#wow these are all over the place

[witchinatree]

i love when there is a character that i can overthink about. get rotated in my brain, idiot. i hope you heal from your traumas

[petrichoraline]

[vsvillain]

✩ anything for you — m.sk

pairing. sakura (le sserafim) x fem reader

summary. sakura has always been good at hiding her feelings, meaning you have absolutely no idea that she's been pathetically in love with you since high school, and she intends for it to stay that way. but it's getting harder and harder to hide how she feels, especially since you started living in her house.

info. non idol au, best friends to lovers, businesswoman sakura, down bad pining, like 1 random mention of yunjin at the end 👍 overall disgusting fluff ew

warnings. swearing, reader was stuck in a toxic relationship with a Man (not described in detail), brief mentions of overworking

word count. 2.4k

(a/n) this is the grossest fluffiest thing i have ever written so far . i need to write about car chases next

you wake up alone in a bed that isn't yours, pale morning sunlight shining softly through the curtains in an unfamiliar room, and it takes you a second to figure out where the hell you are before the memories of the previous night come crashing back down.

"ugh," you grumble, rolling around and pressing your face into the pillow. sakura's pillow. her expensive perfume lingers faintly, and you breathe in the familiar scent a few times to ground you before rolling out of bed and dragging yourself up to your feet. the thought of sleeping in longer is tempting, but you refuse to let yourself wallow for too long over your now ex-boyfriend—you're the one who ended it with him last night, after all. you don't want to waste any more time thinking about him.

after getting cleaned up in sakura's bathroom (she left out an extra toothbrush and towel for you, and you have to smile at her thoughtfulness) and putting on one of her sweaters, you pad down the hall and poke your head into her office. "kkura?"

your best friend glances up from her desk, face softening when she sees you. "good morning," she says with an affectionate smile, standing up and letting you wrap her in a hug. "did you sleep well?"

"yep. you?" you notice how she's holding herself more stiffly than usual, and you frown at her when you pull away. "i told you not to sleep on the couch! you should've just shared the bed with me."

sakura laughs self-consciously, blushing and looking away. "you were tired, i didn't want to make you uncomfortable." she takes another look at you, and her eyes light up. "is that my sweater?"

"huh? oh, yeah." you pull the sleeves over your hands and playfully flap them in her face. "why, do you want it back?"

"you look cute in it, so i suppose i can excuse the blatant thievery," sakura responds, the words leaving her mouth before she can even think about it. get a grip, she thinks frantically, hoping that her stupid infatuation with you isn't showing on her face. "anyway. um, do you want breakfast? i left a plate for you downstairs."

"you're so sweet." you lean in and kiss her on the cheek, unaware of the way it makes her heart jump. "did you already eat?"

"i did, i got up a few hours ago." sakura nods back towards her computer. "lots of paperwork to go through, so…"

"hey, what did i tell you about working too hard on weekends?" you try to look stern, poking a finger in her face. "i'm forcing you to take more breaks from now on, you're going to regret letting me stay with you."

sakura just laughs, leaning back. "i could never regret it," she says fondly, and immediately regrets saying that when your face lights up with an insufferably smug smirk. "i mean—"

"awww," you coo, throwing your arms around her and pressing an obnoxiously loud smooch on her cheek. "you are totally obsessed with me."

"i am not—" sakura flushes, trying to hold back an embarrassed smile as she struggles halfheartedly against your grip. "go eat the breakfast i made for you before it gets cold, you idiot."

you laugh and let her go, prancing out of her office and downstairs to the kitchen—all the while blissfully oblivious to how painfully fast sakura's heart is pounding.

she falls back into her office chair, putting her hands on her chest and sighing like a lovesick schoolgirl. i am so pathetic.

later that night, after a takeout dinner, you manage somehow to drag sakura out of her office for a much-needed break. the two of you are wandering around in a quiet park, and the cool autumn night air makes you shiver a little.

sakura glances over at you, noticing you shivering. "are you cold?" her tone turns scolding, and she nudges your arm. "i told you to bring a jacket."

"c-cold? of course not," you chatter unconvincingly. there's no way you're going to admit you're cold and face the full brunt of her "i-told-you-so" look. "i'm n-not cold at all."

sakura sighs. "oh, come here." she takes off her leather jacket and drapes it around you before you can even begin to protest, mumbling to herself in exasperation as she focuses on bundling you up. "hmph, you never listen to me… one of these days you're going to freeze to death, i swear. i don't know why i even try…"

you have to smile at the cute frown on her face as she frets over you. when she steps back, satisfied with her work, you give her a little kiss on the cheek. "thank you, kkura. you know you're really cute when you get all fussy like that?"

her face is extremely red when you pull away. "no i'm not."

"yes you are—" you gasp, delighted. "are you blushing?"

"no!" she squeaks, turning her face in the other direction. "that's just—the cold!"

"oh please, it's not that cold." you press closer to her side with a smirk. "you're blushing because of me."

"clearly it's cold enough to make you shiver like a chihuahua," sakura insists, still blushing. that was a friendly kiss, she convinces herself. she's my friend. we're being… friendly.

right, because wanting to grab you and kiss the stupid smirk off your face is definitely a 100% friendly urge.

"whatever you say." you sigh dramatically, breaking her out of her not-so-friendly thoughts. "hey, let's head back. it's getting late."

"alright," says sakura, relieved. she doesn't know how much more of your teasing she can handle until she melts into a puddle on the ground. "do you still feel cold?"

"no, your jacket is really warm. but…" you take her hand as you start walking home, tucking it into your pocket and interlacing your fingers. "i wouldn't want you to get cold without it~"

sakura's blush returns full-force, but thankfully you spare her from further teasing. a comfortable silence settles over the two of you as you continue walking home, and you realize, not for the first time, how happy you feel with her. you never felt this way with your ex-boyfriend, not even once… in fact, just thinking about the way he treated you makes you frown.

"you're quiet." sakura gently squeezes your hand. "what are you thinking about?"

you shrug. "i don't know, just… happy that i'm not with him anymore, i guess."

"he never deserved you," says sakura, squeezing your hand again and smiling softly when you look at her. it's a far cry from her usual expressionless businesswoman face, and you take satisfaction in knowing you're one of the few people with the privilege of seeing her smile like this.

"you deserve nice things, you know?" she continues as you walk along the sidewalk. "things that make you happy."

it just slips out. "you make me happy."

sakura blushes, caught off-guard. "w-well, you have me," she says, a little awkwardly as she tries to sound lighthearted. "you've always had me…"

you beam at her, unaware of the longing undertones in her voice. "i know."

"you're so pretty when you smile," sakura mumbles, almost to herself—but you hear it.

"what was that?" your smile turns into a smirk, seizing the opportunity to tease her a little more. "you think i'm pretty?"

sakura just looks at you, which wasn't the reaction you were expecting, and says without any hesitation, "yes."

"oh." suddenly it feels like you're dying. all the heat in your body rushes directly to your face so quickly that you feel lightheaded. you clear your throat, floundering for words. oh my god, am i dying? "hm. that's—mm."

sakura glances at you curiously, but thankfully doesn't say anything. the rest of the walk home—you've already started thinking of sakura's place as home—is spent more or less in silence, and you're left feeling like something has shifted in your relationship without you knowing exactly what it is.

the days pass, and you manage to get rid of any lingering feelings you still have for your ex. work starts back up, and your life almost completely returns to normal.

except you're still living with sakura. she never says anything about it, and neither do you. clearly she doesn't mind having you here. you think she's secretly grateful for the company, since she's so used to being alone in her big empty house all the time.

every time you sit down to start looking up places to move, sakura calls for you to come taste-test something she made, or to get your opinion on a new suit she got, and you tell yourself you'll just keep looking later. then you proceed to forget all about it until the cycle starts again.

one morning, you wake up in sakura's guest room—your room, now—and squint against the bright morning sunshine coming in through the windows. you and sakura had stayed up late watching movies and playing video games the previous night, and you vaguely recall her having to half-drag, half-carry your sleepy self upstairs and tuck you in.

you start to sit up, but you're immediately pulled back onto the bed with a surprised "oof". you look down to see an arm wrapped securely around your waist, and you glance behind you in confusion to find sakura sound asleep while snuggled against your back.

you cover your face in embarrassment as the rest of the memory returns to you. stay with me, you had implored her while latched onto her side like a koala. somehow your positions had reversed while you slept, and now she shows no signs of letting go.

"kkura?" you whisper, taking her hand and giving it a soft squeeze.

"mm," sakura mumbles, eyes still shut. and suddenly you're extremely glad that you're turned away from her, because the realization must be showing all over your face.

you… are in love with her.

it's such a sudden thought that it actually makes you say "what the fuck" out loud, and she stirs from behind you. "hm…?"

"n-nothing!" you yelp in a strained voice, heart pounding. "go back to sleep."

sakura shifts closer and lets out a cute little yawn, which does not at all help your current flustered state. "good morning… everything alright?"

"yeah, i'm fine," you say quickly, trying to think of how you can change the subject. "um, thanks for carrying me up here last night… and staying with me…"

"of course." sakura seems to notice how tense you've gotten and pulls away to sit up, much to your dismay. "no need to thank me, you know i'd do anything for you."

"oh, anything?" you roll over to face her and immediately regret it. she's smiling back at you, and something about the look on her face makes you wonder if it might be possible that… whatever you're feeling, she's feeling it too.

"yes, anything." sakura's smile is soft and unguarded, and it makes you want to do something stupid.

driven by instinct, you take her hand and pull her down to lie next to you so the two of you are face-to-face. "sakura… anything, really?" were her lips always this pretty?

sakura meets your eyes, lips parting slightly as she catches on to the implications of your question. "anything."

you're not sure who made the first move, but the next thing you know, her hands are cradling your face and you're kissing. and it's not some big explosion of feelings, like you thought it would be. if anything it feels warm and natural, like coming home after a long day.

sakura's eyes flutter open when you have to break the kiss for air. "am i still dreaming?" she mumbles, blinking at you and gently touching your cheek like she's making sure you're real.

"i love you." the words leave your mouth before you can even think, and you cover your face. "i mean—um, i like—no, wait, i—uh—i just—"

"i love you too." sakura cuts off your nervous rambling with another one of those smiles that could bring world peace, looking down shyly at your intertwined hands. "i've wanted to do that for a long time."

"we should get married," you say, because apparently you just have no filter at all this morning. "or, um. maybe we should date first."

sakura laughs, leaning in to kiss your cheek. "that sounds like a good plan to me."

