#Vital to the plot and by the plot I mean my [redacted]

[mulderspice]

have you ever watched an episode of the Emmy award winning sci-fi drama, The X Files?  Maybe you’ve read my original post and yet you’re still wondering where the hell Fox Mulder got all those strands of hair on his jumbo gigantic head.  I am back and here to help you find the answers to some of your burning questions; as we celebrate the hard work and triumphs of the hair and makeup department on the Fox Lot and team up with my big huge brain and my New York State Cosmetology license to give the people what they want once again: another top ten guide to Mulder’s fucking hair..

upon making this post a second time (rip 😔), I realized that just about every episode (yes, every. single. one. even the ones without Mulder and the latest season where he has to share headspace with [redacted]) has its own important and iconic hair looks... You may recognize that some of these are slightly repeated from the last post but that’s ok! What I'm here to do is enforce! So lets get started..

#10 s6:e21 Field Trip: Here again we begin our journey into cosmetic superstardom with a personal favorite of mine.  Mulder rolling with the times by getting a haircut fresh off the FTF wave left our nation in fucking shambles. Can’t imagine going to see a major motion picture in theatres jam packed with Mulder’s most supreme hair looks only to come back to my tv screen to see it all gone away.  For students reading this post for educational purposes, this caused a worldwide walkout on popular salon franchise Supercuts in the year 1998.  However, a haircut didn’t necessarily mean Mulder forgot how to take care of his hair.  The precision and placement as each strand of hair perfectly outlines his jumbo head is revolutionary and inspiring.  Mushroom induced drug high? K. Lemme still grab my teasing comb and my hairspray and make sure I look presentable for when my partner walks into my apartment screaming abt “where's Mulder” and wanting “answers”.  The answer is this: this look is about giving people like myself with big heads rights and looking fuckable while doing so. 10/10 for inspiring hope.

#9 s1:e9 Space: Imagine you’re a few episodes into a show, the core plot is developing right before your eyes and you’re beginning to get to know The X Files three main characters; Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and Mulder Hair Strands #1-3.  All is well except, you still have no clue how crucial, and critical Mulder Hair Strands 1-3 will become to the show and to your life and I am here to tell you that you are in for a very rude and bold awakening.  This message goes out to all the haters and all the people who didn’t believe Mulder’s hair was valid prior to season 4. He is here to tell you he DID know how to use dry shampoo and even the occasional blow dry oil and you can suck a dick abt it. Bold of you to assume he wouldn’t pull the round brush and the biosilk out the drawer to impress a visit to fucking NASA. 10/10 for involving science.

#8 s4:e6 Sanguinarium: I sit here writing to you today as the song ‘Handmade Heaven’ comes on shuffle; strikingly fitting for this raw and ethereal image of straight up beauty and wonder and magic and heaven in hair. This special, freshly washed and air dried smells like strawberries and sandalwood and fuckability. The look reaches through your TV and wraps its hands around your neck and sucks the life right out of you.  Are you gonna let it happen? You sure are.  Lucky for you, I just so happened to be there when the angels hand sewed each strand of hair onto his head and here’s what they had to say about it:  this is everything and more and the way Mulder has just washed his hair with fresh mountain water droplets hand collected like nothing else mattered. Put his clothes back on and went on his merry way. Can’t imagine being in Scully’s shoes ready to walk on in her partners room unannounced to go over serious case related matters and theories.  Woulda went bonkers. This truly is a handmade heaven.  Hand crafted by Mulder for Scully and for the good viewers of the globe. 10/10 for embracing me in its arms.

#7 s4:e3 Home: A look from one of primetime TV’s most notorious banned episodes.  Viewer discretion IS advised not only for the horrifying and cringeworthy content displayed in this episode, but for also making it painfully blunt to the viewer that Mulder’s hair follicles are happier and healthier than anybody else's will ever be in their lifetime.  In fact, I can feel my own hair falling out and being respawned onto HIS head as I type this and I’m sure you can too. The way the sun glistens off his golden brown strands makes me want to walk into oncoming traffic.  You might also notice how effortless this look was, as it probably only took a quick run thru with his fingers, and Mulder’s passion and need to look sexy at any time of the day at all times. It’s obvious that this kind of thing comes naturally to him, which just comes off as insulting to men everywhere. 11/10 for striking fear into men’s hearts.

