Alice taking Charlie's speech to Harry at Tara's party and instead having him say it in his final scene with Ben where he's able to finally tell him off.

CHEF'S KISS

initial thots on pickman's model (cabinet of curiosities ep 5)

the dialogue is REALLY stilted and unnatural. mister art teacher infodumps all this shit about the competition on the art students who should have already known about this as a medium for the audience at the very first chance

i don't know how much of this is ripped straight from lovecraft's story and how much is new stuff the writers put in and i'm not interested in subjecting myself to lovecraft's godawful writing to find out. i adore the cosmic horror genre that's built up around his writings but the stories themselves are actually fucking awful and poorly written

every single conversation involving the other art students is so unnatural and stiff it's actually painful. the actors aren't very good and the dialogue itself isn't all that coherent. it's honestly giving me 'high school play' vibes.

is ben barnes trying to do an accent???? he should stop immediately

we cannaht let sympathywywywwy... or altrwuyisym... shieyld us from finding the truths of this weyeld....

this is bouncing between 'decently unsettling atmosphere' and 'campy gothic horror parody' so fast i can't get a read on anything

i would buy the art prints though. those are the only thing i like about this episode so far and i ADORE them

pickman's actor is chewing the scenery like it's his last day on earth and he's determined to go out with a bang

ben barnes' character is incomprehensible so far and not in a good way. he's got no clearly delineated characteristics or archetype; one minute he's a pretentious artist, the next he's a wide-eyed student, and the next he's a smarmy asshole. if there was any indication that this was a deliberate character choice i might have been into it, but it's coming across as just really muddled and difficult to parse

like art is subjective and all but the pieces we saw as set dressing are a hell of a lot more impactful than the last supper parody

beautifully shot and lit as always... love ya work del toro

as always, the dramatic silhouette leadups are so gorgeous and unsettling and then the reveals are super anticlimactic Zombie Woman What Hasn't Cut Her Nails type shit. can we PLEASE get a cosmic horror movie monster that looks like something OTHER than a zombie for once in this fucking lifetime jesus fucking christ i don't want to be stuck with spanish-english b-movie DAGON as the only decent cosmic horror for the rest of my mortal existence

the way we got one scene of will in his gf's room and then she isn't mentioned again until he shows up and has a freakout at her party halfway through the episode and ONLY THEN is it revealed that it was some important meet-the-family type deal and she was actually his gf and not a fling??? lmao please develop your character relationships more this is actually sad to see. if it was important it should have been mentioned before, potentially in one of the scenes where all the art students sit around and talk at each other like an AI training other AIs to recognise human speech. also the way she immediately recognises that something is off about him and then after he starts having a serious freakout just, like, decides that actually he's a drunken asshole and berates him for it? this isn't normal human behaviour?

'i don't even recognise you anymore' will's gf says, to her pretentious artist bf after he turns up exactly once to a party having a freakout

?????????????????

the writer of this episode is an alien who has only learnt human behaviour through dogblood soap operas

i wanted to like this episode so bad because i kept hearing about how good it was and how creepy and lovecraftian it was but it appears that it's only lovecraftian in that it showcases all of lovecraft's failings (aside from the obvious); namely, the parts where he had no idea what 'reasonable human behaviour' looked like and the parts where he was interminably boring and insisted on over-explaining everything

GOD THE PACING IS SO BAD

the snippets of conversations about art movements we keep getting are more akin to 'so there i was, bbq sauce on my titties' than any actual normal human speech

also they all seem to start with 'xyz says abc movement is worthless!!! what say you, ben barnes?' as if ben barnes giving his opinion on art movements makes for interesting cinema and doesn't sound like the writer has no earthly idea about art movements and is just making grandiose statements about movements they looked up on wikipedia

[pretentious yet horrifyingly general statement about art movements that can be related back to social commentary] im smart like jordan peele

i cannot hear these new joysey accents without having war flashbacks to abridged dartz and his 'we gonna DO heem... we gonna do heem REAL good...'

somebody get takahashi101 out of retirement i want an abridged pickman's model IMMEDIATELY

ugh, the sets in this are delicious

is his wife the gf who got mad at him for turning up to her party and being weird???? what the fuck happened???? i know she's just an Insignificant Female who's Only There To Create Drama but it would be nice if the writers fleshed out the character relationships more. or... at all, really.

UGH THESE SET PIECES ARE DELICIOUS

lmfao is that the sanity loss effect from amnesia? bro...

'you were rude' says will's wife. 'you treat pickman poorly'. will has, at most, only been shown to a) have a quiet word with someone about not showing his work and b) was a bit quiet when pickman came over for dinner and then called it a night early. unless there's some deleted scene where he goes nutso and starts shouting at pickman, this particular argument - like every other interaction in this episode - is completely incoherent

'you're home late, you're barely home anyway and when you are home you're barely there' will's wife goes on to accuse him. this has not been shown in the episode. none of the things she is complaining about are shown in the episode. we have so far seen about five seconds of will's later life and as such every single time anyone complains about will it is COMPLETELY INCOHERENT

SHOW, DON'T FUCKING TELL. I HAVE NO SENSE OF WHO WILL IS AS A CHARACTER, BECAUSE YOU WON'T FUCKING SHOW ME

as fun as ben barnes' head getting sawn off was, i feel like that scene could have been drawn out way longer and been way more unsettling than it was

i LOVE the scene in pickman's basement and the next one in the art gallery, especially the bit with joe. wish we didn't have to sit through the better part of an hour's worth of absolute shit garbage to get there, but silver linings i guess

the wife's reveal was really anticlimactic but the son's reveal was GREAT

the fear of the unknowable and cosmic horror as a whole is really about leaving parts of the worldbuilding and story obscured to represent the main/POV character's inability to comprehend them. it's NOT about leaving important parts of the POV character's development and characterisation out and going 'tee hee i guess it's just unknowable!!!!' or not explaining plot or character aspects that are very important to the coherency of the story as a whole. it's also not about infodumping half the worldbuilding/characterisation on us through exposition

as much as i enjoyed some of the horror aspects of this episode and most of the other episodes so far, they've all really missed the mark on the unsettling aspect of cosmic horror they're all clearly trying to recreate and it's honestly just exhausting to see

edited to add that we never ever ever get a resolution to the party disaster where ben barnes sees his gf's dad and runs away screaming. we just fast forward to like 50 years later or some shit and they're married with no explanation and the fact that ben barnes saw his gf's dad sucking on some woman's titties in a carriage with a gaping head wound the night before the party never comes up again.

Notes on SU Commentary Tracks

I watched the commentary tracks on the Complete Steven Universe DVD Set and I took some nerd notes.

The episodes with commentary tracks are “Reunited,” “Change Your Mind,” and “The Future.”

I’ll bold stuff that was maybe bigger news or more surprising for easier reading. And yes, some of this was already known from podcasts, other Q&As, or interviews, but I listed it if they said it again here.

Read on after the jump to read these and other highlights:

Steven’s original wedding speech

Older ideas on dialogue for Lapis when she came back to the beach

Scrapped concepts for the scene that ultimately included Steven communicating with the others in a mindscape

Discussions of earlier concepts for White Diamond having a power to “freeze” Gems into statues to make them perfect and having a gallery of them on Homeworld

Pink Pearl’s original fate

The translation of the writing on Obsidian’s sword

The origin of Pink Steven’s design

What Rebecca did to pitch the “SHE’S GONE” scene

Earlier plans to include Shep in “Change Your Mind”

An unused concept of how Steven feels about Biggs

The inspiration for the Heaven and Earth Beetles’ healed design

How Volleyball/Pink Pearl was almost a mini-villain

Discussion of how they did not get to share the origin of the Diamonds

Jasper’s scrapped participation in the movie

“Reunited” - 

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

In 2015, an episode idea called “If You Love Yourself So Much” was discussed but rejected. It included some early ideas that ended up getting incorporated into “Reunited,” most notably Garnet marrying herself and putting rings on both hands.

The idea of the Cluster arm wrestling was planned for a long time. A scrapped idea of Steven banging his fist on a vending machine to get some Chaaaaps was supposed to visually parallel some of that scene, but it was axed.

When they got pushback on the wedding idea, they kept adding more and more “high entertainment value” items like a big musical number so the episode would be absolutely unmissable and appealing to everyone.

The song at the beginning of the episode was meant to check in with the entire cast and sort of remind you they exist and what their state of mind is going into the wedding.

Ian made a comment joking about “All 15 people in Beach City” being in the audience.

Just about everyone on the Crew touched this episode, despite that there are four main storyboarders credited for “Reunited.”

In 2016 Ian Jones-Quartey proposed marriage to Rebecca Sugar. They felt like the characters based on them (Sapphire and Ruby) HAD to get married in the show now because otherwise it wouldn’t be honest. But then their characters got married before they did.

They really love the idea of having characters get married who have known each other for a really long time, versus the fairy tale trope of movies ending with weddings between people who have met very recently.

Steven’s speech as officiator at the wedding used to be longer in its first draft--it was described as being weird and full of jokes, and there would have been a scene with Pearl getting weepy and pulling tissues out of her pearl.

Ian mentions loving a joke Jeff came up with having Greg play one chord to make Steven fall asleep--it’s sort of a “dream” chord you hear in cartoons a lot before a dream sequence.

The Crew discussed what it might be like if someone had never seen the show before and started with this episode.

Ian really wanted Steven’s psychic powers to figure into the episode.

Blue using a sadness wave to attack the Gems was a very old idea they’d planned for a long time. So was Lapis’s arrival.

There was a discussion of having Lisa Hannigan performing her lines as Blue VERY early in the morning.

Ian was happy the sword got broken because it was so momentous but it was just a sword. And later appeared on a shelf in the house as an artifact.

Miki had drawn a torn dress for Garnet at one point so she could be shown fighting and moving around more accurately, and this led to a long discussion of whether Gem clothing can even actually get torn the way human clothes can. They concluded that no, it shouldn’t be torn, so they backed up and gave Garnet an open-front dress from the beginning so the fighting version would make more sense.

Lapis originally might have had a longer speech upon arriving back on the beach. They eventually decided to just have her say “Hey.”

The barn falling on Blue Diamond was an intentional Wizard of Oz reference.

They point out that Steven even once said “drop the barn on the beach” (in a previous episode, “Can’t Go Back,” which was also a Miki episode).

Destroying the house was a big deal, and they always thought they’d end up doing it but backed away from it until “Reunited.” They almost even did it back in “Coach Steven”! But it just ended up with a little damage to the porch.

The Crew thinks Miki is really good at drawing ensemble shots.

Rebecca was always overwhelmed whenever she got to have Patti LuPone record for Yellow.

Originally the giant figures of everyone’s statue bodies in the mindscape were too dark and had to be revamped so they could be seen.

An earlier idea of Steven’s “psychic-ghost-situation” had him as a ghost actually trying to interact with the other characters during fighting action, but it was pulled back to this mindscape so there wouldn’t be as much confusing action to keep track of and more focus on what Steven was doing to encourage his teammates and contact the Diamonds.

Hilary was glad not to have to block out a fight.

Ian mentions loving having Bismuth back in the group.

They originally wanted the “Diamonds sensing Pink’s energy” plot to happen when Steven was in the palace somehow, but everything got moved to this scene--which the Crew all agrees turned out incredible, like how cool it was to have Steven essentially reminding each character why they fight and summing up their whole arc in a sentence.

“Change Your Mind”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

They like to refer to this episode as “The movie before the movie.”

They loved incorporating “princess tropes” into Steven’s time on Homeworld, which is why there were so many references to “mice” (well, Pebbles) making clothes, being locked in a tower, being reminded of his manners, loving animals and freeing imprisoned pets, etc. 

Deedee did the voice of the rainbow worm pet. She apparently didn’t find it memorable and was surprised when she was reminded she did the voice.

Rebecca was super excited for the confrontation with Blue.

There was some discussion of how Steven would have died of starvation if he didn’t have someone practical like Connie to remember to bring food.

They love working with the huge scale the Diamonds present.

The Crew always wanted to put someone in Blue’s hair loop. Originally they wanted Blue to tuck Greg in there when she kidnapped him, but they didn’t end up being able to do any hair-loop-carrying until this episode.

The Crew bantered back and forth about what the heck those Pebbles’ names were and how hard it was to track them.

They agreed that Paul draws the best Yellow Diamond, which makes sense since he also drew the first episode with Yellow (and her stink face). 

The scene where Yellow asks Blue to stop using her powers on her and then realizing she’s crying on her own was one of Rebecca’s favorite scenes to get to finally.

Steven Sugar thought Gems would spend a lot of time in their own chambers/rooms just not really doing much of anything unless they had to fulfill their purpose.

Some of the Homeworld ideas were based on a Soviet artist’s concepts, Boris Artzybasheff, and also many ideas were inspired by Busby Berkeley regarding how people were objects and furniture.

The mech was an old idea. Once they had the hand ship from “Jailbreak,” they knew there had to be bodies somewhere.

They focused a lot about what could be the coolest and funniest way for something to happen. The concept of the yellow and blue spaceship arms appearing out of the sky to smack the White Diamond mech around was one of those.

Rebecca really wanted things to look more and more cartoony and bizarre as you get deeper into Homeworld.

They spent a very long time trying to decide on characters’ new outfits.

The trash can lid is said to be a reference to “a flying bear cartoon” and they dance around speaking a direct reference because they’re not sure they’re allowed to say its name.

In discussing the powers of the Diamonds, there were debates on what White’s power would be; with Yellow being physicality-based and Blue being emotion-based, they thought White as identity-based made the most sense.

Different ways to express this were played with before settling on the idea that she thinks she’s perfect and others’ colors make them less like her and less perfect. But then she becomes a hostage to her own beliefs about herself because if she does anything that reflects on everyone else, so it’s best to do nothing.

They had some cool earlier ideas of White’s powers making statues out of other Gems and having a gallery full of frozen Gems, frozen by White to make them perfect.

They also weren’t sure what fate befell the original Pink Pearl and discussed whether she might have been destroyed. 

Rebecca discussed how creepy it was to have White Pearl speaking in Christine’s voice and not Deedee’s--that we should find it fundamentally disturbing at this point.

Tom Herpich came up with the crack on White Pearl’s face.

In real life, pink diamonds aren’t understood as well as yellows and blues. It’s more known what makes a diamond yellow or blue, and some of those facts Rebecca researched were originally woven into the speech White gave about their “impurities.” But it turned out to be too dry and most of it got cut.

Rebecca loves having Lapis with pants and sandals for easier cosplay.

Ian had to draw the scene where Steven is falling and fusing with inert characters--he wasn’t able to properly explain it to Rebecca so she had him draw it.

They really wanted Rainbow Quartz 2.0 to have a scarf, but they couldn’t figure out how to get that into Pearl’s design. They miss the scarf.

It was really important to have these Fusions display call-forwards of the Gems’ new outfits which we hadn’t yet seen.

Rebecca points out that Sunstone’s design breaks a design rule and she feels like Sunstone should have Garnet’s pant leg colors on their legs, but at the same time she understands the rule of cool and likes it like this.

It’s discussed how none of Steven’s fusion weapons are exclusively offensive weapons either.

Rebecca still really wants a suction cup Sunstone toy.

Sunstone’s ability to transcend reality and break the fourth wall was a joke that exploded in the discussion room among the Crew. As soon as the idea was pitched everyone kept coming up with ideas. Sardonyx’s fourth-wall-breaking is more snarky, but Sunstone’s is helpful.

Rebecca was disappointed that the rule about Steven’s clothes wasn’t always followed with having his clothes appear on Obsidian’s hand, but she was delighted that you could see them in one scene.

They spent a lot of discussion time on making sure Steven-Obsidian was different somehow from Rose-Obsidian. The hair is different.

Old versions of Obsidian were drawn with wrapped-together Twizzlers legs, which sort of is reflected in the present design.

The sword had been planned forever--and it first appeared in “Bubble Buddies.”

Miki worked on the Ninja Turtles show so Rebecca was really excited to see her depictions of Bismuth and Sunstone.

An early plan to have Obsidian draw the sword from their mouth was complicated because fusion weapons should be combinations, so they finally reached the solution of having them combine to make the hilt, then get the blade out of Obsidian’s mouth.

The blade of the sword is thought to say “We’ll always save the day,” but you’d have to ask Steven Sugar.

Another really old idea was climbing into the White Diamond mech eye.

Rebecca was disappointed that some of the merch made of White Diamond did not feature her cape sparkles.

There were many debates early on about where Rose might “actually” be. There were tons of references to this fundamental question throughout the show--introducing Lapis as a Gem trapped in an object, having Pearl ponder pulling Steven’s Gem out as a baby, straight-up wondering what would happen to him in “Bubbled” when Eyeball was trying to take his Gem, etc. They all decided Rose was definitely gone but that the idea of her possibly being inside him should be on his mind a lot, leading to disturbing images like dreaming about coughing up her hair.

Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond both challenged Steven about things he was very confident about, but White’s question of his identity got to him because he in fact is not confident about that.

The black and white eeriness of the fuzzy background and the other characters having their colors washed out helped make the scene in White Diamond’s head so disturbing and creepy.

The split screen showing Steven’s two perspectives was exciting to Rebecca, and was a pretty old idea. And she points out it sort of “breaks the show.”

The Gem Steven, Pink Steven, was represented by a slightly modified version of his model sheet. Everyone laughed when they saw what was getting used.

They decided that an earlier idea of Pink Steven looking angry should be replaced by an emotionless version of him. All the emotion should be with Organic Steven.

In the pitch meeting for this episode, Rebecca herself screamed “SHE’S GONE!!” and shocked the hell out of everyone. She pointed out how no one expected this of her because she’s pretty quiet, but she just wanted to shock everyone the way Steven would in the show.

They point out this is the first appearance of the geometric shield that got so much use in Future.

The fact that Steven is Steven is the ultimate reveal of the show. Usually in fantasy shows there’s some other kind of revelation, but Steven just being amazingly human and amazingly Gem and amazingly himself is wonderful here.

They like having the pilot reference with “What’s your excuse?”

If Rose had somehow still been alive in him, all of this would have been cheapened.

Ian loves that you can faintly hear Sadie’s concert from way out in space as the camera approaches Earth.

They got a lot more use out of the Beach-A-Palooza stage than they thought they would when it had to be designed for “Steven and the Stevens.” There was a joke about how at one of the conventions a real Beach-A-Palooza stage was constructed and they had a thought about how oh good, it’s getting reused.

Sadie having green hair in the finale was a late change but they liked showing her progression. 

They had originally kicked around the idea of Sadie already having her new partner Shep at this point, but decided to develop that in Future instead.

They compare White Diamond’s stepping gingerly into the fountain to skeptically getting into a public pool.

Some silliness they didn’t get to use was that Biggs would be “beloved by everyone” except Steven. They never got to cover it, but originally Steven was just going to not really understand why everyone loves her so much and doesn’t personally much care for her.

The Heaven and Earth Beetles are based on the Mothra Ladies.

The healed Gems’ horns are supposed to be side effects of the corruption that they continue to bear in the present.

Larimar and Orange Spodumene ended up different in the ending scene than they became in Future. Many of the designs were retroactively pulled into this scene after being designed for the movie.

Rebecca wrote “Change Your Mind” as a personal song to express her feelings surrounding her fight for the wedding.

“The Future”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, and Ian Jones-Quartey.

The animatic for this episode ran SO long--they’re supposed to be just over 11 minutes but this one was 17 minutes.

Steven’s calisthenics routine, a callback to “Future Vision,” was on the chopping block to make the episode shorter but Rebecca wouldn’t allow it to be cut because she wanted to show that Steven’s been taking care of himself.

They were very excited to get a chance to cover some of the things in Future that they couldn’t squeeze into the original show, like the unbubbled Rose Quartzes, Volleyball, etc.

The new writers on the show also helped bring forward the idea of Steven finally making some of his OWN mistakes to fix.

This also helped construct the idea of Steven essentially being the “final boss” of his own battle.

Usually stories that involve someone being in a fight and winning don’t explore the effect just being in a fight has on a person, regardless of whether you won. 

Rebecca really wanted to play Ocarina of Time after beating it so she could go back to all the places and see how people were doing. She wanted this epilogue series to explore that a little too.

Little Homeschool is sort of a Tiny Toons reference--older cartoons teach younger cartoons how to be cartoons, and this is Gems teaching other Gems how to be Gems on Earth. 

Lamar came up with the silly joke about receiving that art set with all the different media types in it--the one artists are always getting from a well-meaning relative at holiday time.

A scrapped plot idea involved Volleyball/Pink Pearl as a sort of “mini-villain,” with a focus on her activating the un-activated Pearls.

