#fucked up series holy shit

[fliederbeerensaft]

voted for 'Other Option I haven't thought of' bacause the last show I watched was the german thriller series Liebeskind and good lord, depending on which of the characters I'd meet i'd be either

rescued and perfectly fine

kidnapped by THEM in turn because they love my whimsy

This post is kinda like my other one but a bit better lmao. I might make variations of this with other pieces of media but it depends onnn how well this is received

[shima-draws]

Me? Drawing Tododeku for the first time since *checks calendar* APRIL of LAST YEAR???

[uncanny-tranny]

"haha, are you an art gay, a science gay, or a math gay"

Actually, I find the division between art, science, and math to be a very nebulous idea and useless when you actually interact with the universe. The more you learn about the world, the more you surround yourself with art and science and math, and you'll never be able to see it any other way and it will be beautiful. When I take your hand, it won't be the science of our atoms closing the distance between us that we will experience, but the math of our fingers interlocking and the art of our bodies that we will experience. You are math and you are science and you are art, and nothing will make you any lesser💛

[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.

[h0estar]

Yukine's journey toward acceptance of the life that was robbed of him, this time with finality, exemplifies the emotional and beautifully rendered arc that has defined his character.

Yukine finally accepting the reality of his death. Yukine stepping out from the fridge that contained memories of what was once his life. Yukine freeing himself from the shackles of his trauma. Yukine running to protect the person who cherished him the most in the world. Yukine standing up to an abusive father. Yukine wholeheartedly apologizing. Yukine's growth, and Yato tearing up as he stretches his little arms to pull him for an embrace.

Yukine's gratitude for what Yato did for him is evident throughout the series. He was given a name more precious than any other. He was treated like a human--an ordinary teenage boy. And life after that was one exciting journey after another. Now, Yukine can no longer be entirely consumed by the horrors of his past because he knows that his reality with Yato is so much brighter. Far brighter.

Yukine could break out from that refrigerator because of the true, sincere, and nurturing love shown by the only father figure in his life. Yato has said multiple times throughout the series that Yukine was his priority above all else, and Yukine was the only person he swore to protect the most. Hell, he even went straight to hug him after Yukine apologized for turning into that form! Yato did not need to summon Yukine. Yukine came to protect Yato on his own decision. As he always did.

The journey to their healing will be painful, and this chapter shows that Yato and Yukine will face it together. No more secrets and no more miscommunications. They will help and be by each other's side as they always have, not only as god and shinki but, this time, as family.

"I will not let him die. Not Yato. No matter what happens... I swear I won't let anyone take him from me!" -Yukine, Noragami Vol. 17 Chapter 67.

[trash-gremlin]

could you imagine how good spirit animals would be if it wasn't written as a children's series

[jenna-louise-jamie]

i cannot stop thinking about ian rider. more specifically, how alex had so many unprocessed feelings about him after his death. imagine being an orphan, getting adopted by your uncle as a baby, having him raise you for 14 years then discovering he lied to you your entire life. that he [unintentionally or not] trained you to be something you never wanted to be under the guise of bonding with you. never being able to ask him what his actual intentions were because he's dead. never getting closure for it. im going to throw up.

[rainbowangel110]

So uh, me and my sister are watching Steven Universe and we just finished Gem Drill last night

And today, this girl came up to me just now and asked me "Because Pearl cared so much about Rose Quartz, and Pearls are normally servants like the yellow and blue one, was Rose Quartz the Pink Diamond?"

