#this was not gay. BUT there IS an Actual Gay Moment that i want to illustrate

[deafmangoes]

One of very few actual moments of transphobia I've faced IRL was at a new workplace whets one of the older ladies was wary of me (the other embraced me immediately, so amusing contrast). She said nothing until we happened to end up in the ladies' loos at the same time - I sensed her discomfort and let her know that I was happy to answer any questions she had. I wasn't brusque or defensive, just open.

What followed was around an hour of her asking about why I'd want to transition, what it meant, comparing it to her own, gay, brother. By the end of the day she had come to fully accept me as a woman and had no further qualms about it, even getting quite defensive of me to others.

Yes, I've faced worse and had people much less open to changing their minds, but I try to remember that most people are just curious and a touch ignorant. It really is rare to find an actual, vocal transphobe, at least in my experience. Obviously, does very from place to place.

[canmom]

i'm actually not as doomer about all this as it's funny to pretend for the joakes. compared to similar moments in modern history (weimar germany, 70s usa etc.) when the going seemed to be getting good for us homos and gender weirdos and then got very bad indeed, there are a whole lot more of us, there is a whole lot more widespread consciousness of being gay/trans/whatever shit as a thing, and we are more used to looking after each other.

even in the ten years or so since i came out, the general consciousness of trans people has changed drastically, and despite the terfs and fash getting increasingly focused on us as a wedge issue, it really has gotten better in ways i never would have believed back then. as much as i joke about the strange ideological permutations that surround the zoomers, the truth is that so many more young people are figuring out their shit, and that's really not something you can just wipe away. that's why they're scared of us.

the average person on the street is not a frothing fascist who wants to put us in a camp. for a lot of them, they've got some trans cousin or something and for all the culture-war noise that's being made by the political parties and newspapers, what data i've heard about seems to suggest that the vast majority of people plain don't care all that much. it's a minority of real obsessives who nevertheless have their hands on too many levers of power, but that's something that can be defeated far more plausibly than some inevitable, universal, cultural sentiment.

the future is not written and it will be stranger than i can imagine.

[aeimygdala]

I think the thing people aren't acknowledging about WWDITS is that yeah the main characters are all queer. And yet, the only established and long lasting main couple is M/F, regardless of how many jokes are made about them also being queer. im not saying bi/pan m/f rep isnt important, but it is relevant to note. most of the mentions of other characters being queer (besides Guillermo being gay) are basically "promiscuous bisexuality is funny and surprising" when you actually think about them seriously. I actually hated everything with lazlo's dad, ngl. looking back at the entire shitfest of season 6, it feels like everyone gives its "representation" too much credit when defending its shipbaiting. like you understand this was intentional, and it's obvious the intent was never to actually deliver on queer relationships long term, even if it gives us queer characters? like, it's cool that you have queer characters, but are you doing to deliver on what you've been implying regarding them?

we get heartwarming moment after heartwarming moment with Lazlo and Nadja. idk I don't think it's Evil but I think a lot.of us collectively gave it too much credit for how much it actually gave a shit. it's a sitcom, and it made it soo clear, and we're pissed at realizing it.

idk, but looking back, a lot of shipbaiting and jokes reslly feel kind of mean-spirited and mocking. like we know you CAN write meaningful relationships, everything with nandor and Guillermo this season was leading up to the extreme improvement in their relationship and interactions, soooo.

I think people who are pissed really deserve to be bc it really leaves a bad taste in your mouth bc you KNOW. the shipbaiting was deliberate. n we'd rather be funny here than actually deliver on queer relationships and happiness. and it's always been that way, and that isn't EVIL or anything , I guess, and it's fine, but it sucks that I gave it too much credit thinking otherwise because I want happy m/m relationship rep or something lol

feels like a slap in the face to people who just wanted something nice!!! I'm not a shipper, I don't exist in the wwdits Fandom, I'm just a queer fan that was eagerly hoping they'd actually have a payoff for all they were doing!!

