#but pls go watch this if you can
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
darlingshane · 1 year ago
Text
jon bernthal throwing forks at bob odenkirk is a cinematic experience. this whole episode is.
Tumblr media
381 notes · View notes
sakuraspoke · 7 days ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
SPILLWAYS // AUSTIN 2022
455 notes · View notes
lesbicosmos · 1 year ago
Text
please
Tumblr media Tumblr media
just once
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
can we have this trope
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
NOT GO WRONG SOMEHOW
2K notes · View notes
mrmeepsmadmind · 19 days ago
Text
his horns (finials) (idk)(ears)(whatever) shaking... the jumping ??? the struggling 😭 the off center twitching ..he is PISSED. AWF !!!!!!
#his defeat being planned makes this either hes playing up his rage bcs he definitely played up his defeat#or a mixture of playing up his rage and actually being a little pissed bcs he wanted to get more licks in but couldnt#anyways i cant take him sersiouly with those big ass ears#like an angry kitten trying to escape the burrito calm down blanket of doom#his helmet shape is so cute to me inearth spark it almost looks like a 80s mom hairstyle with the hair#cropping a symmetrical curve around her face or smthing#tbh if u are delusional enough all soundwaves are hot moms#i mean come on it's a given#except the animated one. he was freshly birthed. a little baby#megatron and optimus watching him freak like : 😦#optimus: so he served under you#megatron : oh Yes 😼..#meg: iMEAN yeah 😦#meg: i mean .. yes 😞..#need somebody to clip all soundwave appearances pls all seasons need it. NOWW!!!!!!!#at first i wasnt a big fan of his voice bcs i think when ppl try to harden that demonic voice underneath the autotune factor#which is rlly cool#they can kinda go too hard and it sounds almost too cartoony like a cartoon monster villain whos not calculated but vry primal#which goes against soundwaves whole cool calculated spy techno soundguy thing#but im warmed up to it now bcs it's a cute contrast like. u see this beautiful mech with magnificent curves & ure like omg hey hot mama#and then a voice from the 9th circle of hell growls at you like thats lowkey hilarious#dont mess with a bad bitch !!!!!! who just had a bad break up!!!!#he WILL kill u !!!!!!!!#soundwave#transformers#maccadam#tf#tf es#tf earthspark#arcee
156 notes · View notes
casualavocados · 4 months ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
#he doesn't want to fight with you ai di, he wants to Kiss🙄💘🥺
Nat Chen as CHEN YI KISEKI: DEAR TO ME (2023)
#kiseki: dear to me#kisekiedit#kdtm#kiseki dear to me#chen yi x ai di#ai di x chen yi#nat chen#chen bowen#louis chiang#chiang tien#jiang dian#userspring#uservid#userrain#userspicy#userjjessi#*cajedit#*gif#okay i made this specifically for the 3rd gif bc chen yi's expressions are making me giggle nonstop i was doubled over in tears last night#HE JUST WANTS TO KISS!! AI DI HE LOVES YOU LET HIM HIT IJDKSKG#okay real talk though the fact that he actually gives ai di space 90% of the time. lets him hang out at the bar#like he isnt following him around or constantly dogging him about giving him an answer not does he ever rly ACCUSE ai di of anything#he uses the zhang teng excuse to keep ai di from avoiding him but he doesnt try to keep him where he can see him constantly.#he lets ai di do his own thing and just spends time connecting the dots during the moments ai di comes back of his OWN VOLITION#& he slowly puts together what ai di is refusing to admit and makes his own intentions known without putting them in words either#besides stating his observations (& watching ai di react). Every interaction between them when ai di gets out of prison is like that#gifs 1&2 vs 4&5... letting ai di pull away because he doesnt know whats going on vs pulling him back both to say hey we arent done-#& say im still here FOR YOU - to see how ai di reacts being so close to chen yi after finding him hugging his jacket in his sleep#and then once hes Figured It Out he still keeps the space!! sends gifts... he only Acts when ai di comes back to him himself!!!!#and this time he's READY. and a simp. like. PLS the last 2 gifs..........dude. he wants to kiss so bad
234 notes · View notes
mochiwrites · 5 months ago
Text
hey guys I’m gonna turn in for the night. mind watching after my blorbos for me? make sure nothing happens to them! thanks <3
Tumblr media
264 notes · View notes
nostalgicfun · 10 months ago
Text
Feel free to share which is your favorite NOW in the tags, but this particular poll is about which you preferred as a child! ⭐ These are being grouped by a vague theme, so in a few days we'll do another one with more options!
Also, same rule as the last poll: REALLY popular choices (ATLA, SpongeBob, Scooby Doo, Pokemon, Digimon, etc.) are overwhelmingly popular and have been omitted for the sake of seeing the results for other shows!
