Bohemian Rhapsody Commentary
Title: Bohemian Rhapsody
Fandom: Inception
Rating: NC-17, just to be safe.
Characters: Arthur, Cobb, Eames, Ariadne
Summary: Done for inception_kink prompt. Inception x Kurohitsuji. Cobb is the best extractor in the world. Arthur is the best at what he does, working for Cobb as his demonic point man and bound to devour Cobb’s soul by a contract. Mild A/C.
-
This is just the commentary for Bohemian Rhapsody. I'm not really sure if anyone wants to read a commentary, but it'll probably do me a whole lot of good to reflect how each different writing technique goes down, and how the story changed as it went along.
First things first; it took the hell of a time to write, pardon the pun. I think it was slightly more than two weeks since I took the prompt, and all of those two weeks was spent writing, editing, writing. When I didn't get computer access, I sat down and wrote it with pen and paper, then typed it into the computer later and edited it.
I had quite a bit of difficulty coming up with a title, until I listened to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and then when I heard the bit 'bismillah, no! I will not let you go - let him go!" I realised with a flash that was exactly what this fic was going to be about. I didn't even intend on making it Arthur/Cobb in the first place. That just...happened.
So originally: the fic was going to be exactly that, a crossover with Kurohitsuji, Arthur as Cobb's demonic point man, and a rewrite of the movie. That struck me as boring and pointless, later. There needed to be something that engaged the reader, I felt - and the more I waded into the Kurohitsuji universe, the more I was convinced the crossover had to be conceptual. The more I dragged in characters, or even traits of Sebastien and Ciel, the more the story drifted from being an Inception fic. So I concluded that Grell would have to go. (Not that I actually wrote much about Grell. The Sebastien cameo also vanished.) In all truthfulness, I probably realised by then that a crossover of this nature wasn't going to be easy - and my goal was to write an Inception fic, first and foremost.
Again, Bohemian Rhapsody also redefined what I saw as the central point of this fic. Originally, it was going to be about the contract - before later, I realised that wasn't going to cut it. It had to be about the Arthur-Cobb relationship, their dynamics, and how that relationship changed over time. By then, I also figured the bit about the contract being broken. I didn't particularly want Arthur to off Cobb, although that happened in the very very first version of the ending. That, to me anyway, defeated the point of focusing on their relationship to each other. That was when I changed it, to Arthur saving Cobb from limbo. That, and a hefty dose of "I will not let you go/let him go." if you listen to Bohemian Rhapsody, you'll know what I mean ;)
That was about the time those lines, I think, became the essential center of the story, in how each branch develops. While I wrote it all in one document (did you know livejournal won't let you stick 17k words into an entry? 8k is pushing it too.), I had to split it up for posting purposes. Then I had to consider how to split them up, and those lines helped again. If you'll notice, the loyalty Arthur demonstrates changes noticeably through the story. In Part I, he does it because he's compelled to, and obliged to. In Part II, he does it because he's a bit of a friend, and starting to care, and near to the end of Part II and in the beginning of Part III, he does it quite simply because he cares about Cobb, very deeply, and doesn't want to leave Cobb to his self-destruction.
As I mentioned earlier, the Arthur/Cobb didn't exist at first. I had a massive mental block writing them, and started prowling cobb_arthur
for inspiration. I didn't quite get what I needed, until I had a conversation with my friend (you know who you are), who pointed out that Arthur/Cobb worked precisely because of their deep friendship, how they covered and supported each other, and then it clicked together - there was going to be a very strong prevailing element of hurt/comfort in this, and that's when the entire bit about Arthur being there for Cobb in the aftermath of Mal's suicide was written.
That's about it, really. In general, I must have gone through four general thematic shifts in each draft. Draft 1 was the terribly dark draft, ending with Arthur presumably killing Cobb. I offed that one pretty early. Draft 2 was briefly entitled Faustian, before I realised I was still overemphasising the demonic contract, which was more of a plot device that set up Arthur and Cobb in conflict. Draft 3 was entitled the Being Human draft, because it was the turning point where I really went in depth on humanising Arthur - before I realised that wasn't going to work too well either. I didn't want this to become a stereotypical, or quasi-philosophical piece of 'What makes a demon a demon?' or 'What makes something/someone human?' That was perfectly fine, but I didn't want distracting side-issues. And then came the draft that stayed - Draft 4, the Bohemian Rhapsody draft.
