#also he's an extremely fertile bastard and we love him for it

[brooksdavis]

(MY) TOP TEN ONE TREE HILL SHIPS (as voted by my followers): #2 ⎯ Brooke Davis & Julian Baker

Everyone says that the next thing I do, the next choice I make is going to define me, my career, my life. Well, the next thing I want to do is ask you to be my wife. And tell you how much I love you and how nothing else matters.

[oh-boy-me]

What are all the boys (bros&other npcs) favorite bodies of water??

Jo can I trust you?  I’m not so sure anymore.

--

Lucifer: Glacier

A river that bends land to its will?  Nice.

A river that bends land to its will and is also frozen?  NICE.

The sheer power of glaciers, man.  It’s ice, but it moves.  It hogs all the freshwater.  What a truly impressive feature.

The ninth circle of hell is a frozen lake, and while that circle is reserved for the treacherous and not the proud, that probably influences his opinions just a little.

Also when exposed to light glacier ice is blue!  How cool.

Mammon: Tide Pool

Do you know how many THINGS there are in tide pools?

Most of them are worthless, but still, Mammon likes things and tide pools are not short in supply of things.

Most of them look cool too.  Anemones and starfish and stuff.

He also likes how they’re only around during low tide.  They’re like a secret.

Leviathan: Ocean

Are we surprised?  It’s his second home.  It’s the biggest and deepest saltwater option we have.

The ocean is literally his element.  The more water the better.

He does prefer warm waters though.  Cold water makes him sluggish.

I feel like this was self-explanatory so I don’t even have much to say, so let me use this extra space to sprinkle in a world building headcanon: Devildom seas are on average deeper than Human World ones, but the Mariana Trench is still the deepest trench in the three realms.

Satan: Oasis

Remember when I said he isn’t fond of big bodies of water?  Yeah that still applies.

So if he HAS to choose a favorite that’s natural, he supposes a beacon of life in an otherwise desolate land is a good choice.

(Satan you fool you absolute fool.  An oasis is the entire fertile area, not just the body of water that may or may not be there.  We’ll let him get away with it.)

He’s thinking of those ones that show up in storybooks anyway.

And he wasn’t allowed to say “pool.”

Asmodeus: Hot Spring

Curse this bastard, hot tub wasn’t allowed as an answer and he found a way around it.

Really though, hot springs have so many refreshing, good for your skin, etc., properties.

It’s also a great trip location to have a “me day.”

Or to get to know someone a little better.  Or a lot better.

Don’t get him wrong, though--when it comes to hot springs it’s a spa day first and foremost.

Beelzebub: Channel

So people swim across channels.  The English Channel, at least.  And that’s something he’d definitely be interested in doing.

It’s also good endurance training, records and completion aside.

So with that in mind, a channel has a goal attached to it, and Beel loves having goals to work towards.

Also, channels connect landmasses.  Insert metaphor about connecting here.

Belphegor: Fjord

Millions of years ago, a glacier said “hmm, today I will carve a valley.”

And then the ocean thought “oh I should flood this” (and also the glacier melted).  And that’s how fjords are created.

They’re very beautiful, with rising cliffs on either side.

They’re also often very dangerous, with extreme currents and even whirlpools.

And they’re REALLY deep.  Like, far deeper than the sea that flooded it.

And that’s pretty neat.  He just thinks they’re neat.

Simeon: Salt Flat

So it isn’t a permanent body of water--actually salt flats are made after water evaporates and leaves the salt behind--but if Satan’s allowed to say oasis Simeon’s allowed to say salt flat.

Why does he like them, though?  Well, when it IS a body of water after the rain, it’s a mirror of the sky.

There really isn’t a body of water that seems more heavenly than a rained-on salt flat.

Please look up Salar de Uyuni.

There really is a place in the Human World where he can forget he’s not in the Celestial Realm.

Luke: Pond

Lakes are freshwater basins teeming with life, both in nature and in human settlement.

Lakes are also very deep and that’s freaky.  Ponds are the same as a lake but smaller.

They can be small garden ponds with koi, or big enough to take a boat out onto.  How versatile, how diverse!

Ponds are like the little MVPs of the water world and Luke can relate.

Solomon: Lake

Solomon doesn’t really have an attachment to lakes in general, but rather to one in particular.

He doesn’t remember what it was called or where it was, but he has fond memories of summering at a lake house in the mountains when he was a child.

His father would take him fishing, his mother would watch him swim, and the whole family would hike on the surrounding trails.  It was really fun.

A beach house has similar family vacation qualities, but Solomon’s family preferred the quiet nature that lakes more readily offer.

At least, that’s what he recalls.  They… they did go fishing on the lake, right?

Diavolo: Bayou

It has little to do with the water itself, and more to do with the area.

Because bayou?  Animals and culture.

We’re talking birds, alligators, fish, frogs, you name it, fun swamp creatures.

And New Orleans.  Cajun and Creole culture flourishes in that area, and there are few human cultures that would catch his eye more than those would.

(There are of course other groups that live in similar areas that have these same charms, but I don’t know of any all-encompassing word.)

Barbatos: Cove

They are small and separated.  Feels good, feels private.

He likes the smaller ones best.

It would be nice for there to be a cove that only he knows about.  A place where he could destress and just exist.

The chances of Diavolo not knowing or finding out about it are small, but hey.  A butler can dream.

He wouldn’t call himself a romantic, but he can’t deny that it’s definitely part of the appeal.

Masterlist

[richmond-rex]

★ - Margaret of Burgundy ♡ - Cecily Neville ൠ - Elizabeth of York ◉ - Henry VII [I’ll choose sense of humour headcanon] Look at me being ultra-demanding 👀!

🌹 Hi there, I’m extremely sorry for the delay! Headcanons under the cut because my answer got somewhat long!

ask me a headcanon

Margaret of Burgundy

★ - sad headcanon: Ok, so we know that Margaret was responsible for the Anglo-Burgundian alliance negotiations in 1480 — if we go by Edward’s behaviour (not wearing his golden fleece livery collar anymore, receiving a pension from the king of France), it seems Edward had strayed a bit from his connection with Burgundy at the time. I think that it must have felt very strange for Margaret to go back to England and find things so changed: her brother Richard was keeping away (but went to London to see her), and most notably, George wasn’t there to receive her. We share the headcanon that Margaret and George were close in their youth, so I think it must have been incredibly saddening, and even disheartening to see what I think Margaret must have taken as a changed Edward — after being somewhat snubbed by her brother (Edward said he wouldn’t have business with Burgundy unless they paid him what France was paying him for princess Elizabeth’s betrothal), perhaps she thought he didn’t care about his ‘real’ family anymore. This is the time Okerlund speculates that Margaret developed a certain acrimony towards her niece Elizabeth of York: as the eldest York princess (a position Margaret had once occupied herself) she might have looked like the special flower amidst that court that looked so strange to Margaret. It certainly would explain why Margaret was so hellbent in supporting pretenders to the English crown instead of sympathising with her niece.

Cecily Neville

♡ - romantic headcanon: I know incredibly little about Cecily Neville’s life! But taking into account how often Cecily tried to honour her husband’s memory, I think she must have grown to love the Duke of York. I don’t know if she was already infatuated with him when they married — she was fourteen and Richard and Cecily had grown up together as children (as he was her father’s ward), which usually is a factor that precludes sexual attraction. He was four years older than her, though, so I don’t really know. We know that it took them ten years to conceive a child, which makes me think they weren’t actively intimate for some time, especially considering that Cecily (like her mother Joan Beaufort) proved herself to be very fertile. Maybe it took them some time to feel attracted to one another? 

