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mulders-too-large-shirt · 4 months ago

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s3 episode 4 thoughts

here we are!!! i actually turned off auto caps on my phone for this; that’s how serious this blog is getting. don't worry, i'll probably remember to turn it back on before i send an important email.

i haven’t seen an ep in a few days and i feel like it has been 80 years. the last episode wasn’t the greatest, so our time apart feels even longer.

this episode is about a guy named clyde. clyde bruckman is a hell of a name. i’m expecting a real cowboy. a guy who knows his way around a horse. he probably spits chew in a certain fashion. we shall see if i’m correct.

(editor's note: op found that clyde was not a cowboy, but something just as special... a friend <3)

we open with a man reading a magazine article on predictions, written by a celebrity psychic. we later learn that this fellow doing the reading is, in fact, clyde bruckman. and elvis being dead but buddy holly being alive has got to be one of the greatest theories i’ve ever heard. i WILL incorporate this into my belief system.

allegedly, buddy holly is going to open at a big music festival. and this is how i learn that lollapalooza was a thing even before chappell roan visited... but we all know that when she steps on that stage in a few short weeks it will blow anything secretly alive buddy holly could have cooked up in his wildest dreams. "the night the music died" <- crazy thing to say about a time before miss roan was even born. anyway...

bruckman ran into someone in the street. feels like a chekov’s gun moment but who knows.

hint: it was!

now the clumsy man is at the psychic. and he says he saw his own future and he seem himself doing things that are “out of character”. now that's suspicious~

OH??? clumsy man just killed the fortune teller and says she should have seen this coming. HUH???? clumsy murder man needs to be punished …our psychics deserve federal protection.

we are at the scene of a murder. a different murder, because this one did NOT take place in the psychic's room. “they say the eyes capture the last thing a murder victim sees” “so what do they say about the entrails?” “yuck” LMAO i giggled a little….

they’re talking about some guy in vague terms, that he’s “unorthodox” and “a kook”, and then mulder walks in and it looks like they’re talking about him but the investigator says “who the hell are you” HAHAHA that got me as well

so the murderer left behind the eyeballs and scully says that they made a profile for the killer and i’m thinking yaaaaay they worked together <3 i love that spooky mulder, the well-established profiling expert, is willing to collaborate. but with her only.

and also the house is filled with porcelain dolls

mulder knowing the professional name for the people who read tea leaves… unfortunately i love him so bad.

THEN the real star of the show rolls up. it’s the psychic from the cover of the magazine we saw clyde reading earlier. CROWDED w paparazzi. he's got a vague european accent going on here. hold up is that jon favreau in the background. i received no clarification on if that was him or not.

psychic is describing a guy who could be literally anyone “white man with facial hair… or not” “tattoo somewhere on his body” wow king of specifics. it's like he's in the room with us. /s

the agents are watching him do this and share a glance and i want it on a poster it’s sooo cute <3

celebrity psychic says he lost the vision from negative energy and then gets right up in the agent’s faces. they handle it pretty well, all things considered. because i would be telling him to back tf up.

he asks mulder to LEAVE!!!! he has been diagnosed with negative energy. she leans in and says “i can’t take you anywhere” LMAOOOO so he stands outside and then the psychic says that skeptics like mulder make him sick. yeah i laughed!!! so what!

description of our guy: “white male, 17-34, with or without a beard, maybe a tattoo, who is impotent” <- wow.

back to the clyde cam. he's selling insurance. telling some guy that he is going to die in a car crash. well this is an effective life insurance sales policy. or not, because he doesn’t close the deal!! sure would have worked on me.

back home, he takes out some moldy cabbage that looks like a guy’s head into the trash. takes out his neighbor’s trash as well, and sees a vision of the dog eating her remains. (sabrina brier voice) oh!!!

