Disappointed Mother → Confident Goth Girlfriend

...my time-locked heart stalls with the desire to beat. Should I? The next thought I had is... I mean, if I do this, I can go back before I exit, but, if I forget, or I mess up, then what happens? To Mom. Sure, she's kind of been a bit of a bitch to me but there's a line that'll be crossed if I do this and I'm not sure I'm ready for it. Like, we're frozen in time now but this is my own mother - what if I accidentally myself out of reality or something? While I'm dithering, the prompt picks up on my thoughts and takes the choice from my hands. I nearly Exit automatically out of sheer panic as-

-my 'Disappointed Mother' becomes a 'Confident Goth Girlfriend.'

My apartment's locale changes, which creates the surreal worry about not knowing my way around once time resumes. It's a moment of distraction from the subtle shifts occurring to my mother (is she still my mother? She could be, right; it doesn't say she is but doesn't say she's not.)

Her hair becomes just a few inches longer (or maybe slides over her shoulders as she turns her head to the camera). Her eyes become highlighted with bold eyeliner, while her brows arch into a confident, almost imperious slant. Her lips quirk into a smirk, with gloss making them seem fuller, and the stud in her ear now has a dangling onyx skull or something hanging from it. I can't see it clearly.

Curiously her clothes somehow get slightly more modest even as her tattoos grow in number. The tank's open top wraps around her neck in a high collar, and she's got a sweatshirt or something tucked neatly into her pants under it. Her watch is now a scrunchy, and there's a belt wrapped fashionably around the hem of her pants... which don't have pockets anymore, because reasons I guess.

Her nose is different.

I really might not be looking at 'my mother' anymore, regardless of whose girlfriend she is. Or maybe her parents are different, so she's subtly different, so she was raised differently, and by proxy that means I might be different? Either way, I don't feel any different. Not right now.

I...

(mature woman, confident goth girlfriend, curvy muscular build, long purple hair, tidy ponytail, hands on her hips, skin tight leather pants, punk clothes, back tattoo, standing on the doorstep)

[ AN: When you enjoy doing something and your heart's in it but your chest isn't. Does that make sense? Well, anyway - in this timeline I've considered messing with the notion Penelope has been de-mothered but Paul persists and there's no relation at all - unless he makes one himself. ]