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#3x08 Oubliette
bisexualfbiagents · 9 months
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You of all people should realize that sometimes motivations for behavior can be more complex and mysterious than tracing them back to one single childhood experience.
THE X FILES GIF MEME [2/9] SCENES from Oubliette (3.08)
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whovianderson · 10 months
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“Oubliette” hit me much harder than I was expecting. Sorry to everyone, but this post is going to get a little bit personal.
So, I have complex post traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). Personally, I found this episode to be such powerful exploration of trauma that it left me reeling.
Firstly, I took the episode symbolically, wherein the whole story was an allegory for Lucy’s trauma. Amy’s situation paralleling hers felt to me like a real depiction of what it’s like to have flashbacks. While I don’t often get visual flashbacks, I do get emotional flashbacks, and that side of it resonated beyond measure with me. I almost cried when Lucy said “I don’t want to do this again”, because that’s exactly what it’s like for me to face my triggers.
Also, Amy’s injuries appearing on Lucy as a physical demonstration of how the past is still mentally hurting her felt very validating.
I related to Mulder’s trauma too. I take responsibility for everyone around me to ensure that nothing like what traumatised me happens again, and I saw that in Mulder’s desperation to change things for fear of a repeat of what happened to his sister, for example, the CPR on Amy.
Mulder’s distress when he realised that Lucy had sacrificed herself for Amy was impactful for me too. I’ve had to learn the hard way that I am ultimately powerless to control what happens to other people, and that upsets me greatly, as it did him. There’s also a sense of inevitability and inescapability from the cycle of trauma when you experience these things again that is deeply harrowing.
I’ve worked a lot on healing my inner child with my therapist. The ending of this episode, with Lucy’s death and Amy’s survival, felt like a message that it’s possible for the trauma in me to recede, and the child I never got to be to be free.
I left this episode emotional, but so grateful that something I could see so much of myself in something I love so much.
Finally, if this is relatable and you want to talk to someone who understands, please feel free to message me. It sounds hollow to say, but it really does get better, even if you don’t think that applies to you. I had gotten so used to living with trauma that I never thought I’d exist without it, and yet here I am, doing better than I ever thought possible!
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All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Oubliette (3x08)
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Trigger warnings: for references to child abuse, child sexual abuse, trauma-related violence.
She watches him sitting on the edge of her bed as he patiently waits for her to be ready to look at the photograph hidden in his pocket. Her eyes close as the sun from the window warms her face. In the light of day is the only way she can do this, she realizes: see a face she’s so desperately tried to forget in the dark. 
“I can only imagine how difficult this has been for you,” Agent Mulder admits. “It’s understandable you want to forget. But Lucy, sometimes remembering can help too.”
Lucy scoffs. “Remembering has never helped me before…”
She’s seven, laughing while playing Duck Duck Goose outside in the sun with her neighborhood friends. 
She’s eight, sleeping peacefully in her bed when a stranger slaps a sweaty hand over her mouth and whispers, “no one’s gonna spoil us.”
She’s nine, hiding in a corner when he blinds her with the camera’s flash. 
She’s ten, sobbing on the floor as he steals her innocence for the first time.
She’s eleven, falling to pieces when her cries for her mama continue to go unanswered. 
She’s twelve, clenching her fists in anger until her palms bleed.
She’s thirteen, hitting him over the head with a coffee mug and kicking him in the crotch, before climbing the ladder and finally, finally escaping. 
She’s fourteen, sixteen, eighteen… and she is numb.
She’s twenty, slinging rock and selling her body for money—
“Lucy?”
She gasps as her eyes snap open. 
She’s thirty, falling to pieces all over again.
“Lucy, do you need a minute?”
“I’m fine,” she manages to say around the lump in her throat. “You can show him to me now.”
“He’s probably changed a lot over the last seventeen years. Did you even know his name?” Agent Mulder carefully asks as he slides the 8x10 across her blanket. 
Lucy shakes her head. His name never mattered, only how unsafe his presence made her feel. 
“Carl Wade,” the agent continues “He worked as a photographer’s assistant. School pictures mostly. That’s where he saw Amy Jacobs.”
She’s shaking as she stares at the photo of the man who turned her childhood dreams into nightmares. Earlier, she’d told Agent Mulder not to touch her. That she doesn’t like to be touched, because she rarely trusts anyone not to hurt her. But she regrets that now. This man is kind, caring. Somehow she trusts he would never hurt her. 
“So what do you want from me?” 
Her voice cracks alongside her resolve. She hates being vulnerable; it makes her weak. That’s why drugs and sex work felt freeing to Lucy. She got to choose her john, held the power to give them permission before they used her, then got high to forget it.
