#files loathing

[vxidmusings]

Hello! I was wondering what kind of RP you do? What kind of ships and rules you have , etc. I'm new to Tumblr I'm sry-

// no worries! i do wanna let you know though, this blog isn't a roleplay blog itself, more a place for me to drop quotes & other stuff for myself and others to reblog onto their own rp blog(s) if they feel it suits their muses

i apologize for the confusion! QwQ

[ofswordsandpens]

I know Percy's desperately trying to escape the godly world but not only do I think the gods aren't going to leave percy alone once he's in New Rome, I also think Percy's in the situation now where he can't refuse at all because like, if he was in the mortal world at a mortal college he at least would be able to try and be like "sorry I can't do a quest right now I've already used up my three excused absences this semester try again in the spring :/" but in New Rome? They will be like "Percy! It is an honor to be hand-selected for a quest. And by the gods no less! Stars above, you should be grateful! I don't know what your little greek camp has taught you but here in Rome, we respect the gods' requests. Your absence will be excused. Now go."

[sforzesco]

a bystander: both of you are focusing on the wrong thing

anyway! this is a comic from the vault™! it was originally something goofy I drew for myself after I read a couple of different takes on this whole event (Crassus leaving Rome in 63 BCE, see Plutarch Pompey 43). like.

the phrasing is giving late night teleserye plot drama.

and this literally sounds like something a friend has told me about someone else's relationship drama with their sometimes ex. but like. on a less high stakes stage.

ALRIGHT, moving on. some stuff that was Fun To Read, To Me

Crassus' New Friends and Pompey's Return, Eve J Parrish

Crassus: a Political Biography, B.A. Marshall

speaking of titles, fascinated by how this part of crassus' life gets defined by pompey's absence/return. hello fellas!

AND FINALLY inspiration for Pompey's comment about perpetuating cycles of violence comes from this delightfully dramatic bit of writing

Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic, Allen Mason Ward

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

[m0rninglatte]

I'll tell you why Done For is taking longer to fix then expected:

I lost the Worldport frames.

Worse of all it was the fighty spin shots.

*sobs in a /lh /pos way(???)*

[rxttenfish]

what r ur thoughts on moncon so far, based on teasers..?

im offput by the fact that the team is announcing dlc before the game is even out, and i dont understand the decision behind making half of the ROs completely new characters. it feels like the opposite of what you'd want to do with a franchise who's main draw is the characters we already know.. im definitely a little peeved that aaravi is only avaliable as a player-character dlc.

i havent played the demo or analyzed the trailers much so idk how its gonna be gameplay wise.

as ever, i think the rule is that i like the mechanical changes. needing low stats in specific things for certain ROs feels like a natural extension of the monprom formula, and although i do feel conflicted about changing the way choice options work, i think it's broadly going to be more playable for me... i do like how montrip worked with its choice options, but i still feel endeared by the simplicity of the classic system, on just picking whichever option had the stat you were higher in.

but i don't have high hopes for the writing or characters. for some reason, none of the ROs this time stands out to me, besides liam and kinda zoe? i don't really know why the new ROs don't really work for me either, it's both that their designs are very busy but also that they're highly indistinct for me. they all feel really generic in a way that's strange to say, because, like, look at them. they shouldn't feel generic. why do they feel generic. but there's nothing about them that stands out to me, despite the fact that i literally don't know how to parse omen's design. which is kinda sad. i really wish i could like omen.

don't like april. just in general.

judging from the setup for all of the characters and their own little mini-plots for them being at this con, i don't think i'm going to like many of the jokes for this one either. it's just generally not my thing - i'm not a typical "nerdy" kind of person, i don't do fandoms, i don't do these big pop culture things. i don't like all the additional references, i think it relies too heavily on them, etc. but, again, conventions and this kind of fandom aren't my thing. hmu when they actually decide to do a furry con and maybe i'll be interested.

just judging from what's been teased and shown so far, i don't have high hopes for the writing. it looks to be continuing in the same fashion as montrip, and mostly i've just been zoning out and trying to forget this even is a monprom game or even exists. it's kinda sad, because i was really looking forward to more liam, but Oh Well.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 9 "firewalker" thoughts

whew! i had a busy day so it's nice to unwind with some scully and mulder time. although by the end of the episode i didn't feel very unwound tbh. it was still time spent with the babygirls, so i can't complain.

so we start with some volcano research. my only note here was "i know a geologist" which is true! shoutout to my one professor. you were chill but i hated that class.

there's a dead guy in the volcano which tbh doesn't seem too surprising... i mean volcanoes are very deadly. but it seems to be one of the dudes involved with the project so that's weird because why would he go down there?

