i'm really glad tag i'm a person and alive and on earth. I love you gravity I love you string beans I love you ants I love you birds I love you worms I love you water I love you shells

I really wish we could get a scene where Percy reaches his breaking point and uses all his abilities at once. I want to see a proper earthquake. I want to see what he can do with his control over storms. Like, I want to see him move mountains - literally move mountains - to take care of business. Maybe the world is about to end. Maybe Annabeth is in danger. Maybe Estelle is in danger. Maybe his own children are in danger. There are several things that could make him so angry and scared that his limits shatter.

Children of Poseidon, even demigods, are often referred to as monsters. Because like the sea, they are brutal and merciless. And Poseidon has implied that Percy has surpassed every hero he’s ever seen, even hercules, when it comes to his capabilities and determination. Leo and Hazel have said you can physically feel and see his power, even if he’s not doing anything. I want to see Percy really tap into the godly part of him. I want him to send his enemies running for their mommies. And I want to read it from someone else’s point of view. Someone who can describe what it really looks and feels like.

Becasue imagine the most frightening, intimidating man you’ve even seen - his wolffish glare, embodied by his sharp features, frightening enough to paralyze you in fear - flying straight towards you on an angry black pegasus. Hundreds of other angry pegasi fan out on either side of him, looking like something out of a mythical nightmare. Then a dark, gigantic wave spanning several miles, taller than mountains, rises behind him. It’s towering over the valleys and hills, casting a shadow over the land, and coming right towards you, ready to demolish and drown every semblance of your existence. Then all of a sudden the entire sky is dark and the air is cold, and the storm hits you with unforgiving force. The brutal winds and sharp cold rain is so strong that you can barely stand. The booming cracks of thunder make your ears ring, and the blinding bolts of lightning light up the sky like electricity is at war with itself. And now… now the entire earth is shaking. The ground is rumbling beneath you so violently that every part of your body is painfully trembling, your teeth chattering and eyes bouncing. The earth around you is splitting into wide chasms, boulders tumbling and tress falling. Oh also a fucking volcano just blew up. It’s suddenly hard to breath as rock and dirt rain down on you, and you’re about to be burned and buried by miles worth of molten ash. Pompeii part 2, brought to you by Perseus Jackson.

Only this is 10x worse, because every natural element is out for your complete and utter destruction.

Because Percy controls all of that. And if he hits his breaking point, there’s no telling what he could do if he set his mind to it.

Aemond existing:

Me: no lube, no protection, all night, all day, from the kitchen floor to the toilet seat, from the dining table to the bedroom, from the bathroom sink to the shower, from the front porch to the balcony, vertically, horizontally, quadratic, exponent al, logarithmic, while i gasp for air, scream and see the light, missionary, cowgirl, reverse cow girl, doggy, backwards, forwards, sideways, upside down, on the floor, in the bed, on the couch, on a chair, being carried against the wall, outside, in a train, on a plane, in the car, on a motorcycle, the bed of a truck, on a trampoline, in a bounce house, in the pool, bent over, in the basement, against the window, have the most toe curling, back arching, leg shaking, dick thribbing, first clenching, ear rining, mouth drooling, ass clenching, nose sniffling, eye watering, eye rolling, hip thrusting, earthquaking, sheet gripping, knuckles cracking, jaw dropping, hair pulling. teeth jitterbug, mind blogging, soul snatching, overstimulating, vile, sloppy, moan inducing, heart wrenching, spine tingling, back breaking, atrocious, gushy, creamy, beastly, lip bitting, gravity defying, nail biting, sweaty, feet kicking, mind blowing, body shivering, orgasmic, bone breaking, world ending, black hole creating, universe destroying, devious, scrumptious, amazing, delightful, delectable, unbelievable, body numbing, bark worthy, cant walk, head nodding, soul evaporating, volcano erupting, sweat rolling, voice cracking, trembling, sheets soaked, hair drenched, flabbergasting, lip locking, skin peeling, eyelash removing, eye widening, pussy popping, nail stractching, back cuts, spectacular, brain cell desolving, hair ripping, show stopping, magnificent, unique, extraordinary, slendid, phenomenal, mouth foaming, heavenly, awakening, devils tangos, you could dracarys me like how you dracarys the Riverlands, or take me as a prize of war and i'd still ride you.

(Decided to make part 2)

Also obsessed with how she’s the physical and metaphorical embodiment of a cherry blossom…

In Japan, the cherry blossom possesses contradicting significances and embodies matters that are mutually incompatible.

While cherry blossoms are aesthetically beautiful, they also represent violence and the ephemerality of life. From an individual level, cherry blossoms displayed both the joy of life (reproductivity, feminine sexuality, etc.) and the sorrowful side of life (impermanence of things and the significance of death).

The dual nature of cherry blossoms is present in Sakura as a character. This is made blatant through the appearance of sakura vs inner sakura which is clearly a metaphor for the concept of honne vs tatemae.

To further elaborate, the dual nature of her character is the crux of many of her inner conflicts throughout the series and it is also what fuels her growth. In both of these situations, Sakura is unable to express how she truly feels. Her actions contradict her thoughts and feelings, this is a consistent aspect of character within the manga.

