Rosie was the daughter of the living island of Elsinore's god, an unknowable entity colloquially known as "Renaissance Man" by the few who saw him. RenMan was tied to the Rex family who'd been on the throne for generations; when they all died, he would die too. Rosie, who was tied to the Polonius family (a very, very, very distant branch of the Rex-es), sprang into existence when the number of Rex-es dwindled down to one, and became de-facto god of Elsinore when Hamlet Rex I died. "But wait!" you say, "What about Claudius and Hamlet II?!" Yeah... Turns out neither of them were biological Rex-es. Claudius was either the result of an affair or secretly adopted, and passed on his illegitimate-ness to his supposed "nephew" Hamlet. Hamlet I did technically have a daughter with his wife Gertrude, but to the great sadness of her parents (and Renaissance Man), the poor girl died before she was born. More on that later.

We all know what happened after the deaths of Hamlet I and Renaissance Man. Elsinore's gods are supposed to act as "advisors" of sorts to their respective families, but it turns out a recently-orphaned five-year-old wasn't the best person for the job. The only reason the poor girl even survived is because Corambis Polonius (the old dog) had at least one illegitimate child, an actress named Sylvia LaRue. Anyway, after the deaths of... well, everyone, Rosie freaked out and realized that She Needed An Adult. She desperately cobbled together the remnants of her father, but they wouldn't do her any good without a body to house them in. In a blind panic, she used her pet cat to create the entity we know today as Duffy Darksplash... and in turn, to change Elsinore's history forever.

To reiterate, Renaissance Man physically cannot exist without a surviving member of the Rex family. That meant Darksplash's existence created a paradox that needed to be corrected.  Elsinore was in a bit of a bind here, but soon found that there was a path of least resistance, which required only minimal changes to the timeline. Remember Gertrude and Hamlet I's daughter? Elsinore was able to alter its timeline so that she survived, but the more important beats of history from that point on (Rosie's creation, the plot of Hamlet, etc.) still happened anyway. (It also made sure that she had a base understanding of how to rule Elsinore, just for convenience's sake.) But some of the "less" important ones ended up being pretty drastically altered... See, for Winnie to be born alive, the Rex-es would've had to employ some of the best doctors in all of Elsinore. One of them saw the Denmark sector's unimpressive infant survival rates and decided she wasn't satisfied with only the royals getting the chance to raise their kids. So she set to work helping out other women, and in the process saved at least two other children: Nina Sobol (sister of Winnie's future co-ruler Sofya) and Kismet Strand. The survival of the latter is where things get dicey.

Kismet was the result of a brief fling between Laertes Polonius and Dahlia Strand, passed off as the daughter of her (horrible) husband Ash. Thing is, in the original timeline, Dahlia went on to have two other children: Alphonse and Dolores. The changes brought on by Kismet's birth meant that the twins were replaced with a different kid named Ophelion, and what's worse, her husband eventually realized she'd had an affair and left her. And THEN his second partner (a closeted trans man) got sick of his abuse and killed him before stealing his identity, leaving us with the Ash we know today. He'd had twins of his own with Ash the First, who were named Alpha and Delta and bore more than a passing resemblance to the children Dahlia had lost. This drove her to insanity, leading her to kill Ophelion and try to kill Kismet before kidnapping the twins and trying to raise them as her own. Which was fucked up, of course, but how did that lead to the apocalypse? Well, you've gotta remember that at this point, Rosie has been left unattended for quite awhile... Or has she?

Delilah Devon was the teenage daughter of Horatio, who'd been incredibly close with her uncle Osric and utterly infatuated with Ophelia, a vague link to the mother she'd never known. When both of them died, she was devastated, but found hope in the form of a sad baby god in the woods. After her failure to revive her father, Rosie thought she'd never amount to anything, but Delilah was there to encourage her to keep trying... and to follow her every command. She got VERY drunk with power and had Rosie fulfill her every whim, from "accidentally" killing some of the people responsible for her uncle's death to stealing the soul of one of her crushes for reasons that will be important later. When Rosie found Kismet, the niece of the girl Delilah idolized, barely clinging to life and horrifically depressed, the young nutcase saw an opportunity. She convinced Rosie that the only way she could possibly make her new best friend feel better was by bringing back her aunt Ophelia. Unfortunately, Rosie misinterpreted Delilah's directions, and brought forth Perdita, who had 100% of Ophelia and Hamlet's souls.

The result was a catastrophic event known as the Great Rage, in which most of Elsinore's adults went completely insane upon contact with her and started killing everyone in sight to try and right what was wrong with the world. Kismet, who Rosie had entrusted with some of her power, was satisfied to let this keep going, even taking advantage of the chaos to take revenge on her mother. However, after that vile, bloody act, she was utterly horrified with herself, and decided she had to stop the madness. She placed half of Perdita's soul in the corpse of her dead brother, resulting in the birth of Omega. Problem solved, right? Well, not for Horatio.

Poor bastard had a pretty hard year. He'd lived through not two, but three total societal collapses, and lost plenty of friends and family through death or alienation. Even his daughter Delilah was gone, having died in childbirth during the Great Rage. (That's what she stole the guy's soul for. Kinda bit her in the ass.) Now the souls of Hamlet and Ophelia were right in front of him, almost taunting him as he tried to raise his granddaughter in a fractured world. Eventually, he couldn't resist the allure of what he'd lost, and manipulated Sterling Jacobson (the husband of Polonius' daughter-- and eventual victim of these experiments-- Sylvia) into helping him try and reverse-engineer how Rosie had brought their souls back. Five or so years later, he finally had it, and was ready to bring back his loved ones, regardless of who was using their souls at the moment. Unfortunately for him, his granddaughter had come to be very close friends with Omega, and didn't appreciate him trying to kill the kid. In the ensuing struggle, the poor little girl accidentally killed him (long story), meaning everything he achieved was in vain. After this happened, Rosie and Kismet decided that having the kids of Hamlet and Ophelia around was more trouble than it was worth; Rosie took Perdita to her home in the forest, while Kismet convinced Ash to raise Omega as his own, with no knowledge of his other set of parents.

Several years later, they figured out why this was a bad idea. Omega always felt a bit... different, and frequently had dreams about a girl he'd once known. When his friends started reporting seeing a ghost (actually a wild Perdita) out in the woods, he decided that it was a perfect opportunity to get out and do some soul-searching. Unfortunately, they all uncovered Elsinore's many, many dirty secrets, and had themselves some good old-fashioned existential crises. After that was all said and done, however, he did end up finding himself, along with his super secret sister and Devon, his old best friend! She'd run off after the killing and been adopted by one Ethan Wulf, who also adopted Sylvia's (but not Sterling's) daughter If. Eventually, they all came back to Elsinore and lived out their lives in... relative normalcy. I mean there's a talking cat around and several doll people and whatever 96 is but you know normal means different things for different people