#shes just very heavily dana scully influenced

[cadebentley-archived]

[enigmaticxbee]

✖️✖️✖️ 11x07 Rm9sbG93ZXJz

The one where... technology comes for Mulder and Scully because Mulder didn’t leave a tip on their weird silent sushi date.

Tagline: VGhlIFRydXRoIGlzIE91dCBUaGVyZQ= (aka The Truth Is Out There)

Best: Holding hands in a diner, just comfortably enjoying each other’s company after a long, wild night 🥰

Worst: This episode doesn’t really make sense (the silent sushi date, Scully’s weird smart house, etc) and isn’t subtle or all that deep, but it’s fun.

✔️ Flashlights

❌ Woods/Desert

❌ Slideshow

❌ Autopsy

✔️ Evidence Disappears

❌ Scully Misses It

❌ Mulder Ditch

✔️ Sunflower Seeds

✔️ Voiceover: AI intro VO

✔️ Catch Phrase: AI (IWTB)

❌ Scully is a Medical Doctor

❌ Mulder is Spooky

❌ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr!

❌ Fox/Dana

✔️ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)

✔️ Casual Scully

✔️ Casual Mulder

❌ Trench Coats

❌ Bad Tie Watch

❌ Glasses Watch

✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Mulder

50 States: DC x109 (45/50)

Investigate: Together & Apart

Solve Rate: 77%

❌ Bechdel Test: Only other human person in the episode is the waitress but only Mulder speaks with her.

MSR: 🐝🐝🐝🐝

Goriness: 👽

Creepiness: 👽👽

Humor: 👽👽👽👽

Rewatch Thoughts:

William check-in: No mention.

Break-up check-in: Well, they still have separate places (or did until Scully’s exploded) but they’re going on evening sushi dates and holding hands on their morning diner date so I think they’re going to be ok.

I like the concept of a silent episode - or episode where the only communication is with technology - but it just feels weird and unnatural that they aren’t talking on their sushi date. Also why is the place completely empty?? It would have felt more natural to me if they were in a busy restaurant and it was so loud they couldn’t hear each other and couldn’t talk or something. I know they’re going for a dystopian feel and to contrast with the diner at the end though.

The blob fish!! GA’s beloved

Her panicked who am I talking to! in the car 🤣

Mulder: You suck Mr. phone.

Scully: Poor! Awful! Terrible! Never again! Me on every automated customer service line trying to get through to speak with an actual person.

Scully’s smart house is very much a suspension of disbelief for me for this one episode. It’s nothing like the cozy aesthetic of her apartment in the original series or the Unremarkable house. If it was just aesthetic change that would be one thing - you could argue that she wanted something completely different when she moved out or that she thought of it as temporary so she never made it homey, etc. But after going on the run from the government and all her trust no one paranoia, the Scully I know would not live in a house that tracked her every movement and uploaded all that information online for whatever company or government agency or shadow conspiracy or individual to use against her!

Her password is Queequeg!

Rock it like a Redhead huh Scully? Her hair color changes so much over the years, I’m definitely a Scully has some red to her hair but she colors it truther.

Not sure how I feel about Scully’s new short hair - I think it just feels more like a wig to me because it’s so straight? It’s not bad but we know what Scully’s hair looked like when it was that length back in the day so it doesn’t feel quite right.

Scully’s little pink vibrator! To me Mulder’s look says more surprise that she’s carrying it around right now, not surprise that she has one - because you know he knows she does. TMI my little pink vibrator is not the same one, but the selection may have been (heavily) influenced by this episode.

Mulder’s frustration at being forced into this tip - it’s definitely worth $5 to make this stop 😂 Of course that’s what the tech companies are counting on 💀

Mulder thanks the waitress by name - this little diner seems like the kind of spot Mulder would be a regular at.

Mulder: Well, it’s good to see you got all your personal devices back. Scully: Not all of them. Significant look 👀

The first episode of the revival written by women (although Dr Anne Simon & Dr Margaret Fearon have story credit on MSII in season 10)

[gaycrouton]

Prompt: Scully’s thoughts during “the scene” in Small Potatoes

s4 // small potatoes // angst

Hahaha so #1, so sorry I was #ThatBitch and brought angst into it and #2 I’m sure this is probably heavily subconciously influenced by all the Small Potates fics I’ve read, but I still hope it’s a little different.

