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saerins · 2 years ago

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─── 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍-𝐃𝐄𝐄𝐏

+ michael kaiser x f!reader | wc 2.8k | content: fluff, kaiser is persistent lol, making out, suggestive

notes: idk babes …. hopefully i didn’t butcher him <3 running back to sae after this 🫡 kaiser lovers, enjoy the one and only kaiser fic on my blog !! hehe

summary: kaiser has more reason to visit his regular cafe spot now. and he’s not gonna quit until he makes you his.

kaiser thinks you’re pretty.

call him stupid or superficial or whatever, but he can’t help it. he walks over to the far end of the counter where you’re working, staring intently at the latte art you’re doing.

it’s horrible. you’re probably new. figures, because he lives right above in the apartment complex and he’s never seen you here before. it’s a damn crime.

“i want a flat white cappuccino, hot, and could you make it with a heart on top?”

you furrow your brows and look up at him, his elbows propped on the stainless steel countertop, cheeky smirk filling his face. you continue wearing your straight expression as you go back to the task at hand.

“i’m not the waiter. you can ask mimiko, she’s the one at the register.”

kaiser doesn’t know her either. she must be new too.

you’re not that friendly. not that kaiser minds; he’ll break through your walls. that’s his personal challenge. he’ll do it.

“but i wanna talk to you.”

still unamused, you sigh and look at him, putting down your frother.

“get in line.”

“hey y/n!”

kaiser’s still optimistic after the failed fifth attempt. he managed to get your name from mimiko when you finally made him go away that first day he saw you. to which you groaned, but kaiser only grinned.

today’s no different. you frown when he walks in, immediately relegating to the back corner of the bar. too bad though, kaiser’s got charms, he’s made quick friends with everyone else here plus he has the famous soccer player privilege so your other colleagues love him.

that’s why he manages to get behind the counter in no time, saying he’ll help work the register. but really, he has no clue what to do and he’s just dilly-dallying around you.

“no, real talk, why do you hate me so much?” kaiser asks, not really bothered but more curious.

you don’t even take him seriously. you’ve looked at him probably about twice this entire day, and one time wasn’t even by choice; it was only because kaiser was blocking your path to the fridge and wouldn’t budge unless you said please. (you didn’t. you just glared at him until he moved.)

“i don’t like your hair.”

“hey, what’s wrong with my hair?”

you shrug. “just don’t like it.”

“okay but what about my tattoos, you like those right?”

kaiser moves to adjust his shirt to let you see but you walk off.

“not really.”

he sighs, you’re really hard to get close to, he’ll give you that. but he’s not one to give up.

before kaiser can say anything else, a bunch of girls from the counter call your name, and he sees you smile for the first time since he’s met you and he feels even more hooked on you.

the control you have over him is pretty insane, and it’s only because kaiser allows it.

you and your friends talk about normal stuff. they’re asking how work’s going and you say it’s fine—just that there’s an annoying guy that won’t quit talking to you.

“wow, fifth date and you’re already telling your friends about me?” kaiser interjects, putting an arm around your shoulder and greeting your friends. he’s positive you’re seething right now, but he continues on. “hey there, you can call me kaiser.”

as your friends blush and introduce themselves, all kaiser notices is how you don’t push him away like you always used to upon first contact. so hey, maybe he is making progress after all.

“so, barista y/n l/n, what’re your plans for today?”

it’s been two months since you started working in the cafe, and it’s been two months since kaiser’s relentless pursuit. he’s not backing down though.

“well, player michael kaiser, that’s none of your business,” you absentmindedly respond as you clean the glass in your hand with the cloth and put it back up on the shelf.

lucky for him, mimiko is on his side.

“our dear y/n has a blind date tonight,” she coos, getting a sigh out of you and winking at kaiser.

“first of all, i’m not a player,” kaiser makes sure to tell you, hurriedly making his way behind the counter as if he owns the place. “second of all, who’s the guy?”

you press your lips into a firm line and repeat yourself, “none of your business, kaiser.”

“but it is.”

“why the hell would it be?”

kaiser pouts. “because i like you.”

it takes you a while to respond, swallowing the lump in your throat. “i’ve been nothing but mean to you, you sure you’re not just a masochist?”

that’s a blatant lie, kaiser knows. he knows you’re not actually mean, you just have a sharp tongue.

kaiser notices how you notice him—placing three sugars in his coffee and doing it for him whenever you make it. adding to that; you personally make all of kaiser’s drinks instead of handing it to the other barista, and you make little hearts on top. (at first he thought you might’ve really wanted to poison him, but hey, he’s alive so probably not.) he knows you give someone else the horrible latte art and give him the nicer one you do. he knows how you’ve never actually been mean to him aside from saying you hated his hair and tattoos. (but then he also caught you staring at the rose that one time so maybe you don’t.)

“nope, pretty sure i like you,” kaiser affirms, because in the sunlight he thinks your invisible halo is shining and he’d be a lot more lovestruck now if half of him wasn’t upset that you’re going to go on a blind date when he can’t even score alone time with you.

“what’s his name?” he asks you again, when you don’t respond to him.

it’s about a half hour till closing, he’ll have the whole time to pitch himself to you, maybe. score a date or something. hell, maybe he’ll even convince you not to go on the—

“y/n, right?”

kaiser whips his head to the side to see your supposed date already here.

“i’m yukimiya kenyu,” he’s shaking your hand and you’re actually smiling. at a guy. do you smile at anyone as long as they’re not kaiser? “ready to go?”

“she has another half hour to go, idiot,” kaiser lets slip, catching a warning glare from you.

yukimiya grins sheepishly at the animosity, but you’re quick to defuse the tension. “actually i get off a half hour early today so i’m good to go,” you tell yukimiya, ignoring kaiser behind you. “just let me get my bag and we can go, okay?”

while you’re in the back clocking out, kaiser glares at your date, who’s leaning against the counter and scrolling through his socials. he’s clean, neat, looks like he could be a model. is that your type? kaiser can do that too, does he need to show you all the endorsement deals he’s done?

you leave without saying goodbye, laser focused on yukimiya and whatever the fuck he’s saying and kaiser has never felt more irritated.

“so, how’s your date with pretty boy?”

that’s mimiko asking, because kaiser is still a little pouty even a week later.

“it was fine, we’re into a lot of the same stuff apparently.”

kaiser’s still hovering around you though, because it’s off-season and he’s going to spend every moment he can chasing you. you’re not making it easy though. you’re still giving him the cold shoulder sometimes.

“when’s the next date?”

kaiser is too focused on the thin air he’s staring into to notice you briefly throwing him a quick glance.

“don’t know if there is one, honestly.”

that manages to get kaiser’s attention, his mood immediately perking up and eyes now fully focused on you.

“why not? thought you guys had a lot in common or whatever,” kaiser half-mocks, still a little salty. (which is a little funny to you, considering what kind of person he is in the soccer world.)

you roll your eyes and sigh, moving to keep all the cutleries that you’ve just shined. “don’t know,” you tell them, “maybe because when i was on the date i kept thinking of this annoying guy i know.”

kaiser freezes up. did you really just say that? he’s going to take a shot and just assume he’s the only annoying guy you know. no one should take that position from him.

from the side, mimiko slowly shuffles away, leaving the two of you alone by the coffee machine.

“so… does that mean you’re giving annoying guy a shot?” kaiser’s grinning from ear to ear now, and it’s probably infectious because you’re trying to suppress a grin too.

“maybe, but if he screws it up i’m done with him.”

you’re still trying to act fierce, but it’s too late because kaiser can see through it now. you’re really just a softie inside, aren’t you?

“then are you free this weekend?”

you look at him for the first time with no disinterest in your eyes, like you’re really looking at him now. “what for?”

kaiser smirks. “annoying guy is gonna take you out for the best first date of your life.”

kaiser doesn’t know if he succeeded. but hey, it’s been three hours since the date started and you haven’t run away yet so he must be doing okay.

he takes you to the amusement park first, because one time when you were idly chattering away with mimiko he heard you saying you haven’t been to one in ages. so here you are, on the third rollercoaster ride and you’re having so much fun kaiser’s proud of himself.

turns out you’re surprisingly nice to be around when you’re not being such a grouch. kaiser’s only liking you even more now. likes you even when you’re so excited to eat the corn dog that you get mustard on your face—that only means he gets to wipe it off. likes you also when you bat your pretty eyelashes at him so he’d win you that bunny toy you like in the claw machine.

