You’re a deity of something small and seemingly unimportant. You’re the first one the people stop praying and sacrificing to when things get dire. Oh, what fools they are.
…Fools, indeed.
For a long time, A small village praised me, claiming I brought good luck. That’s all. No more, no less. They chalked their good fortune up to good luck, and they chalked their good luck up to me. It was a quiet village, full of naught but elders, as well as their kin. Overall, I would wager that there was around 6 total bloodlines Inhabiting the village. The oldest nearing their final breaths, the youngest, no older than three or four years of age. You lose track of some numbers when you’ve been watching over a village for as long as I have.
Of course, a deity cannot protect a village forever, especially not one of luck and good fortune, such as I; or, that’s what they believed, anyways. And, sure enough, with their beliefs… they were right.
Destruction. Carnage. Livestock were carried away, buildings were destroyed. Luckily, everyone was safe… of course, they didn’t thank me for that. I’m naught but a minor god. A deity to be taken for granted, used for good luck in games of gambling between old adventurers and con men. So, as the town began to rebuild… people stopped coming to visit me. My once quaint altar became damaged and dilapidated by the weather. Fewer and fewer people came to pray to me, until one day, nobody came at all. It was a sad existence…
… oh, for me? No. I didn’t mind taking a small rest. Miserable, it was indeed, for the people of the village. Try as they might, their village had been taking beating after beating by the effects of the weather. And when it wasn’t, their crops would be burnt to a crisp by harsh draughts, leading them to spend their luckily earned money on fresh water and food from a neighbouring town. Some of the young adults went off to find adventure, to bring good fortune back to our town. Of course, they left the young in the care of the elders, though it oft felt the other way around. Elders, especially the able bodied ones, sending mere children out to the forest, just to find something to eat!
… okay, so perhaps I gifted the young a plentiful harvest of sweet berries once in awhile. Could you truly blame me?
Ah, apologies. I’m getting off track. In spite of doing everything they could, the village continued to be beat down by the environment surrounding them, and the people continued to forget as much as my name.
That was until rather recently, anyways… it had been a long time since I had heard the sound so close, yet it was unmistakable.
“Er… I’m unsure if you still reside here, or if you remember me.” Of course I do, I would say. Of course, mere mortals would always be unable to understand my voice. I am the whistling of the wind. I am the crickets chirping in the night.
“Ahaha… how crazy must I sound, praying to a god that hasn’t been heard of in ten years…” had it truly been that long? My dear, I had never forgotten your voice.
“Well!” Well. Well well well. That word rang through, as she accidentally said it just a little too loud. Of course I remember her. Just an orphan, she had told me. She would always bring a loaf of bread, and tear some off, handing it to me. My altar, anyways. She would talk, and talk, and talk. Never wishing for anyone. I always wondered why… perhaps she thought I was lonely. Still, there she stood, the same toothy grin on her face as all those years ago. Oh, how I longed to hear her voice once more. She was one of my favourites. She asked nothing but to listen, which I would so gladly do. I would hear tales of other children in the village, of a newcomer, of a shady looking salesman… of the village’s downfall. She was the last to inform me, as if I hadn’t seen it all happen in real time.
And yet… here she was, once again. Both of our names worn away to the other by time, leaving naught but a sense of familiarity. She sat down once more, in her same spot. It was a particularly hot day, so I allowed a breeze to momentarily cool her off. I’m unsure if she knows it was me. And, with no more than a moment’s notice, she began talking. Telling me stories of adventurers. Grandiose treasure. Ways the elders had made up to entertain the new younglings. It was… rather nice, I must admit. As if meeting with an old friend once more.
I lost count of how many hours had been spent. The young girl, now blossoming into a beautiful young lady, told me all sorts of stories. Of bravery, heroism. Stories of who was previously the young transforming into brave knights, working to restore honour to their accursed village. Nothing worked, but they still persisted, no matter what. It was admirable, if not a little foolish.
“…Deity of luck, if I could make one request, after all of these years?” Oh? This was certainly interesting… though, I suppose I could grant her one wish. One selfish desire, after all this time… not so bad. A few leaves fell from a tree, landing on her lap.
