#To indoctrinate them into their extremist right wing racist and misogynistic ways

[crowley1990]

I mean. So lucky that I grew up on tumblr rather than any other website and it just made more of a feminist and communist and stuff but also. Lucky that I grew up online over a decade ago because I do not think online grooming was as prolific and as targeted as it is today.

[ashtraythief]

Interesting to me that Chad has never been ID’ed probably by the Feds. Does Jensen even know his true identity? I assume Jared does. Will this come up in the future?

Ah, asking about my beloved Chad, the way to my heart 🥰

Jared absolutely knows. He and Chad don't have any secrets and they shared everything that's important. Jensen knows the basics, Chad told him once when they were drunk. And he decided that he doesn't need to know more, because it wasn't very relevant because at that time they were already friends.

Thoughts on Chad under the cut because it got long 😅

So Chad never having been ID’ed has very much to do with how he grew up. I think I only alluded to it, but my backstory for Chad… well, it’s a little whacky. But Chad’s whacky, so I needed something that would fit. Give him the skills and the paranoia and the need for family and a friend who loved him, but who’d also be his boss, you know. So Chad’s father belonged to one of these extremist, right-wing, separatist, living-off-the-grid, prepping-for-the-revolution nut jobs. So Chad was born on a compound which means there’s no birth certificate, no social security number etc. There’s no record of him. 

His mom eventually realized that living on a quasi para-military compound was not a lot of fun, and that her husband also cared more about training Chad for the revolution than about her (and they were also kind of a patriarchal misogynistic bunch unsurprisingly) and ran away with Chad, but she didn’t have any family for support ended up on the streets because she distrusted the government too much to get help. So Chad also grew up on the streets. He was probably around nine or ten then. He’d learned the basics of reading, writing and math on the compound, but the rest of his schooling was very indoctrinating. But on the streets, Chad learned pretty quickly that the whole racist, misogynistic, weird world order shit his father and his buddies were peddling was bullshit. Well, except for distrusting the authorities obviously, that stayed. His survival training was helpful though, Chad was good in a fight, and he was quick and stealthy enough to steal what he needed. Occasionally the cops would pick him up and put him in homes/foster care when he didn't give up his parent's names and no one reported him missing, but he had a habit of disappearing and he was in the system under different names. Eventually, as he got older, he got fake ids and fake driver’s licenses but yeah. (Fun fact, Chad Michael is actually his given name, Chad given to him by his father and Michael by his mom after her father, and Murray is his mom’s maiden name. He’s not close with her, I honestly don’t know if she’s still alive, but she did get him out of that compound.) There’s basically no paperwork on him and the police have no idea who his parents are. He’s now in the system as Chad Michael Murray, and the police obviously have his prints on file, but they have no idea what his background is. So they can’t id him properly, because Chad Michael Murray could be any name that he could have chosen for himself.

I don’t think that’s ever going to come up though. Chad’s surprisingly well adjusted, emotionally, for his background I think. A lot of that has to do with Sophia, she was really good for him, and then finding his place with Jared’s crew. There’s obviously his penchant for the criminal life and his need for superficial hookups for love while not being able to let any of them come close, but considering the circumstances, Chad’s resilient. I think that’s why he and Jared get along so well, they both hardened under difficult circumstances from a young age and they’re both survivors. But, erm yeah, that’s how I envision Chad’s very fucked up childhood. Probalby not at all realistic, but this is my sandbox and I get to torture them how I see fit 😅

And this got a lot longer than I thought it would, but I do love this Chad a lot. Thanks nonnie for giving me and opportunity to ramble about him!