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maklodes · 2 months

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I feel like I barely have the right to get into “Star Wars would be so good if it were good” posting given that I haven’t actually watched VII-IX, but I keep thinking about the myriad plots and subplots that could follow VI, after the fireworks stop, all without slamming the reset button.

Like, as of Episode VI’s end, Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Grand Moff Tarkin are all dead, but much of the rest of the Imperial bureaucracy and military are still intact. Maybe there’s a legal chain of succession that establishes who’s next, but probably it’s pretty weak, because tyrants generally don’t like saying “you know who would benefit greatly if I were to ‘accidentally’ drink poisoned blue milk and die? That guy!” So there’s a likelihood of power struggles, different factions emerging among moffs and admirals. How would the Alliance respond to two moffs waging a brutal war against each other, extorting civilians to death for supplies, bombarding civilian population centers that are not logistically accessible enough for their side to extort but that they think the other side will, etc? Can the Alliance afford to intervene to help the innocents suffering in this conflict, or is it best to just let their enemies weaken themselves and clean up afterwards?

Meanwhile, some moffs and governors see the writing on the wall, and are approaching the Alliance and saying “Yes, I was a high official in the Empire, but I was one of the good ones, working within the system to make it as humane and decent as possible. Now I am preparing to join the New Republic, and preparing to hold free elections on my planet(s) (supervised, of course, by the erstwhile-Imperial bureaucracy under my control – who else is around that could competently manage such an affair?) Yes, there are a few incidents during my reign that can be classified as atrocities, but I can assure you that if anyone else in the empire had been in charge, they would have been more numerous and severe (anyone harsher than me would’ve been worse, and anyone gentler would’ve been force-choked to death by Darth Vader and replaced), so let’s just leave those in the past and work together toward a better future.” Can the Alliance accept such a defector on those terms? Can the Alliance afford not to?

At the same time, former members of the senate – dissolved at the beginning of IV – are saying “Alright! With that tyrannical emperor gone, we are ready to get back into the action and help rebuild the Republic,” while more radical members of the Alliance are like “no, FUCK those old senators. Those were the guys who elected Palpatine chancellor. Then they kept giving him more and more emergency powers. Then they voted to make him emperor. Then they stuck around as a rubber stamp Imperial Senate for like fifteen years legitimizing the Empire, before the emperor finally dissolved the senate. A few of them may be okay, but they are all on probationary status in the politics of the New Republic at best, and many of them should be charged with corruption/oath violation/etc and barred from politics and maybe incarcerated/executed.”

Some people might even question the whole idea of One Galaxy Government going forward. Sure, there are advantages to having a singular Republic/Empire coordinating things, but there are risks. Maybe local control – with the risk of the occasional local dictator, or local border war – is safer than putting all eggs into one basket? Coordinating the resources of a galaxy has proven useful in destructive massive scale projects like planet-killer battle stations. Is there a more productive use case for that much broad scale coordination?

As more systems democratize and lift censorship and restrictions on holonet, you get paranoia and rumors going around that this or that office-seeking politician is the Next Palpatine. When a planet’s leading candidate for senator faces rumors of being a Dark Sider, the runner-up currently polling at 48% clears her throat and says “The threat of the Dark Side is too serious to be turned into a political issue, and unfounded rumors and partisan smears do nothing to help us re-establish our still-fragile democratic norms. At the same time, any credible allegations of Dark Side influence merit a thorough and independent investigation. After all, recent experience has shown just how destructive the Dark Side can be: whole inhabited planets got destroyed! Once we establish a transparent, impartial process to examine these claims, we can move beyond all this baseless speculation about my opponent (and the baseless speculation that the first anonymous rumors were traced to a holonet account belonging to my campaign’s chief of staff).” You could have HUAC / McCarthy hearings type shit.

You could have some genuine (aspiring) Dark Side guys – no one who knows the true Sith teachings, but maybe some force sensitives who see the force as a Will To Power thing. (The Jedi haven’t been abducting children who show force potential for decades, and the Sith had no room beyond two, so I guess force sensitives have mostly sorta been figuring out what they could of this stuff themselves for a few decades? Most of them are probably pretty weaksauce compared to trained Sith/Jedi like Yoda or Palpatine, but maybe they can influence weak minds and shit) You could have any combination of actual Dark Side influence and rumors: have some people correctly accuse real Dark Side guys, have Dark Side guys spreading false rumors that their innocent opponents are on the Dark Side, have two different candidates both being Dark force sensitives, spreading rumors about each other (or one spreading rumors, being a down and dirty political fighter, and the other refusing to stoop to that and going for the Stately Above the Fray vibe, but secretly being comparably ruthless), or (perhaps most common) rumors of Dark Side influence being spread in politics when no one involved is actually even Force sensitive let alone in touch with the Dark Side.

You could go a little deeper: some people in the aftermath of the Empire might think that the Force – both the Dark and Light sides – has held the galaxy kind of kind of technical and moral cul-de-sac, accounting for the ways in which the whole setting combines backwardness and advancement:

Why is it that in spite of having overcome the light barrier many millennia ago and being able to build small planet-sized battle stations, they seem to have made negligible progress against senescence and death generally? Because the Force provides a frame in which you either embrace the Dark Side, in which case triumph over mortality is a personal achievement to be hoarded and lorded over your inferiors, or you adhere to the Light Side, in which case you reject the “unnatural abilities” of Dark immortality. Progress against mortality at a collective, civilizational level doesn’t make sense from either of those perspectives.

Why is it that in spite of apparently being fully sentient in many cases, droids are still treated as chattel property without rights? Why is it that they still seem to have widespread animal agriculture? Maybe because the Force doesn’t notice forms of sentience that have no or negligible midichlorian counts or force sensitivity or whatever. Obi-Wan could probably walk past a droid refurbishing facility where droids are getting reset to factory settings, or a slaughterhouse, and not feel any “disturbance in the force, voices crying out in terror and suddenly being silenced” etc, and when the Light Side is treated in some respects as the moral arbiter of the setting, and when a big part of the Light Side is “trust your feelings,” and when the “force feelings” don’t really apply to beasts or droids, they don't get a lot of consideration.

Why is it that the only visions of authority are somewhere on a spectrum from “centralized, despotic autocracy” (the Empire) to “decentralized, semi-feudal oligarchy” (the Republic, with a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth-style weak senatorial authority, proliferation of local nobles like counts and princesses, etc, and, perhaps to an even further extent along that spectrum, the Confederacy of Independent Systems)? Maybe because it reflects how the Force tends to structure itself: the Dark Side tends to concentrate power in the hands of a couple of megalomaniacs. The Light Side tends to distribute it across a broader order of Force-wielding elites, but still very rare as a fraction of the population.

You might say that these ideas don’t really get to the essence of the core appeal of Star Wars, which is more like stuff like starfighter battles and lightsaber duels and such, but I’m not saying these themes would necessarily be debated in great detail to the exclusion of action and stuff. They just could be the reason for the lightsaber duels and starfighter battles and such. Consider: in Episode I, the pretext for a lot of the action was a dispute over tariffs. Stated baldly, I think that’s drier than anything I mentioned.