[thepunkmuppet]

approaching The Confession Scene and what the fuck. this is genuinely tragic like I’ve always seen it as a meme, a joke, an iconic moment in fandom history, whatever, I’m a tumblr user, but now that I’m actually here it’s just fucking SAD

season 15 as a whole is NOT bad. it’s really not. but there’s zero destiel. they rarely speak at all unless it’s plot-related, one (1) episode pairs them together, frankly season seven was ten times more focused on their friendship and that’s INSANE because cas is only in like five fucking episodes of that one. they have a mini arc midway through the season which is very gorgeous and well-done, but it then goes absolutely nowhere and nothing at all is done to make it textually romantic.

by which I mean: no episodes have dean or cas reacting personally to sam and eileen’s relationship, or any other romantic relationship they come across. we’re never shown anything even remotely romantic even in an unrequited sense (no post-realisation awkwardness, no lingering shots of cas pining from afar, etc etc). it reads like a normal season of the show, which, yeah, I think those two are pretty fucking gay regardless, but they’re always textually written as a friendship, with no explicit cues to clue the audience in that there are canon romantic feelings. and that doesn’t change here, at all.

so I guess what I’m saying is the confession scene is purely just a moment of fan service. as stunning as the speech itself is, and as well as it fits cas’s character, the writers throughout the season didn’t actually give a fuck to make destiel ROMANTIC even in a one-sided way. film is a language and as much as misha does in his acting, even from castiel’s perspective they’re still framed as a friendship within the show itself RIGHT up until he says the words I love you. they weren’t interested in actually depicting a (even one-sided) queer love story, just wanted to give fans their “okay here it is we did it guys!” moment at the end, so that way they didn’t have to actually show an explicitly romantic gay love story, they could just say some words, kill cas off and boom it’s canon! here you go people we’ve been leading on, mocking and low-key gaslighting for eleven years!

idk man it’s just so disappointing. I knew it was and I know everyone has been talking about it for years now but my GOD it’s so bad 😭 I can’t even tell you how bizzare it is to have seen destiel confession meme on here and in various fandom video essays EVERY DAY FOR FOUR PLUS YEARS and now here I am, watching it go down in real time with full context, having watched over 300 episodes of this show, invested, obsessed, and REALLY FUCKING UPSET AAAAHHH

EDIT: forgot to mention this originally. the actual concept of cas’s moment of perfect happiness killing him, while kind of stolen from buffy, is AMAZING. and the literal perfect opportunity to have a building textual confirmation of his feelings throughout the season, where he realises what that moment will be, and it ends in the tragic confession of his love. like that’s insane that’s perfect. but no it just comes out of nowhere so oh fucking well whatever I guess! they’re canon so we should all be happy! I hate this stupid bumhole show AUGH no one talk to me ever :(

[mari-lair]

hello ! i love your fics and analysis! I was wondering which tbhk ships you think will become endgame?

Anon I have the most white bread of answers but since you asked-

1 - Hananene.

Nene starts the manga by wanting a date. It doesn't matter with who, any hot guy will do. She has many infatuations but isn't in love with anyone, she just want to be loved.

Nene has a lot of small character developments in different areas throughout the manga, but her strongest and most consistent change is her increasing love for Hanako and her acceptance of it.

She is still a girl with a ton of emotions, and she finds hot people attractive BUT now she want Hanako and only Hanako. She rejects everyone she used to have a crush on, there is no doki doki's when she gets the attention of pretty people cause they aren't the boys she wants attention from anymore.

Even Teru doesn't compare to Hanako. She went on a 'date' with him and felt more excited about bragging than the actual 'date'

AND SHE DID NOT BRAG when hanako got back, she just wanted to enjoy that he's back.

I don't even know why I am going so in dept on the couple stablished since chapter 1 but since i'm already rambling: Despite everything crazy going on in the festival NENE'S BIGGEST FOCUS WAS TO CONFESS TO HANAKO. That's something she thinks more about than her own death, like girl- Hanako is her whole world. She will not get a romance with another person.

There is the question of "Will Nene survive?"

If she doesn't, she'll disappear and have no boyfriend but I bet she'll be thinking about Hanako in her death. If she finds a way to become a supernatural in a very wild narrative choice she will be able to stay with hanako in their cursed eternity forever.

In the case she lives and Hanako gets exorcised she won't move on. Aidairo loves tragedies and obsessive love, so I can't see her approaching crushes with the same whimsy after her love dies. And Aidairo would likely preffer to make her suffer in her grief and longing than give her a rebound with some random guy, cause it sure won't be Kou.

