#but i had to get all the quotes for context

[hiseyeisonthesparrow]

Micro-essay #11:

[context: I have a weekly scripture study assignment for Religion class where I have to explain what scripture study technique I used over the week and stuff. I get a bonus point if I share it with people. so I’m going to share them here!]

This week, I chose my own adventure. I found one word in Alma 1 that I was absolutely fascinated by -- the word "babblings" in verse 32. I had never heard this word before, but the topical guide says that it means "gossip". I wanted to find a reference to this principle in ancient scripture, church history, and in modern revelation.

I entered "babblings" into WordCruncher and, turns out, that's the only place where it is used in the Book of Mormon at all. There's one place in 2 Timothy 2:16 that I found helpful where it says, "But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness."

There is an old church history saying that, while quoted by many people with different words, generally goes "Mormon creed: Mind your own business. Saints will obsrve this. All others ought to." This is often attributed to Brigham Young -- at that time, when Church members were being literally searched for and prosecuted, it would make sense for them to want people to keep to themselves.

I searched on a database called lds-general-conference.org to search for references to the word "gossip" in recent years. There were 6 in the 2010s (no data yet for 2020s), with half being shared by M. Russell Ballard. My favorite quote reads, "Mothers, teach your daughters that a faithful daughter of God avoids the temptation to gossip or judge one another." It spoke to my heart to realize that refraining from gossip is not just a good habit, but a virtue to live and a sacred responsibility.

Each of the sources I looked for taught me something new and different about 'babbling', and it helped me better understand the verse and the message of the passage as a whole.

[purrple-sectors]

I had this post on my drafts for months ngl and I think with everything that's happening (and to not let it rot on the drafts) it should be shared

----

With the Lando hate train going on, and many other hate trains, I feel like there's some things that need to be said related to fandom and hate culture in general, this is not only about Lando and it applies to any driver

It's very valid to dislike, lose respect, and/or hate a driver to some degree, but death wishes, including wishing for a serious crash and general hate speech is NOT OKAY in any way

There's some very valid stuff to hate about a driver, but not all things they do are valid to hate, for instance many of their actions are reasonable and not properly wrong, I'm talking for example about when they complain on the radio when they're genuinely struggling with the car

It's okay for people to like a driver you dislike and it's okay for people to dislike a driver you like, don't harass fans for having opinions different than yours

Refrain from using isolated quotes or sentences from drivers to base all your mindless hating but also defending, context matters like the question they were answering, what they said before and/or after, try to understand the situation in a wilder angle before making assumptions and spreading misinformation

Avoid generalising actions, the drivers are human beings, and humans are very complex, only bc they did/said something shitty once, that doesn't mean all they do is always with malicious intent

I know we are on a time where media impressions are so absolutely central that it's normal to question the motives behind some statements, but that's doesn't mean they are all done with manipulative intent, yes we can never be sure but that also means that we aren't sure if it was truly a pr manipulative move

Try to not claim that you know for sure the true intentions of a driver when its not disclosed and the comment/action itself is very dubious and/or not very serious, you can guess it but you shouldn't go around saying that what you think is the factual truth, you don't know them personally and what is going on on their heads, a comment you may feel like it was made with ill intent, could have been done very innocently and naively. I'm not saying that it always happens however at least try to consider that it may be a possibility

Don't go overanalysing and dissecting a driver's every action and words with the purpose of only finding things to hate on them, not only is quite disrespectful it's frankly borderline obsessive and creepy

If you want to truly hate, there's specific places where you can do it, but don't let it bled to spaces like Twitter and Instagram comments, places where most drivers (like Lando) are very present and can see not only the hate directed to them but also the hate directed to other drivers. This also include spaces where drivers' close ones can see the hate, mentioning in particular Max F's twitch chat.

But be aware that if you're hating/speaking ill about a driver on a social media platform there may be people that can get uncomfortable with it and block you as they should. DO NOT make it personal or weoponize it, they have every right to block you if they feel uncomfortable and dont want to see your content

Lasty if you ever feel like your mental health is in stake bc of f1, turn it off and give it a break, your mental health shouldn't dependent on some drivers that don't even know you, its okay to feel this way but it's imo unfair to blame on a driver for their performance when theyre simply doing their job and doing their best

On a final note all the drivers have done something shitty and/or had shitty attitudes at some point but many people are clouded by judgement and mindless hate some drivers without acknowledging (and refusing to) that their faves also did things wrong, please avoid doing this, not only its very hypocritical but its quite a dangerous mentality of "My fave cant do any wrong" that can easily be translated to day to day life, try to be critical on serious situations, and hold ALL drivers accountable for things they said/done, not just the ones you personally feel to! You will come across as quite hypocritical if you just select a few drivers and not hold anything accountable to others (especially if they're your faves) and in the long run is not a very good look

To sum up just practice basic human decency, this is mostly my take of view so take it with a grain of salt if it pleases you so. This applies to any driver and I'll add more if I find other things to say. To any new fans out there the only thing I ask you is to try to educate yourself before jumping into any hate train, give yourself a chance to form an opinion and then see which part or side of the community you relate most, don't let others dictate your opinion.

[beetleluminary]

Pavlovian Love - an analysis and prediction of Sar/Bien

This analysis has spoilers and assumes you've read BreadAVOTA until the latest update I1-5-RD, including the Further Reading sections and BienAVOTA.

Bien and Sar are interesting in their mandated un-interestingness: Bien is a character who is designated the antagonist instead of being the antagonist (which clearly mirrors Bread's cosmic role, although that's for a different post altogether). Sar, on the other hand, is a guy who just pops up with no context, no warning and no justification - though this reflects the "measure" he is tied to.

Being the most recently introduced character, Sar and Bien haven't had as much interactions compared to the other Nightmare Duo of BreadAVOTA, but the few chapters that do dwell on them have a vivid inspiration: Pavlov and his dogs.

"Fall in love, won't you now?"

