#like ok !!!!!!!! my patience is LIMITED eventually i will get fucking tired of this and u will no longer be lucky enough to have me !!!!

[television-pil0t]

Unsurprising I went to the mental hospital. The Carolina Center for Behavioral Health. I stayed 2 almost 3 days.. maybe 3 almost 4 days idk. Idk time blindness is a bitch but whatever. I’m back so I’m gonna talk about it because.. GENUINELY what the fuck.

So I was having a episode odviously. Full out psychotic ass bitch. Voices, believing I was god, thinking there were tall black people in my room (shadow people I just like sounding racist) like the whole nine yards. After I got off I’d tumblr swing “I keep hearing shit” or “seeing shit” or whatever I said I’m not gonna check. I called my friend queenie. She was asleep.. of course. Like no duh it was late.

I’m talking to her and I have her my account so know she knows about my awful bad boy tumblr account but I wanted her to understand what was going on. She dead ass is like “daemon this is really bad. Like your not thinking straight.“ I’m like “whatever whatever I do what I want.” I hang up and sleep like nothing happened.

Next day hits me like a fuckibg truck. I completely convence myself to go to the FUCKING AIR FORCE! LITERALLY LIKE

BRO WHAT LMAO!! I GOT IN CONTACT WITH A FUCKING SARGENT BRO!! AT MY SCHOLL LIKE!! ?!?? So I clearly had no intention of.. preserving my life. I get into a PHYSICAL fight with one of my DEAR FRIENDS and tell him to FUCKING KILL MYSELF. Like.. basically pushing everyone away as fast and aggressively as possible so.. as I told my psychologist ”If I say something or do something so bad then I won’t be tempted to come back to them. And they will hate me to much to come back to me.” 😀? What was I on? Nothing MOTHERFUCKER AND THATS THE PROBLEM.

So after that I go home. I told queenie I was going to the military. She’s like “literally don’t cancel that. Like your not doing that. That’s as never in your plans. Your going so far off the rails rn. What’s up with you. You had a whole plan and you’ve gone so far from what you wanted to do like.. your so creative you can really do something with all this..” blah blah blah saying every true stuff but I was insane so I didn’t care. Hung up. Blocked her in everything. Said fuck her she doesn’t undersand me 🥺 and.. she called the police telling them I need to be taken to the hospital..

LMAO I DID BUT I WAS ODVIOUSLY MAD

THEY HAD EVERYONE OUT THERE BEO. The cops were farther down but they were making sure I didn’t try and kill myself or something so they brought everyone.

So I go to the hospital and I’m out of it at this point I can’t lie I barely remember this shit. Straight up. I don’t remember a lot of this whole.. few months because I’ve been stirring up a episode but like.. I really did good on dissociating the entire thing.

I do remember them giving me apple juice but it was open. I was like “can you.. give me another one I’m not happy that it’s open.” And they were like.. :/ and got me another one but THAT ONE WAS ALSO SLIGHTLY OPEN?! SO I WAS PISSED OFF. Because I was like?? ARE YOU TRYING TO DRUG ME LIKE?? WHY IS IT FUCKING OPEN CUNT?! I eventually just said fuck it and drank it and it did have meds in it because I was knocked out in a matter of a few minutes but like.. if they just told me I’d drink it?! I just don’t like they were like.. hiding it.

So some shit happened. At night they would watch me and I’d be like :/ and they would be like 🤨😦😑🫤 and I be like ☹️🥱😴 and that was that. So then..

This nurse?? Come in. It’s like 8 in the damn morning and I’m tired as fuck and she gives me breakfast and asked if im ok. I’m like “yeah whatever”. She’s like.. “do you know why your here” im say “because im a bad person.” He’s like “can you explain to me how.” I’m like “that would be to long and you have other patience and I’d rather just talk without a time limit.” She looks at me with the most.. “damn.. you right but shit” look I’ve ever seen and then leaves after writing something down on her little tablet.

I stay in the room almost all day. They keep checking in me. I keep responding the same.

So at the end of the day.. bout.??? 9 or 10 idk they didn’t have a clock in there. That nurse came back and sat down in a chair. She was like “would you like the light on” I was like “nah it’s better it adds dramatic effect when it’s dark” I make her laugh at this point I’m like “Hehe I’m in baby!” In where idk but lord knows I was fucking ovulating so nothing I was saying or doing was making since. Thinking with my dick and shit or something idk idk.

So we have a long conversation.

She gives me my phone… and I show her my tumblr..

She looks at me with the most 😐😧😦😬😨😰 look I’ve ever fucking seen. Like bro was SCARED.

She sets my phone down.. DOESN’T TURN IT OFF BTW. And goes “so you think you have aspd. You know you have bpd right.” I was like “very aware.” She was like “well.. I think you have some define characteristics of both.” I just kinda was like thinking ok the worst that could happen is that I stay here for like.. a month if I tell the complete truth. So I go all out. Say fuck it. Tell my whole ass truth because I’d im gonna be here im gone leave with a correct diagnosis and help that I need. I’m like “I feel like I’m constantly in conflict with myself about caring and not caring. Like I know I have abandonment issues but I broke up with my bf out of pure anger and then did shit just to hurt him and I did that to my friend when I got into a fight with him and I did that to my mom when she was still alive.” She as like “do you feel bad?” I was like “I don’t know.” She put her tablet down and it felt like she was just taking to me and not working. I know that’s literally just a ploy. She way probably recording the conversation but it felt nice. “Do you know what it feels like to feel bad about something?” I’m like “I think I remember.” And that goes into my emotional blindness and perception. After a while of not feeling a emotion I forget what it’s like and it feels like I’ve never experienced it before and I tell her that and she’s like “well that sounds like both disorders working together pretty well. Do you ever feel like your fighing against someone else in your head” and I’m like I don’t have DID but.. sometimes sure I do. Because it’s hard to keep both feeling in check. I don’t wanna be reckless but the more I think about something the more in convence myself what I’m doing is right.

So we start talking about people. We talk about the first and I admitted it was a bit irrational (now I know it was very dumb but I wasn’t there yet) and we talk about my mom because I just kept being her up and then she looked at my phone again and asked me how I felt about my ex. I was like “I feel like I did the same thing to him as my friend except I feel like I lost feeling.”

This woman said something that ripped my apart. “Did you lose feelings or did you just not remember them once he hurt you.”

Bro I’m gonna throw up at this point. She goes on because I’m completely silent because I never thought of that but she was completely right. “you wanna feel better than everyone else because that’s how you think you deserve to be treated. Do you treat others like that?” I’m like “yeah I treat all my friends well.” She looks at me and she’s like “do you? Do you treat them and say things you’d like to be said to you? Or do you stop being nice once you realize you can’t control them.” And I’m like “I think I’m nice.. I think I say nice things.” And then I remember again.. she was right. I’m just kinda a asshole. Once I realize I’ve lost someone’s “undying loyalty.” I stop caring for them. Happened with my mom. With Mali once he got a gf I almost completely treated him like a completely different person. Happened with khye. And we didn’t even talk about the “others” until the second day but..

I’m like at a lose. I’m really sad because I realized how bad I fucked up and I start feeling empty and like shit. Idk if it was guilt but.. it all made a lot of since

I felt like I couldn’t feel love for a very long time because I just forgot what it felt like. Not that I want loved by my bf I was. And I loved him. It was just I was having a episode and genuinely couldn’t see it or feel it at the time because sometimes in her words “when your long distance it’s hard to hold someone with your words. You seem to crave that. Even if you don’t want the physical affect do you think he hugged you with his words enough.” And I’m like “I think so. He wrote me letters and gave me gifts” and she as like “ok.. did those make you happy or did they make you feel warm. Did they remind you ‘oh yea this person loves me’ or was it more if just.. this is how I should be treated.” And I was like :( because damn girl this hurts. Your hurting me. She was like “did you stop loving your mom when you realized she didn’t do anything worth loving.” And I was about to fucking kill myself because as much as I saw her struggle.. in my mind the bare minimum was her feeding me and giving me a house and shit. That’s all she COULD do. That’s literally it. She could only do a little bit for me and I didn’t feel love for her when I realized that’s all she could do. That’s.. awful. I feel so fucking bad that I thought like that.. and that I thought like that too late before I could change it and be better. Yes she fucked up. We would fight and argue and she would say some awful shit but she also tried so hard to give me a good life with the best possible education and food on the table as often as she could and the fact that I didn’t see that as enough.. that sucks.

She basically kept going on for about an hour or 2 until I was like.. “damn. I’m tired.” She gave me my meds and I went to bed and the next morning I went out and talked to some people.

Met this guy that was pretty neet. I got called into the office and they talked to me some more this after noon. It was basically just “you have very conflicting mental illness and we’re surprised you haven’t ended it all yet. Here have meds.” Lmao

Fr tho. I have autism, bpd, adhd, and some kinda aspd (not officially diagnosed.. or maybe I am but they gave my paper to my parents and I never saw it.) but they were like “Your listed here as a self centered .. extremely selfish narcissist with paranoia, social anxiety and general psychosis or schizophrenia (like all of it delusions, hallucinations, disorganized, thoughts and behaviors etc I was fucked up yeah I know.)

So paranoid schizophrenic with narcissistic personality disorder and religious psychosis. (Supernatural reference) and I was like :/ damn son where’d you find this.

They gave me some meds to take and the. Kinda watched me for a while.. I have to go back and be watched a few more times cuz ya know but I’m not excited about it.

My meds definitely work. I’m not like.. batshit insane anymore but I still have my symptoms because they didn’t cure me. I still have to go to therapy and shit for a while. I feel bad because my friends fucking hated me for a while because queenie told them what happened and tbh I’m surprised I was even slightly forgiven. I don’t use my mental health as like a “sorry I did that” moment but literally they was no other explanation for what that happened. It was straight up I thought I was god full on insane mode and then basic “your think in a shitty way and that’s not your fault but you still have to work on changing it.” Therapy.

Am I gonna apologize. Yeah. When.. idk. I pissed off so many people I’ve the past couple of days including my parents. They didn’t believe me at first but now they feel really bad for everything and shit.

[jairoglyphs]

wanna scream

#personal #what is it about my face that says “treat me wrong and waste my time’s #like i wanna know #why do people feel like just because i’m patient and understanding and kind that they can take advantage of it #no one has ever been like ‘wow i notice ur a rlly considerate and forgiving friend and lover i should treat u the same’ #it’s always oh this fool didn’t even get mad that i was an hour late? cool next time imma b two hours late #it’s always let me string this idiot along as long as i can cuz i know he’s not gonna do anything abt it #like ok !!!!!!!! my patience is LIMITED eventually i will get fucking tired of this and u will no longer be lucky enough to have me !!!!

[egoludes]

ok. so my concept for ransom is maybe ransom trying to get the reader to know he likes her? like maybe he does small things at first but the reader is a bit oblivious and isn’t catching on until ransom gets frustrated and kisses her or maybe suddenly blurts out he really likes her?? no pressure if you don’t have inspo for it but I haven’t seen a lot of soft! ransom fics! and i really love your writing.

this is so, so late, but i didn’t forget about you and this wonderful concept anon - i hope you like this! i really enjoyed writing it and musing about this side / kind of ransom :) no real warnings beyond rich kid antics! 

wc: 1.2k

honestly? ransom can’t think of many times he hasn’t gotten what he wanted. world at his fingertips from an early age, he’s a spoiled sort. proud of it too. 

then, there’s you. you with that crooked smile and willful personality ---- maybe you’ve been in his life since childhood, one of the few people to know him before he soured from parental indifference. and even as you’ve grown older and gone down different paths (he teases you about it — “law school? what a fucking waste of time.” — but that passion is a good look on you. it always has been.), you’ve never considered cutting him out. there’s a vulnerability in him when he’s with you - an openness that only comes with people who know you well. and you, despite the efforts of every friend you’ve introduced him to, reciprocate in turn. from teenage years on the sprawling campus of andover to adulthood drunk off country club champagne, you’ve been each other’s constant. 

yet you’re the only thing he can’t seem to keep under his thumb; the one thing he can’t have simply because he wills it. it’s a foreign feeling, no doubt; women come to him as easily as everything else, and the fact that nothing has ever quite gone his way with you makes his stomach ache.

it takes him thirty-something years to figure out why.

once he does, ransom doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. as far as he’s concerned, love - that infuriating, spiraling feeling you inspire in the far reaches of his chest - is all about what you give. with his parents, it was one outrageous present after another to make up for the milestones they missed; with his grandfather, it’s a steady stream of funds when he does fuckall to earn it. 

with you, he starts small; anklets and handbags that, admittedly, suit the other women he spends time with more than you. but it’s what he knows, and he showers you in them any chance he can get. 

before long, you’re coming home to something new nearly every other day. the spree is confusing to say the least, even if you accept the presents graciously. smiling that smile he’s come to yearn for. but, to ransom's dismay, it always ends there - niceties and tenderness he’s used to. thank you’s and ransom, you really didn’t need to’s that fit the friendship that you have, not the intimacy he covets. 

not where he wants to be.

if it were anyone else, he’d reach his limit after that - patience has never been his strong suit. but, the more his affections go over your head, the more ransom yearns for you. he tells himself it’s the challenge in it all — but, really, it’s the relief. 

it’s knowing, affirming that you’re not like the starry-eyed girls at the parties, or the preening fuckers on over-groomed golf courses. you don’t bow for dollars, or cave for things —and it’s all he could do not to beg for your hand right then and there.

eventually, though, he just has enough. he’s tired of trying to drop hints and be subtle because it clearly isn’t working. 

i could see it happening with the most extravagant gift yet. boat perhaps? not so large that it’s excessive, but enough presence to make it obnoxious.

and you’re in the middle of saying just that, looking the boat over from its lower deck, when he scoffs, arms folded over his chest as he watches you through tinted shades. “well, you better get over that — this is for you.”

you’re so shocked at first, you snort. a full fledged one at that; so unbecoming you  fight the urge to check over your shoulder for a disapproving glance from your mother. “sure, ransom,” you snicker, stepping past him to peek over the boat’s railing. the water’s surprisingly pristine for such a busy harbor and for a second, you’re actually mesmerized by the way it moves. 

ransom cuts in with a pull on your hand, grounding you in yet another moment of unusual generosity. “i’m serious - it’s in your name already and everything.”

you don’t ask him how he managed that (though it’s a valid question you’re not sure you want the answer to) - your disbelief is too strong for you to do anything but blink at him, searching his face for the inevitable crack of a shit-eating grin to let you know he’s lying.

but it never comes. instead, ransom is watching you with a face that stiffens by the second, and you realize in one fell swoop, heart stuttering  in your chest, that he’s absolutely fucking serious.

your reaction after that is the same it’s always been - you shaking your head and waving your hands in refusal, backing away from him instinctively. “ransom, holy shit — this is too much, are you kidding me?” you look over the boat with a renewed eye and can hardly handle the lavishness he’s trying to bestow on you. you can’t even make sense of it, this generosity that’s become so commonplace. “where is all this even coming from? i mean, the boat, the jewelry, the bags -- you’ve been doing this for months, i don’t get it."

at any given moment, ransom is like a brewing sea - emotions ebbing and flowing like high tide. and right now, he’s at full rage, frustration, exasperation, desperation all taking him at once. but somehow, he doesn’t bow before it the way he usually does; no childish anger, or snide comments. instead, he does something that shocks even him: he laughs.

the sound of it shakes his whole body, shoulders bending back some from the force of it. you’re confused by it to say the least, struggling to find the words to even react — but it turns out you don’t have to. ransom fills the space for you, stepping closer and speaking up. “you’re really going to make me say it, huh?” he scoffs a bit, pink staining his cheeks as he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his brown peacoat. 

you can’t tell for sure, but there’s something beyond the glare of his thousand dollar sunglasses that you don’t recognize. at least not on him. it makes you nervous in a way, the sound of your heartbeat growing in your ears; and he seems to pick up on it, reaching to press a thumb into your cheek as if in a taunt. if anything, though, it’s playful; you can tell by that grin he seems to only give to you most days.

“for someone so smart,” he hums, thumb moving from your cheek to the fullness of your bottom lip, “you sure are fucking dense, hon.”

you’re frowning, poised to retort, when he stops you with lips over yours. the kiss lasts a few seconds at most, but it feels like much longer. perhaps it’s the years of waiting giving it such weight - the vivid memories of nights forcing yourself to accept he would never feel for you what you did for him. whatever it is, it does you in; when he pulls away, you stay dazed and processing, even as he swipes his tongue out to taste what you leave behind. “are we getting it now---?"

the way you lunge for him, his voice lost beneath your mouth and the crash of the water below, answers his question. 

#ransom drysdale x reader #ransom thrombey x reader #chris evans x reader #ransom blurbs. #tags in comments!

[thatonesadending]

Caleb gets to show Molly his Tower, but Essek doesn't approve (Chapter 3)

Caleb knew he was being childish, overly excited. But he had put a lot of work into his tower, spent a lot of time thinking about his friends and their own stories, and how they impacted him. He was eager to share it with Molly. The man was that was ostentation to a fault, and so Caleb thought he might appreciate how much thought and whimsy he had put into their little band of hero’s home away from home.

He lead Molly through the entrance of the Tower, he hadn't explained anything, and the tieflings reaction didn't disappoint.

“What the fucking hell. I am still dead aren't I?” He had almost ghosted past Caleb to the middle of the Entryway. Looking up, he gasped and put his hands on his hips. “Caleb Widogast, you tricked me. You made me think I was going back to the material plane, but this, - this is Heaven, isn't it.”