"i mean, we're practically dating already." you feel like your soul is happily floating in the clouds right now, but then you sit up in alarm. "wait, don't you have to go to work now? it's already 9."

sakura shrugs, running a hand through her hair. "i called last night to tell them i'm using one of my vacation days today. i, uh…" she looks away, blushing. "i wanted to stay in with you…"

"awww, you're taking the day off for me?" you gasp dramatically, tackling her in a hug. "the most serious workaholic in the city is skipping work for me?"

sakura yelps in surprise when you knock her back into the mattress, and she sighs in exasperation as she halfheartedly struggles against your grip. "so what if i want to spend time with you," she complains, still blushing. "you know i—i love you."

you giggle and press your lips to hers in another kiss, but then something else occurs to you. "wait a second." you pull back and give her a bombastic side eye. "how long?"

sakura smiles sheepishly, knowing what you mean without you having to say it. "a long time."

"since college?"

"since high school."

you hit her in the shoulder. "sakura!"

"what?" she protests, ducking away with a laugh. "what about it?"

"you've been in love with me this whole time and you never said anything?" you scold lightly, propping yourself up on the bed and crossing your arms. "i can't believe you."

the way she's looking at you right now, her whole face practically glowing with love, makes you feel like your heart might just explode in your chest. "i'm saying it now," says sakura, sitting up as well and giving you a cheeky grin that doesn't match the fondness in her voice. "i love you."

"i love you too," you mumble, heat rushing to your cheeks. then something else occurs to you, and you grin. "hey, you haven't even taken me out on a date yet and you've already got me in your bed. who knew you had so much rizz~?"

"you need to stop hanging out with yunjin," she says, an unimpressed look on her face. "come over here and kiss me again."

"wow, so bossy…" you pretend to swoon, and then you let her pull you onto her lap so she can shut you up with a kiss.

[mikimeiko]

The Expanse | Season 5 (2020-21), Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby

[tunastime]

Restful Dreaming, Mr. Freelancer

hi everyone :3 so um. I may have gotten very much into rvb smiles. and you know what happens when I really love something! and when I really love some guys from a something! yeap. here we go again. I just think caboose could be friends with everyone. I'm a caboose enjoyer what can I say. I love him.

Washington follows the Blue Team back to Valhalla, where he tries to get some much needed rest. Emphasis on tries. (3828 words)

When Tucker and Caboose find the unused, fourth room in the base, it’s Tucker that sweeps his arm out and gestures grandly to the room around them. It’s not very large—bed, closet, table, desk, bathroom. Enough space to walk around in—enough blue-white light to make sure nobody goes insane in somewhere so dark. Caboose goes on about how they’re almost neighbors, listing off what they could do being so close, gossip and sleepovers and the like, and Tucker goes on about how that’s nice, Caboose, and sure thing, buddy, and both speak to a Wash that’s not listening. He’s looking over the room, filtering in through a fine layer of yellow, just enough to change the hue from cool to warm, and something settles in the slope of his shoulders. He turns after a beat, folding his arms.

“You’re certain I can stay here?” he asks. Tucker shrugs.

“Yeah, I mean…” he starts, in the way that Tucker always seemed to do when he was on the edge of a decision that ultimately made him uncomfortable. “Just repaying the favor. Plus you’re the only one who really knows how to get Church outta that thing.”

“Epsilon,” Wash corrects. “And it’s a memory unit, not a thing.”

“Sure,” Tucker shrugs. “Whatever.”

“We still don’t know where that thing is,” Wash says, but it’s without any of the usual bored sting he might’ve normally laid on. He can feel the worry in the room like water around the ankles, like it invaded his boots. He steps side to side for a moment, trying to shake the feeling.

“We’ll find it!” Caboose pipes up, nodding several times. “We’ll find Church. I know we will.”

Wash sighs. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I hope so.”

There’s a beat of silence. Wash feels his lungs work against the tight feeling in his shoulders all the way up until the point where Caboose breaks the silence.

“I’m going to go make lunch,” he says. “I’m starving.”

“Good point, Caboose,” Tucker agrees. He turns to Wash as he adds: “You, uh, let us know if you need anything. You’ve got the tour, now, so…”

Wash nods.

“Right,” he manages. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing.”

The silence leftover is mostly full of the sound of air circulating through the room and pulling into his helmet. Washington stands in the room in that long moment, finding his head spinning just enough to rock his balance. He’s not so sure he should even be standing, but Tucker had handed him enough med-kits to keep him running, and his bones felt mostly in place, despite some nasty bruising up his shoulder and back, all the way down his right hip and thigh and knee. He pulls himself from his stuck spot, finally gathering the strength to unlatch his helmet. Both thumbs hook under his chin until it clicks, and he sets it in the armor stand. 

The thing about the armor is that they’re not necessarily supposed to take it off. It does come off, huge chunks of titanium alloy perfectly compressed to fit each wearer, to sit comfortably against layers of computer arrays and magnetic fasteners, bolts and straps and sealers. As soon as he starts pulling, chest pieces and arm braces come loose, and he sheds the exosuit slowly. Underneath is the cool-black bodysuit. That’s the part that really shouldn’t come off. It did, every once in a while, when there was enough time to spend recalibrating, readjusting, resyncing. The suit and all its layers, down to the skin, down to the channel of his spine, from tailbone to nape of neck, aligned with sensors and biocomponents along a fine, white scar to a thick, but equally healed one at the base of his skull, took time to adjust to. That time was precious.

But it didn’t matter with this suit. There was no connection. The suit would simply communicate without having to know, would respond to forces it knew best, and rely on what he had without a physical, grounding connection. He was free of it. The scar and its components would fade from his body. They’d be nothing but a memory.

Carefully, Wash dissects the titanium bodysuit—kevlar—coming apart at the seam, carefully fastened, skin-tight. It’s uncomfortable at first, adjusting to the air of the base, without the suit’s micro-adjustments for temperature and humidity, but he eventually shirks free and places everything in the armor compartment. 

He feels light. He also feels exposed and a little small. He searches for any sort of replacement, sleeping clothes, uniforms, anything plastered with UNSC across the arm or chest or back. When he does find it, he’s quick to pull it on and over his head. The shirt falls crooked across him, pants similarly too large, and he has to wonder what sort of Spartan these were made for, knowing how he certainly wasn’t the smallest soldier he’d met. It’s something, though, and he doubts he’ll be wearing it for very long. In fact, he finds himself tugging it off as soon as he figures out the shower, and douses himself in hot water long enough to get the plastic smell off his skin. 

Without the shadow of the day, his reflection in the mirror takes on a sunken quality. His eyes are dark and tired, lines stretching out underneath them, and the already-pale, now-bony quality of his face does little to hide it. He’s turned all sharp angles all too quickly. But if he’s got anyone to bitch to it would be himself. Well, maybe Caboose and Tucker would listen. But they probably wouldn’t understand. Epsilon might’ve ratted out his bad sleeping habits to Caboose, were he still around to actually see them. But he very well was half the reason they existed, so, touche. 

Besides, now Wash was looking out on a bed that was impossibly too big for him. He pulls back far too many layers of blankets and pushes aside pillows and makes himself a space between it all.

The lights are dim, casting long, fine shadows in the cool light. They dim further to a blackness as he settles, lying back in the few pillows and pulling still-starchy sheets around him. His tired body all but sinks into the mattress, body aching at every joint from overuse, begging to stay and to be comforted. It's there he lies for a moment, adjusting to weight and pressure, air and texture around him. He sighs. It’s the longest exhale in what feels like a very long time. The back of his throat, up through his nose, starts to burn. 

He squeezes his eyes shut. He takes a sharp breath in.

Washington’s hands come up on instinct, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes as he fights back a sound from deep in his chest. It’s hard—it feels so stupid to call this hard, because he could just crack, just for a second. Just for a moment of relief, and—he does, shutting his eyes tight still and willing in a breath through his nose as he turns his face into pillows that he hopes were nobody else's and probably never were and never would be again. Nobody knows he’s alive. Not Command, not Project Freelancer, not the Meta—Maine. Not even Epsilon. For now. The weight off his shoulders was so instant it nearly winded him, on a bed seemingly too large. It was simply him, unshackled, and the blue-white armor in its case, and Caboose, and Tucker. And the base around him was quiet. 

Washington lets his body relax. Sleep comes like a heavy blanket.

His second week’s worth of sleep doesn’t go as well. Tonight, Wash is still awake. It’s not of his own choice—if it were he’d already be asleep, curled into the plush pillows and firm mattress. He stares up at the ceiling. His eyes are dry, and it’s not all that comfortable to blink, actually. He’d prefer to focus on sinking into this nice bed, but he’s having a bit of a hard time. What he means by nice bed is that he’s gotten so used to sleeping on the ground or in the back seat of a moving Warthog or the jet or his cot so folded and unfolded that it stopped being comfortable, or the bunk that was just the right size but not nearly deep enough to fit him without moving, that having actual room to move around is really good. It’s really good, actually, and he’s not sure when the last time he had such a nice sleep was. 

He’s not even sure when he woke up that first day, aside from the fact that it was Caboose waking him up and it was still dark out—or had just gotten that way. Maybe he’d slept that whole day. But he wandered around the Valhalla base instead, swallowing down the ache low in his spine. He mapped the rooms in his head, twisting around the circular hallways. Kitchen, armory, five rooms, garage, a small central living quarters that remained barren and empty, aside from bits of broken computers, radios, and robot parts. The floor still smelled like cleaner, remnant from the UNSC’s thorough cleaning.

Anyway—he’s still awake in his own room. His eyes hurt. He’s looking into the dark grey ceiling and wondering if sleep might crawl its way back to him when there’s a knock on the door. There’s a brief pause before it happens again. He frowns, scrubbing at his eyes as his brain fights the fog settling over it.

“Agent Washington,” a voice says, feigning a whisper through the sliding door. 

“Caboose?” he whispers back, furrowing his eyebrows. Isn’t it late? He looks over to the bedside table, reading the dull red numbers on the clock—yeah. Late. “What are you still doing up?”

He hears Caboose sigh. If he thinks hard enough he can imagine him leaning against the metal frame, cheek pressed against the door, looking about as pathetic as he sounds.

“I can’t sleep,” he says, part tired and almost part sad. 

“Why’s that?”

“I—” Caboose lowers his voice even further. “I had a nightmare.”

Wash blinks slowly, sitting up, eyebrows still furrowed as he frowns. He counts himself lucky that his head isn’t spinning from lying down too much. Sighing, he presses his fingers to his eyes, rubbing the sleep from them, trying to make the blurry room come back into focus.

“You—” he tsks as he words jumble in his brain, hazy with sleep. “Why did you come here?”

“Can I come sleep with you?” Caboose asks, completely ignoring the previous question. Heels of the hands to his eye sockets. Alright. Fine. He waves uselessly at the door, knowing full well Caboose can’t see him. Then it clicks in his brain: response. Right.

