#i was really disappointed in kiss me

[cagesings]

so  ever-loving  emotional  over  these  audios  guys

[vaguely-concerned]

having seen at least the rough outlines of all the romances now I have to say that I think emmrich's is probably objectively the best in terms of coherence and completeness of story arc (with the understanding that ultimately the 'best' romance is whichever one makes YOUR heart sing anyway so objectivity is a silly thing to claim that way, it just felt like it's the arc with the most well-paced focused content and the least dangling threads)... but lucanis' is my favourite haha. just. the whole kneeling before your beloved full of reverence but without any of the distance that usually implies??? his complete undramatic certainty and calm in every scene with rook after this, having spent the whole game caught between fear and longing???? mr. lives in a pantry but it says nothing about my psyche don't worry about it it's purely for tactical reasons that I keep myself contained in a small dark room not entirely unlike a cell, love among the parsnips -- finally coming to rook in their room and it's so comfortable and comforting???? after all the times rook supports and comforts him through the game he's finally able to return the same to them when they need it while being so calm and steady and it's so fucking sweet and feels so effortless and with no price attached?????? he basically assigns himself the role of your bodyguard and he WILL stab a god over it??????????????? the turn to protector (which was in his heart all along longing to get out and find a place) of it all????? he sounds like he's found himself unexpectedly stumbling into such a soul-lightening state of revelatory existential relief, full on 'you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves' mary oliver style, and he goes and he shares that with rook and protectively envelops them in it when they're hurting??????????????????????????? hello for the maker's sake hello can anyone hear me?????

[r0semultiverse]

Hey Digital Extremes, why are you limiting our play style to only one romance? Thought this game was about player choice. Let us choose to have the gameplay option of polyamory! 💕

There should also be a platonic New Years night option too that involves no romance for those not comfortable with it!

[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.

[s-aint-elmo]

no thoughts head empty the oppressive stagnancy of legacy in ever after high dragging me round the block yet again

it's such a shame that we get so little explanation about the actual mechanics of destiny, which is the entire premise of the show, bc it's so juicy. like what power does destiny hold when you rip away milton's lies and centuries of assumptions and traditions. esp bc despite raven signing herself as the evil queen in the real storybook of legends, when the snow white fairytale actually happens in dragon games she's playing one of the seven dwarves and her mother has reprised her role. like how much of that was because of the characters' actions and how much was destiny pulling on old, familiar threads. keeps me up at night.

a lot of this is probably just like, plot holes and writer hot potato but i like making it that deep, that's half of the fun. my personal interpretation is that fate is a wild thing that desires repetition and they developed the system of fairytale legacy bloodlines to keep those repetitions predictable and contained, instead of wreaking havoc whenever and wherever they please. 

which lends itself to some really juicy exploration of how legacy is a duty as much as it is a privilege, and how to be a princess or a witch or a hero or a dragon is to be the same thing in the end: the lamb destiny slaughters on the altar to sate the ever-ravenous narrative. to keep the flock safe. keep the unknown that prowls beyond the beaten path at bay. because if a there is always a mother who will be cruel, or a maiden who will fall into a sleep like death, or a child who will become a bird, isn’t it better to know who, and how, and when? isn’t better if it’s you, who has known your whole life that you must be eaten, be poisoned, be stripped of your humanity, rather than anybody else, who wasn’t raised to see it as an honour instead of a great and terrible injustice?

[akai-anna]

Round 7

Round: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

[galadriel-blue]

Why is the TROP fandom so toxic all of the sudden?

(Rant in the tags and spoilers for S2 E7 of TROP)

[zzeiic]

hot take. it's so infuriating to see the writers on here properly tag and give warnings for the content that they write/post and to see someone purposefully ignore the very obvious warnings just to turn around and shit on the writer.

They did what they were supposed to, hell, most times they go above and beyond and put exactly what triggers, cut the post off so you have to click into it to read, etc- just for someone who was properly warned to get their panties in a twist.

like she's been gone for a while but i fucking miss Kazooli's work, there's been so many dark writers who have left or are thinking of leaving/posting less because people decide to consume content that they don't like.

you're allowed to write about dark things- I eat that shit up and lots of others do as well and if you personally don't like it you can scroll away, block that creator and stop interacting with it so it stops showing up on your feed.

[finalgirlagatha]

ugh this book is just IMPOSSIBLE. It is so hard to justify the existence of a book that doesn't need to exist at all. The first book is almost perfect no notes, the third book is great and I think it's important but at the same time I just don't think the second book is a necessary book and it is so so hard to read especially bc we're not supposed to cheer for the princesses and the witches deciding to live a no male life.. like im sorry but after seeing how heteronormative and shallow the first book paints that particular happy ending like is that not a good thing?? like are we not supposed to be cheering for them?? ughhhh

[the-goldsmith]

as someone who joined this website specifically for bubbline i have to say, its such an experience to go from the queerbait bubbline era to what we have now. it's incredible

[greypetrel]

In other news, I just miss Trespasser to end my Radha playthrough and uhm. I was pointing at Vivienne as Divine.

I went to count the points and turns out Cassandra beat for one point... Leliana.

Another in game character revelation:

Aisling hates the Game, is actually good at it through the magic power of people-pleasing.

Radha finds the Game entertaining, is actually bad at it. Good to observe and see the schemes, can't take enough shit to make her owns.

Trespasser will be fun, my plans were quite upturned and I'm now finally curious to see what'll be different than with Aisling.

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

i also hate the locked tomb but am obsessed with it. i dont know what to do anymore man. i want to but i cannot stop thinking about them

BRO YOU GET ME. I hate it. I love it. I have fanart of the characters saved. Fanart and textposts are constantly on my dash. Gideon and Harrow make me absolutely feral. Today, I was considering rereading it because maybe I missed something? But nah, I don't think I did lmao. The writing style is not for me at all, but I'll be fucking damned if the author doesn't know how to make characters that nest in your brain. Gideon and Harrow are a literal masterclass in how to make readers obsessed with characters. I started drawing fanart of them myself!!! Just today I saw art from a scene in the first book that really got to me. I'm genuinely so fucking obsessed but I'll never buy the second book.

[velvet-games]

guys I think I might be sex repulsed :(

[dandelionjack]

done with the snowmen. so so intrigued by her already. her stubbornness, her intelligence, her curiosity, her determination, her wit, her mystery. her fake accent and governess stint, already leading a double life even within the span of a single lifetime. how unphased she is by strange occurences, by vastra, by attacking snow, hell, even the way she reacts to the tardis – her surprise is turned inside out. it's smaller on the outside. the words she chooses. "no, i do the hand grabbing, that's my job, it's always me". born behind the clock of big ben, accounting for her acute sense of time. story spinning fantasy weaving wild woman chasing a ladder to climb . and already a haunting, dead from the beginning, yet somehow not doomed by the narrative, not in the typical way at least

girl, you better believe in yourself !

[bionicdogs]

the boober dude has his consult with the specialist first thing tomorrow morning to get an official diagnosis and schedule the surgery. it’s incredibly obvious that he has a torn ligament but they like to do their own exam and diagnostics, so. we had a camping trip scheduled for the first week of august and i already have off of work for that, so i’m hoping to schedule his surgery right before it since he won’t be able to go camping anyway.

[captainswan618]

anyway shoutout to @darlsbardlife for doing the detective work to confirm that there is at least one real Tenrose kiss, bc not knowing if the Cassandra!Rose one was all I would ever get was ACTUALLY going to kill me lmao