I'M SORRY THAT PEOPLE ARE JEALOUS OF ME. I CAN'T HELP THAT I'M SO POPULAR

Vae Victis – PRIME Wrestling Junior Legal Assistant in Training Plague Doctor, on behalf of Lawyer Plague Doctor, on behalf of “The Queen of the Ring” Lindsay Troy and “The Kraken” Henry Keyes legal@strangerfruit.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RAIN CITY RONIN NOT WORTH THE TIME OF LAWYER PLAGUE DOCTOR, SO THE ROOKIE GETS HIS FIRST CRACK AT ONE OF THESE

[“The Airship” – San Francisco, CA, September 27, 2025] Vae Victis and the Besties in the World, two of wrestling’s most important cultural icons and current bridge-builders willing cross-promotional supershows into existence, announce with a mixture of great excitement and significant annoyance that they will be competing in tag team action for the first time in PRIME as the promotion travels to Tampa Bay for ReVival 76.

The Co-Consuls look to celebrate Mean Girls Day on October 3 with an array of pink the likes of which PRIME has never seen before, and the pair are absolutely thrilled to compete in the Queen of the Ring’s hometown. Vouchers for free pancakes from IHOP will be made available for the first 5,000 fans in attendance, and limited tickets are available for a viewing of the 2004 film, followed by a roundtable discussion of cinema’s greatest picture. Helen, of course, will be in attendance.

Significant annoyance is the result of, quote, “having to fight the silent duo of Rocko’s Dumbest Sperm and Definitely Not That Advertising Executive, again, this time in PRIME.” The Rain City Ronin have not been invited to any of the Mean Girls Day events surrounding ReVival 76, “nor will they be,” per the Besties.

Despite this inconvenience, the Besties will continue to do what they do best (and what the Rain City Ronin can’t) - make noise.

**Author’s note: I spell checked this press release seven times because my boss, Lawyer Plague Doctor, informed me of my potential induction into a Burn Book if I didn’t.

You can’t sit with us.

V A E   V I C T I S

###

September 29, 2025 International Plaza and Bay Street Tampa, Florida

“Miss Troy, why does this hand lotion smell like it would be for feet?”

Inside LUSH, several pairs of eyes glance in the direction of a tall, beefy Zaddy with salt and pepper hair and a slightly darker beard with a lightly curled mustache. As flamboyantly as he dresses, speaks, and otherwise presents himself, Henry Keyes alternately sticks out like a sore thumb and also looks like he has strong opinions about loofahs, which - this is exactly the store for that sort of thing.

Today’s fit is a tastefully-tight bright pink silk shirt with a capital D Deep-V and pastel blue slacks. Always gotta make sure the eight pack has the chance to shine, especially in public places like this.

Henry’s holding a black labeled pump bottle away from his face with just his index finger and thumb, his face scrunched up and presumably grossed out.

“Because it is for feet.” Lindsay Troy - Boss, Badass, and Bestie - appears over Henry’s shoulder, cradling several bars of soap and different sized plastic lotion pots in her arms. The female half of the Vae Victis Co-Consuls nods with her chin toward the offending bottle’s label, which reads Pink Peppermint Foot Lotion. “See?”

Henry slowly turns the bottle with his wrist. Yep, it’s there, right on the label he didn’t read. “Huh,” he replies, before sauntering off to a different display. He picks up a small jar and brings it back to his Bestie, again not even looking at what he’s holding. “Will this minimize my pores?”

Lindsay looks at the jar and wrinkles her nose. “No.”

The Kraken’s eyebrows raise for a second before he shrugs to himself and goes to put it back. He looks at the label for the first time, decides he actually doesn’t care what it says, and replaces it on the shelf.

“Hey, I’m gonna pay for these and then we can figure out where to go next,” Lindsay says, turning toward the register. “There’s gotta be at least one store in this place where we can buy Kerry’s Dipshit Cousin and The Ad Man some personalities, otherwise it’s gonna be a real ho-hummer on Friday night.”

“As long as we can invoice them later,” Henry quips. “God, they’re the drizzling shambles.”

