#CW: Alcohol abuse

[nyarlah]

[captainjamster]

Starry, Starry Night

Pairing(s): Kyle "Gaz" Garrick & Reader Warnings: mention and description of suicide, alcohol and medication abuse, reference to organ donation, retching, nausea, major character death Wordcount: 1.5k Summary: Kyle picks up your call. AO3 Link: Right here! <3

A/N: Please check out the tags before you read this one.

Full fic is under the cut <3

“Mmmh, hello?”

The words feel heavy on your uncoordinated tongue as the line picks up.

“Hello, my name is Kyle. What’s going on tonight?”

Your heart drops for a second, and something like guilt stirs in your inhibited rational. He sounds young, not like the older individuals who usually work the hotlines. Young, with years left to relive this conversation. You sluggishly pull the phone away, thumb hovering over the end button, but his voice trails out the small speaker again with more concern this time.

“Hello?”

Fuck it. Won’t be your problem soon.

You slur out your name for the man on the other end, and he repeats it back. “Alright, and are you under the influence of any substances right now?”

“Fuckin’ all of them,” you grin, trying to keep up with how the stars swirl into vortexes against their black canvas. “Tryna – tryin’ to get a fatal concoct – hehe, cock – uhh, concoction in me. Poison in my tummy, yum.”

The confused snort he lets out tugs at your lips, and you can’t help the giggle bubbling up from your chest. “All of them?” He echoes, and you hear the familiar click click click of keys.

“S’not all of ‘em, tricked you. Jus’ alcohol, my medication, and uh… some shit a friend left in my car. Like a bottle of spirits, an’ ‘bout a thousand ‘n four hundred milligrams? Dunno what the other shit was, tasted bad.”

There’s silence for a moment as you listen to the clacking of keys again.

“I’m going to ask something a bit bluntly, okay?”

You make an agreeable noise, waiting for the question.

“Is this a suicide attempt?”

“F’it’s just an attempt, I’m gonna be so fuckin’ mad,” you mutter, cringing at the aching pulsating through your body.

There’s a moment where you hear him murmur something, and then he’s back at the line. “Can you tell me where you are right now?”

Realisation flickers in you, prompting your eyes open. “Ahhhhh, s’why I called, yeah.” He types again rapidly as you mumble the location. “Guess someone’s gotta find me, right? Better a professional than some – some poor fuckin’ guy.”

The man – Kyle – hums in agreement. “That’s good of you. You sound like a thoughtful person, considering those things even during a time like this.”

“Yeah, thoughtful,” you scoff. You know what he’s doing. “Can we just… S’okay if we talk for a bit?”

That wasn’t the plan. It was meant to be enough to give the address and then hang up. But the chill is seeping further into you, past the now-dirty fabric you carelessly threw on, and hearing his voice makes you feel just a little bit warmer.

“I’m not going anywhere. Got a topic?” Kyle questions, and you think you can hear him settle into his chair.

“S’pretty tonight. Clear sky.” It’s hard to force your eyes to stay open, the sparkling dots spinning in and out of view behind the canvas of the trees.

“Yeah? A long trip up that road to get there.” He mulls, and your aching legs agree.

“Yep, even longer walk.”

“Walk?” He sounds incredulous, and it brings back that dopey grin to your lips.

“Yeah, well. Sold my car last week.”

“Ah…” It falls quiet for a moment. “I see.”

“Don’t be like that,” you groan, wincing at the nausea as you shift against the dirt. “Savin’ the planet or some shit, right?”

Kyle laughs again, and you think the noise could get you higher than anything else coursing through you right now. “I like your humour.”

The compliment sounds more genuine than the last one; appreciation, not just pointing at empty positives. “Consider yourself lucky to hear it, m’not usually this uh, happy.” You offer, tasting bitterness in the confession.

“What are you like usually?” The question is tentatively curious, and you’re sure he means no harm, but the words tear through you.

“Dunno.”

Crickets chirp as you listen to the static whispers of silence, flicking through blurred memories. You don’t know if it’s because your brain is slowly slipping further into deterioration, or if you never wanted to remember in the first place.

