ABOUT THE MUN. fuck this *unfocuses my eyes*

fun fact about me, i’ve been working every day for the last ten days so i love that for me dkjdkj which is literally why me getting myself here was so chaotic honestly but i’m here i made it and we love to see it. honestly i am just a humble fergie enthusiast (patiently waiting for my girl to come back from her hiatus. any day now). i would die for a good aesthetic like pinterest owns my ass. i am big fan of the bachelor and specifically demi from the bachelor (demi from the bachelor if you are reading this i would like to hang out with you friday when i am free. please contact me if you’re able to hang out (on friday when i am free)). i am a huge superhero nerd. the first fanfic i ever wrote was a teen titans/danny phantom crossover and honestly? most ambitious crossover of all time, sorry endgame. i’ve never seen star wars or lord of the rings, and i’m okay with that. oh, and funnily enough i have never played chess which is about to be very ironic and i think that’s the perfect transition into shia’s bio.

BIO. child abuse tw, addiction tw, drug tw, and i think that’s it rip. 

(tldr literally just click the link in the second bullet point for a summary because that’s how shia grew up, with psychologist parents determined to make him a prodigy. he is technically a prodigy now as the youngest grandmaster in history. his family is weird and fucked up and cold blah blah blah takes a lot of drugs, drinks a lot of alcohol to cope with his messed up childhood blah blah blah went to boarding school for high school. oh, and there’s a meme of him. and that’s pretty much it.)

okay first of all here is shia’s pinterest board and here is his playlist, which is honestly just??? really messy and just filled with songs that remind me of him (like it doesn’t flow at all i’m pretty sure yk) so! yeah!

second of all, shia’s backstory is thoroughly inspired by a true story. like I legitimately found this (look at the early life portion to see what i’m talking about if you want but i’m about to explain it all below anyways) and was like !!!???? so yes, that’s how this mess was born (although i highkey think that gerard way got inspo from that family for the umbrella academy like??? that’s my little conspiracy theory. WHERE ARE THEIR ROYALTIES GERARD!)

Shia doesn’t remember life before he was adopted. Before he was Zigmund Ivan Vanzin, the fourth child of the carefully selected Vanzin 6. Honestly he’s not quite sure his life prior is of much importance, because things didn’t truly get crazy until after he was officially taken in by the Vanzin family at the tender age of two.

Shia and his five siblings were all part of an educational experiment carried out by their parents, Moira and Yakov Vanzin, in an attempt to prove that children could be trained to be prodigies if immersed in a specialist subject from a very early age. ‘Geniuses are made, not born’, was the tagline of their parents thesis, and the foundation on which Shia and his siblings’ entire childhood was based on. They would all be molded into prodigies, and they would be living, breathing proof of their parents achievements.

Because of the magnitude of their experiment, and Shia’s parents reputation (both of Shia’s parents was a very famous educational psychologists in their own right, and due to their fame, their experiment and their children were covered in magazines and newspapers worldwide. To this day a quick google search will lead you pictures of the Vanzin 6 growing up slowly on the covers of publications such as Times Magazine, Forbes, People, and of course a myriad of academic magazines as well.) they received heavy criticism at the time from some western media for ‘depriving the siblings of a normal childhood.’ But since all of the Vanzin children were born and raised in Russia, that criticism didn’t do much in the way of stopping them. Shia’s parents coolly ignored it all. They wanted to leave a mark. To change the future. And they both truly believed that their research would do that. They believed their work would completely revolutionize the way that children were educated, and that therefore, they would revolutionize the future.

And so the children were affectionately dubbed The Vanzin 6 by the media that wasn’t completely against the experiment. A cute little nickname smacked on what would normally be considered a child endangerment lawsuit. Sure, there were still those that protested, but their cries were quiet in comparison to the roars of the intrigued, of the curious, of the fans, because of course there were fans. So it goes without saying that Shia’s first photo op was when he was still in diapers. He smiled cheekily through the whole thing, in striking contrast to his siblings all staring empty eyed into the camera. Their lives were pretty much put on constant display from that point on, and honestly, at least in terms of Shia’s approach to photo ops, not much has changed on that front.