there's this stream going on of the inside volcano and something is disrupting it... hate to see a streamer interrupted :(

then we had the title sequence but for some reason i was wondering, do you think if they got married they'd hyphenate their names... scully-mulder... mulder-scully... does it roll off the tongue? hmm...

so firewalker (the title of our episode) is a robot that goes into the volcano. noted.

here i wrote "holy fuck scully is beautiful". all she was doing was standing there but man.

the scientist who has come to them requesting help is like, this lead scientist named trepkos started this project, and scully says "i always heard he was brilliant", which raises the question: why is scully keeping up with volcano science? nerd

at this point the visiting scientist was explaining how he and trepkos had a professional breakup kinda thing and i'm very sorry for them but i genuinely could not take my eyes off of scully. hope they work it out or whatever. i have bigger priorities.

she wants to get out there and investigate but mulder says "i don't think it's a good idea for you to go" AUGHHH. i am wailing and tearing my shirt. she says that she's fine!!! really!!!

and he has this look on his face that says "i cannot tell this woman what to do, even after she just woke up from a coma, and i never will be able to" and he's very right in that regard

HELICOPTER TIME! mulder is such a gentleman helping her climb out

she has very messy hair at this point and the scientist seems a lot more concerned about his equipment than the fate of the people trapped inside the compound and she seems so thrown off by this

next we have some BIG ASS FLASHLIGHTS!!!! WOOHOO

at this point i made a note that i think i might have been going feral because mulder also looked SO good prowling around that creepy base. and i don't take back my observation but i will psychoanalyze it a bit later. reluctantly.

a creepy dude is hanging around the corner. OH SHOOT he tries to bash mulder's head in and he is MAD "do you always greet people this way?" LMAOOO he took it personally

the other scientists in the base seem to regard the missing trepkos as a threat... hmm...

i really like this jesse character, who is a student and is here to do some research with her advisor

mulder asks for the data on the research trepkos has been doing and she says he destroyed his field journals and computer discs. ahh, computer discs. my old friends. i used to have some games on discs when i was a kid. positive memories.

mulder sees scribbled in some of the notes trepkos didn't destroy that he had written about a "new life form" which honestly kinda happens a lot. like people are always discovering new life forms but the gag is they're beetles. everyday we find new species of beetle. they just won't stop coming. so i'm thinking, well they wanted this to be all dramatic, but statistically it's probably just a volcano beetle this guy found.

mulder and scully have an exchange and again i'm distracted by her freckles but she says he's being paranoid and i'm like. yeah that's kinda his whole deal. mulder being paranoid is like a fork spotted in the kitchen.

so the other scientist who was checking on his equipment was, at this point, killed by trepkos. with a rope. and we get the great closed captions "(neck cracks) (body thuds on ground)" which were very descriptive of the whole process

mulder and scully are having a science based argument on the probability of a silicon-based life form and it was really funny to me because it was a nerd off. and frankly i wouldn't go into a science debate with a doctor but mulder is going full steam ahead. it's getting heated and i'm like damn does this ever lead to them kissing because i can see it happening. anyway she's like no trepkos did not discover a silicon-based life form (spoiler alert: he did)

he's looking around like damn. i'm glad she's back but she's such a pain in my ass <3

scully goes to talk to jesse by knocking on her door and asking to chat and then not waiting for an answer and coming in because that is my girl!!!

jesse says trepkos stopped taking his pills that treat his bipolar disorder and he started being weird, saying they polluted his mind and that she was "polluting his body" which has... implications i prefer not to think about?

(why must we make erotic the bond between a student and their thesis advisor? there is no stronger connection! but. not in this way, tv writers, not in this way. i mean Maybe it wasn't meant that way but it seemed like it was)

mulder is streaming the descent into madness of trepkos because he recorded his ramblings which is probably what my friends on my private story think each time i post. but he's going on about finding a silicon-based life form.

this whole time one of the scientists has been very noticeably coughing and losing his voice and i knew it was gonna go somewhere but all of a sudden he collapses. and mulder yells for scully who is undergoing her shift to Doctor Mode. but we see his neck... pulsate? is that the best word to describe it? augh i don't want to even think about it so we'll leave it there

(jesse was also looking super suspicious but i liked her...)

anyway they put the sick guy on a stretcher and he's down and out until he isn't, and now he's making a RUN for it. he runs and runs and falls in a ditch until a THING takes over his body and explodes. i thought it was a worm at first and it was sososo gross i started sweating. i do not like body horror. the things i endure for these two.

