#[ i am but a small potato ]

[azure-firecracker]

I, like most people I’m sure, spent most of Small Potatoes laughing hysterically, but the more I think about it, the sadder the climactic scene makes me.

(And yes, I do think Scully knew something was up even though she may not have been sure what. You can see that she’s not leaning back into that kiss at all).

But I just feel so much for Scully in this scene. Because yes, she gave up on having a “normal” life ages ago. We know she’s drawn to the strangeness and charm of Mulder’s quest, maybe more than she’s willing to admit, and that she’s willing to sacrifice normality and conventions for that. But I don’t think that means she doesn’t want normality.

Mulder, I think, is someone who would be content if he never did anything other than search for aliens. And I think Scully would be content that way too, but I also think there’s a small part of her that wants to go on dates and drink wine and make scrapbooks and exist away from the danger where things are easy. And she knows Mulder can’t give her that, that the odd and dangerous is an intrinsic part of him, but still she wishes for balance.

(Fanfic does a great job of giving them more normal moments. In fact, it does such a great job that I forget how few there are in the show. But Eddie was right - they usually don’t talk. They’re connected more deeply than maybe anyone else could be. But they don’t talk).

The inherent tragedy of Mulder and Scully’s relationship is that Scully wants to be seen and valued, and though Mulder does see and value her above all else, he doesn’t show it in a way she always understands. She thinks she’ll always play second fiddle to his quest, and doesn’t see the moments where he reveals he’d throw the whole thing away for her sake. He runs off without her time and time again, and she’s left to pick up the pieces and do the less glamorous parts of the job, without seeing the lengths he goes to to keep her out of danger.

Scully is such a closed-off person that she wants to just exist comfortably and without fear and feel like she’s important. And though Mulder gives her that in some ways, it’s never quite in the ways she understands. She doesn’t know how much she means to him - I think that’s pretty evident.

And now she’s dying. The job she sacrificed all hope of normalcy, of being seen and valued exactly how she wants to be, for, is slowly killing her. And here comes someone she thinks is Mulder, wine in hand. And he finally gives her what she’s been craving - a shred of normalcy. A space she can be herself, be seen, be loved without everything being tied up in desperation and danger and fear.

It’s everything she wanted from Mulder that he couldn’t give her.

But it was all a lie.

[puppetmaster13u]

I was makin myself a potato waffle. And had a fun realization/idea.

I bet that there's at least a small waffle restaurant in Gotham. Look me in the eyes and tell me there isn't a place that sells Spoiler-themed waffles.

Chocolate filled, batter with edible glitter and purple dye, Spoiler Waffles that Stephanie absolutely loves.

[a2zillustration]

What am I gonna do when croissant finishes the game their journey... TT_TT I don't wanna say goodbye to them!!

I don't know buddy I've been wondering the same thing :') Let's not think about it-

[spaceratprodigy]

✨🤠 It's Teddy and Zinnie Besties Hours!! 🐮✨

@oldworldwidgets — felt like we deserved something quick and silly today <3

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[deathsbestgirl]

okay. writing about why never again should come before leonard betts is actually hard. because it's really just a few small moments in leonard betts make more sense if they're after never again, and it's so much better to go to memento mori right after the reveal at the end of leonard betts.

never again ends with silence. mulder cutting off his sentence. if it were going to happen, it would be then. but it doesn't, and so the silence persists.

leonard betts has a similar feel to arcadia, where they're trying to get on the same page, slip back into their roles. mulder uses humor at crazy moments, and scully pretends not to think it's funny and stays focused on the case.

in the end, she sits alone in the car in silence. waiting for mulder. he tells her she did a good job, she should proud. a verbal validation he doesn't often give, something she craves & loves, a little taste of something she wanted from him in never again. and she can't enjoy it because she's terrified. scully believes leonard betts and she just wants to go home.

it really strikes me the way there's no physical comfort. in paper hearts, scully was fierce. she tried so hard for mulder and failed. but in the end, he leans into her, they hug, she pets his head. in never again there was no comfort either. mulder was petty and he didn't understand. this time he's kinder when she was attacked, but there's a physical distance that isn't typical.

then in memento mori, she calls only mulder. scully tells him so tenderly. she has no idea what to do, and she know what this will do to mulder. he's with her when they go to skinner so they can officially open a case on it & investigate. when she doesn't explain it to skinner, mulder steps in for her. he tries so hard to be strong when they both know he isn't. but scully is being forced to face something she's left buried. now she can't.

in the hospital, she calls mulder to ask him to bring her stuff & call her mom. she writes letter after letter to mulder. begging forgiveness, telling him she'll only get through this because she knows he's out there, following his own path.

but their path is the same. he will follow her to her death.

they have never been as physically affectionate as they are in memento mori and the reduxes.

in elegy, she sees the ghosts, an omen of her impending death. when she finally tells mulder, he's hurt. he wants to be there for her. in demons, he believes she's dying and that he can't save her, and they both deserve answers. he doesn't want to live without her, he can't keep on his search for the truth without her. but he also won't ask her to follow him into this and he only calls her when he can't remember what happened, there's blood & he's in shock. she knows his suicidal tendencies, it's exactly what has her so worried. who will be there for him when she's gone?

mulder + scully know exactly what they have. scully will give him everything she has, even when it's only her dignity so that he won't rot in prison for something he had to do. mulder will follow her to end of the earth, to the grace without any hesitation.

small potatoes is so painful because of the unspoken agreement not to address their feelings. "mulder" shows up at scully's apartment, and she gives in. she's soaking up the attention she's always wanted from him. they don't kiss, she doesn't move to bridge the gap, she just waits. and then the real mulder comes crashing in and the pain is face is clearly visible. he knew exactly where van blundht was going. it wasn't even a question.

