I Love Significant Others Wearing Each Other's Jewelry/other Items. It's Gotta Be One Of My Favorite

Etho is in his training arc to win limited life

My experience with Luke (Punz)

CW: toxic relationship, racism, dubious consent

I know in the past i said that i would no longer speak about him publicly, and when talking about my experiences with abuse and emotional mistreatment i begged to keep it anonymous but after reflecting on this for a week and seeing so many incredibly smart and strong women tell their stories. they have given me the strength to say his name.

this is really scary to talk about because of the copious levels of harassment i have received from his fans in the past so if this spreads or gets out of hand i will simply log off.

If you read my last post, i nicknamed him 1.

So aside from everything i said there, there were a lot of things i didn’t include because they would’ve made it obvious that it was him and it could potentially backfire on me so, i’m very afraid to post this. but i’m going to do it scared anyway, because it’s not fair that he gets to just go and live his life worry-free as if he didn’t practically ruin mine.

Because I already made a very lengthy post about him, i won’t include everything i said last time to avoid being redundant but if i repeat myself, please bear with me.

In our year long relationship i had to endure emotional neglect, gaslighting, verbal abuse, one instance where there was dubious consent, and much more.

Starting off at the beginning of our relationship, that’s when i was getting copious amounts of hate and harassment from his fan base (warranted or not), he decided that our relationship must be kept private. he said it was to “protect” me from his fanbase when in reality it was to protect himself. it was so he wouldn’t get all the backlash i was getting. this is funny because one of the things i got called out for was saying the B slur (derogatory term used against mexicans/latinos). I won’t get into the nuances of if i could say it or not as a puertorican because that’s discourse that does not pertain to this specific situation. But you know who definitely can’t say it? A white boy from Massachusetts. When i was getting cancelled for this and getting thousands of tweets calling me names, he decided that was the perfect time to say “I mean you are a b***** aren’t you? my little b*****.” Now, he said this completely unprompted. I was in the process of writing my apology and he just said that. I tell you this because i immediately shut him down and told him that there was no universe in which it was okay for him to say that word and especially not one where he could just call me that. While i was reprimanding him, he was smiling and laughing. he apparently found it amusing to call me a slur. regardless, he gave me a half-assed apology and said he wouldn’t do it again. and he didn’t. but this wasn’t the only time he was weirdly racist to me. this was my first time being in an interracial relationship so i was led to believe that this was normal by all the white people around me at the time. But, sometimes my spanish accent would come out and he would make fun of me and the way i pronounced some words. He also refused to visit me in Puerto Rico when i lived there or come meet my family when i really wanted him to because he “didn’t like the heat” or “it’s dangerous there isn’t it?”. Once, while we were watching season 2 of Bridgerton, he implied that the Sharma sisters were “too dark” for him to be attracted to them. This hurt me because they are brown skinned girls. I am a brown skinned girl. Then this, combined with the fact that he told me once he wasn’t attracted to me made me feel like my skin color was unattractive. These are only a few examples i can think of at the moment, but i’m sure there were more. Our relationship ended in 2022 so some of my memory is a bit hazy. But, I do remember feeling inferior to him throughout the relationship because he was white and I was not. I chalk that up to all the micro aggressions i had to deal with because i had never felt that way around white people before.

Another thing i had to endure was him constantly making me feel like he was embarrassed to be with me. Because i was cancelled, he didn’t want to associate with me too much. He did defend me on multiple occasions, I’ll give him that. But, he only did it because his name was getting dragged in the mud along with mine. Excusing my actions made him look better for being around me. In reality he didn’t really care. Because he was such a big content creator and someone i looked up to professionally, I took his advice as law. He told me to tone down my personality, to keep a low profile, to change things about myself to be more palatable to his audience. The same audience that spoke about me like “The pussy can’t be that good punz please stop defending her”. So i changed a lot of things about myself and my content to better suit what his audience liked. He made me feel like if his audience liked me, he would be public about our relationship and stop hiding it. He told me the reason why he wanted to keep our relationship a secret was because he didn’t want to get hate for it. But this wasn’t true. On my 20th birthday he went to Las Vegas for a twitch rivals event. That night i asked to facetime him to say goodnight and he refused because he was at a hotel room with his friends and he didn’t want them to know that we were together. It was as if my mere presence or the utterance of my name was a source of embarrassment for him. And he didn’t let me forget it. It wasn’t just a public thing at that point. He didn’t want people to know we were together, period. This was devastating to me because I would talk to all my friends about him. I was so proud to be with him and I was just one more problem to him. He made me feel so small and insignificant just because his fans didn’t like me.

