#Wiggler Head

[xen-void]

I need this

[highway-stars]

Hey man I think there's something in your attic. Yeah nah I wouldn't worry about it. Yeah I'm sure it's fine.

[everymariogalaxy]

For the palette requests, wiggler with lemon lime lightshow!

well, ths one's certainly popular! i combined them into one drawing for covienience lol

[prototypelq]

Haven't posted MHW screens in a while, so here are some

My little kitty squire, he saves me on a regular basis, thank you little guy for your service

Explorer Grandma is my #2 favourite character in the game where character have No Names Besides Their Profession. Handler's my bff, but I almost love the grandma even more, she is awesome

(I really need to start using the stealth mantle to take screens of monsters in the wild BEFORE I mercilessly cut them down...)

Adore the collectibles in the Elder's Recess! They look gorgeous, sadly the textures get weird when I try to take a picture of them.

Speaking of textures, I was happy to delete 47 gbs of highest textures, cause apparently I do not use them anyway and they just east my memory space))) Why isn't this An Option In Every Game And I have To Manually Dig Through Files With Fear Of Breaking The Game Tailing Behind Me. I have only been a pc-gamer for less than half a year, and I already hate the memory space problems. Make the highest-res texture packs optional downloads.

Some Nergigante being a total bastard shots. The first one - he flew to the arena above the one we previously fought on, and the moment I climbed onto it, he did a diving attack, which landed him right back at the lower arena. I had to jump down after him, only for the bastard to Fly Up Again. And then we got right into the beginning of this situation, because he did the dive attack and fell down AGAIN. I swear. This absolute bastard. Also, I'm pretty sure that death pose is a meme?

Finished him off with utter disrespect through firing at him with the slinger. Took me three tries. At least, the high rank armor/weapon grind is finally accesibble now.

Listen. Listen. I know this is high rank, I do, But This Is A Few Ranks Too High???

I went for a 'quick odogaron grind' hunt. While I was chasing the doggo, who ran to the highest level of the valley, where I followed him, where apparently bazel followed Me, and we all crashed into a poor radobaan who didn't deserve any of this. Bazel was a freakin menace, he kept tailing me, while I was tailing odogaron, simply thinking he'd go away. Apparently not, cause after I managed to cut down the poor doggo, bazel finished me off, And Odogaron Respawned. So i got no materials out of my 'quick doggo grind'. I was angry enough to try to take on the pinecone plane himself, but I only managed to cut his tail off and drive him away, after which I went to hunt the respawned odogaron, Again. I wanted to chase the pinecone afterwards, but he fleed like a coward. Anyway, this was an interesting hunt for sure, and I now have an unfurfilled grudge against bazel, which I will try to remedy for sure. He is really cool tho, I cannot lie, and I think his battle theme is metal? Anyway, pinecone boy is annoying but cool, I like him.

[anruraiocht]

@indevouement asked:

[toawitchesaccord] from across the room, come the reveal of the votes, he stares at her. a really pointed stare, for at least a minute, before he speaks. "well," jakob shrugs, masking frustration in his voice. "quite the noblewoman with a two-timing tendency, are we?"

he shakes his head, sardonic smile donning his features. "admirable," he adds. "aristocracy who lie and scheme are rather popular in nohr. you'd do well in my home country."

The second shackle latches onto the first, alerting everyone gathered to Miranda's decision. Chief among them is the very person that she had betrayed, his gaze burning into her back. He had been more than willing to ally and yet she had pulled the rug out from under his feet.

All for the difference of a single candy.

It's a hollow victory, one that she can't even bring herself to celebrate. They're tied now, but no smile rises to her face. Why? Why isn't she happy? Miranda can't smile, but Jakob can. Isn't that unfair? He's not happy, either, so why can he smile and she can't?

"My father was unfailingly kind and he paid for that with his life," she shoots back, hands clenched. "If I do not want to be betrayed, then I must betray first. I cannot allow even the slightest risk."

She turns her head away.

"I intend to win again Prince Leif no matter what it takes. You may curse me if you like. I won't ask you to understand."

[leamiche]

everyday i fight the urge to talk about my ocs but it is cringe when i do it. everyone else is based

[dougielombax]

The pear wiggler?

Oh no.

We send our criminals into the 12th Plane of Nonexistence.

[crypticnightmaress]

I am very much unable to take my character serious now....

"I have seen things.."

".....well shit"

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

the name of the game tonight is normal normal owwieowwieowwiethathurts normal and you play it 8y sittin around a8out to go to 8ed and then your eye hurts a 8unch and then stops hurtin a 8unch and. yeah guys this post isn't working anymore sorry. nope. we need better ways to complain about stuff

[bkdk-and-extras]

Katsuki has gotten into the habit of drawing hands.

Not just any hands, but Deku's hands specifically. Gag-worthy, he knows. But they wouldn't get out of his damn head, so he figured putting them on paper would solve something.

They were pretty shitty the first time he drew them — a collection of gangly shapes that gave him the stink eye just for forcing it into existence. And Bakugou Katsuki was not shitty at anything, so of course he practiced all that hand anatomy shit (hand bones are weird as hell, by the way).

In the process of hundreds of badly scribbled recreations of Deku's little wrecked-up wigglers, he has come to realize something. Something very, very counterproductive to the reason he started this outlet in the first damn place.

He knows Deku's hands too intimately. Like, more than any person should know about their rival's hands.

Every scar is sketched down onto the paper straight from muscle memory. Each knobby, who-knows-how-many-times broken knuckle rough and so real on the pages of his journals. They're too large around shitty pro hero-themed pencils, with thick wrists and freckles dotting the back of tanned palms. And god, there's at least one of the fucking grabbers in every journal. Some are clenched fists, scuffed from the fight. Others are gentler, rough palms open and reaching out.

Sometimes Katsuki draws his own hand there. Brushing the tips of Izuku's fingers with his. Sliding them together, both broken and battered from years of use, each finger and dip between them the edges of a puzzle piece. And they looked… right. Like they had always fit together. Like two halves finally coming home. Or some shit.

So, least to say, Katsuki has a problem. A very holdable, tempting problem, and he's convinced that if God exists, they are laughing at his pathetic ass right now.

Well. Just don't let the nerd find out, right?

[Spoilers: the nerd would eventually find out.]

@nottspocket made an absolutely beautiful comic based on this!!!! Check it out here it is the greatest thing to happen to me probably ever (this is so so late i thought id already done it fhffhfhfh)

[smallmariofindings]

In the New Super Mario Bros. U style of Super Mario Maker 2, if a giant Wiggler is put into an enclosed space that has One-Way Walls above it and trampolines below in the manner shown in the footage, it will assume a glitched state where it will be walking with its head low to the ground, resembling a dog sniffing the ground.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[brettanomycroft]

Signals from Somewhere Else

After episode 22 of Protocol, there’s one thing (okay, maybe two things) that everyone is going to be talking about. But I don’t want to talk about that thing (yet. Okay, I lied, it might come up). Instead, I want to dive into some of the implications of this week’s case and how they might relate FR3-D1 [Error], and even Isaac Newton.