Shia’s parents educated their six children at home, each with their own specific subject to focus on. From the age of four, Shia, or Zigmund, as his birth certificate so lovingly displayed, (it should be noted that Moira and Yakov named all of their children after psychologists, and that Shia was simply unlucky enough to get Freud. So perhaps lovingly wasn’t the right word.) showed a talent for chess, and therefore that talent was ‘nurtured’. In other words, Shia was only allowed to live and breathe chess from the cursed day his chubby little fingers picked up a chess piece to, presumably, the day he died. If he wasn’t eating, sleeping, or doing his school work, Shia was playing chess. First he played against his father, and mother, and siblings and when that stopped posing a challenge, he got involved in official competitions. Those were somehow even less of a challenge, but granted, his siblings were being trained into geniuses. At first he played children his age, and then slightly older, and then much older, which Shia will admit, was the most fun. Even as a child there was just something about seeing a grown man go red in the face with frustration as he lost to a child. Something amusing. Something powerful. Admittedly, chess got old. But that specific red faced look never did.

Shia rose up the ranks slowly and steadily from then on, already creating quite a stir in the world of chess by the age of six. And considering this was what they wanted, you would think his parents would be proud. Thrilled even. However that was not completely the case.

For as long as Shia can remember his relationship with his parents had been more ‘professional’ than affectionate. To start, he and his siblings all called them both by their first names. Considering he was adopted, Shia would never know what his first word was, that memory was lost to him and kept only by the parents who didn’t want him enough to keep him in the first place. But even if he was born to Moira and Yakov, if the two were his flesh and blood, he knows with absolute surety that the first words to come out of his mouth wouldn’t have been ‘Mama’ or ‘Papa’. The two never referred to themselves that way, and they didn’t expect their children to either. Shia remembers with painful clarity first and only time he tried. Or rather, he remembers the stomach turning look of both confusion and contempt from Moira that followed the one time he tried. He never tried again.

His parents didn’t offer much when it came to what normal parents did he supposed. He didn’t receive much physical affection from them, or sugar coated words. They were their parents, yes, but they were also their handlers, and being raised with that emotional distance definitely had an impact on Shia’s psyche. All Shia wanted to do was impress his parents. Maybe get a good job, or a hug, or a smile. The kind of things he’d seen other kids get just for breathing, or using a toilet. But he knew his parents expected more. He knew they expected the best. So the only way he knew how to achieve his goal of attaining his parents affection was to work harder. To be the best he could at chess, the best anyone could at chess, and once he did that he knew his parents would reward him. He knew they would love him for taking the first step to make their dreams come true. When he was young he used to have dreams of that reward. Of how good it would feel to know they were proud of him. He imagined it feeling warm. And light, like he’d read in books. He imagined it feeling worth it.

Shia and his siblings were never the children that got asked that question, you know, the question that all children can relate to answering with bubbling wide eyed excitement. ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ The answer was laid out for them. It was decided before they even had a chance to think about it, and any time someone made the mistake of asking them the question, their parents  answered for them. She will be the world’s youngest prima ballerina. She will be a legend in the musical field. He will be grandmaster. No, dreams weren’t for the Vanzin children, so Shia’s kept his quiet. Kept it close to his heart where his parents couldn’t admonish him for being sentimental or fickle or any of the other large words they used that Shia was only instructed to look up in the dictionary. His dream of gaining their favour was his, and his alone. Shia learned very quickly in life to keep your cards close, and your heart buried.

And after years of hard work and dedication, and a lot of blood sweat and tears, Shia did it. He won. He finally beat everyone there was to beat, and at the youngest recorded age of ten to boot. Shia was officially the world’s youngest grandmaster. His record has still yet to be beat to this day. And that day, he looked to his parents, ready for them to run to him and shower him with the affection and praise he longed for. It didn’t take long for the ecstatic expression on his young face to fall.

