#yeah i think that's about it

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 3 thoughts

ahh, this one sounds interesting… let us see.

HATER ALERT: i actually felt almost no interest during this episode… until the very end. the monster was scary, but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, and when our agents are separated doing different tasks, we lose that emotional heart of the show. i did feel attached to our new friend mr. duff, but from seeing how these episodes go, i knew what was going to happen to him. the ending was great- i love when they save each other! but the other parts were kinda just… eh. and the stuff they introduced that was supposed to build up to the bigger plot also didn’t interest me. i was like okay, so we just get another one of these deep throat fellows. i hate to say it, but i was kind of bored!!!

despite this announcement, let us return to the liveblogging

good to be reunited, i say after 2 days having not seen an episode. might have to quit my job when i finish this show because there will be nothing else to carry me through lmaooo i NEED to look forward to scully and mulder time AND THEN scully and mulder discussion time directly after!!!!

we are on a plane. ah yes, the flute my mutual phoebe speaks of is playing. shoutout to @azure-firecracker. i see some people in cool outfits and a child playing with what looks like a yellow barney doll? not one of barney’s friends… it looks like barney himself, but yellow. interesting.

oh! this fellow is reading french! it’s a paper about repairing some infrastructure! i like that i can read a few words :)

ACK! a creature with white painted skin and a red human eye is watching our francophone friend! oh boy, i paused right as this eye filled my screen and it was deeply unpleasant. 

so francophone friend is trying to use the airplane bathroom but i am spooked because that thing is somewhere… and he looks up and SCREAMS!!!!!

now the plane has arrived… but where is our dude who went to the bathroom? an entirely different guy is climbing up from the ground. and his eyes look like they are bleeding????

so where is OG francophone dude???? BLEAH! he is dead and now HIS face is painted all white!!!

so did we get some body swap stuff going on….?

oh gosh this is creepy…. something about that skin paint and red eye combo is freaking me tf out…

HUH??? intro time has been interrupted by new words in the title sequence!!! they read “deceive inveigle obfuscate”… had to look up “inveigle” but it means to persuade… what are we dealing with here??

i can’t figure out what the pattern is for why some special episodes have different title sequences…. oh i bet the OG fans were trying to CRACK the code back in the day

(author's note: i think the titles change when we learn stuff about the various deep throats? plural. you'll see why i specify plural later on)

back at the headquarters. scully is coming into skinner’s office. she is in a very nice white suit! she remarks that there isn’t much traffic at this hour… she showed up at 5:17 AM?!?! she needs a RAISE!!

she is introduced to a dr. bruin from the philly CDC. well this sounds like it is going to be a scary matter if it involves disease. she shakes this guy’s hand but doesn’t say anything. can’t tell if it’s a silent read or not…

so four young men have gone missing in philly recently, all Black. and there are no leads… until last night! owen sanders, reported missing, was found dead near a construction site. but he wasn’t killed!!! disease....?

so he shows her a photo of a dude painted white and is like “i thought he was black” and the doctor is like yeah he was. but maybe a new disease caused depigmentation. so we should get a microscope.

(that was funny to me because he was very clearly a Black man just painted white with actual paint... writers, do not think such tricks could fool medical doctor dana scully)

so i am not to believe that these guys were NOT actually painted, but rather they lost their pigmentation? okay, okay, noted. i am suspending my disbelief 

skinner says they hoped someone with a background like scully could make a quick analysis. this is also funny because i feel they should have maybe gone to a specialist in skin conditions that could possibly cause such effects...? but for plot reasons it Must be her. i mean she IS kinda the best, so maybe she can figure it out. by 7:30 am she is doing an autopsy.

OH! she says the bleaching of the irises suggest a cellular reaction… bleh. sounds very nasty.

“hey, i heard you were down here slicing and dicing”, says mulder, entering the room and sabotaging her nice little recording session 

(mulder makes a michael jackson joke that feels wrong) (also he is popping sunflower seeds in the morgue)

he is very suspicious… not believing it is a real disease… 

“mulder, not everything is a labyrinth of dark conspiracy” <- LMAO i’ve reblogged that moment before but now i really get to see it!!

