#I can't believe this makes me so sad | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mulders-too-large-shirt · 21 days ago

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s5 episode 1 thoughts

bouncing. bouncing up and down. off of the walls. this episode was SO good. thank you. everyone say thank you, chris carter. thank you for fainting scully, tomato lover scully, doctor scully, crying mulder, plotting mulder, breaking and entering mulder, and for skinner in general.

but back to who i was before yesterday... allow us to return to past juni.

it’s been 800 years… (and by that i mean a week and 2 days have passed since i last watched an episode)

we left off in a pretty… precarious position. so i’m interested to see where things go from here. and hopefully they will be less stressful.

but i’m so happy to be back! i swear once i finish this show i’ll have to quit my job. there will be nothing to get me through LMAO.

it sounds like mulder is going to do some breaking and entering… again, fork spotted in kitchen

how the HELL did he fake his own death… this is giving sherlock!!

god, hearing her voice trembling again as she talks about identifying his body… i did not need to relive this pain!!

so we go back to him crying and watching alien stuff on his couch the night before her big meeting

“an act of faith began with an ineloquent certainty that my journey promised the chance not just of understanding, but of recovery” <- oh… so he admits to the whole thing being about healing…

and he says that he hoped finding the truth would reunite him with his sister, which i KNOW he was thinking all along, but hearing him SAY IT is still devastating; the way he never actually said it aloud before was very impactful, and so is his decision to break that vow of silence

“a belief which i now know to be false and uninformed in the extreme” <- NOOO please do not give up my king… i do not entirely believe this kritshcgau fool

he’s sobbing. he's so pretty when he sobs even if it is sad.

“my folly revealed by facts which illuminate both my arrogance and self-deception” <- oh no… i wanted him to Realize he was being Like That... but not in this way…

so he picks up the gun, saying it would be easier to end this journey if the pain had just been his own… and oh my god......

but then the phone rings… and it’s kritshcgau? he’s trying to explain that he might have been followed after leaving his apartment, but mulder does not give a FUCK LMAO

he wants to know who this man is and if they really gave scully cancer because of him. understandable.

he’s looking around for bugs in his room as he is warned of what’s going on…. and he finds one on the ceiling!! and not the insect kind, the camera kind!!!

mulder finds someone upstairs watching him on camera and burning stuff, but then this mystery guy picks up his shotgun and shoots mulder??? maybe?? it’s hard to tell??? strategic cutoff??

(i assume it’s shotgun guy from before, but frankly i don’t remember what his face looked like, so. listen! a lot can happen in a week and two days)

ah, it feels so nice to be watching the intro again. nature is healing… and by nature i mean me.

scully gets home at midnight, checking her voicemail… she starts to get undressed for bed

“keep going, FBI woman” <- WHAT THE FUCK.

IT’S MULDER??? she’s soooo GAGGED LMAOOO THE LOOK ON HER FACE???? i’m howling

MULDER BABY YOU CANNOT JUST SAY THAT WHEN YOU BREAK INTO SOMEONE'S HOUSE. BAD BOY (sprays with water) (sprays with water) (sprays with-

“mulder? what are you doing? why are you sitting in my bedroom in the dark?” <- a VERY reasonable question!!!!

he says there’s a dead guy in his apartment. she’s had ENOUGH of his shenanigans, and he clarifies that he is NOT joking

he had been under surveillance for at least 2 months!!!!! that is freaky omggg… god only knows what they saw him doing

he says that he can’t talk to anyone at the bureau because this whole hoax leads back to the FBI!!!

HOLD ON PAUSE. WHY THE FUCK DOES SCULLY HAVE A POSTER OF DIFFERENT TOMATOES ON HER APARTMENT WALL. HOLD ON I’M FUCKING CRYING. STOP. THIS IS SO FUCKING FUNNY. oh my gooood.

she saw a poster of tomatoes and said you know what? this would look FANTASTIC in my apartment.

god, scully, you truly are the best character of all time. i had no idea you felt so strongly about the humble tomato.

i cannot complain about anything else that happens in this episode, i’m out of breath from laughing. oh my god. this is gonna get me through so much. tomorrow i’m gonna go to work and a customer is gonna yell at me and i’m just gonna smile thinking about scully’s tomato poster.

i don’t even really remember what was happening.

okay, right, so the guy whose apartment was above mulder’s, he was destroying records of himself calling the FBI. so who in the FBI was he calling?? and must it be the one who is behind all of this??