#star wars

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weirdly-specific-but-ok · 4 months

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pt IX good omens on livestream, i'm not ok: S1E4

You did it, Good Omens fandom, my dear maggots. You broke me in every way. Now I'm here, and where I once spent my day peacefully being sad about normal things, I'm now sad about a random fact about nightingales I learned on a British ornithology site and this is just... the brainrot. It's real. Raise brainrot awareness. Prevention is better than the nonexistent cure.

Well, I've procrastinated this post by like 48 hours by drawing fanart and being mopey over Crowley and generally being asleep because I'm still on antibiotics and ill. So let us not procrastinate further. First, episode 4. Tally, hoes!

In preparation for the stream, I gathered two emotional support oranges, only one of which was gaseous, and an apple. This was so that rather than waste an orange on being gay for Crowley I'd use the apple for that, symbolic of his temptation in the Garden of Eden etc. I didn't know how badly this plan would go.

On Discord, our collective loins girded, I noticed with no small suspicion that everyone was muttering about the bookshop and whether I'd be okay. When I demanded frantically what happened to the bookshop (I THOUGHT EVERYTHING WAS IN S2) everyone shut up and told me the bookshop was in tiptop shape and it was all tickety-boo and nothing would happen at all in episode 5.

Spoiler alert it is not all tickety-boo.

We start with Aziraphale going for a jog to keep uh fit for exercising with Crowley, and he is interrupted by Gabriel, who is not Jimbriel, and is not naked, that is, we cannot see his arse yet, but we can see that he is an arse.

We then see not-Newt the deliveryman with his wife Maude and they are the only straight couple that the people on the chat care about. Calling him not-Newt is going to pose problems for me.

Crowley is being a smart baby, and researching astronomy. Poor Crowley. I love Crowley. Do you understand? I LOVE CROWLEY.

There is a lot of talk of spoons and forks and such innuendos. I make a joke about scissors being missing. The chat does not notice. I am disappointed in the gays.

I am so engrossed in the way Death says "deeAaaAAthHHhh" that I fail to notice Not-Newt get killed delivering a message to Death. This is going to pose problems for me.

I forgot about the apocalypse plotline till the horsepeople arrive. This is understandable. I care not for this 'world' ending, my new world is Crowley. I love Crowley.

Duck aliens fucking descend. This is not a joke. There are duck aliens, and they are supportive of trans people. Newt does not count their nipples.

The Shad guy doesn't care Newt found aliens. He is upset that Newt didn't find witches. If Shad was mowing his lawn and found gold, he would toss it aside because he is focused on mowing. I can respect that. People make jokes about Newt eventually finding a witch.

It is suddenly a Christopher Nolan movie. Someone corrects me and says it's more like Jerry Bruckheimer. I do not know what that is.

Someone says Crowley destroys the Bentley but for whatever reason, like a lot of people before, makes it a black box that you have to click to read. I don't mind that, I like clicking.

Aziraphale bought out a theatre for Crowley, like a Kdrama where the rich CEO buys out an entire theatre for his working class girl.

Adam goes through what I went through with OCD. It is not fun.

It is now a horror movie. Adam floats in the air. That was not a symptom I had with OCD.

Crowley asks Aziraphale to run away with him to the stars. Aziraphale says no. Crowley is upset and my baby Azi looks so sad and confused about everything he believes in. Great. I'm totally fine, I think as I start stuffing my emotional support orange into my mouth.

It is now a Home Alone movie. Crowley in gloves is sexy. Mmmmmmm yes. Crowley does great advertising for plant spray bottles as he murders and threatens demons.

I point out that the GO book says Crowley can do "weird things with his tongue" as I learned from the GO scent guide company page. It was after all the most relevant take-away from that page.

Disco Tony arrives. This is not a safe space.

AZIRAPHALE KEEPS TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING AND IS FAILED BY HEAVEN LEAVE MY BABY AZI ALONE WTF GO AWAY. THE ANGELS WALL SLAM HIM TOO. THAT'S CROWLEY'S THING YOU BASTARDS.

Newt and Anathema are cute. I DON'T NOTICE BECAUSE IM SO UPSET HE'S CHEATING ON MAUDE AND WONDERING WHY THE CHAT IS OKAY WITH IT BECAUSE I AM A FOOL WHO CONTINUES TO MIX UP NEWT WITH NOT-NEWT AND THEN THE CHAT TELLS ME NOT-NEWT DIED AND I'M CONFUSED.

Newt and Anathema are having sex. As an aspec person, I am very alarmed at the visuals.

Azi is failed by heaven and the metatron. Shocker. Fucking get away from Azi. Azi is miserable and looks like he wants to cry.

AZI IS EXORCISED AND THE FUCKING FLAME CATCHES IN THE BOOKSHOP AND THE EPISODE ENDS.

TAKE MY PAIN MOTHERFUCKERS. I WILL POST THIS AND THEN WRITE THE EP5 PART.

#good omens #good omens mascot #good omens fandom #crowley #weirdly specific but ok #lgbtqia #aziraphale #asmi #neil gaiman #aziracrow #good omens spoilers #ineffable fandom #ineffable husbands #good omens summary #ineffably queer #go s1 #good omens 1 #go s1 ep4

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blueiskewl · 5 months

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Archaeologists Uncover 'Prison Bakery' in Pompeii

An ancient bakery operated by slaves has been discovered in the ruins of Pompeii, the Pompeii Archaeological Park said in a statement released Friday.

Enslaved people and donkeys were locked up together and used to power a mill to grind grain for bread, according to details of the discovery provided by the park.

The site consists of a narrow room with no external view but only small, high windows covered by bars through which minimal light passed. There were also indentations in the floor “to coordinate the movement of the animals, forced to walk around for hours, blindfolded,” the statement said.

The discovery was made in the Regio IX section of the popular tourist site, which is also an ongoing archaeological dig. The area is currently being excavated as part of a larger project designed to secure and maintain previously excavated areas of the Roman city.

Archaeologists discovered the bakery while excavating an ancient Pompeiian home that was being renovated when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., covering the city of Pompeii with ash.

The bodies of three victims of the eruption were found in recent months, believed to be residents of the home rather than slaves. The house was divided into a residential section with “refined frescoes” on one side, and a commercial bakery on the other.

Next to the bakery was the dimly lit prison area, Pompeii Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said in an interview posted on the site’s YouTube channel.

“What has emerged is testimony of the backbreaking work to which men, women, and animals were subjected in the ancient mill-bakeries,” he added.

Zuchtriegel said these prison bakeries were previously described by the Roman writer Apuleius in the 2nd century C.E., in his novel “Metamorphoses” (also known as “The Golden Ass”), in which the protagonist, Lucius, “transformed into a donkey and was sold to a miller.” Zuchtriegel said the episode was based on the writer’s direct knowledge of the animals and humans living and working together.