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkkkkk

[atragicallycrispydude]

i cannot understate how absolutely blood boiling blood rage is as a mechanic to me. I understand the purpose. i think it's good and nago needs it to keep him in check. literally nothing makes me angrier than "oops your approach got checked / you dropped a combo you are just fucked now."

like, fucking god, at the very least let me rc the activation animation so it isn't just an instant round loss

yes i know resource management shut the fuck up it's a good game mechanic but *fuck* is it annoying

[skyphloxx]

ok so um. here is a scenario ive had in the drafts for literally over a month and forgot to post. maybe with a second part idk?

i've been thinking way too damn much about clegan and johns dog coded ass and his feelings around body markings. like, hickeys and bites and bruises etc. bear with me this post got really long lmfao.

fuckin. ok. so in a scenario where john and gale are fucking on the side pretty early on after their arrival at thorpe abbots.

everyone knows bucky is a slut, right? bucky can show up with hickeys and bites and red marks and nobody will question it. he might get jeers or crooked grins, they’ll laugh and say he must’ve slept with every girl on base and half the women in london by now, but it’s expected.

buck, though? everyone knows buck’s got a girl. and maybe he wouldn’t be the first guy to say as much and then fold after months of being away from home. but everybody who knows him knows that buck cleven isn’t like that. and anyway, it would be a little odd considering how consistently he turns down any woman who makes a pass.

you see where i'm going here right.

gale can bite the fuck out of john and leave him with bruises purpling from his neck all the way down to his thighs. when they’re alone together it’s the only time he gets to loosen that iron grip he has on himself, be anything less than carefully composed and controlled. outside gale is the fearless leader, who will sometimes joke and rib but has no vices, no faults. with john he is a hungry, wanting thing, all hands and mouth and teeth.

bucky loves it at first. being desired so much kinda drives him wild, knowing that gale wants him so bad, that there’s so much heat simmering under that cool surface. but there’s also something about the act of leaving marks on him that feels like gale’s staking a claim. that bucky allowing himself to be bitten is showing allegiance, or acquiescence, or maybe ownership. something of gale is left there, written across his skin, even if nobody else knows it. the marks say that gale can do what he wants with john’s body, that john is his. he’s painted his name across john’s neck and chest.

bucky doesn’t object to this feeling. like, at all. on its own, that part is amazing. the problem is he can’t do it back to gale. buck is so paranoid about being found out, and the communal living of the barracks adds extra complications. and john understands his fears, of course he does, he knows damn well what happens to men who get blue tickets, and he’ll respect anything that’ll help buck feel safer about what they’ve been doing. he’s pretty sure he’d do anything to keep buck coming back, he needs him that badly.

he fucking hates that he has to be so careful. he wants nothing more than to give it right back to buck, to bite the same kind of lurid purple bruises across his skin. he thinks all too often of how buck would react, his shiver at the scrape of john's teeth on sensitive skin and the low breathy noises he'd make. hates that he can't have that. but mostly he hates how he can't stake any claim over gale he way he feels that gale has over him. if buck can do what he wants with john's body, if his bites mean that john is his, then the inverse must also be true: bucky can't do the same, and gale is not his. he has no claim to stake.

which makes sense, really. as far as claims go, someone's already beat him to gale. that's the whole reason the no-markings rule was established.*

it ends up serving as a little reminder to bucky: that the arrangement he and gale have worked out to keep each other sane during all this? it's temporary. when the war ends buck will be going back to build a home and share a bed with someone, and that someone won't be john. he can't forget that however much gale seems to want him in the moment, he's committed elsewhere. john is a way for him to distract himself from everything else going on around them. he thinks sometimes gale does it as much to distract john as himself. taking pity on him or something. he knows buck still loves marge more than anything. he uses her letters like a lifeline, sniffs her perfume off the paper like it might send him back to her if he works hard enough at it.

someone with a better sense of self-preservation than bucky might try to break it off, disengage, try to soften the blow when it inevitably comes, but.

the marks also remind him that he is gale's. has been. is. will be. for as long as gale will have him. bucky needs him in a way that he doesn't bother to deny to himself anymore. his chest feels heavy with it when they’re together. he knows they're on borrowed time, but that just means john's going to borrow as much of it as he can. avoiding leaving bruises or not using his teeth is nothing, really, he would do so much less (or so much more) if gale asked him, any number of humiliating, desperate things to keep gale wanting to touch him, fuck him. it's fucking pathetic, how much he needs that. john's own stupid hurt feelings are nothing, compared to how much he'd endure for it.

so of course he never brings this whole dilemma up to buck as something that bothers him. he would not dare risk throwing a wrench in their arrangement, which is perfectly functional as it is. they've made it this far via mostly unspoken agreements, mutual willingness to not talk about it more than they need to. john will not even entertain the possibility of breaking that or scaring gale off or somehow ruining what they have. he is already so well versed at suffering in silence, and really this trade off isn't bad. he used to fucking dream of this, the taste of gale's mouth or the feel of their skin pressed together. he can stand being reminded it's temporary. he can stand knowing he's pathetic.