Spoilers for TMAGP episodes 21 and 22 below the cut. CW: we’re gonna talk about the brain stuff; probably overuse of the words “fleshy” and “wet” by I blame AJN for that.

Our case in this episode, graciously recounted by Peepaw Augustus, focuses on real-life German psychiatrist and neurologist Hans Berger, whose work led to the invention of the EEG and furthered our understanding of how brainwaves work. The experiment described in the case mirrors actual experiments that Berger completed while working at the University of Jena, including experimentation on a subject with a deformity that allowed easy access to the brain and the placement of silver wires under the scalp to measure electrical activity. Even Berger’s disappointing initial results seem to be in line with history.

Like in real life, the cosmic horrors of this case begin when Berger takes a little depression nap.

The description of “an ocean, deep and unforgiving… full of dark secrets” creates a striking image to be sure, but what’s more interesting to me here is what he recalls next: the “radio signals, invisible and unknowable.” Berger laments that it’s a “shame these two things would never meet,” and then proceeds to enable such a thing to happen, whether he realizes it or not.

He wakes up and is immediately “inspired” to alter the setup he is using to record Herr Schmidt’s brain activity. While Berger is unable to explain how he came up with the idea (we could tell him: it was The Horrors, bud), he transforms his recording device (an early version of an EEG) into a two-way wireless telegraph, using poor Herr Schmidt’s brain as the receiver for the very radio waves that, perhaps, were never meant to make contact with the world below. Berger sent a politely phrased request into the void, and the void screamed back.

Who or what was on the other side can only be guessed at. Was it John/Martin/Jonah, individually or Frankensteined into some horrid chimerical conscience (please read this great post and have your heart broken like me)? Was it The Fears of the Archives-verse, recombined and tossed about like naughty pears in a pear wiggler? Or was it something or someone else entirely? I’m leaning towards JMJ, in parts or as a whole, specifically because I suspect that Hans Berger’s strange (and wetly explosive, thanks Alexander J. Newell) discovery provides a clue to how [Error] and possibly FR3-D1 operate.

Let’s start with [Error]. Here’s what we know about them so far:

They were locked up in tunnels or a basement space under the Archivist’s office at the Manchester Magnus Institute

Something about them causes people, dead and alive, to recount their fears or horrible things that have happened to them (I am not using the word compel here, even though it is used in the transcript for episode 21, and that is on purpose)

They seem very invested in getting the entire story out (this is, admittedly, speculation, as it’s unclear as to whether “THERE IS MORE” is in reference to more victims or more of Gwen’s story)

They have some really weird dogs

I’ve seen a lot of folks speculate that [Error] is or was the Head Archivist in the Protocol universe, and I’ve also seen a lot of folks speculate that [Error] is or was John (and therefore also The Archivist). I think either of these could be true, but more than anything, I think [Error] is a high-powered antenna with the ability to turn the people around them into speakers. Or maybe Speakers? I do love a good capitalization.

What if the “esteemed brethren” of The Magnus Institute were all too aware of the unusual results of Berger’s experimentation, and hoped to tap into the unusual consciousness(es) floating around in the radio waves and ether of the universe by creating their own version? Perhaps they thought they could create a direct conduit (think almost like a psychic medium) through a person, someone who might be able to communicate with whatever is out there and be able to relay its/their esoteric knowledge to help further the Institute’s goals of “Universal Transmutation.” We know already that the Institute was interested in doppelgangers and perhaps alternate universes and that they had a lot of irons in the fire (the Millenium Dome, the gifted child programme, Welling’s Mutare Materia research program, the various outreach centres), so it would hardly be surprising if they were also experimenting in communicating with “the beyond” to try and gain more knowledge.

And maybe it worked. Maybe they were able to create or transmute someone into an antenna, capable of receiving these strange signals, except these mixed signals were too powerful and ultimately took over. Perhaps [Error] is the natural consequence of who or whatever was speaking to Berger finally getting “OUT.” And if who or whatever was speaking to Berger happened to include the fractured consciousness of a hungry Archivist, well then, we have an interesting case for [Error]. [Error], whether or not they were an/The Archivist in this universe, could now be directed by the desires of The Archivist, channeling The Archivist’s thoughts and abilities but with a power greater than that we ever saw in John (or, perhaps, the same power but completely unrestrained by his remaining humanity). Or [Error] could be channeling The Fears themselves, bringing parts of them through not unlike they were brought through in The Magnus Archives.

Either way, I doubt that creating a connection between whatever was out there and the physical world led to the results the Institute was hoping for.

[Error] is receiving the signal to feed, but the signal coming through is so loud and so powerful that instead of politely asking to snack on some horror stories, coming into contact with them instead allows them to pick up on a person’s horrible experience and forces them to broadcast it to the world. It’s possible that, upon creating [Error] or losing control of [Error], those at The Magnus Institute locked them up and cut them off from the dangerous signal they were receiving… Sam accidentally poking a big hole in the floor (and the alchemical signals inscribed in it) could have reestablished the connection between [Error] and the force guiding them.

Now let’s talk about FR3-D1. We know that FR3-D1so far is that it

Is a “bespoke” internet software developed sometime in the mid-90s, apparently designed to search the internet for spooky stuff

Has German source code

Crashes, constantly, much to Colin’s dismay (? Or maybe he’s helping those crashes along to stop it from listening in… but that’s a theory for another time)

Has, within the last year or so of Sam joining the O.I.A.R., started running a text-to-speech program that reads certain cases out in one of three voices, two of which are familiar to anyone who has listened to The Magnus Archives

Occasionally has some unusual .JMJ errors

Seems to be “targeting” Sam with specific cases related to The Magnus Institute

Is believed to be “listening in” by Colin, Alice, and Sam (which is supported by what we know as the audience)

Has been working “better” since Colin has been on mandatory mental health leave

May have some connection to the Stasi, the secret police force of Communist East Germany before the fall of the USSR

Is assumed (by us as the audience) to have some kind of sentience

There are some other items (notably the spreadsheets found in the ARG that appear to be from or connected to FR3-D1and the emails Sam and Gwen have received) that could be connected to FR3-D1 but have not yet been confirmed. Yet aspects of FR3-D1 do seem to share some commonality with [Error], namely a level of sentience and the ability to locate the stories of people who have had horrifying supernatural encounters.

My speculation here is that FR3-D1 and [Error] were both constructed using the same premise or with the same goal in mind: to receive and channel the signals of entities or consciousnesses existing in or coming from “Somewhere Else”: FR3-D1 through a supernaturally or alchemically conceived software program, and [Error] through a supernaturally or alchemically conceived transmutation on a living human.

If this proves to be the case, then the results seem… distinct, albeit with the potential to be equally dangerous. FR3-D1 is more “controllable” and could potentially be better able to separate out the signals being received, manifesting as “Augustus,” “Chester,” and “Norris.” Now these “three” could still be part of homunculus-esque JohnMartinJonah consciousness, but perhaps the computer program is a little more stable and delineated than the fleshy wet mess of the human brain, and therefore what remains of each individual consciousness is able to act more distinctly and independently. In contrast, [Error] (and their fleshy wet mess of human brain) is receiving the signals all mixed and jumbled together, with no failsafes to keep them from “overloading” or being entirely taken over by The Horrors or JMJ or The JMJ Horrors. Given their spectral descriptions, it’s possible that fleshy human brain and body couldn’t take it anymore and, pun intended, gave up the ghost.  