The newly discovered prison area had no doors to the outside, only to the inner atrium.

“It is, in other words, a space in which we must imagine the presence of people of servile status whose owner felt the need to limit the freedom of movement,” Zuchtriegel said.

“It is the most shocking side of ancient slavery, the side devoid of relationships of trust, where it was reduced to brute violence, an impression which is fully confirmed by the closing of the few windows with iron grates.”

Archaeologists also believe that the indentations in the slab flooring were not made by repetitive movement but were carved to prevent the donkeys and other animals from slipping on the pavement and to force them to only walk in a circular motion to grind the grain, almost like a clockwork mechanism.

“The iconographic and literary sources, in particular the reliefs from the tomb of Eurysaces in Rome, suggest that a millstone was normally moved by a couple made up of a donkey and a slave,” Zuchtriegel said.

“The latter, in addition to pushing the grindstone, had the task of encouraging the animal and monitoring the grinding process, adding grain and removing flour.”

The site will complement an exhibition that opens December 15, called “The Other Pompeii: common lives in the shadow of Vesuvius,” which is dedicated to what Zuchtriegel calls the “myriad of individuals often forgotten by historical chronicles, such as the slaves, who constituted the majority of the population and whose work contributed significantly to the economy, but also to the culture and social fabric of Roman civilization.”

By Barbie Latza Nadeau.

#pompeii #Archaeologists Uncover 'Prison Bakery' in Pompeii #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #roman history #roman empire #mount vesuvius

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mrsbsmooth · 11 months

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This post will be updated as new scripts come out. Under the cut so it updates when I edit it :)

Volume I - 24/05

Episode 1 - Meet the islanders, Amelia arrives

Episode 2 (part 1) - Chat with Amelia, talk to Jamal/Lewie/Ozzy

Episode 2 (part 2) - Talk to Ryan, 'Kiss the islander who'

Episode 3 - Dates with the boys

Volume II - 31/05

Episode 4 (part 1) - Recoupling, chats around the villa

Episode 4 (part 2) - Chat on Terrace with Bella

Episode 5 (part 1) - Truth or Dare, Lewie & Ryan

Episode 5 (part 2) - Truth or Dare, Ozzy & Jamal, chat with Amelia, Lewie's poem lol

Episode 6 (part 1) - Date with Roberto

Episode 6 (part 2) - Return to the villa, dessert scene

Volume III - 07/06

Episode 7 (part 1) - Ivy tries to kiss LI, breakfast with Original

Episode 7 (part 2) - chats with the girls

Episode 8 - Chat w/ Ozzy, how well do you know your partner game

Episode 9 - Ivy gets kicked out lol lol lol bye

Volume IV - 14/06

Episode 10 (part 1) - Chats/Fallout from mistaken identity - up to Main LI (the one who was in bed with Amelia)

Episode 10 (part 2) - Chat with Love Rival (the one who discovered main LI in bed with Amelia), chat with Ozzy

Episode 11 (part 1) - Rodeo challenge (excl. Bella's turn)

Episode 11 (part 2) - Rodeo Challenge (Bella's turn), chat with Grace, fallout from challenge

Episode 12 (part 1) - Ryan/Jamal departure, recoupling ceremony

Episode 12 (part 2) - Prep for hideaway, hideaway scene *cringe*

Volume V - 21/06

Episode 13 (part 1) - Elliot and Chloe arrive

Episode 13 (part 2) - Treasure hunt, date announcement

Episode 14 (part 1) - Date with Elliot

Episode 14 (part 2) - Flirting with Chloe

Episode 15 - Fallout from the date, recoupling ceremony

Volume VI - 28/06

Episode 16 (Part 1) - Daybeds / Doing bits

Episode 16 (Part 2) - Next morning, doghouse challenge

Episode 17 - Ozzy confession, grand gestures

Episode 18 - Compatibility dumping, casa twist

Volume VII - 05/07

Episode 19 (Part 1) - Casa Day 1 up until the bed choice

Episode 19 (Part 2) - Bed choice Day 1, Breakfast date

Episode 20 (Part 1) - Guilty secrets challenge

Episode 20 (Part 2) - Chats around the villa

Episode 21 (Part 1) - Casa day 2, girls arrive, sexy charades

Episode 21 (Part 2) - Sexy charades (from our turn)

Volume VIII - 12/07

Episode 22 (Part 1) - Raunchy Races, date announcement

Episode 22 (Part 2) - Beach Date and Chatting

Episode 23 - Chats around the villa, Amelia's loser party

Episode 24 (Part 1) - Never have I Ever, Hideaway announcement

Episode 24 (Part 2) - Hideaway

Volume IX - 19/07

Episode 25 (Part 1) - Postcard

Episode 25 (Part 2) - Kissing Challenge

Episode 26 - Hamish's excuse, double dates

Episode 27 (Part 1) - Final chats (Andy)

Episode 27 (Part 2) - Final Chats (others), Stick or twist

Volume X - 26/07

Episode 28 (Part 1) - Elliot/Former LI Chats

Episode 28 (Part 2) - Ozzy and Marshall's fight

Episode 29 (Part 1) - Flo chat, investigating the villa

Episode 29 (Part 2) - Finding out what Ozzy one of the boys did

Episode 30 (Part 1) - Ozzy, Grace, LJR/R, and Chloe/Bella's Movies

Episode 30 (Part 2) - Flo, Andy/Francis, Ozzy Pt.2, Marshall, Amelia's movies.

Volume XI - 02/08

Episode 31 (Part 1) - Toby arrives, speed dating

Episode 31 (Part 2) - Marshall confession, chat with LI

Episode 32 (Part 1) - Snog Marry Pie, everyone's turn except Ozzy & extra pie scene

Episode 32 (Part 2) - S/M/P Ozzy's turn & extra pie scenes. [I am NOT formatting those. Jesus what a mess]

Episode 32 (Part 3) - Shower bits, twin chat #6784968

Episode 33 (Part 1) - Chats around the villa with everyone except Amelia's former LI

Episode 33 (Part 2) - Chat with Amelia's former LI, Toby, your LI, and the voting

Episode 33 (Part 3) - Results and Amelia's former LI's tantrum

Volume XII - 09/08

Episode 34 (Part 1) - Heart rate challenge up to halway through MCs turn (Focus on Toby)

Episode 34 (Part 2) - Heartrrate challenge from halfway through MC's turn (focus on toby), Girls' results

Episode 35 (Part 1) - MC's heart rate, boys' heart rate, chat with marshall

Episode 35 (Part 2) - Rest of Marshall chat, most of Former LI / OG

Episode 35 (Part 3) - Rest of chats around the villa. sorry these are jumpy they're messy this week

Episode 36 (Part 1) - Final recoupling

Episode 36 (Part 2) - Pool sex lol

Volume XIII - 16/08

Episode 37 (Part 1) - Baby Challenge up until just after you sneak off to the bedroom

Episode 37 (Part 2) - Baby challenge (chat with Amelia, girls day announcement)

Episode 38 (Part 1) - Girls day up until Amelia's fantasy

Episode 38 (Part 2) - Amelia/MC's fantasy, cute LI backstory, Baby challenge winner

Episode 39 (Part 1) - Double date dinner. Sigh.