“i will not allow this treason to prosper- not if they’ve done this to you” he says <- OKAYYYY!!! protective man is in his protective mode 🔥 you truly do LOVE to see it. it’s almost as good as scully in doctor more but let’s be honest, nothing can ever beat that.

ohhh, he says they can lie back to them!!!! sneaky sneaky man... your fox-like nature is showing

so it was HIS IDEA to have her come and make the ID on his "body" even though it was false!!??

so she was ACTING in that meeting??? WAS SCULLY A THEATRE KID?? because she sold that for real!!!!

he’s going on about how he’s asking her to lie so they can find out who this enemy from within is….

scully runs into skinner after identifying the body, who asks if it’s true that mulder is really dead, and she lies, saying yes. he wants to know if she’s okay, and she pulls the “i don’t know what to say” card, which is entirely understandable.

he asks how she made the ID if he died from a shot to the head, so she says she saw him earlier that morning and he was wearing the same clothes. and there’s a look skinner has into the distance as he tries to determine how and why they would have seen each other before 6:30 am. like you could see the gears turning in his head as if he was saying omg, so they WERE together this whole time. it’s comical, in a way.

which also leads me to wonder, well i’m no expert in these things, but if you know someone long enough, wouldn’t you recognize them even sans face? by body alone?

he says he’s very sorry. and when she tries to leave he very sternly calls out “agent scully >:| section chief blah blah blah thinks you’re hiding stuff” (paraphrased obviously)

skinner looks SOOO suspicious of whatever she's plotting lmaooo. and he is right to be!

meanwhile, a very alive mulder is going to the department of defense to scout some advanced research using the dead guy’s ID!! ooooo high stakes, high stakes!!!! he's narrating that if they’re busted, they’re done for good!!

now scully is in the office with the section chief. and he’s talking about someone from the DOD giving her classified information.

they ask her for information and she’s clearly hiding stuff…. but she identifies kritshcgau!!! omg i didn't think she was going to!!

uh oh… kritshcgau sees mulder in the DOD!! “hey! how’d you get in here?” “through the front door” <- lmao he can never be serious!!

kritshcgau tells mulder to come with him… is this a trap???

he’s gagged because that card gives mulder LEVEL FOUR CLEARANCE which i take is a BIG DEAL

yes, it is, because it would give him access to EVERYTHING!! even the thing he wants most of all… the cure for scully’s cancer!! you can see the tears forming in his eyes at the thought… oh man. ohhh mulder…

cancer man has burst into mulder’s apartment… now what are you doing here, you freak???

OHHHH he finds a photo of mulder and samantha on his desk when they were kids... ohhhh... my heart 😭😭😭😭😭

(there’s also some art on the wall of mulder's apartment that i can’t make the details out on. one piece seems to be some sort of pastoral scene with a sheep in it? and the other seems to be abstract. does anyone know what they are? i mean, it’s no tomato poster. but still)

CSM is actually crying seeing this photo and the blood he presumes to be mulder's on the carpet, and i don’t know if he feels genuine sadness or is just heartbroken his decades long alien colonization plan has been thwarted. honestly i do think he’s sad about mulder. he seemed to be in love with both mr. and mrs. mulder tbh, and that can do things to a guy.

he finds the secret ceiling camera...

scully is in mulder’s office now, calling someone. she pulls out the phone number shotgun guy had been calling!! holly answers it and says she is so sorry to hear about what happened to mulder…. but scully has no time to talk about these things

who is this holly? how does she know scully? are they friends? i need the backstory.

scully… you are so beautiful…. holding this paper and calling holly on the phone, telling her when the calls were placed so she can track down who shotgun man called a million times…..

OH GOD!!! IT’S SKINNER’S EXTENSION!!!

scully looks devastated by this… but just as she begins to process it all, the scientist calls her back about the ice!! she has so much on her mind, please do not make her come look at some damn ice 😭

now, i do not believe that skinner is really behind all this. if he is involved at all, it is because he made that deal with CSM to try and save her... and maybe he was tricked, but he did NOT do it willingly!

kritshcgau and mulder are talking about level four, which apparently a place and not just a classification, and is home to medical facilities!! and vast quantities of DNA storage!! from every person who has ever given blood or tissue since ww2!!!

damn that’s crazy. how tf would you even store all that?? it’s gotta be a warehouse.

he’s saying this is the hoax into which mulder was drawn…. the US fanned the flames of UFO stories to draw attention away from the whole “mutually assured destruction” thing, which, well, not sure how well that worked out

OPPENHEIMER MENTIONED‼️him and that damn hat…

(actually still haven’t seen that movie btw. sorry i guess. idk. i’m busy)

KHRUSHCHEV APPEARS ‼️i love to see a familiar face from my textbooks in my TV programs. it's like a crossover event.

kritshcgau says the business of america isn’t business at all, it’s war. well yeah. that is true. and the cold war was an excuse to keep spending military money with no war. which i guess that sort of maybe tracks??

