#the slimiest man in hollywood

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

We seem to have manifested the worm and now he's crawling out of the woodwork—with an old but new picture of Taron... Looking like Sebastian Stan? Also, asking for a friend, how does this dude always seem to post the most unflattering pics of our man? We swear he is pretty, your honour 😂

[longtimereaderfirsttimewriter]

Reversed Circumstances

This is my very first attempt at fan fiction. The idea struck me just a couple of hours ago and I started writing. I have no clue if I’m formatting this the right way. Please reply with any tips or criticisms- just be kind! I don’t know yet if this is a stand-alone or a series or what.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to PB.

Also a quick word of thanks to the fiercely talented writers who inspired me to put this out there. @fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore @drakewalkerwhipped @burnsoslow @drakeandcamilleofvaltoria and so many others.

Reverse Circumstances

Prologue

The Royal Palace

Cordonia

Present

Drake Walker was sitting at his second favorite place in the world - the counter of a well-stocked bar. His most favorite place was next to the woman he... he loved — Jenna York, Crowned Princess of Cordonia.

“Love,” he thought. “It’s still so unbelievable that after knowing her her whole life, I can now admit that I love her.”

The thought was one that would typically bring joy to even the grumpiest of men. For Drake, who was in fact the grumpiest of men, joy was one of a million emotions the thought of loving Jenna triggered. There was joy. Fear. A familiar feeling of unworthiness that had plagued Drake for most of his life. And there was another feeling that had worked it’s way in to his stoic, brooding heart: Hope. Hope that she would follow her heart, not her crown. That she wouldn’t choose one of the dozen suitors vying for her heart. That she would choose him.

Before he could let himself truly enjoy the possibility of a future with her, the pleasant chattering of the hundreds of nobles around him grew into a cacophony of “oohs” and “aaahs” and he knew — Jenna was there.

He took one last sip of whiskey, closed his eyes, and took a steadying breath. But the second he turned around that breath, every breath in his body, came whooshing out as he saw her. She was stunning. “Fuck that,” he thought, “she’s always been stunning.”

Tonight she was extraordinary. Her gown was something beyond gold - miners could spend centuries digging and never find anything as brilliant as she was in this dress: a creation almost as beautiful as she. It was a soul-stirring blend of sparkling sequins and soft feathers. The perfect representation of its wearer — a glittery brilliance from afar, but when you have the chance to get close all you can see is a soft, delicate beauty.

Drake had been one of the chosen few who had seen the real Jenna. Truth told, he’d seen more of her than anyone. Not in THAT way (though the thought of being able to see her in that way made him reach for another swig of whiskey). But after twenty-three years of knowing Jenna and twelve months (years, decades, lifetimes) of loving her, he’d seen things others didn’t.

Where others saw a regal sense of confidence, he saw vulnerability. Where others saw power, he saw fragility. Where others saw composure and poise, he had seen passion and a desire to break the mold that centuries of royal blood had constructed for her.

Knowing the moment he’d been dreading and hoping for was coming near, Drake left the safety of the bar and joined the other men vying for Jenna’s hand:

Neville Vancouer, Future Earl of Cormery Isle and the slimiest and most entitled man Drake had ever met. Unfortunately Neville was considered a favorite because his home bordered two countries that had shaky diplomatic relationships with Cordonia. King Constantine, Jenna’s father, hoped a York-Vancouer marriage would strengthen those relationships.

Lord Rashad, Heir to Duchy Domvallier. Drake was never able to figure out the future duke. Rashad was a hard worker, and one of the few members of the court who didn’t rely on his title to get ahead. Another favorite according to the bookies (yes, bookies!) to win Jenna. Thankfully he seemed to have his eye on Hana Lee, Jenna’s college roommate and best friend.

Tariq Abadi, the foreigner. The son of an Saudi billionaire, Tariq was being sponsored by Duke Godfrey of Karlington. Godfrey had no sons. His daughter, Countess Madeleine of Fydelia, was a member of Jenna’s court. Godfrey had spent years trying to get close to the throne. He hoped Tariq’s money and status could tempt the King and his daughter.

Then there was Liam. Liam Richmond came into the competition as the dark horse. He was American, a distant cousin to Bertrand and Maxwell Beaumont. Bertrand was too old to court Jenna, and Maxwell was too... well, Maxwell. So they brought in a ringer - a distant American cousin that Jenna had met during a trip to New York City the year prior. The Beaumonts hoped that that one meeting and Liam’s “Hollywood good looks” would appeal to Jenna’s adventurous side. They weren’t wrong.