Episode 39 (Part 2) - Mostly just terrace sex.

Volume XIV - 23/08

Episode 40 (Part 1) - Final Date

Episode 40 (Part 2) - Catchup & pranks with the girls

Episode 41 (Part 1) - Final chat with LI(+smut)

Episode 41 (Part 2) - Declarations of love up until LI

Episode 42 (Part 1) - Leadup / cutesy bits.

Episode 42 (Part 2) - Winner announcement, intro of Hamish, video up until Casa

Episode 42 (Part 3) - Rest of video, Hamish's proposal, Love or Money

#this post will be updated as new scripts come out #litg #litg double trouble #litg s6 #litg scripts

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incorrect-first-order · 1 year

Conversation

Phasma: Let's do something really scary for Halloween.

Kylo: We could all go to bed and be alone with our thoughts,

Hux: Ren, she said scary, not mental-breakdown-inducing!

#incorrect quotes #incorrect star wars #star wars #star wars sequel trilogy #the force awakens #the last jedi #the rise of skywalker #star wars episode vii #star wars episode viii #star wars episode ix #the first order #captain phasma #kylo ren #armitage hux #i just want y'all to know. that this has been in my drafts since october 2020.#i forgot to post it for halloween 2020.#and then halloween 2021 i either was on hiatus or i forgot again #so THIS YEAR. this year i will post it.

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nanomooselet · 3 months

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Meta Index

I should probably make some kind of index for my meta posts, shouldn't I.

Trigun Stampede Episodes

Episode One: No Man’s Land Episode Two: The Running Man Episode Three: Bright Light, Shine through the Darkness Episode Four: Hungry! Episode Five: Child of Blessing Episode Six: Once Upon A Time In Hopeland Episode Seven: Wolfwood Episode Eight: Our Home Episode Nine: Millions Knives Episode Ten: Humanity Episode Eleven: To A New World Episode Twelve/Zero: High Noon At July

Final Phase

Characters

Zazie the Beast Elendira the Crimsonnail I (manga) Elendira the Crimsonnail II (Stampede) (With PS) Meryl Stryfe Meryl Stryfe II Meryl Stryfe III Meryl Stryfe IV Meryl Stryfe V Meryl Stryfe VI Meryl Stryfe VII Meryl Stryfe VIII Meryl Stryfe IX Vash, Wolfwood, Knives I Vash, Wolfwood, Knives II Vash, Wolfwood, Knives III Vash, Wolfwood, Knives IV Vash, Wolfwood, Knives V Vash, Wolfwood, Knives VI Vash, Wolfwood, Knives VII

Other

Drain Arm The Immortal Twins (Closing Credits) On Narrators Tesla's Ghost Wolfwood's Devotion (manga) Plant Talk

Silly/Short Meta

Vash is Safety-Conscious Vash is Still Doing a Bit The Many Faces of Meryl Stryfe Knives, Long Walk Enthusiast Wolfwood's Petty Revenge Meryl Ruins Everything Episode One Composition Parallels Let There be Light The Destruction of Jeneora Rock You Stole My Newbie, Prepare to Die Don't Be Afraid Tesla and Intentions Vash Losing His Memories Only Love Could Be So Cruel Knives Has No Idea Who Vash Is Nai is the Son of His Mother Episode One/Zero Composition Parallels Wings Lying Liar Who Lies (EOM Symbol Origin)

#trigun stampede #tristampparty #trigun meta #trigun maximum #meta: tristampparty episodes #meta: little but fierce #meta: my brother's keeper #mini meta

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thewordinblackandred · 3 months

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Hey y'all! I'm Micah, the host of the leftist Bible study podcast The Word in Black and Red. We are just finishing up recording our first season of the show, covering the book of Genesis. As we head into the second season, this time covering the book of Exodus, I'm looking for even more co-hosts to come on and share their leftist Bible takes. If you have thoughts on any of the following stories, please reblog them, and I'll be in contact!

- S 2.5 Exodus 4:1-17: The Snake Staff and the Withered Hand

- S 2.6 Exodus 4:18-31: Emergency Circumcision

- S 2.8 Exodus 6:1-27: God Reassures Moses of his Calling

- S 2.10 Exodus 7:14-25: Plague I: The Blood

- S 2.11 Exodus 8:1-15: Plague II: The Frogs

- S 2.12 Exodus 8:16-32: Plagues III & IV: The Lice & the Swarms

- S 2.13 Exodus 9:1-12: Plagues V & VI: The Death of Cattle & the Boils

- S 2.14 Exodus 9:13-35: Plague VII: The Thunder & Hail

- S 2.15 Exodus 10:1-20: Plague VII: The Locusts

- S 2.16 Exodus 10:21-29: Plague IX: The Darkness

- S 2.17 Exodus 11: God Announces the Final Plague

- S 2.18 Exodus 12:1-28: The First Passover

- S 2.19 Exodus 12:29-13:16: Plague X: The Firstborn

- S 2.20 Exodus 13:17-15:21: Pharaoh's Army Lost at Sea

- S 2.22 Exodus 17:8-16: Israel Defeats Amalek

- S 2.23 Exodus 18: The Vanguard Organizes the Masses

- S 2.24 Exodus 19: Arrival at Mt. Sanai

- S 2.25 Exodus 20: The Ten Commandments

- S 2.26 Exodus 21-22:15: Slavery, Violence, & Property

- S 2.27 Exodus 22:16-23:9: "Seduction" Marriage, Immigrants, and Usury

- S 2.28 Exodus 23:10-19: Sabbath Rest

- S 2.29 Exodus 23:20-33: Joshua Foretold

- S 2.30 Exodus 24: The Mosaic Covenant

- S 2.31 Exodus 25-28: Instructions for God's Dwelling and Vestments

- S 2.32 Exodus 29-31: Proper Worship & the Sabbath

- S 2.34 Exodus 33: Moses Seeks for and Sees God

- S 2.35 Exodus 34-35:3: God's Character, the Renewed Covenant, & Moses' Shining Face

- S 2.37 Exodus 40: God Enters God's Dwelling

FAQ:

"But how can you be a Christian and leftist?" Because Jesus is!

"The Bible isn't about politics. Why are you bringing your own personal agenda to the text?" We all always bring our own biases to the text. The question is simply whether we acknowledge them or not. Most interpretations of the Bible you'll hear twist the Bible to support the status quo. We read the Bible, usually pretty straightforwardly, and realize that that interpretation isn't congruent with the book written by an oppressed people about their liberatory God.

