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from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras · 6 months

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Tolkien Family Week, Day 4: Cut Ties (aka Éomer and Théodred trauma bond)

The Day 4 @tolkienfamilyweek prompt of “cut ties” covers everything from disagreements to separation and death. I went with death in order to revisit one of Rohan’s biggest tragedies, the death of Théodred. I absolutely love Théodred and have built up a fair amount of head canon about him, though you don’t need to know any of that for this story.

My inspiration here was Théodred’s last words as he lay dying by the Isen (as recorded in Unfinished Tales): “Let me lie here to keep the ford until Éomer comes.” There’s obviously a practical take on that line–he wants to hold his position until Éomer can bring more men to secure it. But I decided to read it from an emotional perspective instead–he wants to be left where he is until Éomer can get there because that is who he wants and needs to see in what he knows are his final moments. So I wrote a little history of the relationship between Éomer and Théodred and the way that grief, in particular, bonded them, starting with their shared love for Théodwyn (Théodred’s aunt and Éomer’s mother). Pour one out for Théodred, because he was a real one!

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“Let me lie here—to keep the fords until Éomer comes.”

There had always been Théodwyn.

When Théodred searched his earliest memories, her face is what he found. Her sunny smile welcoming him back from sleep each morning. Her soft hands soothing his hurts when he fell or injured himself. Her high, clear voice telling him stories as they went for walks in the fields or while she led him around the training ring on his first pony. She was barely more than a girl herself at the time, but she was there, stepping into the breach left by his mother’s death and his father’s retreat into the depths of grief.

Over time, his father found a way to heal, to separate the birth of his son from the death of his wife and to embrace his little boy without hesitancy or reservation. But even then, his aunt remained the biggest figure in Théodred’s young life. He started and ended each day with her, took his lessons from her, asked her all of his questions and told her all of his feelings. And she gave him hugs and kisses and laughs and the occasional scolding. She taught him all the best bad words and made him special cakes on his birthday. She showed him how to take a handful of simple little seeds and turn them into beautiful flowers with nothing more than water, soil and sunshine. She was magic.

He knew she couldn’t stay at Meduseld forever. She had her own life to live, and when he was ten she met and fell in love with a man from Aldburg. He missed her terribly when she married Éomund and left for the Eastfold, but they saw each other when they could and exchanged letters when they couldn’t. Long years passed, but she was still the first one he thought to tell whenever he had good news and the first he wanted to turn to for consolation when things were hard. Though he had always called her Aunt Théodwyn, she was the closest thing to a mother he would ever know, and he cherished her.

But in the summer of his twenty-fourth year, it all went wrong. First Éomund was killed during a poorly planned orc hunt, riding off too hastily without waiting for the additional numbers he would need to protect himself. Then Théodwyn suddenly came down with a mysterious fever. A stronger constitution might have overcome the illness, but Théodwyn, weakened in spirit by the shock of Éomund’s death, didn’t have the heart to battle. Just three weeks after the loss of Éomund, she went to bed early and never woke up.

Now Théodred found himself on the terrace in front of Meduseld, waiting to greet the cousins who were being entrusted to his care, and that of his father, to try to salvage any possible happiness that could be wrested back from the unthinkable turn their young lives had taken. As he waited, he took his own overwhelming sorrow, the enormous grief weighing on his chest and pressing the breath from his lungs, and he pushed it down. He pressed and he pressed until his vast, shapeless misery was just a hard little knot in his stomach that he could quietly tolerate without outward expression. He would not show this grief to Éomer or Éowyn, whose burden was heavy enough without the sadness of another to manage. He would follow in Théodwyn’s example and step into the breach for them, whether he felt ready or not.

The arrival of Éomer and Éowyn changed everything about daily life in Meduseld. Éowyn, all of seven years old, spent much of her time with Elfhelm’s wife, who was called into service to provide a small girl with the maternal presence she longed for, but Éomer became Théodred’s charge. They spent their days together, riding, hunting, or swimming in the Snowbourne, anything to keep Éomer’s spirits up and give him more to think about than what he was missing. Théodred wondered at the boy’s resiliency in the face of his losses. While his demeanor was solemn and his face grave, he never cried or expressed pain, and he even managed to offer himself as a source of comfort to his little sister when her own pain overcame her. Théodred couldn’t help but admire this strength, and it motivated him further to keep his own grief private, to match his young cousin’s mastery of his feelings.

