#trauma fucking sucks

[urdtarah]

i really hate how hard it is to heal from the past

[tobi-the-minnow]

Mortuus es sine me.

You would be dead without me.

You would be worm food.

You would have starved.

You would have choked on your pills.

Fuck you.

how dare you make me regret being a good person?

How fucking dare you haunt my mind palace with your wreched stinch?

How fucking dare you?

Im done with you, your lies, your false care.

And you

fuck you for warpping me into what i am.

How dare you make me a perfect mirror of your insecurities?

I am nothing like you, i care about people, i pay attention to the ones i love, most important, I can say words you would never dare to say.

Fuck you, both of you.

[mainlysarcastic]

My trauma makes me panic when I’m in a car and most of the time I can’t even drive now

My trauma didn’t make me stronger it made me terrified and it’s really fucking inconvenient

It’s okay if your trauma made you a “weaker” or more sensitive person. This idea that “trauma makes you strong” doesn’t apply to all trauma survivors - in fact I’d argue it doesn’t apply to most.

Traumatic experiences are negative. It’s okay if you came out worse off. That’s what trauma does.

[stump-not-found]

congrats me on writing 70k words

[shittysawtraps]

when your friend says “i’m becoming the joker,” reply, “well, i’m becoming jigsaw” to one-up them. do not elaborate on what this means

[trying-to-jew]

Constantly torn between my desire to convert and the crushing weight of knowing that I won’t be able to exist in the wider fandom spaces that I love without being constantly reminded that Jews are always guilty until proven innocent post-Oct 7.

[akumeoy]

gamers against weed would probably have some asinine compromise rules like you're allowed to tell people to kill themselves unless they request to be put on a publicly accessible list of people who you're not allowed to suibait. the list has four people on it, two of which have since been banned for telling each other to kill themselves. the list is still part of the "required reading", alongside an exhaustive list of political figures it's okay to express appreciation for ironically, but not unironically.

[cyarskaren52]

[thepeacefulgarden]

[cyarskj1899]

Mind you people say Kanye is acting out to this very day cause he lost his mom years and years ago. Megan hasn’t even gotten a fraction of that grace!

everyone cares about mental health when it comes to Kanye and excuses his antics. You can find articles about his guilt surrounding her death in 2023!!!

but Meg must take full personal responsibility regardless. Megan lost her mom even younger than he did. We don’t see black women as human.

[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.

[crumbleclub]

michael: do i really have trauma, though?

jeremy: dude. your dad is literally a serial killer

michael: yeah, but he didn't serial kill me

[spaciebabie]

at first getting diagnosed with cptsd was like, "yay my trauma has been validated (it always was valid)!" and i really thought that was going to be it, but then i started to do research as i do whenever i realize i have something and learned that!! the way i experience socialization is!! quite horrid actually!!

[audreyrose7]

Honestly, if Christians could just fucking MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS I really wouldn't care that much what they did, or didn't do. If they weren't CONSTANTLY trying to control others under the guise of love, I wouldn't care, everyone should be able to worship or live however they think best. I'm just so fed up 🤷

[carpp]

gonna say something about arcane that might piss people off but i think it needs to be said:

the reason so many people ignore vi's issues and trauma is because the show itself does so

[pluralhottakes]

Love this blog already!

Anyways hot take, just because someone used something to hurt you, or someone of a group hurt you, doesn't mean that thing isn't necessarily real

A endogenic system hurt you? Well shit! That sucks i'm so sorry! You... Suddenly decided that whole group of people isn't real because of that?.... that ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE aren't real cause YOU were hurt by a SINGLE one of them (or a singular system)

We aren't a hivemind, i cant stop whoever from hurting you???

Same goes for other things! Like Tulpas! And System Travel!!!

It just gives the same vibes as when i was a edgy 12 year old and decided i hate EVERYONE because a few people were shitty to me

.