“and not everybody is planning to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate” <- she said the words omg…. (he watches and pops a sunflower seed)

what a lovely vocabulary she has, the better to look at him disapprovingly with 

he wants to join the case and she looks off sort of by the camera and looks SO done lmaoooo

cutscene to another man, mr. aboah, who conspicuously seems to be missing some pigment on his back. and in a way that does not look like paint.

someone is knocking at his door. oh! it’s marcus duff, his immigration counselor, who has arrived to talk about naturalization. mr. aboah welcomes him into his room, but the lights are off and it is very hard to see, i note. duff agrees it is very dark! and brings this fact up! so he turns one light on, and they sit to do paperwork. 

duff says aboah looks ill… but he denies it. so duff says he knows how lonely it is to be newly arrived to the US, and that he can help aboah bring over his whole family. long silence... suspiciously long silence… then a thank you.

mulder is going to the lab and there he sees agent pendrell! LMAOOOO he wants to wait for scully but mulder says she has a date just to mess with him… THEN SAYS IT’S WITH A DEAD MAN BECAUSE SHE IS DOING AN AUTOPSY LMAOOOO

damn, everyone knows how down bad this dude is.... that is soooo funny and also pathetic. unfortunately i do lowkey loathe this pendrell fellow. like stay away from her yk?

so, what did they find in the autopsy… a seed of a rare flower indigenous to certain parts of west africa!

(cutscene to mulder on the phone, holding the seed) “it contains a cerebropathic glycoside. does that mean anything to you?” <- i love when he asks her medical questions because he doesn’t know wtf any of that stuff means... it makes my heart grow three sizes to see him deferential

and she knows what it means!! it’s a depressant. she is still in the morgue, now covered in lots of blood all over her coat 

oh! she found something that could explain his lack of pigmentation… “his pituitary gland was necrotized”, which is a funny thing to say even if it actually has a very important meaning! the pituitary gland controls hormones... and melanin!

“i have identified the effect, i am still looking for the cause” <- i love her so terribly, and her rigid but in a lovely way line of thinking... this is a very important specification!

“where are you, mulder?” “off to water the seeds of doubt. bye bye” omg he actually said bye. that has to be a first. also where is his ass going…

there’s something different about the way his hair is brushed in front of his face today and hmmppppgh he looks. handsome.

he is off to the UN building again… and we see ms. covarrubias, from before??? was he lowkey stalking her….?

yes! yes he was, and approaches her in the dark! this is deeply weird behavior, even for him... also why does he think she can help with this case. he’s onto something… but what? 

she flat out denies knowing about this case. but he doesn’t buy it.

WAIT. i see what is going on here… is she going to be deep throat 3.0?!?!?!

damn... we’re nearly at a deep throat a season at this pace...

not sure i like that tbh. like are we gonna just keep getting and losing deep throats. it's getting a little old. also, whatever happened to that one senator who would leak stuff to mulder? was that just a two episode and never mention it again kind of thing?

hmm.

okay, back to philadelphia i think. yes, this is confirmed by the eagles hat this guy has on. OH! he was hit in the head with something. it looks a thorn, and it digs deep in his head and got all bloody, bleh! he is losing his vision after this, and stumbled onto the bench behind him. everything is deeply trippy from his point of view, and the bus driver leaves angrily, thinking he is on drugs, which was very rude.

but as the bus driver pulls away, we see aboah on the other side of the street!!! who is losing even more melanin in his skin as time goes on!!! and also has one eye all pink now!!!

(intense chanting over a drum beat)

next day, scully is with the bus driver from before, asking about what went down. he claims he asked the dude if he needed help, which is very much not true. 

and mulder arrives! alfred kittel, 17 years old, went missing last night. this is not good.

mulder’s convinced it has to do with another rare seed, and he pulls out some file that deep throat 3.0 must have given him. and it’s a photo of our francophone friend from the very beginning of the episode, who was also found dead and without pigment!

