#liveblogging my reading as usual

[zzukohere]

NOT NEIL SAYING ON NATIONAL TELEVISION THAT RIKO IS A MANIAC AND THAT HIS TEAM IS FULL OF HORRIBLE HUMAN BEINGS???? NEIL????

[rose-reads-visualnovels]

the great thing about the revolutionary girl utena finale people don’t usually talk about is that one scene where all the council members promise they’ll get out of ohtori - and thus their coffins - when they’re ready. it’s great because it gives us the viewers hope for ourselves.

it’s easy to come out of utena realizing a few internalized hang ups you never grew out of. it’s a whole other thing to actually do something about it. these obsessive vices are so comfortable in their routine, even when it’s obviously unhealthy to keep going. being stuck in a rut of your own making fully aware of what you’re doing.

but utena never really scolds you too harshly about it in the end. it tells you, take your time. one day you’ll be strong enough to stand up and leave. people may help you get there, but you will leave with your own two feet.

it ends, not with every issue resolved and all the characters fully developed, but it ends with the promise that they will. and the camera is nice enough not to stalk them through it as they work out the kinks

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 16 thoughts

(giggling and kicking my feet) it’s mulder and scully time <3

and it was a GOOD episode!!! i was sad, but damn was i compelled! back to the very beginning of the episode to begin the note-taking journey, with a tiny recap of where we left off beneath the “keep reading” bar…

hehehehe i am excited!! i love to spend the evening with the ultimate duo. and we have so much to cover!

so many twists and turns to walk down! krycek is back! skinner is hurt! scully is sleuthing! mulder is in hong kong! we had best begin!

YAAAS we got another “previously on the x files” <- i loathed these at first for throwing me off my typical groove, but now that i know we only bust them out on special occasions (multiple part episodes) i look forward to them

ugh scully is so pretty. “you say that every time” and it’s true every time??? 

we get a recap: flash bang alien, inky eyes, skinner on a hunt for answers before being interrupted, scully’s dad’s friend johansen, the rat bastard 

timeskip to 1953. a man from johansen’s squad who is covered in burns is telling his story, and it is being recorded. he is being visited by those who claim to want to bring him to justice, but he says he won’t tell. 

so after johansen started a mutiny and locked the rest of the sailors in the sub, those trapped on the lower levels knocked the dude with the inky eyes on the head with a wrench. so he is knocked tf out. and liquid started pouring from his eyes (BLEAUGH) and into a drain. the survivor who has all the burns and who is recounting this calls the liquid “the enemy”

a guy that looks a lot like matty healy (but much cleaner) is asking him what he means by calling liquid “the enemy”. so the interviewee says that the thing went back to where it came from. 

GASP!!!!!! HE ADDRESSES THE MATTY HEALY LOOKING FELLOW AS “MR. MULDER”!!!!!! oh this is JUICY!!! and the camera pans over to another man putting in a cigarette!! GASP!!! WE KNOW WHO THAT IS!!!!

baby cig man says “you can trust all of us” (<- LIES, LYING, SAID BY A GUY WHO IS LYING)

(you can tell the actor playing baby cig man had just one line but he worked SO hard to get cig man's voice right... it made me giggle)

why does young mr mulder look kinda cute. aww. so little. almost wanna squish his cheeks.

they changed the intro again. smh! messing with my rhythm.

anyway, back to main plot. scully’s rolling up to the hospital to find skinner, where she is met by agent fuller and agent caleca, two names i do not think i have heard before. scully asks for hair and fiber from the crime scene and these two are like “we don’t have that yet” so she says “um get it?” (not really but basically) (and they claim it was some random guy that shot him… not buying it)

oh! skinner is being wheeled out! she’s off to go investigate. now if it were ME being rolled about with my shirt off after a gunshot wound and emergency surgery, i would not want people seeing that. but hey, she’s a doctor so maybe she’s chill like that. still! i’d be soooo embarrassed omg

SHE GRABS HIS HAND OMG!!!!! he opens his eyes a tiny tiny bit and tells her that he has seen the man who shot him before!!!

man, i thought just the hand grabbing was gonna be all tender, and it was! but getting a clue at who did it was a bonus too

back to the rat bastard and mulder. at least krycek seems aware that mulder can and will kick his ass and is deferential to him. 

scully is looking over skinner’s chart. OH! she asked for guards. and she wants them NOW. she does not CARE about your excuses. WOO!!! she says idgaf if you two agents stand out there YOURSELVES, get GUARDS ON him!!! YAAAAS!

back to krycek and mulder cam. mulder notices that they are being followed and tells him to speed up. at gunpoint! and this mystery vehicle runs them off the road!!!!!!

noooo, their faces are all smushed in. someone pulls rat bastard out and asks where the tape is, but the fellow who attacked him gets flash banged, because again, krycek has alien flash banging powers.

but poor mulder still has his bloody heady on the dash :( he sees some odd flashing 

scully gets called into the lab and this guy has some info on the dude that shot skinner. she says it will take too much time to run the hair sequence, but to do it anyway.

