Yes and no. He's always been a very solitary kind of person and struggles to connect with others on a personal level. He never felt his peers understood him in school. That continues into his adulthood. He finds socializing to be easy, as he enjoys asking others about themselves and listening to their stories, but reciprocating that is something that he struggles with deeply.

It's not something I've talked about publicly about Grayson yet, but because of the way his mother invaded his privacy and exploited his vulnerabilities as a child, he has deeeeeep seated intimacy issues that make him incredibly averse to being vulnerable in any way with people. There's also a trend of the people in his life that he does end up allowing himself to get close to dying (or the occasional betrayal).

He doesn't ever really get lonely, per se, but he does often long for the companionship he found in his first friend, Alec Underwood, an oc created by my friend @Macbeth

He has two different mentors in his life. First, Hugo, his academic advisor in grad school, another oc created by Mac. Then, his mentor in the kink space when he moves to Chicago, a man named Dominic. He moves away from Hugo, and he has to deal with Dominic’s death when he’s 40.

He gained one more friend in Grey Achrom, an oc by my friend @veresvoros, a model turned fashion designer. They originally meet because Grey becomes Grayson’s tailor. (Their name is Greyson, and yes they make fun of each other for “spelling it wrong.”) They end up having a falling out and Grayson returns to having zero friends for a few years.

He socializes, he has what he considers ‘acquaintances,’ but none of those people are truly ever close enough to him for him to consider them friends. He socializes a lot in the kink community, giving demonstrations in honor of Dominic. He stays active as a philanthropist, donating to many charities across Chicago. He also attends conferences in his field of psychology and specially about dissociation & trauma.

As his Menagerie grows and he has more emotional custodial work he has to do with them he has less and less capacity for other social endeavors.

I'm assuming you're asking about the Menagerie specifically, so I'll just be talking about them. If you want to know about anyone else, feel free to ask!

Dr. Grayson Winters. He is 6'5 and I most often write him in his late 40s. He is white and has longer, dark brown hair that reaches his chin. He has a goatee and occasionally stubble along his jaw. (People have told me they hate the goatee, I'm sorry, I love it so bad.) He starts to grey in his 50s. He has dark forest green eyes with golden flecks toward the center. Grayson has a fairly lean but muscular build; he is not skinny. I'd say he has the body of a runner. It used to be his favorite exercise, but now he does mostly walking and cycling, with the occasional jiu-jitsu session. He is very inexpressive, and he has a very neutral resting face. You will rarely see Grayson smiling.

Alice Bolton. (Kitten) She is 5'8 and I most often write her in her late 30s. She is white and has golden blonde hair that reaches down past her shoulders. She has a heart-shaped face with a gentle smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her eyes are a darker sea blue. She has a D-cup breast size and always has her nails manicured. She has been an athlete since she was in high school and works very hard to maintain her body (to a somewhat obsessive manner).

Mia Anderson. (Puppy) She is 5'7 and I most often write her in her mid 30s. She is white and has dark brown hair that she often has cut to just brush her shoulders. She has C-cup breast size. Her eyes are a deep brown, and she has a more oval-shaped face. She has an average body, her weight fluctuates naturally, and she does not put too much thought into how much she weighs.

Elsie Thompson. (Piglet) She is 5'6 and I most often write her in her early 20s. She is white and probably the palest member of the Menagerie, as she is a ginger! She keeps her hair very long, reaching down past her shoulder blades, to about the small of her back. She has an F-cup breast size. She has bright green eyes, lighter than Grayson's. She is covered in freckles all over her face and body. Her weight fluctuates the most of all the members of the Menagerie due to a childhood ED. She is comfortably a plus-size woman and, as an adult, is very proud of how she looks.

Dove Fowler. (Bird) She is 5'4 and I most often write her in her mid 20s. She is white and has naturally blonde hair that she usually has to the middle of her shoulder blades. She has an AA-cup breast size. Dove has pale blue eyes and a circular face. She has several butterfly tattoos and many, many scars. She is the kind of skinny that comes from childhood malnutrition and running almost every day since middle school.

Juliette Medina. (Bear Cub) She is 5'5 and I most often write her in her late teens and early 20s. She is Mexican and has dark brown hair that reaches to the bottom of her shoulder blades. She has a B-cup breast size. Her eyes are a dark brown, similar to Mia's. Her jawline is quite strong and slightly square, but she has full lips that are slightly downturned. She has a sort of eternally sad resting face.

