"you don't owe anyone anything" You are a tar pit. Speak for yourself. I personally owe the cafe employees my dishes put away and my friends a listening ear and small scared insects a cup and a gentle trip outside. Hyperindividualism is a rancid infection borne of capitalism and willfully misinterpreted therapyspeak and I will defy it by continuing to be kind regardless of whether or not it benefits me personally
You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.
Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.
But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.
So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.
And it broke him.
It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.
He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.
But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.
And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.
But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.
It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.
But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.
It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.
Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.
The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.
This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.
And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.
I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.
Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.
And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.
And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.
How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?
Certainly there are many messages within Lord of the Rings, but you have to think that Tolkien would have been happy that this message in particular was still being conveyed all these years later.
thinking many thoughts after that alpha!eddie mention
I’m also thinking many thoughts 🙂↕️
alpha!eddie munson x omega!reader
cw: smut, omegaverse, reader in heat, unprotected piv, knotting, mating, kinda mean Eddie, enemies to…?
Imagine being almost enemies with alpha!Eddie, where you can’t stand each other but you have the same friend group now, the older teens taking him in after the mutual trauma of being in the upside down together.
You didn’t like him before when you were in school together. He was loud, obnoxious, and acted like he knew everything, which was hilarious considering he didn’t even graduate until this past spring. It had only gotten worse when he presented as an alpha his first senior year, because now he could take on the bullies who tormented him before. Which, good for him, but he really made it known that he wasn’t taking shit from anyone from that point on.
So, when you graduated in ‘85 you thought you wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore, but fate seemed to bring you together again.
Tonight was a bonfire at the Harrington house, just the older kids left as the younger kids headed to the Wheeler’s for the night. The heat of the fire mixed with the couple of drinks you had was starting to get to you, so you decided to turn in for the night. There was some protest from Steve and Robin who wanted to keep bitching with you, but you continued on to the guest room, stripping into just your shirt and underwear since the heat in the room was stifling.
You tried to sleep, slipping in and out of consciousness as you felt your body getting hotter. It only hit you that your heat was starting when you were seeking out a familiar scent. One that you were normally repulsed by, but at the moment you needed it.
Suddenly, door to the guest room was opening and the scent you were craving filled the air around you. You sat up weakly, hand reaching out subconsciously at the alpha standing in the doorway, whining for him to give you some relief.
“Awe, poor little thing,” you hear in that condescending voice, which should piss you off but it doesn’t. Instead, you crawled to the end of the bed, panting like a bitch in front of him. He closed the door behind him as he approached you, “I thought I could really smell you tonight. Steve and Nancy didn’t seem to notice though. I wonder why that is?”
He took your face in his hand and tilted it so he could look down at you. You could barely focus on him, your hand landing on his chest and gripping at the material of his shirt and pulling him closer to you. He let out a small chuckle at how desperate you were for him, but truthfully could feel himself unraveling from how sweet your scent was.
“Are you gonna talk?” He asks with a hard swallow, trying to keep his composure in front of you. “Or are you just gonna stare at me all night?”
“Need you,” you whine, pulling yourself up him until your arms were wrapped around his neck, faces only inches from each other.
“Oh do you? Never thought I’d hear those words coming out of your mouth,” he says with a frown, but quickly recovers as you begin to rub your cheeks against his. Eddie doesn’t stop you from scenting on him, letting his own scent rub back onto you.
“Alpha,” you sigh, and that sends blood straight to Eddie’s cock.
Then, you’re suddenly being pushed back onto the mattress, hands pinned above your head in one of Eddie’s as he leans over you. You giggle in excitement, grinding yourself upward against Eddie in an attempt to get him going. But Eddie didn’t need it, because he fully intended on giving you exactly what you wanted.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” Eddie says to you, his hand not holding you dipping into the hem of your panties and pulling them down. “You were always such a goodie two shoes in school, but, fuck I always had a stupid fucking crush on you.”
“Eddie,” you gasp, his ringed fingers dipping between your folds and finding your entrance. A single digit slipping inside of you, moving around until it found that sweet spot that had your eyes going wide.
“It got worse your senior year when you presented as an omega. Something in my brain…” he slipped another finger in, stretching you open a little more for him as he continued to prod inside of you. “Something my brain just knew that you were meant to be mine. I didn’t know how or when, especially when you graduated and I had to repeat again, but when you came to find me at that boathouse…”
Eddie suddenly dipped down, his lips crashing into yours with hot passion. You quickly reciprocated, eager to finally have him on your lips. You felt him loosen his grip on your hands and took advantage of this, pulling them out and wrapping your arms around him.
Tugging at his shirt, Eddie pulled away from you just enough that you could pull the old band tee from over his hair, his curls popping in every direction once free from the hole of his shirt. “Oh, Eddie,” you moan, feeling yourself getting closer to your peak as he keeps working his fingers inside of you. “Need you inside me, please.”
“Fuck, don’t gotta tell me twice,” he huffs, pulling his fingers out of you. You watch as he undoes his jeans, his cock making a prominent tent in his boxers before he pulls them down too.
