#stawi

Diversity win! The town's new speech therapist is a gay transplant from the Bronx who's exceedingly kind to all children and unabashedly mean to most adults!!

Caleb Montavani (fc Curt Mega) looooves his job and makes everyone at the annual ASHA conference sooo so angry (he's very staunchly and LOUDLY anti-ABA; takes a neurodiversity-affirming approach to the field). He didn't expect to stay in Hatchetfield as long as he did but that's a longer story I'll save for his tarot card. Tbh this guy just sort of showed up in my fic--by that I mean he was meant to show up in the main fic but things got too cluttered so he's hanging out in a spinoff from the main series (the comic is a scene from said spinoff lol). He has since snuck his way into my general Hatchetfield headcanons and much like Paul has been taking up too much real estate in my mind. Paulcal is real and true tell ur friends

Speaking of: I don't think Paul is secretive with Emma about his past but I think there's some things he just doesn't mention until it comes up in convo and one day he's just like, "Back when I was living with my ex-bf--" and she's like "excuse me WHAT" "OH yeah we dated for three years" "I told you I was bi weeks ago and this didn't come up wtf" "Haha yeah he was my nephew Richie's speech therapist! Very rude to me I couldn't stand the guy" "Bad few years then?" "What? No of course not we had a great relationship. Amicable split I wished him a happy birthday on Facebook last week"

Art w/o the text

chaotic cousins is merely a fraction of the Situations possibilities but it is so far the funniest ((to me))

I do this thing where I look at a headcanon and instead of thinking "how could this make everyone's lives better" I go right to "how could this make everyone's lives equally if not more complicated in an Entirely different way" and factoring in "Paul as a(n unideal and wildly flawed) father figure" means I am brewing potions in my hurt/comfort laboratory

Mfers will see a horror comedy musical trilogy and make its characters do the Succession sibling pose

Idk if I should apologize that, of all chapters from the fic, this is the one with so much fucking concept art lmao. I wasn't sure of the reason for this until recently; this was the chapter where I figured out what I truly wanted out of writing this story and determined the direction it would go. It's silly but I think I fell in love with this story when first working on chapter six. I'm unsure how much momentum it will maintain, how many people will end up sticking around for the whole story, but no matter what it's brought me so much joy and made me fall in love with storytelling all over again. We're only halfway through! I can't wait to see it fully realized.

Full versions of the last two pieces under the cut

I do !!!! A lot of them are innocuous since anything bigger could possibly be spoilers for major plot points lmao so here's three very silly trivia bits

Muppets

The only time you will EVER hear Paul Matthews singing is when he + Han do this ongoing bit/stim(??) of singing Mahna Mahna upon hearing/saying the word "phenomenon" lol. He had The Muppet Show on a lot when she was little; if she got too distracted or riled up one of his tricks to get her to pay attention was a call and response of "Han-hna Han-hna" / "Doo dooo dedodo" So it started as that and just, sort of. Evolved over time. The first time he unthinkingly does this in front of Emma he gets a little embarrassed but she thinks it's so fucking endearing

Bon the Babysitter

My other OC Bonnie was the girls' babysitter for a few years!! Hannah used to call her Bunny and she thought it was too cute to correct her :') This was during the Cal era, aka the years of a man who's finally experiencing intimacy after a seven year dry spell, but is also still a man with children who have bedtimes. Lotta weekday calls of Paul being like "HeyyyyBonhow'reyadoingthat'sgreat SO could you watch the girls tonight. From five till um. I dunno. Late" "?? It's a school night this is so last minute--" "I will pay you $250 if you come over right now. And I will get pizza delivered" "Make it $300 and we get toppings. And a side of garlic knots." "DONE"

cut to several years later when she starts her job at CCRP and they pass each other in the lobby like

Paul and weed

Paul's not a smoker. He never has been, and he'd never been interested in weed bc of it. By the time weed becomes legal, him and Lex have really Been Through It bc of all the individual challenges they faced in each phase of her growing up. Now that she's an adult they've both mellowed out and one day he gets curious abt Lex's edibles and she's immediately like FUCK. YES.

So once in a blue moon they split a gummy during casual hangouts at home w/ the Greens or the Woodwards and they literally become like tommy and angela in the gas leak clip LMAOO

The next day Paul's always like "I don't think it did much." Immediate flashback to Bill the night before in the middle of doling out Uno cards and he stops to look at them and is like ".... Are you two okay" and these mfers are off to the side like

(through tears) "YEAH. WE'RE FINE."

"........... Okay....... if you say so. (starts game) Paul, draw f--"