#brinndrian

[idrisofficial]

like imagine you’re 17 and you go through pretty much the worst trauma imaginable to you and you’re unable to protect the one person who’s ever cared about you and somehow she miraculously survives but she distances herself from you for five years because that’s what the gods demand and you’re supposed to be the pope anyways but you have basically no other source of companionship or intimacy. and this is all just backstory

[idrisofficial]

brinndrian webweaving i never posted. btw

[idrisofficial]

new plot point! what if your star crossed lover was permanently disabled and asked you to kill her in place of a traditional ritual suicide, and you told her, no, the religion is fake anyways, and then she straight up fucking killed herself anyway

[idrisofficial]

📻 adrian <3

mm, i think “vanilla curls” by teddy hyde is a really underrated song on his playlist. there are a lot of fantastic brinndrian songs on both his and brinne’s playlist, but this one encapsulates a lot of their dynamic that goes beyond their hopeless mentally ill qualities. it’s a little like angel of small death and the codeine scene, but more of a dreamy kind of sexy.

this start of the first verse has some really powerful inner monologue, and i think captures specifically adrian’s reverence for brinne. his position as the high priest and brinne’s position as the monarch lends itself inherently to some worship of her, but obviously in their relationship it goes far past a religious or political kind of admiration. in particular I like the blend in these lyrics between the mental and physical attraction. he’s constantly battling with the moral transgression of his attraction to her, but can’t help feel overwhelmed by it when he sees her.

love all of the rhyme here. it’s about the sex and also the constant doubt in their relationship. write that down

thissss is the center of it. “she caught me by the ear and left me lying here writhing in fear” is a pretty accurate description of their relationship from adolescence until the present. during their teenage years, brinne was always pushing their boundaries further and becoming more intense while adrian just sort of had to deal with it. he was willing to clean up her messes, but the fact that she made so many in the first place was frightening to him, especially when it pertained to the secrecy of their relationship. now, adrian has to cope with the fact that brinne had such a huge effect on him as a person and he hardly knows how to exist without her now that she is withdrawn and ignoring their history. adrian is so deeply and madly in love with her and there is nothing he can do about it. literally nothing.

“instant kindred inhibition / a kiss then distance / it isn’t over, let’s call it / an infinite intermission” RRRAHHH it has brinndrian written all over it. this is exactly what their relationship is now. neither of them know how to handle their feelings and illicit relationship with the pressures of governing the country and approval from others mattering more than ever. they can’t quite abandon each other, but they’re both too afraid to really devolve back to sex and romance again. it’s an infinite intermission (which is only occasionally interrupted by desperate sex in the chapel).

[idrisofficial]

well now i am curious abt this “sexuality rant” 👀👀

NOOO DONT ENABLE ME…😈😈😈

brinndrian are the queerest “straight” couple to exist in the history of ever i think. i put straight in quotes for a variety of reasons, most of all because adrian is actually demi, but also because of idris’s general concept of sexuality. i really wanted to create a universe with some societal gender fuckery going around, so i built idris as a society where bisexuality is the norm and gender is considered to a much lesser degree than one might expect. the expectation of bisexuality comes with a culture that is also much more accepting of people not wanting kids— generally, it’s standard practice that people who want children will pursue opposite sex relationships and people who don’t will pursue same sex relationships.

this is kind of a chain reaction for the degree of sexuality people expect within individual relationships as well. people tend to associate opposite sex couples with more sexuality than same sex couples, because of the “choice” evident in the pursuit. nobles don’t get a choice in their future spouses as they are all betrothed heterosexually, but this culture still carries over. …which is to preface that brinne and adrian likely would have gotten in far less trouble if they had been a same sex couple. still considerably more than even an average pair of forbidden noble lovers, because they are at the very top of nobility, but if they were gay it would have been more easily brushed off.

brinne and adrian’s relationship begins in a place of completely innocent childhood friendship, as a respite from both of them being shunned by all their other peers. there’s an intense devotion embedded early on in their relationship because of their deep loneliness and contrasting personalities; with each other, they feel whole.

