BASIC INFO

NAME: Clara Afton (formerly Schmidt)

ALIAS: N/A

AGE: 45 years old (in 1983, born 1938)

GENDER: trans woman

ORIENTATION: straight (mostly)

HEIGHT: 5ft 8in

WEIGHT: ??? lbs

HAIR COLOR: ginger (graying)

EYE COLOR: dark blue

RELATIONSHIPS

William Afton - her dear husband! they are t4t, which is part of what holds them together for a long time. at one point, they were genuinely in love with each other, even though their marriage was borne out of necessity more than love due to william’s accidental pregnancy. but things grow a little more strained as years pass - it’s clear william’s mind is still set on henry. clara divorces him after the death of elizabeth, as she could no longer ignore the ever-growing divide between them.

Michael Afton - clara’s eldest son. she loved him very much when he was young, but it would be a lie to say that he remained her favorite in his teenage years. though she loves michael still, it’s rather often that she has to scold him for one bad behavior or another (particularly bullying evan). she spends a lot more time with him than william does. after evan dies, she’s the only one there for him - and part of her resents him for what he did, though she tries to love him anyways.

Elizabeth Afton - the middle child of the family. lizzie can be quite the handful, but clara is exasperatedly fond of her anyways. and in a way, raising lizzie is like living a childhood clara herself didn’t get to have, so she has a lot of fun doing activities with her. clara’s the reason lizzie got enrolled in a dance class! (and, clara sort of suspects it, but… lizzie isn’t fully her child. it’s okay. she’ll love her anyways.)

Evan Afton - clara’s youngest, and the one she’s most often tending to, seeing as william’s own ideals get in the way of him comforting the poor boy. clara became evan’s new favorite parent after william failed to protect him from michael, so he’s incredibly clingy with her. most of the time he can be seen by her side, holding her hand or being cradled in her arms.

Henry Emily - clara doesn’t exactly hate henry per se - they used to get along pretty well in college once they warmed up to each other - but oh boy, she really disapproves of the things he does. not only is he fucking her husband and indulging his bad behavior, he’s also not a very good parent to charlie which upsets her quite a bit.

Maria Emily - good friends! at least, before maria’s unfortunate passing. they met because maria was playing the piano as music for one of clara’s ballet performances, and bonded over a mutual love for the arts. clara ends up being the reason that maria meets henry.

Charlie Emily - if william is basically charlie’s second father, clara is basically her second mother. charlie is often at their house for playdates with elizabeth, or sometimes dropped off after school to be watched in the hours before henry gets home. clara thinks she’s very sweet, and she’s definitely less of a handful than lizzie.

PERSONALITY

Clara is a sarcastic, witty woman with a good head on her shoulders and a great sense of humour. She’s a hard worker, driven and determined to achieve her goals despite any challenges along the way – though, sometimes, her determination can prove a problem when she’s dead-set on something that doesn’t work out in practice.

She’s always been smart and deeply thoughtful, with an interest (and talent) in mathematics, though that was never where her true passion was. One thing she’s always desired most is to become a ballet dancer, something she achieves while pursuing a college degree in dance. She had always admired the dancers, and when she was on the stage, for once in her life it felt like the spotlight was on her.

Despite how polite she is to other people, she can be rather reserved in her behavior, and prefers to only interact with those who approach her first. Most of her life she’s felt less than important, and that unfortunately carries over into low self-esteem. In the interest of not causing any problems, she minimizes her own feelings to avoid conflicts or making a fuss.

TRAITS

POSITIVE: smart, hardworking, polite, graceful, thoughtful

NEUTRAL: very determined, sarcastic/snarky, somewhat reserved

NEGATIVE: complacent, avoidant (of conflict), low self esteem

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

HOBBIES/INTERESTS: dancing, performing, reading, learning, baking

LIKES: cbeing on stage, ballet, spending time with her kids, the ocean (+ beach), the color blue, classical music, learning & trying new things, solving problems

DISLIKES: being ignored, dishonesty, feeling like she has to conform to society’s standards, mundanity, neglectful/inconsiderate behavior

HISTORY

Born in Mexico near the coast, Clara was raised in a relatively large and poor family. Being the oldest, she often had to take care of her younger siblings – something that she wasn’t exactly fond of, since she never considered herself to be the caring type. She would often visit the beach to get away from everything and be on her own for a while, just her and her thoughts and the vast ocean in front of her.