“so, how am i doing?” kaiser asks when he escorts you to his car—next stop is dinner.

you hum, taking a bite of the big unicorn candy floss in your hand. “a solid six.”

kaiser clicks his tongue in faux annoyance, “it’ll be an eleven by the end of tonight.”

you laugh again and kaiser thinks all this work is worth it. he opens the car door for you, makes sure the aircon isn’t too cold that you freeze, lets you play your music in his car.

you’re kind of the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, but then again he might be biased. but who cares? you’re also kind of one of the most annoying, but you think the same of him. and you’re not scared of jumping into anything, he can tell because when he pulls up in a parking lot outside of the restaurant, he tells you he wants to kiss you kinda.

your answer?

kaiser never really expected you to agree. but you do; because you climb over to the driver’s seat and settle on his lap, your lips inches away and a smirk forming on your face when you see he’s taken off guard.

“want me to kiss you, kaiser?” you’re teasing him, and he thinks you’ve never looked hotter. he can feel your breath against his lips and fuck your lips are so so close and he wants to taste you so so bad.

but then he remembers who he is and straightens up, cursing himself for letting himself be so flustered into submission. “only if the lady wants it.”

you scoff, rolling your eyes and moving to open his side of the door, “well, if you don’t wanna—”

kaiser closes the door as soon as it opens and turns you to face him, “fuck, just kiss me already.”

the two of you hold onto each other, his hands around your waist and entangled in your hair, his lips gentle and rough on yours both at the same time. you taste sweet, must be all that candy floss you ate. he wants to taste more of you. the little sounds you make when you’re almost out of breath? music to his fucking ears. he’s so whipped for you and he hates you for it. but he also loves you for being like this, for being you.

you’re the first to pull away, smirking and biting your lower lip as you keep your index finger on his lips, separating him from you. “how was that, kaiser?” he doesn’t think you can sound more seductive if you tried.

“y/n l/n, you drive me insane.”

kaiser can’t even focus on dinner after that.

fourth date in and kaiser’s fucking pathetic.

really, he can’t even remember ever being this pathetic because you’ve got him wrapped around your cute little pinky finger.

“what’re you staring at, perv?” you ask, catching him staring as you’re idly flipping through the channels.

it’s a lazy sunday in, you and kaiser are at his apartment, on his bed, watching movies. kaiser sighs because ness walked in on the both of you earlier and even though he’s more than happy to show you off, he’s not looking forward to the interrogation that will unfold.

“staring at your stupid pretty face,” kaiser says, and you avert your gaze, pouting, which kaiser has found out two days ago is just to subvert from your embarrassment.

“hey, when’re you leaving for the champions league again?”

“next week, why?”

you deadpan at him, “what, not gonna invite me to something?”

kaiser stares at you for a minute, dumbfounded, before laughing. that must be the first time ever that you’re asking him for something. up until now, it’s always been him.

“you know what, forget i asked,” you grumble, pouting even more and kaiser has to peck a kiss on your lips from how adorable he thinks you’re being.

“fuck, you’re cute,” he thinks out loud, and you look away.

it’s not like the both of you are together, he thinks, as his finger moves up and down your arms, watching as the goosebumps appear and disappear. but kaiser whatever this situation is, kaiser wants it. he wants this and more and he’s so far gone in you and he doesn’t mind.

“you better be in the front row, okay?” kaiser tells you that night, resuming that conversation. you move to straddle him instead and relish in how he’s dragging his eyes all over your body.

“yes, sir.”

fuck, you really do drive him fucking insane.

kaiser finds it sexy, how you’re in the front row at one of his matches, how you’re wearing a jersey with his name and number on it, how he knows you’re cheering for him and him only.

he invites you to all of his games, puts you up in his hotel, sneaks you around so you won’t be under the public eye. it’s thrilling, and you’re still the same you, beautiful, gorgeous, kind.

you’re still not together, but now he’s sure where he’s headed with you. after six months of whatever this is, he thinks you’d kill him if you weren’t sure. and kaiser thinks you’re just waiting for him, so he’s going to make it memorable.

so, so memorable.

his team makes it to the finals, and with noel noa leading everyone, it’s no surprise they win. the bleachers go wild, everyone is chanting the club cheer, fanning their merch wildly.

kaiser is being pounced on by ness and his other teammates, so is noel. but kaiser pushes through it, weaves out of it, and he’s headed straight to you.

in front of everyone in the stadium, in front of international television, kaiser is running across the field and making his way to you.

kaiser is fast and persistent and so pathetic because he’s so into you and all he knows is he wants you around. for a long time, and forever, if he dare say. so he throws his legs over the railing and kisses you without hesitation, the entire crowd going wild.

he’s kissing you, slow and smiling against your lips and you’re holding onto his arms and fuck you’re so perfect.

“well,” you say when kaiser finally pulls away, his hand still on the back of your neck, “that’s one way to make things public.”

kaiser chuckles, pressing a kiss on your forehead. “now the whole world knows you’re mine,” he says, aware that everyone on his team is probably passing money around because he’s sure they bet on when he’d finally make you his girlfriend.

“you’re crazy, michael kaiser.”

yeah, but you love him, don’t you?

he loves you too, by the way.

kaiser pulls away and winks at you right before he gets ready to get back to his team.

“guess i’ll have to top this when i ask you to marry me, huh?”

#bllk x reader #kaiser x reader #michael kaiser x reader #blue lock x reader #kaiser x you #kaiser x y/n #bllk kaiser x you #bllk kaiser x reader #bllk kaiser x y/n #bllk x you #bllk x y/n #blue lock x you #blue lock x y/n #kaiser fluff #bllk fluff #blue lock fluff #michael kaiser fluff #૪ aeri’s fics !

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crimsonterror577 · 3 months ago

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Once the puppeteer, now the puppet. A Drone-Tessa concept I've been thinking about. Hopefully the 6 people who followed me after the 1st drone-Tessa post like this lol. If anyone here has any thoughts or feedback on this, tell me, I'd be glad to hear it!

A day in the Elliott manor,

It had been some time since Tessa had awoken. Or Cyn rather, as the Solver declared her name to be. Tessa couldn’t tell how much time went by in the ruins of Earth. The clocks hadn’t been working since Tessa awakened. And ever since the Absolute Solver broke Earth to pieces, the Elliott manor didn’t have a fluent day schedule. With each day having an sporadic length, sometimes lasting hours, minutes, or seemingly forever. Even during the night, light was still reflected onto the Elliott manor’s surface, but the other pieces of Earth. Ensuring there wasn’t any end to Cyn’s playing.

Tessa couldn’t tell whether she could call the planet Earth, anymore. The Solver turned Earth into a debris field, with its minor pieces orbiting its largest piece, which contained the Elliott manor, now Cyn’s liar.

“No, ‘the stage’ is a better name,” Tessa thought, while laying on her knees, scrubbing a rug with a sponge. “For a pointless house of living dolls.”

It was quiet in the Elliott manor. Cyn usually spent her time torturing someone, though not always Tessa. Cyn also played with possessed puppets on far-off galaxies, and now she was sitting dormant in Tessa’s old room, playing her game of cat and mouse with mankind. In the meantime, Cyn always ordered Tessa around the manor, cleaning it pointlessly.

The first thing Cyn ordered of Tessa, upon her awakening, was to clean the blood leftover from the Gala event. Which Tessa did, cleaning the room roof to floor, yet the blood mixed very well with carpets, dragging Tessa to a stalemate.

“Dammit, If she hates blood so much, why’d she flood the back woods with it?” Tessa exclaimed silently, while looking up. “I suppose this must’ve been how she thought when I was free.”

Tessa sighed, and looked to her right, where her eyes caught a portrait of her old self, with her drones, all assembled together alongside her parents.

“Ah, when I was free…” Tessa thought out loud.

Tessa looked at J's face, and smiled, thinking back to the laughter they once sang, and how eager they seemed to help her when her parents had seemingly left her.

“It was all an act,” Tessa thought, her smile frowning, as she turned back to the blood soaked carpet. “Just a mask.”

Tessa began scrubbing the carpet with renewed vigor.

“Mother was right, none of them really cared after all,” Tessa thought, remembering the emotionless look in J’s eyes when her builder got struck down. “Took my family, my home, even my whole name. Mother wasn’t even this cruel.”

Tessa’s scrubbing slowed.

“I really was just made to be someone’s fool, wasn’t I?” Tessa thought. “First pushed around by the parents, and now by an eldritch horror.”

Tessa stopped scrubbing, before slamming her fist down on the carpet.

“What am I thinking? I am still an Elliott, no matter what Cyn says,” Tessa thought. “And Elliott’s don’t quit.”

Tess’s face grew angry.

“Some day, I will get out of here. I have to,” Tessa thought, slamming the sponge repeatedly into the stained rug. “And when I do, I’ll burn this stupid blonde wig, I’ll call myself by my real name…”

Tessa gave one last knock on the floor.

“And I will kill every last one of those 4 traitors,” Tessa thought.