Caleb couldn't help but chuckle at the mocking tone. He was surprised when Molly looked back away from the ceiling, and stode back to Caleb to clasp his shoulders. “I knew you were a sneaky little bastard, smarter then you let on. Good Boy.” Caleb should have felt embarrassed at the teasing praise, but he wasn’t, at least not yet. Mollymauk continued to wander around the Entryway. He spent a good long while asking questions and Caleb gladly answering.

“How do you get up there?” Molly pointed up thru the center of the tower, after taking in all the windows and art surrounding him.

“Come, I will show you.” Caleb offered his hand to the other man, normally he would not be so bold, but he was riding a high from having all of his worries and suspicions so easily dowsed. He could overthink things later, currently, he just wanted to think about the now, something that Molly valued.

Molly took it easy, and Caleb told him all he had to do was think “up”. Of course, in an effort not to be outdone, he said what Caleb could guess was the infernal translation and pulled the wizard with him.

They made it to the center of the salon floor before Mollymauk stopped and stared. Truth be told, isn't not that Caleb had forgotten, but he had never thought Molly would see the salon, never prepared an explanation for the large stained glass window. He had made it of course as a tribute that the other Nien would appreciate as much as he. It hadn't occurred to Caleb until that moment that he had surrounded his books, his knowledge around the lighted artwork that represented Mollymauk Tealeaf.

“Caleb, I -” he wasn't sure he had ever experienced Molly speechless before. Embarrassment was spreading up his neck, and Caleb wanted to find a way to explain, minimize - lie - about the significance of the fact that the third floor of the Mighty Niens home has a vast library containing all the books and knowledge Caleb ever held dear, and a larger than life depiction of Molly’s tattoos, that case color and light on all of Caleb’s texts. He wanted to say that he had just made it as a comfort for his still grieving friends, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t lie.

Surprisingly Cad started answering some of Molly’s questions when he eventually stopped staring. It wasn't until Caleb scanned the room and remembered that Essek was also with them, that he realized Caduceus was being more polite than him.

Caleb tentatively walked over to the other wizard, unsure of what to say. There had been a lot of floating and conflicting feelings around the two of them as of late, but Caleb had just started to feel like they had been unraveling them, getting to a place where they could be more than friends with a tentative trust. But then Caleb had asked Essek on this trip, and then literally kissed the enemy. He had no idea what the man must be thinking.

“Thank you for guarding me, you know - while I cast th-”, but he was caught off by Essek.”

“This is foolish.” Caleb hadn't been expecting the reprimand. Essek didn't let him respond.

“You have now twice let a man that may or not contain a friend that you knew for only a couple of weeks into your home. Shared your secrets. For what Caleb? I understand that your friends and you -”

Caleb cut him off abruptly, but did not slow Essek down. “Our friends.”

“Yes, our friends - have an affinity for this ‘Mollymauk’, but it is my understanding that you only knew the man for 4-5 weeks. How do you know this isn’t Lucien? Playing off your limited memories of a man who barely knew you. Whereas I -”

The door two floors below them slammed open, and Caleb found himself prepping to use his arcane fire, but all he saw was the rest of the Nien trudging in, and closing the door behind the,

“Cad, do you think you could come heal Beau? She is ok, we got Cree, but Jester is a bit tapped.” Fjord’s deep voice rung through the tower. Cad excused himself from Molly, and drifted down to Beau. the rest of them followed soon after, back to the Entryway. Caddie quickly took care of all of them, but took care not to include Cree, who was flung over Yasha’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes and unconscious.

“Molly what do you think?! Isnt great?!” Jester asked to her fellow tiefling.

“Love, I am fairly sure that I am stuck in a coma or a demiplane somewhere, but this all couldn't possibly be real.” He said with a grateful smile on his face. Caleb barely heard Essek mutter, uncharastically, ‘I am sure you would fuck with demiplanes.’ Before Caleb could confront that, Molly was calling to him.

“Caleb, this is truly fantastic, and I really would love to see it all, but I wasn't lying when I said I was tired. I don't know what that other guy did with this body, but it doesn't feel like sleep.”

“Oh Molly! You can stay with me! I am sure you don't want to be alone, and Essek has the guest room, and my room is like - really really awesome. We can totally snuggle and I can-” Fjord was growling again, it wasn't loud, but just displeased enough that Jester heard. Caleb wasn't sure what to make about this recent possessive streak, but he knew his own jealousy isn't helpful since Fjord had obviously scared Molly.

“Or maybe Yasha would be better, she really really missed you.” Jester supplied, with a bashful smile.

“That would be divine dear, if that’s ok with Yash, don't want to intrude, love.” Molly said, but he seemed to be struggling with something. It Caleb only a moment to realize that the man was overwhelmed with their change in dynamic, unsure of how he fit in, and might need some space.

“Actually, that might not be necessary.” Caleb hadn't planned on telling them all, but he also hadn't planned on being able to bring back Molly as such. He kicked himself mentally for not arranging things in the tower before he cast it, but hopefully the others left him alone about it. He wasn’t going to hold his pride up before making sure Molly knew that he belonged here with his family.. “Both Mollymauk and Essek have their own rooms if they choose to stay in them.”

Caleb noticed Essek’s normally imperceptible demeanor change, soften just a bit, he was thankful for it after their brief but tense exchange.

“Ah, Essek, I had wanted to show you your first night here, but unfortunately circumstances as they were prevented that. I would show you tonight, but I would like to take Mollymauk to his, seeing as this is all a bit new to him.” Caleb waved his hands to indicate the tower, but what he didn't say was why it could only be him that could show Molly.

“That is alright. I would be glad to wait, I didn't get to explore your library as much as I would have liked anyway.” Essek’s offer of patience was welcomed. It meant that he wasn’t too angry with Caleb. “Thank you, Essek.” Caleb knew the others didn't understand Caleb’s gratitude, but he didn't care at this moment.

“Caleb, when did you find the time to make Molly a room? And I count the same amount of doors, where is?” Of course, Beau would be the one to pick up and challenge Caleb on this first. He couldn't think of a convincing lie, so he tried to go for nonchalant.

“On the floor above Veth’s and my own.” He tried to say it casually, but not a single pair of eyes around him didn't stare.

“Caleb, when did you put a room for Molly on the eighth floor?” The question came telepathically, though Caleb could hear Beau’s pointed tone perfectly. His eyes immediately jumped to his hands, the other red eye still there. Before panic could flood him about what that meant, Beau was in his mind again.

“We can worry about it tomorrow, Molly doesn't have any eyes on him other than his tattoos, we probably just have to kill this city. Now, tell me, when?”

So he wasn’t going to be able to avoid this.

“It’s always been there.” A simple answer to a very complicated issue.

“Fuck man, why didn't you - I, I didn't know.” Caleb didn’t like hearing her pity. Part of him was grateful that she understood why he had included it in his floor of memories, however, he didn't want to talk about it just now. Everyone was still staring at him, they knew Beau was in his head, and likely knew what she was asking, but mercifully not saying anything.

“Ja, well, Yasha can put Cree in one of the rooms of requirement, no? For us to deal with tomorrow?” He supplied quickly to change the focus of the room. “And I can take Mollymauk, to at least change into different clothes for now, and he can choose where he stays.”

“That sounds like a fine plan, I can help Yasha. Then we all can get settled for some needed rest.” Fjord supplied, taking control of the situation from Caleb, which he was very grateful for.

“Lovely. Caleb, dear, take me wherever you want, to be honest, I would be happy to sleep on the floor right here, but I’d love a change of clothes just as much.” Molly didn’t look tired, as much as a man who really wanted to catch his breath. Caleb knew this feeling well, and only hoped he could maybe provide a calm space for Molly to get a little more acclimated in. Without really thinking about it, he put out his hand to the purple man, and of course, he took it in return.

“You only need to think the word ‘up’.” He reminded.

“But where is the fun in that? Up.” Molly tugged Caleb up through the floors of the towers, and he couldn't help but laugh at the other man’s enthusiasm as he fell upwards.

#critical role #cr2 #widomauk #shadowgast #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #essek thelyss #lucien

[spookymultimedia]

ITS MY BLOG AND I GET TO INFODUMP ABOUT MY CHARACTERS >:D

Disability and gender experience

CW for ptsd, panic attacks, su*c*de [I will talk about at the end if you still want to read this and will add another warning] , gender dysphoria, mild transpobia and abelism both internal and external

Disability

Lyla has osteoarthritis that is due to Burns' pretty fucky genes. She found this out when one evening they literally couldn't get out of bed for anything due to intense pain in the knees. Waylon had to come and get them and when he got there Lyla was pretty much on the brink of tears. Lyla then got a diagnosis. At first she was frustrated because it changed everything about his daily life. He was prescribed pain medication that dulls the pain to a manageable degree and was recommended to use a cane to get around during mild flare ups. It initially upset her. He thought she was too young to be going through something like that and hated having to limit how much they work. They later realized that stigma was ableist and bullshit and eventually sucked it up and decided to just embrace his new way of life and let her Grandfather help him learn how to cope due to experience with chronic pain [which means its lifelong] . On some days they get around just fine with pain meds but on bad flare up days they have to use a cane or chair to get around. She eventually mastered working with the aids and can even pop a sick wheelie on his chair. The pain still gets to them and it really sucks but he does swallow his pride and allow themselves to rest and be supported by others.

Sometimes with her partner Ashley he'll get snuggled and taken care of by her. Lyla is pretty dang light like his grandfather and Ashley has no problem carrying him around. Lyla secretly loves being carried. He's pretty fucking privileged to have Mr.Burns allow her disability support. Lyla is very privileged. Sometimes they like to make his cane/chair look cool with spray paint and whatnot. Very cripplepunk. Lyla probably found a disabled community of people his age to help her feel less alone.

Abbey has undiagnosed innatentive type adhd and ptsd that she gets full on panic attacks from. Neurodiversity was something taboo and not talked about in her childhood and didn't even realize she was struggling more than she should be. As a child she struggled paying attention to long boring sermons/lectures and was shamed alot for it. She didn't understand how she occasionally made people uncomfortable with very weird and unconventional topics she talks about. Loud sudden stimuli and intense buzzing overwhelms her and can make her cry. She didn't do very well in school and barely graduated high school. She prefered watching her favorite movies and playing dolls with her sister over studying. She's extremely sensitive to fabric and only has certain types of blankets and clothes that she can stand. She absolutely hates the feeling of fabric draping against her legs too much so sometimes she either wears tight-ish pants and avoids skirts/dresses. She hates sitting and walking in dresses. She never wanted to wear them lol they feel bad to her. She refuses to sit up straight and will cross her legs. Abbey hyperfixates on animation, cinema, and dollhouses. She likes binging movies and making doll projects. She tends to bond with people through movies and model making. She struggled to make friends outside of her circle and just stayed friends with people she grew up with at her church. They all escaped that mormon hell. Abbey struggles with her emotions and usually gets overwhelmed too much which can often leave her drained and tired. She has an intense oral fixation and uses stim necklaces to chew on, before she would chew on her sleeves, pen caps, pens, her hair, her shirt, her sleeves, bottle caps, ect. She was a very curious kid and tried to eat playdough, dirt and grass lol. None of them where good. She is decent at working at the video store and feels happy with her job being related to her interests. Because hrt therapy is so expensive she doesn't feel she can afford any kind of therapy or medication and it's very overwhelming for her to have to prioritize one aspect of her health over another. But with financial support from close friends and her boyfriend Tim she gets by ok.

Gender

Lyla assumed that it was completely normal to have a fuzzy fluid gender due to believing gender is a lose concept for most people. He didn't realize most people have static genders that don't change at all. It wasn't something they never questioned. Later in Lyla's 20s they started to learn more on gender and realized she wasn't as cis as he thought they where. The term genderfluid fit his experiences perfectly. They never felt still in their gender. Even if they felt more towards one gender over another it wasn't a firm feeling. It felt fluid and lose. As a teen they dressed in goth fashion and was a self proclaimed tomboy. But they realized tomboys or most gnc women didn't dress up very feminine on somedays or even wear dresses. She loves wearing dresses and she loves wearing lose jeans and a lose men's tee.

Lyla's gender tends to shift weekly but it may present or change depending on who they're with or what media/environment they're exposed too. For example he might feel more feminine with certain friends and more masculine with strangers. Sometimes they feel more comfortable being agender or a nonbinary genders with certain people such as their partner. Sometimes they only use certain pronouns with certain people. He/she/they at work, she/he with parents, she/he/they/it with siblings, she/he with some friends, and she/he/moths/rots, rats, its with their partner. Lyla will either tell people upfront on pronouns for the week or use a pin.

Most of the time clothes don't dictate their gender that week but there are some key differences. Lyla will not wear dresses on more masculine days and may draw on facial hair with a mascara brush. On more feminine days they dress more like a nature witch and loves floral stuff. They are more likely to have fun with makeup on those days.

Lyla doesn't want to undergo any kind of surgery or hormone therapy. Lyla may bind a bit with a sports bra but doesn't really feel uncomfortable with his chest and mostly doesn't mind having visibile tits on masc days.

Abbey always felt different from her birth sex and felt very frustrated learning she wouldn't just naturally grow into the chest and genitals she wants growing up. It was an extremely taboo and forbidden subject but despite that something inside her soul knew she was a girl. Her parents pushed very strict gender roles on her growing up and causes her to struggle with her femininity as an infertile woman who could not stand dresses. It made her feel a bit lost but she later felt better knowing other women cis and trans who don't conform to gender roles.

Abbey gets intense physical dysphoria from her crotch and for a long time she had to just deal with it until surgery was an option. Some days she could tolerate it but some days [especially when she got on estrogen and felt very hormonal] it was unbearable and a wet dream or boner would trigger a depressive episode that consists of cacooning a cover, watching her favorite movies and long naps. It was a toll on her mental health that was already pretty bad. But emotional support, understanding and patience from her friends and boyfriend helped her carry on though it. She eventually does get bottom surgery and it's a HUGE weight off her chest.

Abbey usually dresses in sweatshirts, graphic tees and cute jeans. Whatever's comfortable on the skin. She wore tank tops more when her tits grew in. And they grew in pretty dang fast and big and ah it hurt. She's a c cup which she loves but God they where tender for awhile. Double puberty isn't fun. Her transition was a bit rough and long being low middle class but she pulled through.

TW for su*cide. Leave the post now if this triggers you.

Abbey is a suicide attempt survivor. She suffers ptsd from her own husband taking his life leaving her a widow. She felt trapped and tired in her unbalanced emotions and uncertainty of ever feeling okay or getting the medical attention she needed and attempted to OD. Fortunately she was with Timothy who immediately called an ambulance. She was very tired and at first a bit disappointed she was still alive but also a bit relieved. She then had to cope with feeling suicidal.

#the simpsons #the simpsons oc #trans oc #nonbinary oc #nonbinary #trans

[rotationalsymmetry]

Living with CFS/ME overview (your mileage may vary):

Doctors: can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. Do your own research if you can, if you can tell something is bad for you don’t do it, and if your doctor doesn’t believe anything is wrong with you get a new one (if at all possible.) Don’t expect perfect understanding, do deal with your feelings outside of appointments and not during them, do have clear requests as much as possible. Do expect competence: not dismissiveness, not ignoring what you say, not failing to do relevant lab tests. Write stuff down, before and after. If possible, have someone else come with you to appointments (especially if you have serious brain fog issues and/or are the sort of person doctors tend to not take seriously.) With emails, some doctors will only answer one question per email, so if you have five questions that means writing five separate emails. Don’t be afraid to be pushy, as long as you’re pushing for something the doctor can actually give you.

Getting stuff done. You can’t. At least, not as much. Do you need help with: housework, shopping, childcare, filing for benefits? Personal hygiene? Figure out how to get what you can and learn to live without what you can’t. Delegate as much as possible. Whatever weird feels you have about accepting help, figure out how to set them aside and accept help anyways.

Other people: in my experience most people will take your lead. If you tell them you’re not sure what’s going on or aren’t sure what to do about it, you will get more suggestions and advice than you know what to do with. If you want sympathy, you might get that (or you might get unwanted advice — sometimes saying explicitly what you want helps.) If you talk about your illness like a totally routine thing that you’ve totally got, the advice and general “oh shit I want to help but don’t know how” goes away. In my experience.

On that note: it’s OK and a good idea to tell people explicitly what you want from them. “If we’re going on vacation together I need a place to stay with no stairs.” “What would really help is if someone could run groceries once a week for me or pay for delivery.” “I could really use help from someone who knows how to read scientific articles.” “I could really use some patience and understanding about sometimes having to cancel plans at the last minute.” “I need a therapist who’s worked with people with chronic illness before.” Whatever.

Fuck exercise. Or rather: stretchy gentle exercise can be fine/good, strength exercises that you can do without raising your heart rate might be fine; anything that raises your heart rate is much higher risk. Walking is appropriate exercise for people with CFS, just be careful to not overdo it. (I am not joking.) Personally, I do a lot of yoga, but I’m not exactly doing sun salutations. It’s yin yoga and restorative yoga and a small amount of strength exercises. And...pranayama. Exercise for people with CFS/ME doesn’t look the same way as it does for people without it. That thing where it’s good for healthy people to take the stairs and this and that? Not for you. Be lazy. Do things the lowest energy way possible.

PEM and pacing: it’s all about the activity intolerance. Sometimes you run out of steam right away, sometimes it happens two days later. If your body says “stop” it means it; if it gives you a green light it might be lying. If you’re getting some days that feel almost normal and some days when sitting upright is a Herculean task, chances are if you do a lot less and try to do approximately the same amount of stuff each day, you’ll figure out what your sustainable “energy envelope” is. Or how many spoons you have, if you prefer that metaphor. And, most likely, you’ll end up with way fewer “can’t sit up” days.

