#long writeup

[blueberrybindery]

Another Name for a Companion by simkjrs

Kaveh has achieved so much today, it should be fine to do this much for himself. It should be fine to enjoy this much. There is absolutely nothing that Al-Haitham could possibly do to ruin this day!

Of course, this is when Al-Haitham chooses to walk in covered in blood.

process post here!

[tinystepsforward]

automattic vs wp engine mastterpost

adrienne's GitHub recap is probably the best place to see a comprehensive timeline of what's going down. it's been kept up to date. my (very out of date) previous writeup is here.

what's happened/other links

Matt has not logged off, just switched platforms, so there's lots on X/Twitter, Reddit, and Hacker News. it's really not worth wading through.

WP Engine actually filed suit.

the complaint includes some truly remarkable screenshots of Matt trying to blackmail the CEO of WP Engine.

which... personally i would not happily work for someone who just blackmailed me while not even my boss, but that's just me. he hasn't denied this at all, in fact confirming on Hacker News:

I haven't doxxed any private texts from other parties like they have. [source]

and, notably,

I even invited her to my 40th birthday on Jan 11, another text message she decided not to share. [source]

this gives me the creeps. in the context of the rest of the way he's talking to her, and the ways in which he's interacted with women in general, it's. not great.

also he slid into an ex-employee (also a woman)'s DMs asking why she was being mean to him bc he'd never been nothing but nice to her, while also making legal threats. so y'know, pattern of behaviour.

a good writeup of the social side of things

if you don't care so much about the open-source stuff, Steph Lundberg's writeup is, like her previous one on Matt's Tumblr meltdown, pretty solid and people-focused.

Mullenweg has already demonstrated egregious lapses in judgment and abuses of power, it’s just that up until now he’s wielded his power against vulnerable populations without access to high-powered lawyers and their own massive platforms.

a more technical writeup

this one is melodramatic in the same ways Matt was (uses war terminology), which i don't agree with, and which led to some... internal arguments at Automattic. that part's not my story to tell, but a little more on that later. it's a solid writeup of the actual WordPress side of things. there's some seriously dodgy trademark behaviour going on here.

of note: this blogger locked comments on his post:

and then Matt, uh, found a way around that:

wild!

10% of Automattic leaves

that's a link to Matt's blog post. here's an Internet Archive link.

in short, staff were offered a severance deal of the higher of $30k or six months' salary. while that's very generous, it's still very risky in today's tech market, especially (for the same reasons i mentioned when Matt was melting down on here) for people outside the US, people who need the health insurance, or people with young kids. despite that, 10% decided with very little notice (they had two days to decide) to leave.

However now, I feel much lighter. I’m grateful and thankful for all the people who took the offer, and even more excited to work with those who turned down $126M to stay. As the kids say, LFG!

i'm thrilled to see some of my ex-colleagues make it out. i'm keeping the rest who have stayed on in my thoughts. i don't know anyone who's wholesale shilling for Matt.

Matt's been pressuring staff to post in support of him, @-ing the entire company to vote on Twitter polls in his favor, and so on. many of the people who stayed have written blog posts about it, all starting with "I stayed". people on social media have pointed out the very clear pattern of Automatticians jumping into discourse to defend Matt, and it doesn't look good.

i don't have a lot to say about those posts, except to highlight Jeffrey Zeldman, whose "I stayed" post is perhaps one of the more honest ones. (his Rodney King reference was in poor taste, and he... i don't like his role at automattic, tbc) but like. he's nearly 70. he helped shape the modern internet and develop its accessibility standards. he has often put his neck on the line for disabled staff who don't have as much clout as he does. given the financial troubles he talks about and the state of this market and how old he is, i personally have read between the lines of what he's saying in a particular way.

fuck, man. i'm sad. i'm sad for all my friends who are creaking under the strain and watching others leave but who can't do that. i'm sad that many of them are left in teams which are half-empty or divisions where significant senior leadership are just gone, with no time to document what they had in progress.

i'm sad for Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the former executive director of the WordPress Foundation, who was dealing with a personal emergency and ended up having to miss WordCamp US (where Matt started publicly starting shit with WPE). she came back from that to a gigantic fire in the community she's invested a decade of careful, Matt-negotiating, stewardship to, and decided to take the severance offer. she deserved better.

other things Matt's been up to

mostly linking to comments or posts which compile things here, bc it's too scattered otherwise.

blocking people from the official WordPress X account if they disapprove of his actions.

publicly talking about a vulnerability in ACF, a plugin WPE maintains, which could put thousands of sites at risk. this is not normal, and he met with so much horror even from current staff that he deleted his post.

saying he comes across badly because he's "a little ASD", which is driving me personally up the fucking wall. he's never once said it before and he really is turning into Temu Elon.

generally bragging that he still has more planned. jesus fucking christ

continually saying that WPE's suit is against WordPress.org and the community, which is not true. on which note, his pinned tweet is certainly something:

his choice of lawyer is uh. the kind of guy to defend nestle against literal child slaves.

as always, while i think WordPress crumbling will disproportionately affect websites in poorer parts of the world, there are certainly tyrants who are causing much more immediate and potent suffering. if you've read this far, please do send anything you have spare to gazafunds.com.

[fluffydeoxys]

if you don't see me post too much art for a short little while uh. this is why

[extensionallydefined]

Okay, so, I need to talk about the relationship between Persona 5's ending and Persona 5 royal's ending, because I think it isn't discussed enough how one puts into question the themes of the other and in doing so it elevates everything that came before.

Spoilers are coming, you've been warned.

The main thing that's given me an outlet to think about this is a few quotes from the Phantom Thieves when they're in the Velvet Room after being Thanos-snapped by Yaldabaoth. Specifically these quotes:

Ann: "I... I never want anyone to have to go through what I did!"

Yusuke: "Just as art is meant to break boundaries, people should be saved even if they frown upon it. I won't allow the justice I believe in to be shaken any further!"

Ryuji: "We're doin' this to make sure people don't go through the same crap we did. It doesn't matter if they think we're just or not. We gotta do what we believe in!"

Futaba: "I can't let people suffer like this, even if I don't know them personally"

They mention some core ideas: 1. They want to prevent people's suffering because of the suffering they've felt. 2. They must do this regardless of if people want it, because they think it's the right thing to do. 3. Their justice is worth fighting for by virtue of being what they believe in.

Does this seem familiar? Maybe makes you think of a certain therapist who shows up in Royal?

I think Takuto Maruki serves a decent amount of purposes narratively and thematically, but one of the most genius things about him is that he serves as a foil to both the Phantom Thieves and Akechi, and in being that foil, he is, deep down, following the principles that the Phantom Thieves fought for - In the end, it was largely Joker who inspired him to fight for his reality.

Maruki fights for a reality where suffering straight up doesn't exist, because he doesn't want anyone to feel the suffering he's had to endure. Maruki wants the Phantom Thieves and Akechi to never feel suffering anymore, regardless of their stance on the matter. He is "saving" them regardless of their wishes, and will fight them to keep the reality he wants. He thinks the world is unfair, so his "justice" is to make a perfect world for everyone - and that's what makes it worth fighting for, because that's what he believes.

