#to a lesser extent:

[aro-ortega]

love when a particular brand of chargestep is big sad wet eyes 4 big sad wet eyes

[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.

[its-your-mind]

[thatswhatsushesaid]

“um, you are actually supposed to hate this character with your whole chest, the text is EXTREMELY clear that he is terrible and you should not like him”

well i like him anyway. what are you going to do about it, tell my mom?

[meamiiikiii]

silly comic based on a time i struggled to read live on stream :thumbsup:

context clip compilation below ASDASDFASA

(cw for brief mention of hospitals/strokes)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

An unbothered queen has entered, and subsequently left.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[canisalbus]

Regrettably caught myself thinking “Is he, you know… *pictures Machete’s tail curl*” earlier today.

[stale-popsicle-queen]

Plenty of y'all fans in the Watcher fandom really gonna just gloss over the fact that you were vile to these people just a few days ago.

[thelesbianthespianposts]

going down a non bat superhero tag be like: Batman post, Batman post, Batman post that explicitly belittles the tagged superhero, more disrespect, post that doesn’t even mention the tag but says justice league in it, GOOD POST, good analysis but somehow still about Batman, ship art with Batman, post that has nothing to do with the tag or the fandom, the most incorrect take you’ve ever heard, more disrespect, take based on a spin-off animated show that hated he character, GOOD ART, just a genuinely confusing take, Batman post, Batman post, Batman post.

[ckret2]

i know you're reading the book rn, but i need to know is it true that bill has a redemption arc??? and that billford is canon??? I HAVENT GOTTEN MY COPY YET BUT IM SEEING OTHER PEOPLES COMMENTS AND POSTS ABOUT IT I NEED TO KNOW😭

As of the end of the book, Bill is in the process of being forced into a redemption arc. Please understand that I say that like "the airplane is in the process of being forced into a shoebox." It's not successful thus far and might never be successful from what the book presents. But the road is offered to him.

In my opinion, Bill & Ford's relationship is being written like a (mostly one-sided) romantic relationship (from Bill toward Ford), with multiple in-text parallels between how Bill talks about romance and how Bill interacts with Ford, and I believe the romantic coding is deliberate. I have not yet read something that explicitly verifies Romantic Emotions Are Happening and I don't expect to.

Like, we're at a point where Bill crushing on Ford has less textual support than Dipper crushing on Wendy, but more textual support than Tyler Cutebiker crushing on Manly Dan, and maybe even more textual support than whatever thing Dipper & Pacifica have going on.

It's left open-ended enough that you CAN go "Bill's just platonically obsessed with Ford and platonically trying to 'seduce' him and platonically heartbroken when Ford rejects their partnership after learning what Bill's up to." That is still an option. But this is some INCREDIBLY heavy romantic subtext.

At this point, "there's no romantic feelings on anybody's part here" is no longer the most default/neutral reading of Bill & Ford; it's gotta be, like, a choice. A choice that remains valid within the canon text, but still a choice.

So not "canon" as in "the word love is brought up between them" or "they were in a relationship," but "canon" as in "I believe wholeheartedly that the writer's intent was to make us think about a (toxic) romantic relationship when reading these scenes, whether or not such a relationship ever took place." The text doesn't quite go there, but it openly invites you to go there if you want.

I firmly believed the book wouldn't be any more billfordish than the show & J3 were—just some light, probably unintentional subtext. It completely blew past my expectations.

[motorway-south]

i know its pointless to debate meaningless tumblr litcrit terms but "haunting the narrative" as a concept gets thrown around all too much for my liking. you can't use haunting the narrative to describe absolutely any character who was grieved over (especially if the character functionally exists within the narrative to die i.e. the dozens of dead dance era targs)

i think to truly haunt the narrative the central thread of the story needs to be a clash of interpretations over what the characters intentions or feelings were (or at least a clash of perceptions). the first one i can think of is Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennesee Williams

in this story, cathy is a young woman who witnessed the death of her cousin sebastian last summer, and she wars with sebastian's mother violet over what exactly happened, who sebastian was, if cathy is or isnt mad. it's revealed that sebastian was queer and also kinda a predatorand also catherine was super into him, and obviously violet doesn't want this getting out. cathy and violet both mourn the versions of sebastian they each have in their heads: as a mommas boy or a sexy older cousin, while they both aim to stamp out the secret they both hold about him. but sebastian is slowly revealed to the audience in a careful peeling back of his character, in a way that his ghost physically occupies so much of the page

the other example is the titular rebecca from rebecca by daphne du maurier, who's character the audience and narrator have to uncover entirely posthumously through mr de winters or mrs danvers or whoever else. the narrator is literally haunted by rebecca, but the narrative form is too - it is deciding what her intentions are, and how this untimely death with resolve itself in the characters

its why i balk at the idea of robb stark "haunting the narrative" (no hate to robb we love robb here). first of all hes alive for 2.5 books but second we don't really uncover more about him after his death. his siblings mourn him but theres hardly a question of what his legacy/intentions/or character were like before his death that is reshaped afterwards

[artsyaprilmr]

Every self respecting band must have a photo of them sitting on the couch together methinks

(version with Jazzy under the cut)

:^)

[whywalkwhenyoucanride]

we like to joke about the stealth archer thing. for a decade and a half now. but i think the reason why it ends up being such a common build in skyrim is because it's the only combat style that is actually satisfying to play. melee is just strafing and spamming lmb, occasionally rmb if you want to block. magic is just strafing and holding lmb/rmb. stealth archery has an internal narrative arc. set up (targeting), tension (aiming), and release (release). doing it well rewards the player with a funny ragdoll

i don't think it's because it's the best (even though it is), it's just that it's just a vastly more satisfying gameplay loop. in reverse, i would hazard this is why very few people use bows and their main source of damage in dark souls - often opting for guts-sized swords. it has the same gameplay loop of mindlessly attacking and walking away as melee in skyrim

[splinterclan]

What if Cedarheart hadn’t come back? Would Myrtleflower and Pansybloom have just… refused to go with the others, and stayed behind to wait for him?

Probably, yes :< I actually don't know where Dropletsplash would've landed either. Snom feels extremely indebted to Whorlstar so he'd follow her, then Moorsnow is extremely loyal as well... Honestly though Whorl would so so against splitting the clan she likely would've just taken the bullet in looking weak and cancelled the move. What's the point if only two cats are fully with her? Luckily that didn't have to happen.

[cephalopod-celabrator]

Why does every animated kids adventure show progress from Season 1: Malcolm and Jana help their neighbor who's a talking frog with his taxes but uh-oh, the taxes turned into monsters and they've got to fight them! to Season 3: Jana must kill the reanimated corpse of God meanwhile Malcolm must contend with the embodiment of existential suffering which has burrowed into his mind and is unraveling his sanity. Neither of them will ever be the same.

[wistfulwatcher]

Criminal Minds: Evolution | 17.01 Gold Star