Eternally crying over fiction

The above is a video shared by smrchildsadness on Twitter, showing a person participating in a pride parade exchanging a pride flag with a person standing on his (am using his pronoun based on the TikToks/Tweets of what happened) doorway who had a Portuguese flag. There are sounds of cheers and crying and the two people hug each other as they exchange the flags. The man at the doorway then waved kisses to the crowd within the pride parade.

The Tweet says: "NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HE WAS WAVING THE PORTUGUESE FLAG BECAUSE HE DIDN'T HAVE A PRIDE FLAG AND THEY TRADED FLAGS AND HE'S SO EMOTIONAL TO GET HIS OWN PRIDE FLAG I'M EMOTIONALLY RUINED"

For context, apparently they were worried that maybe he's a nationalist because he was waving the Portuguese flag and some nationalists opposing the pride march were waving that flag. But upon interacting with him, it turns out he didn't have have a pride flag and he wanted to wave *a* flag in support of the pride march. So they had an exchange and now he has his own pride flag 😭🥹.

The image above is a Tweet by kunwara_ladkaa that says "I'm crying so much right now (Image taken by Manuel Fernando Araújo/Lusa)". The image shows the same man from the pride parade crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

The above image is a Tweet by dudz_zZzz that says "ainda não parei de pensar nele," which according to Google translate from Portuguese to English is "I still haven't stopped thinking about him." The image is a drawing of the person from the pride parade, crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

This is Junie, a gilded horse skull on a 2m tall frame, with a rotting bridle and discordant rumbler bells plaited into her mane. When she moves, she makes a horrendous jangling and chattering noise, and when she's still the smell of decaying leather and river mud radiates off her.

I was sweaty, pissed off, I had been mudlarking so I stank as well, and I was generally not presenting a very warm or welcoming figure as we sat in the first-class lounge and I was acutely aware that the giant horse puppet wasn't the most sociable thing either. And then, a mother and daughter came in - The mother looked exhausted, but the daughter, maybe ten at the oldest, was properly on the verge of a meltdown... Until she saw Junie.

Immediately, she was calm. She came over, very quietly, and asked "Can I look after your horse?" - I looked at her Mam, and the Mam shrugged and nodded. I handed Junie's reins to the girl. What followed was about an hour of the girl in deep conversation with Junie, as if she was a real horse, bringing her cups of water, stroking her nose, checking that her bridle wasn't too tight, walking her around the lounge, and whispering in her empty ossicles. By time I went for my train, she was eating biscuits and happily waved Junie off with a "BYE HORSIE! GET HOME SAFELY!"

So may I present my own casting choice for Odysseus:

Absolutely not

You know who would try that shit?

Is this the face of a man who would defy the very gods to get home to his wife?

You know who would defy the gods just to show he could get away with it?

I really need you to picture a lord farquaad being dummy yeeted into the air by an incoming vehicle while a golf cart of inebriated, glitter and mud plastered coworkers are full-on horror movie screaming together. before we can even process this, lord farquaad gets up like 🤪 how bout that drink?? completely okay, utterly unphased, red hat and bob wig still locked the fuck in. we check on him several times, all talking over each other, and while he’s calmly and pleasantly assuring us he’s fine, he passes each one of us a tiny jesus figurine. he bestows a “god bless you all” and then resumes his jaunt, drink in hand.

I def think everyone should carry a healthy amount of skepticism in an age where virality is often more prioritized than the truth but!! behold, a piece of my workplace’s holiday mailer. my coworker is the designer of this mailer and she included all sorts of references to our experiences in 2025. she was one of my coworkers on the golf cart with me and of course, included an ode to farquaad