TVSTRANGERTHINGS
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Origami Around
pixel skylines
Xuebing Du
if i look back, i am lost
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
RMH
KIROKAZE
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Three Goblin Art
oozey mess
trying on a metaphor
NASA
occasionally subtle
titsay
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
AnasAbdin
#extradirty
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@tripleennui
Rereading Warriors and obsessed with Fireheart, who has just been made deputy, fearing for Bluestar losing her last life because then “ThunderClan would be left without a leader.” The idea that he would be their next leader doesn’t even cross his mind in the moment. What a good kitty
The Amazing Digital Circus is the epitome of "Man, this show would be so good if it was good."
Time is weird. Kids you’ve known since they were toddlers have graduated college, and meanwhile you’re still on Tumblr in the year of our lord 2026 thinking heavily about your Warrior Cat OCs
Film Survey
Tagged by @randomfoggytigeer — thanks, friend!
Last film you watched in the cinema?
Project Hail Mary. DM me if you want to hear a middle-aged woman go on at length about her complicated feelings for Andy Weir's books and their film adaptations.
Film that always makes you cry?
The Return of the King. Specifically, “My friends… you bow to no one.”
Film you know every single word to?
The 2005 Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. (And Fight the Future. Obviously.)
Favourite 2000s teen movie?
I was technically a teen in the 2000s, but I didn’t watch a lot of movies then. I was more likely to watch Dirty Dancing 350 times than to watch anything for my age group. But—Bend It Like Beckham was pretty great.
Most embarrassing "guilty pleasure" film?
Does the Pretty Woman/Runaway Bride double-feature count?
Film that changed your life?
The Green Mile. My buddy and I have a theory that every single Stephen King adaptation (film or television) is either a 1/10 or a 10/10, never anything in between. The Green Mile is a solid 10.
Favourite movie snack?
Classic. Popcorn. Extra, extra, extra butter.
Your go-to movie quote?
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
The most overrated film ever?
Dazed and Confused.
Favourite director?
I don’t really follow directors very closely? Maybe that makes me a plebe, idk. I will say I’m hella excited about the Ryan Coogler TXF reboot.
First movie you remember seeing in theaters?
Independence Day. That’s one of my favorite things about Fight the Future—when Mulder is urinating in the alley, he’s pissing on a movie poster for Independence Day, so I always get to tell whoever I’m watching with, “That was the first movie I saw in theaters!”
Horror, comedy, or romance?
I reject your trinary. As Jackson Browne would say, something tender filled with despair, or something really weary laced with hope.
The ultimate "Top 10" favorite movies of all time?
Good god, this is difficult. I’ll give it a shot, though. These are not in order.
Dirty Dancing Fight the Future The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Phantom of the Opera The Sound of Music Cloud Atlas Serenity Dragonheart The Lord of the Rings trilogy (I’m counting them as one) Pride and Prejudice (2005)
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Now for the taggin!
@dustywords2001, @honourablepranksinatra, @nikoaster, @h0lywaters, @little-moonbird, @pearlofthewoods, @larizardia, @waxwork-daughter, @motheringbird
@volpeantica, @meigen1511, @foxspookymulder, @whoruntheworld-lesbians, @cassiopeia462, @supercalifragilisticexpiali-wooo, @jaquescully, @shimmeringlesbian, @msrpusher
@louislumbarcurve, @xfile999, @scullee, @limnaea, @sleepingthruchem, @tripleennui
I’m gonna be sick I never noticed this
Strap in for another entry in why Post Modern Prometheus is everything that is right AND wrong with The X Files.
The scene where the Great Mutato adresses the townspeople in a reversal of the famous scene from the 1931 version of Frankenstein is such a good idea. As a Frankenstein girly, in the original scene, The Monster is punished for actions with terrible impact (throwing the little girl in the lake) but of which he has no real understanding (he was just playing). And besides the impact vs. intention of it all, the townspeople are quick to attack because he looks different not because he’s truly evil. And ultimately it is arguably Frankenstein’s responsibility to have provided safety and knowledge for The Monster which would have prevented this tragedy.
So a version where The Monster gets to stand up and make his case? Where is pleas for understanding are heard and change the narrative? In a show all about finding out the truth while those in power want to create false narratives? That’s powerful story telling. Plus, within the context of The X Files, where especially in the early episodes, the Other is often the villain (Squeeze, Fire, Gender Bender) this is a smart, cool way of deconstructing the power dynamics underlying the structure of the Monster of the Week stories!