—————————————————————————-

Last night, alone in a second-rate motel room, she tended to a nosebleed so bad that she was afraid she might pass out if it lasted any longer. By the time it’d ended, she had several blood-soaked napkins littered around her, and a shirt with blood on it that told her the effort to save it had been fruitless.

With a sigh of resignation, she’d gone into the bathroom and stripped off her shirt, but before she had a chance to grab her spare, her breath caught in her throat.

Who was that?

She usually changed in her bathroom at home, leisure time was a luxury, so it was usually done in haste. The mirror there was above the sink, and relatively small. This one, however, showed her everything she’d been avoiding.

When her hands slid over her body in the morning, she felt it, she knew. She used to pride herself on her lean muscles, but now she felt like a skeleton with skin. Her ribs protruded grotesquely, her hip bones felt like knives, even her breasts seemed to be shrinking. She didn’t feel like Dana Scully anymore.

She felt like a personified death rattle. Looking into her face was no better. Her eyes looked tired and there was dried blood all over her nose.

Deciding she couldn’t face herself anymore, she quickly splashed water on her face, the red running clockwise down the sink reminding her of the time she had left slipping away from her. She had to brush her teeth twice to get the taste of iron out of her mouth from the rivulets that’d caught on her lip. Part of her hesitated though because it was one of the first times she remembered tasting something that the meds didn’t dull.

Then, with a sigh, she pulled her spare shirt over head and ignored the way it sexlessly draped over her, nothing to cling to, nothing to emphasize. She turned the light off, crawled into bed and listened to the lively sounds of Mulder on the other side of the wall. Undoubtedly he was still working. Every part of her wanted to go and ask him if he needed help. Maybe they would order a pizza while she laughed as he tried to find something to watch. Maybe he’d smile at her in that way he did when she hung out in his room that made her feel like a teen who’d snuck out of her parent’s house - doing something she knew she shouldn’t, but loving it too much to leave. Maybe he’d even flirt, he’d been doing that more often.

No.

He had been doing that more often.

Now she knew if she went to his room, she’d just get the same thing she always did nowadays. Those fucking sad eyes when he saw her that he tried to compensate for with the world’s weakest smile. “How are you?” he’d say gently, stopping everything he was doing to accommodate her. He’d look sad when she said “fine” but not early as sad as she’d know he’d look if she said “Sometimes the pain medicine doesn’t work and it makes me want to crawl out of my body. All I want is for you to make me feel better, but there’s nothing you can do and you’d kill yourself trying and there’s no use in both of us dying. I’ve had to throw away three pillowcases because I wake up and they are covered in blood. My  hair’s thinning. My mom cried last time I saw her. I didn’t even say anything, she just saw me. “

He didn’t look at her like a woman; he looked at her like a half-written epigraph.

So, instead of going to him, she’d laid in bed and cried herself to sleep.

That was yesterday. Tonight, he’d come to her.

Tonight she felt like a woman.

His self-conscious approach initially had her worried, but it quickly turned to endearing. He came over just to see her, just to spend time with her, just because he wanted to talk.

She’d been hesitant when he mentioned that they never talked. She feared it was “You never tell me how you’re doing living with cancer” in disguise. But it wasn’t. It almost felt like he was pretending the cancer didn’t even exist, and it was a dream come true. It was like the past few months hadn’t happened. It was just good ol’ Mulder and her talking. And he’d brought wine - what a plus.

Now she was tipsy and felt oddly exposed, yet not unpleasantly. She’d always thought of how nice it would be to reveal some of herself with Mulder. She knew so much about him - what drove him on his mission, what upset him, even little memories he’d occasionally share with her offhandedly. Maybe it was her mortality nagging at her every move, but she sometimes regretted spending so much time being so prudent on maintaining their professionalism. Mulder was her friend, her best friend, and in her dreams so much more. She wanted him to know little things she loved in her childhood, stupid things she did with her highschool sweetheart, what she dreamed of at night.

Apparently he wanted too as well. He was being so attentive, hanging off her every word, and he was staring at her face like it was the first time he’d ever been this close to her. She wasn’t lying when she said she liked it.