The most Shia got was an approving nod from his mother from across the room. His father, for his part, was on a phone call. That was it. The crowd roared around him, and the audience clapped with the enthusiasm usually reserved for sports games and concerts. The reporters at the event stumbled over their words trying to communicate the record breaking event that they had just witnessed, from one of the lionized Vanzin 6. It was chaos, beautiful, celebratory chaos, all for Shia, but it was all a blur around him. He couldn’t see it. All he could see was Moira and Yakov, turning away from him and towards each other, whispering god knows what. He had their full attention for maybe all of a minute. They didn’t even smile.

(There is live video of Shia having his dream crushed right before his eyes. Recordings of it on youtube. How many people can say that, aye? The true power of celebrity. The gif of Shia’s shocked and empty expression amidst a crowd of ballistic celebration even became a meme at one point, a meme that Shia later bitterly used on occasion, because what was more powerful than using a meme of yourself? Than using your own pain for humour? Nothing, in Shia’s opinion.)

After Shia became grandmaster everything stopped. After all, there was nothing more to train him for. He had achieved his goal. He had won. And with his parents no longer focusing on training him and leaving him completely to his own devices, well, they stopped paying attention to him completely. Shia was all at once almost completely emancipated. The freedom of it all was freeing for all of a week. Then, Shia started to feel painfully invisible.

Prior to becoming grandmaster, Shia was quiet. Polite. Very calm, very observant, a bit distant and reserved for a kid, but no real red flags. Afterwards, however? After he felt like his parents no longer had any use for him, no longer had any anything for him, well Shia lashed out. Rebelled. Became louder, sharper tongued, more mischievous. He started acting out in hopes that they would give him some of the attention he so desperately craved, and while they did, none of it was positive. Shia quickly became the problem child of the Vanzin 6, somehow both his parents pride and joy as the first of their children to reach their goal, but also their greatest disappointment as the first one to turn against them.

Without chess to focus on, Shia turned to his siblings for entertainment. However Shia’s version of entertainment was never completely harmless. From a young age he had a habit of using people like chess pieces, of manipulating them and turning them against each other or towards each other for his own cheap entertainment. Shia could singlehandedly trick his siblings out of an argument when he was younger (or into an argument, when he was feeling particularly chaotic). He could trick the few peers he came across into simply giving him their toys or snacks, and trick bullies into leaving him alone a good amount of time too. It was both a gift and a curse, because people were never quite happy when they caught on. Most didn’t but the few that did were memorable in the violence of their anger. And besides, his parents never liked it. Shia would come home with an armful of toys that other kids ‘gave’ him and his parents would always force him to go bring them back, despite the fact that the Vanzin children were never really allowed toys of their own. The fact was, Shia’s moral compass was faulty. He never quite understood why what he was doing was wrong no matter how many times his parents tried to explain to him that people were not to be used as tools. Shia didn’t get how what he was doing was that much different from what they were. After all, weren’t Shia and his siblings nothing more than tools in his parents experiment? He asked them the question once. All he got for his efforts was a stinging cheek and a cold reminder from Moira not to be cheeky.

As Shia got older his rebellion got worse. In his defense, he was left unsupervised. While his siblings were busy with their training, Shia would be sneaking out to parties or bars or clubs. It was in those places that he was introduced to his first great loves. Drugs and alcohol. Moira and Yakov kept the Vanzin mansion dry as a monastery, so Shia had never even had a sip of beer before the age of thirteen. But the moment he did, he was a goner. Or rather the moment he got drunk he was a goner. There was something so beautiful to him about intoxication. So addicting, for lack of better word. When he was high, or drunk, or preferably, both, he felt happy. He didn’t remember his parents, or his responsibilities, or his failures, or even his successes. He was warm. And light. And content. Turns out he didn’t need his parents to make his dreams come true. Just a bottle of vodka and a line or two of coke.

After about a year of Shia coming home drunk or high or a combination of the two, eventually his parents couldn’t take it anymore (in the sharp words of Moira Vanzin, ‘Zigmund your behaviour is distracting your siblings from their training’) and sent him off to boarding school. Honestly, it hurt. His parents were basically getting rid of him because he was inconvenient, and he could never forget their out of sight out of mind approach to the whole thing.