writing off korea and vietnam as just countries squaring off “a few times” is kinda crazy, but his point is: no one used the big bomb.

mulder asks what we are all thinking: what does this have to do with UFOs?

well, let kritshcgau tell you, son. after roswell, the more the government denied about UFOs, the more the public believed them, which was great timing for a country developing supersonic flight

oooo, he claims they almost got caught in korea, as they were accused of using germ warfare. but it’s nothing like what they have now, like what was used for the gulf war, developed in this very building! (said with a very dramatic flourish)

this is a lot of world building at a breakneck pace, and i don’t even know if i’m supposed to believe any of it. maybe some secret top percentage of the government thinks this is true, and the tiny syndicate knows it actually isn’t. that’s my best guess.

the abductions actually did happen, he clarifies, but not by aliens. hmm. a top secret project. well without aliens what's the point?

kritshcgau says it’s about DNA control. but for what purpose???

mulder asks, why make a whole fake alien body for all this then? and kritshcgau says because scully wouldn’t have been alive to disprove the alien body if their timing had been correct!!! so he would have believed it, then they could discredit him!

kritshcgau also says his son coming back sick from the gulf war is his retribution for going along with all of this, and he's thinking there’s a cure for him somewhere in there. well i think the whole gulf war disease and advanced cancer are very different. but maybe they both have secret cures?

off mulder goes, into level 4, taking one last look at kritshcgau, who is immediately apprehended by the DOD for questioning!!!! i feel that this will be the last we see of him.

cutscene to someone racing a horse?? is it bestie well groomed man?? and his many horses??

no!! it’s the department chair guy meeting with CSM!!! CSM is pissed that he didn’t know someone was watching mulder, but the chairman denies it.

he is even MORE pissed about being cut out of this project; “i CREATED mulder” <- okay so that is not putting out the “CSM is actually his father” allegations

chair guy says that mulder is dead

OHHH BUT CSM SAYS “i’ve never underestimated mulder. i still don’t” <- DAMN!!! that’s absolutely wild… i guess it’s important to know your opponent, and how willing they would be to fake their death, and if they could pull it off or not

(CSM angrily leaves)

back to scully at the ice core guy’s lab. and again, oh my god, she’s beautiful. no no no i don’t want to hear about fetal bovine serum. what the hell does that even mean. go back to her beautiful face.

he put the junk from the ice core in the serum... the cells were dividing… into somatic development?? the beginning of a life form. she looks shocked by this, but again. idk what that means!

bleugh, the ice core sample creature... it looks ugly…….

mulder’s snooping about the level 4 area, but the DOD people are behind him, and none of the doors have opened!!! he says that if they find the cure, it will mean for sure that he has believed in a lie from the start. well, i don’t think that’s true necessarily. i mean, the abduction thing could be from an alien-government collaboration, or aliens could still be out there, just not involved with this one thing, you know?

he picks a lock (okay!! crazy skyrim reference) and finds himself in a very dark room. and i am attracted to him. don't worry about it. anyway, whatever he sees seems to shock him???

cut to a TON of CGI aliens on cots LMAO WHAT???? just laying out n about 😭 it had to smell so bad in there… i imagine aliens smell very bad

now this alien closest to him has been lovingly crafted with practical effects, which is much better. so we can see his slime. that is not the part that is better, the slime visibility; its just that practical effects look more visually convincing in such a case

scully is narrating that she had no way to reach him and talk about their discovery of an unidentified life form. which is what happens when you fake your death and go in the secret medical facility of doom.

why is he TOUCHING the nasty alien body???? EUGH!!!!!!

scully is pondering if this thing she found in the serum could be the proof of an alien or the proof of a hoax… a lot of big questions for her to handle here

he sees some flashing lights deep in the secret corridor, and follows it…. a whole lot of strobe light action going on in here. that stuff doesn't even bother me and i was like damn, that was a lot. i imagine it was much worse for the people who already have issues with bright lights.

she says that maybe this thing in the ice core sample is biologically connected to her cancer??

how does this connect to all of those half-alien, half-human people they found back in arizona??!!

beautiful man is looking through the window…

OH MY GOD HE SEES A BUNCH OF WOMEN BEING SCANNED????? WITH BRIGHT FLASHING LIGHTS?? oh man.... WHAT IS GOING ON???? what are they DOING??

what did they call it before?? inducing mega ovulation?? yikes.

BLEUGH. i paused here as scully was getting blood drawn. i am woozy. how do they fake that for filming??

she needs a southern blot, btw. if that means anything to you. to compare that culture to her own DNA.

belaughhh. she needs the match before 7. he says we can’t do that.

