#and with global warming it’s getting worse everywhere

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Genuine question, do you guys just not have wildlife?

If so then that’s so sad 😢 I heard you guys wiped out a lot of yours, which is depressing, but to not have much at all? Really fucked up. Everywhere in the world has lost a lot of wildlife since the end of the last ice age and the spread of humans, but I can’t imagine having so little you don’t need window screens or something

Every time I see anything about Europeans not having screens on their windows I remember that one post “this is why you got the plague”. I cannot read anything about Europe and window screens without remembering that post, and honestly, I am still confused as to why people there don’t have screens

[absurdist-void]

as a communist and usamerican i logically knew that most usamericans love fascism, but seeing it play out statistically really broke something in me. like wow most of you really love sucking dirty dick and balls huh. it feels like the angels trying to find one good person in sodom and gomorrah and only finding rapist psychopaths. time to nuke the place i guess.

[beardedmrbean]

Hawaiian officials attributed the cause of catastrophic wildfires to alleged failures from the state's main power utility company and downed power lines this week after Democrats blamed the disaster on global warming.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the government of Maui County, Hawaii, alleged Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) and its subsidiaries failed to properly power down live electrical equipment amid a red flag windstorm earlier this month. Due to this failure, downed power lines operated by the utility company sparked a series of deadly fires on the island, the lawsuit claimed.

"The lawsuit alleges that the Defendants acted negligently by failing to power down their electrical equipment despite a National Weather Service Red Flag Warning on August 7th," Maui County said in a release announcing its lawsuit. 

"The lawsuit further alleges HECO’s energized and downed power lines ignited dry fuel such as grass and brush, causing the fires," the announcement added. "The lawsuit also alleges failure to maintain the system and power grid, which caused the systemic failures starting three different fires on August 8th."

EXPERTS THROW COLD WATER ON DEM CLAIMS THAT HAWAII WILDFIRES CAUSED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

Maui County argued in the lawsuit that HECO has a duty "to properly maintain and repair the electric transmission lines, and other equipment including utility poles associated with their transmission of electricity, and to keep vegetation properly trimmed and maintained so as to prevent contact with overhead power lines and other electric equipment."

However, Democratic lawmakers, a top White House official and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green have all blamed the event, which has claimed the lives of at least 115 people, on human-caused global warming.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE BLOCKING FOREST MANAGEMENT METHODS SAVING ICONIC SEQUOIAS AMID YOSEMITE WILDFIRE

"This is devastating. This is a climate emergency," Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., an original sponsor of the Green New Deal, wrote in a post on X on Aug. 10. "I stand in solidarity with my friends and colleagues from Hawai’i — we must act fast, provide aid, and invest in a resilient and safe future."

"Heartbreaking fires in Hawaii! Scientists are clear that climate chaos wreaking havoc on ecosystems everywhere is the new norm," Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said in a separate post. "We need to take action immediately or else it will get even worse."

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who spearheaded a recent congressional investigation into Big Oil, called on President Biden to declare a "climate emergency" in response to the fires.

"My heart breaks hearing of the devastation in Maui," Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., added. "The climate crisis is here and it's killing people. It’s time for [Biden] to declare a climate emergency."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., joined in, saying the wildfires were a "devastating view of our planet as we fail to adequately address the climate crisis."

And White House clean energy czar John Podesta called for policies to reduce carbon emissions to fight future natural disasters like the Maui wildfires which he said were "fueled by climate change."

HAWAII WINDS TO LESSEN AS FIREFIGHTERS ATTEMPT TO CONTAIN WILDFIRES; CONDITIONS REMAIN DRY AND BREEZY

"This summer has brought one climate disaster after another, from extreme heat in Arizona and Texas and across the Southeast, to floods in Vermont and upstate New York, to thick smoke from Canadian wildfires," Podesta told reporters on Aug. 16. "And all of us have watched in horror as the Maui fires have claimed over 100 lives — the largest loss of life of a fire in the last 100 years in America."

"To stop these disasters from getting even worse, we have to cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis, and that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is all about," he continued.

Experts, though, have thrown cold water on claims that climate change triggered the Maui fires.  Instead, they said the event was largely a result of years of poor forest and brush management, in addition to declining agriculture. Such conditions, they said, allow fires to spread rapidly and make fires harder to contain. "Blaming this on weather and climate is misleading," said Clay Trauernicht, a University of Hawaii at Manoa professor and environmental management expert. "Hawai'i's fire problem is due to the vast areas of unmanaged, nonnative grasslands from decades of declining agriculture."

"These savannas now cover about a million acres across the main Hawaiian Islands, mostly the legacy of land clearing for plantation agriculture and ranching in the late 1800s/early 1900s," he continued. "The transformation to savanna makes the landscape way more sensitive to bad 'fire weather' — hot, dry, windy conditions. It also means we get huge buildups of fuels during rainy periods."

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

Pretty much all life on Earth – plants, animals, humans – in large part, owe their entire existence to one microscopic protein. It’s called ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, better known as RuBisCO, and it’s an enzyme: a biological machine that helps turn CO2 into energy.

Of the millions of enzymes on earth, RuBisCO might be the most important. It’s essential to photosynthesis, and without it, plants would be unable to grow. Without RuBisCO, nearly all life on Earth would starve.

But even though it’s everywhere, and has been around for billions of years, RuBisCO kind of sucks at its job. And it’s getting worse as the world gets hotter.

Today, a global team of scientists is trying to accomplish something that evolution has previously failed to do: building a better RuBisCO.

This enzyme performs even worse during hot weather. This means that as climate change warms our planet, our farms may produce less food, and our plants could get worse at sequestering carbon.

[bianju]

I'm no longer screaming at people, I think that time is passed. I want to put out more of an imperative message now.

In 2022, I was more depressed about the state of climate change affairs than ever, because of a perceived betrayal of what actions needed to be taken and what was actually happening from our establishments. Now, in 2024, even with the mounting desperation of our crisis, the signs from all over the world of just how bad things could get, I think it's clear that we actually have a chance to make things work out. Not a wholesale fixing of our problems, but a chance to miss the exit for the absolute worst. All of those news articles talking about "it will get worse" when reporting on a horrible weather or climate tragedy, it comes with the caveat of "if things continue like they are now". Every projection for future warming, right down to those apocalyptic 3°C predictions The Guardian released a few months ago, are only true if we resign ourselves to right now. Don't take this as me yelling, just read and understand the words. The past 12 months are exactly as bad as it needs to get.

Yes, we just spent 12 months at the Paris Agreement's lower limit. That doesn't mean we've crossed it. In fact, even the most despondent scientists are agreeing that the spike of 2023/24 is over, and July average data indicates that we may be at 1.32°C... In other words, exactly where we were before 2023, and that's before what's sure to be an incredible La Niña. We just got a glimpse of what a 1.5°C world would look like. All sorts of weather insanity, a less dependable planet, the extremes becoming more extreme... But it doesn't have to get any worse than this. If nothing at all changed about global emissions, we still are not expected to cross the 1.5°C boundary until a decade from now. And every reduction we make in emissions pushes that date further and further back. If things looked as bad as they did in 2005, we may have already crossed that threshold by now. It is an overwhelming thing to care about, and it's because it can often feel like we're moving backwards everywhere it counts. But not only is the action finally swinging where it needs to go (too slowly, but still), we need to ditch this idea that whatever we do, it's still going to be some unimaginable catastrophe. Every scientist I've checked, and the consensus as a whole, agrees that when emissions stop, so does the warming. We don't have anything "baked in" right now, and don't believe anybody who says so. To cap off this long ramble, it can be easy for anybody to get disillusioned with where we're at, and want to just give up on making ANY progress forward because they think it's not enough. I get it. I've even been there. But even the progress we're making today seemed almost impossible even a few years ago, and I think we have even less reason than ever to assume that the current policies are the only ones we'll be able to achieve. When the world's largest oil company legitimately has said they expect that oil demand is soon to peak, if it hasn't already, you know there's some slack to fight for. But the most important part is this. We can see what the other side is doing. They want to go backwards faster than we're going forwards. Most of them don't give a damn about anything south of Tennessee or west of the Colorado River. They will turn a slow burn and make it a blaze. If you truly care, and you want the option of a party that can be reasoned with, campaigned with, and most importantly brought to more decisive action, you're not going to let anything Red near a position of government if you can help it. We've seen the future. Now's our chance to move against it.

[toasty-roll]

friendly reminder that climate-change-guit exists and is not your fault, big corperations have made it very hard/almost impossible to live green, even if your doing everything right, the blame mostly falls in the hands of millionare buessness owners and leaders who dont adress global warming as the emergency it is.

the sad/happy news is the world is going to be just fine, its people and other living beings who are going to suffer.

I wish everyone everywhere to stay safe, especially in florida, hurricanes are getting worse because of climate change.

pressure your local goverments to do somthing about climate change, protest and boycott if you can!!

but remember this isn't your fault. I love you all

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Wildfires are currently raging east of Athens. The fire is centered in Kouvaras and several settlements close to it have been evacuated and the Athens-Korinthos speedway has been closed off with several houses and, unfortunately, at least one animal reserve having already been consumed by the fires.

What's scarier is that this is an almost annual phenomenon at this point, all across the country, and with the global temperatures heating up more and more I fear this is only gonna get worse. I went to the beach on Saturday and Sunday and even the sea's temperature was uncharacteristically warm...

Last time our firefighters went on strike for being underpaid and understaffed, while an overabundance of cops was being hired and being stationed literally everywhere, the current government broke up their peaceful protest by spraying water at them. Let that sink in for a moment.

[alberto-balsalm]

Hey, you!