There’s discussion of how victimization turns people into villains sometimes. But since showing that happening with Volleyball wouldn’t have served the interests of Steven’s arc, they couldn’t fit it in.

There was also a “very specific” Gem origin and Diamond origin story that’s quasi-religious in nature--it’s very cool and complicated. But they do not tell us what it is.

Ian and Joe both really wanted to have Jasper living alone in the woods and stacking rocks. They’re glad they got this series to do that with her.

There was originally an idea for a B-plot involving Jasper in the movie. They don’t discuss the specifics.

There were many ideas they didn’t get to work on because they would have started new arcs and Future was not about kicking new plots into gear.

“Mr. Universe” was the last episode they wrote/finished.

Miki really wanted to include a kiss between Connie and Steven to show their relationship was okay. Among the Crew everyone knew their relationship was basically eternal but Miki wanted to make sure WE knew that.

Steven driving conveyed momentum for Future; in the original show, we always came back to the laundry hand, back to home, but in Future that’s changed and home isn’t what it was. 

They were really excited that a gourd family made it to the crowd scene in Future.

Thanks for reading!

Note: The movie had some commentary tracks too, but the one on this DVD set is the same as the one released on the original standalone movie DVD, so I did not outline it here. Here is my post about the DVD commentary from the movie.

s7 adoration

First off, one thing I love about it is the versatility of it. some of my favourite parts are the humour of it, and the balance to the horror of it. It does lean towards dark, and is certainly darker than the rest of the show, but that just makes the gravity of it all lift off so intense when there’s randomly then dick jokes and so forth. same goes for the characters in it with the themes.

I genuinely think that leviathans are one of the scariest and best villains on the show because of the reflection of psychological horror and the flip on the script of hunted/hunter.

That being said, I also think Dick Roman is a great villain for comedic reasons as well and genuinely find his dialogue memorable. So memorable, in fact, I made this uquiz.

I also think that it is the darkest season psychologically in supernatural, like it rings out nadir to me, yet at the same time, this is all canon dialogue. but also it is quite unseen, the depth of it, which is infuriating (and my main fix would it being from Sam’s perspective), but it makes it compelling to me too.

I actually really like having sodium borate being corrosive to leviathans

There’s a canonical bipolar main character who’s vital to the plot and who’s talented and who’s also part of the inner themed reflections of paranoia within without systems and being incapable of trust anything even your brain while still retaining that vitality.

The season starts out with perhaps one of my favourite arcs in the show, as well, which brings me great joy in all the dialogue while also introducing one of the other most compelling parts of the show (being godstiel then Sam’s PTSD hallucinations retrospectively).

Two of the three main writer’s I look to as the core of what I love about Supernatural are perhaps the strongest voices in the season (Sera Gamble and Ben Edlund) and I really actually love the addition of Robbie Thompson and think some of his episodes are top tier. I don’t like Adam Glass, Buckleming, or Robert Singer writing any of the episodes, and my fix to s7 would be deleting those episodes, and Dabb is on like, thin ice, but I do really like most of the writing and theming and all and am genuinely enjoying the individual episodes and think that tied with 2, 4, and 5 it’s got the best quality for being entertaining to me.

And when I was looking at favourite episodes in Kripke/Gamble era (which I generally vastly prefer), it had the most of top 30 (8), and 20% of the top 10. And of that, it would skew towards the top total.

While Hello Cruel World sets up the season’s intent extremely well, I think that Defending Your Life drives the points home about how this reflects onto Sam and Dean in regards of their own psychological issues and how it will then impact their actions, the conflict not at all then revolving around leviathans but the concept of monstrosity and mental illness. While the season is incredibly ableist constantly and with some writers it’s clear that it’s intentional and the characters and they treat Sam with respect, other times it’s clearly not. I still am obsessed with this because it is directly and not metaphorically addressing these issues even if poorly.

Slash Fiction has some of the most in character and pointed analysis in the show immediately, including this scene and actually references and uses the history of the characters and the show itself to be more horrifying.

How To Win Friends and Influence Monsters is just also the epitome of s7 in general, from Sam hallucinating Lucifer and saying he’s lucky and people have it worse, Dean at his nihilistic worst about to lose Bobby admit while high on a sandwich what it’s really about, the fact they didn’t ever want to shoot deer, and just iconic dialogue from everyone including our favourite Dick Roman and “bibbing” while also having Bobby see the plans building the tension of the overall arc in the season right before being shot.

And while Death’s Door is very painful for me to rewatch, it is also an astounding episode of television from the terror of going back to the origin “You can never go home” and the only genetic case of bullet to the head (generational trauma), the insight into the abuse, how it shaped all the memories proceeding it, how Bobby didn’t escape it or what it did to him, but he also never was anything like his deepest fears or his fathers, and also Bobby’s speech towards his father. I also think the way Sam and Dean respond is extremely well written and their grief is palpable.

We also then get these lovely random images I get to share here :) X, X, and X.

Repo Man I may have some criticisms about in terms of ableism and homophobia, but it is still one of the best, and most horrifying, episodes in the show. Both the mirrors and the revelations throughout the episode and the dark intoxicating obsession while also seeing Sam’s actual trauma in front of us… I feel like I could literally analyse this episode for years, it’s so rich and deep, as much of Edlund’s episodes are when he decides he wants to make something deep instead of comical.

that being said I think The Born Again Identity may be one of the best episodes in the entire show. I can’t rationalise this because it would take hours if you don’t like this episode we just have entirely different taste.

Though, outside of the actual episode writing, the way it opens with the surreality and mental deterioration is very important to me, and it’s just one of many aspects of this episode, but I feel like it may be less popular so I thought I’d say it.

Charlie’s first episode and actually having our first actually good fully fleshed out lgbt character genuinely changes something in me when I watch it like. It is so full of hope for me personally just because of how fun and deep it remains. We get to hear Dick Roman describe the spark in humanity he can’t replicate while also saying “Nothing’s safe. I like that.” (the thesis of the season). Donald Trump helped him get the leviathan tablet. We get the scene where Dean coaches Charlie through flirting with a man and also have her make Harry Potter references which I just personally find very funny to watch. And Charlie’s mere existence just makes me hope, like the way she is.

Season 7 is the first season Cas tells Sam and Dean he loves them.

And Kevin Tran is introduced, one of my favourite characters who also adds much to the season itself.

Reading is Fundamental is the episode that Kevin Tran is introduced, that we get to see more into Cas’s past through the ways in which is he more open in his altered mental state such as how he loved Neanderthal poetry and bees, Hester’s accusation towards Dean, more talk around the hell trauma transfer which intrigues me even if it also infuriates me, and Cas actually faces and reacting to what he’s done, even if in an altered state. There are countless reasons I love it.

Also, this may not be something someone who doesn’t ship destiel can see and leans much more subtextual, so ignore this part if you are bothered by those interpretations, but I think season 7 is when Dean realised he was in love with Cas and like I do have a lot of reasons for thinking this and find it just another layer of why seeing the psychology of the main characters is intriguing to me. I also then can do parallels throughout that reflect this grapping too. And it adds layers to how Dean finds him married then, maybe even add the demon he kissed.

And then, of course, is the matter of the trench coat.

this is very very limited, but I tried my best to be comprehensive of my highlights and reasons for loving season 7!

My Reylo Story

As some of you may or may not already know, I didn’t start off as a Reylo when TFA came out. Instead it was a journey and I wanted to share my story with you.

First, however, I think it’s important to explain where I was coming from both as a shipper and as a Star Wars fan pre-TFA. I first became aware of shipping in 2009/2010, or at least what it meant. I guess I could say I’d been a shipper long before that, I just wasn’t aware of it as a thing until then. But here’s the thing, I didn’t ship based solely on chemistry. To me shipping was more than just about whether or not a certain dynamic interested me. It was about wanting the characters to be happy in that relationship. So for me, how the characters treated each other was a pretty big deal.

So because of that, I had a hard time when I saw people shipping pairings that I viewed as “toxic.” If one character is being mistreated or flat out abused by another, how could they be happy? While I can honestly say I never sent anyone hate for shipping those things, I did post plenty of “anti” posts about those ships (tagged correctly, though) and followed anti blogs. 

Onto my history with SW. I grew up on Star Wars. I’m not exaggerating when I say that. My parents both saw A New Hope in theaters as teens when it came out and both became fans. After they met and got married, they showed the movies to my three sisters and me from an early age. I don’t even remember the first time I watched the original trilogy because I was so young. There was never pre-SW time in my life. It’s something that has always been a part of my life. The legacy characters are life long friends.

The prequels came out when I was between nine and fifteen. And overall, I was not impressed. I liked the first movie well enough, but the dialogue in the other two made them almost impossible to watch and the love story between Anakin and Padme did nothing for me. It wasn’t until I was older and getting into shipping culture that I realize why. It was just not a healthy relationship and one I couldn’t support. While I acknowledged the prequels as canon, I basically grew to ignore them and focus on the original trilogy.

When I was in college, I had to take a speech class. One lesson was on story telling where the teacher stressed the golden rule of story telling: “Show, don’t tell.” The example she used was of a selfish child. “Don’t just say ‘he’s selfish’,” she said. “Show him acting selfishly.”

Sometime after that, I was rewatching the original trilogy. I got to the part when Luke goes to confront Vader on Endor and Luke tells him, “I fell the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.” I had a  light bulb moment of, “Wait, what? What conflict? We never saw any conflict!” Luke mentioning the conflict within Vader was the first clue that were was one. I realized then that Vader’s redemption had no real build up across the three movies. It all takes place in the third act of the final film. It wasn’t a journey. It was a spur of the moment turn. And it bothered me. “Show. Don’t tell.” That’s the rule. And Lucas told us.

So then TFA came out and we got Kylo Ren. And they actually showed us his inner conflict and I loved it! I loved the character. He was instantly my favorite. I kept thinking “This is what they should have done with Vader!” Not even him killing Han, which I was totally devastated about, could make me dislike Kylo. 

Yet, I wasn’t looking for the romance in the story. Because of this and because of what I’ve already said about my shipping history, it did not cross my mind at all that Reylo would be a thing. Not even an inkling. So if you had asked me right after I watched TFA for the first time who I thought Rey would fall in love with, I would have said Finn. Not because I shipped it, but because I just didn’t see another candidate.

It was only when I got home from the theater and got onto tumblr and started seeing posts about Reylo that I realized it was even a thing. I was shocked! As much as loved Kylo Ren, I didn’t get how anyone could ship him with Rey. He had kidnapped her and mind probed her after all. 

But the thing is, I wasn’t angry so much as I was just confused. So I did something that I will never regret. I reached out to Reylos and I asked them what they saw in the ship. And their answers surprised me. They pointed out how Rey had fought back in the mind probe scene, showing that Rey wasn’t just a helpless victim. They pointed out the differences between how he treated Rey in that scene and how he had treated Poe when he was been mind probing him earlier. They also said it had the potential to the reverse Anidala (which intrigued me). They also pointed out (and I think this was the biggest misconception regarding Reylo and Reylos at the time) was that they didn’t actually want Kylo and Rey to get together right then, that they both had growing and maturing to do and they acknowledged that it wouldn’t be healthy for them to be together as they were at the end of TFA. And they explained all this nicely, without any hint of judgment or rudeness for someone who didn’t get their ship.

After that I went to see TFA a second time. This time I tried to see what they saw. I started to get it, but I still couldn’t bring myself to ship it. Shortly after that, I saw a post where someone said something about Ben being manipulated by Snoke since infancy. I reached out to that person and was like, “Where are you getting that from?”

“Oh, that was in the TFA novelization.”

So, I got a hold of the novelization and read it. Sure enough I learned that Ben had indeed been manipulated since infancy and that really changed pretty much everything about how I viewed him. I had loved the character before, but now I really began to sympathize with him. 

But the novelization did more than that. It made me realize that Reylo might just be something that wasn’t just in the shippers’ head, because the subtext...oh my word, the Reylo subtext was all there. And the novel made it quite clear that Finn and Rey were just friends, nothing more. So that was the last time I ever thought FinnRey might happen.

While I didn’t consider myself a Reylo at that point, I continued to keep up with all of the Reylo theories that were floating around. It helped that one of my mutuals was going through the exact same thing too and were we able to talk about it together.

Then TLJ came out. Oh, boy. I find myself smiling whenever Kylo and Rey talked and going, “This! This is what the shippers predicated!” I came out of that movie, so happy. I was disappointed that he had returned to the light right then, but I never doubted he would eventually get his redemption.

It was only in the months leading up to the release of TROS that I finally admitted to myself that I was a Reylo and it’s something that I’ve never regretted, nor while I ever. Despite the disappointment that TROS turned out to be, I still love the ship, I love the characters, and I love my fellow shippers.

Becoming a Reylo has certainly changed my view on shipping too and while there are still those ships that make me cringe, I’ve learned just to ignore them.

If there is one thing I’ve learned from this experience, is not to turn away from people with differing opinions, but to actually talk and listen. This goes beyond shipping. This applies to every aspect of life. 

And now I’m curious to hear your Reylo story.

bittersweet netflix shadow and bone finale (s1 e8) rewatch; accoutrement: white wine with ice cubes in it (no YOU'RE a mom drink shh)

my wine's like fruity I love her

light and darkness title card we love to see it

Inej looking at Alina before she goes below deck to hide <3

okay that 'what can you really do on your own' was like not fun that shit hurted

okay but Jesper's 'not enough'? <3

oh no my baby Zoya's first inkling that Darkles does not really care

omg Helnik just appeared and I remembered how much heartbreak I have to face in this episode

gods I love Danielle as Nina so so much

'this can't be it' said she with her pleading smile with downturned eyebrows MA'AM I-

don't break my dumb little heart

I might hate Calahan's little accent but they're making me tear up

oh gods I literally cannot keep a hold on myself when Dani's accent bleeds through with full force, it's like she comes more alive or smth

'I will keep you warm' SIR WHAT-

I am surprised they showed a leaning in for a kiss so soon but I'm not mad about it

her little eyebrow twitch at 'what are waffles'

when that rando said 'i hunt slavers now' a dread settled into me because I knew what was about to go down

Matthias looking somberly at the stuffed wolf's head </3

I am so incredibly entranced by this exchange between Fedyor and Nina and what it represents, it's very interesting that they pushed up their storyline to match with the timeline

damn it's kind of jarring to be back in the Fold

'REMEMBER WHO'S DRIVING'??!!!! *you better stop* meme, *i am, disgusted* meme, *oh wow, oh wow* meme

Mal you fucking idiot you could never take the crows by surprise

the music rising as Kaz starts explaining his thought process, fucking perfection

haha Mal bitchass Inej caught you

'Because if he isn't with Kirigan's crew, he's with ours' WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED

'And why would we destroy the Fold? It's the greatest weapon we've got' valid point at the moment but you know I don't necessarily agree with your methods

the use of the light tunnel in the show instead of Alina just being a super flashlight in the books is quite an interesting addition as well

is this an inappropriate time to point out how pretty Ben Barnes is

okay I kind of love the depiction of the shadow powers okay sue me

'they are traitors who tried to kill you' why are you suddenly making valid points despite having kind of committed low scale genocide

'i never said I was smart' YES MAL BE THE VOICE OF HIMBOS EVERYWHERE

Kaz's face going from 'can you believe this idiot' at Mal to 'fuck me I'm gonna do the same thing aren't I' at Inej

'For who would oppose us now?' *himbo romantic rival appears out of nowhere and shoots at him* god I love this show

him standing calmly in his ridiculous all black attire after nodding at his soldier to stop the himbo in his tracks, i fucking can't

could she summon light without the Darkling making her after he put the collar on her until the uhm moment in the books? idts but in the show she can hmm

'only because I'm not in the game' you tell him Jesper

not me snickering at 'you'll be seen not as a saviour, but as a heretic' LMFAO

'Shame. I'll have to give that speech again now.' THIS SHOW IS A FUCKING COMEDY AND YOU CAN'T PROVE ME WRONG

YES LET'S FUCKING GO SULI SOLIDARITY

Darkles casually whipping the Cut out like a shuriken or a throwing knife at Jesper because he shot at him lmao I can't

INEJ FUCKING GHAFA STABBED ONE THE OLDEST AND MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN THAT WORLD AND THAT IS VERY TELLING OF HER POWER

that moment where you actually think that affected him despite having read the books and watched the show

and then he has to go and fucking say 'it will take more than this' and I can't be help but be a little bit impressed at this old fool's resilience

throwback to when he said 'the king is a child' sir you make some valid points sometimes and it does make it difficult to hate you

I would just like to inform everyone that it is currently 6:09 am IST and I am sipping my second mug of wine while watching netflix sab for the second time instead of doing my three papers that are due tomorrow

I'm sorry but Inej jumping to check on Zoya after she gets knocked over by the volcra? first class display of solidarity and sisterhood as well as Inej's inherent kindness

Kaz jumping in front of a FUCKING VOLCRA AND STABBING IT WITH HIS CANE to save Inej, you best believe love is true, kids

god the volcra are so ugly and gross, they did such a good job with them

they kind of remind me of these creatures (I think they might have been called Hollows or smth) from the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children movie

STAG VISION TIME

despite my dislike for the callous nature with which the stag plotline was handled, I kind of dig the stag vision scene

'It's just me and you now, Alina. And we're all we need, anyway.' I actually feel bad for this old fool simping for this wonderful gorgeous powerful woman despite lying to her and manipulating her and exploiting her power

okay 'I never needed you' *stabs the bone fragment out of his hand* beautiful power move I fucking love you so so much

alright ben looking like ✨ that✨ not only in physical pain but also emotional pain at what the Darkling clearly considers another betrayal from this girl he wants to give the world and maybe? loves? maybe? or at least has feelings for makes my fucking heart hurt while simultaneously soar at Alina taking back control and reclaiming her power as her own and stepping into her own

'how do you claim such power' okay could have had better dialogue there writers

the fucking score lifting as she says 'you cannot claim what was not given to you' good people my heart is full

one day I'll talk about my defense of the chosen one trope because god damn I kind of love it

hmm I wonder was that brief hesitation that we saw on Alina's face due to her thinking about the 'you chose to betray our people' comment or the 'i was trying to save us' comment because that will define some of her actions in the later seasons (hopefully god if we get some, I honestly don't know what with this stupid brownface debacle)

I'm not saying talking about brownface and pointing out that it is wrong (for further context, I am actually brown) and harmful is stupid btw I'm talking about the incidents involving brownface in question

I don't wanna talk about this anymore but I might feel like I need to and end up posting about it idk

goodness Ivan actually believing in this cause makes me so sad because he too has been victimized by the system that ostracizes Grisha and he has every right to feel the way that he does

Ben actually fighting in that ridiculously heavy cloak and kefta when he's about to turn 40 this year makes me super impressed because I as a 19 year old sometimes wake up with muscle pulls after weeks of inactivity it's weird idk

also I understand that this Mal Darkling fight is completely fanservice and serves nearly no purpose to the plot in general but like I? love it?

'I don't have to kill you Darkling. Your past will do it for me' YES HIMBO GO OFF YOU TELL THAT OLD MAN GODS THAT WAS SEXY AS FUCK

maybe it's because I know Darkles will survive and will come out of it more powerful but I can't get myself to feel bad for him at the moment

Inej and Mal tearing up at Alina's condition made me almost feel something despite it being super obvious she was gonna be fine and save their asses at the last moment

HER POWER

a solitary Kaz in spotted on the western side of the newly expanded fold in his signature all black emo boy look

okay but the crows with zoya and malina is such an adorable team? I literally love them so much?