“it’s got to happen. everything in my life depends on it” <- YOU TELL HIM!!!

he has no idea wtf that means but is taken aback by her seriousness

NOW WHY IS SKINNER WATCHING THIS????

OHHH SHE GOES OUT AND CONFRONTS HIM!! “is this more dirty work you’re doing for the DOD??” <- OHHHHH she is NOT HOLDING BACK

he says he has the tests from the body they found in mulder’s apartment on his desk; he knows it isn't him!!! and as she compounds the lies, she compounds the consequences!!!!

OHHHHH THAT WHOLE SCENE WAS SOOOOO JUICY I’M GONNA TEAR OUT MY HAAAAAIR

“all lies lead to the truth, isn’t that right?”

“and what about your lie, agent scully? what does it lead to?”

“the truth- about the men behind what happened to me, about my abduction and the tests, about being exposed to something against my will, about being put on a table and having something implanted in me and then having my memory stolen, only to have it returned along with a disease that i was given.” (ohh she was getting more and more furious as she said this and it was SO good)

“is that your justification? if that what you’re going to tell the joint panel tonight?”

“are you afraid of that?” <- OHHH her mocking and accusatory tone… i need it bottled

“well, considering the dead man in mulder’s apartment was murdered in cold blood and you willfully misidentified him, yes, i am afraid. but i’m only afraid for you” (<- and i do believe him, that he is scared to watch her proceed in this way, almost recklessly, even though it's calculated)

“you’re going to use that against me, aren’t you? you’re going to use me as i’ve been used all along- to preserve the lies”

“where is agent mulder?”

(she walks away)

WOOO baby, that scene was ACTING!! the tight closeups on their face was crazy, and it def could have backfired had they not been so freaking talented. every microexpression spoke a thousand words. i feel energized just watching it!!

jumping up and down. jumping up and down. we are sooooo back.

ohhh she goes into the lab herself to do the testing… in her lab coat… and her goggles… spinning the blood around… i’m faint…

meanwhile, mulder's walking through some weird pipes??

AUGH, there’s something IN HER BLOOD WATER, and she says it could be a connection between the conspirators and the cancer in her blood…. well to me it looks like a worm

he finds a new secret door and enters with a hand in his pocket, looking around... tension!!!

she’s ready to blow open this whole conspiracy!! ooooo you'd better stand back and watch it happen!

(they’re narrating all of this because this is a tv show and that is how an audiovisual media works, but i find it funny to imagine them speaking into a voice recorder as they describe their highly illegal activities)

he reaches the end of the mystery space and finds a ton of filing cabinets??? so he’s going to the scully file. he finds hers!!! it is a paper with a bunch of letters on it. which clears up nothing

and he pulls one out for kritschgau’s son as well!!! but it looks like his is blank???

someone from the DOD calls CSM to say that “scott” (mulder with the dead guy's ID card) made his way into the pentagon!! so he’s off to go find him. stay away from him, freak...

scully is rolling some sort of paper after soaking the mixture of stuff from her blood. you’re confused, i’m confused, i’m fascinated as to how this was explained for filming purposes, but here we are

“if my work with agent mulder has tested the foundation of my beliefs, science has been and continues to be my guiding light” <3

“now i’m again relying on its familiar and systematic methods to arrive at a truth- a fact that might explain the fate that has befallen me”

i love that she sees science as familiar and systematic; she really seems to be someone that values those aspects of stability, of knowing what can and cannot be true, and as the world grows more and more complex as they unravel the conspiracies, she turns to what she knows she can rely on. it reminds me in a way about how she values the comfort of a home, of the known, of what can be experienced and understood. she seems to thrive on that sort of knowledge, and i relate to it. something steady to keep her afloat, you know? it also speaks to her rigidity in following the rules. there is order and structure that maintains things, and that can be a great comfort, or a terrible hindrance if it is used for evil. but she, deep down, believes that there still is fundamental good. the rules, the science, the facts, the comfort of them all. it’s a terribly scary world; her biggest fear is what others are capable of. of course there is comfort in the known and the material. i like that a lot.

she hopes to match the virus from the mystery organism to the stuff in her cells, which would mean that her cancer has a cause, even if a cure is unknown! and maybe then they could find a cure to the virus thingy...? is this wishful thinking??