"I don't really know the Bible all that well. What can I contribute?" Your perspective! We read the Bible from a leftist and liberationist perspective, and a big part of the liberationist perspective is that everyone has something to add to our understanding of the Bible. We offer many, often contradictory, readings of a story in each episode. Your job as a co-host isn't to know the Bible in and out, but to do as much reading and/or research as you need to feel comfortable sharing your thoughts with a broader audience.

If you're interested, it doesn't hurt to just post a take! Worst case scenario, you can tell me you're not interested later on. More likely, you'll have a great time recording with us and I'll be DMing you again to get you into new episodes!

#leftist #leftistchristianity #thewordinblackandred #leftistbiblestudy #anarchism #anarchist #communalism #communism

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thescoobyscholar · 5 months

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The History of Zoinks (Essay)

Includes an etymological and cultural analysis of the usage of "jeepers," "jinkies," and "zoinks." Another post will include the follow-up study.

If you grew up watching Scooby-Doo, it may be easy to assume that groovy green tees, ascots, and vans painted with flowers were all standard 60s fare. However, recall that these teens were not written by teens; when the first episode aired, character designer Iwao Takamoto was 41, main writer Bill Lutz was 47, and creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears were 36 and 31, respectively. Were they already out of touch? As put by Paul Dini, writer on Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-Doo: “When you look at those characters, they are characters frozen in time. They’re not really what hippies or hipsters or cool kids were like. They’re what 50-year olds thought cool kids were like” (“Scooby Doo! The Whole World Loves You”).

The most iconic quantifiers of how close these characters were to the “cool kids” is their catchphrases: “jeepers,” “jinkies,” and “zoinks!” When we hear the cartoon’s catchphrases, which claim to characterize this era, we must ask: Did people really say these things? Even though these terms are almost exclusively associated with the franchise today, these words were not born for marketing. The writers were pulling from memories, trends, and histories which, if we trace backwards, may glean some evidence as to their cultural accuracy.

Daphne’s classic “jeepers” is said to have been first penned in 1928 by cartoonist Billy DeBeck, whose popular Barney Google strips coined similar terms as “heebie-jeebies” and “holy moly” (Chakraborty and Dosad 117). The true origin of the word is likely several decades earlier, as Google’s catchphrase “Horsefeathers!” was already coming out of fashion among the construction workers that used it when DeBeck revived it in his parody of Appalachian colloquialisms (Funk and Funk ix-x). At the time DeBeck picked up “jeepers,” it was used as a euphemism for “Jesus!” (Harper, “Etymology of jeepers”).

However, the Scooby-Doo writers were more likely to be familiar with Al Donahue’s song “Jeepers Creepers” (as in, “Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those peepers?”). The song jumped high enough in America’s popular music charts in 1939 that it was covered by Louis Armstrong, Larry Clinton, and later Frank Sinatra (Whitburn 533). As an alteration of “Jesus Christ,” the flexible phrase was perfect for bouncy love ballads (“Oh, those weepers, how they hypnotize!”) and as a horror movie motif in Jeepers Creepers. The fact that the film was released in 2001 speaks to the staying power of “jeepers.”

As for Velma’s catchphrase, “jinkies,” it may be a variation of a number of old Scots terms dating around the 18th-19th century, so you may as well pick your favorite: a synonym for “jauntily” (as “jink,” to dodge or flee; nowadays “to juke” may be applicable), a nonsense word in nursery rhymes (e.g., “Eetum, peetum, penny pie / Cock a lory, jinky jye”), or a child’s nightgown (Dictionary of the Scots Language); a type of knitted fingerless glove (see Kate Davies Designs); or yet, as a derivation of “high jinks,” a drinking game that dates back to at least the 17th century (Harper, “Etymology of jinkies”).

The term was first recorded as exclamation “By jinkies!” in the newspaper strip “Ella Cinders” in 1936. The first recorded use of the term by a human (assuming comic characters can’t mail in letters to the local paper) was in a 1938 edition of the Northern-Courier in the sports section. Ray writes: “By jinkies, on my next pass day I will surely stop and see that 178 foot wheelbase, fire truck. If I can’t make it in one day maybe I can get an extension. Some truck.” (How many feet is the Mystery Machine’s wheelbase, I wonder…?) Again, “jinkies” is preceded by “by,” which Velma, as we all know, would choose to omit. By Scooby’s birthday, the term was popular among college students and “overly earnest” speakers (Iseli), fitting for the youngest of the gang who is always piping up with a clue to prove her intellectual merit.

Unlike “jeepers” and “jinkies,” which have decent pedigrees preceding Scooby-Doo, neither “zoinks” nor “zoink” directly appear in any written work before 1969, although they have a number of distant cousins. The closest approximation comes from television: a famous bit in 1958’s “Robin Hood Daffy” where Daffy swings from tree to tree, calling, “Zoiks, and away!” with each jump, only to crash face-first into a tree every time. His iconic lisp makes it difficult to parse whether he’s saying “zoiks” or “yoiks.” The latter would seem more likely, as “yoiks” and its sister “hoiks” have a long history as hunting words. On a bright and early morning in 1843, Sir Godfrey calls for his friend to hurry and saddle up: “Hoik, 'squire! . . . hoik, hoik! High wind him! Drag on him, yoiks, tally-ho!" (Mills 125). On the tail of a fox chase in 1774, a hunter in pursuit exclaims, “Yoiks, hark forward!” (Kelly 6). Contextually, neither sound too far from the modernized “Zoinks, let’s scram, Scoob!” The first “zoiks” was penned around 1584, in a sonnet of all things: “With mightie maters mynd I not to mell, / As copping Courts, or Comonwelthis, or Kings / Quhais craig zoiks fastest, let tham sey thame sell; / My thoght culd nevir think vpon sik things” (Montgomery 1–4). I can’t claim a clue about what the rest means, but “zoiks fastest” leads me to think this is a “jink”/”juke” situation; in “zoiking”, the narrator is fleeing from the cowersome courts, commonwealths, and kings. Coincidentally, “mynd I not to mell” sounds almost adjacent to “meddle,” another word popularized by Scooby-Doo. All of the “zoinks” family are employed as interjections preceding movement.*

In sum, while “jinkies” appears to have had some relevance at the time of Scooby-Doo’s inception, “jeepers” is a bit dated in comparison, and “zoinks” has a vast etymological tree but no direct precursors. The advantage to having a cast of characters who are, in the words of Paul Dini, “frozen in time,” is that they are living time capsules. We can choose any point within 50 years and see unique perceptions of culture, politics, music, style, and our focus: vocabulary. But how well do these perceptions line up with reality?

*All, that is, except one. “Yoiks” may also be used to refer to egg yolks, as in a cookbook from 1762: “Take a large Fowl, or a Pound of Veal, as much grated Bread, half a Pound of Sewet . . . Mace, two Cloves, half a Nutmeg grated, about a large Tea Spoonful of Lemon-peel, and the Yoiks of two Eggs” (Glasse 38). Add an olive toothpick on top and you have a Shaggy sandwich!

