#which is. you know. compelling!

[kazumasdiary]

hypothesis: asobaro is about falling in love (and it being a bad idea for all parties involved); asoryuu is about being in love (and it being a bad idea for all parties involved).

[stil-lindigo]

reverb in an empty hall.

prints (all proceeds go towards aid for Gaza)

[imaybe5tupid]

Why bother? (Why bother?) It's gonna hurt me. (It's gonna hurt me.) It's gonna kill when- (Why bother!) -You desert me! (Gonna hurt me!)

Set after Nightmare. Laios is reminiscing and contemplating.

[missingn000]

hey all! i wrote a what-if character study & action fic for if king fought sanji instead of zoro during the raid on onigashima. i'd really love if you gave it a read! thanks so much!

link

playlist

happy reading!

[katabay]

original thief series basso & garrett :)

ngl, it's about quality over quantity for me. an npc can have a total of three minutes of screen time, but if they have a cool name, they can live rent free in my head and I'll spend several hours trying to decipher drawable features from a blurry screenshot of pixels

there is a vague hint of a story here, and that's because every time I try to play thi4f, I get incredibly frustrated with how Not Fun the game play is. like, is the story good? well. but it has a PLAGUE. that should've given it instant 'I'll replay this once a year' status in my heart, but the game play sucks so bad that I've never finished it. I can't believe Not Fun gameplay beat out my obsession with narrative plagues.

anyway, the idea is basically if the original era had a game with a plague centric narrative and some other stuff I liked out of thi4f thrown into a narrative blender, with a heavy dash of horror thrown in because some parts of the thief games were scarier to me than entire dedicated horror genre games.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[vaguely-concerned]

lucanis truly has a near terminal case of burned out golden child syndrome. caterina fucked both of these kids over so incredibly bad with the dynamic she enforced there, with illario being labled the perpetual fuckup kid where lucanis 'could do no (would never be allowed to do) wrong'. the way he admits in the first coffee date scene that the only thing that happened when he showed he could carry the weight of expectation was that more weight was added makes me so sad. you can hear it in caterina's voice in his intro mission that she's incredibly proud of him, but this is clearly a leandra and hawke situation where that pride never translates into relief or resolution or unconditional warmth or understanding or anything that really helps.

[sage-nebula]

Kristoph Gavin's black psyche-locks have remained unbroken for 17 slutty, slutty years.

[crabsnpersimmons]

Miss, it's time to go to bed. Are you on your phone again? Sleeping late will ruin your lovely skin. This is the final warning. If you don't fall asleep now, We are going to dance. - "잘자요 아가씨" by ASMRZ

found this song and i was possessed to draw @starriegalaxy's butler Eclipse dancing to it

(also i apologize in advance for my horrendous hiragana, hangul, and cursive)

Textless, effectless version under the cut!

[aerithisms]

i think my problem with this dw season arc accusing the audience of fanbrain for theorising about ruby is that it both feels deceitful and isn't actually that compelling from a character perspective. the season goes out of its way to build up supernatural mystery around ruby and even invokes susan more heavily than ever before in a way that is deliberately trying to get the audience to make those connections. and then it turns around and says you stupid idiot why would you ever try to connect these dots i have deliberately tried to get you to connect.

building up a mystery only for the character to be ordinary is an impossible girl arc redux only this time accusing the viewer of failing to see the humanity of the companion, whereas the impossible girl arc was turning that accusation on the doctor. 7b didn't really blame the audience for viewing clara as a puzzle and in fact several times spells out the fact that clara is perfectly ordinary before the big reveal to give the audience a chance to catch on. as 7b goes on, instead of laying the mystery on thicker, the audience just gets more and more affirmations that clara is a normal human being (rings of akhaten, journey to the centre of the tardis, hide). i found this approach compelling because it was rooted in character, focusing on the doctor's disconnection from humanity/the gendered dynamic of a man treating a woman as his manic pixie mystery to pull him out of grief. s14's meta approach of accusing the viewer feels both unfair, given it has deliberately led the viewer towards theorising, and personally less compelling to me because it wasn't tied into character in any way.

the thing about rey's parentage in tlj is that the reason rian johnson chose to go for that reveal was that it was the only answer that was interesting. none of the theories - rey is a skywalker, rey is a kenobi, and even the eventually canonical rey is a palpatine - were interesting or satisfying because they brought nothing compelling to the table for the story being told. the only satisfaction to be gained from those answers was a fanbrained "omg rey is important because she's related to that guy from the other movie." on top of that, rey desperately wants her parents to have been important, to give her life and her abandonment some kind of significance. so them being ordinary provided the most compelling trajectory for her character because it was the thing she least wanted to hear. it forced her to do the most introspection and growth, as well as tying into the film's themes about the capacity of ordinary people to be special. it wasn't just a choice made to "gotcha" the viewer, it was rooted in character.