(ino vs sakura and kage summit arc for instance)

Throughout the manga, she mentally struggles with being a shinobi. Her growth as a character is dependent upon her inner conflicts contradicting one another in an attempt to understand what it means to be a shinobi. Are they merely tools for the state, or is there something more?

The land of waves arc covers this explicitly but this question is posed once again for Sakura during Sasori vs Sakura where Sakura’s opponent, Sasori, quite literally turned himself into an emotionless puppet in order to deal with being a shinobi. He is the product of the teachings of Sunagakure, an oppressive military regime like many other shinobi villages, but also the result of someone who refuses to let go thus filling him with grief and resentment over the years (Art is eternal). It is no coincidence that Sakura, whose namesake symbolizes the fleeting impermanence of human existence, is the one to fight him.

Tied to the Buddhist themes of mortality, mindfulness and living in the present, Japanese cherry blossoms are a timeless metaphor for human existence. According to Buddhism, we live in the very midst of universal, fleeting impermanence. Any refusal to let go entirely whatever has now vanished inevitably leads to pain.

The meaning of cherry blossoms is also said to reflect the philosophy of a Japanese person, who lives in a country of impermanence, of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanos. Thus, like cherry petals, they are willing to fall at the height of one’s life due to their awareness of the impermanence of life. The death of one’s flesh means a returning to the kami’s land, and the cherry flower becomes the bridge that links life to death.

oh. hm. i wonder if dark made grimm by himself because light refused to participate in creating anything destructive again after the jabberwalker—certainly it seems telling that in the myth, light creates a vast monoculture lawn and then declares that dark’s contribution of a moon and new biomes and plate tectonics is “spoiling” it; the myth flows from light’s presentation of himself to ancient humans and if he saw any value in these things he would surely have claimed them as his own—and then there’s the brother-cult framing that humans were given the capacity for evil (destruction) and good (creation) and the free will to choose which path to walk, always with the underlying premise that if humankind chooses wrong then they will “destroy themselves” (by earning annihilation at the final judgment)

this is in stark contrast to the narrative treatment of destruction as hunger and as an agent of change, and creation-without-destruction as, well, a vast monoculture lawn. sterile, stagnant, artificial, unalive.

(<- not a euphemism for “dead” and i resent that the word has those connotations now.)

to create is to destroy; paint, for example, is destroyed by the act of painting. you can’t ever use it as paint again. eating a meal is destructive—both in the sense that something living has to be killed, whether plant or animal, and in the sense that the food itself is destroyed. but this is the basis of all life. one eats to stay alive, to grow.

so in light’s view grimm are evil abominations because his brother made them to be destructive; to dark the grimm are embodiments of natural forces whose churnings keep the world forever in motion and therefore alive. jabber came out wrong—brutal, but effective, the blacksmith says—because light’s misapprehension of destruction influenced his nature. the grimm, created by dark alone, turned out right.

are they good? are they bad? they just are. the tides, the mountains, the deserts, the storms, earthquakes and volcanoes, the grimm.

meanwhile humans were given destruction by darkness and creation by light—the separation and recombination into one being was probably necessary to avoid a repeat of what happened with jabber—and then taught, by light, to understand their natures as a moral conflict and a moral challenge to rise above ‘evil’, i.e. destruction.

this is, of course, why light is so set on the necessity of permanent death: in his afterlife the dead are unaware and unalive, existing in everlasting stasis, and so nothing can ever be destroyed. darkness, who has never feared destruction, allows salem to glimpse the truth that life and death are a circle. and then he burns it all down and leaves her alive in the ashes, the wellspring of primordial destruction there for her to do with it as she will. and she does, and that is how mankind returns to life and how the faunus come to be.

which is the whole point. the grimm represent and embody pure destruction, hunger and change, which the brothers’ humans were taught to abhor as unnatural, evil abominations. salem becomes grimm and in doing so stakes humanity’s claim on destruction as darkness understood it, rejecting the false moral dichotomy light imposed on her generation. remnant is set free, and humanity rises phoenix-like from the ashes, unbound by death.

the brothers’ humans rebelled in order to claim the powers of their creators and perfect their own design. and she did.

Hey! Saw your new blog! Lovely layout! Anyway, if your accepting requests can I please have a request of vash traveling with a time traveler that claims they are from 21st century earth but are now stuck on Norman land? Maybe she tells him stories of all the wonders of the world?(huge trees that touch the sky, thousands of flowers of different colors, all the different types of donuts that exist, water that comes from the sky in such huge amounts it could flood a valley, volcanos that spew hot lava and giant glaciers of ice that float in giant pools of water) they just tell each other stories of their adventures on their respective planets while vash also teaches his time traveler buddy all the stuff about Noman land. Much thanks!

Vash's eyes fill with glittering awe as the words of home continue to fall from your lips. Of Earth. What had once been idle conversation to fill the awkward and empty air quickly became stories of things that had, at least at one point, been completely normal to you. As normal as things could be to a person who had been whisked away from everything familiar and safe in the blink of an eye. Even weeks after the fact, you still clutch onto the dire hope that you're simply dreaming a fantastical, horrifying dream.

"So you're telling me it could rain so much that it could fill up this entire gorge?"

The man's tone had not faltered from childish disbelief for a moment since deciding to tell him of the various wonders of Earth—it is so different from this... place, this No Man's Land of endless desert and scorching heat.