(bucky is a lying liar to himself. he is full of resentment and frustration. he will pretend he's not full of resentment about this for as long as it's physically possible to. gale knows something is up with him but won't say anything too specific about it for the same reason john won't - they don't talk about it if they can avoid it. that's the whole point of unspoken agreements.)

*bucky has not considered that gale would be similarly paranoid even if he was not openly in a relationship and loyal to it (loyal in heavy air quotes lmfao) if not even worse, just because gale cleven is a high-strung freak underneath all the calm collected shit.

[thejadecount]

Me: Yeah I don’t cry from tragedy romance

Me after watching the end of Loki:

[kaythefloppa]

Ok so I just watched Our Blue and Green World on the Video App and I do not have enough time to post my disjointed thoughts about it, and I'm frankly too much in shock by the whole thing to even say anything more. I will point out my one main thought since in a couple of hours, this is going to absolutely blow up the main WK tag and I want to get it off my chest before any major bandwagons hit. This'll be my last S7 spoiler related post for the night so I can log off and take a breather after what the fuck I just watched. Blue-whale/Amazon rainforest sized spoilers under the cut.

I am in such disbelief over this episode's ending. I'm not angry or fuming at the fact that they redeemed Paisey Paver after only giving her 7 appearances over the course of 8 years, (or maybe I'm too surprised to have any straight-forward) or the fact that they had the balls to do so, for ANY of the main villains, but I'm just.... bargaining here. They did a similar "hint" at the villains redeeming in the Christmas special only for it to be a fake-out. And in other episodes, we've seen the heroes legitimately help the villains, but through means other than redeeming them (i.e. saving Zach's life and trying to convince him to live it well, or rescuing Gourmand, or giving Donita a spider-silk dress that was made ethically).

This... is a whole new different level. They for one, pulled a Starlight Glimmer and gave her a new attire (which sucks BTW), and secondly, they had her join the Kratts, but this episode is the first out of the 4 episodes to air, meaning that this likely has to take place after those 3 episodes, so already there's my timeline post to make.

But more importantly, what next? Will they stick with this change? Will this be one of the things that is immediately undone by the end of the episode? Will this have a big role in the series? Is this an elaborate April Fools' prank??? Is this real? Is this the ultimate Paisley Paver pro gamer move to defeat the Kratt Brothers and evade arrest? Will any of this play into the Wild Kratts movie??

I'll tell you what it means [unless it is a prank, which I frankly hope it is] It is the show jumping the shark, and in it, I see one of two outcomes. Either A) it will skyrocket this show like never before, or B) only spell the beginning of the end. Time will tell. And frankly, there is so much that could go wrong. Like so much. I've seen a lot of shows completely go downhill, crash, and burn after sticking up for them so much. I would want to say that Wild Kratts is not/will not be one of those shows, but I could be wrong. In beautifully creative ways, this show has pleasantly surprised me more, and it is still able to bring out episodes that have been some of PBS Kids' best. So I'm walking in completely neutral, and seeing what the blue and green future has in store.

Keep on Creature Adventuring you guys.... see you on the Creature Trail... for better or worse...