(wait i just realized i reference that video all the time and have never cited my sources. if you are unfamiliar with the legendary "oh!" moment please click here)

back to the plot at hand.

clyde asks if his neighbor has enough dog food. thoughtful man. BUT he sees a body in the trash!

this episode is making me giggle <- don't remember what prompted that note but it was true.

clyde, who reported the murder, says that he knew the eyes were cut out, but she was found face down... so. how do you know that. site your sources. “well it just figures”, he says, and it absolutely, and i cannot emphasize this enough, does not

they bring him to… a murder scene. dun dun dun!

he thinks they're pranking him and asks to see their identification again (sees mulder’s badge) “i’m supposed to believe that’s a real name?” yeah get him again for me.

he sees blood at the crime scene and throws up which... yeah. that’s pretty messed up. he emerges from throwing up and starts saying and doing the same things as the earlier psychic. but then he starts getting... a bit more specific. allegedly, the woman was having sex with the killer before she met her end.

“well then, what’s wrong?” “sometimes, it just seems that everyone’s having sex except for me” LMAOOOOOOOOO clyde you are too real

scully looks soooo confused and i love it

all of a sudden, he sees one of the many dolls as a bloated corpse head, and announces where they’ll find the body then… hands the doll to mulder. which is not the first time we have seen him holding a doll. it is an interesting visual. what are they trying to tell us??

scully isn’t buying it. why does clyde know all this stuff? “i don’t believe he’s the killer”, says mulder, and she responds with, “i don’t believe he’s psychic” yeah that’s the dynamic i love. and she is sooooo pretty.

mulder goes to the dude’s house and he knows exactly what is going on. but then clyde seems shocked it's him so we are getting mixed messages here.

he asks mulder if he wants to know how he’s going to die, and mulder says yes after stuttering a little and i’m like WOAH where is this going… but clyde responds with “no you don’t”, which, okay yeah, i don’t think i could handle that either

(he goes on to try and sell mulder insurance)

clyde says the future is inevitable. or if he does get involved… what if there is the whole butterfly effect thing? and then he immediately agrees to going along with the investigation. king of not having an answer. the indecisive representation we deserve.

mulder you’re so pretttttyy... look at him watching clyde touch some brass frogs and base conclusions off of them.

scully arrived at the door as mulder has his head FLAT ON THE TABLE lmaoooo

so, it appears that clyde can ONLY tell how people are going to die. nothing else. now is that useful to this investigation? it's arguable. maybe they can find an angle.

clyde says that the scrap of fabric he’s holding comes from mulder’s new york knick’s t shirt (which was a thing that happened in 1x13 when he was testing that other psychic!!!! ohhhh i remember! do not think i forgot!! and i was confused as to why he would have a knick’s shirt if he was from new england... perhaps he knows no loyalty to geography when it comes to sport)

but mulder denies that it is his shirt anyway, so.

they found keychains on the bodies, and clyde is going on about all the personal information of whoever owned said keychains. it turns out he just sold the guy an insurance policy a few months ago lmaooo... but he knows he was murdered! the death power strikes again.

scully is driving. clyde is in the passenger seat. mulder is sticking his head in between them, asking how he receives his psychic transmissions. it's funny. he wants to know how being a psychic works! so is it like, visions, or dreams or something?

he then implies that mulder will die by autoerotic asphyxiation <- HELLO????? he looks at scully after receiving this news. as if she can possibly defend him against such an accusation.

they’re in the forest looking for a body and clyde explains he knew “the big bopper” was going to die.

scully says she doesn’t believe in that stuff, and even if she did, she wouldn’t believe that story. damn, just really going for his throat, huh. he seems to believe her indignation is over the fact that he liked the big bopper better than buddy holly and he defends himself.

they try to get the car out and mulder’s suit gets all dirty (this is sad to me, a mulder suit enjoyer) but gasp!!! the car is RIGHT OVER THE BODY. that has to be bad for finding evidence. so he did know exactly where it was!!!!

they have a thread from the scene, and have presented it to clyde. “but don’t you have crime labs that analyze these things for you?” he asks scully “yes. yes we do” (pointed glare at mulder) LMAOOOO but he says it takes time!!! and they still haven't analyzed the other thread. so please please please just give your powers a go.

he doesn’t want to help out, but mulder says he wants some insurance. on the fiber, not actual life insurance :( clyde was so excited to tell him the benefits of general mutual!!!

