#is this out of character? probably

[crobones]

what if there was a fic from louis' perspective about pining over Daniel

and Louis realizing he cared for young and interesting Daniel just as much as he now "cares for" old man Daniel. Grampire Daniel is the best of both worlds but it's pining because he's convinced Daniel takes to vampirism so well because can experience independence again and be a free spirit, and really Louis almost convinces himself that he's just jealous of Daniel's second chance at reconnecting with his family. Because Daniel could talk with his exes or his daughters as a result of vampirism going public and the Daniel he knows could have been a great husband and father if the two of them had just never met and Daniel didn't get his brain broken by several days of constant mind manipulation and trauma. Louis knows he's just trying to make excuses for having been obsessed with a mortal, passing it off as "he's interesting" and some part of Louis is convinced that he doesn't know how to be independent and he should learn from Daniel.

Louis distracts himself by immersing himself fully into vampire society and making allies and killing those that try to kill him first and really he doesn't have to take on the responsibility of fending off vampires going after Daniel because Armand is also there in the shadows but Louis almost feels responsible for what's happening to Daniel. for both having been turned out of spite, and becoming a target, and really Louis just cares about Daniel's safety! that's all!

it's no matter that his thoughts turn to Daniel constantly, or to Daniel's happiness, or his old man hands, or the lovely curls that are even more lovely now that they're silver and grey, or his extremely attractive carefree confidence, or his colour shifting eyes that were always so expressive but now even more so, or his tongue that's always cracking wise but now is always licking at or playing with his fangs mindlessly like he doesn't know how sexy it is.

he also realizes that he's better at maintaining a telepathic conversation during his occasional hook-up with Lestat because either Lestat never realizes it now, or he simply ignores it and enjoys what Louis gives him, willfully ignorant to the lengthy conversations Louis has had with Daniel in flagrant delicto when Daniel just calls him out of the blue sometimes (curious that Daniel's timing has caused this happen more than a few times.) Daniel definitely doesn't know, because that would be embarrassing and how could he explain it away? how can Louis explain that he's orgasmed with the sound of Daniel's rough laughter filling his mind at some joke that probably wasn't even that funny, but don't worry Louis is sure there's no connection there.

Louis' fine. He's fine.

When Daniel finds out all that Louis is doing by killing other vampires that set out to hurt his boy, of course Louis will play it off as feeling responsible for it all - for every bad thing that has happened to Daniel but Daniel just laughs at him and Louis' a bit hurt but Daniel explains that they'll never know if '73 really broke his brain because it's in the past and they're here now and maybe Louis should get over himself, just a little bit. Daniel made his own decisions, ruined his own marriages, was estranged from his own daughters for nearly a decade because of his own fuck ups. Louis shouldn't blame himself for everything, because Daniel doesn't blame Louis at all. Daniel appreciates the apology, but wishes Louis didn't make himself the sin-barer. Daniel says he wouldn't be his friend if he blamed Louis for any of it.

Louis' relief is followed closely by a hollow ache in his chest and really all he's ever wanted was a friend, so why did it hurt when Daniel said it? Vampires become obsessive over everything, surely he's just being protective of his only friend. The friend that cares about what Louis wants and not just what he thinks he needs, or what he could take from Louis. Daniel is a fantastic friend. Friend. Fuck.

[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.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[chloesimaginationthings]

Abby went into the pit and made a FNAF friend..

[unoriginal-and-dumb]

Look i dunno. SHES ORANGE AND SHE KINDA WEIRD LOOKING!!! I like her.

BUT i just really like her design a lot, kinda wish she was 2d animated though but i say that to everything

[technically-human]

Bisexual crisis Crystal edition

[gale-force-storm]

Thinking about the fact that, to pull Gale from the stone and get him in the game at all, you have to decide to try to touch an extremely dangerous looking swirling mass of unstable magic. Something that is, objectively, a terrible idea

Like, the options it gives you are to either touch the sigil or leave, and if you leave you just... don't get Gale in the party

You have to take the risk. You have to let your curiosity override your common sense. You have to look at this unstable, possibly dangerous malfunctioning magic sigil and go "...Ok, but what if I poke it?"

