#maybe take a break from the internet forever idk

[pipartuuli]

Hey this should go without saying, but if you run a blog where you gush over and romanticize real life serial killers and mass murderers, you're getting blocked. Don't follow me. Kick rocks. Get fucked with a splintery rake. Etc.

[chanrizard]

I always turn the comments off on chan's room so maybe I missed it, did Chan's room get canceled? I thought he was just taking a break for mental health

hey anon

so the thing is, i think part of the reason he initially took a break from streaming -and for which i'm really grateful- was for mental health reasons, he'd just gone through a terrible loss and skz as a whole were in the middle of preparing for a thousand different schedules

but then there was the whole shittuation with people putting words in his mouth and starting a fandom war and the company forcing him to post an apology on instagram for something he didn't actually do, so i figured he was lying low for a while to avoid even more problems and recharge a bit

(which wouldn't have happened if people found a more edifying hobby that isn't wasting time arguing with a bunch of pixels on the internet btw but that would require some semblance of maturity and i digress)

anyways apparently a fan at their last fanmeeting asked him about the channie's room situation and he said he'd like to, but he's not allowed to stream anymore

and idk people seem to forget that was not a fixed schedule, it was a gift. and since lately it had been causing more and more problems some of the higher ups likely decided to shut it down completely

mind you i'm not defending the company lol i'm pissed as all hell at how they treated him and this situation, but i also see why that would be their decision. like maybe if i squint a lot and use a pair of binoculars and a lot of imagination. and i don't approve of it anyway.

i'm deluding myself into thinking it's cause it was causing even more stress for him and forcing him to apologize every other week, but it's probably because shoving everything under the carpet is easier :)))))

i always turned the live chat off too because the rude comments were a constant, some people just don't know how to be nice 😭

tl;dr no more channie's room if not forever at least for a long while and i'm devastated :]

[hypaalicious]

My internet was out for a week & this is my survival story.

No deadass I was kinda struggling 😭

But at the same time, I learned a lot about how social media is absolutely affecting my brain chemistry and it’s enlightening.

I’ve often had to take breaks from certain platforms whenever I find myself overwhelmed. But I always had an escape to like, other media.

When I ghosted FB for years, I took solace in Tumblr.

When I got burned out on fandom stuff on Tumblr, I ditched it for Twitter.

Whenever Twitter gets to be too annoying, I just scroll on Reddit.

But this was the first time in many moons that I had absolutely NO access to any of my vices. 🥲 Worst part was not having access to my besties on Discord, I felt so isolated and restless and bored. I depend on Twitter as like, my news station as well so there was a lot of FOMO on my shoulders. I was just sitting in the house like

I’m an asocial introvert but being absolutely cut off from the world at the safe distance I already kept it was brutal.

But, I went back to reading. I absolutely tore through Jacqueline Carey’s newest release in a day. I picked up an Astrology book I’ve had forever and read through that. I spent my time doing more chores or just… not having constant stimulus. I was still anxious because I couldn’t talk to my besties and also work on my VN stopped cause the team was waiting on ME to catch up 😩 But…

I’m calmer, overall. I feel less polarized and combative mentally. I have a lot to catch up on but it’s not as overwhelming in my head as it usually is. I feel like despite all my attempts at trying to get to a deeper understanding of astrology by following knowledgeable astrologers, I got more of a breakthrough NOT being pelted by a thousand astro opinions a day. Reading Carey’s book absolutely reignited my love for Terre d’Ange and adult writing in general; she has such a mastery over words I’ve only been able to grasp like ONCE in my life. I was all up in Joscelin’s story like

You really don’t notice how much you’re not being challenged in your reading until someone with her skill runs you over and you thank her for the privilege, LMAO!

I’m scrolling on Twitter now and feel detached from it in a way that’s good, I think. Being constantly informed is a double edged sword and I’m TRULY understanding how just… very reactionary social media is even when you follow people/topics that mean well. It literally cannot be healthy to absorb the knee-jerk takes and think pieces people make all the time, even if it shows me a perspective on issues I hadn’t considered.

It’s sad that my eternal fight with Cox internet forced me to take a sabbatical but I’m thankful for it. I need to be more disciplined and make my own planned absences from social media because I feel better not being constantly plugged in and doom scrolling. Idk how I’m gonna wrestle my ADHD to comply but ima figure it out, lol.

I guess this ramble is a reminder to take breaks from this hellsite and any other form of social media. It seems like nbd when you’re jumping from a YouTube video to IG to Tiktok all in the span of maybe 20 minutes and have been doing that for years. You don’t notice when you’re being overly influenced. You think cause you’ve curated your feed very well that you’re not stressed, especially when there’s extreme examples of unwell people on display to reassure you that you’re doing just fine by comparison.

Bestie, no you’re not. 😭 You’re drowning in stimulus and giving yourself no time to sit in stillness and find YOURSELF outside of all of the noise. Detox from all that and see how far you’ve REALLY come.

[jenyifer]

Breaking Boston pt1

I think this will be a painful series… im going to talk about episode 12 discussing all the ways they destroyed my favorite boy (so I can process heal) and how I’ll tell you guys how I’d fix things. This first one is about Mew. If you like Mew don’t read this. He bitch slapped my baby so many times and If the show isn’t going to hold him accountable I will. If that isn’t your thing don’t click read more. Easy.

Boston shows up to drop out because he’s been effectively bullied out of University. I still think the atom expose account is why Nick showed up at Bostons house to go up to the roof. So if Boston’s dad saw that which he definitely would because the internet is forever his relationship with his dad is over and he has to leave. He’s been kicked off of the hostel project so how is he going to graduate anyways. Seems like mew and ray already knew about atom from Cheum but they don’t give a flying fuck. And in fact Mew wants to torture Boston because? Why? He’s been punished. Mew is back with Top. Their friendship meant nothing to mew? Boston honestly tells them he just wants to be their friend again because he still loves them. Boston NEEDS his found family he is still fucking hurt. But no Mew is fucking evil. Idk how else to explain him here.

Jenny’s Fix: upon hearing Boston is dropping out Cheum admits to the group Atom was a fucking liar. Mew and Ray are surprised and try to convince Boston to just graduate with them. Apologize for not believing him at all. Or ask if he’s alright at the very least. I’d be worried about someone dropping out even if I didn’t like them. It could still be awkward but Bostons confession he just needs his friends would have had more impact.

Then Boston makes the big boy decision to see his friends one more time. We don’t know how much time past from Boston’s mistake at the club and NYE but it seems Boston has been truly alone since then. He didn’t seem to invite Nick to the Hostel until he was being tortured by his friend’s happiness. To avoid talking about Nick he goes to apologize Mew 1v1 because he did Love mew. Mew was like a brother to him. Someone who maybe saw Boston for more than meat. But Mew has no heart in his chest. Only disdain. Their past relationship meant nothing. Boston being hurt means nothing. Boston truly apologizing means nothing. He’s scum on Mew’s shoe. Even Boston hugging him does nothing. Mew always hated Boston. Mew can’t see the irony in this.