Jenna liked Liam, Drake knew that. Drake had grown to like him as well. The two became surprisingly fast friends. Among the things they had in common was that they’d both fallen for Jenna. But Drake prayed that the events of the past two months would induce her to make the one choice no one expected. That she would choose him.

Drake wasn’t a noble. His father was King Constantine’s protector - head of the King’s Guard. Jackson Walker had died years earlier, protecting Constantine from an attack on the throne. After Jackson’s death, Drake’s mother left Cordonia for her family’s ranch in Texas. With Jackson’s sacrifice in mind, King Constantine agreed to take Drake and his younger sister Savannah in as his wards. Through the years, Drake had looked at Jenna as another sister. But when Jenna came back from college in England, everything changed.

Now here he stood, vying for a chance at her hand and her heart. When his... well, when Olivia Nevrakis came to him and offered to sponsor him in the competition, his distaste for all things court-related went out the window and the possibility of a life at Jenna’s side prompted him to agree. He was the dark-horse and a late-comer to the competition, but he’d given it his all.

He often wondered what Olivia’s reason for sponsoring him was, but with all his efforts spent on courting Jenna he decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Heh, if Olivia ever heard me refer to her as a horse, she’d probably skewer me with her stiletto and roast me over an open flame,” thought Drake.

So here they all were. And there stood Jenna. More beautiful than he’d ever seen her. There was also a new kind of confidence about her. He wondered if this confidence came with knowing who she was going to choose. Who she would spend her life with.

Jenna, along with the King and Queen, made their way to the center of the ballroom. As the conversation came to an excited halt, Constantine made his way to the microphone.

“On behalf of my lovely wife, Queen Regina, let me please welcome you to the Coronation Ball.” Constantine’s words were met with a cheerful applause. He gave a little cough and the crowd once again became still. “You know why we are all here. The time has come for me to step down from the throne. It is now time for my daughter, the incredible Princess Jenna, to take her place as Jenna, Queen of Cordonia. As our forefathers dictated centuries ago, before Jenna can become Queen, she must choose a King. My darling Jenna, the choice is yours.”

“Here it is,” Drake thought. “This is the moment where my life begins or ends.”

Jenna stepped to the microphone, stopping only to kiss her father on the cheek. And then she spoke. “Thank you all for being here tonight. My life is about to change in so many ways. I love Cordonia more than I can express. I pray that I grow to become the fiercely loyal ruler that my father was before me.” Jenna blushed under her father’s adoring gaze, then continued. “My father could not have ruled over Cordonia as well as he did without my mother by his side. Their love is what kept them going when times were rough, and their love for each other only made their victories more sweet.”

With that, Jenna paused to look each of her suitors in the eye. “Woah,” thought Drake, “was it me, or did she throw me a smile?! Could she really be about to choose me!?”

Drake’s question was about to be answered. “The time has come for me to decide who will stand with me during my reign,” Jenna continued. “I have chosen someone who has not only won my hand, but had won my heart.”

Drake took a look at the other men. Neville looked like he’d already won and was ready for his own coronation. Drake’s fists clenched as he saw that Tariq was very obviously undressing Jenna with his eyes.

Then he saw Liam. Liam had a smile on his face that he recognized all too well. He’d seen it in photos taken of himself with Jenna. He’d felt it on his own face every time Jenna touched him. “He loves her,” thought Drake. “Does she....” Before Drake could finish his thought, Jenna was speaking again.

“So, with no further ado, I choose, for my hand and my heart....”

All at once phones started beeping and buzzing. The blue electric glow of hundreds of screens began to cast an eerie glow on the room. Bastien, Jackson Walker’s protégée and friend, passed his own phone to Constantine and to Jenna.

“No way!!” “He wouldn’t” “The bastard!” Drake heard exclamations bursting out all around him. “There’s no way this is going to end well,” he thought. He began to make his way through the crowd. As everyone turned to look at him, Drake was searching for the only face that mattered.

Jenna looked broken. She faced Drake and his heart shattered. Where just a minute ago there was joy, he only saw anger, betrayal, and heartbreak.

