History

Childhood Scrapes

Audrey was born on August 12, 1999, to Howard and Helen Jensen, in Lakewood. She was raised in a happy home and was the joy of her parents’ lives. As a child, she was a frequent playmate of Emma Duval, whose mother was friendly with her parents, and the two girls became inseparable friends.

Audrey would recall more than one incident in their childhood when she discovered Emma had taken scissors to her picture books to make origami from the cuttings. When confronted, Emma would assume a hangdog expression and claim she could explain.¹

A nonconformist from an early age, Audrey was averse to traditional ‘girly’ pastimes, but wasn’t strictly a tomboy either, shunning social activities. Her parents enrolled her in the Girl Scouts, but the experience didn’t take and Helen pulled Audrey out after one summer.

Audrey’s social alienation worsened as she entered the awkward years of adolescence. Her aloof behavior, unconventional manner of dress, and the fact that she was the daughter of the local pastor (branding her as ‘uncool’ by default, whatever else she might say or do) made her the target of bullying by her peers and older students, most particularly Nina Patterson, who specialized in a type of verbal denigration and could make or break people’s reputations single-handedly.

Audrey was defended in these playground scraps by an older girl, Amanda Steele. While they knew each other through Howard’s church (the Steeles having been lifetime members of the congregation, with Amanda being a regular part of Howard’s youth group her whole childhood), Audrey had never been close to her. However, Amanda, detesting bullies, made it a point to stick up for Audrey. The two became close friends, and Audrey took Amanda’s advice to heart, eventually putting it in practice herself to protect a classmate, Noah Foster, from bullies.

While Audrey was a withdrawn outcast, Noah was a hyper-energetic nerd. Audrey, who hadn’t intended to become close to him by telling his bullies to back off, nonetheless caved in to Noah’s overtures and became his first friend.²

These new friendships prompted Audrey to further come out of her shell, at the same time creating a demarcation in her friend groups. While she remained close with Emma, Emma didn’t spend much time with Noah, influenced (though she wouldn’t say as much) by his nerdy reputation. As far as Emma was concerned, this was just part of growing up and branching out, but Audrey began to feel rifts forming in their friendship.

Rifts in the Family

During this time, tragedy struck the Jensen family. Audrey’s mother, Helen, was diagnosed with breast cancer. The illness had a profound effect on Howard, who determined to be as proactive as possible, raising money from his congregation to have his wife treated by the best oncologists in the country, a process that meant Helen spent the worst months of her illness at a private hospital in Boston, away from her family, who could only afford to visit occasionally.

Audrey, who had always felt her mother was more sympathetic to her than her father, suffered greatly from this separation, and the increasing sense of hopelessness as Helen deteriorated.

Helen passed away in June 2011. Howard, who had begun drinking during his wife’s illness, surrendered to the bottle. He was a withdrawn, disconsolate alcoholic, withdrawing into his own grief at a time when Audrey needed the one parent she had left.

Though Howard eventually got sober and proceeded to get his act back together, the gulf that Helen’s death had opened between father and daughter would remain wide for the next half-decade.

During her father’s struggles with the bottle, Audrey relied on the support of her friends, and made a new one in the form of Jamie Teague, the youngest daughter of Ed Teague, principal of George Washington High School and Howard’s best friend. Teague had been a constant presence at the Jensen home during Howard’s recovery and had occasionally brought his daughters along to help straighten up the house. Jamie, an older girl with a rebellious streak, hadn’t relished these visits, but she took a liking to Audrey, and offered the sympathetic, but not condescending ear she greatly needed.

Secret Self

By the time they started high school, Audrey and Emma’s friendship had begun to fray in earnest. Emma had only gotten prettier as they’d gotten older, while Audrey remained baby-faced and relatively plain. Emma’s attraction to “girly” interests further caused their circles to diverge, and Audrey found herself spending more time with Noah, Amanda, and Jamie.

Things reached a threshold when Emma began dating Will Belmont, a rising star on the school basketball team who was firmly part of GW High’s ‘in-crowd’. As a result, Emma began spending more time with the rest of that clique, including its leader, Nina Patterson, Audrey’s old tormentor, now firmly ensconced as the ‘Queen Bee’ of the school.

Audrey couldn’t reconcile Emma seeming to ignore everything Nina and her friends had put her through, which seemed like a slap in the face after years of friendship. At the same time, Audrey was grappling with uncomfortable truths about herself, only exacerbated by the sight of Emma with a boyfriend: Audrey was into girls. Specifically, she was in love with Emma.

While never particularly religious herself, Audrey had been raised in her father’s congregation and had grown up hearing homosexuality spoken of as a grievous sin. On top of this, she couldn’t reconcile falling in love with Emma, who seemed so different from the girl she’d been when they were children. Bitter and resentful, Audrey kept her sexuality to herself.

Pen Pal

In the second half of her freshman year, Audrey and Noah developed an acquaintance with Kitty Wright, a senior who had transferred to GW High a few months prior. Like them, Kitty was a member of the school’s AV Club. While Audrey had joined out of a professional interest to develop her photography and videography skills, Noah had a more cultural interest, and enjoyed going through reams of dusty archive footage in the quiet hours after school.