Also also, one of these polls is going to be like "baby's first anime" so more specific anime choices will be on that poll, don't worry ✨
443 notes · View notes
mulders-too-large-shirt · 4 days ago
Text
thinking about how mulder loves to get scully a gift, usually terribly heartfelt, even if disguised as something flippant:
the superbowl vhs tape he brings her when she wakes up from her coma in one breath (and her deadpan "i knew there was a reason to live")
tickets for a football game to watch together in irresistible
bringing her flowers to the hospital in memento mori (he lies, saying he stole them from a guy with broken legs to make her laugh)
the birthday keychain in tempus fugit (and when she finds a meaning to it, he claims "i just thought it was a pretty cool keychain")
that is a man who is always thinking about her.
#you can just picture him at the store thinking “oh boy she's gonna love this :)”#i think the superbowl vhs one chokes me up the most because he's trying so hard to play it cool when he had just lost her#and he needs to break the ice somehow because he hates to put those big feelings into words#he's more into saying what he means with touch and subtext#it's as if he needed SOMETHING off of the shelf at the store to say “i'm glad you're back. i missed you. i hope you're well”#so he goes with a dumbass VHS she is never going to watch. just to see her recognize his coded declaration of love.#and that exhausted smile she reserves for his antics#and it makes me tear up! still! thinking about it!#i know love languages are problematic but i do think there is something underrated about giving gifts as an act of love#of having your thoughts for someone being represented with a physical object. making that love tangible. you can touch it.#(it works very well on me because i tend to assume if you're out of sight you're not thinking about me)#(so looking at a little trinket someone gave me is like oh!!! they actually are thinking about me often. enough to find this Thing)#anyway. that is my emotional ramble for the evening. please enjoy#AND DISCLAIMER: i am sure there are other examples of him giving gifts i forgot and that there are more yet to come#but as a reminder i have only seen up to s5 ep 3 so! pls no spoilers even if i do tag this for the general public#okay promise? promise no spoilers in the tags? thank youuuuu mwah#the x files#txf#msr#fox mulder
104 notes · View notes
astersofthesky · 7 months ago
Text
I will forever hold this part in the second op of Death Note close to my heart.
L and his lil capoeira.
118 notes · View notes
tojiscrack · 2 months ago
Text
to my all little liars!! (edit: wtf happened to my english? 😭)
we’re at 24.6k words rn 😟 if you plan on reading it next week, i recommend you read it on the weekends when there’s no school or work for you waiting in the morning 😀
calling in the troops rn ‘cause there’s still one final scene i have to write and it’s gonna be LONG (this isn’t including the bonus scene btw) but it’s extremely important for the story to continue, and without it, the rest of the story literally cannot go on 😭
we’re locking in guys. it’s 100% gonna border 30k words for sureee. sm has happened in that ONE chapter and i literally cannot wait to release it for all of you, you have no ideaaa
gonna go to bed and then wake up, study, break, write for the fic, repeat. had to randomly drop an update here cuz i’ve been edging you guys for so long i’m sorryyy, but it really is nearly here <333
Tumblr media
edit: fck it guys i’m writing it rn (the immediate comments got me motivated)
58 notes · View notes
allastoredeer · 4 months ago
Note
Aren't you guys kinda over feminizing Alastor a little bit????? like I get it that we want him to sub/bottom, but aren't you guys doing the same thing you hate that people do with Lucifer???? Like Alastor to me would never wear a dress? unless like he's joking or something??
....Alastor wore a nun outfit....out of the two, he's canonically worn a dress.
If you're going just by the show--no headcanons, no fanon, no tropes, no fan-art--Alastor has exhibited more fem-like qualities, has acted more feminine, than Lucifer ever has. I'd go as far to say that Lucifer is actually pretty masculine in the show, he just happens to have a pretty face.
And I mean, we don't know if Lucifer would wear a dress either. He's only ever worn pants, shirt, and a jacket, we have no evidence that he would wear a dress. But people like to put him in them anyway because of ✨vibes✨ - which I totally get. Vibes are important. It's not like I don't think Lucifer wouldn't wear a dress. I totally think he would and he'd rock it.
As for Alastor only ever wearing a dress for a joke, I definitely agree, but I think that guy would do anything for the bit. He'll do whatever it takes to get the last laugh. He trolls for the sake of trolling. He's a menace. But it's not like he wore the nun outfit as a joke, it was more of a manipulation tactic when you think about it. He's as faithful as a nun 🙏 see how faithful he is, Charlie? He'll never lead you astray.
I love Alastor's masculine and feminine sides. He does both so well. If I have been leaning more into feminine Alastor recently, well, it could be on account that I haven't come across a lot of content of him being feminine, and make the content you wanna see, right?
But thing is, I don't think we have been over-feminizing Alastor, at least not to the extent that Lucifer has been feminized, in my opinion. I mean, Lucifer has been feminized to the point that he's--in some cases, not in all cases--unrecognizable from the show. Whereas with Alastor, at most, I've been posting gifs from the show of him being his girlypop self. Something's not mathing, because it's not adding up. These two things feel very different.
