#so is the funeral but I don’t think y’all would see that as an issue dbdbddbbd

[paper-lilypie]

they’re waiting for you to get in the water (it’s a trap)

[theautisticbarbie]

A Bird of Praise

Act I

Chapter III: The Tale of La Llorona

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Word count: 5,596

Yeah these chapters are long, I know, but they’re jam packed with action, so I hope that makes up for it.

Content warnings are as follows: child’s funeral (Will’s farce of a funeral), psychic powers, flashbacks, implied medical trauma, season 1 Steve being a douche, parental emotional abuse, school bullying, supernatural monsters, fake friends.

Because I’m sure y’all are asking at this point, yes, Rothbart is Vecna. Tara doesn’t play DnD so she doesn’t have the same frame of reference that the kids had, so instead she names him Rothbart. Similarly, the upside down and the demogorgon will also be named after fairytale and ballet things since those are Tara’s main frames of reference. They’re pretty easy to figure out but I’ll make a translation key if anyone wants!

Chapter summary: Rothbart attempts to sow seeds of doubt into the security of Tara’s friendships, issuing a vague threat that calls Tara’s past into question. When Will’s body is supposedly found, Tara has her sights set on a possible culprit and goes on the pursuit, only to find something far more insidious than she initially thought she was dealing with.

In the black, Tara got up and looked around. “Will?” She called.

“Barb?” she called more meekly, hoping with everything she had that part of her dream was fabricated.

“Will!”

“You can’t save him,” a gravelly voice rasped.

Tara turned her attention to see the nightmarish iteration of the warlock from her Swan Lake dreams.

“What do you want, Rothbart?”

“I’ve always found that question to be redundant. It’s not as though you intend to give me what I’m after, so what makes you think you’re entitled to make me explain myself?”

“The fact that you hurt my friends!”

“Your friends… hmmm… but it would seem as though you have a habit of turning your back on and forgetting about friends… so why the sudden change of heart?”

Tara was genuinely confused. To her recollection, she had NEVER abandoned, betrayed or turned her back on a friend. It was something she prided herself on.

“Let. Will. Go.” Tara brandished her hand. “You don’t wanna know what I’m capable of.”

“Making demands. Cute.”

“Last chance, Rothbart!”

“Really, Tara. I’m just heartbroken that you don’t remember me. But it doesn’t matter. You’re going to suffer the consequences of your actions, and the world is going to know what kind of monster you truly are.”

Tara opened her eyes. It was pitch black again and she felt a very damp spot on her upper lip. She searched for the light by feel, thankfully found it and looked in the mirror, seeing a nose bleed. She cleaned herself up, turned the lights back off and decided to try again.

No dice. She couldn’t get back in.

Eventually, she saw the faint rays of sunlight peer through the gap between the door and the floor and decided to open the door and give up.

On the bus, she looked for Nancy and Barb but saw neither, giving her a horrific pit in her stomach.

School was also becoming more and more cumbersome. The effects from not getting enough sleep at night were already starting to cause significant problems. Tara was irritable, sluggish and was having flashbacks of her hospital stay a lot more frequently. And she was also concerned that it could be having an impact on her psychokinetic capabilities. Abilities that she has only been aware that she has at all since she got her first period.

It all came to a head when she fell asleep in class and woke up screaming Will’s name. It doesn’t take a genius to know how her peers might have chosen to weaponise that.

The rest of the day was a blur until she saw some coiffed jerk vandalising Jonathan’s camera while his cohorts tore his photos… and… was that Nancy watching it happen?

Absolutely not. Tara will roll over until the cows come home when she’s the one under attack. But when her friends are the ones getting licked? Let the games begin.

Tara picked up a shard from the camera’s remains and marched forward, intent on accosting Jonathan’s assailant.

“Hey.”

Nothing.

“Hey!”

Still nothing.

“HEY!” she shouted, chucking the shard directly at the back of his coiffed head, causing him to whirl around.

“Ow! What the hell?”

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you!”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” he asked, raising a brow.

“A big stupid jerk who needs to repeat kindergarten because apparently ‘keep your hands to yourself’ didn’t stick!” Tara retorted.

Provoked perhaps by the hooting from his cohorts, the coiffed man raised a brow, taking a step towards the girl. “Really? Have you never heard of ‘King Steve of Hawkins High?’” he asked, making grand gestures to emphasise his point.

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Tara said, crossing her arms.

“And who are you supposed to be? The Kindergarten fairy princess?” Steve asked, referring to Tara’s fashion sense.

“My name is Tara,” she responded indignantly.

“So, Tara,” Steve began putting a mocking emphasis on her name.

Nancy, who had been deathly quiet throughout this whole conversation, finally spoke. “Steve, don’t. She’s… she’s special. She doesn’t know any better.”

“Tara, go home. Don’t pick these kind of fights.”

“Nancy, why are you hanging around these jerks? You’re better than this!”

“Go home, Tara.”

Tara have a heavy sigh before turning around to walk away.

“Wait!”

Tara paused and faced Nancy.

“You… haven’t seen Barb, have you?”

“For the love of Pete, Nancy! Do I look like Barb’s keeper? Leave me alone!”

Tara turned around and walked away fairly quickly and with purpose. “Everyone LOVES to interrogate me today, don’t they!” she shouted far too loudly.

Yes, she was relieved that Nancy was okay, but now she was practically on the precipice of a meltdown to know that even she didn’t know where Barb was, confirming that her dream might not have been fabricated after all.

“Just get home.” was Tara’s internal dialogue.

Unfortunately, her problems were far from over. Not only was she worried that the police were going to pay her a visit thanks to her little altercation with Steve, which meant that she was going to have to explain what happened to her mother, but now she was terrified of what might have happened to Barb, where Will might be, what probably REALLY happened to Benny and what Rothbart meant by his threat.

She had been walking around in circles in her room for the past 3 hours or so before she heard clamouring downstairs and decided to go and investigate. In the sitting room, she saw Gabby, Sam and Daniel glued on the TV screen intently.

“This just in,” the News Anchor spoke. “Will Byers, the missing boy from Hawkins, has been found. His body was recovered from a nearby quarry. Authorities are not yet sure if he drowned or…”

The rest of it was muted out. Tara’s whole body went numb. She found herself without the ability to breathe.

“No,” she quietly whimpered.

Falling to her knees, Tara let out a blood curdling cry.

Suddenly, the power went out.

That was it. She blacked out.

Flashbacks from her stay at the hospital plagued her mind in her state of unconsciousness.

“Tara, I need you to trust me.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know you are, but I need you to be strong.”

Tara woke up with a blood curdling scream.

“Can you stop screaming?” Daniel shouted indignantly. “Shit!”

The room was spinning as Tara tried to regain her composure. She heard a car pull up and looked out the window.

Her mother was home from work. She exited the cab and pulled out her suitcase before handing the driver some cash.

Tara did not want to wait on hand and foot to gauge what kind of mood Eleanor might be in, so she decided to go upstairs and get ready for school. She didn’t even bother to shower, bathe or even change her clothes.

Once the school bus arrived, Tara got straight on it without saying a single word to her mother.

No Nancy. No Barb. Same as yesterday.

Once she got off the bus, though, Nancy immediately approached her, intent on confronting her regarding yesterday’s tirade. It was clear that she waited for the bus for this express purpose.

However, Nancy took one look at (and whiff of) Tara and winced. “Jesus Christ, Tara! What the hell happened to you? You smell like shit!”

“Leave me alone!” Tara barked back.

“What is your problem?”

“My problem, Nancy, is that I haven’t had more than maybe two hours of sleep every night since Will went missing, I’ve had migraines and chest pains and I know I should go to the doctor, but I’m terrified of medical settings now! Not that they would help, anyways! Will is dead which would have been avoided had I been there sooner to pick him up! Barb has most likely been brutally murdered! Oh, and I’m probably going to jail for throwing projectiles at your hump yesterday!”

“Tara—“

“Just go away!”

Tara stomped off and did her best to get through her day. When she opened her locker, however, she came across a picture of Halloween from 1978 with herself as Lesley Ann Warren’s Cinderella, Daniel as Superman, Jonathan as Batman and Will as Robin and her heart broke. She fell to pieces and just sobbed and sobbed.

The rest of the day was a blur. The next thing she knew when she came to her senses was that she was home in her bedroom and it was almost 5.

What specifically brought her back to planet earth was the sound of a knock at her door.

“Robin. Hey…”

Robin Buckley. Tara’s best friend since second grade.

“Hey. I brought snacks,” she said holding up a grocery bag. Tara could see her favourite chips, Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion, through the bag.

Tara pulled Robin in a tight hug and just sobbed. She set the grocery bag on the night stand and closed the embrace between them, soothingly rocking Tara back and forth.

“Shhhhhh… it’s okay…”

“La Llorona…”

“Huh?”

“It was La Llorona,” Tara said, pulling away and wiping her eyes. “The crying… the screaming… my dreams… the way he died…”

“For fuck’s sake, Tara,” Daniel interjected, having been eavesdropping. “La Llorona isn’t real. Uncle Manny just made that shit up to scare us!”

“Who’s La Llorona?” Robin asked, confused.

“It’s a made up story used as a deterrent to keep kids from running away,” Daniel said.

“La Llorona drowned her children in a fit of rage. Once she came to her senses and realised what she had done… she killed herself… and since then, her spirit has been roaming around trying to reunite with her lost children… but… if she finds a child that isn’t hers… all of her rage comes back… and she drowns you… she’s often near bodies of water… you can hear her cries…”

“Tara, it’s just make-believe,” Daniel insisted.

Tara shook her head. “The way Will died… Nancy said Barb disappeared at a pool party…”

“Tara, those are both coincidences!”

“Are they, Daniel? Because in the 16 years of life I’ve experienced, I’ve learned that there are no coincidences. Okay? Everything that happens is because something else caused it to happen.”

“Well yeah! No shit! But that’s a pretty far cry from ‘Evil spirits killed them’ don’t you think?”

“And you have a better explanation?”

“Will fell in the quarry! Barb ran away! Come on, Tara! She was getting her ass kicked just for being seen with you!”

“So this is my fault?”

“Well, I mean you WERE supposed to pick him up! Like Mrs. Wheeler tells you he went home and you don’t even swing by his place to see if he made it?”

“Knock it off! Both of you!” Eleanor finally blurted out.

“I made Tamales?” Sam offered, trying to lighten the mood.

“Mom, can Robin sleep over?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s just that she really doesn’t have a ride to the funeral or anything to wear, so I figured I could give her a ride and let her borrow some of my clothes and afterwards maybe—“

“Fine, just don’t make a mess or too much noise. I need to call Joyce and check in on her.”

“I tried calling earlier. Her phone’s been dead for a few days now. Jonathan told me that a storm destroyed their phone and she replaced it only for the same exact thing to happen the moment she tried to use it.”

“And when did you and Jonathan have this conversation?” Eleanor asked, raising a brow.

“Yesterday, after school.” Tara answered, unsure of how that was relevant.

“Was this before or after your physical altercation with a Mr. Steve Harrington?”

Tara’s mouth ran dry. You could hear a pin drop.

“His father called me. You threw a rock at him?”

“Well, it was a piece of Jonathan’s camera—“

“You broke Jonathan’s camera?”

“No! Steve did! That’s why I went after him!”

“Well, Mr. Harrington made it clear that if this happens again, the police will be involved.”

Tara crossed her arms. “He’s dating Nancy. He’s turning her into a big fat meanie!”

“Tara, I don’t want to have to bail you out of jail! Do you understand me?”

Tara looked down defeated. Once again, her side of the matter was irrelevant. “Yes, ma’am.”

Tara grabbed her car keys.

“And where are you going?” Eleanor inquired.

“I was gonna go pick up my cheque today since the funeral is tomorrow.”

“It’s 5:00 in the evening,” Eleanor pointed out, glancing at her watch.

“Which is perfect,” Tara rebutted. “Franklin will be working the closing shift and the store won’t be terribly busy.”

“Take a shower before you go. You smell awful.”

Tara made her way to the bathroom to comply with her mother’s instructions.

“And stay out of trouble while you’re out!”

The car ride to the store went smoothly enough. Robin accompanied her while the radio faintly buzzed in the background.

“Why is your mom always so angry?” Robin finally asked.

“I wish I knew the answer to that. I keep my grades up, I stay out of trouble and I keep my room clean. What more could she possibly want?”

“Your brother keeps your room clean. You’re a total slob who leaves your jacket on the floor.”

“Same thing.”

“I don’t think so, Tara.”

Tara sighed deeply. “I just want my mom to love me… and honestly, even though she’s only said it as many times as I can count on one hand, I don’t believe her when she tells me that she loves me. I’ve never felt loved by her even for a moment.”

“That’s deep,” Robin said, looking down at the dashboard.

Eventually, they pulled up to the shopping centre where Tara worked. In it was a Skyline Chili, which incidentally was across from Tara’s work place, Kohl’s, Toys R Us, JoAnn Fabrics and A Literal Haven, the bookstore where Tara worked.

“You’re really gonna go inside in your pyjamas?” Robin asked.

“Well yeah. Why would I shower and put on new clothes that I’m only gonna wear for an hour tops?”

“I see your point.”

The two went inside other book store. It was a cozy type of vibe. Soft oldie music on the background radio, the smell of coffee and literature and almost all of the customers were regulars.

Tara approached the counter while Robin perused the fantasy section. “Hi Franklin. I’m here to pick up my cheque a day early. It’s just with the funeral tomorrow, I won’t have time.”

“Yes, of course!” Franklin responded, opening a drawer and pulling out an envelope.

“Thanks. I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“Tara, if you need some time off—“

“I’ll see you on Saturday, Franklin.”

The drive back home was mostly peaceful… at least until a BMW pulled up beside the two at a stop light.

Tara turned her head to see who the occupants of said BMW were and immediately regretted it.

Steve Harrington and his two cohorts whose names Tara had only vaguely heard in passing conversation. Carol and Tommy H if she recalled correctly.

Tara kept her eyes on the road, hoping that by not making eye contact, she can avoid any confrontation.

“Tara, what’s wrong?” Robin asked, confused at her sudden change in demeanour.

It didn’t work. The passenger’s side window of the BMW rolled down.

“I was wondering who drives this car, and now I feel like a doofus for not knowing sooner!” Tommy H remarked.

“Are you really surprised that the school retard drives a life size Barbie-mobile?” Carol asked.

Tara continued to keep her eyes on the road, waiting desperately for the light to turn green again.

“You lied to me! You said I could go home once I could control it!”

“Tara,” Dr. McFarlane pleaded. “I intend to keep my promise, but you are not nearly there yet!”

“You’re lying!”

Tara was snapped out of her flashback when Robin literally took off her seatbelt, rolled down her backseat window, spit on Tommy and Carol and flipped them both off for good measure.

“Robin!”

Before Tommy and Carol could react, the light turned green.

“Drive! Drive! Drive!”

Robin didn’t have to tell Tara twice. She pumped the gas and made a break for it, causing Robin to hit her face on the back of her seat.

“Get back in your seat!” Tara said, still speeding.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t over. The BMW pursued them.

Tara was only barely within the speed limit and the car was still in hot pursuit. She tried needling just above the limit in the hopes that Steve would back off.

No dice. They were side by side again.

“We are so gonna get pulled over!” Tara whined.

“Just drive! I’ll handle this!” Robin said.

Robin stayed in the backseat, unbuckled mind you, and stayed by the window.

“You got a problem, Buckley?” Carol asked.

“Yeah! It’s the braindead gremlins in the car next to ours who call my best friend a retard when I know for a fact that one of them cheated off her English test TWICE!”

“Here! Have a drink, bitch!” Carol said, spilling beer all over Robin and into Tara’s car.

Robin sputtered as Carol and Tommy laughed. She reached for the coffee cup in Tara’s drink holder.

“I owe you a coffee.”

Robin took the drink, pulled off the lid and threw it all over Carol, who yelped in shock as the BMW came to a screeching halt, letting Tara zoom past them. When Tara noticed the pursuit stopped, she stopped her car to see what happened and turned around to see Steve frantically trying to clean the coffee off of his seats while Carol literally cried over her clothes being ruined.

“Jiminy Crickets!” Tara blurted out!

But Robin wasn’t done yet. She honked Tara’s horn to get the trio’s attention, flipped them off again through the back windshield, this time using the double bird, stuck out her tongue out and for the grand finale, she mooned them.

“Robin!” Tara called but found herself cracking up with laughter as Robin got back in her seat and buckled up.

The drive back home was filled with laughter as they both recounted the events of the road rage incident.

“Wahhh! My poor car!” Robin mocked Steve eliciting more laughter from Tara.“Did you see the way Carol freaked out? I have never seen her get that upset before!”

Eventually Tara’s laughter died down. “Robin, are we gonna get in trouble for this?”

“No way! In order for him to get us in trouble he has to admit that he incited road rage and that’s gonna make his insurance 8 bajillion dollars, so he’s obviously not going to do that!”

“8 bajillion?”

“Something like that!”

The two continued to laugh about the encounter until the pulled up and reached the front door. Tara shushed Robin as to not get them both in trouble by alerting her mother to the fact that she expressly disobeyed her.

Once they got inside, Sam and Gabby were on the couch watching the news.

“Oh hey! How’d picking up your cheque go?” Sam asked.

“Fine. The credit union was closed so I have to wait until after the funeral to cash it,” Tara said, trying her hardest not to giggle out the sides of her mouth.

“Fun car conversation?” Sam asked curiously.

“Something like that,” Tara snorted, before taking Robin’s hand and making a start to dart up to her room.

“Hey, wait a second!” Sam called out, causing the two to freeze in place.

Sam pulled out a Target bag. “I swung by Target while you were out. This way, Robin, you won’t have to borrow Tara’s clothes and you’ll have something to wear at any other funerals you attend.”

“Which, while it is universally known that death is a part of life, we hope won’t be any time soon,” Gabby added.

“Oh, wow. Thanks,” Robin said, taking the bag, genuinely shocked by the kind gesture.

Tara and Robin spent the rest of the night eating junk food and watching classical movies. By the time they finally decided to hit the hay, it was 2 am. Tara had all but forgotten about her nocturnal troubles and snuggled under the sheets.

“Robin?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for being my friend.”

“No worries. Thanks for being mine.”

“Would it… would it be weird if we cuddled?”

Robin gave a quizzical look as if she was seriously pondering the answer to that. “No,” she finally said hesitantly. “At least I don’t personally think so,” she tacked on defensively.

“Can we?”

“Huh?”

“Can we cuddle?”

“Of course,” Robin said after some deliberation.

Tara snuggled up to her best friend, who closed the embrace, allowing them to huddle together.

Tara’s dreams, for the first time in almost a week, were devoid of Will’s screams, but she was still stuck in this awful place where she was looking for him. It was eerily quiet. At least until some form of monster ambushed her and jolted her awake. She didn’t get a good look at it, though. It all happened too quickly.

“Hey! Tara! It’s okay!”

When Tara came to her senses, it was in Robin’s arms.

“It was just a bad dream. That’s all.”

Tara caught her breath and looked at the clock. “We should get ready.”

It was a good thing that Sam made that Target trip because Tara owned exactly one black outfit and it clearly had not been touched in what had to be years. It was a simple black dress that had no adornment of any kind. It was very different from the rest of Tara’s wardrobe, which was colourful and bright.

The entire funeral was a blur. Tara had mentally checked out. This ragtag group of kids that she used to babysit was now down a member. She couldn’t possibly imagine the hurt that Jonathan and Joyce are going through.

She was semi-grounded when Robin soothingly rubbed her back.

After the funeral, Tara remained emotionally and mentally withdrawn at the reception.

“Have you tried these bagels?” Gabby asked, trying to cheer Tara up. “They are delightful!”

“I’m not hungry…” Tara said, still zoned out.

“Oh for God’s sake, Tara! Not this again!” blurted out her mother, who overheard the exchange.

“Eleanor, it’s okay,” Gabby said, trying to deescalate things.

“You always do this! Whenever something happens, you look for ways to make it about you and make yourself the centre of attention! It is so inappropriate and I’m sick of it! You’re 16! You should know better by now!”

“I just said I wasn’t hungry! Why is everything an act of war to you?” Tara bursted out before storming off, with Robin following behind her one, because she was her ride home and two because she really didn’t know anyone else there and was only there to show support to Tara anyway.

“Joyce,” Eleanor started with a sigh, “I am so sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. This is hard for everyone and Tara has always been such a sensitive person.”

“I wanted to tell you, regarding your rent, I’ve decided that it would be best if we just put it on pause. We can revisit payments again in March once you’re back on your feet.”

“Eleanor, you are such an angel.”

“I’m just doing what any decent human being in my shoes would do.”

Tara dropped Robin off, cashed her cheque from work at the credit union and went home, where she was by herself. She plopped on her bed and sighed.

“You lied to me!”

“Tara, just calm down!”

“You have to trust me.”

“A medical facility in New Belgium, a suburb just directly south of Detroit, was burned to the ground leaving no survivors. The cause of the fire is currently unknown, but authorities are not currently ruling out arson.”

Tara jolted up, grabbed her noise cancelling earmuffs, went into the bathroom and closed the door, leaving her in total darkness.

In the black, Tara wandered through. “Rothbart! Come out, you coward! I know this was you! You brought La Llorona here, didn’t you?”

Silence.

“Answer me!” Tara demanded.

“I guess Tara really stuck her neck out for you, didn’t she?”

Tara turned around to see Jonathan and Nancy in the black… was that a gun she was holding?

“Honestly, I wish she wouldn’t do that. But I know why she did what she did to Steve.”

“You mean when she threw a tantrum and threw a piece of your camera at him?”

“Yeah… it’s because she’s had a crush on me since we were kids. I’m not interested in her, so I kind of just pretend not to know.”

“Why is that?” Nancy asked, pointing the gun seemingly directly at Tara.

“Well, she’s got this condition with her heart and I’m worried that if I tell her the truth… that I don’t think of her that way… I might accidentally, y’know, kill her or something.”

Jonathan paused.

“You’re her friend. Maybe you can let her down gently somehow.”

Nancy shook her head. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Huh?”

“I’m nice to her because so many other people either bully her or go out of their way to pretend she doesn’t even exist, but I wouldn’t call us friends.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t hate her. She’s not a bad person. The world just isn’t meant for people like her to live in.”

Bang.

Tara jolted up and found herself in complete darkness again.

She took a breath collected herself, closed her eyes and lied back down on the floor, travelling back to the black.

“That was a dirty trick!” Tara called out. “They would NEVER say that about me!” She let out a soft chuckle. “It was also stupid because Nancy doesn’t know the first thing about guns!”

Suddenly, Tara heard a soft growl. “What was that?”

Rumble.

Tara walked around aimlessly looking for anything and she found… something.

Tara, truthfully, had no idea what she was looking at. She vaguely recognised it from her most recent nightmare, but that did absolutely nothing to help her identify it.

She slowly approached it, reached out and touched it, earning a loud monstrous screech.

