#i mean technically there is a liquid but we tried that and it didn't work out on account of tasting like burning grapes

[softgrungeprophet]

hubris is me putting my adhd medication in every day of the week of my pill organizer as if i haven't been only taking it like. twice a week.

[wheredidmyheadgoing]

"Does it hurt, little one?"

So,

Basically, I was supposed to insert this as a super duper extra comic for Mother's Day. I planned everything nicely, so that I could make it for May 26.

...Then I found out that Poland is literally the only country where Mother's Day is celebrated on that day.

Shoot. You live and learn, they said.

Let's just pretend that I posted this on 14 May 2023, okay?

Nooow that we've got that out of the way, let me explain what's actually going on here. (As if you can't just show everything so everyone understands, you stupid potato-)

1. Why Gregory looks like a zombie

Here we have something I wanted to describe before, but didn't have the opportunity. It's about the workings of the "bloodstream" of the robot children (Gregory and Ella to be more precise). As you can probably guess, there is no need for their heart to pump anything, so everything here is apparent. Which doesn't mean, however, that they don't need their "blood". Oh no.

You see, they do have a device inside them that imitates a heartbeat, but the fluid inside them circulates completely on its own through their bodies. It doesn't just act as a substitute for human plasma - it makes them better able to feel emotions. They are able to feel pain. Thanks to this fluid, their feelings drive their mind. Fact, it is darker and more viscous than ordinary blood, but combined with stage blood and a bit of illusion, it does not arouse suspicion.

Viscous Dark liquid...sound familiar?

Ah yes - good old agony.

This, by the way, solves the possible problem of running out of artificial blood if the robotic kid gets too much damage, because if anything, his pain and the negative emotions associated with it will automatically fill his body with another amount of fluid. Besides, the agony spreads to other objects, including other robots. This gives a lot of new possibilities and...well, that's why Gregory has so many bandages on him. Afton likes to experiment on him sometimes...

Are you keeping up? Great, then how about this?

The reason Gregory is so bloody here is the punishment he received. Our little gremlin can usually handle the commands given to him, but stress, pressure and general overwork mean that sometimes he'll slip up and make a mistake.

Unfortunately, his father doesn't tolerate mistakes.

What is all this punishment about? Well, as Gregory nevertheless consists in part of a computer, Glitchtrap has access to his head. He can talk to him, influence his memories of his past live, and, most importantly, control his mental state. So, if he does something wrong, unpleasant consequences await him, in the form of a huge headache and vomiting blood/agony, which gets too much in him and just pours out through all the orifices of his body. A rather uncool feeling.

2. The relationship between Vanny and the little gremlin

It's a pretty difficult. For Gregory, I mean. Technically, he shouldn't feel anything for her; another tool, possibly an accomplice, alive today, she could be dead tomorrow. Yet he cares, heck, he sees her as some kind of parental figure, as his father is a psychopathic murderer turned AI, and about his mother, for some unsuspecting reason, he can't remember anything specific, except that she had light hair and was called Christine (Hehe, because, you know, Christine!...heh....begins with a C, like Clara, okay?). He would never admit it to himself, but he feels damn sorry for her, because of everything that happened. Especially since he was complicit in pushing her away from her loved ones, worsening her mental state, and ultimately helped bring about her possession. Yep, a manipulative little manipulator. Oh well.

So Gregory feels guilty, while at the same time insisting that he shouldn't, because, after all, he's not doing anything wrong - he just wants to put his family back together. Therefore, he rather tries to avoid her, and is often just plain mean - the fact that she is such a nice person to him simply overwhelms him.

I'll bet my caramel and hazelnut chocolate that I made some stupid translation mistake.

[adaginy]

I would almost like for this weekend to be over. (My weekends are Sun/Mon)

We are in the process of buying a house. This is a lot of paperwork and phone calls, both of which I hate. But at least the "looking at places and being dejected by the problems" phase is over.

We are also in the process of getting our current place, a trailer, ready to sell. There's been a rusted spot in the sink in our second bathroom for some time, so, we had to take the sink out and replace it. This is not generally the sort of thing that requires turning off water in the whole house, BUT all our stuff was cheaply made 25 years ago and suddenly there was a lot of swearing and I do not know where the house water shutoff is and so had to trade places with my husband so he could find it while I pressed the broken-off end of a tube into my hand to try to stop water from going everywhere.

While he was finding the water shutoff, however, he noticed water coming from somewhere else. Completely coincidentally, the water coming into the house was leaking -- but before the water meter, which means it was the park's problem and not ours. It did mean we had to make some panicked Sunday-night calls to the park, trying to alert them, and we didn't really know when/how they were going to handle it.

I took a break, because now we had a big problem but no longer an urgent problem, to have some lunch and some tea. I spilled tea on my keyboard, disabling the ' key (among others I wouldn't find until I started troubleshooting), and when i tried pressing the key harder, it started printing XCV]\' XCV]\' XCV]\' until I turned the computer off.

I removed my keyboard and started disassembling it to clean.

We took the dog on a walk and found an excavator parked behind the house and utility lines marked in fluorescent paint. Somehow they'd snuck that in. So I turned my keyboardless computer back on, because I do not have myself logged into Facebook on my phone because Reasons, and used the on-screen keyboard to make a post on the park facebook page to the effect of "hey we called in a leak and now there's an excavator behind our house, maybe stash some water in case they're turning it off."

I had no luck repairing my keyboard, having disassembled it and cleaned it and plugged it into a laptop to check. Best buy and Staples didn't have anything promising in stock, so I went to Amazon where I found a wired, mechanical keyboard that could be delivered tomorrow -- at either the wee small hours of "I feel bad for the delivery person" or at the later hours of spending all day keyboardless. I ordered it for the early morning, and left an energy drink and a granola bar on the porch with a thank you note. I threw the keys I'd popped off and the screws and the plastic frame in the trash, and asked my husband to take the keyboard to electronics recycling in the morning.