The fact that anyone could even survive upon such an inhospitable planet is beyond understanding.

Your eyes glance from one side of the rocky landscape to the other, then up towards where the edges of the rocks jut into the amazingly bright sky. Several meters high and several more wide at least. Idly, you wonder what could have happened in the history of this planet to create such a formation if rain was not the maker.

Nonetheless, you nod and look towards him again. "Easily," you say with a smile nearly forced. "There are plenty of places on Earth where the rain would fall so quickly that the ground can't absorb it quick enough—even in the desert. I think they were still called flash floods."

"Would it rain like that everywhere?"

"Oh no, not everywhere," you say, tapping a finger to your chin. "Lots of places didn't get so much rain that it washed everything away. There were forests and jungles, meadows and mountains—have you ever even seen a tree?"

"A tree?"

The blonde looks utterly befuddled by the word, though there's a thin veil of... recognition? He doesn't offer anything besides a look of genuine interest as that expression fades away, and you're not sure if you had simply misread him, and merely nod.

"A tree. It's tall and full of bright green leaves usually—Earth had all sorts, some were so huge you couldn't see the top, others grew fruit like apples and oranges."

You take a moment or so before glancing down towards your feet. There isn't even a tuft of grass, a sprig of green; dead or alive, there isn't an inch of plant growth to be found.

"Trees and grass... and bushes and flowers—never thought I'd be this desperate to even just see weeds or some cactuses."

Vash blinks, looking both as if he understands and doesn't at the same time, but before he can say anything the ground suddenly starts to shake beneath your feet. Not hard; it feels like a gentle rumbling as opposed to anything else, but fear rolls down your spine all the same.

"What-" you say, trying desperately to figure out if the shaking is coming from something large moving outside of what you can see within the valley of the gorge. "What is that? An earthquake?"

"Earthquake?" Vash sounds too amused, but lays a hand on your shoulder to steady you—perhaps more emotionally than physical. "That's just a sand-worm. Big one, I bet. They don't tend to surface in rocky places so I don't think we need to worry about anything."

A dozen questions immediately surface about nearly every word that came out of the man's mouth, but you shove them down so as to nod in silent acceptance of his answer. The rumbling continues for at least a minute before eventually calming down, leaving the ground beneath your feet still once more.

Vash removes his hand from your shoulder and adjusts himself, flashing a grin that looks almost stupidly energetic on his face.

"See? Nothing to worry about."

You simply remain silent, brows furrowing just enough over your downturned eyes that the stress must have looked obvious enough; your traveling partner quickly makes a noise to get your attention and gestures widely with his hands as he talks.

"Look, we're way too small to be considered any kind of good eating to a sand-worm like that—those things mostly eat tiny bug that live deep in the dunes out in the open sea anyway."

What?

"Sea?" The confusion grabbed you so quickly that there wasn't a moment to be concerned over the horrible way Vash had described such a monstrous thing—humans were too small? You narrow your eyes at him and tilt your head to the side. "What do you mean sea?"

He meets your confusion with some of his own, echoing the expression across your face.

"I mean... the open sand," he explains with a useless wave of his hand out towards the end of the gorge the two of you had entered from, where the sand dunes rolled on for miles upon miles. "No town for days, just dunes and stuff."

"That's...a desert."

Vash only looks more confused as you try to clarify his choice of words. It leaves you wondering if, perhaps, there's been a defined shift in what he means from your use of the language.

"A sea is a large body of water," you finally explain, uselessly trying to conjure up flashes of memories in your mind as if that would help you describe it perfectly into words he could connect with. "Like, huge. They're hundreds of miles wide at the smallest and deeper than anyone could ever swim. They have dolphins and whales and squids—"

"Are you sure you're not making some of those words up?" Vash asks with a chuckle, but you ignore him in favor of trying to finish your thoughts.

"—and we'd have huge ships that could sail across them, sometimes people would spend vacations on fancy cruises or— or scientists would find all sorts of new animals we never knew existed! They were huge and deep and filled with water and not sand—"

As your words turn less explanatory and more frantic, you swear that the world starts to shake just a little bit. Or maybe that's just you shaking, brain unable to wrap around the fact that this never-ending desert is not home, it's not Earth, and you are far, far away from anything even remotely familiar to you.

To this, Vash finally seems to take a step towards you, face empty of humor and instead filled with a look of soft concern.

"Hey hey hey—" his hands fall on your shoulders just hard enough that the pressure snaps your mind out of its whirlwind of worry. "Don't start thinking too much about it. I promise I don't think you're lying, not at all."

Your eyes meet his own for several long seconds. Even through the tint of his glasses, you can't help but feel comforted by the soft blue-green of the man's eyes, mirroring a perfectly clear sky and filled with an assurance so strong you couldn't help but feel calmed at least a little.

"...I miss it," the words gently mumble past your lips. "All of it. Earth."

"There's nothing wrong for someone to miss home," he whispers in return, soft tone nearly lost in the wind blowing through the gorge and whistling its lonely reminders. "And I'll do everything I can to make sure you go back to it, okay?"

Your face bounces with a nod after a few seconds, temporarily comforted from the anxiety biting at the edges of fragile thoughts.

"Please," you say, gentle and firm, "Don't make promises you can't keep."