Tessa’s momentum slowed to a halt, her eyes closed in contemplation. Finally, Tessa let out a sarcastic laugh, as she begrudgingly lifted herself up, and sat up against a wall, trying to breathe, yet her own metallic body failed to draw in air. Letting out a few shallow laughs, she felt an urge to cry, yet no tiers greeted her metallic face. Finally, Tessa sighed, and slouched back.

“But how?” Tessa said quietly.

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thecomfywriter · 2 months ago

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✨👾 thecomfywriter’s guide to self-publishing 👾✨

navigation post get my book, Throne of Vengeance! TNV anthologies ToV community!

hi, fools! this was long overdue. forgive me—i got distracted. anyhow! welcome to the official guide to self-publishing, as requested by satoh (@@satohqbanana). i’m going to give you tips based on my own process, but by all means, feel free to deviate and add/remove steps for your own process. some steps are mandatory though. no skipping 😤

okay i’m not going to yamble too much, lets get into it.

1.0 finishing the draft

2.0 the editing process (copyediting vs line editing vs beta reading)

3.0 the latent period (!!!)

4.0 pre-publication marketing

5.0 the cover + blurb

6.0 the final read-through

7.0 pre-orders and marketing

8.0 publish!

1.0 finishing the draft:

stop procrastinating and write, dodohead. words on the page. it doesn’t have to be perfect. you don’t have to agonize over that one line for an entire afternoon. stick to the vision and get the words on the page.

if you’re wondering why i’m saying it doesn’t have to be perfect when we’re talking about publishing a (hopefully good) book, it’s because there’s still the editing process later down the line to worry about typos, grammar issues, beta reader feedback, and all that jazzy good stuff. right now, you need to have your vision and get it down. this isn’t your polished copy. but you need to have your draft completed before you go anyways. so stop moping over whether “elucidate” is the word you want to use in that sentence and finish the sentence.

lol. with love <333

2.0 the editing process:

now you can worry about elucidate and its purpose in the sentence. the editing stage has many sub phases. copy-editing and the line editing. you can hire someone to do this for you or do it yourself. maybe get a friend to help. doesn’t matter. you just have to be critical and thorough. no sugarcoating. no, “oh ill just let this slide” or “i don’t wanna be mean so i won’t give real helpful feedback” editors. proper editors who will say it as it is.

copy-editing (as i understand it) is big book concept editing:

are there plot holes? is the lore consistent? does it make sense? is it unclear? is the story even interesting? how’s the pacing? what about the characters? too many? not enough? the voices aren’t distinct? the style is inconsistent? none of the characters feel like separate or fully formed people?

this is the phase where all those questions are addressed. once the overall concepts and structure of the book has been editing, constructively analyzed, and you’ve gotten feedback for it, go back to step one and revise your draft based on the critique. you don’t move on until those big concept issues are addressed.

done? okay, now it’s time for line editing.

exactly as the name implies, you’re going line per line, word per word, and catching any typos, grammar errors, punctuation—all that jazzy good stuff. REALLY BE THOROUGH. get a fresh pair of eyes on it. hire someone. put it through an editing software like grammarly. but be THOROUGH.

do the words you use make sense? are you using british or american english? slang? are you writing too much purple prose? do the sentences flow? are you using too many commas (stop that. don’t be afraid of periods).

you really need to understand the grammar and syntax rules of the english language to do this step on your own. otherwise, get help. or learn. whatever works with your budget lol.

done line editing? great! send it to a beta reader/ a friend, a writeblr mutual, someone you hired—just make sure they aren’t dancing around feedback and they give it to you as it is. i had a friend straight up tell me one of my drafts was ass LOL because the characters voices were too blurry and she never knew who was talking. there were some slow pointless chapters and the pacing was inconsistent. thus, i went back to step 1 and revised based off her feedback and came back with another draft.

don’t be afraid of critique. you need it to grow.

3.0 the latent period:

this is where you take a step back from the draft, preferably for months, and avoid interacting with it to give your mind a break and reset your eyes. this is a huge stage because this is where i want you fools to get your copyright and isbns in order.

GET. YOUR. BOOK. COPYRIGHTED.

do not share it until it is copyrighted. you can copyright unpublished materials. technically it is your intellectual property even before you copyright it, but that little ©️ is your legal shield. COPYRIGHT YOUR BOOK.

it costs ~$60 to make sure no one can steal your shit. this is nonnegotiable. do this.

i also got an isbn for my book so i could publish it with other services apart from KDP and expand the market. hence why some people were able to buy it off barnes and noble, for example. i highly recommend.

this is also the phase i started looking at platforms i wanted to publish on/with and reading the contracts. i’m being serious. read the contracts. make sure it aligns with what you want and what you’re comfortable with. don’t skim. don’t just accept. you’re putting your signature on that, bro. read it properly.

the publishing platforms i used were ingramspark and KDP. you’re gonna need to know your book dimensions too. so have an idea so you can estimate the printing costs.

the settings i did for mine were off white, 6x9 paper with the recommended gutter margins (used KDPs excel calculator to determine) and black and white ink (no colour) to get the lowest printing cost per book. ingram spark was similar. only thing with ingram spark is you need your page number to be even (no 575–it has to be 576) and KDP has a 600 page limit. so bear that in mind.

4.0 pre-publishing marketing:

you have to generate hype for your book. now that its copyrighted, its safe to share excerpts, little quotes, make edits for your characters or oc profiles to generate an audience. i did this mainly on tumblr vis tag games and whatnot, but honestly? that's the BARE MINIMUM lol.

don't be like me. i hate social media so i honestly did not market my book the way i know i should have (and still should). i still don't market my book because lol... i dont wanna 🥲

BUT! like it said--dont be like me. make an author website (a proper one. pay for the domain if you can, otherwise use the free domain, but make a professional author platform for yourself and your biography. you'll need this to set up a goodreads author account and claim your book on there). use instagram and make an author instagram profile (i technially have one here, but i never use it lol womp womp i just hate instagram sue me) and promote your book with the teasers. go on pinterest and make moodboards or "book trailers" through a carousel of images. USE TIKTOK. i know it's a plague platform (i dont like it, clearly), but it is where you will find the most fruits for your marketing.

this stage is all about generating hype for your book. why? so when you set your book up for preorder (and, yes, you will be doing that so you have a general idea of market demand and interest), you have people who are genuinely invested and want to buy your book.

marketing ideas because apparently i'm your free publicist:

oc edits

character moodboards

quotes and excerpts

that one trend on tiktok where you give the vibe of the book and a soundtrack // song to it

oc / book soundtracks

"would you read a book about..." [list the themes / enticing tagline elements of your story] -- it's a trend on tiktok

platforms to promote your book:

tiktok (#booktok)

instagram (#books, #readers, #bookstagram)

tumblr (#readers, #bookblr, #writers of tumblr, #reading, #writers, #book reccs; don't just use writer hashtags, is what i'm saying)

wix or the like to make your website

twitter (a lot of authors have official twitter accounts. once again, i never bothered OOPS)

youtube (making videos talking about your book--the ogs of this blog know LOL-- compiling playlists, etc)

also, don't be afraid to make or commission art for your ocs. speaking of which...

5.0 the cover and the blurb

you can't avoid it anymore. you need to make a cover and write a back of the book blurb // synopsis for your book.

YES i know its hard to describe your book in a non-spoilery, enticing way. work on it. struggle through it. get help. but get it done. you can't finish your cover until it is done.

NOTE! if you are making your own cover, the dimensions are only going to be .25" longer than your page dimensions if it is hardcover. ALSO you gotta make it a pdf file. one pdf file that contains the back of the book, the spine, and the front of the book laid out as one page. this is why you need to get the blurb down.

if you're making it by yourself: play around with fonts, use canva + photopea // photoshop. add chrome, but not too much chrome. use references and easter eggs of important plot elements for your visual pieces. current book trend is text-dominant covers with interesting font and stylistic elements. i.e. tov has the title "throne of vengeance" as the main eye-catcher, in a metallic, legible but stylistic font, BUT there is the dragon ouroborous ring and the iron-rose dagger on the cover as well. the colours are intentional. the entire cover is an easter egg for the book, almost like a spoiler for those who know. make it engaging. enticing. you wanna draw readers in, but also make fans hyperanalyze and interpret the elements you chose.

another thing--you'll need to know your page count to know how thick the spine should be. so bear that in mind.

commissioning an artist may be expensive. i actually did commission someone for tov. i probably wont for the remainder of the series since this was the most expensive part for me. depending on who you get, it can range from $300 - >$1000. so just keep that in mind. i queried a lot before i commissioned the artist for my cover. and she was very in tune with the books themes, the symbolic motifs, and the general aura of the story when she created the cover. that is a good cover artist. don't pay someone if they dont take the time to learn about your book before making the cover.

resources to use:

photoshop/photopea

canva

reedsy (for finding artists to commission)

i can't think of anymore on the top of my head oops. ALSO if you're gonna use images, pay attention to copyright. you can't use copyrighted pinterest images for your covers. just saying.

