The lives of the Edwards clan would forever be shrouded in secrecy. On the outside they were a perfectly normal family: Mother, father, three children. It was only on the inside that, if you looked closely enough, you could see the tatters and frayed edges. Lisa and Ryan Edwards were high school sweethearts who stayed together longer than they should have because of an accidental pregnancy. When, in 1980, Lisa discovered she was pregnant with the couple's first child, a boy who would be named Luke, the options open to the couple were few and far between. At the encouragement, or insistance, of both families, Lisa and Ryan were married in a small, swift ceremony, and the course of their lives would be forever altered. For a while, the family of three kept up happy appearances, but when Lisa became pregnant with another child in 1984, a girl who would be named Constance, tiny cracks began to form, tiny cracks that could have been patched over if anyone had been paying attention.
The death blow to the Edwards family would come in mid-1986 when Lisa once again discovered she was pregnant. The pregnancy, as unplanned as the two that came before it, split open the rift between husband and wife. Ryan refused to believe the child was his and Lisa couldn't definitively say one way or another. Regardless of paternity, the couple's third child, a girl named Felicity, would be born at midday on February 28. Ryan joked, seriously, that he wished the child had been born in a leap year, saying it would be just like she'd never really existed in the first place. That was how Felicity came into the world, unwanted and just barely loved. The household of Lisa and Ryan was cold, but there was always an undercurrent of what could be, the violent temper of Ryan Edwards always simmering just below the surface. With three children to feed and an unhappy wife to entertain, that temper almost always went off. The great question became why the couple chose to stay together, and in the end the reasoning was purely selfish: Neither wanted to give the other the satisifaction of letting them go and find something or someone who would make them truly happy.
Being married, of course, didn't stop both Lisa and Ryan from having muliple affairs, or dalliances, all of which they thought they were so clever in hiding. But they never counted on how quiet and sneaking their youngest daughter would turn out to be. From a very young age, Felicity bore the brunt of her parents unhappiness. With two children there might have been a chance to dig themselve out of the hole they had created for themselves, emotionally and financially. But a third made it next to impossible. Luke, already seven years older than his youngest sister, could take care of himself. He was the boy, the "heir" of the family and therefore he missed a lot of the abuse his father rained down on the girls. He belittled them and withheld from them any emotional support they might have needed. Lisa was no better. She cared for Constance slightly more than Felicity because her first daughter was a novelty. By the time Felicity was born, Lisa didn't need another girl to play with, she already had one. As a result, Felicity was largely neglected as a child, something school officials tried, in vain, to bring to her parents attention time and time again.
Things would only get worse for Felicity when Luke left home for college and never looked back. COnstance, a popular girl, and the apple of her mother's eye (no matter how rotten that apple might be) grew to be a vain and mean and by no means a port in the storm that was her parents for her baby sister. Left to her own devices, Felicity chose to spend her time with a friend she made from school, a friend who would one day grow to be more, who would grow to be everything. But as children, they were simply safe places. Neither talked about the darker parts of their respective lives and neither would do so for many years to come. As children, they didn't need to talk, they needed a place that was quiet and safe. Together they forged a bond she believed would never be broken, and though that would be tested time and time again, she couldn't ever really say it broke beyond repair.
It would be in the midst of young love that Felicity's father finally did something that would force the family to act. Caught in a compromising situation with the wife of a neighbor, Ryan decided to abruptly pack up his family and leave town, rather than stay and face the music. It was the first time the family's dirty laundry was aired for all the world to see and it was the fact that he got caught that pushed Ryan into a downward spiral of drinking and rage. Luke and Constance were both out of the house, so Ryan's rage fell squarely on his youngest daughter.
The move to a new town was hard for teenage Felicity. It necessitated a change in schools, which, by high school, is typically a death sentence. But from her first day she realized she could use her new found anonymity and mystery to her advantage. She could redefine who she was. In her old down, she was a quiet girl, friends with few and known by more teachers than students. At her new school she struck out to be known. She spent her mother's money on new clothes, cozied up to the popular girls and did whatever she could to put her past behind her. School became the refuge it never had been, getting her away from the fights between her parents and the abuse they rained down on her because she was an easy target. But changing who she was had its own drawbacks. The more she tried to reinvent herself, the more she saw the things and people from her "old" life slipping away.
Felicity's life would be normal until sometime after graduating from UCLA. She wasn't destined for anything in life but a 9-5 desk job in a field only remotely related to her degree for a number of years, and then, hopefully, a job that would turn into a career. It was only by chance that, less than a year after graduating, she and a few friends answered a casting call for extras for a film. It was a complete lark and just an excuse to stand around in horrendously long lines and talk all day. She never dreamed that the casting directors would see her as their perfect leading lady. It was a whirlwind experience and it thrust her into a world she was no where near ready to experience. It shined a spotlight on her and her parents suddenly saw worth in their daughter, worth that they could benefit from. But they knew, if only vaguely, that they had lived full lives before seeing any sort of fame, and anything from that past could quickly come back to haunt them.
Felicity's career would be an enigma to anyone who bothered to follow it. The majority of her resume was made up of poor performing horror films, but peppered between those were bright turns in independent films that garnered her recognition and praise. But she and those around her could never quite figure out what kind of actress she was meant to be. In keeping with her younger self, she tried to reinvent herself to fit every role, every perception, and it left her very fractured. No one quite knew how to take her, if she was trying to be a serious actress or if she was just going to flame out in time.
Felicity's personal life was usually a mess. She gained freedom from her parents, but the scars they left on her ran deep and influenced nearly every vice she came to have. While some of the stories about the young actress were greatly exaggerated, she often chose the wrong people to associate with or picked up vices that would allow her to forget the past that would haunt her. She lived in a cycle of good and bad PR, the ups and downs of her life documented for all to see and the more erratic her behavior became, the more people wanted to dig into who she was.
In an effort to put their client and prospect on the right path, they focused her efforts on auditioning for an iconic comic book character, hoping that adding her to the influence of the MCU would temper her tendency to act out. It didn't hurt that one of the biggest influences in her life, her old best friend a former flame, was already part of that world and the hope was that by putting the two together again, she would settle down. When she won the role, by some miracle, the shitstorm surrounding her casting almost proved to be too much for the actress to handle and it sent her into a barely disguised spiral. Her contract with Marvel is very clear about how they want her to act in public and the pressure Felicity feels from the studio and fans has begun to wear down some of her armor.