#file: [redacted]

[14dayswithyou]

HAPPY VARENTINES DAY, ANGEL ! I've been facing some tech issues recently, but!! To celebrate Ren's birthday and Valentine's Day, I'll be releasing Day 5 (the Early Access version) for all the Beta Testers in a few days!

And for those who aren't part of the 14DWY Discord server, don't worry! The public version will be available for everyone to play once the beta testing period is over ^^

[technically-human]

Long one I do apologize- I’ve had this idea I’d love to see in your style of early on in their career, Dr. Robotnik never bothered to learn any of his assistants names . He doesnt pay them any attention unless they piss him off because they all run away and quit so easily.

Agent Stone gets assigned and is so hard working and resilient that Robotnik assumes the other assistants are still there too.

Eventually Agent Stone does something extraordinary (Rob trying his latte and the recipe is perfected perhaps?) that snaps Rob out of work brain and he actually SEES Stone.

Then something like this convo occurs:

Rob: Stop whatever you are doing and make me another one of these.

Stone: Yes Sir, but I have to get the budget reports in before 5 today-

Rob: Have the others do it

Stone: ?? Sir, there are no others

Rob: -scoffs- Who organizes the lab?

Stone: I do.

Rob: Who sets my schedule? Answers my emails? Sends the nuisances away?

Stone: That is all me, Sir.

Rob: Polishes the Badniks? Makes me fresh coffee every few hours like clockwork? You mean to tell me that my staff that comes in at 8am and leaves well after 10pm DAILY…is all just you??

Stone: …..Yes Sir. It’s just been the two of us for a while now.

Rob: ………

—————

Later

Rob either with a post it note on a desk or verbally- Addresses him as “Agent Stone”

Actually acknowledging him and saying his name. Stones smile is so bright it is blinding.

He'll learn it soon

ko-fi

[maruniee]

asher and babe wip repost 💞

[perotovar]

#he had 2 min of screen time and every second was gold

PEDRO PASCAL as SANTOS Drive Away Dolls (2024) dir. Ethan Coen

[red-n-stuff]

Sneak peak of the big ol’ project I’m working on, +Bonus Gavin Art

[crash476]

Thoughts on Andor and Spy Fiction

I want to preface this by saying that I appreciate the aims of Andor, and I do think that the first season succeeded in breaking away from Joseph Campbell's monomyth, while being a clear-eyed examination of how a fascist regime works. Especially from the perspective of ordinary people. But... I am a Rogue One fan first and foremost. And the second season was pretty bad. It was a four season story in one and that's the tip of the iceberg.

I was always bothered by the changes made to Cassian's backstory; they didn't feel right and contradicted what was established in the film. One gets the sense that Chris Weitz, Gary Whitta, and Gareth Edwards had a very different concept of who Cassian was and were likely pulling from different spy fiction than Tony Gilroy. @ruby-red-inky-blue made a good point that Rogue One Cassian is a John le Carré spy, while Andor Cassian is a James Bond/Jason Bourne type. There's a really good book about 1960s British spy novels called Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang by Mike Ripley. One of Ripley's observations is that spy novels of the period could be divided into "spy fantasy" as established by Ian Fleming, and what I call "spy realism," who's king will always be John le Carré.

Bond is the embodiment of post-Imperial British male fantasies. Fleming was an intelligence officer in the Royal Navy who spent WWII as a desk jockey. He was the guy planning the missions that his cousin Sir Christopher Lee (an agent of the Special Operations Executive) would go on. Bond was born from his frustrated desire to get into the field. Thus, Bond is a power fantasy. And Jason Bourne is an American equivalent. I haven't delved deep into Robert Ludlum, but from what I gleaned, he seemed to be a more conspiracy minded writer. Bourne is clearly a product of the revelations about MKUltra. Even then, Bourne plays into American male power fantasies. Bond longs for the days of Empire and sophistication, Bourne embodies the hyper individualism of America.

John le Carré (born David Cornwell) was an intelligence officer like Fleming, but a generation younger - his superiors at MI5 and MI6 would have been Fleming's peers. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was considered wildly subversive in 1963 because Le Carré wrote characters who were "breathtakingly ordinary." His spies are humans, first and foremost. They don't do any impeccably choreographed fight scenes marred by shaky-cam. There's no gadgets. If anything, it's a lot of detective work - espionage and mysteries are genre cousins, imo. Le Carré spies are good at their jobs, but are world weary and exhausted. Being as spy is presented in the least sexy way possible. Other writers like Len Deighton with his working class heroes would follow, along with tv series like Callan and The Sandbaggers. Bit of a tangent, but the creator of The Sandbaggers, Ian Mackintosh, disappeared in the Gulf of Alaska and there's rumours that he was Soviet of Chinese spy. If you want to learn more, Diamanda Hagan has a great video on Mackintosh and The Sandbaggers.

