#(hey margo why choose the sky as all things as a motif for an earth goddess?)

[taradreschner-blog]

tara dreschner + headcanons

1. Tara is judgmental. They can’t help it or at least have never tried. They quickly come up with an idea of what someone is and rarely change their mind, instead choosing to believe the role that they’ve cast everybody in. Their assumptions are often deeply cynical in nature; they look for the worst in people before ever finding the good. There are people Tara will never be friends with because of what they’ve seen in them.

2. They’ve only begun recently making friends besides the two they’ve always had. It was easy in high school to stay forever in each other’s company, to barely acknowledge anyone outside their band of musketeers. But with Denna gone Tara had no choice but to expand their horizons and, reluctantly, they did. Despite themselves they’ve actually enjoyed spending time with Gen and Leo, but it feels like a strange sort of betrayal. Not even to Denna, who doesn’t seem to mind with how busy she is with her fascinating new life, but to Tara. They aren’t used to talking to people who don’t know them in and out, who don’t instinctively know how to translate their rolling eyes and monotone into affection.

3. Most people think Tara is rude. They don’t blame them, mainly because they kind of are. They communicate primarily through blunt comments and long-suffering sighs, actual enthusiasm hidden behind a layer of armor. It’s a defense mechanism, albeit a horrible and often negative one.

4. As a child Tara had always been too much. Too bossy, too serious and sullen and prone to acts of mild melodrama like calling daycare teachers fascist ogres or “borrowing” every book in their family library one by one until their room became a fortress of bound leather and paper. They were terminally weird, the kind of kid that made adults chuckle and peers cringe. Their mother called it precociousness. Most people called it being a pain in the ass. They were, Tara thinks, both right.

5. Tara doesn’t have a father. Or, rather, they do and it doesn’t matter. Lea Dreschner, heiress to a family legacy of railway barons and stock market kings, had known a man once upon a time as a rich girl with nothing to do. Things ended, as relationships so often do, and she found that she was pregnant. She describes Tara as a happy accident, the thing that helped her decide what she wanted out of life. These days Lea works as a motivational speaker talking about finding your inner light and living as a summer breeze, listing sentimental declarations on life and love that Tara can’t bring themselves to believe. Lea is everything her child is not; optimistic, enthusiastic, extroverted and often naive. It’s easy to see that she was sheltered in a way that Tara never could have been. Lea sees life as a fairytale and, almost as a result, Tara sees it as all too real.

6. This is not to say that Tara dislikes their mother. They love her. Lea Dreschner was for a time the only one who stood by her child, who insisted that there was nothing wrong with a child that was a little serious and uptight and prone to lecturing about injustice. It was Lea, when Tara came out at fourteen, who made buttons and threw a party for two with streamers and cake frosted with pronouns. She’s silly and Tara needs a little bit of silliness just as her mother needs someone to bring her down to earth.

7. It was natural, when Lea began making friends in the neighborhood, that Tara would tag along. Spending time with Denna and Preston was always refreshing, kids of the same age who always seemed to understand that their lack of expression didn’t mean a lack of enthusiasm.

8. Tara hates their family home. It’s a McMansion monstrosity, all beige and spiraling staircases and tacky granite floors, that Lea had bought when she’d decided to settle down. Their childhood bedroom has been altered greatly over the years; walls are covered in posters of everything from 1930’s public health warnings to bands they haven’t listened to in years, polaroids and dried herbs hanging above their bed, colorful rugs scattered across the floor, and a shade over their light that tints the whole room green.

9. In Preston’s Dnd campaign, which Tara pretends to still not know all the rules to, Tara plays a wood elf bard named Madge (They insisted they couldn’t think of a more creative name). They insisted Preston let them create a spell and now “Wonderwall” is their go-to move. The rest of the time they do everything they can to avoid a fight, leading Madge to make many options that lean worryingly evil.

10. A word that could be used to describe Tara is particular. Another is exacting. Perhaps the most accurate would be control freak.

11. Tara looks way cooler than they actually are. They care about clothes and style in a very particular way and their mother has always indulged their whims. Many people say that Tara presents more feminine, but Tara thinks that’s kind of bullshit. Their hair may be grown out long, but it’s more 70s shag than anything else. A lot of their clothes lean retro- bell bottoms and crop tops and big ugly jackets with big clunky boots to top it all off. And if sometimes they wear a bitchin’ dress, well, that’s no one’s business but their own.

12. In their sophomore year of high school, Tara began selling their old clothes and their mother’s vintage online for petty cash. Years later their shop Despoena has achieved an impressive amount of popularity and has expanded into an online vintage store, as well as selling a couple indie clothing, makeup and skincare brands. Tara does not make clothing themselves, but they have a good eye for curating a specific image. The store’s official instagram has far more followers than their personal one, which is how they like it. No one except Denna and Preston even know they run the store, though others might know of it.

13. They know they’re hardly charming enough to be the face of the enterprise, so they keep it purposefully anonymous. The store’s official blog and social media is amiable in a way that Tara is incapable of being, seeming authentic and soft while still professional.

