#Variant TL

[deennes]

1972 Volkswagen TL (typ3) Brazilian Model

[dasanye-wet]

I need to make some conquest y/n self insert drawings people can draw over that's my FAVORITE genre of collaborative art oh my god

[goldentigerfestival]

Forgot to post this earlier but I did in fact comb the entire Vesperia script to determine how many times he uses ま/まあ throughout the game, along with a few other phrases he uses repeatedly. This counts all of main story, every single sidequest, and every single skit in the game.

Final counts were:

ま/まあ: 280

Ma/Maa; translates to "well". He uses this at the beginning of a sentence usually, but it's sometimes in the middle. "Ma" is usually more quick and snappy. "Maa" is more thoughtful and/or prolonged. Obviously it can vary based on context, but that's the general breakdown.

んじゃ and any variants: 133

Nja, along with variants such as "ja", "soreja", etc. Variants are counted when they're all used to express "let's get going", when they're about to head off ("ja" could be used in a sentence such as "ja/but then, why is xyz like this", etc). They encompass translations such as "well then" (let's get going implied. includes "so then", "then" "alright then", and so on), "we should be off", "let's get going", "let's go", etc. (not to be confused with 行こう(ikou), 行くぜ, (ikuze), and other similar versions of this phrase. That can also mean "let's go", but any instances of Yuri using that particular phrase was not counted because it wasn't a variant of, specifically, んじゃ, which is also his most common "let's go" ja variant).

おい / おいおい: 66

Oi/Oi oi; translates to "hey"/"hey, hey", though "oi" is more or less an accepted word in English nowadays.

おっと: 12

Otto (not to be confused with "oto", referring to sound); an expression of surprise that can translate roughly to "whoa there" (which is the most common translation I do see for it and what I'd use in most cases too, context of course varying). The reason I included this one despite it being so seemingly low in number is because it's not a particularly common expression, much less one used multiple times by a single character? It's so rare from anyone else, which is just a regular thing relative to Yuri and his dialogue/speech (i.e. most characters sparingly use phrases repeatedly, as compared to Yuri... as you can see lol. Other characters use these words/phrases, but nowhere near as regularly, if regularly at all).

Realized along the way I should've included やれやれ (yare yare, "good grief", "oh dear", "oh boy" etc), but by the time I realized I should have in case it was an interesting count, I was too far into the script to be able to handle going all the way back through it LOL.

No. No, I am not joking that Yuri used ま/まあ 280 times throughout the course of the game. That is to say, it could be more if I missed any, but on the assumption I didn't, that's where it stands.

Why do I love this so much? Because it's a very specific character quirk of a character I adore. I'm very fond of his repetition. Thank you.

[amsercompendium]

It's Quicker And Easier To Eat Your Young!

[bugbeast]

Self promo for my newest card game, Jewel Thief; but you can play it for free! First, though, let's cover the basics...

TL;DR - Its a 4+ player competetive card-matching game with four rule variants; buy it here or look for the orange text in this post to learn how to play it with a regular deck

"What is Jewel Thief?"

It's a card matching game with a villain; one player tries to match jewels in a 36 card grid while their opponent, the titular Jewel Thief, periodically steals cards from the board. You can check out its page on The Game Crafter for more information, but it'll spoil the rest of this post

"What makes it special?"

The game's turn structure would theorettically allow you, perhaps via some kind of infinite cloning machine, to play a round of Jewel Thief til the heat death of the universe. While I wouldnt recommend that, its lack of a player cap (and ease of set-up; seriously, all you do is put cards on a table) makes it a good party game choice.

But that's not all!

There are three extra rule variants that drastically alter the gameplay while keeping card matching and stealing as main mechanics. I believe the cards are versatile enough to allow for many custom games, too

"Okay, but why should I buy a silly game from some bug nerd?"