He’d been acting pleasantly differently, but then “-you ever wish that you could go back and do it all differently?” Suddenly she couldn’t connect the dots of his logic through her tipsy haze. He dismissed the career comment as if it was a footnote, as if it wasn’t the very foundation of their relationship. She couldn’t make sense of a Mulder who disregarded the X-Files.

He brow furrowed in confusion and she asked, “Do you?”

He didn’t answer. He just stared at her, and she had no idea what he was thinking. She always knew how he was feeling.

He started moving towards her and she felt her heart starting to pound out of her chest. Did he mean he wished he could have done everything in their relationship differently? But-what could be changed? Every single moment led them to who they are, every moment led to the intensity of the bond they had - regardless of how tense it’d been lately. She was thinking a mile a minute as he started slowly moving towards her, that strange look in his eye. She could just turn her head, if she turned her head he would know right now, but his hand was already pressing in between her legs for stability. He was just going to go with it and she didn’t even know how to respond other than to put her own hand in between her leg, instinctively acting as a barrier.

When he was close enough that she could feel his breath hit her lips, she realized she didn’t smell much wine coming off him , and she realized he’d been filling up her glass all evening. His own glass was behind them with wine from his first fill still untouched. Why did he want her to get drunk?

She could feel her heart beating in her ears as he leaned in further. Something wasn’t right. That was her last thought before she heard the loud splintering of wood. Turning her head over, she saw Mulder standing in the middle of her busted door frame.

Mulder? Oh my god.

She turned back in shock and Eddie Van Mulder had the audacity to smile at her. She raised her hands and pushed him away in disgust, practically jumping from the couch.

She saw her Mulder look like a million thoughts were running through his head. Shock, anger, hurt, confusion, betrayal, they all painted him like a portrait of a man mourning the loss of something that could have been and he hadn’t even known it. She probably looked the same.

Eddie morphed back on the couch and shrugged. Fucking shrugged. As if he hadn’t tried to violate her. As if he hadn’t just messed up their already fucked up relationship. With a terse voice, she heard Mulder start, “Eddie Van Bluhnt, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will-” he droned on as she mentally retreated. She watched the same mouth that had smiled at her joke earlier, purse when he looked in her direction - the same eyes that had affectionately wandering her face now looking at her with the words “you couldn’t fucking tell” screaming at her.

How ironic, the cancer probably wasn’t even on his mind and yet he was still looking at her with pity. She felt her throat closing up as the realization that none of tonight even mattered. It wasn’t him. Mulder had pulled out his phone and was calling for the police to come pick him up as she all but ran over to the bathroom to have a moment to herself.

By the time she came out, she’d prevented a breakdown, for now at least, and Mulder was talking to an officer who was currently bagging the wine glasses. He looked up and pointed at her, “She the vic?”

“Nothing happend,” she snapped before the “yes” that had formed on Mulder’s lips had a chance to be verbalized.

“Scully,” he started with a sigh.

“If my statement is needed for anything I’d prefer to give it tomorrow. I’m tired,” she sighed.

“Alright, we just need to take a few pictures and then we’ll be out of your hair miss,” the officer nodded.

“Scully, can I talk to you in the other room?” he asked, already making his way over to her and putting his hand on her side. Already making the decision for her.

He lead her into her bedroom, much like Eddie Van Bluhnt had hoped to do, and closed the door behind him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

His trademark.

She felt the question like a stab in the heart even though she knew it was warranted and in a different context. “I’m fine. He didn’t do anything,” she bit. She was being mean to him and he was just worried. She was just sick of him always being worried.

“Are you sure?”

“He brought over wine and we drank it. Big deal,” she said, knowing she was avoiding the elephant in the room.

“Did he touch you?” Mulder asked, his voice softening only fueling to her aggravation.

“No, Mulder. Were you even listening to me?” she snapped.

“I just wasn’t sure. His hand seemed pretty friendly from where I was, and you didn’t seem to be too upset about it,” he snapped back. They were both upset about what just happened, but instead of it bringing them together, they were fighting. Of course.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you’d take a rapist trying to make me his next victim and somehow manage to make it my fault.” She didn’t want to be fighting anymore. She was tired and she was starting to feel pain in her muscles.

“I didn’t,” he sighed, rubbing his hand across his face. “I just feared the worst when I realized he’d gone with you.”

“Yeah. Apparently you were so certain he’d come over and try to seduce me like the other women that you felt the need to bust through my door without even knocking.”