clyde is describing mulder being stalked by the killer sometime in the future, and all of a sudden scully’s up and asking him for more details like she believes it. awww. it’s sweet in a way. does she believe in psychics? no. is she still gonna take detailed notes when one says mulder is in any slight danger? yeah. and don't worry about that seeming to contradict her belief system. she is complicated beyond simple characterizations of skeptic or believer.

he seems to think that the killer will slit mulder’s throat at the investigation, but he doesn’t want to tell him. he DOES tell him that he will step on a pie before whatever happens to him, happens to him.

thank you to the subtitles for clarifying that clyde was imitating johnny carson because they reference would have been lost on me. i know, i’m uncultured, i’m sorry. i’ll google it though. okay, as i thought, he was a late night host. see? we get an exchange of knowledge on this blog, i learn about johnny carson's way of pronouncing the word "killer" and you can use sabrina brier's "oh" in conversation now.

it seems the killer sent clyde a letter saying he’ll kill him. and he’ll be dead before they can get him help :( noooo i like mr bruckman!!! :(

back to the killer. he’s getting a tarot reading and says he’s looking for a guy he’s gonna kill. the man doing the tarot reading smiles nervously, because what do you say in such a situation.

they seem to have bought clyde a pie after his earlier ramblings on the subject, and he kindly asks scully if she wants some, but she denies because she must study background checks instead of relying upon visions. he asks if she is jealous. a good banter between them.

back at the tarot place, the reader mentions a woman. MAYBE A REDHEAD...? stay away from her…

clyde is going on about seeing himself in bed with scully. HELLO??? “it’s just a very special moment neither of us will ever forget” huh. laughs nervously. what the fuck. is she gonna find him dead or do we need to call HR.

(cries editing this, now that i know how the episode ends)

it seems the tarot card guy is about to get murdered. but back at the hotel room with clyde and scully, they’re playing cards and she’s talking about moby dick and macbeth misinterpreting prophecies...

but despite the denial, SHE ASKS HIM HOW SHE DIES??? he says “you don’t” and that is exactly what i like to hear <3

she seemed really serious about it too, like she didn’t want to admit that she was curious, initially deflecting. oh best believe i WILL psychoanalyze that.

LMAOOO okay so this is the episode where mulder says the “chantilly lace” line and she makes that face. he's referring to another thread found at a murder scene, but i saw it in a gif and i have been thinking about it since then.

she slaps his chest with the file and says good luck as he goes to babysit the old man psychic. it was very affectionate. do it again.

mulder is in bed. it’s sleepover time with the old man. “you’re not one of those people that turns everything into a sexual symbol, are you?”, clyde asks, seemingly self-conscious about revealing his recurring dream. mulder says no, but i’m unconvinced.

anyway, he talks about seeing himself dead, and how his body fades away. we see a cgi decomposing body and it’s quite gnarly. maybe it's clay? and all his skin faded away and he becomes bones. kinda gross tbh. but he says he feels at peace.

there’s been another murder, so another guy is gonna babysit our clyde, and i’m thinking noooo don’t trust this other guy!!

scully says she feels bad, that clyde has convinced himself he is a psychic and it’s taken all the joy out of his life :(

okay, the guy babysitting him seems to be telling him jokes. clyde says he won’t die of lung cancer so he lights up. and i'm thinking, buddy, he did not rule out emphysema.

hang on. that is a lighter we have seen before. in the hands of old lady who shall be eaten by dogs. now is this a mass produced object or are we about to witness the end of clyde!!!!

“don’t open that door for anybody”, says the babysitter, and clyde then immediately proceeds to do so. and who is it knocking but the psychic killer delivering their room service!!!

killer is asking clyde why he does these things and it’s “because you’re a homicidal maniac” well that would explain it! and then he stabs the babysitter. but clyde has delayed his fate by telling the murder he doesn’t kill him now. seems he believes him. clever thinking.

scully realizes that the killer is the bellhop at the hotel after seeing some more lace. which mulder describes as “woman’s intuition” yea <3

back at the hotel. mulder is in the kitchen. he sees the killer with the knife. it is all going down as clyde described it. now if there really is a pie do NOT BE DISTRACTED. OH there is a pie. and he knows he has to turn around, so he turns THE OTHER WAY. noooo!!!!!

