#she learned it from her father

[hippydippydruid]

Sparrow Oak Garcia as a teen!

Alt version without line art under the cut ⬇️

I used a reference from Pinterest but I lost it, if anyone wants it I’ll go find it!

[francesderwent]

also watched Cinderella (2015) on the plane and was struck for the first time by the parallel of Ella’s mother asking her young daughter to forgive her for leaving so soon, and Ella, finally walking out of their home, turning back and offering forgiveness to her stepmother. her mother, of course, didn’t choose to leave her and would have done anything not to hurt her. but she asks forgiveness anyway. her stepmother chose over and over to be cruel, and is insulted that Ella would deign to be kind to her, let alone offer forgiveness. but Ella can offer it freely anyway, because her mother taught her.

[discordiansamba]

azula's first memories of zuko are all of him ignoring her.

she'd try to show him something, and he'd brush her off. she'd try to follow after him, only for him to start walking too quickly for her little toddler legs to catch up. sometimes she'd fall. zuko would just ignore her. when she was really little, she didn't understand why he was so mean to her. he was her brother. she just wanted him to like her.

when she was older, she found out that was only half true.

she and zuko shared a mother- but they had different fathers. her mother had briefly been married to someone else before she'd married father- and zuko was a product of that union. she'd always noticed that zuko didn't look like anyone else in their family, but she'd never known the reason why. she asked her mother about why she'd left her first marriage. she just gave her a sad look and changed the subject.

her father was more forthcoming.

mother's first husband had been a commoner. her grandfather had wanted mother to marry her father instead- something about her being from avatar roku's bloodline. he'd absolved the marriage, and mother had married her father instead- but she'd already been pregnant with zuko at the time. her grandfather hadn't wanted to turn away a child of roku's bloodline, so he'd grafted him onto the family tree.

"that's why," her father had smiled at her, "-you're so much better at everything than he is. you have royal blood in you. even with avatar roku's blood in him, your half-brother is just a peasant."

azula had taken comfort in those words. she didn't need to be liked by her half-brother. she was better than him. it couldn't be more obvious that it was true- where zuko struggled, she always succeeded. nowhere was it more obvious than it was with their bending- her first flame was strong and steady, unlike zuko's pitiful, sputtering thing.

grandfather still chose to keep him around.

then grandfather was dead- and mother was gone. not long after, so was zuko- he'd gone to live with his swordsmanship master. he would return eventually- father couldn't simply excise him from their family. it would be considered disrespectful to grandfather's memory. she'd asked father anyways. he'd only laughed and told her that his existence only served to make her look better.

she didn't think she needed it. she was a princess- born with the divine right of rule. her uncle, when he returned to the palace, would look at her sadly and tell her that he wished she would get along with her half-brother. azula had scoffed. get along with zuzu? why would she bother? he'd never wanted her around to begin with. she was just returning the favor.

zuko returned to the palace with even more of a commoner's stink to him. she didn't think it was possible.

she was there when he sealed his own fate. it was stupid, really- who cared about some stupid servant? zuko, she supposed. he'd stood up for them over a general of old, noble blood. if he'd been a real prince, it might have not been a big deal. but for a fraud like her half-brother? grabbing the hand of a noble was the ultimate insult.

he really should have expected the agni kai.

(she'd give him a few points for actually trying to fight. not by much- he'd still lost, naturally.)

father banished him- sent him on an impossible quest to find the avatar. azula assumed that would be the last she'd ever hear of him. he'd probably die in the earth kingdom somewhere. everyone knew the avatar was dead. the cycle was broken. he'd never find them.

(and then he did.)

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Sasha using the title "Lord" in RiAAU after taking over Toad Tower and presumably killing Grime and stealing Barrel's Warhammer from him, and other political and military leaders assuming she's a man because, well, Sasha is a gender neutral name, so they hear Lord Sasha and assume they're talking about an adult male toad warrior. The second most powerful person in the known world and only real threat to the Leviathan reign!

Cue princess Marcy fleeing Newtopia and her father seeking refuge with his worst enemy hoping to offer information and political levarage in exchange for protection, perhaps even offering herself in marriage to transfer eventual inheritances and whatnot, and she finds out that Lord Sasha is not, indeed, a dark and domineering toad warlord, but a beautiful, terrifying girl her age that looks like her and oh god her poor little lesbian heart can barely take it.

