#serious era

[socialbutterfly19]

To whom it may concern

[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.

[wolvesandshine]

Barty: I’m going to kill my dad

Evan: Sure we can kill my dad too my house is on the way

Regulus: I volunteer killing my parents as a trial run

Everyone else:

[aithusarosekiller]

Imagine Sirius finding out about Jegulus through one of James' REVOLTINGLY sappy pet names because we all know that James is a mean little shit who thinks he's hilarious.

Like James only uses the pet names so he can irritate Regulus because 'James, I have a reputation to uphold that shall not be sallied by your foolish ludicrousity' and he finds it hilarious to watch Regulus scowl and grumpily swat at him whenever he says something gross like 'baby' 'my angel' 'angelface' 'honeybun' or my personal favourite 'babydoll'. It's just his sense of humour, he never uses normal nicknames anymore because the stupid ones are ingrained in his mind to an irreparable degree.

And it becomes such a habit that one time he just forgets that Sirius doesn't know and by that point, Regulus is so used to simply tuning it out in the hopes he'll eventually get bored and stop (he won't) that they don't realise for at least 20 seconds that James just walked into the brothers' flat and said 'Hi pads, haven't seen you all week! Hey babydoll, ooo, that really is a nice new jumper'

They both realise at the same time and it takes a further second for Sirius' face of morph into DISGUST. And it's not at the fact they're together but at the ABYSMAL name choice. Regulus is instantly fuming and desperately trying to explain that it's James being pathetic and making an idiotic joke but Sirius doesn't even buy it. He goes the rest of his life telling people about it and Regulus goes mad. James finds it so fucking funny but apologises for accidentally making it bigger than a joke between the two of them. He is eventually forgiven but he's banned from saying half of the silly names ever again.

[myfavcharacterdidntdrown]

Sirius: Hey Prongs, I hope our children will get along just like cousins, you know not like me and my cousins but like other cousins that get along so well, I always see cousins having a really good bond

James: Yeah I hope so too

*5 years later*

James: Hey Pads, you know when you told me about that cousin thing with our children *sweating nervously*

Sirius: Yeah what’s up with that?

James: I took your words too serious

Sirius: What do you mean?

James:

Sirius: James what do you mea- oh no no no no. Please don’t tell me that-

James: Surprise?

Sirius: JAMES FLEAMONT POTTER, YOU’RE DEAD YOU LITTLE BROTHERFUCKER

[thepersonperson]

Sukuna is Peak Gap Moe. I’ll never be over this. This bastard talks tough, eats people, and kills like a woodchipper and yet…he is a poetic little sap. Getting mad over an improper haikus, the misidentification of flowers…and confessing his feelings to Gojo Satoru under several layers of wordplay no one except those well-versed in ancient Japanese would catch.

I've been over this in greater detail in Sukuna's Negative Rizz, but @tangsakura added more context in the replies to that post, making Sukuna's use of 凡夫 (bonpu) for Gojo even gayer.

In summary, 凡夫 (bonpu) can be translated as painfully ordinary or unenlightened. But in the individual kanji readings, 凡 is mediocre and 夫 is husband. You could read this as Sukuna calling Gojo his mediocre husband. And that's just the modern readings! The ancient readings...

So you can read this line from Sukuna as the following:

“You were born in an era without me and hailed as 'The Strongest'

1) And yet you turned out to be…painfully ordinary.”

2) And yet you turned out to be…unenlightened.”

3) And yet you turned out to be…a mediocre husband/wife/spouse.”

4) And yet you turned out to be…the ordinary one who could stand by my side.”

Sukuna seems to be saying these things all at once. (It’s no different than the Megumi Activities wordplay he uses with Enchain. Alt. link if the Twitter dies.) Gojo apparently makes him feel very conflicted. He’s boring, he can do better, he shouldn’t even call himself the Honored One, he’s his equal, they’re married. The irony here is that no one except Sukuna can understand this.