[Error] could be, in some ways, a bodiless, mindless soul acting on a confused mess of instinct and hunger; FR3-D1 is then, perhaps, the elevated mind, in (more) control but disconnected from a body and perhaps from a soul. Given the heavy influence of alchemy in The Magnus Protocol and the importance in alchemy of the number three, the Tria Prima, and the balance of mind, body, and soul, there may be a third entity we have yet to meet who, like FR3-D1 and [Error], are tuned into these signals from beyond and is eager to reunite with the rest… or perhaps FR3-D1 and [Error] are looking for a body of their own to inhabit and find balance (Sam, anyone?).

I feel like I myself am beginning to mix the signals I started with, but before I attempt to wrap this up, I do briefly want to throw one more piece of spaghetti on the wall, because I think it’ll wind up being something: the mention, specifically, of the silver wire the Berger used in his experiment.

It was Dr. Caton who recommended that Berger use the silver wire, as silver is known for being an effective conductor of electricity. Silver also holds importance as one of the seven metals of alchemy and as a possible base metal in the creation of a Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps equally important here is that the Diana’s Tree, also known as the Arbor Philosophorum, is created using a solution including silver (or more accurately, silver nitrate) and mercury (one of the elements in the Tria Prima)… yep, the (sort of) same spooky tree created by Newton in TMAGP 19, where Newton gave his dog an existential crisis and Robert Hooke was like “burn it all down.” The conclusion we could draw here is that silver is used in both TMAGP 19 and TMAGP 22 to connect organic life to the unseeable Knowledge of some other plane… with potentially disastrous effects.

Whether it ends up being the case that FR3-D1 and [Error] are big antennas wirelessly receiving The Horrors or I’m totally off base, it seems pretty clear that Hans Berger “tuned in” to an unusual—and dangerous—signal, and what’s more, enabled that signal to connect with the Protocol world in a way that likely never should have happened.

[five-rivers]

The Intern

AO3

Inspired by a variety of DPxDC posts, but mostly this one by @gettingcomfyinyourwalls

.

Before Danny's Accident, he and Jazz had competed for the title of "the normal one" with an intensity and ferocity achievable only by siblings in families where there was no normal one.  After the Accident, he had to cede the title, however reluctantly, to his sister, who then, in a turn around only possible for siblings, then dedicated herself to giving Danny the title of "the one everyone thinks is the normal one."  Combined with his chosen friend group - a girl who pursued weird as a lifestyle, and the kid who once tried to use a tamagotchi to hack a vending machine, then gave the tamagotchi an Egyptian burial when the attempt killed it - it was very easy to forget that Danny was not normal at all.  Not even if you ignored the whole "half-ghost superhero" thing, which was very difficult to ignore.  

It was even easier to forget what kind of not normal he originally was, before the accident, and continued to be even afterward.  

However, the world (and particularly Sam and Tucker) was about to be reminded.  

"Guys!" shouted Danny, literally skipping up the hallway to come to a bouncing stop between Sam and Tucker.  "Guess what!"  He was quivering with so much excitement that his edges looked a little blurry.  

Tucker put a hand on his shoulder to get him to stop.  "I guess it's a good thing, and not that your parents invented a ghost wiggler or something?"

Danny stilled.  "The ghost wiggler.  My enemy."

"Wait, I was joking."

"Mom and Dad weren't.  That thing was evil."

"Okay, okay," said Sam, raising her hands, "it didn't have anything to do with one of your parents' inventions.  What did happen?"

"Two of my summer internship applications were accepted," said Danny, almost sparkling with delight.  

Actually, he was sparkling.  If he had an internship outside of town, he would have to get that under control.  

"That's great," said Sam.  "Which ones?"

"Lexcorp and Wayne Industries!"

"Lexcorp?"

"Wayne Industries?"

"You applied to Lexcorp?" demanded Sam, appalled.  

"You're going to Gotham?" asked Tucker in the same tone.  

Danny looked from Sam to Tucker, then back again.  "Yessssss?"

"To work for the guy you call Bald Vlad?  The one who keeps trying to kill Superman?"

"The place with all those crazy villains and mad scientists? That Gotham?"

Then, together, they asked, "Why did you even apply there?"

"Lexcorp is a civilian leader in astronautics, meteoritics, cosmochemistry, nuclear physics, quantum computing, robotics and medical research."

"Because Lex Luthor is trying to kill Superman."

"And even beyond Wayne Industries, there are so many great scientists in Gotham, like Dr. Isley, Dr. Crane and even Dr. Fries!"

"Danny, those are the villains."

"Well," said Danny, "I figure I'm never going to meet Lex Luthor, being an intern and all, but if I see any dangerous weapons, I can trash them!  I have lots of experience."

"Don't you think it might be a little dangerous for you to work for an avowed human supremacist?"

"It’s not any different from staying home."

Sam leaned back to stare at a point over Danny's head, flummoxed.

Tucker, not liking his point being ignored, squeezed Danny's shoulder.  "If you miss fighting that much, I'm sure any ghost you ask will be happy to spar with you.  The villains, Danny.  Why do you want to go somewhere with that many villains?"

"It's not like I'm joining them."  Danny rolled his eyes.  "I just want to talk to them.  If you're so concerned, I can take Dr. Isley and Dr. Crane off the list."

"Why only those two?  Why not get rid of the whole list?" asked Tucker, shaking him slightly.  

"Because Dr. Isley was mostly for Sam and Dr. Crane was mostly for Jazz.  Dr. Fries is for me, and Mom and Dad want me to try to convince cousin Hugo to try therapy again."

"Why," said Sam, as Tucker glared at her, "do you think I'd want you to talk to Poison Ivy?"

"Uh," said Danny, "because you admire her work?"

"Admired, past tense, and that was before she started turning people into trees."

“But the ‘turning people into trees’ part is way more applicable to our lives!”

“Forget about that,” said Tucker.  “Why do you want to talk to Mr. Freeze?”

“Well, Doctor Fries is an expert in cryogenics and incorporating ice into technology.  I want to be able to do that.”  Danny looked back and forth between Sam and Tucker.  “Come on, I’m not interning for him.  I just want to expand my knowledge base!  Just think about all the cool things I could make!”

Sam and Tucker, united in horror and purpose, grabbed Danny by the arms and dragged him bodily into Senior English.  

"Jazz," said Sam, hauling Danny forward by the arm she held, "your brother is turning into a mad scientist!"

Jazz looked from Sam, to Danny, to Tucker, then back to Sam.  "Yessssss?"

"Well," huffed Sam, "aren't you going to do anything about it?"

"No?  Why would I?" 

“Mad scientist,” repeated Sam.  

“That’s generally a bad thing,” said Tucker.  

“It’s fine.  Danny has a very strong sense of ethics.”

“And lab safety!” chimed in Danny.  

“And lab safety,” agreed Jazz, nodding.  “Now, if you want me to help you with your internalized prejudice, I can refer you to some resources I’ve found quite helpful myself.”

“Internalized prejudice is when you’re biased against yourself,” said Tucker.

