#i want to know people's common headcanons

[potato-lord-but-not]

Followed you a long time ago for just how cool your art looks, finally decided to look into the podcast characters you like to draw! I just saw one ask asking if the character Oscar is POC, and I wonder are characters in those podcasts usually unclear in ethnicity, and the fandom can freely headcanon? Like I know if info is clearly very mentioned in the original work or there is official concept art then it would be easy, but I'm really scared if I headcanoned something that is completely different from implied canon info I didn't pick up/ info that showed up in an obscure interview. Do you have any advice in navigating information in podcast fandoms?

Usually with podcasts, you can go off of official art and or descriptions from the podcast. In the case of malevolent, hardly any characters, aside from the eldritch monsters that John likes to describe in detail, have a solid description of their looks. that’s why you get so many different variations of Noel and Oscar. Ofc there are context clues that can help you inform your design choices (or just context. like Oscar’s Scottish accent and the Butcher’s Irish accent. he may even have been described as being Irish but idk that’s besides the point, you can tell).

But even then you can play with it, like how I made Oscar mixed Scottish and Jamaican. And honestly! sometimes you can ignore it! like with Gordon from red valley, who I already had a design I liked before he was described as being pale and even implied to look white. but like I said ! you can have fun with it !

I also sometimes check voice actors, because in some instances you can’t tell someone’s ethnicity from their voice alone, and I’d hate to misinterpret their character because I couldn’t pick up on that. that’s more so a concern when the voice actor is POC tho. With malevolent tho it’s all done by Harlan, who is white, so I think headcanoning characters as different ethnicities is more important, and also way more fun.

Oh also! fandom wikis are a good place to double check. cus they’d definitely have something like that you may have missed- like something from an interview or the character’s full name, which can sometimes indicate their ethnicity ( like Parker Yang from malevolent, only shows up as a corpse in the show but important enough to Arthur that he’s still a fan favorite to make content about)

ghugh I’m rambling- I’d say the majority of the time you’re free to do whatever, just be open to change your design if descriptions come up later on (I’d say more importantly if they’re described to be POC, cus like with Gordon I think my design for him with more Afro centric features looks way cooler and feels more like him than anything I could come up with that would be more canon compliant). Also you can go off common fanon designs, but those are just mutually agreed upon and it’s not wrong to go against that. Like with the Magnus Archives there are no official designs and they let the people make whatever designs they please.

OKAY IG TLDR- do what you want, keep your ears open for character descriptions when listening, double check with character wikis or their voice actors, don’t be afraid to make more POC characters even of the cast is played by mostly white people because the more diverse cast the more fun and interesting your art will be.

[wisteria-lodge]

Wait the wiki is bad? I use it all the time 😭 I thought the whole point is it's community-run so people should be able to fix any mistakes (and since it's a huge community that's been running for very long it seems quite robust and strict on verifying information) I do get that it has info from the videogames which most people don't regard as canon, though. But when it does it tends to note it as such, and they still consider the books/movies a higher "plane" of canon.

I love reading the wiki, but I do have to do a lot of follow up and sifting if I'm using it as reference. In tends to throw in the video games, JKR interviews, *actor* interviews, and Pottermore content, and sometimes it's organized and clearly marked, but a lot of times it isn't... and that has definitely slipped up my co-writer (whose knowledge of HP isn't as crazy as mine) a few times. Unless you already have a really solid grasp on everything, it's easy to get confused. Like here's someone who wrote into me, asking about a sentence in the Narcissa page that was 1) Poorly written 2) wrong.

The other problem with the wiki is that since it's community run, every page tends to be written by fans of that particular character. This is especially obvious with the villains. Like read through the Lucius Malfoy, or Severus Snape pages. There is so much there that's bending over backwards to give them a positive edit. There's a lot about Lucius' elegant dueling style (no source) and his skill with potions. Like the actual detail is 'Lucius Malfoy mentions having a potion collection in Book 2.' I don't want that extrapolated into 'Lucius Malfoy was a model student who got into the Slug Club because of his skill with potions.' Like let me write my own headcanons! It starts speculating that Lucius got Voldemort monologing on purpose in the graveyard to buy time for Harry!