Is the legislature of your state in the process of outlawing your existence? Do you want to move, but can’t afford to live in any of the big gay meccas? Consider...

~~~Upstate New York~~~

Yes, this undervalued part of the state features:

Queer-friendly state laws, including the 2019 Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) ᵃ

Right-wing state politicians usually steamrolled by a large downstate Democratic political base ᵇ

Cheap-ass costs of living compared to everywhere else you’re considering

More queer people than you think

A variety of charming small-to-medium sized cities, each with their own culture and quirky local foods ᶜ

A wide collection of natural parks, including the nation’s largest state park (Adirondack Park)

Within driving distance of various major metropolitan areas (also there’s Amtrak, and the MTA goes as far north as Poughkeepsie)

Not constantly on fire like the West Coast

Abundant water resources due to the Great Lakes and Adirondacks

Weather isn’t as bad as you’ve heard ᵈ

Fewer natural disasters than most of the country ᵉ

Shares land and water borders with Canada, in case the entire country goes to hell in 2024

Ask your local upstater today!

(Footnotes after the cut.)

a. Laws, of course, don’t help you if nobody enforces them, so don’t move to one of the rural counties with a MAGA sheriff who thinks hate crimes don’t exist. Rural areas here aren’t much worse than anywhere else, at least.

b. Upstate NY apologizes for its Republican federal representatives. Especially Elise Stefanik. Christ, what an asshole.

c. No steamed hams, though.

d. Like the two previous bullets, you can thank global warming. Proximity to the Great Lakes is expected to moderate the effects of global warming somewhat, except that it’ll probably make lake effect snow more common. Besides, if you're coming from Montana or the Dakotas, it's probably an improvement.

e. Blizzards happen, but the worst blizzard barely compares to a typical category 4 or 5 hurricane. The historic Buffalo blizzard last year killed 43 people in NY, which is less than half of Hurricane Harvey, and nowhere near what Katrina did. Buffalo gets hit much worse than the rest of the state.

[mariacallous]

Just weeks after a third of the US population was hit with air-quality alerts thanks to smoke from climate-change-fueled fires in Canada, 100 million Americans are now under heat alerts. A cap of extra-hot air, known as a heat dome, has settled over the West and South, pushing temperatures relentlessly higher. 

The map below shows excessive heat warnings in purple and heat advisories in orange, and the forecast is that things will get worse through the weekend. Highs will stay above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix; California’s Death Valley is flirting with 130 degrees; and Texas’s grid is struggling to keep the AC on. 

This follows the hottest June on record globally. “With an evolving El Niño event, that is certain to further increase global temperatures,” says Howard Diamond, climate science program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Air Resources Laboratory. (El Niño is a band of warm water that develops in the Pacific Ocean and influences weather around the world.) “Canada has also experienced multiple bouts of prolonged heat this summer, contributing to the worst wildfire season the country has ever seen,” Diamond adds.

A heat dome is essentially stagnation. It forms as a strong high-pressure system. As that air descends to the ground, it compresses and significantly warms up: A few thousand feet up, air might be 80 degrees, but it can reach 100 degrees once it hits the land. 

This descending cap of hot air self-perpetuates for days or even weeks. It discourages the formation of clouds, allowing the sun’s energy to hit the landscape full force, further raising ground temperatures. At the beginning of a heat dome, moisture in the dirt and plants evaporates away, somewhat cooling the landscape—it’s sweating, basically. But as the heat continues for days on end, that moisture runs out and temperatures climb higher. 

In other words, the heat dome feeds on itself. “There is no cloud cover, there is a lot of solar radiation coming in, there is no precipitation,” says Claudia Tebaldi, a climate scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “You also trigger this feedback—you dry the soil, and there is no way for things to cool down by evaporation.”

That self-perpetuation makes heat domes extremely dangerous. It’s bad enough when temperatures rise above 110 for a single day, especially for people with conditions like asthma, because the heat leads to the formation of ozone, which irritates the airways. But if temperatures soar for days—and especially if temperatures stay high overnight—the body has no time to recover. The stress keeps piling up.

This is all the more precarious in big cities like Phoenix, Houston, and Los Angeles—all of which are baking right now—due to the urban heat island effect. The concrete and brick of the built environment absorbs the sun’s energy, launching temperatures way higher than in surrounding rural areas, which can rely on plants to cool things off. Buildings and other infrastructure then slowly release that heat through the evening, meaning nighttime temperatures stay high. That affects not only people’s physical health but also their mental health, if they’re not able to sleep night after blazing night. Low-income neighborhoods suffer the worst, as they’re consistently and quantifiably hotter than richer ones, since they have fewer green spaces like parks and gardens.

Climate change, of course, is making extreme heat more extreme. “The trend of temperatures increasing everywhere over time is unequivocal,” says Diamond. “An average summer today, for example, might have been considered a hot summer several decades ago. Likewise, a hot summer in the future may very well be considered an average one a few decades from now.”

Scientists are still debating whether climate change will make heat domes more common, says Tebaldi, since their formation depends on complex atmospheric dynamics. The severity of heat domes, though, is a different question. Because the world is generally getting hotter, heat domes start off with temperatures that are higher than before, which could boost their ability to feed back on themselves. This is similar to climate change’s effect on hurricanes: It might not make them more common, but because the storms feed on warmth in the Atlantic, higher temperatures could make them more intense.

Climate change is also exacerbating droughts, meaning there’s already less moisture in the landscape that could evaporate to offset some of the heating, at least in the early stages of a heat dome. “Heat domes are not new,” says Diamond. “But their extent, duration, and amount of extreme heat could very well be attributed to the climate change that we are seeing across the globe.”

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 13: I TAKE A PERMANENT VACATION

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! This is a depressing freaking chapter to infuse the holiday with, lol.

For everyone else, I hope you enjoy your day and your life and your year and the hour you spend reading my insanity!

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Nico read the new chapter title with a sense of ill. The idea of running across Percy's ghost had come to him plenty in the darkest parts of that maze, he'd been convinced for months at a time those would be his only friends. The one who had gotten Bianca killed had himself died in his own Greek tragedy of trying to come after him and becoming lost in a place Nico was slowly conquering, but Nico would find his wandering spirit and nurse him back enough to guide him to where he needed to go.

The idea that Percy might have died in this volcanic eruption and he didn't even get a hint of knowing that disturbed him slightly less than his old creepy thoughts about how his part in this would end, so he tried to read like it was any other.

"Oh hell," Magnus yelped. "Are we finally going to get an explanation for how you wound up down here? Are you permanently sleeping with the fishes? Did someone," he cut his finger across his throat with sound and everything.

"I don't think I'm actually dead," Percy studied his still trembling hands with uncertainty though, patting absently at his shirt and pants too to make sure it was real.

"And it wouldn't explain the rest of the books?" but Jason's sounded more like stacked questions, because really none of this made to much sense given they had no answers to start with outside of a gods will.

"As far as I'm aware, you are not actually dead," Thalia managed casually enough, but she dreaded this chapter more than anyone. Calypso was not a myth she'd ever dealt with personally, and she knew all she'd be hearing while Nico read was Annabeth's desperate voice through their connection begging her to help find an answer other than the obvious. She'd been prepared to go down to Tartarus and drag his soul back to get that look out of her little sister's eyes.

I woke up feeling like I was still on fire. My skin stung. My throat felt as dry as sand.

"The fact that you still have feeling is the impressive part after being a literal comet," Will told him with a kind of critical, stern tone like he thought Percy was still tempted to try again.

"The kind that only comes around in one lifetime," Percy assured.

"Hopefully they don't name anything after it, or worse, you get some kind of crazy superpowers from it," Alex offered.

"Or worse, aliens." Magnus agreed.

"Why would there be an alien free riding on my comet?" Percy asked.

"I don't know, just seems like every sci-fi movie comes with aliens masquerading as comets," he shrugged.

"My life is weird enough without adding bad costumes and CGI," Percy sighed.

I saw blue sky and trees above me. I heard a fountain gurgling, and smelled juniper and cedar and a bunch of other sweet-scented plants. I heard waves, too, gently lapping on a rocky shore. I wondered if I was dead, but I knew better. I'd been to the Land of the Dead, and there was no blue sky.

"The fact that that is a more normal sentence than you, a child of the sea, not waking up on the beach more regularly, really says something about your life," Magnus couldn't help but inform Percy.

"Who would want to wake up with a sunburn every day?" Percy shrugged. "Plus, that sand really does get everywhere. Nah, I'm good."

Apparently only normal people, Magnus sighed as he answered himself.

I tried to sit up. My muscles felt like they were melting.

"I hear to much exercise will do that to you," Will said wisely.

"And here I thought the more obvious punchline was global warming. We must save the planet, think of the Percy," Nico snickered.

"You're all missing the obvious joke that Percy is clearly an evil green witch in disguise," Thalia chuckled.

"I was just half cooked alive like a lobster, can't I get a pass on all this?" Percy smiled knowing the answer.

"No," they all laughed.

"Stay still," a girl's voice said. "You're too weak to rise."

She laid a cool cloth across my forehead. A bronze spoon hovered over me and liquid was dribbled into my mouth. The drink soothed my throat and left a warm chocolaty aftertaste. Nectar of the gods. Then the girl's face appeared above me.

She had almond eyes and caramel-color hair braided over one shoulder.

She was...fifteen? Sixteen? It was hard to tell. She had one of those faces that just seemed timeless. She began singing, and my pain dissolved. She was working magic. I could feel her music sinking into my skin, healing and repairing my brain.

"Who?" I croaked.

"Shhh, brave one," she said. "Rest and heal. No harm will come to you here. I am Calypso."

"It's nice she came out front with her name," Magnus said. "But huh?"

"If they start by introducing themselves, they're probably going to be very powerful and more fun to defeat," Alex rubbed his hands together in excitement.

"I already feared for my life enough without that, but thanks," Percy sighed.

The next time I woke I was in a cave, but as far as caves go, I'd been in a lot worse.

"I mean, compared to the cyclops cave where Grover was being held hostage, a bear cave sounds like a vacation too," Jason nodded.

"Does the underworld count as a giant cave?" Magnus asked.

"Um, yes?" Nico admitted.

"We did not go into a cave on your last adventure, but you've been mostly underground in this one to make up for it, so I'd say you are a credible enough person to judge this," Thalia nodded sanctimoniously.

Yet in all this talk, Percy's empty hand tingled as if Annabeth had brushed against him, wanting to lock her fingers through his. She had a habit of holding his hand in places like this, but she sure wouldn't be this time, some part of him knew.

The ceiling glittered with different-color crystal formations— white and purple and green, like I was inside one of those cut geodes you see in souvenir shops. I was lying on a comfortable bed with feather pillows and cotton sheets. The cave was divided into sections by white silk curtains.

Against one wall stood a large loom and a harp. Against the other wall were shelves neatly stacked with jars of fruit preserves. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling: rosemary, thyme, and a bunch of other stuff. My mother could've named them all.

"You haven't said anything about Sally being into gardening," Nico said in surprise, though he well remembered that flower box he'd once appeared next to.

"She knows them from cooking, not much of a hobby she can keep up with in the middle of the city to grow her own," Percy said with a wistful kind of smile. He wanted that for his mom. He bet Poseidon would have granted her a whole biome of nature if she asked. Just tap on the bathroom door three times or something, and poof, a hidden world she'd love to be part of.

There was a fireplace built into the cave wall, and a pot bubbling over the flames. It smelled great, like beef stew.

I sat up, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my head. I looked at my arms, sure that they would be hideously scarred, but they seemed fine. A little pinker than usual, but not bad. I was wearing a white cotton T-shirt and cotton drawstring pants that weren't mine. My feet were bare. In a moment of panic, I wondered what happened to Riptide, but I felt my pocket and there was my pen, right where it always reappeared.

"I'm starting to wonder if there's even a limit on what that pen won't come back from," Jason looked more than impressed while he had that critical look on his face again. "If you threw it into outer space would it still come back?"

"I don't currently have any friends with a rocket ship to test that theory, but I'll let you know," Percy shrugged, holding his pen tight to him now just in case Jason wanted to try for himself.

Not only that but the Stygian ice dog whistle was back in my pocket, too. Somehow it had followed me. And that didn't exactly reassure me.

"Yeah, me either," Alex heaved a great sigh of remorse, and he really wanted Quintus and his dog to be a good guy. "Maybe he's trying to be like Chiron, he came across as a creepy stalker at first too."

"Hopefully," Percy wouldn't turn down another cool mentor who gave him good advice and cool gifts, but he was still too suspicious to really hope it would work out.

With difficulty, I stood. The stone floor was freezing under my feet. I turned and found myself staring into a polished bronze mirror.

"Holy Poseidon," I muttered. I looked as if I'd lost twenty pounds I couldn't afford to lose. My hair was a rat's nest. It was singed at the edges like Hephaestus's beard. If I saw that face on somebody walking down a highway intersection asking for money, I would've locked the car doors.

"Percy, you don't have a car," Nico told him.

"My mom's car doors just doesn't give the same ring to it," Percy rolled his eyes, fighting the urge, and losing it to sag in his seat with remembered exhaustion. Thalia was looking like an awfully comfortable prop right now.

Magnus kept his lips tight shut about that. He never spent much time looking in a mirror for a few years now, but he was pretty sure he'd looked that bad before Hearth and Blitz found him.

I turned away from the mirror. The cave entrance was to my left. I headed toward the daylight.

The cave opened onto a green meadow. On the left was a grove of cedar trees and on the right a huge flower garden. Four fountains gurgled in the meadow, each shooting water from the pipes of stone satyrs. Straight ahead, the grass sloped down to a rocky beach. The waves of a lake lapped against the stones. I could tell it was a lake because...well, I just could. Fresh water. Not salt. The sun sparkled on the water, and the sky was pure blue. It seemed like a paradise, which immediately made me nervous. You deal with mythological stuff for a few years, you learn that paradises are usually places where you get killed.

"Are you telling me I'm most likely to die at a Pottery Barn?" Alex demanded.

"Paradise probably isn't even subjective enough to argue," Thalia agreed with a sigh. "We half-bloods can die somewhere like a dog park or a freaking mall."

"The only paradise we have is places where monsters aren't, and then we inevitably attract them to that place," Jason frowned. "What kind of paradox is that called?"

"Shit, does that make this place a utopia?" Magnus groaned.

"Well this is just getting more depressing the longer it drags on," Nico reminded, and he wasn't even the one causing it. He kept reading loudly and decided he'd blame the book, and Percy's life, rather than himself on the continued trend.

