#anyway. AHHH

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s5 episode 6 "christmas carol" thoughts

(wipes away tears) my tummy hurts

so, i broke my own rule, and watched these next 2 episodes back to back. like i mentioned before, in some ways i am very happy i did this, to experience the sadness all at once rather than dragging it out over 2 days. but now that i have to edit and post these, whew boy. it’s going to be draining.

i wonder how the actors felt about these plot points of constant sorrow? do you think it got draining after a while? do you think they too wanted a break?

anyway. let us go back to 3 hours ago, when i was more innocent, younger, freer.

so, last episode had its ups and downs, and the episode before that was near perfection. i know a little about what happens in this one, and i’m ready to be hurt.

(author’s note: she was not, in fact, ready to be hurt)

i shall refrain from any further comment, beyond the fact that i am reading the episode description… scully must be utterly shocked to think that her sister had a secret child!!!

oh, and it’s a christmas episode? which i think is a little early since i’m watching this in november, but i’m sure it made sense when it aired. i’ll have to mentally get myself festive.

anyway. let us begin. i’m excited. 

(author’s note: i should not have been excited)

the scully family is visiting someone! scully observes that this woman is huge. which is actually hilarious. queen of speaking her mind.

ohhhh it’s bill’s house, and bill’s wife tara who we are meeting!! scully is unsettled because it is the exact same layout as their childhood house on the naval base :( i bet that feels super weird, to be in a place exactly like your childhood home, but yet not it

oh no, maggie is really sad because she misses mr. scully and melissa :( scully seemed to want to talk about it, but her mother darted away

(these guys definitely subscribe to that john mulaney bit about being irish: "i'll keep all my emotions right here, and then one day, i'll die")

now the phone is going off, and she wants bill to answer it. but it’s for her???? 

a mysterious voice: “she needs you, dana. go to her” (proceeds to hang up)

this answered no questions at all.

she uses her special FBI privileges to trace the call!! and bill takes her to where she needs to go. which is….?

a house?

there are a lot of cop cars and ambulances at this here house. AND WHO IS THIS RUDE MAN TALKING TO SCULLY???? (later revealed to be named detective kresge)

“no offense, scully fbi” “i’ve been here thirty minutes, guarantee you no one’s called out to you or anyone else” <- UM???? i will throw hands. disrespect her at your own risk.

he explains that the phone is off the hook which. okay. so yeah, that would make calling difficult. but you don’t have to be a dick about it.

oh……. i see what has happened here… mrs. roberta sim is dead, and it’s a suicide. 

(was actually pretty shocked at how they just. showed her in the tub like that. damn. it was a lot)

bill is freaked tf out. “what’s going on? they’re joking about you getting a call from a dead woman” <- woah woah woah who are these first responders who have time to MAKE FUN OF SCULLY WHILE ON A CASE!???? bill, i give you permission to sic ‘em. put all that rage to good use

OH MY GOD, SHE THOUGHT THE VOICE ON THE PHONE WAS MELISSA??? 

(spooooooky intro…………)

is she going to call mulder about this, or will this be a special scully alone christmas episode that makes me weep like a baby? let’s find out!!!!

she is back at the sim house with mr. sim and detective kresge, who says there was an outgoing call around the same time scully received that mysterious message, even though the phone was out. he claims it must have been some sort of glitch. hmm... suspicious.

she cannot stop staring at this little kid, though…

at family dinner, scully must excuse herself to make a phone call. she calls mulder!!! who is running in to pick up!!! did he just get out of the shower, or did he just come inside or something, because he has a funny hat on? anyway, she doesn’t say anything, just hangs up on him once she hears his voice. 

ohh :(

she must have been trying to see if the phone was really working... so she called the number she knew by heart and the person she knew would pick up... i will cry

back at the dinner table, bill’s wife tara's baby is kicking, and she’s talking about how she can’t wait to have more children. scully looks like she is being sucker punched.

i mean it hasn’t been addressed, but i’ve assumed that she’s come to the conclusion that kids are not really on the table for her after we found mulder with all of her eggs. which is still crazy, btw. has he just been holding onto them? or did he give them to her offscreen? 

tara says this line: “i can’t help but think that life before now was somehow… less” <- OKAY THAT WAS A RUDE THING TO SAY AND YOU’RE GONNA MAKE SCULLY CRY???? LOOK AT HOW SAD SHE IS???? what the HELL???

