#After everything she did she needed it

[some-pers0n]

I'm gonna stop with even attempting nuance and reason anymore and just say whatever I want. Albatross did absolutely nothing wrong he's a lil' blorbo goober he's just a silly guy you're all just mean to him </3

"He killed so many dragons though??? He did the massacre?" Sheesh you're really hung up on that whole "killing three dozen people" part like he was just cranky and grumpy from the party and his bitch sister talking about replacing him after years of her using him for his magic alone. He was just tired and eepy and there was too much noise and people and he got overstimulated and upset :( He did nothing wrong he was just a bit silly

Like look at him! Lovely little smile of an innocent dragon :] Don't mind the randoms in the back they're just playing dead for fun

[bluerosefox]

"Daddy! Mommy's is having Ellie!"

Everyone in the Batfam knows Jason keeps secrets.

Secrets he'd take to his grave a second time if he had to.

But to think one of those secrets would be about the fact he had a secret family.

And the only reason the Batfam found out was because apparently their secret (grand)daughter/sister-in-law Jazz/Jasmine was in labor and their (great)grandson/nephews Danny (Daniel) and Dan (Dante) called him while on a Red Hood job with the rest of the Batfam to panicky tell him their baby sister Ellie was on the way early.

Red Hood books it away from the fam to his bike while asking to put Kori or Roy on the phone.

Oh boy.

[umblrspectrum]

i think the idea of v finding uzis last name hilarious is a really funny one

[roots-symphony]

do you think the reason agatha’s trial felt weird is because she was the only one who did not actually buy into the mythos of the road since she knew the truth? like that was why no perspective change and all the other reasons why people thought it was a fake trial

[chirpsythismorning]

Just remembered that Will sat on the icebox in the van for the 30 hr ride back to Hawkins

[lemongogo]

just thought of stamps treatment of elendira again ..no .. NOO

[makotonaegiunderstander]

something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.

“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”

[novelconcepts]

Do you ever just lay awake at night, turning over in your head the stark difference in delivery between Hewson's Van saying--steadily, unshakably--"it's just something that's happening to you...happening to us" and Cypress' Taissa saying--imploringly, whiningly--"this was not just my dream, this was our dream"?

Do you ever just turn it over and over, how often Tai tried to scare Van away, and how it only made Van set her feet more firmly? How Taissa's first love was this person who saw a problem fall into Taissa's lap, a problem that was quite literally trapped inside Taissa's body, and decided unflinchingly: No, that's an us problem now? How she refused point-blank to walk away even with blood in her mouth, how she flatly informed Tai "I'm never gonna be scared of you", and promptly turned a moment of pain into a declaration of love? And how this would etch itself into Taissa for the rest of her life? How she'd take these things that worked with Van--with the person Van was, with the bond they shared--and try so hard to run through an identical script with Simone?

Except Simone is her own person. A completely different kind of person. A person who hasn't been offered any of the context, any of the realities going on inside Taissa. So: naturally she doesn't respond the way Van did at eighteen--and will go on to do all over again in her forties. Naturally, she hears our dream as the excuse it is, not as a plea for connection. Naturally, she is scared away when Taissa pushes, and shouts, and begs. Because there isn't blood in her mouth, not yet, but there will be. And they have a son to worry about. And she isn't eighteen and a special kind of immortal, a special kind of romanticized. She's a grown woman with responsibilities, with priorities, with an understanding that you can't fix someone just because you love them. And Tai can't just perform a revival of the play she and Van had memorized twenty-five years later with a whole new performer in the works, and expect it to shake out the same.

Of course it doesn't work. But look at Taissa trying it. Look at Taissa trying to reframe her first love through a new lens. Trying to recast it. Trying to play it through again. Van taught her love was sticking out the blood, shaking off the pain, making a you problem into an us problem. Does it ever just eat at you, how tragic it is, watching Taissa try to shape her marriage around a woman who isn't even wearing a ring?