He looked embarrassed at that, but before he could defend himself, she was already adding fuel to the fire. “What? You were so certain that I’d fall for the charms of some low-life creep masquerading as you that you came here immediately. Let me guess, you were urgent to get in here because you thought you’d find me getting fuc-”

“No!” he interrupted, looking flustered at his instinctive actions being called out as well as the crudeness of her words.

“Then why didn’t you knock?” she almost whispered, her tone sharp as a knife.

“Why were you about to kiss him?” he cut back.

“I froze, Mulder. He was being pushy and flagrantly ignoring my discomfort at the end, and I couldn’t understand why you would do that and I was confused. That’s when you barged in. Is it even possible for you to try to put yourself into my shoes for even a second? To imagine how confused I was when you were acting so weird.” He looked like he was about to answer, but she wasn’t done.

“Do you think I couldn’t tell, seriously? Do you think he just came in here and I didn’t think anything different? You can even ask him, I mentioned he was acting different several times, Mulder,” she explained, she stumbled a little bit from the wine in her system, and she saw him resist the urge to reach out and steady her. “You shouldn’t have been drinking on your meds” evident in his gaze. Heaven forbid she make a decision for herself.

“So you thought I was acting different, and yet you spent how long with him?” he asked defensively.

“I didn’t say it was a bad different,” she replied.

He looked like she’d slapped him.

The thick tension only lasted for a minute before there was a knock at the door. They turned and it was the officer standing with a camera and a few other baggies. “We’re done here, Agent Mulder.”

“Thank you, Officer. Where are you taking him?” Mulder asked, his voice sounding exhausted.

“I’ll have to confirm that with my partner,” he answered. He looked like he was about to say more when he focused on Scully and his brow furrowed. “Ma’am, you have a nosebleed.”

She raised her hand to her face and when she pulled back, her index and middle finger were saturated with blood. When she looked up she saw Mulder was looking at her with so much pity she could drown herself in it. “Scully-” he started softly, going towards her.

“I’m fine,” she snapped, raising one hand to cover the bleed from his gaze and raising the other to prevent him from coming any further. “Thank you for your help officer, but I’d like to be left alone.”

“Of course,” he nodded, leaving.

She turned to Mulder and said, “Close the door on the way out, I’ll lock the deadbolt later. You didn’t break that off at least.”

He looked like he was about to argue, but she didn’t want to hear it. She just turned and walked into the bathroom and closed the door. She saw herself in the mirror and her face crumpled in silent agony.

If her nose had started bleeding an half an hour ago, she’d have let Mulder help her. He probably would have grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her face and she might have let him. She might have even told her about how she was feeling lately and he would have listened to every word. That was the last thing she thought as she listened to Mulder sigh, clearly upset, as he left her apartment.

[piecesofscully]

Cancer Arc, Final: Bubbles in the Wind

This is the fourth and final chapter of my Cancer Arc Series.

Part 1: Mint Chocolate Chip

Part 2: Love Me Tender

Part 3: I See You

Author: @piecesofscully

Rating: R

Timeline: Season 4/5ish

A/N: Serious hardcore thanks to @kateyes224 for all of the love, and the uber quick and always efficient beta.  You never cease to amaze me, boo. 

I swallow a groan as I turn to face her, sleeping peacefully, just inches from me in bed. I move cautiously so not to wake her; it’s been months since she’s slept through the night.  As I watch the slow rise and fall of her breathing, I convince myself that if I don’t look at the clock, don’t do the math regarding the number of hours I’ve tossed and turned, then I won’t know how much sleep I missed in the morning.  Maybe I won’t feel as tired.

This trick of the mind is one I taught myself ages ago when nightmares plagued my twilight hours, when I began suffering regularly from self-induced insomnia.  At times in previous years exhaustion has nearly crippled me, reducing my days to riding the caffeine influenced roller coaster of highs and lows until 5pm when I could race home and finally crash.  Finding comfort in the last rays of sunshine, their glow washing away the haunted visions that kept me awake in the dark.

It’s not the nightmares, however, that keep me up tonight.

She jerks gently as she dreams, her legs twitching under the heavy comforter that lay over us, and I wonder how the hell she’s able to sleep at a time like this.  My stomach has been a twisted knot of anxiety the entire day, and I found myself puttering around her apartment in an attempt to keep myself busy.  To keep myself from thinking.