“Tara!”

Tara was snapped out of her reverie when the door had been opened and Daniel was shaking her awake.

She slowly removed her earmuffs and looked at her brother.

“What the hell happened? Are you okay?” he asked, handing her a tissue box.

Tara took the tissues and wiped her nose. “I’m going to kill La Llorona. Before she hurts anyone else.”

The bickering between them lasted from the time Tara got changed to the moment she grabbed her car keys.

“Tara! You can’t kill a ghost!”

“I’m psychic. Psychics can kill ghosts. Do the math.”

“No, they can’t!”

“Clearly you’ve never seen Ghostbusters!”

“No, YOU never saw Ghostbusters because that’s NOT what happens at all!”

“Well, the way I see it, the only way you’re gonna stop me is by taking my car away, which, by the by, is grand theft auto, so your call.” Tara said holding out her keys.

“Goddamn it,” Daniel muttered, getting into the passenger seat.

“You’re coming with me?”

“I’m coming to prove to you that La Llorona isn’t real and what happened was just a coincidence!”

“Oh sweet! Ghost hunting?” Sam asked, grabbing his coat.

“You wanna drive don’t you?” Gabby asked, smirking at her significant other.

“Yes!” Sam squealed, excitedly.

“This is unbelievable,” Daniel muttered, heading towards Sam’s bronco.

By the time they got to the woods, the sun had set.

“We should start with the quarry where Will was found,” Tara said.

When the four exited the bronco, Sam reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a candle with Patron Saint Guadalupe on it. He then pulled a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and lit the candle.

“This should protect us.”

The four walked along the quarry and Tara closed her eyes.

“It’s not here,” she finally said after a beat.

“All right. Where to next?” Sam asked.

“There,” Tara said pointing deeper into the woods.

“All right. Onwards and upwards, gang!” Sam called, this being a fun adventure to him.

Once they got deeper into the woods, Tara stopped.

“Wait here.”

“Tara—“ Daniel protested.

“I’ll be RIGHT back. Pinky swear.” Tara held out her pinky, holding up her other hand to show she wasn’t crossing her fingers.

Daniel sighed heavily, crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.

Tara went deeper into the woods, intent and with purpose.

Crack.

Tara looked around and noticed a snapped branch.

“Sam?”

Crunch.

“Gabby?”

Footfalls.

“Daniel?”

The footfalls drew closer.

“I told you to stay at the—“

Suddenly Tara felt a breath on the back of her neck. A low growl made her turn around.

That monster. From her dreams and her time in the black. There it was, clear as day. It looked like a person except instead of a face, it had some kind of crude looking flower. Was this some kind of carnivorous plant that had mutated?

Tara backed up. Her breathing was heavy and her vision blurred. She yelped out when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Nancy? Jonathan?”

“Tara, what are you doing here?” Jonathan asked.

“I could ask you the very same thing.” Tara retorted, crossing her arms as she glanced back.

It was gone. Whatever it was.

“Tara, go home,” Nancy said flatly.

“No.”

“No? Tara, this place is dangerous!”

“Exactly, so YOU go home! I can handle this!”

“Look, Tara, I don’t know what you think ‘this’ is, but it’s WAY out of your league—“

“No, Jonathan. You don’t know the first thing about La Llorona. I have the blessing of the Patron Saint Guadalupe! This whole thing is out of YOUR league. Not mine.”

“Who the hell is La Llorona?”

“None of your business! That’s who!”

“Tara, will you just listen to me for once in your life? You never listen to me! You never listen to your brother! You just shut down in the face of authority! Just go the hell home! For crying out loud!”

Tara scowled at Jonathan as she wiped his spit from her face. “Say it. Don’t spray it. Jerk.”

“Go! Get lost!”

Tara turned around to walk away.

“You didn’t have to yell at her,” she overheard Nancy say quietly.

Back where Sam, Gabby and Daniel were waiting, the party heard some very distinct animalistic growling.

“What was that?” Gabby asked, panicked.

“Could have been any number of things,” Sam said, clutching his candle. “We ARE in the middle of the woods after all.”

The aforementioned candle, just then, blew out.

“Oh shit…” Daniel remarked.

“Not a problem!” Sam exclaimed. “I’ll just light it again,” he said sifting through his pocket for the lighter.

“Tara!” Daniel called, a hint of worry in his voice.

“I told you I was coming right back, didn’t I?”

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief.

“I think that’s enough excitement for tonight. Let’s pick this up again tomorrow when it’s light out,” Gabby said.

“What do you mean ‘pick this up tomorrow’?” Tara protested. “La Llorona could drown every kid in town by then!”

“Vengeful spirits need their sleep, too, chica,” Sam said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere until I find her,” Tara said crossing her arms.

“Okay, how about a compromise,” Sam started. “We’ll walk down to lover’s lake, and if we don’t find La Llorona there, we table this until tomorrow—“

Before Sam could properly finish his thought, something dragged him away.

“Sam!” Gabby cried out.

“What the hell was that?” Daniel asked.

Gabby looked around for her beloved before she, too, was dragged off into the abyss.

“Gabby!” Tara cried out.

Tara and Daniel engaged in a tug of war with the eldritch assailant in an attempt to save their cousin. Unfortunately, the darkness proved stronger and dragged Gabby into the opening.

“This is bad! This is so bad!” Daniel panicked.

Tara inspected the opening in which Sam and Gabby were abducted.

“I have to go after them!”

“WHAT?”

“We can’t just leave them!”

“Tara, this is way out of our league! I think we should just call—“

Tara practically leapt through the hole to the other side.

“Goddamn it! Why the hell does nobody ever listen to me?”

Daniel’s ranting had attracted the attention of Nancy and Jonathan.

“Daniel? What are you doing here? I just told Tara to go home!”

“Yeah! She doesn’t listen! Big fucking shocker! You know what, Nancy? Fuck you! Fuck you, bitch! Fuck you!”

Daniel jumped into the entrance to the other side.

It was dark, cold and the air smelled like rotting meat, causing Daniel to hack and cough.

“What the hell is this place?”

Daniel looked around. “Tara! Gabby! Sam!”

“We can’t just leave them!” Nancy declared on the other side.

“Yeah no shit!” Jonathan agreed, frantically loading the pistol in his hand.

Nancy wasn’t going to wait around for that. She immediately went straight for the hole, but by the time she got to it, it was gone.

“What? No! It was right there! It was right there!” Nancy said, frantically pounding on the tree. “Tara! TARA!”

“Nancy, stop!” Jonathan said, pulling Nancy away. “We can’t help them anymore! We’re cut off! We have to come back tomorrow!”

“I told her to go home!” Nancy sobbed.

“I know! It’s okay, Nancy! We’ll get them back!” Jonathan said, not in any state of mind to console her.

“TARA!”

[curioussubjects]

Y’all ngl I haven’t gotten around to watching Sacrifice yet because I simply lack the emotional structure for all that pilots tomfoolery (also as as a Kara stan it’s straight up not a good time, especially once s3 kicks in).

So, instead of watching, I did THIS: a timeline! it’s mostly WILD SPECULATION because of the timeline discontinuity issue with season 2, but I think it overall makes sense? Kinda helps put stuff in perspective, at least.

Many thanks to the wiki for having its own timeline compiled, so all I really had to do was try to fill in the gaps for science. 

THAT SAID: I didn’t add much pre-mini stuff because by all accounts it doesn’t make sense, especially how familiar Kara and Lee are with each other if they’d only had spent a weekend together or so (as the story bible establishes) -- how is it familiar that Lee finds her in the brig during the mini? we-just-don’t-know.gif. 

Dates and episode titles between brackets indicate that the information is purely speculative and based on extrapolation. 

Second thing: this timeline is centered on pilots generally because I wanted a better sense of the time frame I was working with for fix-it fic purposes. As such, this timeline also doesn’t go past the events of Maelstrom. 

Under cut for length.

Mini & Season 1

Zak’s funeral: -2 years (last time Kara and Lee see each other before Mini) Kara is reassigned to Galactica: -2 years Mini: 0-2 Colonial Day party: 49 Kara jumps to Caprica: 51

Season 2

Kara & Sam meet: 53 The Farm: 61-62 Astral Queen reunion: 62 Flight of the Phoenix:

Start: 84

End: [~160]

Pegasus & The Resurrection Ship: 

Start: [170]

End: 176-177 (Lee’s spacewalk)

Black Market:

[Start: ~178 

End: 210?]

(start date would make sense for flashbacks with Shevon based on Lee’s mental state and relationship with Dee)

Epiphanies: 189

Scar:

[Start: ~190

End: ~218]

(28 days of a mining operation, present day starts during day 28, assumed to star soon after Epiphanies because why not)

Sacrifice:

[Start: 225

End: 226]

(probably close after Scar based on the progression of Lee and Dee’s relationship) 

The Captain’s Hand: [~230] 

(likely that the Pegasus wouldn’t be without a commander too long after the events of Black Market, and Baltar’s population trends calculation timeframe -- see The Captain’s Hand entry)

Razor:

[Start: 231

End: ~250]

(start date based on when Lee assumes command of Pegasus, and end date is a rough estimate on when it would make sense for Kara to be transferred back to Galactica and plan the resistance rescue mission) 

Resistance Rescue Mission Brief: 269 Kara & co. jump to Caprica: 270 (New Caprica planet found) Kara & co. jump to Galactica: 282

Season 3

New Caprica settlement start:  ~300 Unfinished Business flashbacks: 420/421 Cylon Invasion: 660 (fleet jumps away) Kara’s kidnapping: [678] (counting back 4 months from when exodus starts) Contact with fleet established: 795 Kara and Kacey meet: 796 Galactica returns to New Caprica: 797 Exodus from New Caprica: 798-80

Torn: 850 Unfinished Business: 950

[Lee and Kara’s affair start: choose your own adventure]

[Food stores contaminated: ~960?] (based on how low food stores are when algae planet is found)

The Passage: [1020] (based on how low food stores are when algae planet is found)

The Eye of Jupiter & Rapture: 

Start: [1023- algae harvest start] (operation set up estimate)

End: 1038 (Mandala shows back up in Temple of Five)

(note: 49 days between Rapture and A Day in the Life)

Taking a Break from All Your Worries: [at least 1059]  (no earlier than ~3wks, so Kara’s burns heal fully, unlikely much longer than that because of how long it would take for Kara to confront Lee over his avoidance of her)

The Woman King: [~1080 ]  (likely not long after TaBfAYW or before ADitL due to Baltar’s trial proceedings)

A Day in the Life: 1087  (49 days after Rapture)

Dirty Hands: [1108]  (several weeks after Baltar gets a lawyer, so ~3weeks?)

Maelstrom: 

[Start: 1115

End:  1118]

(day 4 of refueling operations, fuel complications during Dirty Hands, ~1 week? + date range would roughly mark ~6 months since the boxing match in Unfinished Business and that’s nice) ------

Some much to think about (approximate) time lapses:

Mini - Maelstrom: 3 years and 3 weeks

Mini - Home: 2 months and 2 days

KLG - Home: 11 days

Home - Scar: 5 months and 5 days

Unfinished Business - The Eye of Jupiter: 3 months

Scar - UB flashbacks: 6 months and 23 days

UB flashbacks - Cylon Invasion: 8 months

TaBfAYW - (end of) Maelstrom:  2 months

[cherryusa]

Welcome back to town, Sleuth! Hope you enjoy your stay… Because you’re never going home!

THE SLEUTH:

THEODORE “TED” LEWIS DACRE MONTGOMERY, PLAYED BY HERMAN

“SO, HOW WELL DID YOU KNOW LUX LEWIS? AND, LIKE, BE TOTALLY HONEST… ARE YOU GLAD SHE’S GONE?”

Ted blinked in shock. He knew Cherry was prone to ridiculousness, but he figured the journalists would work to call it out instead of playing into it. At the very least, he hoped they’d be researched enough that he could get some info out of them. “Well...she was literally my cousin. So I’m definitely not glad she’s gone.” He said bluntly, staring at Clarissa like she was out of her mind. He recalled the call from his uncle, how messy the whole situation quickly became. News from Cherry just got worse and worse week by week. “I actually wish I knew Lux better than I did. Our families live so far away and we were pretty different growing up. Not a lot of fuel for some deep cousin connection or anything. That’s why I’m excited to meet her friends! I want to see the side of Lux y’all Cherriots got.” He chimed. It wasn’t a complete lie. In finding out what those people thought of Lux, he knew he could slowly but surely piece together the truth.

“WHAT ARE YOU PARENTS LIKE? DO YOU, LIKE, THINK YOU’RE ANYTHING LIKE THEM, OR DO YOU HAVE TOTAL MOMMY AND DADDY ISSUES?”

He blew a raspberry. His parents are objectively terrible. Emotionally distant but constantly meddling with the trajectory of his life. “I mean...my uncle and aunt are still grieving. This is my second time visiting since Lux died. They didn’t even make it to the funeral.” He explained. It was all too familiar to Ted by this point. They probably wouldn’t even show up to their own son’s memorial if it wasn’t going to make them money. Bottom-lines and appearances seemed to be their main worry most of the time. He tilted his head as he glanced toward Clarissa, flirtatiously. “Are you into guys with mommy issues or what?” He asked. Clarissa’s disgusted glare told him everything he needed to know. He lifted his hands in defeat and laughed. “In all seriousness, I respect my parents. They’re hardworkers and I’m getting my education because of it. But I’ll be damned if I end up anything like 'em.”

“YOU CAN BE HONEST WITH ME… WHO DO YOU THINK MURDERED LUX?”

Ted squinted at Clarissa. “Do y’all really consider that up for debate?” He inquired, leaning forward. “Don’t get me wrong...I wanted nothing more than to believe that someone did this to Lux...” He paused. He didn’t just want to believe it. He had empirical evidence at this point. Someone in this town was hiding something, and the worst part is that it was someone close to his cousin. When he did narrow it down, it would be too late for accusations. Ted backed himself that much. He planned to root out who was at fault before the trees even began to redden. “As hard as it is to admit. We have to accept that Lux was going through more than any of us knew about. All of that energy speculating on who fucking dunnit should be put towards something else. Like iunno...maybe supporting her loved ones instead of interrogating and ostracizing them all the damn time. I don’t have my certifications or anything yet, but I’ve studied enough to know that none of those kids are okay after some shit like that. Y’all could have a lot more dead kids on your hands.” He spoke, gesticulating with his hands all the while. In reality, Ted knew one thing. When he found out which one of those bastards were responsible for pulling a wool over this town’s eyes...a premature death will be the least of their worries.

SOLVING THE CASE OF LUX LEWIS - A TED LEWIS INITIATIVE

aka Ted had been using Lux’s high school yearbook and annotating pictures of the gang with sticky notes, because he’s fucking crazy passionate

Step One: RORY

From what I’ve heard, Rory is friends with Noah and Zev. That’s really unfortunate. She’s mighty pretty and definitely undeserving of whatever backstabbing is coming her way from those nerds.

I’ve listened to those damn tapes back to back...and nothing suggests that Rory has a hand in this. I think she’s my best bet in forming a real connection. Who knows, maybe down the line we’ll get to take down Lux’s killer together. She seems like a smart enough lady.

One more time for good measure: she’s a fucking rocket.

Step Two: ELAINE

If things don’t work out with Rory, Elaine’s my next target. She was pretty buddy buddy with Lux if I remember correctly. And she wasn’t in town when Lux died. Good things.

She’s a fucking rocket too.

Honestly...Lux has some really attractive friends.

Focus, idiot!

There’s the whole lady on lady thing between her and Lux. That’s a fucking bummer, to be honest. I obviously can’t confront her about it...it’d completely blow my cover. But I think if I insert myself into her life, I could get her to lean on me. Definitely a long-con...but not really because she does actually look like someone who could use a good friend.

Step Three: NOAH

This smug son of a bitch is gonna be a hard nut to crack. The tapes said something about him being a little bit of an outsider? So probably on the quiet shy side? Those are the mofos with the most to hide.

Since coming to town I keep hearing confirmation about what was said on the tapes. Some photo of him and Lux the night she passed? I have lots of reasons at this point to believe Noah had something to do with what happened to Lux that night.

He’s like a writing nerd or something? I’ve gone to school with that type of kid. I’ll just plan a meetcute where I walk past him in public and drop my “signed” copy of The Giver. Make some conversation about our favorite writers. Invite him to look over some of those stupid stories I wrote for non-fiction and get as much information as I can out of him.

If he really did kill Lux...I’m gonna have to really lay this whole “Southern Gentleman Ted” act on him real thick. But I got this.

[lovecolibri]

maria’s jacket was absolutely ridiculous and atrocious. and while i’m here complaining, i don’t hate max or really even dislike him, and i’m very happy for liz/max but wtf was that “guerin, we need to help the woman i love” line or whatever he said (ik it was something more complicated than that LMAO) like??? i’m sorry but i laughed out loud. you can’t call her liz? aren’t y’all in a hurry or?? and since when has max called michael guerin literally EVER? i’ve seen people saying they might’ve shot it with tyler there the first time and then when they reshot he wasn’t there and honestly that would make more sense than whatever tf that scene was 😭😭😭 like it just felt weird and ridiculous. are we supposed to believe alex opted not to come with kyle/max after literally tasing jones and just wanted his friends and the love of his life/person he would “burn the WORLD down for” to fend for themselves??? WHAT!!! the more i think about it, the more my brain hurts. (also why tf was michael MINING turquoise and yelling at max a couple minutes after m-ria literally stapled his huge stab wound. the jokes write themselves at this point)

I really liked Echo at the beginning like, a LOT, but NGL the Malex love story is so much more compelling to me and while I don't dislike Echo and I'm happy they got together, it's definitely not grabbing me like it did at the start of season 1. But yeah that line was...weird. Like, if they are going to only have two writers at a time working on only their script, they for sure need a 3rd person to look over everything and catch these weird name things. Max does NOT call Michael "Guerin" and neither does Michael call Alex "Manes" and we are on season 3 so this really shouldn't be that hard to remember or keep track of. IDK about Tyler being there originally but I think the re-shoot was only about the scene Liz shot Jones because they had her shoot the wrong one (which, the real "good" Max was in white, Jones in black sooooo, not sure how everyone mixed that up, but 🤷‍♀️), so I don't think the ring of fire scene would need to be re-done unless they had the wrong "Max" (incorrect costume) the whole time and had to re-shoot multiple scenes.

But I'm for sure with you on the more I think about it, the more my brain hurts. It's a shame because I think the major issue with the finale is it was too much happening all in one day or so (with ZERO accounting for travel time BTW. How did Jones leave Michael passed out in the junkyard for who knows how long, had him rescued, patched up, and THEN leave for Deep Sky and yet Michael arrives at the same time as Jones and already has the machine?!), without giving anyone or anything time to breathe. That plot would have worked much better spread out over like, 5 episodes to give us time to sit with things, to allow time to pass and experiments to happen in the background while our characters talked to each other, and allowed us to see some of those missing scenes and get some missing info. But sure glad we made time for all those vision episodes at the beginning that they want me to believe was actually Kyle's funeral and that Alex and Liz would actually be like that in the face of Kyle's death and that they would even bother trying to cover up a totally human murder by a totally human murderer under totally normal human circumstances. I mean, where would the season be without that plot? 🙃🙃🙃

[theworldinclines]

out of the gate i’ll tell y’all that this concept has massive plot holes bc i simply can’t put all the dots together in my head, but bc it’s been rotting my brain for like two days i figured i’d tell y’all anyway dfhgkjghdkflj is there a reason i cant get it to make sense?? ya bc its bullshit BUT i love it hdfkjghldkj so !!!!!!!! and admittedly this has hardly anything to back it up so i’ll do what i can to outline what i’ve seen that i feel adds even a tiny bit to this theory hdhglkjd

you can blame this entire thing on p’aof saying that the reason they didn’t tell anyone about torfun’s death is a “must-see” sdjkdhhkldj

the biggest conspiracy theory of all: torfun ISN’T dead.

1. torfun’s death was as big of a scam as we all thought, but not because her death was purposeful.

i’ve been thinking that the accident wasn’t an accident, and that tian’s parents either purposely hit her or allowed her to die in hospital in order to get her heart. the latter makes more sense bc by then they’d be able to find out her private info (blood type etc) from the doctors that they’re such good friends with. but with the conspiracy that im discussing, i propose that torfun isn’t even dead to begin with. i dont buy anyone is dead until i see the body on a slab and even then im not likely to believe it dfhgjkfghlghkdj

the issue with this of course is that tian dreams of her (and phu) in hospital and we assume it’s because of having her heart. i don’t have an explanation for that, nor do i have one for tian seeing her face in the window the other time, but the idea that she’s still alive is essential to my next points.

what’s strange to me is that torfun’s aunt is like not necessary?? but one of her two scenes was on the phone yelling at torfun about not having money, to which torfun asks if she’s just going to blow it on gambling. THAT’S fascinating, because in my mind, i can see torfun being hit by the car and not dying, but rather being able to have her bills etc paid off by tian’s parents and (stay with me) uses the money they pay her off with to move somewhere else to get away from her shitty family. witness protection babey! far fetched? of course. but what else do u expect from me

2. phupha running into tian in bangkok.

now this has so far not been explained. in ep1, tian walks past phupha at the hotel or whatever it was where he was attending an event with tian’s parents. we can assume the event was full of people like tian’s parents aka wealthy, influential, and can basically do whatever they want bc of that. phupha is dressed nicely, and he almost seems like he’s not in too good a mood. by the direction he’s walking (toward tian) and the fact that tian was walking toward the party (and phu) just then, i want to say for a second that phupha in fact was at the event that tian was attending too.

if phupha was there, we have to ask why. he has no place among those people, UNLESS he is doing business of some kind with them. what if that business was either following up or being told that torfun isn’t dead after all?

3. phupha knows she isn’t dead.

i can only speak for funerals in the u.s., but most happen within the month of a person’s death. with that in mind, i will say that at the funeral phupha still believes torfun is dead for real. he expresses annoyance toward the fact that “everything can be settled with money,” which not only is a reference to his dislike for unnecessary extravagance (the way he was raised vs. the way tian was raised) but also implies that torfun’s family was paid off bc of the accident. he says also "i’ll never forgive the person who did this to her.” this all says to me that he thinks she’s dead. that means that some time after the funeral, he is for some reason informed that torfun is actually alive. he isn’t let in on the details, which are they faked documents saying that she donated her heart to make it all more believable that she’s dead. again, no idea why this would he’d be let in on any of this at all but shhh

so they don’t want to tell the villagers immediately bc it’s so new. but phupha finds out that she’s not dead after all, so when the rangers ask to tell the villagers after a couple weeks have passed, phu says that there’s no rush. like she’s dead and that won’t change lol ANYWAYS so they keep her ‘death’ a secret.