The girl with the braided caramel hair, the one who'd called herself Calypso, was standing at the beach, talking to someone. I couldn't see him very well in the shimmer from the sunlight off the water, but they appeared to be arguing.

"I really don't think it's just a joke when I say Percy attracts fights everywhere he goes, even to a tropical paradise," Will shook his head in exhaustion.

"Task failed successfully," Percy hoped. "They can keep that up while I escape I'm sure." He hadn't felt trapped though, he vividly remembered that. His feelings of this island were more dreamlike than any memory yet given back. Like that old apartment he used to live in with his mom, maybe the few short years before Gabe had come along. A home he could never go back to, but some part of him would always want to.

I tried to remember what I knew about Calypso from the old myths. I'd heard the name before, but...I couldn't remember. Was she a monster? Did she trap heroes and kill them? But if she was evil, why was I still alive?

"All excellent questions," Jason sighed.

"Percy will get answers to all of them as he's running for his life I'm sure," Alex offered, which made nobody feel better.

I walked toward her slowly because my legs were still stiff. When the grass changed to gravel, I looked down to keep my balance, and when I looked up again, the girl was alone. She wore a white sleeveless Greek dress with a low circular neckline trimmed in gold. She brushed at her eyes like she'd been crying.

"Well," she said, trying for a smile, "the sleeper finally wakes."

"If he's Sleeping Beauty, does that make Annabeth Prince Charming?" Magnus snorted.

"Percy sleeps enough to fulfill the role," Thalia chuckled with amusement, "and Annabeth would rock a horse and sword if she needed to."

"I would rather get to the monster killing me part than indulge this further," Percy groaned, or he was going to be suffering kiss of life jokes and endless Halloween costume ideas for days.

"Who were you talking to?" My voice sounded like a frog that had spent time in a microwave.

"What a noble frog, putting up with that to be such a comparison to you," there was nothing but dread in Nico's voice though as he tried not to wonder how Percy knew that.

"Science lab got weird during the dissection class, you don't want to know," Percy shivered.

"Oh...just a messenger," she said.

Will snorted softly, though he felt bad he was the only one who got the joke. Nobody else read that deep into it.

"How do you feel?"

"How long have I been out?"

"Time," Calypso mused. "Time is always difficult here. I honestly don't know, Percy."

"You know my name?"

"Not a shock anymore," Magnus grudgingly admitted. He wished it still were, but the days of Medusa creeping him out for a multitude of reasons were in the past, and that one had never even been able to rank to high considering everything else.

"You talk in your sleep."

I blushed. "Yeah. I've been...uh, told that before."

"How nobody's ever tried to smother you for that I will never know," Thalia said with her own mystified face. The few times she'd slept around Percy, they'd been out in the open taking turns keeping watch for each other, so she'd never had to actually try and fall asleep to his nonsense.

"Yes. Who is Annabeth?"

"Oh, uh.

Percy's brain fried and short circuited in his head like another volcano had gone off. He would be more surprised if steam wasn't coming out of his ears. It would take him less time to say who Annabeth wasn't...

A friend.

He exhaled in relief at how well that summed it up, glad he'd been to tired back then to even try and articulate anything else as his lips still felt more prominent on his face than they ever had before.

We were together when—wait, how did I get here? Where am I?"

Calypso reached up and ran her fingers through my mangled hair. I stepped back nervously.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I've just grown used to caring for you.

The others were oddly quiet, clearly trying to judge for themselves how much they believed her sincerity. She'd had ample opportunity to hurt Percy true, but for all they knew she was just lulling him there and keeping him from getting back to full strength until Luke showed up. She could be slowly sucking the life out of him. There was just no telling what motive could be going on or who she was arguing with until it was to late.

As to how you got here, you fell from the sky. You landed in the water, just there." She pointed across the beach. "I do not know how you survived. The water seemed to cushion your fall. As to where you are, you are in Ogygia."

She pronounced it like oh-jee-jee-ah.

"Was the second jee really necessary?" Magnus huffed. "It feels like they're just being extra."

"No noun should be more than two syllables, it's just exhausting," Percy agreed.

"Your name is three," Thalia looked at him strangely.

"And I stand by what I said," Percy nodded.

"Is that near Mount St. Helens?" I asked, because my geography is pretty terrible.

"Sure Percy, it might be if you travel back in time or something," Will chuckled.

"Maybe I'll find them constructing the Statue of Liberty next door," Percy smirked.

Calypso laughed. It was a small restrained laugh, like she found me really funny but didn't want to embarrass me. She was cute when she laughed.

Percy felt a dull sense of dread thud in his chest, but again, it wasn't vicious. He didn't feel like ripping his heart out in fear it was attacking him. Just an aching feeling, a muscle he'd long since stopped using.

He watched as six pairs of eyebrows shut up around him now with a vague amusement as well. Magnus and Alex seemed immediately suspicious and weary what kind of spell he was being put under, whether he realized it or not. Jason and Thalia looked amused, like they were thinking how best to tell Annabeth about this for maximum teasing.

Will and Nico exchanged weary looks though. Not the, 'Oh Gods, Percy's about to die kind,' but the sort where they weren't sure if they wanted to know the outcome of this. Percy didn't talk about his time out there, and while it was interesting to get some first hand lore on this place, it was coming at a pretty personal cost to Percy.

Nico read swiftly, he didn't want to linger on this.

"It isn't near anything, brave one," she said. "Ogygia is my phantom island. It exists by itself, anywhere and nowhere.

"I wonder if there are other islands out there that can do a bit of both." Alex grinned. "You really didn't explore the Sea of Monsters enough to be sure there's not an island out there that's sometimes there and sometimes not."

"If I find a haunted ghost island that only appears during high tide, I'll call you," Percy promised. Mostly so he could blame Alex for its existence.

You can heal here in safety. Never fear."

"It's not himself he's afraid for," Jason muttered.

Percy heard, and grinned at him. It was a good feeling for at least a moment, to know your friends knew you so well.

"But my friends—"

"Annabeth," she said. "And Grover and Tyson?"

"Yes!" I said. "I have to get back to them. They're in danger."

She touched my face, and I didn't back away this time. "Rest first. You are no good to your friends until you heal."

As soon as she said it, I realized how tired I was.

Magnus still shivered with distaste as he waited for the shoe to drop. That this vacation was just another Hotel, and Percy was soon going to start forgetting everything that mattered to himself except this girl who he had no choice but to fall in love with because she told him that's what he needed to do, or maybe he'd start seeing puncture marks on his neck and this was another kind of vampire, like a subspecies of Kelli.

"You're not...you're not an evil sorceress, are you?"

She smiled coyly. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, I met Circe once, and she had a pretty nice island, too. Except she liked to turn men into guinea pigs."

"A sad fact that is such a major exception," Alex sighed.

"There's no such thing as the perfect utopia," Thalia agreed.

Calypso gave me that laugh again. "I promise I will not turn you into a guinea pig."

"Or anything else?"

"I am no evil sorceress," Calypso said. "And I am not your enemy, brave one. Now rest. Your eyes are already closing."

She was right. My knees buckled, and I would've landed face-first in the gravel if Calypso hadn't caught me. Her hair smelled like cinnamon. She was very strong, or maybe I was just really weak and thin. She walked me back to a cushioned bench by the fountain and helped me lie down.

"Rest," she ordered. And I fell asleep to the sound of the fountains and the smell of cinnamon and juniper.

Percy shivered. The kind of ghost breathing on his neck feeling. Because there was no sense of danger in him. And it was creeping him out.

Where was the adrenaline? Where was the fear and worry? Where was that sense that had guided him through all his past memories of what to trust and to know when he should be about to run?

He kept wanting to watch Thalia for some kind of hint he was missing something, but she seemed as somber over there as he felt. Like a long lost friend had died.

The next time I woke it was night, but I wasn't sure if it was the same night or many nights later. I was in the bed in the cave, but I rose and wrapped a robe around myself and padded outside. The stars were brilliant—thousands of them, like you only see way out in the country. I could make out all the constellations Annabeth had taught me: Capricorn, Pegasus, Sagittarius. And there, near the southern horizon, was a new constellation: the Huntress, a tribute to a friend of ours who had died last winter.

Nico did not like himself for the distaste he had of those words... Why didn't Bianca get a whole constellation? It was Zoe's choice to go on this quest and be slated for death the moment she heard that prophecy, and his sister went in almost blind...

But Thalia was making some stupid joke at Percy about never seeming to find his own constellation and his sister probably would have been over there laughing with them without batting an eye at that passage. She probably would have smiled for her lieutenant.

"Percy, what do you see?"

I brought my eyes back to earth. However amazing the stars were, Calypso was twice as brilliant.

Percy had always wished Annabeth here from the moment he'd opened his eyes. He still did now, to know she was safe and away from volcanoes he'd exploded. He wanted to hear her explain to him already who Calypso was fully.

Most of all, he wanted to watch how she'd be reacting to this. If she was rolling her eyes at him, or jealous, or hurt, or uncaring at all.

He found himself watching Thalia, his best friend in here to figure out the same, but she seemed to be avoiding his eyes as she played with her bracelet. He didn't know what thoughts were plaguing her, and a part of him wondered if it had something to do with why Annabeth wasn't here and what she might know about that.

Or was it something simpler and she already knew the choice he felt stretching ahead of him?

I mean, I've seen the goddess of love herself, Aphrodite, and I would never say this out loud or she'd blast me to ashes, but for my money, Calypso was a lot more beautiful,

Nico winced and looked very much like someone was about to blast him to ashes just for saying that sentence. It would be just his luck to get obliterated into nothing because he'd said what Percy once thought and got away with.

There was a dramatic pause as everybody waited for it to happen, and when nothing did, Nico kept reading with an odd smile on his face like he got away with something.

because she just seemed so natural, like she wasn't trying to be beautiful and didn't even care about that. She just was.

Annabeth's like that too, Percy realized in surprise. Unlike Kelli, who was a terrifying kind of beautiful in her natural way of looking like Aphrodite actually did have a kid with Hephaestus, Annabeth always brushed her hair up into a careless ponytail and had dirt on her at any given time and didn't realize her own allure. The one time he'd seen her in a dress it had shocked him stupid. He was rather glad looking back he'd been a guina pig for that, it made it seem lesser, more like a dream than real memory of how alien perfect she'd been.

With her braided hair and white dress, she seemed to glow in the moonlight. She was holding a tiny plant in her hands. Its flowers were silver and delicate.

"I was just looking at..." I found myself staring at her face. "Uh...I forgot."

Nico heard some of them laughing around him, but it still sounded nervous, they were still waiting for her to sprout into a monster or reveal the 'gotcha' or something. Even knowing that wasn't the case, Nico and Will exchanged a tired look. The usual flippant, enjoyable energy just wasn't getting up in this chapter as they felt how confining this moment in Percy's life was. It didn't feel right to mock him when Percy looked isolated with his confusion over there.

She laughed gently. "Well, as long as you're up, you can help me plant these."

She handed me a plant, which had a clump of dirt and roots at the base.

The flowers glowed as I held them. Calypso picked up her gardening spade and directed me to the edge of the garden, where she began to dig.

"That's moonlace," Calypso explained. "It can only be planted at night."

I watched the silvery light flicker around the petals. "What does it do?"

"Do?" Calypso mused. "It doesn't really do anything, I suppose. It lives, it gives light, it provides beauty. Does it have to do anything else?"

"I suppose not," I said.

"Sounds to me like it's doing plenty," Alex agreed. Not every plant had to poison or cure something, nourish or indue. Things just existed without a purpose, which was their purpose.

She took the plant, and our hands met. Her fingers were warm. She planted the moonlace and stepped back, surveying her work. "I love my garden."

"This is a very odd evil plan," Magnus found himself scratching his head the longer this dragged on. "Is she trying to turn you vegan? Is her ultimate goal to use you as fertilizer?"

"Grover might not bother to rescue me if so," but Percy's smile was lackluster at best. He was growing less convinced by the word this was some trap at all, but this was a Greek legend, he knew that much. He was still waiting for the bad part to show up.

"It's awesome," I agreed. I mean, I wasn't exactly a gardening type, but Calypso had arbors covered with six different colors of roses, lattices filled with honeysuckle, rows of grapevines bursting with red and purple grapes that would've made Dionysus sit up and beg.

"Ah, I see," Jason theatrically clapped his forehead. "They caught the wrong demigod. This is supposed to be a trap for a child of Ceres."

"You've been eating there, haven't you?" Magnus confirmed. "Is this like an underworld situation? You're imprisoned forever because you ate from this awesome place?"

Percy pressed his lips together as that sense of longing only grew. He couldn't find in himself to play along. Imprisoned. Maybe it wasn't him who was on the permanent vacation really.

"Back home," I said, "my mom always wanted a garden."

"Why did she not plant one?"

"Well, we live in Manhattan. In an apartment."

"Manhattan? Apartment?"

"Oh, well, maybe she's not evil after all," Will chuckled. "It's common knowledge all people who are associated with big cities are evil. Clearly, having never even heard of the concept, she's immune to this. Purely innocent and good in her hide-a-way pasture."

"Aren't most horror movies out in the boons where nobody can hear them scream?" Nico asked. Quite a few kids asked if he was born out there enough to make him look up what they were getting at.

Will opened, and closed his mouth with a laugh instead of answering.

I stared at her. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"I fear not. I haven't left Ogygia in...a long time."

"Well, Manhattan's a big city, with not much gardening space."

Calypso frowned. "That is sad. Hermes visits from time to time. He tells me the world outside has changed greatly. I did not realize it had changed so much you cannot have gardens."

"Why haven't you left your island?"

She looked down. "It is my punishment."

"You know Percy, I'm starting to suspect your luck is bad enough to get roped into somebody else's bad luck," Jason admitted. Nothing bad had happened yet, and judging by his silence over there and nobody nearly dying, he was beginning to suspect this wasn't going to be that kind of chapter.

"As long as she doesn't take her punishment out on me," Percy's heart was doing an odd beat in his chest. A thudding, painful number that hurt to concentrate on. Calypso, her name kept swimming around his mind like a piranha that was well fed but shouldn't be ignored. There was just something about her that had nothing and everything to do with Annabeth he was missing.

"Why? What did you do?"

"A classic Percy," Thalia sighed. "A classic boy. Blunt as an arrow to the face."

"I've never used a boxing glove arrow," Percy grinned.

"I? Nothing. But I'm afraid my father did a great deal. His name is Atlas."

"How many kids did this guy have?" Magnus asked in surprise.

"That's like asking how many kids Zeus had. You're just happier not trying to count them all," Thalia sighed.

The name sent a shiver down my back. I'd met the Titan Atlas last winter, and it had not been a happy time. He'd tried to kill pretty much everyone I care about.

