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randomfoggytiger · 3 months ago

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Mulder's Brain Disease: an Open-Minded, Analytical Dissection (In-Depth)

Mulder's brain disease, love it or hate it, has to be one of the most unnecessary plot threads of The X-Files. Not only is it wedged into Season 8 haphazardly, but it accidentally stains a new wash of retroactive interpretation into Season 7-- a not altogether successful maneuver, all told.

Most of the canonical evidence provided clashes with itself, many of the details volunteered undermine its collaborative vision, and each piece of action or exposition is either forwarded with the assumption of legitimacy-- and therefore unchallenged-- or immediately discredited in the next scene or scenes.

There are two clear paths and one alternative to explore: Mulder didn't have brain disease (per Season 7's original intent); Mulder did have brain disease but didn't tell Scully (what Agent Doggett is led to believe); and Mulder had brain disease but didn't know it.

Let's begin.

STATEMENT(S) OF (ALLEGED) FACT

The X-Files is well-known for its... questionable timelines. That becomes exponentially more complicated with Season 8's tightly wound schedule and Scully's pregnancy (which Spotnitz and Carter stuck to rather well-- barring a few logistical hiccups-- post here.)

The brain disease arc inflexibly hinges on a retroactive retelling of Season 7's schedule. One chronological bookend is Amor Fati (stated to have taken place "in the fall"); and the other is the month of May: Mulder takes "four consecutive" road trips to North Carolina, allegedly pops over to Squamash Pennsylvania (twice), and supposedly buys himself a new headrest (read: gravestone)-- all within the span of four weeks. Additionally, we have allegations of a year-long brain disease-- despite all evidence to the contrary-- which places Mulder in a position of secret keeper or liar by omission (which CC has vehemently denied, post here.)

BRAIN DISEASE

(**Note**: This section's information will be summarized under the "FACTS AND FICTION, THOUGHTS AND THEORIES" subsection.)

Requiem builds on top of the "encephalitic trauma" Mulder experienced in Biogenesis-Amor Fati-- one that, we're told, made him "more alive than he's ever been." So alive, in fact, that his body couldn't support itself and shut down; and so alive, in fact, that CSM cut out a part of Mulder's lobe and Frankensteined it into his own.

The show's mythology set up the alien-human virus as early as Season 3, and built upon that foundation with the characters' subsequent adventures in Fight the Future, The Beginning, and Biogenesis. As a virus, it grafts onto human DNA and changes it-- or in this case, reactivates from junk DNA. As Dr. Anne Simon, a consultant for The X-Files, explains:

Jan. 2001:

"...I work on viruses. Viruses can’t turn into anything. If a virus turns into something, it’s not a virus. I was really horrified. So I read the rest of the script, and I came up with a different science that would only change a few conversations, but it would change the idea of what the virus was. And I had my fingers crossed that he’d go for it. If Chris wanted that virus to turn into something, he would’ve done it whether I wanted it to or not. But he loved the new idea: The virus integrates itself into the DNA of the person. That’s what a lot of viruses do, activate a resonant program in the cell. There’s a program in all our cells, in our DNA that starts with that single egg and turns us into a person. And that’s encoded in our genes, in our genetic makeup.

"The problem is that there’s a huge amount of DNA we don’t have a clue about. There’s a whole lot of DNA that we call junk DNA. We don’t have a clue what this junk DNA is doing. My idea was the virus activates a resonant program in the junk DNA, and that the junk DNA is actually there to turn a cell into the horrible creature, which means that we are the aliens."

Point taken. Multiple (questionable) vaccine inoculations and infections aside, humans in The X-Files world have latent alien DNA. The ancient artifact Mulder handled in Biogenesis activated his; and, unable to bear up under that extremis, his body was reduced to catatonia and shut down. Though there are quite a few problems with that specific chain of events (most of which I discuss in an alien virus post here), the logic could, theoretically, hold up.

ENCEPHALITIC TRAUMA AND REWRITES

In Amor Fati, Mulder was so far gone that he'd disconnected from reality (although his "inner" world was still influenced by outer events.) How, then, was Mulder brought back from the land of fantasy? Metaphorically, it was through Scully's belief and love and courage; practically, it was because of the (successful) medical procedure he underwent during his captivity (post here):

RULING OUT: TREPANATION AND BRAIN EDEMA

Two possible causes for Mulder's later complications need to be explored before we move on.

Firstly, as with a great deal of other components on the show, trepanation is not as simple as the writers propose:

World History.org, here:

"Trephination (also known as trepanning or burr holing) is a surgical intervention where a hole is drilled, incised or scraped into the skull using simple surgical tools. In drilling into the skull and removing a piece of the bone, the dura mater is exposed without damage to the underlying blood-vessels, meninges and brain.

According to Academic Press's 'Osteoarcheology': "A neurosurgeon can perform the procedure safely, although it comes with severe repercussions such as direct or indirect perioperative complications, which include increased damage to the brain, infection, blood loss, hemorrhage, and potentially death due to the trauma as the skull's protective covering is compromised."

Here, its perils are hand-waved away with "advanced alien science"; but to potentially complicate Amor Fati's explanation, the purpose of Mulder's surgery was to slice out an activated portion of his brain and transfer it to CSM's:

Penn Medicine, here:

"A temporal lobectomy, or temporal lobe resection, is a neurosurgical procedure that removes the front part of the temporal lobe of the brain to treat drug-resistant epilepsy. Each person has two temporal lobes, located beneath the skull on the side of the head in the temple region. The temporal lobes play important roles in memory, emotional responses, language, and sensory memory and processing of sounds, visions, and smells."

While it's possible that Mulder's and CSM's declines could have been kick-started by this procedure, that's not the route canon follows. Spender's deterioration is tied to "cerebral inflammation", which in turn is tied to Mulder's pre-surgery encephalitic distress-- in short, pre-trepanation trauma.

Secondly, the script also details a medical procedure that is most often used to relieve and treat brain edema (brain swelling)--

NHS, here:

"Ventriculostomy: In this procedure, a surgeon cuts a small hole in the skull and inserts a plastic drain tube. Cerebrospinal fluid is drained from inside the brain, helping to relieve the pressure.

Surgery: Surgery may have one or more of these goals:

A. Removing part of the skull to relieve intracranial pressure; this procedure is called decompressive craniectomy.

B. Removing or repairing the source of the swelling, such as repairing a damaged artery or vein or removing a growth."

Brain edema-- depending on the extent and duration of the trauma-- usually inflicts various degrees of harm. And while that could be promising when discussing Mulder's brain disease, Scully would have seen evidence of edema-ridden damage on his CT and MRI scans during his convalescence. Further, brain edema is not a form of brain disease, rather an offshoot effect of that condition-- therefore, not the cause of his (alleged) impending death.

AUTHORIAL INTENT AND REWRITES

Inverse to Mulder's reawakening and restored health is CSM's 30 touch-and-go hours and grim, post-operation prognosis:

His doctor's hints about a second surgical intervention are particularly intriguing. When CSM reappears in Closure, Scully notes his odd pallor-- "You're sick"-- which he doesn't deny-- "I had an operation." We are to assume he is referencing the brain surgery in Amor Fati-- he is-- but I would like to posit Spender could be referencing a possible second procedure (an off-screen attempt to mitigate his ailing health.) By En Ami, CSM's fate is sealed, and he openly admits his mortality in order to ignite Scully's trust (post here): "Cerebral inflammation-- a consequence of brain surgery I had in the fall. The doctors give me just a few months." His arc comes to a close in Requiem (unless you push canon into Season 9 and beyond) where we see the rapid toll of his deterioration.

Recovery from "advanced alien science", then, is aided by regular, everyday human physiology: age, health, medical history, and comorbid influences. Spender's age, smoking status, and former cancer diagnosis all combine against him-- his hubris for power led him willingly to death.

By contrast, Mulder's experience wasn't mentioned again until Requiem when he and the Bellefleur residents-- who'd previously suffered encephalitic trauma-- were called to the ship and abducted. There was no idea, hint, or reference sown about his deteriorating health: not a sign, not a symptom. Yet, mere months later, the tale is retold in Within: we learn, allegedly, that not only did Mulder have brain disease (and not only did Scully not know) but he'd also suffered through it for a year.

Frank Spotnitz admitted, after the close of Season 8, that the brain disease (and the IVF arc) was a last-minute creation he and Chris Carter decided on after their plans for a second movie set post-Requiem fell through:

April 2001:

"In the absence of pre-existing context for season 8’s dramatic surprises, the writers relied instead on flashbacks tailored to fit this year’s narrative. “Had I known there would be a season 8, I would have preferred to salt in all of the clues about these flashback episodes last season,” says Spotnitz of how he dealt retroactively with fitting in Mulder’s illness and Scully’s [IVF]. “But there really is no way to unravel these mysteries in my mind, and make use of David in the time that he was available to us, without having some flashback episodes.”"

Setting aside the complete lack of evidence that would “prove” Mulder was suffering from a degenerative brain disease, silently, for a year (without telling Scully), we’re left with a few bare-bone facts:

Season 7 was not written with the brain disease in mind.

Mulder's "encephalitic trauma" in Requiem was shared by the other Bellefleur residents, who were not (that we know) dying.

CSM declared that he was dying from "cerebral inflammation."

CSM's downturn post-Amor Fati was recorded at key moments through Season 7, with scrutable markers of decline and clear indicators of psychological shifts and changes influenced by his impending death.

In Within, we’re led to believe Mulder was suffering from year-long degenerative damage due to the surgery he and CSM underwent in the fall of 1999. Not only do his actions (or non-actions) in canon contradict this thesis, but Within-The Gift's timeline contradicts it, as well.

Deadalive-Three Words Mulder never confirmed he was diagnosed with-- or knew he was suffering from-- brain disease.

What, then, is "cerebral inflammation"; and how can we work in the brain disease as more than a creative (though flawed) hypothetical?

THE FIRST ROUND OF INFECTION

Encephalitis (“cerebral inflammation”) is pretty straight forward: you either have it and notice, or you have it and don’t.

There are two main types of "cerebral inflammation"--

NIH, here:

Inflammation in the brain and spinal cord can be caused by infections such as viruses. Encephalitis can also be autoimmune when antibodies can attack brain cells.....

NIH, here:

"Because people may have subtle symptoms of encephalitis, many cases may go undiagnosed. Several thousand cases are reported each year, but many more may occur since the symptoms may be mild at onset in some people."

Encephalitis hits fast and hard, disappearing within two weeks (Better Health, here) of its inception. Mild instances can pass through the body undetected; but severe or life-threatening cases are unequivocally transparent:

NIH, here,

"Once the acute illness, which normally lasts for 1 to 2 weeks, is under control, comprehensive rehabilitation should include cognitive rehabilitation and physical, speech, and occupational therapy if brain function is severely affected."

Mount Sinai.org, here,

"Those with a severe case of encephalitis may develop:

High fever

Severe headache

Stiff neck and back

Photophobia (sensitivity to bright light)

Sonophobia (sensitivity to sound)

Vomiting

Drowsiness and confusion

Seizures

Behavioral changes

Muscle weakness

Partial paralysis

Loss of consciousness

"Because encephalitis can on rare occasions be dangerous, it needs to be diagnosed and treated promptly....

"Many people exposed to encephalitis-causing viruses have no symptoms. Others may experience a mild transient illness, but do not develop full-blown encephalitis. People with mild encephalitis generally recover spontaneously over a period of several weeks.

"Severe cases of encephalitis can, however, have devastating effects, including:

Swelling of the brain caused by excess fluid (cerebral edema)

Bleeding within the brain (intracerebral hemorrhage)

Nerve damage (neuropathy)

"Encephalitis is a relatively rare disease. People at highest risk for encephalitis, and its complications include the very young, the very old, and people with weakened immune systems."

NIH, here:

"Because the disease can occur suddenly and progress rapidly, anyone who is suspected of having encephalitis should immediately contact a doctor or go to the hospital.

"...In more serious cases, the disease can cause hearing and/or speech loss, blindness, permanent brain and nerve damage, behavioral changes, cognitive disabilities, lack of muscle control, seizures, memory loss, or death. People with serious cases of encephalitis may need long-term therapy, medication, and supportive care."

Lastly, the risks for serious complications arise with the usual physiological predispositions and environmental factors--

Mayo Clinic, here:

"Anyone can develop encephalitis. Factors that may increase the risk include:

Age. Some types of encephalitis are more common or more serious in certain age groups. In general, young children and older adults are at greater risk of most types of viral encephalitis. Similarly, some forms of autoimmune encephalitis are more common in children and young adults, whereas others are more common in older adults.

Weakened immune system. People who have HIV/AIDS, take immune-suppressing medicines or have another condition causing a weakened immune system are at increased risk of encephalitis.

Geographical regions. Mosquito- or tick-borne viruses are common in particular geographical regions.

Season of the year. Mosquito- and tick-borne diseases tend to be more common in summer in many areas of the United States.

Autoimmune disease. People who already have an autoimmune condition may be more prone to develop autoimmune encephalitis.

Smoking. Smoking increases the chances of developing lung cancer, which in turn increases the risk of developing paraneoplastic syndromes including encephalitis."

In Biogenesis, we are told the alien virus in Mulder's DNA is activated when he touches an ancient artifact; but it's debatable if that incident lines up with viral (infection via an outside invader) or autoimmune (mistaken antibodies attacking its host) encephalitis. Regardless, that question is secondary to the main hypothetical: if encephalitis ("cerebral inflammation") has a short shelf life, what was killing CSM (and Mulder?)