(side-note: one of the other things that majorly confuses me is the fact that, because phupha doesn’t tell the villagers about torfun’s death, none of them are able to go to the funeral. and i think thats bullshit. they all love her and its so obvious, and they didn’t even get to mourn at her funeral? why?? because he didnt want to make them sad?? bye)

now this is my favourite part of this theory (aside from torfun being alive bless) because it affects so many aspects of what we’ve seen on screen. any time torfun is mentioned, phupha becomes uncomfortable. because we as the audience believe her to be dead, we read his reactions as the grief at losing someone he cared for, on top of the secret he’s keeping about the death.

but WHAT IF it isn’t grief, is instead the discomfort that comes with hiding a big secret that you don’t want others to know. they ask where torfun is and he acts totally unsubtle every time lmaoo. on the cliff, when he asks tian’s relationship to torfun and why he has her badge, i can see that moment as phupha almost hoping that tian knows the truth, because that would mean he has someone he can confide in about all of it. so when tian says that he only found the badge in the cabin and doesn’t have a connection to torfun, phupha looks DISAPPOINTED. rewatch it and tell me he doesn’t look disappointed. he adjusts himself, accepting tian’s explanation, but he wanted it to be something else. he asks tian again in ep7 about their connection and “is there something you want to tell me” like bitch thats rich coming from u but he needs to sus out what tian knows before he can expose torfun ugh the drama

4. dr nam knows too.

i think phupha told at least nam about torfun escaping her life because nam usually refers to torfun in present tense and he mentions her so casually to tian and others considering she’s supposed to have been hit by an entire vehicle and dead ass. his behaviour in episode 7 really threw me off, but when i considered it in tandem with this theory, it made more sense.

he knows that torfun’s ‘death’ was paid off by teerayuth sophaditsakul, and once he finds out tian’s surname is the same, he connects the dots that tian is actually related to him. with this information, nam is upset bc he knows the damage teerayuth caused and is afraid for phupha to get caught back up with that family, which is why he doesn’t talk first with tian. (he starts to, then stops. inchresting)

it’s also interesting bc at the end when nam allegedly tells phu over walkie talkie, we don’t have audio there. we only can assume it’s nam talking and exposing tian bc phu’s face drops. if phupha knows torfun isn’t dead, yet the son of the man who paid her off supposedly has her heart..??? what the hell?? he’d be mad confused! and imagine episode 8 when tian stands up and is like I KILLED HER. HER HEART IS IN ME. phupha’s gonna be like what in the GOD damn hell is happening here; bc last he knew torfun is alive, and tian is taking the blame for something that is in no way the truth.

look okay........this doesn’t make sense. it isn’t coherent and the holes are obvious. don’t bully me about it. all i can say is i want torfun to be alive so bad dhjkghglhdkgjd and it would solve literally every problem in the show esp phu and tian’s relationship so i regret none of this PEACE

[pedros-mustache-main]

i want your last name

summary: it’s only a year...

word count: 16k+ (holy crap i’m sorry)

warnings: idiot-strangers to lovers, suggestive moments (not 18+ but be mindful), frightening situations & suspense, alcohol consumption and drunkenness, language, innuendo, timeline inaccuracies

a/n: please bear with me as this is my first time writing rog and i’m relatively unsure about it. anyway, have a vaguely spooky fic just in time for halloween! xoxo! also: big thank you to @ineloqueent​ for helping with this fic! y’all, she literally held my hand and walked me through every paragraph what a saint

january, 1982.

“you’re off your rocker if you think i’m going to go through with this, jim.”

from his place on the couch, john snorts. “what? afraid she won’t be pretty enough for you, rog?”

roger levels john an uncharacteristically dark look, jabbing his finger through the air like a knight brandishing his sword or a cowboy his gun. “watch your mouth, deacon.” john holds his hands upwards in surrender, and roger returns his piercing gaze to jim. “i’m not getting married. that’s absolutely out of the question.”

long-suffering band manger and unofficial rockstar wrangler, jim beach drops his face to his hands with a harsh groan. roger cringes in his seat, shifting uncomfortably. he knows what this is about; they all know what this is about.

the end-of-tour party in montreal.

god, he’d gotten so wasted. even now, two months later, he can barely remember that night.

brian, ever the diplomatic, is the first to break the tense silence. he leans forward from his place on the couch beside john and offers roger his most sympathetic look. it does nothing to ease the growing knot of dread in roger’s stomach. “maybe we should leave you and jim to talk, rog.”

jim lifts his head. “i think that might be best, yes.”

roger huffs and falls slack against his chair. he drops his head back, and the ceiling turns topsy-turvy. if jim and the rest of management get their way, his life is bound to feel the same: flipped upside down, all that he knows turned on its head.

john squeezes roger’s shoulder as he slides by, a silent expression of solidarity, but it doesn’t feel like much. john’s got a wife, a parcel of kids. he’s happy at home. roger—he’s never been that way, never seen the point in all the domestics. he isn’t about to join the bloody women’s institute just because a little fun upset a few highbrow jackasses who can’t tell a party from a funeral.

the door to jim’s office shuts with a soft click, and roger imagines the lid of his coffin closing with the same resolute noise. he sits up and runs a hand through his hair. from behind his tinted shades, jim stares across the expanse of his desk. he drums his fingers, worrying his lower lip. roger’s nose twitches to the side. jim isn’t playing around. the proposal typed and printed in the manila folder under jim’s hand is serious, deadly so.

roger removes his sunglasses.

“it was just a party, jim.”

there’s a heavy beat of silence. jim blinks once. “roger, you went streaking through a group of nuns and priests.”

roger squeezes his eyes shut against the words, thankful, for once, that he has no memory of the event. “did i?” he lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck. “honestly couldn’t tell you what i did or didn’t do that night.”

“you did.” jim opens the manila folder and reads from a crumbled newspaper article. “queen’s roger taylor bared all this evening after the explosive conclusion to the game tour, filmed before thousands in montreal’s biggest arena. in a rare display of vulnerability, taylor stripped naked and exposed himself in the hotel lobby where queen resided. he stood on a table and beat his chest like a wild gorilla, chanting about the success of the evening’s filmed concert. lookers-on included none other than a group of nuns and priests recently arrived to canada on special assignment from the vatican. john deacon, bassist for queen, could also be seen laughing in the background.”

jim’s hand thumps against the desk as he drops the article, his stare decidedly unimpressed. “do you have anything to say for yourself?”

running his tongue over his teeth, roger hesitates. not his best moment, he would give jim that. but if he remembers anything about that party, it’s that he wasn’t the only sinner present that evening. john had gotten into his fair share of antics; crystal, too. it seems arbitrary that he should be the one singled out for punishment—and with a strange, archaic, probably-unethical punishment at that.

he shrugs, tossing his hands up in defeat. “i’m not going to be able to say what you want me to say. it was just a party. it got a little out of control. that’s all. i’m sorry if i gave the nuns a little show. i’ll—i dunno—write a letter if you want me to.”

jim scoffs. “write a letter if you think it’ll make me feel better—which it won’t—but that’s not the issue here.”

“then what is the issue? and where the hell does marriage come into it? because i’m not seeing the connection.”

jim sighs. his desk chair creaks as he leans back. taking off his glasses, he pinches the bridge of his nose before meeting roger’s eyes again. “this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, rog. remember new orleans?”

roger holds up an accusatory finger. “you were in new orleans too, jim, so you can’t attack me on that front.”

jim leans forward, his glasses between his hands. he runs his finger back and forth across the top of the frames. “i’ll be blunt. some other people in the office think you’re becoming too—how shall i say it?—explicit for the band. you’re not twenty any more, and raucous parties don’t fit queen’s image. they’re concerned that if more incidents like this hit the press, there will be a drop in sales or concert attendance because nice, suburban families don’t want to go to a concert with a drummer who flashes nuns. do you get what i’m saying?”

roger itches his temple and pushes against the sudden pain behind his left eye. “yeah. yeah, i do.”

“the marriage thing—that was barnaby potter’s idea. if you have beef with it, take it up with him.”

it’s roger’s turn to scoff. he throws his head back on the sound and curls his hands against the cool wooden arms of his chair. when he looks back at jim, he is surprised to see the older man rifling through a filing cabinet in the corner, his back turned.

roger surges forward with his ire anyway. “of course i have beef with it! slap my ass and scold me, sure, but hitch me to a woman i don’t even know for publicity? you’ve got to be joking.”

“personally, i think it’s an idea that will work if you give it a chance.” jim returns to chair and hands roger a sealed packet. “we’ve already got it all lined up, picked the lass and everything. it’s just for a year or so, until the tabloids calm down. then you can get divorced and go your separate ways.”

“wait, hold on—you picked her? without telling me? before even approaching me with the idea?”

“roger—” jim’s tone borders on a warning, but roger ignores his better judgement and cuts the other man off.

“you won’t even give me the option to choose the woman i have to shack up with? god, jim, i’m getting fuckin’ railroaded here!”

jim clenches his jaw. “i’m sure it feels that way, and i’m sorry for that. but it’s this—well, to be frank, it’s this or you’re out. the montreal party was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.”

roger can’t be sure but he thinks he sees red. never in his life has he so badly wanted to wring someone’s neck. it takes every fiber of his being, every molecule in his body, to keep from lunging across the room and tackling jim to the floor. he bites his tongue hard enough to draw a thin line of blood. it coats his mouth in a metallic taste, but it’s nothing compared to the rage boiling in his stomach.

still, he knows what his answer must be. it’s this—a sham marriage, a year of hell—or losing the life he’s worked so hard to build.

he rips the envelope from jim’s hand as roughly as he can when he stands from his chair. he hopes he gave the man a papercut.

“i’ll do it, you bastard,” he mutters. “but i damn well won’t be happy about it.”

“you look beautiful, [y/n].”

with a playful roll of your eyes, you offer ivy a smile. “thanks, love, but you and i both know this is just part of the job.”

ivy laughs and steps closer to adjust the puffed sleeves of your dress. “it might be a job, but damn, if it isn’t a comfortable one. i just about fell out of my seat when you told me you were quitting the agency to marry roger fucking taylor.”

you slide ivy a bemused smirk in the reflection of the long, oval mirror before you. “we’re not really getting married, ivy. you know that, right?”

ivy frowns and jabs her thumb over her shoulder, confusion awash on her round face. “unless i’m mistaken, we’re at a church, you’re in a wedding dress, roger taylor is the groom, and there’s a priest waiting for you right outside. did you read the memo wrong or something? feels like a wedding to me.”

sighing, you turn away from the mirror and reach for your bouquet of flowers. the white roses interspersed with springs of green leaves smell sweet, their stems tied together with a long white ribbon. you adjust one of the wayward petals then sit on the edge of a cushioned chair to slip on your heels. ivy leans against the door, her arms crossed over her chest.

“are you happy?” she asks, her voice soft.

you look up and pause. the heel of your white mary janes squeezes around your achilles’ tendon, and you wince as you shove your foot into the shoe. “what do you mean—am i happy?”

“i dunno.” ivy shrugs. she picks at an invisible piece of lint on the shoulder of her blue bridesmaid gown. “when we were kids, you always used to talk about your wedding day. now it’s here and—”

“ivy.” you rise from the chair and cross the floor to grab her arm. when you speak, you keep your tone firm and stare into her wide, brown eyes. “i’m doing this for the money and nothing else. it’s not a big deal. i don’t even consider today my wedding day. when roger and i get divorced i’ll find some other chap and make my childhood dreams come true, but that’s not today, and i’m okay with it. so yes, i am happy. this is what i want.”

ivy doesn’t appear convinced what with the way she continues to gnaw at her lower lip and shift her concerned look about your face. but she relents when someone knocks on the door, moving to allow you to grab the doorknob.

“wait, [y/n].” you turn at the door, eyebrows lifted in expectation. “how much are you getting paid?”

you press your pointer finger to your lips. “handsomely,” you whisper, dipping your head as though you are about to spill a secret. ivy leans in. her eyes sparkle with interest, and you inwardly smirk. she’s always been a sucker for drama and intrigue, your cousin. “but,” you continue. “that’s for me to know and you not to know.”

before ivy can respond, you pull open the door to see none other than your future husband waiting for you in the vestibule of the chapel.

he stands poised to flee the premises. he’s half-turned toward the closed chapel door, his hands worrying before his waist, his gaze hinged on the flurry of life outside the chapel, visible through the windows on either side of the door. you realize he’s fiddling with an unlit cigarette, not merely rubbing his hands together in an external sign of nervousness. you can’t make out whether or not his eyes are wild with fear or anger or some other emotion; the black tint of his sunglasses obscures the majority of his eyes. he’s handsome in his suit, but, then again, he’s roger taylor. you would be surprised to find a time in which he isn’t handsome.

when you clear your throat, his head whips to face you, and his fingers stop fidgeting. “sorry,” he mutters. “i was just—” he rubs a hand across the back of his neck and sighs. “they’re ready for you.”

“okay.” you nod with a smile and hope the gesture will ease whatever consternation plagues him. “i’ll be up in a moment.”

“right.” he nods once.

from behind his shades, you see his eyes trail from the top of your head to the soles of your shoes. it’s not sexual, not lewd; he’s just inspecting you, and you don’t blame him. who are you to him other than the model pulled out of a catalog, prepared and willing to be his wife until his time served is complete? you’ve spoken only once before this moment, and that phone-call was terse at best. roger made it perfectly clear his opinions on the arrangement, and he wanted to be sure—no, he needed to be sure—you understood his feelings on the matter. you assured him you had heard him loud and clear; your ear had rung for the next hour if only to remind you of his extreme distaste.

“roger,” you say, pulling his attention back from wherever his mind has drifted off to, his stare gone vacant but hardly serene.

his eyelashes flutter as he struggles to focus. “hm?”

“i said i’ll be up in a moment. you can go in now.”

he nods again, this time his chin smacking his collarbone in his urgency. he rubs his jaw, mutters something unintelligible beneath his breath, and turns on his heel, slipping back into the chapel sanctuary with heavy footfalls. your brows rise on your forehead in the wake of his exit. ivy hovers behind your shoulder.

“that’s him?” she squeaks. “that’s roger taylor?”

“yes.” your mouth twists in pity. “poor dear. he really doesn’t want this.” after waiting the appropriate amount of time to be sure roger has made his way to the front of the church, you step towards the entryway, but not before you can ask ivy one last question. “do i look okay? the pictures taken today are bound to be published in the papers.”

ivy chuckles and shakes her head as she lightly pushes your shoulder. “you look gorgeous and you know it. now go get married to a rockstar, you lucky bitch.”

the actual wedding ceremony itself is a formality. truly, it cannot be called a ceremony. there’s no wedding march, no attendees gently dabbing their tear-filled eyes, no heartfelt vows or kiss to signal the joining of two souls. instead, there’s you and there’s roger and there’s a red-faced, balding priest who points to the solid lines on which you must affix your signature to make the marriage certificate valid. roger signs first, and his knuckles are white against the ballpoint pen. you sign second, and the pen feels overly-warm against your cool palms. the priest blesses you with a sign of the cross and promises the certificate will be notarized and sent to your home address within the week.

then it’s done. you’re married. you feel largely the same as you did this morning. if it weren’t for the giant rock on your ring finger and the recent transfer of seventy-five-thousand pounds into your bank account, you might wonder if this was all a product of your over-active imagination, run away with a plot stolen from a b-list film.

the most vital part of the day, the reason you’re here and dressed in a gown with your hair crimped and nails painted, comes right after the priest scurries away to tend to his more important duties. jim beach stands from his place in one of the pews and ushers a photographer forward. he points between you and roger.

“all right, get snug, you two.” jim chews on a large wad of gum, and his words are slurred with an excess of saliva. “just a few pictures and then we’ll go eat. we all know that’s the only reason john showed up today.”

lounged against a pew, john raises his finger in agreement, and his wife elbows him in the chest. he sputters, doubling over in pain, while freddie laughs in amusement. beside you, roger watches the interaction with a back as straight as the pew benches, his jaw tight. you push your arm around his elbow and tug lightly. he inhales before turning to meet your eyes.

“what?” his voice is not cruel or unkind; it’s just tired.

“try and look happy, yeah?” you say, offering him a gentle smile similar to the one you’d given him in the vestibule. it’s the only thing you have to give him other than your hand in marriage and a chance to salvage his reputation; yet, again, it does not alleviate the tension pinching his brow. “the faster we smile the faster we can eat.”

roger shifts, as though he wants to pull away from you, but knows he shouldn’t. his feet dance back and forth on the carpeted stairs leading to the sanctuary state. “i should be telling you to try and look happy. this is just as much an inconvenience for you.”

you shake your head with a chuckle. “hardly. i make my living pretending to be happy, or moody, or sultry. whatever the director wants. i’m a pro at this. and besides,” you add. “it’s my job to make you look good. though, to be honest, that’s not very hard. you look good all on your own.”

roger sniffs and rubs the underside of his nose. he ignores your compliment and keeps his eyes trained on the photographer setting up his equipment at the base of the stairs. “maybe i could use some tips…”

he’s being glib but you take the opportunity to try and break the ice—the rock solid, absolutely frigid, polar ice-cap style ice—between you both. holding up a finger to the photographer, you slide to stand in front of roger. he’s taller than you, not by much, but enough that you have to tilt your head slightly to maintain eye-contact. his blue eyes very much resemble the ice with which he’s surrounded himself. you can feel the chill on his shoulders, even as you smooth the wrinkles on his tailored dress-shirt.

“whenever i have to fake a smile,” you say, adjusting his thin tie. “i always think about the thing that makes me happiest.” he doesn’t ask you to expand, but you do anyway. “for me, it’s when my cousin ivy moved in with my mother and me. i was seven and she was six and it’s been one giant slumber party ever since.”

“is that your cousin?” roger’s eyes flick to the girl sitting across the aisle from the band and management. ivy has her hands beneath her thighs, her head dipped, her dark black hair covering a curtain over her face.

you nod. “mhmm.”

“she doesn’t look like you.”

you lift an eyebrow. “she’s adopted.”

“right, sorry.” roger exhales deeply, and the weight of the world slips from one of his shoulders to the other, tilting his body in a stiff hunch. “i’m feeling out of sorts today, as you can probably imagine.”

“just think about what makes you happy, roger.” you dare to lift a hand and press it against his cheek. his skin is smooth beneath your fingers. he must have shaved his morning. he looks boyish up close, and you wonder if, like you, he had ever dreamt of what his wedding day might look like. you wonder if, like you, he had given up those dreams to make today a reality.

the photographer takes a picture of your hand against roger’s cheek, and the sudden flash of light has you blinking in surprise. you look over your shoulder, mouth slightly parted and eyelashes fluttering to clear the white spots over your vision.

the photographer just shrugs. “ready now?”

the shrill of a ringing telephone wakes you the morning after the wedding, and you groan, pulled from a heavy slumber by the incessant and high-pitched tone. there’s a dull ache at the base of your skull, and your tongue feels like it’s coated with a fine layer of sand. beside you, a man snores softly, his face pink and eyelashes soft on his cheekbones.

oh yes, that’s right. you’re married to roger taylor, aren’t you? you’d drunk so much at the celebration supper that you’d nearly forgotten. the evening itself is but a hazy memory, but you think you recall freddie imitating a russian style jig atop a table, and phoebe going into great detail about all the fabulous dress-up parties you’ll be expected to attend now.

one thing you can’t remember is how you ended up in roger’s bed, dressed in one of his oversized t-shirts. your hair is still stiff with sticky hairspray, your legs still encased in a pair of nylon tights, and you don’t feel… sated, for lack of a better word. it’s probably safe to assume that you did not sleep with roger; you merely slept beside him. why you didn’t take up residence in his guest room will be the first question out of your mouth once his day starts. 

you might be his wife and he might be your husband, but you don’t want him getting any funny ideas about the nature of your relationship.

this is a job for you. nothing more.

the phone continues ringing and, lest roger wake before he is ready, you move to reach across him for the phone on his bedside table. you speak into the receiver on a whisper, adjusting your fist on the mattress to keep from falling flat on roger’s stomach.

“hello?”

“uh—hi.” there’s a pause, as if the speaker is uncertain how to react to your voice on roger’s line. “is this [y/n]?”

“yes. who is this?”

“it’s brian. we met yesterday.”

you bite your lip to keep from laughing. “yes, i know who you are, brian.”

he chuckles softly. “sorry—i can’t remember much of last evening. it’s probably best i make a second introduction if i can’t recall the first.”

“well then, i’m [y/n] [y/l/n]. [y/n] taylor now, i suppose. pleased to meet you.”

“brian may. the pleasure is all mine. ours, really—me and the guys. what you’re doing is—we appreciate it, truly. you’ve saved the band, in a way.”

“that’s kind of you, brian.” you glance at roger out of the corner of your eye. he hasn’t moved a muscle, and his face is the most serene you’ve ever seen it. saved the band? you doubt it. smoothed a few ruffled feathers? that’s certainly more likely. “it’s no trouble, though. it’s just my job. what was it you called for?”

“roger was supposed to be at the studio an hour ago. we have a recording session today.”

“shit, really?” pressing the receiver to your shoulder, you twist your wrist upwards, but find your watch missing. you scan the unfamiliar room. a digital clock glows red on a built-in bookshelf. “is it really nearly one o’clock?!”

“afraid so.”

“shit, i’m sorry. i only just woke up. yesterday was hectic—to say the very least. i’ll have roger out the door in half an hour.”

“thanks, [y/n]. you’ll find this happens a lot after a night out. but, hey, at least you’re not shouting at me like rog does.”

after passing pleasantries a moment more—brian asks you about ivy, who you are surprised he remembers, and you ask him about his stargazing habits—you reassure brian that roger will be on his way as soon as possible. you drop the receiver on its base with more force than necessary, but the crack of plastic on plastic and the slight ring of the internal bell gets roger moving.

he grunts, twisting his head away from the noise.

you shake his shoulder gently. “wakey wakey, sleeping beauty. the day is already half gone.”

roger yawns as his eyes blink open. he rubs a hand down his face and arches his back like a cat as he stretches. slumping back against his pillows, he stares at you for a moment, his eyes roaming your face.

“are you an angel?”

you laugh at this, and he winces, holding the heel of his hand to his forehead. “no. i’m your wife. are you still drunk?”

“maybe a little.” his eyelashes flutter rapidly as he adjusts to the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. he waves his hand around your head, and you lean back slightly, away from the exposed skin of his chest and striking collarbones. “you look like an angel with the sun all around your head. ‘s like a halo.”

“that’s kind of you.”

he shrugs, shaking his head. “just sayin’.”

“i think you’re still drunk.”

as if to prove your point, he hiccups then falls to his side on the bed. “maybe.” his cheek is pressed firmly against the mattress, smushing half of his face flat. soft, steady breaths filter in and out of his parted lips, and his eyelids begin to grow heavy as he is dragged back to his dream world. he looks more tired child than grown man, but the sight is endearing. still, your current job is getting him out the door and on his way to the studio. you can’t let him be any later than he already is.