(also, i can’t tell if this is the same guy from the lab as before that clearly had a crush on her or if this is a different one but idk i guess it doesn’t really matter... he doesn’t seem like her type)

so the two men that krycek flash banged last night are now in treatment for radiation, and who is visiting them but cancer man!!! he is once again lighting up as they are dying. he bends down and moves a bandage, and sees the eyes of a patient meet his. but he says to HAVE THE BODIES DESTROYED OMFG HE DOES NOT GIVE A FUUUUCK THIS GUY IS EVIL!!!!

mulder at da hospital. bandage on his head. awwwwww :( it’s so sad and pathetic... he’s baby.

AND SCULLY IS THERE!!!! WITH A SMILE!!!!!! WOOHOO I WISH I COULD LIVE IN THIS MOMENT FOREVER!!! YES YES THOSE ARE MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS!!

the police found him and he mentioned “we” so she says “who’s we” and he has to say KRYCEK… she is (very gently) confused

an excellent person to have by your bedside whilst recovering. 

she tells him that she is sorry for the bad news, but skinner has been shot as well. but the doctors seem to think he’ll be okay. and she has an idea on who it is that pulled the trigger!

GASP!!! she pulls out the scans on the hair. two of them, in fact. the first being from the man who shot skinner, and the second being from the man who shot melissa. and they’re a PERFECT MATCH!!!! CONSPIRACY!!! CONSPIRACY, I CRY!!!

(shrill violins, fade to black)

oh! it’s the united nations alien council. um i realize now i don’t know their actual name. but you know who i’m referring to, right? the guys. the gang. the squad. just a couple of dudes.

they’re discussing the site “WHERE THEY RECOVERED THE UFO” well! there you have it! word of god confirmation! it’s indeed a ufo that the french sailors came across in the last episode!

“it seems we have an information leak, gentlemen”, one of them announces, which makes me say, okaaaay ominous <3

and they say cig man has responded in a way no one could have predicted… omg was he behind the skinner thing…?

scully visiting skinner <3 asking how he is feeling <3 he doesn’t seem surprised about the news his shooter was the same as melissa’s, especially because those three men had warned him before about pursuing her case. he says she should be careful about saying that the case was shut down because people don’t want it to be caught but. it’s looking them right in the face.

OH! the man that shot him was one of the ones who attacked him a few months back on the stairwell! well i didn’t even catch this. some detail noticer i am. AND KRYCEK was the other one!!!! yes, and they stole the tape yes yes i’m recalling!

ohhh it’s serious. he tells her that she cannot afford anger, that if she’s angry she’ll make a mistake. “i’ll be okay”, she says (voice breaking) (<- said by a woman who is lying)

he says that if she can’t keep her head, it’s okay to step away… this feels very chekov’s gun… but she says that’s exactly what they want. OH! i love that she knows she can get to the bottom of this. i love that she believes in herself.

scully is furiously typing on her laptop. asking to devote full bureau resources to finding krycek. got her glasses on n everything. terribly beautiful whilst angry. she is saying he can explain everything that is going on, but i don’t think anyone is gonna listen to herrrr because the fbi does not give a fuck!!!

scully is now entering their office to see the giant yellow scuba suit. “it looked great on me in the store” says mulder, who needs to make a joke or people will die. perhaps he needs to make a joke even more when people really ARE dying.

so, why is it here? great question. it was covered in oil, the french guy was covered in oil, his wife was covered in oil, and it’s all diesel oil from world war two submarines. a new meaning to the term “oiled up”.

theory time with mulder: it’s a medium for an alien creature for body-jumping. he laughs when she laughs, aware of how ridiculous it sounds, but also aware of her thinly veiled fury; what else could he do? he does know how it sounds, he does know what she needs, but the truth. the truth.

so what does this thing living in the oil want with krycek? a great question. 

omg guy from the lone gunmen is ice skating! and so is another one. wow a team bonding mission <3 AND THE OTHER ONE!!! FROHIKE!!! 

is this something they do often... no, this must be a sleuthing mission.

frohike goes in a locker and opens something. GIVES IT TO MULDER!!! YAAAS THE TAPE!!! they say he should “call upon their services more often” YAAAS they want that sweet sweet agent time <3 

but noooo! the tape is gone!!!! mulder gets mad and throws the empty case. still, a reunion with his pals <3

cig man is watching tv. sipping some sort of liquor.

