get to know michael darling :
The youngest of the Darling children, it was the hardest for Michael to accept growing up out of his siblings. The nursery that was once their shared bedroom remained his bedroom until the day he moved out of the house for college. The decorations they had put up as children never came down and along with them, his dreams never grew beyond that of what he wanted as a kid. He wanted a life of adventure, of wild fantasy, and nothing more.
It also didn’t help that for so much of his schooling years, he was bullied quite severely. Michael never really let it get to him that much, he always held his head high and took it all in stride, even though it did hurt. But he had his siblings and then the lost boys - so what did it matter what the assholes at school thought of him?
The bullying got to a peak in high school though, especially after Michael came out as openly gay. It was a bit harder to ignore and he found himself pulling away from everyone for a bit of time, until Sam pulled him out of it. At first it was just a friendship, and in reality that’s all it ever was, but they also started hooking up as well. It was just casual, but Michael thought it was far more serious than it actually was.
It wasn’t until a few months later, after graduation from high school, when Sam introduced Collette Tramp to the group as his girlfriend that Michael realized they weren’t actually dating. That it had all been casual fun. That was the first real heartbreak he’s ever known. And though try as he might, he’s yet to really get over it and move on.
When it was time to start applying for colleges, Michael realized he had no real direction with his life. He didn’t have any career goals, nothing he wanted to really do beyond just hanging out with his friends - and given that his senior year had been such a mess, he hadn’t gotten the best scores on his SATs or any of the other college tests. All of that together was the only reason that the Darlings agreed to let him take a singular gap year before going into university. Really it was Mary who had convinced George to allow this, knowing how hard the past year had been on their youngest boy. It was decided that he would stay home, continue working at Les Trois Compères as a host, and study to retake his tests for university. Which was exactly what he did.
Once that one year was up, he still didn’t want to go into school, having no clue what he wanted for his future even despite supposedly thinking about it for a whole year. But there was no more putting it off - so he enrolled at Echo Isle University, as an undeclared major and has been taking general education classes.
Now after this semester before he can enter the next one, he needs to declare a major. His father keeps insisting he should go into business - that it’s a smart move and will always have some kind of job security for his future. But the mere thought of being stuck in an office setting for the rest of his life is enough to make Michael want to scream, cry, and throw up. In fact, having to decide what he wants for his future at all makes him feel that way. Really, what he wants to do is drop out of school and just continue working at Les Trois Comperes. He knows if he could open his availability more they’d likely be willing to take him on as a server, and that kind of money was enough to live off of on its own - no further education needed. But he can’t tell his parents that, so instead he just keeps avoiding the subject and telling them he’s just toying between a few last options.
A baby boy idk what else to say.


