When Wash goes to give him an answer, it’s replaced by the sound of his bedroom door sliding open and shut and Caboose wandering in. The muddled dark obscures his silhouette more than usual and the normally wide slope of his shoulders was much more drawn in than Wash was expecting. He’s partially shrouded by his own blanket, wrapped around him as he steps in. 

Wash feels something rolling around in his chest as he watches Caboose shuffle over, like his brain isn’t absorbing the situation properly. He mostly just feels lost. He’s still sitting up, slouched forward, mouth a fine line. His arms pool in his lap, head tilted just so as he observes Caboose in front of him. This is weird, right? Not in a bad way. It’s just weird. 

Caboose stands there, frowning just a little bit, enough to almost be a pout, mostly looking at the bedside and not at Washington.

“I—” Wash starts, trying to protest. Caboose looks up at him for a moment with wide, brown eyes, and Wash feels his chest tighten. He shuts his eyes, sighing out of his nose. Then he pulls the covers back, gesturing vaguely to the space next to him as he lies back down. If there was one thing he’d learned from Caboose, it was that there was no arguing a point once he’d made his mind up. He was as stubborn as he was strong, and the man wasn’t slight. 

There’s a beat of silence as Washington gets comfortable again against the mattress again, feeling Caboose move to his left. He worms around a bit, knee bumping the outside of Wash’s leg, elbows knocking together as Caboose makes more of Wash’s bed his own space. With Caboose’s arm now pinning his own, he clears his throat.

“Caboose,” he says firmly.

“Washington,” Caboose says, like his name holds the same weight as it did so long ago. At least someone’s impressed.

He sighs. Caboose is a heavy, warm weight against his side, and although he clings to his left arm like his life might depend on it, Washington couldn’t necessarily call it bad. 

“You can either get comfortable,” he says slowly. “Or I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“Okay,” Caboose says quickly, wriggling further over. As his head lolls, it falls against the bone of the high of Wash’s shoulder. He ends up curled up in the space Wash’s side leaves open, head on his shoulder and arm over his ribcage. He’s heavy, holding himself and Wash to the mattress as he relaxes. Wash’s arm ends up pinned under him, bendable at the elbow, enough to shift around and find a comfortable spot to rest it. Caboose manages to pull the blankets over them both haphazardly, lying part on him and part over Washington’s torso. He squeezes his eyes shut. Caboose cannot be serious. This can’t be his solution, right? He takes a long breath in. Caboose finally says:

“Thank you, Washington,” in a soft and sleepy voice mostly muffled by his shoulder.

Washington sighs.

“Sure, Caboose,” he says, resigned. “Glad I could help.”

Caboose hums, sounding comfortable. In the time it takes for Caboose to finally knock out, how short of a time that was, Wash finally relaxes. He lets the weight around him settle him on the mattress, tired and heavy, and lets his eyes close. He can’t catch the edge of sleep just yet, but he can lay here, quiet and still, so that Caboose can sleep. He matches the slow rise and fall of Caboose’s shoulders, feeling his muscles slacken as he drifts off. Maybe it’s nice, actually. The weight against his side, pressure to the muscles that ache, warmth and heavy comfort. He can’t remember the last time someone shared the same bed space as him—those bunks were too small to really fall asleep next to somebody in, and sleeping in shifts wasn’t the same as someone sleeping against you. 

He can faintly feel where Caboose’s cheek is crushed against his shoulder, where his arm rests over his chest, hand tucked against his other side. When he looks over, Caboose’s eyes have shut, face relaxed in sleep. There, he leans, pressing his cheek to the top of Caboose’s head, squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe it is nice. Maybe being needed for something so innocent as comfort could be nice. His chest twists, something as painful as it is warm weaseling up next to his lungs. 

It reminds him of Invention. Nobody really wanted to leave York alone after the accident on the training room floor. He could fall or trip, he could miscalculate and hit into something harder than expected. They spent time crammed into the bunk spaces, shoulders to shoulders, to hips, to legs over knees, trying to catch sleep in between missions, how little time that was. Washington found himself in these moments more often than not, and now more than ever it seemed that touch was a thing not often disseminated. But he had it now, and he let himself have it. He let Caboose snore into the hollow of his shoulder and tuned it out as he tried to rest.

In the morning he’ll ask him what bothered him so much that he couldn’t sleep, or why he thought Wash could help. It wasn’t important now. 

For now, he just tries to sleep.

Wash feels heavy. 

He blinks his eyes open, the world coming to in barely-there light and soft blankets. There’s a weight over him, warm and solid. Caboose still sleeps soundly even as Wash shifts to stretch pins and needles from his left arm. The world stays still, held in a quiet balance. In it, Caboose breathes slowly and evenly against his shoulder, torso still haphazardly thrown across Wash’s chest. He’s curled his hand in a loose fist, snagging part of Wash’s shirt. 

Washington sighs. There lingers a heavy, groggy feeling over his mind that he thinks he’ll have a hard time shaking, remnants of running too hard, too fast without stopping. He fought so hard only to again come up empty handed, aside from the now-bitter taste of his freedom. But for now he focuses on this moment. He rests his cheek against the top of Caboose’s head. 

As he does, Caboose hums, waking enough to tense and relax again.

“Good morning, Caboose,” Wash manages tiredly, lying still. Caboose doesn’t move either, except to shift his cheek to a more comfortable position.

“Hello, Washington,” Caboose says, slow and sleep-thick but cheery. “You let me stay!”

Wash huffs out something, maybe a laugh and maybe a sigh.

“You’re surprised?” Wash asks, staring at the ceiling. It takes a minute for Caboose to answer, and in that time, Wash’s eyes shut, too heavy to hold open. Caboose draws his arm back from his chest.

“Tucker’s not very cuddly,” he says, only partially answering the question. “I can’t really judge if people will like it.”

“I take it not many do?” He asks. Caboose shrugs, somewhat stilted, speaking in that long, sighing way that he does.

“It varies.”

Wash hums.

“Right.”

In a beat of silence, Caboose unravels himself. He sits up, swaying a bit, shuffling around. It leaves a cold hollow where he used to lie, and Wash pulls his arm back from where it used to curl around him. He folds his hands over his sternum as Caboose sits up and shifts back.

“How did you sleep!” He asks, leaning forward, arms resting on his knees. Wash nods, finally blinking his eyes open.

“It was fine,” he says slowly. “How did you sleep?”

Caboose shrugs again.

“I slept okay—” he says. “You scared off all my bad dreams I think.”

Wash snorts, furrowing his eyebrows. Caboose blinks down at him with wide eyes. It’s almost catlike, the way he watches over him, like he’s waiting for Wash to reach out and force him to move out of his space. He’s still slightly blurry, courtesy of the sleep in Wash’s eyes.

“I did?” Wash asks. Caboose nods, looking sincere

“Yep.”

Wash looks away, huffing out. Something turns in his chest, warmly at that.

“Well that’s good,” he says. Caboose nods again. He’s just far enough away that in the dim lighting Washington can’t really read his face, but it seems soft and comfortable and Wash tries to remember if that’s a good thing. There’s only so many times you see someone’s face while being out in the field that you sort of just learn reactions based on tone and less on body language. After a beat, Wash says, haltingly, brain trying to find the words:

“Caboose, what… what is it that you had a nightmare about? What—why did you come to me?”

Caboose shrugs, waving his hands back and forth. He’s not looking at him.

“Oh, you know, just about Church and Epsilon, and Tex, and you, and everyone dying and exploding and dying again,” he sighs, shoulders falling, looking distinctly less bothered than Wash expects him to be. It puts something cold-to-cool in the pit of his stomach. “But it’s okay, you’re still here! And nightmares are afraid of you.”

Wash swallows.

“Oh,” he says lamely. It doesn’t feel right, all of a sudden, to just be sitting here. Caboose tilts his head at him.

“Did you have a nightmare, Agent Washington?” he asks, leaning forward a bit. He squints at him. Wash stares back, eyes wide. “You look kinda pale.”

“Um, no,” he says plainly. “No I don’t… normally dream.”

“Oh,” Caboose says. His face drops. “That sounds sad.”

Wash shakes his head.

“It’s fine.”

Caboose hums, tapping his hands on his knees.

“You can tell me if you ever have a nightmare,” he says, smiling, a pleased look crossing his face. “I can come and scare it away.”

Wash snorts, a smile creeping onto his face. He folds his hands together, tracing out the edge of his thumb with his other thumb. He furrows his eyebrows as he looks up at Caboose.

“Are you looking for an excuse to sleep next to someone?” He asks, a curious lilt to his voice. Caboose blinks, eyes falling to his hands. He shrugs.

“No…” he says. Then, “Maybe.”

“Well it…” Wash sighs, shutting his eyes again. “It was nice. Thank you, Caboose.”

“Mhm,” Caboose says sleepily.

There’s a moment of silence. Wash moves to get more comfortable, shifting back to rest his head properly on the pillows. He can feel his body sag as he does, that tired tug pulling on his shoulders and hips and eyes. He drums his fingers against his sternum, watching Caboose. Caboose’s eyes slip shut for a moment as he leans hand against his hand. 

“I’m uh…going to try to get some more sleep,” he finally manages, clearing his throat. Caboose stays still, as if he’s fallen asleep again, shoulders weakly rising and falling as he breathes. “Caboose?”

There’s no answer. Caboose leans sideways as Wash goes to reach for him, folding like he’d lost all his core stability. As he crumples, he falls forward, half onto Wash in front of him, half into the bed itself.

“Caboose,” Wash tries again. Caboose doesn’t move, sinking further into his side.

Wash sighs. Caboose stays, solid and heavy and thrown over his chest. He feels like a little kid again, sharing a room with his sisters, or he feels like it’s some time back in training, both cats making their home on his chest. Caboose was kind of like a cat. If a cat were a dog, were late to the punch, were the same level as unable to catch the joke as he was. It was kind of sweet. Wash shifts him ever so slightly, until he’s leaning into his side again, head against his shoulder.

Caboose yawns, sighing out against his shoulder, shuffling to get comfortable. Wash curls his arm over his back, hand cupping around his shoulder, smoothing his thumb over the seam of his shirt. Caboose makes a little noise, a little sigh, and falls quiet. The world, too, is warm and quiet. Somewhere in that warmth, a soothing feeling washes over him.

Just a little more sleep, he thinks. Then he’ll get up.

[randomfoggytiger]

React: A Late-Canon Reviler Gives the Revival a Try (Babylon), Part V

Babylon. 

Oh, Babylon. 

Oh, so-bad-my-computer-keyboard-died-for-a-few-days Babylon. 

BABYLON

‘Kay, dude’s praying. Dude’s blessing his food before eating. 

Music’s kicking up, something bad’s gonna happen. 

Dude smiles at Texan women, they don’t smile back, wait--

WAIT. 

