#i can't get over my disappointment about

[clockworkbee]

[sergle]

people being dramatic about "american cheese" (in quotes bc americans didn't make it) is one of my favorite topics because it's funny to see people talk about it like it's a biohazardous waste when it's literally just Cheddar That Has Been Watered Down With Milk, And Then Emulsified

[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.

[aetheternity]

"Venti stans are low key annoying complaining about Venti not being the main focus of the Windblume festival."

First off we do not care. Second off ok???? Literally every character stan complains about their fave not getting enough screen time hop off.

It isn't even about screen time for me. It's about the fact that Venti hasn't truly felt like Venti in several updates. The last time he truly felt like himself was during Weinlesefest but even then he still didn't feel like the Venti we met all the way back during the first archon quest. And I don't wanna hear "hE hAd cHaRaCtEr dEvLoPmEnT." Cause no that isn't what happened, he regressed as a character. He's becoming fanon Venti in game. He gets used for alcohol jokes and Paimon calls him lazy then he dips. 🙄

"He was just in the Lantern Rite.." Shut Up. Shut Up. Shut all the fucking way up! He was terrible in LR and honestly if you cut Venti out of LR you basically have the same event. He did literally nothing of substance and he shouldn't have been there at all.

The first Windblume festival centered around Venti and showed us more of Venti being Mondstadt's archon. The second Windblume festival has barely anything to do with him. Excuse us if we're fucking disappointed, we have every right to be. Like I said literally every character's stans complain about them not getting enough screen time. Yeah sure if every Mondstadt event centered Venti it'd get old but the biggest problem is they decided to center a MONDSTADT EVENT around fucking SUMERU CHARACTERS. Fucking Collei gets more screen time than any Mondstadt character. Which wouldn't be a problem but this is a main Mondstadt event. Even though Venti was in LR 3 he wasn't a main focus he was a background character to the rest of the cast. Which is what Collei should've been cut out Tighnari and Cyno.

Mondstadt has so many underutilized characters and their screen time got spliced for the Sumeru fuckers who already have too much screen time. The entire last five updates have had Cyno in almost everything and Tighnari as well and while Collei has less screen time than them she has yet to be under used. If this was about Collei meeting up with Amber again they could've had that in a different event. If this was about Collei facing her anxiety it could've happened in a different event. They should've just had Sucrose helping Mondstadters cause guess what? You think this is going to be the last time a nation's event gets characters bombarding in? Hell no Fontaine is coming soon we're one hundred percent going to get nation festivals with random characters that have nothing to do with anything probably until the end of the game.

We'll see how happy ya'll are when your fave gets less screen time for some randos that have nothing to do with the nation you care about.

[coffeecakecafe]

if the day gets too cozy I start thinkin about cold restarting acnh

I can't go back to my island bc I haven't been in a while and I don't like that they know that but also I don't want to pay for my castle walls a second time

I need a Pokémon Home equivalent for my furniture and produce,,

[54625]

dude

[vegaseatsass]

Even though I have very strong feelings about who I support and who I find disappointing and/or unforgivable in the DFF ensemble, I get sooooo exhausted by arguments over who the narrative is "going" to punish or "should" punish. I'm really hoping this is going to be a story where the narrative chips fall where they may and the audience is allowed to decide for ourselves who we sympathize with, and for ourselves whether the ending is bleak or bittersweet or satisfying or hopeful. Kinnporsche did that so well and DFF shows every sign of heading in that direction.

[shirogane-oushirou]

[little vent -- tldr definitely not gonna have the planned art ready for the renniversary lol.]

me: "oh hell yeah i'll have a dog-sitting "job" for the next few days, so i'll have plenty of time to work on the art leading up to friday :) "

the dogs: untrained, poorly behaved, require constant attention (not their fault but it's the reality of the situation)

so uh. i might have some simple chibi art for friday if i have enough energy between putting the dogs to bed and going to sleep hghghghgh ;;;;; i'll finish the more detailed pics as i have the time and energy :')

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

i'm cry laughing some people on twitter are now saying "izzy bashing" needs to be tagged in fics. how did these people ever survive watching this show where izzy is the CANON ANTAGONIST i'll never know

benefit of the doubt but i think most of them have gotten to this point gradually. when they first watched the show they were not attached to izzy the way they are now. i know for a lot of people it was blorbo at first sight with izzy but i've also seen izzy enjoyers say they didn't like him at first, and then fandom made them care about him.

like i'm pretty sure for a lot of ppl it started off with isolating themselves from ppl who made posts that they didnt like, like ppl who criticized ofmd for being based on two real people with direct connections to actual real-world slave trade (which is an incredibly valid thing to criticize abt ofmd).

