#this was on my mind for far too long!

[lacm-ac]

Tyr and Týr are in the same room and have to convince Freya that the other one is Odin and HE'S the real Týr.

Odin got got.

[nikoisme]

experimenting with a mordred design :D

[starflungwaddledee]

Oooo starstruck dee has little stars at the bottom of her feet! Are they just aesthetic or would they make imprints into the ground? (like pawprints)

exactly like that! though she's not the only one...

edit: might need to add some additional dialogue to this to make it more clear, but a clarification in the interim; he knows about his own footprints. he's just surprised to see something similar already there when he knows he's only just landed. he lifts his own shoe to confirm that they're not identical (and also to reveal this to the viewer). seems his stoicism beat off the clarity in this one, sorry 😭

[basicallyyjustdogs]

I wanna be roadkill Find me a mile up ahead Lying there on the roadside Say, don’t worry now, it’s already dead

series 1: roadkill/longing

roadkill, searows // cyanotypes, emilio hernandez martin // hard times, ethel cain // child wearing a red scarf, eduoard vuillard // empty stomach, rachel sabini // thirstiness is not equal division, kaveh akbar // salvage, hedgie choi // ‘deer at night’, george shiras III // kinder than man, athea davis // best barbarian, roger reeves // ‘johannes land, suite no.2’, simon bang // my photograph // postcolonial love poem, natalie diaz // the dislocated room, richard siken // the moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings, donika kelly // abstract (psychopomp), hozier // miniatures, cassandra de alba // from collected poems; between aging and old, jack gilbert // the favourite (2018), dir. yorgos lanthimos // unidad (oneness), pablo neruda // least of all, natalie wee

[lesbianredhoodedmercenary]

happy father's day i'm thinking about this outis line again

I always thought it was a bit out of pocket considering this isn't too long after the events of Canto III, even with how Outis was being harsher this Canto.

But I then I remembered that Outis' son is the same age as Sinclair.

Her son, who thinks that she died in the Smoke War (the in universe equivalent to the Trojan War as depicted in the Iliad and the Odyssey) because she hasn't been home in years. Her son who cannot cry out to her. And her son, who is currently in much the same position as Sinclair regarding his self-perception and ability to fight, as Telemachus refers to himself as "a weakling knowing nothing of valor" (Book 2 of the Odyssey, line number and exact wording depend on translation).

I think this line reflects more on Outis and her anxieties about her family thinking that she's dead, as well as a reference to Telemachus experiencing his own journey to manhood, much like Sinclair.

I think there's also things to be said for the parallels between Sinclair and Telemachus, even just the ones imagined by Outis. Hell's Chicken had her showing a very paternal worry over his diet (raise your hand if your dad has ever said you'll be short forever if you don't eat right). Overall, even though Sinclair and Telemachus only share the bones of a coming of age narrative, Outis is seeing connections there because she misses her family.

As with this one. Again, she's showing her hand more than she means to. Though she's talking to Dongrang, I think she's also talking to herself. Trying to reassure herself that home will always be waiting. Dongrang, however, decides not to return, but to pursue glory no matter who he hurts in the process. The Odyssey also contrasts the pursuit of glory with the desire to return home. Odysseus has to choose humility in order to return.

Outis has been keeping up a careful persona around us, but it's slipping. Her desire to return home is seeping through even as she tries to assert herself by clinging to the glory from a war that's long since ended.

[burnt-cookii]

Anon that requested a shadow milk drawing: I didn't release you already drew him OOPS- In that case, if you want to, could you draw your favorite cookie when you first starting playing CRK?

decided to draw them both insteaadd :'> its alright to ask for the same character

[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?

[kopykunoichi]

No thoughts in my head, just them.

