#at least i don’t use fucking cocaine or adderall

[zenyteehee]

They say it takes 40 days to break a habit. Yesterday, I hit 40 days sober.

Part of me still hates it. Part of me is counting down the days until my drug test (that I don’t actually have scheduled yet, but it’ll be somewhere in February). I’ve realized over the past week that if I can fix my issues with sleep, fuck with my psych meds a bit, that it wouldn’t be nearly as hard to be sober…if I had a better work/life balance. I like my work. I like my life. My baseline mood is actually pretty good. It’s just that I work around 60 hours a week right now, and beginning February 12th, I will work 70-80 hours per week for 6 weeks straight (anybody’s guess if I will get any meaningful days off), and there is not a goddamn thing I can do about that. I am already pretty burned out as it is, and it is already hard enough to do hobbies at 60 hours —the things keeping me sober and my mental health more or less tolerable— so all bets are gonna be off with 70-80hrs/week. Never mind that when you’re looking a disease in the face that only responds to your treatment when it wants to and may one day decide to kill you just for shits and giggles, sometimes making everything about a flare —from the symptoms to the mental stress— just go the fuck away really is harm reduction.

But, part of me is really, really proud that I’m now 41 days sober. On days when I’m not consumed by work and school (and fighting off a whole ass breakdown cuz the stress while sober is unreal), I’m so much more present in my life. My mind feels sharper. I look in the mirror and I recognize myself. I don’t want to be so emotionally dependent on a substance like I was before December 17th. Feeling like I had to get baked or I was gonna have a bad night. Because at the end, it really didn’t help. But like I said…all bets are gonna be off come 80hr work weeks and concomitant minimal sleep, none of which is under my control, because any help there is better than burning out even more. Because if I burn out much more, I feel like I’ll lose the drive to establish a healthy relationship with substances.

I think the long term solution is gonna be many-fold. I can’t fix everything I need to right now. So the short term solution is gonna be harm reduction, fix what I can, some of the major drives (ie sleep) to use irresponsibly. Keep looking for other things I can remedy. Reestablish as healthy a relationship with weed as I can manage if and when I do resume it. Idk.

For now, at least, I’ve got 41 days sober.

[dailyautophagy]

30 tags is too many evidently whatever

[nohoney]

k… could we please get a Drabble ab this scenario? Pretty please with cherry on top 😭 I am loving the angst train so MUCH! Thank you so much for hurting us more like this babe <3

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/nohoney/722969405344055296

the ask

y’all love the angst train

It’s intentional to hurt you but it’s never intentional to make you miserable. It’s one thing to see that pained look on your face and try to move on, and it’s a whole other thing to see you laying in bed all day and be so upset with them.

They can admit it… they went too far.

“Baby… please get out of bed. You don’t have to leave the room if you don’t want to, just at least get up for a little.” Keigo’s voice is gentle as he tries to coax you to get up. His hand is warm on your shoulder and he pressed a small kiss to your temple but you don’t have a reaction to his affection. “I’ll come back in a few minutes, okay?”

You give him a noncommittal hum in response, pulling the blanket back over your shoulder since he pulled it away.

Touya and Keigo had been taking turns to try to get you out of bed since your bender had ended. For three days straight you were up, awake on adderall to keep you focused and cocaine to keep you a little perked up. You were trying to keep yourself distracted from all the cheating. When they finally noticed that you weren’t actually resting or eating or taking any pause, they took away the coke and the adderall and you were forced to crash. Right now you’re on day four of having not left the apartment, you called in sick for the three classes you’re taking for the semester, two of which are online.

Keigo runs his hand down his face and sighs into his palm when he leaves the bedroom. Touya is on the balcony and chain smoking his stress away. The both of them know that they fucked up. Revenge cheating the one time was one thing, but they both just couldn’t stop the thrill of seeing you so hurt every time they came back to you.

Now look where they are after being selfish.

“Do you want to go this time?” Keigo asks as he comes out to the balcony. Touya offers the cigarette he’s smoking to him, heaving a heavy sigh and unsure if there’s anything different he could say from what he’s already tried. Plus he couldn’t stand it that you wouldn’t turn around to face him.

But he couldn’t really let Keigo do all the work of trying to get you up. “I’ll try…” he sighs more to himself.

When Touya opens the door, he sees you go under the covers and hide. It’s a pretty big indicator that you’re getting more upset the more they visit you in the room without you needing to say anything to them. He doesn’t like to hear you sniffle under the covers though.

“Doll, you know we can’t have you stay in bed any longer.” Touya says as he approaches the bed, “You need to get up. We can talk about what happened.”

He’ll say sorry to you for hurting you so badly. He just felt so betrayed after learning that you’d been messaging Shigaraki behind his back. It was too easy to hurt you and he just wanted you to feel as bad as he felt when they found out. It was barely about the cocaine you were sniffing behind his back; he just didn’t want you to need anyone else but him for anything.

You’re his whole world and he only wants to exist for you.

Muffled words are heard beneath the blanket and Touya strains his ears to listen to what you said. He asks you to say it again but you give him silence. “Come on, I’m fucking trying here! Every goddamn day, I’m begging you to be up on your feet! To fucking look at me!” Touya expresses his frustration.

It hurts him to have hurt you this badly but he also doesn’t know how to dress and fix the wounds he gave you in the first place.

“(Name),” Touya kneels on the side of the bed and pulls at the blanket to reveal you, “look at me!”

Just look at him.

It’s all he wants.

Look at him so that he knows he hasn’t lost you.

And you do.

Slowly you sit up and look at Touya.

You have an angry, heartbroken gaze set on him. Your jaw is tense and like so many memories he has of you, you try to refuse to let yourself cry. When you get that look on your face, trying to be defiant against your own emotions, it’s when you’re just about to collapse.

He’s relieved.

All your emotions, your jealousy and anger and happiness, they all belong to him.

“My baby, my gorgeous baby…” Touya speaks, feeling a little bit of weight lift off his shoulders, “You’re fucking beautiful when you’re mad at me. You’re my little crybaby.”

He dares to crawl onto the bed and catches your hand when you try to hit him. You protest and tell him to leave you alone, to fuck off and go away but he invades your space. “God, I need you so badly baby. You know they were nothing to me. They’re always nothing. Let me make it up-“

You manage to shake his hand off your wrist and you slap Touya in the face. You’ve hardly eaten so even putting all your energy into that one hit drains you fast. It made you lightheaded so you’re forced to lay back down on the bed. Your angry, teary gaze remains on him though.

“Are the two of you fighting?” Keigo comes in to find the blankets pulled off the bed and Touya with his cheek red, “Touya, don’t antagonize her. We’re supposed to be making up.”

“I was trying, but she doesn’t want to.” Touya grumbles, ignoring the sting on his cheek.

“What makes you think I want to fuck either of you after the week of hell you gave me?” You speak angrily to them, the most words you’ve said since a few days ago, “The two of you are awful to me.”

“We’re sorry, okay? We only did it because you hurt us first.”

They know and they’re sorry, but only because you started it.

They crowd your space, ignoring your curses and with no energy in you, you have a difficult time trying to push them away. You know your boys and how their guilt trips them up. The easiest way to harm them the most was for you to self destruct. To go on a bender until you either passed out or they finally noticed and forced you off.

When it comes down to it, they’re always going to end up saving you from yourself. Sometimes you’d wish that they leave you to spiral, like after that huge fight, so you could indulge in all the bad things you want with no supervision. But knowing that they’d agonize over you, coddle you or beg you just to bring you back from the brink of your self destructive habits…

It does remind you again that they do love you.

It’s all you want from them.

[lillian-nator]

Everything below was made by Me, Eye, and Ethan over the course of like 3 days

Thank you (with additions from sleepy my beloved)

Like

Okay

So

Wilbur isn’t the oldest

Techno is

But it’s a war run empire, they take pride in their troops and armies and triumphs

The soldiers come first

So Techno is the commander in chief , the general

Wilbur, second born

Is heir to the throne

To the diplomatic side of the empire

and Tommy Gets shit

He doesn’t even understand why Phil had another kid

Of course there is the situation where Techno or Wilbur dies, or one of them steps down, but it won’t happen

Was he really born to be the understudy

he was born as a backup

Tommy was an accident but they’re not gonna let the public know that

like he's the Zuko

Phil doesn't really pay attention to him so his mother picks up the slack

Wilbur is 21

Techno’s 23

Tommy’s 17

However I have a really good idea for prince Tommy, just like what if he doesn’t like the way that people treat him? Like he doesn’t want all these yes men he wants to be he wants to be told now, he want somebody to tell him he that’s against the rules he just wants him like structure he just want someone to hate him he want someone to not like him and say no and tell him that he’s stupid which is why he does all of the stupid shit that he does

Ever since he was like 4

Everyone has said yes

He wants to defy them

He wants to just do something to make someone say no

That and he lowkey

He wants ~~Phil~~ Wilbur to pay attention to him

Is a Little Shit who causes so many problems on purpose to try and find someone who will push back against him

He wants someone to give him structure and discipline but overall he just wants his family’s attention

He’s broken shit, thrown temper tantrums, he’s started fights and he’ll he’s even snuck out and stole things

He’s never been stopped

People consider him snobby and spoiled

He's a brat

He gets everything he wants, but he doesn’t really want it, he just asks to see if they’ll tell him no

Tubbo = Stable Boy

Ranboo = Prince of another country (probably the americas)

Ranboo could definitely fit the role of an overseas royal prince who Tommy sees as a regal, spoiled, uppity little shit. Like Tubbo, who Tommy sneaks everywhere, has met Ranboo and likes him. Tommy can't possibly see why, he's unbearable.

Bench Trio = Best freinds

I think that Tommy and his brothers were always very very close

they just have jobs and shit

They took over Phil's shit

they probably drift apart as they get older, Wilbur and techno have duties and Tommy starts his quest for attention, they grow apart from their little brother without realizing it

Tommy and his mother (kristin) are always and have continued to be close

she definitely chides him, and tells him quietly to not do things for all of his "misbehaviors"

but there is only so much that she can do, because she has the duty to not make a scene

that and she's not who he's looking for attention from

You may be asking "How is crime recognized, identified, discussed, and atoned for?" more specifically, "Is it a 'you stole my bread so without asking anyone I'm cutting your hand off' or is it the US court system" ~~You may also be Ethan~~

The answer is:

like the UKs

But more like

Okay so the Supreme Judicial system, but Phil (and then Wilbur) has teh final say

Court system, but with Phil overseeing everything

instead of a judge

HOWEVER, that's in the national level

in smaller villages, its more of the cut your hand off system

because the judicial system isn't regulated

So bonus questions:

Punishments and the identification of whether a crime counts as a crime?

soldiers can call crimes out, and citizens can file reports

Phil's not really shit, he just doesn't show Tommy any attention because he's busy with the other two

Just honestly doesn't even care about most shit Tommy does

Like, doesn't pay attention to it until it affects him, he's busy running a country and training the boys to running a country

I don’t think they (the brothers) realize how badly everything is affecting Tommy

The only one who knows anything about the full extent would be his mom, and she’s in a similar boat to Tommy

Phil doenst really see her much either

Not like she could “Make a Scene” trying to get Phil to pay attention to his youngest, to actually love his child, he’s barely around

Kristin and Phil spend time together at night, but during the day everything is for the cameras

its like the UK royals, how they do shit just for the people

And Phil doenst want to hear about the kids at night, he wants to spend time with his wife

Tommy has stolen a car and will do it again

Just fucking hopped in and took a joyride

With Absolutely No Repercussions

Do you think Phil ever tries to hire like, a nanny or something? In the aftermath of the Car Incident? Yes, and it never worked

Tommy, like 15 at the time, pissed as hell as a random ass woman tries to tell him to go to bed at 8:30 pm

Tommy wants somebody to tell him no but not somebody hired to tell him no mannn

Tommy goes to like parties - like ragers

he has a network of really famous friends like young actors and shit

dude is a party animal, underage drinking, rumors of drugs, he’s the PR Teams worst nightmare, but they’re not going to say anything

The press makes up SO MUCH SHIT

The press once said that he had done cocaine when it was really one of his friends

Tommy adopts two dogs (hello Betty and Walter) without asking either of his parents

Betty is short for Elizabeth

He brings them in off the street

Literal abandoned street dogs and he goes, mine now

He like, walks down the street with sunglasses on, and just doesn't look at anyone as he walks the dogs, who have like black nice leather leashes

The paparazzi always finds him walking the dogs

like a modern celebrity

Mans can and will call the paparazzi on himself - because he is a drama queen ETHAN Tommy voice "hello pa pa. I have hired two new staff, pa pa." "Huh?" "they have found work in this palace as emotional support animals, pa pa." "....ok." tommy voice "he didn't even blink, elizabeth the fourteenth" END OF ETHAN MAKING FUN OF THE BRITISH

By the way just to clear things up with you all, Tommy addresses Phil as "Father"

most of the paparazzi's pictures of Tommy are him flipping the camera off

He poses for them

just sees a camera and fucking sticks his tongue out and flips them off

He’s wearing some atrocious outfit while walking his dogs and he just has a full on fashion photshoot of poses for them

If his dad won’t give him attention at least they will

Tommy befriends some of the staff

he hates a lot of the butlers tbh

thinks they're stuck up

but likes to gossip with the maids, and sit in the kitchen as the chefs cook lunch "Heyyyy, chef!" "Your highness, what is it, are you hungry?" "Can't a man just talk to his chef? Befriend his castle staff?" "Ah."

that and the kitchen gives betty and walter treats

Top ten Prince Thomas microaggressions

Number One: he calls Phil "your highness"

For context, kings are referred to as Your Majesty

He calls Wilbur Your Majesty

It was a joke when they were younger, a habit from then on, but now it’s to spite Phil

Tommy spends an ridiculous amount of money on clothes all at once, purely to see if Phil would yell at him for using the family debit card for it

He never wears the clothes

He doesn’t particularly like any of them anyways

Instead he donate them all anonymously

Tommy may be a brat but he isn’t wasteful

By the time Tommy’s 12 he’s started acting up, and it escalates slowly until he hits 15 where things just start snowballing and he gets worse and worse

he's definitely nicknamed by the press as some sort of party animal or fratboy

a spoiled brat

He’s 16, and he knows his place in the family, he is forgotten and glossed over, but he won’t be ignored, not if he can help it

The Public gives him the attention he wishes his father would give him, he walks his dogs with the paparazzi tailing after him, just hoping that maybe one scandal or one horrible picture will eventually be enough to make his dad actually See him

he'll tell the paparazzi what they want to hear

and give every magazine a story to tell

they notice him

he just wants somebody to tell him no, somebody tell this boy no without being paid to please

Tommy probably has like, pierced his ears or smth. Gotten tattoos.

he has holes in his face yes.

he pierced his ears and his nose

He has a tattoo on the inside of his finger that matches with Tubbo and Ranboo

Maybe the picture of him plastered from last weekend will make his dad reprimand him

Maybe the weed found in his backseat will get his Dad to ground him

Maybe the bottle of fucking pills he was “holding for a friend” but got caught with Will get some sort of reaction

and its not like he's only doing it for attention

he starts it for attention, but he loves it he does

he has fun, he loves his friends, he likes the parties and the air

but, he also loves the attention, he's not gonna lie

Tommy who took adderall at a party once but it didn’t do anything for him, he seemed to function a little better actually

Tommy who knows Techno has adhd and takes adderall for it, Tommy who puts two and two together Bc he’s not fucking dumb

Tommy realizing his dad never cared to even get him diagnosed or treated

and Techno does notice, he does figure it out, but he does either a "hey..." or a "m8 I'll just get you your own if its helpin you focus" and tommy is furious

Tommy's life here is just

'trying to be yelled at HARD MODE'

Just wants to be screamed at, lowkey

I think, Wilbur avoids the tabloids

And the press

And the news

However, his advisors often read him the shit about Tommy - or anything about him

But they never see the pictures

They don’t see the picture of Tommy drunk on a strangers balcony

They don't see how bad it is

Tommy however? LOVES reading what the press has to say about him

Phil sees it however,

And he’s so disappointed

He gives Tommy so many talks but it never works

Because it doesn’t get him to love Tommy, to care about what Tommy does

Not like their mother

And he never makes a scene, not in the way Tommy wants to

It's all about "YOUR RUINING OUR IMAGE"

not: "YOUR RUINING YOUR LIFE"

He never asks if Tommy is ok

He never asks if he’s safe

Tommy's mum however, SO MANY AWKWARD "STAY SAFE" TALKS

He doesn't just fucking jump off shit because of her, he's slightly less reckless so that he can come home alive to her

I just think that Wilbur, no matter how busy, would find time to concerned yell at his baby brother if he were to find out about the pills

Weed and alcohol? Not great but ok.

Pills though?? He is full blown concerned Wilbro there

His brothers care. Their father is busy. He's a jerk sometimes too.

Wilbur does put out the fire a bit

He’s glad Wilbur had his best interest in mind

But man

The news headlines

They do him dirty

Shit like “Prince Tommy Caught Doing Cocaine at Frat Party” really fuck him over

They really just try their best to make him look like shit 95% of the time

Tommy loves it, just a little

Bad press is still press

He laughs at the headline Bc he knows he wasn’t doing cocaine, but Phil doesn’t, wilbur and techno don’t know that

It’s a tense week after that headline is released

His mom doesn’t even know if Tommy would have actually done cocaine

They just don’t know

Kristin asks him

She’s the only one who believes him

I think Wilbur wants to believe him, Techno too

But it’s hard to, especially when you’re not even sure you know your own brother anymore

Wilbur says something along the lines of being disappointed in Tommy, if he thought Tommy was trying to be better

Tommy scoffs and says he is trying, but that it’s real rich of Wilbur to be or entering to care now

This isn’t even the worse headline

One time a blonde kid got picked up from the same party Tommy was at on a stretcher, he had had an allergic reaction

Some shitty journalist saw and automatically assumed it was Tommy

They ran with the story that the prince had fucking overdosed for at least a week

The things they say are close to the truth but not quite

The PR Team tries their best to help but

They don’t even know what’s true or not

Tommy goes on a bender for a week, and walks into their office with coffee and pastries to apologize

They all know that presents mean a rough week of damage control

But Tommy imports them these Bomb ass donuts so

Fair trade really

Also heaven forbid tommy gets seen with a girl

It’s the worst shit

Tommy gets caught, drunk off his ass, pushing a couch out a window

(To be fair the people were moving soon anyways, they didn’t need the couch, it was a going away party)

And the next morning, recalling what he did

He orders up those pastries and calls the coffee place

Swings by to pick up the coffee and picks up the pastries all within the next two hours and delivers them on the third with an apology note

It’s fucking DAMAGE control

Thinking about Tubbo and Ranboo being Tommy’s DDs when they can

They are

When Tommy’s handler isn’t around

Them doing wild shit together but not Wild Shit

Tommy teaches them how to do burnouts and donuts in a fucking lambos in an empty mall parking lot

Ranboo goes everywhere incognito, Tommy practically flaunts his rank, Tubbo is considered a nobody and doesn't have to do anything but show up in casual clothes. He has a uniform for stablework.

