#everything they said I took to heart

[snittygoop]

Someone I once called my friend really stuck 10 knives into my back. I really must have not meant much to them if i was that easy to discard.

[ardate]

Every Boromir hater makes my enormous love for him grow stronger. Sorry you couldn't understand him, I get him tho and we're holding hands and the whole of Gondor is laughing at you

[mayhemspreadingguy]

Aaand he got hurt again 💔. The usual.

(a follow-up to this)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

love thinking kipperlilly spends her afterlife looking for lucy in a familiar forest

[sejanusarchive]

There’s so many layers to Sejanus being devastated by Marcus’s fate.

He hates how the districts are treated by the Capitol, hates the cruelty of the Hunger Games, he feels the same emotional pain he would have felt being a tribute himself, if not even more, having to watch completely safe from afar, unable to do anything to put an end to the senseless slaughter, while guilt gnaws at him for not risking getting picked to participate himself, for having escaped.

No innocent child deserves that, and it gets even worse when one of the children picked is someone he personally knows, someone he used to share a routine with, someone he used to spend hours alongside in a classroom.

And that child isn’t just someone, that child is Marcus, the kind boy who, while not even being his friend, went out of his way to help him when he got hurt, completely unprompted, just out of the goodness of his heart.

That boy is a testament to what Sejanus already knows, that everyone seems to keep forgetting, which is that humanity at its core is and can be better than how it’s currently behaving. Not to mention how that was probably the last time Sejanus ever experienced an act of such pure, unconditional kindness. And that simple gesture was so impactful on him, it was enough to cement Marcus’s presence in his heart for all those years and then the rest of his life, and it no doubt helped shape Sejanus into the person he became. Someone as good as Marcus shouldn’t be going through all of that, and it drives Sejanus crazy. If the Hunger Games were too much for him to handle before, now that Marcus is involved, they're unbearable.

But there’s more to Marcus. He is also a safe memory to Sejanus, one who undoubtedly often comforted him when he was feeling at his worst. And he’s one of the main things Sejanus thinks about when he thinks of District 2, his home. Home, which despite the fact that he lived there during the war, despite all the suffering he witnessed, despite the reality of the current living conditions there, is still Sejanus’s happy, safe place; it’s the place he belongs to, the place that could fix almost everything for him. But he can never return there. It has to exist only as a memory, kept safely locked away and untouched in his mind and heart.

But when Marcus arrives in the Capitol, he brings his home with him too, he is the physical manifestation of it. Sejanus’s desperation doesn’t just stem from the fact that it’s Marcus, the innocent, kind-hearted boy, undeserving of such cruelty; but also from the fact that that’s his Marcus as well, the one whose existence is synonymous to his home, his sweet boy from his memories, his comfort. Marcus being there doesn’t only mean the pointless, unjust death of a good person, Marcus being there also means the death of Sejanus’s home, its image no longer far away, safe and untouched, kept only in his mind.

Now it’s here and crumbling in front of his eyes. He already knew the reality of things, but it was just that: knowledge. Now he’s face to face with it, face to face with the fact that neither Marcus or his home are or will ever be safe. And, worst of all, he has no way to save them, or anyone else, he’s powerless and completely hopeless against the cruelty of the Capitol, against their fate; and now more than ever, since he’ll have to witness the death of the boy whose memory so often brought him hope before.

In the end all that’s left of both of them, for Sejanus, is a small chunk of marble, made from the same material as his District and carved into the shape of a heart, because that’s exactly where Sejanus’s own is: home with Marcus. We learn he has carried it to his new life in Twelve, immediately before we learn the only pictures he’s taken with him are of his family and his classmates in Two, of him, home for one the last times, standing with Marcus right behind him. That heart is the last physical object connected to Two and Marcus that he’ll have with him for the rest of his life, the last symbol of what he lost and will never get back, of what he couldn’t save or help.

But it’s also the one object connected to them that he brought with him when he regained faith, when he felt like he could finally make a difference and actually help people in the districts; the last symbol that things could still get better and not all hope is lost.