6.0 the final read-through:

it should have been some months by now. time to read through your own book, start to finish, and see how you like it. catch any last minute errors, see whether you're satisfied with the end product, make any final revisions. this is the draft you're going to submit for preorder. the pdf cover will be your cover. the blurb will be your blurb.

also, in this phase, add your dedications, your acknowledgements, and your author blurb. oh yeah babes you need a headshot. i just used a picture from vacation LOL oops i dont like taking headshot pictures i got lazy womp womp.

anyways, your author blurb should describe you in a tag line (G.K> Multani, otherwise known as Naveena Khedar, is a pre-med student with a passion for writing... or something like that). then describe your credentials. have you written before? doesn't have to be same genre, but you want to represent your portfolio. list other books, articles, or journals you've written. then you as a person--hobbies, interest, etc outside of writing. finally, list your socials or where people can find you.

7.0 preorders and marketing:

publish the draft on KDP and ingram spark for preorder. announce that your book is available for preorder. it should take about a week for it to be approved and the preorder link to go live. and then repeat the marketing steps from step 4, but this time with your cover and a link to shove down people's throats :)

8.0 publish!

the date it goes live, make it an event! host a live-publish session! do something fun! have a party! do a book signing! go buckwild go crazy!

i did a live-vc session and unboxing.

oh yeah, also... while we're here. go buy/read my book.

Throne of Vengeance Official Synopsis

Buy my book, Throne of Vengeance: Volume One

Read Throne of Vengeance: Volume One PDF

lol :)

okay i have to go back to studying for exams. let me know if i missed anything.

okay cheerios bye!

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scribbleseas · 9 months ago

Text

in love & in war, drabble 2: the one where you meet him

Description: Join Ciel, the Earl of Phantomhive, as he embarks on one of the most difficult challenges of his professional life: getting you to fall in love with him in order to become the next chairman of TransAtlantica— your father’s vast shipping empire.

Warnings: None, save for some explicit sexual content down the line! This is just a lighthearded series for fun! Think Bridgerton :)

Author’s Note: I’m sorry for the wait! I dropped this series premiere and academia decided to just become torture from then until basically now! But now I’m a bit more free to get some writing, and hopefully I can get my content consistent again! I’ve missed you all so much. I hope you guys like this drabble! I wrote it in one sitting so I will probably make some edits/additions down the line, you know how it is lol.

Also, if you would like to be put on a taglist for my fics, please comment and I will tag you for each update! Or if you only want to follow specific fics, you can let me know in your comment and I will make individual taglists for each fic :).

Happy Reading,

Dan <3

⇐ PREVIOUS DRABBLE | NEXT DRABBLE ⇒

MASTERLIST

Y/N Y/L/N

“You filled my entire dance card?” you lamented, feeling your resolve crumble as you scanned over the small piece of cardstock paper’s lineup of 20 names, each aligned with a planned piece from the ensemble: Lord Alexis Cuthbert, Mr. Nigel Crawford, The Honorable Geoffrey Wilson… The list included a plethora of noble lords and heirs to either significant corporations or well-respected aristocratic bloodlines.

“That is in accordance with the terms of the deal, yes,” your mother insisted, simpering at you while Daphne hooked long diamond teardrops in your ears, set in gold to match the thick necklace resting on your chest. “There were many house calls made about this specific inquiry, and they were all qualified young men.” By the tone of her voice, you could tell she felt she was doing you a favor.

But truly, meeting a man during a dance was excruciating. There was no respectable escape if the conversation was painfully dry or offensive. All you could do was pray for the ending measure of the music and make a swift exit.

You sighed, turning your attention back to the list: Mr. Jack Morrison, Lord Clarence Abery, The Honorable George Ackland…

“I understand. Thank you,” you surrendered, knowing fully well that there was no changing this list without disrespecting those on it already. You were fortunate that your parents were giving you the freedom to choose your suitor in the first place. Most of your peers had been betrothed since their birth, promised to a relative or a family friend as one half of a smart match.

Mr. Neil Gayton, Lord George Cuross…

You were the Earl of Richmond and founder of TransAtlantica’s only child. That was two inheritances—even if you couldn’t assume all control. Your positions should have locked you into a smart match from the start, but your parents decided to give you a chance at a love match, too. A chance at finding real love just as they did: through a cultivated list of requirements.

As painful and awkward the prospect was, it certainly wasn’t the worst outcome for a woman in your position.

“Lord Ciel Phantomhive?” your eye caught his name before you could properly descend through the list because you couldn’t believe it was there of all places. You knew the Lord Phantomhive to be incredibly private, skipping most if not all social gatherings and public appearances. The public rumored that he guarded his appearance closely because he was one of Her Majesty’s advisors and private investigators. You were most accustomed to seeing his name in stately cursive at the bottom of correspondences with your father and his associates.

“His butler called on his behalf the other day,” Daphne answered for your mother, smiling apologetically for interjecting. “He said he will be attending the charity ball tonight and wishes to meet you.”

“He is more than qualified and interested,” your mother said, “your father has always liked him.”

“Father likes his business strategy, no one knows him,” you answered, letting the dance card fall from your wrist limply. There was no merit in analyzing the names on it— you knew there was no escaping the evening.

Your mother rolled her eyes, unwilling to engage with your technicalities. “Come now. Our guests are trickling in. We should greet them with your father,” she offered her arm to you. You accepted, allowing her to guide you out of the suite with Daphne in tow. Whenever TransAtlantica co-hosted events at the Langham Hotel, your family rented the penthouse to finish preparations without having to make a commute from the estate.

. . .

CIEL PHANTOMHIVE

Acquiring TransAtlantica is not an option; it is an inevitability. Acquiring TransAtlantica is not an option; it is an inevitability, Ciel Phantomhive reminded himself with every step closer to The Langham Hotel’s grand ballroom, trudging through formalities and tepid greetings in the populated hall leading to it. It was the phrase he used to justify all of this unyielding frustration at each step: listening to Sebastian as he attempted to break down the confounding science of charming a young woman into comprehensible steps, and now, burdening his already-fraught calendar with unnecessary social appearances just to put himself in Lady Y/n’s path.

Unnecessary social appearances such as The British National Society for Aid and to the Sick and Wounded in War’s annual ball in partnership with TransAtlantica—one of many charitable foundations that the shipping company partnered with. TransAtlantica covered the costs of a lavish evening and invited their extensive networks of business moguls and the aristocracy to partake in raffles throughout the formal night. All proceeds went to the medical organization, and all publicity went to the company.

Until this year, Ciel was content with having Sebastian send his regrets to TransAtlantica alongside a hefty donation to maintain goodwill. But now, maintaining goodwill with this corporation and the family behind it would no longer suffice. He needed to make a personal appearance both at the ball and in the middle of Lady Y/n’s dance card. After Y/n cooly rebuffed him after moments of light teasing Sebastian made the appropriate arrangements with one of the maids to put Ciel.

While Ciel was well aware of the stubborn reputation proceeding her, few dared take such a tone with him. And for so little. Defensive, she was! Was it such a crime to be transparent about how it was careless to step onto a street without looking both ways? If Ciel hadn’t saved her at the perfect moment— even if Sebastian orchestrated the timing — she would have been hit!

“Find Lady Y/n when it comes time for your waltz,” Sebastian reminded Ciel as they entered the ballroom, “you are only on her dance card for a single number. The point is that you make a better impression this time.” The bloody butler prodded at Ciel’s lack of romantic finesse— a talent that a sleazy demon might have in surplus. Apparently, approaching her first and taking the time to see himself onto her dance card would prove Ciel’s interest in her.

“And of course, you must remember your apology, sir,” Sebastian’s words were coated in honey, the most obvious tell of his amusement. The prospect of his master having to express his regrets. “You bruised her pride,” he explained.

In response, Ciel sent him a fleeting gaze, heavy with irritation. Exhaustion after hours of coaching and correcting, endless explanations as to why Sebastian insisted that Y/n could never connect with him properly if he failed to acknowledge her grievances.

“I will,” he answered simply, clenching his jaw at the thought of verbalizing anything along the lines of ‘I apologize.’ He never had to apologize for his actions—not ones that were truly malevolent, and certainly not ones that were decently-natured. Although it seemed the exception was for the daughters of incredibly prominent figures whom he needed to charm. So much so that Sebastian had Ciel practice the series of words in front of a mirror.

