Post by karofsky on Aug 21, 2011 13:38:56 GMT -5
MR. DAVID JAMES KAROFSKY
seventeen | william mckinley high school | max adler
code word: admin edit
" Well, okay, hello. I'm David James Karofsky. Dave will do fine. Karofsky will also do fine, because, apparently, no one at school actually knows my first name. Besides the teachers, that is. It is what it is, I suppose. I'm seventeen, but I'll turn eighteen in November, so I guess that makes me... seventeen and 5/6 years old. I'm a student at the local high school. The big beige boring one? McKinley? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. I'm a linebacker for their football team, and we're actually pretty good this year. I used to play hockey, but then I realized I wanted to keep all my teeth in my mouth, and went to football. Which is infinitely safer, right? Sigh. There just aren't a lot of safe sports to engage in at McKinley. Glee club isn't a safe sport to engage in. But I don't - no, I don't throw the slushees anymore, you kidding? I'm co-founder of the Bully Whips. I'd get my ass kicked if I started slushee-ing random people again. Plus, it stings. Really bad. What else, what else... I'm an advanced placement student. Yeah, I know, 'aren't jocks supposed to be dumb?' Nope. I'm in Calculus, Advanced English Literature, and AP Government. My college application will look better than yours, I'm certain. And... sexual orientation, what the -? Why do you want to know that? That's invasive. And not particularly relevant. ...No! It's not - ugh, fine. *very low voice* I'm gay. *regular voice* Right, so that's that. "
"So I have a bit of a problem. With my personality, that is. I don't want to sound like I'm mental or anything, because I'm not. It's just that... there's two different 'me's, if that makes sense. It's an issue of perception. There's the 'me' that I describe myself as, the 'me' I desperately want to be. And then there's the 'me' that everyone at McKinley sees, which is much worse than the 'me' I want to be. If that makes sense. If you were to ask, say, Tina Cohen-Chang what I'm like, you'd get a very different response than you would asking me. It's my own fault and I know it and I'm not afraid to admit it. To certain people, anyway.
"But one thing I think everyone can agree on, me and everyone else, is that I'm a bit... rough to deal with sometimes. I don't have great control over my emotions. It's not really a problem most of the time. Last year, it was a huge problem and I got expelled and... well, it's not really important now, but I was on an emotional roller coaster. I know society says that men shouldn't cry, but I leave my heart on my sleeve a lot. I'm really bad at hiding things. It's pretty easy to get me to spill something accidentally. Thankfully, McKinley is a cesspool of morons more concerned with Puckerman knocking up the head cheerleader. ...Actually, that was kind of disconcerting, but, you know, there's always a new drama at McKinley, so my emotional baggage gets unnoticed by most people. Right now, I'm working on keeping my emotions in better check. I mean, I broke down crying in front of Kurt last year. That was slightly unnerving, if expected...
"But everything else is kind of a crapshoot in terms of how people view me. I'm smart. The kids in my class know I'm smart. Kurt... somewhere down there, he has to know it, I assume. But most people see the letterman jacket and the 'linebacker' description and assume I'm dumb as paste. Sometimes it works to my advantage - if someone doesn't know you're smart, you have the element of surprise on your side - but most of the time, it's like, 'stop explaining that, I get it.' And I'm talking about book smart, here. I thought I was life smart, but then last year happened and... well that was a mess.
"I like to think I've got common sense, but I spent the summer re-evaluating everything I did in my junior year, and it became clear to me that I was partially delusional. I get blinded by my own desires. I'm selfish. I'm not going to lie. Everyone is, to a degree. But I felt like I was on my way up in the world, with the football team actually winning and the Glee club not being a problem, but I reached a little too far. And reached poorly. Look, I'm not giving up, though, okay? He might be dating that Warbler Ken doll weirdo, but that's not going to stop me. I just have to reconfigure. And not be so selfish. But me wanting him is selfish in of itself. Selfishness is interesting, isn't it? Funny how most people wouldn't say 'selfish' as a motivator for my actions. They would probably say 'asshole', or 'homophobic', or something like that. Perceptions always screw things up.