References

Chakraborty, Pritesh, and Anuradha Dosad. “Comic Monthly 1922: Exploring Form and Themes.” Department of English, Vidyasagar University, vol. 15, 2022, pp. 112–125.

“Ella Cinders.” Montana Standard, 29 Sept. 1936, p. 11.

Funk, Charles Earle, and Charles Earle Funk. “Foreword.” Horsefeathers, and Other Curious Words, Harper & Row, New York, 1958, pp. Ix–x.

Glasse, Hannah. “Made-Dishes.” The New Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, John Exshaw, 1762, pp. 38–39.

Harper, Douglas. “Etymology of jink.” Online Etymology Dictionary, 28 Sept. 2017, https://www.etymonline.com/word/jink.

Iseli, Marcel. “Jinkies! You’ll Never Believe What Velma’s Catchphrase Means.” Linguablog, Iseli International Commerce, 18 Sept. 2022, linguaholic.com/linguablog/jinkies-scooby-doo/.

"Jinkie." Dictionary of the Scots Language, Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd, 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/jinkie_adj

Kate Davies Designs. “Jinkies Pattern.” Ravelry, SARK, Nov. 2021, www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/jinkies.

Kelly, Hugh. “Epilogue.” The Romance of an Hour: A Comedy of Two Acts in Prose. G. Kearsley, 1774, line 6.

Mills, John. “A Meet of the Olden Time.” Ainsworth’s Magazine, edited by William Harrison Ainsworth, vol. 4, Chapman and Hall, London, 1843, p. 125.

Montgomery, Alexander. “To R. Hudsone (Sonnet 2).” The Poems of Alexander Montgomery, edited by David Irving, James Ballantyne and Company, 1821, pp. 76.

Szymborska, Wislawa. “Moment.” Monologue of a Dog. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, pp.11-13.

Ray. “Diamond Dust.” The Courier-Northerner, 29 July 1938, p. 8.

"Scooby Doo! The Whole World Loves You." Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons, produced by Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc, 2010. DVD.Whitburn, Joel. “The Songs.” Joel Whitburn’s Pop Memories 1890 - 1954: The History of American Popular Music, Record Research Inc, Menomonee Falls, WI, 1986, p. 533.

#essay #SDWAY #catchphrases

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brooklynislandgirl · 6 months

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10 Fandoms / 10 Characters / 10 Tags

Tagged By: my loves @kylo-wrecked and @tangleweave Tagging: Anyone who feels like they need one more Sunday this weekend.

~*~*~*~

I. Marvel: Beta-Ray Bill, Eddie Brock/Venom, Doctor Strange, Phil Coulson, Vision, Groot, Spider-Man {Peter Parker}, Gambit, Doctor Morbius, Bucky Barnes. M'Baku {Hate the moniker of 'Man-Ape'}. Magneto. Loki. Night Crawler. Frank "Punisher" Castle. Colossus. Danny "Iron Fist" Rand. Foggy Nelson. Ghost Rider {Both Johnny Blaze and Robbie Reyes, "Caretaker" Carter Slade}. I know that's more than 10. Whatever, I do what I want. >.> II. DC: Lex Luthor, Nanaue {King Shark}, Martian Man Hunter, John Constantine, The Joker, Jonathan Crane, Morpheus {Dream of the Endless}, Death of the Endless, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Bane, Swamp Thing, Green Lantern. Cisco Ramon. Hunter Zoloman.

I absolutely blame @nightmarefuele for at least two of these.

III. Star Wars: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Admiral Piett. Kylo Ren. Wedge Antilles. Kit Fisto. Han Solo. Chewbacca. Jocasta Nu. Darth Rivan {not to be confused with Darth Revan}. Jos Vondar. Jango and Boba Fett, and of course, all my 10,000,000,000 Clone children. No I will not be taking questions.

IV. Star Trek: Worf, Martok, Gowron, Chancellor Gorkon, Kurn, Dr McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekhov, Chris Pike, Ortegas, Nurse Chapel, Geordie La Forge, Riker, Data, Lore, Chief O'Brien, Q, Benjamin Cisco, Garak, Gul Dukat, Quark. V. Firefly: Mal Reynolds, Jayne Cobb, Hobun Washburne, Zoe Washburne, Shepherd Book, Kaylee Frye, YoSafBridge, Adalai Niska, Badger, Jubal Early Take my life, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. I don't care 'cause I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me. {{My coat has always been a little...brownish.}

VI. The Walking Dead: Shane Walsh, Daryl and Merle Dixon, Michonne Hawthorne, Abraham Ford, Glenn Rhee, The Governor, Bob Stookey, Ezekiel, Dwight, Aaron, Morgan Jones. VII. Justified: Raylan, Boyd, Ava, Art, Rachel, Tim, Dewey Crowe, Johnny Crowder, Loretta McCready, Robert Quarles, Ellstin Limehouse, Mags Bennett, Devil, Jean Baptiste, Boon, Willa, Carolyn, Sweety... oh so many. VIII. Yellowstone: John, Jamie, Beth, Kayce Dutton, Rip Wheeler, Jimmy Hurdstrom, Thomas Rainwater, Mo Brings Plenty, Lloyd, Colby, Teeter, Jake, Ethan, Angela Blue Thunder, Malcolm Beck. IX. Law & Order- Alphabet Soup: Captain Cragen, Lenny Briscoe, Mike Logan, Anita Van Buren, Jack McCoy. Rey Curtis, Ed Green, Arthur Branch, Cyrus Lupo, Kevin Bernard, Frank Cosgrove, Jalen Shaw. Elliot Stabler, Olivia Benson, Odafin Tutuola, John Munch, Chester Lake, Melinda Warner, Amanda Rollins, Rafael Barba, Dominick Carisi, Peter Stone, Bobby Goran. I have seen literally every episode of the American Law & Order franchise Original, SVU, CI, OC, etc...with the first three watched multiple times. While I often wouldn't call it my most favourite show...it's probably my most favourite shows.

X. The Lord of the Rings: Boromir and Faramir, Éomer and Éowyn, Theoden King, Theodred, Gimli, Pippin, Sam, Meriadoc, Fangorn {Treebeard}, Beorn, Celebrimbor, Bard the Bowman, Dwalin, Celeborn, Denethor, Gil-Galad king, Fingolfin, The Watcher in the Water, Maedhros, Finwe, Manwe...and I could go on for years. My first true fandom as we know it {probably Arthurian Legend was my first and truest fictional love}, and one I have been faithful to for over 25 years. Honestly never please talk to me about it, because I have rabid opinions about literally everything. And lastly, I only included tv/movies here because books and rpgs would require an entire three or four Long Ass Posts all of their own. Much Love.

#Absolutely True Stories about Turtle #Glowing Like the Metal|Dash Games

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basedkikuenjoyer · 6 months

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A polarizing one that I'm high on, Dragon Quest IX is an interesting one. First, bold move to release it on the DS. Then...we have an innovator again. Demon's Souls and what follows get a lot of credit for rethinking multiplayer but DQ9 was doing similar things around the same time. There were some solid features here that I unfortunately didn't get much chance to explore but they deserve credit.