Vash is silent for a moment. At first you think he's going to say nothing and merely change the subject or hurry the two of you to keep moving before the day turns too hot—but instead, the grip of his hands on your shoulders grow tight and hard, just short of uncomfortable.

"Don't worry." The words are simple, and there's a smile on his face. "I won't."

It's a painful, honest smile.

Guys, guys!!

Imagine like 4000 years later where human civilization developed or retreated I don't care it's not necessary.

Imagine if all sources of greek mythology vanished or died with the years, and as much as we depend on Homer's Iliad and Odyssey now people on the future find PERCY JACKSON and the other Rick Riordan serieses as the only source of mythological knowledge!!

They'd read the books and imagine that those are the gods we believe in now and they'd think that Percy and the other demigods are real,

And couple of millennia later, Rick Riordan's books were destroyed or lost so people only told the stories verbally for centuries,

And as stories go they got deformed!! Imagine people after so so many years thinking Percy and the other demigods are like super super heroes whom are like much stronger than your local demigods yet still below gods, and then further deformation happens!!

And people start to think that the demigods are the gods!!

Now please, imagine.... imagine!

Percy, god of the sea, water, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes and horses. (I can see him becoming the new king of the gods btw)

Jason, god of the sky, lightning and thunder, law and order.

Nico, god of death, shadows, ghosts and spirits. King of the underworld.

Annabeth, goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare.

Piper, goddess of love, pleasure, passion, procreation, fertility, beauty and desire.

Frank, god of war, violence, bloodshed and manly virtues.

Leo, god of fire, master blacksmith and craftsman of the gods; god of the forge, craftsmanship, invention and volcanoes.

Will, god of the sun, of light, prophecy, philosophy, archery, truth, inspiration, poetry, music, arts, manly beauty, medicine, healing, and plague.

Thalia, goddess of the hunt. the wilderness, virginity, the Moon, archery, childbirth, protection and plague.

And I'd like to add!!

Dakota, god of wine, the grapevine, fertility, festivity, ecstasy, madness and resurrection

Rachel, goddess of family and marriage, women and childbirth.

Hazel, goddess of earth and riches. Princess of the underworld and younger sister of Nico, King of the underworld.

Conner, god of traps, diplomacy, thieves, games and the guide of dead souls.

Travis, messenger of the gods; god of travel, commerce, communication, borders and eloquence.

Meg, Goddess of the harvest, fertility, agriculture, nature and the seasons.

Reyna, Goddess of the hearth, fire and of the right ordering of domesticity and the family, and also goddess of war.

Yes, they have 16 gods!!

I don't know what to name them but it has to be a cool name, like we got the Titans and the Olympians so it has to be cool.

Also imagine if like the Olympian gods we have now being translated to future generations as the bad guys (like how we have Kronos and Gaea now) and like the demigods gods (cuz I still don't know what to name them) are the forces of good that protect humanity, because they need humans to worship them of them to exist obviously.

So this generation of demigods gods are like nice gods for once!! They care for their children and the people under their wings!!

Best things as follows:

Percy, the god of the sea, is married to Annabeth, goddess of wisdom and war strategy.

Nico, god of death and the underworld, is married to Will, god of the sun and music.

Jason, god of the sky, is married to Leo, god of fire and crafts.

Frank, god of war, is married to Hazel, goddess of earth and riches.

Reyna, goddess of the hearth and war, is married to Thalia, goddess of the hunt.

Conner and Travis are the new twins and Rachel, goddess of family and marriage, is a sworn maiden because she wills her powers to maintain other relationships either between gods or between mortals.

Dakota on the other hand, doesn't like to be restrained as much as a mad person could go.

In this world there's nothing called being a maiden so as to be a hunter, bullshit I'm telling you, goddess Thalia herself is married.

Piper, the goddess of love and beauty knows best than to fall in love. Meg is one of the young gods, still closed in her bulb.

Also pffft, Thanatos who? I'm sure Nico can manage it all.

Another generation of demigods arise within no god is whoring around, the gods observe mortals and seek potential within them and when a god catches a mortal child leveling up to their preferences they claim them as a sort of blessing and take them under their wings.

The camps theme is surly still there, merged into one camp because one for some reason humans are less, and two because there's nothing called greek and roman gods anymore, only one version.

Demigods still go on quests, and as we know gods can't directly help them but they always make sure not to use mortals unless it's necessaity, and they try to help as much as they can.

I'd really love to live in a world like that! This post started off as a little imagine then quickly turned into world building, lol.

"Nature itself is neither good nor evil. It is amoral, meaning that there is no morality attached to it’s existence. Things live and die without consequence. The creation of the earth came from violent events like volcanoes, earthquakes, and asteroids.

Nature is wild, but it is neither cruel nor kind; it is what it is. What gives our lives meaning, however, is being able to understand the world around us and to find purpose. It is only through seeking to return to nature as a source of understanding we can understand ourselves and our place in this universe. It is through Satan that we find this understanding."

Satan as the Spirit of Wild Nature - Venus Satanas

Kelly O’Dell spent her first 25 years in Hawai’i, an island formed over a geological hotspot. “I grew up obsessed with my own mortality, right alongside rumbling earthquakes and gurgling volcanoes,” she says. “It is fascinating and devastating that our existence has so much impact on the delicate balance of life. I hope my artwork could serve as a reminder, or ‘memento’ of our borrowed time.”