Unlike the spy fantasies, the appeal of spy realism is the promise of a peak behind the curtain. A lot of these books trade on the author's credentials as an insider and knowledge of how the intelligence world works. Now this can cross over with the spy fantasy realm - I would say that's one reason why The Bourne Identity was so popular was because it had the aesthetics of a spy realism film, but was a spy fantasy through and through. It's a have your cake and eat it sort of franchise. But spy realism isn't meant to be glamorous like spy fantasy. Spy realism doesn't really spectacle the way spy fantasy does. Spy realism simply isn't blockbuster fare, but if done right it wins awards. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney was sold a Bourne style series because, not to be insulting to the Americans, but that approach does appeal to American male power fantasies even more than Bond approach. And definitely more appealing than pure spy realism.

This leads me, ultimately, to where I think things went wrong with Cassian. A lot of ink has been spilled about the troubled production of Rogue One and the issues Edwards, and the rest of the writing team allegedly had with Gilroy. But Rogue One wasn't the first time Gilroy has had issues with other creative teams. He had a falling out with Matt Damon and Paul Greenrass over the Bourne films. It's why the franchise is the way it is now. Now Gilroy and Damon have buried the hatchet, but that doesn't seem to be the case with Greengrass. There was this sort of fragmentation in vision and really should have ended with The Bourne Ultimatum.

Looping this back to Andor, I have a hunch that even than playing with his new favourite character, Tony Gilroy really wanted another crack at Jason Bourne without the interference of Damon and Greengrass. Gilroy's famous for writing "director and actor proof" scripts after all. This is so apparent in the second season where Cassian becomes less of a human and more of a cipher. I will always love Identity the most because outside of his super spy mode, Jason is kind of sweet and dorky. I don't know, that's just my opinion. But as the movies progress, Bourne becomes less and less human. He becomes a force of nature no one can stop. And there's a lot of men who would love to be like that.

The spy who I think Cassian should have been modelled after is Alec Leamas of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. If you haven't read it, or seen the 1965 film with Richard Burton, you should. It's a gorgeous film with amazing acting, honestly one of the last greats of the black and white era. Like it's part of the Criterion Collection. This scene about the nature of spies is so good: "What do you think spies are?".

I have no idea if Edwards, Whitta, and Weitz ever read the book or watched the film when they coming up with Cassian. I'm far more certain they were influenced by The Guns of Navarone (it's another film that if you haven't seen it, you should). the version of him in Rogue One could easily be a Leamas in the middle of his career. Not quite cynical and burnt out enough to give Leamas' last speech, but getting there before he meets Jyn, Chirrut, Baze, and Bodhi. At the same time, Leamas has a great sense of humanity. There's a line early on in the book after Control talks about intelligence organizations needing to be as ruthless as their enemies, and while Leamas agrees with Control, it's for very different reasons. The paragraph goes, "Leamas saw. He saw the long road outside Rotterdam, the long straight road beside the dunes, and the stream of refugees moving along it; saw the little aeroplane miles away, the procession stop and look towards it; and the plane coming in, nearly over the dunes; saw the chaos, the meaningless hell, as the bombs hit the road."

Honestly, Cassian in season one had that sense of humanity, even if his instincts are telling him to run and hide. But the point of season one of Andor was that you can't run and hide from fascism. It's the same thing as that supposed Trotsky quote, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." Season two seems to lack a point for Cassian. He's Cassian Goddamn Andor now who's biggest badass spy in the Rebellion. That Cassian wouldn't be able to get volunteers to join Jyn and the Rogue One crew to go to Scarif. That Cassian couldn't do that out of a budding love for Jyn that reminds me T. E. Lawrence's dedication to Selim "Dahoum" Ahmed, "I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands / and wrote my will across the sky in stars / To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be shining for me / When we came."

[guess-i-do-art]

The deep sea bunnies are so cute 😭 they’re so friendly and non hostile (kind of) so of course they’re gonna gravitate towards Sebastian and be his friend

Bonus

[andromeda-collective]

🐟 <- is that the same one as on discord he looks so different

yeah it is discord just makes him look very strange (also yay fish time!!!)

sea snakes swim in the same way land snakes move, by slithering in a back and forth motion. and from the few frames in the stick to the script ending cutscene where we see him actively in motion, this is how he moves as well! not like there would be any other way for a serpent to move to be fair lol. but the end of a sea snakes tail is thinner and acts more as a paddle. whereas the end of sebastians tail is the same as a blue whales, and animal that uses their tail in an up and down motion to swim as opposed to a side to side one. but that vertical movement probably doesnt work well with a snakelike body, so how the FUCK does he swim?

acutally can he swim well??

i thought his document said he was very fast in and out of the water but it actually just says he's "incredibly nimble" despite his size and that he just did underwater maintenance, and the only thing required for that is being able to not drown when in water for long periods of time. so maybe he cant actually swim super well.

banded sea krait tail (wide along the y axis) vs sebastians (wide along the x axis)

actually i just looked it up and apparently whales and dolphins tails move vertically because they evolved from quadrupedal creatures and they still have a pelvis and spine that is more adjusted to up and down motions as opposed to the side to side ones that fish do so maybe it would actually be the SNAKE motions that would be harder for him since human spines are more similar to whale ones than snake ones?? or does he have a human spine that turns into a snake spine that turns into a whale spine at the very end?? does his human half somehow have a snake spine and the top part of him is in agony??? jesus christ urbanshade what did you DO to him?????

