Elizabeth “Ginger Ale” Hopkins
For @sassafrasx and @kingsmansecretsanta
Prompt: Tell me more about Ginger: What’s her background/life story?
I wasn’t entirely sure about what was meant by this, since it was in the “other prompts” category, so I figured I would make a mini-aesthetic set and talk about my thoughts on Ginger’s back story. Head canons below:
She is from Bloomington, Indiana
She is a Cancer
Her family consists of her mother, her father, and her older brother
Her family calls her “Lizzie” and the nickname stuck with her until college
She had a twin sister (Abigail), but she passed away when they were in middle school due to an accident
They were both proficient at the violin, but Ginger always believed Abigail to be a lot better. When she died, Ginger stopped playing and stuck to scholarly interests
She wasn’t unpopular in school or inherently closed-off. She just was never great at making and maintaining friendships. Her sister had really been her only friend during her childhood and when she died, Ginger grieved and didn’t feel capable of finding friends to have as a support system. People comforted her, but she didn’t really have anyone to talk to about the loss. She didn’t want to talk to her family because the pain was still fresh to them too. She wasn’t comfortable talking to teachers or other adults because they always took her words too seriously and would call a counselor or her parents, which was something she didn’t want. So, she ultimately decided to deal with it on her own and grieve by herself. Eventually, she was able to find interests outside of school. She joined science clubs, built robots for fun, went to movies by herself on the weekend. She learned to be her own friend. And she didn’t see anything wrong with that. She had a couple of people she became close to in high school, but once they graduated, they all drifted apart
She initially just wanted to study biology in college, but her love of tech stayed with her. She fought tooth and nail to keep science electives where she could, even though she was already taking such a heavy load. She loved college. To her, it was perfect. No parents asking her why she didn’t go out more. No counselors asking about her social life. No one that remembered the sad girl that wandered around looking lost. No more “Lizzie”, just “Elizabeth”.
She was halfway through medical school when she created a skin graft that could heal tissue damage in half the time. She submitted the studies she’d done when they were intercepted by Statesman. Champ immediately asked to meet with her, offering to pay off her student loans if she came to work with them after she finished medical school
Statesman logistics are a bit different than Kingsman. Initially, Champ was just looking for medical personnel to take over at the agency and Ginger seemed to have really great ideas. However, he soon learned about her tech knowledge and her proficiency for mathematics and decided to move her to the role of quartermaster. She’s basically in charge of everything except mission assignments. He acts all gruff about it and will rarely compliment her upfront, but he genuinely thinks she’s a great leader and a good influence on the other agents
She was the youngest member to join the agency until Tequila joined the ranks. She is still the youngest member of the tech/medical team
Her family thinks she provides the cyber-security for Statesman and created the biometric security system that protects the whiskey (she did, but she lets them think that’s all she’s done), which is how she has so much money to send home
As she got older, she kind of became aware of her own sense of loneliness. She never really addressed her sister’s death and now that she has a sense of stability and isn’t running around in preparation for the next thing, she realized that she didn’t have anyone to turn to when she was feeling low. She and her family weren’t super close. They love each other, but they’re states apart, and they all dealt with losing Abigail in different ways, so things just... never quite healed right. She wants to get back out there and make friends, but it’s hard when your time is limited, you can’t even be truthful about what you do for a living, and you can be called away to work at a moment’s notice. That, and because she never quite got down the unspoken rules of maintaining friendships, she isn’t super great at meeting new people.
She gets into her own head too much. When she’s able to just speak and not think about everything she’s saying, she does fine.
She’s one of those people that would love a boyfriend, but she isn’t going to go out of her way to get one. Dating apps bore her, singles mixers make her uncomfortable, and she tried an online service once, but deleted her account when she got a dick pic (”You pay $9.99 a month to do this? How dumb are you?”)
She so desperately wants to be an agent. She wants to go out in the field and experience missions hands on and learn about the world outside of coding and firewalls and medical enhancements. She wants to experience her gadgets to the tasks she makes them for (AND THE ONLY REASON WHISKEY HAD VOTED AGAINST HER IS BECAUSE SHE REMINDS HIM OF LELA BECAUSE I REFUSE TO LET VAUGHN MAKE WHISKEY INTO A SEXIST FUCK)
When she is able to become a part-time field agent (Because Whiskey didn’t die because he didn’t betray everyone), Tequila ends up being the one training her (”As a thanks for savin’ my hide, Ginger- I mean, Agent.”)
One would think because she is “geeky”, she would like to read. She’s actually more of a movie buff. However, her movie taste is almost exclusively rom-coms and animated flicks, with maybe a few sci-fi ones thrown in
When she meets Merlin, her instinctive thought thought is that he looked like Picard from Star Trek. And then he talked and she thought about the Muppets (It is in the novelization and it is honestly the cutest fucking thing)
She personally adores super fancy lingerie. That’s what she buys for herself. Since most of her money goes to her family, expenses, and medical research, what she has for herself goes to elegant teddies and lace panties
The first time she and Merlin have sex, he thinks she prepared for it, only to see her closet. All of her every-day clothes are stuffed into drawers or tossed aside, wrinkles by damned, but all of her fancy underwear is hung up, pristine
Her corgi is a gift from Merlin. They’d been going out for a while when she learns that Kingsman recruits get dogs and she gushes over the concept. That gives him an idea. He gets her a corgi for Christmas that next year. She takes to him instantly and names him Rowlf after the Muppet
In recent years, she had started to teach herself to play the violin again. She’s not great, but she does it almost as a form of self-reflection. However, she only plays in front of the full length mirror in her bedroom, because even though her sister never got to grow up, it feels like they’re playing together again
She prefers tea over coffee, but when Tequila accidentally introduces her to those bottled Starbucks frappuchinos, there are always a couple empty bottles lying around the lab
Her eye sight is super poor and while Champ offered to pay for her to have LASIK, she refused because “I look cute in glasses”
She bites her nails and is trying to quit
Her favorite movie is a tie between “The Fifth Element” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (One of the reasons why she found Harry so charming was because he reminds her of Colin Firth ;) )
She likes alcohol that is crazy and probably illegal in some places. I’m talking the ones with dead bugs in them. She wants to try all the weird shit
She decides to go with the code name “Ginger Ale” because when Champ asks her what she wants to go by, she says that because it’s bubbly, sweet, and goes great with most alcohols. He laughs so hard he nearly cries and insists she stick with it because it suits her perfectly <3
