I’ve never done anything like this, and feel pretty bad about myself to be doing it in the first place, but I’ve seen this sub pop up and I really enjoy the idea there’s a group of people who want to help lift others up.

I’ve been struggling on the whole for months, but in particular the last three days have been brutal. It feels like I have lost all hope that things could return to an upward trajectory. I’m angry that I don’t have anything within myself that makes me feel valuable or worthy, even though intellectually I know that’s where it needs to come from, it feels unfixable despite how much effort I try to put into working on myself, therapy, or achieving things.

I’m autistic and usually I’m proud and glad to be. But lately it feels like the unique perspective and creativity isn’t worth the price of being so isolated and alienated. It feels like the barrier between everything I wish my life was and my current reality.

Humbly requesting a toast, desperately hoping to feel better. :’)

“Imagine going through your whole life looking like that.”

A small preview of my next project, The X-Fibers: The Knit is Out There!

I began with Mulder, and when I put his little hands on his hips, I of course, was reminded of this scene.

Scully will be next, and I hear you asking yourselves, “but Amber, you didn’t start with the Gunmen?” No, simply because if I started with them, I’d never make S&M. (Saving the best for last so I’m motivated to finish them all. :P)

Absolutely nobody:

Me: What if I made pixel art of The Lone Gunmen from Season 10’s ‘Babylon’?

Say what you will about Season 10, but I was just excited to see my boys again. I wanted to create some trippy pixel art, and I could think of no better muse. Please enjoy another unhinged offering from yours truly.

(8-bit Honky Tonk Badonkadonk emulation by 8-Bit Arcade.)

Specifically re: TLG. Spoiler alert for seasons 9-11 & the comics.

I was discussing the revival and how the Gunmen were used in it with my rewatch group today, and I realized something.

Initially, I was very frustrated with the fact that the ways they were utilized in the revival didn’t necessitate a retcon of the comics. (Save for Mulder and Scully being aware that they faked their deaths.) But generally, the story lines and scenes they’re in can still exist, as is, within a reality where they faked it and are out there somewhere.

Then, it dawned on me, if that’s the case, why must I be so certain it’s to be implied they are really dead?

Specifically the dialogue from season 11’s ‘This’, could be argued as a point in favor of the faked their deaths scenario:

M: Could-could Langly be alive?
S: No. I was at Langly's, at the Lone Gunmen's burial in Arlington Cemetery.
M: But did you ever see Langly's body?
S: Well, nobody did. They were exposed to a weaponized strain of the Marburg virus. Their bodies were incinerated.

It stands to reason, in my estimation, this is about as weak of a confirmation of someone actually being deceased, as you can get in the X-Files universe. We’ve seen CSM come back from on screen incineration, how do you expect me to believe an off screen incineration!?

Is this the world’s biggest cope, from the world’s biggest TLG fangirl? Maybe. But it makes perfect sense to me, I’m hanging my hat on this as my canon explanation, and you won’t be able to talk me out of it.

The Lone Gunmen are out there!

My boys! ❤️

Obviously the first thing I did in Tomodachi life was make them. 😌

ETA: Just realized I bungled the title. 🤣 Forgive me, I’d feel like a jack ass to repost it at this point.

The game has spoken.

Just me, two months late to Tomodachi life, because I knew it would consume me once I allowed myself some leisure time.

I finally started up the full game last night, and made Scully and Mulder, my demo spots were reserved for TLG, obviously. Delighted of course, that Scully fell for him immediately. 🥲

An aside: I actually found Mulder the most challenging to get recognizable as a mii. 😮‍💨 Over 200 episodes later, and I realized I haven’t spent all that much time looking at him, much to the shock and horror of all my DD loving friends.

I could cry. I can’t believe it took me so long to watch this movie. Riff is such a glorious representation of a hyper fixated obsessive fangirl, and she owns it, and she’s beloved, and it healed something in me.