“oh no, you don’t.” grabbing his arm, you pull as you slide from the bed. roger resists your strength and moves to push his entire face against the mattress. he mumbles something against the sheets, but you can’t make out the words. “brian already called. you’re late, pretty boy.”

roger rolls over onto his back, and the movement causes you to lose your grip on his wrist. you stumble backwards then plant your hands on your hips.

“come on, roger. you’ve got to get up.”

“i don’t want to. yesterday was shit, and all i want to do is stay in bed.”

with a sigh, you gather your wedding dress from its heap on the floor. you lay it over your forearm and pull open the closet door. “nice to know you thought our wedding day was shit,” you say. 

you mean it only as a joke, but roger sits up fast, swaying slightly with the movement. he catches your eye as you exit the walk-in closet, and you pause, turning the light off slowly, held by his angry stare.

“fuck off,” he says. “i don’t want this. i don’t want you.”

to say his words don’t sting would be a falsehood. no one wants to hear such a thing, least of all from their spouse. the words make your heart clench painfully in your chest, and you wonder what he sees when he looks at you. he doesn’t look at you, though; he cradles his forehead in his hands, his back hunched where he sits on the edge of the bed.

inhaling deeply, you reach up and begin to remove some of the pins lost in your hair. you head for the bedroom door. “well, while you sit and sulk, i’ll pack you a lunch. you’d better shower, though. you reek.”

from your place puttering about the kitchen, you hear the shower start up a few moments later. good—at least he’s moving. you haven’t the foggiest idea where anything is in his kitchen, but you make do with what you can find in the poorly stocked fridge, and pack him a light lunch. you start a pot of coffee, too, and lean against the counter as you wait for the pot to fill.

the ancient coffee pot takes too long, and you can hear roger humming in the shower down the hall. 

your nails tap against the counter. 

you’re antsy, unsure of what to do with yourself now that the wedding is over. how do you be a wife to someone who doesn’t want a wife? how do you be a friend to someone who doesn’t want a friend?

it’s too big of a problem to solve in the span of time it takes for roger to finish his shower, so you slip into the bedroom and peel off your stockings and his tee-shirt. you put on a sweater, some jeans, and wipe the day-old makeup from your face with a wet-wipe. the movements are tried and true, and they calm your racing thoughts. 

you have an entire year to figure out how to live with roger taylor. you don’t need to have it all figured out this morning.

the coffee pot dings, its job complete, just as you and roger both enter the kitchen.

but he hesitates before taking another step, and so do you. 

his hair is wet from the shower. a white sweatshirt swallows his torso. part of the hem is tucked into his white-washed jeans, and you’re struck by the narrowness of his hips. the weariness is gone from his face, replaced with a youthful sort of glow and stubborn cheekiness. you aren’t sure how he’s managed it, but he looks well-rested. 

you lift a hand to your cheek. you must look a state. it takes a lot longer for you to put yourself back together after a night out.

he stares at you for a moment, then shakes his head and crosses the kitchen to fill a travel mug with hot coffee. gnawing on your lower lip, you lean your hip bones against the kitchen island as he putters about the room, quiet as the grave.

it’s only your first day as husband and wife, and under such unique circumstances, you shouldn’t expect him to—what? make conversation? ask about you and your life?

“so… what do you think you’ll work on today? in the studio, i mean.”

he glances over his shoulder then shrugs. “not sure. probably something related to the rest of the tour.” bending at the waist, he pulls a drawer out from beneath the sink. his ass looks good in those jeans, but you doubt he’d like you staring, so you look away, mouth screwed to the side. “do you know where the sugar packets are?”

you frown and push away from the island, rounding it to stand beside him. “no?” he turns at the sound of your confused voice, and his head jolts backward to see you standing so close. “i don’t live here, remember?”

“well, you do now.” he swivels on his heel and pulls a small white jar across the counter. lifting the lid, he sighs. “i can’t find the sugar.”

“actually, about living here now...” you follow as he starts for the door, grabbing his keys from a small table in the foyer. “the bedroom situation? i figured we’d have separate bedrooms but last night—”

roger opens the front door and silences you with a hard stare. “the only other bedroom is my practice room.”

your shoulders slump. “oh.”

“i wasn’t going to make it a guest room if you’ll be gone in a year.”

“but where will i—”

“fuck it all, [y/n].” he curls his hand around the doorframe, hanging his head. a cold winter breeze sweeps through the hall, and you pull your jumper tight around your waist. “just sleep in my bed, okay? i don’t fuckin’ care.”

you swallow hard, nod. you’d been prepared for some measure of hostility, some measure of resentment. what you hadn’t been prepared for is the way his rebuffs settle like dead weight in your stomach. he alone can be blamed for this; it was his actions that drove management to force you upon him. yet, he seems to look at you with nothing more than dread and disgust. perhaps it is because you are the physical embodiment of his wrongdoing. his antics created you, and he is powerless to wipe you from his eyesight as he might a clump of dirt. you are a permanent stain—at least for the next year.

maybe you can’t begrudge him his disdainful attitude, then.

you come to when a car horn blares outside. 

roger is gone, the door open, void of his claustrophobic presence. leaning around the frame, you catch sight of him and his blond hair as he reaches his car parked on the side of the road. spinning on your heel, you grab his sacked lunch from the fridge and race after him.

“roger!”

he looks up from his car door, and you can’t help but note the way his shoulders lift, tensing at the sight of you running barefoot down the sidewalk. the winter air quickens your steps, and you’re out of breath and huffing when you reach his side. white plumes escape your mouth and drift towards the gray sky.

“you forgot this,” you say, pushing the brown paper sack against his chest. you curl your toes against the frigid bricks beneath your feet.

his brow pinches. “what is it?”

“a lunch. you haven’t eaten yet.”

for the first time since meeting him, the ghost of a true smile lifts the corners of his mouth as he stares down at the sacked lunch. he lifts a hand, and you are surprised by its warmth when he covers your knuckles with his palm. his eyes flick upwards, meeting yours.

“thanks, [y/n].” he tilts his head to the side. “i’m sorry i’ve been a prick. this is all… really new for me.”

you slip your hand from his grasp, sure that your smile is somewhere between girlish and shy. a sharp wind whips through the stitching of your sweater, and you shiver.   

“we’ll figure it out,” you say, and it’s a message to both him and yourself. you will figure this out.

“yeah.” he slides his key into the slot on the car door. “yeah, we will.”

“oh. rog, wait.” you stop him by putting a hand on his shoulder. when he twists at the waist, you wind your arms around his neck before he has time to react. you squeeze tight, your toes skimming the ground. he feels firm, stiff like a board. “hug me back,” you whisper against his ear. “there’s someone across the street taking photos.”

the sound he makes in your ear—a grumble, a low growl—sends your blood pumping into overdrive. he’s angry, but he dutifully embraces you as any newlywed husband might. his arms are strong around your lower back, and you melt into him.

god, he feels good. you can’t remember the last time you were held like this. he smells like the soap from his shower, and his sweatshirt is soft. his hair brushes against your cheek, and your eyelashes flutter in response. you should pull away; you’ve hugged him long enough to appear the besotted wife, desperate for her husband to stay home the day after their wedding. the paparazzi surely got what they wanted.

so, why is it so hard for you to let go?

you shake yourself free of the feeling, whether it be longing or desire or something else entirely.

sliding your hands across roger’s shoulders, you drop from your raised stance. you press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, quick and without hesitation. just in case.

“go on.” you hurry to step back, to allow him the space the leave. “you don’t want to keep the boys waiting any longer.”

roger’s eyes linger a moment more, his stare somewhere between searching and assessing. then he mumbles an oath beneath his breath, wrenches open his car door, and slips inside. the door slams behind him, and the engine roars to life. you retreat further at the sound, wrapping your arms around your stomach when the car tires squeal against gravel in his haste to get away.

some blissfully wed husband he makes.

biting the inside of your lip, you turn back to the house. the front door remains open wide, and it’s likely the heat has long since left the warmth of the halls. you pause long enough to lift the paper from the front stoop. what you see beneath the fold makes you hesitate all the longer.

there’s a photo of you and roger on the left side of the page beneath the headline, roger taylor marries model. the grainy, black and white image of your wedding day presents you, the smiling bride, and roger, the smiling husband, joined hand-in-hand beneath a heavy wooden cross. to the untrained eye, all is joy in the taylor household. the article describes the ceremony, though the details are patchy and entirely false, as intimate and “drenched with love.”

you scoff before you can stop yourself. clearly, the author of the article has encountered roger taylor under duress.

but it’s not the article which holds you frozen to the front stoop, your exposed toes and fingers sticking like icicles to the newspaper. rather, it’s the smear of red paint slashed over your picture. it’s the word slag scrawled over the article, an arrow pointed in the direction of the wedding photo.

still, in a one-on-one meeting you’d had with jim beach prior to the wedding, he’d warned you of something like this. though all four queen members are undeniably attractive, it is roger who makes the fans go gaga.

maybe it’s his boyish good looks contrasted with his raspy voice. maybe it’s the frenzy with which he plays, his easy charm and sunkissed skin. whatever it is—roger’s fans are a possessive lot.

jim had told you to prepared for a few nasty letters or scathing criticism in the papers. he had told you it wouldn’t last long, just until the initial shock of the marriage wore off, just until roger’s fans accepted the reality that they were not be his lawfully wedded wife.

so, truly, the first incident does not scare you. you just hadn’t realized the scrutiny would begin so soon. if anything, the painted paper makes you chuckle. roger’s fans certainly don’t like to waste time.

you toss the paper in the bin beside the stoop, and it’s forgotten before the day is over.

a week bleeds into a month, and you find yourself falling into some semblance of a life with roger.

you cohabitate for the most part. he does not outright rebuff your attempts at friendship, nor does he accept any olive branch you extend.

conversation is stilted, his contributions terse and monosyllabic. he prefers your home-cooked meals be eaten before the television, and not at the dinner table, where he would be forced to engage with you. he doesn’t even give in when you ask if there’s anything he’d like to rant about. he just shakes his head and bangs on his drums well into the evening, despite having banged on them the whole day at the studio.

yet he sleeps beside you, allows you to sleep beside him.

without fail, he appears more at ease come nightfall. he sheds whatever protective shell he wears throughout the day in favor of something softer, something more tender. you’re not sure what changes him when he walks over the threshold of the bedroom, but something does. perhaps it’s the soft lamplight or the hum of the fan he insists be kept on despite the chill of winter.

there’s a part of you that wonders if it might be your very presence that softens him, but you’ve taken to silencing that part as of late. he’s long-since proven that you hold no sway over him whatsoever, and that’s okay. your job is to be a buffer between his antics and the all-seeing eyes of the public. nothing more.

two months to the day after your wedding, you’re stood in the hallway, slipping on a pair of earrings, and brushing away roger’s hurried attempts to get you through the door. he has one hand on the doorknob, the other wrist tilted to expose his watch face.

“[y/n], please!”

“roger, the party doesn’t start until queen arrives. give me just a minute more.”

tonight, the savoy hotel, the first music industry party you’ll attend by roger’s side as his wife.

you’re nervous.

your hands shake as you press the earrings into your ears, and you rub your lips back and forth, feeling the slick lipstick rub over the flesh. you’re thankful the dress you chose is a gauzy sort of chiffon. if you sweat, no one will be able to tell, thanks to the pale blue of the fabric.

impatient as ever, roger drags himself from the door to stand behind you, as though prepared to throw you over his shoulder. however, a smirk pulls at your mouth when he pauses in his frustration long enough to primp and preen his hair in the mirror. you catch his eye, your fingers paused in snapping your clutch closed. he sees your smirk, and his own lips pull on a wry smile.

the moment hangs in the air, thick with—what? tension? no. something else. camaraderie comes to mind.

your eyes remain locked with his, and his grin spreads until he is shaking his head with amusement. he pushes your shoulder, but the touch is friendly, almost brotherly in nature.

“come on,” he says. “i don’t want to miss all the good wine.”

nodding, you start for the door, trailing behind him to flick the lights off. darkness engulfs the house, the only light the white glow of the moon spilling through the window above the kitchen sink and a night light plugged in along the hallway baseboard.

but then the phone rings.

roger stamps his foot against the floor, the door already half-open. “fuckin’ hell!”

“let me get it.” you’re halfway down the hall before he can stop you. “i’ll tell them to buzz off. hold on!”

“i’m going to get the car started,” he says. his voice echoes through the hall to meet you where the phone hangs in the kitchen. “you have two minutes, [y/n]. two minutes!”

lifting the phone from the receiver, you press it against your ear. “hello?”

at first, you hear nothing on the other end.

but you’re sure you heard the phone ring, so you lean closer to the receiver and plug your opposite ear in a piss poor attempt to hear better. “hello? this is [y/n] taylor speaking.”

the sound of heavy breathing—deep inhales, hard exhales—meets your ear. deep inhale, hard exhale. over and over and over.

your throat tightens, but you push past the lump. “hello? who’s there?”

a stuttering of breath on the inhale, a shaky exhale. a croak, voice poised to speak.

only you slam the phone back on the receiver before the person on the other end can say a word.

for a moment, you stand still, eyes glued to the phone, mouth parted in shock.

but then roger honks the car horn, and you shake yourself free of the unsettling feeling. a missed connection, you tell yourself. a wrong number. a mistake. that’s all it was—a mistake.

still, you are shaking when you slide into the passenger seat of roger’s car. he glances at you before pulling into the busy street.

“are you cold?” he asks. he turns the heat up, blasting the air against your face. “you’re shaking.”

“no,” you say, and, truly, you aren’t. he loaned you an ostentatious fur coat for the occasion, lined with a smooth brown fabric, and you are comfortably warm beneath the heavy material. “just nervous.”

roger snorts, his eyes sliding to you. “nervous? surely you’ve been to parties before. you’re a model, for god’s sake.”

“i’m not sure what kind of model you think i was, rog. i did mostly print, never runway. parties were never a part of my nine-to-five.”

“oh.” his mouth screws to the side. “i guess—well, to be honest, i kinda thought models all did the same kind of work.”

“most people do. that’s in the past now, though.” you shift, glance out the window, and watch the streetlights blur in a hazy streak of orange and yellow. he’s driving fast, and you grip the side of the door, willing your heart to stop racing.

the car slows to a stop beneath a red light. roger taps his fingers on the steering wheel, and the silence in the car is deafening.

you should strike up a conversation. he seems willing tonight, and maybe that’s due to the cramped nature of the car, but it’s an opportunity nonetheless.

only you can’t stop thinking about the phone call, about the heavy breathing and the unanswered questions. you shut your eyes and find yourself mirroring the caller’s breathing patterns.

deep inhale, hard exhale.

“so, you’re done with modeling?”

you open your eyes and turn to look at his profile. why he insists on wearing sunglasses in the dead of night you will never understand, but the sight alone makes you smirk. he knows he’s attractive; you have to give him credit for embracing it.

“that’s why i married you,” you say.

roger laughs—and you realize it’s probably the first time you’ve heard the sound. his laugh aligns with the light timbre of his voice, and the anxiety in your chest eases to hear him sound something other than malcontent.

“i knew you were a gold digger!” it’s a joke—you can tell by the quirk of his mouth and the lines around his eyes—but you rush to defend yourself all the same.

“no, i’m not!” you hesitate before shrugging with a rueful chuckle. “well… maybe a little. i won’t deny that the money i get from this arrangement really helps. i was looking for a way out of modeling, anyway.”

“really?” roger’s eyebrow arches, and, as the car turns into the savoy, the wrap-around drive clogged with limousines, sport cars, and photographers jostling for a good spot, you catch a glimpse of admiration on his face. “what do you want to do now?”

“i’m not sure. go back to school. i’ve got a head for maths, so maybe accounting or something.”

roger twists his head to meet your eyes, and his smile is earnest. it steals the breath from your lungs.

deep inhale, hard exhale.

“you don’t strike me as an accountant, dove.”

“why not?”

“accountants are stuffy, greasy men. you’re… you know…” he waves a hand, inches the car forward as the line moves. camera bulbs flash in the world outside, but within the car, all you can focus on is roger and his next words.

“i’m…?” you’re fishing, but this is the first time he’s given you more than the time of day, and you’re eager to get something, anything, out of your husband.

he shrugs, and his hands curl around the steering wheel. a muscle in his jaw ticks. “you’re too nice.”

you look away. “ah—nice.” not what you’d been expecting him to say.

he pulls the car to a stop along the hotel’s entrance, and a sharply dressed attendant opens the door. sliding out after roger, you instinctively reach for his hand. he spares you a short glance and squeezes your fingers together in a gesture of encouragement.

a black—not red—carpet lines the walkway from the drive to the open hotel doors. velvet ropes hold back the crowd of photographers, reporters, and fans lucky enough to have squeezed their way to such a prime viewing spot. camera flashes paint the inside of your eyelids with bright, white spots. despite the chill of winter, the air is hot, heady with glitz and glamor. it’s hard to distinguish any one voice over the plethora of people vying for attention, and your head swims in the chaos of it all.

roger moves easily from one side of the rope to another. he is in his element, grinning for the cameras and joking with reporters who grab him long enough for a quote. his moments with the press are short, few and far between. he much prefers the fans—their simpering smiles, tear-stained cheeks, and waving slips of paper begging for a signature. you don’t blame him. who could ever resist such unfettered adoration?

near the end of the carpet, a reporter snags roger’s attention with his waving arm. palm still clasped in roger’s, you trail behind your husband, hovering just behind his shoulder. the cool smile you perfected in your modeling days remains fixed on your face, even as the reporter acknowledges you with a tilt of his head.

“is this your wife, roger?”

the reporter has to shout to be heard over the sudden surge of excitement as a new celebrity takes their first step on the carpet. it’s kate bush, if you aren’t mistaken. you could be wrong, though. the reporter’s query pricks your ears, dividing your focus between the cacophony around you and the question at hand. thus far, you’ve remained nameless by roger’s side. no one—fan or press alike—has asked after you, and you’re happy for it.

roger turns to look at you, and his grin spreads. he goes so far as to slip his arm around your waist, tugging you against his side, keeping his gaze on your profile. a sudden rush of blood floods your cheeks, and you duck your head beneath his watchful eyes. yet you find your own smile widening. the action is not one you have to force or fake, though. it’s easy to smile when roger is smiling.

“yes, this is my bride,” roger says. “[y/n].”

the hand he’s placed on your waist squeezes the flesh of your hip, pushing you further against him. to keep from tripping over your own legs, you press a hand against his chest to steady yourself. you can feel his heartbeat beneath your fingers; his heart pulses to a steady rhythm. your own heart beats twice as fast.

the reporter checks something on his small pad of paper. “is it true that you used to be a model, [y/n]? there are rumors that this marriage is a publicity stunt.” he hesitates, glancing over his shoulder as someone bumps his back, pushing him against the velvet rope. once righted, he continues. “there are rumors that you were hired to get the press to stop talking negatively about the montreal incident.”

you open your mouth to speak, but roger jumps in before you can utter a single syllable.

“are you joking?” he tosses his head back in an easy laugh and pulls you even tighter against his side. you’re afraid if he draws you any nearer you will absorb into him completely. but with the way the lights dance off his eyelashes and his hair looks perfectly tousled and his body feels strong against yours, you aren’t sure that would be a bad thing.

“i’m crazy about my wife!” he says, and the words go straight to your heart like a wildfire. “you should get yourself one, mate.” he playfully slaps the reporter’s upper arm. “they’re great fun!”

the reporter arches an eyebrow. “it’s just that i know you’ve gone on record as not exactly believing in marriage and—”

“what do you want me to do? kiss ‘er? would that make you happy?” a shit-eating grin rises on his face, indignant and cocky all at once. he shoots you a look out of the corner of his eye; you bite your lip. “will that get you off my back?”

“that’s not really—”

“here.” he taps the wrist of a bystanding photographer then points to you, twisting his body so that you stand face to face. “put this in your bloody paper!”

grabbing either side of your face, roger dips his head to capture your lips with his. for a moment, you remain unsure. you hold fast to his wrists, your mouth unmoving. the blood in your veins stands frozen in shock, and your heart presses painfully against your ribcage. somewhere in the back of your mind, your conscious screams for you to react, to play along, but it’s not until roger slides one hand from your cheek to the small of your back that you register what part you must play.

thank god it’s not a difficult role.

with a tilt of your head, you wrap your arms around his neck and hold tight. he tastes faintly of cigarettes and the mints he uses to freshen his breath. his lips are soft, softer than you’d anticipated. you can hear the clicking of cameras, feel the blinding light of flashbulbs pierce your eyelids, sense the growing interest in your display of affection, but none of it penetrates the bubble—the bubble of you and roger, of his lips and your lips, of his arms holding you close, his very air becoming yours.

he pulls away entirely too soon, and his smile is all the more cheeky. you press your fingertips to your lips, lower your face, and draw in a sharp breath.

“there! that could enough for you?”

roger steers you away from the reporters and into the sanctuary of the hotel at last. a rush of cool air meets you and, though it is mid-winter, you sweat beneath roger’s fur coat. the gentle whoosh of air-conditioning is a blessing against your hot skin.

as you enter the ballroom transformed for the event, roger lowers his mouth to your ear. “sorry about that, poppet.” the low register of his voice and the feeling of his breath against the back of your neck sends a shiver down your spine. “i’ve dealt with that tosser before, and he really grinds my gears.”

“‘s fine, roger,” you manage to say through your tight throat. “it’s what i’m here for, yeah?”

he stops walking, and his hand moves from your back to your wrist. his eyes drift over your face, calculating, searching. you let him look. you aren’t sure what he’s looking for, but you get the feeling that he’s truly seeing you for the first time. even in the manufactured blue light of the room, even with the myriad of tables surrounded by producers and singers and agents alike, his face visibly softens and his hand curls around your wrist.

“roger! [y/n]! over here!”

three tables away, freddie waves his hand, beckoning you over. roger drags you along, his fingers intertwining with yours as you sidestep people already lounging at their seats. once at the table set aside for queen and guests, roger pulls out your chair, and you sit, smoothing your hands over your skirt. he sits beside you and leans to his side to whisper something to john. on your right sits chrissie may, and you offer her a smile in greeting.

the function—a charity benefit organized to bring awareness to the falklands disagreement—comes and goes without issue. the dinner is bland, but the wine is good. chrissie is pleasant, and it’s your first chance to speak to another band member’s wife since the wedding. you appreciate her advice, laugh at her stories, and enjoy yourself without restraint. it doesn’t hurt that as roger drinks more, he more pays attention to you. you really shouldn’t encourage him, but when he slings an arm around your chair and pulls you closer, when he turns his head to whisper a joke in your ear at brian’s expense, when he plays with a loose lock of your hair, twirling it around his finger, it’s all you can do not to melt like the ice-sculpture in the center of the room.

come the end of the event, you find yourself walking between chrissie and veronica, your steps slow as the boys stumble through the hall. roger and john cannot stop laughing, though no one has said anything remotely funny for the last few minutes. they cling to one another like koalas to trees, as though the other might drop to the ground if released. brian and freddie aren’t any better. they sing off-key, their voices bouncing off the empty walls and laminate floors. you aren’t sure what part of the hotel you’ve wound up in, but it’s certainly less plush than the ballroom. still, you smile when roger slides his sunglasses over his eyes and snorts at one of john’s inane comments.

your smile falters when the sound of veronica’s labored breathing, pregnant as she is, reaches your ears.

deep inhale, hard exhale.

in the flurry of the evening—amidst the kiss and the dinner and the joking and the drinking—you’d forgotten about the phone call.

chrissie reaches out to grab your arm when your steps stutter. “are you okay?” she asks.

you stop walking. if the boys get into trouble around the corner, you’ll surely hear it.

meeting chrissie’s wide eyes, you frown. you hate the put a damper on the evening’s chipper mood, but the memory of the phone call crashes to the surface, bringing with it anxiety and unease. roger doesn’t need to know, but perhaps the other wives experienced a similar phenomenon. perhaps it’s all in your head. either way, you’d like a second opinion.

