My favorite thing about Louis and Minnie’s relationship is the fact Minnie cannot stand him at times. Like, he’s not an angel who can do no wrong; and not all his actions are excusable. She’s way past idolizing him like that. In fact, many times in the initial points of their relationship Minnie thought he was Devilish. Basically, it’s a relationship in which Minnie sees him as not just a love interest but as a human being. If she sees him cry? It’s all good. Well, not all good because her heart breaks at seeing him sad and burdened, but she’s not going to turn her back. And she will turn her back with anyone else.

     Sometimes. Greg just knew when something would be discontinued. Too good to last or rather, in the case of his friends: too epic to be secure and confident in continuing onward. Always, he’d get these feelings for media. For personal pet projects. It’s too good to last so just enjoy it as it remains in your presence.   And now he feels it in terms of relationships. Basically. To bluntly put it; he doesn’t know how long he’ll be with Sheila. He was not cynical from his relationship with Elaine, no, not at all. For when Sheila first showed him her old home - when they first kissed - when they first did anything in the beginning: such a thought did not float in his head. But now, it’s there. Always there in his mind.  It’s like noticing a all-day gray Ohio sky. ‘You know its going to rain? Yeah, it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s coming.’

The biggest difference in Greg and Sheila’s relationship and all the other major relationships Sheila has been in, is that Greg thinks of Sheila as being out of his league. He thinks of her as being such a important and dynamic person and maybe, just maybe, he can’t keep up with her and all she has going on. Neil wanted Sheila to be a trophy wife on the side while he’s doing everything with his career. He was demanding and domineering in literally all aspects of their relationship because of his ego. Daryn saw Sheila as someone he ‘deserved’ after living a hard life. He was letting her do her own thing, but at the bottom line he was also feeling like she was made for him. Nick is just a nasty creep. In terms of Greg, he humanizes her in ways these three (and many more) haven’t. He wants to be with her - but he sees her as a woman that doesn’t need him if she doesn’t want to settle. And its not like thoughts like these don’t make him upset and sad ‘cause they do: but still, Sheila’s Sheila. Sheila can do what she wants to do because her life and her goals are her own. 

Growing up, Rhoda didnt care about looks. Presentation. Nothing. As a grown woman her view on making it in life is about 'selling a image. Giving them a image.' It was like that in Vegas. It's like that on the hotline. She's not a black woman, she's not a mixed woman, shes all sorts of women. With different houses, ages, heights, backstories, ect. Most days, Rhoda feels nothing for the men she's getting off. Some days she feels sad for them, because they're pathetic. Pathetically sad. Like, she figures when you get to know these men they're probably assholes but the fact they're wrapped up and invested in this voice. Is. Saddening.

a list of songs that make me think of greg and sheila

built up over the years.

I don’t think there’s any Ethel drama between Louis and Minnie in their New Bordeoux verse. Rather, the beginnings of their relationship is nothing but playing around.

He’s apart of the band in the Night Club. She’s a dancer at the very same Night Club. All he’s doing is being flirtatious with the cute new girl and she’s easily seduced by him. Though Lou said from the get-go he wanted to get to know her, be friends with her. Min translated his lovely tone as, ‘I wanna be your man but I’m too shy to say so.’

In terms of personality, Louis came to like Minnie for her naiveness and country-ness, plus she was always there to help his wounded friends. I think one of the situations that cause him to avert his eyes and direct his attention elsewhere with Minnie is that fact she gets wrapped up in Isaiah trying to resurrect the Black Mob. He’s telling her a bunch of anti-Haitian bs to further get the Black-Americans away from the Haitian-Americans so Lou is like,

‘yeah. i’ll bang minnie, but if she doesn’t think the same way i do about our race i don’t want nothin’ serious to do with her like that.’