INEJ'S FUCKING SMILE AT ALINA GIVING HER THE DAGGER AND KAZ LOOKING AT HER AGSGSGSHSJSJSK MY HEART CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE

SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO NAME IT WELL GIRLIE I KNOW IT TOO AND MY FUCKING HEART IS LITERALLY GONNA BURST

okay I know they had one interaction but Mal and Jesper would be besties in another universe

Kaz glaring at Jesper when he answers ''course not' to Alina's 'will you still be trying to kidnap me?' tell me one fucking adaptation that got the dynamics between characters this perfectly

okay why do I love that Alina kept the jewellery as maybe a small nod to she has the wits to, um, you know, I don't wanna say steal, but, um, yeah, steal it because she knew she would need money to survive on the run

oh Jessie I love you so much I wish you hadn't said those things on you ig story about the brownface

it's like every single celeb I grow attached to god's like nope that one is going to do or say something problematic (hey btw im not reassigning blame to god for stuff people have done out of their own free will, 'twas a joke)

AAAAAAAH them saying 'the deal is the deal' in the show even though they didn't have to but like they did and I love them for it

Inej literally not being able to not stare at Kaz's face and smile after this <3

'I didn't expect it to burn at all. But it can be destroyed in the end. Just like him' babe you're not wrong but like um just you wait

god Mal being on supportive boyfie mode is well, absolutely adorable, obviously, but I wish we got to see more of him as a person outside of his attachment to Alina

kaz my little demjin I wish you hadn't have had to suffer so much to meet the crows and find your calling

fastforwarding Zoya's arc is also an interesting choice to me

I wish the hug hadn't been done though, it didn't feel earned

maybe Alina awkwardly and half-heartedly (remember, at this point the alliance is fresh and they still don't entirely trust each other) reached for a hug and Zoya avoided her? and then the rest of Zoya's lines followed? that would have made more sense to me at least

I love Sujaya as well, she brought life into Zoya with whatever little screentime and scraps of writing she got

inej asking kaz 'what's your angle?' beep bop bleep morp I sense another incoming embarrassing love confession

'but we do need you' *stares at her face intensely* 'I need you' ah look at the clock, look's like it's time to screech and flap your arms like you're a volcra because you're incapable of containing your emotions

NO YOU CAN'T GO DIRECTLY FROM KANEJ PROGRESS TO HELNIK BREAKUP (TEMPORARY, MIND YOU)

helnik my loves you don't deserve this I'm so sorry for both of you

Matthias fucking smiling ruefully while he says 'this was... just a cruel joke all along' THIS IS NOT FUCKING OKAY

omg hellgate

AAAAAAAAH NINA IS ON THE SAME FRAME AS THE OG CROWS I CAN'T HANDLE THIS

CAMERA PAN FROM KAZ SAYING 'JUST HOW THIS ALL STARTED... WE'RE GONNA NEED A HEARTRENDED' TO NINA OVERHEARING HIM AND LOOKING OVER?????!!!!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING THIS TO ME?!

Nina genuinely being curious as to the status of the sun saint because she obviously still cares

Also, 'But she is a Saint' okay Kaz trying to earn brownie points you have succeeded

DID THAT SAILOR JUST SAY 'GOED MORGEN FENTOMEN' TO MALINA BECAUSE I AM NOT OKAY WITH THEM JUST THROWING THAT IN MY FACE ALL OF A SUDDEN

gods I know I'll probably see them again but my heart is full of sorrow as my eyes drink in the sight of my crows for the last time for a while

I know people were annoyed at the meadow flashbacks but guess what? as a darklina, I loved them

'now that the Darkling is dead' could have phrased that a little differently my dudes that line needed to hold more weight

am I glad that they showed Darkles in this state with his nichevo'ya as a tasty little cliffhanger despite not being entirely true to the source material? maybe but only because Ben Barnes saying 'follow' and the nichevo'ya doing exactly so sent a chill down my spine

well, that's it for now, I'll have to move on I guess, get back to my real life which I'm obviously not ready to do

thank you to whoever actually read these things

I probably should have just made reactions or commentary videos instead but I'm lazy

my tumblr will probably go into inactivity once more as I emerge from my stint in the grishaverse

it was quite short (less than 2 months), considering the length of my other obsessions but it was definitely more intense than the other ones

Chapter 1: What Lies Ahead

Summary: A new year is starting at Hogwarts and Verna Malinda is entering her fifth year. She may have a little too much on her plate for the upcoming year though, because she’s been elected prefect...

Pairings: Eventual OC/Merula Snyde

Word Count: 2.5K

Warnings: Mild swearing

A/N: Matthew Luther belongs to @hphmmatthewluther

As this is a rewrite, some of the dialogue is from the game either directly, or modified to fit the new narrative.

If anyone is interested in being tagged to new upates, let me know!

(Verna was born in December 1972, so she was 13 during the autumn term of her 2nd year)

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Chapter 1: What Lies Ahead

Verna Malinda had been anxiously awaiting the beginning of her fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, even with a detention of indeterminate length looming in front of her. She knew in her heart that this year was going to be important, and not just because of the O.W.L. examinations but because of the events of last June, and the chance of finding Jacob in the next vault. For Verna, summers had, for the past four years, felt like an inescapable limbo. Every year she longed to be back at Hogwarts, delving into the mystery of the Cursed Vaults. This year, however, she had been elected as a prefect to her great surprise. She hadn’t really considered prefectdom as something to aspire to, because all her time was spent either breaking the rules or planning to break them. Was it really appropriate for a Hogwarts prefect to be serving detention? Mysterious were the ways of Professor Dumbledore.

~

As the Hogwarts Express whistled as a signal for departure, Verna waved to her father from the train’s window and then turned to her friend, Rowan Khanna, the one out of the two of them who should’ve been the prefect. Rowan pushed their glasses up their nose and smiled.

“What is it?”

“I ought to go find Charlie,” Verna said as the train picked up speed. She’d been feeling all kinds of weird about talking to Rowan ever since she got the letter proclaiming her prefect. It had been Rowan’s ambition to claim that spot ever since year one, and somehow Verna had managed it even though she hadn’t even tried.

“Alright, I’ll find Ben. We’ll hold a spot for you, if you get a moment to come sit with us,” Rowan replied and the two headed their separate ways. So far it didn’t seem like Rowan was holding Verna’s election as a prefect against her. Even in their letters, Rowan had only seemed supportive and proud. They had been friends since first year, and Verna hadn’t exactly stolen Rowan’s spot on purpose. In fact, she was fairly certain she had entirely too much on her plate for this year even without being a prefect.

~

Once Verna located Charlie Weasley, Gryffindor’s resident Dragon-enthusiast and Quidditch hero, and as it happened, her fellow prefect, the two of them headed to the special carriage meant for prefects and the Head Boy and Girl.

“What in Merlin’s name possessed Professor Dumbledore and McGonagall to make you and I prefects?” asked Charlie, sounding genuinely confused, although in his defence, it was truly baffling.

“I have a theory that it’s to make us so busy we won’t have time to do any curse-breaking,” Verna reasoned.

“Bill’s a prefect and he’s had plenty of time,” Charlie argued but then added: “Though maybe that’s why he became the Head Boy… Wow, actually you might be right.”

“Thanks Chaz,” Verna laughed as the two entered the prefect carriage. It was already quite packed with new and old prefects, as well as Bill and the Head Girl, Ella Higgs.

“Are we late because I had to wait for you…?” Charlie whispered and Verna shushed him as Ella and Bill started to congratulate them on their achievement. Verna locked eyes with a certain Slytherin student across the carriage. Apparently Merula Snyde had also become a prefect. Verna should’ve expected as much. Her hair looked tousled as usual, but she had elected to sport a dark eye-makeup, which somehow made the purple of her eyes look even more prominent. Merula gave her a look of loathing and then promptly ignored her. Verna’s mood sunk.

“Hi Verna!” came a greeting from among the other fifth-year prefects. It was Matthew Luther, a Ravenclaw chaser who had given Verna a run for her galleons last quidditch season. Verna was pleased to see not only complete arseholes had become prefects.

“Hey!” Verna replied, taking her place among the others.

“Hi Luther,” Charlie whispered, smiling.

“Nice to see you two made it as prefects.”

Verna was about to answer but was quickly silenced by Bill who very deliberately raised his voice and started his introduction to the wonderful world of prefectdom, looking at the three of them meaningfully.

~

After nearly an hour of instruction, Bill and Ella bade them pleasant journey and reminded them of their job to patrol the corridors in regular intervals. After that, many returned to their friends or settled down in the prefects’ carriage. Bill walked up to Verna and Charlie.

“Congrats on becoming a prefect Verna!” he said and slapped her arm for good measure.

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to be as responsible as you, William.”

Bill laughed and Charlie rolled his eyes.

“Well, I for one think you two will do just fine,” added Bill.

“If you say so…” Charlie mused. “Should we find Rowan and Ben?” he asked Verna.

“Yeah, see you later Bill!”

“Remember to patrol the corridors! And don’t abuse your power!” Bill called after them as Verna and Charlie headed back to find the compartment their friends were sitting in.

“I don’t think he actually has as much faith in us as he lets on…” Charlie said.

“Yeah, probably not. After all he lives with you, and I’m the one who roped him into this curse-breaking stuff in the first place.”

“Yeah, at the ripe old age of 13.” reminded Charlie. Verna was really starting to doubt Professor Dumbledore’s judgement.

~

Rowan and Ben had found a carriage and reserved spots for them. The two seemed in good spirits and Verna felt much more relaxed. If Rowan was on her side, then everything was going to be okay. Even Ben seemed to be okay, even after he was used to attack Verna under the imperius curse last year.

“How was it?” asked Ben as Verna and Charlie took their seats. He glanced quickly at Rowan, who nodded encouragingly. Verna figured Rowan and Ben had been discussing the incident before she and Charlie arrived. The food trolley had passed ages ago, so Verna nicked a treacle tart from Rowan who gave her an exasperated but amused look.

“Pretty standard stuff, honestly. They explained everything we were told in the briefing about prefects at the end of last year,” explained Charlie.

“Who else was elected?” Rowan inquired.

“Oh you’ll never guess Slytherin’s-“

“Merula,” Rowan said before Charlie could finish.

“Yeah, and she seemed right pleased about it too, I bet she’s gonna have a blast abusing her position,” Verna grumbled. She really was not looking forward to yet another thing to compete over with Merula.

“Not if we abuse our position first,” Charlie said, grinning.

“No,” Rowan admonished them when they saw Verna’s matching grin.

“I’ll disown you both if you sink to her level.”

Both Charlie and Verna stopped grinning.

“Sorry Rowan,” Verna said bashfully. “We’ll try our best to make you proud.”

Rowan groaned in mock-annoyance, and all four of them laughed at the absurdity of the notion of Charlie and Verna as prefects. Even Ben. Verna’s hopes for the year were rejuvenated a little.

~

The rest of the journey went by in a relatively normal manner. Verna and Charlie patrolled the corridors every now and then but didn’t face any incidents. Tonks gave them both grief about becoming prefects though, and loudly announced that this is why she had trust issues. Verna couldn’t exactly blame her, they had after, pulled pranks together in the past and prefects had a well-earned reputation of being spoilsports. After sunset, the train arrived at the Hogsmeade Station and Charlie and Verna were again required to perform their new duties. Verna hadn’t really thought about how small the first years looked until they all filed out of the train and followed Hagrid to the boats. It wasn’t that long ago she had been in their shoes, completely terrified and anxious to start looking for her brother. Jacob. The thought stung like a wasp. It had taken four years and she was no closer to finding him as she was to finding the next cursed vault. Jacob had always been there to protect her and help her and what good was she, if she couldn’t do the same for him?

~

The Great Hall was all decked out for the Welcome Feast when they entered. Verna always felt a sense of belonging at the sight of Hogwarts, but it was also always mixed with something like dread. This year instead of Professor Dumbledore, it was Professor McGonagall taking the podium to hold the traditional speech after the Sorting. Apparently, the Headmaster was on an errand outside of Hogwarts. They were also going to have a new teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts, which at this point surprised no one. The new DADA professor did surprise Verna, though. It was Madam Rakepick, the curse breaker Dumbledore had hired to investigate the vaults last year. Rakepick turned her eyes to Verna and something passed across her features, but Verna couldn’t place the expression. Then, just as fast as it had arrived, it passed, and McGonagall bid everyone dig in their food.

~

After the feast, as Verna and Charlie were getting ready to herd all the new Gryffindors (including Bill and Charlie’s little brother Percy) to their common room, Penny walked up to them, looking excited.

“Hey!” she beamed and tailing behind her was a small blonde girl who looked very much like Penny. “How was your summer?”

“Oh, you know, researching advanced curses, eagerly awaiting for my detention this year, the usual” Verna joked.

“I worked on my extra credit stuff for Professor Kettleburn,” Charlie said. “And hung out with my siblings. Fred and George have gotten it into their heads they wanna be the best quidditch players in the world and I have to be their coach.”

“That sounds really nice! We need to catch up more later, I just wanted to introduce you two to my sister, Beatrice,” Penny exclaimed, and the younger girl waved her hand at them.

“Hi,” she said, rather excitably.

“Hi Beatrice, I’m Verna and this is Charlie.”

Next to her Charlie smiled wide and shook Beatrice’s hand. It seemed to Verna that she appreciated being treated like a grown-up.

“Figured you were Penny’s sister when they called Haywood during the Sorting,” Charlie said.

Beatrice nodded. “And now we’re both in Hufflepuff! I was hoping for it, but I would’ve been happy with Gryffindor too.”

“Bea is… sort of a fan of yours,” Penny explained looking at Verna. “She’s always asking me to tell her stories of my adventures with the famous curse-breaker Verna Malinda.”

“Now I can join you!” Beatrice said. “To find your brother and the cursed vaults.”

This, admittedly, took Verna by surprise. She glanced at Penny who, by the look on her face, had not expected this either.

“Bea…” Penny whispered.

“I mean it, I want to help,” Beatrice insisted.

“Well… Maybe you can help with some small things, but I’ll be honest with you, it’s really dangerous stuff,” Verna told the young witch and hoped that was the end of it. No such luck.

“You investigated the cursed ice when you were just first-years,” Beatrice protested.

“That’s… true…” Penny admitted but didn’t look happy about it.

“And Harry Potter defeated You-Know-Who when he was just a baby!”

“She has a point, you know,” Charlie cut in.

“Knock it off, Weasley. There’ll be plenty of time for death-defying adventures when you’re older Bea, for now you can just show Verna what you made for her,” Penny said with a glare at Charlie, who seemed vaguely apologetic.

With only a little complaining, Beatrice presented Verna with a yellow, self-made puffskein toy. It was extremely cute, and the gesture made Verna wonder how much Penny had exaggerated her stories.

“Thank you, Beatrice, this is super cool,” she said as she inspected the stuffed animal. After that, she was served to a story about shaving the Haywoods’ pet puffskein every week for the hairs to make the toy, after which Penny had clearly had her fill, because she whisked Beatrice away and Charlie arched an eyebrow. “Wow, they really do just keep getting smaller.”

~

Up in the Gryffindor Tower, the young students were excited but obviously tired, so Verna kept her introduction short and let them explore on their own or just go to bed. After that, the two new prefects made their way to their favourite corner of the common room. The couch there was already occupied by Rowan and Ben.

“Hey guys,” said Ben meekly behind his new Charms textbook.

Charlie squished into the vacant spot between Rowan and the armrest, while Verna sat on the floor, not bothering to drag the nearest chair closer.

“I think I’m going to possibly have a mental breakdown this year,” she mused. “I mean I still have to find my brother, do normal homework, play Quidditch, study for O.W.L.s, and now be a prefect.”

“If you had started studying for the O.W.L.s first year like I told you, you wouldn’t be in this situation,” Rowan simply said. It’s not like they were wrong, but Verna still rolled her eyes.

“Literally no one else but you does that, Rowan” Charlie jumped into her defence, which Verna appreciated. She fist bumped Charlie over Rowan’s lap.

“You two are impossible,” Rowan said warmly and turned to look at Ben. Verna followed their gaze and noticed Ben looked distinctly uncomfortable. Well, more than usual.

“Ben…” she started.

“I just wanna say I’m sorry,” Ben blurted out. “I know you already said it’s fine last year, but I don’t think it’s fine. I’m too easy a target to use against you, and I don’t think you should include me in your plans anymore.”

Verna stared at him for a moment, trying to find words. Any one of her friends could’ve been used as a pawn by a dark wizard. After all, they were only students up against adult wizards.

“Ben, I get it. I’d probably feel the same way if it was me in your shoes right now, because it easily could be. You’re not weak for losing against an adult.”

Ben bit his lip nervously. “But I-“

“We need you. You’re one of my best friends and nobody blames you for what happened,” Verna countered before Ben could form a proper argument.

“In the train you lot acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary when everything is!” he slumped against the couch and let the textbook fall into his lap. “I’m going to bed.”

With that, Ben got up and disappeared into the boys’ dormitory, his friends’ pleas falling on deaf ears. Verna looked at Charlie and Rowan.

“Maybe he just needs some more time…” Charlie mused.

“I think I was too harsh on him last year,” Rowan said. “I apologized though. In the train. We had a whole chat about it.”

“I’m glad,” Verna said with a smile. It hadn’t felt right, when Ben and Rowan weren’t on speaking terms.

“He just hasn’t had the easiest time at Hogwarts,” Rowan continued. “And all this business with the vaults… I think it has us all on edge.”

“Understatement of the year…” muttered Charlie.

“Well… It’s only the first day of it, we’ll have plenty of time to make more understatements,” said Rowan gloomily.

