#vampyrekat

🫡 absolutely!

one caveat, however: my dad first told me this story about twelve years ago, so i’m definitely missing some details. i’d verify info, but my dad is also Formerly Alive and i don’t trust ouija boards. (will also be removing any identifying info!)

anyway! onto the polygamous divorce story:

so my dad was a divorce lawyer in the 90’s and 2000’s. on weekend visits (my parents were separated but not, actually, legally divorced), he would gossip about his clients. i think this is extremely fair and just for the service he was providing. god i want to tell you what county he worked in so badly i feel like it provides a critical context. feel free to speculate

so this divorce starts out, all things considering, very standard. husband wife some kids a duplex. groundbreaking stuff. one day, the wife comes down to the office to discuss the divorce. let’s call her mrs. smith. my dad’s office coordinator? coworker? calls him down to also talk divorce with mrs. smith. again, very standard in a legal divorce proceeding involving lawyers.

except my dad had never seen this woman before in his life.

he’d met mrs. smith before. this was an entirely separate woman claiming to be mrs. smith, married to mr. smith. she also had kids. at that point, my dad settled in to have an Extremely day at the law office. best case scenario this was a mistress making stuff up. kinda messy, but no additional paperwork need be filed.

worst case scenario? there were two mrs smiths. with different houses, tax filings, and sets of kids fathered by mr. smith. actually scratch that the SAME DUPLEX. they lived in the same duplex, on opposite sides of the same wall, with mr. smith alternating between those sides like a möbius strip of two-timer dates. and they didn’t know about each other at all! that would suck so so much for any divorce lawyers involved haha

especially if mrs. smith no. 2, who initially came to the office to just ask about what the hell was going on, decided she also wanted a separate divorce

Wait but can you teach me how to do the interview thank yous? Romance is easy. Professional emails are hard.

Dear [NAME],

are they the same size as gif files?

I am glad to hear that! I try to be conscious of the fact that frankly I myself find it annoying when I follow blogs that are hypercritical of the media they claim to love.  For instance, there are a lot of people who complain that Steve Rogers is out of character in Civil War AND in First Avenger AND in all three Avengers films… until one finds oneself wondering where the heck people are getting this “Steve Rogers” person from, seeing as the bisexual Jewish pro-gun-control potty-mouthed Democratic activist Steve Rogers is an interesting person, but also nowhere to be found in the comics or movies or 1960s cartoon.  The same is true of Star Wars blogs that are 15% about shared love for Star Wars, 85% complaints about Phantom Menace or Last Jedi.

I'm not a big rec source, but here's a few worth reading a giving the author some love :

Out of the Woods by @wheel-of-fish A lovely story of discovery about two unlikely people who laugh at chickens and kiss with pine needles in their hair. (Phantom of the Opera modern au)

Next is Broadway Material by @vampyrekat and asmenuke. A shared wet wall in an apartment building is a stage for the vocally inclined. The tenor is a dead man but that batitone... He might be okay. (Anastasia modern au)

And last but not least is Gentlemen's Secrets by @herroyalmajestrix. (I am unforgivably behind on this one, but I know the worrying is A+++). After reconciling and realizing their love, Margaret Hale and John Thornton marry. An uninvited, unsavory guest at the wedding begins a mysterious journey into the underbelly of business, paralleled by the newlyweds journey into passion.

He's definitely a pet person. Maybe the sort of person who desperately wants a pet but can't really fit one into his life right now, and is Making Plans for when he's going to get one.