Coming up, Sheila was never jealous of Leroy. And if she felt disdain for him it was, more than likely, stemming from petty childishness. Yes, when her mother told her there was another baby inside of her - Sheila thought it was a lie. Because for one, her mother looked the same. And two, she told herself that some family’s have like, baby contracts. Some families had two babies, some families had five, and her parents would only have one: her. But the idea of being a big sister felt good, very good. Before nine months were up, she would frequently come forward to her mother and ask did the newborn baby want to come out now? These were on boring days. And like, if Sheila knew a baby was coming, this baby should just come out now. She wasn’t a nice and honorable big sister to Leroy. She’d pinch and pull his cheeks, pinch his little fat hands. Minnie describes Sheila as ‘always botherin’ him n’ bringin’ him trouble!’ but regardless, growing up Sheila was naturally protective and in a weird way, proud of Leroy for being her brother. Because he’s cute, like her. And because she’s great, he is also great.  When Sheila’s twelve and Leroy is nine, she’s less doting and seems more like a bully. Her grandparents took to her, and spoiled her, whereas Leroy was the black sheep of the Campbells. With intentions to make him jealous, she would often show the new church shoes she got. The new books she’s borrowed from the library. And Leroy would convince himself not to care, because he didn’t like his mama’s parents anyway. yet when he’s bullied for cross-dressing? Sheila feels like she could beat all those ten year olds up. She never liked hearing her grandparents call him ‘gay’ and sinful. But a child herself; she couldn’t do anything about it.  Adulthood, their relationship is not strained but? sort of complicated, sort of normal. As Leroy stays in Georgia w/ Min and Sheila’s on the go. She loves him, she’d kill somebody for him, but usually she doesn’t want to actively help him out in terms of money. Leroy’s accustomed to Sheila’s ways and at the bottom line, feels like it can be a chore.  He can apologize for having her send money his way. And she ‘optimistically’ snaps, ‘don’t say you’re sorry! we’re family! when you’re feeling sorry for me you’re feeling sorry for yourself!’

When Minnie gets nervous and insecure she goes; ‘i’unno but-’ or, ‘please don’ think I know everything ‘cause I don’t!’ or, ‘No no no I didn’t mean it that way!’

Sheila does the exact same thing. However, while she’s taken her mother’s nervous habits and changed them into her own thing. When talking on serious stuff she goes, ‘I THINK’, ‘i might be right i might not be right?’, ‘i mean i’m not a expert on this!!’ even though she knows in her soul that she’s about to tear their beliefs apart. Honestly? It comes from hearing and watching her mother’s insecurities in action. wanting to warp them into her own positive thing.

Dayas demisexual. And with sexual attraction she leans more towards girls than boys. Male anatomy kind of intimidates her unless the guy is like, fat. She thinks weight gives a guy 'character', and makes him look wholesome. But even then, that's aesthetic attraction. Daya is disturbed, absolutely disturbed and kind of stressed out when she hears about friends, or neighbors having sex. She takes it personally, in a grievance way, to hear someone she doesn't know is a swinger or apart of a BDSM club. As if they're doing something so immoral, so taboo. And personally, Daya just has a low sex drive. She has no idea how it feels to look at a guy and want to hop on his dick. And she sarcastically assumes it must be nice to honestly use Lewid phrases online to describe your arousal. All the time. Because her body ain't doing that. Her mom has boasted about her being a nineteen year old virgin, and Daya doesn't take pride in it. Especially hearing it shouted to essential strangers. Daya likes to lie to friends and say, 'she'll take what she can get' she likes to TRY and make sex jokes but it feels wrong. Naked bullshit, that's all it is to her. Naked bullshit. She isn't for it and she THINKS she isn't against it. Though that contradicts her woeful feelings to know people around her are fuckin. Like! Daya would take forever to bang a significant other. And she wouldn't think it would be right? For her to get all sexy and romantic? Because that's how the tv shows sex scenes. Serious, intense, passionate...that's not a personality she can conjure. It's not a setting she wants to place her ass in. In real life, She'd laugh loudly and horrendously at getting her neck kissed. If a significant other tried to start sexting her, and Daya wasn't feeling it AT ALL she'd make some outlandish joke to distract them. She'd just...really feel stuck. But yeah that's Dayas feelings on relations.

The first child of Greg and Sheila is a girl. A girl that is spoiled by her mother, grandmothers, and even grandfather. Who, for all his life, thought of people with brown skin just ‘too light’ as being a certain kind of ‘other’ rather than his own kind. And though she may have been jokingly called ‘light bright,’ she isn’t light enough to not seem like a adopted child to her father. Her features aren’t exotic nor ambiguous. She didn’t come out her mother with strikingly gorgeous gray-green eyes nor hair with the waviest of ringlets that didn’t really deserve the heat of a hot comb.  On her first day on earth: she came out pale and red, yes. But with dark-eyes. With a bush of tight curls. And the more days go by - the more years go by: she looks black. A black girl with skin that just isn’t dark. A child who you can see resembles not just her mother, but her father if you look closely at the eyes.