Beyond that, we have an interesting twist for our story. You're a fallen angel looking to regain your wings. We also see the return of a class system like III. You make your own companions and multiclassing is heavily encouraged. This does mean we don't have a lot of heavy character drama for the party, but like VIII we have a couple of consistent noncombatant allies and DQ is all about episodic stories about the towns you pass. These are some excellent towns too, I love the Mongolian-inspired Batsureg. Expanding the crafting system and making it more dependent on materials you can go out and hunt for gives you a lot of incentive to get out and see the world.

Where IX shines is its post-game. The main plot is solid, a great story about authority and the shift in perspective to focusing on the angels and their own internal strife is unique. It has a bubblier tone to everything too. But the grottoes. You don't have to do this, but you can treasure maps. Find the spot on the overworld and there are dungeons. Procedurally generated and full of their own tier of treasure. They start to get hard if you focus on them but that isn't even the biggest challenge. Play with it enough and you can start challenging bosses from old games. That plus a lot of little odds and ends quests mean we have a lot of post-game content here. Fun post-game content.

#dragon quest #dragon quest 9 #dq9 #draconic musings

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randomfoggytiger · 1 year

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The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part IX): Tena Mulder's Suicide and Saving Mulder from Himself

The last of the Mulder Family analyses is here!

Without further ado, here we go~.

Sein und Zeit

While Mulder is investigating a child disappearance that parallels his sister's too closely, his phone rings. He springs up to answer it, vibrating with energy and ready to tackle the next lead. However, he's pulled up short when Tena answers with a soft "Fox? It's me" to his "Mulder" greeting.

His voice immediately softens (“Mom? Hi.”)

Tena immediately launches into the purpose of her call, telling him: “I’m watching the news. That little girl in California-- you’re out there, aren’t you?” Despite the distance in their relationship, she knows her son and his mad pursuit for answers, correctly deducing Mulder would be compelled to solve this case out of a sense of empathy, absolution, or both.

He can’t deny it; though he reflexively shrinks from wanting to discuss a case so close to their pressure points.

“Yes”, he admits, a mix between trepidation, hesitation, and a little shame. “I am.”

Either as a deflection or as a gentle probe into her welfare, Mulder asks “Are you okay, Mom?”

Tena demurs: “When are you coming back here?”

Mulder snaps upright, possibly a little shocked she would care to know anything about his routines.

“Well, I’m not sure, I, y’know, I-I…I dunno.”

“Call when you get back, Fox.”

Tena is tense-- knitted brows and troubled eyes-- but doesn’t betray it in her voice as she bids her son goodbye.

Mulder promises-- “Okay, I will. Um, you take care, Mom--” and hangs up as fast as he can, gritting his jaw slightly.

It’s obvious that, while he loves his mother, the blind trust he had given her regarding his emotions has not recovered. Since Demons's separation and Amor Fati's mild reconnection, the fracture has not fully healed, or even really started to. Mulder knows that his mom loves him; but even when he was comatose, Tena never dropped her pride enough to verbally tell her son that she loved him (she didn't know he could read minds so her confession was only incidental; and while it was nice to know she loved him, Mulder probably felt more hurt that she wouldn’t say it before she signed him over to the man that cut his brain open.) And after Amor Fati it seems the gap has still not been bridged.

While this is sad, it's a huge step for Mulder. He is not letting himself be taken advantage of or duped anymore: there are firm boundaries in place, including when he schedules his life around his mom. Before he would have dropped everything in the midst of an intense and interesting case and flown immediately to her side; now, he has placed her importance firmly where she has placed his in her life. Mulder may have forgiven Tena in the wake of his enlightening experiences while trapped in his own mind, but he has not forgotten.

Tena hears his sharp disconnect,

and hangs up the phone, caught up in her own thoughts as well.

It’s revealed she has been gazing at a photo of her children--

the very same photo CSM had in Redux II--

and contemplating something that her son is not aware of (yet.)

She is also clearly wearing a wedding ring on her left ring finger,

meaning one of many options (or all of them):

1. She kept Bill Mulder’s ring and wore it anyway post divorce. This would be odd because she didn’t wear it previously.

2. She put her wedding ring back on to create a comfort zone of nostalgia: Mrs. Mulder again, with her doting son by her side-- an ode to a happier, more familial time. It would bring a little cheer to the present so that she and her son would have an easier time making peace with her approaching death.

3. She, like the Mulder men, like to wear random wedding rings without being married to anyone. It’s a pattern (seen in the episode Travelers-- post here-- where Bill Mulder and Fox Mulder wear bands without documents or timelines to legally bind them to a wife.)

4. She got married? And her husband was just some guy in the background who was literally shoved out of any room Mulder (and the camera) walked into. Maybe there’s a random guy named Joe who spent an afternoon being shoved around by the investigative team and ignored by everyone else.

While Tena stares at her children, she swallows before stretching her neck: steeling herself against unwanted emotion.

The next we see of Tena she is looking at her emptied photograph frames while leaving a message on Mulder's answering machine:

“Fox, it’s your mother. I’d hoped you’d call upon your return, but I haven’t heard from you. I’m sure you’re busy. There are… so many emotions in me I wouldn’t know where to start. So much I’ve left unsaid for reasons I hope one day you’ll understand.”

As her words play overhead, Tena takes the infamous photo of her children,

plucks it from its frame,

and proceeds to burn it.

As she gazes at the disappearing photo, Tena sighs, tries the straighten-your-back-to-contain-your-emotions trick; but she loses some ground to the fight (crunching her shoulders up, lowering her head, and pinching her face a bit more.)

Mulder is informed sometime soon after that his mother is dead.

Tena Mulder, even in her last moments, was a selfish woman. While Bill Mulder was cowardly and quailed under the iron fist of the Consortium, buddying up with ex-Nazis and sitting on the sidelines while his colleagues hushed up and obliterated the lives of innocent people to keep themselves from being exposed, Tena railed, raged, and finally stewed. If she couldn’t have it the way she wanted-- a happy family life, no abductions, no affairs to taint her moral code-- then she wouldn’t remember any of it. This led her to systematically cut everyone from her life that served as a reminder to everything she wished to forget: her CSM lover (before her daughter was even abducted, post here), her ex-husband (laying all blame at his feet and none at her own, post here), her son (post here.) It’s not simply a matter of burning her children’s photos-- although that’s bad enough. In destroying her past, she destroyed her son’s as well; and with it destroyed any tie Mulder had to his earlier happy childhood, something he always remembered fondly and wanted to recapture through his quest to recover his sister. While Tena viewed her actions as taking control of what she was robbed of by burning up all the lies she lived in the process, she threw in the good with the bad; and cast her baggage onto Mulder, leaving him with wounds grown deeper and deeper and robbing him of the last proof of his former life, family, and sister he treasured.

