#I feel like this is not a good liveblog

[eerna]

why is Arcane so GOOD. what the HECK.

[milkbreadtoast]

biwan-nim's designs for the han brothers are so cute... i like that their eyes are.. not quite monolids but the eyelid crease is small & only visible on the edges... kinda like choi soobin & kang taehyun's eyes?🥺 it's a specific character design detail and soo cute...🥹🥹

and i like that both of their eyes are like this!! definitely brothers... 🥹

their designs seem generic at first glance (esp yoojin, almost every protag in the action fantasy webtoon genre is a guy with straight black hair like him lmao) but it's details like this that make them(and biwan's designs) stand out to me...

[thewingedwolf]

loved the new acolyte episode. the way it plays with the nuances in the jedi by having indara refuse to get involved bc she wants to do things by the book vs sol who feels this connection to osha, this fear for her well-being and feels that’s more important than any rules. both sides getting angry and paranoid and it leading to aniseya, sol, and torbin reacting emotionally & violently. sol refusing to fight korli because he KNOWS he fucked this up. sol willing to accept the consequences but indara, like sol & the witches, is trying to put this child’s well-being over some arbitrary rule. it’s so good and such a good demonstration of both how the jedi council works to stop conflict and how it is completely unprepared to deal with natural human emotion and error.

and of course, as expected, mae is not The Evil Twin. she sets the fire on accident, it spins out of control, and she’s held into this anger for so long because it’s a justified anger! has it helped her? no! but it’s guarded her heart against the overwhelming grief of losing her entire culture in a moment. and then there’s osha, who has no idea the events she’s set into motion - all she wants is the room to figure out who she is without everyone’s expectations weighing her down!! she’s just a kid!!!!!!

[m0e-ru]

did everybody remember when atlus finally restored the attendant social link in the steam port and how stupid it actually was

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 4 thoughts

woohoo!! it feels, again, like our separation has been so long, but it has been about… 3 whole days. oh, how i miss the earlier months in which i had time to post episode thoughts every day… 

this episode sounds interesting!!! no idea how someone’s thoughts could be captured on film, but we do a lot of disbelief suspension around these parts, with varying levels of success.

wait. hold on. i just saw the description for the episode after this one. what the hell is mulder getting himself into with that. do we need more mulder ex lore? i don’t need that. it doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. 

putting aside my many questions on that matter to focus on what is here in front of us.

(author’s note post-episode: …. woaghhh. scully…)

in all honesty, having processed my thoughts, i think this one was just a LITTLE bit too intense for me. which i recognize is okay, and to each their own. but i need to speak my Truth.

liveblogging commences below 

we begin with this sketchy looking dude, who is being rude as hell to a woman putting on lipstick before getting a passport photo taken. god forbid a woman want to serve… then he says to act natural while not acting natural himself. HYPOCRITE!

she goes in for a passport photo and…. she left her money in the car! she must return to this unfortunate man and go get it. but someone is following her…. 

he did something to her… and she gets back to the car to “billy”, but someone did something to him, too!! he appears to be dead and bleeding from the ear!! then she falls to the ground and tries to crawl to safety, but the mystery man in the yellow rain jacket comes back for her…. 

and the man in the photo store looks at the passport photos, but despite taking just a standard headshot, he sees the woman’s dying face in the images!!

oh. that is an unpleasant day on the job for such a nice seeming man.

this intro always makes me laugh... i’m sorrrrryyy the ufo pictures just remind me that this show is fundamentally unserious 

scully and mulder are rolling up to a town in michigan, while he asks her for any thoughts on the case. it appears this woman was abducted three days ago. and billy was punctured in the brain. yuck.

okay, so her name is mary. and this poor pharmacist…. he has to take people’s pictures, and give them drugs, AND deal with this nonsense 

they are at the pharmacy where the “druggist” (they keep using that term which i have never heard before) is showing them his camera, which he keeps under lock and key, and i notice he has some fun candy in the background. but i assume things are not fun at this time for him. 

scully wants to see the camera, and mulder takes a step back to let her pass. it kinda looks like he does that thing where he touches her back, but it’s hard to tell. and once again for all readers, that thing where men touch your back is only attractive when it’s mulder to scully and not between some randos!

scully notices something on the pharmacist’s foot, and also that the film is out of date. she is always noticing things. one of her many lovely qualities. 

mulder calls the pharmacist “bruno hauptman” and i don’t get that reference so i do what i do best: go to wikipedia. oh! bruno is the guy that was executed for kidnapping the lindbergh baby. i don’t know why i thought that mystery was unsolved. i guess it’s because the article is saying it was a heavily criticized and debated case. huh, a mystery for another time.

anyway, mulder is saying this all tauntingly with his stupid beautiful mulder smile, but scully is saying yeah, this nice old pharmacist doesn’t look like a usual suspect.

but she does point out that the film has heat damage, and a heater is right there… “so you think that would make it look like she posed screaming for a passport photo?” <- LMAO MAN LET HER FINISH

BAHAHA she is onto nothing 🔥🔥 

“plus, the film is two years out of date” “oh” the- the photographic chemistry could have changed” (mulder nodding) “uh-huh” “the- the dyes fade… they… alright, what’s your theory?” <- BAHAHA love that… you have to admit when you don’t know wtf is going on! i had full confidence she would pull something out of her science-y brain, but sometimes you just don’t know!

(this stupid scene had me giggling, as did her face of resignation)

mulder seems to ALSO have no idea wtf is going on, but as they discuss this, a police officer walks in and says they might have wasted the agents’ time…. what does that mean? did they figure it out that quick?

back at the house of the victims, they meet a postal inspector. okay!!! that’s fun and different. and i pause to write this down, and scully is SO beautiful, i actually might blow up. a full on explosion where once stood me is liable to go down. oh my gooooood.

okay: postal inspector is investigating a mail theft. mary had been working at the postal office, stealing people’s credit cards, and her boyfriend was signing them! oh! very illegal. inspector seems to think she faked her disappearance, but mulder points out that would not explain the stabbing of the boyfriend. also, they have this creepy ass broccoli magnet on their fridge which. bleugh. it did not spark joy.

mulder wants a camera from their house, and he finds one! did he just. take a picture of scully…? oh my god. he said “stand back, scully, it’s loaded” and took one… he didn’t even let her pose or anything… that's so cute... even if it's a little weird to use a dead person's camera from a crime scene... he wanted to take her picture

no, i am all wrong, for it appears he is just… taking random photos. because someone in the 60’s once claimed that he could concentrate really hard on undeveloped film and show his thoughts. uh. press f to doubt.