Kitty, it turned out, was also fond of hanging back in the archives. It was through this that Noah learned of her interest in the 1994 Brandon James murders. The massacre had always persisted in their minds as a local ghost story, but neither Noah nor Audrey had taken much stock in it before.

Separately from her friend, Audrey found herself secretly empathizing with Brandon: an outcast high schooler who allegedly snapped after being rejected by a popular girl and took out his rage on her friends: the same people who had made his life so miserable.

The Brandon James case became an obsession, and Audrey began to conduct her own research, planning a documentary that sought to valorize Brandon as a victim lashing out against the society that persecuted him. One of the objects of her research was to identify “Daisy”, the pseudonymous girl who had apparently been the object of Brandon’s twisted affections. Audrey’s efforts succeeded, and she identified Daisy as Maggie Duval, Emma’s mother.

The shocking discovery only deepened Audrey’s zeal and she investigated further, learning not only that Maggie had been a childhood friend of Brandon’s, but that they’d conceived a child shortly before the killings. The pregnancy had been covered up by Maggie’s parents, who’d moved her out of town to “recover” from the traumatic events of Halloween. The baby, Audrey learned, had been given up in a closed adoption.

Eventually, Audrey was able to identify Brandon James’s child, Emma’s half-sister: Piper Shaw, a true crime podcaster based out of New Orleans. Wary of her digital footprint, Audrey reached out to Piper by snail mail, initially identifying herself as a fan of Piper’s podcast Autopsy of a Crime. The two struck up a correspondence, bonding as outcasts. Audrey began to see Piper as a friend and confidante, venting to her about the death of her mother, her father’s emotional distance, the bullying she’d been subjected to her whole life, and…most vehemently…the betrayal of the girl she’d once considered her best friend. Though Audrey had initially planned to tell Piper what she’d learned about her paternity, quite certain Piper couldn’t know it herself, she began to hold out, fearing that once she told Piper the truth, she would want to seek out her biological family, and Audrey would lose her to Emma.

Rachel

While doing research for her Brandon James documentary, Audrey met Rachel Murray, a student at St. Mary’s Academy, an all-girls’ Catholic school in Lakewood’s waterfront district. The two girls met through a message board for amateur filmmakers, where Rachel was posting about her own independent film project: a stop-motion zombie movie made with LEGOs. Audrey commented that, given the work stop motion takes, Rachel couldn’t get out much.³ Despite this blunt beginning, the girls clicked, bonding over their shared love of film, their conservative upbringings, and the difficulties of being closeted in a town like Lakewood.

Their interactions provided both girls with valuable lifelines at dark times in their lives. Rachel was only a few months removed from a suicide attempt, and admitted to admiring Audrey for standing up to her bullies in a way she didn’t think she’d ever be capable of.

The two got close over the summer and began dating. Wary of their families, they kept things secret, though Audrey gradually became more emboldened, culminating in an outing on the afternoon of October 17, 2015. Audrey picked Rachel up in her car and took her to the Wren Lake Overlook where they kissed, unaware that they weren’t alone.

Outed

The next evening, a candid video of Audrey and Rachel’s kiss was uploaded to YouTube and went locally viral, effectively forcing Audrey and Rachel out of the closet and leading to a slew of cruel homophobia from commentors.

Audrey immediately guessed the culprits: Nina and her friends…including Emma. She crashed a house party Brooke Maddox was throwing and confronted Emma to her face. Emma didn’t deny knowing about the video, but insisted she didn’t film it. Before long, their respective friends intervened: Brooke for Emma, and Amanda and Noah for Audrey, Noah having seen the video and called on Amanda for help, accurately deducing Audrey would be on the warpath. Emma and Audrey were separated, leaving Audrey without answers.⁴ Not keen on explaining herself to her friends, Audrey stalked off, walking down to the jetty at Wren Lake.

Amanda followed her there, concerned. Audrey wasn’t keen on conversation but told her a bit about Rachel and her fears that she wouldn’t be able to withstand all this humiliation and maintained that, if Nina had seen anyone else at the Overlook, she wouldn’t have done anything about it. Her bravado slipped enough to admit she didn’t know how her father would handle the news.⁵

Later that night, Audrey finally returned Rachel’s texts from earlier in the evening. Rachel had spent the hours since the video went up holed up in her room while her parents argued with each other, not as much about the video but about Rachel’s sexuality and how her “secret” reflected on them.

Audrey told Rachel she knew who was responsible for the video and blamed herself for it being filmed, since the likes of Nina wouldn’t have cared so much if it was Rachel and any other girl. She insisted that the time would come when people like Nina and her friends would reap what they’d sown.⁶

Fallout

Audrey arrived at school the next morning, ready to put a defiant face on things. She brought her handheld video camera with her, intending to record any unfortunate members of the rabble who deigned to gawk and goggle at her. However, she faced a very different reception.

As it happened, two students, freshmen Stacy Winters and Brock Carmichael, had been murdered the previous night. Stacy’s parents, Robert and Gina, had also been found dead in suspicious circumstances.