"I mean, that's most evil people you meet," Nico said fairly. "I don't know what happy times involves trying to kill people."

"Maybe if Calypso had been there instead of Zoe things would have gone better," Alex snorted. "Girl should have opted a jailbreak for her half sister before the quest."

"I don't think there was really time for that," Thalia reminded with a strained smile. She didn't think it inherently insensitive to laugh about Zoe's past decisions, gods knew she'd done enough of that herself, but it wasn't a topic she wanted to continue to discuss either.

"Still," I said hesitantly, "it's not fair to punish you for what your father's done. I knew another daughter of Atlas. Her name was Zoë. She was one of the bravest people I've ever met."

Calypso studied me for a long time. Her eyes were sad.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Are—are you healed yet, my brave one? Do you think you'll be ready to leave soon?"

"What? I asked. "I don't know." I moved my legs. They were still stiff. I was already getting dizzy from standing up so long.

The fact that he could stand up for any length of time and wasn't sprinting and threatening to get out of there still gnawed at something in Percy. Something about this place, this girl. He wanted to help her, to stay, and it was nothing evil or magical making him. Just Calypso was enough.

"You want me to go?"

"I..." Her voice broke. "I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well."

She ran off toward the beach. I was too confused to do anything but watch until she disappeared in the dark.

"No, that's a classic Percy," Jason couldn't comprehend how Percy hadn't interrogated this girl to know everything about what was going on by now. He was the dopiest, deadliest guy Jason had ever met, and he was quite positive of this fact not even remembering anyone outside this room.

I don't know exactly how much time passed. Like Calypso said, it was hard to keep track on the island. I knew I should be leaving. At the very least, my friends would be worried. At worst, they could be in serious danger. I didn't even know if Annabeth had made it out of the volcano. I tried to use my empathy link with Grover several times, but I couldn't make contact. I hated not knowing if they were all right.

On the other hand, I really was weak. I couldn't stay on my feet more than a few hours. Whatever I'd done in Mount St. Helens had drained me like nothing else I'd ever expected.

Nico could hardly believe the words out of his own mouth. If he hadn't already been struck repeatedly in here that Percy wasn't the guy he'd dreamed he was, this more than anything put the final nail in the coffin. Percy had the motivation to go home, he'd always done everything up to this point by his driving factor being to help others.

He just, was choosing not to this time. It wasn't even a big heroic sacrifice, he had no idea of Calypso's curse yet. He was just, hesitating, and Nico found himself fascinated what had made Percy leave. Had he been unable to put down the mantel of the hero? Had it been Annabeth?

I didn't feel like a prisoner or anything. I remembered the Lotus Hotel and Casino in Vegas, where I'd been lured into this amazing game world until I almost forgot everything I cared about. But the island of Ogygia wasn't like that at all. I thought about Annabeth, Grover, and Tyson constantly. I remembered exactly why I needed to leave. I just...couldn't.

And then there was Calypso herself.

She never talked much about herself, but that just made me want to know more. I would sit in the meadow, sipping nectar, and I would try to concentrate on the flowers or the clouds or the reflections on the lake, but I was really staring at Calypso as she worked, the way she brushed her hair over her shoulder, and the little strand that fell in her face whenever she knelt to dig in the garden. Sometimes she would hold out her hand and birds would fly out of the woods to settle on her arm—lorikeets, parrots, doves.

"You fell into a fairy tell land my friend," Magnus told him. "I bet she turns into an ogre, or a dragon or something once you decided to stay."

Magnus wasn't really kidding, but Percy laughed like he was anyways. That didn't feel like the right answer either. Nothing had felt like the right thing to do since he'd blown up that volcano.

She would tell them good morning, ask how it was going back at the nest, and they would chirp for a while, then fly off cheerfully. Calypso's eyes gleamed. She would look at me and we'd share a smile, but almost immediately she'd get that sad expression again and turn away. I didn't understand what was bothering her.

"She's using reverse psychology on you and makes you think she wants you to leave while really wanting you to stay," Alex joined in.

Percy blinked at him. Something in there finally did feel like an answer, but twisted. She was no manipulator, he knew that, felt that in his memory like his instinctive trust of Thalia.

One night we were eating dinner together at the beach. Invisible servants had set up a table with beef stew and apple cider,

"Is that all she had to eat there? Is that the secret torture?" Will frowned. "Also, where does the cow part come from?"

"She's making those special veggies that taste like beef," Nico snickered.

"Maybe Hermes delivers her yearly rations she can't grow, like toilet paper," Thalia smirked.

which may not sound all that exciting, but that's because you haven't tasted it. I hadn't even noticed the invisible servants when I first got to the island, but after a while I became aware of the beds making themselves, meals cooking on their own, clothes being washed and folded by unseen hands.

Magnus threw his hands up in exasperation. "This is officially the best vacation ever. Can I blow up a volcano too Percy?"

"Not without following the proper steps by sitting through a sex ed class, being chased by Telkehines, and nearly dying." Percy shrugged.

"Geez, I might still consider it," Magnus huffed at this luxury.

Anyway, Calypso and I were sitting at dinner, and she looked beautiful in the candlelight.

"If you mention how pretty this girl is one more time, I might have to revoke your crush on Annabeth," Jason snorted.

Percy brushed at his gray bangs, his stomach in knots. He wished he had some snippy rebuttal for that, but he was disturbingly silent.

"People can have a crush on more than one person Jason, broaden your mind," Alex finally chuckled into the awkward silence.

Thalia was studying her best friend with those electric blue eyes. She'd been really relieved to see him at the beginning, like he'd been missing for a long time. Is this where he'd been? Was she angry with him having taken to long to come back?

I was telling her about New York and Camp Half-Blood, and then I started telling her about the time Grover had eaten an apple while we were playing Hacky Sack with it. She laughed, showing off her amazing smile, and our eyes met. Then she dropped her gaze.

She was scared, Percy tried to put into words that expression, but that didn't quite fit right. She wasn't telling him something about this place, and if he could not resist one kind of torture, it was temptation.

"There it is again," I said.

"What?"

"You keep pulling away, like you're trying not to enjoy yourself."

"You probably scared her with that story Percy," Magnus rolled his eyes. "I might still have nightmares about Grover using a mega-goat bite on me if was drinking apple cider."

"I don't think she could have nightmares on that island," Percy frowned. He certainly hadn't been having any. The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was oddly similar to their current prison. Invisible servants, all the food one could eat, the company was mostly tolerable when they weren't annoying. He still missed Annabeth, his mom, Grover and everyone like a physical ache, but there was nothing stopping him from refusing to relearn his memories, hide in a room and stay here forever. The idea was just loathsome if he thought about it for more than a second.

It hadn't been there though. There had been something about Calypso, the constant rest he got. The problem with staying on vacation for to long was that it made going back seem harder than it had before.

She kept her eyes on her glass of cider. "As I told you, Percy, I have been punished. Cursed, you might say."

"How? Tell me. I want to help."

"Don't say that. Please don't say that."

"Tell me what the punishment is."

He wanted to help her, Percy finally realized the obvious. Once he found out how to help break her curse, he could leave with a clear conscience. Of course, it seemed obvious now. This place probably played exactly into one's fatal flaw. He might have just met her, but he could have been life long friends with someone like Calypso.

She covered her half-finished stew with a napkin, and immediately an invisible servant whisked the bowl away. "Percy, this island, Ogygia, is my home, my birthplace. But it is also my prison. I am under...house arrest, I guess you would call it. I will never visit this Manhattan of yours. Or anywhere else. I am alone here."

"Doesn't sound like much of a punishment," Alex muttered. He preferred being alone, all people did was disappoint and judge you.

"Maybe for one lifetime, but all of them?" Magnus frowned. He never would have made it on the streets without Hearth and Blitz. He missed the boy he used to play with who always stopped running too fast when he had to grab his inhaler. He missed being in the back of a class reading and ignoring the teacher until he had his book taken away and then begrudgingly laughing and playing a game of tic tac toe with a random kid in detention. Maybe he'd learn why they were there, maybe they'd just sit in silence together. The idea of never being allowed around another soul again sounded like a curse to him.

Alex heard all of that in his short question, and sighed as he practiced signing the alphabet to himself in random order.

"Because your father was Atlas."

She nodded. "The gods do not trust their enemies. And rightly so. I should not complain. Some of the prisons are not nearly as nice as mine."

"I guess she heard what her dad's going through," Jason said in agreement.

"It's, nice, the gods took it easy on a random kid," Will tried to say in his usual upbeat way, but he wasn't so sure how confident he was of that. He didn't actually know what crime Calypso had committed other than support and what that entailed, yet he'd heard plenty of the gods unjust punishments for lesser things.

"But that's not fair," I said. "Just because you're related doesn't mean you support him. This other daughter I knew, Zoë, Nightshade—she fought against him. She wasn't imprisoned."

"But, Percy," Calypso said gently, "I did support him in the first war. He is my father."

"Ah," Magnus said in understanding as the final piece of it all fit into place.

"One man's vacation is another man's punishment huh?" Alex said with distaste, though for Calypso or the gods nobody was sure.

"What? But the Titans are evil!"

"Are they? All of them? All the time?"

"I've yet met a good one," Magnus said in disgust.

They weren't inherently evil, Nico knew though as he toyed with the edge of the page. Iapetus the Impaler had been cleansed of his family ties and come out as Bob, an innocent who willingly helped. Luke was a child of the 'good guys' and yet he was leading the rebellion. What made good and evil was not an answer he was privy to no matter how many ghosts he talked to about it.

She pursed her lips. "Tell me, Percy. I have no wish to argue with you, but do you support the gods because they are good, or because they are your family?"

I didn't answer. She had a point. Last winter, after Annabeth and I had saved Olympus, the gods had had a debate about whether or not they should kill me. That hadn't been exactly good. But still, I felt like I supported them because Poseidon was my dad.

"And we're back to that whole corruption of infinite cosmic power business," Alex scowled.

"It's more like a few really rotten apples and some bad tempers that need work?" Will offered with a hopeful smile. He could easily understand Percy questioning such a thing, it would have made less sense if he never had. Things had been getting better since Percy demanded of the gods his reward to prevent this all happening again though, some of them had even come around a bit for a brief time before Dionysus mysteriously stopped being there.

"Perhaps I was wrong in the war," Calypso said. "And in fairness, the gods have treated me well. They visit me from time to time. They bring me word of the outside world. But they can leave. And I cannot."

"You don't have any friends?" I asked. "I mean...wouldn't anyone else live here with you? It's a nice place."

"I bet those Hesperides would, sit around and shit talk about half-bloods all day. She might like to hang out with her half sisters," Thalia sounded reluctantly sorry for her. A maiden trapped alone in this eternal place struck a particular cord in her, one strong enough for her to ask if her punishment might ever be lifted. If she asked Artemis to let her join the hunt, would that be an insult to the gods original punishment? Thalia might even consider hiding Jason away on this island once they got out of here while she figured out what had happened to him if this underwater place didn't work out long term.

A tear trickled down her cheek. "I...I promised myself I wouldn't speak of this. But—"

She was interrupted by a rumbling sound somewhere out on the lake.

Percy groaned, a painful sounding noise deep in his chest that usually meant they should all duck and hold their breath for something disastrous about to happen.

It wasn't like that this time. Percy was angry with himself, and this situation, and no one set thing. The ocean sloshed all around them like somebody shaking a jar as he shifted around to try and get comfortable in his seat with no clear ending in sight.

A glow appeared on the horizon. It got brighter and brighter, until I could see a column of fire moving across the surface of the water, coming toward us.

"Because at this point why wouldn't aliens show up," Magnus frowned.

"Why is that your first thought?" Jason looked at him like anything left could be a strange sentence in here. "It's more likely Mercury is popping in again. Maybe he decided to use a pillar of flames this time."

"Haven't you heard stories about aliens appearing as columns of light?" Magnus asked in amusement. "I know this guy on Beacon Street who swears up and down he saw them while flying in WWII, described them just like this. I bet he'll think I'm just as crazy if I tell him it was just a god passing by."

"We're all a little crazy in some ways," Alex cheerfully reminded.

I stood and reached for my sword. "What is that?"

Calypso sighed. "A visitor."

"She doesn't seem that thrilled about it?" Alex frowned, which was weird right? Shouldn't she be jumping for joy when anyone shows up if she's so lonely? She had been cut off though, about to offer Percy something, and it wasn't particularly hard to imagine what.

As the column of fire reached the beach. Calypso stood and bowed to it formally. The flames dissipated, and standing before us was a tall man in gray overalls and a metal leg brace, his beard and hair smoldering with fire.

"Lord Hephaestus," Calypso said. "This is a rare honor."

Will scratched absently at his chin as he said, "yeah, I imagine so. Like I'm trying to think of a scenario where she's ever even met him." If he so rarely visited anyone, why would he go to this random girl. Did he study her plants to make machines out of them?

"Maybe a child of Hephaestus has landed there before," Nico shrugged. She probably hadn't met every god, he doubted they were all kind and sporadic enough to visit on their own and she probably only knew of them through the random demi god kids who passed through.

Thalia kept the thought to herself she was a prisoner because of the war she'd been in to the two. It was plenty likely Calypso knew of every Olympian because she'd had her turn to try and kill them all, possibly by learning of their favorite foods and practicing poisions even. Who knew what she'd been up to back then before coming there.

The fire god grunted. "Calypso. Beautiful as always.

"If I hear how beautiful this girl is described one more time, I'm shaving her head," Alex rolled his eyes. "Aphrodite wasn't praised this much. Annabeth isn't praised this much!"

Nico lost his composure and burst out laughing hard while Percy sighed at the pair of them. They didn't get it, they hadn't seen her in person.

Would you excuse us, please, my dear? I need to have a word with our young Percy Jackson."

Percy felt immediately humbled and worried. Was this about Annabeth?!

Hephaestus sat down clumsily at the dinner table and ordered a Pepsi.

"I wonder if he ever goes to a restaurant, and they tell him they only have coke, and he just like, changes reality to make it so they only have Pepsi now," Magnus frowned.

"I thought it would be simpler, like he just breaks their machine so no soda is carbonated," Will admitted.

"You're both evil for taking it out on the soda," Percy told.

The invisible servant brought him one, opened it too suddenly, and sprayed soda all over the gods work clothes. Hephaestus roared and spat a few curses and swatted the can away.

"Stupid servants," he muttered. "Good automatons are what she needs. They never act up!"

"I do not believe him in any way, shape, or form," Thalia scoffed.

"I think he needs a tune-up in his mind," Percy agreed.