Ranboo's parents are approving of his friendship with the fledging prince, as they hope he can wrangle Tommy to regality and he's building positive relations between the two kingdoms.

Phil is disapproving, worried Tommy will taint Ranboo and his rep and cause a tense air between the two kingdoms. Tommy loves Phil's worry, he practically bathes in it, it's the attention he so craves.

Tommy definitely will hold Tubbo's hand when he walks with him, because the headlines all scream Tommy is the gay?? and while he's very incredibly straight, he finds this hysterical.

Ranboo isn't always in Tommy's kingdom and rather spends most of his time at home. He might be second to heir or the crown prince himself, but he does have to spend time in his own country. Tommy face calls him a lot and he and Tubbo are ecstatic when he announces he's going to visit

I imagine he's second to the throne because that means he can focus on building relations instead of training to be king.

Older sibling Fundy, gets chronic illness, and Ranboo has to take over the throne for a bit

One of Tommy's worst stunts was hitching a ride to the Americas/Ranboo's kingdom without telling anyone.

Whether by boat or plane, he was gonna go visit his young king friend no matter what.

I say "young king" but he's still a prince. Just filling in for fundy

But all eyes turn to Ranboo and Ranboo is stumbling with attention he'd never known. Tommy has to help, doesn't he?

He expects such a punishment for stowing away to visit, but the headlines are... positive. Prince Tommy's friendship with Princr Ranboo becomes.... legendary, practically. Tubbo is always excluded from the news, even when he comes with.

Never too fantastical for classism

But no, the headlines see Tommy's visit not as the young, rebellious prince stowing away, but as a young boy risking his skin to visit his stressed friend.

Tommy is appalled.

And Tommy just groans and shows him the phone

And Ranboo laughs and goes

“There there Tommy, I’m sure dragging me to a frat party will be enough to ruin the good press.”

“Maybe get a dui, you’ll have diplomatic immunity so no jail time?”

“Boo, I wouldn’t get jail time even if I wasn’t em-mune, I am simply too poggers.”

“Sure man, let’s go with that.”

Tommy’s like “maybe I need to actually start doing hard drugs”

Ranboos just like “no -“ just “Please god no, your brothers will kill both of us.”

The Boo is terrified of Techno and Wilbur

Not as royals though, simply as Tommy’s older brothers

Like he knows about Tommy’s issues with validation and feeling unloved, he knows his Brothers are often very busy

But he also sees the way they look at Tommy, and the way they look when people talk bad about Tommy

He knows if something were to happen and he was to cause harm to Tommy or cause Tommy to cause harm to himself

It probably wouldn’t end well for him

Wilbur and techno try as hard as they can

But they’re SO busy

That they can’t do much especially when Tommy’s so persistent on doing his shit

Tubbo is great with the horses he tends to, and Tommy adores them. Ranboo is an excellent, regal rider and Tommy and Tubbo are more rough and ballsy, so races are fair and fastpaced.

Ranboo once got bucked by a royal stallion and Tommy and Tubbo never let him live it down.

I imagine Tubbo lives on the property, as some servants do. He either doesn't have a family, has a bad one, or his family doesn't live close to the palace.

So Tommy 10/10 sneaks to the servants' quarters and he and Tubbo sneak out to ride the horses.

I feel like Wilbur makes more of an effort after the pills and cocaine incident, he tries to ask Tommy about the headlines

Purples is Tommy’s friend

Rich family, old money

Throws a lot of the parties Tommy goes to

Purpled and punz :handshake: Tommy

Frat Boys

I think you guys are underestimating the time that Tommy spends at the castle

Like he still has school, and usually 3 days out of the week he follows around his brothers like an endearing little shit

But those 4 days where he’s gone (which includes weekends) plus nights, he’s doing shit

Also, yiu know Pongo right

101 Dalmatians

That’s how Tommy walks Betty and Walter

They are like standing completely proper and walks straight

ah yes, the royal bitches and also betty and walter are there too

the paparazzi taking pictures of Tommy and the dogs

and Tommy turns, taking his sunglasses off, and smiles big and wide "They have names you know? You should stop callin' them 'the royal dogs'."

One of the guys, he's familiar with the prince turns on his camera and asks "what're their names Prince Tommy?"

"Betty and Walter. Give them some respect."

Tommy visits Ranboo sometimes. Ranboo was looking for him one day and just found him standing in a long hall, staring at a portrait.

It's Ranboo, just barely younger, hands folded behind his back, the perfect picture of regality.

Tommy is staring at it because he knows that at home, there is a portrait of Wilbur looking like that, and one of Techno, and one of Phil and Kristen, and one of himself.

But somehow this image of Ranboo is.. haunting

Not because it doesn't match with the Ranboo he knows, but because it does.

It haunts him because he can stare at his portrait for hours and never see himself, but this is so plainly Ranboo that it's chilling.

Ranboo stands beside him, hands folded behind his back as they always are when he is in nice clothes and his eyes are visible. Tommy glances over and Ranboo is facing him, but staring up at the picture. It's still him.

The clothes are different and his hair is longer now, but Tommy can't tell the difference past that.

He knows that Ranboo is what his family wants him to be

He knows that Ranboo is him if he hadn't strayed, the same past

Ranboo knows exactly what’s going through his head right now

And he knows exactly what he needs too

They get fucking piss ass drunk in Ranboo’s room order takeout and FaceTime Tubbo

They can party tomorrow, Tommy doesn’t need to be in public right now

ANywyas

Tommy and his mother have a wonderful relationship

she teaches him literacy and history, they have a tutor teach him maths

they eat breakfast together every morning

the whole family does

but his mum tries to eat lunch with him at least 3 times a week

he goes out for lunch the days he doesn't eat with his brothers or mom, out to some resturant, sometimes, they trash it or party, sometimes he just brings Tubbo, no big group, and they just chill

With Ranboo in line for kingship (the way royalty works is that if the ruler dies, it will always go to the next in line of blood, never by marriage. Even if every heir was dead, it would still not go to the ruler consort but instead to a family member of the late ruler), rep is so much more important

he can't really be seen with Tommy sometimes

not on the bad weeks

not when Tommy just destroyed a bnb or set off fireworks with his friends, or was caught throwing chairs into his friend's pool

Tommy likes sport cars

big car guys

He has an exorbitant amount of fancy cars

its truly like

disgusting

how many cars he owns

Wilbur makes fun of it Bc the kid is just now legally old to drive

But Wilbur has so many expensive instruments

Some of which he doesn’t even know how to play yet

to be fair

Wilbur doesnt go breaking his instraments

Techno, techno has swords, which makes sense Bc he’s a general

But the amount swords he has just hanging on his wall

Never meant to be used

It’s so many

I feel like Tommy has a few cars that he doesn’t even let get scratched tho much

His babies

he has his expensive cars that he wrecks

and then his expensive cars that he treats like gold

They’re named

Clementine is this horrendous orange car that he absolutely loves

Its a bright orange ferrari

(He loves it Bc it was a gift from Phil, one of the first cars in his collection)

(Tommy doesn’t know that the idea was his mother’s, his father didn’t know what to get him)

all of his cars have padding in the back for his dogs

Tommy hates purse dogs, the girls with them are always fake and horrible

but he wishes his dogs were that small

Easy to transport

but they got all gangly limbs like him

and stand up to his hip

Henry is his sleek black classic mustang convertable

its what he drives when he doesn't want to be followed by the papp

It’s what he drives when he takes The BT to lunch

its not that the paparazzi doesn't know its him

they know

but he's not in one of his bright fucking obscene cars

The press and Tommy have a weird sort of understanding

He creates their headlines and they let him have moments to himself

If someone breaches that

They risk getting blacklisted

that car was what he drove to his grandmother's funeral in

im not naming his grandmother, but all royals live like forever

Clementine barely sees the road I think

She’s kept in top condition

By Tommy’s own hands

But she probably doesn’t get driven to the parties

Or the brunches

Or the clubs

She's used pretty much exclusively for black tie events

Tubbo is his driver for those Bc he trusts no one else with the car

And he has to exit her before she’s parked

So Tubbo valets and then meets him inside

It’s also how Tubbo gets into the black tie events

so its modern right

so its like thousand-dollar suits instead of capes

so, Tommy just refuses to wear blazers and suit jackets

he always wears his button-ups rolled to his elbows

Maybe, maybe you’ll get him in a vest

But most of the time it’s a button up, rolled up sleeves, and the tie is most likely incorrect or untied

The only reason it’s correct half the time, is because Wilbur makes him let him tie it

Tommy won't wear the jacket because he prefers to roll his sleeves up - he's able to do anything, party or just like rough housing with his brothers, or helping out the staff

Wilbur won't wear a tie, or a button up most days, opting for a high-end sweater and loads of jewelry; its just much more his style.

Techno won't wear a vest because it restricts the places he can hid weapons, and he almost never keeps his tie tied.

Tommy trying to walk past Wilbur to leave with and untied tie

“Wait! You know you can’t leave like that, come here.”

Tommy’s groans and slumps over but walks over to Wil anyways

“I’m just gonna untie it halfway through the party, you know i will.”

“Well, I’m not letting my little brother walk a red carpet with an untied tie, you know I won’t”

The second half said in a mocking tone of voice, very clearly mimicking Tommy’s whining

It’s a soft moment, they stand there together, brothers

And as Wilbur’s pat the finished tie, they make eye contact and both of them have undeniably fond looks on their faces, damn they’re brothers n shit

“Thanks Wil.”

It’s quiet, it’s soft, it’s Tommy

“Of course.”

Just as soft, just as quiet, wholly Wilbur

Wilbur clears his throat breaking the soft atmosphere of the room

“Now go, you gremlin. Don’t be late”

Wilbur ruffles Tommy’s hair, careful not to mess it up too much

Tommy rolls his eyes And quickly heads for the door “Bye Wil! Love you! Don’t wait up!” Wilbur quickly yells after him

“Love you too! Don’t do anything stupid!”

“Oh Wil you know I can’t promise that!” Wilbur just rolls his eyes and returns to his book

Yeah Tommy stays away from tobacco I think

Just weed

and I wouldn't be surprised if like hits peoples vapes sometimes, but doesn't smoke cigs

for sure, its stressful

Wilbur smokes cigarettes though

and he can't act out like Tommy can

and Phil loves him..

Techno and Wilbur watching Tommy rebel in the ways they never got to

They feel kinda sad, that they never got to be kids like that, sad that Tommy feels like he has to act out for attention

he gets to do shit

like he gets to be a real teen

the whole, dumb rich 17 year old experience

like yachts, and expensive hotel rooms, and sport cars

And sure they probably wouldn’t have been going to frat parties or crashing brunch places, but they see him with BT

See him have actual friends

And they’re happy for him

But it hurts a bit

And Tommy's hurting too

It's a lot

but its like

even if Phil wasn't shit

its a lot of attention

like everyone is watching them at all times

Techno and Wilbur have to stay refined in the eyes of the press

Tommy gets to put on a show for them

Yeah yeah

Do you know how much a drunk picture of Prince Tommy is worth?

Too much

Some random guy on his first paparazzi job, gets a pic of Tommy, shirt mostly unbuttoned, tie tied around his head, drinking out of a beer bottle, and flipping off the camera while stumbling out of the most expensive hotel in the UK

The guy never has to work again

Purpled son of some billionaire, and Ranboo a literal prince is with him

They are both laughing at him

Tommy swung on a chandelier that night

A picture of that ends up online, some socialites Twitter

The amount of people in her dms for that picture?

Ludicrous

Like just the random pictures from Snapchat stories

Magazines pay thousands

Yeah the amount of double takes people have done going through their friends Snapchat stories like

Just tapping through

“WAIT WAS THAT PRINCE THOMAS????”

So, Dessert Drinks

It’s alcoholic beverages that have like chocolate or gram crackers or maybe candy in them

That are meant to taste like a dessert

So there’s chocolate cake margaritas, or like s’mores drinks

They’re Tommy’s favorite things in the world

Everyone thinks that he’d like the like strong, burning, whiskey esk stuff

But no

He wants the sweetest thing you got

Like he’ll drink straught vodka, but not if he doesn’t have too y’know?

He also like wine strangely enough

The like really expensive wine

Bc it reminds him of Wil

They have it down in the cellar

Techno is the whiskey dude

Or like 1942

Which is just a really bougie tequila

He just likes the shit that burns

Tubbo will drink literally anything

He’ll eat anything too

It definitely comes from the spot that he didn’t have that many choices like Tommy, but he genuinely just likes anything

Which is why Tommy really likes to treat him out to fancy fucking restaurants

One of Tommy’s favorite past times is spoiling his loved one

Fucking loves giving presents n shit

It's his love language

Ranboo doesn’t pay for anything when he’s visiting

Tommy insists on paying

Tommy has millions from the throne, he will use it

Plus he uses his daddy’s card so like, Phil can afford to spend the money

Oh he has one of those black cards doesn’t he

And by he I mean Phil

But you know, Daddy’s card

Black amex all the way

Boujie motherfuckers

Tommy's drunk like persona is different depending on the environment

When its Wilbur and Techno having to deal with Drunk Tommy

He’s like an excitable puppy, he would switch from rowdy to sappy real quick for his brothers

So they’re trying to get a drunk Tommy to bed but Tommy’s 100% clinging to them

Just full of affection

Techno tries to leave to go study and drunk Tommy just looks so fucking sad

Kicked puppy

He’s very much turning on the little brother charm, full scale pouting, whining, nicknames and all

making grabby hands, sitting on thr ground, fluffed up hair, shirt all wrinkled

"Fucking - fine. What are you gonna do without me, hm?"

He’s a god damned puppy and it’s hard to believe this is the same kid who got in a bar fight last week

he hangs off the chandeliers of boogie hotels

he also trashes his friend's rentals

on the other hand, he hugs his brothers

and steals Wilbur's crown

when he wears Will's crown it goes over his eyes

Still does after all these years

He’s grown but Wils head is simply too big

Tommy has his own crown of course

he just doesn't wear it as often as Wilbru does

Wilbur wears his all of the time

Tommy wears his when

A. he's drunk and with friends

B. at formal or royal events

he likes wearing it when he's partying

still thinking about drunk Tommy and his brothers having to deal with him

He makes techno give him a piggy back ride

He can walk fine, he just wants a piggy back ride man

Can you blame him?

They all really miss being little

They miss being able to be kids n shit

when their mother took care of them

and their father did all the king shit

And when Techno would give Tommy piggyback rides in the garden

When Wilbur had all the time in the world to learn how to play guitar

Even if it comes from Tommy getting drunk off his ass they’re glad they can still find the childish joy that they once had y’know?

Techno gives Tommy a piggy back ride to his room, and Tommy steals Wilbur’s crown and they talk and it’s nice

And as everything winds down Wilbur plays his guitar

And it’s so similar to when they were younger man

...

but then,,, Wilbur gets called down for an emergency meeting

and Techno has to make sure the guards are doing their rounds

and Tommy's left all alone in The Prince's Chambers

and people wonder why Tommy likes partying

fills the time, doesn't it?

He wakes up cold and alone and hungover

And he calls Tubbo and they just fucking day drink man

It’s a bad two days

Yeha but basically after this night he and Tubbo get fucking drunk as hell and they don’t come back to the castle for two days

And Tommy is barely sober during those two days

After those type of days happen Tommy always goes completely straightedge for a week

He doenst need to develop an addiction y’know?

Plus the chaos doesn’t have to happen drunk

He’s pretty irrational sober anywyas

half of the parties he's at he's not even drunk

sometimes he'll get high

but he just likes the adrenaline

and just hanging and being fucking assholes with his mates

POV you are an emotionally wrecked prince who is hanging onto this present as proof that your dad knows who you are at least in the slightest and you find out it’s not actually a gift from him but something your mother told him to get you

He didn’t even think twice just called the dealership and asked for the car, didn’t even know which one it was

mmmmm Tommy wrecks Clem that night

It’s not a good night for anyone

Got drunk as hell man

No dd

Car crash

I don’t think Clem is totaled

And Tommy is ok

But she’s scratched and dented and it’s just a representation of how Tommy feels

Something about Clementine being symbolic of hope and the idea that his father knew him

And with that crashing down

Clementine was bound to crash too

Tommy gets out with some bruises and Clementine can be fixed

But it happens on a public street so it’s everywhere

Tommy wrecks Clem

Then fucking goes on a bender

just destroys shit

parties so he doesn't think about it

and then he fucking crashes

Wilbur and Techno and Kristin all know what the car meant to him, what it symbolized to him

So when there’s a headline and a picture of Tommy staring at a wrecked Clem, they don’t know how to feel

maybe he mentioned something about upgrading Clem to Phil, or offhandedly at family dinner

And Phil asks something like “Right and when did you get this one?” Very rudely y’know

And Tommy’s like, it’s the one you got me for my birthday last year, and Phil just says something about how he has to be more specific because he doesn’t even know which one that is

And Tommy feels everything crumble around him and he just tensely says, “never mind...” and goes back to his food

The other three watch the whole exchange like, “fuuuuuuuuuck”

And then as soon as dinners over Tommy’s out the door man

He’s gone

he doesn't take the dogs, which means he's causing damage

He doenst even take Tubbo

they can hear the handler hand Tommy the keys

Tubbo comes to Wil to ask if he knew where Tommy was and that’s when they realize Tommy’s going out to cause real damage

And Tommy’s phone is turned off

They can’t contact him

Tommy gets handcuffed

he won't get arrested, but he'll get brought back in a police car

he fucking like crashed into a poll on purpose

like it was less on purpose and more like he definitely wasn’t not trying to hit something

And then they fucking breathalyzer him and he’s drunk as balls

Straight vodka type night

there's a bottle in the cupholder

He gets out when he wrecks and you just see him dead eyed staring at the scratches on her hood

The dent in her door

The cracks in the windshield

And he just takes a swig of the bottle

He lets the police take the bottle and handcuff him, taking him back to the palace

Clem is towed back too

He doenst care man

this is bigger than party to distract Bc it’s all he’s thinking about even drunk n shit

So I feel like he’s absolutely crushed

he spends like a week or two in a depressive episode won't leave his room, won't talk to his dad

and then he asks his mom "why didn't you tell me?"

and she just purses her lips and and shakes her head

and he's out

he needs to leave

he doesn't need her pity

and he just goes to Purp's and parties

because he just wants to have fun for one night before he learns that everything is a lie

His brothers are there as much as he lets them be

Tubbo too

Ranboo would try to make it over after seeing the headlines

he gets on a jet

and goes as soon as he sees the news

cause Clem was Tommy's baby

He loved that fucking car man

And then

Boom

One dinner is all it took to ruin everything

Phil's just left like "what'd I do?"