Instead, Théodred saved up his grief for a few stolen minutes at the very end of each day, after the rest of the household had gone to sleep and no one else stirred except the occasional guard on patrol. Then, under cover of darkness, he would quietly steal outside to sit in the little garden at the south end of the hall. It had been Théodwyn’s garden. She planted it when he was a boy, and when she departed for Aldburg he had taken over its care, tending dutifully to her blossoms and herbs and adding in the ferns and fruit trees that he favored. There was nowhere else that he felt closer to her memory, and he would sit alone under her moonflower vines, unclench the knot in his stomach, and allow himself to cry at last. When he had released enough of his sorrow to feel that he could go on for another day, he would dry his eyes, push his feelings back down again, and head off in search of a few hours of sleep.

A week or so into this new routine, a sudden nighttime cloudburst drove him from the garden and his grieving sooner than expected. He raced to the closest door, a side entrance he seldom used, and quietly let himself in. The corridor was hushed and dim, and he kept his steps soft as he slipped past the closed doors of the hall’s sleeping residents and headed toward his own room. On the walls beside him, the faces of his ancestors looked down from their portraits. Brave Fréaláf. Sad Folcwine. Noble Thengel. He paused when he came to Théodwyn, intending to spend just a minute under the warm and gentle gaze of her likeness, when he heard something unexpected: the slightest of sniffles coming from somewhere in the darkness at his feet. Stooping down, he suddenly found himself face to face with Éomer.

His cousin was tucked up against the wall, knees under his chin and arms wrapped tightly around his shins, staring at the portrait of his mother. Tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped onto his shirt, creating a large, dark stain just over his heart. He looked up, lower lip quivering and brows drawn tightly together, and for half a moment it seemed as though he might force back the tears and reclaim his typical mask of calm solemnity. But all his effort, all of his rigorously guarded self control, finally failed. Under Théodred’s eyes, Éomer began to sob, as he had been doing here alone each night, hidden away from family and strangers alike.

Théodred’s first decision was easy. Indeed, it wasn’t even a decision, it was just instinct. He dropped to the floor at Éomer’s side, wrapped his cousin in a tight embrace, and held the little boy as he wept. The second decision was harder, a reconsideration of everything he had planned for managing Théodwyn’s death, but he knew in that moment it was the right thing to do. He allowed his own tears to return, and for as long as Éomer cried, Théodred cried with him.

When at last their tears came to an end, Théodred was surprised to feel a little lighter, relieved of some portion of the weight he had been carrying through each day. Éomer, too, looked less grave, if perhaps also a little embarrassed. They walked back together to Éomer’s room and, though they didn’t talk directly about what had just passed between them, they agreed to meet again by the portrait the next night at the same time. And so they made for themselves a new routine, coming together each night to reduce their suffering by sharing it with one another. Sometimes they sat by the portrait; other times, they went to the garden. No matter where they were, they thought of Théodwyn and allowed themselves to let out the sadness that they otherwise kept locked inside.

As the days passed, they cried less and talked more. They learned not only how to grieve her loss but also how to celebrate her memory and, in time, they could each think of her and feel happiness alongside the pain. They traded treasured memories and stories, and some days they even laughed, fondly recalling her terrible singing voice or her deadly accurate impression of Théoden. Eventually, they even came to talk of other things entirely, their nightly meetings providing an opportunity to confide in each other the fears, hopes, or concerns that they would speak to no one else.

By the end of Éomer’s first season in Edoras, the seeds of their shared sadness had grown and transformed into an unshakeable bond, one more blossom in Théodwyn’s garden. That bond would last through happy times and further tragedy, changing circumstances and stages of life. It lasted all the way to that rainy night at the fords many years later, when Théodred himself lay near death. And alone with his pain, his body spent and his spirit facing imminent separation from everything he knew and everyone he loved, Théodred did the only thing he could think to do when confronted with grief. He called for his cousin.

#tolkien family week #cut ties #eomer #theodred #trauma bonding #let me lie here...until eomer comes #sob #lord of the rings #lotr fanfiction #forth eorlingas

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lousydrawingsforgoodpeople · 2 years

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be ur own loving parent.

#trauma recovery #child abuse survivor #no contact #cut ties #doodles #bad art #lousy drawings #doodle #positivity #self love #healing #recovery

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zippyzstuff · 1 year

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#mental health memes #mental health #mental health matters #mental health awareness #boundaries #healthy boundaries #healthy relationships #cut ties #people pleaser

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b0bthebuilder35 · 2 years

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thebitchesscriptures · 2 years

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I am still healing

When people ask, why did you cut ties?