Jenny’s Fix: Mew telling Boston things can’t go back to the way they were but he understands him better now. That he appreciates the gesture but it’ll take time but Boston is still his friend who he met all that time ago. Maybe a smile? Maybe a apology for not being there for Boston. But I think that’d be too far. No more slut shaming because Mew can semi understand. Sometimes we all fuck up. But Mew can tell Boston has changed.

Mew can’t let Nick win. He can’t let Nickntalk about bettering himself because Mew is a bitch and no one can be happy. He also enjoying hurting Nick because Boston loves him. Mew has to rub Boston’s Nose in the fact he isn’t with Nick. Mew is also hurting Nick because he’s judging him for his past choices

Jenny’s fix: let sand say something encouraging to Nick. It would still hurt Boston but at least Nick won’t be being made fun of by fucking mew.

Boston tried one more time to reach out to Mew hopeful that maybe Mew could one day be okay with him. Mew said he forgave Boston but didn’t forget. But no mew is a torturer evil bitch. Can he not see how much he meant to Boston after all these scenes? Is he fucking stupid? At least Boston isn’t surprised. Mew tells Boston he’s not good enough again. Just another put down.

Jenny’s Fix: Mew tells Boston maybe. Or tells him to come stay at the hostel some time. Gives Boston a hug tells him not to lose his phone number. Then give him a push to go find Nick.

Mew was just manipulative and evil. I can’t relate to any of his decisions especially towards Boston. I doubt they were ever actually friends. I feel so bad for Boston always reaching for Mew trying to make things better do what he wants but no Boston is always a nasty whore who is never good enough with a pathetic loser boyfriend who Mew can’t remember was just as hurt by TopBoston. I will never watch the TopMew scenes again.

[cubur]

Take as much time as you need. If possible call a friend or someone close to you so you could spend time with someone understanding and calm and patient. Or with some animals. Anything that can calm your mind down or bring you serotonin. Please don't close yourself in a room without contact (I mean contact with friends not contact here with internet strangers). If you need a long break - do it. If you need to stop posting at all and disappear from the internet forever - do it. Your health - mental and physical - is much more important than strangers' pleasure.

Take care of yourself gently, please.

Well… I don't know what to say at this point. Some of you said via dm that you even thought I would commit suicide. So I'm just sorry if i scared you guys or something！That wasn't my purpose. I just felt like I needed a little time alone, that's all. Also if there are those who follow my instagram, I made some updates to my story from time to time during this period. But despite that I apologize to whoever i have seriously worried！

I appreciate the way you think and all your kind words. I've already tried to talk/spend time to people I feel comfortable with and solve questions that I need to know the answers to… but still don't know if i can say "I'm totally alright" now. I mean i'm not sure if it works, or maybe i need some more time idk…

I just want you guys to know that I read all the comments/dms even though i couldn't answer them all. So all i can say is… Thank you for your love and support throughout this period！I truly appreciate your understanding！！🙏❤️

[pinetreevillain]

I just want to tell you that your Friends Like These comic is just,,, everything to me its SO GOOD I re-read it constantly the colors are perfect and the expressions make me laugh,, I saw you posted something about a quick doodle getting way more notes than the comic you worked so hard on; if it's any consolation that comic will live in my brain forever and also I would love to print it out and put it on my fridge (can I do that)

THANK YOU! Yeah I’ve just forgotten the Ways Of The Internet and how it always loves shitty two minutes sketches, and statistically if u spend a long time on something it will never do well (it’s like the algorithms Know or smthn idk or maybe that’s just the human brain liking it more than finish art)

But the response Friends Like These has gotten is more than I ever could have asked or hoped for! It is, after all, a comic featuring a random OC essentially haha

I’m gonna be taking a break from any more comics like this for a bit, focus on other art and my patreon, but I do have more comics planned! Friends Like These is just the beginning :)

[scoopsgf]

what are the most literati taylor swift songs?

OH okay please allow me a moment to review her entire discography

from midnights i would say: question (did you leave her house [aka town] in the middle of the night? / did you wish you’d put up more of a fight?), midnight rain (though i would invert it so like: [she] wanted it comfortable, i wanted that pain / all of me changed like midnight rain), you’re on your own, kid (FROM SPRINKLER SPLASHES TO FIREPLACE ASHES / I WAITED AGES TO SEE YOU THERE / I SEARCHED THE PARTY OF BETTER BODIES JUST TO LEARN THAT YOU NEVER CARED!!!! YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN KID!!! YOU ALWAYS HAVE BEEN!!!!). from evermore i just can’t help associating ’tis the damn season w them (esp bc of @georgianadarcies’s fic) like. the idea of them as adults returning to stars hollow and having a FWB relationship because they are fucking idiots. only to realize they’re both still hung up on each other. still in love. what the fuck. also happiness (there’ll be happiness after you / but there was happiness because of you, too / both of these things can be true), right where you left me (matches burn after the other / pages turn and stick to each other / wages earned and lessons learned / but i, i’m right where you left me … everybody moved on … they expected me to find somewhere / some perspective, but i sat and stared… you left me no choice but to stay here forever) like JESUS CHRIST. also coney island bc of reckless abandon (i’m sitting on a bench in coney island wonderin’ where did my baby go ….). from folklore there are so many like that album was made for them i s2g. betty (i’m only 17, i don’t know anything / but i know i miss you), the 1 (i thought i saw you at the bus stop, i didn’t though … i guess you never know, never know / and if you wanted me, you really should’ve showed / and if you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow / and it’s alright now … and if my wishes came true / it would’ve been you … i have this dream you’re doing cool shit / having adventures on your own / you meet some woman on the internet and take her home … and it would’ve been sweet / if it could’ve been me) like are you absolutely SHITTING ME the whole song is them and their break up from rory’s perspective and just. the passage of time. her wondering about him and imagining him with other girls and thinking of him as her One but it didn’t work out. i am throwing up. then we have this is me trying which is sooooo jess mariano coded (I’ve been having a hard time adjusting / had the shiniest wheels, now they’re rusting / i didn’t know if you’d care if I came back / i have a lot of regrets about that / pulled the car off the road to the lookout / could’ve followed my fears all the way down / and maybe I don’t quite know what to say / but I’m HERE IN YOUR DOORWAY!!!! … they told me all of my cages were mental / so I got wasted like all my potential / and my words shoot to KILL when I’m mad / i have a lot of regrets about that … I WAS SO AHEAD OF THR CURVE THE CURVE BECAME A SPHERE / FELL BEHIND ON MY CLASSMATES AND I ENDED UP HERE!!!!! … AND ITS HARD TO BE AT A PARTY WHEN I FEEL LIKE AN OPEN WOUND / ITS HARD TO BE ANYWHERE THESE DAYS WHEN ALL I WANT IS YOU / YOU’RE A FLASHBACK IN A FILM REEL ON THE ONE SCREEN IN MY OWN). im throwing up like what the FUCK. you cannot convince me that this song is not about him. anyway there are more off of other albums, like atw 10 min version on red tv—but that one is less them from a narrative standpoint and it’s more about. idk the lament-y vibes.

