Post by Vivienne Daniels on Dec 10, 2023 5:47:06 GMT
Vivienne sat on the floor with the twins, she’d already read the blessings and taught the boys the prayers and some of the songs. She’d tried the dreidel but some things were still hard for toddlers to grasp. She let them be involved in the lighting of the menorah but she also had the toy version that had been given to her when she was pregnant by her friends.
JC and Bjorn were almost two years old but letting them use real fire still felt too risky despite the reassurance from her own mother she’d been trusted to do it when she was their age. Jc was the more timid of the pair, constantly holding onto the teddy bear Warren and Dean had given during the baby shower as he watched his bother taking the wooden candle and setting it on the right place copying what Vivienne had shown them on the real thing. Vivienne clapped and cheered her boys as she brought them both to her chest and kissed their foreheads.
“You are getting so big!” Vivienne smiled down at them.
“Present!” Bjorn declared.
“Mama.” JC hugged Vivienne tightly.
“In a second. Let me just hold you both a little longer.” Vivienne smiled, holding them both to her chest. Sometimes the guilt made her feel like she was depriving the boys of what they deserved, a full-time mother. That she was failing as a parent because she let a stranger help her raise the boys. That if she was half the mother she had always thought she would be then she’d just be barefoot and pregnant while her husband worked.
But the time away from the ring, the time she’d spent with the boys. She hadn’t regretted it, it was still a amgical time in her life but… it didn’t fill her the way everyone had told her it would. It didn’t suddenly fix everything that was wrong with her. It didn’t suddenly make her a better person. It didn’t make the trauma disappear.
Vivienne let the twins go and let them go to their little gifts and unwrap them by themselves.
No, being a stay-at parent had made her better. In a lot of ways, she felt worse. Holding her children filled her with a love that sometimes made her burst into tears. But it didn’t take away her rage. It didn’t take away her drive. It didn’t take away all the things her father and grandfather had done to her. It only made her more aware of them. It only made her hate them more. And they were dead…so she couldn’t even yell at them. She couldn’t demand to know how they could do those things to her.
Her mother was still alive…but she was just as much a victim as Vivienne was. Chester had always been so angry. He told her to write it down, everything be damned. Let their false legacy burn to the ground so she could heal. But there were still things people didn’t want their favorite wrestler to talk about.
She just had to find a way to survive. Being in the ring helped her feel alive outside of the boys. She loved them dearly...but she needed something for herself. She needed to find things that made her feel like a person.
“Thank you!” JC held up the toy train excitedly as Bjorn roared like a dinosaur he had been gifted.
She would just break the generational cycle. She would protect her boys. Maybe she couldn’t be the woman she thought she always wanted to be. But she could still build something…someone she didn’t hate.
Vivienne is sitting on the couch in front of the window wearing a T-shirt that says “The Devil’s Okay-est Harlot” and a blue schoolgirl skirt.
“First thing I want to throw out. Thank you for Diana and Lark in the merch store. Seriously, no one gets stuff done faster than them. They are the graphic designers for most of the shirts at IWFsho.com. Seriously, this is live today. One for each of the Murder. This is the shirt for me. Brooklyn obviously has “The Devil’s Favorite Harlot”, April has “Just another Harlot”, Astrid has “Honorable Harlot” and Rowan, obviously has “The Harlot’s Favorite Devil”. It’s a whole vibe, Thanks shea.” Vivienne winks.“I got the sneak peek and I just had to model mine. You might recall from the super early days in IWF I basically used to have a section on the weekly show when I wasn’t wrestling being the glorified shop mascot. I had fun. Unboxing T-shirts and talking up my coworkers. There was a much bigger women’s division in those days. If you were top-tier talent you had to make your mark on the company and the fan verse somehow. I coulda leaned super hard on the ‘third generation superstar’, could have made my whole image about who my father and grandfather were.” Vivienne rolls her eyes. “But that’s not really my vibe. I wanted to stick the landing on my own merit. For my own talent. The only time my family name comes up is usually when someone wants to call me a nepobaby which, yeah fair. Would I have gotten the training and would I have the experience I have if my father didn’t mold me into his perfect little image? No. I’d still say I’m pretty talented besides that.”