Snape's page says that one of his skills is writing poetry. He wrote a rhyming logic puzzle in book one, which I would say is not the same thing. It also says he communicates with floriography, which is a reference to a fan theory about how the plants he lists in Book 1 are a coded message about Lily. Like *I* know that. But then the wiki just cites Book 1. That's not in Book 1.

This is actually so common that co-writer @niche-pastiche and I have an in-joke when we attribute any flattering/creative interpretation to Tom Saunders, Wasp Scientist.

Tom Saunders is a New Zealand biologist who named a species of wasp after Lucius Malfoy because:

"People see wasps as villains, as the 'bad guys.' But the truth is that the vast majority of wasp species are either neutral or beneficial, from a human standpoint. Just as Lucius Malfoy is pardoned after separating from Voldemort's allies, I'm asking people to pardon wasps in order to restore their reputation as interesting, important creatures."

Like I get that you like wasps, and Lucius Malfoy, I do too. But that's not info that's in the books.

(It is Pottermore stuff, but I honestly count Pottermore as tertiary canon at *best.* Like every once in a while it'll be a cool detail, but JKR is *not good* at worldbuilding, so most of the time, instead of explaining things... it just makes everything more confusing. And I think that all of this has the end result of accidentally gatekeeping newcomers who want to engage with the material. Like the person who sent that ask.)

[dundeey-art]

How would you interpret prowl as a romantic partner? Especially IDW prowl

my friend, this is the question of the century. youre asking me to answer one of life's greatest mysteries. every day i knock on my friend's barred doors, and i demand they answer my very same question...: How would you interpret prowl as a romantic partner?

now, if i was a writer, and if this was a headcanon blog, i would give you a neat little list of headcanons that would make your heart flutter. unfortunately i am not a writer, so i can in no way paint a beautiful picture of a world in which prowl is your lover in a sweet 200 words or less. instead i wrote a stupid essay for you that doesnt even answer your question... hah. after another hour of typing i actually did more or less answer your question

so, you say "especially" IDW prowl, but IDW prowl is unique (and all i think about), so this is just going to be about IDW prowl.

let me just say that i started writing and i couldnt stop, so i accidentally ended up with a bunch of bullshit that has nothing to do with what you asked. i kind of like the bullshit though, so i'm not deleting it. just scroll down until you see "the headcanons" if you want to skip past my nonsense.

i used to have trouble envisioning prowl as a romantic partner because of the way he's portrayed. i bold that last part because it is specifically the way he's portrayed that makes it difficult to envision him in a romantic setting, and not necessarily the way he is as a character. what i mean by that is that prowl is always shown to be in extremely stressful situations and in environments where the stakes and tensions are high. nevermind personality, we don't even get to see how he is when he's relaxed, when he's not under threat. i suppose we get a glimpse of that during the flashback that shows him working with chromedome, but even then he is 1. performing dangerous work and 2. shown interacting with someone who is more so a colleague than a friend. even then, that is a prowl from the past. we don't know if that is how he would still act "today" (by which i mean the end of IDW). since then he's gone through millions of years of war, and that doesn't just come with trauma, but all kinds of growth and change. so we can't just fall back to pre-war prowl for our headcanons - we have to focus on present-day prowl, trauma and all.

i also want to say that i don't like the way i see how a lot of people headcanon prowl as a romantic partner. again, because of the way he's portrayed, people tend to default to a cold, mean and distant partner. someone who lacks empathy, communication skills, something about "emotional intelligence"? i've even seen people headcanon that he would be abusive... yikes. i think what people tend to forget is that prowl is not a villain. he does act distant to the people around him, but that is a pretty common personality trait that a lot of normal people in the real world have. so while he can be a little rough around the edges, i'd say hes just a normal guy who is, just like anyone, capable of developing romantic feelings for someone. still, prowl has some key traits that are undeniably him, and i try to base my idea on that while staying as loyal as possible to the canon.

the headcanons

i don't see prowl as someone who would fall in love easily. but when he does, it's intense. prowl is shown to have one goal throughout the comic: it's to attain peace. that goal is his world. i think that in a similar way we can imagine how he might be when in love - his partner, the object of his desire, would become his world. i think he would love his partner with the same kind of intensity that he is shown to have in various situations.