Tell me if I'm wrong, cuz I very well might be, but I'm getting the vibes that this is going back to Alastor's ego being the reason he wouldn't wear or act in a specific way.
I just don't see how his ego would stop him from wearing a dress. It's not like he has anything against feminine clothes or attributes, nor do we have any evidence at all that he would be against it. If anything, I get the vibes that he appreciates and respects femininity more than masculinity. I don't see why he would be against being in a dress, or appearing feminine, when he's done both in the show.
It smells of misogyny. My boy is many things, but a misogynist he ain't.
70 notes · View notes
sysig · 6 months ago
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Family ♥ (Patreon)
#Doodles#ISaT#Siffrin#Isabeau#Mirabelle#Odile#I have not been able to stop drawing Sif's black ensemble under their cloak ever since I learned about it#The cutest#His favourite colour is black and he wears all black and he dyed his hair black so now it's two-tone!#Stopppp that's too cute#Got curious and yes - fully black-haired Sif is Very cute <3 Contrast lad#Pls gentle touches to Sif they deserve soft holds <3#I'm really happy with their hand expressions there ah Isa's big hands and Sif's small and cute#They love each other!! However whichever way <3#The posing for Sif and Mira is awkward because I was trying to draw the one with them hugging and failed lol#So they're just existing in proximity and happy about it <3 Just being together is fun!#I do love Sif getting practice in on positive touch but also just being nearby and being happy <3#Good company for certain#Can you tell I'm less practiced at drawing Odile so far lol#She is pretty <3 I didn't fully understand the lesbian catnip comments at first but I think I get it now lol#Her flyaways are probably my favourite hehe <3 Gotta draw her with crows feet sometime! Lovely ♪#I love her watching out for the younger members of the party in her cool and dry way hehe - Sif is sleepy! But he needs a push to go nap#There's the hug yaaay <3#I like everyone's outfits very much but I will admit to not using references when I drew Mira :'D More the vibes of her clothes lol#I'll draw them proper sometime!#Odile's outfit is very pretty <3 I love all the allusions to gems ah it's so cool#Such a lovely bunch!
116 notes · View notes
luck-of-the-drawings · 8 months ago
Text
!!! FLASHING LIGHTS WARNING!!! [IM NOT FUCKIN AROUND!!]
REACHED THE CUSP OF 'THIS MAY NEVER BE ABSOLUTELY FINISHED N IF I DONT SHOW IT NOW, IT WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY.' SO HERE, A PROJECT IVE BEEN ORBITING AROUND UHH SINCE 2021 OR SO.
#jrwi fanart#jrwi show#jrwi riptide#gillion tidestrider#cw flashing lights#LOOORRD OF LIGHTNING SAAAAVE ME!!!!#RAAAHHHH I LOVETHIS SONG SO FUCKIN MUCH AND I LOVE GILLION SO FUCKIN MUCH RAAHHHH!! RAAHHHH!!!#BUT YES YES I HAD LIKE A WHOLE OTHER HALF TO THIS SKETCHED OUT BUT IT WONT FINISH COOKIN FOR A MILLION YEAARS!!!!#MAYBE SOMEDAY.....#ANYWAY. this is my first time actually syncing audio to my animations. normally i domnt know howww.#i animated it all in fire alpaca AND THEN i mixed everything in a pirated movie maker. it kinda uh. sucks. but its WHAT I GOT BAYBE!!#i relaly like how i animate swishy hair... i was inspird by eris from sinbad. i can only HOPE i got on that level w the watery flowyness#LIUGHTNING IS HARD TO ANIMATE TOO. I WATCHED ALOTTA VIDEOS ABSORBED MINIMAL TUTORIALS AND UHH I THINK I DID OKAY!!#better than bad!!! but i can still do better. eventually. ugh. FLASHING LIGHTS TOO HUH? U LIKE ANIMATINGB FLASHING LIGHT?#U LIKE MAKING THE BLACK N WHITE FLICKER RLY FAST UNTIL UR EYES BLEED OUT UR SKULL?? YEAAAHH YOU DO!!!#im also vry proud o the title cards i made at the beginning teheheheh. dependign on where riptide goes i MIGHT change it#BUT HEY THEORY TIME? I HOPE ONE OF THE GODDESSES COMES DOWN TO PILOT GILLIONS BODY SO THEY CAN BEAT THE FUCK OUT O THE OTHER GODDESS#WHO IS ALSO IN SOMEONE ELSES MORTAL BODY. GODS COMING DOWN TO WREAK HAVOC OVER PETTY DISAGREEMENTS OOOGH HOW FUN!!#GOOD ON YOU CHAMPION!! YOUR VESSEL HAS BEEN TRAINED TO BE STRONG AND HARDY. PERFECT FOR CHANNELING DIVINE ENERGY.#OHHHH WHAT A PERFECT WEAPON YOU ARE. NOW GO AND IMMANENTIZE A WATERY ESCHATON#PARAGON OF OCEANS WRATH I WANT TO SEE YOU DROWN THE LAND. DESTROY!!! EAT!!! BURN!!! RAAAGHH I NEED GILLION TO GET MORE POWER!!!!#ALSO in other news i uh. actually posted this onto twitter forever ago but forgot to post it here bc i can only post it from pc and BABY!!#IM NOT ON THE COMPUTER OFTEN! NOT ANYMORE!! NOT ANYMOREE!!! IM FREE BAYBE!! i used to be so miserable. sometimes i think abt that.#ANYWAY. pls enjoy. just this much took so long. i love makin the lil guys move.... ouh.... hava good day if u get the chance to.