The clown king: how Boris Johnson made it by playing the fool | Boris Johnson | The Guardian The Guardian · by Edward Docx The long-running German satirical show Extra 3 recently featured a sketch with the following voiceover: “From the people who brought you The Crown – the epic saga of the Queen – now comes the ridiculous story of this guy, a notorious buffoon at the head of a country … The Clown.” The word “clown” has often been used in a flippant or dismissive way with regard to Boris Johnson. But the underlying paradox is that it is only as a clown – a fool in the oldest and deepest sense of the word – that his character can truly be understood. What happens when you make the clown king is what we in the UK have been witnessing in real time. With the success of the vaccine, though, a new question emerges: can one archetype transform into the other? Can Johnson creep away from his clownish past altogether? Clowns, of course, are very serious and important people. At their simplest, they remind us of the silliness of things: that the world we have created is ridiculous. They reassure us in this observation by appealing to our innate understanding of the absurd. They relieve the endless tension and trauma of reality. At a deeper level, the clown is the mirror image of the priest. Both represent two ancient sides of our nature. Both elucidate what it means to be human. The priest summons, celebrates and interrogates the sacred; the clown does the same with the profane. The one is concerned with the eschatological, the other with the scatological. The priest propounds abstinence and fasting; the clown gluttony and indulgence. The one solemnifies sex, the other carnalises. As David Bridel, founder of the Clown School in Los Angeles, says, clowns are often roundly welcomed because they “remind us that we are as practised in falling over, shitting and humping, as we are in prayer and purification”. Would-be biographers of Johnson might do worse than to read Paul Bouissac, the leading scholar on the semiotics of clowning. Clowns are “transgressors”, he writes, cultural subversives who enact rituals and dramatic tableaux that “ignore the tacit rules of social games to indulge in symbolic actions that … toy with these norms as if they were arbitrary, dispensable convention.” Clowns “undermine the ground upon which our language and our society rest by revealing their fragility”. They “foreground the tension” between “instinct” and “constraint”. Bouissac could be writing directly of Johnson when he adds: “Their performing identities transcend the rules of propriety.” They are, he says, “improper by essence”. Observe classic Johnson closely as he arrives at an event. See how his entire being and bearing is bent towards satire, subversion, mockery. The hair is his clown’s disguise. Just as the makeup and the red nose bestow upon the circus clown a form of anonymity and thus freedom to overturn conventions, so Johnson’s candy-floss mop announces his licence. His clothes are often baggy – ill-fitting; a reminder of the clothes of the clown. He walks towards us quizzically, as if to mock the affected “power walking” of other leaders. Absurdity seems to be wrestling with solemnity in every expression and limb. Notice how he sometimes feigns to lose his way as if to suggest the ridiculousness of the event, the ridiculousness of his presence there, the ridiculousness of any human being going in any direction at all. His weight, meanwhile, invites us to consider that the trouble with the world (if only we’d admit it) is that it’s really all about appetite and greed. (His convoluted affairs and uncountable children whisper the same about sex.) Before he says a word, he has transmitted his core message – that the human conventions of styling hair, fitting clothes and curbing desires are all … ludicrous. And we are encouraged – laughingly – to agree. And, of course, we do. Because, in a sense, they are ludicrous. He goes further, though – pushing the clown’s confetti-stuffed envelope: isn’t pretending you don’t want to eat great trolleys of cake and squire an endless carousel of medieval barmaids … dishonest? Oh, come on, it’s so tiresome trying to be slim, groomed or monogamous – when what you really want is more cake and more sex. Right? I know it. You know it. We all know it. Why lie? Forget the subject under discussion – Europe, social care, Ireland – am I not telling it like it is, deep down? Am I not the most honest politician you’ve ever come across? Herein the clown’s perverse appeal to reason. Next, witness how, in the company of a journalist, Johnson’s whole demeanour transmits the sense of him saying: “Aha! An interview! How absurd! This is no way to find anything out! But, yes, if you want, I will play ‘prime minister’ and you can reprise my old role – if that’s what the audience is here for.” Notice how often he asks (knowingly) “Are you sure our viewers wouldn’t want to hear … ?” or “You really want to know this?” This is because the clown is always in a deeper relationship with the audience than with his ostensible subject. See how he rocks on his feet as if to lampoon a politician emphasising his words. Hear how his speech is not – in truth – eloquent, but rather a caricature of eloquence. The dominant mode is not fluency, but a kind of stop-start oratio interruptus; hesitancy followed by sudden spasms of effusion. The hesitancy is designed to involve us in the confected drama of his choosing the next word. The sudden effusion that follows can then be marketed as clinching evidence of his oratorical elan. You do not have to be a dramatist to recognise the clown archetype immediately. Johnson’s impulsiveness. The self-summoned crises. His attitude to truth, to authority, to every construct of law and art and politics, to power and to pleasure. His personal relationships and his relationship to the public. The self-conscious ungainliness. His blithe conjuring of fantasy and fairytale. The way he toys with norms – inverts, switches, tricks, reverses. The collusive warmth oddly symbiotic with a distancing coldness. Anything for a laugh. Everything preposterous. All of it richly articulate of the antic spirit that animates his being. Indeed, Johnson is an apex-clown – capable of the most sophisticated existential mockery while simultaneously maintaining the low moment-by-moment physical comedy of the buffoon. Recall general election Johnson of 2019. Think of the famous moment where he drove a JCB through a polystyrene wall on which was written the word “Gridlock”. His union jack-painted digger burst through the polystyrene with the legend “Get Brexit Done” written on its loader. His subsequent speech even mentioned custard: “I think it is time,” he said, smirking, “for the whole country – symbolically – to get in the cab of a JCB – of a custard colossus – and remove the current blockage that we have in our parliamentary system.” This scene must surely be as close to the actual circus as politics in the UK has ever come. Boris Johnson at the JCB headquarters in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, December 2019. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Consider what is actually going on here. The wall is a wall that he helped create. Now he wants everyone to join him demolishing it. And he’s the man to lead the charge. Why? Because he’s the only one who can smash through the nonsense that is … the wall. Yet, he built the wall. Most of this nonsense is his doing – figuratively, literally, in the studio, in the country. And why are the hazard lights on? Because, of course, this is an emergency, for the clown must forever be concocting drama. An emergency that he has conjured and staged – to place himself in the cab of the rescue vehicle. Which is not a rescue vehicle. But a JCB. (Paradox inside paradox; is he destroying or rescuing?) A JCB painted as a union jack. Why? To celebrate the flag? Not quite. To mock it, then? Also, not quite. But in order to toy with it – to clown with it – to move back and forth across the borders of the serious and the comic. “Time for the whole country,” he says, “symbolically – to get in the cab of the JCB.” Symbolically? Was ever a word deployed with so many layers of foolery? What – we thought he might mean we all get in the JCB? Of course, we didn’t. So who is he mocking with that word? He’s mocking everything – the stunt, us, himself – even in the moment of performance, he mocks his own performance. We cannot take him seriously and yet we must take him seriously. And note how that word “symbolically” steps up from the backstage of Johnson’s consciousness when talking of Brexit – which, as he well knows, is an act of symbolism at the expense of everything else. The JCBs, the polystyrene walls, the stuck-on-a-zipwire-with-two-mini-union-jacks, the hiding in fridges, the waving of fish, the thumbs up, the pants down, this is the realm of the mock heroic – to which Johnson returns again and again. This is where he’s most at home. This is where he’s world-king. And he urges us to join him there. Nudges our elbows. Offers us a drink. Beckons us in. Smirks. Winks. Johnson’s novel Seventy-Two Virgins is one long tour of the territory. The book is beyond merely bad and into some hitherto unvisited hinterland of anti-art. More or less everything about it is ersatz. Commentators who fall for his self-conjured comparisons to Waugh and Wodehouse miss the point entirely and do both writers an oafish ill-service. Because here again: Johnson is not seriously interested in writing novels at all. It’s not that he’s a fraud. Rather, as ever, he is a jester-dilettante peddling parody and pastiche. In truth, the attentive reader is not invited to take anything seriously about the novel – not its title; not its handling of character, dialogue, plot or point of view; not its dramatic construction, nor its stylistic impersonations. And certainly not its thematic dabbling. In fact, for more than 300 ingenious pages, Johnson manages to commit to nothing in the art of writing a novel so much as the attempt to be entertaining in the act of mocking a commitment to the art of writing of a novel. There is no heroic; it’s all mock. “To a man like Roger Barlow,” Johnson writes of his clownishly named hero in the book, “the whole world just seemed to be a complicated joke … everything was always up for grabs, capable of dispute; and religion, laws, principle, custom – these were nothing but sticks from the wayside to support our faltering steps.” Clowns have been with us through history. They turn up in Greek drama as sklêro-paiktês – childlike figures. During the Roman festival of Saturnalia, a clown-king was chosen and all commerce was suspended in favour of a wild cavort. (“Fuck business.”) In Norse mythology, the archetype is the figure of Loki – silver-tongued trickster and shape-shifter who turns himself into horse, seal, fly, and fish. (Note the echo of the reference by a close ally of Joe Biden to Johnson as a “shape-shifting creep”.) In the Italian commedia dell’arte, there is the character of Pierrot. There is Badin in France, Bobo in Spain, Hanswurst in Germany. And here in Britain: Shakespeare’s many famous fools. We need our clever fools, of course. Too much solemnity is sickly. We need the carnival. We need reminders of our absurdity. The culture should be subverted. The sacred should be disparaged. Institutions should be derided when they become sclerotic. We live in an age of posturing and zealotry and never needed our satirists and our clowns more. But the transgressor is licensed precisely because they are not in power. The satirist ridicules the government – fairly, unfairly – and we smile because (ordinarily) they are not in charge of the hospitals, the schools, our livelihoods or the borders. We laugh and clap at the circus, the theatre and the cinema because we can go home at the end of the evening, confident that the performers are not in charge of the reality in which we must live. Boris Johnson stuck on a zipline in Victoria Park, London, August 2012. Photograph: Getty Images Previously, of course, this was Johnson’s relationship to power. He was the clown-journalist tilting idly at straight bananas, Tony Blair, political correctness gone mad. When he was made mayor of London, he was in effect elevated to quasi-official court jester. There he was stranded on the zipwire (the buffoon parodies the circus trapeze act) but real power still remained elsewhere. Even during the referendum campaign, David Cameron and George Osborne were the government … whereas Johnson was continuing to perform the role of fool – holding up a kipper here, draped in sausages there, arriving in town squares with his red circus bus and a farrago of misdirection and fallacy. He was stoutly devoid of any real idea or concern for what might replace the structures he disparaged. His humour, his glee, his energy, his campaigning brilliance – it delighted and sparkled because he was free of responsibility, free to be himself, free to throw the biggest custard pies yet dreamed of in the UK. Vanishingly few people had any serious idea of what was involved in leaving the EU; and resoundingly not Johnson. But those who simply wanted to leave because their gut instinct told them it was right to do so would have failed and failed miserably without him. These men and women – the likes of Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis, Steve Baker, Nigel Farage, Mark Francois, John Redwood, Gisela Stuart, Kate Hoey et al – were never more than a dim congregation of rude mechanicals. And what they required to win was someone who instinctively understood how to conduct a form of protracted public masque. Someone who could distract, charm, rouse and delight with mischief and inversion and a thousand airy nothings. (The clown was ever the perfect ambassador of meaninglessness.) But even Puck sends the audience home with an apology and the reassurance that all we have witnessed was but a dream. We, however, have made our clown a real-world king. And from that moment on, we became a country in which there was only the mock heroic – a “world beating” country that would “strain every sinew” and give “cast-iron guarantees” while bungling its plans and breaking its promises. A country “ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles” and act “as the supercharged champion” of X, Y, Z. A country on stilts – pretending that we had a test and trace system that was head and shoulders above the rest of the world. A country performing U-turns on the teetering unicycle of Johnsonian buffoonery – A-levels, school meals, foreign health workers and more. A country of tumbling catastrophes. Trampolining absurdities. Go to work. Don’t go to work. A country proroguing parliament illegally here, trying to break international law there. Paying its citizens to “eat out to help out” in the midst of a lethal pandemic. A country testing its eyesight in lockdown by driving to distant castles with infant and spouse during a travel ban. A country whose leadership stitched up the NHS in the morning and then clapped for them at night. A country opening schools for a single day, threatening to sue schools, shutting schools. A country on holiday during its own emergency meetings. A country locking down too late; opening up too early. A country sending its elderly to die in care homes. A country unwilling to feed its own children. A country spaffing £37bn up the wall one moment and refusing to pay its own nurses a decent salary the next. A country doing pretend magic tricks with the existence of its own borders – no, there won’t be a border in the sea; oh yes there will; oh no there won’t; it’s behind you …. A country of gimmicks and slapstick and hollow, honking horns. This is Eastcheap Britain and Falstaff is in charge. It is in the two Henry IV plays that Shakespeare most clearly illuminates the gulf between his great, theatre-filling clown, Falstaff, and the young Prince Hal who will go on to become the archetype of the king – Henry V. At the mock-court of Falstaff’s tavern, we are invited to laugh and drink more ale, pinch barmaid’s bottoms, dance with dead cats and put bedpans on our heads while Falstaff entertains us with stories of his bravery and heroism that we all know are flagrant lies. Says Prince Hal to the portly purveyor of falsehoods: “These lies are like their father that begets them, gross as a mountain, open, palpable.” Meanwhile, the realm falls apart. Since we have no Hal and have crowned the clown instead, the play we are now watching in the UK asks an ever more pressing question: can Falstaff become Henry V and lead his country with true seriousness and purpose? Or is the vaccine-cloaked transformation now being enacted merely superficial – a shifting of the scenery? The lies themselves are the problem. The kingly archetype embodies at least the ambition of sincerity, meaning and good purpose at the heart of the state. Whereas deceit continues to be the default setting on Johnson’s hard drive. Rory Stewart calls Johnson “the best liar ever to serve as prime minister” but writes that “what makes him unusual in a politician is that his dishonesty has no clear political intent”. But Stewart does not quite see that Johnson is the purest form of clown there is – “improper by essence” – and that truth and lies are like two sides of the argument to him: equally tedious, equally interesting, equally absurd, both a distant second in their service of tricks, drama, distraction, invention, manipulation. He will write you two columns, four, 10, 100 – pro-Marmite, anti-Marmite; pro-EU, anti-EU. And then he’ll tell you all about them. All about how he couldn’t decide. Because not deciding is where all the drama is to be found and who cares about the arguments anyway? No, what the trickster wants is neither your agreement nor your disagreement. (For he himself agrees and disagrees.) What the trickster wants most of all … is for you to admire his trickery. Heinrich Böll, the German Nobel-prize winner and author of the truly great novel The Clown, answers Stewart’s question when he says: “You go too far in order to know how far you can go.”

The clown king: how Boris Johnson made it by playing the fool | Boris Johnson | The Guardian

Grief (Pt. 1)

A/N #1: Finally wrote the first part of my “Rowan’s death” story. It’s around 5000 words long, so I divided it into two parts to make it easier to read. This is based on what went on in the game, with the original dialogue mostly intact, but I added stuff to fill in what went on between various part of the chapter and to better illustrate Alice’s reaction.

--------------

"Avada Kedavra!"

As she heard those words, Alice couldn't help but stare at the green light that was coming out of Rakepick's wand. It felt like everything was in slow-motion, the light slowly making its way to Ben. As she was about to close her eyes, she saw a flash of blue and black pushing Ben aside, the green light hitting it instead.

"ROWAN!" she heard herself shout.

"No!" she heard Ben say as he stared in disbelief.

"Khanna..." she heard Merula whisper.

She looked from Rowan's body to where Rakepick was standing, feeling the rage growing in her body.

"We warned you that you owed 'R' a friend's life. Consider that debt collected," said Rakepick with her usual smug grin.

Alice felt herself getting up on her feet and lunging at her as she let out an animalistic growl. Before she could reach Rakepick, she disapparated, leaving Alice grasping at air. Realizing she was gone, her shoulders slumped as she turned her head to see her best friend's body, lifeless.

"No..." mumbled Ben as he approached the body with the others.

Alice, Merula, and Ben knelt next to Rowan, observing her, hoping, perhaps, that she was not...

"She's not breathing," said Merula, her eyes widening.

"No, no... There's got to be some spell... There has to be something we can do!" said Alice, shaking Rowan's body, hoping to wake her up. "This can't be the end... Rowan can't be... dead."

"The Killing Curse... There's no coming back..." replied Merula in a soft voice, still staring at Rowan's corpse.

"Rowan... She's gone," whimpered Ben.

They stared in disbelief at the young Ravenclaw's body. None of them had even considered this turn of event. None of them knew what Rowan had been doing in the forest. This couldn't be real...

"I'll go fetch a professor," said Merula, slowly getting up.

"We'll take her... I mean... We'll take Rowan to the edge of the forest. Just in case Dementors came back. Ok, Ben?" said Alice, looking at the Gryffindor boy.

Ben nodded. Alice took Rowan under her shoulders while Ben took her legs. Slowly, following Merula, they made their way out of the Forest. They laid Rowan down on the soft grass at the edge of the Forest as Merula began running toward the castle. Ben and Alice sat beside the body in silence, both of them still in shock. Alice wasn't yet fully realizing what had happened, while Ben slowly realized someone had died protecting him.

About 20 minutes later, they saw Merula running back, followed by the Heads of House, Hagrid, and Dumbledore. As they saw Rowan's body on the ground, they all let out a gasp, except for Hagrid, who let out a sob. While Flitwick and McGonagall were both making sure that Alice and Ben were uninjured, Merula explained what had happened to the other Professors. Hagrid gently took Rowan in his arms, cradling her body as he let out a few sobs. They all slowly made their way back to the castle.

When they entered the castles, Hagrid and the professors made their way to the infirmary with Madam Pomfrey, while the three students walked toward their respective Common Rooms. Merula went down to the gloomy dungeons, while Alice and Ben went up the silent staircase until they reached the fifth floor, where they separated without a word.

Alice answered the riddle before entering the empty Common Room where a fire was still burning in the fireplace. Even with the fire, Alice felt cold as she made her way to her dormitory. She was thankful both her roommates were asleep when she entered. She didn't feel like talking. She didn't feel like being asked where Rowan was.

The next morning, after a restless sleep, she was awoken by Tulip shaking her.

"Alice! Alice! Something is going on! We are supposed to go to the Great Hall for an announcement! Rumour is that someone died last night. I thought it might be you until I remembered seeing you when I woke up. Who do you think it is? By the way, where's Rowan?" asked Tulip as she looked at the empty bed next to Alice before looking back at her. Alice simply looked down. "Oh dear..." whispered Tulip.

Alice got out of bed and got dressed before following Tulip to the Great Hall. When she entered, she noticed the tables were gone and that the Hall was darker than usual, with only daylight and a few torches providing some light. As she made her way toward the front, she overheard Barnaby whispering: "Everyone is here... So it's true."

"I can't believe Rowan died last night," replied Ismelda.

"I heard that Alice, Merula, and Ben were there..." shared Liz.

When she finally reached the front with Tulip, she noticed everyone around her was either crying or looked sad. All except for Merula, Ben, and herself. Perhaps the sadness would come later for them, she thought. Perhaps they were still getting over the shock of what they had seen.

"This doesn't seem real... The idea that Rowan is gone..." she said in a soft voice.

"Gone forever," replied Ben, emotionless, Alice feeling a chill going down her spine as she heard those words.

"It only just happened. You're in shock. We all are," said Tulip as she approached the group of three.

"It's different for us. We watched it happen," pointed out Merula.

"I still don't understand how... Why Rowan was even there... It happened so fast..." said Alice, looking down.

"Actually... Alice, I think I may know why Rowan was in the forest last night," said Penny as she approached her friend.

"Dumbledore's here," whispered Andre before Alice could say anything.

Dumbledore made his way to the platform where the other teachers were standing and stood behind his lectern.

"Penny, what do you mean you know why Rowan was in the forest?" whispered Alice, hoping she could get an explanation before Dumbledore's speech.

"Let's talk later. In private," replied Penny, looking at Dumbledore.

Alice let out a sigh before looking up at the Headmaster.

"Last night, we suffered an unimaginable loss at the hands of unimaginable evil," started Dumbledore. "Rowan Khanna, a devoted student and friend, sacrificed her life to save another's." 

As he said those words, Alice noticed Ben looking down. He seemed frustrated.

"There is no more noble deed," continued Dumbledore. "So today, we will not waste words on Rowan Khanna's killer, whom I assure you will be brought to justice."

"You can count on that," muttered Merula through gritted teeth, before Liz gave her a nudge with her elbow so that she would keep quiet.

"Today, we gather as one Hogwarts community to grieve, remember and honour Rowan and her final heroic act. Grief takes many forms. And it takes time," said Dumbledore, looking at all the students gathered in front of him. "Sadness... Fear... Anger... There are no wrong feelings. It is important in trying times that we be kind and patient with one another. And never forget that Rowan Khanna died a hero."

Hearing that Rowan was dead from the Headmaster, Alice felt a shiver down her spine. It was as if, until now, she was hoping it was perhaps just a horrible nightmare. Hearing some of her friends next to her sobbing made it all too real. Part of her just wanted to run out of the Great Hall...

"Some of you may know it was Rowan's ambition to teach ay Hogwarts one day. By constantly pursuing new knowledge and instilling a love of learning in ourselves and others, we can honour Rowan's dream. For now, I have temporarily suspended new lessons to give everyone time to grieve. But remember that if we let Rowan's noble goal be a guiding light in these dark times, then, just like this light," said the Headmaster as he raised his lighted up wand, "the memory of Rowan Khanna - a clever, brave, driven, and loyal companion - will shine on."

At the end of his speech, everyone slowly raised their wands, lightening them up in honour and in memory of Rowan.

After a moment, students started to walk out of the Great Hall, wondering what to do with themselves. Alice wanted to leave, but she knew Penny wanted to tell her something important, so she waited next to the door, looking at Penny, who was comforting her sister. As she stood there, lost in her thoughts, she felt someone's hand on her shoulder. She turned around to see Charlie before he hugged her. She stood there, not reciprocating the hug, as she felt like she was out of breath, needing space. Charlie, realizing she was standing still, took a step back, looking worried.

"Alice... Are you ok?" asked Charlie.

"Not really..." softly replied Alice, as she looked at the floor, rubbing her arm.

"Of course... That was a stupid question to ask," said Charlie, rubbing the back of his neck.

"No... It was not. It shows concern," said Alice, looking up into Charlie's warm brown eyes.

"I am concerned. You just witnessed something terrible. I'm surprised you're not in the infirmary," replied Charlie.

"Rowan would want me to be strong. Even when I had a cold, she would drag me to our classes," said Alice, a strained smile appearing on her lips because of the memory.

"True... But still, I'm worried. I..." started Charlie before being interrupted by Penny.

"Alice? Can we talk?" asked Penny.

"Yeah... I'll talk to you later," said Alice to Charlie before walking away with Penny.

Charlie looked at his girlfriend walking away, wrinkling his brows as he pursed his lips.

When Alice and Penny finally found an empty corridor, the young Hufflepuff stopped and turned to her friend. 

"Alice... I'm glad we can talk in private. How are you holding up?" asked Penny.

"Numb? It's like it hasn't completely sunk in yet that Rowan is gone... Even if Dumbledore said she was..." replied Alice, letting out a sigh. She would probably get that question from everyone she knew.

"I know. It's as if Rowan could walk by us right now, off to study," said Penny, her shoulders slumping.

"It happened so fast, Penny... Instant," replied Alice as she felt a tightness in her chest.

"I can't imagine what you've been through, Alice. Dumbledore said there are no wrong feelings," said Penny, trying to comfort her friend.

"No wrong feelings and so many questions..." said Alice, looking out the window toward the Forbidden Forest.

"Like, why was Rowan in the Forbidden Forest last night?" asked Penny, following her friend's gaze.

"Yes. You said you knew," said Alice, looking back at Penny.

"I think so. Do you remember that night Bill taught us the Sea Urchin Jinx?" asked Penny.

"Vaguely? Remind me," said Alice, scrunching her eyebrows, trying to figure out what that jinx had to do with Rowan's death.

"It was after Madam Pomfrey was petrified. Bill kept you, Ben, Merula, and Charlie to talk about the Cursed Vaults... And Rowan and I wanted to stay and help, too. But Bill wanted to keep it to just those of you who were in the Buried Vaults with Rakepick," said Penny.

"It was for your own safety, yours and Rowan's," explained Alice.

"I know. You told me about 'R' the day in the Courtyard when Ben cast Langlock on Charlie. So I understood. But Rowan didn't understand..." said Penny before looking away. "Oh Alice... I've done something terrible..."

"Penny, tell me. Please, tell me everything," said Alice, pleading, as she sat down on a bench.

