#Dicke Marie

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[ewwww-what]

Ugh. Literally just let her go home???

[oifaaa]

I mean he's not wrong

[clarulitas]

Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins (1964) dir. Robert Stevenson

[dzgrizzle]

[caffeinatedvigilantewriter]

After dani left amity to travel the world, she thought the best way would be to join a traveling circus.

Haley’s Circus

So she joins the performers as a trapeze artist (she used her flight to help her)

Very quickly, the Graysons end up taking her under their wings, and help her with her stunts. Dick was 7 when she joined their little family.

Dick was eight when he watched her die.

Dani was a quicker learner, so on that fateful day, she went up in the platform with John and Mary and fell to her death 20 seconds later.

But halfas never truly die, do they?

She wakes up in a body bag and phases out with invisible.

After some light research, she finds out that Dick is being fostered by a Billionaire and decides that Dick would be safer with Wayne than with her, so she leaves, coming back to check in him every birthday and death day of his parents.

In the meantime, Dani took a detour to the Infinite Realms and found John and Mary, explained who she really was and updated them on Dick regularly.

Dick never mentioned her to anyone, and Bruce never brought her up and Dick went the next 15 years without seeing Dani, and eventually, she became a distant memory until he caught a glimpse of her while on a mission with his family.

Dani was now around 28, and the GIW had finally caught up to her. Just when she thought she was about to die, the Agent got body slammed by Nightwing, a confused Red Hood and Red Robin following him.

[eldritchdemonfox]

why does everyone seem obsessed with making the batkid’s bio parents either an afterthought or worse than they actually are?

I mean, in some cases they did actually have bad parents, like Arthur Brown and David Cain

But like…

Duke’s parents are still alive, albeit comatose. He loves them.

Tim’s parents were not as criminally neglectful as fannon makes them out to be, and it really impacted him when they died.

Dick’s parents are the REASON he chose Robin as his name, and he still misses them.

While Willis Todd wasn’t a great father, he did at least want a better life for Jason in some cannons. And Catherine did the best she could. The only person really deserving of hate is Sheila. Fuck her fr.

Babs LITERALLY STILL HAS A DAD. WHO SHE LOVES. Justice for my man Gordon.

I mean CMON

[2-autisten-on-tour]

[wonderjanga]

Marvel and the Circus

Billy and Mary are kids. You gotta remember that. And what do two, poor but not broke, kids do in their free time? Not much else other than talk to each other, work little odd jobs, and go out in their Marvel forms. So, one day, they’re bored. They also can’t find any jobs to do either, and as far as they can tell, there isn’t much crime going on. They’re kinda sitting on the curb, ignoring the local crackhead next to them who’s kinda tweaking but also minding his own business, so they would mind their own too. As they’re wallowing in boredom, all while steadily starting to wonder if the guy next to them is going to crash out, a colorful poster floats by and promptly smacks Mary in the face. When they peel it off her they see it’s a poster for a circus. One of their shows starts in about an hour too. Well would you look at that? It looks like the two know what they’re going to be doing for the day. So, they head to their little hideyhole, scrounge up as much money as they’re willing to spend on this, (Like two dollars) and head out. They get there and get to the ticket booth. Mary offers their measly two dollars, and the teller, trying not to crack a smile at the two kids, tells them that kids under 12 get in for free. Billy was going to tell him that they, in fact, were twelve, and just happened to look younger, but before he could say a word, Mary harshly stomped on his foot. While Billy was cradling his poor foot, Mary got their tickets, grabbed Billy’s arm and dragged him inside so they could find their seats. On their way, they got a single bag of strawberry pop rocks. (which was really all they could afford with two dollars) And they somehow managed to ration it for the entirety of the show.

When all was said and done, it’s safe to say the two were stuck amazed at what they had seen. When they found out that Mr.Mind had been wreaking havoc while they were being amazed by the circus troupe, they weren’t even mad! Or disappointed in themselves! They just wanted to try out the trapeze artist tricks! And so they did. Fawcett citizens were greeted with the Captain and Mary throwing each other around, swinging off of literally anything, trying to recreate the moves. Like they just straight up stopped using their abilities to fly just so they could learn. And the crazy thing is, they did. They got surprisingly good at acrobatics and throwing each other around.

Then, one day, Marvel and Batman had to work together to find a magical artifact. Billy brought Mary along and Bruce brought Dick. Little did Batman know, this combo wouldn’t be good, as he would be stuck getting mini heart attacks every time Marvel or Mary threw Dick up or around. And Bruce supposes, sure, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem. Dick is a trained acrobat, and Marvel and Mary… Well, he still doesn’t know much about their secret identities, but they seem to know what they’re doing. What Bruce is panicking over are the throws that have his kid practically touching the clouds. Granted, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but they’re throwing his boy around from about five stories up. Let Bruce be worried.

Meanwhile, Dick is just having the time of his life with these guys. The entire thing reminds him of the circus and he loves it. Plus, the Captain’s and Mary’s costumes, not to mention their personalities, remind him a bit of his dad and mom. He’s totally not going to cry into his pillow about this later, but until then, he’s going to enjoy this moment to the fullest.

[farshootergotme]

Bruce has a picture of Dick's parents in his room and everytime he looks at it he wonders if the life Dick leads now is the life they would've wanted for their son. It keeps him up at night.

[kikofr75]

🐂🍆🤘

[beatricethestrange]

I might make a part two because there's a lot more I wanted to put.

[stone-cold-groove]

Mary Tyler Moore. The Dick Van Dyke Show - 1966.

[leonardcohenofficial]

bring back these types of photo shoots NOW

[geneticdriftwood]

persephone's in hell; a rooftop conversation

for @mysterycitrus

persephone's in hell, @mysterycitrus // white winter hymnal, fleet foxes // assorted dc comics