She’s obviously a product of her parents. A little sponge picking up whatever her mother says: she talks so well and so fluent that its scary at five. When she’s unimpressed, stubborn; she doesn’t throw fits or scrunch up her little face as Shyla use to do. She lowers her eyes in such a lazed way...puckers out her lips as she goes why? Why can’t she nibble on a small piece of butter or have a flake of sugar on her tongue? Only her father knows how to say no to her. And alas, that’s just a majority of the time. Other times call for ‘compromising.’ She’s such a mostly obedient baby, unlike her mother at that age - a highly friendly baby unlike her father at that age - are the children she’s playing with have rosy chubby cheeks and blue eyes? Or do they have twisted dark hair laced with beads? It didn’t matter to her.  When Grandpa Lou keeps her in her lap, thumb over her round nose he says she’s like Minnie. More than her mother or father. She looks like Minnie and she acts like Minnie. 

If i were to write a book on sheila, it would begin with one of her white friends meeting her other white friends + her sole black friend. it would look like this white girl who’s going through whatever big thing in her life is the main character and sheila’s just the friend who gives the best advice but nope, the story flips over after that meeting. It follows behind Sheila.

canonly nsfw material of minnie exists and will be found by her children and grandchildren.

from doing pin-up a bit before sheila was born in the 50s/60s to having a website where there’s videos of her getting spanked in her 2000s verse.

coming across these things honestly upsets sheila. makes leroy cringe. whereas her granddaughter would consider it to be nice and artsy. and minnie isn’t even embarrassed of it. she has copies of these old pictures somewhere around her house. either closet or attic.

sheila might have moved it all to the attic so it would never be seen again.

Greg’s friends knew he was working at a building. But they didn’t know what he was doing there - they assumed custodian work. Not that Greg looked like a boy willing to clean toilets for money but they knew him to be pretty handy with repairs. ‘He could fix lightbulbs or something?’ is what they thought and universally, agreed on. They were shocked to learn he was a receptionist. Just like with Ron, Greg was collectively asked; ‘you’re doing a woman’s job?’ and generally, if they happened to come by: they’d have reckoned their companion to look really grown and unrecognizable behind the desk. Greg was good at being a receptionist - he knew he was going to be good at being a receptionist because he would be doing things, 'a baby could do.' Let people in. Sort through mail. Answer phones. Now, he wasn't a warm boy who did his best Mormon impression at people who walked in. for the most part he bluntly said, 'who are you here to see?' rather than, ‘Hi! How’re you today?’ And his co-workers (all much older than he) deemed him as being a 'on-the-clock boy.' Very serious, very prompt, doesn't procrastinate. However, he’d still come home wondering if he did anything wrong. ‘Cause that’s just who he is. One thing Greg did do wrong before he fully settled into his role was ignore clients as they sat in the lobby. Because as they wait in the lobby, they're bound to talk to you. Bound to talk about things ranging from weather to things that're just downright personal...or odd. And in the beginning, behind the desk Greg would ignore these occasionally odd men and women. Plus, bits of his shyness were getting in the way. He didn't know what to say to a man gossiping about his Bosses' thieving sister other than, 'oh.' Saying they sound like hillbillies is disrespectful. But then. Greg began talking back once a fellow receptionist called him rude for this habit. So over the weeks, Greg gradually began getting better with these men and women who had like, so much drama in their lives that they could fill a book. It's how he picked up skills he would later use in journalism (Who / What / When / Where / Why.) once he began school full-time again, this experience made him think that he could become a journalist. As, Greg already knew how to write. And he was already observational. Now he knew how to curb around his shyness when it came to talking to complete strangers.

YOU’RE SHYLA.