(man, i want to live in that very brief and exciting moment where i thought he was taking a cute little candid of her again… it was so blissful there)

wait. what da hell. he just clicked the camera a bunch of times and it comes up with the screaming mary photo again and again.

oh… he thinks that someone was stalking mary, and the stalker’s psychic energy altered the film by him coming in its proximity. i didn't realize that was how psychic powers worked but i am listening and learning

scully says that these images had to be doctored, which is, again, a reasonable conclusion, but he asks her to “what if” the situation and just think about it!!! just imagine!!!

cutscene to… someone crawling on the side of the road. it’s mary!!! she’s bleeding from her eyes (?) and not responding at all to the police car arriving behind her.

now she is in a stretcher at the hospital that our agents are helping to steer. they are kind like that. she had a “painkiller cocktail” in her system, but that wouldn’t account for her condition. scully orders a PET scan for her, a term i have never heard before. i love when she uses terms i have never heard before.

they’re putting mary in what looks like an MRI sort of thing to look at her brain. whatever it is, it is clearly very bad, as told by scully’s visible reaction and audible declaration of “oh my god”, while mulder looks at her and asks “what is it”? 

(and while i appreciate that this is a sensitive moment for our story, mulder not knowing wtf is going on with these medical things always is a favorite trope of mine, 1. because me too, and 2. he is usually such an insufferable know-it-all i love watching him admit when he knows nothing. humility!)

oh my god… “she has been given what’s called a transorbital lobotomy” <- oh that does NOT sound good… it used to be known as an ice pick lobotomy!!! oh my gosh i’ve heard of that one!! ice pick… eye sockets… i can feel myself growing faint…

but whoever did it, did it wrong… who would do a lobotomy without knowing how to do it the right way???

in the machine, mary is mumbling!! she is saying “unruhe” according to the closed captioning, but it just sounds like faint groaning to me. however, given that this phrase is the title of the episode, i venture to guess that it IS in fact relevant.

a policeman bursts in and says there has been a second abduction, and our agents look deeply sorrowful at this news, seeming to know what will happen next if they cannot crack the case.

oh! now we are seeing the new victim, and whoever took her is in fact saying “unruhe”, and other stuff in german! NO! he pulls out a pick…. fade to black. 

WHO in this small seeming town speaks german and has a psychic effect on cameras… ?? i hope this can be narrowed down to a slim pool of candidates!!

scully is going into the next crime scene, where mulder reports that a man has been murdered, and his secretary alice taken. this is not good.

mulder has been looking into what that word alice was mumbling means- first in a phone book, but then as a translation, i guess, because it means “trouble” in german.

WOAH, WHAT?

! SCULLY LORE REVEAL ! she took german in college!!! and knows that the word is more accurately translated as “unrest”! 

(oh my gosh, i need to get back into compiling lore reveals at the end of each season like i did for s1…. good thing i take such detailed notes so i can go back and do them for s2 and s3)

((we didn’t get a ton in the last 2 seasons, so i thought of doing one post for both seasons- but the organization freak in me wants to do 1 per season, so i’ll go through them again and see what i can find when i get bored someday))

scully hands him a photo from the first crime scene, but mulder says the criminal wasn’t there, because if he was, he would have altered the photos. scully seems annoyed that he’s looking for psychic photos and not crime scene evidence, but he explains that whoever did this has to be very good, and photos may be their only lead since he doesn’t seem to know he is doing it. but then scully sees something and her eyes go SUPER wide… and she says she wants to show him something. 

oh! they find a construction company’s logo at both sites. so maybe the criminal worked at places under construction and was able to kidnap the women…? this theory is brought to you by scully.

he says she might be right, but he is going back to DC to get analysis on the photo. she still is skeptical, but he says that since the woman’s time is running out, that’s all the more reason to analyze the one piece of hard evidence they do have, and that he’ll be in touch. 

he must have really cared if he said he’ll be in touch, because usually he just runs off to god knows where to do god knows what. 

(and how much time would they even HAVE if he has to drive all the way back??? that isn’t a quick trip, is it???)

the same criminal dude from before is now saying stuff in german and taping alice’s mouth shut, while mulder is back in the photo lab sitting practically on top of this nerdy yet attractive fellow, asking for the blurriness in the image to be reduced. and it reveals very scary looking demon things! 

mulder sees someone in the back of the photo… and they get a more enhanced image on the face, but it isn’t clear to me who it is. i felt like i was supposed to know who it was, but luckily i wasn't!

scully is ordering people out to canvas and investigate the employees who may have been working at both construction sites. i like when she does that.

mulder and the lab guy figure out that there is a shadow in the background of the photo from the kidnapper. “he’s standing over her, he means to pass judgement on her, like a god” <- an unsettling thing to say, mr. spooky

scully rolls up to one of the construction sites and i’m thinking, oh please, do not get kidnapped, please please, it’s not something we need today. she’s yelling “hello” and no one is answering... but she hears something….. 

it’s a… guy on stilts? it’s the foreman named gerry. oh… could he have made the big shadow in the picture his stilts? but he doesn’t sound german…

mulder calls and says the kidnapper’s legs are unusual, either he’s very tall or he wants to be. stilts man?!?! is it you?!

instead of playing it chill upon hearing this news, she hangs up on mulder, and turns to gerry and says “unruhe”, pulling out her gun. but he uses his stilts to jump across the building! only to collapse and fall. his getaway is thwarted as scully tells him to stop or she’ll shoot, and to prove her seriousness, she does so. but i’m not buying he’s the guy!! sorry my queen!!

NO!! I WAS FOOLED, WASN’T I??? she reaches into his pocket and pricks her finger!!! NOOO! it’s a huge pick in there! like we saw before at the kidnapping!!

is she gonna be drugged from that….

(thankfully, the pick itself did not contain the drugs)

they’re interrogating the dude, and he denies everything. i mean, i guess a lot of people could have stilts and a pick at construction sites. maybe they didn't grab the right fellow.

he says that tool is used to start keyholes in the sheetrock and all fixtures. a good excuse…

but he really does seem confused. 

however, mulder brings up that gerry was arrested before, for attacking his father with an axe handle until he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. OH! this is not promising.

gerry says that he was institutionalized, which mulder reveals was for a schizophrenic disorder. gerry claims that since his release, he had been taking care of his father 24/7, until he passed away in january. well i’m not entirely sure if that makes amends, but i guess it’s better than nothing?

“and how did you feel about that?” asks mulder about gerry's father's death, sounding very much like the psychology expert i sometimes forget that he is. then he reveals that the same year gerry attacked his father, gerry’s sister passed. connected….?

gerry is staring intently back at scully, saying that she looks troubled. oh! do not talk to her that way.

then mulder comes in with the enhanced photo from earlier, and asks if it shows gerry’s father. he seems taken aback, like it really is his father, and then further taken aback when he pulls out the full photo and asks if those demons figures are what he sees when he closes his eyes. this finally gets gerry to crack and say that he knows where alice is, and that she is safe, “from the howlers”. HUH? 

(is it bad my thoughts went straight to a howler monkey when he said that? i was thinking man, monkeys do not look like that at all. you and i have seen some different monkeys, gerry. but no, he does not refer to those types of howlers)

a ton of cop cars are arriving in the woods, to find alice, who is bleeding from the eyes, which can only mean one thing in this context. oh noooo. scully seems horrified and as if she is blaming herself 

oh, we get a very charged exchange here. she says it doesn’t matter what is in the photos, or if it shows gerry’s dreams or nightmares, because it’s over, and they couldn’t save alice. she starts the engine, and when i think she’s gonna drive off without mulder, he hops in. i bet that guilt that doctors feel when that cannot save a patient is even worse in her than in usual doctors, because she also has to deal with trying to rescue people from crime. :(

gerry is being taken in and photographed by the cops. but instead of a mugshot, when we see the picture, it’s the guy who was taking him in with a bullet hole in his head. oh! so that seems to confirm earlier suspicions on behalf of mulder. 