REINFECTION: AUTOIMMUNE ENCEPHALITIS

The problem begins with CSM's (and Mulder's purported) year-long deterioration. "Cerebral inflammation", as explained above, does not drag its feet when swooping in for the kill. And more broadly, how is Mulder able to be reinfected with a disease which old Spender sliced and diced from his head? Better Health.gov's description (here) fits what the writers were going for, I believe: "There is evidence to suggest that some cases of viral encephalitis are caused by dormant viral infection... becoming active again." This plays well with Mulder's initial infection (Biogenesis), as well as CSM's lengthy "cerebral inflammation" and Mulder's (alleged) inflammatory reemergence.

However: recurrence is a symptom of autoimmune encephalitis, not viral encephalitis--

NIH, here:

"Although rare, there have been cases of post-infectious autoimmune encephalitis (where it is triggered by an initial response to an infectious agent)."

Autoimmune encephalitis: a review of diagnosis and treatment, here:

"Viral infections are known triggers for AIE. It is believed that virus-mediated brain tissue damage may lead to antigen exposure that triggers the development of anti-neuronal antibodies."

Another checkbox that can be ticked off: AIE might take longer to diagnose because of the difficulty pinpointing symptoms--

NIH, here:

"Diagnosing autoimmune encephalitis can be difficult as the average onset of symptoms to diagnosis often takes a few weeks to 3 months. ...To diagnose autoimmune encephalitis, we need multiple tools to aid in the diagnosis, although clinical judgment is the key to making decisions. They will include a constellation of neuropsychiatric symptoms, lab studies, neuroimaging, and electroencephalogram."

Slowly-degenerative AIE cases (though infrequent) do exist--

Autoimmune encephalitis: a review of diagnosis and treatment, here:

"By way of generalisation, autoantibody-mediated disorders often present rapidly, over a few days to weeks. However, we have observed more chronic courses, of between 1 and 5 years, particularly in leucine-rich glioma-inactivated protein 1 (LGI1)-antibody, contact-associated protein 2 (CASPR2)-antibody and immunoglobulin-like cell-adhesion molecule 5 (IgLON5)-antibody syndromes. These findings mean that time to disease nadir is often outside of the 3-month duration which appears in diagnostic guidelines."

Nevertheless, atypical cases are often put through rigorous testing to rule out other degenerative autoimmune diseases due to the severity of their symptoms: mood changes, mental confusion, muscle tremors, seizures (focal rather than generalized), pain, psychiatric symptoms, and (more often than not) tumors.

"Autoimmune encephalitis: a review of diagnosis and treatment", here:

"Seizures occur in most autoimmune encephalitis syndromes and are a common factor that triggers neurological attention. The types and frequencies of seizure vary between autoantibody-mediated diseases and may help pinpoint the individual autoantibody. …These patients, typically men in their fifth to eighth decades, have very frequent focal events with multiple semiologies and only rare generalised seizures....

"In addition to treatment of the underlying immunological process, it is often necessary to consider management of seizures, movement disorders, behaviour, pain, sleep and autonomic disturbance, and mood disorders. We do not discuss this substantial topic comprehensively here but rather we focus on special considerations relevant to the two most common forms of autoimmune encephalitis: NMDAR-antibody and LGI1-antibody encephalitis."

It is possible, however, that the extent of the damage Mulder received during his surgery might have been overlooked-- fertile ground for the next trauma-induced biological onslaught:

NIH, here:

"Because lesions can sometimes be clinically asymptomatic, a systematic neuroimaging work-up should be performed.... Cerebral computed tomography scans [CT scans] performed at admission show abnormalities only in 30% of patients, essentially supratentorial readily visible diffuse or large focal hypodensities of the cerebral white matter. MRI of the brain should therefore be systematically performed when post-infectious encephalitis is suspected."

But the basic premise (and same problem) of 'traditional' encephalitis remains. AIE, though possibly reoccurring, does more harm in the short term than the long run: its most powerful weapon is either immediate death or a damaging domino effect--

NHS UK, here:

"Encephalitis can damage the brain and cause long-term problems including:

memory loss (amnesia)

personality and behavioural changes

speech and language problems (aphasia)

swallowing problems (dysphagia)

repeated seizures or fits – known as epilepsy

emotional and psychological problems, such as anxiety, clinical depression and mood swings

problems with attention, concentrating, planning and problem solving

problems with balance, co-ordination and movement

persistent tiredness"

It's not a leap, then, to suppose that--

CSM's health immediately crumbled apart because of his age, health, and smoker status.

Whereas Mulder's health-- if he was affected-- was bolstered up by youth and other factors. However: that does not rule out a potential sleeper agent lurking in his brain, waiting for the next traumatic incident to reactivate, AIE-style. (We'll get to that.)

FACT AND FICTION, THOUGHTS AND THEORIES

The facts, as we know them:

Encephalitis, no matter its form, is not a slow-burn, long-term killer. Yet, the fallout from its destruction can create a domino effect that could, potentially, be lethal.

Regardless of the original diagnosis, CSM and (allegedly) Mulder suffered from autoimmune encephalitis after Amor Fati.

While mild cases can be undetectable, severe or life-threatening encephalitis can't be masked and must be treated promptly.

CSM is doubly or triply immunocompromised-- per his age, past cancer, and on-going smoking habit-- and was promptly affected.

Mulder and the Bellefleur residents were abducted and transformed due to past "encephalitic trauma", not current, prevalent brain disease.

Most importantly: if Mulder and CSM had been dying over a year's time, there would have been conspicuous physical evidence-- evidence which Scully would have detected (as she did in Closure.)

Irrespective of these facts, let's play around with a few hypotheticals.

If Mulder and CSM had been dying contemporaneously, then they would have to be deteriorating from the ripple effects of at least one of three factors:

Extensive brain damage-- which would have become immediately apparent once they woke.

Accumulative comorbidities set in motion via brain damage-- which Spender did, and Mulder did not, have.

Reactivated effects caused by another traumatic incident-- which Mulder could have had (and did) in Season 7.

That last point is a particularly intriguing theory. Mulder would have been suffering profusely had his disease run concurrently with CSM's-- but what if it didn't? What if Mulder's brain disease was a recent diagnosis-- one he'd received before his abduction? If so:

His reticence from Scully would be short-lived and easily explained by Mulder still processing the news.

His sudden rash of trips to his mother's and sister's graves could be influenced by anxiety over an impending medical report or in reaction to an inflexible diagnosis.

His headstone purchase could be explained as a rash, last-minute gesture of acceptance (or could have been faked by his nemeses, which we shall get to.)

Yet, and this cannot be stressed enough: even if Mulder had a recurrence of encephalitis, it alone would not be enough to kill him, just like it alone would not be enough to kill CSM.

To get to the bottom of any and all possibilities, we need to map out a simple, logical, cut-and-dried timeline.

So, let's do it.

CANONICAL (AND RETROACTIVE) TIMELINE

(**Note**: If you don't care to read the discovery process, skip to PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER.)

To chart a course through the brain disease's cluttered "shoulda, woulda, coulda"s, two options present themselves: episodic air dates, or in-canon date markers.

Here we run into the first problem: neither touchstone works unmitigatedly: either in-canon dates reorder key episodes (perhaps the props department worked off the script rather than day-of filming?) or air dates don't graph cleanly onto defined in-canon perimeters and events. What we'll have to do: nail down the definitives, and work back (loosely) from there.

xfilestimeline.net provides an exquisite guide to (most of) The X-Files's chronological order, which I will be referencing below (direct quotes in italics.)

AMOR FATI

Amor Fati takes place "in the fall" according to Within. The air date (November 14) and in-canon estimate (October 7-14) both roughly group into that space. Mulder is wearing his "victory cap" to come find Scully; but it's hard to know for certain that the hallway scene takes place shortly after the last week of September (which, according to xfilestimeline.net, was the first Yankees victory of the season) or if he simply wore it to cover his bandages and bantered around the obvious.

Either/or is viewer's choice.

SIGNS AND WONDERS

Signs and Wonders's air date (January 23) outruns a "medical report" (January 17-19) by just a few days.

EN AMI

En Ami takes place (comparative to any month afterward) "last spring." Since there is no internal date provided, it either falls on March 19 (its air date) or sometime after February 20 (X-Cops's in-canon date) and before April 14 - May 1/May 8-12 (Brand X - Chimera's in-canon dates.)

Again, viewer's choice.

SEIN UND ZEIT

Sein und Zeit airs on February 6th; but its date is "confirmed" by a TV broadcast of State of the Union Address (January 27 - February 1.)

BRAND X

Brand X's air date (April 16) coincides with its in-canon, two-week recovery estimate (April 14 - May 1.)

CHIMERA

Chimera debuts a full month prior (April 2) to in-canon configurings (May 8-12: Date confirmed at outset ((2 weeks after 4/23)).)

Chimera marks the first overlap between Season 7 and Season 8: Mulder (allegedly) visited Squamash, Pennsylvania on May 6 -7, a day before he and Scully were assigned to a stakeout (May 8.) It's not stated how long Mulder and Scully were on duty before he was again reassigned; but it stretches believability (what else is new?)

ALL THINGS

all things has no fixed internal date, though it's air date (April 9) takes place a full month before the estimated in-canon dates (May 13-15.)

FIGHT CLUB

Fight Club's airing was May 7; but its own internal date (June 17-19) so incontrovertibly contradicts Requiem's abduction timeline that it can be confidently swapped out for May 17-19.

This episode is pivotal to quite a few brain disease theories.

JE SOUHAITE

Je Souhaite air date (May 14) is hastily surpassed by its estimated internal date (May 22-24.)

This episode is vital to understanding the brain disease arc-- more accurately, to understanding Mulder's mind frame when given three wishes.

REQUIEM

Requiem is key to the entire framing of the brain disease arc:

Either Mulder is abducted on May the 21st (Requiem's air date), which shreds through Agent Doggett's May timeline (which will be discussed below);

Or Mulder is abducted on May 31st (the day before Within), which tears fewer rips in Agent Doggett's theory.

Pulling from my "Laying Waste to The Gift (with Its Own Canon)" meta (post here):

A. ...Doggett refers to Mulder's trips as "Four consecutive weekends in May"-- distanced language that (one can infer) means the month is over. (If he and Scully were still in May, Doggett would have more naturally stated "each weekend this month" or "the past four weekends.")

B. Spotnitz has since confirmed Within takes place the day after Scully's reveal in the hospital ("Season eight begins the morning after season seven." Interview here.)

C. Therefore, it's safest to assume Within takes place in June (either June 1st or June 2nd), pushing Mulder's abduction date to May 31st.

WITHIN

Within begins the complete disregard for air dates-- and rightfully so, given the strict guidelines of Scully's pregnancy (post here.)

See Requiem above: takes place June 1st.

PER MANUM

Per Manum takes place mid-September (Scully's baby is fourteen weeks old. Given that she announced her pregnancy to Skinner at the very end of May, it seems likely that she conceived in mid-May, which would give a mid September date for this episode.)

THE GIFT

The Gift is broken into three trips: (allegedly) Mulder, May 6 A.M. - 7 A.M.; (allegedly) Mulder, May 24; and Doggett, late September. (No internal dates provided. It is said to be roughly a "year" since Mulder visited Squamash, but given the events of Episode 8x14: This is Not Happening, it's more like under half a year. Doggett confirms that Mulder was abducted in May. He went to Squamash, PA on May 6-7, and returned there on the 24th. Doggett also reveals that Mulder falsified case reports, which explains how the dates might be off at the end of Season 7.)

This episode is, quite frankly, a catastrophe. I broke down the timeline and its inconsistencies in a previous post, here-- suffice it to say, it discredits its own claims in its own episode. But, we will be returning to this... gem later on.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Now that we have a framework for both seasons, we can begin to slot the pieces side by side.

"In the fall", Amor Fati: Mulder and CSM both undergo brain surgery. Mulder fully recovers (or does he?) while CSM deteriorates slowly over the course of a year.

April 14 - May 1, Brand X: Mulder is hospitalized some length of time during his two weeks of recovery. Neither Scully nor the medical staff notice any medical abnormalities (i.e. odd or troubling physical responses, readouts, or charts) despite heavily monitoring his health.

May 6-7, The Gift: Mulder burns up one of his consecutive weekends by (allegedly) taking a trip to Squamash, Pennsylvania on May 6-7.

May 7: Mulder takes his first 370 mile trip (10 hours total) from D.C. to North Carolina and back. He will (allegedly) make three more consecutive weekend drives until his abduction in Requiem.

May 8, Chimera: Mulder has a case ready for he and Scully to investigate (one that likely required the weekend to research-- more on that later.)

May 13-15, all things: Mulder burns up another consecutive weekend on a trip to England.

May 17-19, Fight Club: Mulder takes some heavy hits.

May 22-24, Je Souhaite: Mulder doesn't consider asking the genie-- not once-- to heal his brain disease.

May 31, Requiem: Mulder is abducted due to his "encephalitic trauma", courtesy of Biogenesis's ancient artifact.

June 1, Within: The Alien Bounty Hunter parades around Mulder's life, stealing his (and Scully's) computer.

June 2, Within: Doggett obtains rental car receipts, VISA card purchases, and year-long medical records, thereby coming to the conclusion that Mulder took four consecutive weekend drives (nearly 400 miles, over 10 hours) from D.C. to North Carolina. Doggett and his team do not find Mulder's gun taped under the apartment sink.