they get in a struggle!!! mulder’s bleeding, and scully gets off the elevator just in time. she shoots the murderer. no hesitation on taking a life, she will kill a motherfucker for mulder. i love that about her.

and scully only got there because she took the wrong elevator!!! more pondering on the meaning of fate!!!!!

i love when one of these bitches is on the floor in pain and the other comes over and comforts them. i think i need that in my life just once. it would heal me.

but the question is: where is bruckman?

they go to find him and they only find a dog tied to the door?? and a letter to scully. it’s the dog from before, the neighbor's pet. the letter from clyde says to take care of his neighbor's remains. and he asks if she wants a dog, and that you can’t blame him for the dog’s actions. so they go into the room.

BUT IT IS BRUCKMAN THAT IS DEAD IN THERE. it looks he took pills and suffocated himself. scully looks so so so so so sad.

AND OMG!!! SHE IS HOLDING HIS HAND WHILE HE IS IN BED AND CRYING. JUST LIKE HE SAID WOULD HAPPEN. WAIT THIS IS SO SAD.

so that must be why he say a head in a bag at the start of the episode, it was his own death... and the killer was right, he did get to clyde before he was caught, he just didn't attack him. huh. funny how prophecies play out.

cutscene to her on the couch WITH THE DOG IN HER LAP. and an ad from the earlier eastern european psychic is on the tv. she throws the phone at him.

A DOG!!! a dog. okay, a lot to think about, but first and foremost we have scully with a dog <3 and it sits in her lap while she watches TV. and it MAY have tasted human flesh, which i feel is a hard thing to get past, but clearly she has done it. she has done the emotional labor of knowing that fuzzball knows what human meat feels like. and she has faith that this dog will not do the same to her. that is an awful lot of trust for a new dog. but we do know she loves animals. so perhaps she trusts the puppy.

i always pictured her with a big ol mutt from the pound. but a little dog can be just as good of a friend. and it WAS a rescue. that is important!

okay. back to the episode at hand, dog aside. even though it is a BIG deal to me and i'm honestly being so brave by not going on a monologue about what scully having a dog means to me. this episode was definitely comedic, and like the earlier comedic episode, i liked it a lot! but the ending made me so sad :( it was a pretty abrupt tone shift.

still. the episode was SO good. i kept pausing every few seconds to write things down because they made me laugh or otherwise intrigued me (thinking of scully playing cards and explaining macbeth. or chantilly lace line. or "i can't take you anywhere". i will try not to think of mulder's potential death by choking himself for my own sanity)

and i liked clyde a lot. we get a lot of one time characters who we will never see again and so it’s good when those characters make an impact in the short amount of time we share with them.

and i’m always gonna take a light-hearted episode, as light-hearted as a show where serial killing is a daily occurrence can be. it does go to show though that there wasn’t always a consistent tone throughout the story. and i do find that interesting. i am part of a generation where we typically get 6 hour long episodes of a tv show per season, and they’re so condensed there is very little time for exploration with genre or tone. in general, i have loathed this about modern television; the death of the filler episode has been lamented by people far more eloquent than myself.

the only thing i dislike about this format- doing a silly episode- is that if the next episode ends up being really dark it’s like, woah man, the whimsy, where did it go? last season we got humbug, which was SO fresh and funny, and then within the first 3 minutes of the next episode, a baby was killed by a train. so i lowkey got whiplash. but then again, i watched those episodes back to back, so maybe having a week between them seeing them air as they hit TV would have softened the blow. feel free to chime in with your theories on the nature of genre and how pacing of episode viewing effects that experience.

overall, a very good episode. i rank it up with humbug as one of my favorites, which is again funny, because i love the extreme angst and the silly. i paused to take so many notes because i liked so many things that i think i should someday rewatch it again and get a smoother experience haha

#now i'm pondering on the explorations in tone a 24 episode season of television allows you to have #is there a constant tone in this show? beyond the spooky? how would i describe it to a friend? all questions i am asking #i meant that i said about scully not being as simple as falling into mere “skeptic” or “believer” categories btw #i don't think she will fully admit it to herself but that's a conversation for another day when she's ready to have it #because clearly at this point in time she isn't.#but there have been things and i notice them. that is all.#there is a dog now which is huge.#but who will care for it when she must fly off to some sad little motel to investigate the latest grisly tragedy?#maybe her friend that plays the cello will come and let her out. maybe her mom if she's in the area still. a dog is good for the soul.#especially because she just lost missy.... no i'm sad now :((#juni's x files liveblog #the x files #txf

