#Will happen when I reach my home.

[the-woman-upstairs]

It’s just…so painful to watch Armand readily submit in order to obtain the love he so desperately craves. And while it’s most assuredly a manipulative tactic, it’s still one borne out of fear and desperation. He cannot lose this person he’s come to love and so will become whatever they want, do whatever they want just so they’ll stay with him. But it won’t be enough. No matter how much he acquiesces or seeks to control (himself, others, the environment), he won’t be able to make Louis stay with him in the perfect life, perfect self he built in the hopes of finally being loved. It will all crumble with Armand left alone in the rubble of what he created, the author of his own abandonment.

[eddis-not-eeddis]

I am the most hopeful of pessimists

[stari-hun]

Journey to Mor Pankh rerun already so I can write a piece on Kumar and Shamane and how they never could’ve been happy siblings but Kumar would’ve had a breakdown over not being able to direct her anger at him.

Shamane genuinely wanted nothing more than to be by Kumar’s side and grow up with her the second he found out she was his sister. In his flashback talking about her you could really tell that he was so dazzled like “huh I don’t really get why this cool researcher is here” but rationalized her as a friend of the family. Hell she IS his driving point. And he’s her driving point too. The second he found out that she was his SISTER? He ran away and that’s where his character story started. Which is such an important and noteworthy choice because not every character event is a backstory or tells you what a characters bond to another was.

And Kumar’s arcanum WAS strong. She MADE it strong. She wasn’t born with a gift like KB or Matilda and grew it, she had to start from what was implied to basically be nothing. Then she still became such an incredibly strong arcanists and diviner that she discovered a star far before anyone who was born with strong arcanum did. She needs more time and steps to channel a strong arcanum but KB inherited her techniques and her ability and she’s a POWERHOUSE. She throws a STAR at people and she learned that from Kumar!!! She didn’t start with talent but she built it up so far that it took basically two people on the level of someone she taught and raised from childhood to bring her down!! Even then Kumar didn’t suffer extreme of injury considering how bad a rebound on a spell like that has to be on the mental state.

Shamane was driven to the city purely because he sought out Kumar who sent him that letter. After living and learning his entire life out there he went out to find and her and I can only imagine how stoked he was. Cause he likely knew that Kumar would’ve resented him and looking at how she turned out he was the first one to understand and accept that the bridges between them were already burnt.

At the same time I can’t imagine how Kumar must’ve felt learning that the prodigal child her family tossed her aside for left them. I couldn’t begin to explain the kind or visceral bite that news must’ve had. She could’ve had everything with them and in a way she must’ve built up her arcanum, at least at first, so they might accept her one day. I would’ve grown to hate everything too.

[demonbarberofbeepbeep]

morning toddheads

[tathrin]

Ahh, fuck. Just saw this post cross my dash and my brain absolutely vomited this fucking thing out in response and I do not have any idea what the FUCK to do with this weird unhinged Dark LotR AU that I just spontaneously generated. Help.

"Not like this."

The words slipped from Gimli's lips as a broken whisper, torn free from the very depths of his soul before his conscious wits could stop them. He swallowed, as though he would call them back to him; but there was no calling them back, any more than there was undoing the dreadful deeds that had led to Gimli standing here, in this place, feeling as though his heart were being ripped from his chest at the sight before him: a fair golden head bowed low, heavy shackles weighing down lithesome elvish limbs.

Gimli swallowed again, and held his tongue. The words still beat themselves against the inside of his skull: Not like this, not like this.

How was it they all now found themselves here? It had not seemed easy, so many months ago in Rivendell, when the Free Peoples of Middle-earth had taken desperate council together in hopes of defying Sauron, no; nothing of what they had set out to do had seemed easy. But still, to have fallen so far that they were here…

Gimli closed his eyes against the sharp and bitter sting of tears, but only for a moment. A moment was all he could allow himself. Any more than that would be seen, would be noted; would be marked down against him, against Erebor, as a weakness that they could not afford.

As treason, treason against the Dark Lord.

The Lonely Mountain could not afford such a thing, not if any dwarf was going to be left breathing beneath its strong stone walls by this time tomorrow.

So Gimli took a deep breath, and opened his eyes, and struggled to wipe the pain and horror from his face. He nodded, doing his best to ignore the hot bite of metal against his hand; doing his best to ignore the way his heart was shattering like untempered steel suddenly flash-frozen at the sight of Legolas kneeling as a captive before him.

