#Also crappy internet

[doevademe]

Short prompt: What if Nico was a year older than Percy? When Annabeth, Thalia and Percy went to Westover Hall to look for the Di Angelo siblings and saw Nico checking his Mythomagic cards (even if he's 15 he is still a lovely freak) Percy's first thought was "I want to play with him" and the second was "OMG he is dark and cool" and he got so crushed by teen!Nico. And being the adorable Seaweed Brain idiot he is, the first thing he does is going near Nico and blurts: Hey, I'm Percy. Wanna dance with me? (Remember they were on the school dance) What happens next, I'll let you think~~

Percy was uncomfortable.

But he needed to be here. Grover had found a couple of demigods, siblings, and very powerful. The loud music filled the cheaply decorated gym as he, Annabeth, and Thalia shuffled awkwardly trying to blend in.

Usually, he got expelled before any big balls like homecoming or prom ever took place, and he felt really out of place among the 11-16 year olds just dancing to the music or hanging awkwardly by the punch table.

He really wanted to join that second group, but Grover was panicking, since he only caught sight of the older sibling, a girl that was sipping from her fruit punch and looked like she wanted to run away or go Carrie on the attendees.

"We might find the other one on the dance floor," Annabeth said. Her tone seemed to be hinting at something, but Percy, for the life of him, couldn't think of what.

"You and Grover can do that," Percy said distractedly, then he turned to Thalia, missing his best friend's frown. "Can you stay by the one we found? We don't want two missing demigods."

Thalia looked like she wanted to argue solely because Percy had proposed it, but bit her lip and nodded curtly.

"What about you?" Annabeth asked, looking intensely at him.

"I'll... look by the bleachers," Percy said. Anything to escape this atmosphere.

He ran away before Annabeth could protest, and once he was behind the bleachers almost tripped on a guy wearing tweed sitting on the floor, organizing a deck of cards.

"Is that... Poseidon?"

His father's visage was extremely accurate, as he swung his trident around while atop a chariot pulled by hippocampi.

"One of my favorites," the guy said back. "He gives the best terrain boons if you have the right deck."

Now Percy didn't know what the guy was talking about, but the way his velvety voice said it made his throat dry as if he was tossed in the middle of the desert.

"Oh, cool," was all he could say. The guy looked up and smiled at him. Percy froze. His eyes were dark like an abyss, and his pale complexion almost glowed from the reflection of the gym lights.

"You're also hiding," he stated simply. Percy could only nod. "Me too. My sister is far more social than me. She gave up on making me interact with others long ago."

"Um... I'm Percy, by the way," he said. And because he hadn't proved how lame he truly was yet, he added, "Wanna dance with me?"

The guy looked shocked before looking back at his hand full of cards. With the low lighting it was difficult to tell, but his cheeks may have turned slightly redder.

"Everyone would see..." He said so low it was almost lost to the music. "Do you... maybe want to stay here and... play with me?"

"Okay!" He said stupidly, not even hiding his excitement at sitting close to the guy. "I don't know how to play, though..."

The guy smiled again and beckoned him closer. Percy followed and sat down as if bewitched.

"It's okay, I can teach you," he said kindly, offering him some of the cards. "I'm Nico, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Nico."

Percy didn't know how much time passed as Nico explained the basics of Mythomagic (apparently it used both cards and figurines?), but he was entranced as this cool, older guy taught him how the game worked and a few tricks to the deck he had lent him.

"Okay, I think you're ready," Nico said finally as he set his deck down. "Let's start."

"Peercy!" Grover's familiar bleats interrupted them. Percy was about to look at him in annoyance when he noticed how panicked he looked. "The girl is... oh, you found Nico."

"You were looking for me?" Nico asked, and Percy remembered why he was here. The demigods. Chronos rising, make sure he didn't have more supporters.

"I... I guess I was," he managed to say. Nico looked bemused. "It's a bit of a long story, you see—"

"There's no time!" Grover interrupted again. "Dr Thorn! He... has Annabeth, and Bianca too! Thalia is going after them, but—"

"My sister?" Nico stood up, worried. "What does that creep want with her?"

"We'll explain later," Percy promised.

Despite being worried for Annabeth, a part of him was also excited. He could finally show Nico that he could be cool, too.

"Right now, we have a rescue to go to."

[ghostatservice]

Time to become

🎉🎉 M E S M E R I Z E D 🎉🎉

[pudding-parade]

Scenery pics of Shang Simla that I edited the way that I do random legacy pics even though these aren't really part of that "story," and I just took them because I think Shang Simla is gorgeous, so...Here. Have them.