“Tired.”

Moments of happiness feel far and few, peppered so sparingly amongst everything you’ve ever struggled through. When they cut you open, will they find anything but your rotted, ugly thoughts and the circuits they’ve carved into your mind? You hope your brain is better off in the hands of whoever gets it next. Maybe you’ll get to be some cool science demonstration.

“Friend had a baby last month. Couldn’t even feel something with the little guy in my arms.”

He was so small, staring up at you with big eyes, his warm hand wrapped around your finger. A chorus of ah’s and aw’s sung around you as the baby beamed, wet and gummy, up at your watery smile. All you could feel was a cleaver digging deeper into your heart.

“Jus’ wondered if I looked so hopeful when I was that young. An’ if this’s where my life was always going to go anyway.”

Something carves a fleeting shadow above you, blinking the stars out of and back into existence with the wide span of its wings. You think what it’s like to feel so weightless, amongst the branches rustling as a breeze picks up.

“Guess I was just born wrong. Here to make people happy until it – until I – wear off.”

It’s so quiet you think Kyle has hung up, until something rustles and he clears his throat. “You remind me of someone.”

The remark catches you off-guard. “Good or bad?”

“Both. He’d make you mad in the funniest ways; couldn’t even be angry at him. But he hid behind it, tried to help himself by helping everyone else. Good guy.”

The fondness in his voice squeezes at your heart in a way that hurts more than anything else you’re feeling. Has anyone ever talked about you like that? “You sound like a thoughtful person, talkin’ ‘bout others so nice.”

He chuckles at the call-back, and you wonder what he looks like. Is he as pretty as his laugh?

“Y’sound so young.” The words slip out before you can stop them.

There’s a hesitant pause before Kyle answers. “Few years off thirty. I’m a veteran,” he sighs. “Retired.”

“Retired?” The word is slurred as you echo it back, but he understands anyway.

“Lost a mate in combat. Was uh… Was actually the someone I mentioned before. Messed me up for a couple of years.”

“M’so sorry.” The words are getting hard to articulate, but it feels important to say them.

“Don’t be. It lead to better things. Found this organisation, realised I could do this for a job. So here I am, I guess. Six months next week since I joined.”

“That’s really nice. I’m s – fuuck, shit – so happy for you, Kyle.”

There’s noise from the speaker. “You right?”

“Feel funny, s’like… Dunno, m’stomach is gonna tear apart.”

The conversational tone slips as worry peaks back into his voice. “Just keep holding on, okay? Maybe you can work here too; we’d be menaces in the office.”

You know he can hear the hollowness in your laugh. “Yeah, sure. That’d be good.”

The sky is trembling more than before when your eyes flutter open, and it takes a moment to realise it’s you shaking, not the world moving. How much longer? Was it always burning this much? You catch the last syllable of your name, pulling you back to the phone resting in the dirt next to your head.

“Mmh.. M’here. What… s’your friends name?”

“… Johnny. He liked being called that.”

You hum, feeling the word in your mouth. “Johnny. Johnny. I’ll say hi to him for you.”

“Not just yet, okay?” His answer is strained, tinging the encouragement he’s trying to convey.

You don’t respond, forcing your chest to expand and contract. Nothing wants to work; everything is heavy, uncoordinated, and you’ve never felt drowsier. But you’re pulled back to the cold night’s air again as he calls out your name again, louder.

“Huh? Sorry. Jus’… so fuckin’,” you stop, groaning as something sears in your chest, “tired.”

“No, no,” he stutters, hitting aggressively at the keyboard in those nice sounding clacks. “Help is so close, just stay awake for me, okay?”

He sounds so desperate. Emotions well up in a chaotic rush; where was this compassion when you needed it? Why didn’t you just hang up? Is he going to remember the sound of your voice by next week?

“Oh, Kyle. Waited after I took ‘em, ‘fore I called. M’sorry.” You catch inaudible curses as something jostles. “Think you’re… t’only reason m’awake.”