[lee-minhoe]

✨ content creator year in review ✨

tagged by @alrightyaphroditie @ambivartence @chanrizard love you all <3333 🥺🥺

1. first creation / most recent creation

my very first gifset ever was this one where jaemin freaks out after he realizes he talked about strawberries haha. my most recent set is this one of lee know's eyes :)

2. one of your favorite creations

hmmm honestly, even though they often don't get the most notes (or many at all), my fav creations are actually the ones i make for my moots bc i love seeing them love something made for them 🥺(and seeing them lose it in the tags hahaha) for example, this hyunminsung set; this soft lino set (and the infamous siyuan bias list set i made though i think there have been some new additions in the past month LOL); this changbin set; this tyong set

3. a creation you're really proud of

any of my comp sets!! apple hair lino, glasses lino, bw cap lino, shit lino says, the lino mood sets. i love making them, but they take a while and it's really nice to see the resulting set

4. a creation that took you forever

this lino maniac one took quite a while because i wanted to make all the clips move in sync, sometimes it works on my computer and not my phone so idk if it actually worked lol but had a lot of fun pain making that one

5. the creation that received the most notes

my first linotonin set, i am blown away by it but also maybe not surprised hahaha while we're here i will also plug my linotonin pt 2 and my linotonin in video form lol in case anyone needs a little linotonin in their life rn

6. a creation you think deserves more notes

like kass and sa and siyuan have all already said better, i don't think i necessarily deserve any notes because we're all here screaming about kpop in our little corners of the internet so it's not that deep lol, i'm glad if people like my sets and it brings them joy like it did for me to make them but i make sets because i want to <3 though i certainly appreciate the nice tags that people leave of course

that being said, i am still so shocked that this set received so many notes, like I GET WHY but i truly was just putting some random clips of lino that i liked from that skz talker hahaha. so i guess that just goes to show you, even if you do care about the notes it is hard to predict how many a set is going to get. so i try to remind myself to just enjoy the process :)

7. a new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it

oh man there were a looot of new groups but the big ones would be skz and txt (it truly does not feel like i joined those fandoms only last year in 2022). also nine.i !! some other groups too like n.flying, xdh, oneus, though i haven't made any sets for those. i also started to learn tbz and mx, and learned ateez and p1h names by osmosis thanks to siyuan lmao so you can thank her for the fact that i have now listed 9 new groups even though the question only asked for one

also!! k-actors!! :D

8. a creation you made that breaks your heart

lino eyes set because they make me melt

9. a "simple" creation that you really love

haha.....this was my pinned post for a while (sorry jaemin)

10. a creation that was inspired by another one

the lino mood sets inspired by this one, this mark set inspired by @tyongsies taeyong set hehe

11. a favorite creation created by someone else

there are literally so many i wouldn't even know where to start!! though i will give a special shoutout to nini's secret santa set for me because it is so amazing

12. favorite content creators for the year

okay here we go: @agibbangs @alrightyaphroditie @ambivartence @changbeens @chanrizard @chanstopher @chenleyah @dearlyminhyung @ggthydrangea @hyunebear @hyunpic @jinniebit @jisungsjaistandjeekies @leemarkies @minchanz @minzbins @ohoshi @potatzu @shorelinnes @snug-gyu @strayklds @tyongsies @yyukhei (this also serves as a tag if you haven't done it and want to, no pressure. otherwise this is just a hi and hug from me, love yall <3

[climaxbattles]

vent dont read (unless the curiousity consumes you i guess. if you know me personally it might suck)

i havent been able to leave the house since may and it seems like every day i get worse and worse

i just cant deal with anything i dont know why

i dont go outside, i cant be alone, i cant even eat too fast/slow or i just like completely freak out

i started therapy and this is the first time ive ever been hopeful about interacting with a therapist but i still kind of dread it every week. im not even sure its helping like maybe shorter sessions would be better but i use so much energy just getting through the day i cant communicate until its too late

i dont even understand what made this happen my only guess is that one of the medications i tried really messed me up (or i have a brain tumor or thyroid problem or something) because a few of them had really really terrible side effects and i almost had to go back to the hospital for the 3rd time in a year, but i dont get why im not getting better when i dont do anything and im not on those meds anymore.

and if it is physical i cant leave the house without panicking like. i dont know how else i would go anywhere to get it checked out unless it got so bad i had to call an ambulance again so they could lie me down and give me oxygen and turn all the lights off and hold my hand again but that also was like very traumatic so im afraid i would just completely break

my friend is over visiting and i havent seen her in forever bc she moved 4 hours away and i cant even bring myself to hang out with her because she brought her boyfriend and i already have problems talking to anyone but her even though i fucking live with her family and leech off them. so im just hiding in my room

i dont really talk to anyone much anymore and i dont even know if its Because i want to be left alone or if its something making me lonely/im upset about. it also kind of seems like people r moving on from me but that could be like entirely self inflicted bc one on one conversation terrified me even before and now i like have panic attacks if a breathe wrong let alone attempt something thats always scared me

i think like some of them maybe also have a seperate discord server i wasnt invited to. this happened literally months ago where i accidentally found out and its not really my business i guess. and i dont even rly know if its true or even used anymore

it just feels bad because i lost a friend of like 7 years and a friend i really related to but didnt know long because i took their side in multiple arguments and i dont regret the 2nd one but the first one kind of still sucks. the people i lost had a lot of their own problems that made them unpleasant but idk. the first person was kind of always open to talking to me even though we r both fucked up and wouldnt ignore me even when i sometimes would bc of my own problems

and then if there Is a second server thats kind of why the second person lost their shit. so its like Maybe they were right in a small way (they were completely fucked though they would like suicidebait randomly and ive never had any other friend do that so its still for the best i think)

it seems like i keep losing or pushing away good friends kind of. or maybe im bad at all friends idk. ive never enjoyed socializing so it seems like my fault probably

i honestly just wish i could get on food stamps and/or disability on top of medicaid but i think people are still insisting i can go back to the way i was before. idk if thats possible. i just want to be able to stop taking As much Directly from other people and maybe like. buy legos or a 3d printer or something. i dont have much to do in the house 24/7 and my computer is getting old. and i think the internet is making this all worse but thats like my only activity

im so tired

[trying-to-find-you-in-the-moon]

Valentine’s Day ask

1 through 65😊

Jesus,all of them ? Okay that's going to take me a minute to answer 😂

1. Do you have a crush at the moment?

Yeah

2. Have you ever been deeply in love?

Mhhm I have

3. Longest relationship you've ever been in?

You know exactly how long 😅

4. Have you ever changed for someone?

Nope never.

5. How is your relationship with your ex?

Good

6. Have you ever been cheated on?

Ahh yep 🥲

7. Have you ever cheated?

No

8. Would you date someone well known for cheating?

I don't think so no

9. What's the most important part of a relationship?

For me communication

10. Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings?

Relationships, flings aren't for me

11. When you are dating someone, do you believe in going on "breaks"?

Nope I don't

12. How many people have you ever hooked up with?

A total of 0

13. What's the one thing you regret doing/saying in a previous relationship?

Jeez, umm I'm not sure,I'll get back to you on that

14. What age do you think it's appropriate for kids to start having sex?

18

15. Do you believe in the phrase "age is just a number"

Nope,creepy.

16.do you believe in love at first sight?

I do

17. Do you believe it's possible to fall in love on the internet?

Yep I do

18. What do you consider a deal breaker?

Cheating, emotional, physical any of that

19. How do you know when it's time to end a relationship?

When you're not happy and nothing is changing

20. Are you currently in a relationship?

Nope.