their coming to terms with sexuality in their early teen years is an awkward thing. brinne has never met her fiancé (who happens to be five years younger than her anyways — a big difference when one of them isn’t even a teenager yet), and adrian knows for a fact that he isn’t attracted to his fiancée (zuri) either. adrian feels immense guilt for his discomfort around zuri, but there’s something constantly repulsed in him by her many romantic advances. adrian is even more cognizant of this once brinne begins to reveal her own romantic intentions, and he feels very differently about her. for adrian, his demisexuality really stems from a place of vulnerability; when he is able to unmask his layers of repression and also experience someone else placing their full trust in him with their own insecurities, attraction comes to him much easier and much faster. of course, being as anxious as he is, he has no courage to make any first moves with brinne, but when she makes her intentions clear, adrian is happy to reciprocate.

the analysis of brinndrian’s romantic/sexual escapades from brinne’s perspective is totally different. brinne is a person who feels a lot of emotions and feels them amplified tenfold. it barely even crosses her mind not to act on her attraction. yes, there’s a small element of her questioning whether it would ruin their relationship, but ultimately, she can’t not tell him how she feels. and as soon as adrian indicates that he feels the same way, brinne has no hesitations about taking things to the next level. in fact, she’s only spurred on by adrian’s apprehension about pursuing something romantic. sexuality, to brinne, becomes another means of rebellion: by pursuing adrian, she’s not only satisfying her romantic/sexual needs, but also spiting her parents and everyone else trying to force her into the conformity of typical noble relationships.

brinne doesn’t bother to hide anything from anyone, much to adrian’s chagrin. this is where their relationship gets a little more ambiguous. in most regards, their relationship is wholly consensual, but there are times when power dynamics and communication issues do impede the “wholesomeness,” so to speak, of their relationship. adrian is devoted to brinne not only as his sole source of companionship, but also as her servant. ultimately, she is the heir to the throne, and she will be his monarch. adrian certainly feels the weight of this even when they are teenagers, but is too nervous to breach the subject with brinne. brinne maybe thinks about this in passing a few times, but the power dynamic is hardly on her radar. to her, the future high priest of idris is virtually on the same level as the future monarch. while in terms of power she’s correct enough, in terms of social dynamics she couldn’t be more wrong. brinne also consistently disregards adrian’s concerns about their romantic relationship becoming obvious to other nobles. brinne invites and welcomes this judgment because she’s accepted that the noble court will never view her in a positive light, but adrian is still worried about the repercussions for both himself and brinne. whenever he brings this up, brinne ignores him. it’s shitty on her part, and adrian doesn’t have the strength to push it, even when he’s certain it’ll turn out for the worse.

after artemis’s massacre and brinne’s withdrawal from…everything, the landscape of their relationship is completely changed. brinne tries to sever everything between them because she can’t bear to be vulnerable anymore, and she knows that she won’t be able to keep from breaking down in adrian’s presence. adrian is crushed. after seven years of close friendship, three years of a romantic relationship, and the recent onslaught of trauma that’s left him newly disabled and with PTSD, brinne abandoning him is the one thing he just can’t take. especially when he sees her in pain and knows that he could help, and she still pushes him away. this is made significantly worse when brinne starts to use religion as a coping mechanism, as she goes to the chapel frequently and proceeds to act like nothing ever happened between her and adrian. adrian does actually manage to express his disheartenment about it, but brinne closes herself off emotionally so thoroughly that it barely reaches her.

in every iteration of the story’s plot, there has been an important aspect of brinndrian’s reunion. at this point i don’t really consider one draft or another to be the “actual” version of the story, so there isn’t really a concrete place about where they end up, but it’s pretty inevitable that they magnetize again. they can only function so long forcefully breaking their codependency. also they’re still horny for each other and that’s not going away. so. let’s be real it probably happens through a spontaneous chapel hookup