Breaking things up means you can do more with less consequence. Eg: wash dishes until the first hint of feeling tired, take a break and sit or lie down for five minutes, then keep going. Pushing past the point you feel tired is risky.

In particular, in some situations you may be excited or stressed enough to not notice when you’re tired, so sometimes it makes sense to plan breaks rather than relying on the self awareness approach. When I play games with my partner, for instance, we set a timer for half an hour.

Adaptive equipment and behaviors: I use a folding stool in my everyday life and a wheelchair (provided by the airport) if I have to travel by plane. At one point I figured out how to wash dishes in a plastic basin sitting down (although, paper plates are an option too.) My partner and I leave a couple cooking pots on the stove and the things I use most often on the counter, since digging up a pot from the floor level cabinet that’s full of pots is much more tiring than the pot already being where I want it. In general, stuff above shoulder level or below waist level is significantly harder to get to. If showering standing is tiring, get a shower chair. Some grocery stores have motor scooters that can be used by disabled customers (that means you.) Grabbers can help with things like when a sock falls on the floor and you don’t want to have to bend to pick it up. If your walking is very limited, but you have someone who can push you around, a rolling walker with a seat may be more affordable than a wheelchair.

How to get your doctor to prescribe you a wheelchair so that your insurance will cover it: your doctor is worried you’ll lose mobility due to walking less, so if you actually want a wheelchair so that you can get outside and do more stuff for longer, focus on that. Ditto for a scooter. I’ve found writing a comprehensive list of what I can’t do or can only do with great difficulty, and handing the list to my doctor, is significantly more effective for getting taken seriously than mentioning one or two limitations and expecting the doctor to be able to extrapolate. Make it easy for them to do what you want them to. (Sorry if this sounds manipulative. My experience is that if you come in assuming your doctor will just give you what you need as long as you’re up front and trust them, you’re going to be sadly disappointed. I was not like this before I got CFS and spent months practically begging doctors to take me seriously.)

Taking naps or non-sleeping lying-down rests during the day might help. Yoga nidra, progressive muscular relaxation, or some sort of guided visualization can help with relaxation. You can also just lie there and let your mind wander, but if your mind tends to wander to sad or worrying sorts of places then you should give it something to do. One note of caution: if you’re near your limit you might feel more tired after a rest, that doesn’t mean the rest was bad for you but it does mean you gave the tired a chance to catch up with you. I do think the benefit comes as much from doing it regularly over time as from any one rest by itself though. (I can’t do anything on time, so for me “regularly” means “to within about two hours, most of the time.”)

On that note: your feelings matter. Stress and extreme emotions can take as much out of you as grocery shopping or a two hour zoom call. So...therapy if possible, self help books, doing things that help you feel calm and put things in perspective. You might need new coping strategies if your old ones take too much energy.

Some people with CFS have more energy/activity tolerance/spoons in the morning and less late in the day, others like me are the opposite. I couldn’t find my pattern when my energy levels were swinging wildly from day to day, but eventually when I got things more leveled off I figured it out. If this is the case for you, planning hard stuff for your best time of day and light stuff for your worst times is a good idea. For instance, I shower in the evenings rather than the mornings.

Once you’ve gotten your symptoms to more or less level off, if you get to that point, you can try very, very gradually expanding your activity levels. When I say gradually, I mean gradually, and be ready to go back to less activity any time things get worse again.

Thing is: if you don’t use all your energy, it does seem to sort of build up a “reserve” so you can bounce back from expected or unexpected stressors (illness, travel, etc.) But when your reserve runs out, it takes much longer to recover. So, there’s something to be said for not going at 100%.

In particular, don’t try to go back to 100% too quickly after one of those stressors, like a cold or (sigh, speaking from experience) a cross-country move, even if you feel like you can. Where 100% means using all of your spoons/energy envelope, not functioning at 100% of what a healthy person can do.

Plan ahead of time how you’re going to handle special occasions like holidays, a visiting friend or relative, or travel. “If the movie theater is too loud I will have to leave” etc. When I got married, I planned when and where I was going to take rests, and planned absolutely nothing for the days after. (Interestingly: I did better afterwards than I thought I would, even though I got major brain fog during the reception. Apparently the stress before the wedding was messing me up more than all the activity and socializing at the wedding itself.) We went on our honeymoon a full month later — even a relatively restful trip is still more tiring for me than staying home.

Get advice from multiple sources. This list is aimed at, well, basically myself and anyone with similar symptoms. I’m not addressing pain because that’s not one of my symptoms, but if it’s one of yours you should absolutely get advice from people who experience pain. Likewise, I’m not housebound so I’ve got limited advice there. I don’t have kids, so I don’t have much in the way of parenting advice, and I’m not working so I don’t have “how to handle a job when you have CFS” advice. Oh, and I’m in the United States, what you can expect the government, schools, businesses etc to do for you can vary considerably by country.

A lot of this comes from this website and backed up by my own experience. They have lots of easy to read articles and success stories, and email-based “classes” (think structured support group, not like college class) on living with CFS/ME or fibromyalgia. They don’t get money from promoting supplements or whatever, which is a thing I look for as a sign of integrity. (Not that supplements can’t help, but if someone is getting money from saying they do it’s harder to trust if they’re being fully honest.) There’s also groups on FB and I’m sure other places that are well suited for asking questions and getting advice. There’s books, both on the disease itself and possible treatments (mostly highly speculative and/or alternative) like Living Well with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, and on the “how do I live like this?” side of things, like How To Be Sick. Point is: you don’t have to go it alone.

Postscript: recovery. The odds that you will get somewhat better are pretty good. The odds that you will make a full recovery, given the current knowledge about CFS/ME, are low. I know that doesn’t feel good if you’re newly diagnosed (side note: you don’t need officiant diagnosis to start assuming that you’ve probably got CFS and looking for resources, I didn’t, official diagnosis can take a while.) I know when you’re new to this, all you want is to return to normal. (And you might; some people do.) Here’s the thing though: even if you don’t get back to normal, it’s not always going to feel this bad. What feels bad isn’t mostly the state you’re in, it’s mostly change: improvement feels good, getting worse feels bad. If you level off or get a bit better (super likely) and start comparing your current state to your low point, rather than when before you got sick, you’ll start to feel better again. It’s the adjustment period that’s rough, more than the illness itself.

It’s grief, it’s loss: grieving the life you had and the future you hoped for, and the way people respond to that is similar in many ways to how people respond to losing a loved one. Therapy might help, religious guidance if applicable to you might help (if not, perhaps consider this a good time for a deep dive into philosophy, or some form of creative self-expression like drawing or writing poetry); whatever you do, be aware that this is a huge thing to have to come face to face with, and it’s normal to struggle with it. (And: it’s not always going to feel this bad.)

It’s possible to have CFS/ME, and have a good life. It’s possible to have CFS/ME and have many sources of joy and delight and excitement and satisfaction and connection. It’s possible to have CFS/ME and have a deep sense of purpose and meaning, even if your old sources of purpose and meaning are no longer available. It’s possible to live well.

#long post #cfs/me #chronic illness #living with chronic illness #living with cfs/me #stoic on main #can do bolding for emphasis on request #or break it down into smaller segments #this is kind of a brain dump

[wlwtsubomi]

do u have bnha ocs? 0:

YES I DO THANK YOU FOR ASKING

akfjafkahglad throwing them all under read more bc i have,,, A Lot(TM)

i actually have a fuckin uhhhhh nextgen au?? and thats where A Majority Of Them come from??????? and i love them all id die for them

ok so like

ok so two of my Main Ones are era and takuma!!!!!!!! ft. some changed designs bc im considering revamping laylaylb bc it Kinda Sucks. 

so era is the shark one!!!!! her quirk is minor shark and its a mutant quirk that gives her vague mutations from a whitetip reef shark!!! that includes (but is not limited to) double rows of teeth, gils, some fins, enhanced smell and like, you know that thing that sharks do where they can find things from like,, those feely things from their chins?? yeah era can do that. she also tends to be more wild at night?? but it can be passed off as loopiness. since shes from a nextgen au shes the adopted daughter of kiri and baku???? her full name is bakushima era and she is like,,, just Rowdy and Easily Excited.

takuma is a more obvious nextgen kid and hes a tododeku fankid?? THOUGH in the revamp im gonna make him a todoiideku fankid with siblings bc ive always had concept for siblings for him but i was a Coward and never went through with them. his quirk is temperature control and its an emitter quirk that, when he touches something, he can adjust the temperature of an object. whenever he raises the temperature in something, the temperature of his body lowers, and vise versa. that often leads him to being cold constantly and having to bundle up his body in like a thousand jackets. its Very Relatable to me tbh. anxiety is hereditary so hes very anxious and withdrawn. he tends to be very scatterbrained and more often then not he forgets words mid-sentence and needs eras help to remember them. that leads him to repeat things a lot and quit a lot of things midway because he cant describe them. thats Also Very Relatable. his full name is midoriya takuma although in the revamp, its most likely that his name will be changed to iida-midoriya takuma

another important character to the nextgen who isnt actually a nextgen kid is siryoku karashiro (despite me often using first names as a way to refer to characters, i called him by his family name (siryoku) so frequently in laylaylb that thats just how i refer to him at this point) and hes really fun to draw. so hes kinda hard to explain without giving a lot about his backstory and eventual character arc away?? but hes from a rich family of lawyers who all have quirks that allow them to intimidate people by meeting their eyes. however, due to a recessive quirk from his moms side, he ended up having an variant of the black hole quirk. unlike thirteen, who (presumably) can channel theirs through their fingers, his is through his eyes. without a lot of practice with his quirk, he cant really control it and it often ends up being an all or nothing sort of trump card. siryokus very socially awkward and often has a hard time keeping up with extroverted people like ame and era. he also tends to miss expressions and figures of speech. but other than that, hes very earnest and despite his fumbles, wants to help others

while takuma era and siryoku are the Main Trio, takuma and era are also in another trio alongside ame, full name uraraka ame. shes a tsuchako fankid who really likes wearing christmas sweaters in the middle of summer. a part of this generations “big 3″ ame is a third year and an intern under thirteen. her quirk is zero gravity, inherited directly from ochako. shes very caring, and the “big sister” of the group if you will. she tries to help people as much as she can, and is the role model of both era and takuma. she is very energetic though, but she misses a lot of social cues and can as such be seen as pushy or overbearing. 

while she hasnt appeared a lot yet in either my comics or in laylaylb, another character who will end up being important is kyousou hansha!!!! she will be (eventually) the vice president of their class and has been shown to be very driven, determined, and almost judgemental. she hasnt come with the intention of befriending people who dont come up to her standards, though what exactly those standards are is currently unknown. (i know it though) all thats currently known is that she often knows how to take charge of a situation with a very analytical point of view, and that perhaps thats what helped her land a recommended spot into ua. (who recommended her and what her quirk is hasnt been officially shown, though if you look through my blog, im p sure i mentioned it at one point)

this is a very bad drawing, because kazankawa (full name kazankawa atsui) is one of my favorite characters to draw (without coloring because her details is hard for me to color) and has one of my favorite character designs out of my bnha ocs. her quirk is volcano, and its a mutant quirk that almost makes herself like a living volcano. however, she cant ‘erupt’. her skin literally has cracks around where it folds the most, so think at the joints of her fingers and in her elbow. it also has cracks below her eyes. the cracks are filled with lava, though it is purely stationary. she gives off heat and can produce smoke from her mouth (though she doesnt know it yet). she is also able to throw up lava, but thats just kinda gross. she comes across as level-headed, chill, and sleepy almost all the time. however, once she gets riled up or in the battle field, she becomes more wild and reckless.

some other characters and wow isnt this a great drawing, is the houkai squad. i dont have an official name for their group, but they have a really fun dynamic to write. houkai genki (the middle one in the screenshot) is the one that this entire group revolves around, because they are the one who taigun and kuroiya are around for. they have an emitter quirk called emp, which is. an emp. yeah. its,, self explanatory. some people think theyre slick, but really, theyre kinda just really stupid and has no self restraint. 

taigun kisaki (the leftmost) is literally the groups voice of reason and impulse control. her quirk is literally the most terrifying quirk ive ever come up with and its an emitter quirk that lets her control the bees. fuck you vigilantes i made it up before i knew you made a character with a similar quirk. shes by all means an extrovert, but has very thin patience and is constantly done by the shenanigans of this god forsaken group.

kuroiya fumukoi was actually the third bnha oc i designed, and was originally supposed to be a very withdrawn softspoken character. but as i wrote laylaylb, she was changed to an enabler of houkais, with just vaguely more intelligence than houkai, but instead of doing things out of sheer stupidity, more out of just ballsy-ness. her quirk is called shadow step and allows her to travel through shadows. it often leaves her hungry, so a lot of times she can be caught munching on something.

some other characters are the rest of the big 3!!! i love them a lot. like,, listen i would die for them. besides ame, theres suiro takara, the one on the right, and her quirk is crystal channel?? shes an intern under aoyama and can channel her own energy into crystals on her body (which is why she wears so many necklaces) in the form of lasers. shes constantly tired and stressed and honestly really offput by ame. ames excited and loud personality is a bit too much for her, so she tends to lash out or act cold. then theres yasuyou natsuki, the middle, whos quirk is flame body. her bodys literally a fire. as a result, all of the the third years had to be made extra fire durable outfits and gym uniforms to withstand being worn or coming into contact with her. ame has a crush on her, though yasuyou isnt aware of it. yasuyou is dense but upbeat, not interacting with ame a lot because theyre in different classes. (ame is in 3-a while yasuyou is in 3-b). also, ame, idk about u, but idk how ur gonna smooch fire.

of course there is A Lot of other characters from laylaylb that i wont write bc i dont have the screenshots or drawings on hand or bc they havent been revealed or i dont have the energy to explain all about the background characters

BUT

i DO have a non-laylaylb bnha oc and i dont have a name or set design for her yet but ive been stewing over the idea of her quirk for the LONGEST time

so basically shes a support student whos quirk is balance. its an emitter/mutant kinda quirk that gives her impeccable balance and things that she touches the same balance as well. it comes in handy when walking/maneuvering with things in her hands, and allows her to stack things without the fear of them fall over. think about that one sasuke figurine that could balance anything on its head and think ‘what if that was a quirk’

she isnt keen on sharing her ideas with others, though when she does, its often for critique. she has an odd sense for knowing when people lie to her about their opinions, and prefers brutal truth. perhaps its because thats how she is-- overly blunt and bad at determining which things are and arent right to tell to someones face. 

i could see her getting along with hatsume

#i love all of my bnha ocs.... #i want them all to be happy......... #/long post #Anonymous

[themominars]

Sometimes Superwoman Is Exhausted

Hello friends. It's me again.

I have had a rough week. So this post is going to be about me, my limits, and what it's like to wear the cape of Superwoman while also feeling like I could crumble at any given moment under the stressful experience that has become my life at baseline.

Before I dive in, I just want to explain that I am not complaining about my life. Everything I do, both at work and in my personal life, I do on a voluntary basis. Absolutely no one forces me to go to work six days a week. No one has forced me into motherhood. No one forced me to marry a man with epilepsy. No one has told me that I am required to take classes on top of my already obscenely busy life. And no one makes me get out of bed every morning.

I do this all because I want to. I love my job, my coworkers, and my patients. Nothing in this world could possibly make me happier than my son yelling "Mama!" as I walk through the door to the biggest hug a two year old can give. Nothing makes me feel more complete than a hug from my husband as the day is ending. And, selfishly, nothing could make me feel more successful than getting an A in a class or on a paper.

But fuck, you guys. I am tired. And sometimes all I want is for my husband, my friends, and my family to understand why I am so utterly exhausted sometimes.

I work 60 hours a week to get my family by. While this is exhausting for anyone, the setting in which I choose to work often exasperates this exhaustion. I see people at their worst. I help nurses make dying patients and their families comfortable. I see psychiatric patients in the height of their crisis. I get spit at, yelled at, cussed out, and disrespected by patients who are generally at their worst. Then I choose to respect them anyway. That can take some patience and some energy. Both of which are currently in short supply.

Then after work, what do I do? I voluntarily walk into my house at 1am knowing my two year old is still awake and my to do list is longer than the constitution. Then I give my son all I've got left in me trying to be the best fucking mother in the world. Eventually, he goes to sleep. Then that's it, right? The day is over?

Nope. After my son is sleeping peacefully, which can take some doing, I then do my part of the chores around the house, set myself up for tomorrow's responsibilities, then finally sit down to complete some of my coursework. Sometimes I am lucky enough to connect with friends between obligations. Sometimes I even use the bathroom with the door shut, but most of the time I don't even bother trying.

So today, friends. I am tired. I wish there was someone with my exact life experience to talk to. But that's the thing about life - our experiences are all unique to us. We all need to make the most out of this life we have been granted. And this will look different to all of us. That's ok.

Today's lesson: it's ok to be tired. It's ok to feel like no one else understands your experience. You are probably right. Kick ass anyway.

I'm going to hang up my cape for the night. But I will be here for you all again tomorrow. I will always make this promise.