Techno is straight faced

Wilbur rolls his eyes at Phil

And Kristin just looks stressed

She’s still staring the the door Tommy all but ran out of

none of them finish dinner, Kristin waves the butlers over to clear the plates

They don’t, and Phil is just so confused and frustrated and he doesn’t know what happened

Top 10 Prince Tommy Headlines: 10. Mourning or Disrespectful: Prince Thomas caught smoking outside grandmother's funeral 9. New Connections? Prince Thomas and Prince Ranboo seen outside Palace walking Royal Dogs 8. Protective Older Brother; Crown Prince William shielding Prince Thomas from cameras while walking down London streets 7. When Will He Stop? Prince Thomas continues his week-long bender 6. Another Frat Party: Prince Thomas found stumbling drunk after rowdy night at The Ritz London 5. Boy Crazy? Prince Thomas and Mystery Boy seen dancing at Crown Prince William's Birthday Ball 4. Is Prince Thomas's Rampage Over? The Prince seen hungover, nursing a coffee at London Branch Costa Coffee 3. Time to stop; Prince Thomas caught doing cocaine at socialites party 2. A good friend - Prince Thomas flew to the United States to help Prince Ranboo with new responsibilities

1. When is enough, enough? Prince Thomas crashes after driving drunk, arrested.

10 Tommy doesn’t smoke cigs so mans was just getting high at his grandmas funeral

he was real close with his granny, it was a sad day

It was because his father said something like “oh, I didn’t know you were coming Tommy”

It was his fucking grandmother Phil

Tommy just puts his sun glasses on, and sits as far away as he can

Number 5, the boy is Tubbo, Tubbo thinks it’s fucking hilarious, Tommy is pissed

Some of those headlines seem like they’re from the car month

Obviously number one is

But then the bender headline

Then the coffee one

And then the Wilbur one

They seem like a series of events

big month for the press

Tommys hungover and he calls Wil asking for him to pick him up

And Wilbur drops everything Bc he’s just glad Tommy’s coming back home

wilbur fucking glares at the cameras

Tommy's used to it

And then the press tries to mob them and Wilbur Almost breaks decorum

Like almost fucking yells at someone who gets too close

and Wilbur never does that

he's so in-line

he never breaks the rules

but goddamn if they take one step closer -

He’s been especially stressed, and all he wants is to get his baby brother home man

He’s been smoking a lot more since the wreck

He just wishes he could make everything better

Tommy relishes in talking to the press

Wilbur will clart someone who gets to close to his baby brother

The press who’s never seen Wilbur as anything other than composed and charming suddenly being faced with a very angry older brother who smells slightly like cigarette smoke

Wilbur in the Pogtopia coat but it’s some designer piece that’s expensive as hell

It’s his smoking coat

And it’s what he picks Tommy up in

So he smells like smoke

And not the tasteful cologne he usually wears in public

just like a dark overcoat

really expensive wool

Wilbur using it to cover them from the cameras

when they were younger, like 16 and 12, Wilbur would hide Tommy

like no one got a picture of Tommy until he was 14 or 15

Kristin really hid the boys when they were kids too

Tommy trying to peak out and make faces at the camera

it was illegal to get pictures of them younger than 10

like immediate blacklist

And also maybe some legal issues

Wilbur pulls Tommy's hood up over Tommy's head

And it’s very older brother of him too, he pulls it over to protect his face but then cinches the strings to be a little shit

Those Wilbur and Tommy brother moments comps exists in the universe too

But it’s just shit like that

Tommy has a great support system

He really does

His brothers love him

His mom loves him

He has two amazing friends and a bunch of other great friends as well

And sometimes he feels like a brat for throwing all these fits over his dad y’know?

Wilbur always tries to like, keep an arm around him when they're doing red carpets

And keeps Tommy sitting next to him at Royal events

but also like, steals food off his plate

and ruffles his hair

Tommy whispers the fucking worst jokes about the dignitaries and nobles and Wilbur has to keep a straight face

god thats tommys favorite thing to do

he tries so hard to get Wilbur to laugh and lose his shit

The fucking big boobs bit

But it’s Tommy whispering it to Wilbur completely out of context and randomly at a gala

ALSO

THE WHOLE EXTENDED FAMILY BULLSHIT

TOMMY HATES IT

LIKE WHO THE FUCK IS THIS LIKE AUNT TO HIM?

HE DOESNT KNOW HER

But Royal Families are always big on that shiit

They try to hug him n shit

And Tommy depending on how Brave n shit he’s feeling (how fed up he is) will either politely excuse himself or straight up say no and step back with a glare

he's honestly uncomfortable around the strangers

who say they're family

like he's too sober for this

He needs a god damned drink

But he’s in a vest and a nice tie and his crown is sat proper on his head

And he can’t have a drink

god he's like a little doll, he plays by Phil's rules

the crown comes on and he's the proper prince

He fucking hates it

he sips on Wilbur's wine, and does the whole "tequila for water" thing sometimes

Flask in his sleeve

Techno catches him with the flask once and is just impressed

god is that a look on Techno's face

He sees Tommy slip it from his sleeve and somehow sleight off hand take a drink

And it’s just a raised eyebrow and a head nod that says

Good for you

Bc techno also needs a drink during these events

Sometimes Tommy will spike his and Techno's drinks

as Wilbur regally sips on wine

Wilbur fucking also secretly wishing he had a flask during the drier events

Wine drink just isn’t enough sometimes

Wilbur puts on his best face

and pretends he wants to be there

and gives out a warm smile, and raises a glass

god he fucking hates it sometimes

and sometimes he loves it

but man, does he hate it sometimes

Tommy complains and Phil makes a passive aggressive comment about how

“Oh but don’t you love parties Tommy.”

Wilbur sits between them

The table goes

Techno Kristin Phil Wilbur Tommy

Tommy just sneaks another sip of the flask

he doesn't have time to deal with his dads shit

Slumps back in the seat

He probably wouldn’t even try to hide it after that

Not like Phil is actually looking at him

He can let the press have it

He doenst care

just like leaves the flask next to him

under teh table

and jsut takes large swigs from it

Tommy maybe having a group of his friends crash one of the stuffy events

Not an important one

So fucking dedication ceremony to some inane building

He just invites a wild group of socialites

It’s nice

It’s not as wild as a normal Tommy Innit party

But it’s not a stuffy fucking boring ass royal meeting

they just bring some fucking whiskey into the back room and chat shit

Tommy fucking has a group of friends crash this gathering

It’s not wild

But it’s not stuffy

It’s nice

Tommy even drags Wilbur back for at least a little

and that takes a whole lot of work

It really does, Wilbur isn’t even a little tipsy off the wine, and Phil been by him the whole time and it’s just been hell, he can’t get wiobur away from the “socializing” hes doing

but when Wilbur is a bit tipsy he just becomes more charasmatic

truly a king

Less someone putting on a mask for their father

A little bit more authentic

he's a natural, sipping wine with one hand, and shaking hands with the other, crown propped beautifully on his head, million dollar suits hanging off his frame

It’s nice to see his brother in his element

its a bit sad

but its nice

A little yeah, Wilbur’s

Wilbur’s leaving him, not really but

Wilbur being king is-

It’s going to be hard

Different

More than it is already

Wilbur will always love him

But eventually he’ll be too busy for Tommy

Just like Phil is

And it hurts

But that thought is what makes Tommy take a drink of his flask and drag Wilbur to the back room

Wilbur doesn’t have to forget him yet

Tommy looks real regal too

Wilbur wishes that Tommy could see what he sees

But he knows that Tommy’s self worth issues would take more than a nice hug and some warm words to fix

Tommy looks regal, and the gold crown really fits with the whole golden boy aesthetic

and he laughs, and makes conversation with everyome

and everyone eases up around him

Wilbur wishes that Tommy saw what he sees

also

Tommy and Ranboo's texts have been leaked once

Wow so many dog pictures dude

but also

:sparkles:state secrets:sparkles:

That was hell to clean up

it fucking was

it used petnames (which the public is never supposed to know about the nickanmes of royals fun fact)

and said shit about Phil

and detailed Fundy's illness which isn't public

and talked about meetings that Wilbur forced Tommy to attend

Tommy was terrified

Ranboo too

He was so scared someone would be angry at him for it

He doesn’t think he could handle be yelled at for this thing that wasn’t even his fault

like of course he could've not said it over text

but one of his best friends lives an ocean away

and his life is just all about secrets

dont make this something too

:sparkles: hackers :sparkles:

if someone god a hold of Tommy's IP, or Phone, or Phone number

or

dms

they could be using instagram, twitter, or snapchat to have some of these converstaions

dms can get leaked real easily

Mmmm you ever think about Crime Bous

Because all I can think about is when Wilbur does get out of the house, and just like every event they go to

Tommy isn’t a fucking party boy then, he’s just Prince Thomas, Crown Prince William’s baby brother

And they always get photographed and shit

But they have a great time

They’re always smiling when they’re together

Sans Wilbur being a really protective older brother, and when their grandmother died

It’s nice to just go get lunch together at that one specific cafe they’ve been going to for years

Or just walk the dogs together

Just hang out and be brothers

They sit at the same table every time, and Tommy has gotten a Raspberry Lemonade since he was 8

When they walk the dogs, Wilbur holds Walter and Tommy holds Betty

Sunglasses on, big wool overcoats, and pants that were sewn just for them

And they’re seen walking out on the streets during big events a lot too

To like take a breather

Tommy has made a habit of allowing the press to ask him questions whenever they find him

Wilbur on the other hand always knows exactly what to say to press that come up to them

He always shoos them off with a polite “we won’t be answering any question right now thank you” and a blinding smile

And Tommy’s making a face at the press from over his shoulder

Either like sticking his tongue out or making some sort of face at Wilbur

As he gets older, he stops doing it as much because it gets a bit tiring, everything is tiring

But he does it every once in a while, usually a sharp grin over Wilbur’s shoulder accompanied by a middle finger

when like press sees that Wilbur smokes like a lot

hm

big thin

and I feel like Wilbur would straight up be like "its not a big deal, its completely legal"

and hes like smoking 8 cigs a day, but its fine

He doesn’t have an issue

It’s just a little stress relief

King at 21 is a lot to handle

and maybe the stress is so much that it becomes a problem

but hey its his relief

its legal

he's fine

That’s Wilbur’s mantra most of the time

he falls asleep in Tommys bed a lot, waiting for the teen to come home

wilbur does

he finishes a pack, and sighs, rubbing his eyes

The empire is on the brink of war, it always is

He looks in Tommy's room, its empty

And he sits on the bed, waiting

10 minutes later he's asleep

The sheets don’t smell like Wilbur, and Wil thinks that’s what makes it’s so comforting

They don’t stink of nicotine or Wilbur cologne

The smell like Tommy

and while that smell like expensive booze, and coconut shampoo

its perfect

and the dogs are in Tommy's room too

he's a little less alone

Betty is the cuddler

She’ll come up and sleep next to Wil

but she wont do it to just anyone

its a bond, its trust

its the fact that Tommy likes Wilbur

she growls at Phil

she nudges at Kristin, LOVES kristin

anyways

its lonely and sad

because Tommy usually doesnt come back

Tommy snakes back in early in the morning and tucks Wilbur in

Though most times Wilbur falls asleep in Tommys bed

Uncovered

Completely dressed

He’s lucky bettys fur is sleek otherwise his very expensive clothes would be covered

I think Wilbur more often then not will wake up with Tommy in his arms, and that makes him very happy

like, Tommy comes it at 5am, and just snuggles next to Wilbur

It’s makes Tommy sad to know his brother is waiting up for him to never come

But at the same time he’s always so happy to see him when he gets home

I imagine sometimes butlers come to get Wilbur for work, and Tommy makes them leave so that Wilbur can sleep in "Hello your highness, we came to fetch King Wilbur for his morning briefing" "He's sleeping." "Well, I can see that Your Highness -" "So let him sleep." "Prince Thomas -" "Let. Him. Sleep. Okay?" "Yes, Your Highness."

I've decided that Tommy is the big spoon

in these vulranable moments, when Wilbur is weak, Tommy kind of holds him

like obviously there are a lot of tims, where Wilbur wants to hold his baby brother

however, Tommy kind of holds Wilbur, like wraps himself around Wilbur, and puts Wilbur's head in the crook of his neck

this happens when Tommy comes home to find Wilbur in his bed

either this, or Tommy curls into a ball and rests his head against wilburs chest

Tommy has daddy issues

Wilbur has the weiht of the world

Techno has ptsd

Phil: fuck you my kids are completely fine!

Wilbur’s nicotine addiction

Tommys abandonment issues

Technos fucking PTSD

Once, when the empires war was getting really, really bad, and Wilbur had to decide life or death shit

He smoked a whole pack in a day

And then just kept going

His hands wouldn’t stop shaking

why wouldn't they stop fucking shaking

Tommy stopped partying that week, he isn’t ignorant, nor a fucking dick

He was Wilbur’s right hand for as long as he needed him

Despite how badly he wanted to party until he could see straight

His brother needed him

His king needed him

And he will gladly serve Wilbur as long as he would have him

He stood right behind Wilbur

Every decision

He was right behind him

Even if it meant constant decorum and constant royal dress, Tommy was there

And that was a grounding fact

If Tommy hadn’t been there Wilbur thinks he may have lost it that week

Sometimes the only thing that kept Wilbur’s hands from shaking terribly was holding Tommy’s hands

When the advisors and court had left

Tommy would take Wilbur hands and make him do breathing exercises

Wilbur wasn’t allowed to look anywhere other than Tommy’s eyes

They would get through this

Together

They would, Tommy would make sure of it

Tommy in the room also made everyone a bit nervous and loosen up around Wilbur though

Because sometimes they act like they can boss Will around

And Tommy is stone faced, and has the media wrapped around his finger

The court knows that all it would take is one “scandalous statement” from Prince Thomas to end their careers

Wilbur could fire them, but he’s stressed

Any other day, he’s a fucking FORCE to recon with

But Tommy? He’s here to ensure the best or their careers would end

And you know that Tommy has at least 3 sources in the biggest news outlets in the empire

He could get ANYTHING out there

Wilbur’s throne is the biggest in the middle

Two thrones smaller aside him

Within the like office / study / planning room

Tommy's hasn't been used until just then

Tommy finds it quite uncomfy

But he can deal

Also Tommy drops the nicknames for the week or so

No “Big Man”

It was “Will” and “William”

Your Majesty at one or two points

But that felt a little too formal for both of them

Too alienating

Tommy learned a whole fucking lot of fucking politics that week

Not that he didnt listen in his lessons it’s just that

Well

He can’t not listen if he’s not there

It’s different IRL too

Seeing all the decisions

It’s terrifying

And he’s exhausted

Dressing nicely and talking for 12 hours a day about politics

And life / death decisions

So many cuddles dude

Just permanently cuddling if they’re not presently working or “coping”

And I think

That although Wilbur is the one who’s going through it

When they cuddle, Wilbur likes to hold Tommy

Just in the sense that Tommy’s here and safe

In the midst of all the death around Wilbur

He needs to know that his person, his kid is alright

Plus having this one thing this one routine helps him feel a little on control during this out of hand time

:sparkles: Prince Tommy PR leak :sparkles:

I talked about how Tommy was close to his grandmother

and how he was smoking outside of her funeral

maybe it was during that time in his life

really dark place in his mind

smoked and drank every day

Wilbur smoked a lot during that time yet

they probably drank together a few times

like straight up vodka

Just they’re so young and so tired

and so its like, pictures of Wilbur and Tommy (and just Tommy) drinking in the parlor, and in the like, bar area of their private living area, dark eye bags, red eyes, just straight from the bottle

Both of their ties were undone, no jackets, sleeves rolled up to their elbows, Wilbur's top 3 buttons are undone, they're both like manspreading

like they're just at their lowest, particularly Tommy, but Wilbur was having an adjacent bad time

Tommy's hair is a fuckin' mess

HOWEVER, they're both still clean shaven, neither of their shorts or trousers are wrinkled or stained

They may be going through it, but the royal image waits for no one

How does the castle react? Immediate lock down.

Interrogations or some shit

none of the princes are allowed to leave

they have to do clean up

they write scripts essentially for Tommy and Wilbur to adress the press

they need to send out a memo that they don't agree with underage drinking

its all structured, scripted, and written by advisors (and their father)

major damage control

which is just not what Tommy needs right now, because he's like trying to work through his grief

and Wilbur has a fucking fight with his father about that

Phil does not care

They fucked up

Someone else fucked up

And now they’re going to be big boys and fix it Like Phil's going to Tommy's room to get him to look over what his quick press tour and Wilbur jsut stops him in front of the door "He's fucking grieving - Let him have a moment will you? Don't you know how close he was with Gran?" "You messed up. He messed up. Now you're gonna be big boys and fix it." “You’re horrible sometimes you know that?” “I am your father” “Then act like it, your majesty”

meanwhile Tommy: in bed, hasn't slept, major depressive spiral, cuddling Betty, Walter standing guard at his door, holding onto a blanket that his grandmother gave him

just - can't even cry anymore

just empty

Literally just despondent

Staring at the ceiling as Betty noses his face

like good luck getting to get up, let alone read shit

He hasn’t showered in days

He is very much not presentable

like it's only been a week or two since his grandmother's death

and he still is processing

He is no where near done grieving

[dusksmote]

Is there any background info you can give on characters in WTSAU?

Like any cool hc you give the characters?

okay i have SO MANY 😩 but i can’t say all the best ones until later cuz they involve SPOILERS

so i’ll try to say all the ones i can with the information given:

Style:

- Kyle’s had feelings for Stan since he realized he was gay, which was in middle school. When Stan came out as bi he told Kyle first, before Wendy, even though they were dating at the time. Kyle’s insecurities prevented from acting on his feelings even after they broke up.

- Wendy has pegged Stan in the past, but Kyle is the first guy Stan’s ever been with. Wendy has come around to support their relationship since the events of ETL chapter 4.

- Stan is always the first one to say ‘I love you’.

- Kyle was the last one in their big friend group to lose his virginity, but he has one of the highest sex drives of the guys. He and Stan switch off being top almost equally, but Kyle prefers to top and Stan prefers to bottom. they fuck daily.