Oh, I'm so so happy with this question. I am DELIGHTED!!!

1. Simon stays in Fletcherton (his and Dove's hometown). He stays there until his mid-thirties when he moves to TOWN with his future husband, Hushpuppy. (An oc who belongs to my friend veresvoros.) He and Dove stay friends with benefits while she lives in Fletcherton, and he becomes her dealer. After she leaves Fletcherton they lose contact. She doesn't really think about him after that.

2. When Alice got pregnant, she did NOT want to get an abortion, so Grayson told her he would take care of the baby discreetly. After she gives birth, her baby is taken from her hospital room and she doesn't get to see her. Grayson tells her he thinks it's better for her mental health if she doesn't know, and refuses to tell her where her baby went. I think for now I'll keep what happened to her baby under wraps so y'all can wonder right along with Alice.

As for the little girl in Pantomime Matrimony she is named Isabelle Underwood and belongs to my good friend. @Macbeth

1. Mia (Puppy) knew about Elsie (Piglet), but was lied to about how Grayson met Piglet, and also about her age. You are correct in assuming if she'd known she would've left a lot sooner, and possibly even reported Grayson to the police.

2. (CW: suicide attempt) Juliette (Bear Cub) was not a patient of Grayson's. Their meeting was a chance encounter. Grayson left Alice's apartment after they had a fight and happened upon Juliette on a bridge, about to attempt to commit suicide by jumping off. He convinced her to come down from the railing and took her to a 24hr diner. Their relationship took off from there.

3. Mia (Puppy) leaving completely changed the entire dynamic of the Menagerie. Alice was furious, Elsie was heartbroken, Dove was incredibly indifferent, and Juliette was distraught. Alice worked very hard to convince the other members of the Menagerie that Mia was some villain, that she couldn't hack it, that she was weak. She wanted the girls to have a very negative view of Mia & of leaving.

Thank you so much! That’s so sweet of you! I’m glad to hear that you enjoy it. And these are some great questions.

Simon stays in Dove’s life until she leaves her hometown to move to Chicago. They are on and off friends with benefits, and Simon often deals illicit substances to Dove. He supplies her with tobacco, weed, alcohol, and pretty much anything she could want. When she moves to Chicago after high school for college they lose contact because Dove tries not to look back.

She has to return to her hometown for a funeral and they run into each other then, but they don’t stay in contact. He and his future partner, Hushpuppy, run into Dove during a trip to Chicago and she’s so happy to see he’s found himself a life partner. That is the last Dove and Simon see of each other.

After she leaves Fletcherton, her hometown, Dove doesn’t really think about Simon or anyone else still there. She left as soon as she could and she does NOT want to look back on that part of her life.

The Menagerie is set in present day! A modern story!

You haven’t misunderstood! Sailor is an OC of mine! He’s a wonderfully sweet boy and I’m so glad to get to talk about him.

Sailor is 7ft (213cm) tall. Due to his massive height he’s quite insecure and incredibly agoraphobic. If he can manage to stay inside his apartment he will. He feels incredibly uncomfortable with all the stares he gets when he’s out in public. He was bullied in school for his height, and at one point startled a teacher so bad that she yelped in fear.

As an adult he’s working in cybersecurity and is a bit of a weeb. Sailor is not his birth name, but a chosen name he picked because of Sailor Moon, which is his favorite tv show ever. (Sailor Pluto is his favorite.) He really only watches sweet, positive style animes. He is watching what is typically marketed to younger girls. Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Ouran High School Host Club. He collects figurines from the shows he likes, he’s got TONS. He also has a Sailor Pluto body pillow he sleeps with. Sailor also has a few ball jointed dolls.

(Warning for detailed discussions of CSA)
As a child, Sailor’s mother molested him, and told him to “be a big boy, and take it.” He associates this with his seemingly unending growth and thinks that because he never told anyone what his mother did that he would just keep growing and growing. He and his younger sister were eventually removed from his mother’s care but the damage had already been done.

Great question!! It’s a tough one to answer as they pretty regularly go to see shows as dates with Grayson. He takes them on individual dates to see musicals, plays, the opera, the symphony.

