#smaointe

but also the thing about jason kinda sensing leo is wild (referring to the situation where leo is left in wilderness), it has a bit of canon basis too 🤔 jason could see like, magical air trails to guide him, and some point he felt he was drawn to thalia as well 🤔 there might be some other things but hmm

YEAH?????

if piper was all alone and leo and jason had to go find her to complete the quest, their quest would have been danger around every corner, since she played a pivotal role in keeping them alive and enemies at bay (khione and medea especially) and it would have been significantly harder. and if piper wasn't on the quest, they still would have needed a third person (rule of three and all) which would have been. hmm 🤔. she also was pretty calm and calculative in her plans, while jason seemed to boil down to "ask to stop, if no, lighting strike" and leo was "run away, build something, see if it works".

currently imaging a quest with leo and jason and alternating between their quest and piper's solo quest for them to meet up and free her dad (and later hera). and a jason and leo quest would have been so good for them to develope and. be dudes. on a dragon. who are dudes in love.

and while it would have been difficult to incorporate piper's development, you could do something like she's connected to her boys too, or maybe even her meeting someone else while she's looking for leo and jason, and her dad (thalia maybe? meets with the hunters and they find each other on the mountain? maybe even reyna? who's on her own quest to find jason grace). and while I think piper's development should be tied in with her finding a place with leo and jason, she should be able to find her own way and how she feels about herself on her own, and a solo quest would have been cool.

and help help I've always imagined that leo and jason could sense each other by like, exactly what u described and I know that's me just going "valgrace hehehe grabbyhands" but. jason and piper going on a quest while jason feels this connection to this guy he never met but he knows he needs to find because he's his destiny. and that they're fated to help each other in the war to come, and they won't be able to kill gaia or even leave the country without him.

Ní thuigim, corr uair, cé chomh mhór is atá an domhain nuar atá mé istigh ann, agus mé ag beo mo saol. Tá a fhios agam ar mo cheantar beag féin - na binne, an fharraige, na bóithre agus na pollanna na luí istigh iontu. Agus tá sé furasta tú féin a cailleadh in san gnáth-lá. Dearmad a dhéanamh nach creatlach beag neamhthábhachtach thú in san scéal iomlán. Gheobhaidh mé bás cosúil leis na mílte roimh mé, cuirfear siad mé in uaigh fuar a fásfadh bláthanna os comhar ma tá an t-ádh orm.

Agus is iad smaointe cosúil le sin a cuireann drochspion orm, a déannan sé deacair eirigh ar maidineacha fuara agus m’éide a tharraing orm. Go hairithe san gheimhridh, leis a chuid solais ildaite agus an spraoi atá in ainm an t-séasur. Agus ní mhóthaím rud ar bith, rud ar bith in aon chor, tá sé chomh uaigneach agus cuireann mé isteach ar achan duine thart orm. 

Ach fosta, tá laethanta sa tsamhraidh nuair a bíonn an ghrian ag taitneamh síos ar an talamh (“ag scoilteadh na gcloch”, mar a dhúirt mo mhúinteoir i Rang i Cúig). Tá cuma glé-gheal ar an domhain - tá an glas den féar i measc na purtanna níos gear, an uisce san fharraige níós spleodrach. Iad sin na laethanta a mairfeann son. 

When I was a teenager my father was disdainful of my ‘online friendships’, said you can’t make real friends in a ‘fake environment’. I argued against this strongly, like - do you need to SMELL someone to befriend them?

I have friends scattered around the world, some I met in person and some I met online. Those relationships are all REAL. They are mutual. They are love.

But there are also online spaces for less genuine connection. there are organisations and individuals extracting huge power and profit from feeding that relaionship hunger, from giving people an artificial sense of community and belonging. Like how drugs cheat our dopamine circuits.

Because humans are lonlier than ever. Evn before the current plague, the average person has a smaller social circle and fewer friends rn than like, any time we have the ability to measure. We are so alienatied from people in ‘meat space.’

If you live in a settlement bigger than 5000 people and your material needs are met through the long arm of global trade then you don’t NEED to maintain a relationship with like, the slightly annoying person down the road who sells you eggs.

But you chat with the till worker at the ALDI where you get your eggs don’t you? is that real? My sister works in an ALDI and she likes chatting with customers. My sister lives in a small enough town that she recognises many of her customers. They chat. Some of them she likes. Some she hates. She has to chat with them all the same.

Would the egg farmer do the same? Make pleasant small talk with a customer? Are those relationships real? Even if you don’t LOVE the egg farmer, the aldi worker, at what point does the web of common connections become a community? At what point do you feel sufficiently connected, secure?

Your relationship with your favourite youtuber is obviously not real. not mutual. not love, not community. Even if your favourite show to watch is a twitch stream of people playing video games together. Even if they answer a question you send in, they’re just the aldi worker who knows they have to smile at a customer.

That is not real, mutual, community. But you can build a community with the other people discussing the favourite youtuber? That’s fandom! That’s definitely a real community. It’s just a community with a vampire at the centre I guess?

If you follow a blog, and you think the tags they post on things are cool. And you wish you could be friends with them. And you send a message one day, after all this pining. they don’t recognise you! they didn’t even follow you! But they respond. you guys chat a little. you send each other posts. They like your posts and you like theirs back. When did that relationship become real? Was there a point of half real?

What if they answer your ask publicly. So their response is half performative. But you are in the same community, the same space.

Because power is always an issue. and performance is an issue. the manufactured authenticity of internet celebrities is particularly troublesome. the self marketing of everyone on social media is particularly troublesome. but every self is performed. And connection is still possible. but not in front of that big imaginary potential audience.  No wonder we’re lonlier than ever before.