Maruki's rationale to fight against the Phantom Thieves and Akechi is (partly) the same reasoning that the Phantom Thieves use to regain their motivation to fight the Holy Grail/Yaldabaoth.

So, narratively, Maruki serves as a mirror that's telling things not to be told for the Phantom Thieves to look into and to see the ugly parts of their own way of acting. Can they really fight Maruki, knowing that he is just acting how they did?

I see people sometimes refusing Maruki's reality because it "wouldn't actually work" or "it's imperfect". But as far as I'm aware, it's imperfect because it hasn't been completed yet - I think the game is a lot more interesting under the pretense that Maruki truly has the power to erase all suffering, once his reality is complete, past the deadline. I also see the argument, and even the game uses it, that Maruki's world "isn't reality". But did we listen well to Morgana's speech before he disappeared in the Yaldabaoth arc? The world itself is made up of cognition, reality is born from the points of view of everyone. Maruki *can* change reality, and the real question of the game is not about the logistics or "ontological dignity" of his reality, but rather - Do you want a world where all your wishes are granted and no suffering exists?

In the end, the game shows the Phantom Thieves that "sticking to their justice" will make them fight against people with similar ideals as theirs. It's funny, in a way, how Akechi was the one fully willing to fight Maruki from the start. His rebellion has always been more individualistic in nature than the Phantom Thieves' - he wanted revenge for himself, then redemption for himself and now he wants a reality where he isn't under anyone's control anymore. To him, Shido's country, Yaldabaoth's ruin and Maruki's world are all the same - Maruki just has a nicer, more therapy-speaky way of presenting his proposal, and sees people as his equals rather than as insolent masses, but his goal is the same. They're all worlds that shackle you for the "greater good". And in the end, Maruki, and Royal, force the P5 gang to become more like Akechi - to value their individuality in the face of the public's "justice".

To fight for what you believe in you will face people with the same determination as you. They will be your equals in many, many ways. In the end, you can only stick to your guns and hope that what you believe in is worth more than what they believe in.

I have a lot more to write about these topics but I'll leave it there. Maybe about the relationship between Maruki's reality and individuality next? That could be fun ^^

Btw - Special thanks to @thedaythatwas for inspiring me to write up stuff about Persona 5 Royal!

[dorkshadows]

Jiaozi (Director of Nezha 2019 and Nezha 2025) does a celebratory doodle everytime the movie crosses a new milestone. This is the doodle done as of 2/21, breaking the 27.1 billion record.

Translation:

Taiyi Zhenren: Look at the 'great' seats you picked! Shen Gongbao: Shut... shut up!

Anywho, this is a retired blog, but I'm willing to come out of retirement for a day just to do a little writeup about what's going on in the Nezha 2 fandom on lofter and adjacent spaces. I've successfully cultivated immortality from looking at it all fyi. Is there any interest? Just leave a like or reply ;)

Just like the good old days when I used to share the wildest jttw discourses from c-net, things on par with "Princess Iron Fan cheated on her husband with Taishang Laojun". This is NOT about the people who happened to watch the movie, the people who are just interested in box office stats, the people who really enjoyed the movie, or the people who just really admire Nezha. This will be about the fandom fandom, the truly invested, the elaborate fanons behind certain ships that will make you go "wait what?", the rabid Ao Guang discourse that will also make you go "wait what?," the brainrot (affectionate) in its purest unfiltered form.

[careydraws]

SIX WEEKS LEFT until tazgn6 is out (7/16/24)! I wanted to share a writeup about the process of making the cover for this one, which was a really fun challenge. Apologies and thank you to Nozaki-kun.

There's still time to submit your preorder receipt here and get a free acrylic keychain from :01 (US/Can)! I think it runs until they run out of keychains? It's cute, I had fun designing it, go snag one!

[thathomestar]

played through the black mesa blue shift mod, up through the xen chapter since that's all they've released so far. the mod aims to remake the entirety of blue shift in the style of black mesa, and boy howdy does it deliver on that, for better and for worse.

they actually establish a couple supporting characters, more security guards and scientists, which is nice. in the original game it was basically just dr rosenberg, so more named characters is a good change imo. feels like you're actually rallying people together to fight your way out of black mesa.

a weird thing this mod does is take away player control sometimes. i can understand it for specific sequences, like when the elevator crashes at the beginning or when you first teleport into xen, but it also does it for some mundane things too, like inserting a keycard into a switch. why? half-life's whole thing is letting the player be in control the whole time.

the first few chapters are well paced, but it starts feeling like its padding a bit when you go off to find dr rosenberg. you have to do this whole song and dance moving a train back and forth and turning it around properly on turntables to bust him out. they could have cut out some of the tedium there a little.

my problems really start when it comes to the xen chapter. the original blue shift xen chapter lasts for roughly 30-40 minutes for a first time player, though someone like me was able to speed through it in under 15. with the black mesa mod, they have stretched out the runtime of this chapter to 3 hours.

it starts off pretty strong, you're making your way through xen, taking in the sights and finding all the stuff the previous science teams have left behind. about 90 minutes in i was wondering when i'm gonna get to the focal point relay thing, the whole reason calhoun goes to xen in the first place.

but instead you keep detouring through black mesa outposts and alien factory things and it just gets so long in the tooth. it'd be one thing if you get to one of these places and you're there for 5-10 minutes at most, but you typically spend over 20, sometimes even 30 minutes at these places.

there's one bit where you inexplicably decide to jump on the back of one of the giant flying manta rays and it flies around for like 15 minutes like an autoscroller section until it gets shot down by alien railguns, and then you spend 30 minutes making your way over to and destroying the railguns. and the whole time i'm just like... when are we getting to the focal point thing.

so finally you get to the focal point relay and turn it on but it gets jammed by a signal so you spend another 40 minutes blazing through ANOTHER alien factory so you can blow it up and you make your way back to the focal point thing and the portal's open but alien controllers keep telekinetically grabbing you and yanking you away from it... and it's just so exhausting. i got burned out.

not to mention the weirdness with how they handle vortigaunts. so in black mesa they do this whole thing in xen to show that the vorts are slaves and don't actually want to fight you, but calhoun never encounters any of that stuff. for the first 2/3rds of xen in this mod, vortigaunts are constantly trying to kill you non-stop. then all of a sudden they don't attack you anymore. why? because i, the player know they're not really bad? why would calhoun know that? it doesn't really make sense to me.

xen is cool. i like xen. if you told me "we're adding more xen to blue shift" i'd be like alright that's cool. but 6-8 times more? that's way too much. xen in blue shift was never meant to be a long trip. calhoun was supposed to get in, find the focal point relay, align it, and leave, not go on a grand alien gallivanting adventure. that's for gordon to do.

[aurosoulart]

something I always ALWAYS do with digital art is to do so using a mode I like to call "Mobile Preview"

(it's not actually called this. all I did was make the built-in thumbnail preview of my art program huge. the cost to work space is worth it)

doing this allows you to see if anything you're actually working on is even visible on a mobile phone - which is what 70% of the users of this site access it with. I cannot even begin to tell you how much time this saves you. 🙏 save your wrists and life force, artists, I beg of u 🙏🙏🙏🙏

[thiscityneedslessfog]

I think it’s interesting how many supportive spells Teddie has.

