[friday] -- We Are Family
1) List your family members (blood relations). Feel free to include all the cousins, uncles and ancestors you like. Who are they? What's their stories?
My Parents: Peter Merkel (Ragdoll) and Athena Merkel (nee Randelle)
My dad is a not-so-prominent super-villain in Gotham City who specializes mostly in stealing things with big price tags. He likes expensive alcohol, not-so-expensive alcohol, and annoying people. Not many people other than his closest friends and his family really like him, but all of the alcoholism and stupid pranks in the world wouldn't make me want to give him up. My mom, on the other hand, is really quiet. She works as a secretary to try and keep my dad from going out to steal in order to pay the bills, but it never works because the 'paying the bills' line is just an excuse for him to be able to go out and steal. She's very lenient and I've never once heard her raise her voice, even when they argue. She was apparently a star soccer player in high school, which seems very out of character for her, and she taught me how to play as soon as I was old enough to kick a soccer ball.
My Twin Sister: Andrienne Merkel
My only sibling and the most important girl in my life. Andie is.. a lot different from me. Everyone always says that I'm my mother incarnate, while Andie takes after my dad. She can bend herself in almost any direction, a skill she inherited from him, and she drinks like him, too. Luckily strong livers also seem to run in the family. Her gift makes her very gymnastically inclined and she's the second biggest flirt I have ever met, but she's only ever had one boyfriend-- she's also spontaneous as Hell because she married that boyfriend when she turned 18. She's also a thief like my dad, but living with the costs of a drug-addicted husband, paying the bills isn't an excuse for her.
My Uncle: Mandrake Randelle
Mandrake is an entertainer by trade, a magician, which made birthday parties rather interesting growing up. He really hated my dad (and vice versa), but they at least both make an effort to be civil-- outside of the time my dad purposely spilled wine all over him at my sister's wedding. That was sort of a disaster. He teaches me and Andie some of his tricks, and he's always over at the house provided dad isn't. He used to be an art thief and from what I hear still dabbles in the trade from time to time, but he's never been big-time enough to earn a special name or a place in the papers. His wife is named Cassandra and he used to live with her and her brother Vincent, but now they live alone, although Vincent sleeps at their house more than his own.
My Cousin: Grace Randelle
She's two. Mandrake's daughter. He dotes on her like there's no tomorrow, and the best way to get him off track on an awkward subject is to bring her up because he can talk for hours about her. She hates carrots, currently loves the color blue, and is starting into the Terrible Two's. She looks like her mom.
2) List the family you have made for yourself. What friends and non-blood relationships have you co-opted into your own little family? What family type roles do they fill in your life?
My Fiance: Brand Nigma-Michaels.
I love Brand more than anything in the world, as corny as that sounds. He's two years younger than me and I've literally known him since he was born, because he's a villain kid, too, and our moms are practically best friends. Our dads don't get along, though, as much as my dad tries to be friendly. I proposed to him about a month ago and we're planning on having our wedding on the day of his eighteenth birthday. He's the first biggest flirt I've ever met, but it doesn't really matter to me. He looks like his dad as a teenager minus the repeatedly broken nose, and he inherited his favorite color (green).
My Brother-in-Law: Bane
Andie's husband. I've also known him since I was born because he's also a super-villain like 90% of the people I know, and it feels really weird calling him my brother-in-law because I grew up calling him Uncle Bane. He just turned 50. He's addicted to a drug called venom which pretty much sucks up all of his and Andie's money, but with him working as a mercenary and her as an art thief, they do okay. He's known for being able to punch people through walls.
The Rogues Gallery:
An assortment of super-villains who basically helped raise me and Andie.
My Parents: Peter Merkel (Ragdoll) and Athena Merkel (nee Randelle)
My dad is a not-so-prominent super-villain in Gotham City who specializes mostly in stealing things with big price tags. He likes expensive alcohol, not-so-expensive alcohol, and annoying people. Not many people other than his closest friends and his family really like him, but all of the alcoholism and stupid pranks in the world wouldn't make me want to give him up. My mom, on the other hand, is really quiet. She works as a secretary to try and keep my dad from going out to steal in order to pay the bills, but it never works because the 'paying the bills' line is just an excuse for him to be able to go out and steal. She's very lenient and I've never once heard her raise her voice, even when they argue. She was apparently a star soccer player in high school, which seems very out of character for her, and she taught me how to play as soon as I was old enough to kick a soccer ball.
