#i know i'm disappointed too

[phuljari]

me fr

[lazylittledragon]

i'm in one of those phases where i really wish i believed in manifesting and spellcasting and things like that bc you know when you want something so bad you're literally praying for the universe to let it happen

[ruporas]

only human

[ID: Two page comic in color of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. The first page has a black background and the upper half, behind the panels, is splattered with stylized red blood, scattered bullets, and lifeless hands. In the first panel, it focuses on Vash's boots, showing him stepping through the panel and into the bloody scene. The second panel shows his bloody footprints and the third panel shows his face, his down-turned eyes looking downwards. It's a neutral, vague expression with confliction. At the bottom of the page, the back of Wolfwood's head and shoulder is seen, blood dirtying the white color of his shirt and side of his face. Vash's hand reaches out to him from the right side of the page.

The second page shows the entire scene in full, half the page in light and the other in solid black. At the center, Vash leans down onto his knees as he wraps his arms around Wolfwood's shoulders into a hug. Wolfwood's back is turned away from the viewer, his left arm holds onto his bloodied punisher and his right hand sits on his lap. Light casts from the left side of the page, showing the bloodied surrounding, but the held up punisher casts a shadow on the both of them, shielding them from the light. END ID]

[immortalbutterflycos]

Welp, it turns out that writing when you're so sick that it hurts to even try to think is a lot harder than I expected. Looks like the Jegulus is going to have to wait until after the hurricane~

Welp, ja boi had to call out for strep throat, so guess who's writing some Jegulus fanfiction before the hurricane hits~

[pinkfey]

remember how in dao there were always like multiple flirty options u could just spring on ur love interest and it wasn't something that was brushed past it would stop a conversation dead in its tracks to have a cute secondary flirty offshoot with small variations dependent on the flirty option u initially chose with a unique course correction to get back on topic after...... yeah.

[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.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i would like to say my ideal PJO adaptation (if i was being physically forced against my will to have to pick a live action adaptation over an animated one for some reason) would be a combo like writing of the musical + casting of the show + visuals of the movies

BUT the show actually does have the playwright for the musical as one of the major writers for like three episodes and that did nothing for it. so...

[k2ulhu]

hulu was doing live coverage of the election until 2:00am, at which point my power randomly went out and when I reopened the hulu app on my tv the election coverage was replaced with

[arvolna]

I bought bg3 and started playing and oh my god. I kick my feet, giggle like a mad man and for some reason slap my legs hard whenever I see him or hear him talk. And the line "Warm... Warm... Hot." got me off guard. SIR? HELLO? I'M BLUSHING RED AND BLUSHING RED WAS NOT ON MY PLANS FOR TODAY SIR. I NEED TO WRITE YOU A FINE. I'M GONNA REPLAY THE SCENE ON MY SAVES AND YOURE GONNA SAY THE SAME THING AGAIN AND AGAIN SIR. ENOUGH.

[pearlcaddy]

LOCKWOOD & CO. 1.08

[patiann345]

I'm flabbergasted, I'm shocked, I'm disappointed, and frankly? I'm indignant.

In a series with so, so very little in terms of representation in canon, a series that had what I THOUGHT was 2-3 confirmed POC (we'll get to that 2-3 bit btw), 1 Jewish man, a handful of women who's writing is hit-or-miss, and no queer characters because according to one of the creators "their identities don't matter"... (Tell that to the straight characters like Henry, Thomas, Allison, Susie, Linda who's not even a character and didn't need to exist in the first place-)

Preview for that graphic novel dropped! Spoilers!!

Norman Polk is white.

I'm. astonished. For the record, because I know someone will likely bring it up, I am aware that there was never a point in the series where it was ever actually confirmed that Norman was a black man. But it was very much the consensus for most people that he was coded to be POC. To see this is just.. it's disheartening.

Dreams Come to Life seemingly (egg on my face for thinking Norman was black ig???) had 3 POC characters; Norman, Thomas, and Jacob. This was... maybe changed to 2 later on, as JDS went back on coding Thomas as a black man (an announcement they made in a Discord server of all things?? Never publically???) which they may have gone back on again later since the wiki (not official, for the record) recognizes him as black.

3 characters, and we're now down to possibly one; I say possibly because it depends on how Thomas is represented in this book. If he's black, we've got 2. If he's white?

One. One character who's never made an appearance in the games; only in spinoff material in a book. One.

In the simplest way I can put it, I'm upset. There's lots more I can talk about here; how I think this opening is a disservice and bastardization of the original writing for cutting so much out, how while it can look worse (I've read a good handful of fnaf books I KNOW it can look worse) I can't say it really looks any good, how Buddy looks like he's 12, how the yellows are garish and piss-looking. But what has me the most upset is Norman, because he was 1 of 2-3 POC characters, out of a cast of dozens upon dozens. And sure, there could be more. But we only had 3 confirmed. Maybe 2.

And now we may be down to one.

I actually spoke with my partner a few nights ago about how nervous I was about the graphic novel. Because of how the cover looked, I wasn't expecting anything great. But I knew there was a chance they'd double down and be like 'Nope, actually Thomas is white, always was' I was anticipating that, and I still am. And I looked at them and told them something roughly along the lines of- "I can live with them making Thomas white, cause of them trying to back-peddle once, I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know how I'd handle them whitewashing Norman."

I still don't know how to handle it. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. People have done amazing designs of Norman for AUs and personal headcanons. Hell, all the staff really. And a majority of them, you'll find, are black. Almost everyone thought he was black. Not this pale Afton knock-off (seriously his hair looks greasy as hell, I know it's a stylization of the lighting but it looks gross)

I'm just throwing my thoughts out here for anyone who cares. Maybe most people won't mind, and fine. Again, it wasn't stated, it was seemingly coding, but clearly, we were wrong because he's paler than the fucking moon. But this is upsetting. This is genuinely upsetting to see. We have so little rep in this series, and the number is somehow dwindling.

What. the Fuck.

[ozonecologne]

.

[tardis--dreams]

It's been over 2 years and i still haven't found a drama that captivates me with the intensity of beyond evil or the devil judge. I'm beginning to accept that nothing's ever gonna come close to making me feel this way ever again

[waspgrave]

anyway it's such a classic dragon age game experience to go 'ahhh you know i had fun with that game and am gonna play it repeatedly and love every aspect of it possible, but with the intention of headcanon'ing and filling in the gaps in my brain and fanfic and fanart until it becomes The Perfect Media. to me'

[vangbelsing]

One last thing about the Keep spoilers below the cut

I am more worried about the inquisitors portrayal than the lack of options. Like I wanted reactivity, but I get why it's not there, and while the absence of reactivity to my choices is regrettable, that absence doesn't contradict my world state, so to me that's livable. But the Inquisitor not having any options to tweak their personality at all?? Not even a general "were they more humorous or kind or violent" section??? That seems... Very much not promising. They seem so excited for people to see how they've portrayed the Inquisitor but... Y'all know people only care because it's their Inquisitor, right? Like there isn't some universal Inquisitor we all agree we love, we like ours. So the fact that there's absolutely no control over them? I. Am more than a little anxious over how they're gonna get handled.

[scribefindegil]

I feel like at least in my circles Twelfth Night is the better known crossdressing Shakespeare play, but I love As You Like It bc it's just like

Rosalind: How many layers of gender fuckery are you on?

Viola, on the verge of a panic attack: Idk like three?? Why?

Rosalind: You are like a little baby. Watch this.