#freckled fic

The Making Of:

For most of the non-canon characters, names and birth years didn't actually matter, but I tended to give them those anyways for funsies :P

(However the Gentry father IS named "Eugene" as a Detective Beebo reference...)

It was particularly difficult to get the ages lined up in ways that made sense, since there are some characters with very load-bearing ages (i.e. ones mentioned directly in the source, such as Holly being 13 in 1977 or Courtland stated to have been born in 1980). I tried to prevent like, super-young parents, but still ended up with a lot of first-child-in-their-early-twenties situations, typically because they are inconveniently sandwiched between load-bearing ages. Half of these people should be at the club

There is one very specific case in which I intentionally made a character a parent at a very young age! This is for Lore reasons. Because of course I have also gotten rather attached to some of the OCs I made for this. Maria Grace they could never make me hate you

...And then Jared ended up getting sandwiched but y'know what #wemakeitwork

Surnames were also tricky since they all have different ones. So there's a lot of hyphenated surnames to kinda sorta finagle my way about that

I also included death dates, where applicable. I couldn't quite remember when, in relation to the setting of the movie, Holly's mother and Lars' parents died - I think both were supposed to be around a year or two prior to the events of each movie? So I set it as that. I also bumped Richard's up a few years to save Holly from the fate of being a 20-year-old mother

Some of the colored lines (indicating the canon-ness of relations) are blurred a bit, this is because these character's roles are established to exist within canon, except there were fanon liberties taken with, say, their names, or their relations to other characters. Lines without the blur are meant to indicate that the highlighted relation is either directly present/mentioned within the canon or is a connection entirely made up for this project (depending on line color, see the key)

Also, characters with this sort of mixed they're-mentioned-in-canon-but-nameless-so-I-gave-them-names-and-backstories also have backgrounds that are mixed with both the Canon and Non-Canon colors.

As you can see I have built a lot of this around Canon(s). This is because I loooove a good puzzle even if it means mental torture and sitting hunched over ibisPaint tweaking a single year over and over again.

Family Lore:

Okay so I think first I gotta address the elephant in the post. Maria Grace, Eugene Gentry, and Courtland Gentry. The story here is that Maria and Holly were classmates in high school, and also close friends. Maria played some sort of sport (I'm thinking lacrosse but I'd like to look into the history of school sports and women's sports at around that time to check if this would make sense), and Eugene - who at the time of The Nice Guys' story, was out living his own life somewhere - came to the school, and started coaching this sport. He and Maria started a secret relationship. He promised her he would take care of her after she graduated. Eventually, Maria gets pregnant with Courtland, and of course Holly is worried sick - HOW did that happen. Who did this. Who is the father. MY BROTHER?! What The Fuck when did. How. WHY?!??!

Breaking off into a new bullet point to prevent Big Wall O' Text syndrome. Anyways. She's pissed. Holland soon finds out, cue big family drama, Eugene gets disowned, and takes on his mother's maiden name (Gentry) as his surname to spite his father. Courtland gets born before Maria graduates high school, and when she turns 18 Eugene makes good on his promise, and they get married. But, as I'm sure you can imagine, their relationship was never really a healthy one? There was some huuuge power imbalance and manipulation stuff going on, because Eugene Is An Ass. The abuses increase, he takes it out on their kids (as of course, he didn't expect to just have ONE kid), up until Courtland kills him in 1995.

And I would like to mention that Maria isn't just complacent in all this. She has always been the kind of person who isn't afraid to do what needs to get done to succeed. She just... very quickly, very unexpectedly found herself trapped in a situation that became ever-increasingly difficult to escape. She tried the hardest she could to protect herself and her kids with the crappy hand she had been dealt. This story is set up this way very intentionally; can anyone spot the Currently-Relevant Themes?

I also feel as though Holly deeply regrets that Courtland had to be the one to finally end it. I feel like, in this chain of events, her life's biggest regret was failing to protect her friend (COUGH POTENTIAL LESBIAN SITUATIONSHIP COUGH), and leaving the brunt of the burden all to her nephew. She should have just taken care of it a long, long time ago...