134 notes · View notes
velvetsssapphic · 5 months ago
Text
Me whenever this scene comes up
Tumblr media Tumblr media
53 notes · View notes
dykedvonte · 26 days ago
Text
My post about Anya is making like a little ruckus on Twitter and I think it’s crazy how many people like have a problem with it.
Like you don’t have to agree with how I characterize Anya and her actions but it’s more like, why are you focused on only one aspect of her character? Why are you removing nuance from the situation? I don’t see it as giving Curly the benefit of the doubt when it comes to doing better for Anya, but as exploring his character and hers relationship with a the very little authentic facts we get about them. In truth, there’s a lot more I wish Curly did, even if it wasn’t pragmatic but I realize the issue there.
The first psychological horror game in a while that’s real intricate in its storytelling and makes you need to really need to address the morality of intentions and its already getting torn asunder smh 😔
#I don’t know if it’s the case of people who hate curly and think he should’ve just killed Jimmy won’t accept anything else#but I really am trying to get the idea that they were stuck for over a year in space together on a ship barely kept together with wildly#different and conflicting personalities who also got more hostile because they know they are going home to unemployment#it sounds heartless to say and he should have prioritized her more but in his head that’s not the only thing he has to manage and he has to#fit the necessary actions to take in his head with all that including his perception of them as a friend vs as a boss#idk I just don’t believe Curly was comforting Jimmy with the intent of helping him get rid of Anya. he wanted to help both of them he went#about it horribly like the game is literally about realizing how misguided you can be and that responsibility#and how to be responsible look different even if there are better options like it’s just weird just block my ass dawg#also I think the argument of how could the situation be worse if he stopped Jimmy is stupid cause it’s under the guise that Curly would#assume someone he trusted would just try and commit murder suicide or he’d get degloved and all his crew directly#or indirectly killed by that friend like sorry if that’s a reach statement like adding#your supplementary thoughts is how analysis is born but adding facts about events we don’t know happened and treating them like character#truths is lame is a cop out from actually engaging with parts of the story that adds grey areas to characters you wants to see in black#this is just a stupid like thing to me but it makes me sad cause I don’t even hate seeing depictions of Curly as more aware and#accommodating to Jimmy purposely but I need you to understand he thought he was doing the right thing for both his friends and his closest#friend but the key point is he thought he was doing right for both of them like what game were we both watching???#mouthwashing#like just block me pls like Anya would not share ur mindset or hold ur hand like do more than just pity her if you like her so much
33 notes · View notes
mulders-too-large-shirt · 2 months ago
Text
s4 episode 4 thoughts
woohoo!! it feels, again, like our separation has been so long, but it has been about… 3 whole days. oh, how i miss the earlier months in which i had time to post episode thoughts every day… 
this episode sounds interesting!!! no idea how someone’s thoughts could be captured on film, but we do a lot of disbelief suspension around these parts, with varying levels of success.
wait. hold on. i just saw the description for the episode after this one. what the hell is mulder getting himself into with that. do we need more mulder ex lore? i don’t need that. it doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. 
putting aside my many questions on that matter to focus on what is here in front of us.
(author’s note post-episode: …. woaghhh. scully…)
in all honesty, having processed my thoughts, i think this one was just a LITTLE bit too intense for me. which i recognize is okay, and to each their own. but i need to speak my Truth.
liveblogging commences below 
we begin with this sketchy looking dude, who is being rude as hell to a woman putting on lipstick before getting a passport photo taken. god forbid a woman want to serve… then he says to act natural while not acting natural himself. HYPOCRITE!
she goes in for a passport photo and…. she left her money in the car! she must return to this unfortunate man and go get it. but someone is following her…. 
he did something to her… and she gets back to the car to “billy”, but someone did something to him, too!! he appears to be dead and bleeding from the ear!! then she falls to the ground and tries to crawl to safety, but the mystery man in the yellow rain jacket comes back for her…. 
and the man in the photo store looks at the passport photos, but despite taking just a standard headshot, he sees the woman’s dying face in the images!!
oh. that is an unpleasant day on the job for such a nice seeming man.