i think he would like to have you rely on him; he likes to be depended on, to be trusted. he wants you to leave everything to him, and he would take good care of you. that's not to say that he wouldn't trust you to take care of yourself. however, he might have a tendency to be a little controlling and overprotective - but really, it's because he cares a lot about you. he wants to prevent harm from befalling you at all costs. he might have to learn not to be so worried about you all the time. can you blame him though, after everything he's seen? if prowl lost you, he probably would not be able to move on.

i can imagine prowl's lover, and love in general, having a certain effect on prowl. you bring a kind of warmth out of him. you make him let his guard down. when he's with the one he loves, he can finally relax. he's not under threat and he's not constantly being scorned - you are essentially his safe space.

the thing is that love can bring a side out of people that you might not normally see or expect. you can imagine almost anything within reasonable limits. maybe, as a lover, prowl is soft spoken and sweet. maybe hes playful. or maybe he's not one for verbal but physical affection. honestly, it was hard for me to tell you exactly how i imagine him as a romantic partner because i like nuance, and i like to be open minded to those infinite possibilities. still, i did my best to paint a picture for you. 👍 this just took me two hours so i hope you like it

[boykingscourt]

What are your thoughts on Wincest? Do you have any hcs?

oooh I'm excited for this! good opportunity for me to clarify some things if anyone is new around here or just curious

if you're here for the short version, I'm definitely a wincest respecter but not necessarily a wincest shipper

if you're here for the long and more nuanced version, please read on!

I have a lot friends both here and irl who are wincesties, but the most important thing for me is that they love and defend sam. I've read wincest fics and the presence of wincest is not a deal-breaker in fics, but I prefer reading gen sam and dean on the whole. it's fun to analyze something in the show with the wincest lens on, but I can just as easily take it off. ultimately wincest is not the only version of sam and dean that I find compelling, but I don't really care if people view some of my posts as wincest (wincesties, please do interact) because I only say what I think and feel regarding the brothers. idk does that technically make me a wincest shipper? maybe some people will think it does, but ultimately I feel like the nonshipper label fits better

now I'm gonna get on my soapbox about proshipping for a moment. back in the day, what we think of as "proshipping" was just called common courtesy. I'm not saying fandom was perfect when I was younger (and I was probably too young to be in fandom then if I'm being honest) but in my experience people were more respectful about ships they didn't like, understood the difference between fiction and reality, and for the most part didn't make assumptions about people irl for things they enjoyed in fiction

of course I'm not saying you have to ship incest or want to interact with people who do, but it's crucial to curate your own space. coming on here or twitter and harassing people for shipping wincest and/or crying in the main tags about how disgusting it is just makes me lose respect for you. block what you don't want to see and move on

I will also say that being so against others shipping incest and finding yourself in the supernatural fandom is kind of a problem you created. it's kind of, well, extremely silly. wincest is the oldest ship in this fandom, like literally as old as the pilot itself, and was instrumental in first getting the show off the ground (i.e. not cancelled). also given the very not normal relationship between sam and dean, the other gothic horror elements present in the show, and the way the writers and actors regard the ship, it really should be no surprise that it is so popular

okay so now that I've gotten all of that out of the way, I'm going to address the other part of this ask, which is wincest headcanons! I don't know if these are necessarily headcanons, but it is the way I prefer my wincest when I think about it or imagine how it fits in with canon:

I definitely don't imagine them as like boyfriends, just more of what they are in the show, brothers with a complicated, intense, and abusive relationship (it being complicated does not mean you cannot call abuse what it is). I think their relationship having a sexual component would not help anything and would probably just further highlight the power imbalance present

related to above, I think dean would use sex the way he uses love and affection in canon, expertly alternating between being generous with it and withdrawing it when he's angry as means to manipulate sam and have him constantly chasing after the affection. and trust. trust especially. sometimes dean isn't even aware he's doing it (or would at least tell himself that's not what he's doing to his darling little sammy), but it's extremely effective either way. seasons 4, 5, and 8 especially would be delicious in this regard

in s7 there was a point where sex was one of the only things that kept hallucifer at bay, so sam was always torn between shaking dean awake multiple times a night in their motel rooms or handling it on his own. ultimately because I think he didn't want to "burden" dean with his visions or have them both lacking sleep all the time, he would lie and pretend that one or two times a night made lucifer go away. it became harder to pretend as we approached 7x17, and after sam "let lucifer in" in 7x15, the sex trick stopped working too. also hallucifer eavesdropping or appearing over dean's shoulder as they're having sex is very appealing to me