Vivienne crossed her legs, “But people always have thoughts about how I got where I am. There’s the nepotism. There’s the anti-Semitism. Those are the quieter ones. Not that I’ve ever hidden I was Jewish. I just spent most of my professional life not saying my opinion. Because that’s how I was raised.”
Vivienne tossed her hair behind her shoulder, “My great-grandfather escaped Germany one night before The Night of Long Knives. My great-grandmother was meant to meet him there but she didn’t get out in time. I never heard her speak. Whatever happened to her in Germany made her too shell-shocked to talk most of the time. I do remember sitting on her lap as a toddler and tracing the numbers in her arm not understanding what they meant. The men in my family told me that’s what happened to opinionated women. That’s what people did to girls who didn’t just sit down and shut the fuck up. My great grandma did something that made things worse for herself so clearly that’s why she was the way she was.”
Vivienne looked down a little, “I never even got to meet my Grandmother. I know my grandfather met her when he went to Israel for Shavuout. She was Palestinian and was protesting the treatment of her people. I've seen pictures of her. I can see why my grandfather fell in love with her. He courted her and they got married. She traveled with him during his career, giving him my father and then the cancer ate her alive. He said she had a fire inside her that could not be tamed so she burned out too quickly but anyone who knew her felt her burn long after she was gone. Women were not meant to having strong opinions. Even after she became a wife and a mother she should have been happy with tat and swallowed it but since she was too prideful she had to be taken from the world.” Vivienne took a deep breath, “Not that I should have to say this, I know my family would prefer I didn’t say it but as long as I’m on the topic, as a Jew and as someone who has family from Palestine? Free Palestine. You can be against Zionists and not anti-Semitic, you putz.” Vivienne shook her head, “sorry, small vent there, My mother was Georgian. She was among the 300,000 who had to flee during the geno-sorry, no we don’t call it a genocide, do we? We call it an Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia. She married my father. She had me and my brother. She erased every part of herself to be a good American wife. Because that’s what women do. They are good wives and mothers. They do what their husbands want. They swallow the darkest parts and smile.”
Vivienne uncrosses her legs, “So when my past is brought up? About the kind of person I was before? Innocent, naïve, silent, and only really fighting obvious evil? Those things are true. I did swallow my tongue. I did want to be a good wife and mother. I did view my career as something I could enjoy, could love, but on a timer. I clearly had to have kids and get married before I was 26, my value as woman depended on it. A woman like me would only chase off a good man if he knew I had ugly thoughts and opinions. I should have married a nice Jewish boy. I should have made good Jewish babies. Hell, for generations my family has grabbed a partner from another country and stole them from their families and made them give up everything to stand by their man.”
Vivienne smiles, “That’s not me. Not anymore. I stand with the Murder. This isn’t some Pack 2 electric boogaloo. This is about women taking pride in this sport. This is about making sure the women in this company don’t degrade themselves back to tits and ass. This is about trying to motivate the division to fight, to prove that they don’t need us to press a heel against your neck to prove you can stand up and be the top talent you fucking should be. I swallowed the lies and was cute and adorable. I tried to consider myself just arm candy. But we are so much fucking more than that. I actually said we should have been called Raptor Squad but Murder fits the gothic aesthetic better so here we are….”
“Not that I expect Alexandra to bring that up. If I can be honest here, I doubt she notices anything outside of her own bubble. The shade is entirely intended. You unseat that asshole Matthew Knox and you just…sit on your ass? The First woman to hold the first intergender belt in this company and you just…you just half-ass it. You beat a man people were rioting about. You showed that you could be one of the best. That you could really shake up how things were. And you just tell management to fuck it’s self. You don’t defend the belt, you barely show up to the shows, hell you barely promo. Girl, what the fuck is your damage?”
“.Just because you get a title does not mean you get to act like a princess. No wonder you lost to Nick Knight. You dodged him for weeks and I bet barely kept up with your training to make sure you were ready to prepare for the situation. Even with a fucking faction you couldn’t handle it. You are the exact kind of woman this company doesn’t need.”
“Not my usual job, but this is your punishment, Alexandra. You don’t get to slink your way back to a belt. You don’t get to fast-track yourself back to the title scene. You and your high school girl pouting have no place in this company or this business. Clearly, your parents didn’t teach you much about being responsible and handling your shit. So now I have to do it. It’s too late in your life to get gentle parenting, so when I’m beating the entitled shit out of you, you can call me, Daddy.”