(whenever i see someone drinking a beverage with ice in it on a tv show, i think of that one tiktok of a prop master explaining how they make prop ice and the many different kinds they can do. i think this looks like glass ice to me. shoutout to people who make videos about props; you make my heart very happy)

BRO... THE TAPE JUST APPEARS. KRYCEK HAS ENTERED????? but the guy who shot skinner is there too!!! and is holding krycek at gunpoint!!!!

cig man watches krycek's eyes go all inky (correction: OILY) and black. omg……

cancer man is rolling up 15 minutes late for the UN alien meeting. lmao it's funny in a way. he moved the ufo to a new location! he promises it will be absolutely inaccessible.

someone asks why he won’t bring it to nevada like the others. probs because even the normies know about nevada as the alien place. dweeb.

GASP! they want answers for what happened to skinner. cig man says for all he knows, it's just random. even though they have a drawing of the guy who did it, who is “one of his”, he’s denying it. AND THEY’RE ALL GROANING BECAUSE NO ONE BELIEVES HIM FOR A SECOND LMAOOOOOOO

(so funny to me that despite being on the super secret alien council, cig man still manages to be unprofessional and lie through his teeth to people who seem far more competent, even when secrecy effects the entire planet. something very funny about him lowkey sucking at his job)

so he needs to get the shooter out of the country NOW or else skinner can make an ID and no one can stop the arrest!

back to the agents trying to piece things together. the lone gunmen are babbling on about how to best find what was written on the case but mulder has the secret: rubbing a lil pencil over top LMAOOO. he finds a phone number!!

and who picks it up when he calls but… the un alien club!!!

it’s the well groomed man!!! mulder says krycek gave him the number. and he asks to meet with mulder. allegedly in central park? is this a trap...

so, the dude who did the shooting is named luis. the other agents are saying to scully they can’t look any further than they already have, but she says keep looking, she’s seen stranger. and the lab guy says “i believe she has” when she leaves lmaoooo GET UP. he's down bad fr. pathetic. get up.

i mean i am too but i'd like to think i'd have more dignity about it

mulder in da park. is he alone… are they gonna get him??? the well-groomed man meets him. they’re playing some mental chess with who can ask each other what. so he tells mulder there WAS a ufo at the bottom of the ocean that was shot down during ww2, and a salvage attempt had been made, but there were complications.

so it looks like they’re both looking for krycek. but the well groomed man leaves by saying “anyone can be gotten to”. very very ominous. and mulder calls scully and says check on skinner RIGHT NOW.

she gets down there and he’s NOT THERE??? apparently he was moved to a different hospital. WHO TOOK HIM?????

scully slaps her badge on the door of a ambulance on the side of the road and asks if he’s got a skinner in there. this dude says yeah and he must be freaked tf out, but she’s coming along for the ride now.

skinner wants to know what she’s doing here, and she says she just wanted him to be safe. she pulls her gun out and opens the door and WHO IS IT BUT LUIS!!! WHO FIRES AT SKINNER!

TRAFFIC GUNFIGHT CHASE!!! luis just got hit by a CAR!!! she got him!!!

and she’s SCREAMING at him. screaming like we have never heard before, are you the man that killed my sister??? he’s begging for his life.  he says he can tell her where krycek is…

the police roll up, telling her to put the gun down. and she sadly holds up her badge and explains that she’s basically the police but actually better so y’all are kinda late to the situation. they take him into custody. and she’s tearing up. i do not trust that he doesn’t have a poison tooth in there. 

she calls mulder, who is rummaging through his car, and tells him that he was right, someone was going to kill skinner. and it IS the man who shot her sister. and allegedly krycek is going to north dakota. mulder says please meet me in new york with two tickets to north dakota asap. 

what’s in north dakota, she asks? the salvaged ufo!!!

cut to north dakota cam. agents are rolling up, and how terribly i wish i could see what happened on the flight and ride up to there. how tense the silence was, how valiant the attempts at breaking it were. UGH. someone pls write the fic someday i’m already emotional.

she’s got a vest thing on and it’s cute. i get that we have bigger things at hand but i can still appreciate a vest moment!!

they go into a silo... but the door locks behind them!!! they go 8 stories down!! that is a lot!!!! 

now they’re opening a door to what looks like a nuclear waste thing. idk i don't know much about nukes. but it’s just a big empty silo. so they have to check 199 more. 

except they hear a thunk in the tunnels!!!

scully finds one of the (barely alive?) burn victims that had been flash banged by krycek just as mulder announces “he’s here”, and a large group of soldiers runs in

OH! they go to start running from the soldiers and he grabs her. it was so subtle but so sweet. i’m gonna gnaw at something. 

NOOO! they’re surrounded!!! and cancer man is coming up. she yells that they saw bodies in there and he says “you saw nothing” <- wow absolutely garbage fellow has sunken further than even before by adding gaslighting to his resume

so they’re getting taken into custody but cancer man is going deeper, and he tells the soldiers to take the bodies away. he goes down to the nuclear thingy, and lights up, which i feel would be a bad choice in a circumstance where things were actually nuclear, but okay. 

we see something very dark and oily? and hear people throwing up. OH! it’s krycek, with the black stuff pouring from his eyes and mouth. on top of a triangular looking ufo. the oil is pouring into a spiral thingy? and it gets sucked up. 