Elizabeth of York

ൠ - random headcanon: I think Elizabeth was much closer to her maternal uncles than her paternal ones considering the frequency that she saw them. Apparently, she and her sister Cecily had a fascination with far-away lands much like her Woodville uncles :D Also, my headcanon was that Anthony Woodville was her favourite uncle but I’ve changed my mind! Considering that as Elizabeth grew older she didn’t see Anthony very often (since he was in Ludlow with her brother Edward), and adding the fact that she and Cecily actually shared a book with Edward Woodville, perhaps Edward was her favourite one. Considering his age, though — perhaps as young as Elizabeth’s oldest brother Thomas Grey — I don’t know whether she would’ve seen him as an uncle or as a sort of older brother. That she felt much affection for Anthony is plain, though, as shown by her actions in 1502.

Henry VII

◉ -  sense of humour: I don’t know if I can even call this a headcanon since Henry’s dry sense of humour is well known (one of the greatest joys in my modern AU was writing Henry as an absolute cheeky bastard sometimes hh). I think one of the best examples of his sense of humour is this one.

Thank you for sending this ask! ♥♥

[irkenheretic]

Does Red have that one genetic disorder? What does it do to Irkens who do have it?

OOOHHH OKAY SO this is all gonna be headcanon stuff for ANX (watch me forget to tag the post as such lmao) so itll be canon divergent at points

so The Red Eye Thing, which has no formal name because why would irkens name it, is a linked gene between the gene that causes red eyes, and a genetic disorder that leaves an irken with a little extra chunk of chromosome in a sex cell that made them. (a sex cell is like, either the sperm or the egg, one of those) not an entire extra chromosome, that doesn’t happen among irkens, but a chunk.

you can’t have red eyes without having The Red Eye Thing, so yes red does have it! ^^

i just have to go on record and say that in ANX, irkens still reproduce naturally. they dont mate for fun or keep the young, but its still not artificial. smeets are also VERY IMPORTANT in irken society as they are seen as the future of the empire (like, assaulting a smeet is so universally hated that if someone is jailed for it they will 100% be killed before they ever stand trial. smeet assaulters are so hated that the control brains know this happens and they just let it happen)

so given how societally important smeets are, it tends to be Very Bad for Red Eyes that the main problem their genetic disorder gives them is infertility. theyre basically looked down upon societally because they’re unable to do a basic biological function that even smallers and defectives can do. 

i mentioned they also have hyperpigmented skin in my other ask, but im putting it here again anyway. skin colors from that hyperpigmentation can range from “dark, but still normal irken dark” to “i have never seen a skin color as dark as yours before holy fuck” these edits i did of red are what he looks like in ANX, and hes on the way far end of the spectrum- out of 100+ characters in ANX, some other Red Eyes, he’s the darkest one. the hyperpigmentation is a result of the extra chunk of chromosome lmao

also, Red Eyes have trouble detecting pheromones other irkens give off. this can be just dulled senses, or it can be a total lack of detection, like what Red has. (ur seeing a pattern arent u, red has a more “severe” case of his genetic disorder.)

the gene also causes developmental disorders which... aren’t exactly on a sliding scale per se? it’s kind of like autism where every Red Eye acts differently from each other that there’s no real “universal experience” for how this specific thing presents itself.

the red eye gene is passed on from parent to child, it won’t mutate and it can’t be carried- you either have it or you don’t. 

“but how can that be if they’re infertile!” i said infertile, not sterile. the reason Red Eyes are infertile is because, since the extra chromosome chunk was in a sex cell, at least 50% of their sex cells will be affected with the extra chunk, too. irkens have a biomechanism that purges cells with missing or extra chromosome parts (extra-chromosome irkens are relatively fine, missing-chromosome irkens are like, hatched with no brain or are stillhatches so good that thats... there) 

but since those cells are purged, that’s at least half of the fertile cells. of course if they have a more severe case, like red, it would be more than half. so it is moderatley hard to nigh impossible for Red Eyes to conceive or fertilize, depending on who it is. so since only Red Eyes can pass down The Red Eye Gene, and these bitches rarely have smeets, there’s only like.... one Red Eye per generation, maybe two.

(fun facts: there used to be more Red Eye family lines, but some idiot got it in his head that Red Eyes caused defectiveness and that most defect trials were a false positive so in order to save everyone he needed to kill all Red Eyes, so now there.... aren’t..... any more......) (yes the control brains crazy murdered that idiot. they hate him so much sometimes they go “hey remember the red eye genocide guy? what the fuck, right?”)

so tl;dnr: it’s a genetic disorder caused by an extra chunk of chromosome in either a sperm or egg that made the irken. it causes infertility, hyperpigmentation, low or no ability to detect irken pheromones, and a developmental disorder that presents differently in everyone that has it.

tl;dnr 2: irken down’s syndrome. 

under the cut im gonna go on about how society sees irkens with this condition (under the cut because.... sexual assault tw. also ableism tw)

Red Eyes are seen as... well... broken pieces of shit. before red was tallest, there WAS another Red Eye Tallest in recent history- tallest Zim. (NO RELATION to invader zim haha) zim becoming tallest made Red Eyes not be.... as hated, but there’s still this societal idea of “you are a broken piece of shit and your cells should have been purged.... buuuut if you do something above and beyond whatever it is your job is, we Might think you’re cool. also we probably won’t say this to your face but we’re thinking it really hard at you, and you KNOW we’re thinking it, so there’s no point in not saying it, but we still won’t so you cant claim we hate you. but make no mistake, we do.” so red just had, the BEST time growing up.

remember in my last ask, i said Red Eyes are liked a little too well sometimes? well... due to their infertility, they’re frequent targets for rape, especially in the military, since military irkens aren’t allowed to mate. nab a Red Eye and you can have all the fuck you want without any, er, evidence. red honestly was lucky he was constantly stickied to purple as an elite, otherwise Horrible Things could’ve happened.

was the general populace worried about a Red Eye tallest? yes. yes they were, back when it was tallest zim. they thought he’d be shit at it due to how “broken” he was. there was a LOT of public outcry, especially since zim was on the shorter side of tallests. they were ready to be all “see, Red Eyes are NOTHING,” until zim was actually an amazing tallest. he was so good the control brains liked him, and the only other modern tallest they actually liked was miyuki. he did great things for the empire, everyone loved him. when tallest red became tallest, everyone was much less worried. but they were still thinkin it, ya dig. 

is red related to tallest zim? yes, zim is red’s grandfather.

is red’s tendency to forget words a part of his developmental disorder? it could be, could not be. there’s not much of a sample size due to yknow, the genocide, so there’s no-one to compare his symptoms against. the disorder presents differently in everyone so even if red is the only living Red Eye with that symptom, doesnt mean its NOT a symptom ya dig? but im gonna word of god it and say yes it is

can you have the same chromosome thing without being a Red Eye? yes! in this ask i talk about spork having a learning disability- he has the same chromosome thing, it just gives him different symptoms because he doesnt have the specific instance that red eyes have.

can you have red eyes without the chromosome thing? no, the gene for red-colored eyes is stickied to the Extra Chunk gene, and unlike chromosome issues, which can happen to any irken, an irken will not randomly mutate a gene for red-colored eyes.

is the term “red eye” derogatory? it was EXTREMELY derogatory before tallest zim took power. now it’s just a general term for a red eyed irken, but... irkens will still use it in an insulting way. like... “queer” is the best parallel i can draw. used to be a slur, now is a general term, but some people still clearly use it as a slur against others. 

are red eyes called slurs? YES. they are targets for The Word. The Worst Word In The Irken Language, So Bad You Can’t Even Call It “The __ Word” Because It’s Too Close To Saying The Word. It Is Just, “The Word.” it used to be WAY worse before the genocide, simply because there were more of them. it decreased even more after tallest zim took power, but make no mistake, it’s still out there. also The Word translates out to “condemned obsolete bastard” with a side order of “the beginning of The Word sounds like im spitting on you and thats also exactly what it means.” its an awful slur its like if every human slur had an orgy

(was red called slurs growing up- YES.)

are Red Eyes defective? they can be! defectiveness is in the PAK, not in an irken’s biology. that’s why they’re called genetic disorders and not genetic defects, to separate them from the “we are going to execute you” defectiveness. they’re still scorned as if they are defective, though. sometimes theyre called “worse than defectives” as a jab at their infertility- like, even the empire’s worst can do that, ya dig? 

back in The Old Days, there was probably a mix of defective and non-defective Red Eyes. now they’re all defective by coincidence. 