dean is the dom. I really can't see that any other way

dean doesn't see what he does with sam as any reflection of his sexuality, aka "it's not gay and it's not incest it's just sammy." sam probably would see it as some kind of reflection of his sexuality but wouldn't see the point in voicing that

dean was experiencing attraction to sam for a while beforehand, but I don't think they began messing around until sam was a teenager. maybe it wasn't like full blown sex then, but it was definitely something. I think a bit of precedent just adds something fun to s1, especially with dean coming to get sam in the pilot and how they interact, all that time apart, and sam's grief and guilt/dean's guilt surrounding jessica

I hope you enjoyed and found something compelling in here! I am certainly no wincest connoisseur, but these are my opinions

[chiisana-sukima]

Saw that you also wanted to be asked this and I’d love to here your thoughts too. Exact same ask: What’s your thoughts on the idea of Soulless Sam losing his inhibitions and so giving into his darkest desires, and sexually assaulting Dean (which is how the vampire turning scene is read). I often see this tied to the idea that because of the incestuous deal and Azazel’s blood, Sam’s tainted and has this inherent darkness, specifically playing around the idea Sam’s sexuality is dark and perverse, and he harbours these feelings towards Dean and desires to assault him but feels shame and guilt for it. But as Soulless Sam he doesn’t. This reading always felt a little weird and uncomfortable to me but I couldn’t put into words why

In terms of the canonicity component, I have nothing to add to what @aliusfrater said. In isolation, I do think it's fair to read that look in Live Free or Twihard as at least metaphorically sexual, but it's one camera shot with no dialogue doing an awful lot of work in 327 hours of television.

This reading always felt a little weird and uncomfortable to me but I couldn’t put into words why

This is the part I wanted to write about. It feels weird and uncomfortable because it's an especially volatile subcategory of rape fantasy presented using the structure and language of an academic argument.

I feel like I should disclaimer that rape fantasies are fine and normal (and among my personal faves) and that stories are meant to serve people, not vice versa, so I'm not complaining about either the content of these headcanons or their lack of support in the canon version of spn per se. What's frustrating is the way the meta format mixes together assertions of fact about the source material, assertions of fact about rl, and shit an OP made up out of thin air because they thought it was hot, and turns it all into an indiscriminate fact-y sounding stew.

No, actually. No he isn't and no it wouldn't.

Another part of the uncomfortable feeling, at least for me, is the way fandom does intimacy backwards. First we put our blorbos in Situations, then we talk about our favorite Situations and why we love them, then we talk about politics, and then if we really, really like each other, we might discuss the weather. And it's all done in public, often without direct communication.

Usually I love that for us, but sometimes it causes problems we don't have great protocols for solving. I feel super-uncomfortable scrolling past 'It makes a tragic kind of sense that a csa survivor would grow up to be a rapist' without adding 'speak for your own damn self', and I think that's entirely fair of me.

Butttt, I can also guess that an OP who looked at Sam having smoking hot consensual sex and thought 'looks like rape to me' probably has a reason. Maybe the reason is poor sex ed. Probably not.

(Another part of the problem: that 'probably not' was a lie for politeness' sake. I went to the OP's dash and I know they have a reason other than poor sex ed. But I'm not supposed to say that, or especially have guessed it beforehand, despite the fact that such experiences are incredibly common and isolating, and despite the fact that knowing that information makes the OP's error more sympathetic. Because we're supposed to be ashamed that we were victimized, and never speak of it again. So if I could be assed to follow social norms, we would now have two survivors of sexual violence arguing about sexual violence--though only indirectly with each other--and both pretending their only investment was detached academic concern for the sanctity of the canon of a stupid 2000s era ghost-hunting melodrama. Which we both probably like in large part for the exact reason we're not supposed to admit to. Nobody wins that fight but patriarchy).

