#I know there's a few repeats but thats inevitable when you have like four different sinners who are all christ allegories

[pelagic-crimson]

Apologies for the War and Peace and long delay, I do like my flowers and also rereading like five different books to see if there's any random plant symbolism I missed

1 - While not mentioned in The Wings, a reoccurring motif in Yi Sang's other short stories which also feature him as the main character like Deathly Child and Spider&Spider&Pig are tangerines, so perhaps satsuma/orange blossoms? Forsythias are also briefly mentioned in The Wings when Yi Sang escapes after discovering the adalin. He also goes on about aspirin, which is from willow trees which in Korean literature has symbolism relating to never leaving your lover ("a willow to your bedside" to be precise), which imo would be very fitting given its used to trap Yi Sang to his bed

2 - Full disclosure, I haven't read Faust, and I kinda feel her character is too shrouded in mystery to make any accurate judgements. If you follow the 'Faust is a homunculus' theory, then perhaps something impossible/possible only through human intervention like the blue rose/carnation or lemon blossoms. Or something alchemical, like mandrake or belladona, as Faust's an alchemist and our version has a witch thing going on.

3 - I don't think Don Quixote has a lot of flower motifs going on, but aside from generally sticking to like really obvious ones (I feel like the character who adores cheesy mediaeval romances deserves the like really cheesy flower symbolism), I feel you do something with Don and wormwood - it's often claimed to be a hallucinogenic and is often portrayed as this magical green fairy leading you into a world of delusion, except in reality wormwood doesn't do anything like that and has that reputation because it's associated with absinthe, a very deceptively alcoholic drink. You could use it as either Don being more aware of the world than people assume, or a parallel to how Don's behaviour is blamed on something benign (books) rather than the actual underlying problem (mental health and/or the state of the system). It also has connections to the apocalypse in the Bible and has yellow flowers, which I think also suits Miss Oblivion Yellow.

Or you could do something like wheat or grapes or some other crop to reflect Don's pastoral origin as they're the backdrop for a lot of Don Quixote, and how she's not really anything special. Also wheat's connected to horses and Don likes horses.

(also you gotta put Don in a suit and let her have her bishie Utena prince moment, if you don't straight up make her a knight in shining armour)

4 - I think Spider lilies are already associated with Ryoshu in-game, and you could continue that with the more western white lily as another funerary flower. You could then be literal and stretch the definition of lily to include the corpse lily, as Ryoshu's masterpiece is described as being so realistic it reeks of rotting flesh, or go more ironic and use "water lilies"/lotuses, to reflect Ryoshu and her author's utter distain for Buddhism, which the lotus represents the purity of.

5 - Christ allegory guy gets the Christ allegory flower - blood red roses. By the virtue of heavily drawing from the same event and figure they share a lot of symbolism - five petals for the five wounds inflicted on Christ/by gunshot, thorns representing the pain of sacrificing yourself to the benign indifference of your execution's audience, that sort of thing. The text itself mentions Asphodels - they're heavily connected to the dead and funerary rites and Elysium (and are rather notably described as he sets the scene for the chapter where he shoots the Arab) which is obviously a constant theme regarding his mother, but more importantly they're found by the beach and Meursault likes the beach so he likes asphodels. I also think you could use white funeral lilies - not mentioned in text, but they're traditionally given to the family of the deceased at funerals and they stink to high heaven, and I'm pretty sure the guy prone to overstimulation would want to get rid of them as quickly as possible, just like how Meursault just wants to be done with and move on from his mother's death and all these condolences are just kinda making him uncomfortable. Also lilies are connected to the Virgin Mary, linking back to the Christ allegory thing. If you're feeling more conceptual, I propose eucalyptus. Not a flower, but still seen in flower arrangements. It's a plant from a fellow colony of a hot and sandy place, and can just spontaneously explode if it gets too hot. Or be just mean and give him dead/white carnations.

