#i think he was kind of a dick though

[puppppppppy]

Bridge to turnabout doodles

[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.

[pirateprincessjess]

OOoooohhHHH!!! I'm the evil creature!~

PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM!!!

Wait wait wait, which evil creature exactly?

Cuz like there are some evil creatures that I would vastly prefer to receive my doom from over other evil creatures?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to meet my doom, but I extra don’t want to meet my doom at the hands of a xenomorph.

But an evil monster like King Ghidorah? Very evil! And would be a super cool! If I had to meet my doom then at least I’d get to see a giant monster! It’s a dream come true!

So really, I’m not sure how to react here. Can you be more specific

[hood-ex]

wait idk anything about the tevis’— why would tommy tevis call dick his son? would you be willing to give a quick rundown

After Dick failed to get himself incarcerated, he became an enforcer for a mob boss named Tommy Tevis. Tommy took Dick in and made him part of his family. Tommy considered him an honorary son and thought very highly of him.

Nightwing (Vol. 2) #107

He even told Dick that everything he had (his home, his reputation, his family, etc.) was Dick's as well. Lynette, Tommy's wife, told Dick that Tommy would let Dick do anything. The whole family loved Dick, including Tommy's 15 year old daughter, Sophia. Sophia actually had a crush on Dick, but Dick acted like an older brother to her, helping her with her homework and such.

While Dick was away from the family for a few days, the cops busted into the Tevis's home. Lynette got killed in the gunfire, Tommy got taken to jail, and Sophia got taken in by the state.

Dick, while mentoring Rose, broke Sophia out of the state home. He got Sophia to help him with the mob. Then, when Chemo fell on Bludhaven, Dick saved Sophia and left her with Amy. When they reunited at the hospital, Dick asked Sophia to leave the mob behind and join a boarding school.

So, yeah, that's Dick's relationship with the Tevis family.

[heroesriseandfall]

Tim’s self-isolation in the beginning of Red Robin is actually so funny to me because it hardly works.

Tim @ most of his friends and family: nobody contact me. leave me alone. I’m busy. don’t try to stop me.

Tim @ Cass: hey, wanna stay in contact? :)

Tim when Chris Kent asks him for help: I’m actually not Robin anymore so saving people is not my job. Oh her life is in danger? …okay fine but then I’m going back to my thing.

Tim when Kon finds him: I’m busy…Oh you need help? okay…let’s have an accidental heartfelt talk and then we can help each other with our latest emotional crises.

Tim when Dick calls him: don’t call me…ohhh, that seems serious. fine I’ll come to Gotham but then I’m going right back to what I was doing. *finishes up what he was doing* okay I’m back, let’s team up.

Tim when someone he’s never met ends up as the League’s semi-hostage with him: Hey when we’re done do you wanna travel for business together & maybe go on a date?

[vaguely-concerned]

I think rye thinks it's incredibly adorable of davrin to be worried about him after the accidental hallucination tea experiment. that stoic option 'you know, I lived a whole life before you' contains a world of 'davrin, I'm a mourn watcher with a severely misspent youth behind me. I've been stratospherically high on things you couldn't and probably wouldn't want to imagine, this is barely a tickle'. to me.

[moeblob]

Erin, to her crush: You're a dick

Mason, the crush: I won't argue! But to clarify -

[ganjamonster11]

Hey wow A dollar just appeared in my hand and it’s a real one too How Convenient and awesome

[enhanced-operatives-division]

Did Reggie, Head Support Agent, get the ok to use the Agency Budget to get that ticket to the Mask of the Read Death show under the guise of it being for the mission (and giving Sam in Accounting a NIGHTMARE) or is that man making bank.

[cliffexcellent]

I've just done some independent research and thanks to Quora dot com I can confirm that the latest episode of Doctor Who is historically accurate: Isaac Newton was hot.

I hope this reassures everyone

[rmbunnie]

Immensely goofy how Tim Drake was explicitly intended to be/written with the purpose of being a much more likable and palatable Robin than Jason and then right out the gate in A Lonely Place of Dying we get the twofer of him going "WHOA really you mean it was the totally respectable guy openly trying to buy out the circus and praying on its downfall who was sabotaging it, NOT the employee spiraling over the prospect of losing his job who Dick explicitly told me it wasn't? Anyone would've guessed it was that clown chump, you're an awesome detective Dick!" and the infamous (to me) "If one cop gets taken out it doesn't matter because the police system is so expansive and unstoppable that it's become a faceless symbol more than a group of individuals, and that's what justice is. We need to be like THEM as heroes :D" Like I think overall he's decent enough but did they even try with that introduction? In what way was this the best shot at likable?

[lord-squiggletits]

No offense but I feel like among IDW1 Megatron fans you can lowkey tell who's read multiple series of the comics (namely, phase 1 and early phase 2) and who's only read MTMTE by the way they talk about, headcanon, or write Megatron. And like it does genuinely make a huge difference because I feel like MTMTE Megatron in general is a different flavor of Megatron from the rest of the series..... not OOC, that's the wrong word, but like....... more as if JRO had a very specific vision of him and janked the reins of the series to drive Megatron down a specific interpretation of his character, which is still in-character but is very different from the way he was characterized early in the series.

But in terms of Megatron fans, you can really tell the difference between MTMTE-only readers and other-parts-of-IDW readers.

[misterradio]

being in a phantom of the opera discord server when ur not an erik fangirl is like this

[raeofgayshine]

Wish there was a way to begin to explain what happened tonight during stream because there’s some kind of gold in Jim thinking that Riddler is fairy (like tinkerbell) but everyone else just thinks he’s calling Ed a slur and the pipeline it leads down, connecting to Bruce thinking babies come from kissing, all the way to Jim asking Ed and Oswald if Tim was “their fairy baby and Tim telling Steph “I think Jim just called me a fairy.” Steph: “sorry you had to find out this way, but we all kind of knew.”

[pegasusknightsonly]

probably the biggest lesson intsys should have taken away from fates is that without sufficient pretty boys in the game it will be DOA but did they learn this?? did they????

[todayisafridaynight]

Bruh OK I get it I like Sawashiro now that I'm seeing his backstory

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