#okay but this is half the episodes hes in

[winchestersisterimaginessss]

Request: you know the episode 4.19 where Sam and Dean get a call from their supposed half brother and their rightfully suspicious and it ends up being a hunt for them? What about instead of Sam getting tied down and bled it’s their baby sister? She’s small and young and definitely shouldn’t be losing this much blood, she can’t even lift herself up after Sam and Dean manage to free her. Pls and thank you!

Request: I have a request on s4 e19 when Sam gets tortured by the ghouls. Can you reverse the roles with Winchester sister? No rush do whenever you want. Just remember to take breaks and drink water! Bye! :)

Sam and Dean Winchester x Sister!Reader

Warnings: Extreme Blood Loss

A/N: Please let me know if you like this because it helps motivate me to write more lol! Requests are open and if I haven’t gotten to yours yet feel free to request again because I have over 200 requests and I’m working on a bunch. You can request anything and everything I don’t care and I will never get annoyed!!

“Okay we’ve closed off every other way into the house.” You said to Adam, looking at the last tunnel in the house that wasn’t closed off. “If this thing is coming, it’s coming through here.” You finished at the same time as a door creaked through the house. Your attention immediately snapped towards the noise.

“You were saying?” Adam asked and you looked back towards him.

“Adam!” You heard from the other room and your heart sank.

“Adam!” It cried again, but before you could make your next move Adam was already calling back out.

“Mom?” Adam yelled, ready to run.

“No!” You tried to stop him, but he didn’t listen.

“Mom!” He yelled out and pushed past you.

“Adam!” You shouted after him, getting your gun ready. You ran down the steps after him trying to get him to stop.

“Mom?” You heard him sigh in relief.

“Adam no wait!” You cried out and rounded the corner to see Adam and the monster.

“It took me, but I got away.” It cried as Adam embraced her.

“Adam, step away from it.” You screamed with your gun pointed.

“Y/N, what the hell?” He shouted at you, confused.

“It’s not your mother!” You tried to reason with him.

“Adam, who—what is going on?” The monster cried.

“Get away from him!” You yelled at it starting to feel hopeless.

“What is going on?” It cried.

“You listen to me. It’s really her, okay?” Adam said, pushing it behind him.

“There was too much blood, your mother’s dead. There was too much blood in the vents!” You yelled trying to quickly explain before he snatched the gun out of your hand.

“Adam!” It cried.

“Shoot it!” You screamed, now terrified of the predicament you were both in.

“He’s crazy, it’s me!” It yelled in protest of the gun being pointed at it and immediately Adam pointed the gun back at you.

“Look—Adam!” You cried.

“It’s me!” It said.

“That’s not your mother!” You screamed trying to save the both of you and make him understand that his mother was not his mother and in fact the monster they were hunting. He flipped the gun back on the monster.

“Shoot it! It’s not human!” You yelled, trying to get through to him.

“I know.” He smirked, turning to face you. You had no time to be confused with what the hell was happening before he hit you with the butt of the gun and everything went black.

——-

You woke up to humming and noticed you were tied down to a table. You started struggling to get yourself out, but to no avail.

“Silver. No need none of the tests worked. You’re not shapeshifters. You’re ghouls.” You sneered, staring at Adam’s fake mom.

“You know, I find that term racist.” She replied with a knife in her hand.

“Huh.” You said with attitude, rolling your eyes. You tried to free yourself once more when she came to you sniffing you and biting your ear.

“Ew! Get away you weirdo freak!” You yelled. You had quite a bad problem with bad mouthing monsters and it always ended up biting you in the butt.

“Fresh meat. So much better than what we’re used to.” She grinned.

“Oh I should’ve known. It was the fresh kills that threw me. Ghouls don’t usually go after the living because you’re all just disgusting, filthy, nasty, trash pickers, taking form of the last corpse you choke down like a scavenger.” You sneered, again with the name calling. She was lucky you had to get to the point because you were just going to go on and on with all the negative words in the dictionary.

“And their thoughts, and their memories. Like Adam for instance.” Fake Adam said, walking into the room.

“Yeah well we are what we eat.” She chuckled.

“You’re pathetic monsters.” You said with disgust. Fake Adam sliced your one arm open and you let out a groan. His fake mom immediately went to licking the blood.

“That was for calling us pathetic.” Adam said.

“Yeah I’d call you a lot more than that. Do you have time?” You asked sarcastically, still struggling to get away.

“You know you use that word a lot, Y/N. Monsters.” Fake Adam said and brought the knife down on the table missing you by just an inch.

“But I don’t think you know what it means.” He finished as his fake mom continued to lick the blood pouring out of your arm.

“Her blood—it tastes different.” She said in confusion.

“Our father was a monster? Why? Because of what he ate? He never hurt anyone, Y/N. Living anyway.” Fake Adam smirked and grabbed the knife.

“No he was no monster. But the thing that killed him was. A monster named John Winchester.” Adam’s fake mom said trickling the knife up and down your body. Fake Adam stuck his fingers into the wound on your side and you cried out in pain.

“Thanks to your daddy, my brother and I, grew up on our own.” She explained as he twisted his finger deeper into your side and you let out a scream.

“At least we had each other.” She finished. He took his finger out of your wound and licked the blood off of it.

“Like you and your brothers— inseparable.” He said.

“Actually it was very hard to get you on your own. Your brothers are almost always keeping you out of harms way. Awww how protective.” She said sarcastically.

“So we figured instead of killing all of you, why not just kill you? They would suffer way more knowing that their wittle baby sister is dead.” He said in a fake sad voice.

“Go to hell.” You managed to get out.

“Like you said, Y/N, the only thing you can count on is family.” He said as she sucked more blood out of your arm.

“And for 20 years, we lived like rats. Graveyard after graveyard, all that stinking flesh. And then we thought hey why not move up to the fresher game?” She said.

“And we knew just where to start.” He smirked and started carving on your other arm. You cried out in pain and felt the world fading around you.

“Revenge— it’s never over, is it, Y/N?” He asked, still carving around your arm.

“First, it was John’s cop friend, and then his slut and then his son.” She said twirling her knife around.

“Then I called John, but the son of a bitch was already dead.” Adam sighed, disappointed.

“So I guess you will have to do instead.” She said, petting the side of your face.

“And they won’t interrupt us this time. We’re gonna feed on you nice and slow— like we did with Adam.” He said.

“Oh and by the way, he really was your brother. You should know that.” She grinned. You struggled against the ropes that tied you down, trying anything to escape.

“He was still alive when we took our first bites.” He smiled.

“And he was a screamer!” She said before she sliced your entire forearm. Fake Adam followed after her and sliced your arm again. You screamed in pain and thrashed. You could feel the blood pooling out of your body and you could hear it dripping into the bowls. The way it flowed like a waterfall made you feel absolutely sick. You knew you were going to bleed out and that you didn’t have much time left.

“Y/N, the more you struggle, the faster you’re going to bleed out. So you might as well lie back and relax.” Adam said as you whined and whimpered, trying to stay awake.

“Hey!” You heard Dean scream and a shot ring out.

“Dean, they’re ghouls-“ You tried screaming, but you were so weak it came out as a whisper. You knew Dean heard you though because another shot rung out.

“Which means headshot.” He said as Sam came stumbling into the room.

“Y/N!” He yelled before he was taken down by fake Adam and thrown through the glass doors. Dean immediately followed suit as you groaned and cried out. Your breaths were becoming rapid and shorter. You didn’t have enough energy to pick up your head to see the fight going down. It felt like forever before you saw blurry figure walk back into the room. Not knowing who it was, you tried to get your body to move. You felt like you had a fifty pound weight holding your body down.

“No!” You whimpered weakly, knowing you had no fight left in you.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, it’s Sam, sweetheart. I got you, you’re safe.” You heard Sam and felt him cup your cheeks to get your attention.

“S‘mmy.” You slurred.

“Yeah, hey bug, it’s me, I got you.” Sam said softly trying to comfort you, knowing that it was bad.

“Dean, she’s freezing cold.” Sam cried out trying to stay calm.

“Shit.” Dean said panicking. You felt the rope being cut off of your one wrist and you groaned out in pain.

“I know kid, I know. Hang in there for me okay?” Dean said, knowing that it was painful, but it had to be done. He started cutting the other one on your wrist while Sam started on your ankles. You felt your heart racing, your body sweating and your skin clammy. You could barely hang on to consciousness and your body felt weighed down by a million weights.

“Mmm scared.” You slurred looking into the blurriness of your brothers.

“You’re going to be okay sweetheart alright? You’re going to be fine. Just keep talking to us okay?” Sam asked, now full on panicking, but trying to keep you calm. You knew that something wasn’t right. This was too much blood and you weren’t sure if you were going to be okay. You let a few tears slide down your cheeks as you struggled to catch your breath.

“No, no, no. You’re going to be okay, alright? I won’t let anything happen to you.” Dean said noticing your tears. He quickly placed rags on your forearms and held them tight to stop the bleeding. You cried out in pain and tried to pull away when you felt him putting pressure on them.

“I know kid, I know. I’m sorry.” Dean said clenching his jaw. Sam made his next move by helping you sit up, but your body felt like jelly. You couldn’t lift yourself up as your head lobbed to the side of you. This feeling absolutely terrified you and left your body trembling in fear. The impending doom was taking over and it was paralyzing you. As your brothers scrambled around you trying to support your body, they urgently discussed their next steps in helping you when you interrupted.

“Mm I going to die?” You whispered weakly, blinking away the dots that clouded your vision. Scared that if you closed them, you wouldn’t open them again.

“HEY, HEY!” Dean yelled and tapped your face. Your eyes snapped wide open and your body trembled uncontrollably as you whimpered in fear.

“You’re not going to die. Do you hear me? Just keep those eyes open for me, alright?” Dean asked with fear in his own eyes, but when he looked into yours he was met with confusion.

“Wh-what?” You started. In an instant, you were confused. Where were you? What happened?

“De?” You called out for your eldest brother, the one who took care of you your entire life. The one who was always there for you when you called.

“Yeah I’m here baby, I’m here.” He said. Baby? He only called you that when something serious was happening. You finally took in your surroundings and saw yourself covered in blood as your brothers worked around you.

“What happened!” You cried out, completely confused and dazed.

“Relax sweetheart, you’re going to be okay, alright? You’re going to be okay.” You heard Sam say as he lifted your body off of the table. You grunted in pain, but your body only grew heavier.

“There’s too much blood!” Dean cried.

“I know, I know!” Sam yelled in frustration.

It felt like time was skipping because the next thing you knew, you were in the impala. You glanced to your right and noticed your dad.

“Dad?” You asked, fuzzily. Dean immediately looked towards Sam who glanced down towards you.

“She’s hallucinating Dean, she’s lost too much blood.” Sam said stealing a concerned glance towards his brother. Dean gripped the steering wheel tight and cursed silently, speeding faster.

“Dad, I missed you.” You cried, which caused Dean to completely break.

“Hey baby, no, dad’s not here, alright? Dad’s not here.” He said weakly, completely terrified of his sister’s state.

“Mmm t’red.” You said weakly, the heaviness and the blood loss making their last round on you.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, sweetheart, you’ve gotta stay awake.” Sam said urgently, but you didn’t listen and closed your eyes in exhaustion.

“Keep your eyes open please!” Sam cried out and tapped your face. It had no effect on you as you slipped into unconsciousness.

———

You jumped awake to a beeping noise in a complete panic. You were in a daze and physically couldn’t lift yourself up which made you panic more.

“Hey, you’re okay, you’re okay.” You heard Dean say, but the beeping noise only got faster. You were in total confusion and couldn’t make out where you were.

“Relax for me kid, you’re alright.” You heard Dean again and this time felt a hand placed on you. You groggily looked around and saw that you were in a hospital room. You immediately went into an intense shiver unsure if it was from how cold you were or if it was from the nerves that just overcame you. Dean cupped the side of your face, no doubt feeling your body tremor.

“You’re okay.” He said softly, giving you a reassuring nod.

“So cold.” You made out and he sent you a sad look.

“Alright, let me go find a nurse and get you some more blankets.” He replied hesitantly unsure if he wanted to leave you alone when Sam walked into the room with coffee. Sam’s immediate sigh of relief when he saw you awake and his glance towards Dean made you realize how serious whatever happened to you was. Dean left the room and Sam walked towards you.

“Hey sweetheart.” He said softly, sitting in front of you.

“Sammy.” You smiled weakly and tried to reach out to him. He immediately got the hint and took your hands into his.

“I’m here.” He said gently and rubbed his fingers on your hand.

“I’m so weak.” You mumbled, trying to understand why your body felt so heavy.

“What happened?” You whispered, not remembering anything that took place. Sam’s face fell and his eyes filled with sorrow.

“The ghouls had you bleeding out and when we got to you it was almost too late. You were so pale and you were ice cold. You were so cold bug, it terrified me.” Sam said, looking away and trying to collect himself.

“There was blood everywhere, we weren’t even sure how you were alive at that point. Then you started hallucinating and went unconscious. We thought we lost you, God we were so scared.” He said, shedding a tear and quickly wiping it before it could drop.

“We rushed you to the hospital, not knowing if you were even alive and waited around for hours not hearing anything. Then the doctor came out and told us you were stabilized, but lost 35% of your blood. He said you should’ve died and that it was nothing less of a miracle.” He said as his voice cracked.

“You were in a coma for two weeks.” He explained quietly, knowing this was going to freak you out.

“I’ve been out for two weeks?!” You asked, hysterically.

“They said it could’ve been up to a couple months, we just weren’t sure when you’d wake up.” He said as you just stared blankly at him.

“We were so terrified to lose you. Dean even prayed a few times.” He finished. You both knew that Dean never prayed and he never believed that there was a God out there so the fact that it got to the point where Dean was praying, made you extremely emotional. The tears started streaming down your face.

“I’m so sorry Sammy, I should’ve known it was a trap.” You cried, feeling terrible and guilty that your brothers had to be put through something so traumatic because of your own mistake.

“Sweetheart, no, it’s not your fault. Me and Dean should’ve never left you alone with Adam. We weren’t thinking and it almost cost you your life.” Sam said, staring into your eyes and wiping your tears. Before you could say something back, the door opened. Dean, a few nurses and a doctor walked in. They checked your vitals and explained that you were going to be very weak for about a month. You had iron deficiency anemia due to the blood loss and it would take a long time for you to start feeling normal again. They left the room and Dean put the extra blankets that they brought in on top of you. The weight and coziness of the blankets made you immediately feel tired. Your brothers took notice and Dean kissed the side of your head.

“Get some rest kid, we’ll be here.” Dean reassured.

“Thank you for saving me.” You smiled softly looking between your brothers.

“Always.” Dean said as Sam grabbed your hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

[connecting-the-stars]

Ekko will help Jinx

My theory for Act 2 (spoilers for Act 1)

Trigger warnings:

Discussion of suicidal thoughts/ideation

Okay, bear with me. I’ve seen no act 2 or 3 leaks or screen shots. But I’m fully bought on the idea that Ekko is going to help Jinx in her healing journey. (Might be my bias talking).

spoilers below:

Merch:

The merch released shows Jinx’s new design and it is such a light/less defeated look on her. Like her face doesn’t carry this misery and exhaustion upon her, from all her grief. The morbidly relieved/expectant expression on her face when she was ready for Vi to kill her, that is gone. Most noticeable is the fact that both of her iconic braids are gone, hair cropped short that is so reminiscent of Vi’s in season one. Her clothes are brighter, Fishbones gets a modification and fixed, like the air around her is just less heavy. (Albeit this is from one picture and it could be wildly out of context.) Her design change is just miles away from her current form. I’m half convinced this is her final look in Act 3 and she gets the chance to heal.

There’s a time-skip basically confirmed for this season, whether it occurs in act 2 or 3, things will change for Jinx.

Time-skip:

The time-skip is most likely around a year or at least several months. If act 2 has the Brainy Boys on vacation in another realm for a few episodes, Jinx will be facing the start of Zaun’s revolution and the undercity turning to her, Vi will most likely be shunned by the undercity and lean more on her alcoholic tendencies (her fighting pit era), Ambessa will be manipulating Cait, the firelights without a leader. But if they open an episode with the Boys returning and them being confronted by this time skip and whatever had occurred in the hex gate — like fish out of water they will have to learn about everything thats changed, for better or worse. Jayce with Mel missing and Cait’s corruption, Hemidinger with the fact that the hex gate is unsafe, and Ekko and the impact of Jinx’s revolution upon the undercity and the firelights.

