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dulcewrites · 1 year

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I think the most ironic thing about how Alicent’s motherhood gets used against her is that the logic that everything wrong with the targtowers is somehow her fault, completely goes out of the window when people talk about Rhaenyra’s parenting. Everything they do is a reflection of how terrible, awful, and disgusting Alicent is as a mother. But jace and luke’s behavior/actions somehow aren’t reflections of the pitfalls Rhaenyra has as a mother.

Aegon being a rapist is just Alicent fault. Aemond’s anger and resentment is just Alicent’s fault (some people even blame Alicent for him losing his eye yes I’ve seen it). Helaena’s adversion to touch (despite the fact it’s clear phia made an acting choice to play Helaena as neurodivergent plus we literally get scenes of Helaena letting Alicent touch her) is all Alicent’s fault. The rotting, neglectful rapist they all have for a father has absolutely nothing to do with that. And then the goalpost moving. If Alicent doesn’t admonish and totally hate Aegon for being said rapist, she’s a rape apologist who doesn’t want any woman to have rights (a crazy thing to say about a literal victim of rape herself btw). But if she slaps him, she’s an abusive cunt.

But jace and luke, more specifically luke, having no regard nor remorse for bullying then disabling someone is *check notes* seen as cute and normal??? It is apparently not Rhaenyra using the same tactics her father did. So much guilt about the position you have put your children in that in response you will just let them do whatever. This sort of perpetual cycle of gaslighting and withholding information being painted noble or nurturing.

Then when you bring up that argument of how Rhaenyra puts her kids in danger just by having them (much like how people say the same about Alicent despite that not even being her choice), you get hit back with ‘so you wanted her rape her gay husband’ which is like ??? how did you get there lmao. It’s wild, but completely on brand for a fandom that picks and chooses based on who they like, that people can emphathize with the position Rhaenyra was put in because of her gender. But the child bride who literally just has her children to cling to is the worst mother to ever mother.

The sooner people realize that Alicent and Rhaenyra are working up the same rigid rules and crushing pathology of patriarchy, the better off we will all be. The only difference is the way they push back against those structures. Someone like Rhaenyra, a dragon riding princess, can maneuver very differently compared to someone like Alicent. Both are going to fuck up and make decisions that put people in danger/hurt people’s feelings bc they are playing a game that has been rigged for them to lose. So why are the blonde ones allowed more grace than everyone else 🫤

#anyway I feel like I try to be as… idk kind as I can be on my blog bc I know lots of different people follow me on here #but sometimes I see something and it just sets me off in a ‘wow y’all really give team black way too much credit’ spiral #oh and this doesn’t even touch on how people say it isn’t fair for Alicent to be mad at Rhaenyra #that she should just be made at the system (patriarchy)#but then turn around and are mad at just Alicent and take into no account what pressure she works under #anti rhaenyra targaryen #anti lucerys velaryon #anti jacaerys velaryon #anti viserys i targaryen #< just in case

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formereldestdaughter · 2 months

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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?

#peeta mellark #thg #the hunger games #the hunger games meta #anyway wow this got so long and I literally read it through one (1) time so uhhh sorry if this makes no sense!!#as I was doing my one read through and realized that one of my other thoughts on this is that yeah I can much more easily see the #headcanon that peeta like sells baked goods (probably at cost with no profit) out of his kitchen because that’s much more flexible #and I think that would work a lot better with what like I guess I’d call his psychiatric disability post mockingjay #and how he’d certainly want to take care of Katniss too #like that sort of flexibility makes a lot more sense for him and it’s like. if he doesn’t bake for a few days or however long then it’s fin #it’s not a formal brick and mortar business #it’s just something he’s doing because it’s a way to be involved with people and a way to do something he’s passionate about #without there being waste and while covering some of the costs #and he doesn’t have to like keep books or do payroll or any of the things I can’t see him being very passionate about #as far as like bakery management goes Lmao he can just bake!!#but then I started getting into this whole thing about how that quote-unquote ‘running a business’ like that (informally from your house)#is actually a really common practice for people living in poverty so probably something that Katniss and peeta would’ve been familiar wirh #anyway and then this whole rant about how the emphasis on the brick and mortar bakery often goes hand in hand with #this widespread fandom thing of having a fundamental misunderstanding of how rural poverty works and what it looks like #but then I was too deep into it and said you know what? never mind! and deleted it lmao

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alagaesia-headcanons · 1 year

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I love that Nasuada's major flaw is the same as one of Galbatorix's greatest flaws, and that it gets worse and more ingrained throughout the series. And it's so compelling because it's incredibly in character for her and there's every reason for the circumstances to perpetuate and exacerbate it, but that doesn't make her flaw any less egregious. The scene where Galbatorix compares the two of them is so fascinating because his intention is very manipulative and malicious, yet the statement itself isn't entirely untrue.

Because Nasuada treats people like tools. She considers a person's utility more important than anything else, including their personhood.

And it's such an engrossing flaw because of course Nasuada treats people like tools! She is proud and powerful and stubborn and noble and utterly committed to achieving what she has set out to do, by whatever means necessary. She will use whatever she has at her disposal to reach her goal, and that includes using the people around her. Of course, this doesn't make Nasuada inherently immoral; she cares deeply about justice and protecting her people. But her views on the individuals around her are impersonal and self serving.

And the goal she's trying to achieve is to win the war. Nasuada would never be pushed out of her ways by the circumstances because they work, the way she treats people accomplishes exactly what she intends. By its nature, the bloody act of war rewards using people like tools. It demands that, even; to a certain extent, it's an ugly necessity in war, but the thing is that Nasuada doesn't see it that way. She never struggles with or grieves over the need to consider people's individuality as secondary to their function. It comes naturally to her, and it lasts through the end of the books, when the war is already over.

Because I think the most flagrant example of this is at the very end, when Birgit intercepts Roran as he's leaving, presumably intending to kill him, and Nasuada says, "He has proved himself a fine and valuable warrior on more than one occasion, and I would be most displeased to lose him." It's such a wonderful, pointed line that perfectly sums up this aspect of her character. Because what a disgusting thing to say. Especially for the queen of all Alagaesia, perfectly positioned and empowered to stop this confrontation and declare it unjust if she cared to. But her words make no attempt at all to defend Roran as a person, only his value to her.

The way she uses others I find most evident in her treatment of Roran, Murtagh, and Elva. The way she tells Eragon that she thinks of giving Katrina a dowry as a "purchase" of Roran's goodwill and loyalty. In Uru'baen, only at great length, she makes the conscious choice to ignore Murtagh's past and only judge who he is in the present, but disregards any care for what that might say about him as a person, solely focused on if he could be useful as an ally. And when Eragon offers to revert Elva's curse, the one that condemned an infant to feel every piece of pain and suffering surrounding her, Nasuada is so fixated on Elva's utility and value to Nasuada's goals that she goes so far as to ask Eragon to fake his effort to cure her. She sees people as tools to such an extent that she can't recognize that relieving an innocent baby of unimaginable, cursed agony should come before her own priorities.

#guys i LOVE her #its SUCH a good character flaw im obsessed with it #eragon #inheritance cycle #nasuada #roran #elva #murtagh #pretending nasuada is entirely good natured is so boring i swear #she is passionate and heartfelt #but she is also Fucked Up sometimes #seriously tho those moments i mentioned always hit me like 'wow babe wtf is wrong with you???'#her nuance *chefs kiss*#she has the range #(also tbh. big reason why i think she and murtagh wouldnt work out together. this would cause A Lot of pain. too much.)

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