You felt the drool pooling in your mouth at the sight of the alpha cock in front of you. It’s big, pink, and leaking precum from the tip, the scent of it hitting your heat affected nose and causing a pool of slick to rush out of you. You couldn’t take the wait any longer, so you did what any good omega would do and got on your hands and knees, wiggling your ass in the air as you present your needy cunt to your alpha.
“Shit,” he says with a heavy breath, eyes mesmerized by your display. Not able to wait any longer, he grabs you by the hips and pulls you to the edge of the bed, making you squeal excitedly. He takes his cock in his hand and runs the head through your folds, letting it catch on your entrance in a teasing way that made you whine. “Shhh, I’m gonna take care of you,” he reassures you, lining himself up with your leaking entrance.
“Alright, biiiiiig stretch,” he says as he starts to push himself into you. And what a stretch it was, stars forming in your vision from how much you were taking from him in one slow push. “Fuck you’re tight, even for an omega,” he hisses, but pushes through until he’s bottoming out inside of you, his big alpha balls resting against your sensitive clit.
“Mmmm, need a minute or—“
“No! Please!” You shout, moving your hips to get him going.
Eddie doesn’t waste another second, pulling out of you almost all the way before snapping his hips back into yours, making you audibly gasp. He keeps going, quickly building up a good pace until he’s brutally pounding into you. It was wild, and the more he got into it, the more feral he became.
And you loved it. So much that you were making sure he knew it with every moan and curse that flew out of your mouth. “EddieEddieEddie,” you chanted like a prayer without shame.
“Fuck,” Eddie hisses through gritted teeth. He leans forward, letting himself fall on top of you as he continues to drill into you, wrapping an arm around your throat to hold you in place as he buries his head between your shoulder blades. You felt him lick your mating gland, your heart beating fast at the prospect of him marking you.
“What would you do if I did mark you, huh?” He asks in a spiteful tone. “I know you’d go right back to hating me once you get what you want from me if I didn’t. Not like it would stick if you didn’t want it to, right? So what would be the harm…”
A sharp sting on your back had your body arching from the sensation. Then, a rush of euphoria spread all over your body, suddenly pushing you over the edge until you began to shake from your orgasm. It was like nothing you’ve ever felt before, like something in your brain had flipped.
“Shit, shit, shit,” you hear Eddie mumble, his teeth still clenched on your mating gland. That’s when you feel a pressure between your legs as his thrusts suddenly stop, his cock buried inside of you as deep as he can get. Your breath feels like it’s being kicked out of your lungs at the intense stretch you feel as Eddie’s knot locks him inside of your heat. And then he cums. So, so much cum spills inside of you that you feel it trying to pour out of you, the only thing stopping it is Eddie’s huge knot.
All you could do was lay there and take it, but you did it without complaint. You had no idea that this was what it was like to spend a heat with an alpha, and you didn’t think you’d ever be able to do it without one again. Once you got past the initial pressure, the feeling of being knotted could become an addiction for you.
You had no idea how long he it would stay like this, or how long Eddie planned on having a hold of your mating gland, but you were starting to be overcome with the need to sleep. Your eyes got heavier the longer you laid under Eddie, until eventually you succumb to it.
By the time you woke up, there was sun peaking through the windows in the guest room. You’d slept well, but the more you stirred awake, the more sore you began to feel. Especially on your back. You were confused at first, until you remembered the events of the night before.
Shooting up from the bed, you looked around the room to find that no one was there. That prompted you to reach behind you and feel your mating gland. The soft ridged of the mark Eddie made with his bite was there under your touch, so you knew you hadn’t just made it all up.
One of the most dangerous things in the world is not being able to say no to people because you don't want to upset them or dissapoint them. This will completely ruin your life in every way possible, at work, in your private life, your sex life and your friendships. It's a way of removing your own consent in your own decisions and go against your wishes, it is always a crime against yourself. Let yourself have a say. Upsetting people is better than traumatizing yourself.
Not that I think all marriages are doomed but when deciding who to marry you should ask yourself “is this someone I’d want to divorce?” As in, is this someone I believe would be mature and fair, even when they’re upset and don’t particularly like me at the moment. Is this someone I could continue to trust while going through an adversarial process? And if the answer is no, don’t marry them.
Nothing has aged me into a decomposing wreck quite like witnessing the enshittification of google. I feel like an ancient blathering relic when I hear "what did you do before chatgpt?"
Bitch I had google. I could summon the vast expanse of human knowledge with a few choice keystrokes. I could find recipes made by real human beings, written on unknown blogs because their recipe so closely matched my search terms. I could find entire research papers based off of barely remembered tidbits of them.
But now. The search engine that taught me basic particle physics & niche baking techniques & exposed me to brilliant comic artists & bloggers and more, is now a glorified chat bot.
A thing that hallucinates when its programming indicates that inventing is more efficient than copying. A thing that will amalgamate that vast expanse of human knowledge, which it alone can access, into its ever churning soup, but will no longer take me to the sources directly.
The gateway that used to bring me knowledge is now just a fire hose that sprays bullshit. Feels like watching the Library of Alexandria burn.