[ace-s-fav-dp-posts]

So I've seen DPxDC stories where Danny is Damian's twin brother or just full blood sibling in general and not biologically a Fenton at all, where he's Bruce and Maddie's son, Talia and Jack's son, stories where he's either Bruce or Talia's kid with some other random person and was adopted by the Fentons.

Stories where either Jack or Maddie is Ra's kid and Danny (and Jazz) are thus Damian's maternal first cousins.

I've even seen a few stories where Danny was just literally Ra's son, either by blood or by adoption.

I know of one specific post where Danny is Dusan's son and Mara's older brother, but that's it.

I have yet to see a single prompt where either of Danny's parents are descended of either Dusan or Nyssa even though both of them are far more than old enough to be grandparents.

Hell, Dusan is calculated to be around 750 years old by some people, while Nyssa canonically had her bloodline wiped out by the Nazis, a bloodline that included a great grandson and she has a confirmed birth year of 1775 (so she'd be nearly 250 years old in modern day).

So the idea of Damian's first cousin being an adult pushing 50 with kids older than Damian himself would be completely logical (if you go ahead of sticking the show aged DP characters into the 2020s).

Though to be honest if we go this route I'd pick different Fenton Parents and generational displacement from Ra's depending on which of Ra's kids Danny and Jazz are descended from.

If they're descended from Dusan, then I'd pick Jack as being his son, and Mara's older half brother, who is older than her by like 46 years.

The Fenton's are actually aware of their connection to a quasi-immortal assassin, but Jack and Maddie do their best to keep their kids out of that life.

Which Dusan isn't supper accepting about. But he also only discovered Jack when he was already an adult, and if he wants to be invited to his grandkid's birthdays and be allowed to drop Mara off at the Fenton house to be watched he just kind of has to accept that his son and grandchildren aren't interested in the Al Ghul legacy.

While if it's Maddie who's descended from the Al Ghul bloodline, then I'd want her and Alicia to be descended from Nyssa's line, specifically Vasily Vasilevich, Nyssa's great grandson.

Nyssa thinks he's killed by the Nazi's like the rest of her descendants but because he's an infant someone actually manages to smuggle him away before he actually enters any camp. He eventually ends up smuggled all the way to the United States, where he's given a new name, and raised as an American by the family that took him as their own while fleeing from the Nazi's and smuggled him to the state's in the first place.

So Maddie and Alicia are both Nyssa's great great granddaughters, while Danny, Jazz, and Dani are Nyssa's great great great grandchildren. The Fenton's (and Walkers if we go ahead with making that Maddie and Alicia's maiden names), have no idea that they're descended from a weird eco terrorist assassin cult...

Until Jazz insists on the family doing one of those at home dna tests after Maddie casually dropped family lore about how her dad wasn't the biological child of her grandparents, and that they'd ended up taking him in when fleeing Europe from Nazi persecution, and no one knew who his birth parents were or if any of his biological family survived or not. Or even the name his biological parents gave him.

Jazz just thinks this is going to be a fun family history project where nothing weird will happen, unbeknownst to her Tim Drake has created backdoor access to every single one of those at home dna testing databases he can find, specifically looking for hits on the Al Ghul family tree.

That man might be old as fucking dirt, but Talia's existence (and backstory of being conceived at Woodstock with a random hippy lady) is proof that Ra's is more likely than not still producing swimmers and going around banging random women much to Tim's horror.

And Tim wants to know if any oopsie Al Ghuls pop out of the woodwork before Ra's does, at the very least to try and prevent any more from getting indoctrinated into the League of Assassins.

I just feel like either one of these would really hammer home that Ra's line really is comprised of largely unaging immortals (if they have access to a Lazarus pit and want to), who's outer age doesn't really reflect their actual age at all.

WIth Mara and Jack being half siblings but also like 40+ years apart in age, or Maddie being Nyssa's great great granddaughter but looking basically the same age.

Because DC's never really pushes that when it comes to Ra's. Sure all of his kids are adults, but all of them are also seem to be frozen between the ages of like 30 to 50 years old, with Ra's himself looking around 70-ish, and then all of his grandkids (who we get to see) are literal children.

So if you were to take a family picture of Ra's and the descendants (who matter and) we get to see in the comics, it would just look like a normal family portrait or family tree. The grandparent looks 20-30 years older then the Parents/Aunt/Uncle generation, who looks 20-30 years older than the child generation.

Like I just feel there should be more family line fuckery going on with the Al Ghul family than there is in canon.

Or hell you could make Jack or Maddie Talia's kid if you go with the really old canon of Talia also actually being a lot older but using the Lazarus Pits to stay physically young. I think she's like 150 in that continuity but using the pits to stay in her 30s or so.

