@fireballtm // more & more ! headcanons: ✨
✨ ... what motivates him ? is it a deep rooted passion / motivation, or is it something he struggles with from time to time ?
tequila has struggled with motivation for a very long time ... & that’s why his life went to shit, honestly. he gave into peer pressure & turned to drugs & alcohol in high school because he just wanted to feel better, but he was never motivated when it came to classes & this never changed. technically, he never even graduated, because he didn’t feel like he’d worked towards anything & didn’t have a hard time skipping town shortly before the end of his senior year. he certainly hadn’t applied to any colleges, because ... why would he ? he didn’t want to do anything with his life. he didn’t care.
when he got his first job, he only did so because he needed to make money to keep himself alive. honestly, this job was the first motivation he ever had. tequila is hard to motivate, & he’s got a lot of issues with commitment ( hence his impromptu career change, becoming a barrelman after years at a ranch, ) so his motivation has always come in the form of a job. he relies on work to give him structure, because that’s the only structure he’s ever been able to count on. & yet, he’s only really motivated to do those jobs for the sake of having a goal to strive towards — this is why he’s never really been that good at getting shit done, regardless of what task he’s doing or how proficient he actually is at it. despite this, it’s still true that work is what has motivated him through the majority of his life. that’s shitty, but he just uses his vices to cope with that & lets things go on as they are.
this means that, as things stand, statesman ( & then kingsman ) is tequila’s sole source of motivation. it’s more interesting than his previous jobs, but it’s still a bad place to get all of your motivation from, which is why he still turns to excessive alcohol & drug use. like with his previous jobs, he often has trouble performing correctly or following less important rules, even though he’s never let them down when it counts. his refusal to abide by the dress code is a good example of this. & yet, once again, tequila relies on his job as an agent because it’s just about the only thing he has to motivate him to stay alive, to get up in the morning, to look presentable ... etc. if he lost this part of his life, then he would be utterly lost, & that’s probably why he agreed to work as a kingsman agent — he’s terrified of what might become of him if he can’t do this job anymore, & he’d rather be sent to another agency than refuse & find out the hard way.