Mulder and Scully drive up to Tena’s place, navigating their way through the team of investigators. As he numbly walks around the kitchen, Mulder curls in on himself; and when that doesn’t provide enough comfort, he sticks his hand into his mouth like a small, confused child trying to self-soothe.

His mother held a huge place in Mulder’s life, as evidenced by his raw anguish and vulnerability. All those years, their bond was wound tight by their mutual trauma-- but Mulder spent his childhood wrapping his mother in a metaphorical trauma blanket while punishing himself for her pain and for his sister’s abduction. He never had a chance to be taken care of or given support to process his own trauma; and, in his own words, he’s “still walking into that room” every day of his life.

Mulder wilts even more as he’s handed Tena’s suicide pills and explained she used them in conjunction with the gas stove:

Tena left no final note.

Mulder doesn’t see the sense or logic in any of her actions; and wanders around her bedroom, lost, looking for something but not knowing what. Finally, he sits before he falls to pieces, trying to center himself and think more clearly.

As Mulder relates Tena's phone call to Scully, a new theory pops into his head-- the White Whale, the elusive and uncatchable beam of light he can forever chase to keep the ugly realities of his life at bay-- that she had been subdued and killed.

He rushes into this theory with renewed vigor. When emotions start to bubble to the surface again, almost drowning out his words, he uses his hands to demonstrate to Scully what to look for in his mother’s autopsy--

becoming insistent when Scully begs him not to ask her to perform it. His voice is deceptively upbeat, cheerful, a late-stage effect of teaching himself not to upset his mother (or anyone else) with his emotions in times of crisis. Internally, he’s bleeding; externally, he’s ignoring the wound and pursuing the chase. There’s an addictive quality to his hunt for answers: a simultaneous distraction from his needs and a focus for him to stave off discouraged apathy with life’s continual beat downs. He has yet to develop an effective coping strategy (though he has improved a lot since One Breath) since he is so used to running around, half-bandaged, shouting oaths at the world for justice (or vengeance.) As long as there is something to fight for (as his subconscious demonstrated when Amor Fati dream Scully ordered him to “Get up and fight”), Mulder will keep going. Unfortunately, this goal has driven many a more stable and healthily functioning person straight into single-minded madness.

Tena knew these things about her son and still did what she did.

The worst thing about Tena’s uncommunicated suicide is that it pushed Mulder further into unhealthy coping mechanisms: he immediately discounts the evidence,

believing it has been planted and that his mother was murdered. Mulder then jumps to conspiracies, insisting Scully prove him right by autopsying his mother.

Tena's final act put her son in a very, very precarious position: either he pursues her murderers to his grave (an expanded clause on his Samantha Recovery Pact), or fold in on himself in blame, crushed forever. Her death is an unexpected, piercing grief that only serves (despite whatever her intentions were) to strengthen Mulder's one-sided purpose. Not only that, but with the case he was working on and the guilt of his mother’s death (and tangentially Samantha’s abduction) combined, Mulder would have been eaten alive with his belief that Tena's death was preventable and entirely his fault: he had driven up for his dad the night he died-- why hadn't he at least called his mom back? Especially when she had finally, finally, reached out to reconnect with him? Mulder would have concluded that his mother had died thinking that he didn't love or care about her, the ultimate stake in his heart. Always his fault. Always too late. Always a failure that loses his family and gets them killed.

The last we ever hear from Tena Mulder is her phone message Mulder replays over and over. His hyper-focus on trying to decode her words, find a secret somewhere between her sentences, is a failure; and before he can further lose himself in this untruth, his partner saves him. If Scully had not been someone Mulder trusted above all else, he likely would have discredited her autopsy and driven himself crazy. It’s Scully who gives him a modicum of peace about his mother’s death: having suffered a painful, deadly illness herself, she understands the muddied logic of the dying; and she uses Mulder’s trust in her to convince him that his mother did commit suicide because she simply wanted the pain (all of it) to end. While that may or may not be true, Scully believed it for him, so Mulder believed in her.

With no one to blame and no other explanation out of this nightmarish reality, Mulder collapses in grief. It's here we see how devastated, helpless, and toothless Mulder is without his pursuit. Scully saves Mulder from a fate worse than Tena's death, helping him to finally address his injury and start to heal it (and others that it was bleeding over into.) Without her, Mulder would not have been ready to accept Samantha's final gift of peace in Closure.

It’s interesting to reflect on Tena and her husband’s variations on neglect. Bill Mulder created a lot of early damage in his son by erecting immovable barriers between himself and young Mulder. While it was motivated from deep fear of his inabilities and cowardice from confronting his past, Bill at least reached out when he could no longer escape from exposure. In his final hours, he tried to give his son closure, even opening himself up emotionally and revealing his pride that his son was a better man than he. In contrast, Tena was close with her son-- doting, loving, and sharing a bond with him that was layered with trauma and affection (see post here.) Her neglect was emotional: Mulder learned that he had to suppress himself emotionally to care for his broken mother. This set him up for too much reliance and dependence in relationships, leaving him to be easily exploited by others (Phoebe, Diana, Krycek, etc.) and a gun-shy attitude towards emotional vulnerability (see post here.) But, most crucially, when Mulder needed honesty from Tena about her past-- ready to listen empathetically and eager to forgive-- she expunged him from her life, not reentering it for almost three years (not even for his faked suicide); and still maintained a distance that was all her own doing. Both of Mulder’s parents failed him; but in very different ways.

So ends Tena Mulder: the person who molded Fox Mulder into the man he is today with all his virtues and faults, tenderness and stubborn insistence, empathetically bleeding heart and faulty coping mechanisms. While she had been an important part to him for almost all of her son’s life, their final years were filled with too many words left unsaid.

Mentions:

Tena was mentioned once or twice more-- in Within, Mulder visits Raleigh (where she was buried) "every week" and buys a tombstone by her grave (the evidence on that is small, but was never disproven-- or thoroughly questioned-- canonically); and we are shown her grave when Mulder’s “dead” body is buried in Deadalive. (The only other maybe? reference to Tena might be in connection to the doll Mulder gifts Scully in Empedocles: we don’t know its origin, but it's reasonable to assume it was a family heirloom-- likely belonging to Samanatha at some point-- that was stored at the Vineyard. If so, at least Tena didn't burn it.)

We have reached the end of the Mulder Family saga, concluding with Tena's suicide and the impact of this decision on her son. While their relationship started out strong, her excommunication completely nuked it; and her curated, preservative selfishness prevented any further reconnection that she could have had in her final years. She was a woman who adored her son, could shout down CSM and live to tell the tale (post here), and had self-preserving instincts so fierce she could cut someone from her life and never look back. A flawed, neglectful, and stunted person; but one who wasn't evil so much as complicated.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy~

#txf #x-files #The Mulder Family In-Depth #Part VIII #meta #Tena's Suicide Could Have Destroyed Mulder Forever #the x files #xf meta #analysis #Tena #Teena Mulder #Mulder #S7 #Sein und Zeit #S8 #Within #Deadalive #Empedocles #mine

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