way to sit there and straight up tell your sister-in-law her life is a boring prelude until she has kids. which she cannot have. so her life is going to be, in your words, a prelude forever. because god forbid a woman have a life without a child. or if she wants one and cannot have one, her life will be unfulfilling. tara, i get that you're in a busy space mentally rn, you are sick in the head for that.

despite tara saying something so out of pocket that i would have simply left the table, scully pulls it together with smile, gets through dinner, and starts washing the dishes. because she is a trooper.

maggie comes in and asks what is the matter. and scully LIES and says "nothing". i don’t get the impression these two are big on talking about their emotions.

but she does that mom thing where she puts her hands on her hips and scully spills; she doesn’t even have to finish the sentence and her mom understands and is hugging her, saying she’s so sorry.

OH MY GOD, SHE’S CRYING??? and her voice is wavering and she tells her it’s okay but “i just never realized how much i wanted it until i couldn’t have it” <- OH MY GOD. i knew this was coming but it still hurts.

SCULLLLYYYY WHYYYYY. the way she says she is okay, when she so clearly isn't...

so she’s stuck sleeping in this room that is going to be a nursery, which just seems insanely cruel….. 

as she drifts off into sleep, we get a flashback of baby her with her brother, saying he’s going to cook her rabbit into a stew!! not very kind. now where did she put the rabbit? is it a real rabbit or a plush friend?

it seems he is in the basement. NOOOOO, it is a real baby bunny, and she put him in a lunchbox... he died and is filled with maggots!! NOOOO. oh poor baby scully just wanted to keep her rabbit friend safe.......... :(

i would guess that this is one of her earliest memories associated with death. and now we know that bill has always been mean.

this must be some sort of traumatic experience mixed with a nightmare because she is also seeing that little girl from earlier at the sim's house… just watching her in the basement, hunting for the rabbit…. but such a terrible nightmare is interrupted by a phone ringing 

it is her cellphone at 2:30 in the morning!!!! it’s the same voice as before saying "she needs your help"!! she asks the voice why she is calling her... but is met with silence

she goes to the sim's house and explains that yet again the call was traced to their house, which he claims to have no explanation for. and mr. sim tells her to get the fuck out basically, which i understand he has had a really terrible day, but it still feels cold :/ just slamming the door on her face like that 

creepy child is watching her leave…. ominously...

detective kresge is here, and scully wants everything he has on the roberta sim case. he says there is no case, it was just a simple suicide. she says please let me see whatever it is you have, for the sake of the season. which works on him, actually. i did not think it would.

ohhhh, that is going to be a photo of her wrists in the evidence pile. again, not really pulling any punches here.

detective kresge says that there was a domestic disturbance at the house the week before; it wasn't a very happy house. and roberta sim had some medicine in her system. scully finds a photo of the daughter in her purse, which she asks to borrow. which he probably thought was weird as hell.

it seems she is going to compare it with her own family photos. there are pictures of melissa in japan as a kid, and this emily child looks identical!!! 

now she is furiously typing into a computer, looking for birth records. she cannot find any records on emily because she was adopted. so she’s calling someone from work

oh... she needs the full information from her sister’s death :( 

another flashback?? or nightmare? hard to tell. little scully is walking down to a casket at church, seeing the blood from roberta sim dripping from it.

ah, must have been a nightmare. bill wakes her up. he asks her what she’s doing and she’s sneaking about saying there is some unfinished work she has. 

detective kresge is still being a dick as she goes and asks him for more help on this case. she thinks it was a murder!!! OHHHH she slams him over the head with the chair of facts and logic: how tf could the phone be off the hook if mr. sim called the police when he found her????? checkmate.

and she DEMANDS an autopsy. queen of getting things done.

well, she is going to do that autopsy herself. and she doesn’t find any evidence of pills in roberta sim's stomach!! this dude doing the autopsy with her is also being a dick. why is everyone so mean to scully all of the time? i have said it before and i will say it again: i can throw hands

she finds a needle puncture in roberta sim's foot!!! it was meant to be overlooked. ohohoh, something is afoot here.

so they go to mr. sim’s house and he starts yelling at scully right away, saying it is her fault that he is being investigated, and what do they find but a NEEDLE!!! he claims it is for daily anemia injections for his daughter. scully lets him know that they are going to check that claim out. 

there are people out front watching her????? when she sees them, they leave. ummm.....

so she sneaks back into bill’s place at night to find the reports she ordered on melissa and the mysterious daughter emily. and the DNA tests match up perfectly!!!!

maggie enters!!!! and she asks where she was all day!!!

she tells maggie to sit down… and explains how the two sets of DNA match. 