I stared at her, squinting my eyes in an effort to see through this facade she had recently donned, but was awestruck to find nothing but genuine calmness. When had we flipped the script?  In the last 24 hours I felt as if she had grabbed me by the shoulders and spun us around; me landing in her position, crippled by uncertainty and doubt, and she taking my place as a bulwark of strength and encouragement.

“Mulder?”

I offered her a wide grin, one of the sanguine smiles I’ve had months to perfect, and forced myself to nod.  “Of course,” I said quickly.  “I’m just going to finish up in here, and then I’ll get dinner started.”  

I could hear her nasally chuckle as I ducked backwards into the bathroom, and turned on the faucet to rinse down the blue paste that covered the surface of her freshly scrubbed bathtub. The sudden roar of the gushing water reverberated through the small space, drowning my smile with it.  I watched, mesmerized, as it rushed in and immediately began mixing with the cleaning agent, blending seamlessly around the edges, making it impossible to see where one ended and the other began.  They danced together like two lovers down the long length of the tub, spinning one last twirl around the drain before descending into their fated journey through the plumbing, to their destination of the unknown.

She kicks again and I’m startled from my thoughts, jerked back into the late night reality of the woman lying next to me and the worries of what tomorrow brings.  Her breaths, still heavy and even, puff against my cheeks as I reach between us to graze my fingertips down her face; the soft skin of her forehead, her delicate nose, her plump lips, stopping once they reach her chin.  I lean towards her and lick my lips, then press them feather light against hers.

If you’d have told me four years ago that I would fall helplessly in love with Agent Dana Scully who’d been sent to spy on me, to debunk my work, I’d have laughed and asked what your secret was to passing the bureau’s psych evaluation.  It wasn’t that I didn’t find her interesting; she’d intrigued me immensely from the very beginning.  She was the storm that I wasn’t prepared to weather, a force of nature that I’d received no warning of.  She bustled through my basement office door and into my life reinforced with shoulder pads as substantial as her intelligence, an eager smile, and hair the bleak color of treebark in the winter.  

“Agent Mulder.  I’m Dana Scully, I’ve been assigned to work with you.”

The conviction in her voice and the strength in her handshake were admirable, but they weren’t able conceal the fact that she was guileless, green.  In her naivete she stood tall with squared shoulders, ready to take on the ‘bad guys’, the monsters of the night, to find the answers that would right the wrongs of the world.  I should have warned her of what was to come, of what she would likely have to sacrifice in hopes of righting those wrongs.

Her friends, her sister, her reputation.

And now possibly her life.

As her hand inches towards me and then presses itself flat against my heart, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps, years ago, she would have chosen differently knowing what she knows now.  The simple thought of a life without her terrifies me, but what terrifies me more is what it says about me that, regardless of what’s been sacrificed, I wouldn’t change a day of the last four years.  

I break the sole rule of my game and turn to glance at the clock.  

3:05am

In 7 hours and 55 minutes her oncologist will explain to us the finer details of her treatment and their effects on the tumor.  With his guidance, Scully will then decide if the progression is enough to justify continuing, or stop and let the cancer take it’s devastating, inevitable course.  

Tomorrow’s prognosis will determine Scully’s fate, and thus, mine.

Xxxxxxx

2 months later

The toilet flushes and I watch as she emerges from her bathroom, her cheeks flushed pink like they’ve just been pinched.  Her hand grazes the wall for support as she stumbles slightly, her knees weak as she crosses the floor to take her place next to me on her couch.  The warmth of her emanates through our clothing, bleeding from her body to mine as she presses herself tightly against me.

“Everything ok?” I ask, and she nods slowly.  I pull away from her slightly, running my eyes over her profile. “You’re sure?”

“I’m fine, Mulder,” she breaths as she runs the back of her hand lazily over the side of my ribcage.

“You said you wouldn’t-”

“Oops,” she says with a giggle.  “I did it again, didn’t I?”

I nod.  “And you promised.”

“But I am fine, Mulder.  No nausea, not anymore.  But I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” she says as she leans into my side.  My arm settles around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

“Scully, given the events that have just taken place, I’d say your promises are running on empty.”

