I was reading The Graveyard Book (by Neil Gaiman) and I knew this part sounded familiar,

that I’ve seen it somewhere framed like this before

Grishaverse fans after their show was canceled

TSC fans after their show was canceled

ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....

This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.

I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?

(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)

I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.

Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.

And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.

I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.

(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)

I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.

We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.

On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?” And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??

So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.

It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.

Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).

But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.

Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?

Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?

Can I request a Raphael x angel MC please 🥺

The Gabriel x Michelle and Lucifer x Michael were so good 😭😭

I'm stuck with you and your scenarios now 😠

You're welcome, dear~! I see my total eclipse of the brain bring some good after all. I hope I will be able to fulfill this request. Rafael is on the verge of being a character I dare write for, but let's try.

It was all your fault, that you make Raphael feel so special, then forget about it, and after all, you died. Lowly, pathetic human being. How dare you? Do you think he will forgive you for this? Tsk. Not only stupid, but naive, too. You are lucky that you chose to be reincarnated in heaven. Maybe there's still a chance for your pitiful soul.

And *maybe* you will repent if stop teasing him and start to suck.

Even though you were below him, licking his piercing and letting him tug at your hair, you knew who was boss. Poor, unaware angel. Blessing? Being the chosen one? Good joke. Only few strokes and his tip was already covered with whitish ooze. You raised an eyebrow and snickered.

“And who is the pathetic one?” 

He grabbed your hair harder. 

“Shut... up. Do your work.”

“Truly pathetic…” Your tongue stroked his trembling manhood. “Swayed so easily.”

“Enough!” 

As you opened your lips once more, he thrusted deep inside your mouth. Smiled vindictively as you chocked. He wanted you to lose your breath, to finally be quiet, and obediently end the act of his ascension. As cruelly, as holy. New madness hitted his insides as you murmured with a trickle of saliva ran down your chin.

“Better…” Those full cheeks, clenched throat and murderous intent in your eyes make you both dirty and perfect. Perfect to be used. Clouded with pleasure, he thought that he found his new favorite toy.

All Raphael stans! Let me redirect you to @livelaughlovesubs and her wonderful fics - here you got first and second part. I assume you've already seen it, if not, check it out~ She can write and catch his personality way better than me

This historical paranormal romance series I’m reading is leaning a little more into the paranormal with some steampunk elements with each book and that’s cool and fun and all but I keep having Girl What Are You Wearing moments because are you telling me this lady deliberately disguised herself as A Lady with the assistance of her sisters (actual ladies married to titled gentlemen) and their wardrobes but is now also wandering around an ocean liner with knives strapped to her hips. The ocean liner she was pretending to be a lady on.

I will allow that all my questions could possibly be answered if I had a print book or an ebook and could go back and reread but I’m listening to an audiobook so that’s Not Easy

i can't decide which i like more:

the idea - very much canonical and in the author's original concept and view of magic - of the dark arts taking a toll on one's exterior and looks. tom riddle sacrificing his beauty willingly in the name of eternal life, black magic as something that innately corrupts. bellatrix escaping from azkaban with the barest vestiges of her ancient beauty. going from one of the most beautiful women in england to a shell of her former self and no amount of dark magic being able to fix it. and she just. doesn't care. goes from pretty, proud and vain in her youth, to the feverish, fanatical glow harry sees in the department if mysteries. finally she sheds the petal of the rose - look like the innocent flower, her master had once said - and only the thorns remain. the parallel with voldemort himself. the idea that they like each other better now, the only ones to like their respective new appearances better. bellatrix because she can taste the power radiating off him, because she knows how resentful he was of his old face. (oh, he's never said anything explicitly, he would rather be flayed alive than speak of his filthy muggle father to her, but she knew he didn't like himself, took no pride in his aesthetics, it was most unusual, really.) the dark lord because he's reminded of her sacrifice - she was the only one who didn't denounce him, who tried to find him - every time he looks at her. she gave up everything for him: her reputation, her family, her freedom, her health, her beauty, her youth.

or.

the horcruxes are an isolated case. not all prices to pay for power are physical. some dark magic sucks at your humanity, your emotional regulation, your empathy and gives back superficial little gifts. its roots are far from the deep anger, desperation to cling to life of an horcrux. these are ancient witches' remedies to be the most envied in the village. the idea that rotten cores hide behind the prettiest faces. and bellatrix was always vain, always took immense pride in her beauty, her black, pure features. when she escapes from azkaban she tries everything in her power to be herself once again. she still drips with obsession but gradually regains all of her beauty too. cruel people can still be beautiful. gorgeous people can still be inhuman. and yet there is something so human about a woman making her way through the ranks of a very militarised group and still caring so much about what she looks like, still having insecurities, being preoccupied with mundane things like age and decay - and hating it because he would hate it, he hates weakness, and still not being able to help herself. the dark lord was always a collector of shiny things, was he not?

you ever open a book and start reading and immediately think thaaaat sounds like bullshit

Hello, good day to you! Ive been trying to read less common poetry and was wondering if you have some poems or poets you could reccomend that aren't the Romantics?