The inspiration is no secret - Sar and Bien's introduction is blatantly labelled Pavlovian Love. What BreadAVOTA does interestingly is that it goes past the layman's knowledge of Pavlov and instead parallels the darker reality of Pavlov's experiments.

Let's start with the surface level interpretation, though. Sar "adopts" Bien and immediately starts conditioning him for his own ulterior motives. The "kindness" of all his interactions, from the superficially polite tone of his unreasonable request ("fall in love, won't you now?"), the constant preparation of food and the "leniency" for Bien's incompetence are all thin veneers over the character who is clearly the "actual" villain of the story.

With Bien being highly coded as a neurodivergent character, showing traits of both autism, schizoid personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder (or even schizophrenia), Sar constantly talking to him like an ABA therapist would is hard to miss.

Sar's first encounter with Bien which immediately ends in Bien's "punishment" for attacking Sar, the very simple statement of "You don't tell me what I "should" be - I tell you", and all the lovebombing that comes afterward all points to his superficiality. He's nice to Bien as a form of conditioning him, and there's an underlying threat that if Bien goes out of line he'll get punished for it.

Yet Bien, despite being aware of this, can't help but feel a sense of flattery over Sar's exaggerated kindness, having been so deprived of kindness his entire life, like the dog that associates the bell with food even when it knows the sound won't satiate its hunger.

Food and the bell

Food is a common reward that Sar offers Bien in all their interactions, and we see Sar feed Bien in every update since they start living together: "Good [ Results and Discussion ]", "Christmas Cookies" and in Bien's personal blog entry, "(Call For) Help". In all three chapters, they also talk about music, with Sar playing a piano song before every dinner.

The food and the music have their own significance in the larger BreadAVOTA universe. The "food", which later turns out to be made of "Mindstuff", is said to be how Sar "satiates" Bien, although what it actually does is a little vague. We know Media sent Bon and Bien food supposedly made of the same stuff, with Media telling Bon in a letter that he sends stuff Bien needs to be "healthy" (complete with the air quotes), and it's largely implied the rest of the Living also eat MargiFood™ that Media insists is basically no different from "real" food... you know, for the Living.

Bien is (probably) part-Marginal, and the Marginals as a species are subtly implied to feel insatiable hunger, so the implication that Bien needs to eat "Mindstuff" might not be too surprising.

As for the music, for Bien, it's a way for him to connect to his father. And for the rest of the world, music seems to be one of the ways that magic is performed with: the Annotations seem to be preceded with a song, Sar says that songs are one of the linguistic presentations magic can take, and Ava describes Reality as a song, with the Wires of Reality making sounds and the Voice of Reality being the "chorus" of it.

Sar promises to teach Bien the piano, and with this in mind, Sar might be banking on using music as a way for Bien to rewrite Reality (supposedly because Ava's plans of making him a writer instead are going nowhere).

All that said, the constant association Sar makes with food and music evokes the imagery of the "classical" Pavlovian experiment: a dog is fed food while ringing a bell, and eventually it'll salivate when a bell rings even without the food.

Except for one thing...

There is no bell.

"I'm trying - and will now shred ████ without mercy"

Warning for animal abuse

Sar's shelf in I1-5-RD lets "you" (Bien) read excerpts from some of his books, and one of them contains a research paper about Pavlov's experiments (interestingly, with all mentions of Pavlov and dogs blocked out).

Although Pavlov's experiments are commonly taught to the general public and first-year psychology students to have used a bell, in reality his experiments were more complex (and often more brutal), using different stimuli like metronomes and electric shocks.

In Pavlov's studies of digestion, as the excerpt says, he would cut out a dog's esophagus and create a fistula. No matter how much a dog would eat, the food would fall out of its throat and never reach the stomach, meanwhile Pavlov and his fellow scientists would collect the secretions to study.

In "(Call For) Help", Bien complains about feeling the need to vomit, and Sar tells him that's impossible because there's nothing in him to vomit.

We see in I1-4 that Bien's body is completely hollow, and while it's never been completely explained there's implications here and there that because Demon's don't naturally have Bodies, their Bodies might only superficially resemble "Real" Bodies. What's interesting is that Sar spends all his time feeding Bien - for him to comment that there can be nothing inside of Bien to vomit implies Sar must have certain expectations of where exactly that food is going.

Bien does have one thing inside of him: blood... or something like blood. If he's meant to closely parallel Pavlov's experiment that could make for some interesting theories.

The feeding experiments aren't the only things Pavlov did to his dogs though, and Sar's actions parallel some of his other experiments. The "spinal cord surgery" (and the foreboding implication that it wasn't really "just" a spinal cord surgery but a full on vivisection, based on how Sar describes it) is similar to Pavlov's own experiments where dogs where vivisected to study their digestive systems, and Bien's current living conditions resemble the "laboratory for central nervous system research":

The Towers of Silence

Bien's point of view is never shown post-surgery: we're only ever shown Sar, who looks at "you" as if you were Bien and does all the talking. If Bien "says" anything we can only hear it from Sar repeating and implying it, but never from Bien actually being given the chance to speak.

It signifies Sar's dominance over him, both as a character and in the meta-textual context of the narrative. But besides that, Bien's perpetual silence is an interesting parallel to the Towers of Silence experiment.

The "Towers" were soundproof buildings where experiments were performed on dogs specifically to try and break them down into madness: random stimuli were paired together to see how the dogs would react, like electric shocks coupled with force-feeding. "(Call For) Help" shows this the most blatantly. Where Bien ate on his own (if reluctantly) in the previous chapters, in "(Call For) Help" it seems that Sar is actively force-feeding him, with the last lines being Sar telling Bien to stop fidgeting.

Ava, at one point in Bien's blog, compares herself to Bien, saying that Bien's neuroses over his isolation (at this time, when he was alone in the military bunker) reminded Ava of her own experience in the "Recursive Panopticon" - with I1-3's Further Reading section showing to us that the Recursive Panopticon seems to be something vague, surreal and maddening.

There's another very obvious parallel here in regards to being an experiment for brutal psychological experiments, of course...