“Aha… I will take that as a yes. My only wish, Is that the young are taken care of. More and more parents are leaving to find glory, leaving their young children here, alone, to fend for themselves. I do not want them to want like I have. To starve like I have. Please, if nothing else… protect them. Ensure they always have enough to eat.”
…this girl. This… infuriatingly wonderful girl. The purest heart I have ever seen, in all my years of seeing over this village, and that’s what she asks? It made me laugh. My laugh boomed across the forest. The sound of a tree falling in the distance. Of course. I shouldn’t have expected anything less from this human. Still, I couldn’t disappoint my little… Ah, of course. I cannot remember her name. How unfortunate.
“…well, that’s all. I’ll come back tomorrow, okay? Promise!” She insisted to me, standing up once more, and taking her leave.
Sure enough… she did. Day after day. Occasionally, she would bring other children by. Ones who had been left without parents. The dangers of the trade, I suppose. Regardless, they would tell me stories as well, just as she had. Some were so clearly made up, I couldn’t help but reward their creativity with a plentiful berry harvest the next day. They didn’t question the food suddenly appearing, nor would they question the same bush not being there the next day.
Days, weeks, months passed. Soon, it wasn’t just the young coming by, and sharing their stories. I didn’t receive much in the way of offerings anymore, but I was okay with that. I received something much better. Stories. Words.
Hope.
And in some way, I like to think I granted the villagers Hope once more as well. No, the weather didn’t change much, not at first. What changed was how much work the villagers were willing to put in. No, it wasn’t me that granted them bountiful harvests, it never was. I was nothing more than something to believe in. A god of good luck and fortune. So of course, when all seemed lost, the village’s morale was crushed. They thought I had failed them, or maybe they had always thought I was only good for petty luck. A game of dice, a day off from schooling. However… I was no longer the god of luck. That name slowly faded away. The village slowly rebuilt, finding new and improved ways to work around the harsh conditions they found themselves in. And, of course, they would always come by and sit down. Tell me about what was going on, as if I didn’t already know. They even went as far as to have my monument rebuilt, more beautiful than it had ever been. True, people stopped praying to the god of good luck and fortune. They were fools.
Just as foolish as those who came to me every day, wasting hours away telling me about their lives. It was an admirable sort of foolishness, I had to admit. I enjoyed the company. I enjoyed meeting new travellers, whom the children insisted had to meet “their best friend”.
… no, I was no longer the god of fortune and luck. I had picked up several new names, however. The god of stories. The god of friendships. The god of bringing people together (that one was always a little wordy to me.), However, I think my favourite title, created by those fools, those wonderful, wonderful fools…
I was now known to be the god of community. And I would protect the community I had watched fall and rise once more, so long as they continued to recant me with their lovely tales.
ACAB, pro-kink, sex work is work, faggots and dykes and dykefags are my weed-smoking communist lovers, filth is my life, watch a fucked up movie, kill the puritanical cop in your head, and be excellent to each other
hey folks, things are more stable for us but due to having such a shitty month i am drowning in depression & anxiety. it’d be nice to buy smth nice for my mom & i to cheer us up bc we’ve been dealing with so much.
looking for $50 by November 8th, anything at all is much appreciated
heyyy it’s been a few days since i posted this, & not only have i not received anything i’m not rlly getting any reblogs either.
my anxiety & depression are only getting worse, i’ve been doing nothing but sleep bc existing is so hard for me rn. pls consider helping me out if u can, this month has sucked & i just wanna make it a little better
On second thought, Wizard Island sounds like it’s for the kind of people who enjoy watching golf on TV. And like, regular golf not the one where there’s wolves and Tigers and the golfers are allowed to fight to the death.
Y'all. Roman Polytheism was not woke and socially progressive.
Neither was Greek Polytheism, mind you. Alexander the Great didn’t get that title by leaving people alone.
If I’m conquering your country, I can murder all your priests, or I can save some time and money and syncretize your sun god with my sun god. Wow crazy how we both worship Apollo even though we’ve never met? What do you mean his name isn’t Apollo? His name is Apollo. You’re Roman now by the way. You can keep worshiping your version of Apollo but if you stop paying taxes we kill you.
what does it say about us as a culture that most of our microwaves have a dedicated popcorn button
i dont know but whatever it says, its magnified by literally every bag of popcorn saying “don’t use the popcorn button”
Funnily enough, there’s an answer for that.