Captivated by themes of origin, extinction, preservation, and conservation, Lopez Island-based artist Kelly O’Dell explores the ammonite’s elegant form through hot glass sculpture.

Tobirama matter of factly planning a temple of the Shikabane-hime in the middle of Konoha is SENDING me oh my god?? Is Shikako still born to Shikako and Yoshino in this universe? How does everyone react to maybe having a mortal incarnation of their patron deity growing up before their eyes? Wait does Shikabane-hime create the Garden during the Founding era. Is she also worshipped in Sand?? And not to hijack other anon’s prompt but the full saying is “by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes” so.. Jashin? Does Konoha have beef with Yugakure in this world? I LOVE THIS AU AAHH

First of all, Tobirama is a very clever lad: if a goddess is going to support their village built on the shakiest network of treaties and alliances, then he's going to take that support and use it as a foundation because otherwise all they have to go on is his older brother's charisma and that's NOT going to cut it long term. Also, he really is quite jealous that all Izuna had to do was look at Shikabane-hime to get a cool technique while he has to actually go through the scientific method WHILE ALSO DESIGNING THE VILLAGE.

I think Shikako looks enough like Yoshino that in this universe, they think it's the other way around--that Yoshino is, if not a mortal incarnation of their patron deity (because MAYBE Shikako is immortal in this universe due to the massive amounts of earnest worship actually working to make her a goddess even if she wasn't actually one in the beginning) then some kind of... goddess blessed? Like... this Konoha is so off the rails that there may be a separate order of priest/priestess-nin and Yoshino would be recruited for that.

And, like, I do like the Shikaku and Yoshino's love story, and it would be very sad if they didn't get together, so it's not that the priests/priestesses of the Shikabane-hime CAN'T fall in love and have families (and also, because Shikako is just like. Hey. As long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, the genders of said parties does not matter. Hooray marriage equality decades earlier)

Anyway, then if they do still have child Shikako, it could be a very... !!!! ... A Chosen One!!!! And then, THIS Shikako would be the "she who has divine right" version of Hokage!Shikako from my Hail To The Queen series... but that's maybe getting too self-referential?

I do think Shikabane-hime and Gelel create the Garden during the Founding era--because her arriving in each universe post-Split makes the Garden, if it hasn't already been made--so I would think that, yes, a version of her is also worshiped in Sand. But if she didn't stick around to make contact with the shinobi who would become the founders of Sand, they may know her by a different name? Like, in Land of Wind she is Gelel but in Land of Fire she is Shikabane-hime and it becomes a matter of, like, denominational differences.

Alternatively, rather than the Kazekage clan being called "Sabaku no" (of the Desert) perhaps they are called "Yokuchi no" (of the Oasis)? But I suppose that depends how early on in the timeline she is for Sand.

And finally… IS THAT WHERE THAT PHRASE COMES FROM? Oh my god, I'm so bad at identifying when prompts are references to things. It just goes right over my head T_T

I don't think Yugakure even exists long enough for Konoha to have beef with them. If one of Shikabane-hime/Gelel's early "miracles" DOESN'T include a divine smack down of Jashin, possibly erasing Yugakure--or possibly the whole of Land of Hot Water--from the map via volcano (I mean, hot springs are usually because of geothermals, and if she can make an earthquake she can probably make a volcanic eruption) then I don't know what counts as a miracle.

Coming Soon, Project Platina

Platina is a world of extremes. Around its equator, blistering temperatures abound, and blinding sunlight pierces through the dense clouds. Volcanoes erupt almost every rotation, choking the sky with ash for miles. The poles are frozen wastelands, covered with ice and snow. Earthquakes are a common occurrence, and the tides are extreme and highly variable.

And yet, despite its extremity, Platina's environment has given rise to countless forms of life, evolving and diversifying at a blistering pace. Despite Platina's relatively short existence, it is host to highly evolved lifeforms, driven to adapt by its unforgiving conditions.

This project will dive into Platina's past, present, and future. It will explore life on Platina, as well as some of the phenomena that make Platina such a unique world. I welcome criticism and advice, and I hope you enjoy learning more about the world of Platina.

So I just read this somewhere on LinkedIn, haven’t stopped crying. Why?

Because all of this is nonexistent in my country.

Because I recently lost an awesome job opportunity just because the managers were illogically clung to the idea of the position being 100% on-site, even if it wasn’t a customer facing one, and even if the office was located in an overly conflictive and dangerous area, and my working shift would end at 9 pm.

I told them my concern, and they chose to increase the base salary instead of changing their minds about switching to remote working. Even when this position was 100% remote in all other countries they have presence at.

Even when the recruiter and the director himself interviewed me from the comfort of their homes in Italy and Latvia at weird evening times.

And this is too stupid.

In all the jobs I’ve had so far, my colleagues from other countries always work remotely. My local team and I are the stupid ones who have to go to the office at least two or three times a week. It doesn’t matter which company it is, or what kind of position it is about. We always, ALWAYS have to go to an office.

This is particularly traumatic for me (yes, TRAUMATIC) in a city like this, located in the third world. One of the most chaotic cities on the planet, with the worst traffic and deficient, slow, and inadequate public transportation systems where a major disaster happens every year. Where you can spend two hours trying to cover a 10 km distance.

