#backgroundelf

Day #137 - Marshmallows

I was tagged by @backgroundelf, thank you so much!

I'm not necessarily part of these fandoms, but I don't think that's a requirement 🌻

Elrond (Tolkien)

Combeferre (Les Misérables)

John Childermass (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell)

Angela (Eragon/The Inheritance Cycle)

Aziraphale (Good Omens)

Triss Merigold (The Witcher, TV)

Pike Trickfoot (The Legend of Vox Machina, TV)

Marion of Leaford (Robin of Sherwood)

Sonya Rostova (Great Comet, musical)

Atréju (The Neverending Story)

prideboards ♡ trans man celegorm ♡ art from this picrew ♡ for @backgroundelf

...and a hunter also was Celegorm, who in Valinor was a friend of Oromë, and often followed the Vala's horn.

Ah, thank you! I didn't actually expect anyone to say XD

That bumps our boy Sauron up to 8 votes on who had the worst character and/or role assassination.

1. Finrod is pudgy. No clue why I have this headcanon, I don't really have any other strong feelings about him one way or the other, but I always picture him as a little soft around the middle

2. After being reborn, Glorfindel keeps his hair really short, shoulder -length or less. He was also released from the Halls a bit too early, so hasn't completely worked through his trauma from Gondolin

4. Maeglin also keeps his hair shorter than proper for the Noldor

5. Feanor was a really good dad pre-Silmarils, but making them changed something about him and made his relationship with his sons more distant

finrod is a Soft Boi (unless he’s biting werewolves to death)

i do like short haired glorf after his rebirth—i think he drilled it into the twins heads that you tie your hair up for battle no matter what

i can def get behind short haired maeglin

If being on Tumblr has taught me one thing, it is that the internet is full of people who take fiction way too seriously. It creates a terribly polarising culture, where "you're either with us or against us". Any fictional work is either The Greatest Ever or The Absolute Worst, there is no in-between. If you like a work of fiction, you're not allowed to criticise it. Anyone who has something critical to say about a book or an author is forced into anti tags. To a certain extent I can understand it, I wouldn't like to look up my favourite book on Tumblr and be flooded with posts about how awful it is, but this divide removes the middle ground of enjoying a book but also recognising its flaws.

(From the perspective of someone who, well, has a life outside Tumblr, a lot of fiction discourse here seems a bit pointless. Who cares if someone out there ships something that conflicts with your OTP? Or if someone has a headcanon or an interpretation that differs from yours? Or if someone said something you disagreed with about a book you like?)

And I think the demand that the fiction we consume must be Perfect in every way, also translates into cancel culture as applied to people. One mistake, one flaw, and you're out. Anything less than moral perfection is irredeemable. It removes the middle ground here too.

Which is, of course, where the MRAs and TERFs move in, going "aren't you tired of being cancelled for your opinions? don't you want to go apeshit?" Any discourse mentioning gender or sexual orientation is ripe for this, because it's impossible to please everyone online. Some people are comfortable with a particular word/label, others have had it thrown at them by bullies all their lives. So inevitably someone will do a bad faith reading of one of your posts and assume you have opinions you don't have, or a particular phrase might rub someone the wrong way, and suddenly people are angry and the extremists are there, pretending to be the only ones who see your side of the story, who understand you.

I don't really know how to combat this except to laugh a bit at all the people sending hate messages over fictional content, maybe log off Tumblr and go for a walk, and remain devoted to the middle ground of civilised discussion and critical consumption of literature, even, and especially, the books I love.