[imaginationkonoha]

Neji Hyuuga - My favorite mouth.

~ Giphy isn't not mine~

I hope that all you enjoy!! Send your ideas!

All I cherished when I arrived from a mission was to take a good shower to remove all impurity and sleep like a rock. And I'd do that if it wasn't for Hinata pissing me off to a House Shower.

“I hate you for this you know?” I said laughing walking with her and Neji.

"Ah Y / N, you look like your mother" Neji said snapping with my face and I looked at him angrily. "Everyone is going" He continued smiling and for a moment I pictured him in the place. Okay. Maybe we should stop these thoughts.

"Ok! But I'm very sleepy!" I replied bitterly, entering the house accompanied by the two.

"It will be nice, come on, I'll take you to tea later" Neji replied and Hinata agreed. We went in and met with everyone, boys and girls parted for the sadness of my fertile imagination. Really, they were all here, Ino, Sakura, Tenten, Hinata and me. I sank into the water wanting to die there, on the other side we could hear the noise of the boys.

"You look like you died!" Said Ino looking at me. I agreed with her making a thumb down.

"I am, the enemy shielded me for a Tenten attack," I pointed at the girl who looked at me apologetically. "It's alright Tenten, accidents happen all the time."

"I know that," she replied. "Just that I overreacted in the attack and your body must be really sore, I don't know how you're standing."

"I think sometimes you forget who my mother is, I study some medical jutsu with her at home, we never know what might happen," I said shrugging, my mother was the master of Ino and Sakura, the fifth. Hokage. My fayher was Jiraya, you must finally think they got along but no, on a night of my mother's sadness for her beloved Dan, she and my father drank a lot and it resulted in my birth 9 months later. My father had died a few months ago, so I'm trying to get on with my life preparing for war.

I took a deep breath remembering what happened, Neji and Naruto helped me to the extreme, the first knew exactly how I felt to lose my father, had already gone through it. Already Naruto suffered along with me, how often I accompanied them to receive information or something greater, he was like a grandson to my father.

"It's because they float," I heard Hinata say and started laughing at Sakura's face.

"You're the biggest of us friend, maybe someday I'll pass you or maybe I'll pull daddy's family" I frowned making everyone laugh, before I could say anything we heard the noise of something breaking, we looked up seeing the ceiling give way. In a second I put on my shorts, covering myself with a towel since I couldn't find my shirt, looked at the floor and found Rock Lee, and at the door the boys looking at them very angry. Before I could do anything, Lee was running out of the house, I felt bad for him. Holding my breasts I reached for my shirt but didn't find it until Neji surrendered, I noticed his embarrassed look from under his scowl. He was too respectful to take the moment to take a look.

I scolded myself the minute I thought that, turned my back on, quickly putting on my shirt and running after Rock Lee. I saw Naruto get in front of him before anyone knocked and I did that too.

"Girls, pay attention! Lee would never do that!" I pointed to the boy who smiled at me, smiled back when I turned around and noticed that all the boys were looking straight at my breasts, which now due to wet body were hard, appearing lightly on the light colored blouse.

I took a deep breath and was not ashamed.

"Never seen breasts? If you want I show" I said called everyone's attention.

"It won't be necessary, I think we all learned," Naruto said, and turned to Lee, showing Sakura's bra clinging to his towel.

"Sakura is arrested" I spoke fast "He did not catch" I continued but it was too late, because the woman had already hit Naruto, before she punched another I held her hand, making her snort. Sakura walked away from the house, I rolled my eyes at the behavior and turned to the boys.

"Boys, the view is very nice but I think you want to keep a little of everything you're showing" I said bastard and they widened their eyes, touching the situation they were in the street. I joined in the laughter as the boys tried to get home as soon as possible, Hinata stared at me laughing at my scared face at Neji and Shikamaru's physique.

"I died and God took me to heaven" I said putting a hand on my forehead making a drama. "I'm impacted, I could kiss, literally," I said excitedly.

"Y / N!" - Tenten scolded laughing.

"What? You think, I say. I really could lose my mouth from kissing so much. I'm in love," I said entering the house, we returned to our ward to pick up the things we had forgotten.

"You say that but you know you have a favorite mouth," teased Tenten and I ignored it.

"True, it's no use lying" Hinata continued and I laughed

"My favorite mouth doesn't do that kind of thing, it's very focused," I commented faking crying, increasing the laughter.

"No, I also want to know who it is" complained Ino

“What do you mean you don't know?” Said Hinata, I looked at her showing tongue.

"You are great friends!" I mocked and they laughed.

"Okay, I'll tell you," Tenten announced. "She's falling for Neji's mouth, or all of him."

"Tenten!" - I fought with her "I hate you" I complained and the three laughed.

"How didn't I realize before? It's so obvious," said Ino, patting her forehead.

"Unfortunately he doesn't want me!" He said pouting. "And for the record, my crush on Neji doesn't even compare to Hinata's cliff on Naruto," I blurted out seeing my friend turning red. I hugged her laughing, she laughed punching me in the arm. After gathering our things, we left the ward and went to meet Neji. The moment I laid eyes on them, the image of just a towel covering his body came to my mind and I wanted to die right there. I had no doubt that I was my father's daughter.

“Tea?” He asked and I nodded.

"I'm leaving you, I'm really tired," Hinata said making me give her a macabre look that chuckled and walked in the opposite direction, not even giving Neji the opportunity to offer to take her.

"Got a problem with that?" He asked me

"No, no, it wouldn't be the first time we had tea without Hinata's anyway" I answered but inside I was yelling hard, I could see every muscle in Neji's body in my head and I was almost asking to leave. We arrived at the tea house quickly and he placed our orders, he was always the one to ask because my taste came down to two flavors.

"Today was quite a scare" commented Neji and I agreed

"Really, when I walked into the house, I could never imagine that all my teammates would come over my breasts," I said and snorted, making Neji laugh. I looked at his strange behavior, smiled at that. Our tea arrived before we could say anything, I started to drink mine calmly, looking at his eyes all the time. Okay. What bizarre game was this? Why is he like this? What happened that I didn't understand? Lee entered the teahouse and walked over to Neji, calling him to visit Naruto.

"That would be a good idea," I commented, remembering how Naruto was alone at times. I got tired of spending time with him. "He needed his friends," I said, agreeing with Lee, giving him another smile.

"I'll just end here and meet you in a few minutes," Neji replied, and Lee agreed to run out of the house, within minutes we finished our teas and left. As my house was toward Naruto's, I walked with Neji to some extent.