Late September, The Gift: Doggett finds a case from last May he and his team had missed. He also finds a bloody gun taped under Mulder's sink that he and his team had missed. He also finds an incriminating report that has Mulder and Scully's name on it that he and his team had missed. He does not check the dates against "Mulder's May Pilgrimages", nor does he corroborate the signatures and evidence with Scully.

Chronological order locked and loaded.

DEBUNKING AGENT DOGGETT'S (ESTIMATED) ITINERARY

Now, let's break down the evidence Doggett "unearths."

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

In Within, Agent Doggett rests Mulder's brain disease on three rational (and one discredited) facts:

Mulder's surgery "in the fall" (Amor Fati)-- one Mulder did not, apparently, recover from. Doggett and his team discover "evidence" indicating a year-long decline which the files predecessor had kept secret from his medical doctor-partner.

Mulder's "four consecutive weekends" drives to North Carolina ("Same mileage each trip: 370 miles, 375 miles"), which means he either kept them hidden from Scully or she lied to Doggett when questioned.

Mulder's sudden, erratic purchases in May: flowers and a personally-inscribed headstone on the same VISA card.

Mulder's and Scully's missing computers and files (later proven to be the Alien Bounty Hunter's machinations.)

In The Gift, Agent Doggett discovers further "proof" to support his supposition:

Mulder (allegedly) took a trip to Squamash, Pennsylvania to investigate a case on May 6 (Saturday.)

Mulder (allegedly) returned to be healed by the Squamash creature on May 7.

Mulder (allegedly) turned down the opportunity to be healed in order to mercy kill the Creature.

Mulder (allegedly) hid his bloody "murder weapon" (an ankle gun) under his kitchen sink.

Mulder (allegedly) had Scully sign off on his closed report, with or without fully informing her.

Mulder (allegedly) placed his and Scully's careers in danger because of this falsified report... conveniently (post here.)

DESTRUCTIVE CONTRADICTIONS

Problem #1: Doggett Needs Four Weekends

As we've explored, ad nauseam: the car rental receipts Doggett finds in Mulder's desk plainly communicate four weekend trips in May.

Mulder burns up the first weekend of May on the Squamash trips: he arrives in Pennsylvania on the morning of May the 6th (Saturday) and doesn't leave until the early hours of May the 7th (Sunday.) He is then (allegedly) supposed to drive a 10 hour round trip-- without sleep, while (allegedly) suffering the painful effects of deteriorating "brain disease"-- and be back by Sunday night to prep for an X-Files stakeout on Monday. Both trips cannot coincide with each other, which means one-- or both-- have to go.

Mulder burns up a second weekend on his trip to England: he begins preparing to leave on a Saturday (estimated May 13) and arrives back a day or two later (estimated May 15.)

Mulder might burn up a third weekend recovering from Fight Club: the extent of his injuries would probably inhibit his ability to drive safely-- not to mention the possibility of a compounding, painful "brain disease."

Discounting The Gift (which is rife with inconsistencies and contradictions), two of the four necessary weekends were spent elsewhere.

In fact, the only weekend Doggett can rely on (per his own timeline) is the one following Je Souhaite-- three days before Mulder's abduction. (That weekend will be instrumental later.)

Problem #2: Doggett's "Evidence" Doesn't Match His Timeline

Mulder's VISA card made a lot of purchases over the course of May, some of them reasonable (flowers for his loved ones' graves) and some of them questionable (a headstone and rental cars.)

The VISA card's legitimacy was authenticated by the rental receipts on Mulder's desk-- but those rental dates don't match with Mulder's recorded movements (either by air date or canonical rewrite.) Discounting the Gift, at least two out of four weekends were spent in D.C. or England, not on the road back-and-forth from North Carolina.

Doggett doesn't question this.

That same VISA card was used to explain Mulder's tombstone purchase.

Doggett doesn't question this.

"Mulder" (allegedly) took two trips to Squamash, one the week before his disappearance-- the locals never described what he looked like, only testified that he questioned them and tried to kill the Creature later.

Doggett doesn't question this.

"Mulder" was spotted swiping FBI evidence in order to locate Gibson Praise, and was able to access "his" apartment as well as the office.

Doggett doesn't question this (even after seeing a doppelganger in Without.)

Mulder's VISA card, trips, "brain disease" diagnosis, bloody gun, and falsified report only pop up once he can't challenge their authenticity.

Doggett doesn't question this.

To give the man some credit, most of this can be excused away with the rationale that he doesn't believe in far-reaching conspiracies or boogie men trying to take down Mulder in the dark.

Indisputably, though, the onus is on the writers for tragically mucking up their timeline. Or helpfully, as it's easier to dismiss the entire brain disease arc as a hoax based on these claims.)

Problem #3: The Gift Collapses In On Itself

As previously mentioned, I've combed over The Gift's problems at length (again, post here); but let's go through it once more for totality's sake:

Mulder's trips to Squamash and his trips to his mother's and sister's graves can't coincide, not with late-stage "brain disease."

A solo case, a bloody gun, and falsified signatures-- each piece of "evidence" was missed by Doggett and his team in Within, despite the FBI's fervor to blame Mulder's disappearance on his erratic nature. Each piece of "evidence" conveniently materialized later when Mulder (or Scully) needed to be eliminated from the files.

Scully never confirms or denies the report's authenticity, nor her participation in signing off on it. Conveniently.

In protecting Scully, Skinner and Doggett likely incriminated themselves-- or passed over the clue that would unravel the conspiracy behind the trips, VISA purchases, and "Mulder"'s many appearances.

The last visit by "Mulder" to Squamash is unaccounted for. Say, perhaps, that he had traveled there on May 6 and shot the Creature on May 7-- that doesn't explain why he returned on the 24th. Unless, of course, it wasn't him.

Problem #4: Mulder Would Not Be Physically Capable

Not only would Mulder have to be hiding his (hard-to-miss) brain disease symptoms from Scully-- a medical doctor-- he would have to be squeezing in 10-hour weekend drives routinely after physically-demanding x-files all week.

Problem #5: Scully Was Unaware of Mulder's Weekend Trips

Within posits that Agent Scully was utterly in the dark about her partner's weekend activities-- which is, frankly, ludicrous given her and Mulder's history of constant communication and recent commingling.

This can be explained away with one or two considerations--

Scully was lying to Doggett about not knowing where Mulder was going (North Carolina, i.e. his mother's and sister's graves.)

Scully knew he would disappear every weekend but never bothered to ask where he was going (e.g. spending healthy time apart, caching up on other obligations, etc.)

--but it was not canonically intended. As if that ever stopped the writers or the fans.

Problem #6: Mulder Neither Confirms Nor Denies His Diagnosis

In Deadalive, Scully describes Mulder's condition as, "Blood, electrolyte imbalances, a loss of brain function. I strongly believe that Mulder is infected with an alien virus." (Another one, or the same one?) And when Mulder wakes, she tells him, "Whatever neurological disorder you were suffering from, it's no longer detectable. After a course of transfusions and antivirals it has rid your body of the virus that was invading it. The scars on your face, on your hands, on your feet, on your chest, they, they seem to be repairing themselves. Mulder, you are in perfect health."

Not then nor later does Scully say "your brain disease from last fall is healed"-- in fact, both seem to be discussing the super soldier virus he was infected with on the ship (a sleight of hand for the writers to dodge the ramifications of the brain disease arc.) In fact, is Mulder ever told he, supposedly, had brain disease?

Mulder was taken due to "encephalitic trauma", not brain disease (e.g. none of the other abductees were reported to have had ill health or further, recent complications.)

Mulder was infected with "an alien virus" bound and determined to turn him into a super soldier.

Mulder was returned "deadalive."

Mulder was healed (i.e. taken off of life support.)

So, he was likely told about his "encephalitic trauma" and his close brush with a super soldier zombie "alien" virus... but was Mulder ever specifically told about the (alleged) year-long degenerative brain disease? The one that doesn't kill slowly, and only claimed CSM's life because of the latter man's presumptive co-current comorbidities?

I think not. Whether Mulder did or did not have brain disease, the writers seemed to want to brush that arc briskly under the rug and never acknowledge it ever again-- which is exactly what they did.

BRAIN DISEASE BELIEVERS, THERE IS STILL HOPE

Despite the ravages this meta has wrecked on the brain disease arc, there is still a perfectly reasonable-- and dare I say, logical-- explanation that would seamlessly factor in Mulder's brain disease. One could still indulge in angst alongside Season 7's original intent and Season 8's post-hoc hypothetical with a guilt-free conscience.

May wonders never cease.

Except: the timeline must be drastically shortened.

THREE THEORETICAL TRUTHS

It's all come to this: three possibilities laid out before us.

Each idea works with the same conceit: Mulder was irrefutably (per the loopholes left in the writers' wake) setup by his enemies-- incongruous purchases, trips, and medical records collaboratively pulled together to blacken his name forever in the FBI-- with Scully's reputation soon to follow. The attempts ended with his burial-- which is doubly ironic, considering he rose from the dead three months later-- and the discovery of her pregnancy; but the "proof" of "their" endeavors stuck to the files like smoke.

MULDER WAS RECENTLY DIAGNOSED WITH "BRAIN DISEASE"

According to this theory, Mulder would have to suffer a recent relapse in order to fit in with the "cerebral inflammation" recurrence timescale.

Mulder would've had to suffer another trauma to kick off an autoimmune encephalitic malfunction.

Mulder's relapse couldn't have taken place post-Signs and Wonders or post-Brand X, since Scully would have observed the resulting tremors, mood swings, or early, small-scale seizures.

Fight Club fits the aforementioned criteria and gives Mulder a free weekend to drive to his mother's and sister's graves before Je Souhaite.

Mulder would have to have been given a "to be determined" precaution rather than a full-scale diagnosis because he did not wish to be healed in Je Souhaite.

Mulder would have had to be told bad news post-Je Souhaite and pre-Requiem.

"Cerebral inflammation", as has been hammered home, is not a lengthy death: sustained damage and other comorbid factors are responsible for potentially killing the patient after the disease has been treated. As we also know, "cerebral inflammation" can reoccur via erroneous immune signals or a second traumatic event (which would kick off said erroneous immune signals.)

Mulder was in the hospital three times after Amor Fati: once in Signs and Wonders, once in Brand X, and once in Fight Club. Scully was on hand for the first two concerns, and would have seen the results of his painstaking tests and recovery. But she wouldn't have been able to witness his records in Fight Club (since she was recovering herself.) It is wholly possible that the repeated stresses Mulder's body weathered caused a relapse, one which would have been so new and so recent that it wouldn't have manifested unmistakable symptoms-- yet-- before his abduction in Bellefleur. Given autoimmune encephalitis's grace period, that gives a few weeks to three months before Scully could, theoretically, have figured things out. If that be the case, it also slots onto one of two weekends Mulder had free to travel to North Carolina (Fight Club's case wrapped up on Friday the 19th, a day before Saturday the 20th.)

Most importantly, it saves Mulder's dignity. The greatest injustice of the brain disease arc is that it implies a level of ignorance he fostered on Scully's part-- a proclivity to lie by omission rather than openly share the truth between them. While Mulder does have a history of holding back the complete truth -- his exes and past partners, his retrieval of Scully's ova during the cancer arc, his concerns about Emily's paternity, and his mutual feelings towards her-- he was more vulnerably agape after the consummation of their relationship (displaying his fear quietly in Requiem's "I can't risk losing you" plea.) And let's face it: Mulder isn't equipped for the long con-- Scully unfailingly spots and deduces his schemes or aims.

Combine these factors with Mulder's forgetfulness in Je Souhaite-- not a thought was spared towards his mortality when offered three wishes-- and it makes sense why the medical evaluation and determination interval should be kept short.

By giving Mulder a smaller window of time to process, it falls in line with his and Scully's established character traits: his need to withdraw (e.g. Conduit, Pusher, The Red and the Black, One Son, Amor Fati, etc.) before making and sharing a decision with Scully-- and her innate ability to smell out protracted brooding like a bloodhound.

(And, as formerly mentioned, Mulder never buys a headstone, regardless-- no matter how many falsified VISA cards Doggett finds.)

MULDER DID NOT KNOW HE HAD "BRAIN DISEASE"

This second theory rests on the first's medical possibility, but weaves farther down a different path.

The same chronological order applies-- i.e. autoimmune encephalitis recurrence post-Fight Club.

However, Mulder is unaware of his ailing health: his doctors miss the early symptoms during their examinations; and since Scully is otherwise preoccupied (i.e. recovering), it's never notated.

Since AIEs have an additional buffer period of up to three months, and can be hard to catch without physical symptoms or a thorough MRI, it's plausible that Mulder never knew.

This would also fit with the Bellefleur abductees' "encephalitic trauma", strangely: their old injuries could have been recently triggered-- or forcefully triggered once on the UFO-- in the same manner that Mulder's injury was inflamed post-Fight Club.

This idea plays with the best of both worlds: Mulder's decay looming like a ticking time bomb over his and Scully's happiness; his and Scully's unbroken dedication to the truth and each other. A A VISA card and headstone, grave flowers and falsified reports were setup ahead of time-- orchestrated by the CSM's lingering shadow faction in allegiance with the aliens: Mulder eagerly offered as the price the overlords demanded from the humans.

It also works beautifully with Season 7's intended canon (Mulder whole and hale, with no brain disease in sight) and with his and Scully's miscommunication in Three Words (he assuming she's referring to the super soldier virus, she presuming he knows she knows about his brain disease.)