JC and Bjorn were almost two years old but letting them use real fire still felt too risky despite the reassurance from her own mother she’d been trusted to do it when she was their age. Jc was the more timid of the pair, constantly holding onto the teddy bear Warren and Dean had given during the baby shower as he watched his bother taking the wooden candle and setting it on the right place copying what Vivienne had shown them on the real thing. Vivienne clapped and cheered her boys as she brought them both to her chest and kissed their foreheads.
“You are getting so big!” Vivienne smiled down at them.
“Present!” Bjorn declared.
“Mama.” JC hugged Vivienne tightly.
“In a second. Let me just hold you both a little longer.” Vivienne smiled, holding them both to her chest. Sometimes the guilt made her feel like she was depriving the boys of what they deserved, a full-time mother. That she was failing as a parent because she let a stranger help her raise the boys. That if she was half the mother she had always thought she would be then she’d just be barefoot and pregnant while her husband worked.
But the time away from the ring, the time she’d spent with the boys. She hadn’t regretted it, it was still a amgical time in her life but… it didn’t fill her the way everyone had told her it would. It didn’t suddenly fix everything that was wrong with her. It didn’t suddenly make her a better person. It didn’t make the trauma disappear.
Vivienne let the twins go and let them go to their little gifts and unwrap them by themselves.
No, being a stay-at parent had made her better. In a lot of ways, she felt worse. Holding her children filled her with a love that sometimes made her burst into tears. But it didn’t take away her rage. It didn’t take away her drive. It didn’t take away all the things her father and grandfather had done to her. It only made her more aware of them. It only made her hate them more. And they were dead…so she couldn’t even yell at them. She couldn’t demand to know how they could do those things to her.
Her mother was still alive…but she was just as much a victim as Vivienne was. Chester had always been so angry. He told her to write it down, everything be damned. Let their false legacy burn to the ground so she could heal. But there were still things people didn’t want their favorite wrestler to talk about.
She just had to find a way to survive. Being in the ring helped her feel alive outside of the boys. She loved them dearly...but she needed something for herself. She needed to find things that made her feel like a person.
“Thank you!” JC held up the toy train excitedly as Bjorn roared like a dinosaur he had been gifted.
She would just break the generational cycle. She would protect her boys. Maybe she couldn’t be the woman she thought she always wanted to be. But she could still build something…someone she didn’t hate.
Vivienne is sitting on the couch in front of the window wearing a T-shirt that says “The Devil’s Okay-est Harlot” and a blue schoolgirl skirt.
“First thing I want to throw out. Thank you for Diana and Lark in the merch store. Seriously, no one gets stuff done faster than them. They are the graphic designers for most of the shirts at IWFsho.com. Seriously, this is live today. One for each of the Murder. This is the shirt for me. Brooklyn obviously has “The Devil’s Favorite Harlot”, April has “Just another Harlot”, Astrid has “Honorable Harlot” and Rowan, obviously has “The Harlot’s Favorite Devil”. It’s a whole vibe, Thanks shea.” Vivienne winks.“I got the sneak peek and I just had to model mine. You might recall from the super early days in IWF I basically used to have a section on the weekly show when I wasn’t wrestling being the glorified shop mascot. I had fun. Unboxing T-shirts and talking up my coworkers. There was a much bigger women’s division in those days. If you were top-tier talent you had to make your mark on the company and the fan verse somehow. I coulda leaned super hard on the ‘third generation superstar’, could have made my whole image about who my father and grandfather were.” Vivienne rolls her eyes. “But that’s not really my vibe. I wanted to stick the landing on my own merit. For my own talent. The only time my family name comes up is usually when someone wants to call me a nepobaby which, yeah fair. Would I have gotten the training and would I have the experience I have if my father didn’t mold me into his perfect little image? No. I’d still say I’m pretty talented besides that.”
Vivienne crossed her legs, “But people always have thoughts about how I got where I am. There’s the nepotism. There’s the anti-Semitism. Those are the quieter ones. Not that I’ve ever hidden I was Jewish. I just spent most of my professional life not saying my opinion. Because that’s how I was raised.”