(very dramatic fade to black as scully tells her emily is melissa’s daughter)

she is now explaining to maggie that according to the tests they ran, there is a 60% chance that melissa is emily’s mother. and it lines up with the time that melissa was running up and down the coast, and no one knew where she was!!! maggie is shocked because she is sure melissa would have told her if she was having a baby. i can imagine that this is hard to hear.

maggie isn’t listening, however, and tries to explain that scully is still connected to melissa, which is why she is projecting this child upon her... ?????????????????

(i think she is trying to be supportive of scully's grief, but also writing her off as irrational, which feels like a slap in the face. girl... she did not hallucinate the gene testing out of sadness ???)

(i am 90% sure that scully is the only one in this family that actually goes to therapy. because the reactions of her family seem to indicate this)

a flashback scene to teenage years, where young scully and melissa are shaking presents before christmas, trying to figure out what they are. OHHHH IT’S HER FAMOUS NECKLACE…. and maggie, who catches them in the act of their crime, puts it around her neck, saying it means god is with you and watching over you. but then it turns into a vision of herself. oh poor scully and her terrible flashback nightmares :(

the detective is here to see her. they found huge bank deposits from mr. sim!!! one was deposited- from his wife- after she was dead!! and they’re all coming from a pharmaceutical company!!!! this is deeply suspicious…

emily is a patient at this clinic, where they were allegedly treating her for a rare type of anemia. key word: allegedly

oh this is really juicy. mrs. sim wanted to pull her from the trial, but the pharmaceutical company made payments to keep her involved. and this doctor- dr. calderon- says he gave that medicine they found in roberta sim's system not to emily, but for mr. sims, who said he was suffering from migraines!!!

mr. sim HATES to see them coming, and he is now under arrest for REAL.

scully takes emily and puts her into her carseat. and emily grabs her necklace!!! scully looks deeply amused. 

OH MY GOD, SHE GIVES HER THE NECKLACE???? she must be really convinced that is melissa’s baby for her to part with the necklace. it means she wants god to watch over her……… she is so sad as they drive away

bill is having a navy christmas party while scully sits there sadly. bill summons her to the kitchen. he wants to know what her deal is!! 

MAGGIE TOLD BILL ABOUT HOW SHE THINKS EMILY IS MELISSA’S BABY??? mrs. scully CANNOT keep a secret to save her life omfg....

“she called you from beyond the grave to tell you that? sounds like something that partner of yours would say” <- bill, you can count your days.

“it does not matter where that phone call came from. what matters is that there is a little girl who needs my help” <- YOU TELL HIM!! she must do the right thing, always and forever

“this isn’t about any little girl, dana. it’s about you. it’s about some… emptiness, some void inside yourself that you’re trying your hardest to fill” <- okay this is it. bill, i hated you before, but if i were her, i would go no contact at this moment 

(as i edit my notes, i am all the more shocked by his cruelty and his unending ability to somehow get more patronizing when you think he has reached his peak. just a nasty guy, this bill scully. "some void inside yourself" genuinely fuck off)

“bill, i don’t expect you to understand, but i am not going to stand her and justify my…”

(her telling him off was interrupted by a phone call)

OHHH, SIM CONFESSED TO THE MURDER!!! then why did the witnesses lie about seeing him at the doctor’s office??

she leaves bill’s dumbass party to go deal with this, but the men from before who were watching her are there at sim's jail cell too!!!!

she gets out of her car and runs after them, but you cannot outrun a car… detective kresge claims those men are his lawyers, and they had to have only visited him for 10 minutes tops

OH SHIT. mr. sim tried to hang himself!!!! or did he......

scully comes back “home” to bill’s house, and he runs into her, saying he was about to go over to the neighbor's house with some cookies. she tells him that mr. sim is dead, and whoever it was that did it also framed his death as a suicide. so she must be thinking it was those guys from the car who were watching her that did it, because they had just come in to talk to him. and perhaps that those same men were responsible for the "suicide" of mrs. sim.

bill says he has to show her something. what could he possibly have at this time?????