6 - The doozy - if you want an example of what I mean, check out chapter 17 of DotRC (it's available on Google books for free I think). The garden Hong Lu/Baoyu spends a lot of time in and considers his safe haven is utterly covered in flowers meaning different things and could easily be an entire post in of itself. Most important is probably his little house "The Garden of Green Delights" which is covered in green plantains (the banana sort) and red double-blossom crab-apples (double blossoms are usually more seen in plum flowers if you need a reference). Moving away a little from Baoyu, his girlfriend Daiyu is associated with red flowers (I think it's a red lotus?) in contrast to his green jade, and also peach/apricot/cherry blossoms, as she has an entire thing about sweeping up and burying something as ephemeral as cherry blossoms like they're a person because she feels it's cruel to let such a beautiful thing rot, (foreshadowing her own fate), and it ties back into the red and green theming of his house and their relationship. Baochai (the girl he's forced to marry; on the fancy dress front, Baoyu actually wears woman's clothing if there's any guy who'd tragically wear a wedding dress it would absolutely be him) is more associated with gold and more subtle things, but she lives in the allspice courtyard and I think is also compared to an orchid.

7 - I had a quick flick through and realised I think most of the book's other flower symbolism applies to the second generation, like with Cathy 2 wanting to tear up Joseph's prized thorny and rambling blackberry bushes to fill the bed with primroses (meaning eternal love) with Hareton to make the manor more pleasant. There's some that I think can carry over, like the aforementioned primrose but most of it is happy which I don't think quite fits. Will say though - while they're normally blue, forget-me-nots can actually come in a wide variety of purples (and pinks!) too. Also trivia: The specific 'yellow flower' Linton gives Catherine is a crocus, as they're the first thing to bloom on the moors (in contrast, heather is usually the last thing left blooming).

8 - Ishmael rants about the bible and god a lot and is named after a biblical character so I feel biblical plants would work. I think hyssop has connections to purification, but of the bloody old testament sort, which also ties into Ahab's involvement. Idk I'm not the best at biblical references there's probably a plant that directly references Ishmael somewhere.

9 - I don't remember any flowers in Crime and Punishment, but given Rodion's entire thing about weathering the cold and how the book is basically Rodion's descent into Hell and then rebirth as a better person, I feel something with bulbs would work well. She's also an ordinary person who wants to be more special, so something that's a mundane wildflower like wild garlic (which also has the connection of being related to those big pom-pom alliums, which are much more special, mirroring her and Sonya)

You could also so like Daffodils/Narcissi which have the obvious self obsessed connection, dahlias are associated with murder and are rather ostentatious plants (and can come in black and red, like a poker chip), and lilies are connected to Napoleon who Rodion was a big fan of.

Or be meta and give her roses dyed red, representing her desire to be a martyr like Christ or at the very least, like Meursault. Roses also have connections to secrets and confessions, which is a reoccurring thing in C&P with Rodion and his crime and eventual change of faith.

10 - Dante just has the sterotypical Heaven and Hell related flowers going on in their text: asphodels and roses and ngl it's kinda a weak link for our Dante that I'd more chose something based on their ingame incarnation, given how distant they are from Dante the poet right now and how many other sinners could use those flowers. I think you could do something fun with plastic/artificial flowers, given their prosthesis and how they render all the sinners immortal.

Alternatively, do a three-for-one and use the golden bough. It's relevant to the game, is from a poem that Vergilus wrote, and is presented to Charon to gain admission to Hell.

11 - Sinclair is pretty heavily associated with apples: the book version of the basement key scene is him stealing some apples for Kromer from a shop and then Kromer making Sinclair eat them in a pretty obvious reference to Adam and Eve with the first sin, and the apple as a symbol of forbidden knowledge which Sinclair is indulging in by questioning Christianity pops up again with Pistorius and keeps with the gnostic themes.

The book's final scene has Sinclair repeatedly take note of the poplars around him while he's bleeding out, and the idea of blood permanently staining the earth is repeated several times, which in the context of WW1 usually refers to red poppies. He's also a Christ allegory of sorts, but less the crucifixion and more the dual nature thing, so something like daffodils might work (associated with Persperone and her walking the line between living and dead, but are also heavily associated with Easter, like with birds and eggs) or still roses, but this time with more emphasis on the flower/thorn contrast. Or go meta and give him something hallucinogenic, given Demian is one of the things that helped kick off the hippie movement of the 60s (another point for poppies?). Demian is assosiated with hyacinths the last time Sinclair sees him alive, which I think is intentionally referencing the Hyacinthus myth.