She giggles again, high-pitched and sing-song, and I can’t contain the chuckle that rumbles through my chest.  If I’d have known that two bottles of the bubbly and a seriously low tolerance for alcohol had this effect on her, I’d have bought stock in Veuve Clicquot ages ago.    

“What if I promise to play your flute,” she says quickly.

“My- what?”  

“Fill!” She squeaks through her fit of laughter.  Her head tips back as the chortle rolls into a full blown belly laugh with tears streaming down the side of her face.  “Fill your flute!  With more champagne, oh my god!”

“Agent Scully, I hereby declare you as drunk.  Three sheets to the wind.”

“Three champagne sheets, Mulder,” she informs me with a slurring of her words while wiping under her eyes, her laughter dying down to sporadic snickers.  “Or is it champagne wind?  Like a delicious bubbly wind.  Can you paint with all the bubbles of the wiiiiind,” she sings, slightly off-key.

God help me, I think as I watch her sway slightly to a rhythm only she can hear.  In this moment, right now, I’m falling even more in love with her, and I didn’t know it was even possible.

“Have you ever heard a horse cry, to the blue cord mooooon,” she belts suddenly, this time severely off-key.  

And I lose it.  The laughter rips through me, exploding loudly from between my lips, and I’m suddenly light-headed from the lack of oxygen and the few glasses of champagne.  She quiets instantly and turns to stare at me, her eyes shooting daggers from under her raised eyebrows.  

“I’m sorry,” I gasp, clutching my belly.  “That was great, Scully, really it was.”  I sigh heavily and lay my head back against the couch as I struggle nearly unsuccessfully to gain control of myself. I can feel the tears streaming from my closed eyes down my face, dampening my cheeks that are twitching with soreness from laughing so hard.

“Mulder…” I hear her mumble. She shuffles next to me, and then I feel her weight suddenly straddling my thighs, her warm hands coming to rest on my shoulders.

“Mhm,” I hum as I grip her thighs, pulling her closer with my eyes still closed.  

The tip of her nose brushes against mine.  “I have to tell you a secret,” she whispers with a sudden urgency, her breath warm and sweet tasting against my lips.

“Your secrets are always safe with me, Scully.”  

I feel her hands slide up slowly to grip the back of my neck, and I have to bite my lip to keep from moaning as she grinds herself against me.  

“It’s been two months since I went into remission.”

“That’s not a secret,” I whisper.

I can feel her body shudder over mine as she tries to stifle a chuckle.  “No, silly, but you’re still here.”  She giggles again, and then pokes me in the chest. “Agent Scully is in looove with Agent Mulder.”  

My eyes open quickly and struggle to focus on her face that is only inches away, staring back at me with a wide smile.  

“Oh, is she?” I ask, a smirk playing at the corners of my mouth.  They say that a drunk mind speaks a sober heart, but that doesn’t make this moment any less profound, sending my heart into a beating frenzy in my chest. .

“I have it on good authority that she is,” she says, her husky voice vibrating against my lips.  Her eyes close slowly as she leans in to kiss me softly.  “Tell me, Mulder.”

“I love you, Scully.”

She hums in response and grinds herself against me once more.  Her lips trail lazy, wet kisses across the length of my jaw and I pull her against me once more, groaning at the heat radiating between us.  

“Now,” she says as she removes her shirt and drops it on the floor. “Take me in the bedroom, and show me.”

Wrapped in the sheets of her bed, declarations of love are kissed along delicate skin of the neck, whispers of promise are elicited by the brush of fingertips.  Our souls bleed together, blending seamlessly as we become one, our fates sealed together once more.

The End

[gregellner]

Cover by Richard Pace.

Today I’ll be reviewing “Imaginary Fiends,” in particular its first (and so far as this writing, only) arc, ‘The Cat’s Paw.’ The comic is written by Tim Seeley, illustrated by Stephen Molnar, colored by Quinton Winter, lettered by Carlos M. Mangual, and published by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint.

Concept

Interdimensional Mental Parasites

The overall concept follows an examination of not-so-imaginary friends, extra-dimensional entities known as “interdimensional mental parasites” (or “IMPs” for short) that come from another world, and sometimes find their way into our world by breaching dimensional barriers in one way or another. It seems best for one of the main characters of “Imaginary Fiends,” Special Agent Virgil Crockett of the FBI’s IMP Division, to explain how exactly they function before we go into depth.

