#series 11 salt rewatch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

emachinescat · 3 years

Text

Psych Season 1: Ranked!

I've been rewatching Psych again, and I thought it would be fun to rank the episodes from "worst" (though there are rarely any "bad" episodes IMO) to best for each season as I watch through. I'd love to know your order as well!

A couple of disclaimers: I'm on season 5 now in my rewatch, so it's been over a month since I watched season 1. Also, this is just my opinion. In no way is this meant to be a definitive list.

#15 - Game, Set ... Muurder? (S01E13)

Honestly, though this is last on my list, it's not because it's bad. For me, it's just pretty unmemorable. I watched it about a month ago and I barely remember any details. It's a pretty run-of-the-mill episode, and a decent mystery, but in my mind, it is what it is. Not bad. Not great. It just exists, and I enjoy it when I do watch it, and then its details slip my mind. Can't put my finger on exactly why, though.

#14 - Pilot (S01E01)

Hear me out. I do love the pilot, and everything it introduced us to. I especially love what an amazing marksman Shawn is shown to be -- that whole scene with Lucinda is one of the best in the season, if not the series, in my opinion. And Don S. Davis (General Hammond from SG1) guest stars! But -- and this is honestly the case of most pilot episodes for any show -- it's not Psych. Not yet. The characters are still cooking; they're not quite themselves yet, and though that's true through here and there most of the first season, it's most obvious in this episode. I think the main reason it's next to last on my list is because when I decide I'm going to watch an episode of Psych, the first one rarely, if ever, comes to mind, unless I'm doing a full rewatch. Ooh, I wrote a whumpier AU of this one, (you can read it on AO3)!

#13 - Woman Seeking Dead Husband: Smokers Okay, No Pets (S01E04)

This really is a fun episode with some great twists. I always enjoy watching it. Some of my favorite parts are Juliet and Lassiter trying to get a feel for one another as partners. Honestly, the only reason it's this low on my list is because I just like the other episodes better.

#12 - Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece (S01E03)

I do enjoy this episode a lot, honestly, and I also wrote a whumpier AU of it (you can read it on AO3). There are a lot of great bits in it, and I love seeing what a people person Shawn is, how easily he's able to worm his way into the lives of the wedding party. It's fun seeing him "divine" and use people's own likes and dislikes against them as well, like with the Anglophile and the germaphobe. Again, good episode, but the others are better.

#11 - Who Ya Gonna Call? (S0107)

This is an interesting episode for me, with a pretty crazy twist. It does deal with some pretty serious topics that often weren't taken super seriously or represented well in the media at that time (trans folks and borderline personality disorder), and I'm not qualified to say how well the show handled either of these. Sometimes, I've noticed, you have to take things in shows from this era with a grain of salt. Not many forms of media were very "woke" at this time, and the fact that the transition was treated with a relative amount of respect is pretty impressive (again, though, I'm not qualified to make judgments on this). Either way, it's a pretty fun mystery, and the twist is unexpected for sure!

#10 - He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me, Oops, He's Dead (S01E11)

This episode has some good Shules scenes, and I lose it every time the gang is forced to go speed dating to solve the mystery. I do really like this episode a lot, honestly. It's got some fun character interactions. The mystery's okay in this one for me -- the characters are where it's at.

#9 - Shawn vs. the Red Phantom (S01E08)

This is a great episode overall -- superheroes and comic cons are a great theme! Also, it gave us Magic Head. My favorite bits will always be those between Lassie and Vick. Their dynamic is amazing in this episode, and the scene in the hospital when Iris is born is both heartwarming and hilarious. The only reason this particular episode isn't higher on the list is because I feel like Shawn isn't quite himself here. The Shawn we know later in the show wouldn't be "too good" for super heroes and comics, I don't think. Much like in the pilot, he doesn't feel "done" yet.

#8 - Poker? I Barely Know Her (S01E14)

I love this episode for a number of reasons. I'm always a fan of Shawn using his skills in a super crazy and impressive way, and his poker playing is a perfect example of this. I also love the deeper level of maturity we see when Shawn has to deal with Brandon. I also love the confidence Henry has in his son at the end. I do NOT love the way Shawn gambles away their money at the end, especially since I know it's just a way for the writers to "reset" the story so they aren't suddenly loaded in the next episode.

#7 - Weekend Warriors (S01E06)

Somehow, this episode to me is both quintessential Psych and one I never really choose to watch unless I'm doing a full watch through. It's fun to see everyone in Civil War era garb, and it's one of the first times we see another interest of Lassiter's. It's a classic Psych episode in my mind, but despite this, it's just not my favorite. This episode does have one of my favorite scenes in all of the show, though, something that I still feel it's a shame they dropped in later seasons: Shawn's perfect recollection and recreation of the battlefield in minute detail is astounding, and I don't know why later seasons painted him so often as a lazy guy who doesn't know how to do real police work, because here, he absolutely shines. And I live for it.

#6 - Cloudy with a Chance of Murder (S01E12)

I honestly don't know why this was the episode they redid (and so poorly, I might add). I think this episode is super fun. Seeing Shawn in court is always a blast, and watching Adam Hornstock grow in confidence and competence because of Shawn is wonderful as well. But honestly, the main reasons this episode is so high on my list are the argument between Shawn and Henry about Shawn's motorcycle accident and the way everyone tries to get Shawn's bike back for him -- but Lassie beats them all to the punch.

#5 - Forget Me Not (S01E09)

This episode deals with a sensitive issue -- memory loss -- so well. It's funny, emotional, and so much fun to watch every time. It's just so well executed, and has some great interactions between Henry and Shawn. The scene where Captain Connors waltzes into the police station thinking he's back on the force gets me in the feels every single time.

#4 - 9 Lives (S01E05)

This episode is one of the most classic of the classics for me. The little boy cat who turns out to be a girl may be one of my biggest factors for loving this episode. Other than that, I don't know how solid of a reason I have for loving this episode other than that when I think of Psych episodes that I'd like to watch at any given time, this one is already high on my list.

#3 - From the Earth to the Starbucks (S01E10)

This episode is in my top three because of the way we see Shawn invest in Lassiter for the first time. It's one of the first times we see him act with completely selfless motives, and it shows us that Shawn truly does care about his frenemy. The mystery is fine, I suppose, but when I'm watching this episode, I'm here for the Shassiter friendship, full stop.

#2- Scary Sherry: Bianca's Toast (S01E15)

I mean, what's not to love about this episode? (Other than Shawn and Gus being 28-year-old-men ogling college girls, but I truly believe that was a sign of the times when the show was made; doesn't make it right, but, remember: grain of salt.) It's creepy, and we get to see Jules go all in undercover for the first time. The scene where Shawn and Gus flee the house, Gus leaving Shawn behind, the way we find ourselves sympathizing with the villain, the "Oh, no -- Gus!" moment, and the ending, where Shawn and Gus are just hanging with Jules... Oh, and anything with Lassie and his new partner! Basically, this episode is top tier.

#1 - Spellingg Bee (S01E02)

This might be the most classic Psych episode in my mind. It has it all: whump, father/son angst, Juliet, the Super Sniffer, and possibly the single funniest scene in the entire show: "BaNAna." This episode is pure, unadulterated perfection. You can also read my whumpier AU on AO3!

So there's season 1 of Psych, ranked from least favorite to most favorite! Feel free to reblog with your own episode order. I'll post my season 2 ranked soon!

#psych #psych season 1 #ranked #best psych episodes #best episodes #my favorites #feel free to reblog with your own list #mini reviews #psych usa #psych peacock #shawn spencer #burton guster #juliet o'hara #carlton lassiter #henry spencer #karen vick

46 notes · View notes

scullydubois · 3 years

Text

I'm coming up on 2 years since I binged this alien show, and for the first time I'm feeling an odd sort of nostalgia for seasons 8 + 9. I have, by and large, avoided rewatching those seasons, but all of the sudden, it's like my brain is ready for that pain again. It's making me think a lot about how varied the show is--if I had to divide it into different "eras," I'd group together s1-3, s4-5, s6-7, s8-9, and s10-11. As someone who watched the entire show over the course of 6ish months, 8 + 9 were my least favorite portion on first watch, and the revival actually felt like a breath of fresh air to me. I know, a lot of people hate 10 + 11 (and they are DEFINITELY flawed), but they have a special place in my heart because I got to see my agents together again, getting a glimpse at the son who they so tragically lost.

It's interesting...8 + 9 are full of angst, much of it gratuitous and like having salt thrown on an open wound (thanks a lot writers), but it is still a very crucial part of the show. I mean, we get to see Scully believing! As a testament to her love for Mulder! Who could imagined that in season 1? Scully the skeptic becomes Scully the believer because my god, she's not gonna lose the love of her life the way he lost his sister. And Scully's pregnancy...unnecessary vagueness aside, after Emily and the removed ova, it's special to see Scully fulfilling her hope of motherhood, even as the timing is relentlessly cruel. In the same way, it makes the difficulty of raising her son and the eventual choice to give him up all the more devastating...as an audience, we understand how much she wanted him...we followed that journey...and yet, with the circumstances of her life (and William's) being so far from ideal, she feels backed into a corner, having no option but to let go of him so he can have a chance at a normal life.

Would it have been lovely if Duchovny had stuck around and we got to see Mulder and Scully raise their son? Hell yes! Or perhaps, if the show had wrapped up after s8? Yeah, I'm not gonna argue against that. But honestly? Without 8 + 9, we never would have gotten 10 or 11, and I'm thankful we got to see Mulder & Scully navigating the X-Files' place in the world (and their own relationship with each other) later in their lives. I'm especially glad that the series didn't end with s9...we got to see Mulder and Scully find their son! We got a glimpse at teenage William! And yeah, the CSM stuff is very very fucked up, but CSM has proven to be an unreliable narrator and imo, it's easy to write that off as a lie that M&S will have a chance to uncover outside the confines of the series. @scullysflannel said it best--"the x-files is porous; so much happens on the margins and in the spaces between what’s in the script." The X-Files, to me, has always been bigger than any particular thing we see on screen. To borrow from @scullysflannel once again, "there’s the show and then there’s the feeling of the show." Every extension of the show meant an expansion of the feelings it contained, widening the breadth of the universe and its possibilities. That is the reason we have formed such an active community around this show, full of glorious writing and art. It can be, ultimately, anything we want it to be. It gives us that permission.

#wrote a little something about the later seasons #which im feeling v fond of lately #i wrote this during a zoom class so excuse any mistakes #txf meta #the x files #txf #mine

36 notes · View notes

blee-bleep · 4 years

Note

Though I disagree vehemently about your take I'm also very curious of your arguments for why you think Akko is such a bad character?

Anon, you have no idea what you just fucking asked of me. Time for a review! This is going to be hella’ long.

Vanilla Character that insists that she has personality

So the one thing I’m going to start off with is; The Relatable/Vanilla Protagonist Syndrome. This is the syndrome that is used for most main characters in order to have a clean-slate character that is basically the audience in order to promote the world-building in the series by having them absolutely no clue of what is the world around them. That is what Akko exactly is, and that is what Trigger abuses her out of.