He would berate me a lot. Not just due to getting heat online, although he did do that a lot. But in general whenever we would get into an argument or a disagreement he would always call me names like annoying or weird or stupid. He would raise his voice at me if i did something he didn’t like and call me an idiot. And that really hurt, i felt like i couldn’t bring up anything or do anything without getting insulted. If I hadn’t seen him in a few days because he was too busy streaming and i asked to hang out he would call me needy, clingy, and annoying. Granted, he might not have been wrong, but that is not something you say to someone you claim to love. He also insulted me when i was in depressive episodes. I have BPD and at the time i was not being treated properly for it. So, I was all over the place emotionally and he was what i clung to for validation, reassurance, and love. I talked to him when we first started dating about my disorder and told him that if it seemed like something he couldn’t handle that he could opt out of the relationship. I guess he didn’t think it was that bad or something idk because whenever i had really bad depressive episodes, he would tell me I was too sad to hang out with. He said that my sadness was a burden to him. Which would be fair. But, once my mother had a conversation with him about me. She told him that i am someone who needs a lot of love and caring. She said that if he wasn’t willing to put in that kind of effort into a relationship to just leave me alone. He reassured her that he would be there for me no matter what. He told my mother that he would protect me and my heart. He did not. He took all the warnings I gave him and ignored them and then made me feel like I was the problem. And even worse, he would say that i was pretending to be sad to get his attention when he would neglect for days at a time.

There were also some smaller things like the fact that he made me feel really guilty whenever he would spend money on me. Also, he would be really mean about my eating habits. For context, i used to suffer from an eating disorder. I was anorexic and had a really unhealthy relationship with food during high school and my first year of uni. This relationship began when i was recovering from my ED. For me, eating was really hard. So i had certain comfort foods that, while sometimes unhealthy, at least it was something to eat when i didn’t feel like eating anything. He knew this. Yet, whenever i would crave some of these foods he would call me fat. Constantly told me I’d gain weight from eating all that junk food. Saying that to someone with an eating disorder is crazy. Other smaller things were that whenever I would post tiktoks where i was lip syncing or just looking good he would yell at me and say i was looking for attention. Same with Instagram or Twitter whenever i would post photos where I looked hot. He never planned out a single date for us. I would beg him to get me flowers and he did maybe once but i’ll get into that in a bit. He would make fun of me in front of his friends to make himself look better. He let his friends say really degrading things about me in his presence. For example, once when i was showering, i overheard him on a discord call with George and Sapnap and i heard George say “if you don’t go in the shower and have sex with Andi, i will”. Once, when i was really struggling with my legs (for those of you who don’t know, i have arthritis and it’s very painful. at the time i wasn’t diagnosed but i was in a lot of pain) I literally could not walk. I had to beg him to take me to the ER because i didn’t know what was wrong with me. He didn’t want to take me but eventually i convinced him, and while we were there all he did was complain about how long it was taking and that he would have rather been at home streaming. Whenever I would talk about my interests that i was excited about like shows or books he would be incredibly uninterested and say that those things were stupid and he didn’t want to hear about them. I know all of these seem very silly or superficial but cumulatively it was awful.

Now for arguably the most serious thing i’m going to talk about. I want to preface this by saying i am just telling my side of what happened. You can come to your own conclusions about this.