OH NO!! gerry reaches out and grabs the gun from the cop! NOOO! 

mulder points out that the image from that interaction showed the man shot in the head, but in reality, he was shot in his throat. so i guess it’s not based on reality as much as his intentions? sure, why not. and scully says there was a robbery at the pharmacy back where the very first photo was taken. no! our druggist friend!

gerry took all of the film in the store and a ton of drugs for more “twilight sleep”, which is a bad sign. i think i’ve seen this film before…

scully thinks that perhaps he was stalking his next victim at the construction site, and i’m thinking, girl i think he picked out his victim alright, but i don’t think she’s in the apartments.

mulder wants to wait a bit for his photo to come out. so he sends her to pull the car around and i’m screaming NO, NO, DON’T SEPARATE, NOT WITH A GUY ON THE LOOSE WHO LOOKED AT HER AND SAID “YOU LOOK TROUBLED” AFTER DOING 2 DIY LOBOTOMIES ON OTHER WOMEN AND KILLING 2 OTHER MEN! JUST WAIT A MINUTE AND WALK TO THE CAR TOGETHER!!!

but she cannot hear me….

NO! as she unlocks the car, a hand from beneath reaches out and pierces her foot with a needle NOOOO… and it’s gerry and she’s going down and NOOOOOO!!!!

AND MULDER PULLS THE PHOTO OUT TO FIND GERRY WAS THINKING OF SCULLY WHEN IT WAS TAKEN!

he is RUNNING after that car. despite his best efforts, even trackstar mulder is not as fast as a car, yet he follows her and screams her name regardless. until he realizes he will not win this race.

back at the police office, mulder is STARING at that photograph, the one showing scully being taken by these horrific creatures known as “the howlers”. he’s asking for any leads, including “does he have a summer house? a winter house?” which could be seen as desperation for answers or mulder being out of touch with how many people grew up with summer houses, take your pick.

OH! in gerry’s wallet was his father’s obituary. and his father was a dentist… and the name sounds german… 

so they go to his old dentist’s office, where they did an ad for the pain medicine cocktail he’s been cooking up. and mulder finds a footprint and a missing dentist’s chair. 

NO!! scully is in the dentist’s chair at some undisclosed location. waking up to find her arms and legs bound with a pick on the table and gerry in the distance. she’s watching him…. and she says to let her go. 

he begins his german ranting that has happened before the other lobotomies, and she… RESPONDS???? in clumsy german??? she says she has no unrest and doesn’t need saving, but he insists she does??? WHAT!!!

good on her for remembering some words after all those years :,)

he says everyone has some unrest, but especially her. she thinks she must remind him of his sister, and they talk about “the howlers”, who live inside your head, and make you say and do things you don’t mean.

so she turns the tables on this, and says maybe there are no such thing as howlers, and maybe he made them up to justify what his father did to his sister, which sets him off further. OH… so she thinks gerry attacking his father and his sister’s death were related. damn… that’s heavy

she tries to convince him that the “howlers” are just in HIS head, and no one else’s, as he approaches with a camera to try and prove they do exist. because cameras cannot lie!!

back at the dentist’s office, mulder appears to be losing it. mumbling about the 6 fingers the howler had in the photos, and yelling “WHY are there 6?” to no one in particular, as if he can find an answer through sheer willpower. one of the cops is asking him what to do while he looks at the obituary and counts five headstones…. and the father makes 6? sure, if that makes sense to you king!

they’re off to the graveyard while scully is still in a mystery location, with tears in her eyes as gerry shows her the photos he took. he takes the photos to mean he doesn’t have much time left, and tapes her mouth… and oh my gosh, i think of what would go down here if i knew she wasn’t gonna pull through… until gerry hears a tapping and MULDER IS LOOKING IN!! YES!!!

gerry is doing this in a camper van! by the graveyard!!! mulder is peeking in, sees a tooth keychain, and realizes she’s in there!!!! he’s yelling her name, and she’s yelling that she’s in here, while gerry tries to hold her down!!!

mulder’s BEATING on the window of the camper with his hands, and when that doesn’t work, he finds a giant metal pipe and SLAMS it into the window, goes in, and shoots gerry. this escalated quickly, but it was almost not quick enough.

mulder asks if she’s hurt, and neither of them say anything as she walks out, with mulder kneeling down to see that the last photos gerry had taken were of himself dead on the floor. it’s a terribly thick tension that reminds me of the ending to irresistible, but without the tension bursting like it did in that episode with her finally revealing her fear to him. i wish that she did it again this time. 

scully is doing the episode wrap up, sounding terribly solemn. she is reporting that gerry had written a diary intended as a letter for his father, including the list of the women he hoped to “save”. and her name is the last entry. she has no explanation for the photographs. but she empathized with him, which her survival depended upon.

“i see now the value of such insight. for truly to pursue monsters, we must understand them. we must venture into their minds. only in doing so, do we risk letting them venture into ours?” (said while there are tears in her eyes, as she looks at the photograph of her being pulled by the howlers)

WHAT THE HELL.

okay, so chris carter… you and i need to have some words. 

i have a lot of thoughts. perhaps number one: what if mulder had been 5 minutes later… can you imagine him never being able to cope with that….? oh my gosh. oh my gosh. no, i shan’t imagine. but i’m sure they both were imagining it. and that is probably why she couldn’t say anything as she walked out of the camper van. it was too horrific.

second. this was a dark one. i was giggling at first and then it got really dark. lobotomies… are a hard subject.

third. when the writers make the bad guy have a mental illness, i do feel it to be insulting, because we don’t often get a character where a guy with schizophrenia is just a guy doing normal things like working at the store or going to get his oil changed. no, he’s gotta be up to something nefarious. i wish that wasn’t the case and that these episodes didn’t use mental illness in that way, and i understand that things were kind of Like That in the 90’s and arguably still are in media, but it has been observed with distaste. 

okay, final thoughts? like i’ve said before, i believe in gender equality when it comes to kidnapping and rescuing, and i hope that will be evened out at some point. i understand that gerry had a fixation on women for his own personal reasons, but that’s the doyleist vs watsonian debate thing. and i want a 1:1 ratio on who goes about saving the day. although the ratio was uneven in s2, i’m not recalling the ratio from s3, and we’re 4 episodes into s4 with a 1:1 ratio. so i hope that overall, the entire series ratio evens out eventually. damsel in distress is gender neutral

i was actually really invested in this episode, probably because it let us look into scully deeper, and also because the stakes were high, the pacing fast, and the horror a new kind rather than a standard serial killer we get in a lot of episodes. 