MULDER AT HIS DESK WITH HIS GLASSES ON!!!! AND A HEALING CUT ON HIS FOREHEAD!!! could a man be any more attractive? it’s debatable.

knock knock. who is it? it’s skinner!!!! limping, and not supposed to be back in the office for a few more weeks!

mulder gets up to shake his hand and help him across the room. a right gentleman, he can be. OHHH so this is why i have seen those bloopers of skinner with a cane LMAOOOO

he’s looking for scully though lmao. yeah not interested in YOU, mulder. 

mulder thanks him for getting shot because he stood up to the evil. he’s saying no, no, i wasn’t doing that, at all. i don’t know what you’re talking about. but not in a humble brag way, in a denying allegations sort of way. it's interesting. my brain is still stuck on this moment.

he says that he “mistakenly” believed he could bring melissa’s murder to justice. mulder says hey, what do you mean by that? so that is why skinner needs to go see her.

she's out and about, though. she’s bringing flowers to melissa’s grave NOOOOO :((((((( she doesn’t even say anything, she just sits there. 

UNTIL MULDER COMES AND BRINGS FLOWERS TOO??? and she has to brace herself to see him. 

he touches her shoulder gently before he sets them down. oh my GOSH

she tells him about how someone told her the dead speak to you from beyond the grave, and that is what a conscience is. he says that’s interesting, that he’s never thought of it that way. a man who sees her suffering and doesn't know what to say to make it better.

and she thought that finding the man who killed her would bring closure but it didn’t. 

he grabs her by the arm at this point, and says he needs to talk to her. tells her that they found luis dead. whoever was behind it all tried to cover it up. 

“i think the dead are speaking to us, mulder. demanding justice” <-stop. stop i’ll cry. you think i won’t cry? you think, for some reason, i won’t sob? i won’t collapse into a heap? you’d be incorrect. you’d be naive and mistaken. you’d be an utter fool, even in a world of fools.

(muffled screaming of me trying to keep it together)

but funny i should type that, because we also hear some muffled screaming on camera, that of krycek trapped in the ufo?? or in the room with it, deep in the nuclear silo?

episode ends with his screams.

WHAT!!!

so much has happened. and really one thing is on my mind: who is gonna hug scully? who is gonna tell her that the anger is okay, even if it’s futile? who is gonna hold the baddest woman alive close and listen? even if all she has to say is silence? 

RAAAAAAAAH i’m gonna CRY.

i feel like i could write another thinkpiece here but i also feel like i need to let this one sit for a bit. 

scully holding skinner’s hand, scully waiting by mulder’s bedside, scully saving skinner’s life, scully screaming, so guttural, at the man that killed her sister. scully in glasses and scully in vests and scully in coats. furious and devastating and calculating and guilty. 

i have some major questions re: krycek and cancer man and why don’t they just deal with him already??? like for real. i know the answer is gonna be that someone from higher up would just replace him, but i do think it is funny how he goes about blatantly committing all those crimes and then clocks into work the next day like nothing happened. and no one can act like anything happened because they’ll tear the fbi down if they do. we all have a coworker like that, don’t we? that sucks terribly but you can’t do anything about it because the inside supports how terrible they suck? sigh. many such cases.

krycek, if i’m supposed to feel bad for you, i don’t. starve in that ufo and see if i give a damn. 

skinner denying any concept of heroism… i think he’s doing it to keep himself safe. like he said to scully, any sort of accusations are risky. i don’t think he wants anyone to get the idea that he is a hero, even if he is in reality. i also think he has a complex and a great fear of being PERCEIVED as a hero after the things he did during war, and who knows what else he did but hasn't spoken about. but interesting still that he would deny a gesture as simple as being thanked. 

there are many dots in my head. i would like to think they are connecting, but honestly i’ve got matty healy dupe mr. mulder on my mind still just because it was so funny. and then also scully angst. and a deep deep desire to get into that car on the drive from the airport to north dakota, to just listen in on whatever went down. maybe i’ll have to write it if no one else does! isn’t that terrible? when no one else will write the exact thing you want to read, so you have to do it?

(i’ve actually never written fic before so that would be a major commitment. but a one shot here or there sounds interesting)

anyway. lots on my mind. it was a good episode, but kept a lot of things unsolved. which is the point, i know, but they dangle the answers in front of you!! then snatch them away!! i wanted a tiny bit more of the tea. 

but i guess, on the other hand, we know what the tea is, don’t we? we know cancer man and the UN alien squad are hiding this, they’re aware that this alien creature can cause radiation, they’re aware of ufos and they’re covering them up. they might not be aware of the exact nature of the creature, but they ARE aware of it, and that it’s a weapon of mass destruction. what isn’t clear is how tf krycek got roped into this. but again i really dgaf about his loser ass. 

i’m plotting. i’m pinning things on boards and tying them together with string. and then making predictions from there.