For Sejanus Marcus is a kind and innocent kid; he’s the good in humanity; he’s a safe memory; he’s the marble heart, because he is hope and comfort, and despair and helplessness, and home, and because he is deeply rooted in his own heart

[moe-broey]

GOD I would HATE to be stuck at a family dinner with them 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I would NOT fucking survive, the vibes alone would do 1000 points poison damage to me 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Also JUST. JUST.

THE VIBES. ARE RANCID. SHARENA DARLING YOU DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS (ALFPNSE TOO BUT DEAR LORD. Sharena LITERALLY was just told to Don't Speak Unless Spoken To RANCID. RANCID FUCKING FAMILY)

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[ratatatastic]

"Who's idea was it to put the cone on your head for the parade? Was that all you?" "Zach Eisenberg [Director, Executive Operations]—I think is his name—he takes care of us a lot at Amerant Bank Arena. I don't know his exact role with the team but he's just kind-of always around, and helps us out. He's friends with Brooks [Koepka.] I think he helps Brooks when he comes to the games. Anyways he found a pylon or I think I might have told him—I was pretty drunk at the time but I think I told him to go get a py—'if you could find a pylon, find one!' 'Cuz they sprung that speech on me, kind-of, last second, you know, five minutes before I was supposed to go up there. I'm like, 'What the fuck am I gonna say?' So I had him go grab the pylon and I grabbed it on the side of the stage right before I was gonna do my speech. And luckily all the clips are of that, you know, me telling him to go fuck himself... 'cuz the rest of my speech was terrible. There's really nothing to it! And I'm so happy that, you know, all the clips are only of that so!" "Yeah, we didn't know you said anything else! I thought that was the entire speech!" "That's all that matters!" "Exactly, exactly! I got away with it there!"

The Cam & Strick Podcast | 7.30.24 (x)

i love finding out they basically told ekky he was gonna have to do a whole speech 5 minutes before he was up while hes been drenched from rainwater and alcohol for like the past 6 hours absolutely pissed out of his mind like yeah no wonder his speech basically culminated to THANK YOU SOUTH FLORIDA AND ALSO GIVE IT UP FOR MY D PARTNER WOOOOO yeah that tracks

"But what golf tournament* were you at shortly after that? Somebody was dressed like a cone? Was that Lomberg who was dressed in like a costume? A cone costume?" "He came—Brooks came up to you—" "No, that was his buddy, that was his buddy. He was actually a Sunrise police officer. I actually saw him last night at the Zach Bryan concert! But yeah, no, that's one of his buddies. No, he was completely put to bed the day after. Right? Like he texted me—I personally didn't care, like, how many people at a hockey game are calling me a cone and telling Barkov he's got no hands like it's—you know, that's hockey. That's sports, right? So I didn't give a shit but—yeah, no, it was all in good fun. And then I got a way to get him back! It's perfect!" "But when you did see the first video of him in the box—and I remember watching that, I'm like, 'this motherfucker is rolling esctasy!' His eyes were fuckin' gigantic, he's like, 'Aaargghh.' Like, 'I can't take him, he's calling me a cone! I can't—' But that is kind-of odd that a professional athlete is gonna call you a cone and he's like a fan of yours...it's just—it was really bizarre!" "Goofy!" "Yeah..." "And his eyes were black which, you know..." "What does that mean?" "I just know what that means... and he was fucked up, you know..." "Yeah, yeah! He was definitely fucked up and he agreed that he was fucked up. And he apologised so I didn't care, obviously. And then when I was at that golf event I should've thrown a beer at his backswing or something—at the LIV event when he was actually competing? I should've fucked with him but I couldn't do it... I couldn't—I couldn't find the courage to throw something at him..." "So did he reach out to you like that night? And say, 'Hey, dude... I was just joking, you know...'" "'I took some pills and...'"

