#author cast

[zytes]

this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

[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.

[twinklecupcake]

Begging people to not mix up Japanese and Chinese wedding traditions/clothing.  I just saw an LMK fic mention a character wearing “a traditional wedding dress, a red shiromuku.”

Which first of all isn’t even red, it’s white, it’s right there in the name, and second of all holy hell no, that’s Japanese.

Not to mention the actual wedding was a Western Christian one.

[vampirenicotine]

i usually stay quiet because i don’t like to engage in fandoms of any kind anymore, but the things i’ve been shown from iwtv twitter is concerning. idk what assad/armand fans think they’re trying to achieve by disrespecting jacob, delainey, sam, and the rest of the cast by saying armand is the sole reason anyone watches this show and that he’s the best actor on the show etc, but yall are not doing yourselves any favors. this is not tvd. this is not the cw. using assad for agenda shipping purposes because you hate sam/lestat, and reducing louis to an object or a prize to be won, and trying to knock louis/jacob out of his lead position on a show where he is the best/most nuanced written gay BLACK male character in history is disgusting and so extremely disrespectful to jacob who is literally the cutest/kindest human being ever.

this show is a team effort. everyone involved with iwtv are master class actors, writers, set designers, etc and when it comes to acting—to credit one actor for the show’s success is very off putting. (especially when you take into account delainey had only two weeks to prepare for claudia and gave the performance of a lifetime.) there are many who do not engage with this fandom because of takes like this and all this will do is put people off assad/armand which is the last thing anyone needs. cast members of color and characters of color should not be pit against each other on the ONLY show on tv right now that allows them to be great.

[breeistired]

Rafe with autistic reader

Warnings: Suggestive content, innocent reader

Tropes: kookxpogue, sunshinexgrumpy

Summary: Reader is autistic.

Bree rants: Hi! So, I am only mildly autistic, so if I get any of this wrong I am deeply sorry. ALSO, if you're reading this, please help me work tumblr, I don't know how to make a taglist or boarders. Thank you- Also my askbox is always opened, so ask me random questions, I am always bored. Before I forget, I AM ADDING THIS TO ALL POSTS, AND IF I FORGET IT @brokenwingsgalore WILL PUT IT IN THE COMMENTS. IF YOU DONT LIKE IT, DONT READ IT!!! AND, if you want this to be a full oneshot, please tell me in the comments. I love you and enjoy reading!

(HOW DO I MAKE BOARDERS.)

Rafe! Who found you at his house in his party crying because everything was too loud.

Rafe! Who was about to yell at you but once he looked down, he felt soft and mushy.

Rafe! Who would continue to stare at you while you cry, not knowing what to do.

Rafe! Who finally speaks up and asks you if you need something. You shake your head no and he does not take that lightly. Instead grabbing you some water and sitting beside you.

Rafe! Who eventually finds out its because of how loud everything was and takes you up to his room. Topper whistles thinking Rafes getting lucky. Rafe tells him to shut up and you sit on his bed.

Rafe! Who would calm you down by dimming the lights and covering your ears. He thought this was childish but you seemed to have been calming down.

Rafe! Who would let go of your ears and ask you if you're okay.

Rafe! Who slowly finds out you suffer autism and your friend had brought you here to, "let loose." He would fight the urge to punch whoever that friend was.

Rafe! Who would yell at anybody who even talked near his room so you wouldn't have to panic anymore.

Rafe! Who would spend all night with you, letting you rant about your current hyperfixation just so you didn't have to pay attention to the loud party beneath you two.

Rafe! Who smiles at your little giggles and hand gestures. He hated when people would talk to him, but with you, everything you said sounded so luring. Even though you were talking about sharks.

Rafe! Who would drive you home and get your number.

Rafe! Who becomes obsessed with you after a week of getting to know you. Doing research on autism just so he could help you out like you helped him that night you met, he would've been fucking some girl he didn't like or smoke weed all night. Instead he found you.

Rafe! Who would ask you to be his girlfriend after two weeks.

Rafe! Who buys you anything you hyperfixate on. Legos? He's buying every set and listening you talk about the lego sets. Sharks? He'd buy you a mountain of plushies. Anything your autism liked for a few months or weeks, he would buy.

Rafe! Who never forced you to come to crowded places with. And if you do, he brings noise cancelling headphones or something for you to fidget with.

Rafe! Who practically almost murders anybody who says your too weird or something about your mental health.

Rafe! Who makes sure you eat all your meals, even if its krafts mac and cheese for the 5th time today.

Rafe! Who lets you sleep with him but gets annoyed when you have to put one of your shark plushies between you two. Though he would never tell you he was annoyed.

Rafe! Who ends up telling Barry random facts about the new movie you're obsessed with because that's all you talk about.

Rafe! Who loves you to death despite everything. He loves you and your hyperfixations. (maybe not the shark plushies though)

[chillinglikeashilling]

At some point when it is not 1 am on a work night I'm going to make a proper post about why I think people who are really enjoying the storytelling of Misfits and Magic 2 should give The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko a shot but the most concise pitch I can give you is that TMTC is also a story about a magical world undergoing a revolution, that explores themes about systems of power and the ways those systems work to exploit certain people to the benefit of others.

The main character Sade is literally disabled by these systems and her love interest/deuteragonist is an obnoxiously beautiful man who has literally cursed himself in pursuit of justice against these systems.

