#yeah the family situation was fucked in ways not analogous to adoption as it's generally practiced but they're still siblings. and then!!

[winepresswrath]

suddenly overwhelmed by umbrella academy feelings. i didin't particularly care for luther/allison but you have to commit to the bit. you're not stuck with your original ships but you've gotta follow through on the premise you've established; once you go literal flowers in the attic/doomed obsession you can't just fix it by letting luther meet another girl he did not grow up with but who does still have the same dad as him.

[youngsoldiers]

❧ yeah, THAT’S A NO — we’re NOT leaving anybody BEHIND ❧

BRYNMOR ISLINGTON really is the spitting image of JACOB ARTIST, right? For someone only TWENTY-FIVE years old, BRYN has been forced to endure so much. Yeah, that MUGGLE has been scraping by at the sanctuary for FOUR MONTHS now, working as a COMBAT-MEDIC & MECHANIC in the DIVISION OF HEALING. HE/EY identifies as A DEMIGUY and is known to be WILFUL and IMPULSIVE but also RESOURCEFUL and TRUSTWORTHY. Best of luck surviving through this. ⊰ JANE, TWENTY, NZT, SHE/HER ⊱

his pinterest ( it’s p new so there’s not much in it yet tho )

ABOUT A BROTHER.

bryn’s got like a thousand siblings ( okay, six, but, like. it’s close ) and while he only partially identifies as male, he fully identifies as a brother. in general, he doesn’t like gendered nouns ( he prefers child over son, for example ), but brother is something so intrinsic to him that it’s always been a word he’s felt fits him, that he can identify with, even though he doesn’t feel fully engaged with the concept of malehood. he was pretty young when he learned what it meant to be a brother, and it’s a word that took root in him, and he’s known meant him for longer than sibling did. brother means love, and having your siblings’ backs when they need it, and teasing them, sure, but brother has also meant bryn for literally as long as he can remember, and for him, it means more bryn than brother

not that he thinks brothers are exclusively the protective ones — his younger half-sister claudia is sixteen and absolutely the most fucking fierce and tough person he’s ever met ever and she’s the most protective person he knows — but it’s just those are things the word has always meant for him and he’s just always associated with it

ok about his mess of siblings

SO

his fam situation’s a bit of a Time

he is the child of two aggressively welsh best friends who ended up in bed together bc everyone loves a good bfwb story ( actually that’s basically only a molly mood, lexi’s like ??? me ??? sleep with someone i value ??? sounds Exhausting, and bryn’s just like “those are my parents you’re talking about” ) and siân ended up pregnant w bryn and she and dylan were like ok you know what we’re gonna keep him and live together bc yolo

anyway they did and it was good but the experience also like... very much made it clear that, while they loved each other absolutely & were both attractive people, they were really not... in love with each other ?? but they were still best friends and eventually they figured out that they were happy living and raising bryn together but they didn’t want to be together together

it was a bit messy at first to figure out the logistics but eventually they started seeing other people while living together and watching over bryn

it was a bit hard to find people who were cool with the exact situation bryn and his parents had going on, but siân figured that was fine, because as far as she was concerned, the living situation wasn’t about to change so they had to either front up or ship out

eventually, after a few romantic mishaps of their own, dylan and siân settled down into relationships with partners that were long-term enough to move in

by the time bryn was fourteen, he had five siblings, all of whom escaped names as welsh as his, to his vague outrage: thomas (braxtonby*), eleven, siân’s son; robbie (islington), son to dylan and his partner cath, nine; briarley (rogers), daughter to siân and her partner oli, nine; max (islington), son to dylan and cath, seven; and claudia (rogers), daughter to siân and oli, five.

at first, when siblings had started popping up, he’d been like, aight, time to be a bro

but then they like ??? never stopped ??? so he adopted a more chill approach. he’s still very much a force of protection and he’ll be there when needed in a heartbeat but honestly there were five of them running around for most of his life, six now, and like... he can’t keep an active eye on all of them, so instead he just made sure they always knew he was there when needed

also when he was like twenty, dylan and cath had a surprise kid (wren (islington), currently aged five) and bryn was like ??? I THOUGHT I WAS IN THE CLEAR

in all seriousness though, as exasperated as bryn sometimes can get with how many siblings he has to be aware of, he wouldn’t trade his family for the WORLD. he loves them. looooves them. he also considers oli and cath an integral part of his family ?? he’s really lucky, in his opinion, because he sorta ended up with four parents. he has no idea how the rest of them feel about it. thomas is the only one who only has one biological parent in the house but his dad’s kind of a dick so bryn doesn’t tend to give it much thought ( which is ?? bryn just bc his dad’s a dick doesn’t mean he might not have conflicting feelings there — who knows? not you, bc you never thought about it )

