#this goes for a lot of fandoms too

[sukibenders]

The responses I see to changing the race of a fictional character feel so disingenuous to me at times because why is the first response, for the large part of what I see, wanting to make a character of color in the same media white? Ignoring how there are many white fictional characters in media to choose from, you seek to take away one of the few that are poc? Make it make sense to me because it doesn't.

[cy-cyborg]

Just a reminder that unless your amputee character lost their limb less than a month ago, their stumps don't need to be bandaged.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

birthday !!!!!!

[usercelestial]

tbh i think a lot of the people saying "well both sides are wrong"/"bt stans are just as toxic" are just not exposed to other perspectives in this fandom. as a buddie fan who's been watching this show since s1, i can safely say that buddie fans have always been toxic. like as fact. to me, to say that bucktommy fans are just as harmful or just as annoying or just as bad as buddies consistently are is just. delusional. indicative of at worst a biased opinion and at best an uninformed one. buddie has been here since s2 and fans have ruthless ever since. bucktommy has been here for 3/4 of a season and for the most part, stay in their lane. i'm sure there are bucktommy fans who suck, like that's just being on the internet, but you have to be blind to ignore how insane buddie fans are and genuinely how much worse they are in comparison.

i don't want to generalize and i think constantly adding that disclaimer is annoying as hell bc obviously i'm not talking about everyone but because buddie has been here for so long and taken up so much mental space of very die-hard, passionate fans, you're going to see much more intensity on that side. after season 5, i had to step away from the fandom and the show because of how frustrating it got. it was annoying to see people swear up and down buddie will be canon by the end of s3-no wait s4-no wait s5-no wait- and ultimately it sucked my enjoyment out of a show i otherwise enjoyed because i got swept up in the Buddie Of It All and forget about why i watch the show to begin with. we've been left to stew in our theories and now we can't tell what canon and what's fanon anymore, and when the show reminds us, the disappointment and frustration kills our hopes.

i was also active in the dan and phil fandom and supernatural fandom, like ik why people think we're annoying and it's because we are. we make everything about the one thing we like, we comment on every post begging for it to become canon, we're violently disappointed when the show doesn't play into our fan theories because we've convinced ourselves buddie is going to happen by the end of the next episode or actually the end of this season or actually maybe the end of the next season. we've torn a part every female love interest, either making them boring or making them unlikeable in our fanon. all that to say is that when people call us annoying, they're telling the truth and when bucktommy fans say buddie fans are toxic, they're coming from a sincere place. i mean we can't even enjoy our own ship because we're so quick to get our hopes up and be let down about something as stupid it becoming canon. who cares if it becomes canon, just like it to like it.

and it makes sense why there's perceived "toxicity" on the bucktommy side. our energy is being matched; the obsession, the passion, the surge in fandom. if you don't like it or even just find it annoying, i suggest you guys look back on your own posts and comments and behaviors towards other people in the fandom and other characters and unbiasedly compare it to the Toxic Bucktommy Shippers you're claiming you hate. if bucktommy fans are obsessive, it's because we've set the stage for that. if bucktommy fans are getting aggro and defensive, it's because buddie fans have been on the opposition and don't know how to turn it off. we've gone from underdog to bully somewhere in the last 6 seasons.

[alicenpai]

idk if you guys know but they're planning to revive dashcon in toronto (original location was in shaumburg IL) this year - apparently the artist selection is fcfs, but if there are a higher number of applicants than anticipated, it'll be switching over to lottery. im begging all celestial forces to let this former tumblr girlie (me) into the artist alley so that i can do all of my tumblr girl fandoms.....

[disastergenius]

by far the worst take i've seen so far post-ep19 of Junior Year is that having a week-by-week live play would have allowed fans to essentially influence the direction of the story in the way they want it to go and that would have resulted in the cast being more sympathetic to the Ratgrinders (ie getting them a redemption arc)

why do you feel the need to try and control this story? YOU ARE NOT THE ONE TELLING IT. if you want to tell a story please go write your own, or go write fanfiction to cope or whatever but you don't get to say that the players are telling the story wrong when it's their story they are telling

[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?

[selfship-confession-box]

Kinda a vent but yea

Not necessarily self ship related but the way I deadass just realized no one gives a fuck about my s/i and my self ship story because she’s literally black 💀 I’m literally going to hurt someone. Like I’m deadass crying over here bro I hate people. And ik it has to be a possibility because why to all the white self shippers get wayyy more engagement than I?? I just want the little girl in me to be happy that’s all I want 😭

.

