#i would have been well and truly fucked

[madegeeky]

Geeky 2022 Trip Extravaganza

Homes away from home (aka, the places I stayed):

Pink glamour airbnb (first two days in Vegas): The aesthetic of this place was, in general, amazing. However, it had two major things that made me happy to finally move to our hotel on Sunday. 1) There was no fucking counter space in the bathroom besides what the sink provided. 2) All the lighting in the bathroom was behind you when you looked in the mirror which means your face is always in the dark. Both of these make it impossible to do makeup effectively in the bathroom. I ended up having to do it in the bedroom, with my makeup spread out on the bed because there were no tables in their either, where the lighting was coming from my left so still obnoxious just less so. Maybe if you don't do makeup this place would be palatable but as someone who was trying to do eyeshadow, I wanted to die.

Vdara (the rest of our time in Vegas): I fucking *loved* the Vdara. Not only were the rooms nice and big and the bed comfortable, but we had so much counter space in the bathroom! Just so fucking much! But, best of all, there was no fucking casino in it! None! I can't even tell y'all how nice it was to walk into our hotel and have everything just be chill and calm. My only real complaint was the little shop they had for food and drink was fuckishly expensive, so we had to make absolutely sure that we bought anything we might want/need before we headed back to the hotel.

Petite Auberge (San Francisco): Fuck was this a horror show almost from the beginning. Firstly, they said on their website they did laundry/dry cleaning; they did not. We gave them our bags to hold until our room was ready, went exploring, and then when we came back we couldn't get inside because you need a key to get in the front door and the person at the front desk had apparently just fucked off. We eventually got their sister hotel to give us a key so we could get in but that was its own ordeal. After that it was just minor thing after minor thing which, by themselves, would have been annoying but nothing major, but when added all together and piled on top of the our first day there, became absolutely obnoxious. Oh, and the morning we were leaving the door frame to the bathroom suddenly started leaking water and the people at the front desk gave absolutely no fucks and were just like "Oh, the maintenance person will be here in an hour and a half". You'd think a hotel would care more about water damage and things like mold but, nope, not this hotel. We left about 15 mins after that the water leaked so no idea what happened there but it's always nice to know a hotel stands in regards to its upkeep.

[beyondthislifetime]

People who truly dislike Edwina Sharma are wild. Heaven forbid an 18 year old be charmed after being almost relentlessly pursued by an older man. Three married women, including her mother, are for the match. THE QUEEN is for the match. The only person saying he isn't right for her is her sister and like I'm sorry but my sister could swear that a man wasn't that into me and I would not listen if he BOUGHT ME A HORSE!???!!?!!

[itsalwaysforyou]

hold me together.

kenny ortega, descendants 2 / holly black, red glove / nicole homer, underbelly / ada limon, a new national anthem / k c cramm, christmas eve forever / kenny ortega, descendants 3 / the crane wives, curses / silas denver melvin, let dead dogs lie / natalie wee, least of all

[avatar-aaang]

Monty was so so strong for not just immediately walking into traffic after that

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

season 1 episode 20 thoughts

oh i did NOT think the BUG episode would be the scariest one so far, but here we are!!!!

so there are some weird disappearances in the pacific northwest again. famously a spooky place (see twilight for further details)

we see the bugs start swarming and i did NOT like that <3

cut to mulder and scully in his office, he's showing her a bunch of lumberjacks that he describes as "rugged manly men in the full blood of their manhood" which is. already a lot to unpack. but he asks scully to notice anything off about them.

she is, rightfully confused, and says "what am i looking for?" "anything strange, unusual, unlikely, a boyfriend"

now mulder. you sound like you are into lumberjacks. this is a safe space to share your thoughts on the subject of rugged manly men.

(scully laughs at this. she was probably also thinking, man, he seems really into that. we can unpack that later. but she wouldn't press him on that subject because she is respectful)

but he's so excited to go! he pulled strings to get the case and he says "c'mon scully, it'll be a nice trip to the forest" which is somewhat charming but again this is the forest where people disappear so i would personally be LESS excited to visit than he was

(oh. and the fact that he told her it would be a nice trip gets a LOT sadder later)

so they trek up the mountain in their raincoats! and get stuck in the back of a truck together! all things that we want to happen to them!

there seems to be this war going on between ecoterrorists and loggers that they've stumbled into. and the logger guy says that these ecoterrorists are "treehuggers" who are the same as those who "went up to Canada in the Vietnam War... they're cowardly and so are their tactics"

and it's so rare you learn exactly what to think of a person with one sentence they say but boy. is this a prime example.