i don't think ruby's mother being ordinary accomplishes the same thing. by invoking susan, s14 is engaging with the most egregious example of the doctor's streak of abandonment, which has potential to be very compelling in relation to ruby (and now also the doctor's) own abandonment issues. theories that ruby might be susan, or be somehow related to susan, or somehow related to the doctor, weren't just fanbrained "omg she's related to that guy i know from the classic series." they were theories genuinely rooted in character and the potential to explore both the doctor and ruby's issues with abandonment. and this is something the show willingly led fans towards by invoking susan so much in the first place. so for the show to turn around and act like they were shallow out of nowhere ideas when they were not shallow and were based on potential character conflicts the show itself deliberately invoked, feels misguided.

as well as that, ruby's mother being ordinary does not require that same growth from ruby as it did for rey because it is exactly what ruby wanted to hear. she never wanted her mother to be important, she just wanted to know who her mother was and have a connection with her. so finding out she was a normal woman who still loves her and wants to be a part of her life is everything she's ever wanted. it doesn't introduce interesting conflict for her the way rey's parents being ordinary did for her, because they were written as different characters with different hangups over their abandonment.

tl;dr i don't necessarily dislike ruby's mother being ordinary as an idea but compared to the things it was inspired by - 7b and star wars - it is not nearly as compelling in terms of how it relates to the characters or themes. and the meta angle, while conceptually interesting, doesn't quite work for me because it feels a little manipulative of the audience.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Hey, I was wondering why you think Roxy was destined to end up with Eridan? I get the shared wizard interest and the quirk foreshadowing I guess, but that still seems like a large stretch. It's kinda like saying that Equius and Dirk are going to end up together because they both like robots and horses. It's just seems like the sort of character remixing that Hussie uses a lot in Homestuck. But what do you think?

Roxy

- fucking LOVES WIZARDS

- is a hipster and literally wears a colorswapped version of eridans scarf

- is pink and bubbly

- uses riflekind

- has a perfectly opposite powerset to eridan (can create anything by stealing its void away vs. can destroy anything with pure belief) and are connected to each other through the matriorb

- has a crush on a troubled, eccentric prince so you know that's her type

- quirk cameo with momlonde

Eridan

- Is a wizard

- Is a hipster and literally wears a colorswapped version of roxy's scarf

- Uses riflekind

- Had a huge crush on Feferi, a bubbly pink girl whom he (wrongly) believed to be so nice she might not even be capable of pitch, so we know that's his type

- The equal and opposite powerset & quirk cameo

At the end of the day I can't tell you what to ship, nor am I interested in making anyone ship anything, but I'm kind of just saying, the things that make Roxy predisposed to liking Eridan are, like, the biggest parts of her character, and Eridan is very easy & would pretty much say yes to anybody, but Roxy is also definitely His Type and Eridan is a simp who thrives under any sort of positive attention & would do anything someone asked if they were giving him positive feedback. or attention at all. case in point kanaya fucking hates him but at least she talks to him and he's constantly praising the shit out of her

Jane and Jake also have their introductions IMMEDIATELY followed by talking about how they've got a thing for "cobalt" hunks and "cerulean babes" respectively, so setting up roxy with eridan also fits into a pattern of the b2 kids being set up to date a dead troll. still rereading this part of the comic, but it really jumped out to me how blatant it was for jake and jane

[thornswoggled]

i think there is a convo to be had about how chises dragon curse - for all of its confusing mechanics - functions less as a plot point and more of a physical manifestation of the character growth chise has yet to undertake, and an unwillingness to reckon with the person she is past the roles she serves in the lives of others

chise takes this curse on when she returns to the auction house, and location is everything here. at its core, this curse is anger, hatred, fear, pain, and a deep desire to return to comfort - destructive emotions that rip apart all it touches. when chise breaks down at the sight of the frightened dragon for sale, elias tells her that those are not her emotions, that she shouldnt let them overtake her - but they are her emotions, that dragon is her, and there was never a possibility that she wouldnt follow it on its flight over london. seeing as things have "worked out" for her til now, chise hasnt yet reckoned with the gravity of what it meant to sell her life away. she hasnt reckoned with the hatred and anger and pain that she still harbors - unfortunately, moving to a quaint little english cottage does not undo a lifetime of neglect. her attempts to fix those around her, philomela being a prime example, will only get her so far. eventually she will have to look within, and i dont think shes done more than dip her toes in. "this is my past, these sad things happened to me, now things are better" is not the end of her self-reflection. now that we know the past she carries with her, what does all of that mean for her? what kind of person is she? who will she become?

