#I read very few books these days

[expelliarmus]

[momentomori24]

Nah, what do you MEAN they charged the alleged assassin of a corrupt rich business guy with terrorism and are keeping him in the same detention centre as fucking Diddy? Why didn't the CEO ever get charged with murder for denying countless of his clients, who had to fork over their hard earned money to his company, life saving treatment? Why didn't the goddamn rapist, predator and convicted felon proven guilty on 34 charges face any consequences and got to not only run for but win presidency? You're keeping this dude in the same detention centre as the serial abuser and rapist who ran a sex trafficking ring? Did I get that right? Bro, he only allegedly smoked ONE guy--

Like, literally Boeing very not-so-subtly assassinated not one, but TWO whistleblowers with ZERO repercussions not even that long ago (and that's not even bringing up all the other shady shit they've done that's killed hundreds of people before e.g The Boeing 737 MAX crashes), but assassinating a single CEO is where you draw the line and start relentlessly hunting down culprits? It really do be "when the rich kill poor people it's called business, but when the average joe kills one rich guy it's called terrorism". What even is the legal system, man.

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??

[wikiangela]

tease tidbit tuesday

tagged by @daffi-990 @dangerpronebuddie @sunshinediaz @honestlydarkprincess @underwater-ninja-13 @exhuastedpigeon💖

don't have a lot of new stuff for the fics i've been sharing lately, so today smth different - coffee shop au is back! progress is constantly being made (slowly, but still lol) - so here's a lil buckley siblings moment (I haven't shared a buck and eddie moment in a minute lmao need to fix that soon haha)

prev snippet

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“What?” he rolls his eyes.

“You’re crushing so hard.” she teases, and he feels his cheeks heat up.

“Shut up.” Buck grumbles, as he grabs a cloth to wipe down the counter just to have something to do. “Not like it matters anyway, he has someone.”

“Really?” Maddie frowns, tilts her head. “Did he tell you that?”

“Not in so many words.” 

“So how do you know?” she prods.

“He ordered for two people.” he says, and only when Maddie laughs, he realizes how stupid and presumptive that is. It could be for anyone, even for himself. Hell, Buck would often order something for himself and for Maddie. Didn’t Eddie say he had an abuela and a tia here? “Shut up, I know.” he groans and covers his face with his hands – and the dirty cloth that’s still in his hand.

“Ew, gross.” Maddie chuckles and pries the cloth out of his hand, dumping it on the counter. “You can be so dense sometimes.” she shakes her head. “When Eddie saw you today, his face literally lit up. He’s been waiting for you to get him his coffee, even though I could’ve done it. If you ask me, he’s crushing, too.”

“Good thing no one asked you.” Buck mutters, and Maddie playfully swats at his arm. “Ow!”

“Just ask him out, Buck, what’s the worst that could happen?” Maddie asks, before turning away just as the door opens and a customer walks in.

___

no pressure tags: @elvensorceress @gaydiaz @thebravebitch @silentxxsoul @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @transbuck @911onabc @housewifebuck @watchyourbuck @eowon @loserdiaz @evanbegins @ladydorian05 @wildlife4life @diazpatcher @lover-of-mine @monsterrae1 @thewolvesof1998 @puppyboybuckley @weewootruck @loveyouanyway @spagheddiediaz @rainbow-nerdss @epicbuddieficrecs @pirrusstuff @spotsandsocks @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @hoodie-buck @nmcggg @jesuisici33 @rogerzsteven @hippolotamus @fortheloveofbuddie @steadfastsaturnsrings @disasterbuckdiaz @tizniz @theotherbuckley @diazsdimples @giddyupbuck

[formereldestdaughter]

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?