they find a suspicious cocoon in the trees and decide scully should be lifted up and investigate which i thought was RUDE. why her? hasn't she done enough? i mean i think the real answer was she was small enough to fit in the lifty contraption but still. she sees a desiccated hand sticking out and 2+2 is starting to look a lot like 4

they drag the cocoon to the ground and cut it open and she says it feels like the body has had all its fluids drained from it, which is exactly the kind of knowledge i think is attractive in a woman to possess

at this point, i made a note that as far as evils go, i certainly could believe man eating bugs. bigfoot, as they note in the episode, seems far-fetched for this case, but if i woke up tomorrow and checked the news and saw that a new bug was eating people in washington i'd be like damn, hope my mutuals there are okay. but would i have trouble believing it? ABSOLUTELY not.

the environmentalist they rescued seems to think that the bugs are coming from the old growth trees, which i found to be a very compelling argument from the show to Leave the Damn Trees Alone. logging rates must have crumbled after this hit the airwaves.

and he reveals that the bugs HATE the light, so now fuel preservation is very important. the old logger guy runs away and gets eaten and tbh i wasn't that sad sorry.

scully gets some of the bugs from a core sample of the old-growth tree and starts talking about what she learned in biology courses about them. i am very much in support of bug facts with scully and would attend many hours of this lecture.

they find an old radio but it's broken :( but mulder fixes it! which tells us he knows how to fix things. what a Rugged Manly Man.

the environmentalist takes the last of the fuel to go and rescue his friends and mulder stops him at gunpoint but ultimately lets him go. now they have like, no fuel!!!! and the others- scully included- are pissed! if it gets dark they will die because the bugs will eat them which is a lousy way to go! they argue for a bit and then realize they should patch up any sort of holes in the walls to prevent bugs getting in. scully is justified in her anger, i would say.

(actually thought this was a great detail. mulder is so trusting. he genuinely believes that people can be good, or rehabilitated if they aren't. he trusts the deepthroat figure and is deeply hurt when he tries to lead them down the wrong path. and when that one guy who vowed to kill him was on the loose, he still wanted to take him alive. he seems to fully believe that people can be good, even at the expense of his own safety)

i sat back to watch the next scene and things got very intense VERY FAST. the bugs start getting into the cabin despite their best preparation and scully freaks the fuck out. she's panicking, swatting her arms, backed up against the wall, screaming "mulder, get them off of me" and he holds her while he tries to explain that they're okay, the bugs won't swarm while they're in the light.

this, to me, was excellent. exactly the level of angst/comfort i can hope for when i click play on an episode. i love to see our normally stoic characters lose their minds, and i think this is the wildest we have ever seen her (with a close second being the time she told the psychic that if he hurt mulder she would kill him herself) and i loved that she asked mulder to get them off of her, seeming so desperate to believe that was a thing he was capable of doing. she trusts him so entirely.

so after that they sit on the bed next to each other with their shoulders touch. which is fine! i'm fine. toooootally fine. and she explains to him how the bugs are like fireflies in their biological processes. more bug facts with scully.

mulder says again that he hasn't given up hope that their environmentalist will return to come and get them, once again reiterating that he is deeply trusting and in many ways a sad puppy dog

in the day they make a break for it and they find the old logger guy having been eaten and left in a cocoon and ohh my skin was CRAWLLLLLING.

but the environmentalist comes back!! mulder's faith in humanity was well-placed!!! he tells them to get in the jeep NOW.

just when we think everything is in the clear the environmentalist hits one of the spikes he set to pop the logger's tires and NOOOO. THEY'RE IN THE DARK... NOOOOOOO THE BUGS ARE GETTING IN. NAURRRRR. I WAS SHOCKED. THE BUGS COCOON'ED THEM. IT WAS HORRIFIC.

but the people mulder had called for help with the fixed radio came and got them shortly after. they took their cocooned bodies and brought them to a quarantine. and somehow they had not yet had all their fluids drained.

we see mulder come out with an oxygen tank attached and horrific burns/rashes and i wrote "dude the bugs Fucked them up". scully and the forest agent are still out. he asks the doctor if scully will be okay; he says she's not out of the woods yet (poorly timed pun) and lost a ton of fluid. for once, she cannot do the doctoring.