so scully's doing some testing and she's like, yeah this is a silicon-based fungus. and poor jesse is having a nervous breakdown because she has been in this base for 8 months and she just wants to go HOME but now they have to quarantine and i felt so bad for her.

then i remembered the line about her "polluting his body" and things were adding up... and they were NOT looking good for her... no... i cannot do this...

scully's really worried about jesse which is justified because this poor girl is freaking out. but mulder is really worried about scully! he wants to go look for trepkos and he's making excuses why she shouldn't come and finally settles on the need to autopsy the body which he seems to both genuinely believe and also say to keep her back at the base

she knows he's being protective so she says "i'm here and i'm not going anywhere" which is sweet but girl you were in a coma. they had your gravestone made. you are lucky he has not put you in bubblewrap entirely. you can't blame the man for needing you to be safe!!!!

he says he's counting on her and grabs her shoulder with some heavily lingering eye contact that, when i see in gif form, i will surely slam the reblog button upon because. good lord.

jesse is talking to the other guy and he says something like "do what we said" and i'm thinking oh man, they're gonna try to get mulder (spoiler alert: they did not quite do that)

the guy is like "you need a guide to go get trepkos" and i'm even MORE suspicious but his reasoning kind of does make sense- it is a volcano maze, after all- still, when mulder goes with him i was tense

BUT THEN he immediately gets shot with a FLARE GUN? which i did NOT see coming. and trepkos emerges from the back of the volcano caves all burned and wild-looking.

he's covering the newly dead body with gasoline and mulder's asking why he's trying to kill him twice when we see the parasite wriggle in his neck (GAG) so then he shoots him with ANOTHER flare to burn up the evil creature. and he's explaining how if you're exposed to the parasite's spores you're gonna be sick...

and scully is back at the base with jesse... who was exposed... so she's not going to be safe...

and we see jesse in her room gagging and convulsing... oh man... it's not looking good....

trepkos is not letting mulder leave, but mulder does not give a fuck LMAO he says "you're gonna have to shoot me then" and goes to walk out... this man was really thinking "they are NOT gonna take scully from me again" and i know that is exactly right!!!!!

NOOOO the lights go off in the compound........... NOOOOO JESSE ATTACK.....

she's handcuffing her and scully together!!!!!! but scully was smart enough to get her behind a door really fast before jesse collapses and the fungus explodes...... but the handcuffs... was the door open a crack?? was it enough to get her infected???!?!?

mulder BURSTS in to see her handcuffed and she keeps repeating "i'm okay, i'm okay" but he must be so shocked because he asks "you alright?" and gently cups her face and at this point i wanted to do some powerful screaming to let out the things i was feeling

we see trepkos come in and look at jesse's body and he says that he told her how this experience would change her life... and i'm getting callbacks to when mulder told scully it would be a nice trip to the forest, but then the whole evil bugs thing happened in s1 ep20... and i am filled with a deep sadness...

so the duo has been sentenced to a month long quarantine, which i'm sure had to absolutely drive them wild. but i think my mutual wrote a fic on this subject so i just simply have no choice but to go read it now! and i assume that, since there are more seasons, the spores did not actually infect them

(and mulder, who was earlier suggesting time off for scully, must be some mix of terrified that any day now the symptoms will start showing and the end will be near, deeply satisfied that she has been forced into getting rest and healing like he wished, and regretting his words that she should take a break, because here she is taking a break. with him. and they're driving each other crazy)

we see trepkos hiking back into the volcano maze with jesse's body and it was actually really sad :(

overall a good episode, another one in the vein of s1 eps 8 and 20 where there is some sort of contagion and we must figure out from where it started and to whom it has gone... but the formula in these episodes keeps me on the edge of my seat and allows for a convergence of doctor scully and protective mulder, two things i am deeply invested in seeing. and seeing mulder try and keep her away from the case after her whole incident made me emo as hell!!!! he is never going to let her out of his sight again unless he has to go keep her safe by finding the wild man in the volcano!!!!!! and even that backfired!!!! ugh my heart!!!!! i love them so deeply!!!

rip my girl jesse i thought u were rad in the brief time we knew each other

[lemonbeemon]

ASMR Recording of what it's like waking up as a youth of twenty-something years:

*crack* *pop* *crack* *creeeaaaak* *pop* *pop* *creak* *guttural sound inherited from father* *slightly more concerning pop from knees* *crack* *creak* *pop*

[cursezoroark]

afterthoughts

[prorneth-eus]

nothing better than experiencing someone else meet and hate everybody's least favourite failboy twink alex krychek

[apathyandmischief]

Willing to do heinous things for some textbook PDF places 👀

Specifically interested in Language Files 13th Edition 👀

[iamprchung]

It's painfully obvious to me that I have tropes and formats... that I am really, really trying to perfect by the looks of my work.