"Well, now you should go and have a good time," I said, poking the man who smiled at me. I loved when he smiled at me, it was as if the world stopped for a moment. I felt Neji approach and I felt my body paralyze, his face coming every second closer to mine, and finally his mouth touched mine, kissing me so hotly. Neji's kiss was slow but exploratory, he pulled back and smiled at the mess I was at the moment.

"Your mouth is my favorite too, I just never thought it would want something from me because of Naruto, maybe I saw something that didn't exist," he said and I widened my eyes. "I'm always in the mood, just like my body after all, I also have a cliff for you," he said and gave me another kiss before leaving and planting me in the middle of the street with a beautiful smile on my face and a heart running like crazy.

[eddycurrents]

Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels - Chapter Five

Words: Mike Mignola | Art: Ben Stenbeck | Colours: Dave Stewart | Letters: Clem Robins

Originally published by Dark Horse in Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels #5 | November 2009

Collected in Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder - Volume 1: In the Service of Angels

Plot Summary:

With the help of Martin Gilfryd, Sir Edward Grey and the Captain stop the Hyperborean creature from further mayhem. Then the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra kicks Grey in the teeth, metaphorically, repeatedly.

Reading Notes:

(Note: Pagination is solely in reference to the chapter itself and is not indicative of anything within the issue or collections.)

pg. 1 - I love the establishing shot and push in through Bedlam. Ben Stenbeck and Dave Stewart do a great job here establishing a creepy, unsettling vibe off the bat.

Kore and Persephone are the same goddess. You probably already know the story of Persephone going into the underworld, marrying Hades, and the bit about the pomegranate and the seasons and all that. Although there is scholarship that believes Kore may have been a discrete goddess, it’s generally accepted that the title, “the maiden”, was one that Persephone had as a fertility goddess before entering the underworld.

Ereschigal is the Sumerian goddess of the underworld.

At first blush, Adonis may seem the odd one out here, but he was raised by Persephone in the underworld and his myth kind of mirrors Inanna’s descent into the underworld, in which Ereschigal figures heavily.

Thoth (I don’t think Gilfryd is referring to or even knows about the Hyperborean leader Thoth at this point) and Anubis, Egyptian gods of writing & magic and mummification & the dead respectively.

pg. 2 - There’s a bit of foreshadowing here, wondering what the price of using “evil” to do good will be.

pg. 3 - Love seeing the Hyperborean creature on the rampage.

pg. 5-6 - The preparatory bits to draw in the creature are interesting. The other inmates bashing their heads against the bars of their cells is disturbing, adding almost a blood magic component to whatever Gilfryd is doing.

pg. 8 - The creature being forced back into its corporeal form and binding it to its bones is gorgeous. This is weird as hell visually, but Stenbeck and Stewart really make it work.

pg. 10 - And then it seems almost too easy. The terror of this series being reduced back to an ancient desiccated corpse is interesting.

pg. 13 - If he wasn’t crazy before, he’s definitely crazy now. This turning point for Gilfryd, finding out that he wasn’t the grand architect of the demise of the creature is a neat little development. That doubt possibly spur him on to kill his old identity and become Memnan Saa later.

pg. 14 - Then we get these jerks again. It’s really too bad they didn’t all get eaten by the creature. Or nibbled to death by ducks.

pg. 15 - You definitely get the impression that there are worse things on the way here.

pg. 16 - And yeah.

pg. 17 - Also he was seemingly telling the truth about the cow and his adventures. It’s a shame. The Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra seem to be systematically tearing Grey’s world apart, thus leading to...

pg. 18 - Heart-rending composition from Stenbeck and Stewart.

pg. 19 - Mary’s brother really is a bastard.

pg. 20 - There’s a certain parallel here to Lobster Johnson’s fate. Since the Lobster couldn’t stop chasing down Memnan Saa, his world was brought down. Likewise what happens to Grey. I wonder if it’s ultimately meant to be commentary about the price of vengeance.

pg. 21-22 - Very bleak.

Final Thoughts:

I often think that these spin-off series from Hellboy and BPRD--Abe Sapien, Lobster Johnson, and Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder--were never intended originally to be ongoing, or even repeating, series. That the stories contained therein were going to be one-offs, hence why they were largely self-contained for their internal plot and were given to advance some major character or lore details with regards to Memnan Saa, Hyperborea, and the like.

Hence the extreme tragedy at the end of this story that killed off pretty much the entire supporting cast that Mignola had been building up through the series. Even the title card end sequence suggests that this was all we were going to get and that Grey’s struggle would more or less be eternal (with whatever happened to turn him into the shade in Hellboy presumably to be told in Hellboy). It was sad, since the series had so nicely built up characters like the Captain and Mary Wolf and I would have loved to have seen their further collaborations with Grey.

d. emerson eddy says “Hey man, nice shot. What a good shot man.”

[itsbeenawhile7]

The absolution of Dana Scully in the aftermath of My Struggle IV: one pissed off fan’s grand manifesto

–also known as, “what in actual hell happened to Chris Carter?”

If you have not already read through this interview, courtesy of Avi Quijada and XFN, I am going to need you to start there first.

And listen: before anyone goes there, I am not analyzing the fuck out of this to excuse Chris Carter for the disastrous finale he just served up to us. Rather, it’s that there are a lot of us who are products of the Scully Effect in one way or another, and we’d like to feel good about her legacy.  We deserve to figure out a way to clean up this mess you left us with.

Some people write fanfic.  Me?  I do this.  Get some hot chocolate and pull up a comfy chair.

Rant rating: R, for language and possibly some implied violence against Chris Carter

Content warning: I mean…you saw MSIV, right? 

Did MSIV actually destroy Dana Scully for all of us forever?  Nah.  We just witnessed the apex of a once skilled writer complete his own demise.  We just witnessed a writer who got in way over his head, who was trying to articulate extremely complex, controversial ideas and concepts, and doing so in about the most tone deaf way anyone ever possibly could. Having read his interview with Avi Quijada, I now think it is absolutely fair to say that Chris Carter actually did have at least some idea about what the right motivations for his characters were.  But in a writing decision that will baffle me and the rest of the world forever, he did not heed the warnings of those around him, and convinced himself that his audience would be able to infer absolutely everything of import to his story, and that we didn’t need to see any of that stuff actually fleshed out on screen.  Sure, fine, whatever, Chris. Challenge accepted, here we go.

Let’s review. In the space of a scant few ridiculous hours occurring over the course of MSIV, Scully found out all of the following:

the child she thought was conceived miraculously with her partner was not, in fact, created as a the result of that union

she was medically raped and violated in order for William to be brought forth into the world

the being that she has conceived of as their son for 18 years is barely human: he is a shape-shifting, unstable lab creation, who is far, far more dangerous than any of the many forces that have been out to destroy him

William was created specifically by that fucking bastard Carl, and for whatever purpose Per Manum previously served in this universe, Dana Scully and the rest of us ostensibly should now assume it was to obtain fertilized embryos for the CSM to screw around with and deploy when she made the biggest fucking mistake of her life going off with him in En Ami

she is somehow pregnant right now, at age 54 (because Chris is apparently fascinated by perimenopause? or some shit like that?), after having not gotten miraculously pregnant at any point before in her extensive sexual history with Mulder

William directly and repeatedly said to both of his parents of genetic origin that he does not want to be protected, and that he wants them to let him go [quick break here: sorry, Chris, but there is no way that the CSM is the literal genetic father here, because Scully had a fucking AMNIO in season 8, and therefore you will neverrrrrrrrr convince any of us that this could ever possibly be the case]

And in the midst of all of this, Skinner is killed (maybe), her now compromised friend Monica Reyes is killed (maybe), her partner witnesses the murder of their son (maybe), and her partner kills his father (maybe), after having himself killed or witnessed the killing of dozens of New Syndicate operatives (definitely, because: exploding entrails!!!).