this intro always makes me laugh... i’m sorrrrryyy the ufo pictures just remind me that this show is fundamentally unserious 
scully and mulder are rolling up to a town in michigan, while he asks her for any thoughts on the case. it appears this woman was abducted three days ago. and billy was punctured in the brain. yuck.
okay, so her name is mary. and this poor pharmacist…. he has to take people’s pictures, and give them drugs, AND deal with this nonsense 
they are at the pharmacy where the “druggist” (they keep using that term which i have never heard before) is showing them his camera, which he keeps under lock and key, and i notice he has some fun candy in the background. but i assume things are not fun at this time for him. 
scully wants to see the camera, and mulder takes a step back to let her pass. it kinda looks like he does that thing where he touches her back, but it’s hard to tell. and once again for all readers, that thing where men touch your back is only attractive when it’s mulder to scully and not between some randos!
scully notices something on the pharmacist’s foot, and also that the film is out of date. she is always noticing things. one of her many lovely qualities. 
mulder calls the pharmacist “bruno hauptman” and i don’t get that reference so i do what i do best: go to wikipedia. oh! bruno is the guy that was executed for kidnapping the lindbergh baby. i don’t know why i thought that mystery was unsolved. i guess it’s because the article is saying it was a heavily criticized and debated case. huh, a mystery for another time.
anyway, mulder is saying this all tauntingly with his stupid beautiful mulder smile, but scully is saying yeah, this nice old pharmacist doesn’t look like a usual suspect.
but she does point out that the film has heat damage, and a heater is right there… “so you think that would make it look like she posed screaming for a passport photo?” <- LMAO MAN LET HER FINISH
BAHAHA she is onto nothing 🔥🔥 
“plus, the film is two years out of date” “oh” the- the photographic chemistry could have changed” (mulder nodding) “uh-huh” “the- the dyes fade… they… alright, what’s your theory?” <- BAHAHA love that… you have to admit when you don’t know wtf is going on! i had full confidence she would pull something out of her science-y brain, but sometimes you just don’t know!
(this stupid scene had me giggling, as did her face of resignation)
mulder seems to ALSO have no idea wtf is going on, but as they discuss this, a police officer walks in and says they might have wasted the agents’ time…. what does that mean? did they figure it out that quick?
back at the house of the victims, they meet a postal inspector. okay!!! that’s fun and different. and i pause to write this down, and scully is SO beautiful, i actually might blow up. a full on explosion where once stood me is liable to go down. oh my gooooood.
okay: postal inspector is investigating a mail theft. mary had been working at the postal office, stealing people’s credit cards, and her boyfriend was signing them! oh! very illegal. inspector seems to think she faked her disappearance, but mulder points out that would not explain the stabbing of the boyfriend. also, they have this creepy ass broccoli magnet on their fridge which. bleugh. it did not spark joy.
mulder wants a camera from their house, and he finds one! did he just. take a picture of scully…? oh my god. he said “stand back, scully, it’s loaded” and took one… he didn’t even let her pose or anything… that's so cute... even if it's a little weird to use a dead person's camera from a crime scene... he wanted to take her picture
no, i am all wrong, for it appears he is just… taking random photos. because someone in the 60’s once claimed that he could concentrate really hard on undeveloped film and show his thoughts. uh. press f to doubt.
(man, i want to live in that very brief and exciting moment where i thought he was taking a cute little candid of her again… it was so blissful there)
wait. what da hell. he just clicked the camera a bunch of times and it comes up with the screaming mary photo again and again.
oh… he thinks that someone was stalking mary, and the stalker’s psychic energy altered the film by him coming in its proximity. i didn't realize that was how psychic powers worked but i am listening and learning
scully says that these images had to be doctored, which is, again, a reasonable conclusion, but he asks her to “what if” the situation and just think about it!!! just imagine!!!
cutscene to… someone crawling on the side of the road. it’s mary!!! she’s bleeding from her eyes (?) and not responding at all to the police car arriving behind her.
now she is in a stretcher at the hospital that our agents are helping to steer. they are kind like that. she had a “painkiller cocktail” in her system, but that wouldn’t account for her condition. scully orders a PET scan for her, a term i have never heard before. i love when she uses terms i have never heard before.
they’re putting mary in what looks like an MRI sort of thing to look at her brain. whatever it is, it is clearly very bad, as told by scully’s visible reaction and audible declaration of “oh my god”, while mulder looks at her and asks “what is it”? 
(and while i appreciate that this is a sensitive moment for our story, mulder not knowing wtf is going on with these medical things always is a favorite trope of mine, 1. because me too, and 2. he is usually such an insufferable know-it-all i love watching him admit when he knows nothing. humility!)
oh my god… “she has been given what’s called a transorbital lobotomy” <- oh that does NOT sound good… it used to be known as an ice pick lobotomy!!! oh my gosh i’ve heard of that one!! ice pick… eye sockets… i can feel myself growing faint…
but whoever did it, did it wrong… who would do a lobotomy without knowing how to do it the right way???
in the machine, mary is mumbling!! she is saying “unruhe” according to the closed captioning, but it just sounds like faint groaning to me. however, given that this phrase is the title of the episode, i venture to guess that it IS in fact relevant.
a policeman bursts in and says there has been a second abduction, and our agents look deeply sorrowful at this news, seeming to know what will happen next if they cannot crack the case.
oh! now we are seeing the new victim, and whoever took her is in fact saying “unruhe”, and other stuff in german! NO! he pulls out a pick…. fade to black. 