Then you could just have Jazz or Danny show up and Damian introduce them to the Batfam as his niece and nephew, played best with Damian being around ten, but Danny and Jazz in their late teens or even early 20s.

[mariigoldzz]

Let's talk about flower related names in The Hunger Games trilogy and the significance of each plant.

Flowers in general have a variety of uses and meanings behind them, and the way each flower represents the character named after them is so cool.

Katniss

Katniss is an aquatic plant with arrowhead-shaped leaves. It was also a valuable food to Native Americans.

Primrose

Evening Primrose is a medicinial plant. They're delicate flowers that grow in the early spring.

Rue

Rue flowers represent sorrow and regret. They also have a culinary use.

Katniss also associates Peeta with dandelions. It's interesting how the three people she wanted to protect in the series are associated with or named after flowers.

[ganondoodle]

so with echoes of wisdom .. i havent watched any of the trailers beyond the very first one and the thumbnails/screenshots and what others have said about it-

but with the world inside the rift being called "Welt des Nichts" aka "world of nothing/void" in german ('still' in english, for some reason) and demises title in french being "avatar of nothing" ... yeah my anxiety is shooting through the roof again

(hopefully you can be a little more forgiving for me being anxious/weird about it bc demise is my blorbo)

i had similar worries with totk, that werent proven true thankfully, but the darn book is making it all worse again with all those weird lore things the game doesnt even so much as hint at AND potential retcons- im in for a really rough time huh, not just stress in real life (more in tags.. its alot) but now about my specific hyperfixation from two things even (AND artblock still..)

weird as it may sound, i dont want demise to get more lore, partly bc i dont believe theyd do anything with him that i would like (given their track record) but much more importantly- the fact that he has this little lore about him is precisely one of the reasons why i fell in love with him, i tend to like characters that are neglected by the narrative, and his story being both so flat and already done meant i can be very creative with what i come up with for him without necessarily contradicting anything in canon (which is ... or was a big point of how i wrote destiny's story and lore, working with canon in a way that reframes it all without straight up ignoring it ... but i suppose i urgently need to let go of that and accept i spend alot of time working things that will go to waste :( ) AND not having to worry that there will be more stuff with him that would massively change not only what im writing but also potentially how i feel about him since the game he was briefly in was the oldest chronologically and ended with his death- i didnt expect them to mess with anything that far back and thought theyd just go forward and leave the timeline behind and wouldnt mess with it again, given how botw seemed to be a sort of 'fresh start' that seemingly regarded the past as the past that needs to rest and that the timeline was finally no longer a discussion if everythings unified through botw and one thing going forward

but i suppose i was very wrong with that .__.

right now the only thing that motivates me still is the left over determination and spite to work on my zelda comic, since i have never gotten this far and really want to get something done for once, but i cant lie that im feeling like i should pause all work on it too to wait and see waht the book and the new game will do .. either to determine if i still have the will to keep working on it after those things are out (my love for tloz has been taking alot of hits lately ..) or if i have to change stuff (mostly bc of my lore problem trying to not ignore it ..)

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

lemongrab (Starts vibrating so hard i explode)

i do think pb is calm now but i dont think she likes wizards. i dont know. i dont know. and i saw how she treated lemongrab, she didn't really like him either. like. you all saw that. peps didnt want to see that he didnt want to think about it at the time, how they were treating the actual literal heir to the throne and also just how they were treating this man, he didn't realize. he didn't. and now. and . dont .get me talking about lemongrab. or i will talk. for ever

pep: you ate your brother lg: lg: you won't have that problem pep: i could eat you lg: try it

[la-pheacienne]

Some People : Ohhh Daenerys will be S O mad when she finally meets Jaime she will want to burn him alive for treason

What Daenerys will actually do : stare at Jaime for a long while in sheer amazement and then just say "tell me about T H E M".

[metaphorical-goblin]

I love Trucy so much but I’m just thinking about her and Phoenix’s first couple of months living together

Trucy moves so silently (“she’s like… the twins from that scary movie”), so Phoenix either has his eye on her constantly so she won’t get into trouble (or hurt herself) or

“Hello Daddy.”

SHIT— has to restraint himself from flinging what he’s holding into the nearest wall, “o-oh! Hey Trucy!”

Staring at him with her All Seeing Eyes, “do you want to see something cool.”