And you know, ig the thing that's most murky, and therefore most uncomfortable of all for me personally, is how I feel about the fact that this is so obviously a Dean girl (gn) take about Sam. Idek why that's so clear or why I care. I actually really enjoy "soulless Sam, freed of his guilt and inhibitions, does evil sexual things to Dean" fics. One of my all-time favorite fics (Flying Weight by flesh) is in this genre and is even about the vampire bite in Twihard. And I can't always tell, nor do I ever even care, whether they're written by Sam fans or Dean fans. But the chances of a Sam girlie conceptualizing it all this specific way, with the Evil Desires from the csa/demon blood and the predatory (consensual) sex and all, and then writing it all down as a meta, idk man, it would just never happen. And I'm kinda icked out that a meta that posits Sam as a csa survivor also so clearly uses him as a cardboard prop.

And on the one hand, yeah, they're all barbie dolls and everything, so who cares. But on the other, I hope if I wanted to write a meta, for example, about Dean correctively raping Sam in the panic room as part of the demon blood cure, I would build a more careful frame around it. One where it was clear what aspects I thought were consistent with canon, what aspects I thought were plausible in a semi-analogous rl situation, and what ones I just thought were hot.

I was really mad at the OP of the post I took that screenshot up there from when I read the meta and I'm glad I managed to slow down enough to be way less of a douche about it than I initially wanted to be. Maybe this is still too much of a douche, idk. Anyway, ty nonny for giving me the opportunity to process it all.

[mimpinightmare]

XAN, YOU'RE THE REALEST!~!~! ✨💛💜✨

I'm so HAPPY someone gets me and the Sultan FC LOVE!! And AGREE, would vibe with Zoom Zahir as well~ And WHAT A COINCIDENCE you see the Sultans being Chill, because I kinda headcanon Zoom Zahir and the other players are actually more chill than people would assume and Zoom Zahir would say the most unexpected things- (I'll save the Headcanon ramblings in another post-)

Also I'm still laughing at the "never trust a tall white man!!!" Duval joke- LMAO 😭😭😭

ALSO, (I've already said in the comments) the guy's name, specifically for the images Xan put, is ALAM!!

(Here's his Official Supa Strikas Card :D) :

It's weird (and bothers me abit) that he has the same name with one of the Amal 3 Triplets, Aziz, Akhbar, ALAM. (I know it's common for Muslims to have the same name, despite not being related. I know this I'm Muslim myself- But, they could have pick a different name to differentiate from each other- 😭)

To fix this issues, I'll just call (and Headcanon-) the Amal 3's with their Trio Name- "Aziz Amal", "Akhbar Amal", "ALAM Amal". THERE!!

(Speaking about the Amal 3, PLEASE EXCUSE ME AS I RAMBLE ABIT ABOUT THE AMAL 3-)

I got 2 headcanons where the name "AMAL" in 'Amal 3' came from. It's HEAVILY IMPLIED in "Three's a Crowd S2E6" that the triplets were orphans when they were little, so here's what I came up with:

First headcanon is that Amal is their fathers name. Their parent(s) have passed when young, and rely on each other to survive. (Usually when it comes with Muslim Names, a child always takes up their fathers name as their last name. EXAMPLE: "Muhammad Aziz Bin Amal Rahim." (There's more to the Muslim Naming System, but for the sake of clarity, I'll only mention the 'Father's name as Last Name'-))

(Or.. maybe they were abandon since VERY YOUNG like 3-5 years old, or worst, at birth- that being said: ) Second (alternative) headcanon is that when young they saw a popular celebrity billboard on their area, with the name 'Amal', and decided to name their trio that- LMAO They name themselves 'The Amal 3' since young because to remind one another that they wouldn't get separate from each other. Despite they have little, they have each other.

(I'll stop here- I don't want to ramble too much here. I'll make a separate post dedicated towards The 3 Amal and Zoom Zahir if have time-)

(Okay, that's enough rambling from me- THANK YOU AGAIN XAN FOR ANSWERING MY ASK!!! THE REALEST!~!~!🙏✨✨✨)

Just wanna ask...

What's your opinion on Zoom Zahir?

You know, that Sultan FC captain? That barely has any lines??