“That’s good, that’s good – we’re gonna keep talking, okay?”

You don’t remember how to form words properly anymore, and everything sounds a little funny, like it’s travelling through cotton. Air comes in ragged gasps; you can’t pull it into your lungs through the fire that blazes up your oesophagus, forcing you to retch. The sky doesn’t look familiar anymore through your lashes, but as everything grows fuzzier, you remember the voice next to you.

“Fuck, ugh – fuck, Kyle?”

As you tune back into the distorted noises, hearing him choke out your name, you realise he’s crying. It takes everything in you to lift your hand, as if you could wipe the tears away from here. “T-Thank you. I, really hope – ah, shit – we… hah, meet again next time.”

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[brandileigh2003]

New fic: A matter of choice

sirius turns to alcohol after a bad mission and he's questioning choices and love

@wolfstarbingo2024 prompt: unhealthy coping mechanisms

(I also realize I've been using the card that lists one I need to edit, so if it looks like I've lost bingos, that why lol. Other was supposed to be for me)

[heniareth]

Marital Duo: A Performance

Part of the Alienage Soundscapes series for @cityelfweek

"TONIGHT, at th VHENADAHL: "Love, let me in" performed. BRING FRIENDS & DRINKS!"

—One of many haphazard posters distributed around the Denerim Alienage. The paper is thin, the ink cheap, and the words have been chosen with care to reduce the amount of text and thus the cost of printing the posters

WARNING! The following song talks about alcohol abuse.

(Lyrics and song without sound effects under the cut)

Love, let me in! Love, let me in! Love, it's dark and cold outside. Love, it's dark, and deep at night! Love, please let me in.

Let you in? Let you in? Won't your friends then take you in? Is the light out at the inn? Let you in? Let you in? Sleep outside, you bloody din!

Love, please don't shout. Love, please don't shout. The neighbors will wake and hear us be loud. The neighbors will ask why I am still out Love, oh please, don't shout.

Please don't shout? Please don't shout? I don't care if they see you out! Be proud that once you made me loud! Please don't shout? Please don't shout? Well, don't anger me, you lout!

Love, you’re mad? Love are you mad? Love, just hearing that makes me sad. I don't want to make you feel bad. Love, please don't be mad.

Don't be mad? Don't be mad? You drank away what coin we had! My patience has worn out, my lad! Don't be mad? Don't be mad? Leave me alone, you fucking scad!

Forgive me! Forgive me! My guilt is as deep as the sea, We can make up, love, can't we? Love, please, I'm sorry.

I will not forgive you yet. First, you will pay off your debt. Go and wake your brother up, Sleep in his house, sober up. I don't want you back again Til you got coin to sustain Us. Now go! I need to sleep! At least I got a job to keep. Think about what you've done!

[ansicred]

this isn't me! | angst – very heavy

Art is in a wretched state, so James & Frankie come to the rescue (again). setting: in a hotel somewhere on tour in early 1985. characters involved: Art, James, & Frank warnings: cw: alcohol abuse , cw: trauma related to SA (implied)

[starsandauras]

Entry 24: Bar

FFXIV 30 Day Writing Challenge Prompt 24: Bar OKAY Y'ALL. I PROMISED BAD DAD YESTERDAY. HERE HE IS. Yes this is the annual Hereward fic, meaning the usual warnings apply: Alcohol Abuse, Parental Death Referenced, Parental Abandonment, Neglect, all that shitty shitty stuff! So please, take care of yourself. If I've missed something please let me know!

Hereward stumbled into the tavern and dropped down on a chair at the bar, blond hair mussed and face covered by his hand, perched on his elbow. After a moment the bartender came over with a shot glass of whiskey, placing it in front of the man. “We were hearin’ about your wife, Hereward,” he said quietly, and Hereward groaned deep in his chest. “Your drinks on all of us tonight.”

He looked up, blue eyes blurry with grief, looking for a long moment at the glass. “Thank ye,” he muttered eventually, picking it up and knocking back the contents. He welcomed the burn down his throat, the way it settled in his belly.

