#not really but yaknow

[corevoid]

My takes on April and Casey this time around. Thinking about making a proper au… 🤔

[frownyalfred]

an immortal Batman being haunted by the ghosts of all of his children. he's busy moping about being immortal and outliving his family, meanwhile they're doing cartwheels through the afterlife, getting into fights with each other, and trying to goad him into finally admitting he might not exactly be aging to Superman.

[asmimir]

lamb doodles plus some Narilamb bc why not

I managed to find a brush that resembled my old one so that's neat!

they're toxic btw, in which Narinder is a bleeding wound and the Lamb is a searing hot knife that cauterizes it. both painful, yet necessary, like needles raking down skin to form tapestries that come in the form of tattoos.

they rarely smile, if not at all. hardened by death and resurrection.

Narinder, meanwhile. like his stupid sibling, has become a soft fool.

[phibsies]

remember when i said i’d add onto this post . well here i am adding onto it finally

also bonus dumb thing BJDJD

[time-woods]

Art/desk setup?

artistic rendition of my desk aka my insanity domain

this was actually good practice for drawing from life- its just a doodle but still. my tablet lives on the little shelf under my desk but i put it up where my keyboard is when im using it and i just slide it under where my monitor is. also shoutout to my disco lights

[starrysharks]

1st outfit feels too modern somehow

[theamazincactus]

Oh, team 7...

[the-dragon-girl-27]

drawing along with the flocking paleostream

[into-the-clintoris]

Hhhjjjj they said it so offhandedly but Murph pointing out how Gerard as a battlemaster is working really well and how Gerard is discovering he's really effective when bossing people around is one of the juiciest character details floating around right now, and it's so good because it's so intrinsically connected to his subclass too.

What I'm getting at is that the intrepid heros laughed it off -- wow, big surprise, the prince loves ordering people around. But it's character!!! Growth!!! Remember his flashback? Remember Elody poring over plans and war strategies while Gerard dismissed it and insisted they kick back and not worry about it? And now he's finding value in that leadership, he's noticing that directing his friends in battle is working, and that he's crazy good at it. Up until now he's just sat on a throne that was merely symbolic, and now he's slowly becoming a leader. I wonder what Elody would think if she met him now???

[skybristle]

rbs > likes

is this overkill for a stupid silly iterator story? Yeah absolutely. But i meant to make a more simple map and got too into it... this isn't supposed to be 100% realistic but more give a general feel for the regions and Vibes

[needle-noggins]

Where do your roots start

And where do your roots end?

Something about seeing only the worst of yourself in the mirror. Something violent and terrifying, but knowing you only grew that violence in response to violence against you. Knowing your power comes from a place of trauma, something you don’t remember but wish had never happened. But it did, and here you are. There’s something new in you that isn’t the you that you understand and you wish it wasn’t but it is. Violence begets violence and you are unable to control what grows from the seeds that were planted. So you have to live with it and try not to let that violence spread.

You’ve already failed once.

And you see it every time you look in the damn mirror.

—

For Body Horror Week’s final day, prompt: Roots by In This Moment

[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.

[sluttypatrickstar]

[a-little-birdy-told-me]

Can you draw Della Duck?

Ask and you shall receive

[castawavy]

stephen is the designated cook now and forever btw

before / next

[telluricdog]

kingisle whenever they need to coax older players back: HEY YOU PERSON WITH A WALLET!!! REMEMBER DRAGONSPYRE?!? REMEMBER HOW SAD THE LAST ACT MADE YOU FEEL? HERE'S SOMETHING REFERENCING DRAGONSPYRE!! ISNT THAT YOUR FAVORITE?!