Chapter 12 – The one with the PR mess.
Season three is met with mixed reviews; mostly positive, some on the fence, and some none too pleased about getting a token gay character. It probably helps that Kavalan is #3 on the call sheet again, so they can't say it isn't a main character... but her romance with Freya splits the LGBTQ fandom into two distinct sides. The Freyalans, happy to have a gay couple that includes a main character, and the KavaReinas, who are bitter that their beloved Guardian was brought back as queerbait and sent into someone else's arms rather than the woman she's had immense chemistry with since day one.
"I think they're both trying to figure out where they fit in the world right now," Ruby says when asked about her opinions on Freyalan. For all that she teases and goofs around in person, she's also excellent at giving thoughtful responses to questions that require some tact or subtlety. "They're both a little lost and confused about who's friend and foe, and they're kind of taking comfort in going through that together, ya know?"
Emma is happy to let Ruby take over answering, though the next fan is far less considerate and bluntly asks Emma, "Do you ship KavaReina more or Freyalan more?"
Emma, having been strategically told to sit between Regina and Ruby on the giant couch on stage, gapes for a moment before spluttering, "I love all my ships!"
Ruby and Regina promptly each put an arm around her, trapping her in a gal-pal sandwich, and the audience laughs and cheers at the way Emma blushes and jokingly fans herself. The Q&A continues for another half an hour with only a few more awkward questions (Is Ruby a good kisser? Was the KavaReina eye-sex intentional? Does Graham get jealous that you bodyguard Regina all the time?) before the entire cast eventually retire to the greenroom for a lunch break.
"Kid," Emma calls out, perking up when she notices a convention employee escorting Henry into their private greenroom. He bounces over to them with a grin, arms full of merchandise and half a dozen lanyards hanging from his neck. She's started giving him some free rein (and plenty of cash because she's a pushover) when they attend conventions, and he always manages to check out every single vendor room and art hall and come back with way too much loot. Today his bags are stuffed with a new gaming headphone, several exclusive action figures and new graphic novels, a few Pop Funko boxes, and multiple comic book posters.
"Hey, Ma, Regina." Dumping his things down, he drops into the seat next to Emma and steals the other half of a sandwich from her plate, chowing down despite her huff of protest. Regina, muffling a laugh behind her hand, glances at his purchases and grins.
"You've been busy spending your mother's money, I see."
"Mm." He swallows, wiping a smear of sauce from the corner of his lip with the back of his hand. "Actually, most of them were gifts from fans!"
"Fans? Of Kingdom Come?" Emma asks, puzzled.
"Sorta." He shrugs, grinning. "D'you know they call me the Dark Prince?"
"The what?" Emma squawks as Ruby bursts out laughing like she's already heard.
"Yeah, 'cause everyone can't figure out whose kid I am since we're all living together right now, so they think you're both my moms—Kavalan and Queen Reina—so they call me the Dark Prince. I'm an unofficial celebrity 'cause of you guys."
He preens, smug and proud, and Emma just blushes hotly while Regina chuckles.
"That's very... creative of them," Regina says, leaning forward with her elbows on the table when Graham's arm rests along the back of her chair. She's been picking at her salad all during their lunch break and Emma decides to push her leftover plate of fries further towards the center of the table, dramatically patting her own belly as if full. Sure enough, when she turns to give her son her full attention, she can see Regina's hand darting over to steal a few fries.
"I got some of these from some fangirls, too," he says, taking something from his pocket and sliding them to the middle of the table. Everyone leans in to take a peek and half of them burst out laughing, while Emma and Regina both rear back and exchange awkward, embarrassed smiles.
"Ah, the crazy things fans do," Ruby snickers, snatching one of the pins for herself while Graham chuckles at the little fanart pin depicting his sort-of girlfriend with his coworker.
The cast attend one more autographing session before they leave Calgary Expo, and Emma doesn't realize why her fans are wriggling and squealing and sneaking photos of her until later that night when she checks Twitter and finds the pictures.
"I swear I didn't wear that on purpose!" she has to defend herself to an irate Gold on the phone afterwards, staring in horror at the photos of herself sitting at the autograph table, a KavaReina fanart pin (a manip of Kavalan and Reina standing almost nose-to-nose, expressions soft and eyes gazing longing at each other's lips) attached to the side of her jacket in plain view. It sure as hell explains why her LGBTQ fans are trying to drown her in mentions.
