glad watcher responded and chose a plan that works for a lot more of their audience and still allows them to keep more control of their content on a different site they can get funding from. i think it addresses a lot of the fair and justified criticism I saw. i also think that I'm prob gonna keep a distance from the fandom for a while cause some of you really showed your true colors and were fucking annoying and disrespectful lol
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Rolan didn’t realize he loved the other two until it was too late. Until it had been years since they’d spoken, even longer since they’d seen each other. And when he realized, he didn’t know what to do. How to deal with the fact that he loved two people he could barely even say he knew anymore. He didn’t understand how he could love concepts, memories filled with laughter and affection and the always somewhat present smell of smoke.
But he did. He loved them. Felt his heart skip a beat when a girlfriend’s dyed blonde hair momentarily made him mistake her for Kian. His body warmed up when she spoke of a fantasy story she’d read, explaining all the little details that Rolan would remember for the rest of his life in the same exact way that Rand would. When he heard a song on the radio, and his first thought was still “Kian would like this”. When the smell of smoke and alcohol and weed that always clung to Rand’s attic bedroom never quite left him.
Kian knew he loved the other too far too early, before anything could be done about it. When their biggest worries were still exams rather than missing sisters or corpses that nobody else could see. And he hated himself for it, hated how quickly and easily his love turned from something acceptable into something they’d hate him for. Hated how no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get rid of the love he felt for them, how each time he hugged or just sat near them it would feel forbidden, like a secret they all had to keep but only he knew about.
But he couldn’t stop the way he felt. How his heart hammered in his chest when Rand rested his head on his shoulder because it was still normal to him. How his body burned when Rolan helped him bleach his hair during the early hours of the morning, talking about everything and anything to pass the time while they waited. How he mourned the friendship he still had with Rand, now tainted with lies because that was the only way Rand could still care for him. How he still felt such a desperate need and pain when yet another call to Rolan went unanswered, his words and pleas falling to nothing as he knew the other would never hear them anyways.
Rand only understood that he loved them when they were gone. He realized with fear and pain and yerning that the betrayal and loneliness he felt when they left wasn’t born just from his best friends leaving him behind. And he didn’t know how to feel, how to deal with it. Just like he didn’t years later, when he was left behind again, both of them gone somewhere he couldn’t bring himself to follow, only remembering how he felt when Rolan Deep and Kian Stone were both nothing but memories a few people held and empty graves he left flowers to.
He loved them for the rest of his life. His heart still skipped a beat whenever he passed by Rolan’s home, like he was still expecting the other to sneak out of the back door and join him in whatever he was doing. His body always felt cold and hollow, like something was missing, whenever someone touched him with the same care and gentleness that Kian always had. He locked up in terror whenever he heard the clicking and buzzing of ordinary bugs that had seemingly overtaken Galloway since the hive died. He screamed when the phantom flesh and blood that forever coated his barely living body wrapped around him tighter in a mockery of an embrace.
Rand loved the other two for the rest of his life. And he hated it more than anything.
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