#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)

[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.

[panic-flavored]

Manifesting stobotnik motorcycle ride in Sonic 3 🌟 🌠

[delicourse]

end of spring🌸🧶🌱🧵

[prints]

[vintagehomecollection]

Country Kitchens, 1991

[saltlakehardcoreflyers]

[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

[balrogballs]

So because I am also like baby Estel and have way too many questions about everything, I also wanted to know how much Manwë’s eagles pooped in a single day now that that question had been put in my brain. So I did some research and some math and though there’s no information out there on Manwë’s eagles’ body weight with which to compare the amount of food eagles eat in a single day (10% of their body weight), there is wingspan.

Based on Thorondor’s wingspan (30 fathoms, or 180 feet) and eagles’ wingspans (6 feet), we can estimate that Manwë’s eagles are on average 30 times larger than eagles in this time period.

With eagles’ average weight of 14 pounds and the amount of food eagles eat in a single day (10% of their body weight), we can estimate that if Manwë’s eagles are 30 times larger and weigh 420 pounds, they poop approximately 42 pounds every day, proving 42 is the answer to the life, the universe, and everything. I hope you brought your towel.

I need to let you know how much I enjoyed this ask, to the point I considered using the office printer to print it out and frame it as the main reason I am so, so, so glad I have returned to this goddamn fucking website from hell after 10 years away.

I am certain that Cast in Stone Estel, the budding young scientist, wanted to hear this kind of answer instead of being set a punishment by Maedhros "trying not to piss himself with laughter every time Estel opens his goddamn mouth" Fëanorian 😭😭😭

Also I feel like at this rate Fingon should have handed out free umbrellas to everyone on the flight path....

[demigoddessqueens]

Ohmygoawd 😍🤩🥹💕

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Who among us has not been indicted for 91 felonies by four separate grand juries in four separate jurisdictions?

[criticalyasha]

M9 Echoes - 「 Fjorester gets engaged 」

[the-muppet-joker]

You want to vore the Applejack figure?

We all have our vices