[noonegetsleftbehind]

Me coming to look at my dash and seeing the crew all hit with these anons

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s6 episode 3 "triangle" thoughts

okay. i have been told that this one is good. and i recognize the title of this episode from a piece of art i saw once where scully had a dress on. which made me need to catch my breath.

so. i am excited!!

let us read the episode description... hmm. i was one of those kids who was really worried about the bermuda triangle when i was little, so this might be healing for me. or make things worse.

mulder… don’t piss me off again! i still haven't forgiven you for that comment!!

ehehehehheeee, i’m excited!!!

post-episode thoughts: i am typing this after just having finished the episode, and i am feeling secret emotions i did not know existed an hour or so ago. wow. the nature of reality is that it can be SO profound. and i don’t even fully know what did or didn’t happen, which i believe was cultivated intentionally, but the friendships we made along the way were so real.

mulder, i will figure out what your deal is. scully, i will hold and cherish you forever.

we open on some waaaater. it seems a shipwreck has taken place!! NO, IS THAT DEAD MULDER? COME ON NOW, I DON’T WANT THAT. 

okay. intro time. so maybe he isn’t dead. maybe he was napping. underwater. 

SHORTENED INTRO AND NEW WORDS!!!!! “die wahrheit ist irgendwo da draußen” okaaaaay! i don’t speak german 💜 but i have a guess as to what that means

(and upon googling it, i was correct... yay! also, someone please appreciate my effort in going to wikipedia and copying and pasting the ß character just so i wouldn't get cancelled by the german speakers of the internet)

they’re pulling him out of the water!!!! and “they” sound like they are from across the pond!! but they are also speaking german, so who knows. whoever “they” are, they sure don’t recognize him.

they’re gonna throw him back overboard!!! but they find his ID and no one has ever heard of the FBI. he is baffled by this. how do you not know about the FBI? well, buddy, from the uniforms these fellows are wearing, i have some theories

the sailors take him to the captain and they’re beating him up!!! no one is bothering to introduce themselves. rude af??

ohhhh, he’s on the queen anne, which is the boat he came looking for!! so now he knows what is afoot. time warp. yeah.

LMAOOOOO he recites the EXACT location of the ship. okay. listen, i haven’t FORGIVEN him, but that is endearing. aww. i love when he nerds out.

ohhh noooo, they tell him it’s 1939 and hitler has just invaded poland and also this boat!! mulder thinks that the members of this ship have popped on over to 1998, but the opposite has happened!!! how is he gonna get out of this one?!

“it’s okay! the war’s over! let ‘em take you to germany, they make nice cars!” <- LMAOOOOO HE IS SO CONVINCED 

absolutely wild thing to say to someone who thinks that the nazis are afoot...

that is a grown man giggling and laughing because his time warp theory came true <3

he goes over to the radio and tries to call for help... and i am again impressed that he knows what he is doing on an old timey radio, but maybe that is a required FBI skill…. but the radio actually says that it *is* september 3rd, 1939, and there is war with germany!!!!

“oh, sh-" oh nooooo…. he has miscalculated……!!!

a german approaches!! it’s so hard to see because everything is SO DARK!! which is a pattern i am noticing after 3 episodes of this season!!! but mulder is hiding!!! and then he sneaks out and beats tf out of the german guy!!!

IT’S SPENDER?????

what. 

is he tripping…..?

you know, logistics of if this is actually happening in canon or merely mulder's head aside, more fight scenes should take place to andrews sisters songs

so mulder steals spender’s german uniform and puts it on, but he cannot respond to the people yelling at him in german!!!! does he have the advantage from studying this particular ship for years?? LMAO yeah, he hid around the corner! don't let anyone tell you that studying the layouts of boats that disappeared decades ago is useless knowledge!

woaaaah, there’s a fancy dance going on somewhere else!!! mulder enters the dance floor in his uniform!!!! and tries to flirt with the singer...

HE FINDS SCULLY!!!! BUT SHE THINKS HE’S A NAZI!!!!!! she has no idea who tf he is even though he is trying to explain. oh my GOD, she says she’s gonna punch him!!!!

oh. i’m blushing… scully in a dress with her hair like that….

the nazis burst in with guns and SHE HAD TO TRANSLATE FOR HIM…… because she knows a little german….

who is this man that she is dancing with?

“yeah, you’re all big men now, but wait until you get to russia! hope you fellas like the cold!” he yells out as they drag him away, and yet again i ask: LMAOOOO, WHAT IS GOING ON?

they’re dragging him to the deck! and the captain is saying he refuses to give up the ship!!! and the germans shoot him!!!