but… while i appreciate that, i’m not sure i can say i enjoyed it, you know? because even a “scully speaks german” lore reveal cannot save me from the feeling of… something adjacent to fear? not horror as in “ahhh i’m so scared” but maybe a sort of horror as in “stop putting her into these fuckass situations, let my girl have a day off” and also a bit of terrible grief in knowing that lobotomies were a very real thing and did untold harm. and to be clear, i’m not saying that fact shouldn’t be explored and discussed, i just think that for me it seems to provoke some intense feelings that make me want some fluff. now. 

deliver it. to my door. as we speak. in fact, here is an incomplete list of things i want to read our agents doing in fanfiction form:

apple picking and apple cider sipping, hiking and sharing weird facts they know about the things they encounter (scully will be all “this type of spider has a unique silk production gland” and he’ll be all “this type of wildflower is used to induce hallucinogenic states” while they look at a pretty view), ice skating (can they ice skate? need to explore that), getting ice cream cones, a visit to the beach, decorating for various holidays, a very serious game night- perhaps uno or some sort of trivia where it turns into a real nerd-off, arguing over unsolved mysteries, more implications of them starting a family together if you feel bold and brave, even, but for those who like it more reserved we can just have an aquarium date, watching a meteor shower, scully attempting to understand his fascination with the various sports of the world by tagging along on an anthropological expedition to a knicks game with him, baking, movie theater trip, etc

well! i have gotten myself so enthused at the idea of them doing silly stuff like handing out halloween candy that i have forgotten all about my initial feelings, which shall surely resurface soon when i go through and edit my notes, but you’re gonna sit there and tell me you don’t want to play dolls in your head of them getting hot chocolate together? 

canon? what is canon? c’mere, kid. let’s daydream about them eloping without ever having the “what are we” conversation and ignore the suffering 

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

"Jason was the happy robin" this, "jason was the angry robin" that. Let's all be fully honest here Jason was the lonely robin

[seilon]

certainly feeling some things about the fact that simon. bullied edwin, yes, because he clocked him being gay. but not out out of hatred for him because of it. instead it was because he thought edwin was cute and felt sad and confused by edwin not paying attention to him. because simon is also gay. that is some beautiful and tragic storytelling and such a good way to come back around and give edwin some amount of closure on that chapter of his life wow

[gooperts-gunk]

watching bagi's vod instead of live to keep up um. um. at 5:08:10 q!bbh says "i guess you should put i DID like beach vacations, and then there was that one time... i went to naples and that didn't end well..."

UM. UM. CASUAL GOOGLE SEARCH OF "disasters that started in naples italy" AND I FIND.

Q!BAD????? Q!BADBOYHALO?????? just a normal day in 1343 AD for him. nothing we didn't know he could do. just an instance we didn't know of. his disaster count only grows, im excited for his next one. sitting politely, twiddling my thumbs all shy

[cinematicnomad]

i've been doing a deep cleaning of my apt today while watching mad men s4 so this has been a pretty successful day tbh.

[ultra-raging-ghost]

Richas is trying to help bad convey his feelings and bads like post-reset social ineptness is showing because hes like "yeah i wanted to have a full day with her because she asked because she was upset" which is so fucking real. actually might need to make a whole separate post about how bad thinks because i understand it really hard

[completeoveranalysis]

[1]

Chapitre 214: The Last Chain

Like last time there's no cover page, and the first page of chapter seems to follow directly on from the last page we saw, so I'm just going to put them both here:

The big gorgeous view of all the worlds in the shape of Sakura's wings is now shattering and breaking apart.

So, Evil Wolverine's plan is working! The universe is falling to pieces!

You can even see the background of reality falling away behind Kurogane and Fai, which is very cool and very menacing, and the crack even continues on directly below into the next panel! Even though it's a different location! So even the reality of the manga panels is breaking apart too how meta is that

And I LOVE the effect they use here too! In the top right, with the cracks extending across multiple panels, and the pieces of those panels coming away and falling up the page??

IT'S SICK.

IT'S SO COOL.

IT HAS ENTIRELY DISTRACTED ME I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Meanwhile Lava Lamp is still reaching towards Sakura!

No-one seems to be able to move and reality is falling apart around them BUT HE SURE IS TRYING!

[eerna]

I have come to the conclusion that I am not interested in AtLA spinoffs, but I love prequels. The comics, the next avatar, the adult Gaang story, none of them interest me enough to interact with them, but I am living for every detail the novels reveal. Like what do you MEAN the Fire Lord has a bastard half-brother scheming for power TELL ME MOREEEE

[milkbreadtoast]

its been a while since i read the orv webtoon and i still havent started the novel but was randomly thinking about orv(specifically kdj) again this morning... sorry this isnt deep analysis or anything but i just wanted to archive my #thoughts.. sorry seasoned orv fans if i didnt cook (i may have cried typing this tho)

edit: clarifying the wording: it works BC he perceives them as not real, not "makes him perceive"

(^ *of his trauma response... + i forgot the word "identity" while typing this lol that wouldve fit better)

in conclusion yea i need to start the novel but i alr think abt orv a lot... its so good. i don't even know how good it really is... I CANT WAIT TO HAVE THE FULL EXPERIENCE SO I CAN PROPERLY DISSECT KDJ'S BRAIN LMFAO

edit: also the way kdj can't see his own character profile bc the 4th wall also blocks him from being read by others (ANOTHER CLEAR METAPHOR MANIFESTED LITERALLY AAAH HIM PUTTING UP WALLS AND NOT OPENING UP SO OTHERS CANT READ HIM)... him being able to literally read the minds of others w ORV but can't read/understand his own self the same way (and has to gradually find out more abt his abilities and by extension himself on his own)...

edit2: obv this isnt a full analysis bc this was just my quick frenzied rant but... his powers don't just come from emotionally distancing himself... i want to add on that his ORV skill also rewards him by being able to understand and connect with others..? like when he successfully is able to understand/empathize w others points of view his skill grows stronger... but even with that it's complicated because even as he gains understanding of others he still doesnt fully open up to them and distances himself from them... (like how kabru from dunmeshi analyzes others and understands them well but doesnt open up to them himself)... its as if he's analyzing charas in a book... but that doesnt mean his own heart is unaffected... ...is it fitting to say that the ORV and 4th wall skills are 2 contradictory aspects of his chara? ...No, i don't think so... they work together in tandem because he still can observe and analyze others and gain an understanding of them while completely removing himself from the narrative... just like a reader would... which he is. He is literally The Reader... dokja... aldjsldjsk 🫠

....sorry im not articulating it well bc i havent fully developed my analysis myself... i def have to read the novel and refresh and let the thoughts cook😵‍💫 i havent read the webtoon in over half a yr (+ the earlier parts yrs ago since i was following the weekly updates..)

