s2 episode 4 thoughts
i thought this episode sounded interesting! the plot was kinda: wasn't it fucked up when the vietnam war happened? and i was sitting here like, yeah, quite famously it was pretty fucked up. still, an interesting exploration into trauma and the american role of imperialism
the first thing i wrote was "a lot of people in this show fall asleep watching the tv but personally i have never done that". am i immune to the Curse or something?
so this guy who is a sleep doctor sees a fire and he calls the fire department right away, and everyone is evacuating, and we see a dude in the hallway with a suspicious smile and an even more suspicious scar across his neck. i am used to the episode structure by now, so i knew this was our mystery man of the week.
but the firemen get to the burning fellow's house and there is no fire! despite it looking so real to him that he actually burned to death... it's not there! well huh! must be our mystery man can psychically project fire
cutscene to mulder's place and it again looks like an entirely new set for his apartment. again, i ask, i'm not crazy, right?? can someone else confirm that this is an entirely different space than what we saw before?
(i hope we don't see scully in a new space as well- i thought her apartment was so cute in s1)
he gets a newspaper and a tape of the call dropped off at his door so he runs to skinner and begs with his big sad wet eyes to please let him take the case. and skinner is like maybe. but go transcribe a bunch of wiretaps first. so THAT is why he's always listening to weird stuff!
BUT WAIT! who enters our fair scene...? but a NEW CHARACTER? he is a guy who looks like he crawled out of a frat house where he majored in lacrosse and business... he introduces himself as alex and says that this is HIS case... mulder is PISSED he's all "i work alone >:(" but he can't shake the dude off... hmm.
(i recall seeing a post about people slash shipping mulder with a character in s2- i saw this post way before i started watching the show, so i only noted it in my passing interest of fandom history- and i'm wondering if this is the fellow they were referring to. in the same post i saw mulder in a speedo which i guess we'll get to in time)
scully's back at the academy!!! teaching another autopsy class! boy they must have a steady stream of bodies coming in for this. but an urgent call is coming from a "george hale" and she leaves class to go answer...
and it's mulder!!!!! he has a code name!!! he asks her to fly up to new york and do an autopsy and she's like "i'm in class til 4:30" and he's like "that's fine, we'll wrap it up for you and you can come up at 5!" and she sighs and. agrees.
now. again. this was shocking to me. mulder cannot have anyone else draw his blood or do an autopsy it HAS to be his friend scully. and she WILL get on a flight and do it. this is SICK and TWISTED how she will do anything for him.
mulder was being a real jerk to alex and alex said "i don't appreciate being ditched like a bad date" and to my shock and dismay i found myself agreeing with this new character... mulder WAS being unreasonable... i mean we knew he's been moody lately but this was downright hostile
(mulder walks in while scully puts an organ into a scale) "spleen or pancreas?" "stomach" <- LMAO his ass did NOT pass anatomy!
and they're all so smiley and happy to see each other when. scully sees this man behind him. and her smile fades SO fast.
(he tries to shake her hand but given that her hands are covered in stomach she wisely brushes him by. it may have seemed like a diss but i assume he doesn't want gore on his hands)
alex is GAGGING over the body (me too) so mulder gets realllllll close to scully to block out his amateur hour buffoonery...
(y'all need to not be that close and looking at each other in such a manner in front of a dead guy... or do it more for my sake)
she's whispering that it seems his body believed he burned to death despite there being no burns on him!
we see another guy with a same scar on his neck as the first!!! he knows the first guy and it seems initially that their reunion is wholesome... until preacher (scar man one) admits to killing the sleep doctor... and then things get... wild
"holy fuck", i mumbled to myself while also writing down the same phrase in my notes, as a blood soaked family appeared in the room, shooting the character we just met for his crimes. that escalated with an extreme quickness. it was clear that whatever traumas he had inflicted upon others in vietnam were being returned in equal measure via the psychic force of this preacher character
then we go back to mulder and alex, who i thought was handling mulder's hater energy quite well, all things considered. but little did i know what was to come...
so sleep doctor, the guy who just died, and preacher all knew each other... interesting... they were stationed at basic training together...
we get a visual on mulder's new source after deep throat's passing! he says he has no desire to be there, and that their mutual friend deep throat died for what he believed in, which he does not want to do. which is of course totally fair. at the end of the day the FBI is just a paycheck for some of these folks.
the sleep doctor was revealed to be doing experiments to make super advanced soldiers who don't need sleep so maybe that gives you the power to kill people magically. we can't really rule it out.
preacher then makes two cops kill EACH OTHER with his sorcery
back to scully cam <3 she's got her glasses on at the computer <3 she's got little yellow earrings in that look like flowers <3 and she thinks its so cool that they cut part of this guy's brain out and now he hasn't slept in 24 years... nerd
they're on the phone with each other and it is SO SAD because why. why can't they just be together! it's not fair. she says it sounds like his new partner is working out and he's like yeah he's okay...