12 - Outis/Odysseus is pretty heavily associated with Athena, whose symbol is the olive tree. Outis also seems to be pretty affected by war and loss and Odysseus goes to Hades, so I think antiquity funerary rite plants like mint and rosemary would also be fitting, or asphodels, as Homer is where the literary association is from. Myrtle is also associated with funerary rites, but it's also associated with victory when paired with laurel, which could represent how pyrrhic Odysseus' journey is.

13 - Gregor's kinda more associated with mould in his story so like mushrooms could be fun (and would single him out as the only one without a plant), but given his reliance and nigh invulnerable nature in game, I'd assosiate him more with a weed. Something with a parasitic root structure that strangles other plants, like Japanese honeysuckle or broomrape. Or be a little nicer and give him a plant that's both a weed but also serves a purpose/appreciated in some ways, like mint or dandelions. If you want to be a bit more grand, a grafted apple tree, with Gregor as the rootstock and the grafted part as his arm. Or perhaps the other way around, if we consider how his mother sees him (and you could also get some great imagery of a rootstock taking over, like the arm taking him over). For bonus tree symbolism, honeysuckle attacks trees!

Sooooo fun little thing I wanna do for myself:

What are some flowers that you believe would fit the sinners? A friend gave me Indian Blanket and Iris for post Canto 5 ishy and Butterfly weed for Pre Canto Ishy, but I wanna know flower suggestions for other characters now! I just like flowers haha

(I’m making more hypothetical Limbus Company flower themed keychain designs btw that’s why I’m asking)

Other idea: Formal attire or wedding attire. Yeah. That’s the second part of this post cause I’m a sucker for pretty outfits and women in suits (totally an invite to send me outfit suggestions for the sinners I will not mind at all)

[christinesficrecs]

So hey, do u know some* long and angsty but sweet and fluffy at the same time* sterek fics, because i swear i feel like i've read everything thats on AO3 and is overall popular, but still want more of those two?

Well, there might be a few in here that are new to you.

List of LONG fics. This is a partial list so check the tag page for the others. 

You Don’t See Straight by annber | 174.9K | Explicit

Stiles finds himself in a secret werewolf community to participate in a mating run. Sterek happens. 

Find It In Our Hearts by Regann | 103.8K

Kate Argent had a lot of secrets, some of which she took to the grave. When one of them shows up on Chris Argent’s doorstep in the form of Kate’s five-year-old daughter, it’s not long before more to come to light – namely, that Kate’s crimes against Derek Hale didn’t begin and end with the murder of his family. It’s no surprise that as soon as Derek learns about his daughter’s existence, he decides that nothing will keep him from claiming the only family he still has in the world. Stiles finds himself firmly in the middle of the Hale-Argent family drama, slowly growing more certain of his feelings for Derek and ever more sure of the inevitable heartbreak they’ll bring.

one step at a time. by tearsandholdme | 115.2K | Mature

If anyone had told Stiles this would be his life four years ago he would have laughed. This doesn’t happen, not to him, but yet it has. It’s just another story in his and their life and this one will be the biggest yet. It will be the biggest challenge but the most rewarding at the end of the day and all it takes is a deep breath and a step forward.

The Boy and the Beast by Dira Sudis (dsudis) | 116.6K | Mature

In which events in Beacon Hills go rather differently from the start, and a Beauty and the Beast (ish) story ensues. (Scott is not a teacup and no one sings about their feelings.)

The Alpha Pair by ShiningOmicron | 117.8K | Mature

Stiles just couldn’t take it anymore. His once peaceful town had turned into a mess of discord and chaos. Someone needed to do something, someone had to bring order to the steadily growing turmoil in Beacon Hills. Stiles is sad to say it might just be him.

Trust Fall by Stoney | 144.2K | Explicit

Stiles is fairly certain that a case could be made for every bad thing in his life coming back to Peter Hale. This time it’s pissing off a powerful witch, who retaliated by swapping Stiles and Derek a la Freaky Friday, because sure. That makes sense. Um, there are GPAs on the line, not to mention the whole thing where his dad wants to shoot Derek on sight. Except who he sees as Derek is actually Stiles, and Stiles did not sign up for filicide.

Great. Wait…does this mean he’s the Alpha until they figure this out? Holy. Shit.

I’ll Be With You Through The Dark by the_misfortune_teller | 138.1K | Mature

Stiles is having a rough time at home and finds himself going to Derek for help in Scott’s absence. He doesn’t expect for Derek to end up turning to him for support, leading to something more than just friendship between them.