She’s clean now and has worked really damn hard to turn her life around. Figures her past would fuck it up somehow. 
“I want you to tell me what you’re going through,” he suggests gently. “It might feel good to tell somebody.”
Her eyes flick up to meet his. “I feel like it’s happening all over again.”
She barely survived this Carl Wade the first time.
“You can actually feel what she’s going through, can’t you?” 
Lucy wants to laugh at how crazy that sounds, but the pleading look in the agent’s green eyes urges her to admit the truth. 
“I don’t want to go through this again.” 
“Lucy, she needs your help.”
“There’s nothing I can do,” she says automatically, but as soon as the words leave her lips, it dawns on her that it might not be true anymore.
Because she feels her again: Amy, invading her body, filling her up with a familiar fear so strong she nearly chokes on it. 
“Lucy…”
Car doors slamming outside the halfway house send Agent Mulder down the stairs, leaving Lucy alone with that goddamn picture.
She wasn’t lying to him before when she’d said she didn’t know where Amy was, or that she couldn’t help her. She can barely help herself. But she can’t ignore the overwhelming weight of remembering the evil of Wade pressing down on her. The same weight Amy is feeling right now.
A sudden urge to flee pulls her to her feet. Like an invisible string, Amy’s panic wraps itself around Lucy’s chest and tugs.
She has to go. It’s all so clear now. She has to go back. Through the woods, through the house — into the dark. Maybe she was never meant to leave it at all.
Lucy hears the other Feds arguing with Agent Mulder downstairs. Something about how her blood from her nose bleed at work was mixed with Amy’s blood. They think she’s working with Wade. That she’s done something awful to the girl. But they don’t know, have no fucking idea what unspeakable things she’d do to Wade now if she could. They don’t know what it’s like to feel fear so intense for so long it becomes part of you. 
Like how she has become part of Amy.
Lucy’s heart races. Agent Mulder is right. She and Amy share a special connection through their kidnapper: the fucking monster who ruined her life and forced her to waste half of it rotting away in darkness.  
She walks around her bed, slowly picks up the glossy image of Wade’s face, and rips it in half.
Tears blur her vision as she opens the window and climbs down the fire escape. Lucy has accepted the dark is where she’s been forced to fight for survival, ever since the night that bastard crept into her pretty pink bedroom and stole her from her bed. But no one else should have to. Her feet hit pavement and she’s instantly transported back there, stuck in that pitch-black hellhole, trembling with bone deep chills and never ending terror. 
Maybe thirteen-year-old Lucy never actually escaped after all. 
But maybe Amy Jacobs can. 
Maybe, the only way to end a nightmare is to dream it all over again. 
Read the other chapters of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Ao3
@monikafilefan
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Oubliette//3x08
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lesbianmarrow · 29 days
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x files 3x08 “oubliette” is primarily about trauma and how traumatic past events can continue to hurt you and shape your actions in the present, and it’s executed very well and i don’t want to downplay any of that BUT. mulder and scully encountering a pair of people who can suffer each other’s pain so the other doesn’t feel it is SO good. because this is what mulder and scully are always trying to do for each other. they are always trying to bleed each other’s blood
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mvalana · 5 months
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The X-Files 3x08 Oubliette
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fox-mulders-ties · 7 years
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I like this episode but it makes me sad.  I’m very like Mulder so I tend to sympathise with him more than he deserves.
After a girl is kidnapped, a girl who was kidnapped before, Lucy, has some sort of psychic link.  Mulder shows up on his own, Wearing the Golden Triangle tie and he’s very empathetic but the knife cuts deep when the missing girl’s mother insinuates that he couldn’t know how she feels.  Scully turns up later because the plane was late and Mulder had taken off in such a hurry that he forgot his cell phone.  She’s all business and science and she just doesn’t get Mulder’s spooky feelings today.
After testing the blood on previously kidnapped Lucy, they find it has the blood type of both girls.  She sends off for the usual PCR results.  It doesn’t seem to matter that the blood all suddenly appeared in front of a heap of witnesses who clearly didn’t see the kidnapped girl with her. Mulder’s not making friends at the Seattle Field Office.  Scully’s not being his friend either.  He didn’t need to worry about the Golden Triangle tie which appeared to lose its powers last time he wore it, because he’s not gazing at Scully today and doesn’t have anything to deflect her attention from.
He goes back to see Lucy who he’s certain is connected in a non-criminal way to the new victim.  She started feeling stuff again and the EMTs are there when Mulder arrives.  He takes her for some dinner but she’s scared and says she can’t help him find the new girl.