“Drizzling omnishambles.” Lindsay puts her purchases on the counter for the associate to ring. “They’re infuriating. They shouldn’t infuriate me, Henry, and they do.” A grumble as she retrieves a credit card for the reader. “Then again, a lot’s infuriated me lately.”

Henry sidles up to Lindsay. “Girl. I wasn’t going to bring it up unless you did. Because don’t get me wrong, RCR and their whole…everything…bothers me, too, but I know you just a little bit. This isn’t the standard issue “Lindsay Troy Suffering A Fool” deal that’s been there every day since you reopened PRIME. You’ve got too many flies buzzing around your mind and not enough swatters, is my guess. So what’s up?”

She doesn’t answer right away; this isn’t a conversation to be shared with skincare aficionados. Instead, Lindsay takes her purchases, walks out of the store and over to a quiet bench. Keyes follows and sits beside her. “This bullshit with Matt, Henry. Ever since he pulled that shit at Ascension, I’ve been struggling to keep a level-head, because I’m the Boss and that’s what I need to do. What I’m supposed to do. But it’s like… the actual goddamn, unprofessional nerve of him, to blindside me like that. And beyond that, that’s not what friends do to each other. I’m so annoyed, I just want to hit something, and those two kids seem like a good choice. Teach them a little lesson about coming on my show to stir up some shit.”

Henry rewinds the imaginary tape in his mind and flashes back to Ascension - he was there, after all, supporting his friends, catching up with old acquaintances. He didn’t (and still doesn’t) know Matt Ward personally, only through reputation - more specifically, only through the reputation provided through the lens of Lindsay Troy, which he imagined to only be a small sliver of the full picture. He remembered the Anti-PRIME title, and then the vague threats against his Bestie delivered with all the directness and maturity of a teen on their burner account.

“Want me to hit him?” A question he had asked once before - that time, it was about Dan Ryan, during the Dark Times. It gets a genuine chuckle out of his Bestie.

“Only after I hit him first,” Lindsay smirks. “He keeps on the way he’s going and we’ll be getting into it before December.”

Henry snorts and shakes his head. Classic Miss Troy, he thinks. “Guess it’s good you booked us to face the Ronin, eh? Call in the nepos we put on the map in DEFIANCE, warm up the machinery, then when it’s time for Matthew -” and he punches a hand into a palm with a smack. Henry pulls out a plastic container from who knows where with pancakes inside. He opens the lid, grabs one, and bites into it with gusto. “Want to get cheese fries?”

“Oh my God, yes. I was just thinking that.”

“I don’t even care that they make you fat, it’s my cheat day today.”

October 1, 2025 Sun-Ray Cinema Tampa, Florida

“...and that’s why $10,000 is really not that strange of an amount, in some circles, for insuring your hair.”

The bizarre venn diagram that’s led to an overlapping of Mean Girls Diehards and Professional Wrestling Diehards has brought a bunch of fans to the movie theater today. The seats are pink, the curtains are pink, and the lights are on.

Seated at the front of the theater, backs to the movie screen, are Keyes and Troy, each wearing bright pink shirts with cartoon drawings of themselves and Helen the White Tiger and the words “BESTIES BRIGADE” in blue text. Henry continues:

“I’ve started to get to know PRIME’s top guy, Cecilworth Farthington - there’s not an inch of that man’s body that’s uninsured. And while yes, Sharon, to your point, she’s ‘just in high school,’ but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t protect her investment.”

“I mean, my hair is insured,” Lindsay says. “Do you know how much time and money I spend to get it looking this good all the time?”

“Most people know well enough to not even try! And Miss Troy pulls THAT off like it’s nothing!” Henry points to Lindsay’s distinct curls that look extra moisturized and poppin’ today, the result of some of her LUSH purchases from before.

A woman in the seats who looks like she might be Ana Gasteyer’s relative seems unconvinced, and looks prepared to follow up some more, when a tall, rail-thin young adult wearing a new Almasy Winner Chandler Tsonda tee and who probably wasn’t alive yet in 2004 raises his hand. Lindsay points to him.

“Yes, hi Besties, my name is Damien -”

“SHUT UP, you’re kidding!” blurts Henry.