“Yes.”  Jazz returned to the task of arranging her pens and notebook on her desk.  

“Wait,” said Sam, “you are not calling us mad scientists, are you?”

“Well,” said Jazz, “Mad Science Disorder isn’t in the DSM, but there’s a movement to have it included in the next edition, and I think you would fit the proposed diagnostic criteria.”

“No,” said Sam.  

“Yes,” said Danny.  

“I have seen the inside of your greenhouse, Sam,” said Jazz.  “You’re at least on the road to being a mad botanist, if not a mad ecologist.”

“I’ve been saying that for years,” said Tucker.  

“And you’re obviously a mad computer scientist, with a minor in archaeology.”

“Wait, why are you saying this like they’re college majors?” asked Tucker.  

“It’s easier that way,” said Jazz.  She frowned slightly.  “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing.  It’s just that you should be aware of it, so you don’t wake up one day and start planning involuntary human drug trials, or something like that.”

“Jazz did that, once.  I was five.”

The warning bell rang.  

“You should go to class,” said Jazz, pleasantly.  “You don’t want to be late.”

.

“Listen,” said Sam, leaning over the desk to whisper at Danny, “couldn’t you, I don’t know, just do the Wayne internship?”

“Hm,” said Danny, rubbing his chin, “maybe.  But I kind of get the feeling I only got the Wayne internship because I got the Lexcorp one.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, like we talked about way back, Bruce Wayne has to be funding the Justice League, at least a little.”  He pushed his math homework - already finished - to one side.  “It’d make sense for him to keep an eye on anyone Lex Luthor personally hires, on account of the Superman thing.  It’s either that or corporate espionage.”

“Wait,” said Tucker, leaning in from the side, “go back to the ‘personally’ part.”

“It’s a special internship?” said Danny, somehow still managing to pull off the clueless innocent look.  “It was, like, competitive?  You know what I mean.”

“Luthor personally hired you?  Reviewed your application and whatever?”

“Yeah.”

“And you think he isn’t going to meet you?”

“Why would he?  I’m basically going to be getting a tour, then doing drudgework for a month.”

“I love you, man, but you are so, so dumb sometimes.  The man is going to meet you.  Jeez, I hadn’t even heard he was doing internships like that for our age group.”

“Age group?” asked Danny.  

“Dude.  No.  Tell me it was at least limited to just high schoolers.  Tell me you didn’t apply for an internship meant for college students.”

“There wasn’t any age on it as far as I remember.”

“Mr. Fenton,” said Mr. Falluca, “will you please come solve this triangle for the class?”

Danny huffed.  “Rule of cosines,” he said as he stood.  “Give me an easy problem…”

“Why is he even in this class?” mumbled Sam.

“Ghost hunting,” Tucker mumbled back.  

.

“How are you even going to get to Metropolis?” asked Sam as they walked away from the school.  “You don’t have your license yet.”  He probably wouldn’t have his license ever.  Three Fentons driving had, evidently, proven too much for the local DMVs.  Jazz, as conscientious as she was, had gotten hers from the one in Elmerton before they, too, realized the horror that was Jack and Maddie.  

“Jazz is going to take me,” said Danny with a little shrug.  “She’s doing a pre-college thing there.  Some kind of volunteer thing.”

“And how are you getting to Gotham?”

“There’s a train that goes there,” said Danny.  “Like, a regular one.”

“And getting back?”

“Mom and Dad will pick me up.”

“Where will you be sleeping?”

“There’s on-site dorms on each site.”

Sam curled her lips.  “The return of company towns in the modern era.”

“I don’t know, I think the Wayne ones are probably fine.”

“But you’re sleeping in the Lexcorp ones?”

“I figure I can disable any subliminal programming devices that might be installed there.”

“Do you not see how crazy that sounds?  Tucker, back me up, here?”

Tucker sighed.  “Honestly, I don’t think we’re going to be able to change his mind.  I’ve been picking out funeral flowers.  You still like lillies?”

“It’ll be fine.  I’ll call you guys if I need help.  Just like you’ll call me if some new ghost shows up and starts causing trouble, right?”

“Yes,” said Sam, exasperated.  “But you understand those two things aren’t the same, right?  That with the way things are here, there probably won’t be a new ghost causing trouble?”  

Danny had made… peace probably wasn’t quite the right word, with the Fentons, the Guys in White, and the lack of an organized overarching social structure, but there was an understanding between him and the ghosts.  Without that understanding, he wouldn’t have been able to take the time to apply for internships, let alone actually go to any.  

“I mean, if it’s an imposition–”

“That’s not what she meant,” interjected Tucker.  “Nope.  Nope.  You aren’t wriggling out of calling us when a supervillain kidnaps you.  She’s trying to talk you out of taking an unnecessary risk.”

“It’s not really a risk for me, though.”

It really wasn’t.  Danny might not be invulnerable, but the sheer variety of his powers along with his accelerated healing made that point academic.  For most enemies.  

“This is the guy who fights Superman, Danny,” said Sam.  “For all we know, he’s got some kind of anti-ghost material in the same cabinet he keeps his Kryptonite.”

“I don’t think that’d work very well, actually,” said Danny.  

“It was a metaphor.  Be serious.”

“I am being serious.  This is something I want to do.  I want to go there and learn and prepare for the future.”

“You sound like Jazz, you know?  You’ve got two more years here.  You don’t have to do this.  If this is some kind of overcorrection because of the ghosts–”

“It’s not.  I told you why I wanted to do this.”  He stopped on the sidewalk, pulling on the hem of his shirt.  “Is it really that bad?  Is it really that terrible that I’m going somewhere and doing something that I’m interested in?”

“No,” said Tucker, awkwardly.  “We’re worried about you.”

“And I’ll be fine,” insisted Danny.  “Really.  I will be.  And, you know, like I said, I want to do this kind of thing in the future, so it’s good practice.”

“For what?” asked Sam, crossing her arms.  “Scamming supervillains?”

“Well, yeah,” said Danny.  “That, too.”

Sam’s arms fell, along with her jaw.  “What?”

“Scamming supervillains,” said Danny, starting to walk again.  “Like, obviously, I want to either do something with spaceflight or something with a big humanitarian dimension, but scamming supervillains is definitely going to be my backup.  Or maybe my hobby.  They always have the coolest stuff, and a lot of money, too, usually.”

“Coolest stuff?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, almost skipping, now.  “Ice rays, supercomputers, gene therapy, rapidly growing vegetation, limb regeneration, cloning techniques… Lex Luthor came up with a cure for, like, over half a dozen different types of cancer.”

“Because he wanted to kill Superman,” said Sam, taking up an earlier refrain.  It had only 

“Yeah, but imagine what he could do if we could convince him that Superman got his strength from, like, world hunger or something.”

“I hate it,” said Sam, after a long moment, “but I think you have a point.”

“You two could go into business with me.  Some villains go through goons so fast, I bet we could hit them about a dozen times.”

“You’re not planning to do this now, though, are you?” asked Tucker.

“Huh?  No.  No, not until after graduation.  Most I’ll do with any supervillains I see this time around is talk.”