MULDER DID NOT HAVE "BRAIN DISEASE"

Lastly, Mulder was not dying from brain disease:

Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz (and the other writers) did not conceptualize Mulder's brain disease when writing Season 7.

Mulder displayed zero symptoms in Season 7 in the weeks and months leading up to its finale.

Mulder did not wish to be healed when he came face-to-face with a genie in Je Souhaite.

The brain disease timeline Agent Doggett digs up in Season 8 is built on manipulable evidence and irrevocably, triumphantly falls apart on itself.

Mulder never confirms nor denies his alleged diagnosis.

According to this theory, Mulder recovered in "Amor Fati" and did not deteriorate further. Instead, he and Scully investigated their subsequent cases with lighter hearts as they finally consolidated their relationship, found his sister, and made peace with their individual and mutual choices in life. When Mulder was hospitalized for venomous snake bites, he did not display any neurological damage. During the events of Closure and En Ami, Scully quickly ascertained that CSM was suffering and dying-- visible, physical symptoms her partner did not have. When Mulder was hospitalized, again, for an infestation of beetles in his lungs, neither his MRIs nor close, personal observation indicated that he had late-stage brain deterioration and neurological or circulatory damage. When Mulder was hospitalized a third time (alongside Scully), whatever (off-screen) complications arose then were not enough to worry him when granted three wishes an episode later.

If this be the case, the evidence "uncovered" in Within and The Gift would have been outright fabricated. This hypothesis aligns in all respects with the flimsy and superbly dissonant pieces canon offers at different times-- information only forthcoming enough to cast doubt on Mulder's and Scully's good name before disappearing immediately afterwards. Evidence, moreover, that is never corroborated between either agent, or between themselves and Agent Doggett.

It would fit with Season 8's timeline, too: perhaps Mulder makes anomalous trips in May-- with or without Scully's knowledge-- but the dates of at least half of those alleged trips clash with weekends he spent on, or preparing for, other investigations. And perhaps Mulder did investigate Squamash (doubtful): his actions there could still be divorced from an ailing, desperate man.

THE TRUE BELIEVERS

Of course, you can always headcanon Mulder did, indeed, have a year-long brain condition; but that would entail a total disregard of the facts. (Then again, when has that stopped canon before?)

FINAL VERDICT

As enlightening, entertaining, or engaging as this project has been, it will probably not shift or shape minds: whether someone believes in the brain disease or not depends on that person's emotional, observational, and intellectual tastes and pursuits.

My only hope is that this work creates or fosters a new perspective.

CONCLUSION

This has been my most researched and re-edited meta to date.

Thank you to @sagan-starstuff for affirming that, no, the brain disease made no sense and that, yes, I hadn't lost my mind. Hopefully the science presented tracks.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

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mytardisisparked · 8 months ago

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Shirts

Scully wakes up one morning to realize her usual shirts don't fit anymore.

Read on AO3.

She’s at Mulder’s apartment when she wakes up one morning and realizes that her blouse is way too tight to wear to work. The buttons at her middle are fit to pop and the whole thing is pulling until there are sizeable gaps between the strained buttons that show… well, everything.

With a sigh, she wrestles herself out of the shirt and silently bemoans the hubris that kept her from accepting her mother’s offer to help her shop for maternity clothes last weekend. She thought she had more time.

That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Always thinking we have more time…

She swallows hard and digs through her side of Mulder’s closet for a different blouse. Everything there is the same size as the one she just tried to put on. She considers, for a moment, just re-wearing her shirt from yesterday – Sunday – but it’s more casual than she would prefer, especially since she feels she has an image of professionalism to maintain in light of her increasingly-evident condition.

She hasn’t heard any of the rumors – she suspects she may have Agent Doggett to thank for that – but she knows they’re circulating. She’s seen the shared looks and not-so-subtle glances when she walks through the upstairs offices. Most of the bureau must know by now that she’s pregnant and have a solid idea of who the father is.

Her skin crawls to think of what people might say, not because she’s ashamed in any way, but because she knows that no one will ever understand the depth of her relationship with Mulder; no one can grasp exactly what he meant to her and what she meant to him. They will think of tawdry nights out on the road or locked doors in their downstairs office, rather than the encompassing love and comfort and friendship that lay between them. The rumors will make their relationship sound cheap and dirty when it was anything but.

And then there are the people who will romanticize it, who will imagine her grief and try to sympathize when they have no real idea of how large the gaping hole in her heart is. They will never fully understand that Mulder had become her whole world, their lives entangled in a beautiful and painful and confusing way that even she isn’t sure how to define. She loved him, and still does, but they were so much more than just love. They were more than any simple word in this language or any other. The hollow sympathies and the cards and the flowers will mean nothing, if they ever come. They can never fully encapsulate who she and Mulder were, together.

And so, she isn’t sure what’s worse – the scorn or the pity. She’s glad she hasn’t heard any of it. She hopes she never does.

Her eyes slide from her own shirts to Mulder’s. There are a few missing; she has been slowly taking them out to sleep with, one by one, as Mulder’s cedar-y scent wears off. She grabs a light blue one and slides it over her arms and shoulders, starting to button it up.

It fits. Not perfectly, but it lays over her stomach and breasts comfortably. The shoulders are a bit large and she will certainly have to roll the sleeves, but the fit reminds her, in a way, of the looser suits and blouses she wore when she was younger, when she first started working in the X-Files.

She stands in the mirror, taking in the shirt and her face and the bump at her waist that is becoming more and more apparent. The shirt might be reminiscent of her younger days, but the rest of her is not; there are dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks look more hollow than they ever have. Her mother would say she looks haggard, if Maggie Scully weren’t too kind to make any comment on her appearance at all, aside from the occasional “you look a bit tired, darling,” or “I think you’re starting to show, dear. I can tell if you turn just the right way.”

Scully sighs and rolls the sleeves, sliding her jacket over it. She turns in the mirror and decides that her appearance is acceptable.

When she arrives at work, she sees Agent Doggett do a subtle double-take at her outfit. He seems to consider it for a moment before turning back to his work without comment.

She lets out a breath as she sits at her desk and opens a file.

—

Despite her mother’s repeated offers to help her shop for maternity wear, Scully continues to wear Mulder’s shirts. She washes them in his washer and dryer, using his brand of detergent and dryer sheets in the hopes of making them smell more like him. It helps, she thinks. Maybe.

A kind coworker from the fingerprinting lab gifts her a couple of maternity shirts that she had purchased but never worn during her own pregnancy. Scully smiles and accepts them, but they never leave her closet.

The material of some of Mulder’s shirts is a bit stiff and scratchy. She wears them anyway, over a tee or a tank on the days when her skin feels too sensitive.

Her stomach itches now from the stretching. At night, she sometimes imagines that it’s Mulder’s warm hands applying lotion to her abdomen instead of her own. She can almost feel his breath brushing her neck and tickling her hair if she closes her eyes.

Though she’s been able to feel the baby kicking on the inside for a bit now, the first time she can feel it from the outside is during one of the times she’s applying lotion. A tiny foot presses against her fingertips and she immediately falls apart, thinking of how excited Mulder would have been to feel that first kick.

She still uses lotion after that, but she refuses to think of Mulder while she applies it. She can’t.

She still wraps herself in his shirts every day.

Her mother stops offering to help her shop. Instead, she brings by a bottle of Mulder’s brand of detergent.

—

Eventually, Mulder’s shirts no longer fit.

She’s almost through her seventh month now, and his shirts fit almost as poorly as her own did the first day she started wearing them.

On the weekends she wears his sweatshirts, which are still mostly loose. During the week days, she wears sweaters.

She calls her mom. They go shopping. It’s a quiet affair, but they come home with a good handful of pants, blouses, and casual shirts for just about any occasion.

She still wears his sweatshirts on the weekends, even as they grow tighter. The material is soft and the fabric still smells faintly of him. Something about it holds the scent longer, she thinks. Or, perhaps, it’s just her imagination –the ghost of a scent lingering around the Oxford lettering.

Who cares? It feels good. It feels better.

She’s never heard the office gossip, not even a whisper. She does hear Doggett snapping at a pair of agents in the 3rd floor breakroom once, not long after she starts wearing sweaters instead of Mulder’s button-ups, but she never finds out what they had said to invoke Doggett’s anger. She doesn’t ask, and he doesn’t say.

He brings her hot chocolate sometimes. And ginger tea for her stomach. She remembers one day, as he hands her a mug of cocoa with extra marshmallows, that John Doggett was a father once. She wonders if her own impending parenthood brings up any painful memories for him. If it does, he never gives even the slightest indication. Instead, he asks her things like how she’s feeling, how her checkup appointments go, and if she’s still craving green olives. (“I picked up a jar last night. In case of emergencies.”)

She takes the olives appreciatively and eats the whole jar in one sitting.

—

When Mulder returns, she gives back his shirts. He gives her a small smile and lets her help him rehang them in the closet next to hers.

Things are a bit tense. He’s still not fully back, still feeling discombobulated from missing almost half a year of his life. Of her life.

She can see the flashbacks in his eyes. He’s remembering things – slowly, painfully – from his abduction. He flinches at the sound of a saw from the construction site across from his apartment complex. He pulls away when a nurse tries to grab his wrist to check his pulse. He won’t lace his boots around his ankles. Unpredictable sensations threaten to overwhelm him and she feels terrible that she can’t even fathom how to protect him from it.

She feels even worse that he seems resistant to letting her try.

They sleep apart for a few days. She cries and doesn’t even try to blame it on the hormones.

He calls her in the evening on his fourth day home from the hospital and asks if she’s seen his favorite Oxford University sweatshirt; “the blue one with the boxy lettering.” She realizes it’s still in her bag of things she had her mother bring her at the hospital, and she offers to return it to him that night.

He invites her into his apartment. She settles on the couch and gives the sweatshirt back, feeling a bit of loss as the treasured, Mulder-scented fabric leaves her fingers. Still, he smiles genuinely and thanks her, and she supposes that’s a sort of recompense.

He puts it on and freezes, looking down at it. The middle is stretched out a bit from Scully wearing it.

“Mulder, I’m so sorry. Maybe with a good wash and dry we could fix-”

Mulder shakes his head and takes it off. “No. No, it’s-” He swallows and Scully tilts her head at him, brows furrowed.

He offers her a hand, helping her to her feet and then, a bit awkwardly, he lifts her arms up and slides the sweatshirt over her head and down her arms until its snugly fitted over her and her belly.

He swallows again and blinks. “Yeah, that’s, um. That’s better.”

In a second, she’s wrapped securely in his arms and wrapping him securely in hers. Between them, she can feel their baby kick. Mulder gives a watery laugh and hugs her more tightly.

And she thinks, for a moment, that he’s more comfortable than any shirt.

#this is set (mostly) in the 3 months Mulder is presumed dead in deadalive #the x files #fanfiction #x files fanfic #msr #dana scully #fox mulder #mulder x scully #scully x mulder #x files #txf #john doggett #maggie scully #grief and healing #pregnancy #love in the face of loss #happy ending #angst first tho lol #todayinfic

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dialecticaldimensions · 1 month ago

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no one is more doomed by the narrative than my pals/lomls special agents dana scully & fox mulder!!!!!!

i just started season 9 and tell me why i couldn’t bring myself to go beyond the first two episodes out of sheer frustration at the writing choices 😭(i will try again to continue at a later date)

season 8 had its flaws but at the very least gave us a somewhat decent through line and importantly a solid ending for mulder and scully, and their love, faith and strength in each other.

And while i haven’t watched anything beyond s9 e1&2, i did not save myself from spoilers, so i do know what is coming – and still i was so put off by just these two episodes because it did not make sense to me!!! (so lord knows how i will feel trying to get through the rest of the season … and the second movie … and the revival mytharc additions …)

in what world would scully be the one to push mulder to leave!!! after just getting him back!!! and mulder would fully have put up a fight about staying and protecting both scully and william if there was still a threat (which i was also just like ??? what was happening in the s8 finale then, but i digress).

scully, who says she has the strength of mulder’s beliefs, who asks for forgiveness because she cannot be with him on this journey anymore when she thought a life threatening illness would take her, who does not trust anyone else to care for him, to look out for his needs, to save him from himself the way that she does, would not have just let mulder leave like that, on the word of kersh saying that ppl are out to kill him (people are always out to kill mulder tho, why was this different?!).

and mulder, knowing what he knows, knowing that both scully and william are at risk would not walk away like that, especially because there is no indication that him not being there somehow eliminates the threats that scully and william face? Mulder who would break into government facilities (any facility actually), who would threaten every last man in his path if it means keeping scully safe, who would literally go to the ends of the earth for scully and who JUST got his family, would not just up and leave like that. And definitely would not leave the figuring things out to just scully, esp when she is also concerned about william and his capabilities.

in sheer frustration i went back to some of my favourite episodes in the earlier seasons and that was both soothing and also mind blowing because it really puts into perspective the growth, trauma and healing that both mulder and scully go through to get to the end of season 8. So to start off the ninth season with what i think is pretty poor writing and not very good storytelling was just sooooo 🥲 i get that dd had to leave, i get that there needed to be more focus on doggett and reyes, but the way that happened was sooo not it!! (how did y’all survive the original run omg! in all honestly idk if i could’ve continued back then, not having hindsight).

@randomfoggytiger has a great post on what was going on in the writer’s rooms/bts around s7, s8 and s9 – which was a great read for me post watching these s9 episodes, bc it validated some of my frustrations.

