The Odyssey but retold as a low-stakes modern adventure of one guy out with his girlfriend leaving the bar with his buddies to do just one (1) simple thing real quick, it'll take like 15 minutes tops, he'll be right back, but then some bullshit happens and the trip keeps getting more complicated as more bullshit keeps happening while he just tries to get back to the bar because he promised his girlfriend that he'd get back and he knows that she's still there because she told him she'd wait there.
And by the time he finally gets back it's almost 3 am and the bar is about to close while she's sitting there stone cold sober, surrounded by 5 drunk guys unsuccessfully trying to convince her to give up on waiting for him and go home with one of them instead. And the guy shows up to proceed to beat the shit out of them before explaining himself to her like hey sorry bullshit kept happening, my phone fell into a storm drain and my wallet got stolen when I was trying to find someone who'd borrow me a phone so I could call and
His girlfriend had been fending off the 5 drunk guys for most of the evening by explaining that even if she was going to ditch her boyfriend, she can't possibly leave without finishing her beer, which she is keeping perpetually full via careful sleight of hand where she's just pouring it back and forth into and out of the pitcher.
However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.
That buys her another hour or so and then, finally, her boyfriend makes it back. He looks like shit, hair down and just a mess, he's wearing an entirely different jacket that he got from an alley, and barely recognizable—especially to 5 guys who've been drunk for hours now. He lurks for a minute, finds out what's going on, and proceeds to pull off the trick shot first try. Throws the jacket off, fixes his hair with a hair tie his girlfriend lends him, finally looks like himself again, and THEN beats the shit out of them with the pool cue.
project hail mary is like i'll make you believe that friendship will save the world. i'll make you remember that our society rests on the backs of teachers and scientists. i'll make you see that even the most cowardly can be brave. i'll make you horny for sandra huller. thank you greatest scifi film of the last 10 years
Eva Stratt does NOT need a redemption arc. Eva Stratt did EVERYTHING WRONG so that no-one else would have to. Her hands are permanently stained with blood so humanity gets to keep on living.
So I just simultaneously did, and possibly didn't lose my job today :)
Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.
So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.
But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.
It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?
So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:
Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.
And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.
So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".
So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.
I don't know what else to say aside from I've been laughing all day and I'm gonna have a hell of a time explaining Schrodinger's Unemployment to the benefits office.
Update that is not an update because I'm basically certain this isn't what actually happened:
My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.
Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.
Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.
Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).
Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues
(also shout out to the person who proposed Carmen Sandiego)
According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.
Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.
For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.
So now I'm officially out of a job. Because my workplace was literally stolen in the night.
Actually fuck it let's share some photos cause I wouldn't be inclined to believe this myself. It's not like anyone can stalk me at my job now and I'm not gonna have to see any coworkers that might find my tumblr.
Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life
Aaand a close-up:
The last remains of a once Very Much Solid And Immobile Workplace
The boulder pushing punishment is iconic. But I think more people should know the reason Sisyphus was punished to begin with, which was for cheating death, twice.
The first time he cheated death, Sisyphus had just angered Zeus by revealing the location of the Asopid Aegina whom Zeus abducted. Which is super valid, fuck Zeus.
Sisyphus knew that Zeus would send the god of death Thanatos after him, so he prepared a trap and trapped Thanatos in the chains meant for him.
After that, nothing on Earth was able to die so long as Thanatos was in chains. Which meant no animals could be sacrificed to the gods. This angered the gods, who made Sisyphus' life so miserable with pain and illness that he would beg for death. And so he released Thanatos.
But then came the second time Sisyphus cheated death. As he was dying, he asked his wife to dump his naked corpse in the middle of the public square. Denied a proper burial, his soul ended up on the far side of the river Styx, unable to cross.
He complained to Hades and Persephone about how his wife disrespected him, and begged them to let him return briefly to the world of the living to scold her and make her bury him properly. They agreed, and Sisyphus returned to life. He then embraced his wife, and refused to return to the Underworld.
