#I'm kind of surprised

[egophiliac]

just thinking about hair and faces

[buttercupshands]

So.

Act 5, huh?

Oh, and that.

"You can start breakdown now."

Finished the game couple of days ago and had some thoughts I needed to process a little. Like. Yes.

So anyway I actually didn't plan this and just wanted to redraw some sprites to just make sure I understand how to draw Siffrin correctly (still working on that!)

What did I learn from this? How fun it it to draw on a canvas that literally doesn't let you draw with colors without some layer cheating when necessary. Never tried it.

The beans. Sleeping beans.

Basically what happens when you want to sleep AND draw. Draw characters sleeping on your behalf.

Doesn't help, but at least it's cute.

I have no idea what was going on in my mind as I drew this. Feels like a fever dream of 'I want to sleep' at 4 am and 'Hm...' of thinking random things

Also that phone craft sign. Still too funny to imagine. I had to.

[starblaster]

(since no one is reading my tags or other reblogs): this post has an addition. the addition is specifically about co-mingle recycling in most usamerican cities. always check your local guidelines for recycling. the point of this post was not to tell you what you can or can’t recycle, anyway. the point was that a lot of recycling gets thrown out because it’s fucking contaminated. if you can’t clean your recyclables to keep them from contaminating a whole bin, just put it in the trash. you don’t need to feel guilty about it... that's it. that's why i wrote the post.

[benevolenterrancy]

what I'm learning is that MXTX series really have ☆*: .｡The Range｡.:*☆ and that my first impressions often don't survive for very long...

MDZS, initial impression: ooh revived necromancer that everyone fears, this is going to be dark and revenge-fuelled

MDZS, subsequent impression: these are Silly Lil Guys off on a romcom murder mystery

SVSSS first impression: nerd who got isekai'd into a shitty novel, crybaby puppy dog imprints on him

SVSSS subsequent impression: how many times now has the love interest tortured the main character? should I start a tally?

(i've only just finished SVSSS bk2, please no spoilers!!)

[pharawee]

—SPARE ME YOUR MERCY · Coming Soon 2024

[sergle]

the only downside of my personal art and self portraits being semi well received (thank u by the way) is that on occasion some wah wah transphobe blog will get ahold of it and sing my praises of Wombmanhood and Femininity. which is so fucking funny, because terfs harassed me relentlessly about the fact that I pursued a breast reduction (butchering my body, reducing my femininity, being brainwashed, and so on) only to sing praises to my current body as The Natural Female Form. very, very funny. I normally do portraits of my body, for the extremely, *extremely* obvious reasons, which include but are not limited to: I have infinite reference images of my own body. but I think I would like to expand, in the future

[0xeyedaisy]

i've followed you since the monavat days and every few months or so i check in on what you're up to and go "wow, cool art, don't know what that's from but cool" but now you're just drawing your sona with mannequins and honestly i've never loved anything so much. you're right. mannequins are kissable. correct. i'm proud of you for this. keep going

Thank you for your support,,, >///<

[dykedivorce]

THE NEWSREADER | 1x01 "Three, two, one..."

[coquelicoq]

I KEEP FORGETTING TO SAY THIS but my ideal au is always, ALWAYS a three men and a baby au. doesn't have to be men just yknow three adults and a baby. i know i have said this before but it was only the one time and it bears repeating, it bears so much repeating because i need it so bad for everything forever.

[aroaceleovaldez]

they girlbossed Sally Jackson

[egophiliac]

oh, uh, this...this isn't Silver's backstory after all.

[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.

[luminous-studiess]

bringing you gentle vibes from a midnight finals session. if you’ve started studying later than you’d planned, it’s okay-- take a deep breath and begin.

[shrugsinchinese]

Someone called Jester falls down and pops up in Professor Widogast’s class! 

...what was the reason for her visit again?

[transmascutena]

something i find a little bit funny but mostly just really tragic is that utena is fully convinced she's in a found family show for so much of it. and in the most fucked up way imaginable she's kind of right? we all know what being akio's family means.

i do think she sees akio as an older brother figure for a lot of the show, much more so than she ever has genuine romantic feelings for him. this is clearest to me in the black rose arc, where all he is to her is her best friend's older brother who gives her advice and respects her more than any other adult ever does. it makes sense that she'd want to see herself as a part of their family too. there's nothing to imply that her feelings are at all romantic in nature. it's only when he starts getting closer to her and intiating physical contact that she starts blushing around him and might be developing a crush -- although personally, i read it more as confused uncomfortable embarrassment most of the time, combined with the expectation that romance is what she should want, and so that must be what she's feeling, right? (this gets kind of naively reenforced by wakaba telling her how cool and handsome akio is and how lucky utena is to be close to him.)

and i don't think it's a coincidence that akio starts calling utena "part of the family" after he's planted this idea of romance in her. reenforcing her previous feelings towards him only after he has started to make them change into something different. he is deliberately trying to cofuse her idea of a familial/sibling relationship with that of a romantic/sexual one, because to him there really isn't a difference, and so that when she inevitably learns about him and anthy, utena will see her not as a fellow victim to find solidarity in, but as competition for his affection. and it works, at least at first.

all this is why i vehemently disagree when people call utena stupid for not noticing that something is wrong about anthy and akio's relationship while she's living with them. not only is it deliberately being hidden from her by both of them for a long time, she also literally has no idea what a sibling relationship is supposed to look like. she has no healthy example to compare anything to. even if she did notice something off about how anthy and akio interact, why would she assume she knows better than them how to be a family? she doesn't have one, after all. and when akio tells her that she is his family, he very much does not treat her like it, but she doesn't really have much choice in believing that it's normal, because isn't that how he treats anthy as well?

[numbuh424]

The actors of L and Light in Death Note the Musical London (Dean John-Wilson and Joaquin Pedro Valdes) went on IG live in matching Lawlight shirts 🥹