[protect-namine]

one one hand, I kinda see why all the other classes would make their jack ace and al jeannes their class leader. like, if you were a univeil student, I can see the student logic of going, "yeah this guy knows how to put on a good performance, let's make him the leader!"

but in hindsight... that's such a bad decision?? like, imagine as the lead performer, you have to be in charge of both the performance and the class. that's too much responsibility! instead of focusing on delivering on stage, you now have to split your attention with everyone else's roles. not even takarazuka does this. the top star and kumichou are usually not the same person. so I would assume that's also how the tamasaka troupe works. univeil students what are you doing lmao

I think one of the reasons why quartz works is because neji isn't the lead performer. he writes, he directs, he acts, he dances, he sings, but he's not the main lead. by taking on responsibility for the backstage work (except for props/tech/etc.), fumi/kai/kisa/whoever can focus on their own craft as performers.

like. how is kaido leading onyx while also being the jack ace? how is he getting and working on feedback? I could say the same for tsukasa, but at least tsukasa has minorikawa doing a lot of the heavy lifting. amber is kind of a special case, I guess, because they all want chui to be the stage. but honestly if chui was a better leader, amber wouldn't have to be this way lmao. like, chui is great but he's holding amber back, sorry to say. they could do so much more than this

(hm I guess the teachers in other classes are more hands-on and provide more guidance and support than enishi, so they can get away with lead performers being class leaders)

I was thinking about this because I was imagining what kisa's year two in univeil would be like. the next class leaders are gonna be mitsuki, sugachi, and minorikawa, right? and all three of them tend to step back to let other people shine or to play support, so I actually think they're very logical choices for the next class leaders. plus that would probably be the year chui would try to like. make friends and human connections. so I'm just imagining that year two would be quite healing for univeil, especially since in year one they are all still kinda hung up on tsuki being univeil's treasure. you can have other treasures!! love tsuki, but he isn't the only golden boy here!!

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 1 thoughts

ah, the first ep of a new season. it has such a fresh feeling to it each time! and according to that poll i reblogged, s4 is a fan-favorite (along with s3). well, i really liked s3, so i hope i’m in for more of that! 

overall, this was a wild episode. things just! kept! happening! so fast! in fact, i think it will take me a while to gather my thoughts on the stuff that was happening, because it was occurring so rapidly! but luckily, i am familiar enough with the monster of the week format by now to know that i have some time to process all these events, because most episodes will be entirely unrelated to the plot action that went down today. so good episode, but separated scully and mulder + so much plot so fast = not a GOAT ep for me. and with this being said, back to my liveblogging!

it feels that it has been so long!!! maybe even a full WEEK! or more!! since i watched the last episode! i recall, however, not being very impressed due to lack of scully. so let’s see if this episode can change my opinion.

so, reading the description, it seems this alien fellow is referred to as “Bounty Hunter”. i’ve been calling him "alien hit man" for 2 seasons now, so this will be an adjustment. the seriousness with which i take using his proper name is yet to be determined. and we get some alleged samantha lore here?!?! will it actually be true?!? i assume everything about samantha will be a lie forever

i want to know how jeremiah smith gets out of this sticky situation, so let us continue together and see what happens to our agents.

“last season on the x files…” yes yes, this was probably a vital refresher for those who had to wait a year in between seasons. and also for me who had to wait a week, which as i am sure you can imagine was JUST as excruciating!

in my absence, i seem to have forgotten how terribly beautiful this mulder fellow is. rest assured that i am now remembering as we get a little recap.

but oh! we do not begin in the fight scene where we ended last time. we begin in… a van? of a fellow who is fixing a power line? is this some more TV mind control stuff…..? (no, thankfully, it was not)

there is a bug by his ear and he slaps it. and then we see the bee on the ground struggling while a bunch of kids gather around. they all look the same and seem to be multiplying. which is very weird but i feel bad for the bee.

5 creepy blond identical children watch this man DIE after being stung??? he’s writhing up on the cable pole and then he FALLS and all the kids surround him like jackals... omg… very much gives the impression they are gonna eat him. but they just walk away after staring at this body for a bit which is maybe even creepier. hard to say. 

what do the children know…….?

(intro time) (<3)

HEY WHAT THE HELL? i interrupt making a heart emoji by hand to inform you that the words on the screen do NOT read “the truth is out there”, but today they say “everything dies”. this is NOT a good sign for mrs. mulder or jeremy smith omg… 

i know our agents aren’t kicking the bucket yet though because we have a few more seasons!!!

okay, NOW back to mulder and scully and jeremy and the bounty hunter. mulder tells scully to not get in the bounty hunter's way, and she immediately does and gets knocked over, which is a little comical- but you can’t blame a girl for trying!!!

mulder is now chasing jeremy and in turn being chased by the bounty hunter through some weird warehouse-y building, with scully not too far behind. the screen is very dark and it is hard to see things. mulder comes face-to-face with the bounty hunter but they just look at each other and then run after their real target, which is probably a good thing, because we have seen the bounty hunter kick mulder’s ass before, and i’m not really feeling a rematch at this point in time.

no, jeremy! the bounty hunter approaches, and to escape him, he jumps off of the roof. mulder is taking jeremy down to the car where scully shall be the getaway driver. i'm in the getaway car, i left you in the hotel bar, etc.

until the bounty hunter DROPS on their window like a spider!!!!! so she honks the horn for a very long time, which was deserved. 

okay, so back into the maze of the building. mulder and jeremy are running on foot. mulder hides in some bushes!!! then LEAPS out and STABS THE BOUNTY HUNTER in the base of his neck!! omg!! the one spot where these beings can be killed!!! i knew sneaky mulder was gonna set some sort of trap, i just didn’t think he would have such good luck with his aim! 

yes, he did it!!! the poison goop is coming from the base of the bounty hunter’s neck. but jeremiah is motoring away on a little boat, saying more killers will be after him. mulder yells after him that he needs help; his mother is dying. and i think it is fair to save a life after mulder saved his, so maybe, just maybe, they can buzz to the hospital reallllly quick before they let him go… back to space, or whatever. 

scully has found the dead bounty hunter, and is looking for mulder, who has gotten on the boat with jeremy and sailed away, i guess. rude as hell to leave her stranded there!!

she keeps going back to the body and i’m yelling NO GIRL, THE BLOOD GAS but NO! that is not even the biggest problem, for the bounty hunter is ALIVE! he grabs her throat and chokes her, which had to absolutely SUCK to film. 

he keeps asking where they’re going while he’s choking her, and that seems to be a bad way to get answers. she says she doesn’t know, but in my head i’m yelling, just say they’re going to the mall!! lie!! lie!!! they’re going to the mall. a dude in the food court claims to be an alien expert who knows information on samantha’s whereabouts. they want to see the guy at quizno’s knew about jeremy’s existence. send him on a side quest!!! but she just says she doesn’t know, which is fine, too.

anyway, back to mulder and jeremy disembarking from the boat. jeremy says that the government men will be waiting for them at the hospital in mrs. mulder’s room, but mulder tries to counter by saying that if the government men do anything there, they will be exposed. well! i think this is faulty reasoning because they might just kill all of you, but i see that he wants this to be true for the sake of his mother.

jeremy explains that they are working on colonization, and if they kill him, he sure can’t help his mother, which makes sense to me even if it is deeply unfortunate. or, he says... mulder can stop it! mulder, stopping colonization?! that is a large task for one guy...