- When they want to have a hard, passionate fuck Kyle tops. when they want to have slow, emotional sex Stan tops. Kyle has slight sadist tendencies (inflicts pain) and Stan has masochist tendencies (receives pain). Stan is especially into breathplay (choking, face sitting, crushing, etc.) and assplay. he’s the best ass eater (so call him a bottom feeder 😂) and Kyle’s superior in the blowjob department.

- Stan has hyperhidrosis, meaning he sweats more than the average person. this is why their rooms/the truck/anywhere they fuck smells so strong. there’s a few hints for this in ETL/WTSAU, he keeps antiperspirant in his locker and in the truck, he gets really sweaty whenever they have sex. Stan also has asthma and acne, which Kyle’s been helping him treat. Kyle loves popping his zits for him.

- Conversely, Kyle is super hygienic and always tries to keep himself clean and dry. when Sharon comes into Stan’s room in chapter 1 and describes the smell, the gym locker scent is Stan, the Old Spice is Kyle, and the ‘inside of a rubber balloon’ is their latex lubricant. 

- Everyone at school considers them the obnoxious, overly romantic couple. they hold hands, cuddle, kiss, and dirty talk in front of everyone. they think they can get away with it without people noticing but they’re chronically conspicuous and not stealthy. the working title for the fanfic was actually ‘Ain’t Slick’ for a while before it changed to What They Say About Us!

- they’re fucking devoted to each other and are exclusively monogamous. Stan is especially protective of Kyle and Kyle is fiercely possessive of Stan. 

- Kyle applied as a math major in his college applications, and will eventually get a PhD for logic and set theory. Stan’s a bio major and wants to go into physical therapy.

- Stan doesn’t smoke weed out of principle (because of his dad) so Kyle also doesn’t smoke in solidarity. 

- Kyle is a type 2 diabetic, and doesn’t need to always take insulin. his weight gain began with the World of Warcraft episode and was maintained instead of lost like in the show. his weight is a cyclical feedback loop of: genetics (mom’s side of the family), too much insulin (when using insulin therapy), and diet. this led to him developing lordosis (excessive weight warps his spine) so he didn’t grow as tall as he would have, and makes his weight appear more exaggerated. short stature, weight, and body image issues led to quitting basketball which in turn contributes more to his weight. this impacts his self-worth which leads to stress eating. his biggest fear is that he’ll never stop gaining weight and will end up as big or bigger than Cartman.

- Stan has gained a few pounds since he started dating Kyle, while Kyle has lost a few.

Cutters/Bunnyman/Kenrietta:

- Kenny is straight, but has voluntarily sucked dick before. he and henrietta have hooked up a few times in the past after running into each other at poetry slam events which Kenny takes Karen to. 

- Butters and Cartman are exclusively gay, and think girls are fucking gross. they’ve only every slept with each other.

- Kenny, Cartman, and Butters are all best friends and do pretty much everything together. even though Butters and Cartman are dating, Kenny never feels like a third wheel because they rarely act romantic in front of anyone (including him). however, when Style start dating and Cutters come out about their relationship, Kenny begins feeling like a fifth wheel.

- Butters lives almost entirely at Cartman’s house. His parents actually don’t mind because they enjoy not having him around. Liane is 100% the cool mom from mean girls who asks them if they want snacks or a condom. Sometimes all three of them crash at Kenny’s house for variety (or when he has to watch Karen because his mom is drinking/out of the house).

- Kenny wants to study psychology in college and become a family therapist or social worker. he’s taking a gap year to save money then going to community college. Cartman and Butters applied to the same schools and plan to stick together long-term.

- Butters and Cartman’s relationship started as experimenting with each other as their sexualities developed, and began after Cartman confided that he had sexual feelings for Kyle. Cartman and Butters have also developed genuine feelings for each other, and overtime their relationship transformed into what it is now. because of how their relationship started, they’re very open about any sexual feelings they have for other people and have a ‘hall pass’ for friends they’re allowed to fuck if given the chance, without it considered cheating.

- Butters is a huge gossip. he will promise to keep secrets and then immediately turn around and tell Cartman--which totally happened after Kyle said he thinks Stan has a crush on him in ETL chapter 2. Butters and Cartman keep nothing from each other, and the only secrets they won’t tell are the ones about each other. 

- Kenny is the easiest of the larger friend group to confide in, and keeps every secret he’s given. he’s known Cartman and Butters have been together since the beginning, about Cartman’s crush on Kyle, and Kyle’s crush on Stan. People naturally come to him for advice and to vent. The least likely person to confide in him is Kyle, who’s more likely to curl in on himself instead of expressing his feelings.

-SO much shit about Cartman and Butters’ relationship I can’t say yet because it comes up in the fic 😩 please ask me about these two again later when i can say more!!!

Creek:

- Tweek is a dom top and Craig’s his catamite. they try to get away with sex anywhere they can and have gotten very stealthy because of it. Tweek also has one of the highest sex drives of their friend group, and Craig will let him do whatever he wants anywhere, anytime. 

- Tweek is constantly high on stimulants (cocaine, meth, adderall, etc.) and Craig experiments with him in certain settings. this is what gives Tweek his boosted self-confidence and flippant attitude. 

- Pete Thelman (hair flip goth) is their coke dealer. Tweek trades him his ADHD meds for it, which Pete resells to posers. If Tweek doesn’t have enough to cover the cost he and Craig make up the rest by giving Pete sexual favors. sometimes they have threesomes for fun too.

- Tweek and Craig both think Kyle is hot and would fuck him given the chance. being open about this with each other makes them feel closer and strengthens their relationship. they have roleplayed as Stan and Kyle in bed before while high out of their minds.

- they're deeply in love and would do anything for each other. Craig could get Tweek to stop taking drugs if he wanted to but right now they enjoy experimenting with them together. in the words of everyone who know them, ‘Tweek and Craig are perfectly fucked up for each other’. 

Kyle’s family:

- Sheila’s biggest regret as a parent is letting Kyle get fat, because she was also overweight as a kid and dealt with the same issues he does now. It’s the same reason she feels obligated to help Kyle’s cousin overcome his weight dilemma (by trying to get him and Stan to hang out).

- Ike is an eboy who loves lil peep. He, Karen, Tricia, and Firkle all make tiktoks together and complain about their gay older brothers/friends.

- random fun fact: If Ike and Karen get married that would mean Kyle and Kenny are brothers-in-law, which would mean the main five all end up as extended family to one another.

Stan’s family:

- Sharon has plans to divorce Randy but is waiting until Stan leaves for college to not uproot him from school and his friends.

- Grandpa Marsh is still kickin’ in the old folks home and Shelly’s off in college.

- Randy’s a narcissist who lives vicariously through Stan’s accomplishments in sports. the easiest way to explain it is: Randy’s not as proud of Stan for being a successful athlete and attractive jock as he is proud of himself for producing one. Stan’s ability to get laid with (he presumes) hot girls makes Randy feel like he has game too. one of the reasons he’s disgusted by Stan’s relationship with Kyle is if Stan’s fucking some big fat guy it doesn’t align with his narrative. 

-

this is just the stuff i could think of off the top of my head, i’ll probably come back and add more to this as i remember it. ask me again in a few chapters!!! i have so much i want to say about bunnyman, cutters, the future for style, and their families that i can’t say yet!

[my-emotional-self]

The Soulmates Chapter 8

Moodboard by @princess-evans-addict​

Pairings: Steve Rogers x OFC x Bucky Barnes

Warnings:  Swearing, exotic dancing, drug use

Summary: Being born with the words of two soulmates was rare, and you were one of them.  You had no idea that when you started a new job as Pepper Potts’ personal assistant you would end up finding both of your soulmates.  Things start off great, but what happens when Steve and Bucky find out about your double life and your side job?

You stayed with Steve and Bucky Monday night, not having to work at the club as it was closed. Tuesday and Wednesday flew by way too fast.  Tuesday was a regular night at the club for you, but it was now Wednesday evening as you left your apartment and headed to the club.  It was Rock night; the night you dreaded most.  You never had to work Rock night in the past, but now you did and you were not looking forward to it.  The girls always complained how it was their least favorite night to work because the tips were horrible.  The men were grungy and touchy and most of the tips were in the form of one dollar whereas on the nights you worked, you usually got nothing smaller than a ten dollar bill.  Plus, you had regulars that came in just for you on your regular nights.  Now you were forced to work all five nights the club was open.  

Sitting at your vanity station, you began to pile on the black eyeliner and eyeshadow.  You were already dressed in your new red leather underwear with a cut up Linkin Park t-shirt.  It was cut like a crop top and you cut the collar so it hung off your right shoulder.  The black eye makeup really stood out against your red long wig.  

Tommy came into the room and set down a tray of cocaine in front of you; handing you a rolled up bill. “Have at it kid,” he encouraged with a smile.  You did two lines quickly, throwing your head back and sniffing deeply; rubbing your hand over your nose to clean yourself of the evidence.  “You’re up next.”

Giving Tommy a nod, you took one last look in the mirror.  “You can do this,” you whispered to yourself, standing up and heading out the door and towards the stage.  

“We’ve got a surprise for you tonight!  Everyone, welcome to the stage, Nikita!” the DJ announced as ‘Numb’ by Linkin Park began to play.  The crowd immediately began to cheer, more than likely from the song choice as you grabbed the pole.  

I’m tired of being what you want me to be

Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface

I don’t know what you’re expecting from me

Put under the pressure, of walking in your shoes

Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow

Every step that I take is another mistake to you

Caught in the undertow, caught in the undertow

You gripped the pole and hooked the back of your knee around the pole.  Quickly you began to spin around, feeling free as you kept twisting around the pole.  You thought this was a good song to start with, because at this point, you did feel numb. Having to lie to your soulmates was hard, and while you had thought about saying ‘fuck it’ and trying to get out of your deal with Tommy, you knew he could do some serious damage to you and you didn’t want to end up dead in a dumpster anywhere.  

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there

Become so tired, so much more aware

By becoming this all I want to do

Is be more like me and less like you

Can’t you see that you’re smothering me?

Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control

‘Cause everything that you thought I would be

Has fallen apart right in front of you

You got off the pole, dancing erotically as you entertained the crowd in front of you.  You felt disgusted as this crowd was not your typical business men you were used to.  Getting to your knees, you began to gyrate your hips and whip your head around. Immediately you felt grimy hands on you and you shuddered, but kept in character.  

Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow

Every step that I take is another mistake to you

Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow

And every second I waste is more than I can take!

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there

Become so tired, so much more aware

By becoming this all I want to do

Is be more like me and be less like you

And I know I may end up failing too

Making your way back to the pole, using your hands you climbed up a bit and twisted so you were upside down.  

But I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there

Become so tired, so much more aware

By becoming this all I want to do

Is be more like me and be less like you

Still hanging upside down, you spread your legs so the pole was between them as you slowly slid down the pole.  As the song ended, the audience cheered and you quickly made your way off stage. Only one more song tonight and you were done.  Tommy kept his regular Rock night girls as the main event and you were happy with that. Usually you did anywhere from 4-6 songs on your regular night and you were grateful only having to do two of them tonight.  

“I feel like I’m dying I’m so tired,” you whined as you sat down on your chair.  One of the girls you had seen around, Starr, came over and sat next to you.  

“Here, take these. They help you stay awake,” she said as she placed two capsules down in front of you.

“What are they?”

“Adderall.  Tommy has a dealer so if you need more, you can ask him. I have a day job and these are a life saver!”

With how tired you were feeling, you didn’t even give it a second thought as you put the pills in your mouth and swallowed them with a big gulp of water.  

~~~

You didn’t sleep at all that night and you were still wide awake as you got to work the following morning. The Adderall really helped as it had a much longer lasting effect than the cocaine.  You ended up deep cleaning your entire apartment that night; the pills making you energized and feeling like you had to constantly be doing something.

That day at work, you were still running around like crazy.  You had gotten so much done you actually found yourself sitting at your desk, tapping your foot on the floor as you finished all your work and didn’t have anything to do.  

You were relieved when Pepper came into your office, letting you know it was lunch time.  But by then, the Adderall was beginning to wear off and you felt yourself beginning to crash.  You were beginning to think you took too much for your first time.  

“Hey sweetheart,” Steve said from behind you, startling you as you nearly dropped your plate of food on the floor.  “I’m sorry. Did I scare you?” he asked with concern.

You waved him off, giving him a weak smile.  “M’fine. Just tired,” you replied as you headed over to the large table and sat down.  

Bucky sat down to your right as his metal hand reached out and rubbed at your neck, making you moan at the feeling of how good it felt.  

“Are you feeling alright doll?” he asked as his hand moved lower and rubbed at your back.  

You nodded as you felt your eyes begin to droop.  “Yeah. It’s just with helping out my friend at night, it’s already starting to take a toll on me.  I’m tired.”

“You got a new job?” Pepper asked from across the table, sounding worried.  

You couldn’t help but chuckle at her worried tone.  “I’m helping a friend out Tuesdays thru Saturdays in the evenings.  She’s helped me a lot in the past and she was desperate. I didn’t want to let her down.”

“Well that’s very nice of you Rosalie.”

“Don’t worry Pepper. I don’t plan on leaving you high and dry,” you responded with a smile.  

“Good.   Because I don’t know what I would do if you quit. You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had.”

Emotions swirled from within you.  You had never known what it felt to be truly wanted or needed before, especially growing up. And here you were, feeling that way with not only Pepper, but with your soulmates as well.  

The rest of lunch was a rather quiet affair.  Bruce even emerged from the lab to grab a plate of food before quickly disappearing yet again.  

You gave Bucky and Steve a quick kiss before going back to your office; happy that Pepper had more stuff for you to get done.  

~~~

Steve and Bucky headed into the gym; both of them quiet.  

“She’s lying again,” Steve spoke freely as they each began to run on their own treadmills.  

Bucky turned his head to face Steve; his face sullen.  “I know pal. There’s something she’s not telling us about this job with her friend but I don’t know how to bring it up to her.”

Steve sighed next to his soulmate as he broke out into a fast run, wanting to take his aggression out. He was without a doubt beginning to fall in love with you and he knew Bucky was too.  But you were still a bit guarded and while he had no problems with that, he didn’t want you to keep lying to them.  

“Maybe we just flat out ask her.  Ask her where she’s working with her friend.  That way we can stop by every once in a while.”

Bucky shrugged, giving Steve a nod.  “That sounds like a good idea.  We can tell her we would like to bring her dinner every once in a while and see her on her break.”

The two of them jogged side by side on their treadmills; jogging for miles before calling it quits. By the time they were done, they were both dripping with sweat.  

Steve reached out for a towel, wiping the sweat off his face as Bucky chugged from his water bottle. Steve sighed, sitting down on the bench, hanging his head down low.  

“What’s on your mind?” Bucky asked, sitting next to his soulmate.

Steve shook his head, placing the towel over his neck as he turned to face Bucky.  “There’s just-I just feel like there’s more to her that she’s not telling us.  She seemed so energetic this morning when she got to work, and in a matter of a few hours, she was the complete opposite and looking ready to crash.”

“Well, I mean she did start her other job with her friend.  She could have just had a second wind this morning with working all day yesterday and all night.”

Steve thought about that for a second before shaking his head.  “Yeah I know.  But something just seems more off about her.  I mean…,” he stopped short, not knowing how to continue.  “Fuck!  Things are going so good between us but she’s barely opened up to us and now she’s lying to us, I know it.”

Bucky gripped Steve’s chin, tilting his head to face him.  “Hey.  We’ll get to the bottom of this.  One way or another.  We’ll get her to open up to us more and we’ll get her to tell us what is really going on. We are not going to lose her Stevie. She’s our soulmate and we aren’t going to let her go.”

