i hope this isn’t inappropriate to ask, but do praline and sledge have an intimate/romantic connection of sorts at all? even if not directly stated or like committed?
their ages are not far apart it would make sense with the codependency and drugs n shit. Just wondering! i love ur story and characters
don’t worry about any questions being inappropriate, because if it’s coming from a place of genuine curiosity i appreciate it regardless. i’ve touched on this topic on twitter, but im actually glad i get to go more in depth about it on here.
the short answer is no, not really, and i understand why a lot of people might have the opposite misconception because i think we’re very used to fictional relationships being very cut and dry.
praline was about fifteen or sixteen when they first met, and sledge was a cop in his early twenties throughout the first few years of them knowing each other. a staple in their dynamic is how they hang onto those roles, and even though they’re close in age, they’re never going to shake off that history they had. you’ll frequently see them being referred to as siblings or cousins, or step siblings or step cousins, sledge gets called her uncle sometimes. even then, i don’t think it’s fair to put them into any of those definitive boxes, because sometimes things just don’t work like that. you’ll also frequently see sledge cooing at her and fawning over her like she’s much younger than she is, which might give the opposite impression if you’re not familiar with their background. this sort of misconception exists in-universe too, because i think it’s sort of silly to remove them from the reality of outside perceptions that may not be informed or correct. i’m sure other characters might see them as two unrelated adults and go from there too.
the long answer is that it’s much more complicated than that.
to start, the dynamic between sledge and praline is actually heavily inspired by my relationship with my father (and my uncle), which i think gives a lot of useful perspective.
as background, i was raised in two homes, and one of those homes was with my dad. he was 19 when i was born, and living with his mom and his teenage younger brother. i was essentially raised alongside both of them as a younger sister. this is why i don’t usually call sledge and praline’s dynamic father-daughter, cause that’s not really what it was like for me growing up. it was a unique experience having guardians who weren’t very mature, or wise, or independent. i wanted to put the essence of that in my writing, because it was one of the very lonely feelings that stayed with me growing up.
my dad was rarely around due to work and school (he was a contractor, carpentry i think, i just remember him telling me a lot about building liquor store shelves), but when he was, he was smothering and didn’t let me have a moment to myself. very affectionate but very awkward, and kind of sad because he wasn’t sure what to do with me. he was always dragging me out of bed, making me come with him when he went on walks to smoke through a pack (i have vivid memories of him holding me by the back of the neck or balling my hair up in his fist to make me walk in front of him so smoke wouldn’t blow back in my face, this is something sledge does to praline). him and my uncle would take me on a lot of night walks around town, where they also grew up, and they’d show me all their secret spots they had with their friends. they were both in bands, my dad did drums and my uncle did guitar, both had gauged ears and as many tattoos as their scraps of money would allow (along with having tattoo artist friends). as brothers themselves, of course they also loved putting me in headlocks, throwing me around, scaring the hell out of me, and pretending to kick me in the face all the time.
recently i dug up a bunch of facebook posts my dad made when i was a kid, and in a sea of him talking about getting hammered there would also be posts of him talking about me, “little miss lucia,” where he’d call me “darlin” and his “special little lady.” i found these on a trip with my friends, where we giggled “lucia your dad is an actual alcoholic” over a laptop. his alcoholism was much of the basis for sledge’s addiction and praline’s many woes about it. my most vivid memory of my dad is him drunk off his ass, holding me by the shoulders against a wall, knelt down, getting in my face, and tearfully telling me how much he loves me. i didn’t see him for two weeks after that and we never spoke of that again. it’s something i know he was very ashamed of, scaring me like that, and seeing him so ashamed of himself whenever i looked at him always stuck with me. he was especially ashamed when he never stopped drinking and never stopped asking me if i was angry at him for being so pathetic.
my childhood was full of a lot of sad pleading stares and “you know i love you, right?”, like he was always terrified i’d hate him. he was right, because i did hate him for a very long time and didn’t talk to him for seven years. i saw him fairly recently, once on a random night reuniting and another at a funeral. i found myself at his house at some point, and he perked up out of nowhere saying “oh, i forgot to show you,” turning behind him to (very hesitantly) point at a print he’d hung up on the wall of a woman who looked a lot like me. he told me “that reminds me of you” somewhat embarrassed, like he didn’t want me to know he’d been thinking of me and he’d been seeing me in things for seven years after i told him i wasn’t going to visit him anymore. i got together with my uncle a couple years before that, and he told me my dad started getting sober once i left.
but of course this was only the inspiration behind praline and sledge’s dynamic, and it isn’t meant to translate one to one. there’s plenty of differences in their relationship. the main difference is that they’re much closer in age, and much closer in general. they depend on each other emotionally much more than me and my dad did, obviously.
i think people mainly gain the misconception when i talk about that last aspect, which i don’t blame them for when you don’t know their history. praline is very childishly possessive over sledge and doesn’t like the idea of him ever walking out on her or becoming close to anybody else outside their family. she’s extremely sensitive to abandonment and you have to keep in mind that every single person in her life has failed her and left her for dead, but sledge was the only one of them who came back. she was hesitant after reuniting with him, but quickly latched onto him even harder than she did when she was a kid. in some way, she also wants to appease him. praline does this thing a lot where she’ll make herself upset or get herself into situations just so he can save her and make her feel better (which he doesn’t know about, but it makes the both of them feel better). if he got a girlfriend she’d probably kill him and then herself because it would mean she’s not the most important person to him anymore and he’s leaving her again (i was a very dramatic child who hated all of my mom’s boyfriends to the point of driving them all away if this gives any context).
sledge depends on her for stability so he can believe he’ll always have someone there for him and something to take care of. he cries a lot, gets extremely anxious about everything, he gets in his own head about various things and relies on praline to get him out of it, or give him something to do and boost his self esteem so he doesn’t feel so pathetic. he likes having something to protect, because at least he has a purpose now and he’s not just some washed up junkie with no life anymore. being so afraid all the time and constantly worried something bad is going to happen to her, he likes to rationalize to himself that praline is always going to be there for him, so she won’t do anything crazy.
there’s very certainly much more to talk about, but i hope that gives some idea of the dynamic between them. they mean a lot to me. relationships are hard to define and confusing, and that’s what they are to me.
It will get colder eventually dont even wooorry about a silly heat wave lol It will get so, so, so terribly cold And the blanket of snow will fall heavy until every thing is made still
Bear was not a huge fan of her daughter Pear when the two first met. maternal instinct has been bred out of domestic Coturnix quail, so Bear was quite suspicious of this mysterious peeping bundle!
when Pear grew up (4 weeks later) the two eventually found some common ground in their shared attributes of roundness and brownness and would spend most of their time together. Pear ended up larger than her mother but inherited her gentle disposition and love of sitting around staring blankly into space
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