I love you,

Steph

AKA Superwoman

#Self care #mentalhealth #mentalillness #mental health #Mommyhood #mentalhealthtech #Mental health #Mental health tech #Advocate #selfcare #mentalbreakdown #Exhaustion #Mom life #motherhood #mentalhealthawareness #findyourself #Mommy blogger #mom #selfworth #takecareofyourself #Tired #Mental illness #Action #Mom blogger #find yourself #Choices #Mental health awareness #selflove #Love yourself

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say

Jimmy Butler’s cell phone is shaking. We’re plopped down in the last row of his home theatre on a couch that feels like a velvet sponge, a blanket covers his outstretched legs.

Butler leans over, looks down, smiles. He picks the phone up, shakes his head, then turns it around to reveal who’s on the other end. Coach Thibs. “See?” Butler says. “It’s crazy, right? He’s always on my phone.”

Everything about Butler’s place in this exact moment and time can and should be described as “crazy.” From the majestic hillside villa tucked away in Malibu—a remote paradise where the 27-year-old lives with a tight crew of friends, family, and paid aides (a photographer is sleeping in the guest house)—to the sudden reunion with Tom Thibodeau, the tireless coach who helped turn Butler into one of the least probable success stories in NBA history, to the Chicago Bulls needlessly trading Butler earlier this summer…the list can go on forever.

Butler’s origin story is absurd. Small town Texas kids with no scholarship offers out of high school don’t become NBA role players, much less superstars. They aren’t oddball country music-loving characters who pal around with famous actors. And they certainly don’t accomplish all they have while going out of their way to stand tall as a positive figure off the court. Butler won the NBA Cares Community Assist Award last April, and says he aspires to use his broadening platform to navigate the contentious social issues that plague the country. But his rags to riches past and lavish present are not as moving as what promises to lie ahead.

Butler was voted onto his first All-NBA team last season, with scoring, assist, and rebound averages usually associated with someone headed to the Hall of Fame. (Butler tallied more Win Shares last year than Larry Bird when he won his first MVP). But there’s still room for improvement, and next season Butler will be surrounded by players with enough talent to relieve some of the pressure he’s felt in years past.

It’s been an intense, course-altering summer for Butler, whose reward for establishing himself as one of the world’s 15 best basketball players was the trade, three months ago, from Chicago to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a franchise that’s perpetually struggling to stand on its own two feet. But Butler—alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, two Rookie of the Year winners who can fill an ocean with their talent and upside—is poised to change all that.

Coach Thibs is always calling Butler—and always calling his number. Photo: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Already one of, if not the, most physically fit individuals in a league overcrowded by the most athletic specimens on earth, Butler dedicated his summer to figuring out a way to get into even more ridiculous shape—the better to handle one of the NBA’s toughest workloads. (According to NBA.com, he ran more miles per game than all but two other players during 2016-17, and led the entire league in each of the previous two seasons.)

“The man, simply, is addicted to working,” says Butler’s personal skills trainer Chris Johnson.

His weekly schedule consists of approximately nine hundred thousand hours of on-court basketball drills, spliced with a grueling workout plan that made my eyes water when I first heard it. Without an alarm, Butler is out of bed by 5:45 AM and on the court by 6:00.

“He’s a serial killer’s dream. He does the same shit every fucking day.”

Meals hardly deviate. It’s scrambled egg whites, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and a protein shake for breakfast. Lunch is Chipotle, with plain white rice, double chicken, light lettuce, and half a cup of vinaigrette (no cilantro). At night, his chef will prepare a dish around fish or chicken. He hasn’t had red meat in years and steers clear of alcohol.

When Butler isn’t drenched in sweat, most of his free time is either spent in his theatre watching the same movies over and over (Friday is a favorite), or escaping into never-ending games of Spades or dominoes. Yoga is on the docket. Nightclubs are not.

“He’s a serial killer’s dream,” says Butler’s personal strength trainer Travelle Gaines, who counts NFL superstars like Antonio Brown and Demaryius Thomas as clients. “He does the same shit every fucking day.”

Butler is shirtless in tan pants and Jordan slides when we first meet outside his pool house. “Want a beer?” He reaches into a brown Albertson’s bag and removes a cold can of Michelob Ultra. His hair is braided tight like a crown, and it’s impossible not to notice how much his chest looks like gladiator armor. This is also a reminder that our interview (and a photo shoot he’s doing) have pushed Butler out of his usual routine, but he doesn’t seem too worried about it.

“I’ll just make it all up in a short period tonight and be really tired in the morning when I wake up and start my schedule all over again, but it’s part of it,” he says.

The mood when Butler enters a room somehow relaxes and tightens at the exact same time. His personality glides from standup comedian to superintendent. He’s genuinely curious, cerebral, and a little mischievous. Ultimately, everything, from his schedule to his diet to the people he chooses to spend every waking minute around, is about efficiency. Even in this wonderland, with potted lemon trees at every turn, a hoard of wicker patio furniture, and a Southern California sun that dares anyone under it to do nothing but sip gin and tonics on end, Butler’s playfulness has limitations.

“I’m confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go.”

The conversation turns to his work ethic. He understands not everyone is as driven as he is, but can’t comprehend the thought of someone (especially another NBA player) not doing all they can to reach their full potential. It bugs him, even though he knows it shouldn’t.

“I think it’s wrong for me to think that people want what I want because in reality they don’t. Some people are OK with getting drafted. Some people are OK with playing two years in the league, four years in the league, six years in the league. Some people are OK with just scoring a basket in an NBA game. I’m not OK with any of that. I’m not satisfied until I win a championship,” he says. “I want everybody to work the way that I work and it’s wrong for me to think like that because people don’t do it! But in my mind I’m just like why? Why don’t you want to chase greatness the way that I do?”

Last January, after a humiliating loss in Atlanta that saw the Bulls blow a 10 point lead with three minutes left, Butler was fined for publicly dragging his teammates through the mud. After he was traded, former NBA player Antoine Walker called Butler a “bad locker room guy.” A recent report suggested the Boston Celtics had concerns about trading for the three-time All-Star because Butler might clash with Gordon Hayward, who they eventually signed in free agency.

Butler has little patience for people less driven than he is. Photo: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports.

“Even as a first-semester freshman, he wasn’t gonna let guys drift through practice,” says Mike Marquis, Butler’s coach at Tyler Junior College. “He is very, very competitive, and he is great when he finds an enemy. I think that’s one of his charms. He knows how to psychologically find an enemy and attack it.”

I ask Butler if he’s a difficult person to be around.

“Yes,” he says.

But it’s not as simple as that. Difficult is in the eye of the beholder, just like laziness.

“But then again it’s bad on my part because I know better,” Butler says. “It’s kind of contradicting itself. It’s like, ‘Well Jimmy you know better, don’t do that.’ But then the other half is just like, ‘Well, if you can do it everybody can do it.’ But then it goes back again. ‘You know that it don’t work like that, right? Yeah, I know, but I think that it can so everybody needs to work like this.'”

“I think it takes a very special person to deal with Jimmy Butler,” says Gaines. “He’s actually too smart for his own good.”

Once the photo shoot ends, we migrate down to the main house. Ready to play Spades, Butler is hunched over a square folding table that’s been pummeled by thousands of domino tiles. He’s flanked by Phil Ducasse, his newly appointed personal photographer, Ifeyani Koggu, a former Arkansas State guard who Butler introduces as his brother, and Mike Smith, Butler’s mentee, of sorts, from Chicago who’s about to enter his sophomore season at Columbia. A chandelier the size of a kiddie pool hangs overhead. Boxes of Size 14 retro Jordans are stacked against the dining room wall, with loose jewelry and designer clothes casually spread across the table and floor.

Nearly two hours later the card game ends and Butler recedes to his theatre. He acknowledges that his whirlwind ascent altered relationships and transfigured his behavior in Chicago, but doesn’t feel taken for granted by the Bulls organization. Still, an old truism lingers: the one about how those who start in the mailroom can never shake how co-workers perceive them no matter how high they climb within the company. There’s a sense, from the outside looking in, that the Bulls didn’t appreciate how awesome Butler truly is.

He didn’t crack 400 minutes his rookie year. By his third season—his first of three straight appearances on the NBA’s All-Defensive second team—Butler averaged a team-high 38.7 minutes per game. That year he averaged 13.1 points. Two seasons later he was up to 20.9.

“I think they maybe expected me to stay the same, and I don’t think that that’s right. Like, I have changed. I will tell you that. But I think that I’ve changed for the better,” he says. “When I say for the better, whenever I was a rookie, averaging 0.8 points per game or whatever it might be, it wouldn’t matter if I scored that 0.8 because it wasn’t going to win or lose us a game. Now, you go forward a couple years when I’m averaging 20 points per game, that’s more than likely gonna cost us a game. It’s gonna be the difference between winning or losing. Am I right? So now I don’t give a damn about pressure, but if someone’s going to take the blame for something, who they gonna point to? Me. So yeah, I’ve changed, because I want to fucking win. I want to show that I can win. So the way I go about things, it’s not gonna be the way I went about things when I was a rookie, [when] I’m not gonna say anything. Now I’ve got something to fucking say.”

This is what he has to say. Or at least some of it:

“I’m confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go. Not everybody’s like that. [Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg] is not that coach, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are different coaching styles and people are gonna say—which is what they did say—’It’s gonna be Jimmy’s team or it’s gonna be Fred’s team.’ Two total opposite ends of the spectrum. They’re either gonna try to win it now or they’re gonna go young. And you see which way they went with it. Completely fine. Yo, it’s y’all’s business. It’s y’all’s organization. It’s cool. And now I’m in Minnesota and couldn’t be happier.”

Despite elevating his game to an all-time high last year, too often he was forced to be MacGyver, constantly scraping for useful contributions from his scanty supporting cast while refusing to let constant double and triple teams minimize his impact. The Bulls struggled to boil water whenever he rested on the bench.

Chicago ranked 28th in three-point rate and 24th in three-point percentage yet Butler still dragged them to the playoffs. The floor opened up a tiny bit when Nikola Mirotic played the four, but aging, antiquated guards like Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo too often made the offense feel claustrophobic. It wasn’t an ideal environment for a wing scorer to thrive, but somehow Butler did.

From 2015 to 2017, the percentage of Butler’s two-point field goals that were unassisted increased by just over 20 percent, but his True Shooting percentage didn’t fall. He finished with more Win Shares than LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, and Kawhi Leonard last year, and was third in “Real Plus-Minus Wins,” a stat that estimates how many wins a player contributes to his team’s season total, behind only LeBron James and Steph Curry.

“You can’t put somebody in a box and then have them think outside the box. Jimmy thinks like there’s no box, so he has no ceiling. Every day we wake up to break boundaries,” Johnson says. “I’m able to develop him as a point guard, as a shooting guard, as a small forward, as a power forward, and as a center. He’s a basketball player. He’s a scorer. He’s not a shooter. He’s not just a primary driver. He can do pretty much anything that is asked of him from his coaches because he allowed me to prepare him for every single situation. The only person who can stop Jimmy is Jimmy. He don’t have a flaw.”

Even for a person as motivated as he is, Butler’s journey to the NBA was a miraculous tightrope walk. There were no AAU connections or free sneakers. Butler is from Tomball, Texas, a slight town about 30 miles outside Houston. After his mother kicked him out of the house when he was 13, Butler couchsurfed through his teenage years before finding relative stability when his friend’s mother agreed to take him in. The story has been told often, but remains too incredible to be sensationalized.

For the typical prospect, coming to average 20 points in the NBA is less likely than purchasing a winning Powerball ticket. For Butler, it was less likely than holding said ticket while riding in the backseat of a limousine with Beyonce, eloping in Vegas.

Butler didn’t receive any scholarship offers out of high school, but he did get noticed by a scout named Alan Branch. Branch identified qualities his colleagues missed, and started to chirp in the direction of any coaches who’d listen. You guys are missing a steal. But no offers were made even after Butler played well in a couple spring tournaments. Nobody thought he was Division-I material.

“The biggest thing I can say is he wasn’t flashy, he wasn’t a freak talent, and he was in the bushes,” Branch says.

So instead of preparing for his first year at a school like Texas Christian University or Morehead State, Branch introduced Butler to Coach Marquis at Tyler Junior College, about three hours north of Tomball. He spent a day working out in their gym, scrimmaged with some of their players and local high-school competition, and was offered a spot right away.

“Mike never saw him shoot the basketball,” Branch said. “Jimmy played like four or five possessions, made the right passes, got a rebound. He was just solid. You could just see the IQ.”

It’s impossible to know what would’ve happened had Branch never brought Butler to Marquis’s attention. There were other junior colleges in the area that might have granted Butler a chance to walk on, but a few critical variables would’ve spun in unpredictable directions had he played anywhere else. To start, Tyler was very good, and good teams draw Division-I eyeballs.

Up until that point in his career, Butler mostly operated in the frontcourt. He crashed the glass, defended well, and offered a tenaciousness that probably wouldn’t have the same effect against bigger, stronger competition. But thanks to the team’s roster construction, Marquis shifted Butler to the perimeter on a full-time basis, forcing him to showcase a more appealing and varied skill-set.

“I didn’t think people would draft him out of junior college after one year, but I thought he was draftable,” Marquis said. “I called [Bulls general manager] Gar Forman, who I had known since he was coaching at Iowa State and New Mexico State, and said there’s something special about Jimmy. If they just continued to watch his progress, they’d really, really like him.”

Far and away the longest lasting benefit from his time in Tyler was who he met while there. Butler’s roommate that season was a 6’7″ wing named Joe Fulce, who was recruited to play for Marquette University by the school’s then-assistant coach Buzz Williams.

“Every time I went to go see Joe, of course, I would say hello to Jimmy,” Williams says.

Fulce—who’s now a graduate assistant coach under Williams at Virginia Tech—and Butler were like a pair of Siamese fighting fish (who also happened to be friends). They competed in everything and played countless games of one on one, after practice, before games; even at random times in the middle of the night—whenever Butler wasn’t hypnotized by his eight hundredth viewing of The Lion King.

“I don’t know how many times I’d either wake up in the morning or wake up at night and his ass is sitting in bed, eating some snacks, with his feet crossed, with a cowboy hat on, watching the damn Lion King with some country music softly playing,” Fulce said to VICE Sports. “His ass is weird.” (Butler still really loves country music.)

Butler led Tyler in scoring and guided them to a 24-5 record. All the while, Fulce relentlessly pitched Williams on his roommate’s all-around potential. A little while later Williams became Marquette’s head coach. Butler was the first player he signed. His letter of intent was famously faxed over from a nearby McDonald’s, and his first day on campus doubled as the first day of school. Butler still had Fulce as his roommate, but never visited Milwaukee beforehand.

“I think from day one until the day he graduated, he became much more confident in who he was on and off the floor,” Williams says. “I think he became less distrustful. His personality showed more often. He was much more comfortable. Obviously, that was an extended period of time where his environment and the people in his environment were stable.”

In three years, Butler never dropped a class, skipped a meeting with his tutor, or showed up late to a weightlifting session. In large part due to Butler being Williams’s first signing, there was inescapable pressure on them both to perform. And through some tough times early on, a mutually beneficial bond was formed.

“What can I say, in some ways I’m proud of it and in other ways I’m not proud of it,” Williams says. “I was hard on him. I was hard on him in every way. I never gave him any relief in any facet of his life, and to his credit he never wanted one. I think as our time together transpired, he expected that. He wanted that. He wanted that as an example to everybody else on the team.”

Butler says the lessons learned in three years at Marquette still resonate, and his relationship with Williams remains strong. Now the head coach at Virginia Tech, Williams gave Butler a journal during his second year in the league. He still writes in it.

Next year, the journal will be different. He’ll be in a new city, with a new team, and a new set of expectations—at least externally. Internally, Butler still has a bottomless urge to be great. He’s forever that serial killer’s dream. He rolls out of bed each morning focused and ready to go for a 90-minute session with Johnson. It’s the first of two workouts they fight through every day. They start by zooming in on ball-handling, finishing, floaters, runners, one-legged jumpers, off-balance jumpers, side pick-and-rolls, middle pick-and-rolls, pick-and-roll passing, and so on and so forth.

He’s already one of the craftiest and effective downhill playmakers in basketball, but for Butler to truly max out his potential in the coming seasons, that jumper needs to stabilize. Last year, he knocked down 36.7 percent of his threes, which is right around league average and an improvement on the previous season. But a higher percentage of his field goal attempts were launched from the inefficient mid-range, where he only canned 38.2 percent. On the whole, that’s not an atrocious number, but it badly trails positional peers like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Kevin Durant.

Later in the day, the second session with Johnson is devoted to shot mechanics—how he can better himself shooting on the move and off the bounce. They study preferable ways for him to create separation and sharpen his technique on fadeaways. Every workout is filmed, allowing Butler and Johnson to obsess over ball and hand placement. They really dig into the finer details that are necessary to make him a more potent all-around weapon.

After the morning workout, Butler rewards himself with a five-minute break and then embarks on a soul-crippling hour with Gaines. Gaines and Johnson work with other professional athletes but have still met with Butler almost every day for the past four years. They will continue to do so in Minnesota. When Butler goes on vacation, be it to Europe, Canada, Mexico, or Mars, Gaines and Johnson come along for the ride.

“I’m not cheap,” Gaines says. “But he pays whatever it costs and whatever it takes to keep his body right.”

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are reserved for corrective exercises, movement prep, movement training, and strength training. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for conditioning work and agility training. Saturdays and Sundays are strictly conditioning. Sometimes they race on the beach or hop on a football field to sprint 110 yards at a time.

Sometimes they’ll get back on an actual basketball court just to embrace the delightful sensation that a gasser can have on the human body. Gassers are timed sprints where, starting on the baseline, Butler has 17 seconds to go half the court and back, then dart to the opposite end line before returning to where he started. “We’ll do 10 to 15 of those,” Gaines said. It sounds like torture, but for Butler the entire process is more vital than oxygen.

