oh like re that tweet by @NYIARULES about roman and seth: i've made this exact thesis statement somewhere in the realm of 40000 times but i digress: roman reigns has massive unprocessed trauma and it's all seth rollins' fault. let's get like dx and break it down

so obvi we all saw dean's immediate reaction to the traumatic event and it manifested in lashing out against his abuser (yes that's what seth is in kayfabe argue with the trees about it), it was definitely the obvious reaction and it was hella cause lmao bitch deserved it

roman. though. did not. and this is the neato part about the roman reigns character: even back in the day seth said 'roman reigns is angry' and Boy Fucking Howdy sethstopher you're not wrong! that is a supervolcano awaiting a tectonic shift

cause roman is angry. and he has a lot of reasons to be and the key component to the roman reigns character is family.

fcw, he's leakee, he's the chosen one who's meant to do great things because of his family. nxt, he's a main event player character because of his prominence (from his family). wwe at the start, the shield is his family.

the shield is his family and it's his brothers and for once it's not that generational You Are Part Of This Whether You Like It Or Not family, there's no pressure, there's no forcefulness, it's him and his brothers and he loves them and that's it.

the shield is his family and then it's not. imagine you're a member of one of the most famous families in your business, there's decades of pressure on your broad, tattooed shoulders. and you find people who take that away from you. found family, if you will

you find two guys who are just Right with you, and they don't put any pressure on you. you understand each other and it's okay.

and then one of them beats the shit out of you with a chair and encourages others to beat the shit out of you more

wild, right? wild how the only family who never made you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders is suddenly gone and he never loved you and now the other one is fucked up in the head even more than he was (again: seth is an abusive character)

SO fast forward over the next few months. you have a few outbursts but you mostly hold it together in large part for dean, because you still love him and he still loves you and you're kind of the only person you have, but then you hook back up with your cousins.

now your cousins have never hidden their relation to the famous family, they've never tried to find anyone else, and you love them and you accept your place in the family (and hell, you bring dean along too, cause he's fun)

and things are going...okay. you get tossed around in the main event but not really seriously.

and then you're winning the royal rumble with the most famous member of your family by your side and then you're main eventing wrestlemania. because that's what you have to do.

roman didn't have a choice and roman almost certainly didn't want that shit. and so he main events wrestlemania and things are going great....

until seth shows up.

he's right at the pinnacle, right at the point where he's thinking 'okay, maybe i am worthy of my family, maybe i am a part of this, maybe that's all okay, maybe i do belong', and then chucklefuck comes along and rips it out of your hands and all of a sudden-

you feel that steel-chair-in-the-back feeling again because Seth Rollins Once Again Took Away Your Family. not in the same way, but he took away the feeling of belonging that roman was just reaching.

the story of roman reigns is one of struggle and pain and family and it's great and seth is a big reason why it's gone the way it has.

cause let's keep going.

fast forward a bit farther: seth has connived his way back into being dean's tag team partner (bastard, derogatory) and roman thinks 'OKAY. maybe THIS time things will be okay' because he feels like a disappointment to his family but now he can have *that* family back

and maybe he can ignore The Shit Seth Has And Continues To Pull because that's what you do, sometimes you ignore when your family hurts you and you be with them anyway. so roman ignores it and gets with the shield again and has a grand old time because he loves those two

for what it's worth: i think in seth's fucked up demon brain he does love roman. but i think he's always taken advantage of him. he knows roman cares primarily about family and loving his family so he'll brush over the worst parts of them.

and then roman and seth and dean get separated. permanently. there is no more shield. there is no more dean to lean on (for either of them), so now they're finding themselves. roman's on sd, seth's on raw, and things are....going okay, actually.

roman's never really been on his own and he didn't even get to be then. he still had the usos, and he cemented himself as an anoa'i, and he was finally fitting in. he wasn't at the top of the heap, but he was happy.

he got to just do stuff with his cousins. the pressure was gone. he was his own version of a leader and it was great.

and then he was gone for a few months.

(meanwhile seth is Losing His Fucking Marbles and ruining poor, sweet buddy murphy)

roman comes back and all of a sudden he's at the top of the mountain. all of a sudden he's the 'head of the table'. all of a sudden he's very openly ALLLLLLL about family.

and he's also lost his fucking mind.

family has always been roman's priority (even though what 'family' meant changed over time) and now it's his priority, but on fucking methamphetamines. now HE'S putting pressure on people. HE'S the one who sets the standard. HE decides who's in the family.

and what does he do?

he hurts jey. manipulates him.

almost like seth would do.

cause roman has always seen seth as family. his little brother. he has to think of him as that because then everything seth has done is okay. it's okay if he's family. it's okay if he's roman's little brother, cause then it's just how families act. it's just how brothers are.

roman knows that what he's doing to jey is wrong. he knows that he's going to do the same thing to seth whenever he decides to step up to roman.

there are really two options here:

1. roman accepts seth as part of his family and offers him a place at the table.

2. roman tells seth every bit of love they shared was a bald faced fucking lie.

both are going to hurt and both are going to suck and both are culminations to the fall of the roman empire.

i might add more to this later but this was a lot