21. Do you think people that have dated can stay friends?

Hm I think so

22. Do you think people should date their friends?

Yeah sure why not as long as it's what both parties want

23. How many relationships have you had ?

1

24. Do you think love can last forever?

Yeah definitely

25. Do you believe love can conquer all things ?

Hmm I'm not sure

26. Would you break up with someone your parents didn't approve of ?

Depends if they had valid reasons or not

27. If you could go back in time and give yourself advice about dating what would it be ?

Oh umm idk 😂😅

28. Do you think long distance relationships can work?

Definitely yeah

29. What do you notice first about another person?

How they treat other people.

30. Are you straight, gay, bisexual or pansexual?

I'm bisexual

31. Would it bother you you if your partner suffered from mental illness?

Not at all.

32. Have you ever been in an abusive relationship?

Nope

33. Do you want to get married one day ?

Yep I do.

34. What do you think about getting your partners name tattooed ?

Creeps me out

35. Could you be in a relationship without sex?

Yeah

36. Are you still a virgin?

Yep 😅

37. What's more important looks or personality?

Both

38. Do you enjoy love films?

Sometimes

39. Have you ever given/received roses ?

No never.

40. Have you ever had a valentine?

Not really no

41. What's you imagination of a perfect date ?

Hmm I don't know tbh 🤷🏻‍♀️

42. Have you ever read Romeo and Juliet?

I have

43. What's more important your partner or friends?

Both are important

44. Would you consider yourself romantic?

Definitely

45. Could you imagine to date one of your current friends?

Maybe

46. Have you ever been friendzoned ?

Haha yeah

47. Which famous couple is your favourite?

Blake lively and Ryan Reynolds

48. What's your favourite love song ?

Don't have one

49. Have you ever broken someone's heart ?

I don't think I have no.

50. If you're single why do you think you are ?

Oh jeez we could be here all night if I answered that

51. Would rather date someone who's rich and doucebag or poor and nice guy.

Poor and a nice guy

52. Are you good at giving other people relationship advice ?

Surprisingly yes

53. Are you jealous of couples when single ?

Wouldn't say jealous lol

54. How important is it to make a relationship official i.e Facebook

I think it's important to let other people know that you're with someone,like posting pictures and stuff, don't hide it

55. Would you consider yourself clingy,over attached or jealous?

Probably a little

56. Have you ever destroyed a relationship?

Nope

57. Do you think it's silly to consider suicide because of a broken heart ?

Maybe ? I don't know ,I can't talk on that ...

58 Are you the dominant or submissive part in the relationship?

Both.

59. Have you ever forgotten important dates like birthdays and anniversaries? .

Nope

60. What's your opinion on open relationships ?

It's not for me but each to their own once everyone is happy with it.

61. Who's more important family or partner?

Both

62. How do you define cheating?

Stepping outside of the relationship, emotional, physical or even entertaining someone else

63. Is watching porn while in a relationship inappropriate?

I don't think so

64. Do you think valentine's day is overrated?

Nope I don't

65. Would you consider yourself a cuddler?

Oh definitely.

Okay I got there in the end, enjoy 😂😅

[cruella-devilla]

thank u so much for posting about purity culture and how the “treatment” ppl tend to push is hookup culture and just having a lot of sex to kill the shame around it, when that’s. not helpful at all. i grew up catholic and i remember consciously thinking that what they were saying about sex and shame and whatever was probably wrong, but it gets to u after being repeated.

but i don’t think my aversion to hookup culture is purity culture related, i think my conscious view of sex being a mutually pleasurable experience between two people who respect (and maybe even love) each other is healthy and good, but the internet is obsessed w how the hypersexual opposite of sleeping around is morally “better” than being w one person. idk maybe it is the purity culture in me but the encouragement of hypersexuality in response makes me so uncomfy. but i have many thoughts abt purity culture and the way ppl who did not grow up in it talk about it are so ignorant and dismissive

Omg yes! I was raised Christian and I completely understand. I also agree that the trauma that people might carry from purity culture tends to never be addressed properly, that’s why I try to speak up about it. When people suggest that “hookup culture is the way to go” they’re literally just forcing you into more trauma, purity culture literally removes any forms of boundaries (for women specifically bc we are always taught that our sexuality is not existent and only for reproduction) and hook up culture worsens it. You don’t just get over your sexual guilt after having sex, if anything, it can further traumatize you, how many stories are their about women (and even men) having a mental break down after having their first time because it was so terrifying to them.

I could honestly go on and on about how traumatic purity culture is AND hook up culture. At least, recently, some people start talking about how hook culture is harmful but no one talks enough about the harm of purity culture.

seeing sex as something that’s meaningful and intimate should be the default, not something that’s exclusive to a certain group.

I’m glad that I’m able to help and spread awareness (even if I don’t have many follows yet) because I do want to spread awareness and help those that were traumatized by purity culture and also heal myself as well. (sorry for taking forever to reply to this ask it’s been sitting in my inbox for a while aaa)

[douevenbleachbro]

Rukia week 2023 04/10-04/18

I’m thinking I may do Day 1 and 2 (Crush or Everyone’s First Love) but all the prompts are sooo gooood! ----

Ok so, Crush. The idea I have kiiinda resembles Earned It a little, since I’m thinking of writing about each guy in her life. That’s a Rukia retrospective and I like the idea, but it’s a little too similar, although I didn’t write any romantic themes with anyone other than Ichigo, so maybe I could. Hmmm...BTW that fic has 90 kudos...uyuyuy look at me hehehe. People are horny...which I get, lol.

Anyways! Ok so the premise would be all the people that had a crush on Rukia and the one Rukia fell in love with. (The 5 times someone crushed on Rukia and the one time Rukia fell in love) I’m thinking Renji, Byakuya, Kaien and Ichigo, and for the 5th Im juggling between Grimmjow or Orihime (she did have that one time she said she loved Rukia right? When she was jealous? I could work with that. She may be easier to write than Grimm ‘cause tbf their main interaction was kinda...violent). I wanna do 5 crushes cause 5 issa vibe. I don’t like 3 or 4. I’ll have to break those down later. 

Everyone’s First Love can fall into this category as well cause she could very well be all these people’s first love (except Bya and Kaien). So both those prompts fit into it. 

You see as I’m writing this Im already getting second thoughts cause this premise sounds kinda obvious, and I would bow down in a second if I knew a better writer has a similar idea. Is that fair to me though? Ah who knows. This is what my brain does though, it’ll plant the self-doubt to deep that it’ll drain any incentive to write. It’s embarrassed me every time I’ve had a deadline for a fic. I hate it. 

---

Ugh why can’t I be a good writer! Hahaha. My brain frustrates me so much. I’m trying to get better by taking my meds and all that but I fear it’s too late cause I’m old (I’m in my late thirties but according to the internet I’m dying so). I just wanna write something that makes me so proud! Using witty word play or deep metaphors. I just feel like my writing is empty, like people can tell im try-harding. I am, trying really hard. But I can’t seem to find any depth to what I’m writing. And where did all this exposition come from? I was reading my older fics and I was going through the story a mile per second and now Im like 20k words and nowhere near the plot! I don’t even speak like that in real life! I tend to get to the point cause otherwise I’ll forget! I dunno what happens when I’m writing, especially dialogue, cause I want to explain every little expression the character is making the way I see it in my head. Maybe I need to write scripts? And get IR look-alikes? hahahahahaha...