2 - Mitsukou

My personal preferences aside, it is clear they are written to have romantic implications. Kou will either die with Mitsuba (As shown in the new timeline), and stay with him in death.

Or live to have an intense homoerotic 'friendship' with him.

He legit can't get mitsuba off his head, he thinks about him more than anything during the manga and he has A LOT of problems to think about.

I can't personally picture an explicit confession but we had a lot of equivalents already. It would be weird for Aidairo to send them to the aquarium, make Kou obsessed with mitsuba (and vise verse), show that they are 'very very close' in this new timeline, keep drawing them star-struck by each other and so on without romance in the head.

Kou is also never able to put his feelings into words, like, bro that's suspicious as hell.

They always get matching art with all the couples in Aidairo's twitter arts too.

That's not queerbaiting, they may not be explicit but by the lord they are not subtle at all, there is never a single "oh Mitsuba is like a brother to me" moment, they don't undo any of the gay implications we see, they double down on it.

Kou may be bi but it sure isn't the Nene route that Aidairo is playing.

3 - Aoikane

Akane has loved Aoi since he was a little kid. Waaaaaaay before he got a clock keeper contract.

He saw that Aoi cared so much about his opinion that she'd break out of her cold persona and burst into tears at the idea of being hated, and he locked in for life.

They are the codependent childhood friends troupe, the "I know you better than anyone" troupe, the "you are a part of my life I can't live without" troupe and they both love each other from the very start of the manga, not showing romantic interest in anyone else.

Nothing has made Akane change his mind about being with Aoi. Not being stabbed, not being rejected many times, not facing how bad aoi is at deling with her issues head on. He'll do anything for her time and time again.

in Akane's own words:

They had many build ups and a whole arc dedicated to their developments with each other (which is a lot considering they aren't main characters and Aoi usually get no focus in this manga.)

Narratively, it wouldn't make any sense to dedicate so many chapters pointing out how much they mean to each other and slowly working through their issues only to slap another ship at the end.

And is not like Aidairo said "They had their arc let's never talk about them again!", the author went out of her way to say "Even in a world where Aoi is in an arranged marriage, she still loves Akane"

They aren't subtle.

From the matching names, to the way they both crumble when they are separated from one another and keep thinking about marriage, they are very devoted. They have already explicitly confessed to the audience that they are in love with each other.

They'll either stay together forever or they'll die together.

[regrettable-username]

things i think would happen if house of anubis had a TV-14 rating (in 2011):

- victor sr.'s decaying body would've actually been in the senet prison chamber

- joy's downward spiral in s2 includes a drug abuse storyline (into recovery by the end of the season)

- amber is so clearly a closeted lesbian in denial that by s3 everyone is saying "it's okay if you have something to tell us, we'll accept you <3" but she obliviously thinks its about fashion school

- mara's goth phase is amped up x10 and she also goes full wiccan stereotype (with black decor and candles etc)

- bag/room searches would be disguised as drug searches (and maybe somehow victor has secretly trained a dog to smell artifacts??)

- at least one physical bloody fight per season

- rufus dies the same way but eddie gets to lay a few punches on him first

- one of nina's unconvincing lies would be that someone has mono

- eddie wants to have sex but patricia is afraid of intimacy so she manufactures a situation where victor catches them making out to scare eddie. eddie jokingly suggests going in the tunnels but patricia pours a drink on him

- fabian and mick have the exact same gay moments but have to prove their manliness/straightness after

- sibuna accidentally discovers something sexual (like maybe young adult sarah's explicit letters, or nude drawings/photos in frobisher's study)

- there would be a drag show at some point (or at least a scheme involving drag)

- when alfie turns into a child his main gag would be thinking its hilarious that he can swear as much as he wants

- implied that fabian and mara fuck at the end of touchstone of ra

- jerome would be metrosexual

[what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew]

Fun fact, this film was based on the Woods & Pirie v. Cumming Gordon case. The biggest difference between the movie and real life however is racism, which ultimately meant the teachers won the case.

See during the Victorian era men were seen as sexually active while women (specifically white British women) were seen as "pure" and unable to have any sort of sexual desire. This meant that while gay men were prosecuted for their homosexuality, lesbianism was not officially criminalised.