Boarding school flew by in a mess of Riot Club like antics during which Shia did things like discover his bisexuality and somehow, against all odds, graduate. (TBH I wanna leave this pretty open in case there is any other boarding school kids who could have perhaps gone to the same school Shia did, so hmu if you have a boarding school kiddo.) He definitely attributes his acceptance to Holloway on his name completely, because honestly Shia was completely high when he wrote his college application, so high that he can’t even remember why he did it. He had no plans of going to college before that, but he figured... why not party in america and waste his parents money? What was stopping him?

So here he is, a whole mess in another country, and honestly he’s having the time of his life. Well, you know. Until people started dying. That isn’t ideal.

PERSONALITY. emotionally damaged, but make it sexy.

manipulative (we been knew) sometimes without really trying to be though. will manipulate people to get what he wants, but sometimes he just thinks of it like a nudge in the right direction. like he’ll manipulate a friend into talking to that girl they’ve had a crush on for half the year just because he wants them to be happy (and also he’s tired of hearing them talk about her)

selfish/self centered cause it’s just not?? his first instinct to think about other people’s feelings?? and it’s also kind of hard for him to empathize sometimes, especially if he’s never been in that situation or he doesn’t like KNOW and CARE about the person.

charming and charismatic, he’s got a great smile and he knows how to use it. also just very endearing if you don’t know him well, and even sometimes when you do. this is mostly a facet of him being very manipulative because he usually uses his charm to get what he wants, but still.

witty oof, this boy’s humour is inspired by klaus hargreeves and villanelle (what a duo,,, when will they meet) and he’s very rarely serious. always telling jokes, always pretty nudge nudge wink wink, even in very serious situations when he shouldn’t be. uses humour as a coping mechanism 100%, whether that’s at his own expense or someone else’s. honestly, can be kind of mean with it? like if anyone can go for the jugular with a joke it’s shia.

a big flirt honestly. will flirt with anyone he’s interested in, and will sometimes flirt without really noticing it? sometimes will flirt just for sport, or for fun, or to bug someone, or throw someone off. the type to flirt with his professor as a joke (why has he not been kicked out of here already) and has probably slept with a professor as a result. not really a player, but he enjoys physical intimacy and he knows how to get it. has been in more than a few relationships in the past, but is never very good at it because he’s almost constantly looking out for number one, aka himself. so? a mess basically.

vengeful, petty, spiteful, vindictive, all when angry or jealous or feeling as if he’s been wronged in some way but we been knew,,, we been knew.

rebellious !! still the type to suggest skipping town and partying instead of sticking around for exams. not really invested in school tbh. he has no idea what he’s going to do with his future.

a big superiority complex! cocky as hell! kind of acts like he’s the best thing since sliced bread because he was over praised as a child by like everyone but his parents. the type to think he ain’t shit deep down so he acts like he’s The Shit yk

craves love and intimacy but thinks romance is a sham. a big pessimist like ‘we’re all just floating on this rock life is meaningless we’re all gonna die anyways’ pessimist but kind of a realist tbh, he just doesn’t see the reason to sugar coat things unless ofc he’s manipulating someone then he’ll say whatever he needs to

trust issues, after his parents tbh. the only people he trusts 100% are his siblings and maybe a few close friends. i honestly may put in a wanted connection for his siblings at one point, but that’s for later.

HEADCANNONS. running for your life (from shia labeouf) he’s brandishing a knife (it’s shia labeouf)

a thick russian accent. speaks pretty impeccable english though because his parents tutored him in the english as a child. He also speaks a bit of french, german, and latin, and is currently taking mandrin chinese.

Is taking political science because he figures being a politician is just manipulating people on a larger scale, and he’d be right. However he’s not sure if that’s what he’ll actually end up going into. Honestly, Shia isn’t the slightest bit sure what he actually wants to do with his life.