There are obvious reasons to think the hard work will continue to pay off. This year, Butler may find that instead of doing more with less, he’ll have the chance to do more with more. In Minnesota, defenses will have to worry about Towns, Wiggins, and Jeff Teague, the kind of score-first point guard Butler hasn’t played with since Derrick Rose’s body broke down. He’ll be able to allocate more energy towards the defensive end—Butler failed to make an All-Defensive team for the first time in three years last season. Despite just four percent body fat hanging from his 230-pound frame, Butler still gets tired every once in a while.

If he can hunt for more open opportunities behind the three-point line instead of settling on tough, contested heaves, he can be one of the most efficient players in the entire NBA.

That won’t necessarily be easy. The Timberwolves actually finished behind Chicago in three-point rate last season. And given how their roster is built, Thibodeau will likely lean on dated lineups that can be exploited when up against modernized rotations. Gorgui Dieng and Taj Gibson will platoon the power forward position, even though they’re both better suited as backup fives. Life on the court may be cluttered once again.

But if Towns leaps forward on the defensive end, Thibs could deploy more versatile units that will accentuate Butler’s strengths. The floor will open up and, if that’s the case, it’s hard to see how he won’t be a legitimate MVP candidate. According to Synergy Sports, Butler ranked in the 77th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball-handler last year. He was 95th in transition, 92nd in spot-up situations, and 91st in the post.

The Timberwolves boast a core that can, in Towns’s words, evolve into a dynasty. Butler likes the fit and is confident he can teach Thibodeau’s system to younger teammates who struggled to grasp it last season. But he’s also understandably cautious when it comes to attaching any bold claims to a group that ranked 26th in defense last year.

“I don’t like the word ‘Super Team’,” he says. “I think everybody’s human. That’s [what] people label Golden State. They’re a really really, really good basketball team. Super team?…On any given time they can be beat, too. It’s all about who’s playing basketball the best at the right time.”

Towns and Wiggins can fill an ocean with their upside. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports.

Dethroning the Warriors is goal number one. But even if the Timberwolves fall short, Butler will certainly use his time in Minneapolis to expand his fame over the next few years. With the league’s popularity increasing every day in countries all over the world, a genuine superstar’s brand is worth exponentially more than the $19.3 million Minnesota owes Butler this season. Off-court opportunities are constantly nipping at his attention. Three years ago, he took a 75 percent pay cut to go from adidas to Jordan, joining Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, Kawhi Leonard, Russell Westbrook, and over a dozen other NBA stars. (During our day together, Butler poked fun at a camera operator wearing adidas tennis shoes.)

Bonobos, a menswear company that was recently bought by Walmart, made Butler their brand ambassador last August. And just this month he released his own signature underwear line with PSD, a company Kyrie Irving and Chandler Parsons are also affiliated with. (Butler’s photographer Phil envisions a coffee table book. “If Kim Kardashian can do it,” he says. “Why can’t Jimmy?”)

Last year, he dipped his toe in Hollywood by appearing in Office Christmas Party, a comedy his life guru Mark Wahlberg helped put him in. Butler met Wahlberg in 2013 while the actor was filming a Transformers movie in Chicago. They’ve been close friends ever since, with Butler citing the 46-year-old’s vigorous work ethic as one of the biggest inspirations in his life.

“He’s already one of the best at what he does, but he works as though he’s not. The guy wakes up at 3:30, 4:00 AM to work out. Then he’ll go take his mind off of stuff and play some golf,” Butler says. “He eats healthy and spends time with his family and he’s reading scripts and he’s in meetings and he’s on phone calls. Before you know it, it’s time to do it all over again the next day.” (Butler’s all-time favorite Wahlberg movie is Shooter. “Bob Lee Swagger is that dude,” he says.)

Butler played himself in Office Christmas Party, alongside Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn. He wasn’t stiff in his only scene; the film’s two directors, Josh Gordon and Will Speck, were impressed by his initial foray into a brand new field. “LeBron surprised everyone in Trainwreck by being so fully formed as an actor,” Gordon told VICE Sports. “If Jimmy wanted to [act in the future], he could do it. He’s got that kind of charisma. It’s up to him.”

Butler isn’t sure how much longer he wants to be an NBA player, but hopes to squeeze in at least seven years, two championships, and widespread respect as one of his era’s greatest stars before his body cries uncle. (No big deal.) If he opts out of his player option in 2019, the former Most Improved Player can experience unrestricted free agency for the very first time; just about every team that can afford a max contract will be interested. Even though that level of courtship is something Butler has never gone through before, he’s yet to think about what it’ll feel like.

“I’ll tell you one thing. I’m gonna go or I’m gonna be or I’m gonna stay wherever I’m wanted, man. Because that’s all anybody ever wants,” he says. “To be appreciated.”

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[flauntpage]

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say

Jimmy Butler's cell phone is shaking. We're plopped down in the last row of his home theatre on a couch that feels like a velvet sponge, a blanket covers his outstretched legs.

Butler leans over, looks down, smiles. He picks the phone up, shakes his head, then turns it around to reveal who's on the other end. Coach Thibs. "See?" Butler says. "It's crazy, right? He's always on my phone."

Everything about Butler's place in this exact moment and time can and should be described as "crazy." From the majestic hillside villa tucked away in Malibu—a remote paradise where the 27-year-old lives with a tight crew of friends, family, and paid aides (a photographer is sleeping in the guest house)—to the sudden reunion with Tom Thibodeau, the tireless coach who helped turn Butler into one of the least probable success stories in NBA history, to the Chicago Bulls needlessly trading Butler earlier this summer...the list can go on forever.

Butler's origin story is absurd. Small town Texas kids with no scholarship offers out of high school don't become NBA role players, much less superstars. They aren't oddball country music-loving characters who pal around with famous actors. And they certainly don't accomplish all they have while going out of their way to stand tall as a positive figure off the court. Butler won the NBA Cares Community Assist Award last April, and says he aspires to use his broadening platform to navigate the contentious social issues that plague the country. But his rags to riches past and lavish present are not as moving as what promises to lie ahead.

Butler was voted onto his first All-NBA team last season, with scoring, assist, and rebound averages usually associated with someone headed to the Hall of Fame. (Butler tallied more Win Shares last year than Larry Bird when he won his first MVP). But there's still room for improvement, and next season Butler will be surrounded by players with enough talent to relieve some of the pressure he's felt in years past.

It's been an intense, course-altering summer for Butler, whose reward for establishing himself as one of the world's 15 best basketball players was the trade, three months ago, from Chicago to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a franchise that's perpetually struggling to stand on its own two feet. But Butler—alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, two Rookie of the Year winners who can fill an ocean with their talent and upside—is poised to change all that.

Coach Thibs is always calling Butler—and always calling his number. Photo: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Already one of, if not the, most physically fit individuals in a league overcrowded by the most athletic specimens on earth, Butler dedicated his summer to figuring out a way to get into even more ridiculous shape—the better to handle one of the NBA's toughest workloads. (According to NBA.com, he ran more miles per game than all but two other players during 2016-17, and led the entire league in each of the previous two seasons.)

"The man, simply, is addicted to working," says Butler's personal skills trainer Chris Johnson.

His weekly schedule consists of approximately nine hundred thousand hours of on-court basketball drills, spliced with a grueling workout plan that made my eyes water when I first heard it. Without an alarm, Butler is out of bed by 5:45 AM and on the court by 6:00.

"He's a serial killer's dream. He does the same shit every fucking day."

Meals hardly deviate. It's scrambled egg whites, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and a protein shake for breakfast. Lunch is Chipotle, with plain white rice, double chicken, light lettuce, and half a cup of vinaigrette (no cilantro). At night, his chef will prepare a dish around fish or chicken. He hasn't had red meat in years and steers clear of alcohol.

When Butler isn't drenched in sweat, most of his free time is either spent in his theatre watching the same movies over and over (Friday is a favorite), or escaping into never-ending games of Spades or dominoes. Yoga is on the docket. Nightclubs are not.

"He's a serial killer's dream," says Butler's personal strength trainer Travelle Gaines, who counts NFL superstars like Antonio Brown and Demaryius Thomas as clients. "He does the same shit every fucking day."

Butler is shirtless in tan pants and Jordan slides when we first meet outside his pool house. "Want a beer?" He reaches into a brown Albertson's bag and removes a cold can of Michelob Ultra. His hair is braided tight like a crown, and it's impossible not to notice how much his chest looks like gladiator armor. This is also a reminder that our interview (and a photo shoot he's doing) have pushed Butler out of his usual routine, but he doesn't seem too worried about it.

"I'll just make it all up in a short period tonight and be really tired in the morning when I wake up and start my schedule all over again, but it's part of it," he says.

The mood when Butler enters a room somehow relaxes and tightens at the exact same time. His personality glides from standup comedian to superintendent. He's genuinely curious, cerebral, and a little mischievous. Ultimately, everything, from his schedule to his diet to the people he chooses to spend every waking minute around, is about efficiency. Even in this wonderland, with potted lemon trees at every turn, a hoard of wicker patio furniture, and a Southern California sun that dares anyone under it to do nothing but sip gin and tonics on end, Butler's playfulness has limitations.

"I'm confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go."

The conversation turns to his work ethic. He understands not everyone is as driven as he is, but can't comprehend the thought of someone (especially another NBA player) not doing all they can to reach their full potential. It bugs him, even though he knows it shouldn't.

"I think it's wrong for me to think that people want what I want because in reality they don't. Some people are OK with getting drafted. Some people are OK with playing two years in the league, four years in the league, six years in the league. Some people are OK with just scoring a basket in an NBA game. I'm not OK with any of that. I'm not satisfied until I win a championship," he says. "I want everybody to work the way that I work and it's wrong for me to think like that because people don't do it! But in my mind I'm just like why? Why don't you want to chase greatness the way that I do?"

Last January, after a humiliating loss in Atlanta that saw the Bulls blow a 10 point lead with three minutes left, Butler was fined for publicly dragging his teammates through the mud. After he was traded, former NBA player Antoine Walker called Butler a "bad locker room guy." A recent report suggested the Boston Celtics had concerns about trading for the three-time All-Star because Butler might clash with Gordon Hayward, who they eventually signed in free agency.

Butler has little patience for people less driven than he is. Photo: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports.

"Even as a first-semester freshman, he wasn't gonna let guys drift through practice," says Mike Marquis, Butler's coach at Tyler Junior College. "He is very, very competitive, and he is great when he finds an enemy. I think that's one of his charms. He knows how to psychologically find an enemy and attack it."

I ask Butler if he's a difficult person to be around.

"Yes," he says.

But it's not as simple as that. Difficult is in the eye of the beholder, just like laziness.

"But then again it's bad on my part because I know better," Butler says. "It's kind of contradicting itself. It's like, 'Well Jimmy you know better, don't do that.' But then the other half is just like, 'Well, if you can do it everybody can do it.' But then it goes back again. 'You know that it don't work like that, right? Yeah, I know, but I think that it can so everybody needs to work like this.'"

"I think it takes a very special person to deal with Jimmy Butler," says Gaines. "He's actually too smart for his own good."

Once the photo shoot ends, we migrate down to the main house. Ready to play Spades, Butler is hunched over a square folding table that's been pummeled by thousands of domino tiles. He's flanked by Phil Ducasse, his newly appointed personal photographer, Ifeyani Koggu, a former Arkansas State guard who Butler introduces as his brother, and Mike Smith, Butler's mentee, of sorts, from Chicago who's about to enter his sophomore season at Columbia. A chandelier the size of a kiddie pool hangs overhead. Boxes of Size 14 retro Jordans are stacked against the dining room wall, with loose jewelry and designer clothes casually spread across the table and floor.

Nearly two hours later the card game ends and Butler recedes to his theatre. He acknowledges that his whirlwind ascent altered relationships and transfigured his behavior in Chicago, but doesn't feel taken for granted by the Bulls organization. Still, an old truism lingers: the one about how those who start in the mailroom can never shake how co-workers perceive them no matter how high they climb within the company. There's a sense, from the outside looking in, that the Bulls didn't appreciate how awesome Butler truly is.

He didn't crack 400 minutes his rookie year. By his third season—his first of three straight appearances on the NBA's All-Defensive second team—Butler averaged a team-high 38.7 minutes per game. That year he averaged 13.1 points. Two seasons later he was up to 20.9.

"I think they maybe expected me to stay the same, and I don't think that that's right. Like, I have changed. I will tell you that. But I think that I've changed for the better," he says. "When I say for the better, whenever I was a rookie, averaging 0.8 points per game or whatever it might be, it wouldn't matter if I scored that 0.8 because it wasn't going to win or lose us a game. Now, you go forward a couple years when I'm averaging 20 points per game, that's more than likely gonna cost us a game. It's gonna be the difference between winning or losing. Am I right? So now I don't give a damn about pressure, but if someone's going to take the blame for something, who they gonna point to? Me. So yeah, I've changed, because I want to fucking win. I want to show that I can win. So the way I go about things, it's not gonna be the way I went about things when I was a rookie, [when] I'm not gonna say anything. Now I've got something to fucking say."

This is what he has to say. Or at least some of it:

"I'm confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go. Not everybody's like that. [Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg] is not that coach, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are different coaching styles and people are gonna say—which is what they did say—'It's gonna be Jimmy's team or it's gonna be Fred's team.' Two total opposite ends of the spectrum. They're either gonna try to win it now or they're gonna go young. And you see which way they went with it. Completely fine. Yo, it's y'all's business. It's y'all's organization. It's cool. And now I'm in Minnesota and couldn't be happier."

Despite elevating his game to an all-time high last year, too often he was forced to be MacGyver, constantly scraping for useful contributions from his scanty supporting cast while refusing to let constant double and triple teams minimize his impact. The Bulls struggled to boil water whenever he rested on the bench.

Chicago ranked 28th in three-point rate and 24th in three-point percentage yet Butler still dragged them to the playoffs. The floor opened up a tiny bit when Nikola Mirotic played the four, but aging, antiquated guards like Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo too often made the offense feel claustrophobic. It wasn't an ideal environment for a wing scorer to thrive, but somehow Butler did.

From 2015 to 2017, the percentage of Butler's two-point field goals that were unassisted increased by just over 20 percent, but his True Shooting percentage didn't fall. He finished with more Win Shares than LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, and Kawhi Leonard last year, and was third in "Real Plus-Minus Wins," a stat that estimates how many wins a player contributes to his team's season total, behind only LeBron James and Steph Curry.

"You can't put somebody in a box and then have them think outside the box. Jimmy thinks like there's no box, so he has no ceiling. Every day we wake up to break boundaries," Johnson says. "I'm able to develop him as a point guard, as a shooting guard, as a small forward, as a power forward, and as a center. He's a basketball player. He's a scorer. He's not a shooter. He's not just a primary driver. He can do pretty much anything that is asked of him from his coaches because he allowed me to prepare him for every single situation. The only person who can stop Jimmy is Jimmy. He don't have a flaw."

Even for a person as motivated as he is, Butler's journey to the NBA was a miraculous tightrope walk. There were no AAU connections or free sneakers. Butler is from Tomball, Texas, a slight town about 30 miles outside Houston. After his mother kicked him out of the house when he was 13, Butler couchsurfed through his teenage years before finding relative stability when his friend's mother agreed to take him in. The story has been told often, but remains too incredible to be sensationalized.

For the typical prospect, coming to average 20 points in the NBA is less likely than purchasing a winning Powerball ticket. For Butler, it was less likely than holding said ticket while riding in the backseat of a limousine with Beyonce, eloping in Vegas.

Butler didn't receive any scholarship offers out of high school, but he did get noticed by a scout named Alan Branch. Branch identified qualities his colleagues missed, and started to chirp in the direction of any coaches who'd listen. You guys are missing a steal. But no offers were made even after Butler played well in a couple spring tournaments. Nobody thought he was Division-I material.

"The biggest thing I can say is he wasn't flashy, he wasn't a freak talent, and he was in the bushes," Branch says.

So instead of preparing for his first year at a school like Texas Christian University or Morehead State, Branch introduced Butler to Coach Marquis at Tyler Junior College, about three hours north of Tomball. He spent a day working out in their gym, scrimmaged with some of their players and local high-school competition, and was offered a spot right away.

"Mike never saw him shoot the basketball," Branch said. "Jimmy played like four or five possessions, made the right passes, got a rebound. He was just solid. You could just see the IQ."

It's impossible to know what would've happened had Branch never brought Butler to Marquis's attention. There were other junior colleges in the area that might have granted Butler a chance to walk on, but a few critical variables would've spun in unpredictable directions had he played anywhere else. To start, Tyler was very good, and good teams draw Division-I eyeballs.

Up until that point in his career, Butler mostly operated in the frontcourt. He crashed the glass, defended well, and offered a tenaciousness that probably wouldn't have the same effect against bigger, stronger competition. But thanks to the team's roster construction, Marquis shifted Butler to the perimeter on a full-time basis, forcing him to showcase a more appealing and varied skill-set.

"I didn't think people would draft him out of junior college after one year, but I thought he was draftable," Marquis said. "I called [Bulls general manager] Gar Forman, who I had known since he was coaching at Iowa State and New Mexico State, and said there's something special about Jimmy. If they just continued to watch his progress, they'd really, really like him."

Far and away the longest lasting benefit from his time in Tyler was who he met while there. Butler's roommate that season was a 6'7" wing named Joe Fulce, who was recruited to play for Marquette University by the school's then-assistant coach Buzz Williams.