Left column: chapters 47, 62, 98

Center column: chapters 137, 175, 175

Right column: chapters 201, 225, 225

[nero-neptune]

idk how much stock i put into those "gen z is more conservative than past generations" think-pieces from a few years back. but it's very possible for a person: to believe that climate change is a problem, to support (or be part of) the LGBT community, to believe in universal healthcare and social services, to support religious tolerance, to fight for expanded housing and labor rights, etc etc etc, and still, like, unabashedly hate women on a level you wouldn't believe existed

[chuluoyi]

i love whipped gojo fics like where hes so pathetically in love with reader and reader just brushes him off but they secretly love each other

me too me too!!🥹 like i know gojo is unhinged, unparalleled and all but i truly think when it comes to a person he truly likes he’s going to be all whipped and down to his knees just to get you to notice him.

when he falls, he falls hard, and there’s no point of return.

“i’ll give you anything. my body, heart, soul—you can have it all. in return, you just have to promise me one thing. don’t ever leave me, please.”

[taohs]

i came out to my coworker !!!!

[immunetoneurotoxin]

“Not a soul assigned to their case at the Bureau could make sense of their existence. There wasn’t a single scientist, parapsychologist, doctor, or specialist with over a dozen PHD’s under the sun that could figure them out. Pyrokinesis in a human? They defy every law of nature, yet they exist amongst humanity regardless. How do you explain that?” “The truth is that there are a lot of unknown things out there in the world that mankind hasn't even begun to scratch the surface of. Everyone flocked to this case trying to find rational answers, but there aren’t any. Look at the files in your hands. By the eyes of science, Pyro should not exist. Don’t you know what happens to things mankind doesn’t understand? The Bureau has done sickening things to them in the name of research.” “That’s why I helped them escape, Conagher.”

Excerpt from the novel INCENDIARY; A TF2 Pyro origin story Read the latest chapter of 'Incendiary' on AO3 here! Artwork created by the incredible @narklos ♡ 

[kyouka-supremacy]

Who in sskk would you say has the higher IQ?

IQ as in, conventionally smart? Then definitely Atsushi does. I'm sorry. I've said it many times before, but I don't think Akutagawa is a particularly perceptive person. Or witty. Or intelligent in general. It's due to external factors, he never got the chance to have anything that could resemble a proper education; but it's also a matter of his nature, he's just so impulsive, and narrow-minded, and stubborn, he really has the thickest skull ever. But seriously, especially in a world full of geniuses, Akutagawa simply doesn't shine for sharpness of mind, and is way too impulsive and instincts-driven to be a person that relies on reflection or rationality. Everything that Akutagawa does is the epitome of irrational, it's one of the greatest appeals of the character.

Atsushi is smart,,,, I've talked about this also, and I think it's less sustained by canon than for Akutagawa, but I like to think he's a very observant and perceptive person whose intelligence doesn't show because he's constantly surrounded by geniuses, but still he is smart. When it comes to observations skills, I find it easy for him to have them due to his childhood of ill-treatment and abuse: as a defense mechanism, he learnt to be especially observative of people's behaviour in order to tell what sets people off and be able to prevent any escalation, I think that's a widely shared abuse survivor experience. Something among these lines is shown in chapter 51:

I also think Atsushi is a very fast learner. He's observant, and that results in him constantly absorbing other people's knowledge. He's often asking for explanations for Dazai and Ranpo's reasonings, and although I know more often than not it solves an expositive role in the storytelling picture, there's still the fact that it makes Atsushi a person who's constantly trying to understand the reality surrounding him. Atsushi is also shown to be very cool-minded and calculating in fight: from him sliding under Akutagawa and attacking him from behind successfully eluding having to face him front-off in chapter 4, to him retracting his tiger limbs to escape Rashomon's bonds in chapter 12, to the strategy he elaborated with Tanizaki (and his ability to catch up on that) to defeat Lucy in chapter 16, to his attempt to outsmart Fitzgerald in chapter 34 (that, although failed, was still driven by rational thinking nonetheless), and the list could go on. The way in fight Atsushi is shown to ponder over and implement the advices people like Dazai or Mori offered him further makes me believe he's really good at absorbing information. And Atsushi is probably book smart, too! He's compelled by reading to the point he would even risk the orphanage director's punishment just to sneak into the library and read (not explicitly supported by canon, but I can take a guess). According to the second guidebook, he spends his leisure time borrowing books from the library and studying. Overall, he really seems to be rational in all the places Akutagawa is on the contrary driven by impulses¹.