It's only when he finally died of old age that he was sent to Tartarus and punished with the boulder.
I don't remember where I've seen it, but I like the interpretation that Sisyphus doesn't have to push the boulder. He can choose to stay in Tartarus and rest. But he was promised that if he managed to push the boulder to the top of the mountain, he'll ascend to Elysium.
And Sisyphus, in his stubbornness and cleverness, refuses to give up on a challenge.
One must indeed imagine Sisyphus happy, planning and scheming about how he'll cheat the gods next.
A fantasy story about a literal rules lawyer who has to represent their customers in magical court cases before the almighty deity that is "the Game Master"
"Your honor, my client's curse should not be triggered at this moment. The words of the curse specify that he is to be transformed 'after sundown', and as the sun does not 'come down' for six months in Antarctica..."
Wizards live in towers, Princesses are kept captive in towers. You, a mage of wandering interests, come back to find half your towers upper floors occupied by a bored young woman. There are worse ways to find an apprentice.
She screams, so then you scream, so then she screams again, and your familiar jumps off your shoulder and runs away.
"I didn't think wizards were the, um. Screaming type," she says afterwards, when you've magicked up two cups of tea.
"Well," you say, "Well. Um. Maybe not most of them, no."
She blinks at you. You look down at yourself and realize you haven't even cast a hair-cleaning spell in a month, let alone actually washed anything, and you're wearing your travel clothes (aka pajamas). You quickly look back up so you don't come off as self-conscious.
"...I see," she says.
The cat is still sulking.
---
The way the curse works- she explains- is straightforward. Her father the King was getting antsy about only having a girl, and demanded help from the Fae to secure his line. They decided it was only fair that if they gave him power of one kind, they'd take away power of another.
"...So now you're in my house?"
She blinks again. "He's not allowed to marry me out," she says, a little slowly. Like what she's saying is obvious.
"Oh." You pause. She pauses. "So... now you're in my house."
"We didn't know it was your house," she grimaces.
But why are you in it? you think to yourself, but she clearly thinks it's obvious, so you keep your mouth shut.
"Well- it looked abandoned!" she cries out suddenly, making you jump. "There aren't very many abandoned towers around here, you know! And the other ones we checked out were- open to the elements, or- they had mold! He wasn't going to put me in a tower like that!"
"Well, yes," you say, "I have enchantments for that."
She buries her face in her hands.
---
After you've washed your- everything- and slept for at least 12 hours, the whole situation feels a lot more manageable. You find her on the penultimate floor, sitting with a glum expression at the table where you both had tea.
"Hello. Would you like breakfast?"
"It's well past noon," she says, then makes a face like she just ate a lemon. "Sorry. That was rude. I've been alone for like six months in here. Um, yes, that would be lovely."
As you touch the stones to unfold the kitchen and start the fire, she stares at you, her eyes getting wider and wider. By the time you've got the quickbread baking, and open the cellar to access your frozen sausages, her jaw has dropped.
"Er," you say, hands full of rapidly thawing meat. "It's all perfectly safe. It's kept in stasis, see, and-"
"Was that there the whole time?" she gasps, voice cracking.
You take a moment to figure out how to answer that in layperson's terms. "Well, sort of? It's in stasis, so. It's 'there' in the sense that you can access it. But it's not 'there' in the sense that. Mmm." You place sausages in the pan and raise your voice against the sizzling of hot oil. "It's cold in there because it's not on the plane that you and I-"
"The kitchen's not cold," she interrupts.
"Oh. No, the kitchen was just folded away. The cellar-"
"Folded away?"
You blink at her. She blinks back.
"...how have you been eating?"
"Basket and rope through the window. My father pays some of the peasants to cook for me."
"Sounds... elaborate." You poke at the sausages but it's too early to flip them. Then you realize: "Did you ever figure out how to unfold my water closet?"
She colors scarlet. "Chamber pot," she mutters.