“In this world, their sustenance comes from the human mind. They feed on attention. Affection. Loyalty. To ensure meals, they bond with an impressionable, plastic mind, most often the young or mentally ill. The host provides a name and a narrative and the IMP soaks it up like rays of the sun. Most are immaterial and harmless, providing nothing but companionship. A confidante in a lonely world. They fade away and die when the host ages out of interest in them, like they were never there at all. But some – the hungriest of them – remain. They grow stronger. They start to be able to affect the physical world. The IMPs begin to need more sustenance. Convince multiple people to believe in them. They get a taste for fear. It gets them high. They start to demand… more.”

With the way in which the IMPs operate comes a question of agency and responsibility, but that will be discussed later.

Our primary look into the way IMPs operate comes in the form of Polly Peachpit (to be mentioned below), but other antagonists (and their hosts) also serve as examinations of this particular supernatural element.

Furthermore, the way in which more powerful IMPs can interact with the world seems to vary significantly depending upon the number of people who believe in them as well as the manner in which their story manifests. Some very powerful ones can secrete compounds to influence normal people, with the overall effect of allowing those who are normally unable to interact with them able to touch them instead. Others may not be “real” enough to do more than fight with other somewhat strong IMPs. At a certain level of power, IMPs can touch, damage, or otherwise physically manipulate the environment, down to even attaining physical contact with humans, whether to cause harm or to help save their lives, despite being invisible to most humans. As is noted in one comment, the phenomenon is reminiscent of the idea that while people cannot kill an idea, an idea can kill people through how it affects the world.

Characters

While there is a collection of different major characters, including Cameron Cale, Charlie Chokecherry, and more, it seems best to concentrate on the three main characters: protagonist Melba Li, deuteragonist Polly Peachpit, and tritagonist Virgil Crockett.

Melba Li

Melba Li is a complex figure, one that Tim Seeley often doesn’t utilize in other works. While she is the protagonist and tied to a supernatural element of the plot, her ability to physically combat her problems is severely hampered by a lack of any intentions toward acting on her own, very much unlike the similarly aged Cassandra “Cassie” Hack of his “Hack/Slash” series, or Martha “Em” Cypress of “Revival.” Instead, she has Polly Peachpit (to be discussed below) do the grunt work, and so is woefully underprepared for most direct conflict. Furthermore, rather than be either openly abrasive (like Cassie) or leaning toward emotionlessness over time (like Em), Melba is more subdued and relatively introverted, wanting to keep to herself and out of trouble as much as possible, with the exception of one bout of an underage drinking binge.

Complicating matters is the fact that she is a murderer, having stabbed her best friend Brinke Cale to death seventeen times with a fillet knife, though the circumstances involving Polly’s involvement make determining what exactly happened a bit difficult for most of the arc.

Still, her existence as Polly Peachpit’s host, an “advanced host” according to the IMP Division, makes her a primary candidate to be an IMP specialist to help the FBI as a new agent pretending to be five years older than her age of 18 in exchange for staying out of prison and under the radar. There isn’t a lot of focus on the idea of keeping her identity a secret, but her desire to stay out of a prison sentence (which would have started on her eighteenth birthday, the day of Special Agent Crockett coming to see her, if not for his deal) colors at least some elements of her personality.

In terms of the borderline X-Files approach taken by the series, Agent Li could be seen to be the closest equivalent to Fox Mulder, but only from the most superficial standpoint. While she believes in the “imaginary friends” brought forth in the form of IMPs enough to see them, she is still a relative novice in actually handling them. Even Polly Peachpit is someone she cowers from in fear. In fact, for all of her ability to imagine, she is afraid of her own imagination for most of the arc, and while she used to enjoy drawing and using artistic license when it came to various colors on a picture (such as non-blue skies and the like), her fear has kept her from enjoying anything involving creativity since the death of Brinke, to the point of only coloring within the lines of someone else’s piece, et cetera.

Polly Peachpit

“Polly Polly, Mr. Chokecherry’s wife. Wrap you in her long legs, kiss you with a knife. She eats all your candy. She takes all your dolls. Love someone more than her and she’ll take you to the falls.”

