#what do you mean you think we are dating

[inkskinned]

you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

[nightlocked-in]

“peeta is bisexual” you guys are losing the vision. peeta isn’t even straight. katniss INVENTED sexuality for him. whatever katniss identifies as, he’s like “yeah, i’ll take that one” no questions asked

[bigothteddies]

one thing I particularly love about polyamory and how I engage with it is the ability to form romantic and platonic relationships that aren’t simple and definable as such. I love having friends that are more than friends but aren’t really romantic partners either. I love having people I would move mountains for even if we don’t think we’ll ever actually be together. I love sexually bonding with friends to a point where we interact like a couple, even if we consider ourselves single. I love taking care of someone like they’re the love of my life, even when we’ll never be in the same country. I love the idea of being a platonic rock in someone’s life, someone they come back to every time when their relationships don’t work out and they still need to feel cared for and loved by someone who isn’t going to hold them to the same standards a romantic partner will. I love telling my friends I love them. I love falling in love with my friends. I love loving and caring and fucking and falling and flirting and everything in between with all the people I care about most in the world, regardless of what everyone else tells us our actions mean.

[teabutmakeitazure]

Casper has this thing where he masks his lovestruck gazes with a comically raised brow. At first, he was indulging himself shamelessly, wistfully staring at you from wherever he's settled with a gaze softer than cotton candy and a blush slowly creeping up on his cheeks. He made sure you would not, under any circumstance, catch him in the act, yet he horribly messed up while you were on a phone call with your friend.

Hands animatedly emphasising your words to no one in particular, the phone remained pressed to your ear between your head and shoulder as you paced around your bedroom. Casper secretly sat himself on the little dining table in the kitchen (the one he hauled up the stairs in one go just to prove a point), face resting in his palm as he watches you vivaciously explain workplace politics to your friend in the distance. He could care less about the drama going on at work, for he is fixated on you.

Casper feels a smile tugging on his lips, and that's when he realises he's blushing. from your grin to your occasional giggle and the way you're pacing as you talk, he can't help but feel so... so... in love. he was right. You really are a woman after his heart, but now you hold it in your grasp and he does not want you to return it.

He stays like that for a while, and though he wishes to move closer, to perhaps even grab you from behind and kiss you, he remains where he is, watching you with the most lovestruck gaze in fear of being endlessly teased by you. However, he freezes out of embarrassment when you turn on your heel without warning and lock eyes with him. Shit. This time, the blush on his face deepens out of awkwardness and the smile on your face widens because you caught him in the act. No, he will never admit to you that he loves to watch you as you go by your day and do mundane tasks. he simply never will.

Since then, he's made a point to always have a more relaxed posture. Arms crossed over his chest, anything but a smile on his face, and an eyebrow comically raised in question. This is the replacement he has found for the usual face he makes while watching you. He hopes you ignore the way his eyes still lovingly look at you.

[unnecessarilygrandiose]

giiiiiirl what the fuck. the way everyone has been talking about tommy you'd think he was closer to 50 than 40. you're telling me the actor who plays him is only thirty-nine???

[kiwikiwiandkiwi]

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[polyamorouspunk]

When I was in Kindergarten this girl kissed me and told me it was okay to kiss your friends and I was like no it’s not it’s weird and

1. She was right and I was wrong

2. There is NO way she is straight

3. Do ya’ll think she’s single???

[chilapis]

I think every moment is eternal in its own right and we hold no authority to deny it that status. Even if it is a forever that will escape our memories, it’ll still exist as a forever in the history of time. In the memories of no-one but the Earth itself. In the records kept and made by no-one, where everything is stored for all time to come. No love is lost and no existence truly unacknowledged.

[comixandco]

my favourite part of season 5 is still the reveal that Gabriel and Tomoe thought Adrien and Kagami made the perfect pair and wanted them to be together because it completely flips their relationship

Kagami and Adrien sneaking around and finding the slightest gaps in their schedule and giving their bodyguards/parents the slip to spend time together and feeling so clever that they’ve gotten away with it their parents don’t suspect a thing

only to smashcut to Gabriel and Tomoe doing an evil pound it because their ship is canon

[mrs-luigi-vargas]

I know I'd decided to only write one more bowuigi fic aside from the one I'd already written but I can't stop thinking about the idea of Bowser repeatedly kidnapping Peach for relationship advice and Peach getting so fed up with him about it that she tricks Luigi into being her body double so that Bowser kidnaps him instead and they can talk like Actual Adults instead of using her as a third party to vent to all the time

[tirfpikachu]

broooo not my ex making posts abt how hard it is to come to terms with being conventionally attractive while having low self-esteem issues and how wild it is to get compliments randomly on their appearance when they go out and how they're worried that their new transmasc boytoy is only into them bc they're hot -_- i'm tired... meanwhile i'm just seen as a gremlin now that i'm not hyperfem... they truly have the biggest issues in the world lol

also they were like "omg turns out i'm not ace i just needed a bf lol" and i'm like yeah. i know. you've been lusting after male characters for years. you were horny as fuck just not for me bc i didn't transition. you only made moves on me when you were bored, lonely or drunk. i always asked if that was the case and you were like no baby it's just your insecurities i don't need you to transition uwu. for 5 years. my trust issues are thru the roof now yayyyyy /dies

[licantropa]

Happy Holidays!!

[kiwipineappleparasol]

I've been Rewatching Sonic X with my Buddy Pal Friend Cohort recently. It has Blatantly Problematic Elements and the first season is Incomprehensible in some parts And a Slog in others. But it's one of my Favorite characterizations of Sonic, and he and Knuckles are my Favorites in the show. Amy in the beach episode Is Absolutely Adorable though so I Had to draw her.

[tambourineophelia]

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[hajihiko]

you read homestuck?? u seem like the type to have Opinions on dirk and/or dave /lh

Dirk was done fucking dirty by the narrative post-epilogue and I'm never gonna stop being angry about it

[lover-of-mine]

ngl i will be really disappointed if they do a full time jump and buck is still with natalia. like i wish they wouldn't keep skipping the beginning stages of buck's relationships, which they basically did with both taylor and ali (though we at least knew more about who taylor was before they got together and they were semi-friends already).

i'm thinking they may not do a full jump though, do like they did for s4 which started late too

The thing is, we are already living in a liminal space of time jumps when it comes to Buck and Natalia specifically, because it's implied that the birth happens right after the bridge and the meditation on the roof has to be happening some place in the future (at least 6 weeks considering Eddie is back and he had broken ribs and Chim is coming back) so either way we won't see the beginning stages of the relationship, that already passed. I hope there isn't a full 8 months to a year time jump, because that's a lot of time and it changes all the dynamics, a relationship that's a few months old is very different from a year long one. My expectation is for them to pick it up right after the meditation, just pretend it was the usual amount of time between seasons, because yeah, I feel like throwing Buck into a 6 month to a year long relationship without showing it to us will make it even harder for people to find things they like in Natalia and the relationship, and a lot of people are already against them to begin with, so it would be a delicate thing to navigate if they choose to keep her for the long run. And I think that skipping the part where Buck gets to know her is skipping the part we get to know her, so we will give even less to the relationship. I don't really think they have a fighting chance, not unless they do some serious work on her character and actually make her exist outside of Buck, but just dropping us a year in the future and telling us "the relationship works yay" without showing us how they got there will seriously doom them. Taylor was bad, but Taylor existed for us, Natalia is beautiful girl who works with death, that's all I can think of when I think about her, to just skip it to a part where they are established and working would make it a relationship impossible to care about, because we invested nothing on it. So I'm hoping there's no big time jump at all.