Steve smiled at him, nodding his head before leaning forward and catching his lips.  

~~~

While you were grateful that Pepper found stuff to keep you preoccupied after work, you were utterly exhausted, barely able to focus.  By 2 pm that afternoon, you found yourself nearly falling asleep at your desk.  Your eyes kept roaming over to your purse, knowing there was still some cocaine in there.  

With a sigh, you got up from your desk, grabbed your purse and headed to the bathroom.  Locking the door, you placed your purse on the counter and opened the small compartment on the inside.  With shaky hands, you pulled the small baggie with white powder out. You knew this was a bad idea; you knew you would be falling down a deeper hole you ever wanted to, but at this point, you didn’t have a choice.  You needed this job more than anything.  This job brought you happiness; something you never in your life thought you would have.  It brought you a friend in Pepper, and it helped you find your soulmates.  

Without another thought, you opened the baggie, dipped your pinkie fingernail in it and inhaled it into your right nostril.  Your eyes were clenched shut as you felt the illegal substance take its course through your body.  You sniffled a few times, making sure you got everything down your nose before cleaning yourself up.  

Taking a look in the mirror, you felt disgusted with yourself but you knew your life could be much worse.  This was just a little something you needed to get you through your day.  Just a few more weeks of working all the extra shifts at the club and you would be fully adjusted; not needing anything extra to get you through your days.  Right?

As you made your way back to your office, Bucky and Steve were sitting in the chair across from your desk, waiting for you.  

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” you asked with a smirk, sitting down behind your desk as you folded your hands on the surface.  

Steve leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees.  “We were hoping to stop by your job tonight and drop off some dinner for you.”

Immediately you felt your neck and palms break out into a sweat.  You knew sooner or later they would want to come visit you and that was just not an option right now.  Not only would they be disappointed that you had been lying to them about what exactly you were doing, you knew they would be downright pissed at where you were working. Standing on stage, nearly naked and dancing exotically for men every right.  Steve and Bucky were so protective of you, sometimes overly protective. And while you didn’t mind it, you knew things would not be good if they found out what you did at night.  Hell, they would angrily glare at men who just looked in your direction while the three of you would go out together in public.

“Umm, wow, that’s umm, so nice of you and all.  But umm, you know, I haven’t really told her about you two yet,” you stammered out.  

“Are you ashamed of us doll?” Bucky asked, his voice laced with sadness.  

Your eyes grew wide and you quickly jumped up from your chair and rushed over to him.  Placing your hands on his cheeks, you leaned forward and kissed him passionately.  Naturally, he took your breath away with the kiss.  

“No Bucky.  I am not ashamed of either of you.  I’m proud to call you both my soulmates,” you promised as you gazed into his eyes.  “It’s just, I would like to keep you two to myself for a little bit longer is all. I’m just not ready to share you with my friends quite yet.”  That made both of them laugh and you internally let out sigh of relief.  

They let you get back to work and you sat at your desk, pondering what to do next.  While it had been a few weeks of finding and being with your soulmates, you still hadn’t truly opened up all the way yet.  You had yet to tell them about your life growing up and the way you were treated in your family.  While it wasn’t your fault the way your parents treated you, you still felt shameful and embarrassed about it.  But this was Bucky and Steve you were talking about; your soulmates.  They had done nothing but treat you with respect; making you feel loved and wanted for the first time in your life.  They deserved to know about your past, about your life growing up.  

Letting out a sigh, you determined that next week you would sit them down and open up.  But for now, you just needed to get through the rest of the week first.  

[hms-chill]

RWRB Study Guide: Chapter 7

Hi y’all! I’m going through Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue and defining/explaining references! Feel free to follow along, or block the tag #rwrbStudyGuide if you’re not interested!

Crêpe-eating tourists (157): Crepes are a thin, flat pancake traditionally filled with sugar, but commonly filled with other toppings. They are an iconic French dish and are popular with tourists both for this reason and because they are typically inexpensive.

Place du Tertre (157): A square in Paris, it is in the Montmarte district, which is known for its art history.

Crusty baguettes (157): Baguettes are a French bread that is meant to be crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.

Le Monde (158): The most popular French newspaper.

Fromagerie Nicole Barthélémy (158): A famously wonderful cheese shop in Paris.

Parisian cheese shop (158): French cheese are known for being fancy and especially good.

Pisces (159): A zodiac sign known for being compassionate, artistic, and intuitive. (more)

NYU (159): New York University.

The Met (159): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a famous art museum in New York.

Joanne (160): JK Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter books, and has been pretty consistently homophobic and transphobic on twitter. 

Freddie Mercury (161): Lead singer of the band Queen, Mercury never officially came out, but he had long-term relationships with both men and women and was known for his camp performances, and there are claims that he was “openly gay”. His flamboyance and camp performances, as well as his relationship with partner Jim Hutton, essentially demanded that people simply take him as he was. He died of complications from AIDS in 1991, one day after admitting openly that he had been diagnosed four years earlier. (More)

For context within the book, he wrote “Don’t Stop Me Now”

Elton John (161): A famous British musician. He came out as bisexual in 1976, then as gay in 1992. He and his husband, David Furnish, became civil partners in 2005, the day they became legal in the UK. They were officially married on the ninth anniversary of their civil partnership, the year that gay marriage was legalized within the UK. (More)

Bowie (161): David Bowie, who was a bi British musician and actor who, in 1976, described his bisexuality as “the best thing that ever happened to me”. His wife (who was also bi, and with whom he often shared partners) claimed that he had a relationship with Mick Jagger, though his bisexuality has been consistently erased, both during his life and since his death. (More)

Again for book context, Henry’s dog is named for David Bowie

Jagger (161): Mick Jagger, an English singer/songwriter and member of the Rolling Stones, known for his promiscuity. As mentioned above, he and Bowie pretty clearly had a relationship, though his Wikipedia makes no mention of queerness. (More)

Oakley Street (161): A street that runs through an affluent borough of London.

Stonewall (161): The Stonewall Inn in New York City is a gay bar. The riots against police brutality there in July of 1969 are heralded as the beginning of the gay rights movement.

SCOTUS decision in 2015 (161): The Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage across the US.

Walt Whitman (161): An American poet who wanted to become The American Poet and saw himself as the quintessential American. His poetry often deals with his queerness, and he absolutely slept with Oscar Wilde in the late 1800s. 

Fun fact; he is celebrated in the movie The Dead Poets Society, which is incredibly popular with Sad Gay English Majors and which Henry would definitely have seen.

Laws of Illinois 1961 (161): In 1961, Illinois became the first state in the US to repeal its sodomy laws.

White Night Riot (161): A series of riots in San Francisco protesting the lenient sentencing of the man who killed Harvey Milk, the first openly queer politician. The riots were the most violent queer uprising since the events at the Stonewall.

Paris is Burning (161): A 1990s movie celebrating drag ball culture in New York. It celebrates in particular queer communities of color in the late 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic was at its peak.

“If I die of AIDS...” (161): This is a real photo; you can find it here. The man’s jacket could refer to a form of protest called “die-ins”, where people with AIDS would go to a homophobic politician’s office or another public place where they were refused treatment and simply not leave until after they died. (see it here)

Chop my own tit off (162): Fun mythology fact; the Amazons (warrior women from Greek mythology) actually did this to make themselves better archers.

H fucking W (162): George HW Bush, a former US president.

George (163): George Villers was the boyfriend of King James the I/VI, and Prince George, Duke of Kent, was rumored to be in a polyamorous relationship in the 1920s. 

Edward (162): Edward II was a famously gay king. He was may have been "wedded brothers" with Piers Gaveston and may have also had a relationship with Hugh le Despenser the younger following Gaveston's death. (More)

James (162): The British king known for translating the Bible and being just... indescribably gay and very deeply horny. He promoted his boyfriend, George Villers, to the highest non-royal position in the UK within a few years of starting to date him. James’s friends actively tried to set him up with hot guys for their own political gain.

Alexander (163): Alexander Hamilton was an incredibly bi founding father. He’s remembered for founding our current national banking system, having the first ever American sex scandal, and for literally never shutting up or knowing how to stop being A Lot All The Time. 

Catalina (164): Catalina is an island near Los Angeles. On a more meta level, St. Catalina was a respected writer.

June (164): June Carter Cash was an American singer/songwriter/director/comedian.

Tricky Dick (164): Richard Nixon, a president remembered for wiretapping his opponent.

Taft (165): 27th president of the United States.

Eisenhower (165): 34th president of the US.

Baby (166): this is what Henry’s mom calls him; I wrote a thing about it here.

Daily Mail (166): A trashy British tabloid.

Lollapalooza (167): A music festival in Chicago known for setting fashion trends and having lots of drugs.

Joni Mitchell (167): A singer/songwriter known for her innovative use of the guitar, including unique tunings, chords, and a unique fingerpicking/strumming style. (Listen here)

Cocaine (168): A highly addictive drug. It is snorted, smoked, or injected, and while it makes people feel more confident or forget their problems, the highs from it last only up to about 30 minutes, which often drives people to take it more frequently. Side effects (aside from addiction) include a loss of appetite, irritability, and increased mental health issues. 

Spitfire (168): Someone with a quick temper or willingness to fight.

High as a kite (169): Someone who’s “high as a kite” is on a lot of drugs and is still enjoying the high.

Clean (169): Drug/alcohol free.

Stiff upper lip (170): Ability to seem determined or hold it together in the face of hard times.

A levels (170): A UK test taken for admittance to college, similar to the ACT/SAT in the US

Henry V at RSC (171): Henry V is a Shakespearean history play about the life of Henry V, especially focused on the events of the Hundred Years’ War. RSC, or the Royal Shakespeare Company, is a Shakespeare theater company in London.

Travis County (171): The Texan county where Austin is located.

Surfside (171): A beach in Texas.

Adderall (172): A prescription drug taken for ADHD but commonly abused by students to help them stay awake for all-nighters or focused for unhealthily long study sessions. However, given McQuinston’s claim that Alex has undiagnosed ADHD, it likely helped him to be able to focus and helped his brain work the way it was expected to.

Almond milk (vs. dairy) (173): Texas has a huge dairy industry, and almond milk is not great for the environment.

The Gun File (173): American gun law is so deeply broken.

WASPy Hunter’s Harvard pencil cup (175): Harvard is a prestigious college in Boston; it has a reputation for being mostly rich white folks.

Iron curtains of gerrymandering (175): Gerrymandering is a form of drawing lines for voting districts to disenfranchise marginalized voters. It is a form of skewing elections to keep power in the hands of the powerful that divides marginalized votes, making people of color or poor folks the minority in their districts, therefore erasing their votes on a broader scale.

Vision-boarding his funeral (175): a vision board is typically made to inspire someone to pursue a goal.

Parks & Recreation (175): A popular American sit-com focused on the parks and recreation department in a small town in Indiana. 

Leslie Knope (176): a Parks & Rec character. One of her defining traits is an aggressive, overwhelming love for the people in her life.

Mid-century rug (177): Mid-century furniture and style is characterized by lots of color and playful patterns (following the more reserved WWII period in the 1940s); it is rising in popularity again as a classy yet fashionable look.

J14 (178): A teen fashion/celebrity magazine.

Sacramento Bee (178): The largest newspaper in Sacramento, CA.

Southerness (180): In positive lights, the American South is known for its genuine, warm, unselfish hospitality.

Jane Austen my life (180): Jane Austen is a British author whose novels star lower/middle class women who fall in love with rich men. They typically try to avoid these men for large portions of the book, or at least have rather negative feelings about them due to a misunderstanding or other failure to communicate.

LSAT (181): the test taken for admittance to law school.

Carmarthenshire (183): A largely agricultural county in South Wales. As a tourist destination, it is known for its wide range of outdoor activities.

Llwynywermod (184): A royal estate in Carmarthenshire, the biggest building of which is a renovated three-bedroom farmhouse. It is surrounded by the rolling green hills common to south Wales.

Finals (in the US) (185): At US colleges, a semester’s final tests (typically worth up to 30-40% of a final grade) take place the week after classes end.

Stamp on his forehead at The Tombs (185): Tombs is a bar near Georgetown. According to reviews, and “Tombs Night” parties, where students celebrate their 21st birthday and get their foreheads stamped at the end of the night, are a Georgetown tradition.

Jumped in Dalhgren Fountain (185): Dalhgren Fountain is in the center of Georgetown’s campus. Swimming in it is a Georgetown tradition.

Summa cum laude (186): “with greatest honor”.

Ceviche (186): A seafood dish native to Peru that spread to Mexico, where it contains lime, avocado, chili peppers, onions, and cilantro.

Palm Room (187): The gateway to the West Wing, the area of the White House where most politics happen.

Hoe Dameron (190): A reference to Star Wars character Poe Dameron, a rebel pilot and the first Latino main character in the series.

Prince Buttercup (190): Princess Buttercup is the heroine/love interest in The Princess Bride, 

West Hollywood (190): One of the most prominent gay neighborhoods in the US.

“Call Me” (191): The most popular song of 1980; it was originally written for the film American Gigolo and inspired by the film’s opening sequence of a character driving along the coast of California. (Listen here)

“So Emotional” (191): An absolute bop about enjoying being in love. (Listen here)

“Don’t Stop Me Now” (193): A Queen song where Mercury sings to both a man and a woman; it’s a huge bop. (Listen here)

In-N-Out (194): A fast food restaurant/burger chain native to California and unavailable in other states.

Animal style (195): Animal style burgers are an In-N-Out staple; it includes the typical burger toppings, along with mustard fried into the patty, pickles, onions, and extra spread.

French-fries-dipped-in-milkshake (195): a truly god-tier American dessert tradition.

“O captain, my captain” (196): A reference both to the idea of a lacrosse team captain and to Whitman’s poem, “O Captain, My Captain” (as mentioned above, Whitman was a deeply gay American poet).

Burberry (200): A posh British brand of clothing known for its classy, traditional pieces.

Cats that caught the canaries (200): A cat that caught a canary is a person who looks smug or satisfied.

Mother hen (201): A “mom friend” or someone who will do everything they can to look out for people they care about, sometimes to the point of it being annoying.

—-

If there’s anything I missed or that you’d like more on, please let me know! And if you’d like to/are able, please consider buying me a ko-fi? I know not everyone can, and that’s fine, but these things take a lot of time/work and I’d really appreciate it!

—–

Chapter 1 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 8 

[wundcrlust]

Get to know them: The muses pt 2 ( Mina. )

Okay so I think it’s time we get into the deep dark depths of my little muses and their psyche’s. Mainly their flaws. All the flaws. This is part two of six. Don’t feel the need to read it, it’s just information I’m dumping.  Wilhelmina Bergmann:: Ah yes, this bitch. She is number two on the messed up in the head list. Not number one, but a close second by a *c hair*. I love her, but her flaws are a part of her.  This one is rough. It got real very quickly and hoo boy. tw: rape mention, drug use, drug mention, abuse mention, mental illness mention, depression mention, death mention, suicide mention. 

Mina’s version of love is a fucked up one. At least what she knows as love. Her parents weren’t physically abusive, but the purest love one’s supposed to know was tainted with slighted comments, passive aggressive jabs, and insults. So she only knows that love hurts and even if it’s real, it’s painful. 

This is why she hasn’t been in a successful relationship, and the ones she’s had that have worked aren’t very good ones. Truth be told I don’t think she knows how to love, romantically at least. She thinks it’s her duty as a woman ( again this stems from her childhood ) to make sure she’s the best at domestic duties. Basically that her entire life’s purpose is to make men happy. Why she moonlights what she does, as a form of punishment for both her and her clients. 

Mina views herself as a broken shell of a human, someone who wasn’t good enough to keep around and someone who probably shouldn’t stay. This is self inflicted and manifests itself in her refusal to let others in. Even her friends she’s known her entire life remain in the dark about her deepest secrets. 

After Mina was raped at 17, she developed a skewed sense of sex. It’s why she’s afraid to do anything with people she might actually truthfully love. Because she opened herself up to the young man - someone she trusted wholeheartedly - and in return he used her body for his own selfish needs. So now she uses it for the same thing. Because no one else can use you if you’re using them first.

Mina was a drug addict, which is why she almost exclusively smokes weed. She drinks every once in a while, but it’s controlled. After high school, she started with adderall in college. Then graduated to harder drugs like cocaine to keep the thrill. It got her through her first years of Med school, but she kept it hidden from her friends. Especially her family. This caused a deep depression once she weaned herself off of it, she closed herself off and even tried to reach out to her parents, but they brushed it off. This caused a riff between them that hasn’t healed. And it probably won’t.

Speaking of family, Mina’s terrified of starting one. Of finding her people and settling into a sense of normalcy. Because what is normal? But also because of her parents’ decision after she got pregnant at sixteen to adopt her child out. 

She has a fear of losing control. It’s manifested in many realms of her life. In her professional career - she’s able to control how people are in death. Mainly because she has a fear and fascination of it after Mortiz’ attempted suicide. She wants to know how to stop death if possible. In her sex life, in the form of her moonlighting career. And in her friendships, where she has quite literally convinced herself if she doesn’t try to feel deep enough,she won’t miss them if they left her again.

[edithaint-blog]

On Drugs

If you drink alcohol, you do drugs. If you drink coffee, you do drugs. If you smoke weed, you do drugs. If you smoke or chew tobacco, you do drugs. If you take aspirin, you do drugs. If you use an opioid for pain, an amphetamine for ADHD, a benzodiazepine for anxiety, an MAOI for depression, an antipsychotic for schizophrenia, a cholinergic for dementia....YOU DO DRUGS.

We ALL do drugs

Drugs are everywhere.

Everything.

It doesn't matter if a doctor prescribed it. If you will die or suffer greatly without a certain medication, you have a drug dependency. No ifs, ands, or buts. Prescription drugs can be just as dangerous and addicting, if not more so, that illicit street drugs. That doctor's prescription only provides the illusion of safety; despite our scientific advances, we humans are woefully ignorant of our own biology. We know nothing. We understand nothing.

My point?

Stop disrespecting drug addicts. If you don't think you're being disrespectful, you probably are. Do you think heroin addicts need help? Meth addicts? Alcoholics? Okay, fine. Maybe they need help. But their drug use is NOT the root issue. Your back pain is the root issue, right? Your depression is the issue, right? I thought so. Do you think heroin addicts need methadone? Opioid antagonists, like Narcan? Against their free will? Because they're on drugs, not mentally capable of making their own decisions? Then you're an arrogant bastard. That, my good people, is your problem.

If you take Adderall, you are on meth. If you NEED Adderall, you are a meth addict. How do you feel about meth addicts? If you think their brains are too addled to be allowed bodily autonomy....touche! You have no right to place yourself on a pedestal. Nor do any medical professionals, as they themselves consume drugs that may alter their cognitive function.

We ALL do.

Don't get me wrong, I mean no disrespect. See above: stop disrespecting drug addicts. No, you may not condone certain decisions, silly mistakes, violent action, BUT you mustn't see yourself as inherently superior because "doctor's orders" or some other bullshit. Just as you take hydrocodone for pain, the heroin addict also medicates for some kind of pain. Just as you take methamphetamine for ADHD, the meth addict medicates some imbalance in their life. The only difference between the "good patient" and the street junkie? The junkie isn't naive enough to trust some meaningless college degree. A good patient is an obedient fool, too stupid to realize how stupid we ALL are.

Nothing is certain and no one is whole.