*2023 LIV Golf Team Championship (Miami) held from Oct. 20-22 in Doral

[and i suppose more context here lombo and koepka are friends and he even showed up to his cupday when he went golfing in parkland and not to mention that lombo facilitated koepka apologising to ekky so its why the whole cone costume came to be really]

theres a lot more context about this incident and the ensuing storm after it so for archival sakes here are articles about it (x)(x)(x)(x)(x) because its quite a saga but its water under the bridge and there's only so much tabloid-esque coverage thats been reignited after the ekky speech i can take about an athlete who's dumb enough to insult another guy while hes drunk off as his ass in a fucking public setting

but anyways i think its really funny that i said to myself wow thats an oddly petty thing to admit to you know the whole wanting to throw a beer at his backswing ekky... for such a good vibes sweet man who like the only thing youve particularly said about the cone novella is "we'll never be buddies" to which you quickly retracted and then went "holding ill will against somebody and pulling negativity in your body is never a good thing"

and then i remembered who he attended the liv event with and it all made sense

behind every aqua whos being a little mean there is a much worse much more evil looming presence who is encouraging them down this dark path (a gem but especially a june gem)

truly a tale as old as time

[spamtoon]

(Out of nowhere, you are approached by a familiar lightbulb-headed Cog.)

Ah, it's you, cat. Thinking you're oh-so-slick. Muttering and whispering under those raggedy whiskers of yours... Thinking I am unable to hear it all...

Well, you've simply underestimated my fantastic hearing. You probably want to know the reason why I'm here, taking a 'break' from my incredibly important scientific breakthroughs? It's quite simple, really!

(She gets close, and squints her eyes.)

I know what you are.

Farewell, now!

(She then leaves the way she came from.)

(Spam giggles immensely, covering her face... it always seems like she's giggling, isn't she? This lasts... at least thirty seconds. Longer than usual.)

And I know what I am too, Sparky! You broke through something, that's for sure. Really, broke through...

(She looks down, continuing to laugh nervously.)

You know, I find it odd you Havent tried to bulb blast me into the stratosphere by now. I mean knowing how you acted with Frostbite. Is there something peculiar about me that you perhaps can't quite track? Something about me that you... don't know what I am?

I know, I know, I'm talking to nobody again. But you were there when I had a moment today with the one the only Frostbite The Bravecog. You may be remaining. Lurking in the shadows. Knowing about these thoughts that I'm thinking.

(The giggling resumes, lasting far shorter this time.)

Your brother's a piece of fucking barp, by the way

(She braces for impact for a few seconds, wincing while smiling, before comically looking around to realize nobody's there. She sighs.)

Wow, okay maybe toony superhero show logic doesn't apply in this situation. Cool.

WAIT I JUST FUCKING REALIZED WHAT SHE MEANT but like. Dude if she meant that then what's the point I mean the whole ahh sellbot department barping knows unless you're Really low on the ladder. Heheh... maybe she did mean what I thought she meant.

Oh i'm so fucking screwed. What kind of bitch gets filament fever

[deviships]

I guess I'm publicly admitting it now... I got rizzed by the twink magician 🙈 He's too pretty for his own good

With that said, I probably won't selfship with him in the way I usually do because I already have Dasha and she's just perfect in that I haven't associated myself with any oc-insert like I do with her, I can't possibly beat having a s/i like that, nor could I ever see her leaving Kazuha, especially for someone associated with the organization she utterly loathes. But I am definitely rotating this man in my brain like a rotisserie chicken so I made a new "crush" category in my introduction post 👉👈 You may also find someone unexpected on that list...

[inbabylontheywept]

my grandpa was a good man. and it really wasnt his fault - recreationally lying to kids is a proud family tradition - but he told me, once, that cutting a worm in half resulted in two worms.

i think he said it so i'd be more morally okay with fishing? i actually dont remember the context.

point was, he told me this, and he understimated (by a very large margin) how much i liked worms. i was a worm boy. very wormy. and after hearing that, i went home, and i dug through the garden, flipped over every rock, did everything i could to gather as many worms as i could, and then i uh.

i cut them all in half. every worm i could find. all of them. with scissors.

i then took this pile of split worms, and i put them in a box with a bit of lettuce and some water and stuff and went to bed expecting to double my worms overnight. i have math autism, so i had a vague understanding that if i did this just a few times in a row, i would eventually have a completely unreasonable amount of worms.

i was very excited to become this plane's worm emperor.