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skitskatdacat63 · 10 months ago

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Tradition vs Modernity vs Comradery

+ context & lore:

In the first drawing, Fernando is wearing a capote de paseo, which is what bullfighters wear before the match begins, as seen below:

In the second, Seb is shouting the very familiar "Olé" which is shouted by the crowd to praise the matador. He's a little brat, so of course he's yelling it for himself, but he did get many 💐

The third(which was a random sketch I had that I didn't think I'd finish tonight, so ignore if its messy) has very important context to me. Before going to the final act and killing the bull, matadors dedicate their montera(hat)(and symbolically: their kill) to a a specific person in the audience(or just the public as a whole.) Seb and Fernando are finally in the same color! Seb is bowing!!! And Fernando is honoring Seb!!!! Also ignore that I drew Seb's post-retirement hair. Though, maybe this drawing is supposed to represent Fernando making a dedication to his now-gone rival 😔(Seb: stop telling people im dead!)

Now, some more lore :D

So I talked about this in my last matador post but I'll expand more. I think it's very funny to characterize Fernando in this au as this fun-hating traditionalist. Because you have to understand; he's only this way when it comes to Seb. Because you absolutely KNOW he was doing silly, unserious shit back when he was younger. But absolutely god forbid Seb do anything silly.

It's very ironic because there literally is a part in the third act of a bull fight where it's basically encouraged to be a bit silly. This is a tad morbid, but basically right before they deliver the killing blow, some show their mastery over the bull by doing some superfluous action(ex. kissing the bull, kneeling in front of the bull.) There's some guy who literally would lean on the bull and mime taking a call. But anyways, Seb would def do this. I've not been able to draw it exactly how I want, but he would bend down and do his little bull horn symbol and mime charging at the bull. (Fernando, trying to make up reasons to hate Seb: oh my god, look at this blatant disrespect, look how he is disrespecting the bull, I cannot believe how rude this boy is!)

Also there's something to be said about how the matador shows mastery over the bull by kissing it or bowing to it...and Seb is technically the bull in this au and Fernando is the matador. There's just this unfortunate level of weird power inbalance that still lingers even though their rivalry is over and can't be affected anymore. There was no succinct answer about who truly was better because Seb was forced out of it. So there's always gonna be this level of "is he just pitying me? Is he just mocking me? Is he just patronizing me?" on Seb's part whenever Fernando praises him or makes dedications to him. And Fernando's always going to be haunted by the fact that there's no answer to who is truly better because he'll never know if Seb had reached his full potential or not. Anyways, they also have nasty sex while wearing their costumes and do weird bull/matador roleplay :)

#god do not ask me at what time i am writing this post #its genuinely so bad and terrible 😭#i meant to only draw the first two but remembered i had the sketch of the third one #and thought hey might as well finish it!! at a uhhhhh already late hour #BUT HEY I DREW THEM ALL AND I LIKEY SO :)#third one is a bit messy tho cause im still not 100% on what i want their 'aston' era clothes to look like #but good enough for [undisclosed hour] so yes hello please take more matador au :)#was just pondering drawing more chibis bcs ive made more aus since those chibi sets i drew #and now have these so :) yayyy matadorsssss :D #but anyways the joke of this post is that whole modernity vs tradition meme so hope that makes sense :)#its super late and my brain is lacking comprehensive thought so i hope this all makes sense #catie.art.#f1 #formula 1 #sebastian vettel #fernando alonso #vettonso #matador au

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poorlittleyaoyao · 7 months ago

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A thing about trying to plot out QS canon-divergence fixit where the marriage is averted is that the obvious solution to “she was already pregnant before they knew the truth” is, well, end the pregnancy. The wider world doesn’t seem to know that she’d conceived prior to marriage, so can’t be more than a month or so along as of the wedding for it to be plausible. People have been inducing abortion in dire circumstances despite physical risk and moral stigma throughout history. QS has magic at her disposal and the means to remove herself from society unnoticed during the recovery period, and even if it’s taboo, is it more taboo than incest?