Dude’s in his car, people pull up by his side and just start racially mocking… him? 

……………………………………………’Kay. 

Picked up a friend, nice little kiss, greeting…. Waiting for this to go badly. 

They’re praying with conjoined hands…………………………………………

‘Kayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. 

I will say, if they’re going to do a terrorist plot, there had better be a lot of complexities and nuances explored. 

Oh. 

Building blows up. 

Oh. 

…So, they’re peace-loving dudes who want local women to notice them but were planning on blowing up a building either waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…? 

Let’s get into some sticky facts: Terrorists don’t seek approval from women living outside of the ideal in their minds. We see that consistently in extremist circles-- be it politics, religion, cultural revolution-- and many other branches across the globe. Only hypocrites who espouse one thing but believe another engage in the wiffly-waffly manner demonstrated. 

(Note from the future: Yep, turned out I was right-- dude wasn't actually a terrorist, after all! Not really, guys. Not in his heart of hearts! He thought about blowing up a building, but didn't at the last second.... Great.)

The terrorists-- as we’re led to believe-- here weren’t disdainful of the locals around them. Well, one of them wasn’t. So: are we, the audience, supposed to infer this is a “led astray” morality tale, when the inner, purer heart of First Dude doesn’t… want… to… hurt… anyone? (But does; then doesn't, yet still doesn't interfere with his friend's terrorist initiative?)

Chris Carter, have you seen a manifesto before? Of course you have. And what did those manifestos have in common? A withdrawal from and disgust of humanity that doesn’t follow the terrorist’s morals, from Ted Krazinsky the Unabomber to the plane hijackers of the infamous 9/11 attacks: two extremes acting on the same depraved principle. 

Why are people on fire just… running around. Another point for local ignorance? 

That was a very CC plot point, actually. That was a very Fire plotpoint, actually: oh, look at this idyllic-ish, normal life-- MAN ON FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE. 

OH, NO. 

Heavenly trumpets were playing before the attacks. 

What. 

WHAT. 

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. 

WHATWHATWHATWHATWHAT. 

OH. 

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY SOUL HURTS. 

OH NO. 

I DIDN’T THINK THE TRUMPETS WERE THIS EARLY. 

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, WHY. 

(Also, we didn’t hear them during the opening, so. Fact check: false. Put that on your mushroom and eat it, Mulder. ……………OHNOTHEMUSHROOMS, NO--)

At least Scully is pushing back against Mulder’s “as if God Himself”: “Since when do you believe in God, Mulder?” And his answering, “I speak merely as an investigator,” is okaaaaaay, is fine.

…If Chris decides to make Mulder a kind of lite believer, he would have to put… SO much work into that. He’s tried in the past (Essence, for example) before immediately taking it back (Existence.) As is his pattern. But if this episode hinges on that belief, or that spark of a belief, in God… ON TOP OF a terrorist plot?? Is he mad??

Mulder and Scully are flirty arguing? Are bantering? In my Chris Carter episode?? This can only lead to evil things. 

OH NO, ARE EINSTEIN AND MILLER (RIP David Duchovny’s son’s name, I guess) IN THIS EPISODE. PLEASE. 

THEY ARE, AREN’T THEY. BECAUSE OF THOSE GIFS OF MULDER AND EINSTEIN. 

CHRIS, YOU EVIL MAN, YOU. I DON’T NEED A FIRE PHOEBE MOMENT WITH SCULLY, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. 

WHY is Mulder quoting Revelations. I get it, he considers it religious or supernatural myth, I get it, but. ...Y'know what? It's fine. He's teasing Scully about it, sure, why not.

This coooooooooooooooooould hypothetically work because it's showing, not telling, the differences in how Mulder and Scully tackle religion now: both are no longer defensive. Good, good points for CC. We need those character development beats. Please, give us a boatload in this series.

Knock, knock. “Anybody there?”

Scully: “Nobody down here except the FBI’s most unwanted.”

Mulder: surprised.

Scully: “I’ve been waiting twenty-three years to say that.” 

Cute. Real cute. 

So, we’re not even pretending that they’re broken up anymore, huh? But we are going to pretend that Mulder and Scully are still “FBI unwanted” when literally no one cares if they’re living or breathing or making out in the basement at this point. 

The mytharc of this show is so disconnected that they don’t even seem attached to the larger plot. 

Like. If you had to nullify Colonization via global warming (which CC didn’t… he did worse, post here), then write that off the table. Instead, it’s moved to later? Sort of? And it’s “the work of men” instead of men and aliens. Because there were no aliens. And Mulder is supposed to be depressed and medicated but got over that by My Struggle I but the plot pretended he didn’t in Founder’s Mutation but Darin gave Mulder a monster case to permanently cure it in Mulder and Scully Meet the Weremonster….

Are ya picking up what I’m putting down, because I’m sick of the repeat at this point, too. 

So, maybe, acknowledge YOUR OWN HISTORY, BABYLON, BEFORE YOU INTRODUCE NEW, SHINY BARBIES. 

(On a sidenote: Scully saying the iconic line didn’t hit right, but technically that would be the time to say it: back-and-forth banter, Mulder teasing her about God, she teasing him with his first words from twenty plus years ago. It’s an okay beat... in theory.)

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, they’re here. Kill me. 

Here, Tumblrinas, we see CC attempt to extend his show by introducing possible mock characters that we will come to love and appreciate and tongue-in-cheek hand the show to when David and Gillian pack up and head out. (Because GA said from day one that she was only doing one season, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, remember that?) 

But I’ll bet Babylon tanked so badly that they became risks and liabilities that CC tried to push one more time (My Struggle II) then quit like a bad habit. 

Her name’s not only Einstein but she’s ALSO distantly related. I guess not too distant because they share the same name. 

If these were Mulder and Scully from Wish, I breathlessly wait for the reboot to give us Mulder and Scully from Temu. Plastic health-and-safety risks included.  

I like the guy's tie. See how it's long enough to fit appropriately? (Looking at you, Mulder's Costume Department.)

“Forgive Agent Scully’s impertinence--” WHAT “--she wrote her dissertation on Einstein's Twin Paradox.” 

Um. 

Ummm. 

Mulder's getting Scully back for her jab at Mulder's prickliness to Ted O'Malley in My Struggle I? But it's not a jab? ...Weird.

CC canonized lovesick, blabby husband Mulder, so I guess… if that’s your thing. (There is an argument to be made that that was always canon; but CC, Euroclydon of relationships, made it even more canon. So.) 

We know about Scully’sdissertationonEinstein, CC, WE KNOW THIS. Couldn’t you have written in a reminder... I don't know... competently?? Please??????????

I see. 

The writers are going to use humor to cover a multitude of sins. 

Just. 

Fantastic. 

Scully figures out the new guys are just clones of her and Mulder....

I know I'm already hypothetically dead, but could you resurrect me to do it again? I hate these kinda plots.

Scully likes Einstein because Einstein "can't imagine" why she and her partner are here.............................................................................. On a possible paranormal case. After Einstein has demonstrated her only talent is being snippish and comedically ticked off.

I'll give her actress this, she could be way, way worse. She's doing her best to balance on that thin line between annoying and annoying-with-plausibility.

(Also: the makeup this season? Just as bad as the fashion. The only one here who's sharp and put together is Miller. Speaking of...)

Another sidenote: Miller's inoffensive... well, blandly offensive, I suppose. But. Eh.

I have this on mute, btw. Had to tap out for a bit.

Why didn't they have a believer woman and non-believer Mulder and believer Scu-- oh, wait. That's Doggett and Reyes.

RIGHT, Chris?

Mulder and Scully are marveling over their cutesy little clones, UGH.

TV people are arguing politics and it's at this moment when I remember how well the old series handled the topic.

Politics invades, pervades, whatever-else-word our waking existence 24/7. The show was always aware of politics, but it didn't incorporate modern politics into its series-- instead, it dealt with old, Cold War lingerings or fringe terrorist groups that didn't have a real-world national, nor global, integration. And that leads us to Mulder and Scully: they're not so much investigators as observers, now; and their cases and dynamics are put on pause, constantly, so we can watch political pundits bloviate on politics in the most reductive, watered-down regurgitation possible.

I feel less intelligent by the second, and we're only 7:33 min. in.

MILLER'S SO BAD AT ACTING.

Einstein: "You think anyone takes the X-Files seriously?" Uh. Yeah. Mulder and Scully have already consulted on a case. (I was going to say two cases, but I can't for the life of me remember how Founder's Mutation-- wait. Got it. Yeah, they weren't consultants, then.)

Chris, you can't have it both ways: Mulder and Scully are allowed to do whatever they want in their 50s just because Skinner lured them back to the basement AND they're looked down on and held back by others in the Bureau.

(Note from the future: This discussion becomes relevant later when the episode breaks its own rules.)

You know what? It's not even that. It doesn't matter if the X-Files are taken seriously, they're an offshoot with the least restrictions in the Bureau-- that's "taken seriously" enough. And they're veterans in the field who were called back out of, basically, retirement. That's a big deal.

Not to mention the clingers-on of watercooler talk from the 90s. They might still be rotating theories around twenty-some years later for the younger generation to listen to.

Miller's giving Einstein the "adoring face" and this is more proof that David was telling the truth when he asserted he and Gillian were directed to look fixedly (can't remember his exact word) at each other in each scene.

CC has a "type", and he wants it to extend to all his characters.

Einstein pities Scully. 'Kay. Make me like her less, why don't you? (And yes, I already see the forced writing on the wall-- Einstein learns and grows and changes and WHO CARES.)

"She's clearly in love with him." ...The writers sure love to have other characters declare how in love she is without Scully's say-so, don't they? Yes, it's a comedic bit. And also, she and Mulder have been together how long and we don't hear an "I love you"? Not one bit. (And I'm not even someone who needs or wants an "I love you"... it's just something that struck me, right now.)

SCULLY'S HOLDING HER MOTHER'S COIN NECKLACE LIKE PRAYER BEADS, I GUESS.

CC really loved that bit, I guess.

Baiting another mystery, I guess. (We already know the date on the quarter is when Charlie left, post here.)

Scully decides to team up with younger, hotter Miller. Not Mulder, u-but Scully. ...Which COULD be character growth, but Scully's only initiated her services in the past if she felt a special connection to the case, ala religion....

oh. It just dawned on me.

oh NO.

RELIGION.

Why does Scully call Miller (unless she's fond of him) separate from Mulder?

Why does Mulder call Einstein (who he formed no connection with) separate from Scully?

Or are she and Mulder working behind the scenes to bring the two newbies together or... something?

...Are they writing a slow-burn for their OCs?

WALTERR SKINNER SINGS EINSTEIN'S PRAISES?

Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis isn't a reference to Skinner's rumored crush on Scully back-in-the-day, is it? A wink-and-nod at the fans that goes nowhere? Like... I'm all for love no matter the (age-appropriate) age, but SKINNER. Sings EINSTEIN's praises? ...WHY, FOR WHAT?

sHE HELPED SKINNER WITH HIS MIGRAINES.

H...how did she help Skinner with his migraines?

"--Which he claims are due to you [Mulder]." This is a comedic moment but now I'm REALLY wondering if we missed a scene where Skinman got a hands-on experience from one redhead scientist.

(I don't think any of this speculation holds true canonical water... BUT.)

More terrorists are creating bombs, 'kaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Can I skip most of the plot, please.

Einstein is getting on my nerves. The actress is doing her best but.

Mulder is seriously sitting there saying ideas and thoughts have physical, tangible weight.

..................................................I need a scene between he and Scully where we figure out what in the world is going---

Ah. Got it.

CC introduced two green characters because he needs the older ones to keep back JUST enough information so the audience isn't fully informed. Scully's a believer now, so she can fill-in Mulder's blanks (even if she doesn't agree with the minutiae of his theory.) Hence, separate them and preserve the surprise.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay...............

Mulder's straight up toying with Agent Einstein at this point and I'm kinda living for it and kinda wanting to explode from my chair.

Mulder calls up Einstein to ditch her flight to Texas so he can wax on about the metaphysics behind his theory.

Einstein doesn't want to waste time when lives could be saved.

Mulder wastes a little more time, then lectures Einstein on wasting time by not cosigning the possibilities of his methods.

THEN WHY AREN'T YOU IN TEXAS, MULDER, WITH SCULLY (note from the future: or without Scully.)

WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE WHEN THIS CONVERSATION COULD BE HAD IN TEXAS WHERE THE BOMBINGS ARE OCCURING.

JUST TAKE A PLANE OUT WITH SCULLY AND JOIN THE AGENTS THERE AND HAVE THIS TALK.

DOESN'T HE END UP IN TEXAS, ANYWAY???? WHY ARE WE HERE, HEARING HIM YODA AT EINSTEIN?????

I will say: this episode is the closest I've gotten to Mulder. Actual, factual Mulder. (Note from the future: My standards are low at this point, okay? But he's not the Mulder we know from S7, S8, S9, or IWTB. Not even the Mulder from My Struggle I... which is a good thing.)

I. I don't know how I feel about that.

He's still Clone!Mulder; but the comedy helps us get back to Mulder's old, light-hearted ways.

Miller's bad acting continues.

Scully's going to use science to communicate with a coma patient.

...And she wishes she'd thought of this while Maggie was alive because now she'll have a mystery that will always remain unsolved (don't worry, I solved it for you, Scully)....

...

......

............

No.

Can I leave, now?

(Note from the future: Her side plot achieves nothing except as a placeholder for her character while Mulder does wild and crazy things.)

This episode is just boring.

Mulder calls Einstein a mugwump; and translates, good-naturedly, that it means "sit down and shut up." Mulder is being a Yoda, but why can't he be a Yoda in Texas???

...Wait, what's a mugwump?

...What. That doesn't make sense....

Einstein (loosely transcribed): I did a ton of school, yet you think I'm stupid?

Mulder: No, you're a mugwump.

Einstein: A what?

Mulder: It means "sit down and shut up."

...How does any of that dialogue fit. We're only supposed to believe it does because the music's comedic and the two actors are verbally sparring.

Also, WOW the pacing and cuts are bad: Mulder and Einstein banter, Scully and Miller talking over loss and scientific possibilities, Mulder and Einstein banter again~~~~~!!!!!!! UGH.

Carter gave us THE SLIDESHOW. Now. In this episode.

He's really trying to tap into the vibes of the old show, but.

The whiplash is jarring: from My Struggle I's dour, strangled rewrite to Founder's Mutation's doubling down to Weremonster's more upbeat, well-received comedic tone, we have Babylon: comedy-dramedy, tripping mushrooms and terrorist attacks.

Yikes.

I'm not as angry as the first two Revival episodes-- those were a spit in the face, this is just an elementary kid waving a hand around for attention-- but it's noooooooooooooooooot well-constructed. By any stretch of the imagination.

(Note from the future: Oh, boy.)

'Kay, Einstein, this is getting old. OH, I KNOW-- she reminds me of C.C. Babcock from The Nanny; and, yes, the irony of C.C.'s name in this series hit me just now.

Guys, are philes are mugwumps. Are we mugwumps?

Wait. Okay. Scratch... whatever.

Mulder wants Einstein to inject him with shrooms so he can communicate with the terrorist.

Who is in Texas.

While Mulder Yoda is in D.C. Are we seeing the first big hurdle here?

Secondly. Why mushrooms, why this case?

If, IF CC handled this with skill, he'd have Mulder bring up his experience in Field Trip-- how he communicated with Scully's mind while both were in a repressed, almost comatic, state.

But he would also have to explain the toll of that experience: the repercussions, the recovery, and why Mulder trusts EINSTEIN over SCULLY to administer him with said mushrooms.

(Note from the future: Which they address, a little, then not at all. It doesn't make sense, shocker.)

Also, WHAT IN THE WORLD is this subplot doing in a terrorist episode??? Maybe if the terrorists were separated by distance but committing acts at the same time-- and Mulder could prove their actions weren't pre-planned-- THEN this theory MIGHT have legitimacy. But in this case, they were two dudes in the same location who just walked into a building and blew up. No telepathy (that we know of) involved.

And how did Mulder get from Heavenly Trumpets to Mushroom Telepathy?????????????????????????

I'm Einstein. Asking Mulder why he isn't asking Scully to help him and realizing he hasn't told Scully any of this because of a recent close brush with death (though I wouldn't call Maggie's decline a "near-death experience" for Scully, Chris. Those words mean something else in English, Chris.)

So... Mulder and Scully are working as separate operatives, without the other realizing. Why. Why are they sneaking around-- because of the trauma Maggie's death put Scully through??? Did the writers think this was a clever incorporation of Maggie's death? Because this is negligence and unintelligence at best.

I'm Einstein, who correctly calls this a "lunatic scheme."

Mulder's "So that's a maybe" explains the Chinga calls.

Miller looking at the suicide bomber: "It's hard to imagine there's someone in there when you really see 'em." That's. Nice. For other patients and their families to hear. And to say in front of a colleague who recently lost her own mother. This guy's an idiot.

Scully finally has a blouse that is appropriately styled. She can wear her low-cut in a work-appropriate fashion (heh), I see.

"I'm open to whatever."

"I'm sure you are, Agent Miller."

"I believe so many answers lie beyond the pale--" BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, I don't care.

Scully is charmed and believes he believes.

SCULLY IS GOING TO COMMUNICATE WITH A COMA PATIENT VIA ELECTRO-WHATEVER STIMULATION. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkay.

Miller continues to be an idiot.

Department of Homeland Security is kicking them out and is being weirdly racist about this when he would be working in intelligence circles and would know this is a bigger picture than "race I don't like did a thing I don't like to the people I do like."

WHY does this show treat us like idiots? Government forces in the OG show intervened because there was a bigger picture Mulder and Scully were upsetting; or when they were on strict coverup orders. Here, Scully and Miller could get information out of a terrorist BUT Homeland Security shuts them down because "do you think he'd say anything, anyway?" It's not even an argument about a waste of time or resources, nor the unfounded nature of their methods. No. It's just racism. Wow.

"By any moral definition, this body is dead." NO, IT'S NOT. What. NO ONE THINKS LIKE THAT. WHAT.

ARE THE SECURITY AGENTS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT RIGHT-WING INTERESTS???? BECAUSE IN THAT CASE, THEY'D CONSIDER THIS TERRORIST STILL ALIVE AND KEEP HIM ON LIFE SUPPORT UNTIL HE IS CONFIRMED DEAD WHILE HOPING HE RECOVERS SO THEY CAN BARBECUE HIM ON THE ELECTRIC CHAIR. WRITERS, DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND THE OTHER SIDE SO YOU CAN MAKE INTELLIGENT CRITIQUE AGAINST THEM? HOW DID YOU HANDLE THIS BETTER IN THE 90S THAN THE TRUMP ERA 2015-2016s????

"This body here isn't a human." WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. WHATWHATWHATNONONONONONO.

Did... did the white guy communicate to the other in a different language? Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis this a clue or something? Are they being... controlled by the shroomed up terrorists? Or?

Miller whips out his phone, takes their pics, and is going to text them to superiors. I guess. Which. Isn't a stuuuuupid plan? Except I don't know enough about protocol to know if it is or not; so, it might be

Einstein sees Scully talking with Miller-- she's in Texas, YEP-- realizes something's a foot, and....

Wait, no. She gets JEALOUS and calls in Mulder.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

Look, she did the Scully tucked-in-neck-thing, isn't that funny???

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.

They're all in Texas now.

Mulder's wiggling his way over in his too tight Patriarchy Pants. (One day I will watch him tilt to and fro without thinking of a Marilyn Monroe shimmy, but this season is not that season.)

She just. hands him. the mushrooms. in public. She, a medical doctor, gave him illegal drugs in Texas because she was jealous. ...UGH.

Mulder asks what changed her mind. He's gonna realize she's jealous, got it, but I just remembered: these pills are placebo. And that Mulder's gonna go on a trip without any drugs in his system. .......................................'Kay.

Einstein straight up admits to jealousy-- her animus has "nothing professional about it"-- and says "my loss is your gain" and also "I'll deal with Agent Miller later" and CC STRAIGHT UP IS TELLING US HE KNOWS THERE ARE ROMANTIC ANGLES IN BOTH PARTNERSHIPS AND NO ONE'S HIDING IT ANYMORE. WHILE ALSO ASSERTING THIS ISN'T A DOMESTIC SHOW.

RIGHT.

Wait. Einstein believes Mulder can communicate with the terrorist via these drugs. ...Nah, I know she's pulling his leg because these pills are placebo. (But they still drug him, but anyway.) Which means she manipulated Mulder's trust to bring him over to maybe or maybe not help a real, legitimate case-- which she adamantly didn't want to waste time over, earlier.... Give me a sec.

Einstein considered Mulder's shroom theory to be "lunatic" and a waste of time.

Einstein did not want to waste time on a terrorist bombing case and left.

Einstein drops into Texas, sees Miller with Scully, and gets insanely jealous-- not professionally jealous, just jealous.

Einstein calls Mulder over to Texas-- even though Mulder should have followed her and Miller down, not recalled her back to Washington for plot reasons but ANYWAY-- and admits pretty clearly that this is because she is jealous.

Einstein outright states she knows "her loss" (Scully on the Miller-Einstein team) is "his gain" (translation: "Take her back, Agent Mulder.")