"EmmaSwan76 SHE SHIPS IT TOO!"
"Last year: ReginaMills chats about #KavaReina. This year: EmmaSwan76 wears a KavaReina pin to CalgaryExpo. #BLESSED"
"Emma just casually gave us proof that she ships it and I'M A MESS"
And then, from a suspiciously familiar account;
DarkPrinceHenry: Yeah, she just wore that pin to CalgaryExpo. #KavaReina
Emma throws the pin at him afterwards, grumbling even as he catches it and laughs his ass off. When they get home, Henry thinks he's misplaced it, even though Emma has it squirreled away in a locked drawer next to her bed.
"Regina might be on Emma's jacket," Ruby says to her phone as she does a livestream video of herself scampering through the studio when they're back to start filming season four, "But I'm on Emma!" And then she jumps onto Emma's back, the phone held out in front of them so that all her fans can see the two of them, and Emma bursts out laughing even as she flails and shrieks in surprise. Ruby manages to plant a wet kiss on Emma's cheek before bolting off, cackling into her phone before ending the livestream, and later the cast watch Ruby's snapchat video and snicker over the comments.
"YES! Freyalan is life!"
"My favourite gays ever #Freyalan"
"Why is Regina never in these fun BTS videos?"
"Nooo! We want KavaReina!"
"Must you provoke the shipping wars?" Regina sighs, annoyed, and Ruby just grins and elbows her playfully in the side.
"Oh come on, it's all harmless fun!"
Jokes aside, some fans take things way too far, and as the season goes on, Emma finds herself caught between a rock and a hard place. She can't tweet or post a photo with either Ruby or Regina without upsetting a fandom. It doesn't help that Ruby loves sharing just about everything on social media, which means their tweets and selfies together are excessive compared to the rare selfies she gets with a surprisingly selfie-shy Regina. (There are numerous enough photos of her with Regina and Henry when they go out on the weekends, sure, but those are creeper photos posted by paparazzi and they just open up a whole other pandora's box of problems.)
"They hate me," Emma sighs, setting her phone down after scrolling away from hateful tweets calling her a sell-out. She's always been honest about her sexuality since Kingdom Come has put her in the spotlight, but some fans have apparently decided to put her to the test and are calling her out for not fighting for KavaReina... As if she had any say in the story's direction.
"Don't take that stuff to heart, Ems," Mary Margaret says, sympathetic. "Fans don't know how shows work. They don't know what our contracts are like. They think we can stomp our feet and change the story as if we aren't all easily replaceable."
David reaches over to pat Mary Margaret's hand supportively and Emma gives him a curious look.
"She was replaced in a sequel movie when she tried to push for a change in the romance story. They cast another woman who looked a lot like her."
"The romance didn't make sense!" Mary Margaret laments before drooping with a sigh. "But anyway. It's the producers with the money. If we cause them trouble, they can just as easily pay someone else to do our job."
"You really think Gold would fire me over this whole KavaReina thing?"
"I doubt it," a new voice adds, as Belle joins them where they're all relaxing on the fake logs on one of the forest sets. "I do have an idea on how to placate him, though. A little bit of PR magic, actually, if you're up for it."
Wary, Emma swings one leg over the log to straddle it and face Belle. "PR magic?"
After checking around them, Belle leans in and lowers her voice, prompting Mary Margaret and David to lean in as well. "Ruby and I have started dating."
"Belle!" Mary Margaret squeals too loudly, clapping her hands together, "That's wonderful!"
"Thank you," Belle says, amused as she hushes the ebony haired woman. "But we need to keep it heavily under wraps right now. If Gold found out, he'd sack me and cancel the show before we knew what hit us."
"Right, but what's that got to do with the shipping drama over me and Regina?" Emma asks, brows furrowing in confusion. Belle grins a wide, wicked grin, and Emma is honestly learning to fear that look every time Belle aims it at her.
"I will claim sexual harassment if you touch my hips again, I swear," Emma grumbles under her breath, though she doesn't actually struggle when Ruby's hands pat her hips and pull her closer to her side. The taller, willowy brunette gives a dirty chuckle and rests her chin on Emma's shoulder.