“That’s a lie,” said Sam, immediately.  “There’s no way.  The first time Man-Bat or Brainiac jumps out of a sewer, you’re going to start swinging.”

“Man-Bat is a geneticist and a chiropterologist, you know,” said Danny.  “I’d love to take Brainiac apart, though.  Do you have any idea how many planets he’s wiped out?  And the stuff he’s got to have–”

“You’re floating,” said Tucker.  

“And glowing,” said Sam.  “You’re really going to have to work on that.”

“Oops,” said Danny.  “Sorry.  It’s just, like, everything I’m Obsessed with.”  He landed, but still fidgeted, as if shaping something invisible with his hands.  Which he might have been.  “It’s– I still want to help people.”  The plaintive note in his voice made it clear that ‘want’ was, in this case, closer to ‘need.’    “I don’t mind doing the hero thing, and I can’t ignore a cry for help.  But I’m not going to just waltz into someone else’s territory and start messing with stuff.”

“I think the territory thing is more of a ghost thing than a hero thing.”

“Eh,” said Danny, “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

.

Danny waved goodbye to Jazz as she pulled away from the curb, then grinned up at the Lexcorp building.  Wow, it was tall.  And probably had a lot of really sketchy stuff in the basement.  

But!  He wouldn’t start poking around with that stuff until he’d been there for at least a week.  

(Okay, he’d probably last twenty-four hours at most, but who could blame him?  How often did anyone get to poke around the lair of a supervillain who wasn’t their archenemy?)

He walked into the lobby, craning his neck this way and that to take it all in.  It was… honestly pretty boring.  Not unlike Vlad’s buildings.  But he supposed that all corporate buildings were like that to some degree.  

“Hello!” he said, walking up to the front desk.  “I’m–”

“You’ll have to wait for your parents to come out, I’m afraid, sweetie,” said the secretary.  “Company rules.”

Danny blushed.  “No, um, I’m here for the internship?  The Innovators of Tomorrow Today internship?  I’m Danny Fenton.  Daniel.  Daniel Fenton.”

The secretary blinked at him, then looked down at her computer for a moment.  “I’ll need to see some ID.”

“Will my passport be okay?” Danny asked, tugging on his bracelet to get it to lie more comfortably on his wrist.  On account of the whole ‘no driver’s license’ problem, he didn’t have anything else, other than his student ID.  

“That will be fine,” said the secretary, reaching for it.  She looked it over carefully, becoming more and more confused.  Danny wondered if she was expecting it to be fake or something.  “You’re fifteen.”

“I know I’m short,” said Danny.  “But I’m almost sixteen.”

“I see,” she said.  “Well.  Here’s your visitor badge.  We’ll have someone come escort you to the meeting room shortly, and your internship badge will be ready when you start tomorrow.  You can leave your luggage here, and it will be scanned and brought up to the dorms.”

Danny bobbed his head happily and took back his passport and the badge.  He couldn’t wait to meet the other people he’d be working with.  He bet that there’d be a lot of people his age, no matter what Tucker said after he looked it up and saw the website.  

A tall man wearing an earpiece and some kind of weapon - a taser, probably - walked up to Danny a few minutes later and scanned his badge.  With a few words, he directed Danny to an elevator - one with a keypad code - and brought him up to the tenth story.  The elevator opened directly into a… Danny wasn’t entirely sure what to call it.  It was square and very large and open, with soft, rounded furniture, a kitchenette, and a catered lunch spread out on several long tables.  One wall was all windows, looking down into Metropolis, and another wall was covered in cool, art-deco Lexcorp posters.  

There were a lot of people.

A lot of tall people.  

A lot of tall, college-aged people.  Older college-aged people, even.  No teenagers.

Tucker had been right.  Great.  

A middle-aged woman extracted herself from the loose crowd and came over to Danny, smiling.  

“Hello!” she said.  “You must be Daniel Fenton.  My name is Liberty Rue, I’m the coordinator for the Innovators of Tomorrow Today program.”

“Hi,” said Danny, “it’s nice to meet you.”

Ms. Rue nodded.  “Thank you, thank you.  We’re just giving everyone a chance to get to know each other before we start the orientation.  Please feel free to take any of the refreshments and mingle.  All of you are going to be working together closely.  Your specialties were electrical engineering and space science?”

“Yes,” said Danny.  Although, to be honest, he didn’t really have a specialty.  He was more of a generalist.  

(Unless you counted ghost science, but there was absolutely no way he was going to bring that up.)

“Excellent.  Let me introduce you to the group you’ll be working most closely with–”

What followed was something of a whirlwind.  It wasn’t that there was a lot of people, but it was one after the other, and Ms. Rue seemed to be… showing him off, almost?  Or showing the other people off?  In any case, there was a weird tension to it all.  

Was it because he was younger?  

He tried not to dwell on it too much, though, because everyone here had so much cool stuff to talk about.  Almost all of them had been involved in serious graduate or undergraduate research projects.  Strange matter, transient dimensions, reality fields, meta gene analysis, non-quantum teleportation, reproduction of extraterrestrial technologies…  Danny was starting to feel a little inadequate.  The project he’d sent in was a ‘theoretical’ blueprint for a spy-bot disabler.  One that he was proud of, sure; getting a localized EMP effect without a nuke wasn’t easy, but it was doable.  And the EMP part was definitely the ‘last resort’ stage of things.  It was, after all, much better to hack into Vlad’s bugs and have them send him a hundred hours worth of rickrolls.

In the middle of a conversation about exactly how much room you needed for a decent particle accelerator, Ms. Rue stepped aside and put her hand to her ear.  Danny hadn’t noticed the earpiece before, but now he looked at it with curiosity.  It was well made, and he could barely hear it, even with his slightly augmented hearing.  He wondered if they were designed to counter Superman.  

“Mr. Fenton,” said Ms. Rue, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to steal you away for a moment.

“Okay,” said Danny.  He followed her back to the elevator, stealing a cookie as he went.  They weren’t as good as his Mom’s, but he was pretty sure they tasted the way they did because of their ectoplasm content, so…

Ms. Rue punched a code into the elevator and scanned her badge.  “Alright, Mr. Fenton.  Go ahead.  You’ll be taken where you need to go.”

Well.  That was maybe a little sketchy, but Danny was nothing if not curious.  He got in.  “I’ll be back in time for the orientation, right?”

“If you aren’t, I’ll make sure you’re shown around personally,” promised Ms. Rue.

The doors closed and the elevator went up.  And up.  Then stopped for a moment, during which Danny felt the tingle of a very thorough full-body scan.  And up some more.  All the way to the top.  The doors opened to a sparkling office.  Everything in it was white, chrome, or glass, with smooth straight lines and geometrically perfect curves.  It blended perfectly with the skyline of Metropolis framed by the full-wall windows.  

Between Danny and the windows was an enormous white desk.  Behind the desk was Lex Luthor.  

“Daniel Fenton,” said Lex Luthor, inclining his head ever so slightly towards Danny.  “It is good to meet you.”

“Thank you,” said Danny, trying not to squeak.  “I’m happy to be here.  I’m looking forward to working here for the next couple of weeks.”

“It is heartening to see that you are more open to cooperation than Vlad.”  Luthor turned away, slightly, surveying the city below him.  