[arttsuka]

I originally followed you (or at least thought I was following you until I recently realized I wasn’t) for your Jedtavius content, and then I found out you’re a Lupin III and Ace Attorney fan too????? This is like Christmas came early, it’s amazing art for my three favorite fandoms!!!!!!

:) Here's a Lupin doodle for you ☆

I'm in way too many fandoms...

Edit: ok I found it

[bixels]

What did/do you like about Pharah?

Uh, gameplay-wise, I really love characters in shooters who rely on three-dimensional movement techs. Chaining together hover and jump to stay in the air for as long as possible and keep momentum is so satisfying, and picking enemies off from the sky made me feel like a bird of prey. I was a good Pharah main.

Story-wise, there unfortunately isn't much to canonically go off because Pharah is so underutilized and neglected. Her personality's pretty boilerplate "heroic hero" (she's literally inspired by Captain America).

But it's the crumbs/bits and pieces that I really latched onto. Pharah's a confirmed lesbian; her short story with Baptiste implies she harbors a crush on Mercy (fucking thank you.). She's biracial Egyptian/First Nations. She has major mommy issues, having grown up both admiring and resenting Ana. She's the bridge between Old Overwatch, inspired by the idealized heroes who surrounded her childhood, and New Overwatch. She's one of the only inter-generational characters in the cast; someone whose experiences span the gap, which is why I seriously believe Pharah would make a great main character.

There isn't much to go off of, though; she's a very uncomplicated character (she's a soldier for a private military corporation, lol.). But that just means she's a blank slate character, so I've seen fanfic writers run wild and create some really interesting takes on her. My favorite interpretation of her's a dense, herbo gym-bro type (a lot of her liens are about work outs, exercising, and playing sports) who's easily excitable under her seemingly self-serious, armored visage. We see how she tends to gloat and hype herself up when she's on a streak too, so Pharah definitely has a competitive and boastful side under her more professional and militant performance.

Now Mercy? Mercy is a real complex character.

[purgatorygrl]

Parallels between Jamie and Arthur

The relationship between what happened to Jamie with The Chelonia cult and Arthur's situation with the band seems to me to be quite similar.

Jamie came from a family that was quite dysfunctional, his mother had died and his father treated him badly and constantly despised him, so he needed to find a place where he was validated and felt accepted. To do this, he joined The Chelonia cult, where they told him what to think, what to say, what to do, and they took his money for the supposed "donations." Jamie knew that they were manipulating him and that everything about the cult was a lie, but he still stayed there because it was the only place where he felt accepted and where people treated him well.

Like Jamie, Arthur did not have a structured family and was alone since he was little until Dutch and Hosea adopted him and he began to be part of the band. Dutch made sure that Arthur had the same ideals as him and at all times he told him how to do things and what was the correct way to think and act. Arthur had his own way of seeing things and he didn't always agree with what Dutch said and did but he always gave in and in the end he ended up doing what Dutch wanted even though it wasn't what he wanted, partly because of Dutch's manipulation and the need for validation and because he felt like he owed him his life. He always saw Dutch deteriorating more and more but he never left the band, first because it wasn't that easy but mostly because it was the only family he had and the only people who had accepted him and that was the only life he knew.

"They're using you, they're telling you what you want to hear" In the end, Dutch used emotional manipulation to control people, especially Arthur, spontaneously giving him validation and calling him son so that in the end he would do the things Dutch wanted.

I love how Jamie asks him "and what do you know about that, Arthur?" I would say quite a bit, taking into account the dynamics of the Van der Linde gang and Arthur's relationship with Dutch.

[trevination]

if its not meant to stay private, how many ppl signed up so far???

i dont mind sharing! so far, 22 people signed up!! :]

[amzarashi]

hi!

idk if this is a recent phenomena or if i just did not notice it before, but do ppl really not leave kudos on explicit fic that deals with dead dove? asking because the subscriptions/private bookmarks go up in number for a fic of mine but the kudos stays the same?

reblog for sample size pls because i'm genuinely confused and curious o((>ω< ))o

[grimalkinmessor]

I made a little post complaining about the lack of a Light Bashing tag, and now the time has come for me to expand on what exactly counts as bashing! :D

Bashing is described as "villainizing a character, and representing them without any redeeming qualities", and "...demonizing a character, referring to them with derogatory terms, or making them the subject of deathfics or spitefics". Deathfics aren't so common for Light (L Bashing is more common in those, though I have seen Light Bashing in deathfics centered around L) but I think spitefics fit very nicely with some of the ones I've seen.