Also for everyone who liked the shadow possession thing- they have a magical bond that let's him feel her emotions, which is absolutely necessary because Sade would rather die than admit to being uncomfortable. In fact Sade's willingness to accept discomfort (and the willingness of the powerful to ask her and others like her to shoulder discomfort so they don't have to) plays a pretty big part in the story.

Lastly, and this is actually an appeal to all my fellow Bob stans from PoL, there are a lot of songs involved in the magic in this book and the audiobook narrator sings all of them. Not in a very polished, instrumental backed way but just in a way that feels true to someone making up a song on the spot.

It's a standalone story in the universe of author's main duology so there's more to explore if you want but it's not necessary to understand this book.

[saintmalosunsets]

I want more information about this scene that may or may not have been partly filmed. Doc Roe with a GUN?! I need to know the context.

[a-vague-yet-menacing-agency]

Once Brennan specified to Riz that Kipperlilly didn't have a scar I knew exactly how all the revivifying would play out. To me it makes perfect sense that Kipperlilly is the only one to stay permanently dead. Not mortalistically, but remember this is a story. Penelope Everpetal and Dayne also stayed permanently dead too. Riz shot off Buzz's fingers. The key thing is Brennan said that Kipperlilly didn't have a scar, she didn't die and then chose Ankarna, she chose to side with Porter first. Similarly to Penelope and Dayne. Where all three of them ultimately still manipulated by other forces using them? Yes. But they fundamentally chose their side because of something they wanted to gain. When Brennan made that distinction between Kipperlilly and the others, it was obvious where that was going.

Brennan wouldn't have crafted a narrative of manipulation just to kill all the Rat Grinders because that wouldn't have been very satisfying, given that we knew so little about them why would we cheer for Ivy to stay dead or Mary Ann? Remember: The cast was only talking about Atonement and revivifying Mary Ann, but Brennan revivified all the others too even though they weren't shown to have a change of heart. This is because, while possibly jerks, the others weren't set-up to be so bad that their perma-deaths would have been all that satisfying.

In contrast, Kipperlily's beef with everyone was front and center and she killed her own party member. If Kipperlilly was going to come back and be redeemed after that it would have felt cheap. Not because of something inherent to Kipperlily but because no one did the work to make that a possibility. NOW, if someone had been in her dreams and putting in the work like Fig did for Rueben, it could have worked. But people didn't put in the works. FANS have extrapolated sympathetic angles for Kipperlilly but the narrative hasn't. Remember Aelwyn's redemption only came after Adaine was exploring it. Thus, since no one explored Kipperlily's redemption, it wasn't "text," it wasn't an angle present in the narrative that would have been satisfying because it didn't develop enough to have a conclusion.

Basically: Narratives have to be set up. Some permanent consequences had to be dealt to the Rat Grinders to feel satisfying given everything they had done to the Bad Kids. Kipperlilly was shown to be the most voluntarily antagonistic, and was the one set-up as having been antagonizing them and so she was the one who had die. If the players had made different choices, thing could have changed, but they didn't and so Brennan merely delivered on what was set up before

[ellenkushner]

And he’s even 17! Hurry up & buy Swordspoint rights, someone, so he can do young Alec!!

[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

[verytendou]

One of my favorite things about world trigger is how natural and realistic the world building feels and while its obvious the mangaka puts a lot of thought into every aspect of it one of absolute favorite parts is how gossip-y everyone in border is. Like the only secrets at Border are the really really big ones (certain people being neighbors) and everything else is just free game, even if its not necessarily true.

Osamu tied Kazama in a fight? Immediately social headline news. Chika can’t shoot people? Known before she even says it out loud to someone not from Tamakoma. Tamakoma-2 wants to make the away team? Such common knowledge it comes up in their commentary and is even a strategy used against them. Osamu tried to recruit Jin? Probably all any A-rankers talked about for a week. Ko was so good Arafune quit? Still talked about to this day. AND MORE

And its so great because a majority of the time the gossip isn’t malicious its just a by-product of what happens when you put a bunch of 12-20 year olds in a workplace together like yes obviously people are going to talk and it works! It feels natural! No character even ends up feeling overly gossipy because everyone takes part in the gossip. And it’s amazing. It’s wonderful. I love watching someone say something outloud and immediately realizing everyone in the base (including the actual career adults there) is going to know about it in a week. Its fun! It makes sense! It makes the world that much easier to insert yourself into!

World trigger i love u!!!!!!!!

[shesalittlelost]

I know it's not that deep but I love that he made Armin of all people being the ending hater. This is how you deal with a partially divided fandom. No condescending nonsense, just really giving everyone a treat and also acknowledging the critics while reminding fans that at the end of the day it's just fiction and really we're here just for fun.

[communistkenobi]

I watched the hazbin hotel pilot when it first came out years ago out of curiosity and like I am extremely primed to be on board with the concept of a radio demon but i don’t think I’ve ever seen a character more viscerally unpleasant to look at in my entire life

[badgopher]

Friday(ish)

Whoever decided humans didn't need a nice lil winter hibernation really screwed that one up.

My new hobby is spite voting.

Live music is life.

They've almost got the botanical garden put back together.

The book's fine. Enjoyable enough.

[dani-dabbles]

Taylor and Casey in NYC together…I feel completely normal about this 🥲

(via Taylor’s IG story)

[theothermaidoftarth]

From Rick Riodran himself (via Goodreads):