pookie?????

the woods are a dark void; and yet they take your hand and lead you deeper and deeper into the abyss, miles to go in an unending chasm that you follow willingly, as if searching for the light at the end. an end to the pain, to the suffering that it has only brought forth, as if one day you will step into the clearing and glorious light will reign.  but it’s all a dream; a cage designed to keep everyone inside.   there was a time in the past where you thought you could escape, follow the footsteps of comic heroes and change the world.   humans locked you here—   [not without help. vought does not like what it cannot control, how they cherrypick the most malleable, gut them for all they are worth and throw them to the dogs when the tide changes].  there is no opportunity for weakness, had to let skin harden where the blade enters, where the current passes through to immobilise your snapping jaw.  there is an unspoken mission inside your mind, how it filters through your vision and lays the path out before you—   the trail is lined with bodies, each bloodier than the last with little care taken for the formalities of death.   their blood is on your hands even in this dream, how you scrub and you scrub but you cannot rid yourself of it–   liquid crimson served as the only reminder of your wrongdoings however, like you have forgiven yourself for your actions; there is no bead of guilt sitting against flesh. you do what you must to put an end to this suffering; jason understands this.

there is a frailty to you, signs of a boy never allowed to grow up but rather dragged. you did not get to enjoy life the way others did, never got the chance to reminisce upon memories for every time eyelids close, there is only that dream.    “make them.”   it’s repeated, more to yourself, as if you needed internal convincing.   they have never showed you mercy, never an outstretched hand of kindness;  told you that you had to be there, that anytime you leave, you only hurt yourself.  [that is not true. you are sure that somewhere out there, there are families in mourning; but they cannot attribute your name to their sons killer, you are dead.  there is no sam riordan–he died the moment the lock clicked into place].  your gaze is darker than it was only weeks ago, as if the sins of the soul blackened every inch as you take your next step.      “they should all be dead.”   you were not one for making another suffer longer than they needed, your thirst was quenched with blood and blood alone.   it’s almost a laugh that exits your lips, as if evidence of why you were pushed into the darkness to begin with,  that no amount of nurture was able to stop nature's laws.     “they wanted us dead. all of us. but no one else understands— no one but you.   it’s up to us.”

pawns stand at the frontline, to be picked off one by one until they lie at the feet of their makers: supes were no different, always stationed in the way of stray bullets, disposable as they were for the sea of super-abled bodies that could replace them, should they fall. and of course, they didn't far too powerful in their own right that casualty was never an option. but it didn't make it any less sick. jason mourns what could've been, dreams of the seven lay dormant in that sickly hospital room that washed out any individuality and promise that might've been in those adolescent years lost. they could've had themselves the new face, the sheer strength and velocity of the knight would've sold across the nation: shop windows lined with the new action figure punctuating a menacing line once caught on video tape. [esteem meant a great deal to jason, that first eyesore of a suit had felt to him more like a skin than a costume. all that pain and hardship lead to tailoring as though it had been his becoming all along. but now, the fierce tones of red and green had blackened with the shades of night, to move among obscurity unseen until the body drops and you know he has been here without ever laying eyes upon his mobile carcass.] he'd wanted the hero's way, but there are no heroes in the castrating clutch of vought, every move manipulated to some higher power: you couldn't save in spite of it written into the job description, always entering the midst that second too late because casualties were always required in the face of war, as if to simply remind the world of how dangerous their foes were, putting names to what it was the states were fighting. true heroism had no protocol, no published guidelines, no convenient fatalities for a capitalist propaganda to utilise to their cause.

“then, you make them.” too long had combined screams been ignored, been muted for the sheer disruption of having their atrocities voiced to empty air. no, no one listens until you make them that is what the knight is learning, as he sets a match to the fuel of his nightmares and watches voughts' patriots burn one by one. they will hear the moment the putrid flesh of their bodies begin to melt off of the bone. “you make them hear you. just like i am.”

hey x 😃

THE HOLDOVERS — 2023, dir. Alexander Payne

the reality is you will always be a monster in their eyes.  it’s inescapable,  a fate bestowed to you at the manifestation of your power [is it not what they wanted? named you samson yet cowered at your strength/you cannot help the violence that brews in closed fists].   there is no turning back,  there is no recognition that they made you this way.    there is a pool of guilt that you exist in,  treading water that is never deep enough for you to drown in.   it would be a kindness— absolve you of your wrongdoings, put an end to the rattling inside of your skull.  there will never be peace,  there will never be freedom [to hope for it at all left you shamed,  as if you deserve it for what you have done].    those thoughts creep in late at night,   when you assume leering eyes have closed and you can ignore the blinking red in every corner of the room.    even in solitude you are never alone,   you are still a caged dog awaiting the familiar electric current to flow through.    if someone understands the inner workings of your mind,   it’s him.   privy to your suffering,   familiar to your screams,   the sound of steel warping beneath your fist but never did blood come.     YOU WANTED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.    or at least you thought you did—     kill your captors,   free the tortured.    you are young,   naive to the world–    you had not realised that you simply traded one prison for another,   that supes were no different to humans playing puppeteer. 