I found it to be legitimately hilarious, in addition to being a delight as a Ramones fan. There’s an offbeat/counter culture absurdity to a lot of the humor that hits my sensibilities just right. It didn’t feel like I was watching an almost 50 year old movie, but maybe that’s more of a testament to its ability to transport me back to my own days as a delinquent youth.

I’ve already mentioned Riff, but seriously, it was so refreshing to see a female character I could relate to. She wasn’t just a troublemaker, or just artsy, or just a fangirl, she was all of it and more, funny, charismatic, a little bit bizarro and off-kilter, unapologetically loving what she loves at full volume, she was perfect.

The highlight for me is her description of why she thinks Joey is so hot, because of the way he eats pizza. :’) Girl. I get it. Speaking of, her sharing her pizza with the cardboard cut out and moving his head, might’ve been the biggest laugh the movie got from me. (For sheer: “I can imagine myself doing that” energy.) I cannot overstate my satisfaction in seeing my own archetype in a movie as the hero.

If you’re like me, and somehow put off watching this for decades, don’t wait any longer. It’s 93 minutes of pure chaos, joy, and the Ramones, what more could you ask for?

This cutie is one of my favorite plushie makes from over the years. I had an event with the theme of “rainy day”, and what says rainy day more than a pair of wellies and a slicker?

Do you enjoy dressing your plushies up? I don’t often draft patterns for plushie clothes, but when I have it’s been extremely satisfying for them to have custom little wardrobes!

This cutie is one of my favorite plushie makes from over the years. I had an event with the theme of “rainy day”, and what says rainy day more than a pair of wellies and a slicker?

The plushie is a modified version of Susan Claudino’s ‘Jeepers, Creepers & Peepers’ pattern. The clothing is self drafted to fit my finished plush. The plushie is knit from juicy couture velour yarn and the clothes are made from hand dyed wool from my stash. (Apologies, I do not recall the dyer.)

But this brought me some much needed joy. 🥲

I only wish we got to spend a bit more time with the hallucinatory Lone Cowboy-Gunmen. ❤️

I know the lyric is "lamp rays", I've always known it was "lamp rays", but that has not stopped the persistent visions of Joey Ramone under a giant shining lamprey. Every time I listen to 'All is Quiet on the Eastern Front', I am once more confronted with the vision. I figured it was finally time to bring it into the world for everyone else. You're welcome!

I wanted it to be evocative of the Pleasant Dreams album cover: graphic, punchy, somewhat of a call back to the color scheme, but still with a hearty helping of the surreal mental image I've been carrying around for years. I hope you'll enjoy never being able to listen to this song again without thinking of lamprey lamp rays, cheers! 😄

My thing lately has been making worms. Most recently: Sour gummy worms! 🥹

A few first time watcher thoughts:

Knowle Rohrer is such a mouthful, and begs the question why this name was chosen in particular. Nolror doesn’t suit a character that’s supposed to be intimidating.

In the theatrical immolation of CSM, I so wish that he died with a cigarette in his mouth (neck hole?) I’d have loved a scene where he’s struggling to light it, then the flames engulf him, lighting his cigarette briefly, before consuming him.

In regard to the final scene, was this really all about Mulder resigning himself to faith/a higher power/god? Because, woah, I hate it. 😂

I celebrated getting to see Langly’s ghost for a minute. Things were that dire. 🥲

At this point, I’m excited for seasons 10 & 11, because I have zero expectations, and things can’t get worse. Right? Right?

For those of you who were around for the original airing of the finale, how was it received?

All things considered, this is still my favorite television show, I love it with all my heart, and I’m already excited to start a rewatch! There were truly very few episodes I disliked, most of them being the last few episodes of season 9. This show was remarkable, ahead of its time, and I’m so thankful I finally arrived at it this past year.

Hello! This is my first finished cross stitch in, well, in my entire adult life. 😂

Last year I found myself in the midst of a Dostoevsky phase. I binged my way through Notes from the Underground, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, etc. Notes ended up making the biggest impact on me. Especially this line: “I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.”