“How are yer children doin’?” asked one of the regulars in a nearby seat as the bartender brought another shot over, as well as a bottle.

Hereward shrugged and grasped the neck of the bottle. “Wrecks, th’ lot ay them,” he grumbled. Llewellyn was neck deep in books, trying to figure out what he could have done, Brigid wouldn’t stop crying, William was angry, Arthur had just shut down, and Connor couldn’t understand. “Needed t’get ‘way.” He drank half of it in one go.

“It’s hard, losing someone like that,” said another bar patron, nodding in sympathy, before taking a pull of her tankard. “We’ll be here for you.” Hereward grunted in reply.

He was back at the bar a moon later, but no one had the heart to hie him away, a man so recently widowed deserved the occasional vice. Even if he drank to blackout more times than he didn’t. Even if he spent coin that everyone was fairly sure he couldn’t spare.

It took several moons before his next appearance, near on half a year. He’d ordered a bottle of whiskey, no glass, and sat at the bar silently drinking. Eventually they got something out of him, how his little girl was starting to look more and more like her mother by the day. How it hurt to look at her. Looks were exchanged over his head, silent head shakes following equally silent conversations.

The next moon he was there again. And then the next fortnight. And then the next sennight. The bartender started to put limits on him. Then it became nightly, for several long moons. The regulars started to avoid him, either silently judging him or just not wanting to be in such close contact to so much condensed grief and anger.

Finally the bartender put his foot down. “Hereward, I dinnae where you’re going to get your next drink, but you’re nay going to get it here anymore. Go home. Be with your children. They’re needin’ their father.”

And Hereward had looked up at him, blue eyes blurry with grief and drink, tried to stare him down for a long minute. The bartender had stared back, and in the end it was Hereward who blinked. He skulked out of the tavern, and for the following year he didn’t set foot inside again.

Only, he didn’t seem to set foot inside anywhere in the small village, either. The village gossips would report on how the elder three of his children seemed to be running the tiny farm more often than not, and that the younger two would sometimes make sad eyes at the neighbors for food. But there was only so much to go around and most didn’t have much to spare.

It seemed like Hereward would blow in and out of town like the storms off the Rhotano, and his time at home was less and less. Until finally… they never saw him again.

[missmetomorrow]

𝑰𝑵𝑩𝑶𝑿 @admcrtem : i came as fast as i could / for Lorelei

her fifth glass was empty. the walls of the Three Broomsticks looked like they were moving. — earlier today she had sent an owl to Aegor, with a pathetic attempt to try and get a moment to talk to him.      it's been bad again, and it's the fault of no-one. but after meeting a first-year student with the same name as her own son who had left her far too soon, she crumbled under the weight she couldn't release.

     her forehead rested on the wooden table, empty glass still in her weakened grip. she just wished to forget, but obliviating herself somehow seemed worse than drinking it all way. — just as well that the inn-keep refuses to give her any more to drink.

     ❝ i really didn't think you would show up, ❞ she was slurring her words, to the point she could barely understand her own words.

[sweetlittlevampire]

Some observations I made during my drunken state - and after - about alcohol consumption, abuse, and how people view getting drunk, so read with caution -

Also, an observation I've made, aimed at no one in particular, is that occasionally drinking and getting drunk seems so generalised and trivialised that when I, someone who has been vocal about my addictive tendencies, and has spoken openly about alcohol abuse running in the family, announce on the internet that I am drunk? No one bats an eye, not even people who know more graphic details about it.

Which does give me food for thought. I don't know why I slipped up, but this slip-up scared me shitless, and I cannot help but wonder how people might feel who are truly in danger of sliding into alcohol abuse and addiction, and people knowing about it just not reaching out. Because folks get drunk sometimes, no biggie!

And I really do mean this as a general statement. I know my friends were busy, and looking at when I drunk-posted, many probably weren't online, or only looked at the first tweet of my drunk thread, so no blame there.