The next day they notice that everyone got their school photos except the kidnapped girl and the photographer’s assistant is suss. He really should have just made an extra copy of the photo for himself.  Mulder is wearing a new tie which I’m having trouble naming because it just reminds me of honeycomb and bee colonies so i need to get to know it better.  He takes the bad guy’s photo to Lucy who confirms he was the one who kidnapped her.  She runs away and he runs after her and takes her back to the halfway house where she lives.  Mulder’s having some sisterly alone time with her when Scully and the field office flunkies come to arrest her because they have the fastest DNA lab in the world and discovered both girls’ DNA on Lucy’s clothes, but Lucy somehow gets away.  Mulder gives the agents the death glare because they’re so stupid.  And Scully’s not listening to him.
They’re printing some wanted posters and Mulder’s still sulking.  He says Lucy bled the blood and Scully says he’s blown his credibility.  Like he had some to start with.  She harps on at him for protecting Lucy beyond reason and thinks she has some of emotional dependency with the kidnapper so she’s helping him now.  She’s not a big believer in empaths.  Then she starts on about him pretending every kidnapped girl is Samantha and this is irritating and insulting even if it’s part of his motivation.
After they talk to a tow truck driver they point at maps which is never a good thing for the victim.  Mulder stops and asks for directions which is a really unmanly thing to do but it gets them to the kidnapper’s cabin in the woods.  Lucy is in the basement and she gets a nice big cuddle from Mulder but gets arrested by everyone else.  Because she’s psychically linked to the new girl Mulder figures that because she’s cold and wet the new girl must be in the river but the other incompetent agents just want to toss her in jail and go home.  There’s some beautiful running through the forest shots as they head for the river, and Mulder shoots the bad guy to stop him drowning the girl.  He wades in to the river to get her then carries her back to the river bank where he begins CPR.
  Then Scully is the worst doctor in the world and tries to stop him from performing CPR because she seems to be hung up on every girl kidnapped being nothing but a sister substitute for Mulder and forgets that she’s a kid who isn’t blue and deserves a chance to live.  I’m not a violent person but I want to smack her when she physically restrains him to stop performing CPR after about 20 seconds.  Fortunately, the script said she was going to survive and despite premature CPR cessation she suddenly spurts out water and is walked back by the field office flunkies because heroic girl-carrying Mulder already took off to check on Lucy.
Lucy’s outcome wasn’t quite as good and she drowned in the car.  But she gets the last laugh when she’s reincarnated in Audrey Pauley, even if that’s a season 9 episode so there’s not much to laugh about. But the other girl doesn’t get another turn.
Both Mulder and I feel disappointed in the end when he looks at photos of Lucy in her empty room. He’s wearing a brand new tie, which he calls CPR is for life, not just 20 seconds as a passive-aggressive reminder to Scully, and he’s trying not to be bitter. Scully comes to tell him that new girl is OK despite her having pronounced the girl dead at the scene.   Mulder has a lot to reflect on and he reflects while Scully sits there and the camera backs out.  I know she took that head cradling class at medical school while the CPR class was on, but I hope she realises now that CPR is just as important as head cradling and gets some basic instruction in it.
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muldertieindex · 3 years
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Oubliette (3x08) — Neck Tie #2
As Mulder observes the physiological and psychic connection of the kidnapping victim manifesting itself in Lucy, he’s wearing a charcoal suit, white dress shirt and the golden brown necktie with olive octagonal patterning.  
Fox Mulder Tie Index Rating: 8/10
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bowie-boy · 3 years
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We as a fandom do not appreciate Oubliette (3x08) enough
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fox-mulder-is-trans · 4 years
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“Well that’s Spooky” “That’s my name, isn’t it?” Sir if you don’t stop that I’ll have no choice but to fall in love with you
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enigmaticxbee · 4 years
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✖️✖️✖️ 3x08 Oubliette
The one where... a former kidnap victim forms a psychic connection with her kidnapper’s current victim.
Best: At his best Mulder is empathetic to victims and to those nobody else believes or believes in.
Worst: Mulder’s “empathic transference” is too much for me sometimes.
❌ Flashlights
✔️ Woods
❌ Slideshow
❌ Autopsy
❌ Evidence Disappears
❌ Scully Misses It
❌ Mulder Ditch
❌ Sunflower Seeds
❌ Voiceover
❌ Catch Phrase
❌ Scully is a Medical Doctor
✔️ Mulder is Spooky
❌ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr!