Don’t Savage The Messenger by exclamation | 172.3K | Explicit

There is an uneasy truce between the werewolves in the woods and the humans who live in Beacon Hills, protected by a magical boundary that gives warning any time a werewolf crosses it. Then the sheriff is taken by the werewolves and his son offers himself in exchange.

Stiles promises to serve the werewolf pack, not knowing what horrible use they might have for him. But it turns out his most useful skill is the ability to cross the boundary line between humans and werewolves. Life with the werewolves is nothing like he feared and the werewolves themselves are nothing like the hunters’ stories would have him believe.

Baking My Way Into Your Heart by theSilence | 178.6K | Mature

Derek is an uptight college student, all work and no play. His carefully scheduled life is thrown kilter when his regular barista is replaced with someone new.

Enemy Lines by qhuinn (tekla) | 149.1K | Explicit

This is the story of werewolf Derek Hale and human Stiles Stilinski: two people who grew up in the same town but completely different worlds, their realities split by the war between men and wolves.

between the click of the light and the start of the dream by thepsychicclam | 105.1K | Explicit

It’s Stiles’ senior year, and he’s trying to concentrate on normal things - like the lacrosse championship, spring break, prom, graduation (and definitely not Derek) - when he starts having nightmares and waking up in the middle of nowhere. Oh yeah, and he’s being haunted by a hag. Great.

Sell Your Body to the Night by Dira Sudis (dsudis) | 121.5K | Explicit

“No,” he repeated impatiently. “I’m not a cop. I’m someone who wants to exchange my money for your sexual services. I was told you were in that line of work.”

“I, uh, yeah, sorry,” Stiles said. He glanced around again and then up–the full moon was almost directly overhead. Just one of those nights, maybe. “Yeah, I am. I do that.”

Bruises and Bitemarks | 121.5K | Explicit

Biologically, Stiles is weak. When he presented as an omega, he knew that to be the truth but that never stopped him from running his mouth as a defense mechanism. However, it could only save him so many times before he ended up pissing off the wrong person. After he’s attacked in the parking lot outside of school, Stiles realizes he can no longer protect himself with just pure wit and sarcasm. When the attack lands him in the hospital, his dad forces him to pick between two options, report the alphas who attacked him or join a kickboxing gym run by omega rights activist and alpha, Derek Hale, a man Stiles has been in love with for many years.

Fire, Fury, and Flame by IAmAVeronica | 124.5K | Explicit

Stiles Stilinski was never going to be the omega who got knocked up right after high school, and then he’s accidentally artificially inseminated with a stranger’s sperm.Awesome.And the father of Stiles’s baby just so happens to be Derek Hale. Half-feral, quite possibly a murderer, and pursued by a gleefully sadistic band of hunters who are only too eager to use Stiles and his baby to hit Derek right where it hurts.Joy.

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 50.13 - Manchester vs Edinburgh

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of all-conquering sporting dynasties - those that seem fair, and those that don’t. In the second category we have the likes of Michael Schumacher at Ferrari in the early 2000s or Manchester City and Chelsea in modern football. 

While there is undoubtedly a massive amount of sporting talent on show in each of those cases, there is something about the inevitability of their successes that makes them feel a bit unearned, be that by virtue of the vastly superior car the German had in at least three of his five consecutive championships, or the stinking piles of dirty money that has allowed Pep Guardiola to squander more than £400m on defenders in his tenure as City boss. 

In the other category we have Michael Phelps, or Serena Williams and the Big Three in men’s tennis. They have exerted a vicious dominance over their sports, but without any seemingly unfair advantage over their peers, other than their sheer talent and determination (obviously they will have had various advantages that allowed them to reach the top in the first place, but I think professional sports is one of the few places where consistent greatness is truly reflective of who the greatest people are at a given thing).

This realisation, as to why I always resented Schumacher his relentless winning, while simultaneously being annoyed when someone other than Federer, Nadal or Djokovic (or Andy, of course, one of the only people to ever make me cry) won a Grand Slam (how dare they break the streak), only came to me today when thinking about the Manchester University Challenge team. 

There’s just something that feels more organic, and therefore more impressive, about Federer making 34 consecutive Grand Slam quarter-finals than there is about the Golden State Warriors winning back to back NBA titles having signed MVP-calibre Kevin Durant off the back of the best season in NBA history (not sure how niche that reference will be to the readership here, but I already deleted a bit about him earlier on, and I’ve put a link to the story in so you’ll have to deal with it).