OH SHIT!!! IT’S CSM THAT TOLD HIM TO PULL THE TRIGGER??

i don’t know enough about german to know if he’s delivering those lines authentically, but it sounds convincing to me

someone finds his ID… SKINNER???? WHAT IS GOING ONNNN??

so they probably do not want to kill him if he is a proven american, which hopefully means he can get through the rest of the day until mercury comes out of retrograde or whatever 

oooo, present day!!! scully at a desk!! seems weird. i guess you have to be careful what you wish for.

BUT NOT AS WEIRD AS THE LONE GUNMEN ARRIVING AT HER PLACE OF WORK??? they say that mulder is in big trouble!!!

“the walls have ears” “i have ears, will you tell me what’s going on?” <- lmao, she’s such a smartass 

they try and explain what is going on, and she knows the queen anne right away!!! and is handling this news that it showed up this morning pretty well, all things considered.

“that’s impossible” “satellite doesn’t lie” “there’s nothing ON HERE!” <- BAHAHA, maybe i spoke too soon about her handling this news well

so the lone gunmen told him they found the queen anne, he chartered a boat, and has since gone missing!!!

love that they probably had been watching satellite on the bermuda triangle for years now to have noticed a sudden appearance. and love that mulder seemed to have a plan for what to do when that day finally arrived. truly, the lone gunmen and him match each other's freak.

they tell scully she needs to get information from the pentagon, and she heads off to go get it!!!

oh boy, kersh is gonna have a field day with this.

they’re filming this as one big walking shot, which is a cool effect 

BAHAHA, SHE WALTZES RIGHT INTO SKINNER’S OFFICE!! SHE IS NOT WAITING, and he is fully on the phone, but she does not give a FUCK, and that is my QUEEN!!!!

omg is she going to get in trouble for coming to see him… i’m nervous!!!

skinner hangs up and starts listening RIGHT AWAY!! oh yes!!!! 

OHHHH…. he doesn’t want to talk to her or hear whatever she has to say!!! 

his assistant sadly says “she walked right past me” LMAOOOO

OH SHIT, THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING!!! “you’re out of line, agent scully” “no, sir, you’re out of line” <- YEAH, SHE IS GONNA CALL HIM SIR WHILE YELLING AT HIM!!! THAT IS MY GIRL!!

“i’m sorry, but i’m coming to you for help, and i’ve got nowhere else to go. i would hope that after everything that we have been through that you’d at least have the courtesy and the decency, and not to mention the respect, to listen to what i have to say” <- OHHHH YOU TELL HIM 🔥 THAT IS FIVE FEET OF RAGE!!

he starts whining about losing his job and his pension and she ROLLS HER FUCKING EYES LMAOOOO she has had ENOUGH!!!

can she call in a favor on her father’s memory to the navy people??

she goes to open the door but he SLAMS IT SHUT OMFG????? 

(this moment was CRAAAAZY)

“use your head, scully. it’ll save your ass” “save your own ass, sir. you’ll save your head along with it”

oh my GOD, she would say “save your own ass, SIR”, that is just so her. oh, she is in her detective era, and she is not going to play nice!!!!!

skinner… i want to know what you are thinking… maybe he thinks she can call in a favor in her father’s memory like i thought…

(more post-episode thoughts: i also think that it is really interesting that she trusts the lone gunmen enough that she hears what they have to say and then IMMEDIATELY goes straight to skinner because she knows they wouldn't lie to her. even if their story sounds ridiculous, there has to be some element of truth to it, because it's Them, and they have helped the agents for so long, and they wouldn't joke about mulder being in trouble. and it's also very interesting how she drops absolutely everything and barely formulates a plan as to what to do next, because scully is usually the queen of plans and knowing what to do, and so rarely do we get to see her being impulsive... i just think it's neat)

they’re still filming this as one continuous action shot, which is so cool, and also was probably a major pain to accomplish. 

OHHH, she’s nervous!! scully is smacking the paper with the info she needs to know around in the elevator, and she hits someone who says “ouch!” and she mumbles “sorry” OHHHH, SCULLY…. my heart... she needs to save the day and she has no time for this, but she still feels bad for smacking that lady!!! ohhh my god, i just wanna put her in a nice blanket and give her a movie to watch. stop stressing her out.

she shoves through this other secretary to get to KERSH!! she must be really desperate to come to him!!! is this a trap??

FUCK!!! CSM WAS IN THERE!!!! AND HE HEARD HER SAY THAT SHE NEEDED INFORMATION OF MAXIMUM IMPORTANCE!!

nooo, she’s regretting coming in unannounced 💔💔💔 poor queen is nervously playing with her hair and then pacing the halls….. and she left the information she needed with kersh!!! so now he knows what it is she wants!!! this cannot be good!!!

she’s mumbling “what am i thinking? what am i thinking?” and calling someone on her cell!!!

but of course mulder does not pick up due to being on a different realm!!