14. Tara recently found out that the amazing designs they’d seen around town are by Naia and they will walk over broken glass to get her stuff in their store. They just don’t know how to ask her.

15. It’s too silly and unsure for Tara to admit wanting it, but in moments where they’re truly honest about their goals they want to expand Despoena into something even bigger. They’ve started taking business classes, but they’re too nervous to talk about it with anyone besides Preston (Not Denna. It’s petty, but they like keeping something from her like how they know she’s keeping something from them). It feels ridiculous for someone as practical as them to be dreaming so big.

16. Imagine Despoena as a cross between Nasty Gal and Goop. There’s a focus on a natural minimalism with quirky touches. Down below I’ll link to some of the clothes and stuff I think would be on there. If I could do literally anything in photoshop I would make a logo, but I’m actually garbage sooo… sorry.

17. Tara was raised on health food and their deep dark shame is that they basically hoard circus peanuts. They’ve been vegetarian basically since birth in addition to being kosher and circus peanuts are neither. They taste like toxic bananas and are orange for some reason and they always have a bag hidden under their bed.

18. Tara and Heath would actually probably get along if Tara were able to talk to Heath without immediately hating them. If anything they could bond over starting a business anonymously or being ridiculously protective of Denna. This isn’t even a headcanon this is just something I realized while writing this.

19. Tara is more cold than angry. If they’re mad at you, you might not even know until a month later.

20. They don’t really look pretty. Or attractive or whatever, despite having the bone structure of an angel. And they don’t want to be attractive. When it comes to their personal look, Tara revels in the strange and interesting. They’re far more likely to wear a sweatshirt patterned with cockroaches than one of the simple and fun dresses you’d find on Despoena. It’s not that Tara dislikes that style- they love it, it’s why their store is the way it is. But for themselves they can only accept it in diluted doses; a simple blouse only feels right when combined with the most trashed thrift store jeans that they have and ostentatious costume jewelry. It’s with the combination of the staid and the bizarre that Tara can feel like themselves, rather than picking a side to stick to.

21. All of Tara’s favorite movies are campy B horror. They love the cartoonish performances and technicolor gore. Preston and Denna have, in their time, been forced to watch many. Tara has most of them memorized line-for-line. They often lament that their wardrobe could use more neon pink-orange bloodstains ala Suspiria.

22. Tara is guarded, but deeply protective of anyone they consider a friend. If someone hurts someone that they care about, they will hate that person for the rest of time. It’s a passion that they don’t have in regards to defending themselves. Tara doesn’t care about people who might have been cruel to them once upon a time, but anyone who ever pushed Denna or Preston on the playground better watch out.

23. Tara was raised Jewish, but doesn’t practice heavily. They still identify as culturally Jewish, go to the synagogue on Yom Kippur, and do their best to keep kosher, mainly out of habit. Since they’re vegetarian, it mainly means feeling weird about cheese made with animal rennet. One time they tried bacon out of curiosity and honestly? Not worth it.

24 At 6’1, they’ve always been one of the tallest people they know. Whenever they interact with someone taller they get grumpy. It’s not something they’re self-conscious about; rather, they see it as something that helps define them.

25. Tara does, in fact, know things about video and tabletop games. They just have horrible twitch reflexes and a bad habit of getting sidetracked on quests no one thought of making, like trying to break down the government of a fantasy world and replace it with a functioning democracy instead of doing fun things and killing dragons.

26. Sometimes Tara appears on Preston’s channel, often to fail horribly at Overwatch (they main Zarya because she’s cute, but have no idea how to play her). Their main appearances are on a very rarely updated series where Tara plays Grand Theft Auto with Preston and tries to accomplish a very specific task that isn’t actually in the game (i.e: buying a pizza, working out at the gym).

27. Part of the reason Tara likes to focus on other people is because it means they don’t have to think about their own problems and mistakes. It’s easier to help a friend than to help yourself.

28. Tara’s romantic history is… complicated. They’ve never been in an official relationship, just flings that occasionally seemed like they might be more. Sometimes when they’re too depressed for their own good they wonder if they’re incapable of anything more, if that’s the cost of seeing the complicated parts of people first.

29. I have a half-formed wisp of an idea that might be really stupid, but I think in high school Tara had a crush on one of Denna’s significant others and nothing happened but they still feel really guilty and gross about it.

30. Tara would rather be miserable than possibly hurt one of their friends.

31. For all of middle school and the first two years of high school, Tara had braces and (occasionally) headgear. It was horrible and part of the reason why they rarely smile or show their teeth.

32. Halloween is Tara’s favorite holiday. They would always give their candy to Preston and Denna as a kid, because their favorite part was going all out with costumes and decorations. Their costumes have only gotten more elaborate over the years and they rope friends into joining them. In the vague future where everything’s cool and they’ve accepted Denna and Heath’s relationship, they finally get to accomplish their dream of going as the cast of Scooby Doo with Pluto as Scooby.