When she was 6 or 7, circumstance forced her family to move to the USA. She felt incredibly homesick away from the coast, missing her home country dearly - such a beautiful place it was, and yet they ended up moving to the middle of fuckass Utah. At the very least, their living conditions began to improve after her father luckily managed to land a decent job.

Sometimes, on rare occasions, she and her family would go to see a performance – sometimes dance, sometimes theatre, sometimes music. She became fond of dancers during this time, recognizing their art as something she’d love to do, but never had the time or chance for. She feels a general sense of dissatisfaction with life, and worries she’ll never be able to achieve her dreams with how things were currently going.

Things are a little worse when she realizes that she’s transgender. Her family, while they don’t kick her out, don’t really get the concept and think of it as crossdressing or something of the like, and are mostly opposed to it. While she’s thankful she wasn’t kicked out, it’s certainly an incredibly miserable experience, being misgendered and deadnamed every day. She’s not allowed to transition while living under their roof, so when she has the chance to get out on her own for college, she immediately takes it.

Being able to live freely as herself brought her a new lease on life. She majors in dance with a minor in mathematics(something which she was actually pretty good at), and she finally gets to achieve her dream of becoming a dancer. She particularly enjoyed ballet, feeling graceful and elegant and comfortable in her own skin when she did it. Performing became something she enjoyed despite her more reserved nature, as for once she actually had a spotlight on her rather than existing in the background.

The auditorium is where she met William. A man as charming as he was mysterious, eventually leading to her interest in him – and his interest in return, as the two got to know each other. They ended up hooking up with each other on more than one occasion – a mistake in retrospect, as William ended up with an accidental pregnancy.

Clara wasn’t prepared to be a mother, and she wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to be one at all at this point. Hell, she wasn’t ready to be married either (even if she did really, really love William at this point), but in the interest of keeping up appearances the two of them end up tying the knot. She does her best to be excited, but she’s deeply nervous about the coming baby.

William assured her that things would be alright, encouraging her to continue pursuing her degree despite the disruption in their daily lives. When Michael is finally born, Clara finds herself a little less anxious than she had been before – and oh, seeing her newborn son for the first time, cradled in an exhausted William’s arms, was absolutely magical.

She still frets over being a good parent, but prior experience in life wrangling her little siblings gives her a bit of knowledge on how to care for a child. With William going through a severe bout of postpartum depression, she has a lot of damn time to learn. Luckily, Henry is willing to help ease the burden by caring for Michael when she wasn’t available and William wasn’t feeling up to it.

Perhaps by miracle, all three of them end up completing their degrees and figure out how to live on their own. Things are a bit shabby, but William assures that once he and Henry launch their shared business venture, they’d be rich beyond their wildest dreams. While that was a bit of an overstatement, the diner ends up being a big success, which she and William greatly benefit from.

Years pass, and Clara and William add two new additions to the family - Elizabeth, then later, Evan. Despite being happy to have more kids now that she was more well-versed and open to parenting, she can’t help but notice the relationship between her and William begins to weaken. It doesn’t help that Lizzie looked suspiciously similar to Henry. Clara wasn’t stupid, she could connect the dots in her head.

And yet, she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t fight him over it. She just accepts Elizabeth with open arms, pretending she didn’t know a thing was wrong, and praying that things could still be mended between the two of them.

That hope weakens with the death of Evan, and two years later, when Elizabeth dies, so does Clara’s hope. Unable to bear William’s negligence and growing distance, she divorces him and moves out to be on her own for a while. With partial custody, she only gets to see her one remaining child, Michael, on the weekends.

At some point, both he and William stop showing up entirely.

_{click sprite clara to go back!}