First off, ouch. Second off, that's the best part; you dont have to buy it to play it! Jewel Thief can be played with a standard 52 card deck. Here's how:

Step 1. Remove the 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Jokers

Step 2. Download the free rules from the shop page

Step 3. Play the game, matching cards based on their values. You'll need to designate a value as the Diamond jewel for game 4

-------

That's it for my little self-promo. If you dont buy the game, I hope you'll at least give it a try and consider supporting my future projects.

I also post art and photography, which you can find under the bugbeast art and bugbeast photos tags. I hope you check them out

Thank you for your time <3

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Edit (Mar. 25, 2024) : Thank you to everyone who liked and reblogged this; if you play the game I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments and/or reblogs (even if you hated it). Feel free to share any custom games or house rules you come up with, too. I'd love to try them!

Edit (Aug. 10, 2024) : Final edit most likely; gonna blaze this one more time for good luck then maybe start work on a postmortem for the project, maybe give a little backstory for anyone who cares. Life is a little rough right now, but fate willing, I'll be able to work on/post about my future projects, including the future of Jewel Thief itself

[shithowdy]

As a heads up, there is an individual going through posts in the #art or possibly #illustration tag commenting "Dm if you’re available for commission?"

Even if you are accepting commissions, do not DM this person, or anyone who approaches you in this manner. If they are a real client, they will do the work to reach out through the channels you have already made available (comm form, email, etc.). What is more likely is they are a scammer attempting either a variant of the "fake check" scam (tl;dr they overpay you, ask you to send back the difference, and then the first payment bounces leaving you negative in the difference), or some other phishing or "pay to activate an account" activity.

This is a very common scam on Instagram but I do not see it as often on tumblr, so I want people to be aware of this. Artists are not the only target, but the freelance nature of social media commission work combined with a frequent willingness to do any job makes them a very easy one.

If a scammer like this does contact you through proper channels, this type of scam can always be prevented by conducting your business exclusively through invoices. There is no reason not to use invoices if your payment platform has them available. You are not being pushy or entitled or "too formal" for using them. Stay safe.

[loveletterliom]

Adequate Person / ADP: a "lesser variant" of equal person / chosen person, a term for pwNPD. Note this is from someone not diagnosed but heavily suspects they have NPD 👍 Flag based on these [link]

we often only consider partners chosen or equal, we wanted a more neutral term to describe people we have a connection with that isn't as strong, but still above average people. think of it like a npd term for a friend, or special friends. idk im not your boss, use it how you want.

( @radiomogai ) TL;DR : a term to describe our personal internal hierarchy ( lowlife > average > adequate > equal ) Colors kinda have meaning but not rlly .

[wojakgallery]

Highly esoteric wojak image with TL;DR interpretation by WojakGallery:

Title/Name: The Crowning of Chudjak Wojak Series:  Chudjak / Poljak (Variants), Soyjak (Variants). Image by: Unknown Main Tag: Chudjak Wojak

Information and interpretation on the image (TL;DR):

Unfortunately, I could not actually find out much about this one, so some "light assumptions" will be made based on what we get from the image + my research and knowledge. I did a reverse image search using Google and TinEye, but according to the research I did, this one hasn't been posted anywhere that can be easily found with its original title/name and description, so I gave it the name "The Crowning of Chudjak" because it makes it clearer. You can call it whatever you like, though.

The following I will say here are just a few observations I've made on the image. Obviously, Chudjak is being crowned King.

But maybe something not so obvious is that he's being "crowned" with a crown from Burger King (fast-food restaurant franchise). I didn't find any information on why Chudjak is being crowned to wear a Burger King crown, so that's somewhat esoteric; maybe it's just for a comical effect, or to imply in some way that he "rules". In the image, it's two chudjaks crowning another chudjak, so he's basically crowning himself.

Another thing in the image is that there are Soyjaks present, some have wings like angels, which is something common in 14th-century classical Renaissance art, that is the general theme of the image, with all the clouds and people or gods in "heaven" or the sky. And Soyjaks are often considered by many users as "the greatest" variants since the inception of Wojak. In the image, you can see that there are soyjaks that appear to be somewhat distressed, and this is probably because some of them were placed below the chudjaks in the image. This may be to imply that chudjaks are superior to soyjaks, or that, in comparison to soyjaks, chudjaks are on a higher level of "Wojak Greatness." There are dark clouds in the image that may imply that a storm is coming. It's trivial, but both soyjaks and chudjaks are often depicted as the most popular wojak characters that wear glasses.

