floyd has big brother flavored mommy/daddy issues you can't convince me otherwise, sorry, i've spent too much time thinking about it. he is crushing on a troll too old for him and he doesn't know how to deal except to use his adorable baby brother charm. he thinks it's working (question mark)
these images were drawn in three sessions over a longer period so i'm no longer that happy with les's look in the first part since I was still figuring him out, but man do i find this idea entertaining and cute and want to share it even though i also feel really weird about it skdjbvkbfc 🙈🙊😳
the pillars of their relationship if you even care:
"I will never read x reader it's just weird and they're always badly written" OKAY WELL NOT ME!!! GIVE ME ALL THE X READERS!!!!!! ME AND ALL MY FAVES ARE KISSING FOREVER
Designs for adult versions of the clone cadets in bad batch as Rebellion leaders
The first weird thing I noticed was that they kept specifying that tbb are "defective CTs", whereas iirc most other clones leave out the "ct" part. additionally, "special training" must have been a reasonably expected occurrence for them, since it was used as the Hemlock-jungle-lab excuse. they're also, oddly enough, the only three survivors from a base full of both cadets and adult clones. and finally, all three of them have noticeably different face shapes.
so my guess for their origins is that they're the results of the kaminoans trying to replicate tbb's mutations in a commando template, making them all specialized CC command cadets. From what we've seen of them, they don't seem to have quite as prominent abilities as say, wrecker or hunter, but are definitely above average to have survived that long.
Anyways the mini-backstory for them here is that they end up joining the rebellion around 5 years later (assuming that they're 6/12 and 8/16 in tbb s3, they would be 11/22 and 13/26 here) as the lead squad for the clone rebel cell after rex, wolffe, and gregor retire (and echo and cody are presumably dead).
Bonus: I originally had Deke's hair as dyed blond, but then he started looking too much like Rex (esp with the jaig eyes and partial arc armor) so I changed it back
edit: sorry i forgot to tag spoilers at first! it has since been fixed
I made this Styanax drawing for a contest being ran by @medusacaptures for her 2nd Warframe creator program anniversary!! You can find the link to her post about it here! (though it's ending in like 7 hours as of writing this, oops lol)
You might also perhaps recognize the eyestrain colors from a certain Tennotober piece... :)
(...i was running out of time lmao)
Alternate colors:
Timelapse:
Kind of an unhinged one tbh lol, had a lot of struggles with the initial rough sketches as I tried to figure out what I even wanted this drawing to be. One of the recurring ideas was with something relating the parazon with Requiem mods with Styanax Tonatiuh, but it just felt like too big of a stretch and I couldn't figure out the posing fast enough
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.
an important part of erik's character is that he has zero chill. intense as fuck. that's why i love when erik body worships charles in fics. because yes, magneto is feral and down to kill but charles gets to see a side of him no one else can because it's charles
I get so many comments on my Tim series like “omg it’s so hilarious/unrealistic that he gets sick this often, take that boy to a doctor 🤣” and like, I get it, it seems like a lot if you read the series straight through. And part of it is simply because I enjoy writing hurt/comfort fics, so of course that’s what I’m going to gravitate towards. Gotta spark that joy, etc etc
….but like, you guys do realize that people who have medical issues tend to get more medical issues, right? It’s not like “oh he had three things wrong with him already so he’s hit his quota now and anything on top of that is absurd.” It’s more like… this is someone with overall subpar health from a history of chronic neglect, so yeah, he’s probably going to be more susceptible to illness than most people 🤷♀️
took me forever to kinda realize this but I do love how the narrator often changes the dialogue every other reset because it follows along in suit with this piece of dialogue in the countdown ending
which basically implies that more often than not, he completely switches around the story to his whim whenever he gets a bit too bored with the previous concept he wrote up. Even if it’s not connected to this dialogue, I love that it fits so perfectly. I know it’s like a big portion of the countdown dialogue and I’m sure everyone has already realized it but I don’t think I ever saw anyone bring it up. just how many iterations of this story has the dude made up.