Traditional Georgian Dancing.

the Guardian

WWII: eighty years on, the world is still haunted by a catastrophe foretold | Peter Beaumont

Shock greeted the news that German tanks had rolled into Poland on September 1, 1939. But the slaughter of the continent’s Jews that was to

also see: from a 1937 documentation of gassing/torture methods of the Dacchan concentration camp in Nazi Germany reported emulations of America's "jail holocaust". this was flagellated onto El Paso immigrants who were bathed with kerosene and sprayed with vinegar due to their "racial impurity" much to the rise of eugenicism in the US, parallelistic to of how one of the key annihilators of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany was this chemical.

Yeet

IM RUNNING OUT OF PERCABETH FICS! can you recommend any good ones? thanks so much!

YES I CAN!

you can check out my percabeth fic tag or ao3 bookmarks on this fic masterpost. i don’t have all my percabeth fics tagged properly so you might be better off going through the general pjo fic tag.

lately i’ve been really into @ignitesthestars tire fire verse (starts out lukabeth and turns percabeth) and @greenconverses dark!percy roman au, and there’s a lot of pjo writers in this tag.

some of my other favorite percabeth writers: @ananbeth, @bananannabeth (her brunch fic is amazing and she has a percabeth masterpost) @suchastart, @percyyoulittleshit, @somethingmorecreative1 and @anxiouspineapples (her writing tag)

other favorites:

lips like sugar by @chasexjackson

addicted to you by @somethingmorecreative1

take me away to someplace real by holdingontoyoufordearlife

token by @ananbeth

stained by @ignitesthestars

these feelings never change by @somethingmorecreative1

so bad but he does it so well by @greenconverses

it’s just easier this way by @somethingmorecreative1 

Call me, Percy? valentine’s day edition. edit by sophii <3

This is Annabeth’s first Valentine’s day with Percy. Well, it’s actually their second, but it is the first one they will be spending together without anybody else and without having to be in school.

She has always celebrated previous ones with Hazel and Piper, going to Hazel’s mom’s restaurant and eating stupid amounts of food before watching rom coms in Hazel’s bedroom while they made themselves sick eating cookies and ice cream. She misses their love, misses being surrounded by and wrapped up in it on days like those, with chocolate smeared on cheeks and limbs crossed over underneath blankets. She hadn’t realised how much she would miss them until they were miles and miles away, making their own memories and futures just as she is.

She just misses them, is all.

“You got plans for the weekend?”

Annabeth looks over at her friend as they finish packing up from their lecture. “Percy’s coming down.”

“Right. You gonna go for dinner or something? That new italian restaurant in town is really good.”

They’re leaving the lecture hall now and Annabeth dodges a wild elbow which had been heading for her face. “Oh, um no. That’s not really our thing. We’re gonna go for a drive down the coast and probably get burgers or something.”

That earns a laugh. “Right. Y'all are cute.”

“Thank you, I think so too.”

Keep reading

and they were roommates (chapter eight)

The apartment’s spotty radiator has been the bane of Annabeth’s existence all winter, but in a dog pile on the couch with her two favorite boys, the persistent draft is welcome if it means they’ll stay put. 

Percy’s voice drifts up from Annabeth’s lap, a bit too smug for her liking. “Bet you’re glad we got the big couch now, huh?” 

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Annabeth lies. 

A smile creeps onto Percy’s face as he taps Grover’s temple. The boys started with Percy’s feet in Grover’s lap, but Grover slid to the side during the movie marathon. Now his cheek rests on Percy’s stomach. 

“Hey, G-Man, you know Annabeth wanted a loveseat? How the hell were we gonna fit you on a loveseat?” 

Grover mumbles something sounding like “food” and sinks further into Percy. 

Annabeth bites her lip. “Grover sleeps in the woods for fun, Perce. Not sure how much support you’re gonna get on that front.” 

Percy cranes his neck to peek at Grover. “Is he drooling on me?” His head falls back on Annabeth’s leg, which has long since fallen asleep under his torso. 

Annabeth doesn’t even pretend to look before she nods her head gravely. “Oh, absolutely.”

read on AO3

Now what? After 3 weeks of protests and educating ourselves and educating others, how do we keep the momentum going for this civil rights movement? How do we make permanent change?

X

48 for percabeth! I hope u feel better about the show

Annabeth has known that Percy was going to die from the moment she met him. Four summers. Best case scenario. 