Like Father, Like Son

Bien's not the first Demonic teenager subject to inscrutable experiments. That crown goes to his father, Bon, whose experiments under the Maldevaran Centre of Supranatural Research and Development were similarly vague and highly traumatic.

Here are excerpts about Milord and Postrel, two of the dogs the Towers of Silence, taken from the Kingdom of dogs exhibit (where the book on Sar's shelf is referenced from)

Milord - Markedly more placid and peaceful than POSTREL. Expected his experimentally induced breakdown to reflect inborn character difference. Hypothesis confirmed — M has broken in the direction of ​‘inhibition’.* Previously established conditional reflexes disappeared. Stopped salivating to most ALL positive stimuli as shock was increased. Attempts to cure Milord with bromide solutions and rest unsuccessful. He has been retired. Phlegmatic character. Balanced, calm, consistent, not easily aroused. *Results later rejected in their entirety Postrel - We are combining shocks with food to test if breakdown can be experimentally induced, and if direction of break reflects inborn character — choleric in Postrel’s case. Hypothesis confirmed — Postrel has broken in the direction of ​‘excitation’.* Previously established conditional reflexes are now erratic. Salivation in response to ANY stimuli excessive and undifferentiated. The animal’s reflexes are shattered. ​‘Will now observe therapeutic effects of bromide salts. and rest. Choleric character. Lively, sociable, extremely excitable. *Results later rejected in their entirety.

Bon and Bien are really similar to the dog of Pavlov's experiment: the more "placid" Bon, who is better at controlling their Demonic "instincts" compared to the more "choleric" Bien, who was far more impulsive and violent. Bon breaking down and becoming more subdued seems to reflect Milord's results - we haven't seen what will happen to Bien yet, but if this parallel means anything then it looks like he's going to become far more erratic under Sar's care.

Going by how Bien reacted to his time with Ava in the bunker, this is likely to be the case - Bien already seems predisposed to neuroticism, constantly freaking out and fluctuating between childish excitement to detached and even cruel apathy in his appearances.

"Your presence (here) is of utmost value to the recipe..."

So Sar is an evil mad scientist and Bien is the schizoautistic kid he's bullying to the death. Alright, we can leave it there, I guess? Sar is nice to Bien because he's gaslighting and manipulating him, case closed.

Well, I recommend reading the paper that Sar's shelf has in full. The paper itself claims that its intention isn't merely to "damn Pavlov in retrospect" but to focus on the lives of the animals that were experimented on and to dispel the illusion that they were completely passive in the experiments.

As Todes noted, this set-up facilitated a relationship in some ways akin to 'pet and master'; it resembles what we might today call a companion species bond. That said, on the experimenter stand it was a relationship often defined by a shared tedium. The hours would often drag for both – experiments were monotonous and wearisome, involving little more than pressing a button to trigger a stimulus, measuring saliva, proffering small amounts of food at strictly regulated intervals. And then waiting. Apparently, a key challenge was staying awake – either animal falling asleep at the 'wrong' time was potentially ruinous for the experimental procedure. However, it also meant human and canine co-workers got to know each other to an unprecedented extent compared to Pavlov's early career. 

Sar's and Bien's time together, despite their shared goal being something larger-than-life and implied to be urgent, is remarkably mundane. The contrast between the Protagonist Half being a disjointed mess of lulrandomxD events to the repetitive, maddening tedium of Bien's life is notable. Bien reads and writes and codes and reads and writes and codes, and when he moves to Anselir with Sar, Sar makes him do all those things again, enforcing a strict schedule on him as a way to keep time stable in the disjointed reality of Anselir.

The presentation of Sar and Bien's time makes it foreboding. Sar's constant dominance of the conversations, his creepy attitude, the visuals from Bien's point of view being a contrast of a dark background with neon text and highly pixellated and distorted graphics, and Bien's increasing incoherence and borderline-psychotic episodes, these are all different elements that make Bien's portions of BreadAVOTA notably more disturbing than Bread's half of the narrative.

And yet, when you look at it literally, nothing ever actually happens. Bien embodies the "measure" he is stuck in, as the Eye of Space.

Like the Towers of Silence, Bien's stuck in an inescapable torture (especially with the unspoken but horrifying implication that the spinal cord surgery "tethers" him to Anselir so that he can't ever leave), but it's not the type of violence we see happening in the Time measures (where violence, it seems, is rendered meaningless because it undoes itself).

Bien's torture is more psychological in nature. From his life at home, his time at the War, his time in the bunker to his present day in Anselir, Bien's lived a life of being constantly trapped, in a situation where no matter what changes it stays the fucking same.

...and more importantly, to me"

And the interesting parallel he has with Sar is that Sar is stuck in the same situation.

The obvious interpretation is that Sar is nice to Bien because he needs Bien for whatever bullshit experiment he's trying to run, and that he doesn't really care about Bien to any meaningful degree. And maybe that's true now, but my personal theory is that over the course of them being stuck together in Anselir, a place where it's confirmed that even short periods of time feel like forever, Sar's going to develop a genuine attachment Bien.

Sar's an enigmatic character whose motives are hard to guess, and a major factor to that is that we already met Anthony, and even though Sar is Anthony... well, he's really not like Anthony.

We don't know why exactly Sar is so different, but the author does say that being alone for so long drove him "mildly insane." Anthony's antisocial and seems to hate everyone to the point of considering hate as a more important emotion than love, so seeing Sar being so polite (no matter how fake) is a jarring change in character.

In I1-5, there's one detail I noticed. When Bien asks about the MargiBirds, Sar says that he adopted Media's mannerisms so that the Birds would listen to him. And Sar is... vaguely Media-like, in that Media himself is a person who is superficially polite just to get what he wants. But Media and Sar don't exactly act 100% alike, although it's hard to pinpoint in what way they differ. I guess in a way Sar has a more uncanny quality to him, even though Media's the one who's literally an alien computer ghost.

The last line here is pretty interesting. I think that in the absence of any "Living" company, Anthony gradually grew more miserable in Anselir, and his weird personality was a way to try and get the birds to interact with him more just so he'd have someone to talk to. And man, Sar talks a lot.