He can learn Dekunda via the bike, he learns Marakunda and both revival spells via his Social Link, and he can learn Matarukaja, Amrita and Marakukaja with level-up, and he can learn healing spells. His few physical spells inflict ailments (save for Gigantic Fist). The guy does so much.

That little bear is trying his damnedest to be a help to the team despite his insecurities over being a Shadow, and when he was built in both my playthroughs, he almost became pure support. His player was spamming buffs and heals like crazy. Like, even without being a makeshift Nav he’s mainly helping everyone else fight because he wants to help beyond everything else, that’s what he wants to do.

[timberwind]

Lunine Beach, a sleepy seaside town on the shores of Kraken Mare - a sea of liquid hydrocarbons at the north pole of Titan, largest of Saturn's retinue of icy moons.

[redvamie]

Just finished the cliffhanger ending (will be getting everything else next week). So, Andrew.

Just like how he was Ashley’s [parent brother friend emotional support etc etc] she was his [child sister friend emotional support etc etc]. Aka just as he was her everything she was also his everything. Everything but the one thing he actually wanted and wasn’t forced upon him to be (lovers). And that’s why he was so resentful and angry at Renee dumping Ashley onto his lap (‘I put in all this effort to deal with and take care of and even teach this girl and I can’t even get what I truly want from her?!’) and also said the lines he did in that one vision with Julia (the one along the lines of ‘I’ll forgive everything you do my beloved. After all I help made you this way’). Similar to how Andy’s hers, Ashley’s his.

[heysawbones]

Let's Talk about Xyrem.

Xyrem ("oral sodium oxybate" or the sodium salt of gamma-hydroxybutyrate) is used in the treatment of narcolepsy, as well as (sometimes) idiopathic hypersomnia. Even if you don't have narcolepsy or any related conditions, you may find this run-down interesting. Here's why:

Gamma-hydroxybutyrate is roofies. That's right. Date rape drug. Right here.

The drug is so tightly controlled that there is one pharmacy in all of the United States that can fill it. Doctors must be approved and participate in a special program to even prescribe it.

Nobody really knows how it works in the treatment of narcolepsy.

I was prescribed Xyrem quite some time ago - at this point, nearly a year back. It took six-plus months of insurance, doctor's office, and central pharmacy wrangling to get the drug to my door. The whole time, I wondered: what should I expect from Xyrem? How do I know if it's working? How do I know if it's not working? What's it like? Lists of side effects and contraindications are readily available online, but I couldn't find a single detailed testimonial. This bothered me.

I've been on Xyrem for about a month and a half now. Here's what I can tell you about it.

You have to wake up at night to take a drug that's meant to improve your sleep. Everybody I explained this to found it funny. The standard practice is to split your dose in two - to take one half at bed, and the other half two to four hours later. If you're on Jazz Pharmaceuticals brand Xyrem and not the generic, they send you a tiny little alarm clock with a light on it to facilitate this. I have never needed it.

It takes 3 weeks to titrate up to the "full" dose, which is also the maximum dose. From there, you can titrate back down to a lower dose if you're experiencing unpleasant side effects. I'm in the process of doing this myself.

It doesn't necessarily knock you out. From the way the drug is described, one might get the impression that the moment it kicks in, you're going to be unconscious. I didn't find this to be the case. Your mileage may vary; I don't always fall asleep at all on the first dose, but it does at least get me sleepy enough to fall asleep on the second.

You have an unusual amount of agency in how you take Xyrem. This surprised me, especially given how tightly controlled possession of this drug is. For example, I metabolize Xyrem really fast. If I take it in two doses, I will sleep a maximum of 6 hours. I take the same amount of medicine and split it into three doses instead to compensate for how fast I metabolize it. That way, I'm more likely to sleep about 8 hours. This isn't just accepted, it's encouraged. You can even take a bigger dose first and a smaller one second, or vice-versa. The only hard and fast rule is: do not go over the max dose.

If you take it with alcohol, or within 4-6 hours of alcohol, it could kill you. A lot of drugs warn you not to take them with alcohol. I cannot stress enough that if you have ignored that warning in the past: do not ignore it here. Do not. Xyrem is a powerful CNS depressant. Alcohol is a CNS depressant. It really can kill you.

It works(?) Like many drugs that act on the brain, nobody is really sure how Xyrem works. It doesn't affect the most common (known) cause of narcolepsy (a lack of orexin/hypocretin). It's theorized that the drug acts on GABA receptors in a way that "consolidates" the fragmented sleep architecture of narcolepsy.

Narcolepsy can be thought of as an autoimmune disorder of sleep architecture. The sleep architecture of a narcoleptic is irregular, both within itself and from night to night. People with narcolepsy tend to have less of the deep sleep stages than they should. Narcoleptics also have a high percentage of stage 1 (light) and REM sleep. It's theorized that excessive REM occurs because it is of poor quality/does not serve its intended function, so the brain spams REM in an attempt to compensate. A diagnostic trait of narcolepsy is the ability to enter REM within 8 minutes of falling asleep - if sleep architecture is normal, this does not occur. While not all people with narcolepsy have cataplexy, cataplexy itself is actually REM intrusion into waking life. The narcoleptic brain is that screwed up about REM. Xyrem appears to regulate shifts between sleep stages and reduce the nightly percentage of REM sleep. I used to dream nightly. Subjectively, I do not dream at all on Xyrem.

The only difference between Xyrem and Xywav is salt. A full 9g dose of Xyrem contains 1,640mg of sodium. The maximum sodium intake recommended by the American Heart Association is 2,300mg. One of the few things I saw said about Xyrem prior to taking it was that it was disgustingly salty. It is very, very salty. I don't mind it, though. I've seen it said that Xywav tastes much worse, but I can't attest to that.

Subjective experience

Xyrem comes Priority Air Mail in a sizable cardboard box. An adult with ID must be present to sign for it. The first month's prescription comes with a light-up alarm clock. This kit and all subsequent kits come with:

The medicine, in however many bottles are required

A number of syringes, marked with common doses

A number of pill bottles

You put water in the pill bottles. They tell you to put about 60ml, but as far as I can tell, this is to make the saltiness tolerable. I made a little game of this - I try to put the same amount of water in each pill bottle, gauged by nothing but sound. I've gotten pretty good at this. I have my nightly dose split 3 ways. After adding the drug to the water, I close each bottle and swirl it a bit. I don't know if this actually does anything.

Xyrem works best if you're already tired when you take it. Hilariously, I have ADHD in addition to narcolepsy. Nighttime sleepiness isn't a thing I Do naturally. Consequently, the first dose of Xyrem only puts me to sleep about half the time, and it takes a while even when it does. I know myself well enough to know that if I wait until I'm actually "sleep for the night" tired to take it, I might be up until 3 or 4 AM. Instead, I take the first dose at around 11 PM. Even if it doesn't put me to sleep, it DOES make me sleepy enough that the dose I take 2-3 hours later will definitely work.