“I know, it’s true, yes, hi. I was actually named after that Damien, but I had never seen the movie before today, because I was really annoyed at my mom for naming me after some stupid movie character, but ANYWAY - I just came here because I’m a fan of PRIME, I’m a fan of you guyyyys -”

“Aww, that’s sweet - Miss Troy, isn’t that sweet?”

Lindsay smiles. “It’s sweet like a cake baked out of rainbows and smiles.”

“And I just wanted to say, this movie may have just changed my life. I genuinely thought the Mathletes at my school were the biggest uggos out there, but this movie taught me that you can be hot and good at math, too.”

The woman from the previous question speaks up. “Isn’t that a weird phrasing in that math scene, by the way? The Limit Does Not Exist? It’s just a little…clunky for me.”

Keyes, yanked out of this warm fan interaction, realizes that he’s in a PRIME-branded event with a local vendor that’s probably generating some good press for his best friend’s promotion and thus stops his eyes before they roll ALL the way to the back of his head. “Girl, if you’re watching Mean Girls for the math scenes, you’re doing it all wrong.” This gets a pretty solid laugh out of the crowd.

“Also, Math is dead in PRIME,” the CEO adds. “We don’t cross those streams.”

“Long live Math,” adds Henry. He scopes out the assembled fans - it’s an interesting hodgepodge of elder Millennials and Gen Xers who are way more about the movie, and younger fans who look way more into wrestling. Another one of the wrestling fans, a woman in her early 20’s wearing a Glueminati tee that features Joe Fontaine’s emerald glory, raises a hand, and Henry points.

“Yes, hi, I have a question for both of you. You both call yourselves the Co-Consuls of Vae Victis, which, to me, sounds like a lot of Roman imagery, you know - Julius Caesar, marching legions, woe to the conquered - and I was just wondering what it was that drew you both to Mean Girls and why you made the movie so core to your identity, when Vae Victis sounds a little more serious than Glen Coco references.”

Lindsay speaks first. “Honestly, it started out by Henry saying we should have a movie night on a Wednesday and me suggesting Mean Girls. This was in Vae Victis’ infancy, when we were just beginning to gather the ranks. Our whole raison d'être as an entity was to form a collective of wrestlers who just wanted to wrestle and not deal with a lot of the silliness that we saw going on in DEFIANCE. Things like Reaper Serum and Female Billy Joel Impersonators and Anything Teri Melton. Henry honed in on the line, ‘You can’t sit with us’ as our mantra as a way for us to say, ‘Serious fighters only..’ ”

Henry chimes in. “Things like a championship match taking place in a spooky mausoleum, and wrestlers having sex with buildings, and whatever the fuck a House of Harvest is. I think we all found that there was something about ‘No WE are the good wrestlers’ that can fall a little flat, because it’s face it - 95% of us believe that. ‘You can’t sit with us’ cuts to the quick. Bright pink stands out in a sea of DEFIANCE try-hards. And then, well - if it pisses you off, that’s an edge we’ll gladly take.”

The fan follows up. “But….that kinda sounds like you and the Rain City Ronin have a lot in common. Right?”

Henry mutters “Rain City…” before leaning in. “A lot in common? They’re very serious boys, aren’t they…Vae Victis put those children in the spotlight with a marquee feud when they couldn’t get a reaction from the DEFIANCE Faithful if they had money guns. We made the Flynn Cup relevant to that audience when we won the thing in 2023 - Rain City wins it in 2025, and they want to make it seem like their win is somehow more important?? Fuck out of here with allllll of that. I think the real reason the Ronin keep their mouths shut is because they both know they’ll never live up to the heights of a Rocko Daymon promo, they’ll never sell a pay-per-view with their own big ideas, and they just don’t have anything interesting to fucking say.”

“Not for anything, I wouldn’t want to live up to the heights of a Rocko Daymon promo,” Lindsay said. “That guy made ‘Beowulf’ feel like a short story. And I’m very much looking forward to closing the chapter on Zack and Leo’s fairytale run after Friday night.”

Henry stands up. “Now I may not have ESPN, but my watch and my bladder tell me there’s a 70% chance that it’s time to go. You can watch ReVival for the rest.”