"C'mon, it's only creepy when men do it to their female coworkers," Ruby teases.
"Don't be sexist." Emma scoffs, but she can't help but grin as her friend gives her an affectionate snuggle, because Ruby means well and is doing it to tease her as a friend, not because she harbors some weird secret attraction to her—which is promptly followed by a resounding "Awwwwww!" by the fans as they step onto the stage together like that.
"How're you doing, San Diego?" Ruby greets cheerily when the MC hands them each a microphone. There are two chairs on stage, one for each of them. Tonight's panel is a special Freyalan Q&A (no doubt the work of Belle and Gold to take the attention off of Regina and KavaReina) and the audience is chock full of LGBTQ fans loudly applauding their beloved gay ship. Both their characters are still alive, anyway, which is more than other current TV shows could say.
"Wow, look at this room," Emma says when the applause is less deafening. "We're so excited to be here tonight. Are you guys all caught up on season three?"
There's more applause. Ruby grins at her, one eyebrow quirking in question, and Emma gives a nervous nod of her head.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road, huh? Who's up first?"
They make their way through the lineup of fans coming up to the microphone, answering every question cheerfully and thoughtfully. Ruby takes the lead in diverting any questions away from KavaReina, and Emma makes a concerted effort to gaze at Ruby whenever the brunette speaks. Her friend is her current on-screen romance, and she's going to do everything in her power to honor that and promote it.
"Hey Emma," one fan says, and Emma snaps her head over to pay attention, smiling cheerfully in greeting. "There's a lot of photos of you and Regina hanging out off set with a younger boy. Are you guys a family?"
There are excited titters in the crowd. Emma blushes and straightens.
"Actually, the producers put us up in temporary homes when we're in town filming. Regina just happened to be my housemate, so we try to hang out when we're not working and get to know the city. Vancouver really is a beautiful place to explore."
"Really a shame," Ruby adds in, winking playfully in Emma's direction. "If I knew I'd start dating this hottie, I'd have asked to be housemates with her instead!"
Oh, the fans lose it over that. The Freyalan shippers are screaming, their phones out as they all rush to take videos of this momentous occasion, and Emma promptly blushes as Ruby laughs.
"Oops," the brunette purrs, one hand pressing briefly to her mouth, "Was that a secret? My bad. To be fair, this was before we got renewed for season four. There's no contract breach! No one tell the producers!"
Laughter follows her dramatic joking. The fans keep taking pictures and videos and Emma wonders when this is going to backfire and get them all into a shit ton of trouble. Regardless, she plays along, she and Ruby linking arms and waving goodbye once their panel is over, disappearing behind the black curtains. Regina and Graham are waiting there—the special Treina Q&A coming up next—and both look stunned at this turn of events.
"When did you two start dating?" Regina asks, her voice sharp, and Graham gives his girlfriend an odd look while Emma freezes in place under the scrutiny of those dark eyes.
"We're not," Ruby chuckles, callous. "Belle and I are dating. But Gold would shit bricks if he found out, and Emma's kind of in trouble with him for that KavaReina pin she accidentally wore to a panel, so we figured this was good for PR."
"Oh." Regina deflates slightly, her tight frown relaxing, and she promptly gives them a curt nod of her head before heading out on stage, dragging Graham with her.
"Someone's jelly," Ruby snickers, flouncing down the narrow hall and into the greenroom. Emma follows, gaping.
"What? She's not jealous. Why would she be jealous?"
"Oh please. There are bets going on how long it'll take for you two to bang."
Emma splutters, choking on her own spit. Ruby grabs a water bottle from the mini fridge and hands it over with a sympathetic smile.
"She's with Graham!" Emma says eventually once she can breathe again, and Ruby just smiles and pats her cheek as patronizingly as possible.
"Yeah, for PR, like what you and I are doing right now. It doesn't mean anything."
"Regina's not gay!"
"Oh honey," Ruby sighs before she grabs her bags and exits, leaving Emma sitting alone in the greenroom and straining to hear Regina's voice on the microphone down the hall.
"She's not gay," Emma insists to no one at all.