"I guess right now, I'm pretty remorseful. If that's a personality trait. I didn't do a lot over summer, because I wanted to make sure nothing like last year happened ever again to Kurt. I know that I can't be that insensitive to anyone again, and I genuinely want to help with the bullying problem, even if Santana duped me into it. But I've been analyzing myself. Hopefully it helps this year.
"To be honest, though, I like singing. Yes, the people I tormented were people I could see myself hanging out with. I still don't know why. Peer pressure didn't really come into play - I never took anything Azimio said seriously, since he is literally an idiot. He was just fun to play video games with. I guess I wanted what they had so bad that I felt the need to destroy it. To prove I didn't need it. It's a psychological concept of some sort, I remember reading about it - jealousy so massive that the brain's only escape from such a madness is to rationalize why it sucks. Well, if I bully Glee club, it sucks because they get bullied all the time. But I was perpetuating my own stigma against them.
"But in any case, I enjoy singing. I like football, too, obviously. It's a good stress release. And the Bully Whips is actually kind of rewarding, in its own way. Maybe if I put half the energy I spent bullying into helping people, I would be a lot farther along with my love life. Oh, uh, speaking of that... *low voice* You know Kurt? Yeah, the one over there. Kurt Hummel. Don't you dare say anything about this, hear me? Seriously, that's the last thing I need, everyone on earth knowing about this... Well, I'm kind of... I like him would be a very mild way of putting it. It got insane last year. I cannot stop thinking about him. He hates me, I know he does, and he'd probably be happy if I fell off a cliff, but I can't stop myself from... liking him. But he's dating that stupid Blaine kid. Blaine Anderson. I don't understand what's so special about him, anyway. He's so... perfect. It's boring. I kind of hate him. But not to the point of destroying him! I'm not jealous of him at all.
"Really, I'm not jealous of him. I'm taller, more muscular, smarter, and more of an actual human being than him. He's just so... weird. Like, people aren't that perfect normally. There's gotta be some weird thing going on in his brain. I know that I am hardly a better candidate for Kurt's love, but if Kurt was with... uh, Finn? I wouldn't mind NEARLY as much, because Finn doesn't seem like he wandered out of a fairy tale. Plus, he's a moron, so it'd play off of Kurt's intelligence well.
"...what else do I dislike? Lady Gaga. Basketball. Sue Sylvester. Science - can't do it to save my life. My own behavior, sometimes. Did I mention Blaine Anderson?
"...Sorry. I get a bit sarcastic sometimes. If you get me talking long enough. Anyway. ...I really hope no one hears what I'm telling you. That'd be the end of my life forever. Bye, McKinley, bye, Kurt. But while we're at it... well, I'm thinking of trying out for Glee club.
"Please stop laughing. *glare*
"I'm nervous about it. Really. I feel like I seriously owe everyone in that club something. And they always need members. Always. Mr. Schue said he wanted me to join last year, and so did Finn, but Finn is such a stupidly nice guy that it didn't register as much as Mr. Schue telling me I had a talent. People don't usually tell me things like that. So I spent the summer ruminating and finding all the sheet music I could possibly want to sing."
"...What would make me want to join Glee club? Huh. Maybe I should just start from the beginning. It'd make life a lot easier. For me. And you, probably.
"Basically, I've lived in Lima, Ohio all my life. My mom works for a publishing company as an editor. My father is a professor at Ohio State in the chemistry department. I was never left alone as a child or anything - one of them was always there. My mother instilled a real love of reading in me from age two, and my father encouraged me to do whatever made me happy. I didn't realize it until much later, but I never saw my grandparents from his side of the family because they disapproved of him becoming a teacher, instead of doing something that could bring greater glory to his name. But it wasn't like I came from some abusive, broken home. That's what everyone assumes - the bully bullies people because his own life sucks. But mine didn't. It was pretty nice.