OHHH.... it’s a photo of melissa right before the child was allegedly born, and she does not look pregnant at all. scully points out that you can have a baby without being pregnant, but bill is not having it.

oh my GOD??? he says she’s making this child into melissa’s daughter to fulfill her need? and he claims to understand, but warns that she is only going to hurt herself??

scully is a better woman than me because i would have packed my shit and left right then and there. actually, i would have left a WHILE ago. holy hell. let’s all ignore the science that the doctor did, right? because scully’s just some cRaZy gRiEVinG wOmAN!1!!1! bill honestly could not be more patronizing if he tried. that baby of his is gonna have a terrible home life.

someone is here to see her from the county to talk about the adoption (later revealed to be named chambliss). scully put in an application for adoption!!! oh my god???

chambliss says that her application isn't looking good, because she’s single, unmarried, never been in a serious relationship (and what the fuck kinda impact is that going to have on her ability to raise a child??? is one parent's love not enough?? or are they worried about her dying and emily being an orphan or something??), and in a dangerous occupation (okay, that reason actually makes sense). they’re rejecting her, and she’s crying, saying she’s questioned her priorities since she got cancer

“ever since i was a child, i’ve never allowed myself to get too close to people. i’ve avoided emotional attachment” (yeah girl we can tell…)

“perhaps i’ve been so afraid of death and dying that any connection just seemed like a bad thing. something that wouldn’t last” stop. stop i’ll cry. you love something so much and it dies anyway. like that bunny in the lunchbox.

“but i don’t feel that anymore” tears. in my eyes.

ohhhh my gosh, chambliss points out that emily would need constant supervision, that her condition is incurable, and while scully may have experience with terrible illness, she would have to relive it through the eyes of a child. and scully says she thinks she’s ready. chambliss says they’ll review her final application, and they shake hands, saying merry christmas.

so would she just??? leave the FBI?? to raise emily?? is that even possible at this point in time? or would she stay in the FBI and have to hire like the highest quality daycare of all time? i feel so bad for scully, but i don't see how this could work...

scully sits down, and is taken back to a chat with melissa years ago, before leaving for quantico. her dad is telling her that she is making a mistake, but melissa reminds her it’s not his life.

(god, her dad was mean too)

“but you know, when i started med school, it felt so right. it just seemed like that’s where i was supposed to be, and… then, by the time i graduated, i just knew it was wrong. but now the FBI feels right, and… what if that’s wrong, too?”

(and we can, and SHOULD, analyze this to hell and back. but right now i am tapped into the plot, so this might be something i come back to and write a thinkpiece on)

melissa says “there is no right or wrong. life is just a path. you follow your heart and it’ll take you where you’re supposed to go”

scully replies: “i don’t believe in fate. i think we have to choose our own path”

“well, just don’t mistake the path for 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 your life is going to change…. or how you are going to change the life of others”

oh melissa... how i miss you... and she didn't know who she would meet...

ohhhh, tara wakes her up the next morning :( and it’s christmas :(

but before they can open presents, someone from the FBI is at the door with something for scully……

bill tries to sign for it and the FBI courier says no, we need dana. lmao. put him in his place.

so she opens the file and...

AND SHE TELLS THEM THAT IT SAYS SHE IS EMILY’S MOTHER????

(to be continued)

(punches wall)

okay, so i regret the words i typed earlier about me being excited for these next two episodes. WHYYYY??? why was i excited for this!!! i was a simple FOOL. i knew what was coming. and i know what is to happen next!!!

i am going to be SICK!!!! considering breaking my own rule and watching the next episode right now….. oh my gosh. wait. wait. let me try and get some more of my own thoughts out first, so that if i do go and do that, i can make them coherent….

fuck. all of them were so mean to her and she was RIGHT. everyone needs to STOP BEING MEAN TO HER. bill, i HATE YOU. maggie, you at least tried, but you SHOULD HAVE BELIEVED HER. 

man. man i cannot sit on this like i usually do. apologies, but i must continue at ONCE.

her grief………

it has been 12 hours since i watched this episode and i have somewhat gathered my thoughts. scully just feels this constant need to do the right thing, even if she doesn't know how to do it. i'm just shocked at how she was willing to drop everything and adopt this girl she thought was born to her sister, and i am shocked by the fact she remains civil with her family when they treat her like a fool. scully is by far a better person than me. but at the same time, i'm not *that* shocked, because we have always known how intense her moral compass is.