He felt someone grab him and turned to see Bastien. “Drake Walker, you are hear-by banned from the Royal Court. You have twenty minutes to pack your belongings. You will then be taken to the airport where a ticket will be waiting for you. It will take you anywhere you’d like to go.”

“What!?! Bas, NO! The only place I want to go is to see Jenna! I don’t know what this is all about, but I’ve done nothing wrong. I love her!” Bastien stood calmly as Drake yelled and tried to pull away. Without a word, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed Drake what everyone else had already seen — a grainy photo of him and... Kiara!!

Kiara was a member of Jenna’s court and claimed to be her friend. A few weeks earlier, during a visit to Applewood Manor, Kiara and snuck into Drake’s room. When he entered later, she jumped out clad only in lingerie and tried to kiss Drake. Disgusted, Drake had tossed her out on her lace-covered ass. “Bas, I can explain! This isn’t what it looks like!”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Bastien said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I have orders to follow. I love you like a son, Drake, and I know you love Princess Jenna. The best thing you can do is go willingly. If it’s meant to be, you and Jenna will find your way back to each other.”

“Bullshit, Bastien. I’m going back in. I have to see her.”

Bastien reluctantly loosens his grip and Drake took a step towards the ballroom. Just then he heard Jenna begin to speak again. He picked up his pace and walked through the door just in time to hear Jenna’s voice, smaller than he’d ever heard it, say three words that broke his heart forever:

“I choose Liam.”

[jethomme]

Does one believe we’ll hear the names Max Fisher of Vox propaganda, or Jamie Kirchick, a slime monger?  No.  Yet, the name Seymour Hersh shall be revered.

(from Antiwar.com, Justin Raimondo) 

Hersh, in his interview with Democracy Now!, asserts the Saudis were aiding al-Qaeda both “before and after” 9/11, and that their fear of bin Laden blabbing to the Americans led to their support for his Abbottabad internment.

Hersh’s bombshell story has the media in defensive  mode: defensive, that is, of their patrons and overseers in official Washington.  Nothing illustrates this master-slave relationship more clearly than the ferocity  unleashed on Hersh by the administration’s Praetorian Guard in the “mainstream”  press. Everyone from Max Fisher of Vox – a reliably pro-Obama outlet – to Jamie  Kirchick, the neocons’ slimiest smear-monger, are screaming “Conspiracy theorist!”  at the top of their lungs. Within this left-right anti-Hersh Popular Front various  motivations coexist, but all are united in the contention that our government  would never ever lie to us about something so big, so important, as the  circumstances surrounding the killing of bin Laden.

Faith in our government leaders – blind, worshipful  suspension of disbelief – is what unites both wings of the Washington establishment,  and this faith is almost religious in its intensity in the one institution where  it should be entirely absent: the “mainstream” media. Yet it isn’t at all surprising  that, instead of pursuing the many leads provided by Hersh in his reporting,  they are busying themselves smearing and sneering at the man who exposed the  My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib atrocities. After all, these are the same people  who swallowed every lie put out by the Bush administration in the run up to  the invasion of Iraq, broadcasting and elaborating on the phony “intelligence”  promulgated by the neocons as justification for what Gen. William E. Odom accurately  characterized as the worst disaster in American military history.

There is much more to Hersh’s reporting than I can cover in one column, but  his essential contentions – that bin Laden’s location was revealed by a “walk-in”  from Pakistani intelligence, and that the Pakistani government knew the terrorist  chieftain’s location – have already been corroborated  by NBC News.

What’s striking, however, is the embarrassing editorial  addendum to this reporting by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell: in an  interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, a very uneasy-looking Mitchell contended  that this doesn’t contradict the Obama administration’s Official Story in any  way.

That’s worse than mere nonsense: it’s a pernicious and  conscious lie, and it’s to Hayes’ eternal shame that he sat there without calling  her on it. The whole administration narrative is based on the concocted story  that we found bin Laden by tracing him through his personal courier: that it  was due to the heroic efforts of our intelligence agencies, plus a little torture,  that we got our man. (The bit about torture was later retracted, although it  was featured in “Zero Dark Thirty,” a Pentagon-sponsored film about the operation).

We are learning a lot more from Hersh’s reporting than how and why bin Laden  met his end: we’re learning that our media is among the most servile on earth,  and that our political leaders lie routinely, and effortlessly, faking outrage  better than the best Hollywood actor. We’re learning that you can’t trust anyone  in government and the media (or do I repeat myself?) farther than you can throw  them. And we’re learning, above all, that the truth is out there, and will eventually  come out no matter what the Washington know-it-alls say or do.

