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#long term committed relationship
apparentlybychance · 2 years
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Sold Out for Their Love Story: How I let go of my need for a Happily Ever After for Louis and Harry
(I need to give a bit of backstory before we jump into the ooey gooey sappy love story part. Please bear with me.)
In October 2021 I saw a picture of Harry Styles hand in hand with a woman I didn't recognize (like at all). He looked like he'd rather eat dirt than be near her. That was was the day I fell down the rabbit hole harder than when Harry fell on stage after fighting with the mic wire.
About me: I'm a PR and Social Media Marketing Director. Recognizing a carefully crafted marketing campaign is easy for me and that's exactly what this was. So I did some research because I wanted to prove myself right about it being a PR stunt. What I didn't realize was that I was about to discover one of the greatest love stories of our generation.
I'm Gen X and not Gen Z so I did my research about this awkward coupling on Google and not TikTok (shade not intended, I think). From there, the Larrie gods led me to YouTube and I found the Cosmic Leeds videos. (Side note: pour one out for their 2022 video when you think of them, because Jesus, Mary and Joseph, they have a job ahead of them!)
That led me to Twitter (don't judge - social media marketer here, remember?) and I was legit skerred. (Translation: skerred is southern for scared.) The Twarries are a rare and passionate breed, but it was all me, really. I honestly couldn't keep up! From there I found my way to Tumblr and settled into several months of quiet lurking. It wasn't until a bomb shell that I considered H-U-G-E in the fandom happened. I won't mention names, but a "big" TikTok-er was unlarrying.) *GASP*
I'm not ashamed to admit that my fetus Larrie heart was SHOOK. TO. ITS. CORE. I panicked. Were these two beautiful boys who I had been watching fall in goofy, sloppy, sappy love in hundreds of videos and interviews, possibly not together anymore? I couldn't even imagine such a travesty. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. I had to do something.
I did the only thing I could think of. I took a deep breath and tentatively messaged a blogger here on Tumblr. I had followed her for months and trusted her for her level-headed responses. As I hit SEND on the message, I panicked. Would she ignore me completely? Or worse, just brush me off with a "get-a-life newbie", remark? Who was I but just a newborn Larrie? I was even newer than the pandemic Larries. Yikes! Imagine the shame I felt.
She responded almost immediately and she couldn't have been more welcoming and kind. She didn't treat me like a know-nothing newbie, but listened to my question with patience. She walked me through my first Larrie breakdown. (I've since learned that breaking down is a rite of passage in the fandom.) I now consider her a friend. Always in my heart @twopoppies. Yours sincerely, @Apparentlybychance.
<Insert one of may fav Harry and Louis pics to make sure you're still paying attention>:
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Now onto the good stuff: the romance of it all.
(One more tidbit: I'm also a novelist. No, I don't write fan fiction. I leave that to the professionals, but my day job does allow me to indulge in my passion which is writing stories. This is where our sweet boys had me.)
Do I blame Louis and Harry for the fact that I've devoted more time to them than cleaning my house the last few months?
Yes. Yes I do. I mean just LOOK at how stinkin' adorable they are. My god.
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As a fiction writer, I see a story in everything and everywhere. When I found Harry and Louis' story and watched with my own two eyes the genuine love they had for each other, I jumped in feet first and landed too hard. I saw the heart eyes and infatuation of the baby boyfriends and was hopelessly lost in their story.
Harry...sugar, wow. Just wow. You were a mess falling all over yourself to impress and attract your golden, bright as the sun, idol. And Louis sweetie, bless your little heart. You spent at least a full year trying to convince yourself this beautiful creature with the soft curls and the potent pheromones that you called "his smell" was real.
We get it. We really do. You both were (are) so smitten. And that feral need to touch each other every waking moment developed into a settled, hard fought, partnership between two committed lovers by 2015. It was breathtaking to watch.
What's not to love about their love story?
That's where I went off the rails. Maybe you see yourself in this, too? Let's discuss.
Story is ingrained in our very beings as humans. Our ancestors verbally told stories to pass down traditions and legends from one generation to the next. This wasn't only because they hadn't invented the alphabet yet, but because they knew that story was the best way to get to the heart of a person. To captivate them.