Also in the image, there is a wild naked soyjak trying to "lift" the chudjaks, this could possibly be a reference to 'Atlas', a Greek mythology Titan condemned to hold up the heavens or sky for eternity after the Titanomachy. In art, Atlas is often depicted naked.

And not easily noted and can be easily missed in the chudjak at the left part of the image that is wearing a red robe or mantle, it's possible to see the partially covered words "Mein Ka", which seems to be a reference to the book 'Mein Kampf' which is german for "My Struggle" which is a autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The book outlines many of Hitler's political beliefs, his political ideology, and future plans for Germany and the world. The original nazi flag has a background of the color red, so it makes sense that the robe or mantle is red covering what looks like the book standing.

And last but not least, there is an anthropomorphic-looking soyjak dog on the right part of the image; it seems the dog is being caressed by the chudjak above him, or he's being held against the chudjak's leg (maybe in a forced manner); the dog's face seems somewhat confused, but this is unclear. The soyjak dog is wearing a collar or necklace with a pink tag or object. I didn't find any info on this type of collar or necklace. Anyway, the color pink may represent a number of things, including compassion, purity, and hope. It's usually known that a pink dog collar generally symbolizes sweetness, gentleness, and femininity. But maybe it's just a random collar or necklace with the color pink and no esoteric meaning involved.

The end.

Update: Tumblr user aeshna-cyanea pointed out that the original painting this wojak image is based on is titled "Coronation of the Virgin" by Diego Velázquez. Diego Velázquez, though a Baroque artist of the Spanish Golden Age, did draw inspiration from Renaissance art and incorporated elements of it into his work.

[ollywander]

Snily mutual pining or something.

Text below, but I didn’t put very much thought into it. The bullshit about the aconite (wolfsbane/monkshood) is actually true, though.

Snape speech bubble: “Wolfsbane, obviously, is poisonous, but Yellow Monkshood, a variant of the same plant, is said to have healing properties or have a less potent poison. But which one is it? It can’t be both, right? (Yes it can, and it is. Poor teenager Snape doesn’t have internet access. He’s getting his info from old ass encyclopedias) That’s totally contradictory (sort of), and yet there are multiple sources (can you tell this is where I started to get very lazy?), albeit archaic (idk what I wrote after this. My hand hurt.)…”

Snape thought bubble (not much thought went into this. Sounds totally teenager-y, huh?): “She’s so lovely. How can such a wonderful person exist in such a flawed world? (Stfu) How can I ever be good enough for her? Can I be content just being friends, or…”

Lily thought bubble (I spent exactly two phantom braincells on this. I didn’t know how to fit her emotions, which must be complicated, into such a small space): “Smart, goth, perfect… I want to tell him, but how?”

Okay, now for the weird situation with the Not Wolfsbane. I researched it initially using other websites, but Wikipedia has the gist of it.

What the fuck? Poison yourself for the greater good.

Meanwhile, THIS IS THE SAME FUCKING PLANT. WHAT THE FUCK?

TL;DR:

Yellow Monkshood: You might feel like shit but in lieu of proper medication, it does alright for certain maladies.

Wolfsbane (same plant but also not the same plant): Kills you (cardiac stuff), and you feel like shit while it’s happening (all the symptoms of a 105° fever). There was a case in the early 1900s of some men mistaking it for horseradish or something and they died within twenty-four hours.

