#'you'd die for mulder but you won't allow yourself to love him'

[babymadeofbones]

it's so funny to me that cgb is basically bedelia du maurier-ing scully rn lol

[randomfoggytiger]

Disproving CSM's Conjecture in En Ami

CSM postulates that Scully and Mulder aren't together because she doesn't fully trust him; that, although she's drawn to powerful men, she is afraid to open herself up to them.

"You'd die for Mulder, but you won't allow yourself to love him."

The problem is, he's wrong.

Because CSM mixed up her fatal flaw with Mulder's.

Self-Denial and Self-Sacrifice

CSM's theory: Scully rules herself by denial, and Mulder offers himself up as the sacrificial lamb. How is he wrong?

Scully's flaw is self-sacrifice, putting everything she covets from life on hold to join Mulder on his quest (comedically summed up in Bad Blood's "I do it all for you, Mulder! All for you!") The Starbuck-Ahab complex she harbored since childhood-- expressing her love through devotion-- kept her in the car the first year; but the Truth soon became as much about her losses as it did Mulder's tragedies. Unlike Mulder, however, Scully strives to have a life uncomplicated by mess and trauma and the constant grind. So, she sits in the car, year after year, waiting for her partner to adapt to their changing dynamic (which he did not do for almost six of those years.) Her own fears and insecurities are placed under the bootheel of the work; but when life becomes too complicated or emotionally clouded, Scully strikes out in confused rebellion (e.g. Never Again, Milagro, and All Things.) Moreover, Scully is the one who sacrificed what she held dear-- stability, a family, something other than 24/7 monsters and conspiracies-- to bear the cross of Mulder's quest, not the other way 'round. (Her realization-- that she does want this life-- and shift does not occur until All Things, a few episodes after En Ami.)

Mulder's fatal flaw is self-denial (and self-punishment): he set aside a normal life out of a determination to find or avenge his sister. If Mulder was self-sacrificial, he would have let Scully walk out of his life a thousand times over and born that heartbreak silently, alone; instead, he stormed out after her and broke down his walls to convince her to stay. Furthermore, his self-denial is ever present even in tender moments, drawing away from emotional vulnerability once danger is past and shying away even faster if Scully draws attention to the present moment. Mulder is the one to deny himself love and a life with Scully (Home, Detour, Dreamland I, Arcadia, etc.), not the one who sacrificed everything he wanted to stay on his quest-- this is what he wants. (The change from obsessive pursuit to measured search begins in The Unnatural, changes wholly in Amor Fati and Millennium, and reaches its conclusion in Closure.)

CSM's Observations

The reality that CSM observed both agents for years and years and came to the exact opposite conclusion is baffling.

He concluded that Mulder sacrificed normalcy for the Almighty Mission, projecting his own Messiah complex onto his 'protege' and patting himself on the back whenever Mulder was, yet again, tossed to the jaws of Death for the "greater good." He also concluded that Scully stayed in the basement because of the raw power she smelled on Mulder, keeping a cold yet lustful distance because she was afraid to risk her womanly love on the all-consuming passion of his might.

How very dime store novel of Old Smokey.

Both assumptions are, of course, very wrong.

Mulder Dreaded "More" While Scully Hoped for It

Scully gave many unsubtle hints through the series that she was ready for more with Mulder: her willingness to go down with him in Tooms, her overt jealousy in Syzygy, her pointed inquiry about his family genetics in Home, her displacement and hurt in The Field Where I Died and Never Again and The End and The Beginning and One Son, her "we just keep driving" in Dreamland I, her unspoken 'secret' that was practically ripped from her chest in Milagro, her flirting in The Unnatural, her IVF request, and on and on.

Scully is by nature reticent with her emotions, fearful to fully open up lest she be hurt or become a burden; but in Mulder's case, she's reiterated over and over (Irresistible and Elegy) that their relationship falls into the latter, not former, category. In Emily she is, once again, "alone"; however, the context to her statement is vitally important. In the hospital, she hoped for Mulder to claim a place by her and her daughter's side as co-parent; but when he uncomfortably withdrew instead, it proved that he still wasn't ready for "more." Scully was alone in places Mulder couldn't fill; and so, she said goodbye to that hope, alone; then to her daughter, alone; and bore the little girl's death, alone. The burden of her fully opened heart was too heavy, she assumed, for Mulder... and in a way, she was right-- not until Fight the Future, when forced to confront "them", did Mulder finally acknowledge it. Until then, sacrificially tucking her heart back inside her chest-- for both their sakes-- was what Scully deemed the best course of action. She sticks around for her own reasons, as she says in Memento Mori; but those don't exclude the hope that Mulder will someday "settle down, live something approaching a normal life." (Her plans change in All Things-- but she's not there, yet.)