(and this is where my heart shattered and dropped onto the cold floor) mulder says, "i told her it would be a nice trip to the forest"

oh, mulder, who is driven to the brink by the need to keep everyone around him Safe at all times, led them straight into this scenario. and now her unconscious body laying on that bed while the doctor does everything he can to try and get her back to life is going to haunt him forever, just like every other person he couldn't protect from the world.

the doctor says that the government WILL succeed in eradicating the bug species through controlled burns and pesticides. when mulder says what if that actually doesn't cut it, he says it'll have to. and thus ends the episode.

i was at the edge of my seat throughout this, and did not think it was going to get as dark as it did, but it certainly did! i feel like they will need a few weeks to recover but i've gotten use to this show just. putting them back in the office after a near death situation. so i doubt the long term bug trauma will be addressed here. however, i bet that it will make any future visits to the doctor by our three survivors very uncomfortable.

"any changes to your medical history?" "i was eaten by ancient bugs that drained my fluids and wrapped me in a cocoon so i'm not sure if that will have any long term effects" "...okay"

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

the amount of effort that goes into figuring out what to cook and eat every day is RIDICULOUS. i used to think people were so weird and boring for eating the same thing every single day but it truly does make life so much easier

[malfoy-signet-ring]

What never ceases to amaze me is how amazingly skilled George RR Martin is at creating a world so similar yet so glaringly different from our own. This is especially blinding in HOTD where the similarities between the Faith and Christianity, The Old Gods of Valyria and the North and pagan religions of old (and there slow and steady comeback in recent decades). The parallels that can be drawn between the Targaryen feeling of disconnect from their roots, lack of knowledge in their own history, and the history of so many people from across Africa, Europe, and the Americas is truly astounding.

What also never ceases to amaze me is how many religious people I know side with the Greens, like I wonder if they realize…

[edwinisms]

I know how it sounds at first, but I really gotta feel bad for the boys that sacrificed edwin; I mean even the term “sacrificed edwin” paints them in a more sinister light than they really deserve– considering that wasn’t really, actually their intention.

they were bullies, they were homophobic (and/or were self loathing gay boys themselves taking it out on edwin, or were equally likely peer pressured into acting a certain way), they planned something stupid and mean to do to an innocent, anxious boy with the goal of scaring the shit out of him, all because he was effeminate and an easy target. but they didn’t know or expect any of the ritual stuff to be real. they were all laughing and joking during the ritual because it was just that to them– a joke. a cruel joke, but a joke.

teenagers can be mean and stupid and they usually regret it as adults and grow out of it / grow from it. they were stifled the chance to grow out of it, at least while alive. none of those boys deserved to be instakilled and sent to hell; they’re really not that much less deserving than edwin himself. they were all just kids, after all.

[lucifer-kane]

May I offer a Jon in these trying times

[daincrediblegg]

love the occult status lady terror has taken in this community. I get fucking tagged shit for her now like what on earth is happening here

[jorvikzelda]

today i had this Vivid memory flash through my mind of kissing my ex boyfriend (this was like 2018) and i felt so viscerally fucking revolted and I gotta say. it is truly impressive that I didn’t realise I’m a lesbian sooner than fucking half a year ago

[hella1975]

basically threw away £20 on my nails today so was already getting weird bc i apparently cannot be normal about money and then my paycheck came through just for my manager to have knocked off 11 hours worth of pay. so naturally i am crying in a dark room about it

[brucequeensteen]

if forgetting important things was an olympic sport brother id win gold every fucking time

[permanentreverie]

.

[gu6chan]

the brief mention that 1.3 leonard could still be feeling some deep lingering grief over his brothers' deaths still never fails to fascinate me tbh like, does he think of the standards he must have lost since their passing and feel guilt? or does he see them in every child he abuses??? does he keep his grief to himself or does he find it a useful anecdote to what must be a countless number of families dealing with loss??? does the green dragon know? does he confide in it????? since leonard seems to be aware of what arioch lost to the union, just how aware is/was she in what HE lost???????? did they have a role in each other's loss? is THAT where their beef came from??????? im going to merge into a wall

[muffingnf]

we need to abolish needing a code to join a general sale for concert tickets. pre-sale is perfectly fine but GENERAL SALE? because tell me why i joined the eras tour waitlist in june 2023 and its now august 2024 and i am STILL on the waitlist. 2 new shows added and thousands more tickets on sale in that time but i am Still on this godforsaken waitlist. its stupid

bring back the good old days of fighting tooth and nail for concert tickets, at least then i had a chance