Oh— oh god please don’t let it be a body. Do we have mice? Did she catch a mouse??? “Oh, yeah, sure thing kiddo.”

Tenderly takes him by the hand and pulls him into her room, “I organized all my socks by color.”

“…oh. Wow. Cool!”

“I also organized all my construction paper by color but that seemed less important at the time”

“Uh-…huh”

AND AN ASIDE I THINK ITS VERY IMPORTANT that Phoenix takes EVERYTHING IN STRIDE, like yessss king, water off a ducks back, this is your child now

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 23 thoughts

we’re back!! and i appreciate the TW in advance about the sensitive content in this episode from a few followers. thank you very much for the warning! 🙏

but i’m excited to see what is going on today, and i’m sure it’ll be a doozy. let us read the episode description... now how do these agents keep getting involved in crimes that they didn’t commit??

must be CSM. i suspect him always. saves time.

(author's note post episode: woah.... so much happened... i have many questions... and i love mulder and scully very very very much <3)

anyway! let us begin!

okay, yes, i recall after watching the last episode, the beginning of this one started playing, and it was super creepy, and here we are again. very blurry, and it looks like stuff is on fire and warped.

yes, the garbled voices and samantha yelling to mulder as i had accidentally previewed before….. everything is flashing and weird sounding… i do not care for this.

despite being a grown man, when mulder looks in the mirror he sees himself as a child. must be a fever dream. 

they see their parents fighting??? mrs. mulder is saying something about “her baby”….

cutscene to a sweaty mulder on the floor!!! and not on the bed.

A BED?! where is he?? this is not his home!!

and his white shirt is covered in BLOOD??? he doesn’t seem to realize this at first!!!!

so he calls scully!!!! at 4:50 on the morning!!! awww poor girl was dead asleep... but she wakes up <3

he’s in a motel room in rhode island?!?!?!? he doesn’t know how tf he got there and whose blood is on him!!!!!

didn't he spend time in rhode island as a kid...

oh i’m invested…….. how does a guy get in this situation…. and what is scully going to do about it?????

whose blood is it!!!!

(cheering at gillian anderson in the intro)

NOW WHO PUT MY BOY IN THIS SITUATION!!!!!

at 6:15 AM scully is pulling into the rhode island motel. THAT is EFFICIENT!!! oh i know she was flooring it to get there so quickly. also it’s april now btw

she is, indeed, going very fast. 

his motel door is open…..  and the shower is running…. she’s yelling to him

(something very domestic about yelling to someone while they’re in the shower; it makes my heart melt a lil)

but what is less domestic is when he mumbles that he “can’t get warm”, and when she pulls the curtain open he’s curled up, shivering as he sits in steaming hot water!!! 

oh sopping wet poor meow meow…. what has been done to you???

she quickly deduces that he is in shock (medical doctor moment!!!) and turns off the water. she tells him to get dry and gets a blanket, and he emerges with just a towel wrapped around his waist, which is a shocking display of vulnerability- but we can unpack that later 

she’s absolutely shifting into doctor mode (perhaps my favorite mode of hers) as she asks him if he feels nauseous or dizzy and wraps him in a blanket, looking into his eyes, tilting his chin to glance at every angle of his face 

oh shit this is SERIOUS. she pulled out the “track my finger” and “do you know what day it is”, like this is going DOWN. i mean i KNEW it was going down with the bloody shirt and the curled up grown man in the shower. but a doctor is not playing around when they ask you what day it is.

the last thing remembers was talking to her on friday!!! and it’s sunday!!! and he was in his apartment!!! so how tf did he get here???

but he packed a change of clothes… or maybe someone ELSE did?? is it a red herring?? did someone kidnap him???

she quickly finds his gun and TWO ROUNDS HAVE BEEN FIRED???? WHAT!!!

(okay, i knew that was going to happen because i read the episode description, but it’s still wild!!!)

he doesn’t remember anything at all… and she sits down to explain he needs to go to the hospital now

“possibly the early stages of encephalitis”, she says, and oh man, i don’t even want to google that 

(but i did. eugh...)

“if this is an aneurysm, it can drop you in a second” <- she is telling him to listen tf up and GO TO A HOSPITAL NOOOOOOOOOW!!!