“it says here the cause of death was undetermined” “yeah, undetermined scully, but not necessarily unknown” <- so what does that mean… like they just didn't investigate because they were scared to learn the truth? hmm.

some police are knocking at aboah’s door the next day, asking him about the missing person’s case- notable, one Black officer is talking about how weird of a name aboah is. i see this attempt on commentary, and acknowledge it, but it feels... odd.

and despite denying having any informationon the missing man's whereabouts, who is in aboah's office but kittel, the kid who was hit with a seed last night, missed his bus, and was reported missing! he is quietly gasping, watching the TV, and oh…. he is losing pigment in his eye and skin as well!!! WHAT IS GOING ON

aboah opens his mouth really really wide and…. PULLS SOMETHING OUT OF HIS THROAT??? what was that!?? what was that.

hey. what was that...

mulder and scully are now visiting mr. duff, the guy who was helping out mr. aboah with his naturalization process. they’re asking him to cross reference his list of clients with a list of people from that flight where our francophone friend sadly was killed, and mr. duff thinks they’re trying to catch illegal immigrants, unto scully busts out the word “public health crisis” and then things kick into gear.

mulder checks aboah’s place, but no luck. she’s going on about how it’s her duty to find and solve this disease as a doctor ( <3 ) and he recognizes aboah in a crowd of construction workers… but when mulder approaches he sprints!!! little did he know of mulder’s trackstar skills. 

scully thinks he jumped through the fence, but mulder finds him… in some sort of hole???

so it’s MRI time for aboah, to figure out we is going on. the doctor is saying he looks asymptomatic, but mulder is pouting in the window, so scully asks to run a few more tests. and apparently aboah can’t communicate with them due to the language barrier… so they called mr. duff, who is very angry that his client has been arrested.

mulder says “we only arrested him because he ran when we tried to question him, and i want to know why he ran”...

(CRINGE! CRINGE! INSENSITIVE WHITE MAN ALERT!)

...which causes mr. duff to respond with “sir, if you had ever been beaten by the police, or had your home burned to the ground for no other reason than being born, then maybe you would understand why he ran” oh! mulder cringe moment intensifies, even after this heartfelt explanation from mr. duff, as he INSISTS aboah ran because he’s hiding something 

“where are you going?” “to find someone who i know plotted to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate” (silly words said very angrily)

so he’s at the burkina faso embassy. talking to the man who mulder thinks requested to stop the investigation into the first man’s death. this is a bold accusation... but not one the man seems to deny.

he says that his people, the Bambara, are farmers, and he grew up hearing stories of the Teliko, spirits of the air. they hide in small holes- which could be how aboah got in that pipe, i suppose- and oh no, the doctor back at the hospital is looking for mr. aboah while our unnamed embassy man is explaining how the teliko emerge at night!

the man from the embassy talks about his experience with an air spirit as a child, and how his father saved him from one. but then, they found his cousin dead and entirely white, like the dead men. which is why he knew it was real.

(zoom in on aboah in a tiny drawer of a food delivery cart) OH! the eyeballs peeking out are CREEPY

next morning, they’re looking at x rays. scully says aboah has something lodged in his throat… like that thing we saw him take out before!! and even more disturbing… look at the saggital section, just below the hypothalamus! NO PITUITARY GLAND!

GASP! this is impossible! (i love the medial jargon)

mulder emerges into the room just as they say this to point out that aboah has disappeared!

mr. duff is heading back to his car, but aboah is on the prowl. mr. duff is very happy to see him, and gives him a ride home. NOOO DON’T LET SOMETHING BAD HAPPEN TO THIS GENTLEMAN!!

NOOO! mulder is investigating the food cart when scully reports that mr. duff’s car was found abandoned…. with the keys still in the ignition. do not hurt him.