(actually, think it’s cool we see a bunch of different kinds of aliens on this show. there were the poison blood clones, standard alien 👽 fellow, and now the oil creature. fun that we get multiple perspectives and takes on what could be. perhaps scarier than just plain old little 👽, but!!! interesting for worldbuilding purposes)

back to plotting….

[captainkirkk]

I'm finally caught up to the ORV web comic and checked out the light novels, and it finally clicked that the comic has only covered the first 29 chapters. There's over 550 chapters of the novel. Which means I've only read 5% of the novel.

I...I can't do this. I'm not strong enough.

[innocentartery]

green lantern (1960) #30/#150

[andalitean]

Moments in 49 that brought me close to tears......... animorphs is about love actually

[pochapal]

at a scene break that feels like a natural stopping point so i'll leave it there for now in order to a) pace myself with my reading and b) actually digest and process that whole scene because Oof was that a rough re-entry into the story lol

[nerdgirlnarrates]

I started listening to Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez on audiobook, and, to be honest, I sort of picked it as a hate read, (1) because it is a romcom, and I deeply dislike romance novels with rare exception (2) because the main characters are doctors, and I was expecting the medical inaccuracies to drive me crazy. But I’m a few chapters in now, and I gotta say, this is a fun book. I’m already pretty charmed by her characters, and I hope she can keep it up.

There’s a scene where the male love interest meets the female lead at work, and he’s so astonished by how beautiful she is that he becomes an awkward fumbling mess. And on the one hand, that’s corny af. On the other hand, why isn’t this happening to me? When is some hot doctor gonna be totally dumbstruck by my beauty at work, huh??

[lesquatrechevrons]

Anyway having rewatched the prequels I think I have to admit to myself that I have a Most Hated Type like some people have a Blorbo Type

[brother-emperors]

Cardinal! just popping up randomly in your askbox to say that i'm OBSESSED with your portraying of della Rovere, especially in the latest comic. he looks so menacing, sinister even, yet he traces Ascanio's scar so so tenderly?? jbfbvkjvd i'd give my right arm for a scene like that in the Borgias season 4!

thank you!!

originally, that scene was supposed to be a lot more weird and hostile, but I didn't want to draw. hallways. for it. so I'll be revisiting it again someday when I do feel like drawing hallways lmao

also, they're so weird! every now and then I'll read something, and I'm like. hey, della rovere. did you fuck that vice chancellor.

once, della rovere asked for the absolute humiliation of ascanio sforza, and then jump cut years later and he's re establishing ascanio's wealth and visiting him every day just to talk. okay guys!!!

[angelsdean]

adhd boy (and oral fixation boy) i love youuuuu

hate that he feels like this is his only shot :( fuck john winchester. also the way dean starts spiraling over john wondering where he is he worries abt john being aggressive with jo and bobby :(

i love that "before they ever kissed" is a measure of time and a marked point. like there was a Before and After. nothing has been the same since

always drawn to him before anything else !! a flower seeking out the sun

oughhh 😭 every time someone says they're proud of dean i just 😭

MADE HIS OWN BIRTHDAY CAKE 😭😭😭 i mean. of course he does. but god. he is really not used to being celebrated, huh?

>>spirit of the west daily<<

[dragonfang-photography]

All set for the Seven Mountains hike tomorrow.

[sysig]

Your Weekly TV Guide

On Monday you can expect:

2:30 PM: Star Control II - Helix

And Tuesday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Wednesday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Thursday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Friday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Saturday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix +4:20 PM Bonus!: Helix!DAX

Sunday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Thanks for tuning in! (Patreon)

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 6 thoughts

sighs as if i just ran a marathon.

so, you know i take a LOT of notes. but this episode was SUCH a ride that i'm gonna try a new method of copying all this down. stick with me and let's see how it goes.

okay here we are. back after our brief and sorrow-filled separation yesterday, in which i had no time to watch an episode. it’s Scully hours. hopefully.

first thing we see is mulder walking into his place in the rain. first thing i do is pause and see if i can analyze the art on his walls. they’re some sort of prints of houses? not noticing anything in particular in terms of style or artist. and it’s definitely a new place where he lives, rip the sleep couch from s1

he takes off his jacket and listens to the message she left him and oh fuck. oh fuck. her voice. the sound of duane yelling. shattering glass.

he goes to her house and sees blood and the open window!!!! the TERROR that man must have been feeling. and he uses that FBI id to sneak right in there.

now he’s prowling about her house in search of clues and looking at her blood and hair left behind which is fucked up, even by my standards 

it was at this point i wrote "he’s like a bloodhound" which is a statement i stand by and can elaborate on if prompted

OH! we see a familiar face. he meets scully's mom. while his hands are soaked in her daughter’s blood. that's okay that's fine (said in a shaking and squeaky voice).