Little Witch Academia is an anime that focuses solely on world-building, so much so that they’re willing to pile over their characters in order to show what magic can do.

(And apparently for Trigger, world-building also means learning who the author of a 200-yo Twilight spinoff book is and who was Holbrooke’s dad)

But the point is, the anime is a pile of boring trash fire that focuses on world-building, even from its original exposition of the OVA. It uses the pattern of ‘theme/problem of the week’ in half of the series with arcs going nowhere for a while and suddenly rushes an epiphany in the last few episodes. *cough ep 15*

The point with world-building serialization is that it needs a way to be promoted, and what way for it to promote is to get Akko to fuck around with it. As her job as the protag, that’s exactly what she does for more than half of the series. She’s like a stretchy character that is carried by the plot with gross insistence from the show that she has character (which is being stubborn and clumsy that is written off as ‘passionate’).

What’s worse is Trigger has all these ideas yet none of them are polished to its fullest (like the political divide between witches and modern government) or is overlapped by some bullshit to add because Japan. (seriously, a hunting-themed episode with cool lore, and yet a third of the episode is all about robots and building it? What the fuck?)

See, that’s why I think Akko is a horribly written character, not her character itself (if that were the case then I would’ve ditched the show the first episode) but because how she’s executed with it for the show. She’s constantly pulled by different bullshit the show comes up and makes her pull the answers the episode needs out of thin fucking air just because the writers said ‘fuck you’ to development and that they need to end the problem at some point right?

If characters can’t be tied correctly to the worldbuilding then there’s a chance that the character themselves would break, because it just can’t often work with what you’ve already placed in the previous episodes you’ve set up in the first place. Arcs overlap with each other and LWA doesn’t do shit for that until it needs a banging climax.

Akko is constantly renewed and she learns nothing from what she learned (or at least hints of it), except for the metamorphosis bullshit and Shiny Rod. Which brings me to my next point on why Akko is such a horrible character.

Shiny Rod is a Leech

This thing is basically the plot device that Akko is so tied to. If there’s ever an episode where it solely focuses on Akko herself, it’s often related to either Shiny Rod or Chariot du Nord, which is the shittiest way to limit a character with so much exposition with everything the series has thrown at her. The only other way the series doesn’t do this to her is Diana in episode 12, but it isn’t even focused on her, it’s focused on the cabbage and her Draco Malfoy syndrome.

Anyways, were an episode be connected to Akko in some way, it’s always limiting to her duty as the holder of the Shiny Rod and the occasional situation from Chariot. Not from her friends, who she clearly relates to and has more history with, but with the Shiny Rod and Chariot.

The series lazily signs this as Akko’s resolution to her character by the last episode (FUCK THAT) and does nothing else with her relationship with other characters outside of Diana and Chariot. Honestly, you’d expect that after going through Sucy’s mind and visiting Lotte’s hometown, she would’ve grown as a better character and more than being a two-dimensional ‘chosen-one’ character who only gets an episode if it focuses on the plot-device that pulled her in the magical world in the first place.

But no, Trigger is still insisting pies, weird shops, and other boring stuff needs to be shown for the series to make it interesting, and dumps the idea to the next. An arc is never properly made for all the shit they let Akko go through because the series is so fast-paced in the wrong places. And when it does focus on what is important (more important than finding about Nightfall’s author), it’s usually done spontaneously thus eliminating the suppose suspense that the single important thing is supposed to do *I HATE EPISODE 15 WHAT THE FUCK*

The point is, Akko is just a ‘believing heart’. A holder of Shiny Rod, who managed to get under Chariot without her knowing. It’s like she’s Midoriya (My Hero Academia) but much watered down and if you take that away from her, she has nothing, when out of all the stuff she could’ve had.

What LWA’s writers hadn’t realized is that what they actually wrote for Akko is what could’ve been her focus but Trigger insists for the world-building theme is that Akko’s arc should only come in the climax and the filler episodes are for her friends because you know, it won’t be more interesting that way and now they have a main protagonist that’s actually interesting beyond their design and suppose-personality.

Thus I’m next to my last bullshit:

Akko, the Wasted Potential™

I recently rewatched Citrus lately, and though the show is much narrow than LWA’s world of magic, I realized what actually makes it better than it in ways that the latter fails. And it’s their protagonist.

I know you guys will trash about Yuzu being a simp and all, and I absolutely agree with that, but what makes Yuzu better than Akko is not because she’s more down-to-earth, but she has a three-dimensional mindset, a mindset which is the very thing kept away from Akko.

While Yuzu may not have been pushed into a world of magic by the neck and gets dragged by the plot as violently as Akko (and the two very different themes of the two shows of course), but if you pull those away, their passion are nearly built the same. What differs them both is that Yuzu actually acts out what she needs to do and builds a steady relationship with the other characters around her, even if it’s very subtle and small. (Like, Harumin being her wicked hot sidekick? God yes, top-tier Gyaru)

Akko, on the other hand, literally goes into one of her best friend’s mind in a poison-induced coma and gets shoved into her other best friend’s culture by visiting her hometown. You might think she’d grow from that and realize what it takes to be a better character, right? WRONG.

Of course, Trigger uses these things as filler episodes and nothing more. It doesn’t reflect on Akko’s character because she’s not allowed to think like it should. Though the show would insist she has personality, it does the opposite when Akko’s only character is only used as ‘believing heart’ for the Shiny Rod and nothing much else, because the only times when they do get her a new attitude is dropped off right after.

It would’ve been cool if they dropped the world-building theme for a bit and focus on how they should make the characters much more interesting than having their personalities as the root problems of episodes.

When I first watched LWA, I had so much more expectation for the characters themselves, especially Amanda O’Neill after her introduction in episode 3. But came episode 5 and then she… didn’t really matter that much despite being in half of the episode. And she didn’t have another one not until 11 episodes later. Imagine making and hyping up such a unique character and barely giving her screentime of three episodes! That’s one of the grossest things you can do in baiting lesbians, Trigger!

And it doesn’t stop at Amanda; it applies to almost every other character. Chariot is the pink-print disappointment of a hyped character that didn’t have enough time. She’s a plot-device character that everyone was anticipating but she’s barely given the after of a shitty episode 14 (that has another completely different problem altogether). Episode 15 was literally the worst you could’ve done to make a twist because a) the development leading to that revelation was undercooked, and especially shitty because the show basically used Croix as a plot device, b) it’s done nearly towards the end of the series so the timing for her hype was weirdly placed, and c) Chariot’s personality from that episode is being used repeatedly just to let Akko become a sitting duck.

So yeah, Trigger was so focused on the concept of world-building and making magic look as interesting as possible that the idea that maybe the characters would flat-out look bleak was not in their cone of vision. Akko was fundamentally a boring protagonist because she keeps getting pulled apart and has not ingrained anything in that, and to rub salt into the wound, she becomes so used to it that when Croix set her up with the Wagandea trap, Chariot has to intervene and at the cost of her flight powers, which does not help their characters one bit.

Akko is a shitty protagonist Trigger shredded apart just for their sake of world-building and she has learned nothing from what the show has thrown at her because the writers didn’t think she needed it, because, in the first place, it’s not about her. It’s about the Shiny Rod and completing Chariot’s story (which is half-assed in its own way). Lord knows how they botched her to the point she’s blank. She’s nothing more than a ‘believing heart’ and if Trigger just keeps there, that’s forever what she is. And that, in itself, is why I think Akko is a horrible character.

#LWA #little witch academia #atsuko 'akko' kagari #citrus #yuzu aihara #chariot du nord #shiny rod #bleewrites #pluggin in the notes so yall see this mess

84 notes · View notes

libramooon · 3 years

Text

thank you for the tag @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant ! 🥰

MUSIC

fave genre? classic rock / pop / folk / older country (60s & 70s)

fave artist? Dolly Parton

fave song? Key to Life on Earth by Declan McKenna

most listened song recently? Roddy by Djo

song currently stuck in your head? the Jeff Bezos song by Bo Burnham

5 fave lyrics?

"I was your starry eyed lover and the one that you saw. I was your hurricane rider and the one that you'd call. We were just two moonshiners on the cusp of a breath. And I've been burning for you baby since the moment I left." [Paul by Big Thief]

"There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away. They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets." [Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen]

"I am relieved that I'd left my room tidy. They'll think of me kindly when they come for my things." [Last Words of a Shooting Star by Mitski]

"And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back so shake him off" [Shake It Out by Florence + the Machine]

"Maybe I'm too emotional but your apathy's like a wound in salt." [good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo]

BOOKS

fav book genre? horror / thriller / mystery

fav writer? Stephen King / Ania Ahlborn

fav book? 11/22/63 by Stephen King

fav book series? The Maze Runner series

comfort book? The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

perfect book to read on a rainy day? ???

fave characters? Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon, Beverly Marsh from IT, Frannie Goldsmith from The Stand, Sadie Dunhill from 11/22/63, Carrie White from Carrie, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series, Finnick Odair from The Hunger Games trilogy, Sodapop Curtis from The Outsiders, and Newt from The Maze Runner series.

5 quotes from your fave books that you know by heart?

"No good friends, no bad friends; only people you want, need to be with. People who build their houses in your heart." [IT by Stephen King]

"Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters." [IT by Stephen King]

"It seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maye the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset." [The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton]

"I recalled some of the eloquent phrases of politicians and newsmen about how 'gallant' it is from a man to 'shed his blood for his country,' and 'to give his life's blood as a sacrifice,' and so on. The words seemed so ridiculous. Only the flies benefited." [With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge]

This quote from IT is way too long but I used it in this gif set.

TV AND MOVIES

fave tv/movie genre? horror / mystery / sci-fi / comedy / coming of age

fave movie? The Lost Boys

comfort movie(s)? The Lost Boys, The Goonies, The Breakfast Club, Dirty Dancing, Back to the Future, IT (2017 & 2019), Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The 'Burbs, Dazed and Confused, American Graffiti, Hocus Pocus, School of Rock

fave tv show? Supernatural, Stranger Things, Band of Brothers, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Barry, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story

most rewatched tv show? Supernatural

5 fave characters? Steve Harrington, Dean Winchester, Beth Greene, John Milner, and Allison Reynolds

Tagging (absolutely no pressure at all): @punkgeekcryptid @dearscone @s-ara-bel @genes-heffron @bowtiescarves @achillesmercury1996 @a-beautiful-struggle-of-life @pleasedontlookatmeokay @billhaders + anyone who sees this and would like to do this :)

#this took me way too long to finish fjklasljkas #tag game

7 notes · View notes

you-cant-spell-subtext-without · 3 years

Photo

Hola Mishamigos! It’s Friday and I am here with more nonsense from my SPN rewatch - dudes, we are all SLEEPING on Season 11, in both good and bad ways. There is so much in just the first trifecta of “Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire;” “Form and Void;” and “Bad Seed” (since “Baby” deserves her own analysis) - so come relive my rewatch with me. This is a summary of some things that stood out for me (few are analysis, most are clowning; basically this is a pared down live tweet - you’re welcome/I'm sorry); copy/paste from the script is included with my own emphasis:

OUT OF THE DARKNESS INTO THE FIRE [11x01]

-There’s lots more to this episode, but really this is the most important and relevant part (also it’s too soon and I am offended, damaged, attacked and hurt) -

DEAN: Yeah, whoa. All right, take -- take it easy, okay? (gesturing to the deputy’s wound) Bad guys?

