End of 2018 - 2019: “People call this Griffoness “Granny Gruff” and pair her with Grandpa Gruff. Not gonna include her in my stories and make this pairing. Not gonna be like them.”
2020: *Names the Griffoness “Grizel” and makes her friends with Gruff and later the Senior Group.*
Mid-2020-start of 2021: *Creates Grizel’s unrequited crush on Gruff. Not including her in the Senior Gals group because of not being an OC.*
2021: *Makes Grizel childhood friends with Gruff and the Senior Group and later includes her in the Senior Gals group, simultaneously creating Grandma Gwyneth in Grandma Gracelynn’s place. Makes Grizel Gruff’s admirer, sometimes confused for girlfriend.*
End of 2021 - 2022: *Literally makes them ex-fiancès, even if they get engaged kind-of by accident.*
~~~
As I developed the friendship between these two elderly Griffons, I noticed that their interactions with each other reminded me quite a lot of those between exes, particularly ex-lovers from sitcoms and shows that still have feelings for each other. In these two’s case, Grandma Grizel is the “crazy”, flirtatious and confident ex who’s willing to start over and unintentionally annoys the other while trying to win them back while Grandpa Gruff is the reluctant ex who shows little interest in the other’s efforts but also shows a few feelings on occasions. There’s also a fun little headcanon around the fandom about Grandpa Gruff having a mate in the past that I thought would be fun to add to my stories. Thought it’d be fun to have a “crazy” ex following Gruff around. But, taking into account Gruff’s character, I don’t think he’d be really willing to have a relationship with anyone, even if attracted, or rather make the first move nor be the one to propose (he’s probably stubborn about the other party doing it), so I didn’t think “ex-wife” would work. Though, given how close friends he is with Grizel in my stories, despite being constantly annoyed by her, I wanted to include something stronger than “ex-girlfriend” but not so far as “ex-wife”. So, after rewatching some of my favourite shows, I got the idea from an episode of the Looney Tunes Show and ended up making the two Griffons ex-fiancès. But again, given Gruff’s character, I thought it’d be more in-character and funnier if their engagement happened accidentally. Basically, Gruff kneeled down to pick up something that happened to have fallen near Grizel, she thought he proposed to her and screamed yes, and practically ran away with her late husband, Granger, during the ceremony. Although she loved her husband and misses him dearly after his passing, Grizel has moved on and begun growing her feelings for Gruff, her first crush, again.
Regarding the picture itself (and Grizel’s outfit), knowing Gruff’s interest for classic works of literature and big screen and wordplays, she often sets up multiple parodies that involve love interests based on them for him to recognise and make puns about. As for Gallus’ opinion on this, he often vocalises about the cuteness of their interactions and usually teases his grandpa about it. Just because he dislikes others trying to flirt with his grandpa and doesn’t appear to be very fond of Grandma Grizel (and possibly prefers Gruff being with Gruncle Gonsod instead) doesn’t mean that he can’t acknowledge that they have “great interactions and lots of potential.” Plus, it’s different when the affection might actually be reciprocated. From their interactions and similar personalities, I guess you can really tell they used to be engaged, even accidentally, and that they could’ve really been something together. At least, that’s how Gallus puts it. Hope you like it! ^^