"Hephaestus," I said, "what's going on? Is Annabeth—"

"She's fine," he said. "Resourceful girl, that one. Found her way back, told me the whole story. She's worried sick, you know."

Percy made such a sigh of relief that he cleaved out a gap of air in front of him that made a terrifying noise as the water snapped back into place.

Nico kept reading over him like he heard his life about to end every other day while the others rubbed their ears.

"You haven't told her I'm okay?"

"That's not for me to say," Hephaestus said.

Magnus shivered deep in his seat. He longed to be there for her, how alone she must feel right now. Was she back in the maze by herself? Marching into Daedalus' shop ready for murder because she thought she'd lost her best friend? He had nothing to offer her but his companionship and still couldn't even give that as he sat uselessly in place.

"Everyone thinks you're dead. I had to be sure you were coming back before I started telling everyone where you were."

"Everyone, everyone?" Jason asked critically. "Like Neptune? Who exactly was asking Vulcan where you were?"

"It wouldn't surprise me if some of the gods kept an eye on his quest and knew Hephaestus was the last god he'd seen," Thalia reminded with a scowl. Like Hera, she'd probably been keeping tabs on him enough to know he'd gone missing.

"What do you mean?" I said. "Of course I'm coming back!"

Hephaestus studied me skeptically. He fished something out of his pocket—a metal disk the size of an iPod. He clicked a button and it expanded into a miniature bronze TV. On the screen was news footage of Mount St. Helens, a huge plume of fire and ash trailing into the sky.

"Still uncertain about further eruptions," the newscaster was saying. "Authorities have ordered the evacuation of almost half a million people as a precaution. Meanwhile, ash has fallen as far away as Lake Tahoe and Vancouver, and the entire Mount St. Helens area is closed to traffic within a hundred-mile radius. While no deaths have been reported, minor injuries and illnesses include—"

Hephaestus switched it off. "You caused quite an explosion."

Percy's hand leapt to his mouth like he was going to try and hold in another scream. He just looked so ashamed Thalia instinctively leaned over and hugged him. He cautiously returned it, but his hand stayed in place, the guilt in his eyes more plain than the dark water around them.

It wasn't okay, Thalia knew as she leaned back, and she didn't say as much. Percy looked as torn apart as if he wanted to evacuate his own body, that volcano might as well have erupted inside of him and then proceeded out to the lava.

I stared at the blank bronze screen. Half a million people evacuated? Injuries. Illness. What had I done?

"I-" but Percy couldn't say how sorry he was. He couldn't see the others around him, if they looked at him with fear now. All he could feel was that dormant power in him, the one he touched every other page in here it seemed. Even now he couldn't get a handle on his emotions, his capabilities. Perhaps this place wasn't a punishment at all, but a place to learn why he should be kept away from others.

He'd always been a really bad student though.

Thalia slugged him on the shoulder and said, "and this is why boys should be kept at the bottom of the ocean! I bet if you'd gone to visit the Cyclops forges too you'd have a handle on this, it's all your dad's fault really." Like she wasn't massively speaking from experience her dad had never given her any help on her chaotic powers either.

Will and Nico were muttering away about something as usual, the book held casually in Nico's hand, the kid who had once made the dead vanish without thought and nearly taken the camp with him. Alex was lounging in his seat waiting for things to keep going while Magnus and Jason just looked reserved for the worst.

They'd all been dealing with him nearly killing them since they got in here. This vast showing of his powers didn't surprise a one, it was just a part of who he was. It wasn't a great part of him, but Percy sighed and knew what Annabeth would tell him to do once she was done strangling him for making her think he was dead. All he could do was build a better foundation next time. He had to work on getting control.

"The telekhines were scattered," the god told me. "Some vaporized. Some got away, no doubt. I don't think they'll be using my forge any time soon.

"Oh look, he got what he wanted out of it," Alex scoffed.

"Not exactly a win, win, scenario," Percy muttered. Why couldn't the gods have shown up to stop the volcano from erupting and saved all those people?

For the same reason they hadn't voted to kill him he supposed. They had their own plans, own agenda, other things better to do with their infinite time than worry about him right this moment. A part of Percy still hoped he'd asked his dad to make a few anonymous donations to help... somehow. He didn't even know, he just knew his next prayer to his dad as he scrapped food off his plate would be for this.

On the other hand, neither will I. The explosion caused Typhon to stir in his sleep. We'll have to wait and see—"

"I couldn't release him, could I? I mean, I'm not that powerful!"

The god grunted. "Not that powerful, eh? Could have fooled me. You're the son of the Earthshaker, lad. You don't know your own strength."

Percy felt a horrible pressure deep in his chest at a god telling him that. He'd taken on Ares and come out the other side without a scratch.

His friends didn't see him as a god though. Thalia was nothing but sympathetic beside him. "I've hardly touched my powers since I caused this massive storm once, nearly tore a whole city apart the news later blamed on a hurricane." She admitted. "I don't often need them more than just the minimum with the Hunters. You're still coming into it Percy."

Chiron had warned him of this, way back when, but he still felt like he didn't fully grasp all he was.

That's the last thing I wanted him to say. I hadn't been in control of myself in that mountain. I'd released so much energy I'd almost vaporized myself, drained all the life out of me. Now I found out I'd nearly destroyed the Northwest U.S. and almost woken the most horrible monster ever imprisoned by the gods. Maybe I was too dangerous. Maybe it was safer for my friends to think I was dead.

Thalia fought off the urge to smack him with the greatest of restraint. "That's not for you to decide who we hang out with Percy!"

"You've said yourself what a bad influence I am," Percy said with a reluctant tease.

"You're a pain in the ass who I would never trade away for some boring kid who couldn't blow up a volcano," she huffed.

Percy was rubbing at his arm like she had tried to pummel him, and Magnus couldn't stand watching him beat himself up. Percy had been a good friend to Annabeth, and to him this whole time. It wasn't his thing to say really, but he didn't really think Hearth would begrudge him offering to Percy, "hey, listen, Hearth's told me about how strange it is to hate a part of your own body. Just because it's something you can't control in yourself doesn't make it a bad thing, just something to live around."

"Hearth's not going to blow up half a continent because he doesn't know what he's doing," Percy said sullenly, his eyes on the floor. He assumed anyways. What did he know about elves?

"I might," Nico wasn't to happy about reminding. "Thalia might. Would you want us to stay on an island?" He was very confident of the answer he got, enough he didn't feel any major emotion at still knowing who Percy was. Percy didn't want him, his answer would be the same no matter who's name he'd given.

"No," was of course his automatic response.

"Then you're not that special," Thalia happily concluded.

"How do you think I feel?" Jason agreed. "I couldn't begin to guess what I'm capable of until it erupts out of me too, gods knows what form it'll take since I can't begin to guess at my parentage."

Thalia kept her face very straight to hide her continued guilt over leaving him in the dark on that. He'd know soon enough when she figured out for herself all the answers she could give him. She was not like her father, keeping him at arms length until she was ready...

"You can blame your dad if you need someone to be accountable for this," Alex said in that calm, confident way as he absently played with a strand of green hair. The pale amber eye glittered with a secret, while the dark brown one seemed heavy and tired. "Don't let that excuse you from practicing what you have to all its might though."

Percy rubbed his fingers together, still unsure how much he could let himself agree with that. What would happen one day if he went all out, who would get caught in the crossfire next...

"What about Grover and Tyson?" I asked.

Hephaestus shook his head. "No word, I'm afraid. I suppose the labyrinth has them."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

Hephaestus winced. "Don't ever ask an old cripple for advice, lad. But I'll tell you this.

"Don't ask me for advice but here's some," Alex rolled his eyes.

"No wonder his machines always go haywire, I bet their coding is just as sporadic," Magnus agreed.

"You guys have got to stop saying that kind of stuff," Will said with a nervous laugh. "Just because a god hasn't popped in here yet to kill us doesn't mean they won't."

"Pssh, we've got Percy," Alex brushed off.

Percy blushed. He wasn't sure if Alex meant he was a bigger threat, or he would get between whatever god got annoyed with their commentary. He considered both true.

You've met my wife?"

"Aphrodite."

"That's her. She's a tricky one, lad. Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."

"Never have I said truer words," Nico muttered for himself. It perfectly explained why he always felt...everything he'd ever felt.

I thought about my meeting with Aphrodite, in the back of a white Cadillac in the desert last winter. She'd told me that she had taken a special interest in me, and she'd be making things hard for me in the romance department, just because she liked me.

"And I still haven't forgiven her for that," Percy scowled, now fully suspecting his time with Calypso was a part of this.

"Um, be grateful she doesn't seem to be sending random guys to Annabeth's house?" Magnus offered, but he knew how unhelpful that sounded.

Percy didn't seem to think much of it either, his mind swiveling to Luke and always worried what he was up to.

"Is this part of her plan?" I asked. "Did she land me here?"

"Possibly. Hard to say with her.

Percy made an exhausted noise. He had a headache again and he wasn't even trying to pressure himself to remember what his decision had been. He just knew what it was going to be now. If Aphrodite had put him here, he had to leave. There had never been a choice, just more manipulation by the gods he was helping to win this war. Like a dog doing its job for the reward every night of a good bed and food.

His family was more than that to him though, he instantly regretted his thought as he played with his clay beads. He was picking the winning side not because any god had told him to. His choice was clear. If Kronos won, his family wouldn't.

But if you decide to leave this place—and I don't say what's right or wrong—then I promised you an answer to your quest. I promised you the way to Daedalus. Well now, here's the thing. It has nothing to do with Ariadne's string. Not really. Sure, the string worked. That's what the Titan's army will be after. But the best way through the maze...Theseus had the princess's help. And the princess was a regular mortal. Not a drop of god blood in her. But she was clever, and she could see, lad. She could see very clearly. So what I'm saying—I think you know how to navigate the maze."

"You're going to bring your mom in there?" Magnus asked like he was nuts.

Alex smacked him on the back of the head, and he yelped in surprise before he realized, "oh shit, Rachel."

"There you go," Alex nodded.

"Wow, I've never seen someone literally smack sense into someone," Thalia snickered. "If only it worked on you," it was no guess who she redirected that at.

"Try it Tinkerbell, I will eat your storms for breakfast," Percy smirked. Thalia laughed, mostly out of relief he was trying to pull himself out of his funk.

It finally sank in. Why hadn't I seen it before? Hera had been right. The answer was there all the time.

"Who would have thought of that?" Jason demanded. "Nobody would have thought, hey the girl that can see through mist should go down into the crazy dangerous dungeon and see if she can see...oh. No wait. Yeah it sounds kind of obvious when you put it like that."

"Everything is clearer with hindsight," Will snorted. "I should start carrying a flashlight on me, just in case I ever need to shine it on something already fully lit."

"A UV light," Nico added. "That way we can put secret stamps only we'll know to find."

"Brilliant!" Will cheered.

Nico smiled and shook his head in exasperation he seemed fully jazzed about this joke...but the temptation was there to really do it. Go back into that maze and put up some secret clue or path to let a half-blood know others had been here, and they'd gotten out. So no kid would be trapped in there alone again.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I know."

"Then you'll need to decide whether or not you're leaving."

"I..." I wanted to say yes. Of course I would. But the words stuck in my throat. I found myself looking out at the lake, and suddenly the idea of leaving seemed very hard.

Percy didn't often feel the need to kick everybody out of the room so that he could have some personal privacy, but this. This was definitely one of those moments.

Thankfully, it went without commentary. Not even judgy silence. Percy finally guessed what that reserved look on Thalia's face was. The same one she often had when she stared at her tree to long. Nobody could force him to go back, he had to want to. He could have stayed there and maybe Annabeth would have joined the Hunters after all or anything else that could have happened. He didn't though, he knew that about himself. Nobody had made Thalia take a stand on that hill, but her spirit had lingered in that tree instead of vanishing long ago, enough of her had wanted to come back the fleece could work its magic on her.

"Don't decide yet," Hephaestus advised. "Wait until daybreak. Daybreak is a good time for decisions."

"Will Daedalus even help us?" I asked. "I mean, if he gives Luke a way to navigate the Labyrinth, we're dead. I saw dreams about...Daedalus killed his nephew. He turned bitter and angry and—"

"It isn't easy being a brilliant inventor," Hephaestus rumbled. "Always alone. Always misunderstood. Easy to turn bitter, make horrible mistakes. People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, he can't be fixed."

Percy thought of Luke. His broken body at the bottom of that mountain, his crooked smile slashing that sword at him. He knew Hephaestus didn't mean physically fixed.

Though a cyborg would be a lot cooler to fight.

Hephaestus brushed the last drops of Pepsi off his work clothes. "Daedalus started well enough. He helped the Princess Ariadne and Theseus because he felt sorry for them. He tried to do a good deed. And everything in his life went bad because of it. Was that fair?" The god shrugged. "I don't know if Daedalus will help you, lad, but don't judge someone until you've stood at his forge and worked with his hammer, eh?"

"He gives pretty good advice for a god who doesn't want to," Jason chuckled.

"I'll—I'll try."

Percy wanted to laugh that off, pretend he'd never have a clue where Daedalus was coming from...but his dad's words from that party he hadn't died at came to mind. How Luke had once been Hermes's pride and joy and look how far he'd fallen.

Percy had spent a lot of time in here wondering at how useful the gods were, how he'd be better off without their constant interference, this of all treacheries putting such a choice in front of him just to see how he'd react.

He didn't have to try anymore to get where a good deed could make you feel punished for the rest of your life. He'd tried to stop an army of monsters from recreating Kronos's full blade and blown up a volcano with his hammer. Daedalus was not perfect, he'd done many a horrible things, but if he was stuck in some punishment now Percy would have to help get him out of, he would without hesitation. Not because they needed him for this quest, but because the gods shouldn't get to decide anybody's eternal fate.

Hephaestus stood. "Good-bye, lad. You did well, destroying the telekhines. I'll always remember you for that."

It sounded very final, that good-bye. Then he erupted into a column of flame, and the fire moved over the water, heading back to the world outside.

"I just like to imagine all of Hephaestus's goodbyes are like that," Will said as cheerfully as ever. "The gods never fully expect to see us again. They blink and it's been a hundred years and oops, that guy died of old age I think."

Percy often thought this guy was a goofball. Nobody could be that naturally happy all the time, he had to be faking it at least every other smile. Not this time though. Will had been in this world longer, he'd had siblings to stay up late laughing about this with.

I walked along the beach for several hours. When I finally came back to the meadow, it was very late, maybe four or five in the morning, but Calypso was still in her garden, tending the flowers by starlight. Her moonlace glowed silver, and the other plants responded to the magic, glowing red and yellow and blue.