Because I know what it's like to be hurt

And to stay with them is to hurt them and myself

And it's not what I need

I need healing and it takes time

#221026 #yellow #healing #cut ties #time

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guttedempath · 28 days

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#art #dark academia #dark art #dark #empath #feelings #tw depressing thoughts #depressiv #cut ties #be done

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rebornmystixx · 2 months

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New video dropping today ✨

🌀 SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL 👇🏾👇🏾

#lunareclipse #lunar eclipse #lunar eclipse 2024 #letting go #new beginnings #new love #new friends #new romance #divine guidance #divine wisdom #divine alignment #astrology #self healing #self love #release #release what no longer serves you #cut cords #cut ties

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starsofparadise · 3 months

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to her...

to that girl, who single-handedly ruined my life and then walked away with it – because my life is better without her.

i hate you, i despise you with every single part of my body. i feel the surge of emotions running inside me, equipping each and every cell, programming them with the hatred and rage, preparing them for the inevitable battle.

i can’t run from this anymore. you’ve always been like this, you’ve always been judgemental and harsh with your criticism. you think it doesn’t hurt, but that’s only because you can’t see the grimace under the grin i try so hard to keep on, the tears of bitterness forming in my eyes.

it’s as if they’re knives cutting into my chocolate brown orbs, once so pretty, so bright, sparkling with curiosity. but i guess they say the prettiest eyes cry the most tears, and the most beautiful hearts have endured the most pain.

every time you see me, you squish my cheeks, my arms, my thighs, and tell me i’m fat. you might mean it in a teasing way, but i can’t hear the joke in your tone. the knives cut into me every time you do that. every time you laugh at my bunny teeth, i feel the insecurities creeping in.

that isn’t even the worst. the worst is the fact that even my mother compares you to me. she looks at your shiny bright achievements, the shimmering golden plagues handed to you at every single prize presentation. in contrast, my silver medal no longer seems as bright as it actually is. its light is dull as i stand next to you, my extra prizes a blank slate compared to yours.

but she doesn’t know the black, ugly heart under those gold medals, those certificates saying you’re a chess prodigy, saying you’re a piano prodigy, proof of you receiving a full scholarship to the most expensive school to ever exist. these achievements mean nothing to me as i know you, but they show you’re a genius at violin, the always perfect child who’s good at everything.

maybe i’m not as good as you are, maybe i’m not as smart. maybe i don’t know how to play an instrument, and don’t have dozens of medals in duathlons. maybe i lose every round of chess i play. but at least i have a good heart. at least i try. at least i can debate because i have more proof than you do.

i’m better than you inside, even if people don’t know. you pride yourself for your ‘logicality’ and ‘lack of emotions’, and even you say i’m ‘too nice’.

apparently, when you first became friends with me, i was kind, practical and understanding. also apparently, i’m not those things anymore. but maybe you were the one to judge me when i was lenient with you, when i tolerated you.

you spoke out against my best friends. you spoke out against the people i genuinely liked, but little did you know they were all better people than you had ever been, even the ones i told you i ‘hated’.

you said you got to know someone understanding and kind. and she still is, just not with you. because you hated that side of her so much, you forged her into another person, the personality created just for you. with you, she’s calm, level-headed, and doesn’t let her heart get over her. maybe you think this side is better, or maybe it’s worse. you said she changed since she left primary school. but she only changed with you, and kept her warm heart for everyone else. she shielded the best part of her from you. did that satisfy you?

but it doesn’t matter, because your judgement doesn’t matter to her anymore, and you can’t expect her to be kind, caring and understanding when you’re not the same in return. as for the practicality, maybe cutting ties with you was the most practical thing to do.

#past #friendship #cut ties #judgement #heart of gold #contrast #pain #fallout #gold #silver #satisfaction

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mcgama · 8 months

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you were a mistake everything you do is a lie you lost your spine destroy your ego and become away from me

#vent #poetry #this is about no one in particular #cut ties

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finn-collectoroftin · 11 months

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Shout out to all of the least favorite siblings out there