"Well, you remember what you told us before Ben langlocked Charlie in the Courtyard? That the wizard that escaped on his way to Azkaban was part of 'R,' which is not a person but a dangerous secret organization of which Rakepick is a member, and that he was after you," said Penny, sitting down next to the young Curse-Breaker.

"Yeah..." said Alice, raising an eyebrow.

"I told Rowan what I knew about 'R' and Rakepick. I know you wanted to keep 'R' a secret from anyone who wasn't in the Buried Vault..." said Penny, looking down.

"For your protection. I doubt I'd have told you if you weren't with Charlie when I'd needed to tell him," pointed out Alice.

"I know. And I explained to Rowan that I was only talking about 'R' so she could understand what you're facing," said Penny, looking back at Alice.

"And did it help Rowan understand why I'd been so preoccupied?" asked Alice.

"Yes, but it also made her want to protect you the way you're always protecting us. So she had been secretly following you from a distance," explained Penny.

"Ever since you both left that classroom?" asked Alice.

"She told me that was her plan. It would explain why she was in the Forbidden Forest," replied Penny before letting out a sigh, her shoulders slumping.

"I was so focused on what we were doing, I had no idea Rowan was following me, watching over me..." said Alice, looking down as she shook her head.

"If I hadn't told Rowan about 'R,' then what happened wouldn't have happened," said Penny, sniffing.

"You can't blame yourself, Penny," said Alice, looking back at her friend as she rested her hand on hers.

"But who else is there to blame?" asked Penny.

Alice let out a sigh as she looked away. "Rakepick is the one who killed Rowan, but... I blame myself. If not for me, no one would know about 'R.' Rowan never would've been following me. Perhaps it would have been better if Rowan had never met me at all..."

"Don't say that. Rowan valued your friendship more than anything," said Penny as she took Alice's hand between hers, squeezing it lightly. "I hope it wasn't a mistake, telling you all of this."

"You've only told the truth. Now at least I know why Rowan was there last night. She was being the best she'd been to me from the start, looking out for me one last time..." said Alice, looking outside the window behind her as she took a deep breath.

"I don't mean to interrupt," said a voice behind Alice. 

Alice turned around to see Tonks, who clearly seemed uncomfortable.

"I mean, I know I'm interrupting... You may have even heard already..." continued Tonks, rubbing the back of her neck as she looked away from the two girls.

"It's alright. What is it, Tonks?" asked Alice. Life didn't stop just because Rowan's life had...

"Everyone's to report to their Common Rooms for an important announcement," said Tonks.

"About Rowan?" asked Penny, surprised.

"I'm not sure," shrugged Tonks. "I'm not sure about anything anymore. Especially with you, Alice... Do we talk about it? Do you even want to talk about it?"

"Rowan is your friend, too, Tonks," said Alice. "I mean... Was your friend... Our friend..."

"Yes... But not in the same way that Rowan was your friend," pointed out Tonks.

"It's true. Everyone knows, it's always been you and Rowan, from our first day here..." remarked Penny.

"From my very first day at Hogwarts..." mumbled Alice, looking down once again as she recalled the first time she met Rowan in Diagon Alley.

Penny and Tonks didn't say a word as they looked at their friend. She clearly was struggling to cope with what had happened, but she seemed to bottle up all her emotions. She was still trying to be the strong one. She was still trying to be the protector. How could they tell her she could let go? That it was ok to grieve. That there was no shame in crying, in showing emotions. That they were there if she needed to talk. They just knew all too well that she would fake a smile, say everything would be fine, and walk away. The only person she ever seemed to confide in was Rowan...

"Well... I suppose we should go to our Common Rooms, hear this announcement..." finally said Tonks.

"Yes, let's go," said Alice as she stood up along with Penny.

They made their way together until they reached the staircases, the Hufflepuffs going down, and Alice continuing up on her own.

-------

A/N #2: Hope you enjoyed it! This story is partly inspired by the “Low Energy” prompt from @yantarnii 2018 Inktober challenge. Part 2 is here.

Sorry Seems to Be The Hardest Word - Reddie

Summary: “Do you want me to be mad at you?” Richie snaps, and Eddie does his best not to flinch. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits. “I just want you to know I didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s okay if you did,” Richie murmurs, which is possibly the worst thing he could say. “It’s mostly true.”

--

Or, in which Richie finally takes a joke too far, and Eddie has to be there to pick up the pieces from his own explosive reaction.

Richie is, without a doubt, an asshole.  Now that’s not to say the losers don’t love him, because they do.  Perhaps a bit too much.  They let him get away with far more shit than anyone should allow.

But they all have their breaking points.

They have all told him to fuck off at some point.  They have all stormed off in a puff of rage.  But, no matter who it is he’s managed to piss off, it’s all sorted out in a matter of hours.

Unless it’s Eddie, of course.

Not that Richie knows that.  While Eddie always fights back, always has something to say about each and every one of Richie’s one-liners, he’s never been pushed past his limit.  Perhaps, in Richie’s mind, he is limitless.  So he keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, and, of course, that has to end with disaster.  But Richie’s never been good at seeing that far ahead, he wears glasses for a reason.

But there’s a first time for everything.

The day starts simple enough.  They’re in the clubhouse, crowded close together in the hammock.  The material hangs so low it nearly touches the floor and Ben’s warned them more than a few times that it can’t support both their weight for much longer, but neither of them can find it in them to care much.

Richie’s holding a comic book, his fingers gently curled around the edges, careful not to bend it, and Eddie’s trying very hard to look at the pictures and not the way Richie’s mouth moves as he whispers the dialogue under his breath.  But Eddie can’t help it.  One moment he’s looking at tiny cartoon Captain America, next his eyes are gliding across the page until they’ve crossed the barrier from comic book fights to Richie.  Two entirely different worlds.  Both fantasy, of course.  Because in no real world scenario would Richie look at him the way he wants him to.  But that doesn’t stop him from dreaming.  Perhaps a tad too obviously.

“Enjoying the view, Eds?”

Eddie blinks slowly, his brain taking longer than his eyes to realize, oh shit, Richie’s staring right back.

So he says the one thing he can think of in a crisis such as now, “Fuck off.”

Richie cackles, “It would be easier if your mom helped.”

“That is so not funny.”

“It never gets old.”

“It was old when we were thirteen and it’s old now.  We’re almost adults, get some new fucking material.”

Richie closes the comic, to show just how seriously he takes this, and gently taps his lips with the corner.

“I’m wounded, Eds,” he says. “But I suppose I could do with new material.”

“Yeah, try to think of something actually funny this time, dipshit,” Eddie snarks.

Then Richie grins wide as a shark and says just about the worst thing Eddie can possibly think of.

“I know what was wrong with my material.  You were just jealous all these years, weren’t ya?”

“What?” Eddie squeaks out.

Richie nods, looking far too serious despite the never fading grin that’s plastered on his face. “Mhm.  You should be the one helping me out.”

“No.  That’s worse.”

“It’s what the people want!”

“People? What people?  There are no people.”

“I’m the people.”

“Oh fuck off.”

Unfortunately, his opposition to the idea only seems to spur Richie on.

“Awe, c’mon, Eds.  Are you saying you don’t want a piece of this?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Eddie spits, though he can’t seem to look Richie in the eye for the exact opposite reason.

“Baby,” Richie drawls, “don’t be that way.”

“Fuck off!”

Richie does no such thing.  Instead, to Eddie’s horror, Richie rolls over until he’s directly on top of him, held up only by the arms on either side of Eddie’s head.  Eddie feels his entire body go cold in the same moment each inch of skin bursts into flames.  His lungs have frozen over, he can barely get a breath in, but at the same time he fears he might burn a hole right through the hammock.  Ben would kill him, of course, but that would almost be preferred to this torture.

“Awe, you’re all red,” Richie coos.  He reaches over to pinch Eddie’s cheek and for once Eddie doesn’t have the brain capacity to stop him. “Does Eddie Spaghetti have a crush?”

Fuck.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

“I thought you didn’t want a piece of this?”

“Richie,” Eddie chokes out.  He can hardly hear himself over his own thundering heart. “Richie, stop.”

“I mean, I know I’m hot stuff, Eds, but this is a surprise.”

“Richie, seriously.”

“But you need to know I can’t actually stay away from your mom.”

“Richie.”

“But I guess you could be like my secret lover.”

“Please stop.”

“We have to be careful.  An affair would break your poor mother’s heart.”

“Richie, stop.”

Richie drops down until they’re nearly nose to nose. “What?  Are you not enjoying - holy shit, are you crying?”

Eddie realizes with a sort of delayed horror that, holy shit, he is crying.  Or at least, he’s about to.  His eyes burn with unshed tears and he hurriedly shoves at Richie’s chest before any of them can fall.

“Fuck off, Richie, get off me!”

Richie scrambles away from him.  He topples out of the hammock and lands with a thud on the floor, where he watches Eddie with eyes as wide as saucers.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Eddie finds himself shrieking.  He scampers away from the hammock himself, desperate to put as much distance as possible between them. “Don’t you have any idea when to fucking stop?  Or is the fucking joke more fucking important?  And, for the record, no one was fucking laughing!  No one’s ever fucking laughing!” At this point, his mouth is moving of its own accord.  As if someone’s severed the connection between it and his brain. “Actually the funniest part is the idea that I would actually like someone like you!” He can see it in Richie’s eyes, the moment he goes too far, but he can’t get himself to stop. “You’re fucking pathetic!  I feel bad for whoever falls in love with you, if anyone at all!  I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up alone!  I wouldn’t be surprised if you push every fucking person on earth away because you have the worst sense of humor of all time and can’t take a fucking hint!”

A thick silence falls over them as Eddie’s monologue comes to a halt.  The only sound that can be heard is the heaving of Eddie’s chest, having prioritized insulting Richie over breathing throughout most of his speech, and chest-rattling sobs from the floor.  Because Richie’s crying.  Not almost crying, but crying.  Sobbing, in fact.  Big fat crocodile tears roll down his cheeks, fogging up his glasses and soaking his shirt.

Eddie’s feels a pang of distant regret somewhere in the back of his mind and he nearly considers apologizing.  But his brain still doesn’t feel quite connected to his mouth.  So he doesn’t say anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” Richie whispers.

And then he’s gone.

Eddie scrubs at his own tears as he watches the empty doorway, hoping against hope that maybe he’ll come back.  But he doesn’t, and Eddie’s left feeling no better than he did before.

“Eddie,” says a soft voice.

Eddie just about jumps out of his skin.  But it’s just Bill.  Which, holy shit, when did he get here?  In fact, the entire losers club is there.  Because, oh yeah, they had all come down together.

Eddie winces.  How could he forget that?

“I didn’t mean to say any of that,” he says. His brain finally feels like it’s reconnected with his mouth, but he still feels distant and fuzzy.

“I know,” Bill says. “Buh-Buh-But maybe you should tell him that.”

Eddie shakes his head. “He was an asshole.”

In an instant, Bill is at his side, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and squeezing in a one-armed hug.

“He’s an asshole a luh-lot,” Bill says.  He pulls him into a more private corner, away from the watchful eyes of the rest of the losers.  Away from Stan, who looks like he’s just about ready to burn Eddie at the stake. “But you know he doesn’t really mean any of it.”

“Bill, you don’t understand, he was so mean.”

“So were yuh-yuh-you,” Bill says, smiling softly.

“Yeah,” murmurs Eddie. “I guess so.”

“You know he loves you.  Just talk to him, you’ll feel better.”

“But he - I think he knows, Bill.”

Bill cocks his head curiously. “Knows?  About th-th-the whole you’re in love with him thing?”

Eddie narrows his eyes. “Say it a little louder, why don’t you?  Yes, about that.”

He glances towards the rest of the losers in a panic, but they don’t appear to have heard.  They’re caught up in their own whispers, and Stan’s already disappeared.

“Well I’m puh-puh-pretty sure you made sure he duh-doesn’t think that anymore.”

Eddie groans. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

Bill smiles sadly. “You should talk to huh-him.”

Eddie nods. “Yeah, yeah, alright.”

In a flash, he’s out of the clubhouse and on his bike, ignoring the rest of the losers’ attempts to talk to him.  He peddles to Richie’s house as quickly as he can, practically throwing his bike to the ground once he’s reaching his destination.

He knocks furiously against the door.

Once.

Twice.

By the third time, he’s just about ready to kick the door down himself.  But then, to his relief, someone opens it.  His relief is short lived, however, when that person turns out to be Stan.  Stan who still looks like he’s ready to carve out Eddie’s heart.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” Stan says shortly.

“No, wait, I’m just here to apologize,” Eddie says, rushing to get the words out before Stan can shut the door on him.

Stan observes him the same one might observe a piece of dirt on their shoe, or perhaps a slug.  But he opens the door anyway.

Eddie bolts inside as soon as there’s room, shouldering his way past Stan and thundering up the stairs.  He can feel Stan burning holes in the back of his head, but he doesn’t follow him up, which Eddie can’t help but be thankful for.

He knocks softly on Richie’s bedroom door. “Rich?  Can I come in?”

For a few excruciating moments it seems he’s not going to answer.  Then, a barely audible, “Come in.”

The sight is enough to break Eddie’s heart a million times over.  Richie’s sitting, curled up, in the farthest corner of his bed.  He’s completely swaddled in blankets, and if the situation were less dire Eddie thinks he might have laughed.

But, as it is, Eddie’s starting to worry he may never laugh again.

“Rich,” he says.  Then, because he could barely hear himself, he clears his throat and repeats, louder, “Rich.  I’m - I’m really sorry.  I didn’t - I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s fine.”

Eddie gapes at him. “It is not.  It - Look, I was just upset, alright?  I was embarrassed and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have done that.  I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I get it.  It’s whatever.”

Eddie knows he should be grateful for Richie’s forgiveness, but he just looks so sad.  All Eddie wants is to hug him.  Nothing fancy, nothing special.  Just a hug.

But he can’t.  He can’t even bring himself to go near him.  He lingers awkwardly by the door, hand still gripping the handle as if he’s planning to rip it open and escape any moment.

The space between them seems infinite.  Like he could walk for a million lifetimes and still never reach him.  It’s so foreign to Eddie.  He’s so used to Richie being there.  They’ve always been RichieAndEddie.  Now it’s starting to feel like they’re Richie.  Eddie.  There’s not even an “and” anymore.  Just an infinite amount of space.

“It’s not - It’s not whatever.”

“Do you want me to be mad at you?” Richie snaps, and Eddie does his best not to flinch. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits. “I just want you to know I didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s okay if you did,” Richie murmurs, which is possibly the worst thing he could say. “It’s mostly true.”

Eddie doesn’t respond simply because his brain is short circuiting.  How could any of it be true?  How could Richie think that?  It just doesn’t compute.

Richie, however, must mistake his silence for an agreement, because he continues, “I probably will end up alone.  Just me and all my cats.”

Eddie’s throat feels like sandpaper.  Richie has to know how untrue that is.  He has to know that anyone would be lucky to have him.  And Eddie would gladly tell him so.  Except the only thing he says is, “There’s nothing wrong with having cats.”

Richie snorts. “Then you can babysit them for me.”

Richie’s laugh, while cold and empty of any sort of life, gives Eddie the courage to step forward.  He sinks into the opposite end of the bed, watching Richie warily.  The space between them still feels unfairly big, but less so now that Eddie can’t flee at any given moment.

“Rich, I’m serious.”

“About the cats?”

“No!  Forget about the cats!” Eddie huffs. “About what I said before.  I’m serious.  I didn’t mean it.”

Richie squirms. “It’s fine.  Can we just not talk about it anymore?”

“No!”

With an over exaggerated groan, Richie tugs one of the blankets over his head. “Why?  There’s nothing else to say.”

“Because you still don’t believe me-”

“I believe you.  There.  Now we’re done.”

“Stop that!” snaps Eddie. “We’re not done!”

“Eddie-”

“Why do you think that?  What makes you so sure that you’re never gonna find someone?  Rich, someday you’re gonna find some - some perfect girl and settle down and have the worlds loudest babies.” The thought makes Eddie’s insides burn, but he pushes forward anyway. “She’s gonna love you for your loud mouth and your stupid glasses and the weird gap between your teeth.  She’s gonna love your ugly style, she’ll wear your ugly ass hawaiian shirts all around the house.  And you’ll burn everything you cook but she’ll love you anyway.  Hell, maybe she’ll try to teach you how to cook.  It won’t go well, obviously, because you’re a menace, but you’ll still be happy.  You’ll order take-out instead and watch whatever’s on TV and you’ll make her laugh with all your terrible impressions.  Richie, it’s gonna be really good.  You’re gonna be happy.”

“I’m not gonna marry a pretty girl,” Richie says, voice muffled by the blankets.

“Richie-”

I’m not gonna marry any girl.”

“Dude, shut up, you’re a total catch-”

“Do you remember when you tried to teach me how to cook?”

Eddie has to stop and recollect his thoughts because, yeah, of course he does.  Richie couldn’t have possibly made the connection between Richie’s fake wife and Eddie’s own fantasies, could he?

“Yeah,” he says, choking back a wheeze.

“You didn’t know how to cook anything either,” Richie says. “We burned everything.  Took us forever to clean up but we still had fun.  We were laughing the whole time.”

“Uh-huh,” Eddie nods. “Rich, where is this going?”

“We ordered take-out and watched TV until we fell asleep.”

“So?”

“Just like what you said, Eds.”

Eddie’s stomach drops to the bottom of his feet. “That’s not - That’s not what I meant.”

One eye peeks out from the mass of blankets. “Sorry.”

“It’s - It’s okay,” Eddie says, though he feels anything but okay. “Why are you sorry?  You shouldn’t be sorry.”

“I thought-” Richie stops himself, tugging the blankets down to reveal his face.  He wears a pinched expression, eyebrows furrowed and glasses askew.  If everything weren’t so awful, Eddie might have taken a moment to internally coo over how cute he was. “I thought you were saying something else.”

“What did you think I was saying?” Richie looks like he’s about to dive right back under his nest of blankets, and in a desperate attempt to get him to stay, Eddie hurriedly backtracks, “It’s okay.  You don’t have to tell me.  I’m just - I was just wondering.”

For a second, Eddie thinks maybe Richie is going to tell him.  He looks like he’s considering it.  But then he just shrugs and sinks further into his blankets.  He doesn’t hide again, but he’s only about a hair away from it.  Only his eyes are visible.

“Rich,” Eddie says, voice slow and calculating.  As if talking to a frightened child. “Can you come out and talk to me?” There’s a moment of hesitation, where it looks like Richie might be considering it.  Then he shakes his head. “Okay.  That’s okay.  I - I love you, Rich.  I really didn’t mean any of it.  And I don’t know how you found out, but it - it just scared me.  I know everything is a joke to you, Rich, but - but this isn’t.  Not to me.  It’s how I feel and it just hurt for you to make fun of it.  I know it’s not an excuse for what I said but-”

“What?”

“The - The - What you said.  Back at the clubhouse.”

“I was just messing around,” Richie says weakly. “I didn’t know anything.”

“Oh.”

“Are you-”

“Yes,” Eddie spits the word out before he can think better of it, ignoring how the word burns his lips.  Then, because his friendship is probably fucked anyway, “So everything you’re scared of can’t possibly be true because - because I want that.  I want to cook dinners with you and laugh when we burn them.  I want to steal your stupid Hawaiian shirts and laugh at your even stupider jokes.  Nothing’s wrong with you, Rich.  You’re perfect.  And I - I’m sorry I didn’t act like it.”  No response. “I can go.”

He’s halfway across the room when Richie’s voice stops him. “No.  Don’t go.”

He turns just in time to see Richie struggle to open the pile of blankets.  Eddie doesn’t remember crossing the room, but the next thing he knows he’s burrowed under the blankets, tucked safely into Richie’s side.

“I didn’t know that,” Richie murmurs. “I wasn’t making fun of you.  I was just - It was the only way I could tell you.”

“Tell me?”

“That I - That I love you.”

The heat from earlier rushes back to Eddie, and he’s silently thankful for the darkness the blankets provide.  He doesn’t think he could stand Richie’s teasing about how red his cheeks are at the moment.

“I love you too,” he whispers. “In case you couldn’t tell.”

Richie chokes out a laugh, but it only lasts a moment.  His face has returned to that unfamiliar stony look before Eddie’s even had time to register the laugh.  It makes his stomach sink to the bottom of his feet.  He hates that look.

“I’m sorry,” Richie murmurs. “About earlier.  I shouldn’t have said any of that.  I took it too far.”

“I’m sorry too-”

“I know.”

“Just let me say it, asshole!” Eddie snaps, but he’s smiling. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.  None of it was true, but that doesn’t make it okay.  I shouldn’t have said it.”