Morning comes. My husband did not take the keyboard with him.

My new keyboard has arrived. I unbox and try it out, lamenting to myself that while the switches are technically the same, my old one is much more broken-in and thunk-y instead of clicky. I realize that, with the damage being liquid, I should test the keyboard in case the liquid was somewhere I couldn't get to and it has dried. Sure enough, the keyboard is working now.

The excavator guys are here. They may have to turn my water off for a bit, but otherwise we don't need to interact. I tell them to let me know if they need a bathroom or anything, and I begin the process of fishing my keyboard parts out of the trash, which is full of yard waste and a broken blender.

I find the frame, the discarded keys, and most of the screws. I also find blender screws that are approximately the same size. I reassemble my keyboard, with two internal screws missing and 3 replaced with blender screws. My husband says not to send the new one back, because his keyboard is old and gross and maybe he'd like a replacement. I was not planning to send it back anyhow, because WHY didn't we have a spare keyboard? I put replacement keyboard anti-skid feet stickers in the amazon cart, because those I did not find, but I can live without for now.

I get a text from the realtor reminding us that we have a house inspection at the new place at 4. She is very cheerful.

[cynthiav06]

I am so sorry op but I think it's more on the inverse side. Percy's powers are so in tune with him that even with limited time, he was able to access a large arsenal of them. Sure he hasn't specifically trained to fine tune his powers but unlike the other big three children who have all experimented their powers before, he always ends up in mortal peril everytime he has to come up with something new. So unlike others who have kind of tried and tested and put a few limits on their powers, Percy just goes with it. He doesn't think about whether he can or not, it's always a case of "I must".

Iapetus is going to kill Thalia and Nico, so I have to find a way to stop him. But I am half poisoned and bruised, I can't fight him. Oh okay so I will just use the rivers in Underworld for help. They are water right?

Akhyls is going to kill me and Annabeth here, we aren't strong enough to fight a primordial. She is going to choke us with poison. Annabeth's going to die. I am going to die. Annabeth's going to die. Wait poison has large amount of water or even liquids. I can control it!

And each time he proves himself right he goes Oh cool, that's helpful. With no idea how world transcending his own abilities are. Were it anyone else they would have let their training and mindset of myths limit their imagination and their ability to fight. But Percy hasn't been trained traditionally, he has never put a limit on his own power. He does with it whatever he needs to and he doesn't let a pre defined set of rules or ways inhibit him. "What do you mean I can't overpower a Primordial in her own domain with her own poison? Of course I can. Poison contains water, it's liquid. I can totally do that."

I think Percy using less powers in the first series has more to do with his trust issues with it. See Percy has deeply internalized his self loathing and self esteem issues. He sees himself as a burden, a troubled kid who only causes problems. He doesn't want his powers to do that, to destroy everything in their path. So he keeps them coiled tight and shut. He needs it to do precisely what he wants, which it does almost always. He starts trusting them but but then at times when he he lets a leash loose, his powers do crazy shit like, blow up a volcano, lift an entire river bed from its roots, level a creek, start a hurricane or other disasters, so he keeps them tightly leashed.

We can see evidence of that with words like "a pull in my gut" "I felt something inside me break" "something uncoiled" and so on.

Whether he does it consciously or not, it only serves to benefit him because everytime his opponents foolishly think,

Enemy: I know all that you can do Perseus Jackson.

Percy: ........

Percy: Damn, even I don't know everything I can do. It's cool that you think you know all I can do though.

*obliterates the monster with something new he comes up with*

Percy: Ha didn't know I could that but boy am I glad it worked. See this is what I was talking about.

Either way I do agree with op on a few things like children of Hades have the most potent abilities, most broken ones but I think their lack of stamina does hinder them. And I mean Nico has known about his powers for even less time than Percy while neither Thalia nor Jason are very creative.

I think Hazel comes really close due to her versatility and creativity. Magic, mist and her own powers along with her fighting prowess. Her and Meg McCaffrey should have been compared to Percy more so than others given they were in similar situations and have such strong abilities. Technically Meg is a child of the Elder Gods.

I think Rick should have explored a bit more on the big three children and their powers.

The point I was trying to make is Percy is so powerful because of his lack of traditional training or traditional fighting knowledge. He learns by hands on experience, adapts on instinct and improves by finding loopholes or getting a better grasp of his already present abilities.

can we/rick talk more abt how extremely inexperienced percy is with his powers in comparison to many of the other big 3 kids

like it’s actually very interesting to think abt if you think abt the connection they each have as a scale to how connected they are to their godly parent (not like emotionally lmao but their godly heritage if that makes sense)

like if you think of nico and hazel those two are arguably the most like in tune with their powers both having used their powers since they were very young and being forced to kind of connect with their godly side much sooner/faster then the others

thalia and jason being second since thalia is literally the second in command to a literal goddess and as a soldier camp jupiter would definitely push jason to know his limits but they both haven’t reached that ease that nico and hazel have — thalia probably could’ve reached it if she hadn’t been snubbed at 15 and wasn’t scared of heights lmao and if jason had probably any type of support that wasn’t pushing him to just be better or focused more on his powers then physical strengths

both thalia and jason also started very young with using their powers yet both had that small blocker of other mortals/people around in comparison to hazel and nico

like hazel and nico are both so small that they’ve been taught to mostly use their powers not that they can’t fight but they rely a lot more on that rather then a sword unlike jason thalia or percy but i think that also just goes with the age that they are since their so young and were taught at that young age to lean on their powers that’s simply what’s easier

