#but not really fantasy

[aniseandspearmint]

just having some fun with interesting fantasy imagery! Give it a reblog, if you play, please? And tell me WHY you picked what you picked if you want?

[lizardsfromspace]

Still in awe of how well the D&D movie mimicked the feeling of D&D without doing anything as tediously literal as a "sitting around the table" framing device. The way some characters have names that sound like names a DM improvised on the spot, the sudden appearance and disappearance of a overpowered DM NPC for a single dungeon, the way they used the fact that characters can plausibly just mess up for no clear reason to escalate action scenes...that was cinema

[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.

[spiderziege]

Mordred Manor! (with close-ups under the cut)

edit: i just put up some new drawings on my ko-fi, so if you wanna print this out as a poster or something, you can find it there at full resolution in the 'Misc Art' folder! :) (personal use only!)

[asthedeathoflight]

Still thinking about none houses left grief, and while I understand where people are coming from, "it took me out of the world" is just... Really not a relevant criticism here. Like, that line is SUPPOSED to be jarring. It is supposed to be kind of darkly funny, but the point isnt for you to laugh. Its not trying to be a punchline. The point of that line IS to "take you out of the world" because the point is that *this world isn't what you thought it was.*

[bacchuschucklefuck]

typical tavern scene

[mimimar]

spring waiting for summer's awakening

(art prints)

[ewwww-what]

Ugh. Literally just let her go home???

[ornitharts]

[periodcostumefantasylover]

Guinevere's wedding dress and chainmail veil in Excalibur 1981

[rrat-king]

this trio is so infinitely cursed and yet fascinating

[perplexingly]

An adventurer, just like you

[bowenoke]

I bet they used to sing along to worship songs in the back of the car on the way to church

[xiewho]

its all love baby

[very-small-giant]

you have been bad friends to riz gukgak

[metaphoricallyrose]

Wizard and her paramour