OH! jeremy claims that he can take mulder to a place where there is a “work in progress” and SEE HIS SISTER??? how do we know that isn’t another TRICK!!!! i always suspect deception when it comes to his sister, because they know that claiming to have information on her can get him to do anything they please.

cutscene to the hospital, where CANCER MAN is holding mrs. scully’s hand (LET GO, FREAK!) and some lackey says that “he isn’t coming”

GASP! this lackey pulls out the pictures of cancer man at mrs. mulder’s house and suggests… a SECURITY LEAK! he proposes planting information to see where it flows… information that mrs. mulder’s life is in “unnatural danger”… oh no… will X see through the trickery?

back to scully cam. her phone is ringing. mulder wants to know where she is: “i’m right where you left me, mulder” OHHH! get him again for me. and when he asks why she is still there, she says it’s because he wouldn’t answer his phone and she didn’t know what to do :( which is so sad

but what about the bounty hunter……

NO!!!! he’s right behind her in the car, holding the needle up to her neck through the phone!! she’s trying to get him to stfu, but he keeps yapping about stealing a car in alberta, and revealing all his plans to the bounty hunter!!!!

so he just lets her go after hearing where mulder is, which is lowkey crazy, but she tells him that the bounty hunter is coming after him. and that he is in fact NOT dead. so now what do mulder and jeremy do about these plans they have made and just revealed to their enemy????

anyway, mulder and jeremy are in the hills of alberta where we earlier saw the dude who got stung by a bee drop dead. and mulder's face is all beat up and it’s kinda endearing... like aww, let me put a bandage on you.

scully is going to skinner’s office, who has summoned her. she lies that her and mulder are okay, and it’s a pretty visible lie in terms of body language, so i imagine skinner catches onto that. but he’s like, why tf are there 5 dudes at the social security administration all called jeremy smith and with the same face? and what do you know about them?

well she’s honest in this regard at least, and says idk. but the nerd down at the labs can see that each of the 5 jeremys had very weird data on their computers. 

“enough to fill seven ten-gigabyte hard drives” hold on. okay so that is, in modern terms, not a whole lot of stuff. like a 68 GB flash drive at target rn is $6, and it's even a nice blue color. so i’m wondering how much stuff you can stick on there but honestly i do need to get back to the plot at hand and stop looking up the differences between flash and hard drives. he says it’s “a billion entries” which is a lot!

scully thinks it might be a code!!! and she thinks she might be able to crack it!!!! wahoooo!!! code time! code time!! i love when she is in her sleuthing era!! and the lab nerd (revealed to be named "agent pendrell") says "seriously?" when she says she thinks she can crack it, but i wouldn't have said that, because i trust in her skills.

she says there is someone she wants to run it by… is it the lone gunmen? the navajo representative? her dad’s old friend? who could it be?

back to mulder and jeremy running through the hills of canada, arguably even frolicking. where they come across the dead guy!!! he is bubbling and covered in bugs…… so the death was yesterday. and jeremy knows what killed him!!! he’s being VERY WEIRD!!! 

gag… the body looks soooooo nasty... but as always, to cope with this, i give a shoutout to the props department. but i WILL gag. 

so they’re at their destination, which is… a “flowering shrub”? being grown for pollen? and worked by a bunch of kids like the creepy ones from before. what the hell do aliens want with some pollen...

MULDER THINKS ONE OF THE KIDS IS HIS SISTER??? but she’s still a child!!!!! how could this be?

i’m suspecting trickery here. either way, he goes right in after her, calling her name. NOOOOO- he gets on his knees, grabs her arms, and says “it’s me, fox, your brother” and she has no readable expression whatsoever NOOOOO omg WHAT SORT OF TORTURES HAVE THEY CONCOCTED TO PUT THIS MAN THROUGH???

(i’m operating under the assumption that it is Not Actually Her)

she just looks at him…. and jeremy says “she has no language”, and is a drone…. he says he has more to show him so that he might understand. YOU MADE A CHILD A DRONE? and you're supposed to be THE GOOD ONE, JEREMY?

(if this actually is samantha and they hurt her like that i’m going to choke slam this jeremy fellow into the core of the earth)

mulder naturally wants to know what tf is going on, and jeremy says the drones are stationed here as part of an agrarian workforce, where they take care of themselves, and “parenting is unnecessary”. oh i just KNOW that at this point if i were mulder and someone told me parenting his long lost sister "wasn't necessary”, i would have started throwing hands. what an insult to injury, taking her away and saying that she doesn't even deserve someone to look after her, when all he has wanted for so long was to do just that...

and a bunch of other kids come out ALL WITH HER FACE and the boys have the fact of that CREEPY BLOND KID FROM BEFORE!!! CLONING??? did they CLONE HER???? yes they did. so they’re clones but... where is the OG samantha??????

this is soooooo fucked up like WHERE is his REAL and ACTUAL sister and what can we do to free these identical children!!!!!

scully is going to mulder’s place to put an x tape on the window. oh no! but what if X HAS really been fed lies??? (she also bites the tape again which i still think is funny)

i am observing mulder’s apartment as she tries to crack the code whilst waiting for his arrival. sadly, i cannot work out the names of the books on his shelves.

someone knocks and she grabs her gun… but it is, in fact, X, our man of the hour. AND OH NO!!! he does say he has information concerning mulder’s mother!!! NOOOOOOO, i was hoping he would be more discerning than this and not fall for such a trap!!

scully doesn’t seem to be buying it… X refuses to talk to her, and says to get in contact with mulder, but she is insisting he gives her information on the code.

he knows what the various entries are… they’re about the smallpox eradication program. but X is telling her not to open doors she isn’t ready for. so what does THAT mean???? he leaves by saying “protect the mother” ummmm okay...

WAIT! if she goes there then they’ll think SHE is the spy, right??? or no… because they know she wouldn’t have access to information at that level, so someone would have to give it to her. lie and say krychek gave it to her. idk just lie!!!

back to this weird little town. mulder is trying to take the little girl with them, which pisses jeremy off (STOP… HE WANTED TO TAKE HER WITH THEM I’ll SOB 😭)

he’s all “she’s not your sister” and “you have a chance to understand something so much greater” but he won’t do any actual explaining. condescending fuck. and when explanation is requested, who rolls up but the bounty hunter!!!

now they’re sprinting off to a place… where the girl is taking them. a place filled with the bees who killed that guy earlier!! mulder learns that while jeremy and samantha clone have immunity to the killer bees, he does not.

so now he’s covered in killer bees and to protect himself he DOUSES HIS BODY IN GASOLINE and therefore cannot see a single thing and needs to be led along by this small child who looks like his sister but isn’t. they are in a building filled with evil evil evil looking bees and their evil honey... but they realize they have been trapped by the bounty hunter when they look up and see a hole in the sky. 

the bounty hunter is entering into this cavernous honey town, and sees only the gasoline can and many bees, but no people. until they break a wall of honeycomb they were hiding behind down directly on top of him, and the bounty hunter is swarmed by them!!!! he seems to be busy being hurt by them. so i guess they will hurt him, but not kill him? noted. need to keep track of the alien species rules.

okay, so back to the lab nerd, agent pendrell, who frantically adjusts his tie as scully walks in with a break on the data. yeah don't think i missed that. that actor wanted to make his 5 minutes of screen time count. i see you!