i’m going to stop talking about his family now

bryn honestly just feels like he’s had a pretty reasonable life. he’s well-aware that his family isn’t quite a nuclear standard, but he’s always had a good life, as far as he’s concerned. played rugby in high school, had a few laughs, did all right in his exams — enough to be accepted into university, which he attended after a gap year. he studied film and media, and worked part time as a mechanic to earn some money

when the zombies situation happened he was ??? honestly in disbelief. he studies films, where people spend tons of money to bring these stories to life as a form of escapism from the real world — now the screen escaped into their real world

his whole family ended up scattered. his parents (as in, all four) had decided to go on a family holiday to ireland for some reason, but it was a staggered operation. they were all going to drive to the coast and ferry across. cath and dylan had decided to ferry from liverpool with max (18) and wren (5) and were first driving to nottingham to visit cath’s mum and stay there for a couple of days before heading to liverpool, where they were going to meet siân, oli and claudia (16), who were heading to liverpool from london, where claudia had been staying for two weeks to audition for dance schools. bryn (25), thomas (22), briarley (20) and robbie (20) were meant to make their way to ireland by themselves, all having opted out of road trips with either branch of the family. robbie and briarley, always as thick as thieves, had been in brighton for some reason ( probably just general troublemaking, bryn reckons ) and were talking about flying to dublin, last bryn heard, and he had no idea where thomas was. nobody really ever does. he’s a natural born wanderer.

so when the zombies escaped and the world went to shit, bryn was alone in wales and had no clue where his family was. nobody was answering their phones — he suspected networks were down, or phones were dead, because briarley was always using her phone to incite rebellion amongst her instagram followers & send him snapchats with those awful filters that put your face on dancing bodies — and he had no real clue how far along anyone was on their road trip, whether briarley & robbie had ended up on a plane or not, or whether thomas was even on the same land mass as him. he knew nothing.

oli was a nurse and had taught all of the islington-braxtonby-rogers kids some basics, and bryn had soaked up a lot of it, though he’d never realised quite how much until there was a situation such as this to require it

he managed to survive on his own for quite a while, helping people where he could find them but always trying to continue, to see if he could find any of his family or friends — just anyone he knew

eventually, he met ailyn yaxley, and they ended up aiming for hogwarts. when he found out there was a safehouse, a sanctuary, he knew he had to try get there, because the adults would absolutely have tried to get the kids there if they knew

when he finally got there, he found cath, max and wren, to his utmost relief, as well as claudia. he found out that dylan had sent cath and the boys to the castle and had stayed out there, trying to find all of the rest of them. siân and oli hadn’t gotten to london by the time everything went to shit, and claudia had been incredibly lucky to be helped out of the edge of london by a group of wixen, along with one of her dancing friend

bryn signed up to be a combat medic, deciding he wanted to help in any way he could and having improved his skills greatly by virtue of doing it for months out in the real world before he made it to the sanctuary. he’s unafraid of a fight, but more people are brave than able to help patch people up, so he’s utilising his skills where he best can. + he worked as a mechanic for several years so he’s always down to help in that way too

ok i just rewatched the last ep of the tomorrow people ( !!! my hard drive is working y’all!!! i downloaded it from my shitty laptop to there and watched it on my macbook I FEEL ALIVE ) and there’s this one scene where a tomorrow person, russell, is like “yeah we have this plan but it’s for like a dozen peeps not just three” bc there are only three people in the room w powers and the other two ( john and astrid, the loves of my life ) don’t have them SO IT WORKS WELL FOR A WIXEN/MUGGLE ANALOGY IN THIS SITUATION and john’s just like “uh?? three??” and astrid’s like “what, you think bc we don’t have powers, we can’t fight???” and that’s basically bryn lmao he’s like... ok y’all can teleport whatever but i’m ??? still gonna fight lmao it’s my fight too @ zombies fight me

siân and oli arrived about a week ago and bryn is !!! thrilled. dylan’s still out there and he’s worried, sure, but he tries not to think about it. his dad’ll be okay, he thinks. he promised cath he’d come by before nine months from the outbreak was up, so bryn’s pretty confident he’ll be seeing his dad arrive some time in the next month. ( thomas (22), briarley (20) & robbie (20) are still tbc )

fun facts/personality info ( that’s a lotta history up there i’m sorry )

he’s pretty fast tbh, which is useful, bc he doesn’t have magic so all he has are quick wits and moving fast