"High school changed a lot of things. I tried out for hockey before realizing I loathed it after my first concussion. Having a face full of blood will really change your outlook on things. Before that, I had to complete the hockey hazing ritual of slusheeing someone. I picked Finn, since he was tall and I'd be able to spot him in a crowd. More on that later, though. My dad knew that I wanted to be more active in a sport, since I did basketball in junior high and pretty much loathed it. Really, I cannot stand basketball. It drives me crazy. He suggested maybe baseball, something we both discarded as not a good idea when, while going out to practice, I managed to bean myself in the head with my bat while swinging. So football it was. Since Coach Tanaka was pretty hard-up to find players, I was let in. Of course, the entire McKinley universe was collapsing.
"See, Mr. Schue started a Glee club. That's it. That's what made the whole high school social world blow up. I thought, 'well, that's dumb.' I had just befriended this guy, Azimio, another linebacker on the football team. Turns out my little act of slusheeing Finn was just the beginning of what Glee club would go through. They were all nerds and outcasts and freaks, according to... well, everyone who wasn't in the club. Which I thought was odd, you know, since Brittany and Santana never lost their social charms. By which I mean their ability to pick up nightly sex partners. But the higher ups in McKinley Social World declared that all Glee club members were to be put in their place. That... made me... uncomfortable, to say the least. For a little bit.
"Like I said earlier, I was very jealous of what they had. They had a family in that club. I remember hearing them sing one of their songs - 'Lean On Me'. Old classic. Great song, and the way they sang it, they were definitely singing it to someone in their group, to keep them going. And I wanted that. I didn't feel at home with the football team, even though I loved football. They were all very cold. Obsessed with their status. I began to secretly watch Glee perform. I went to sectionals. I'm not kidding, I was in the back row at sectionals, watching the club I was publicly torturing by day sing the Rolling Stones. It was so messed up. But I couldn't join if I wanted to keep my reputation as a big man on campus. And I couldn't not bully them - indifference was as bad as rebellion. So it was all a mess.
"I know this isn't very relevant right now, but there was this kid, Jesse St. James? I don't know why, but nobody thought to ever bully him when we were there. Probably because he gave off this air of evil? Do you know anything about that? ...No? Yeah, I dunno.
"Anyway. So Glee club was going to regionals, against Vocal Adrenaline, who I also sat in and watched one time. They seemed like the football team to me - a group brought together by a goal, but without any emotion. They were all winners. Selfish. So you know, life goes on, Mr. Schue assigns Glee club to wear costumes for Lady Gaga for a week. I was only aware that they were Lady Gaga costumes because someone told me, honestly. I was really not up on the whole Lady Gaga phenomenon, and I still am not up on it. By choice. Her music is not my thing.
"Anyway, Lady Gaga costumes. Tina Cohen-Chang wore this bubble suit. I wanted to see if they would bounce if I shoved her into a locker. ...I am not proud of things I did, shut up. So I did. And Kurt got in my face about it.
"So at that moment, Kurt yelling at me for hitting a girl or shoving a girl or... the words are lost to me. But he was wearing this... thing. It was a giant glittery dress. And he had a towering French monarchy-styled pompadour on his head, it was a surreal looking outfit. It was like someone smashed a bottle over my head. I was so bowled over by this outfit. Or what I thought was the outfit. I started wondering what would possess someone to wear that outfit, and then decided that, look, that's just dumb. If someone's going to wear a dress that looks like that to school, they should know it's idiotic.
"It got a bit ugly for a week, Finn saved Kurt in a dress made out of a shower curtain - yes, a shower curtain. Yes, Finn is, I grudgingly admit, pretty awesome - and yay Glee club is okay for family fun time again! I figured, you know, that's the end of that. We can go back to doing what we always do, the slushee thing. But it wasn't really the end of that. Glee went to regionals; I didn't go. I was too busy trying to figure out why I was still thinking about Kurt and his stupid dress. And Kurt and the sweater vest he was wearing. I became obsessed with his fashion sense, wondering what could compel him to wear some of the things he wore.
"By the end of summer, that turned into a full-blown, insanely ridiculously sized crush on Kurt Hummel. I didn't know what the hell was going on with my mind. Yes, I'd never been interested in girls, but I'd never been interested in ANYONE, so it wasn't like I had anything to draw from. I did get a bit panicked. And then realized I shoved the guy I'd fallen for into walls like twenty times. But I needed a plan of action. I needed to figure out if I really liked him or not.
"So I, uh... started... stalking him.
