#grief or loss etc

[dogearedheart]

they are all the same btw

[friendlyneighbourhoodelf]

codywan on tatooine. something something the loss of boundaries as allowing them to explore their relationship. but this as accompanied by greater loss. you know

[stromuprisahat]

Shadow and Bone- Chapter 13 (Leigh Bardugo)

Yeah, upon re-read, there's something so utterly devastating about Alina summoning to calm herself.

The hint of being so comfortable with her powers she doesn't even think about calling them, when in need of a friend...

[theiceandbones]

Wish there was a grief camp for adults too damn.

[grasslandgirl]

no im not writing the double (2024) fic. why would you say that why would you think that. noooooo

[carefulfears]

the biggest thing about elegy is that it takes all of that unspoken isolation of this arc, and it slowly lets the audience in. the first thing that mulder says about the apparitions, is that they seem to be an "omen." an impending prophecy. and carefully, throughout the episode, both the audience and scully are waiting to see, not who the killer is, but what is being foretold. when they're going over records, and scully's nose starts bleeding, it's the one thing that they can't ignore. she wasn't even there in the previous episode. she was in the hospital. alone. they don't talk about it. she's "fine." she has "always been the strong one." just like in irresistible, years earlier, she does not want him to know how much she is struggling. but she doesn't have any control. it is dripping out of her. the sound of his voice when he says "oh, scully." and how quickly she responds "it's okay. i'm fine."

it's that kind of childlike grimace in him, the same man who flinches away from dead bodies and stares at the ground before his father. and she's so fast to try to restore order. it's okay. i'm fine. don't worry, i'll clean it up. i'll make it go away. when she disappears into the bathroom and sees an apparition there herself...i think she decides to go to the hospital because she just needs space, honestly. she's scared. he offers to drive her, to go with her, twice. asks, "you sure?" and she says, twice, "i'm fine."

elegy builds to two separate climaxes: the first, when mulder comes to scully's apartment. but before that, we see scully in karen kosseff's office, the same therapist that she had gone to in irresistible, and presumably has kept a relationship with in the years since. she tells karen that she's been diagnosed with inoperable untreatable cancer, and when karen asks, "you've kept working?" she answers, "yes. it's been important to me."

she's taken aback when karen asks why, is surprised at the question, and tells her "agent mulder has been concerned. he's been supportive, through this time."

KOSSEFF: Do you feel that you owe it to him to continue working?

SCULLY: (quickly) No. (pauses) I guess I never realized how much I rely on him before this...his passion...he's been a great source of strength that I've drawn on.

KOSSEFF: What happened last night, Dana?

SCULLY: I saw something. I, I don't know what to trust. If I saw it because of the stress, because the image had been suggested to me or if it was a suggestion of my own fears.

KOSSEFF: Your fear of failing him?

SCULLY: (exhales emotionally) Maybe.

this is such a rare admission from scully. first of all, she's being confronted. this is not normal. it is not normal to work to your death. it's like bill tells her, a couple of episodes later, "what are you doing at work, getting knocked down, beaten up? what are you trying to prove?"

(she hadn't even told bill about her cancer. she'd been sick for months. she thought she was going to die in memento mori, she knows she's going to die sooner than later. and she instructed her mom not to tell her brother. from the moment that mulder said "i refuse to believe that," it really was only going to go one way.)

she's being confronted. why are you working? (for mulder). do you feel you owe him? (no, i need him).

she's really alone. she's sick. like, she's really sick. she spent the last case in the hospital. she's having a hard time keeping up. she's thinning, and bleeding, and struggling. but there she goes, every day, at every hour. monster chasing. telling him she's fine.

(so much conflict comes from the way that mulder's ignorance perfectly enables scully's repression)

when he shows up, late, at her apartment, he comes in a mile-a-minute, about how he needs her "help" on the case, before asking her what her doctor said. (her answer, of course, being, "i'm fine.")

he tells her that everyone who has seen an apparition, was dying. every person who reported a premonition, was near death themselves.

SCULLY: Harold Spuller is dying too?

MULDER: Well, that's what I need your medical opinion on.

SCULLY: Well, what if he isn't?

MULDER: I would be very surprised. What is a death omen if not a vision of our own mortality? And who among us would most likely be able to see the dead? 

this is one of the most hauntingly isolating moments of the series...he has just told her that she is going to die. and he doesn't know, that that's what he said. she is forced to process it, completely by herself. and she doesn't believe in ghosts, or "premonitions," but she knows that he is right. (when is he not?)

("maybe harold is sicker than we thought he was.")

the second moment that this episode builds to, is the final confrontation between mulder and scully. after the murder is solved. after harold dies.

SCULLY: I saw something, Mulder.

MULDER: What?

SCULLY: The fourth victim. I saw her in the bathroom before you came to tell me.