I was very careful to set alarms the first week or so of taking Xyrem, but I've never needed them. For reasons that are unclear to me, I always wake up when Xyrem is fully metabolized. Without more Xyrem, there is no urge to go back to sleep. When I've run out of doses for the night, I'm up for the rest of the day. There's no napping.

Some people have pretty nasty side effects with Xyrem. Headache and nausea are the most common. I had both of those, once each. The headache lasted all day but was otherwise unremarkable; the nausea was genuinely awful. The only persistent side effect I have, is tremors.

While I was waiting for Xyrem, my sleep specialist put me on Adderall. Nobody would prescribe this for ADHD, but you'll do it for narcolepsy? Sure, whatever I'll take it. I mention this because I thought it was possible that Adderall was causing tremors. I ran a little experiment: I took Xyrem but no Adderall one day and still had tremors. I took Adderall, but no Xyrem the night before, and the tremors subsided. It's definitely the Xyrem. While this is a known possible side effect, I can't find any information on how or why Xyrem, a CNS depressant, would cause something that seems very much the opposite of a depressed central nervous system. I am currently titrating back down from the max dose in an attempt to see if a lower dose will mitigate the tremors. If that doesn't work, I'm not... entirely sure what to do. Xyrem is a weird drug. It's strange not to dream at all; it's strange to wake up twice a night and still get better sleep than I ever have. Executive function has improved considerably, given that both neurological issues that cause executive dysfunction are being treated. Still: the tremors are, I will not lie, distressing. Not as bad as they were on Wellbutrin, which I was forced to discontinue! But - disruptive and distressing, nonetheless. I'm hoping that the tremors will stop eventually, or that dose adjustment will help.

Overall: would recommend if you have narcolepsy. You wouldn't think that a drug that obligates you to wake up multiple times a night could improve your sleep! Well, bucko, if your sleep architecture is already so disordered that you have narcolepsy: it can.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s7 episode 15 “en ami” thoughts

it’s a wonderful day. sunny, raining on and off. my window is open. to be honest, i am in such a pleasant mood.

i don’t really feel like dealing with CSM’s shenanigans on such a peaceful evening. but i do crave scully time. and this is where i have left off, and so it is where i must resume the journey.

i never know what to think with CSM episodes. i kinda just assume he’s always lying about everything. it saves time. and lately, he has been annoying me even more than he was before, after the whole biogenesis thing.

but that doesn’t mean the episode will be bad. it just means that i have been noticing patterns.

i wonder what he wants with scully….?

post-episode thoughts: absolutely gagged that CSM can write a BANGER episode. did he have a previous life as a screenwriter? or just such a deep connection to the character that he played that it poured out of him and into the script? and also into the other characters he has come to know so well? because mulder had some HEART-WRENCHING moments here!

they should have let these actors write more, omg... think about what we could have had.....!

a "scully gets tempted by the devil" episode is most pleasing to me! dwell on her character! contemplate evil and the capacity for redemption that lies in all of us- or the utter lack thereof! no one is immune to temptation! but to what end?! why would he do this? just to get into her head?! a new angle of mulder torture? did mulder torture get boring after 7 years?

ah, all big and excellent questions. but we must go back to yesterday, when i knew nothing about what i was getting into. take it away, past me:

let’s find out.

we open with a thunderstorm in virginia- at a place called goochland. this jason child is being held in the back of a car by someone i assume to be his mother.

they’re pulling in somewhere, and as he repeats that words will never hurt him, they are met by a mob of people. someone holds an “i love you jason” sign. do they expect someone to bully him?

people are pounding on the car windows windows, and a reporter asks him how he feels. someone else has a sign that says “your faith is not an excuse to” but i can’t read the rest. what is this little boy getting into?

the cops tell them they can come out, and lead them into their house. he is getting tucked into bed.

there’s a glass of water, a bell, and what looks like a gun next to his pillow. i hope i'm wrong, because he looks about 9 years old, and having a gun when you're 9 is a very bad idea.

the poor kid is sweating. he must be sick. his mom says goodnight and then his dad talks to him. “maybe you think those people outside are right- that we should take you to the hospital and let the doctors treat you” <- ohhhh what, is this a child abuse situation? he says that if they do that, his body may feel better, but his soul won’t, because god gave him this illness, and he must deliver the boy.

holy fuuuuuuck. well. no wonder there were people protesting. they’re trying to save him!!

i've never understood that line of rationalization from religious extremists....... but perhaps no one is supposed to.

at 2 am, there is a storm banging on their windows. it wakes jason up as lights flash outside. he walks into the light. mysterious music plays. people walk up to him. 

and before we can see who they are, it’s intro time. damn. 

as always, more questions are raised than answered, just as designed.

get dancing!!! oooo, very short intro. the truth is out there!!!!

scully is in her apartment, wearing a turtleneck. i saw someone point out how vulnerable she looks without her big suits and i now pay more attention to these things, because it is true. she is grabbing a jacket and opening the door. there’s a newspaper outside, which probably isn’t too unusual, right? but it also could be a message.

the front page says that a “miracle ends controversy”, so that must have been what the lights were about at the kid's house. she looks around. closes the door and heads to the office.

mulder is reading a paper, his feet up on the desk. he softly says good morning (everybody say "aww!"), and then tells her the story he has in his hands will warm “the cockles of your heart”, which is a crazy thing to say. she’s like yeah…. i've heard about this jason kid.

his parents refused treatment on religious grounds, and then he was healed. scully explains that sometimes spontaneous remission happens- she is walking proof, after all- but he clarifies he’s more concerned about the messenger than the healing. who emailed him this story? someone from the government?

and how did she hear about it? from a newspaper she doesn’t subscribe to… left at her door, and no one else's in her apartment... hmm!

WAIT, HOLD ON, I SEE THE CREDITS... CSM WROTE THIS EPISODE??? oh, i’m sat….

mulder says someone wants them on this case- “it’s not a case, mulder” “not yet”- and he scurries off to DARPA to investigate. what is DARPA again? allow me to rewind.

“defense advanced research projects agency” <- ohhhh, right right. yeah, tbh, i have never heard of that before. if they made this up for the show i wouldn’t know the difference. he tells her to investigate. 

“i’ve just gotta know if it was roma downey or della reese” <- i do not know who these people are. my guess is victoria’s secret angels? that seems like the sort of saucy thing mulder would reference on the job. let’s look up one of them. 

OH! they were actresses on a long-running show where they played angels. very interesting. 90’s culture… i have so much to learn about you. well! now i know. and i have further confirmation that mulder is a big nerd.

back in goochland, scully is on the case. she knocks at the door of the family. who are named the mcpecks, btw. and the child ruuuuuns up to her, LMAO, she looks a bit taken aback by his sudden appearance. BAHAHA, her face. he explains that he feels good, just a little out of breath. LMAOOOOOOO, kids are so funny. but i still feel bad for this poor boy. what's gonna happen when he gets measles or something?