[doctor-glitterbomb]

OOC: So who is Glit? (Headcanons <3)

So in case it's not fully clear, in my AU, Glit, Howlback and Ravage are siblings. There were originally twelve siblings, and they were built to operate in cat & bird pairs: Ravage and Laserbeak, Nightstalker and Buzzsaw, Howlback and Garboil, Glit and Squawktalk, Stripes and Sundor, and Pounce and Wingspan. Each pair had its own colour scheme. They were all intended for pre-war Cybertronian black ops. The birds are fast, can see far far away, and can plug into your system and steal your information easily. They don't interact with other mecha as much as the cats do.

The cats were trained to be not just deadly spies and assassins, but also for psyops, including seduction, friendly interrogation and entertainment. As beastformers they were disposable, but in their root modes they looked like other small bipedal robots (like Minimus or Cheetor) with beast-like features. Those who were forced to become cassettes were locked in their beast modes until that was reversed.

This project was defunded, and they were all supposed to be terminated, but they weren't, because the people who made them sold them under the table as slaves to get their investment back.

Ravage and Laserbeak and Buzzsaw and Nightstalker (the latter of whom died) were bought up by Senator Ratbat, Pounce and Wingspan disappeared into the Warworlds, Howlback and Garboil were bought up by Iaconian Metaforensics (they learned to be cops from Prowl), and Stripes worked in the Censor's office with Sundor where they made friends with Blaster, which is why they chose the Autobots.

But this is about Glit. Glit and Squawktalk were bought by a noble Vosni house and sent to accompany their unconventional medic daughter Pharma in Iacon as servants and bodyguards.

It was Pharma's conjunx Ratchet who noticed that Glit had the capability to become a medic, made sure he passed the Ambus Test, and trained him--he wasn't very employable in the greater world, but he worked beside Ratchet in the Dead End clinic where he reconnected with Ravage and met Drift and Soundwave.

Anyhow, if you know the whole Glit story, you know that he became the best of the Decepticon medics, the kindest and most impartial--and yet, IDW shows him working at Decepticon death camp Grindcore, which was managed by Tarn before he was Tarn.

Megatron and Glit had issues even in Kiss Players because Glit will heal anyone and cares more for how much help a patient might need than their rank. So it was Megatron who sent him to work there as a punishment--if he wanted to heal Autobots and aliens, he could do it there. This is how Glit acquired a lot of information about the worst war crimes, an addiction to drinking high-grade and alcohol, and also a shit ton of frozen sparks that he 'liberated'.

Glit eventually let the Autobots into Grindcore but he absconded rather than take a red badge; he still remembers what the system they were trying to defend was like and doesn't believe a peaceful reform was possible.

Anyhow he fled to Earth where he thought he would be safe, and he was for a while. He married a bar hostess in Kyoto and learned to sing enka music. Helped her with raising her kids, and everything else. Sang in bars. Did a little furry porn on the side with her. Whatever he could do until he got his medical licence back.

Then Megatron took over the planet, oops. Rosanna heard Glit singing and that's how he ended up in her "interspecies friendship" band rather than turned over to the DJD.

Shortly before the end of the war his wife Naoko died, leaving him a mess. While Soundwave made him the Chief Medical Officer of Sanctuary Station (and Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee), and while he did have a medical licence in Japan, he still maintains his OnlyFans site, where he gets a respectable stream of income from former Kiss Players fans, furries and robotfuckers.

And in his thread with Fortress Maximus, he's gone to Luna-1 to help him and Cerebros restore the Tebris VII survivors using the domestication reversal protocol developed by Spinister, because he may be an entertainer and a denizen of the 'mizu-shoubai' (and has no shame about it!) but he is also still one of the best Decepticon medics in the galaxy.