His eldest sibling Jean was the one to give Shia the nickname ‘Shia’ after he confided in her that he’s always hated his name, and he’s gone by it ever since. His parents still call him Zigmund, and some of his siblings probably still call him Zig or Ziggy but like i said sdkdsk he has always hated the name (he does not want to be associated with the guy who invented the concept of the Oedipus complex). The only nickname he can stomach sometimes is Z, but other than that he’ll only accept Shia (or Shy to a select few).

was never raised with a television?? didn’t even go to a MOVIE THEATER until he was like fourteen??? so he has absolutely NO idea who Shia Laboeuf really is. People keep making jokes about it to him and he’s like ???? Honestly he googled him once and just gave up after thirty seconds, convinced people were fucking with him because this person couldn’t be real dlksdskld anyways yeah, knows next to nothing about a lot of pop culture, especially anything like before 2010, but has learnt a bit since coming out of his families little bubble. But there are still times where Shia’s like ??? what tf is that and someone’s got to explain what rolly polly olly is to him yk

Shia has a photographic memory, but honestly he doesn’t really care about it. In his eyes having a photographic memory doesn’t make you a genius, it just makes tests easier. Like to him it just means he doesn’t have to flip through his source material for quotes sdkjsdjk. It’s nothing exciting to him sdkdsk he skipped a grade because of it though but honestly?? All he really uses it for now is receipts like a little shit. Shia will legit be in an argument like “oh that wasn’t what you said in that text you sent to me at 4:45 on monday june 3rd 2017???” sdkjsdj. Occasionally he also uses it as a party trick, like if you give him a specific date he could probably tell you the newspaper headline on that day.

Has zero athletic skill. Absolutely none. Would one hundred percent lose in a fight, which is funny because he talks SO MUCH SHIT. He talks constant shit, and yet if you were to throw a punch at Shia he would go down like a rock. He doesn’t particularly care if he gets his ass beat though, so he continues to talk large amounts of shit, occasionally from a safe distance but usually not.

Honestly if you were to see him and his parents interact today it’d be wild, like you wouldn’t even know they were related. They literally act like strangers or acquaintances. Like it’s all like ‘Moira, Yakov, good to see you.’ and ‘You too Zigmund. I trust you’ve been well?’ and that goes on for like five minutes and then Shia has to hyperventilate in a corner for a bit. Like it’s so weird but it’s just been like that all his life. Normal healthy affection??? He doesn’t know her

Has a tattoo of a queen piece on the index finger of his left hand, as a little nod to what used to be his passion. Is also left handed.

Has a scar through his eyebrow that he got on a wild night out when he was thirteen. He got drunk and like passed out, and hit his head hit the edge of a table in the process. There was a lot of blood and a lot of panic, but in the end Shia only had to get a few stitches and he was very quickly back on his bullshit the moment he left the hospital. Literally, he went straight from the hospital to a house party (after all, it’s not like his parents even came to visit him and make sure he got home, so Shia simply did whatever he wanted to.)

Has a helix piercing in his right ear. It’s just a very basic silver hoop though.

His parents never really let the siblings have hobbies, but I imagine one of Shia’s siblings is a horse riding prodigy so he has some experience in that. One of them is a language prodigy, hence why Shia is conversational in so many. Jean, the eldest, is a musical prodigy and has lovingly taught Shia a bit of piano and violin. He is nowhere near as good at those things as he was at chess, but doing any of them reminds him of his siblings, so he tends to actually turn to them more often than chess. If I’m being honest I don’t think that Shia has played a game of chess since he became grandmaster unless forced to by his parents?

Mentally Shia knows he’s an adult now and that his parents technically have no control over him, but emotionally whenever they look at him he just… feels like that empty little kid again.

Tends to always have one of those travel sized bottles of vodka on him so if you’re feeling stressed hit your boy up.

Has honestly been rich since the day he was adopted, like literally has no idea how to function without copious amounts of money?

Shia is staying in the Decker dorms because he thrives on the chaos.