Einstein will now waste precious time and resources giving Mulder a placebo and delaying whatever other solutions the four could explore, together, because of her jealousy EVEN THOUGH she was adamantly against doing such a thing five minutes ago.

Mulder's supposed to be on depression meds and doesn't tell Einstein, nor does Einstein ask if he's on any meds. Further proof Mulder "cured" his depression, I GUESS.

Mulder was just gonna sit in D.C. if Einstein didn't subscribe to his theory. WHY PURSUE THE TRUTH, ANYWAY, EVEN IF THEY DON'T WANNA DO IT YOUR WAY, HUH, MULDER?

The Revival equally butchers all of its characters, nice.

Texan walks back and nods at Mulder as Einstein is explaining that she believes this will work-- sure, Jan-- but doesn't know what he or Mulder will say to each other. Mulder's response? "How do you say 'Howdy, Partner' in Arabic?"

...Why must CC only write Mulder as himself by putting in punchlines that make no sense in context?

At least David gets to get in touch with Mulder's lighter side-- which was a core trait of Mulder's, unless he was deeply moody or sardonic. (But those deeply moody or sardonic moments can't stick around in this series despite quite literally being coded into his character via depression. That he kicked either before My Struggle I, after My Struggle I, post Founder's Mutation, or during Weremonster-- take your pick.)

Miller and Scully are bringing science thingies into the--

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHT. Random agent guy is randomly clearing the hospital because of a possible threat that he takes seriously because of an unassimilated Muslim community around and WHAT IN THE WHATWHAT IS THIS.

I'm not touching this stupidity with a ten-foot pole because there can be no rationalization of irrational writing.

All men in the government think all Muslims think highly of Osama Bin Laden-- Bot 2.0 behavior, and the writers think this is nuanced writing, I swear.

Now he's straight up talking religion. Is THIS the best these writers can do with mainstream religious people-- not even religious extremists, but anti-Muslim rhetoric? THIS is the best they can do?

At least Scully and Miller have shown two separate antagonistic forces the door.

Miller is such a bad actor.

Oh, look, the nurse is going to do something bad with the killer. Ohhhh, nooooooooooooooooooooo. More bigotry, I guess. The nurse looks like Diana Fowley in some angles, fyi.

Also.

Is this episode trying to make us feel anger for a terrorist without yet providing the audience with a reason why???? Because that sounds like kid gloves and terrible writing to me~~~~. Sounds like the Pedo Priest in IWTB all over again. Whoop-de-doo.

Mulder and Einstein walk in before the nurse can finish the job, now we gotta hear the nurse go on a stereotypical "taking all our jobs" rant. Throw in the "illegal" part first, sweetheart, or you just sound like a watered-down, outta touch rant.

Here's a mini rant of my own: this is what happens when show writers who are no political writers try to write outside their niche. Politics is a tricky, layered topic that shouldn't, can't, be watered down into straw man stereotypes. This is a nuanced conversation that deserves respect, that deserves to have all the angles explored if they must be.

Babylon fails on all levels: the comatose villain-turned-victim; the obnoxious, over-inflated bigotry; the hackneyed religious ideology; the preschooler understanding of metaphysics; the simple-minded decisions penned by equally self-conscious and self-involved writers; the dismal directing and editing and publishing of this finished product. All so grossly incompetent that it would boggle the mind if I hadn't seen (or heard) of worse.

The scene immediately takes a turn for the comedic when Mulder signals he's gonna take a mushroom capsule and Einstein is left to escort the rambling nurse-- who the audience knows is an attempted murderer-- out the door so he can do his shenanigans. Peppy music picks up to help transition us, the goldfish, alongside the genius of this pacing.

Breathtaking.

Oh, wait, look at this: these side-profile shots look exactly like Mulder from the 90s, huh. Oh, that's kinda cool.

Too bad it's wasted.

I will say: I originally thought Mulder found a pile of drugs from some evidence and tried it without supervision and got elevated. By comparison, this makes more sense.

Now.

Does it make sense sense? No, because this plot has not justified, AT ALL, why Mulder arrived at this theory and conclusion. If it had been case or character related, then I have no problem with him licking fake blood or drilling a hole in his skull; but this idea only wormed its way into the episode to get Mulder wasted. He can get micro-dosed, doctor-approved shrooms all he wants, but the plot-- with a life on the line and more potentialities still at large-- is waaaaaaay too flippant with his approach. WAY too much.

If Mulder from Pine Bluff Variant could only see him now.

Keyboard's dying again, so I'm gonna keep this tight.

Nurse is still rambling to Einstein in the hallway about her "research" and "theories" about the UN, etc. etc., and why is this still going?

Mulder just... floated out of the hospital. In any other circumstance, this could have been funny. But in this episode, with these nuances at stake?

Plus, we all know Mulder gets ISANELY paranoid when high (i.e. Anasazi and Kill Switch and Field Trip, and my post here), not extroverted. He seems more David than Mulder here. As in, an exact copy.

Welp, both Clone!Mulder have left the building because what is this, WHO IS THIS, you lost me.

WHY'S SKINNER IN THIS SCENE WATCHING THE BOOTY DANCERS???????? (I know it's because Mulder's subconscious is working him into the trip, but STILL.)

LANGLEY?????????????? WHY'S LANGLEY HERE?????

WHAT IS THIS. WHAT IS THIS, MULDER THE BOOTY WARRIOR?????????????????????????????????????????????? EVEN IF HE'S HIGH, THIS ISN'T A MULDER THING TO DO. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IS HAPPENIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

FROHIKE??????????????????? THEN WHY IS LANGELY HERE????

If these are a fever dream of reality and Mulder's subconscious, do you think these are also memories from a wild night with TLG?

Mulder got snapped out of his fantasy to a paranoid reality, and I say "Too little, too late."

NO.

NO, THIS IS WORSE, WHAT IS THIS.

BULL-WHIPPING EINSTEIN, CSM, AND RESCUE BY A MOTHER FIGURE, WHAT IS HAPPENING, WHAT IS GOING ON, WHERE AM I, WHY IS MULDER HALF-NAKED, WHAT ARE THESE GALLEON CHANTS, GET ME HOME, TAKE ME OUT BACK, AND PUT ONE RIGHT BETWEEN MY EYES.

That's not Jesus, btw, that's the dying, broken body of a terrorist, martyr of a... WE'RE NOT EVEN TOLD THE CAUSE, ONLY OTHER PEOPLES' REACTIONS TO IT. WE'RE 3/4s OF THE WAY THROUGH AND THE INVESTIGATION HAS NO MOTIVE OTHER THAN "MUSLIM": WE'RE NOT TOLD BACKGROUND, BELIEFS, ODD BEHAVIOR, NOTHING ABOUT THIS CASE-- for maximum ~mystery~ enhancement, no doubt-- LIKE WE DO EVERY OTHER EPISODE.

DID ANYONE EVEN TRY, OR WAS THIS A "FOR THE VIBES" ENDEAVOR???????????????????????????????????????????????????????

WHY IS THERE A COMEDY BEAT-CHANT BY GRIM REAPERS WHILE MULDER STANDS, SHIRTLESS, IN A BOAT???????????????

Hands down, the placebo clashed with his depression meds and this is the result. Always inform your doctor about your medical history, kids.

That's the real message: Don't Do Drugs Or Have Visions, or you, too, could internationally embarrass yourself as a writer.

Terrorist flashback. The laziest one I've seen.

Scully's back at his bedside. SCULLY DOESN'T EVEN KNOW THE TERRORIST'S NAME, AGENT MILLER CAN SPEAK ARABIC, AND DO EITHER OF THEM KNOW MULDER'S BEEN IN OR OUT? WHERE'S EINSTEIN.

Skinner, thank heavens, you're here to save me.

Mulder wakes and says...

Ahem.

Mulder wakes from an incredibly wild high featuring a memory from the dying man that might or might not help... and the first thing he tells Skinner is...

is, "Where's your hat?"

...

There's too much comedy in this episode. I distinctly feel as if this was a serious, contemplative piece-- or CC wanted it to be-- but because Weremonster was so well-received, he took a swing for the comedic. It. doesn’t. work. 

Uh, oh, Tumbr’s down. 

(I’m not kidding when I say tech hates me. If there’s any way for it to torment me, it will.) 

“Dude,” says Mulder…. “Yikes,” says I. 

“‘Dude’, you were an embarrassment,” says Skinner. “SOMEBODYSAIDIT,” says I. He summed up the whole ep. 

Placebo pills. 

Mulder pokes Skinner in the gut and says “No, you were there” exactly like he did in Triangle; and if that’s not a callback, I don’t know what was. 

So, placebo pills and Almighty visions, got it. 

Mulder trying to convince Skinner with badonk a donk talk instead of asking for Scully-- he knows she’s here, it’s been more than twelve hours (come to think of it, why hasn’t Scully called? She doesn’t know he’s here. For all she knows, he could be in D.C. being unusually, perhaps dangerously, quiet)-- and he might as well have someone on his team, right? Right? 

So Skinner WASN’T there. So these were illusions Mulder made up…. Or visions. OR. He knows about Skinner’s wild life-- maybe saw him while out with TLG once?-- and Skinman’s trying to cover up whatever Mulder might blurt. 

THE “FRIGHTENED, MIDDLE-AGED TEXANS” LINE WASN’T SKINNER’S???? UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH. MY HEART JUST BROKE. WHY THEY GIVE THAT GEM TO EINSTIEN??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Wait. 

Mulder sees a woman outside and recognzes her from his dream. 

The FBI immediately parts and lets him out to let her in.

 The FBI. set aside protocol. 

For a guy who was in a wheelchair without any FBI badge on him 

To bring an unauthorized woman in. 

Either they have the worst security in the world, or ther recognized Mulder onsite and acquiesced immediately to him. 

 Meaning, Mulder IS well-known and respected in the FBI. 

WHICH IS AGAINST EVERYTHING THIS EPISODE IS BEATING US OVER THE HEAD WITH. 

ALL THE DRAMATIC MUSIC THE KICKS UP WHEN THE LADY SEES HER SON-- LOOK AT MULDER WHO’S GOT HER, LOOK AT SCULLY’S WHO’S REMINDED OF HER OWN MOTHER, LOOK AT THESE AGENTS WATCHING MULDER BRING TWO PEOPLE TOGETHER--

Got it. 

His brainwaves kicked up when his mother talked, of course. 

The mom is giving the whole “there’s no way you did this, your heart is too big for this, this isn’t how I raised you” aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand… we’ll see how this goes. 

Wait. 

The mom is reinterpreting his actions because he’s telepathically telling her what really happened: that he chickened out and didn’t blow the people up. 

Um. 

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum. 