The Manchester Uni Challenge team of 2005-2013 fall somewhere in the middle of the two categories (so I guess there is, as with all things, another category that encompasses everything between two extremes). Those of you who have been reading this for a while (and I have no idea how many people will have stuck around even since last year) will have heard this spiel about the semi-final streak before (because I relish talking about it every time Manchester are on), but I’m going to go through it again because its a great story.

So, first of all, Manchester do have some obvious advantages over other teams competing to win University Challenge. For one, its pretty massive, with more than 40,000 students. This means its more likely for them to be able to put together a team who will make it onto the live recordings - and indeed there are only two teams (Durham and tonight’s opponents Edinburgh) who have made more appearances on the show in the Paxman Era. 

However, between them Durham, Edinburgh, York and Warwick (the other two most appearing-est institutions) have fifteen semi-final appearances out of seventy five. Manchester alone have ten, with nine of them coming in a ten year period when they didn’t exit the tournament before that stage. This historic run saw them lift the trophy four times, tying with Magdalen College, Oxford for the all-time record.

The source of their sustained excellence can be attributed in part to the coaching of Stephen Pearson, a man known as the Sir Alex Ferguson of University Challenge (I really do recommend reading the linked article here). Under his tutelage, successive cohorts of students were able to create a dynasty this quiz had never seen before (and isn’t likely to see again). Thats one of the things which makes it seem fair, that the system he built allowed different sets of four students to repeat the same results.

Another is that it broke up the historic duopoly that University Challenge is famous for. Between 2008 and 2019, Manchester were the only non-Oxbridge side to win the competition, and it is the teams from Oxford and Cambridge who you can most easily level the ‘unfairness’ tag at, what with their combined ten entries a year (yes, yes, I know. If you combined the college teams you’d create a monster team and no one else would ever win (I think they would, but that’s beside the point) but that’s beside the point).

Manchester haven’t reached the semi-finals since the end of that run in 2013, but with back-to-back quarter-finals in the past two years they look to be on track for a return to the top (I’m going to look very silly after all this if they lose tonight, which you probably already know, reader). 

I’d like to talk about Edinburgh too, my beloved Alma Mater who finally upgraded my degree after two years of appealing recently, but I’m conscious I’ve already spewed out a full article on my Manchester intro. I will say, however, that if Edinburgh win, there will be four Scottish Unis in the second round for the first time since ever (there are already there guaranteed for the first time since 1995).

Anyway, you’ll all be exhasuted if you’ve made it through all that, so I won’t bother with the rules; here’s your first starter for ten.

Edinburgh are introduced first, with Jeffcoat, who’s actually wearing some kind of tweed blazer rather than a coat, but I’ll let him off. Their mascot is possibly the best I’ve ever seen on the show - a framed photo of the moment Robbie Campbell Hewson won Edinbugh the title in 2019 (bottom right of below picture). They have a scottie dog too, but its the picture thats the real star.

Manchester have a pig in a hat (or possibly a scarf, or possibly something else entirely), but the main interest on their table is Jones-O’Brien, who has perhaps the first name I’ve ever seen to contain both a hyphen and an apostophe. Good job all round, there. 

It is his captain, Spacey, who kicks things off in a luxuriant velvet jacket, with Jane Eyre. Manchester take a full set on the bonuses, and then another, racing off into a 50 point lead. Jones-O’Brien is whats known in the game as a leaner, and rotates his body 45 degrees towards Spacey each time Paxman reads out a question. It seems to be working though.

Jeffcoat, who has a pen stored in his blazer just incase he needs to do some working out, gets Edinburgh off the mark and shoots his teammates a wink for good measure. They zap a hat-trick out quickly too to halve the deficit. 

No one gets the first picture starter, which is an arrow on a map to ‘Worthing’, and I’m not surprised - who the heck has even heard of Worthing let alone knows where it is on a map (offence to Worthing), but Manchester pick up the bonuses, which are more towns that have won Pier of the Year, as according to the National Piers Society, something I am extremely happy to hear exists but never wish to be a part of (I’m sure they wouldn’t want to write University Challenge blogs either).