Twelve-year-old Annabeth wasn’t particularly concerned about falling in love with the trouble-making son of Poseidon who drooled in his sleep. Freshly sixteen Annabeth sometimes wishes she had opted for the quiet life some children of Athena preferred: strategize, keep your head down, live a comfortable and unremarkable life. She hardly would’ve crossed paths with Percy outside of the occasional class or Capture the Flag. He and Grover could’ve found someone else to be their best friend, or maybe they would’ve bonded as a pair. And Annabeth would have kept her distance from Percy in the name of self-preservation, knowing they would only have four bittersweet summers together at best. 

The summer before the Titan War is not the best case scenario. Percy is hardly ever at camp except for quests and Kronos-related meetings. He chooses to spend what they both know is his last of their four measly summers away from Annabeth. Grover is nowhere to be found, Thalia is with the Hunters, Luke is hosting the Titan Lord, and Annabeth feels more like a scared little girl than she has in a long time. At least she isn’t the runaway. That title fell to Percy. 

It feels like an insult to Annabeth’s love for Percy to wish they hadn’t met. She is so much better for having loved him. For loving him—present tense. But she says this while he’s still here. His smile may not be directed at her that often, but he still smiles. Sometimes Annabeth can even stomach the jealousy of Rachel being the cause of that smile, because at least someone is giving him joy before this all goes to shit. When it does, maybe Annabeth will understand what it means to wish him away, if only to end the pain of having known and lost a person like Percy Jackson. 

The feeling isn’t new. Annabeth’s gut has twisted in previous conversations where someone would bring up high school and college plans. Percy would talk animatedly about getting his license at sixteen, and Annabeth was left with a dry mouth she could not twist into a smile. He would beam at Beckendorf’s plans to attend NYU in the fall and make the older boy promise to swing by Sally’s sometime. Even Beckendorf, who had never heard the full Great Prophecy, could not stop the microexpression of pity. 

When Annabeth first heard the prophecy, it was too much for her ten year old mind. There was no face to connect to the doomed fate, no cursed blade to reap the hero’s soul. Sometimes her young brain conjured an image of Thalia, but that was a nightmare of its own. Every night, Annabeth would watch Olympus fall at the hands of someone she hoped never to know. 

She still gets those nightmares, only the visuals have improved. Percy is in every single one of them, saving or razing Olympus depending on the night. He never survives. You cannot outrun fate. Annabeth has tried. 

Still, she is a daughter of Athena, and Athena always has a plan. When Percy dies, Annabeth will fall to pieces. In a lucky string of events, she might fall alongside him. It’s a war, after all. But she has a sneaking suspicion that she will outlive him. She has a plan for this as well. The shroud they made when he was stranded on Calypso’s island was nice and communal, leagues ahead of the one the Ares cabin shroud that still makes Annabeth’s blood boil. But deep in her soul, Annabeth knows that she alone will make his shroud. Just as she’ll burn it.; just as she’ll care for Sally in his stead; just as she will lay blue roses on his headstone every time she’s in the neighborhood; just as she’ll be there for Grover, for Clarisse, for all of camp when he’s gone. She will do it alone. Annabeth held the sky, once. She will shoulder this as well. How much heavier could losing her best friend be than the weight of the world? In her anticipation, they feel the same. 

She will build a monument for him, something to last the ages as he was supposed to, as permanent as the love he has given her. It will overlook the gods on Olympus, a reminder of the boy they failed. The boy who was too good for them all. Regardless of how the war goes, this will always be true. 

He was never built to last. Nothing good ever can, and he’s been burning the candle at both ends for a while now. He was meant to burn bright, not long. 

Annabeth sits in the dark of the Big House rec room, the only quiet space now that camp is in full war preparation. Well, the only quiet space apart from the beach, but Annabeth knows the smell of salt air and the sound of waves will be her undoing. That is another key feature of her plan: never go to the ocean again. 

She curls her knees into her chest, feeling every inch the child that she is. But children are not supposed to have plans for their best friend dying. Children are not supposed to have their first kiss out of fear that said best friend will die before their four summers are up. 

The door opens, throwing the room into harsh shadows and blinding light. 

“Um.” Annabeth can’t see who’s talking, but she’d know his voice anywhere. “Chiron said there was a war council meeting today.” 

She raises a hand to block out the light and give her eyes time to adjust. “Yeah, later.” To Annabeth’s horror, her voice is hoarse. Her throat is clogged with tears. 

Percy’s sneakers stop shifting in the carpet. “Are, uh... are you okay?” 

He sounds hesitant to ask, like he’s expecting vitriol to spew from Annabeth’s mouth. And, in fairness, sometimes it does. But Annabeth doesn’t have vitriol in her right now. The awareness that she does not have many days left with Percy is painfully acute. To spend them angry feels like a waste. 

“No, I’m not.” By now her eyes have adjusted to the light, and she looks at him through bleary eyes. 

Percy stills when he sees her face, looking ready to bolt. He points to the door. “Do you want me to...?”