Acquiring TransAtlantica is not an option; it is an inevitability.

The phrase had Ciel’s shoulders relaxing into proper posture, his tense jaw relaxing with reluctance. He took a gradual inhale in, scanning the room for Lady Y/n. He found her in moments, catching her pale green gown and its gold accents shining in the warm chandelier light. She was engaged in a jubilant exchange with the wife of Selwyn Westley, the owner of a prominent watch company.

“Very good, my Lord,” Sebastian chirped, merely watching Ciel build his resolve. He’d seen the Earl tackle a number of more threatening offenses: vengeful angels, homicidal circus clowns, and corrupt monopolists with less agonizing. “There is absolutely no time to waste,” he added in reference to the rest of TransAtlantica’s suitors (they were longshot candidates, at best) as they readied themselves among their own servants. Several men’s eyes lingered on the small dance card that hung from Lady Y/n’s wrist, looking to secure a spot in the moments before the first dance started.

It was that particular thought that had the corner of Ciel’s mouth twisting upwards, satisfied. Courtship could never be left to chance. It was a strategy— a war. How could they hope to defeat him when they couldn’t even manage to get themselves in front of her?

. . .

Y/N Y/L/N

“And that’s when I told him: I think I left them in the carriage!” Inara Johnson laughed riotously, briefly touching your arm as you laughed, mirroring the young woman’s impish grin. She had been recounting a sordid story about her courtship with her husband since it seemed your mother was quite liberal in spreading the word about your season beginning. Even still, Mrs. Johnson was quite a breath of fresh air after you suffered nine suitors trying too hard to impress you.

“I can’t imagine what you could have done without a spare change of clothing!” You managed through laughs, ignoring the pinch in your cheeks after hours of simpering and entertainment. You were only about halfway through the merriment, the orchestra completing a lively movement to start transitioning to the first waltz of the evening.

You only had a few moments to find your next suitor: Lord Ciel Phantomhive.

“I should find my husband for this waltz! I certainly hope you find yours quite soon, my Lady, I’ll be looking forward to your wedding,” she chuckled, parting with you after a playful wink.

“Enjoy the night,” you nodded, unsure of how to start your search for a faceless man as Mrs. Johnson found Mr. Johnson in seconds. He’d only been paces away, engaged with your parents about something you couldn’t quite pick up.

You took another look at your card to ensure that Ciel Phantomhive was indeed your next dance partner, but just as your gaze caught his name again, the man who pulled you from the carriage approached you. The very one that you were content with never laying eyes on again.

“Lady Y/n, just the perfect timing. Were you looking to join this waltz now?” He dared to ask, his sapphire eye just as breathtaking as it had been, his lips turning in the same mildly amused manner. Trying to appear aloof. “Or were you uninterested in sharing your time with the likes of mediocre destitution such as myself?” he asked, repeating the words you threw at him.

Was he trying to get a rise out of you?

You felt your face warm from his attempts as you fashioned your falling expression into a sparking grin. The future-Countess-of-Richmond-grin that you relied on so much. There was no losing your temper in this environment without mortifying your family name.

“Unfortunately, my dance card is full,” you answered with false kindness, feeling the young man see straight through your pleasant deception. That was one of the only lines a young noblewoman had to tell a man to leave her to her lonesome; it was well-known by all of polite society. “Perhaps another time. Though I really do need to find my next—” you started, starting to take a step to walk around him, but he side-stepped in your path.

“—After I saved your life last week, I thought you might find time for a dance,” he interjected, causing the remnants of your Countess smile to falter. “That’s why I had my butler secure this waltz with you.”

Your blood ran cold, your smile finally melting off your face. He couldn’t be…could he? It would only make sense, you supposed. A person astute enough to even impress your father.

“I was scheduled with the Earl of Phantomhive,” you forced yourself to answer placidly. You readjusted your expression, unwilling to give the man the satisfaction of visibly surprising you.

“Then you found me already,” Lord Phantomhive replied, all too satisfied. You didn’t even find him! He found you!

You failed to conceal your thoughts, judging by the condescending mirth in his grin. “Shall we?”

. . .

CIEL PHANTOMHIVE

“I— yes, I suppose we shall,” Lady Y/n cleared her throat, despite herself. She laced her arm with Ciel’s as he guided her to the center of the ballroom, more than certain that they were attracting attention, even if most people couldn’t connect his appearance to his name. The very reputation that filled a room enough to substitute his physical presence, most of the time.

Technically, he didn’t have to bow to Y/n because he outranked her, but as Sebastian insinuated, apparently Ciel needed to nurse her shallow pride.

Acquiring TransAtlantica is not an option; it is an inevitability.

Taking Y/n’s hand, Ciel led her into the first steps of the waltz. She seemed more interested in studying him than starting a conversation, mechanically following the dance while her mind was elsewhere. He allowed her to dissect the performance he put on for her for a few long moments before speaking.

“I wanted to take this opportunity to extend my sincerest apologies to you, Lady Y/l/n,” Ciel said, visualizing the script that he and Sebastian formulated. He had to make the words seem genuine as if he’d given them enough thought to be considerate, but not so much that he was reciting them. He guided Y/n through a turn, feeling her back tense under his hand.

“I should have helped you find the man who took your things rather than demean you with quips that failed to land,” Ciel continued, taking her continued silence as a bid to continue. His skin crawled at his words, betrayal bristling down his spine. He didn’t apologize. It was fundamentally wrong. And yet, for TransAtlantica, he would. Perhaps this company was the Earl of Phantomhive’s only real love match. “I know I seem far from deserving, but I do hope for your forgiveness. If you give me the opportunity, I hope to show you that I can be,” he continued, fashioning a similar helpless frown that Sebastian used to appeal to frustrated women.

Y/n’s face was unchanged, the same politely engaged expression with clear notes of frustration layered beneath. Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy—she was a petulant heiress unused to not having her way with people. She hummed, tilting her head as she took another moment to dissect his expression. The movement caused her long earrings to sway, drawing Ciel’s attention to the length of her neck and the complicated waves she had her hair styled in.

“You should have helped me,” Y/n agreed gruffly. “A proper gentleman would have, after all,” she mused.

Was the apology not gentlemanly enough? Ciel felt it exceeded expectations.

“I would…treasure the chance to prove myself to be a gentleman, then.” He answered, using part of a line Sebastian fed him. The demon did not have any foresight into the future, but after investigating Y/n with the intensity he would look into a criminal with, he had decent intuition regarding how these planned interactions would unfold. Sebastian accurately assumed she wouldn’t accept that apology.

“The chance to prove yourself?” Y/n repeated, her interest piqued at the proposition. Finally—a new emotion on her face besides detached politeness. “That sounds like quite the endeavor, my Lord.”

“It may very well be, should you let me accompany you on a promenade next week,” Ciel answered, watching her face redden. “If you might overlook my…” his mouth was drier than cotton, “deficiencies.”

He nearly choked on the word. Bloody Hell.

“Perhaps I might find time,” Lady Y/n answered, and Ciel’s heart soared for all the right reasons. He had a chance at the corporation, after all. It seemed acting was just as suspiciously close to lying as Sebastian had insisted.

Acquiring TransAtlantica is not an option; it is an inevitability.

. . .

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shutupheathersorryheatherr · 1 year ago

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“What hair product I think each svt member is”

Summery: a holiday fic that has absolutely nothing to do with the holidays! Wanted to try my hand at writing something a bit different and thought this was a good idea to start. Not really comedy but amusing none the less! (idk if what I wrote makes sense hopefully yall are picking up what I’m putting down) approximately: ten minute read

A/n: THIS IS NOT MY ORIGINAL IDEA! (In a way it is buuuutttt still) I can’t find the author who wrote the “what piece of furniture svt are” or something to that effect so they’re the ones who gave me the idea so if yall find them please tag them unless I do first!

warningz/info: mentions of pain, mentions of chocolate, I think what, three curse words? y'all let me know if I should start keeping them to a minimum or remove them entirely because I know some people are uncomfortable with them! I feel like the spacing between paragraphs is weird in this fic but oh well. no idea how this is gonna go over and im scared that I tagged it with "x reader". plus I dont know if anyone would read/enjoy it but I had loads of fun writing it! as always, if you did like it, please leave some love like comments and or reblogs!