Two things stand out to me. Number one: this level of emotional trauma and upheaval is far, far too much for anyone to even be capable of putting up a coherent verbal response to in its immediate aftermath. Number two, to reiterate points Gillian Anderson and Avi Quijada both made directly to Chris: this “grand vision” or “Big Idea” of his should have had an entire season or two’s worth of episodes behind it if it was ever going to stand a chance in hell at working.  I do not believe that the simple act of making these specific storytelling choices is in and of itself the problem, no matter how I might personally feel about it. The X-Files has been telling us a story involving horrifying genetic, physical, and reproductive assaults on its characters since 1995.  We just, y’know, occasionally used to think about the aftermath of those atrocities in scripts and on camera, in episodes like One Breath, Memento Mori, or the Emily arc.  What is abso-fucking-lutely a BIG problem, though, is if your reproductive horror show is executed as poorly as it was written in MSIV. Full stop. 

I will argue until I am blue in the face, though, that Dana Scully is not destroyed by this ending, no matter how poorly written it was. Chris Carter simply didn’t let this character actually do any of what she should have been doing with this ON SCREEN, where we could see her.  We now know for a fact that Chris was aware that he was leaving all of this off screen, so what I want to know is…why?  No, really.  I really want to know the answer, here.  Why on Earth didn’t you show us, Chris?  Hell, you could have even gotten this done with one, or two, or six additional bloated voiceover monologues, since most of what went down in MSIV wasn’t articulated *~anywhere at all~* outside of post-mortem press conversations. (Exhibit A: the entire Monica Reyes sub-plot.)

As a parent myself, I cannot even fathom what it would be like to find out that your child was capable of doing horrific, terrible, inhumane things. That’s also a pretty relevant–if extremely uncomfortable–concept right now, one that could have been grappled with in an era in which we are beginning to finally engage with mental health, gun control, and domestic terrorism in very public forums.  We are made to understand thanks to Avi, that Chris Carter apparently loves using The X-Files to ask us tough questions that don’t always have answers.  So…why the hell didn’t he do it here?  I mean, come ON!  What does it mean to be the parent, biological or otherwise, of a child capable of these horrors?  I’m not saying that any of us have to like it, but as written in MSIV, William is a sociopath.  William is not a human being.  William is not anyone’s child anymore, and William is for damn sure not something capable of being protected.  William can only destroy, because that is exactly what Fucking Carl (trademark pending) made him for. Whether in the Supersoldier sense, or in the New Syndicate global-contagion-let’s-wipe-out-humanity sense, we have been told that the CSM made him to be nothing more than a tool to help execute his own post-apocalyptic needs.

So after 18 years, Scully suddenly and very traumatically has to process that William was an experiment gone wrong (or right, I suppose, if you go talk to Carl). After 18 years, this is the William we’ve got. Can you even imagine how much worse it might have been for Scully if she had actually been there the whole time, watching this happen?  William had a good childhood, he was raised by good people, and he still turned into a sociopath, and he tells us so himself.  Was Scully ever a parent to what William ultimately turned out to be?  That’s…actually a pretty damn good question, in this context. 

And the answer to that question,  according to Chris, is that Scully was the mother of the idea of William, the mother of the idea of a child who was miraculously created out of nothing more than love.  She was the mother to the ideas and imaginings that she had about William for 18 long years.  She was that mother during her pregnancy, she was that mother during his infancy, and she was that mother when circumstances erroneously convinced her to put him up for adoption, in a move that we were told was to try to give him the best life she thought she couldn’t ever possibly give to him.  She was that mother in Ghouli, pouring her whole heart and soul into the idea of her son William in that heartbreaking morgue scene. So, no, I don’t think it means that she instantaneously stopped loving that idea of her son, when the shit hits the fan in MSIV.  But it does mean that she understands that her idea of William hasn’t ever been the right one: the “truth we both know" was actually a horrific lie.  “William…was an idea, created in a laboratory…” is true in this universe, for better or for worse.  Dissecting what that means for Scully, just this one single solitary point alone, should have been granted an entire episode, not 10 seconds on a pier. 

“Scully, he was our son! He was our son!”

He was.

He was their son. For 18 years, they both believed that he was their son. I don’t think anything Scully stutters and stumbles to explain to Mulder in this moment suggests that she doesn’t actually believe that, or grieve for that. It mostly indicates that Chris Carter has no idea how to write this magnitude of dropped psychological bomb. I think he does know his own limitations, which is why it all happens off screen.  Thanks only to Gillian Anderson’s acting, it does appear as though we are witnessing a confused, traumatized Scully here, one who has been exposed to so much death and destruction immediately proceeding this moment that she can’t even find the way forward.  Gillian Anderson, thankfully, fills in the cavernous script hole, and gives us a Scully who doesn’t know how to begin to explain what she has been forced to understand to a now very visibly fracturing Mulder. 

This is not a mother suddenly throwing away her decades of love for a child just because she is getting a “do over” baby. And the only reason we even had to consider whether or not that was the case at all, is solely because of the steaming pile of inadequate shit dialogue that was written for her.

Let’s step back now and consider Mulder, and how his presence impacts Scully’s reaction. Mulder, who shocks the hell out of all of us when he says, “if I am not a father, then what am I?” in MSIV. We have gone an exorbitant amount of time watching this man, who devoted his life to finding his lost sister, seemingly refuse to engage in the same manner with his own lost son.  So, we could take this as an example of even more what-the-actual-Carter-fuckery-are-we-doing-now, OR we could choose to listen to what Chris tells Avi, and believe him when he says this is the hidden motivation that’s been driving Mulder all these years.  You know, off screen.  Because this isn’t at all yet another concept that needed its own entire episode to explore.  Exploding entrails, bitches!

Or, how about we also revisit a much better writer’s take on all of this? Let’s pick up adoptive father James Wong’s narrative, because he actually kind of gets how this kind of thing might work.  In Ghouli, Mulder tells us that we’ve had no idea about his state of mind on any of this. Not ever.  And we can infer that that was intentional on Mulder’s part. He’s doing it because he thinks it is what he needs to do for Scully’s benefit. There is no possible way that Fox-Freaking-Mulder, you punks, didn’t have some ridiculously big feelings about all of this. He’s been presented on screen to us as having sublimated his feelings on the matter since he found out about William’s adoption in The Truth. He wasn’t there to make the choice, and whatever resentment or sadness he may feel about what Scully did, he is swallowing it for her.  He’s standing right beside her, he’s just listening.  That’s his choice.

Also courtesy of James Wong: we know that Mulder has outright lied to Scully about his feelings about William in the past.  In Founder’s Mutation, he tells Scully that he’s had to put it all behind him.  James Wong does what a writer should do to communicate a character’s motivations, by actually showing us that Mulder has lied to all of us at the end of the episode, and letting us see Mulder’s dreams about what parenting William could have been. 

So yes, I am going to take Chris at his word that these really are Mulder’s feelings in MSIV, even though he failed to articulate those motivations appropriately on screen.  Look, many of us have been complaining for years that Mulder’s seeming non-response to his lost son seemed wildly inconsistent with everything we know of his character.  I will take the bone Chris has so generously offered us here as an attempt to rectify all of that.  I think coming into peripheral contact with William in Ghouli began to dismantle Mulder’s carefully constructed walls of sublimation, and by the time he actually gets his hands on him in MSIV, the flood gates have opened and cannot be closed again.