So here's each part, and my notes on bits that changed.
Part I
“He’s definitely a stick-in-the-mud.” Eames decided, his fingers interlocked.
Cobb took a sip of beer and pretended he didn’t know what Eames was talking about. “Arthur?”
“Of course I mean Arthur.” Eames said matter-of-factly. He blinked, staring at Cobb. “Were you even paying attention?”
Interestingly, this section with Arthur, Eames, and Cobb carrying out a job didn't come into place until a very late version of Draft 4. I plunged straight into a rambling timeline, purely sequential, on how Cobb met Arthur, coming home, speaking with Mal (the pregnancy conversation), into training Arthur, and then another conversation with Mal again. Then I realised that wasn't going to work. People were going to get alienated by the Kurohitsuji bits early, and they were going to be confused, even though I was trying to make it clear the seeds of the person Arthur would become existed even then. A framed story, if you like, where future surrounds past, was needed, so people could see the end-point, and realise this was about development of character.
Writing Eames was fun. I think I made him swear a bit too much. I was always amused by the fact the only American action actor Eames knows is Arnie.
“I don’t think Arthur will approve of what?” The aforementioned person said, stalking in with a distinctly displeased air. “Where were you?” He demanded, staring icily at Eames. “The mark is on the move. You were supposed to be here at least twenty minutes ago.”
Another part that changed, though minor. Arthur was never involved the first time round. I made the decision to add him into the scene, if only because it was ridiculous to allude to the Arthur we see in the movie and not involve him. Also, it was a bit hellish to make him sound like Arthur, and not like the nuclear time-bomb ready to go off that fanon sometimes portrays him as. I chose to add a more admonishing tone, paralleling when he scolds Nash for messing up the carpet.
"Distracting the projections. Washroom.” Cobb snapped, grabbing Eames by the arm and pulling him away from the window. “No time for this.”
This one was a laughable error I almost missed. Washroom is a far better term than bathroom, if only because I'm not sure pubs have what we call bathrooms. People don't bathe there, right?
“I don’t care.” Eames said, when he first opened his eyes, just after the kick had been delivered. “It’s positively unholy. No one ever deals with a group of projections like that. Not for what, fifteen minutes?”
Cobb opened his eyes - Arthur was already sitting up and pulling the IV out of his arm. Both of them ignored Eames.
...
“Still there. He’ll be out of it for a while.”
Cobb nodded. “Let’s move then. Eames?”
There was originally more Arthur-Eames banter before I realised, after re-watching the movie, that wasn't true. Arthur and Eames snipe at each other, but not all the time, and the sheer volume of banter was just insane. Also, it doesn't fit the business-like way the teams handle the job - the conversation during the failed extraction on Saito is the perfect example of how curt and brusque they are with each other. And they handle it with sparse words. So this section had to be reworked for a sense of urgency, and a feel of we're-on-the-job.
Cobb hears them fire - again, again and again. Bullets clatter to the ground; they stop as suddenly as they start. The man is smiling, still with no real warmth, as he holds the last bullet between his fingers, inspecting it.
“Much faster.” He says approvingly. He drops it, without so much as a burn on his fingers. The abductors at the door back away. Short puts his gun to his head and fires - and then the world begins to dissolve.
This was the place where one of the first few major logic errors occured. I realised in the middle of an early edit of Draft 4 that it didn't make sense. Originally, I had Arthur kill Cobb instantly, waking him up - then realised, wait a minute, why is Arthur so familiar with dreamshare principles? And if he was familiar, there was no need to train him. But that begged the question of where he picked the skills up from, and so on and so forth. So I figured the easiest way was to cut through the Gordian knot - that way, you had Arthur ejecting them from the dream by default, and then Cobb could go and teach Arthur, which gave me time to explore the way they related when Cobb taught Arthur.
She stared at him quizzically, raising both delicately arched eyebrows. “Why?” She asked, confused. “You wanted to give him your father’s name. Arthur would be honored, I think.”
...
“And is Arthur making progress?” She asked.
“Decent.” Cobb replied, staring up at the ceiling, feeling her warmth, clinging to it like a totem. “But we’re not making too much progress with the kick. And he refuses to take any initiative at all.”
“Patience,” She advises, sighing as she pulls the blankets just a little higher. “You are too hard on him.”