"A fine tribute," Gimli said, hating himself for the words; hating himself even more for the dark twist of pleasure that threaded through his mind as he spoke. He clenched his fist tighter around the hard gold he held; it did not help. The row of kneeling elves before him did not move; the sharp blades of the axes hanging over their necks did not soften.

The Ring on his finger did not loose its deadly grip.

"Tell the Men of Dale that they have earned their people four months of triple rations in addition to the gold-price on the heads of these elves," Gimli continued. Such a paltry amount to pay, for elvish lives; yet it would keep the Men of Dale from starving, and would earn them favor in the Dark Lord's eyes. He saw the bedraggled Dalish representative straighten in gratitude and joy and he grimaced into his beard.

Gimli did not care to think how many Men must have died to take four elves alive anymore than he cared to think about how long said elves would endure in hard labor and dark cages under the mountain. He knew that no matter how quickly they let go of their hopes and let themselves Fade, it would be far far longer than it should be. Elves were too strong, and the elves of Mirkwood far too defiant, for their own good. They would last a long time, in the mines and the smithies, before finally giving up their souls to the call of Mandos.

It would not be a mercy, to last so long.

There was no mercy that Gimli could show to these elves, either—no, not even to the one whose face he had spent all these bitter, terrible months longing to see above all other faces. How Gimli had wept, wishing to see Legolas again; now, he yearned only to take all those wishes back and bury them where nothing, least of all the wretched, wonderful Thing on his hand, could hear them. Yes, he had longed to see Legolas; but not like this, never like this.

Not like this.

The Dalish Man bowed low, and murmured praise for Gimli's generosity in a voice made ragged and hoarse by want and misery, and let himself be led away to receive his payment. The elves waited in motionless silence, their heads bowed and their chains heavy. The dwarves watched their lord with tight, shadowed eyes.

Gimli cleared his throat, and spoke again: "Have the elves taken to the cages. Except—"  He could not tell if the words that followed were his own, or those of the Ring. "Except for the golden-haired one. Take him to my chambers; I will see to his breaking personally. Oh," he added, almost as though it was an afterthought, making his lips curl in a cruel smile as he said it even as his own heart twisted against him, "and send water for a bath as well; he is all over filthy with blood, and I will not have him defiling my rooms anymore than he can help, noisome creature that he is."

There were chuckles, some weak and some sincere; Gimli did not look to see which was which, because he did not wish to know which of his people had learned to find amusement in the suffering of other creatures and which had merely learned to feign it.

He could not be sure, some days, where his own pretenses ended either.

He smiled anyway, because that was what he had to do. He smiled, and he watched the elves be dragged away into the dark of his mountain, and he kept smiling even as he felt blood trickling down his palm from where the Ring that wrapped cold around his finger had bitten through the skin beneath the tightness of his grip and made him bleed.

It was hardly the worst thing that Durin's Ring had made him do since Gondor's Rise, after all.

NEXT

[bunnihearted]

🫎

[rustycottoncandy]

I somehow made it through the school day running on one hour of sleep

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[soonhoonsol]

hi... if my brother is grounded but yet doesn't come home after school or anything, what do I do?

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

I still haven't been able to cry about it.

I have thought about it every single day for the past two months, but I still haven't been able to cry about it.

I've had a lack of motivation for my schoolwork that hasn't been this bad since spring and fall of 2020, but I still haven't been able to cry about it.

I've had the hardest time keeping up with the holiday spirit for the people around me that hasn't been this bad since the holiday season in which one of my best friends passed away after a month of knowing it was coming soon, but I still haven't been able to cry about it.

I feel physically sick when it comes to mind sometimes, even to the point of having seemingly "random" bouts of severe anxiety where I just can't get my heart to slow down, but I still haven't been able to cry about it.

I've had to go near an empty chair or my bed just to throw my fucking phone down a few times because I saw footage or some bullshit statement that made it feel like my phone might as well have been on fire in my hand, but I haven't been able to cry about it.

Not because I'm numb, because I'm not and I am very very thankful not to be, or that I don't feel enough to cry about it, but because I'm feeling so fucking much that I can't. How do you begin to cry over something that feels so astoundingly hysterically terrible that it just leaves you in shock? How do you see footage and updates on social media between "cute edits" and "hot holiday deals" of the worst things humans can do to each other and see so many people - from people you love to people you looked up to for years to people who are "leading" your goddamn fucking joke of a country - not only refusing to see it for what the fuck it is but actively voicing their support of it to the point where people with basic fucking humanity calling this what the fuck it is are being silenced and labeled controversial and try to make tears come out so you have something akin to a fucking catharsis - even though it will never fully release all the heartbreak and disgust and fury you feel - when they just... can't?