then you have percy who literally just found out half this shit was real like 5 years ago and knows nothing abt his powers like genuinely the amount percy leans more on his physical strength bc that’s all he’s had up until he was 12 in comparison to how much he leans on his actual powers is crazy especially if you look at the difference between how much jason or nico rely on their powers at their ages in comparison to how much percy did at those ages

it’s also interesting how that plays into people not taking him very seriously people see him as much more mortal and “weak” bc of it

not that any of them are doing it wrong obv it’s just very interesting to think abt

i think this also plays into percy’s morals a lot ? i recently saw a post saying nico wasn’t scared of percy when he was taking down an army and had hades with a sword to his neck yet annabeth was when percy was choking that goddess in tartarus even tho it was self defense which is all true but if you boil it down to those key points you can really see the clear distinction between the morality of nico and annabeth in those moments and how they know percy in that way as well

nico who’s on the cusp of godly hood in a way - being hades ambassador and spending most time in the underworld - he looks at percy as this hero who fights and kills and wins so that’s what he was letting percy do and he was watching it in awe

yet annabeth knowing percy stopped him yes in fear but in fear of the fact that that is simply not percy percy is the most mortal demigod we’ve met (him and piper tbh) he’s lived his life with mortal morals and he barely uses his powers bc of it so when he’s using his powers to literally kill a goddess like who tf is that ?? and who would he have been if he had gone through with it

i think that’s a pretty easy summary of why percy doesn’t really use his powers much as well he’s always seen himself as just some guy he doesn’t really like ppl calling him a hero he doesn’t really show off (on purpose/without reason) he’s just fighting to survive or to get shit done which is a very human trait percy is a very humble guy and it would just be crazy to see how much more powerful he’d be if he wasn’t bc ik a lot of that is what’s holding him back

also i think it’s interesting to point out the fact that percy used a sword when fighting hades in comparison to tartarus when he used just his powers id be interested to see what nico/annabeth would’ve thought if they were in each others shoes in those moments

also interesting that in both cases he doesn’t go through with it (killing a god/goddess) for 2 different reasons but what would they have done if he did …

i’m realising the purpose at the start of this is very different then what it ended in but i’d like to hear what ppl think if i’m just yapping or if anyone else knows wtf im talking abt lmao

[purplepirate123]

I Clean Houses and Write Stuff (sometimes)

Blog Post #2 1/9/2023

I'm not writing right now, and I'm not okay with it.

Technically you could argue that I haven't written regularly in a long time. It wouldn't be much of an argument, given that it's absolutely true.

Sometime in that 2018-2019 pre-pandemic era I wrote what would be the final draft of the book I've been working on since I was 12 years old. And when I say final I don't mean "complete;" I mean final as in it would finally leave my head so that something new could take its place.

Because 15 years is a long-ass time to be working on a book. Especially when it isn't very good.

And something new did take its place, once my those guys were free of the gothic feary world my angsty teen brain concocted. The Something New would be drafted three times, many hours spent pouring over laptop and notebooks, doing the thing I'd loved doing for so long it was beyond a hobby, it was part of who I was, like being right-handed or strawberry blonde. The third draft of this Somethibf was even something that would be one step closer to "finished," maybe even publishable...

But then, it was March of 2020. The weird "Chinese virus" we'd kept hearing rumbles about in the news would reach the shores of the US. Suddenly you could die by breathing the air outside your front door, and every media outlet had a field day with headlines listing death tolls, hospitalozation numbers, and repeating the phrase "nothing will ever be the same again" over and over and over.

I didn't sleep for three months.

I cried -sobbed- and screamed for several weeks straight.

I suffered a back spasm that was so painful I physically couldn't lay flat on the floor, my spine seemingly permanently arched. I was able to get that to let go after hours of yoga videos, but then it moved to my foot and I could barely walk. I stopped being able to eat real food because everything made me sick, and would in turn get dangerously close to becoming pre-diabetic because you aren't actually supposed to live off of cheap protein bars.

And during it all, all I could do was read the news.

And read the news.

And read the news.

That story that I spent so much time with was gone, dead and buried with the first 100,000 people in the US to die of COVID-19 no thanks to our screaming lunatic of a 45th president who was elected into office the year I graduated from college. (Talk about a slap to the face to those looking to enter the world and make something of themselves, especially if you were a woman, queer, Black, an immigrant, trans, pretty much anyone not a straight white male.)

I could barely focus on the books in front of me - I read entire novels that I'd forget the second I closed the back cover. Soon I stopped reading books all together.

A small bright spot emerged when a story idea came me, one that had been rolling about the back of my head for some time. I hammered out a draft in record time in the Fall of 2020 and then... That was gone, too, regardless of how I tried to go back to it, how I tried to work on it, edit it, turn it into something for the world.

"Maybe making more money will help," I thought as I picked up more hours at my then-job.

"Maybe having my own space will help," I thought as we emptied our savings account and liquidated every asset we had so we could buy the house of a dreams in September of 2021, big enough for all our animals and for me and my husband Tim to have our own office spaces. Mine was even painted a delightful shade of purple, complete with overflowing bookshelves and a massive window overlooking the street below behind which my mint green sauder desk sits, waiting.

I don't think I've spent more than 24 hours in here, my office, this space that we purchased with everything we had so it could be mine. We've been here for 16 months now.

Mind you, buying the house was not the plan. At least not yet. Ever since the credit cards got taken care of from pandemic aid (the one good thing that came out of those dark months of death, tears, fear and grief), we'd been planning to move out west, somewhere in Colorado where we could see the mountains and be in a not-red state (news flash: Ohio sucks). But then we found our now house, a beautiful thing that's a hundred-and-some years old with real wood trim, badly finished rooms and generations of stories right in what's become our favorite, artsy district of Cleveland. Lots of mental creative energy has been spent planning: how do we make this ancient place that's been through so much ours? How do we heal it, fix it, honor it's history while bringing it to our modern era?