“yeah?”    you appreciate raw honesty;   remind yourself that he is not like them,  but holding a shattered mirror up to yourself–    you do not recognise the reflection,    there are parts of you both that died in the woods to be left for the maggots and the flies.  you do not mourn your old self,  not anymore.    YOU DO NOT RECOGNISE IT EVEN AS SOMETHING ONCE PART OF YOU;    BUT RATHER A SERIES OF REACTIONS AND DEFENCE.     they tell you ‘you are not allowed to be angry’,  like they are doing you a service,  and you believed them,   that it was to protect yourself rather than them.   you look at him and it’s like you’re back there again.  you don’t know how he lives with a physical reminder of the endless abyss,   own vacant stare enough to send pulses down your spine.     “i don’t know if anyone can.”    you’re their knight/pawn.   you have yet to learn their fear of a man with nothing to lose— too preoccupied with your innate desire to be the hero.      “they won't listen.”

████ @00078292, “i wish i could say i’m making a difference, but i don’t know.”

the knight knows the woods still detains them both if not physically then psychologically, that fear of it all remains rampant in their psyche. [an orwellian dystopia, vought's eyes are everywhere. war is peace, freedom is slavery: a warrant out for his arrest in every united state just for what he is, what they made him. in escaping the woods he is less liberated than ever, sam too.] he shifts uncomfortably, the j on his cheek sears under subtle inspection. the kid in the neighbouring cell had learned the notes of his voice but not then the pain that permeated his expression, the scars that littered his face that spoke of subjugation, of quietening the renegade patient that could never be silenced. [until he did, resistance becoming futile as the years pass him by like days and suddenly sixteen becomes twenty. or is it twenty-one?] no one looks for orphans. jason itches for his visor, the stolen toy that cloaked him in barren anonymity and relieved that feeling of exposure: to see is to know, to know is to pity. jason was sure sam understood that better than most, how slinking into the shadows felt safer than that scorching sensation of day as it cast over one's cheeks and lit them up for show. [how do you just exist in the world, when every piece of yourself has been stripped and dissected until nothing else remains? jason thinks he liked to read before. classics. what were their names again?]

“if you have to ask, then you've got your answer.” the knight supplies with a decree of curtness, the barbarity of his beginnings instilled through bruises and burns seeping into his mouth like saliva. no person could be kind without the knowledge of kindness, it is something to be learned. his words cut because he is cut, experimental digs to his skin to figure out just how pliable supe flesh can be. what heals, what doesn't. and though stitches mend to one's skin, pulling it back into place, muscle retains the memory of it, and the plane of your form will never be as it was before.

i don't think i've ever said but i imagine sam to be 19 during season one. he was first admitted to hospital when he was 13, bounced around until landing in sage grove at 15, and then the woods from 16 onwards

ur sam portrayal has etched its way into my heart and my mind and also like three ocs lore. u r everything to me and so is ur portrayal and I love u

how's my portrayal

girl ur ocs are literally a part of MY lore now ilysm

there is no photographs of sam after he turns thirteen. at first the method was to erase him completely, all photographs of childhood hidden, cut out as if he was never really there. when that didn’t work, it was easier to keep the memories intact but cut them short, he was there, but not. he last saw luke when he was sixteen; still at sagegrove. all pictures were discouraged, the flash sets him off..

pjo verse core

It’s crushing me. Igby Goes Down (2002) dir. Burr Steers.

𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚜𝚒𝚡.   you had lost count of how many times the cannon sounded,  how many bodies had to be lifted; returned to mourning districts whilst spilled blood turns soil to rot.   you think about how easy it could be to get lost in these woods,   how the trees span acres with no reprieve,   no room for your nagging thoughts to grow into something more monstrous.   [as a child,  you listened to and recounted ghost stories,  about a great weight baring down on existence,   a man turned wolf sulking through the abyss.  they have never felt more real,  except you are beginning to worry he had worn your face all along]    she was never meant to be here,   a life set out for someone else instead bestowed to her for the sins of blood.    it was cruel,  to send her here,  knowing her inescapable fate;   even crueller that she was to be paired with you—    there is no easy way out,   it’s a selfish thought that flashes over your eyes that you hope she dies before you have to lift the blade,    or how much easier it would be if you could let your grip loosen,   let her take the victory and absolve you of a future.