Harry and Louis' captivated me because it has all the elements of a good story:
No. 1: Captivating protagonists. Exhibit A, Your Honor: Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles. Have you ever seen more gorgeous, sweeter, more talented, more adorable protagonists? No, me neither.
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No. 2: Vitriol inducing villain(s): Simon Cowell/Modest Management/Syco. Do I have to say anything else? Here we have our villain, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The evil entity who want to keep the lovers apart, cancel their love, and crush their sweet spirits because of greed and the strong possibility that Simon isn't getting any in his own life. (Bless.)
No. 3: Magic and glamour: This is the part where story reigns supreme. (Genuinely sorry if that word was triggering.) Here we have two members of a global popstar boy band that had a meteoric rise to fame. They are rich, gorgeous, uber talented and travel to places they can't even pronounce. Not to mention, they look amazing in every article of clothing that has the privilege to grace their bodies. Will they be able to defeat the villain and finally express their love for the whole world to see? Their story is swoon-worthy. No exaggeration.
With all the makings of a good story, we are mesmerized by our star-crossed lovers, raise our swords and vow to see them through to the end. Standing behind us, they will be rescued from the nasty villain and finally be free to ride off into the sunset together to make beautiful music and raise curly-haired, ocean-blue eyed, chubby babies together. And then the famous last words cross the final page of the book: And they lived happily ever after.
Let's all just bask in that moment for a second. Our boys are free to be whoever they want to be. TOGETHER. Isn't that the pinnacle? The climax?
Am I the only one who didn't find themselves right here in this story? I definitely did when I joined the fandom. I assumed that Harry and Louis' total goal was to free from their shackles and ride off into the sunset. Surely, it was imminent. Right?
A year later, I understood why I that was immature of me. I realized that this is no fairy tale and Louis and Harry are real people. They have ambitions and goals and passions and talent and yes, immense, mature love for their partner of over 12 years.
They've been generous to share their love with us and give us signs about when they were happy and signs when they were in distress and needed support. They are still so grateful for our love and support. But I think I have to realize that they aren't ready to ride off into the sunset with their little cherubs just yet. They still have stuff to do. Goals to achieve. Talent to use. And they've chosen to pursue it the ways we are watching. With (nausea inducing) stunts that help them create a story that sells to a wider audience. It's hard for me to watch them make decisions in their lives and careers that I don't agree with or even condone. But, hey, my teenagers do it all the time so why am I surprised?
What I personally need to do for my sanity as a forever Larrie is to learn to trust them. I need to learn to let them tell their own story in the way they want. And if they don't like how their new teams are trying to get them to sell themselves, I have to believe they are strong enough together to do what they need to do to change it - though it may take time. And I need to stop looking for the Happily Ever After just around the corner. I'm really working on this part because if I was writing this damn story, they would have lit a match, set fire to the industry and watched it burn a long time ago. But I digress...
These are some things I'm doing now to release my need for the Happily Ever After and still make me feel like I'm supporting them:
I'm taking their contagious affection, care, attentiveness, hot af sex life, and sappy love declarations and bringing that same energy to my personal relationship. So far, I'm getting a good response. (wink, wink)
Despite facing incredible industry adversity, Harry and Louis are both driven to create art that is as authentic to themselves as possible while realizing that they also have to create something that other people want to buy. I've started applying that philosophy to my own art (my writing) and am releasing the fear of not being good enough. It's made for some interesting stories!
I've reached out to a local organization in my area that supports LGBTQI+ teenagers to support them in a volunteer capacity. I'm not queer myself, but I'm a good listener and I have some skills I can share to help the organization tell their story and build support. Maybe I can't take on a multi-billion dollar industry like the f-ing music industry, but by putting my time into supporting queer teens in my area, I can do something in the name of closeted queer artists all over the world.
I think it goes without saying that I'm also still on Tumblr reading all the posts from all my favorite bloggers enjoying "everything Louis and Harry" both together and individually. Maybe someday I'll get that Happily Ever After. ❤
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yellowocaballero · 7 months
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So fucking glad to see someone talk about SSS Class revival hunter 😭 I lived it so much and I feel like no one ever mentions it against more popular titles like ORV or even The Lout of the counts family, so I'm so glad to come here and see your amazing takes :>
Thank you for the ask which lets me talk about SSSCRH (the version I read was titled 'Suicide Hunter', which tbh I like more - no beating around the bush).