#tfw when the text’s misogyny results in everyone operating on post-Roe Texas logic #*post-Dobbs rather #like come on JGY grew up in a brothel he would know how shit gets done #I can only see him not suggesting it if he’d witnessed someone dying from attempting to give themselves an abortion #and his panic brain was like ‘it would be Just Like That and she would DIE HORRIBLY so we must marry!’#and even then it doesn’t explain why QS’s parents wouldn’t suggest it!#or (more distressingly yet still plausibly) pulling a Hoster Tully and forcing it #don’t mind me I woke up in the middle of the night and started pondering and now I’m grumpy #bc it’s like you either have to go FULL divergence where she and JGY never hook up at all #or you don’t give her the information until she’s already in the marriage and her options are much more limited #bc if she finds out at the same time JGY does possible outcomes either feel like a PSA about the importance of abortion access #or (if she marries someone else or otherwise sticks it out) GOP glurge about how keeping a pregnancy is always fine and good in the end #miscarriage cw #just in case

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randomperson0k · 25 days ago

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erm what the freak!!

the face of somebody that listens to barbie girl on a cd player that was gifted to them by a time-traveller

does anybody else here like the magnus archives . are you a avatar of the stranger hyde believer or a avatar of the spiral hyde believer (or a secret third option?) please let me know. personally im a spiral believer.

hold on

how do i make a poll

hey it worked!!

#jekyll and hyde #hyde #chat should i just make my tgs headcanon world its own seperate oc world at this point #because the story and character have become so unrecognisable im getting tempted to just redesign them to be their own characters #i ponder this like everyday. it lives in my head rent free #puh LEASE LISTEN TO GRAND PARADISE BY FOXING #life changing song. okay not really i lied but its still really good #im tempted to just start uploading the most random junk on my tumblr. just start polluting my profile like i do with my toyhouse bulletins #i still need to rewatch the 3rd how to train your dragon movie before i make that big analysis post tho #its been awhile since ive watched all 3 movies. just need to get all my stuff together #maybe ill make a video on it #edward hyde #ok i think i did it #my art

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henrybelly · 1 year ago

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honestly when i tried to figure out why some fans are so mad at ivypool these days i was looking through avos and. the scene where ivypool apologises to twigpaw for not supporting sending a patrol for skyclan is genuinely very sweet??

i actually saw someone characterize this as "ivypool forcing twigpaw to forgive her". is it crack you smoke. is that what you smoke. you smoke crack?

#she apologises THREE SEPARATE TIMES #she acknowledges that dovewing and tigerheart's situation made her ignore twigpaw's feelings #she reassures twigpaw that this is the right thing for the clans. she tells her she's proud of her & tc is lucky to have her #you guys do understand that to apologise you have to Do Something Wrong?? or is that the part that's so unforgivable?#i am fASCINATED by the treatment of dove and ivy by the fans in recent years #i'm still pondering it but i think there are a few root causes #1) I think a lot of people read oots as kids and hated dove & identified with ivy because of the underdog storyline #maybe this fandom worship of dovewing is kinda part of that? wanting to feel like you've grown out of fandom misogyny?#but i also feel like 2) tigerdove has really increased dovewing's popularity #and i think because ivypool is so staunchly opposed to their relationship people then have to villainise ivypool #3) is maybe too spicy of a take but to be honest #i think people are subconsciously way more comfortable with a woman whose story ends in heterosexual marriage and childrearing #dovewing's mom role in TBC to shadowsight probably helped her popularity #so ivypool whose relationship w Fernsong & her kits is much less of a focus. and is mUCH less maternal #and who still exhibits Ugly Female Emotions like anger and hurt #and who God Forbid now holds a position of authority...#is too complicated to fit into :) she's such a good mom :) she's such a good mate #dovewing is easier to like because she tends to be a victim of circumstances (🤫 and often lacks agency in her storylines)#since ivypool regularly uses her agency to Fuck Up #fans revert to idealising dovewing because not only is she too good to do bad things. she also doesn't do Things in general #never mind that ivypool is the one who sacrifices and apologises #anyway <3 i think if i made a full analysis of ivy and dove post OOTS i would get too many spicy anons so i will cower in the tags