“this is going to sound weird, but… have either of you ever gotten a strange phone call?”

“phone call?” veronica rubs a hand over her swollen stomach. “what do you mean?”

you explain the events prior to your departure earlier in the evening, and the concerned looks that settle on chrissie and veronica’s faces stir the uncertainty in your stomach.

“that doesn’t sound good, [y/n],” chrissie says.

you gnaw at your lower lip. “no, i suppose it doesn’t.”

“have you told rog?”

you shake your head. “i don’t want to trouble him. not if it’s just some practical joke. it very well could be our kid neighbor having a lark.”

another memory drifts to the surface: the newspaper, the red paint dripping across your photograph. slag, they’d written.

you’d forgotten about that too.

veronica pulls you back to the present with her even tone. “i think you should tell him. if someone is harassing you, even if it’s just the once, don���t you think he should know?”

“i guess but—”

“hey, party people!” john sticks his head around the corner, breaking the conversation with his over-loud voice. “guess what we found?”

“judging by your wet trousers, i’d say a pool.”

john trips down the hall to grab veronica’s arm. “have i ever told you that you’re brilliant?” he presses a noisy kiss to her cheek, and even veronica isn’t capable of remaining firm under such affection.

like a child who has found an interesting twig, john crooks his arm in a follow-me motion, tugging his wife toward the pool. “come on. come see!”

veronica follows john around the corner, but before you can follow, chrissie presses her palm to your shoulder.

“you should tell roger,” she says. “before it gets serious.”

you nod, promise her you will, then make your way to the indoor swimming pool, knowing full well roger won’t hear a word of the incident.

the savoy’s pool room is understated in comparison with the rest of the hotel. though the ceiling stretches high, skylights allowing moonlight to shimmer over the undisturbed water, the room is just as hot, just as stuffy, as any other hotel pool. you drop your coat and rog’s to a plastic lounge chair as soon as you enter, swamped as you are by the thick air.

all nerves, all worries about the phone call, fade away as you slip your shoes off and watch roger and john’s poor poolside rendition of abbott and costello’s “who’s on first” routine. roger can’t keep up with john no matter how hard he tries, but their combined effort is valiant.

laughing, you clap as they take their theatrical bows and only laugh harder when john trips over the edge of the pool mid-bow. he lands belly-first in the clear water, rising a sputtering, drenched mess, his hair and clothes sodden to the bone, though his eyes are bright with mischief. he swims to where veronica sits with her ankles in the water and, before she can sternly admonish him, has her pulled into the churning pool beside him.

brian is next in. he cannonballs in the deep end, and chrissie follows of her own volition. the impact of their jump launches a tidal wave of water in your direction, and you screech, nearly falling in your attempt to avoid getting wet.

but then a pair of arms wrap around your waist, lifting you from the cool, albeit slippery, floor.

“roger, no!” you twist in his tight hold. “no, roger, don’t!”

your voice echoes in the room, bouncing off the windows and walls; yet roger ignores your pleas for release. he shuffles to the edge of the pool at the behest and cheering of his friends, each treading water, watching as you struggle to break free.

the water beneath your feet rises and falls, sloshing this way and that. you can see the bottom of the pool from where roger holds you, and there’s a delicate, inlaid design of a turtle twelve feet down on the pool’s stone foundation.

you curl your nails in roger’s arm. “roger, i can’t—”

he tosses you in before you can finish the sentence.

you fall through the air with a scream, land on your back, and sink beneath the surface of the water. chemically-laced water fills your mouth, your nose, and your lungs scream for air.

for a moment, fear grips you, not unlike the way it gripped you in the hallway of your own home, the phone cradled against your ear. only this time, you know exactly what will happen if you don’t get help.

this is not a battle you can win yourself.

kicking to the top, you break through the water and cough, shaking your head. tears cloud your vision when you open your eyes, but the liquid that’s caught in your eyelashes disguises them, and for that you’re thankful. roger bobs beside you, a grin on his face, looking much too pleased with himself and his antics. without a second thought, you reach for him.

“roger, i can’t swim,” you say.

his face falls. “oh.” he blinks then, realization striking as you grab onto his shoulders. “fuck, [y/n]. i’m sorry.”

clinging to him, you wrap your arms around his chest, your legs around his waist. you rest your cheek against the back of his neck and sigh, inhaling deeply. “i tried to tell you,” you whisper.

beneath the water, his hand curls around the skin of your ankle. he squeezes, and it’s all the apology you need.

the band stays in the pool for entirely too long. freddie starts talking about the next album, and the other boys chime in, clamoring for their opinions to be heard over the others. despite their drunken state, music brings a sense of clarity to their speech and thought. it’s their life’s work and something about which they care deeply. there’s no denying that. even when brian tries his hand at a backwards flip and freddie challenges john to a diving contest, they are always thinking, always working, toward their next goal. you admire them for that.

roger remains steady where he stands. you cling to him like a barnacle, even though you just as easily could remove yourself and find a place where your feet touch solid ground. he feels nice, though. his body is a comfort against yours, and as the business talk continues, your head lolls to the side on his shoulder, a gentle smile on your lips.

you could get used to this.

at some point, veronica complains about her aching back and drags john from the pool. they are the first to leave, but brian and chrissie soon follow. you aren’t sure if you want to go, if you want the evening to end. if it means roger will go back to ignoring you, shoving you aside, you think you could stay in this pool until your skin wilted and dripped off your bones.

“we’d better go, love,” roger whispers.

you know he’s right.

“yeah.” you try to keep the disappointment from your voice.

he moves to the side of the pool, and you heave yourself over the edge. your dress is heavy, weighed down by the absorbed water. you wring out the skirt as best you can, but until you can give it a proper wash and dry, it’s really no use. gooseflesh breaks out on your arms where the cool air hits, and you shiver.

roger appears behind you, turns you gently with a hand to the shoulder, and lifts a fluffy white towel. “here. i found these.”

“oh!” you move to take the towel from his grasp. “thank you.”

“i’ve got it.” with a smile—a boyish, gentle sort of smile—roger unfurls the towel and wraps it around your shoulders. he tugs the corners beneath your chin and laughs through a short breath. “comfy?”

you nod, pressing your face against the warm fabric.

“you look like a marshmallow.”

lifting your mouth from behind the towel, you tilt your head with an impish grin. “you once told me i looked like an angel. so, which is it? angel or marshmallow?”

“oh, angel for sure.” he thumbs a finger over the end of your nose. “you always look like an angel.”

you roll your eyes and hope the action does not expose the sudden flutter in your chest. “you’re just saying that ‘cause you’re drunk.”

he shakes his head. “no. i mean it.”

he looks at you for a long time. you look at him for just as long. the unease cadence of your breath, the way his breath whistles through his nose, the lap of the pool against the tiled walls—it all sounds so loud to your ears, though nothing can compare to the beating of your heart. it fills your entire body: bump bump, bump bump, bump bump. your cheeks feel hot with blush, and you finally look away, casting your eyes to the floor. you wiggle your bare feet against the tiled floor; roger wiggles his toes back.

“we should go home,” you say.

“yeah.”

roger pays an attendant to ferry you home, and the drive leaves your entire body close to overheating.

the back seat of his car feels strangely intimate compared to the front seat, but that might just be your imagination. surely, roger didn’t sit so close to you on purpose. surely, his hand isn’t pressed against your leg because he wants it to be. his car is just… cramped.

“did you have fun tonight?” you break the silence, but when you do, your voice sounds strange—slightly strangled, nervous, earthy—and you wish you’d remained quiet. you continue toying with a loose thread on your coat, ignoring the way roger’s eyes traverse your profile.

“mhm. did you?”

you nod, but don’t look up.

from the driver’s seat, the attendant coughs, and your gaze shifts.

deep inhale, hard exhale.

chrissie’s words of earlier surface in your mind: you should tell him about the phone call. it’s only right.

twisting, you look to your right, meet roger’s eyes, and promptly lose all sense of direction. his face is so near, his mouth parted, eyes hooded, cheeks flushed. your throat runs dry, but you can’t look away.

“roger–”

“hmm?” his lips tighten, but his smile is just as sly as it had been the moment before he kissed you in front of the reporters. the touch still lingers on your mouth, but you will the memory away.

“there’s something i should—”

his fingers sift through a lock of your hair, and he moves his head almost in a nuzzling sort of gesture. you swallow hard. “i was wrong about you,” he whispers. when did his voice get so raspy?

“what?”

“i was wrong to judge you,” he says. his hand moves from your hair to the side of your neck, one long finger tracing the lines of your skin. “to be honest, i thought you were some cheap girl looking for a way into my bed, but i was wrong. you’re more than that.”

“what—” deep inhale. “what am i, then?”

his lips quirk upward. “my wife.”

hard exhale.

his mouth claims yours, and you don’t fight him. you melt against him, his chest pressed against yours in the narrow space of the car. you’re vaguely aware that a driver sits not two feet away, more than able to hear the way roger pulls a soft whimper from behind your lips and the rustle of clothes as you both scrabble for any exposed skin. but you don’t really care. you’re drunk off of roger, and have been since you met him. it’s his looks, yes, but tonight—tonight you saw him in his element. you heard him laugh and saw him smile and preened under his attention. you would go to hades and back to live in a world shaped just like tonight, every bit of it.

roger can’t keep his hands off you as you make your way from the sidewalk to the front stoop. his hands roam your body, skimming every inch, squeezing the parts he seems to like most. you giggle like young lovers experiencing one another for the first time, and maybe that’s because you are.

when you drop the front door key because you’re too focused on returning roger’s eager kiss, it doesn’t seem to matter. you just stand on the stoop and kiss beneath the light of the moon a little longer.

when you finally get the door open and his palm hits your ass at the same time, you squeal, and he dissolves into laughter.

when he fumbles with the hallway light because he’s too focused on getting your coat off, you tell him to forget it. you don’t need the light anyway.

halfway down the hall, limbs and lips tangled, the phone rings.

you laugh as you peel yourself from his grasp. he puckers his lower lip in protest.

“i’ll be just a minute,” you say, lifting the phone from the receiver. he sticks his tongue out, but then sheds his shirt, leaving it on the kitchen floor as he slips into the bedroom. you bite the edge of your thumb as you watch him go, your head as muddled as creamy soup.

someone clears their throat on the other end of the line.

“oh, sorry. hello?”

“what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?”

cold dread extinguishes any joy lingering in your chest at the sound of the sickeningly smooth voice. 

your fingers curl tight around the phone. “who is this?”

“what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?”

angry tears spring to your eyes as you scoot to stare out the window over the sink. nothing but darkness meets your eyes, but still you try in vain to search for an answer in the inky blackness. “i said: who is this?” your voice cracks, but you push forward. “how did you get this number?”

“what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?”

“i swear i calling the fucking police if you keep this up!”

a beat of hesitation then: “what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?”

with a helpless groan, you slam the phone down for the second time in one day. your fingers creak as you let go and step back, chest heaving. your skin feels slimy—slimy with roger’s lingering touch, slimy with the possibility that someone had been watching you kiss your husband, slimy with the possibility that someone could be watching you now.

you don’t stop and admire roger, clad only in his boxers, as you make your way to the en suite bathroom. you can’t stand to look at him, to know that somewhere someone cares for him so much they would take to harassing you. god, it makes you want to vomit.

you don’t bother with the bathroom door so intent are you at getting in the shower and scrubbing your slimy skin raw. you struggle with the zipper at the top of your spine, the tears hovering over your eyes threatening to spill over if you can’t be rid of your soaked clothing. you stamp your foot with a grunt and drop your hands, hanging your head in defeat.

roger’s soft chuckle sounds from the doorway. you don’t turn to look at him.

your back stiffens when he undoes the zipper, the pads of his fingers pressing along your shoulder blades, your ribs, the small of your back.

“that eager, huh?” he presses a wet kiss to the curve of your shoulder.

you want him; you really do. there’s some part of you that wants to drag him into the shower and work out your fears with the aid of his body against yours. but you won’t do that. you won’t use him, not when he confessed he thinks you better than that.

you twist to face him, holding the dress against your chest. “rog, i…” you place your hand on his smooth chest, feel the small hairs peppering his collarbone. “you’re drunk,” you finally say. “you’re drunk and you should go to bed.”

he smirks and pushes his hips against yours. “so? you’re drunk too.”

you shake your head. “no, not anymore.” you push him away gently. “believe me, roger, i want nothing more than to go to bed with you but—”

he plays with a lock of hair beside your face, and your desire to resist him weakens. “but?”

“i won’t do it while you’re drunk. besides, you’ll be over this by morning. you’ll go back to not wanting me. so i won’t do it—not while you’re drunk.”

with a huff, he lets you go, but not without kissing you once more. a traitorous tear slides down your cheek, and your throat seizes with emotion. somewhere in the back of your clouded mind, you wonder if you love him. or, if at least you are on the edge of loving him.

but it doesn’t matter. you’ll be gone in a year, and he will move on to someone else, someone strong enough to withstand his rabid fans.

he pulls away first and kisses your temple. “goodnight, angel,” he whispers.

you wrap your arms around your stomach and, once stood beneath the hot water of the shower, let the sound of the creaking pipes drown out the sound of your crying.

roger is gone before you wake the next morning.

he leaves you a note on the kitchen island, scrawled in his plain script: “angel, i’m hungover now, not drunk. i’d still like you in my bed. – rog”

the note should send a thrill to your stomach, but it manifests itself in a ball of dread instead.

what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?

it’s heaven, but the price is hell.

you crumple the note and toss it in the bin, jumping when the phone rings. you hesitate, your gaze locked on the inanimate object that has come to haunt your dreams.

eventually, the phone stops ringing, but the shrill sound echoes in your head as you go about the day.

after the second phone call, tension becomes your constant companion. the days pass, and you withdraw into yourself, scared by the slightest sound, the never-ending line of cars outside the front window, and roger’s growing interest.

he seems to like you now that he knows you. he makes you laugh, asks you questions, even goes so far as to help you research university entrance exams.

but when he comes home from the studio, your stomach takes to twisting with apprehension as you wonder if your faceless friend watched him drive home and wonder further if your faceless friend can see roger kiss the side of your neck.

you try not to push him away. his attention is what you’ve wanted all along, and, though the romantic turn of events was certainly unplanned, he does make your knees weak and your head giddy like a schoolgirl’s.

still, the phone calls persist. it’s not every night and every day. you can’t trace the caller’s pattern because there is none. you never know who will be on the other end of the line. it could be roger calling during his lunch break as he is wont to do; it could be the university to which you’ve applied; or it could be them, the phantom who chills the blood in your veins.

there’s a pad of paper tucked beneath your side of the bed. the words of your faceless friend are scrawled across the page in frenzied handwriting, the handwriting of a madwoman.

what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?

did he buy you those earrings?

will he ask john to help you study for the maths entrance exam?

you should stop answering the phone; you know you should. but each time the phone rings, you respond like a pavlovian dog. you rush to answer, to frantically write down the day’s comment just in case there’s some sliver of information that might shed light on your faceless friend’s identity.

the caller is a woman; that much you know. her voice is deep and gravelly, but she’d referenced herself as the better woman for roger before. she seems to cling to the idea that you will leave him and the position of roger taylor’s wife will fall to her. if only to spite her, you will remain married to roger until your dying day.

you should tell roger too; you know you should.

but he’s happy.

when you first met him, he was sullen, dragging his tail between his legs like a scolded pup after the montreal debacle. it took a while, but you see him now for his true self. he’s carefree in a grounded sort of way, sold out for his music and the lifestyle it affords him. he’s gentle and kind and surprisingly considerate. he picks up the groceries when you ask it of him; he cleans the dishes from supper without complaint. he doesn’t pressure you for anything more than a make-out session on the couch when the lights are low and a record spins on the turntable. you would go further, but you can’t—not right now. he doesn’t ask any questions.

it would break you to tell him about the phone calls, and you can’t bring yourself to do it. each morning, you imagine his crestfallen face. you imagine the anger and the shouting and him calling the authorities and—

it’s easier for him—for everybody—if you just stay quiet.

besides, you’ll be gone in six months.

one evening, after dinner at an expensive restaurant, you let roger to take you to bed. he’d looked so pretty in the candlelight, and he’d listened to you talk about your hopes and dreams for the future. you think you fall in love with him when he drags you onto the bed and whispers sweet praises in your ear the whole night long.

when you wake the next morning, he is still there, and you snuggle into his chest. you breathe him in, and it’s bar soap from the shower and dried sweat and lingering cologne. his arms circle your back, squeezing you tighter.

“mornin’, angel,” he mumbles.

for a moment, you don’t respond. you keep your eyes closed and think back to yesterday.

there’d been no phone call. a blessed reprieve from three days in a row of randomly timed messages. roger had held you, and he holds you still. he is a comfort amidst your turbulent sea.

you should tell him. he can handle it. you’re tired of running from him.

rising to your palm, you meet roger’s gaze. he stares at you through his lashes, a sleepy smile on his mouth. he lifts a hand to cradle your face, and his thumb skims your cheekbone.

“how come you get a halo every morning and i don’t?”

you ignore his compliment before the bravery rushing through your veins dissipates. “rog, there’s something i haven’t told you.”

“yeah? is it about the freckle by your left ass-check?”

gasping, you slap roger’s chest. though he laughs, a red handprint remains in the center of his sternum, and he clutches his skin in pain. once settled, he apologizes and promises to behave.

deep inhale.

“about a month or two ago, i started—”

the phone on the bedside table cuts you off with its sharp bell-like ring.

your stomach plummets to your feet.

your eyes widen as roger holds up a finger and reaches for the earpiece.

he lifts it to his ear. “hello?”

some part of you hopes it’s your faceless friend. roger could deal with her himself. the other part of you prays it’s just a wrong number or john or—

“yes, fred, i know.”

hard exhale.

you slump to the side, leaning your weight against roger’s hip. thank heaven.

roger’s eyes slide to you, and he grins, winking. he squeezes the point of your chin between his forefinger and thumb, his eyes locked on yours as he nods and hums in response to freddie on the other end of the line.

“no, we won’t be late,” roger says. “yes, she’s coming. i promise i won’t forget.” he leans closer to the bedside table in his effort to end the conversation. “okay, fred. yes, i will.” finally, he heaves a sigh. “oh, for fuck’s sake, fuck off! i’m trying to woo my wife, so scram!”

“now,” he says, once the earpiece is on the base. “where were we?”

tugging on the back of your neck, he closes the distance between his mouth and yours. even with a hint of morning breath, you dissolve in his capable hands. he kisses you earnestly, and you struggle to remember what it was you wanted to tell him. he has this way with his mouth and his tongue and his hands that makes you forget everything but the feeling of him.

pulling back a moment later, he mumbles against your mouth: “what was it you wanted to tell me?”

you blink rapidly. “i—” damn, he looks so happy, glowing with youth and perhaps an inkling of love. you press your palm to his cheek then shake your head. “never mind. it can wait.”

he cocks his head to the side. “you sure?”

“mhm.”

“you remember the movie thing tonight, right?” he asks as he slides from the bed, drawing up his sweats from the floor and padding to the window. “that’s what fred called about.”

he throws the curtains open. the morning sun shines through, piercing every hidden corner, and your heart trips in your chest. your hands shake as you lift one of the bed sheets to cover your naked chest.

someone could be watching.

roger grimaces. “oh, shit, sorry, angel.” he tosses you his shirt from the floor, which you gratefully tug over your head. “anyway, tron, you know? we’re supposed to go to the premiere. something about flash gordon and—”

“i remember.”

“good. wear something nice because i don’t give a fuck about this movie, and i’d rather be looking at you anyway.” he smirks as he presses his palms against the mattress and leans in for another kiss.

you oblige him without hesitation.

“gotta go,” he says, pulling away only to firmly kiss you once more. “be ready by six, okay?”

you nod, and he leaves.

the majority of the day, you putter about the house. there’s chores to do—laundry and bills to catch up on and research for university admissions. it’s domestic work, mind-numbingly dull and repetitive. it leaves far too much space for your thoughts to run wild.

you admonish yourself for once more failing to tell roger of your faceless friend. you’d had the moment, and you’d blown it. with his unreliable schedule, there is no telling when you’ll have the chance to sit him down for a serious conversation again. you consider going to jim beach for help, but know once roger hears wind of it, he will fly off the handle because you didn’t come to him first. perhaps rightfully so, too.

you resolve that until you can find another peaceful moment, you will continue to suffer through it. it’s a step in the right direction, though. at least now, you have plans to tell him.

by five-forty-five, you are ready for the event. you sit in the living room, gnawing at your lower-lip as your leg bounces in anticipation. you haven’t gone anywhere with roger since the charity function earlier in the year. your faceless friend will surely be watching tonight, and already you feel sweat gather along your underarms.

roger unlocks the door and sticks his head into the living room upon his arrival. “car’s running. ready to go?”

you lift your handbag from the floor, nodding as you make your way to his side. roger stops you with a flat hand against your stomach. he bends to catch your eyes.

“you okay?”

“yes,” you say, but your voice sounds too rushed and eager even to your own ears.

he doesn’t hassle you for a more illuminative response. he just leads you to the car, opens your door, and makes his way to the theater, foot hard on the gas pedal.

as soon as you see the carpet—red this time—stretched along the sidewalk leading to the movie theater, bile rises in your throat. you reach for roger’s arm and squeeze tight. his head whips to the side.

“roger, i don’t think i can do this,” you breathe.

he frowns. “what do you mean?”

“it’s just that i’ve been—”

he pulls the car to the side. an usher opens the door, sound and light and chaos breaking the comforting quiet of the ride. your eyes flutter shut; you grit your teeth.

“[y/n], what is it?” roger’s voice is low, on the edge of irritation.

this is not the time. yet why do you feel like you’re going to pass out if you don’t—

“mr. taylor?” the usher prompts.

purging the emotions clawing at the front of your mind, you push roger’s shoulder and avoid his searching gaze. “nothing. go on! i’m right behind you.”

roger huffs as he slides from the car, but he dutifully offers his hand to aid you onto the red carpet. as he did before, he leads you toward the theater doors, stopping at the appropriate moments to pose for photographs. you hold on to the back of his jacket so tightly your knuckles crack. your eyes scan the crowd in search of your faceless friend. you will know her when you see her. she is a part of you now, like a demon on your shoulder.

roger rubs his hand up and down your back in a comforting gesture and leans to whisper in your ear. “you feel a stiff as a board,” he says. “what is it?”

you shake your head and nudge him further down the carpet. “we can talk about it later.”