---
"If you don't mind me asking... Why were you in the astronomy room?" you say, taking the plates away. "I, um. I was planning on fixing the telescope when I got back. So for right now it's just a long climb with nothing to do."
She heaves a long sigh. "I don't know. There was nothing to do anywhere. I was just looking from the highest point I could. It makes all the villages look like toys."
"Oh." You frown. "I hope you'll be happier with the rooms unfolded. I just didn't want them to gather dust while I was away."
She tilts her head, leaning in. "How long have you been away? We checked this tower a few months before I moved in, so it's been at least three seasons, right?"
You bite the inside of your cheek. "I... don't remember."
"You don't remember?"
"I wasn't on this plane very much. It's easy to lose track of how time flows here." You shrug sheepishly. "Long enough for a princess to move in, I guess?"
She looks sheepish too. "I am sorry about that. We'll find me a different tower."
"Oh, um... no, it's fine... I mean. I'm sure you looked at all the options available to you. I wouldn't want you to have to live in. Mold."
"But I'm in your house!"
"It's a lot of house?"
She stares at you. You would maybe describe her look as 'incredulous'. "You're... a wizard. Wizards live in towers. Because they're solitary and proud creatures."
You wince. "That is what they say, yes."
"I'm going to be honest, you don't seem very... 'proud'. I don't mean that as an insult!" she says, waving her hands. "I'm sure you are proud of things you've- done- or- you just don't seem. Arrogant?" She looks at you apologetically.
"It's just the easiest shape," you explain.
"What?"
"To create. With magic."
"...A tower?"
"Yes. Up is easier." Your hands go up to sketch incantation shapes in the air before you realize what you're doing and drop them again. "Boxes are easier to build, but towers are easiest to cast."
"...Why?"
"I could explain but it would take a while."
She huffs, then covers her face with her hands again. It takes you a second to realize that she's laughing.
"I'm sorry?" you say reflexively.
She keeps laughing. The cat steals the last sausage out of the pan and runs back downstairs with it.
---
You open up the kitchen, the sitting room and fireplace, the library, the water closet, the bathing room, the guest bedroom (she had been sleeping on the floor- with a mattress and blankets and pillows, of course, but still) and the study and laboratory, which you warn her not to touch without supervision. She nods, wide-eyed, and asks questions about how it all works and which stones to touch, which you try to explain, but it just leads to more questions.
You realize halfway through an explanation of location runes that: "Wait! Oh, I'm sorry, I should have asked what your preference is. I just set it up the way I normally do."
"You're saying something I don't understand again," she says, but she makes it sound friendly.
"Er- well- if you're living here, you should get a say in how the rooms are arranged?"
Her brows furrow. "You can rearrange the rooms?"
"Of course you can. You're just unfolding them, after all."
She squeezes her eyes shut like she's working through a tough problem. "You... can unfold them... to different rooms?"
"Yes?"
She stays like that for a moment, her entire face scrunched as she works through whatever puzzle she's stuck on. Then she suddenly grins, eyes open wide and sparkling, staring directly at you.
"I want to learn all of this," she says.
"Oh!" you say. "Okay. I mean, you should know it anyways, if you're going to be living-"
"No! Like- I want to learn all of this," she says, sweeping her hands to encompass the runes. "All of the- the folding, and..."
"You mean. You want to learn magic?"
"Yes!" She nods several times for emphasis. "I mean! This is the best thing I've ever heard in my life. You can rearrange the rooms?"
Privately, you think that's a fairly minor magical trick to get excited over, but- it is practical. "That's excellent! Really. I mean, I can't recommend it enough. Magic is the best thing in the world."
"It really is! It must be!" She nods, still staring at you, and grabs at your hand- you avoid flinching- and starts pumping it, like a massive handshake. "When can I start? Today? Right now?"
"Start?"
She takes a second to hear this, then freezes mid-pump. Her smile looks a little pasted on; manic. "As your apprentice."
"Oh. Oh. Oh! Um."