Annabeth sniffles. “I don’t want to be alone.” 

What breaks her is how quickly he is by her side. For all their faults, it is the one thing she can count on. As long as she lets him, Percy will come to Annabeth when she’s hurting.

She doesn’t tell him how deeply that statement is carved into her, that she is carved from loneliness the same way he is carved from guilt—the pitfalls of pride and loyalty. 

A kid carved from loneliness cannot plan to be held the way that Percy holds Annabeth. Such a selfless love was unfathomable as a little girl; how could she ever have accounted for it? He just.. holds her. He doesn’t try to talk or look at her face. He’s just there, unwaveringly. It kills Annabeth to know he won’t always be. It hurts to be with him, but it will hurt so much more to be without him. 

The dam breaks, and Annabeth sobs into Percy’s shoulder. He’s taller than her now, grown only to be cut down young. Still, he is steadfast, grounded, secure in his roots. The way a towering oak has no reason to fear a chainsaw until the cutting has already begun. 

“You’re my best friend,” she tells him, because she’s not sure she’s ever said it and it’s something he deserves to hear. “No matter what, you’re my best friend.” 

Percy strokes a gentle hand along the back of Annabeth’s head. “And you’re mine,” he assures her. He doesn’t say you’re my best friend too. Just you’re mine. As if the fact doesn’t haunt her. She is his, irrevocably. 

A gentle knock at the door interrupts them. Annabeth recognizes Silena’s quiet footfalls and almost withdraws from Percy, but he makes no move to. 

Silena’s voice is soft, not smug like Annabeth expects. “War council in fifteen. Figured I’d give you two a heads up.” 

Annabeth meets her eyes over Percy’s shoulder. “Thanks.” 

The older girl ducks her head in something resembling shame. “It’s the least I can do.” She leaves. 

“How much longer?” Percy asks when the door clicks shut. It isn’t an impatient question. In fact, Annabeth doesn’t know exactly what he’s asking. 

She gives an honest answer. “However long we have left.” And the sun begins to set on the fourth summer. 

“you didn’t need to do this” + any ship !!!

Percy tests the weight of the present Annabeth has just pressed into his hands, rolling it over to see if it’ll give any indication of what’s inside. Whatever it is must be held down as thoroughly as the wrapping paper, which is more scotch tape than decoration. A fresh breeze blows off the Atlantic, rustling the stray curls that hang from Annabeth’s twin braids. August smiles kindly on her as it always has, with sunlight dripping down the contours of her body. Summer doesn’t shine on anyone else quite as gracefully. 

Annabeth’s hands fly out to cover Percy’s as he raises the present to his ear. “Maybe don’t shake it.” 

Percy freezes, noting the way she worries her bottom lip. He’s known her to be many things over the years, and nervous isn’t often one of them. “Annabeth. What did you get me?” 

“Open it and see for yourself.” 

When the paper and tape give away, Percy holds a cardboard box with a picture of his dream camera on the front—a dream in the truest sense of the word, given that he’s never said it aloud due to the long odds of ever get his hands on one. 

He must be silent for too long, because Annabeth shifts on the towel next to him. There’s still time for her to break composure and laugh, to tell him this is all a prank and tear open the box to reveal a gag gift on the inside. 

Instead she says, “I don’t know much about photography, but my dad has some connections through his university and they said this was the best for land and sea, so it won’t fry like your old one.” The words come out hastily, stumbling over each other in their rush to escape. 

Salt air whistles in Percy’s empty lungs. He doesn’t have the words for this—for her. “You didn’t need to do this.” 

That straightens her spine with a flash of defiance that melts away the nervousness, igniting the righteous spark in her eyes that Percy loves. “No, but I wanted to.” She jabs her thumb between his furrowed brows. “Don’t give me that guilty look. It’s my money and I’m going to spend it on my favorite person if I want to, especially on his birthday.” 

“You know I can’t accept this.” 

“Would you buy it for yourself?” 

“Annabeth.” 

“Answer the question.” 

“Yeah in like, five years. But I can’t—” 

“Nope.” Annabeth scrambles upright, spraying Percy with sand. “You’ll have to catch me first.” 

With that, she dashes down the shore without looking back. In a microcosm of the entire decade of their friendship, Percy grumbles and gives chase. The beach is empty, giving him peace of mind as he burrows the camera in their clothes before taking off. 

Annabeth is too many strides ahead, her braids taunting Percy each time her feet strike the sand. Time moves slowly, suspended in the afterglow of a summer spent just like this, running after the girl too golden to be true. 

Just as Percy starts to think it’s a hopeless pursuit, she veers into the water, stumbling through the waves and diving as soon as it’s deep enough. Percy plunges in after her, never more grateful for his years on the high school swim team than when he wraps an arm around her waist after a few strokes. 