“you say a twenty letter code to any scientist, and they immediately think ‘protein amino acid sequence code’, which is what this turned out to be” <- i love her so terribly i can’t even form a decent sentence to describe it. it's actually embarrassing but whatever.

and it’s a code for cowpox virus, which was used to vaccinate people against smallpox! so why were they keeping vaccine records… besides for the obvious reason of making sure that smallpox is defeated?

well, that doesn’t matter right now, because the big question is: what is with this second alpha numeric string? each with an infinite number of variations?

she says it’s an inventory… of us… and pulls off her jacket to reveal a bandage on her arm. which i’m sure had that nerd sweating. 

(did she like get a shot in the time whilst mulder was MIA... i’m confused) (<- lmao sometimes i just do not understand wtf is going on and it is really funny reading these notes back)

she’s presenting her theory and an image created by “a confocal microscope” to some people in skinner’s office. and i’m not sure i’ve ever been more in love before, but whatever. she’s explaining it’s a protein’s location, a cowpox protein, number 6 to be exact, thank you!

OH! it came from her! she got a biopsy taken from her vaccination scar. which makes a lot more sense than getting your flu shot while doing important FBI work. although getting your flu shot IS important it’s just. you know. bigger fish to fry n all that.

she got this image “through a process called immunohisto chemical staining and through the addition of an antibody” <- unfortunately her saying all this is incredibly attractive to me

but there’s important business at hand. she thinks anybody who has been vaccinated over the past 50 years might have a marker in them!!

oh, low blow from the guy who said this sounds like something that would come from mulder….

but she performed the same procedure on agent pendrell i’m CRYING he is SOOOOOOO down bad for herrrrrr 😭😭😭😭

and his protein is different even though it should be the same as hers!! DEEPLY suspicious!

“so what you’re saying, agent scully, is we’re being catalogued, tagged, and inventoried?” well yes skinner, i do believe that is what she is saying!

by who and for what purpose? she doesn’t know. but jeremiah smith probably does!

skinner wants to talk to scully ALONE! he looks MAD and asks “do you realize what you are promoting” and she cuts him off with “i am a SCIENTIST, sir” OHHHHHH YES!!! shut him up!!!!!!!!!!! and isn’t that why she was assigned to the x files in the first place?!?!?! YES EXACTLY!!!!! TELL HIM!!!!!!!

pained skinner expression as her phone goes off. it’s mulder, and she needs to meet him. she says “just tell me where” (ohhh my god the way they’d do anything for each other…)

he explains that he and jeremiah smith and “someone else” need to be at mrs. mulder’s hospital room, where she has to wait and keep her safe. 

she says a lot of people want to talk to jeremiah smith and will be there, but who comes barreling down the road to get mulder and the squad as she says this, but the damn bounty hunter!!!! omg!!! can this dude just die already!! damn!!! 

the bounty hunter runs his van STRAIGHT into the car with jeremy and “samantha”!!! and when the bounty hunter picks mulder up by his throat, he begs for jeremy and his sister’s life, while bounty hunter says “he shows you pieces, but tells you nothing of the whole” which i do feel is deeply true. but jeremy being a “traitor to the project” isn’t really feeling as damning as having a crop of brainwashed clone children harvest killer honey to me personally.

so mulder says “kill me, and let them go”, and that he would TRADE HIS LIFE FOR HIS MOTHER’S!!!!!! the bounty hunter says that “everything dies” while jeremy tries to make an escape.

(omg is he really willing to sacrifice his life… or is he just saying anything to buy jeremy more time???)

bounty hunter TOSSES mulder into a truck, picks up the needle to go after him, while samantha clone starts screaming... NOOOO that poor girl😭

back at the hospital, scully, skinner, and the guys have been waiting for five hours, with nothing to show for it. it’s starting to compromise the treatment of patients, says a random nurse. but in walks mulder!!!

“oh my god, mulder!” scully says, running to him, while he mumbles “i can’t, there’s nothing”, and other nonsensical phrases, which begs the question: WHAT HAPPENED IN THOSE FIVE HOURS????

she’s feeling him, saying he’s freezing and in shock, and he can’t even stumble to the right hospital room door to find his mother without scully’s help. but he gets there and looks at his mother while scully wraps a blanket around him, and he mumbles that "she’ll never know". 

and he’s CRYING, and he LEANS DOWN so scully can hold him while he sobs into her shoulder (height difference height difference oh my GOD its so painful and terribly tender)

WHAT WILL SHE NEVER KNOW?? WHAT DID HE SEE?????

just when i expect an emotional climax, we change scenes to mulder’s place, where footsteps are approaching. X lets himself into the apartment, but seems to realize that something is… afoot. 

he goes for the elevator to escape, when a man FIRES TWO SHOTS INTO HIM!!! NOOOO X!!!

we had a rocky relationship but i never wanted it to end in this fashion……….

(is it inappropriate to wait until he’s dead to say that i’ve always thought he was handsome….)

well. um. we don’t get a lot of time to linger on that.

back to mrs. mulder. mulder has his head in his hands, saying they could have saved her, that he had once chance. and he tells scully that he saw his sister. and she was just a little girl. 

it’s not clear if scully can tell he’s speaking the truth or if she thinks he is still saying random stuff in shock, but he says that he’s seen too much to not believe. she counters that she believes they have a place to begin in looking for answers.

“you put such faith in your science, scully, but… the things i’ve seen, science provides no place to start” 

“nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it- and that’s a place to start”

OOOOOH BANGER LINE!!!!! such hope there is in understanding the world that seems impossible to comprehend, if only we seek out the knowledge to grasp it!!!! if we admit what we don’t know and start where we do until we reach the Truth!!!

this line coaxes a smile out of him, and she adds “that’s where the hope is”, and i think i understand scully on a molecular level. 

but he is still in agony over there. he feels he came close, and she feels it too.

and as she says she was warned by X about his mother being in danger, and that he is who can lead them to a place to start, we see him dragging himself down mulder’s hallway, gasping for breath, before finally collapsing, having written “SRSG” in his OWN BLOOD???????? HOLY HELL??? that was very metal in a fashion i was not expecting…….. rip X :(

as much as i feel like we need some time to linger on that we really aren't given any in terms of the episode’s pacing. but like. damn. its MY writeup and i can give us a moment of silence for X as i choose.

...

okay, jump to a month later, at the UN building in NYC. we see someone open a door to the special representative to the secretary general- OMG... the SRSG!!! and mulder is there to visit!! he must have pieced together the horrific clue… the special representative won’t see him. but his secretary, marita covarrubias, will.

he’s trying to get answers on the farmland in canada, but only getting dead ends. however, maria says the farm was abandoned, but the crops were identified as ginseng. 