"must be nice to not have someone poking holes in all your theories" "yeah, no idea how i put up with you for so long" and they're smiling into the phone while saying this
now, i won't lie. this scene, of all the scenes, was the first to bring tears to my eyes in the course of my streaming this show. because now we have seen what they'll do for each other and they're TAUNTING me by dangling it in front of my face. and i cannot stand it. i feel sick at the thought.
anyway back to mulder and his new partner. who i feel is too good to be true because he's willing to believe spooky mulder's theories. but they found another guy who also had the sleep surgery and he tells them that they went on a rampage committing atrocities in vietnam which was. very heavy for the alien show. but it is something that americans often pretend just didn't happen so i thought it was interesting that the idea of accountability was being explored in fiction.
so there's one more guy involved with the sleep surgery, and he's coming into town, so alex and mulder have to sprint down to the station and try and find him. they're really giving it a sprint, too. mulder is a track star. don't think i've forgotten
and mulder does see the guy they're looking for but preacher is behind him and shoots mulder! he falls to the ground! no, i yelled to my screen! not another bullet in mulder!
... but he gets up. the whole thing was a trick of preacher! it never actually happened!
alex is like dude wtf. and this is where he says "i want to believe" and this where i made the very astute note "i don't trust this guy, sorry"
so finally they find preacher still alive, and mulder tells alex to help out his victim, while mulder runs off to find him. mulder sees how much pain he is in, and tells him that maybe his pain can lessen if he testifies about what was done to him, and it seems they've come to an understanding...
until alex enters, pulls his gun up, so preacher also pulls his gun up, and alex and shoots him! preacher is dead
mulder looks deeply upset by this. he tells alex that he did the right thing, but you can tell he doesn't believe it in the slightest. i would venture to guess that this is when all the trust he had begun to place in alex vanishes. he seems entirely deflated at the unnecessary loss of life.
he goes back to the car and notices someone stole the secret files that his informant gave him, and he punches the car. this is simply too many L's for one day, and i sympathize.
but scully's freaking out too, because her office was broken into and all her stuff looked through! so what in the name of hell is going on here?!?!? ah, i realize, it is this alex fool... "i know ur related somehow" i wrote ominously in my quotes
and boy, i was right! the narrative the writers were going for was not lost on me! because remember skinner's old sidekick the cigarette guy? and how they had a sort of breakup moment? well, alex is reporting to him, and they have the file he stole from mulder!!!!!
alex says that scully is a "big problem" to which i say: keep talking like that, you overgrown varsity jock, and you're gonna have a big problem with my fucking hands catching your throat
anyway, interesting episode. i didn't want to like alex and then i did because i felt bad for him for being subjected to mulder's attitude and then i hated his guts by the end and reluctantly admitted to myself that mulder's crankiness was justified. i hope he won't stick around for long but i have a feeling he will.
also, they need to stop taunting me by dangling a real mulder and scully reunion in front of my head and then ripping it away. i had TEARS! in my eyeballs! i was sighing wistfully! it was sick!!!!!! this is my free time i'm spending here pining after these fools! it's me, the fan, asking for fan service!!!
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microfic - marytunia!!!!! | 1.7k words | i don’t think there’s anything to warn?? so enjoy <3
“Smoke?” Mary asked, shaking the pack in her hand, an eyebrow raised.
Petunia was already halfway out of her seat, picking up her jacket and leading the way out to the alleyway beside the building where they worked. She’d been waiting for Mary to ask for the last half an hour, fidgeting in her seat and staring blankly at her computer screen.
A far cry from when she had first started working there, four months ago, trying to stand dead in the centre of the ring of boundaries she had built around herself and making herself as small as possible so that she wouldn’t have to press up against them any more than she already had just by being there, by working in that call centre.
(D’you wanna come for a smoke?” Mary leaning against her desk, their first day on the job.)
She had been so sure that this job would be temporary, that she would do it for a month at most before she found something better, something that was an actual career, something that paid more than minimum wage and would make her parents proud.
