IT'S ONLY BLOOD, I HAVE PLENTY LEFT

amber followed in her older sister katie [cassidy]’s footsteps. impressed by her older sister’s panache, amber herself set on a somewhat rebellious route. with her mother’s smothering possessiveness over her children and her growing violence towards them, fighting back against nicole [kidman] seemed like the only logical thing to do. but while amber had the independent, rebellious streak in her, she was also more sensitive to her mother’s exploitation and reprimanding. her childhood was spent skirting around her mother’s rules, but often getting caught and slapped around for it. unlike her older sister, however, amber never grew to be quite as resentful of her parents - despite nicole’s violent outbursts and daniel [craig]’s overseas affair that left amber with two half-sisters. daniel’s affair and her half-sisters’ true parentage became the family secret, the elephant in the room that no one was allowed to talk about. despite all of that, she never truly resented her parents. until they decided to marry her off.

chris novak [pine] was a polish visitor in america. a distant relative of her great aunt meryl, chris had been brought in as a suitor for amber’s cousin, tamsin [egerton]. but tamsin had always been somewhat of a wreck; she tried to throw herself at chris and thoroughly disgusted and scared him off. the madison family, not wanting to let a catch like chris get away, turned their eyes to the next marriage-aged girl in the clan - and with katie gone off doing her own thing, it was naturally amber who fell to the blade.

amber, who’d wanted to go to college, was instead married off to chris, a cold, calculating, older polish man. her wedding brought madison corporation property assets in warsaw and an union of two powerful families, but left amber with a loveless marriage. amber, emotionally fragile after being forced into marriage, gave in to nicole’s pressures. she got pregnant less than a year after their wedding, eventually giving birth to three kids over the years - tomasz, five; teodor, four; and kasia, two. her own little form of rebellion in her marriage comes from her calling her kids tommy, theo and kassy respectively, if just to annoy chris.

as with most of the cross children, jensen was born into a happy home to two very loving parents. he came in six years after his older sister, lena headey, but despite the age difference, have always been close. his childhood was typical, if not idyllic. his father was a fisherman and his mother a nurse. arguments with his older sister were resolved after quick tussles in the mud, fights that he almost always lost as a kid. he grew up with a healthy interest in cars, the outdoors, girls and the family-instilled belief that he didn’t need money to be happy, just loved ones around him.

he was particularly close to his cousin, clara [jaime king], with less than a year separating them. as they entered adolescence, their summers were spent drinking and causing havoc, running around doing all the typical teenage things expected of them. the two of them were a team, utterly inseparable. they took clara’s younger madison cousin, josh dallas, under their wing, treating him like their kid brother.

at sixteen, jensen knew that clara was troubled, if brilliant. she’d made it a point to tell him about her family’s batshit plans of finding her a suitor and marrying her off to help expand the madison family business. she confided in him about getting to know one of the suitors. about how they had sex. about how, several weeks later, she found out she was pregnant. 

clara came to him, asking to borrow some cash and divulged her plans of running away and settling in maine. hesitant as he was, he followed through with her request, bidding her goodbye in the dead of the night and making her promise to stay in contact.

over the next eighteen years, a lot of things changed in his life, but he never stopped loving his family as fiercely as he did. he opened up a garage with his cousin, jeffrey [dean morgan]. he watched his sister struggle to raise her daughter, shelley. he helped when shelley herself became a teenage mother. he stood on the sidelines, unable to do anything as his father slowly but surely succumbed to alzheimers, losing his memories of who they all were. clara came back to providence once in a while, mostly during the summers, dropping off her twin boys at his place while she ran off to do whatever her little heart pleased.

he went through his share of women, found himself in good relationships and bad. but none turned out to be such a mix of both the good and the bad until he met katie [cassidy]. she was a madison and part of her wanting to date him was to piss off her parents. she was hot, she was funny, jensen was all in with her. but what started out as a meaningless fling quickly became more. their relationship was heated and passionate. they found themselves fighting as often as they fucked. their relationship moved too fast and flared too hot. they would break up and then make up, going through these endless cycles till he was left feeling exhausted.