I can't help but feel that although Sar likely has his own secret goals that take priority, he does feel genuinely relieved that Bien is there with him to spend the tedium of eternity with, even if it might be less about Bien as an individual and more about just having an actual person in Anselir.

Results and Discussion (And Conclusion)

BreadAVOTA as a whole strongly delves on themes of isolation and alienation, and the (often terrible) results that come from having it imposed on others without them having the power to do anything about it.

The decision to make such a unique fictional world with a supposed focus on "worldbuilding" and yet to only ever show Maldevaran life in passing, and the tendency to focus on characters who are mostly unlikable and difficult to understand are risky decisions from a writing standpoint, and it's a little arguable whether rolypolyphonic actually does them well, but I recognize that there's a specific question being asked in choosing to make the story be about what it is. It's a question Ava herself asks Bien when she criticizes Bien's shitty fanfictions:

Why should anybody in the audience care about these unsympathetic characters?

Bien's reply is framed as "stupid", but it touches on one of BreadAVOTA's themes: "why do i need to write down why people need to "sympathise" with mieszko? it should be obvious. you should simply feel bad for anybody ever."

Bien being apathetic and violent usually would be in poor taste considering how he's so coded to be autistic/schizophrenic, but BreadAVOTA's worldbuilding helps toe around the fact by making physical "death" something more trivial and by focusing on the more existential aspects of Maldevaran philosophy, which touches upon the real experiences of people with "bad" mental illnesses: schizophrenia, personality disorders and and "conduct disorders".

The idea of people who become "villainous" as a result of poor upbringing isn't new to fiction, but BreadAVOTA does put an interesting focus on the "poor upbringing" not necessarily being explicit abuse or trauma but a more silent yet perpetual feeling of alienation and disconnect, fitting for the story's overarching theme being an "allegory for schizotypy".

The Kingdom of Dogs leaves us with this compelling message, which feels relevant to Sar and Bien and BreadAVOTA's themes as a whole.

It is an understatement to say that we rarely get to hear about these aspects of Pavlov's work today, a forgetting which extends to the majority of scholarship on Pavlov, where dogs appear only in passing as experimental objects, never as subjects about which we should express care or concern.

BreadAVOTA doesn't necesarily asks its audience to "like" or "care" about its characters, and as the breadposters (all three of us) have noted there's a tendency to make the characters hard to like or care about. But it's not a story that tries to convince you to like the characters. It's just taking the opportunity to express these uncommon perspectives from the first person point of view.

Paraphrased from the author's own words, "there's always the risk of offending people with my portrayal of being schizoid, so you can go and read books that say nothing bad about being schizoid by virtue of never saying anything about it at all."

I doubt that Sar and Bien's relationship will stop as something so one-sided and passive, where Sar tells Bien what to do and what to say, but that eventually it's going to be complicated by the effects that both of them faced being isolated growing up (Bien in his Exile, Anthony/Sar as the youngest Judge), the way they were pathologized for it, and the unhealthy concept of relationships they formed as a result.

[kiko---random-stuff-probably]

Infection

How Kallamar got his scar on his left eye.

For context: Kallamar is seveteen and got recruited by Shamura (who is around 30).

Kallamar did not expect, after being recruited by War themselves as a poisoner, to be in any way met with open arms by the other soldiers, for several reasons.

First of all, he was not a warrior. He only stepped foot on the battlefield after everything was done, and some of the soldiers considered him way too fragile and weak to actually help.

Second, he was a foreigner, and had some problems with the language barrier, even if luckily he came from a place where Silk Cradle's language was pretty used and he even read it on some medical tomes. Still, he had a certain accent (that he was actively trying to lose) and some words were still unknown to him. He was pretty sure thatsome soldiers referred to him with a slur, bbut he was not sure. He wasn't the only foreigner in Shamura's army, but this was not going to stop it.

Also, the fact that he poisoned his ex village was considered by a lot of soldiers as a clear sign that he was, and he could quote the exact words a soldier used behind his back, "a psychotic piece of shit who will not hesitate to stab the Spider's back". Which, obviously, was not true: he had no reason to hurt Shamura! After all, they gave him a home, a role, hot food and sometimes they even talked to him! Way mroe than anything he could had ever wish for!

So, he knew he was not in any way welcome there.

Still, slashing his left eye was a little too much.

Right now, Kallamar was sitting on a brand bed in the medical bay, holding an hand over his now bandaged face.

The doctor was reassuring, once again, that his wound was not going to get infected and that he was going to have a quick recovery, before excusing herself and leaving when Shamura entered.

War glanced at the squid, their expression indecifrable and cold. Disappointed, maybe.

Kallamar looked at the ground, as his mind started to race.

- I was informed of what happened. I still want to hear your side.-

- I didn't... I was not the one to start it.-

- I have no doubt in that, but I still want to hear your version.-

Kallamar was shaking, as he tried to find the words.

- I didn't... I was just... they attacked me out of nowhere, and said i had to "earn my right to live" and things like that, and others were inciting them, and... and... and they had a knife, and...- he was more than omce interrupted by a few sobs - I was scared... I couldn't...-

- You managed to take their knife away and then stabbed your opponent, right?-

- They putted it down, saying something about "a fair fight", and I knew they could had easily snapped my back, I just...-

- You stabbed them in the neck. Precisely in the carotids.-

Kallamar still didn't loook at them.

- And than you stabbed them other fifteen times. Some of the soldiers even report that you started laughing during your rampage.-

Kallamar holded back a sob. As they needed another reason to hate him. He was going to be executed, or thrown in the prison at best. All for a stupid fight.

- I really can't see why you were scared. Honestly, I'm impressed.-

Kallamar looked at the spider, trying to catch an underlying sarcasm. Instead, he found something akin to pride - Do not worry, I am not mad about their death, it was self defense after all.-

- I killed them.-

- They attacked first with the intention to kill you. I can forgive your reasonable outburst of adrenaline. We will have to work on your emotion management and teach you how to incapacitate an opponent without killing them, even if I doubt someone else will decide to try something similar to this.-

Kallamar was sure he must had misheard them.