“It’s okay,” Richie grins. “But maybe you should prove it.”

Eddie can barely hear himself over his own heartbeat when he asks, “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Eddie doesn’t give himself time to answer.  He closes the gap between them as soon as the words have left Richie’s mouth.

Richie’s lips are soft.  A bit chapped, but soft.  And they press firmly against Eddie’s own, like he’s worried Eddie will disappear.  Eddie can’t say he’s not worried about the same thing.  He’s woken up from far too many pleasant dreams just like this only to realize he’s, yet again, alone in his bed.

But this is not a dream.  This is real and there’s not a doubt in Eddie’s mind that this is the best moment of his life.  It’s all downhill from here.  But he doesn’t mind.  Not when he has Richie to help him through it.

6 Underground Thoughts!

I'm literally gonna talk about pretty much the entire movie so lots and lots of spoilers under the read more. 

If you've already seen the movie, I would love to talk and debate and scream excitedly about the movie with you! 

P.S. This got way longer than I expected.

I gotta say I really enjoyed the movie. Of course, there's some problems and continuity errors, etc. but I'll get to them after. 

First of all, I love all the interactions between them. Found-family trope is my jam.

One and Four

Four looks up to One and seems like he tries to impress him. 

He also calls One a likeable asshole.

"See that? That's called skill." Show off. 

One was the one Four called to for help even though they all knew his way of leaving you behind if you can't keep up. And he stepped up and saved Four! That whole scene was so good! 

I will admit though that how they first met is messed up. One basically kidnapped him, tied him down, and made Four think he was gonna shoot and kill him. Seven got it down when he called them a "family more screwed up than mine" 

Two and Three

Badass lady and himbo (does Three count as a himbo?). Enough said.

I love every interaction they had together. I enjoyed their bickering and how they showed how they cared in their own way.

Tiny touches! The part near the end when Three lightly touches Two’s arm and she takes her hand out of her pocket so they could hold hands?! Nice.

When Two said "I would love to meet your mother." awwww! The way Three just brightens up!

Four and Seven

OTP! I never expected to come out with one, but here we are.

Look, I just love the concept of the free-spirited parkour expert being with the disciplined military operator. 

Seven just immediately seemed to take Four under his wing and genuinely care about his well-being. 

The others also expressed how they didn't want to leave Four behind but only Seven fought for them to stop. 

Saved Four's life not once, but twice! It was almost instinctual and he didn't hesitate to do it. 

"You're calling me Mister Seven from now on" Seven's inner dom coming out lol. 

The names scene! "I'm Blaine. I just saved your life. What's your name?" and instead of listening to One’s order, he answers. 

"Yeah, you look like a Billy." 

Seven and One

One always kept his distance from everyone, used numbers instead of names so he wouldn't get attached, and had that horrid "can't keep up, get left behind" rule. So glad that Seven pushed back, from making the shot to save Four from both drowning and from falling to his death, questioning his rules about leaving people behind, and getting them all (except One, sadly) to say their real names. 

Seven brought out One's heart and finally made him start to actually care for his team aka family. Like I'm certain that if it wasn't for him, One would have definitely left Four to die in Hong Kong and on the boat during the coup.

"You've got a soul, man. You should let it out." 

Movie highlights and thoughts:

I called it! Like based on the screen time and focus on them from the trailers, I already knew Six was the most likely one to die and Four would probably be injured at worst. 

The fucking dialogue in the opening! I can't even. Like “I’m gonna put this inside you, really deep.” and "ahhh! She's squirting!" 

"So many fucking Vias in Italy." I love how it's canon that Four isn't that good with maps and would definitely get lost in Italy. Actually he's bad with directions period. "Where are you?" "Here." "Specifics!" "Right here." Four pls

Three trying to learn the language of each new place they go to. The best! 

Did I already say Two is badass? Because she is. She really is. And they're all right when they said she'd be the most likely to survive. 

Four and Six worked so well together in the car chase scenes and Four looked so sad when he saw Six's body in that car. Honestly if Six hadn't died so early in the movie and they got more interactions together, him and Four probably would've been my OTP. 

I did enjoy how One had like momentary vulnerability like when Six died or when Four told them to leave him followed by the gunshots, etc. Those little moments where you can see that he did have feelings before he shoves them deep down and focuses back on the mission. 

Best outfit is Four in that big white sweater with the red stripes. He looked so good. 

I found the scene where Four asks One if he was a pig then spits at him weirdly hilarious. The spitting just felt so random and came out of nowhere. 

Four sleeping is! So! Cute! And when Three starts loudly complaining, he just slowly opens one eye like he's going "are you fucking kidding me right now?!"

Another funny scene was when Four easy runs across the top of the crane and then it pans to the guards chasing him and they have both arms and legs on the crane and just slowly inching their way across. 

Guy jokes about Noor. "Noor is dead. Say he's dead." "No, he's dead. He died." "Wait no. Wrong guy. He's alive!" jfc that was funny! 

The coup song is so fire! I love it! Nice choice, Four. 

Four's scream when that guy broke his arm just kills me. I kinda wish One made that guy's death a bit more painful and drawn out but I get that they were under some serious time constraints.

Actually any part where Four gets hurt... noooo bb

Now that I think about it, the fact that they have comms throughout the mission, like they can hear everything the others say, they can hear each other when they're fighting, when they get hit, everything. They heard when Three got shot in the face and Seven panicked, thinking that he just killed him. They heard Four screaming in pain when his arm broke and they couldn't do anything since they weren't there. 

Seriously though, Ben's acting is so good! He's easily the best part of the movie. And his eyes! So green and so expressive! 

“Fuck you!” “Fuck you!” “No you, fuck you!” jfc One and Three are hilarious together.

It was such a great scene when One told them he wouldn't go after Rovach bc he's going to save Four. Just. My heart. And "You’re breaking your own rules. I thought you didn't have a family". And Five's soft smile.

Four and Five are rock climbing buddies! Both their smiles can outshine the sun. They're so cute! (even though in the close-ups you can tell the rock is very obviously fake)

Ben and Adria are both so hot my little bi heart is ready to burst! 

Also, how is Micheal Bay saying this movie isn't political? They had the US gov’t staging coups in third world countries and putting dictators into power, Russia arming Rovach and his military, chemical warfare, Rovach's whole speech to his generals about hitting where he is weakest like hospitals and schools, the "our president doesn't know how to spell Turgistan" line, revolution, overthrowing dictators, throwing Rovach down to the people for them to deal their own brand of justice, etc. There were so many things that just screamed politics!

Issues:

Holy hell the kill count of this movie is just insane. It becomes over the top so fast. Same with all the gratuitous gore.

Shaky af camera work. 

Literally every explosion looked like those sparky fireworks. What. 

Lots of continuity errors. Six having a disappearing and reappearing hat throughout the chase scene. Basically any scene involving water. Like Four and Two get completely soaked at one point, but in the next scene, they're completely dry. Or the part where Four is hanging upside down on the net and big dude is trying to untangle him so he’d fall but when it cuts back to them when Seven makes the shot, it's back to the part where the guy was choking Four. 

Did anyone else notice all the skid marks on the roads even though they haven't officially driven on it yet? Didn't have enough budget left to remove or edit out the marks from all the rehearsals they did? 

And why is One hanging the eyeball right over the phone screen? That's not where the camera is dude!

Did Two and Three seriously have sex with all those dead people around?! Shouldn't they be running since they killed the 4 generals and guards would likely be on their way?? 

Also, Ben's stunt double was obvious in almost every parkour stunt. Wow. 

Why no Five backstory! I wanna know how she ended up joining the team!

They did Five dirty! She barely has lines or scenes, they took out her backstory, and gave her little to no character growth. 

I know they're hinting at Four and Five getting together, but I just don't see it. They have barely any romantic chemistry together. Eye contact and smiling is not chemistry. It just isn’t. 

TROS: Out of character Reylo moments

Even though we have way more different stories about couples and their adventures saved for later, this first week was all about Star Wars and Reylo in particular.

This is the way.

Let’s talk about moments that were way out of character for Ben Solo and Rey. Together as well as apart. 

You bet there’s gonna be spoilers.

1. “What could you give me?”

If you ever wanted to see a nightmarish version of Star Wars, the opening of TROS is your best bet. Everything looks creepy, but somehow still acceptable within the universe. Up until Supreme Leader Kylo Ren asks Palpatine about his possible offerings. I think we’ve covered this before, but there is no way that after all the mess with Luke and Snoke, Kylo would be interested in whatever Palps has to say. If he wanted to make a pitch, he should’ve started with turning his fleet against Kylo and his Order. That could’ve worked better than a helpless raisin on a mechanical hanger talking.

2. “You’re a difficult man”

Why does it feel like Rey we know is kind of a different person? It’s not that she wouldn’t talk back to people, it’s just that the phrase itself sounds more like something Leia or Amylin Holdo would say, who are (were) both higher than Poe in the chain of command. Rey is on the same level with him. But no, that’s not even the point — they both messed up. Why is he difficult for arguing about it, and she isn’t? This might seem funny or cute to some people, which is good, that was the intention. But it does feel a bit forced, like in the writing room someone gave this joke more credit than it deserved.

3. “I don’t want to go without your blessing, but I will.”

Rey says that to Leia, adding the fact that that’s what Leia herself would’ve done. How is that out of character? Well, we have our parallels between the OT, and the ST. And Rey has already learned her valuable lesson about helping someone before completing her training. “This is not going to go the way you think,” that was Luke’s warning, pretty much the same one he’s gotten before from Yoda. But Rey at this point is supposed to know better than facing the Emperor without any preparation. Makes you think if she was supposed to face someone else altogether, ready for a challenge this time.

4. Fixing the mask

Just why? To show it around? We were told it was meant to fulfill a particular task, but we never learn more. If it’s to keep Palps out of his head, then okay, we would just like a bit more explanation within the film. And why is a chimp fixing it? Ok, moving on.

5. “The First Order is to become a true Empire”

Too bad he’s abandoned his “let the past die” narrative. It was compelling.

6. “You can’t hide Rey, not from me.”

From what we know of Ben, who is the one usually talking to Rey, he doesn’t talk to her like that. That would make her scared and angry, and is that what he really wants? Especially if mere moments later he’s announcing his plan to turn her.

7. “You’re haunted. You can’t stop seeing what you did to your father”

They’ve already covered it in TLJ, but clearly, someone is implying that never happened.

8. “Do you still count the days since your parents left?”

See how every line makes this dialogue fall apart? Again, Ben Solo sucks at saying the right thing to Rey on the go. But when he has time to prepare, he makes pretty decent speeches. And this one would make her cry again. He’s smarter than this.

9. “I don’t wanna have to kill you…”

We know.

10. “I’m going to find you, and turn you”, and so on.

Didn’t go well the last time. Seriously, he’s supposed to learn, but the author here seriously opposes the idea. Besides, this whole speech is a mess. He’s not the smoothest talker, but he sounds way too rude here. And we know that there’s been a year, and there were supposed to be other Force Bonds. But he’s acting… well, out of character. Definitely out of the one we know from TLJ. He can’t go backwards like that.

11. Kylo trying to roadkill Rey, Rey cutting the wing off.

What’s that about? Seems like you can fight through the Force Bond now, why bother meeting up in random places? It feels like by this point they would manage to stay in the same galaxy without being at each other throats, but why is the script actively trying to convince us otherwise? It honestly fails to make any sense. And what was the original plan for both? Murder?

AND DID EVERYONE IN THIS SCENE FORGET ABOUT KYLO?

Finn screams, Poe screams, Rey screams, all in the same space. Kylo is just… standing there.

12. Kylo chatting it up with Palps

In his mask, that was supposedly fixed to keep the guy out of his head. Without holocommunicator or anything. I just don’t understand it at all. It’s not ooc as much as it’s plain illogical.

13. Rey running away right after healing Ben

She just almost killed Ben, then sensed Leia’s death. The logical outcome is actually an immediate meltdown. It would’ve been even more powerful if this happened before she healed Ben, giving him a chance to comfort her, bring her back to light more or less, because at this moment it’s obvious that she is under dark influence. And that would give her a stronger reason to heal him. Of course, the outcome of this scene would also be way different.

14. Rey didn’t even cry

It apparently took her less than a day to accept the “attachments are forbidden” aspect. That’s some high quality training, I’m gonna have to say. We still can’t get over the fact that she didn’t cry, break down or at least honor Ben in any way.

Okay, that’s it for now. There are still great scenes in there somewhere, so we would prefer to remember them.

you mentioned possibly doing a ben or mike writing guide.. would you.. be willing to post a mike one. i'm plotting a fic and im struggling to get my mans down?? also i think abt ur fics weekly bare minimum.

hi there!!! i did my best. i tried to not sound preachy or like a know it all bc y’all know i can barely write. i hope this is helpful in some way!! disclaimer of of course this is all just my opinion & there’s no wrong way to write, you’re the only person who can tell your story!!

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i think the first really important decision you have to make as Person Writing Mike is his

family & background

-are both of his parents alive?

-if yes, what’s their relationship like?

-if no, who’s his primary caretaker? what’s their relationship like?

-if no, when did they die? did he cope well with it? what’s his relationship with their memory like?

these are really really where you gotta start to write mike imo. or any character! i think one thing stephen king is to be admired for is he doesn’t neglect the parent-child relationship as so many people who write youth do. your parents are the most important people in your life for a long time. i don’t think there’s a wrong or ooc way to answer the above questions tbh. canon has really left a wide open field for you to run amuck in.

(example: i’ve mentioned in the past that my & tfat mike being a small adult is no mistake and intentional. it’s a bit of a throwaway scene, but i mention in on pointe that mike’s parents are coming. it’s intentionally done there too. mike is goofier, more outgoing, more immature in general in that fic in the small bits he’s in & that’s all a response to his familial life. )

culture + friendships

after you answer those questions, important follow up questions are:

-are the losers his first set of friends?

-how much social exposure has he had?

-has he dated? who is he attracted to?

-who influences him? (celebrities, family, culturally)

-what are his cultural interests? what does he do in his free time? how would that impact how he interacts with the rest of the world?

again, no wrong way to answer these. i’ve seen a super broad spectrum of indirect answers to these questions. even thinking about where he might pick up patterns of speech can make him feel much more like a realized character. i’ve noticed some people dip fully into aave to an extent that doesn’t even seem logical in their character’s current situation & it can really seem like a caricature, but i think to write mike without any sense of aave at all is a little ?? too. just be cognizant of it is my only real advice here. it doesn’t so much matter as long as you don’t forget who mike is which next point

humor & personality

-what do you think he would find (shows, comedians, youtube videos) really funny?

-does he have something he quotes often? something he started saying ironically but never stopped?

man i know i’m all there’s no wrong way to write mike !! in this post but i will say real quick that i think mike is funny and i don’t really respect depictions of him where he’s not. i think this is where the movies really just fucked up. book mike drops some of the funniest lines of the book. and honest to god tip is to write out a scene as you feel the urge too, look away for five minutes, look back and give half of richie’s lines away. (or... dialogue.) this sounds like a joke but it was what i did when i first started writing & tfat

i’d always be like “n the funny part goes... to richie.” and thats a fandom inclination too. nooooo. avoid this trap. it doesn’t even make sense. have u ever been in a friend group where only one person... makes jokes? that’d be genuinely so weird. especially bc if you give the joke away to someone else, you can also build on it. amazing things start happening when u start thinking of the characters in flexible patterns. like for example, i almost always give absurdist humor to stan now. wholesome to ben.

mike’s humor is largely situational to me. solid comedic timing & he’s an observant person. sometimes i read back my own writing & have to change the pov bc richies making jokes about things he would never ever notice to make fun of. mike would. mike genuinely sees all. i think he’s just got one of the most analytical brain of the losers. & i think intelligence is subjective and people are smart in different ways but i think it’s foolish to write him as anything other than incredibly intelligent both academically and emotionally. he’s just a natural observer and pattern notice-er. which brings me to my next mike thing:

love & selflessness

i think the biggest part of mike being harder to flesh into a fully realized person is the fandom tendency to make him kind and nothing else. here’s mike. he’s nice. next. bc the book kind of points out his selflessness in his decisions and it makes itself one of his strongest character traits.

especially bc nice seems to trump him having any other emotions. ...no?

i believe in general, but ESPECIALLY in the case of mike, that kindness is a choice. it’s one i genuinely believe he’d make, over & over again. but a choice he makes. he gets annoyed with his friends being annoying like anyone else would. he gets hurt when he feels left out. he feels tired & anxious & hungry and all those other human things. sometimes he might not let it show outwardly, but there’s a difference between that and not giving him feelings at all.

people are selfish. it’s a defense mechanism. it’s to protect us. it’s not a bad thing. we think of how the world impacts ourselves first. we don’t always act upon those thoughts or voice them, but don’t forget to let mike have them. he doesn’t need to be happy for his friends all the time, or rooting for them or supportive. he should have his own things going on.

also. mike’s not a doormat. yes, he stays in derry. but those were life-death consequences for generations of children. it’s really not comparable to almost any decision mike would make in a pennywise free universe. yes, he made a sacrifice in the book but i don’t think he’d just lay himself down in any given universe to whatever fate wants to hand him. but this is where i end this topic bc i’m actually only barely beginning to get to this topic in my own fic!

it’s hard writing the losers young sometimes bc i do feel relationships are naturally a little unbalanced based on basic maturity levels as young people. sometimes friendships just are unbalanced bc of who people are at that time. everyone involved can still be good people in these relationships. it’s about growing together and learning how to be good friends to each other.

for example, in &tfat: certain losers are always checking in with others. others are really wrapped up in their own shit and don’t really notice what bothers the others. it would probably take a chart the size of a textbook to explain how i think this dynamic wholly pans out in full. and yeah, i think it grates on mike a little bit that he is always the checker and never the checkee.

but even when mike snaps, even when he gets upset, i always write it coming out of him with a lot of love. i genuinely think mike, regardless of experience in that fic, has the deepest understanding of love as its own concept and an understand of how exactly it rules his life and and his relationships. mike knows to feel strongly about something he has to care about it. there are lots of things he just doesn’t care about. in the book it’s stated he’s difficult to connect with as an adult. he’s distant. he’s focused on what he wants to focus on. i think mike is actually the most interesting when he becomes a little bit of a disaster man with very little time for what doesn’t interest him.

which last thing, dislikes & disinterests

-what annoys him?

-what makes him genuinely angry?

-what bores him to tears?

i always make jokes that i bring up the nastier parts of the losers bc i love nasty boys but thinking of things people don’t like is as much a part of them as the things they do.

for example, in &tfat, i write richie as making fun of “nerdy” things like anything you could find at comic con. i write bev as not giving a fuck about sports. bill doesn’t care about richie’s music tastes. eddie hates getting condescended to.

bc of the ... kind thing, mike’s one of the harder losers to do this with. i genuinely think mike would listen to any of his friends tell him about anything. & he knows, in return, they can’t say shit when he wants to ramble about history. but dislikes can also be super situational.

again, for example in & tfat: mike doesn’t like when his friends talk about college right now. no one is really being sensitive to him at all. he hates getting blamed for stuff that isn’t his fault, mostly bc it keeps happening.

anyway. i based a lot of my mike (mostly sense of humor and personality) off of a mix of real life friends of mine. it’s a luxury. i know. i’ve been blessed to have friends from literally all walks of life & for me borrowing little habits & quirks & sayings & jokes to slip into my fics and characters is my way of writing one massive love letter to those ive known. i hope i’ve helped you in some way anon. n if not.... don’t be sad i’m hardly one to take writing advice from anyway jandjxjx

overall, as i used to do often, i’d genuinely stop myself and say: is this a person, or a convenience for the plot? and if it was the latter, sigh, and get my backspace key ready.

Ever Since We Were Kids - Ben Hardy! Roger Taylor

Summary: You and Roger have been best friends for nearly as long as you can remember, and you’ve grown up together and remained friends all throughout his fame. However, you’d fallen in love with him years ago, and now it seems his heart is in the hands of another. So, you suck it up and put on a brave face for Roger, because you love him.

Word Count: 4576

Warnings: Mention of abuse once, not even described

A/N: This fic is long and takes place over the years, and there’s not a lot of dialogue until the end because it’s more based on emotions. I hope it’s not boring though and that you all like it. I am going to say now that this fic is really really based off of the move/book Love, Rosie. The toasting speech is nearly the same because I love how raw the emotion is and couldn’t imagine writing it any different. However, if I end up writing a part two for this, it’ll be extremely different from the story, so don’t think I’ll be constantly drawing inspo from this movie. And yes… This is my second Love Rosie type fic. With that said, I hope you guys like this because  I spent a lot of time on it.