five years ago, he had a chance meeting with annaleigh [leighton]. though just twenty at the time, she was pregnant with her first baby, the wife of an influential madison. they built a gentle friendship, and jensen found himself adoring the younger woman, with all her spirit and warm smiles and heart. his affection for her grew over the years, until slowly, it dawned on him that his love for her wasn’t purely platonic.

it was around the same time that his relationship with katie hit another roadblock. after six exhausting years of being with the high-maintenance, expensive katie, their relationship had reached its lowest point. he was ready to ask her to move out of their house, to call it quits for the last time. until she told him she was going to have his baby.

he was floored, devastated and happy all at the same time.

always having been the good guy, he decided to stay, to help raise his unborn child with katie.

rebellion runs in katie madison’s veins. with a mother like nicole [kidman], who could blame her? katie, the oldest child of nicole and daniel [craig], always had a feeling that there was something amiss in her parent’s relationship. that love, that spark, that she’d grown so used to reading about in fairytales and seeing on television, didn’t sparkle between her parents. while her dad played the part of the good cop, always having been caring and adoring, nicole was definitely the bad cop. her mom ruled their household with an iron fist, using violence to enforce discipline. of course, all of that went on behind daniel’s back, giving nicole the opportunity to appear like the perfect mother when she was anything but.

katie developed a fuck-it attitude early in her life. after the whole fiasco with her half-sisters samara [weaving] and sasha [pieterse], katie lost a lot of respect for her parents. the harder nicole tried to reign her in, the more katie rebelled. she became a total party girl in school, staying out late, sleeping with boys, drinking and drugging and fucking and doing everything she could to piss her mom off.

when she moved back to providence after college - she went to wvu instead of the madison family alma mater, brown, just to spite her mom - nicole did her best to set katie up with a respectable suitor. katie, not wanted to be forced into an arranged marriage with some guy she barely knew, refused. she flew the nest again, leaving younger (and marriage-aged) sister, amber [heard], in the dust. the next time katie returned to providence was to attend amber’s marriage to chris [pine].

fast forward a few years, katie still hasn’t gotten rid of her rebellious streak. she does what she wants, when she wants. she even started dating jensen [ackles], a member of the cross family, because she knew it would get under her mom’s skin. what katie didn’t count on was how genuinely amazing jensen actually would be. she fell for him hard and she fell for him fast. while her dad gave them his blessings, katie and jensen’s relationship wasn’t exactly paradise. their personalities clashed and they fought as often as they fucked. their relationship went through endless cycles of breaking up and making up again, breaking up and making up, rinse and repeat.

like the majority of madison marriages for the past couple of centuries, the union between daniel madison and nicole kensington was one that was arranged purely for the financial benefit of both families, as well as the success of bringing two of the eastern seaboards most powerful and influential families together. while neither daniel nor nicole were particularly thrilled with the union at the beginning, both of them were more than prepared to do what they had to do for the benefit of their families.

of the two of them, though, nicole was definitely more inclined to bow her head and do as she was told. a woman of strict and highly puritanical upbringing, nicole knew from a very young age that her place in the world boiled down to being a good daughter, marrying a wealthy man, and then being an exemplary wife and mother. there was little more that she cared about other than being the best in those roles that she could possibly be, and never, ever letting herself fail. with the birth of her children, katie, amber and alex, nicole's smothering and overbearing nature grew more and more prominent as the years passed, and though she was focusing on doing everything she could to make her children the best and to be the perfect mother to them, she often times found herself overwhelmed with disappointment in them, never believing that they were quite good enough for the perfect little world she desperately wanted to believe that she lived in. while yes, she always did and still does love her children, her name and reputation have always been of much more importance to her, and behind closed doors, she's never hesitated to slap a hand across one of her children's face to keep them in line.