Danny took that as an invitation to come closer and peer out the huge windows himself.  What did Vlad have to do with this?

“I confess, I found myself frustrated by his lack of vision,” continued Luthor, “but youth often holds wisdom that age lacks.”  He turned back to favor Danny with a smile.  “On seeing your application, I was charmed by your initiative in circumventing your mentor.”

Danny’s train of thought, such as it was, derailed.  

“Mentor?” he asked.  

“You don’t have to hide it,” said Luthor.  “Not when we are both quite aware of the others’ knowledge.  Considering my wealth, I am privy to a number of things that ordinary people are not.  Including the beneficiaries of my fellow billionaires’ wills.”

Oh.  Oh, no.  Lex thought– But why–  Was he–  He couldn’t be right, but–  But did this make Danny a… a… nepotism baby?

The sprout of confidence that had been flourishing ever since he got the letter announcing his acceptance to the internship program withered.  This was even worse than finding out he and Jazz were test tube babies.  (And that was only so bad because his parents had felt the need to go on a long tangent about how they had selected their donor-parents, as large portions of Jack and Maddie's genomes were unstable due to a combination of the family proclivities and a variety of curses.)

Lex Luthor stood.  “Doubtless, you’re interested in the projects I outlined to Vlad when I proposed our cooperation.  The device blueprint you submitted for the internship referenced them quite cleverly.  I would like to show you how far they’ve progressed since I spoke to Vlad, and then we can discuss your contribution to their success.”

“I don’t have access to any of Vlad’s resources, Mr. Luthor,” said Danny, cautiously.  “I couldn’t provide any, er, funding to these projects.”

“I am aware of that.  But I think your value goes above and beyond the financial, Daniel.”  He put a hand on Danny’s shoulder.  “After all, the reason I approached Vlad was his science background.  And in a few years… Well.  Vlad Masters is not a young man.”

Was that a murder threat?  Danny thought it was a murder threat.  Oh, boy, did he have something else coming for him if he thought he could just kill Vlad like that.  

Luthor directed Danny back towards the elevator, and this time they went down.  Far down.  Into those basements Danny had been thinking about before.  

They stepped out into a vestibule, and a pair of much more openly armed security guards saluted Lex before running through a series of security measures.  Danny took note specifically of the ones intended to detect mind control and shapeshifting.  

From there, they passed through a series of locked doors and into a maze of gleaming white hallways.  The color made Danny’s skin itch.  Too much like the GIW for his taste.

Luthor opened a side door, and showed Danny into an empty lab.  Empty in terms of people, that is.  In terms of stuff… blueprints, prototypes, models, drawings, coffee cups… not so much.

“I had the team take the day off,” said Luthor.  “I thought you’d appreciate the chance to look at things without any distractions.”

Danny surveyed the plans with interest.  There were similarities between what was being built and the mini-EMP portion of his bug-zapper.  There were also echoes of shield technology…  some kind of energy projector or amplifier?  

“What is it supposed to emit?” asked Danny, unable to hold back his curiosity.  He touched, ever so gently, a hollow place he was sure the energy source was supposed to sit. 

Lex smiled.  “I’m glad you asked,” he said.  “Follow me.”

They went back out into the hallway, but only briefly.  The next room had even more security, but Luthor bypassed it all with businesslike efficiency and they entered a plain, all-white and bare room.

One wall of this room was taken up by a backlit display cabinet made of square cubbies.  Within each cubby was a tiny chip of crystal, like a sample display of particularly expensive rock candy.  Green, of many shades, was the best-represented color, but there was also red and blue.  That made sense, because each crystal was made of delicious ectoplasm-infused quartz.  Danny swallowed.  They were making his mouth water, but the amount of death energy they would have had to be around…

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Luthor.  “Kryptonite.  The key to repelling our would-be alien overlord.”

Yeah.  Remnants of a planet that imploded while still inhabited by billions.  That would do it.  

“I intend to create a Kryptonite field over the whole of Metropolis, one that should, at the least, disable Superman to the point where we can drive him out.  I will sell them to the great cities of America, and then, the world.  One day, the whole Earth will be protected, and Superman must either leave, or die.  But for now, it is still a dream.  That is why I need you, Daniel.”

Danny didn’t think Luthor’s weapon would work.  Not now.  There was too much missing.  Too much being missed by scientists and engineers expecting the Kryptonite to behave in a normal, logical way.  He was certain, however, that he could make something that functioned exactly as described.  He could even do it quickly, building off ghost and human shield technologies.  He could see the pieces of it fit together, like a puzzle.  

Making it, just to prove that he, Danny Fenton, could, was tempting.  

So tempting.  

But he had this little thing called morals, and driving Superman off Earth was definitely in the category of bad.  

“Well, I don’t know if I can fix problems all your scientists can’t, but I can sure try to help.”  He winced a little at the phrasing.  Why did he have to use the word help?  

“That’s all I ask,” said Luthor.  “But that’s far from our only project.  Shall we?”

“Sure,” said Danny, not at all faking his smile.  Even though he’d have to sabotage this stuff, it was really cool to see it!

.

Later that night in his dorm room - which was, incidentally, a lot more spacious than he’d expected - Danny rotated the bracelet on his wrist and pressed a button on its side.  Inside the thick band was a miniaturized and completely functional version of the spy-bot zapper he’d submitted as part of his internship application.  He listened to it click as it went through the different modes available to it.  It tweedled at him when it finished.  

Only then did he pull out his phone and power it on.  He clicked into his contacts and hit the button for his first favorite.  

“Hey,” he said, when the call connected, “Jazz, so…  Sam and Tucker might have been just a little bit right about my internship…”

.

May do more at a later time, but for now, this is it. I am incredibly forgetful, so I don't do taglists. Please consider subscribing to the AO3 version of this instead.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I do agree with your assessment that Eridan is one of the more repressed trolls of the Alternian friend group but I do not believe so full-heartedly that he never found time to enjoy himself for a scant few seconds at minimum. So I ask you what does a week look like for Eridan Ampora on Alternia, and how much of it is composed of desperate posturing towards others?

It's less that he's never enjoyed himself and more that his perceived experience is that of never enjoying himself. He self-describes murder as "all i evver done practically," and while that's obviously not LITERALLY true, it's how he FEELS the truth to be - that his entire life has been dominated by this endless cycle of murder, preparing for murder, cleaning up after murder, thinking about murder, obsessing about murder, and feeling like he should be doing something about murder.

It's anxiety - Eridan is one of those people who has no idea what to do with himself if he doesn't have some sort of Task hanging over his head (we see it with his utter inability to make smalltalk with Feferi, and his general reluctance to shoot the shit without some sort of goal in mind for the conversation). Under these circumstances, any fun or enjoyment he DOES have feels stolen - like he shouldn't be having it. If you can lean, you can clean. If you have time to be watching a movie or shopping for clothes or playing pretend with your shitty wands, you have time to be MAKING SURE YOUR WHOLE SPECIES DOESN'T DIE IN AGONY.