BUT in order to do this, narrative needs to disavow the townswomen’s choices about their bodies, and the impact that children and pregnancy have on them. The Great Mutato’s wish for companionship needs to be narratively more important than Sheineh having a tubal litigation to avoid pregnancy. The Great Mutato’s loneliness needs to be more relatable than any choices Elizabeth makes about who fathers her children. And THAT assumption about what stories matter, and whose narrative needs have value contradicts the very things that make this episode so special. They also highlight how many episodes rely on similar narrative devices, INCLUDING the next two episodes and Scully’s ongoing relationship with her own fertility.
And the messiness of that mixture is why I can’t stop thinking about this episode: the good, the bad, and the mutato.
not you casually writing extremely thought-provoking comments in the tags (also they are such losers and that is so important to me)
Haha, I should probably stop doing that and make actual posts. I used to write X-Files reviews when I was a teenager, with the intention of reviewing every single episode. I didn't finish, but it was a fun exercise, although I'm sure if I read them now I'd die of embarrassment. Darin Morgan is my favorite X-Files writer so I love talking about his work. I also enjoy that his short time on X-Files is basically the highest-profile work he's ever done. He managed to make a huge impact with not a lot of episodes and has gone on to do basically nothing else. He's just the Guy Who Wrote Those Six Really Weird But Good X-Files Episodes and I honestly think that's an incredible legacy. Not everyone has to go on to be a Vince Gilligan! Sometimes you're just the guy who wrote "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and that's enough.
Re: Mulder and Scully being losers, I know we like to joke about it on here, but in some ways I mean it seriously. I always try to remind people that this is a show about outcasts and in a broader sense marginalization, and so its leads need to kind of be outcasts themselves. What I think makes it all the more compelling, and what "Humbug" tries to get at, is that on paper Mulder and Scully don't seem like outcasts at all. They're white, conventionally attractive, intelligent, work in freaking law enforcement, come from varying degrees of privilege (Mulder has a rich-ass New England family with like three houses, Scully's father was a Navy captain), are (at least at the beginning) physically non-disabled, educated, etc. But their work takes them to the margins, so they too adopt a life of social alienation. (To quote Eddie Van Blundht: "I was born a loser, but you're one by choice.") This is the primary reason when people ask me what genre The X-Files belongs to I'm tempted to say horror before anything else. Horror is largely a genre about alienation and otherness. There's a quote from Robin Wood's 1979 essay "An Introduction to the American Horror Film" which I think sums it up well:
(The X-Files draws a lot from 1970s horror in particular, so this essay is very apt to me; it's also just a fascinating read in general if you're into this sort of thing.)
Sci-fi looks forward, fantasy looks backward, but horror looks outward, and that's why so many of Mulder and Scully's cases involve marginalized characters or communities, why the X-Files themselves are cases that have essentially been discarded.
Anyway, I could go on, but yes! Mulder and Scully being losers is very important.
idiots (affectionate)・[34/?] ⤷ 2.20 — “Humbug”
One of the things I love about Darin Morgan and this episode in particular is he was the first X-Files writer to really tap into Mulder and Scully's big time Loser Energy™
After reading a lot of the accusations against Gooseworx, mainly her extensive collection of odd tweets, I have come to the conclusion that the main issue is that she honestly just isn’t very smart
why can’t msr be platonic? why does everything have to be about sex with x files fans? im so sick of romantic/sexual relationships being the norm in this fandom
You sound a little frustrated, friend, and part of me gets it. It may not come across with how much I hornypost on here, but I’m actually asexual, and have had very few romantic/sexual relationships in my life. The vast majority of my relationships are familial and/or platonic. So, lest you think I value platonic relationships less than romantic, I assure you that could not be further from the truth.
Mulder and Scully are a weird case, and there’s no one-size-fits-all reading. Are they platonic? Yes. Are they romantic? Also yes. Are they sexual? After a certain point, yes. Are they familial? Definitely. Are they coworkers? That too. That’s the issue with people who are so wrapped up in each other that they become everything to each other. It’s a concept I wish the revival would have explored in the context of their breakup. When you become so entwined with another person, what does that do to your sense of self? But I digress.