It clearly seems like the team was focused more on telling certain stories, without really thinking about how the story would be told with the characters that they currently have. So it felt like mulder/scully (and from what I’ve heard other characters too) are regressing into behaviours/choices simply because it’s convenient for the story -- which is not good writing imo!!

Personally, I find it interesting that the focus was on what stories can we tell to keep people interested, instead of how can we preserve the legacy/joy/comfort in these beloved character journeys with the new stories we want to tell.

And because of that so many awfullllll things happened!!!! Mulder and Scully were forced into situations only by the narrative, not by their character arcs, and what a shame that it was that way!!

Anyway, i still love m/s with my whole heart and will continue to grind my way through the rest of the show, albeit very very very slowly. So grateful for the very active x files community (again speaks volumes to the fact that it's the characters that shaped the show/stories) so that i can drown myself in fanfic and gif sets and artwork and meta!!!! 👽🛸

#idk why i am so committed to watching everything #through good times and bad i guess #i'll see how far i can last #truly though whatttt were these choices being made s9 onwards 😭#txf #the x files #msr #txf season 9 #txf musings

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mulders-too-large-shirt · 3 days ago

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s8 episode 13 “per manum” thoughts

guys... it is per manum time.

i’m SHAKING over here, omfgggg. i’m ready. but also, and in a very real sense, i am NOT.

so, i know a little bit about what happens in this episode… but not much. i’m excited and nervous and a bunch of other things.

i’m curious to see if doggett will be here today, or if he got the day off after so many scully absences

let’s GO! i’m ready to CRY!!!

(post-episode thoughts: Y'ALL... this might be my longest post yet. if it isn't, it is definitely up there in a place of honor, like second or third.

so, i pinpointed the exact moment i fell in love with doggett, because anyone who wants to save scully is absolutely swoon-worthy to me. GOD, his loyalty... and then i fell MORE in love with him at the last scene over how gentle he was. god. oh my god. i'm down bad for a guy named john.

there is SO much to unpack here, and i will do my very best. but just... i'm crying. i love them. i want them to all be happy.

i was so SAD!!! because scully and doggett were both upset, and doggett didn't know why she was acting like that, and he seemed really hurt because the truth is very important to him, and scully was SUFFERING AGAIN, OH MY GOD???? WHEN DOES SHE GET REST?! in the present day AND IN THE FLASHBACK SCENES!!!! which i ALSO HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT!!

but in the end, the big secret i was wondering how long would last was disclosed, even if terrifying new possibilities were raised (and if the plot is... confusing). and now, hopefully they can understand each other better and be partners with full trust in each other...

except, she might still be going MIA for a bit, so who even knows if they will get a CHANCE to be proper trusting partners? and even if they are, it will still hurt because he isn't mulder... *breaks down in sobs again*

she just wanted it to be okay. and then her... the way she... and he... gestures vaguely and cries more.

i need to just get started or i'll begin analyzing the whole episode before i even under the "read more" line. wow... a lot to say. genuinely tearing up, it isn't even hyperbole. they fucked me up with this one)

we begin with a “previously, on the x files…”, which means shit is gonna go DOWN

so let us begin with the uncomfortable recap of scully’s abduction arc and the rows of human ova. yeah. it still icks me tf out. i’ll have to write a think piece on that someday. and mulder plucking hers up.

and crying scully telling skinner that the impossible has happened!!

yes, yes, i remember all of this.

okay. now some other lady is giving birth. this feels intimate. i’m not sure i’m supposed to be seeing all of this.

oh god, i’m gonna have to watch scully do this at some point…

LMAO, girl... i think you’re past the point of starting over tomorrow, kath.

(reminds me of that time one of my teachers in high school told me she was screaming about not wanting to do this anymore while in labor. and i was like yeah, dawg, i am not doing that shit. why did she tell me that? we were in geometry)

okay, um, where were we?

the nurse is checking, the monitor is going sicko mode, and the doctor comes in and click click clicks on the computer. and declares there must be an emergency c section! she’s freaking out! naturally!! she doesn’t know wtf is wrong!

he says they’ll take care of it.

the father of the baby (named duffy) leaves for a second to scrub up, but the doctors LOCK THE DOOR ON HIM. guys, that is NOT COOL, you said he could be there???

needles needles, no, no, no, ma’am... she’s begging them not to let anything happen

EAUGHHHHH, i don’t wanna see the surgery... no no no nooooo nooo la la la, i don’t like it, nooo

she says she can’t feel anything and something must be wrong and i am lightheaded. woohooooo. okay. okay. hang in there, hang the fuck in there.

girl, i can’t look, why is there squirming... she wants to seeeeee

they take the baby out, but it’s not normal, like it’s weird... but okay, a lot of babies are weird.

oh. it sounds like a goat though. that isn’t super normal, i don’t think, but what do i know?

ohhhh, it is an alien, okay, yeah. well. that’ll do it

she wanted her husband back!!

damn. alien baby. fucked up.

reading my notes back like that is actually super funny. let us take deep and calming breaths as the theme music relaxes us.

intro time. our boy mulder is here today, EVERYBODY CHEER!

still taking deep breaths. paranormal activity. scully serve. baby. moon. mulder falling. eyeball. truth is out there. let’s get fucking going!!!!

we open with an ultrasound photo! scully seeing the baby!! trying to judge if she is showing yet. don’t worry girl, you've got a little bit more time before you have to tell people, lmao. but you're cutting it close.

GOD, i cannot believe she is gonna have a baby... i’m gonna CRY.

she’s staring in the mirror. trying not to tear up. i'm in pain.

goes down to her office. and down there is duffy! the husband from before! who was having an appointment with doggett!!

oh no, he says he knows her. is he going to spill everything…?

oh, he contacted her 8 years ago. yeah, so that actually was not her he spoke with, then. he talked to mulder about his wife being abducted by aliens. but now she is dead.

he just keeps saying she is dead, she is dead, she gave birth to an alien. doggett confirms that he did write to mulder years ago. doggett is watching her. she asks him to start from the beginning. they sit down.

kath was a multiple abductee. one procedure would give her cancer, another would cure her. close up on scully’s face. continued closeup as he says they implanted an alien embryo in kath.

she asks for medical proof, and he passes an ultrasound, saying that anyone with a trained eye can see it is weird. especially for a woman who was never supposed to be able to conceive.

it looks blurry to me, but that’s about it? again, what do i know.

he says they’ve gone through 3 sets of doctors. they killed his wife and stole her alien baby. doggett is still watching.

scully says they’ll be in touch and seems very thrown off.

OH GOD. things are tense:

“thank you, agent doggett. i’m sure the rest of my afternoon can’t possibly be so amusing”

“i thought you’d find it interesting, actually” he sits down.

“interesting? as in preposterous and outrageous?”

“well, unless i’m mistaken, you already knew that man’s story”

she looks confused

“the abduction, the tests, a bout with cancer, then a remission”

“what exactly are you getting at?” she walks closer

oh my god, my blood is running COLD

“that’s your story, agent scully. i’d say right down to a tee”

DON’T ATTACK HIM SCULLY, HE DOESN’T KNOWWWW... there are tears in her eyes and her mouth is open

“i mean, except for the pregnancy” she keeps staring. “it’s all right there in the x files”

he seems confused and she seems confused we are all confused. she turns to stare at the files. yeah, he did read 'em all. and he just wanted to HELPPPPPP, MY GOD....

“well, i appreciate your thoroughness, agent doggett, and your familiarity with the x files cases in those cabinets, but my personal files are my personal files, okay?”

she’s barely holding back tears now. “sure, of course" he shakes his head as she walks away, absentmindedly walking into an elevator.

and then this must be a flashback, because mulder is here! he has been looking for her all over!

she had a doctor’s appointment and he immediately clocks something is wrong. even if she says nothing is the matter.

“i’m… i’m sorry, i haven’t told you, i don’t know why i haven’t. i mean you were… you were always there for me during my illness, but, um…”

i’m holding my breath over here.

he leans in. “don’t make me guess” <- is he worried she’s sick again?

she tells him she cannot conceive “and i am not ready to accept that i will never have children”

wait, he knew that though, right? because he had her damn ova. and didn’t they talk about it after emily?

oh WHAT? well, he says there’s something he hasn’t told her either… “i hope you forgive me and understand why i would have kept it from you”

ohhh no... now he has to tell her.

I COULD HAVE SWORN THIS ALREADY HAPPENED THOUGH?? am i crazy? can someone please let me know. tysm.

well, she is obviously gagged that first of all, he broke into a facility and FOUND them, and also that he didn’t tell her, but she was dying at the time, and he didn’t want to give her more bad news!!

and it was bad news... because the doctor said they weren’t viable. she pushes the elevator button. she wants a second opinion. it closes most of the way. he tries to open it. they lock eyes and he lets her go.

GOD, the way she looks at him trying to hold the doors open and then shakes her head a little and looks away… and he lets her go. FUCK ME.

back in our time, doggett runs into scully, who is standing in the corner of the elevator looking incredibly out of it. “agent scully? what are you doing?”

“um, i don’t know. i guess i just forgot to push the button” <- ohhhh, poor thing. she was just sitting in there. terrified.

and now he opens the elevator! “i wasn’t exactly clear on what you wanted to do about this guy haskell. about his wife’s story”

“there’s nothing to do”.

he nods, and lets the door shut

oh GOD, this is CRAZY already. i need a sip of water.

scully is off to the genetics company that made the ultrasound for kath.

it seems to be totally empty. but she hears faint voices. knocks on a door. hears someone screaming that she is afraid. a doctor is talking to ms. hendershot….

it’s the doctor we saw before!! at the start of the episode!! from the emergency c section alien baby! saying it is different, and he would know, because he knows both cases!

scully is peeking in and then runs away. hides in a closet FILLED WITH WEIRD BABY CORPSES PRESERVED IN FLUID?? oh my fucking GOD, get her out of here???? literally WALL TO WALL FUCKED UP BABY CORPSES.

she investigates…… holds her head up next to the cases.

THE DOCTOR WALKS IN!! poor scully is on the SPOT!! she says she is here with her friend and worried!!! and i love that she cannot lie to save her life.

he tells her ms. hendershot is fine. and that she can’t be back here. no one mentions the giant closet of dead babies. pretty large elephant in the room.

she gets home. calls the number on her ultrasound.

she calls dr. parenti, and tells him she is afraid. asks him to compare an ultrasound to hers. he’s not in his office. IS HE PLOTTING SOMETHING WITH THE OTHER GUY??

“dana… are you going to be okay?” she says she’ll be okay. not sure i'm buying it, though.

THIS PARENTI FUCKER IS IN THE BABY CORPSE ROOM!!!!! unboxing an alien baby!!!!!! another one???

guys…. we need to do something now.

okay, flashback to months ago now: her meeting dr. parenti. he tells her that there is a chance. and she FALLS DOWN, saying it is too good to be true.

scully, my baby...

he says the odds are good if they start soon, and she wants to know if they can start right away. he says, well... you do need a father. did you have a donor in mind? and SHE DOES, SHE JUST NEEDS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO ASK HIM, OH MY GOD??

back to the current time period. she is really beautiful. dr. parenti says the ultrasound looks fine to him. “why do you ask that?” <- YOU KNOW, YOU FUCKER!

she thanks him. and as he leaves he SAYS SHE HAS TO TELL THE FBI AT SOME POINT, LMAOOOO, OH GOD. HE CALLED HER ASS OUT: “can’t keep it a secret forever, dana”

she does not wanna think about all that, LMAO, her face. but i can't laugh too hard, because i know this parenti fucker is up to evil.

OH GOD, DOGGETT GOT A CALL IN THE OFFICE FROM DR. PARENTI ABOUT AN ULTRASOUND... OH MY GOD, SHE SAYS IT WAS HERS….? HE IS LIKE "COME ON SCULLY, THAT WAS ONE OF THE DOCTORS THE HASKELLS WENT TO"

oh my GOD, i just watched that scene and i was not breathing:

“excuse me, agent doggett, but are you investigating me?”

“no, i was doing a background check on mr. and mrs. haskell before i dropped the case, like you asked me to”

“no, i didn’t ask you to drop the case. i said there was nothing to do”

“well, if there’s nothing to do, then why are you investigating?”

“you are jumping to conclusions”

“no, i’m just trying to do my job, only it gets hard to do if the person you’re working with is keeping secrets and telling lies” <- DAMN!!!!

cut her some slack, bro... she’s in a tough place :(((((

she gets close to him. “i am not investigating these people, agent doggett. parenti is my doctor. is that so strange?”

we see him thinking….

so like…. is he putting it together? because she said there was an ultrasound… some people get those all the time, i guess it doesn't have to mean anything…

did the doctor leave a message or just talk to doggett? because that has to be a hippa violation.

lmao. he called her a liar, though. there is something sickly funny about that in these circumstances. she IS lying. and she IS bad at it.

“is there something about him i don’t know?” her concern seems legitimate.

“no. but duffy haskell is a piece of work, i’ll tell you that much”

a class act in conflict de-escalation.

we’re actually just taking the conflict elsewhere, because duffy is now with doggett and scully in skinner’s office!! he was sending mulder threatening letters as president of MUFON ohio. he wrote to dr. lev saying he would kill her if he hurt his wife. which he says did happen; dr. lev “stole the alien baby out of her womb” <- well. this isn’t making you sound less crazy, man.

scully is making this face, lmaoooo

doggett is like well, i can’t even find any documentation that you were married, let alone that dr. lev is in any way suspicious. something sickly funny again about him calling him a liar. he said that alien baby was out of wedlock.

skinner says it’s a crime to threaten anyone. haskell turns to scully and asks if she believes him. turns to scully again. says there are other women out there just like kath.

they all look at each other.

haskell leaves, calling someone on his phone. HE CALLS DR. LEV?? reports that they poked holes in his story. which dr. lev tells him they knew would happen. says they’re still risking losing hendershot. “then it’s time to let her go” CUT SCENE TO MORE CREEPY ALIEN BABY WITH DR. LEV??

