( anya taylor joy, twenty-three, she/her ) spotted ! lorelei gunther, on the steps of the met. who’d have seen that coming? what with being a music phd student and all, i’m surprised they’ve found the time. they’ve always been quite disconnected and impulsive, so i’m sure trouble will follow in their wake. then again, i’ve been told they can be perceptive and original. either way, i’ll be watching. - xoxo, gossip girl. ( alys, 23, est, she/her )
what’s up??? i’m alys (or ally if you prefer!) and it’s been a hot minute since i’ve done a tumblr rp. been dying for a good gg-style rp and then i found this yesterday and went .... well no time like the present ! so i decided to resurrect a muse i haven’t played in a while; this is lorelei aka lorrie, spoiled rich kid, quiet weirdo, big lily from pitch perfect energy. grew up on the upper east side, left for vienna, and is back doing her doctorate in music composition bc she has no clue what she wants to do with her life. like this for a plotting message !!
statistics.
full name. lorelei amelia “lorrie” gunther.
age. twenty-three.
date of birth. february 24, 1998.
place of birth. new york, ny.
gender & pronouns. cis woman & she/her.
orientation. bisexual/queer.
occupation. phd candidate at columbia university.
education. bachelor of composition and music theory from the university of music and performing arts vienna.
zodiac. pisces sun, aquarius moon & rising.
mbti. intp, the logistician.
enneagram. type five, the investigator.
alignment. chaotic neutral.
father. frederick gunther : b. 1959, film composer (think hans zimmer).
mother. caroline claymoore : b. 1962, art curator.
sibling(s). phillip gunther : b. 1994, cellist & music instructor.
other relatives. her oma, franziska gunther, music teacher & composer. 1934-2016.
her opa, stefan gunther, music theory professor. 1932-1985.
past. (tw: death)
quick gunther family history: franziska and stefan immigrated to the u.s. from austria in 1955 so stefan could take a job at julliard as a professor. they’ve been in the upper east side since the 1960s. frederick is the first-born son, married connecticut-born caroline in 1994, while she was pregnant with phillip. they divorced in 1997, while caroline was pregnant with lorelei.
when lorrie was three, her mom moved to paris. when she was four, her dad moved to los angeles. so, he decided to leave the kids with his mother, lorrie’s oma, franziska.
whereas her brother was kept busy by extra tutoring and music lessons, at his father’s strict request, lorrie was raised largely by her oma, who, at this point, was an eccentric upper east sider. think adelaide bonfamille from the aristocats.
a lonely, socially awkward kid, considered a musical prodigy just like her brother and her father. i’m keeping most of her childhood and adolescence pretty open and loose for plotting purposes but she was definitely quieter and weirder, not particularly social. also def went through a phase in high school where she like cut all her hair off and went really alt bc that’s the vibe.
her brother attended juilliard, like their father intended. lorrie intended to, too, but then in the spring before graduation, her oma died. not unexpectedly, but suddenly.
basically, lorrie had a minor meltdown, took a gap year, and ran off to vienna, which was where her grandmother was from, and a place she always recalled fondly.
and now that her brother has left juilliard and is currently teaching music at a private school in massachusetts, she’s returned to do a doctorate in music composition at columbia. she’s missed new york dearly.
present.
*insert jughead weirdo speech here*
back in high school went through the quiet girl to alt girl pipeline. one day she’s wearing burberry and shiny loafers, the next she’s chopped all her hair off and dressed like she just inherited a hot topic franchise.
basically big “i’ve been clinically depressed since i was nine years old” energy.
kind of directionless in life. yk the vibe of like she didn’t expect to make it this far.
pretty quiet just by nature, kind of lives inside her own head. finds herself falling back into high school patterns now that she’s returned.
has never learned how to process her own emotions. she’s an aquarius moon raised by a gemini, so.
had a problem where she did reckless shit to feel alive. started with going to vienna, and then this pattern continued to get worse in europe. now that she’s back, though, she’s trying to... stay here and not just run away when things start to suck.
after this is just fun facts:
stoner on the dl. and by dl i mean everyone knows it but she has the decency to smoke in private. she's done other drugs, too, but she's... trying to cut back.
that lactose intolerant bitch who pretends she’s not that lactose intolerant but. she seriously is.
can speak six different languages, play nearly twenty different instruments, but can't cook, drive, budget, or live any kind of healthy lifestyle.
wanted connections.
childhood best friend. that she... ghosted when she went to vienna. whoops. probably some beef there.
partner in crime. probably underestimated her propensity for chaos at one point, but not anymore.
high school bully. def a bullying victim at some point. things between them are weird now.
idk man she’s got a lot of flexibility and i’d love a lot of different connections for her. professional relationships (like a mentor or mentee thing?), flings/one night stands, new friends, almost-dated, former students of her oma's, etc.
something about the way the other carries herself rings a bell in the back of athena’s mind. the icy blonde hair, the deep brown eyes, that look on her face – she’s dead certain that this person is no stranger. but where from, she ponders, circling the rim of her glass with a neatly manicured finger. new york wasn’t called the big apple for nothing, and the possible avenues on which the two could have crossed paths were innumerable. fuck, for all she knew the other could just as well be someone she’d seen at some function. she blinks, watching the silhouette of the other take form before her eyes. and then it hits her. sort of. “you’re … laura, right?” close, but no cigar. not that athena really cared to learn lorrie’s name back when they’d first became aquainted.