[8thekat]

Reaper Gill

So some of you know of my OC, Gill...but not many know he also has a "Reaper" variant that I made a long time ago that I finally decided to resign and give a proper backstory to :D

Behold! Reaper Gill! I've kinda grown attached to calling him "Crow" :3 I'll post a reason behind that and a little story TL;DR below, along with a google doc link to a longer version of his story that I wrote out :D

Long version can be found in this google doc here! (it's formatted for discord btw because I posted it/wrote it in my server so that's why it has so many asterisks and discord formatting lol)

TL;DR:

Reaper Gill follows a similar story to regular Gill, only in his story, Gaster dies in the void and isn't there to save him at the last moment. The Void fully corrupts Gill's soul, and uses him. The Void wants nothing but to consume, and it holds Gill's soul hostage to force him to collect souls for it, to feed it. Only Gill knows The Void NEEDS him to achieve this, and more or less makes a deal with it. That if The Void is going to make him do this, he's going to do it his way. By only feeding it the souls of those who are already dying anyway.

Reaper goes by a few different names that townsfolk have dubbed him, such as "Grimm", "Crow" and "Death". (my fav is Crow hehe). He especially earned the name Crow because of his outfit and because of his Crow Scouts (seen in the first drawing) which he uses to scout out weak and dying souls to harvest >:) When a scout finds a dying soul, Reaper Gill will know and will go to it's location.

Anyway I love him he's a literal grim reaper heheheh hope you like him too

______________

Linktree • Patreon • DeviantArt • Discord • Webtoon • Tapas

[marikbentusi]

I wasn't interested much in the Gwenpool Fortnite collab (fingerless gloves are a cute tweak), but someone asked on Twitter about "evil future Gwenpool" being labelled "Dark Gwenpool" ingame (which is what I've been calling my fan character variant since 2020):

"Dark" is a very common prefix for evil alter egos, so even if people occasionally mistake my comics for official material, I was certain this was a coincidence. But then the person also casually pointed out that she's called "Dark GwenPool" on Wikipedia. Huh?

No sources cited as far as I can tell. One of the original Gwenpool creators even agreed that "Dark Gwenpool" was never official:

I hunted down the Wikipedia changelog where apparently someone injected all the Dark Gwenpool stuff on 8th of April this year (2024). So maybe someone on the Fortnite team checked Google/Wikipedia instead of making up the name from scratch.

I tried to hunt down the wiki editor for questioning only to find out they are banned for being a sockpuppet account. In fact, that user was such a prolific sockpuppeteer that they've got their own Wikipedia page listing all 164 suspected alts. One of them is called "Batrocfrogg", what kind of canonization assist from beyond the grave is this?!

Since that lead went cold, I looked at the sources the wiki edit gave when talking about the character more generally. Aside from the official comics where she isn't called Dark Gwenpool, we've got:

"Peter Parker & Miles Morales: Spider-Men Double Trouble #2" – evil Gwen just has a cosplay background cameo there, no name drop.

Marvel Duel, a niche F2P mobile card game, where she's an antagonist.

The person who first pointed out to me that "Dark Gwenpool" was also on Wikipedia dug around and found a screenshot that evil Gwen is indeed called "Dark Gwenpool" in Marvel Duel:

Obviously I assume the Marvel Duel devs just made that one up without knowing about my comics. Case closed on that lead! But I'm not sure if the Wiki edit was based on this.

Marvel Duel, if we can still trust its wiki page, only released in eight countries. They are mostly in the UTC+8 time zone. The edit was finished on ~22:00 UTC+0, which would be Tuesday 05:00 AM local time if the editor is from one of those countries themselves. Of course, maybe the person played an emulated/jailbroken version (the game does come in English), watched a foreign Let's Play, or is just a super night owl. None of these are stranger than having 146 sockpuppet accounts. But it also doesn't exactly help the edit's credibility like I had hoped.

I also don't know if Marvel Duel included the name variations "Dark GwenPool" and "Dark Gwen" that the Wiki editor used specifically (in the screencap above she's stylized differently). The editor also called her the "evil alternator future version" tho, so maybe they aren't a stickler for details.