Another area of major change. Originally, these two snippets, separated by the ellipses were actually parts of two different segments. I had the first conversation, then more paragraphs on Cobb training Arthur, then the second conversation. Which, to me, created more problems, because it really broke up the easy flow of the Mal conversation, and it seemed repetitive, in a way, especially because both involve Mal introducing a positivie perspective with regard to Arthur. So they slid together, and I split the training sequences, so the bits where Cobb begins to see Arthur in a slightly non-hostile light went after the Mal conversation. Which, I felt, was for the better, because it suggested at how Mal was easing the friction in their relationship, and it gave her a more prominent role.
The tiny mechanical compass immediately toppled over.
I know the ending by totem-check is cliche, but hey. It was hard coming up with a totem for Cobb, especially because I'm one of those who don't buy the idea that the top was his totem, or at least since I was writing about a period before he used Mal's top. I've got some rather strong opinions about how totems work and on dream physics, but in short, dream physics are controlled by the dreamer.
Dream physics can be localised, like how Ariadne allows gravity to act normal to the separate planes in the Paris dream (think how people walk normally on the 'walls') So if a dreamer doesn't know how, say, Arthur's die is weighted to produce a certain number, then he will 'expect' physics to behave nornally, and so Arthur's die will not behave as it is supposed to, and instead has a 1/6th chance of producing any number. With this idea in mind, that totems are dependent on dream physics, I needed a totem that fit Cobb, and yet relied on physics. I settled for a mechanical compass, since Cobb was an architect, and is definitely good at math, and that compass is needed for geometry. I even figured out how it works, but that's for another fic ;)
-
Part II
Two successful jobs bring just about enough rewards with them to get Arthur out of cohabitation and into an apartment. Cobb insisted on splitting the payment, and treating Arthur exactly like a point man - only they’re working together on a semi-permanent basis.
Originally, Arthur actually moves out in Part I, before I figured Cobb was probably not terribly rich. And at that point in their relationship, when they are both wary of each other, I couldn't see Arthur being willing to let Cobb out of his sight, or vice versa, until some kind of grudging foundation had been built between the two of them. So I set the moving out point to just after Arthur and Cobb take a few jobs.
In between jobs, Cobb finds various things he never knew about Arthur, in the process of formulating various distractions. Cobb finds out that Arthur has a fascination for paradoxes (he spends hours staring at the Penrose stairs) and will spend free evenings feeding the neighbourhood sparrows and cats. He takes his coffee sweetened and with milk. His fingers are deft on a violin but clumsy on a piano; he doesn’t like pianos. He frowns, marginally, when focused or preoccupied. He has an excellent mind for details and an (almost) eidetic memory. Like Mal, he has a strange fascination with Edith Piaf and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. Sometimes, in the middle of a challenge (holding off ten projections), he wears a fierce and wild smile on his face, all bared teeth.
This was the part that stayed, through most drafts - the need to humanise Arthur, both for the reader, as well as Cobb, expressed through the list of traits that Cobb picks up on, observes almost obssessively.
The second reversal for Cobb, and the first turning point for the two of them came when Phillipa was born. Even if Cobb had decided he didn’t really want Arthur near (on which he was ambiguous), Mal overruled him with a stare, and “Dom.” He surrendered.
This section came into being late, when I realised I should stick in a few more bits of Kurohitsuji in. (Besides feeding Arthur Sebastien's love of cats). Also, I needed a turning point for Arthur, I needed to reveal some of his past, in order to demonstrate the conflict he feels when it comes to the contract with Cobb, and I needed to flesh his character out far more. Enter the Reaper, Blake. I wanted to make it Grell, but I didn't like having to sort out the different dynamics between Arthur and Grell, as compared to Sebastien and Grell. Blake really serves to make us very aware of the sense of guilt Arthur has - only vaguely hinted at in Part I, when he is hung up about his previous contract, and the time period it is set in.
“Your knuckles.” Cobb told him. “That doctor - Blake? He must have a jaw of steel.”
“Oh, he does.” Arthur said, grimly, producing a handkerchief and wiping the blood off. “He’s not really a doctor. He’s the last person you want to see in this place. A Reaper.”
Cobb handed him one of the styrofoam cups. “And?”