mulder isn't heartbroken that van blundht had a chance with scully and he doesn't, he's heartbroken because they chose silence and now she has a deadly cancer.

in detour, scully makes an attempt to open the door and mulder flees. he knew what was on her mind, but he still can't take it from her. she can't even be mad, but the silence persists and the gap grows.

there's nothing they won't do for each other, but leaving their feelings unsaid hurts them. to the point scully thinks all she's done is hold him back. and in fight the future, he finally says so many of the things she has desperately needed to hear. and she clings to her skeptic role because it still wasn't quite enough. their kiss was interrupted and they don't bring it up and fowley is present, driving another wedge.

from scully's perspective, mulder didn't trust her in never again, and then she lives it all over again because of diana. he doesn't trust her judgment, reduces it to jealousy because they both know her feelings. and she's still unsure of mulder's because of this, and the ever persistent silence. even after one son, he doesn't accept it. only after amor fati, when he was able to hear diana's thoughts and she consequently dies for helping scully save him, does he understand that scully's right. and once again, gives a beautiful speech. between all of this there's been "you're my one in five billion" and "i love you" and "you saved the world scully" and the hallway/bee scene and they play baseball & flirt. until he says to her, looking into her eyes, that she was his friend, his constant, his touchstone.

scully never hears what he says to diana about her. which could have helped her. but she only saw him holding her hand, clinging to diana's shared beliefs, because he knows her. and like in never again, she feels invisible. she feels useless. she's holding him back.

it isn't until the end of amor fati that the tension breaks. things become lighter when scully feels more secure. when he starts giving her the attention she has always wanted, when he lets her take the lead on cases, when she's allowed to believe sometimes without it turning their world upside down.

it's just a better progression. never again shouldn't be about scully's cancer diagnosis & impending death. it's about her, her patterns, mulder. it's about her struggles with what's expected of her, what she should want and the reality of what she wants & chose. her fear that mulder is an authority, and that she gives him that authority.

[flowersofevilvn]

im in hell

[appleslices]

i dont know who needs to hear this but sometimes when a potato salad recipe tells u to mash the potatoes you need to discern if that will actually be beneficial to you or if u will accidentally end up making EXTREMELY smooth mash potatoes

[svtskneecaps]

yea once again i am really hoping it's not a full blown server, i sincerely do not think qstudios is ready for that kind of undertaking and ngl i'm not either. like as much as i go fucking wild for the multilingual communications, even if by some miracle they completely fixed the legal side of things there's some other stuff that's raising some red flags for me so uh.......

.......can i rant about time zones i just want to rant about time zones i've been sitting on this for like half a year and getting more and more like ??!?!?!!?!?!!!?!!?!!!?!!?!!?

like first of all there have been europeans since the fucking first day of the server and yet very rarely were events scheduled at euro-friendly times and when they WERE it felt like it was because the french fans beat the studio into doing it, which they obviously should not have to do and it would have been SO easy to just hold a couple events at euro friendly times instead yknow trade it off like shared custody because we have the update accounts and if it's on a weekend some americans can just wake up before noon and still catch it live. it would have been so easy i don't get why the euro fans had to fight so hard for this.

secondly why in the fuck would you invite people to a server that is entirely about collaboration without making sure there would be people online during their usual hours and YES this is about the koreans, why in god's name would that not be included as a consideration? the only reason yd interacted with as many people as she did was because she fucked up her sleep schedule like that shouldn't be a requirement. i can think of a couple "blue sky" (i.e. idealistic with no regard for real feasibility) solutions, like "invite a few people from an existing language that stream in that time frame" or "invite another language group in that rough time zone", but honestly i'm flabbergasted. did we not consider this or did we just decide we didn't care?? there's a fucking half day difference between the prioritized server timezone and korea. sorry, but it's a multicultural server; you can't prioritize america forever, even if the server owner is from there

third and less importantly but why in god's name was pepito going to be given a european admin. most of pepito's parents don't come online before midnight in europe. that's fucking insane. that was doomed to fail from the beginning. obviously this is small potatoes in terms of pepito but what the fuck was that. who fucking signed off on that.

[ratcandy]

im so serious the easiest way to win my favor in anything is to just give me a potato

[scribbsyscribs]

When one of the big dogs comments on your Huskerdust mpreg fic.

[spacebugarts]

Y'know what sucks? Hyperfixating on a game that you can't play for yourself, so you have to watch playthroughs on youtube and scour the wiki for scraps of lore instead of playing the game and finding them for yourself 🙃

[settingorange]

Guess I'll make a bunch of tiny shoes out of clay 😐

[hellraiseher]

whenever i listen to janis ian's 'at seventeen' and think a lot about miss laurie strode probably (definitely) spending most of her babysitting money on literature and music records and movie tickets so she can vicariously experience all-consuming otherworldly romance but she never had those bought for her on a date.....

[calyroco]

Moderately concerned about Persephone having a biochem class as a freshman(even if I don't know what the fuck biochem theory is even supposed to be. Why is she not just taking regular biochem?)

Thank goodness she stopped going to school for...whatever the fuck her major was early in this series because even biochem as an upperclassman is a pain in the ass, and I can only imagine what other high level classes this university throws at poor, unsuspecting freshmen right out the gate if they're throwing those bastards in biochem the very first semester

[charcubed]

Lokius vs Sylki parallels: "Something Real"

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[tinyplanetss]

rereading good omens before season two comes out and i forgot how much funnier this line was in the book. to clarify, this

is a potato weevil. we were robbed tbh