[Hangs head in defeat, trying to justify tropes and warn thin formats...]

After extensive review—conducted, of course, by my least forgiving self—it appears I am less an ‘author’ and more an enthusiastic purveyor of narrative déjà vu.

The evidence is damning. Repeated motifs parade through my drafts like suspects in a noir lineup, all suspiciously familiar and, frankly, a little too proud of themselves.

Somewhere between the lines of my latest manuscript—wedged there—lives a man named Walter Skinner. A towering figure of stoic masculinity, betrayed only by the forlorn glint in his eye as he watches Scully from afar-- and quite close at times. He’s there. Always there. A silent sentinel in a government-issued sedan, materializing at precisely the moment public transportation has once again forsaken her.

Skinner doesn’t just offer rides; he delivers them like grand, sweeping gestures in the world’s least subtle romance novel. It’s less about convenience and more about fate, issuing passive-aggressive sighs through the rearview mirror.

Mulder, meanwhile, watches all of this with the air of a man who’s accepted that gravity, like love, exerts a relentless pull. He disapproves, of course. Not out of jealousy, but out of a weary understanding that when Skinner looks at Scully, it’s less about admiration and more about inevitability.

The worst part? I’m not reinventing these tropes. No, I’m meticulously fine-tuning them as if someday—perhaps after the third act of my life—I’ll finally strike the perfect rom-com X-Files fan fiction of all time -- A glorious tale that will be passed down generation to generation... as an example of what not to do in writing.

To the discerning eye (mine, naturally), the pattern is unmistakable. This isn’t just storytelling. It’s trope taxidermy.

In short-- I write the same damn holiday story over and over.

[squintsintwink]

Meet the Landgraabs

[96percentdone]

This is maybe not worth making a whole post because it's mostly just like. Phrasing used in memes, but I do think all attempts to classify the horrorshow that is Somezuki Uru's whole life in like. A family with next level drama and toxicity fundamentally misunderstands the actual dynamics at play and the whole point of its inclusion.

Like. Okay. Shigure and Horadori are Jin's biological parents and had some emotional investment in him, at least historically. The exact nature of what their relationship was like is like. Extremely hazy, because Jin is not a well developed character in his own right with established opinions about either of them, and neither of them care about him NOW since his murder doesn't provoke grief in them and Shigure literally is raring to use this to reach Moksha, but it DOES establish they are, at least by blood, a family, and at one point both of them cared. Fine.

Where everyone loses me is positioning Uru as their son too, and therefore also Jin's brother. HE IS A KIDNAPPING VICTIM!!! HE WAS LITERALLY ABDUCTED IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT. As for Jin, once again, he's not a character in his own right because he's a mirror, so extrapolating they're brothers purely because Uru calls Shigure mom is like. What are you doing. What. I'm sorry, since when was Somezuki Uru, isolated torture victim who kills people and unironically thinks global genocide would make him a hero, a trustworthy source? Why are we taking his title for Shigure, which doesn't hold up even under the slightest amount of scrutiny, as like an inarguable truth about the nature of their relationship, and thus every relationship by extension?

Do you guys understand why Horadori went to child welfare places to find a kid to steal? Because orphans have no one who will care when they vanish. They are abandoned by the system. Somezuki Uru is an orphan by birth. His mother killed herself, and Sejima didn't even know he existed until Uru told him 30 YEARS AFTER SIRING HIM. He's never once had a family, but even before he was kidnapped, he was a child who wanted to be loved. He has always wanted it, but he's never known what it is, so Shigure pitying him might as well be the Mom he wanted.

Uru sees Shigure as his mother because of his two kidnappers, she pretends to care about him. She doesn't, at all, demonstrably, like the fact she did that to him and never once freed him is in and of itself proof, but he's alone in his literal TORTURE. She's not his mother; she's his kidnapper. She okayed the plan and helped carry it out, knowing that no one would miss him. The tragedy is that he is most desperate to be loved by someone who never will. He WANTS to be her son, longs to be loved in the way she clearly loves Jin, because he knows he is not.

They're not family. Somezuki Uru doesn't have one of those. That's the point.

[breakingmyreverie]

I FINALLY GOT NUMPY TO GENERATE MY TEXT FILE, WAR IS OVER

[eclipsecrowned]

ANON YOU JUST OPENED THE FLOODGATES OF AUTISM.

[puzzle-paradigm]

I want to hit him with a truck