(funny that she was in such a panic mode that she literally did not think to call him until this very moment LMAOOOO)

HOLY FUCK!!!! MY JAW IS ON THE FLOOR??? SHE GOES TO SPENDER?? “i want you to do me a favor. it’s not negotiable. either you do it, or i kill you. you understand?” <- HOLY HELL???

oh, i’m blushing and giggling and also aware that this will probably have negative career consequences for her since she just threatened CSM's most special baby boy, but i cannot pick my jaw off of the floor…..

“you okay, agent scully?” “no, i’m not. i’m a gun ready to go off, so don’t test me, spender, don’t even THINK about trying to weasel me”

ohhhh my GOD. she says she will “hunt him down” if he doesn’t come back right away with what she needs, and she doesn’t care what or who he has to do to get the answer. and then realizing how insane this sounds, she mumbles “oh god” to herself quietly.

well, the good news is, this is so uncharacteristic for her that if it’s her word against spender’s, they might be pretty evenly matched. i mean, maybe he has the promotion, but she has the longer record of service, and while she may have been demoted to domestic terrorism, she is known as the scientist and rationalist, soooo…

(i cannot quite figure out what relationship spender has to her. he sounded legitimately concerned and did not question her at all. is his personal fury more directed at mulder? i mean, there was that horrible moment where he implied that mulder was using her that was all thick and weird and tense, and he probably still has residual anger from her talking to his mother, but he doesn't seem as mad at her as he is at mulder, because if mulder came in there and did that he would have simply pulled out his gun)

very sad to see that the basement office is now filled with spender's things. i noticed he has some medal on the wall. but cannot tell what it comes from. it's far too organized!

spender leaves, and the basement office phone rings!!! and she picks it up!!! IT’S CSM??? he thinks she is diana so she LOWERS HER VOICE A LITTLE TO PRETEND TO BE HER… and he wants to know about the paper scully handed kersh!!!

LMAOOOO, HE GETS SUSPICIOUS AND SHE HANGS UP 

NOOO, SPENDER SNITCHED TO KERSH??? she calls him a rat bastard and SPRINTS OUT, LMAOOOO

i am at once amused and stressed tf out

she gets in the elevator and yells “STUPID” which i deeply relate to. some people are not great at being impulsive. her cell phone rings and she picks it up and it’s... maybe mulder???? but he is very garbled!!!

NOOOO, SHE WALKS ONTO THE FLOOR WHERE CSM AND KERSH ARE 💔💔 she goes right back into the elevator as they point at her LMAO

she is still yelling into her phone and she runs into SKINNER!!!!! it was actually HIM that was on the phone, not mulder!!

and he has the info she needs and she KISSES HIM???? ON THE LIPS??? what the hell, oh my god. 

i’m literally gasping for air, oh my god. what the hell am i watching? GOD. imagine being skinner right now. wait hold, on i’m genuinely fucking crying. tears of laughter, mind you. he must have been SO thrown off. imagine your best and most loyal agent who nearly died a horrible death is back from the grave, but now you can’t talk to her because she's trying to expose the evil government, but you did talk to her anyway to save her bestie’s ass, and she smooches you. and you’re trapped in the elevator and you might lose your job.

god. i’m fucking losing it. the way her eyes were open as she kissed him.

BUT SKINNER IS AN IMPROV LEGEND!! because he gets off on the floor where CSM and spender were, and he LOUDLY yells at her that if she EVER asks him to break protocol he will have her OUT OF THE FBI RIGHT AWAY!!!

SKINNER!! MY KING!!!!!!!!!!!

god. i still need to do that best skinner moments from s5 post.

AND SHE’S GETTING PICKED UP BY THE LONE GUNMEN IN THEIR WAGON, LMAOOOO

spender is sprinting behind them, but alas! he cannot outrun a wagon.

mulder, meanwhile, is explaining world war two to the guys who are currently in it, and hating on the spice girls. rude. spice up your life. 

OHHH, someone who will build the atom bomb is on the boat… and mulder puts that together and explains it to someone who turns out to be a german spy!! wait, was scully dancing with EINSTEIN?? or oppenheimer or someone? clearly i was too invested with her hair and dress and how she was threatening to punch mulder to pay too much attention

(there was no oppenheimer nor einstein and i feel vindicated)

there’s a big fight as mulder declares they ought to turn the ship around and go back the way they came so they can return to the present and avoid germany winning the war!!!!!

it’s so dark, it’s hard to tell what is going on as they run about the ship. ohhhh they bring mulder back to the dance hall…. CSM wants him to identify who can make the bomb….. and if he doesn’t answer the question, they will kill passengers!!! NOOOO, they did kill someone!!!!!

OH SHIT, SCULLY STEPS FORWARD, SAYING THAT SPENDER IS KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE OVER NOTHING BECAUSE MULDER DOESN’T KNOW…. but he has HER at gunpoint now!!!

NOOOOO, THE GUY THEY KILLED WAS THE SCIENTIST…. where does this leave them… does past scully have to invent the atom bomb…?

meanwhile, the lone gunmen and scully are off in the bermuda triangle, and the queen anne is right there!!!! so can they get on there and save the day?? what is the proper course of action here?!

back inside the ship in the year of our lord 1939, mulder is yelling nursery rhymes at the nazis, and scully claims to be the scientist who can end the war. but some other guy says that HE is the scientist and she was sent here to protect him, so they take THAT guy away.