OHHHH HE FINDS SOMEONE NAMED AMY’S KEYS!!! WHO IS AMY?????

so he drove here and checked into the motel on saturday…. and there is a car is filled with blood in the parking lot!!!!! with a registration citing amy and david.

oh my GOD he won’t go to the hospital DUDE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??? YOU COULD LITERALLY DIE AT ANY SECOND, WHAT GOOD ARE YOU GOING TO BE IN AN INVESTIGATION WHERE YOU’RE BARELY EVEN THERE??? WHY DON’T YOU THINK SCULLY CAN HANDLE IT ON HER OWN?? GODDAMN IT, LET HER TAKE CARE OF IT, I’M SICK OF YOUR BULLSHIT, YOU ARE JUST GOING TO BE A HINDRANCE TO ANY PROPER INVESTIGATION, YOU PISS ME OFF.

okay.

there are tons of photos with faces cut out??? carefully cut out by some guy who is dripping blood onto them. which is... unpleasant.

ohhhh they show up at amy and david’s house and the housekeeper doesn’t know where they are… this is not an auspicious sign. he asks to look at a painting?? maybe he went to the place in the painting before???

he knows this house… but he doesn’t know why. it’s the house amy grew up in and it’s ALL SHE PAINTS???? which is absolutely wild. they go into a room where she’s painted it over and over and over countless times. i mean, i appreciate, having a muse but this was just next level dedication.

it’s near his old summer house!!!! see, i knew rhode island would be relevant. 

scully is driving him around in his big leather jacket. they find the house, which is very much falling apart, BUT HE WINCES AND GRABS HIS HEAD!!!! OH GOD!!!

he’s getting visions from childhood of his parents screaming about orders, and it not just being him, and YOUNG CSM (!!!) it must be from when they learned samantha was going to be taken as insurance that his father wouldn't expose the project, and it caused his parents to divorce 

he wakes up on the ground with scully over him (ohhhhh…….) and she carefully props him up. and it was “some kind of clonic event” 

my heart does flips when she is doctoring. but don't worry about that.

“i feel… really… good right now” <- LMAOOOOO actually the funniest possible thing you could say after such an event happening 

but he proceeds ahead with investigating the house

ohhh the score is spooooky and suspenseful… oh my god, scully finds someone with a gunshot wound in her heart!!!!!!!!!!! it must be amy!!! and her husband who is dead nearby!!!!!

then who tf was the guy cutting out the pictures!!!!

the cops have arrived, and they want to speak to mulder, but scully says she refuses “to believe that you had any part in this” (and that’s what a bestie is for)

the detective is clearly not believing that the first time mulder saw the victims was when he walked into their house with their keys that he somehow had. which yeah. okay, it does look bad. but listen. sometimes things look bad that aren’t in reality.

scully refuses to let them take him down to the station!!! he is getting his ass to the hospital NOW!! even if the police take him, okay??? he is going there.

YEAH, YOU TELL THEM!!!!!

and scully wants to take a look at the bodies. she tells mulder do NOT say anything else to the cops. somehow i don’t think he will follow this advice.

scully has her doctorly gear on and oh. she’s snipping something from amy’s head. oh god. hole. in her head. not from gun. whewwww.

NASTY. NASTY BAD. shoutout props team, i repeat as my grounding mantra. do you think the actors ever gagged filming this stuff?

that was a lot. she wants two examinations on her and to know WHY they died. 

head. hole. not good. 

mulder has a bandage on his arm indicating he must have been discharged from the hospital, and his he's laying his head on the table as detective curtis brings him a paper bag. mulder looks very sad.

at first i thought the detective was bringing him lunch, which would be a surprisingly thoughtful gesture, and perhaps indicate a shred of humanity in him. but no. he says that what is in the bag reveals that mulder knew the victims AND that they were shot execution style with his weapon!!!

it’s his bloody shirt… the bloody shirt from before. with both of the victim's blood on it!!! 

oh man… he explains that he does not remember but then he gets read his miranda rights…. NOOOOOOOOOO MY BOY

he has his hands cuffed and is in the bright orange jumpsuit :( free him!!!

but scully comes in and says she’s going to get him out of there!!!! “you’re a doctor, not a lawyer, scully” <- mulder, heed my words: do not doubt her power.

wow… times have changed. scully had to explain what ketamine was to detective curtis. because it was in amy’s blood. had it aired today, we would not need such a disclaimer.

he's baffled because ketamine is a veterinary drug and hey, mulder? why the hell do you know that.

(ohhhh, he probably learned it in mind school back in oxford. i was wondering if he was the kind of rich where he had horses, and therefore knew about their treatments)

detective curtis sucks. they find k in mulder and he doesn’t even give a damn. rude as hell.