im thinking too about this recurring theme of "atavism." its a key feature in tambs dragons, who are able to evolve at will to suit their needs, and yori also mentions it when noting chises appearance. atavism is the reoccurrence of dormant or ancestral traits, and you could make the argument that its also functioning metaphorically here. evolving to suit the world around you, past burdens and trauma reemerging when its unexpected or inconvenient... my thoughts on this are loose right now

theres this concept that we've been getting, too, that chises dragon curse is something temporary. arc 1 left us with the idea that her two curses must remain in balance, in perpetuity, for her to survive. but theres this new interpretation of it being something that serves her for now, but she might shed it once it fulfills its purpose

continuing with the idea of the dragon curse as a sort of... idk, ptsd metaphor, what are these two examples from ch 98 implying? that her negative emotions will serve her when it comes time? that this sort of baggage cant be exorcised away? framing the dragon curse as temporary broaches the possibility of chise one day being cured of it, but what does that mean? and should she be?

(of course, the 'future chise' we see in ch 1 doesnt have a visible left hand, but is that meant to be a literal glimpse into the future, anyway? theres also a dragon made of vines behind her in that panel, didya notice it?)

i mentioned the auction house at the beginning because i feel that if chise sheds the dragon curse, it will be in much the same way she attained it. chise has been told that she is free, she is loved, she has told her "mother" that shes moving on with her life. but all of this is just the beginning - and lets be real, i dont think elias is putting her into therapy. joseph is the only character i can think of who is truly, earnestly pushing chise toward the difficult self-reflection she needs. im excited to see what he says when she taps into her "cursed fury"

this is why im so excited that we are being told explicitly, time and again, that things are about to go really bad for chise. tamb is such a masterwork of character writing, it is so incredibly emotionally intelligent and gives so much grace and patience to its characters. i have no doubt that chises character arc is going to go in such a spectacular direction

[shhroomer]

You guys ever read the most beautiful, jaw dropping, feet kicking, leaves you with a feeling of yearning fic that it possesses you? yea that was me anyways here’s vampire Kyle and his annoying assigned bodyguard who’s also a witch

(ALSO IF YOU WANT TO READ SAID FANFIC ITS A KYLE X READER FIC CALLED ITS FALLING FOR THE IDEA BY FEDOSAURUSREX ON AO3 THAT INSPIRED ME TO WHIP THIS WHOLE AU UP)

[chibibunnis]

fem!sanji based on that one nami figure

one with colored lineart and the other without bc i couldnt choose

and of course the nami figure in question

[caeslxys]

here's the thing. laudna would have stopped it. if she knew delilah was about to fracture the gnarlrock. if she could parse her own feelings from hers.

and here's the thing. imogen has been plagued by nightmares for a decade. and this rock is the first bit of solace outside of her trust in laudna that she has ever had.

and laudna was just involved in shattering it. this tiny bit of solace.

and. here's the thing: laudna would've stopped it.

and. here's the thing. imogen would've stopped it. the only reason imogen didn't go is because she was specifically afraid that she would attempt to intervene and ruin their relationship with the volition before it ever began.

and here's the thing. liliana set out 25+ years ago specifically to spare her daughter. and that seemingly has not ever wavered as her core motivation. but people keep being drawn to the moon. kids keep being drawn towards the moon. and liliana is a mother. she was a mother before she ever knew she was an exaltant.

for 25+ years she has worked to "cure" imogen. the only solace she probably ever received was in at least attempting to console the kids who found themselves lured in by her same pull.

liliana begs imogen not say that they may have to kill each other. she breaks at hearing imogen's resolve. but there's kids, imogen. there's kids here. imogen. she can't leave. she's a mom.

and, here's the thing: imogen's her daughter. the daughter liliana left. or tried to leave. the daughter she only had through dreams. and imogen is working with the volition. and imogen has been her sole drive for 25+ years.

and imogen might have just been involved in shattering the little solace she might have ever had.

and, here's the thing: imogen would've stopped them.

[funsize-cenobites]

Mihawk-Brain-Eating-Syndrome has seized me.

The post that started this whole train of thought came from @manofbeskar who's Mihawk thoughts, Mishanks heartwrenchers, and absolutely gorgeous art are so inspiring I feel chewing-on-the-doorframe feral every time I check their blog.

Mihawk has a complicated relationship with vivre cards. Yet despite all efforts at keeping the world and everyone in it at Yoru length he still manages to keep collecting bits of them.

Not many nowadays, its a rather intimate affair after all; to have someone give you a literal piece of their life so that you may always find them no matter where in the wide seas you may be. Assuring that you'll be the first to know should they leave that world entirely.

Far too intimate. It feels too obvious, too heavy handed, too much like handing him your heart and asking him to carry it. Such a thing is heavier than any blade and all the bloody deeds he can never truly wipe from the steel.