It'll be okay

It's not your fault that others don't like you, it's not something you can force

Sometimes our own families can't see our potential

That's what communities are for

Families without families

I'm sorry that you're going through all that you are

But we'll all be ok

#siblings #family #family ties #cut ties #least favorite

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 18 days

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I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wen ning #wei wuxian #wen qing #jiang cheng #Truly Massive disclaimer here: I am a Jiang Cheng enjoyer. I like his character. I enjoy that he is very flawed and volatile.#This episode of the audio drama has a lot of great breakdown scenes featuring JC - and they all deserve a feature.#But underlying this comic is a small meta comment of 'ah man I have too many comics of JC just wailing sadly'#My goal is to draw 6-8 comics per episode - I sometimes have to truncate and cut good scenes out.#Especially when a large majority is just different flavours of trauma and toxic relationships to your self-worth.#I would also like to make a note here that just because you lose the ability to do something that is very tied to your core identity-#-does not mean your life is over. It will feel like the end of the world. It will send you into a spiral of grief. It will hurt so badly.#Sometimes we do not realize how tied up our identities can be in certain things until we are cut loose.#You don't lose yourself. I promise the pain will fade in time. I promise you will find other things to tether you. I promise you will be ok #Life moves forwards. Time moves forwards. You move forwards.#Ego death just means an opportunity for ego rebirth. You are never committed to being the same person forever.#To wrap this around to JC: Yeah I love the twist with the core transfer but man I would have loved to see JC accept the loss.#Obviously it happens for a reason (story) but I can have my AUs. I can have these 'what-ifs'.#described in alt text #I'm trying it out! *please* give me feedback - I want to eventually Add image ID to all of these comics one day

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bluerosefox · 22 days

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GHOSTS WITH HEARTBEATS

When Jason had been going to Gotham Academy, he had (for a good reputation for the media and to help him catch up on his penmanship, remember he had been on the streets and dropped out of school before getting picked up by Bruce for a while) signed up for a penpal project for 'less privileged people' to write to.

(Although Jason was annoyed the penpal project stayed within the states and only selected a middle of nowhere town, he knew the Richie Rich Elites would never subjugate their 'Heirs' to actual kids in need of learning how to read and write)

But Jason didn't mind his penpal.

Danny Fenton was a riot to talk, err write to in all honestly.

From his dry punny humor (and boy can he give even Dick a run for his money in the pun department but hey using some of them actually got Dick to warm up to him a few missions ago) and death jokes so many death jokes, to his nerdy love for space Jason enjoyed writing to Danny.

Even the short stories he would write about a ghost kid protecting a small town from other ghosts was interesting to read. He really liked the different kinds of ghosts there could be. Granted some seemed very OP like that Clockwork dude.

Jason liked writing to Danny, and even after the penpal project was over they had plans to keep sending letters, maybe even exchange numbers soon...

But then he died by the hands of the Joker.

The letters leaving Wayne Manor may had decreased but the letters being sent never did or at least until a few years ago.

Then Jason somehow returned to the land of the living.

Got taken by the LoA, tossed in the green waters and turned into their Pit Raged weapon for a while before leaving them behind and setting out for his revenge against the Joker and to force B's hand.

And becoming a Crime Boss for a while too. Can't forget that.

Point being with all this going on, the old warm memories of exchanging letters with Danny Fenton was pushed into the back of his mind and forgotten about for a while.

It isn't until one afternoon at Wayne Manor that while roughhousing with Dick, who had Jason in a brotherly headlock as they walked down a hall to one of the sitting rooms, that while Jason had slipped out of Dick's hold had stumbled into a hallway desk that had a few things on the top of it, one of the things being a small box that tumbled off when Jason hit it.

The box lid opened and out of it spilled out a good number of letters.

"Shiii-p, dang it Dick!" Jason said when he looked at the mess he accidentally made and stopped himself from swearing, the place might be named Wayne Manor but everyone knew this was Alfie's domain and no swearing was a rule within his halls.

Dick only laughed and teased only in a way a sibling can do "Hey not my fault your as big as a tank Jaybird! We should get you some caution signals if you keep bumping into things!"

Jason flipped him his favorite finger, thankfully Alfred only knew when they swore thus it did not summon him, and bent down to the letters.

His hands froze when he recognized the hand writing and the address it was sent from.

"From: Danny Fent Nightingale

Amity Park, IL"

To: Jason Todd-Wayne

Gotham City, NJ.

Wayne Manor"

And when Jason opened the letter. He really wasn't expecting what was written inside.

"Jason.

I'm finally leaving Amity Park. I can't be there anymore, not after everything. I'm too tired, and emotionally hurt. Everything is just to much. And I can't keep doing this to myself. My parents still can’t understand there is nothing ‘wrong’ with me or why I refuse to let them take care of Ellie, I refuse to let her live the way Jazz and I did, Jazz has to much on her plate already with her own life and college but she’s been hounding me to reach out to mom and dad, Sam refuses to listen to me when I tell her I want to be more than ‘Phantom’ in Amity Park, and Tucker is so busy trying to get into a good college and job we barely have time to talk nowadays. And don’t get me started on Vlad, that fruitloop’s been breathing down my neck since Ellie’s deaging.