THE OPENING SAID SOMETHING DIFFERENT: DENY EVERYTHING. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

(at this point i made a note expressing concern that we were gonna watch scully get tortured for 45 minutes straight and thank god that isn't what actually went down. because i would have been deeply upset if that had happened and would have launched upon an unstoppable rant for the next few generations)

scully's mom dreamed about her being taken away and Mulder WRAPS HIS ARMS AROUND HER. again. while still covered in her blood. what a way to meet her family. not how anyone had pictured this going down.

so it's the next morning and alex is in this meeting while mulder is having a come apart. don’t wish him to be here. and no, alex does not get the respect of being referred to by his last name like a good agent on MY account where i make the rules and the rules are that he sucks.

when rationalizing what duane is going through, skinner said “so he’s following orders from the alien voices in his head? That’s an interesting spin on the Nuremberg defense” and yeah! i chuckled. was he wrong there?

skinner made me laugh with that little remark but then went back to pissing me off by telling mulder he was too close to the case and needed to go home. like yes, he’s right, but mulder's gonna put his bloodhound skills to destructive purposes. he's gonna rip up the couch if left home alone. in a dog metaphorical sense.

so alex takes him home which was bad enough (alex must know where mulder lives to do that) and we see CIGARETTE MAN IN THE BACKGROUND????? my original notes had a lot stronger language at this reveal that i felt i needed to tone down but i will keep the "i'll have ur head im sooo serious" part in

okay, back to duane cam. he’s cruising. he cranks his window down when he’s pulled over which is still funny to me. crank windows. how novel. but don't think i've forgotten the situation at hand just because 90's technology is funny to me.

a cop pulls him over and i felt a flicker of hope inside my chest but i knew deep down it was still too early in the episode for anything to be resolved. still, duane pulling out his gun and SHOOTING the cop made my jaw drop

(my jaw kept dropping this episode to an extent that was painful. i just got my wisdom teeth out and while i love enjoying this show, the constant twists and turns are NOT leading to a pleasant mouth experience)

SCULLY IN THE TRUNK REVEAL? <- that was all i wrote when i saw here in there. i feel it sums up the situation.

mulder, somehow, taps into where she's located and gets a visual on her. he is intensely effected and this is why i support his bloodhound-like tendencies being channeled. the man gets results.

alex, don’t ask how he slept. you are a rat and should be banished from his presence during his state of mourning and forever after. 

mulder: doesn't route 229 lead to the blue ridge parkway?

alex: I don’t know <- okay lmao I get that. i get that alex. like directions are hard. you haven't won me over but you did make me laugh here.

mulder figured out where they’re going and says GET THE CAR ALEX and that “he’ll deal with skinner”. ohhh i wanna see this furious mulder deal with skinner. OHHHH i'm so on the edge of my seat this sleep deprived man is gonna <- didn't even finish that sentence due to the next reveal

WHO THE HELL IS ALEX TALKING TO ABOUT “HOLDING HIM OFF” WHY IS CIGGY MAN HERE (can you hear the desperation in all of the notes i was taking. also i don't know his name and i don't care. that's cigarette man or ciggy man if i need to use shorthand and his government name is probably "rat bastard" but i don't care enough to use it)

mulder was, at this point, falling asleep and almost hitting a truck but insisting he can still drive. wild. on the one hand, i get it, because alex is probably gonna drive them off the road and something, but then on the other hand buddy. u almost got plowed in the negative context. someone fetch him a red bull

(and yeah i googled "red bull origins" to see if that would have been possible at the time for mulder to have a sip and can confirm it would have been IF he had gotten it imported from another country. because it wasn't in the us yet. i am a scholar)

alex is listing how many awful things are caused by sleep deprivation. which i understand and again, a good argument to be made, but this grease weasel just wants to get behind the wheel so he can total the thing and i'm not having it 

(he said some like after this and it was just “there’s our turn off” but my hatred for him reached a crescendo at this point like I could have started pummeling)

so they get to the place on the mountain that takes you up- the ski lift thingy. and the guy who works it is like "you can't use it, we don't test it in the summer" and wow. when i tell you what happens next, i hope you are seated. because i had to pause and breathe for a bit.