-... Why aren't you mad? You should be mad that I was the one who survived. You should...- towards the end, he slipped in a swear word in his language.

Shamura's expression was filled with genuine confusion.

- Why would I be mad about that...? You are an important asset in my army and also a good kid with a promising future. I would had been really upset if you actually died.-

Bullshit. They must be lying. He was just a stupid weakling who could not do anything right and who's only role in life was to die and-

- Regardless of whatever your old village made you believe, you matter as much as anyone else. I'm happy you're alive, kid.- the spider gently patted his head, and that was it.

The squid bursted into tears, overwhelmed.

War let him cry, fully knowing how much he needed it.

[daughterofthemuse]

Thoughts on 'Wrath of the Triple Goddess'

General Thoughts

This book was a lot of fun.

Nope was the cutest ever

Hecate's house is WILD. The knockers? The aesthetic choices? The BATHROOMS? She 1000% committed to the bit

Some ppl have said that the recent Riordanverse books have had themes. (Roughly speaking,) 'The Sun and the Star' was about accepting yourself and moving through trauma, and 'Chalice of the Gods' was about growing up, aging and embracing the changes that come with it (kinda ironic for focusing on a character who is known for turning 17 every year). I thought 'Wrath of the Triple Goddess' could have been about grief and family, but it's actually abt choices and regrets. Bc ofc the book abt Ἑκάτη (Hecate), the goddess of crossroads, would be abt choices.

Fanart I want to see

The Halloween costumes Percy, Grove & Annabeth wore

Human!Grover, Owl-a-beth & Octo-Percy

The Campers' Halloween costumes

Page-by-page notes that I took (with quotes)

I'm always careful not to look at my mom's screen while she's writing, because a) I know it makes her nervous, b) the floating words make me queasy, and c) I can't help wondering if she's writing a character based on me. Maybe that sounds self-centered, but the idea of anybody writing a book about me makes me super paranoid. (pg 16)

Bud, I'm sorry, but it's a decade and a half too late for that

She knew exactly what I was saying, even if Dave and Hana didn't. "She can't do all your homework for you, dude," Hana said. "Yeah, she has to do our homework," Dave said. "Ugh, you two," Annabeth said, but she gave them a smile. "Okay, Jackson, I can spare you a few minutes, Come on." She hauled me up and led me out of the library, Paul and Hana whispering behind our backs, (pg 24)

Oh look, surprise name change! (/j)

Then his eyes drifted up to the gargoyles on the roof. "Oh, wow." "I know, spooky," Annabeth agreed. Grover scratched his goatee. "I was going to say the one on the left looks like my Aunt Helena. But guess that's the same thing." (pg 32)

Grover's Aunt Helena is probably a harpy / nasty wind Spirit

I'd barely been able to master numbers and colors in Spanish, even with my friend Leo Valdez as a tutor. (pg 35)

Rick is making himself plotholes. Percy is being tutored in Spanish by the missing Leo. It's only Chapter 4!

We had some trouble on Third Avenue when Hecuba decided attack a Lil Zeus Greek food cart, but I managed to pull her off before she killed the cook or devoured his meat supply. Dude wasn't too happy. He yelled something in Greek at me--maybe Please control your rhinoceros--but I couldn't be too mad at Hecuba. For one thing, the food smelled good. For another, anything labeled Zeus sent me into attack mode, too. (pg 64)

Lil Zeus Greek food cart? a) Percy should have understood more of the Greek dude's language, unless he did actually think the hellhound was a rhino and b) fair on attacking it

I took out Riptide. With the tip of the blade, I etched a message on the sidewalk: Went to Gramercy. That was another trick I'd only learned in the last month. One day when I was bored, sitting on a sidewalk while my mom shopped for clothes for her first author signing, I discovered that Riptide could sketch glowing lines on asphalt that no regular mortals could see. The markings lasted about three hours before fading away--less if it rained. It made me wonder why I'd never seen Celestial bronze graffiti around from other demigods. (pg 68)

Riptide can write on the pavement?

He couldn’t have been more than six weeks old. "You want another treat?" I asked him. "Nope!" he barked, which apparently meant Yes, please, I'll take the whole bag. I couldn't help but smile. "Is that your name? Nope?" He tilted his head, maybe thinking about it. "Nope!" "Okay, then that's what I'll call you." He crawled right into my lap. He was heavy--like fifty pounds--and floppy, with ridiculously oversize paws that told me he was going to be a rhino-size hellhound someday. I scratched behind his ears and kept feeding him treats, letting him get used to the sound of my voice. (pg 87)

Percy’s getting a Hellhound puppy that can say nope????

The man who was eating a late breakfast at Dr. Sharma's desk was definitely not Dr. Sharma. His dark hair and beard were flecked with gray. He wore a rumpled tweed jacket, tie, and dress shirt, with a flannel blanket over his lap. His old-fashioned wheel-chair had hand-pushed steel wheels and well-worn black leather armrests. He held a half-eaten bagel in one hand and a steaming cup of tea in other. I registered all these details with perfect clarity, but somehow, I still did not recognize him. (pg 99)

WHAT IS CHIRON DOING AT PERCY’S SCHOOL?

"The Adventures of Mom, Chew Toy, and Alley Boy," Annabeth mused. (pg 115)

pffft! And look, an Oxford comma!

My friend Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, also had the ability. He'd used it once to take me Christmas shopping in Florence. (Long story.) (pg 133)

Nico took Percy Christmas shopping in Florence? I need this story.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe pack isn’t the right word. I don’t know why Hecate turned you into a hellhound. Gods are weird. I have a friend whose dad once turned her into a tree. Maybe Hecate saved you the only way she knew how. It’s not perfect, but it’s still love.” Hecuba gazed at the ocean—a view she���d probably seen thousands of times when she was a mortal. She’d watched the Greek ships anchor off that coast, ready for war. She’d watched her children die in battle on that rocky beach before the walls of her doomed city. (pg 137)

Is this book abt grief & family?