JENNA: Rebar. I sought cover. I fell.

***LIKE EXCUSE ME, but what in the actual fuck. Did they just decide to pull that from the episode four years later to emotionally traumatize us in the subsequent rewatches? I know it’s probably coincidence but my sad soul has not recovered *enough* for rebar’s first SPN appearance to be right now in this moment when I am blissfully 5 entire seasons away from the dead end in the road.

- The only other important part of this episode - when Dean takes the call from Cas privately first before putting it on speaker for Sam, and something about this exchange is so endearing-

(Dean’s phone rings)

DEAN: Where the hell are you, Cas?

(The scene flips between Sam and Dean at the hospital, and Castiel in the woods.)

CASTIEL: I'm...I'm okay.

DEAN: You don't sound okay.

CASTIEL: Dean, I am fine. Besides, what I have, you can't help me.

DEAN: What do you mean, what you have?

CASTIEL: Just please tell Sam -- Rowena escaped with the Book of the Damned and the codex.

DEAN: Okay, forget Rowena. Where are you?

CASTIEL: Now, you tell me -- the Mark . . .

DEAN: Oh, really? You're worried about me after everything that I’ve --

CASTIEL: Dean, is it gone?

DEAN: Yes. I'm good. I mean, I'm not great.

CASTIEL: Makes two of us. (Dean puts Cas on speakerphone) This is good news.

SAM: Hey, Cas.

CASTIEL: Sam.

***It’s just so poignant that Dean wanted privacy for the first minutes of that call, probably because he is still haunted about the beating he gave Cas in 10 and *other things,* and Cas is literally being torn apart by Rowena’s curse but he only cares about Dean getting rid of the Mark, and the world is ending but Dean only cares about Cas and where he is - honestly this scene - I’m -

***Further thoughts on the Animal Curse/Cas/Dean below under 11x03

FORM AND VOID [11x02]

(love the Genesis call back to this verse in the title - “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”)

-speaking of emotional trauma, this fucking shit again -

JENNA: Yeah. I pretty much grew up here. Learned to ride my bike down the road. Had my first kiss at that blue house over there. Lost my virginity up there (pointing to different house).

DEAN: I'll bet blue house was pissed.

JENNA: She was. (handing Amara to Dean) Do you mind?

***This frustrated/disappointed/angered/saddened me to NO END despite already knowing that it happens constantly on the show, because what was the reason?! Did they have to point out that she had a female love interest for this brief moment just to turn her evil and kill her off? There was no need to include this detail. It’s either blatant homophobia or willful ignorance (so also blatant homophobia) that this is what representation means. I won’t go on because obviously we are aware of this and much has already been said/written about it, but still, fuck this.

-we meet Billie and there is more “FORESHADOWING”-

QUEEN IS SINGING “OH DEATH” aka Death’s entrance song from Season 5 and I am BLOWN AWAY by this almost as much as her amazing voice - like did they know at this point she would become the new Death season later? DID THEY KNOW? I need answers.

Seriously, go listen to it immediately; bask in its glory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFOm5i6b56o

We also get our first mention of the Empty, so that’s cute that they referenced both Dean’s and Cas’s Season 15 ‘demises’ in the same episode (it’s not cute really and I am crying again now) ->

BILLIE: You and Dean . . . Dying and coming back again and again. The old death thought it was funny. But now there's one hard, fast rule in this universe. What lives . . . dies. So the next time you or your brother bite it, well, you're not going to Heaven . . . Or Hell. One of us -- and, Lord, I hope it's me -- we're gonna make a mistake and toss you out into the Empty. And nothing comes back from that. I know you're dying. I can feel it. You're unclean in the biblical sense. So I'll be seeing you again, Sam . . . Seeing you real soon. Name's Billie, by the way.

-another reason for me to continue denying the flaming trash heap that they tried to call the series finale-

Sam is dying here because he has been infected by the Darkness-vein-animal-exploding-people-plague so he goes to pray about it

SAM: So . . . I know it's been a long time, but . . . Dean and I, we've -- we've been through a lot of bad. But this is different. This is my fault, and I don't know how to fix it. And if I have to die, I've made my peace with that, but . . . Please. Dean deserves better. Dean deserves a life. There are people out there, good people, who are going to suffer because of me, and I am not asking you to clean up my mess. Hell, I don't even know if you're out there, but . . . If you are . . . And if you can hear me, I, um . . . We need your help, God. We need to know there's hope. We need a sign.

**DABB WROTE THIS F-ING EPISODE. How are you going to write Dean deserves a life here to just do what you did Dabb. Don’t get me started on my feelings about this scene in the dark depths of my finale-denying soul. DEAN DESERVES BETTER INDEED, SEASON 11 SAM.

To rub salt in this particular wound, they show us THE cutest scenes of Dean with this damn baby so we can have feelings about how great of a parent he could be (also I ADORE that whenever Jared, Jensen, or Misha have scenes in later seasons with young children/babies it is SO clear they slip into their own natural dad mode without even noticing it; these guys just all seem like excellent fathers and it makes me mushy) and even Crowley picks up on that shit and makes his little ex-boyfriend joke (after Demon Dean and most of season 10 there is no way I will ever NOT believe that Crowley and Dean did not take a tumble; I will take no criticism):

CROWLEY: The child likes you. No surprise, really. You're very maternal.

LIKE WHAT IS THIS:

Speaking of King Jackles, next comes the episode he directed ->

BAD SEED [11x03]

-Cas/Dean parallels with the Attack Dog Spell/Mark of Cain-

This arc appears in the 10 finale and then runs through the first three episodes, culminating in this one. Despite it hurting my heart to see our angel so bloody eyed and feral, I LOVED this parallel; it’s truly brilliant - Cas’s reaction to the attack dog spell is such a mirror to the way Dean dealt with the Mark most of 10. It’s also beautiful that Dean is the only one that can pull Cas from the spell’s control at the end of this episode; that alley scene between the two of them in 11x02 is so tender and sweet. I like to think this brought an entire new layer of depth to their connection, because no one truly understood how Dean felt under the influence of the Mark until now (someone write a fan fic about this exchange!!!!!!) I *love* this journey for them (please say that sentence in Alexis Rose in your head). Bonus that the episode containing my most favorite of *domestic* phone calls with Dean and Cas follows this one, and also Dean’s SHORT SHORTS follow because now he is just walking around the bunker in short shorts while Cas is there and I maintain this is because of this new level of closeness. As previously stated I ACCEPT NO criticism.

ALSO OF COURSE THE FACE CUP THAT JENSEN HIMSEF DIRECTED HIMSELF TO DO. I STAN A KING. I HEREBY DEMAND AT LEAST ONE FACE CUP PER EPISODE OF THE MINI SERIES JENSEN.

***I just saw something posted by @watchthebeesandfish back in 2015 when digging around the internet re: this episode - that this was the first time both Dean/Cas had seen each other as “themselves” since that heart wrenching bridge scene in 9x10, when Dean walks away from Sam/Cas after the Gadreel possession reveal (he goes on to take the Mark of Cain in the following episode, and has it the rest of the season through season 10 finale). That is brilliant and accurate and I BOW DOWN in humility to that parallel. I now love this scene a billion times more. *single [wo]man tear* Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, thanks as always for getting through my rambling, and HAPPY FACE CUPPING FOREVER.

#destiel #deancas #spn #spn family #spn fandom #sen season 11 #spn recap #spn analysis #spn clowning #heller #jackles #king jackles #but why not write an entire live tweet dissertation of my spn rewatch #spn subtext

28 notes · View notes

guymaito · 3 years

Note

For the ask thing :3:

Top 5 animals? Top 5 fav/comfort movies? Top 5 fav cartoons/shows?

I’m honestly glad to know theres other people including you who actually like Pakku and his character :3 Yes he was a completely asshole at the start but he did change, it’s just that it was so subtle that not everyone saw it

Also random song associations with characters:

Fighter by Jack Stauber reminds me very well of Piandao, Pakku, and Jeong Jeong as their younger selves during the war.

Why do I associate Grace by Lewis Capaldi with Bumi? (the music video tho would give more context to why it might make sense)

Oh Klahoma by Jack Stauber reminds me of Piandao and his overall anxieties for his partners.

Consider some of these songs as sorta song recs? Idk but still :3

1. Giraffes!! the reason why their tongues look like That is cause of extra melanin and to prevent sunburn!!

2. Seals!! there are 33 different kinds of pinnipeds and there over 50 extinct pinnipeds

3. Dogs!! they can only see in shades of blue and yellow, so bright red roses look yellowish brown and lively green grass look dehydrated and dead

4. Crows!! a group of them are called a murder

5. Cows!! they’re actually colorblind, they can’t see red specifically, so male cows, bulls aren’t getting mad at the color, they’re getting angry at the movement

1. The Losers movie from 2010, it’s a action mystery movie about Clay and his team that are a part of an elite US Special Forces Unit and are approached by a mysterious woman to exact revenge on their handler, Max, who betrayed them and just,,,the characters, CHRIS EVANS, jake jensen and all of his kinda weird glory, THE ELEVATOR SCENE, also cougar!!

2. Captain America and The Winter Soldier movie, it’s a action movie, which makes me realize that a lot of my faves are prolly gonna be action something, but anyways, it’s about Steve Rogers, who now lives in the nation's capital as he tries to adjust to modern times. An attack on a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague throws Rogers into a web of intrigue that places the whole world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Natasha Romanov, and a new ally, Sam Wilson, Steve struggles to expose an ever-widening conspiracy, but he and his team soon come up against an unexpected enemy. oh my god,,,just,,,the fight scenes, the running scene at the beginning of the movie, steve meeting sam that way, just everything!! this was also my introduction to marvel so in my mind no other marvel movie can live up to this (other than spiderman away from home)

3. Spiderman Far from Home, again, it’s a action movie, i’m not gonna explain this cause the post is getting long, but!! mj and peter!! just,,,all of their scenes!! also jake gyllenhaal!! the fight scenes!! the soundtrack!! everything about it is amazing!!

