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tomaspriestley · 3 years

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➵ BASICS

NAME: Tomas Priestley GOES BY: Tomas, Coffee Maker. AGE / D.O.B: 19th December, 1994. [26 yo] FACECLAIM: Jordan Fisher GENDER & SEXUALITY: Cis-Man, Bi. HOMETOWN: Fort Myers, Florida. CURRENTLY: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC. AFFILIATION: None. JOB POSITION: Intern for New York Times. EDUCATION: College, Media & Communication Degree. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single. CHILDREN: None.

➵ TRAITS

POSITIVE: Trusting, Fearless, Encouraging, Jovial, Contented. NEGATIVE: Chaotic, Inexperienced, Reckless, Gullible, Impulsive.

➵ BIOGRAPHY

Picturesque is the Priestley household; townhouse in a popular, inexpensive area of Fort Myers, Florida and a kind of family that always wants to be doing something active; moving, running – causing noise; a ruckus; chaos in every avenue. There’s so many of them that it seems impossible to avoid, Alexander and Emilia Priestley liked the idea of a big family from when they were youths and they had secure enough jobs, financials to actually run it without too many hitches. (A hefty inheritance from Emilia’s grandfather in Barcelona that mysteriously left her a sum that seems suspiciously high for a man who appeared as an ordinary businessman, definitely helped with that.) It was nearly every half a decade, there would be a new Priestley child; equally as full of energy as the last.

Tomás was second-born of the Priestley’s, only outranked by his older brother Lorenzo but he never felt like the younger one considering they were all free souls; unrestricted in the sense that they saw their parents one at a time, usually – a twenty four hour shift for their father and an in and out mother who knew more about her current and future court cases that her firstborn’s favourite colour. But, that was OK. They had enough love and devotion between them and it’s almost biological how wild they could be – Tomás could even swear that everyone in Fort Myers knew at least one Priestley.

Throughout all that, the sweet perfection of the family that seemed just as kind behind closed doors as they were out of it, kids boarding down the sidewalks of the beaches, running rampant in coffee shops because there’s more than life than just the rules and the staling of the ordinary. Tomás and Lorenzo noticed it first, when they’d go to bed at night and there’s a sound that’s not so joyous and pleasant coming from their parents room – the arguments that eventually Anna-Maria caught wind of, denied and unsettled the household despite how every morning, the façade is upheld and there’s nothing wrong in the eyes of the Priestley parents when they offer white smiles and hugs at the dinner table; it’s too perfect.

Because it’s not.

And Enzo went off to pursue law at Charleston – just like his mother; made the following in footsteps first and left Tomás in the limbo of how he wasn’t made to be a lawyer; didn’t work well with the mathematics for starters, the eldest brother of the chaotic duo went for the organised route and left the second of them simply wanting to write stories; is the only one absorbing the news from the television on the kitchen side when they’re having breakfast.

The little doodles on the napkins in restaurants at family dinners, the listening ears as he eavesdropped on gossip about the town like he was just there as witness and reporter. He liked it. And it fitted what he wanted – he could see himself doing that, being a writer, editor-in-chief – the dream is there. As it remained to be when he started his final year of school, stayed ever close to his sister Anna-Maria who also, to his quiet approval seemed to want to go into something in the cookery world; open a restaurant; head chef, a kind of left wing decision that whilst he knows his parents would never reject (because they’ve always been taught to pursue dreams) but perhaps doubt in silence.

Except – Tomás realised that when he was a little older, his mother making business trips to Spain, familial things she’d said, were getting increasingly longer, the arguments at least fewer at night. But perhaps, because there was an absence there; a hole in the bubbliness and energy in the townhouse, the bustling of feet barrelling down three flights of stairs is sound forever engrained in the man’s mind.

He misses it.

Because his application for his degree at NYU came back as accepted – as was his internship for the New York Times.

That was both the greatest and worst day of his life.

And not just because it meant moving away from his family and making his own life outside of them. Hanna – one of his younger sisters had been involved in a crash that left her in a coma. Same day, almost the same hour, everything that felt good about that day is clouded in a grey that drowned every single Priestley in seconds as they all found their way to hospital in bursts – dragged out of work, of school and an array of cars that blocked the front entrance for a little longer than helpful just so they could be first there.

Tomás attempted to delay his travel plans to New York, but, like most relentless of business moguls, he was told straight that it would jeopardise not only his college, but his internship and despite extenuating circumstances. Not even his sister in a comatose was a good enough excuse. It broke him – gutted him a little deeper than he wanted when he packed those bags. This time, because his parents had told him to, the same ones that didn’t seem all that enthused about his choices, encouraged him to go for his dreams because that’s what parents did.

