#and other thoughts

[randomfoggytiger]

Mulder was already an FBI agent (and searching for Samantha) before he believed that it was aliens that took her, right? If I recall correctly? Because he stumbled upon the x files and then underwent the regression hypnotherapy… I think… if that’s true I think it’s underemphasized that Mulder pursued a degree in psychology and was working in profiling/Violent Crimes trying to prevent what he went through from happening to someone else before he really ever had any leads on what happened to his sister.

The Man Who Searched for His Sister: Mythology and Motives

You hit the nail on the head to me.

From the Golden Boy of the FBI (revered, respected, and honored) to Spooky in the basement (a testament of "ego" and "self-destruction" to the mainstream), the fall from grace for Mulder had to have been a tough pill to swallow. As abrasive as he can be, he's also warm and fond and empathetic: more willing to make friends (Jerry Lamana, Reggie Perdue, Diana Fowley, TLG) than go it utterly alone. But after discovering the files in 1988 and finally reopening them in 1991, he begins to (rightfully) suspect interference; and, in the face of derision and rejection, withdraws. "You were sent to spy on me," he deduces of Scully in the Pilot; and he's not wrong about the intent of her assignment, though he misjudges her motives along with it. More accurately: he offsets his interest in her work and mind by testing her upfront, unwilling to tie his loyalty to a wolf who intends to chew up the files and spit them out.

(As a side note: the story behind his and Scully's career path is so well done. Traumas in their childhood pushed Mulder and Scully to discover the truth for themselves-- be it in Oxford psychology or medical school morgues or FBI recruitment and field work-- and shaped their lives: both wanted answers to unanswered questions, hoping it would alleviate their personal struggles. Mulder's "You can deny all the things I've seen, all the things I've discovered. But not for much longer. Because too many people know what's happening out there and no one, no government agency, has jurisdiction over the truth" and Scully's "Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it. And that's a place to start. That's where the hope is" exemplify this. Their goals were fixed, their longing and struggles years in the making, before they'd begun navigating towards each other; but with each other they found their personal truths, and in each other they found "the" Truth.)

Samantha marked Mulder's life deeply and irrevocably when she vanished. His family fell apart; his life fell apart. And perhaps-- like many other lost souls-- he fastened onto psychology to understand what happened. And in seeking and becoming a source of help, he then latched onto the elusive "truth" as the ultimate solution-- a vision, as The X-Files would call it (his memories always did come back to him in visions)-- and became a crusader, willing to spend a lonely lifetime in the basement, on the road, on a cloistered couch while life on this planet passed him by.

Another thought: was Mulder's peg leg desire-- "If you have a peg leg or hooks for hands, you know, maybe it’s enough to simply carry on living. You know, bravely facing life with your disability. It's heroic just to survive. But without these things you're actually expected to make something of your life — achieve something, earn a raise, wear a necktie. So — so — so, if anything I'm actually the antithesis of Ahab, because if I did have a peg leg I'd quite possibly be more happy and more content and not feel the need to chase after these creatures of the unknown"-- formed before or after Samantha's disappearance? I'd say before: that it was part of his nature, like Scully's, to prove his pain to himself-- he externally, she internally. He lost his sister, she killed her rabbit; both were haunted by invisible scars that drove them ever onward. But while he could stop, finally, if he had a wound to point to (even die if his death had meaning), Scully couldn't (and avoided, and feared, a final end): legacy, she found in the morgue, is forged in life "on this planet", not in box scores or down endless roads or in running back to the past. "I've got things to prove-- but for my own reasons" and "If I quit now, they win" and "Mulder, get up. Get up and fight."

Another 'nother thought: CSM often put Mulder up on a cross, projecting his own "martyrdom" onto the other man-- a sinner purifying himself by piercing his sins into the flesh of the Lamb of God and slitting his throat. An allegory wholly unfitting to his megalomaniacal narrative: he sees himself as "God" (says so directly, post here) while failing to recognize that his motives are entirely selfish; and that his sacrificial son is hardly righteous or perfect-- that, in fact, his Christ-like figure isn't out to save the world. Mulder's fathers (canonically, both of them) pinned their agenda onto him when that was neither his goal nor his ideal from the start-- the world, "life on this planet" as a rule was furthest from his thoughts. His was a personally rewarding quest, with "selfish", not "altruistic", motives-- he wanted to find the Truth, and expose it; to search out mysteries with a baseball and sandwiches and a house like Home and his sister and his partner. And that simplicity of perspective gave him true insight, able to see through the net of lies Bill Mulder and the Consortium and Jeffrey Spender and Krycek and Marita and Skinner (and even Scully, at times) were caught in.