[herearedragons]

tag the oc that's most likely to get stuck in a time loop and what kind of time loop it would be

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

My hot take is that marcanne has as much potential for toxic yuri as any other calamity trio ship and it's not nearly as soft and fluffy as one may think

[what-even-is-sleep]

thinking about Bodkin again bc I mean,,, ALL THE SYMBOLISM OHHHHHGH. i NEED some tumblr film analysis hobbyists to watch this show and tell me all the themes n such

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 13 thoughts

so i read the description of this episode and i was thinking to myself, yeah, this one seems believable. i keep loosely acquainted with the drama of the funeral world, and after learning of the harvard morgue scandal of last summer, i was like. well. the truth echoes art, i guess.

but that was the POINT of the episode- that the real world is scary, even without vampires and bigfoot!

so we begin with a funeral for a poor little girl. and it is an open casket, which is upsetting, and these little kids that i assume were her classmates are looking in. and then to make it even MORE upsetting, this creepy man working the event shows up and starts... touching her hair...

boy, i hope that child actress got a fat check for that very uncomfy bit part.

next we see a man eating an ice pop in the embalming room, to which i say: king. and he's hearing some weird stuff, and who emerges but... donnie!

(donnie's the guy who was stroking her hair... and he's holding scissors... and the girl's hair is scattered all over the floor...)

donnie briefly morphed into a demon, and ice pop man banishes donnie from his realm upon realizing he cut the little girl's hair. he says "i should report you" but i don't think he actually did.

(PRO TIP: if you are in a workplace where this type of event happens, please do file a report)

anyway. agent time. they're arriving in a graveyard. and i saw a gif this morning of mulder lifting the caution tape up so scully can get her umbrella in!!! it is suuuuch a cute moment. and a tiny consolation for the agony the rest of this episode produced.

the policeman is blabbering on about aliens and says to mulder, "you know andy" and he says "no i don't" "well, he knows you" which is sooooo funny. another example of mulder being famous amongst the nerd population.

poor scully looks absolutely horrified at this little girl's desecrated body...

and while the policeman thinks it's aliens, which may be a first, mulder does not, which again may be a first, because he says he's seen cases like this before

"you okay, scully?" he asks, noticing that she is Not Okay, but seeming unsure of how to approach the situation. she insists that she is, and perhaps he accepts this at face value.

they share an umbrella <3 but whilst doing this she's deeply shaken, and says she's surprised he isn't bothered. he says he prepared himself, and i thought he was going to elaborate on what preparing yourself for a case like this looks like, but he didn't

and she's shocked that they drove all the way here for a case that isn't aliens... why did we come here then?

because he got them tickets to a football game. LMAOOOOO this man........... football date night. it does not sound pleasurable to me but maybe watching his nerdy face light up would make up for the misery. i was giggling here. he wanted to take her out and show her his culture.

okay so now we're back to donnie. he's applying for a new job. he says he used to be a cosmetologist.

NOOOOO they had to miss their game because there are more bodies dug up and violated... and since this took place in the 90's they didn't even have facebook marketplace to try and sell their tickets beforehand... this is truly a devastating loss </3

and did they show a football player with the same name as the dude who runs this show... you can't sneak that stuff by me...

scully has to walk out after seeing the pictures of the crime scene and i'm already so deeply sad for her but oh boy, past me, wait a bit and see where all this goes!

mulder says that the police need to put an alert out NOW and the policeman is all "well we don't have a whole lot of guys on the squad so it might take awhile :(" THEN HURRY??? mulder says he thinks this dude is gonna kill someone and you're gonna complain about lack of resources???? WORK OVERTIME???

poor scully is sososo shaken and mulder pops his head out to where she was sitting... he says he'll cancel their plane tickets so they can stay longer and she's just staring out into the distance... SOMEONE HELP MY QUEEN PLEASE

then we get a glasses and takeout moment as the agents come up with a profile for a guy who steals body parts from dead people

donnie sees a woman on the side of the road- a working woman, if you will- and he takes her back to his place. and this woman is sooo pretty. but he's running her a bath and marty i'm scared.