[fictionadventurer]

*

[sonknuxadow]

went to a comic store today and saw individual issues of idw sonic in person for the first time ever btw . epic win

[tennessoui]

au where Obi-Wan is an outer-mid rim archaeologist and Anakin is a looter (sorry, opportunist), and they meet at a cantina and hook up without knowing what the other does — but halfway through the night, Obi-Wan spots a very old and oddly recognizable figurine sticking out of Anakin’s bag and spends the rest of the sex trying to figure out what it is and how he knows it only to realize that that’s definitely something that belongs to the Sevanth sector of the galaxy and can be dated back a thousand years based on the position of the figurine and the type of metal material used to make it and why the hell does this random stranger at a cantina have this???

so obviously he calls the sex off to go and grab the object and look at it (“hey hey careful with that do you know what that’s worth?”) and realizes a few things very quickly:

The Sevanth sector is one of the most dangerous to enter in the entire outer-mid rim, surrounded by a thick asteroid belt, so Anakin must be very good at his job even if his job is distasteful and against Obi-Wan’s principles.

And more importantly he may be the perfect person to get Obi-Wan access first into that sector and then to a specific planet archaeologists haven’t been able to land on for a thousand years: Emaeth, which by all accounts disappeared thousands of years ago, though the planet once was the political seat of the sector and perhaps its neighboring sectors as well

He just has to figure out how to convince Anakin to escort him (hint: it’s with sex but also the promise of a lot of credits. But mostly sex)

[alasy]

From now on, I declare The Mirror Visitor is a trilogy. There's no fourth book, trust me. Just enjoy the first three and move on <3

[rovermcfly]

got tired of all the misanthropic customer service memes, I love getting to talk to people of all walks of life and getting to help them out and learning about regulars' lives. people are wonderful and diverse and kind and the handful of mean ones can't ruin that

[simgerale]

me after attempting to get back into sims and realizing i had a lot more to do than play the game

[yumeyleo]

"In my heart, I worry about Mother and want to be a good daughter, but my words and actions are nothing more than that of a spoiled child. And lately, there hasn't been a single redeeming quality about this childlike me."

[which-hospital]

kinda late on this but it’s 37 years since the first episode of series 2, one of my favourite early Casualty episodes, A Little Lobbying aired!

montage scene I think is fun (followed by what you might not think is hospital-politics-based flirting, but absolutely is that):

[northern-passage]

Hi kit! Any books recs or your favourite ones? I’ve been having a thought time at uni and I need a break

hmmm well not sure what you're in the mood for, but i just read what we fed to the manticore and i cannot recommend it enough!!! it's not exactly lighthearted but it is really touching, approaching environmental conservation and even military oppression through the perspective of animals. i also finally just finished pageboy, which took me some time to read but i recommend it if you're interested in celeb memoirs (emphasis on celeb memoir; while i liked page's stream of consciousness about his experiences, it's very raw and lacking introspection, imo. but still worth a read if you're interested).

otherwise i don't have much to recommend that i haven't already before, i'm trying to really get back into reading consistently this year (and reading books that are actually good lol) a lot of the books i read last year weren't really good enough for me to want to recommend.

but i did really like minor detail, but if you're looking for a break maybe skip it for now as it's a very heavy read. if you're looking for a quick and weird extreme horror book then i'd recommend to be devoured.

i'm now reading i shudder at your touch which i linked a few days ago, i'm about 3 stories in and i've really enjoyed the second and third one (sea lovers was like right up my alley), but the first one is kinda a slog to get through (or not, if you like stephen king i guess)

[nomsfaultau]

Took a lil excerpt from an SCP fic for a Creative Writing workshop and it was kinda insane how nearly half of the (admittedly small) class got super hyped when they realized it was SCP. Four different people started talking over each other trying to explain what SCP even was to an increasingly confused professor who thought it was a writing prompt site. We started excitedly debating the Foundation’s ethics while everyone else just quietly sat there absolutely confused.

The girl next to me searched up 682 bc we got on the subject and she just scrolled through google images like what the hell?? What’s wrong w that dinosaur????

[excelsior9173]

man i love reading why don’t i make myself do this more?

i put my playlist on, tuck into bed, grab a good book. and as someone with an overactive imagination/habit of maladaptive daydreaming it’s such a healthy way to put that wandering mind to work? i always feel like i’m watching a movie when i read. i get so absorbed into it, and with my music on its like having a soundtrack (even if it doesn’t match) today i actually got back from switching my laundry over and had the thought “let’s get back to my movie” before i remembered that i had been reading and not watching something. everything is so vivid in my head and i never want to leave these little worlds