Seems like the teaser for Act 2 is setting up the firelights to join Jinx’s efforts and movement, believing Ekko is dead as they place him on the mural. We see him fighting with Vi on the firelight hoverboards and his hair is longer, this could be an act 3 event. But I doubt that either of them would be supporting Piltover’s current stance, so they are most likely fighting with Jinx’s forces against Piltover and Ambessa’s army. (The team up is real guys.) Ekko will see her movement for Zuan and positive impacts on the undercity not being run on shimmer, and he will find Jinx

However, before this war fully breaks out, Act 2 confirms that Jinx is gonna face Warwick / Vander’s reanimated body… and you know who else is fighting him? Vi. I think something is going to happen with Singe sending Warwick out upon Jinx or upon her revolutionary group, and Jinx gets involved to stop him. Jinx with her shimmer enhancements are awesome and has accelerated speed, but Warwick is gonna outmatch her, especially if she realizes who he used to be. We’ve only seen Jinx’s scratchy distortion once or twice so far, mainly when Vi was revealed to her as an enforcer. But seeing Vander back from the dead and worse off than ever, her guilt and horror is going to be off the charts. I think she loses ground, and gets hurt - badly. The teaser shows someone (most likely Sevika ) carrying Isha to safety, the scene is soaked in this blood red fog, the same as the Warwick fight. Several accounts over on Twitter are pointing out that Isha is reaching out to someone off screen, that she seems to be scared for Jinx’s safety. There’s a shot of Vi standing alone against Warwick, and I think she is going to save Jinx.

Oh Okay… now on to

Time - Bomb:

The famous Bridge Scene. Wow. Am I right? So of course, this scene has been analyzed up and down and inside out, but to reiterate; Jinx’s nickname of “The Boy Savior” just hits different now. (It’s important enough that it’s the Name of an episode). In the Blu-ray behind the scenes/making of Arcane the writers discuss: the cut scene of younger Ekko searching for a way to rescue powder because he believes she is a prisoner. When he finds Powder recently turned Jinx and tries to save her from Silco to then have her violently refuse (the detail of her slapping him the same way Vi did to her at the end of Act 1: S1.). She does not want to be rescued and does not accept help. In addition to the venom of her voice, the condescension, like she does not see him as the capable resistance leader. They are similar ages, the only kids of the first act of the Undercity to remain in the lanes, Jinx the prodigy of Silco, and Ekko completely alone in the Lanes. Silco keeps reminding Jinx, especially when Vi returns, that no one from her old life will care for her. He compares his and Vander’s fallout to Powder’s and Vi’s, pushing this narrative that it’s them against the world. Telling her to bury Powder, and that Vi has not returned for her but for the hextech crystal.

Character Mirrors/Foils:

Metal / Nature

Silco’s / Vander’s Image

Raven / Firelight

Past / Future

Isolation / Community

Jinx stuck in the past with her ghosts and her mistakes and Ekko forced to grow up faster and choosing to become a caretaker of those who can’t defend themselves. (Becomes a protector like Vander had once been, that Vi had been.) He puts all his efforts into making a safe haven for those impacted by Silco’s gangs and shimmer products, and he wants to build a community that supports a better tomorrow.

“It’s not enough to give people what they need to survive; you have to give them what they need to live.”

Ekko is still quite young and yet he chose a role of helping those around him and created a positive community, while Jinx became more and more of Slico’s tool, of learning his beliefs and violence. (S1E6: Silco’s outburst after Vi and Cait escape in season 1, wonder how many times he did the same thing in front of her. Also him referring to Jinx as the prize of Vander’s kids, like he is fully aware of Jinx’s genius mind and engineering skills.) Jinx often being depicted alone in her hanger, talking to her ghosts. Jinx feeding into her own insecurities and feeling that she has to prove herself to Silco and be useful in a way she had not been seen as powder in their family group. Her disregard for the damage Slico brings to the lanes with shimmer and her blowing up the building during progress day in Piltover not concerned with who gets hurt. Ekko and his firelights becoming antagonists to shimmer verses Jinx and Slico’s forces as they protect the products.

Further the visual imagery and visual parallels between them are so interesting.

[pictures above from twitter account: @Chi11in_Like_a]

So I believe that Ekko and Jinx have this strong connection to one another, even more so with learning about the cut scene from season 1, and Ekko is going to pull on that more so than ever. The writers confirm: They “saw” each other during that still moment on the bridge, the children they used to be. They were not enemies, they were not on opposing sides, they did not want to kill the other. Their expressions in this scene when time slows, it kills me. Of course, the scene plays out, Jinx uses a sneak attack and everything blows up in their faces. Ekko gets this look of shock on his face as he looks between the bomb and Jinx, and my heart breaks. Jinx nearly dies from this (this is one of many times that she is entirely careless with her own life), Ekko is hurt for the remainder of the season. But the moment of recognition, of their childhood games, of them laughing, of the sullen ash atmosphere of the bridge being met with both of them falling into old patterns. The mood shifted entirely, elevated by the music. The music in this show never stops amazing me.

I do not remember if I looked deeper into Jinx’s reckless tendencies in season 1, but this year on my several rewatches, I have definitely noticed. She is not afraid of dying, she’s not afraid of getting hurt. As powder, she was so scared of fighting and of getting injures, throwing the haul from the over city into the river to get away from an attacker. Jinx does not care if she dies. I think she assumes that she is too far gone, that no one can help her. I think she believes no one is willing to try. After watching Vi race back to Cait on the bridge when Marcus betrays them and shoots Ekko, Jinx sees her only remaining blood leaving her again. (S1:E7) Season 2 episode 3 fight between Vi and Jinx, crushes me. Her encouraging Vi to go through with killing her, her guilt over what happened to their family.

Back to season 2, Jinx gets away from Warwick, from Vi, and hides out alone and emotionally distraught. (Ella Purnell’s performance blows me away, the guttural screams and cries make me want to sob.) Jinx is at a breaking point, I think she has made it back to her lair, and the ghosts are back in full force. The neon paint and the dolls of her family, the dark empty hanger around her. Jinx will hear Silco again. “Have you had enough?” Her belief that she can only break things and makes everything worse being heightened by Warwick/Vander returning, after starting to build connection and bond with Isha and Sevika. Having Isha’s protection and admiration uplifting Jinx in a way she never expected, and then to have this relapse and massive reminder of her past mistake. Her being responsible for both Vander’s and Silco’s deaths, that Isha and everyone close to her will meet that same fate. Despite Sevika and Jinx finding common ground, I do not believe Sevika would be the person to help her in this situation. She’s bleeding out and heavily wounded, she is alone, she’s at rock bottom in the way she was when everything happened that night. Jinx looks over the edge of the turbine blade. Jinx looks at her pistol.

Cold metal brushes her temple.

Ekko finds her.

I think Ekko will bring her back from the edge. He will be a voice of reason and comfort despite everything they’ve gone through, because of it. Because despite the deaths and Silco and shimmer, he still sees her. The child who only ever wanted to help her family. Despite what he told Vi, the implication that his denial pushed him forward, that Jinx isn’t Powder anymore. But Ekko still sees his childhood friend, and grieves her. He misses his friend.

Tell me this shot from the trailer does not scream that he wants to help Jinx? Really gonna live up to the nickname.

(The strand of blue hair on the left side of the scene.) I fully believe Ekko is talking to Jinx. The last episode of Act 2 is going to be their conversation, and it will end right before we see what is Jinx’s final decision.

He will help her, if she allows herself to accept help. To understand that there are people from her old life that do still care for her. To have no one in the lanes that understood her, that knew her and what she’s done, and for him to reach out a hand first. Isha and Sevika are closer to Jinx than anyone currently, but neither of them know everything or share history in the same way. Ekko will be the one to try to mend this rift. Multiple times the show has demonstrated how kind and generous Ekko is. (Refusing to turn away refugees in the undercity, of giving Hemidinger a chance). If she accepts his help, he can heal her physical wounds and they can start healing her emotional wounds.

Dark thoughts of the end, of ending one’s self, is such a heavy thing to cope with. I want Jinx to have someone on her side, for them to support her through it. She is such a well written character and the way they have showed her mental health struggles. I hope her arc becomes more hopeful.

Act 3:

Ekko will help Jinx fix Fishbones, she’ll dawn hourglass symbols, and work together eventually with Vi again. Maybe, finding common enemies and allies, fighting alongside each other. Zuan’s revolution vs Piltover. Jinx will see Isha again, being the guardian she herself needed when she was growing up. Learning forgiveness for herself and others. Talking things out, and not being interrupted.

Jinx’s healing journey!

I’m very excited for the rest of this season. These two are my favs. (I could be very wrong and none of this is on track, but this is apart of the intrigue of getting invested where characters stories go. Theorizing about what is going on, where the characters will end up.)

- If Timebomb talks to one another I will be over the moon. Years of crumbs lol.

- The fact there is a song named “My Dearest/Best Enemy” [I’m like 67% it is a Timebomb song]

[inkyprince]

Okay so.

I walked out of my room to grab something for my s/o and I come back and all I see is him holding the Cyn plushie, and I look to see what he’s doing. And just..

“I had to put her hands on”

“I have to put the skin on the bone.”

“She kept up the charade for 6 and a half episodes the least we can do is respect the hussle.”

“I dont understand what the problem is her hands looked cold.”

“We’re besties fr fr “ as he waves his hand thats in a splint

eventually I’m dying of laughter and so his response is;

“Fine you’ve lost your hand privileges. There you go cyn, shes been de-gloved”

[aurumixm]

HOW VIKTOR EMBODIES THE HEXCORE

HEAVY S2 SPOILERS DOWN THE LINE!

discussions and theories about whatever tf happened at S2

Okay so first of all please bear with me with this, I ain't a League player and my English is very wonky wobbly. This is just me and my two brain cells rambling about Arcane season two and hypothesizing and stuff. Please be kind!

So I actually posted a brief explanation on what I think may cause the cuckoo bananas shit that happened in Season 2, Episode 3 entitled "The Instability of Hexcore" here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/arcane/s/CZdS4fgI7i

I try to swim through the waters to try and explain everything that happened there. Please keep in mind that this is purely theoretical and it merely serves as a post where y'all can discuss and share your thoughts and stuff!

I. An analogy of the Hexcore

Think of the Hexcore as a Rubik’s cube (I know, yes, because it already looks like one). The Rubik's cube has an even amount of miniature cubes that complement each other to build one singular cube. The same with the Hexcore which contains Runes that compliment each other, which helps it learn and adapt. Although, upon trying to fix it, Viktor suspects that there's something ‘missing’ in it, something that can sustain the Hexcore’s adaptability process and therefore help it learn and evolve. However, the moment that Viktor tries to merge himself with the Hexcore with his blood and inject himself with shimmer at the same time, this action alone would be akin to forcing another color to a Rubik's cube, breaking the laws of space. Viktor's blood may have the ability to help the Hexcore evolve biologically, but shimmer, as it always does, makes it unstable. And if the instability of the shimmer is unable to affect the Hexcore itself, it will find a way for it to do so, and therefore explains the reason why it's spreading and affecting others.

II. Jesus Viktor HOW??

How the hell did Viktor manage to heal himself and other people? My theory surrounds the three main components of the new and improved Hexcore: the Hexcore itself, blood, and shimmer. Once again, the Hexcore is the object of evolution and adaptability, and blood enhances its abilities by letting it adapt biologically. However, in terms of shimmer, in the entirety of the series, we are shown that there are good and bad effects of shimmer. The good effect: its ability to heal and regenerate. In my opinion, this fact also has something to do with Viktor's ability to heal himself and other people, but with a cost.

III. Why does Viktor himself and the people he healed are half metal now?

The moment Jayce “combined” the Hexcore and Viktor's body together, they became one, which was also why the Hexcore was no longer to be found. However, back to the possible reason why Viktor became some sort of a cyborg, I think it happened to be because of his spinal brace? Considering how it was entirely attached to his skin too. Maybe the Hexcore in him realized from his spinal brace, metal can be an object to help people just like how it helped Viktor. Therefore, it also explains why when Viktor heals Huck, scraps of metal were magnetically embedded onto their bodies as well. The Hexcore knew how these metals helped Viktor, and therefore gave it an idea to make use of it in healing other people.

Additional idea from my friend's sister, credits to her!! When Viktor healed Huck he actually took or erased his impurities by spiritual means, a void was left which should have resulted in his death due to its inability to be physiologically viable. However, because both worlds (the spirit and the body) have to complete, connect, and complement each other, the physical voil must be replaced by the materials from the physical world which is metal.

Once again, these are just theories!! You can ask me in the comments for questions, clarifications and stuff yada yada. I personally love Jesus Viktor but I miss the goofy side of him in this Season ☹️. Much love! xoxo

Don't forget to drop your ideas, thoughts, and other theories!

[lemotmo]

okay here we go...

... I have sooooo many asks in my ask box with anons being really disappointed in the episode. It's impossible to answer each and every one of you guys. I would be answering questions until next Thursday. 😆

So I've decided to make a general post answering or addressing some of the topics you brought up in your asks.

About half of the asks was about 'copaganda' in the episode. I have to admit that this never even crossed my mind while watching, up until I started reading some asks.

As you all know, I am not American and the country I live in has a very different stance toward the police. But this is also because our police force seems to be very different from the American one. People here have to go to school for a long time to even be able to graduate as a police officer. There are very strict psychological tests as well.

The patrol officers that walk on the street also don't carry around guns of any kind. Quite often they ride around in my city by bike instead of by car. They are taught that 'violence' is always the last step. The first step is always trying to solve a situation peacefully.

When the police stops me for some reason, I don't have any kind of fear reaction. This isn't something I feel I should be concerned about in my daily life.

So yeah, while watching American TV-shows, I often just don't think about 'copaganda' unless it's really spelled out to me. It just doesn't cross my mind. Not in the way it would cross the mind of the American viewers. So I don't really mention it all that much. Next to that, I don't feel like I'm qualified to talk about this topic all that much, since I'm not a US citizen.

So, I'm just going to move on to the second half of the asks in my ask box. I feel more comfortable talking about this subject.

So the other half was mostly people sad that there wasn't enough Eddie or progress in his storyline. Or too much focus on Brad and Gerrard and not enough on the mains. Still no Chris!

And I get it. I do. There were a lot of things that could have been handled so much better, but the episode we ended up with? Well, like I said in my episode review: I liked it. It was filler, yes. But good filler. It set up new storylines and, while not very visible, it continued the existing storylines as well.

I loved seeing Buck stress-bake and gradually getting over Tommy. I love his family and friends all working together to make sure he didn't call Tommy. I loved the Maddie quote about the universe sending a special person (aka Eddie 😁). I liked the pregnancy reveal scene and the hug!🥰 I liked the Bobby hotshots storyline and the way the 118 banded together like a family again. Such great scenes.

I looooooved seeing Eddie happy and carefree again. Yes, I agree, Eddie needs to address the Chris of it all, but just let him be free for a while longer. Let him find himself first. He needs this. That being said, I do think next episode will end with him flying off to Texas to get his son back and he'll be there during hiatus, figuring himself out. When he gets back in the beginning of 8b is when his story truly begins. Though I still think we might get some kind of clue next week to tie us all over to 8b.

The only thing I didn't like was the Gerrard redemption arc. It was the wrong choice to make in my opinion, but now we're stuck with it, so I'm trying to see past that storyline for now.

I'm intrigued for next week. That call with the water and those people drowning? Another call back to Buddie's greatest NDEs hits. A talk between Brad and Eddie? Could this be about Chris? A non-cliffhanger 'cliffhanger' of some kind?

Yeah, I'm sat. I admit it. I liked what we got and I'm looking forward to next week's episode.

Nonnies, please know that I have read all your opinions and concerns about this episode and it's all very valid. They are your opinions and they matter just as much. No judgement here whatsoever.

The above is just my personal opinion. That's all. 🤷‍♀️

[randomfoggytiger]

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XXIII): Loss, Second Chances, and In Absentia

We begin the countdown to the end of the Scully Family series!

Today, we tackle a broad array of subjects: complicated familial dynamics, well-intentioned meddling, and conflicted yearnings.

A VERY MERRY MISCOMMUNICATION

The episode opens on Bill and Tara’s Christmas display-- specifically, Tara herself: great with child and jubilation. When her husband unlocks the front door, she rushes over to greet her guests, beaming under Maggie’s effusive, “Look at you!” and Dana’s “You’re huge.”

“Sorry about the digs, Mom, I know you hoped you’d never have to spend another night in base housing,” Bill pipes up, displaying a natural conscientiousness. 

“Are you kidding? This is wonderful.” 

It’s Scully who is taken aback by the obvious: “It’s the exact same layout as our old house.”  

Her brother nods, half amused, “Well, that’s the Navy for you.” 

“Bill tells me, Mom that you’re going to be staying in your old room; and the nursery’s going to be in--” Tara briefly pauses, looking back at her husband for confirmation, “--Dana and Melissa’s room.” 

He and Tara quite obviously believe the house will delight their guests; and are just as obviously delighted with it themselves. It seems their move here is rather recent (or recent enough that Maggie hasn’t flown out to throw a housewarming party, yet) and kept as secretive as possible from their family. 

This points to a few things:

Bill seems exultant to live once again on familiar turf-- a doppelganger childhood home-- and to grow his own child up in that replica. 