#6 s4:e20 Small Potatoes: Genuinely took every bone and nerve ending in my body to not put this look in the top 5 even though it so clearly deserves it.  Here at mulderspice we believe in diversity, meaning it wouldn’t be right to make my top five greatest hairstyles ever produced on The X Files just of Mulder’s iconic and revolutionizing middle part (though really who is stopping me..). This screenshot in general has me up in arms at how perfectly the blue background matches his eyes, and how it accentuates his hydrated skin and lips.  But you’re not here for that. It’s the hair particularly that really pulls the shot together, as Mulder took the time that morning to spray it with some tinted dry shampoo that most defiantly and absolutely smells like chocolate.   This look feels like a warm hug on a frigid winter day. I feel EMBRACED and I feel CARED FOR thanks to the wonderful staff and team @ Mulder’s head and hair follicles. What the fuck could be better than this. 16/10 for making me feel some type of way.

#5 s4:e8 Tunguska: Currently you may not think anything of Krycek to the left of this image though ill have you know he plays an extremely vital part of this look and all the words I’m about to speak to you directly. So listen up: Krycek may have heroically slayed Mulder’s father in cold blooded and justifiable murder, but we thank him for this, as it caused Mulder to lash out in the best way possible: through looks. “Un-shun: Krycek do you think I’m good to bring my Redkin Rewind 6 styling paste with me or will the Russian TSA think of that as contraband? :Re-shun”.  A sweaty, manly and highly illegal treck through a Russian testing facility and a stint in a violent foreign PRISON surely was not going to stop Mulder from keeping his hair properly hydrated, styled and parted. That’ll really ruffle Krycek’s feathers and make him feel sorry for what he did…. The sexiest way to avenge the death of your deadbeat father. 24/10 for you know why.

#4 s1:e6 Shadows: In the year 1993, Mulder steps onto the scene, young, fresh faced, bright eyed and ready to give men around the globe what they (so desperately) needed: the encouragement to care about their hair.  Any backstreet boy you may know have this scene to thank directly, as this is what encouraged them to reproduce Mulder’s hair onto their own heads time and time again.  What I would give to see with my own eyes Mulder length times width times height his head to equal this perfectly proportionate look of volume and sexy. And who can I write a warrant out to for allowing this shot to take place.  Oh to be the various and expensive hair care products in Mulder’s bathroom …… 899/10 for starting a movement (-1 for making us do equations).

#3: s1:e10 Fallen Angel: The biggest regret I’ve ever had in my short little life was not adding this moment to the last post.  And tumblr deleted it in order to give me this opportunity to present this to you today.  By the way, that absolutely is in fact a choir of angels singing as you view this image. Go ahead and try to think of something on this earth that could be better than this tossled bed headed im-stressed-becos-my-partner-of-2-weeks-isn’t-seeing-the-big-picture-about-how-we’re-all-key-pawns-in-an-ongoing-government-conspiracy hairstyle hand crafted by Mulder all while holding his head in his hands hard at work trying to break through to the truth.  Scully [insert photo of Scully with her eyes popping out of her head here] and I both wanna rip our own hair out and throw it in the garbage. 2000/10 for making our hearts ache..

#2: s4:e10 Paper Hearts: Behold- the image I’m slamming down on the desk at full force when I finally get myself a therapist. I need a licensed professional doctor to help me understand the various angles that this purposeful shot affects my life health and well being. In a paranoia induced out of body experience Mulder took his pinky finger and parted his hair down the middle, took a protractor to perfectly round the tendrils falling ever so gracefully on his forehead and ran out of his apartment and through the woods of DC.  Doesn’t matter if he’s crazy? Doesn’t matter if its fuck all 4am? Who knows if the discoveries of this night is finally going to answer the heartbreaking questions regarding Mulder’s baby sister? Fuck it we’re just gonna make sure Scully has something to look forward to after being awoken yet again in the middle of the night and asked to come wrangle and control this stupid idiot.  This just makes me unhinged.  50000/10 for waking up in the middle of the night and doing the most for us all.  