All those years, it was Mulder who was more emotionally distant. He was content with his life, happy to spin tires down the tarmac forever with his partner. Mulder was willing to deny himself into eternity if it meant not having to sacrifice an aspect of the life or career he was comfortable with and nervous to change for 'more.' It's why he was so afraid in Fight the Future and so proud of himself in The Unnatural (the warmup), Amor Fati (the big swing), and Millennium (the victorious homerun.) Scully is the only one-in-five billion he has: in the past, he could tease about passing genetic muster, about his boyish agility, about so much more, but to act on it? It took him four years to initiate a hug (post here) and seven years to approach a label of sorts for their relationship. Mulder's an overly cautious man, more pessimistic than optimistic when it comes to people sticking around; and any traditional, long-term relationship he'd witnessed had broken down or was held together by deadened respect and a few bratty kids.

Now it's Season 7, he's learned his lessons, and they're here, together.

Or were, until Scully dipped on a sketchy roadtrip with their enemy.

Conclusion

The most unrealistic part of this episode (amid a host of several others) was that Scully, despite hearing the drivel CSM peddled the entire drive, decided that he had anything worthwhile to say.

Thank you for reading~.

Enjoy!

[that--funny--feeling]

CSM and how the lies destroyed the Mulder family: a headcanon

I have a complicated and maybe personal image of CSM that to me makes more sense than whatever they tried to do with his character (since they changed minds so many times).

The focal points of his character are his envy, obsession with control and inability to love.

I think he really envied what Mulder Sr. had with his family, even before Fox and Samantha were born. He had a wife who loved him and above all he did his same job (more or less) but that hadn't turned him evil or selfless. I like to think of William Mulder Sr. as a decent and kind person, at least when he was younger.

Obviously, his life wasn't perfect and he and Teena probably fought a lot because of the secrecy of his work. I think that was the real first struggle about the truth that the Mulder family had (1°). Bill couldn't be honest with his wife about what he was doing and that created a distance. CSM may have taken advantage of this situation, growing closer to Teena maybe while Bill wasn't there for her.

Deep down in the headcanon tunnel from now on, I like to think Teena and CSM didn't have an affair but just a one night thing. Teena probably never forgave herself for that night and never told Bill about it (2°). Bill never asked, but understood what happened (3°).

At this point, CSM wants to have a relationship with her, but she refuses him and just wants to forget what happened. He's insistent and she starts hating him.

Soon after, Teena and Bill's relationship gets better and Fox comes into this world. Now. I'm not sure what to believe (pun intended) on CSM's being his father. Because, in this logic, he could but so could Bill. Surely CSM thought to be Fox's father and thought to have rights on him, no matter what Teena could say about it.

CSM marries Cassandra, they have Jeffrey, he tries to have what Mulder Sr. has but doesn't work. He can't love. His wife starts hating him, his son is a delusion for him. In the meanwhile, Samantha Mulder is born.

When the time of the abductions is closer, Bill and Teena get to choose which one of their children to "sacrifice" (4°). They painfully indicate Fox, because he's older and stronger, but CSM don't even give them the luxury of the choice. Fox is his son, so Samantha will go. That's the moment where the Mulder family irremediably shutters. Teena divorces Bill and Fox will never know anything about this from his family (5°).

Maybe after the abductees' return, CSM goes to Teena, offering her a possible life with him (this could be why he took Samantha and she wasn't returned). She doesn't believe him and swears to never talk to him again.

Samantha starts living with CSM, he has now what Mulder Sr. had, but again, he can't love. She understands that he constantly lies to her and hates him, so she quickly becames useless to him and he uses her for experiments.

His fixation on the Mulders keeps going, because he thinks Fox is his son, but above all because he likes him as a person. He challenges him, has a goal, a conviction, doesn't care what the others think about him. Maybe he thinks they are similar and that's why he sometimes protects him. But again, he doesn't know what love is, so if there's something more important, he's ready to sacrifice him.

He thinks he knows Mulder and tries to get him on his side more than once, but he fails. Mulder was loved and is loved, he knows what love means, he's kind and decent, even more than his father William.

He thinks he knows Scully because of his own past, but he understands nothing about her or their relationship, because it's the complete opposite of what he's ever experienced. ("You'd die for Mulder but you won't allow yourself to love him" he says to Scully in En Ami, while they're already in a relationship.) And he lies, lies, lies, the thing that made him advance in his life. At the cost of love.

What could really have saved the Mulder family, was the truth, that will become Fox's reason of life. If Teena told Bill about her moment of weekness, if he ever asked her instead of acting like nothing ever happened, there could have been hope. Hope to forgive, to go on. But what they did was the opposite, letting Fox enter in these net of lies. Hiding everything from him "for his own good". But that's not what he wanted and accepted ("The truth will save you, Scully. I think it'll save both of us").

My TXF posts and videos.

[scullysmywife]

"you'd die for mulder but you won't allow yourself to love him" oh! uhmmm! okay!

[milquetoast-on-acid]

How else do you explain that fearless devotion to a man obsessed and yet a life alone? You'd die for Mulder but you won't allow yourself to love him.

CSM actually said that right so Scully's face. Not about the bit that she's afraid of powerful men, Though.

[alousyhusband]

"you'd die for mulder, but you won't allow yourself to love him" shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut u

[randomfoggytiger]

The Cancer Arc and Scully's Reliance on Mulder's Strength

(Requested by @perpetually-weirdening/@deathsbestgirl~)

Rob Bowman said of Scully in Memento Mori: "Here is the lurking truth through the story: that Scully really does have that tumor and she really is in trouble. And trying to keep a mask of stoicism and strength in front of Mulder. She knows he’s actually, I think, more emotional or more unstable about it than she is." (post here.)