“is it something i’ve—”

“no, roger. it’s not you.”

he studies your face a moment longer before nodding and returning his smile to the crowd.

near the entrance to the theater, a gaggle of girls wave their hands in an attempt to grab roger’s attention. he glances at you, and you nod, backing away to allow him one of the moments he so enjoys.

but one of the girls calls out your name. you lift your eyes to stop tracing the intricate weaving of the red carpet and stare at the girl in question until roger has to drag you over with a laugh. the girl shoves a newspaper in your face, your wedding announcement crinkled with affectionate wear-and-tear. she asks for your autograph, and you chuckle, feeling rather ridiculous as you scrawl your name across the page with a fat green marker.

it happens before you have time to react.

your head is bent as you sign the girl’s newspaper, your attention diverted from scanning the crowd for your faceless friend. but you feel her when she arrives, sense her eyes on your neck, and her fingers reaching for the sleeve of your dress. you have time enough to turn and catch sight of her long fingernails descending upon your cheek, but not time enough to stop her.

you scream more out of fear than pain as her nails scrape your face. truly, it does not hurt, though blood does begin to trickle down your chin and along the column of your throat.

it’s just that she’s there, before your very eyes, and she’s much smaller than you imagined. yet her eyes are dark with envy, and her nails are sharp. you recognize her labored breathing—deep inhale, sharp exhale—as she tries to move backwards and disappear within the crowd before she can be seen. you cannot look away from her, even when roger grabs your shoulders and wrenches you away from the iron gate. he’s shouting in your ear, cradling your uninjured cheek, but everything sounds like you’re underwater.

her face—round and childlike in its innocence—does not match the picture you’d created of her in your mind. she does not resemble the evil witch of your childhood fairy tales. she’s just a child, a little girl with a heart full of love for someone she cannot have.

your faceless friend is pointed out by the girl with the newspaper, and someone—maybe theater security, maybe queen security, maybe a good samaritan—drags her away.

roger grips your chin harder than he should considering the circumstances, but it brings your attention back to him. his eyes are ablaze with fury, and you suddenly feel the urge to cry.

“are you all right?” he demands. “are you hurt anywhere else?”

only my pride, you think.

“no,” you manage with a shake of your head. “no.”

“come on.” he slips his arm around your waist and pushes your head into the curve of his neck, away from prying eyes and flashing cameras. “we’re going home.”

the trip home is silent. your head moves back and forth across the passenger window, in time with the bumps and dips and curves of the road. there’s a fast-food napkin pressed against your cheek to stem the blood. you aren’t sure if it helps. roger keeps his hand firm on your thigh.

once inside the house, he forces you to sit in the middle of the bed as he scurries to retrieve the first aid kit. while he roots around in the bathroom, muttering to himself when he can’t find what he’s looking for fast enough, you strip yourself of your dress and return his old t-shirt over your head. you lift the collar to your nose and inhale his scent. when you draw the collar away, crimson blood and fresh tears stain the fabric. you sigh.

“fuckin’ hell.” roger drops to sit in front of you, his legs skewed to the side. a white, plastic box sits in his lap, and when he opens it, the contexts spill onto the bed sheets. “i’ve had this thing for ages. i think brian got it for me when i moved in.”

his hand returns to your chin; only his touch is gentle now. he looks over your wound, frowning at the sight.

“this is gonna sting, angel,” he warns.

it does. the antiseptic hurts, and you wince, but he keeps you from drawing away, his grip on your chin firm. he unwraps a butterfly bandage and presses it over the shallow scratch on your face. then he shakes his head, his face drawn tight.

“what is it you weren’t telling me?”

“there is—was this girl… and she kept calling, saying things.” you twist and unearth the pad of paper from under the bed. rubbing your eye, you hand it to him and watch his face darken as he reads the words.

he looks up, and you can’t bear to see the anger—the anger directed at you—in his gaze. “why didn’t you tell me?”

your first instinct is to shrug, to obfuscate, but he deserves the truth.

“you never wanted a wife,” you say. “you certainly didn’t want a wife who brought a stalker into the house. i figured—” deep inhale. “i figured i could live with it until our year was up.”

“oh, baby.” roger presses his forehead to yours. he cups your untainted cheek. “fucking up in montreal was the best thing that ever happened to me. it brought you to me, didn’t it?”

“you’re just saying that ‘cause—”

“no.” he draws back and grabs both shoulders in his hands. “i mean it. i never was one for marriage. didn’t make sense. but i get it now. it’s about partnership, yeah, but it’s about more than that. it’s about trust, too.” he smiles softly, pressing his thumb against your lip. “it’s about affection.”

he goes quiet then removes his hands from your shoulders.

“i wish you would have trusted me.”

“i’m—”

“don’t apologize. this whole arrangement is weird, and i don’t blame you for keeping quiet. i just wish you would have told me so i could help you.”

you sigh, dropping your head. “what do you want, roger?”

he lifts your chin, and you are struck by the love so firmly etched in his eyes. it knocks the wind from your lungs, leaves you breathless.

“i want you to keep my last name,” he says.

“what?”

“you heard me: i want you keep my last name.”

tears flood your vision, but not for fear or worry or regret.

you begin to smile, but the skin of your cheek pulls tight, and you wince, touching your injury. “ow,” you mutter.

roger laughs and pulls your fingers away from the bandage. he kisses each knuckle then rubs the wedding band along your ring finger. “can we give each other another chance?” he asks. “can we forget all the assumptions and just be us? i think we started on the wrong foot and somewhere along the way we switched—”

“yes.”

he stops mid-sentence, his brows drawing together in confusion. “what?”

“i said yes. i’ll keep your last name. i want your last name, roger taylor.”

he grins, and the happiness in every line on his face outshines even the sun’s rays. “god, you’re perfect.” he kisses you hard, and you laugh as you drop against the pillows, pulling him with you. he stops attacking your neck with his lips long enough to prop himself up and stare down at you. “but don’t you ever pull something like that again! if someone starts nagging you, tell me first thing. promise?”

you nod, stunned by his firm tone.

“say it.”

“i promise.”

he smooths the hair on your forehead, and your stomach somersaults to watch him examine you so openly “good girl,” he mumbles before lowering his mouth to yours again.

you lose yourself in him. he loses himself in you. somewhere along the way, you find one another, and all is bliss.

in the morning, legs tangled in the sheets and steady rain pelting the window, roger adjusts his hold on your waist. he’s still asleep, his chest rising and falling in time with his gentle breath. you pull his arm tight around you and smile into your pillow.

your cheek is still sore, and you’re sure there’s some poor nun who remains scarred for life after witnessing roger’s montreal incident.

but this morning you cannot find it within yourself to feel bothered by your faceless friend, nor by the scarred nun. indeed, you think, you should write them each a thank you card, because in a funny sort of way, they brought you to your husband. in a funny sort of way, they gave you love of your life. and for that, you are indebted to them.

you twist at the sound of roger’s yawn. taking his face in your hands, you smile at him. “good morning, husband,” you whisper.

he grins back. “good morning, wife.”

now this—this you could get used to.

taglist (italicized handles wouldn’t work): @im-an-adult-ish​ @bluewillowmom​ @deakygurl @aprilaady @dancingdiscofloof​ @six-bloodyminutes​

[demigoddreamer]

Addressing Batman’s Abuse Part 2

LINK TO PART 1: 

https://demigoddreamer.tumblr.com/post/639260521881862144/addressing-batmans-abuse

Batman: keeps a secret that could harm his family

Batfamily: how could you keep secrets from us?? I thought we could trust each other

Batman: nah man this info for me only you guys can’t be trusted with this

Batfamily: keep any secret whatsoever

Batman(who has a horrible lack of boundaries): THE AUDACITY

Ok...I really hoped there wasn’t more to the abuse but there is. I honestly can’t believe I wrote ALL OF THAT. I’m gonna do a post where I try to display Jason’s pain and suffering  for what it is and tell the haters that they have no basis and to get the fuck outta here if you don’t like it. Jason deserves to be loved and that’s not because he’s my fav. BUT BACK TO BRUCE… anyway here imma cover anything else I forgot because what else is a high school freshman gonna do on her last day of break. All I’ve been doing to studying my butt off and working hard nuh huh IMMA TELL THIS CRUEL WORLD TO PUT A SOCK IN IT STOP ABUSING MY BOIS LIKE THE BATBROS. Sorry I got off topic. 

I was talking in the last post about RHATO#25 where Jason shot the penguin. Now he has a pretty darn good reason ok. My boi found letters from his abusive criminal father(more like a DNA donor cause he ain’t a good dad like he supposed to be) and this trash Willis Todd wrote letters to Jason when Willis was in prison. He was like sorry and stuff and i don’t see how this is good enough BUT YOU MADE MY BOI JASON CRY! (I can’t bear to see my boi jay sad) now if you didn’t know my boi Jason has a heart of gold(if you didn’t think jay’s a good person then you’re just a lower life form) and LIKE ANY CHILD HE WANTS TO BE LOVED BY HIS PARENTS. Anyway he’s mad at Penguin for putting Willis in jail and shoots him...we all know what’s going to happen…*sucks in breath* Bruce is like you broke my precious no kill rule and beats the shit out of my poor baby Jason. LIKE THAT’S NOT OK it’s honestly kinda worst knowing JASON HAS A HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ABUSE FROM HIS FATHER, another father figure causing him psychological trauma is going to bring up all sorts of bad memories and PTSD from Willis. Batman was supposed to be a better father than Willis but kinda ended up like him instead.

Sorry I didn’t discuss that more in depth in the last post, it’s why there’s a part 2. But now some new stuff. So as we know...Alfred died WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE ALFRED IS A FRICKING GOD HE’S IMMORTAL HE CAN’T DIE WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!...sorry I’m just so sad Alfred is DA BEST. anyway in the comic Pennyworth RIP or something like that, they are having a nice funeral for him. You know what?? THEY TOLD JASON NOT TO COME TO THE FUNERAL. THEY INVITED AMNESIAC DICK(now ric?*cry in bad naming and lost bro relationships*) but they like to Jason nah bro we don’t want your ass you but my BOI JASON WAS LIKE NAH FUCK ALL OF YOU IMMA COME TO THIS. and he came and he HAS THE RIGHT TO COME. He loved Alfred just as much as any of them and Alfred loved him and would want him to FUCKING COME.(ngl my man jay looks good in those shades) anyway they all seem pretty hostile to him when he comes and Bruce doesn’t correct this like hey he’s not bad guy you know

Also we need to acknowledge the secret keeping. Bruce is super paranoid and has major trust issues. He doesn’t feel the need to give IMPORTANT INFO to anyone not even his own fucking family. And this withholding of crucial info often puts his family in danger. Like when Joker kidnapped them and made them think they’re faces were cut off. I don’t know exactly what happened but he knew Joker was gonna do something and they were put in danger. WHY WOULD YOU PURPOSELY SUBJECT THE KIDS YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY YOU HAVE TO CALL YOURS TO PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL TRAUMA??? LIKE WHYYYYYYY? If you simply trusted them and not do stuff behind their back then this could’ve been avoided. It is hinted that while Bruce was unconscious the Joker told them some stuff, a lot of it he said when Bruce was unconscious but while conscious he said like Bruce loves Joker*not surprised considering why is joker still alive* and he secretly hopes that Joker kills his kid like HELL NO, whispered some horrible things that will make them self deprecate and increase depression. We can imagine how bad it is to be kidnapped, about to be lit on fire, seeing your cut off face on a plate(their faces weren’t actually cut off but still it’s traumatizing), and then joker toxin fills the room making you go crazy, I imagine it’s worse for Barbara after being shot by Joker and even worse for Jason BECAUSE HE WAS FUCKING BRUTALLY MURDERED BY JOKER AND HIS CROWBAR AND EXPLOSIONS. (I wanna shove that crowbar up Joker’s ass until he starts bleeding out of every orifice) and Bruce is like y’all we need to talk but everyone’s like no i can’t, making up excuses, etc. but i don’t blame them once again the secret keeping caused unnecessary pain. THEY HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE MAD AT BATMAN and he tries soooo hard to justify it. and when they keep a secret from him suddenly they’re the bad guy. BATMAN CAN’T HANDLE SOMEONE KEEPING SECRETS FROM HIM honestly that’s shitty AF. And so toxic like he keeps breaking into their business and crossing lines with privacy. SO WHY DOES BRUCE KEEP DOING THIS??? He keeps people in the dark and they get hurt like HONESTLY YOU’RE HURTING EVERYONE AROUND YOU AND HE MAKES SOME ASSED EXCUSE ABOUT PROTECTING THEM.

Look Batman, there comes a time where enough is enough ok. Please stop hurting them, you already lost them and you’ll never get them back. All of them should just get out but especially Jason. I know a lot of people think Jason should leave entirely and I don’t entirely disagree with that. But I think Jason should keep his bros ditch his dad. Like Batman keeps hurting Jason but his brothers I feel like are more there for him than anyone else and they’re as much victims as Jason is. Batman should stop adopting so many kids if he can’t treat them right.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

sometime in this last week, or this week coming, my blog has turned/turns 10. god. a decade old. a whole ass chunk of my life i’ve spent on this hellsite. when i began on here, i was a kid. a lost, lonely, depressed and anxious 15/16 year old kid. a kid scared of her future. a kid confused about her future. what to do for uni. to change schools or not??? to do drama/acting at uni or english/philosophy or to move 8hrs away to another regional uni to “escape” her “washed up, dead end hometown” that was so typical of all the pop-punk music that she was listening to at the time.

she was a tad overdramatic, loud, “funny” (as described by her school friends) and terribly forgetful in regards to homework and school assignments. she was angry at the world, most especially the catholic school she was fucking sick and tired of attending. but she was convinced that since she was the so-called “funny girl”, that she simply couldn’t be depressed or anxious. she believed herself unloveable because she didn’t look like a weird mixture of hayley williams and emo-pop queen lights. but now, i no longer believe that i have to look like the women that i looked up to in the ~emo scene~. fuck beauty standards. i am loveable.

in the years since joining tumblr, i’ve managed to get through business college, my undergrad degree and, well, failed out of postgrad due to obvious burnout and health issues amongst other things. although i’ve lost many friends irl and many followers/mutuals online on here. for those who’ve stuck around to see me get through all of this, thank you. to all the friends/casual mutuals that have since deactivated or only followed me for a short time then unfollowed; thank you.

like obviously i was never/have never been a massive popular blog on here, like thebootydiaries or vampireapologist (who has since deactivated a couple of months ago) with tens of thousands of followers. my follower count is still close to the 8,000 range at 7,892. obviously that’s still a lot of people (and of course, porn bots lmao and many, many non-active blogs), enough like one super old post from like 2012 tumblr pointed out, enough for a small to medium sized city or town, or something like that. i don’t know how many people i’ve really reached. i really don’t know how i actually amassed this small army of people.

i am aware though, that on other platforms like snapchat (lmao does anyone even use it anymore in 2021???)/instagram/youtube/tiktok etc, i’d PROBABLY be considered as some type of ~micro influencer (🤮🤮)~. hell, i actually had a bot slide into my notes about being one on here on this hellsite back in 2019. i don’t know if i’ve ever actually ~influenced~ anyone on here with my shitposts (when i started making some) or my personal posts. i don’t know my reach. even though, now, i do occasionally get featured on buzzfeed listicles (although pay me buzzfeed along with the OPs of those original embedded posts), i still don’t know how many people i’ve reached… and even with my very occasional checks of google analytics lmao. on top of this, grappling with the loss of followers at times is much, much easier than it was when i began on here and the first few years following that. i know that my follower count doesn’t determine my worth and stuff.

but over these 10 years, i have grown. i turn 26 this year. back in 2011, 15/16yo me never thought she’d be here. she was partially down the suicidal thoughts hole, with things about ~picturing her funeral and wondering who’d bother to turn up. if only she could pretend to be dead for a day to see who’d give a fuck~ and 16-18yo me was defs down it with her HSC hellscape thoughts in 2012/2013. that 3rd floor tafe/tech women’s bathroom window drop and the thought of scarring her class for life (and that cool dude from catholic school that she crushed on who ended up at tafe with her) with jumping out of it onto the concrete below. instead, she just posted on fb about ~being a failure~ etc which ultimately did lose her a bunch of facebook friends lmao. it was practically the same thing. her mental breakdown after the end of her hsc, where she let her earrings go green and get infected in her ears because “fuck self care, bc what the fuck is it??? i’ll never get better! let me fucking wallow in my self loathing bc it’s the only thing that i’m fucking good at!!!” so i no longer have my ears pierced. oh! it was just all too fucking much!!

i am happier today. i no longer have those semi-suicidal thoughts. hell, i almost died in 2020 from a fucking bowel aneurysm, after my stomach tumour excision surgery. that forced me to put things into perspective. i appreciate the little things . i appreciate the very few friends that i actually have. yes. i’m still depressed and anxious. some days are still shitty and hard. but nowhere as hard and shitty as they were back when i began on here 10 years ago.

how the fuck last 10 years have gone past, with my ass on here; clearing out my blog and caring more about doing that than my uni work (lmao whoops); having made some lifelong friends both internationally (from the US) and long distance domestically in australia, it’s been a long ride; i honestly have no fucking idea. obviously over these past 10 years, i’ve debated with myself over and over and over again whether i should delete/deactivate this account or not. would it make me healthier??? more than likely. but then when i have meltdowns or just inner ramblings i have to get out somewhere, where else to post??? on fb?? obvs not. it’s “attention seeking” or the like on there. no one will read them. no one will resonate. but on here??? even if i got/get one “like” in the notes or one “yo i feel this” response in the tags or replies, it feels like i’ve reached someone??? okay yeah. i know this place IS NOT therapy and i’m not using my followers as amateur (or probs even actual professional) armchair psychologists…. which is a thing i think people need to stop doing internet-wide: but that’s a whole other post that i reblogged a few days ago lmao. i really need to get another therapist, actually lmao.

but it’s the community i’ve found hard to leave. i have what feel like friends, when i’ve never been employed (still as of yet); and when all of my irl friends/acquaintances are working and doing the whole ~adulting~ and ~grown up life~ thing right. it’s also the frenzied rabidness of spite with hating staff’s godawful ideas. the memes. oh the memes. and also the RaWrInG 20s XD emo scene reemergence on here that’s kept me here. the messy petty drama from time to time of big blogs fighting it out.

this place really is bizarre and fun sometimes. and also the fact that i can still hide behind the ridiculous “roaring pikachu” URL that i made all those years ago. i am anonymous. it’s freeing. but on fb it’s all like “WHY WONT YOU ADD A BANNER IMAGE AND TELL US 20 FUN FACTS ABOUT YOU!!!!!???? LET PEOPLE WHO HAVENT SPOKEN TO YOU IN 10 YEARS KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU BECAUSE WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE!!!” and the same goes for Corporate Hellscape Facebook™️ (linkedin) but in the professional sense instead. y’all know fuck all about me really. besides my posts. and i love that and live for that. okay yeah. y’all know more about my mental health than my fb feed obvs… which is probably a terribly unfortunate thing. but still.

over the last 10 years then, my superiority complex for being ~so original and intelligent~ or whatever the fuck i had in high school, has all but ebbed away. i’m not that smart just because i went to uni. hell, i literally did NONE of my in-class work and none of my philosophy readings in uni….. so i have fuck all idea of how i got through undergrad like that lmao. i’m not original when so many people can articulate the same thoughts that i have, but like, sometimes better, on a post (even though sometimes/most of the time the Tumblr User Hot Takes Tuesday™️ takes on here are fucking awful lmao). but still. originality is not something i really have anymore. or really had in the first place lmao.

so will i deactivate after these 10 years, like i’ve been saying for so, so long??? i honestly have no idea. but just know. thanks guise. have a nice gpoy selfie day XD. grab your wands. your tardises. grab your war paint. grab your whatever the fuck other fandom specific stuff that was one that hella cringe post from 2011 til 2015 random tumblr. that relic is as old as time itself. just as this mysterious roaring pikachu is for someone whose too loyal to leave this W E B B E D H E L L S I T E that’s just as much of a train wreck as she is. lmao.

[apenapaperandadoofus]

Hi! I just read MC pulling RFA members' pants down and it is so hilarious lmao , my stomach hurt from laughing so hard , and I just got an idea , how about insted of MC it is Jumin who pull other RFA members +V 's pants down in public lol!

Y’all are evil lol, what kinda crack you smokin PFT I love this

Jumin pulling down the RFA members pants:

Zen:

BOI

The AUDACITY of this man

Jumin is not scared of anything

Honestly I admire him for not giving a shit and just doing it

Zen will literally try to drop kick him

It’s the end for Jumin

Or is it?

Jumin is ready for the kick, and he manages to dodge (he had Taekwondo or karate classes, if you’re getting kidnapped that many times you gotta learn some moves kiddo)

In one swift motion, Jumin is able to unbuckle Zen’s belt and pull his pats down!

And everyone states in shock, it’s as if the world is going in slow motion

Seven yells “kInKy” the way Jared? (Omg I totally forgot his name hold on- YES IT IS JARED HA) the way Jared says it in the song “Sincerely Me”

When Jumin pulls down Zen’s pants, do you know what happens?

Zen has cat undies

In fact, the same kind of cat undies Jumin keeps in his bedroom drawer

Idk y’all, white seems kinda sus

Anyway Zen just screams and says it’s the only pair of underwear he had and to StOp LaUgHiNg Yoosung it’s a SERIOUS MATTER

In the end, Jumin probably got all his relationship points with Zen down lmao

Yoosung:

Aight so let’s just say Jumin is like super drunk or smth and Seven managed to make a bet so Jumin would pull Yoosung’s pants down lol

Basically you were all in the after party of the RFA! You were all having a good time, drinking and dancing and just joking around

So while drunk Yoosung is on the dance floor, trying to moonwalk or something,Jumin comes up and in one swift motion, pulls Yoosung’s pants down

It took a minute for him to realize the thing that had just happened, but Yoosung S C R E A M E D

He was wearing his favorite Superman underwear, and for you to see him like that was super embarassing

Also it was friggen cold! What in the diddly darn fu-

Anyway Yoosung porbably feels super betrayed and angry (because V is trying to help him put his pants on) while Seven in maniacally laughing in the background lmao

Yoosung then has trust issues for the rest of his life, and Jumin has to pay 20 years of therapy (fucking finally)

Jaehee:

UHM??