❌ Fox/Dana
✔️ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)
❌ Casual Scully
❌ Casual Mulder
✔️ Trench Coats
✔️ Bad Tie Watch
❌ Glasses Watch
✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Mulder
50 States: Washington x5 (28/50)
Investigate: Together & Apart
Solve Rate: 65%
✔️ Bechdel Test
MSR: 🐝🐝🐝
Goriness: 👽👽
Creepiness: 👽👽👽
Humor: 👽
Rewatch Thoughts:
1. The X-Files has taught me so much - like the word “oubliette”! I actually have learned a lot of vocabulary from X-Files episode titles. A dungeon accessed from above, in this case a basement accessed from a trap door. Comes from the French oublier - to forget.
2. Scully comes off as pretty uninterested in/cavalier about Lucy’s traumatic history. Sometimes she is very empathetic herself with victims. In this case she comes into the case and sees that Mulder’s already emotionally invested and so I think she holds back, to balance him out.
3. The scene where they argue over whether Mulder’s investment in this case and in Lucy is about Samantha, oof. I mean, of course it is. The best Mulder can possibly hope for is that Samantha’s alive somewhere out there and is able to thrive despite her own traumatic history, whatever that is. But it never goes well when Scully tries to confront Mulder about making a case personal, making it about Samantha.
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bisexualfbiagents · 9 months
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Whatever there was between them, you were part of that connection. Did you think about that? Lucy may have died for Amy, but without you, they never would have found her.
CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF THE X FILES Day 1: Favorite Episode ➤ Oubliette (3.08)
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scullydubois · 5 years
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thoughts on Oubliette (3x08)
Written by Charles Grant Craig      Directed by Kim Manners
We’re starting off in a high school...I’d rather not
I’m already very uncomfy about this
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All I can think about is the Demi Lovato meme that’s like “STAY AWAY FROM HER. GET A JOB”
I’m really about to have nightmares about getting kidnapped by some creepy middle-aged man aren’t I
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Uh...can someone check on her
10:05...noted
Interested (and potentially frightened) to see how this storyline is handled
ANOTHER episode written by a new writer...don’t disappoint me please!
Where’s Scully
Every time I ever write that she comes onscreen like 10 seconds later
“That’s spooky” “That’s my name isn’t it”
This teenage girl (Lucy) is not cutting Mulder any slack
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TFW you’re a kidnapper and you have to carry a crowbar around to attack people with in case they suspect you
Scully suspecting Lucy and Mulder strictly believing she’s a victim...interested to see where this goes
It is very creepy out here
Lucy is a captivating guest character
Mulder has his work cut out of him
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Not the photos again
Lucy reminds me of (and might be based off of) a case I learned in psychology, Genie the feral child
The girl who was kidnapped earlier just freed herself...the power of that
This is a really interesting episode...I keep using that word, but it fits
Didn’t Mulder study psychology
Lucy was covered in the girl who was kidnapped’s blood...hmm
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Where exactly is the appeal in kidnapping a person and holding them hostage?
I side with Mulder in this case actually
“You’re so sympathetic to Lucy as a victim like your sister that you can’t see her as a person that’s capable of committing this crime”- there’s the connection I was missing! Mulder is so obsessed with Lucy and this case because it reminds him of Samantha.
How exactly is this guy who kidnapped a girl 17 years ago just casually living his life with no consequences? WTF?
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So Mulder found Lucy in the bunker, not Amy…
As a teenage girl, I cannot reiterate enough how much this premise creeps me out
Into the river they go!
They’re both giving her CPR...there’s something symbolic about that
Mulder’s really going through it this episode
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Oh no, Lucy!!
This episode is really fucking me up
Also, I’m glad Scully established the whole Samantha connection earlier or I would have found Mulder’s obsession with these girls really goddamn creepy
Fox Mulder, let me hug you
I’m very much near tears here...I did not expect that to hit so hard
Consensus: This episode left a much greater impact on me than I expected it to. It reminded me a lot of Irresistible, except in this case the emotional burden was placed on Mulder instead of Scully. It was creepy, disorientating, and emotional. I couldn’t ask for much more.
4 out of 5 stars
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All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Season Three Master Post
We’ve come to the conclusion of a momentous season! From some of the most iconic episodes to some of the most beloved characters, season three was full of intense chapters!
Check out this thread to see all the characters we got to meet!
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3x01 | The Blessing Way - The Well-Manicured Man (@fridaysat9
They were all living on the precipice of the end of the human race, but they were only concerned with jobs, school assignments, and playdates.
Life, as it should be.
3x02 | Paper Clip - Victor Klemper (@monikafilefan)
The offspring of a rebel syndicate member unearthing truths Victor has spent decades trying to bury beneath buttercups and begonias has marked him for certain death.
