Following Zechariah Harmon’s death, the Wild family split up, with Anneliese and her daughters moving on to Haus Walden. Astor had gone jaunting off to be a wandering musician, leaving Aurel, the first of her twin sons, to set up home in his late step-father’s house and marry the girl next door (literally). Three little towheaded children soon followed in quick succession, their laughter and squabbles bringing Haus Harmon back to life.
Aurel Wild
While a lover of music as well, teenaged Aurel decided against following in his brother’s footsteps, leaving his family of creatives baffled when he sprinted off to the alien field of sports. After a couple of years of blazing the county’s track, he picked up Mixed Martial Arts from one of his athlete friends, and decided that it was more his thing. He is currently a competing welterweight, appearing on regional matches that air on TV a few times a month. So far, it’s been pulling in enough Simoleons to support his growing family.
Despite his macho profession, Aurel has never quite lost his endearingly boyish looks. He’s just so earnest about anything he says or does (one reason why his family took his passion for MMA in stride after a while) and strives to be the greatest dad ever to his three young ones—even if he’s never known one; Zechariah Harmon was great, but Aurel was almost done growing up by the time his step-father came into the picture. Thursday afternoons with Papa—Aurel’s day off—is the best thing ever, as far as Claire, Clovis and Hanne Aubrie are concerned.
Anneliese Brodeur-Wild
Anne, nicknamed so by her family (just as well, since she shares the same first name as her mother-in-law), is a lover of language, and this fact has actually saved her life. In middle school, a group of bored schoolmates had dug up her ‘unsavoury’ past—she was the child of a teenaged mum—and her current unusual household—she lives with her mum, her Turkish wife and step-children—and used it to blackmail her. Being particularly sensitive to language, all the name-calling hurt. Anne was crying nearly every day, and her family did not know how to help her.
It was how then neighbour, the older Anneliese Wild, found her one day—sobbing her heart out on Willow Bridge—and made her a life-saving offer: come help her tidy up her study and do some drafting work after classes, in return for pocket money. It gave Anne something to look forward to throughout the school day, and nourished her word-hungry soul. Over time, the bullies got bored, yet Anne had gained a welcoming shelter, a concerned friend, and a chance †o meet her future sweetheart and husband, Aurel Wild.
After Aileen Wild, Anne is the next person Anneliese would trust with her inheritance and dream. While it’s unspoken between them, the moment Wild Imprint is set up, Anne would quite her job as an editor at a publishing firm to work with her mother-in-law.
Claire Liesl Wild
After her aunt Hanna, Claire is the next most airy-fairy child in the Wild family. Unicorns, impossible flying machines, rainbow castles in the sky—these are the stuff of Claire’s make-believe games. Her little sister Hanne Aubrie would much rather play House than be stuck in Claire’s ridiculously fluffy imaginings. Still, for all that her head is in the clouds, Claire’s heart is in the right place. She always has a kind word for people around her.
As Anne’s firstborn child, Claire has always had a special place in her heart. Her mother loves having brainstorming sessions together in their ‘word nook’, and even lets Claire help type drafts on her precious old typewriter. Anne wishes that her daughter were a little more grounded, worried that her Luna Lovegood personality would make her a target for the same kind of bullying she’d suffered in her adolescence. However, for all that her parents are both placid folk, Claire is actually pretty quick to flare up when she sees injustice being done, and has enough of a sharp tongue to protect herself, if needed.
the twins, Clovis Aurel Wild and Hanne Aubrie Wild
Clovis’s two loves are retro music and good design. The boy had decided that a while ago when he came by a couple of design mags and his uncle Astor’s influence. Nothing can convince him otherwise, and he is often found diligently pouring over colour wheels and Best Publication Layouts of the Years while bopping along to the tunes from his green box. Undoubtedly, Clove is Aurel’s son—it’s hard to mistake their equally intense attitudes towards the things they love. Aurel sometimes jokes that Anneliese Wild should poach young Clove as a graphic designer for their Wild Imprint business while he’s still available.
For all that Hanne Aubrie is usually a sweet child, she finds it hard to be good and loveable and interesting. Her pastime is to make crafty, fiddly things, collecting fabric and odd old ends to be remade into keychains and pillow covers. What she has yet to recognise is how useful her nimble fingers and ability to find a use for old things can be. She is pretty sure that others think her hobby boring and befitting a granny. It doesn’t help that sometimes, she feels so ordinary next to Claire and Hanna, and unsophisticated beside Clove, with his outpouring of colour theory and music trivia. Her inferiority complex has led her to sometimes utter bitter words of jealousy to her siblings, which she regrets soon after.
The twins share the downstairs bedroom, which their aunts Aileen and Hanna Wild once slept in. Hanne Aubrie loves the vintage carved wood furnishings that were spared when Grandpa Harmon missed out the room when renovating the house. What she hates—but Clove loves—are the ugly iron bedsteads, which Grandpa Harmon had scrambled to buy on finding out that the Wilds were moving in with him, when he had just married their Grandmama. Hanne Aubrie wouldn’t mind sharing the room with her brother as much, if they let her redecorate the room, daintily.
Curator’s note: Hanne Aubrie was named after the same ancestor as Hanna. To avoid confusion, Hanne Aubrie’s second name is put in play. On a non-character-related note, there’s evidently a lot of CC/mods in the images above. I will attempt to credit the CC in future posts, but the piggyback pose mod is by Toast.