MULDER: Why didn't you tell me?

SCULLY: Because I didn't want to believe it. Because I don't want to believe it.

MULDER: Is that why you came down here, to prove that it wasn't true?

SCULLY: No, I came down here because you asked me to.

MULDER: Why can't you be honest with me?

SCULLY: (defensively) What do you want me to say? That you're right, that, that I believe it even if I don't? I mean, is that what you want?

MULDER: Is that what you think I want to hear?

SCULLY: (softly) No.

they come really...close here? to talking about it? she almost baits him several times this season. she spends so much of this arc thinking...maybe, this will be it. maybe if she fucks off on assignment, gets a tattoo with another man, he'll say it. maybe if she calls him out for never celebrating her birthday, he'll acknowledge why this is the year he did. maybe if they spend a friday night with a bottle of wine, they'll talk. maybe if she tells him, those things you believe are death omens? i saw it. he'll know.

i can't remember which one of you said that all of their arguments are just how to love each other. she doesn't want to believe. but she's there, because he has asked her to be. even in all of their repressed denial, there is no escaping what's happening. it hangs over both of them.

i love the moments in this arc where she just snaps. in this scene when she says, what do you want from me? do you want me to just believe you? and her quiet resignation, when he makes her answer her own question. no. she knows that's not what he wants.

MULDER: (his voice softens) I know what you're afraid of. I'm afraid of the same thing.

SCULLY: The doctor said I was fine.

MULDER: I hope that's the truth.

SCULLY: (whispers) I'm going home.

"i know what you're afraid of. i'm afraid of the same thing."

except, no, he doesn't. and no, they are not.

but she knows what he's afraid of, just as her therapist had known what she's afraid of ("your fear of failing him?") and so she dodges his admittance with reassurance. she's fine.

that last scene, when she goes out and cries in her car, and she sees harold's ghost in the backseat. she is so alone. she's working on her deathbed. they don't talk about it. she's afraid, and she's not fine, and she is going to "fail" him because she cannot keep herself alive for him, and she can't avoid it. it's in the backseat. it's in the bathroom mirror. it's bleeding out of her.

[shannonsketches]

something something foils moving in opposite directions Goku's always happy to seek and fight stronger opponents because he spent most of his life being the strongest guy in the room and Vegeta wants to be the strongest/is always exhausted to find stronger opponents because he spent most of his life having to navigate his survival around the whims of the strongest guy in the universe room and so Goku has a foundation of safety and stability and so spends his time craving challenge and adventure and Vegeta has a foundation of challenge and adventure and spends his time craving safety and stability and the overlaid section of their venn diagram is that the only way they know how acquire and maintain those things is through battle

[donothing-nothingworks]

basically the key problem with me is that nobody else ever in the history of the world has felt as alone as I do. Like this is unprecedented by any other man woman child I'm the only one who has ever felt this way.

[pinkfey]

listening to the bad playlist that gives me bad syndrome

[intertexts]

the thing that's got me really fucking hooked with black sails so far though is that lately i've been going man i really do enjoy splashy violence & gratuitous gore & such, but i want to see something where the violence enacted onscreen has a real and heavy weight to it. (this is of course the fault of me reading what happens next & it entirely + permanently changing my worldview) & this show fucking does! there's so much blood in this show & so far it is always a shorthand or a parallel or a metaphor or foreshadowing or five different layers of such...

[designsdefiance]

day 12: style

m'seyli underwent a pretty dramatic hair chop after endwalker :3 something something physical change reflecting big emotional change

[captainmullin]

I want to talk about the themes and motifs of my granblue story but. I'm worried yall would get bored DHHFDDY

[stellerssong]

so good news bad news time (incredibly low-stakes). good news: i have finished (barring some tweaking and fiddling) the top of a hadestown fic. bad news: as usual i have no intention of completing it (though i do know roughly the arc of it). what do.

[mikecrewsteacup]

my wife and I are rewatching midnight mass but only our favorite parts (basically the show minus Riley RIP my guy) and my god. my god this show. it's gorgeous and my brain and heart love it so much. i'm so happy it's perfect as it is and I can obsess over it as it exists and turn it over in my mind and it's just so inspiring. Did I mention that the first time I watched this show's finale I literally cried so hard i had a headache the rest of the evening

[angeltannis]

was not expecting much (or anything) out of Haunted Mansion (2023) besides a few actors I like being in it. but aside from the "Marvel humor" that's plaguing pretty much every Disney release these days, it was actually surprisingly heartfelt, sweet and emotional. and I did not expect it to deal with, uh...suicidal ideation? in both an adult And a child character? that was unexpectedly mature for a Disney ghost movie. actually got me a little bit teared up in places (partially also because Lakeith Stanfield is a phenomenal actor)

[antepaths]