#and as for Ethan uhhh. *slaps his ass* you can fit so much repressed trauma in here

[mayybirds]

If you don’t mind, I’d love to hear more about the Winterses’ relationships to each other! Anything from little details and habits to just general explanations/rundowns would be treasured :D

Anon I always want to talk about the Winterses I 100% do not mind at all lol.

I think the family as a whole is simultaneously really closely bonded (partially due to the sheer trauma they experienced together) and also experience a lot of friction very easily. They love each other intensely but they weren't really Raised together and they all come from different backgrounds, be them religious, cultural, or socioeconomic. It leaves room for a lot of friction, especially between Delia and the kids. I think in the early years there was a lot of rapid oscillation between "You're not my mom, my mom is dead, fuck off and stop trying to parent me" and "Delia i'm so sorry i'm so scared please never leave me". Sometimes within the hour. She was a like 32 year old woman suddenly in charge of 3 teenagers, having no real childcare experience, and it was kind of a mess. She loves the kids though and they love her. As adults her relationships with Michael and Ethan are a lot more stable than they were when they were younger--though conversely, while Ava relied on her a lot as a traumatized kid desperate for a parental figure, Ava is a lot more stilted with her now as an adult. Delia has never pretended she knew what she was doing or that she was prepared for this, but she's always made sure the kids know she loves them and she didn't keep them with her just out of obligation. She wants to be in their lives--whether that's as their mom, their 'aunt', their guardian, or just their friend. They get to define who she is to them, and she's okay that sometimes that changes in the moment (see: Ethan's POV. He mixes up whether Delia is his 'aunt' or just 'Delia' in his thoughts a lot, while also very clearly viewing her as a mom even if he avoids calling her that most of the time).

Delia’s focus since RC has always been the kids. She’s so deeply embedded in survivor networks to this day because she was one of the first to go “look we need to figure out long term options for fake IDs and paperwork. I’ve got three kids who should be in school.” She worked a lot of odd jobs once they reached California to keep the lights on (yes they maybe squatted in a few places at first what about it). She was a mechanic in RC but after coming to California she ended up working primarily private security at first because it paid well and was mostly nights. She went back to being a mechanic when the kids got a little older and Michael and Ethan started helping with rent (despite her insistences otherwise. They were adults and they were gonna help Damn it). Michael keeps trying to get her to take it easy these days but she’s only 50 damn it! Don’t treat her like she’s old!!

Michael! Michael is the most well adjusted man in this house comparatively (which isn't a high bar but at least he cleared it. Ethan faceplanted tripping over it). He was the oldest when RC happened among the kids, and as an adult he still takes his role as 'big brother' pretty seriously. He loves his idiot siblings, and he loves Delia, too. When RC first happened he was pretty wary of Delia (fairly enough. the world is ending, your mom is dead, your dad is missing, everything's gone to hell in a handbasket, there's paramilitary weirdos running around, and this random white woman just fished you out of the river with this blood-spattered kid next to her? Nah), and in the months that followed he definitely better handled her treating him like a younger friend/ally ("I know you don't really need me, but Ethan and Ava need us both, so would you be willing to help me with them?" kind of vibe, even if Delia is also 'YOU ARE A CHILD' at Michael internally). He supported the ruse of passing them off as a family long before he saw them as one, but he grew attached to Ethan and Ava, and Delia, faster than he'd have ever copped to as a kid. And for all his grumbling about the stupidity of their various schemes and covers ("Sure Delia pass off three kids as half-siblings by three different fathers, one of which you'd have had to have as a teenager, that's believable" "DO YOU HAVE A BETTER IDEA MICHAEL IF I SAY YOU'RE ADOPTED OR FOSTER KIDS THAT WILL RAISE EVEN MORE QUESTIONS"), he's kind of glad Delia always insisted on passing them off as a family, one way or another (the Winterses changed aliases and cover stories a lot when running from Raccoon City to avoid a clear trail, before they settled down in Cali). These days, he's the kid most unashamed to call her mom. She's his mom! He had another mom, too, and that's okay. Delia is his mom and she's also just Delia and he loves her. Michael still lives with her in California. He's lived on his own a lot, of course, and dated around, but relationships aren't really for him (he's a scrupulously honest person and hates that any relationship would require lying), and he likes being at home. He does have a robust friend network, though, and he likes to volunteer coaching the swim team at the local Y. He works as a manager at a local goodwill center. He’d have liked to have gone into social work or a medical field, but he worried about any profession that would have required a lot of background checks. He did take some nursing classes in community college, though. He attended school late, like Ethan did—both for financial reasons and because they wanted longer for their identities to be settled before they braved college paperwork.

Michael gets along with both of his siblings really well. He’s Ethan’s best friend (and the person Ethan was on the phone with at the beginning of RE7 in TtVtL canon), and has always looked out for him, even when they were teenagers (it defo painted an entertaining picture to everyone else. Michael was Cool and Ethan was Not and every other ~17yr old was not sure why he let this weedy 15yr old with the thousand yard stare follow him around. There was a lot of “excuse you that’s my BROTHER” energy). Michael meanwhile is very much the grounding older brother presence for Ava. She’s not good at taking Advice from Ethan because they’re closer in age and she thinks those in glass-houses-of-pretending-nothing-happened should not throw stones, but she’s better at taking it from Michael. She’s his baby sister and he wants to protect her but he also knows lecturing her doesn’t get him anywhere. I think as the two POC of the family they also just have bonding points on issues Ethan and Delia just can’t get.

Ava...loves her family. But it's hard to be around them. She's just still so angry about everything that happened, and her family respects her anger, but Delia just wants to keep the kids safe and Michael just wants to live a normal life and Ethan wants to pretend nothing happened. It's frustrating for her to try to talk to them about it because Ethan Doesn't want to talk about it and Michael mostly just is like "Ava babe please consider therapy" and Delia understands her anger but is also like. Her Mom. she wants her to be careful and safe and Ava doesn't want to be careful she wants the world to answer for what happened!! She fights with Ethan about it the most. But they still love each other--and would do anything to protect each other. She lives far away from the rest of the family and can't contact them a lot, but calls when she can. She has...employment. Her employer is not her day job. Her day job does not know her name is Ava Winters. She does not enjoy her work, but she thinks it's necessary. But if she had to choose between her job and her family? Her family. Always. She won't lose anyone again.