“you’re looking at god’s work” declares his father. then they all talk about exalting his name and repeat “praise the lord”. it's very creepy.

scully asks what the angels looked like- i notice she doesn't have her necklace on like usual. jason says they looked like men, and they came from the sky in a ball of light. this little kid is so cuuuute. this better not be some CSM plot to kill him!!!

then one of them pinched him kind of hard and he was better. OHHHHHH, he gestures to the base of his neck…. she’s gagged. she looks and finds a fresh scar. YIKES.

a scar on the base of the neck, much like a half-smoked cigarette, can only mean ONE THING on this show.

she walks back to her car, where CSM is smoking inside!!! a dramatic musical flourish!!! how did he get there?!

“what the hell are you doing?” “god’s work, what else?” <- OHHH, this man had been CHOMPING at the bit to write an episode, i can tell from that line alone. he was saying please please please please? and finally someone said okay, fine. and he ran with that opportunity.

“get out of my car” “i’d hoped for more accommodation for the man who saved that young boy’s life… and yours” <- OH, are we going to be addressing how that happened? i liked that it was kind of just a mystery chip that could also be interpreted as a miracle thing, tbh, especially since that point in the cancer arc was when we dove into scully's faith the most- but i’m open to a new perspective 

scully tells him to gtfo. he weaponizes her curiosity. a terrible thing to do to someone as naturally curious as agent scully. and he confesses to leaving the newspaper at her door, sending the email to mulder, and the elaborate demonstration of healing this boy.

OHHH, he says he’s dying!!!!

brief break because i hear a bird out my window. it’s a hawk!!! cool.

okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming. he’s dying. she swallows. he claims he wants to make right, and share this secret, give the cure to millions of others. i buy that he’s dying- but nothing else.

“i’ve tired of mulder’s mule-headedness- his foolish ideas of overthrowing the system” <- OHHHHHH, SHIT!!! this is JUICY!!!

she asks if he really thinks he’s fooling her. and he says mulder can never know about this. he’ll take it to his grave if he does learn. she starts the car, and finds a business card left on the seat next to hers.

OOOOOO!!! this is so exciting. i’m actually really glad we get to see scully wrestle with the devil this time. so often mulder gets this chance. but scully hasn’t been given it!!! what a temptation for a doctor!!!! and someone who came within minutes of death from such a horrible disease!!!

she sits at their basement desk, holding the card in her hands. picks up the phone and dials a number. then she hangs up. picks up again. orders a trace on the number.

she goes to a building where some security guards are watching- must be she plans to investigate herself. and then when she is met by security, she pulls the “i walked through the wrong door” card, which fools no one, but is really really really endearing to me. queen cannot tell a lie!!!

(EXCEPT for that time she convinced people mulder was dead. a notable exception- a result of doylist writing errors that can be fun to analyze in a watsonian manner)

these burly security men ask for ID. somehow, i feel she doesn’t have a fake on her like mulder probably does...

they take the ID. and tell her to go to the third floor. OHHHH, so they knew she was coming. there are so many security people. and there’s an office for CSM!!! she walked right into his trap. 

WHO is this man watching her outside….?

she goes in his office. it seems empty, but he calls out to her from nearby. he invites her in. asks her to sit. she stands still. 

he says that most of what he worked to build in his life is in ruins, and he has no legacy. scully sighs loudly. LMAO, she does not give a fuuuuck about what this man claims.

yeah, so the colonization plan has flopped, right? so what's the deal with that anyway? they just threw in the towel? they're gonna hope these alien rebel guys take care of the problem for them so they don't end up enslaved? i would think they'd be busy formulating a new plan. but i guess CSM doesn't care anyway, because he got the alien surgery.

he says he is dying of cerebral inflammation from a surgery he had in the fall. damn. not even the cigarettes. WAIT, the alien DNA he stole from mulder and had put in his body is killing him?? so he did all that for NOTHING? maybe he's lying, but i don't buy it. scully tells him his attempt to become respectable won’t work

“how many people in the world are dying of cancer? and here we are, wasting time with the past” <- OOOOOOOOO, OH MY GOD. what a manipulative little bastard.

this is soooooo juicy. i’m so invested.

she wants to see this miracle cure- he says it will take them a few days. they’ll need to take a trip. she says she’ll get back to him and walks away, LMAO.

he stands up, saying he has access to these chips, but the research is closely guarded. well. don’t the chips also make you want to go certain places that end up getting bombed? is that really a cure? is little jason gonna have a voice in his head telling him to go to pennsylvania like scully did? speaking of that, has that voice in her head stopped since the whole thing with cassandra spender? we didn't get concrete answers. we never do.

he claims that the men in this building will kill him- and her- if they knew what he was offering her.

he has destroyed all who are most precious to him- “all i want is a chance to do something in service to man before i go”

ohhh, is he going to play on scully’s hope that people can be good?? does she even still have that hope??

mulder arrives at his apartment. he has a message on his phone from scully- she’ll be out of town, it’s a family emergency. hmm. that would ring alarm bells for me. what KIND of family emergency??? they've seen each other dead and dying about a million times; you'd at least think she'd say "bill got hit by a bus and might not make it" rather than something so vague. then again, though, scully does love to keep things close to her chest. and he could call her mother and ask if bill really WAS hit by a bus. so vague is both the best move and a bad one.

mulder tries to call her right away. she's getting packed up for her journey and is listening to the messages as he leaves them. he asks her to pick up, he hopes everything is okay, and he’ll try on her cell right now. god. he loves her so bad. it's so sweet. CSM is in her apartment with her.

i’m scared. the girls (me) are scared. is he going to try something with her?

OH SHIT, SHES GOT A MIC IN HER BRA. see, i was really worried the zoom in on her chest was going in a different direction. she has a plan!! but will it work??? this is the devil we are dealing with!!! 

this car ride is going to be so uncomfortable, i’m cryinggggg. she can’t even look at him as they walk out.

break for commercials. a good time to ponder where we're at and take stock of my emotional investment.

ooooh, certain episodes just give me that excited feeling, when the writing hits juuust right, and the pacing... and i can’t articulate it, no i cannot, but i sure can FEEL it with my whole body. i’m wiggling over here. so excited to see what happens next.

what a plot we find ourselves in!!!

so, scully is driving while he sits in the passenger seat. i assumed he would drive, but you can never guess with him. her face is stony. but she’s going to fiddle with her shirt too much and draw attention to the mic!! she’s nervous!! she’s a doctor, not a spy!!

he starts to light up, and she tells him off a little, so he at least rolls down the window. and the subtitles make note that this is an ELECTRIC window. which i take it was a big deal at the time.

oh! he throws it out! and says it’s time he quit. “no sacrifice is purely altruistic. we give expecting to receive” “what exactly is it you expect to receive?” “your trust” <- OHHHH! well. that is a TALL order.

he says he has a special affection for her- an affection for mulder, too, but what he feels for her is special. she looks at him. saying nothing.