Polly Peachpit is Melba Li’s primary IMP, the one that has stuck with her even after the others fell away from her imagination. She alternates between a fully humanoid form and that of a giant werespider (bottom half being a spider, top half being a woman). As a hungry IMP, Polly is fed on fear and belief both, but while the latter may supply basic existence, the former is required for continued sustenance and to supplement her healing abilities and strength. This reliance on fear is played in a variety of ways, ranging from talk of murder at random times to basic attempts to get young children to see her and fear her so as to recover from horrific injuries.

Polly has an odd relationship with her host, one that fluctuates between abusive and caring depending on the situation. The abuse is of course necessary to keep Polly alive by forcing Melba to fear her, but the caring nature, such as trying to help her host feel better or at some points even saving her life, demonstrates that Polly is not wholly evil at all. In fact, it is entirely likely that she is just filling out the role proposed by her story (seen in the poem above), given its reliance on her as a possessive entity.

Virgil Crockett

“I didn’t see it and you died. But it’s never going to happen that way again. Now I’m going to see everything.”

Our tritagonist is another kind of character that is both familiar and new for fans of Tim Seeley. On the surface, Special Agent Crockett fills the role of the older male sidekick who acts to back up the younger heroine. However, unlike the other prominent one on Seeley’s resume, Agent Crockett is the more experienced one of the duo, at least on a certain level. He is the one to introduce Melba officially to the world of IMPs, one she only knew through her “imaginary” friends like Polly beforehand, and to which she didn’t understand the rules. While the fact that a man named Virgil introduces the main character to the nature of a metaphorical Hell may not be intentional, the literary allusion is not lost either.

To follow the aforementioned X-Files analogy, Agent Crockett fills the approximate role of Dana Scully in contrast to Agent Li’s Fox Mulder, though again turned on its head. Crockett isn’t a skeptic when it comes to IMPs, as shown by the fact that he had introduced her to the mechanisms of the concept in the first place. However, while Crockett is the more experienced of the duo in theory, in practice his regimented life as a federal agent keeps him from being very helpful in encounters with IMPs, as he cannot hear nor see them himself. Crockett struggles to actually comprehend the bizarre nature of his work, and his past failures to do so continuously haunt him even into the present day. Unfortunately, the attempts to add fluidity to his work, like experimentation with Flamenco dancing, are heavily structured, explaining why he would need a partner who has the necessary imagination to interact with IMPs.

Themes

In general, the series thus far seems to be an examination of two key concepts: trust and responsibility.

Trust

There is a heavy focus on trust in “Imaginary Fiends,” especially regarding Melba and her relationships. The entire arc focuses on her slowly beginning to trust Polly Peachpit again after Brinke’s murder, from out of necessity alone to relying upon her for support. While Polly is a danger, this trusting relationship is fostered by her connection to Virgil Crockett as well, who shows that, rather than treating her like a child or holding the threat of her prison sentence over her head, he is fully willing to work with her and help her through her problems, even while admitting that what she’s doing is wrong, and at times outright illegal (like underage drinking).

On the other hand, trust can also be seen as a bad thing at times, such as trusting someone else with all responsibility in an incident, which leads to another topic altogether.

Responsibility

Rather than that focus on trust, the primary theme in “Imaginary Fiends” seems to be one of the variability and balance of responsibility, especially as it relates to humanity’s occasional desire to indulge in escapism to step away from the horrors of their reality.

All things considered, it’s difficult to determine how evil the IMPs actually are. Much like the Xenomorph XX121 of the Alien franchise and its related films, their hostile behaviors could at times be seen as nothing more than survival instincts. Being formed of human imagination through their names, forms, and narratives, and beholden to their host’s belief in order to keep their identity “real” in the human dimension, can they really be blamed for scaring people? How much of the blame can be placed on them, at times just acting as they do in order to survive rather than as any actual malicious intent, as opposed to the very nature of IMPs in general?

Furthermore, the reasons behind the establishment of certain narratives, at times dredged in real-world horror and an attempt at escapism, further muddies the waters of how “bad” the IMPs really are, even in the case of the hungrier ones. Humans make these narratives, and the IMPs take them up as their own identities, playing a part to live. At what point does the fact that they act a certain way – especially in defense of their hosts or in a manner that they view as benevolent – get blamed entirely on them, rather than being a consequence of the host’s own desires? The primary antagonist of the latter half of the arc is especially prominent in that regard.