This belief did not extend to women from "The East" (including but not limited to All of Asia, Eastern Europe and anywhere the Ottoman empire touched), who were seen as hypersexual and sexually deviant.

The Cumming vs Woods and Pirie case stemmed from the child Jane Cumming seeing her two teachers have sex, telling her grandma, the esteemed Lady Helen Cumming Gordon. This lead to Jane and many other students dropping out, and the word of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie being lesbians getting out, both of which financially ruined the 20 year old teachers. As a result the teachers sued Cumming for libel.

Now where does my previous context come in? Well, Jane was a bastard, specifically born to an unknown Indian mother and George Cummings, a Scottish writer who worked with the East India Company. She lived in India till the age of 8.

The reason Pirie and Woods were considered innocent and won their court case (though they were financially no better off due to legal fees) was because the witness was a brown girl, and therefore considered sexually deviant. The idea that white women could perform "motions of the body, quick and high breathing, and a shaking of the bed" (Faderman, p.60) which sounded "like putting one's finger into the neck of a wet bottle. " (ibid, p.147) was absurd to the Victorian judges. Hence the following statement was given after they were deemed innocent:

"I am happy to express my belief that to this moment, no such crime was ever known in Scotland or in Britain. I do believe that the crime here alleged has no existence." (Lord Gillies in Faderman, p.282).

The belief of Jane's inherent sexual nature due to her brownness "maturity" continues in the modern day, with certain groups of queer people *cough white queers cough* claiming that Pirie and Woods were possibly in love but didn't actually have sex, and that sex only became part of the discussion because Jane wanted to leave the school (which they substantiate with the well-documented racism Jane faced and the fact that Miss Pirie was extremely harsh towards Jane most likely due to her race) and could see the subtle signs of lesbian love because she was "mature" or "understood sexual desires better"

Some Quotes in the article “Female Masculinity” by Jack Halberstam (1998)

"The peculiarities of this court case are immensely complicated because the accusing girl was Anglo-Indian, and in both the court transcripts and Lillian Falderman’s recreation of them, the girl is repeatedly Orientalized and depicted as suspiciously sexually knowledgeable”

"Lord Meadowbank comments that Jane Cumming must have obtained such information from her ‘Hindoo female domestics' "

“Throughout the case, judges and prosecutors accuse Jane Cumming of importing sexual knowledge from India and tainting pure British women with her accusations. British women, the insist, practice asexual romantic friendships and know nothing of dildos or enlarged clitorides"

“the judges feel secure in the innocence of British womanhood by displacing all perverse sexual activity onto foreign imaginations"

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR (1961) dir. William Wyler Longtime friends Martha and Karen run a boarding school for girls. When an unruly child, Mary, is punished for lying, she concocts a story that Karen and Martha are having a lesbian relationship. When the story spreads, parents withdraw their children from the school. The women's lawsuit for libel hits many snags when they lack witnesses to speak for them, and all this stress adversely affects both Karen's upcoming engagement as well as her friendship with Martha. (link in title)

[happy-snake-noises]

In honour of getting my snakebites pierced I’d like to offer the Batfam and what piercings I think they would get:

Bruce: got his lobes pierced years ago by the time he has kids, they’ve closed up and you can barely tell they were there unless you’re really looking

Dick: he got a helix piercing right after Bruce fired him from being Robin in and act of teenage rebellion — I also think later on a couple years after Tarantula, he gets a Prince Albert to force himself take care of his genitals and associate them with a different experience

Jason: a tongue piercing — something he knew was there but was never really visible unless somebody thought to look + it never gets caught on his helmet

Cass: snakebites, for the character probably because the piercings make you think of your speech so much and she wants a small reminder that she can communicate (but really I just think they’re cool and we can match)

Steph: so many ear piercings, arguably the most of the entire family but they’re all well healed and changed from the original jewellery she was pierced with

Tim: septum because he’s gay because Kon convinced him to get it done

Duke: regular love piercings and a nose stud, I again can’t justify why he’d do it, I reckon he’d just like the aesthetic

Damien: only has his lobes pierced for the moment but his jewellery is a little longer than typically masculine earrings because he’s been around the drama team that is the rest of the Wayne’s and they remind him of his mum too

Honourable mentions:

Babs: conch piercing and a daith—she doesn’t believe the daith actually alleviates migraines but placebo effect is still an effect

Kate: rejected eyebrow piercing—her first piercing she received consciously (not her first set as an infant) and decided she was good after the first rejected

[swiftfootedachilles]

honestly i was so mad when i watched that orgy scene in s11 and at the whole monogamy situation bc wdym they're not already monogamous without having to talk about it? as if they're not borderline obsessed with each other and also jealous asf and they constantly was being pulled apart from each other through the whole show, how can ian or mickey want somebody else after all shit they went through? i just hope that they didn't actually fuck anyone and just banged in the bathroom or smth😭also when i see fics with gallavich/omc? 💀 saw this from a popular writer and i was like hell nah im not reading ts

no for fucking real those 2 are the most jealous men to ever walk the planet

on one hand i get it. they both had insecurities that made them feel like the other wouldnt want to only sleep with them for the rest of their lives. ian is the only guy mickey canonically dates and has sex with multiple times. mickey felt like ian would eventually leave him like he had in the past also multiple times.

so in the first episode the monagamy conversation seemed normal to me. they literally both specifically say "i dont want you to fuck anyone else" and mickey was obviously just waiting to see ians answer because he wanted to do whatever ian wanted. if he did write down "open relationship," it wouldve been because he thought thats what ian wanted. personally i think he didnt write anything down because he was still trying to grasp the concept of him and ian being a "normal" married couple that communicated heathily and didnt run away and flirt with/fuck other people when they got scared.... plus he actually cant spell monogamy hes a dyslexic with an 8th grade education

so that episode was fine on its own. if they wouldve left it at that, it wouldve been a silly cute moment in their bumpy marriage. but then the writers had to make that stupid ass orgy episode. first of all why the shit would they NEED to be friends with other gay men, and WHY ARE THE ONLY OPTIONS TO EITHER BE THEIR FRIENDS OR FUCK THEM??? IT LITERALLY MAKES NO SENSE. DID THEY NOT JUST DECIDE IN EPISODE ONE THAT THEY WERE GONNA BE MONOGAMOUS?

i actually cannot stand how the writers (and the fandom by extension) cant let gay characters have their boundaries and be left alone. why the fuck do they have to be open to straight sex and orgies and nonmonogamy and being verse WHY CANT GAY PEOPLE HAVE BOUNDARIES. CAN YOU IMAGINE IF THERE WAS RANDOMLY A SCENE IN SEASON 11 WHERE TAMI ASKED LIP 'HOW DO YOU KNOW YOURE STRAIGHT IF YOUVE NEVER GOT FUCKED IN THE ASS BY A GUY?' AND THEN HE ACTUALLY WENT OUT AND DID IT??? YOU CANT IMAGINE IT BECAUSE IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN THEY ONLY DO THIS SHIT WITH GAY CHARACTERS!!!!

the inability to understand that gay people can also have preferences and hard limits actually blows my mind. and if you dont like it youre somehow a prude or dont understand the characters. actually i fear i understand the characters more than the writers do.

and im okay with showing characters experiment! but its very telling that in Shameless, it only happens with queer characters who are pretty fucking firm in their sexual identity and boundaries. why did debbie have to fuck a gay guy in season 11. why do ian and mickey have to be verse why do ian and mickey have to be polyamorous. why did ian have to fuck a woman to "truly know" hes gay. why did svetlana have to all but announce shes a lesbian but still date kev instead of just date vee. why does this only happen to gay characters!!!

the trope of queer men specifically being easy and dtf is why the AIDS crisis was so deadly. because queer men are so open to sharing sex fantasies and sharing partners and sharing needles, right? its just a gay problem, and its better for all of us if theyre dead anyway, so lets ignore it until it goes away

maybe not every queer man needs to be written as a polyamorous verse switch bisexual-under-the-right-circumstances only-married-for-tax-reasons-not-because-they-love-their-life-partner idk! this is a haters only area so if you dont like me hating why are you here⁉️

[twig-tea]

Thank you for the tag in your post, @doublel27! This is a great example of why tagging is polite and vagueposting is rude (I'm going to use this as a teachable moment so bear with me): You've made reference to several stances that I don't hold and linked back to my post as evidence I do, but because you've tagged me, I can now clear the record. I might choose to ignore a tag sometimes, and tumblr can't be relied on to actually alert the person who was tagged reliably, but the point is the tag generally gives me the visibility and the choice; and the link lets people see for themselves what I said, so they can make the determination themselves even if I didn't bother to clarify. If you'd made this post without linking or tagging me, your readers would have to take your word for what my point was and I'd have no way to know you were misrepresenting my position. Whether or not I'd said on main to tag me, using my (or anyone's) words in a post critiquing them without attributing them or tagging the source is rude, and it feels awful to experience. I appreciate you taking the feedback in the original thread and tagging me directly so that I could see this.