Tara is overjoyed to take part in that dream with him, and build their life in a copy of the happy memories of his childhood. Meaning, the stories he must have told about his growing up years were tender and fun and nostalgic; and she wanted their child to have a similar happy experience. 

Both Bill and Tara are proud of their cookie-cutter house; but are more proud that they not only kept it as a surprise but are able to shock Maggie and Scully with it. This points to a generosity of spirit: that, although celebrating their first Christmas together as parents, they still took the time to plan around their extended family.

Yet, amidst their happiness, Bill stops to recognize that his mom isn’t a fan of base housing; and Tara to assure her mother-in-law that she has the rights to her own room and familiar comforts. 

As rampageously happy as the two are to share this experience with Maggie and Scully, they miss a few saddened moments: Dana uncomfortably smiling over sleeping in the room she used to share with her dead sister, and Maggie lagging behind to process her losses in this replica Christmas house. 

Scully, however, notices that her mom is hanging back; and she stops her ascent upstairs to check in: “Mom? You okay?”

“Oh, yeah”, Maggie brushes aside, turning from the tree. “Just thinking about your Dad. And Melissa,” she adds as she sweeps by and up the stairs. It would seem both Scully women have the same determination as their hosts: contribute to an impeccable family holiday. While husband and wife think that’s fitting up rooms to reignite nostalgia, mother and daughter think that's setting aside their unease at these reminders-- i.e. getting over themselves-- so Christmas won't be spoiled.

Scully is stopped from following the family up the stairs by a phone call: an unmarked woman’s voice-- Melissa’s. 

“Dana.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, who is this?”

“Dana. She needs your help.”  

It’s not here (as I first assumed) that Scully panics, running up the stairs and insisting she heard her late sister’s voice and insisting Bill drive her to a random location. But panic is present as she dials up San Diego’s FBI extension and insists they trace the call; and bewildered panic is there as she arrives at the scene, Bill chauffeuring her in his car.

It’s a tiny but important detail about their relationship: Scully hasn’t shared with her brother why she needs to visit a stranger's address, doesn’t even tell him why when they arrive at a crime scene. But he supportively drives her over and patiently wait outside while she loiters in, begs for information, and sifts through the details the local force gives her. 

After she retreats (after she sees Emily Sim-- which will be discussed in a future post), she rejoins him outside; and Bill quietly asks, “Dana, what’s going on? They’re joking that you got a call from a dead woman.” 

This is interesting: either the police are loose-lipped chatters near unauthorized crime scene gawkers or Bill is rife with intelligent, circumspect behavior: 

Bill Scully knew exactly what to say to pry details from the investigation team; or

Bill Scully quietly and nonchalantly listened in on the other cops’ conversations, enough to know that his sister was talking with the detective about a phone call from beyond the grave. 

While not particularly earth-shattering, it’s a cool little insight into his character. 

At his gentle prodding-- and Bill is gentle, bending down and speaking softly (so different from but not dissimilar to Mulder’s methods)-- Scully opens up: “I thought it was a dead woman-- just not the one in there. I know it’s not possible, Bill, but it sounded just like her. Our sister.”

Bill’s freezes, unable to process this information. 

“Melissa,” Scully further clarifies. 

We’re not shown Bill's reaction-- or Scully’s reaction to his reaction-- instead swinging immediately over to the dinner scene. But that in itself is incredibly telling: both siblings are forced to address Melissa’s absence… and both siblings put it behind them as quickly as possible. Even more telling is the fact that Bill treats his sister with nothing but compassion this episode and the next, despite the direct ties between her work and their sister's death. It speaks to a largeness of character: despite being a bully (he was as a child, he was to Mulder, he can be-- though he tries to temper it-- with his sister), he never held Melissa’s death against his youngest sister. He is just and he is fair... in this judgment, least.

Their father and Bill and Scully (and possibly Charlie) all served their country; and with that service came duty and responsibility and danger. Melissa was a casualty to that service, just as their father’s crew members and many other innocent civilians were (or might have been) casualties in war. Bill himself could become a casualty to a future conflict or could fail to prevent other innocent lives from becoming casualties themselves. The fact that Bill understands and does not hold Scully responsible for Melissa’s death-- despite what his little sister could believe herself-- is an incredibly mature, nuanced take that I’m glad replaced the horrendous, stilted, one-sided perspective Memento Mori almost made canon (post here.) 

At dinner, Bill and Tara and Maggie are quietly conversing amongst themselves-- lightly catching up on neighbor or family gossip, I presume-- while Scully sits withdrawn and anxious. Before she gets up to leave, we get a glimpse of Bill and Tara’s comfortable interactions: he passes the food her way, without thought, and waits for her to grab her portion patiently. It takes no effort from him to be considerate to people he likes, which we can chalk up to his mother’s training growing up (e.g. post here.) 

Scully, visibly uncomfortable, leaves the Hallmark moment to call up her wayward partner (who jumps into frame in a Scrooge sleeping cap); but, despite a desperate need for reassurance or help or comfort, she hangs up the phone without speaking and returns to the table. This, here, proves that-- while Scully has made progress-- opening up to others is still a challenge for her. 

Which is desperately sad in hindsight: A Christmas Carol and Emily force Scully past her own barriers-- to admit her infertility to Maggie, to fight against her mother’s staunch insistence that Emily is not Melissa’s child, to attempt to defuse Bill’s suppositions, to beg for custody of her daughter, to accept her need for Mulder on this case. And to unfortunately feel that it was all for nothing: Emily dies; and Scully resurrects distance between herself, Mulder, and her family once again. 

She returns to the table, still ill at ease; and another dynamic from the cancer arc resurfaces: Bill notices that something’s wrong-- “Everything okay?”-- first, which then draws Maggie’s attention to her daughter. Again, this points to a keen observational ability on Bill’s part (which I’ve discussed here, and in his Personality Typing post here): he is able, almost without effort, to see through his sister’s disguises; but is, unfortunately, not able to translate his observations fluidly-- unlike Mulder. 

An interesting thought: if this be the case, it's easy to see why he hates Mulder so completely. He intuits that Mulder can see through Scully, as well (after observing him sitting by Scully’s bedside, kissing her hand, and advocating for his own form of treatment), but remains convinced that Mulder uses this to his advantage-- in effect, tricking her loyalty and pressing her pain points to keep her close to the work; and, selfishly, close to him. But, again, Bill can’t read people completely correctly: he senses the right emotion but miscalculates its underlying reasons. Because of this, he can sense his sister’s true feelings (“You think you can cure yourself”/”Is everything alright?”) and Mulder’s true feelings (“Was it worth it?”) and his mother’s true feelings (“You know what this is doing to Mom?”), but doesn’t temper those feelings with nuanced, mature perspective-- namely, he doesn’t try on other people’s shoes.This comes back to bite him: as much as he wants to help-- and he does-- Bill can only blunder around inelegantly while stepping-- ironically-- on pain point after pain point. 

Tara accidentally interrupts her husband’s quiet prodding with a loud exclamation: the baby kicked. Scully, alert (and slightly panicked) realizes it’s a false alarm; and is then trapped in a situation where everyone but herself is embracing the moment. Maggie, Tara, and Bill are all smiles as one parent chatters about her excitement and the other reaches his hand over naturally to feel his child move. 

“You had boys and girls-- so which one kicked more?” Tara asks; and Maggie responds fondly, “Oh, I had some pretty tough little girls”, while turning to catch Scully’s eye: an echo of her “You were always the strong one” in Memento Mori (post here.) 

Scully doesn’t respond, looking quietly from her mother back to her sister-in-law, eyebrows scrunching in pain as Tara cheerily rambles on about motherhood: “You know what? I can’t believe I’m about to say this-- as big and fat as I am now, I can’t wait to have more. This is our baby, our son. It kinda gives everything new meaning.”

At this, Maggie looks over to share the moment with Scully… and notices her daughter’s fallen face. Her son was onto something, after all. 

Speaking of Bill, at his wife’s closing statement-- “I can’t help but think life before now was… less. Just a prelude”-- he looks pleased as punch: a sentiment he obviously shares with her. Bill, the big, traditional family man; and Tara, the big, traditional family woman-- they’re suited to each other; and deliriously happy. However, he’s too shy or self-conscious to say it out loud, smiling at his wife before catching most of that smile back when Maggie happily locks eyes. It could be because he perceives an outward expression of tender emotion to be contrary to his masculinity-- an effect he and Scully took from their father-- or because he just feels giggly and googly-eyed and vulnerable over this new emotion. Either way, he clamps down on it as best he can… which isn’t a lot.

Afterwards, Maggie joins Scully in the kitchen, both of them pitching in to clean the dishes-- an exact mirror, three years later, of the last Christmas the two shared with Captain Scully. (As an aside: Scully washing dishes with her manicured, professional suit sleeves is so… Scully that it almost made me chuckle.)  

“What’s the matter?” her mother prods, refusing to let the issue go despite her daughter’s “Nothing.” Hand on her hip, she stares Dana down while the other woman turns aside, purposefully avoiding eye contact and sighing. 

Scully tries to shake the interrogation away with a half-truth, plopping a plate down roughly and turning defensively to get the matter over with: “Mom, I’m very happy for Bill and Tara.”

“You don’t seem to be.” 

The truth of that statement cracks through her defenses; and, after a momentary pause (where she looks to the side, up, and down-- like all the Scullys do when facing intense emotion), she gives up, sighing, “Oh, Mom.” Pausing for another long spell to pull her feelings together, she confesses, “Several months ago, I learned as a result of my abduction-- of what they did to me-- that I cannot conceive a child.”

Maggie is shocked and grieved; and immediately scoops her daughter up in a hug, knowing she needs it. Scully, like in Memento Mori, stands still: trying to cast off her own emotions by becoming the bearer up of others’ pain. 

“I’m so sorry,” her mother consoles. 

“It’s okay,” she rejoins-- voice vulnerable, cracked, young: so like the voice of Season 1 Scully that we know she is cut to the quick over this news. Her eyes begin to water and her face begins to crumble: and this is interesting because it shows she has still clung to the emotional growth of Redux II, not (yet) sliding back into complete, stone-walled distance. “I just never realized,” she continues, a vulnerability from her deathbed woven through her words, “how much I wanted it until I couldn’t have it.” 

This is the second time Scully's allowed herself to be completely open with her family (the first being Redux II.) And as hurtful and frightening as this vulnerability might be, Maggie is rewarding that openness with comfort and support; which, in turn, helps Scully open up that much more later on. 

The scene transitions to the nursery where Scully is sleeping-- the famed replica of her and her sister’s childhood bedroom-- surrounded by infantile toys and furniture. It’s here that her dreams begin to be plagued with memories and premonitions, nightmares of her (as yet unknown) child.

In her first dream, little Scully bursts in through the door with Bill in hot pursuit. He is in full bullying mode, threatening to turn the wild rabbit she rescued into stew-- and while he is obviously over-exaggerating to get a rise out of his gullible baby sister, it sets her ablaze in righteous fury: “No, you’re not!” she yells, pushing him backwards. Still, when he retreats, Scully doubts her abilities, yelling, “You’re not going to find him. …Bill!” as if she can call her brother back and reason with him. 

It’s not news that Bill was a bully and they had a sometimes turbulent relationship: in Gethsemane, she fondly recalled one of their arguments to a (presumable) family member before his arrival, regaling (with glee) how she either maneuvered or pushed him down the stairs. Still, these squabbles didn't break or deeply affect their relationship: she hung out with him and Charlie during her tomboy days, and the two brothers chipped in one year to surprise her with a bb gun (posts here and here.) What I find interesting is that Bill could see through her even then; and that, while Scully tried to put up a brave front, he never seemed to buy it.

But that brings up another valuable point: Scully believes she’s gotten away with a false front (post here); but in reality? No one-- not her mother, not her father, not her sister, not her brother, not her partner, not even her boss-- is fooled by her pretenses. Scully herself believes she’s being incognito when she’s painfully transparent; and that aspect-- her inability to lie believably-- is coded deeply into her character (and was one of the reasons Gillian Anderson was frustrated that Chris Carter hadn’t told her Scully was in on Mulder’s Redux I collusion.)

(Also, as another side note: I know they couldn’t direct the little girl to mimic Gillian’s faces, but the casting crew were incredible: they picked one who made an identical expression naturally. Look at that face! It’s Scully’s when faced with horror, anxiety, or fear.)  

Little Scully sneaks down to the basement where she pulls out a large, tin storage container; and, unfortunately, finds a very dead rabbit inside. After staring silently in horror, she looks back at the stairs and sees Emily. The dream, then, does something interesting: the camera shoots back to young Scully to show her unnaturally blank face, leaving us to conclude this moment has bled in with current Scully’s processing unconscious: 

Scully recalls the moment when she accidentally killed an animal; yet later, she also purposefully kills a snake (after disobeying her father’s orders.) After each incident, she is horrified, but it’s not until she makes an active decision to take a life that the weight of her guilt comes crashing down. While terrified after finding the dead rabbit-- and feeling the horror of it years later-- the cost of her actions hadn’t sunk in. This means she was too young, at the time, to fully understand or grapple with what she’d done; and it’s only now, in hindsight, that the weight of this moment is oozing inward. 

Despite the dead rabbit and the dead snake, Scully joined medical school to study dead bodies. Knowing Scully’s mentality, how much of that was penance or morbid curiosity before it became her preferred calling? Death itself seems to spook, not intrigue her (post here); and finding answers to its causes soothes her worries and gives her peace. So, if that be the case, a fear of death-- or her actions contributing to a death-- would, perhaps, lead her to seek out a way to control it: interpreting, understanding, and translating Death in terms that are concrete and immutable. Hence, her career choice.  

Emily appears on the stairs in her floral onesie, blankly looking down on young Dana while clutching the railing. Scully, then, is tying her neglect of this case-- of boxing away this little stranger as an unfixable tragedy-- in with the preventable death of her rabbit. Which is even sadder, in hindsight, because her own unconscious was whispering that this child was doomed to a terrible end; and her guilty, self-conscious reflex was stating that it would be her fault.

She wakes up at this moment to a second phone call: Melissa again; and this points to four other conclusions: 

Emily Sim and Melissa are inextricably linked: either Melissa’s second phone call-- which Scully would have heard, though she hadn’t woken up yet-- was what triggered her dream appearance, or her appearance in Scully’s dreams triggered Melissa’s phone call. 

It makes sense why Scully ties a connection between her late sister and this little girl, and ends up believing her to be Melissa’s daughter. 

The truth, however, is a touch more complicated: Melissa Scully functions as the voice of Scully’s conscience-- more accurately, as its advocate, helping her sister to tune into and listen to it clearly. We see this exemplified by their dynamic in One Breath (post here) and The Blessing Way (posts here and here); and that hasn't stopped with her death. 

Melissa is advocating for Emily because she is a byproduct of Scully, not because Emily is a byproduct of herself. She is protecting her niece because she has always protected her sister. 

Scully wakes and answers her cell phone, overwhelmed when her sister's voice echoes over the line a second time.

“She needs your help,” Melissa repeats. 

“Who is this? Why are you doing this?”

“Go to her.”

So Scully does, at nearly three in the morning; and is, again, turned away by Mr. Sim. She doesn’t let the matter drop this time, booking it to the local police station and stirring Det. Kresge up to reopen the autopsy investigation. There she finds a picture of Emily that is identical to one of young Melissa… which brings up another set of observations. 

The child on the staircase in her memories was likely Melissa-- her shadow since childhood. 

The dream, however, changed it to Emily, either creating connections supernaturally or strengthening the ones she’d made unconsciously after catching a glimpse of the little girl in the Sim house. 

Bill has family photo albums in his house. The one Scully opens looks like an original, not a copy, with her mother's handwriting printed neatly inside. Perhaps these photos were mostly of his own childhood-- around the world, in Japan, and (presumably) before Scully was born-- and perhaps he was given this for safekeeping sometime after Paper Clip. With Melissa dead and Bill and Tara building a home of their own, Maggie probably thought they’d want this album for themselves. Scully, perhaps, probably even made copies for her mother and herself before it was shipped off, since she knew exactly where to look to find that particular picture of her late sister. 

I also have a personal theory: Bill Scully later reveals he has a photograph of Melissa that was taken during the months his little sister was abducted. He never shared this with Scully-- perhaps because he assumed it would dredge up bad memories (another indication of his gentler personality: not wanting to hurt her with reminders. And, of course, another indication of his meddling protectiveness.) But the fact that Missy had given it to him, had possibly let him take it while she was off-the-grid traveling up and down the West Coast, speaks volumes to Bill’s motivations. He has deep wounds regarding Melissa, too; and guards her memory fiercely, albeit silently. Her loss is harder for him to talk about than his own father-- he was even originally written to resent his youngest sister for “causing” Melissa’s death (though that scene was rightfully deleted and his character reworked, thank goodness.) 

