I wonder, I want a poll because I need to know. How many LonelyEyes shippers think that Elias and Peter actually like each other?
I don’t think they do, but I also think it’s more complicated than them just disliking each other. As avatars, there’s a lot more value in a relationship where they don’t have the expectations of ‘liking’ someone applied to them. They can be rude and vitriolic toward each other, avoid each other, manipulate each other, use each other, hurt each other, and even kill each other, and that’s fine, because they don’t expect each other to maintain a veneer of human connection that they obviously don’t have a great capacity for (especially Peter, as a creature that is repelled by connection). They understand each other and accept each other and can find each others company agreeable sometimes and that’s enough. It works for them. It makes them comfortable being permanent fixtures in each others lives, for so long as the other lives.
I guess you could say that they like that they can be themselves around each other? But I don’t think the understood meaning of ‘like’ between people really applies to them otherwise. That’s just my take on them, though. The idea of two people magnetically seeking each other out despite their dislike appeals to me a lot.
That said, I’ve indulged in illegal soft LonelyEyes and I’ve definitely read fic that convinced me they could develop in that direction. I’ll probably write a fic like that myself one day.
they dont they dont they dont like each other
peter is the literal embodiment of loneliness and elias is a Sad Old Man who spent his life watching through someone else’s eyes and Knowing everyone around him without anyone ever Knowing him back
elias is embracing his own loneliness, the watcher in his ivory tower who got the most ironic gift of all when trying his hand at his ritual and only getting a pat on the back from his god, who basically told him “now go and make me a better avatar cause you aint shit”
peter and the lukases in general are Very Much into the institute because it is the place where people go to tell their most horrible personal stories and while they may get catharsis, they never never ever get help here. Observe and record, dont interfere. They come in lonely and scared and come out even lonelier.
they’re two parasitic old men who feed off each other’s worse traits, it’s codependent and beautifully evil. i think most fandom sees it as a crack ship (and it can be, sure) but theres deeply wrong canon material in here too and THAT is interesting