History

Problem Child

Gemma was born on January 24, 1988, to Patrick O’Neil and Eloise Fitch. She was the product of a teenage fling: Patrick and Eloise had only been dating for a short while when Ellie learned she was pregnant. Both coming from traditional Irish Catholic families, the O’Neils had no option but to get married and make the best of it.

This didn’t exactly make for a nurturing environment. Gemma’s early years were steeped in resentment as Patrick and Ellie set aside whatever dreams they’d had to cobble together a living to support their daughter. While the O’Neils were by no means paupers (Patrick started his own landscaping concern and did well for himself), it was a constant struggle and Gemma wasn’t an easy child herself.

Acutely aware of her parents’ dislike, Gemma was hot-headed and belligerent from the get go, having a tendency to go from 0 to 100 over the littlest things. She was a source of endless frustration for her teachers, and a font of terror for her classmates.

When Gemma was 10, Patrick and Eloise had another child…planned, this time. Baby Tyler was the O’Neils’ chance to do it “right” this time, and Gemma knew it. Knowing she couldn’t change her parents’ opinion of her, she instead set about tormenting her little brother in every way she could devise.

Wilderness Years

Gemma’s minority ended in a self-imposed bang. In spring of 2006, during her senior prom at George Washington High, Gemma set Principal Teague’s office on fire. She was caught shortly afterward, barred from graduation, and faced criminal charges. Gemma, newly 18, was tried as an adult and spent a year in prison.

The ordeal was a massive humiliation for the O’Neil family, who disowned her…not that Gemma seemed to mind. She didn’t return to town after completing her sentence and left no instructions for how to reach her, dropping off the grid for nearly a decade.

Custody

Gemma returned to Lakewood on the evening of October 18th, 2015, loitering outside the O’Neil house until Tyler returned from a party at Brooke Maddox’s house. Gemma wasted no time putting her brother on his toes, revealing she knew he was alone in the house since their parents were out of town, and alluding to his girlfriend Nina and her habit of getting him into trouble.

Tyler, caught, couldn’t stop her from letting herself in and making herself at home.¹

Appearance

Gemma was a very petite young woman, about 5’3, nearly a foot shorter than her brother, which gave her a disarming effect. She had wave black hair, blue-gray eyes, and bright red lips.²

Personality

Gemma is cruel and mercurial, with a gleefully sadistic streak. She masks her malevolence with an overtly sugary temperament that most people can see through, not that she seems to care. She operates with an understanding that people know she’s bad news and is unbothered by their judgments or opinions.

She can be violent and has no scruples about hurting others to get what she wants.

Origins and Development

Gemma was created by Fate for the 2015 Season 1 AU. She was the second of two OCs Fate created for the game, both of whom were sisters of a canon character. While Deanna was Kieran’s demure little sister, Gemma was Tyler’s sadistic big sister. Cruel and sadistic, Gemma never once displayed a single positive quality and was motivated entirely by a desire to make her little brother miserable.

Fate explicitly fashioned Gemma with the specific intent of her being at least one of the killers, and disclosed in her character application that Gemma was had a “kill list” for her own murder spree, in emulation of the Brandon James Murders. Tyler’s death occurring at the end of the game’s second “episode”, following an arc where Gemma elaborately pulled him out of school, does cast Gemma in a suspicious light. Ultimately, the forum went defunct shortly afterward, and Fate’s original plans for Gemma were never confirmed.

Unlike Deanna, Fate never brought Gemma back for another forum, presumably because the death of her canon connection, Tyler, was accepted as fact in every subsequent game. When the events of the Season 1 AU were adapted to the SRU in the first volume of The Story so Far in 2019, Gemma was confirmed to be one of three (opposed to the canonical two) perpetrators of the Lakewood Slashings, though she was killed off in such a way that the exact details of her involvement remained a mystery to the characters that has still not been entirely resolved.

Other Interpretations

Original OC Bio

The following is the original application for Gemma O’Neil, submitted by Fate to the 2015 Season 1 AU on September 5, 2015. Text is presented as it was originally displayed on Fanfiction.net, with no redactions:

---

Name: Gemma O’Neil

Age: 19

Personality: Gemma is mysterious and dark, she tends to remain quiet and seems to watch everyone. She is rude and obnoxious, the typical bad girl when she was in high school.

Appearance: (link is preferable, however description is also acceptable) Her face claim is India Eisley. She has long dark black hair, which is dyed. Blue-green eyes, and a slender frame. She wears mostly black clothing, and heeled boots. Skinny jeans, or a skirt, and tank tops or long sleeved lace tops. She also has a black mini-trench that she wears occasionally.

Likes/Dislikes: Gemma likes horror films, rock music and staying to herself. She doesn’t like her brothers annoying friends, or the good-gang as she calls Emma and her friends.

Favorite Movie: I Know What You Did Last Summer

Bio: Gemma is Tyler’s older sister, and she just recently moved back to Lakewood. She tends to stay to herself, and doesn’t get along much with other people. She tolerates her brother and his friends for the sake of him being family, but she would honestly rather see them all in another place. She is fascinated with the Lakewood murders, and even has a list of those that she would kill first. She is plotting the perfect murder, and she is waiting for the day she can carry it out. She has her first victim already in mind, and nobody even knows that she thinks like this.

Other: I thought she could possibly be the killer’s accomplice, or even the killer at one point. Unless we have more than just two killers.

How far do you see them lasting: (this will help determine a few things) Until the very end, if she can be the killer. If the killer’s accomplice, than I see her lasting up until almost the end, when she is killed to throw everyone off perhaps.

Season 1 AU

Gemma was originally much younger, being only two or three years older than her brother Tyler, at 19. The SRU put a decade between the siblings, making Gemma a contemporary of Eliza Taylor. She was noted as dying her hair black. Presumably, her natural color is a lighter brown, approximating that of her faceclaim, India Eisley.

As noted above, Gemma was intended to be the killer, or at the very least, a killer’s accomplice. She fetishized the Brandon James murders, though this element of her character never comes up in the game itself. Her admiration of Brandon James arguably borrows from canon’s Audrey Jensen, who by contrast doesn’t bring up Brandon as much during the game’s run.

One point against Gemma being the Lakewood Slasher of the forum is that she expressly wishes she was the slasher, expressed in private thoughts in a one-shot post featuring no other characters. In this same instance, the reader learns about “the psychotic side of her that was busy plotting murders while the rest of her house slept,” which only complicates the question.³

Gemma was introduced listening to heavy metal band Slipknot.⁴ Per her character bio, she’s a horror movie fan and, indeed, was shown watching slasher films during an aside.⁵

Trivia

Gemma was the seventh OC created for the Season 1 AU.

She is the only OC created by Fate prior to The Final Retreat not to appear in a later Scream forum. Deanna Wilcox and Tracy Lewis both became recurring characters.

Gemma was a cigarette smoker.⁶

Quotes

You have to ditch that thing where you think you run the world just because you know CSS. It’s very unflattering.

Gemma tells Tyler to humble himself

I told you before, Tyler, I’ll tell you again: you’ve got to shake that tick off before she sucks you dry. If she hasn’t already.

Gemma advises Tyler to get rid of Nina before it’s too late

Gallery

1. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 9 ↩︎
2. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 9 ↩︎
3. Season 1 AU: Pilot, Post 223 ↩︎
4. Season 1 AU: Pilot, Post 5 ↩︎
5. Season 1 AU: Pilot, Post 94 ↩︎
6. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 9 ↩︎