This was the bit where we really start to hear the tone of this Arthur melding with the tone of movie Arthur. If you asked me to pinpoint approximately when, this is one of the major change-points for Arthur. He doesn't say 'Mr Cobb' at all in this part, if you realise, and he develops the beginnings of that casual conversational rhythm with Cobb.
And that was the end of it. As if this was a turning point, however, and a significant one, Cobb found Arthur took more initiative on jobs, was more willing to follow his instincts and his reason on what was the best course of action.
I will always admit I felt this transition a little too abrupt. In all honesty though, I wasn't going to write ten more pages of slow character development just to settle my purist need for a damned good explanation on how Arthur transits from detached servant to someone who proactively shows traces of concern. Originally, I was going to write the first time Arthur couldn't take it and shot Cobb in a dream, but I felt that was going to clash with a fic I wanted to write, and far more importantly, it was too typical. It didn't offer as much mileage as a flash into what drives Arthur.
In all fairness, I suppose this is a decent turning point, since the appearance of Blake really galvanises Arthur to get his act together, or at least, to make up his mind about something. I did kind of like leaving the reasons for Arthur's change of heart vague because we're seeing this from Cobb's perspective, and Cobb's in the dark when it comes to Arthur and motivations. I don't know. I guess part of this just rubs me a little, each time. I feel the urge to add more background character development. Again, I don't think it's terribly possible - I think I pushed development as far as it could go for this section. Any more would make it draggy.
“That was dangerous,” He told Cobb, furiously. “You could have died.”
Milestone, for two reasons. This, you may notice, is the first time I've actually taken the perspective from Arthur's eyes instead, overlaid with Arthur's thoughts and feelings. Second, because this is the first time you really see traces of concern from Arthur, explicitly voiced.
Eternity, he thought, turning the concept over and over again in his mind. Oblivion.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he could understand why Mal hadn’t wanted to leave.
And Arthur guilt. More backstory.
Cobb turned his head away, into Arthur’s jacket, and let himself sob. He didn’t want to see her, splayed out, cold and dead on the street, limbs broken, bleeding. He didn’t want to remember her dead. Arthur said nothing, just steered them out of the minefield of broken objects the room had become.
Gently, he felt Arthur ease his head away when they reached the street pavement, and left the hotel behind. He let Arthur do it. He didn’t want to see anything.
Interestingly, this part didn't exist until the very, very last revision. That was when my beta and I agreed that there were issues because I hadn't signalled any interest from Cobb's side, so the kiss was very sudden. While I went back and added more traces of Cobb-sided feelings, I added the hint here, where Cobb turns of his own volition to Arthur for comfort.
Cobb’s lips quirked in a bitter half-smirk. “Mal always believed that, you know? Even when - even when - “ He broke down again, muffled, dry, choking sobs racking his shoulders. Arthur went for the tissue box. “Don’t.” Cobb mumbled, blindly grabbing Arthur’s arm. “Don’t go. Please.”
Carefully, Arthur sat back down. Cobb didn’t let go, so he scooted closer, moving his chair right next to Cobb’s. He didn’t say anything, and Cobb made a muffled croak and rested his head on Arthur’s shoulder in a limp, flopping motion. Arthur decided that yes, Cobb was most definitely drunk, and that neither of them was going to talk about this in the morning.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He said quietly, and Cobb sighed and closed his eyes.
It wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, Arthur decided, on the matter of Cobb possibly dozing off on his shoulder. It certainly kept him out of trouble. In the dim kitchen lighting, (Phillipa and James both in bed), and shadows playing across his face, Cobb looked oddly vulnerable.
After a while, Cobb muttered something vague, possibly almost-asleep by then, and pulled closer. Arthur fought the reflexive need to pull away, forcing himself to relax, instead of disturbing Cobb. But it turned out that Cobb wasn’t entirely asleep yet.
In the same vein, this entire chunk did not exist until the very last revision, for the same reason.
“When you kill me,” Cobb said softly, resigned and weary, but words painfully clear, “Make every moment painful. Every second of it, make me suffer.”
This, I felt, was a very Ciel-like moment. I stuck it in there anyway, because I wanted an acute expression of Cobb's guilt. I did paraphrase, of course, because Cobb would never talk about carving suffering into his bones. (I hope).
He watched Cobb’s chest rise and fall, carefully eased away, and tossed the bottles into the trash before someone stumbled on them in the morning.