My Twin Sister: Andrienne Merkel
My only sibling and the most important girl in my life. Andie is.. a lot different from me. Everyone always says that I'm my mother incarnate, while Andie takes after my dad. She can bend herself in almost any direction, a skill she inherited from him, and she drinks like him, too. Luckily strong livers also seem to run in the family. Her gift makes her very gymnastically inclined and she's the second biggest flirt I have ever met, but she's only ever had one boyfriend-- she's also spontaneous as Hell because she married that boyfriend when she turned 18. She's also a thief like my dad, but living with the costs of a drug-addicted husband, paying the bills isn't an excuse for her.
My Uncle: Mandrake Randelle
Mandrake is an entertainer by trade, a magician, which made birthday parties rather interesting growing up. He really hated my dad (and vice versa), but they at least both make an effort to be civil-- outside of the time my dad purposely spilled wine all over him at my sister's wedding. That was sort of a disaster. He teaches me and Andie some of his tricks, and he's always over at the house provided dad isn't. He used to be an art thief and from what I hear still dabbles in the trade from time to time, but he's never been big-time enough to earn a special name or a place in the papers. His wife is named Cassandra and he used to live with her and her brother Vincent, but now they live alone, although Vincent sleeps at their house more than his own.
My Cousin: Grace Randelle
She's two. Mandrake's daughter. He dotes on her like there's no tomorrow, and the best way to get him off track on an awkward subject is to bring her up because he can talk for hours about her. She hates carrots, currently loves the color blue, and is starting into the Terrible Two's. She looks like her mom.
2) List the family you have made for yourself. What friends and non-blood relationships have you co-opted into your own little family? What family type roles do they fill in your life?
My Fiance: Brand Nigma-Michaels.
I love Brand more than anything in the world, as corny as that sounds. He's two years younger than me and I've literally known him since he was born, because he's a villain kid, too, and our moms are practically best friends. Our dads don't get along, though, as much as my dad tries to be friendly. I proposed to him about a month ago and we're planning on having our wedding on the day of his eighteenth birthday. He's the first biggest flirt I've ever met, but it doesn't really matter to me. He looks like his dad as a teenager minus the repeatedly broken nose, and he inherited his favorite color (green).
My Brother-in-Law: Bane
Andie's husband. I've also known him since I was born because he's also a super-villain like 90% of the people I know, and it feels really weird calling him my brother-in-law because I grew up calling him Uncle Bane. He just turned 50. He's addicted to a drug called venom which pretty much sucks up all of his and Andie's money, but with him working as a mercenary and her as an art thief, they do okay. He's known for being able to punch people through walls.
The Rogues Gallery:
An assortment of super-villains who basically helped raise me and Andie.
- Freeze (Victor) and Firefly (Gary): Married. An undead mad scientist and a living mercenary goofball with a jetpack. Freeze is the reason I passed physics, Firefly the reason I aced chemistry.
- Riddler (Edward) and Question Mark (Janice): Also married. Brand's parents. Used to be extremely high profile criminals until they retired. Let me basically live in their house for the better part of a month when I didn't want to put up with my dad for a while.
- Penguin (Oswald) and Avalon: Also married. Apparently Penguin used to be a jerk. Avalon is a lot like my mom but she cooks even better than her, which is a miracle on its own but combined with the fact that she spent 23 years in captivity it's pretty amazing. He loves birds, she has bird wings. He's 5 feet tall, she's 4' 10". A perfect match.
- Catwoman (Selina) and Catgirl (Barbara): Rich. Barbara used to be a hero until she sort of changed her mind. They're fashionistas. Andie is closer to them than I am.
- Poison Ivy (Pamela): She taught me how to tend a garden.
- Joker: Crazy. That's about it. My parents basically never let him near me until I was a teenager and by that point I knew to stay clear of him.
- Harley Quinn (Harleen): Used to be Joker's girlfriend before I was born. Hasn't been with him for a while. She and Ivy left Gotham and have been gone for a long time.
- Killer Croc (Waylon): The most frightening looking of any of us. Me and Andie were never scared of him. When we were little we used to sit on his tail and drag us around. He used to use my father as a basketball when he got too annoyed with him, which was always.