After Scully finds out Emily Christine Sim was adopted, she calls up Mulder’s FBI contact (Danny, the basement gnome)-- not Mulder himself-- and asks him to send Melissa Scully's PCR results to San Diego, where she is: effectively keeping her partner out of the loop. Despite their history, Scully is alienating herself and her struggles again: perhaps because, deep down, she is afraid of what Mulder will puzzle together with her abduction, a dead sister, and this adopted girl. 

Without intending to, she falls asleep once more and is caught up in another nightmare: herself as a child, holding her father’s hand, while walking down the aisle to pay their respects to an open casket. As she approaches, the casket leaks water and blood; and after peering over the side, the body of Mrs. Sim is revealed-- and opens its eyes. Stumbling back, she realizes the hand she is holding is not her father’s: it’s Mr. Sim’s. But as he opens his mouth, Bill’s voice speaks instead: “Dana?”

Scully is roused violently from sleep, and comes face-to-face with her brother’s worried, bemused expression. 

Again, she dreams of death. 

Again, she dreams of death connected to Emily. 

Again, she dreams she must helplessly watch tragedy unfold. 

Up to a point, these dreams can be dismissed as her reality bleeding (heh) into fantasy-- the second phone call reminding her unconscious of Emily, Bill speaking through Mr. Sim-- but Scully doesn't give this line of reasoning a first or second thought. Why?

And just as her unconscious starts to turn over these complicated emotions, reflection is snatched away by outside interference. 

(As an aside, this episode proves that, if anything, Scully is a light sleeper; which also proves that Mulder is a quiet and sneaky dude, slipping in and out of her perimeters without setting off her sensory detectors.)

Bill watches her try to pull herself together, asking in feigned nonchalance, “This where you stayed the night?”

“Yeah,” she affirms, feigning nonchalance herself, “some of it.” Remembering her research, Scully quickly checks then closes her laptop, unwilling to share her suspicions with anyone just yet.  

“It’s supposed to be a vacation.” Bill is annoyed but trying to hide it-- and, while it isn’t his place to dictate how Scully spends her time, he does have a point (or half of one.) He sees Scully’s dedication to her work as dedication to her partner; and probably suspects that Mulder is putting her up to this. Yet, despite his abhorrence for the man or his methods, Bill never outright scolds Scully for her inattentiveness, and does try to have patience with her odd behaviors. Still, his annoyance is hard to extinguish; and he asks, “Whatcha working on that's so important?” to better understand why she’s ducking and dodging. 

Scully, once again, ducks his attempt. “Just, uh, unfinished business.”

Seeing that they’re at an impasse, he switches topics: “So, you up for joining us this morning?”

“Yeah, I’ve, I’ve,” she stumbles, working through a plan in her mind, “got a little work to do. Can I join you guys later?”

Bill scoffs, lightly, trying to maintain an upbeat rather than imposing attitude. “How are you gonna get around?”

“I’ll, I’ll rent a car.” 

He watches her go, good naturedly exclaiming, “Alright-- lunch!” When she doesn’t respond (and continues stepping away), he adds, “I’ll hold you to that!” She, again, doesn’t comment; and he lets her go, trying to shrug off their interaction with a glance at his newspaper. 

After a long day investigating shaky leads, she arrives back at Bill’s with the PCR results in hand. Right after discovering the similarities between her sister and Emily’s DNA-- reacting with shocked, bittersweet tenderness-- Maggie appears, catching her daughter in the thralls of discovery. 

“Dana? Are you alright?”

Immediately, Scully looks down, masking her demonstrative expression; and her mother sighs, changing the topic to other pressing matters.  

“It’s 2 o’clock in the morning-- where have you been all day?” Maggie scolds, shuffling forward in exasperation. “We were expecting you for lunch.” 

Now it’s Scully’s turn to sigh: this can’t be put off. “Mom. Sit down.”

Maggie complies, head in her hands: another round of bad news from Dana. 

“The woman who committed suicide--” she begins, letting us know that Scully and Bill had previously shared details of the case with Maggie and Tara, “has an adopted daughter. A three-year-old named Emily. I got a sample from Emily’s blood; and I had the lab run a test on her DNA. It’s called a PCR test. This,” she continues, handing the evidence over to her mother, “is Emily’s. And this… is Melissa’s, which we ran during her murder investigation.”

Scully’s face is tortured, her head bent-- an expression of utmost struggle and vulnerability (post here.) “They match.”

Shaking her head in disbelief, her mother asks, “What does it mean, ‘they match’?”

“It means… that this little girl Emily… is Melissa’s daughter.” 

Maggie looks up in disbelief. “It’s not possible.”

“You can’t deny that there’s a remarkable resemblance.” 

“Melissa was three-years-old when this picture was taken, she was practically a baby,” Maggie snaps, eyes flashing. “All kids can look the same at that age.” 

“Mom, it’s uncanny. Emily looks exactly like Melissa. That’s why I order the PCR test-- because her face may change, but her DNA can’t!”

“And that test is accurate?” Mrs. Scully presses, even angrier. 

“There is a 60% chance that Melissa is Emily’s mother. I’m gonna order a more comprehensive test-- an RFOP. It’ll take a couple of days, and then we’ll be sure.”

“Oh, I’m already sure--,” Maggie denies; and the root of her denial comes to the fore: “--your sister didn’t have a baby, she would have told me.”

“Mom. Remember about four years ago Melissa took off? She traveled up and down the West Coast-- we didn’t know where she was half the time.”

“You’re saying she was pregnant and she didn’t want us to know?”

“That was 1994. Emily was born that November. She could have given her up for adoption and none of us would have ever known.” 

Suddenly, Maggie is struck with another idea, softening under Scully’s insistence. “Dana, listen to me. I know what you’re going through.”

“Mom--” snaps Scully, hurt that her motives are being called into question. “This has nothing to do with what I’m going through.” But still, she does not offer further clarification-- does not tell her mother that she, too, is having premonitory dreams (post here.) Because, really, this is about what Scully is going through-- not solely her infertility, of course, but also her memories, remission, second chance at life, and (misplaced) guilt-- and she can’t wholly refute or deny her mother's claims.

When Maggie explains, “It has happened to me-- when your father died”, she loses ground on her conviction, doubting her instincts. It’s what Melissa warned her against in The Blessing Way-- “You’ve lost touch with your own intuition!”-- and what she tried to help her see and understand when Scully was doubting her choice to join the FBI. It’s what she finally learns, four years after her sister’s death, in all things (post here.) 

“It was a long time before he left me,” Maggie admits as her daughter struggles with confronted tears. This is a sore spot for both of them; but while Maggie has moved on-- “before he left me”-- Scully still struggles with echoes of the painful past. She cannot forget or let go as easily. “I saw him in my dreams. The phone would ring; and just for a moment, I was sure it was his voice. And, and you’re doing the same thing with Melissa-- you’re seeing her in this child. But that does not make this child my granddaughter.”

During this speech, Scully has been struggling with denial, doubt, tempted belief; and at her mother’s last words-- “We’re still connected to them, Dana, even after they’re gone”-- she tears up, conflicted. 

There are many, many points to consider in this conversation: 

Maggie’s nature is just as confrontational as Bill’s, but she’s raised her son to (mostly) butt out of business not belonging to him. 

Despite Melissa’s black sheep ways and hard-to-swallow beliefs, Maggie remains convinced her daughter would have told her if she’d been pregnant. And she's correct.

Maggie would have (per her own expressions of hurt at this possible exclusion) embraced a granddaughter out of wedlock. This falls in line with her first two children being conceived before marriage (if the show's wonky timeline is to be believed), her undogmatic support of Bill and Tara’s IVF pregnancy, and her excitement over the birth of her second grandson, William.

Scully reveals how closely knit she and Maggie were (and are): “Remember about four years ago Melissa took off? She traveled up and down the West Coast-- we didn’t know where she was half the time” couples the anxiety, worry, and frustration of Melissa’s disappearance in with her mother and herself. We've seen this closeness demonstrated in The Blessing Way’s deleted scene (post here) when Melissa's arrival ended the personal conversation between Maggie and her youngest daughter.

Scully is still struggling with trusting her own instincts, and will continue to do so until all things. And, as befits her pre-established pattern, she leaps into decisive change then begins to doubt and second guess her intuition and choices (post here.) 

Scully dreams, this time of a Christmas long past.

She and Melissa sneak down to the tree; and while she loudly exclaims, “Look at all the presents!”-- betraying her rapture over receiving gifts-- it’s her sister who shushes her (“Dana, be quiet; they’ll hear us.”) Grabbing a large box-- another peek at her gift goblin side-- she excitedly whispers, “This one’s for me!” Again, Melissa checks her: “You wish. That’s for Billy, you dope.” The girls continue rifling around-- Scully still amped over (supposedly) finding a Hotel California record, Missy still shushing her-- until they find their cross necklaces; and it’s then that Maggie appears from the shadows (“You don’t have to shake it, Dana. You can open those now”) and sits beside them.

While Scully is awed by her present, Melissa is ambivalent, politely thanking her mother but not really responding to Mrs. Scully’s speech: “Your grandmother gave me a cross just like that when I was about your age. It means God is with you, and will watch over you wherever you go.”

When she looks at her mother in thanks, younger Dana sees her current self in Maggie’s place. 

A few takeaways: 

Melissa is the ringleader, it appears, in this mischief making venture. While she is the older sister (and, therefore, has more bossing rights), she seems more aware of the danger of getting caught than Scully. 

Scully, in each of her flashbacks, seems to be a second mate to mischief makers: breaking their father’s shooting rules with her brothers and sneaking down the stairs on Christmas morning with her sister. She is already drawn to rebellion, even at a young age; and will soon begin to flirt here and there with striking out on her own-- smoking her mother’s cigarettes on the porch or describing her parents’ opposition to the FBI as "they though it was an act of rebellion." That streak continues with “other fathers”, kicking back against her superiors in defiance or shoving off Mulder’s ‘restrictions’ whenever she feels unappreciated. 

Melissa already seems detached from her mother’s beliefs, and is (most likely) only a year or two (or three or four) away from rescinding her faith. 

Scully, however, hangs onto Maggie’s every word: a child wholeheartedly devoted to hero worship-- one who trusts so implicitly that she ends up doubting her own opinions and beliefs. 

Scully’s necklace is markedly longer than the one she wears in canon. This presents us with one of two theories: that Maggie gifted her another one for her birthday, as she said in Ascension; or that Melissa gave her her hand-me-down when she left the faith. 

Scully loves presents. Loves. (Which works out, because Mulder loves to give them.) And Hotel California, apparently. 

The Revival was warned that Scully would not look good with this type of straight, flat bob. And yet, it persisted. 

Scully, again again, ties another dream into Emily: this time her own motherhood, gifting her younger self-- or her dream self’s daughter-- a personal family tradition. 

It’s Tara who wakes her up.

“Dana? I’m sorry,” she begins, her choice of words implying that she’s aware of Scully’s late night, “there’s a detective here to see you?”

When Scully descends, Tara is chopping food for breakfast, Maggie is serving Det. Kresge some coffee, and Bill is nowhere to be seen. He was awake early yesterday, so it’s natural to assume he’s already up and out-- maybe last minute preparations for their party later today? 

As she and Kresge move aside to privately chat, Tara and Maggie send them concerned peeks every so often. 

Of course, Scully ends up leaving. 

I want to touch on Emily Sim very briefly in this post:

After Mr. Sim is arrested, Scully hurries through the house looking for (who she presumes is) her niece. She finds her on the stairs, and the two face off blankly while Emily's father's pleas of innocence escalate off-screen.

When Scully leads the girl to the social worker’s van, Emily clings to her hand-- revealing nothing, but not unwilling to be in her care, either. Both are grim and determined; and while Scully softens as she tucks the little girl into her car seat-- “Let’s just get you buckled in here nice and safe, okay” is important; and will be discussed below-- Emily doesn’t start to brighten until she catches sight of the other woman’s cross. Without thinking, she reaches for the necklace-- a shiny present she wants to claim; like her mother-- without thinking-- again, like her mother. 

It’s searing in hindsight, knowing this tiny girl is doomed to die; but it’s also bittersweet in the moment as Emily exactly reenacts Scully's dreams and patterns of behavior.

And this leads me to a theory: with how each dream is structured, and with how Emily behaves in them, exactly as she does in real life-- always staring with large, knowing eyes and a somber, resigned expression as if she knows Scully-- I wonder if Emily is the one projecting these dreams. Whenever Scully remembers the past, Emily seems to burst through and center these memories on herself in the present. (And whether she means to or not, I wonder.) Her grandmother has prescient dreams, Melissa had sensing abilities, and Scully herself has had a fair share of psychic and supernatural experiences. I’ve theorized before that all humans have access to psychic ability because of their alien DNA (post here), but need to have a close connection to or brush with Death to unlock it (post here.)

And if that be the case, these dreams and premonitions centering Emily began to occur after Mrs. Sim’s death-- meaning, if that unlocked an ability in Emily (for whatever X-Files reason) then that could be working in tandem with Melissa’s phone calls. And if that be the case, Scully the Conduit (post here) was picking up both signals. Canon itself supports this supposition, though mildly: "You found her; and you saved her," says Mulder; "She found me," Scully corrects.

Scully reaches out to caress Emily’s hair (a mirror of Maggie Scully's maternal gestures) at the same time the girl reaches out to snag her necklace. Touched, and desperate to establish a connection, she asks, with wide eyes, “You like that, huh?” 

Emily doesn’t respond, staring, transfixed, at the cross instead; but Scully takes initiative anyway, immediately removing her chain and clasping it behind her ‘niece's’ neck. This act is a combination of many significant details, which can be summed up in two sentiments: passing on the family legacy to this newly discovered Scully, and surrounding her with God’s protection-- as Maggie had done when she was a little girl; as she did herself, seconds ago, by securing Emily's seat belt. In short, her actions are a marriage of different forms of protection: familial, physical, and spiritual. Scully extends all three to this child before she knows Emily Sim is hers. 

When it is time to go, Scully leans in with an assuring pout and promises, “I’ll see you soon, okay?” And Emily mirrors that pout, nodding up and down in earnestness.

They watch each other through the window, locking eyes as long as possible. 

At Bill and Tara’s Christmas party that evening, Scully can’t focus on the present. 

When Maggie tells her relaxing daughter-in-law, “Every year, my husband insisted on putting the angel on top of the tree by himself” and Bill, just returned from hobnobbing, teases his late dad’s masculinity-- “Man’s work”-- to her and Tara’s amusement, Scully remains distant and lost in thought. Bill looks down and notices her detachment; and, having reached his limit, asks, “Dana, can you give me a hand in the kitchen?”

Maggie immediately snaps her head over, knowing exactly what her son is doing; and Tara’s face drops, knowing exactly what her husband’s doing, too. Both women, it would appear, figure the siblings have grievances to air; but hope it won't get to insulting or catastrophic levels. They’re both adults after all, right? 

And that’s another interesting point: as uncomfortable as this shift has made Maggie and Tara-- even more so because Scully hasn’t fully returned from the cloud of her thoughts, and isn't clued in to what’s about to happen-- they’re not trying to mitigate or stop Bill. It would seem they, too, have criticisms of Dana’s behavior lately, but haven't voiced them for her and Christmas’s sake. We know this to be the case because of Bill’s accusations in the kitchen: Mrs. Scully has been sharing her daughter’s information with her son and daughter-in-law, likely in an attempt to smooth ruffled feathers or get them to understand what she’s going through. However, this, in turn, makes Scully feel judged and vulnerable; and, despite Maggie and Bill’s best intentions, she begins to retreat even more.

“What’s up?” Scully asks as Bill begins pouring himself a drink. 

“I need you to tell me what’s going on,” he says, voice light but concerned. 

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not here, Dana, you’re a million miles away. I thought you came to see the family.”

Scully, caught, sinks into annoyed despair. “I did.” 

“Well, I thought that this other thing was resolved,” Bill huffs, becoming frustrated himself. “I thought you caught the guy that murdered that woman.”

“We did,” she affirms, trying to draw him away from shaky territory but unable to look up from the ground. 

Bill, as always, sees right through her: “Then it’s about the girl, isn’t it?” 

She doesn’t answer, determined not to-- but her eyes pop up after he passes by, realizing he must have gotten that information from someone.  

Conciliatory-- trying to prove he’s on her side, that she doesn’t have to ice him out, that he understands-- Bill softly confesses, “Mom told me.” Maintaining eye contact, his voice rises higher, almost cracking at the end, “You really think Melissa had a baby?”  

“Yes, I do,” Scully admits; and her admittance now-- an admittance born from, he thinks, a crazy partnership with a crazy partner who keeps invading their family time with selfish, questing demands-- irritates him completely. 

“She call you from beyond the grave to tell you that,” he mocks, voice edged with bitterness. 

At this sudden attack, his sister is instantly furious… and hurt, tightening her chin to prevent an influx of strong, complicated emotions. 