Paxman laughs as Edinburgh’s Clarke gives an answer which suggests that a puffin makes a noise that sounds like the word puffin, and to be fair thats a pretty funny mental image (mental sound image?). The perfect bonus streak is over, though Manchester will manage a fourth set before they miss any five pointers. The music starter goes to Edinburgh, but they remain ten points adrift despite having been better on the buzzer, thanks to Manchester’s bonus-work.

Now, I’d actually been taking notes for once this week, but around this stage I got so caught up in the action that I quite literally was unable to pick my pen back up, so I’ll just go from memory (I know I could just slide the timer back on iPlayer, but I’m on a bit of a roll here and I don’t want to slow myself down).

Manchester went on a bit of a run at this point, opening up a lead that would probably be unassailable. By the time of the second picture round the gap was in three figures, so Edinburgh would purely be fighting for one of the high-scoring loser spots (tough first round draw for both teams this). 

Jeffcoat jolted them out of their stupor with Degas (who I almost spelled as Degat. For some reason I can never spell painters names correctly. For years I though Titian was Tischen), but only a single bonus followed (though Clarke did pronounce Seurat impeccably, both as a wrong and right answer). Spacey hit back with O, but Manchester struggled for the second time tonight on science-y bonuses. They wouldn’t score another point, but they’d already won. 

The two captains then guess the 8th and 2nd of December as the date of Jesus’ conception - the heat of the competition was getting to everyone - but Clarke makes up for it with Oak next time around, and Fricker comes up clutch with Flag on the next starter as well. 

A full set of bonuses saw them reach 150, which would be enough to see them make the play-offs, but Winter negged on the next to drop them down to 145 (which would also have been enough, as it turned out, so I was getting too excited at the end). Clarke then got them another to put me at ease for the final few seconds.

Final Score: Edinburgh 155 - 200 Manchester

Another excellent, high-scoring game - probably the highlight of the series so far for me - and I’m very glad we’ll be seeing both sides again. 

Phew, that was a long one. If you’ve made it this far (first of all, congratulations) then you might like the retro reviews I’m doing of the 2015/16 series of The Challenge over on my Patreon. To sign up for exclusive content, for as little as £1/month, you can follow this link.

Thanks for reading, see you next time out.

[gaycrouton]

Prompt for ya if you're interested: Mulder and Scully have to awkwardly explain to their growing daughter what they were doing "making each other cry to God while wrestling one another naked" ;)

Bahahahaha, this is my first attempt EVER at writing about their child, so I hope this works.@MonikaFileFan

Mortification didn’t even begin to cover what Scully was feeling right now. One second Mulder was thrusting into her, sending her into her third orgasm of the night; then the next, he was tossing her off of him, desperately wrapping them in a sheet while yelling, “Close your eyes sweetie!”

Scully’s head whipped around, hoping she wasn’t about to see what her gut knew she would. No such luck. At the door was their daughter, bright blue eyes shining in the moonlight, trying to absorb and understand the scene going on in front of her. The scene of her riding the life out of Mulder, as loud as she was naked. Scully scrambled to help Mulder in covering them as she pleaded, “Close the door, honey. We’ll be out in a second, okay?” Her red ringlets bobbed around her head as she nodded, grabbing the knob of the door and shutting it lightly.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Mulder repeated, jumping out of bed with his erection dying against his leg. “How long do you think she was standing there?” he whined as he grabbed a pair of boxers, almost falling over with the force he slid them up his legs with.

Scully was no better, almost falling out of bed with the sheets wrapped around her legs. “I don’t know, I didn’t even notice her.”

“Well, I know why we weren’t able to hear the door open,” he teased. She was always vocal in bed, but she thought she’d toned it down significantly since the home expanded to three.

“Don’t you blame this on me, I wasn’t the one banging the headboard against the wall earlier!” she responded before trying to take control of her soaring adrenaline while wiping in between her legs with her forgotten shirt. “It’s both of our faults. We need to stick together.”

“What if we just say we were wrestling?” Mulder asked in a desperate hushed tone, slipping on the t-shirt she’d ripped off less than an hour ago.

“We can’t lie to her. Besides, what if she wants to wrestle with some kid later and suddenly strips off all her clothes and starts to hump them?” she rushed, getting tangled in the robe she was trying to shove herself into.

“Fuck,” he cried. “I have to go make sure she’s alright.”