It's not that he literally never has fun, it's that any fun he does have feels undeserved, unearned, and shameful. Distractions from his responsibilities. Failures to live up to expectations. That's why the few leisure activities we actually get to hear about or see him do are usually couched in being part of his duties - FLARPing with Vriska feeds their lusii, and his attempts to hang out with her are transparently hidden in trying to get her to build him doomsday devices. He dresses to emulate Dualscar first and foremost, and even though he prefers drama and romance, he only lets himself read them in the context of military history.

It makes his love of wizards more striking because he can't come up with a good excuse for it - he just ardently fucking loves magic and pretending to be a wizard. But even then, he clearly feels shame for liking magic, because he's constantly decrying it for being fake kiddie playtime shit for wigglers. See what I mean? It's not that he doesn't have fun, it's that he doesn't feel like he's ALLOWED to have fun. Even when he is doing things that are objectively fun, there's a part of his brain chastising him for wasting his time. He's always filled with a nonspecific fear that if he isn't doing something "useful," then Something Bad Will Happen. So to that end, as much as he's been able, he's tried to make his hobbies all somehow related to fulfilling his various overhanging Duties and Responsibilities, to the point where his own lived experience is one where he is perpetually on call. Das mental illness babey!!!!!

The one exception to this seems to be his long conversations with Karkat, where we actually see Eridan chill way the fuck out, crack jokes, and talk about his and Karkat's feelings. It helps that Karkat's, like, the only person on the team who takes Eridan's problems seriously.

[fisheito]

non horny ask: what kinda irl snake would Yakumo be? venomous or non venomous?

my instinct says venomous purely because that opens up the fun possibility of magical side effects whenever yakumo bites someone (i want his venom to have a mild numbing property so he can bite me and i can finally get a decent night's sleep)

i'm openinmg up the search gtengine for this (HEY SNAKE FREAKS IN THE AUDIENCE!! IF YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS THEN SHOW THE CLASS 👉👇👈👐)

(spoiler alert: i am no closer to an answer than when i started. we're just looking at snakes together)

flashback: i once pointed at western worm snake and laughed because BABY

but let's assign yaku a larger counterpart for when he's feeling big and brave i briefly considered the nonvenomous approach but i'm gonna joke that yakumo has a bigger oral fixation>>squeezing fixation on eiden so uh, this snake is all about the mouthparts i guess

i mean.. the snakes that constrict will inevitably hoRMPH(gulp) too so it would be reasonable to make yaku a nonvenomous squeezer. but. my bias says venom time, ,today

considering his ridic Great Serpent ancestry, he's probably gonna have a potent venom so let's look up Hella Dangerous Bitey Boys *typetypetypeclickclaxke*

side thought: are some species generally more aggressive than others? or does it vary moreso by individual? hmm. let's see if we can find a danger noodle that's reeaaaallllllly not into using its fangs as a first response

..... .......... i'm overwhelmed by choice again so i'm gonna start relying on aesthetics by which i mean altho i love defaulting to boas for their :3 face

i feel like yaku would be more of a streamlined snake skull like the neck isn't distinguished very well from the head... I wANT to see him as :3 snake puppy face but i also need him to have zero structure. absolute jello. no bones. skullless. just a *USES LINE TOOL*

wait. if i rely on Looks does that mean i can only choose IRL snakes that are black or subdued colours? because yaku doesn't want to be perceived, after all........

[eyes start to glaze over] -nondescript colouring -venomous (perhaps potently so) -not aggressive?? the type to strike ONCE , or wait-- is he more of a multi-striker.. fast? no... he seems like he'd be slow..if Dark Nova/Shadow Lineage is any indication..? slow OHKO heavy hitter? no, not "slow". HESITANT heavy hitter? ... -heat sensing organs? or just drawn to the heat? THE TYPE TO ONLY PREY ON OTHER VENOMOUS SNAKES--no no that's not right yaku will eat everything uhhhhhh

[SHAKES MY HEAD VIOLENTLY LIKE A WET DOG REBOOT]

call me basic but i like the look of mambas....

(sadly the black mamba doesn't have black scales but LOOK AT THAT MOUF!!!!!!!!!!)

wait how about a snake that hangs out in east asia? MOUNTAIN KEELBACK????? lil diamonds all along the back .nice

LOOK AT THE MASSIVE ORBS on *THIS* keelback.......

would he be arboreal like those funky vine snakes? mmm.., unlikely? i don't think yaku has shown much of a desire for heights... at least not yet (flashback to Puzzling Investigation Blade's impromptu takeoff)

what about a rattlesnake??? err... nah... yaku doesn't seem like much of a defensive butt wiggler....

Now i'm rethinking my entire instinct on VENOMOUS because ...Dark Nova 2 had yaku going snake-ish and eiden was ALL UP IN HIS fangs but he didn't feel any ill effects besides, you know, the physical obstacle of yaku shoving forked tongue down his throat-- EURYJK WHAT DO I DO . look at more cool snakes

OKAY BUT WHERE ARE THOSE SNAKES WITH THE PRETTY LOWER LASHES LIKE THE EYELASH VIPER, BUt LOWER lashes???

CAN I GET A LOOK AT ONE OF THOSE? do they exist? did i hallucinate the glorious snake lower lashes? do they belong to another reptile? boo.......

WWAIT NO, RIGHT, THE EYES, I SHOULD HAVE STARTED WITH THE EYES THAT'S AN EASY WAY TO NARROW DOWN A YAKUSNAKE

ok.ok. slit eyes. but a lil squiggly. thunderbolt eyes? the creative freedom of it all. let's go with slit eyes but wibbled by tears...

HOLD UP ! HIS EYES LOOK LIKE A TOKAY GECKO'S . IS YAKUMO ACTUALLY JUST A REALLY LONG GECKO?????

DESCENDANT OF THE LEGENDARY GREAT GECKO...........

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 5 thoughts

boy. where this episode started out and where this episode ended were two VASTLY different spaces. come along while i undergo this journey.

the first thing we see is a dog! a doggy! it's a border collie, and it looks like it could be the same one we see in s1 episode 8- maybe dog actors are in short supply! but border collies are famously very smart and to me the cutest of all dogs, so i was pleased to see a friendly face <3

and then things escalated. aliens arrived to fetch the dog's owner.

thankfully they left the dog alone- perhaps they saw the threatening "ALIENS, STAY AWAY FROM THAT DOG" i had written in my notes- but whatever they are inflicting upon this gentleman seems. unpleasant.

(the aliens are obviously terrifying but they're always shown vaguely wiggling in some cold white light and it does make me laugh. ohhhh here they come. the wigglers)

so in the morning our gentleman- duane- was taken to a correctional facility and he hasn't been taking his meds... and then he hurts his doctor! they always find the kindest looking people to play doctors on this show and then make them suffer

THE NEXT THING WE SEE IS: a pool? the pool scene i wrote about seeing a while ago in my last post! the one where mulder emerges mostly naked from his exercise to face this new guy who looks like he covers his beer stench with a designer cologne!

i rewound to see whose pool it was mulder was swimming in but gained no clues. would be sick if the FBI had an in house pool.

breaking news: this SOAKING WET MAN is called to a HOSTAGE SITUATION!