I FW THIS GUY!!! listen, the hairstyle is another story. but i personally love the sultans. i think other than IU, they're the other team that i really like. praying for that season 8 just for more sultans content. also its so minor but i love the fact him and the other guys just did not vibe w duval in “t’omb it may concern” like yeah, never trust a tall white man!!!

also im pretty sure it was this episode that actually made me really like them. probably because they had more than one line LMAOOO please moonbug if you hear me i want more sultans content 😭🙏

as for what i think he’s like. i think in general the sultans are pretty chill but a bit clique-y. like they’re a bit more exclusive and don’t vibe well with new members. and as far as i know, never mess with people who can exercise in 40 degree heat. that is INSANE. he can play and he can play GOOD. half the time i don’t even think they need to sabotage other teams, but they just do it because they have the money to fuck around.

i know it’s probably an animation thing but you notice how they don’t show up to super league events or participate in challenges like “your latest trick”. i just like the idea that they’re too good for it and would rather bathe in luxury than entertain people w clownery (sorry to the rest of the guys)

+ on that note abt the sultans, can someone find the name of THIS guy??? i am obsessed with his design and wanna see more of him

[aroaceleovaldez]

it is so extremely underutilized that Nico is heavily implied to have powers of just. anything ghosts are reportedly able to do.

we know canonically that he can drop temperatures to freezing/to the point where it creates frost, and does so involuntarily or unknowingly at times. We know he can project emotions and memories out onto others, just in general and with physical force - both his own memories/emotions and general emotions as well, such as radiating an aura onto his enemies so that they would fear him more. We know it's heavily implied he can straight up create illusions and inflict madness upon others. We know he's eerily silent when he moves and seems to just appear in places. We know he can control/walk through/mess with dreams. We know he can become intangible and pass through solid objects and terrain without even realizing it.

like, that alone is so much! but the fact that it's implied that's not it? there's MORE?

Where's Nico fucking with EVPs and speaking through radios or static or TV. Throwing his voice. Nico remotely setting things on and off, or draining batteries, or making cell service fuzz out. Nico totally turning invisible (also a Hades' Helm of Darkness thing, so double reason for Nico to be able to do that). Where's Nico inflicting sleep paralysis. Where's Nico straight up making the walls bleed. Let him do more ghost stuff!

[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?

[sailorsnightmare]

Last post unleashed the angry aroace in me regarding fandom reactions to aroace characters again so now I have to rant about it (as one does).

The canonical aroaceness of characters have always been heavily debated in queer and non-queer communities and it is ALWAYS aroace characters specifically.

For example: When Ryusui Nanami from Dr Stone stated he’s attracted to all people, everyone accepted and respected that he’s canonically Bi.

But when it comes to Senku repeatedly, physically AND verbally expressing his disgust with romance and sex, stating numerous times that he holds no interest in it, ending off the series with NO LOVE INTEREST, it’s suddenly a debate if he���s really aroace or not.

The second a character is aroace, all of a sudden they have to scream “I AM AROACE AND I DO NOT PARTNER AND I AM SEX REPULSED” for people to even fathom that they could be aroace, solely because gay pairings are more palatable.

And even then, tons of people won’t even respect it and will instead do anything they can to excuse dismissing said character’s aroaceness in favor of romance and sex AGAIN because “aroace people can be in romantic and sexual relationships too!”

Sure they can! That isn’t relavent here though, so stop using it as an excuse. When a character in media is explicitly aroace, why would you still go out of your way to force romance/sex into the characters identity? That entirely defeats the purpose of said representation.

If we had enough blatant aroace representation to be able to explore the complexities and varieties of aroace individuals that would be absolutely lovely! All kinds of aroaces deserve to see themselves shown in media we enjoy. But that isn’t the case here given that aroace rep in general is about as frequent as a droplet of rain is a desert during a drought.

Platonic relationships, familial relationships, queer platonic relationships, there are SO many different kinds of love out there that people refuse to explore despite the fact that they’re equally as emotionally impactful and important as romantic or sexual relationships!

What about platonic soulmates? Two friends who are bound to each other no matter the world they’re in?

We’re all familiar with found family, why not explore it more? Blood families even? Close-knit circles of longtime friends?

So many beloved troupes can be depicted and enjoyed in platonic means without erasing a characters aroace identity in favor of another queer one. We all deserve to feel seen in media we enjoy and we all have the freedom to choose how we consume said media, but please keep in mind that behavior like this is harmful.