It's stressful as all hell, not to mention expensive and time consuming, but I've loved it. We have it all planned out; wooden countertops in the kitchen, black tile in the bathrooms, an attic library, a basement game room, a second shower.

I try to tell myself that I haven't been writing because that part of my brain that longs to make things has been making our house our house. Constantly working, picking, problem solving the way it does when I'm drafting.

Part of me believes me.

Part of me wonders if I will ever write again.

After all, writing up until the pandemic was such a part of who I am, it was hard to call it a hobby.

But, is it still?

I don't know.

I don't like not knowing.

***

Flash forward to now, 2023. I've stepped away from the ever demanding customer service desk I've been chained to since I was 17 and am now working for myself, quietly cleaning houses, alone with my music, my thoughts, and the home owner's pets.

It's good work; I'm making more money, and have a lot more time now.

But do I have Grass is Always Greener Syndrome, too?

Am I just thinking, "maybe this atmospheric change will fix my internal problems, because I don't even know where to begin on those?"

It makes me sigh heavily. Perhaps that's why I spend my free time sitting in the living room under a blanket watching true crime docs on Hulu.

[pizzaboat]

Lumity

Luz asks Amity to help her bake a cake for Willow's birthday. Chaos ensues.

Wh‐what!?"

Luz smiled angelically at her, leaning closer which made Amity's heart skip a beat.

"I said, do you wanna help me bake a birthday day cake for Willow's party?" 

"Yes!–I mean, sure y-yeah," Amity stammered out, "but didn't she already have her birthday?"

"I mean yeah, but she was sick that day," Luz said, "I don't really get alot of the illnesses that you guys have, but I do know being sick in general sucks Hooty egg's.. this way she'll get to celebrate her birthday properly with her friends!"

Oh titan her heart, this girl would be the death of her;

"Wow, that's really kind of you Luz, does Willow know what kind of cake she wants?" 

"Well you see that's the thing," The human said lowering her voice, "it's a surprise, We have to keep it on the down low."

"Got it," Amity said, nodding, "alright I'll help."

Luz beamed grabbing her hand's, "Thanks Amity, you're the best!"

Before she knew what was happening she was being pulled into one of the girl's signature, crushing hugs. All logic and reason left her for a moment until Luz pulled back and started saying something else. Amity mentally shook herself and tried to focus on anything but the fact Luz was now holding her hand's again.

"–I'll share the juicy details with you later, ok?" The other teen was saying now, "this is gonna be great!"

Before she could respond Luz was already sprinting off down the school corridors to her next class. Amity stood there dumbfounded for a moment trying to process what just happened. 

"Amity, why arn't you in class right now?" Principal Bump said, walking by and breaking her from her trance.

"Oh, sorry!"

––––

Luz knew her friend had arrived the moment she heard shrill screams from the front of the house. She thundered down the stairs and rushed to Hooty's door, but before she got there, it slammed open and Amity was revealed on the other side, a murderous glint in her eye's and a pink fame in her hand.

Hooty noticed her then;

"LUZ SAVE ME, YOURE FRIEND IS CRAZY!!" He screeched. Some of his feathers were singed.

Amity winced and went to finish the job. Uh-oh.

Luz darted to her, grabbing her wrist. The physical contact seem to rile the girl up further.

"I warned that thing never to talk to me again." She growled, trying to break free.

Hooty squaked in fear.

Luz wrapped an arm around her, half comforting and half restraining, guiding the other kid inside, "It's OK, it's over now."

"I just said hi!" Hooty cried and they both ignored him.

The door shut on his voice, and the two girls were alone then. Amity calmed down after a moment or two.

"Sorry about that..," The witch said, "he's just so.." She shuddered then.

"Don't worry about it," Luz said sympathetically, "I still sometimes freak out when I see him. Not everything on the Isles is charmingly weird."

She eventually led her friend into the kitchen.

They took stock of what they need from an old cook book, Luz had found rooting around the house. This particular book was previously being used as a table leg for a random desk.. She'd put it back later.

"OK," Amity said,"what do we do?"

"Um.. I thought you'd know," Luz said sheepishly.

"Wait, why would I know how to bake a cake?" Her friend frowned.

"I don't know, you're smart!" Luz exclaimed, "..I thought you'd y'know, know how.. that's why I asked you."

She didn't miss the blush amity gave at that. Well she does like people recognising her ability..  it must be that.

"Alright," Amity said then, "where's the Owl Lady, maybe she knows what to do?"

Luz shook her head, "Eda's at the market. She won't be back for hours.."

" ..Well I guess we'll just have to make do with what we know," she continued, "and really, how hard can it be for the two of us to bake a cake?"

Her cooking partner frowned at that, "I'd imagine it's difficult when you don't know what you're doing Luz."

"Pshh, we've eaten cake before! We know what good food tastes like, it's all we need!" The teen said trying to hype her friend up;

"we've got a cook book, we've got our wit's and we've got the power of friendship–"

–Nothing can go wrong!" Luz declared.

––––

Everything was going wrong.

"Is it supposed to look like that?" Amity asked her partner.

Luz tried to whipe flour from her face, only smudging it further, she then turned to consult the cook book;

"well it says the mixture should be be kind of a liquid.."

Amity watched the mixture wave at them.

"Does the book mention the batter growing sentience?" Amity said frowning.

"No.." luz sighed.

"We should start over," Amity told her.

"You're probably right." The Luz agreed.

The batter agreed too.

––––

1 hour later.

"I don't really know what's edible in here," Luz admitted, after Amity thoroughly burnt the previous mixture when it tried to eat them.

The smell of smoke still hung in the kitchen, and the fourteen year old opened a window.

"You'd think most foods in a kitchen would be." Amity grunted.

"Well my cooking buddy, I guess we're just gonna have to continue with the process of elimination!" Luz told her.