Your mother gave you that name. Your father felt it was as country as it wanted to be. Before you were born, your name brought pleasant imagery to her mind. You’d be like a Shy Lil’ Singer, her own Shy Lil’ Singer. But it was the wrong name for you. You weren’t shy, you were a bold little thing. Just how many times did your father wake up to see big, black eyes baring holes into his face? And you didn’t sing, you wrote. On walls specifically. Why wouldn’t you? There’s more room, a better flow.   YOU’RE SINFUL. You’re not dumb and it makes you mad that some adults think you are just because your little. You hear things. You notice things. Like how your grandfather never smiles at you and while your grandmother does, she doesn’t get too close. One day, you’ll learn what makes one child’s birth cleaner and purer than the others. YOU’RE SHYLA. The first time you realize you dislike your name is how your mother yells after you when you toss oranges at Isaiah. Like you’re the bad one when he is. The first time you cringed at your name was when you heard Cynthia from 4th grade chirp, ‘Ged ova’ here Lala!’ And the first time you wondered about your name’s, validity, was in your proudest moment. You won, you won and got a ribbon for the story you wrote. You wrote the best story in the whole school! Against other little girls with names like Jennifer. Lisa. Michelle.

Names that felt real. Names that didn’t get giggles or ugly abbreviations. You’re sick of Shyla being stuck to you intertwined with you until the day you die. It sticks out in the midst of Jennifer’s, Lisa’s, and Michelle’s. You want a real name too, you want Sheila. You’ve heard the time a handful of times in your life; sometimes on the phone and sometimes on TV. It sounds beautiful, and real. So, you’re Sheila now.

YOU’RE SHYLA CHILDRESS to your grandparents, the CAMPBELLS. They’re your blood, but it’s like this name separates you from them. ‘Oh, who was ‘Mina’s man?’ Sister Violetta asked your grandfather the day you met the plump Church Woman. And his lips shift, the name falling from his lips is icy; “Childress.” But then, you’re RUTH. The minute your grandparents took you away from your mother and that awful man you had to think of as a father, you’ve always been Ruth. While you’re young, and naturally there are a few similarities due to relation; you don’t act like your long-absent aunt. But when you fed up your Granddaddy he barked, ‘RUTH.’ Then he looks at you – and you look at him, and you realize that being around they can look at a child in their home in think of her. You’re Shyla Childress and yet you’re also Ruth Campbell. Both people who don’t describe who you are. You’re not a little girl with an ugly name like Shyla and you’re not somebody you never met either.

YOU’RE SHEILA.

DISCOVERED DAYA NOTE #1

-Out of the restaurant; working at the bookstore, Daya came to learn of anime and manga from the kids that came in and out. She had a vague awareness of it before that, like; 'this is what those lame rich kids be watching.' Daya had no interest whatsoever when she had her Western comic books. Yes, she was one of those people who're like, 'uuuhhh western comic books mean way more than manga ever will. tf? why do you read this backwards? why does everyone look like they ten?' which is horrible because i mean, she doesn't look that old herself. and Daya especially, on-sight, thought that magical girl anime was lame af. And yet she found herself watching Madoka, I'm sure in old OC notes this was the first anime she ever watched on her phone. And got teary eyed over. She owns a ugly bootleg Madoka key chain because she thought it was funny as shit. -Daya would get emotional about FMA 03!Edward Elric when she's high. Like, Ed and Al didn't even get to be kids for that long and they didn't even get a really happy ending. But they always worked so, so hard. And then it becomes a self-reflective thing where she's like, 'and what am I doin' here while they're out here struggling?'  -But in the end, Daya goes through periods like me where she doesn't fuck with anime for 3+ years and holds general disinterest for a strong majority of whats popular.

DISCOVERED SHEILA NOTE #1

For the most part, Sheila's really into male attention. Like, how she's into any form of attention. When someone's interested in her - and even if she doesn't return the feelings for one reason or another; it strokes her ego. She gives in just a little bit to the male gaze. Or a lot. With her careful choice of clothes, with the way she acts so into the things they have to say. She's especially like this in circumstances where louis and min don't seperate. As a teenager; she's always fooling around with boys even if there's no romance involved. (which gets under lou's skin) As a adult; Sheila cools down so much with that. She's more into long-term relationships tho she still does blind dating more often than she likes, she just doesn't hop to any boy that remotely seems interested in her. Ruth however - in a AU like this where Ruth grows up, she has no problem with romance. And yet with all the boys who approach her, she has a very strict, very cold demeanor. Her retorts don't seem sassy they seem - like she's a sixty yr old woman who doesn't have time for foolish little boys. There would be plenty times where Ruth is walking home with little Sheila, or she's awaiting Louis' car to pull up so they can go home and a boy talks to her for as long as he can. And she is so, surly. Always, this would make Sheila wonder why doesn't her aunt try to be nice? As a child, she's especially believing any attention is good attention.