----

But yeah the TL;DR is that "Dark GwenPool" is currently the main name for evil Gwen on Wikipedia with no source cited. Marvel Duel calling her that as well was probably just coincidence. Maybe Fortnite also made it up, or they copied it from Wikipedia, or maybe they copied it from Marvel Duel itself.

I thought it was weird and funny enough to share. 164 sockpuppets. WTF.

[llamaisllama777]

TSAMS FAN THEORY: Who made/left NovaFrost

So, NovaFrost is kind of the newest mystery around right now.

They got mysterious dropped off at Sun and Moon's diner and appear to be (mostly) friendly with all the animatronics. NovaFrost love the kids but hate any person they deem as bad, like abusive or alcoholic parents. Who made them like this? It seems like NovaFrost have more control over their kill code than Moon did. (Heck, this is even if they have a kill code, and it isn't just them doing this.)

They seem to just want to keep kids safe, which is honorable. But I wanna know...

Who made them?

I highly doubt the Sven here did, if there even is one. I think NovaFrost was made by someone else

Like how Sunny and Moonie were made by a nice old guy named Victor Crowley and not Sven Ivanoff.

We know basically nothing about NovaFrost's creator. The only thing we MIGHT have on them is that according to Glam!Chica, they're ugly.

To be fair, she probably sees a lot of things as ugly but still. So, all we know is that NovaFrost's creator dropped them off at the SunShiner diner, gave them a code to protect kids and beat up bad adults, and is ugly. Doesn't really narrow any of that down... well... I have a theory...

THEORY: NOVAFROST'S CREATOR IS A MICHAEL AFTON VARIANT!

More specifically a variant that looks like this

I think this would fit Chica's definition of ugly.

Reasons I think it could be the Michael of this world

1. NovaFrost seem to have the urge to protect kids specifically from bad parents. When you have a childhood like Michael, did you probably want to prevent anyone from going through what you went through.

2. Chica said that the person who dropped off NovaFrost was ugly and no offense to Mike, I think he looks cool, but he does look like a corpse so... yeah.

3. He just mysterious showed up. Mike did get very good at hiding in the shadows. He says it as much in Sister location.

4. Mike has the knowledge to repair animatronics, I think he can figure out how to build his own.

5. The missing kids incident still happened in this universe. Mike would probably want to prevent another MCI from happening at all locations, which is why he sends NovaFrost to prevent those incidents from happening.

Reasons it might not be Mike

1. Timeline is a little screwy

Mike was a teen in 1983. If Fazbear is just staring out now in this universe, then Mike would be in his later teens when the first MCI happened in 85. If Mike were to be NovaFrost's creator, Fazbear WOULD have to have started sooner. According to Moon, Fazbear is only starting now. (If I remember correctly) Plus, if Fazbear didn't exist in 83, there's no Bite of 83, Even/CC/Garret would still be alive along with Elizabeth.

2. Could literally be anyone.

Chica said the person was ugly.

Well, no offense to anyone, but I can think of a few TSAMS characters off the top of my head she'd probably find ugly

I do still believe it is a Mike variant. It just makes too much sense to me. But hey, that's just a theory...

A TSAMS THEORY!

Thanks for reading!

TL;DR The Michael Afton of this world built NovaFrost to protect kids and prevent anything bad from happening to them or to protect them from bad parents like he wished someone did to him.

[milktaffeta]

incredibly niche Wild West variant CC for your TL

@miladyknits

Cate!!! enjoyer of westerns, cowboy mom, aussie, timothee chalamet disliker, mean blonde lover, gamer, writer, genius, goob, sweetheart, friend. Knowing you has changed my life for the better :) Happy Birthday Cats. i hope 33 is lined with flowers. ✿❀

[see-arcane]

So. What was the deal with the vampire in the graveyard versus Orlok’s Nosferatuing around?

SPOILERS INCOMING CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SCROLL AWAY

Von Franz mentions something vague about there being different rules depending on the region with the whole ‘sleep by daylight’ thing being the only consistent rule…

…except that doesn’t add up with what Thomas saw.