#1 s4:e3 Teliko: This one will remain number one for as long as I shall live.  I’ve dedicated my life to this cause and I’m ready to make you painfully aware of it. Grab a pen and paper and get ready to do some heavy math with me because this look right in front of your eyes is the equation to happiness and sexiness. Can barely find the words to describe to you how this picture makes me feel. Each strand of hair is personally reaching down and wrapping his head in one big giant hug of protection and solitude.  Unbelievable that Scully didn’t head back to her hotel room and scream at the top of her lungs right after this. There’s no way she went about her day as normal without wanting to kick the shit out of him and then put him back together with soft feathery kisses.  What you are witnessing here is the very turning point of the show where Scully looked into into the very center point of that part and said “guess I have no choice but to fall in love with him 🚶🏽‍♂️”. Chris Carter’s idealistic version of Mulder and the one we actually ended ups seeing as viewers were so drastically different that it’s blatantly clear that he had absolutely no idea the cultural implications that were about to rock the world to its core and tip it on its axis when David Duchovny showed up on set looking like this. I could write a thesis about this. I could conduct research and studies about this.  I got kicked out of college because I cared more about this than I did actual schoolwork. I feel like I’m in a very sexy chokehold. Wish I could live forever in one little square pixel of this image.  Nothing means more to me than this.  1000000/10 no further comments.

and the honorable mentions go to....

s8:e16 Three Words: Dead? Did you die? Did you die and miraculously defy god by rising from the dead and coming back to life? Just got home from the morgue? Think nothing is the same? Left guessing if you’re a soon to be 5 minute father? Did you just fucking die? He’s lost his family and his job and the world just went on without him like it was nobody’s business.  Walked out of the morgue right to his apartment and what did he have left? His expensive array of hair styling and finishing products that’s what the fuck he had left.  Being an all around reject from society didn’t at all stop him from taking his fingers and dipping it into that Big Sexy styling pomade and fluffing his head to high heavens. As a personal fuck you to god and to John Doggett too.  He’ll never let you know the emotional hellstorm going on in his life in that moment but he WILL make it known to you that despite being 8 feet under ground for 6 months he’ll never give up on his hair. For the PEOPLE. Try and go through the nightmare of death and then rejected fatherhood and see if you come out of it with any hair at ALL.  An itty bitty glimpse into what would have been Untitled Mulder Abduction Story (2001)....

I Want To Believe (2008): Here you will see the sluttiest moment in major motion picture history.  Shh im not using this opportunity to show you this screenshot for the 800th time I’m trying to keep you educated.  BREAKING NEWS; Man hiding in home office for 6 years fully off the grid has FULL head of hair and is getting regular sex *not clickbait*. So what if Mulder has gone fully unhinged and off the walls bonkers he’s also gone FULL slut and it shows in that sexy thick voluminous head of slut hair.  If you ever for a second thought prior to seeing this movie for the first time that Mulder would show up a full on son-less wreck and a half think the fuck again babes.  He’s managed to hold on to every single little strand ever grown on his head even well into his middle aged madness and its about time we give him the credit he deserves.  (PS. Please know I wrote this entire spiel without even viewing the shot shown here. Its just permanently etched on the inside of my forehead so its there when my eyes roll back into my head.)  For this we say…..; Whore rights.

s11:e3 Plus One: Incase you were unaware, I have been going through a very slow and painful process of erasing Season 11 from my brain completely.  Its been a long road but its achievable and the end result will save me from a lot of future heartache and trauma.  This however, is a moment I will cherish forever and though you may think its for the hot sex (which is like maybe 30% the case) its actually because it puts together everything I’ve ever loved and believed about the show in only a few thousand pixels. How old is Mulder here? 30? 31? Still has hair and still has an unbelievable amount of love to shower Scully in for as long as they both shall live (which lets face it, she deserves one million times over.)  What this has taught me was to hang up my “Mulder deserved…” hat for good and just be thankful for what I’ve got. I ended up with no son or happy dreamy ending where Mulder gets to die with a family he’s never had in his life, but here we are left with the little things.. Like Mulder and Scully’s unconditional love and most importantly .. The hair on Mulder’s head. Its called growth and acceptance and I am learning it.  Also I just wanted to show you what it would look like if you were like 57 and sexy and still had all ur hair. That’s it :-)

[firespirited]

My review of Willow 2022 tv is that it ends on a cliffhanger. It's exactly as messy, contrived, badly paced and with cringe jokes as the original film so go rewatch that before making nostalgia tinged comparisons. But also exactly as fun.

What's new? Davis delivers his stuffy lines stiffly as if he knows they're going to repurposed for the "what happened on the last episode" mini recaps. There are also moments where he's less of a character than a magical affirmation dispenser which is jarring considering he can fight and teach as his own character. I really thought they might phase him out for the finale and next seasons there and thankfully they didn't.