[totally-not-kawaii]

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

NO FUCKING WAY

[cthulhu-with-a-fez]

i started naruto a few years ago and made it to like the second arc in shippuden before stopping so i never made it to the kakashi backstory but....your notes compel me. tell me more.

okay so like take this with several grains of salt because the sum total of my sources here are "my understanding of the plot and characters as synthesized from the Abridged Revised Illustrated Edition my datemate's been writing me over the last two months", a handful of clips, and the only three (3) episodes of this 600+ episode show i've seen in my life, none of the three of which were relevant to the kakashi backstory

h o w e v e r

oh my god. my dude. my man. [holds him up like longcat] there is so much wrong with you and i'm enthralled.

so like here's the thing. here's the big takeaway that i'm understanding. this whole series is an ongoing exercise in generational trauma bullshit and everyone trying so hard to course-correct from their own tragic backstories that they accidentally set up their kids/students to have completely different but still somehow exactly the same tragic backstories, and naruto's chronic case of shounen anime power-of-friendship-itis is, i mean. yes it's him being the platonic ideal of Pure Of Heart And Dumb Of Ass but it's also a direct response to seeing ninja society's perpetual tragic backstory generator and going "this is bullshit, why are we even fighting? tell me what your side is, and i'll tell you what our side is, and then we can figure out how to make our sides the same side so none of us have to fight about it at all!" and honestly i love that but this ain't about him

so like. to explain kakashi we have to explain kakashi's father sakumo first. because sakumo was one of konoha's powerhouses, been on tons of successful missions, well-liked, well-respected, one of the earliest and loudest adopters of konoha's then-new and radical pivot towards a ninja being people first and disposable tools never ideology.

he really, genuinely believed in that.

except then he and his team went on a mission. and it went really, really badly. and he had to choose between completing the mission objective or saving his teammates' lives, and he chose their lives, because those who fail their missions may be scum, but those who abandon their teammates are worse, right?

... no, actually.

just because the ideology had been circulating and people were broadly toeing the party line didn't mean they actually believed in it, and sakumo's mission failure was already causing critical backlash.after sakumo made it back to konoha he was a fucking pariah for it. he was never officially reprimanded, but he didn't need to be if people went out of their way to personally spit at his feet, and... one day young kakashi comes home to find his father's body on the floor, wrists slit and suicide note devolving into begging apologies beside him.

this, as you may imagine, fucked him up, and didn't exactly predispose him towards believing the party line about the value of life.

he gets put on a genin team that was. basically the alpha build of the sasuke-sakura-naruto team dynamic. because it was him, and rin the healer girl with a massive crush on him who he never gave the time of day, and obito the Loudest High-Vis Uchiha Who Ever Lived who had a massive crush on her, and minato their teacher who was doing his absolute best to try and get them through to understanding each other, which is an Ordeal

because kakashi at this point has internalized that the party line is pretty lies for the gullible, that his teammates are only there to drag him down, and it drives obito nuts because that's the same exact bullshit that his family keeps spouting that he's rejected as thoroughly as a 12.9-year-old can, how does kakashi not see that it's bullshit? and there's rin who's looking at kakashi like i can fix him?? and getting upset when he doesn't let them in at all or even really visibly care that they're trying, and it's one hell of a dysfunction junction but minato is working on it.

... and then the worst happens. their team is caught out alone and everything goes wrong. rin is captured and obito's body is half-crushed under a rock and one of kakashi's eyes got slashed out and none of them are going to make it out of this, at this rate, until obito calls kakashi closer and tells him to take his eye. take the sharingan. he'd give him both but the other one got squished. kakashi will do more with it than obito ever did, so use it to save rin. please. and here's kakashi in the middle of field surgery on his dying teammate finally, horribly realizing that sometimes the win condition is, actually, protecting your friends, and he's already lost. but he can still try to save rin, it was obito's dying wish.

by the time he found her it was already too late.

the people who'd captured her had tried, poorly, hastily, messily, to seal one of the Tailed Beasts into her, and she was already dying. she had a demon thrashing in her soul that was tearing her to shreds around it and all kakashi could do was mercy kill her

and she thanked him for it.

and he goes back to konoha, sole survivor of his team, charred by the newfound comprehension of why you have to care and what it feels like to lose what you love and with obito's sharingan in his head and rin's blood on his hands and something in him that was already hanging on by a thread finally snapped.