▍ ▫     ✉️      ─   @angeldored :   i don't want to be here anymore. 

hushed voices,   as if every move wasn’t being tracked,   broadcast for prying eyes who ever never quite satiated with the brutalism displayed on screen.    it had been easy to follow mentor’s asks,   play it up,   let them think you care beyond trivial loyalties.   she knew you before you even knew yourself,   it was natural to let your body wrap around the back of her frame; closeness providing heat that the fire lacks.      “you can’t– you can’t think like that.”    still,  it’s quiet in the night,  you never realised how much speech carries when there is nothing to be heard.   ignorant to the sharp pain from twigs digging into flesh,   there is little else on your mind but to pry into hers.     “we’re..  you’re going home.  soon.”     speech is pressured,   you don’t realise that you’re lying.    “we just need to finish this.”

▍ ▫     ✉️      ─   @angeldored:   you probably wont remember most of it.

how do you say that you remember everything?  it must be a curse, you think, to remember with no boundaries; haunted by memories that most can repress, tuck them away in a forgotten corner to gather dust– continue living how they did before.  you’re not sure which would be the better option.  [what do they say? if you turn up the heat slowly, they won’t recognise the impending death]  you have never known how to cure your own anger,  sit in its flames until you are choking on a desperate need for belief.  YOU PROBABLY WON’T REMEMBER MOST OF IT— but he did.  you could see it on his face every day,  you notice more than people think.   what luke didn’t realise— you wanted to remember the look on their faces,  let yourself be drawn back into the dark abyss that shrouded your mind throughout the games.   you’re the younger brother,  and he has always been your protector from the world;  he who shone so brightly, basking in the light that it only seemed a natural contrast to your shadows.    EVERYONE’S EYES ARE ON YOU NOW:  WILL YOU COWER? OR WILL YOU PROSPER?       “ — do you?”     you did not initially expect the bite that accompanied a simple ask,  yet its teeth caught the glare of his impenetrable light.

you didn’t need to remember.  you see it played back on screens,  you see her in the crowd of foreign faces,  you see it in his eyes.  everything is different now,  and you cannot take back what you have done.   it is only fair that for your sins you will crack under the weight of memory.      “because i can’t close my eyes without being back there.   i don’t get the luxury of waking up and moving on. no one should. not when they are just as guilty as i am.”

INTRODUCING... THE HUNGER GAMES ARC. [this verse will require brief plotting prior to interactions. written in conjunction with angeldored's luke riordan and eden evangelista]

tl;dr - district one. reaped due to the capitol's interest in family victors and also in punishment of luke's wrongdoings. sam piqued the interest in sponsors almost immediately despite lack of charisma and presenting as awkward during interviews; it was his almost boyish naivety and going on to score an 11 during the private session. sam goes on to win his games but during which he experiences a first episode of psychosis; distancing himself from the other careers before striking. sam kills over half of the tributes in just over nine days. after victory, sam continues to display symptoms of schizophrenia and is kept in the capitol bar tours. he is later a test subject for the effects of tracker jacker venom.

hey guys new verse graphics x

going crazy on my pin board actually

is it revenge?     you weren’t sure—       your thoughts take many forms,  constantly shapeshifting and altering what you believe to be right.     [the words echo through your mind:   you don’t have to hurt those who hurt you],   except you have not found any end to the pain through forgiveness,   it seems silly to you.   should they not hurt the way you hurt?     in the depths of your isolation,   your only hope was through escape,  the bodies that fell like collateral,   just stoic frames between you and the freedom you craved,   so much so that you would barely notice the way copper dried atop flesh,   or the way they would cower in the doorway in the days following.    you wanted permanence,   an end to the suffering.     [even better,  she says]   and your own image is reflected back at you through her eyes;    it’s reassurance,    that understanding that you could never grasp around another.

“yeah— revenge.”    it’s slow,   brows furrowed as the words leave your lips.    it’s evident in the catharsis of whitened knuckles prepped for a fight,  of adrenaline that floods the system in the aftermath.     it wasn’t good enough for you to walk away and let another deal with it  [who could do it better than you?]   who else would ensure that they would not be able to do it again?   there is no justice found in legalities, or hoping that their day would come. you cannot picture yourself waiting fifteen,   twenty years for some substandard relief.  you want the blood stark against flesh,  you want them to be afraid of you.       “no one else thinks so.”     you almost shrink away,   how bare you felt in the intricate knowledge of truth.  it’s so often battened down,  urged to turn away from your instincts;    what else is there to do with an angry dog but to train it not to bite?    “but you do.”    it’s one thing to want revenge,   but another to take hold of it into calloused fists.  you are acutely aware of the thrill of having teeth and using them;   hold the feeling like a second heart,  a way of living.    her revenge could be much tamer,   more bark, less bite.     “why?    why do you..”  the question dies with no substance.  you shake your head as if clearing the overcrowding of thoughts before trying again.