“if science serves me to these ends, it is not lost on me that the tool which i’ve come to depend on absolutely cannot save or protect me, but only bring into focus the darkness that lies ahead” <- hey. hey ouch. pain.

i refuse to consider such a possibility. there are too many more seasons ahead.

back to mulder in the labyrinth, looking for stuff that matches the numbers on her card. ough… why does his hair look so good…

anyway, he finds some sort of liquid

OH scully has done it!!! she’s mixed her DNA with the viral DNA from the cell!! oh, the ice core doctor guy is SHOCKED to learn that she has stuff in her that was also in the CANADIAN ALIEN MOUNTAINS!!

she explains that she believes she was exposed to this material that gave her an illness… and when he asks what kind, all she says is that it cannot be cured. damn. that was very dark.

so mulder finds this little vial of stuff with the specific numbers on it?? in a tiny tiny little bottle?

is it shots shots shots shots time??

he’s leaving from the pentagon, and in a voice over monologue, points out that he is as dependent upon her as she is upon him for the cure!!! as now she must convince the committee of her story!!!

she goes into the meeting room, bracing herself…. and she begins where we began in the last episode!!!! and now we know WHY she is reporting on the illegitimacy of his work!! ah, it is sweet relief to know there was no backstabbing between them

mulder is trying to sneak out… but his card swipe isn’t working…. and the military guys enter!!!

can he play it cool?? can he beat them in a fight??? well, it FINALLY works, and one thing he can do is run!! and he manages to!!!!

GASP! CSM sees mulder leave, and says to let him go!! he seems almost relieved to see mulder alive and with this mystery liquid

and scully’s doing her oscar-winning performance about identifying a body. an absolute serve.

but skinner comes in just as she says this….

her eyes are filled with tears as she pulls out the evidence… (which is just two lines on paper, but you KNOW she is going to explain it)

and she notes that the whole thing was “planned and executed by someone in this room”, seeming to blame it all on skinner… oh my god…

OH MY GOD SHE’S STARTING HER PRESENTATION AND HER NOSE STARTS TO BLEED???

SHE FAINTS?????? and SKINNER CATCHES HER????

she looks at him and says “you…..” before passing back out <- WHAT DID SHE WANT TO SAY TO HIM??!??!?!?!?!

mulder is with the lone gunmen analyzing the mystery liquid…. and it’s water??

hold on, i had to rewatch her fainting and skinner catching her… how he starts to hold her face but stops himself… the way she says “you” so quietly… and then she loses consciousness again… oh my god… to be caught by the person she thinks is killing her…

and skinner… i don’t believe for a minute that he is behind this. how hurt he must be at her accusations, his terror in watching her march ahead recklessly and lie to these people who would kill her in a heartbeat, and actively ARE killing her, and he was the one that made the deal with the devil to try and get this to stop happening, but what if he’s only advanced the work of the devil and got nothing out of it for himself…? and she doesn't even trust him!!!!

i rewatched that scene 4 times. and it was amazing during each of them.

and mulder… with his water… mystery water in vials… what can it do?? is it really just water?? why tf would the government hide vials of water with incredibly specific numbering deep in the pentagon. i don't buy it.

oh man, we are SOOOOOO back!!!!! i am bouncing off the walls. i cannot WAIT to learn what happens next. the angst here was EXQUISITE.

i’m such a sucker for angst involving mulder/scully and skinner. it’s going to get me EVERY time. over and over and over again. it just punches me in the gut. and all the other stuff punches me in the gut too, but this one has a certain je ne sais quoi factor about it; is it the mentor/mentee relationship of it all?? the way they care about each other but don’t know how to express it?? how they go from being willing to die and to kill for each other and then suddenly that trust is entirely removed, back and forth, back and forth? oh, it’s like CATNIP to me.

scully fainting and him catching is already going to be on my list of favorite moments, i know it, i know myself too well.

AUGHHHHHAUAGGHHHHRAUGGHHHHHAUGHHHHHH i LOVE THIS SHOW see it can be SO GOOD WHEN IT WANTS TO BE!!!!!!!!!

the trickery!! the plotting!! the deception!! the mysteries within mysteries!!! i still think the aliens are real though!! what are they doing with those women?? giving then alien DNA so they can steal their eggs to make alien babies?? what is that oil stuff in mulder?? and where does krycek fit into this??? and again, those half alien things in arizona?? don’t tell me!! don’t tell me because i am excited to learn!!!

YEAHHHHH!!!

#a very very very good episode #i look forward to watching the next part hopefully very soon. like in an hour or so would be nice.#they're both so beautiful i don't point it out enough. like i point it out about scully every episode but also? mulder. mulder too.#sometimes he's difficult and annoying but he is always gonna serve looks #and he is still my babygirl despite it all #i can't believe he was going to really do it at the start :(#that is going to make me very sad for a long time. but there are other things to focus on here that are also worth being sad about #truly not going to ever recover from that scully and skinner angst but i don't even want to. it hurt just right.#ahhh! i am so excited to see what happens next!!#tomatoes.#juni's x files liveblog #the x files #txf

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trashlie · 8 months ago

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ILY FP 258

I can't believe we're actually passed episode 250 lmao I Love Yoo is truly the never ending story (affectionate). I appreciate how much of the story we really get to dig into at this pace and while I know a lot of people have long-since dropped it, I imagine the rest of us (those reading this post because why else are you here?) also appreciate it. And that's what is even more refreshing about this episode - if refreshing is even a word we can use to describe it. Getting the extra scenes from other characters, a look at their lives and from these glimpses, what we can glean in the unsaid between the lines.