he’s still a bit like ??? at magic. both that it exists but also some of the choices that have been made with it. like, moving staircases? the fuck? also, quidditch. he’s been around long enough that he’s heard of it, but i don’t think he’s entirely convinced it’s not a joke. he’s never seen it, after all

highkey rugby fan and highkey wales supporter like owen farrell whomst ?? his first crush was on rhys webb when he was thirteen

pansexual / panromantic

wrt his pronouns, he tends to use he/him pronouns but sometimes is more comfortable with ey/em/eir. def prefers to avoid gendered nouns though ( other than the aforementioned ‘brother’ )

probably would have been a gryffindor if he’d been a wizard but no, this is a Proud Muggle for ya

i’m getting astrid finch af vibes from him, i really gotta rewatch ttp

allergic to cherries

he’s really trustworthy/reliable. not always with making good choices bc sometimes he’s impulsive and just does something ( if he’s not dead, it’s a win ) but like — he’s not down to leave anyone behind, and he’ll come back for you. he doesn’t let people go in alone. he grew up with so many people having his back that it’s just intrinsic to him now

[ drugs tw ] // really wishes he brought some weed // [ end drugs tw ]

was working on a zombie movie for his postgrad film project before the world went to shit. both rly well-versed in muggle zombie lore & kinda like... damn this is ruined for me now lol

speaks welsh bc siân and dylan were so fucking extra about it. uses it with the rest of the siblings to converse in front of other people. it’s pretty useful, actually.

wilful af which is like... noble ig when he’s being stubborn about not leaving people behind but probably annoying af when he’s not being pragmatic and is like that whole ‘hoe don’t do it’ meme bc he’s definitely gonna do it unless someone like physically stops him lmao

often sarcastic / irreverent / teasing but sometimes just... honest ahaha

generally chill & fun but with certain people, gets a different sort of chill, like he’s actually earnestly thinking about everything going on in their lives ( probably people he’s lived through life-threatening situations with, like ailyn )

[windmillboy]