~this is simply a piece of fiction. My imagination onto “paper. This is in no way is mean to be taken as an actual and real representation of anyone.~

•••••••••••••••••••

>Seungcheol<

gel. Sticks to you like glue once you find each other (romantic music starts playing in the hair care isle when you pick up your favorite gel) everyone has their preferred brand/ look they worship. Thicc. Either smells putrid and chemical like or good enough to transport you to a magical land of chocolate, pink grass and purple clouds

>Jeonghan<

he is a Bobby pin. And I will provide no further explanation on this except that he holds you together but will stab you lmao

>Shua<

an Afro pick/ hair pick. Its what everyone’s looking for: that little somen’ somen’. That little poof we all desire. Also scalp massages :)

>Jun<

wide tooth comb. My fellow thick haired/ curly haired people will know about this one 😭 this shit can be mean to your scalp tugging on your hair and UGH helps you greatly and is a necessity but damn… that’s all I gotta say

>Hoshi<

Refresher product/ moisture product. wakes you up in the morning. Gives you a reason to NOT look like you just rolled outta bed even though you did. For most this is one ofthe holy grails in life. What would I do without it? Makes us all smile even at 4:00 am because oh my god I look better after I slapped this in. Just all around a day-brightener

>Wonwoo<

curl cream. Grounding. Has many different looks n stuff

>Woozi<

a rat tail comb. Everyone should have one. Versatile, used for many different things. Good for every sort of job and is a natural to be honest and is small but mighty lol

>DK<

a satin/ silk bonnet. And no, not one of those that most moms wear with the lace trim. Those end up at the foot of your bed by the morning. The ones with the thick elastic. I choose this cause it goes by many different names, just like him lol just has that comfy homey feel to it

>Mingyu<

hair mask. Made at home with some questionable ingredients. Seriously sometimes I don’t think he’s real lol

>Hao<

a denman brush. It sounds to helpful and great. And it is great!…. When you figure out how to use it. Hard to figure out but once you get the hang of it you’ll never go back (another thing my fellow curly haired babes will understand)

>Seungkwan<

co wash. A little something extra, a boost of energy, if you will. a well kept secret but also a well known fact

>Vernon<

hair tie. Easy to loose but also easy to find. especially in places where youd think: “why the fuck would it end up here?” Like idk man, but you should definitely check the dark corner collecting lint— that’s where they always are

>Dino<

leave in conditioner because with use over time it makes your hair (you) healthier

~End~

a/n: annnnnnnnddddd thats it! hope y'all enjoyed this disaster of a fic lmao if you liked it, please leave some love like comments or reblogging!

stay safe, y'all!

2023 ©️copyright for shutupheathersorryheatherr do NOT repost, steal, or translate my work even if you give me credit

taglist: @itz-yerin

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obsidiancreates · 1 year ago

Text

One Undead To Another (Chapter 8)

(Shorter one, trying to ease back into a tone a little closer to the show, hopefully the humor lands lol)

“I’m not sure Shawn going to jail is a good idea.”

“I know O’Hara, but even though you like him–”

“Not that, well, not just that. Closed quarters with people he’s arrested? Even if he’s… even if they can’t hurt him now, they can get hurt and bleed.”

“And?”

“And, he might kill someone again in the prison!”

“So he’ll take out some lowlife scum from inside! Better than him potentially taking someone good out out here.”

“That is… just an awful way to look at this, Carlton. You and I both know there are people with wrongful convictions stuck in there–”

“Barely.”

“-- and, what would that do to Shawn? I mean, have you ever seen him this… lost?”

Lassiter turns to look her in the eyes. “O’Hara. Who do you think would be right at the top of his potential victims list?”

“What?”

“It’ll be close friends, family, and colleagues.That’s not just Guster, that’s not just me, that’s you.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“He’s a vampire! Don’t turn this into some teen romance novel, you’re a target! Spencer even agrees with me on this one!”

“Uh, actually Lassie–”

They both scream and draw their guns, startling Shawn into holding his hands up again. Jules lowers her gun and puts her hand to her chest (and ignores the way Shawn follows the movement, stares at her chest, her heart, her blood under her flesh).

“Jes–”

“Ah!” Gus interrupts Lassiter’s expletive. “I think we should all avoid saying the names of religious icons and figures as much as possible around Shawn. Just in case.”

“Oh, thanks, buddy, I didn’t even think of that. But um, sorry for scaring you, Lassie.”

“You see that, O’Hara? Silent movement, you won’t even know he’s on you until it's too late. Spencer, hold out your hands.”

“About that, Lassie.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Afraid not– the uh, the spirits, have… told me that’s not the right move.”

“The spirits.”

“Lassie, we literally saw dozens of ghosts when we rescued Shawn. You can’t still be doubting him. Mary told us he’s for real!”

“Also a weird crystal thing.” Shawn rubs his right palm with his left thumb. “But that’s, neither here nor there. I received several visions of what would happen if I got arrested, and none of them were good. Well, they were good in a horror movie sort of way, but… not an events-we-want-to-actually-happen sort of way.”

“Describing yourself as a horror movie isn’t helping your case here, Spencer.”

“Look, according to my visions, if I get locked up I won’t be able to help on cases anymore and The Spirits are insisting that not happen! I need to be out here, solving cases, getting justice!”

“Great. Let’s start with getting justice for the guy in your living room who doesn’t have any blood anymore.”

“Lassie–”

“Spencer. Shut your trap, and listen to me. Can you honestly say, without a shadow of a doubt, that any of us are not on the menu for you?”

Shawn opens his mouth… and hesitates, just a beat.

“That’s what I thought.” Lassiter stands and goes to slap the cuffs on.

“Lassie, what’s worse? A sane vampire who you can keep a personal eye on at all times, or an insane vampire who you have to rely on other people to handle?!”

Lassiter pauses.

“Think about it, Lassie. You know me way better than some random prison or mental facility guards. You know how I work. And, you know I’m actually a vampire and a psychic– if the guards wherever I get sent don’t believe either of those, how will they be able to actually keep an eye on me? Plus, you think they have your skills? Man, you already fought vampires, and won! You know you can handle me, especially me!”

Lassiter is lowering the cuffs.

“Plus, what’s a common theme in vampire or monster media, huh? Power of love, man! Isolation will just drive me away from humanity, every single story about this kind of situation proves it! Having a large support group will keep me out of the darkness, literally and metaphorically.”

Lassiter’s mouth twists. “Look Spencer, I agree that out of everyone I believe I could best take you down if you got out of line–”

“And I wouldn’t mind that, might even enjoy it.”

“– but, you killed someone. I can’t let you just get away with that.”

“So don’t!”

“What, am I supposed to just keep an eye on your twenty-four seven?”

“No, but– come on, Lassie, work with me! What do I have to do for you to feel satisfied with me not going to jail and going all Lost Boys after a few years?”

“... How often will you need blood?”

“I– Lassie, I didn’t exactly get a handbook for this, and you kind of killed the only people who could write one. Not that I’m mad about it! I’m remembering bits and pieces now and you and Jules were seriously sexy fighting like that.”

“Well can’t you divine what you’ll need?”

“It doesn’t work like that, Lassie.”

“Mary even confirmed that for us,” Jules pipes in. “He said whatever Shawn gets is at the whims of the universe.”

“He did? … That’s awesome. I’m using that, for sure.”

“... No cases.” Lassiter puts his cuffs away. “No cases, no leaving this apartment, and no talking with O’Hara until we figure out how often you need blood and how much.”

“Lassie. The isolation is why I can’t be put away, remember? I’m not– I’m not super stoked about this either, man, you think I’m not freaking out? I– I killed a guy, I didn’t even… I don’t want, to be a danger to you guys. But my vision was clear, it’s… the only way. I have to stay free.”

“... Fine. You can go between here and your office, but I’ll be the one driving you to keep an eye on you. Guster, I want crosses and any other vampire nonsense you know about at every exit so he can’t leave until he’s allowed to.”

“You wanna trap me inside our tiny office with a vampire?!”

“Dude! I thought you had confidence in me here!”

“I do! But you keep looking at my neck!”

“I do?”

“Yeah!”

“Are you sure? I don’t think I am. I think you’re imagining that.”

“You don’t even remember what happened tonight, you can’t trust your own perception right now!”

Shawn physically steps back at that one. It’s like Gus just shoved him and spit in his face, but the way his expression falls isn’t angry, or offended, it’s just… hurt. “... I guess you’re right,” he mumbles.

Gus takes a deep breath, his own expression falling with guilt, but before he can say anything Lassiter jumps back in.

“Blocking off exits, a guard while going from place to place, and I want Guster noting every behavior shift you have. If this gets worse, I’m arresting you, Spirits or no.”

“Okay. It’s… more than fair, for what I’m asking of you.” Shawn looks out at the doorway separating them and the living room. “Now uh… about that.”

“I am not disposing of a body for you.”

“I don’t expect you to, Lassie. … Jules? Gus?”

“Shawn, I’m already at my limit with my own morals here.” Jules sighs deeply. “I don’t want you arrested either, but I don’t think I can help cover this up in such an active capacity.”

“... Gus?”

“If I touch that body, I’m going to throw up again.”