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namtanlovesfilm · 8 months ago

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another thing I loved about not me (yes I'm still unpacking my feelings about not me in 2024 that's how dense the show is) is that it's one of the rare thai shows that allowed its characters to be angry, especially sean. usually thai dramas always have their characters "be the bigger person", even when they're constantly unfairly mistreated they just take it & keep being nice. but sean is ANGRY. all the time. it makes him vindictive, violent and aggressive. and he's allowed to have this very human feeling due to his generally very horrible life and hold onto it until he decides to heal & let go of it. I swear it's so rare to see a thai character be truly angry, for good reasons or not, and 1) still have him be a hero of the story & 2) allowing him to manifest this anger on screen in the very real disproportionate ways that true anger causes on people in real life. I think thai dramas are excellent at depicting different emotions, from the most basic to the most complex, however anger is one that was left on the side, perhaps bc it's not in line with buddhist beliefs and the notion of karma. however, sean's anger is one of my favorite things about him. it's what makes him the most real character I've seen in my opinion, bc he does have this uglier emotion and shows it, just like I've been angry & nasty, and just like everybody else has. in conclusion, not me keeps being the best show ever created & I would die for sean bawongittacha 🫶

#axelle rants #not me #not me the series #off jumpol #and off's depiction of anger... OOF. SO GOOD BRUH.#I swear it'll be 2045 & I'll still be pondering on new not me things I love about this show 😆😆😆

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hatterladz · 1 month ago

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Let's Talk Cuphead's Monster Complex

I've deleted and rewritten this a million times trying to put this neatly and maybe find sources but SCREW IT we ball!

So the thing I think about with Cup's monster complex [what I've deemed his "I'm a bad person" thought process, he is but that's not the point] is how it protects and damages him

Like this guy is out here talking to all his pals pre-Labyrinth and going "You might've destroyed xyz with the intent to kill but I actually killed people and I know your not as bad as me cuz I said so" which CANNOT be good for his mental health, sure it makes everyone else feel better because I don't think they fully process the fact of Cup comparing their wrongs with his and how that's not good

I think we see the point of it being at it's worst within the Labyrinth when he's debating killing himself in order to beat the Devil, which ya under first glance is him debating on ultimatum but it's genuinely suicide ideation we saw there. The idea "better people are better without me" [<-I'll get to this in a second]

This self-destructive pattern is what pulls Cup to the points where he's at now. He's a bad person, being a bad person [aka associated with the mafia] will lead to bad things happening to the people around him which is his fault [his thoughtprocess nobody else's] because it was the result of a chain reaction of his own decisions, so now he's trying to make good decisions to protect the people around him

But he can't leave and those things that are actively still a threat to the people he loves. So then he picks up this idea that he can help them by being a better person but also by utilizing his skills that he's learned from growing up in the mafia. So it's never enough improvement but he's trying, that's what he tells himself.

Because it's how he protected Mugs, do the dirty work, so that Mugs didn't get hurt. Take the hard hits [literally and figuratively] so when he finds other people he cares about, but now holds a higher standard for him as a person, he finds himself at a problem

The easy answer is lean on what he knows, the hard one is learn new things to handle the situation, rely on other's around him and trust them, and that not every bad thing is his fault

And after the Labyrinth, after Mugs took control of the Devil situation [he didn't end up in that position, he took it from his brother], when he's forced to heal and recover, is when he finally starts to internalize some of that, is when he finally actually starts to improve as a person

And this is when we discover one of Cup's greatest fears that was hinted at in the Labyrinth, he's terrified of losing everyone, just like he lost his parents when he was 3, just like he was forced away from Elder Kettle, and more then what he had to deal with as a teen. With the only grounding force being "At least Mugs is with me"

And I don't just mean loss as in physically gone, I mean morally and emotionally as well. You can see this fear with Holly, imagining a future with her. Imagining all the ways he could lose the girl he knows right in front of him.

