalluses as their own. A modern feminist Anne is not, and has more than once torn down the militant castrating sort with a gentle word and debilitating, rational argument against their insanity. She's very good at it. Arguing, had she any pleasure in growing hot under the collar, would truly be her forte; for now, she settles for simply being better at it than most people, and channelling a love of debate into a fondness for words. Where Toby likes the meanings and often takes things at face-value, Anne is more prone to a love of the letters themselves, of their construction and how they're strung together. Anagrams, palindromes, and assorted wordplay can entertain her in an idle hour, and between her and Toby, there are several hundred sudoku and crossword puzzle books scattered throughout the flat.
Anne is also, unfortunately, emotionally stunted. Having grown up with a vague sense of how things would turn out prevented her from making a few necessary mistakes along the way: she simply did as she was expected, because order and propriety were paramount. As such, the ups and downs experienced by most teenagers simply passed her by. She lived blithely and unaffected, stepping where she ought, moving where she must. Her ability to love and nurture is mostly superficial, and she looks out for herself and the King before she looks out for anyone else. Pawns can be sacrificed, and often are (though she will be the first to feed them tea and baked goods afterwards), and she is of the firm belief that if she can't accomplish something, no one can. Her near-engagement left her much more aloof than before, although likely only Toby would notice, and she tends to take solace in pointing out others' flaws before they can point out her own.
Likes. Order. Chess. Shawls. Knitting. Woolen things. Sudoku. Letters. Anagrams, palindromes, and assorted wordplay.
Dislikes. Disorder. Chaos. Spontaneity. Polyester. Pricking her fingers. Oscar Wilde. Noreen Rivera, though you'd never hear her admit it.
personal.
Family. Marianne Gardner (nee Livingstone, mother; 50), Victor Gardner (father; 53), Virginie Gardner (nee Laurent, grandmother; 72), William Gardner (grandfather; 81), Eric Gardner (brother; 30), Katherine Liddell (nee Gardner, sister; 32), Gregory and Edward Liddell (nephews; 6 and 4, respectively)
History.
Anne Margaret Gardner led a remarkably unremarkably life, as far as the Gardners go. Like every Gardner child since her great grandfather, she was born among siblings (youngest of three, in her case), raised predominately by nannies and the firm but understanding hand of her mother, and shipped off to Europe for boarding school (forms 7 through 12) at 12, only returning to the United States for summer holidays and her imminent entry into an Ivy League university. She ran track and played tennis, and was perfectly adequate at both; she played in just as many piano recitals as was required of her; she progressed in her studies just as well as she ought. Her childhood was respectable and planned in every way, and Anne was never prone to causing mischief or trouble. From a young age she preferred order over chaos, planning to spontaneity. Of course, this could have been from her uncanny ability to simply know things were going to happen before they did, but that wasn't something discussed in polite society.
She attended an elite private boarding school in Switzerland, the Brillantmont International College until she was 18, excelling in nearly all her studies, but most notably psychology and literature; it was hardly surprising (as many things about Anne were) that she chose to major in it on returning to the U.S. and entering into the esteemed Stanford University. A long way from home, to be certain, but she had spent most of her life an entire ocean away from home; a little continental divide was hardly a trifle. Most importantly, however, when she was 18 years old--in her assessment period at Brillantmont--a dour-looking woman appeared at her door with a journal from the American branch of what he called the Atheneum. Anne was, to Ms. Goldberg's surprise, less than shocked at her arrival. In fact the conversation went a little something like this:
"Miss Gardner, I have something for you."
"Is that my journal? Oh my, yes, I've been waiting for this. Come in, come in. I'll put the tea on."
She had, in fact, known she was a Tale from a very young age: her backwards memory alerted her to her otherness without ever quite telling her what it was, and only when she was able to put the string of future-thoughts together did things click, and the Atheneum send a compendium her way. She entered the Tale community with hardly a ripple; she was, of the Modern Tales (and most notably, the Wonderlanders) the sanest of the bunch, and has earned a bit of a reputation for not being out of her mind.
University, like childhood, was quiet. Anne progressed through courses with finesse and quiet skill, garnering a name for herself as being strangely motherly, considering she was only just into her twenties. People came to her with problems to solve and questions to answer; Anne breezed through them easily, keeping herself at a comfortable distance from her fellows while still managing to be ingratiated among them. It was an oddly honed skill, like royalty mingling unabashedly with commoners: she was never quite one of them, but she didn't choose to extricate herself from them either. The rich students welcomed her into their fold, the Gardner name holding its weight even far away from the Eastern seaboard, while the lower class population tended to merely seek her for help or advice. Universally liked was, of course, not the correct term for it; but she was certainly universally tolerable.
It was in an instance of her tolerability that she managed an invite to a particularly elite Stanford party, full of glass tumblers, crystal brandy decanters, soft music and refined conversation. It was the sort of party you'd expect Anne Gardner to be at, so of course she was there. When the odd tingling in the pit of her stomach started, she knew there was more than simple propriety for her being there; when the Santa Clara frat boys crashed into the manicured lawn of the hostess' home in their trucks and SUVs, Anne was hardly surprised. Then again, not much seemed to surprise her. The boys came barging in with their keg and their sixpacks, hollering and howling while Anne's friends made a royal fuss, trying to shoo them out, threatening to call the police--and Anne merely held her seat, sipping at a glass of red wine and watching the proceedings with a sort of bemused, knowing smile. Once Toby Hastings had pulled himself away to gather his wits by the ornate chessboard on the mantle piece, she cornered him to make sure he wasn't about to pass out, and informed him, in as plain of terms as she could, just why none of this was surprising to her:
“... Ohhhh shit. Enough tequila for me.”