WHO IS THIS DUFFY GUY.....?

scully comes home….

resting her hand on her abdomen. someone knocks at the door. jump back in time. it’s mulder. she welcomes him in; asks to take his coat. OH, she’s nervous. he can’t stay. he has to get back to the office.

OH, she already asked him, so she’s making him answer now. “it’s not something i get asked to do every day”, he says. she’s scared.

“look, if… if you’re trying to politely say no, it’s okay, i… i understand” <- she’s not looking at him. it is too much to look at him.

he, however, is looking straight at her. “see, as weird as this sounds- and this sounds really weird, i know- but i-i just wouldn’t want this to come between us”

oh, she’s crushed. “yeah. i know. i-i understand. i do” she looks at the ground.

“but. the-the answer is ‘yes’” <- LMAO, OH GOD. what did he do all that for? oh my god, her FACE, AND SHE HUGS HIM :(((

HIS DUMBASS SAYING HE’S A PRO AT THE DONOR PART, OH MY GOD. and he leaves for the office before she can really start crying.

god, he was in and out of there... LMAO, he was scared af to have that conversation!!!

we should unpack that at another time.

back to her apartment in the present day. alone. but we get a knock on the door. who is it??? the gunmen?

it’s hendershot!! she tells scully her baby is in danger, and so is her's!! GIRL!!! this is escalating!!!!!

now it’s 3 in the morning in washington DC, and doggett is…. somewhere? meeting skinner and scully at a diner!!! he wants his coffee black, mind you!

oh, he came here though, at such an hour. skinner says thanks for coming down. scully is looking far into the distance.

doggett asks if she’s going somewhere. skinner explains with HR formality that she is going on a leave of absence. “hey, great” HE’S TRYING TO BE SUPPORTIVE... but also he sounds deeply sarcastic. “can i ask why?” “no”

he turns to skinner. “so i’m the x files now? just me?” "agent scully isn’t quitting the FBI, she’s just going away” she won't say anything...... making skinner do all the talking....

he stares at her. she’s looking away. “thanks for getting me out of bed to give me the news” he gets up to leave. “drop me a line if you get a chance”

DOGGETT, PUT IT TOGETHER... i feel bad for him, omfgggg, but like it’s RIGHT THERE, BUDDY, COME ON!!! YOU’RE SO CLOSE! she still won’t look at him.

skinner says she has to tell him. she tells him she can’t.

she runs out after him: “agent doggett?” (very tense pause) “i want you to understand”

“what is it you want me to understand, agent scully? the secrets or the lies?” <- STOP, I FEEL SO BAD FOR BOTH OF THEM :(

“i told you… i’m not doing anything behind your back”

“you’re supposed to watch my back, agent scully” <- oh shit…. he has a point... but he doesn't KNOWWWW why she is doing this...

skinner comes out behind her. “if i was putting you at risk in any way, you can be sure that i wouldn’t let you down. i hope you know that”

“i only know what you tell me”

she turns to skinner. says she has to go.

and hendershot is in scully's car!!! doggett asks who that is. skinner says he doesn’t know.

doggett gets in his truck.

scully and hendershot are off to a research hospital. scully explains to a team of doctors that hendershot believes she is about to give birth to an inhuman baby.

she has no medical records. hendershot explains they killed her friend who knew too much.

the doctors says they will induce labor now.

OH SHIT! scully tells the doctor she isn't the only one in danger…

doggett is looking at an ultrasound… when some guy name joe comes in the office. asking why he is sitting in the dark. “i’m in the dark pretty much most of my time on the x files, joe” <- STOP, I FEEL BAD FOR HIMMM :(

he was running haskell’s prints…. they found out that haskell has been dead since 1970!!! what?!!!

damn, they’re hooking hendershot up to some stuff at the hospital, and scully is right next to her, and i’m gonna have another incident where i almost pass out, huh?

she asks scully how long it will take. “probably somewhere between four and 12 hours”, she answers, in medical mode. scully squeezes her arm. hendershot tells her she’s afraid. says she had a boyfriend, but she looked at the dates, and there’s no way... and now she’s sure it was an abduction.

the doctor calls scully over and loads up a tape. she’s getting her own ultrasound. she looks at it, smiling. “i see what would appear to be a healthy baby at 14 weeks” <- HOLD ON, I GOTTA DO SOME MATH... so she’s 3.5 months pregnant, so it has to be like…. august? september? sigh, i don’t fucking KNOW!!!

why did they say that line about mulder being gone in may?? had they NOT said that, we would be FINE, even if that means some of the episodes were out of order, but nOoOoOo!!

scully asks if she is sure. the doctor asks if she wants to know the sex. she just says she wants it to be okay. so they’re gonna do that other test with the amniotic fluid.

meanwhile…. doggett runs out and catches a guy named knowle on the street! he says he needs to know about the haskell fingerprint NOW. knowle says he could be intelligence... he claims there is no conspiracy. but doggett wants to know for scully :(

OH GOD, now they’re doing the test on scully, and tbh i always wondered how that stuff worked. and the answer is: a giant fucking needle. LIKE COMICALLY LARGE, DAMN.

doctor tells her she needs to take it easy after the procedure, and she once again mumbles that she just wants to know if it is okay. oh god. poor thing. i don’t wanna think about membranes rupturing. she better lay her ass down.

(as i edit my notes i am now googling this procedure to see what sort of stuff it can tell you and how severe it is. eek. makes me dizzy)

do not move, girl, i’m serious. she sees the VHS…. gets up. girl, i told you not to do that... but whatever.

takes the tape out. sees IT IS SOMEONE ELSE’S?? THE FUCK??

scully goes to get ms. hendershot and tells her they have to go NOW. starts getting the needles out of her.

what the FUCK is going on?

doggett is running for skinner. asks how to get to scully right away. they’ve all been misled by this haskell guy. he thinks it’s a setup. he needs to get scully, wherever she’s gone.

skinner says she’s safe at a hospital. OH DAMN, HE SAYS “look, this involves doctors. doctors who may have killed pregnant women. now, a hospital could be the worst place in the world for her. TELL ME WHERE SCULLY IS”

yeah, it is official: i love this man.

and he tells her. doggett instructs him to call security now and runs after.

scully is trying to smuggle herself and hendershot out. but the doctors notice patients missing.

and a friend of doggett’s says to follow them!! it’s knowle!! do we trust him??

hendershot is really pretty….

they’re leading them into a black van. she asks who they are and he doesn’t answer. and they are speeeeeeding out. the men are medics. but SCULLY, NO! SHE GROANS IN PAIN BECAUSE SHE JUST HAD THE THING DONE and shouldn’t even be on her FEET!!!

they are being chased while hendershot is in labor, because of course she is. scully says you HAVE to stop the car, and knowle tells her no. and she says you HAVE TO!!! so they finally do.

time to have a baby in the back of the woods.

knowle grabs scully, claiming he’s making sure she doesn’t hurt herself, it’s for her own good, but obviously she is NOT taking that laying down and swipes at him, calling for hendershot. calling her first name.

and they sedate scully. while hendershot is giving birth and screaming, and scully hears the weird goat baby bleat as she begins to pass out. and someone is flashing a flashlight on scully.

she wakes up…. somewhere???

was that knowle or not???

she’s got a million tubes hooked up to her. and calls out for doggett. WHO IS SITTING NEARBY!

“lie down agent scully, you’re not taking any more chances” HE GRABS HER SHOULDERS AND MAKES HER LIE BACK DOWN, OMFG… he is not risking a damn THING with her. “what happened to me?”

“you’re okay, you’re fine" little pause "and your baby’s fine” (OH MY FUCKING GODDDDDDDD) she sighs in relief. “but you’re very, very lucky”

(nah, i'm tearing up just editing these notes... he was sooooo gentle. FUCK!!!!!!)

so what happened?? she’s back at the same hospital she tried to run away from?

allegedly, hendershot is fine, and her baby is fine too. but scully is convinced they switched her alien baby with another one they had on hand. they’re saying she overreacted, that it was really her ultrasound- just an old tape they taped over.

and he sent the men who came to get them: “they say they saved your life. how can i question that, standing here?”

(fuck. actual tears as i edit this. whyyyyyy)

“it was all planned. you know that. from the moment that man walked into our office. we used to get at ms. hendershot’s baby and now we are being used to cover it up” she lays back down. “oh my god”

(she must be realizing she exposed herself and will now be brought into their trap.... i guess, that is, if they didn't already know)

“at least you’re okay” <- but is she??

“why didn’t you tell me?” he asks.

“i was afraid. afraid that they‘d use it against me to take me off the x files so that i couldn’t find mulder” <- OH MY GOD??? she thought they would use it to keep her away from finding him??? like she was too closely involved or something? or would it just be a convenient excuse by the higher ups to get her out of the way?

he grabs her shoulder. leans in close “i told you i’d help you. i said we’d find him”

she tears up. he walks away.

back in her apartment. she finds mulder sleeping on the couch, so i guess we’re back in time. he says he came back and waited, he must have dozed off.

she’s crying. “it didn’t take, did it?” “i guess it was too much to hope for”

he pulls her in for a hug as she cries. “it was my last chance”

he kisses her forehead: “never give up on a miracle”

and i think she kissed his cheek, but it was hard to tell... hold on, let me rewind. she hugs him.

back in the modern day, still in her hospital bed, she rests a hand on her abdomen.

the end

WHAAAAAAT THE FUCK.

oh my god, first thought: WHAT IS GOING ON? is scully okay?? what happened to ms. hendershot? was it really an alien baby?? scully seemed convinced they switched her baby out… and doggett seemed to think something weird was going on, too…

and they brought her back to the hospital… and the tape thing actually seemed plausible, but why would they take care of scully and hurt hendershot? it makes no sense… and scully heard the goat noises, but she was getting sedated… and it WAS her doctor who was in the alien corpse room…. so maybe he was lying about everything looking okay…

well, these plots never make any fucking sense, so i honestly think i would just be wasting my time trying to piece it together. tbh.

head in hands... yeah. i do need doggett.

but in a way that is actually about scully, because there is NOTHING hotter than a man taking care of scully. everyone needs to be taken care of sometimes, including someone as tough and reckless as scully. the way he was holding her shoulders down so she couldn’t get up... telling her he said he would help. letting her know he meant it. GOD.

trust seems to be SO important to him, which is sick and twisted for a show with the occasional tagline “trust no one”. he is just a good GUY, and he is stuck in this situation.

and OHHH MY GOD, he was so angry and confused, and he knew scully was lying, but he didn’t know about WHAT. she wouldn’t tell him, even thought skinner said she should, because she knows the hard way not to trust anybody. and of course she doesn’t trust him after he was sent initially by kersh to watch over her, and of course she resents that he isn't mulder!!! she had tried to sneak away from him before, and he was like "don’t do that again". and other times he got frustrated and didn’t understand her point of view, so she didn’t want to tell him, and she was scared because how was this happening? what if something happens? and also, what if they used it against her to take her away from looking for mulder? and oh my god. oh my god, i just... i need to lay down.

and GOD, mulder keeping that secret from her (that i frankly thought they already talked about, LMAO)

so i assume that part took place sometime in s7? and he waited for her at her apartment and fell asleep on the couch. and she cried because it didn’t work. and he told her to never rule out a miracle, and there is a miracle... but was it?? was it a miracle?? or was it someone playing god and abusing women??

oh my god.

hold on i just. i need a breath.

okay, i’m not done, i am not fucking DONE.

skinner being dragged into this at 3 in the morning and doing all of the talking, explaining to doggett that she was leaving… fuck me. how do you think that conversation on the phone went?

and then doggett was so mad, because he KNEW she was lying. but she wasn’t doing it to be malicious, she was SCARED!! and she had EVERY REASON TO BE!! but he didn’t know that!!

and that he thought she would be interested in the case, but she immediately shut down because it hit too close to home, and he was thinking “why is she getting mad?”. he just accepted that he crossed a line with her personal files even though they were in the x files...

and then when she said that it was her doctor who called about an ultrasound, he just thought she was lying because it was too weird to believe, and then he was like wait a minute… what is going on here…

GAHHHH, when he came to skinner and said you need to tell me where she is NOW, that was the moment. that motherfucker snatched my heart with both hands. he had some moments that definitely warmed me up to him (his get well soon card, awkward comforting, carrying scully to the hospital) but that was it, bro. i’m all in now. he is my friend. i will kiss him on the forehead.

and the trust he placed in her, particularly in the last episode, must have made the lack of trust she displayed toward him sting all the more… when he said she is supposed to watch his back, GOD, my heart was hurting…. she was trying to explain without explaining, and he said “i only know what you tell me”

and holy fuck, i thought i was going to faint at that last scene. the way he made her lie back down, told her to stop taking chances, she’s fine, your baby is fine, just… oh my god. grabbing her shoulder. saying he told her he would find him. for a man like him, his word is everything.

i’m gonna fucking CRY.