He followed the hunting party at night. He saw them open the coffin with the vampire still resting in it, cue the iron stake piercing him, the blood, the scream, Thomas’ startled cry—and then an immediate cut to him coming awake in the inn’s bed, now wearing a cross at his neck (which he tosses) and mud on his boots (proof of his excursion). He saw what he saw.

How did that vampire in the graveyard come to be? Was he one of Orlok’s making? Or was he never Nosferatu at all? Von Franz refers to Nosferatu exclusively as a type of undead that brings plague. That does seem to be Orlok’s gimmick, but the guy in the graveyard had no rats for company. The people Thomas encountered were out and about, hale and healthy, no fretting over plague. So what was he?

I might have misheard, but I think there was a moment as Thomas entered the inn for the first time where the woman doing an exorcism/healing rite involving garlic mentioned the word strigoi. It didn’t pop up in her subtitles, so I won’t swear to it, but it’d be interesting if Eggers went digging around in the Dracula and other vampire lit lore to fish out other variants of vampirism to play with.

But the thing is.

The thing is.

While it would be a good Easter egg hint that Thomas’ notion of hunting Orlok down and staking him in his big rat box was doomed to fail~, it would only add up if we’d gotten concrete on-film evidence that he was really mistaking one kind of vampire for another. All we have is Von Franz’ word that ‘he doubts it will work.’ Thomas, meanwhile, has seen it work and has the memory of Orlok snapping awake and actively stopping him from bringing the pickaxe down on him—if being impaled did nothing, why would Orlok bother to stop the blow?

It leaves the possibilities split down the middle.

Version A: Von Franz was right. Orlok the Nosferatu needed the Death-By-Maiden-and-Sunrise trap to be destroyed and what Thomas saw was an entirely different vampire being slain by its own methods. Potentially a vampire made by Orlok, but not a full Nosferatu plague carrier (possibly something that needs Scholomance study), or else turned by completely unrelated means. tl;dr: Thomas Staking Orlok Would Have Failed

Version B: Thomas was right. Had he been able to stake Orlok through, he might have put him down, or at least left him weak enough for them to bring on blades and fire to make sure nothing was left. Chuck the leftovers in a river for good measure. And Ellen would never have had to die.

Naturally, the latter isn’t as cinematic or thematically satisfying. It isn’t as meaty as Version A. But I can’t help picturing Thomas turning the what-ifs over and over in his head. What if he had been faster with the pickaxe? What if Von Franz hadn’t stalled them past sunset and they had found Orlok still in his box rather than Knock? What if Ellen could have been here and alive and safe if only he hadn’t been too slow, too late, too trusting?

What if…

What if both men were wrong?

Or at least failed to see the entire picture. To really wonder at the how and why of Thomas’ affliction being so different compared to every other non-Ellen victim of Orlok’s. To wonder just what Orlok intended by his drinking of Ellen as consummation by consumption. Surely he did not intend to kill her. Rather, to let her remain dead.

(The broker yet lives.)

((As a man.))

(This is no ordinary plague!)

((Plagues.))

Orlok was a cadaver who lived. The undead must first be dead. Is it not so for every form of vampire, no matter their region?

Ellen is dead. The Maiden become Death.

(He left you to the wolves yet you prevailed!)

((The wolves only came for him by daylight. When sleep ended and Thomas’ heart still beat. The work unfinished.))

Von Franz departs, head hung. Dr. Sievers will stall the formalities of the mortuary. There are dead enough to busy himself with. Let the boy grieve.

Let him think.

Of corpses that are not corpses. Death that does not stick. The sun moves between blinks as he banishes the shriveled carcass of the Count from the room, breaking and burning it.

His love is dressed anew. Clean, for she was never unclean.

(Her breast.)

((There is no bite.))

The sun sinks. Thomas holds a cold hand. Now it grips his back, their wedding bands gleaming. As she kisses his breast, he thinks perhaps it is not so terrible to be mistaken, all told.

They can be wrong together.

[randomfoggytiger]

Do you think Mulder viewed the office space as "our" office space or as "my" desk and Scully's area over there? How do you think Scully saw it?