Hanna was in the best care, under the best doctors and whether he stayed or left, he couldn’t change a thing.

But it still hurt, and it’s an irony that brings the family closer; they were always relatively tight knit, but one Priestley down means that they all go down, Tomás hates putting his phone down for both business purposes, and in case he ever needs to take that call.

He hopes he never has to.

New York isn’t what he imagined, but like he’s grown up, he’s a little too chaotic – has seen what real trauma is that he won’t let the coffee making and the fact that nobody quite takes him seriously (yet) deter him from achieving his goals. Too enthused to be there, too chaotic in the way he’s leaving doodles on executives desks, sliding along the corridors when he drops paper works on trays and files away in tiny compact rooms barefooted (because, brogues kill his feet) when nobody’s looking and wears the grin like it’s nobody’s business.

Can’t knock the guy down because he’s accustomed to getting back up and getting through it.

➵ HEADCANONS

Fresh coffee splashes over Tomas’ shoes, and from over-stacked hands goes the prints – down into the same spillage that’s soaking his once white socks. Brogues stained and slick with the hot liquid that trickles off fresh lacquer. He’s bug eying the mess that’s right at his feet. Shit, shit, shit lord, fuck. It’s said a hundred times in his head – is still being said even when he’s collecting those brown stained sheets from the floor and hopelessly smacks the papers in some flair of dramatics as thought they’re salvageable. There’s a redness about his cheeks, the late revelation that the print team are looking at him; stifling laughter; disappointed; disgusted mostly – an array of emotions that cross over every possible spectrum of this man is an idiot and reminds Priestley very much how he isn’t equipped for his job, and that getting further seems near unreachable given his one assignment of the day is now smeared and illegible. Thus, the calculations for how much time he has to reprint, rebind and organise a new stack of tomorrow’s article drafts begins; and if he sacrifices dignity of getting out of coffee stained clothes, he might just do it.

A house of noise near enough vibrates the walls of the cramped townhouse, Tomas is running along the downstairs corridors; a child; second eldest of an overflowing family. Loves it; so enjoys his siblings rivalries; all trivial; all playful and a kind of too easy upbringing that makes the Priestley name sounds too much like The Thompson’s, the whole name on the damn letterbox and a front yard that is a little too primp for a three by three that serves as nothing more than aesthetic when it’s practicality doesn’t extend past showing off the ornamental wishing well that sits in the centre. Tomas understands it a little more than his younger siblings, knows what that late night yelling means behind closed doors when everyone else is sleeping. He lies awake at night just listening to the story to be told, stares a little too long at his parents in the morning wearing the perfection masks when making breakfast and that energy of excitement reverberates the house once more. Tomas tries to help – take weight off having seven children in the house, a crazy number to manage in a small place that barely has enough bedrooms with two sharing, but they carried an air that they loved it. That finances were fine; his father as a firefighter and his mother as some hotshot lawyer that a young Tomas doesn’t quite understand just yet – much like how those clashing schedules were never going to work in the long term; stress worn, never shown. And Tomas doesn’t want to do law and he had never been quite heroic enough to be a first responder. His older brother, the favourite for that. He liked to write about it however – stories that were told to engage and passed around scrap papers in the house, those late night rows that he heard become rumours between ever aging siblings; his older brother collecting them and tossing them out before they ever made it back to their parents. Peacekeeper; eventual lawman; proud son of the Priestley’s. Tomas, the intern, doesn’t much compare to that.

Tomas sits in the plastic chair of his Editor’s office, picking at the edge of the armrest as he looks at the cardboard tray holding his boss’ coffee, has said twice already to them that it’s getting cold as if it’s an important detail – breaks the quiet a little more than just feeling this amounting dread that eats away at the man when he waits for his grilling. Priestley has his speech prepared – and it consists of: I swear, boss, I didn’t mean to get the Times barred from Starbucks, I didn’t know it wasn’t a joke when eighty-six orders were given to me, I just thought I was being… nice… It hadn’t just been the excessive order, but the detail that he’d been told about the new drink on the menu: Bean-yonce (you know, the one that definitely does not exist.) and insisted he’d been given that order after being told repeatedly, no, they don’t serve that.