They’re still close enough to shore to stand, the water rising to their heaving chests which are mere inches apart. It’s just deep enough for Annabeth to struggle to keep her lips above the swell of the waves, so Percy keeps holding on. Aside from that, he doesn’t know what to do. He wasn’t expecting to catch her, let alone hold her. 

Annabeth tilts her head westward. “Sun’s setting,” she notes, her ribcage swelling under Percy’s palms. “It’d make a good picture.” 

Percy doesn’t have to look to know she’s right, though the shot he’s thinking is more portrait than landscape. The sky is alight with a palette of orange, pink, and yellow cast on the clouds, like the only grey thing allowed in this photograph are Annabeth’s eyes. Her face is smooth, an uninterrupted line of shadow cupping her cheekbone down to her neck. There is just as much to be said for her shadows as for her light—it’s the contrast with each that makes the other. 

A particularly tall wave slaps their shoulders in an attempt to pull Annabeth away. Percy adjusts his grip and tugs her closer, one hand on the back of her thigh as her legs hook around his waist. Neither of them misses their simultaneous sharp inhale; they just can’t make out what it means. 

Annabeth’s hands trace a brave path along Percy’s shoulders, collecting droplets of water with a light touch. “You can pay me back for it. One dollar a month.” 

“Annabeth...that’s—” 

“The rest of our lives? I know.” She runs her fingertips along the back of his neck with a smile glimmering like the sunlight on the waves. “That’s how long I’m hoping to keep you for.” 

They come together slowly, creeping together as the sun kisses the horizon with the same soft touch. Waves part as they pass, looking to flow through space between them that no longer exists. Every inch of skin presses together, held in place by desperate hands dimpling the soft flesh underneath. All their lives have lead them toward this moment in one consistent arc across the sky, traveling west to finally collide. 

Percy pulls back to take a mental snapshot, afraid of losing the memory of the the rise and fall of Annabeth’s chest against his and all the movement a camera cannot capture. Language does not leave much space in the brain for memory, and so it is the first thing to go as he takes her in.

“Perce,” she says, colored with a mix of vulnerable and smug only she could wear well. “I’m gonna need you to say something.” 

“They’re all going to be of you.” 

“What?” 

“The pictures.” One of his hands leaves her thigh to flirt with the edge of her jaw, the ridge that divides light and shadow. He watches her through the new lens of new love and presses his smile into her skin with the same delicate touch of August. “They’re all going to be of you.” 

lucky charms, chapter 4

The Twilight Zone

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

People came easily to Luke.

That was not to say people generally liked him, necessarily. Some would say he had his father’s charm and his mother’s once beautiful features, and that was why he’d always attracted a crowd, but Luke hadn’t been his parents’ son in a long while. He was every bit the thief his father was and, like his mother, could see far past what was presented, but everything he’d built for himself had been from the ground up.

Even by demigod standards, Luke was the son of one of the lamest gods in Olympus- he wasn’t great with his hands like Annabeth, and he definitely couldn’t control lightning the way Thalia could. All Luke had was people. He could tell, for the most part, what buttons to push to upset, to anger, to flatter, to confuse; that was Luke’s talent. He was a pickpocket, a sleight of hand artist, and like most cynical, petty crooks, nothing slipped past him.

Luke understood how people worked. Understood what the flutter of an eyelid or a trembling lip meant, understood just how much tension in the brow separated grief and aggression. Above all, Luke understood that people were always exactly as they were not- playing a game of charades against the rest of the world as though that might protect them, in some way, from her jagged edges.

He’d always been too clever for his own good.

Read more on AO3

Storyville - Defying the Cutting Season

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been illegal in Tanzania since 1998. But every year thousands of families still plan to have their daughters cut, an ordeal that could cost them their lives. The ‘Cutting Season’ takes place during the December school holidays.

During this time hundreds of girls are saved from FGM by the police, the government and the work of the Safe House. It is run by Rhobi Samwelly, who was herself a victim of FGM, and now, not only does she valiantly run the safe house but she also works with the local police to rescue and protect girls at risk while arresting the parents and cutters.

But they have a tough and dangerous job and old customs die hard. Men believe that girls must be cut to reduce promiscuity and cut girls command twice the bride price in cows as uncut girls. Girls like Rosie, just 12 years old, have had to make the most difficult choices of their young lives - run away from home, not knowing if they will ever see their families again, or submit to female genital mutilation and child marriage.

These brave and courageous young girls are fighting against a tradition that goes back thousands of years. They are standing up for their human rights and fighting for change in their community.

The Safe House is the one safe place they can escape to.