[uenier-unieest]

I used to lurk here so much in my early teens. Back then, I only ever looked at ed shit. I'm in my late teens now, the latest teen, which is kind of devastating. not excruciatingly so, but devastating still. I don't mind aging as much as I regret the time I lost, which is so much time. I don't really remember much between the ages 12 and 17. I don't think there's much to remember, only bulimia and embarrassment. I kinda was doing everything I could to avoid having to pay attention, so it's not surprising I don't remember shit. I'm still trying to avoid having to pay attention. I don't think of myself as an alcoholic, but I have drank every day for the at least the past the month, usually starting before noon lmaoo. It's so fucking funny that legitimately don't think myself an alcoholic. "it's just champagne and it's usually less than 4 glasses a day. It makes my daily viewing of Jesus Christ: Superstar (1973) soo much more fun." The feminine urge to sedate yourself in a desperate, pathetic attempt to avoid, or even just belate, having to facing your reality. I think it's unfair that I have to be present for every moment of my life. I thought it was unfair then, too. Im working on fixing my life, though. "I didn't even fuck it up too horribly", she types, alone in her room, after spending twenty minutes crying because she's doing poorly in the pre-calc class she has to take at her junior college. And all because she too scared to tell her professor, who explicitly asked to be told this, that the proctoring application isn't processing her state-recognized accommodations for her developmental disability. I just did a lil' tumble out of all public life. Now, I'm a socially inept young woman who is now having to make up for having spent her entire teendom afraid and alone in her room. autism in women and girls✨ I just want gal pals. This probably isn't enough information to go off of if somebody was interested in talking with someone. Also, I think this post does a dog shit job of characterizing me, but it's where I'm choosing to start. hmu if you wanna talk about something, literally anything (´▽｀) I'm so lonely, holy shit. I promise I'm not as insufferable as my typing makes me sound

[johnfkennedaddy]

The over coverage of that teacher who came to school drunk is really making me sad. Like obviously she shouldn’t have done that but she’s still a human being and her addiction deserves sympathy and honestly being a public school teacher has sucked for so long I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often

[nopanamaman]

What’s the deal with Tsar and Arthur?

Today we’ll look at the two most popular members of Sanya and Yura’s friend group, Tsar and Arthur, a.k.a. Anger Management. How did they meet? What’s their life like? And most importantly, why the hell are they so angsty?

Let’s start with the older one.

Arthur Sokolov

Joining the orphanage

Arthur was brought to the orphanage not long after being born. He never met any of his parents.

Growing up in a state-funded shelter meant developing a clear understanding of what kinds of behaviours will and won’t result in getting your shit kicked in. You can’t be too cocky, and you can’t be too weak. Follow the hierarchy, but don’t let your fear of elders show.

Arthur learned to navigate that little society well. He had earned respect among kids his own age and younger, and avoided being pushed around by the older teenagers too much. Less due to a noble heart and more because of being too proud to act like a doormat. 

However, that didn't make him immune to peer pressure.

Correctional psychiatry

Business trip.

Many low-end orphanages across the former USSR had been essentially transformed into incubators for future gang members. “Businessmen”, either by bribe or threat, came to these institutions to recruit impressionable children into their organisations. One such uncle visited Arthur’s foster home.

For kids like him, the course of action was simple:

misbehave;

get sent to a mental institution for corrective treatment;

sneak as many bottles of trihexyphenidyl as you can into your bag during your stay;

leave the hospital as normal;

transfer the trihexyphenidyl to a gang representative and get your paycheck.

Under that business model, Arthur became a frequent guest at psychiatric wards. Having witnessed their indifference and medical callousness firsthand, he had developed a massive disdain for all kinds of mental health professionals.

It started even before joining the gang, of course – way before. It’s hard not to foster a vendetta when you get thrown to the looney bin for any misstep. At first he tried to honestly convince the doctors working there that he was fine, but he eventually realised it was futile: they were always in on the punishment.

Hustling continues

Arthur and Ivan at 15 and 17 respectively.

As Arthur grew older, he got more deeply involved with the gang’s activities alongside other kids. This meant participating in transfers, standing watch during certain deals, acting as a “treasure man” (i.e. hiding drugs in agreed upon places for clients to pick up), and so on. Fights were frequent.