WHO in this small seeming town speaks german and has a psychic effect on cameras… ?? i hope this can be narrowed down to a slim pool of candidates!!
scully is going into the next crime scene, where mulder reports that a man has been murdered, and his secretary alice taken. this is not good.
mulder has been looking into what that word alice was mumbling means- first in a phone book, but then as a translation, i guess, because it means “trouble” in german.
WOAH, WHAT?
! SCULLY LORE REVEAL ! she took german in college!!! and knows that the word is more accurately translated as “unrest”! 
(oh my gosh, i need to get back into compiling lore reveals at the end of each season like i did for s1…. good thing i take such detailed notes so i can go back and do them for s2 and s3)
((we didn’t get a ton in the last 2 seasons, so i thought of doing one post for both seasons- but the organization freak in me wants to do 1 per season, so i’ll go through them again and see what i can find when i get bored someday))
scully hands him a photo from the first crime scene, but mulder says the criminal wasn’t there, because if he was, he would have altered the photos. scully seems annoyed that he’s looking for psychic photos and not crime scene evidence, but he explains that whoever did this has to be very good, and photos may be their only lead since he doesn’t seem to know he is doing it. but then scully sees something and her eyes go SUPER wide… and she says she wants to show him something. 
oh! they find a construction company’s logo at both sites. so maybe the criminal worked at places under construction and was able to kidnap the women…? this theory is brought to you by scully.
he says she might be right, but he is going back to DC to get analysis on the photo. she still is skeptical, but he says that since the woman’s time is running out, that’s all the more reason to analyze the one piece of hard evidence they do have, and that he’ll be in touch. 
he must have really cared if he said he’ll be in touch, because usually he just runs off to god knows where to do god knows what. 
(and how much time would they even HAVE if he has to drive all the way back??? that isn’t a quick trip, is it???)
the same criminal dude from before is now saying stuff in german and taping alice’s mouth shut, while mulder is back in the photo lab sitting practically on top of this nerdy yet attractive fellow, asking for the blurriness in the image to be reduced. and it reveals very scary looking demon things! 
mulder sees someone in the back of the photo… and they get a more enhanced image on the face, but it isn’t clear to me who it is. i felt like i was supposed to know who it was, but luckily i wasn't!
scully is ordering people out to canvas and investigate the employees who may have been working at both construction sites. i like when she does that.
mulder and the lab guy figure out that there is a shadow in the background of the photo from the kidnapper. “he’s standing over her, he means to pass judgement on her, like a god” <- an unsettling thing to say, mr. spooky
scully rolls up to one of the construction sites and i’m thinking, oh please, do not get kidnapped, please please, it’s not something we need today. she’s yelling “hello” and no one is answering... but she hears something….. 
it’s a… guy on stilts? it’s the foreman named gerry. oh… could he have made the big shadow in the picture his stilts? but he doesn’t sound german…
mulder calls and says the kidnapper’s legs are unusual, either he’s very tall or he wants to be. stilts man?!?! is it you?!
instead of playing it chill upon hearing this news, she hangs up on mulder, and turns to gerry and says “unruhe”, pulling out her gun. but he uses his stilts to jump across the building! only to collapse and fall. his getaway is thwarted as scully tells him to stop or she’ll shoot, and to prove her seriousness, she does so. but i’m not buying he’s the guy!! sorry my queen!!
NO!! I WAS FOOLED, WASN’T I??? she reaches into his pocket and pricks her finger!!! NOOO! it’s a huge pick in there! like we saw before at the kidnapping!!
is she gonna be drugged from that….
(thankfully, the pick itself did not contain the drugs)
they’re interrogating the dude, and he denies everything. i mean, i guess a lot of people could have stilts and a pick at construction sites. maybe they didn't grab the right fellow.
he says that tool is used to start keyholes in the sheetrock and all fixtures. a good excuse…
but he really does seem confused. 
however, mulder brings up that gerry was arrested before, for attacking his father with an axe handle until he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. OH! this is not promising.
gerry says that he was institutionalized, which mulder reveals was for a schizophrenic disorder. gerry claims that since his release, he had been taking care of his father 24/7, until he passed away in january. well i’m not entirely sure if that makes amends, but i guess it’s better than nothing?