“i don’t think they should survive.   i don’t think it’s fair if they get to continue living after all this.   the things—    the things they’ve done?   or let happen?  i want them to feel it.”

your survival was bloody, but for the longest time, most of the blood was your own. your abilities took more than half your life to finally make an appearance, and before then, you were a victim, a punching bag for your angry father, a means of letting out his frustrations. there was no bloodshed in your rescue: just you, fourteen years old, watching in confusion as your father choked around nothing, his face turning purple, fingers clawing at his throat, until finally, the monster of your childhood had been slain, put down with a single word. your origin story is no secret to anyone who knows you, but what you don't admit is this: you wish it had been gruesome, that your strength had come before the manipulation, because it would have been more satisfying to rip his throat out instead.

— so you understand it anyway, the desperate need for retribution, the reality of needing to get your hands bloody sometimes. you get wanting it, because although your father died years ago, the anger he left you with didn't. it lives within you even now, a flame that cannot be put out, burning at you from the insides. “ then what is? revenge? ” for once, there's no judgement in your tone, just genuine curiosity. it's always been easy for you to look down on others, to think of them as lesser, but maybe there's some relief in finding someone who might understand. he might get it, the regret that your father's death had been too easy, too bloodless. “ because that's even better, i think. ”

they make you feel like there is a gaping hole in the centre of your body:  something crucial that’s missing,  and what that is is glaringly obvious to everyone but you.   [do they not see the way your chest heaves with every misstep,  that to you,   every action is justified in a battle between head and heart?]     you thought that out of everyone,  emma had understood you,   or that given the chance,   would learn to.     instead,   the image you held of her went up in a cloud of ashen smoke,   like the deceitful flames were still burning inside.     

carmine edges itself into the the corners of your vision,   it spreads as @trueblu3 speaks;   it wasn’t what you wanted to hear,   did anyone?    the one person you thought you could trust;   the one person that showed up for you when blood had disintegrated to ash,   when solitude in the murky depths of the trees seemed as if it was your past,  future,  and present.         “no,  emma!    you don’t—”     jaw clench,   search for answers in every crevice that would make it make sense.    it dawned on you then that it never would,    that there was no white knight in the story that had been playing out between you.      “you don’t get it.”     your words are shaky,    requirement for oxygen eclipsed by the desire to be understood,    that no one else would be left in the pool of horror you waded in for years.       “they deserve to hurt.   they deserve to feel the same pain that they put me through for years!”     it’s tunnel vision now,   you don’t recognise that you aren’t thinking about others,   but rather sought your own retribution however you would find it.

“it’ll stop them from ever doing it again.   what—     you think because you’ll ask nicely and hey,   maybe promise them a shoutout or whatever,    that they’ll stop?    because they won’t.    they don’t care about us,   emma!    any of us.    so why should we care about them?”

i thought you of all people would understand . + emma

" what the fuck are you talking about?   of course i understand! "   in this moment,   her heart breaks:   a sort of shattering one may never recover from.   every year,   every minute,   someone wanted something from her,   someone from her   &   you know what?   she gave...   she gave until there was nothing left but the actual core of the woman she was to become.

&   who would ever want that?   who would ever care for honest self expression when the perfect friend   (   hand crafted   )   was so much better?

@riordsam is who,   &   maybe she expected too much,   or maybe she understood too little.   maybe she just romanticized this so much,   that the proportions are now too jarring.   even as she looks directly to him,   she can see that he truly believes that she did understand,   as did emma herself.   she wants to understand...   she wants it desperately.   " i understand sam,   i heard you   &   i hear you!   i just don't want people to get hurt because we didn't think this through enough. "   as her tone softens,   one could hear a pin drop.   this is true delicacy she's saved for years,   without ever knowing what for.   never did she truly think she could be a hero,   only sam made her believe that:   shouldn't a hero want to think things through?   shouldn't a hero be exactly what she is right now?

" what happened to you   &   all those other kids was fucked up.   it's...   it's fucked!   but we can't just inflict that kind of pain on other people   &   just think that that'll solve all the problems shetty created. "