I firmly oppose legal restrictions on ALL drugs, from cannabis to crack cocaine. Yes! Chaos! Violence! Death! But this chaos is already happening, these dark primordial forces always deep within our bones. Our laws and governments only mask this chaos, rebrand it, redirect it to another outlet. Police don't prevent violence, they monopolize it. Doctors don't treat disease, they swap symptoms and prolong the inevitable. Methadone doesn't treat opioid dependency, it provides a different dependency with the pretty red tape of government intervention. Even counseling simply replaces our drug addiction with the biochemical effects of social interaction.

Everything is a drug.

And we ALL have a drug of choice.

Let them get drunk. Let them smoke. Let them shoot up. Let them eat yellow cake. Let them cook meth. The pharmaceutical companies do it, so can your neighbor. But of course, encourage proper safety precautions; please do NOT blow up the fucking town. Yet be prepared for that very possibility. Your neighbor might do it, but so might your own military. We're all just monkeys looking for shit to fling.

Let heroin addicts and their friends carry Narcan to prevent or reverse an overdose. But do NOT force treatment against their wishes, or at the very least, do NOT call a third party to interfere. Police officers and paramedics should have no such authority. Yes, let people refuse vaccination for themselves or their children. And yes, let those children usurp their parents to receive whatever vaccination they so choose. Greater good, public health, measles....all be damned. Medical certification is hubris in the face of our unknowable universe. College education is but security theater, an illusion of education limited to less than half of our massive population. Do you really think we're all too stupid to have authority over our own lives?

Maybe we are. Regardless, removing the mask of intellectualism and professionalism is ultimately irrelevant. So we might as well. Civilizations rise and fall, populations boom and bust, plagues come and go....Tis a cycle of death and rebirth far beyond our petty primate notions. Might as well allow the "uneducated" masses to conduct their own drug studies. Allow us as individuals to practice biology and chemistry, not on dozens of people, or even hundreds, but millions. Billions. Life on Earth has always been a grand experiment, and it always will be. 

Let us ALL cast our stones without the delusion of law.

Let us all get stoned.

Me? I'll take my hot coffee. kthnx

[fidelcastrato]

Saturday Night Dead

A dull roar floods a small, derelict house and about a block of surrounding land all of a sudden, followed shortly by a piercing screech which acts as the conditioned stimulus to roughly 30-40 people between the ages of probably around 15 at the youngest, up to pushing-40, causing a mass salivation in response to the promise of real, proletariat, bullshit-free Punk Fucking Rawk™. Brando Murely himself sits on a cinder block outside the door, just enough out of the way of the crowd distractedly making its way inside, everyone in the middle of a conversation, turning around every few seconds to give their latest opinion on the eternal IHOP v. Waffle House crisis, shouting-match phone calls, drunken wobbling, stoned hobbling, and oh-that-sweet-cocaine's-a-calling. From Brando's arm dangles eazily-breezily a small bucket, perhaps formerly housing some domesticated plant, with the word "DONATIONS" written in sharpie on the side. He is only a few brainwaves away from REM sleep, that sultry temptress.

Avey and Fyo take their sweet time. The openers are about to play, now sound-checking, if you can really call it that (not to be rude, but the opening acts of these kinda shows were more often than not either local upstarts or local failures, and lacked some level of expertise in regards to acoustics, dynamics, levels and such), but they have both just lit a new cigarette. No worries, though; they've been around enough that they know the path straight to the front, if it should turn out that The Ushi Onis were worth front row listening.

Towards the back of the house stood in solidarity the introverts so in love with music, but so out of touch with people, the old farts who didn't really care anymore but still attended out of habit, the few (if extant) devout fans of another band on the line-up who just wanted to get it over with already, and the stray college kid; not any art or philosophy major, no, just some regular Joe (and hilariously enough, one independent study in "Crime and Punkishment", a locally famous zine, reported that 73.7% of these people were actually named Joe) who happened upon this utterly obscene proceeding via a stack of coincidence and misfortune--maybe they were there with some punk ladyfriend from class.

In the middle, by far the largest section, you could find pretty much anybody from anywhere. Regulars who still hear the heartbeat of the scene, newcomers enthusiastic but not enthusiastic enough to put themselves out for judgement if they happened to accidentally nod their heads a bit with the music (mortified.....), and that strange demographic that seemed to place itself starkly in the middle of all the aforementioned alignments; middle-of-the-roaders through and through, to the point where they have risen above the road, and the ideal of the road, and smugly glance at one another and then down to you as if to imply a transcendence which those of us who have ever experienced anything in extreme can never know of.

Front and center, ears blasted to bits and facial muscles entering anaerobic respiration due to excessive smiling, the All-Stars of the scene danced alongside strangers, either naïve or drunk. The frontmen of the most famous local bands, the influencers, both silent and megaphonic, the photographers, the beauties, the hype-builders, the next band, the people who arranged this show in the first place, all of them stood in almost equal amounts of admiration as the performing act themselves. The rich and famous of the DIY; the proletariat bourgeoisie; the broke stock brokers; the soothsayers and the fortune tellers; basically, the people you want to know.

"Hey, let's make a film tomorrow" says Fyo.

"About what?" from Avey.

"Who cares? Let's climb that billboard at the top of the hill. Let's hop on a train and record the city from like, some weird dutch angle, or something. Let's see how many cats can fit in one box."

"We could never find enough cats for that. All of our friends have like two cats at least, including me, and that still wouldn't be close to enough."

"Let's give the camera some 4-aco-dmt and see what happens."

"Easy on the Adderall, bub."

Fyo had a pretty publicly-known problem with stimulants, which he was recently combatting with a burgeoning benzodiazepine habit. Avey's personal dog hair was Kratom. Both of them partook in casual use of just about every recreational substance at this point, always especially eager to try something new. They still more or less had a handle on their sanity, but not without their eccentricities. Both had a deep love for consumption and creation of art, primarily music; between them they owned a veritable arsenal of digital and analog synthesizers, samplers, ancient MIDI keyboards, melodicas, and various novelty instruments collected over the years. Each had their own individual recording endeavors, as well as a joint operation making full use of their combined setup. They had played shows, Fyo more than Avey on account of having played in front of various kinds of audiences since the age of 15, from dull high school jazz band performances to the exact kind of venue they found themselves at tonight--in fact he'd played at this house several times already in the past year. “Holy House”, one of the few legit punk houses remaining in the city after a long string of misfortunes over the past two years lead to some places being shut down, others burning down, some simply forgotten about, living on only in the ink of flyers taped to the walls of just about every DIY art kid in the area--it was kind of like collecting baseball cards. Avey had played a couple of the more fleeting art spots once or twice, but was generally overcome with anxiety at the last minute.

Now three cigarettes in a row have been smoked, throughout yet more overly-anxious stim-fueled artistic brainstorming, both Avey and Fyo silently assuming that tomorrow would in reality consist of the same events as every other Saturday; recovering from the debauchery of the previous night, maybe with a half-hour or so of absent-minded musical improvisation.

The Ushi Onis had completed their set, and from what they heard from outside, it was agreed that their nonsense conversations were about on equal footing with the music, as far as time-wasting went. Not that they were bad, it's just.....it seemed as though they'd heard this same band hundreds of times, despite the fact this was their debut show. It seemed to Fyo, who had been in attendance for, shit, a decade now, that every show more-or-less went the same these days. You could even predict non-music related events. There was the guy who got way too drunk and was basically floating around the crowd, eyes only half-open, flailing around off-rhythm in a disconcertingly unhuman way during particularly intense performances--Fyo himself had been this guy on more occasions than he'd like to admit, as well as more occasions than he could literally remember. There was the creep getting kicked out for being creepy; that was a very strict rule for this scene, "NO CREEPS". You'd see it on basically any given flyer. House shows did tend to attract these creeps, what with the combination of pretty, young, and drug-addicted attributes of many of the female frequenters. Thankfully, Fyo had never been that guy. There was the kind of slapstick situation that occurred immediately after every band played, where the members of the other bands playing that night would come up and say "Hey, great set, what pedals do you use?" and then annoy the shit out of the poor guys just trying to fucking get their drums in the van, only for the same thing to happen to the original complimentary artists. Nobody ever learned their lesson. Nobody ever learned their lesson, forever and ever. This pretty much sums up the stagnation that Fyo has recently come to observe within the scene.

"Hey, I'm done here, if you are. Head back to my place?"

"Right you are."

The four-minute drive back to Fyo's apartment left just enough time to blair at obnoxious volume Avey's favorite song by The Mountain Goats (at least, his favorite song that day--the song changed frequently, but The Goats always remained Mountainous). On the way upstairs, Avey got a text from Tomie: "Beck pulled through. Pool party?"

So Avey said to Fyo; "Beck pulled through. Pool party?"

"Fuckin duh."

Tomie was a close friend as well as ex-girlfriend to both Avey and Fyo. Beck was their communal coke dealer. Fyo was the only person in The Crew whose apartment had a pool, and it was the deep depths of summer, so late night swimming was a common occurrence. Tonight, Tomie had brought Beck along (who surely had more coke, and anyone can see that hanging out with a coke dealer, who definitely had plenty of coke to spare, would certainly turn out to be a fun time--Fyo knew this from experience, as an old friend, Jericho, also happened to be a coke dealer before moving off to.....fuck-knows-where; Fyo wasn't sure WHY they hung out so much exactly, or why Jericho had given him so much free coke in those days; Jericho was gay, but Fyo didn't really feel like he could possibly be desirable enough to warrant such favor, especially with his [back then, at least] very socially awkward mannerisms, even after several lines of really honestly pretty great coke--although, Fyo [himself being hetero, this only now in the narrative needing to be made clear] usually thought the same thing about ladies he spent time with, and surprisingly often was proven wrong) as well as invited Fitch, who invited Les, who invited Beck, who invited Lil, who invited Vick, who invited.....

.....

Noujeff.  

"Wait you say WHO the fuck is coming to my apartment???" Fyo demands answers.

"Shit, I'm sorry Fyo. I didn't know Vick was friends with him, don't know why he still is. We'll tell him to fuck off once he gets here, waste some gas at least. But hey.....The Crew here ain't gettin' any younger, so let's fuckin' get to it. Pick a record already."

The Crew was, in no particular order:

Avey, reserved but strong-willed and resilient, and disarmingly cunning; he once got Fyo, his on-and-off-again girlfriend Elise, and himself a free pass to this really exclusive music festival in what can only be described as an "experimental city"--FORM Arcosanti was the name of the festival (the town being just "Arcosanti"), located smack dab in the middle of the deserts of Arizona, where Fyo first glimpsed that now-out-of-reach image, occasionally dreamt or half-remembered, of a lone mountain, in the middle of one of the least forgiving deserts in an entire superpower-nation's worth of land, one of the hottest and driest places around, soaring so high into The Places We Cannot Reach, the great heights, the domain of myth and fiction more than anything, of a mountain seen from the road of a lonely desert which had a peak covered, even here in the frenzied peaks of July, the radioactive horror show burning of July, a peak covered in SNOW. Beautiful, nostalgic (and always nostalgic, for there was no "winter" in Arizona), almost, no yes certainly CLEANSING snow. The rest of the trip only got better. That is all we'll say of it, for now;

Fyo, the one whose thoughts we gain direct access to (to hell with a fourth wall; give me 50, 500, 5,000,000 more walls, and I will break them all), generally responsible, has a dependable job as a pharmacy technician, "almost" a real job, and two major flaws; here we move into

 1.) Intense Manic Episodes On a Yearly, Predictable Basis

-----

Every year, in the period of time spanning between around March and June-Mid-July, Fyo would suffer an intense clinical episode of mania; he would become obsessive over ideas so obscure and opaque that he only sounded like a lunatic when describing them, and indulged in drug abuse as if suicidal, and more than once now had indeed proven to be so. Fyo would and did argue, however, that during these periods of admittedly (even by him) questionable ties to reality, his artistic output became noticeably higher in both quantity and quality than what was usually found in his "seasonal depression" (so-called) episodes during the months of October-February. No psychiatrist has yet explained this adequately.

 2.) An Unhealthy Obsession With All Forms of Art, As Well As the Definition of Art Itself

-----

From a very young age, Fyo had shown great interest in art, and strangely enough but of course conspicuously naturally, surrealist art in particular. At 12, on a family vacation to Florida for the purposes of the (back then affordable even by the lower-middle-class family, with some planning) relaxation of the beach and the primal thrill of the Great Twin Amusement Parks, he devoted a day to visiting the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg, Florida; a couple years later, the very first band he was in (at 15 years old) was named after Dali's "The Burning Giraffe". Then he gradually caught on to the growing web of obscurities, myths, exaggerations, half-truths, genuine enigmas, and philosophical contradictions that were accepted by some as truth, and saw the art embedded in life; and in the mirror, he saw the reflection of such, and in that he saw things that moved him in ways he was naïve to previously. That's how he got older. That's how he saw that the waking life was just as absurd as the dream. All that mattered was which space he occupied at a given time;

Tomie, as mentioned previously was both a close friend and ex-girlfriend to both Avey and Fyo. Each relationship was separated by such distance (spatially and temporally) that it really didn't matter, everyone had moved on cross-country and it was just nice to have people just fuckin' caring about each other, you know? Tomie was not afraid to bite into you in a very personal way, as long as she knew it would help you. She was a great ally to have in the world, if sometimes blunt; but this bluntness was out of a genuine kindness and invariably proved effective somehow. If you trusted anyone's advice, it was Tomie's;

Fitch, constantly in-and-out of jail for something or other, after so many years the circumstances blurred out a bit. Being eternally and self-admittedly impermanent, he always seemed almost as if acting in repentance to the best of his abilities; but around people like this, hope for repentance was laughable;

Lil, probably the most adult of the group, an ex-girlfriend of Fyo from back in the day, had worked her way to a very well-paying analytics gig. She still found herself hanging around with these wannabe artists and revolutionaries, for whatever reason; she was certainly always welcome, and that gave her a warm, content feeling.....

"Pick a goddamn record" says Lil.

Every time The Crew got together for some midnight coke-fueled swimming, someone got to ceremoniously choose a record from Fyo's collection, off of which the cover of the cocaine would be inhaled. It was Fyo's night. He was having trouble deciding. The record that was chosen would also be played on the record player while the lines were being drawn and erased; the lines themselves were on the sleeve, the small but not ignorable visual component of the LP. He looked through his stack; Joyce Manor (played a show with them before they became big--frontman was kind of an asshole. No.), The Antlers (far too sad for shamelessly inhaled thrills), Talking Heads (no, we'll just end up putting "Once In a Lifetime" on repeat), no, no, no, no.....LCD Soundsystem? Hm. Yeah, this one. Sound of Silver, talk to me.

"Fuckin' finally. Okay let's get this train wreck a-rollin'."

Greed filled the eyes of everyone in the room. Along with record-choosing duties came the first line of the night. Fyo lays down one FAT fucking line, finely crushed almost down to the individual molecule it seemed, grabs the closest straw, leans over and looks down at the snowy mountain range here in the middle of the silver desert, and unflatteringly snorts with all his might, and feels each crystal immediately begin its own personal attack on his neurotransmitters, leans back to make sure everything falls into the mucous membrane, nothing wasted, except for Fyo himself, and steps back to fall comically onto the couch, a smile of contentment and even relief overtaking his facial expression as Nancy Whang chants "You can normalize. Don't it make you feel alive?"

This. This is the life.

[italicwatches]

The Good Place, season 2 - Episode 03

Okay, let’s get this bad boy rolling. It’s The Good Place, season 2, episode 03! Here we GO!

-PREVIOUSLY ON The Good Place, Michael hooked on with the humans!

-And PRESENTLY ON The Good Place, “Oh, let’s not get caught up on ‘who lied to whom’ or ‘which one of us created an entire fake reality in order to cause eternal misery for the others.’ That’s ancient history.” I’m just going to let that sentence sit there and stew.

-Also Jay wants them to be The Bobcats. But Eleanor knows that there’s more going on here. Michael’s desperate. So explain. What’s changed? …It’s just like she said. The four of them keep winning. This place was supposed to psychologically torture the lot of you for thousands of years, to create a semi-self-sustaining loop of making you all make it even worse for eachother. But you keep figuring it out and teaming up!

-And now, there’s been a new development. He’s being blackmailed by Vicky. And she’s going to start over in 30 minutes. …So here’s the plan. He’s not going to reboot things. You’ve got to play the players.

-Chapter 17!

-So the humans quickly convene in the bedroom, and okay, plan? Jay thinks they should team up with Michael. Hot take, but sell it. He’s got a bow tie. You can always trust a dude in a bow tie! It’s how he got $600 for getting some weird turtles to Daytona beach! …Oh my god I swear he’s losing IQ on every reboot.

-Right ignore him. Michael’s a liar. Eleanor knows liars. She was a liar. So, look, they can’t trust him. They need information, which they will take with many grains of salt, and they need to work fast. Go? Go.

-So first out there, how the hell can they trust Michael? He’s got no reason. But, all cards on the table, here’s how things go if you don’t. Vicky comes and watches the reboot. You all go back to the zero point. Vicky’s version of things probably won’t be enough to keep you four from figuring it out. When she fails, she hides her iteration and takes the rest to his boss, who shuts the whole thing down, and you four end up in the regular Bad Place in a volcano full of scorpions. So…Less than ideal.

-Second question! Jay wants to know if the Jacksonville Jaguars won the Super Bowl. …No. Okay but about the Jaguars—

-Eleanor calls for Janet, and give this idiot something shiny to play with. So Jay’s soon got a sparkler, which leaves Tahani wanting to know just how long they’ve been doing this song and dance. Eight hundred and two, longest one was just shy of a year, this one was about a month. Shortest one was…Eight seconds. Michael just straight up sat down on the reboot button when he got in his chair, you four didn’t even wake up between that one and the next.

-Janet would like to know if she was also rebooted. Because each Janet reboot is specifically designed to increase their processing power and social aptitude, so as to limit the likelihood of needing another one. She could be the greatest Janet in all existence! LOOK! She can pat her head AND rub her tummy! holy shit

-Wait, Janet’s not one of yours? Nope, she’s a stolen Good Place Janet. Noted. Okay, so why do you look like a human if you’re a demon? Part of working for the Bureau of Human Affairs. And Mindy’s is fake, right? No, no, the Medium Place is legit. And outside of his authority or capacity to affect, much to his frustration.

-So Michael’s getting a bit panicky and look, they’re running out of time and he’s the only option you have. Their only option? “A lot of guys your age said that to me just as the bar was about to close. But I never settled for them! Because my ex-boyfriend lived nearby, he was obsessed with me, and he never slept because he was addicted to Adderall. There is ALWAYS another option!”

-…jesus fuck, Eleanor

-So after…That, Eleanor’s tapping out, she’s not in on the game. So Michael has to play one last card. You help him make this work…And he can get you all to the real Good Place.

-…EXPLAIN.

-It’s gonna take time, it’s gonna be complicated, and he will have to work out the details and work them out in secret. But look. There are ways to go from down here to up there. So the five of them can get out of this—

-Five?

-Yes, five. He’s doomed down here! He’ll sell saving you four from eternal damnation as proof that even a demon can be rehabilitated. …Look, they’re all up shit creek without a paddle right now, this might not even work, but this way you lot at least get to go in both eyes open.

-…NEW MEETING.

-Eleanor grabs Chidi and Tahani and pointedly leaves Jay out of it, and her read? This is a fresh style of torture. He’s putting them in blesser-evil, devil-you-know mess just to fuck with them, to make them squirm for a while. Teaming up with an actual factual literal demon is insane.

-Chidi fully agrees.

-But he sees no other choice on the board. …He spent his whole life trying to come to a solid grasp of ethics, to have a truly firm place of understanding of right and wrong, to try and know whether or not he was doing the right thing. And that landed him here. So right now, he’s open to damn near anything if it lets him have the time and space to try and actually improve as a person.

