#coming back to the fandom

[theartisticdoofus]

I was lying about coming back to the fandom for the meta essays and literature, actually I came back for this

What if Jesus and Dostoevsky were something more than oomfs…

[seenthisepisode]

no offence but the reason tumblr is “dying” is, well, yes, of course the cursed like/reblog ratio and the change in user behaviour (because of people being used to how instagram and tiktok work) BUT also the lack of weekly shows. i say it with my whole chest, they don't produce captivating and engaging stupid weekly tv shows anymore because streaming killed that so you have spikes of activity here when Something happens in general fandom or up to three days after a new season of whatever drops and then it's a wasteland. this is obviously an old woman yelling at a cloud missing supernatural and the vampire diaries and pretty little liars and all these other shows type of post but honestly give me back weekly tv shows where i have something to watch for 40 minutes almost every day of the week after work so then i can read and reblog it on tumblr give it back for the sake of my sanity

[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.

[aeroplaneblues]

Welcome Back🥰

She says “without me” and they get emotional🥹 the boys are the ones who had to live without nobara for like 2 months? Yuuji was one month and megumi was possessed for less than that right? Anyway Im happy these kids are back together they are truly the heart of jjk😭💜

[cacaocheri]

really like the idea of sun completely engulfing you in a hug, especially with his legs

[codydodie]

Star - Mitski

Update: LEE MAJDOUB REPOSTED IT ON TWITTER IM GOING TO EXPLODE!!!<3<3<3 THABK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE LOVE

Also have a funnier version (it still hurts tho)

[ruporas]

your love returns in tragedy (ID in alt)

[mid-knight-black]

I think Eddie feels the most comfortable and at home with his abuela because growing up, she was probably the only person in his family who allowed him to be a child while everyone else expected him to be the man of the house. She let him be her little Eddito… 🥺🙃

[gif made by the talented @housewifebuck 🤍]

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

i hate how sometimes people make out rachel to be this tragic heartbroken mess. WELL FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT

she was the one who dumped percy in the first place

and the scene after that she said "I don't have to tell you what you have to do now, right?" with the next scene being percy confessing to annabeth

she genuinely CHOSE to be the oracle, if she was really serious about percy she would have not have gone along with the whole thing without being a tiny bit sad about not dating percy

she flat out admitted percy was just a vehicle for her to be involved with the greek world

she is not august by taylor swift. she is not driver's license by olivia rodrigo. she did not care less about percy once he didn't reciprocate pls 😭

[gremnda]

completely self indulgent sky siblings doodle. i'm sick and i deserve to draw all the fluff ever

inspo

[redfielddoesthings]

˖☆ COWBOYS ☆˖

⭐*⁠.⁠✧

…(⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠) asks are being reopened next week. I was sick. — R☆

[omoriisstruggling]

starting the new year off right with my one and only boyfailure wife loml

[lleann-art]

my favorite recurring kyoru moment is tohru hitting kyo with her pompom scarf

[that-tall-queer-bassist]

hey, just as a btw, a fic or a series not uploading for a year doesn't mean its abandoned.

Sometimes the authors have shit going on, other wips, or! it just needs to sit and marinate for a bit. Collecting all the flavor and details it wouldn't have otherwise.

it's okay for updates to take a while.

And if you're impatient? Why not leave a nice comment telling us (the author(s)) what you love about the fic or series? say that you love it, and are "waiting eagerly for the next chapter" and/or that you "would love to see x or y happen because it would mean-"

This could be a new fandom vibe because of all the "i have to drop this while people are still interested" energy, but its not universal, and i don't believe its good for the fandom ecosystem.

Have patience, and have compassion. Remember that authors are human and these fics? (or comics, animatics, whatever) This is our art. We care about it just as much, if not more than you.

[asharaks]

it is, i think, symptomatic of the way larian has built this brand: bg3 was always marketed as being mature (read: sexual), and that was one of the big draws for players - myself included! especially as media pulls more towards extremes, with mainstream video games starting to get increasingly graphically sexual, graphically violent, and the vogue for 'grey morality' becomes the norm, those boundaries get pushed, and it becomes more and more of a selling point.

larian obviously focused on this, along with the How Do You Do, Fellow Kids brand, the increased accessibility of game devs on twitter, and adopted it heavily into their marketing strategy, and are now pretty reliant on the horny gamer crowd for a lot of their audience, and more importantly, they're doing this on purpose.

which is how you end up in situations like this.

characters (white men) the players want to fuck get centred: they get updates, they get more content, they get favoured. halsin's gone from a side character in EA to a half-fledged romance option, to a full romance option: he shows up in the promotional material, is larian's poster boy for the sex scenes, he gets more content with every update.

now gortash gets more heavily implied situationship lines with the dark urge, because players are horny for him. nevermind that some people aren't playing that way, or that he was originally set up to be a lower-level antagonist; nevermind that if the durge's storyline needed expansion, it should've been with orin and sarevok and bhaal, or that it muddies the writing for the rest of gortash's arc + characterisation: people want to fuck him, so it gets put in the game. it's not even to do with karlach, whose quest so desperately needs expansion! it's specifically catering to the people who want their character to have a Relationship with the slaver, because they're either not interested in or not able to focus on strengthening the weak spots in the narrative: they're just doing things that will net the 'my favourite dating sim' people lmfao.

meanwhile, literal main character wyll gets his quest demoted to a subquest, doesn't get bugfixes, doesn't get a single unique romance greeting after 6 patches and months of requests. he's not a Horny character, so he doesn't get the focus: he's not a player favourite, so he gets nothing. it's just... so unbelievably, indisputably racist, and it's incredibly grim and disappointing to watch it happen in real-time.

[hi-im-goldn]

I’ve been out if the undertale fandom for a while, why is everyone freaking out? Why is Papyrus being asked questions? What’s with sans and grass?

Edit: Why did Toby Fox crush a TV? What did it do to anyone?

HEY? HEY? HEY?