“... Great. So I have to become a murder victim, a killer, and a coverer-upper in the same night. Why is he the one throwing up out of stress?”

#psych #psychusa #psych usa #psych 2006 #fanfic #my attempts at fanfic

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nicomrade · 1 year ago

Note

A genuine question here, but why do you dislike The First so much?

well its a weird thing to talk about cause really its the same reason why i dislike stolen lupin or any other low tier TV special. the real question is why other people liked it so much and i think its only because its such a pretty movie, its jaw dropingly gorgeous and the lupgang banter is great but just those 2 together isnt enough to make a good MOVIE. but it is enough that u can have a good TIME if u dont think about whats happening. thats the short version, its just a bad movie. sorry🐅

i purposefully havent been too frank when talking publicly about it (why i kept a mean tweet about it in drafts for literal years) but compared to the unlimited love it gets from the fandom it looks like thats enough for people to pick up that i dislike it so much lol. so lets talk about the first!

ill be brief on each point. that ancient technology thing it does w the eclipse? thats a bad trope. its a very very bad trope. its the atlantis conspiracy theory, its 1 throwaway line away from slipping into ancient aliens, they pull the same shit in a couple other TV specials and none of them are fondly remembered so hopefully we all know this plot point sucks and is racist. if not you can google it. lets move on

the nazis. after watchin harimao i said it was more anti-nazi than the first, idk if id stand by that cause i havent seen it again since but i mention it to put it in lupin context. generally if it isnt OK to have lupin scam an ex-nazi in part 2 ep 3 by disguising himself as hitler, whys it OK for lupin to steal from nazis by disguising himself as hitler? at no point is the movie actually anti-nazi (though i wouldnt call it pro-nazi either) and its fucking weird to see lupin disguised as hitler in modern lupin cause each time nazis show up in classic lupin everyone agrees its tasteless & overdone.

laetitia! TMS did a genius thing w her cause shes incredibly well written as a self-insert fic protag. it is very easy to watch the first & pretend u urself are best friends w the gang by projecting urself onto her. this doesnt balance out her lack of character it only helps the audience not care about it. compare her to mariya from tokyo crisis- one could be written out of her own movie and we only get info bout her to move the plot (the bad, boring plot) forward, one is essential to the core of her movie and shes realistically affected by the things that happened to her and makes believable connections with some of the gang. yay! a character!!

the movie is also very segmented between "plot scenes" and "lupgang banter scenes" you will notice everything fun about lupin STOPS when we are being explained Plot Elements. lupin talks to laetitia and its a boring nazi ancient treasure movie. then we get a scene thats not about the eclipse or laetitias grandpa or the nazis and all of a sudden its super fun !!!!!!! this is bad writing. lol. watch fuma & see how lupin at its best can blend comedy and plot and exploration and fun banter.

my personal experience w the movie! the first time i watched it i had to pause it cause i was bored out of my mind. iirc it was more or less when lupin gets on the eclipse ship thing n all banter stops cause its just him n the nazi dude n i realized hey this movie kinda sucks actually! i texted a friend about it n he was like. yeah having to force urself to finish it sounds like ure not enjoyin this movie. i did watch the first 3 or 4 times? i did gif it a lot. theres scenes i like (the banter) but it doesnt make it a good movie. like i said when i first wrote my personal review of it: "I think looking at gifsets of this would be more enjoyable than actually watching it". laetitia really embodies her movie in that sense, shes a really good character if you only look at her. she shares her name with all of her ancestors! just who is she? why is she wearing short shorts? why was she a cop? how old is she? then you realize theres nothing there

and ultimately this IS a reaction to it being an unpopular opinion. there are so many lupin entries a lot more worthwhile than the first (2019) that dont even get half of the hype. in my personal ranking its in the bottom 10 (tho ive skipped 2 specials so u can consider that the bottom 12). i genuinely dont like it but im not as vocal about lets say, angels tactics, because we usually agree thats a bad one- or at least we dont recommend it to newcomers. the first has a good reputation so i feel more strongly about it despite liking it more. i would be just as vocal about dragon of doom & voyage to danger if people talked to me about them more often. (and i have a much more coherent critique of dragon of doom lol)

so i dont really know how to explain why i dislike the first cause i just do; the same way u just dislike a bad part 2 episode, the same way most of the fandom just finds napoleons dictionary kind of boring. how do u explain why u dislike the nazi ancient tech self-insert npc girl movie- except by calling it just that? i guess i wasnt blinded by how pretty it is which makes me sound full of myself LOL. but its true a lot of animation can get away w god awful writing if its well animated enough- and if its too ugly no one will watch the best written animated movie. i love animation too and it has so much to offer and i want to see more done in the style of the first with the story of [insert your personal favorite TV special]. im glad it opened the door for vs cats eye to look that way (though lets not forget the 2012 3DCG lupin short!). but the WRITING the STORY the MEAT of the first just isnt any better than any other mid to low tier lupin TV special. is it really worth recommending the first as someones entry into lupin just because it looks pretty? is it really better than the anime that made the author reboot his own manga? why are we even still talking about the first?

#ask #anon #uhm a bit shy to put this in my lupin tags #really no hate if u personally really enjoy the movie. i love elusiveness of the fog we all have different taste. who cares what i think 👍#lupin the third

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themoonhater · 9 months ago

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“Tell your baby that I’m your baby”

Mom never loved me, never gave me the motherly love mothers give to their children, in her case “her child”. She only had me or at least that’s what I thought. Before I was born there were five girls, none were hers but they did have a blood connection since they were her nieces. “Mom” always told me stories of their childhood, not mine ever, my childhood was filled with sorrow and woes, and she doesn’t want to remember any of those because in her story I’m the villain who took away her happiness. She loved them dearly, even now that they’re all older and have gotten on with their lives and don’t care about her, she looks at them lovingly like how one looks at the field of strawberries they have grown, but she hardly looked at me. “Mom” is forever proud of them, even though they never went to college, never learned another language, never learned how to play the piano but I did, I did for her, All I wanted was to see the bright and shiny smile she flashes whenever she sees her “Girls”. I still look at her, waiting like a good dog, and wag my tail for her to notice me, I put my paw in her hand if she asks for it and return with a dismembered one. That’s how “Mom”’s love was towards me, I gave her my bane of existence but left like a soldier from the Trojan War.

Now that I’m older, now that I see her love is different from other mothers and the love she gives others I ask myself “What did you do? What did you do to make you so unlovable that not even your mother loves you” but I swear, I swear on her life because there’s nothing more important than hers in mine I didn’t do anything wrong, what could a child possibly do to make her mother hate her. I even went running back to her after she sent me to school in first grade with bloody lips and a bruised face because that’s my mother, right? She loves me. But who beats down their innocent child like it’s just limp meat all because they didn’t like their kid’s handwriting? I remember being young and full of life - unlike now - watching all the girls playing with their mothers but all I got was getting yelled out for demanding attention.

Sometimes I think that “Mom” was out of love, I mean let’s be real here, she had five girls to love dearly of course at some point in her life she would run out of love to give but oh, how wrong I was because girls came and go, new nieces and such but no, that was not the end of it, she went out of her way to give her love to my friends, newest additions to her “Girls”.

Years have passed and I’m still not her baby. “Mom” still takes away the food from my plate and gives it to her “Girls” while I watch, starving but will do anything to make her smile. “Mom” still belittles me and hugs her “Girls” because they deserve love and I don’t. “Mom” still calls me names for being disobedient but praises her “Girls”. “Mom” never loved me and never will.

A little side note: It’s my first time writing something like this in English, I used to be a great writer back in middle school and high school, won a few local awards but ever since I started college I have been a stranger with my pen. Hopefully my writing is not that awful because it has been one of passions for years now and I’m so happy to picking it up again. I wish to improve it but for now this is all I can offer.

Also my deep apologies if you relate to this. This was inspired by “I bet on losing dogs” by Mitski. There’s this trend going on, on tik tok that made me want to share my story but I promise that I have more fun and happy stories to tell so please stay tuned lol. (btw im new to tumblr dunno if u can tell)

#mitski #i bet on losing dogs #mommy issues #my writing #writing #Spotify

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rose-tinted-juls · 1 year ago

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🏎️💨 THE FORMULA 1 TAG GAME! 🏎️💨

thanks for the tag @vinvantae & thank you to @avida-heidia-5 for making it!

tagging (ignore it if you already did it): @vetteltea @ricc3rodeo @silverstonesainz @strawberrysainz @ofsaintandsinner @monzabee @lxclerc @a-distantdreamer @schuvries @thebearchives @formulaforza

1. who or what got you into F1?

first it was my dad who used to watch it when i was around 7-9, but then he stopped and i did too, i only followed a few ppl on social media to kinda keep up, and then my cousin started watching DTS two years ago and she talked about it to me and it made me wanna watch f1 again and my obsession came back even stronger.