3x03 | D.P.O. - Darin Peter Oswald (@gaycrouton)
His friend was scared of him, and it made Darin feel powerful.
3x04 | Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose - Clyde Bruckman (@fridaysat9)
A funny thing happens when you see your own death. At first you try to make sense of it– what could it mean, why the tears, why her? Then you try to change it.
3x05 | The List - Dr. Juan Ullrich (@monikafilefan)
Juan fidgets with an evidence bag, trying not to blatantly stare at the agents holding an entire conversation with their eyes while systematically categorizing every sway of their bodies, every touch of her hands.
3x06 | 2Shy - Lauren MacKalvey (@gaycrouton)
2SHY > You have no idea how beautiful I think you are. I must confess… I feel inextricably drawn to you. I can’t stop thinking about what you said the other day… You don’t deserve to feel lonely, Lauren.
3x07 | The Walk - Leonard 'Rappo' Trimble (@admiralty-xfd)
Every night, he walks again. And every morning he wakes in the same bed with the same phantom pain. Every day he wishes he’d just died; that explosion that didn’t quite kill him cost him his life, anyway.
3x08 | Oubliette - Lucy Householder (@monikafilefan)
She has to go. It’s all so clear now. She has to go back. Through the woods, through the house — into the dark. Maybe she was never meant to leave it at all.
3x09 | Nisei - Penny Northern (@gaycrouton)
It was the strength of these women that got her through those experiences, and it was the strength of these women that would help her embark on this dark path they were all destined to walk.
3x10 | 731 - First Elder (The Well-Fed Man) (@admiralty-xfd)
The one thing that can be manipulated more effectively than any other is her fear of the unknown… of what happened to her last year.
3x11 | Revelations - Owen Lee Jarvis (@fridaysat9)
He gave of himself, abandoning what little life he’d had, to honor God’s words and do as he had been called.
3x12 | War of the Coprohages - Dr. Bambi Berenbaum (@gaycrouton)
Bambi felt a flush spread across her chest as his hypothesis brought a smile to her face. Hearing that he hadn’t been merely indulging her earlier was a refreshing change of pace.
3x13 | Syzygy - Detective Angela White (@admiralty-xfd)
Detective White stops as Agent Scully finally glances over at her, somewhat defensively. And then she gets it. Everything about the way she’s been treated since the agents arrived makes perfect sense.
3x14 | Grotesque - Agent Bill Patterson (@fridaysat9)
Patterson figured that Mulder might have a theory about a potential copycat killer, but no; he’d been researching gargoyles and goblins. Monsters recorded in dusty old tomes pulled from the library shelves.
3x15 | Piper Maru - Kimberly (@monikafilefan)
Kimberly Cook is good at her secretarial job. So when the man she’s been working closely with for two years is troubled, she refuses to let him file the feeling away like some confidential case in his cabinet.
3x16 | Apocrypha - Luis Cardinal (@admiralty-xfd)
The Scully woman is not simply angry, she’s unhinged. And there’s a small part of him that understands; it’s the part of him that, prior to working for the Smoker, had never been asked to shoot an innocent woman before.
3x17 | Pusher - Agent Frank Burst (@fridaysat9)
Frank doesn’t care if he has to tell him his mother’s maiden name and his favorite breakfast cereal if it means getting his location.
3x18 | Teso Dos Bichos - Officer (@monikafilefan)
He doesn’t get paid enough for this shit.
3x19 | Hell Money - Hsin Shuyang (@gaycrouton)
The gods might not be listening, but the devil was waiting for him down the street, ready to play a game with all the men whose American dreams had turned into nightmares.
3x20 | Jose Chung's From Outer Space - Detective Manners (@fridaysat9)
That's a bleepin' dead alien body, if I ever bleepin' saw one.
3x21 | Avatar - Carina Sayles (@monikafilefan)
She can tell he doesn’t do this. Doesn’t drink alone in a bar, letting a stranger slowly seduce him.
3x22 | Quagmire - Queequeg (@gaycrouton)
Queequeg was loved.
3x23 | Wetwired - 'Doctor' Stroman (@admiralty-xfd)
Another town, another test, another shitty motel room… but always the same boss.
3x24 | Talitha Cumi - Teena Mulder (@monikafilefan)
If only Bill had known back then that the untrustworthy person he was referring to would sleep with his wife and father his son.
Stay tuned for more perspectives coming in Season Four!
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
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Oubliette//3x08
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inthedarktrees · 6 years
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It’s dark. Why is it dark? I can’t see.
“Oubliette“ | The X-Files
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