so, it was an episode where it was just scully. and while i am always deeply thankful for such an episode, it usually does come with some intense pain.

i literally cannot imagine how she must have felt hearing that she has a child she never knew about. i mean, emily was 3!! that is 3 years she was out in the world and scully had no idea!! and to have her autonomy taken from her entirely... i just cannot wrap my brain around it.

while this episode was very good, i do not think it is one i would rewatch anytime soon for sheer levels of emotion. and boy, i did in fact go ahead and watch the next one right after, something i had vowed to NEVER do, but here we are... i hope to get both of these writeups posted today so i can experience all the emotions in one weekend and then release them into the wind. except, of course, i am sure they will haunt me forever.

(melissa's love coming from beyond the grave to give her those phone calls... the ghost of christmas past... her paranormal experience leading her to family... wahhhhh)

[monstermonger]

Spring has begun; life is rekindled...

Itty Bitty Spring Dragon stickers ♡

[pangur-and-grim]

[sporesigil]

shooting star 🌟

[sealbatross]

and here it be

[salamispots]

confetti cat + back view for fun

[communist-hatsunemiku]

Zhibujiloom

[unadulteratedloathings]

"Make sure you're where less trouble is rife

Woes are fleeting

Blows are glancing

When you're dancing

Through life"

effect inspo

[morriemonnie]

wow i can't tell who my favorite toon is, gee it's kinda hard i really wonder who it is

[ducktracy]

it's seriously so.. Something that i've had multiple people tell me that my posts are the first they're hearing about The Day the Earth Blew Up.. WHICH IS WHY I'M BEING AN OBNOXIOUS SHILL!!! some theaters have early releases as soon as TODAY (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so please please be sure to check your local theaters and listings!! take a friend! take your family! in doing so you not only spread the message that people want to see more traditionally animated films, you not only convince WB you don't want to see movies that are glorified shoe commercials, you not only convince WB that they are dead wrong for attempting to write this off for tax purposes, but you get a pretty dang good film out of it, too! let director Pete Browngardt and supervising producer Alex Kirwan tell you the same 👇

personally, as someone who works in animation, i'm very against the messaging of "IF YOU DON'T WATCH THIS YOU ARE SINGLEHANDEDLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY FAILURE THAT COMES. YOU ARE MURDERING THE ANIMATORS". i find it condescending and unprofessional, and it only alienates your audience further. nobody should be forced to watch something they dont want to. especially when most (if not all) of these problems come strictly from above.

HOWEVER: you have absolutely nothing to lose by watching this.

you can feel good about supporting a film that almost didn't make it and helping to contribute to spreading a message that we want more films like this. you get to bask in the satisfaction of proving the higher ups wrong, that we DO want movies like this, we DO want traditional animation, we DO want to support the artists. but the best thing of all is that you get to enjoy a traditionally animated film on the big screen again

knowledge or investment of the characters and series is genuinely, in my eyes, irrelevant. i sincerely think it has elements that can be appreciated by anyone--even if, again, it just comes down to the satisfaction of doing a good turn and showing your support for animation. there is absolutely nothing you can lose by supporting it, but so, so much you, these workers, and the medium of animation as a whole can gain. if you have a spare hour and a half within the next few weeks, get out of the house, grab a friend, grab your siblings, grab your significant other, or just grab your own company and chill out with a gorgeous and funny and heartwarming and history defying movie. it's no small miracle that something like this exists in the current climate of the animation industry. don't you want to say you could play a hand in experiencing that miracle?

[triona-tribblescore]

IS THAT VLD I SEE????????

-Hyperfix Hopper

Ahhh Voltron, my old stomping grounds, part of my origin story, the most chaotic of times <333

[feelo-fick]

it can't be too hard right?

it's easy not to think about things, he tells me i don't think all the time! wait...

—

a scene from a fic that i have no clue if ill finish, let alone post, but look i made fanart of my own thing that doesnt even exist :D

[helloimamistake]

I wanna hold him 🙏🙏🙏

[arsonisticartichokes]

🩷❤️💚

[jansuta]

when theres nothing left to do but dance

[tradingjack]

trigun's still got a grip on my brain like you wouldn't believe lmao