In brief, the “popcorn” button was initially introduced by fancy high-end microwaves that used an integrated humidity sensor to tell when your popcorn was done; microwaveable popcorn vents steam as it cooks, so by monitoring the amount of steam in the cooking chamber, you can get pretty close to perfectly popped popcorn every time (though it’s generally only pretty close, since different brands of microwaveable popcorn have different moisture content).
As the feature became popular, manufacturers of cheap microwaves started adding a button labelled “popcorn” as well, in order to imply that they offer this feature. These “popcorn” buttons simply run the microwave for a fixed amount of time that the manufacturer figures is close enough to the printed cooking time of most commercial brands.
In practice, of course, the fixed-time “popcorn” button usually just sets your popcorn on fire. To make matters worse, owing to America’s permissive advertising laws, microwave manufacturers are allowed to make all sorts of misleading-but-technically-true statements in their packaging and instruction manuals, rendering it nearly impossible to tell whether a given model of microwave has a real humidity-sensing “popcorn” button or a fake fixed-time “popcorn” button before buying it.
In summary: the “popcorn” button that your microwave popcorn instructs you not to use exists because American microwave manufacturers are using a misleadingly labelled button in order to imply that their product has a feature that it does not in fact have, in a way that can potentially trick people into burning their houses down, for advertising purposes. This is perfectly legal.
Years ago back when I worked in cubicle land, we were hiring junior software developers. They didn’t have to have a ton of experience, just a willingness to learn, and some demonstration of their software skills. Like: show me a program you wrote (any language) or a web site you designed. Anything.
And there was this one guy I talked with who seemed super sharp, but had virtually zero experience writing software. When it came time to do the show-n-tell part of the interview he whips out his laptop, brings up a website, and spins it around to show me what he made.
A website of tiny ceramic frogs.
Not for sale. Just… all these ceramic frogs, organized into categories. Frogs on bicycles, frogs with hats, frogs sitting on lily pads. It was a virtual museum of ceramic frogs in web form.
I scrolled through his online collection of frogs, slightly baffled.
“This is your website?” I asked finally.
“Yep!”
“You coded this yourself?” I popped into view-source mode and poked around some incredibly well-formatted, well-commented html. I nodded slowly. This guy was meticulous.
“Yep!”
“So… where’d all the frogs come from?”
“I made those too,” he says, beaming.
And while I’m processing this he rummages in his bag and pulls out a little ceramic frog working at a computer terminal. He places it on the table before us, next to the laptop.
“And THIS one,” he says, “I made for you! As a thank you for the interview.”
It was adorable. I hired him on the spot. I mean, why not? Worst case he’d wash out in 90 days and we’d hire somebody else. He turned out to be one of the best developers on our team.
And yes, his cubicle was loaded with ceramic frogs.
It’s that time of the year where police departments start warning everyone about “drugs disguised as candy” for Halloween!
And while everyone’s reaction is usually “haha they’re so stupid lol!!” Let’s not forget that this is one of the ways they transparently demonize addicts in order to keep the populace convinced that they are evil, horrible people that deserve to be locked up. They know that citizens will eventually start thinking “hey, they’re really only hurting themselves, shouldn’t they get help instead of being punished?” so in order to keep everyone comfortable with criminalizing drug addiction, they spread the idea that addicts have a secret agenda to turn EVERYONE into addicts, so they just *NEED* to keep them locked up.
“They’re coming after our children! They’re trying to turn our children into _____!” (Does that sound familiar?)
We need to go harder at humiliating these fuckers every year they keep trying to spread this bullshit.