Shoes clack fast on the sidewalk when Tomas is barrelling through the concrete jungle with a pen in hand like a Wildman in the wilderness, text from a friend than tell that there’s a story brewing on 36th street and he’s desperate to get the scoop, wants to at least have something to claim as one of the first on scene – if he makes it in time, only comes close because he’s already nearby. In these moments, thinks about the possibility that this could be the make and break it one; the entry to the big time (whatever that means, changes, depending on the circumstance.) and that his internship at NYT might be taken with a little more severity if he can come back with something that’d be front page news. And sometimes, that desperation crosses into reckless and downright, foolish when he continues to dive headfirst into an emergency responders scene, phone out, pen ready to jot down statements on his goddamn arm if his videoing doesn’t cut it. Nine times out of ten, he’s being dragged out of a firefight; the crossfire and doted luckiest man alive for coming out unscathed and ultimately confused about why he cannot get closer to get the details; the ones that really matter – all whilst grinning like he doesn’t hear the sound of shouting from a neighbouring rooftop that maybe, just maybe, the person he wants to interview might jump before he gets the chance. He then wonders how fast he can climb, definitely, should not find out.

There’s a little scrawling in the corner of his notebook – a doodle some might say, a little cartoonised character that takes up residence on each little lined paper and acts as a marker for the little flipbook’s Tomas seems to end up creating in the little bursts of time he does have – between work, family and the extra effort put into his job that takes up nearly every waking hour. But he likes to doodle, scribble little stories that match up – or don’t – depends on the day really; a tranquillity that he thinks spurs from his five younger siblings and how keeping them entertained at times can be gruelling; sketching seems like an out to writing the stories where imagery sometimes can denote it in another way. Often leaves little scrap papers around the office of figures waving at editor’s desks and soon removed and labelled annoying when to Tomas it’s a day brightener; because sometimes, New Yorkers need it.

➵ CONNECTIONS

➵ WANTED CONNECTIONS

NEW YORK TIMERS [0/?] Bog-standard office connects and all the crazy crackheads that might be running and/or in similar positions, other interns that are with him and all the true madness that any person that throws themselves into shit does. Give me all the dumb HCs.

YOU ARE WHO NOW? [0/2] Tomás is the kind of guy who’d probs like chat up a mafia boss at the damn bar like a bumbling idiot and tell wacky stories about one time, he nearly spilt ice cream on his bosses four thousand dollar suit and lost his job like it might be the CRIME OF THE CENTURY to admit whilst y’know, he’s this irritating thorn in everyone’s side (or amusing lil shit, who knows, maybe they’ll vibe) but regardless, maybe uses/abuses him for his media-ness, heads-up on working stories etc. (despite being an intern) he thinks he’s got SUCH COOL FRIENDS who know everyone and he enjoys bouncing foolhardy stories with them.

COFFEE DEALER [0/1] The kind that ain’t illegal; the person who’s always working the opening shift at the café and he’s always ordering 32 coffees that are that the most ridiculous over the top types of office coffee because he’s the intern and this is clearly, his job. Probably laugh at him, pity him, like him, think he’s crazy for humouring it every morning but this could be fun and quirky.

COP THE STORY [0/2] So, perhaps, that little nosy cop that knows that the intern definitely has loose lips in the sense of he’ll say everything he’s thinking and definitely share things he probably shouldn’t. Also, the cop that’s pulling him out/bailing him away from dangerous situations. Police being second on the scene to Tomás who appears to always be there with a desire for the exclusive; notepad and a pen in hand like some fly on every city wall. Baits him sometimes perhaps and uses him as a stand in; sends a civvie media annoyance into the fray instead of potentially losing a cop? Hm.

I MISSED OUT TO HIM? [0/2] Anyone who knows Tomás will probably be fully aware he’s a literal idiot in the sense that whilst he writes and sells GREAT stories he is pretty hopeless in most every other skill of the world and will probably be out to ruin his chances of progressing past coffee connoisseur and perhaps they applied with him and didn’t get the internship where he did and there’s some unpleasant blood there?

GOVERN-MENTALS [0/1] So, still a work in progress on this one, his mother is a hotshot lawyer and probably has some connections that somehow helped Tomás get somewhere with feet in doors. Possibly a friend of a friend, of a friend or something unlikely that are high up in the government ranks and pushed for him to avoid media and go the law route like some of his other sibling. Possibly some typical prove he’s something to them because his family probably remain sceptical of his choice of path. This leads onto the familial connects.

SCANDALOUS SHENANIGANS [0/1] Give him someone who’s got the scandal of the century, he’s stumbled upon it and has no idea what to do with the information. Doesn’t know who deserves to be presented with it; whether he’s got to fight for credit to get his name on it. Whether he’s blackmailed to keep quiet; paid off; a complicated thing that could get spicy and messy.

➵ QUICK LINKS

THREADS

MUSINGS

HEADCANONS

SELF-PARAS

#ƈԋασʂ / * ƚσɱαʂ

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