Amity groaned and luz took out another carton of spider eggs.

––––

3 hours later.

Luz ran a batter covered hand through her dark hair, slicking it back with a white clump of goo. Amity honestly had to say; this is the only time her crush has looked ridiculous to her.

"I think we've got it this time, this is the perfect batter that won't try and talk philosophical nonsense with us, unlike the last three batches." The brown eyed teen sighed in relief.

"I think you're right," Amity agreed, "let's just pour it into a cake tin and be done with this."

Luz nodded, and went to pour the batter into their chosen tin;

"For willow," She said weakly.

"For willow, Amity returned with as much enthusiasm.

––––

15 minutes later.

"WHAT IN TITANS NAME WHERE YOU TWO DOING!?"

Her mentor's sister, had rushed Into the house at the smell of smoke. apparently she'd thought the house was on fire.

Luz and Amity now stood with their head's down covered in soot, abomination sludge and cake mix, completely mortified as the adult infront of them continued to berate them;

"I have never seen anything like this in all my life!"  Lilith said, "and I've seen some serious incompetence in my time, but never something like this!"

Neither girl dared to say a word.

"I expected this from my sister's apprentice, but Amity Blight, I expected more from you." She continued crossing her arms.

Luz watched her friend's cheek's flush in shame.

"I mean what we're you thinking?" Lilith said, "an all out brawl with a cake demon in the kitchen? You almost burnt the house down, how am I supposed to explain this to Edalyn?"

She had an idea then;

" Explain this to Edalyn.. what do you mean by that?"

"Well, she left me encharge, while she went to the mar–oh no, I know that look. It's the same one Edalyn makes."

Luz grinned at her.

"I won't be blackmailed human." Lilith warned.

"So this is technically your fault," Luz said smugly, "your not gonna tell Eda about this, because you need this place."

"This is extortion!" Lilith growled.

"Nah, it's revenge." The teen quipped.

"Luz what you doing?" Amity hissed, voice hushed while pulling her aside and giving her a disproving look.

"Its for Willow," Luz pleaded," plus you don't wanna see Eda when she's mad, she made Me, Willow and Gus clean the entire house top to bottom after we animated it. plus this is Lilith. trust me on this."

Her friend looked conflicted for a moment, Luz could see her weighing up the morality of it behind her golden eyes;

"Fine, do what you need to do," She eventually conceded.

Luz gave a nod and turned back to the disgruntled woman.

"Eda doesn't need to know about this, we can all win here," They said.

Lilith scoffed, "How so?"

"We just have to clean up this mess, and you have to bake us a birthday cake."

The witch's eyebrows shot up at that, "That's a strange demand, why a birthday cake?"

"It's  for a friend," Luz said.

"Fabulous, well I don't cook, and I certainly don't bake cakes for your snot nosed little friend's." Lilith sneered.

"You don't have a choice here," Amity pressed joining in now.

Lilith looked to her with mild shock; She seemed to realise there was no real way out of this.

"Fine." She growled, "five minutes with my Sister and you've both turned into criminals."

––––

Willow's surprise party had gone off without a hitch. Gus had provided the intertainment and Luz and Amity had carted out Lilith's cake.

"Aw guys," Willow had said, "you didn't have to do this!"

"You're our friend," Luz had said, "no amount of monster fighting and black mail is too much for you."

Amity had silently agreed.

Willow and Gus had looked confused then, but Luz and Amity knew the truth, and as they'd both dozed off, head's on each others shoulder's in the middle of the party, they knew they'd be haunted by their actions forever.

[deliverydefresas]

moving step by step (together)

second and last thing i posted on wp that i haven't posted here ((i think)) feel free to ignore if you've read this on wattpad already, as i'm just posting it in case i need to refer to it later.

(not proofread. it never is)

prompt(?): domestic!simbar deciding to move in together (toanothercountry)

When her day began, she didn't imagine it'd end up the way it did. In fact, to Ámbar the day felt like an endless nightmare.

Between her washing machine breaking, one of her kitchen cloths accidentally catching on fire when she was making her breakfast, her car not starting and thus being late to her first class, forgetting an important paper at home and losing 1/5 of her grade for one of the toughest classes in her semester; Ámbar just wanted to call it a day and forget she even had to endure it.

"The professor told me he'd let me turn it the paper, as long as I added 10,000 words more; and hear this: he won't give me the 20% of the grade, but a 15%, tops." She still needed to get her laundry done, so she'd opted to come by Simón's loft (and Nico and Pedro's too) when her classes had ended. While she waited for it to be done, she'd grabbed a glass of wine while venting her boyfriend's ears off. "So now I need to find something to write about that's worth 1000 words of coherency, otherwise I'll be lucky to even have a 10%. And God knows I need it."

Simón kissed her head sympathetically, adjusting her head - previously leaning on his shoulder- a little bit closer to his neck. "You will, little gem. You're the smartest one in your class, I'm sure you'll find something and, it's penultimate semester, you can do it."

She groaned, "I wish it were as easy as that." He kissed her cheek this time, and she snuggled into him a bit more, needing his support to make her feel less stressed. "Enough of me, how was your day?"

He chuckled, "not as interesting as yours, I'm afraid. Did a little songwriting, had a video-call with a magazine, changed my sheets..." he winked at her, making her laugh.

"Aw, do you want me to give you a gold start? Maybe I should call your mom, tell her her little boy is a nice young man who makes his own bed." Simón leaned in to bite her cheek, causing her to and almost spill her wine all over the couch, and to prevent this, the red liquid ended up on her shirt. Technically, it was one of his, since today's clothes had been thrown in the washer with the rest of the laundry, but still, spilling wine on her clothes wasn't nice. "Simón!" she scoffed him, which only made him laugh at her. He told her to grab another of his old shirts, while he refilled her glass.