"Every time I went to go see Joe, of course, I would say hello to Jimmy," Williams says.

Fulce—who's now a graduate assistant coach under Williams at Virginia Tech—and Butler were like a pair of Siamese fighting fish (who also happened to be friends). They competed in everything and played countless games of one on one, after practice, before games; even at random times in the middle of the night—whenever Butler wasn't hypnotized by his eight hundredth viewing of The Lion King.

"I don't know how many times I'd either wake up in the morning or wake up at night and his ass is sitting in bed, eating some snacks, with his feet crossed, with a cowboy hat on, watching the damn Lion King with some country music softly playing," Fulce said to VICE Sports. "His ass is weird." (Butler still really loves country music.)

Butler led Tyler in scoring and guided them to a 24-5 record. All the while, Fulce relentlessly pitched Williams on his roommate's all-around potential. A little while later Williams became Marquette's head coach. Butler was the first player he signed. His letter of intent was famously faxed over from a nearby McDonald's, and his first day on campus doubled as the first day of school. Butler still had Fulce as his roommate, but never visited Milwaukee beforehand.

"I think from day one until the day he graduated, he became much more confident in who he was on and off the floor," Williams says. "I think he became less distrustful. His personality showed more often. He was much more comfortable. Obviously, that was an extended period of time where his environment and the people in his environment were stable."

In three years, Butler never dropped a class, skipped a meeting with his tutor, or showed up late to a weightlifting session. In large part due to Butler being Williams's first signing, there was inescapable pressure on them both to perform. And through some tough times early on, a mutually beneficial bond was formed.

"What can I say, in some ways I'm proud of it and in other ways I'm not proud of it," Williams says. "I was hard on him. I was hard on him in every way. I never gave him any relief in any facet of his life, and to his credit he never wanted one. I think as our time together transpired, he expected that. He wanted that. He wanted that as an example to everybody else on the team."

Butler says the lessons learned in three years at Marquette still resonate, and his relationship with Williams remains strong. Now the head coach at Virginia Tech, Williams gave Butler a journal during his second year in the league. He still writes in it.

Next year, the journal will be different. He'll be in a new city, with a new team, and a new set of expectations—at least externally. Internally, Butler still has a bottomless urge to be great. He's forever that serial killer's dream. He rolls out of bed each morning focused and ready to go for a 90-minute session with Johnson. It's the first of two workouts they fight through every day. They start by zooming in on ball-handling, finishing, floaters, runners, one-legged jumpers, off-balance jumpers, side pick-and-rolls, middle pick-and-rolls, pick-and-roll passing, and so on and so forth.

He's already one of the craftiest and effective downhill playmakers in basketball, but for Butler to truly max out his potential in the coming seasons, that jumper needs to stabilize. Last year, he knocked down 36.7 percent of his threes, which is right around league average and an improvement on the previous season. But a higher percentage of his field goal attempts were launched from the inefficient mid-range, where he only canned 38.2 percent. On the whole, that's not an atrocious number, but it badly trails positional peers like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Kevin Durant.

Later in the day, the second session with Johnson is devoted to shot mechanics—how he can better himself shooting on the move and off the bounce. They study preferable ways for him to create separation and sharpen his technique on fadeaways. Every workout is filmed, allowing Butler and Johnson to obsess over ball and hand placement. They really dig into the finer details that are necessary to make him a more potent all-around weapon.

After the morning workout, Butler rewards himself with a five-minute break and then embarks on a soul-crippling hour with Gaines. Gaines and Johnson work with other professional athletes but have still met with Butler almost every day for the past four years. They will continue to do so in Minnesota. When Butler goes on vacation, be it to Europe, Canada, Mexico, or Mars, Gaines and Johnson come along for the ride.

"I'm not cheap," Gaines says. "But he pays whatever it costs and whatever it takes to keep his body right."

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are reserved for corrective exercises, movement prep, movement training, and strength training. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for conditioning work and agility training. Saturdays and Sundays are strictly conditioning. Sometimes they race on the beach or hop on a football field to sprint 110 yards at a time.

Sometimes they'll get back on an actual basketball court just to embrace the delightful sensation that a gasser can have on the human body. Gassers are timed sprints where, starting on the baseline, Butler has 17 seconds to go half the court and back, then dart to the opposite end line before returning to where he started. "We'll do 10 to 15 of those," Gaines said. It sounds like torture, but for Butler the entire process is more vital than oxygen.

There are obvious reasons to think the hard work will continue to pay off. This year, Butler may find that instead of doing more with less, he'll have the chance to do more with more. In Minnesota, defenses will have to worry about Towns, Wiggins, and Jeff Teague, the kind of score-first point guard Butler hasn't played with since Derrick Rose's body broke down. He'll be able to allocate more energy towards the defensive end—Butler failed to make an All-Defensive team for the first time in three years last season. Despite just four percent body fat hanging from his 230-pound frame, Butler still gets tired every once in a while.

If he can hunt for more open opportunities behind the three-point line instead of settling on tough, contested heaves, he can be one of the most efficient players in the entire NBA.

That won't necessarily be easy. The Timberwolves actually finished behind Chicago in three-point rate last season. And given how their roster is built, Thibodeau will likely lean on dated lineups that can be exploited when up against modernized rotations. Gorgui Dieng and Taj Gibson will platoon the power forward position, even though they're both better suited as backup fives. Life on the court may be cluttered once again.

But if Towns leaps forward on the defensive end, Thibs could deploy more versatile units that will accentuate Butler's strengths. The floor will open up and, if that's the case, it's hard to see how he won't be a legitimate MVP candidate. According to Synergy Sports, Butler ranked in the 77th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball-handler last year. He was 95th in transition, 92nd in spot-up situations, and 91st in the post.

The Timberwolves boast a core that can, in Towns's words, evolve into a dynasty. Butler likes the fit and is confident he can teach Thibodeau's system to younger teammates who struggled to grasp it last season. But he's also understandably cautious when it comes to attaching any bold claims to a group that ranked 26th in defense last year.

"I don't like the word 'Super Team'," he says. "I think everybody's human. That's [what] people label Golden State. They're a really really, really good basketball team. Super team?...On any given time they can be beat, too. It's all about who's playing basketball the best at the right time."

Towns and Wiggins can fill an ocean with their upside. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports.

Dethroning the Warriors is goal number one. But even if the Timberwolves fall short, Butler will certainly use his time in Minneapolis to expand his fame over the next few years. With the league's popularity increasing every day in countries all over the world, a genuine superstar's brand is worth exponentially more than the $19.3 million Minnesota owes Butler this season. Off-court opportunities are constantly nipping at his attention. Three years ago, he took a 75 percent pay cut to go from adidas to Jordan, joining Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, Kawhi Leonard, Russell Westbrook, and over a dozen other NBA stars. (During our day together, Butler poked fun at a camera operator wearing adidas tennis shoes.)

Bonobos, a menswear company that was recently bought by Walmart, made Butler their brand ambassador last August. And just this month he released his own signature underwear line with PSD, a company Kyrie Irving and Chandler Parsons are also affiliated with. (Butler's photographer Phil envisions a coffee table book. "If Kim Kardashian can do it," he says. "Why can't Jimmy?")

Last year, he dipped his toe in Hollywood by appearing in Office Christmas Party, a comedy his life guru Mark Wahlberg helped put him in. Butler met Wahlberg in 2013 while the actor was filming a Transformers movie in Chicago. They've been close friends ever since, with Butler citing the 46-year-old's vigorous work ethic as one of the biggest inspirations in his life.

"He's already one of the best at what he does, but he works as though he's not. The guy wakes up at 3:30, 4:00 AM to work out. Then he'll go take his mind off of stuff and play some golf," Butler says. "He eats healthy and spends time with his family and he's reading scripts and he's in meetings and he's on phone calls. Before you know it, it's time to do it all over again the next day." (Butler's all-time favorite Wahlberg movie is Shooter. "Bob Lee Swagger is that dude," he says.)

Butler played himself in Office Christmas Party, alongside Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn. He wasn't stiff in his only scene; the film's two directors, Josh Gordon and Will Speck, were impressed by his initial foray into a brand new field. "LeBron surprised everyone in Trainwreck by being so fully formed as an actor," Gordon told VICE Sports. "If Jimmy wanted to [act in the future], he could do it. He's got that kind of charisma. It's up to him."

Butler isn't sure how much longer he wants to be an NBA player, but hopes to squeeze in at least seven years, two championships, and widespread respect as one of his era's greatest stars before his body cries uncle. (No big deal.) If he opts out of his player option in 2019, the former Most Improved Player can experience unrestricted free agency for the very first time; just about every team that can afford a max contract will be interested. Even though that level of courtship is something Butler has never gone through before, he's yet to think about what it'll feel like.

"I'll tell you one thing," he says. "I'm gonna go or I'm gonna be or I'm gonna stay wherever I'm wanted, man. Because that's all anybody ever wants," he says. "To be appreciated."

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say

Jimmy Butler’s cell phone is shaking. We’re plopped down in the last row of his home theatre on a couch that feels like a velvet sponge, a blanket covers his outstretched legs.

Butler leans over, looks down, smiles. He picks the phone up, shakes his head, then turns it around to reveal who’s on the other end. Coach Thibs. “See?” Butler says. “It’s crazy, right? He’s always on my phone.”

Everything about Butler’s place in this exact moment and time can and should be described as “crazy.” From the majestic hillside villa tucked away in Malibu—a remote paradise where the 27-year-old lives with a tight crew of friends, family, and paid aides (a photographer is sleeping in the guest house)—to the sudden reunion with Tom Thibodeau, the tireless coach who helped turn Butler into one of the least probable success stories in NBA history, to the Chicago Bulls needlessly trading Butler earlier this summer…the list can go on forever.

Butler’s origin story is absurd. Small town Texas kids with no scholarship offers out of high school don’t become NBA role players, much less superstars. They aren’t oddball country music-loving characters who pal around with movie stars. And they certainly don’t accomplish all they have while going out of their way to stand tall as a positive figure off the court. Butler won the NBA Cares Community Assist Award last April, and says he aspires to use his broadening platform to navigate the contentious social issues that plague the country. But his rags to riches past and lavish present are not as moving as what promises to lie ahead.

Butler was voted onto his first All-NBA team last season, with scoring, assist, and rebound averages usually associated with someone headed to the Hall of Fame. (Butler tallied more Win Shares last year than Larry Bird when he won his first MVP). But there’s still room for improvement, and next season Butler will be surrounded by players with enough talent to relieve some of the pressure he’s felt in years past.

It’s been an intense, course-altering summer for Butler, whose reward for establishing himself as one of the world’s 15 best basketball players was the trade, three months ago, from Chicago to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a franchise that’s perpetually struggling to stand on its own two feet. But Butler—alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, two Rookie of the Year winners who can fill an ocean with their talent and upside—is poised to change all that.

Coach Thibs is always calling Butler—and always calling his number. Photo: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Already one of, if not the, most physically fit individuals in a league overcrowded by the most athletic specimens on earth, Butler dedicated his summer to figuring out a way to get into even more ridiculous shape—the better to handle one of the NBA’s toughest workloads. (According to NBA.com, he ran more miles per game than all but two other players during 2016-17, and led the entire league in each of the previous two seasons.)

“The man, simply, is addicted to working,” says Butler’s personal skills trainer Chris Johnson.

His weekly schedule consists of approximately nine hundred thousand hours of on-court basketball drills, spliced with a grueling workout plan that made my eyes water when I first heard it. Without an alarm, Butler is out of bed by 5:45 AM and on the court by 6:00.

“He’s a serial killer’s dream. He does the same shit every fucking day.”

Meals hardly deviate. It’s scrambled egg whites, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and a protein shake for breakfast. Lunch is Chipotle, with plain white rice, double chicken, light lettuce, and half a cup of vinaigrette (no cilantro). At night, his chef will prepare a dish around fish or chicken. He hasn’t had red meat in years and steers clear of alcohol.

When Butler isn’t drenched in sweat, most of his free time is either spent in his theatre watching the same movies over and over (Friday is a favorite), or escaping into never-ending games of Spades or dominoes. Yoga is on the docket. Nightclubs are not.

“He’s a serial killer’s dream,” says Butler’s personal strength trainer Travelle Gaines, who counts NFL superstars like Antonio Brown and Demaryius Thomas as clients. “He does the same shit every fucking day.”

Butler is shirtless in tan pants and Jordan slides when we first meet outside his pool house. “Want a beer?” He reaches into a brown Albertson’s bag and removes a cold can of Michelob Ultra. His hair is braided tight like a crown, and it’s impossible not to notice how much his chest looks like gladiator armor. This is also a reminder that our interview (and a photo shoot he’s doing) have pushed Butler’s out of his usual routine, but he doesn’t seem too worried about it.

“I’ll just make it all up in a short period tonight and be really tired in the morning when I wake up and start my schedule all over again, but it’s part of it,” he says.

The mood when Butler enters a room somehow relaxes and tightens at the exact same time. His personality glides from standup comedian to superintendent. He’s genuinely curious, cerebral, and a little mischievous. Ultimately, everything, from his schedule to his diet to the people he chooses to spend every waking minute around, is about efficiency. Even in this wonderland, with potted lemon trees at every turn, a hoard of wicker patio furniture, and a Southern California sun that dares anyone under it to do nothing but sip gin and tonics on end, Butler’s playfulness has limitations.

“I’m confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go.”

The conversation turns to his work ethic. He understands not everyone is as driven as he is, but can’t comprehend the thought of someone (especially another NBA player) not doing all they can to reach their full potential. It bugs him, even though he knows it shouldn’t.

“I think it’s wrong for me to think that people want what I want because in reality they don’t. Some people are OK with getting drafted. Some people are OK with playing two years in the league, four years in the league, six years in the league. Some people are OK with just scoring a basket in an NBA game. I’m not OK with any of that. I’m not satisfied until I win a championship,” he says. “I want everybody to work the way that I work and it’s wrong for me to think like that because people don’t do it! But in my mind I’m just like why? Why don’t you want to chase greatness the way that I do?”

Last January, after a humiliating loss in Atlanta that saw the Bulls blow a 10 point lead with three minutes left, Butler was fined for publicly dragging his teammates through the mud. After he was traded, former NBA player Antoine Walker called Butler a “bad locker room guy.” A recent report suggested the Boston Celtics had concerns about trading for the three-time All-Star because Butler might clash with Gordon Hayward, who they eventually signed in free agency.

Butler has little patience for people less driven than he is. Photo: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports.

“Even as a first-semester freshman, he wasn’t gonna let guys drift through practice,” says Mike Marquis, Butler’s coach at Tyler Junior College. “He is very, very competitive, and he is great when he finds an enemy. I think that’s one of his charms. He knows how to psychologically find an enemy and attack it.”

I ask Butler if he’s a difficult person to be around.

“Yes,” he says.

But it’s not as simple as that. Difficult is in the eye of the beholder, just like laziness.

“But then again it’s bad on my part because I know better,” Butler says. “It’s kind of contradicting itself. It’s like, ‘Well Jimmy you know better, don’t do that.’ But then the other half is just like, ‘Well, if you can do it everybody can do it.’ But then it goes back again. ‘You know that it don’t work like that, right? Yeah, I know, but I think that it can so everybody needs to work like this.'”

“I think it takes a very special person to deal with Jimmy Butler,” says Gaines. “He’s actually too smart for his own good.”

Once the photo shoot ends, we migrate down to the main house. Ready to play Spades, Butler is hunched over a square folding table that’s been pummeled by thousands of domino tiles. He’s flanked by Phil Ducasse, his newly appointed personal photographer, Ifeyani Koggu, a former Arkansas State guard who Butler introduces as his brother, and Mike Smith, Butler’s mentee, of sorts, from Chicago who’s about to enter his sophomore season at Columbia. A chandelier the size of a kiddie pool hangs overhead. Boxes of Size 14 retro Jordans are stacked against the dining room wall, with loose jewelry and designer clothes casually spread across the table and floor.

Nearly two hours later the card game ends and Butler recedes to his theatre. He acknowledges that his whirlwind ascent altered relationships and transfigured his behavior in Chicago, but doesn’t feel taken for granted by the Bulls organization. Still, an old truism lingers: the one about how those who start in the mailroom can never shake how co-workers perceive them no matter how high they climb within the company. There’s a sense, from the outside looking in, that the Bulls didn’t appreciate how awesome Butler truly is.

He didn’t crack 400 minutes his rookie year. By his third season—his first of three straight appearances on the NBA’s All-Defensive second team—Butler averaged a team-high 38.7 minutes per game. That year he averaged 13.1 points. Two seasons later he was up to 20.9.

“I think they maybe expected me to stay the same, and I don’t think that that’s right. Like, I have changed. I will tell you that. But I think that I’ve changed for the better,” he says. “When I say for the better, whenever I was a rookie, averaging 0.8 points per game or whatever it might be, it wouldn’t matter if I scored that 0.8 because it wasn’t going to win or lose us a game. Now, you go forward a couple years when I’m averaging 20 points per game, that’s more than likely gonna cost us a game. It’s gonna be the difference between winning or losing. Am I right? So now I don’t give a damn about pressure, but if someone’s going to take the blame for something, who they gonna point to? Me. So yeah, I’ve changed, because I want to fucking win. I want to show that I can win. So the way I go about things, it’s not gonna be the way I went about things when I was a rookie, [when] I’m not gonna say anything. Now I’ve got something to fucking say.”