Well this went sideways. I was supposed to brainstorm for a Rukia fic. Lol. I wonder if practice can actually make perfect in this case, but idk. It’s just fics so who cares, only that I care cause its literally the only creative outlet I have! And the only fucking fandom I participate in! Why BLEACH?! WHY? Let me goooooo!.....ah who am I kidding, I’ll forever love Rukia, my forever waifu. 

[lacheri]

ahahahahahaha

"good girl—that's a good fucking girl."

with levi?

(also your new theme is so adorable I love it)

thank u you're adorable and i love u whoops who said that i mean ahem we're in our enemies arc right?? *nervous laughter*

anyways consider this revenge for the daddy kink superior oneshot u posted

content: fem bodied reader x dom levi, they are smoking WEED, thoughts about death and existentialism, implied reader's first time getting high??? idk just roll w it it's literally the internet, college au, best friends to lovers, i'm a comedic genius, various mentions of kinks (degradation, bondage, furries????) but not actually used in the fic, praise kink, DADDY kink omfg. finger fuckin happy 420, i did not reread this or edit it in the slightest enjoy my absolute unhinged inner workings, minors and ageless blogs do not interact!

wc: a little over 3k i just wanna sleep

prompt event closed! i am no longer taking requests! (:

Smoke is a weird concept. How it billows like clouds, streaming up and up and up, aimlessly going nowhere, anywhere. It’s even weirder to think how the fog, moments ago, brewed within the wet caverns of your lungs. You can’t feel it, the way it hangs in your lungs, and for a split second it’s hard to believe the haze was ever inside of you at all.

But it flows so smoothly between your lips as you exhale, and if the burning plant so lovingly bundled in a backwoods cigar casing was anything but weed, you’d consider it poisonous. Hell, maybe it still is, but isn’t that what life is all about anyways? Living, regardless of what may draw your ending a bit closer than before? It’s trivial anyways. Who wants to live their life clean cut and without the impending fear of it all suddenly ending by their own doing? Sounds quite boring.

“You still with me?” Levi nudges your side, arching an eyebrow. 

You shake your head, blinking away your thoughts, “Are we ever really here?”

“Alright, you’ve had enough,” his tongue clicks against his teeth, plucking the blunt away from your frozen fingers. “Should’ve never let you convince me to try this.”

“You don’t even know what I was thinking about,” your spine slumps against the back of his couch. 

The lights in Levi’s living space are so pretty, twinkling like little fairies, dancing about and giggling in their foreign tongue. You’re not hallucinating, just romanticizing the mundane, fixating on the dim yellow light that leaves soft shadows across his dorm. You’re glad he doesn’t have any roommates at the moment, they’d probably distract you from taking in your thoughts. They’re coming at lightspeed. 

You’re practically a roommate by now anyways. You basically live here. You have your own drawer filled with clothes inside of Levi’s dresser. You’d worry that Levi gets lonely, but he doesn’t, not when he has you around.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Are you a mind reader now?” you snort. “Distract me then. It’s pretty easy at the moment.”

“How are you feeling?” his eyes shift over your lazed form, relaxed and unburdened. 

You purse your lips, concentrating on the bridge of his nose, “I feel good. Can’t stop thinking thoughts.”

“Ground breaking,” Levi’s lips twitch before he places the cigar to his mouth. He takes a deep inhale, holds it for a beat, exhaling soundlessly. “Care to share these thoughts?”

“I might kill the vibe,” you giggle.

He chuckles, “Us sitting here in complete silence already did.”

“What if I don’t shut up?” your knee knocks into his playfully. “What if I just talk forever and ever, going on and on and on–”

The blunt is shoved in front of your face, you eye it quizzically as Levi says, “Nevermind. I liked the silence.”

“Mean,” you roll your eyes, reaching out for the drug. 

It’s burned down to a roach now, or at least that’s what you think it’s called. You’re not exactly sure, as this is the first time in your life you’ve ever gotten high. After several weeks of begging Levi to let you try it. It’s all part of the college experience, you reasoned, to which he told you getting a degree is more important. He’s overbearing a lot of the time, but it’s just because he cares. You think. You’ve been friends for too long to really criticize his intentions.

The heat licks at the tips of your fingers, and it’s painful to hold, so you squeak to Levi, “I can’t. It’s hot.”

“Such a baby,” he sighs, taking the roach back. “Whiny and introspective, what a combination.”

You frown, glaring as you respond, “I hardly know what I’m doing, smart ass.”

“You want me to hold it for you, baby?” Levi mocks you, but in this state of mind, the tease sounds a lot more suggestive than it actually is.

Oh, so weed makes you horny. Got it.

“Please?” you smile lazily. 

“Since you asked so nicely.”

Once again, the blunt is placed in front of your face. You don’t really understand how Levi isn’t flinching back from the flame. With the way he holds it, the lit end narrowly escapes brushing into the inside of his thumb. He has to feel the heat culminating in his palm, but he doesn’t react. 

You shift forward, leaning in to place your mouth on the cigar. The tips of his digits brush against your lips, and suddenly you feel like you can’t breathe properly. Not when he’s staring so attentively at you, pressing his fingers into the soft skin of your mouth to ensure you get a good hit.

Maybe getting smoked out by Levi was a bad idea after all. Usually you’re able to quiet these feelings and thoughts. Your brain is too spacious of a place to hide them right now, so your heart beats faster. Not because of the weed, but because you can’t stop thinking about your enormous crush on your best friend.

Despite the internal bombardment of your psyche, you take a deep breath, the smoke fills your lungs, and you’re exhaling. You repeat, Levi’s hand unwavering in front of you. Your exhales flirt around his palm, curling around his fingers, kissing the tips goodbye when it's their time to ascend to the ceiling.  

“There you go,” he mumbles. “Good girl.”

The silence is booming after the words fall from his lips. Your eyes are stuck on his, silver irises lovingly caressed by inky soft pinks and reds, blooming from the corners of his eyes to the centers. They’re even more striking like this. The contrast is alarmingly beautiful, and soon enough, you’re fixated.

As if you don’t stare Levi down every time you’re in his company. Perhaps now you’re just stupidly self aware of it.

Levi studies your expression, and it must be telling because he says, “What was that?”

“What was what?” you deflect, watching on as he stubs out the blunt in an ashtray on his coffee table.

His pointer finger pokes the tip of your nose, “That look. Don’t tell me you’re into that.”

“Into what?” you respond, heart racing just a bit faster.

“Getting called a good girl,” his voice dips lower. “Fuck, you totally are. You should see your face right now.”

“Then stop saying it!” you laugh out of embarrassment, swatting his palm away to bury your face in your own hands. You yell through the cracks of your fingers, “Fuck off!”

“That’s not how good girls speak, now is it?” Levi forces your hands from your cheeks, shoving them down into your lap. He squeezes your wrists together, the sensation rippling through your body, creating a domino effect of desire.

Fuck.