-Okay so that’s one vote in. Tahani? Tahani continues to believe she doesn’t even belong here. Michael! She deserves to be in the real Good Place. Take her there or let her speak to your manager. …Right, Michael doesn’t have time for this. You’ve done the dramatic realization plenty of times and he’s bored of it so here’s the short version.

-You’re here because you never cared about anyone you helped. It was for fame, for status, or to spite your own family.

-Bullshit!

-…You know, Tahani, you never actually saw how you died, in all the loops. But you know what, let’s play it. It’s very…Telling.

-FLASHBACK

-So Tahani was at an interview for International Sophisticate Magazine. And they immediately wanted to talk about her sister Kamilah, who turned down a chance to be on the cover herself…And, well, suffice to say, they wanted to use Tahani to essentially interview Kamilah by proxy, about her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame defying all of their usual structures.

-Which led to Tahani going to that induction in a staffer’s uniform to get in. Finding her sister. And confronting her, which went from argument, to her bringing down the massive statue Kamilah had commissioned…A massive golden statue, that crushed her underfoot.

-Back in the Now. You get it, Tahani? …And it takes her a few more runs through the concept to get it, and then she just breaks down. Okay, I feel a little bad now that she actually can see herself for who she is. A little bit.

-So she’s game to team up if it means she can actually become a better person. So Eleanor finds herself the one woman out…And Eleanor, of course, is one-week-in Eleanor.

-So, uh, she’s really not taking this whole “everyone wants to become better people” thing well.

-Also, “I have no idea what’s going on, but everyone is talking and I should too!” Keep on keepin’ on, Jay. Keep on.

-And Michael just breaks down into laughter because he’s realizing how absurd it is that he’s reliant on these…glorified insects to save him. Like an exterminator needing to be saved by cockroaches. Oh, now Eleanor is PISSED.

-Chidi’s got to step in and force Eleanor to look at him, to focus, and to breathe. …Okay. Okay. Give her five minutes to think.

-She steps into her absurd clown room, and immediately calls Janet. Janet, get her a train full of cocaine, right now. She’s going back to Mindy’s place.

-And Eleanor begins the desperate escape aaaand Chidi is there at the door. So gonna talk to him about the plan now that you’re bailing, Eleanor? …She’s not bailing.

“You have a bag full of clothes, you stuffed pillows and a mop in your bed to make it look like you’re asleep, and you’re literally sneaking out the back gate.”

-Okay. Okay, she’s going to Mindy. Because an eternity with her still sounds better than a literal deal with the devil. She insists she doesn’t owe any of them anything…And Chidi, at this point, realizes the best thing he can do is just walk away.

-Because the one person Eleanor can’t come up with a defense against…Is herself. And so that’s how Eleanor ends up sitting down with Michael, and, real talk. Out of all the reboots…How many times did Chidi refuse to help her out?

-None. Every single time that you managed to find him, you’d confess your situation, and Chidi would always get in there. And every time you lot last long enough, he always succeeds. She’s…She’s not that bad of a person, on the scale of Bad Place people at least…right?

-Janet arrives with the cocaine and escape train.

-…Eleanor would like to rescind the previous question.

-So she goes to the others, and real talk, she still doesn’t trust Michael at all. But…He’s asking for their help. And if there’s one thing that Chidi has apparently taught her in every last one of these loops, it’s that when someone asks for your help, you give it. It’s what Chidi would do for any of them.

-It’s…What he IS doing, Eleanor. He’s right here. In the room.

-But okay, Eleanor is in. On one condition. Michael, you’re taking the ethics classes too. You want to get into the real Good Place when this is over? Time to learn how to be worth them letting your ass in. And, just so they’re clear? You try and play them, and it all goes to Vicky. And you join in on being fried with the rest of them.

-So, you in as part of Team Cockroach, exterminator man? Just like you said…You’re running out of time? And they’re your only option.

-On the fresh loop, Eleanor’s in the fro-yo initial style. Except of course, this time, Vicky is introduced as the official Best Person, and so sort of the mayor of the town.

-And Vicky steps up…And immediately starts to sing!

-Hard cut to Eleanor’s place. They’ve got a few hours to work while Vicky plans for the welcome party. So her plan’s basically what Michael did with this one. Eleanor’s gonna get drunk, hog all the shrimp, insult some people, and they’ll use that to build the chaos sequence for tomorrow. You’ll all need to play along.

-So Michael’s, as far as Vicky’s concerned, going to be handling surveillance on you four. Which is how they’re gonna all get away with this. Jay asks if Janet is going to keep their secrets, and on the one hand, she can’t lie…But on the other, her job is to keep humans happy. You four are the only humans here. So she’s on board! And so it’s time for a cowardly traitor, four idiots, and a robot (Janet protests) to outsmart some of the Bad Place’s best and brightest. Go team!

-Credits!

Janet gets better every time. And this is gonna be interesting. Looks like Vicky’s using a lot of the season one version of the neighborhood, but of course going in with everyone knowing the score is going to make things a lot different…We’ll just have to see how that goes next time, in episode FOUR of The Good Place, season two! Wait for it!

[brutcllysoft]

first meeting ft. @becamedcath

setting: andy’s managers office?? idr. march 2015​

ANDY

This is a bad fucking idea. He seems to be the only one who thinks so, though. From some twisted angle, he can see the point of this — This kind of set up is good PR, something to get them both on the cover of any and every magazine. Everyone loves a cliche, the bad boy and a good girl getting together despite the odds. It’s all about marketing, even if it’s at the cost of his personal life. Even if he’s signed a contract and agreed to it — Good fucking god this girl is /not/ his type. She’s too Girl Next Door, someone who would turn her nose up at him if they’d met on the street. They’ve met before, at an awards show or something — He barely remembers it after the lines he’d done in the bathroom and the shots he threw back at the bar. But he can recall how much of a brat she was, having made a scene when he ran into her or something. Truthfully, he had tuned her out that night and carried on, forgetting all about her until a friend told him about the encounter later. And now, two years later — He’s pacing around the studio lounge waiting for her to arrive, so he can properly meet his new girlfriend. All he wants is a cigarette or maybe an adderall — But in that moment, he settles on one of the beers in the fridge, plowing through three without hesitation in the hope to catch at least a buzz. Andy paces, a hand in his pocket and another brings the bottle back to his lips — He examines the posters on the walls as he waits, before the click of the door pulls his attention.

His first thought is about how short she is — Even standing across the room, he knows she’ll only come up to his shoulder. She’s cute, with an All American look that he’s sure people fucking eat up. They’re about as opposite as they can get, but he’s willing to make some sort of effort for Chris. “Hey,” he settles with, tone bored as he moves his eyes from her to the Rolling Stone cover he’d been looking at moments before. Admittedly, Andy isn’t sure what to say in this moment — He’s never had an issue with getting a girl before, usually ending up with a different one in his bed each night, but in this instance? What are you supposed to say? Hey, ain’t it crazy that we’re fake dating now? Wild. “There’s drinks in the fridge.” He settles on after a moment, a terrible opener but he holds his ground. It’s not like Andy’s trying to impress this girl or anything, anyway. No point in bullshitting. “They don’t have juice boxes or anythin’, though.” He can’t resist the urge to make the jab, just to push her buttons.

ROWAN

All of this just feels so bizarre to her. It's not something she would have liked to sign up for, not something she ever would have thought up for herself --- but Reina swears it's a good idea. Once upon a time the brunette would have signed her on for anything as long as it made them money, regardless of whether or not she thought it was a good move for her but things have changed over the last few years and Rowan trusts Reina not to set her up for something terrible. Still, she can't help but wish that she had picked literally anyone besides Andrew Thane. She sees the appeal behind him --- objectively speaking he's attractive, not that she'll admit that. Not to mention he's her opposite and everyone loves a cliche. He's riding the coattails of a successful career with his band, looking to branch off solo and a relationship with her could be a huge step in the right direction for him. And honestly, her own career has felt a little stagnant the last six months and this kind of media attention would make her next album release blow up. So if she forces herself to look at it from an outside perspective, Rowan sees how it works. She just wishes it wasn't with him. They've met only once before, a few years earlier at the VMA's and she'd known from the moment she laid eyes on him he had been wasted. He'd all but confirmed that moments after they came off stage from presenting an award and decided to blow chunks all over her feet. He'd slurred his way through an apology that she barely heard before storming off to try and clean herself up, and she's held a grudge ever since.

So needless to say, she's not thrilled to be here right now. But Reina insisted, telling her how important it is to get to know him at least a little bit before their first public appearance. Rowan can't help but feel out of place when she walks into the studio lounge -- it's different from her own, clearly reflecting the differences between their personalities and music styles. Where her studio is a mix of greens and yellows on white walls, fresh flowers adorning all the surfaces and pink guitars on stands in the corners, this one is significantly darker. She feels out of place immediately, self conscious of herself and anxiously tugging at the hem of her sundress as she walks in before crossing her arms over her chest. His voice catches her attention, doing nothing to soothe her unease and she takes a minute to look him over. He’s taller than she remembers, but she chalks it up to the fact that she’d been wearing heels that night whereas she’s on flat feet today. Reina had put today's outfit together and there’s a pair of red bottoms sitting in the back of her towncar she’d ditched in favour of a pair of sandals the moment Reina disappeared from view. Now she can’t help but regret it just a little. “Hi.” She repeats his greeting back to him, awkwardly as she shifts from one foot to another. A brow raises at his comment, scoffing quietly under her breath. “I’m not legal to drink yet,” she chimes in, head tilting. “April 27th. Next year.” Not that she thinks he really cares about that, and honestly neither does she --- of course she’s drank before now, their business practically runs on alcohol and cocaine and even she has partaken in the former on more than one occasion despite what her squeaky clean image suggests. But she opens the fridge anyway, needing something to do with her hands and is grateful to find one lone bottled water amongst the array of booze. "I don't think underage drinking on a Tuesday afternoon is really going to do either of us any favours." Though a part of her knows that the ramifications for the two of them would be very different. Andy has already made a name for himself with drugs and alcohol, something everyone just seems to accept. Where as she knows if she were so much to touch a bottle of beer in public, she'd be crucified. She's not sure if it's a genre thing or a gender thing, but she tries to make herself believe it's the former despite the fact that it is, very much, the latter.

ANDY

There’s a scoff that comes with her words — Of course she didn’t drink, he finds it almost laughable for her to wait until she’s twenty one when he thinks of how young he was when he had his first beer. “Right, sure, whatever.” He settles with, glancing back at her as she grabs a bottle of water. Andy has to remind himself not everyone has lived the same life as him -- He’s sure she’s just as sheltered as the tabloids say, some wide eyed girl who thinks the world is full of fucking rainbows and sunshine. He can hear Chris’s voice in the back of his head telling him not to be such an asshole, but it’s hard to resist. After the nightmare that has been the last six months, it’s hard not to bite back at anything thrown his way -- Good or bad. He’s still reeling from Cerberus’ break up, the messy way things had ended with his bandmates, and then girlfriend. He can’t help but feel like he’s in this mess because of all of them -- God knows he’s no saint himself, but it wasn’t his ego that pulled them apart. But Chris had explained to him time and time again why this is a good idea, that he’ll become more relatable or some shit, that she can help get his solo career moving. Andy doesn’t like it, but he’ll at least give it a shot for him. Chris has yet to lead him astray, he’s sure this won’t be the first time.

Taking another swig of his drink, he spins on his heel so that he’s facing her. Now that he and Rowan were meeting when he was decently sober and she’s not dressed like a pastry  — Andy notes that she’s actually pretty cute, even if she’s annoying. Had they met under different circumstances, they probably could have hit it off. Maybe. Andy doesn’t bother with being subtle when he looks at her, finding it fascinating that even down to their shoe choices -- Her sandals and his ratty Doc Martens -- they’re absolute opposites. It’s almost laughable. “I’m gonna need a drink to get through this.” He fires back in a level tone, holding eye contact and challenging her to push further. Though Andy won’t admit it to anyone -- Not even Chris -- He’s terrified of what’s going to happen next. His album, his reputation, Rowan. He’d found a comfortable corner with Cereberus, loving playing a different city each night with his two best friends, shredding on his guitar until his fingers bled. He understood how things worked then -- They slept all day, played a show, partied all night -- More often than not he’d end up doing lines off some groupies breasts before she got him off, just to wake up in the bathtub of whatever hotel they’re staying at. It was chaos, but he knew what to expect from it. They drank too much, snorted whatever was put in front of them, and kept going until they passed out. Wash, rinse, repeat. There’s no denying he’s doing just the same now, but he was venturing into something different and he’d be a liar if he said that didn’t scare him -- He’s too exposed right now. Even in this lounge, alone with Rowan. If this goes sideways, he doesn’t have a safety net to fall into.

He doesn’t let it show, though. If there’s anything he’d learned from his childhood, it’s how to master a poker face -- Andy has no interest in letting anyone in on what he’s thinking, knowing that they’ll just end up using it against him or sell it to a tabloid. The last thing he wants is Rowan Fisher, of all fucking people, to see him sweat. “You look like you’re gonna piss yourself.” He settles on, smirk at his lips before he finishes off his bottle, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. He’s had enough to take a little bit of the edge off, settling the nerves in his stomach with each swig.

ROWAN

The scoff that reaches her has her feeling an array of emotions all at once --- predominantly offence, irritation and a small bit of embarrassment, which promptly turns itself into annoyance. He’s so fucking obnoxious. It’s not necessarily that she’s waiting until she’s twenty-one to drink --- she just likes to be careful. While it may not be a big deal if he is seen walking around drinking from a flask on a Tuesday afternoon, it is a big deal if she is. She’d be smeared all over TMZ about what a bad example she’s setting, not to mention Reina would have her head. The amount of time and money they would have to put into correcting that would be a nightmare, and it’s one she’s not eager to get into. Better to keep the parents of her mostly underage female fan base happy and eager to buy them albums and merchandise and concert tickets. She twists the cap off her water bottle, taking a step backward when he not so subtly looks her up and down --- usually when a man in this industry does that not long after there’s a hand on her thigh and warm breath on her neck while they ask if she’s interested in switching management and going somewhere. However, she knows that Andy really doesn’t have anything to offer her in that department, so instead it just makes her feel self-conscious, much to her dismay.

She’s never been a particularly insecure person, but it would be a lie to say that Rowan wasn’t always wondering what people were thinking of her. That she wasn’t constantly trying to decipher every look shot her way, every whisper murmured behind her back. But she doesn’t let it show, resigning herself to the fact that she doesn’t need to worry about what Andrew Thane, of all people, thinks about her. She rolls her eyes when he mentions needing a drink, finding herself already tired of his tough guy act. She can’t imagine any situation where she might actually like him, any situation where she doesn’t want to punch him in the fucking face. “Can’t blame a girl for feeling out of place.” Which she does. Very much so. She feels too big for this space, too bright, too vibrant, too everything. And while she knows that this is not a real relationship and they’re not looking to find any common ground, it is a little disheartening to be so clearly disconnected from the world that he lives in. Selfishly, she can’t help but wish they had done this at her studio -- somewhere she would be in her element, her usual confident and collected self. But she carries on, chin held high as it always is --- just as Reina taught her when she was a scrawny little sixteen year old, shy and unsure of herself and practically begging execs to take advantage of her. “Especially considering our last interaction wasn’t exactly pleasant.” She turns on her heel, moving away from him to look at the hangings decorating the walls -- albums, awards, framed articles. His band had been successful. Not really her thing, but she can’t deny the fact that they’d accomplished a lot. “You puked on me, in case you forgot.” She tacked on, glancing at him over her shoulder, sure that he has zero recollection of the night in question. “Just tryin’ to save another pair of shoes.”

ANDY

He knows why they’re there -- This is supposed to be an ice breaker for what’s to come for the next two years, the answer is obvious. But he’s not sure what’s supposed to say to her, make casual conversation about how they’re going to spend the next two years of their lives tolerating one another? It’s not exactly the kind of small talk he’s interested in. Hell -- He doesn’t want to talk to her at all, but there’s no going back now. A shoulder shrugs at her comment, leaving him itching for a cigarette. He’s craving a distraction, a way to not have to sit in this feeling, or endure the obvious tension. Finishing off his beer, he drops the empty bottle on the counter top, before moving to take another out of the fridge, popping the cap off with his teeth. He knows it’ll probably get a disgusted reaction from the blonde, but he doesn’t bother dwelling on it. This was uncomfortable enough to warrant another drink, something to keep him buzzed and from over thinking every single thing happening around him. It’s a perk of being who he is -- The label thrives on him being out of control and unpredictable, loaded up on whatever white powder or drink he’s presented with in the hopes that they’ll get another song or some press from him. It makes him feel like there’s an endless party going on while they record, but in this moment -- It’s enough to take the edge off.

When she mentions their last interaction, though -- He’s confused. He barely remembers it, assuming it had been something about maybe having stepped on her dress or run into her. Apparently she held a grudge. Admittedly, he can’t really defend himself given that he doesn’t remember much of that night, but he listens as she speaks, moving to sit on the couch as she paces around the room. A loud bark of laughter comes at the mention of puke, something of a hazy memory finding him -- Ian, his bandmate, coming around to pull him away while Andy let out a loud and slurred oh fuck, before the two stumbled off to the open bar. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” He doesn’t bother apologizing to her. Frankly, Andy doesn’t see much of a point in apologizing for something he doesn’t remember, but clearly -- Rowan doesn’t want to let it go. “That was -- What? VMAs? AMAs? I don’t remember.” He tries to clarify, clearly amused by the story though he can’t even remember where they had been. A slight frown comes when he follows her eyes to where she’s looking, a framed picture of Cerberus’s first album, having gone triple platinum. Andy doesn’t dawn on the thought, taking another large swig of his beer before speaking again. “I’m not gonna puke on you again, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He leans forward, elbows resting against his knees, watching as she wanders around the lounge.

ROWAN

It isn’t often Rowan finds herself at a loss of things to say. She’s an extrovert by nature and finds it easy to strike up a conversation with most anyone --- but he isn’t just anyone. He’s someone who despite only having met briefly one time, she isn’t particularly fond of. She would like to say she isn’t a vindictive person or that she doesn’t hold a grudge, but the truth is she is guilty of both and that much is evident in the cold shoulder she gives to him. She’d come into this with good enough intentions, she really did. She’d psyched herself up the whole car ride over, told herself that not to get so worked up over something that didn’t matter in the big picture. To go into it with an open mind, to give him a chance because maybe he isn’t that bad. But within just a few moment, she’s found herself reverting back to square one. He just rubs her the wrong way --- the bad boy act he’s putting on irks her because she can’t help but think it’s just that, an act. And really she shouldn’t be able to blame him. She does the same thing, doesn’t she? Bright green eyes and long blonde hair, she’s been the poster child for innocence and naivety and purity since she was signed, the label having grabbed onto that with both hands. Since then she’s been batting her eyelashes and playing coy nearly every moment of her life. So she shouldn’t be annoyed by the fact that someone else is doing the same thing, but she does