In her dreams and in her prayers, ‘kay. 

Guy’s dying. Scully’s just standing there as he’s dying, not doing anything. 

Mulder thinks this is the perfect moment to walk around the room saying, “He spoke to me” on repeat. WE KNOW. 

Camera cuts to black. 

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH. 

Mulder turns and walks out, not answering Scully or Miller, camera’s spinning around him and back and forth as Mulder says “I can explain but I can’t, he spoke to me in words I didn’t understand, it was Arabic” WHO CARES. WHO HONESTLY, REALLY CARES. 

“BABYLON THE HOTEL” IS WHAT THE NOT-TERRORIST-DREAM-GUY SAID IN THE DREAM. 

Reminds me of that one Harrison Ford movie where he lost his memory and a bit of his cognitive function and remembered Ritz and everyone thought it was Ritz crackers but it turned out to be a hotel where he’d been carrying on an affair. 

Anyway. 

There, the FBi showed up, slowmo of them taking down the terrorists, case solved, the end. Momma's love gave her visions and she saved her boy in the eyes of herself and like, four other people.

Why did this episode steal Weremonster's tone and Home Again's loud music integration? Wait, no, scratch the last one: it's just CC's mood music.

Einstein pats her boy metaphorically on the back, she has her hair down, she's changed; Miller doesn't feel like he helped but he did, guys, he does so good at beach.

SKIPPING THE MORAL AT THE END, GET ME TO MULDER AND SCULLY--

WAIT.

Einstein: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious-- the source of all true art and science." WHAT DOES THIS QUOTE HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?????????????????? THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE THEME, WHAT WOULD--

She gets snippy because he says something, he puts his earbuds back in, THAT'S COMEDY, GUYS, SKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP--

oh, look, Mulder's listening to Music TM too, just like Miller. Just like us, the audience. Just like all who combine art and science and the mystery of--

(What did music have to do with this case, other than playing obnoxiously over the funny bits or tender moments... neither of which were really present, but.)

We're all united by our similarities, we all love music, right guys? We all want redemption and to be understood and to love, right guys??

OH, WAIT, NO.

THE HEAVENLY TRUMPETS.

I FORGOT ABOUT THOSE.

THEY'RE GONNA PLAY, AREN'T THEY???

THAT'S WHY EVERYONE'S LISTENING TO MUSIC.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Here comes Scully, guys, because this was all about love, remember? He's alone on his porch but she joins him, GET IT?

"Talk to me, Mulder."

"Oh, where to begin."

At least we know how their conversations begin.

They both saw things, guys: he saw unconditional love, she saw hate without an end. But WE'RE ALL UNITED BY THE LOVE OF THE HUMAN HEART, THE BREADTH OF THE HUMAN SOUL, THE COMMONALITY OF THE HUMAN CONDITION, LET US ALL HOLD HANDS AND REJOICE AND NOT KISS ON-SCREEN BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE COOTIES.

"Walk with me, Scully."

They're walking.

He's thinking about God, the angry God of the Bible, and his differing thoughts and etc. etc. and this isn't a bad scene but I know it will end with poor writing and I'm... salty about that. (Why can't we have two mature adults talking over their fluctuating opinions on sensitive topics through a complicated, educated lens? Instead of... this?)

"He," Scully says, referring to the God of her Bible, "is the same angry God of the Koran." Which is an attempt to meet in the middle but, uh, perhaps isn't the best way to tackle this issue. Y'know. With the whole "angry" and "punishing" angle.

"Ordering death to the infidels." Uh. The only way DD and GA got away with this episode, in my opinion, was because they delivered these lines with care-- as if they want to understand, and have already embraced, other faiths. Because. Man. This could have ended badly for their careers.

WAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

Mulder and Scully are both just... accepting that the anger of the Christian and Koran god is leading both sides to put on suicide vests (in the case of terrorists) or perpetuate hatred and murder (the Homeland Security officers and the nurse))...

But the Christian and Muslim faith is supposed to be about peace. Loving one another. That there's more in common than not. That their God is one of love-- how do you get "angry god" out of THAT????? THAT'S THE MESSAGE you come away with???? Really??????????????????????????????????

And this is directed at BOTH Muslims AND Christians, so I don't get why both religious sects haven't denounced this as foolish, ridiculous, even bigoted against their beliefs. Why's Scully just accepting all this when she SHOULD have asserted those are men twisting religion to fit their own ends as she has in the past???????????????????????????

"Those boys swallowed a pill. It's the power of suggestion." ...Welp, this takes on a darker connotation with the rise of the Red Pill. BUT, since CC can't read the future: whaaaaaaaaaaaat does this have to do with an angry God or music or eternal love or unending hate?

NONE. OF. THIS. HOLDS. TOGETHER.

"Something to trump all hatred," Mulder says. Ah, Trump. Trumpet. Politics and music and love eternal all colliding. ...Don't you just feel so head patted right now? "Mother love."

"Woah," says Scully, leaning back. And yeah, hard agree.

HE WANTS TO BELIEVE THAT MOTHERS ARERN'T HAVING BABIES TO BE MARTYRS; AND SCULLY BELIEVES CHILDREN AREN'T TOOLS TO SPREAD HATRED.

PLACEBO PILLS, ANDTRUMPETING-- WHICH WAS MENTIONED ONCE AT THE BEGINNING AND ONCE AT THE END AND NEVER AGAIN-- AND HATRED AND LOVE AND MOTHER LOVE??????????????????????? WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNGS HAVE NARRRRRRRRRRRRRATIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVELY IIIIIIIIIIIIIIN COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON?????

"FINDING A COMMON LANGUAGE AGAIN," WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

PLACEBO PILLS AND MUSIC AND LOVE AND HATRED AND ANGRY GODS AND MOTHERLY LOVE AND COMMON LANGUAGE???????????? NONE OF THAT FORMS A COHESIVE NARRATIVE, WHAT IS HAPPENING??????????????????????????????

"Maybe that's God's Will," Scully asserts.

"How can we really know?" Mulder asks, genuinely.

And I scream in torment and bang my head against the wall.

YOU RUINED A POSSIBLE EXPLORATION INTO SCULLY'S FAITH ON MULDER'S PART-- TO BETTER UNDERTAND IT-- BY SPOUTING CHRISTIANISMS AND MAKING ZERO SENSE AND NOT PROVIDING A LICK OF SENSE AND I'M SO MAD YOU JUST STOMPED ON A NICHE INTEREST OF MINE, WHY CAN'T WE HAVE NICE THINGS???????????????????????????? IT'S NOT HARD!!!!!!

"He's absent from the stage," Mulder continues; and there goes that fleeting religious exploration.

"Maybe it's beyond words. Maybe we should do like the prophets and... open our hearts," Scully replies.

What.

What.

WHAT Biblical prophet "opened his heart"?????? They were there to pronounce judgment upon Israel from God, from the angry God you mentioned earlier???? The peace and love part came from Jesus later on, and those weren't prophets who carried on his message THEY WERE APOSTLES, SCULLY, YOU'RE CATHOLIC, YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. I'M NOT CATHOLIC AND I KNOW THIS.

Is this an all-inclusive prophet thingy to include Islam?????? Or????

Why does this music soundl ike something David Duchovny would listen to?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE TRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMPETS?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

THE "I BELONG WITH YOU, YOU BELONG WITH ME" SONG IS PLAYING???????????? THE MEME SONG????????????? THE ROMANTIC SONG???????????????????? WHAT, ARE THE CHRISTIANS SUPPOSED TO MAKE OUT WITH MUSLIMS NOW OR SOMETHING???????????? ARE THE ANGELS CUEING UP MUSIC SO MULDER WILL KISS HIS GIRL OR SOMETHING, WHAT'S GOING ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN???????????????????

There must be lead poisoning in Mulder's depression pills he no longer needs, because this is concerning now.

CONCLUSION

What a poorly done episode.

Not as structurally infuriating as My Struggle I and Founder's Mutation-- the aforementioned episodes never stuck to any single plot point, narrative, or emotion-- but it's not. It's not good.

I will say: Mulder floating out of the hospital and doing a few steps here or there on the dance floor would have been… okay? But when he did flips, got lost in booty debauchery, and ascended to some sort of astral plane… that’s where everyone was, collectively, no longer in reality.  (Get it? Because we all speak one language, have one love, yadda yadda, yadda.)

Yeahhhhhhh.

My final thoughts? I'd watch this over the other episodes because it does the least damage to mainline canon. Hopefully that'll never happen ever again.

I refuse to watch the two Struggle episodes, so.

Bye, bye, Season 10! I won't be missing you!

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[tiny-tardis]

Scavenger Hunt Item #30

Well, it looks more like a well than a tower, but still, as indicated in scavenger hunt #30, I killed some time and tidied up my desk.. sorting out my gel and fountain pens..

(and realizing that I actually have about 12 different pens with different tones of purple ink and five with green ink...and also that there are only two regular blue pens💀)

[daily-hanamura]

[softestepiloguemisc]

people who are hyper critical of aang are super fucking weird and we should say so.

[akito-shinonome-daily]

🎤 day 169 🎵

➥ today’s akito is a card redraw by me of akito’s “well-known big shot” 1☆!

➥ i apologize…for creating this….

➥ when i realised a My Art Monday™ would be coinciding with day 169, i figured i would do a redraw as a nod back to day 69. i’m going to be real with you guys. i know at least one of you is a drawfee fan and will understand when i say that i had this one in me. it has an Energy that i’m not entirely sure the origin of. but it sure happened.

➥ including the sketch on this one cause I think that’s truly where the Energy was

[seasononesam]

warning I'm about to be like it COULD be that deep about the cw's supernatural but anyway it's so interesting to me how hell functions on the show as both a literal and metaphorical place...that according to eric kripke "[the] show is a show about family, and family is hell." but on supernatural hell also exists as a literal place where actual torture does occur, so it's simultaneously this kind of idea of a hell on earth and a literal hell beyond that. so what chance does one have of escaping hell when it's so all encompassing?