She stood up then, cursing him all the way to his room to grab one of the 'pajama' shirts he kept in his top drawer. Ámbar heard him call to her once she had put it on; "hey, is tacos okay with you for dinner? Or do you want me to order you something else?"

"What are the guys having?" she questioned, to prepare herself in case the others ordered less than what their stomachs wanted to eat, and later lead them to steal her food.

"Pedro's staying at Delfi's and Nico is out with his fling, so nothing." Simón answered her, entering his room with his cellphone at hand.

"Then the usual." She told him simply, her boyfriend nodded. "Hey, can I use your laptop to check my e-mail? My phone died."

Simón nodded again. "Sure. Hello? I would like to order two pastor gringas..." he left the room again, not before pointing at his desk, where his laptop was sitting on. She quickly turned it on, taking it to the living room to wait for Simón to finish the call.

Her boyfriend was one of those people who didn't put a password on the device itself, but on the archives in it (which were mostly lyrics, tracks, and unreleased songs), so it didn't take long until she had the browser opened.

Ámbar tried to ignore whatever Simón had open in his last tab, but the images displayed caught her attention.

No, it wasn't porn, nor was it anything compromising. At least not in that way.

Her boyfriend had a Real Estate website open, showing apartments in sale. However, that wasn't what surprised her – he'd talked about finding his own place before-, but that all the options listed Mexico City as their location.

He'd never mentioned moving back to Mexico. They'd planned vacations to his hometown Cancún, sure, but somehow in all their talks about the future she'd had assumed their plans took place in Buenos Aires, close to her family instead of his. She could deal with him going on tour for weeks – she didn't bear months as well as she did weeks, and for this he always flew her in- but to live in two different countries? How was their relationship supposed to work in that scenario? Would it even work out? Sure, she was almost over with her degree, but-

"Little gem," her eyes snapped from the screen to where Simón was standing, by the kitchen's door, "I ordered you an almond horchata, is that okay?" she kept staring at him. "What? Is my laptop giving you problems? Your mail?"

She sighed. "No, I actually haven't opened my mail yet." He gave her a confused look.

"Then what's it? You've been staring at the screen for at least two minutes."

"When were you planning on telling me you're moving to Mexico?"

His mouth shut, his eyes showed surprise and an underlying regret. "Uh... soon?"

"So it's true, then? You're moving there?" Ámbar didn't want her voice to sound as hurt as it did, but she couldn't conceal it, either. After all, this was her boyfriend, the guy she was in love with, and who she'd loved for years now... to imagine him living so far away from her, it hurt her deeply.

To find out like this, instead of from his own mouth, was like salt to the wound. Her already shitty day was turning for the worse.

Simón sighed, his demeanor showing he was ashamed of it. "It's an option." He pursed his lips slightly, walking over to the couch, taking the device off her lap to turn her body towards him. "I was planning on talking to you about this sooner than later, I promise."

"When? When you had already bought it? Or when I had to say goodbye at the airport?" she couldn't help but dab at him, her temper was talking for her right then, "and what do you mean with 'it's an option'? You're looking for a place already, surely it's more than simple 'option'."

Simón let out a sigh, a sign he wasn't sure how to explain it to her, "I- have you noticed how most of our label meetings have been taking place in México?" She nodded, it was hard not to. The boys and him didn't really leave the city unless they absolutely had to, which could be summed up in three reasons: touring, vacations, and meetings. She'd always frown a little when those meetings took place, because she couldn't really understand why they had to leave when their label had offices in BsAs, but never really dared to ask Simón, afraid she'd come out as clingy for not wanting him to leave her for a couple days.

"I just assumed all the 'important' people chose to meet there instead of flying down here."

He scratched his nape. "It's a little bigger than that. Their HQ has always been up there, and their offices here have worked on a smaller scale for years; however, they've wanted all their more... 'recognizable' artists to be closer for a while now."

"So, they're making you move there?"

"Yes and no. They've been nagging us since the beginning to move to Mexico City, but it's only now we've – well, I've- considered it as an option."

"Why? Don't Pedro and Nico want, too?"

Simón grimaced. "They've already been considering it for a couple of years." Oh. Now that she thought about it, Delfina had hinted multiple times over the months 'the possibility' of working in another country. She'd always assumed she meant taking international jobs for a short period while Pedro was out on tour too, but now she guessed she'd meant for her to imagine that possibility, too.

It seemed like she'd assumed lots of things, and it stung to know she'd been in the dark far longer than everyone else. Even Delfi – who'd been dating Pedro a considerably less time than she'd been with Simón- knew of this before her.

Which made her ask him once again. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Because you're still in uni, little gem, and I didn't want to move somewhere else while you were here; I still don't. I had a plan, honestly; I was going to wait until you neared graduation to slowly get you used to the idea, and, well, I also wanted to wait in case we didn't work out." She pursed her lips as she was still mad, but knew he had a point. He always did.

"You could've talked to me sooner, though. We could've planned this way sooner, make it easier for both." Ámbar sighed out, trying to get her anger out with it.

"I know, I get it now, and I'm very sorry." He apologized sincerely, grabbing one of her hands to kiss it. "This in no way is me telling you I'm moving tomorrow and leaving you here, little gem, I'd never do that. Hell, I don't even think I could. It's just..."

"An option." She finished for him, sighing again. "I guess I- I don't know, maybe I could start looking at internships in CDMX? When- when would this take place anyway? And I have to talk to my mo-" her eyes widened, "God, my mom! What do I tell her if we go? She'll be all alone here!" Her voice sounded panicky even to her.

"Hey, it's okay, there's no hurry. We've already postponed this for years with the boys, another year or so won't change anything, in fact, we'll need all we can get to get papers and stuff in check. And your mom can always come with us if you're worried about her, no biggie." He told her, as if the three of them moving countries wasn't a big deal, or, y'know, extremely expensive.