She finds herself physically unable to hold back the cringe as he opens the bottle of beer with his teeth. “God, you’re going to break a tooth doing that.” Surprisingly, her voice doesn’t hold much judgement --- she’s definitely judging him, but she’s more shocked by it than anything. It’s something she’s seen before -- Reina is guilty of it, though she’d never admit it -- but it never fails to churn her stomach, unable to stop the idea of an emergency dental visit from swarming her mind. The fact that he finds amusement in the story just irks her all over again. “The VMA’s.” She confirms with a roll over her eyes, turning back around to look at the picture on the wall again, hoping that a little more distance will cool her down. It doesn’t work very well. Honestly, she’s not even that upset about the shoes (okay, she is, but mostly because they had been open toe and scrubbing vomit from between her toes had been a horrible end to an otherwise great night) but rather his reaction to the whole thing. Maybe she could overlook it before because he’d clearly been too drunk to know what he was doing, but an apology now certainly wouldn’t hurt any. It’d been rude and Rowan has never done well with being disrespected --- which is ironic because these days it feels like it’s happening more than ever. “I’m not worrying about you puking on me again. Not yet anyway. A few more of those and I might be. Gut rot’s a real thing, you know.” She muses, shrugging her shoulders. Honestly she wouldn’t be surprised to hear he’s already six beers in --- not because he’s acting drunk, but just because that’s the kind of person he apparently is. But they’re here for a reason and so she sighs, turning again to face him, arms crossing over her chest. “I’ve got a charity thing next week--- s’for the children’s hospital. Tuesday night. Reina thinks it should be our first public appearance.”

ANDY

He doesn’t bother dwelling on her clear disgust with him -- Admittedly, it makes him want to push it further just to see what reaction she can get out of her. He can’t help but wonder if she’s ever done anything other than sing country songs and go to church or something, but doesn’t ask. Instead, he nods as she clarifies where they had met, memories of that night coming back to him -- Two year ago, he’d been riding the high Cerberus brought, the band sweeping each award show and topping charts. It’s a bitter sweet thought, knowing that the people he’d celebrated that night with were ones he couldn’t stand being around anymore. Clearly, Rowan is more bothered by the memory than he is. Andy’s not planning on apologizing for it, instead he just laughs at the thought of the look on her face when he hunched over -- If only he could remember it. Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes, as she mentions the beer in his hand and gut rot. “Thanks for the information, WebMD.” Her remark only makes him want to drink more, anything to get out of this conversation even if means risking puking on her, or getting sick, as she mentioned. God, how is this possibly going to work for the next two years if he can barely handle a conversation with her without finding the desire to drink?

A brow raises at the mention of a charity thing for a children’s hospital, knowing as important as it is to make to their first public appearance a good one -- He doesn’t exactly want to sit in the hallway of a children’s hospital room while Rowan plays that fucking Biscuits song over and over. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a counter suggestion to give -- He’s spent the last three months in the studio, and his first single isn’t coming out for another two weeks. Children’s hospital it is. “Yeah, sure.” He reluctantly agrees, leaning back against the couch as he takes another sip of his beer. Andy shares the same unimpressed look she has, arms crossed defensively over her chest. “You sure you’re ready for this?” He challenges, brow arched. It’s clear to him that she doesn’t like him, and the feeling is mutual -- But when they’re in public, it’s game time. “Cause you’re gonna have to look a lil’ less disgusted with me when we’re in front’a cameras.”

ROWAN

One day down, seven hundred and twenty-nine to go. Christ, it’s going to be a long two years. Rowan can only hope that between the chaos that is both of their careers, they can manage to keep their actual time together limited. They’re both busy people with busy lives and budding careers, there certainly won’t be any shortage of opportunities to get their photo taken together and she can only hope that Reina is able to work some magic to keep those spread out far enough that she can make it through this without strangling him while also somehow keeping up the charade. She’s going to deserve a goddamn Oscar after this. She already knows it’s going to take any ounce of acting talent she’s got to make it seem like Andrew Thane doesn’t make her want to vomit, let alone that she actually cares about him. God, she’s getting a pressure headache again from the whole thing and sips at her water in an attempt to keep it at bay.

It’s clear he’s reluctant to agree to go with her next week and that just annoys her all over again. Just when she thinks she can’t get anymore agitated he opens his big fucking mouth and sends her right back up the wall. Her jaw clenches momentarily, eyes icy and she shrugs. “It’ll be mostly younger kids. Your music’ll probably be a little mature for most of ‘em.” She hates that using the word mature on his music opens her own up for scrutiny, something she’s very much used to -- her talent and the effort she puts into it is so often taken at face value as something of little depth due to the poppy melodies. “But there’ll be a couple older ones who probably wouldn’t hate to see you.” Which is about as close to a compliment or actual invitation to participate as he’ll get and if he wants to be the asshole whose pride keeps him from playing some dumb song for a sick kid that’s on him. His next question has her eyes rolling. In truth, she isn’t ready for this at all but she isn’t going to admit that to him of all people. “Won’t be a problem. I have an excellent poker face.” And that’s true. Reina’s taught her to perfect it over the years and she has been around men who she somehow finds more revolting than him and smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes to bide her time before making an escape. “You gonna be able to look like you’re not countin’ down the seconds until you get to make a break for it?”

ANDY

He doesn’t mind doing events at hospitals, or for kids (though, most young kids don’t listen to him or Cerberus) -- But he’s not interested in going alongside Rowan if it means he’s just playing arm candy. “Rock’n’roll is a little mature for most kids,” he mocks, laughing lightly at his own words, putting on his best high society voice on with the word. She has a point, though -- He’s sure there’s a couple of teenagers there eager to see him. It’s a bit surprising she’d say that at all, part of him assumes she would want him to be around long enough to get a couple pictures in, before shoving him out of the room so she can entertain some twelve year old girls. “You know,” he begins again, giving her a pointed look. “Despite what you may think’a a me, I do like doin’ that kind of stuff. The children’s hospitals, and shit.” He doesn’t bother explaining much more. Instead, he takes another of his beer before dropping the glass onto the small table. He’s on his feet after, moving towards her. A scoff comes with the mention of her poker face, “Somehow I doubt that.” Andy challenges. This is their first conversation, but he can already tell she’s an absolute open book. In the professional world, she’s clearly held her own well -- But if this conversation is anything to go off of, her trying to play it cool will be a sight to see. “Depends,” He continues, mostly just wanting to get a rise out of her. “When the papz want a kiss, you gonna go running?” Andy asks point blank. Truthfully, if it came down to it and she had an issue -- He’s not going to force her into anything, but at this moment? He just wants to push her buttons.

ROWAN

The mocking is apparent and only serves to push him even further beneath her skin, but Rowan simply rolls her eyes. She’s over this entire interaction and pushing back will only instigate some kind of argument, she’s sure, and right now she has less than zero interest in going down that road. “Great. Then bring a guitar and you’ll make some sixteen year olds day.” It’s said with a tone of finality, clearly indicating that she doesn’t want to argue semantics about whether or not he really is a piece of shit like she suspects. Her initial reaction when he stands and crosses the room is to follow suit and take two steps back for every one he takes, but she doesn’t want to make herself into an easier target than she’s sure he already sees her as. So she keeps her feet planted where they are, standing her ground even when his tone turns challenging. “You don’t know me,” she reminds him with a raise of her brows. It’s not lost on her that she doesn’t know him either and she’s been being just as judgmental, but that isn’t the point. Honestly, when it comes to her personal life her poker face is very much lacking. She’s wears her heart on her sleeve as much as she wishes she didn’t and it’s gotten her burned on more than one occasion. But when it comes to her career, she’s great at keeping her composure and making sure the press and the media execs see only what she wants them to. “I’ve got no reason to hide anything right now but rest assured once the cameras turn on I’ll be all smiles and doe eyes.” Which isn’t really any different from how the media usually portrays her, but she’ll be sure to send him some fond glances to try and amp things up. His question has a short scoff leaving her, eyes rolling for what feels like the millionth time. “Do I look like I’m running? I’m sure I’ll manage.” Though the thought of actually kissing him isn’t anything she’s looking forward to, she has accepted that a little physical affection is going to be part of the gig, whether they like it or not. “That a satisfactory answer for you? I’ve got somewhere else I need to be.” She doesn’t. Reina cleared her schedule for this in hopes that they’d find some kind of common ground but Rowan knows if she’s here much longer they’re going to end up murdering each other.

ANDY

The fact that he’s so easily gotten under her skin puts a smirk on his lips, resisting the urge to laugh. It’s too easy. “Me and a guitar, deal.” He settles with a quick nod. He’s not going to push back on it, he enjoys charity shows — But it’s quickly become apparent to him that it’s pretty fun to get a rise out of her. And more so, it’s easy. Brows raise as she gets defensive, mentioning how he doesn’t know her. It’s laughable, considering she hates him based off a reputation and one drunk moment — Nothing else. He doesn’t bother pointing it out, though. Instead, eyes roll and arms cross, before he speaks up. “I’ve been around you for like ten minutes, and I know I’m right. It’s obvious.” Andy insists, knowing that she’ll be fine when it comes to red carpets and staged moments — But when the paparazzi sneak into a party and catch a candid moment, he knows they’re going to see through this shit. “I’m countin’ on it.” He remarks with a challenging look. While he’d gone into this thinking they’d be screaming in each other’s faces, he was starting to enjoy this back and forth — Even if Rowan was clearly about to lose her shit. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He’s not looking forward to the PDA they’ll have to put on, but there’s no getting out of it now. As she turns to leave, eyes roll and a scoff leaves his lips. “Sure looks like you’re runnin’ now.” He points out the contradiction from her words, for one last jab before she turns to leave the lounge.

[jswdmb1]

Champagne Supernova

“How many special people change?

How many lives are living strange?

Where were you while we were getting high?”

- Oasis

Let me start by saying I don’t celebrate 4/20 as a holiday, but I get the joke, so I’m in on it today too.  Let me follow that with this is not a post about me being jealous.  If I wanted to smoke some dope, trust me it would be happening, and I couldn’t give a shit who thinks I should or shouldn’t.  And, that’s what really bothers me about this whole push to legalize weed, particularly in Illinois where it is just a cash grab.  It distracts from the fact that our entire oversight of “drugs” in this country is so massively whacked and is completely unfair.  To isolate marijuana as the one drug that needs reform is the most stupid as it is probably the least of our worries.

Before we go further, we need education on the root of the problem which is the bullshit classification system used by the federal government.  Here are their definitions of the five different classes (as per Dr. Tim Sams in his book “ABC’S OF PAIN RELIEF AND TREATMENT”:

SCHEDULE 1 (CLASS I) DRUGS  are illegal because they have high abuse potential, no medical use, and severe safety concerns; for example, narcotics such as Heroin, LSD, and cocaine. Marijuana is also included as a Class 1 drug despite it being legal in some states and it being used as a medicinal drug in some states. SCHEDULE 2 DRUGS (CLASS 2) DRUGS have a high potential for abuse and dependence, an accepted medical use, and the potential for severe addiction. These drugs include opiods based on high dose codeine, Fentanyl, and Oxycodone as well as Methamphetamine and the Barbiturates; also included are such drugs as opium, morphine. Adderall is even included in this category under "mixed amphetamine salts". The main difference between a Schedule, or Class, 1 and 2 is whether or not the drug is deemed to have a valid medical application. SCHEDULE 3 (CLASS 3) DRUGS  have a lower potential for abuse than drugs in the first two categories, accepted medical use, and mild to moderate possible addiction. These drugs include steroids, Low-dose Codeine, and Hydrocodone-based opiods. SCHEDULE 4 (CLASS 4) DRUGS have an even lower abuse potential than Schedule 3 Drugs, accepted medical use, and limited addiction potential. These include most of the anti-anxiety medications like the numerous Benzodiazepines, Sedatives, sleeping agents, and the mildest of the opiod type medications like Darvon and Talwin. SCHEDULE 5 (CLASS 5) DRUGS have a low abuse potential, accepted medical use, and a very limited addiction potential. These consist primarily of preparations containing limited quantities of narcotics or stimulant drugs for cough, diarrhea, or pain.

The first question that comes to mind is where are nicotine, caffeine and alcohol on this list?  The answer is nowhere.  All are considered normally occurring substances that all people consume in small quantities through natural means (for examples, tomatoes have some nicotine in them) therefore they cannot be regulated.  That is the biggest load of government crap to ever come out of the back of the truck.  Based on that logic, all opioids should not be anywhere on the list because I can get some of that by eating a poppy seed muffin.  And, marijuana is as natural of a substance as anything, so why is growing and consuming it illegal but not poison mushrooms.  I’m not arguing here about what should be classified as Schedule 1, 2, 3, etc., I’m arguing that the schedule itself is insane and actually immoral.  

What do I mean by that last part?  If you are poor, you are more likely to gravitate to the drugs that are on Schedule 1.  I know that is a generalization, and that all sorts of people use Schedule 1 drugs, but go look up the stats behind who is in jail for drug offenses (seriously, go look it up, I’m done doing your homework for you), and it is overwhelmingly poor and minorities.  It’s awfully convenient to keep marijuana on Schedule 1 to keep that prison economy going and it is equally convenient to let tobacco roam free killing millions a year to keep that industry awash in cash.  Meanwhile a whole segment of our population is brutally oppressed under laws skewed to serve those in power and money.  It is about as un-American as things get, and that is during a time when just about everything that comes out of that sewer hole that we call Washington is un-American.

I’m going to keep this short, because there is not much to say.  Get rid of the fucking schedule of drugs and take a completely different look at how we manage this problem in the U.S.  Stop putting people in jail and get them real help for their problems whether it be pain, addiction, or poverty.  Immediately commute the sentences of anyone in jail for non-violent drug-related offenses and expunge their records.  Then reset how you are going to regulate everything that needs to be regulated.  From my perspective, prohibition of anything seems counterproductive as long as it is not hurting other people, but that also doesn’t mean certain things shouldn’t be controlled.  What should be controlled and not controlled should be decided by people who actually know what they are talking about.  Real doctors who are specialized in such matters should be helping to craft policy.  I know that excludes me, and it certainly includes any politician most of whom I wouldn’t trust to make a cup of coffee never mind handle something as important and technical as this.

So, get a blue ribbon panel together and let’s end the “War on Drugs” and direct our efforts to reengineering this entire process.  And, let’s look at how we can really help the segment of our society that needs it the most instead of shunning them and locking them up.  How will this be funded?  Not a new tax on individuals, but just start siphoning profits from the companies selling cigarettes and prescriptions that are really killing people.  Until that happens, leave me out of the 4/20 celebrations.  Not because I’m bitter that I’m sober now, but because there is nothing to celebrate.  Not while millions suffer with addiction, some in prison, while the power brokers get rich off their misery.  So feel free to light up today, just ponder while you eat your post-smoke box of Twinkies why you really can’t enjoy weed freely and even more puzzlingly why Twinkies are not Schedule 1?  I mean is there anything else that exists that lacks value or is as highly addictive as those little bastards?  That should blow your mind whether you are high or not right now.

Cheers,

Jim

[nemesisadrastia]

If you really want to make a character struggling with psychosis (which most of you lot will probably botch anyway), just try to stay away from schizophrenia, especially as your crutch? Schizophrenia is an extremely rare and particularly degenerative illness that, if you haven’t ever suffered from psychosis period (and I don’t just mean “seeing things” and “hearing things”), you won’t even begin to imagine what it’s like, and therefore cannot even begin to approach respectfully. Let’s be honest, most people are ableists, especially where psychotic people are concerned.

Consider the following, rather:

BRIEF PSYCHOTIC DISORDER

There’s three major types of BPD: with marked stressor(s), also called brief reactive psychosis, wherein symptoms occur in response to markedly stressful to most everyone in similar circumstances in the person’s culture – this can be: the loss of a job, severe financial struggles, divorce, the death of a loved one, etc; without marked stressor(s), wherein symptoms don’t occur in response to markedly stressful events, meaning that individual circumstances can cause a psychotic break – perfect example: due to being autistic, extended social interaction gives me stress and leaves me vulnerable to a psychotic break, something that wouldn’t affect most everyone in a similar circumstance (circumstance being extended social interaction) in my culture; with postpartum onset, during pregnancy or within for weeks of giving birth. These episodes usually last at least a day, but no more than a month, and tends to right itself on its own.

SCHIZOPHRENIFORM DISORDER

This has most of the hallmarks of schizophrenia, but it tends to last longer than a month, but no more than six months. So the may difference between schizophreniform disorder and schizophrenia is that schizophreniform disorder isn’t as severe a psychotic disorder as schizophrenia. Those diagnosed with schizophreniform disorder have all the same symptoms, but in lesser degree, and there’s a better prognosis overall; chances are, you can go through life, your career, academics, social life, etc, with some level of discomfort or disruption, but not to the point that in entirely rules your life.

Do you remember how I said schizophrenia is degenerative? This means that is worsens gradually over months or even years (before, usually, reaching a plateau), whereas schizophreniform disorder’s onset is rapid in comparison. However! Schizophreniform disorder can be considered the ASD to schizophrenia’s PTSD, in that, especially when it goes untreated, it can develop into schizophrenia.

SUBSTANCE/MEDICATION-INDUCED PSYCHOTIC DISORDER

This exists! Amazing, right? So the major culprits that can develop this type of psychotic disorder are:

alcohol

weed

PCP

sedatives (relieve anxiety), hypnotics (sleeping agents), or anxiolytics (anti-anxiety meds)

amphetamines (probably illegal drug use comes to mind, but also think adderall and vyvanse)

cocaine

Usually they’re limited to hallucinations and delusions, and it’s usually developed during or soon after intoxication, or during withdrawal, or after exposure to a med.

PSYCHOTIC DISORDER DUE TO ANOTHER MEDICAL CONDITION

Think tumour! Think brain injury! It happens, and you don’t need to use schizophrenia as your shittily-portrayed scapegoat. Usually they’re limited to hallucinations and delusions, and while resolution of the medical condition often resolves the psychotic features, this isn’t always the case, because brains, you know? They’re special.

SPECIFIED/UNSPECIFIED PSYCHOTIC DISORDER

Yeah. Yeah, there’s such a diagnosis. You can have plenty of psychotic symptoms, but you don’t exactly meet all of them to the letter, because like I said, brains are fucking special, and psychology is a fucking house of mirrors at the best of times, so you can suffer from psychosis, recurring or a one-time deal, for a varying period of time, with positive symptoms, negative symptoms, varying impairment in your level of functioning, the whole thing. You know there’s actually plenty of people on this big green earth that have (un)specified psychotic disorders? They deal with it and everything it throws at them, and it fucks them in all the wrong ways, but they get on with their lives still, for better or worse.

The whole difference between specified or unspecified is if your diagnostician decides to actually specify the presentations, for instance: persistent auditory hallucinations in absence of any other features, delusions with overlapping mood episodes, or attenuated psychosis syndrome in which the symptoms are below full psychotic symptoms (i.e., less severe and more transient). Unspecified is usually in emergency situations where there’s not enough information to make a more specific diagnosis, or just when the diagnostician doesn’t see the need to specify any particular features.

Tl;dr: Stop using schizophrenia. I’m serious, stop. I know you people love to portray psychosis because you think it makes your character interesting (see, serial killers, idefk what you lot are thinking, like wtaf???), but psychosis and psychotic disorders are more complex and diverse than you and media gives it credit for, and schizophrenics deserve some fucking slack, alright? Here’s a wild idea: do your research! I know, how dare I blaspheme, right?