“i held your life in my hands. your cancer was terminal- i had the cure. can you imagine what that’s like? to have the power to extinguish a life or to save it and let it flourish?” she says nothing. but her eyes are glassy.

very creepy thing to say. veeeery creepy. sick and twisted man.

mulder is coming to her apartment- trust that he's investigating. she gave the key to a neighbor who she asked to water the plants- which has to be a GIANT red flag in mulder’s head!!!!

oh, is this guy the landlord? “tenants like having an FBI agent in the building. gives them a sense of security” “do you know how many people have died in there?” “oh, uh, we don’t really talk about that” <- LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO, I’M CRYINGGGG. that is so funny because. damn! a lot of people really have met their end in there.

OHHHHHHH, the landlord said “her driver” had her suitcase when they left- a tall, older man who smokes like a chimney. i would assume that mulder’s face is one of complete shock right now, but the lighting is so BAD, i cannot see anything. 

but he runs away. doesn’t even wait. just runs. oh. baby…..

scully is still driving. CSM says she’s been at the wheel too long- would she like him to drive? 

“how long did it take mulder to win your trust?” “i’ve always trusted mulder” he laughs. “you’re not being honest with yourself”

“i told you, i’ve studied you for years. and if you would permit me, i’d like to make an observation.” <- WHERE IS THIS GOING…..?

CSM MSR shipper confirmed?? this finally gets her eyes off the road.

“you’re drawn to powerful men, but you fear their power. you keep your guard up, a wall around your heart. how else do you explain that fearless devotion to a man obsessed, and yet a life alone?” OHHH, GET HER ASS I GUESS????

CSM has always had an innate ability to clock that tea.

“you’d die for mulder, but you won’t allow yourself to love him” <- OHHHHHH MY GOD. JUMPING UP AND DOWN AND PACING. 

put this guy behind the pen more often. LET HIM COOK!!!! 

she makes some remark about him being more than just a cold blooded killer, but also a pop psychologist. GIRL, ARE YOU GONNA SIT THERE AND LIE?? well. what else can you do in such a situation? i’d probably do the same. 

the concept of not letting yourself love someone... as if you have any say in the matter. you can build walls, but that really only buys time until they fall down, no? augh. it's fascinating.

i'm also very fascinated by how blatantly they love each other- but won't talk about it. how they're each other's most important person- but draw the line at conveying that sentiment. maybe it's about the idea of romance being so much scarier than a platonic love, but that doesn't feel quite right, to be honest. maybe it's not that, and it's just that the lines have blurred so thoroughly between attachment and devotion and friendship and romance and love, that if they stop for a second to think about it, they're scared the whole thing will crumble down. how mulder thinks he's an intruder and force of destruction in her life and she thinks he's too ahab to ever really have any sort of meaningful relationship in any capacity. hmm. so much to consider. and you can analyze how it moves through time, too... wow. i'm barking and chasing my tail like a dog.

i don't like the idea of scully being afraid of mulder's power like he is some sort of superior to her- but we do know that his relentlessness is something she admires and also is terrifying to her, because it drives him to do things like get holes drilled in his head. so i guess there is that "fear" there, but more of what he can do when he sets his mind to it, or what he might get himself into when he has his heart set on it, than what he holds over her. i resent the implication of a boss and assistant dynamic. (glares at never again)

anyway, CSM wants to prove he is capable of something more than destruction. and he tells her to make a turn. 

there’s a car… and in it is the guy we saw standing behind her in his office before!!!

holy shit, i’m jazzed. mystery guy pulls in after them. i think. it’s hard to tell. 

she puts the car in park at what looks like a normal home. CSM explains that the woman in the yard is marjorie butters. she’s got a green thumb and plays a mean game of scrabble. and that she is 118 years old, which i do not believe. he gets out of the car and she hugs him. introduces her to scully, saying she is a very good friend of his- he sounds so friendly as he does so. looks so innocent. and scully notices the scar on her neck. 

“to have this power…. to visit this woman and see her joy… must be why you became a doctor” <- HEY, WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT DOCTORING, BUDDY? you are a manipulative evil man. he looks away and follows marjorie inside.

back at the FBI headquarters, mulder bursts into skinner’s office. skinner!! my beloved friend!!! he is on the case. 

mulder is in his leather jacket, which is how you know shit is going down, and reports that mrs. scully knows nothing about any sort of family emergency.

OHHHH… “i know she can take care of herself. it’s just not like her to lie to me” <- OHHHHHH. my heart. did you hear it melting? like a popsicle? all sticky and syrupy???? GODDAMN THIS FICTIONAL MAN.

skinner gets a call back on his private line. it is scully. mulder gestures for the phone- but he holds tight to it. 

she says she’s on the road, and everything is okay. and please tell mulder that she’s alright. “well, he’s standing right here. why don’t you do that yourself?” (mulder gestures for the phone again, smiling with relief) but she hangs up!!!! saying she’ll call him later. 

“she says she’s fine” (mulder nods) “she’s in trouble” and he departs after her!!!

ahhhh!!! this is so tense!!!

scully pulls in to a gas station, telling CSM she is stopping at the restroom. he watches her as she heads inside, holding the gas pump.

and she’s narrating into the mic!!! she’s going to leave this tape for mulder!!! she promises she will get it to him as fast as she can!!! her words are too fast and furious for me to jot them down, but she promises him that she weighed the risks before making the choice to go with CSM. then fiddles with the tape recorder, getting out the tape. it takes her a while. that is my queen.

she scribbles his name on an envelope with two stamps… then heads outside. nearly runs into a guy. where is CSM?! she puts the letter in the mail. 

he��s sitting in the driver’s seat. offers her a lifesaver, which she declines- must be his alternative to smoking. he tells her to get comfortable- they have a good drive ahead. 

ah! the guy she nearly ran into- was that the man from before?!?! he has the letter she mailed mulder in her hands!!!! he plucked it out of the mailbox!!!

at 1 am, CSM pulls in… somewhere. scully is fast asleep in the seat next to him. he puts on a glove. then another. a villainous score is playing. he brushes her hair out of her face. i feel deeply uncomfortable and scared this will take a turn.

a knock at mulder’s door now. “it’s the masters of disguise” IT’S THE GUNMEN!!! they have hats on and say there’s heat on their tail! but they did what he asked. and nearly got caught!!!

they hacked into scully’s computer… found some emails that had been deleted, but not fully from her hard drive… yes, yes??? she was talking with someone named cobra. “well, looks like she’s gone to great lengths to keep this from you” “i don’t believe that. she knows that i’d find her, no matter what” <- OHHHH MY GOD……..

is frohike dressed as harry potter? mulder just said this utterly heartbreaking line and frohike is standing there in gryffindor robes. THIS SHOW…

he’s gonna get in her laptop. TRUST!!

scully is asleep in a bed. wearing a robe. checking for the mic. it’s still there. did she change into the robe herself...?

oh, she's furious. takes the coffee he offers her and throws it out the window. she says he drugged her. he claims he just carried her into the bedroom. and that they’re in pennsylvania. she's free to go- the keys are in the ignition. but the choice is still hers. she takes a deep breath. and goes back inside.

but the guy who was following them before is in the bushes!!!!

mulder bursts inside skinner’s office. LMAO at the jab at him always doing that: “is my assistant-?”, BAHAHA. and in barge the gunmen behind him!!! “what the hell is going on here?” “that’s my question exactly. i believe you’ve all met” WAIT!!! WHEN DID THEY MEET…? OHHHHH, FIGHT THE FUTURE!!!! in the hospital room when byers had to strip. i recall.