Can you believe I used to prey on Kousuke's downfall? There's so many posts of me talking about him from a different view, believing that the only way he could grow and develop and make the changes necessary to make him a better person was for him to crash and burn, to fail so significantly that he would be forced to pen his eyes to reality. But here we are, me, fervently swaddling him up like a baby and shoving him into my pocket because GOD he needs to be protected.

I don't even remember when it was, that my view on him began to shift, when I went from "he's interesting but awful" to "GOD THIS IS MY SON AND I WILL FIGHT EVERYONE YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME" but.... lol there's no going back!

That's enough rambling, let's jump in.

There is something so painfully devastating about every time ILY confirms to us something we have long-since known or suspected through nuance, foreshadowing, reading between the lines, etc: That Kousuke isn't Rand's biological son, that Shinae was at the formal for Gun Kim, that Kousuke has been manipulated his whole life. Nothing in this episode regarding Kousuke is actually new to us. We have known, and talked about, for months and months long before the confirmation reveal that Yui drugs Kousuke - that he has been manipulated by her his entire life, that she orchestrated his life to manipulate him into situations she could take advantage of. It's the way she spoke about Rand's affair around Kousuke, the way she commodified Rand's love so Kousuke became convinced he'd never earned his father's love, the way she spoke of their family vs others and convinced him from such a young age that everyone was out to get them, to destroy them, and that he couldn't let them get close, couldn't let them near - and how Nol was very much a target planted in his mind.

But it's the fact that he is speaking of this and acknowledging it! Until now, Kousuke has heavily lived in denial. Again, we know this. We talk a lot about the chasm between reality and the reality he believes in. We talk a lot about how Kousuke couldn't face reality, even though on some level he knew everything he believed and was told was not quite true not quite real, but that he was so afraid of the truth, he couldn't do it. Kousuke admitting that he's been driven by fear and envy explains everything about him, and why he could not accept the only unwavering unconditional love he was offered.

A few weeks ago I saw a video on instagram of this father talking about a conversation he had with his daughter, who was feeling a little uncomfortable with her friend group. A new girl started to play with her and her best friend and she said she wasn't exactly jealous, but that maybe it was that she was afraid that there wasn't enough love to go around. Her dad had to explain to her that love is not like a pizza - it's not finite, a limited amount that could be taken and hogged by someone else. But Kousuke never learned this. His father's love was commodified and he was made to fear this other kid who he mistakenly believed knew a version of his father he'd never been privy to. He never learned that love is finite, that Rand could have enough love for the both of them, and feared that Nol would hog it all - that he WAS hogging it all because whether or not it was good or bad, Nol received more attention that Kousuke did. And that speaks VOLUMES about how Kousuke sees Rand, what he thinks of their relationship. In his mind, he is still unworthy, that he's not noteworthy enough.

This part gets to me so badly. We, as omniscient readers, know that Rand has tried his best, but that Yui runs a spectacular interference with which he can't compete, largely because of the roles their family have placed them in - Rand the busy businessman, Yui the mommy homemaker. But no matter how hard he tries, it isn't good enough. Rand tries to reach Kousuke, but the manipulation and paranoia are so far gone that the times Rand does have the chance to convey his feelings, Kousuke can't even believe it, because he thinks he's not good enough to deserve that love, that he hasn't fully qualified for it yet. And despite that, Nol, who Kousuke feels hasn't done half of what he has to deserve Rand's love, gets the attention. It doesn't matter that it's negative attention, that Rand barks at Nol, that Nol feels Rand hates and regrets him, because ultimately, it's still more than Kousuke receives. And worse, to him, every time Rand is busy reprimanding Nol, he turns away from Kousuke to do it.

I want to make it clear that this is a deep trauma point of Kousuke's. He's never learned healthy love and the only person who gave him healthy love was someone he was set to fear and fight. Something I think about a lot is the flashback to Kousuke, in the bushes, watching Nessa and Nol's display of warm affection, before Yui appears literally looming before him. In that moment, he witnesses something he's been deprived of. "We're not like other families"'. He's told from a young age he shouldn't compare himself to those healthy families, to warm and affectionate relationships that he will not cultivate in this household. From such a young age it is normalized, that they aren't like others, that they are cold and distant. From a young age, he's made to stuff down his feelings, his tender wants and desires, in order to earn them. To be a good little boy who makes his parents proud. To make his father look his way.