I see comments from people almost every day saying they've cried their eyes out thinking about at least some aspect of what's going on or that they haven't been able to stop crying, and I almost feel envious of them because I haven't even been able to start.

[avocado-frog]

Month old writing share game

Thanks for the tag from @elsie-writes i procrastinated hard on this one but I think that the rules are just to share a bit of writing. So here's a little chunk from something I just wrote:

One time, a few years back, when Logan was nineteen, Lily was twelve, Jaxon was just about eleven, and Dylan was eight, they went to the park. He took them to the park to distract them, sometimes, but he didn't remember the specific reason that time around. Dylan had wandered off a little while after helping Logan pack sandwiches at home- after Lily and Jaxon already left- to go to the garden. Two older men, fifties or sixties, one in blue overalls and the other in a plain, grey shirt were teaching them how to use a rake. A woman a bit younger, dirty blonde hair in a bun behind her head, had a pocket of seeds for Dylan to plant. Logan sat on the bench to watch them, a bit warily. But they seemed friendly enough. Jaxon, usually, would run off to go find people to play with. He was sociable, he liked making friends, but even that day, as sunny as it was, it was still too early for kids his age to start coming over. Mostly, it was the parents of toddlers who wanted their kids to run off some energy. Sometimes, the toddlers would try and get him to play, too, and Jaxon obliged every time, but he seemed content with just his sister today. He didn't have any interest in gardening with Dylan. Lily was by the monkey bars, standing on top of the black platform underneath them. Jaxon sat on the ground, digging a hole in the bark with his hands. Lily jumped up to grab the bars, but she was getting tall enough that she didn't need to jump as high now. Once she had a grip on the yellow metal, she pulled herself up to sit on the top. She sat there for a while, talking to Jaxon about something Logan couldn't hear at the distance he was, and given his attention was split between them and Dylan.  Lily had swung her legs over the bars and leaned down in between the gaps to hang upside down, and of course Jaxon wanted to try.  He jumped up, just like Lily did, grabbed onto the bars, and it should've been a forewarning when his hand slipped before he regained his hold. He jumped up to sit on the top bars, and then his leg got caught in between, and he fell backwards trying to untangle himself.  He had picked the bar closest to the platform. Hanging upside down, right above the edge of the black platform, with his leg stuck in between the bars. He must not have been really thinking past getting his leg unstuck. Logan heard a woah, are you okay, that caught his attention just as he managed to free himself. And then he fell. And hit his head on the edge of the platform and hit it again as the rest of him landed in the bark. Jaxon hadn't even cried, which was astonishing to Logan, who had shot up like a rocket and rushed over to check on him. Because Logan would've cried hard if he hit his head like that. Twice. Lily had scrambled down to see if he was okay, too, but Jaxon only sat in the bark, moved to sit with his legs outstretched, one hand making a circle in the wood bits, blinking like he was confused. There was a steady stream of blood gushing from his nose, too. His eyes weren't quite uneven yet, but Logan didn't think for a second that Jaxon got away without a concussion. He instructed Lily to go watch Dylan, tell them where he went, while he took their brother home to check on him. Jaxon blinked again. Logan grabbed him by the arm, dragged him to his feet, and dragged him home, having to hold his own sleeve against his nose because Jaxon wasn't doing it himself.

Open tag since this is a month and a half old sorry lmao

[confused-spood]

Where else am I gonna rant if not to a group of random strangers that barely know me, right? So ofc I'm gonna rant here cuz these people have no idea who tf I am.

....turns out I have no words to explain how I'm feeling right now so I offer this emoji instead: 😔

[happyendingsong]

last week of work

[sadsongsandwaltzes]

This does bring forth a question about the worth of remaining connected to the mother country or land of origin, as we understand it.

Does it matter to care about the country (as a nation) your ancestors came from when you have no stake in the game? And really, does a specific chunk of land and the governing forces on that land really matter, considering throughout history borders have shifted, governments have changed, people have migrated?

Do you believe you can uphold the legacy and culture of your ancestors regardless of the piece of land on which you stand?

[skrunksthatwunk]

found out that rascal's owner took him again while i was out, and he's probably not gonna be back since the semester's almost over. i don't even know if his owner's coming back next semester, if i'll ever see him again. if he'll ever see me again. why do they wait until im not around to do this? why do they never let me say goodbye to him?

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

the eternal question: is scheduling w friends as an adult That Hard or am I just bad at it