(i think i was...six?)

anyway, i did not become the inheritor of the worm crown. i instead woke up to a box of dead worms and cried. a lot. i got diagnosed with panic attacks as a teenager, but i think i had them as a kid, i just had no idea what they were. i was kind of processing that a.) i had killed what i had assumed was every single worm in my yard, and thus would have no more worms, and b). i was going to like, worm hell.

(six year babylon spent a lot of time worrying about god.)

so i kind of freaked out, and i climbed a tree, because god can only smite you if you're touching the ground (?) and i sat up there mostly inconsolable until my mom came out and asked, hey, what's up? what happened?

so i explained to her that i had killed all of the worms, forever, and was also Damned, and she took me to the compost pile, and we dug for all of five seconds and found like twenty more worms.

the compost pile was full of worms.

she then told me that a). there were more worms, and we could put them back under rocks and stuff and recolonize our yard and b). that one day, i would die, and go to heaven, and be able to talk to the worms face to face. that i'd be able to tell them all that i was very sorry, and that i killed them on accident, driven only by excessive Love, and that she was positive they would forgive me because worms have six hearts and no malice.

at that point, i think i was sixty percent tear-snot by weight, and i had no choice but to gather enough worms that i could hug them. which my mom helped with. and then after that she helped me put some worms back under each rock.

and for my epilogue: i spent a significant portion of my childhood in trees. and for many years after, even when my mom didnt know i was watching, i would catch her giving the space under the rocks a light spritz with the hose. not because she loved worms.

but because she loved me.

[rose-tinted-nostalgia]

I had to tell my manager, borderline in tears, that I had to go home just minutes after clocking into my second shift after finally returning to work this week because my son’s father is so incapable of watching his own children that he had a tantrum until I came home. But I got to dance in the kitchen with my kids while my oldest very proudly made pancakes all by himself, and although I sobbed the entire way home, seeing my children smile at me with that much love almost made me forget it.

[wp100]

I GOT ZEKVIR ?? OH MY GOD. I AM SHAKING.

[witchthewriter]

Simon Riley who took you home after a night out, expecting sex but you couldn't go through with it.

You were both already naked, your hands on his chest, straddling the large man when you just ... couldn't do it. Being a virgin at this age felt embarrassing, and tonight you wanted to get rid of the title.

Simon, saw the dismay on your face and wrapped a blanket around you. Your face was bright red from embarrassment, god, what was holding you back?

"it's alrigh' love."

You felt the need to leave. You hadn't given him what he wanted...so you guessed it was time to hit the road.

So, both of you got up to do very different things.

You started putting on your dress and shoes, but when Simon turned around, he had a pair of his shirts and large sweat pants for you to wear.

His gruff voice was so gentle.

"You don't 'ave to leave..."

You weren't expecting this. There were no alarm bells, nothing in your stomach to say 'run.' But Simon Riley knew the dangers that women faced and he never wanted to make another woman feel that way.

"I uh, just want you to know, you can do whatever you like. I just ... fucking hell. What I'm tryin' to say is, I'd like to spend more time with ya...if that's alrigh' by you..."

He offered you a shower, and god did you want one. Surprisingly enough, Simon had pretty good products in his bathroom. None of that 30 in 1 shampoo. Clean towels. Everything was in perfect order; neat, tidy.

When you had changed into the perfectly oversized clothes (he is like 6'6?), and walked downstairs, Simon was waiting on the lounge with various drink options, and a sheepish grin.

"Thought you'd need some water, but I also have whiskey, coffee, tea..."

"Oh, thank you! Um, I'm fine with water...and maybe a tea."

"Woman after me own heart," he said with a grin and went on to make the best cuppa he's made in his life.