(Petunia frowning up at her from her chair, “I don’t smoke.”)
They were always proud of Lily, the youngest child, the special one, now in her second term at Oxford, always smarter and prettier and funnier and better than Petunia in every conceivable way, a prodigy, the perfect daughter, the one who had potential. Petunia who didn’t, always average and trying to be satisfied with that, the afterthought, never mind how she had been born first, not bad, not a complete failure but disappointing nevertheless in how she didn’t excel, the sister who was left behind.
(“Will you come anyway?” Mary insisting, those big brown eyes, something nearly desperate in them, and Petunia reluctantly acquiescing.)
Mary had been left behind too, Lily’s best friend all throughout secondary school. Petunia used to think they were more than friends even, but she’d never had any proof and she didn’t like to think about it all that much. Mary wasn’t going to university either, but at least she had actual dreams - Lily may have left them both behind, heading for greener pastures, a new group of friends with summer houses in Tuscany, a new best friend in all her instagram pictures, one that she called a sister, but at least Mary knew what she wanted from the world. Had plans beyond the four walls of the call centre and memories of when a girl with red hair used to smile at her.
Petunia’s plan had always been to get married, to have a child or two, to spend her time tidying the house and cooking and being unexciting and uneventful, average and disappointing but enough, maybe it would be enough.
Then Vernon, her long-term boyfriend, had found someone newer and shinier and more interesting and Petunia hadn’t even had the self-respect to leave him, no, he’d had to break up with her after three months of cheating on her and two months of her knowing about it. It was a bit pathetic really, because it wasn’t like Vernon was anything special anyway, in fact, he was fairly awful, but he was security and Petunia always liked to play it safe, no potential, no risks, no surprises.
She had been surprised to find Mary there, on that first day four months ago, sat at the desk next to hers, friendly as always even as Petunia tried to ignore her, tried to focus on the job (which was mind-numbingly boring and also quite possibly her least favourite thing in the world, calling people up and trying to get them to buy things). It was familiar now though, nice even, especially when they went out to smoke.
Petunia leant carefully against the brick wall, holding out a hand for one of Mary’s cigarettes. They’d been doing this every day that they’d been at work together for the last four months and she still refused to buy her own pack, she didn’t smoke, you see, but if Mary was offering, then who was she to say no? There probably weren’t many things that she would say no to if it was Mary who was asking.
Mary huffed as she always did, settling in next to her against the wall and fishing her lighter out of her pocket, placing a cig between Petunia’s waiting fingers.
Once it was lit, Petunia took a long drag, tipping her head back against the wall, eyes closed and breathing out slowly as Mary took it from her so she could take her own, their fingers brushing.
“Lily texted me last night.” she said after a few quiet moments, passing the cig back again.
Petunia cracked one eye open. So, it was going to be that kind of smoke break, “Oh?”
“She said she wanted me to go and visit her,” Mary continued, “In two weeks.”
Petunia frowned. Two weeks was Mary’s birthday. They had both booked the day off work so they could go into town, do something to celebrate together.
“Oh.” she said, taking another drag from the cigarette, trying to ease the tension she could suddenly feel in her shoulders.
“Yeah.” said Mary. Then she laughed, a little bitter, a little sad. “Silly, really. All the times I’ve asked her if I could come up and she’s said that she’s too busy, but the first time that she asks me - I’m the one who already has plans.”
Petunia felt herself slump further against the wall, relieved, pleased maybe. Mary nudged her with an elbow, “Hey. Did you think I was gonna just cancel our plans?”
“I don’t know,” Petunia sighed, letting Mary take the cig again, “It’s Lily.”
And really, that could mean any number of things.
It’s Lily and Lily always gets what she wants.
It’s Lily and everyone always picks Lily over me.
It’s Lily and if Lily wanted me to visit, I think I might’ve cancelled our plans.
“Yeah,” Mary replied, blowing smoke out into the crisp February air, “It’s Lily. And of course, I would love to see her. But you’re Petunia.”
“I’m Petunia,” she echoed blankly.
“You’re Petunia,” Mary agreed, a smile in her voice that she could hear now, “and I’ve been looking forward to our little outing for ages,”
Petunia turned her head to look at her, met with those brown eyes much closer than she was expecting, that warm smile, shoulder to shoulder out in the bleak cold. And there was something in the air, more than just cigarette smoke and the intermingling scents of their perfumes, something that made Petunia want to take a risk.