This is what he has to say. Or at least some of it:

“I’m confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go. Not everybody’s like that. [Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg] is not that coach, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are different coaching styles and people are gonna say—which is what they did say—’It’s gonna be Jimmy’s team or it’s gonna be Fred’s team.’ Two total opposite ends of the spectrum. They’re either gonna try to win it now or they’re gonna go young. And you see which way they went with it. Completely fine. Yo, it’s y’all’s business. It’s y’all’s organization. It’s cool. And now I’m in Minnesota and couldn’t be happier.”

Despite elevating his game to an all-time high last year, too often he was forced to be MacGyver, constantly scraping for useful contributions from his scanty supporting cast while refusing to let constant double and triple teams minimize his impact. The Bulls struggled to boil water whenever he rested on the bench.

Chicago ranked 28th in three-point rate and 24th in three-point percentage yet Butler still dragged them to the playoffs. The floor opened up a tiny bit when Nikola Mirotic played the four, but aging, antiquated guards like Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo too often made the offense feel claustrophobic. It wasn’t an ideal environment for a wing scorer to thrive, but somehow Butler did.

From 2015 to 2017, the percentage of Butler’s two-point field goals that were unassisted increased by just over 20 percent, but his True Shooting percentage didn’t fall. He finished with more Win Shares than LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, and Kawhi Leonard last year, and was third in “Real Plus-Minus Wins,” a stat that estimates how many wins a player contributes to his team’s season total, behind only LeBron James and Steph Curry.

“You can’t put somebody in a box and then have them think outside the box. Jimmy thinks like there’s no box, so he has no ceiling. Every day we wake up to break boundaries,” Johnson says. “I’m able to develop him as a point guard, as a shooting guard, as a small forward, as a power forward, and as a center. He’s a basketball player. He’s a scorer. He’s not a shooter. He’s not just a primary driver. He can do pretty much anything that is asked of him from his coaches because he allowed me to prepare him for every single situation. The only person who can stop Jimmy is Jimmy. He don’t have a flaw.”

Even for a person as motivated as he is, Butler’s journey to the NBA was a miraculous tightrope walk. There were no AAU connections or free sneakers. Butler is from Tomball, Texas, a slight town about 30 miles outside Houston. After his mother kicked him out of the house when he was 13, Butler couchsurfed through his teenage years before finding relative stability when his friend’s mother agreed to take him in. The story has been told often, but remains too incredible to be sensationalized.

For the typical prospect, coming to average 20 points in the NBA is less likely than purchasing a winning Powerball ticket. For Butler, it was less likely than holding said ticket while riding in the backseat of a limousine with Beyonce, eloping in Vegas.

Butler didn’t receive any scholarship offers out of high school, but he did get noticed by a scout named Alan Branch. Branch identified qualities his colleagues missed, and started to chirp in the direction of any coaches who’d listen. You guys are missing a steal. But no offers were made even after Butler played well in a couple spring tournaments. Nobody thought he was Division-I material.

“The biggest thing I can say is he wasn’t flashy, he wasn’t a freak talent, and he was in the bushes,” Branch says.

So instead of preparing for his first year at a school like Texas Christian University or Morehead State, Branch introduced Butler to Coach Marquis at Tyler Junior College, about three hours north of Tomball. He spent a day working out in their gym, scrimmaged with some of their players and local high-school competition, and was offered a spot right away.

“Mike never saw him shoot the basketball,” Branch said. “Jimmy played like four or five possessions, made the right passes, got a rebound. He was just solid. You could just see the IQ.”

It’s impossible to know what would’ve happened had Branch never brought Butler to Marquis’s attention. There were other junior colleges in the area that might have granted Butler a chance to walk on, but a few critical variables would’ve spun in unpredictable directions had he played anywhere else. To start, Tyler was very good, and good teams draw Division-I eyeballs.

Up until that point in his career, Butler mostly operated in the frontcourt. He crashed the glass, defended well, and offered a tenaciousness that probably wouldn’t have the same effect against bigger, stronger competition. But thanks to the team’s roster construction, Marquis shifted Butler to the perimeter on a full-time basis, forcing him to showcase a more appealing and varied skill-set.

“I didn’t think people would draft him out of junior college after one year, but I thought he was draftable,” Marquis said. “I called [Bulls general manager] Gar Forman, who I had known since he was coaching at Iowa State and New Mexico State, and said there’s something special about Jimmy. If they just continued to watch his progress, they’d really, really like him.”

Far and away the longest lasting benefit from his time in Tyler was who he met while there. Butler’s roommate that season was a 6’7″ wing named Joe Fulce, who was recruited to play for Marquette University by the school’s then-assistant coach Buzz Williams.

“Every time I went to go see Joe, of course, I would say hello to Jimmy,” Williams says.

Fulce—who’s now a graduate assistant coach under Williams at Virginia Tech—and Butler were like a pair of Siamese fighting fish (who also happened to be friends). They competed in everything and played countless games of one on one, after practice, before games; even at random times in the middle of the night—whenever Butler wasn’t hypnotized by his eight hundredth viewing of The Lion King.

“I don’t know how many times I’d either wake up in the morning or wake up at night and his ass is sitting in bed, eating some snacks, with his feet crossed, with a cowboy hat on, watching the damn Lion King with some country music softly playing,” Fulce said to VICE Sports. “His ass is weird.” (Butler still really loves country music.)

Butler led Tyler in scoring and guided them to a 24-5 record. All the while, Fulce relentlessly pitched Williams on his roommate’s all-around potential. A little while later Williams became Marquette’s head coach. Butler was the first player he signed. His letter of intent was famously faxed over from a nearby McDonald’s, and his first day on campus doubled as the first day of school. Butler still had Fulce as his roommate, but never visited Milwaukee beforehand.

“I think from day one until the day he graduated, he became much more confident in who he was on and off the floor,” Williams says. “I think he became less distrustful. His personality showed more often. He was much more comfortable. Obviously, that was an extended period of time where his environment and the people in his environment were stable.”

In three years, Butler never dropped a class, skipped a meeting with his tutor, or showed up late to a weightlifting session. In large part due to Butler being Williams’s first signing, there was inescapable pressure on them both to perform. And through some tough times early on, a mutually beneficial bond was formed.

“What can I say, in some ways I’m proud of it and in other ways I’m not proud of it,” Williams says. “I was hard on him. I was hard on him in every way. I never gave him any relief in any facet of his life, and to his credit he never wanted one. I think as our time together transpired, he expected that. He wanted that. He wanted that as an example to everybody else on the team.”

Butler says the lessons learned in three years at Marquette still resonate, and his relationship with Williams remains strong. Now the head coach at Virginia Tech, Williams gave Butler a journal during his second year in the league. He still writes in it.

Next year, the journal will be different. He’ll be in a new city, with a new team, and a new set of expectations—at least externally. Internally, Butler still has a bottomless urge to be great. He’s forever that serial killer’s dream. He rolls out of bed each morning focused and ready to go for a 90-minute session with Johnson. It’s the first of two workouts they fight through every day. They start by zooming in on ball-handling, finishing, floaters, runners, one-legged jumpers, off-balance jumpers, side pick-and-rolls, middle pick-and-rolls, pick-and-roll passing, and so on and so forth.

He’s already one of the craftiest and effective downhill playmakers in basketball, but for Butler to truly max out his potential in the coming seasons, that jumper needs to stabilize. Last year, he knocked down 36.7 percent of his threes, which is right around league average and an improvement on the previous season. But a higher percentage of his field goal attempts were launched from the inefficient mid-range, where he only canned 38.2 percent. On the whole, that’s not an atrocious number, but it badly trails positional peers like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Kevin Durant.

Later in the day, the second session with Johnson is devoted to shot mechanics—how he can better himself shooting on the move and off the bounce. They study preferable ways for him to create separation and sharpen his technique on fadeaways. Every workout is filmed, allowing Butler and Johnson to obsess over ball and hand placement. They really dig into the finer details that are necessary to make him a more potent all-around weapon.

After the morning workout, Butler rewards himself with a five-minute break and then embarks on a soul-crippling hour with Gaines. Gaines and Johnson work with other professional athletes but have still met with Butler almost every day for the past four years. They will continue to do so in Minnesota. When Butler goes on vacation, be it to Europe, Canada, Mexico, or Mars, Gaines and Johnson come along for the ride.

“I’m not cheap,” Gaines says. “But he pays whatever it costs and whatever it takes to keep his body right.”

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are reserved for corrective exercises, movement prep, movement training, and strength training. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for conditioning work and agility training. Saturdays and Sundays are strictly conditioning. Sometimes they race on the beach or hop on a football field to sprint 110 yards at a time.

Sometimes they’ll get back on an actual basketball court just to embrace the delightful sensation that a gasser can have on the human body. Gassers are timed sprints where, starting on the baseline, Butler has 17 seconds to go half the court and back, then dart to the opposite end line before returning to where he started. “We’ll do 10 to 15 of those,” Gaines said. It sounds like torture, but for Butler the entire process is more vital than oxygen.

There are obvious reasons to think the hard work will continue to pay off. This year, Butler may find that instead of doing more with less, he’ll have the chance to do more with more. In Minnesota, defenses will have to worry about Towns, Wiggins, and Jeff Teague, the kind of score-first point guard Butler hasn’t played with since Derrick Rose’s body broke down. He’ll be able to allocate more energy towards the defensive end—Butler failed to make an All-Defensive team for the first time in three years last season. Despite just four percent body fat hanging from his 230-pound frame, Butler still gets tired every once in a while.

If he can hunt for more open opportunities behind the three-point line instead of settling on tough, contested heaves, he can be one of the most efficient players in the entire NBA.

That won’t necessarily be easy. The Timberwolves actually finished behind Chicago in three-point rate last season. And given how their roster is built, Thibodeau will likely lean on dated lineups that can be exploited when up against modernized rotations. Gorgui Dieng and Taj Gibson will platoon the power forward position, even though they’re both better suited as backup fives. Life on the court may be cluttered once again.

But if Towns leaps forward on the defensive end, Thibs could deploy more versatile units that will accentuate Butler’s strengths. The floor will open up and, if that’s the case, it’s hard to see how he won’t be a legitimate MVP candidate. According to Synergy Sports, Butler ranked in the 77th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball-handler last year. He was 95th in transition, 92nd in spot-up situations, and 91st in the post.

The Timberwolves boast a core that can, in Towns’s words, evolve into a dynasty. Butler likes the fit and is confident he can teach Thibodeau’s system to younger teammates who struggled to grasp it last season. But he’s also understandably cautious when it comes to attaching any bold claims to a group that ranked 26th in defense last year.

“I don’t like the word ‘Super Team’,” he says. “I think everybody’s human. That’s [what] people label Golden State. They’re a really really, really good basketball team. Super team?…On any given time they can be beat, too. It’s all about who’s playing basketball the best at the right time.”

Towns and Wiggins can fill an ocean with their upside. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports.

Dethroning the Warriors is goal number one. But even if the Timberwolves fall short, Butler will certainly use his time in Minneapolis to expand his fame over the next few years. With the league’s popularity increasing every day in countries all over the world, a genuine superstar’s brand is worth exponentially more than the $19.3 million Minnesota owes Butler this season. Off-court opportunities are constantly nipping at his attention. Three years ago, he took a 75 percent pay cut to go from adidas to Jordan, joining Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, Kawhi Leonard, Russell Westbrook, and over a dozen other NBA stars. (During our day together, Butler poked fun at a camera operator wearing adidas tennis shoes.)

Bonobos, a menswear company that was recently bought by Walmart, made Butler their brand ambassador last August. And just this month he released his own signature underwear line with PSD, a company Kyrie Irving and Chandler Parsons are also affiliated with. (Butler’s photographer Phil envisions a coffee table book. “If Kim Kardashian can do it,” he says. “Why can’t Jimmy?”)

Last year, he dipped his toe in Hollywood by appearing in Office Christmas Party, a comedy his life guru Mark Wahlberg helped put him in. Butler met Wahlberg in 2013 while the actor was filming a Transformers movie in Chicago. They’ve been close friends ever since, with Butler citing the 46-year-old’s vigorous work ethic as one of the biggest inspirations in his life.

“He’s already one of the best at what he does, but he works as though he’s not. The guy wakes up at 3:30, 4:00 AM to work out. Then he’ll go take his mind off of stuff and play some golf,” Butler says. “He eats healthy and spends time with his family and he’s reading scripts and he’s in meetings and he’s on phone calls. Before you know it, it’s time to do it all over again the next day.” (Butler’s all-time favorite Wahlberg movie is Shooter. “Bob Lee Swagger is that dude,” he says.)

Butler played himself in Office Christmas Party, alongside Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn. He wasn’t stiff in his only scene; the film’s two directors, Josh Gordon and Will Speck, were impressed by his initial foray into a brand new field. “LeBron surprised everyone in Trainwreck by being so fully formed as an actor,” Gordon told VICE Sports. “If Jimmy wanted to [act in the future], he could do it. He’s got that kind of charisma. It’s up to him.”

Butler isn’t sure how much longer he wants to be an NBA player, but hopes to squeeze in at least seven years, two championships, and widespread respect as one of his era’s greatest stars before his body cries uncle. (No big deal.) If he opts out of his player option in 2019, the former Most Improved Player can experience unrestricted free agency for the very first time; just about every team that can afford a max contract will be interested. Even though that level of courtship is something Butler has never gone through before, he’s yet to think about what it’ll feel like.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he says. “I’m gonna go or I’m gonna be or I’m gonna stay wherever I’m wanted, man. Because that’s all anybody ever wants,” he says. “To be appreciated.”

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say

Jimmy Butler's cell phone is shaking. We're plopped down in the last row of his home theatre on a couch that feels like a velvet sponge, a blanket covers his outstretched legs.

Butler leans over, looks down, smiles. He picks the phone up, shakes his head, then turns it around to reveal who's on the other end. Coach Thibs. "See?" Butler says. "It's crazy, right? He's always on my phone."

Everything about Butler's place in this exact moment and time can and should be described as "crazy." From the majestic hillside villa tucked away in Malibu—a remote paradise where the 27-year-old lives with a tight crew of friends, family, and paid aides (a photographer is sleeping in the guest house)—to the sudden reunion with Tom Thibodeau, the tireless coach who helped turn Butler into one of the least probable success stories in NBA history, to the Chicago Bulls needlessly trading Butler earlier this summer...the list can go on forever.

Butler's origin story is absurd. Small town Texas kids with no scholarship offers out of high school don't become NBA role players, much less superstars. They aren't oddball country music-loving characters who pal around with movie stars. And they certainly don't accomplish all they have while going out of their way to stand tall as a positive figure off the court. Butler won the NBA Cares Community Assist Award last April, and says he aspires to use his broadening platform to navigate the contentious social issues that plague the country. But his rags to riches past and lavish present are not as moving as what promises to lie ahead.

Butler was voted onto his first All-NBA team last season, with scoring, assist, and rebound averages usually associated with someone headed to the Hall of Fame. (Butler tallied more Win Shares last year than Larry Bird when he won his first MVP). But there's still room for improvement, and next season Butler will be surrounded by players with enough talent to relieve some of the pressure he's felt in years past.

It's been an intense, course-altering summer for Butler, whose reward for establishing himself as one of the world's 15 best basketball players was the trade, three months ago, from Chicago to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a franchise that's perpetually struggling to stand on its own two feet. But Butler—alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, two Rookie of the Year winners who can fill an ocean with their talent and upside—is poised to change all that.

Coach Thibs is always calling Butler—and always calling his number. Photo: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Already one of, if not the, most physically fit individuals in a league overcrowded by the most athletic specimens on earth, Butler dedicated his summer to figuring out a way to get into even more ridiculous shape—the better to handle one of the NBA's toughest workloads. (According to NBA.com, he ran more miles per game than all but two other players during 2016-17, and led the entire league in each of the previous two seasons.)

"The man, simply, is addicted to working," says Butler's personal skills trainer Chris Johnson.

His weekly schedule consists of approximately nine hundred thousand hours of on-court basketball drills, spliced with a grueling workout plan that made my eyes water when I first heard it. Without an alarm, Butler is out of bed by 5:45 AM and on the court by 6:00.

"He's a serial killer's dream. He does the same shit every fucking day."

Meals hardly deviate. It's scrambled egg whites, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and a protein shake for breakfast. Lunch is Chipotle, with plain white rice, double chicken, light lettuce, and half a cup of vinaigrette (no cilantro). At night, his chef will prepare a dish around fish or chicken. He hasn't had red meat in years and steers clear of alcohol.

When Butler isn't drenched in sweat, most of his free time is either spent in his theatre watching the same movies over and over (Friday is a favorite), or escaping into never-ending games of Spades or dominoes. Yoga is on the docket. Nightclubs are not.

"He's a serial killer's dream," says Butler's personal strength trainer Travelle Gaines, who counts NFL superstars like Antonio Brown and Demaryius Thomas as clients. "He does the same shit every fucking day."

Butler is shirtless in tan pants and Jordan slides when we first meet outside his pool house. "Want a beer?" He reaches into a brown Albertson's bag and removes a cold can of Michelob Ultra. His hair is braided tight like a crown, and it's impossible not to notice how much his chest looks like gladiator armor. This is also a reminder that our interview (and a photo shoot he's doing) have pushed Butler's out of his usual routine, but he doesn't seem too worried about it.

"I'll just make it all up in a short period tonight and be really tired in the morning when I wake up and start my schedule all over again, but it's part of it," he says.