4. Thunderforce, again, i’m not gonna explain, it’s an action adventure and comedy movie (ofc it is look at the other 3 🙄 /s), the relationship between lydia and emily!! the relationship between lydia and emily’s daughter!! the humor!! the fight scenes!! the soundtrack!!,,,,just everything about is good despite the bad ratings

that’s more like a top 4 than a top 5 but that’s like,,,,all the movies i genuinely like and will rewatch if given the chance and for that where’s a honorable mention: Hamilton (the movie version on disney+ that came out i think nearly a year ago), the soundtrack is amazing, the characters are better, got some funny moments and is mostly historically accurate, like yeah angelica did forget her name cause at the time of her meeting alex ham, she was married to a man named john church (or something church idk) so her last name was church but she introduced herself to alexander as angelica schuyler, not angelica church, so in satisfied she was telling the truth about forgetting her own name, but in the same song she said that her father had no sons even though the real angelica had 3 brothers.

1. Avatar the last Airbender, ofc or else i would have a blog (mostly) centered around it and it’s sequel /s but fr though?? it’s such a good show!! zuko’s redemption arc, iroh’s redemption arc (even though his more subtle than zuko’s) , aang!! love him and his character so much, especially when he gets to be a sassy little shit, sokka and his shit humor and brains, katara, toph, hakoda and HIS shit humor, the fight scene with hakoda (he fights kinda like a waterbender, using his opponent’s momentum against them), bato and his lovely, lovely voice, piandao, aang going ‘how about he get on YOUR back and you can fly us to the south pole’ or something like that to sokka after he complained about appa not flying higher, the boiling rock episodes, hakoda apparently being a good dad but a shitty prison riot starter (love that for him), just!! atla is such a good ass show, im not changing my mind. also!! i like the way they introduced ozai, not showing his face but still presenting him as not only a shit dad, but a shit person as well, like up until book three, we only saw him like, the neck down and in like, a flashback or two (i don’t really remember how many flashbacks ozai was in actually cause it’s nearly been a full year since i last watched it) and that’s it, so it made seeing his face for the first time all the more better cause you was already like ‘what the hell does this shitbag look like’ and then you see him and now ur like ‘oh!! THATS what he looks like!!’

2. The Legend of Korra, again, ofc or else i wouldn’t have a blog (mostly) centered around it and it’s prequel, just,,,,korra’s arc from being hot headed to calm is fantastic but also sad considering the way she went from that to this, korra’s book 1 character!! for whatever reason i really like b1 korra, just,,her design, her hair style (even though she had it for nearly the entire series) just!!! book 1 korra <3, also the entirety of book 1!! just amon posing as a anti bender nonbender despite being a waterbender himself, the scene where tenzin and his kids nearly lost their bending, which would’ve meant that, if tenzin did lose his bending but his kids didn’t, that would’ve meant the strongest airbender would’ve been his 11 year old daughter, the gruesome way to end the season finale episode by doing a murder suicide which was dark as fuck for what?? a kids show??, also the villains in this show!! their good as hell!! the backstory of the red lotus and how and why they were created?? amon and his anti bending?? kuvira and her plan to basically rule the earth kingdom (idk i haven’t finished book 4), unalaq and his spiritual stuff and wanting to become a dark avatar and fusing with vaatu?? also!! the other disturbing scene of korra basically getting tortured near the end of book 3, i mean?? it deadass left her hella traumatized and unable to walk, again hella dark for a fucking kids show

3. The Walking Dead, even though i haven’t finished it or watched in like, 4-5 months, i just,,,the way the presented negan!! practically foreshadowing him the entirety of season 6!! him appearing at the very end of the season 6 finale and pretty much having an entire episode dedicated to him in the very beginning of season 7 (which is why some fans argue he was introduced in s7 not s6 cause of the fact that he didn’t show up until the very end of the s6 finale but had an entire episode with him in it in s7, while others say vice versa cause the very the first time we see him was in s6 not s7), the fact that the walking dead logo was getting progressively more and more decayed as the series go on?? the fact that the WALKERS (the zombies) are getting more and more decayed as the series go on?? dale’s death scene?? shane’s death scene?? negan’s relationship with rick’s daughter?? the fact that this show also has what?? 11, 12 seasons?? which reminds me that i’m still on season 9 of twd

4. Sabrina the Teenage Witch, just,,,salem and his sarcasm?? sabrina’s aunts?? sabrina herself?? just!! everyone is just so fucking funny in this show it’s unreal, specially salem!! a lot of my favorite scenes have salem in them, the ‘are you on a women’s chat room again?’ (or something like that) and salem saying ‘i like the attention’ in response, that one harvey and salem scene that i don’t know how to describe without turning this into a giant paragraph like the ones before this one

5. blue’s clues, it was my favorite childhood show and i love the reboot of it so much!! especially p for pride moment in that song i don’t remember the name of, blue themself!! steve leaving which was sad but getting an equally amazing host in the process?? amazing!! the scene where salt and pepper introduced their baby, paprika?? just,,,it’s such good show and i loved it when i was younger and i still love it now!!

#asks #moots #piandao was in what? two episodes?#but do i still love him? i do no doubt #oof i really need to catch up on twd #long post #this got long as shit oof

3 notes · View notes

katerinu · 4 years

Note

10 years of aging for 1 year for half demons came from the third movie (that’s non canon as far as I can tell?) where inuyasha was revealed to be 200 years old, but he didn’t age during the 50 years he was pinned to the tree, since he’s physically and mentally 15 that’s where it came from

Hi, thanks for your response! So I decided to go ahead and rewatch the third movie because I don’t remember this being stated. I got about an hour and 11 minutes in, so I haven’t finished it, but it’s getting late and I’m tired, lol. (I am watching the English dub, so if it’s mentioned in the Japanese version, I wouldn’t know.)

I decided to try and google this information. I do see it written on the InuYasha fandom page, but based on where it’s written in the bullet points, it looks like this information comes in early on during the film. (Right after InuTaisho’s scene and before Sesshomaru and InuYasha’s battle.) Did I miss it? What scene is this mentioned? Is it in the Japanese version?

The only other info I can find on the matter of half demon aging is with the fourth movie, where it’s inferred that the half demon children are 50+ years, but nothing that explicitly states the 10:1 aging process.

As far as canon goes... the movies present an interesting dilemma, especially when it comes to Yashahime. I’m personally of the opinion that, “everything is made up and the points don’t matter,” but this is a fallacy I apply to fandom stuff only, since, you know... canon, especially InuYasha canon, is just all over the place. Sunrise, on the other hand, has a lot more responsibility, and I feel like they constantly drive themselves into a corner.

I remember (reading? watching? idk, take what I say with a grain of salt) some interview where Katsuyuki mentioned the movie lore would play a big part in Yashahime, so if the 10:1 aging measure is true for the third movie, why is that not true for Towa and Setsuna? (Possibly Moroha?) From the audiences perspective, both Towa and Setsuna seem to age as normal humans despite being half demon. Even if this wasn’t stated, stuff from the movies has been known to drift into the main series (Akitoki Hojo being the main, major evidence of this.)

Okay, I kind of went on a tangent! I’m just sort of confused with the timey-wimey stuff going on with Yashahime and apparently some “canon” I’ve missed from the movies. This is so complicated!! 😅

#inuyasha #this answer is less a response to you personally and just me................ rambling kasjhfksjfjks #thank you for answering my question!!!

9 notes · View notes

higheldertala · 2 years

Text

rough ranking of series 11

ranking scale:

okay - a fine episode of doctor who, but nothing outstanding

tolerable - a serviceable episode of doctor who although would probably give it a miss on rewatch

bad - a notably flawed episode, needs another draft or so

awful - extremely bad, in need of an extreme rewrite or scrapped altogether

an insult to the show - let’s hope these are next episodes to go missing

episodes are being ranked in comparison to the revived series as a whole, not just within the chibnall era itself. rankings aren’t definitive as i am very indecisive and they are all very bad.

rosa: has a somewhat attempt to make social commentary on the topic but ultimately doesn’t say much. extremely weak antagonist. rosa parks doesn’t really get to be involved with the adventure like historical figures in previous episodes and falls into the background quite a bit. although the doctor and companions do play an active role in the story so that’s a plus.

demons of the punjab: a very passive episode, the doctor and companions don’t really make a big difference to the story being told. completely glosses over the atrocities committed by the british, unclear what the message of the episode, don’t stereotype people???

the witchfinders: if this is social commentary on sexism it is a pisspoor attempt. fails to fully acknowledge sexism of the time and reference to the doctor’s gender is embarrassing. little contribution from the companions. an interesting premise but fails to hit the mark.

interesting that all of the historicals make their way up to the top of this list. although as with all of them, i feel like they could have been pure historicals without the alien threat, as they often end up feeling kinda stuffed in.

the woman who fell to earth: suffered from too many spinning plates. unfortunately chibnall proved everyone right with having too many companions at once. with a new doctor, three new companions and an impactful character death all to fit in 60 minutes. fortunately he manages to do this by just completely ignoring characterising the three companions, excellent work. it goes in the awful category bc i can’t let slide forgetting the characterisation of the companions, regardless of how chibnall sees doctor who, the companions are in fact essential to the show and do in fact need to be actual fleshed out characters.

resolution: would have gone a little higher but the awful handling of ryan and his dad’s relationship is umm awful. also the solution of the microwave is a joke. the companions don’t contribute much.

the battle of ranskoor av kolos: an underwhelming ‘finale’. really overestimated how much the audience cares about tzim sha.

it takes you away: very dull, doesn’t hit any of the emotional beats it should do. companions don’t contribute much.

the ghost monument: a second attempt to really characterise the doctor and companions completely wasted. this is the pivotal point in the story to start to establish and develop the doctor/ companion relationship. by now the companions should be proving themselves worthy of travelling with the doctor and it should clearly establish why the companions would want to travel. very dull story, an interesting premise/ concept but again wasted.

arachnids in the uk: i know this ends up at the bottom of most people’s lists and rightly so, however it just doesn’t infuriates as me as the other two. still awful, and dull.

the tsuranga conundrum: this episode makes me seethe. just the completely lack of care for the companions the doctor has is insulting!! i don’t think it’s out of line to say this is out of character for the doctor. anyway here’s the twelfth doctor saying i had a duty of care.

kerblam!: fundamentally the episode doesn’t make sense. it sets the whole thing up as going in one direction then at the end makes a shock twist to go in the completely opposite. and the doctor defends capitalism so immediately makes it to the bottom. pete mctighe please never write for doctor who again you capitalist bootlicker.

