#hair long enough to tie - ❌

[glimpsesofeuterpe]

finally got kitty earrings that look nearly same as happy cornelius'

[projectmoon-smash-or-pass]

propaganda:

✅ "Its been a long week Ishmael... Pass the Yuri"

✅️ "the one of the most infamous names in the entire project moon fandom is solely defined by how much he simps for ishmael. there is absolutely no escape. i got my friend into limbus because of how hot ishmael was and it because the profile of his private twitter account. there is absolutely no debate. i would let her slam me into a fishing pond, hit me over the head with a glass bottle, throw me against a chair, ANYTHING"

✅️ "i downloaded limbus because i saw her molar boatworks id + immediately had a HUGE yuri moment. i needed her in my life. i want to bury myself in her hairrr. i want to fuck her. i want her to fuck meeeeee !!!!!"

✅️ (image below)

✅️ "im just saying that when liu ishmael dropped the entirety of limbus twitter and a few outliers went batshit over her voice"

❌ "too much hair :("

✅️ "Ok like. She worked with the pequod for quite some time, she's gotta be pretty muscled and scarred(Obvious plus). Plus it'd give experience and knowledge tying knots(as if Roseate Desires wasn't enough bondage fuel for Ishmael). Also very frequently headcanoned as trans so imagine if you will, ginger trans sailor woman who could tie you up so perfectly and rail you even better. 120% smash

(Though if I'm being perfectly honest I am horribly biased. Ishmael made me trans my gender and realize I liked women. I'm getting a tattoo of her sinner icon in like a week. I'm cosplaying her in a few months. So take my words with a hefty grain of salt)"

✅️ "counterpoint to the too much hair ishmael propoganda, first of all, how dare you, and second, her hair is half the appeal. you can play with it. i bet its so soft. you can bury your face in it. also, it's beautiful. ishmael <3"

✅️ "to quote a tweet i saw "im gonna suck her dick until she’s groaning like a beached whale" (they wrote it for captain ishmael but shush)"

✅️ "i thought her sloshing id was "sploshing" instead and i got so wet i made a new ocean"

[enigmaticxbee]

✖️✖️✖️ 9x18 Sunshine Days

The one with... the man who’s obsessed with The Brady Bunch.

Best: As wrap up for the MOTW side of the original run of the show it’s touching. Doggett: So close, Dana. I’m sorry you don’t get your proof. Scully: Me too. Well, maybe I’ve had it these past nine years. If not proof of the paranormal, then... of more important things. The friends we made along the way!

Worst: Also highlights the downside of the MOTW format as once again no mention of William - WTF show?!

❌ Flashlights

❌ Woods/Desert

❌ Slideshow

✔️ Autopsy

✔️ Evidence Disappears

❌ Scully Misses It

✔️ Mulder Ditch (I hold this one against the show, not Mulder)

❌ Sunflower Seeds

❌ Voiceover

❌ Catch Phrase

❌ Scully is a Medical Doctor

❌ Mulder is Spooky

❌ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr!

❌ Fox/Dana

❌ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)

❌ Casual Scully

❌ Casual Mulder

✔️ Trench Coats

❌ Bad Tie Watch

❌ Glasses Watch

✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Scully

50 States: California x19 & DC x99 (44/50)

Investigate: Apart

Solve Rate: 83%

❌ Bechdel Test: Conversations between women were all about men

MSR: 🐝🐝

Goriness: 👽👽

Creepiness: 👽👽

Humor: 👽👽

Rewatch Thoughts:

William check-in: No mention 😐

Missing Mulder: Scully: I want vindication! For Mulder... and for all of us.

Michael Emerson, Pre-LOST! He’s so good at creating compelling characters - creepy/menacing but pathetic enough to turn to sympathetic

Is “dead as a hammer” a common saying? I thought it was “dead as a doornail” 🤔

Scully: If Mulder were here... 😢 She went through Mulder’s books!

Monica’s flippy, flippy hair 🤨

Doggett’s so confused by the idea of someone being obsessed with a 30 year old show 😝

It’s like they’re suddenly in a computer screen saver 😆

Scully’s happy smile and giggle at floating Skinner 😂

Aww, Skinner’s so happy that they have proof that will allow the X-Files to remain open! Sadly doesn’t last for long...

I don’t like Doggett’s new A to B to C thing - I’m not sure why, it just feels... smug, like he’s finally figured out how to understand X-Files by justifying his very basic leaps in logic

Scully and Dr Anspaugh (ER!) being so gung-ho to use this man as proof and vindication of their lives work is not a great look - but at least they come around quickly when they realize the harm his power is doing to him

[enigmaticxbee]

✖️✖️✖️ 5x14 The Red and the Black

The one where... Scully undergoes hypnosis to remember what happened at the dam. Part 2 of 2.