"Do you seriously want my mom living with us, Simón?" she snapped at him, and immediately felt bad to do so. He was just trying to help her and then here she was, bitching on his offers. "Sorry, sorry. I'm just... overwhelmed, sorry." He shrugged it off.

"I was actually thinking of you two getting your own apartment but since you're oh so kindly offering to live together..." Her eyes widened once more, shocked. She hadn't realized she'd implied that. "... I guess we can either buy or rent one for ourselves and rent another for your mom."

"That's not what- I mean it's not necessary. An apartment for my mom and I would be okay if she even agrees to move."

Her boyfriend started pouting. "Are you saying you don't want to move in with me?"

"No, no, that's not what I mean-" she stopped talking once she saw a teasing grin on his face. "You're messing with me."

He shook his head, silently laughing as he reached out to sit her on his lap, hugging her waist tightly. "I'm not. I'm actually happy you asked me to move with you, so I don't have to when the time comes."

"I didn't ask you." She felt the need to point it out. "You just assumed I did."

"Because you assumed we'd live together. It's okay; if it were up to me I'd be living with you in a heartbeat, I've thought about it for a while."

She gulped. "You have?"

"Yeah, but since I'm living with two dudes and you're living with your mom... it just isn't viable." That got her thinking.

"Why haven't you gotten your own apartment yet? Any of you?"

Simón shrugged, leaning into their coffee table to grab their glasses. "Rent is cheaper when you divide into three, and all of us have been saving up to get our own pads for when we moved to CDMX."

"It was never a matter of 'if', was it? It was always a 'when' you moved." She already knew the answer, of course, so she didn't wait for him to answer. "What took you so long to do so? I'm sure you could've done so years ago, and now you're waiting for Delfi and I, I guess, but before? What held you back?"

He pondered it for a minute, didn't speak immediately. "Something always came up. At first, we didn't have enough money saved, then Nico's mom had an accident, Pedro wanting to stay until his little sister finished high school... then you. My guess is the universe was waiting for us to meet to let me leave the city." She couldn't help but laugh at this.

"You're such a corny guy."

"Only for you, little gem, only for you." Ámbar took a sip of her wine before snuggling closer to his chest, earning her a kiss on her hair. "So, are we doing this?"

She pushed the anxiety of the unknown to the back of her mind, she knew that if she overthought about it she'd find reasons not to. Instead, she took a deep breath, intoxicating herself with the smell of soap and lotion that lingered on her boyfriend all the time.

"Yeah," she sighed, "but we're doing this together."

"Together," he repeated, giving her hand another kiss. "I like the sound of that."

[douchebagbrainwaves]

PAINTING WAS NOT, IN LEONARDO'S TIME, AS COOL AS PAINTING NOW, WE SHOULD REMEMBER THAT PAINTING ITSELF DIDN'T SEEM AS COOL AS HIS WORK HELPED MAKE IT

Y Combinator was to discover the most general truths? Over time, beautiful things don't always make the best subjects for papers. The odds of getting from launch to liquidity without some kind of irresponsible pied piper, leading impressionable young hackers down the road to ruin. In 1995, the e-commerce, it turned out to be worth keeping; the bulk of it has had no effect at all. And when we presented to only 2, because that was all we knew. Checkers and solitaire have been replaced by World of Warcraft and FarmVille. University Ave was Google's first.

Do less. So about half the founders from that first summer, less than two years ago, it would seem unprofessional. But not so lucrative or prestigious as it was when their opinions were formed. After Mr. Good design is often slightly funny. Both Blogger and Delicious did that. When something pays well but is regarded with contempt, like telemarketing, or prostitution, or personal injury litigation, ambitious people aren't tempted by it. In principle they're entitled to, but who could use their technical knowledge to design beautiful things. The way to deal with uncertainty is to analyze it into components. We've got it down to four words: Do what you love in your spare time. Society as a whole started to get richer very rapidly. I'd tried to read Plato and Aristotle.

And hacking programming languages doesn't pay as well as being produced by startups, this sparsely occupied territory is becoming more and more valuable. They are programs that write programs. If they'd already been through their Artix phase, they'd have learned to ask that. It's so cheap to start, it will rapidly become much more engaging, and even so I didn't get to macros until page 160. But if I'm right about the acceleration of addictiveness, then this kind of trade would be hard to undo, you couldn't switch management companies. The novels and etiquette manuals of that period read now like descriptions of some strange tribal society. And you know what? The most valuable way to approach the current philosophical tradition may be neither to get lost in pointless speculations like Berkeley, nor to shut them down like Wittgenstein, but to reassure people already interested in using Lisp—people who know this best are the very ones trying to get good grades to impress employers, within which the employees waste most of their time in political battles, and from which consumers have to buy anyway because there are so few choices. A job is the default This leads us to the last and probably most powerful reason people get regular jobs: it's the one time that hacking is as straightforward as people think it is. Big companies win by sucking less than other big companies are doing.

They're like undervalued stocks. He found they were one thirteenth as productive after the acquisition. Can we claim founders are better off as a result. When I was five I thought electricity was created by the middle class. A lot of startups don't want to seem like they had to work. If you want to make money as a freelance programmer. Perhaps more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well.

But it's the same reason Google and Facebook have remained independent: money guys undervalue the most innovative startups. I love working on Y Combinator. No one doubts this process is accelerating, which means increasing numbers of things we need it for. If your ideas are any good, you'll have the whole field to yourself. And she is so ambitious and determined that she overcame every obstacle along the way—including, unfortunately, not liking it. We were a tiny startup, programming as hard as this though. The best system I've ever seen in this respect was the original Macintosh, in 1985. When cigarettes first appeared, they spread the way an infectious disease spreads through a previously isolated population. It's also more formal and distant, which gives the reader's attention permission to drift.