Perhaps it struck me so particularly as an intersection between my inner math nerd, and my personal philosophy of absurdism and optimistic nihilism. Wanting to memorialize this time in my life, I whipped up a cross stitch pattern to honor my favorite Dostoevsky quote.

As I’m often want to do, I quickly finished 90% of it, and then it sat on my desk, until it became a part of the landscape of my workspace, for months on end. My current phase, however, is finishing abandoned projects. And it was finally time to finish this piece!

Last year I found myself in the midst of a Dostoevsky phase. I binged my way through Notes from the Underground, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, etc. Notes ended up making the biggest impact on me. Especially this line: “I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.”

Perhaps it struck me so particularly as an intersection between my inner math nerd, and my personal philosophy of absurdism and optimistic nihilism. Wanting to memorialize this time in my life, I whipped up a cross stitch pattern to honor my favorite Dostoevsky quote.

As I’m often want to do, I quickly finished 90% of it, and then it sat on my desk, until it became a part of the landscape of my workspace, for months on end. My current phase, however, is finishing abandoned projects. And it was finally time to finish this piece!

Spoilers ahead for this episode, of course.

As you may imagine, with TLG being my favorite characters on the show, I have been dreading this episode since I accidentally spoiled the basic plot of it a few months ago. I’ve been bracing for the grief, and I hated knowing I’d have to watch my boys die. What I didn’t expect, was that walking away from it, the biggest feeling I would have is anger. I wasn’t even sad, as much as I was mad.

THIS WASN’T EVEN A GOOD EPISODE!

It wouldn’t have even been a good episode of TLG spin off. (Granted I’m only on episode 8 of that, as I’m rationing out my remaining Langly content. But still. Every episode I have watched of it so far, offered far more interesting plot/dialogue compared to JtS.)

My first major complaint is that we’re left with the desolate situation TLG find themselves in, and the episode almost seems to suggest everyone seeing only the hopelessness in their situation, and sacrificing themselves is the only way they can make a difference anymore. Of course they sacrifice themselves and die as heroes. That’s who they are, that’s who they’ve always been, but the circumstances surrounding it feel so pointless compared to other options. They die as heroes because of bad luck, and no time to consider the choice. Which leads me to my other major complaint.

There is almost zero screen time honoring the Gumen’s skills and work. I understand they’ve sold a lot of their equipment at this point, but there’s almost no showing of what they do best, and how good the work they do really is. Maybe I’m expecting too much, but on the episode that is the send off of our boys, I want to see them in their element. Why bring Kimmy in to help with hacking? It should’ve been Langly’s moment.

I expected a very emotional/heartfelt tone to this episode, and even that seems to have been bungled. Scully’s line at their burial, while sweet, came across wooden, which I don’t blame GA for, she does incredible emotional work in this show, I can’t explain it, just the directing/immediate cut from the death chamber? I don’t know. It doesn’t land for me. Yves is really the only character that came across as distraught in that scene. I also have to wonder if they’d even want to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery?

The dialogue and tone seem entirely off throughout the whole episode. I can’t place my finger on what it is exactly. Season 9-itis? I don’t know. I hated the bioluminescence cgi, too. But now I’m just nitpicking. I will say, Langly’s speech about why Joey Ramone is his hero, is the only time the episode really hits for me, and illuminates how I think it should have come across in totality. Those lines are beautiful, and sum up what I love about Langly, the Gunmen, and characters and humans like them.

I figured I’d get all my trauma out of the way, and not put off watching this episode any longer, so maybe it’s how burnt out emotionally I am from my own personal life the past week, or partially becuase I’ve been processing their deaths for months. And maybe there is no version of this episode that is good enough for me. But ultimately I’m surprised and disappointed in how flat the entire thing was. I wish the boys went out hacking, surveilling, scheming, FIGHTING. I already knew they were heroes who sacrifice themselves for others. They do that every day.

They deserved better.

Why yes, yes I would. 🥲