This is one of the dirtiest cities in the world, with the highest levels of environmental pollution, litter in the streets and broken sidewalks that, if you’re not careful enough, you can step on and fall to the ground or into an open sewer. This is one of the cities with the worst rates of violent crime on the streets, countless kidnappings, rapings and femicides, and rampant drug and people trafficking.

And natural disasters. Yes, we do have rainstorms, floods and winds for most part of the year, along with incoherent temperature changes. And.. overly strong earthquakes from time to time (7-8+ degrees of magnitude) that can happen as you’re commuting to the office in the middle of the traffic at peak hours, or as you’re packed like a sardine in the underground, or at the 15th floor in the office, or inside their elevator with 10 strangers around you. Plus, we have too many hurricanes from both ocean sides, and volcano ashes that worsen my asthma, for which is recommended to stay indoors.

Well.. for me, having to commute to an office every fucking day has turned my work life into a nightmare, into something tremendously traumatic, depressive and deteriorating. Even more so because of the need to force myself to socialize in office settings, wearing uncomfortable clothing that makes me feel like a clown, surrounded by people from a backward and poor culture where they only watch Televisa soap operas as kids. A culture of nosy and gossipy people who don’t respect personal space nor personal boundaries, people who excessively use physical contact in unnecessary ways.. who are envious, jealous, classist, racist, misogynistic, and terribly competitive. People who instead of valuing my strengths and helping me overcome my weaknesses, chooses to see me as a threat, as a rival that has to be put down and eliminated. People that come from a nepotistic culture of laziness who do everything half-heartedly and get everything in life by being either the boot-licker of the boss, or simply friends or family with someone with power and influence in the company.

So why does remote work hardly ever exist here? First, because of the local culture. People from this damn country don’t know how to exist without being surrounded by others. They don’t know how to be by themselves, nor how to work without being micromanaged and without gossiping against each other, like the telenovelas they watch. And second, because this is a petrol based country, where petrol extraction and supply is controlled by the government and therefore, they need to sell gasoline at all costs. Having a mostly remote national workforce would kill their fuel business, so they do everything they can to promote on-site work by hindering laws.

My life.. it would be totally different today if there were remote job opportunities in this shitty country. Having a remote job would have allowed me to move to a better country already, as a digital nomad.. a country that has a better infrastructure, better laws, better services, better geographical conditions, and most importantly.. a better culture.

So here it is.. the text from LinkedIn..

“Remote work does not mean Work from Home (WFH)

Remote work means Work from Anywhere (WFA)

Here are a few other things it means:

1) It means not being handcuffed to an expensive city with a high cost of living.

2) It means access to the best opportunities from where you live your best life.

3) It means flexibility to work when you are most productive, not a rigid 9-to-6 shift.

4) It means anywhere is your office: a cafe in Paris, co-working in Melbourne.

5) It means trust & responsibility, with a culture of accountability and initiative.

6) It means a greener lifestyle, reducing carbon footprint, eliminating useless commutes.

7) It means improving your health & well-being instead of 2H a day commuting.

8) It means being a global citizen: colleagues of different cultures & time zones.

9) It means not having to choose between a fulfilling career or life: you get both.

10) It means breakfast with your spouse before work & dinner with kids at night.

11) It means being there for a family member who is dying of an illnesses.

12) It means quick adaptation to new technology, staying ahead of digital trends.

13) It means focusing on results and outcomes that matter rather than clocking hours.

14) It means removing the stress and anxiety that can come with office senseless politics.

15) It means having your ideal work environment to foster your creativity & focus.

16) It means doing the best, most meaningful, impactful work of your life.

17) It means seeing your kids walk, laugh & talk for the first time.

18) It means creating a more inclusive and diverse workforce.

Actually, remote work is the future of living!

It's about upgrading quality of life for billions of workers & their families globally.”

The trail of the butterfly is as transient as our childhood memories. The earthquake of senses may hinder that growth if fear paralyzes the mind. The mind nests safely in the realm of beauty, and beauty is an awful mirage, and mirages are unholy, and unholy is a life devoid of passion and the blue of noons, and noon is the cross of time, and time is the blade we use to cut our stitched mouths, and mouths are venerable like dust, like air, like water, and water is poetry, so your thirst deepens… and hunger is magnified, and everything matters, and nothing does. The mania of the soul thunders, and the damage is done. The damage is irrevocable. On y fonce. You’ll spend the rest of your life yearning to yearn with progressing intensity for the unattainable, for the wholesome only found in the realm of God. That unity. That oneness. That immaculate art that beats and elevates all hearts. And yet vice never misses an opportunity to remind you of its feverish existence. A volcano yearning to erupt. You sympathize with its yearning. For you are a ‘yearner’ yourself. Subconsciously activated. Occultly dissipated. Repeated, oh repeated, ad nauseam. Insisting, glued everywhere, a pulsating wound, vibrant with life, leading to the symbiotic dance with existence. Your ego is a connoisseur of torture. Its skeletal hand travelling your spine. “Can’t I tear that wound asunder, and take a bit of my rotten flesh with it?” The entities’ petty glare answers no. The scornful mouths mouth unintelligible prophecies. You’ve ceased to believe in them since so so so long. The mouths disapprove of your choice of breaking free. You must swallow what you’re served. You are their guest of honor. Sit straight. You’re not allowed to have bewitching eyes, or else they’ll be gouged. ‘You are born to struggle’, say theirs, ‘never deal with internal muses, they’ll drive you mad. Don’t question your acts. Get yourself a dragon wearing a human uniform; let it destroy you. Ponder not. Fornicate with bodies instead of ideas. Indulge idiotically and frantically in the senses of the flesh without reasoning. Trust them blindly. Let that train crash. Resist not. Seek not the symbolism of Pierrot and Colombine. Do not enter the realm of the occult. The occult does not exist. Do not draw the link between sigils, digitals and Tahitian Voodoo symbols. Don’t write about the overflowing  boredom and endless luxuries. Jump from a pair of arms to another, it’ll only deepen your inferno. Your in-ferran. We made it real. We made you real. You’ll carve their names on your body to forget them, and you will forget them, but you will not forget the pain. For only divine arms can help you remember to forget properly, and these are prematurely killed. Innocence belongs elsewhere.’ “I am a poem in detritus. My ashes are my memorabilia. I am a memento.”