It's hard to draw an accurate comparison since I'm going off just the webtoon for SSSCRH, while I'm going off both the webtoon and the webnovel for ORV. And I love ORV, ORV is my media blorbo right now, it hydraulic presses my brain, I am writing ORV fanfic - it's, like, funner to enjoy. But SSSRH is just better. In the vast majority of ways it is is better. It's better than the holy trinity by a wide margin. TW talk of suicide obviously.
I can't believe I'm saying this but you need a basic understanding of Buddhism in order to understand SSSCRH. It's not about Gongja's suicides - he doesn't suicide from depression or lack of self-esteem. SSSCRH is about suffering in the Buddhist sense - dukkha. I don't want to make this an essay, so I might reblog this with more information, but extremely shortly:
The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism is the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. You've heard that Buddhists say 'life is suffering'. To put it one way that doesn't require defining a lot of words: the cause of suffering is experiencing the world as we percieve it instead of how it truly is. Suffering isn't just being miserable and in pain, and life isn't suffering because life sucks and global warming exists and people voted for Trump. Life is suffering because we can experience beautiful and joyful moments in this world, but we do not exist in the moment of that happiness or place our ego/'self' between us and that happiness. Living in that moment, accepting the moment as it is unconditionally, is freedom from suffering. The Buddha tries to free people from suffering through teaching Buddhism.
"What does this have to do with the webnovel and manwha about a guy murdering himself thousands of times" it has everything to do with it. Because SSSCRH is about suffering, and it is about using suffering as a tool in order to experience a world unfiltered by ego and break down the artificial boundaries between human beings. Suffering in SSSCRH is not a bad thing. Gongja has the unique capability to (reincarnate.) experience a person's suffering in unity with them, which dissolves the delusion of separation between people and puts us in touch with the reality of oneness.
The Murim arc was fucking insane because Gongja pulls a Big Bodhisattva Move and walks through the suffering of the world in order to achieve full understanding of the human experience. He takes all of the suffering of the world into himself and is liberated. You can tell it's Buddhist because death was not presented as a bad thing - death was an aspect of a happy ending for the Heavenly Demon lady, because she was finishing her life according to her own joy, and because her teachings were passed on she did not truly die.
But the purpose of embracing suffering is to discover the ability to fully embrace life, and that's where Heavenly Demon's teachings were incomplete - as the ghost dude said, Gongja hasn't even experienced his own full life and the infinite capability for his own happiness. You can only feel the depths of sadness when you've felt the depths of happiness. Sadness deserves its place in the world and it can strengthen you, but so does happiness.
Gongja is attention-seeking, envious, and unbelievably petty. When he drills down into his own desires and why he wants the things he wants, you see that he has a very strong sense of justice and right and wrong - he realizes he doesn't want to be famous, he wants to be acknowledged, but on an even deeper level he is desperate for love and to be loved. Everything he does is to experience love, and as such he learns to love others. His love for the Flamey Asshole was purely parasocial and ego-filled, with no concern for who he was as a human. Throughout the manwha, he grows to care for people as they truly are and pierce through any delusions or misleading outward appearances. He has released all attachment to life and death, and as such does not fear death, and as such has taken a step on the road towards becoming a Boddhisatva who frees others from the cycle of samsara, and as a result has learned sick sword techniques and is sooo good at beating people up.
I think the only other thing I want to mention here because otherwise this is an essay: in almost every time loop/regression story, only the final regression matters. In stories with dungeon monsters and NPCs, only the humans matter. The regressor exists in a space where there are no consequences for their actions, so they act terribly and do whatever because none of it matters. In Groundhog Day Bill Murray acts like an asshole because he can. That's not the case here. Everything Gongja does matters. The NPCs are fake, but Gongja never treats them as anything less than real people who deserve life. Once he understands a person's life he never treats them as unimportant. No loop is thrown away and no person or life is disregarded. His choices matter, the way he treats others matters, and Gongja never treats anybody as if they don't matter except for himself.