#here’s my somewhat ranking #not definitive so no need to take it too seriously #obviously it’s all just my opinion and stuff #series 11 salt rewatch #dw commentary

4 notes · View notes

saltlamp · 4 years

Text

i was tagged by @florenepugh and @wintersoeldiers (thank you ashlyn and arya 🥰 sorry this is a couple days late) to answer the following 73 questions!

my answers are under the cut !!

on a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about life right now? honestly about a 5, i’m working on taking better care of myself and doing all my assignments but there’s nothing good going on

describe yourself in a hashtag? #burntout

if you could do a love scene with anyone, who would it be? nobody

if your life was a musical, what would the marquee say? one day at a time

what’s one thing people don’t know about you? i’ve never dyed my hair

what’s your wake up ritual? i snooze my alarm until i feel mentally awake, then wash my face and brush my teeth and drink some water, get dressed and make some coffee if i feel like i need it, then get started on whatever i have to do for the day

what’s your go to bed ritual? i wash my face and brush my teeth, then if i really need to sleep i’ll take a melatonin and put lavender into my diffuser

what’s your favorite time of day? midnight

your go to for having a good laugh? john mulaney netflix specials or [fictional characters as] vine compilations

dream country to visit? anywhere in europe, but i really want to go back to peru someday

what’s the biggest surprise you’ve ever had? i’m getting a car when i leave for college!!! a new one!!! i still can’t believe it

heels or flats/sneakers? mostly sneakers but sometimes heels make me feel badass. i’m the tallest girl in the room most of the time, so what’s a few more inches?

vintage or new? both

who do you want to write your obituary? leigh bardugo would make me seem a lot cooler than i really am and write my trauma in a beautifully sad way so... i’d love that.

style icon? ashley from bestdressed on youtube!! (wait ashlyn SAME i’ve been subscribed to her for like three years and my style evolves with hers)

what are three things you cannot live without? my journal, my water bottle, and my airpods

what’s one ingredient you put in everything? ...salt? i don’t cook often

what 3 people living or dead would you want to make dinner for? i can’t cook so gordon ramsey, guy fieri, and my mom. their reactions would be hilarious in different ways

what’s your biggest fear in life? abandonment but i should just learn to expect it at this point !!

window or aisle seat? window

what’s your current tv obsession? i’m between shows at the moment so i’m rewatching she ra

favorite app? minimaList is an app i’ve used since early high school, it’s a to-do list that has a built in pomodoro timer and it’s the best thing in the world.

secret talent? not sleeping for days! that’s a joke i really should work on that... i can also move my ring finger on my right hand in a way that’s hard to describe unless you see it in person.

most adventurous thing you’ve ever done in your life? i’ve hiked all sorts of ~dangerous~ places

how would you define yourself in three words? pensive, quiet, loyal

favorite piece of clothing you own? my mom’s high school track hoodie fits me perfectly and i wear it all the time. i’m wearing it now

a must have clothing item that everyone should have? a denim jacket or white sneakers

a superpower you would want? weirdly specific but i’d want to read personalities, like myers-briggs types or enneagram, upon meeting a person.

what’s inspiring you in life right now? due dates

best piece of advice you’ve received? make one good friend and everything else will fall into place

best advice you’d give your teenage self? they’re too occupied with themselves to be thinking about you

a book everyone should read? the harry potter series

what would you like to be remembered for? kindness/loyalty

how do you define beauty? outer beauty is somewhat subjective but confidence and intelligence are two universal marks of beauty for me

what do you love most about your body? i really like my legs!

best way to take a rest/decompress? do something familiar, like journaling or taking a shower or washing dishes

favorite place to view art? museums are some of my favorite places on the planet

if your life was a song, what would the title be? no idea. oh wait, that could actually be one

if you could master one instrument, what would it be? i used to play the piano as a kid and i was seen as some kind of prodigy because of my good ear but now i can barely play it, so i’d want to get back into that

if you had a tattoo, where would it be? behind my ear

dolphins or koalas? koalas

what’s your spirit animal? a cat, 100%

best gift you’ve ever received? this is stupid but my brother got me a talking kylo ren thingy for christmas in 2015, not knowing he was further fueling my future obsession with ben solo. to this day it’s one of my favorite useless possessions

best gift you’ve given? honestly anything i give my littlest brother because every time i give him a gift he acts like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen (he’s 11)

what’s your favorite board game? CLUE!!!

what’s your favorite color? lilac, periwinkle, or red

least favorite color? orange

diamond or pearls? diamonds

drugstore makeup or designer? drugstore makeup

blow-dry or air-dry? air-dry

pilates or yoga? yoga

coffee or tea? i go through phases, so both!

what’s the weirdest word in the english language? milk. just, think about it. milk. what the heck is that. read it some more. milk. milk. milk.

dark chocolate or milk chocolate? dark

stairs or elevators? stairs

summer or winter? winter!!!

you are stuck on an island, you can pick one food to eat forever without getting tired of it, what would you eat? chipotle burrito bowl

a dessert you don’t like? creme brulee

a skill you’re working on mastering? i’m working on getting better at drawing

best thing to happen to you today? i got to facetime my grandparents just a few minutes ago! i was so relieved to hear they’re doing well and nobody has covid in their nursing home :)

worst thing to happen to you today? i can’t move because of period cramps :)))))))))))

best compliment you’ve ever received? the most common compliment i get (and honestly my favorite) is that i’m a calming person to be around and very trustworthy

favorite smell? lavender, dirt (especially after rain), espresso grounds

hugs or kisses? hugs hugs hugs

if you made a documentary, would it be about? personality types, or maybe differences between modern cultures, or maybe medieval castles

last piece of content you consumed that made you cry? i recently watched an adam driver interview from 2017 and since i’m on my period and it’s sad ben solo hours, i cried

lipstick or lipgloss? lipgloss

sweet or savory? both

girl crush? zendaya and florence pugh

how do you know you’re in love? i’ve never been in romantic love before, but i can tell i love someone when i feel comfortable enough around them to be myself and talk about my problems

a song you can listen to on repeat? there’s one piece of classical music that i could listen to FOREVER and it WILL be playing at my funeral: albinoni’s adagio in G minor (with organ along with the other strings tho)

if you could switch lives with someone for a day, who would it be? i wouldn’t switch lives with anyone but if i could be something else for a day i’d be a voice actor or maybe a hermit living in the middle of nowhere centuries ago

what are you most excited for about this time in your life? graduating high school and starting university! i’m more nervously excited but still...

tagging: @omensgood @acrookedsaint @afterglowacoustic @sunstarkov if you guys want!

#tagged #about me #long post #thank you!!!

9 notes · View notes

birdlord · 4 years

Text

Everything I Watched in 2018

I neglected to write this list up this time last year, so I’m catching up! 2019 is soon to come. Every Movie I Watched in 2018

The number in parentheses is year of release, asterisks denote a re-watch, and titles in bold are my favourite first watches of the year.

01 So I Married an Axe Murderer (93)* possibly the most early/mid-90s film ever made. Centre parted hair, slam poetry, pre-tech boom San Francisco, Steven Wright cameo?!

02 The Florida Project (17) first theatre movie of the year came early!

03 The Long Goodbye (75)

04 Call Me by Your Name (17) I and some friends made an effort to see movies we thought might be oscar-nominated this year, so there’s a few of those coming up.

05 LA Story (91)* a forever rewatch

06 Personal Shopper (17) Feels like there’s a thin veil between K Stew and the characters she chooses.

07 I, Tonya (17)

08 Comfort and Joy (84) 80s Glasgow!

09 Faces, Places (17) made me want to pick up a camera again

10 A Futile and Stupid Gesture (18)

11 Creed (15) not for me.

12 Black Panther (18)* I found this lost a lot of its lustre the second time around.

13 Ghost (90)

14 Youngblood (86) Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze hockey movie filmed in 80s Toronto? Sign me up!

15 The Living Daylights (87)* basically sometimes I want to see a Bond film, and really any of them will do.

16 Brigsby Bear (17)

17 The Ice Storm (97)

18 Disclosure (94) strong competition for Most 90s Movie, this time set in a Seattle CD-ROM company. One of those movies I remember staring at the cover of, in the movie rental place.

19 Saturday Night Fever (77)*

20 Barry Lyndon (75) God, the look, the costumes, the performances! This killed me dead.

21 Fried Green Tomatoes (91)* Another forever rewatch!

22 Howard’s End (92)* rewatch prompted by watching the new series version.

23 Sense & Sensibility (95)* keep those costume dramas coming...

24 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (01)*

25 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (02)*

26 Breakfast at Tiffany’s (61)*

27 Paterson (16)

28 Three Kings (99)*

29 The Talented Mr Ripley (99)* 99 was a good film year...I’ll go to this version of Italy anytime.

30 The Equalizer (14)

31 Paddington (14)

32 Paul (11) the initial charm doesn’t carry the movie through til the end.

33 The Virgin Suicides (99)*

34 Friday the 13th (80)

35 Sea of Love (89)

36 Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (18) a great opportunity to shed some tears in a movie theatre.

37 Star Wars: The Last Jedi (17)*

38 Wild (14)

39 Housekeeping (87) love me a Bill Forsyth, as you can see.

40 Predator (87)* if it bleeds, etc

41 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (77)*

42 Fever Pitch (05) the US remake...

43 Fever Pitch (97) ...the UK original

44 Bridget Jones’ Baby (16)

45 Stand by Me (86)*

46 Three Identical Strangers (18)

47 Mission Impossible: Fallout (18)

48 Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (11)*

49 Election (99)*

50 The Killing Ground (17) utter brutality in the Aussie bushland

51 Eyes Wide Shut (99) never saw this at the time, and thought Nicole Kidman’s perspective was more important within the film but GUESS WHAT, IT ISN’T

52 Repulsion (65)

53 Crazy Rich Asians (18)

54 Halloween (78)* the start of Spooker Season

55 A Star is Born (18)

56 The Hunger (83)

57 Annihilation (17)

58 Scream (99)*

59 Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (98) this was...terrible

60 Halloween (18)

61 Deep Red (75) one of the better Argentos, imo, but no Tenebrae

62 Dead Ringers (88)

63 Rocky Horror Picture Show (75)*

64 Silence of the Lambs (91)*

65 Nosferatu (22)

66 The Italian Job (69)

67 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (01)*

68 Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (02)*69 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (04)*

70 Gangs of New York (02)* Wow, I hated this! If I never see sweaty Leonardo DiCaprio again, it’ll be too soon.

71 Shirkers (18)

72 Terminator 2 (91)*

73 Little Women (94)*

74 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (18)

75 Life Itself (18) this movie has left my mind ENTIRELY, wow did it even happen?

76 National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (89)*

77 Home Alone (90)*

78 Gremlins (84)* turns out I’d forgotten more of this than I remembered??

79 The Shop Around the Corner (40)

80 You’ve Got Mail (98)*

81 Mr Smith Goes to Washington (39)

82 Widows (18)

83 Roma (18) I did see this in theatre, so the surround-sound experience was in full effect.

84 Ghost Stories (17)

85 200 Cigarettes (99)

DOCUMENTARY:FICTION - 3:82

THEATRE:HOME - 11:74

I had no idea I’d watched so many movies from 1999 this year! It was certainly not done on purpose, but that year had some great movies. Spooker Season was a particularly strong one this year, too, with ten horror/spooky movies over the course of October. It’s always interesting to me to see how many comfort viewings vs more challenging fare that I manage to watch in a given year (probably correlated to how many times I was sick and/or had a rough work day).

Every TV Series I Watched in 2019

01 The Crown S2 - the difficulties of royal marriage are a strong theme in this season, but there’s also some great sister-sister material between Elizabeth and Margaret.

02 Lady Dynamite S2 - too weird to live, I guess?

03 High Maintenance S2 - this is the second HBO season, and the first one that really tries to grapple with high-level world events, in this case Trump’s election, spoken about as if it was a natural disaster.