1939 scully curses at CSM in german, and then they are going to EXECUTE THEM??? but the engine shuts down!!! it’s brawl time!!!

modern scully and the lone gunmen are breaking into the ship trying to find mulder!! while a jazzy soundtrack plays!! and mulder and past scully are trying to save the ship!!

he’s leading past scully… but they get caught…. BY GERMAN SKINNER?? WHO SAYS “god bless america, get your asses out of here” <- YAAAAAS DAT IST MEIN UNCLE!!!!

past scully and present scully nearly collide!! while the ballroom brawl continues in the past!! 

past mulder has to convince past scully to get them to turn the ship around or else he’ll never be born!!!

i love that he explains it to her through the lens of einstein because he knows that she would have that as a frame of reference. because there is no scully, past or present or future, who wouldn't know about einstein. that's a very cute nod to her thesis.

AND THEN. LONG MAKEOUT SESSION. IN CASE WE NEVER MEET AGAIN????

my JAW. is once AGAIN. on the FLOOR.

(the darkness of this season is pissing me off. i wanted to see that in HIGH QUALITY!)

she PUNCHES HIM, he remarks that he was expecting a left jab, and then he JUMPS OFF THE SIDE OF THE BOAT??

past scully tosses a life preserver over!!!! and we’re back to the present!!!!

ohhh, mulder has flowers by his hospital bed, and the lone gunmen and skinner are all there… they must have fished him out!!

he’s trying to explain to her how she saved the world!!! and she just sarcastically agrees.

and the queen anne was just a ghost ship!!!!

(turns out a ghost ship means a ship with nobody on it, not a phantom of a boat. this is important to know because at first i was like "wtf, scully believes in ghosts now, but only for boats?")

skinner tells mulder that he better get well soon because is going to kick his ass (deserved) and then he and the gunmen leave. but scully stays behind.

“i would’ve never seen you again. but you believed me” (she leans in) “in your dreams” 

ohhh... it is sickeningly sweet as she tells him to go to sleep.

“hey, scully?” (he sits up) “yes?” (loooong silence) “i love you” “…oh, brother”

(as she leaves, he cradles the eye where past scully punched him in the face, smiling)

oh my god. i mean, it’s not like we really needed confirmation that he had feelings for her, but. like. that was it. he said the words. and then held his face where she punched him and remembered kissing her.

so, did the time warp really happen? who is to say? it’s fun to turn around both possibilities in your mind. the possibility that past scully really did believe him and was able to save the world AND the possibility that it would only happen in his dreams. 

there is so much to analyze here.

spender being a nazi… and skinner being a nazi… and CSM being a nazi… some of these make more sense than others. what are the implications... spender could speak both languages... is that an indication he is a double agent?

her saying “oh brother” to his love confession… oh my god, she must have thought he was sky high… i wonder how she felt hearing him say that? i wonder if she thought it was a joke, or if he really meant it, or it was the insane ramblings of someone very ill. i wonder if part of her felt crushed to hear those words, like that fragile thing that they have between them was being tampered with. or i wonder if she had always wanted to hear him say that and never let herself imagine it. either way, better to approach it from the angle of a sick man's mumbling. probably the only way to make sense of it. but i know she went home Wondering.

and what are they going to do about scully’s erratic behavior???? she normally conducts herself with such rationality! and today she barged in on two assistant directors, threatened to kill spender, and then ran off with the gunmen in a wagon! oh my god!!! i guess we won’t know!!! it looks like the next episode is a two parter, so i doubt that we will have time to examine the consequences from today.

but then again, rationality isn't ALWAYS her thing. gestures to all of the times she has nearly killed someone for getting between her and mulder before.

if you do consider the time warp to have actually happened, it’s very interesting that it shows scully has the capacity for belief. this whole episode was analyzing how scully responds to crisis- but that particular crisis being losing him for real. there have been close calls before, but this was unexpected and bizarre. usually she is very calm in crisis. but there are certain things in life you simply cannot prepare for. there’s FBI training on hostage situations and disease protocol, but nothing for “your partner travels back in time”

skinner…. my best friend…. he put it all on the line for them AND made an incredibly convincing performance in front of spender and CSM… the oscar goes to him

oh scully, i just. oh my god, man. i love her!!! her being impulsive because she had no choice!!! telling spender she would kill him!!! and then going in the hallway and mumbling “stupid, stupid”!!! apologizing for smacking that lady!!! kissing her boss on the mouth with her eyeballs open because she was so overcome with emotion!! that is MY disaster medical doctor special agent scully!!

and mulder thinking he was going to to die slash never be born at all so he KISSED her while he could…. and then back in the real world using his delirium as an excuse to say “i love you”, to hear how those words sound coming from his mouth… just to know what it felt like...