“Sounds like something that partner of yours would say,” he concludes, somehow shifting the blame entirely off of Dana’s shoulders and onto Mulder's while simultaneously-- and accidentally-- insulting her intelligence and abilities. 

Fed up with his misunderstanding, Scully insists, “It does not matter where that phone call came from. What matters is that there is a little girl who needs my help.” 

“This isn’t about any little girl, Dana,” he snaps, done with the pretense on both sides-- a pretense she is unaware of and confused by, tilting her head in astonishment at his blunt, “It’s about you.” 

Bill continues with his half-right, half-wrong blunders: “It’s about this emptiness, this void inside yourself you’re trying to fill.” 

And that is when he takes it too far: it’s one thing to be chastised about her inconclusive connections by a mother who understands, and it’s another to be reprimanded by a brother who doesn’t; and who constantly misreads her intent. 

But the truth is: they’re both in differing degrees of wrong here-- 

Scully has spent their joint Christmas vacation taking off at all hours of the day and night without a word. To the family, this is a slap in the face, especially considering she chose to fly out to bond with them during a new and intimate chapter of their lives. (Not to mention, one of them is close to her due date and up every morning making breakfast for her guests.)

Bill is not the only person who is frustrated: Maggie, too, keeps chastising her daughter’s flakiness. Maggie, too, outright fights Scully's theories and suppositions. While struggling with her own feelings, Mrs. Scully is also forced to mitigate between her daughter and her son's pent up emotions.

While it is certainly not his place to presuppose or judge, Bill is trying to understand his sister's perspective. If that isn't difficult enough, most of his assumptions are derived from is mother-- the exact same sticky situation as the cancer arc (posts here and here.)

Because Scully isn’t communicating with anyone unless she has to, the family is left to grapple with whatever information or interpretation they can gather or think up to explain her behavior. This leads to projections and assumptions: Maggie assumes Scully is seeing Melissa everywhere the way she saw her late husband; and Bill assumes Scully is struggling with an emptiness and void that he and Tara struggled with during their infertility journey.

And that’s where Scully’s fault lies: she assumes her brother wouldn’t understand, even if she told him. She is aware, to some extent, that Bill and Tara struggled with infertility; but she hasn’t stopped to learn the details. That’s understandable, too; but when Bill blunders in and gives her unsolicited advice, he is speaking from his own feelings and emotions-- not to chastise or finger wag at her. 

And that’s where Bill’s fault lies, too: he is given no direct answer of his sister’s feelings, so he projects his own onto her to humanize her actions. This, in turn, makes him impose his own thoughts, beliefs, and wishes onto her, as well: she, too, must feel and emptiness and void at not being able to have children; and that void must be guiding her to these actions.

And that’s the really messed up part: they’re both half-right and half-wrong; but the miscommunication from all sides is exacerbating the issue. Maggie pries open Scully and shares what she finds with Bill and Tara to soothe their feelings; this gives them a faulty understanding, and clams Scully up tighter next time.

In short: the problem is, Scully isn’t communicating fully; and her half-responses leave blanks for Maggie or Bill or Tara to fill in. And when they do communicate, everyone’s opinions and thoughts-- while well-intentioned-- careen away from each other and crash in a ditch.

 Without knowing where Bill is coming from-- and possibly not registering the vulnerability in his eyes-- Scully loses the last ounce of her patience; and, rightfully, sticks up for herself: “Bill, I don’t expect you to understand but I am not going to stand here and justify my mo--” 

“Dana?” Maggie cuts in, looking between both of her children. Called back to herself, Scully grits her teeth and looks away from her brother. “There’s a telephone call for you.” 

She leaves without another word; and Maggie studies Bill intently before following her out, reading from his face that the conversation ended in disaster.

After Mr. Sim’s staged suicide, Scully returns home to a warm, inviting fireplace, eyes misting at its likeness to her former childhood memories. She then notices the manger scene, a little child in the center of so much hope and intrigue. (There is a connection between Scully's journey and this manger scene-- no, not in the way you're thinking... at least, not exactly-- which I shall touch on in the next part.)

Bill pops into the room, voice tense as he asks, “When did you get back?” 

Startled, she stares into his eyes a few seconds in silence; then, seeing he intends no harm, simply replies, “I just got back.”

“Well, you’re just in time,” he amends, diffusing his feelings for the moment. “I was on my way over to the neighbors. Mom and Tara are already there.”

Unable to keep up even a whisper of facade, Scully ducks her head, nodding with pinched eyebrows and a strained face. 

“What?” he asks, softly. “What happened?”

Her head shoots back up, eyes wide and turbulent-- was she that obvious?-- as she questions whether to tell the truth. Her eyes tear up and her mouth slightly tightens before Scully admits to Marshall Sim’s death. 

Bill is sympathetic-- empathetic, even, as he asks, “Do you think it has something to do with that little girl?”

His tenderness and openness to hearing her thoughts, and to intelligently connecting a few dots on his own, releases her strain. “I think it might,” she assents. 

He pauses, turning inward, before pronouncing, “Dana, I have to show you something.” 

Intrigued, Scully follows her brother up to the nursery-- her room-- where he digs out a photo of Melissa-- one she'd never shared with her sister. 

After handing the picture over, Bill slumps his way to the window, head down, shoulders inward.

“Look at the date on the back,” he says heavily. Missy’s death still strongly affects him, so much so that touching this part of his past is draining to Bill. Which must be particularly affecting, considering his desire to replicate every detail of his childhood, down to the same rooms, for his own nuclear family.  

The date is Oct. 7 - 94; and when Scully flips it over to check, Bill releases a weary sigh. 

“Does Melissa look pregnant to you in that picture? It’s about four weeks before the girl was born.”

This is interesting: the Scully family, as a whole, has a problem with communication-- Scully with sharing her thoughts, her job, her conflicting beliefs; Bill with his struggles and weaknesses. To reveal that he knew Melissa wasn’t pregnant in 1994, Bill would've had to dredge up that photo as proof. Instead, he’d hoped to avoid that-- just as Scully had hoped to avoid sharing her own findings and suspicions about Emily.

After their argument, Bill, it seems, wanted to sweep the disagreement under the rug and enjoy Christmas. That resolution, however, fell through after seeing Scully's crestfallen face. And after hearing his sister mention murders disguised as suicides, Bill realized his reticence was no longer a priority if Dana was putting her life in danger because of a false dream.

“Bill, it doesn’t prove anything. Melissa didn’t have to get pregnant to have a baby, there’s--” Scully grasps for an idea, eyes wandering, “--there’s in vitro fertilization, there’s surrogate motherhood--” 

“Dana,” Bill cuts in. “Listen to yourself. You’re creating this whole scenario to fulfill a dream.”

“What dream?” She knows, deep down, what he means; but hasn’t wanted to touch this thought directly. 

“To have a child.”

Again, Scully struggles with self-doubt: his reasons sound valid, and logical. Are the dreams and the phone calls and the 60% chance just projections, as her mother said, as her brother is saying? (Which he got from their mother, no doubt.) 

“Look, I…” Bill pauses, stopping and starting his own difficult admission, “I understand. I know the need--” he tears up and looks away as the words spill out, “--Tara and I tried for years. But making this girl,” he concludes, convinced in the righteousness of his pursuit, “into Melissa’s daughter is not the way. You’re only going to end up hurting yourself.” His face is iron, his warning absolute. 

But though his words waiver, they cannot convince; and Scully won’t let the possibility go, not when she still has doubts. More honestly, not when Emily calls out to a part of herself.

The doorbell rings, and Bill sighs, walking away to answer it. The second he leaves, her face wilts, mouth and nose twitching against tears. 

“Hi,” he greets; and “Hi,” he is answered. 

“I’m here to see Dana Scully.”

“Oh, may I ask, um--”

“I’m Susan Chambliss from the County. It’s about the adoption.”

At that truth bomb, Bill looks up at his sister, shooting her a “Dana?” just as her face contorts in mild panic, caught. 

Gliding past Bill’s question, she swiftly says, “Hi. Thank you for coming in on Christmas Eve,” and rushes past after one last glance at his discomfited expression. 

Here is where we get an incredibly telling look into one Dana Scully’s psychology. 

Her application for adoption is denied, and she nearly breaks down in tears as Susan kindly lays out the reasons why she shouldn’t consider adoption, stating, “You’re a single woman who’s never been married, or had a long-term relationship. You’re in a high-stress, time-intensive, and dangerous occupation-- one that I sense you’re deeply committed to. And one which would become overnight a secondary priority--”

Scully looks up, either to contradict or persuade, but bites back her reply until the other woman is finished.

“--to the care and well-being of this child. I’m not sure this is a sacrifice you’re prepared to make.”

And perhaps Scully isn’t, either: she’s rushing things (just as she later rushes the IVF, posts here and here), and is troubled that not only would she have to ease up on her dedication to her occupation-- to the X-Files, to Mulder, even-- but that she hadn’t considered she’d have to. 

“Well, it’s one that I’ve given a great deal of thought to,” she explains, nearly losing the battle to her tears. “To be honest, I’ve started to question my priorities since I was first diagnosed with cancer.” 

This revelation-- and the fact that she is struggling with her infertility and was loathe to share these struggles with Mulder this past week-- points to two possibilities:

Scully was, perhaps, looking for a way out, and Emily provided that. This isn't likely, considering the stunned reaction she has when internalizing the consequences for adopting her high-risk 'niece'.

Or Scully is misinterpreting the signs again: doubting herself, her choices, her commitments; doubting whether her sister should have died, whether she should have gotten cancer, whether she should have been stripped of her fertility.  This is not only likely but also transparently the case: she's rushing into these decisions, despite the danger, despite the fulfillment her work provides, despite the loss of her close working relationship with Mulder. Scully's staring down an endless line, and thinks Emily is the new 'right path' she faces at every crux of her life.

Scully has been struggling with the fact of her infertility for months-- so much so that she only told her mother, and then only under added pressure. Again, she is trapped in a cycle of hyper-fixation-- that endless line, post here-- doubting herself and laying unnecessary blame at her feet. We know Scully commits to then wants to backtrack on her commitment-- in other words, she has attachment issues (post here)-- and looks to other signs or other voices or "other fathers" to tell her what to do, be it dating Daniel Waterston or breaking up with him or recruiting to the FBI or doubting her recruitment or partnering with Mulder or doubting her partnership with Mulder or getting cancer or losing her faith or gaining her faith or recovering from cancer or losing her fertility or finding her 'niece'. In short, she probably sees this miracle 'happenstance' as a second chance, or a sign from God or the paranormal or the supernatural that her sister sanctions; and thinks Melissa-- who she ‘failed’-- is relying on her to save her daughter. A new mission, a new appointed path. And though it doesn't feel right, she tells herself, "There's only one right thing to do."

And yet, the thought that she’d have to give up her work shakes Scully to the core: she is in tears at the thought, but she is also in tears at losing this last chance. (Mulder senses this, too, in Emily; but, as he tells the judge, doesn’t feel it’s his right to deny a mother her child.) 

“And I feel like I’ve been given a second chance,” she admits, nailing my previous points home. 

“Ever since I was a child, I’ve, I’ve never allowed myself to get too close to people. I’ve avoided emotional attachments. Perhaps I’ve been so afraid of death or dying that any connection just seemed like a bad thing. Something that wouldn’t last.” Her dreams make more and more sense: the rabbit and the snake and the coffin and her beloved vocation. “But I don’t feel that way anymore.”

This is the reason why she brought a cheese platter to Mulder’s room in Detour; and this is the reason she took family time off and has avoided reaching out: she is caught in another cycle of self-doubt-- questioning their partnership, questioning her abilities, questioning the X-Files's endless line. But what Scully is missing is that she hasn’t taken family time off, not really-- it’s not her nature to do so, for long. Even her own vacation later this season (Chinga) is interrupted by a case, which she solves without resentment. She needs the work just as much as Mulder does-- and she knows this. But that doesn't stop the toxic pattern of self-sabotage.

“You are aware of Emily’s medical condition. I want to stress to you, Dana,” the social worker continues, “Emily is a special needs child. According to her doctors, her condition is incurable. She requires constant care, both medical and emotional. The good news is, you have first hand experience of grave illness. The bad news is, you’d have to relive it through the eyes of a child.”

Again, Scully almost breaks-- tears nearly spilling over, mouth crumbling. That is hard: she still avoids mentioning her past illness whenever possible. But what else, she believes, can she do? 

“I realize that,” she nods, wiping a tear away. “And I feel like I’m ready.” 

Scully is being tossed about by remission expectations and fertility expectations and familial expectations and her own impossible expectations; and is grasping at motherhood as the fix-it solution she thinks she needs. The reality is… she’s not ready for parenthood. She would love Emily with all her heart; but she would have had to turn from the path she chose, the one that feels right, the one she still needs to learn and grow.

There is one last dream in store for Dana Scully: Melissa joins her for a late-night couch chat, wanting to know why her little sister is up.

“You worried about Quantico, or who gets the most presents this year?” she teases, a little joke over do-gooder Scully probably being the goodest girl all year for Santa; or a delicate poke at her insanely competitive, insanely jealous younger sister. 

“I guess I’m afraid I’m making a big mistake. I could tell Dad sure thinks I am,” Scully confesses-- how easy it appears she was able to confess back then, before international conspiracies and scientific, rigorous adherence. 

“Oh. Well, it’s not his life, Dana.”

“Yeah, I know that. But y’know, when I started med school, it felt so right. It just seemed like that was where I was supposed to be. Then… and then by the time I graduated, I just knew it was wrong. And now the FBI feels right. But what if that’s wrong, too?” The self-doubts and endless lines were there from the beginning. 

“There is no right or wrong,” Melissa replies. “Life’s… just a path. You follow your heart, and it’ll take you where you’re supposed to go.” This motto defines Scully and her life choices.

“I don’t believe in fate. I think we have to choose our own path.”

And here is the voice of her conscience, her intuition, her guide: “Well, just don’t mistake the path with what’s really important in life.” 

“Which is what?”

“The people you’re going to meet along the way. You don’t know who you’re going to meet when you join the FBI. You don’t know how much your life is gonna change. Or… how you’re gonna change the lives of others.” 

Scully is being pointed once again back to her path-- the FBI-- and the people she changed there-- Mulder. As much as she craves a life with Emily, it isn't meant to be: something feels off, conflicting; but it also feels right. Because she is here to save another life-- Emily-- before going back to hers. She still has answers and truths to uncover for herself before she can leave this life, this path, with a good conscience. 

Tara wakes her from this last dream; and Bill and Maggie swoop in behind her. 

“Did Santa come?” he teases. 

“Santa’s still here,” Tara returns, pointing at Scully. 

“She always had to be the first one up on Christmas-- couldn’t wait to get into those presents,” Bill parries, cuddling up to his wife and making her and Maggie laugh. 

Mrs. Scully swoops to the couch and snuggles up to her daughter; but before anymore distractions (ahem, Bill) can continue, Tara waves him off and exclaims, “Okay, enough pleasantries! I’m dying to know what’s in this box!” 

Bill launches to the tree, excitedly passing presents to his wife, mother, and sister-- even the forgotten Scully sibling (Charlie) sent a present. For once, everything seems to be going smoothly.

A brief note on Charlie: as already mentioned here, his lore seems to be spotty at best. But there is one consistent theme: ever since they were boys, Charlie stuck around and played with Bill (per One Breath’s flashback); and that seems to have carried into adulthood. He sent a message through Bill in Memento Mori’s deleted scene, and he sent a present for the family this year through Bill again. Whatever the status of his relationship with the Scullys, he seems to always use with his elder brother as his mouthpiece-- like Melissa had been for Scully, before her death.  

“Don’t open anything-- don’t open! I’ll be right back!” Bill chirps as he rushes out of the room to answer the doorbell. 

Of course, it’s a man with a package for FBI Agent Dana Scully. Bill rushes back while she signs for then reads it; but at her prolonged silence, the room becomes still. 

“What is it?” asks Maggie, worried. 

“It’s a DNA test on Emily Sim’s blood.”

“What’s it say?” Bill asks, voice devoid of amusement as he rises to his full height. Maggie, too, is similarly unamused. 

“It says definitively that Melissa is not Emily’s mother--” Mrs. Scully looks down, anticipating unpleasant emotions for her daughter, while Bill maintains eye contact, brows lowering in stressed pity, “--but that they found striking genetic similarities between Emily and Melissa. So many that they… ran a test against another sample that they already had.”

“What sample?” Maggie questions. 

“Wh-what are you trying to say?” Bill prods-- he knows, or is afraid he knows. 

“According to this… I am Emily’s mother.” 

We’re not shown the Scully family’s reaction to this news; but the next time they appear is in court, slipping out of the judge’s chambers after giving testimony on Scully’s behalf. 