[that-bitch-kat3]

james and sirius really do match each others freaks and i love them for that

[lezbigarf]

i saw this palette and was like "i know who you are"

[padfoot-lupin77]

Remus: I’m not joking guys I’m fucking serious

James and Peter: *Le gasp*

Sirius: *grins*

Remus: oh fuck the lot of you that’s not what I meant and you know it

Sirius: is it not true though? *winks*

Remus: *sighs* I suppose it is

Peter: Pay up James

James: couldn’t you guys have waited until after Christmas? I would have won the bet then

[marauderswolf22]

i genuinely think that harry calling remus proffesor lupin instead of uncle moony is one of the most tragic things in the whole harry potter. the fact that he REMAINED proffesor lupin and was never called uncle moony? just a constant reminder that he had lost everything?

PS: i know that it's not completely harry's fault, I'm frustrated at the whole outcome and remus' fate

[evanrosieroff]

Sirius “i need attention, moony!” Black

Remus “i’m trying to do my homework” Lupin

James “pad!! can i bother remus with you?” Potter

Peter “poor rem'… i should bother him too!” Pettigrew

[blorbocedes]

BLONDE TWINK BARES IT ALL! GETS A MASSAGE ;)

williams!era nico gets a massage by dr.dot for RTL in a video that looks like a casting couch bad porn intro. 1/2/2009

below i explain the lengths i went to find this 👇 its v long

so our story starts a few months ago when i began frantically dming my oldest nicologist friend @colors-of-feeling if she remembered this video. I had only half remembered recollections at this point, and i really only remembered the video because it looks so much like a casting couch porn intro. I know I screenshot it but I went through my gallery and couldn't find it. i knew I had seen it a very long time ago and care is one of my first mutuals, so anything nico I've seen she's seen. she doesn't rmbr 😓

now im like holy shit did i make it up. still i plead care to turn her archive public so i can go through it. no luck. i went through my own archive, even though i know I didn't reblog it because it had been a youtube link instead of the video. and i regretted it so bad, because i know that low quality few hundred or thousand views videos from 2000s is basically lost footage because youtubes search is basically incomprehensible. I also went through the archives of other blogs that nico posted back in 2021 for any sign that I didn't just project and Imagine it. no luck.

feeling defeated i go to my final hope, the nicologist of all nicologists @distantlaughter... with only half baked and increasingly hysterical descriptors "umm its like a casting couch video! a boat! but the boat is parked 🤔 maybe the masseuse had pigtails" i rambled, normally like a normal person.

ren the absolute darling immediately pops up with a video of shirtless nico get massaged. its not.

and another one. not that either 😓 we underestimated just how much nico posted getting a shirtless massage.

finally. FINALLY. ren dms me like 10 seconds of this video hidden in a nico rosberg compilation fan video that is even in worse quality. but it's this video!!!!!! it EXISTS!!! im not crazy....... but that 3 pixel collage was proof that it was real, but alas not post worthy. There was an RTL logo in the corner so in one final futile search, we searched RTL archives which unfortunately did not go far enough. We were doing literal detective work like from the 10 seconds of the fanvid we concluded it was like, probably an RTL monaco promo video hence the coastline and the boat, and given nico's hair length it must be williams (or 2010 merc). but nothing further than that. still ren is the absolute goat nicologist who figured it out from just my descriptions alone 🙏🙏🙏

with that I ended my search, knowing it was real at least, even if it wasn't the full video.

today i got a storage full notification. so I started frantically deleting random videos I had on my phone from years. and buried in august 9, 2022 almost exactly TWO years ago . was 5 seconds of this video and the when the screen recording closed you could see it was from a video called Dr. Dot.

this time im posting the video, im also going to ask @argentinagp to gif it so this buried, almost lost footage less than 1k youtube video can get a second life again, and so we can all enjoy weird late 2000s whoring drivers out. ❤️

all of this could be avoided if simply 2 years ago I had reblogged and tagged the original link. archival work is often thankless and pointless but wow, sometimes it can feel so rewarding. so enjoy!

which brings me to the most important part. doesn't he totally look like a twink in a bad porno here?

[j0ly0n]

i am jack's sleepover MASH game

[atlantis-area]

KEY Ending Fairy - Pleasure Shop (Music Bank, 241004)

[pyotrkochetkov]

@TSN_Sports: Mat Barzal in the house for the #MemorialCup final!

[crocdocz]

Bad day