I frowned. "I didn't figure you for a nightclub guy." "Are you kidding? I can hoof-boogie with the best of them! I've still got that wedding-dress outfit from the Sea of Monsters, too." He sighed. "Maybe someday." (pg 142)

Grover still has his wedding dress?

Pracktical forcery and Potionf for Beginnyng Uferf (pg 144)

Oh look, it's that old-timey font where 'S' is really tall and skinny and kinda looks like an 'f'!

Under this collection was a brass plaque engraved with WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN. I lifted the top of the display case. I picked up a pair of blue-framed glasses that were snapped in half at the bridge. They were the same ones I'd seen in my vision of the child pedaling away from the manse in terror. On the right stem, the initials SEJ were monogrammed in gold. I felt like I had shadow-traveled into a block of ice. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. SEJ. I knew those initials. (pg 145)

SEJ, Sally's initials?

I didn't realize that when he'd said ground himself, he'd meant literally cover himself with the ground. He sat down in a flower bed and started to heap leaves and dirt over his legs. (pg 147) ... Two more tunneled through the leaves and skittered up Grover's legs. Within a minute, there were dozens, maybe hundreds. Honestly, I had no idea. I never had to count squirrels in numbers that high before Grover's torso disappeared under a tidal wave of chittering fur and twitching bushy tails. Somewhere in the mix of brown and gray, I spotted one very large black rat, who quickly disappeared in the sea of its squirrely comrades. (pg 148)

This grounding thing is weird... Could it be a Pan thing?

As he nibbled his cake, I said, "Okay. Tell me." He shrugged listlessly. "It's just... grounding myself like that? It's pretty powerful magic. I can only do it because I'm a Cloven Elder." Grover was too modest. He rarely talked about it, but after the Battle of Manhattan, he'd been promoted to the council of the three most important satyrs in the world, which in my mind made him an elite boss. "It's dangerous?" I guessed. "Oh... nothing I'd worry about," he said. "Not a big deal. It's just when I do that, when I connect with nature on that level, there's always a small chance..." "Yes?" He nibbled more cake. "That I might dissolve into nothing." (pg 151)

Yep, it's a Pan thing. And oh, the grounding thing is like Nico at the end of BoO... okay. This is great /s

And Grover seemed to enjoy being called Cloven Elder. My thoughts started rambling, as they do. I wondered if I should call him CE for short. Did that mean before he became a Cloven Elder he was Grover BCE? This is how my mind works. Welcome to the chaos. (pg 156)

Grover BCE, YES!

The name of the place glittered in pearly white over the door: AEAEA. I guess they'd spent all their money on the storefront decorations and hadn't been able to afford any consonants for their sign. "What is it?" Grover asked. "Not sure," I said. "The name of that place mean anything to you?" Grover tried to pronounce it. "It looks like something Hephaestus might scream when he drops a hammer on his foot." (pg 158)

Αἰαία (Aeaea)? Κίρκη (Circe)????

"My name is Filomena," she said, her jaw clenched. "Aeaea was my home island. But you don't even remember, do you?" (pg 161)

Dude doesn't remember the last time someone recognized him and accused him of destroying their home, does he?

A noxious purple fog started to rise around us. I recovered my senses, yelled, "Aeaea!" (because it was on my mind) and blasted the potion fog right back at Filomena. "Ack!" she complained, now speckled head to toe in magical whatever-it-was. "How dare you!" (pg 162)

Poison manipulation again????

"I take it you didn’t recognize the naiads?" "From where?" Grover asked. "You weren't with us," Annabeth told him. "You were stuck in a Cyclops's cave at the time." Grover shivered. "The Sea of Monsters." "Yep. The naiads are from the island of Aeaea." I rubbed my sore neck. "I think I would've remembered a name like Aeaea." Annabeth considered that. "Actually, you're right. I don't thínk anyone called it that when we were there. It's another name for Circe's Island." (pg 184) ... "Circe had four main handmaidens," Annabeth said. "The Aeaean nymphs. They were responsible for preparing her potions. I guess when the pirates burned down C.C.'s Spa--" "The naiads came to Manhattan," Grover finished. "And set up competing perfume shops. As one does." (pg 185)

I knew they were from Αἰαία! And Lore drop!

Whenever Annabeth joined the chat, the odds of us doing something idiotic went way down. The odds were never zero, mind you, because I was still in the mix. (pg 186)

"Annabeth joined the chat..." Bro, why. Why did you use that piece of slang?

With the help of one of the costume people, Annabeth had done her hair and makeup like it had been on Circe's Island. She looked incredible, but you don't have to take my word for it. The costume person's exact reaction was "You look incredible." Then she turned to Grover and me and said "Now, these two are are a challenge." We were dressed as Annabeth's servants/bodyguards/loyal gladiators? I'm not even sure, but we weren't rocking the look very well. Grover wore a gladiator's breastplate and a leather kilt sort of of thing, with a big plastic sword at his side. I got dressed like a retiarius--one of those Colosseum fighters with the weighted nets and the tridents. The trident seemed a little on the nose for me, but it wasn't my biggest complaint. My "armor" was basically an oversize loincloth with a thick leather belt, sandals, and a weird shield-sleeve thing on my left arm that reminded me of a pizza pan. This meant I would basically be walking around Manhattan in late October in my underwear. Annabeth added a big helmet with a faceplate so nobody would recognize me unless they literally got up in my grill. (pg 187)

I need art of these costumes

23. We Find the Lair of Evil Perfume

Annabeth is doing a ton of amazing work this chapter!