"I'm not proud of this, okay? But I had no experience, and I wasn't going to ask my family what to do. They're nice and all, but that was... this was different. I went online, I read what happened to some kids. I saw Boys Don't Cry, and though it wasn't totally relevant, it was relevant enough. I just kind of followed Kurt around, wherever he went. And things sometimes slipped out in regular conversation, or got plain old weird. Like when Rachel paid me to slushee Kurt and her. That was... odd. I still don't know why she did that. I have the money on my dresser. I'll give it back to her eventually.
"But there were constant reminders about Kurt everywhere. Probably because I was following him everywhere. I couldn't stop myself, it was awful. I saw more of The Rocky Horror Picture show that the group planned to put on than most of their parents. And it was just Kurt that made me like this. Finn walks down the hall in his boxers, and I could only mock him for, well, walking down the hall in his boxers. What was he thinking?!
"But the bullying, I moved it to be exclusively Kurt-based. It gave me a reason to be near him, twisted as that sounds. And it's twisted. I tried 'hi, how are you?' once at the beginning of the year, and he ran away. It was like a boy pulling on a girl's pigtails. Except I was like twice his size and it was completely screwy. Until one day... he went to the hell place.
"Dalton Academy. Ugh. And he met Blaine. Double ugh. I didn't follow him that day because I had football practice, but before I know it, he has a locker shrine to some Harry Potter look-alike and I'm like, 'what the hell just happened?' Not like I was on the road to a great relationship with Kurt or anything, but still, where'd this guy come from? And then Kurt - he fought back. Finally. I don't know what made him not do it before, but I smacked his phone out of his hand, and then he followed me into the locker room, yelling at me, 'why are you doing this?' kind of stuff.
"But it got a lot more pointed. Kurt's like that. He sees through bullshit. It's one of the things I really love about him. Of course, he was pointed in the completely wrong direction, but at least he fought back. I didn't really know what to do with him yelling at me, especially since he was brazenly insulting me and making it obvious that I probably didn't have a chance, so I... uh... kissed him. That went over about as well as I expected, since he sank to the floor and I ran away and aren't we all proud of ourselves?
"And it got worse. I didn't know what to do with Kurt - especially since he had Glee Club Ken to keep him company - so I rotated wildly between trying to beat the crap out of him and flirting really poorly with him. He was a mess. I was a mess. I threatened to kill him. He began crying all the time. I got expelled. He left McKinley. I started stalking him at Dalton. Oh my God it was such a mess. I barely remember doing anything school-related for months, I was so wrapped up in my confusion. My dad started to get really worried about the time I got brought back to school. I had to act like it didn't matter at McKinley, but I was crying a lot at home because I basically forced the only person I'd ever felt anything for to leave school. And get engaged to his fairy tale prince. Or something. Are they? No? Thank Christ.
"...I also got beat up by Kurt's dad. Almost. Surreal times.
"Around the same time, Glee and football were spiraling into all-out war. I wasn't around, but the guys slushied Artie pretty badly, and at that point, I realized we were really going too far. I was already thinking it, since, you know, Kurt's gone and it's all my fault and I'm an idiot, but dude is in a wheelchair. That's horrifying. Coach Bieste and Will had this idea that football would join Glee, which I said I didn't like and was very pushy about but, secretly, I figured out what I wanted there. I wanted to be in that family. But I couldn't be. Not with the way everything was going around me. I needed to sort myself out. Kurt needed to be back. Blaine Anderson needed to die. Finn needed to stop being so smiley like nothing ever affects him. It was the wrong time.
"But I did my best to curb the slusheeing. And it worked. Amazingly. Azimio was pissed, but the rest of the football team really laid off. After I got Santana with one. I'd been dying to do that for a while, since she is, and will always be, a total bitch. She threatened me with razors in her hair later, when I was busy being mad at Blaine Anderson at the benefit concert. I was going to watch, but apparently, Kurt felt the need to bring his boyfriend along. And he hit the nail on the head - we all knew what was going on. I could've reacted better to him basically saying I wanted Kurt so badly it was painful, but really, I still want to punch the guy in the face. I tried. Santana came up and was all Santana about it, and I left, even though I saw Lauren Zises kick her butt to the curb in the hallway the other week.