“What’s your kink then, huh? What weird shit are you into?” you attempt to divert the attention away from you, yanking your hands away from his hold.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? What the fuck are you– Ow! That fucking hurts!”

Your fingers grip at his hair, tugging and pulling at the roots, “Not into pain then. Not your own, at least.”

“Slap yourself and see if it turns me on,” Levi grumbles, smoothing over where you’d yanked. 

“Funny.” You had considered for a second. A high, stupid second. 

Your eyes flit over his face, his dark brows furrowed and eyes suspicious. His posture is tense, but Levi is always tense. His knees are spread apart, back stiff against the cushioning of the couch. His left forearm rests at his side, his right still cradling his head. 

“Degradation,” you narrow your gaze. 

“Nope. Try again.”

“Ropes.”

“Not the one I was really thinking of.”

“So there is one big one?”

“You’re never going to guess it. Give up.”

You snap your fingers, smiling ear to ear, “I got it! You’re a furry!”

Levi doesn’t even entertain you with a response. The deadpan glare is enough.

You laugh a bit too hard, “Okay, okay. Um, shit. You’re into someone, or you, getting dressed up in an outfit.”

“I’m not a fucking furry.”

“No, no!” you giggle. “Like a sexy maid! Or fancy lingerie!”

“It’s nice, but no, that’s not the one,” his eyes sparkle, humor thick in his voice. 

“Ropes and lingerie are cool, not into degrading,” you think out loud. “Are you a top or a bottom?”

“That’ll make it obvious.”

“How?”

“It just will.”

You look at Levi then, really look at him. From the solid clench in his jaw, to the way he claims his space so unapologetically, laid out against his sofa. His eyes are determined, fierce, and you’ve spent far too many nights imagining how deep the colors turn as he hovers over your body, thrusting in and out, praise after praise dripping from his lips like honey. How his hands would so perfectly wrap around your waist, your thighs, your throat. He’s got a filthy mouth on him, so you gather that it reaches a new altitude when he’s in the throes of pleasure. You think he might even growl when he cums.

Levi is the definition of confidence. A confident person must have a confident kink.

And then suddenly, it clicks. 

“I figured it out,” your tone shifts, dropping lower. You move your body closer until the outside of your thigh touches his, hovering your lips above his ear. “Aren’t you a nasty little thing?”

“I already told you, I’m not into degradation,” there’s a mild waver in his speech. 

“I know you’re not, daddy.”

Levi stiffens completely next to you, his breath caught in his throat. You smirk triumphantly, and try to ignore the creeping of heat in the pit of your stomach. Maybe it’s the weed, maybe it’s the squeezing in your core transforming into a furious pounding, maybe it's all the years of denying your feelings coming to a head – you place a bold hand on his thigh, thumb stroking along the inseam of his sweatpants.

“Well,” your lips brush along the shell of his ear. “Am I right, daddy? Is this your kink?”

“Stop,” Levi grits out, fists clenching at his sides. 

“You didn’t stop when you found mine out,” you pout. “Why should I?”

“You really don’t want to test me. I promise you that you won’t like it,” he snarls. 

“I’m sort of curious,” your touch trails higher. You wonder if he’s getting hard right now. “Why do you like being called daddy?”

Levi says your name in a low warning, “Knock it off. I’m serious.”

“Why? Is it turning you on?” You’re utterly consumed by the lust blossoming in your center, drunk (high) off the knowledge that Levi has a fucking daddy kink. Who could’ve guessed it? “It’s only fair.”

“Fair because I turned you on?” he whips his head toward you, staring fiercely into your eyes. “Is your pussy wet from me telling you how you were such a good girl, taking that hit like that?”

“I don’t know daddy, is it?”

“Are you going to be good and let me find out? Or,” he grips your wandering wrist, guiding you back slowly down until your spine meets the padded seats of the sofa. You’re shaking, head swimming in the realization that Levi, your best friend and the person you’ve thought about while touching yourself for years, is really looming over you. His trembling breaths fan across your face, his free hand smoothing up your waist, “Are you going to a bratty little girl like you’ve been the past five minutes?”

You don’t want to choose. You want to be both. You gape up at him instead of answering, pulse pounding in your eardrums and body squirming under his intense focus. 

He doesn’t like that.

“Tell me you’re going to listen,” his pupils are dilated, his expression unhinged and positively wild. 

“Yes!” you rush out. You feel like you’re on fire. 

“Yes, what?” 

With a quivering voice, you blink up at him, “Yes, daddy.”

“Good girl,” Levi coos. “Spread your legs.”

Your body goes on autopilot, opening yourself open to his hungry gaze and domineering timbre. You’re glad you wore shorts tonight — it’ll be incredibly easy to take them off in a minute. 

His hazy eyes flirt down from your face, taking in the sight of your clothed body parting for him. His bottom lip is tugged by his front teeth, bouncing back into place moments later. His hands wander all over — the tops of your shoulders, the curve over your breasts, the plush of your stomach, the tops of your thighs. You almost wish you could take a picture of his face, but it’s ingrained in your memory now. You don’t think you’ll ever be able to forget the way Levi’s looking at you.

“It might be wrong of me to admit,” his voice is thick with desire. “But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about this.”

Your heart leaps in your chest, “Me too.”

His attention darts back to your eyes, mouth agape, “Really?”

You nod, “I’ve imagined this for the past three years. Ever since we became friends.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Levi rasps, fingers curling along the waistband of your shorts.

“Why didn’t you?” you respond with your own question.

“Didn’t think you’d feel the same,” his nails scratch along your lower belly. “But I don’t think I can control myself anymore.”

“Then don’t.”

A fire ignites in his eyes, gripping and passionate, and he lunges in. His lips attach to yours ferociously, swallowing every whimper and gasp you exhale upon collision. His hand slides past the barrier of your clothing, dipping dangerously along the outskirts of your panties. You buck your hips, kissing him back with equal desperation, pouring as much of yourself as you can into his attention.

Levi groans into your mouth, trailing the tips of his fingers along your clothed slit, “Fuck, you are wet.”

“Touch me, please,” you beg, your palms circling the back of his neck. 

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Your panties slide to the side, and his middle finger generously swipes along your folds, collecting arousal and desire and years of yearning. The tip circles your clit, nudging the bud side to side, your pussy clenches around nothing.

“You’re gonna cum from my fingers, okay?” Levi asks, but it sounds more like a demand. “And if you stop kissing me, I won’t let you. Understood?”

You whimper, “Yes, fuck, please Levi, need you so bad.”

“Say it,” he begs. “Fucking say it for me baby.”

“Please, daddy,” you plead, high pitched and uncontrolled.

“You’re doing so good, sweetheart,” he pecks your lips, sweetly affectionate. His palm flattens on your cunt, using every digit to rub toe curling patterns against your clit. You shutter, desperately kissing every piece of skin around his mouth you can grab onto.

When Levi’s fingers position at your entrance, knuckles slowly sinking in the gushing heat of your center, you scream, “Oh fuck! Oh my fucking god, fuck, I can’t—“

“Use your words,” he slurs his speech, entirely engraved in the feeling of your cunt squeezing the life out of his digits. 

“Feels so good,” you whine, nearly incoherent. 

