#anyway. there you go that's all folks

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

now that the weapons beta is over, here's just a few more fancy shots of temp characters left over from the event.

Pact Admiral Trin (Human Daredevil) Eimear the Sharp (Sylvari Mirage) Protector Glonn (Asura Willbender)

and under the cut, all the betas on the character select screen:

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[sainz100]

2024 Brazilian GP | x

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next

[navree]

Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.

Kamala 2024!

If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.

But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.

[kindaorangey]

"are you asking me or making me?" is soooooo interesting to me because i think armand only asks it when he can't gauge whether he's letting louis down. it's barely even sexual - it's a hail mary. it's a show of trust, indirectly admitting that he wants to do something other than what louis expects of him, but that he's willing to obey louis anyway, for the sake of their relationship. it's sort of heartbreaking watching them at the sacré-cœur, because if louis had said "i'm making you" armand would've done it in a heartbeat. he would've taken it as a show of committment on louis' part, and he wouldn't have betrayed him. but louis takes the question just as an expression of disagreement, and so he doesn't play the game. ironically, he respects armand's independence too much to make him turn madeleine if he doesn't want to. and so armand isn't convinced of louis' commitment to him, and he betrays him.

and by the time we see them in san fransisco, louis knows what the question means now, and answers "no, arun, i'm not asking" without question. and armand accepts it without complaint, even as it pains him. companionship really is the most important thing in the world to armand, just like it is for lestat, and he's willing to do any number of horrible things to louis and himself just to keep him as a companion, just like lestat. louis' biggest mistake is not realising how to use that to his advantage sooner.

edit: HELP people are reblogging this again. i misremembered the context of the scene - louis is asking armand to witness the turning, not do it himself. still, if armand had gone along to witness, that would have 100% been taken as implicit permission for louis to turn madeleine (thereby adhering to the first of the great laws) and, in essence, "agreeing" with her turning where before he ordered claudia to drive madeleine out of town. this hypocrisy, and the further bending of the rules for louis' sake (he's given permission to turn a mortal despite neither of them being in the coven), would have been seen by the coven as betrayal. armand knows this; he doesn't think madeleiene should be turned for these reasons; that's why he asks, "are you asking me or making me?"

still. if louis had said "i'm making you" i think armand would've gone along to witness, implicitly giving his permissing for madeleine to be turned and functionally changing his allegiance from the coven to louis once and for all. so the core point of the post still stands.

[cozylittleartblog]

small PSA: if you shop at craft shows or artist alleys, please bring more than apple pay or a virtual card - especially if you're not comfortable entering your card number manually. not all of us have fancy card readers, so please also bring your physical card or cash, even if it's only as backup 👍

[thebxghag]

Def don't think I can do all of femslash week, but at least have day one anyway xD

I caught some yuezula brain worms woops.

[secondbeatsongs]

when you're into the Big Ship™ in a Big Fandom™, you have the luxury of having an OTP - a real One True Pairing, where you can read about just them for ages, and you will never run out of fics, and everything is perfect and beautiful and nothing hurts

but when you go to a smaller fandom, you'd better pray to whatever god you worship that someone else in this room ships the same thing that you do, and that if they do, they're writing more than late-night crackfic, because you're on thin fucking ice!

and how small is your small fandom? is it less than 100 fics? maybe even...less than 20 fics?

welp, then it's time to make peace with that god and either open up a text document or learn how to ship everything, because it's swim or drown babey! and your ship is sinking fast

anyway all of this is to say that after hanging out in small fandoms and shipping less-common pairings for a while, going back into a Big Huge Fandom™ is wild because suddenly it's like...wait, why didn't I ship these people again? I don't remember. why was I only sticking to one ship in this fandom?? boring of me, honestly. these guys should make out.

[babacontainsmultitudes]

So it was established in the last episode that Taylor still believes in Santa (tbh I wouldn't be surprised if it's come up prior to this ep too but anyways-) so... Do you think (saint) Nicky been has portalling in every year since the betrayal to sneak in a gift for his son amongst the pile? That Cassandra doesn't even notice because it's just one among the many many presents she herself has bought and wrapped? But every year without fail... Taylor gets one gift that simply says "from: Nick" and well, obviously that has to mean it's from Santa (a conclusion which Nicky expects him to come to, and why he can sign his name at all, though he misses when he could just write "dad"). And one year when he's still quite young, a sleepy little Taylor actually catches Nicky in the act, and Nicky wishes more than anything that he could just *stay*, but instead he only softly tells Taylor to go back to bed, and Taylor thinks that Santa is a lot younger and a bit sadder than he expected, but what's he gonna do- not listen to Santa Claus? So he smiles meekly at the man he does not know to be his father, and hurriedly heads back to his room.

Also yes of course Nicky eats the fucking cookies left out of course he's not gonna pass up on free cookies (which are home-baked to top it off) come on that's a given.

[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.

[irlplasticlamb]

going through it* rn i’m afraid

* looking for a flat that is at least somewhat affordable to be able to live somewhere that is not my tiny village because i’m feeling very isolated and also being single is kicking my ass and also i’m hating my art and everything about myself at the moment xoxo

[fennthetalkingdog]

Dang, being nonhuman really is just like being trans, where I look back at my life and go, "Ohhhhhhhh, so THAT'S where it came from." It's easy for me to fall into the habit of thinking, "Well I just found this new label but I don't want it to infiltrate my whole life." But... it already has. All those moments pretending to be a cat on the playground, making fake "dog packs" with my friends, wrestling with my dog and laying next to her as if I was just another pup, attaching to my dog and cat stuffed animals, making dog-like noises to supplement my words, pretending I had (and still have) a tail to wag when I wanted, shaking out my "fur" and huffing just because I "liked mimicking my dog"—those were all my nonhumanity shining through. Me identifying with the nonhuman/therian label isn't an outliner, it's just the trend.

[destinywillowleaf]

one of a kind living in a world gone plastic

baby you're so classic

@most-tragic-character-tournament

(all my thoughts in the tags)

[i-really-like-phrogs]

When someone else’s art is so good you physically can’t look at it because of artistic jealousy

[front-facing-pokemon]