Its gentle and vulnerable and human. All the things Mihawk is convinced he could play at but never truly be again. But... I imagine at the start of his journey, maybe he was a touch more open. Perhaps accepting his first from a mentor as a parting of ways though he didn't yet have one of his own to offer in return.

Strange how a simple piece of card in his palm could feel like an open door. Always there, inviting him home. Always there, until it wasn't.

Mihawk will never forget the first time he felt one burning away into nothing in his hands. It went up so quick.. He had no idea it could take less than a minute to burn a home.

Then perhaps he found a crew, a more tangible place to nest and he suddenly had more vivre cards than he could tuck away on his person in a timely manner. Perhaps it became a ritual of sorts each morning, a part of his routine to tuck each one away. The captain, vice captain, and the rest of the specialists lining the inner band of his hat while the rest of the crew were individually squirreled away. A meditation, grounding and quiet. He would use it to remind himself of his role as the crew's swordsman, as their protector.

How could he forget the sharp sear of each individual card burning away, stuck close to his skin by waterlogged clothing as he dragged himself ashore gasping and choking on sea and blood and smoke. Having been left by marines that assumed he would drown because- perhaps pointed out by one that had deceived him, made Mihawk believe they were his friend to be led back to his family:

"No freak like that could exist without having eaten the devil's fruit."

How could he forget the embers escaping, dancing in the evening gloam like fireflies swarming around him? There were so many.. now there are none and gods he's been so empty since. How could such a small piece of paper take so much of him? To kill a man with a blade, even butchering him inelegantly, would be a greater mercy so long as he was dead.

Nowadays Mihawk knows better. Knows better than to trust or be trusted. That blades might chip and tarnish but they dont burn, never completely.

Yoru hums and sings in his hands as he wields her and she does not feel like home.. but she feels solid and eternal and cold. She will never burn. Her weight is bearable.

Impersonal.

Professional.

Yoru makes death an art in his hands. She is the brush not the paper, spattering fireflies over a night sky.

. . .

For years after, he kept far from others. Deciding to never get so close to anyone ever again. Safe in the knowledge he would never feel the burning sting of loss nor the cold cut of betrayal so acutely. Trust was a double edged blade, perhaps the only one he truly couldn't handle.

He was no protector.. so he wouldn't try to be.

Instead Mihawk would hunt. Chasing the marines mercilessly. Cutting a bloody path through their ranks and burning their fucking fortresses to the ground. At first they spoke of him as an insane lone swordsman, then a one man army, then a monster, a demon. The relentless yellow eyed freak that stalked the seas and nightmares of future vice admirals.

He systematically killed all those that harmed him. A shadow over the shore, a rogue wave swallowing their ships, a curse of vengeance come to reap. He destroyed all the records of his crew that he could get his hands on. If he must be cursed to slowly forget them over time, then the world government didnt deserve their memory either.

And so on it went for a time. Long enough for the hunt to lose its luster. Slaughtering sheep by the herd in search of a rare wolf.

Mihawk had almost forcibly forgotten about Vivre cards as a concept. His own remained untouched, never moving from where he hid it. He had no friends, no family, no nakama. Only a dwindling list of worthy foes to test himself against.

Until the day the king of pirates died. Until their golden age truly began.

Until he met Shanks, who held out a hand and asked him to step out of the monochrome past and into a thousand possible vibrant futures. Ones of lush reds and glittering golds, of polished onyx black and the purest, deepest blue.

.

"Here," Shanks said suddenly one night, holding out a small scrap of paper. The both of them were perched atop the ruins of a high sea wall on some remote island, enjoying the cold breeze from the north after a hard fought duel.

Mihawk, for all his composure, blanched. "What is that?" He knew and he did not take it.

"What do you think it is? Its a piece of my card." He said it so simply. Like it barely occured to him how precious such a thing was. Shanks didn't drop his arm, even as the silence stretched out between them.

"No."

"Come on, Takanome- Dont be like that! We're nak--"

"Rivals." He cut the younger man off abruptly. His chest felt too hot and too tight, burning and burning and, "We are rivals, Akagami."

Shanks must've been pouting, he could hear it in his voice, "Even more reason for you to take it. We could duel every day if you could always find me~ Come on.. Please? I want you to have it."

"...."

Hawkeyes glanced at his best friend rival and immediately regretted it. Shank's face was always full of so much hope, so much faith in... something.. It made Mihawk's heart catch in his throat every time to see those big earnest eyes staring at him almost as if, for a moment, it was faith in him.

"I don't know if I can give you mine.." He murmured. Shanks smiled soft, a little sad, and infuriatingly understanding without needing to know anything.

"I dont need it. I know you'll always find me." He pressed his heart, his home the scrap into Mihawk's palm and closed the swordsman's fingers over it. "And if I need to find you.. I'll just ask the wind."

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

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