Life, Death, and Time - A Books Of Beginning Collection

Kate Wibberly Headcanons

Headcanons about my favorite girl miss Kate Wibberly herself, which will mostly be angsty because I'm a masochist like that, but also some purely random stuff in there too. 

-  Kate is really good at braiding hair or putting it in a bun or ponytail because Emma hates having her hair in her face while running around, and so Kate learned very quickly how to deal with it.

- She never gets much sleep, and there are always dark circles under her eyes. 

- Kate is used to having to wrangle her siblings or run from danger so she almost always wears sensible shoes like boots or sneakers.

- She is always reminding Michael and Emma to bring a jacket places but that never seems to stop them from forgetting one and needing to borrow hers. 

- She finds a lot of comfort in fuzzy blankets and likes to bury herself under as many as she can find. She feels quiet and soothed and cut off from the horrors of the world when under a soft and warm covering. 

- Kate is very good at being the 'seeker' in hide and seek, because she has so much practice with finding where Michael and Emma are hiding whenever they get upset and storm off. 

- When she cries or wakes up panicking from a nightmare, she's very quiet or silent, because she doesn't want to make noise and wake her siblings or alert them to how awful she is feeling. 

- Loves taking long hot showers and just escaping the world in the warmth and cleanliness, but almost never gets the chance to take them because hot water was rare at many of the orphanages she had lived in and when it was available she would wait to let her siblings and other young children shower first, and by then the hot water would almost always be used up. 

- Kate has many issues with figuring out her own interests, hobbies, and identity outside of caring for her family. For so long, her every waking moment was consumed with raising and protecting Michael and Emma, and being their big sister became every piece of who she was. It's hard for her to find out who she is outside of that. 

- She has spent most of her life running on fumes and doesn't know what it's like to be well rested or at full energy, so she never even realizes how exhausted she is most of the time.

- Kate gives incredibly warm and comforting hugs. 

- She's fairly handy with fixing things and putting things together because during those 10 years in orphanages, whenever Michael and Emma's possessions broke, she would have to glue them or repair them since they could not get them replaced. 

- She can do some amateur sewing, though she doesn't really enjoy it. It's mostly used to repair tears in her siblings clothes or replace buttons on coats. Her stitches are not great by any means and sometimes look messy, but they get the job done. 

- She's become really good at multitasking over so many years of doing it.

- While Kate was never as enthusiastic about school as Michael, she never minded it and was a fairly good student, and clearly intelligent and good at learning. But she also had a lot of trouble with getting homework and projects finished and turned in on time because after school she had to deal with the chaotic surroundings of the orphanages, as well as looking after Michael and Emma and helping them with anything they needed to get done for school. Most of the time she either stayed up late into the night to get her homework done or left it unfinished because she was just too exhausted to do it. 

- Kate never really liked the beach, she prefers the mountains or cities. 

- She's had to learn how to listen to multiple people talking at once, mostly due to Michael and Emma trying to explain their side of an argument at the same time.

- Her stern voice and her death glare are actually both pretty intense. 

- She always feels like she has to be in a hurry and that there's never enough time to get done all the things she needs to do. 

- Sometimes she wishes she could just go numb and shut out the world and not feel anything. She probably would have let that happen and given in or given up if it weren't for the responsibility she felt for Michael and Emma and the fact that she always wants to set a good example for them. 

- Kate was the one to raise her siblings, and though she is their big sister, she took on the role of a mother in the place of both their parents. Sometimes she feels like when people call her the eldest sister, it doesn't do justice to all she did and gave up her childhood for. But she doesn't want to complain or sound attention seeking so she keeps quiet.

- She doesn't know how to relax.

- Sometimes she feels guilty because she knows her siblings so well and raised them and is the person they turn to in times of need, and it's clear that her parents feel somewhat envious of that and also inadequate compared to her. She feels guilty that she has the relationship with her siblings that they wanted but we're not allowed to have. 

- Kate actually has several bad habits to help cope with stress, including biting her nails, unraveling loose threads on her clothes, picking at dry skin or scabs, and holding on really tightly to objects to the point that it hurts her hand when she's being given bad news. 

- She never had a real birthday party. Her first four birthdays were celebrated with her family but she was too young to have a real party, and after that she lost all chance to have one. She always tried to make Michael and Emma's birthdays as special as she wished hers could be. 

- She is a major perfectionist and feels like she can't show flaws or weakness because it could negatively impact her siblings or give something for the wicked adults she's been dealing with her whole life to use against her. She holds herself to incredibly high standards and while she wants someone to see her flaws and love her for them, she worries that is impossible. 

- She's always afraid to admit she needs help because for so long, help wasn't available, and she feels like she has to do everything herself. 

- Kate has had depression from a young age. She's never really realized it because she's been so busy taking care of her siblings and because none of her orphanages ever provided adequate mental health services, but it's been there and it's only gotten worse the more she has endured. She just lives with it because she cannot remember anything else and copes because she has to. It's hard to remember anything from before she felt this way.

- She has had to fight to make her voice heard, especially against negligent or cruel adults, in the process of advocating for Michael and Emma when no one else will. 

- Kate doesn't like herself at all. Is she proud of some of her accomplishments, like raising Michael and Emma to be good and strong people? Yes. But she doesn't like herself as a person. She takes every failure to heart, she sees her imperfections clearly, and she doesn't think she likes her life or what it's done to her. She never seems to see the way others admire and respect her. 

- Sometimes she wants to run away from all her responsibilities and she hates herself for that feeling. 

- Kate would rather die then live with the knowledge that she failed her loved ones. She would trade her life for any of them in a heartbeat. 

- She is constantly on the verge of breaking down but keeps going.

- Kate just wants to be able to rest.