and the only thing he could think to do, the only way he could even parse that grief through, is to just... make himself into a living memorial to them. he started trying to live as obito. adopt his mannerisms, his interests, craft his entire adult persona around his memories of his friend like a grave offering, and quarantine the bleakly mercenary anything-to-get-the-job-done ice in him off into the hound mask he wore as part of konoha's black ops division, which he joined at the ripe old age of way too fucking young.

he uses the sharingan to incredibly brutally efficient effect, copying enemy jutsus and bringing them back until the library's overflowing with them. but in the end, no matter how many he can technically use, they're still just cheap copies. and so is he.

and in the meantime the uchiha are collectively losing their shit about this random outside kid having one of their eyes in his head and getting all kinds of dubious 'glory' with it, and oh, wouldn't you look at that, they have a prodigy too!

... yeah.

itachi gets shoved through the rank advancements on a timeframe of "whatever he did you have to do it faster and better." and then the kyuubi broke free. and minato and kushina died, and a fuckton of the home guard uchiha died, and suddenly he's the most able-bodied fighter in their clan overnight at age 11 and the uchiha pull strings to get him into ANBU as well.

and kakashi is his teammate.

kakashi is his teammate and kakashi sees in itachi a whole awful lot of the edges of the way kakashi used to be, sees itachi trying to live up to and embody the absolutely impossible ideal of the perfect ninja, and he tries so god damn hard to nudge him gently towards something, anything, other than that.

but in the meantime, the uchiha have been... scheming. with danzo, Guy With The World's Biggest Chip On His Shoulder About Not Being Hokage, who's been marinating in a paranoia spiral for years. danzo had tried to set himself up as kakashi's palpatine, and tried to get him to assassinate hiruzen, and kakashi hears him out, and turns right around and goes to hiruzen with it instead, and danzo is pissed. the uchiha are pissed. danzo warns hiruzen that they're almost definitely going to try again and they're gonna make the uchihas' little prodigy do it this time, and kakashi silently braces to have to fight and maybe kill his teammate he was trying so hard for, and then...

and then itachi, who'd been watching his clan get. worse. for a long time. finds his cousin shisui, his best friend shishui, bleeding out in the dirt, who tells him everything, tells him danzo tried to have shisui killed for finding it out, and it worked, he's dying, but he's not dead yet, so please. make it count.

.......................................... And Then The Uchiha Massacre.

and now itachi is one more person that kakashi tried to care about who got destroyed.

and then fast forward a little bit further, he's been retired from active-duty ANBU after a decade-plus of service because the sharingan is starting to burn him out, he's starting to lurch to a halt like unwound clockwork without something to Do, and... he gets given team seven. the worst of konoha's gremlin children.

a bitter, disillusioned loner with a chip on his shoulder and the skill to back it up, the healer girl with a crush on him that he never gives the time of day, and the Loudest High-Vis Pest In The Village.

you see where this is going.

kakashi who at this point has been coasting along by bouncing between mask-personae for years is now having to dynamically engage with life again because if he isn't present and actively responding to his team then there's a nonzero chance he'll turn around to find all three of them chewing on the drywall and he cannot default to scripted responses because they don't work on a pack of middle schoolers hellbent on squabbling til the cows come home. and it's kind of good for him?

but also, uh. [gestures broadly towards... Sasuke(TM) and the rest of the plot]

and yeah i'm not gonna get too much further into it because i'm not confident enough in my own comprehension of the timeline to do that XD but like.

hatake kakashi is a scarecrow of a man stitched together out of his dead best friend, a hunting hound, and his dead best friend again, who's spent his entire life behind one mask or another, who over the course of the series keeps surviving shit that by all odds he shouldn't have, or survives specifically because the people he cares about throw their plot armor around him before they die, and he has a personality mostly composed of the crumpled-up pages of the memetically worst-written trashy bodice-ripper novels ever published because obito used to love them and the inexplicable receipts of other people's love for him, and i want to put him in a gas station hot dog roller and perceive him.

thank you for coming to my ted talk XD

[shift-shaping]

oh so awakening is like. really good huh.

[sordid-dog]

i just finished reading castle swimmers!!!! i binged it all day!!!! and night!!!!!!!!passes ojt