(he does that gesture with his head that means “let’s talk away from the others”) "scully, you don’t have to do this” <- LIKE SHE WOULD EVER *NOT* DO THIS???? AND JUST LET HIM SIT IN JAIL????

ohhhhh she straight up tells the detective that he’s jailing an innocent man…. read him for filth!!!!!!

WAIT!!! one of the other cops is the one who was cutting out all of the photos!!!!

he pulls out a gun and fires?? hey man. what's going on.

it takes medical scully .5 seconds to determine that he is dead. and this guy also has that mark on his head that amy had!!!

this officer, now deceased, had become a joke for believing in aliens and other such creatures. scully says that the cutting himself out of the photos speaks to mental illness… and she finds a magazine of abductees with amy on the cover!!!

so both amy and this other officer had a deep puncture wound that went to their brain, and she thinks that they knew each other…

mulder is writhing about on the prison floor, while he recalls CSM and his father arguing, and fleeing to find samantha. and he remembers his mother beating on his father’s chest, yelling “not samantha, not samantha”…. then he shakes on the bars and screams for the guard!!!!!!!

he spent all night demanding to talk to scully!!!! and he just recently shut up!!!! wow!!! that's determination!!!

he’s sitting in the prison cell… “i heard you didn’t get much sleep”, she says when she walks in.

and this make me so emotional. she wants him to be okay SO badly, and they do this thing where they act like everything is totally fine and chill when things couldn’t be worse, and it makes me teary. they're trying to preserve normalcy, but doing so with a grin as if to say, what even is normal anymore? it's part of their whole "saying so much with so little" th

he says he did not kill those people, and she believes him, and she’s gathered enough proof to support that. OKAY DETECTIVE!!!!!

the blood splatter on the shirt doesn’t match the point of entry of the bullets!! so then how did the blood get on there????

scully theory time: amy believed she was an abductee, and perhaps she had contacted mulder. and her repeated house paintings were evidence of the treatment she was undergoing. 

she believes they were suffering from “waxman-geschwind syndrome” (i love that she knows this <3), which leads to vivid dreams 

it is also called dostoyevsky syndrome because he had it!!! fun facts with scully <3

but now he needs to know why he was there and why he didn’t stop the violence with amy and david, because he’s mulder and of course everything is his fault. but also, i don’t blame him, because i would feel the same way if i learned something horrific happened in my presence and i could not recall it.

she has arranged for his arraignment, and scully parks haphazardly in the parking lot of the psychologist’s office where amy was receiving treatment. and they find his car!! covered in dust!!

they go to speak with dr. goldstein, who says he hasn’t met mulder before. 

dr. goldstein uses light and sound to access repressed memories, which sounds evil. “it’s unconventional but it’s not invasive” <- girl what would the FDA say?!?!?

(this show relies an awful lot on repressed memories. how do you even know if you have any of those?)

the doctor insists that he is very ethical and seems deeply offended at their implications that what he does is morally unsound, but scully looks deep into his eyes and said “i know what you do”…. ohhh girl what do you know!!!

OH!! mulder remembers coming here WITH amy!!! so the doctor totally lied to their faces. and scully says he GAVE amy and mulder the ketamine, and whatever else he did started the blackouts and seizures

see, this is interesting, because now we know that ketamine can be useful in medical treatment of mental illness, but clearly dr. goldstein was just playing mad scientist.

she asks why tf he would undergo those treatments, but bam!!! more mulder doubled over in pain, recalling his parents fighting. he falls to his knees

“i’m fine” “no, i’m not going to take that for an answer. you do not belong at work. you need to be somewhere where you can be monitored” <- YES TELL HIM!!!!!!! stop messing around!!!

(everyone cheered)

the height difference here is super visible and it looks almost like a foot between their heads and it’s soooo <3

“you are a danger to yourself and a danger to me” <- OHHHH yes. convince him to do it for your sake if he won't do it for himself.

OHHHH BUT HE DOESN’T WANT THE SYMPTOMS TO STOP!!! he says he’s remembering what happened after his sister was taken away!!

well, maybe we can remember from a hospital bed?

he asks for the car keys and she keeps refusing, and just when i think she’s going to give in and let him have them, she says they can go to his mom's house, “but i’m driving” and that’s right queen you do NOT let that man behind a wheel!!!!!

off to his mother’s house

surprise mulder visit!!! he is barreling right in. she seemed so happy to see him... but this changes.