The mood when Butler enters a room somehow relaxes and tightens at the exact same time. His personality glides from standup comedian to superintendent. He's genuinely curious, cerebral, and a little mischievous. Ultimately, everything, from his schedule to his diet to the people he chooses to spend every waking minute around, is about efficiency. Even in this wonderland, with potted lemon trees at every turn, a hoard of wicker patio furniture, and a Southern California sun that dares anyone under it to do nothing but sip gin and tonics on end, Butler's playfulness has limitations.

"I'm confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go."

The conversation turns to his work ethic. He understands not everyone is as driven as he is, but can't comprehend the thought of someone (especially another NBA player) not doing all they can to reach their full potential. It bugs him, even though he knows it shouldn't.

"I think it's wrong for me to think that people want what I want because in reality they don't. Some people are OK with getting drafted. Some people are OK with playing two years in the league, four years in the league, six years in the league. Some people are OK with just scoring a basket in an NBA game. I'm not OK with any of that. I'm not satisfied until I win a championship," he says. "I want everybody to work the way that I work and it's wrong for me to think like that because people don't do it! But in my mind I'm just like why? Why don't you want to chase greatness the way that I do?"

Last January, after a humiliating loss in Atlanta that saw the Bulls blow a 10 point lead with three minutes left, Butler was fined for publicly dragging his teammates through the mud. After he was traded, former NBA player Antoine Walker called Butler a "bad locker room guy." A recent report suggested the Boston Celtics had concerns about trading for the three-time All-Star because Butler might clash with Gordon Hayward, who they eventually signed in free agency.

Butler has little patience for people less driven than he is. Photo: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports.

"Even as a first-semester freshman, he wasn't gonna let guys drift through practice," says Mike Marquis, Butler's coach at Tyler Junior College. "He is very, very competitive, and he is great when he finds an enemy. I think that's one of his charms. He knows how to psychologically find an enemy and attack it."

I ask Butler if he's a difficult person to be around.

"Yes," he says.

But it's not as simple as that. Difficult is in the eye of the beholder, just like laziness.

"But then again it's bad on my part because I know better," Butler says. "It's kind of contradicting itself. It's like, 'Well Jimmy you know better, don't do that.' But then the other half is just like, 'Well, if you can do it everybody can do it.' But then it goes back again. 'You know that it don't work like that, right? Yeah, I know, but I think that it can so everybody needs to work like this.'"

"I think it takes a very special person to deal with Jimmy Butler," says Gaines. "He's actually too smart for his own good."

Once the photo shoot ends, we migrate down to the main house. Ready to play Spades, Butler is hunched over a square folding table that's been pummeled by thousands of domino tiles. He's flanked by Phil Ducasse, his newly appointed personal photographer, Ifeyani Koggu, a former Arkansas State guard who Butler introduces as his brother, and Mike Smith, Butler's mentee, of sorts, from Chicago who's about to enter his sophomore season at Columbia. A chandelier the size of a kiddie pool hangs overhead. Boxes of Size 14 retro Jordans are stacked against the dining room wall, with loose jewelry and designer clothes casually spread across the table and floor.

Nearly two hours later the card game ends and Butler recedes to his theatre. He acknowledges that his whirlwind ascent altered relationships and transfigured his behavior in Chicago, but doesn't feel taken for granted by the Bulls organization. Still, an old truism lingers: the one about how those who start in the mailroom can never shake how co-workers perceive them no matter how high they climb within the company. There's a sense, from the outside looking in, that the Bulls didn't appreciate how awesome Butler truly is.

He didn't crack 400 minutes his rookie year. By his third season—his first of three straight appearances on the NBA's All-Defensive second team—Butler averaged a team-high 38.7 minutes per game. That year he averaged 13.1 points. Two seasons later he was up to 20.9.

"I think they maybe expected me to stay the same, and I don't think that that's right. Like, I have changed. I will tell you that. But I think that I've changed for the better," he says. "When I say for the better, whenever I was a rookie, averaging 0.8 points per game or whatever it might be, it wouldn't matter if I scored that 0.8 because it wasn't going to win or lose us a game. Now, you go forward a couple years when I'm averaging 20 points per game, that's more than likely gonna cost us a game. It's gonna be the difference between winning or losing. Am I right? So now I don't give a damn about pressure, but if someone's going to take the blame for something, who they gonna point to? Me. So yeah, I've changed, because I want to fucking win. I want to show that I can win. So the way I go about things, it's not gonna be the way I went about things when I was a rookie, [when] I'm not gonna say anything. Now I've got something to fucking say."

This is what he has to say. Or at least some of it:

"I'm confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go. Not everybody's like that. [Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg] is not that coach, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are different coaching styles and people are gonna say—which is what they did say—'It's gonna be Jimmy's team or it's gonna be Fred's team.' Two total opposite ends of the spectrum. They're either gonna try to win it now or they're gonna go young. And you see which way they went with it. Completely fine. Yo, it's y'all's business. It's y'all's organization. It's cool. And now I'm in Minnesota and couldn't be happier."

Despite elevating his game to an all-time high last year, too often he was forced to be MacGyver, constantly scraping for useful contributions from his scanty supporting cast while refusing to let constant double and triple teams minimize his impact. The Bulls struggled to boil water whenever he rested on the bench.

Chicago ranked 28th in three-point rate and 24th in three-point percentage yet Butler still dragged them to the playoffs. The floor opened up a tiny bit when Nikola Mirotic played the four, but aging, antiquated guards like Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo too often made the offense feel claustrophobic. It wasn't an ideal environment for a wing scorer to thrive, but somehow Butler did.

From 2015 to 2017, the percentage of Butler's two-point field goals that were unassisted increased by just over 20 percent, but his True Shooting percentage didn't fall. He finished with more Win Shares than LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, and Kawhi Leonard last year, and was third in "Real Plus-Minus Wins," a stat that estimates how many wins a player contributes to his team's season total, behind only LeBron James and Steph Curry.

"You can't put somebody in a box and then have them think outside the box. Jimmy thinks like there's no box, so he has no ceiling. Every day we wake up to break boundaries," Johnson says. "I'm able to develop him as a point guard, as a shooting guard, as a small forward, as a power forward, and as a center. He's a basketball player. He's a scorer. He's not a shooter. He's not just a primary driver. He can do pretty much anything that is asked of him from his coaches because he allowed me to prepare him for every single situation. The only person who can stop Jimmy is Jimmy. He don't have a flaw."

Even for a person as motivated as he is, Butler's journey to the NBA was a miraculous tightrope walk. There were no AAU connections or free sneakers. Butler is from Tomball, Texas, a slight town about 30 miles outside Houston. After his mother kicked him out of the house when he was 13, Butler couchsurfed through his teenage years before finding relative stability when his friend's mother agreed to take him in. The story has been told often, but remains too incredible to be sensationalized.

For the typical prospect, coming to average 20 points in the NBA is less likely than purchasing a winning Powerball ticket. For Butler, it was less likely than holding said ticket while riding in the backseat of a limousine with Beyonce, eloping in Vegas.

Butler didn't receive any scholarship offers out of high school, but he did get noticed by a scout named Alan Branch. Branch identified qualities his colleagues missed, and started to chirp in the direction of any coaches who'd listen. You guys are missing a steal. But no offers were made even after Butler played well in a couple spring tournaments. Nobody thought he was Division-I material.

"The biggest thing I can say is he wasn't flashy, he wasn't a freak talent, and he was in the bushes," Branch says.

So instead of preparing for his first year at a school like Texas Christian University or Morehead State, Branch introduced Butler to Coach Marquis at Tyler Junior College, about three hours north of Tomball. He spent a day working out in their gym, scrimmaged with some of their players and local high-school competition, and was offered a spot right away.

"Mike never saw him shoot the basketball," Branch said. "Jimmy played like four or five possessions, made the right passes, got a rebound. He was just solid. You could just see the IQ."

It's impossible to know what would've happened had Branch never brought Butler to Marquis's attention. There were other junior colleges in the area that might have granted Butler a chance to walk on, but a few critical variables would've spun in unpredictable directions had he played anywhere else. To start, Tyler was very good, and good teams draw Division-I eyeballs.

Up until that point in his career, Butler mostly operated in the frontcourt. He crashed the glass, defended well, and offered a tenaciousness that probably wouldn't have the same effect against bigger, stronger competition. But thanks to the team's roster construction, Marquis shifted Butler to the perimeter on a full-time basis, forcing him to showcase a more appealing and varied skill-set.

"I didn't think people would draft him out of junior college after one year, but I thought he was draftable," Marquis said. "I called [Bulls general manager] Gar Forman, who I had known since he was coaching at Iowa State and New Mexico State, and said there's something special about Jimmy. If they just continued to watch his progress, they'd really, really like him."

Far and away the longest lasting benefit from his time in Tyler was who he met while there. Butler's roommate that season was a 6'7" wing named Joe Fulce, who was recruited to play for Marquette University by the school's then-assistant coach Buzz Williams.

"Every time I went to go see Joe, of course, I would say hello to Jimmy," Williams says.

Fulce—who's now a graduate assistant coach under Williams at Virginia Tech—and Butler were like a pair of Siamese fighting fish (who also happened to be friends). They competed in everything and played countless games of one on one, after practice, before games; even at random times in the middle of the night—whenever Butler wasn't hypnotized by his eight hundredth viewing of The Lion King.

"I don't know how many times I'd either wake up in the morning or wake up at night and his ass is sitting in bed, eating some snacks, with his feet crossed, with a cowboy hat on, watching the damn Lion King with some country music softly playing," Fulce said to VICE Sports. "His ass is weird." (Butler still really loves country music.)

Butler led Tyler in scoring and guided them to a 24-5 record. All the while, Fulce relentlessly pitched Williams on his roommate's all-around potential. A little while later Williams became Marquette's head coach. Butler was the first player he signed. His letter of intent was famously faxed over from a nearby McDonald's, and his first day on campus doubled as the first day of school. Butler still had Fulce as his roommate, but never visited Milwaukee beforehand.

"I think from day one until the day he graduated, he became much more confident in who he was on and off the floor," Williams says. "I think he became less distrustful. His personality showed more often. He was much more comfortable. Obviously, that was an extended period of time where his environment and the people in his environment were stable."

In three years, Butler never dropped a class, skipped a meeting with his tutor, or showed up late to a weightlifting session. In large part due to Butler being Williams's first signing, there was inescapable pressure on them both to perform. And through some tough times early on, a mutually beneficial bond was formed.

"What can I say, in some ways I'm proud of it and in other ways I'm not proud of it," Williams says. "I was hard on him. I was hard on him in every way. I never gave him any relief in any facet of his life, and to his credit he never wanted one. I think as our time together transpired, he expected that. He wanted that. He wanted that as an example to everybody else on the team."

Butler says the lessons learned in three years at Marquette still resonate, and his relationship with Williams remains strong. Now the head coach at Virginia Tech, Williams gave Butler a journal during his second year in the league. He still writes in it.

Next year, the journal will be different. He'll be in a new city, with a new team, and a new set of expectations—at least externally. Internally, Butler still has a bottomless urge to be great. He's forever that serial killer's dream. He rolls out of bed each morning focused and ready to go for a 90-minute session with Johnson. It's the first of two workouts they fight through every day. They start by zooming in on ball-handling, finishing, floaters, runners, one-legged jumpers, off-balance jumpers, side pick-and-rolls, middle pick-and-rolls, pick-and-roll passing, and so on and so forth.

He's already one of the craftiest and effective downhill playmakers in basketball, but for Butler to truly max out his potential in the coming seasons, that jumper needs to stabilize. Last year, he knocked down 36.7 percent of his threes, which is right around league average and an improvement on the previous season. But a higher percentage of his field goal attempts were launched from the inefficient mid-range, where he only canned 38.2 percent. On the whole, that's not an atrocious number, but it badly trails positional peers like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Kevin Durant.

Later in the day, the second session with Johnson is devoted to shot mechanics—how he can better himself shooting on the move and off the bounce. They study preferable ways for him to create separation and sharpen his technique on fadeaways. Every workout is filmed, allowing Butler and Johnson to obsess over ball and hand placement. They really dig into the finer details that are necessary to make him a more potent all-around weapon.

After the morning workout, Butler rewards himself with a five-minute break and then embarks on a soul-crippling hour with Gaines. Gaines and Johnson work with other professional athletes but have still met with Butler almost every day for the past four years. They will continue to do so in Minnesota. When Butler goes on vacation, be it to Europe, Canada, Mexico, or Mars, Gaines and Johnson come along for the ride.

"I'm not cheap," Gaines says. "But he pays whatever it costs and whatever it takes to keep his body right."

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are reserved for corrective exercises, movement prep, movement training, and strength training. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for conditioning work and agility training. Saturdays and Sundays are strictly conditioning. Sometimes they race on the beach or hop on a football field to sprint 110 yards at a time.

Sometimes they'll get back on an actual basketball court just to embrace the delightful sensation that a gasser can have on the human body. Gassers are timed sprints where, starting on the baseline, Butler has 17 seconds to go half the court and back, then dart to the opposite end line before returning to where he started. "We'll do 10 to 15 of those," Gaines said. It sounds like torture, but for Butler the entire process is more vital than oxygen.

There are obvious reasons to think the hard work will continue to pay off. This year, Butler may find that instead of doing more with less, he'll have the chance to do more with more. In Minnesota, defenses will have to worry about Towns, Wiggins, and Jeff Teague, the kind of score-first point guard Butler hasn't played with since Derrick Rose's body broke down. He'll be able to allocate more energy towards the defensive end—Butler failed to make an All-Defensive team for the first time in three years last season. Despite just four percent body fat hanging from his 230-pound frame, Butler still gets tired every once in a while.

If he can hunt for more open opportunities behind the three-point line instead of settling on tough, contested heaves, he can be one of the most efficient players in the entire NBA.

That won't necessarily be easy. The Timberwolves actually finished behind Chicago in three-point rate last season. And given how their roster is built, Thibodeau will likely lean on dated lineups that can be exploited when up against modernized rotations. Gorgui Dieng and Taj Gibson will platoon the power forward position, even though they're both better suited as backup fives. Life on the court may be cluttered once again.

But if Towns leaps forward on the defensive end, Thibs could deploy more versatile units that will accentuate Butler's strengths. The floor will open up and, if that's the case, it's hard to see how he won't be a legitimate MVP candidate. According to Synergy Sports, Butler ranked in the 77th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball-handler last year. He was 95th in transition, 92nd in spot-up situations, and 91st in the post.

The Timberwolves boast a core that can, in Towns's words, evolve into a dynasty. Butler likes the fit and is confident he can teach Thibodeau's system to younger teammates who struggled to grasp it last season. But he's also understandably cautious when it comes to attaching any bold claims to a group that ranked 26th in defense last year.

"I don't like the word 'Super Team'," he says. "I think everybody's human. That's [what] people label Golden State. They're a really really, really good basketball team. Super team?...On any given time they can be beat, too. It's all about who's playing basketball the best at the right time."

Towns and Wiggins can fill an ocean with their upside. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports.

Dethroning the Warriors is goal number one. But even if the Timberwolves fall short, Butler will certainly use his time in Minneapolis to expand his fame over the next few years. With the league's popularity increasing every day in countries all over the world, a genuine superstar's brand is worth exponentially more than the $19.3 million Minnesota owes Butler this season. Off-court opportunities are constantly nipping at his attention. Three years ago, he took a 75 percent pay cut to go from adidas to Jordan, joining Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, Kawhi Leonard, Russell Westbrook, and over a dozen other NBA stars. (During our day together, Butler poked fun at a camera operator wearing adidas tennis shoes.)

Bonobos, a menswear company that was recently bought by Walmart, made Butler their brand ambassador last August. And just this month he released his own signature underwear line with PSD, a company Kyrie Irving and Chandler Parsons are also affiliated with. (Butler's photographer Phil envisions a coffee table book. "If Kim Kardashian can do it," he says. "Why can't Jimmy?")

Last year, he dipped his toe in Hollywood by appearing in Office Christmas Party, a comedy his life guru Mark Wahlberg helped put him in. Butler met Wahlberg in 2013 while the actor was filming a Transformers movie in Chicago. They've been close friends ever since, with Butler citing the 46-year-old's vigorous work ethic as one of the biggest inspirations in his life.

"He's already one of the best at what he does, but he works as though he's not. The guy wakes up at 3:30, 4:00 AM to work out. Then he'll go take his mind off of stuff and play some golf," Butler says. "He eats healthy and spends time with his family and he's reading scripts and he's in meetings and he's on phone calls. Before you know it, it's time to do it all over again the next day." (Butler's all-time favorite Wahlberg movie is Shooter. "Bob Lee Swagger is that dude," he says.)

Butler played himself in Office Christmas Party, alongside Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn. He wasn't stiff in his only scene; the film's two directors, Josh Gordon and Will Speck, were impressed by his initial foray into a brand new field. "LeBron surprised everyone in Trainwreck by being so fully formed as an actor," Gordon told VICE Sports. "If Jimmy wanted to [act in the future], he could do it. He's got that kind of charisma. It's up to him."

Butler isn't sure how much longer he wants to be an NBA player, but hopes to squeeze in at least seven years, two championships, and widespread respect as one of his era's greatest stars before his body cries uncle. (No big deal.) If he opts out of his player option in 2019, the former Most Improved Player can experience unrestricted free agency for the very first time; just about every team that can afford a max contract will be interested. Even though that level of courtship is something Butler has never gone through before, he's yet to think about what it'll feel like.

"I'll tell you one thing," he says. "I'm gonna go or I'm gonna be or I'm gonna stay wherever I'm wanted, man. Because that's all anybody ever wants," he says. "To be appreciated."

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