It's like… A physics law when it comes to sskk, that Akutagawa will have the most despicable trait while Atsushi has the trait that is conventionally considered the best; or at least that's as far as my characterization of them goes. Atsushi is beautiful, Akutagawa is ugly². Atsushi is polite, Akutagawa is rude. Atsushi is pure, Akutagawa is stained. Atsushi is smart, Akutagawa isn't. Atsushi is lovable, Akutagawa is destined to cause repulsion in everyone he meets³. In the end, none of this matters: they're no different where it counts, that is, Atsushi isn't any more morally just than Akutagawa is. Atsushi in not any more good than Akutagawa is (I actually suspect the contrary is true). But as far as appearances go, it's still important to portray them as opposites, because Akutagawa being unlovable and Atsushi receiving all the love Akutagawa didn't get for being his contrary - even though deep down they're the same - is almost everything their relationship is about. It's also a big part of why they act like they do towards each other: it's source of Akutagawa's bottomless envy for Atsushi; it's source of how devoted and loyal he will grow to be for him - reaching the point of giving his life for him -, because he can't see Atsushi as anything but perfection. It's source of confidence and of that certain justified hatred towards Akutagawa Atsushi feels because to his eyes Akutagawa is about the worst person to have ever walked on earth. It's source to their wish to annihilate the other as the opposite they can't exist at the same time of. It's the reason Akutagawa had to die, because he's not the good one. Overall it's also expression of Akutagawa's thematic struggle to be good and unavoidable failure at that because of the constraints of a narrative that never wanted him to be good.

But I also think they can make it work. More precisely, I think sskk can make it work when both of them can overcome and defeat the narrative dichotomy they found themselves stuck into: by recognizing that deep common ground of “we're the same” and that where it matters, in morals, neither of them is better or worse than the other. The Beast universe exemplifies that for us readers, but they don't know Beast, so they'll have to realize it by their own. About that, I think Akutagawa already caught on, because he was faster to call out the hypocrisy of Atsushi's good guy façade, and from that it's a short distance to realizing that, as much as he hates to admit it, at his core Atsushi is not that different from himself. It's taking a little more for Atsushi to realize, because it's harder to get down from that higher moral pedestal he believes himself to be on, but with his whole reevaluating Akutagawa after he stopped killing and sacrificed himself for him (and then saved him again. And then showed him how formidable of a team they are when they find a common ground.), I think he's getting there.

Tl;dr: Atsushi is smart and Akutagawa is stupid and yes it fits their personalities, but way more importantly it's consistent with the themes they carry that translate in what their relationship is like.

¹ For further reading on how Atsushi can be witty, please refer to @/gloomierdays's tags on this post. ² For further reading on how Atsushi and Akutagawa's looks can be used to reflect their characters themes, please refer to this post. ³ For further reading on how Akutagawa being not smart (as far as conventional definitions of smart go) ties to his character themes, please refer to this post.

[lestappenforever]

Just in case this wasn’t very clear: Sending anonymous (coward) Lestappen hate my way is an absolute waste of your time and energy because I could not care less about whatever shit you're spewing and I'll block you without even bothering to read your entire ask.

[heartsofhounds]

Alright so.. I am so curious

How are y'all interpreting Dahlia? Like what does the actual location look like to you?

[agentark]

whatever you do, don't imagine a young J Corvin waiting every day at the end of their drive, hoping today is the day the mail carrier finally brings a letter from their very best friend