Mulder is waiting outside on a chair when Tara leads the way, approaching him trepidatiously with Bill right behind her and Maggie lagging back. As Bill steps forward, visibly fuming over the other man’s presence, Tara flashes Mulder a tight smile-- taking neither side, but remaining polite. Her husband stands his ground, forcing Mulder to go around; and stares after his sister's partner with hatred and contempt. 

The last time we see the Scully family is at Emily Sim's funeral.

Alone, Scully sits in the church, withdrawn as figure after figure passes by. Maggie's gentle hand on her shoulder rouses her-- another the one person who can understand the loss of a child.

Tears glistening in her eyes, Mrs. Scully asks, “Are you ready?”

“I think I’ll get a ride back with Mulder,” Scully replies: choosing her place not with her "normal" family but with her partner-- a woman in search of the truth, where she knows she belongs.

At least, as Melissa said, until the next thing feels right. 

They embrace in understanding, then Scully pivots to give her brother an affectionate hug goodbye. He leans his face down into her shoulder, burying his nose there while she envelops him fully. 

An important note: these are the first hugs Scully has initiated-- a gesture of comfort for her mother and brother-- and both are hugs goodbye (which will be discussed below.)

But Scully doesn’t linger long: she drifts over to Tara, who is standing behind her husband, ashamed of her own good luck and happiness. Scully beams at her sister-in-law and the baby-- she will not taint little Matthew’s arrival with sadness-- and is faintly aware that Bill is carefully watching her face, relaxing only when he sees her able to face her nephew. 

Greeting the baby with a kiss, Scully whispers, “Bye bye Matthew” as Tara’s face nearly crumbles in tenderness, relief, and sorrow. 

“We’ll see you in awhile, okay?” Tara says, and Scully assents, “Okay.”

This, then, means Scully is leaving from the church directly to the airport: ‘Bye, bye, Matthew’ and the long hugs and well-wishes only point to one conclusion. If they expected her back at the house, their goodbyes wouldn’t be so final. And that means the mystery of Emily’s coffin will never be revealed to the family-- another of Scully’s well-kept secrets. 

Maggie stays behind to trade one last smile with her daughter before following the new parents out, and Scully gives one back: she will be all right. 

So many meanings can be gleaned from Mrs. Scully's final glance back: she knows her daughter wants to heal alone, and respects her; she grieves for her daughter's loss, and she empathizes with that pain. But most importantly, I think, is that she is proud of Scully.

Scully will be all right... until her peace is spit upon posthumously: Emily's body has been spirited away. No proof of her only chance at motherhood (for now.)

MENTIONS, APPEARANCES, AND OTHER LOOSE ENDS

We hear about the Scully family twice in Season 6: You have a brother who hates me,” Mulder insists, trying to convince his partner he is who he says he is (Dreamland); "Mulder, call it whatever you like-- I've got holiday cheer to spread. I've got a family roll call under the tree at 6:00 a.m.," Scully insists when he lures her to a haunted mansion on Christmas Eve (How the Ghosts Stole Christmas.) It's obvious, then, that the events of Emily have not torn apart these relationships.

Season 7 features one mention-- in En Ami, Scully lies about going away for a family emergency; and Mulder is on familiar enough terms to call up Maggie and ask about the family emergency. It's obvious that Mulder's closeness with Scully's mother has changed between seasons; and, though he called her likely out of concern for his partner, he came away from that phone call with enough calm (it's implied) to not frighten Mrs. Scully out of her wits, unlike every other call before.

And lastly, for me, Season 8: Maggie appears at Mulder’s funeral (Deadalive)-- but doesn’t stay as long as Skinner (likely because she knows her daughter wants to be left alone)-- and her daughter's (begrudging) baby shower (Essence.)

"You know it would be a whole lot easier for everyone if you would just tell us the sex, Dana?" Maggie prods as she hurries about the party area, arranging and rearranging balloons. When Scully doesn't respond, she yells from the other room, "Did you hear me?"

"Yes I heard you, Mom, for about the thousandth time-- you can wait. Didn't you have to wait with us?"

"Well," her mother rambles on, "I just know it's a boy. I can just tell by the way you're carrying-- it's a boy."

"Well, see, you obviously don't need me to tell you because you obviously already know," Scully baits, letting her mother stand shocked and overjoyed for a few seconds without correcting her assumptions.

"Then it's a boy?"

Without replying, Scully stares her down while turning on the tap: purposefully withholding the information with a straight face and twinkle in her eye.

"Oh, it's the least you can tell your mother considering everything else you're keeping secret."

They're interrupted by a knock. The arrival of Lizzie Gill reveals another layer of Mrs. Scully's meddling: she's signed up a baby nurse to help her daughter, without her daughter's permission. Scully doesn't outright jump at the offer, but does get comfortable around Lizzie (while ignoring her mother's pointed "See?" glances) enough to later accept her assistance.

This moment-- and other similar moments like this-- paints a rather interesting picture of their dynamic:

Scully is sharing less with her mother than she used to-- or, perhaps, Maggie is realizing how much her daughter keeps secret.

Yet, it doesn't seem to disrupt their relationship: Maggie is glad to participate in any way she can, enthusiastically peppering the apartment with decorations and her daughter with questions.

Maggie hired a baby nurse for Scully: why? Apparently, she thinks Scully would be unwilling to have her mother stay over while settling into early parenthood, despite her own "retirement" and widowhood. The nurse, in question, would function as hired help for practical needs; meaning, she wouldn't be staying over, either. This establishes that Mrs. Scully is alerted to and fully supportive of her daughter's strictly enforced boundaries.

"Considering everything else you're keeping secret" means that Scully (and Mulder) have not discussed his role in her baby's life at all with other people. At. All. And that it was Scully who decided on this continued secrecy, refusing to answer any questions during her entire pregnancy. Mulder's followed in her footsteps-- and probably likes that others are hindered from asking him questions or handing out back slaps-- while everyone else has been left to make assumptions. Including Maggie Scully.

Unfortunately, Scully stumbles upon Lizzie swapping her baby vitamins; and, having eaten some already, rushes to the hospital to have a full examination. Maggie waits with Mulder in the hallway; and after the doctor gives her patient an all-clear, Mrs. Scully rushes in and asks for her daughter's forgiveness.

"I'm so sorry, Dana." Seeing that Scully is frozen in place, trying to master her emotions, her mother initiates the embrace-- as she always has-- and continues, "This is all my fault. I brought this into your home. You know I would never let anything happen to you," she adds, a repeat of her words in Wetwired, while looking down at her daughter's baby bump. "Would never knowingly let anybody hurt you."

Scully keeps her head down, but assures, "I know, Mom."

Studying her face, Maggie adds, "I'm so worried about you. You keep everything so bottled up." This, then, paints Maggie's overbearing meddling and thousand-and-one questions in another light: anticipation over her grandchild, yes; but also frenzied worry and concern for her daughter, as well.

Again, Scully doesn't answer, nodding along as if to soothe her mother rather than admit her reticence; then looks aside to Mulder before his attention is pulled away and consumed by Skinner. However, it is important to note Maggie was included in this hospital visit: we know she's no longer on Scully's paperwork (hasn't been since pre-One Breath, that we're aware of; and hasn't shown up for any of Scully's S8 medical emergencies, which proves she was completely in the dark.) And we know Scully would have called Mulder, regardless, to help apprehend Lizzie Gill once the other woman was caught. But Scully chose to call up her mother and ask her to the hospital: perhaps because she feared the worst, the premature death of her baby. It's one thing to fear miscarriage before you've told your mother about the pregnancy (Via Negativa), and it's another thing entirely to lose the baby after your mother is invested in its arrival.

And that's it for Maggie Scully, Bill Scully, Charlie Scully, Tara Scully, or Matthew Scully's appearances! Or so I decree, as someone whose stops canon at Season 8~.

I leave Season 9 and IWTB and the Revival for those who want to take up the mantle and explore the Scully family for me: it wouldn't be fair to this series to spend the last few parts picking apart my grievances.

CONCLUSION 

That's it for the Scully family! Can you believe we've come this far?

Only two parts left: the tragedy of Emily Sim, and the failure and success of Scully's (and Mulder's) journey to parenthood.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[faithshouseofchaos]

Drama queen— Fernando Alonso x reader

Word count — 494

Fluff

It had been a busy day at the Mexico Grand Prix, and Y/N had been ready to unwind, maybe catch a few quiet moments with her husband. But of course, that wasn’t how it went. She walked into their private suite, expecting a calm evening, only to hear Fernando arguing with someone over the phone.

“Fernando, what did I tell you?” she called, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe.

He spun around, wide-eyed, phone still pressed to his ear. “Uh, nothing. I—”

“Don’t ‘uh’ me,” she interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “You promised you’d leave that nonsense out of this weekend. You’re still beefing with Liam Lawson?”

Fernando sighed dramatically, lowering the phone. “It’s not beef, cariño, it’s… it's a necessary rivalry.”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Necessary rivalry? You two are practically racing against each other in the paddock, not in an episode of Real Housewives of Formula 1.”

“I’m just saying, he’s always in my way, you know? It’s… tactical!” Fernando defended himself, gesturing as though this made perfect sense.

Y/N put her hands on her hips, giving him a look. “Tactical? Fernando, the guy’s a rookie! You’ve been racing longer than half the teams have been around. You really think he’s out to get you?”

“I didn’t say that,” he muttered, but she could tell he was struggling to defend it.

She sighed, walking over to him and gently swiping the phone from his hand, ending the call with a decisive tap. “Look, I love you, but this… this is ridiculous. What’s it gonna take for you to stop acting like a drama queen?”

“I’m not a drama queen!” Fernando exclaimed, pointing a finger at her. “I just have… a very strong sense of competition!”

“A very strong sense, huh?” Y/N chuckled, walking over to the small couch and sitting down. “You know what, fine. But if you’re gonna have this tactical rivalry, can you at least keep it out of our living room? It’s not exactly romantic, babe.”

Fernando sat down next to her, a sheepish grin crossing his face. “I didn’t mean to… stress you out. It’s just… well, when Liam gets in front of me, I get this urge to… show him who’s boss.”

Y/N laughed softly, placing a hand on his arm. “Fernando, you’ve already proven that many times. Now, can you let it go before you turn into the old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn?”

“Okay, okay,” Fernando said, rolling his eyes, but his smile was warm. “But only if you promise to watch the race with me. No more interruptions, I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“Deal,” Y/N said with a wink, nudging him playfully. “Now, I better not see you ‘accidentally’ driving Liam off the track.”

“I’m not a monster, cariño,” he replied with a dramatic sigh, leaning back. “But I can’t promise anything.”

Y/N laughed, leaning her head on his shoulder. “God help us.”

[estellan0vella]

Sunshine's Guide To Murder│Lee Minho

Chapter Twenty Two: The Minho Way Still Sucks SS: 8 (ignore time stamps and dates) Word Count: 1.7K & 0.5K Content Warnings: Drug use Previous Next Masterlist

In the living room, the group’s materials are strewn across the coffee table: audio files queued up on laptops, hastily labelled folders spilling documents, and their recording setup perched precariously on a stack of books. Hayun is sprawled out on the couch in sweatpants and a hoodie, traces her fingers along the sterile strips covering the cut on her cheek. Her eyes are a little too bright, pupils sharp, but none of the guys say a word about it. She’s been through hell lately, and they’re picking their battles.

Jeongin leans forward, squinting at the screen in front of him. “With you guys narrating everything that went down, I mean... we could easily get three hour-long episodes out of this,” he says, glancing at the others for confirmation.

Jisung nods, thumbing through a file with intensity. “Yeah, we’d only have to cut the repetitive stuff and keep the big reveals. People are gonna eat this shit up.”

Felix chuckles, leaning back and resting his head on the back of the couch. “Just hope they don’t think we’re making this shit up. Feels like a fucking crime thriller.”

Hayun, half-listening, smirks and lets out a soft laugh, her voice a little too dreamy. “It’s real,” she says, her words drawn out. “All of it. Every messy, fucked-up part.”

The guys exchange glances, but before any of them can respond, the door opens. Minho steps in, his gaze zeroing in on Hayun. “Hey, princess,” he says, tone light but his eyes serious. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Hayun blinks up at him, her fingers pausing over her cheek. She pushes herself off the couch, following him up the stairs to her room. She closes the door softly behind them, settling onto her bed as Minho stands by the door.

“So, what’s up?” she asks, her voice still carrying that spaced-out, lazy lilt.

Minho pauses, crossing his arms, his gaze steady. “Did you frame Mingi?”

The question hits like a lead weight, and Hayun’s expression flickers, a smile breaking through before she suppresses it. “Okay, listen,” she begins, her hands raised in a sort of surrender. “I can’t tell you anything. Because if I get caught and the cops find out you knew-”

“If you get caught, you’re looking at prison time, Hayun,” Minho interrupts, his voice harsher than intended. “Do you understand that?”

She sighs, rubbing her forehead. “I know. But I have not confirmed or denied anything so-”

“No,” Minho cuts in. “I already know you did it. So out with it.”

Hayun’s lips press into a thin line, and after a beat, she relents. “Alright, fine. It was Ryujin, okay? But it was an accident. Minsun and Yuna got into an argument that night. He shoved her, and she hit her head and went home. Then Ryujin and Yuna got into it because Yuna- she sold her out, basically, handed her over to Mingi.” She pauses, swallowing. “So Ryujin snapped, shoved Yuna, and Yuna fell. Ryujin went upstairs, but when she came back later, Yuna was dead. She choked on her own vomit.”

Minho listens, his face unreadable, absorbing the twisted sequence of events. “So where is Yuna now?”

Hayun bites her lip. “Only Yeji and now the police know. Yeji hid the body, and she planted something of Yuna’s at Mingi’s place, along with some other stuff. The cops are going to find that and Yuna’s body, and bam! Mingi goes down for her murder along with every other disgusting thing he’s done. Gone for life. No more Mingi.”

Minho’s eyes narrow as he catches her pinpoint pupils. “Are you high?”

Hayun rolls her eyes, her expression shifting to mild annoyance. “It’s been a long few days, alright? Just let me have this.”

“You know what I said about this, Hayun.” Minho’s voice hardens, and his gaze sharpens.

Her shoulders slump, a whine slipping out as she crosses her arms over her chest. “Minho, come on, no.”

“I told you,” he says, stepping forward with a sigh, though there’s a glimmer of reluctant amusement in his eyes. “Every time I find you high, it’s a cold shower.”

“Why do you have to be such a meanie?” She says, groaning dramatically as she flops back on the bed.

“Because I give a shit about you,” he replies, his voice softening despite himself. “And if cold showers are what it takes, then that’s what it’s gonna be.”

Hayun lifts her head, squinting up at him with a pout. “You’re relentless.”

“Only when it comes to you, princess.” 

Minho grips Hayun’s wrist firmly, pulling her up from the bed and guiding her down the hall toward the bathroom without another word. The determination in his stride leaves no room for argument, though Hayun tries anyway, muttering, “Minho, please, not this.”

He twists the cold water on, the icy rush immediately filling the room. “Told you, princess,” he says, his voice unwavering. With a swift motion, he pulls off his T-shirt, tossing it onto the counter, giving her one expectant look. “Sweater off.”

Reluctantly, Hayun slips off her hoodie, and Minho catches himself looking, just a little too long, at her in that lacy blue bralette. He forces himself to tear his gaze away, clearing his throat before tugging her firmly under the spray of freezing water. The shock hits her immediately, and she thrashes against him, water spilling over them both.

“Tell me when it starts to cut through the high,” he murmurs, holding her close, bracing her against his chest.

Hayun lets out a strangled groan as the freezing water slams into her, soaking them both to the bone. “You’re a stubborn ass,” she mutters, her body shivering against him.

Minho’s grip doesn’t budge. “You’re not getting out of this, so suck it up.”

With a reluctant sigh, she presses herself against him, the warmth of his chest in stark contrast to the biting cold. “The Minho way still sucks, by the way.”

He chuckles, his fingers running through her soaked hair. “I know, but it works. And it’s going to keep happening until you stop messing with pills, Hayun.”

Her lips curve into a small pout, and she lifts her chin defiantly. “Why can’t you just go back to quoting books and being cute? You were so much more fun that way.”

Minho smirks, flicking her bottom lip gently with his thumb. “I do both, princess. I quote literature and know all your favourite things when you’re not high. When you are, I make sure you stay grounded. Icy water’s part of the package.”

A reluctant smile tugs at her mouth, though the chill has her teeth chattering. “I’m freezing,” she mutters.

“Good. Once you’re back to normal, I’ll get back to quoting things.” His fingers continue to comb through her wet hair, soothing in a way that contradicts the shivering cold of the water. “And I’ll take you on a real date sometime, too. Maybe to the Korean National Police Museum. You’d be all over that.”

A flicker of surprise lights up her eyes, and she tilts her head with a grin. “How about the Disney100 exhibition at the K Museum of Contemporary Art instead? More your style than police exhibits, you know?”

Minho laughs, the sound low and warm. “Anywhere you want, princess. But only if you’re sober for it.”