There's also something about the way he says "I've been a good boy" that echoes Shinae learning she's been manipulated by Yui, devastated and angry and yelling about how she's been a good girl so why do these things keep happening to her, all she wanted to do was help her dad. Two people who, from a young age, felt they had to be so obedient, so good, to not be a burden, and despite following the rules, despite doing as they were told, despite trying to be whatever version of "good" they believed in, the world still beat them up and mistreated them. The world still punished them.

As Rin in our discord server pointed out, though, to some degree, Kousuke is very much a person who can - and does - act out, when he's emotionally high-strung. He's a volatile man, and it's largely to do with the fact that he's been drugged to placate him for so long. He never learned emotional regulation, he never learned how to deal with high-stress situations or to face conflict or to own up to things. This is something that some readers who hate Kousuke and expect him to act a certain way because of his age are missing. You don't just learn these things with age. You learn them with experience and Kousuke was deprived of the opportunity TO have those experiences. He never had to learn these behaviors, and now as an adult he cannot function when overwhelmed.

Idk this whole episode is just heartbreaking. It's devastating. I remember when I was someone praying on Kousuke's downfall and now I want to take it all back ;___; I always believed he had to crash and burn to be able to see the world for what it really was and to face his fears, but this is somehow so much worse.

And even though he's drunk, I don't think he's going to forget all of this in the morning. Rather, I think what he's voicing are things that have been plaguing him since waking up in the hospital. From that moment, we saw him wary and distrustful of his mother, we saw his concern for Nol rising above everything else, but grappling with the understanding that he doesn't deserve to stand in front of Nol anymore. These aren't epiphanies coming to him just because he's drunk; it's more like he's only voicing them because he's drunk. But even when he sobers up, he will probably still be haunted by these fears, these agonies, these truths, this understanding.

How does he face his mother after this? How does he face anyone? He may not even feel like he can trust Jayce - who while very kind to him, is still employed by his family. He may not even feel like he can trust Hansuke (though I really hope that's not the case).

He's so miserable and it genuinely hurts to have him lay it all out for us - everything we've known and suspected, like how it was so painfully clear he WANTED Nol's friendship, their brotherhood, but feared it, didn't believe that there was enough love to go around, that there could only be one of them and that even if it was for good or bad reasons, Nol cast him in the shadow. And all these years, watching as Nol, as Yeonggi, grew into this person who sounded so very much like this unknown version of their father, someone funny who makes others laugh, someone goofy, someone so boyish in the ways Kousuke was never allowed to be. Watching as he gathers friends, while Kousuke, so unlikeable, is wanted only for his money, for his status, for the clout.

He doesn't even know WHO HE IS! Questioning his own traits he's believed of himself, wondering if this is even him, if these parts of him are real or does he just act it, say it, pretend it, while trying to fulfill a role he was shoved into. That makes me feel SO deeply sad, because it's something I've been anticipating for so long: Kousuke wondering WHO he really is, how much of him is real and how much of it is the result of manipulation.

And that moment that he catches himself and says no no that's offensive and rude you can't be like that. ;AAA;

For him to admit how much he envies others, how much he craves the kind of connection others have, the kind of family others have, to feel that love and warmth that he's been deprived of, forced to endure this solitude because, as he believes, he didn't get the good parts of Rand. And what will happen when he learns that Rand isn't his father? That he never stood a chance to inherit any of those traits. Kousuke has operated on this belief that, if he tries hard enough, he can earn the things he craves, but I fear learning about his parenthood will make him think that no matter how hard he tried, he would never earn that, because none of it was ever him, could have gone to him.

I think this is where Shinae, in the future, will come in. I feel so very strongly that she will be someone who helps Kousuke to see that this isn't true, that these kinds of personality traits aren't something inherited, but rather something learned. For him to one day realize it's the paralyzing fear that holds him back, not his genetics. Of course, I acknowledge this will still take a lot of therapy but...

Something else very remarkable to me is the way Kousuke recognizes Shinae in Shinhye, because their eyes "feel the same" and he opens up to her - on some level, whether or not he is consciously aware of it, Kousuke knows, or maybe just wants to, that he can trust Shinae. That she is someone who is safe. He even knows how she feels about his mother. I don't think we'll see a lot of Kousuke and Shinae's friendship until we're passed our timeskips, but it makes me feel a little hopeful about it, that she'll be able to reach him, because she feels like someone who is safe. It's the way he sees Nol in her and wants to try to have that do over, a relationship with someone who has unconditional love for him. It's the way he knows he mistreated Nol, that it was wrong, that he took it all out on this kid he was so afraid of because he had no other outlet, and he wants to do better but knows that there's nothing to salvage anymore.