Annabeth responded, "WHOOOO!" (pg 206)

Annabeth, daughter of the Owl Goddess, hooted. It only took her 24 books and 5 years

I raised my hands--except I didn't have hands anymore. Where my arms used to be were eight thick purple tentacles lined with pink suction cups. One tentacle was curled around Riptide. I was so shocked I loosened my hold, letting the blade drop. "Oh.." I wanted to throw up. No offense to octopuses. I've had some great conversations with octopuses. But I didn't want to have their tentacles. My new appendages felt wet and slimy. Powerful muscles rippled under the skin. The suckers clasped and unclasped, smelling the air, searching for something to grip. "This is bad." (pg 207)

Well octo-Percy is... interesting

He was staring down at his legs and weeping. Where his furry goat hindquarters had been, there was bare skin, forward-articulating knees, and instead of hooves... feet. Five-toed feet not too different from mine. "Human," he sniffled. "That's the worst kind of beast!" (pg 207 & 208)

Oh, poor Grover. Also... very interesting "humans are the worst kind of beast"

Annabeth turned her head 180 degrees and shrieked at the nymph. "AWK!" (pg 208)

180-degree head turn from Annabeth!

Grover shuffed awkwardly toward Daedra. "How do you walk on these? They're so tender! Ouch. Ouch. Ouch." (pg 209)

We don't normally walk barefoot. And I want art of human!Grover

I saw a young woman in tattered brown robes. She carried a leather pack over one shoulder, loaded with medicinal plants, vials, salves, and scrolls. It was her life's work--all she could salvage when the Colossians chased her out of their city. She struggled up a steep mountain path, occasionally stopping to grip her stomach, crying out in pain. Tears streaked her face, smearing the kohl around her eyes so she appeared to have a black mask. (pg 215)

Gale Lore drop? Poor Gale!

I'd been wrong about Hecate. She hadn't turned Gale into a polecat out of jealousy. The reason was worse. She'd empathized. She'd lacked faith that Gale could survive on her magical talents alone. Hecate of all people knew how the world saw witches. She'd pitied Gale, admired her, and yes, maybe even feared her a little, but she could not imagine a mere human succeeding when she, a goddess, had failed. So Gale had to cease being human. (pg 218)

Poor Hecate too. Dam patriarchy & fear of the unknown

And no way did I want to be around when orange goo started dripping through Hades's palace ceiling. I'd met his plumbers. They tended to solve all his problems with fery whips. (pg 219)

The Kindly Ones aren't plumbers, Percy

I'll say it again: thank the gods for Halloween. I doubt any amount of Mist could have hidden Owl-a-beth and Octo-Percy from the curious eyes of mortals as we fled, especially since my tentacles kept slapping passers by for no particular reason. Because it was Halloween, though, most people would think, Wow, those costumes are incredible, and that third guy is fully human! Amazing! (pg 222)

Yeah, Halloween does a lot for hiding mythical stuff. Cuts both ways tho

Annabeth gagged. Her beak opened wide. Her owl eyes got even larger. Her crown feathers stood on end like blades. She brought her hands to her throat—the universal sign for choking. I panicked. Would the Heimlich maneuver work on a half human, half raptor? I only had octopus tentacles, but I hustled behind her and did my best to find her sternum the way my fourth-grade health teacher had taught us. I thrust upward into her diaphragm. COUGH! An owl pellet the size of a melon shot from her throat and bounced off the opposite wall. She doubled over, breathing heavily. When she straightened again, she was normal Annabeth—human face, human hair with the scent of her usual apple shampoo. (pg 225)

Coughing that up must've been painful. And I'm pretty sure the Heimlich maneuver isn't recommended anymore

Grover seemed to follow my thoughts. “Tomorrow is Halloween. There’s no way three people can fix this mansion before Hecate gets back. (pg 230)

Just ask your friends to help! They're coming for the party, just ask them to arrive early too

I nodded. “I don’t know what happened exactly, but if we’re going to try rebuilding this place with the help of ghosts, then we need to figure it out. Which means I need to talk to SEJ. Sally Estelle Jackson.” (pg 238)

His mum? Or an ancestor? I'm thinking his mum, but the timing makes me think maybe an ancestor

She smiled wistfully, the way she does when she looks at old photographs. “I haven’t since that day. My family made me wear them because I was seeing things…differently.” “Through the Mist.” She’d always been able to do that. Some rare mortals could, but I’d never considered how hard that would’ve been for her as a kid. “They were just trying to help,” she said. “They were worried. When other kids saw a mounted police officer riding down the street, I saw a pegasus. That kind of thing. We used to live near Gramercy Park West. One day, when I was riding my bike down the street, I saw that mansion, shifting and blending into the buildings around it. Those tombstone walls.” (pg 244)

Interesting... what ppl think of clear-sighted ppl

She swallowed. “Hecate ambushed me! She showed up on Olympus and…well, she asked me what I thought of you. I was shocked! She hadn’t spoken to me since 1914! I—I was desperate to impress her. And foolishly… I said you were quite competent.” “Thanks?” “I panicked! And now, if you fail, that means I failed. Oh, she won’t forgive me a second time.” “I still don’t—Wait.” I’m a little slow on the uptake. But when a puzzle finally starts coming together, I can usually finish it without having to bash too many of the pieces into place. “A second time,” I said. “Nineteen fourteen. That’s the last year Hecate ran her magic school. You were part of that?” (pg 247) She shrugged listlessly. “War. It’s always a war. Our students started taking sides, arguing with one another. It escalated from name-calling to violence to potion-flinging.” “Potion-flinging is bad.” (pg 248)

Ofc WW1 made the school close, and poor Εὐδώρη (Eudora)

I took one more look around the shattered great room. I felt like I was forgetting something important. (pg 258)

Locking the door, I'm pretty sure

Grover and I exchanged a panicked look. If Annabeth was admitting she’d made a mistake, we were in serious trouble. All heroes had fatal flaws. Annabeth’s was pride. She always aimed as high as possible, confident she could go even higher. Most of the time, she was right. But calling for help after one block? The situation had to be desperate for her to swallow her pride like that. Then I remembered why fatal flaws were called fatal. We couldn’t let her get worn-out so soon. She was the only one who could direct the ghosts to rebuild the house properly. “Let me take the torches,” I said. (pg 267)