MULDER PULLS HIS GUN OUT AND THREATENS THE DUDE WHO SAYS HE CAN’T TAKE THE CABLE SKI THINGY UP OHHHHH MY GAWDDDDD 

so he gets access to the lift thingy and he locked alex out… yes exactly right!

the lift operator is like "don't go over 15 miles per hour" and we all know what mulder is gonna do next. he cranks it up way too fast and he’s gonna fall into the mountain and i’m looking around my room like what is going on here. the cuts to Alex’s snaky eyes are freaking me tf out. Why is alex reaching for his gun. WHAT THE FUCK WHY FID HE KNOCK THAT GIY OUT HE CIT THE GENERATOR AND LEFT MULDER UP THERE WHO IS HE CALLONH 

(<- leaving that one verbatim from my notes, too, because i feel it really captures the experience, if you can work out those typos. basically alex took his gun out and knocked the lift operator out, leaving mulder stranded on the ski lift in the sky, then called someone like "i've got him trapped" and i. was experiencing all of this very quickly.)

scully cam. she’s still in the trunk.

so the power's cut on the ski lift and mulder is not gonna just sit around and wait for somebody to help him! he's climbing up the tower and once he’s up there ALEX TURNS THE MACHINE BACK ON SERIOUSLY WHAT IS GOING ON

mulder survives the journey to the mountain's peak, despite almost falling off because he was hanging from outside!! and alex looks soooooooooooo mad.

sad man in the rain finds a car with blood in the wheel and...

HER NECKLACE IN THE BACK!!! AN EPISODE 3 CALL BACK!!! to when he knew eugene tooms was going after her because he found her necklace. oh i'm gonna be SICK

back to our worstie duane, who is in the woods screaming that they took her and that he’s free and I had to pause to breathe a lil. because if mulder lost scully and his sister to aliens...... 

after what was intended to be a commercial break and some wrestling on behalf of mulder, we see duane in custody, but receive no answers on what exactly is going on. he is, however, in a small room with mulder, who looks entirely diabolical.

mulder is stalking this guy- "stalking" in the sense that he is like a predator waiting for a chance to pounce on a rabbit- and he gets up and SEES SCULLY'S BLOOD AND HAIR ON DUANE'S HOSPITAL WRISTBAND???

next occurs what i described in my notes as the "DID YOU HURT HER SCREAMING AND TORTURE SESSION. JAW IS ON THE FLOOR" (my poor jaw. who will think of her in these trying times)

again, mulder is in his animal era, because he starts choking duane. REALLY choking him. i'm shocked. between this and the showing his gun to get to the top of the mountain, we are really seeing how he will throw all of the rules to the side and spit on them to keep the people he loves safe.

(i was also thinking to myself at this point, his ass is gonna get fired)

duane was taunting him, saying "i hope they’re not hurting her too much with the tests” which is. obviously evil. but HOW evil? it's still unclear if he is lying about the whole alien thing, because remember, scully said the bullet in his brain makes him a liar who is unpredictable. and i guess a bullet could maybe do that. i have no experience in such matters.

mulder says everyone STAY OUT OF THERE and yet. alex goes in to see duane. and is like "well i went in there because he was gagging". sure yeah. suspicious. why were you close enough to hear him gag? how do you know the sound of another man gagging, alex? heard it before?

okay this next part was. pretty messed up. i'll let my reactions from being in the moment speak for themselves because i have little desire to relive the matter:

SCULLY IN A WEIRD ASS ROOM???? THE ALIENS? What the hell I’m deeply uncomfortable are they blowing her up like a balloon. Oh I got chills. Negative 

(i never want to see a character blown up like a balloon it's just not for me. i am always gonna be good on that front)

((who is blowing her up and why. i was convinced it was aliens at first but now i think it was actually the Evil Government which has me thinking, what kind of situation led them to developing that technology in the first place?))

mulder pulls alex out of the room “NO ONE is to interrogate the suspect” “except you?” “except me” <- mulder with a god complex because scully is missing and he will do ANYTHING to find her. oh yeah that's juicy. i'm gonna dive into that at a later date.

skinner yells at mulder. yeah he had it coming. even if i enjoy his character arc i do think choking your only suspect comes across as a bit. well. unprofessional, shall we say.

mulder is shocked that duane is gagging like he didn’t just choke the guy and he might have KILLED his own best lead and has to live with whatever knowledge duane had on her whereabouts dying with him 

mulder staring at the corpse. cause of death: asphyxiation. oh he killed that dude. he is gonna be in trouble. 

(that was my first thought, anyway. i wasn't picking up what mulder was putting down, requesting a toxicology report. to me, if you show a scene of a guy getting choked, and then he dies a few minutes later, it's another situation of "i don't know enough about medical stuff to dispute that". mulder, however, WILL dispute that)

next part is copied and pasted from the rough notes again because it's funny:

"alex go fuck yourself i don’t even wanna look at you. getting in the car with ciggy man. “what about scully?” “we’ve taken care of that” ARE YOU THE MFER BLOWING HER UP LIKE A BALLOON CIGGY MAN???? alex is questioning things but idgaf if he’s morally conflicted"

(i saw the seeds of an alex redemption arc being sown here and i didn't care for it. condemn him. to the dungeons.)

mulder’s super insistent that he did NOT kill duane and again i was like. well are you sure. because it kinda looks like you did.

they want him to take a lie detector test which always makes me cringe. if polygraphs have no haters its because i'm dead.

mulder believes that duane was actually poisoned by the government to hide Something and he presents this theory to skinner and his panel which was Bold but you know our boy mulder. bold is what he does.