Definitely an addict, definitely high functioning though but also like? It isn’t a secret? I contemplated making it a secret but once again Shia has always got a travel sized bottle of vodka on him sdkjsd you can see him casually spiking his drinks if you’re ever out with him, he pops whatever pills he can find in his pockets in the morning. So yeah it is not a secret that Shia is an addict, he is rarely sober and that’s the way he likes it. Doesn’t consider himself an addict though, funnily enough.

WANTED CONNECTIONS. god we finally got here sjsdj if you got this far you’re the real mvp.

okay to start here is my wc tag for shia so i would absolutely love anything inspired by anything in that tag.

FRIENDS FROM BOARDING SCHOOL. i already talked about this a bit but i would absolutely love it so i’m mentioning it again sdjds i am really flexible about where shia went to boarding school, so literally wherever your muse went works for me. all i want is some dead poets society antics you feel me.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND. listen to me. i love childhood friend connections so much give it to me please and i will give you my first born child in exchange. again, shia grew up in russia, but it could be a long distance friendship if need be. we can make it work, i will literally change stuff around to make it work.

PREVIOUS ONE NIGHT STANDS. honestly shia would have multiple of these cause he’s a hoe. did he ghost your muse? did they mutually ghost each other? was it a one night stand gone wrong?

ENEMY. it’s so easy to hate him man. anyone who wants to hate him please feel free. did shia screw your muse over? did he manipulate them? did he i don’t know throw up on their shoes while particularly drunk? maybe shia was high when he did the thing they hate him for, maybe he doesn’t even remember but he just hates them cause they hate him. it’s the principle of the thing really. (me in my head: *junie b jones vc* princiPAL cause he’s your PAL). unreasonable completely baseless hate for no reason at all? 

FLIRTATIONSHIP. a fun ‘will they, won’t they’ kind of situation because why not. what’s stopping us. just fun banter on both ends. 

EXES. shia doesn’t date so he wouldn’t have too many of these but it would be fun. maybe their relationship was toxic because of shia’s toxic ass traits skjdsj maybe things were getting real and shia dipped like the coward he is. maybe it’s was a the colonel x sarah esque relationship where no one got it because they both seemed to hate each other the whole time and they very much did hate each other but were dating anyways. maybe it’s maybeline. 

FWB/EWB. honestly this is more shia’s speed, so he’d probably have more of these as well as ex-fwbs/ewbs, which is such a fun concept. did it stop because someone caught feelings? or did they just get bored of each other? some other reason? but okay, back to the point, yes sexy enemies. sexy friends. we love to see it. 

HIGH SOCIETY. someone he gets fucked up with! multiple people he gets fucked up with! they party together, drink together, do lines together. it’s a beautiful relationship of them all enabling each other. 

GOOD INFLUENCE. counter actively. someone who tries to get shia away from his self destructive tendencies. someone who’s door he comes knocking at when he’s black out drunk because he knows they’ll give him a place to sleep. Someone he calls when he ends up in butt fuck nowhere with no shoes after a crazy night. Also, as wild as it is, flip it, where Shia’s hypocritical ass cares about your muse enough to try and take care of them. High off his ass but still trying to stick his fingers down their throat so they don’t get alcohol poisoning. They text him when they’re ‘going home’ when they were pre-gaming at their house in the first place. Shia is very ‘you would die without me’ about this person.

BAD INFLUENCE. shia is the devil kronk on their shoulder. he tempts them to the dark side with promises of a good time, and he delivers thank you very much. 

A DRUG DEALER. i mean??? i’m ngl shia i very dependent on drugs, so he would probably keep this person close and do his best to keep them happy.

SOMEONE SHIA CHEATS FOR OR CHEATED FOR. maybe shia did their homework or took a test for them, all for an ominous ‘you owe me’?

SOMEONE SHIA SCREWED OVER. he does this all the time so yeah there can be multiples of this skjsdj shia is honestly like genuinely loyal to only a few people, so there are probably more than few people he left in the dust to save his own skin. maybe he saw the cops closing in on a party and left your muse for dead! or whatever else yk.

ANNOYANCE. it’s shia he’s the annoyance.