This is when he falls back into older habits, when he's afraid, then when he's guilty because he just ruined another good thing didn't he? When he's kissed by Fanny and reminded that he's just a crook, he couldn't do something good without there being something else. And then he kills Winky.

Because Cup doesn't like acknowledging his worst feelings. He knows they're there. He just doesn't want to see them.

#orb ponders #the inky mystery #orb talks #my gf pointed out the title is like one off of youtube so imagine me frothing at the mouth periodically in a chair #I didn't proofread this post so let's just hope it's as good as I'm hoping [many posts have been lost for not being good enough for tumblr]#Kinda mashed every single Cup topic I wanted to address into one post #Anyway quick mention this is not me justifying this man I just like to get in a character's head #I've tried to write this and deleted this or got busy for 2 weeks now #Here u go Cup fans take y'alls food #babitim #Still feel like it's lackluster compared to my other posts but oh well I suppose #Although the “Cuphead has abandonment issues” claim came out of left field even for me I'll see how this holds up later when I'm not hungry

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sydney-carton-of-sour-milk · 2 months ago

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The Many Illustrators of A Tale of Two Cities 13: Ava Lisbeth Morgan

Women and the Paths of Bullets

It's a special edition for our unlucky thirteenth edition of this series - an Edition of Two Firsts!

This is our first edition so far to be illustrated by a woman (yeah I know right)...

I have no idea if that Dickens portrait was made by this week's illustrator or not, sadly.

...and it's also our first to have (allegedly) been shot with a gun! Hello!

I've had this edition for a very long time - it's one of the first editions that I ever bought off the Internet, if not the first! I simply could not resist the absurdity of what I was seeing - what a story this book could tell if it could talk!

Sadly, I never saved the link to the online shopping page where I originally found and bought it, and based on my repeated failed attempts to find it again, I think it's been taken down - so you'll just have to take my word for it that the listing claimed it was a bullet hole!

The (alleged) bullet hole was the only reason I bought it, and once I had collected this little piece of intrigue and slotted it into its place on my shelf, I left it there for years.

I knew that it had these beautiful end papers, but many editions have illustrated end papers like this, so I thought little of it, especially since none of these are explicitly A Tale of Two Cities-related.

In all that time, I didn't investigate it much further (evidently not even to take a closer look at the title page) - I just let it sit there, in the back of my mind, separated off from the collection of illustrated editions that I have slowly begun to amass over the last half-a-decade.

One day recently, though, I opened it up again for the first time in a long time just to show it to a friend who was visiting - and when I thumbed through it to show the friend the path of the (alleged) bullet, I was shocked and delighted as the path led me to a new story, a new piece of intrigue that this edition had to offer:

An entire set of six illustrations that were not only "new" (so to speak) to my collection but which I had never even known to exist, by an illustrator I had never heard of! Completely new to me!

The incredible irony of this is not lost on me - I work hard to be complete and thorough in my research, and yet, on my own bookshelf, I had glossed over an entire set of illustrations - and the first (and only so far!) in my physical collection to be illustrated by a woman!

Pondering my own lapse here in living up to my usual intentions, I started thinking more about Morgan's intentions, especially along those lines - namely that, unique among the baker's dozen of sets that we've seen so far, almost all of her illustrations feature female characters as subjects.

It makes me wonder a lot about Morgan - who she was, what her interests were, what got her into illustrating, why so little appears when you look her up, what her life was like as a female illustrator in the 1940s, how she dealt with all that being a female illustrator in the 1940s must have entailed, how much control she had over what she illustrated, what her feelings were about A Tale of Two Cities...

How would Ava Lisbeth Morgan feel seeing this post - these bizarre images of the path of a mystery (alleged) bullet through her own work in a copy of a novel that has otherwise survived for generations? How would she feel tracing its path with us as it travels out of the book just before her final illustration for the novel

of the death of Madame Defarge by her own pistol?

& the standard endnote for all posts in this series:

This post is intended to act as the start of a forum on the given illustrator, so if anyone has anything to add - requests to see certain drawings in higher definition (since Tumblr compresses images), corrections to factual errors, sources for better-quality versions of the illustrations, further reading, fun facts, any questions, or just general commentary - simply do so on this post, be it in a comment/tags or the replies!💫

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