“why are you so paranoid Mulder” asks some random guy from the council in an annoyed fashion << terribly insensitive thing to say to guy who just had his best friend kidnapped

“I find it hard to trust anybody” (cutscene to asking Alex for his keys) NAURRR YOU CANNOT TRUST THE WEASEL 

alex gives him the keys and leaves with a long lingering stare. okay. freak.

mulder's going to the senator!!!! i was hoping we would get more info on that whole deal- why does this guy sponsor mulder? why does he do it if he knows it's a bad idea? how do they even know each other? is he a republican? - but we really don't gain any insight. he runs into Deep Throat 2.0, who I believe to be a handsome fellow, and he says that They will deny everything

who is they, i mumble quietly to the screen. why do they know all the things??

mulder is in visible and irreparable agony when getting in the car but he still has a funky tie on. despite the horrors his swag must persist.

GASP!! Mulder opens the car drawer and sees the cigarettes of famed ciggy man. alex is too pretty to smoke...

Mulder puts two and two together FAST and accuses alex of being a rat to skinner (which he’s right about!) he says he stands behind his accusation on the record and skinner tries to call alex up

(which was so funny to me because if he was a secret double agent- which he is- and mulder is accusing him of something adjacent to treason- what is a talk in skinner's office gonna do to solve the problem? again skinner is giving me high school principal energy. ur not gonna talk that one out babe but it's sweet you gave it a go xx)

mulder says that scully got too close to whatever the truth is when she had that little tracker thing and so they got her. i find myself agreeing with the guy who believes elvis faked his death. funny how he's often the level headed one

skinner, to my surprise, is taking this accusation of his agents being of the double variety quite well. he actually seems pretty reasonable about the whole thing, and like he truly believes there is some ulterior motives at play here.

but sympathy isn't enough for mulder: “What CAN you do” he asks Skinner, thrusting a finger in his face. “There’s only one thing I can do,” skinner sighs, and he... REOPENS THE X FILES?

(now this did shock me, but i was excited! don't get me wrong, i was just a bit surprised. i was thinking maybe he'd call up ciggy man and try to have a nice dignified chat since he seems so hell-bent on solving things through the power of discussion, but i suppose that reauthorizing the investigation into aliens while a top agent is missing for doing just that is. certainly an approach to the problem at hand?)

mulder walks sadly beneath a water fountain. it was sad enough as it was but then scully's mom walks up and things get even More sad

to somewhat break the air of tragedy: for some reason his face is crystal clear but hers is superrrrr blurry. like i've mentioned before, some shots are normal tv quality, and others look like they were ripped from a VHS. it throws me off each time.

but back to the matter at hand: he gives her scully’s cross necklace and he’s like "why did she wear that if she was such a skeptic" (which is a question i keep pointing out!!!!!!) and we learn the answer:

it was a gift from her mother on her 15th birthday. which i can and Will analyze in depth at a later date. the gift of a religious object to further solidify the need from her family to be Perfect and never fail and do exactly as they say. but scully choosing to wear it anyway, decades later, to hold her family close, no matter the pain of disappointing them. when she mindlessly reaches for the pendant to roll in her fingers, does she feel the warmth of family or the chill of their expectations she can never meet?

but. mulder tries to give her the necklace. and she says that he can give it to her when he finds her. not if. when.

he goes to a hill and looks up at the sky.

this episode was intense, and i will be gnawing on it like a bone for a while. seeing mulder and scully's mom together made me incredibly emo. seeing him break all the rules to find her also made me emo. trying to figure out if skinner is a real one and the ratio to which alex is genuinely evil vs just stupid were some serious cases of mental chess. and duane. we all wanna know what his deal is. and where is alex! he doesn't have to come back, don't get me wrong, but... did he fall off the face of the earth? go back to massachusetts for a dunkin run? i know that smug new englander look he has about him. don't sit here and tell me he grew up in kansas i won't buy it.

anyway, i saw the description of the next episode- so we're going back to an x file. i find it hard to imagine that mulder will have emerged from bloodhound mode by then, so maybe he thinks it's connected somehow and will go on a quest for answers in that direction- a vampire direction? hmm. guess i'll just have to tune back in!

[doomednarrative]

:3 It’s Gotchard time ~

[wanderingandfound]

I have missed the vast majority of the "cozy horror" discourse and like, I'm fine with that because I don't really care all that much about publishing labels and subgenres. But like, I do believe in only using the broad labels if it applies. A book is not Romance (the genre) if it does not have a happily ever after/happily for now. A book is not Horror if it is not trying to be horrifying. Romantic and horrific plots and elements can be part of any story and any genre, but elements do not a genre make.

Anyways, disclaimer done, the point of this post is that as someone whose main genre is fantasy, I love reading about ghosts in non-horror stories. Give me more fucked up creatures and musings on personhood please.