#cast in stone

[balrogballs]

Yet another day of illustrating moments from my fic instead of editing the last two chapters and posting them like a normal person might do 😇✨

(this is a fun little sequence where Maglor is pouring his heart out into a lament to a tragedy in the general Fëanorian past, as he tends to, whilst the adolescent Estel, aka Elros II — the bane of Maedhros' re-embodied life, smells a business opportunity and starts selling overpriced tickets to local children)

[stilesdemonbaby]

Cast in Stone by wynnebat

Summary:

To think, people would kill for this.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Future Fic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Getting Together

Published: 2015-12-09

Words: 1,817

Chapters: 1/1

Rating: T

[kb-p2730]

[ablogofcourage]

[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.

[delicourse]

end of spring🌸🧶🌱🧵

[vintagehomecollection]

Country Kitchens, 1991

[saltlakehardcoreflyers]

[its-your-mind]

the transgender swag exhibited by the m9 is off the charts.

Four of them go by chosen names. Beau’s dad wanted her to be a boy, and is disappointed that she isn’t. Fjord remade his personality to mimic the only father-figure in his life. The two strongest people in the party are both girls. The person with the long pink hair and undercut and teal/pink mushroom aesthetic has the deepest voice in the party by a COUNTRY MILE. Caleb grew his hair long and shaved his beard as soon as he felt it was safe enough. Mollymauk Tealeaf is there.

[panic-flavored]

Manifesting stobotnik motorcycle ride in Sonic 3 🌟 🌠

[themetalgodsmeltdownposts]

(The Metal Gods Meltdown)

[balrogballs]

man merkt dass ich in deutschland zur schule gegangen bin... weil niemand sonst lotr fanfic über vergangenheitsaufarbeitung schreiben würde 😭

[quippso]

[laurakearney]

[c-kiddo]

im relistening to cr2 in podcast form so idk what their faces were actually doing but this was the scene in my brain

[demigoddessqueens]

Ohmygoawd 😍🤩🥹💕