"He has ordered you to return," Calypso guessed.

"She'd like that, wouldn't she," Alex sounded blunt, but not cold. "The perfect way to make you stay."

Percy laughed, even though they both knew it was no joke.

"Well, not ordered. He gave me a choice."

Her eyes met mine. "I promised I would not offer."

"Offer what?"

"For you to stay."

"Stay," I said. "Like...forever?"

"You would be immortal on this island," she said quietly. "You would never age or die. You could leave the fight to others, Percy Jackson. You could escape your prophecy."

I stared at her, stunned. "Just like that?"

She nodded. "Just like that."

"But...my friends."

Nico was still adjusting to the feeling of admiration he had for Percy from when Percy had discovered he was a child of Hades and declaring himself the prophecy child. Percy took on the role of leader and responsibility so easily and naturally in a way he shared with Thalia Nico felt nausea over just the idea of.

But it wasn't the power that propped him into the position. It was the people around him he willingly led. Percy hadn't wanted to go back to camp to be the hero, he'd gone back because of them.

No matter how messy his shadow traveling ever got or what near-death experience he might find himself in, Nico was confident he'd never wind up on this island. Calypso would never fall in love with someone like him, but even still he stared absently down at the book for a few lingering moments. It was probably silly to think if he'd even be invited to stay, what reason he'd have to go back.

He wouldn't have had one before he got thrown into this room.

Calypso rose and took my hand. Her touch sent a warm current through my body. "You asked about my curse, Percy. I did not want to tell you. The truth is the gods send me companionship from time to time. Every thousand years or so, they allow a hero to wash up on my shores, someone who needs my help. I tend to him and befriend him, but it is never random. The Fates make sure that the sort of hero they send..."

Her voice trembled, and she had to stop.

I squeezed her hand tighter. "What? What have I done to make you sad?"

"They send a person who can never stay," she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help...just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with."

"Huh," Alex couldn't help but sound admirable. "Somebody got really creative with that curse."

"Can we not compliment someone who tormented someone else for more eons than you can name," Jason sighed for this poor girl.

"I can admire the structure of a building without wishing it would fall on someone," Alex assured.

"Besides, this is Percy here." Magnus grinned. "You can't convince me he's not going to find some way to sneak this girl out. I bet he comes back through the labyrinth connecting to this place and gives her that freedom."

"Does she deserve it though," Alex raised a challenging brow. "She's not a victimless kid here. Who knows what she did to earn a life sentence. The gods are more than capable of just putting her right back and then deciding to destroy the labyrinth to suit their needs if he does."

Magnus looked intently at Alex as he considered debating that. Atlas felt like he deserved that life sentence because of what he'd done to Annabeth and Zoe, but the cruelty of his punishment came with no end in sight. It didn't feel right for these all-powerful beings to smite out immortal punishments that lasted longer than a lifetime.

Nico kept reading, and Magnus didn't get into it right now because he was still an atheist at heart, and had a great distaste of any 'justice system'. These gods were mighty but flawed beings to him, but it was an endless debate that had no resolution they should have to have someone to be accountable to.

The night was quiet except for the gurgle of the fountains and waves lapping on the shore. It took me a long time to realize what she was saying.

"Me?" I asked.

"If you could see your face." She suppressed a smile, though her eyes were still teary. "Of course, you."

The brief laugh that echoed around the room fell on deaf ears to Percy. He felt like he was still processing her warm brown eyes and the smile on her face for the first time. She was the kind of girl he bet his mom would have wanted him to settle down with, a nice normal girl who would garden with him all day and never flee a school on fire with him. The kind of girl who wouldn't have to hide her knife from Paul Blofis and have to explain why she might be on the run from some monsters.

His mom loved Annabeth, Sally Jackson had always nurtured his creative side and had never ordered him around, but this was the girl his mom would have wanted him to pick, he was sure of it.

And he wouldn't have agreed with her.

"That's why you've been pulling away all this time?"

"I tried very hard. But I can't help it. The Fates are cruel. They sent you to me, my brave one, knowing that you would break my heart."

"But...I'm just...I mean, I'm just me."

"And what's so wrong with that Percy?" Thalia chuckled with a glint in her eyes that spelled trouble. "It seems more than enough to get you by."

Panic shot through him as he thought Thalia was talking about herself for a moment, before her eyes darted to Nico and he laughed supremely awkwardly. He had no idea if Annabeth still loved him outside of a single memory he had of her that seemed to get more wildly out of context the more this went on. Nico had apparently fallen in love with him at some point too?! He even felt like he was still missing the obvious in someone. Now Calypso...Holy Poseidon, Thalia wasn't wrong, and he felt a tiny kernel of panic if Aphrodite really had placed some kind of curse on him.

"That is enough," Calypso promised. "I told myself I would not even speak of this. I would let you go without even offering. But I can't. I suppose the Fates knew that, too. You could stay with me, Percy. I'm afraid that is the only way you could help me."

I stared at the horizon. The first red streaks of dawn were lightening the sky. I could stay here forever, disappear from the earth. I could live with Calypso, with invisible servants tending to my every need. We could grow flowers in the garden and talk to songbirds and walk on the beach under perfect blue skies. No war. No prophecy. No more taking sides.

The truth was Percy could see how easy it would be to fall for someone like Calypso. Annabeth didn't need him, she was a better hero than him in nearly every way. She would probably figure out a way to convince Luke he was being stupid and stop being evil and this prophecy nonsense would be put off for another thousand years or so.

Calypso thought he was funny. She'd been alone for a really long time and needed help. He bet she'd help him build an awesome skate park and he could sit around all day doing things he'd always wanted to, like learn to play guitar and get an unbeatable high score. It wasn't so much that he wouldn't do it.

"I can't," I told her.

He couldn't spend his time waking up every day in a garden, blissfully happy. He couldn't sit around learning to weave and cook beef stew. He could not step away from his prophecy, his friends who needed him, no matter how much Calypso did too.

She looked down sadly.

"I would never do anything to hurt you," I said, "but my friends need me. I know how to help them now. I have to get back."

She picked a flower from her garden—a sprig of silver moonlace. Its glow faded as the sunrise came up. Daybreak is a good time for decisions, Hephaestus had said. Calypso tucked the flower into my T-shirt pocket.

Nico studied the book in surprise. He'd always greatly wondered why Percy had been rooting around and dumping his canteen in that flower box when he'd shown up. It had felt like a warding off gesture to him, considering how much Nico detested plants and Percy must have somehow known this. Instead, he now understood, it was just a very, very sad reminder at the hint of white that had sprouted up.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me on the forehead, like a blessing.

"Then come to the beach, my hero. And we will send you on your way."

It would have been easier if she'd argued with him. If she'd begged him to stay and cursed him and the gods out for doing this to her again and thrown a fit, ripping up her precious plants.

She was so kind. She'd accepted her life was just going to be like this, and endless cycle of heartache. She accepted her inevitable defeat.

It was that part of her that he knew he would never be happy with.

The raft was a ten-foot square of logs lashed together with a pole for a mast and a simple white linen sail. It didn't look like it would be very seaworthy, or lakeworthy.

"This will take you wherever you desire," Calypso promised. "It is quite safe."

I took her hand, but she let it slip out of mine.

"Maybe I can visit you," I said.

She shook her head. "No man ever finds Ogygia twice, Percy. When you leave, I will never see you again."

Some god owed him for this. Losing his memory, being trapped in this room. Reliving each and every moment of his past as raw and painful as ever.

He didn't know how, he didn't when, but he knew he would not let this be the case. It was a gut feeling. He would see her again.

"But—"

"Go, please." Her voice broke. "The Fates are cruel, Percy. Just remember me." Then a little trace of her smile returned. "Plant a garden in Manhattan for me, will you?"

"I promise." I stepped onto the raft. Immediately it began to sail from the shore.

Alex had never been to Manhattan, but he was pretty confident they had a plant conservatory garden, and he pretended he couldn't hear Percy's ragged breath for a moment as he instead vividly imagined security chasing Percy with pitchforks and trowels for trying to plant something.

As I sailed onto the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn't help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would always be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if.

"One even the Fates might not know," Thalia murmured gently. Not even the Titan's had been able to outsmart them. Percy had been the child of the Prophecy. Somehow, some way, he was always going to fulfill that role.

Did that mean there were paths even they couldn't see? A tapestry even they couldn't make? A world beyond the oldest beings?

Within minutes the island of Ogygia was lost in the mist. I was sailing alone over the water toward the sunrise.

Then I told the raft what to do. I said the only place I could think of, because I needed comfort and friends.

"Camp Half-Blood," I said. "Sail me home."

Alex couldn't help but break the tension like a firecracker. "What if you asked to go back to your mom's apartment? Would you appear in the bathtub?"

Percy laughed at this guys never ending sporadicness. It was genuine, but still a little sad as he watched Nico pass the book to Will.

He had somehow been taken out of time over four times in his life already. His life, his choices kept speeding past and around him, colliding with everyone around him whether he wanted them to or not. He could never have stayed on Ogygia anymore than he would willingly stay in this room...but somehow a part of him felt so disconnected from his own future as he floated out on that raft he couldn't begin to guess what came next.

PJOPJOPJO

This was a very big revelation chapter for little kid me. One of the very first instances of showing another point of view.

Reading this chapter, making me realize that Percy was not fighting for the 'right side', but the side his family was on. It wasn't just an obvious choice for good and evil anymore, it was the obligation of family vs duty, the first story this concept was ever introduced to me, and I'll always remember Calypso for that.

I will never understand people who hate Calypso for turning into a shrew by the time Leo comes around. This girl has been dealing with her curse longer than you can conceive of a timeframe, she's earned the right to be pissed and not nice anymore. She was at peace with it for as long as she could be, until she just couldn't handle it anymore. Can you imagine if a god popped in and delivered the news that Kronos was defeated once more and all the gods were now supposed to be taking more responsibility for their kids, and maybe even let slip that she should be let out of her punishment, and they just, didn't?

I imagine it being Demeter or something, all a flutter with excitement for all these new developments and then dropping this bomb, getting distracted by Calypso's beautiful begonias, and then cheesing it leaving Calypso in an understandably bitter future with her curse.

[deputygonebye]

@brooklynislandgirl || Taken from here.

When news of the outbreak came to light ~as a doctor she'd had advanced warning~ they didn't know what was going to happen. Samples were hard to come by and information even moreso. The rumours had run rampant, that it was everything from a biological weapon attack to a new variation of the flu, like what had happened in 1918, or maybe the Bubonic plague. The first few vectors and patience were scarce. Normal protocols were issued and hospitals all along the eastern seaboard and south were put on alert about symptoms. But that… that didn't last long. Not when the news started reporting aggression and cannibalism. Then there was talk about the dead coming back to life.

Eventually the CDC declared the virus a global pandemic. For all the good that did. Everywhere there was civil unrest. Looting, rioting, widespread breakdown of infrastructures like power and other utilities, communications blackouts and the like. Within twenty-four hours the country as a whole was put under martial law.

Andy was called up, orders to report immediately to Fort Benning. They'd argued, because of course they did. He didn't want to leave her behind alone. She had said she couldn't stand by and do nothing while the homeless and her other low-income patients suffered while the hospital networks in the City were already overwhelmed. In the end, her brother had won. While he took a flight to his next post, she had packed the car to the brim and drove down. They would meet up as soon as everything was sorted. Worse case scenario, they'd reunite and make their way upstate. The cabin first, and from there they'd choose the safest location to weather the storm.

That had been over a month ago, and for all she'd tried, Beth hadn't managed to make contact, not since Operation Cobalt. Atlanta had fallen. Manhattan had, too. And she was left, on her own, to try and follow through.

And maybe, just maybe for once in her life, Beth was grateful that the Admiral had treated his children like soldiers and not as the billionaire trust-fund babies that they were. She could camp, she could shoot. She knew the land like she knew her own backyard, and most importantly, she'd learned how to listen for and mostly avoid…them.

So laying there pressed as flat to the ground as she can get, in the ditch, still a half mile away from the abandoned forestry cabin she'd made it to, with what she hopes is a sprained and not broken ankle and hoping for all the world that the sounds she heard wasn't one of the walkers…

Is she alright?

No, not really.

But at least she can't die of mortification, right?

That deep, rich voice is warm. It's almost inviting. And it's definitely not the low grunts and groans she's come to be terrified of. Had he seen her misstep and take the tumble off the embankment? Had he been stalking her unaware? Had he thought like most people do that she's just a kid, easy prey? Her heart beats rabbit-fast. While he might not be a walker, she has no idea what his intentions are. There's still so much that can go wrong for a woman alone, especially one of her small stature. She looks at her gun, and carefully slips the safety off.

"I don' wan any trouble, Mistah. Jus' so ya know…I'm armed. But I mean, yeah, I could use some help, I t'ink my leg all hamajang."

Gathering the kills of the forest was Daryl’s expertise. Checking traps for possible, hopeful, catches of squirrel or rabbit or deer. Various methods, contraptions scattered throughout the entire wood, funnily enough, it wasn’t Daryl who took responsibility that day. It was Shane. With shotgun carried and an exhausted frown upon his face, Daryl and his crossbow were needed someplace else, on a mission that the former deputy was not. All under the command of Rick - his word was law around the camp - all under the uncertain glare of Shane. Dixon was a noble shot and could take down anything that moved. Was skilled in the art of an arrow, there was concern in how stable the man was. A brother lost but a new friend gained; the survivors hadn’t known the male all that long. Still was new to them, still was contested, out of respect for his partner, Shane did little to debate the issue. Allowed for Daryl and Rick and Glenn to do as they needed. Decided to be of use for the group rather than an anchor, the least he could do was check on those traps, untangle the prizes and bring them back to base for cooking. A weak hunter by comparison, though he was no Daryl or Merle, Shane knew his ways around the lands, the animals. 