Perhaps that’s the apotheosis of existence, the ex-existence. The x-istence, and existence is tense. First, discovering the power of breathing, enjoying the freshness of the concept for a while, then craving company to celebrate the discovery and breathe doubly, deeper, until you realize you’re inhaling cyanide. If that’s not the paroxysm of self-deception, I don’t know what else would be. That desire to erase one’s imperfect footsteps. One’s charade. And losing control all the way. Not controlling one’s death. Little freaks orbiting around the unstable, desiring to pin it and preserve it for display. A butterfly pinning an illusive one.

X-istence | 08/09.06.23

Happy Storyteller Saturday! Are any of your characters themed after a certain fairytale or myth?

Ooh, good question! They're not based on any specific myth or specific story, but they've got fairytale and myth-like elements (like Aspen the forest spirit).

One sort of real-life tale/myth/idea/something(?) that inspired parts of The Stray Spirit specifically is the general concept of hidden truths within older stories that are largely dismissed as pure myth nowadays. A couple examples that come to mind, and apologies for not having more specific examples off the top of my head:

stories about gods that, when put into the context of their time periods and locations, describe real-life events, like volcanic eruptions or earthquakes

stories and songs about locations that only existed pre-Ice Age

disparate stories that actually connect to each other (ex: earthquakes in one part of the world causing tsunamis in the other part of the world, with both civilizations recording the event in different ways)

This is a common pattern in indigenous oral history. That example I mentioned above about pre-Ice Age locations? There are indigenous Australian oral histories that genuinely describe places that are now underwater, which means those stories are thousands of years old! Oh, and here, I found one about Hawaiian volcano narratives and how they describe real-life lava flows that align with our geological findings! They're just so cool!!

While The Stray Spirit doesn't actually align with these stories nor these communities, it does involve the general concept of a) stories describing a real-life event in an abstract way that people might overlook; b) songs containing important hidden messages; and c) those songs and stories being forgotten over time.

anyhoo, sorry for the rambling!! thanks for the ask!

a ribbon of something that popped into my head: when the Tree/Smith is telling the story of the Brothers & says that "balance is not two forces eternally fighting, it's an ecosystem" could that be taken as the narrative actively judging the Brothers for the role they ended up taking on in Remnant? by that I mean, being judged for viewing themselves as above all the other things on Remnant, for isolating themselves from the societies they created and not being A Part of Things. they weren't a part of remnant's ecosystem. never seeing themselves as owing these people anything. this adds a whole new layer to Dark being happy that someone was worshipping him. It wasn't Dark's choice to be that way. It was Light's. this was a fight they'd been having for eons. perhaps Dark obliterated humanity because he was tiring of that battle. imagine how exhausting it would be to have empathy for thousands, millions, and have someone in your ear telling you that they're worthless? if I had to listen to that for an innumerable amount of years I'd probably want them gone eventually too. just so I didn't have to suffer the pain. but he didn't destroy the Grimm. his creations. only the thing he and Light made together.

whatever new world the brothers went to next, I hope Dark's okay. this feels more and more like familial abuse on a cosmic scale by the day.

hey you know what’s really great and also hysterical. about ‘balance is an ecosystem.’

‘the two brothers’ describes the god of darkness as the creator of:

1. the moon.

2. mountains.

3. deserts.

4. storms.

5. volcanoes.

6. earthquakes.

7. the continents as they exist today (he breaks his brother’s supercontinent apart.)

light is vexed by all of this because he considers these things to be ruinous—he accuses dark of spoiling their creation.

but

it means

that the god of darkness created the tides. plate tectonics. weather. eco-diversity. ALL ESSENTIAL NATURAL PROCESSES WITHOUT WHICH LIFE AS WE KNOW IT LIKELY COULD NOT EXIST.

dark is the reason remnant is habitable, not by divine fiat but genuinely a habitable planet. if the mythical division of responsibility is accurate (and i’m inclined to think it is, because it’s written so strongly in light’s favor and if light saw any value in these things he would absolutely have claimed credit for them regardless of whether that was true), then that implies the god of darkness Deliberately redesigned remnant into a world that could survive and thrive without divine intervention.