oh my god. i need to snuggle into a big cuddly blanket and scream a little.

so, now let us analyze mulder's recent behavior, stretching from the tail end of s5 to now. and you have to promise that you won't tell me if any particular theories i put forward are right or wrong! you can only comment on if you think my proposed theories are interesting. because i assume that YOU know why mulder is being weird (snapping at scully, agreeing to go undercover, fucking off to investigate a ship, and then confessing love despite his actions and words indicating disdain, etc) but i just do not.

i can put together from the comments left on my last posts and vague subtext in the show itself that there is SOMETHING afoot with mulder, which is why he is acting like a dick. but i cannot figure out WHAT it is. my guess is that maybe he is in some sort of danger so he’s trying to push scully away?? in an attempt to save her?? like when he went undercover, but maybe something even bigger and scarier??? but maybe he could use his vulnerability to confess how he really felt while he had the chance?? and then he will go back to being all moody?? because he thinks that he is in danger and doesn't have much time left? and maybe he thinks that if he acts all rude and terrible scully will be able to handle his demise?

the only other thing i can guess (and again: don’t tell me if i’m right or wrong!! i just want to voice my thoughts) is that maybe something is happening with his mom?? but if his mom was sick or dying or something, it still doesn’t make sense for him to take it out on scully. but then again, people take their rage out on each other in real life all the time, even if it doesn't make any sense.

maybe it’s something with his sister? i mean we saw his “sister” that CSM brought to him a while ago, but it was never addressed again… i mean, i don’t believe it was really her anyway, but maybe he thinks that diana can help him find her?? because she came back into town for some unfinished business or for family or something- what was it she said in the car with gibson? so maybe they’re plotting something together?? and he thinks (stupidly) that diana can help him with some secret thing he cannot tell scully about???

man. i don’t know. and i will have to just keep moving forward to find out. which means i will probably have to endure more bitchy mulder before i get answers. and then once i DO get answers, i will have to see if i judge them to be valid or not. 

but let us not look too far into the future. let us look to what we have been given, which is 1939 AU scully in a beautiful red backless dress, and noir detective canon scully, and sleepy, loopy, delirious lover boy mulder, and skinner who is the best boss around, and three guys in a wagon who will save their buddy from a time-traveling ship. and that is so beautiful. amen.

i realize i wrote all of that and never outright stated my feelings on the episode. while you probably picked up on it, but i did enjoy it! i was laughing and gasping and blushing and giggling. it was nice to have a change in pace. i thought the way it was shot was really interesting as well, with all of the perpetual motion. it had many of the things i consider integral to a good episode, which include, but are not limited to: skinner acting prickly and detached but then pulling through and saving the day, scully threatening to kill people and commanding a scene, mulder nerding tf out and reciting facts, fun costumes, MSR bait, and things you can turn around in your head over and over to make your own interpretations on! i'm not sure if it would make my top 15 episodes list just because it was SO zany and i'm having trouble wrapping my head around that, but definitely a contender.

i have a feeling my thoughts on this episode will grow and change with time, which is perfectly acceptable. i'll try to crack the symbolism of mulder's time warp visions in more detail moving forward, and i will probably find scully's panic somewhat out of character, if endearing. but you only get to watch something for the first time once. and so we share this moment together, you and i.

[div-divington]

Been binge watching X-Files recently and I've always wanted to make a fake Altered Item file cuz it seemed fun

It was fun.

[lancerthatdetects]

Hey, N! Are you free? I was hoping to hang out again.

yeah, i’m free. most cases have freed up so my schedule is pretty.. dry.

i’d like to hang out again.

[mordacitatis]

Do I personally believe that library science, like basically all things, could be a trade school with apprentice, journeyman, master levels?

Absolutely

Do I think that elitism is a huge issue in the field that I work tirelessly to reduce, particularly in connection with circulation staff, who generally only need a high school degree?

You bet your sweet ass I do.

But do I also feel a hateful little kernel of glee at the fact that my historically pink collar underappreciated field requires a masters degree whenever someone tries to mansplain my job to me?

Gods yes.

[omenkhan]

life as a seer

[getvalentined]

FF7 Fandom PSA

This is not a callout post, this is a warning about a genuinely dangerous abuser who uses fandom spaces to acquire victims.

Apparently my abusive ex is ingratiating himself into fandom spaces again, so if you're in the FF7 fandom please keep an eye out for someone calling himself Pix or Pixeled.

The details of what he did to me specifically are available in a post from almost exactly two years ago, readable here. Other people have shared their own stories, but I don't have the energy to dig up all of them. Trigger warnings for gaslighting, emotional abuse, violent threats, forced isolation, manipulation, and more that I'm definitely missing.

Known usernames:

Instagram: midgardsomrnights, pixeledartsy, okgoosefus, pixeledpalace

AO3: pixeled, pixeledxxx

tiktok: pixrexpen, gaywrathlet

FFXIV: sarielperedhil (on Brynhildr)

ko-fi: pixrexpalace

Other: pix pendragon, pixeled pendragon, pixrexpendragon

Some of these are current, most of them are not; he's no longer active here or on Twitter that I'm aware of, so I'm not referring to his usernames there, but he uses some combination of parts from these for his usernames everywhere so they followed the same theme.