ARE YOU

DUDE

NO

WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ATTEPT TO-

EYE-

SIR DONT YOU DARE

First of all what the fuck Juju, I love you honey and I seriously don’t want to go to your funeral

Second: does Jaehee even wear pants outside her house? I think she’s always wearing super cute dresses or just her work clothes which includes a skirt

Ya girl wants to show dem legs pft Jaehee honey stop having us simp for you

Also I think no matter if Jumin is her boss or not, she would kick him and succeed lmao

I don’t know why Jumin would even try I mean he could get sued or something for work misbehavior or smth like that

Saeyoung:

(This is inspired by a comment one of y’all said in my other pants pulling down hcs)

Honestly it’s almost impossible to get Seven

Jumin is probably prett drunk, so Seven would be keeping a bit of a distance you know?

But if Jumin somehow got him, he’d pull Sevens pants down...only to find that Seven had a second pair of pants on

Jumin took off the other pair and...there was a third pair of pants

Seven was ready lmao

Any who, after a whole fifteen minutes of negotiating, Jumin agreed to let Seven pet Elizabeth once and take a picture, in exchange of Seven taking off all of his pants

He had 20 pairs of pants in there

Seven what the fuck

V:

mmMmmMM KiNkY✨

Jumin quickly takes V’s pants off and ya boi is just looking at Jumin like: 👁👄👁

There’s just five minutes of awkward silence until V sighs and puts his pants on, and then looks at everyone.

“I am so sorry for not wearing a belt. It’s my fault.”

“V SHUT THE FU-”

Anyway in the end, Jumin does apologize to his friend, but honestly he’s done this to V way to many times before, you can’t tell me otherwise lmao

[in-tua-deep]

tua s1 rewatch with my roommate

episode one (I forgot for the first episode oops):

I have been treated to pictures of a lovely cosplay of Klaus who won a cosplay contest my roommate was in !!

Klaus putting his arm in front of Five during the funeral fight is good shit

“I have heard like nothing about Vanya” “yeah that’s pretty much how she’s treated in show as well”

“I can see why he’s the fandom favorite” - about Klaus

“Istanbul is in the firST EPISODE?”

I forGOT about the “rapists can climb” line when he breaks into Vanya’s apartment omg but also like,, his dumb arm wound

Episode two:

HERR CARLSON

Aww baby fives first time travel his little smile. Baby. Baby boy. And the dawning horror in the apocalypse baby nO

Five: you got anything stronger

Also five: takes one sip and then fills up more, takes another sip, and then immediately puts it down ?????

The motel dude for hazel and cha cha just looks at them like “yeah these are serial killers” and just rolls with it

Also actually why tf doesn’t the commission spring for better stuff?? Why would they cut costs?? They time travel? They could game the stock market so hard ?????? Give the assassins their own rooms omg

Also why didn’t five like. Crush his tracker. Why did he just leave it whole and intact outside of the Griddys.

Forgot how much I love Agnes

(Oh man it is storming bad here it just BOOMED)

Also idk if Diego actually deserved that taser hmmmmm but also like,, communication lads five was literally right there killing people and Diego is like “hmm something is up here” like. Yeah Diego ur big brother “I can get my sibling in trouble for something” senses are tingling

Wow I really did repress all these Allison and Luther scenes huh. Also it’s still super cute that Allison read Claire moon books

Allison: dads heart gave out, which wasn’t how I was expecting to find out dad had a heart but it tracks

“SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE BEN... said with love 😘”

Did five actually sleep at Vanyas?? The sofa looks undisturbed but he had to wait for work hours to interrogate the meritech people,, five,, please sleep. The whole “IF YOU CALL ME YOUNG MAN ONE MORE TIME” interaction makes more sense with five on. Zero sleep.

I didn’t remember that Patch straight up knows about the umbrella academy oops. Like she clocks Diego as overcompensating for his childhood. Queen

Is that an umbrella adademy Diego cross stitch on Diego’s wall?? Did he buy that? Make it?? Did grace make it?

Vanya, walking into the academy: five??? five? pspspspspsps

Also like. Who was Vanyas therapist??? Clearly they did not help her

Aww the tow truck driver :(

I know the show wants me to dislike Patrick I KNOW,, and I think her fathers funeral is extenuating circumstance?? But still Patrick is valid for not giving an inch regarding his ex who mind controlled his child. Vanya didn’t really deserve Allison snapping at her but like. She had some good points. Allison arguably would have had to deal with vanyas book more than anyone else

Five smiling proudly at Klaus’s drama at meritech bless but also KLAUS DONT BREAK GLASS ON YOURSELF

Me, spotting Leonard: BASTARD

Love how everyone greets Diego in the gym and don’t question all his knives or anything like “yeah that’s Diego he lives here and loves knives :)”

Why could Leonard have not been like. A normal ass guy. Vanya needs friends who sympathize with her holy shit get this person some socialization

Pogo really did have to lead these kids by hand to the recording rooms because literally no one was super invested in reginalds ~murder mystery~

ahafahJAGSJWGAI MY ROOMMATE JUST SAID POGO IS THE BEST CHARACTER SO FAR,,,, I will probably never include pogo in my fics because I do Not Care About Him lmaoooo

Aww five does to see Dolores and being like “it’s been a rough couple of days :(“,,,,, baby,,,, but also tag yourself I’m hazel going “elastic wrist splint yesssssss”

Five I am begging you PLEASE get some sleep

OH FIVE SHAKING DIEGO IN THE APOCALYPSE TO TRY AND WAKE HIM UP OHHHHH OH :(

Episode 3:

my roommate is super faceblind which is an issue bc she identifies people mainly by hairstyle so seeing the s2 stuff on tumblr is tripping her over bc she keeps seeing diego and going ??? who is that again? bc she’s seen his longer hair

okay there is no way that the eggs that grace put in that pan are the ones that ended up on the smiley face breakfast plate,,, but also grace that whole scene was a mood honestly i would be like “okay maybe mom killed dad BUT he deserved it sooooo”

“what the FUCK” - my roommate about cha-cha’s shitty wound care where she holds a curling iron against her arm

i didn’t remember that five got shOT AT THE DEPARTMENT STORE did i just erase that from my memory?? i mean yeah it’s a graze but he stitches it up and then slaps a bandaid on it so he has a wound that needed stitches on his shoulder for the entire show ??????? is he okay???? that would make moving your arm,,, painful,,,,,

a bandaid just slapped over it i’m actively yelling

“Sometimes when I see a million gifs of a show before I watch I get really surprised when they talk but he is exactly what I expected” - my roommate, about five

“I noticed they’ve only really showed diego in really badly lit scenes so far” - my roommate defending her lack of ability to recognize diego

i’m still laughing about pogo literally having to point out the murder tapes and now allison and luther are investigating and just. allison is lowkey defending grace and i’m laughing

“why is he saying woodwork is embarrassing that’s like one of the most middle of the wood hobbies to have. you’re respectable to grandpas who used to carve wooden ducks AND twenty-year-olds who can’t make anything to save their lives” - my roommate on leonard peabody

“i think he’s already crossing some lines he’s met this lady ONCE” - roommate on leonard/vanya

five having flashbacks in the car :(

did allison and luther draw straws for who went to fetch which sibling?? allison was like “dibs on vanya” and luther was just like “aww :(”

five luther and klaus in the van - BOYS NIGHT BOYS NIGHT let’s go pick up diego

“the coat he’s wearing does have a nice swish to it” - roommate about klaus’s coat

luther being like “you’re just as messed up as the rest of us and we’re all you have” like luther,,, baby,,,,, you literally ARE all he has,,,,,, his family is the only thing he’s really cared about since he was thirteen and maybe before then :(

“I can’t tell if those are supposed to be cake or yeast donuts... i think extruded donuts are cake donuts but she said she lets them rise so maybe they’re yeast?” - my roommate focusing on all the things that i do not

sometimes i forget that hazel and cha-cha pretended to be private detectives trying to find a lost child in a potentially dangerous situation,,, five would be disgusted

“she shouldn’t get a vote” “i was gonna say i agree with you” “she should get a vote!!” this is peak sibling energy honestly i think i’ve had that exact interaction with my siblings voting for a movie or something

“hashtag android rights” 

“I want to be the tailor who gets a call one day that says ‘i want you to make clothes for a chimpanzee”

is it telling that only luther in the flashback didn’t really talk to grace at all,, i mean five didn’t either but i think he was gone by that point in the flashback ???? 

wait diego tells grace that she worked for him for thirty years,,, the kids are 29 and later it’s implied she was built bc vanya kept killing nannies when they were like four but maybe s2 clarifies that some more?? or diego just is rounding up

“that’s an interesting fabric to her skirt” - my roommate about grace’s outfit

forgot that hazel and cha cha broke the door to the manor busting in,, do they ever fix that?? we’re only at episode three do they spend the rest of the season with their door open to anyone on the streets

okay that bathtub is WAY too small to allow for klaus to be moving his elbows about like that underwater smh

“how is HE useful on mission??” my roommate about klaus

where is the SECURITY SYSTEM??? luther LITERALLY said that reggie was more paranoid and yet some assassin can just bust down the door and have unrestricted access????? he built a whole ROBOT but no security system????????

“maybe it was like,, practice for the kids? someone breaks in and they take care of it? wait no that doesn’t explain the thirteen years they’ve been gone?”

“why WAS he on the moon?” - about luther

“I want to see what she’s embroidering!!” about grace during the gunfight in the living room she’s absolutely ignoring diego getting shot at

what is a rope-a-dope,,,, diego yells “EVER HEARD OF A ROPE-A-DOPE???” at luther but like. no i haven’t. what does that MEAN diego

aww i forgot they played sinnerman, love that song

“what are you doing dude, rumor has it you’re not shooting at me that’s all you need to do” i mean. the roommate is not wrong. allison could just end the fight with a yell. i understand she’s pissed off and has rumor trauma but like cha cha is actively trying to murder them

how is luther not winning he literally has super strength. does hazel have super strength? just punch the man and knock him out jesus y’all suck at this smh

why is there such intense music we all been knew about luther’s strength - oH HIS BODY

forgot about that

is it allison’s fault that klaus got kidnapped because she didn’t literally just rumor them to give up?? like she literally has that power. she could have been like “i heard a rumor you left and forgot about us” it didn’t even need to be violent?? i understand she has rumor trauma but this i feel is allowable circumstances

diego showing his worry about vanya by getting angry which honestly i think all the siblings do that rip none of these idiots have even heard of healthy communication in their LIVES

you know,, i don’t think vanya can drive. she takes the bus. she took a taxi to leonard’s house. we see her walking a lot. does she know how to drive?? i imagine that the umbrella academy were taught bc of mission related stuff but,,, vanya wasn’t?? that’s just depressing tbh

[drwcn]

'The onus has never been on him,' that slapped so hard. It falls true in canon events too and that just hurts. 'You don't have a gege and I no longer have a didi,' you ripped out my heart from my already collapsing chest. Your words are so beautiful, author. You know where to strike and your aim is nothing but perfect. Also, I desperately want lxc to dismantle the tyrannical way the Lan Sect Elders operate. His husband's death & lwj's suffering would be the last straw, is that wishful thinking?

Hey friends! You’re too sweet! I lumped these two asks together because they kind of both address the same thing, which is the actions of the elders. On tumblr and on AO3, I’ve had a lot of friends really upset with the way the elders acted. Rightfully so, since they made our poor boy commit honour su*cide. 

However, I thought now is probably a good time to shed some light on the cultural and historical implications of their actions, and to perhaps play devil’s advocate a little bit. 

The truth is, what the elders did within context is not at all outrageous. In fact, given how I’ve set up the story, to ask Wei Wuxian to die was the only thing they could’ve done since Yunmeng Jiang was unwilling to accept a divorce. 

I will explain. 

Because historical Chinese society was very gendered, I invite y’all to imagine for one second that there is no magic in this AU. Imagine this is a historical au and imagine Wei Wuxian as a woman. (I hate the heteronormativity of it, but in the setting of the story, by marrying into Gusu Lan Sect, he essentially has cast himself in that gendered role. There are no same sex marriages historically that I can draw parallels with... as far as I know.)

I believe Jiang Yanli in part 3 explains some of this in her internal monologue. She also said that the Gusu Lan family is within their right to do whatever they want. Her last in chapter three was “.. then by the week’s end, A-Cheng could very well be the only brother she has left.” She knew right away that death was a possibility. 

You see, there is no forgiveness for any woman caught having an affair. No forgiveness of any kind. You will not find forgiveness from strangers, from public opinion, from your neighbour’s cousin twice removed. No one. In historical texts, 七出 (seven leaves) outlines the 7 reasons a man can reasonably divorce his wife. 

Reason #1 is if the wife is unkind/unfilial to her husband’s parents (Right here, you can see just how different the priorities were in ancient Chinese society, how seriously ancient society took “respect your elders”, and why the Elders of Gusu Lan have so much power. This sets the stage for some of my later points.) 

Reason #2 is no offspring. If she is unable to have children, her husband may also divorce her, although since Chinese society was polygamous until mid 1940s, this is usually not an issue because the wife can always just allow her husband to find a concubine. 

Reason number #3 is affair.   

I should also point out that “divorce” as we understand in modern society is not the same “divorce” that I speak of historically. Historically, there are two types of ending for marriages. 1) an amicable separation or so called “he-li” 和离, and 2)xiu 休. An amicable separation is almost always a huge negotiation, requiring the input of elders from both families. A man and a woman cannot just wake up one day and have an amicable separation. Also, amicable separations are typically to “save face” and is practiced by large gentry and noble families, like the Gusu Lans and Yunmeng Jiangs. As well, an amicable separation is usually done when the woman hasn’t done anything “wrong”, as in the 7 reasons indicated above. Anytime she has “committed” any one of the 7 “sins”, her husband is within full rights to “xiu” her without consulting anyone. A woman’s station in society doesn’t necessarily even save her from being “xiu”-ed, they just... take on different forms. An Empress for example can literally never be “xiu-ed”, BUT, if she does something wrong like...say for example she is a jealous lady who can’t do a good job managing the inner palace, the Emperor can “废后“ - as in abolish her of her empress status. She is probably confined to “the Cold Palace” 冷宫 (a desolated area of the palace that’s essentially a prison) for the rest of her life. If she did something VERY wrong, like say was caught having an affair, she may live (and be sent to the Cold Palace) if her maiden family is powerful/influential enough in court, but if her maiden family is just so-so, she is definitely 100% dead. She will usually be given 3 options: dagger, a white silk cloth, and a cup of wine. Basically, stab herself, hang herself or poison herself. 

Now, that’s an empress. From empress downwards, all women, noblewoman and princesses included, can be xiu-ed. 

I consulted my mother on this just to make sure I’m right, and she said, yeah, a woman divorced by her husband historically is a very serious outcome. Like.... “she could literally never face society again” kind of serious, so seriously in fact she “might as well be dead.” Her maiden family would not just...welcome her back with open arms. No. They’d send her off somewhere hidden away from sight. 

As a matter of fact, once a woman is found guilty of committing a serious infraction, affair being the most scandalous, her maiden family may not even stand up for her because....well... she did something “wrong”. It is seen as more righteous if they allow her to die because then it’s like... her death restored her honour or she at least was good enough to face the consequences of her actions (All bullshit I know, but it is what it is). In fact, some large families with good reputations they can’t afford to besmirch will actively disown her. 

Now let’s bring this back to Wei Wuxian. As Jiang Yanli mentioned in chapter 3, if Gusu Lan wanted to be a dick, they’d just divorced Wei Wuxian out right. That would’ve been the dick move. But they didn’t do that. They wanted to give the Jiangs an olive branch. As a matter of fact, had the affair just been just a thing within Cloud Recesses, the Lans would’ve allowed for an amicable separation, even though they were within their rights (technically) to divorce Wei Wuxian. But...for whatever reason (I mean... I know the reason, you don’t haha), the news of the affair became rapidly disseminated such that literally everyone knows. Now both families are in a sticky spot.  

One, Zewu-jun is a prominent cultivator. To be cheated on in historical terms is a thing to be laughed at (fragile egos of manhood I suppose). To Lan Xichen’s behaviour, you really can’t voice any criticism. He’s gone above and beyond what is culturally expected as kind. 

Two, the marriage is finished. Now that the affair is exposed, to continue would be a farce and cause more reasons for ridicule. 

I knew pretty much since I started writing this AU that if I exposed the affair, one way or the other Wei Wuxian was gonna have to “die” if I wanted any semblance of reality. 

The only other scenario where he wouldn’t have died is if Lan Xichen is allowed to marry concubines. Then, Gusu Lans could’ve just secluded (imprison) Wei Wuxian for the rest of his life. Any woman or man Lan Xichen marries thereafter still wouldn’t be his “wife” or “husband” because he technically never had a divorce. They would all be concubines, and I don’t think Lan Xichen is the kind of man to do that to someone he loves. Also, Lan Wangji would have lost any and all chances to be with Wei Wuxian since they will never let him out. In that case, wangxian is done. 

I know it doesn’t make sense from a modern stance point, but what the Elders did was not only “right” but “reasonable”. Was it kind? I would even make an argument for kind. They intend to bury and honour Wei Wuxian after death (and that’s very important because funeral and afterlife in this culture are taken very seriously), and they will allow Lan Wangji to send him off at the funeral. No family in historical China would do that. 

Within context, the Elders aren’t wrong. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian made their bed, now they have to lie in it. 

[steve0discusses]

The Live Action Fullmetal Alchemist Movie Part 6: Let’s Kill Hughes

Hey guys, I’ve been having some issues with the blog not...updating my drafts. So in case you’re wondering, that’s where I disappeared to. Give a round of applause to the support team for finding a solution until it gets fixed but as of right now I’m on like a private window with my extensions turned off and writing this from both tumblr and a LibreOffice document. Hello ads, nice to see you back.

Last we left off, we were a hop and skip away to lab 5. In the anime, this was a sequence where there was a bunch of fighting with suits of armor, and they kept that in this movie, but...not the people you think would be fighting are going to be fighting.

Listen I’m not like super knowledgeable about the world of Matte painting, but I like that they’ve unintentionally made this world building where whoever is in charge of making these red bricks basically owns everyone’s nuts. Everything is made out of the same red bricks. Like I know this is a show about homunculi ruling the world but I feel like the red brick guy is hellllllla more egregious. Freakin Monsanto over here.

I assume they had a 3d model and was like “we can just keep using it” and damn, they sure did. And inside of this brick building is, unsurprisingly a lot more red brick (although I think this is partially, if not entirely, an actual real life set.)

This next part is...such a lesson in pacing. Not necessarily a lesson to follow, but definitely a lesson to learn from maybe their non-example.

(watch Hughes die under the cut)

And what’s interesting is that there were a lot of good lines in this upcoming segment. There were a lot of good moments—bu there’s just so many. Maybe too many. You gotta prune your script occasionally, it’s like a tomato plant.

Like I’ve been doing a stress garden to cope with quarantine and Covid and 3+ months of life endangering wildfires, and I learned that you gotta prune the sucker vines off your tomatoes, although sucker vines can also make tomatoes. It sucks to do because I love tomatoes, and I want as many tomatoes as possible, but when you prune the plant, you get bigger better tomatoes that are more worthwhile than the suckers that can infect your plant and make it really sick.

Sorry that made me sound like 5000 years old with that gardening analogy. If you need me to solve your small town murder mysteries, I’m ready.

So it’s like...kind of tragic that it came together as kind of nonsensical when you can tell that it’s so close to being something better.

Like we have some reason up to this point to believe that Ed would have a freak out here...but like...a sobbing on the floor screaming at the walls type of freak out? Was there enough time devoted to this blow up, or did he walk into this room and immediately start screaming? Because he sure did walk immediately into this room and start screeching like a broken bird.

Like last recap, which was about 2 minutes ago in screentime, was this fun and quirky montage with Hughes. Now we’re sobbing into this rusty factory.

And I know what’s going on because I’ve seen the anime, but if you haven’t seen it—would this emotional break down make any sense? We were told by Dr Marcoh, “check out lab 5,” but we were only going to this factory on kind of a wish and a prayer. I really wonder if people who don’t know this show could follow past this point.

And then while we’re still adjusting to “yo, Ed just took it from a 2 to a 10 like immediately” Al is like “Hey I noticed no one is paying attention to me, and I have to lay a wicked fart:”

and then both brother’s just have a freak out. Gotta all be freaking out in this random ass Unity asset that was probably also used for some college grad’s first battle royale.

Pacing is just everything. And what’s SO HARD about Full Metal Alchemist is that there really is a lot of content to cover, there’s a lot of emotions to go through, and when you only have about 7 minutes to cover what was about 3-4 episodes, if I remember correctly, it’s kind of a zany mess.

And if you were going into this movie hoping they wouldn’t illustrate Al as a large idiot baby, then you share the sentiments of most people who saw this movie. Al is like...kind of reduced to a whiny big baby and is...not cute. Like Al is low key kind of menacing throughout this movie, not just because he has this CGI armor thing going on, but also because Al is...so impressionable and unhinged.

Something that I didn’t appreciate enough when I watched the anime was just how important Barry the Chopper was for Al’s logical character development.

Yo...These bangs…

...I’ve realized that every show I recap here just has the worst hair styles. I honestly never thought much about hair at all until I watched like 200 hours of Yugioh and all of this movie and also 6 seasons of Once Upon a Time which featured some LOOKS (but only recapped like 3 episodes, sorry if I got some of y’all excited. That was when we had no reason to cap everything because the capping community for Once was very alive and very exciting.)

By hitting him with a wrench (Al does not feel pain, ps, so he doesn’t need to be hunched over like this) Winry reminds Al that Ed would not risk his life for a fake brother (which may be a line from the anime or the manga but I don’t remember) and crying just...a lot.

Like it felt as if she had to shoot all of this out of order. Same with Ed’s freak out here. Movie’s aren’t really shot in succession and it’s up to the director to make it feel coherent and logical...this felt scattered, like the actors really didn’t know what was happening in the scenes leading up to it so they just cranked it to 11.

And then I guess Ed was either so insulted that Al punched him or was so upset that Al made Winry cry (again, this movie really tries to sell the EdxWinry ship and from me that’s a really big compliment), that Ed just started laying punches to extend a fight scene that was kind over before it started.

But symbolically there is a lot nice things going on here, Ed only uses his fleshy hand so he bleeds all over Al, hurting himself as much he’s hurting his brother. Implying more than just this fight, but suggesting that their whole journey of trying to find this sorcerer’s stone is just going to hurt both of them in their quest to save the other.

And then Al says something along the line of “it hurts!” to infer that he’s got this broken heart which is when they both finally just freakin stop.

Such a shame the pacing, which was a mix of too quick, and too many tomatoes, kind of made it hella blindsiding.

Again this was so many episodes of FMA and they stuffed it into so few minutes, it’s wild.

Especially since Ed is like...he’s cast as an adult! He’s an adult! At no point in the movie so far have they called him a kid, and they’re not pretending that he is one. But like...he acts like such a child because in the original, he was one. And, while this movie steps so far away from the source material, if should have committed and either stepped completely away or committed completely. Of course “should” is one of those things where we’ll just never know. A wish into the ether of hindsight being 20/20.