He knew it was a slippery slope, but getting out was not an option – not an easy one, at least. This was the period during which he grew close to Ivan, who was commonly assigned to work with Arthur and other children from their institute.

They bonded on the basis of wanting to leave the business, though for different reasons: most of all, Ivan didn’t want to disappoint his grandma.

Getting out

First meeting with Yura.

The sudden disbandment of the gang was a relief to both Ivan and Arthur. A major member got caught and ratted almost everyone out, except for the dozens of orphans involved. So while Ivan went to turn himself in, Arthur got to walk free.

Before going, Ivan suggested Arthur replace him at his pop’s car repair salon. The boy seemed to have a knack for fixing things, and the two had developed a trusting relationship over their time working together.

While everything was looking fine, Arthur still wanted to destroy all traces of his activities - even those that couldn’t reasonably be tracked down to him. This led to him encountering Yura. Despite the very rocky start of their acquaintance, they went on to hang out together pretty regularly.

As of today, Arthur continues to do part-time at the workshop alongside Ivan. Both are committed to never getting back into the criminal business. Unless you count Sanya's Dynamo. Which you shouldn't. Having experienced what actual gangs are like, Arthur finds it hard not to look down at the girl's little roleplay.

Tsar

Joining the orphanage

Before coming to the orphanage, Tsar lived with his grandma. She died when he was 6. Since his parents had lost their parental rights due to alcoholism a couple years prior, there was only one place for him to go.

Tsar had a very hard time adjusting to the rigid hierarchy of the foster home. He was lucky enough to catch Arthur's attention and, in a sense, got scooped under his wing. The boy disliked relying on the older kid too much, but was too weak to stand on his own.

Gang involvement

How come mom lets you have two trips to the mental ward

Since Arthur got dragged into gang activities earlier than Tsar, the younger kid felt jealous. He, like most other children, fully bought into the romanticised idea of criminal life that was pushed by the uncles visiting the orphanage.

But as years went on, he saw the toll it had begun to take on Arthur. Tsar had taken a couple of correctional trips to mental wards as well, though he'd never participated in any illegal schemes. Those times were bad enough - he couldn't imagine going there again and again on purpose.

By the time Tsar would be old enough to get recruited into the business, Arthur forbade him from it. The kid still wanted to join to prove his worth, to earn his share, to show his guts. But his trust and respect for Arthur were stronger.

As much as he hated the idea, he stuck to the sidelines.

Contact with parents

Teatime with family.

Tsar’s parents reached out to him a couple years after he was transferred to the orphanage. He could only meet with them under supervision up until he was 13 years old. Afterwards they were allowed private meetings.

Today, he occasionally comes to visit them at their apartment. They still drink, but to Tsar, they just seem quiet and pitiful. He usually lends them the pocket money he receives from the orphanage. He knows they won't return it.

Anger Management

Ural models are known for their incredible durability and a baffling number of switches.

Tsar found a creative release in music and wrote songs to vent his frustrations. The orphanage had an old acoustic guitar that he learned to play, but it got completely broken when the boy was 13. After Arthur joined the workshop, he bought a black Ural from Ivan’s dad for cheap, upgraded its port, and gifted it to Tsar.

As it turned out, Ivan’s dad was hopping from one band to another in the 80s-90s, so he was happy to accommodate the kids' creative endeavours. He allowed them to use the spare garage space to practise and even supplied an incomplete drum set.

Tsar begged Arthur to back him up with drums. The latter begrudgingly agreed to learn them, but ended up really enjoying hitting barrels with sticks. Right now their band has a tiny local following, mostly in the face of Sanya Kazarina.

Some notes

I remember sitting down and reading about actual orphanage experiences in the post-soviet space – it was eye-opening, but also gave me a lot of material to work with, as heartless as that probably sounds. A lot of things simply clicked into place.

I didn't go into too much detail here, but FYI, I've downplayed the severity of certain situations. Trauma aside, I'd say both Tsar and Arthur got quite lucky in the end.