There's a cast of four late teens, 1 adult trying to carry the roguish charming guy character with a mysterious past as well as he can without clashing with the tone and elder Willow. That's our questing crew. (cut for length)

I don't mind the switch at all, they just took 2/3 of the season getting the characters to bounce of eachother in a natural way and got the tone so wrong at times.

They are a delightful ragtag crew who learn a lot and love a lot. That part is undeniable. Being gay and consent is totally normal in their world duh because you'd have to establish a social reason for why that stigma would exist like fantasy church.

I won't tune in for s2 because the stakes were messily set out and it'll just escalate until they get an actual final boss. The search for the macguffin didn't mean much in the finale, wasn't redemption for the person who needed it and the magic needed for (spoiler redacted) was in Willows wand instead. As lovely as the characters are, I'd prefer more introspective growth/teaching journeys than whatever macguffins and big bads come next season.

Prey 2022 the film had every failure teach Naru a vital lesson so that all the pieces come together for the end. Willow's just not written in a way that brings all the threads together. Probably the serialised format meant each of eight episodes had to have its own 3 act structure and cliffhangers. It's a shame because we know that plotting a show like a movie can find some people drop out half way but the payoff is so good word of mouth gets them back on board because "if you stick with it, it all comes to bear".

6/10 fun but the binge watch 8 episode format is not a great way to tell a story unless you're willing to test the audience's intelligence and patience a little. The mixed tone fits the movie which was part panto part fantasy action, this is part YA part fantasy action where the adult jokes often don't land or teenage snark feels out of place. Not unmissable television. If you're a young adult looking for YA wlw romance after the streak of cancellations and bury your gays, this one is cute enough (with high probability of angst in the bext season). If you're over 23 you're probably not going to dig the actors your age acting like they're 16.

[oosteven-universe]

Magic #8

Magic #8 BOOM! Studios 2021 Written by Jed MacKay Illustrated by IG Guara Coloured by Arianna Consonni Lettered by Ed Dukeshire    Tezzeret enters the fray and brings with him vital information to the cabal of Planeswalkers defending Ravnica regarding |REDACTED|!     Only Tezzeret knows the truth about why Jace Beleren was attacked and why he is the key to saving the Multiverse from the utter destruction coming to Ravnica.     But that secret and what it means force Jace, Vraska, Kaya, and the allied Guilds of Ravnica to make an unthinkable choice... linked to the very crimes that Tezzeret seeks to be pardoned for in exchange for his help!    I’ve been immensely enjoying this since the first issue and it just keeps building and building into something that’s reaching epic proportions.  With the threat of Marit Lage looming ever closer and finally learning more and more about how she got free and what brings her racing to Ravnica.  Can our ragtag band of adventuring Planeswalkers come up with a way to stop her or will the world fall along with one of their own?  I have to admit that while Jace was incapacitated Vraska, Kaya and Ral have formed a bond of friendship all their own and with each passing days this bond of friendship continues to grow and strengthen.  It really has been brilliant to see play out and I’m mightily impressed with the way Jed has managed to make the subtle changes in them along the way.    I’m absolutely loving the way that this is being told.  The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well.  The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter spotlights their ever changing, growing and evolving personalities.  The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way we’re pulled deeper and deeper into their lives.    I’m impressed with the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen.  I like how the layers within the story open up new avenues to be explored and how this adds such depth, dimension and complexity to the story.  How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are immaculately handled.    I do like Guara’s work on the interiors.  Seeing the embattled city is special and a great way to open up this issue.  My only wish is to see Vraska to be as beautiful as she is deadly and scary in both visages.  Otherwise the characters look very much like a great comic book rendition should.  The way that backgrounds are utilised throughout to enhance and expand the moments as well as how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale as well as the overall sense of size and scope to the story is marvellously rendered.  The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling.  The various hues and tones within the colours we see being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a superb understanding of how colour works. ​    If you love a good heroing comic full of unexpected twists & turns, revelations and a diverse cast of characters with strange and wondrous abilities then you really need to be reading this book.  Even better is you don’t have to have an understanding of the card game to really enjoy this series.  Sit back, relax and enjoy this amazing writing with sensational characterisation and classic interiors while it takes you to worlds you never knew could exist.