(wait i just realized i can straight up insert the reaction images i'm referring to on here)

HE IS OBSESSED WITH HAIR... first the little girl's, and now he asks this woman if she needs shampoo for chemically treated hair...

he goes to take a phone call- congrats, you got the job- and she sees his room is FILLED with wreaths from funerals. and she might be naked but i was still yelling at the screen GIRL YOU NEED TO RUN!!!!!!

well. we cut to body time. so we know how that went. it is a spectacularly bloody body. and our freak has escalated from desecrating graves to killing real people.

mulder wants to go look at the body and asks scully to come but she can't bring herself to do it. WHY IS NO ONE NOTICING THE STRESS SHE IS IN. HOW CAN WE TAKE STEPS TO AID HER.

(i think that mulder is trying his best to Not Make A Big Deal out of her visible distress to make her feel better, and instead just gives her space and respects her lack of desire to discuss the whole thing. because there is no way he doesn't actually notice)

now donnie is on the job as a grocery deliveryman. which i am familiar with as i do use doordash occasionally. but the woman whose house he's delivering too just. LETS HIM IN??? to pack up the groceries. is this how the job worked at the time... can anyone confirm or deny... because i'm trying to imagine welcoming the doordash or instacart guy coming in and putting the food away for me... and i feel my skin crawl... what a textbook murder situation...

and if that isn't bad enough, the woman tells donnie they have 3 daughters and leave the backdoor open........ this does not bode well for the plot....

he asks to go to their bathroom and he digs through their trash to find a clump of hair and he SNIFFS it and then pockets it... we need someone to deal with this man with a QUICKNESS.

scully is in autopsy mode now, and unlike her usual very professional self, she looks like she is going to pass out conducting this one. which is remarkable because she has seen some nasty stuff, but this is what puts her over the edge.

in her report, she's writing about how every autopsy tells the story of a life, and that being killed for someone to take a piece of your body is perhaps the most dehumanizing death imaginable

someone who saw this freak donnie says that he looked like an ordinary guy, so this is gonna be a tough search. so mulder is going into deep psychoanalysis mode, saying it must be driven by a very intense hatred of women. which seems fair. i'll trust the oxford trained fellow.

now donnie is in class and he sees a woman and we know what's coming, but when he approaches her and tries to get creepy, she kicks him away and manages to run!!!! thank god honestly we could use a victory.

the phone wakes up scully from a nightmare where she sees the same demon we saw earlier and also SHE was the one on the autopsy table- but mulder says they have a suspect at the station. and i'm like, yes! they're gonna get him!

but it isn't him that they get! they brought someone else in, and we SEE donnie watching their interview moment and this was the narrative taunting me

mulder can no longer try and ignore scully being so on edge, and he says "scully, if you're having trouble with this case, i want you to tell me" and my first reaction was, king, do you have eyes, she has been about to collapse this whole time. but now i see he is doing the best he can to put the ball in her court, and yet she STILL denies it. lies straight to his face.

"i'm not having trouble", she says <- okay so we all see that this isn't true but i respect that he's trying to be mindful of her boundaries. however i would have been like hey queen let's get you out of here <3

"i just don't want you to think you have to hide anything from me", he says, and i kiss each of my fingers like i just savored a delicious meal, because that is EXACTLY what i wanted this man to say. mmm angst. just what i had ordered.

so donnie is asking the guy who DID get questioned what they were talking to him about, and what their names were, and he remembers scully's name because she has the same name as a baseball announcer i guess? and then they let the donnie go -_-

she goes back to DC to get a fingerprint read on the body but says something about maybe not flying back to the case that night... she did NOT want to be there!!!!!

at this point we learn that the FBI has an on sight therapist, which honestly makes perfect sense... but man. this scene.

she's referring to herself in the second person, talking about how you have to become used to seeing death in med school and in fbi, and she's distancing herself to try and cope. and the therapist brings up losing her father and her coma, and asks if she feels uncomfortable with her partner, and she's like no, i trust him with my life.

wow. that's incredible. but!