No queer identity is lesser than another. Allow our community the joy of inclusion and please refrain from constantly coming up with excuses to erase an aroace character’s identity because you wish they were something else. This doesn’t happen nearly as often with other queer characters as it does with aroace ones.

[arsenicflame]

(in general, removed from any specific au's where he needs to swim/not swim for Plot)

(personally, i think my stance is that he has some ability to keep himself afloat in calmer waters- on the shore or in a pool- but not in the way where its a particular skill. hes spend enough time dicking around in the shallows with Jack & Sam & Ed to know how to handle himself in water where he cant consistently reach the bottom, to feel comfortable cooling off by a waterfall, but is also keenly aware that if he goes overboard, even in relatively calm waters, being able to swim isnt going to do anything to save his life if a dinghy isnt sent. hes not gonna drown the second he's in the ocean or anything, but hes screwed if the waters a little too rough or its late or a raid and it isnt noticed before the ships a way away.)

[sonknuxadow]

sorry i dont really like the shadow is silvers dad theory/headcanon/whatever and part of the reason for it is that people keep presenting it as an actual thing that could be possible even though it makes no sense and all "evidence" people use to back it up is easily disputed

[vv-ispy]

Im 👀 at your Mondstadt having an underground area and I just want to bring up this idea in a fanfic I read (Windwheel Aster: Adored by the wind) where Mondstadt has secret underground passageway between them and Liyue for emergency use. Now im combining those ideas in my head of underground passageways beneath Old Mondstadt. Like some sort of dark souls crypt for those who perished (since its Really Hard to do a burial in the snow). You know how the wind brings Mondstadter's souldls home? Yeah what if thats not just a Venti thing but also existed during the time of Decarabian. (I can tie this into Istaroth but thats a whole nother paragraph)

DON't MIND ME HAVING SpeNT most of hte day reading that fic ahem

Crypts under Mondstadt...oh I love that idea it fits in mood-wise with the Actual Dead Guy under the statue, giving Mondstadt and ameno all the more ties to death and souls and imprisonment + yeah how do you deal with bodies when the ground is frozen hard and the city is micromanaged by the god. Why, if the bodies are getting in the way, why not remove them, help the souls pass on, and place the bodies neat and orderly filed away. Away from the people so they can focus on life instead of death, but each passed person can still be easily found in case they're needed. Besides, crypts are often under a church and Mondstadt is the nation most known for having a church....maybe not under Mondstadt's currentday church, but the people did use to 'bow' around the tall tower which houses a god....

But also........those Istaroth ties? 👀👀👀

[delightfuldevin]

Wait wait wait wait

If plants existed on the planet since the beginning, would that mean all sapient plant creatures have as well???

Fauna started on the Moon, and though I still haven’t figured out how the evolution happened, there are most definitely certain creatures that are more plant than animal. Those must have evolved separately, right? From the plants that already existed on the planet. That would probably include sapient mushroom creatures like Toads and Goombas too, right? Though irl mushrooms are more closely related to animals than plants, so maybe not.

This is probably one of my biggest questions for this evolution project. How did plants gain sapience? And how closely related are the many plant creatures on the Mushroom Planet?

[dear-crybunny]

*takes a breath of my candy cigarette* yusuke is very much reduced to the gay shipping character to the point yusuke kitagawa gay is one of the first suggested google searches and i find that to be a great shame when he's one of the most obvious aroace characters ive ever seen. he doesnt seem to even grasp the concept of romance, see: him ignoring romance talk in the ferris wheel scene in strikers or him answering the "whats ur type of woman" question with a perspective of beauty rather than attractiveness in starlight, not understanding ann's flirting during the painting scene or other girls straight up flirting to him etc, which considering his upbringing is something he most likely wouldnt have been exposed much to from an actually romantic instead of artistic standpoint unless he was experiencing it firsthand. as shown in the boat scene he can understand the beauty of a romantic couple but when the tables are turned he doesnt even consider the romantic implications because thats not what hes there for and hes not a model for the beauty he's seeking and that scene is some of the most gay thing that happens regarding him from what i remember. its not solely a case of not understanding the hints and such but also a general lack of interest cuz we know yusuke's interests just because he's so passionate about them, in this essay i will-

[c0nn0r-c0nn0r13]

Can someone draw Tim Drake with really really long hair like really long

Please