That was not short. There is a lot more. The female characters are so good and so rich. From a craft perspective it is excellently paced and has a wonderful sense of set-up/payoff and balances tone and maintains a lot of momentum, which is really hard in a time loop story. You have to do a few very specific things to write OP characters well and SSSCRH does it very well. There's more to say from a craft perspective and it's hard to judge accurately from a webtoon but it's good. I was so strangely struck the entire time about how sincere and genuine it was, how it said what it said with no trace of irony of confusion, and I think that's what stuck with me the most.
TL;DR: SSS Class Revival Hunter is good for a lot of very normal reasons, such as excellent pacing and set-up/pay off and characters, but it's also so sincerely and genuinely Buddhist that it blew my tits clean off.
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canisalbus · 10 months
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I noticed you've been making more art of Machete and Vasco after they met again as adults - is this canon? Do they get to rekindle their friendship after all, or is it still brief and bittersweet? (I love your characters and art, btw!)
Thank you! I'm glad you like them!
It's canon, I believe. After their confusing and apprehensive friends-to-lovers involvement ended in their early 20's, their paths end up crossing again unexpectedly in their mid 30's and things gradually grow from there.
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this may be controversial but maybe the "astarion and halsin are SO sexually traumatised that you should literally cut your own dick off before thinking abt them romantically you disgusting freaks" goon squad should consider the ramifications of essentially insisting assault survivors be permanently excluded from any kind of sex and romance bc they are too broken and stupid to be trusted to know their own desires and boundaries or have the capacity to want to explore/push them.
you know real survivors (not pixel men but real ppl like me!) can read that shit? do you think pushing the lie that encountering one (1) Genital Wielded With Intent will invariably cause us to crumble to a miserably weepy heap of dust and blow away in the breeze is appreciated or helpful? or implying the people that love or desire us are selfish at best and outright predators at worst?
i'm begging ppl to just be 2% normal about abuse survivors PLEASE. the characters aren't real but the attitude you drag from fandom back into the real world are.
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Nick Nelson meeting new people at uni:
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rythyme · 7 months
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ok it's on me for not checking the premise or anything before watching it but uhhhh y'all's gifs did NOT prepare me for whatever the hell those two guys have going on in My Personal Weatherman
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tortoisetrainer · 1 year
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committed love
malcolm t liepke // li-young lee // liu xiaodong // reginald shephard // dean cornwell // gustav klimt // carmen giménez smith // joan e. biren // joseph o. legaspi // jozef israëls
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anotherpapercut · 4 months
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this was an addition on another post but I thought it deserved its own because I keep seeing posts about marriage that would fit in on right wing conspiracy YouTube
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people should be allowed to choose whether or not they want to get married. posting about how people who don't want to get married are idiots and there's no viable reason why a person might choose not to get legally married makes you sound like Jerry Falwell. marriage should be legally accessible by ALL people regardless of disability, gender or sexuality, but basic rights should ALSO be available to all and not, as this person puts it, locked behind dominant cultural institutions
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thatqueergarbagerat · 8 months
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Normalize wanting committed, non-romantic relationships that aren't QPR's or PLP's
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jorvikzelda · 28 days
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today i had this Vivid memory flash through my mind of kissing my ex boyfriend (this was like 2018) and i felt so viscerally fucking revolted and I gotta say. it is truly impressive that I didn’t realise I’m a lesbian sooner than fucking half a year ago
#z talks#like the misidentifying as ace was Inevitable i think. that was due to repression that realising i didnt like men would not have fixed#(context: id’d as bi ace like. i wanna say 2016/17-2021/22 sometime and then went into ace and Questioning)#remember the time i really solidly settled on being aro because ‘romance has never not felt like a chore and putting on a facade’#babe no thats because your most recent and also singular long term relationship was with a Man#and thats the only one youre looking back on#its so funny how i dated a guy and it was so thoroughly Meh that i just didnt feel like pursuing anything romantic for a very long time#(A REACTION I HAD NOT HAD AFTER MY PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS WITH GIRLS)#And DIDN’T somehow consider that maybe I just Didn’t Like Guys#its nothing i grieve or feel sad about dw its honestly mostly funny to look back on#no wrongs were committed and i dont hold a grudge against the guy it was just me being confused and compheted#(…which is also a weird word to apply because at the time i identified and was out to my friends as a trans guy Binary.#This Was Also Wrong.)#was a weird time man. a truly weird time#anyway. all is well i have now been on 2 dates with a really cute girl and she gave me tulips <3#as part of a Care Delivery bc i had a Migraine and No Painkillers Or Snacks#get well flowers <333333#and now i dream of kissing her under the moonlight#With the uh. Hornetposting lately it May seem unlikely but yes I DO interact with real women! Romantically!#They coexist Wonderfully <3#Anyway. I’m gonna go to bed#Realising that im a lesbian solved all my identity problems including my fucking gender which is just fantastic#I am very happy and whenever I think of being a lesbian it grounds me to reality a little bit stronger and i go yeah. Yeah.