But also, it just makes me hope more and more that in the future we WILL see a reconciliation between the brothers. As I say every time, it doesn't mean they have to become brothers or friends, but I just want them to see each other fully. Kousuke knows what he did to Nol. He doesn't deny it, even if he might not say it out loud unless he's drunk. But Nol is still so in the dark. Yujing is trying to tip him off and make him aware of it, but I hope one day when Nol realizes it, when he finds out that Kousuke, too, was Yui's victim, that he wasn't the only one, that Kousuke was made to fear Nol's love, he might.... understand. I'm saying understand here loosely because I don't want people to get the idea that I mean Nol will forgive him and Kousuke will be justified, but rather that Nol would be able to understand why Kousuke felt that way, and move on. But I can't help but hope that it will lead to an understanding, a reconciliation, where maybe they can try to be in each other's lives.

I think it's also interesting that Shinhye was somewhat honest, even if she wasn't very forthcoming, with Kousuke about her own family. It sounds like her mother has been gone for a long time, that she's been on her own the whole while, and I think it reinforces the idea that she believes both that Simhan is her father and that he rejected her, that he didn't want anything to do with her. It lines up, too, with how she feels that he wouldn't react well if he saw her (although I think she credited that to looking like their mother). In the same way that Shinae has felt abandoned and cast aside by their mother, Shinhye probably thinks their father never tried reach out, to find them, to maintain a relationship with her. Or perhaps it's that her mother fed her lies about him, made her believe him a different type of man, made her believe there would never be anything of their relationship to salvage. And given that she's the one who Kousuke opened to, it makes me think that there must be some kind of parallel there; the way she mentioned her own mother feels like maybe her mother, too, was a manipulative - or at the very least, dishonest - person.

I don't speculate a lot on Shinhye because frankly I don't think I know enough about her to really try to talk about her, but I do think that it's very likely there's some kind of connection between Shinhye and the Hirahras or Gun. To be clear, I don't believe she's working with Yui at all. I think it's more like... Alyssa isn't the only girl who has been trafficked by Gun. What's the likelihood that Shinae and Shinhye's mother was? Given her history, the gambling addiction that was so egregious her reputation haunted Shinae and chased her to a new neighborhood and school, was she seeking money somewhere else, somewhere more dangerous? Is that part of why they had to change their name? There's so many questions left about them, and I look forward to learning more about her, but, much like with Alyssa, I think it will take time and be dropped in little tidbits like this - things to read into and try to glean something from.

And maybe we'll see more of this duo in the future? It would feel a little weird to give them this one single run in, but I'm not entirely sure. Quimchee likes to keep us on our toes. After all, Minhyuk and Shinhye have also had only the one run in. Still, I think it would be interesting to watch, if Shinhye ever felt.... I want to say maybe compelled? to dig in more to Kousuke, ever feel a kind of kinship. I don't think she'll open up to him at all, but rather, maybe she'd keep going back because a. he's wealthy and there's more she can nick from him (assuming he doesn't realize she stole anything while in his apartment, if he even remembers any of this) and b. wanting to gather more intel.

Like I said though, she's hard to read so I don't want to cling too hard to any ideas and, instead, sit back and enjoy the show.

#ILY Brainrot #ILY FP #ILY Spoilers #I Love Yoo #Kousuke Hirahara #Shinhye #idk what to tag her as because we know she isn't known as Shinhye anymore #and because Simhan and their mother never married AND she was from a previous relationship Yoo isn't even her family name #so I can't really use Shinhye Yoo lol #alas #anyway this episode was DEVASTATING and quimchee said it's the beginning of the sad episodes meant to happen in March #literally said 'It's all downhill from here'#which I take to mean til the timeskip #BUCKLE UP BABIES WE'RE GOING FOR A BIG CRY SESH ;______;#i gotta say tho this episode didn't even make me cry - i guess because none of this is new and I've been bracing myself for it #Kousuke is so fucking wet cat it agonizes me ;_____;#I could write a whole essay on how Yui destroyed him and Nol in one fell swoop #i think a lot about precocious little Kousuke who tried so hard to be a good little boy and rushed through school because he wanted so badl #to hurry up and catch up to his father and join him in the workplace #all the opportunities he lost #the way he tried to fit himself into a personality a person he never picked out but just believed would get him what he wanted #he lost himself in the process #or maybe he never even got to know himself #i think too a lot about Kousuke who played piano and gave it up when he came to believe it wasn't important to his dad #that it didn't garner the attention and praise he seeked #so he dropped it to better mold himself into someone he thought Rand WOULD be proud of #FUCKING DEVASTATED #I'M GOING TO JUMP OFF THE ROOF SOBS

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