“And it’s not just because you’re pissed at her?” she asked, because that would be worse maybe, Mary just using her to get back at Lily in some way, even if that was somewhat how Petunia had rationalised their… friendship, at first, or maybe it wouldn’t really make much of a difference, she didn’t know.
“No,” Mary rolled her eyes, taking another drag before handing the cigarette back to Petunia, “It’s not because I’m pissed at her. Not everything is about Lily. Even if she had replied to every single message I’d ever sent her, I would still wanna go with you.”
Petunia paused, lips pursing around the end of the cig in her mouth, because she was sure there used to be a time when not everything was about Lily, back before she was born maybe, red hair and bright green eyes and immediately special, immediately the centre of attention (not that Petunia was jealous, she didn’t want to be special, she didn’t want the hot heat of the spotlight, but, it would be nice to have something, maybe, she didn’t know, maybe she was a little jealous). Now, and for as long as she could remember, everything had always been about Lily, it felt strange that Mary should say something like that, refute that absolute intrinsic truth of the universe, so casually, as if it wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation.
Because Mary wanted to go with her.
Not Lily.
Her.
Petunia Evans.
Mary was still smiling a little, blinking up at her, earnest, honest, brown eyes that Petunia would probably follow anywhere, brown eyes that were making her brave, making her want to burn down the boundaries she had placed around herself, or at least climb through the hole that Mary had been steadily cutting into them over the course of the last four months.
They were standing close, and Mary’s shoulder was warm against hers, and Mary wanted to go with her.
And Petunia wanted to go too. Wanted to float off into this alternate reality where not everything was about Lily, and people chose Petunia because they wanted to, and maybe Petunia didn’t play it safe, maybe she took a risk.
Maybe she watched as those big brown eyes flicked down to look at her lips for a moment, still wrapped around the end of their cigarette.
Maybe she brought up a hand and tossed the butt onto the floor.
Maybe she moved that hand to Mary’s cheek, soft skin, cold in the winter air.
Maybe she leaned in and pressed their lips together, something far out of the bounds of what she had thought she was or could be, something exciting and eventful, and maybe still disappointing to her parents but maybe that didn’t matter as much as she had always thought it did.
Maybe what mattered was Mary.
Mary who was kissing her back, a hand on Petunia’s waist and pulling her so they were properly facing each other.
Mary who wanted to go out with her on her birthday and probably get drunk and come into work hungover the next day and spend an excessive amount of time on smoke breaks.
Mary who Petunia shouldn’t want, had tried and failed to convince herself that she didn’t want, but who had a smile that could melt glaciers and a gaze that felt like a spotlight and a way of working her way into your life until you looked forward to seeing her more than you had ever looked forward to anything.
Mary who was there, in the alleyway beside the call centre with Petunia, kissing her in a way that she had never been kissed before, like she was the most precious thing in this universe, like she had potential.
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RESIDENT EVIL → THE WESKER FAMILY
To the public, little is known of the families behind some of the world’s most renowned bioterrorists, but the question remains: did they play a role in causing their children to walk down the path that they did? Or are these individuals simply ambitious criminals with delusions of grandeur?
For Diana Wesker (née Afanasyeva), her introduction into the bioweapons black market trade was upon discovering her employers were using her research into limb regeneration with salamanders to further their experiments in creating enhanced soldiers, instead of developing human therapies with which she was recruited for. Although the prospect of using biological weapons in the military did not appeal to her, the concept remained fascinating for her own selfish endeavours. Born on the 27th of October, 1963 in Sydney, Australia to Russian immigrant parents, Diana had harsh expectations placed upon her at a young age, ones that no matter how hard she tried she could never live up to. Her mother, Tatyana, was an unfeeling woman, absent for long stretches of time with little regard to how it affected her daughters, much more concerned with her craft as an accomplished opera singer. Viktor was no better. A strict man whose role as father and ballet master blurred, he pushed his girls to one day follow in his footsteps. Whilst Sofia enjoyed ballet, and went on to become a professional ballet dancer, Diana’s heart was set on going into the field of biology. She wished to make a name for herself, separate from her family – to which she succeeded.