On April 25, 2022 it was our one year anniversary, and i had made a dinner reservation for us. I expected him to plan something throughout the day for us to do. He told me he was going to spend the whole day playing Valorant so I got upset and cancelled the reservation. After a very heated argument, we calmed down and i asked him to come over. He came over about an hour later with flowers and drinks (I was 20 at the time so I couldn’t buy the drinks myself). He brought Smirnoffs and Trulys. For context, I am a lightweight. I always have been. I literally get tipsy on half a cocktail. And that day, I hadn’t eaten anything because i was in distress over our argument. So we get to talking and drinking. I blacked out after my second Smirnoff. Apparently I drank 3 but I genuinely cannot remember anything after finishing the second one. The next morning i woke up naked in my bed. I woke him up and asked him “Luke, why am I naked?” and he said “Because you didn’t want to put your clothes back on.” When I clarified to him that that was not what I meant, he got defensive and said that he didn’t realize how drunk I was. He proceeded to tell me that I initiated sex with him and that i was very enthusiastic about it. He said he didn’t know i could black out on three smirnoffs. He made fun of me for being a lightweight and continued to make light of the situation. Then he mentioned that i fell off the bed at some point in the night and that it was funny how drunk I was. I then questioned him. Because if he thought that me tripping and falling off the bed because i was so drunk was funny, how did he not know that i was too drunk? He responded by saying that i fell off the bed only after we were done. That day I broke up with him. I’m still really confused about what happened that night. I don’t remember anything and all I have to go on is what he said to me. We were in a relationship at the time and he says he didn’t know how drunk I was so I’m not sure what to call what happened. A while after that day, his friend that hmu while we were broken up and I started talking again and i confided in him about that night. He told me to be careful saying things like that because they could get me into trouble. I spoke to some of our other friends about it and they told me it was no big deal and that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how drunk I really was. Because I don’t remember, I have been led to believe that this is not a serious matter. You can think what you want, come to whatever conclusions you want. That is just my side of the story.

I want to add that I’m not proud of how I acted after the relationship ended. I felt really angry at all the shit he put me through and I guess a part of me wanted him to hurt even a quarter of how I did. So I started talking to his friend and got involved with him. This backfired on me because his friend ended up really hurting me too so ig i got my karma. But the thing that hurt the most is that because of what I did, some of our friends took his side in the break up. I was told that I did something terrible by getting involved with his friend that he was already insecure about and that he didn’t deserve that. These are the same friends who were witness to the dumpster fire of a relationship we had and all the things he did to me. They turned their backs on me because of this one thing I did. But stood by and watched as he treated me like garbage for over a year.

I will conclude this by saying that while this relationship has been “over and done with” for almost two years now, I carry a lot of trauma from it still. I still talk about him in therapy and have had to put in a lot of work to heal from what he did and i still cannot say that i am okay. I am very blessed to now have a patient and understanding partner who has helped me heal from that trauma and i just want to quickly thank him for that. Nobody deserves to go through what I did. While yes, it was a toxic relationship, and I had a part in that, it does not excuse all the awful things he said and did to me. This is my truth, thank you for taking the time to read it.

Something so interesting and missed out by a lot of TOH fans is that the young antagonistic characters that redeemed themselves DO NOT denounce being what they are , to recognize their privilege or lineages is vital to their characters, they cannot control where they come from, but they want to change because they want to denounce CRUELTY, to ally themselves with whats actually right, and to fight for their own selves instead of being a pawn for the opressor . This is why readings of Hunter to say "he didnt really have to Redeem himself" kind of miss the point, because Hunter, while being an obvious abuse victim, was still an upholder of the emperor´s coven and negatively affected people (he obviously regrets ever trying to forcefully recruit the flyer derby team just to prove himself in the coven) because of they way he was raised to do so, and its fine to feel shame about that, and its fine when he says hes worried about being a copy of a witch hunter too , because even if its a bit of an irrational fear , it shows that hes caring and responsible for the wellbeing and comfort of his fellow witches , you Have To show kids that having regrets its normal, and that you have your willpower to do better than what your ancestors or family have done, because everyone is a part of history in the making.

since it’s a scary time to be trans: refuge restrooms is an app which maps gender-neutral/single-stall restrooms. it’s community-mapped, so it’s possible you might be the first person to log the restroom locations, but hopefully it’ll help some people.

please reblog this post if you’ve got trans followers. stay safe.

life series etho is such…. an enigma to me…..