“Oh, no, not quite, I shouldn't think. You're a Wonderlander, aren't you? The White King-now wouldn't that be funny?”
“...?”
“Oh, I'm the White Queen, dear. I think you'll be getting a call in the morning.”
They were attached at the hip from that point on. Toby sought her out more and more frequently to find out about his Tale nature; Anne quietly and calmly answered everything she could. She was, after all, far more forthcoming that Patricia Goldberg, and who better to inform you of your past life than the person you'd shared it with? The teasing and mockery, from her friends and his alike (though her circle seemed notably more vicious; why on earth was a Gardner associating so openly with some impoverished little nobody from Santa Clara?), she tolerated and ignored with ease. She was one half of a whole, and it didn't matter that Toby was from the other side of the social spectrum: thoughts became clearer, her memory began properly working both ways, and that niggling concern she poured everywhere else could be thoroughly and unquestioningly filtered into the King. Things were just as they should be.
She achieved her bachelor's in Psychology and moved back to Connecticut within a month of Toby's removal to New York, where she entered into Yale to achieve her Masters in the subject a few years later. At 24, she encountered and became involved with one Michael Ford (why, yes, that is of Ford Motors), a well-to-do young man hardly in want of finances or connections. Her parents heartily approved of the match, and by their third year of living together, Michael and the Gardners were ready for the proposal. So was Anne, to be perfectly frank, just not from Michael. The break-up was a messy one. She couldn't explain just why she couldn't marry or see the man again, despite considerable feelings for him, only that she must. It simply had to be done. Truth of the matter was Anne was only capable of living the rest of her life with Toby--not in a particularly romantic sense; but they are two peas in a sarcastic, holier-than-thou pod, and the thought of inserting a third into it was simply inconceivable. Anne left Connecticut soon after and moved into Manhattan, renting out an airy and expanisve two-bedroom flat--which Toby not long later occupied--and hiring into a notable psychology firm as an Associate Psychologist (not yet having her PhD made anything else out of the question). She recovered from the break-up rather well (she had been anticipating it, after all; backwards memory shows good things and bad), though became, perhaps, more aloof and detached than she had been before. Personal investment and relationships were generally no-man's-land, though she is perfectly capable of seeming involved and has more patronizing concern than she knows what to do with. For the most part, her energy is focused on taking care of Toby and mocking the hell out of the Tales that make utter fools of themselves on the journals. After all, propriety and order above all things.
physical.
Height. 5'7" or thereabouts.
Weight. She's thin without being particularly skinny, and has litle in the way of curves, but pinpointing her weight into pounds would simply be unladylike.
Eyes. Blue. Really blue.
Hair. Dark brown in the colder months, and more of a dirty blonde in the summer. She has never dyed it, though the color changes so much between June and January that sometimes people doubt it.
Appearance. Slim and lithe, Anne looks just as a woman brought up amongst the genteel ought to look: she is thin without being particularly skinny, her clothes are never in disarray, her hair is carefully arranged at all times. She has a classic sort of elegance to her, and the coloring of some 1940's starlet. It's rare to catch her without some sort of smirk or coy smile, though the exact reasoning behind it is never clear. At work, she dresses professionally, but feminine: tailored blouses and pencil skirts, understated stilettos and french rolls in her hair. Lots of beige. Flattering, but firmly professional. At home it's slightly more casual, but Anne rarely ventures from the overtly feminine. You'll never find anything too lazy or plain her wardrobe, just as you'll never see her out of order.
Samples.
social.
Status. Single, thank you.
Orientation. Heterosexual, for the most part.
Turn-ons. Propriety. Manners. Wealth. Letting her take care of them. Cleanliness. All the things that ought to be attractive to a woman of her age and station. Chocolate.
Turn-offs. People who aren't Toby. Toby. The French.
miscellaneous.
- Anne is a linguist and amateur cryptographer. She minored in cryptoggraphy, but dropped the degree in her third year due to its general uselessness. She is fluent in English and French (and still has a slight French accent from her years in French Switzerland), and more than competent in German, Russian, and Mandarin; the non-romantic languages fascinate her the most, so she spends most of her time in them. She is also passably good at Spanish and has a very vague understanding of conversational Hebrew (mostly from Skip).
- She is extremely OCD about capitalization and punctuation. Incorrect usage is enough to make her start twitching. Toby only gets by because she adores him.
- She knows all the words to Pirates of Penzance. This is also Skip's doing.
- She is a terrible lightweight and a sleepy drunk. A few glasses of wine are enough to have her giggling and falling asleep in doorways. She does drink heavy liquor (vodka, rum, etc.), but she doesn't drink very much of it at all; more than a glass usually gets her giddy.
ooc.
Storylines.
Songs. Skeleton Song, Kate Nash
Through the Looking Glass, Adham Shiakh
Wake the White Queen, the Cruxshadows
Consequence of Sounds, Regina Spektor
PB. Marion Cotillard.
Player. Rian!