“you’ve kept things from me, you’ve kept secrets from me” ohhh she asks scully wtf is wrong with him…

HE SAYS THAT TAKING SAMANTHA WASN’T THEIR CHOICE??? he wants to know what happened that night and he doesn’t want scully to hear…. damn, that’s crazy 

so they go in a room and he ACCUSES HIS MOM OF CHEATING ON HIS DAD WITH CSM??? okay, so i thought i was seeing hints of this in the past, but like. they could have just been friends, so i didn’t think that much of it. clearly there was some sort of fondness, the genre of which is yet to be determined.

he’s saying that she betrayed their family to do so, and she SLAPS HIM ACROSS THE FACE!!!

“who is my father?” “what do you want, to kill him again?” <- OH MY FUCKING GOD????

(this is absolutely WILD because we know how much of a momma's boy he is, how he hugs her and tucks her in bed and kisses her forehead and has doted on her ever since her stroke; to hear him say all of this is deeply shocking and indicative of how unwell he is)

she says she won’t answer any more questions and he’s bleeding from the forehead…. 

he snuck out and took the car??????? LEAVING SCULLY IN HIS MOM’S HOUSE?????

what are they supposed to talk about!!!!!!!!

he rolls up to dr. goldstein's office and asks what he did to him. 

“i did nothing wrong” “you put a HOLE in my HEAD” <- medical malpractice lawsuit is loading, but that line delivery killed me

turns out he put a hole in his head to electrically stimulate his brain?? and mulder says to do it again???

absolutely nothing should ever touch your brain imo, but what do i know?

he shoots mulder up with some k and lays him down, straps him into a contraption and turns it on. 

it seems he remembers his mother being choked?? but you can’t tell by who because everything is so distorted. WHO HURT HER??

now goldstein is strapping him down even more, and putting ANOTHER HOLE IN HIS BRAIN (!!!), and it’s reminding me of that terrible drill from scully’s abduction that kept inching closer and closer

when a ton of cops show up to arrest goldstein!!! he leaves behind a bloody seat, but no mulder??? where did he go!!!!!

scully is here now too and goldstein wouldn’t snitch so scully is off to question him. 

HOLY FUCK he won’t answer so she straight up GRABS HIM!!!!! until he says mulder said he was going to “exorcise his demons” 

(she was wild for that one but also entirely understandable. you don't lay hands on him around her and walk away unscathed)

SO HE GOES BACK TO RHODE ISLAND??? where the events of that particular evening that keep being replayed again and again in his head went down.

the house is surrounded by cops, and she explains that the officers must NOT SHOOT, and he needs immediate medical care, and she is going in, so watch tf out.

it’s so so so quiet as she walks in…. she starts to yell his name and he says “leave me alone, scully” (he's out of his mind but could still recognize her voice... something touching there)

she opens the door and he’s in some kind of trance??!

WHAT THE FUCK HE HAS HIS GUN????? near his mouth. oh no. oh no oh no oh no.

(the hallucination cgi that gets cut between these very serious scenes almost makes me giggle)

he turns the gun on scully and says “GO AWAY” oh my fucking god…

“are you going to shoot me, mulder? is that how much this means to you?” (he nods)

he’s not himself he’s not himself he’s not himself he’s not-

she tries to tell him that he’s on powerful drugs, and he doesn’t even know if those memories are his, and this isn’t the way to the Truth, and put down the gun, but then he FIRES TWO SHOTS???

the police are rushing in, and he is still firing!!!!!!!!

he shot them all into the window?? or wall or something??? and he slumps over

and she rests her body on him oh my GOD. oh my GOD.

the vulnerability there of her shielding him with her whole body while he relives his worst memories (that may or may not have actually happened) in a hallucinogenic haze....... her need to heal him... and his need to protect her coming through even though moments before he was ready to kill her......... hold on. we need to think on it.

we end with a scully episode wrap up, which i feel we haven't gotten in a while. she says he was cleared of wrongdoing, but he still has no recollection of what went down that night. and his seizures have subsided. 