She leans into him, letting her forehead rest against his shoulder, a small sigh escaping her as the water finally starts to shake her from the high’s hold. The icy stream cuts into her, and with Minho steady by her side, she feels the fog lift, her thoughts sharpening. He wraps his arm around her shoulders, keeping her close as she steadies herself.

“You coming back to earth yet?” he murmurs, his voice low, steady.

She lets her head rest against him, a hint of warmth finally returning. “Sort of,” she whispers, her voice soft but clear.

Minho shuts off the icy water, grabbing a towel before leading Hayun back to her room. The moment they step inside, he hands her a fresh towel, turning his back to give her privacy. As he rubs his own hair dry, he calls over his shoulder, “Hurry up, princess. That bed looks a little too tempting right now.”

Hayun strips off her soaked clothes, tossing her wet bralette and sweatpants onto the floor before pulling on a pair of white sweatpants and a cropped light green camisole that sits just above her hips. She flops onto the bed with a sigh, stretching out as if she hasn’t a care in the world.

Without looking, Minho throws a towel her way, and it lands squarely on her face. “You need to dry your hair. No skipping steps.”

She peeks out from under the towel, pushing it off with a playful scowl. “You’re insufferable, you know that?”

He grins, not fazed in the least, and pulls her up with a gentle tug. “I know. But the cure for that is coffee. A honeycomb hazelnut frappuccino, with an extra shot, has your name on it.”

She arches an eyebrow. “And your plain iced americano is, I assume, waiting to bore me to death?”

“Oh, absolutely,” he smirks, his tone playful. “And get layered up, it’s snowing out. I’ll go steal some of Jeongin’s warm stuff; he knows better than to complain.”

Hayun huffs dramatically, reaching for a puffy black coat from her closet. “But layering up doesn’t look cute,” she argues, pulling a face at the coat.

Minho just raises an eyebrow at her. “Yeah? Neither does frostbite, princess.”

Sighing, she quickly towel-dries her hair and pulls it up into a casual half-up, half-down style, slipping into her coat just as Felix bounces into the room.

“Coffee run? Count me in!” Felix chirps, eyes gleaming with his usual enthusiasm. “Also, can we grab stuff for a barbecue?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Minho replies, already heading out to raid Jeongin’s closet.

Felix spots a purple beanie on Hayun’s desk chair, plopping it onto his head. He then snags a grey fleece, wrapping himself up. “Let’s go, let’s go!” he calls after Minho.

In the hallway, Minho returns, wearing one of Jeongin’s hoodies layered under a thick jacket. He gestures for everyone to follow, a faint smile lingering as he watches Hayun tug her coat’s zipper up, her face half-hidden by the fluffy collar.

“Feeling warm enough now?” Minho teases, patting her shoulder.

“Warm and still cute,” she replies as she adjusts her coat’s collar.

The three head out, bracing themselves against the biting cold as snow begins to drift down. Felix skips ahead, clearly excited for coffee and barbecue supplies, while Minho lingers a bit behind, sneaking glances at Hayun as if to make sure she’s truly alright.

Minho flips the meat on the grill, sending up a satisfying sizzle, while everyone huddles closer to the warmth. Felix, Jisung, and Hayun are cozied up on one side, wine glasses in hand, while the others, bundled in heavy jackets, clutch their beers. Snowflakes drift gently from the gray sky, settling in their hair and on their shoulders, but no one minds; there’s a warmth in the air that seems to come more from their camaraderie than the grill.

Jisung, chuckling at his phone, suddenly freezes, his eyes going wide. “Oh my god, you guys, look at this,” he says, waving his phone in front of everyone. “It’s from the news. Listen to this: ‘Shin Yuna’s body was found in a septic tank...’” His voice drops an octave for effect, “‘...along with another body that police haven’t identified yet but believe to be Hwang Yeji. They estimate the second body is only a day deceased.’”

The group goes quiet, each of their faces a mix of shock and disbelief.

Minho and Hayun exchange a sharp, knowing look, though it’s quick. Felix, ever the observant one, doesn’t miss a thing. “Alright, what the hell was that?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. “What was that look?”

“What look?” Minho asks, feigning innocence, but he can’t hide the tension tightening his jaw.

“Don’t bullshit me, Minho,” Felix presses. “You two shared a look like you already knew something about this.”

Hayun sighs, shifting her wine glass between her hands as she stares at the snow-dusted ground. “Only Yuna was supposed to be in that tank,” she says quietly. “That’s where she’s been for the past five years.”

Changbin’s brows furrow, trying to make sense of it. “What do you mean, that’s where she’s been? Are you saying someone hid her there?”

“Yes,” Hayun admits, her voice low. “Yeji dumped Yuna’s body in that septic tank five years ago. It was supposed to stay hidden.”

Everyone stares at her, jaws slack. Minho breaks the tension, glancing around the group. “Look, anyone who doesn’t want to be an accessory after the fact should probably head out now.” But no one moves, eyes locked on Hayun, waiting for more answers.

“Yeji... covered up for Ryujin five years ago,” Hayun explains slowly. “After that fight Ryujin and Yuna had, Yuna... ended up dead. Yeji took her body and hid it in that tank. But last week, we framed Mingi for Yuna’s murder. Yeji, Ryujin, and I, we all had a hand in making that happen.”

Hyunjin, looking at her with wide eyes, shakes his head. “But now Yeji’s dead too? And dumped in that same tank?”

“Apparently,” Hayun replies, shrugging, but her eyes betray her unease. She takes a shaky breath before looking around at them. “Only Yeji knew where Yuna’s body was hidden. I swear I had no idea until last week. Hell, I only found out about the septic tank just now.”

“And I only got the full story from Hayun earlier today,” Minho adds, his tone somber.

Jisung’s voice trembles as he asks, “But what if... someone else knows? What if whoever killed Yeji knows what you guys did? What if you’re next?” His gaze turns to Hayun, concern etched on his face.

Hayun shakes her head firmly. “It’s impossible. The only people who knew were Yeji, Ryujin, and me.” She pauses, her voice barely a whisper. “After I talked to Ryujin about everything, I was abducted by your dad. No one else knew.”

Felix sighs, raking a hand through his hair as he murmurs, “One investigation ends, and another begins. Seems like we’re stuck in a goddamn crime novel, huh?”

Taglist: @hityoulikebahng @drewsandsebastianswife @fackeraccount @lily-loves-kpop @stilldontknowhoiam

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@heeseungspookie @smigcrazy @skzstannie @nightmarenyxx

[oceanqueenmusical]

*Busts down the door* NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

Ha, sorry! I just saw this post and felt compelled to add my own two cents since Macaque’s characterization and reception by fandom is something I feel pretty strongly about. Also bear in mind I mean none of this hatefully, I’m just participating in a debate.

While again, you're correct and valid in a lot of your points, I just can't agree with the statement that Macaque is just a bad person.

That’s great! Because Time didn’t say Macaque was ‘just’ a bad person. They actually acknowledge several times that he’s complex and multi-faceted. But being complex doesn’t mean you can’t also be an asshole to almost every other person you interact with. He repeatedly hurts several characters, and in the first two seasons he does so with zero provocation other than his hatred for Sun Wukong. He’s complex, yes, but still a dick.

I get what you're saying, but season 3 is entirely about dissecting the characters (namely Wukong and Macaque) while they're at their most vulnerable. And while this show isn't really known for consistent writing at times, the season is also spent getting to know Macaque and what his true intentions are.

I get what you’re saying here, but that’s… debatable? Monkie Kid has 11 minute episodes, and a lot of them are crammed with details that aren’t expanded on. Wukong is consistently benched every season and special, even if it’s done differently each time. He literally spends half of s3 meditating, and in the special he’s possessed. We don’t really see him at his ‘most vulnerable’ unless you count him being yelled at by Mei and then possessed by LBD, and even then that’s not really emotional vulnerability — which I assume is what you’re referring to.

Similarly, Macaque isn’t really emotionally vulnerable either. He’s tossed around by LBD, and sure, he’s ‘vulnerable’, but he spends all those scenes being terrified or snarky. We don’t really see inside his head at all. And— what ‘true intentions’? He’s literally hunting down the Monkie Kids to deliver them to LBD because she’s threatening him into compliance. Those aren’t true intentions, that’s just forced compliance.

M.K literally goes "deep, deep down, you're not [a bad] guy", and Macaque takes that as his incentive to join the group and help them save the world, which he continues to do for the next two seasons.

Uh, yeah… so, I did not like that speech at all and I think it was done very poorly and was unwarranted, but that is only my opinion. However, Macaque didn’t really help in s4. He just showed MK a video game to motivate him into fighting Azure and nominally helps Mei beat Peng. Not a lot happens, and he’s certainly not remorseful or apologetic towards anyone for how’s he’s treated them in the past. It’s just kinda brushed over. In s5 he’s a LOT more helpful of his own will though, I’ll give you that.

He also only was present for 1 episode in season 1, and I think 2 in season 2, so it surely wasn't "two full seasons". These seasons we don't know almost anything about him. We're supposed to take his actions purely at face value up until Season 3, where it's all spent letting us know that he does all of it because he was terribly hurt and betrayed (at least to him) by his closest and only friend (regardless of the nuances of that situation as well) and feels now more than ever that he can only rely on himself (something he also literally says). It's why he tries to save himself over the world (along with his well-hidden but clearly there) hope and belief that MK and his friends were capable enough to handle the rest in Season 3.

Okay, you may be right that we didn’t see a lot of Macaque in the first two seasons… but what we did see from him was not good AT ALL. Sure, he may have only had two episodes, but he spent those episodes being a dick and torturing MK and his friends for funsies. You can’t just say ‘oh, we haven’t seen their full character yet!’ Just because he only had two episodes in the first two seasons. Even if he had little screen time, he spent all of it being a manipulative asshole.

And as for s3 — again, even if he’s traumatized and has hope for the Mobile Kids, he’s acting on it in the most dickish way possible. He didn’t HAVE to separate the van into two copies and torture Mei and Sandy, but he did. He could’ve just isolated MK, taken him to LBD, and finished the job. He chose to keep Mei and Sandy around to get to MK.

Him "having fun while doing it" is, again, why we're meant to take his actions at face value. He acts like he doesn't care how he makes people feel, acts like he just hurts people for the fun of it, when there are clear reasons (justifiable or not) why he does those things.

… This is just headcanon territory. I’m sorry, but the only time Macaque shows a SMIDGEN of regret for what he’s doing is in s3 ep10 when he is actively being consumed by LBD’s curse, and even then he sounds more in pain than anything.

This is shown all throughout season three. He didn’t have to torture the Monkie Kids, level Ao Guang’s palace, hold Mei hostage, beat the shit out of Tang and degrade him, or choose to mock MK when he could’ve just gotten the job done with. He CHOSE to do those things, and he smiled the whole time. If you interpret him as remorseful that’s totally fine, but that is a headcanon. If he was genuinely sorry, he would have said something or showed even ONE SECOND of remorse on his face when he was alone.

His debut episode, he only does anything he does to get back at Wukong because he's upset for a valid reason. Was it okay for him to hurt MK the way he did? Of course not. But he didn't do it just because he's evil and likes hurting people, he did it because he hides away his good nature to keep people away and avoid being hurt (something he actually unveils that very episode in his lessons to MK. Macaque indirectly lets us know how he thinks with his learned ruthlessness).

Yeah, uh, I don’t know how to say this, but your buddy killing you 500 years ago doesn’t justify you trying to kill his mentee. Is the reason he’s upset valid? Yeah. Not valid enough to manipulate and try to murder MK, though.

Also… we have no proof he ‘hides his good away’. That was an assessment made by MK. You know, the guy who generally tries to see the good in people. Maybe Macaque was teaching MK with methods he genuinely believed in, but you can literally see throughout the episode how Macaque is manipulating MK and making him more and more angry and prone to lashing out so he can steal his powers. Using MK to get back at Wukong was Macaque’s first and foremost priority that episode.

In Shadow Play, he outright refers to MK as his student, and they have a conversation at the end that really should've explained everything. He says he's "a good kid with a terrible mentor".

Macaque calls himself MK’s mentor to fuck with him. That’s it. He says it in a mocking tone, and is pleased when MK snaps back. I agree that he was definitely growing somewhat fond of MK by the end, but that doesn’t change the fact that ‘student’ was a word used by Macaque to mock MK, and MK visibly reacts with anger and frustration when he’s called that by Macaque. Not exactly a moniker used with fondness in that episode.

This episode isn't him mentally tormenting MK just for the sillies.

… Yes. It literally is. The entire episode he mocks MK and makes assumptions about MK’s character that he based on (his biased and untrustworthy view of) Sun Wukong. Macaque literally drags MK through the mud while peppering his friends around, laughing at him for relating to the warrior. Why? Because Macaque assumes MK and Sun Wukong are the same people when they’re NOT.

Also… even if Macaque was trying to teach MK a lesson, he didn’t have to strip away the free will of three people to do it. He had so many other options. He chose to hurt people.

It's him, in the harsh and brash nature I mentioned before that we actually see best in perspective post-redemption with the game he has MK play in Season 4, teaching MK to never forget where he came from and to not allow his newfound power and glory to cause him to forget about the people who care about him and who helped him get there. He tells the story about him and Wukong as a way of saying "don't let you and your friends become like us, don't ruin the good thing you have". This is an inherently good lesson done in a way that would disallow MK to actually see that Macaque is trying to help.

I agree that the lesson is good, but it’s still based on Macaque’s biased perspective of Wukong and MK. MK’s issue that episode wasn’t him becoming a glory-hound and forgetting his roots, he was having a breakdown over losing his mentor and discovering that he’s a magical monkey. However, I will agree on this point that Macaque was genuinely trying to help here.

His holding Mei hostage was obviously not okay (and I'm pretty sure he was bluffing, because he literally said before that that he didn't want to have to hurt anyone and that he was only there for the rings but that isn't the conversation, and either way holding people hostage is inherently bad),

Headcanon. We have no proof he was bluffing. Not wanting to hurt someone is very different from hurting someone anyways, and as we’ve seen Macaque is VERY capable of killing someone. In fact, I’d argue he had more motivation to do something drastic here considering he was literally being consumed by LBD’s curse! And again— he chose to hold Mei hostage and threaten Tang to complete the ritual. He could’ve waited it out or tried to talk but he did not. He chose the violent route. Sure, maybe he did because of his trauma, but that was still a choice he made.

but again, we know why. You can hear it in his voice and his dialogue that he's become desperate. Testimonies from both Wukong and Peng let us know that Macaque has never been the fearless type. In fact, his self preservation bleeds into a lot of his moments, where we never see him go in swinging. He plays mind games, he turns his fights psychological to give himself the upper-hand. So we know that Macaque is both, literally not himself, and clearly behaving in ways he never would. When he breaks free, he tries to run away. He doesn't keep pursuing MK and the gang, he tries to save himself and again, leave the rest to them.

Yeah, and he also gives himself the upper hand because he likes to be in control and psychologically fuck with his opponents. And actually? Aside from how desperate he sounds, nothing Macaque did in that episode was out of character. Being consumed by LBD’s curse didn’t change his brain chemistry all of a sudden, Macaque was capable of holding Mei hostage WAY before even coming into contact with LBD.

Also, yeah, he does run away. He runs away from the consequences of his actions after torturing Mei and forcing Tang to complete the ritual, leaving everyone else to deal with the mess he made.

And his regret and remorse are shown in the way he sticks around and keeps helping them when he has no reason to. He doesn't need to help out with LBD in s3 after he's free, cheer up MK with his speech, or help Wukong break out of the Scroll of Memory, or be there for the fight against the Brotherhood all in s4, or have that talk with Wukong at the beginning of s5, especially, again, given everything we know about him and his constant feeling of needing to flee, but he does all of it anyways.

You do realize that in the s3 special and the latter half of s4 the world is about to end, right? Macaque helps because it’s in his own self-interest. I will give you season 5, but the earlier seasons? He’s helping because he’s not a dumbass and knows that the world is close to ending and that he should probably stop it if he doesn’t want to DIE.

Also if someone showed their ‘regret’ by sticking around to do the bare minimum with no apologies I’d yell at them to leave. He doesn’t even show remorse— he never apologies or looks regretful. He’s the same as always; cocky, snarky, and arrogant with a hatred for Wukong. Sure, it may have dimmed as the series progresses, but he’s mostly the same except he’s a ‘good guy’ now. No apologies to Tang, Mei, Sandy, MK, Wukong, anyone. He never shows any kind of regret in any way. Claiming that sticking around is how he shows regret is headcanon territory.

Should he have an apology? Of course he should, and it sucks that we don't get one, but we know that Macaque shows his feelings through action, and, in moments of vulnerability, isn't very good with words. It's why MK thinks Macaque is just being a dick when he initially tries to give him advice in s4.