Roger and Y/N. Y/N and Roger. Your names were always followed by each other’s, the two of you always being together. Whether it was the trouble you’d get in with teachers because of too much talking, or it was the fun you’d have by constantly causing mischief. You were a pair and you two had never been seen without each other since you were the young age of seven years old.

It all started when dear Mrs. Maddock had seated you two next to each other at the beginning of the year. Originally, you didn’t like him because he kept stealing your crayons without you asking, and you had the expensive crayon. So, of course, you started picking fights with him, and of course grumpy Mrs. Maddock didn’t like that, so you both had to sit in time out for an hour. That was when you and Roger really started getting along, because you two had nothing else but talked crap about Mrs. Maddock and about the big hairy wart under her nostril. She was nothing but a meanie, according to seven year old Roger.

And all the way up to the time you were eleven, you and Roger remained the bestest of friends. Of course there were a few arguments here and there, but for the most part you enjoyed being with each other. In the summertime, he’d set up a tent in his backyard and have sleepovers with you. You’d make shadow puppets in the tent at night and tell stories, and it was fun until you heard a scary noise outside and had to sleep in the house.

It wasn’t until the age of twelve that you had your first big fight. It was Roger’s thirteenth birthday, and he didn’t have any party planned, but you still thought you’d show up and make it a good one for him. You had a little homemade cake in one hand, and a present in the other. It was a record he had really been wanting, so you saved up your allowance for a month to buy it for him. When you knocked on the door, Roger quickly opened it with a wide smile on his face. Although his smile fell once he saw it was you, and another boy ran up behind him. It was one of the “popular” boys in your grade, Eric, and his face contorted into a look of disgust once he saw you. “I thought you said this was a boys only party.” Eric sneered.

You didn’t say anything as tears welled up in your eyes. You let the cake fall onto his porch with a splat, followed by the nicely wrapped record. “Y/N wait!” Roger called out to you as you ran away, but it was too late and the damage was done. That was your first real fight. You cried all weekend after that, your mum clueless. You tried to stay home the next monday, but your mum wasn’t born yesterday and made you go. When you opened your front door to start your walk to school, there was a cake box on your porch. You lifted up and opened it to read a poorly iced cake. “I’m Sory. Rog.” You let out a little giggle to yourself because of the shortening of ‘Sorry.’ Roger came out from the bushes, giving you quite a fright and making you scream.

“Sorry! Sorry! Don’t scream!” He said, putting his hands out trying to stop you. “I couldn’t fit the word sorry so I got rid of an R. I’m really sorry Y/N, you’re my best friend, and I don’t even like Eric and those other boys. They just kept teasing me about how my best friend was a girl and I really let it get to me. I don’t ever want to hurt you again.” Roger said, his baby blues never leaving you. And that was the moment you fell in love with Roger, something you wouldn’t realize until years down the road.

Years later, you two were at your eighteenth birthday party, or it wasn’t really a party as much as a celebration. Roger, who was already eighteen, took you to a lively club in the city, where you could drink and party as much as you want. You were wearing a white dress, not to tight or not too flowy, and it looked amazing on you. Your hair was loose and curly, something different from the messy buns or braids you always had it tucked away in. You were chatting up some girl at the bar, both of you drunk. Roger watched you with a grin on his face; you looked so happy right now, you hadn’t a care in the world. It was in that moment that he fell in love you, and realized he had, too. Roger approached you, the grin still on his face as grabbed your wrist and dragged you to the dance floor. Roger wasn’t one for dancing, but he knew how much you loved it, and it was your birthday after all. You were really drunk, but you were enjoying yourself. His dirty blonde hair was all in face, causing you to pause from your dancing and directly look at him. You gave him a soft smile as your brushed his hair out his eyes, which he returned. You both paused for a second before his lips were against yours, and you were surprised for a millisecond before you flung your arms around his neck and kissed him back. Your heart was full and so was his, and nothing could ruin this moment for you—except for the fact that when you woke up tomorrow, you wouldn’t remember any of this.

You had your first massive hangover the next morning, and a new type of annoying and uncomfortable pain. That was when you called Roger to ask him about last night, seeing as you only remembered bits and pieces. The phone rang a few times before he finally answered. “Y/N? I’m assuming your hangover is a pain in the neck isn’t it?” Roger said, sounding a bit too happy about your discomfort.

You let out a laugh and scoffed. “It’s awful! Why did you let me get so drunk? I can’t even imagine the embarrassing things I did…” You sighed. “Please tell me it wasn’t too bad, Rog.”

“Well… You stood up on the bar and were about to flash everyone. You pulled your dress straps down before I yanked you off and caught you…” Roger laughed, recounting the memory. “Do you remember any of last night?” Roger bit his lip as he asked nervously.

“A few embarrassing things… Please, can we forget about everything that happened last night? I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” You said out of embarrassment, pinching the bridge of your nose. You were talking about him seeing you in your bra, not this kiss, something you didn’t even know happened.

But, as fate would have it, Roger believed you to be talking about your shared moment. He swallowed hard and let out a fake laugh. “Of course we can forget about it, it’s nothing.” He lied.

Then, time flew by, and Roger never forgot about the kiss as much as he tried. Roger went off to college while you stayed home to help your mum with your sister’s new baby. You figured you’d attend college in later years, hopefully for journalism. Roger would still call you a lot, tell you about this guy named Brian he had met, and how they eventually started a band together. It was surprising at first that Roger was in a band, but not too surprising because you know how much he loved to drum, almost as much as you loved the violin. You two always joked about creating a band together, and together, a violinist and drummer would take the world by storm.

You never got to see him play in his early days, although you wished you had the chance to. He’d always tell you about how good the lead singer, Freddie, was, as well as the bassist, Deaky. Roger had a few girlfriends throughout college, but they never really seemed to stick. From what Roger told you, they weren’t anything special. “They’re all so boring Y/N…There’s no substance to them, and they’re all so plastic. I need to find a girl like you, who can take my jokes and understands me.” He laughed.

You pursued your lips and then let out a shaky breath. “Yeah… You’ll never find someone like me, I’m one of a kind Rog.” You joked. You wanted to tell him that you were right, he didn’t need to find someone like you because you were right here… But you never stood a chance.

Just as Roger graduated, his band Queen started to take off. And just as he was flourishing, so were you. You got a job for the local newspaper as a journalist, and lucky for you, you were assigned a column about the latest music releases and trends. It was nice to write about something you were passionate about, and you happily awaited the day Roger would be known enough for you to write about him.

You were twenty-two when you had finally fell in love again. It was with Eric, the boy from Roger’s party who gave you a look of disgust. Of course, he had changed, and was no longer the petty little boy who was twelve years old. You had been dating him for a year when he proposed, and you said yes. You were in love, and completely oblivious to the fact that he was cheating on you. But it didn’t last long, because you were bound to find out. You were supposed to be a few cities away on a story about a new up and coming artist, but they fell sick and had to cancel, so you were free to go home. That’s when you walked in on Eric and some girl who you had never seen before. And you realized you hadn’t fallen in love with him, and it was never love, so you left your small town and never looked back after that.

Roger was there for as much as he could be when he was halfway across the world. He’d call you every night, just to make sure you were doing okay. There were some days where it was harder and Roger knew that, and it broke his heart when you’d answer the phone crying. A few months later after many calls and letters with Roger, you felt things were looking up. You had gotten an apartment in London, where you wrote for a big newspaper and made a good amount of money. You had made some new friends and things were looking up for you. You and Roger were talking more than ever, and for a moment, you felt like things were the same as when you were younger.

One particularly late night when Roger was finally home from tour and on the phone with you, he was joking about something and laughing pretty loud. All of the sudden your heard a: “Rog, baby, what are you doing? Come back to bed.” A whiny voice said.

You bit your lip and let out a fake laugh. “Is she another one of your plastic, fake girls like you slept with in college?” You joked.

Roger didn’t say anything for a moment before you heard a heavy sigh. “That was Kenzie. She’s actually been my girlfriend for about… six months now?” He said softly.

Your heart dropped and you didn’t know what to say. You could feel tears start to pool up in your eyes. “Six months? Why didn’t you tell me sooner Rog?”

“Well… I was going to tell you three months ago when I was sure things were serious, but then that dickhead Eric cheated on you… I just didn’t want to make things anymore difficult for you.” He sighed.

“Roger, that wouldn’t make things more difficult for me. It would make it easier because I know you have someone to take care of you. You don’t always need to worry about you.” You said in a soft voice.

“Of course I do, you’re my best friend.” He said, a frown on his face.

There was a brief moment of silence, filled with unsaid thoughts and heartbroken feelings. You wanted to tell him that you loved him as more than a friend, but instead all you said was, “Well I’d hate to keep you away from Kenzie any longer Roger, you should get some rest. Call me tomorrow, okay?” You said.

“You don’t have to go Y/N, I can still talk if you want.”

“It’s fine Roger. Goodnight.” You said, and the hung up the phone. “I love you.” You whispered, and little did you know that half way across the world, he was saying the same thing, but it wasn’t to you.

It wasn’t until six more months that you had gotten a fancy envelope delivered to you. You opened it revealing a very decorative and flash envelope cordially inviting you to “the Union of Mackenzie Maxis and Roger Taylor.” And once you read those words, your heart dropped. Ever since you were twelve, you want to be the girl who would walk down the aisle to Roger, not Mackenzie.

Later that night on the same day you received the heartbreaking invitation, your phone began to ring. You decided to let it ring, and hopefully they’d think nobody was home. However you could tell they weren’t fooled once they called a second time. With an annoyed huff, you answered it. “Hello?”

“Y/N! I have something important to tell you. Did you get the invitation?” Roger asked you excitedly. You should’ve known it was him.

“Yes.” You said, in a kind of deadpanned voice.

“Well… Are you coming?” Roger said, slightly confused.

“I don’t know Rog, I have a lot of stories to write and I’m sure I’ll be busy by-”

“I want you to be my best man Y/N. Or… My best woman? I don’t know. Please… Please say you’ll do it.” Roger pleaded.

You let out a sigh. “Alright I suppose. Just… Don’t make me wear a suit?” You said as if it were a question, causing Roger to let out a laugh.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

And, so here you were, wearing a long, blush-colored gown that matched the bridesmaids dresses, except you weren’t apart of the bridal party. You stood in front of Roger as you helped him with his bowtie. As you brushed something off of his sleeve, you turned to look at the two of you in the mirror. He was slightly taller than you had last remembered him, but you hadn’t seen him in so long. You smiled as you looked at the two of you. “Why did you do that to do your hair?” You said, looking at his bleached locks.

“I think it looks pretty good. I could say the same to you.” He said, motioning to your hair. You recently had cut it shorter, just a little below your shoulders.

“Long hair is just so exhausting, I’m sure you understand the struggle.” You said, giving him a smile through the mirror. Your gaze shifted from him to yourself. The gown wasn’t anything special, but it accentuated your waist and made your hair stand out. Your hair was just curled and then half of it was tied up. You assumed that Kenzie wanted to look the best since it was, after all, her wedding day.

Roger beamed at you. “You look amazing Y/N, I’m so glad you’re here.” He said, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you in for a hug. “Now I want you to finally meet the band…”

He introduced you to each of the boys one by one, who were all delighted to have finally meet the “famous Y/N” as Freddie had said. Freddie commented on how ugly the bridesmaid dresses were, and you had to stifle a laugh… He was right. Roger went to go to check on Kenzie, leaving you with the boys. That’s when Deaky approached you with a smile. Up until this point, he had been pretty quiet.

“Do you like Kenzie?” He asked you. You opened your mouth to say something but he only continued. “The lot of us don’t… We’ve tried to tell him but she’s got her hooks in deep and… Maybe you could get to him Y/N. After all, he cares about you most.” Deaky said, and you realized you were quite fond of him.

“What do you mean?” You frowned. Deak shook his head.

“She seems like quite the gold digger and that she’s using him. Plus between you and mean, she’s awfully whiny.” He rolled his eyes. “We’re all just worried, that’s all.”

“I’ll… I’ll think about it.” You said, giving him a small smile. And then Roger walked back in, causing your conversation to come to an end and to announce it was time for the thing you dreaded most: The wedding ceremony.

The rows of chairs were decorated with light pink roses, accompanied by fairy lights hanging from the ceiling. You hated how pretty it was, how romantic it was… Roger waited beside you patiently for his bride to start walking down the aisle. The music began playing as the doors opened, revealing Kenzie in a long white gown, with heavy make up. Two little flower girls walked before her, throwing light pink petals on the aisle. Her train was long and her gown was decorated with white lace. You couldn’t help but wish that was you, and that it was Roger waiting for you at the aisle instead of Kenzie. But here you were, his best (wo)man.

As Kenzie took her place across from, she was giving him a pearly smile. You weren’t able to tell if it was genuine or not. And as they exchanged their vows and their I do’s, you were crying. Most people cry at weddings because their happy for the couple, but you were crying for a different reason. You crying because not only did you lose the man you fell in love with, but you were pretty sure you had lost your best friend, too. Because the way he was looking at Kenzie right now was a way he had never looked at you. So you plastered on a smile, and let out a fake happy laugh as he kissed the bride.

And it wouldn’t be Roger and Y/N anymore. Or Y/N and Roger, like you had ever since you were seven. It would be Roger and Kenzie, or Kenzie and Roger. There was no room for a Y/N.

And thankfully, the ceremony was over just as fast at it had come, and now it was time for the reception. The reception was loud and bustling, people dressed in fancy clothes everywhere. You hardly had a chance to talk to Roger or even congratulate him. You were to give a toast, something you had yet to even think about. You honestly didn’t even think you’d get this far. So here you were, a few minutes away from giving your speech to Roger.

Once you heard the click of the spoon against the class, you stood up with an uneasy smile on your face. “Hello everyone. To the people I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting yet, I’m Y/N. I’m Roger’s best friend, and I have been ever since we were seven. I’m going to just pull all of this stuff from the top of my head, so I ask you all to bear with me.” You let out a nervously laugh and the wedding guests laugh with you.

“Let me tell you, Roger can hold his drink to an almost lethal degree as I  discovered on my eighteenth birthday when he decided a night of tequila slammers was the way to go…” The guests all laughed.

“Well, you know when people say that they were so drunk that the whole night is a blank and you always go, ‘no way not possible.’ Well... Believe me, it's possible.” You paused and took in a deep breath. “Choosing a... Choosing the person that you want to share your life with... ls one of the most important decisions that any of us makes. Ever. Because when it's wrong, it turns your life to grey. And sometimes... Sometimes you don't even notice until you wake up one morning and realize years have gone by.” You say, biting your lip, but then erupting into a smile.

“We both know about that one, Rog. Your friendship has brought glorious technicolor to my life. it's been there even in the darkest of times and I am the luckiest person alive for that gift. I hope I didn't take it for granted. I think maybe I did. Because sometimes you don't see that the best thing that ever happened to you is sitting there, right under your nose. And that's fine too. lt really is.” You paused, looking straight across at Roger now, meaning every word of you were saying. Tears were pooling up in your eyes. “Because I’ve realized that no matter where you are, or what you're doing, or who you're with… I will always, honestly, truly, completely, love you.”

You paused, and you could feel the guests holding their breaths, feeling the tension. You didn’t intend to pause, but here you were. So, you continued. “Like... A sister loves a brother and a friend loves a friend. I'll always stay in guard of your dreams, Roger. No matter how weird or twisted they get.” You said in a soft voice, a sad smile on your face. Your eyes flickered to Kenzie and you smiled through the aching pain in your chest. “So, please, everybody, join me in a toast to the bride and groom.”

Everyone cheered and raised their glasses, and repeated, “To the bride and groom.” You let out a sad laugh, and took your seat. Roger’s eyes never left you during the speech, and he himself was speechless.

Kenzie’s Maid of Honor stood up for her speech, and that’s when you excused yourself to the restroom… Or rather, the rooftop of the hotel the wedding was held at. There was no way you were going to subject yourself to hearing about Kenzie, because frankly you didn’t care. It was windy on the rooftop, and it was dark out now, but something always calmed you about the moon and the stars. As you looked up at the moon, you heard the door open behind you. You turned to find Roger, an annoyed look on his face. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, you just disappeared.” He frowned. “You’ve missed so much… You missed our first dance.”

You shrugged. “It’s not like I haven’t missed a bunch of other things before that.” You weren’t talking about the wedding. “Come look at the moon with me for awhile.” And, he did. He wordlessly appeared next to your leaning on the railing of the building.

“Are you doing alright Y/N?” Roger asked in a worried tone, and furrowed his eyebrows.

“Actually, I’m doing pretty well… I’ve been really nervous to tell you this but… I’m moving back in with Eric.” You said, biting your lip. It was true, you were, and you were giving him a second chance. You weren’t sure what to feel for him anymore, but you just needed someone.

“Are you joking Y/N? He’s an asshole! Not only did he cheat on, but he manipulated you into staying! I remember you calling me crying so many times after you left him, so many times after you two would fight! He verbally abused you Y/N, and you’re just running back to him!” Roger yelled, probably loud enough for the people inside the reception below to hear.

“You don’t get it Roger! You have the band, you have Kenzie.” You shouted back, angry tears forming in your eyes. “I need someone too! And he’s all I have! Eric is all I have! I don’t have anyone else!” You said, as the tears began to slip out of your eyes.

Roger took your hands in his, and looked you directly in the eyes. “You have me Y/N…” He said in a soft voice.

You ripped your hands away. “No! No I don’t have you. Kenzie has you, you’re starting a family with her now.” You yelled at him, hot tears still streaming down your face. “I don’t have you.” You admitted, sounding defeated. You shook your head as you walked away from him. He only followed.

“You’ve always had me Y/N, and you always will.” Roger said as you faced away from him.

“Roger, I haven’t had you since the day you left for college.” You admitted.

“Y/N please, you know you have me, I’m always there for you… Don’t be like this.” Roger pleaded, hurt.

“No Roger, I can’t have you because I love you! I can’t have you as a friend because I want you as more than friend! God why don’t you get that?” You yelled, looking right at him. Your cheeks were tear-stained, and your nose was red.

Roger was speechless, and then his face was unreadable… Roger closed his eyes and looked down. “Why are you telling me when it’s too late Y/N?” He said in a soft tone, his voice cracking when he said your name.

“What?” You asked, confused.

“I’ve loved you ever since we were kids…” Roger said, looking up at you, tears in his own eyes. “But it’s too late now… I’m… Married.” He said shaking his head.

You didn’t know what to do, but suddenly, you felt embarrassed. And just as you had on Roger’s thirteenth birthday, you ran away from him, leaving him on the rooftop, just as confused as you were. You didn’t bother going to back to the wedding, and instead just found yourself wandering the streets, unsure of what to do next. 

Roger was just as confused as you were, as the woman he was in love with was somewhere out in the city while the woman he was married to sat downstairs, waiting for him.

The Thoughts and Reflections of Someone New to Reylo and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

This is a really, really long post and contains spoilers.

Please be polite and respectful if you choose to comment and / or reblog.

Ok, so before I get too heavy discussing my thoughts and reflections there are a few things I want to make absolutely clear.

- People can ship whoever they want.  And it is perfectly fine for people to disagree and have differing tastes and opinions.  Obviously some ships are better supported by canon than others.  And there are shipping relationships that are toxic, but people ship it anyway.  I think a great non-Star Wars example is Harley Quinn and Joker. 

- I have delved deep enough into the reylo tag and other related tags to get the sense that anti-reylo are claiming a moral high ground.  “As a ship reylo is wrong and therefore anyone who ships reylo is a horrible person.”  And my simple rebuttal to this is--no, that’s not how this works.  If someone ships reylo this by itself is not sufficient evidence that someone is a horrible person.

- Based on everything I have read about TROS Ben Solo’s story arc and character development could have been so much more than what it was on screen in TROS.

- Having said that a lot of other characters were short changed by whoever was pulling the strings and making the decisions: Rose Tico, Poe Dameron, Finn and Rey and arguably Leia, Luke and Han were short changed by some of the decisions made in TROS and earlier in TLJ and TFA.

- Being part of a fandom should be fun, so can we all agree to chill out, relax and be civil?

Moving on...now that hopefully I have cleared up any preconceived assumptions.

I am relatively new to reylo and the sequel trilogies.

The first time I watched The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi was only a few weeks ago.  Some of the cable channels have been doing Star Wars marathons to get people pumped and nostalgic to pay for a movie ticket to The Rise of Skywalker.

One of the cable channels was doing yet another Star Wars marathon last night, so I again sat down to watch The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, but this time I watched the films with more awareness of the various critiques, criticisms and elements that have been deemed problematic.

I also went to the trouble of jotting down some notes.