[andy-clutterbuck]

𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐤/𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐧-𝐨𝐟𝐟  📸 :𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐇𝐢𝐭𝐳

[13personalities]

“If your friends jumped off the Niagara Falls or something, would you?” Yes. Clearly the phrase ‘all for one and one for all’ does not resonate within your soul like it does in mine

[makedamnsvre]

still it was sooooooo funny and uncomfortable at the psych appointment because she saw ? somewhere in papers/files that my mom and dad divorced in.... 2015 i think and shes all like "so.... usually divorce causes problems in children... how was that for you was it hard on you...?" acting all nervous/gentle like lmaooooo thats not even the worst part i dont think i cared about the divorce In Comparison to Everything Else. hed been abusive to my mom and generally neglectful not great to us (me and sibling) and theyd been separated for 6 years before the divorce because he kept going to jail for drug related things which he would often steal money from us for it and generally made my moms life hell by like manipulating and emotionally abusing her and hed have violent tantrums where he broke things (there are still holes in the walls and other damage in the house from him) and also sorta ruined our lives a bit and then in 2019 he was accused of some crime and he ran away to escape getting arrested or whatever and i think legally he is classified as a missing person and we dont even know if hes alive or not.

so like the divorce was whatever to me i guess.

[wardog-of-the-endless]

Getting that ‘stalked by an anti’ feeling...

Uno Reverso Block-o, here we go.

[realboutfatalfury]

xrd players are soooo mean to me <- guy who can't use ethernet at the moment

[esteebarnes94]

I am very aware and adamant that Gen Alpha is going to grow up knowing good things about computers (not necessarily computer science, but the basic precautions and stuff), but I have to admit in the past I have seen some concerning things with internet safety. This is more Gen Z but damn, for a select group of people I do worry.

[the-one-and-only-aroace]

Older siblings love to pretend that everything is about them and that younger siblings for some reason like their praise being an excuse for their parents to complain and not actually about them

[novakspector]

[eightyonekilograms]

I was thinking I wanted a small messenger bag for carrying a notebook and phone around. So, without much hope because I already know what will happen, I go to Amazon, and of course see the same crappy product for sale from multiple vendors with keysmash names.

There is nothing that looks remotely reputable on the first several pages, so I sigh and go to Etsy to see if perhaps it's worth trying to get something handmade, and find the same fucking bag again there. Note also the identical bags in spots 1 and 8 of the Etsy results.

Every Google result now is GPT-generated nonsense, and every retail search is identical Chinese white-label junk. I suppose this is the inevitable end-state of perfect frictionless algorithmic optimization.

I can only imagine that if you really suffer from paranoia, trying to find stuff on the internet is increasingly a terrifying experience, like going for a walk and passing the same guy over and over on each street corner.

[takoroid]

feliz yuridad to my all girl friends and mutuals!!

[cocklesofmyheart]

I have a 2 hour bus ride ahead of me and I’m so bored already.

[elendsessor]

what also infuriates me about shit like kosa aside from how it takes away freedom of speech is that the sites these ass backwards adults want already exist. kids virtual worlds like animal jam, club penguin, moshi monsters, wizard101, that stuff existed and in some ways continues to exist.

they’re moderated by actual adults, and the most harm that actually comes out of it is kids falling for scam links.

many of the sites that used to be popular are dead and that’s worse than i think people realize. because of ipad elsagate stuff they’re unable to compete.

i hate to inform every neglectful parent ever (because let’s be honest if you’re for kosa you’re against the idea of parenting) but social media is not safe for your kid nor will it ever be. if you want them to actually be safe online, these virtual worlds encourage safety surprisingly enough. teach your kid to identify scams, how to report people, when to quit having conversations with strangers, and if your child is contacted by a creep, then fucking report it. that’s straight up why online virtual worlds succeed since they’re made to teach this stuff.

your only alternatives are kids tv channels, video games aimed at younger demographics, or no internet period. don’t go and point fingers at places whose websites aren’t made with children in mind.

and if you have a teenager on the web then just teach them basic internet safety. it’s that fucking simple.

oh and a reminder to all parents out there: censoring the internet to make it “kid friendly” means you can’t talk about your political mumbo jumbo or bash the damn liberals or post crappy facebook memes or go one minute without some lankeybox tier garbage being shoved in your face. you’ll be begging for the old internet back :)