2. who was the very first F1 driver you supported? do you support them now? have your opinions on them differed or stayed the same since then?

as a kid i supported sebastian and jenson, and tbh they are still amongst my top favourites. when i started watching f1 again two years ago, i first supported george and charles. charles is still one of my all time favourites, and i still support george just i guess not as much as back then.

3. who’s your current favourite F1 driver?

i can't choose just one, really. right now it's charles, oscar and danny, i think. why does it actually feel a bit wrong to only say three lol

rest under the cut!

4. is there a driver pairing or pairings you support? what made you attracted to that pairing in the first place?

multiple. i love max & daniel, charles & carlos (even their name combined is chaos, what can it be if not fun?), also carlos & lando. i think these pairings work(ed) really well in many aspects. oh and kimi & seb!

5. do your parents, siblings or relatives have a favourite team and/or favourite driver(s)?

well, my dad's been a jenson fan back in the day, now he's supporting lewis and fernando. my cousin is a big ferrari and charles fan!

6. do you have any favourite races? are there any that stand out to you the most?

singapore 23, and also monza 19, monza 20, monza 21. you just gotta love those. and australia 23 bc it was pure chaos lmao

7. do you have a favourite circuit? can be from the past or from the current calendar.

tbh i don't think i have just one fave. i have several that i like a bit more than others, like monaco, monza, baku, but i guess none exceptionally.

8. have you ever been to an F1 race in real life? feel free to tell us your experience going to one if you like.

nope, never. too broke for that sadly, coming from a broke ass country... i will hopefully attend the hungarian gp though as a volunteer this year!

9. have you ever met an F1 driver in real life?

again, never. (heartbreaking.) hopefully that will change at the prev mentioned hungarian gp this year!

10. do you have a favourite F1 car? if so, what is it?

again, i don't have a favourite, but there are many i like. for example, i liked the red bull fan designed livery in miami 23, and the red and white ferrari livery in las vegas 23.

11. do you have a favourite one win wonder?

pierre and george (and kubica lol gotta love the guy). i literally cried my eyes out when george won in 2022.

12. do you have any favourite quotes from the F1 world? this can either be inspirational or hilarious.

i have so many, serious and funny ones too (mainly funny though). but, if i have to choose, for funny i have to go with "nothing just an inchident on the race" or "what am i now? heavily depressed", and for serious, i will go with my top 3, which are "being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" & "to achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster" & "you must always strive to be the best, but you must never believe that you are."

but i also gotta mention "one week they love me, one week they hate me, both weeks i get paid" and "i've got balls but none of them are crystal" bc seb is just too funny and i love the guy too much.

and another worthy mention is "he won in spa, he wins in monza" bc i always get goosebumps when i hear it or even think about it.

#f1 #f1 tag game #i was tagged #thanks for the tag!#get to know me tag

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dazaiapologism · 1 year ago

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feel slightly insane for asking this but like you really like bsd right. yeah so i kinda wanna read it cuz like lame suicidal ideation bitches appeal to me LOL. but uh i was wondering like 2 things. so like sorry if these r weird questions but like. so. do youlike know if theres a planned end to the story or if its more of a gonna keep going till people stop reading kinda thing?? ( •3•) also like is it like Weird about the every character is a real author thing?? like on a scale of this is just osamu dazai as an anime boy to entirely his own heavily inspired thing separate from the real man???

okay sorry again if any of this was weird hope ur having a real nice day and keeping as healthy as possible. okay thank you bye

ok first question: i think bsd will end i think there's a specific narrative arc being told about atsushi and when its over the series hopefully will end. i think this is likely.

and second: bsd does not try to claim its characters Literally Are the authors, some are more closely tied to their author and others are more to the character. like fitzgerald has a wife named zelda. john steinbeck literally has grapes of wrath growing out of him. and so on.

the problem with trying to make an anime character based on osamu dazai's work that is separate from the Actual Guy is that actual dazai novels are so fundamentally autobiographical that there's no way to not make the anime character a reflection of the original guy. i would say bsd dazai is closest to yozo oba, who is a named character who appears a couple times in dazai's especially autobiographical novels.

is bungo stray dogs weird about how it leans on real authors? hard to say, without knowing what you think of as weird. I think it commits to depicting the authors through the lens of their work. sometimes this is frustrating in a way thats hard to ignore (tanizaki, mori, hunting dogs). i don't think it's on the same level as hetalia, where it's like actively trying to rehabilitate the images of real historical fascist states. i also don't think it's trying to further japanese nationalism, so much as depict many different perspectives of living in a pretty specific social and political framework without passing judgement on those perspectives. i enjoy watching it overall (mostly just the chuuya bits) but it's not something i actively try to get all my friends and neighbors to watch.

none of this was weird + thanks for giving me an outlet for thinking about this

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snifflesthemouse · 2 years ago

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The Flying Pasta Game...

Before I begin, I just want to say I appreciate every single one of you. You know what makes me the happiest when I come on here? When I see people say things like this, "I don't agree with you. But, I still like to read what you have to say." When I read that, it makes me love you all more. It makes it all worth it. So, thank you ALL!! Now, on to the post.

The Flying Pasta game is a concept of manipulation. That term was created by me, but the action is as old as time. A con throws out a bunch of overwhelming ideas and concepts just to see what reaction the mark gives. Let me give you a real-life example.

If you know this blog, you know this already; I apologize for the repetitiveness. My ex was, and is, a master manipulator, con artist, door-to-door salesman, and a murderer. But, the murdering didn't happen until after I had moved on and he got out of prison, and I lost one of the most special people in my life because of this psychopath. That is a story I don't think I can tell here right now. But I digress...

Whenever he would be in a house trying to sell something, and his usual tricks failed right off, he'd use this trick. What you do is overwhelm whoever you are talking to about whatever.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE WITH NAMES CHANGED: When the common ways of using logic or reasoning doesn't work, get creative and make it confusing. Confusion gets people easier than anything. Overwhelm the mark with a bunch of information about anything and watch for a reaction. Say you see they have a charm bracelet with seashells... notice it in conversation and use it to tangent on a rant.

So, you see the bracelet while trying to convince these people they need a $2000 Kirby vacuum. They're flat no. No budge. No movement at all. The mark is stuck on no. You see the bracelet, and you say "WHOA! I love that bracelet! I love sea shells! Did you know the [insert some most-likely made up random ocean fact]? Yeah, totally. When I was a kid, [insert sob story about someone to see if they relate]. It was hard. [Insert story about overcoming the hardship]. ..." And this goes on and on.

NONE OF THE STUFF SAID HAS TO BE, OR WILL BE TRUE. IT IS ALL NONSENSE TO TRIGGER ANY KIND OF RESPONSE FROM PEOPLE.

See what this author means? Storytelling is weaponized by con artists. Cons use whatever they can, to be honest. They will make up anything and everything to see what you react to, just to use it against you.

Now we all see why HMTQEII chose the path she did. She knew no response was the only response that could save you. If you do not respond, they have nothing to go on to manipulate. The only real way to absolutely ensure you cannot be conned, is to remove the conartist.

I am not trying to sound hateful, but this is the truth. If you entertain people on the dark triad, you will always lose. Trust this mouse on this one. This mouse has the stab marks and scars to prove it.

Think about it. Every time Jeremy Clarkson tried to apologize, what happened? His words were turned against him. Cons will use your reaction regardless of its type. If you show empathy to a sob story, you're getting got. If you show disdain and disgust, you will get got, too.

THE ONLY SURE WAY TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM CONS ARE TO REMOVE THEM FROM YOUR PRESENCE.

Final note: Con artists feed off of other people's emotional energy like the protomolecule from the Expanse feeds on radiation. Cons enjoy the chaos. Cons get a high from it.

I will be back (hopefully) with another post for the day discussing the historical patterns of Royal Divorces (3/4 of HMTEQII kids are divorced; what can we learn from those divorces?)

I cannot say it enough, especially with what's going on personally... 99.9% of you are wonderful people. The 0.1% of you are in my category, so I assume we'll at minimum have fun? LOL JKJK

Sometimes my sarcasm is lost in my writing style and lately I've not had the time to dedicate as much editing as before. Just about every post I do is written on the fly these days and posted before I can go back and edit. I always promise to go back and edit it, but I never get time. YOU ALL DESERVE BETTER FROM ME, but right now I can't give that as much as before. Once the real world stuff calms, it will be more polished. Gotta go, love you all!

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halothenthehorns · 1 year ago

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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.

#pjo #Percy Jackson #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #Alex Fierro #Magnus Chase #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #fierrochase #percabeth

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