the god of light made a world by fiat—a world like the ever after, which needed divine agents to tend it—and the god of darkness “spoiled” it. by remaking it into a world that DIDN’T NEED THEM. a world that could only exist in its natural equilibrium, not balanced by force or calculation.

dark understood the assignment. the tree guided the brothers to an empty canvas to learn the true meaning of balance. an ecosystem. a living breathing thing that cannot be planned, only found. light doesn’t get it—light still conceives of himself as the designer, the ruler, the arbiter of balance, and he hates his brother because his brother proved the lie.

what happens to afterans when they lose sight of their purpose? they go home. they ascend. they are renewed and become themselves anew. the tree left the door open for the brothers to return when they were ready.

dark made a world that did not need gods. he made humans and yearned for their attention; in ‘the two brothers’ humans are said to be dark’s favorite creation. he delights in them. and in the lost fable we see that desire playing out through his empathy for salem, his desire to reciprocate, and his cruel retaliation when light convinces him that she lied. and then that cruelty escalates far beyond what either brother could have imagined. dark slaughters humanity—the same tyrannical violence he refused to countenance for eons, destroying the creation he loved best.

does it not naturally follow that he would go home? return to the tree, reflect on his mistakes, and come back as something new? something closer to what he wanted to be when he was still himself, before he let his brother’s warped perspective twist his own?

something, perhaps, less powerful but a little closer to human?

in ‘the two brothers’ a lonely dragon divides himself into two warring halves. we now have hard confirmation that this is only myth, not the true origin of the brothers, and its relevancy to the narrative is purely symbolic.

there are also four very humanlike spirits chained up in those relics, and of the two we’ve met both of them palpably LOATHE ozma but delight in the ingenuity of other humans. and the grimm are drawn to the relics (“something to do with their origins”).

and the spirit of knowledge strains so hard against ozpin’s framing of the narrative that salem’s rightness shines through it like a goddamned lighthouse.

(also ‘gather these magical artifacts and combine them together to bring my dead loved one back to life’ is a pretty fucking standard fantasy grief-gone-wrong trope; if dark ascended and left light behind… like eternal conflict or no, they’re brothers. twins. they have always been together and—because destruction came first—light has never known existence without dark. what would it DO to him if dark ascended and he could not?)

This is an official lore dump of the celestial species au!

If you ask someone how these creatures came into this world, the most common answer would be 'seemingly out of nowhere'. That day would have been known as 'Sky Shining', where the ancestors to the modern celestials have traveled to earth and made its system go out of order such as rising sea levels, draining electricity, earthquakes and volcano eruptions being more frequent. Some even went as far as consuming radioactive material and repurposing that for something else. Humans would suffer greatly as a result with attacks becoming frequent... until it all stopped.

Of course, the humans would have to rebuild which would take many years to do, but the earth adjusted.

At least that's how the story goes, but the truth is much more messy and classified, though bringing the rare monsters that human scientists were studying in the monster's old world was intentional.

As the earth adjusted to the newcomers, they would slowly begin to evolve with the environment with time taking its course. Each monster has seemingly embodied an element and while humans are still trying to find what secrets they have while also making sure they are safe due to group hunting happening against the monsters when they became a vital part of the ecosystem themselves.

---

The monsters groups together are called the 'Celestials' from how stories described of them having powers that are beyond comprehension. Seemingly they are on top of the food chain and will fight each other for resources such as territory, food and strangely enough: human attention.

Many variants of the Celestials have occurred, some having more than others along with domestication of some of the species and are now man's new best friends.

It is still debated whether or not it is safe to let the monsters exist, for example: vhamps are known for their opportunistic nature in finding food, even if that means going to more... extreme measures. Or glaishurs being known as a danger to humans in general due to their bone breaking jaws, 'wild nature' and large size. Galvanas are also known for attacking humans out of nowhere. However these actions are linked to events with starvation, territorial protection and such.

Below are a list of the Celestial species. These ones are based on ones that were found in the wild.

Hornacle

Omnivores | 36 - 40 feet tall | 1,672.9 - 1,873.9 lbs

Furnoss

Carnivores | 30 feet tall | 1,371.3 Ibs

Glaishur

Carnivores | 35 feet tall | 1,622.6 Ibs

Blasoom

Herbivores | 20 - 28 feet tall | 868.6 - 1,270.7 Ibs

Syncopite

Omnivores | 29 feet tall | 1,371.3 Ibs

Vhamp

Omnivores (Scavenger leaning) | 20 feet tall | 1,119.9 Ibs

Galvana

Omnivores | 8 - 12 feet tall | 265.4 - 466.5 lbs

Scaratar

Omnivores (Herbivore leaning) | 8 - 12 feet tall | 375.9 - 628 lbs

Loodvigg

Carnivores | 30 feet tall | 1,500 Ibs

Torrt

Herbivores | 15 feet tall | 1,733.4 lbs (due to their shells)

Plixie

Omnivores | 5 - 8 feet tall | 94.7 lbs - 237.9 lbs

Attmoz

Omnivores | 10 - 35 feet tall | 366 - 1,452.5 lbs

If they are lab-made, they tend to be much larger than their wild counterparts. This is due to mistakes in their genetic code that allow them to fully maximize their growth at adult size.

[That is all for now! More things will be revealed in the future! Feel free to ask anything if you are curious!]