This is not "fandom drama," this is a sincere warning to anyone in his orbit to be careful and be safe. Please love yourself more than he wants you to.

With that in mind, there are more personal details under the cut, discussing the fallout of going public with his abuse and more of his behavior; no screenshots on these because it's years in the past, not all of the related accounts and spaces still exist, and back when I was first gathering evidence I had to stop before it lapsed into the territory of emotional self-harm.

Same trigger warnings as above, plus racism, (implied) sexual exploitation, sexual manipulation, and discussion of Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

I want to be very clear that I was not the first person to go through this, I was just the first to go public afterward. I have lost relationships with people I thought were friends by doing so, and actually been referred to as abusive in response to my initial thread on Twitter letting people know what he'd done. I've had people who used his treatment of me as an excuse to join in with hurting me go on to co-opt my abuse to make themselves look like victims, claiming that we were best friends until he drove us apart—or worse, to use him as a complete stand-in for their own behavior, implying or outright stating that he forced them to isolate me from friends and fandom activities and treat me like shit, all while these people have me blocked on every possible platform where I could reconnect with them.

Pix was the Bad Guy of early 2022 on FF7 Twitter, and while he deserved the title, not everything everyone said about him was true. Not everything everyone said about me was true, either, but people tend to take anything connected to fandom as "drama," even when it involves literal abuse.

One thing I never told anyone except my closest friends is that Pix drove me to the verge of suicide multiple times. He put up videos insulting me to be "funny" and got friends laughing along, when I asked him to stop teasing me all the time he exploded and said that he was allowed to express himself however he wanted and if I had a problem then I should break up with him so he could finally kill himself guilt-free, he told me that he wasn't going to placate me anymore by saying "I love you," he told me in public spaces to shut up because I didn't know anything. He used racist slurs against Asian people behind my back and told everyone who called him on it that I'd told him it was all right, leading to a continuing belief among some circles that I have some deep internalized racism toward my own fucking ethnicity.

He told me that his mother saw me as a whore and a homewrecker, because I'd seduced him away from his boyfriend of eight years—in spite of the fact that I told him outright I did not want a romantic relationship with him because he was already in one, and I wouldn't be party to cheating. When I went public with what he did, he claimed that I pressured him into a romantic relationship, neglecting to mention that he'd been pushing for one almost since we met and that I'd shot him down because he was already with someone else. He said that I'd forced him to break up with his boyfriend, and seemed to be implying that I'd somehow sexually exploited him because I'm a cisgender lesbian and he identified as an aro/ace trans man at the time we broke up. When we got together, he identified as a bisexual nonbinary person.

To be completely honest, though, his orientation and gender identity doesn't even fucking matter with regards to the implication that I exploited him because we never had any form of sexual contact—unless you want to count RP, which I don't, and if I did I would be calling him a cheater because I was not his only RP partner.

To be completely clear, we were in a long distance relationship, thousands of miles apart, and we had no sexual contact. We never sexted, we never had phone sex, we never even exchanged dirty pictures. Our relationship had no sexual element whatsoever. He eventually told me in no uncertain terms that if/when we got married, he wasn't going to sleep with me because he didn't have a sex drive anymore due to trauma, and that since I loved him so much I'd have to be happy with that.

He would remind me of this when my Body Dysmorphic Disorder began to relapse constantly from the amount of stress he had me under, because my experience with the condition is rooted on my lack of physical femininity and leads me to see myself as completely sexually repulsive. When I was triggered and trying to untie the knot in my chest that made me want to throw up at the thought of my own body, he would remind me that I didn't have to worry about being too ugly for sex with him, because he was never going to fuck me anyway. That it didn't matter if I was disgusting, because he found all bodies disgusting, so really I was lucky to have him. He didn't even care that I was disabled and that my arms and legs are too long, that my joints slip out of place all the time, that the way I have to move sometimes to keep from hurting makes me look "weird and stupid." I was so lucky to have him, because even though he was very aware of all those things, he didn't actually care. He wasn't going to fuck me anyway.

The last Christmas card he sent me literally had the words "You deserve a high-five!" printed on the front, and on the reverse he'd written something along the lines of "okay but you know I'd be sure to miss and slap you in the face, sorry not sorry."

He made my life hell in every possible way, and people said it was drama because we met through fandom—and that I deserved it, honestly, since I was so fucked up and he was such a good person for even caring about me in the first place. I deserved it, people said, since I turned around and stabbed him in the back after he'd done so much for me for the years we were together. It was just fandom drama, they said, and I was just thriving off the social capital it allegedly earned me.

And now he's back and making new friends, but it's fine because this all happened years ago, and everyone with a brain should be able to see that it's just fandom drama. But it's not. It never was. Don't let him convince you otherwise.

[ladyofthebookcase]

yall already know what this is about