hi love! of course there are always poets and poems to recommend - it's good that you've already taken the precaution of excluding the romantics, because i would inevitably have thrown some shelley your way. here are some poets i've been reading lately, plus a favourite poem of each. maybe there's something in there for you! quite without meaning to, i've started this out all garden-themed and then lost the plot.

amy lowell | the garden by moonlight (amy lowell was an imagist, and the garden by moonlight encapsulates the movement so well to me, like a colour photo of late summer.)

minnie bruce pratt | the fact of the garden (i think reading this next to the above might be interesting. what else can a garden be?)

charles algernon swinburne | the garden of proserpine (swinburne might remind you of the romantics a little. he's an odd egg. works like a sleeping draught.)

hanif abdurraqib | how can black people write about flowers at a time like this (worth reading by itself so you can feel the final line break you open just a bit; worth reading with the pratt poem above as a fun comparative exercise.)

billy collins | the birds of america (no one else i've ever read quite observes the way billy collins does - he makes you want to keep an eye out, for whatever.)

anna akhmatova | lot's wife (my favourite variation on the theme, sharp and distilling and somehow gentle. very worth reading with the one below.)

elisa gonzalez | the night before i leave home (this, like lot's wife, is about looking back.)

Everyone loves the 'eddie has been crushing on Steve off and on since sophomore year' trope but honestly love me an Eddie who is like "yeah Harrington is hot, I've got eyes, but prep isnt my type" and honestly just doesn't think about Steve that much! Outside of, like, school gossip, especially during/after Steve's fall from grace. Really kind of love the idea of Eddie not giving the time of day to Steve up until his little sheep come to him every day weaving wild tales about the shit Steve has done, and even then it isn't really until he sees Steve go teeth first at a demobat that he starts reevaluating Steve and seeing him in a new light.

Because Eddie honestly kind of gives the impression that he's just as much caught up in his own world view as Steve was pre upside down/even pre S2. And like I know that we love Steve but Steve hasn't really done anything to give most of like his classmates any reason to love him aside from the generic jock stuff lbr. Especially for someone like eddie who is extremely anticomformist to the point of monologuing on the lunch tables.

And it's not so much a 'love at first bite' (heh) situation either but just all the things during and after s4 and the friendship they develop that makes Eddie reevaluate not only Steve but his world view and what he wants from the world! It makes him think. Fighting interdimensional monsters has a way of bringing out the best and the worst in people. And Eddie finds he likes what he's seeing. I'm not necessarily saying I want a slow burn either, but having them both have time to be like "huh maybe this person isn't what I thought i would want but he is want i want, isn't he?"

Many men had offered her many things in the past, love and friendship, luxury and jewels, entertainment, dogs, amusements, homage--some she had accepted, some refused, but no man before had offered her work. Peter had offered her that, he had offered her a share of his--not noble or inspiring or fascinating work, just his work, what he had. He had offered it her, called her great energies into play, and set her to work beside himself in a furrow. And she was glad; for some reason she found it very good.

--Desire by Una Lucy Silberrad

The books everytime Arya is on page: Arya has black hair and green eyes. Did I mention she's an elf? She's an elf. She has pointy ears like an elf does. Arya has elven ears. Arya has pointy ears. Arya is an elf. Her hair is black and her eyes are green by the way. I hope I mentioned she's an elf. Black hair. Green eyes. Elf.

The bozos in charge of the movie: K

Okay, but no. I’m sorry. My mom tried so hard to find me a different fantasy book series to redirect my somewhat worrying Redwall obsession, and she couldn’t. It’s not that the Redwall books are inimitable, they’re actually very imitable. But it is that Brian Jacques wasn’t setting out to write fantasy, he was setting out to write a story that kids would enjoy and that he would enjoy telling to them. I wasn’t reading 350-page novels in one sitting because I loved fantasy, I was reading them because I loved Redwall. Obviously I can’t speak for every kid, but I didn’t branch out by being handed more books in the same genre, I branched out by being given books that were written with the same genuinity.

you know how in the book aziraphale calls crowley variations of ‘dear.’ yeah what if that changed to ‘dearest’ when they got closer 👍

'Cause listen, I'm not saying anything about the content of the books, but I gotta give it to PB, some of the titles are good word play, and I wanna see if anyone else thinks that, too.

OP added context she thought people might want to know: I am so so easily amused

Are all Becky Chamber's books this wholesome? The kinda naive/childish optimism with which she writes about really tragic/horrible events/situations and characters is like the best most healing thing ever. I need a lifetime supply of this injected directly into my brainstem.

“Kingdom Hearts being an epic slow burn gay romance would be incredibly impactful to people both personally and as a landmark in queer representation by extremely popular and established characters. It has decades of legitimate buildup and has the potential to be both incredibly validating to queer fans everywhere and even possibly sway the minds of those who love the characters but may not have much contact or knowledge of queerness.”

and

“The Kingdom Hearts series is honestly kind of unique in its unabashed emotional sincerity. How it treats friendships and non-romantic bonds as being both extremely important and powerful, never giving the impression that friendship is lesser to romance, is depressingly still somewhat of a rarity in media. This is very important and validating to many, particularly aromantics but also most everyone who is just Tired of how friendships and romance are often presented in tiers of importance.”

are concepts that can and should co-exist.