#this search for meaning

[tsumetaibyakuren]

Brian Molko in This Search for Meaning documentary

Source: The cult of Brian Molko fan page on Instagram

[placebofever]

This Search For Meaning premiere [photo credit: Cat Morley/Avalon]

[withoutyouimsaskia]

I'm experiencing very profound emotions after watching Placebo's documentary "This Search For Meaning" tonight and I want to mark the occasion.

[jinx-on-mars-19xx]

@ placeboworld on insta 🖤

[quadr1lleb4by]

I loved the placebo documentary film, this search for meaning 🖤

[chicaplacebo]

Documental Placebo

[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.

[callisteios]

Hi, feel free to take my new uquiz to discover what kind of vampire you are!

[thesockdrawersblog]

THEMB…💕💕

[unlimitedbutchworks]

a lot of older norms for internet and site etiquette are shit but you know what was good that we need to bring back? lurking. you need to lurk moar

[newttxt]

lulaw bodyswap (or, the exquisite humiliation of trafalgar law) for @strawhattery's birthday!

bonus: the original toilet humor gag that ended up on the chopping block

[n4rval]

BUT YES.

family history.

[placebofever]

Screenshot from This Search For Meaning - Official Trailer

(the irony is that I don't have acess to twitter so I won't be tweeting about it)

[miikpal]

lighter than air

frames of everybody from the recent vid!

[sonoda-oomers]

realizing thistle never actually reached the maturation point for an elf is so. eye opening. especially bc he actually witnessed both delgal's birth and the birth of delgal's son (AND HIS GRANDSON!!). as a human reader it's so easy to be lulled into thinking he's so old and marcille's remark of him being a child came so fast it's so easily forgotten

like i definitely think the golden kingdom and delgal himself never knew let alone be able to perceive thistle as an immature person. bc in their years he's just so old. and i think growing up surrounded with all tallmen also gave thistle false perceptions of how mature he was and it played a part in him taking on the responsibility of rejecting death for the whole kingdom. it's a brilliant and raw display of what age discrepancy actually means in the world of dungeon meshi

[varpusvaras]

Jason, watching Roy be a good dad to Lian: God he's so hot

Jason:

Jason: Oh. Oh, no. Oh no-