This is actually one of my favourite sentences, if only because Arthur is so confused/conflicted he just evades the issue and busies himself with the banal essentials, and the job of keeping things together because Cobb can't.
(Arthur, who watches him, with those solemn eyes, and with a worried gaze, who hides the scissors and ties the sharp can-tabs into plastic bags to be dumped into the recycling bin, just in case. Who has carefully spirited even the valium and the aspirin away. Arthur, who fills up the empty, gaping side of the bed wordlessly, but when Cobb wakes up, he isn’t Mal - he’s solid, reassuring, but not Mal, sulphur and pressed laundry, not orange and rosemary, and God, he needs her, but he drifts into sleep anyway and in the morning, finds himself curled against Arthur, and the fresh pain comes again.)
I believe this is the most explicit section of Arthur/Cobb that existed in this part, anyway. It was another of those things that popped here in the final edit, because I needed increased closeness between them.
Arthur won’t be dissuaded. Arthur packs whatever he has and heads off with him. “Marie,” He says, in that wry way of his, “Is looking after your children, and I’m not your babysitter.”
Irony, thy name is Arthur. He is babysitting Cobb. He's just not babysitting Cobb's kids. This is one of the places where I felt the dialogue got very close to an approximation of Arthur's speech patterns.
(The night at the hotel in Madrid is also the last night they share a bed.)
Severe parenthesis. I needed to set the stage for the slightly increased distance we see in the movie, and the bit where Cobb starts to wall himself off. Again, it was only necessary because the final edit had Cobb and Arthur sleeping together (clothes on.)
-
Part III
As if it was easy to pretend he’d found his point man the normal way, and there wasn’t any Faustian contract involved, at all. As if it was easy to forget all those painful nights right after Mal died, pressed against Arthur, and wishing desperately Mal was there. As if it was easy to forget that (most frightening of all), he woke up that night in Madrid, and didn’t reflexively wonder what Arthur was doing there, didn’t think of Mal, didn’t think of how wrong this was. (As if it was easy to forget he finds himself clinging to Arthur, and not wanting to let go, and this is wrong on so many levels that Cobb can’t even begin to list the very many reasons.)
Denial, I think, is a very powerful thing. This is Cobb almost naturally working past the grief, and then his guilt won't let him. And wrestling with the issue of needing Arthur, and thinking it's because he misses Mal.
He seldom thought of the contract, these days, and Arthur never brought it up.
Any reader looking back at this with the benefit of hindsight will realise this was my first hint that the contract was void ;)
“Don’t thank me,” Arthur told him. He turned to walk away. “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot. You’ll have to face her alone down there, and I hope you’re ready, because Eames will be busy.”
Another moment when I felt the Arthur conversation fit as Arthur. Again, another hint of character development here; Arthur argues with Cobb, Cobb talks about trust, and Arthur gives in, in the way he's always been avoiding Cobb's Mal issues.
“You can’t run forever, you know. You have to decide, sooner or later.”
The Anna conversation that automatically completes and almost wraps-up Arthur's backstory. She also helps to get Arthur's conflict in place, I think. Also gives us a face and a situation to place to Arthur's guilt and probably worried a few people who went 'wait a minute, he cared but he killed her - is that going to happen to Cobb?' ;)
Cobb wondered what Arthur’s subconscious had ben about to say, but then dismissed it. It was Arthur’s secret to keep. Cobb had his own secrets, and Arthur respected them. He wouldn’t press Arthur for his.
Because I felt Cobb and Arthur really weren't the type to unload on each other automatically. They needed to hit a crisis point, a tipping point, and to quote Eames or Cobb, can't remember at this hour, 'The greater the conflict, the greater the catharsis.' And this sense of catharsis was going to come at the climax where Arthur makes his choice, saves Cobb, and when they both bare their secrets to each other.
Ariadne watched him now, curiously. “I think you care about him.” She decided. “You tell me he doesn’t need help, but ask me to help Cobb anyway.”
Because in head canon, I do have Arthur interfering a little behind the scenes. I can't see him getting shot by Mal!projection, being calm about it, and the way he mentioned it, she'd been popping up for a while. So I had Ariadne and Arthur approaching Cobb, with similar words about how he had to deal with Mal, and Arthur giving Ariadne just the smallest of prods in the right direction. It can't just be all curiosity, I think, and there is a reason why she challenges him and says that if he's not going to let her go with them, then he has to show Arthur what she saw.
