#i might revise in the morning anyw

[dcmeterwrites]

who is that walking on the quad ? that’s CYNTHIA WINCHESTER, of course. she may look like elizabeth debicki but the twenty eight year old is actually a doctoral student studying management. on game days, she’s judicious and honest ; during finals week, she’s strict and prideful. if you catch her at a party, she’s probably dancing to orpheus under the influence by the buttertones.

— RUNDOWN.

full name: cynthia irene winchester

name meaning: the goddess artemis, peace


date of birth: november 27th

place of birth: chelsea, united kingdom


age: twenty-eight


star sign:
 sagittarius

year: first


department: business

clubs: none

alignment: true neutral

mbti: isfp

spoken languages: english ( native speaker ), french ( fluent ), german ( proficient ), russian ( intermediate ), mandarin ( intermediate )

mother’s name: isla winchester née mcclare

father’s name: conrad winchester

siblings, if any: cordelia, casper, cressida, and charles winchester

birth order: oldest, older twin

height: 6′3″

hair colour: blonde

eye colour: blue

— BACKSTORY. 

as the eldest of five winchester heirs, a great deal of pressure was placed on cynthia from a very early age. sit up straight, learn your forks and spoons and knives, laugh a certain way, wave without moving the elbow. it was hammered into her. 

in order to survive in that world, she convinced herself of one thing — that life was a matter of complete self-restraint. she attended her flute lessons and loved them, but not too much. loved studying literature, but not too much. loved playing with her siblings, rowing in the summers, having picnics, sunday roasts, winter evenings by the fireplace — but not too much. 

it pained her deeply to see her siblings miss the fundamental principle of not too much. where cressida went one route, steeling herself into something artificially robotic and serious and never once allowing herself a laugh, the other sister delia went the other way entirely. threw herself with nothing but mirth into everything she did. casper too erred on the side of caution, living life to its reckless fullest. 

she never wanted to cut their fun short. some part of it brought joy into her life, when she didn’t allow herself to have it directly. but as her parents breathed down her neck, she cared less and less about protecting them, coddling them really. it only led to scoldings. 

cynthia was a good student, though not exceptional. if she had any skill in abundance, it was an uncanny intuition to see people for who they were, which did her favours in predicting reactions and decisions.

after finishing up her a-levels, she headed right to st. andrew’s for a bachelor’s degree in economics. her twin charles took a similar route, though she purposefully chose a different institution than him — mostly to avoid him. 

for better or for worse, he had always been an uncomfortable shadow on her side. while he was slightly worse than her in his behaviour, in his manner, in his academic and extra curricular achievements, their parents thought he could do no wrong.

nevertheless, after her mba degree at the london business school were over with, it was pretty clear what she were meant to do next. her endgame was likely to own a considerable share in the hotel business, own a few, operate a big one in new york or paris or london. it was laid out before her like a carpet. 

so she worked in public relations for the winchester family of hotels, nothing she wasn’t expecting. you had to start somewhere, and she was well-suited to be a fresh, likeable face for the company, speaking to investors, to the public and even to officials from the tourism department. all good. 

she made her life her work. when it came to the matter of romance, the principle of not too much returned in full swing. she’d go on dates, but none of them interested her very deeply, and left suitors with dashed expectations. perhaps she didn’t let herself be interested by them at all.

all the while, deep cracks emerged in the family. cora was simply not suited to the business, and before they could process it, she was across the pond, at some strange university that cynthia had never heard of. she couldn’t lie — it hurt. but by that point, she was resolute that cora had to grow up like the rest of them, and give up her silly dreams and wishes. 

at least she was doing well for herself. soon the winchester hotels were the talk of every major city in the world, the perfect option for any kind of customer. perhaps now, she’d finally get a chance at her management tasks, actually handling staff and making changes to the way things worked.

fat fucking chance. she was invited to a fancy gala with the family, mum, dad, cress, charles, even casper had been wrangled out of whatever european hamlet he hid away in — for what was apparently a grand announcement. she’d never been giddier in her life to hear those magical words.

i am pleased to leave the management of our family hotels to charlie. 

well, shit. that was one decision she could not predict. 

to say she was confused was a bit of an understatement. she hadn’t just been on equal terms with charlie in terms of performance, she’d exceeded him. he was lazing about on the board of directors while their dad pulled the weight, and while she increased the reputation of their brand tenfold. 

for the first time in her life really, she allowed herself a little too much. she demanded an explanation from her parents, and was met only with “ well, we didn’t think you’d care for the job. ”

right. because she never did show she cared.

losing out on that opportunity was a rough wake up call, that she’d expected too many things to go her way based on her achievements alone, rather than any passion. worse yet,  the announcement wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you could reverse on a whim. 

working at the hotels any longer drained her completely, knowing it was for nothing. and at least she had the decency to quit when she knew she wasn’t doing a good job. quitting meant disapproval and losing rights to certain family assets, but it was what it was.

years of repressed passions bubbled to the surface. suddenly she felt violent, wanting to do nothing more than to throw every last inch of her life away and start new, start different. but how the hell could she do that — where would she go ?

it struck her then. somewhere that the people around her hadn’t heard of. somewhere like riverbank. going back to school wasn’t exactly on her bucket list, but she was a bit desperate for a change of scene — and what a scene it was, wide open skies and suburbia and youth. besides, she hadn’t spoken much to cora beyond a few emails in her sister’s freshman year. she did miss her, even if missing was mixed up with disapproval and envy. 

so cynthia cut her hair, got a new look, less elegant colours and skirts and dresses, more pantsuits and dress shirts. applied for a doctoral degree in management science — she could wrangle up something based on her experience. and then she set out, selling off the remnants of her london life, and deleting far too many contacts off her phone on impulse. 

her financial situation was thrown for a bit of a loop, however. her source of steady income was gone, her claims to property were distant, and her doctoral degree was fucking expensive. her bank account is slowly wearing down, but it’s still good enough to keep her in a nice apartment by herself. 

well, there’s the question of meeting with cora at some point, but she’s mustering up courage for that. such a thing needed planning.

everything’s a bit too much. so it’ll take some getting used to.