The deaths had sent a shockwave through the town, and the school was buzzing with morbid excitement, with deputies stationed around the property. Audrey, having siloed herself off after talking to Rachel, had to learn the details from Amanda and the unseasonably excited Noah, who couldn’t help but preen that his pet interest in crime finally had a real-world application. The bright side, Noah assured Audrey, was that the murders should steal the spotlight from the video.⁷

Appearance

Audrey’s a petite girl with gray eyes and black hair, which she wears short. In her teen years, she adapted a grungy, alternative style, sporting Doc Marten combat boots.⁸

Personality

Audrey has a stormy temperament and a brooding nature. Prickly by default, she guards her emotions but is prone to lashing out when she’s been cornered. She holds grudges, often to her detriment, and isn’t always sensitive to the feelings of others, occasionally alienating her friends when they try to intercede for her.

A creative spirit, Audrey appreciates iconoclastic artists such as Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage.

Equipment

Car: Audrey has her own car. She was in the driver’s seat when the infamous kissing video was recorded.⁹

Camera: An avid photographer and documentarian, Audrey owns a handheld video camera, which she carries around with her, to record with on the fly.¹⁰

Crimes Committed

Trespassed on the Maddox property to confront Emma over the kissing video.¹¹

Development

Audrey was a major character throughout Scream the TV Series and consequently has been part of the Scream Roleplay Universe since its inception. Since 2015, she has been portrayed by four people, and is one of the most recast characters in the history of the project.

She was portrayed in the 2015 Season 1 AU by forum moderator Celebrity01. Though Celebrity returned for the May 2016 Season 2 AU, he did not reprise the role, which was portrayed by newcomer Snafu Guru. Snafu was a latecomer to the October 2016 Season 3 AU, and the role of Audrey then went to TellatrixForever, who reprised the role when The Final Retreat launched in April 2019. Tellatrix remained with the character until he departed the project in 2022. From 2023, Audrey has been portrayed by ThePlotMurderer, in The Final Retreat and Lakewood: Year One.

Other Interpretations

From the beginning of the wider SRU, Audrey’s characterization has fluctuated widely, largely dependent on controversy over her canon counterpart’s motivations. The Season 1 finale revealed Audrey burning correspondence between her and Piper, heavily implying she was the second killer…the one who attacked Piper and abducted Will at the end of Episode 6.

It has since been disclosed that original series showrunner Jill Blotevogel did intend for Audrey to be the second Ghostface. However, following Blotevogel’s departure between seasons, new showrunners Michael Gans and Richard Register removed Audrey’s guilt, instead passing the mantel to the less fan-popular character of Kieran Wilcox, opening a slew of plot holes and having the unintended consequence of making Audrey look somewhat dim across the whole run of the series. Notably, TellatrixForever, who portrayed Audrey in the October 2016 Season 3 AU and for the first half of The Final Retreat, had opposed the insinuation that Audrey was a murderer from prior to the release of Season 2.

Season 1 AU

The Audrey of the Season 1 AU is much more mellow and laid back than either her canon or SRU counterparts at the equivalent point in the timeline (approximately, the first fifth of the first season). Part of this is due to unfocused motivation in the first half of the game’s run.

Before Rachel Murray was cast, the kissing video was rarely attested to, leading to some confusion about whether it had even happened. Audrey is still an outcast and wary of being in the “spotlight”,¹² but it’s her friends Noah and Amanda Steele that end up catching most of Nina and Tyler’s ire, while Audrey hangs back and observes.

Trivia

Audrey has been portrayed by four different writers since 2015, the most of any of the canonical teens.

Audrey featured in Rachel’s phone lock screen: a picture of the two of them together at the Wren Lake Overlook, taken a few weeks before the kissing video was filmed.¹³

Audrey’s faceclaim, Bex Taylor-Klaus, is shared by the French painter Rebecca, in Big Trouble in Little Lakewood: 1750.

Quotes

Is that how it’s gonna be now, Em? The Sisterhood of the Traveling Gel Tips?

Audrey to Emma about her new friends

I am not a victim.

Audrey to Amanda

Yes, Amanda! Nina’s the bad guy. But you and I can know that and it doesn’t mean shit! You think all these people care about privacy o-or boundaries or whatever talk therapy bullcrap? No! They’re bottom feeders, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re the majority!

Audrey vents about Lakewood_Eyes’ receptive audience

I’m not gonna pretend to know my Bible the way my Dad would like, but I’ve got that ‘sowing and reaping’ thing pretty understood. And these people are staring down a surplus.

Audrey, on the in-crowd

Gallery

1. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 1 ↩︎
2. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 5 ↩︎
3. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 6 ↩︎
4. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 1 ↩︎
5. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 6 ↩︎
6. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 10 ↩︎
7. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 13 ↩︎
8. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 1 ↩︎
9. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 2 ↩︎
10. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 13 ↩︎
11. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 1 ↩︎
12. Season 1 AU: Pilot, Post 37 ↩︎
13. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 10 ↩︎