Annabeth’s fatal flaw is pride, yours is loyalty, Percy. You taking them could go just as badly, with you not passing them to anyone else

My last shot was a miss. Black spots danced in my eyes. I crumpled to my knees, and the torch fell out of my hand. (pg 276)

Oh schist

I knew I’d forgotten something important—again. We’d invited our friends to a Halloween party tonight and never canceled it. You see, kids? Absentmindedness can save your life. The side panel door rolled open and costumed demigods poured out. Connor Stoll led the way, wearing a prisoner’s orange jumpsuit with fake manacles on his ankles and wrists. “Dude, your yard decorations are fire!” “They’re real!” I yelled. “Real ghosts!” More demigods emerged from the van—Clovis from the Morpheus cabin, wearing a nightgown, nightcap, and slippers, which was not very different from how he usually lounged at camp; Harley from Hephaestus, the youngest of our campers, encased in a Celestial bronze Iron Man suit he’d probably made himself; Valentina Diaz from Aphrodite, dressed in a black 1940s evening gown with white gloves, a broad-brimmed hat, and twenty different strings of pearls around her neck. Valentina scanned the ghostly horde. “Gross. Can we fight them?” “Yes, please!” Annabeth yelled from the porch. Our friends charged into battle. (pg 292)

I said his friends could help. Except they're helping with ghosts ig

And Rick, Clovis is a son of Ὕπνος (Hypnos), we don't have a Μορφεύς (Morpheus) Cabin

The horse freaked out and whinnied, Why am I flying? (pg 297)

Poor police horse

There should be a rule that goddesses can never come home before 8:00 a.m. Hecate blazed into the mansion at exactly 5:32. (pg 304)

Eugh, what a wake-up time

Sometimes folks at camp asked if I avoided eating seafood because I was the son of Poseidon and could talk to fish or whatever. I always answered that no, I ate fish. Have you ever talked to one? They don’t have a lot to say. Mostly it boils down to Are you food? Am I food? Eating them is the only way to answer the question. (pg 319)

We have an answer to the Percy-seafood question. Tho he'll probably be off calamari for a while

Obviously, I don’t consume the smart species like octopuses, dolphins, sharks, and manta rays. (pg 319)

Oh, so no calamari at all. Good to know

[bonefall]

Anyway. Bi and Mspec Lesbians aren't a hotly "debated" topic or even new to queer culture, it's just the newest thing that bullies who REALLY want to be homophobic and even racist use to justify harassing gay people they don't like.

It's the thinnest possible veneer of progressive language wrapped around TERF and reactionary rhetoric so that they can feel righteous for forming an angry mob against vulnerable targets. If you're gullible enough to fall for the newest wave of bigotry within the queer community, and turn on your allies because they're "confusing" or "invading your spaces," the SAME way they turned on bi/pan labels, trans people, xenogenders, neopronouns, and aroace people before this, then get lost.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

WAIT WAIT WAIT CHERIK MPREG IS CANON

i cannot stress enough how canon cherik mpreg is, yes my friend

[galedekarios]

the plagiarist posting an "apology" to creators, including myself, who he has ripped for months on end despite us asking him not to while he still has us all blocked is... a choice

[heytheredeann]

“Yes, there is a place where someone loves you both before and after they learn what you are.” ― Neil Hilborn

[lia404]

"Ai, living has no answer."

"When we're in pain, we search for an answer to feel better. A concise, absolute answer. But if you really want an answer… it's that there is no answer. There are no absolute in this world. Even if we think there is, in the end, it'll only make us feel better for a moment.

If there are no absolute, then what's left?

Bonds. Bonds between individuals. Bonds between one another. That's all there is.

That also changes with time. A huge trigger can cause a huge change. Bonds may be severed. But new bonds can also be formed. So living is a series of bonds.

That's what life is.

I have to do that forever?

Yes.

That's a lot of work.

Yeah.

I'd need to be so strong.

That's why people become stronger. That occasionally leads to conflicts. But even if that happens, we have to keep fighting. Keep searching for bonds, even if there's no answer.

You can't rush living."

So I saw on MyFigureCollection that October 13 was maybe possibly Yusaku's birthday, although I couldn't find any reliable source for this. I'd have loved to do something nice and light-hearted for the occasion, but I'm still feeling too strongly about it all. So here you are instead: Happy (maybe) Birthday, Yusaku! Please have some trauma to go with your trauma. Here's to another year of fending off expectations and looking for your own life and its non-answers with eyes wide open and always filled with hope.

[bibiana112]

Game of Life - JubyPhonic ; Vane Lily - My Eternity ; GHOST - Hyperdontia ; Lukewarm - Penelope Scott ; "How The Internet Changed Found Footage Horror" by Pim' Crypt on YouTube ; Zero Win Game by kayzero

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF PRIORITY: TUCHANKA (PART 2)

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Lt. James Vega, EDI, Urdnot Wrex, and Dr. Mordin Solus With: Urdnot Bakara And a Special Guest Appearance by: Kalros, Mother of All Thresher Maws I MADE A MISTAKE! I made a mistake... big picture made of little pictures- too many variables. Can't hide behind statistics... can't ignore new data- my responsibility. Need to go- running out of time. Not your work, not your cure- not your decision. Had to be me- someone else might have gotten it wrong... Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[fingertipsmp3]

No one:

Person writing an introduction for a well-known novel: I am going to spoil the vital plot points and twists of this book for anyone who has not read it

[cerealmonster15]

i dont think i ever felt more annoyed at commercials than when those mean girls walmart ads were playing a few months ago or whenever that was

[cherry-bomb-ships]

IM SORRY. RANT INCOMING BUT

THAT'S THE QUOTE FROM RANGO WHEN RATTLESNAKE JAKE IS ACTIVELY KILLING BEANS AND IN CONTEXT IT'S NOT ROMANTIC IN THE SLIGHTEST.

AND THIS IS TAGGED SHIP????? 💀😂💀😂💀😂💀😂💀😂

[nerosdayinanime]

more jjk sillies bc theyre fun