daniel, on the other hand, was a much more loving and gentle father to his children. though he spent the majority of his time at the office, working ridiculous hours as most of the madison men are prone to do, he was always a firm believer in love, a romantic at heart, and though he might not have found that in nicole, he indeed did find it in his children. the two parents were a sort of push and pull with their children over the years, nicole's overbearing rule and propensity for mild violence driving her children away from her, while daniel's gentle hand and loving heart always pulled them back in. 

when their son, alex, was but a young boy, daniel was given the opportunity to take part in the opening of a branch of the madison family business overseas, in france. he accepted the undertaking and he, his wife and his three children made the move across the pond to settle in a small town just outside of paris, and it was there that daniel met heidi. a young and spirited fashion model, she seemed to be the missing piece in his life that daniel had always been searching for, that one true love that he had dreamed about for as long as he could remember. though he fought his better judgement on it, he began an affair with the beautiful young woman, which is wife, nicole, was not completely unaware of. a cunning and sneaky woman, nicole was quick to pick up on her husband's changes in behavior, and though she discovered his secret rather early on, she didn't bring her discovery to light. humiliated though she was, she had a reputation to uphold, and revealing her husband's adultery would have caused her more embarrassment than it was worth. so she bit her tongue, and continued to focus her efforts on raising her children... until samara came along.

with her career in the fashion world, heidi was in no place to take on the raising of a child, and daniel, a truly tender-hearted man, was not about to let his own flesh and love disappear from his life. and so, the affair with heidi and the birth of his first bastard child came to light, with daniel demanding that samara become a part of he and nicole's family. naturally, nicole was livid. while she'd long since come to terms with the fact that her husband was unfaithful, the idea that he was going to be bringing some whore's child into her home made her insane with anger and jealousy. but the alternative, refusing his wishes, their dirty little secret getting out to the public, the perfect family she was trying to keep together completely falling apart, was absolutely not something that nicole was willing to let happen. so despite her hatred for her husbands illegitimate child, nicole agreed to accept her as a part of their family, to pretend that she was her own, and to raise her as though she had given birth to the girl herself.

katie, eight years old at the time, and amber, six, were of course very aware that their something was wrong in their family, that something was off about their sister samara, for they never witnessed their mother pregnant or giving birth to her. but whenever the curious girls brought their questions up to their mother, she would brush them aside, refusing to speak to them about it, and as the years passed, they learned to keep their mouths shut when it came to their youngest sister's origin.

and then sasha came along. three years after samara, heidi was pregnant again, and this time, nicole absolutely lost it. her anger and hatred towards her husband and his cheating ways and his bastard children drove her insane, to the point where she threatened to kill herself, to kill the children, completely lost in her livid rage. it became clear to daniel that he had indeed screwed up, that he'd driven his wife to the point of near insanity with his infidelity, and he knew that he had to make things right. though his love for heidi remained, he put his family first, and an agreement was met that the family of seven --sasha included-- would leave france, move back to their home in rhode island, daniel would never again see heidi and they would never, ever speak of his infidelity again.

armie (hammer) comes from a very respectable home. raised by a father who built his own small fortune from nothing, and a mother who flawlessly ran a household of six on her own, armie had always known the value of hard work, and believed very much in striving for your own success in life. by the time he was thirteen, he'd already gotten a job sweeping up floors at a barber's shop, determined to make his own money and work fo the things he wanted out of life. that drive ended up getting him accepted into brown university with a handful of scholarships and grants, never once having to ask his parents for a dime.

it was while at brown that armie met shelley (hennig). a beautiful, strong-willed girl who worked at a local restaurant, armie was taken by her the very moment he saw her, and was indeed quick to fall head-over-heels as they slowly began a relationship. roughly six months in to it, however, shelley discovered that she was pregnant with armie's child and, being the gallant, respectable sort of man that he is, armie asked her for her hand in marriage-- which shelley, to armie's heartbreak, declined.