There are times when Scully seems more comfortable sitting at his desk than others. At first view, I thought she was comfortable at his desk in "Never Again", but upon further viewing, I interpreted her as maybe hesitant sitting there and Mulder not minding her sitting there and seeing it as an "our" space until he threw his little tantrum of saying that he worked hard for the xfiles while she was just assigned to the xfiles. That is where I saw he, even as much as he tried, was still territorial of his space even with Scully. At the end of the episode, I got a sense that she didn't feel like she belonged in the space and that she probably saw it as his office because she walks in, pauses a minute, looks around, and then moves once he enters his space and "allows" her in. Even the way she sits down is tentative and how she sits in the chair is uncomfortable.

I think there is a point when Mulder welcomes the office to be a communal space because we see the pregnancy book and the couple of pictures of them, but when does that happen? Is it an "us" spabce? Who, in your opinion, would put up their couple pictures in the office? I think it would be Mulder because he is more of the sentimental one and he is already seen as someone who puts up his sister's picture, so he likes to literally see what he values and what matters to him. Interestingly, he doesn't have a picture of his mom on his desk or at home.

I don't recall if the Mulder/Scully pictures are up in season 8 &9, in his home office in IWTB, or in the Revival. Did you see the pictures return, or did they just get rid of them?

TL;DR:

The desk functions as a mouthpiece for the current state of the relationship. Mulder considers it theirs, though he sits behind it; and thinks Scully's insistence on having her own means she is drawing away from him. Scully, meanwhile, reads his lack of forethought as lack of consideration; andm consequently, withdraws.

I'm pretty sure she did have a desk in the early seasons. At some point that went away; and that, too, is interesting-- that perhaps Scully didn't ask for another one because she, too, felt like Mulder's desk was communal... until she began to doubt her place on the files.

Lack of vulnerable communication really affected Scully's perception and Mulder's translation, a crack that split open in Never Again and was resolved (mostly) in Field Trip.

Lastly, I think the office pictures were stored away; but I'm not 100% certain. Samantha Mulder remained, though.

Too Long, Wanna Read:

I think Mulder saw it as an "us" space by the close of Season 1 (if not right after the Pilot.) However: he does have a protective streak, eagerly willing to share territory only IF he and his ideas are taken seriously. Not territorial so much as battered by the world, and sore.

In Never Again, he's stung by Scully's "Refusing an assignment? It makes it sound like you’re my superior" and snaps at her dismissal. Yet, he's immediately shaken by her "And it's become mine," asking in a smaller voice, "You don't want it to be?"

The episode was about Scully's other fathers and endless lines, but it was also-- at its core-- about the lack of communication between both partners. Mulder believed Scully wanted to be there... but did she, really? Did she truly value the work, or was she just there to do her job as a scientist? And likewise, Scully thought that Mulder needed her there but came to wonder if her presence had left any impact on the files.

It's a question they sort of answer by the end of Season 4 and into Season 5-- Scully wants "to work... for my own reasons" in Memento Mori; and she comes back to work-- and Mulder-- as soon as she can (by Detour.) However, Mulder is still holding back; and that breeds, again, a sense of displacement, i.e. The Pine Bluff Variant and The End. By Fight the Future, he's forced to speak the truth; and Scully is stunned over how deeply he valued and needed her.

Then in Season 6 they have no files, and must rely on each other again: Season 2 but with a clearer understanding of their current dynamic. Then they get the files back and flitter about in limbo. And finally, we get a resolution to Never Again, in a way-- Field Trip, where both are in a place where Mulder can just say what he's always thought:

"Scully, in six years, how... how often have I been wrong? No, seriously. I mean, every time I bring you a case we go through this perfunctory dance. You tell me I'm not being scientifically rigorous and that I'm off my nut, and then in the end who turns out to be right like 98.9% of the time? I just think I've... earned the benefit of the doubt here."