It’s almost a perfect fit. Levi’s fingertips curl, pressing up into a spot inside you that leaves you utterly breathless, thoughtless. Shameless, even — your wanton moans make for a beautiful stifled orchestra against his lips. 

You don’t think you’ve ever felt this good before. Not with yourself, not with another partner, no one other than Levi. He strokes every right spot in your pulsing walls, though they pound and grip and writhe under his authority. It flows easily through the push and pull of your pleasure, allowing the meat of his palm to rub and grind against your throbbing clit.

You’re not sure if it’s the weed or Levi, but you’re about to cum. Embarrassing fast.

“Slow down,” you gasp, clawing at the skin of his neck, trying to ground yourself by whatever means you can.

“I know, I know,” he doesn’t relent. Instead, he fucks his fingers harder, faster, “But I’m selfish, sweetheart. I wanna see you cum, okay? Can you do that for me?”

You try to shake your head no, pleading with your eyes. You want this to last, you don’t want to give up this moment so easily. The speech is mangled on your tongue, the docile fire in your stomach churning into a raging inferno at rapid speed. You can’t move, despite your best efforts. You rock your hips, unable to control yourself, and sink your teeth into Levi’s plush bottom lip.

He moans, loud and obscene, “Squeezing me so fucking tight, so fucking wet. Cum for me, fucking cum. Cum for daddy.”

It happens all at once. Your limbs lock, your spine bends upwards, and every nerve in your body trembles. You scream soundlessly into Levi’s mouth, eyes wide open, you can’t even breathe. 

It’s earth shattering. It’s mind blowing. You can’t think. Your body pounds, heartbeat in your throat and brain thrown out the window. Then, the squeezing. You can feel every bend and curve of Levi’s knuckles, every circle he draws inside your soaking heat, the way he pins and grinds his hand against your pulsing clit. It’s euphoric, without a description. It simply just happens. You wouldn’t be sure you were there for it, had you not felt every inexpressible quake of your orgasm rip through you like a tsunami. 

“Good girl, that’s a good fucking girl,” Levi growls in praise, pressing his digits in as far as your cunt will allow him to go. 

Your eyes roll back into your head, the come down from your high so slow and agonizing in the way it feels as though it will never end. As if you’ll be suspended in your climax forever, or at least until Levi pulls his thick fingers from you, whichever comes first.

When your pussy finally releases the full range of tension, the shorter contractions allowing you to breathe, Levi continues to keep his rhythm. 

You whimper, overstimulated and way too sensitive to keep going at his set pace, “Can’t, too much.”

“One more, one more,” Levi’s eyes swirl, breathing erratic and heavy. “Just one more. Give me one more.”

“Want you,” you try, attempting to move your hips away. It’s so overwhelming, all of it, all of his attention, all of his touch, all of his motion. You feel tears prick behind your eyes, helpless moans stuck behind your teeth.

“After,” he responds, expression hard and determined. “I’ll fuck you then, just one more.”

You nod, sniffling as the pain begins to morph back into that mind numbing pleasure. He grins, wolfish and all too satisfied.

“Knew you could listen. Such a good fucking girl, my good girl.”

LACHERI © 2022: all writing content belongs to LACHERI. I do not allow reposts or translations.

[emotionally-damaged-carrot]

hi could i request a marc spector x male reader where marc struggles with internalized homophobia and the reader tries to help him through it. maybe marc tries to push reader away because hes trying to force himself to be straight?

Marc Spector x Male Reader

Good endings can come from bad beginnings

(Idk if I followed the request correctly, I hope I did.)

I just know the wedding thingy will bite me in the ass later on, please don't come after me. I just wanted to add it cause I thought it would be fitting, I just googled most of the stuff there and copy pasted it. If I offended anyone with the stuff I have written here in any way please do tell, so I can rewrite this. Please no hate(?) I tried my best.

Hope you enjoy!

(I sincerely hope no one is offended, cause holy shit I don't want to face the wrath of the internet.)

(And I did it cause I wanted to stick with Marc being jewish, cause I like it.)

I thought nothing could get better when I met Layla, her soft beautiful tanned skin, her eyes that look like the a bottomless pit that you can fall for eternity and never get tired, her soft curly black hair was the cherry on top. She was just perfect.

Until y/n came into view, I didn't want to believe it that I liked him, that I yearned to have him in my arms, I put it all on my divorce with Layla. But I can't run away forever.

Now, here we are in bed with y/n hugging me from the side, his head on my chest and arms around my waist. One of my hands on his hair, smoothing out his morning hair.

Even with him being this close, and even after doing what we did last night, I still wanted to believe I was straight. That I was did not like men, like this is just a one time thing. Just like what I have been saying for the past 5 months we've been together.

I just didn't want to believe it, this is not me.

I slowly got up from the bed, moving his head slowly and carefully as to not wake him up, grabbing my clothes that were strewn across the floor, I decided to go outside to clear my head to stop thinking about him.

——————

Waking up to seeing your lover nowhere near was concerning. Sure it was typical of him to leave without a note, but that was at night to do his moon knight things, now it's morning. After checking everywhere in our apartment, I decided to just make breakfast for the two of us incase he ever decides to show up.

——————

After going for a walk around the park I finally managed to think of something. If I push him away he would not want to be with me anymore, he will break up with me and I can finally go with a woman this time. But after thinking about that plan, it saddened me, thinking about hurting him, imagining his tear stained cheeks and his puffy red eyes looking at me with such hurt. It hurt me. And I didn't want it to.

Walking through the door of our apartment, I smell the tempting aroma of his signature bacon and pancakes that always made me want more made me crave for him. For him to be with me forever. I am not supposed to think like this. I should've just ignored him since day 1.

"Marc?"

His voice called out, sounding like a siren in the middle of the ocean, calling for a lone soldier.

"Y-yes?"

"I made some breakfast, go sit on the chair it'll be ready in a few seconds, just need to put it on the plates."

Hearing him mention breakfast makes me realize just how hungry I am.

"It's okay, I already ate."

I say swallowing a hard, thinking about the food he had prepared.

"Ow."

The disappointment and sadness in his voice made it even harder for me push him away.

Moving towards our bed I get a glimpse of him on the table sitting on a chair with his food infront of him, a fork on one of his hands while the other supports his head. He had a sad look on his face that just made me want to apaologize to him. I need to stop thinking like this, I need him gone. He's corrupting me.

After taking a deep breath I proceed to sit on the bed and remove my socks and shoes leaving me bare foot.

——————

"M-marc is something wrong? Did I do something?"

"Nothing."

"You're never like this ever since we met, you never miss a chance to be with me, did I-"

"I said it's nothing, just eat your food and leave me alone."

"O-okay."

"W-wait, I'm sorry, I-I just... I-"

He didn't get to finish before breaking down, I can see tears well up in his eyes. On instinct I immidiately went to him hugging him, giving him comfort. He clung to me like I was his life line.

"It's okay, you don't have to explain anything right now. Take your time, no pressure."

I say with my face on his hair my arms holding him to my chest, one of his hands held on to my arm tight while the other on my waist pulling me close.

"I-I-I'm sorry. I-it's just tha-"

"You don't have to explain anything right now. Take your time, don't force it. Let's wait for you to calm down first."

