#I FUCKING LOVE THE WHOLE CAST

[youraveragemiscellanyenjoyer]

The last 30 seconds of A Day in Falsettoland where everyone is singing together all joyfully is making me want to start ugly sobbing. I love this musical so much. It's hitting me right in the soul.

[quinngefail]

Direct follow-up to this ! Please read it first for full context >:)

This takes place a short time after that comic. Enjoy lol

God help anyone who makes fun of Adam Faulkner-Stanheight, for they shall have their mockery cast back upon them at a capacity that is nothing short of absolutely maddening 😩

[runawaymun]

I'm just going to say it. the attitude I'm seeing in the Silmarillion fandom from those who have never watched the ROP show, but are enjoying gifsets of the Annatar/Brimb scenes and expressing that it has them interested in those portrayals, while continuing to loudly assert that the Celebrimbor casting is atrocious because he's 'old and blond' fucking disgusts me.

[c-hrona]

Trigun body horror week

Day 3 - Lungs

Scream

Girls have butterfly in their bellies, when they are in love.

You have his feathers in your lungs, and his panic in your chest, and his cries in your voice.

[shesmore-shoebill]

Getting to listen to Angela gush so enthusiastically about Shakespeare and the amount of enthusiasm and love and passion rolling off of her is so endearing and just makes me happy by proxy. Her passion and joy about this is truly so infectious it makes me. :] Like Shayne is laughing a little, Chanse is poking fun, but they're both visibly impressed. Amanda is caught between entertainment and genuine awe/admiration as she watches Angela wax poetic. its great.

[puppmeo]

Truly the best part of Beat The Buzzer was Rekha and Erika ending up in fairly normal locations, and then it cuts to Becca:

[bakudekublogblog]

talking to normal people about mha is always so enlightening because someone told me they didn't like season six and i was like???? THE BIBLE??????? YOU DONT LIKE THE BIBLE??? BAKUGOU KATSUKI RISING?? THE APOLOGY??? THE CHASING AFTER HIM TO FIGHT SHIGARAKI, THE REVEAL KATSUKI HAS BEEN WORRIED ABOUT IZUKU, IZUKU'S FERAL RAGE WHEN KATSUKI IS STABBED, KATSUKI BEING THE ONE TO FIND IZUKU AND THEN THE ONE TO BRING HIM HOME??? YOU DONT ENJOY THE SACRED TEXTS?? and then i'm like oh right not everyone is a fujoshi high on that sweet, sweet bkdk yaoi

[fennelwasp]

P1 clara route oh my god

[lovecolibri]

I truly, TRULY, do not understand the Night Yorb hate. The fact that it was invented whole cloth from a bit is so fun! It was the cliffhanger from the last season! It burst out of Riz's chest after they said the name too many times! It's a giant sting-ray of darkness! The Hangman and Hanvan have been warning everyone about saying the name since the middle of last season!

Sorry you all hate joy and fun and are begging Brennan to get it out of the way to move on to the REAL story, but I'm here for any and all Night Yorb content, and would honestly be *thrilled* if they kept up stuff about it all season. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go join the Choir of Eternal Night and continue petitioning for a Night Yorb plush from Dropout.

[ratislatis]

I'll find you. Wait for me.

hee hee hoo hoo AUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PAIN PAIN SUFFERING PAIN IN ALL DIRECTIONS!!!! TO HELL WITH IT (LITERALLY)!!!!!!!!!

[sillyfairygarden]

shattering the deep toxic claws of art block with many such faces 💚💛♥️

[untimelyambition]

curt and kim being dance partners in all the scenes at the castle is something that is so special to me

[ethan-nestor-owns-my-heart]

SCREAM VI cast reunion

[nachosncheezies]

In defense of late-canon x files (including the revivals)

I was thinking about this poll after I commented on it, and I kinda want to be brave and say more.

Short answer to the poll's question before I go any further: If you're a new fan and a sensitive sort who thinks you'll struggle with your blorbos Really Going Through It and you really need a happy ending, I suggest you stop at the end of season 8. Do not pass go, do not look at spoilers. Disregard this post entirely, close the internet, and go look at something that makes you happy. (Also fuck every part of society that characterizes sensitivity as inherently weak and bad and some kind of personal failing, you are valid.)

That said, "quality" as a concept is entirely subjective, and the question of whether or not there's a decline in quality for any story is wholly subjective, too. In the case of x files? I'm not convinced there is a decline. I am going to be upfront that I haven't yet watched past season 8, though I am almost completely spoiled on events after that - and the reason I haven't watched yet is not because of how I know events are going to unfold, but simply because I don't want it to end!!! Ohh, the tension between "I CAN'T WAIT!!!" and "Nooo don't be over D:"

When I first came to txf fandom on tumblr and gradually became spoiled about what happens in late canon though, I was often left uncomfortable and tbh kinda queasy about it. As I said in my comment on the poll, the hate for especially the revival and IWTB, or to a lesser extent even seasons 8 & 9, is very well documented. But! There are other takes to be found here on tumblr if you figure out where to look, and my feelings have changed!