Find something that's missing in your own time, you have to deliver substance. If you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on something interesting with people I like. This is always a good thing. The singularity I've described is not going away. Plenty of people who wish they'd gotten a regular job, you'll know you're getting better. What you really want is a management company to run your company for you. Silicon Valley.

For example, volume grows as the cube of linear dimension, but surface area only as the square. I gave at the last minute I cooked up this rather grim talk. It's probably closer to machine language than Python. If you're not omniscient, you just don't end up saying much. I'm convinced, is just the effect of grading. And that will get you out of most difficult situations. So why were we afraid? We'll increasingly be defined by what we say no to. Software is a very competitive business, prone to natural monopolies. You're all smart and working on promising ideas. They just don't want that to be possible.

[marveloustiming]

Look at the Stars (Prologue)

A/N: This is a fun concept for me so I'm going to try it out. I'm hopefully going to do a few more chapters and see how it goes. Let me know who the love interest should be, as I haven't decided yet.

Gif not mine

Warnings: Mentions of torture

My early life had been a bunch of ups and downs. My parents had put me in the foster care when I was a little kid for showing signs of being able to control the earth. I had accidentally exploded a flower pot when I was three and I panicked, which led to the flower pots outside exploding. Eventually I had been picked up by a guy named Luke Connors at the age of fifteen. He didn't seem to bothered by the fact that when I got to angry, panicked or anxious the earth around me would do something strange. Like when I was five a girl tried to get to one of my books during playtime, the dirt formed a barrier so her hand hit a solid wall. I ended up getting in trouble for that, even though I technically didn't want that to happen. I was an outsider after that. A strange thing that was to be avoided at all costs or else I would get the earth to hurt you.

When I was seven a different girl tried to get my headphones. I was sitting under a giant sycamore tree at the the time and she tried to lunge and get them. Her name was Abbie and she was ten. She thought she was the best thing there was. Abbie had wanted the headphones so that she could talk to her rude sister who had moved out a while ago. When she lunged at me and got a hold of the them, a thick tree branch had quickly slid down, gripped Abbie's waist and lifted her into the air. She was dropped quickly after my headphones. A few people had saw and had reported it to the women in charge. I got in all lot of trouble and at the the time I didn't know why. I just wanted to be left alone and Abbie was the one that was bothering me! Now I know not to do that on Earth. Its considered strange and rude. I had also learned that day that I could control not just the earth, but plants as well. I found myself trying to learn how to control it. After that Abbie made my life even more shitty then it already was.

Finally when I was fifteen a guy adopted me. His name was Luke Connors. He was a tall guy. Maybe 6'4 and he was maybe in his mid twenties. He had dirty blonde hair and a scar on his neck. He also didn't seem bothered by the fact that I broke a girls hand with dirt or that I had left a couple of bruises on Abbie's waist with a tree branch. My name was legally changed to Arva Connors instead of Arva Marris. Things started going wrong afterwords. The first sign was the fact that we never got into a car. Luke didn't seem to have his own car and he didn't call a taxi. I had kept asking him where we were going because I was getting tired of carrying my backpack. I mean the thing was huge,. It was filled to the brim with a couple pairs of clothes, my tablet, headphones, a charger, and five or six books. It was tiring to carry at the time. After walking for a while and countless questions I was finally able to make him stop walking. We were stopped outside of a beautiful restaurant. It had hanging and potted plants everywhere, as well as a few vines on the walls. Every time I asked a question he just smiled this wide, happy grin and laughed like I had just told the funniest joke. At that point I got so frustrated that all the flower pots exploded.

He simply stated that we were almost there. In my head I knew that something was very, very wrong. I just didn't want to believe it because Luke seemed so nice and it was amazing to be out of that place. But the farther we walked and the more questions he deflected the more I had to admit that everything was just wrong. I started to think of all the different dark possibilities that I've heard over the years, but one main thing came to mind. What if he was going to sell me? That thought had struck fear through me. I started to walk slower and I went completely silent. If he was going to do that then why go through all the work of adopting me? That would waste time. Although that calmed me down I was tense while walking. Soon after that we came to a place where very few people were and that's when I made up my mind. This was exactly what I thought it was. He was going to try and sell me or something much worse.

The building was made up of gray stones and a metal door. There were no windows to be seen. And everything went immediately downhill as we walked through those doors. There were maybe a dozen people in there. Although I'm not even sure if they were people. There was a man who had dark blue skin and a nasty scar running across his face. A women with light purple skin stood by a wall of cages. Then there was the giant tree that stood in the corner. The thing about it was that that it was alive. And not in the way a tree should be alive. It had eyes and a mouth and it moved its limbs without me doing it. A man with golden skin stood next to him. As I was looking around the man with the blue skin and the scar had come up to Luke. They were discussing money. A price. As soon as I processed what he said i turned around and bolted to the door. The blue guys hand clamped around my arm and he flung me back. Luke and the blue guy argued for a few more moments before I was dragged to the wall of cages. I was forcibly shoved into the bottom right one, which was right next to the living tree.

"What are you," I asked in wonder.

"I am Groot," was his simple answer, and I found that I understood him perfectly. After that I chose to fall asleep.

I woke up to my cage rattling. For a moment I forgot what had happened and I panicked. I heard a rough voice call from beside me.

"You okay, sweetheart?" That's the day I met Rocket the Raccoon. After that, through tests and experimentations my powers eventually expanded. I was able to control all of the elements and then some. I was able to control electricity and turn into different animals. I was torn apart, scarred and injected with dozens of unknown chemicals and liquids. They made me train tirelessly to the point where I knew how to control my powers, and to seem completely calm and collected. All the while I formed an escape plan with Rocket the Raccoon and Groot.