another one that i think funneled a lot of fans towards being so delusionally attached to izzy was people pointing out or complaining about the disproportionate amount of fan content for izzy compared to prominent characters of color—which is a consistent issue in fandom no matter what the media, and is also a very easy one for people to be uncomfortable with whenever they see it get pointed out. people venting that "fans care too much abt this white man" often make fans who care abt that white man very defensive right off the bat, and then rather than engage with why they feel defensive or question if maybe their enjoyment of this character is fueled by implicit bias (which it might not be, to be clear! im not saying—and i have never said—that everyone who enjoyes izzy likes him for racist reasons), they stop listening to the conversation abt white favoritism and continue blorboposting as much as they want. it's incredibly easy for fans to brush off this convo as "just starting drama" and avoid the topic altogether because "fandom is for fun!" and they dont want to think abt difficult topics like racism and implicit bias, they just want to enjoy their blorbos in peace.

so they kept narrowing the takes they were seeing until they were in an echo chamber that kept moving more and more towards complete woobification of izzy hands. these people are now looking at the show entirely through izzy's pov, making posts abt how sad it is that none of the other characters are ever nice to him, how frustrating the show is from his perspective, how it feels to be deeply in love with someone who doesn't love you back. they've stared at gifs of con's micro-expressions and read angsty fanfiction and looked at endless izzy fanart and their entire ofmd fandom experience revolves around empathizing with this one character even tho the show itself continually makes him the butt of the joke.

at this point, telling these people to rewatch the show doesn't even matter. they've spent so much time over-analyzing every single one of izzy's scenes to the point where the emotional responses they get from these scenes are not the emotional responses anyone would have watching the show for the first time. they've warped the entire first season to fit their version of the show and are forgetting how often the show itself bashes izzy.

and the icing on the cake is the trolling. there's like, one or two people on here who go around sending anon hate and leaving nasty comments on instagram posts and harassing people on twitter for... like, i would say "for liking izzy" or even "for saying positive things about izzy" but like. i've gotten these messages, and the most sympathetic i've ever been to izzy was the post i made like "maybe he's mean bc he has chronic IBS. i'd actually understand him more if that were the case." so when i get these messages it's easier for me to just laugh them off bc it's so obviously just someone trying to make me upset, but people who do care about izzy (a lot of them being the same people who avoided engaging with the "why does fandom care so much abt white characters" convo) get these absolutely horrible messages about how they deserve to get hate crimed and they should kill themselves. and these fans who didn't want to even see vaguely negative posts abt izzy bc they just want to enjoy fandom in peace are now like "im targeted for just liking a character!"

so that's how we get to people saying that "izzy bashing" needs to be tagged. never mind that their definition of "bashing" almost certainly includes things that are not bashing but are just things that contradict the way they headcannnon him.

[whysamwhy123]

...

Sometimes, you write the first draft of a fic and you feel shitty about it because it is objectively Not Good Writing. And you're not sure it's salvageable at all, and even if it was, there isn't much point in polishing it up because it's for a very random 3-person ship that nobody has written before and you doubt anyone would be interested in, so it doesn't seem worth trying to edit it, let alone post. So you just feel like you kinda wasted your time there.

And then AEW randomly announces that those exact three people are gonna be teaming on Dynamite next week, and you're just like ''...Well, shit, now I have to post the damn thing! And soon?!'' 😭

[fridayyy-13th]

i'm going to a queer school event tomorrow but i'm literally feeling so paranoid about it. what if my mom checks life360 while i'm there, then looks up which event is at that location, and puts the very obvious two and two together. if i put on airplane mode to freeze my location, what if she texts me and freaks out when i don't respond for a good few hours. what if a family friend somehow spots me there and passes the information along. i really wanna go and connect with other queer people here but holy SHIT the thought i could inadvertently out myself simply by taking my phone along is terrifying.

[elytrafemme]

im turning 19 on tuesday and going out tmrw and had a good day yesterday which means todays misery is only temporary and ill never be sad again soon

[samanthamulder]

.

[lunaticus]

ok yeah so the very last time sanji saw usopp before the ts was him literally being ripped away from him, right in front of his eyes, and so afraid, and sanji was unable to do anything about it, and it haunts him, haunts him the whole two years and it will haunt him even longer, and then they meet again, and usopp's changed, things happened in those two years, things that forced him to become fit when usopp would never do something like that willingly, and sanji swears to himself that he'll never let anything like that ever happen again, nobody will ever rip usopp away and out of his reach ever again

[lesbian-salamander]

splatoon (especially 3) is just "simultaneously the best and worst thing ever" in every aspect isnt it.

the character design is so amazingly creative but god forbid a woman is fat or non-humanoid

the world-building and lore is so well crafted filled with care but the story is always mediocre with a singular paid exception

the gameplay loop between all modes is so smooth and the way each weapon plays even if weak is still fun but if you have motion sickness have fun playing with a insane disadvantage, or if you have carpal tunnel you just dont get to play 2 weapons, or if you get easily overwhelmed with the music you dont even get to turn it off

and if youre into competitive, patches are usually making the game better but do nothing about what the real problems are at best or slowly build up to create new problems

[idlebug]

finding a blog that posts cool art music and fashion: 😁

all the other posts are reminiscent of 2014 "pale blogs", full of "ballet aesthetic" adjacent images, very pale thin women's bodies / exploitative model photography, childish anime girls in sexy poses with meme text over them, and text posts from op talking about dieting and skincare: 🙁