04 Queer Eye S1, S2 - I’d never seen the original series, so this was my first exposure to the concept. It aims for pathos, but you have to accept a pretty rosy world to get into it. Easier to enjoy before any of the boys had book deals/got Milkshake Duck’d.

05 Love S3 - still watching for Bertie, I love her.

06 Collateral - thorny British political police procedural, ultimately pretty forgettable, barring Carey Mulligan’s performance.

07 Alias Grace - the Atwood adaptation that people *weren’t* talking about. It’s great, though!

08 Atlanta S2: Robbin Season - Atlanta got weirder, more idiosyncratic, and even better in its second season. 09 Barry S1 - Barry got a lot of plaudits this year, and while I really liked the cast, and the plot was engrossing, something didn’t stick for me, and ultimately I didn’t watch the second season.

10 Howard’s End - it is a truth universally acknowledged that most books are better adapted as a miniseries than a single movie. Not that I hate the ‘92 movie, but this gets deeper into the class relations than it ever could. Plus: TIBBY!!

11 Killing Eve S1 - the series that hackneyed “smart, stylish and sexy” critic descriptions were made for.

12 Detroiters S2 - pouring one out for my fave pals, who never got a chance to make another season of this little darling (though there were a couple of episodes in this season that didn’t do it for me).

13 Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - perhaps the only adaptation of a cookbook that I’ve ever seen, and certainly one of the best food shows ever.

14 Big Mouth S2 - More of the same, so if you could hack it in the first season, then keep it up!

15 Bodyguard - another in the sexy/dark/procedural vein, with bonus Scotsman from Game of Thrones.

16 Utopia/Dreamland S1-S3 - an Australian comedy series about a government infrastructure department, which has apparently spawned real such departments in the country, even though it doesn’t come off all that well. The first title is the Aussie one, it’s known as Dreamland everywhere else.

17 Baroness Von Sketch S3 - Canadian series that I actually watch are rare as hen’s teeth, so I was delighted to find a woman-centric sketch show that has kept me laughing. Plus, sometimes I see my neighbourhood? That’s fun!

4 notes · View notes

ghostbustermelanieking · 5 years

Text

phantom weights (pt 1 of ?)

season 11, post my struggle iv. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

Summary: In the wake of their second encounter, Mulder, Scully, and Jackson reconnect (both by accident and on purpose).

note: i am posting this in parts simply because it is way too long so far, and it’s easier to post it in small chunks instead of a couple big ones. this story basically examines the aftermath of msiv, and how jackson and m&s come together. there are some references to events occuring in the lies told and praescitum, particularly the scheme that CSM puts on in lies, as it debunks that msiii garbage. (there are some indirect references to a mountain in colorado; it is, of course, AU, but i see parts of it as canon compliant, which make an appearance here.) additionally, i reused some parts of proelium and pervicacia, mostly because i am too attached to these old fics, and didn’t want to change some things. although i promise this fic is different than these two.

warning up front for some slight discussion of suicidal ideation (as shown in MSIV), some references to death and violence, and discussion (in the name of debunking) of CSM’s paternity claims. it’s bullshit, but i had to address it somehow. now let’s forget it lol.

---

He was supposed to be dead right now.

That was the whole plan. He would die for the man who said he was his father, for all the people he'd hurt, for the future he'd never have. For his parents, who they buried without him months ago, who died because of him. He would die in place of Mulder and give his birth mother the chance to start over. (What the fuck would she do if it had really been Mulder and she was stuck with Jackson, great disaster that he is? What would happen to Sarah, to Bri, to anyone else he tries to connect with? What would happen to him?)

But he didn't die. He took a bullet straight to the forehead and sunk deep into the brackish, salty water, salt and copper at the back of his throat, but he didn't die.

He heard the man who shot him—the man he'd thought was his birth father—get shot himself, multiple times. He fell into the water feet away from where Jackson was drifting, his blood in the water, and Jackson was still waiting for death when he felt something like a release. Like something snapped loose in his head, a taut wire breaking, something set free. A weight gone, and something coming in to replace it. A rush of emotions from a man Jackson had never, ever felt before; the grief of the man standing up on the dock, like a crash overwhelming his brain. It hurt, almost worse than the bullet in his head.

As Jackson drifted, waiting for death, he understood suddenly. It all became clear. Mulder wasn't making it up when he said he was his father; he wasn't ignorant to everything that had happened. He was telling the truth.

It was too much to take, and Jackson didn't want to think, and he didn't die. He drifted far away from the docks, the harbor, before rising out of the water like the newly baptized.

---

Mulder and Scully told their story to the police again and again on that dock in Norfolk. Scully was quiet and numb, teary, her head bent forward as she answered questions in a murmur. Mulder would barely answer their questions, tense and nervous and furious. He asked about Skinner several times before he got an answer, his voice rising towards a yell before they finally told him that Skinner was alive and had been taken to the hospital for surgery. Scully sniffled behind her hand, her eyes squeezed shut, swaying slightly in place.

The police gave up and told them that they could go. There was no sign of Spender's body, of course, and no sign of Jackson's, either. If Mulder knew how this works, he suspected that they'd never find the bodies. (He flinched at thinking of his son as the body, as a lifeless corpse somewhere out there in the deep. It felt like a betrayal. It stung, the casualness of it. He couldn't believe he was gone.)

They got into their car, but Mulder didn't move to start it. He had a headache, his skull pounding, tears building at the back of his throat. He was as shellshocked as Scully, his stomach rolling with nausea, his muscles tense with protest. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. He leaned forward abruptly, burying his face in his hands as his eyes welled with tears. It wasn't fucking supposed to happen this way, goddamnit, it was supposed to go differently, and he wanted to shout with the unfairness of it. He wanted to scream until his throat was raw, he wanted to pull this dock apart board by board. He wanted his son back. He wanted his son back.

He'd been hallucinating a little since all of it; he'd had flashes of currents, of freezing cold and salty wetness and the taste of blood in his mouth. Of his son's face, still in the black-green water, a trickle of blood across his forehead. His eyes shutting, he saw it again: William's pale face in the depths of the murky saltwater.

He shuddered, biting back a scream of protest—he didn't want to upset Scully further, sitting quiet in the passenger seat with a hand pressed over her mouth and her eyes wet with tears. He pressed his face harder against his fingers, his palms intended to muffle the sound, and sobbed.

---

They drove to a hotel. Mulder was quiet the whole time, his eyes red, his face pale and streaked with tears. Scully thought, absently, that he was probably mad at her. Maybe he resented her for the things she said, or the things she didn't. Maybe for sending their son away all those years ago.

She didn't have the headspace to process any of this. She was shaking. She was shivering, wrapped up in her coat in the passenger seat, her chin trembling like she was going to weep again. She had a hand instinctively over her belly, but she was mostly not thinking of the baby; she was mostly thinking of him, of her first baby. Her William. And she was also thinking about nothing at all, her mind blank. She was so cold, her jaw quivering, her cheeks wet and salty. She felt scraped raw, stinging; she couldn't breathe.

They drove in silence. A sharp pain began at the center of her forehead and spread, jarring her as it rattled against her skull. When she shut her eyes, she saw water lapping at murky sand, cars and headlights on the highway. She gritted her teeth and shook her head until the pain subsided. A hot tear escaped from under her eyelid, trickling down her cheek.

It wasn't until they got to the hotel, until they entered the room and slid to opposite sides of the bed and Mulder flipped off the light and did not reach for her that she realized what was happening. She was in shock. That was the only explanation for it. She was in shock. She couldn't explain the things she said, the words spilling out of her mouth on that dock, but she knew she did not mean them. She knew almost as soon as she said them that she didn't mean them. She was in shock and she couldn't get warm; she was shaking, huddled under the thin hotel comforter. She felt so nauseous, the pillowcase cool and uncomforting under her cheek; the room was spinning. She wanted her baby. She wanted her son back.

She suspected that Mulder—Mulder, lying on the other side of the bed with so much space between them and a hand pressed to his temple like he had a headache, his eyes squeezed shut—was in shock, too. After everything, she didn't see how he couldn't be. He had killed his own father just a few moments after seeing his son get shot. His son. His baby, who he had only seen twice since the day he was born. His son, who he could not save, who neither of them could save.

Scully made a sharp, keening sound and buried her face into the pillow, clutching it hard. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. They were supposed to be safe, both of them. She'd been terrified all this time that she would lose Mulder all over again, that he wouldn't come back like last time and she would never get to tell him about the baby or do all the things that she was supposed to do with him, but somehow she never really thought she would lose William. Not again. She thought she'd be able to save them.

She kept seeing her baby with a bullet in his head, hearing Mulder's primal shout. She felt the loss of him in a way she hadn't felt in years, aside from the horrific few hours when she'd thought he might be dead before realizing that he wasn't: she was thinking of the weight of William as an infant in her arms, his soft skin and downy hair. A phantom weight she hadn't quite felt since she'd given him up for adoption, yet one she'd still carried with her for years. She couldn't believe the things she said on that dock. That he wasn't their son, that he was an experiment and she was never his mother. The words didn't feel like they were coming out of her mouth. The shock of the things Skinner told her, and William asking her to let him go, and Mulder telling her that he was dead, had manifested into that, but she didn't mean it. She didn't know what she was saying, a betrayal to everything she felt and everyone she loves. She didn't want to tell Mulder about the baby this way.

Her teeth chattered involuntarily as another wave of cold washed over her. She curled into a tight ball, her hand back over her belly before she realized what she was doing and pulled it away. Was it a betrayal, she wondered, to love this child after everything that has happened to her first two? She wanted her son back. She wanted to tell him she was sorry; she wanted it more than anything in the world. She pulled the edge of the comforter tighter around her and wiped tears away, just as another piercing headache hit her.

Scully gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. She was dizzy, her head spinning, but she didn't realize what was happening until she saw it: the darkened road, the headlights blurring like starlight. The coldness, the wetness, the roar of cars echoing in her ears, the sound of wet shoes squelching on the pavement. And a voice, hard and angry and sad: Just so you know. Okay?

She realized all at once what was happening, and the shock of it nearly made her shoot up in bed. “Jackson,” she whispered, gripping the covers desperately, realizing too late that she'd spoken out loud. Beside her, Mulder made a pained, wordless sound and turned over. She pressed a hand to her mouth and tried, I'm so sorry. But she had no idea if he heard.

She needed to tell Mulder. She closed her eyes and crawled closer to the warm mass of Mulder's body. He was tense and rigid, but when she burrowed under the tent of his arm, he didn't pull away. She pressed her nose to his side and whispered, “Mulder.”

He grunted in response, his eyes squeezed shut.

She pressed a hand to his chest, swallowed back her tears, said, “Mulder, I think William is alive.”

He opened his eyes, dark and wet, and looks down at her. “You can see him?” he whispered tremulously. She nodded.

His eyes slid back shut, and he shook his head hard. “Jesus Christ, I thought I was imagining it,” he murmured, gathering her up in his arms, bundling her against him. She rested her cheek against his chest, sniffling and dizzy.