Location after location inspected, the traps were just as bare as when Daryl had first laid them down. Each without so much as a shift to its position. As if the creatures of the woods didn’t care - made themselves scarce. Abandoned the trees entirely, the vast greenery and plants and grasses, save for the songs of birds, Shane couldn’t hear a single call from the wildlife. Hooves were silent. Wings were soundless. Breath just as quiet against the ears, even as he traveled deeper and deeper into the pine, there was no sign of other life. It was like the world had been made anew. From scratch, just as was written within the Good Book, the Lord hadn’t yet created animals but he did fashion Walkers. Savages that appeared far more human than they were. Monsters - mangled flesh and bones exposed - true evil. Shane hadn’t known that persons so foul could be real. Men and women alike who wouldn’t be deterred by the feeling of handcuffs around their wrists, an evening spent behind bars and away from decent society, these were beasts that, even he, couldn’t defeat. No matter how hard he tried. No matter what he did against them. They continued to come back for more. Starved and searching for another meal; desperate to get their bite. 

Discovering no source of food entangled in wire, Shane was all but ready to turn on his heels and head back to camp. Disappointing news on his lips, for all were optimistic about Daryl’s attempts, even he, himself, broken branches and a heavy thud halted any such movement toward home. Fallen leaves tossed and thrown about just down the path from where he stood. Crunching, loose twigs snapping under the weight of something, very humane grunts and groans. Geeks none too close, but very well could be within distance, yet, the shotgun within his grasp was gripped with a passionate might. Aimed and loaded and readied. Pointed straight ahead and fingers prepared to pull the trigger, with an alert look and scanning browns, Shane paced onward. One foot after the other like a military march. Like he was trained to do while at the Academy, old dogs and old tricks constant companions. Voices of commanding officers mere ghosts - the rules and regulations of the Force disciplined strongly - the gentle whispers of his beloved grandmother. Be good and do good; the deputy was set.

Crossing along the outline of the ditch, deeply carved from the Earth, there was no Walker that he needed to worry over. A cloudy stare not at all the one that gazed back at him, rather was there a woman, another alive soul. Wounded but still able to take breath, a leg was in no great shape to do much of anything. Harmed - patterned in small purple bruises - obviously damaged and scathed. Nameless, least thus far, the woman didn’t seem like the incapable sort. Armed, and with the safety of her gun no more, just as quickly as Shane could dispose of her, she could do the same to him, too. Disadvantaged or not, a fool would he have been to ignore such a fact. Stubborn as ever, but a dead stubborn man in the end, carefully, did Shane creep closer to her. Dropped his gun in a sign of peace, onto the nearby weeds, but made no bodily reference to his still carrying a blade, stuffed in the waistband of his blue jeans, into the ditch did he fall. Onto his feet and with the dust around himself freely floating about. Into the lungs and without warning; into the eyes and without much compassion. 

“Hey, hey, hey. Take it easy, ma’am. I ain’t gonna hurt you.” Shane reassured, palms exposed and raised upward, hands up. “My name’s Shane Walsh. Deputy Shane Walsh. I was just out here checkin’ on my traps when I heard a noise. I guess that was you taking a tumble into this here ditch. How’d that happen? Can you move it?”

Stepping a little closer, not exactly trusting an outsider, but not disregarding her, either, vision took note of every spot to her injured leg. “There ain’t nobody hidin’ and lookin’ to ambush me right now, is there, ma’am? Let me make it clear, it won’t end pretty between us if there is. I wanna help you, alright? I’d hate for things to have to come to that. Y’all tell me the truth.”

[lixxen]

To build off of this;

"if you CHOOSE-"

I'm not choosing.

If my family has to evacuate for a storm and we cannot go to my aunt's house three hours west because of traffic/they're getting the storm too/any other reason, we have nowhere else to go. We have a cat and finding pet friendly hotels far enough up into Georgia is hard. Not to mention, it's expensive. My family cannot dish out $1k+ for hotels. That doesn't cover food or gas, may I remind you. It's the four of us and a cat who live in my house then two others and a baby and then two more cats who would be traveling together. Do you know how hard and expensive that is?

You also don't know until two days before if you need to run. And by then, you've already prepared your house and everyone else is fleeing. A four hour car ride is now 8-12. An eight hour ride is now 16-24. Gas is all gone before you can flee everywhere.

"Why don't you just leave? Why do you live there? You know these tragedies happen."

Yes, we know they'll happen. That's why we prepare. Houses are always stocked with things to help year round and we get extras just in case we're out of power for a week or two. It's the fucking snowbirds and out of state people who aren't prepared that are freaking out. We don't freak out because we're used to it and know how to handle it. You fear mongers make it worse for all of us. They don't need you feeding them fear and horror. You need to prepare them.

Also, this is our home. Nobody tells tornado valley or California these things when they have natural disasters. Us who are born and raised here, or have lived here for 15+ years, live here and love our homes. This is all we know. If you want to say that to anybody, tell it to the fucking northerners who are coming here in troves and are shocked and freaked out when they realize what Florida is actually like. Tell the northerners who are selling their million dollar homes to come and build mansions in areas that can't afford the tax change and their fucking pickleball courts on parks then wonder why our ecosystem and economy here is fucked up.

Clearly this disconnect between us Floridians and you lot is that we know what these storms are actually like and all you fucking care about is how many views/likes and people you can scare. You don't actually care about our health and safety. If you did, you'd be donating money and looking into resources for us. You'd be trying to help people. But no. You sit there and judge us; judge fucking South Carolina for a disaster that we can't fucking control or predict. You think of us nothing more than poor rednecks or weird ass idiots because of what you perceive us to be because of the internet making us into a joke. You barely even think we're humans with lives or real world problems.

If you cared about us, about global warming, or anything then get off your fucking phones or computers and do something about it. Sitting behind a keyboard ain't gonna do shit.

Fuck off with this judging shit. People are fucking dying.

(you as in folks not living in Florida reading this. Not towards OP)

“If you CHOOSE to stay in one of those evacuation areas-” we need to have public transportation running out of evacuation zones and free public storm shelters before you can say bullshit like that. we need to have free wheelchair ramp instillation on homes. we need to have free out of state pet boarding facilities. we need public infrastructure for the people in flood zones since these hurricanes are only getting worse and they are not going to stop.

[paradoxcase]

Continuing the convo here. OK confession time. Project 2025 is very scary and the anti-choice movement is very scary. I don't like feeling out of step with my friends, but some of them are opposed to voting; one person described fear of Trump as "cynical hand-wringing", and other said "there's always going to be a scary guy." But I just don't see the point in, for one, protesting a war by allowing the election of a guy who's going to make the war worse. And secondly, I have always been scared shitless of pregnancy, and even as a kid I thought it was an insult to us kids to treat fetuses like real babies, and so the right's attacks on abortion are just the most cruel terrifying inhumane thing imaginable to me. And I heard that Project 2025 wants to restrict abortion everywhere, not just in the USA. Deep in my gut, all the left-wing cries that I'd be getting blood on my hands by voting mean jack shit in the face of the overwhelming existential dysphoric terror at the thought of forced birth. More than anyone else, I want someone to understand this.

And I do honestly believe the path to fighting global warming involves rapid and extreme action against monopoly capitalism. But I also want the short term benefit of not having people in power that spit at my gender and see my body as nothing but baby food. And it is incredibly shitty that the dems are threatening us to vote for them by saying "they'll take away your rights" when they could have done more in the first place to codify those rights. But why blame me for it? Leftblr is making me feel like a hideous class traitor for something that I am being effectively forced into!

Oh also, people are really mad about a bad post someone made where they used hitler apology to explain why we should vote blue. So now I worry that I'll be seen even more as a monster for voting. That what if I AM a monster who doesn't care enough about foreigners being killed. But like, the alternative is imagining SA victims being bodyhorrorred and I didn't do the one small thing that could try to protect them.

I mean, I think it's a reasonable point that you shouldn't do things or make decisions purely based on a knee-jerk fear reaction, and I feel like our society has done a lot to try to make us viscerally afraid of pregnancy, kind of regardless of the bodily autonomy issues around restriction of birth control and abortion, or at least I think it does when you grow up in an abstinence-only education state, that kind of "education" is very much focused on controlling you through fear. But just because society tries to control you through fear and the alt-right is very much driven by fear and being controlled and motivated by fear by politicians and pundits doesn't mean that it's not sensible to be afraid of anything, or that there aren't logical reasons to fear something, or even that pregnancy isn't something you should fear. If you're afraid of something, you can look up the the actual facts about it, and decide based on the facts whether it makes sense to fear it, and then if you still do, your reasons for fearing it are more based on actual reality and not just on a knee-jerk feeling you have about it, and knowing the facts about it will also help you be more effective at avoiding it. And, even if you are afraid, when trying to convince other people about political issues, it's much better to be able to say, these are the facts of this issue, and this is why this outcome will be bad, not just for me, but also for you and lots of other people, rather than just saying, I'm afraid for myself, even if your fear is a stronger motivator for you personally. No matter how sensible your fear is, not everyone is going to be able to empathize with it, because fear is fundamentally not based on actual facts. The only way to make someone else afraid of the same things you are afraid of is to use the manipulative fear tactics they tried to use to make us afraid of sex before marriage, and that's not ethical. I know it feels like your fear is the strongest and best argument and the most important reason to oppose Trump, but a lot of other people are not going to feel that way, and that doesn't make them like, inhuman or lacking empathy or anything, it's just because fear is kind of illogical, both in that people will fear things that aren't dangerous/scary and also in that they won't fear things that are dangerous.

But honestly, I would personally just stop listening to those types of people and stop following them. They are not really "leftblr". There is not always a "scary guy" who is the president trying to take away reproductive rights, if Harris is elected, there won't be. I don't know what the Hitler post was about, but there will always be people making dumb arguments for every side of any issue, and that doesn't mean that every political position is dumb.

[melandtea]

"lrt"

My fandom connection really, really is yet again my source of sanity. I'm in the middle of the worst natural ecological disaster in the history of the country and everywhere I look the feeling of helplessness is indescribable. 75% of cities of the state are completely underwater due to massive rain and there's no forecast predicting to stop raining. Because of terrible political decisions (that honestly, could see all of them coming as well as many people, but actually living the bad decisions happen is much worse and maddening) we're basically on our own, the civil population is doing everything: rescuing, collecting donations, gathering information, organising shelter.

The most panic inducing part is that May isn't even a rainy season. It rains, alright, but it's supposed to be the easiest of the rainy seasons. September and February are much, much worse.

It's not even a matter of being prepared for the next one because there isn't a way to contain this amount of water. When I say cities are completely underwater I don't mean people are able to walk on it---I mean the light polls of public illumination are underwater. That's above the roof height of a normal one-floor house

We can't protect ourselves for the next one and the next one will happen. This is not something we can control because that's the consequences of decades of abusing natural resources and overheating the planet. It's 120% a consequence of global warming.

Did you know that one European baby already consumes more natural resources than an adult of an in development country? And then of course, because the global north has (all) the resources, they feel much lighter consequences. Meanwhile, we get the heavy rains.

But sure, continue to build your not-walkable cities so you can take your car to go cross the street. Continue to over produce food. Continue to explore global south countries for their resources, to buy foreign lands to burn the native ecosystem for monoculture, to take airplanes to travel 50km, to buy from big international franchises while ignoring local economy, to overconsume and posses more than you can store, to wrap every organic food in 3kg of plastic or big boxes, to produce as much trash as you could, to make a pollutant factory just to overprocess your food, to not consume your own natural resources, to demand out-of-season foods, to put poison in your plantations, to allow your governments to continue to not do anything about it, and to feed your billionaires. Because they aren't ours.

I'm fine, I'm safe. I have food, energy, water and even internet. For now, I live a relatively safe place.

It's just distressing to know there's absolutely nothing, zero things about this whole catastrophe that is in our reach of prevention because it's bigger, much much bigger than all of us together.

And that we won't even be news until somewhere in Europe or in the US get their own catastrophe.

[daimonclub]

We are what we do

We are what we do. Aristotle We are what we do is a statement which creates the foundation of Ethics, if we behave properly and we do some good deeds, we can really improve the world I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. Edward Everett Hale Life is energy, save, care and don't waste it! It's so expensive! Carl William Brown We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle What we do now, echoes in eternity. Marcus Aurelius "We are what we do" is a well-known statement in philosophy. It's the strong foundation of Ethics, if we behave properly and we do some good deeds, we are good person and true philosophers, since it was the great Aristotle, known as one of the great philosophers who have ever lived, who said "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Therefore the meaning is simple, we must get used to do good actions, since what defines the human beings are not what they thinks or the words they speak, but on the contrary what one person does, that is to say its actions. As a matter of fact the actions of the different people reveal their true nature. People often fool themselves and other persons as well through their words and their hypocrisy, but through our actions we might and could really change the world, for better or for worse. All of our tiny thoughts, words, and actions add up to the whole. You are a significant puzzle piece, and how you live your life echoes for eternity and can make the difference. So how can you change the world? We Are What We Do is a new kind of movement inspiring people to change the world taking one small action at a time. Our philosophy is simple: small actions for lots of people is equal to big change. Share your gifts. Spread joy. Be nice to people. Stand up for what’s right. Making this world a better place for everyone begins with you and me. This life is rough enough as it is, yet many people do nothing but contribute to the negativity. Selfish individuals who complain, hurt, and disrespect are everywhere. Their indifference is a virus that spreads and seeps into all of our lives. We can’t afford to passively accept this. We must rise up and fight for a better world. We must envision a place of caring, of compassion, of love. We must actively be a part of the solution. I’m far from perfect, but I try to do my part to give of myself and to create a bit more good feeling each day. I choose passion, integrity, respect, and kindness.