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

T is going out with that Michael again 🙄

God yeah I saw. Bleurg.

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

Don't get me started on a Michael Braun rant... (but here we go anyway…). In the most technical sense, he was a Marketing Manager with Westbank out of Vancouver- a high-end real estate developer. Fancy that, I am ALSO a Marketing Director working in commercial and high-end real estate in Vancouver (2013-present). I worked a lot with HIS boss, Ian Gillespie, but never met the skeeze himself. I will say, anytime anyone brought Braun up, it became a very 'we don't talk about Bruno' situation. Hm, he was never around. Sure, the official party line was that he was getting Hollywood 'investors' for their luxury development projects. Yeahhh…. I'm sure it started like that, once upon a time. I find it funny he still has @westbankcorp in his instagram bio. Man hasn't been an employee (at least officially), for years.

Here it is, people. The Michael Braun tea we were all hoping and praying for 👀

On my signal, unleash hell.

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

Taron was friends with that guy vas on insta but no longer seems to have made the cut….

Pretty sure Richard was too and he seems to have dropped him as well.

INTERESTING

But they both still seem to have kept Michael on board... And Michael, as far as I understand, still hangs out with him. Something doesn't add up 🤔

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

Michael B is the USA equivalent of Vas J Morgan. I don't know if you've heard of him, bit he basically collects celeb friends (I'm talking everyone - A-listers; Z- listers). I believe he is also 'friends' with Taron. He has no job, never has, is not from a connected background, but is somehow friends with all of these people - it's really baffling, and people call him up on it all the time. His response is 'he's a nice person so people like him'... so are millions of people, so the math isn't mathing. He is coincidentally (surprise, surprise) friends with Michael.

I have my theories as to what they are - don't want to type it out but I'm sure you catch my drift. Partners in crime, let's say. It's a pretty popular theory, too.

I think when someone's insta feed is literally just a catalogue of pics of their celeb 'friends', it's a pretty good indicator of what type of person they are. Kinda sad tbh.

I do catch your drift and I did hear this theory as well, and I believe it 100%. Sad but true, this is the reality of Hollywood—the glitz, the glam, and the drug dealer friends. Let's not be shy about it and call him by his name, by this point I feel like it's clear enough 😂

For the record, Michael and Vas J Morgan were both good friends of Madden's/his crew of minions (Gemma Chan, Lily James, Dom Cooper, etc.) for years, and I believe Richard was the one who introduced them to Taron. The man even went to Glasto with them (but not with Madden, who was at the time busy trucking his momentary twink boyfriend around Southern Italy).

Taron, you sure can do better than this🤷🏻‍♀️

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

michael braun has to just be everyone’s coke dealer, right?????????

I mean you said it, not me 🤷🏻‍♀️

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

I thought there was something dodgy about that guy Michael when he reposted that photo that Taron quickly deleted from his insta story. But, then again, he mightve asked him to do it.

The guy went ahead and posted the same photo that Taron deleted, artfully cropped to avoid showing that he was holding two margarita glasses, to his actual feed.

Why would he have been the one asking Taron to remove it? I feel like that whole time in Taron's life was shrouded in mystery, and I still have so many unanswered questions about what the fuck was going on with him at the time. Sigh.

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

T and Paul were in West Hollywood. I hope Taron keeps him far away from Michael.

Pretty sure Michael's currently in Ibiza, but your point still stands. Ten foot pole, please.

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

GUYS

For whoever will care about this:

the slimiest man in Hollywood, friend of the stars but not a star himself (Michael Braun) was on the DWD red carpet on Monday night. I KNEW I'd seen him but I was kidding myself he could not have possibly have been let in. But of course, Gemma must have pulled some strings. He's just posted about being there, therefore... Yeah.

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

Who are his minions 😭😭😭

*counts on fingers*

Gemma Chan + SO (currently Dom Cooper?), Lily James + SO (used to be Matt Smith, god bless, but that's sadly not a thing anymore), Michael Braun (aka the slimiest man in Hollywood) plus his close friends that are out of the spotlight but are still very well-known to the fandom, Simon and Jeremy, his sugar daddy from once upon a time. Am I forgetting someone?