there's no denying that shelley (hennig) is her mother's daughter. she has her hair, her walk, her cheeky little smirk, and she even gave birth to her own daughter as a teenager, just as her mother did to her. like mother, like daughter, indeed.

shelley never knew her father. the product of a week-long tryst between her mother and an out-of-town fisherman, shelley's mother, lena (headey) knew little more than his name, and the fact that he was only in town for a week before shipping back out to his home state of alaska. she never sought any way of keeping in touch with him after he left providence, and even after discovering she was pregnant, she still didn't care to seek him out. an incredibly proud and independent woman, lena knew that, despite only being sixteen at the time, she would be able to raise her daughter on her own. and to the surprise of nearly everyone who knew lena, she did just that.

in fact, she managed to raise shelley rather well. while instilling her own beliefs of feminism and independence in shelley, lena also managed to raise shelley to be a very loving, very caring young woman. and when she met armie (hammer), that sentimentality definitely showed it's face.

while working a saturday night at her mother's restaurant some seven years ago, shelley found herself waiting on a table of rowdy, drunk college boys from brown university. with each one of them relentlessly hitting on her, telling her how much they wanted to take her back to their apartment for the night, quiet designated driver armie did in fact stand out, politely apologizing for his disrespectful friends as they were leaving, and of course, leaving her a fine tip as thanks for her service. it's not to say that she was instantly smitten with the older, beautiful man, but after his continued presence in her mother's restaurant, making an effort to stop in and see her for lunch a couple of times a week for the next few months, shelley's feelings for him did in fact begin to grow, and after a while, they began a sort of romance, getting to know one another and spending time together outside of the restaurant walls.

they'd known one another for close to six months when shelley discovered she was pregnant with armie's child. armie, who had indeed fallen hard for shelley in that time, proposed marriage between the two of them, which shelley instantly rejected. as far as she was concerned, she barely knew armie, and she wasn't about to marry someone simply because she was pregnant, and it was to be expected. she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in the spring, and again, armie proposed to her, and again, shelley refused.

they continued to see one another, of course. throughout the rest of armie's years at brown, he and shelley dated, spent time raising their gorgeous little mallory together, but despite how many times armie asked, shelley continued to refuse marriage, even refusing that the three move in together. after he graduated with his degree, armie made sure to begin his career in providence, so that he can be close to his daughter, and rarely does a day go by when he doesn't still ask shelley to marry him, promising to take her away and to provide for her and mallory the way that no other man ever would.

no one has ever told lena (headey) what to do. the few who have tried over the years have been quickly put in their place, whether it be by a backlash of snarky remarks from the fiery brunette, the raising of one seriously judgmental brow, or simply by the way that lena would turn on her heel and walk away, far to superior to even bother being in said persons presence any longer.

growing up, lena was most definitely the cause of many headaches her parents suffered. her sarcastic tongue was constantly getting her in trouble in school, her innate ability to find trouble was always getting her into fights with other girls (and boys, to which her mother would always shake her head at), and her bold, hard-headed-ness indeed made her parents often times wish that they could trade her in for a much more "normal" daughter, one who didn't come home every afternoon with her dress ripped to the thigh, her knees scraped and bloodied, and that ridiculous, self-satisfied grin on her dirty, messy little face.

of course, they absolutely loved their daughter, and she without a doubt loved them, as well. while lena and her parents rarely saw eye to eye on anything, she would fight to the death for them, and though she once tried to mail her younger brother, jensen (ackles) to istanbul in an television box, she would put her life on the line for him, as well. thankfully, though, fighting bandits and crooks was something that was contained to lena's imaginative play, and she grew up without ever actually having to lose blood for her loved ones. 

at sixteen, after a week-long tryst with an alaskan fisherman of twenty helping her father for a spell, lena discovered that her own childhood would be coming to an end with the birth of one of her own. her parents, of course, were overwhelmed with the news of their own baby having a baby, and attempting to reason with lena, to come up with a solution to the "problem," but lena, strong and stubborn as she was, had already decided that she whole-heartedly loved her unborn child, and that she was going to do what was right and to step up and be a mother to her baby girl. and to the surprise of everyone who'd ever known her, she managed to do just that.