But lets get to the thing that you all came here for. This is where this movie gets BONKERS:

So Hughes actually draws out a pentagram between the different places in Armestrias, including Ishvaal, leading us to think that he’s figured out the whole dealio of turning the country into an alchemy circle. But, for some reason only helps him find the real lab 5.

It didn’t...that’s a different thing.

And it has been a long time since I’ve seen the ending of this movie—and maybe it was so offhand that I forgot if they actually do bring up turning the country into an alchemy circle--watch me eat my words, it could happen—but yo, we are finally killing Hughes—but we’re over halfway through this movie. And you may wonder...so uh...what...then what could possibly happen? There’s too much anime left!

Now I’m glad they kept this scene really close to the anime, although I haven’t watched the anime in a hot minute. It’s kind of an iconic scene so you don’t forget.

Like I do genuinely enjoy the campy parts where they were bringing up some of my favorite nostalgia of the original.

and then when you are like “ah, this is exactly the same as the anime. I can relax and watch as all my expectations are fully realized.” This twist happens.

YAH.

It’s a change!

So in the anime we had a really fun arc where we were trying to save Lieutenant Ross for being framed for killing Hughes. It’s probably my favorite part of Full Metal Alchemist, actually, it was so clever and a really thrilling chase. It was also like...half of season one.

Anyway, they cut it. They reduced half a season into 7 minutes. I know that, because each of these recaps is about 15 minutes of the movie.

You may look at this recap and be like “wait...this all happened in 15 minutes??” because yeah, this all happened in 15 minutes.

The same squad of people we see in every single scene of soldiers comes up to arrest Ed, which is weird, because I thought this band of soldiers was the military under Cl. Mustang’s command so like…shouldn’t they be arresting themselves? Mustang was over the command of more than 2 people. If we are suspicious of Mustang’s buddies then everyone in this movie would be in trouble.

And that’s when I realized that these guys were just unnamed soldiers and not a part of Mustang’s band. They only had like this many extras and just hoped we wouldn’t keep track of who is who, but I KNOW I’ve seen these guys this whole time. There are only like 6 people in this army. I see you movie magic—I see what you’re trying to do.

Anyway, Ed gets thrown into an old timey opera house that occasionally gets to be used for Middle School graduations. Or maybe also a mortuary where they charge you for funerals.

Like I know it’s supposed to be the capital building but like...this looks so weird when it’s live action. I remember the anime had this kinda feel to it but in live action it’s like…

...this is a weird ass capital building…Why do they have curtains like a Granny Holiday Inn in Reno, Nevada?

Thankfully, Hawkeye is here to explain to Ed what just happened because we, the movie viewers, were kind of surprised by that plot twist.

Like there were many ways you can condense half a season into 15 minutes, and I dunno if I would have just changed the murderer. It is a solution you can do. You can just point blame on Mustang and skip that whole Ross segment but like….

…then why write the movie?

Obviously, they had to make the movie, it had already been funded, people were really excited about the idea, and I do not envy the people that had to hack and slash with the Full Metal Alchemist script, but it is interesting what they decided was important to the original content, and what was unimportant. All that stuff that showed how Mustang was brilliant and two steps ahead of everyone else? Unimportant. All that stuff we had that showed how Mustang cares a lot about protecting other people and also cares about Ed and Al? Unimportant.

It really changes the dynamic, and it’s kind of fascinating to go into this cold because it’s been like...a year for me since I’ve watched it...and just see how different everything is without all those supporting characters that when I watched the anime I just assumed were mostly useless (Though fun). Turns out they all had a pretty significant part of making me care about Ed, about Mustang, about Al, about all my main characters.

FMA is very character driven, and this movie is mostly just...plot driven.  There’s kind of a great debate in literature about plot driven vs character driven. Movies and TV tend to be very plot driven, because they are very expensive to make, so they follow pre-formatted plot beats like “Save the Cat” or “The Heroes Journey” and other ones (there’s several to choose from).

They’ve made a fine science out of at what point a TV show should introduce the main, at what point they should suffer doubt, at what point they should shun their hero’s journey, etc etc. They know it down to the page number of the scripts they are writing. I know this, because it’s readily available on the internet and people fight about it all the time. This is why a show may suffer developing a character—because they just don’t have time and they just don’t have the resources to do something out of the box. Movies doubly so, because every minute of film can cost thousands of dollars.

What’s interesting about this is that FMA, the original FMA, does follow these beats. It was a manga sold by a huge publisher so it had to follow those beats. But, it has managed to do it while still being character driven. Yo, that’s so hard to do. This story was already written to be hyper condensed and structured when it was made into a Manga, and then it was condensed again for an anime, and then it was condensed yet again for this movie. It’s like a game of telephone, and at one end you have a very character driven story, and then at the other, it’s just totally plot.

Like it’s just a really huge risk to take. This was really, really risky.

PS did you miss Shou? Did you think we’d be done with Shou Tucker? No. Because this movie is gonna end at some point and rather than introduce other people...we’re just gonna stick with Shou and only have one miniboss.

(It has a freakin radiator in it?)

So then this next part happens and it’s low key hilarious.

The whole time.

Mustang and Hawkeye knew what lab 5 was this entire time but Ed just never asked for some reason despite working with those two for what is inferred to be YEARS since his childhood.

Hey PS, did you miss that brick building? Because it’s back.

Anyway, Mustang decides to take this underground where we can recycle the tech crew posing as extras that we used in the shot above us. Would not be surprised if a few of these are someone’s husband or wife on set.

Usually when I watch a movie I don’t get this feeling so much. But this movie...the latter half is like...EMPTY.

...this is going to be all movies made during Covid, I just realized…

Mustang is stopped by an angry Lieutenant Ross, and then we get this series of events.

And when you’re like “...Sorry?” Mustang’s like “I can make it weirder.”

And he just, without any warning or anything, lights Lieutenant Ross on fire. Multiple times, and it’s pretty intense and everyone who’s holding a gun just watches it happen is like…

...well I guess it’s too late to just shoot the guy...

…and like do you seriously not carry around a fire extinguisher when you are trying to manhunt Mustang? This is the one guy you want to wear fireproof clothes around. You have the technology. You at least have the technology for buckets of water. Like no one want to throw a blanket on her?

Just want to...watch? I guess?

Mustang just looks like a nut from this series of events instead of a genius--which is what I think they were originally going for. The pacing does that, youknow? Pacing.

And, out of the corpse pile stands Envy.

Envy has a pretty good look, I appreciated his whole look and that unlike the anime where you only find out Envy is a guy because someone told you on a forum somewhere and you were like “wait WHAT?” the movie is live action so you won’t make that mistake and embarrass yourself online.

Ed has only ever seen Lust once, and she walked in from off screen, stabbed a guy, and walked off. He’s just like...having a time because he’s done zero research into homunculi, and really, at no point in this movie are we going to give him time to figure it out.

Also, there’s this shot where Lust and Gluttony just walk in from behind them in the tunnel and it’s like…

….so no one noticed these two just hanging out back there?

It’s so freakin funny. This movie is gold. I love it.

Now If you just got here, this is a link to read all these recaps in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

Have a good one, and stay safe! 2021 has been...weird nuts...and it’s still January somehow??? Weird times. Overall, please stay safe, it’s weird out there.

Also, if you’re like “I don’t remember this scene actually” here’s the original Hughes dies scene that inspired the movie (since the movie definitely was like “we’re only going inspired for this one nerds, get mad”)--some shots were inspired cut for cut.

And obvi this is on Youtube so it’ll probably get taken down eventually, but that’s why it’s flipped.

[johnnys-green-pen]

Random E! Thoughts: S3E1 - Frequency

Fun stuff first:

Johnny’s indignant squawk when Roy and he go for the same spanner

The tangle of legs

Asking a dog “what do you want with a screwdriver anyway” is such a Johnny thing to do

Do y’all think that Drew’s death was rattling around Roy’s head when Johnny got hit by a car a few seasons later?

I just...

oh boy

So first of all, Johnny is throwing little “oh shit”-glances right from the beginning.

Johnny takes a second to spring into action when Drew passes out, seemingly long enough for Roy to notice.

The reactions of everyone at Rampart are pretty interesting - from Dix essentially sympathetically going “well, that sucks”, to Brackett seemingly feeling guilty more than anything, to Johnny’s numbness and growing anger, to Roy sounding almost as shaken as Johnny is. 

Notably, this time it’s not Dixie who sees an issue and is absolutely determined to fix it as per usual, it’s Brackett who suddenly makes the communications systems his mission.

And despite his admission this episode that codifying their current strategy and hoping for the best is all they can do, Rampart has a full-on new communications system by the next episode. Should tell you just how affected he was by that one.

The scene with Pam is painful in so many different ways.

Johnny not having seen Pam and Drew - somebody he calls a “very close friend” shortly after - in months despite them obviously living reasonably close by

The way Johnny seems to just barely keep it together

The way he absolutely refuses to look at her

“You, uhm, still chase the girls?” is simultaneously one of the most cringeworthy lines in this show, and one I have very little real complaints about, because people do say some really weird shit when they’re trying to cope with their life just having fallen apart. 

(also, the fact that “constantly running after a pretty skirt” seems to be his defining character trait to other people is really just kinda sad. Wonder if Johnny invites that assumption on purpose, though)

Actually, speaking of: Even Roy does that to him later on - Johnny comes into the locker room looking sad, a couple days after a good friend of his died, and Roy instantly assumes it’s about a girl.

The entire Squad Scene is painful, too

Johnny acknowledging that knowing he wouldn’t have been able to save Drew anyway doesn’t help

“maybe I should feel this way about all patients”

The whole “I wish you had been in my place” exchange, too. Roy’s utterly gentle reaction. How Johnny would probably have preferred any reply other than “just makes you human” because I’m pretty sure he’s never wanted to not be human as much as in this moment. 

There’s something pretty dark about the implication that part of the reason why Johnny doesn’t want a family is because he might die and that might hurt somebody. 

Then again, if I’m right and he has lost both parents and probably that aunt of his too... well, it makes sense I guess. 

It’s a really significant sentiment for another reason too, though: It’s utterly selfless. As he rightly states, his death would be purely somebody else’s problem, and he doesn’t want to do that to anybody. And that, coming from Mister Picks-His-Girlfriends-By-Aesthetic-Alone, is actually really interesting, because it implies that he really does care about them as a person... or would like a partner he really cares about, anyway. 

Also, “helping with funeral arrangements” ranks really high on the list of worst way to spend your days off.

The meeting with Brackett is pretty interesting, because it’s pretty much a return of Pilot Movie Johnny - sharp and thoughtful and just a little bit prickly. Also shows that that wasn’t just a characterization fluke, he just generally loosened up since then.

Incidentally, I love the line “don’t back me into a corner, Johnny”. There’s this really interesting juxtaposition of Brackett acknowledging that that’s pretty much what Johnny is doing, but he still calls him “Johnny”, not “Gage” or “John”. 

Also: “We’d have to rely on your evaluation of the victim’s condition” is a sentence I’m pretty sure Pilot Movie Brackett would’ve never expected to ever say to a paramedic. Character development, yay!

Johnny’s quiet “remind me to trade in my motorcycle” after seeing the biker gang fight - one of these days, I WILL learn how to draw those damned things, because Johnny on a motorcycle deserves to be drawn.

Johnny being pretty badly startled by the HT is oddly amusing, especially because neither Roy nor Dix are. 

Either Chet hangs out with VERY interesting people in his spare time, or he managed to get to first names with the artist’s girlfriend in the time it took Johnny and Roy to get there - both possibilities are genuinely neat.

Somebody had to build those sculptures, and I hope whoever did that had an absolute blast with it.

And then, the locker room scene, #2.

Johnny looks so subdued and sad in that one, oh boy.

I’ve already mentioned Roy’s little lapse of judgement, but I also think it’s sweet-yet-painful that Johnny just keeps throwing himself into his perceived obligation of helping Pam through her loss, even though it clearly hurts like hell. 

And I’d like to note Roy’s being real tactful this time around, between “are you still down about Drew” two days or so after Johnny lost a friend in a pretty damn traumatic way and assuming Johnny’s sad over relationship issues shortly thereafter. Like, wow, dude. 

This was long - let’s hope I got everything. 

[twilightofthe]

@nerdgatehobbit Hey! Thanks for the question! Ik you asked this to my main but imma respond on my SW blog if that’s okay?

So whew that’s a big question. Do I honestly think that Dave kept Obi Wan and Padmé and then Anakin and Satine from interacting in the TCW show because they didn’t want shipping wars?

(Remember, these are all just my personal opinions. I do me and you do you!)

Short version? Yes and no. Long version? Under the cut because I can never shut up.

Firstly, I don’t wanna say this was all Dave’s decision. He was one of the top guys in charge of TCW, yes, but he was far from the only one, there was an entire creative team working on the project, and during the time of TCW’s original six seasons Lucasfilms was not owned by Disney yet and George Lucas himself had a very large amount of creative control over the entire show. So I don’t really think it’s fair at all to point fingers at any choices the show made and go “yep that’s completely 100% Dave’s fault alone”.

I also don’t quite think they were concerned about shipping wars in the way ATLA had them. Avatar’s shipping wars were so absolutely toxically rancid that they legit drove me right out of that fandom. I’m still hesitant to come back during the current renaissance because of them. Star Wars, prior to the Sequel Trilogy, never had shipping wars close to that calibre of pure nastiness. The fandom was a godawful cesspool that fought to the death on most aspects of the franchise, this has always been true, but shipping, if I’ve read right, was somehow never really one of those hot button issues within fandom. I don’t think Lucasfilms kept the Clone Wars four apart because they were afraid of fans fighting over ships.

That being said, Lucasfilms HAS always been Very Strict on how they want their characters to be seen, romantic-wise, way back to when they would terrorize Original Trilogy slash shippers back in the 80’s and 90’s with threats of legal action. It’s part of why they were Very Firm in their insistence that they had absolutely nothing to do with all the Luke/Mara Jade EU stuff. You either abided by LF’s canonical romances or not at all in their world. So yes, in the case of Obi Wan and Padmé, I absolutely think the writing team’s decision to keep the pair of them apart was almost entirely so fans didn’t ship them together.

Why do I think this? Because there is no other rational reason why Obi Wan and Padmé haven’t had a single second of screentime in TCW that hasn’t had either Anakin or Satine also in the room as a buffer. Not when Revenge of the Sith EXPLICITLY portrays their relationship as relatively close friends who care about each other. So nope, I genuinely think the show just doesn’t want the fans to consider any other relationship for Padmé besides Anakin.

But why would they do this just to her and Obes? Obi Wan and Padmé both have other friends of different genders, why don’t they worry about us shipping THEM? Well for Obi Wan’s case, it can be excused that he flirts with everyone, so we’re conditioned to think that it’s never anything serious, and none of the other characters are married to the main character of the series. This is entirely because of Padmé’s position. Yes, she has other male friends, but either they’re nonhuman and not conventionally attractive so the series doesn’t see them as a threat, they’re Clovis, who they actively show Anakin going into a jealous fit over, or they’re Bail, who can be excused by the fact that he’s already married and also because he’s never actively shown as in competition with Anakin for anything, so he’s not threatening either.

Obi Wan, on the other hand, is a major threat to Anidala in the show’s eyes. They already constantly make a point to compare him and Anakin in almost every opportunity. Which is strange, the show’s decision to force them into the role of narrative foils to each other when in the movies that isn’t the case at all— Obi Wan is much more of a foil to Sidious and Anakin’s foil is Luke —but yeah, the show very often has Obes and Ani going through similar situations with competing viewpoints— ESPECIALLY their canon romances, and I won’t rant about how the show’s attempted Anidala and Obitine parallels fall apart under scrutiny right now but if yinz want the rant sometime let me know.

Obi Wan also has the canonical ability to charm the pants off of literally everyone he meets. Nearly everyone in canon is in love with him, 80% of the fandom at least is in love with him, and I KNOW most of the crew was in love with him too. Anakin, on the other hand, has a very abrasive personality and is much easier to dislike. The show was ALREADY terrified of the fans not liking or wanting to root for Anakin to the point that they reworked his entire personality to make him more palatable to his critics from the movies. Plus, Obidala fans already existed! Since the first and second PT movies, a big group of people already shipped these two because they already thought Obi Wan was a preferable match to Padmé than Anakin. The studio did not want to encourage this.

So yes, I think it was a combination of the show’s tendency to already try and get the fans to compare Obi Wan to Anakin for everything else plus their insecurity in Anakin’s image and likeability as it was, that they did Not want the handsome charming not-future-evil guy around the leading lady and threatening her canon romance by existing as a possibly better option. So Obi Wan and Padmé got no stories together, just kinda throwing the opening ROTS left them in the garbage ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The worst part is, there is so many potential places in TCW where Obi Wan and Padmé could talk to each other, like during her investigation into her friend’s murder, during the Clovis arc, bits during the Malevolence arc, the earlier Naboo crisis arcs, even the one time where she’s just hosting a damn party and wants to invite her friends gahhhhhhhh

Anakin and Satine, I also think yes, but this is also a case of half and half because Satine isn’t nearly as major a character as the other three are, and out of the nine episodes she appears in, she only has more than a singular line in seven of them, and out of those seven, only two of them aren’t revolves entirely around building her relationship with Obi Wan. So really, there is a defence for the writers here in noting that there’s not as much room to explore Satine’s character as it is, let alone trying to shoehorn in a scene with Anakin.

Except no, I’m not gonna give them that defence because in the two episodes where she only has a speaking line or less— Obi Wan’s funeral and the Ahsoka and Lux meet Death Watch ep —I can already easily think of ways she and Anakin could have really meaningful interactions in them both. Y’all have already heard my bit on how they could have a real important conversation at the funeral, but y’all HAVEN’T seen my idea for a rewrite of the Carlac ep where it’s a two-parter, Anakin comes with Ahsoka and Padmé to the negotiations on Mandalore, and it ends up with a subplot of Anidala chasing after Ahsoka and Lux with Satine as the put-upon third wheel and we get foreshadowing to Satine being Bo Katan’s sister, so when the reveal happens the next season it actually means something.

So yeah, it was partially because of timing constraints, but it was also DEFINITELY in part because they didn’t want Satine being shipped with Anakin— which ppffffft, if they were brave enough to actually try writing these two in a conversation in-character, they’d understand how much of a not-worry this would be xD —because the show is set on the fact that despite maybe there being other flings at some point, Obi Wan and Satine are each other’s one true tragic love (Or, at least Obi Wan is Satine’s. He’s always had more freedom and decision than she has in this narrative, and that’s always kinda bugged me). So, that means Satine can’t interact with any men unless they’re gonna betray her trust and try to kill her by the end of the episode, because the show needs Obi Wan to have a loyal, steady, good girlfriend because he is a good man.

(And yes, before anyone says it, I have heard the more unpleasant rumors behind why exactly Obi Wan was given a girlfriend in the show, but as I’ve yet to see any official proof of them besides fandom salt, I’m not gonna spread them because those are hefty accusations to throw around).

So yeah, Satine can’t talk to Anakin partially because time constraints, but also because she isn’t allowed to talk to any other nice men besides Obi Wan and her son (no I don’t particularly like the Korkie Kenobi thing, but it is blatantly obvious that that is what the show was implying and I’m not gonna pretend otherwise), and Obi Wan and Padmé can’t talk to each other entirely because the show saw Obidala as a threat to Anidala.

Again, just my opinions and things I noticed, y’all are more than free to disagree and discuss with me.

[autumnrory]

I don't think staron is icky lol. They weren't incestuous. They weren't related in any way. The time their kiss happened Peggy was just some lady he kissed once 100 years ago. Not to mention he was attracted to her before he knew she was related to Peggy. Their kiss made and will always make more sense than whatever bullshit steggy was. What is icky is hayley atwell bullying a co-star and the character she plays. Now people are already attacking for the rumor that Sharon will be Bucky's love interest calling her all sorts of name as if the 90% of the fics after endgame weren't 'the reader' getting left behind by Steve and then hopping on Bucky fszhsz. Do I think that it's necessary for that to happen? No. Do I mind it? Also no if Sharon gets the credit she deserves while being a love interest. I'm all for stucky however I hope the stucky fans who sent Emily VanCamp hate realise how much Sharon helped Steve (khm she helped Stucky get away which resulted in her being fugitive even in 2024 as we see in TFATWS) even in that very limited screen time we see her. People say she was only reduced to love interest AND she was massively reduced as a character but to say she did nothing except being a love interest is also wrong

well, i still think it’s a little icky lmao i mean regardless of her and peggy being related, they were flirting like RIGHT after her funeral it was all weirdly written. like i said, i don’t have so much of an issue bc i no longer think his relationship with peggy was a huge deal like i did when cacw came out BUT that doesn’t change the fact that it was badly written. they had one vaguely flirty scene in catws and then when they kissed they’re like “that was late” like how? have y’all even been in contact since catws? we don’t know! but i figure they hadn’t gotten to know each other properly if he didn’t find out she was peggy’s niece until she was up there talking at peggy’s funeral lmao.  there was a foundation for their relationship in catws and i think it would’ve just made more sense to say they got together between movies than to have the entire mess that was cacw shoehorning in their relationship when there was NO time. if we’d gotten a real cap 3, then yeah, they could’ve shown them getting together officially, but as it was, there was too much going on to give the relationship any substance whatsoever. and as i said, in retrospect it’s not so bad, but endgame did in fact make it truly the most icky it could be

i do agree that steve/sharon would make more sense than steve/peggy but also, based on steve’s stances in catws and cacw vs the roles she plays -- even if she does help team cap get their shit back -- in ya know working for the agency that would’ve killed bucky on sight.......i don’t think he really could’ve worked in a relationship with her either. i’m not watching tfatws so i didn’t know she had to become a fugitive either which hey! she could’ve in fact been included in iw on the run with steve and sam and nat but here we are. 

also to be fair i doubt the ppl worried about sharon being put with bucky or sam are the same people who write/read those reader fics ya know. i’m sure a lot of it IS stucky shippers who just don’t want bucky with anyone else OR bucky/sam shippers who don’t want either of them to date her, but some of it is just fans who don’t like what they did with her character before and want her to just exist and have some development and not be a love interest. i think it was a worry for fans as soon as she was announced to be in tfatws, not just now that it’s started. personally i DO think she was reduced to a love interest in cacw. at least in catws she had her own scenes that didn’t have to do with steve but pretty much all her scenes in cacw WERE about steve and their relationship, so it just wasn’t great. sorry i just like, don’t trust marvel to do much better with her this time around and i didn’t really get the idea that she’s gonna play THAT much of a role? i mean maybe i’m wrong but she like only recently appeared in a trailer and ya know, it is the sam and bucky show, not the sam and bucky and sharon show, so at the very least, i’d like her to just play a role and not just be steve’s ex-whatever or somebody else’s new girlfriend, since we already kind of lived that in cacw