and terrified but brave scully, after just having had a procedure done that put her at risk, going to get ms. hendershot out because she HAS to do the right thing no matter what, oh my GOD. she had to get her to safety. and then trying to get to her while she went into labor and having to be restrained and sedated… and thinking she saw what she maybe really did see…

and being so scared because how did this happen, is it really a miracle, or is this another terrible thing that was taken from her? and those horrifying baby corpses she ran into, and knowing that this is a possibility now- how can you keep going on with life like that didn’t happen? like it isn’t looming over you? like when the clock is up it might be…

god. just. oh my god.

i do find the whole abduction arc and lack of agency thing pretty, um. how do you say... gross. but in terms of scully’s pregnancy arc, idk exactly where it is going, so i can’t have a fully formed opinion yet.

i do know what i think happens at the VERY end, and i have my thoughts on that, but until we get there, my lips are shut.

fucking…. doggett… scully…

is she going to still go on leave? but where could she even go? if this really is part of the conspiracy, there isn’t a place she could go to be safe. which is fucking horrifying. god. the sort of cosmic terror of intergalactic conspiracy just was made real for me. which i think is a good thing. means the writing finally paid off.

i’m also struck by skinner in all of this, who had his own life changing field trip with doggett and realized he was Good, and he can’t make that choice to trust him for scully, but he tried to get her to tell him. i was honestly worried he would just tell him, but he didn’t say anything at all until doggett basically gave him no choice. and then as soon as he said where she was, doggett RAN out the door.

and mulder… poor mulder, never having that conversation with her, because when would the right time be? and he finally does and she’s hurt- of course she’s hurt- he holds the doors open. but she won’t look at him and so he shuts them.

and then when she finally gets him to her place to answer, she’s so nervous she asks to take his coat. he says he doesn’t want it to come between them and she starts to cry. she wanted it to be HIM. specifically. the father of her baby. she knew before she even got in that office. she just wasn’t sure how to tell him that.

and he’s so awkward as he says yes in a prolonged fashion that she thinks is a no, because he really means it- he doesn’t want anything to come between what they have, whatever you call it, or however you put it into words or don’t or can’t…

and then he was WAITING there the day of, fell asleep on her couch, holds her while she cries, kisses her forehead, tells her not to rule out a miracle… and what may be a miracle finally comes when he’s gone. fuck.

and from scully’s perspective, she just. tells him in an elevator that she can’t have kids and she isn’t ready to accept that. so he admits he has known and has had her ova the WHOLE time. of course she is shocked that 1. he FOUND them in a government facility and 2. he KNEW that the whole time and never told her, and of course he didn’t tell her because she was dying, but then when would a good time to tell her be?? from her perspective it still hurts, he still kept that from her.

and she gets another opinion, and when the doctor says it might work she FALLS, sinks down, wants to begin right away, not even thinking that isn’t something she can just do, she has to ask him.

when she does she’s so scared. can’t look him in the eye. thinks he is saying no and tells him she understands, it’s okay, it’s okay. but he says yes and she jumps into his arms. he makes a stupid joke and he leaves before they can think about it.

and then it doesn’t work, and she comes home to him sleeping there on her couch, waiting for her, having to tell him it didn’t work. the tears in her eyes having sat there on her ride home, him trying to give her some privacy and not come with her because you know she wouldn’t let him, she’s fiercely independent. so she drove home in silence. and when he sees her he knows. brings her in. she stands on her tippy toes to rest her head on his shoulder. he leans his forehead against hers and kisses it, telling her that miracles do happen.

and then. he vanishes.

and the juxtaposition of him prying the elevator doors open and then doggett doing the same as she stood there, having not pressed any buttons at all, lost in remembering… and he knows something weird is going on, but knows it doesn’t matter if he asks, because she won’t tell him…

but now he knows. and she is reminded that he meant his promise. they will find him. he doesn’t say things and not mean them.

and then factor in his own personal angst about hearing she’s having a baby, and is worried about if that baby is even a fucking human or not, after his own experience with losing a child- not a baby, a child he saw grow up-

and i don’t think he’s told her about that, and he sure isn’t going to want to now, but every time she does something or says something it will bring back all of those memories he had with his own boy and the pain of losing him again…

well. fuck.

it is safe to say that i enjoyed this episode, even if the giving birth and needles freaked me tf out. luckily, i can just reread my notes to rewatch it all over again without seeing that! woohoo!!

and i think the next one is a two parter, but i see it mentions reyes, which i am SO excited about!!! because i do not know a damn THING ABOUT HER!! i’m READY FOR ANOTHER WOMAN ON THE SHOW THAT ISN’T DIANA, YEAHHHHH

is she going to be doggett’s new partner while scully is away? but again! where is scully going to go? is there anywhere she can hide? because if there was nowhere i could hide, i would want to keep working just so i could find mulder! but that might put you in even MORE danger, so what is she to do?

oh, scully.

and now i have to deal with knowing a two parter is coming and that it’ll probably take me 2 weeks to watch them both, LMFAO. but somehow i will be very brave and get through this. even in the heat. the terrible heat. i will push through.

well damnit, now that we have seen such suffering, i want everything to end happy-ish even more now. i’ll keep brainstorming my happy-ish ending au. like i always say, not TOO happy. but they all hold hands forever and ever. the end!

i am VERY curious to hear what you thought of this episode. did this one also make you fall in love with doggett? did you cry?

(groans and explodes)

#head in my hands... just spent an hour doing the rough draft editing this. and then i reread it and it was still largely incoherent.#i wasn't even analyzing. i was just saying stuff. i guess i can analyze in the future. you can only feel something for the first time once.#well. i can't make miracles happen. sometimes you just have Too Damn Much Emotion.#PLEASE tell me ALL OF YOUR THOUGHTS in ELABORATE DETAIL #please please please i need to know. especially if i imagined that part in the emily arc where they already talked about it LMAO #but god. god. i just. need to lay down.#i really hope they can get on better now that there won't be secrets between them and i hope she sticks around :(#and i hope the baby is okay and everything is fine. and if it won't be i'll write it. the end.#doggett........ moans and dies.#8x13 #juni's x files liveblog

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tavolgisvist · 8 months ago

Text

The trial for the dissolution of The Beatles’ contractual partnership

"And I've changed. The funny thing about it is that I think alot of my change has been helped by John Lennon. I sort of picked up on his lead. John had said, 'Look, I don't want to be that anymore. I'm going to be this.' And I thought, 'That's great.' I liked the fact he'd done it, and so I'll do it with my thing. He's given the okay. In England, if a partnership isn't rolling along and working -- like a marriage that isn't working-- then you have reasonable grounds to break it off. It's great! Good old British justice!

(Paul McCartney, Life Magazine, April 16, 1971)

‘I don’t mind being bound to them as a friend. I like that idea. I don’t mind being bound to them musically, because I like the others as musical partners. I like being in their band. But for my own sanity, we must change the business arrangements we have…’

(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)

From my point of view, I was getting done in. All the decisions were now three against one. And that’s not the easiest position if you’re the one: anything I wanted to do they could just say, ‘No.’ And it was just to be awkward, I thought. … I got so fed up with all this I said, ‘OK, I want to get off the label.’ Apple Records was a lovely dream, but I thought, ‘Now this is really trashy and I want to get off.’ I remember George on the phone saying to me, ‘You’ll stay on this fucking label! Hare Krishna!’ and he hung up – and I went, ‘Oh, dear me. This is really getting hairy.’

(Paul McCartney, The Beatles Anthology, 2000)

'Eventually,' McCartney recalled, 'I went and said, "I want to leave. You can all get on with Klein and everything, just let me out." Having not spoken to Lennon for several weeks, he sent him a letter that summer, pleading that the former partners 'let each other out of the trap'. As McCartney testified, Lennon 'replied with a photograph of himself and Yoko, with a balloon coming out of his mouth in which was written, "How and Why?" I replied by letter saying, "How by signing a paper which says we hereby dissolve our partnership. Why because there is no partnership." John replied on a card which said, "Get well soon. Get the other signatures and I will think about it.” Communication was at an end.’

(Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money, 2009 - P.88)

I thought, “This is crazy, no one likes me enough to just let me go, give me my little bit of the proceeds and let me split off.”

(Paul McCartney, 31 January 1974, interview with Paul Gambaccini for Rolling Stone)

A draft of an undated letter in John Lennon‘s hand that essentially bars Paul McCartney and his new manager, Lee Eastman, from accessing The Beatles’ recordings without authorization.

THE HEAD OF Media Sound.

Please do not release hand over any Apple Record Tapes to anybody other person except either John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, or someone bearing a letter with one or more of their signituer [sic].

John Lennon, President, Apple Records George Harrison, Director

(from thebeatleaesthetic)

…Not that I didn’t see the others. I did, and kept asking them to let me out and they said, “No, Allen says there would be tax complications.” I said, “I don’t give a damn about tax considerations, let me go and I’ll worry about the tax considerations. I didn’t want to be an ABKCO-Managed Industry.” It was weird. My albums would come out saying “An ABKCO Company,” and he wasn’t even my manager. … [Growing more emotional] My back was against the wall. I’m not proud of it. But it had to be done. To him [Klein], artists are money. To me, they’re more than that.

(Paul McCartney, Jan 1974, interview with Paul Gambaccini for RollingStone)

I do think if it were just up to the four of us, if we were totally unencumbered, we would have had a dissolution - I hate these heavy terms - the day after John said he was leaving. We would have picked up our bags - these are my shoes, that's my ball, that's your ball - and gone. And I still maintain that's the only way, to actually go and do that, no matter what things are involved on a business level. But of course we aren't four fellows. We are part of a big business machine. Even though the Beatles have really stopped, the Beatle thing goes on - repackaging the albums, putting tracks together in different forms, and the video coming in. So that's why I've had to sue in the courts to dissolve the Beatles, to do on a business level what we should have done on a four-fellows level. I feel it just has to come. We used to get asked at press conferences, 'What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?' When I talked to John just the other day, he said something about, 'Well, the bubble's going to burst.' And I said, 'It has burst. That's the point. That's why I've had to do this, why l had to apply to the court. You don't think I really enjoy doing that kind of stuff. I had to do it because the bubble has burst - everywhere but on paper.' That's the only place we're tied now. <…> You see, there was a partnership contract put together years ago to hold us together as a group for 10 years. Anything anybody wanted to do - put out a record, anything - he had to get the others' permission. Because of what we were then, none of us ever looked at it when we signed it. We signed it in '67 and discovered it last year. We discovered this contract that bound us for 10 years. So it's 'Oh gosh, Oh golly, Oh heck,' you know. 'Now, boys, can we tear it up, please?' But the trouble is, the other three have been advised not to tear it up. They've been advised that if they tear it up, there will be serious, bad consequences for them. The point, though, to me was that it began to look like a three-to-one vote, which is what in fact happened at a couple of business meetings. It was three to one. That's how Allen Klein got to be the manager of Apple, which I didn't want. But they didn't need my approval." <…> I first said, 'No, we can't do that. We'll live with it.' <…> The build-up is the thing - All these things continuously happening making me feel like I'm a junior with the record company, like Klein is the boss and I'm nothing. Well, I'm a senior. I figure my opinion is as good as anyone's, especially when it's my thing. And it's emotional. You feel like you don't have any freedom. I figured I'd have to stand up for myself eventually or get pushed under. <…> So then we began to talk again about the suit, over and over. I just saw that I was not going to get out of it. From my last phone conversation with John, I think he sees it like that. He said, 'Well, how do you get out?' <…> My lawyer, John Eastman, he's a nice guy and he saw the position we were in, and he sympathized. We'd have these meetings on top of hills in Scotland, we'd go for long walks. I remember when we actually decided we had to go and file suit. We were standing on this big hill which overlooked a loch - it was quite a nice day, a bit chilly - and we'd been searching our souls. Was there any other way? And we eventually said, 'Oh, we've got to do it.' The only alternative was seven years with the partnership - going through those same channels for seven years.

(Paul McCartney, April 16th 1971, interview with Richard Merryman for Life Magazine)

John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr have accepted Paul McCartney’s decision to leave the group and will not appeal against the recent court decision to appoint a receiver to look into their affairs. Mr Morris Finer, QC, representing Apple Corps Ltd, Lennon, Harrison and Starr, reported to the Apple Court on Monday that his clients considered in the circumstances that it was in the best interests to consider means whereby McCartney could disengage himself from the partnership. His clients felt that prosecution of the Appeal would be hostile to the atmosphere best suited for negotiations – and accordingly asked for their appeal to be dismissed. McCartney’s QC, Mr Jeffrey Hirst, welcomed the suggestion to drop their appeal. The decision of the other three to allow McCartney to go his own way strengthens the likelihood that Lennon, Harrison and Starr may record together again – possibly with Klaus Voorman playing bass.

(Melody Maker – May 1, 1971)

…on “Wild Life” there’s a line that refers to “a lot of political nonsense in the air.” Later, he was talking about political nonsense, all the trouble between him and the others, between the McCartney’s and Linda’s father, John Eastman, and Allan Klein. Politics, Paul called it, and he didn’t like it. All he wanted was to be out of the whole thing, to own the copyright to his own songs, forget the Beatles, sign a piece of paper saying we’ve split up, everything’s going to be shared by four. “And John said, “Yeah, but that’s like asking us to stop the bombing in Vietnam.” We eventually decided that we were all Vietnamese, so that’s all right… “But I keep wanting to send him postcards saying ‘The war’s over if you want it’ – tell him what he’s saying. It’s just crazy, I’m sure the truth’s a whole lot more simple than it’s made out.”