Headcanon (I’m noticing a theme here). Sure, Macaque isn’t a very open book with his emotions, but you can’t say that he shows regret through actions when those actions have been bare-minimum saving the world. He never tries to show kindness to anyone he’s hurt. He dips in, saves the day with snarky commentary, and dips out.

Yes, Macaque isn’t good with words, but he also doesn’t seem to try. When he shows up as MK’s having a breakdown in season 4 he doesn’t try to comfort the kid, he literally announces himself by degrading Wukong. Which— do you think that would make MK feel better? Sorry, that was mean, but seriously.

MK thought Macaque was being a dick because Macaque showed up acting like one.

He didn't try to murder MK, he used him as bait to satiate a long-standing grudge. A bad thing, but not done unprompted.

… Yes. Yes, he did. He would’ve crushed MK to a pulp in s1 ep9 had Wukong not shown up. Macaque had no idea that Wukong would’ve shown up at that exact moment. For all he knew MK was about to die by his hand and he was CHILL with it. More than chill, actually!

Also— what do you mean ‘not done unprompted’?! Trying to kill a kid because you have beef with his mentor seems pretty unprompted to me! MK had no issues with Macaque until Macaque showed up to manipulate and kill him. Just because Wukong wronged Macaque once doesn’t make Macaque trying to kill his mentee prompted, I would say doing something like that is very much unprompted!

He didn't brutalize MK. He used harsh means to teach MK a valuable lesson. It was bad to use MK's friends the way that he did, it was bad to go at MK's safety and headspace to get his point across. But it was done with the intent of a good outcome.

What point?! What outcome?! I just rewatched the episode and all Macaque says is that MK’s a good kid with a bad teacher (which is an opinion, by the way), and Macaque could’ve just said that. And he says that AFTER he leaves the theatre and MK had to hunt him down. The ‘point’ Macaque was trying to get across was that MK and Wukong were selfish assholes who didn’t care about their friends— which is a biased and factually incorrect narrative that he made up because he couldn’t see Wukong and MK as two different entities.

I’m sorry, but no lesson is worth violating the autonomy of three people and traumatizing another. Tell me; if Wukong did anything similar to that to teach MK a lesson, would you still be cool with it?

He fought Tang for the Ring of Samadhi (I'm pretty sure he barely even hit him, so I wouldn't say "violently beat on", but an attack is still an attack so I won't tell you you're wrong)

Macaque kicks Tang in the face and throws him to the floor. He tries to punch him in the face and the ONLY reason he didn’t get to kick the shit out of Tang more was because Tang managed to unlock his cicada powers. Macaque didn’t beat on Tang more because of lack of opportunity, not lack of malice.

and, again, was just playing mind games as we see him do constantly no matter the enemy--a defense mechanism, a legit fighting strategy.

It’s also known as projection. Macaque does it a lot, especially to MK. Macaque brings up Wukong during their fight despite the fact that Tang was benched by MK and has barely interacted with Wukong that season. Also— Tang is (if we’re going off of Word of God) around 40. What threat does he pose to Macaque to necessitate a defense mechanism? Even when Tang gets powers it’s just making a shield. THAT is a defense mechanism.

But he was under the iron fist of LBD, and wouldn't have even bothered with Tang otherwise (I really could keep going about his actions in s3 and how well masked his encouragement of their team actually is). He was given his warning before this moment, and literally almost was killed then and there before he told her about their plan. LBD wouldn't have even known about it and thus wouldn't have had the time to prepare until his life was on the line.

This is true, but again, he goes about things in the most violent manner possible. Also— the only visible encouragement I see is at the end of ‘The Winning Side’, and that’s mostly to himself. Sure, maybe he’s not as violent as he could be, but that’s still not better.

His siege of the Dragon Palace of the East Sea was also only done because the LBD was practically dangling his right to live in front of him and as a means of self-preservation. This is a bad thing he does, but one that hardly counts, because again, he never would've bothered otherwise.

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: the siege of Ao Guang’s palace? Yeah, that was before the ice curse that threatened to encase Macaque’s body. Sure, he was being coerced by LBD before then, but he still chose to attack the palace. He acknowledges that Ao Guang was only sent to slow him down— he could’ve left and pursued the team instead! But he instead chose to siege the palace and assault Ao Guang and he does so smiling and laughing.

Also— my god, ‘one that hardly counts’?! Just because you’re being coerced into an action doesn’t mean that everything you do during that suddenly doesn’t count! Oh, it doesn’t count to Macaque’s character? Well, guess what! It counts to the destroyed palace, the probably injured people who lived in that city, and the definitely injured Ao Guang.

You can’t write off everything Macaque does in s3 and use LBD as a scapegoat. She is an instigator for his actions, yes, but she wasn’t whispering in his ear to attack the palace. And if she was— he sure seemed to have a hell of a time doing it either way.

You're right, trauma doesn't exempt someone from responsibility, but the point isn't that Macaque isn't responsible for his bad actions, because in most cases, he is. But there's a lot of detail and understanding of his character that's missed when you take all of his actions before his redemption (and even after for some reason) and write him off as a "bad person".

Holding someone accountable ≠ missing nuance and detail. Macaque does bad things repeatedly, many times of his own free will, and even when they aren’t he takes them a lot farther than necessary.

And I gotta ask— when was Macaque’s redemption for you? Was it when he said sorry or showed remorse to somebody? Because I hate to break it to you, but that NEVER happens. Never. Not once. He leaves, shows up to nominally help, then leaves. There is zero present remorse there. Saving the world one time after all your other options are exhausted and getting a little speech about how deep down you’re actually a good person doesn’t ‘redeem’ you.

I thought we all agreed that redemption is taking accountability for your actions and making steps to be better. Macaque never does either of those things. The most he does is save the world and help out the team. That’s it. He doesn’t say sorry. He’s not kind — physically or with words — to anyone. He sticks to the shadows and doesn’t say anything until there’s an opportunity to be snarky and bag on Wukong. That is it.

Also, like I said at the start, Time never writes Macaque off. They acknowledge several times his complexity, and how he is a very nuanced character with multiple facets. But being a complex dick is still being a dick.

That’s all! If you’ve read this far thank you, and again, I don’t mean this as an insult, just a debate. Have a good day!

For fun how about rating Wukong ship from lmk and give your opinion why?

SWK Ship Ratings

(Scores rank from -10 at the lowest, and 10 at the highest)

Shadowpeach

Name Rating: 5/10. Basic, but rolls off the tongue. Started the trend of Sun Wukong having extremely basic ship names- more on that below.

Canon Rating: 0/10. Whatever they had in the past, Macaque simply treats Wukong far too awfully to really justify the two of them ever getting together. Even the attempts at reconciliation feel more like extremely forced ship baiting, given how it goes from one of the two being marginally kinder to the other than usual, then immediately dropping it for more sniping. (Past!Shadowpeach receives 5/10.)

Fanon Rating: -10/10. I’ve spoken at length about this, but fans love to distort Wukong into a drooling abuser so stupid he can’t breath through his nose, usually while turning Macaque into a Possession Sue who only serves to be the author’s simpering self-insert who is the most perfect little baby of all time who has never ever done anything wrong at all even once. If there is an attempt to be “nuanced” or “unbiased” it manifest as “Sun Wukong “killed” (re: defended himself against) Macaque so he’s worse.” It’s an awful, extremely pervasive dynamic that rots any fandom enjoyment I could have had for this couple.

Personal Enjoyment: 6/10. Getting to write Macaque as the legitimately awful person that he is takes off the edge of seeing constant “uwu sadboi” Macaque content. Still, I don’t touch anyone else’s Shadowpeach content because of this.

Peachlotus

Name Rating: 2/10. As you’ll see, most ship names involving Sun Wukong are, uh… extremely lazy. Just one of the other character’s traits with “peach” slapped before/after it. Fandom really dropped the ball with most of these. This one is especially clunky, at least on my tongue.

(See, Macaque gets stuff like Lunartides, Inkypages, Shadowpeach, etc- all very cool.. We need to diversify the nouns is what I’m saying. Coulda been something like “GingerRoot” cause orange fur + plant boy. “FlowerBuds” for the platonic name for peaches + lotuses. Do you guys see what I’m saying. It can’t just be raw peaches all the way down.)

Canon Rating: 2/10. Ne Zha also doesn’t treat Wukong too kindly, interacting with him mostly through insults and physical attacks. He does seem to have some understanding of the king, though, which gives him a slight boost over Macaque.

Fanon Rating: 1/10. It barely exists, and what little does exist is essentially just “Ne Zha is mad at Wukong over what the fuck ever, so they’re fighting” and little more. There’s a lot of potential for bonding over immortality and awful pasts or being commandeered by domineering authority figures, which I wish was used more often.

Personal Enjoyment: 2/10. I don’t see the dynamic, personally. Again, Ne Zha’s only interactions with him are only ever vitriolic or exasperated in nature, which doesn’t leave stable footing for a relationship to stand. Maybe I’ll make a chatbot for them one day and see if I come around to it.

“Freepeaches”

Name Rating: -5/10. This shit is exactly what I’m talking about with the lazily slapping “peach” onto whatever and going on. “Free” has no meaning between Wukong and Tang- it’s just a holdover from a more popular ship. Tang only mooches food from Pigsy. That’s one of the biggest elements of their dynamic. Sure, Tang likes free stuff (food, rides, physical labor), but when does he ever get that from Wukong? It just makes no sense.

AND IF IT HAD TO HAVE THE FRUIT, TANGYPEACHES WAS RIGHT THERE

Canon Rating: 6/10. Tang literally drew himself and the Monkey King together inside a heart. He adores Wukong, thought maybe not for who he truly is- and the two don’t any interaction in terms of Tang realizing his autistic parasocial special interest idol is a lonely old sage who misses his friends, which cripples what was a pretty cute dynamic. I think Tang coming down from his hero worship and being just a genuine friend to SWK would be cute, definitely.

Fanon Rating: 9/10. Pretty enjoyable! Freepeaches is one of the few dynamics where Sun Wukong isn’t constantly turned into a punching bag/villain to be beaten around for the amusement of the audience, and the two are often portrayed as legitimately healthy together- I especially enjoy how Tang is portrayed as needing to move past his hero worship for the two to have a healthy relationship. It’s cute.

Personal Enjoyment: 6/10. Never addressing the resemblance to Sanzang or having them interact in regards to this while the circlet is back on Wukong’s head feels like a massively missed opportunity, honestly. I think Sun Wukong’s personal feelings have been left to the wayside for far too long in canon, and getting to a point where almost every fucking character represses their feelings is lazy and boring.

Peachbuns

Name Rating: 4/10. Again. Just “peach” slapped onto an adjective or noun. It’s frustratingly boring. This one sounds delicious and both components are related to food at least, which fits Pigsy’s background… but it also sounds like something a horny dude would ask for pics of in your DMs.

Canon Rating: 1/10. Pigsy isn’t willing to take any of Wukong’s shit, so he serves as a pretty great “bullshit barrier” that provides a legitimately strict opposing force to Wukong, but there’s little else to even their relationship out. He’s never kind or supportive or worried- if the two interact, it’s always through the lens of “Pigsy is mad/suspicious”. There’s never any real bonding or growth between them at all.

Fanon Rating: 4/10. This ship barely exists, and when it does it’s Sun Wukong being lectured through life by a big strong man- not a dynamic I’m a fan of. However, it is surprisingly kind to Wukong in terms of empathizing with his struggles. Again, I wish there was less of “Pigsy teaches Wukong basic life skills” because it falls right back into the revolting fanon that is “SWK is a big dumb fuck who can’t read or cook or take care of himself without a husband to wipe his ass.”

Personal Enjoyment: 2/10. I just don’t click with it. Pigsy doesn’t like Wukong, doesn’t trust him, and doesn’t interact with him outside of that.

Moonstone

Name Rating: 10/10. This is what I like! Moonstone is not only a very real (and very beautiful) mineral, but it ties to both of them equally! You don’t see Wukong’s status as a stone-born demon be referenced often, so this is a refreshing change of pace from the constant “peach” names.

Canon Rating: 7/10. Chang’e is a lovely woman who is simultaneously not be willing put up with Sun Wukong’s bullshit while still legitimately respecting and admiring him. It makes for a nice duality in their relationship that most of his dynamics don’t provide.

Fanon Rating: 10/10. The working dynamic is so fucking good to start with that I’ve never once seen fanon drop the ball. Never. This ship is always so fucking sweet and honest with Chang’e calling out Wukong for his bullshit while never pushing it to the “Shit on Sun Wukong Show” levels that the fandom loves so much- she takes no shit, but does no harm. She’s supportive and acknowledges his traumas and fears. Wukong does his best for her. Moonstone shippers get an A+ and extra recess time.

Personal Enjoyment: 7/10. I just… I really like this one, dammit. There’s not a lot to go off of, but seeing fanworks that do not primarily treat SWK like living trash/baby the hell out of him is nice.

Lionpeach

Name Rating: 3/10. Again. Very boring and generic. I’ve seen Fuzzypeach which is a little cuter, at least. Still, it’s all the same “peach”+noun format.

Canon Rating: 3/10. The devotion Azure bears to Sun Wukong seems like it would bear a higher marking, but it’s shallow and flimsy. Azure never understood Wukong, never wanted what was best for him, never cared about his safety or happiness. Azure projects his beliefs and wants onto the people around him, blinding the big fella to shortcomings on their parts, and is delusional enough to never look inwards. Still, I can legitimately see

Fanon Rating: 0/10. It’s just smut. That’s it. When it isn’t it’s just “Ooooh! Azure is jealous of Macaque! Tee-hee, sorry Azure!” and that’s it. I’ve never actually seen any non-sexual, Azure-focused Lionpeach.

Personal Enjoyment: 5/10. It’s a fun enough dynamic to explore, especially with how unhealthy it is. I’ll probably make a bot of this too one day. Maybe a “yandere dads” type. Or a mutual Primal Moon bot.

Celestialchaos

Name Rating: 10/10. Another not peach-based name is a win in my book!

Canon Rating: 6/10. Xiangliu is civil enough to Wukong (about as much as everyone else), but the mention of them having once been friends is what got my attention. Shrouded past + + potential reincarnation shenanigans + decently civil behavior = a very happy writer. It’s so little but it makes my brain itch.

Fanon Rating: 0/10. It doesn’t even exist babes ;( I’m scrounging for water in the lonely plains of a desert y’all. I’m a lonely little cactus and Celestialchaos is my annual three-inch rain.

Personal Enjoyment: 10/10. C’mon now. You all were expecting this. I love this ship. I’ve already made four chatbots. I love Xiangliu as a wild little freak who desperately tries to push Wukong away from other people and sad lonely Wukong finding refuge in a freaky toxic snake. Especially I like the idea of Xiangliu pitting himself against Macaque and going after Sun Wukong just to cause a little trouble, only to actually catch feelings and start pursuing him in earnest. I like “I want you at your worst so I can prove that I still love you even then” Xiangliu and “You love me at all?” Wukong.

I really like this ship.

End Result

(Scores ranging from -40 to +40)

Shadowpeach= 1/40

(Past!Shadowpeach would around 20)

Lotuspeach= 7/40

Freepeaches= 16/40

Peachbuns= 11/40

Moonstone= 34/40

Lionpeach= 11/40

Celestialchaos= 26/40

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[ethosiab]

[day 17] coloured etho drawings? on my art blog? more likely than you think.

[contententhusiast]

How River ended each episode this season

Ep 1: Vacation in the French countryside 🥰🇫🇷🥖

Ep 2: KIDNAPPED. And knocked tf out

Ep 3: Falling thru the roof and “motor biking” away from his fans in the French country side 🥰🐌🛵

Ep 4: ARRESTED. and handcuffed to a car door (how is that helping)

Ep 5: KIDNAPPED. AGAIN. Thrown in the trunk by his own family

Ep 6: 😭😭😭🥺🥃🥃

[junkanimate]

I let the brain worms crawl around, so here's an art dump

[kaiiscottage]

Arajin appreciation post bc I genuinely like him <3

[mortysmith]

In theory i like the idea that rick is growing and developing as a person. In practice it ends up falling short though, because no one balances him out. rick is getting better while no one else is getting worse, and it causes the whole thing to end up feeling a bit stale. The biggest draw, at least for me, has always been rick and morty's shitty dynamic, but it barely exists anymore because rick has been so watered down.

The ideal solution is literally just to make morty into a bigger asshole. Essentially flipping the main characters' personalities would offer a wide variety of conflict into the show, and would also help keep it "fresh".

Instead it feels the writers are pretending that they can't possibly do anything with morty's character, that they have to keep him the same anxious idiot he was in season one. I've said this before, but it's incredibly frustrating to watch the show have no problem with expanding rick's character while struggling with keeping morty's heavily stagnated characterization consistent. Where rick has space to develop between multiple seasons, morty is constantly forced into one of two boxes (smart/stupid) depending on the episode.

[essektheylyss]

GUESS WHAT I HIT.

69K.

NICE.