She ran towards him and grabbed his arm before he had a chance to open the door, “Wait!” Mulder stopped and looked at her, that kicked puppy expression taking up residence on his face ever since this happened. “We have to be calm, cool, and collected. We can’t make her feel bad or let her see our embarrassment. I don’t want this to taint her view of sexuality and cause her to think sex is something to be ashamed of.”

“Scully, she’s four years old. Besides, will she even remember this?” he almost pleaded, as if she could predict the future and tell him if his daughter will always be haunted by the sight of his hairy ass-crack.

“Mulder, I don’t know! I hope not, but there’s more of a chance she’ll remember if we allow this to be the first time she sees us distressed. I don’t want her to associate naked bodies with her parents being upset, leading her to be ashamed of her own body because she thinks there’s something wrong with-” she was spiraling in her rambling, trying to remember every sexuality class she took in med school but only succeeding in stressing herself out more.

“Oh god, will this impact the rest of her life?” Mulder interrupted with a cry, his face set in panic.

A soft knock at the door interrupted her response. “Mommy, Daddy, you okay?” Katie’s asked, her little voice laced with concern.

Mulder whipped open the door to reveal their daughter standing innocently at the door, her chubby fingers playing with the bow on the top of her nightdress. “Hi sweetie, yeah we’re okay, everything’s okay,” if Scully wasn’t in the same boat as him, she would have been amused by how high and rushed Mulder’s voice was. “Baby, what woke you up?”

“Can we talk at the table?” she requested politely. They both nodded in mortification and followed the wide-awake toddler down the hall with heavy steps.

They had a longstanding tradition in their home of discussing things at their dining room table. If Katie had a question about something she learned at preschool that she didn’t understand, if she was curious about why the leaves on the tree weren’t orange in April, when she wanted to know how Santa managed to find time to star in so many movies when he should be making toys; it didn’t matter, they talked about it at the table. Even more recently, it was where they had to chastise her for different misbehaviors. However, as they sat across from the little girl with the floral nightie, hands authoritatively clasped in front of her, Scully couldn’t help but feel like they were the ones about to get reprimanded. The girl who wasn’t even four feet tall yet somehow had mastered the gravitas of A.D Skinner. Was that what he taught her when he babysat?

For a second she thought maybe she hadn’t really seen. Maybe she all the sudden decided she wanted to talk about something that happened at school at two in the morning. “Sweetie, w-”

“What were you guys doin’?” she asked, bright eyes bouncing between the two blushing adults. Of course they wouldn’t be that lucky.

Scully always knew this conversation was coming, it was inevitable. She’d even made the promise to herself that she wouldn’t make it nearly as awkward for her own daughter as her mother had made it for her. “When a man and a woman love each other very much-” She still shuddered at the memory. The diagrams and the cautionary tales left her traumatized for weeks after. She couldn’t even look at a boy without thinking of the words tumescence or fornication or syphilis.

However, in all of her imaginings of this event, Katie was starting to hit puberty, a time where these questions started to be asked as her body started to change and people who used to annoy her suddenly became interesting. Never did she think the conversation would happen when she had barely only started preschool. Especially not like this.

“Um-” Scully began, sending a resentful glare to Mulder who was looking at her with that same bright-eyed curiosity as Katie. As if he didn’t know damn well what they were doing in that bedroom. “Parents have certain activities they like to do with each other in their private time.”

“Activ-tivities?” She perked up, attaching to the familiar concept she knew, even though it had more syllables than her vocabulary was used to. “Like playing soccer?”

“Yes, like that. Except it’s an activity I only do with Daddy in our bedroom.” It was times like this where she swore she was telepathically connected to Mulder. She wasn’t even looking at him, but she could hear him internally adding “and our office, and every room in this house, and in all those rental cars, and-”

“Your activity is sitting on daddy?” Scully’d smile if she wasn’t dying inside.

“Um-,” Mulder started, trying to ease some of the burden off of Scully. “It’s an activity that only mommies and daddies do called ‘making love’.” Scully reached out and squeezed Mulder’s hand, as if to congratulate him on good phrasing.

The praise may have come to soon, because fat tears started rolling down her cheeks as her bottom lip pouted out. Scully jumped up and ran around to kneel next to her chair, wrapping the tiny girl in her arms. “Katie-bear, what’s wrong?”