[dragonymango]

this was brought upon me seeing like 5 posts about them smoking today

[ansicred]

feeling super, super, super! | angst

Nina and Bleddyn unintentionally swap crisis roles. setting: in Bleddyn & Nina's house in Crawley, Sussex, June 1994 characters involved: Bleddyn & Nina warnings: cw: alcohol abuse , cw: depiction of postnatal depression (of sorts)

[foldedchip]

Things in Lackadaisy that I haven’t seen anyone talk about (starting with fun facts and ending with more serious topics)

Rocky was an escape artist for a traveling circus when he was a teenager. This is why he was able to escape the train tracks at the beginning of the story.

Horatio likes to sing, but only when no one is around.

Freckle is the only character to have a middle name in his character bio (Allen). Do the other characters have middle names?

Nicodeme used to be (or possibly still is) a wrestler known as the “Cajun Gator”.

Rocky speaks at least some French; the Savoys speak a mix of English, Creole, and French; Mordecai speaks English, Hebrew, and some German; Nina speaks English and Irish Gaelic; Viktor speaks Slovak and English; Mrs. Bapka speaks Slovak and some English.

Serafine likes practical jokes. The only one we’ve seen her play is the “hatchetman” thing with Mordecai, where she told him to kill a man with a hatchet and he actually did it. Has she played other practical jokes on him?

Ivy’s classmates know that she’s friends with gangsters, because they ask if Rocky is one of her “gangster friends” when she sneaks him into their dorm building. Ivy seems to like the attention.

Nicodeme doesn’t know his exact birthday, and he and Serafine don’t know their exact relation to each other. They could be half-siblings or cousins, or maybe not related at all.

Rocky is very knowledgeable about myths and folklore, and he’s also very well read. Considering he didn’t finish his primary education, he must have either picked this up from his mother, the McMurrays, or he developed an interest later in his life.

Rocky has frightened elderly people before, though he got along well with Mrs. Bapka.

Ivy’s father, Reuben Pepper, wasn’t just friends with Atlas— he owned a train station and helped him smuggle alcohol into the city. He must not do business with the Lackadaisy anymore, either because of Atlas’s death or for another reason. He was business partners with Atlas, but not Mitzi.

The name of Mordecai’s late baby sister, Hannah, is the combination to the safe he writes about in “Posthaste”.

Rocky doesn’t drink due to “past experience”. Did he drink before and then quit, or he see someone else drink and decide never to do it?

Mordecai shows a lot of the signs of autism. He comes across as very cold and unemotional, even with his own family members and closest friend. He doesn’t seem to feel empathy for people he doesn’t care about (often, autistic people will either feel far more empathy than is considered appropriate, or not nearly enough of it to be considered appropriate.) He has difficulty with social relationships and interaction, whether it’s casual flirting, working with others, negotiating with his boss, or developing and maintaining personal friendships. He is physically sensitive and can barely tolerate physical touch, crowded environments, or getting dirty or wet. He is very particular about the way he eats and dresses, to the point where other people point it out. He has an intense and unusual interest in geometry that confuses other people when he talks about it, but it seems to bring him comfort and excitement. (For the record, Rocky is the only one who rolls with it and asks him to tell him more.)

Both Elsa and Viktor have trauma from the war and show signs of PTSD. Viktor also used to stay at the Arbogast house to help keep them safe. When Ivy and Rocky arrive at her house, Elsa asks about Viktor and talks about him later on. This probably means that they were friends.

Corporal punishment was the standard for raising children in the early 20th century, especially in Ireland. Nina slaps Rocky and pushes him down the stairs in two different scenes. Rocky even mentions Nina caning (beating someone with a walking cane) him if he got mud on Freckle’s clothes— which might have been a joke, but it had to come from some truth. Rocky was shown to get into all kinds of trouble as a child, though we don’t see the consequences for it. At the time, “physical punishments” were considered normal, but there is now extensive, undeniable research that shows what kind of psychological damage it causes later in the child’s life. You’ve read the comic, and you know that Rocky is not mentally healthy.

[jennilah]

Amanda Young & Mark Hoffman parallels