WHAT? cutscene to aboah holding this BIG NEEDLE thing over duff while one of his eyes is very pale…. where is that needle going…. OMFG HIS NOSE I CAN’T LOOK… 

the police arrive just after some crunching noises were heard and then also some snuffling in the pipes as aboah escapes into them. but luckily, duff is alive.

mulder is proposing that he is basically a vampire for melanin?

wait, hold on, what is going on about now? “the lost tribe- a clan of sub-Saharan albinos linked by their common congenital deficit who’ve adapted over generations by…” “what, by stealing other people’s hormones?”

well, scully, i must say i had a very similar reaction to his hypothesis!

so why wouldn’t it be an isolated case? she asks. a very good question! because of what someone told mulder last night… “so you’re basing this theory on a folktale?” “it’s just another way of describing the same truth, right? i mean, all new truths begin as heresies and end as superstitions. we fear the unknown, so we reduce it to the germs that are most familiar to us, whether that’s a folktale or a disease or conspiracy”

well... that is an opinion you can have, i guess?

scully with the counterpoint: why leave his own country to come here and do the killings? his smarts ass reply: free cable…. or liberty n whatnot idk

mulder pulls over to a demolition site, which he thinks might be connected to one of the other bodies, so he just. busts a hole in there and walks in. fully knowing that it is a demolition site with active asbestos. okay!!! get that mesothelioma suit king

creepy music as they explore… and hear clanging in the dark…. mulder is gonna climb a ladder now.

BLEH, THE SCARY EYES ARE WATCHING!!!!

AND NO!!! mulder is hit by one of the seeds!!!! he is calling out for scully as he trips into another dimension. NO!!!! he has fallen down!!!

scully rescue time….? now she must climb the ladder…. and sees him toppled onto the ground!!!

she hears some clanking about and climbs into a vent… which had to be awful to film… the teliko is above her!!!!!!

more vent crawling…. AND OMG!!! the dude from before, alfred kittle, is in there, and now very very very white and dead!! rip king :(

but she finds mulder in there, alive. he can only groan softly. aww poor meow meow. but something rapidly approaches….

JEEZ.. IT'S ABOAH/THE AIR SPIRIT, AND HE’S CRAWLING ON ALL FOURS AND BARRELLING TOWARDS HER WITH SHINY SCARY EYES LIKE A CAT WAAAH

scully whips out her gun and fires two shots… and aboah (do i call him aboah? IS he still the man named aboah? was he ever? or was he just a spirit?) anyway he seems to have disappeared?

(mulder still groaning) “it’s okay, mulder. i’m here. okay?” <- oh…… a rescue scene…. oh be still my heart…. i was not expecting to feel so Tender

so she beats the vent open, and finds the other bodies of the missing men in there. then she pulls his body out of the vent, apologizing to him for yanking on his legs to get him out, which was quite sweet, before slumping him up against one of the bodies to call 911.

OH! scully badge number reveal! JTT0331613. so WRITE THAT DOWN, SUPER FANS. but as she calls, the creature slash aboah returns behind her… 

mulder is groaning and trying to let her know… and she gets the hint, whips around with her gun, and shoots!

phenomenal communication between them with no more than faint moaning from mulder. truly highlights their connection.

this time, it appears there is no escape from the bullets for the teliko, as she sits with mulder among all of the bodies

oh! scully is wrapping up the episode and she has these round glasses on and my heart is skipping a few beats!! this is field journal entry 74.

good news! mr. duff survived!! and aboah is being charged for murder, but aboah is dying as they speak and may not live long enough to stand trial. and she’s confident science can explain the whole thing… “but what science may never be able to explain is our ineffable fear of the alien among us, a fear which often drives us not to search for understanding, but to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate, to obscure the truth not only from others, but from ourselves” (and fade to black)

well! my initial thoughts…

it seems this episode existed only to introduce us to deep throat 3.0. that seemed to be the only greater overarching plot point there. which is fine, we rarely get any contributions to the overall plot in these monster of the week episodes, but… this one just didn’t do it for me.

idk, i was kind of bored?? the only times i felt things were when mr. duff was very kind, the spookiness of the creepy faces, cringe at mulder’s insensitivity, and when scully saved him at the end. that was it for me. oh, and ick at pendrell. that was it. everything else was just kinda there.

when they’re separated…idk, it just doesn’t hit the same. but i did like seeing more into medical scully! and her dogged determination slash sworn life goal being to find answers and help people! so that was good. but... idk, the concept was really interesting, i just feel like the ball was fumbled in terms of execution, and i can’t even really pinpoint why. 