[Photo ID - text that reads, “With Halloween fast approaching, please watch out for these. They look like sweet tarts, skittles or some may look like bubble gum. They are called Rainbow or Skittles Fentanyl and can be deadly. They can also be disguised as other favorite candies. Please pay close attention to your child’s candy especially at Trick-or-Treat time.” An image of brightly-colored pill tablets is posted beneath the text. /End ID]
News articles debunking the “Rainbow Fentanyl” myth below the cut
discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year
EDIT: AS IN LINKING TO STUFF ISN’T GOING TO WORK. YOU CAN’T USE IT TO PERMANENTLY EMBED IMAGES IN AO3 OR TOYHOUSE OR WHAT HAVE YOU. THE LINKS THEMSELVES WILL EXPIRE AFTER 24 HOURS, BUT YOUR FILES AREN’T GOING TO BE DELETED FROM YOUR SERVERS
if you haven’t noticed, copying a link for a file now appends special parameters to the end. these are a request signature, which indicates a specific request for that file. this request will expires after a few hours, so files will no longer be permanently available through a specific url.
while they are not currently necessary to view the file, they will be by the end of the year, assuming nothing changes.
please check that any websites you rely on are not hosting files through cdn.discordapp.com, and if they are, please archive those files through the IA using web.archive.org/save
thank you for your time
The fact that people have been using Discord of all things to host their images is just so wild to me, especially when stuff like OP mentioned is inevitable.
found the artist’s name in the notes and went looking because this slaps (it’s called A Place Where I’ll Dance) and its not even their best song. check this shit out:
I didn’t know this was a thing but now I need so much more of it
You shouldn’t date or become serious friends/partners with someone if you can’t stomach the thought of being stuck in a car or train with them for 16 hours.
Here’s my logic:
You should be able to work together to solve unexpected problems like fixing a flat tire or getting lost in an unfamiliar station
You should feel comfortable and safe enough around this person that you can sit in comfortable silence
You should be able to keep each other interested and deal with each others boredom in a healthy way
If you’re gonna form a long term partnership with someone you should probably be able to tolerate each other while locked in a small box for a few hours
These tags are hilarious even though I don’t think you intended them to be.
*pulls European closer* The most populous countries in the world are China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Brazil in that order, with these seven nations alone making up 48.16% of the world population. You may note with the aid of a map that many of these nations are quite large, and would take several days of travel to go across either in cars or on boats. Almost half of the world’s population lives in places where you can travel in a cramped vehicle for days and still be within the country. Your worldview is limited and Europe is a tiny outlier in travel time and standards for international relations.
one of the most important things, perhaps the most important thing I have learned in my life is that nice people can fuck each other up in monstrous ways. people can be bone deep kind and loving and self reflective and still lash out under pressure. people can be earnestly neighbourly and charitable and hospitable and generous and still find themselves in situations where they become selfish. people can be well meaning and easygoing and gregarious and hold deep seated opinions that turn them into vicious little bullies under the right conditions. nobody is just one thing, and nobody stays one way. every person is a kaleidoscope and they will surprise you. you will surprise yourself. it’s not a warning and it’s not a judgement and it’s not an excuse, and it’s certainly not a reason to stop trying or to stop trusting. it is just a fact.
i learned that there’s a Japanese beetle that when eaten by a frog will haul ass through its digestive system and escape out the back end unscathed (x)
“I can never get it tasting like my mom used to make” yeah, because your mom had a giant Costco-size bottle of a specific pre-mixed spice blend that was discontinued by its manufacturer in 1998 and spent your entire childhood putting it in every meal to use the stupid thing up faster – she doesn’t know how to replicate it any more than you do.
I think it’s possible to play a tabletop character who truly sucks as a person and that it’s possible to play a tabletop character who’s very aloof but it’s extremely hard to successfully play both of those in the same character. a character who’s a total bastard and ALSO pushes people away gives everyone else both very little to work with and also very little reason to want to. if you’re committed to playing an asswipe in a collaborative game they need to be a little bit hopelessly codependent, be it on the party or on elements of the plot. they need to have some ‘the gang from always sunny’ energy to them. you need to be prepared to get kind of crony with it. to swallow ur dignity a bit.
well biden wasnt our first choice but at least he protected abortio-ahhh. well at least student loans are forgi-uhhh. At least he doesn’t support endless war in the middle-ahh. damn. at least hes old.
it fucking sucks how you can do all the therapy and self healing in the world and you still have to wake up living under a capitalist death cult that’s killed community and crushes your soul
don’t care if i haven’t read about your ocs. don’t care if i don’t know them by name. i still love them because you’ve put your heart and soul into creating them and that’s beautiful
i think it is precious to see writers lovingly rant about their characters, regardless if others know about them or not. please be unapologetically loud about your ocs
ALT