I have no trouble at all buying the narrative that the idea of being a father has quiescently been the single thing holding Mulder together for almost two decades.  Look, I am absolutely here for that.  I think most hard core X-Files fans are absolutely here for that, too.  We know Mulder pretty damn well at this point, and we know that the loss of his sister shaped him forever.  You even made him bring it up in IWTB after years of dormancy.  So, yeah, I don’t have any trouble believing that through it all, while on the run, while locked away and adrift in the Unremarkable House for years, and when ultimately left by a very lost Scully who couldn’t bear north anymore, that this broken man from a broken family did indeed secretly cling to the idea of being a father.  That for all of his failings and losses, he wanted to believe that he had at least had a part in making this miraculous child he dreams is out there.  That he could believe that William was, in fact, living an idyllic childhood, the kind of childhood that he himself never got to have.  For so damn long, Mulder wanted to believe all of that. Yes, Chris, for fuck’s sake, I BUY that, okay? As obnoxious and stupid as that written line is, having now heard it for the 4,000th time, this concept is right on for Fox Mulder.

[Another aside: that line is the one and only moment that David Duchovny loses me in MSIV. But OMG, as an actor who has had to say this ridiculous line every which way to Sunday? I can’t say that I blame him. No one actually talks this way!  There is no actual right way to play it without making all of us want to crawl into a hole and die.] 

Okay.  So Mulder watches his son die. The ideas and dreams that he has carried beneath the surface this whole time die along with him.  Scully sees all of this happening to Mulder, and based on what the Wongverse has established, she has probably not ever seen it look like this for him.  So, what we are getting here is that for this one instance, we are seeing Scully put her own feelings about William second to Mulder’s feelings about William.  Every other moment between them thus far has been Mulder putting his own feelings second to Scully’s feelings about William, right?  I do believe that Chris Carter is daft enough to think that Scully got “her turn” in Ghouli, and so in MSIV, there’s no problem at all if we only get “Mulder’s turn.“  (And apparently, we also have time for Ford Mustang’s turn.) That all plays into the nonsensical words coming out of Scully’s mouth at the end of MSIV. Scully can’t find the words to speak to the guilt and pain she is trying to absolve Mulder of.  How could anyone?

Listen to Gillian’s work, actually giving us some damn meaning here:

“William…William was–”

William was.

Ultimately, here’s MY truth: I hate how the William narrative turned out. I have hated every single moment of the William narrative beyond the end of season 8.  Existence absolutely could have ended the series in the way in which these characters deserved to have their hero journeys end.  And you know, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if I found out that Chris Carter secretly hates that this ending got away from him, too.  I mean, look, we know Chris is a lying liar who is lying in all of the press he is doing right now, as he tries to convince the world that this has been The Grand Plan All Along.  Never mind that this plan is contradicted by his own press prior to 2018, never mind that it is contradicted by all of the other writers and producers who worked on the William story at the time it was conceived, and never mind that it is contradicted by the simple reality that every zig and zag in the X-Files universe beyond season 7 is really the result of never knowing if David or Gillian were going to participate in the story anymore going forward.  So, I’m sorry, but bull-fucking-shit that you had any of this in your head when William B. Davis wrote En Ami, Chris. Why not just admit that handling The X-Files was kind of impossible when one or both leads were maybe not going to be involved in telling the story anymore?  We would all completely understand that, Chris, no one would ever in a million years question that.  Of course you might wind up losing your narrative thread under those business circumstances. We aren’t blind to how the entertainment industry works. 

I mean, there was never any hesitation on Chris Carter’s part to explain why all things had the intimations of a sex scene, not for one minute ever, so don’t try to tell us now that he just kept a lid on the truth about what role En Ami was actually fucking serving in this story for 18 whole years. Sorry, bro, I am not buying it.  When you really think about it, how can Chris Carter possibly not know that he blew it years ago with William’s narrative?  It is precisely the impossibility of navigating the logistics of telling a story far beyond the boundaries set by the involvement of the real people making it that drive showrunners like Vince Gilligan to give themselves a finite amount of time to tell it.  Chris (or the Fox network, or whoever you want to blame) didn’t do that, and therefore he wound up giving up at least 4 other possible endings to The X-Files over to the uncertainty of actors continuing to involve themselves in this project.  I really do wonder if that’s why he went down this particular path of turning William into a monster, and I wonder if that is why he seemingly worked so hard over the course of his Struggles to try to strip Mulder and Scully’s ties to him. Because this really wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen.

And so now here we are, hitting the do over button with a new pregnancy.  I have no doubt that this guy thinks that he actually could hit the reset button just like that, and magically get back to the original poetic justice that these characters were given in their 2001 ending.  He probably thinks that the fans would see this as a gift, even! I mean, shippers were heard, amirite?  But even the idea of ending with a pregnancy, now many many many years too late, isn’t ultimately the real problem. All together, one more time for the folks in the back of the classroom: the problem is, and will always be, piss poor execution. You could hand this exact story to a Penumbra, or a syntax6, or an Aloysia Virgata, and I have no doubt it could be told in a beautiful (if utterly soul-crushingly painful) way.

So, fine. You want this to be the narrative, Chris? Fine. I will fill in the Grand Canyon of plot holes that you left us. The fandom will follow your stupid bread crumbs, and we will imbue them with the motivations and meaning you claim to have been driven by, but inexplicably chose not to write into any of your recent scripts.  William was. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully have been letting him go, piece by piece, for 18 years.  He was not meant to be.  He was, ultimately, not ever theirs, even though he was created from genetic pieces of them. (Fight me, Chris, you can have that CSM created him, but FUCK NO WE ALL DRAW THE LINE AT CARL’S SPERM!)  We can even give this bleak, wasted moodscape a soundtrack, if you want, in the form of a song you chose 10 years ago for them yourself: I will fire up UNKLE’s “Broken” right here, right now.  

And OKAY Chris, I will even follow you down the rabbit hole of this new pregnancy, and I will take it in the spirit of the way I want to believe you intended it: as a way to desperately claw our way back towards getting the ending Existence gave these characters, the ending that was supposed to be their just rewards for all the nightmares they have lived through.  Scully and Mulder are alive, they are a family, they are going to get to finally have a real human child, okay, fine, it’s fiiiiiiiiiine. I will go ahead and imagine that Scully, somewhere a few exquisite and bittersweet heartbeats down the road from the pier, is running away from the FBI and blowing up the motherfucking car (the Mustang, please).  Scully is going to row a damn boat to an island paradise on her babymoon with Mulder, her vibrator, and a blobfish.  You once wanted all of that to be the post-script for your characters, Chris. You lost the thread. I get it, I really do. 

Look, I’m not a gifted writer or a gifted storyteller. I’m a Scully Effect scientist working in medicine, and I’m an overanalyzer at heart.  My creative outlets skew in an entirely different direction.  I am a woman, though, and I am a mother, and people with life experiences just like mine might possibly have had the perspective that could have saved your story, Chris, if only you would’ve consented to hear us out.