Generally bashing is a negative deviation from the original character's personality by either ONLY representing their flaws, EXAGGERATING their flaws, or making up NEW flaws.

In Light's case, this is done by presenting him as someone stupid, incompetent, heartless, cowardly, arrogant, and/or sadistic. And yes, given that Light is a villain, arrogant and cowardly do describe his character—TO AN EXTENT. The representation of these traits only becomes bashing when they're pointed out repeatedly and/or exaggerated. (When I say repeatedly I mean it becomes an underlying theme in the story rather than a single part of it, harped on rather than just mentioned).

Now, where I think a lot of people get tripped up is this: Light's looks do not count as a redeeming quality. If your story's stance on him is "he's evil and stupid and I hate him but he's hot so it's okay"—that still counts as bashing.

In fact, even if you DO feature his good qualities in your story, if the bad outweighs the good then that would count as bashing.

Now, where this gets muddied up is, again, the fact that Light is a villain. "But Grim," you say. "How am I supposed to write Light authentically if I can't write him doing bad things?" You can write him doing bad things! You can write him being evil and awful! In fact I encourage it!

What I'm saying isn't that you should morally whitewash Light—I'm saying that bashing is an ignorance of nuance in a negative direction. Writing Light killing people isn't bashing. Writing Light killing people for no reason or for fun is bashing. Writing Light being an absent lover isn't bashing. Writing Light being an abusive lover is bashing. Bashing is, again, a discernible deviation from the known character in a way that makes them worse than they are, or refers to them in a derogatory manner.

"Well Light IS that awful, he SHOULD be demonized! Light SHOULD be referred to in a derogatory manner!" <- this is ignoring character nuance. If you write your fics like this, I politely ask that you tag them as Light Bashing (preferably as Yagami Light Bashing or Light Yagami Bashing, given that there's already a tag for light bashing that isn't Death Note related) because this counts.

And you should do this for every character in your story!! Maybe you enjoy Light, maybe you do enjoy the nuance of his character—you might still ignore L's. Or Misa's. Or Matsuda's. Or Mikami's. Or Near's. Or Mello's. Or a hundred other characters that I haven't mentioned. Don't think I haven't seen just as many fics that ought to be tagged as Soichiro Yagami Bashing out there too 🫵

Bashing is not inherently bad. A lot of people like those sorts of fics, especially when they hate the same characters you do. But the problem the DN fandom seems to have is UNTAGGED bashing. There are several tags that haven't been implemented that honestly should be, and I think it's just because the Death Note fandom is so old. It comes from before the tagging system, from before AO3 was even a thing. Times where authors had to toss up a warning in parentheses right before the smut started 😅

But we DO have a tag system now—and a very good one. I'm asking people to pretty please use it. Help people that hate the same characters you do find your fics. Help people that love those same characters avoid them. It's only polite 💖

[pynkhues]

https://www.tumblr.com/pynkhues/766885091552247808/some-people-on-twt-are-saying-that-the-kiss-under?source=share

I was really frustrated when anyone who pointed the things you said out, was met with the typical 'you are no fun' or 'stop acting smart and ruining our fun' like?? And let's be real none of them are thinking about all the hard work people behind the scenes are doing, they really just wanna spread misinformation. It's a bit annoying when almost every thought about the show becomes about a rpf ship

Yeah, I mean, it's incredibly scary how thin the line between fantasy and reality has become broadly in society, and in a lot of ways, online fan spaces have become a microcosm of that. Like, gosh, just look at the poor Outlander actors who've been going through all of this for years now with a fandom even more intense than this one.

It's such a shift in fandom generally too, because not to be all 'back in my day', but, y'know, back in my day (I say at the ripe age of 34, haha), nothing had to be real? The fantasy was the point - it's why there were so many fandom crossover fics or shipping between characters who'd never even shared a moment of screentime together - which I think really contributed to a sense of fun and play which, y'know, is what fandom should be. The fact now that there are stan wars over things being canon and the hounding of writers and actors off social media and that trickling down to actively wanting the actors to be having an affair - one of whom has two very tiny children! - is just really A Lot to me.

Have fun with it, sure, but there are real people involved here. Like I said yesterday, the emphasis needs to be on the F of RPF, not the RP, and as always, I am begging for the return of the fourth wall.

[rosetheocto]

The Big Three of Failtopia for the new ship bingo

idk what Season’s Big Three you were referring to, so I just kinda did all five in one batch lol

Plus a bonus EriBoat one for @decimal86 under the cut