This post is kinda all over the place, but I am going to go over my notes and observations and a main topic I want to look at is:

How Rey’s relationships and interactions with Finn and Kylo Ren differ and what sort of implications does this have.

Since stepping my toe into the reylo tags and other related tags I have NOT been able to fully articulate where I stand on whether reylo is toxic, Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is abusive, whether Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is worthy of redemption and to what degree Kylo / Ben being abused and manipulated excuses his actions.

I have to confess that the more parallels and similarities I see between Kylo Ren and Anakin / Darth Vader the more uneasy I feel about shipping reylo.

Regardless of my opinion people are free to do what they want.  If shipping reylo makes you happy, who am I too badger you into doing otherwise?

Me, writing out this long post is an attempt to flush out my thoughts at the present.

Watching the movies again I was struck by how different Rey’s interactions were with Finn and Kylo Ren.  There is a sequence in The Force Awakens between Rey and Finn that reminds me of the throne room sequence between Kylo Ren and Rey when Kylo offers his hand and asks her to rule beside him.  ((Please pardon me for paraphrasing and not having all the lines of dialogue memorized.))

Rey and Finn

At Maz’s place when Han, Rey and Finn are trying to arrange transport for BB8 to the resistance and / or get another ship to avoid detection by the First Order.

Maz looks into Finn’s eyes and remarks that he looks like someone who wants to run away.  Maz tells Finn that there is a way out.  That there are some beings that will arrange transit to the outer rim and exchange for work.

Finn approaches the beings and tells them not to leave without him.

Rey is frustrated by this.  How can he just leave?  What about BB8?  What about the resistance?  I believe this is when Finn comes clean that he is not actually with the resistance.  That he is a stormtrooper and he is not going back to the First Order and wants to stay as far away from them as possible.

Finn asks Rey to come with him.  To join him.  Rey says no.  And I believe Finn tells Rey to take care of herself.

There are no hurt feelings on Finn’s part.  He doesn’t try to persuade or manipulate her to change her mind.  He simply wishes that she takes care of herself.

Here are a few other bullet point items I want to highlight.

- Kylo Ren force pushing Rey into a tree and Finn coming to her aid and kneeling beside her reminds me of Anakin choking out Padme on Mustafar and Obi-Wan Kenobi going to Padme.

- Finn’s main motivation for going to Starkiller base was to rescue Rey.

- Rey clutches & hugs an unconscious Finn who fought and lost to Kylo Ren.

- After Starkiller base is blown up and Rey, Finn and Chewbacca are in transit.  Rey plants a kiss on Finn’s forehead as he lies unconscious.

- When Finn wakes up in The Last Jedi the first thing he says is, “Where is Rey?“

- Finn’s motivation for trying to get away in an escape pod is basically keep Rey safe.  Finn thinks the fleet is doomed.  If Finn can to an escape pod and reach safety, Rey will be able to find him and she will be safe.

- I want to say that there is another time that Rey hugs Finn.  Maybe this is when Han, Finn and Rey first find each other on Starkiller?

Finn is not a perfect person.  He does lie to Rey about being part of the resistance.  In terms of being an honorable, moral and ethical person I think it is quite clear Finn is a better person than Kylo Ren / Ben Solo.  

But in real life and in fiction people can be attracted to and fall in love with horrible people.  ((I suppose right here my own words are a damning statement against reylo.))

Some observations I made from watching The Last Jedi

- When Kylo Ren and Rey have their first force skype call.  Kylo’s first reaction is confusion.  And his second reaction is to reach out with the force to try to manipulate Rey to bring Luke Skywalker to him.

- When Rey pushes Kylo Ren to explain why he killed his father, Han Solo--I find it curious that Kylo deflects the question and starts talking about Rey’s parents and how they threw her away.  Given the plot twist in TROS this now makes Kylo look like a manipulator and a liar.  In the best case scenario Kylo was telling a version of the truth that is incomplete.  I suppose in a way Kylo does indirectly answer Rey’s question by saying, “Let the past die.  Kill it if you have to.  That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.“  This could be read as manipulative and an attempt to push Rey to the dark side by killing Luke.

- I’m still not sure what to make of the 2nd force bond scene.  The connection is terminated and Kylo Ren is wiping his face with a gloved hand and we see...water?  Kylo Ren’s tears on his glove?  There is a wave of water crashing against some rocks in front of Rey just before Kylo is seen wiping his face.

- When an unconscious Kylo Ren wakes up in the throne room.  It is just Kylo Ren and Hux.  It’s quick, but it looks like Hux reaches into his coat to draw a weapon and shoot Kylo Ren.

- What did Rey tell Chewbacca to tell Finn?  I’m sure someone knows, but I just need to do some more digging online.

- Kylo Ren vs Luke Skywalker.  Near the very end of the fight Kylo Ren says, “I’ll destroy her [Rey] and you and all of it.“

- Overall I’m just surprised how often Rey is brought to tears throughout these movies.  It’s understandable because of what she is going through and what she has been through.  Someone must have counted how many times Rey cries and how many times it was with X or Y character and what they were talking about. 

Rey and Kylo Ren: The Throne Room

Ok, so let’s sum up the events leading up to Kylo Ren’s proposal.

Rey is brought before Snoke who tortures her for information about Skywalker.

When Snoke gets the information he wants AND it becomes clear that Rey is a true Jedi who will not serve him, Snoke then orders Kylo Ren to kill Rey.

Kylo Ren spares Rey and kills Snoke.

Kylo Ren and Rey fight off the guards together.

Kylo gives his speech about letting old things die.  What stands out to me is Kylo does NOT specifically mention the First Order.  Snoke, Luke Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the resistance all need to die, but not the First Order.

Rey pleads with Ben not to do this.  Not to go down this path.  Which is reminiscent of what Padme said to Anakin on Mustafar.

Kylo / Ben says, “You’re still holding on!  Let go!”  ((Holding onto what exactly?  The resistance?  Hope?  The Jedi path?  The light side of the force?))  And once again Kylo / Ben talks about Rey’s parentage.

“You’re nothing, but not to me.  Please.”  For a while I have interpreted this as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo being honest and blunt to a fault, but seeing and listening to this again in it’s full context this does read as Kylo Ren being manipulative. Breaking Rey down, she comes from nothing, she is nothing, she has no place in this, but hey why don’t you join me and have a seat right next to me on the winning side. 

Final Thoughts:

- At the very least Kylo Ren’s conduct and behavior are red flags.  Regardless of the extent that Kylo Ren was manipulated and abused his behavior and his interactions with Rey in the TFA and TLJ are troubling to say the least.  There does come a point when someone cannot use the excuse of being abused to justify their abusive behavior.  “Ok, so you were abused and learned some bad habits and coping mechanisms, but here is the thing your actions are causing real harm to another person and that is not cool.”  It’s hard and it’s difficult to change those habits and people will slip up on the road to recovery.  I think we also need to recognize the complication that Rey and Kylo Ren are at war on opposite sides. 

- I think there was descent chemistry and a connection between Rey and Finn, but I feel like that gets de-railed at the end of TLJ when Finn is tending to Rose and Rey is interacting with Leia. 

- I think Rey and Finn is a lot less problematic than Rey and Kylo Ren / Ben Solo.  Just compare the throne room scene to the interaction between Finn and Rey at Maz’s place.

- Do I still ship reylo?  Here is how I will answer the question for now.  As flawed as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is I do like him and find him to be a character I can relate to alongside Rey.  I have not seen TROS in theaters and don’t think I will waste my money going to see it.

I would have LOVED to see a happy ending for Ben Solo instead of a variant of Darth Vader’s redemption and death.  This has already been done, why not do something different?  Isn’t this ending more hopeful?  You know instead of Han, Luke, Leia dying in vain to save Ben. 

I would have LOVED if the people making TROS put more careful thought and consideration into Ben’s story arc and character development.

Fitting with the theme of: finding the balance, not everything is black and white, there are a lot of grey areas / ambiguity, etc.

I would have been fine with some sort of ending where Ben faces some sort of punishment for his crimes and he is neither condemned to death or is completely pardoned without consequences.

I am very curious to know what political scientists and psychologists would say about sentencing someone like Kylo Ren / Ben Solo for war crimes.  In the comics that have been released so far it seems like Ben Solo is much younger when he is turned to the dark side and taken in by the First Order.  I think in TROS it’s revealed that Ben’s current age is 30 and he was 23 when he joined Snoke and the First Order.  At age 23 Ben Solo is considered an adult, he is not a child soldier.  “But he was being manipulated before he was even born.“  I hear you...unfortunately I don’t know how or if that would factor into Ben Solo’s being charged with war crimes.

Right now, I am in favor of ignoring the mess that is TROS and replacing it with fanfiction where Rey and Ben Solo are able to live a health and happy life.  And perhaps some day they will rebuild a new Jedi order that strives to accept and learn from the mistakes of the past.

- Is Kylo Ren / Ben Solo worthy of redemption?  I think in order to answer this question we need to ask, what does it mean to be redeemed?  What does someone have to do in order to be redeemed or atone for their wrong doing? 

I think the short answer is it’s complicated and everyone has different opinions.  Some people are probably of the opinion that Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is beyond redemption.  There is nothing he can do.  He can never do enough to make up for what he has done.

I think the more complicated answer is it’s a long process and not everyone will forgive you--heck maybe no one will forgive you. 

And whether you are punished or not punished is an entirely different matter. 

There are things Kylo Ren / Ben Solo has done that he can never take back.  Kylo Ren cannot bring Han Solo back from the dead or any of the hundreds or thousands of people he has cut down.  The fact Kylo Ren has murdered even one person is probably reason enough in the eyes of some people for why he can never be redeemed.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo turned toward the light and toward Rey.  In my opinion I think this action could be considered an act of repentance, but falls short of redeeming / atoning for all his past sins.  I think full redemption / atonement is a much more lengthier process.

Ultimately, I think this is a question worth pondering for ourselves.

Incoming TROS rant

yes, there will be spoilers as I will be breaking down everything I saw tonight. If I manage to type choking on my tears well after the movie finished.

----

FINAL WARNING IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS

Let’s start with a few opening words, this rant will indeed be a long one.

ALL THE LEAKS ARE TRUE. And I mean ALL of them. To a T. As soon as I saw the first half was exactly as I’d read, I was crushed. As I knew what was coming. On that note, i was probably the only person in the theatre who was crying like 15-20 minutes before we were supposed to, I’ll get to that in a bit. I’m saving the WORST for last. Let’s break this shit down.

1. The plot is a mess. An actual mess. I feel like every five minutes I was shaking my head and mumbling ‘what kind of nonsense is this’. The breaking of lore or COMMON SENSE really is substantial. But that is definitely not what I cared about, as I already KNEW this even without the leaks. When you can’t get your two directors to FUCKING WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE A COHESIVE STORYLINE it is bound to grasp for straws and make shit up. IT AIN’T NOTHING NEW.

2. Here’s the kicker. THE DIALOGUE WAS SO BAD, it makes Anakin’s AOTC speech seem like a hymn, or poetry or whatever. They CONSTANTLY say what they’re doing, they’re literally reciting the exposition to each other and it comes off as extremely annoying and makes you feel like a toddler. No hate against toddlers, but I’d rather not be one right now. It feels unnatural, forced and STUPID to the point where I would start WISHING for 3PO to come back on screen because Anthony Daniels somehow managed to snag some actually decent lines for once? I love the man, but the droid usually really annoys the crap outta me. He was literally the highlight of the film. Don’t get me started on the stupidity of all of Lando’s lines, poor Billy. Daisy has to stare angrily most of the time so I don’t really care to recall her lines. Adam, my dear Adam, he tries SO HARD to make do with what he was given but even his lines 90% of the time come off as stupid and out of place. Or the worst type in this movie, EXPOSITIONYY. Don’t get me started on Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. Boys looked like they didn’t sign up for this shit and were literally force choked to be there. I feel you guys, I feel you. ALSO FOR THE LOVE OF THE FORCE THE TIMES THEY REPEATED WORD FOR WORD LINES FROM OTHER MOVIES I WANTED TO SCREAM. Once is too much, THIS MANY TIMES IT IS A FELONY. And it needs to be punished somehow.

3. Let’s get the positives out of the way because there were FEW. The two scenes I actually REALLY enjoyed watching, for different reasons were:

Ben and Palps meeting. The scene was much longer than the clip and SUPER badass. Sheev’s voice echoes, Ben looks fucking cool and the whole scene is GORGEOUS.

The other is when Ben fights as a Jedi in the end. I’ll get to Ben later BELIEVE ME but without overexplaining, he fights with Anakin’s lightsabre, he’s really speedy and is doing all the Jedi spins and whatnot. I fucking ATE THAT UP. Replay that scene forever please CAUSE I LOVED IT. But I was already crying here so we’ll touch more on that later.

To conclude this segment, the visuals were SUPERB, the sound was AMAZING and (some) of the fights were jaw droppingly cool. But that about concludes the positives!

4. I will comment, as I know a lot of people will care even if I don’t particularily. Finn, Poe, Rose and the merry gang aside from our Jedi are reduced to EH this movie. If you thought you’d never miss Rose boy were you wrong. They introduce new characters and expect you to care about them when they SIDELINED the ones they’d hoped you’d care about BEFORE. And it made me care about NO ONE. Not to mention that, sadly, they are ALWAYS reduced to the boring side plot that really isn’t interested or key to much of ANYTHING. Sure they roused the people and all but would’ve been TOAST if Rey didn’t go all Jesus on the fleet. So at the end of the day, you MAY find some enjoyment with the side characters but their lines were some of the worst, you WILL be force fed new people and you might not really enjoy your previous faves here because even I found myself being completely indifferent this time. (I actually really ENJOYED Finn since TFA. He had a compelling storyline and John Boyega was alright. Couldn’t give two wits about him in this movie. Not a single one. But again, I may not be the perfect person to ask if you really,really like any of these characters.

5. Finally, we have arrived to the main event. THE REYLO.

The backbone of this clusterfuck of a new trilogy. The last Skywalker and Palpatine, coming together instead of apart. The arguably BEST actors (legacies aside) Disney managed to get. Now, I will start this off that I didn’t HATE Rey before this movie. I loved her in TFA, enjoyed her less in TLJ but the novelization fixed that. I was BACK ON BOARD to be her number one stan. In this movie, I couldn’t STAND her. Her lines are basically the director walking you through things, her plotline was obviously made last minute so almost none of it makes sense,  I literally wanted to curl up and DIE from cringing so hard every time someone said ‘you’re a Palpatine’. I thought I was looking at a very expensive rendition of terrible fan fiction. (Not to diss fan fiction in any way, you guys will be my heroes after this catastrophe.) ‘Empress Palpatine’, COME THE FUCK ON AND GET OUT WITH THIS SHIT. Bring back crusty old Snoke for crying out loud! Or even HUX! Who got killed off in a second and had three lines of dialogue, not important I guess? Like a great many things I guess, JJ. But, EVEN Palpatine aside, it was great seeing him again and every scene he was in I got chills, who cares that it makes zero sense at this point. Back to reylo.

Ben. Ben Solo Organa Skywalker. The last hope. The final remnant of something I have loved FOREVER. I grew up with Star Wars, like many others just in a different, post prequel era and they are still my favourites. This might sound ridiculous but Star Wars was part of my heart, my happiness. It brought me joy to watch it, read it, fantasize about it and have it in my life when times were dark or miserable. It MEANT something to me, as I am sure many of you will agree. And Ben was part of that. He was part of something that MEANT something to all of us. He was the last line of the characters we all grew up with and loved. The GRANDSON of Anakin, my favourite character of all time. This was their chance to stop the trend that Loki’s death in IW and Daenerys’ death and turn and many others started and STOP killing people who did wrongs. PEOPLE can change, they can grow and they can learn. Hell, to not stray to far from this franchise REY has killed A LOT of people in this movie alone. She DECIMATES the room full of Palpatine’s followers and never blinks an eye. SHE NEARLY KILLS CHEWIE, DOES KILL BEN (for a minute) and SHE DOESN’T NEED TO DIE. Of course she doesn’t but BEN DOESN’T EITHER. After all that YOU JJ, YES YOU, show me that the LAST SKYWALKER has gone through, suffered, alone and frightened. I would’ve ENDED you if you’d suggested killing him off to me, EVER. He was your chance to do a reverse Vader, AS YOU CLAIMED YOU WOULD. To show a character can come back to the light and be worthy of it WITHOUT DYING. You even set it up as such, which is my next and CRUCIAL POINT.

I’ve been a reylo since 2015. Their dynamic has always been fascinating to me and beautiful. I LOVED all the moments in TLJ, LOVED THEM. In this one, every time they force bond (terrible dialogue aside, again) I was happy. I had a hope that she would bring him back from the darkness and he will keep her balanced. WELL, JJ, guess fuck me huh? And anyone with common sense and human decency. JUST WHEN you shove Ben’s turn in my face, you make him talk to Han, you make him strut in to fight alongside Rey in full Ben Solo Jedi mode, hair blown and casually dressed. It was when he runs onto Exegol that I started weeping. Because knowing that he dies as I did, it broke my heart how it was done. You give me the scene where he fights and you give me hope of what his future could’ve been if only you’d listened to reason and done what was supposed to be done. He is chucked into the pit, WHICH MIGHT I ADD WOULD’VE MADE ME MAD IF THAT WAS HIS END BUT WOULD’VE BEEN SOOOO MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT WE GOT, comes back. And now comes the scene that cemented this as the ABSOLUTE WORST insult to me as a fan, possible. Ben is heartbroken that Rey is dead, the moment is sad and he cradles her dead body and hugs her desperately. Which would’ve been a beautiful and GOOD DIFFERENT type of ending. Or rather not having her die at all and being NEAR her death and him saving her and both living happily ever after BUT NO. JJ AFTER THAT has her come back, smile happily when she sees it’s him, her love her hope and the other half of her SOUL literally (the diad or whatever it’s called is so rare that Palpatine was thrilled they’d formed such a bond, basically space soulmates), he has them kiss, then hold each other and smile at each other with genuine feeling of joy and belonging both of them had sought all their life AND THEN YANKS IT FROM UNDER YOU. The scene where Ben falls flat onto his back is quite comical and I couldn’t help but laugh in my misery and sobbing. Rey doesn’t even cry, we don’t even LINGER on his body or mourn him afterwards or even mention it or EVEN SEE her, THE PERSON WHO LITERALLY FOUND HER SOULMATE AND WAS SO HAPPY WHEN SHE KISSED HIM AND WAS LITERALLY SAVED BY HIM, but no guess that doesn’t require a scene, sure, fuck it LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE. The cheery music that plays up until the moment of his fall, YES THE FALL OF SKYWALKER MIND YOU NOT A FUCKING RISE, was an insult to every fan everyhwere, lifelong or recent or otherwise, it was a punch to the gut, a slap in the face and after this happened I no longer paid attention to the movie. I’d been crying for some time leading up to the moment, I knew what was coming and the execution only made it worse and a more desperate cry rather than only sad, I was hoping it wouldn’t happen somehow. I choked back tears until I finally got home and cried. One of the things which MEANT so much to me, was dead. I no longer have any doubts, that this was intentional. Look at Game of thrones, that was this year. It seemed intentional to make series stop, right? Everyone agrees. They wanted to finally bury the Skywalkers so they could make something unrelated? They kill off all the Skywalkers. Well guess what disney? YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO BRING THEM BACK IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU MONEY HUNGRY PIECE OF SHIT. No one would have minded a new trilogy, with new characters doing NEW things. Why even drag the Skywalkers and the leagies into this if YOU DON’T WANT THEM HERE? All you got was millions of lifelong fans of the old movies who have already felt or are only now beginning to feel BETRAYED. I swear it disney, I don’t want to feel this misery again. You won’t take Star Wars away from me and the joy it brought me. I will without a care in the world dismiss this new trilogy as something completely separate from canon. You’ve killed your own fanbase. You could’ve had us but you LOST us. You dangled something we wanted in front of us for our money and then you ripped it apart.

If you are anything like me, anything like me at all and have loved SW for however long. if it MEANS ANYTHING TO YOU, I beg you not to see this movie or at the very least, pay for it. You WILL feel betrayed, insulted, heartbroken, devastated and miserable, as I am feeling right now. I was supposed to go see this movie another two times but i cannot and will not spend another CENT on a company that chooses to alienate me. Fine, have it your way. I’m done.

This concludes my rant as I am tired and upset. If I missed out on anything and you are interested in anything else, please do DM me or leave a comment :) We’re all in this together now, the reylos the antis the new fans and the old. We’re all in the same heartbreaking boat, I love you all. And I will love Star Wars. The REAL Star Wars forever. I wasn’t even sad the ‘FRANCHISE’ was ending because it wasn’t. It had ended a long, long time ago.