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yaknowlikenyah · 1 month
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conceptually i feel like you'd be really into someone getting a tattoo for you (not a stranger or something obviously)
Kitty has commitment issues ❤️
What I AM into is tattooing other people. Let me put my art on you and lets make it homoerotic.
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genevieve-and-nikki · 1 month
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5th anniversary messages from the Bois (I can't believe I've been playing this for 5 years 🙃🫣)
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catboyolli · 6 months
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Helloooo please take a look at these cuties (with their literal heart eyes) 🥺💞
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have a great Friday 🥰
helloooooo 💘💖💕💗💕💖
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa yessssss I'm looking!!!! can we pls talk about Olli doing his silly little dance to entertain Allu???? and Allu literally being all heart eyes for him and recording Olli having fun and aaaaaaaaa 😭🥺💕💗💘💕💕💘💗 (bonus points if they're not boyfriends yet but pining for each other and when Allu goes to sleep in his cabin (is that how you call a room in a cruise? lmao) he keeps replaying the video because Olli's smile is just perfect and lovely and he wants him so damn much but he can't have him due to Made Up Reasons 😭😭😭😭)
no but really, they are so cute togetherrrrrr, look at their smiles in the 2nd gif!!!! the only explanation here is love, because they are boyfriends and so in love with each other 🥰💕💘💖💘 (the other scenario could be them leaving the party as soon as Allu is done with his dj set to fuck because of course they would do that 😌)
thank you thank you thank you for the gifs I love them!!!! aaaaaaaa they are so cute 💖💕💘💕 have a lovely start of the weekend 🥰🥰🥰
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ask-ursa-tonypeter · 3 months
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[fic: wicked love] Tony, have you thought what would happen if the moment of Peter finding someone else never comes? I know you don't think it possible, but just hypothetically - would you be glad? Sad? Both? What would you do?
I'd…
I don't know. I made the choice I did so that he could have a normal life, and he won't ever get that with me. But I…
If he makes it through undergrad without breaking things off, maybe we'll talk about it. If he tells me it's what he actually wants, I… He'll still be so young. But it wouldn't… be fair to him, to keep…
--Things would have to change. I'll cross that bridge if we ever reach it.
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freckliedan · 6 months
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worlds most evil threesome only because i woudl be third wheeling the entire time. still doing it though i NEED to get sister dan pregnant i swear
i literally don't even care that i'd be third wheeling i need to put a baby in that man.
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For the Coordinator!Emmet AU, when it comes to Ingo becoming the PLA protagonist's actual, legal Uncle, as cute as Emmet and Johanna meeting, getting to know one another, becoming friends, and then falling in love could be, it would be WAAAAY more funny if Emmet suggested it sheerly because he heard the kid refer to Ingo as their 'Uncle.'
Emmet hears "Uncle Ingo" and just thinks to himself, 'Uncle Ingo...? Hey, we can actually make that happen!'
The next day he runs up to Johanna just like, "Hey! So, hear me out. Let's get married! Why? Well, we are both single. No one would nag us to be looking for a partner or try to get with either of us when we're not interested. But also, 1: Tax benefits. 2: It would make it easier for all of us to get dual citizenship. 3: More excuses for all of us to get together. 4: The kid calling Ingo their 'Uncle' would become a factual statement. 5: We're all already practically family anyway. 6: Ingo and I will make sure that you and the kid will always be able to access the Unovan Subway system for free."
This is just an idea that absolutely tickles me.
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