He's jaggedly forthright and it hurts her feelings (of course); but it's the same sentiment that she's subtly (and not-so-subtly) maintained all the years they've worked together (in all the Vince Gilligan episodes, particularly): Mulder, there are no such things as vampires; Mulder, there isn't a bug person creating zombie people; Mulder, we didn't see a spaceship in Antarctica; Mulder, you didn't see me on the Queen Anne. Mulder's dark thought in the back of his head is that Scully has felt this way, truly, for years-- since the start:"Tell me you think I'm crazy"/"Mulder, you're crazy." It's a toothless speculation when all is well... but not so much when things are rocky between them.

Scully, in Never Again and Field Trip, feels dismissed and reduced, simultaneously not communicating her own hurt-- or becoming uncomfortable when doing so-- and not realizing that her partner is suffering in the same way. His "passion, dedication, and strength" that she relies on is something Scully is afraid to fully trust, just as she's afraid to fully commit to any one path or afraid to let anyone in too close. Mulder and Scully are both avoidant, scared people who would rather circle the drain than spell out their grievances; and because of this, she would rather "do the work" and hope her message comes across (i.e. hope that he doesn't consider her a spy or a burden or someone who "held you back", as she's sometimes wondered, and feared, from the start) than speak the truth out loud.

As much as Mulder prizes her challenging honesty and her unbending scientific rigor, he also feels dismissed by it-- just as Scully feels overlooked by his zeal for the work or the next "truth."

Field Trip resolved that divide; Biogenesis-Amor Fati widened both their minds (literally and figuratively); and Millennium was just the conclusion of their arc together, with Closure and all things book ending their separate, personal journeys.

So: Mulder always thought of the place as Scully's, that the space in the back was "hers"-- that she had claimed it. This was news to Scully (and not good enough, understandably); and when she challenged it, he offered to get another desk. That never went anywhere, and the topic was never brought up again; but I think there's a part of Scully that just accepted things the way they were. And to Mulder, that meant integration.

Was it resolved completely on-screen? Not really. Was it a part of their relationship that became habit between them? I think so. I also think Scully only returned to the "your and my desk" dividing lines-- or lack thereof-- when she was questioning her place in the world and peace in her choices (Never Again's lasting legacy and "other fathers", all things's identity and peace and "other fathers.")

In short: Mulder considers the desk (and basement) "theirs"; but because he didn't explicitly communicate this for nearly six years, Scully was left to decipher her place there depending on her current confidence or fluctuating sense of displacement.

[morallysuperiorlips]

Quick Character Development Hack...

Want an easy way to really get inside your character's heads?

This guy. Right here.

There are also the 400 and 500 variations, but it's all the same difference. I know you've probably seen these at Five Below or Target or Amazon or wherever else you shop. Next time you do, grab one.

The prompts in these books are more like journaling prompts, rather than actual fiction writing prompts. You won't find any specific whump or romance prompts in here, but you will find some prompts that air on the side of self-reflective and the like.

Above are some examples from the 500 variant, just to give you an idea.

But morallysuperior, how is this a hack for character development?

Well, it's easy. Instead of answering the prompts for yourself, answer them as your characters.

For example, one of the prompts in mine is "What do you want people to remember about you?" and I answered as my character Nergal, and he talked about how he's content being remembered as a cannibal, because nobody fucks with cannibals.

Another prompt was "What can you never get enough of?" and I answered as my character Iblis, who solely talked about sex and hookups because he's always DTF.

There was another prompt that asked "In what way do you spread yourself too thin?" and I answered as my chcracter Hela, who rambled about how she works too much.

I can go on and on, but the tl;dr here is that these questions really allowed me to get inside my character's heads. I had to think about things in their regard that didn't immediately apply to their stories at hand, and allowed me to delve a little deeper into their psyches to answer some otherwise pretty mundane questions. I'm of the mindset that the more real your characters feel to you, the more real they'll feel to your reader, and the questions these books provide give you the opportunity to flesh them out in ways you probably wouldn't have previously considered.

As always, happy writing! <3