After the death of Eugene, Maria and Holly reconnect, and form a strong support system with each other. Things are great with just the two of them (and well, also the kids) for a while... and then Maria meets John. And Holly is fiiiiiine actually she is. So fine! Finefinefinefine-

John isn't an asshole like Eugene was he was actually pretty great. So great in fact that, if you remember from my last post, Colt actually insists on getting his surname changed to include "Seavers" and when he's old enough to do so, follows through with it.

Anyways I think that's all for that side of the family? I have DEFINITELY put a lot more thought into this branch than the other one, but here's some brief info based on what I have so far:

The Lindstorms are probably pretty distant from the rest of the family, even their first cousins. I'd imagine they live in some much more remote town (as in the movie), compared to the other families living in pretty major cities/areas. They only hang out with the rest briefly, and rarely.

The Vennett-Meyers... okay so I did That because Jared's surname is Vennett, and Stephen's is Meyers, and I really wanted them to be siblings okay. So I Did That. As they grew up and began their own ventures, they each gravitated toward a different surname, to make things less clunky in their very Big And Important jobs. Stephen -> Meyers, Jared -> Vennett. Get it? Got it? Good.

Anyways. Jared then goes on to have kids - at 18, on accident, after a hookup with a woman several years older than him who he ends up falling in love with, marrying, and having more kids with - and they then hyphenate THEIR surnames as well because of course. Jacob needs to be Jacob PALMER. And then Sebastian Wilder I just went with the typical "...that's his stage name!" excuse and then his sister in canon just inherited the hyphenated surname instead. Good enough

Jacob and Sebastian are twins because I say so! They just feel like it. It took me a while before I realized that maybe the reason I felt so strongly about them being twins was because in each of their movies they end up being the love interest to different characters played by the same actress LMAO

I would imagine Casey (changed from "Paul" because it seems to be pretty common fanon consensus and i like the name for him better than "Paul"), prior to the... All That... got along well with Colt and perhaps even sparked his interest in stunt work. Idk I can see him being in his early 20s and Colt's like 17 or smth and Driver's doing doughnuts in an abandoned parking lot with Colt in the passenger's seat holding on for dear life but smiling SO wide

Also I can see Sebastian and Ken getting along well too. Ken's like. He's such a musical theater kid. You see that "I'm Just Ken" section of the movie? Yeah. And then Sebastian & his piano and tap dancing. They would get along well methinks

What's New (Ver 2):

Changed Driver's name from Paul to Casey! I've seen this name for him floating around quite a bit, and liked it way better than Paul. I still am not quite sure where it originated from, but if anybody knows please tell me! I'm very curious

ALSO changed Driver to be in the Grace family, between Courtland and the twins! I was having a hard time envisioning his dynamic with the Palmer-Vennetts, and it felt like he just fit in so well with the backstory and general vibe of the Graces. Also I was a little bothered by the fact that both families were structured the same - oldest child, then middle twins, then youngest child. Now it's a little uneven which I prefer

Changed Laura from being the youngest child of the Palmer-Vennetts to the oldest! This is both to maintain the story I set up for Jared and because she definitely gives vibes of being Sebastian's older sibling in the movie. Now that Driver is no longer in that space, she fits there perfectly!

What's New (Ver 3):

Removed Richard Haywood from the family tree, because A) I've been having a lot of fun playing dolls with him on his own and smacking him against Henry Letham, and this allows me to keep his original timeline intact, B) Holly is now relieved of the Horrors of the... All That, C) Also i rewatched it and noticed that in the movie it already shows Richard's mother, so yk might as well

Anyways that's. All I have to say really. Which "all I have to say" turned out to be a lot. Hopefully it was comprehensible! And that you enjoyed! This is the general personal fanon that I'm gonna try to stick to when writing my fic (though I might deviate a bit when I feel like it, or change things out of the blue, also when I feel like it). Anyone who would like to use, expand on, or get inspired by this is more than welcome to do so!! Yayyy let's hear it for the best fandom ever!!!!!