FROHIKE CALLS SKINNER “G-MAN” AND LANGLY ASKS IF THIS PLACE IS SECURE, LMAOOOOOO. skinner looks mad as fuuuuck.

so “cobra”- who is a federal fugitive- has been emailing scully from the DOD for the last 6 months. he’s working on a shadow project.

he pulls up what he claims to be scully’s correspondence with cobra, in which she is stressing the importance of what they have, and that she can arrange a safe place- but i’m not buying it. seems like a CSM arranged story.

LMAO, yeah, mulder thinks someone has hacked into her email and is pretending to be her. mulder says it’s CSM, and skinner has to get to him- now. “you of all people should know that you just don’t get to him” 

ohhh my god, i’m so invested, i feel electric. i had to sit up a little and lean in. 

“WELL, IF YOU DON’T GET TO HIM, IT MAY BE THE LAST TIME WE SEE SCULLY ALIVE” <- GAAAAG.

back in “pennsylvania”, CSM knocks on scully's door, saying they will have dinner with their contact tonight. AND HE BROUGHT HER A DRESS?? he must know about her mic and is trying to get her to wear something that can't hide it…. she says it’s beautiful. looks it over. sighs when he leaves the room.

yoooooooooooooo….. so much is happening….

oh my god, it’s very strange to see her in a dress, but yeah. definitely no mics going on there. 

okay, so this guy they are meeting is “cobra”. and scully wants to know why she’s here. cobra wants assurance the science won’t fall into the wrong hands. and they drink to the future. 

and he says he must tell her something else. it’s not the cure for cancer. “it’s the holiest of grails, dana. it’s the cure for all human disease” HEY, don’t call her dana….. and how would that even be possible?

she asks how. and he says it’s largely extraterrestrial. “then you would be cured”, she points out.

“that which makes miracles also makes great evil”- he claims that others would use this to choose who would live and who would die

she’s thinking. he says he’s a lonely man. girl……… if you could see my face right now……. is this gonna get weird as fuck….?

he gets up. and someone else is watching her from behind. she seems to be freaking tf out, but sits right there. is she going to make a run for it?

outside, CSM smokes a cigarette. someone meets him- the guy from the bushes. “cobra hasn’t shown” “what do you want to do?” “wait. what else can we do?” LMAO at his sassy tone. but bush guy says that scully won’t wait forever. he tells bush guy to do his damn job.

she didn’t eat the cake brought out for her. but someone slipped her a note, saying to go to a cove. HMMMMM…. what is afoot????

so her and CSM are unmooring a boat. she must have told him about the note, because he knows where the cove is. and he tells her to wait when she gets there.

scully starting a boat is hot. i’ll say it. CSM tells her to head out. he looks so unthreatening in his old man hunting jacket. someone is watching her…. 

another boat approaches. boat diplomacy time. this guy says finally we meet. BUT SOMEONE HAS A SNIPER RIFLE TRAINED ON HER!!! is it CSM?!!! 

"cobra" hands her a CD. she asks where it comes from. he asks if she’s scully. yes, but we haven’t spoken before, she says! he seems very confused!

and blam!!! the cobra guy is shot!! it was the bush guy!! and he shoots for her next!!!!! but he misses!!! she ducked!! and again!!!! BUT CSM GOT HIS ASS FIRST??? kills him and then places a gun next to his head??????????

what is going ONNNNN. so he had this guy follow scully so he could kill cobra and her but then CSM got him before he could kill scully?!

another tally is added to the CSM kill count.

she starts up the boat and gets tf out of there while scary music plays. CSM comes out to see her. she’s mad as fuck. she is five feet two inches of sheer fury because he said no one else knew about this. she hands the CD to him. and he hands it back. saying she has to go. 

back in mulder's apartment, the gunmen are looking through it. mulder is avoiding her gaze. it’s loading. they report that the CD is empty. scully says it can’t be. mulder still won’t look at her. 

she goes back to CSM’s office with mulder in tow. bursts in. and it’s completely empty. she yells that he was here. mulder says it was the perfect con. scully truly believed him and how vulnerable he seemed.

back by the pennsylvania river, CSM holds the disk. tosses it into the river. and lights up another cigarette. 

you know what that means: he's back to his dark and twisted ways.

the end.

BRO…..

so he was using her the whole time. but she really believed him. i guess that is what happens when you wrestle with the devil- he makes you believe. part of me is saying “why would she believe him?”, but she hasn’t really had to deal with him 1 on 1 before- at least not in the "him dangling answers over her head" kind of way before- and hearing about his lies and falling for them are 2 different things….

so what did he want? did he really want to make right??? and that is why he threw that CD into the river?? so no one could ever use it for evil- even if that means he’ll die? i don’t buy it. i don’t buy anything about him. but what else would be on the CD that he would want destroyed and could gain by impersonating scully? i guess maybe i DO think that is what happened.

you just never know with this guy. there had to be something important on there. CSM kills sparingly, most of the time, except for the melissa incident that caused everyone to think he was getting sloppy. so to set that guy up to kill scully but then kill him first….

AUGH. i know this story will NEVER be explored again. so you have to take what you get and embrace it- i really enjoyed this episode. i love a scully-centric one. i love not knowing what is going to happen next and sitting at the edge of my seat. i love mulder knowing so fully and deeply that he would always find her- but he didn’t this time. she hid it from him. and he seemed so hurt. is it that she didn’t tell him, or that she fell for the same man who told him all of those lies? both? angst! angst for those with the eyes to see it!

CSM as an MSR shipper is sooooo funny. 

i really liked this one. so often the narrative focuses on mulder and how he falls for manipulation, but scully isn’t immune to the same thing- you just have to use different levers with her. a cure for cancer…. of course she would fall right in. she almost died from it. she watched so many others die agonizing deaths from it. something so fantastic… we like to think we could resist the devil offering us the fruit, but the devil knows just what fruit our heart most desires, doesn’t he? 

and then mulder dealing with the angst she is so used to feeling- watching someone you love being taken in by lies, falling for half-truths, the feeling of betrayal in not being told what is going on... oh yeah, that was SO good. as was his determination to find her that ultimately proved fruitless. i LOVE a worried mulder that will move heaven and hell to find scully. and i love the inverse of that, as well. GOD. he was so scared. he called her MOM and burst in on skinner. loverboy. loverboy... he got scared. and now he's angry.

there were some weirdly tense moments between scully and CSM, and i was worried it was going to get, for lack of a better word… unconsensual. particularly when he got her that dress and then said he was a lonely man… oh, i was scared. AND when she accused him of drugging her. we all know that this show is not behind doing some freaky shit. luckily, it did not steer in this direction. but the subtext was there. thankfully, that was all it remained. scully has undergone some weird shit at the hands of these writers, but not today.

everyone say thank you to mr. william for cooking up this banger ep. excellent character meditation on scully. excellent character meditation on CSM, even if we still don’t know what he really feels. i guess i do believe that he is dying and perhaps there is some small part of him that wants to atone for all the terrible things he did. but how he could go about doing that… WOULD he find the alien cure to all diseases and destroy it? it certainly wouldn’t clear his name in any meaningful way if he destroyed a secret document that no one would ever know about- but would it clear his soul to know that it couldn't be used for evil?

hmm. hmmmmm. hmm. so much to ponder. and it seems a wedge has been driven between our agents now, after scully ran off without telling him anything. and he never got the tapes, so he didn’t know her rationale. i’m sure their next few meetings were quite… tense. especially after the kerfuffle with the pine bluff variant where he did sort of the same thing and she was soooo mad at him. 

so much to think about!!!