here are some possible theories as to why i felt this episode was unsatisfactory: we didn't really KNOW anything about our monster of the week. he had no real compelling motivation or backstory or anything. he just showed up, like the fat vampire from season 3, who also stood out to me as a bland monster of the week. in terms of if he was a person at one point or always a vicious air spirit- who knows? the logic wasn't explained.

mulder's racial insensitivity gave me hives which is reason enough on its own for me to dislike the episode. mr. duff was like "maybe aboah was running because of the way this country treats Black people", which is an entirely valid point, and then mulder was all NUH-UH HE'S EVIL and THAT is why he is running. and then... that being what actually happens also rings kinda hollow. that sort of profiling that mulder just did isn't what gets people treated so terribly or abused at the hands of law enforcement in the first place. but i'm supposed to think mulder just Knows this through his magical judgement. hmm.

the succession of deep throats is also getting a bit old for me. i enjoyed one and two, but now it's feeling like a regeneration thing. what makes deep throat 1.0 and x's deaths compelling if we just get a new one every single time?

so: maybe i am a hater. and that is okay. in a way, we are lucky to have episodes that are just sort of mid. because i have been raised in a world of 6 hour long episodes being 1 season. i have grown up in a world designed solely for streaming, and that compactness forfeits the luxury of the exploration of world building or playing with genre that the 24 episode per season format from this era allows. so in this piece of what i believe is just a kind of boring episode, i am realizing how lucky i am that such a thing exists now that they are no longer being made.

[liquidstar]

If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)

At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.

Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[bladesmitten]

as much as i love corruption arcs, there's just something so sexy about a character that can't be corrupted, to the point that he un-corrupts you instead

this post is about wyll ravengard btw. honorary mention to mr. luke skywalker

[beybuniki]

i need dabi to experience the trials of being a stay-at-home adult son

[hinamie]

surprise it's yuri!!!in 2024

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Into the pit? More like into the daddy issues

[egophiliac]

you know, I've been thinking about it, and there is actually one single scenario in which I would be okay with not getting a big ol' "Silver Vanrouge" out of Lilia.

(just kidding, I still need some "call me Silver, Mr. Vanrouge is my father" in my life, please don't let me down on this one Twst)

[unsung-idiot]

way to ruin the mood

[buggachat]

something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.

But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin

[3rdsday]

Tommy basically said "the DSMP was good because it was, and still is, loved" and that basically sums up my feelings on the matter too.

[lelianaslefthand]

im not exaggerating when i say i've thought about this dialogue at least once a day since the veilguard trailer dropped

[dustybones]

shadowheart casts guidance

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[mumblesplash]

i know it’s like years old at this point but i love that one collab mumbo and grian did with tommyinnit bc it’s like the single most concentrated example i’ve seen of mumbo’s Chaos Nullification Powers

you get to see a bit of it on hermitcraft, mostly via his interactions with grian, but until seeing that collab it didn’t really hit me just how completely mumbo can no-sell other people’s attempts to control a situation. tommyinnit is possibly the single shoutiest, most chaotic minecraft youtuber out there, and in most videos i’ve seen he pretty much overwhelms everyone else and sets the tone for interactions because of this. but mumbo just. doesn’t let him. no matter how much tommy escalates in intensity, mumbo reacts with *exactly* the same energy he always does. grian largely comes across in the whole video as annoyed and reluctant to engage with the whole thing, but mumbo’s not even affected. he just rolls with anything he finds funny and basically ignores anything he disapproves of, only seeming more and more unflappable the harder anyone tries to get a rise out of him.

AND imo, this is the key to my favorite interpretation of him as a character

see, when the people around him are being more reasonable/calm, i think mumbo often comes across as anxious and a bit easily overwhelmed. the thing is, his nervous wet cat vibes do not scale. he has one setting. his responses to the last life ‘ah-ha!’ jokes and to hermitcraft 8 starting to crumble to pieces under a falling moon are almost identical.

mumbo jumbo is inexorably and eternally Just Some Guy, but that gets stranger and stranger the weirder his surroundings become. the giggly incredulousness that makes him an easy target for goofy puns looks Very different when it’s also his reaction to the impending end of the world.