That being said, even as an asexual person, I do read Mulder and Scully’s relationship, though it may be functionally platonic, as primarily romantic in nature, and it has nothing to do with me valuing one type of relationship over the other. As someone who is really into classic film, I find Mulder and Scully’s relationship and how it’s characterized as akin to a Hays Code-era duo, where anything sexual had to be subtly implied to fool the MPPDA censors. (Think Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy or the like.) I personally think there’s way too much romantic/sexual subtext to read Mulder and Scully as completely platonic, even from the beginning. It’s a fun thing the show can play around with, it’s great for drama, and it’s undoubtedly one of the elements that keeps fans coming back. And like I always say, if you want your characters to be platonic, you don’t cast the two horniest people alive to play them. 🤷🏻
One of the things I’ve noticed on Tumblr is this tendency for people to desperately cling to neoliberal identity politics in fandom the same very serious way they do in real life. Discussions of labels and identities are not fun thought experiments meant to understand the story or characters better but are borne instead from a desire for personal validation. Every character discussed on here is given a smorgasbord of labels that, more often than not, have little to do with the characters or text itself and more to do with the identity of the poster. It’s great to see yourself in characters, and it’s natural to pick up on characteristics that you yourself are familiar with—I myself am guilty of doing that with Mulder in particular; as a depressed autistic it’s unsurprising that I also see Mulder as a depressed autistic. Do I think this is a valid reading that can reasonably be concluded from the text? Yes, insofar as the show is vague enough that many different characteristics could be attributed to the characters, depending on what perspective or frame of reference the viewer has. But I’m kidding myself if I claim that as an unshakable truth.
This conversation reminds me of a question George RR Martin often poses in interviews: how many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? In the movie she has one; in the book she has three, so which is the truth? The answer is…none. Scarlett O’Hara has no children, because she’s not a real person. She’s a character. On this site, we tend to forget that. And it is not a personal affront to you, me, or anyone else if someone has a different reading of a character than you do.
Lastly, I would emphasize once again that the vast majority of my posts on here are intended to be memetic and humorous. On the rare occasion I do get serious, I promise I will make it obvious. Otherwise, take everything I say with a grain of salt. 😅
"Clearly I wasn't talking about disabled people-" yeah part of the problem is that the existence of disabled people just isn't considered in your worldview like that's the problem we're criticizing not a get out of jail free card
No, that's not the problem. Not everything is relevant to disabled people, nor does it have to be.
Disabled people are the world's biggest minority group and a part of every other marginalized community. Thinking that you can do progressive activism without ever engaging with the subject of disability is in fact a problem
I feel like people don’t realize how much they owe to disabled people and their activism. The ADA is one of the most progressive acts to ever pass in the United States, and it benefits all of us. Not to mention that you could—and likely will—at any point in your life become disabled, so acting like disability rights aren’t relevant to you is kinda shooting your future self in the foot.
As someone who’s observed a lot of terrible fandoms, TADC’s fandom’s problem appears to be that it is mostly made up of children - or at least the very vocal fans are largely children. This is a far cry from, say, S*tar W*ars, where the fans are supposedly grown-ass adults but behave like whiny little diaper babies. Idk, most of the terrible behavior I’ve witnessed in the TADC fandom appears to be a maturity issue rather than TADC fans just being inherently more awful than everyone else.
idiots (affectionate)・[33/?] ⤷ 2.20 — “Humbug”
HAVE THAT CHARACTER GAIN WEIGHT AS A SIGN OF HEALING: NOW
Honestly the weirdest aspect of Mulder and Scully’s relationship is that they flirt harder the more disgusting or disturbing whatever they’re investigating is. Is there a corpse with a live frog inside? Let’s crack jokes and subtly imply how attracted to each other we are. What about a dead baby in a closet? Obviously that’s when we should have a barely coded conversation about Mulder’s dick, duh. Interrogating a sadistic murderer? Totally the appropriate time to eye-fuck each other over the interrogation table. Stuck in the woods being chased by mutated conquistadors? (God, this show is strange) Time to cuddle, joke about getting naked, and sing to each other. Could you be infected with a scary parasitic ice worm? Let’s feel each other’s necks up in the most erotic way possible under the guise of a medical exam. Truly no one is doing it like them and that’s probably a good thing
ooooojhhh i hate how Europeans think they're not just as racist as USAmericans, they have such a holier-than-thou attitude about it all. As if they don't have such harsh views about the Romani people. Or just as racist views against immigration as the US. Or a staunch hatred against Muslims. Or even a weird hatred against white Mediterraneans who are just a liiitttle tanner than an someone in Norway or some shit
Each place is racist in its own way; however, currently any European country is safer for a person of colour for obvious reasons.
Try telling this to a Romani person
realizing a headcanon of yours happens to make an element of canon even more heartbreaking when you hadn't even considered it from that angle previously
[ID from alt: emoji rubbing their hands together and grinning evilly. End ID.]
This is literally my entire purpose with The X-Files. I am here to make you all more depressed