"I'm so sorry. I assumed, didn't I." She releases your arm and takes a step back. "You didn't say-"
"Oh, um, no, well, it's just. Well." You wring your hands. "I've never had an apprentice before. So I might not be very good at it?"
"Nonsense!" She looks back at you and you can feel a kind of desperate hope emanating from her. "You've been explaining all this stuff really well! I mean- it's a lot- but I feel like I'm getting it. We can figure it out."
The vote of confidence is unexpected, and warming. But, also: "Will it interfere with the. Your curse?"
She snorts and cocks an eyebrow. "Is your goal to try and marry me to combine our political powers?"
"No!" You bring your hands up and shake your head firmly. "No, no, no, no. Definitely not."
"Then no, it won't have any problem with that." She exhales and smiles half-heartedly. "It would be pretty funny if locking me in a tower resulted in me getting into a powerful marriage, instead of hiding me from one."
Now you're the one furrowing your brow. "Are you in here just to. Hide? From potentially getting married?"
She shrugs. "Basically. And a tower is traditional."
"...Traditional?"
"Well. Princesses in towers. It's a thing." She shrugs again. "You know."
"I really don't??"
---
The cat hops from the top of the wingback reading chair into the Princess's lap, interrupting her attempts at reading your old copy of Basic Wizardry Primer 1 from your own apprenticeship. (You magicked all the handwritten answers out.) She rolls her eyes and starts petting him, leaving the book aside.
You've spent yesterday and today unpacking your old books, preparing for continuing on your knowledge to the next generation. Your first apprentice! You knew it would happen some day, but...
Well. Much as you'd like to say 'you didn't expect it like this': Serendipity has power. You can't say no to a confluence like this.
That being said, you realize you have two burningly important questions to ask your new apprentice, and you've spent the past hour trying to figure out how to ask them.
"You're looking at me like I've got something on my face," she says suddenly. "I'm bothering you, aren't I? Should I give you more space?"
"Oh- no! No, it's not that. It's. Um. Well." No better chance than this. "I wanted to ask you. Something."
She nods.
"Some things. Plural."
She nods again, looking a little more concerned.
You pause.
She raises a hand from the cat's fur to make a motion like, go on...?
"Do you. Are you hoping that... this training will help you break your curse?" You frown and look down at your hands. "I know- um. There's probably more to it than just being locked in a tower. I don't mean to pry, but."
She sighs. When you look up, she's looking down at the cat. "I did think about that." She thinks a moment, then shrugs and looks up. "It would be nice, but it's not really my main goal, I guess. Magic just looks fun? Plus. I was never very good at being at court. It's so hard to not just say stuff. You know?"
You don't know but you nod with hopefully appropriate levels of sympathy.
"So... yeah. Now I just want to do magic, I think. At least for now. The curse is- it's not a big deal. How hard can it be to not get married?" She quirks a smile.
You exhale slowly. "I'm glad. Um... I ask because. You should know that we probably won't be able to break it. At least not with the magic I can teach you. Fae magic is..." you suck air through your teeth, "tricky."
She takes that in and nods solemnly, focusing on petting the cat and avoiding your eyes.
You don't know what the consequence for getting married would be, but based on what you've heard of Fae curses, it definitely will not be good. No one would enjoy having something like that hanging over them, especially when the terms were as vague as 'marriage' and 'powerful'; who knew how the Fae defined marriage and power?
"You said you had multiple questions," she says, breaking you out of imagining various horrific curses triggering on technicality. "What's the next one?"
You look up at her and bite the inside of your cheek. You hate asking this, but it's really unavoidable here.
"So, uh. What's your name?"
She stares at you.
"I. I never got the chance to ask."
She blinks.
You start to sweat. "This happened sort of quickly, so-"
"I am the Princess of the kingdom in which you reside," she says. "You have to know my name."
prguitarman
theartofmadeline
janainaart
titsay
stormborns
germansingergirl
baratheonpilled
dededos
romaincrisis
yousharknotpass
izzy806