You invoked my We Are post specifically as an example of criticism of We Are and Perfect 10 Liners (which, for the record, I haven't written anything about the latter, but I'm glad my post has you thinking about them both in conversation with each other and hopefully trends at large) that informed the perspectives of @lurkingshan and @waitmyturtles which you've represented as being: shows which don't meet their metric of good should not be engaged with or are ruining the genre. In fact, in my own post (which you've stated has informed their opinion), I started that post with the opposite statement:

I don’t begrudge anyone who enjoyed this show and I’m genuinely glad it brought comfort to people.

I went on to say:

...Shows are fully allowed to not be for me, I usually can differentiate between when a show is doing something I don’t like well, or when it’s failing at its own goals. And I don’t begrudge people with different taste getting catered to sometimes; my refrain is that most problems of representation are not solved by calling for less of something, and rather than wanting something not to be made, I’d rather champion for more and a greater variety of content.

I also am certain that both Shan and Jay know New Siwaj is a queer creator because I laid out in full New Siwaj's history creating shows as a gay creator (which you mentioned as a kind of 'gotcha' in your post) to get to the crux of my concern, which was this explicitly:

I wanted to lay out how I've watched New Siwaj’s career go from finding a way to tell incredibly poignant and healing queer narratives (by creating his own company, and fitting these moments into the GMMTV series he did work on) to stripping out queerness from the shows he’s creating in the last year or so.

I then brought in other examples. The point I make in this post is that there has been a pattern of shows from ~the last year adapting novels but not including specific aspects around queer conflict from the source material in the adaptation. I am judging these adaptations against the Thai novels they are based on, and looking at the active choices the adapters are making in the context of the markets in which they operate--which, for the record, is the opposite of ignoring their agency. I would say the same statement for Shan's and Turtles' posts (linked for convenience). And to assume Shan and Turtles only took away the critical aspect of my post or that they aren't making their own judgments of the BL scene at large seems like a disingenuous interpretation.

The part of your response and the original post by @maybe-boys-do-love that bothers me is that it implies that I think (I'm now assuming MBDL was responding to me among apparently several others, since you've invoked me in this response and suggested you've been speaking to him about it, but without having been referenced in the original post I have no way of knowing--just to again underscore my frustrations with vagueposting) that only my way of seeing shows is correct or valuable; that I conflate sex scenes with queerness; that I think BL romcoms are less valuable, less queer, or less good than more serious toned takes; or that these shows should not exist or be made in future. I would hope it's clear from my own writing that I don't think any of that, and that anyone reading @lurkingshan and @waitmyturtles's posts would understand they also do not think any of this. I'm not sure who either of you are actually mad at, but the ideas you're fighting are not written in any of the things I've said or anything I've reblogged from Shan or Turtles. And the insinuation that the criticism of the writing of these shows holds some kind of power to prevent others from enjoying or making series like this is frankly giving any of us too much credit.

Looks like while I was writing @wen-kexing-apologist wrote a great summary of the points made in the original posts by Shan and Turtles in the comments section of their post, so anyone reading can feel free to go there to read a 2-comment summary if you don't want to go back and read the full set of threads for yourselves.

It's not a good use of energy to argue about how someone chose to interpret my words or the words of others, so I'll stop there. I'm happy to discuss the points that I've made in my writing, but defending against bad faith interpretations of my or other people's posts is not what I want to spend any more time doing.

[demigodsanswer]

I’m going to thrice you, again, prompt idea: in Princess AU- the conversation on the beach in Greece if the *right* brother had been there.

I am addicted to alt-versions of my own fic universes. Guess we'll call this one "Found You First" They're younger, so they aren't as good at flirting yet.