"i don't want him to feel like he has to protect me"

and i cannot imagine a world in which mulder, the protector, would ever NOT try and guard those he loves like some sort of snarling beast. but she must still feel horrible after just coming out of a coma, and he had been so scared to welcome her back, let her come on the missions, she had to PROVE herself, and she can't make herself feel guilty knowing he'll see her as something to protect.

(as if there was ever going to be another way)

so yeah i was basically barking at the screen here.

she says she's lost faith, and she needs it back. and where do you get faith these days?

but, while she was away, they found a print. she calls mulder to tell him this and decides that she'll fly back that night.

"anyway, you could use my help" "always" <- what if i started crying.

but someone called for her while she was away... and i knew it was that donnie freak........... foreshadowing....

so the agents trace the prints to donnie and bust into his house, where they find his endless funeral wreaths and even a FINGER in the fridge, but no donnie

and this is just as scully is arriving from the airport AND DONNIE IS STALKING HER. and i wrote, donnie, i will get u with my bare hands.

and he HITS HER CAR and DRIVES HER OFF OF THE ROAD and then mulder comes to the scene and they find her car but no SCULLY

back at donnie's place, he is running a bath and my screen was dark enough to see my face in the reflection and it could best be described as looking like that dizzy emoji. "oh girl i am UNCOMFY", i wrote, but in a sort of horror way that you expect from the genre.

she's tied up in his closet and sees him as a DEMON again which is more evidence that she has had to endure SO MUCH and i'm getting duane berry flashbacks with the gag in her mouth and i'm feeling a profound level of defensiveness for a person who does not exist

mulder is stressed, there are no witnesses, and he's pissed, he says "there are people that can videotape police beatings on darkened streets, they manage to spot elvis in 3 cities across america every day, but no one saw a pretty woman being forced off the road in her rental car"

AUGHHHH his bloodhound nature, need to find answers, is kicking in again.

(and also he thinks she's pretty)

so back at donnie's place, he is approaching rapidly with a knife, and mulder is sleuthing. the car they found was donnie's mother's car, so maybe they're at donnie's mother's place... but he is PICKING UP THE KNIFE AS MULDER SPEAKS

he ASKS ABOUT HER HAIR to properly shampoo it which is SO FREAKY but she manages to BREAK AWAY by shoving him into the tub. yes yes those FBI agent skills are kicking in!!!

shes hiding and he yells "there's no way out, girly girl" which briefly took me out of the scene because i just know that he would have said "girly pop" if the writers had their hands on that phrase and it was distracting but still. STILL.

she's hiding in the closet and he opens the door and she SPRAYS HIM WITH ROACH SPRAY and runs and they're tussling about when...

MULDER BREAKS DOWN THE DOOR and sees her!!!! he's calling for paramedics while the policemen take care of donnie

and the first thing she says to him is "i'm okay", reassuring him despite her awful situation, perhaps referring to her mostly uninjured body, but she's shaking like a leaf, and she just keeps saying that she's fine, she's fine, until he lifts her chin up to look at her face...

and she starts SOBBING into his chest. he's got his fingers in her hair and he's mumbling "it's okay" to her again and again and. i could feel my heart melting. i was a mere puddle of a human being at this moment. it's okay. it's okay.

there is something i think you will understand that is so rich about seeing characters hit their breaking point. it tells the audience so much about them- here we see that scully's biggest fear is the evil that lies in the ordinary, in the idea that anyone could be a monster, that this is a world of constant fear, and how do you try and rationalize the things that humanity is capable of doing? how do you walk down the street knowing that someone, anyone that passes you by could be a devil, metaphorically speaking? and she doesn't have the luxury of believing that it could be some outside force- some aliens, or evil vampires- manipulating people into doing their bidding, like mulder does. she knows that it is flesh and blood people that she sees everyday at the grocery store or next door or even those she autopsies, that do horrific things. and that there is a capacity for that in anyone, and no way to keep yourself or those you love entirely safe. what is there in this cold world of facts if there isn't faith? and again, where do you get more faith when you run out?