"Didn't work out so well. Santana figured me out. How, I don't know. She said me checking out Sam's ass, but I really was trying to figure out what jeans he was wearing. Because they looked good, and I want to look good. But she blackmailed me into being her beard and forming a league to bring Kurt back to school and stop bullying. I could've mentioned the lack of slusheeing that took place in the past few weeks, but I didn't. Bringing Kurt back? Great idea. Kurt saw through the altruism pretty damn fast, but you know. That's him. So I told him about Santana's reasoning. I figured he knew mine, but... he didn't really.
"So I burst out crying in front of him finally, saying I hated myself for everything I did to him. I needed to do that. It was honestly teh one thing holding me back from actually moving on with my life. Not moving on from Kurt, no, but my life was so messed up at that point. He seemed sympathetic, but I know he didn't quite understand. I made him so miserable he left. I brought it entirely on myself. But Kurt said he knew how sorry I was. Maybe that's something.
"...Ugh, no, I am not talking about Prom, that was a disaster. A disaster that I had nothing to do with. Poor Kurt.
"Anyway. The Glee club went to Nationals, and I found myself kind of... alone. My life of late revolved around Glee club. So I thought it out. I went to see Counselor Pillsbury, and mentioned that I felt like I should join Glee club, because I was just so bored without them. I left out, oh, everything else relevant. She said she thought it was a great idea. So there you have it. Incidentally, have you seen 'The Book of Mormon'? Do you think 'Man Up' is a good audition song?"
"Hey, I'm Hal. Nice to meet you all. I've been RPing for four years now, and one of my first sites was a High School Musical RP that lasted two years, so you know, hooray? XD I'm almost twenty, and PM is really the best way to get in touch with me. And I'm really glad to be taking over Karofsky here - it's odd, but I identify with him, as a bisexual, more than Kurt. I want him to succeed in the ways I did when I was coming out and confused, even if he is a bit of a jerk. But we all have our moments. *shrug* So there you go."
((from Waiting for a Train, an Inception RP))
"The bartender, in her continually nice attitude, introduced herself as Riley. Being Irish, Kellan had always heard Riley as a guy's name. For some reason, he thought Riley suited her, though. She looked like she could handle herself pretty well, and Riley always conjured up images of strong men fighting the tyranny of British forces in Kellan's mind. He blamed Reid's stories of his grandparents, awesome as those stories were. Kellan wondered if maybe Riley herself was Irish, for a few seconds, before his previous gloom kicked in again. He might be spacey sometimes, but he wasn't that spacey. "Riley, that's a nice name." He didn't say much else for a bit, taking sips of his water and thinking, silently. He didn't want to be rude to Riley, but he doubted she would understand what he was going through. For starters, she didn't look like she got rejected very often, with a perfect, feminine body, perfect blonde hair, and that kind of pout that guys apparently liked, given what Kellan saw in Cillian's pin-up magazines. She began to stack glasses as he finally mentioned how weird what he was doing was.
Riley shrugged, informing him that a lot of adults came in here to think. It was a bit different coming from a teenager, she implied, but she was used to it. Kellan smiled a bit to himself. "I just have a lot to think about recently." Much to Kellan's surprise, Riley asked him if he wanted to talk about anything. Her bar was Vegas - what happened there stayed there, and that included discussions. Smiling at him, Kellan felt like he could tell her anything. He didn't have a lot of people he could talk to that weren't intimately connected to his situation. He might be able to be more open with her. Not to mention that his last talk with a therapist went horribly wrong (Dr. Grayson was crazy).
"...There's a boy," Kellan mentioned, softly, taking a drink of water. He didn't want Sir Horny to hear and take that as an invitation to hit on Riley again. Or him. He wasn't in the mood for either. "I don't really know where we stand. It's been bothering me for a few days." "
hey you! listen up! the credits for this lovely template go to your admin, haley. lyrics belong to the original glee song get it right and the songwriter, adam anders. keep these credits on or a) your application may not be accepted, b) you may be eaten, or c) both a and b. so keep the credits on!