I say holding him tighter with him now full on sobbing. We stayed like that for a while until I heard his breaths even out, pulling back, I look at his face to see him with a peaceful look although with tear stains on his cheeks. He still looked handsome.

Laying him down on the bed and fixing his position so he was more comfortable and pulling the blanket up to his waist.

"Rest up, I will be here whenever you're ready."

I whisper as I kiss his forehead and get back to the kitchen to clean up and take a shower after, just now feeling the wet spot on him chest.

——————

Waking up for the second time today, I sit up on the bed, seeing y/n come into view.

"How you feeling?"

"G-good."

I say looking at him with eyes that must be saying the opposite.

"No, you're not, you can tell me you know?"

"Tell you what?"

"Anything, you don't have to keep it in you know? I'm here to show you love, as well as take care of you. All because you deserve it, and you managed to make me fall for you."

"I-it's no-"

"Tell me that it's nothing and I will waterboard you."

He says with a smile, that same smile that made me fall for him, that made me feel feeling that I don't want to feel but can't help.

"It's just, I hate feeling this way about you, I don't want to love you, but I can't help it. And I don't know what to do, I'm j-just so confused, I'm angry at myself for feeling this way about you, but everytime I see you my heart just goes crazy. My mind wonders off to space with you."

"That's okay, it will go away, you just need time. And I will be there with you the whole way through. Whether you like it or not, whether you stop loving me or not. I will help you through this."

He says walking to me and sitting beside me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me towards him and I can't help but just let him.

"I will help you no matter what you think of me. I will always be here to hold your hand when you feel alone, when you feel like you have no one. I will be here to hold you when you feel cold. I will be here for you."

"Thank you."

I say leaning more on him.

"Don't mention it, that's what I'm here for. To show you that loving who you like isn't bad."

——————

From that day on, whenever I would have those moments of anger for liking men, I would just run to him to help me. To ground me.

When the thoughts become too much, I would run to him to pull me out of the hole.

Day after day, the thoughts and that anger slowly went away.

And now here we stand infront of the altar, exchanging vows looking at each other's eyes with love. Smiles seem to be permanently glued to our faces.

"And do you, Marc Spector, take Y/n L/n to be your husband, promising to cherish and protect him, whether in good fortune or in adversity, and to seek together with him a life hallowed by the faith of Israel?"

"I do."

"Now may I have the rings?"

The rabbi says. The ring bearer walks forward and presents the ring, we put the rings on each other's fingers our smiles never faltering, but only grew brighter.

"Y/n, I give you this ring, that you may wear it, as a symbol of the vows we have made this day. I pledge you my love, and respect, my laughter and my tears. With all that I am, I honour you."

"Marc, I give you this ring, that you may wear it, as a symbol of the vows we have made this day. I pledge you my love, and respect, my laughter and my tears. With all that I am, I honour you."

"You may now seal your vows with a kiss."

We smile and we kiss each other, our mouths dance with passion and love. Pulling back we rest our foreheads on the other.

"I love you, Marc."

"I love you, y/n."

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the f��anorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

[septembersghost]

You’re back! I missed you and I’m glad you’re back for the finale (fingers crossed it’s better than the last two we suffered through).

Your post about brba/bcs is beautiful. Idk who was being mean to you last week (I will bite them), but I for one am so so glad you started posting about brba and bcs, because I never in a million years would’ve watched them otherwise. I’d written off Breaking Bad as a violent, overhyped show that I wouldn’t enjoy, but when I saw you posting about it, I reconsidered.

After all, Dexter should’ve fallen into that same category - a violent show with a mostly male audience - and I love our darling serial killer. (You brought him back to me too, and I will never be able to thank you enough. Without you, I would’ve gone forever without seeing season five, and seeing Dexter and Lumen. It’s horrible to even think about). And the show that started it all kind of falls into that same demographic, though it’s hardly as violent or as praised. So I thought, maybe Breaking Bad would be like that. If it and Better Call Saul were so important to you, then I would probably at least like them. And if I didn’t, then I could at least like Aaron Paul’s face.

But I don’t think I’ve ever watched a show so quickly without trying. I started it in early May and finished El Camino before memorial day, and I took breaks! Days off to try to savor the experience, take it in more fully, but it demanded to be devoured. I plan to go back and watch it more slowly once some time has passed, to fully take it in, and I know it will be one of those shows I come back to over and over again. Not a comfort show exactly, but a familiar one, an important one.

Better Call Saul isn’t quite the same for me - I think it’s the kind of show that would’ve benefited from a slower watch, rather than my rushed marathon to catch up in time and watch the finale in almost real time. (I’ll watch it tomorrow morning, but I’m not watching it live. Last time I watched an episode of television live it was the episode that doesn’t exist, and I won’t do that again.) But I’ve had such a fun time with it, and I’m far more emotionally connected than I thought I would be. I’m not sure what kind of ending I’m expecting. I want a happy one, but I don’t know that we’ll get one.

Regardless of how this series ends (and the brba/bcs universe, but saying “regardless of how this universe ends” is a bit dramatic even for me), I’m very grateful to you for bringing it into my life.

thank you so much for this message, sweetheart, i was saving it for after the finale, and it made me really happy to read.

I’d written off Breaking Bad as a violent, overhyped show that I wouldn’t enjoy, but when I saw you posting about it, I reconsidered. this is not an uncommon opinion, and i don't blame you (i thought the same back in the day!), its reputation on the internet has gotten a bit away from what the core of the show actually is. i'm very glad you decided to take a chance on it anyway.

i mentioned this (though not by name) in my post, but breaking bad and dexter were ending at the same time in 2013. i'd started watching dexter a few years before that, and the last season was rough on me (lol little did we know), and breaking bad was exploding in popularity in its final run. i was mostly like, hmmm, maybe i'll consider watching this as distraction from this other story i loved going badly, and it ended up hooking me and being far more meaningful than i anticipated. but dexter was the same for me as you described, i would never have thought i'd get so attached or care about it with the expanse of emotion that i felt, that i still have when i go back to it. i've loved being able to discuss that with you too, and that you got to experience lumen's story especially. and as i've discussed many times, the show that started it all, on the surface, shouldn't have been for me necessarily either - male-focused and seemingly violent and machismo laden, and yet that isn't what it is at all. each of these stories are far more intricate and emotionally resonant than that, and i'm grateful they've had presences in my life, and led me to explore the themes and hold onto the characters.

If it and Better Call Saul were so important to you, then I would probably at least like them. And if I didn’t, then I could at least like Aaron Paul’s face. this is SO real (it is a very good face!), but it's wonderful that you ended up truly enjoying the shows too. 💕💕💕

breaking bad is inherently bingeable, you just NEED to know what's happening next. it's the fastest show i've ever gotten through a show the first time too, though i was racing to the finish line with it at that point, it was still easy to, as you said, devour it.

i have a collection of shows i love that aren't necessarily comforts, and yet there's something about the familiarity of them, the profound feeling of them, that makes them easy to fall into nonetheless. brba and bcs have both found homes in that category. they crafted such a profound and breathtaking universe, in the way the narratives intertwine (i can no longer recommend one without the other at all!), in the complexity and multifaceted pieces of all of the characters. they are truly treasures of the artform to me, and it has been a gift being able to share them and the conclusion of this journey with you.