If I had been given the chance to help figure out how to crawl out of the William mess created by all those years of renewal-or-not uncertainty, here’s what I might have suggested to you, Chris: let’s make William a savior, not a monster.  Let’s make William an empath with the power to heal others.  Let’s reference Scully’s alien DNA, her chip, Mulder’s season 7 alien artifact brain shit, and let’s say that all of that came together and allowed for the possibility of superhuman recombinant DNA magic once those two people came together.  Let’s give William the ability to read his biological parents’ minds and hearts from afar, but have it be a benevolent thing, and not a painfully torturous apocalyptic thing. Let’s have William come back to Mulder and Scully having harnessed his powers for good, after the New Syndicate killed his adoptive parents as part of a failed attempt to take him out of the picture. Let’s give some concrete evidence that William’s adoption did, for a time, keep him safe, to absolve Scully of that guilt.  Let’s have him tell Mulder that he saw all of the same dreams about building rockets, and father-son TV nights and talk.  Let’s end the New Syndicate’s plans by letting Scully have some motherfucking agency, y'know?  Remember?  Let’s let her do it all like she used to in the glory days, and go be the scientist that she is. Let’s have Scully save the world, by distilling out some saving grace compound from William’s superhuman blood, or stem cells, or whatever the fuck you want to ask Anne Simon to give you, to fight against the New Syndicate’s planned viral apocalypse.  Let’s have Mulder and William vanquish CSM together; these two sons taking out this toxic, villainous “father” that’s been hovering over this whole show, and let’s have them reclaim the narrative of fathers and sons as something that is good, and positive, and right.

Where’s the writer?  I want to speak to the writer!

In the end, Chris, you didn’t do Dana Scully any justice on screen at all.  But your inadequate words don’t get to be the last words on the subject of Dana Scully, nor do they get to define what she means to us. You can’t ruin her, Chris.  She belongs to us now.  We’ll take care of her. We’ll give her the ending she deserves.

[fedonciadale]

Why J/D have to fall in love and make love in this season exactly? Could not it happen in the next and make it all more believable? Perhaps there will be consequences that will be seen in S8 like a pregnancy? It seems to me the only reasonable reason for forcing this thing so bad. What do you think about it?

O nonny, I’m not sure you’ve come to the right place. I am not a great fan of D@ny and I don’t think their relationship would work out in the long run - which does not mean that Jon and D can’t fall in love or be attracted to each other. Actually, since book 2 I thought that the unwittingly committed incest was a very likely possibility for the story. And since J doesn’t yet know about his parentage, I’m sure this is what will happen. But as a narrative trope this kind of incest never has a happy ending, and GRRM has stated that the habitual incest of the Targaryens resulted in some of their problems. So, I’m pretty sure that one of the reasons the show pushes J and D together is the fact that they don’t have much time left to tell their story. And since the leaks came out I have been convinced that one reason to let J and D become a couple in this season and not the next is that it will not last. They still need to fuck up the relationship so to say.If J learns about his parentage it will fundamentally turn his world upside down and this will have repercussions on his relationship with D@ny, not only because J might be uncomfortable knowing that D is his aunt, but also because his parentage puts him in a place where a conflict about the IT with D is possible. Jon might not going for the IT, but D@ny most certainly will think he is. I am absolutely convinced that Jon is D@ny’s betrayal for Love, and not because he loves her, but because he will decide for the North and the Starks. A betrayal has to hurt and it will hurt.So this is, I think, the ultimate reason for J/D@ny feeling rushed. And you could argue that in their first meeting the show certainly teased them as antagonists. It might be that in their rush to bring them together they used a common trope (enemies to friends to lovers) but I think it is more complicated than that. I haven’t seen episode 4 yet, and I’ve read conflicting reports as to how the chemistry works but all have been in unison that D@ny seems to like Jon. And this would fit well.As for a pregnancy, that is entirely possible and it would only add to the drama of Jon’s revealed parentage that the man who swore never to sire a Bastard would get one with his aunt. D@ny thinks she is barren, but book wise the curse upon her has certain conditions that could be met, making her fertile again or the curse could work literally making her unable to give birth to a living child. I think both are possible. If it will have an impact on the story other than the drama remains to be seen. I doubt that the baby would have magical Targcest qualities and it won’t be the Prince who was promised, because the baby will not have time to grow up. It might be, that D@ny dies in childbirth which I would think cheap. It might be that the innocent life of the Babe will have to be sacrificed to bring down the Night King or D@ny will give birth and it will remain for Jon and Sansa to come full circle, and Sansa will raise the real Bastard of her husband and will do better than her mother did.As someone who was raised to be extremely suspicious about notions of ‘better blood’ and white, blonde people as saviours I would hate a magical Jon€nerys baby on principle (but that’s my education in a German school, where we spend many hours deconstructing the superiority myth of Nazi racism).Anyway, the show has been pushing both: Targcest and Targbowl. The Northern people and especially the Starks have been shown again and again to have a better moral compass than others, and in my interpretation Jon has been shown in juxtaposition to D@ny not in parallel.Here are my thoughts : Jon will learn of his parentage, his conflicted feelings clash with the fact that the North is not going to accept D@ny just because he vouches for her. He is now a Targ! Jon will have to choose, he’ll choose the Starks, and D@ny will certainly feel betrayed, while it is still entirely possible that it will only look as a betrayal for her. I sincerely hope that the differences in leadership and D@ny’s hypocrisy will be addressed and will play a part in Jon’s decision. The show has to deliver somehow on the issues they raised with D@ny ’s style of ruling. Since D&D love D@ny, A sentiment I can’t understand at all, it may just remain that, a tease of the juxtaposition of different ruling styles. It might on the other hand result in the destruction of the Iron Throne.As a Jonsa shipper I hope that Jon will survive and marry Sansa. That D@ny is doomed to die is beyond doubt and if she’ll die on the good side after having got some insight or if she does in conflict with the Starks remains to be seen. Thanks for the ask that gave me the opportunity to delve into some of my theories .

[4aminutethere-blog]

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1 Review

Hi so I don’t usually do this but I just finished season 1 of the Handmaid’s tale and let us just say that I am pretty shook. I would like to apologise about how messily my thoughts have been written. Right off the bat, let me just say that this is hands down the best show I have watched in 2017. It was literally so good. So the premise follows our lead character, Offred. She is a handmaid assigned to the Waterfords. A handmaid is basically a person that society has decided has only one sole purpose: breeding children. Yes, in this book set only slightly in the future (yikes), fertility rates are so low that society feels the only way to get the human race to continue existing would be to fuck up society as a whole. I wish I was doing a better job explaining this but just trust me when I say that it is fucking brilliant.

I would firstly like to seriously appreciate the acting brilliance of the entire cast. Amazing performances throughout. Elizabeth Moss fucking killed it. She was a protagonist people could feel sorry for and root for. She was strong and she did what she had to, to survive. Her portrayal of a girl suddenly thrust into a world so backwards and lets be real: wrong was somehow very believable and relatable. The rest of the cast put on stunning performances as well. Yvonne Strahovski, who played Serena Joy aka Mrs Waterford deserves a special shoutout. She so brilliantly played a fucked up bitch that you actually felt sorry for at times. Whenever you started hating her you saw that she was only human and just desperate. This made her a very convincing and dynamic antagonist. Samira Wiley, Alexis Bladel and Madeline Brewer played fellow handmaids as well. They were all so different and I loved that about this show. Every single character had a personality and you couldn't confuse one for the other because of the presence they had and the energy they fed into one another. As for the male leads, O. T. Fagbenle who played Offred’s husband from her previous life was very likeable. His character was very down to earth and he was basically the perfect lovable family guy. However, we didn't get to see much of him this season so I am hoping for more next season. I felt similarly for most of the male characters. Nick, played by Max Minghella, played the loyal (or not so loyal???) soldier but I want to know more about him. Who is he really? Also, I am not convinced by the Offred/Nick romance aspect of things. Honestly most of the time they just seemed like friends with benefits of sorts. A lot to explore in a possible second season but this was a great start. What probably captivated me the most about this show was how even though society was so fucked up in this portrayal, was it so far from reality??? Research has shown that fertility has been going down over the years and we all know women are losing control of their bodies in a sense when abortions are harder to have now??? The parallels to real life were too real. I especially liked the scene in one of the earlier episodes when they showed how in the past, they fired all women and froze all their bank accounts and Moira was trying to say how misogynistic men are the cause of this bullshit situation and then Luke was like it’s cool like now I get to take care of my wife and then she said “maybe you really are part of the fucking problem”. That hit me as some people don't understand sometimes that even if your intentions are good, you should never make someone, anyone really feel like they can't take care of themselves like they are below them. If even the “good ones” like luke have such thoughts then the fucked up ones like Commander Waterford and all the other leaders in this messed up society will feel like they have some base to their beliefs and accusations and we should never allow that.

