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TXF 11x07

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My happy little head canon is he updates the number and tells her shes his “X in a billion” again every once in a while, so she gets more and more special as the worlds population goes up.

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Thinking about the beginning of Tempus Fugit when Mulder and Scully are at the bar having a drink but she only thinks something's weird when he gives her a birthday present ??? Was everything up until that point just a Normal Thursday ??? Were these two routinely hanging out and going out to bars together after work ??? I need ANSWERS

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David Duchovny x Gillian Anderson

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Scully's report: And so, my time in captivity forced me to grapple with the essential truth that in order to stop monsters, we must understand them. Yet who is to say that as we learn to empathize with monsters, we shall not become them?

Skinner: ...so, do you want some mental health leave, or...

Mulder's report: Though it remains unproven whether the past life regression I underwent is valid, are we not all a collection of past lives? Who is to say that the people we once were are not dead? Who is to say we are not haunted by the ghosts of all who we could have been? Or is the self merely an illusion, a thousand pieces of different shredded photographs that we have pasted together and convinced ourselves is whole?

Skinner, removing his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose: What...what is...I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this

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season 1 scully

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The X-Files 5.14 | “The Red and the Black”

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Dana Scully: a Fear of Death Rooted in Eternal Judgment

I think Scully's fear of death is rooted in a fear of judgment.

According to her faith, one either gets into Heaven or Hell (with a pit stop here or there to atone for their sins.) One would think that would be a comfort to the morally unbreakable Dana Scully.

But it isn't.

During her atheistic arc (Season 1 through early Season 2), Scully was determined to do her job and do it well. The paranoia of death didn't cling to her as it does in later seasons.... until Beyond the Sea. Her father's ghost visiting her right after his death and being channeled later through Luthor Lee Boggs, twice-- it takes its toll, unwinding the foundational principles of her life: that Death is final; and that there are no ghosts or psychics or even angels or demons, just sick men and women who abuse others through their superstitions. Scully chooses ignorance, reverting away from this new territory because "I'm afraid... I'm afraid to believe." The rest of Season 1, she didn't want to die, panicked in the face of it; but wasn't as paranoid as, again, later seasons.

Then One Breath happens: Scully experienced something she "couldn't find the words" to explain, even when facing death alongside Mulder in Dod Kalm. It's Scully who is fearless as their end approaches, reassuring Mulder he has nothing to fear based on that experience. Thus, One Breath began her agnostic arc-- where she believed, deep down, but was afraid to fully accept that belief (i.e., her shaken projections on Pfaster in Irresistible and her activated voodoo curse in Fresh Bones.) Death is a place of peace, hence why she denies it to Pfaster (we later learn in Orison.)

When we reach Season 3's Revelations, Scully's agnosticism turns to religious terror. "God is speaking, and no one is listening", she confesses to the priest-- what she means is, that God has been speaking to and judging me, and I've been failing. Thus, her paranoia of Death: not because of its finality (Season 1) or promise of peace (Season 2), but because it could find her at fault and deny her a blessed eternal life.

In Season 4, Scully doesn't want to "run back to God" in Gethsemane; but faces her fears once Death is inescapable in Redux II.

In Season 5, she battles with her religious fragility, struggling for peace after her daughter is stolen before her Christian burial (Emily) and after her spirit returns during a case with angels and demons. Scully may be more vulnerable to religious manipulation, but she is also more secure in her beliefs of a peaceful afterlife.

By Season 6, Scully continues to look upon Death as God's judgment: eternal reward or eternal torment. But then Tithonus happens: Fellig shakes Scully's convictions that eternity is a good thing, showing her the soul of an eternally tormented man... making her wonder if she is guaranteed a happy ending, after all.

This brings up to Season 7's Orison, where Scully stands in judgment of Pfaster and the "Reverend" Orison. When she murders Pfaster in cold blood, her doubts and criticisms rise up against her, brandishing her with the same immoral code-- thus, making her fear eternal condemnation from God: the end meted out to both convicts, or an immortal torment ala Alfred Fellig. This was an extremely crucial moment for her development as a character... and would have been given no resolution if not for Gillian's all things.

all things is the resolution to Scully's paranoia: "God talks back", she comes to terms with herself, and makes a final decision out of principle and not panic, out of assuredness and not anguish. Scully is secure; and she finds the stability to embrace her beliefs, religion, and faith as it should be: a source of rest, a refuge from fear.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

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GILLIAN ANDERSON as DANA SCULLY in THE X-FILES (1993-2018) | S04E23 ‘Demons’

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The way he straight up sprinted after the SUV in Unruhe yelling "SCULLAY!" even though he had not hope of catching it. Anytime he smells/tastes/touches a foreign substance with his bare hands.

hey guys. tell me the crazy things mulder did that make you LOVE him

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#the x files is actually a comedy show - part two

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Never underestimate how much people want to watch two hot people who are madly in love with each other never fuck

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THE X-FILES (1993-2018) | S06E18 ‘Milagro’

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watching s9 is like well u know if mulder were here he would be playing with that baby every day. Scully makes the big bucks at her quantico teaching gig and comes home to her househusband whose whole world revolves around tummy time now . The apartment is a fucking mess. Mulder spent the whole day building a baby obstacle course to teach william to crawl. He seems to think if he doesn’t kiss baby on forehead every 5 minutes that baby might die. Mulder and scully’s mom develop a friendship that really freaks Scully out . He thinks there’s a conspiracy happening at the mommy and me class he takes William to (he’s right). He gets very obsessed with sesame street. Every baby book he buys is about aliens. Mulder at the Internet cafe googling “how early is too early to show infant son E.T.” He’s like we have to introduce him to the concept of aliens early Scully . What ever happened to family traditions . She’s like mulder we will teach him about aliens when he’s good and ready. He spends 3 days gathering scholarly materials about how introducing difficult subject matter early to children is Good Actually <333 I miss him so much

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I'm not denying that watching those early pre -txf movies with David Duchovny and Gilian Anderson was mostly a waste of time, but it does put their early dynamics into a very funny perspective. Here's a young woman straight out of drama school with great theatre references who has one family drama under her belt, and they paired her up with a guy who ditched his PhD in English at Yale to do low-budget soft porn movies. Together, they made some of the most iconic characters in tv history. You can't possibly make this shit up.

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sometimes i think about how gillian anderson herself wrote the "all things" episode of the x files and then i am hit with the most insane wave of tenderness that seeps into my bones and makes a home inside my marrow bc. she spent years in her role as scully, and she wrote a script that essentially said "scully will always choose mulder. scully will choose mulder again and again and again because in her eyes, mulder is the only choice. it may seem as if there are other choices, like there are other pathways she could walk down, but there arent. mulder is the only choice she sees, and she will choose him every time." she knows her character so well and it just makes me so.. i dunno happy like. yeah, they really do love each other. they will always choose each other. they love each other so deeply that they dont see any other choice but to be with one another; there is no universe in which they wont find each other because any other choice that couldve possibly kept them apart was just wrong. there is only one choice and it is for them to be together. anyways gillian anderson i love u and adore u for writing the all things episode.

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not enough mulder apologia for my taste anymore, talk to me about how mulder is the best ever