Small actions can change the world Let’s accept the challenge and start with some simple actions to change and improve the world we live in! Here's our list of simple, everyday actions you can do to help change the world (and have fun while you're doing it). It could be doing something for the community like shopping locally, something for the environment like avoiding plastic bags, or something for you, like learning to paint, sing or speak Spanish... These simple actions come from 'Change the World for a Fiver' and 'Change the World 9 to 5' Click to see the list by book.So how does this work? Click on an action to see what it's all about or, if you 're ready to do the do, tick each action you have completed and press the "Done!" button down below. Your actions will be added to the total, there on the top-right. Just like that. 1) Decline plastic bags wherever possible. Every person in the UK uses up to 167 plastic bags every year. That's 10 billion bags all together. All sitting in huge land fill sites producing tons of methane gas. And methane gas contributes to global warming. All this from a humble shopping bag. And if you consider a plastic bag can take up to 500 years to decay you realise that; 'Houston, we've got a problem.' So, where to start in helping to reduce our growing bag mountain? Well, there is an alternative. It's called a shopping bag and apparently in France, it's very chic. Failing that, start by just using fewer bags at the check out, or better still, take old bags with you to the shops when you can. Maybe we can influence supermarkets to supply biodegradable bags. When they smile sweetly in a helpful manner and offer you a bag just remind them politely they're not, in fact, being very helpful. One thing is certain, with very little effort we can all use fewer than 167 bags a year. 2) Read a story with a child When kids ask you to read a story to them it's because they know something you don't. They know you'll both feel richer for the experience (they know they'll get an extra half hour before bed as well). Remember how much you enjoyed the experience as a kid - how your imagination was captivated. Well now it's your turn to pass on that feeling and experience how rewarding storytelling really is. And not having kids is no excuse. Read to a nephew or niece, a godchild or friend's child. Local schools and libraries are often crying out for people to read to pupils. Reading and listening to books actually rewires a child's brain, speeds up their grasp of language, helps reduce stress and boosts self esteem. So how terrible that 60% of children go to bed without a story. Can't find a book they like or aren't bored with, by the fifteenth visit? Make up your own stories. You might be quite good at it. 3) Fit at least one energy-saving light bulb They're not cheap, these energy saving light bulbs, but over their lifetime they'll save you 65 quid and a lot more besides. And we're not just talking about the pain of getting the wobbly step ladder out from under the stairs but the environmental saving this small action can make. Most of us use light bulbs designed about 100 years ago, inefficiently producing nearly as much heat as light. And it doesn't end there, along with heat they produce carbon dioxide the nasty little gas that helps cause global warming. In fact if every British household fitted just three bulbs enough energy would be saved to supply the entire country's urban lighting. (who does work this stuff out?). So lower bills over a year and a cleaner planet... err, why wouldn't you adopt this action?

Be kind and respectful 4) Learn basic first aid It takes fifty hours to learn to drive but only two to learn how to save a life. What else are you going to do in that time that is going to make such a difference? Watch 'stars in their eyes' twice over? It can take just four minutes for someone with a blocked airway to die, but eight minutes for an ambulance crew to arrive. Your two hour training would show you how to save that life immediately. The idea of saving someone's life is cool. In fact, it's about as cool as you can possibly get, especially when you realise that statistically the person you help is unlikely to be a stranger. They're more likely to be a friend or relative. Imagine saving your best friend's life. Imagine giving up two hours of your incredibly busy schedule juggling the school run, food for the weekend and sending emails, with something really important. Both St. John Ambulance and the Red Cross have essential skill courses find out more at 5) Smile and smile back Are you a smiler? Chances are you could make a bit more effort. And help influence others too. We all know the Mr Misery in the office or Ms Glum at the petrol station. Get them to smile more. It takes up half as many muscles as it does to frown and it makes you and others feel twice as good. Smiling also makes you appear approachable and more attractive. It says: 'I like you, you make me happy, I am pleased to see you.' People can even tell when you are smiling from the intonation of your voice. So smile when you're on the phone. Start the day with a smile. Stick a reminder on your bathroom mirror. You actually can't smile too much, although American synchronised swimmers accepting Gold medals come pretty close. 6) Take public transport when you can Is this a joke? Public transport sucks. I'm a free man and I have a car. I love my car and I'm going to use it. This action tends to bring out extreme reactions. We love cars too, especially those new Smart convertibles. It's just a question of balance. How many car journeys are really necessary? When was the last time you sat on a bus? It really can be quite fun, especially on the top deck with kids. Consider this: A double-decker bus carries the same number of people as 40 cars. And it's going there anyway. Buses are seven times safer than cars and obviously more environmentally friendly. Imagine if everyone with a car took just one bus journey a week how much our carbon emissions would be reduced. And if you are driving to work or school, share the journey with a friend. You can find out more at www.liftshare.com So, don't feel too guilty about driving your new two ton diesel guzzler, just give it a rest occasionally Check out a short film about this action produced by BBC Broadcast Broadband users only Click here to view (Windows Media Player needed) Lots of people 7) Plant a tree Trees are amazing things. They take in stuff we don't like (carbon dioxide) and pump out stuff we do (oxygen). And yet we get rid of these amazing things every year. In fact, 33 soccer pitches of trees are cut down every minute worldwide. You can do something to help. And you don't need to be able to tell your Dimmocks from your Titchmarsh to do it. Plant a tree. Each one you plant will provide oxygen for two people for the rest of their lives.

Never give up 'The planting of a tree is a gift you can make at almost no cost and trouble and it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.' So said Mr.1984, George Orwell. So where to start? You can visit www.woodland-trust.org.uk or www.treesforlife.org.uk or why not get hold of some Scots pine seeds and grow your own Christmas tree? You can gather round on Christmas morning and say - 'That's it. That's my Christmas present to all of you for the next 100 years 8) Have a bath with someone you love Save water and have fun. A bath full of hot bubbly water is too good not to share. And when you consider an average bath uses 65 litres of water you'll not only feel good in the bath but feel good afterwards too. Just get out before everything becomes too wrinkly and make sure you don't get the taps end. 9) If it says 30mph, do 30mph We know you've heard it all before. Slow down. Kill your speed. We know it makes sense and yet we all speed occasionally. It seems no matter how many times we are told, or no matter how many cameras there are, we still do it. Well here's a fact that you'll remember: At 35 mph you are TWICE as likely to kill someone you hit as at 30 mph. So by sticking to the speed limit you can greatly reduce your chance of being involved in one of the 3400 fatal accidents in the UK each year. Pass it on. 10) Turn your thermostat down by 1º This is a 'no brainer'. Want to save money? Want to use less energy as a household? Turning your thermostat down by just one tiny degree will hardly make any difference. Just an average £25 a year or 10% of your heating bill, that's all. Why stop there? You may want to make your home more energy efficient or invest in solar power?

Life is energy Carl William Brown In order to persuade and convince you to take some good actions here are some pragmatic information! ENERGY • Americans waste $300 billion per year just by not switching off lights and leaving computers, TVs and videorecorders on permanent stand-by. • Turning down the heating by just one degree, or using one hour less heating a day, can reduce the fuel bill by 10% • Insulation and double windows in a house can save up to one third of heating costs. WATER • Taking a bath uses three times as much water as taking a shower. • We use about 155 litres of water each day on average, 70% more than 30 years ago. • Leaving a water tap running can waste up to 10 litres of water a minute. • In half an hour, a garden sprinkler uses as much water as a family of four in a day. TRANSPORT • Every day British people drive over five million miles on short car journeys under one mile. • Short car journeys cause the worst pollution because the engine is cold and has to warm up. • Driving at 80 km per hour uses 25% less fuel than at 110 kph. RUBBISH • The average family throws away 2 kilos of rubbish every day. • Over 6 billion glass containers are used each year in Britain. Only 25% of them are recycled. • Each ton of paper recycled saves 15 average-sized trees, as well as the animals they support. Other good actions that you could do to improve the world are certainly the following ones, read carefully and meditate over them! - Practice common courtesy - Be sincerely grateful - Show positivity - Share your knowledge - Care about other people - Cultivate your good manners - Volunteer and help other people

Always do good actions - Rise up against wrongdoing - Make new friends - Respect other people's ideas - Embrace and consider diversity - Do some good deeds - Be generous and donate - Always Apologize and forgive ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE 1. Conduct an energy audit of your home or business. 2. Replace your lightbulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. 3. Buy or rent a hybrid car. 4. Install solar water heaters or solar electric panels at your home or office. 5. Buy a flex-fuel car and fill your tank with ethanol. 6. Buy energy-efficient appliances. 7. Update your company's energy management system with smart metering. 8. Ask your utility company how to buy clean, renewable power. 9. Walk, bike, or carpool to work. 10. Donate to organizations that install renewable energy systems in developing countries. 11. Invest in a clean energy fund. 12. Calculate your carbon footprint, reduce your energy use, and offset the rest with investments in clean energy. 13. Demand action from your elected officials on climate change. Global Health 14. Implement a model workplace health and wellness program to generate awareness among your neighbors. 15. Stop smoking. 16. Teach children about diet and exercise to prevent chronic disease. 17. Get an annual physical. 18. Train community personnel to perform first-level health services. 19. Deploy MBAs in developing countries to build local health management. 20. Provide employee vaccinations (i.e. flu shots) and increase employee health benefits. 21. Donate to organizations that offer free immunizations for children in high-risk areas. 22. Donate water sanitation equipment to organizations dedicated to clean-water initiatives in developing areas. 23. Donate WHO/UNICEF oral rehydration solution packets, at 6 cents each, to alleviate diarrhea-induced death among children. 24. Walk or ride a bicycle to work to keep fit. Encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same. 25. Provide transport and logistical services to improve healthcare delivery. 26. Contribute medical equipment to developing world clinics.

Care about other people Poverty Alleviation 27. Donate leftover bulk food to a local shelter. 28. Brew Fair Trade coffee in the workplace and buy Fair Trade products. 29. Start a program in your workplace to provide pro-bono or volunteer services. 30. Donate used computers to schools or start-up companies in need, locally or internationally. 31. Offer your technical expertise to agencies mounting emergency aid programs. 32. Donate to microfinance programs with entrepreneurial training for women in rural areas. 33. Invest in income-generating agriculture projects in developing areas. 34. Support efforts to bring internet and computers to rural areas. 35. Create niche markets for products produced by your company. 36. Start an exchange program designed to provide expertise and skills training. 37. Advise developing countries on diversifying and strengthening investments. 38. Create new financial instruments for small businesses to access capital. 39. Launch a workplace program to raise funds for an effective NGO. Education 40. Sponsor a child with a scholarship to attend school. 41. Teach a lesson to others in your school or community about education in developing countries. 42. Donate funds to buy a school uniform or supplies for a child. 43. Volunteer to help build a school abroad. 44. Contact your legislative officials to advocate funding for universal education. 45. Host a fund-raiser to support an NGO helping children in developing countries go to school. 46. Develop a "sister school" relationship to support a school in a developing country. 47. Donate to a school lunch or feeding program to create incentives for parents to send their children to school. 48. Donate to UNHCR or other organizations working to provide education for children in conflict areas. 49. Have your workplace sponsor a school. 50. Join the Global Campaign for Education. 51. Start a club at your school or in your community to support education for children. 52. Sponsor teachers to attend professional development programs to improve the quality of education. Courtesy of the Clinton Global Initiative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ Read the full article

[highlyentropicmind]

You can use ChatGPT to generate rambling incoherent emails and email them to these people

This is the prompt I used:

"Please write a rambling incoherent mess of an email where you seem to be complaining about something but it's never clear what you are complaining about"

This is what I got:

Subject: We Need to Talk About What's Happening

Dear [Principal's Name],

I hope you’re doing well. I really do. There’s a lot going on these days, you know, so many things to think about, and it’s all connected. We need to discuss it. Urgently. You’ll understand what I mean.

So, here’s the thing. My son, [Your Son's Name], who is in [Grade/Class], he’s a great kid. Really great. And he comes home every day with stories. Stories that make me wonder. Make me think. And you know, thinking is important. We don’t do enough thinking these days. It's all rush, rush, rush, and where does it get us? Nowhere good, that’s where.

I was watching the news the other day. Or was it reading an article? Doesn’t matter. The point is, things are happening. Big things. And small things. And in-between things. And they all matter. They really do. Like, what’s with the traffic these days? You ever notice how traffic just keeps getting worse? It’s all connected. Schools, traffic, economy, global warming. Everything.

And another thing, pencils. Why are pencils still a thing? In this age of technology, you’d think we’d have moved past pencils. But no, there they are. Still here. In every classroom. Why? That’s what I want to know. And don’t get me started on erasers. The little bits that get everywhere. It's a mess. A total mess.

The other day, I was in the grocery store. Looking for cereal. So many options. Too many options. It’s overwhelming. And it got me thinking, how can kids focus on their studies when there are so many choices? We need to simplify. Make things clear. But clarity is elusive, isn’t it? Like that time I lost my keys and found them in the freezer. What’s that about?

And shoes. Kids' shoes, to be specific. They outgrow them so fast. It’s like you buy a pair, and the next day, poof! They’re too small. How do we deal with that? In the grand scheme of things, it’s minor, but is it really? Is anything really minor? I’m not so sure.

So, [Principal's Name], what are we going to do about all this? I think we need a plan. A solid plan. One that addresses all the issues, big and small. Because if we don’t, well, who knows what will happen? It’s a slippery slope, my friend. Very slippery.

I hope we can discuss this soon. Very soon. Because time is of the essence. And essence is time. Or something like that. Anyway, I’ve said what I needed to say. I hope it makes sense. Does it? I’m not sure. But there it is.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I appreciate it. We all appreciate it. Even the squirrels in the park, if they could, I’m sure they would appreciate it too.

Best regards,

[Your Full Name] [Your Contact Information]

So Arizona launched an “education hotline” that allows “concerned parents” to report “””critical race theory””” and other things like ~gender identity~ being taught in the classroom

It would be a shame if the number and email were spread to bad actors looking to prank call the AZ Department of Education

602-771-3500 or empower @ azed .gov 🤡