(Paul McCartney, Nov 1971, interview with Steve Peacock for Sounds)

Maybe there's an answer there somewhere, but for the millionth time in these past few years I repeat, 'What about the TAX?' It's all very well, playing 'simple honest ole Paul' in Melody Maker but you know damn well we can't just sign a bit of paper. You say, 'John won't do it.' I will if you indemnify us against the tax man! Anyway, you know that after we have OUR meeting, the fucking lawyers will have to implement whatever we agree on, right? If they have some form of agreement between THEM before WE meet, it might make it even easier. It's up to you, as we've said many times, we'll meet whenever you like. Just make up your mind! <...> If you're not the aggressor (as you claim), who the hell took us to court and shit all over us in public?

(John Lennon, Dec 1971, a letter of reply to Melody Maker)

Some context:

9th September 1971 (US) and 8th October 1971 (UK) - release Imagine (with How Do You Sleep?) 13 September 1971 Stella McCartney was born (by emergency caesarean section, Paul prayed for her (and Linda) and got his daughter, wife and the name for new group). 10 (11) November - interview with Chris Charlesworth for Melody Maker, published 20th November. 4th December - Melody Maker publishes John's furious letter to Paul and Linda. In November 1971 Lennon Remembers (the interview with Jann Wenner) releases as a book.

In early 1973 Lennon, Harrison and Starr served notice that they would not be renewing Klein's management contract when it expired in March, Klein sue The Beatles, Apple, Lennon, Harrison… they sue Klein.

In 1974, Wenner received a mysterious cream-colored envelope in the mail, care of “Johann Weiner” and postmarked Los Angeles, California. Inside was a single Polaroid picture of John Lennon and Paul McCartney hanging out on a garden patio with friends: Linda McCartney, hoisting a pool stick; Keith Moon, in shorts and Roman sandals; and May Pang, Lennon’s then lover, holding McCartney’s daughter Mary on her lap. On the white strip below the image, dated “Palm Sunday 1974,” was the message “How do you sleep???!!!”

<...>

What Wenner didn’t know was that the Polaroid captured a pivotal moment in the history of the Beatles—the period when John and Paul managed a degree of détente after the acrimony of the breakup.

(Joe Hagan for Vanity Fair, September 29th, 2017)

I’m going to be an ex-Beatle for the rest of my life so I might as well enjoy it, and I’m just getting around to being able to stand back and see what happened. A couple of years ago I might have given everybody the impression I hate it all, but that was then. I was talking when I was straight out of therapy and I’d been mentally stripped bare and I just wanted to shoot my mouth off to clear it all away. Now it’s different. When I slagged off the Beatle thing in the papers, it was like divorce pangs, and me being me it was blast this and fuck that, and it was just like the old days in the Melody Maker, you know, ‘Lennon Blasts Hollies’ on the back page. You know, I’ve always had a bit of a mouth and I’ve got to live up to it. Daily Mirror: ‘Lennon beats up local DJ at Paul’s 21st birthday party’. Then we had that fight Paul and me had through the Melody Maker, but it was a period I had to go through. Now, we’ve all got it out and it’s cool. I can see The Beatles from a new point of view. Can’t remember much of what happened, little bits here and there, but I’ve started taking on interest in what went on while I was in that fish tank. It must have been incredible! I’m into collecting memorabilia as well. Elton [John] came in with these gifts, like stills from the Yellow Submarine drawings and they’re great. He gave me these four dolls. I thought, ‘Christ, what’s this, an ex-Beatle collecting Beatle dolls?’ But why not? It’s history, man, history!’ I went through a phase of hating all those years and having to smile when I didn’t want to smile, but that was the life I chose and, now I’m out of it, it’s great to look back on it, man. Great! I was thinking only recently – why haven’t I ever considered the good times instead of moaning about what we had to go through? And Paul was here and we spent two or three nights together talking about the old days and it was cool, seeing what each other remembered from Hamburg and Liverpool. So y’see, all that happened when I blew my mouth off was that it was an abscess bursting, except that mine as usual burst in public. When we did a tour as The Beatles, we hated it and loved it. There were great nights and lousy nights. One of the things about therapy I went through a few years ago is that it cleans you by forcing you to get rid of the negatives in your head. It wasn’t all that pie and cookies being a Beatle, there were highs and lows, but the trouble is people just wanted bigmouth Lennon to shout about the lows. So I made a quick trip to uncover the hidden stones of my mind, and a lot of the bats flew and some of them are going to have to stay. I’ve got perspective now, that’s a fact.

(John Lennon, interview with Ray Coleman for Melody Maker: Lennon – a night in the life, September 14th, 1974)

HOUGHTON: You seem to attack McCartney in your first couple solo albums. How do you feel about Paul McCartney now? JOHN: Uh, we’re – haha. [laughs] This is like a joke: “We’re just good friends.” We’re – we’re pretty close now, like I was telling you before. Whenever he comes to America, he comes with Linda to see me, and we go eat, and we reminisce about old times, and we really have both – evolved out of whatever feelings we had when we first split. I think we were – I think it’s a case of, we were more scared than we thought. All of us. The fact – however the split happened, being suddenly on your own after ten years was a pretty scary thing for all of us.

(John Lennon, October, 1974, interview with DJ John Houghton)

Thanksgiving 1974, November 28, John joins Elton John on a Madison Square Garden stage: Whatever Gets You Thru The Night, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - and I Saw Her Standing There, which John announces, 'We thought we'd do one last number so I can get out of here and be sick. This is a number of an old estranged fiancé of mine called Paul.'

December 20th 1974: the signing final Beatles dissolution papers and George's concert at Madison Square Garden.

We had a business meeting to break up The Beatles, one of the famous ones that we’d been having — we’re still having them 17 years later, actually. We all flew in to New York specially. George came off his disastrous tour, Ring of flew in and we were at the Plaza for the big final settlement meeting. John was half a mile away at the Dakota and he sent a balloon over with a note that said ‘Listen to this balloon.’ I mean, you’ve got to be pretty cool to handle that kind of stuff. George blew his cool and rang him up: ’You fucking maniac!! You take your fucking dark glasses off and come and look at us, man!!’ and gave him a whole load of that shit. Around the same time at another meeting we had it all settled, and John asked for an extra million pounds at the last minute. So of course that meeting blew up in disarray. Later, when we got a bit friendlier — and from time to time there would be these little stepping-stones of friendship in the Apple sea — I asked him why he’d actually wanted that million and he said, I just wanted cards to play with. It’s absolutely standard business practice. He wanted a couple of jacks to up your pair of nines. He was one great guy, but part of his greatness was that he wasn’t a saint.

(Paul McCartney, 1986, interview with Chris Salewicz for Q Magazine)

gifs by nikidontsurf

May Pang: Originally when they were supposed to sign it in December (of ’74), before Christmas, it was that time period of George’s Dark Horse tour; at the last minute John didn’t want to sign it because there was one clause he felt uncomfortable with and he wouldn’t come to the meeting. SG: Which clause? May Pang: Since he was the only one of the group living in America that he would be the one responsible for the taxes. It would be over a million dollars. He did not want to shoulder that burden. So he wouldn’t come out to sign it. Paul and Linda had already set up cameras to take photos of everyone signing it, and George was there because of the show, and Ringo had signed it previously in England but was on the telephone to confirm his signature. All the legal counsels for the individuals as well as legal counsels for Apple both in the US and the UK were there waiting. As time went on, poor Harold Seider bore the brunt of everyone at the hotel asking “Where’s John?” He called John and me at home and I said, “He’s not coming.” And Harold said, “What?” and I said, “He doesn’t want to shoulder this tax burden.” Harold knew that they were gonna come down on him. And John was going, “Tell them the stars aren’t right, tell them anything, I’m not doing this.” So… when Harold hung up the phone, he had to face the crowd, and you had to know there was a big crowd in there, over thirty people. He said to them, “The stars aren’t right, John’s not coming to sign the agreement.” George called us immediately, and I said “Do you want to speak to John?” and he said “No, but you can give him a message from me. I started this tour on my own and I’ll end it on my own.” If I could tell you that we could hear George screaming through the rooftops… The next day Paul and Linda came over and they said, “What’s wrong? Let’s see if we can work this out.” SG: and..? May Pang: Paul and Linda dropped by and John explained the situation to them. Then we went off to see Paul’s father-in-law Lee Eastman to sort it out, and in the end we came out with satisfaction. At the meeting Lee kept saying to John, “George will never forgive you,” and Julian called at exactly the same moment and said to me, “George just told me to tell dad and to say ‘all is forgiven, and please come to the party after the show'” and I said ok, and walked back into the room. Lee was telling John off the whole time I was on the phone, as well as Neil Aspinall who accompanied us, going on about how George was never going to forgive him. So I repeated Julian’s message out loud, that all was forgiven, and it couldn’t have been a better set up. So then John said, “Well! Looks like we have a change in plans then. We’re outta here.” And if you could see the look on Lee’s face, that I had just upstaged him.

(May Pang, 2008, interview with Shelley Germeaux for Dayrippin’)

gifs by pennielane

George and I are still good pals and we always will be, but I was supposed to sign this thing on the day of his concert. He was pretty weird because he was in the middle of that tour, and we hadn’t communicated for a while because he doesn’t live here. I’ve seen Paul a bit because he comes to New York a lot, and I’m always seeing Ringo in Los Angeles. <…> George was furious at the time because I hadn’t signed it when I was supposed to, and somehow or other I was informed that I needn’t bother to go to George’s show. I was quite relieved in the end because there wasn’t any time for rehearsal, and I didn’t want it to be a case of just John jumping up and playing a few chords. I went to see him at Nassau and it was a good show. The band was great but Ravi wasn’t there, so I didn’t see the bit where the crowd was supposed to get restless. I just saw a good tight show. George’s voice was shot but the atmosphere was good and the crowd was great. I saw George after the Garden show and we were friends again. But he was surrounded by the madhouse that’s called ‘touring’.” <…> When I did that charity at Madison Square Garden, I was still riding high on ‘Imagine’ so I was OK for material. But when I did ‘Come Together’, the house came down, which gave me an indication of what people wanted to hear. At the time I was thinking that I didn’t want to do all that Beatles—but now I feel differently. I’ve lost all that negativity about the past and I’d be happy as Larry to do ‘Help’. I’ve just changed completely in two years. I’d do ‘Hey Jude’ and the whole damn show, and I think George will eventually see that. If he doesn’t, that’s cool. That’s the way he wants to be.”

(John Lennon, interview with Chris Charlesworth for Melody Maker: Rock on! (March 8th, 1975)

Paul and Linda on George's Dark Horse Tour show at at Madison Square Garden 20th Dec 1974

George called just before his concert. 'Do you want to speak to John?' I asked. 'No.' George had heard about John's decision and he was livid. 'Just tell him I started this tour on my own and I'll end it on my own,' he snarled. Then he slammed down the phone. Later that night Paul calld, too. Unlike George, he was exceptionally even-tempered. John explained to Paul his feelings about the unfairness of the tax provision, and they both agreed that they would try to find a solution.

(May Pang, Loving John, 1983)

December 21st, 1974: John joins in on an radio interview George is recording in his hotel room and provides a suspicious explanation for the lack of meetings amongst the four former Beatles. John and George had actually just come from George's end-of-tour afterparty, where John, Paul, and George all hung out together and hugged.

In December 1974 John, May and Julian went to Orlando, Florida and went to Walt Disney World.

I met John Lennon at Disney World while working as a monorail operator. He, Julian and May Pang rode in the front of the monorail on two different occasions with me. I allowed him and Julian to operate the train. The second day John came out to the station and actually ask if I was working. He and Julian waited until I arrived in the train and again rode with me and drove the train. May Pang took a lot of pictures that day. As they left the train that day John ask if I would like to take some pictures and waited while I retrieved a camera. I have a great 8×10 of John Lennon and I together. (Cast Member Hal East)

May Pang:

Riding the Disney World monorail back to our hotel, I overheard a father tell his son he had heard a Beatle was visiting. “Which Beatle?” The father said, “George Harrison." I burst out laughing. John asked why. We then all started laughing so hard that the Dad turned around. It then registered which Beatle was at the park that day - and why we were laughing. “It’s O.K.," John jokingly said, "we all look alike.”

Photo and info from meetthebeatlesforreal

SG: So did they work out the tax thing? May Pang: Of course… It was worked out within the week. It was signed at the Polynesian Hotel at Disneyworld in Florida if you can believe that. <…> May Pang: … John putting his signature on one of the documents that he had to sign, for the dissolution of the Beatles. So I had the last photo, because the other guys had already signed it. SG: Actually signing the dissolution of the Beatles?! May Pang: Pen in hand as he’s signing his signature. Prior to that you’ll see pictures of him reviewing the contract. SG: And you thought to take a picture…? May Pang: John wanted me to take the picture. In fact he joked about it, saying “C’mon Linda, take the picture!”

(May Pang, 2008, interview with Shelley Germeaux for Dayrippin’)

Photo by May Pang, from her 'Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon'

May Pang: ...And then we came back (from Disneyworld) and we spent time with Mick (Jagger), and went out to the Hamptons, and Montauk where we picked out that house, and we saw the McCartneys, and David Bowie…

(May Pang, 2008, interview with Shelley Germeaux for Dayrippin’)

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#accidental divorce #the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #interview: paul #interview: john #john and paul #may pang #allen klein #paul and klein #john and klein #dissolution of The Beatles’ contractual partnership

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