Another thing that really moved me was the support the handmaids had for each other. They were all extremely terrified of being fucked but sometimes, they took a leap of faith and with such remarkable courage, did things for their fellow sisters. Because all in all, they knew they were here in this situation together. Nobody could truly relate to them, except for each other. They had that at least. This was exemplified when Offred and Moira tried to escape from the red centre and only Moira got out, she was whipped and beaten for trying to escape. She felt weak, spirit destroyed and totally hopeless. But alas, the handmaids come in one by one leaving a small offering for her on her bed. Their way of saying “Fuck yeah!!! you lil badass...We wish we had your guts but for now we got your back”. That was really beautiful because at the core of this show, in a society where women go back to being treated as scum, women supporting other women is so so so bloody important. This was especially showcased in the finale where the girls were told to stone their ex fellow handmaid, Janine to death. What got to me the most was when Offglen: a girl so against breaking the rules because she was counting her blessings and grateful that she even had a home, risked all of that just to speak up for what is right. And then of course, the handmaids together, as a united force, refused to stone their “sister” to death. Of course punishment was to follow thought it was not made clear as of yet what it was but it was nice. All these girls knew the risk of disobeying. All of them had put their heads down and obeyed orders for fear of their own lives. But when they saw Janine there, they saw someone they couldn't do such a cruel thing to. Given, she was probably going to end up being dead anyway, it was not going to be at their hands and they would not have a part in it.  As Offred said in the finale I believe, “If they didn't want an army, they shouldn't have given us uniforms”. The sisterhood is strong amongst these girls, praise be.

To end off this very messy but important discussion I would like to put in some thoughts about the finale itself. I think what I take away is, although society may be filled with fucked up males, it is us women who need to stick together and have each others backs cause if not us then who. The reason why aunt lydia and serena joy are so terrifying and captivating at the same time is because they chose to support these inhumane acts on their fellow women. This is what makes it so hard and what makes the sisterhood that the handmaids share, so fucking important. Fuck the rape and the murder and all the other political messes in this show (be it important. I am not saying it is not), the real villians in the show were infact the women as well. If such a situation ever happens where society becomes so fucked up, I hope that us women will at least have each others backs through the tough times.  I hope we won't let our brilliant educated women become whores because they feel like this is the best they can get. NO, I hope we can support each other and have each others backs when such ideas persist. So much could be prevented if the women in the show were all united. And this is why, what happened at the end showed strength. These women really did stick up for each other, consequences and all. We end with Offred getting into a black van. Who knows what awaits her, but in a sense we know she isn't that afraid because she knew what she had done, was worth it. Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum bitches!

[thatsaprettycoolposter]

I have soooo many issues with that Sveta scene. If you’ll permit me to rant... First of all, we’re supposed to believe that depression is reason enough for Scully to leave Mulder? He’s shown signs of being an obsessive, depressive personality from the beginning. Scully knows that the darkness is no stranger to Mulder. It’s part of him, and it’s what drives him and makes him who he is. The man has serious Mommy AND Daddy AND Sister issues. Porn addiction, oral fixation, impulsive behavior... she’s seen it all. It’s all part of “that stubbornness... [that made her] fall in love with [him].”

She hung in there with him when he found out his arch nemesis was actually his biological father, when he discovered his sister had been the victim of vile government experiments, when his mother committed suicide and his ex-wife was murdered. When he was abducted by aliens, returned in a state of decomposition and freaking BURIED ALIVE for months. Scully didn’t bat an eye.

She stayed with him even though her loyalty to him was the catalyst for her abduction. She lost her fertility, her health, her sister and her dog (pour one out for Queegqueg) because of her partnership with Mulder. Did she run? Hell no. That’s not Scully. She’s a Navy brat. Captain Daddy taught her all about loyalty and honor and duty. That you never leave a man or woman behind. Her mom raised four kids practically single-handedly. She taught Scully about what it means to put in hard work for the people you love.

So Season 10 reveals (what a shocker) that Mulder has a “relapsing-remitting depressive disorder.” He needs some cognitive behavioral therapy, some SSRIs, healthy diet and a regular exercise regimen. Talk therapy once a week, consistent sleep patterns, and a strong social support system. She’s a doctor. She can deal with this. Hell, she’s BEEN dealing with this from day one and has it ever stopped her?? Has she ever even flinched?? No. That’s not Scully.

Theirs is an epic love for the ages. They’ve stared darkness and death and literal monsters in the face together for YEARS. And we’re supposed to believe Scully ran out the door because she couldn’t deal with one of the most common (albeit painful and extremely sh*tty) medical diagnoses in the US?? That’s not Scully. (Side Note: I’ve struggled with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder since I was 15 years old. I’ll be 40 next year. I know the pain this disease can cause and my heart goes out to all who are suffering through it. I’m just saying that in the context of the show, Mulder’s mental health issues are put in direct contention against the threat of liver-eating serial killers, sewer-dwelling mutants, brain-sucking burger-flippers, alien invasion and global apocalypse. And depression is what scares her?)

AND THEN, to top this bastardization of a scene off, we see Dr Dana Katherine Scully intentionally inflict pain on another person - a patient entrusted to her care nonetheless - out of pure malice, resentment and jealousy. She gives doe-eyed, innocence-personified Sveta the roughest blood draw possible while glaring menacingly at her. I found this scene deeply deeply disturbing, not only because of the content but also because of what it did to one of the strongest, most dedicated and compassionate characters on television. WTF??? THAT’S NOT SCULLY.

Ahem... sorry for the rant. This is my first Tumblr comment ever and I may have gone a little overboard. This one just...grrr! It really gets me, ya know? I promise to make all future Tumblr comments less whatever this was. ;P

Following up on your convo with the last anon - I also thought that M&S had been broken up for years! CC said (I know, I know, take that for what it’s worth) that IWTB is M&S breaking up. When Season 10 starts they’re still broken up. Are we to assume that events are happening in real time and they’ve been broken up since the movie? I just don’t know what we’re supposed to take as (CC) canon for the relationship timeline.

i mean, i’ve heard a couple different things, but that scene at the end where mulder and scully kiss, and also the post credits scene with them in the canoe, suggest that they were still together in IWTB. CC doesn’t make any damn sense half the time, lol… that movie ending was weird, but i don’t think they were seven-eight years estranged in my struggle i. there was more familiarity there than that.

personally, i don’t think they broke up over what happened in IWTB. i think it was a long process, and a lot of things contributed to it, most of which we only partially see in iwtb. but i think they were fairly happy before the events of IWTB, and i definitely don’t think scully would’ve left him before 2012, if they both thought the apocalypse was coming. (i’ve written an iwtb fic trying to explain scully’s mindset in the movie, and my interpretation of the breakup, but those are just my thoughts.) ultimately, i think it’s pretty subjective. but we hear sveta say in canon (and DD said in an interview like back in 2015–the wifegate interview i think??) that their relationship was killed when scully diagnosed mulder with depression. and since we don’t see that anywhere in IWTB, i think it’s safe to say that canon says they didn’t break up then.