“but i’m concerned that this experience will have a lasting effect. agent mulder undertook this treatment hoping to lay claim to his past- that by retrieving memories lost to him, he might finally understand the path he’s on. but if that knowledge remains elusive, and if it’s only by knowing where he’s been that he can hope to understand where he’s going, then i fear agent mulder may lose his course, and the truths he’s seeking from his childhood will continue to evade him… driving him more dangerously forward in impossible pursuit”

(fade to black)

SO WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT.

hold on. there are a MILLION things to unpack here.

this episode really solidified to the utterly batshit lengths he is willing to go to try and reach the truth, to the point beyond self-destruction into like, self nuclear annihilation. like we just need to let that sink in for a second. holy fuck. i mean i KNEW he was haunted and i knew he was tortured and i knew he was going to devote every minute of his life to getting the Truth, but the recklessness with which he does so reached new heights here. he let some guy give him DRUGS and drill into his BRAIN. what the actual fuck bro.

also, what actually happened?? who actually killed those people and put him in their bloody shirt?? it’s left entirely ambiguous. beyond the visuals of CSM, there are no other clues. did the victims end their own lives with his gun after remembering stuff they had suppressed from dr. goldstein’s brain tickler??? or was he poorly framed? and if so by who and how and why??

and also. he thinks his dad might not be his dad???? can you IMAGINE him knowing that it is CSM’s blood in his veins??? holy FUCK bro. his mother seemed DEEPLY offended so i don’t feel like that is actually the case but you never know with these things. i'm going to assume those were the drugs talking because we know how much he loves his momma, but for that chilling thought to even enter his head, god, the turmoil and self-loathing it must have produced.

and scully… this was a mulder episode, but it also really was her episode. her doctoring, her sleuthing- she gets him out of trouble that someone worked overtime to get him into by discounting all of the evidence carefully constructed against him- her putting her foot down and saying get to the hospital, i'm not going to stand by and let this keep happening, and then putting herself in front of the gun for him, risking it all to try and bring him back from the brink. her covering him with her own body, holding him down, being there for him as he witnessed his demons dancing in from of him.

her grabbing goldstein by the neck, saying she will not lose anything else, not after so much has been taken from her; dammit she’ll grab what she has left and sink her claws in, and help who gets between her and her loved ones, be it a shitty detective or a grand murder conspiracy, because she’ll calculate the most efficient way to tear everything to the ground and then hold steady in the ruins

wow. need to sleep on this one for sure. it went absolutely CRAZY. but again, s4! it’s so dark! where is the laughter??

so, what do i think after approximately 24 hours have passed since i watched this episode? i enjoyed it! my mutual phoebe pointed out how scully is the one who is in charge here, which is a big change from her loss of autonomy that characterizes the rest of the season. and i have to agree. it felt good to watch her in her element, be it solving crime or diagnosing niche psychological conditions or putting her life on the line for mulder. again, it was centered on his demons, but were these not also scully's demons? watching someone she loves lose who they are under the influence of something that cannot be controlled? and the realization that he was desperate enough to consider such a thing an option in the first place? watching her best friend suffer- is that not also a form of torture?

it was nice to see him tortured for a change. it's been a while! and it's so interesting to watch.

so i liked the episode, but i probably wouldn't get down with a casual rewatch. again, a bit too heavy for kicking my feet up and relaxing. but i thought it was very interesting, a fascinating look into both of their characters, and as a whump addict i am deeply pleased.

[queencaramilflinda]

Listen I understand why some people disagree bc I love them as characters but personally I don’t particularly want another full season with the Bad Kids. I will watch it if they do one, but I feel like not only have the characters reached the natural conclusions of their arcs, the Intrepid Heroes have all grown so much as players from when Fantasy High came out like 5 years ago that I think it would feel a bit disingenuous. Like Ally had never played D&D before Fantasy High, and Kristen was played accordingly. Ally even said in Starstruck “no more bumbling Kristen shit”

All that being said I wouldn’t mind a short season (up to 10 eps) for junior/senior year or for the IH to do live shows of the characters. I would love a cross over season between Fantasy High and the Seven or even PirOL, I think that could be fun.

[a-drama-addict]

Harding: So why’d you become a Grey Warden Davrin?

Davrin: I wanted to feel like I had purpose, Wardens gave me that :)

Harding: Alright! What about you Rook?

Therése, who murdered her father, committed arson and then killed her father’s wife: Oh you know. It was just another Tuesday.

[juliareed]

The time you were shot, you told me that you had been mugged. If you had died that day, I would have buried a stranger. I don't know if a single word you have ever said to me was true.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Learning Curve Hall-of-Famer right here. Tuvok making Chell clean the transporter room with the equivalent of a toothbrush as, I assume, a punishment of some sort & Harry coming out of left field with a 'You missed a spot <3' just to kick him while he's down. Harry, the man's gonna be there LITERALLY all day. Absolute bastards these Starfleet types <- said with love

[bellaaldamas]

@stupidrant this is the official, SMS approved (hopefully) gif everyone should use whenever they encounter a fandom troll.