[romulusfuckingroy]

no because imagine being roman roy, spending your whole life hearing how useless and fucked up and broken you are from both your dad and your siblings, growing up knowing you’ll never amount to anything.

and then the unthinkable happens. your brother fucks up. loses his claim to the throne. you’re suddenly in pole position to take over… you think, until your sister who’s not even in the fucking company reveals that it’s her.

okay, fine, it’s not like you don’t know your sister is smarter than you are, it’s fine. except… then she loses it, and your dad gives it to some outsider, some random woman from a completely different company. it starts to feel like he’s sort of desperate to give it to anyone but you.

the woman quits after some events that you get the sparknotes of while flying home from being held fucking hostage. someone has to go to prison, and it’s your brother for some fucking reason. you’re alone again. so maybe…?

but no, your dad’s just calling you to tell you to go find your sister. he asks you if she’s solid, he trusts you to make that determination, and you say yes because you love her. so it’s suddenly her again.

and then the unthinkable happens again. your siblings decide to rebel. this is your one fucking shot. but suddenly they’re goading you into joining them, and you… agree, because you fucking love them, fuck, you really do. no matter how many times it fucks you over, you love them like a dog loves the child that keeps pulling its tail.

(when you get to your dad’s hideout he tells you that the heir will be you if you abandon them right now. you have no evidence for or against this. you’re starting to feel like he’s just dangling it in front of you to get you to do what he wants. (you’re right, but you’re not quite aware enough to fully realize it.))

so… it’s none of you, and that’s… fine. the world doesn’t end. time goes on. you decide that teaming up is kind of… nice. you have plans, real fucking solid plans. except… your siblings swerve sideways and start specifically trying to fuck over your dad instead of just… working together to build something.

they goad you into it, obviously. they’ve always had the ability to make you do things you don’t want to do. except for one factor that’s out of their control…

dad says he needs you. you. roman.

so you’re back on team dad. he was right the whole time anyway. and he respects your opinions (you believe), like with mencken. you’re ideologically allied (he’s indoctrinated you).

he dies when you send him one fucking lousy voicemail about how shitty it felt firing your… your… gerri.

your dad is dead. your dad is dead and the last thing he ever told you to do was fire gerri. which… which you did, so at least you can rest easy knowing it was you, you were the best child after all, he finally saw you deserved the company.

except kendall’s name has a line through/under it, and you’re not fucking mentioned. fucking greg is mentioned, but not you.

you tell yourself shiv’s right. it’s crossed out. you tell yourself that for a different reason than she does. you were so sure it was gonna be you. after everything he fucking put you through. it had to be you, right?

deep down you’re sure it’s an underline. and you’ve never felt more useless. more like a manmade mistake.

you can fucking be like dad, though. you fucking fire two senior women- one of them gerri, again. you let kendall do whatever the fuck his manic ass is up to- dad seemingly trusted him, so fuck it. you try to tank the deal with matsson, because you can do this. you can run waystar. you always fucking could. fuck anyone who says different.

you put your reputation and waystar’s prestige on the line for a fascist presidential candidate, because that’s something you and dad agreed on. that’s when you felt like he was actually fucking proud of you. shiv throws a hissy fit, but fuck her, okay, she’ll never fucking understand the bond you had with dad. no one can.

you… make a bad call. well- you don’t make a bad call, everyone thinks you made a bad call. mencken deserves to win! why is it such a big fucking deal?! you’re on top of the world, about to deliver a banging eulogy and swoop in and take the company from matsson’s grubby little hands.

and then your uncle speaks. and then you get up to speak. and then you cry. and fucking kendall logan roy gets up there and delivers a better speech than you ever could. and then so does siobhan.

you find out mencken betrayed you. your brother tells you you fucked everything up, and he’s not joking around like usual. you think about that fucking piece of paper, that fucking line. well, fuck this. you get beat up a bit for old times sake and then fuck off to barbados.

but they find you there. they beg and plead for you to come back, to vote with them, they need you. you’re with your mom in barbados, finally having time to just… breathe and think, and your siblings come back and try to goad you into coming back, into putting everything you are on the line once again, for fucking kendall’s benefit alone, pretty much.

…

you go with them. they’ve always had the ability to make you do things you don’t want to do. especially when you try to back out- come on, gerri’s there for god’s sake- and your brother pulls you close like a boa constrictor and hurts you the way you like it until you yield.

you get why his name was (you believe) underlined. it was never you. never.

because you’re roman roy, and there’s something really fucking wrong with you, and there always will be.

[flickering-nightfall]

getting a little destroyed by classes and other things at the moment, so i'm not posting as much. but here are some itties i drew on my notes to keep myself sane :)

[pangulggot]

what are funny moments from Brave Soldiers?

WOW I didn't expect to get an ask already, There's too many to note god that dub drives me crazy even though I haven't actually seen all of it. Like out of context everything is insane. Here's a few that I always think of though: (i'll just use their dub names, kaio for juldarami, ginio for geumsaegi, whatever) - Kaio to Ginio while he's literally waking up from being beaten the shit out of: hey.. shorty... (shorty/shawty is often slang for a young attractive person in the US and that's what I always think of so it makes me sob) -dub Chief of Staff: WHAT? PICTURES? I'M NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR PICTURE BOOK Ginio: YOU SHOULD BE - Ginio: you know kaio. this scarf makes you look. so cool. its a perfect style for you (Kaio in the most deadpan voice ever): thanks - Kaio: billieee jeannnn isnottt my loveerrrrr (???this was so out of noewhere) - Malagatto: ginio i want you to arrange for our departure at once. its about time we had a little vacation. just the two of us. Ginio: WHAT IS GOING ON! - any time there's a really long and awkward silence for no reason - GINIO FEELS DECIEVED AND IS SO ANGRY HE WANTS TO START SHOOTING HE WANTS TO PULL HIS PISTOL OUT BUT GETS CONTROL AND THINKS BETTER OF IT - Kaio: wow! he really was tired! ahh, ill let him sleep. (awkward pause) good ol quack - a lot of the chaotic Spitz and Ilzo scenes. I can't think of a specific one rn. If anyone has seen the dub you know what I mean - how they re-edited the scene from the original where They Remain In Our Hearts plays - Both of the voices they use for dub!Darami - Teema: good to see you soldiers Minu out of noewhere: I'M HERE TOO - THE TRAITOR IS HIM GUUUUUH (dies)

There's more I can think of but this post is long already. Idk its like. so chaotic. and so bad its good