“and how did you feel about that?” asks mulder about gerry's father's death, sounding very much like the psychology expert i sometimes forget that he is. then he reveals that the same year gerry attacked his father, gerry’s sister passed. connected….?
gerry is staring intently back at scully, saying that she looks troubled. oh! do not talk to her that way.
then mulder comes in with the enhanced photo from earlier, and asks if it shows gerry’s father. he seems taken aback, like it really is his father, and then further taken aback when he pulls out the full photo and asks if those demons figures are what he sees when he closes his eyes. this finally gets gerry to crack and say that he knows where alice is, and that she is safe, “from the howlers”. HUH? 
(is it bad my thoughts went straight to a howler monkey when he said that? i was thinking man, monkeys do not look like that at all. you and i have seen some different monkeys, gerry. but no, he does not refer to those types of howlers)
a ton of cop cars are arriving in the woods, to find alice, who is bleeding from the eyes, which can only mean one thing in this context. oh noooo. scully seems horrified and as if she is blaming herself 
oh, we get a very charged exchange here. she says it doesn’t matter what is in the photos, or if it shows gerry’s dreams or nightmares, because it’s over, and they couldn’t save alice. she starts the engine, and when i think she’s gonna drive off without mulder, he hops in. i bet that guilt that doctors feel when that cannot save a patient is even worse in her than in usual doctors, because she also has to deal with trying to rescue people from crime. :(
gerry is being taken in and photographed by the cops. but instead of a mugshot, when we see the picture, it’s the guy who was taking him in with a bullet hole in his head. oh! so that seems to confirm earlier suspicions on behalf of mulder. 
OH NO!! gerry reaches out and grabs the gun from the cop! NOOO! 
mulder points out that the image from that interaction showed the man shot in the head, but in reality, he was shot in his throat. so i guess it’s not based on reality as much as his intentions? sure, why not. and scully says there was a robbery at the pharmacy back where the very first photo was taken. no! our druggist friend!
gerry took all of the film in the store and a ton of drugs for more “twilight sleep”, which is a bad sign. i think i’ve seen this film before…
scully thinks that perhaps he was stalking his next victim at the construction site, and i’m thinking, girl i think he picked out his victim alright, but i don’t think she’s in the apartments.
mulder wants to wait a bit for his photo to come out. so he sends her to pull the car around and i’m screaming NO, NO, DON’T SEPARATE, NOT WITH A GUY ON THE LOOSE WHO LOOKED AT HER AND SAID “YOU LOOK TROUBLED” AFTER DOING 2 DIY LOBOTOMIES ON OTHER WOMEN AND KILLING 2 OTHER MEN! JUST WAIT A MINUTE AND WALK TO THE CAR TOGETHER!!!
but she cannot hear me….
NO! as she unlocks the car, a hand from beneath reaches out and pierces her foot with a needle NOOOO… and it’s gerry and she’s going down and NOOOOOO!!!!
AND MULDER PULLS THE PHOTO OUT TO FIND GERRY WAS THINKING OF SCULLY WHEN IT WAS TAKEN!
he is RUNNING after that car. despite his best efforts, even trackstar mulder is not as fast as a car, yet he follows her and screams her name regardless. until he realizes he will not win this race.
back at the police office, mulder is STARING at that photograph, the one showing scully being taken by these horrific creatures known as “the howlers”. he’s asking for any leads, including “does he have a summer house? a winter house?” which could be seen as desperation for answers or mulder being out of touch with how many people grew up with summer houses, take your pick.
OH! in gerry’s wallet was his father’s obituary. and his father was a dentist… and the name sounds german… 
so they go to his old dentist’s office, where they did an ad for the pain medicine cocktail he’s been cooking up. and mulder finds a footprint and a missing dentist’s chair. 
NO!! scully is in the dentist’s chair at some undisclosed location. waking up to find her arms and legs bound with a pick on the table and gerry in the distance. she’s watching him…. and she says to let her go. 
he begins his german ranting that has happened before the other lobotomies, and she… RESPONDS???? in clumsy german??? she says she has no unrest and doesn’t need saving, but he insists she does??? WHAT!!!
good on her for remembering some words after all those years :,)
he says everyone has some unrest, but especially her. she thinks she must remind him of his sister, and they talk about “the howlers”, who live inside your head, and make you say and do things you don’t mean.
so she turns the tables on this, and says maybe there are no such thing as howlers, and maybe he made them up to justify what his father did to his sister, which sets him off further. OH… so she thinks gerry attacking his father and his sister’s death were related. damn… that’s heavy
she tries to convince him that the “howlers” are just in HIS head, and no one else’s, as he approaches with a camera to try and prove they do exist. because cameras cannot lie!!
back at the dentist’s office, mulder appears to be losing it. mumbling about the 6 fingers the howler had in the photos, and yelling “WHY are there 6?” to no one in particular, as if he can find an answer through sheer willpower. one of the cops is asking him what to do while he looks at the obituary and counts five headstones…. and the father makes 6? sure, if that makes sense to you king!