Despite how much of a hellhole you like to call it, I think Gotham might be my, no mine and Ellie’s best bet of living some kind of life, especially now since the whole deaging she had to go through, she needs an ectoplasm rich city as well and since she has no actual papers because she was my clone and I remember you saying Gotham has people who can create new identities and-

I’m rambling again, to letter you again. I really need to stop it.

I can’t keep pretending you’re going to read these.

I know you’ll never read these. You’re gone. I can’t even find you in the Realms no matter where I look.

I’m sorry. For using you as, well, a way to vent my life for last couple of years. I shouldn’t had done it but it helped me.

Believing my friend was still alive and getting my letters I mean.

Again I’m sorry.

This will be my last letter to your ghost, pun unintended.

Goodbye Jason. Wish us luck in your city.

-Danny Fen-Nightingale...."

The sent date on the letter was roughly eight years ago.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #crossover #dp x dc #blue rambles #danny phantom dc #writing ideas #random idea #dpxdc #danny kept writing letters to jason even after his announced death #jason todd #danielle phantom #ellie phantom #deaged ellie #Jason asks Alfred about the letters #and Alfred says he nor Bruce had the heart to open them since they were addressed to Jason #instead Alfred put them away but because he hasn’t gotten a letter and with their chaotic lives he forgot #Jason is conflicted #should he reach out? to his old friend #Also what did Danny mean in his last letter? Deaging? with #he reads the other letters and realize the stories of a ghost boy might not just be stories #Danny is living in Gotham with Ellie #he cut some ties in Amity #He’s done his best to stay off the Bats radar though #he doesn’t wanna be dragged into the hero business again #He does meet RH when Ellie and her classmates are kidnapped though #what happens next is open ended #maybe dead on main? idk

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cy-lindric · 1 year

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Now that I'm back from being hacked for skincare scam profits I can show you this 1790s waistcoat I've made !! First pic is the extant piece I've loosely based it off.

#I tied a barrel knot you guys #I read so many austenite fangirl blogs to try to figure out how to cut/fold/tie a neckcloth #and ended up watch a dad do it on YT #because written text simply didn't compute with my brain #historical costuming #1790s #directoire #première republique #18th century

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ew-selfish-art · 9 months

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Dpxdc Au: Dani has taken up letter writing on her adventures around the world! It gives Danny something to look forward to even if he can just text or call her… wait why is she spending so much time in Gotham??

Danny was thrilled that his clone sister had taken to writing letters as part of her travels- sure he could always give her phone a ring but this was so much cuter! She always included little drawings of things she’d seen and it was obvious that she was using letter writing as a way to reflect.

Jazz had mentioned that it was probably kind of like diary writing being good self-reflection time… Danny kind of zoned out during that lecture turned instruction manual, but he’s still super excited everytime a new letter shows up! Plus it’s not like his mom or dad ever check the mailbox.

Her letter last time was all about Gotham and the creepy heroes she talked to while she was there. It had a lot of details but Danny just figured she must have thought a lot about it with her own connection to having powers and using them for good. He’s hoping that she chose to go to metropolis or even Central City next but he opens the next letter and… Gotham.

She’s still in Gotham. Apparently she really likes the creepy heroes now, and she totally saved their butts on a mission. Huh, well, okay. It’s not like Danny is going to tell her to move on, cause the city’s most famous anti-power aka anti-meta advocate is hanging out with her according to her letters… whatever. He gives her a call but she says she’s in the middle of a board game night and will call him back.

2 weeks go by and a new letter arrives- checking the postage- she’s still in Gotham!!! She’s staying with a family that she really likes and thinks Danny would like as well, they have all his favorite video games and the food doesn’t even fight back! Danny is starting to get a bit anxious but… he’s glad she’s getting some semblance of normalcy.

Next few letters are detailing her life with this family and then in the last one she calls the oldest kid “Big Brother Energy times 1,000” and it makes Danny come to a realization.

Holy shit- Dani’s been adopted!!

He immediately flies to Gotham to inspect this family and what the heck? Why are they being so nice to him?? He’s trying to interrogate them!! Dani stop helping them!! He doesn’t need to also be adopted!! Ugh!!

#dcxdp #dpxdc #danny phantom #dc x dp #dp x dc #dc crossover #dp crossover #ehehehe #just Dani doing her own thing and Danny slowly realizing that she’s been adopted #the batfam for sure saw her traveling alone as unhealthy and slowly integrated her into their lives #like she’s overpowered as shit and she needs a support system of course they’re gunna provide it #then they learn about Danny and how he’s being hunted by the fentons (why she didn’t stay in amity)#Jazz leaves for college and cuts all ties by the time she’s 18 and then turns to danny like ‘your turn’

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