Vivienne tossed her hair behind her shoulder, “My great-grandfather escaped Germany one night before The Night of Long Knives. My great-grandmother was meant to meet him there but she didn’t get out in time. I never heard her speak. Whatever happened to her in Germany made her too shell-shocked to talk most of the time. I do remember sitting on her lap as a toddler and tracing the numbers in her arm not understanding what they meant. The men in my family told me that’s what happened to opinionated women. That’s what people did to girls who didn’t just sit down and shut the fuck up. My great grandma did something that made things worse for herself so clearly that’s why she was the way she was.”
Vivienne looked down a little, “I never even got to meet my Grandmother. I know my grandfather met her when he went to Israel for Shavuout. She was Palestinian and was protesting the treatment of her people. I've seen pictures of her. I can see why my grandfather fell in love with her. He courted her and they got married. She traveled with him during his career, giving him my father and then the cancer ate her alive. He said she had a fire inside her that could not be tamed so she burned out too quickly but anyone who knew her felt her burn long after she was gone. Women were not meant to having strong opinions. Even after she became a wife and a mother she should have been happy with tat and swallowed it but since she was too prideful she had to be taken from the world.” Vivienne took a deep breath, “Not that I should have to say this, I know my family would prefer I didn’t say it but as long as I’m on the topic, as a Jew and as someone who has family from Palestine? Free Palestine. You can be against Zionists and not anti-Semitic, you putz.” Vivienne shook her head, “sorry, small vent there, My mother was Georgian. She was among the 300,000 who had to flee during the geno-sorry, no we don’t call it a genocide, do we? We call it an Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia. She married my father. She had me and my brother. She erased every part of herself to be a good American wife. Because that’s what women do. They are good wives and mothers. They do what their husbands want. They swallow the darkest parts and smile.”
Vivienne uncrosses her legs, “So when my past is brought up? About the kind of person I was before? Innocent, naïve, silent, and only really fighting obvious evil? Those things are true. I did swallow my tongue. I did want to be a good wife and mother. I did view my career as something I could enjoy, could love, but on a timer. I clearly had to have kids and get married before I was 26, my value as woman depended on it. A woman like me would only chase off a good man if he knew I had ugly thoughts and opinions. I should have married a nice Jewish boy. I should have made good Jewish babies. Hell, for generations my family has grabbed a partner from another country and stole them from their families and made them give up everything to stand by their man.”
Vivienne smiles, “That’s not me. Not anymore. I stand with the Murder. This isn’t some Pack 2 electric boogaloo. This is about women taking pride in this sport. This is about making sure the women in this company don’t degrade themselves back to tits and ass. This is about trying to motivate the division to fight, to prove that they don’t need us to press a heel against your neck to prove you can stand up and be the top talent you fucking should be. I swallowed the lies and was cute and adorable. I tried to consider myself just arm candy. But we are so much fucking more than that. I actually said we should have been called Raptor Squad but Murder fits the gothic aesthetic better so here we are….”
“Not that I expect Alexandra to bring that up. If I can be honest here, I doubt she notices anything outside of her own bubble. The shade is entirely intended. You unseat that asshole Matthew Knox and you just…sit on your ass? The First woman to hold the first intergender belt in this company and you just…you just half-ass it. You beat a man people were rioting about. You showed that you could be one of the best. That you could really shake up how things were. And you just tell management to fuck it’s self. You don’t defend the belt, you barely show up to the shows, hell you barely promo. Girl, what the fuck is your damage?”
“.Just because you get a title does not mean you get to act like a princess. No wonder you lost to Nick Knight. You dodged him for weeks and I bet barely kept up with your training to make sure you were ready to prepare for the situation. Even with a fucking faction you couldn’t handle it. You are the exact kind of woman this company doesn’t need.”
“Not my usual job, but this is your punishment, Alexandra. You don’t get to slink your way back to a belt. You don’t get to fast-track yourself back to the title scene. You and your high school girl pouting have no place in this company or this business. Clearly, your parents didn’t teach you much about being responsible and handling your shit. So now I have to do it. It’s too late in your life to get gentle parenting, so when I’m beating the entitled shit out of you, you can call me, Daddy.”
Well howdy there pardner.