[soft-persephone]

People used to create for the pure joy of it, and other people engaged with that creation to further talk and communist are about that thing and the joy it brings you both and others!

I am so grateful for this little community of ‘friends’ I have built for myself!

I don’t like everything they are into and I know they don’t like everything I am into, but whenever it overlaps we don’t fail to talk and support and just engage with each other for the pure joy of it!

I love you guys!

You make me want to stay here and keep writing! Even if I get all likes and nothing else, you guys make it worth it!

Not people saying “Fandom has always been like this” in that vent post I made. No. It hasn’t always been like this. Fandom has NEVER been like this until recently and if you were in fandom pre-tumblr purge, pre-twitter, pre-netflix boom, pre-tiktok….then you would fucking know it was nothing like this.

We still had the drive to create. We still sold prints and charms and made zines…but it was never like this.

The introduction of streaming, binge shows that drop all at once, tiktok and vine RIP i still love u vine but you were the beginning of a particularly ugly era) creating this bite sized, quick paced ‘content’ era of creation and it bled out into fucking everything else.

Fandoms didn’t die down when the show ended or the season was over. You didn’t mass unfollow artist, writers or moots just because they changed fandoms. There wasn’t this need to please the algorithm in order for your posts to get seen by people and enjoyed.

Fandoms used to last YEARS. Star Trek is literally the oldest running fandom out there and you got people in there that could care less about the new stuff and still have been happily prancing through their fucking fifty year old fandom today. Hell, even SPN after all it’s fuckups and shitshows has a dedicated fanbase STILL creating tons of art and fic.

There is no patience anymore. No calm feeling of taking in fandom and friends at a pace that which doesn’t make you stressed and is still fun.

Do I blame fandom for this? Of course not, but people are complacent with it and start changing their vocab to accommodate and end up making the situation so deep it cant be fixed.

We call Art & Fic Content now, completely stripping the value of what it is to a level of consumerism instead of personal entertainment & community bonding.

[hansoeii]

the honda odyssey, huh?

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[the-moon-loves-the-sea]

Shared here today by Matthew Boroson on Facebook. (ETA: Gaining inspiration from other authors is great. Lifting passages and avoiding giving credit isn’t.)

Tanith Lee was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for best novel, for the second book of the Flat Earth series. She died in 2015. You can buy Tales From the Flat Earth here and here .

[poidkea]

I’ve been reading Dracula for the first time, im about halfway through, here’s my take on it so far

The polycule learns about monster hunting

[complete-clownery]

Okay guys

[sopuu]

possessive x obsessive

[hamletthedane]

The movie Wicked is proof that any source material can be vastly improved by simply making the intense female friendship much gayer + the mutual male love interest both wildly bisexual and lowkey down to just be their third

[otaku553]

Turning around an idea in my head recently :)

Lost Shepherd (Time Travel) AU

In which Truthless Recluse doesn’t experience rebirth and awakening upon shattering his soul jam, but the explosion of his and Shadow Milk Cookie’s combined power in a twisted space where all time coexists as one sends him back in time to his childhood.

When Pure Vanilla Cookie searches for his lost sheep, he finds a lost shepherd to take home as well.

[dovik-png]

Dressed up my sheep. Thought you should know.

She's about 20 years old now (pretty old for a sheep!)

[trainwreckgenerator]

a face you'd find on the side of a milk carton

[pyrus-salicifolia]

“Normal” test results are not the relief people think they are. When you wake up in pain and continue to be in pain for hours every day and your tests come back normal you don’t stop being in pain.

[badolmen]

People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.

For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.

So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.

Edit: if you are able, use $5 you would otherwise use for a streaming subscription to donate to a GazaFunds campaign.

[crystallized-cheese]

so like imagine Undertale characters but they're all crafts supplies (Undyne and Alphys) (Toriel and Asgore) (Frisk and Flowey) (Napstablook and Mettaton)