Tagline: Resist or Serve

Best: Mulder gently brushing the hair back from her face and Scully sleepily responding what time is it? like it’s completely normal to be woken up that way by him. Mulder sitting on her hospital bed, so happy she’s ok that he laughs in relief. Scully’s confusion and fear over her missing memory. It’s a great scene.

Worst: CSM is still alive... Also that orgasmic hypnosis scene is hard to watch. It makes me very uncomfortable - maybe it’s supposed to? - but it’s a lot.

✔️ Flashlights

✔️ Woods

❌ Slideshow

❌ Autopsy

✔️ Evidence Disappears

✔️ Scully Misses It (I mean, she was there - she just conveniently can’t remember it)

✔️ Mulder Ditch

❌ Sunflower Seeds

❌ Voiceover

❌ Catch Phrase

❌ Scully is a Medical Doctor

❌ Mulder is Spooky

❌ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr!

❌ Fox/Dana

✔️ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for) - handholding, so much handholding

❌ Casual Scully

❌ Casual Mulder

✔️ Trench Coats

✔️ Bad Tie Watch

❌ Glasses Watch

✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Scully & Mulder

50 States: West Virginia x6, Pennsylvania x14 & DC x44 (35/50)

Investigate: Together & Apart

Solve Rate: 60%

✔️ Bechdel Test: No conversation between women

MSR: 🐝🐝🐝

Goriness: 👽👽

Creepiness: 👽👽

Humor: 👽

Rewatch Thoughts:

I’ve been puzzling over their conversation in the second hospital scene. It feels significant - they’re talking about the chip and what it means! and why Scully joined Mulder on his quest for the Truth - but I can’t quite parse what Scully is saying. Mulder: ... it all points to that chip. The truth I’ve been searching for? That truth is in you. Scully: Mulder, when I met you five years ago... I didn’t believe you, but I followed you, on nothing more than your faith that the truth was out there, based... on your memories that your sister had been taken from you... Mulder: I don’t trust those memories now. Scully: Well, whether you trust them or not they’ve led you here. And me. But I have no memories to either trust or distrust, and if you ask me to follow you again... without those memories, I can’t. I won’t. Mulder: If I could give you those memories, if I could prove that I was right and that what I believed for so long was wrong... Scully: Is that what you really want?

I think what’s going on is that Scully fell for Mulder because of his passion and faith, and that she can’t continue on like this with this cynical, hopeless version of him. I was having trouble because she says that his belief in his memories of Samantha’s abduction led them here, to Scully in a hospital bed with a chip in her neck that can control her with no memory of what happened. Which is pretty bad, and sounds like a sunk costs issue for her to want Mulder to keep blindly believing and continuing on that path. But Scully has always maintained that she wouldn’t change a day. And based on what happens later in the episode, I think Scully is feeling more open to extreme possibilities of what happened to her, and she doesn’t want Mulder to give up.

It bothers me that Scully’s chip and loss of bodily and mental autonomy becomes all about Mulder and his quest. Maybe I’m just not understanding the intent of this scene, but I don’t think there’s enough focus on the impact on Scully. Even after she “recovers” her memories through hypnosis it’s all about whether it’s aliens or not. Either way Scully is fucked. I mean, I think it’s there in GA’s acting all episode, it’s just not there in the writing.

Mulder must be like god dammit, I shout about aliens for 5 years and then the moment I come around to their rational point of view both Scully and Skinner tell me the more plausible explanation is extraterrestrial?! WTF?

Ok, great Krycek scene. Holding Mulder at gunpoint, warning him about alien colonization and telling him to help the alien resistance - with like zero practical information of how to do so - then kissing him and peacing out? Chef’s kiss.

It really makes me mad that - as far as I remember - the show never does anything else with Scully’s chip. It’s mentioned in season 7’s En Ami. And there’s conjecture/headcanon about its role in her pregnancy. But the threat of being controlled, or even just monitored/tracked is never followed through on. Wasted opportunity. If I was Scully that’s all I’d be able to think about.

Episode-Related Fanfic Recs:

Apocalyptic Poet by Linda Bower - Mulder and Scully struggle to get back on the same page. Great emotional, angsty sex. (On Gossamer so if link doesn’t work you can search for it there.)

Just Go to the Graveyard and Ask Around by Sab - Oof, this deals with the aftermath of this case and angsty, disaffected Mulder in such a wonderful way. The ending made me tear up and smile. Read this!