But in a more fun hypothetical answer kind of way, I find it likely that Elsie (Piglet) and Juliette (Cubby) are going to a show together. They grow really close and love doing things together.

Juliette would love to see Hadestown, but will forever mourn not seeing the Original Broadway Cast. Elsie on the other hand would love to see Wicked! (She has OPINIONS about the movie!!)

Dove (Bird) is probably the least likely to go see a Broadway show, but would go if invited by Juliette or Elsie.

Great question, Grayson wouldn’t if he had the choice. He despises labels as they feel chafing and restricting to him. So, instead, I will describe. Grayson is attracted to all genders, with a particular affinity for cis women and trans men. But! He is largely demisexual, needing a connection, a relationship with depth before he feels sexual attraction. I also would place him somewhere on the ace spectrum as he really does prefer masturbation over sexual encounters with other people. He also has deep, deep seated intimacy issues that color all of this. It affects how he feels about intimate interactions with others and largely colors his preference for masturbation over sexual encounters. I would also call him demiromantic, even more so than his demisexuality, but even that I would say is colored by his struggle to connect with people. He very much operates in the manner of if it exposes my vulnerability I don’t want it.

Alice would describe herself as bisexual! I would agree with that assessment. Alice is trans-inclusive in her meaning of bisexual, but she has a preference for cis men.

I think Alice would say they take part in the queer community, Grayson would say they don’t, and I agree with Grayson. I don’t think going to the Pride Parade every so often (more often Alice than Grayson) counts as participating in the community. Alice would say she goes to queer events and I would say kink does NOT inherently equal queer, Alice. She thinks because she’s bi and has queer interactions at these events that it counts and I shake my head in disappointment at her. Grayson doesn’t participate in the queer community because Grayson doesn’t really participate in community, period. Doing things with the kink community in Chicago is exhausting to him and he only keeps it up in honor of his late mentor Dominic.

He just asked. LMAO, sorry, let me answer this seriously. I actually really love this question.

Mia (Puppy) was the first of the Menagerie to suggest being branded by Grayson, as it was something she'd been interested in for a while. Grayson was delighted by this suggestion and readily agreed. He spent a LONG time researching because he knew he wanted to do it himself, but he cared very deeply about doing it well so as not to cause great bodily harm to Mia.

During this phase of research, he researched the various methods of human branding and contacted and met with several people with experience in scarification and branding humans. Alice (Kitten), not one to be left out, told Grayson she also wanted to be branded. He chose to multiple strike brand them, a form of burn branding where a thin piece of metal is heated with a propane torch and pressed to the skin in small sections. He had a stencil of his initials made (GW, my profile picture on most social media) and settled on the right hip as the placement of the brand.

Mia went first, and with Alice present, Grayson carefully and slowly branded his initials into her skin. This happened in the playroom and would be the first of all the branding ceremonies. Alice was branded the next day, as she wanted her own special moment, and, like she was there for Mia's, Mia sat in on Alice's branding. In fact, she took photos of the event.

The next addition to the Menagerie was Elsie (Piglet), and it took a little convincing for her to agree to be branded, but in the end, Elsie never wants to disappoint Grayson. Alice and Mia both having brands also helped her be nudged in that direction. Alice and Mia were present for her branding, and again Mia took photos.

After Elsie came Dove (Bird). It was not difficult to convince Dove. She's a masochist to the highest degree. She said yes the first time he asked. For her ceremony, Alice, Mia, and Elsie were present, and Mia took photos.

The last addition to the Menagerie is Juliette (Bear Cub), and she was branded the day after her 18th birthday, which would inevitably be the reason Mia left. She was open to being branded, but very nervous about it. She got lots of reassurance from Alice before she was branded. The rest of the members of the Menagerie were present, and once again, Mia took photos of the event.

They each have a thin, gold necklace with their animal namesake as a pendant. Elsie, Dove, and Juliette first had their collars welded onto them, another skill Grayson taught himself in order to put permanent jewelry on his pets. When they were branded, Alice and Mia already had their collars on. The event became more ceremonious with each addition to the Menagerie, Juliette's being an event with all of the girls wearing their velveteen animal masks and chosen color like they do during their monthly dinners. If this all seems a little cult-y to you, it should!