#look i like fantasy

[qqueenofhades]

What is "romantasy" and why does it plague me every single time I open up any bookshop website anywhere. WHY.

[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.

[lazylittledragon]

ok look i love astarion with my whole soul and this might be an unpopular opinion but post-brain, i don’t think he’s fashionable. i think he knows how to dress well and likes wearing nice clothes but i really feel like 90% of the time when he’s at home he would just want to be comfortable. i think this man wears dad slippers and owns an ungodly amount of sweaters and comfy loungewear. furthermore i would like to put forward that the person who DOES put together a fucking Look every single day of his life is wyll fucking ravengard. in this essay i will

[bacchuschucklefuck]

no more fan-ta-sizing about it! everything's already changed~

[prideprejudce]

also love the fact that the writers made it clear that aemond now realizes that his story of claiming vhagar doesn't make him the special snowflake targaryen of the world like he thinks it did. you know that he's been thinking for years that he has some prophesied greatness for being able to claim a big war dragon on his own and has been using that to inflate his own ego. and then here comes addam, some lowborn boat man who was hand-picked by a war dragon, and now there's another random guy flying over the castle on a dragon. literally everyone gets a dragon you get a dragon i get a dragon the silversmith down the street gets a dragon. and you know that's going to drive aemond NUTS

[bowenoke]

I bet they used to sing along to worship songs in the back of the car on the way to church

[minionsuncle]

Blarmy!

[xiewho]

complaining about high elves and sharing inside job gossip. the sisters ever actually

[kinerxy]

Honrses

[featherfangart]

I'm drifting off to nowhere The past, an echo on my mind Home, I'm almost home...

[ovegakart]

but is he okay though? a tiny idea that turned into TEN PAGES because angeal had to throw out the saddest statement that they all acted weird about and didnt bring up again. this is an idea ive had for a while of zack trying to cheer sephiroth up with pizza. everyone likes pizza

[whoseblogisitanyways]

tag yourself: intrepid heroes' alter emos as ppl who went to my public high school

[oneluckygoose]

Look lets be honest, we all know student body president doesn’t do SHIT in high school and none of what they do affects anything for any students. With this thought in mind, would you rather vote for the preppy, annoying, “better than everyone because I believe I deserve it” girl who cheats the system you have to deal with, or the coolest girl in school who is kind to everybody and saved the world THREE TIMES because of that fucked system, and also did a sick shrimp jump at this cool party everyone was invited to without discrimination

[filurig]

shapeshifting is something that a basilisk will nearly always seek to do in solitude.

an act which temporarily blinds and numbs the creature from the surrounding world - they will be left completely vulnerable to it. defenseless. frozen inside the shell of their old form as organs and cells rearrange.

to shapeshift in front of someone is, therefore, the ultimate show of trust that a basilisk can perform.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

they licensed his ass

my finished piece of the FWMS (official name definitely 100%) thing we started a few days ago! I had fun I hope folks had and/or continue to have fun with the sketch as well.