~

She hadn't seen Percy in a little over a year. The last time they'd crossed paths, he was holding up Yale's Mock Trial National's first place trophy, while Annabeth fumed about Harvard's meager fifth place, even if she had come out with her own attorney award.

It was hard to hold onto that grudge now, though. When they were on opposite sides of a Mock rivalry (mock as in "trial," the rivalry was very real), he really was handsome, tan with dark hair and very pretty green eyes.

Percy bowed his head towards her, and then held out his hand. It was the first time he'd ever bowed to her. "Lovely to see you again, Princess," he said.

Annabeth took his hand, expecting him to shake it, but he simply kissed it. Annabeth's stomach did a little flip flop, and she was glad she'd agreed to this trip after all.

~

"Riley Winter was obviously the worst one!" Annabeth said. It took all of four minutes alone on the beach for them to start arguing about Mock Trial witnesses.

"Mickey Keenan was way more annoying than him! He was an incompetent cop who obviously entrapped someone," Percy said. "I was so happy when they killed him off for nationals."

"Too bad you lost to Miami that year," Annabeth said.

"Too bad you didn't have the chance to win," Percy said back. Annabeth kicked sand at him.

"Are you in law school?" Annabeth asked.

"Oh, absolutely not. Not cut out for the LSAT, let alone the Bar. I'm doing a masters at Yale," he said, as if that was somehow less impressive than law school.

"Oh? In what?" Annabeth asked.

"Classics. I'm thinking about applying for a Ph.D., but I'm not sure. I'm a bit burnt out at the moment," he said, slumping back in his beach chair for dramatic effect.

Annabeth nodded sympathetically. "Classics is cool, though."

"I'm excited to be in Greece and actually see some of the things I write about," Percy said.

"My dad and I are getting a private tour of the Parthenon this week, if you want to join us," Annabeth offered. "Maybe you could teach us something."

Percy was smiling, really smiling, and excited boyish grin. "Really? Would that be okay?"

Annabeth smiled back. "Sure," she said. She needed to get married, and people were starting to worry she had no real interest in men. Taking Percy, a man she was absolutely interested in, on a trip to the Parthenon might help her in a few different ways.

Percy looked like he was about to say something, but then paused. "Your shoulders are pink," he said. "Want me to get them?"

Annabeth nodded. A nice excuse for some contact.

As Percy rubbed the sunscreen onto her shoulders, chest, and back (both politely trying to ignore how incredibly intimate it was), she asked: "Are you single?" Annabeth couldn't remember seeing any women on his Instagram lately, but maybe he kept those things private.

"I am," Percy said. "I did get out of a relationship a few months ago, though. I'm mostly over it."

"Was it mutual?" She asked.

Percy shrugged. "Hard to say."

"So you got your heart broken?" She deduced.

Percy almost laughed. "A little bit."

"What was her name?"

"Frank," Percy said without hesitation, before looking up and meeting her eyes, assessing her for fear, confusion, or disgust.

Annabeth just nodded. "I'm sorry to hear about that. It sounds like he meant a lot to you."

Percy nodded, a sad look in his eyes. "Yeah," and then he squirted more sunscreen in the other hand, and started on her other shoulder. "I'm not here to use you as a beard, though. I am bisexual, if you ... believe in that sort of thing."

"Be a bit of a raging hypocrisy if I didn't," Annabeth said. Percy's eyes snapped to her face, and she just shrugged and nodded. "I had my own devastating gay break up our senior year. I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital," Annabeth said with a laugh.

"Can I guess who it was?" Percy said, finishing with the sunscreen and sitting back in the sand in front of her. Annabeth stretched a leg out, and Percy started reapply sunscreen to that as well.

"Sure," Annabeth said.

"Tristan McLean's daughter?" He said.

Annabeth laughed. "God, were we that conspicuous?"

"Probably not to straight people," Percy said, "I'm sure to them, you guys looked like very good friends."

~

Before long, it was clear that Annabeth simply could not be in the sun for long without roasting, so Percy suggested they go to the shaded bar up by the resort itself, but still close to the sand. Annabeth had accepted his offer graciously.

Percy covertly texted his cousin while Annabeth used the restroom.