“You g-g-uys n-never ma-make love to m-me,” she cried between gasps for breath, devastated she was being excluded from this activity. Mulder stood up, probably beating himself up now, and mirrored Scully’s position on her other side. She turned to him and, with eyes Scully knew were piercing Mulder’s heart, eyes she’s used on him herself, and whimpered, “I l-love you b-b-both.”

“We love you too, Kaite,” he started.

“More than anything in the world,” Scully added, stroking her silky hair.

“When I said ‘making love’, thats a different type of love.”

“D-difwent?” she repeated, traces of her baby talk still evident, always managing on tugging their heart strings.

“Yeah, that’s the type of love that can make babies,” he elaborated. Scully stopped suddenly to shoot him a look over their daughter’s lap, to which he shrugged with a look of panic on his face.

“There are just certain ways that mommies and daddies touch each other. You know how we’re married right?” Scully asked. When she nodded, she added, “Do you know what that means?”

“You’re husban’ and wife and you have matching wr-rings. Like best friend bwacelets,” she declared seriously.

“Exactly. So, because we’re married, we touch each other in special ways-”

“It’s like a secret handshake. You know how we have our secret handshake?” he asked, holding out his hand. Katie smiled and threw her small, chubby hand in his direction. They touched front and back a few times before making fist and touching them together top and bottom. Finishing off by pulling them back and feigning an explosion. Mulder exaggerated his explosion noise ridiculously, causing Katie to giggle and squeal.  When she settled down he continued, “You only ever do that handshake with me right?”

“Duh, Daddy, it’s ours,” she emphasized. As if doing it with someone else would be the world’s biggest insult.

Mulder smiled at his daughter’s sincerity and Scully felt her own smile growing. It always touched her heart to see how deeply his relationship with his daughter meant to Mulder. “Exactly. Just like I will only ever do that handshake with you, I will only ever make love to mommy.”

Understanding dawned in the depths of blue and she started nodding, haphazardly raising her fist to clear away her tear tracks. Mulder and Scully simultaneously grabbed for the chairs nearest to them. Now that the crisis was evaded, their joints desperately screamed at them to get out of their kneeling postures. “Do you always have to pray during it too?”

“What do you mean baby?” Scully asked, raising her hand to cup a rosy cheek in her hand, wiping away the remaining wetness with the pad of her thumb.

“You were screaming ‘oh god’.” And she was eternally now too.

This time Mulder couldn’t help himself and he had to bring a hand up to cover his mouth, which was no doubt plastered with a shit eating grin. “Yes. I do. I always think it’s important to say my prayers before I go to bed,” Scully managed to say straight-faced.

“Even when you’re making love?” she asked, playing with the silk fabric of Scully’s robe.

“Especially then,” Mulder deadpanned.

She nodded again, absorbing this information. “Do you have any other questions about what you saw, honey?” Scully asked before placing a kiss to the crown of her head, taking a moment to smell her hair.

“No, I got it now. Thank you,” she smiled.

Mulder mimicked the motion of wiping sweat off his brow, but she knew the gesture wasn’t all that far from the truth. “Okay, well it’s time to get you to bed, little girl. It’s way passed your bedtime,” he said in a sing-songy voice, scooping her up in his arms.

She squealed in delight and clung to Mulder’s shirt, resting her head against his shoulder like a doll. Scully stood up, relieved all of this was settled, and followed them into the room decorated like the sky. Scully grabbed the comforter of the rocketship bed Mulder had made and pulled them back, so he could ease the now sleepy toddler into her cocoon.

Mulder was about to lean down to press a kiss to her forehead when, in a small sleepy voice, she yawned, “Your lucky Mommy’s a doctor.”

They both laughed at the inherent truth in that statement from years of proof. “She didn’t sit on me that hard honey,” he laughed, earning a playful pinch from Scully.

“No, not for that,” Katie sighed, burrowing into bed.

“Then what for, baby?” Scully asked.

“Somethin’s wrong with your pwivate parts Daddy, they don’ look like Mommy’s and mine,” she said seriously, looking in his face, mimicking the same look Scully had given him countless times over the years. “But don’ worry Daddy,” she comforted, freeing one hand to rub it clumsily over the skin of his cheek.  “Mommy’ll cut it off and you’ll be good as new.” Neither of them could help the laughter that escaped that time.

That was a discussion for a later day.