Diana was married to former U.S. Marine, Dave Monroe, for only a year until he was declared dead in 1992 after succumbing to injuries sustained in a horrific car accident. Foul play was ruled out while Diana played the role of the grief-stricken widow, but in reality, she had snapped after years of mistreatment at her husband’s hands, and opted for something she could pass off as an accident to be free of him. For years she believed he was dead – and he was, legally – but that proved to not be the case when he found his way back into her life again in 1999. Unbeknownst to her, she had been lied to by the police and coroner, who were paid off by her employers when they took Dave’s body for themselves and used him as one of their first test subjects in developing supersoldiers. Before he could ever hurt her again, Diana’s second husband, Albert Wesker, tracked the man down, captured him and tortured him, before allowing Diana to get her violent and bloody revenge.
The origins of Albert Wesker’s involvement in bioterrorism, alongside his twin sister, Alex, are much different than that of Diana’s. The two hail from London, Canada, but unfortunately, they hold no memories of their lives there, nor what happened to their biological parents when they were eight years old. Agents of Oswell E. Spencer, an aristocratic billionaire and eugenicist, took the twins from their home and executed their parents as per Spencer’s orders. Albert and Alex were then placed in a home funded by the Spencer Foundation where they were given new names and a privileged upbringing. They had access to the best education possible, free to pursue whichever field they decided, but it was by no accident they both went into virology and bioengineering; at home, their adoptive parents – agents whom they believed to be their real parents – instilled them with the beliefs of Oswell E. Spencer, harbouring disdain for war and pestilence, and believing humans to be an evolutionary dead-end in need of a rebirth. They were only two of the hundreds of children “adopted” as part of what is known as Project W, a plan intended to develop an advanced race of human beings. The most promising candidates were headhunted by Umbrella Pharmaceuticals, the twins amongst them, where they went on to create bioweapons for the company founded by none other than the man who had handpicked them for his plan. The final stage of this was to infect the thirteen Spencer saw fit, however, only two survived; Albert received the intended effects, now possessing superhuman abilities, however, Alex was only offered more time to live due to her terminal degenerative illness.
In the summer of 1995, Diana was working undercover within Umbrella to gather development data on their projects for her company. Here, she had a chance encounter with Albert, an intelligence officer at the time, which permanently altered the course of her life. The two were never seen far from one another’s side, marrying in 1998, and they went on to become notorious in the bioweapons industry. The development of the Uroboros virus was where things took a turn for the worst. Although Diana’s infection was successful and she bore abilities that rivalled her husband’s, the plan itself did not succeed as they had hoped, and almost cost Albert his life at the hands of his former subordinates.
Now, they work within the shadows, with Diana declared missing and Albert believed to be dead. Their legacy, however, lives on with the mark they left on the world. As visionaries in their field, they influenced bioterror attacks carried out by countless individuals and organisations. In turn, they also inspired others to fight against such atrocities. One such person happens to be Albert’s son from a former relationship, Jake Müller, whose existence he was unaware of.
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[* 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜, 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎-𝚆𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚄𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚝! ]
[* (𝙸𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚖? 𝙾𝚑 𝚠𝚎𝚕𝚕...) ]
[*^ Animation I made of myself! ]
[* Please call me Io! I am a monster currently living in the Omega Timeline. Among other things, I really do enjoy drawing! And anything of the creative sort. I really like putting my hands to work. Ah, and I also play the violin, though I am but a novice at it. ]
[* I also sometimes like to dive into astronomy, it can be a quite intriguing area of study. Mainly stars, they are interesting, does anyone agree with me on that? And also planets... And black holes... And wormholes... And neutron stars... Wait, those are stars... Am I repeating myself here? My apologies. ]
[* My pronouns are it/its and I identify as non-binary! ]
[* Feel free to ask me pretty much anything! I may also go around interacting with other people's publications (lie, I'm a little afraid of interacting with others first, maybe you should ‘tag’ me if you want me to join interactions). I just wanna meet new people ]
[*Also, my AU of origin sets in a time without computers and this website stuff so... Bear my possible lack of ability at modern speech and terminology.]
//OOC
[ * Heyyyy folks (yes the ut text box thing is a typing quirk) I am happy to FINALLY launch this blog!!! ]
[ * This blog is run by @lazy-shapeshiofter and is a hybrid between a RP blog and an ask blog, but tbh at its core it's kinda a well-disguised kin blog as Io is actually a kintype of mine. I'm Io, Io is me, that kinda jazz. ]
[ * Same DNI criteria from main applies here ]
[ * I post decent art on main (mainly silly Ink stuff or just utmv stuff in general) but also mess around with friends. It's fun ]
[ * Also here's the info post about Io! May come in handy. ]
[ * I believe this is all I gotta say. ummm time to have fun ig???? May also doodle things for this blog ]
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