(i do find it endearing that he swims recreationally <3)

next thing i wrote was "alex is pissing me off" and i don't even remember what he did but i stand by it

so mulder is at the scene, duane has four hostages, and claims to be abducted by aliens. now to mulder it makes perfect sense to ask about his abduction experience, and he's trying to do his homework and follow the rules for hostage negotiation, but duane knows all the tricks because he's former FBI which they DID NOT TELL MULDER!

he walks up to the head of the hostage situation and very angrily asks if she knows about how aliens will take your brains out and fuck with your ovaries and she tries not to laugh at him. mulder tell me what they do to ovaries i'll listen. i'll take notes.

and then alex is trying to be all sickly sweet puppy dog boy and asks if he can do anything to help. so the head of the hostage situation tells him to get her a coffee. HA! POINT AT HIM AND LAUGH.

cutscene to SCULLY CAM!!!! <3 she's gonna sleuth for his medical records

ohhh the power went out and duane started blasting. he shot someone so they're gonna send mulder and another guy in (an excuse for mulder to wear a paramedic uniform.......)

mulder's like nooo i won't tell him i believe in aliens (<- said by a man who is lying)

and off to the races, can you imagine it, he does JUST that, says he believes duane and trades himself for the guy who was shot... he says it happened to his sister OHHHHHHH sister mention

he's got the guy monologuing about his tortures from the aliens and honestly, these aliens are bitches. there is NO reason to do all of this. drilling holes in his teeth??? that's fucked

alex is on the phone with scully who is freaking tf out because duane is lying about who he says he is... when he tells her he traded himself for the injured hostage she says "WHAT!" so loudly and is filled with intense urgency

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! his sister was 8 when they took her

(for some reason i thought she was 10 when it happened, but the larger age gap between them explains a lot in terms of his instinctive level of Protectiveness towards all creatures big and small)

this next part had me GAGGED: SCULLY FLEW IN FROM WASHINGTON!!!! she is AT THE SCENE and she is YELLING at someone who isn't listening to her

alex made a VERY FATAL mistake in telling her to "calm down" while mulder is a HOSTAGE and she RIGHTFULLY told him off (and frankly she could have kept going and i wouldn't have complained) but she's a woman who gets things done so she finds someone who will actually listen to her

she says he has a very unique case of being shot in a specific part of the brain which happened to another guy before and then that guy became a pathological liar so she is basically saying "duane is the nastiest skank bitch i have ever met do NOT trust him"

so back to the scene. duane is saying the government is there while the aliens do all this. which i have no idea how to interpret so i'm just storing it here for later use.

SCULLY CAN HEAR HIM! she's on his secret wire mic and talking to him. duane can hear her a little bit but is going on about "the mountains"... it was at this point, with scully talking in mulder's ear, that everything was so tense i had a brief moment where i remembered that this is actually a tv show i'm watching in my free time and not an actual life or death thing

mulder convinces duane to let the women go and the younger one says she believes him which had to be impactful i'd think

but the snipers are closing in!!! mulder sees the line of fire on him and calls him over to get him out of the way so he won't get shot....

he asks duane if she was lying to distract him and now he's VERY VERY VERY ANGRY and he tries to calm him back down and say hey... you forgot to lock the door.... please go lock the door...

and he goes over to the door and bam. duane's shot.

we see scully and mulder watch as he's loaded into the ambulance and mulder looks deeply conflicted and once again has his sad wet eyes on because he still believes duane was telling the truth. scully tells mulder he did the right thing in getting him to go to the door, because we all know by now that mulder has a complicated set of feelings towards any loss of life.

"whatever you're feeling, you did the right thing" <- augh. scully loves him so much. oh to love anyone how truly and deeply scully loves this man

(shhhh i'm not getting into what kind of love it is. i don't know and whatever your answer for its flavor is, you cannot deny that she loves him. that she tries to find the exact words he wants to hear to soothe that internal Guilt he wears like a heavy jacket.)

later he smiles when the lead hostage negotiator calls him to thank him because he broke all of her rules and thought he was going to get yelled at LMAOOO that lil smile was very sweet

and he goes to see duane but the REAL reason she called him in was to tell him about the metal they extracted from duane's body... the doctors claim that the stuff in his teeth could not have been made from any current technology... alien life confirmed??

((i thought the episode would end here on a little cliffhanger that never gets resolved but boy. i was off))

no, instead of an episode's conclusion, we see mulder bring the metal pieces to scully, who once again has the most beautiful freckles in the world, and she says she'll take it down to be analyzed.

mulder leaves the room without saying a word which i thought to be cold in the moment and now that i'm typing this knowing what happens next i might actually cry.

she goes to the store and she's buying some stuff... we see kodak film in the background... sigh instant cameras i love you and your work... but she buys $11 of groceries and then sneaks the metal chip across the barcode reader and it makes the whole thing break down!!!!

the poor cashier is freaking out because the machine is going wild and she looks at scully like "did you touch it?" and she says no and awkwardly leaves LMAOOOOOOO i was howling because girl idk wtf i would have done in that situtation either

duane wakes up to more aliens and rips all his medical stuff off and runs like he didn't get shot very recently and he's on the prowl for something

scully's back at her place, calling mulder, telling him about how the barcode scanned, and she's really worked up about the whole thing, when she hears a rustle, but it's just a thunderstorm...

but she goes to the window and DUANE IS THERE!!! a look of horror passes over her face, and we hear her through mulder's answering machine, screaming for help while he takes her

(everything happened SO quickly, it transpired in my notes like this: WHAT!!! he's outside her window WHAT THE FUCK TO BE CONTINUED??)

yes. we get a "TO BE CONTINUED" on the outtro scene.

i sat there, baffled for a few moments, trying to process what i just saw.

but then i thought i noticed something else: her place looked different than it did in s1. at least, i thought it did- we didn't see it much, but perhaps she got fed up with folks showing up like eugene tooms did in s1 and bought a nicer space. i thought the old space was cute though, and maybe it really is the same space but from a different angle, but then i thought about how it looked like mulder's space also changed from s1, so maybe they both moved, or maybe i'm just not good at noticing things, but oh yeah, scully's in virigina now since she's at the academy, so she probably DID move, although i thought the drive from DC to virigina was doable, but maybe not?

none of this changes the fact that scully has been TAKEN.

(i won't lie, i knew this was going to happen at some point, because i read the s2 episode descriptions and saw something about her being "returned", which implies being taken in the first place. but still. it was very abrupt. they had thoroughly lulled me into expecting a vague sort of non-answer of an ending and then switched out the formula at just the right time so i never grew suspicious)

to be continued!!! this is soooo evil, especially because i don't have time to watch the next episode tomorrow. so i'm gonna walk around all day tomorrow at important work events thinking about what horrors scully must be enduring and get NO conclusion as to what they might be. duane i have fists and you are not real and i am small but i am unafraid to bludgeon you. stay away from her if you even LOOK at her ohhhh you're gonna learn a lot more than what it feels like when aliens take out ur brain just keep that in mind!

(and man. i'm sitting here typing. thinking about how mulder never said a real goodbye to her the last time they spoke. and i wonder if that's gonna haunt him. and i wonder if when he gets her back, he always always always makes sure to take the time for a goodbye. just on the off chance it might really be the last one. fuck.)