Chimpanzee Scream 2 on spotify

1. What was Teds upbringing like? How were his parents, his siblings (if any), school life, ect

Ted was raised Mormon! His dad was from Utah, went on a mission to Oregon where he met his wife, & when his mission was over they got married then settled down in Oregon, where he studied to be an ophthalmologist.

They only ended up having Ted, but he had a lot of cousins, a few of which he stays in touch with.

His relationship with his parents has always been up and down. They both view him as someone with wasted potential to some extent. He was never interested in their religion, skipped school, picked up and dropped hobbies frequently, and starting around age 15 started to hang out with a "rough crowd" and show symptoms of depression and mania due to bipolar I disorder that would remain undiagnosed up into his twenties. They love him a lot, but in their eyes he always seems to be making the wrong decisions and getting into trouble.

Friend wise, Ted is the type of guy who wasnt the post popular, but everyone kind of knew and got along with him. A guy with a handful of friends in each clique. His best friend, Joey, he's known since the age of five, and is one of the only ones he stayed in touch with into adulthood.

He's able to make friends just about anywhere he goes. His parents would send him off to see his cousins in the summers as an attempt to keep him out of trouble, and he'd make friends with his cousin's friends pretty easily. (Which is how he and Red met.)

When it came to school, Ted had a lot of interest when it was interesting. If the topic didnt grasp him, his mind wandered. If the book wasnt good, he didnt read. If the teacher was a jerk, hed skip the class. He was able to graduate, but had no plans of pursuing further education once it was over.

2. Why did Ted initially start using drugs? What drug was his "gateway", so to say?

He started with smoking weed socially, a cool older kid offered him a joint, he wasnt about to say no. Same with a drinking, just something fun to do, especially with his older friends.

He was also feeling distant from religion/his parents, and started drinking and partying a little more because of it. He was offered pills and coke, it was fun and felt good, so he kept on with it. Especially when his emotions were feeling strange, taking certain things sometimes curbed those feelings.

I wouldn't say he necessarily had a gateway drug, more like gateway people. He started off with friends that cared about him and were excited to share these experiences with him, but they'd graduate and move on, and he'd find new friends in similar scenes that would go just a little harder with things. For a couple years he didnt get too crazy with it. Just a slow incline.

When he was sixteen he met some guys at a gas station who offered to hang out with him, and he agreed. He didnt know them, they didnt know him, and the night ended with him getting beat, assaulted, and left in a ditch on a backroad.

He leaned heavily into substance abuse after this point. He had already been lightly self medicating before, but the depression and trauma the incident brought on made his swings in mood a lot harder to ignore, and drugs felt good to fall back on to keep his mind occupied and thoughts from tanking

3. Has Ted ever gone to rehab? If so, has it worked, and if not, would it work?

Yes, many times, it works and it doesn't. Hes not clean to this day, but he's learned some significant harm reduction, but hes not sure if he'd chalk that up to rehab or carmen (it's carmen) - R

4. What is it about Carmen that first attracted Ted to her?

Hot Hot Pretty Hot Wow Sexy Hot - R

When they first started working together at Home Depot they didnt interact much, just kind of seeing each other in passing or making brief small talk whenever Ted found himself in the receiving bay.

He thought she was cute and got a kick out of her dry sense of humor, but she's hard to read and comes across a little standoffish, and he didn't want to be "that creepy old annoying guy at work" so he kept their interactions pretty minimal.

They'd been coworkers for a few months when at a concert Ted heard his name shouted out through the noise and turned to see a drunk Carmen heading his way. She introduced him to her friends, they chatted for a few minutes, then went their seperate ways. After that night and seeing how excited Carmen was to bump into him, Ted started going out of his way to talk to Carmen at work, and she would do the same. It only took a few weeks for them to become concert buddies. He loves her taste in music, and loves getting to show her his! -Yanko

5. How does Ted feel about Fruit Stripe Gum being discontinued?

If im bring honest he's probably devastated - R

My friend R (HastaMortis on twt!) is the co-creator of all the characters and the story, so I'm including his responses to the questions so i can expand on them

1. What is Ted's relationship with his ex like?

Ted and Connie met as strangers at a Halloween party and hooked up, then hooked up a couple times more. Just acquaintances who enjoyed each others company a few times. Connie had what's called a cryptic pregnancy, so neither Connie or Ted found out about the pregnancy until about 5 months in.

Ted always had dreams of getting married and having a big family, but the older he's gotten and the more his fear of responsibility and commitment has gotten in the way, he knows he's not cut out for it. Terrified of it, even. The last thing he wants to do is fuck up a kid's life.

Connie was very much aware that the guy high on coke the night their daughter was conceived probably wasn't father material, so they agreed on Connie getting sole custody and Ted having visitation rights. He doesn't pay child support– Connie does pretty well for herself, which Ted jokes is only because shes three years older and has more life experience– but his parents do send her money and spend more time with Jane in her early years than Ted does.

2. How does Carmens feel about Jane and vice versa?

Carmen and Jane get along great! Carmen is kind of the driving force that gets Ted to get (some of) his shit together. When it comes to Jane specifically she pushes him to spend more time with her, invite her to outings, invite her for sleepovers, anything to give them time together and a good bond. She knows Ted wants to be a good dad, knows he's capable of it, he just needs someone to shake him when he's being stupid and self destructive sometimes. She also knows what its like to have a shit dad you hold nothing but resentment for, so it's very important to her that Jane and Ted get every chance they have to build a good relationship

Jane loves carmen, and Carmen loves her back! They play a lot of videogames together on Ted's old PS2, do crafts, and gang up on and tease Ted. The older she gets, the more she goes to Carmen for advice and I think she starts to recognize and understand just how much carmen pushes Ted to get over his parental anxieties, and i think shes pretty grateful for it.

3. How/when did Carmen realize she was trans?