TLDR; ethos strategies in the life series are like a clock, eventually he’s bound to repeat himself. he deserves to be put in a test tube and studied under a microscope

in third life, Etho didn’t really have any true allies. Like sure, he was part of the Dogwarts alliance, and maybe he teamed with Impulse for a bit, but the wool fort was his. he built that and just let Impulse hang around. He wasn’t committed to anyone fully the entire time, and when he died, he died burning at the hands of his supposed ally who was too focused on winning to actually hold up his end of the bargain. (i could on and on about impulse and his poor decisions in third life, but this isn’t about him)

i like to think that because of this, he learned to do better in last life. making strong alliances with those he felt like he could trust, and giving all he had into his relationship (whether you interpreted it as /p or /r) with bdubs. he had team BEST, and he never ever betrayed them for anything, even when bdubs did. he survived because he was carful and he had his friends. he was safe in his fort and he did what he had to do to survive. his other alliances were fleeting, even fake in the case of scar, but he never stopped fighting for BEST, at least until he realized he had to let them go to have a chance at winning.

perhaps he learned from impulse in third life. maybe he realized that alliances really only existed until you had a better chance of winning with someone else. he was still green when the rest of BEST was red or eliminated, and he realized fast that the best way to win would be to stick with the rest of the yellows. he betrayed his true ally’s to win, and in the end it didn’t matter. he allowed Bdubs to die because of his false promises, and he couldn’t even secure the victory.

double life is when everything changed. etho was soul bound to Joel, the man that killed him in Last Life. they hadn’t ever really interacted all that much, but they knew each other by reputation alone. despite considering leaving Joel for Impulse and Bdubs, once he learned that Joel had made them a boat, he was committed to their relationship (again, either /p or /r) until the very end. he burned the entire server down for joel, and he followed him everywhere and protected him at all costs. he betrayed his ally’s in last life and it cost him not only the victory, but also his humanity (!!!!), and i wonder if he promised himself he wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen with Joel.

If the ship burns, everything burns. that’s what joel said when the red wars were raging and the server was crumbling down. etho was prepared to burn again, but this time, he would burn with his ally. it was just too bad that that blinding courage was their downfall.

now we’re on limited life, and you see him doing similar things to what he did in third life. he has ally’s similar to third life, meaning he’s not fully committed to any of them. while officially he is part of team TIES, his (cough… here we go) family commitments to the Clockers are making that quite difficult. he’s playing multiple sides again, but like in third life, he’ll eventually have to pick a side and watch as his ally’s fight for the very last second.

Hey! I saw you mentioning a podcast that was as good as TMA. I recently finished tma and have been desperate to find a radio show like it. Do you have any recommendations?

Heya! I listen to a lot of podcasts so I'm not exactly sure which this would be referring to but some of my favorite pods to listen to are:

The white vault (supernatural/thriller/horror) it's by far my favorite show on this list, I listen to it on repeat, it's based on documents and recording collected from an outpost after the disappearance of the repair team sent there.

The Sheridan tapes (supernatural/mystery) Sam Bailey is assigned to a new police station and he is assigned the case of Anna Sheridan and investigating her recordings.

I have some other that aren't like recording horror but I love them

There's neighbourly (supernatural/horror?), a podcast about a totally normal neighborhood called little street

Monsterous agonies (supernatural) this is essentially Dear Abby but for creatures of the night

Hello from the Hallowoods (post apocalyptic supernatural horror?) Our host nikignik, a hundred eyes in the dark brings us a view of a post apocalyptic world 20~ years after the case, loveable creatures, found family, evil corporations, I don't know how to summarize it but it's gorgeous and please read the blurb for it

I don't know you're preferences but these are all shows I actively listen to and I don't need to pause at any point for second hand embarrassment, I hope this gives you some ideas! And let me know if you enjoy them! :D

the wicked movie teaches important moral lessons like "be bisexual in college" and "don't trust politicians" and "if you push someone who's in a wheelchair without their permission, someone might throw a bench at your head with their mind"

Who wants a Bowuigi standee? 👀

EDIT:

You can buy it here!

you're so silly Grian!