Percy

from your pov, how soon is too soon to kiss the crown princess of a sovereign country

Thals

Well if it's you kissing me, any time would be too soon. if it's the swedish girl. idk go for it if she seems into it

Percy waited a full fifteen minutes after she came back to up the touchy flirting, and Annabeth leaned into it, touching his thigh under the bar and tossing her hair over her (lightly pink) shoulders. Two glasses of wine each later, and their faces were tantalizingly close together.

Annabeth kissed him first in the end, closing the distance between them with a sure and steady kiss that was sophisticated and contained, but did linger.

"So, I guess our rivalry ends here?" Percy suggested.

Annabeth smiled. "Guess so."

~

Thankfully, when her father found her, she was no longer kissing Percy. They'd gone on from their first kiss to their second to their third in record time, before deciding to go somewhere more private.

But it was on their walk to this more private place that they found her dad.

Percy sobered up and remembered his manners right away. Her father hadn't been there for his and hers initial introduction, but Percy carried out the expected protocol flawlessly. Annabeth could have swooned.

"Nice to meet you son. Ambritt, would you like to get dinner?" Her father asked her.

"Oh, sure," Annabeth said, "Percy and I were about to find something to eat ourselves," she said, hoping that didn't read an innuendo, even though it certainly was.

"Ah, well, Percy, you're welcome to join us," her dad offered.

Percy nodded. "I'd be honored, your majesty."

"Oh, please don't bother with all of that, unless you'd like me to start calling you Don Percy," her dad said.

Percy laughed. "Certainly not. But I should change before we go anywhere."

"Me too," Annabeth said.

"Alright, you two head up. I'll make arrangements with Hugo. Do you eat fish?" Her dad asked Percy.

"Sure do," Percy said, before looking at Annabeth, his glance telling her that was also innuendo.

They stepped into the elevator together.

"I forgot your real name was Ambritt," Percy said.

"Sure is. What's 'Percy' in Spanish?" Annabeth asked.

"Perseo, but that's actually one of my middle names. My first name is Pedro," he told her.

"Oh, you are not a Pedro," Annabeth said, taking his hand as the door opened to her floor.

"I agree," he said as she unlocked her hotel room door. "Should I leave you to get ready?"

"In five," she reached between his legs, and her eyes went a bit wide as she realized the size of it, even soft, "maybe ten minutes."

[pusserdestroyer]

arc 3. That’s it that’s the caption.

[akolnoix]

subject: no hard feelings! :D

[sundry-whovengerslocked]

Doctor Who "Rogue" memes

I've made memes. enjoy.

(contains slight spoilers)

firstly, ones that are more encompassing:

regarding the episode itself:

and finally, Captain Jack Harkness stages of grief:

[team7-headquarter]

Whenever someone tries to make a point about something the Konoha kunoichis, I need to make a pause and remind them how out of character they were in some of those moments.

Kishimoto pretty much abandoned Sakura and Ino's friendship and then tried to bring it back during the War arc. Ino lost her sensei and then her dad, and when was Sakura? You mean to tell me she wouldn't care? About any of it? Or when Sasuke was declared to be killed, do you mean to tell me that Ino wouldn't have run to find Sakura?

The way Hinata was written on Shippuden???? Naruto aside, people forget that Hinata refused to give up during the Chunning Exams and forced Neji to almost kill her if he wanted the victory. She was stubborn, she was prideful too, she had more going on than simply a crush on Naruto. She was told by her father she was a failure and yet she didn't give up on becoming a kunoichi, did she?

Then why is that Shippuden wrote her like her sole ambition was Naruto, hm?

And Tenten? She was MEAN when she wanted to be because she was highly competitive. We know that she wanted to train under Tsunade, so where did the death of that dream take her? She's such a powerful kunoichi and yet we know so little about her personality, her life...

We got "Ino and Hinata know some medic min techniques" in the most random way possible... We know Sakura would walk around with Hinata even, so what about their girl bonding moments during the genin to Shippuden years?

It made me so angry whenever the girls treated each other like strangers in Shippuden. So many stupid situations made to highly their teammates even if I meant to write the girls out of character...

[dreamsicle262]

roadkill.

my art entry for @megaroniandcheez's dtiys. see tags for notes and explanations on the art. also tumblr may have absolutely nuked the quality so click the picture for a better look