GINSENG? making killer bees? press F to doubt. and she says there no evidence of bees. YEAH RIGHT,,, I SAW THEM!

she asks why this is so important to him, and he starts to say that he’s suffered some very personal losses recently, but he can’t seem to get it out (oh my gosh, it is so sad) but he opens the file she hands him and sees A PHOTO of the CLONES OF HIS SISTER doing farm work!!!

and this assistant says “not everything dies, mr. mulder” (which at this point i had to rewind and get her name because i realized she might KNOW THINGS and be a RECURRING character with INFORMATION…. OMG….)

SO WHAT DO WE DO WITH ALL OF THAT?!?!?

back to the hospital, where THE BOUNTY HUNTER is visiting????? is he gonna hurt mrs. mulder OMFG???? stay away from her?!!!!!

but he goes in there and looks at her. “i need to know the reasons why this should be”, he asks CANCER MAN??? who seems to have SET UP OFFICE IN THERE??? he says it’s so that the project may continue, and this will remove an obstacle. and that obstacle is AGENT MULDER???

HELLO??? so DID cancer man do this to her??? “if his mother were to die….” NO NO, KEEP ON TALKING CANCER MAN, SHARE WITH THE CLASS WHAT YOU NEED TO SAY

“the fiercest enemy is the man who has nothing left to lose, and you know how important agent mulder is to the equation” <- SO THIS WHOLE COLONIZATION PLAN WAS DRAFTED WITH HIM IN MIND???? how would that even be possible... how far back does this plan even go?

bounty hunter closes the door and locks it behind him, then proceeds to lay his hand on mrs. mulder- so ALL of these aliens can do the healing thingy? and she opens her eyes!!!! and sees cancer man!!

imagine that being the first thing you see when you wake up omg….

and thus concludes the episode.

okay, so i have a lot to say, but yesterday i saw a video that said “think of the character you hate the most in the world” and i thought of cancer man. then the video said “now imagine all your negative self thoughts in that character’s voice and you won’t listen to them ever again” and damn, if cancer man TRIED me i would find new and exciting ways to cause him suffering. in ways that i shan’t describe, for i haven’t even thought of them yet. i imagine an entirely empty room with nothing but that one “i’m good and i’m feeling alright” song on loop for years, with his ears in protective gear that make them impossible to self-deafen when he’s lost it.

BUT. we got a lot in this episode. and i’m not sure how i’m feeling. 

well, first, we lost X. this is a major L for our heroes. even though he could be a bit insufferable in his vague hints, he seemed to have some sort of positive feeling toward mulder, at least part of the time. but how much of what he was doing was furthering cancer man’s agenda? it might be impossible to ever tell.

second, jeremy. he was a great dude in episode 1, saving all those lives, and then it turns out he knew about the clone children slavery which makes me think much less of him and i find it hard to mourn his death. because seriously WTF kind of evil creature uses cloned kidnapped kids to harvest evil killer bees. and no parents because they are “unnecessary”. and poor mulder was tortured by seeing her again but it not actually being Her. and despite it not actually being Her, he wanted to save this clone samantha, who had been deprived of any language. what the hell. jeremy is supposed to be RESISTING to the alien’s plan for colonization but he knew about this so like???? which side is he on?????

i mean, i guess knowing about atrocities committed by your people doesn’t mean you endorse them, but he was SO condescending about the whole matter, all “oh you don’t understand” in a way that makes me think he WAS endorsing it. so if he’s down with their evil plans, why the hell is he resisting them bad enough to be hunted by this bounty hunter for???

i am puzzled on that front, but it feels that it was designed to be this way. either way, jeremy is dead now too, so no answers on that front, either.

so, we know that there is this plan at colonization of earth by this alien species, and that jeremy claimed mulder had some way of stopping it. and the colonization plan involves evil bees and pollen and cloned children and inventorying every person who ever received a smallpox vaccine. and also kidnapping people and performing tests on them that will slowly kill them. and this is a plan set in place by a certain group at the UN to which cancer man belongs, but somehow this plan stretches back to mr. mulder, and was drafted with the younger mulder in mind. and we also know that they took samantha as "insurance" so that mr. mulder didn't betray the plan, because he was not in agreement with the ethics involved.

other things that we know but are not clear how exactly they fit in: the whole oil alien that turns people into flashbangs found in the sunken submarine deal, krychek's escape arc, exactly who the little grey dudes that look like stereotypical aliens are, and if the bodies found in the train car back in anasazi were actual aliens, or alien-human hybrids- because they had smallpox vaccine scars. also, we still do not know to whom X pledged his loyalty, and the exact purpose of the disease center in west virginia where that one dude claimed the government was testing on vulnerable populations.

so somehow we have some known aliens in here, people being catalogued and experimented upon, possibly in an attempt to create alien-human hybrids to accelerate the plan of alien colonization. but also some mystery aliens of uncertain relevance to the plot.

okay, i think... i have it all in order.

there was a lot that went down here, so i will need some time to process it all. but, we did get more scully, which is ALWAYS a good thing, especially when she is cracking codes and being a scientist. and poor mulder... they are just torturing him for fun at this point...

there was a lot of plot, but not a ton of time to process it. so this episode was good, but i don’t think it would make my top 10 ranking. this is also a consequence of our agents being separated for most of the ep.

so, where do we go from here? i have no idea! i am just glad to begin a new journey with these characters, even if things are still very murky in terms of plot! in fact, there was so much plot crammed into a short space of time, i'm almost looking forward to a few monster of the week episodes to try and give my brain a break from unraveling all that.

now... i know that the next episode has a reputation for being quite spooky. and i shall face this challenge with bravery and honor. wish me luck…

[r0semultiverse]

Negative experiences with a childhood educational institution okayyy lmao

These questions are fascinating... the blood part made me think of vampires.

"Viability as subject – none" "Viability as agent – low" "Viability as catalyst – Medium" Compatibility ratings to be an avatar, cryptid hunter, or avatar's henchman maybe?? 👀👀👀

Gerry?!?! Again??? Or different guy? Also cursed objects???

Bro doesn't like dungeons & dragons? L

Is this dungeons & dragons game about to turn real like Jumanji???

Okay different Gerry I guess. Woahhh cursed dice???

Wtf kinda game uses two d6s? 👀

Oh this piece of shit just pawned off cursed dice on you & asked you to leave. Rude. 😩

Yes, tell me the next bit please, I'm curious.

You roll them & stuff happens?? Wait, do the dice rolling around in your pocket count as rolling them? I can see how that would be bad.

Gambling on life jfc.

Wait it's not random?? That's wackyyy.

Dice rolling is really fun. I'd probably roll them too just once to see what happens, especially if I didn't have the insight into them being cursed.

Uh oh.... what's gonna happen to Gary? 👀

Oh shit-

Bro said "one more game."

Hmm what are you up to, Lena? 👀 Why is this Nigel guy so important? Why are his companions important?

"Try to keep calm while you're there?" 😶 why?

"Bigfoot’s a good lay"

Adventures with Alice?! 👀 Oh Hell yeah!

Anyone else suddenly worried about Alice's safety? 👀