~*Lydia Jennings*~

NOW YOU ALL KNOW WHERE MY EMAIL ADDRESS COMES FROM, SO STOP ASKING LOL

As according to The Jennings Twins (by Megan McGory ~ "Lydia Jennings")
and When Worlds Collide (by Amie Martin ~ "Larissa Jennings")

By Megan McGory

Lydia Jennings was born in Collinsport, Maine, on February 13, 1954, the first of two daughters to be born to Brian and Annie Jennings on that cold, wintery day. Her twin sister, Larissa Jennings, was born some hours later. She was born into a large family, with two older brothers, Chris and Tom Jennings (born in 1940), and in 1959, her sister, Amy, joined them.
Had her life taken its normal course, she would have been killed in a boating accident with her family at the age of 14, in 1968. However, a boy who was infatuated with her discovered a way to avert that disaster. He learned to go back in time, as well as forwards and even "sideways" into Parallel Time, and decided to change the course of history. He went back to 1954, kidnapped the twins, and brought them into 1984 Parallel Time, where he dropped them off at Laurence and Memorial Hospital, hopeful that they would not be killed when they would have been.
The twins were separated, their names were changed, and two different families adopted them. Lydia's name was changed to Margaret Lowe, and Larissa's to Diana Moreau. Lydia eventually moved to Sterling, CT, at the age of 3, and Larissa moved around until she too, came to Sterling at the age of 8. The twins were reunited-- but didn't know it-- as best friends, when they were 12, in 1996.
The boating disaster was averted, and by the time the twins were 17, life was going well for both. Then, however, fate came calling again.
Meanwhile in their own time, in 1971, their brother learned that it was possible his twin sisters were indeed, still alive. After they had been kidnapped and disappeared without a trace in 1954, Brian and Annie "accepted" the "fact" their daughters were dead, and "went on with their lives". In 1959, Annie was in a terrible car accident while pregnant with Amy, and as a result of the accident, Amy was born prematurely, and Annie died. Brian, unable to accept the daughter that his wife-- his soulmate-- sacraficed her life for, committed suicide. Tom, at the age of only 18, took on the responsibility of raising the only sister he had left. Chris was having severe psychological problems and severed his contacts with his family, because he could no longer deal with the pain of the tragedies that had taken place in less than a decade.
When Tom was murdered in 1968, Chris knew he was the only person left who could take care of Amy, but even then he had an "ailment" which prevented him from doing so properly. He brought Amy to Collinwood, unaware that they were really a part of the great Collins family.
In 1971, letters surfaced which hinted to the fact that both Brian and Annie never truly believed that their twin daughters were dead. Last, but not least, a scrap of paper gave the biggest hints to Chris of where his sisters truly were. With the help of Professor T.E. Stokes, as well as the boy who kidnapped the twins originally, the twins were brought back "home".
Unknown to the Collins family, in the Parallel Time Lydia and Larissa were from, there was a certain TV show called "Dark Shadows", which BOTH the twins were extremely familiar with. The show revealed every secret about the Collinses, and so the twins became staples to the family, and close friends of Barnabas, Julia, and their great-grandfather Quentin. Shortly after coming to Collinwood, they helped save the lives of Carolyn Stoddard and Hallie Stokes. Soon after that, they were attacked by a vampire, and as a result were turned into vampires themselves. That was only until Nicholas Blair made a reappearance, and was also taken with Lydia. Mysteriously, the twins were cured overnight, and life returned to normal. With the twins' wonderful personalities, they brought light into the Collins family and became well-known and loved in Collinsport. Lydia did quite a lot in the community, but it was her "death" in 1977 that made Larissa come out and take her place.

Larissa, also known as Rissa, had a hard time accepting her sister's death. Everyone in Collinsport did, but soon Larissa proved to be just as important, and eventually became equally loved, in Collinwood and Collinsport. However, Larissa was no replacement. Chris felt like a failure, because he had lost yet another family member, and Jared Corwin (Lydia's husband/boyfriend) could not be consoled. Larissa though, who always felt a tie with Lydia, felt that the tie hadn't been severed at her death. Something inside her always told her that her sister wasn't really dead...
Her intincts were correct. In 1979, Lydia made her reappearance at Collinwood, possessed by an evil spirit. Lydia had been sent back to Parallel Time, and was forced to re-live her former life as Margaret Lowe, from 1996 until 2009, when she regained memory of her other life and returned to Collinwood.
While she was living forever happily ever after with Jared Corwin, she gave birth to three children, Gwendolyn (in 1980), Darek (in 1981), and Deidre (in 1984). Then she forced Larissa to babysit and Larissa went off the deep end----------NOT! Actually, Larissa DID go off the deep end, but that was because of a large misunderstanding, which involved her husband and her pregnancy, and stuff, and Lydia's jello molds, and some pigeons. Or something like that. Of course, falling off a balcony probably didn't help.

The Jennings Twins in the Making... BEHIND THE SCENES

Ah...1996. The year that Amie and I became best friends. The year I started watching Dark Shadows. The year I started writing.

Amie and I used to play on these rocks in a stream on my property, pretending that we were poor sister/damsel in distresses awaiting our knights in shining armor. Hers was Jason David Frank of Power Rangers Fame, and mine was Humbert Allen Astredo--better known as Nicholas Blair, Satan's right hand man. However, sick of Adlibbing everything, we set out on writing our own plays. Mine turned into a 31 page synopsis of a play that I never wrote, and launched me into my writing career. So in November of 1996, we went to see Star Trek; First Contact together, and decided to tell everyone in the movie theater that we were sisters by the names of Clarissa and Larissa Townsend. Then, as I became more and more obsessed with Dark Shadows and writing, inspiration struck and we were suddenly calling ourselves Clarissa and Larissa Jennings, sisters to Tom, Chris, and Amy Jennings. Eventually I fell in love with the name Lydia, and decided that Lydia and Larissa Jennings sounded much, much better than the rhyming former. And so, we got our names.

Ironically we still use some variation of our Jennings Twins names as screennames and emails, even all these years later. The Jennings Twins, the first draft of my first Dark Shadows novel, was written during the summer of 1997, with a second draft to follow in the fall of 1998. When Amie started watching Dark Shadows, she began her sequel to The Jennings Twins, which after many title changes is called When Worlds Collide.

During a recent brainstorming session, we discovered something about ourselves as well as our alter-egos. Lydia and Larissa Jennings have evolved into being complete opposites, both on the outside and on the inside. Lydia Jennings is the social butterfly in the spotlight, always willing to jump in and lend herself to whatever needs attention; Larissa is the caterpillar in the chrysalis, more reserved and more reluctant to get involved so much in family matters, preferring to be alone. In a way, they are Yin and Yang, which is why this story has undergone a title change;

Yin and Yang; the Story of the Jennings Twins

One day I swear I'll write it over again.

Profile of Larissa Jennings
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