(and, of course, her deep and terrible fear of needing protection. needing to rely on someone that isn't just herself. of inadequacy. how scary that must be for a person who sees the terror in the rest of the world)

so yeah. love to see a character break. and i love it even MORE when we get to see someone they love comfort them. hurt/comfort trope remains undefeated.

the episode ends with mulder writing the case report and talking of very similar things as i just rambled on about- about humans being demons, and demons being what humanity comes up with to explain that- but this is delivered over a slideshow of donnie's childhood pictures to emphasize how he was just the boy next door, except that honestly he looked like young sheldon. so i was a bit taken out of the whole thing.

so yeah. this episode did not leave me with the warmest and fuzziest of feelings, but in terms of horror it was definitely one of the scariest so far, again because the entire lack of supernatural causes. i mean you could choose to interpret that this guy genuinely WAS a demon, but i think that defeats the purpose of the episode and scully's character study we get as a result. i was spooked, but we still had some good moments, such as attempted football date.

overall, i thought this episode was great. and we could talk about how the creepy killer was super queer coded, and discuss if this was done in bad faith, which could be an interesting conversation- but i find it not entirely relevant to the overarching theme. like, the scary part was that he wanted to keep your fingers, not that he called scully "girly girl", and i didn't get the sense that those two things were being equated in the episode.

now give me 10 beach episodes, or perhaps a journey to a museum, or a spa, or the mountains, or an ice-skating trip with matching scarves worn by our agents, or a day at the mall. really i don't ask for a lot!

[ineed-to-sleep]

*me immediately after going through a terrifying and traumatic experience* haha yeah I guess it was rough but I'm fine now like I'm totally chill. It was kinda funny actually if you think about it

[deus-ex-mona]

when the slowburn makes the ship extra cute~~~

[possamble]

AHA thank u i was mostly just. frantically pulling the "no hetero" card bc farcille is super super always endgame for me and the "marcille has two hands" thing is absolutely not for me and my personal characterization of marcille

i like. can't find it anymore for some reason but there was a farcille fic set just after the shuro confrontation where laios reaches over to hold marcille's hand and ask her if she likes him or if she's just tolerating him too and it was so. the vulnerability. the puppyness.

that safety and security he must feel in knowing that she wears her heart on her sleeve and he will always know when she's unhappy with him because she will absolutely let it be known. the way that falin's first revival was the turning point for the way he felt about her because, for the first time in his life, protecting falin wasn't something he had to shoulder alone. there was finally someone else who cared about her as much as he did (in his eyes, resenting his parents for failing to protect her) and would stop at nothing to save her. the way it must have been proof for him that, not only was falin not alone anymore, he wasn't alone anymore.

idk why i like rather than dislike the fact that his only framework for parsing how he feels about "the first girl other than his sister that he's ever cared this much about" is a comphet romantic lens. like he would have the autism moment of fully assuming that he's in love with her for a while and just like. not? doing anything about it? because he doesn't feel the urge to, nor is he sad that he knows marcille would mostly likely never "feel the same way" about him?

like. he "figures out" that he's "in love with marcille" with all the passion of printing out a label and sticking it onto a favourite scrapbook for organizational purposes. he's equally happy to be her husband or brother-in-law so long as it means she stays close and is part of his family.

i know logically i should hate it but it's sooo crunchy to me. my comphet besties ever. designated plus one and dance partner to all fancy and formal occasions. having actual real chemistry but the "romantic" part of it is some weird shapeshifter smokescreen. augh

[thepromisedbride]

i don’t talk about bridgerton on here but just to clarify. i will not be having ANY eloise hate on this account. i will bite.