“I-I thought I was going insane. I… I think I've been seeing him, too,” Mulder whispered to her in broken disbelief, and she blinked with surprise. “But I didn't know… I've never seen him before… how is this happening, Scully? I saw him fall, I…” His voice broke; he squeezed her tighter, choking out another sob against her scalp.

“I don't know. I don't know how,” she said, her voice shaking. She was crying again, tears sliding down her face. “I just… I can feel him. He's safe.” She didn't quite understand how Mulder could see William now, and she could barely believe it herself, but she didn't want to question it. He was alive, and if Mulder saw him, too, that made it real. He was alive, and that was all that mattered. Her baby was still alive.

“Thank God,” Mulder breathed, stroking the back of her head. “I didn't believe it when I… I didn't want to believe it in case it wasn't true. I-I am so glad that you feel it, too.” He pressed his lips to Scully's forehead, shaking in her embrace, tears falling on her hair.

She felt a sudden, desperate need to apologize for everything she said to him on the docks. He was the one who met their son, who hugged him, who saw him twice with a bullet in his head (twice, twice now, goddamnit). He was the one who never got to be with him as a baby, who didn't get to hear that his son wanted to know him better. (He had to be William's father. He had to be. She did a test when William was a baby, and she thought that Mulder might've done one again when they were in Norfolk, but she knew she was going to do another one as soon as she got a chance. First fucking thing. But somehow, the fact that Mulder could suddenly, miraculously hear Jackson was comforting to her, was enough to convince her that he was William's father. It had to mean something, didn't it? She held onto that hope tightly.)

She didn't mean what she said, not one bit of it. She was in shock. She didn't mean it. She felt like she was going to throw up. She had already thrown up once tonight, retching over a trash can by the water while Mulder whispered her name helplessly and rubbed her back, and she didn't think it was because of the baby. She heard the gunshots Mulder fired into the smoker's chest, every single one; she'd felt them deep in her bones.

She wasn't going to tell Mulder what Skinner said—especially now that she was nearly sure that Mulder was Jackson's father—but she needed to apologize. She needed to tell him she didn't mean what she said. She needed to tell him right now.

“Mulder, I didn't mean what I said,” she blurted, and his arms went stiff around her. She sniffled, burying her face in his neck. “I didn't,” she murmured, balling a hand in his shirt. “I was scared. I was in shock. But I didn't mean it, Mulder. He's our son. He'll always, always be our son.” She had to believe that, she had to.

His fingers brushed over his spine. “Are you saying this because you know he's alive now?” he asked quietly, and she knew that everything she'd said had hit him hard.

Wincing, she shook her head, frantic and immensely sorry, digging her fingernails into his shoulders. “No,” she said quickly, nearly stammering. “No, Mulder, no, he's our son. For God's sake, he's our son. He's our son.” She was crying again, near hiccupping, clinging to him like he's a life raft. “He's my son,” she whispered hollowly. “He's my baby, and I just… he asked us to let him go. I didn't know what to do. I… I couldn't lose him again.”

“Shhh,” Mulder was saying, his voice trembling. He was still crying. He was stroking her hair again, her back, her neck. “Shhhh, Scully, it's okay. It's okay.”

“I'm his mother,” she said. She was remembering the cold feeling of fear, of surprise and uncertainty just a few days ago, when she took the pregnancy tests and saw the results, sitting on the grimy tiles of a bathroom floor inside the handicapped stall. Of guilt, even. She didn't know how to do this again and it scared the shit out of her. She thought that she might want to do this again, be somebody's mother, but she had no idea how. She was Jackson's mother, even if he would never think of her that way, and now she was a mother all over again.

Mulder clung to her and she clung to him and they cried. She held onto the image of William—of Jackson—walking in the rain, huddling for warmth under a bridge. I'm here, she thought desperately towards her son as she started to drift off. I'll always be here, if you need me. Always.

---

They had breakfast next morning, at the continental breakfast in the lobby. Scully didn't exactly feel like eating, but she made herself. She was thinking about the baby, about proper diets and protein and three good meals a day, when she got a spoonful of scrambled eggs, three strips of limp bacon, a cup of yogurt with berries. She ate gingerly, thinking of the pregnancy tests that she lined up along the toilet paper holder, the rush of emotions that she'd felt when she saw that they were all positives. Her baby. She was going to have a baby.

She could feel Mulder's eyes on her, watching her as gingerly as she was eating. “Honey…” he said softly. He reached out to touch her shoulder, his fingers hovering, before he lowered them to touch her stomach.

She reached down and covered his hand with hers. “I know,” she said. “It's a lot to take.”

“It's… it's wonderful news,” he began, before something like guilt passed over his face and he shook his head. “I mean, I'm not sure how it's… how—how do you feel about this, Scully?”

She looked down at her plate, at their hands together. She curled her fingers around his. “I… I don't know,” she whispered. “It's… it's not what I would've chosen for myself. Not now. Maybe years ago… but… I don't know, Mulder.” She squeezed his hand. She lifted her head to meet his eyes. “I… I think I might want this. I do. I can't not. Mulder, I can't lose another child. I can't.”

“I know,” he said softly, and she knew that he did. They had both lost so many people. They had lost their son again and again, seen him dead far too many times. Neither of them could endure another loss.

He rubbed a gentle thumb over her abdomen, where it was slightly rounding, and she felt like crying all over again. She sniffled, wiping a tear away. “I suppose…” she said in a tremulous voice, “that I should ask you how you feel about this. If… if this is something you want.” She'd considered every possible response when she was trying to figure out how to tell him, and she had tried to focus on the ones where he was happy, but she kept coming back to the ones where he wasn't.

His eyes widened, his thumb moving over her stomach again. “Scully, of course,” he whispered. “Of course it is.” He lifted her hand in a fluid motion to kiss the back of it, and she sniffled again, her eyes shutting.

“I… it's scary,” he admitted, his voice breaking. “The prospect of another child… I think we're both a little apprehensive. But I want this as long as you want this. I've always wanted this with you.”

Her eyes filled abruptly, and she jerked forward in her seat towards him. He had his arms around her immediately, her chin on his shoulder. She made a shaky sobbing sound, one hand over her mouth and the other pressed hard into his shoulder. He put a hand to the back of her head, whispered soothing things into her ear. She knew that people were staring, but she didn't care. She held him tightly, nearly in his lap.

“I-I think we should go to the doctor,” she whispered in his ear. “Right away. To make sure everything is okay.” They both knew all the things that could go wrong, all the possibilities that they wouldn't be able to see this through. She didn't want to say the possibilities out loud; all she wanted was to know that everything was okay.

“Yeah. Yeah, we'll go right away.” He kissed the side of her head. “Everything's going to be okay, honey,” he whispered. “I promise.”

You don't know that, she wanted to say, but she didn't. She just held onto him harder and nodded. It was all too much, too much to process; all she wanted was for them to be okay, for everyone to be okay.

When they'd finally pulled away, when Scully was wiping her eyes with a napkin and taking another tentative bite of yogurt, Mulder spoke again. Spoke in a hesitant voice, as if he was unsure of what her reaction would be. “Scully,” he said, carefully, “do you… do you think we'll ever see him again?”

Her jaw clenched automatically. She looked back down at her plate. All she really wanted right now, she thought, was to go home. To get into their bed together, slip back into that sweatshirt of his and crawl under the covers and sleep for a week. She wanted her son safe and at home, and she wanted her baby to be okay. She wanted her family to be safe and together.

“I don't know, Mulder,” she whispered. “But I hope so. I really do.”

---

Jackson never really wanted to kill anyone.

He kept trying to tell himself that in the wake of his fucked up rap sheet: that he never really wanted to kill anyone. He put on a tough persona—he had to at that stupid school they sent him to—but half of the stuff he'd done was just a stupid prank that went too far. The car accident, the tantrums that exploded (sometimes literally) into chaos, the stupid fucking prank on Bri and Sarah that gutted him to the core. Fucked up pranks, horrible pranks, but just pranks, pranks he would always regret right after he did them.

But he had killed people now. His parents, if only indirectly, and those fucking lackeys who came after him. He killed them; that was him. It was under his control.

He could tell himself all he wanted that his parents’ deaths were not his fault, but he knew they were. They came looking for him, the bastards who shot his mom and dad; if his parents had adopted another baby, they'd be alive and well and probably happy right now. (With a normal kid who didn't play shitty, horrible pranks and destroy half their house, who didn't pout and act sullen, and who told them how much he loved them.) He knew that people blamed him for his parents’ deaths, that people thought he was a murderer. (He had gone to his grandmother's house in Wyoming after a week on the run, and she had slammed the door on his face. She acted like she didn't know him. She accused him of murdering her son, and he'd cried like a baby on her porch before running away in a panic.)

He used to tell himself that he wasn't a murderer, no matter what people thought of him. He might've been something of a monster, but at least he wasn't a murderer. And then he killed those people before they could kill him.

Now he tried to tell himself it was all in self defense. But it didn't work. He still woke up screaming most nights, images of blood and gore and his parents in body bags on either side of him imprinted on his eyelids.

He didn't know where to go. He thought about calling Sarah, that first night sleeping under a bridge, but he couldn't bring himself to pull her into this. Not again. He was going to put her in more danger if he did that. Aside from that, she was probably pissed as hell he didn't meet her, if she didn't think he was dead all over again.

How many people thought he was dead at this point? He knew his birth mother didn't. Scully, Ginger, whatever her name was. He'd showed her he wasn't dead. He thought that he might've showed that guy Mulder, too, if inadvertently. (He didn't entirely understand what the hell was happening with his birth father, but he thought it went something like this: the creepy smoker fucker had put some kind of telepathic block in his mind to keep him from connecting to the Mulder guy. To make Jackson think that he was his birth father. And when he died, it stopped working. He didn't even want to dig too far into that fucking mess, but he was pretty fucking glad that the smoker wasn't his birth father, as far as he knew now.)

He didn't know where to go, so he headed west again. Stole a car from a Walmart parking lot and just fucking drove. Maybe he should head north, go to Canada, he thought at one point. Maybe get out of the country completely. Maybe settle down and get a damn job before he ran out of money. But truthfully, he had no idea where the fuck he should go.

There was a small, traitorous part of him that offered, You could go stay with them. Mulder and Scully, his weird-ass birth parents who called each other by their last names. Who apparently loved him a lot. Who fucking gave him up and never came looking for him, who had no rights as his parents. They gave that right up, and they were not his parents.

No, he told himself furiously. Absolutely not. Only as a last resort. Never. He could not do that to his parents.

So he drove, moving into the Midwest. The furthest he got last time was Wyoming, back to his childhood home, before he turned around and slunk back to Virginia with his tail between his legs. This time, he told himself, he was going to go further. All the way to the fucking Pacific.