[batsplat]

as our resident Casey expert i wonder what do you think would have happened if marc and casey competed against each other? since casey retiring is so important for marc coming into motogp im always thinking abt the what ifs...

my initial instinct with this hypothetical is always 'that sounds horrible', though I do have more thoughts and opinions about it than that! marc obviously would have loved the chance to race casey, and casey has even been one of his picks of 'guys he would've liked to be teammates with' before, so, you know, clearly something there - and he does very much respect casey as a rider. I think it's quite likely that by the time marc entered the premier class, casey had already developed... I don't know if wariness is going too far, but maybe a little bit of unease or caution where marc was concerned. marc already very much had a reputation based on his 125/moto2 track record, and some of these incidents were controversial enough that the motogp riders commented on them. so take the phillip island 2011 incident where marc rode into the back of another rider:

the valentino quote serves as a bit of a benchmark here, given he was generally pretty pro-marc. yes, casey's phrasing is perhaps a little harsher, but unsurprisingly none of the riders were big fans of marc's behaviour in that particular incident

on the other hand, it's not like casey never sided with marc. take catalunya 2012, where marc was slapped with a controversial post-race penalty:

yes, casey's main complaint was about inconsistent stewarding - but still, he believed marc had been unfairly treated here. feels like these incidents were some of the only things casey and valentino actually agreed on in those years, so that's nice

that being said, it's hard to see how casey wouldn't have his issues with marc and marc's whole approach to racing. I did include some thoughts on the teammate question here, but mainly I'm going to pilfer the relevant autobiography passage:

"if a rider doesn't care about his own safety then it stands to reason he doesn't care about anybody else's either"... there's nobody really who embodies the 'doesn't care about his own safety' maxim better than marc. he was the young rider desperate to win, and I can't imagine casey would have enjoyed actually racing him much. casey mostly didn't enjoy racing valentino, after all, who is a generally a lot more selective with his aggression than marc is (though casey did have to experience some of the worst valentino had to offer in that regard). casey talked in his autobiography about getting a sense when he just wasn't really able to trust another rider on the track, how much it bothered him - and that exact lack of respect is something that's been pretty closely associated with marc. that doesn't mean he would immediately declare marc his enemy... he'd just want marc to change, to learn, to grow up, to start treating his competitors with a little more respect. the way casey talks about young riders, there is a sense in which he has more time for them than he does for valentino - whose lack of respect casey views as more integral to who he is as a rider. valentino isn't a bully on track due to the exuberance of youth, he's a bully on track when he thinks he can use it as a tactic of intimidation. then again, marc by this measure is worse... and I think very quickly casey would have grown pretty disenchanted with how marc approaches all his wheel-to-wheel racing, especially when it becomes more and more clear marc does not feel particularly inclined to change

it's always important to remember how recent the trauma of losing simoncelli was for the whole sport, and it coloured both dani and jorge's wariness of marc... but also (in my opinion anyway) their restraint in how they dealt with him. how they tried to stop themselves from actually making an enemy out of him, in part because they'd just had an experience of harshly criticising a rider for a whole year and then having to process his death. both dani and jorge actually had more public and more serious disagreements with simoncelli than casey did, but I reckon there would have been an element of that restraint with casey too... on the other hand, his experiences with marc would have left him feeling even more alienated from the sport than he already was - at times frustrated (like jorge was) less with marc directly but more with the regulatory bodies for not holding marc back, for not giving him a race ban or whatever to teach him a lesson. that being said, marc's shamelessness vs casey's stubbornness means that if they had direct on-track encounters and casey didn't like marc's post-race response... well, I certainly think that'd end up being a pretty tense situation, even if it falls short of active hostilities

worth including irl!casey's take on marc in 2013:

which, you know. it's not just that marc's a hard racer - casey is accusing marc of deliberately wanting to make the defeats extra painful for his opponents, of wanting to not just beat but humiliate them. anyone else that reminds you of? someone who is as motivated in securing his psychological victories as his actual ones? perhaps someone who has a bit of a history himself with casey?

let's bring in valentino. it's not that casey would really have begrudged marc his friendship with valentino, and he generally kept his hatred of valentino quite 'clean' in that he wasn't conducting any proxy wars or anything (for instance, I don't get the sense the vale/sic friendship ever affected his view of simoncelli... though I have very little to go on here either way). also, if nothing else in this timeline changes, we're assuming valentino in 2013 is fairly clearly the... fifth? best rider? kinda depends where dani would have landed I suppose (casey's retirement announcement did save honda from a bit of a headache)... but anyway what this means is that valentino probably wouldn't initially have been much of a competitive threat to casey. mostly he would have been consigned to the sidelines

that being said, I doubt casey would have massively enjoyed the whole laguna seca saga. unfortunately, we don't even really know what real life casey's stance on the copycat move situation was... though if I had to guess, in this timeline I'd say his position would've been, a) marc could and should have carried out that overtake two corners later, there was no need in that race situation to take that risk, b) still, it was valentino's slight error as he attempted to reclaim the position (in what was a pretty aggressive manner, it has to be said) that led to them both ending up off-track and fuck that guy, and c) the problem with 2008 wasn't just or even primarily the corkscrew overtake and it's annoying that that's the only bit everyone talks about. of course, there's also the question of whether casey would have bought marc's explanation that it was totally by coincidence that the overtake happened there... and again, complete guesswork, but my sense of casey is that he would have assumed marc was being at least a little bit dishonest. (which, you know... laguna's not an easy track to overtake at, but marc did prove with the bradl move that he was perfectly capable of overtaking after turn 8 - might not have been planning on the off-track excursion, but he was still attempting to overtake just ahead of a blind crest that happened to feed into the corkscrew lol.) I think casey by his honda days had calmed down a bit (though he still certainly had some conspiratorial tendencies), but I also don't think it's a stretch to imagine that he would've felt like he was a victim of a joke between the pair of them... not ideal

overall though, I reckon casey's main frustrations would have been less with the move itself and more with how it was discussed. in the presser, while joking with marc, valentino does take the opportunity to get in a jibe at casey for old time's sake. there's this clip, where he directly addresses livio suppo (at ducati in 2008, by then at honda) - specifically about how both casey and suppo criticised him for that overtake. in response, suppo says something about how he's grateful to marc because they finally got payback. valentino is later asked directly about casey's complaints in 2008 in this clip, and replies with the following:

would valentino have said this stuff with casey still in the paddock? well, yes! honestly, given valentino did very quickly lay off needling casey once he had retired, there's a good chance he would have said something worse. and marc would have laughed along at the whole thing. I don't know, I just don't see casey taking particularly kindly to that... he can hold a grudge, that man can, and at a certain point he'd probably be increasingly less willing to give marc the benefit of the doubt. interesting situation though, laguna seca '13 + casey is a very juicy scenario that could play out in several different ways

but I'm guilty of burying the lede here - there's a far more obvious reason than anything I've described above for why the casey/marc relationship would have turned sour. it's the simple fact that they would have been teammates which would do the damage all on its lonesome; they have radically different conceptualisations of how that dynamic is supposed to work and would inevitably have clashed as a result. the one commonality they do have is they don't see their teammates as potential friends, which is... also not helpful! I think they'd probably initially be fine on the interpersonal level - and, actually, given how the casey/valentino relationship played out and marc's general approach to his rivalries, I can see marc/casey more or less being able to maintain a minimum standard of politeness towards each other even at their worst. like, I still think they'd be able to smile at each other and do some small talk when face-to-face, but I also think everything else would be a complete disaster. I talked a bit about how marc approaches his teammate relationships in this post - and I'm not going to rehash too much of what irl!marc got up to, but I'll include some bits relevant to casey

from marc:

related to casey:

and dani comparing the two:

we do obviously even have actual real life controversy wherein casey thinks marc felt threatened by him and forced him out of honda... and this in a timeline where they weren't even direct competitors! if this is the level of tension a test rider role can generate, then if they'd actually been teammates...? yeah, no. casey thinks that teammates should cooperate - and he thinks that riders enforcing divisions within the box are essentially doing so because they are "afraid". marc has openly admitted to lying about what parts he likes to make sure his teammate doesn't get any edge over him. this is the thing, right: marc might think casey is a cool rider, would've liked the chance to race him and even be teammates with him... but this is the stuff he did to dani, who was one of his literal idols! this is his understanding of competition - (like valentino) he might love the fight, but simultaneously he'll do pretty much whatever it takes to win, because he considers this stuff fundamentally part of the game. casey does not. to casey, this kind of victory is dishonest. any kind of gamesmanship is a sign of weakness... the victory is worth less if you're accomplishing it like that

now, hey, maybe marc would never have been able to go as far as he did with dani because he wouldn't have the kind of performance edge that allows you to definitively impose your will within the team. I think it's a popular interpretation that marc wouldn't have won the title in 2013 if casey had been there, which... I mean, I think it's true that it would have been less likely - in that in a season with that much volatility, the more plausible championship contenders you have the less likely it is that any single one of them takes the title (same goes for instance if you add in a valentino who had not gone to ducati for two years and would have presumably been more competitive in 2013). but it's not like casey would have been the defending champion and the clear class of the field... partly due to injury, he ended up finishing in third in 2012. jorge and dani didn't win the 2013 title in part as a result of their own injuries, and who knows how casey would have fared... like sometimes it's just luck of the draw really. you can be the better rider and still not win the title, shit happens. I think for as long as a more or less healthy-ish casey stays in the sport, it would have been unlikely that marc establishes quite the same performance edge as he did over dani... but, well, if anything that would have meant he would have fought even harder out of perceived necessity to win the internal honda wars

it's the kind of thing that can make a relationship quickly deteriorate, especially with a prickly character such as casey, and it's entirely plausible that dynamic would have become strained at best and horrendously toxic at worst... sooner rather than later. and the thing is, this environment would affect marc considerably less than it would casey. again, it's the fact that he relishes the fight... he's very good at shrugging off (most) criticism and thrives in that kind of tension. the emotional fatigue that this scenario generates would be painfully lopsided, where casey offers harsh criticisms and means them and is endlessly frustrated with marc's approach, while marc... doesn't really care. at least dani also had a questionable manager who was conducting behind the scenes warfare on his behalf - casey doesn't want to play these games at all. he just wants to ride a bike, and marc is never going to allow him to live in peace as long as he's an internal threat. if casey were exposed directly to all of that from marc, I doubt he'd walk away from the experience with a particularly positive impression of him

does he walk away? I think there's a decent chance that casey would have ended up so disillusioned with the whole thing that this would have been what pushed him into retirement. if he wants to get out of that mess, let's say after two years, his options would have been pretty limited. yamaha is closed off and I'd struggle to think of a scenario in which either jorge or valentino would have been particularly interested in a direct swap (also, if you're sick of being marc's teammate, you're probably not gonna be jumping at the chance to be valentino's instead). I suppose you could go back to ducati (which he did return to as a test rider so it's not like those bridges were permanently burnt), and maybe casey could do something special even with *gestures* that version of the bike. really though... I think enough would have been enough for him. regardless of the actual balance of success between the pair of them, my guess is marc wins that war because he's happier to get nasty and because he wants it more. casey has his two to four titles... he's done. let him go fishing

[jeyneofpoole]

ok so i just hit 2.5k does this make me a niche internet microcelebrity or do i not get to ascend into those echelons just yet

[coconut530]

BITTERSWEET REUNIONS

[hongjoongpresent]

One and Only 240504

[funuya]

i kept joking about fire emblem while reading danmaca