“sprite?” she asks, and bites back a remark about it being a toddler’s drink. clearly, the girl is on something. and while mixing your vices doesn’t bother her on a moral level, she’d hate to deal with the lawsuit that would follow if anyone got sick. she signals for the bartender with a nonchalant motion of her hand, and sets down the glass he is polishing to fulfil her wishes almost instantaneously. less than a minute later, the drink is placed in front of the girl. “didn’t you go awol or something a while back? i remember everyone talking about it.”
of course athena didn’t remember her name; lorrie spent her entire high school career trying to avoid contact with her. “lorrie,” she said automatically, “or, lorelei, but most people call me lorrie. laura’s close enough.” she pressed her lips together to keep from rambling, looked down, and realized she had her hands between her thighs. she pulled them away and held them up, trying to think of a normal place to put them. knees? ugh, too third grade piano recital. hips? that felt sociopathic. folded in front of her? folded how? like fingers intertwined? yes? no? she haltingly arranged her hands and arms in a few different configurations, before she finally, after about twenty seconds, decided upon both elbows on the table, with one hand up to cradle her chin.
she offers a smile to the bartender as he hands her the drink, and she takes a moment to consider how she would get the straw in her mouth without breaking position, so she leaned forward, chin still on her hand, and just used her mouth. all of this maneuvering took up so much brainpower, she needed a few seconds to process what athena said. “uh, yeah. like, senior year, my oma died, so i went to vienna instead of staying here. she was born there and always talked about it. she always said the music only got worse the further you got from vienna.” that was way too much information, but then again, rambling. “so, uh, what’ve you been up to?”
‘ SO , YEAH . COME CHECK IT OUT IF YOU WANT - OR DON’T , NO PRESSURE . ‘ he hated this , the stench of failure that wafted off of him with every desperate plea for an audience to one of his upcoming shows at some grungy , rundown dive bar . most of the regulars at his father’s place knew him well enough that’d they’d spark up a conversation about a show long before he would , but the awkward puppy dog eyes , begging on the knees sort of routine he’d conjured up over the years to get even just one more person to even consider stepping foot in a disease ridden wasteland just to listen to him croon about some shit that he wrote about in his mid twenties was incredibly disappointing . especially so for his father , who side eyes him from the back as peyton tries , and fails , to flirt his way clumsily into getting a few more patrons to attend next week’s show . god , was he really that desperate these days ?
lorrie wasn’t expecting to walk into peyton’s bar to watch him crash and burn like this. she’d come here, specifically, to ask about gigs though, so it seemed she was in luck. as soon as peyton was done with the poor person and they slipped away, lorrie was there to replace them. “if you’re having a show, it just so happens that i have a few people who might be coming.” she continued, “it’s the other music comp post-docs. its my turn to pick the spot where we’ll hang out, and it’s always to see live music, so. i figured one of your shows would be perfect.” that and peyton’s band was relatively unknown. it was a sad sort of one-upmanship with her classmates: everyone who hosted had to pick an even more obscure band than the one before. but she was pretty sure referring to peyton’s band as “obscure” would make the puppy eyes come back, and those were really sad to see on anyone over thirty.
dusty pink nails tap against the aged wood of the bar counter, causing the espresso martini in front of her to ripple in its tall-stemmed glass. athena leans back in her seat, casts a glance at the clock, and groans. twenty minutes. seems this dude is a no-show. the concept of rejection is a strange one to her, normally people bend themselves out of shape to accommodate her, and the taste of rejection leaves a bitter coating on her tongue. she’s about to slide her centurion across the counter at the bartender, before tucking her tail between her legs and returning to the comfort of her penthouse when she spots a figure. “come, sit,” she beckons, unsure of whether she actually knows the other or not. the martini she’s battling with now is by no means the first of the night. “what are you having? let me buy you a drink.”
it was right when lorrie made eye contact with athena fucking spencer that the edible kicked in. she’d eaten it over an hour earlier, when she’d initially intended to go home, before being intercepted at the door by one of her oma’s friends who just wouldn’t stop talking, and then she’d had to pee, and as she was emerging from the bar’s bathroom. this. lorrie was starting to suspect she was never gonna leave this place.
she batted off the initial instinct to hide behind the nearest wall, which had always served her well whenever she saw athena in the hallways of her high school. but this wasn’t high school anymore, and lorrie was a grown woman. or, she tried to convince herself as much. without really meaning to, she approached athena. “um, well i, already ate?” she shook her head, “sorry, that wasn’t supposed to be a question. but, uh, a drink would be okay.” when she sat down roughly, though, she realized she didn’t need any more intoxicants in her system. “i’ll, uh, have a... sprite.”