---

A few days after Mulder and Scully got home, they went to the hospital to meet with one of Scully's old friends from the hospital to confirm the pregnancy. Just to make sure. Mulder held her hand while the blood was drawn, staying right at her side, whispered in her ear that it would be okay no matter what. Grateful for his presence, she tried her best to believe that.

While they were waiting for the results, Scully slipped downstairs, found another friend and asked her to run William's DNA against Mulder's. She had to know, she had to know for sure. The fact that Mulder could hear Jackson now coupled with the DNA test he ran against both of them back in Norfolk gave her some comfort, but she was still uncertain enough that she needed to check. She had to know for sure. Just to reassure herself.

She hadn't told Mulder about it, and she wouldn't if she didn't need to. The entire idea made her nauseous, made her want to find the smoker’s corpse and put ten more bullets in his skull. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be true. It wasn't true, not until it was proven. She had refused to believe in so much, and she would refuse to believe in this until it was anything more than a rumor. And she wouldn't burden Mulder with it if she didn't have to.

She made the request, spent the next few minutes in a bathroom, forehead pressed into the metal of the stall, breathing uneasily. She went downstairs to find out if she was going to be a mother again.

The pregnancy was confirmed. She was over three months along, the doctor estimated with a cheery smile. Behind her, Scully heard Mulder's sharp intake of breath, felt his hand clamp hard around hers. Her heart was beating too fast.

She insisted immediately on doing an ultrasound to make sure that everything was okay, and it seemed that everything was. The doctor reassured her as she moved the wand over her abdomen, telling her that everything looked good, everyone looked healthy She could see the image of the baby on the screen (her baby), could hear the pulsing whump-whump of the heartbeat, and she couldn't help the rush of tears. She couldn't believe this was really happening. Looking at the screen, she felt a powerful rush of love pulsing through her. This was all happening so fast she could barely process it, but she knew she loved this baby already, without being able to help it. She loved it more than words.

Mulder wiped away her tears, wrapping his hand around hers; he was crying, too, she could hear him. He asked where the baby was, pointing to the screen, and she showed him. She showed him their baby, and she felt his lips press gently to her hair.

---

When everything was done with, she slipped back downstairs to get the results of the DNA test.

It was what she wanted to hear, to her great relief; William was hers and Mulder's. He had always been hers and Mulder's. It was the best news she could've gotten, and she nearly sobbed with the relief of it all. Crumpled the results in her hand, trembling from head to toe. It wasn’t true. It was a lie, a horrible lie, but Jackson was their son. She cursed the smoker in his watery grave, but she felt a little lighter now, the weight of Skinner's confession off of her shoulders. It wasn’t true. William was theirs, and Mulder would never know there was another possibility.

She found Mulder down in the lobby, lingering by the gift shop with a plastic bag clutched in one hand, looking at something on his phone. He looked up at her with soft, relieved eyes when she approached, said, “Hey,” in a gentle voice, and held up the bag. “I, uh… I bought you something. From the gift shop.” Surprised, she took the bag as he explained. “I was poking around in there, and—yeah, that, check it out.” She pulled a small cardboard box out, and he nodded eagerly. “That's the brand you drank before, right?” he asked. “When you were—with William? The caffeine-free tea?”

Scully nodded, stunned, turning the box over and over in her hands. “You remembered?” she whispered in astonishment, although she should not be astonished. Mulder remembered things like that, held onto the memories like they were something precious. She could remember the first time she'd drank it in front of him—wearing his sweatshirt on her couch, him sitting beside where she was sprawled, his hand on her knee as she'd drank from a Georgia On My Mind mug—but she had no idea he did.

“Yeah.” He smiled again, reaching out to touch her elbow. “I couldn't believe they had it. I grabbed three boxes of that, and, uh, something else I thought was kinda cute…” She rummaged to the bottom of the bag and found a small stuffed cat, tiny enough to be tucked into the corner of a crib. “For the, uh, baby. I dunno if you like it,” he continued, “but, uh…”

She cut him off, moving forward to hug him hard. She seized his face in her hands and kissed him thankfully. She was nearly shaking with the weight of it all, of this baby and of their son, out there somewhere, and of every single thing that he missed out on last time. “I do like it,” she whispered, smiling, her face hidden against his neck. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”

---

Jackson used to want to travel all the time. He hated Virginia, he'd whined, and he wanted to go somewhere else, somewhere exciting. And then they'd sent him to that school, and it had been anything but exciting, and he'd felt even more trapped than before. He wanted to go places, he wanted to be free and not have to answer to anyone and do anything he wanted to whenever he wanted it.

Now he had that. He was alone, he had no one telling him what to do or where to go, and his future could be whatever he wanted it to be, barring the fact that people were actively trying to kill him and that a lot of people thought he was a murderer. And he hated it. He wanted his parents back more than anything in the world. He kept expecting them to be there, telling him what to do: No, Jackson, don't do that. Don't be stupid, son. Be careful, be smart, be safe. He wanted to ask their advice on things, wanted them to be with him. The one time in his life he wished he was Haley Joel Osment. (In Sixth Sense, not in that stupid Pay It Forward movie.) He'd give anything to be haunted by his parents at this point. He'd give anything to have them back.

He made it all the way to California without any major hitches. It was uneventful; miles of driving on empty roads, stopping to see sights, eating fast food in the driver's seat of his car and sleeping curled up in the backseat in parking lots until some cop told him to keep moving. In Arizona, he considered going covert, dying his hair and getting a bunch of piercings, doing something besides just projecting so he looked like someone else, but the most he did was give himself a haircut because his hair was getting too long. A horrible, horrible haircut that he could practically see his mom cringing at. It looked like he was attacked by a lawnmower. He bought a baseball cap at the next visitor center and pulled it low over his head.

He made it to California. He went to San Diego for no particular reason, and found himself in a cemetery for no particular reason, and that was about when he realized that there was probably a reason he was here. He mulled around the gravestones for a long moment before arriving at a small, shiny one that read Emily Sim. Died when she was three years old, a week after her parents did.

Jackson winced, leaning forward to put his palm on top of the stone. As he did, a rush of images swept over him, images that made him sick with nausea, dizziness. Emily Sim, a little girl sucking her thumb before a bathroom floor streaked with watery blood; Emily on the floor of a children's home, a much younger Mulder and Scully knelt beside her; Emily Sim in a hospital bed, eyes screwed shut, face coated in sweat. Dying.

Jackson staggered back from the headstone, his heart in his throat, coated in sweat despite the relatively cool temperature. He was breathing hard. He knew immediately what this was. He'd had a sister. He'd had a sister who somehow wasn't Scully's, either, and she'd been an experiment like him, and she had died. No wonder Ginger seemed so protective of him, so panicky at the thought of his death; it wasn't just because she was his birth mother, it was because she'd gone through it before. He'd had a sister, an experiment who suffered her whole life and lost both her parents and died before he was even born. He swayed on his feet, fell to his knees in the graveyard. He was crying, and he didn't know why, but it made him furious, that he'd had a sister who was dead now because of these bastards who had murdered his parents. He'd always wanted a sister as a kid. A little sister he could protect, or a big sister who would stick up for him.

Her name was Emily. Emily Christine Sim. He resolved to remember that as he climbed to his feet, brushed dirt off of his jeans. Half his family gone, her entire family gone. A sister he would never know. Emily Sim. He pressed his palm to the stone and thought, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that this happened to you. I'm so sorry I'll never get to know you.

After that, he didn't want to stay in California. He was getting flashes of other things, of a dark-haired girl that looked like that Mulder guy in pain, running, dying. Bad things had happened here. He looked out over the Pacific, at the great westward spread of the ocean, and then he got into his car and drove back east.

#it's gonna be painful but then it's gonna be not painful i promise #xf rewatch #xf fanfic #i wrote this

135 notes · View notes

almaasi · 5 years

Text

reaction post typed while watching Good Omens (ALL OF IT)

my favourite novel is now my favourite mini-series and IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL

under the cut: a very long, spoilery six-episode reaction to MY NEW FAVOURITE THING EVER

may 31st 07:36pm nz

i posted my episode 1 reaction a couple hours ago but that got ZERO NOTES so i assume people are either avoiding spoilers or aren’t interested, which is fine, but i’m just gonna put all my reactions in one big post so anyone who IS interested doesn’t have to read 6 separate posts c:

edit june 1st 04:08am: btw i watched using a free trial on amazon prime, which i’m pretty sure is worldwide. soooo if yOU WANT TO WATCH THIS, YOU CAN, FOR FREE

EPISODE 1: In the Beginning

04:03pm

idk how much i’m gonna type, whether i’ll post a reaction to the entire thing in one post....... or how much i’ll end up watching right now

kinda want to spread it out and save it as a treat for after i’ve done some writing

but right now i wanna watch before writing

so maybe i’ll do one ep, write something, then return to this?

edit: aahhaha that didn’t happen

04:04pm

I’M SO EXCITED

I’VE BEEN WAITING SO LONG

well... since 2011 when i first read the book

but regardless it’S BEEN 84 YEARS

04:05

okay first off i did not know amazon prime did adverts at the start of their videos. so i was like SINCE WHEN WAS CHILDISH GAMBINO/DONALD GLOVER IN GOOD OMENS

and then

yeah

either way i thought it was a good opening

W A R

NING

cool cool cool cool cool

omg i’m used to where the netflix full-screen button is, and on amazon prime that’s the “next episode” button so i gotta be real careful

dear god my video quality is TERRIBLE

i.......... i might torrent this show and watch it offline

this is horrendous i can’t see a damn thing

i have never seen pixels this big

04:11

okay the quality calmed down after a minute

i loooove the intro, i love that it’s basically word for word from the book

i feel like i’d find it funnier if i hadn’t read the book 3 months ago

also? god is a woman? yes

04:13

is it just me or does the snek have a slightly david tennant-esque quality about it

i’m so happy adam and eve are black

04:17

omfg. aziraphale said “ineffable” and now CRAWLEY’S CHECKING HIM OUT TRYING TO SEE IF HE HAS ANY JUNK

WOW

...or y’know, looking for a flaming sword. SAME FUCKING THING.

also i looove how FLUFFY azi is

azi: “do hope i didn’t do the wrong thing”

i fucking love them both uhrgughhhuhuhughuhhh

04:21

small sob for cuteness

umbella wings

04:23

in the opening titles, crowley just stopped a spaceship and aziraphale turned it into fish

i feel like that was a douglas adams reference and i’m on board

04:25

the entire time i read the book, up until i saw video promos of this show, i thought “crowley” was said the same way as spn’s “crowley”, as in “crahwlee”

not “crOhwlee”

i definitely like that they’re different though

both probably named after aleister crowley tbh. all of whom are queer.

THOSE SWAYING HIPS

i haven’t found david tennant attractive in about 9 years but WHOOOP HELLO AGAIN

somehow attractive for entirely different reasons than before. like. my taste changed but tHEN

i’m on crowley’s side, taking down a cellphone network is VERY ANNOYING

04:35

crowley: shitshitshitshithsit

i can’t wait for aziraphale’s big swear

04:37

i miss eating sushi

sushi was great