Late Night Thoughts 25ish whatever

Been awhile since I articulated my thoughts and emotions for posterity.  At risk of some of my newer friends/followers that I know irl, I’m gonna post this anyway.  Honestly, since I’ve grown closer to my already dear friend Eli, I genuinely haven’t felt any sort of “depression” or “anxiety” as I would’ve so called it years ago.  There may have been one or two episodes of such things (mostly over girls but hey watcha gonna do), but in general so long as he and I can hangout (which probably won’t stop for many years considering we’ve known each other since 3rd grade and go to the same college) everything seems like it’ll be okay, like good news is always on the way.  I dare venture to say that I’ve fallen in love with life again, for real though, like I did many years ago before I was ever in a relationship that in hindsight was extraordinarily toxic for both of us.  Though it itself hasn’t weighed heavily on me I can’t say I ever felt happy about my place in life since before then and I have Eli and Julian to thank for always making me laugh and taking any serious situation and making me take it less seriously.  Since coming to university my life has changed considerably.  Just the merely living on my own has done me a world of good, just hope I can keep it up with how expensive college is.  Eli once told me about his relationship with his dad and how much he really loves his dad, he showed me pictures of them dressing up together for halloween and how he wants to have a son so he can become like his dad, so I think tonight I’ll talk about my dad.  My father and I have always been at  odds for as long as I can remember.  Since moving away he and I seem to have become closer though.  The car rides he and I take to and from University are honestly some of my best memories with my dad.  And since those rides, I remember the happy stuff more.  Before I moved, whenever I thought about my dad, I’d remember all the times he beat me for crying, the times he abused my mom, all the times he just put me down.  But now...now I remember all those games of dominos at midnight while my mom slept and lectured me about sleeping earlier or especially that one game in the rain (not lining them up and knocking them down that’s a very white thing I think, every ethnic person I know always thinks of the actual game that they are meant to be played but that’s a story for another day),  I remember when we went to my cousin’s wedding we shared the living room his too brothers who snored so loud that in the middle of the night he says “Tri, you awake? you want to move somewhere quieter?”,  I remember every single book you made me read and every single essay you made me write.  when my grandma died and we only had enough money to send him to vietnam for the funeral...it was my birthday, I had just turned 14 and in the dead of night he had to leave to catch the flight...I was the only one he woke up and told me to study well...that felt like a dream,  all those times we’d drink tea together late at night in the sun room over looking the lake, all the times he showed me a new origami creation and how to make it, how to reverse engineer my toys and fix them, how he taught me to cook (something I take great pride in and apparently he does too according to my mom), I remember one time I was home alone (about 8 or 9) cause my mom had to take my sisters to school and it was snowing really badly and I got so scared I called my dad and he said if mom wasn’t back by the end of the hour he’d come home and spend the day with me (something that I now wonder what that would’ve been like),  I remember when I was very small staying home with my mom seeing him off to work and one day he forgot his glasses and I ran after him waving them in the air but he thought I was just waving goodbye so he kept driving,  I remember when I was really young I was terrified of illness and I got pneumonia and I blamed myself for why didn’t go on vacation that year and started crying because I thought I was going to die and my dad was the one that comforted me, I remember building my first computer with him, how he showed me to use power tools and solder things and how to use a knife though my mom gave me my first knife, when my mom was paralyzed from the waist down he was the one that cared for her when all I did was go out with my girlfriend at the time, and he even showed me how to draw which is the basis of my whole career now.  Even though we still fight, I think I’m honestly ready to forgive my dad.  Not like in the Lucille Clifton poem, but actually truly deep down I forgive my dad.  That also reminds me how he’s the one to have introduced me and made me think critically about every fucking movie I watch for better or worse.  Also he taught me about classic shakespear literature.  And how he taught me the premises of philosophy and made sure I was exposed to both his religion (Buddhism) and my mom’s (catholic).  He taught me to always look to improving yourself, to always keep my mind sharp, and oddly he was never the one to criticize my piano playing unless I became so mad I slammed the keys.  I remember he never talked down to me like a child.  Yeah he demanded respect unfairly at times in my opinion, but at least up until recently he no longer says “you’ll understand when you’re older” and perhaps something I’ve been arrogant about, but his English is’t as good as I think it is sometimes, something that genuinely scares me that one day I might not be able to talk to him when he gets older.  Lately the only thing he and I seem to be able to talk about is technology, a passion both he and I share.  I remember telling him how to build a full analog radio and the smile on his face was something I can’t say I ever saw before.  This last trip he told me his entire adolescent life before the war and when he escaped the communist regime.  My father’s past is something so mysterious to me.  He told me how he low key stole computer parts from other villagers with his brothers, how they would all get punished by his dad, how he worked pumping gas, how he built his first computer, how when he was younger he loved roller coasters but because my mom hates roller coasters he stopped going to amusement parks, how they give him a rush of life, but now that rush of life comes from other places like first having kids, how getting married changed his life completely, how he gave up smoking for my mom.  They say no matter what you become your father and in many ways I can already see it in me, but I no longer look at it like a curse, but a blessing.  At my uncles wedding my dad couldn’t attend because he’s always working out of state to support our family.  I’ve grow to really respect that now.  The pastor that adopted my parents here in america hadn’t seen my parents in more than 20 years that day, and they didn’t even get to see my dad.  That was also the first time they ever met me and my siblings.  I was only 14 at the time and was extraordinarily tired, but I remember the pastor took my mom aside, hugged her and said “[dad] did a fine job of raising those kids”.  At the time I laughed at that cause of how much pain I was in over this and that...but now, I think I turned out pretty okay, and my dad...he’s a good man at heart, it’s just how different it is here compared to Vietnam that he’s used to, something that I can’t even begin to imagine.  Now I know that he’s just worried about me.  Certainly there are things I’m still upset about, but I’ve grown much more understanding of his place in life as well as mine.  Couple days ago I called home and he was the only one awake to pick up, it was a quick check in but it felt good...All through out my life there have been many reoccurring nightmares but the one that has had the most presence through each stage in my life has been one that my dad died.  I’d always just fall to my knees crying in those dreams.  I would always just pound the ground and scream “why did you leave me”.  I remember the first time he had to leave to work out of state so my sister could go to college...at that point I was very angry with my relationship with my dad...but that night I cried, and that morning at went to my mom before my sisters woke up and just bawled my eyes out, I told her that I should be angry and that I am angry at him but I just couldn’t bare seeing him leave.  I remember I snuck out to the back of my house when he left just so I would be the last one to see him leave...it was a golden sunny day.  I didn’t cry when my sister left for college, I didn’t cry when I left for college, but that first night without my dad despite all the awful things just made me scared.  What if such and such was my last words to him?  Even now whenever he drops me off at my dorm I get scarred that maybe this is the last time I’d see him.  He never liked my driving especially since my accident.  But even still he always offers me the keys when it’s time to go back to school.  This one time I was getting sleepy and asked if I could pullover for him to take the wheel and he said it was fine for him to drive...I don’t know but that day when he drove me and just passed out...I felt like a baby again...my earliest memory is when I was in diapers and he came to pick me up from day care and I was always so happy cause he was always the first dad to pick up their kid...that day in the car when he took the wheel...I felt...safe, like a child being held by his father...