they’re off to the graveyard while scully is still in a mystery location, with tears in her eyes as gerry shows her the photos he took. he takes the photos to mean he doesn’t have much time left, and tapes her mouth… and oh my gosh, i think of what would go down here if i knew she wasn’t gonna pull through… until gerry hears a tapping and MULDER IS LOOKING IN!! YES!!!
gerry is doing this in a camper van! by the graveyard!!! mulder is peeking in, sees a tooth keychain, and realizes she’s in there!!!! he’s yelling her name, and she’s yelling that she’s in here, while gerry tries to hold her down!!!
mulder’s BEATING on the window of the camper with his hands, and when that doesn’t work, he finds a giant metal pipe and SLAMS it into the window, goes in, and shoots gerry. this escalated quickly, but it was almost not quick enough.
mulder asks if she’s hurt, and neither of them say anything as she walks out, with mulder kneeling down to see that the last photos gerry had taken were of himself dead on the floor. it’s a terribly thick tension that reminds me of the ending to irresistible, but without the tension bursting like it did in that episode with her finally revealing her fear to him. i wish that she did it again this time. 
scully is doing the episode wrap up, sounding terribly solemn. she is reporting that gerry had written a diary intended as a letter for his father, including the list of the women he hoped to “save”. and her name is the last entry. she has no explanation for the photographs. but she empathized with him, which her survival depended upon.
“i see now the value of such insight. for truly to pursue monsters, we must understand them. we must venture into their minds. only in doing so, do we risk letting them venture into ours?” (said while there are tears in her eyes, as she looks at the photograph of her being pulled by the howlers)
WHAT THE HELL.
okay, so chris carter… you and i need to have some words. 
i have a lot of thoughts. perhaps number one: what if mulder had been 5 minutes later… can you imagine him never being able to cope with that….? oh my gosh. oh my gosh. no, i shan’t imagine. but i’m sure they both were imagining it. and that is probably why she couldn’t say anything as she walked out of the camper van. it was too horrific.
second. this was a dark one. i was giggling at first and then it got really dark. lobotomies… are a hard subject.
third. when the writers make the bad guy have a mental illness, i do feel it to be insulting, because we don’t often get a character where a guy with schizophrenia is just a guy doing normal things like working at the store or going to get his oil changed. no, he’s gotta be up to something nefarious. i wish that wasn’t the case and that these episodes didn’t use mental illness in that way, and i understand that things were kind of Like That in the 90’s and arguably still are in media, but it has been observed with distaste. 
okay, final thoughts? like i’ve said before, i believe in gender equality when it comes to kidnapping and rescuing, and i hope that will be evened out at some point. i understand that gerry had a fixation on women for his own personal reasons, but that’s the doyleist vs watsonian debate thing. and i want a 1:1 ratio on who goes about saving the day. although the ratio was uneven in s2, i’m not recalling the ratio from s3, and we’re 4 episodes into s4 with a 1:1 ratio. so i hope that overall, the entire series ratio evens out eventually. damsel in distress is gender neutral
i was actually really invested in this episode, probably because it let us look into scully deeper, and also because the stakes were high, the pacing fast, and the horror a new kind rather than a standard serial killer we get in a lot of episodes. 
but… while i appreciate that, i’m not sure i can say i enjoyed it, you know? because even a “scully speaks german” lore reveal cannot save me from the feeling of… something adjacent to fear? not horror as in “ahhh i’m so scared” but maybe a sort of horror as in “stop putting her into these fuckass situations, let my girl have a day off” and also a bit of terrible grief in knowing that lobotomies were a very real thing and did untold harm. and to be clear, i’m not saying that fact shouldn’t be explored and discussed, i just think that for me it seems to provoke some intense feelings that make me want some fluff. now. 
deliver it. to my door. as we speak. in fact, here is an incomplete list of things i want to read our agents doing in fanfiction form:
apple picking and apple cider sipping, hiking and sharing weird facts they know about the things they encounter (scully will be all “this type of spider has a unique silk production gland” and he’ll be all “this type of wildflower is used to induce hallucinogenic states” while they look at a pretty view), ice skating (can they ice skate? need to explore that), getting ice cream cones, a visit to the beach, decorating for various holidays, a very serious game night- perhaps uno or some sort of trivia where it turns into a real nerd-off, arguing over unsolved mysteries, more implications of them starting a family together if you feel bold and brave, even, but for those who like it more reserved we can just have an aquarium date, watching a meteor shower, scully attempting to understand his fascination with the various sports of the world by tagging along on an anthropological expedition to a knicks game with him, baking, movie theater trip, etc
well! i have gotten myself so enthused at the idea of them doing silly stuff like handing out halloween candy that i have forgotten all about my initial feelings, which shall surely resurface soon when i go through and edit my notes, but you’re gonna sit there and tell me you don’t want to play dolls in your head of them getting hot chocolate together? 
canon? what is canon? c’mere, kid. let’s daydream about them eloping without ever having the “what are we” conversation and ignore the suffering 
26 notes · View notes