Arthur took a deep breath. His answer, he realised, with some surprise, was perfectly honest. “Because I made my choice,” He said, as much to her, as to a woman dead more than a century ago at his hands.
He made his choice. Now he just has to understand it. I've always been a bit miffed at how Arthur tries to wake Cobb up and rescue Cobb, but Ariadne tugs at him, and then he leaves and swims out. I've always hoped he'd go back in after Cobb again - we just don't see it on-screen.
“If this is limbo,” He said quietly, “Then I should be able to control the dream. This is real, Arthur. As real as it gets.”
“You want it to be real,” Arthur said, breathed, understanding at last.. “A part of you wants this to be real. Cobb -“ He corrected himself, “Dom - haven’t you punished yourself enough?”
I couldn't see Cobb forgetting and staying in limbo, if only because of how many times he'd fought to get back to his children, etc, I've written an essay about it, and here isn't the best time. I needed a motive for Cobb to stay down there - then I hit on guilt. Mal was the manifestation of his guilt, fed by Cobb, but I really couldn't see him resolving all of that at once. He let Mal go, yes, but what about the other type of guilt we see bubbling up - where Mal deliberately messes up the job, and wants Cobb to stay in limbo with her, as a manifestation of his need for self-punishment.
And a breakthrough - Arthur uses Cobb's name!
“The background check?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. “How Fischer’s militarisation never appeared on the background check when it should have? Only two people had access to the information. And then I remembered the day I left the files running. I did remember the computer had been switched on when I left.”
This bit was interesting. I never planned it. It just popped in there O.O
“I’m not letting you go.” He repeated. “I’m not letting you fall back into your personal hell.” This may also be the most fucking ironic thing he’s ever said.
Cobb doesn’t see the Glock. Arthur fires.
Cobb dies.
Cobb wakes up.
When Arthur makes a choice, he understands, to some extent, why he's made the choice, and he acts. When he finally takes a stand - and this point, I think, is the resolution of the Arthur conflict, while the Cobb conflict also gets resolved by a partial emotional reliance on Arthur. I like to think Arthur got frustrated of talking Cobb around, and just shot him. It has a simple charm about it that's so Arthur.
Cobb ignores him, and does something he’s never done before. He grabs Arthur, pulls him close and kisses him. First, Arthur stiffens up, brown-with-just-a-hint-of-red eyes widening, then narrowing. At some point, he returns it, tentatively, then fiercely. It isn’t like kissing Mal, but it doesn’t feel wrong either, and they’ll both settle for that. (Because it’s a little funny, but haven’t they been doing that, over the past years and months?) Somewhere along the way, the Mal-shaped hole has changed, and with surprise, Cobb realises that he wants Arthur, in that kind of way.
Eureka! Finally! The moment the whole story has been building towards!
There will never be another Mal. Mal was the sky; the faint red-pink of the sunset, romantic, beautiful, ethereal, and a fairytale romance. She was Paris, rosemary and oranges - she was lovely, and a part of Cobb will never be whole again. But there is Arthur, and Arthur is something else entirely; sulphur and pressed, clean laundry, explosive, clean motion, and Cobb is certain (as certain as these things come) that there’s something between them too. Arthur is the earth, solid, and reassuring, supporting, and Cobb knows they’ve almost never let each other down.
It’s nothing like a happily ever after. They’ve got their own scars, they’re both screwed up in ways. But Cobb thinks that they might just try for their own happy ending, anyhow.
This, I felt, was the most important and telling part. I didn't want/need a perfect ending. Cobb was too mentally traumatised for one, and Arthur has his own emotional issues. It also made Arthur seem like a replacement for Mal, which I wanted to avoid at all costs. It isn't about Cobb replacing Mal, it's about them discovering something new because they've both been changed and affected in their own ways by their personal tragedies, and yet something beautiful, and resilient has grown out of it. And that, I lilke to think, is the soaring note of hope in an ending that acknowledges their imperfections, and the difficult and uncertain road ahead.
fin
Note:
When I got stuck, I'd blast music a lot. I ended up listening to:
1. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen (obvious)
2. Alejandro - Lady Gaga
3. Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
4. Judas' Death - Jesus Christ Superstar (particularly the bit where Judas sings 'I Don't Know How To Love Him'
-