The thing is, I have yet to find myself in any fandom where there isn't a vocal subset of fans who dislike the story after a certain point. I am not joking when I say that no one hates the things they love as passionately as sci-fi and fantasy fans. In my experience, it often hinges on the extent to which a viewer has strong notions on where they would like the characters to end up. In particular with series where shipping is a dominant component for the bulk of a fandom, I have almost universally found that there comes some turning point in the story where "let them be happy you cowards" is the dominant view, and things that compromise the attainment of a degree of romantic stability and/or domesticity are, to many fans, annoying at best and despicable at worst. But! As one tagset on the linked poll said:

and I think for any fandom, that last tag especially is so so so important. (I think that's harder for people watching a weekly series live, bc you have so much time to analyze and speculate and dream before the next breadcrumb drops, but I digress.)

So why am I saying this and how do I apply it to x files? Well, I eventually found that there are also a subset of fans who find redeeming things right up to the very end and actually quite like the whole thing! The things that I had seen people rage and ventpost so much about honestly never quite sounded to me as "out of character" or "untrue to the story" etc as those same ventposts made them sound. And I've discovered I'm not the only one who felt that way. Do I love that the spooky squad had to go through all of those things? No, those poor guys D: Life is hard and they have been through so much trauma. But do those events and their choices make sense to me in light of everything that came before? Yes! And I honestly can't wait to see them fight to overcome those things, breaking, healing, always learning, always growing, always getting better.

So if you're wondering "where does it go wrong"... well, I'm a completionist, as many people who've answered that post are, but also my personal opinion is that I don't think it does go wrong. If you're new and interested in exploring why I've gone from "vaguely queasy" to "excited" about the whole thing, or want to maybe balance out the impressions you're getting about the later seasons before deciding whether or not you want to see the whole thing, I'll put a few blog names in the comments.

Final admission: even once I started feeling a little more confident in the possibility that "actually ok maybe I'm not crazy, maybe this all kind of is in character and does make sense", there was one big plot point that I was NOT looking forward to and I thought I would never be comfortable about. In hindsight, I think my discomfort came from the negative responses being SO seemingly universal that I hadn't stopped to let myself truly consider other possible interpretations on that point. (I mean my initial instinct when I first read about it was, why are we mad about this?? CSM is literally the most unreliable narrator in history???? it's obviously fake news?????? this must be either a fever dream someone's having or it's a misdirection ploy against whatever shadowy forces might still be lurking?????????????? but for whatever reason I guess I had halfway written that off.) Happily, just last month there's a new post-s11 novel out, and although reviews for the book as a whole are mixed, it seems to have laid the groundwork for resolving that plot issue in a way I think most fans would be broadly happy with. If you're interested in being spoiled about that and seeing how, I recommend searching #perihelion on @agent-troi who liveblogged reading it with receipts, scroll back chronological-style to the first post on the subject and see how it unfolded. (And never forget that Dana Katherine Scully is the queen of denial as a coping mechanism lol)

Everyone's mileage will vary. Each person can feel however they want! But for anyone new, I wanted you to know that the very many ventposts you might be seeing are not all there is to this show or its fandom. Some of us love it despite - or even because of - all the things that went "wrong". I think we just don't talk about it as much.

[utilitycaster]

I really do dunk on villain stans a lot but the thing is like. I genuinely do not care on any sort of moral level if you love a villain, or villains generally. They are pretend. The murder and the war crimes aren't real. Do whatever.

The issue is that like, this is a person the narrative is telling you to root against, and that it's okay because they are pretend. That doesn't mean they can't have sympathetic qualities but it does mean that as a rule the story is telling you "hey, here are the heroes who oppose this person, cheer for them" and also "you should boo and hiss when this motherfucker comes on stage" and a lot of people who like villains will look at everyone else and go "why the FUCK are you booing and hissing don't you see they have TRAUMA" instead of acknowledging the big "TIME TO BOO AND HISS" signs being thrown out by the story and saying "bring it on."

And I suppose you can argue that this is an overly simplistic way of looking at it, but if we're dealing with a story with at least some reasonably clearly delineated heroes and villains you're not intelligent for trying to pretend it's more complicated than it is. I'm not talking about the gray areas of antagonist who could be persuaded otherwise, nor antihero but straight up "this is the bad guy, we all but have arrows pointing at them saying it". Like, really, a lot of people who stan villains don't seem to do it for the love of the game, which I would respect, but because of a sour grapes situation with the heroes, or because they're in their edgy "subversion automatically means you're the smarter one" phase.

Anyway my point is I don't care if you woobify a villain for any sort of moral reasons but I do think that if you do so, you're a coward and not terribly good at understanding stories. I also don't care from any sort of moral standpoint if you enthusiastically cheer on the villain, but if you act confused or mad that most people aren't with you on that, I think you're an idiot and not terribly good at understanding stories.

[guardian-angle22]

Brian Michael Smith (with Ronen Rubinstein & Rafael Silva) receiving the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2023 for 911: Lone Star