while her parents did in fact help out with the raising of lena's daughter, shelley (hennig), lena raised her more or less on her own, and did so with a sense of love and adoration and strength that only hard-headed lena could ever supply. lena impressed those around her constantly, not only in her ability to raise a child on her own, but to continue her schooling, even attend the local college to get her degree in business. she eventually opened up a very successful seafood restaurant in providence, providing the city with the finest grub caught fresh every morning by her own father's men, and over the years, her business has flourished, her restaurant becoming a beloved staple in providence.

the madison family isn’t known for producing fuck ups. if anything, they seek to prune those out of the precious family tree. but emma madison [roberts] is one of the few unlucky ones. she wasn’t born with some great intelligence nor sharp cunning nor amazing charisma. what she was and grew to be is ordinary, even below average. while her dad, robert [downey junior] always accepted her for who she was; her mom, gwyneth [paltrow], wasn’t as easy to impress. what gwyneth wanted was a perfect madison child, the kind of girl who would turn out to be a shining star. she drove emma hard, trying to pull things out of her that emma wasn’t able to produce. what mother and daughter ended up with was a destroyed relationship. gwyneth’s disappointed with emma, and emma resented her mother. for a girl who’s never felt like she’s been good enough, emma’s finally had enough. she’s had enough of trying to impress her mother. she’s starting to look out for herself. if that means staying out all night partying, that’s just fine. but with her notorious lack of common sense and inability to tell a good situation from bad, her path of rebellion has been rather rocky.

right from the start, gwyneth (paltrow) had a strong desire to achieve greatness. she dreamed of her own success, of a lavish life with many admirers and nothing but glowing things to be said about her. unfortunately, that wasn't actually in the cards for her. because despite how fantastic and wonderful she liked to think herself to be, gwyneth always was, to put it kindly, quite an ordinary girl. she didn't possess the charisma, the intelligence and the greatness her younger sister, clara (jaime king) had, which made their parents dote on her younger sister so. growing up, she blamed her lack of greatness on her family. she envied her cousins, true madisons, and always imagined that, had she only been born as one of them, a sister to naomi (watts) and charlize (theron), a third madison girl, she would have been much more capable of achieving the things she believed her own family, her own surname of cross, prevented her from achieving. nothing in her life was every quite good enough, and she was never able to find herself completely satisfied with anything in it.

she thought that might change after she got married. a typical arranged marriage in true madison family style, gwyneth was wed to the son of a successful business owner who was not only wealthy and respected, but incredibly good-looking. she indeed believed that her marriage to robert (downey junior) would finally provide her with that moment of glory she'd been striving for her entire life, but just like so many other times before, she was sorely disappointed. for as good-looking and powerful a man as robert was, he was hardly the respected, driven, ruthless sort of businessman that gwyneth had always expected of her husband. in fact, he seemed to care little about business at all and was always much more inclined to spend an afternoon out fishing with gwyneth's father, harrison (ford), throwing back a couple of beers, lighting up a joint of marijuana rather and enjoying himself rather than building his reputation as a cutthroat businessman, feared and respected by all.

so gwyneth's attention turned instead to her daughter, emma (roberts.) from day one, gwyneth made it her mission to raise the most respectable and successful young lady she possibly could, to prune emma into a true madison, gifted and adored, to make her the type of girl gwyneth always considered herself to be, but that she felt she was cheated out of actually becoming. perfection meant everything to gwyneth, and she did everything in her power to make sure that emma grew up to be just that. unfortunately, emma, much like her father, always proved to be a disappointment to gwyneth's outrageous expectations. no matter how hard emma tried to appease her mother, to life up to her expectations, she found herself constantly failing to reach them, for the bar of gwyneth's desire for greatness and perfection always seemed to be raised higher and higher, and emma, a simple girl with a lack of common sense, has never harbored a chance of reaching it.