In short, to get Gale in your party, you have to do exactly what he would in that situation, and indulge in a moment of reckless curiosity. And I just think that's delightful

[whosbian]

[98chao]

my pitch for a season 2 of last cookie standing

[thatskindarough]

Detective Aziraphale

[united-under-skyfall]

leverage is so fucking funny. man manages to find the most mentally ill and neurodivergent group of thieves on the market + an even more mentally ill guy whose literal job description was trying to chase all of them, and forces them into a found family speed-run by trying to blow them all up. they lowkey stage a full fucking country wide coup and are like eh 🤷 just another wednesday. this might be a fun place to vacation tho i guess. sophie shows up to her own funeral twice. they're so good at convincing people of their shit that they make a guy's body start reacting to an illness he doesn't have because it isn't real. go completely out on a limb and basically hand this one guy a new password for his computer so they can get into it and he goes with it. parker and hardison have straight up just "fake it 'till you make it"d into the fbi without even attempting to cover their tracks beyond just These Two Guys. half their clients never asked to be their clients and don't know they're their clients, and the other half are random people who find them who fuckin knows how, meanwhile no government agency can track them down without selling their soul to sterling. they make a point to have a dramatic scene w a Big Bad Shadowy Government Guy who doesn't actually get caught or brought to justice or anything telling them he's going to hunt them all down, and in any other show this would probably earn at least a minor arc later on but he literally never shows up again. an entire season finale hinged on a cake and a bunch of clams. they accidentally made eliot a celebrity not once, not twice, but three times. parker blew up her foster parents' house when she was like. nine. and it's hardly a footnote. hardison is just casually an artistic prodigy but it's only ever brought up for the most background of background gags. eliot's biggest beef with parker and hardison for like two and a half seasons is that they won't stop making weird food with lasers and refuse to realize they can't make a decent beer to save their lives. sophie's immediate response to being shot is to call her shooter a wanker. there's a character who has literally killed a man with a mop and they had the audacity to only put her in one episode.

[elevenquietseas]

Not to be a Twitter Reposter but I simply love halimede posting so much and feel the need to share . World champion chaser

[egophiliac]

WAIT when did he get FANGS

[chloesimaginationthings]

Gregory has it best out of the new FNAF protagonists..

[hinamie]

off on an adventure ! this au turns 1 week old today

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

pose ref [x]

[necrotic-nephilim]

as much as I love the common "Tim worships/stalks Jason" trope in TimJay fanfiction because it's Good and making Tim a weird little freak is Fun, I think the underutilized dynamic is where Jason is the one weirdly obsessed with Tim and makes it Tim's problem.

Like, the moment Jason is confronted with the information that a third Robin exists, the first thing he does is cover his wall with pictures of Tim so he can just obsess and torture himself over it. That is the behavior of a man who is Unwell over Tim's existence and I love it.

red hood: lost days #4

And as much as a shitshow as The Titans Tower Incident™ is characterization-wise (though I think it has far more merit in depicting Jason's character than people give it credit for but I digress-) there's something very fun about the fact that even after kicking his ass, Jason respects Tim and is impressed by him.

teen titans (2003) #29

And on top of that, Jason can't seem to stop trying to ask Jason to Tim to work with him in some capacity.

robin (1993) #177

batman: battle for the cowl #2

While Battle for the Cowl is an exceptionally bad comic, especially for its characterization of Jason and the "be my Robin" bit is taken deeply out of context, I do think it's interesting how obsessed Jason is with believing that Tim is extremely competent, only held back by being "brainwashed by Bruce". (hence him leaving Tim for dead later on in the comic.) Jason seeing a darker side of Tim and wanting to bring that out of Tim, wanting to see what Tim could be if he let go of his loyalty to Bruce is so fun to me, tbh.

And in Robin #177, Jason seems genuinely upset Tim doesn't want to work with him. Jason sees such a raw potential in Tim and is obsessed with it, constantly wanting Tim to work for him and see Tim be the type of person Jason is. And despite Tim rejecting him, Jason doesn't shoot to kill Tim. I just cannot get over the fanfic potential of Jason obsessing over Tim, tracking him and seeing what he's capable of and what he could be capable of. Wanting to make Tim see things the way he does. To Tim it's corruption, to Jason it's freedom. Tim trying to 'save' Jason is fun and all, but Jason trying to corrupt Tim? That's even more fun to me. Watching that power struggle between them, Tim unable to get Jason off his heels as Jason gets more and more possessive and bold with each attempt.

And when Jason sees Tim successfully get Gotham back under control after a gang war, he's impressed. He praises Tim, even. And then Tim just. Breaks him out of prison.

robin (1993) #182

The way they're constantly trying to see something in the other that isn't there, hoping the other will come around? That is the most fucked up hate/love dynamic ever. Jason keeps coming back to Tim, keeps trying to find ways to get Tim onto his side. They're always chasing each other. And I think Jason would be the one to confess love first, the one to do anything to make Tim his. And when you consider after all of this, Tim has his Red Robin arc and is at his lowest, getting the closest he ever gets to considering murder? I think it'd be so fun to see Jason take advantage of that and worm his way back into Tim's life and finally push Tim over the edge.