Scully's Reliance on Mulder's Strength in Season Four

That episode brought Scully's dichotomy to the forefront: desperately steeling herself to shield her loved ones from fear and suffering while also desperately crying out for that strength herself. Penny helped fill this void as a fellow sufferer (a quality Scully seeks from Mulder) and a nurturer (a quality Scully seeks from Maggie); but her death only taught Scully to keep fighting, not to be fearlessly transparent in her sufferings. "I won't let this thing beat me", Scully declared, beaming in Mulder's unabashed pride of his little fighter. Scully stood on her own two feet, ready to conquer any force in her path... but had yet to realize how much that confidence was rooted firmly in Mulder's support.

Beyond the Sea was the first time we see Scully become unglued by the potential of Mulder's loss, shifting her entire viewpoint to his paranormal leanings after her self-belief is shaken ("I thought that you'd be pleased...")-- but it's not the last: Irresistible was when Scully became aware of how much she relied on Mulder's strength; Pusher was when she became unhinged at a man playing Russian roulette with her partner's life; Quagmire was when she unfurled how much Mulder had become her new Ahab; Memento Mori was the momentous shift in herself and her abilities; and Elegy built on these moments with another therapy revelation.

It's Scully's nature to struggle with vulnerability, with relying on someone else to help fill her gaps. Her interpretation of the Apollo keychain was a new height for both of them: Mulder understood Scully, using a snowball decorated with sparkler candles to distract from the deeper sentiments disguised in her birthday trinket (his own version of a Milagro charm; and Scully knew Mulder, taking the whole of their partnership, adding in their unspoken bond, and multiplying it by his fear of her cancer to correctly sum up his chasm-deep love and devotion and terror and grief.

Elegy was raw because she had no place assurance left for either of them to cling to; and Scully felt she was letting Mulder down, an unwilling passenger on her rotting, sinking ship.

Demons was her attempt to save him; and that, too, nearly failed.

Gethsemane: Scully lip-serviced the control of her ship over to cancer, seemingly ready to give up and die with dignity (as Bill later put it.) But when Mulder wrested for control, she stepped in and pushed him away from the wheel: because Scully hadn't truly given up. She stood her ground, fought Mulder on his investigation, rushed around for a cure or at least proof of her disease when handed the chance, and got back up every time she fell down (until she was too weak to continue.) And Bill, for all his faults, read her correctly-- "You think you can cure yourself?"-- dragging Scully's dying hope into the harsh and garish light, wounding her sensibilities in the process.

We know Scully hadn't truly given up (and that Bill was correct) because we see the moment she finally does. Redux II started with Scully still being impossibly strong for everyone else-- allowing Mulder to cling to her hand without comment, smiling upon Maggie and Bill, and acting the model, uncomplaining patient-- but at the end of the line-- her science fails, Mulder's chip doesn't work, and all that is left are miracles-- she finally gives in. When she tells her mother that everything has failed, Scully broke down, sputtering about her lack of faith and impending death. Furthermore, she clung to the last symbols of her strength to give her courage: Mulder's hand and her childhood cross.

As an important aside, Scully's mask of strength also extended to Maggie, reassuring her mother in Memento Mori that she was "okay" and felt "fine" while holding back her own fe ar as Maggie fell apart. Her mother's "You've always been the strong one" was incredibly important: Maggie singled out this trait for her youngest daughter-- not her brothers, and not Melissa. High praise... but a heavy burden, too; and a burden Scully ingrained into a habit, cracking her wide open in Beyond the Sea and patching herself back together with purposed ignorance after One Breath. It's why she told Mulder about her cancer first: the blow of bad news could only be softened by someone she could lean on, who admired her need to stand upright while not letting her fool herself with the sacrificial desire to battle her demons alone. (Even though Maggie supported Scully with everything in her-- crying, hugging, soothing, calling in the priest for reconciliation and comfort-- her daughter was still denying parts of herself, clinging to Mulder's undemanding agnosticism rather than confronting another of her Schrodinger's beliefs. Death, Scully thought, was a large enough unanswered question to deal with, let alone religion... until Death was no longer avoidable; then it became merely an opening statement.)

Redux II asked Scully a question: Did she do enough; or did her efforts to do the right thing--accidentally cutting off her support system in an attempt to protect them-- fail everyone in the end? It was Mulder who answered it, assuring her he wouldn't take the deal because he ultimately trusted her judgment, allowing her to hold his hand when the priest appeared, and showing his partner he trusted her strength by letting it go. Scully knew she could only get that support from her partner; and, though she cherished the immoveable love from her mother, there was only one person she thought of first.

What Scully failed to see in Mulder when they both stood in Memento Mori's hallway was that his pride had stemmed from an adoration of the strength in her weakness; and that is what fueled his own strength the rest of Season 4... until Elegy made him realize that Scully's strength was mostly a front. His misinterpretation had-- blindly-- led him to believe that the Truth and his partner's grit would save her; and that Scully would keep him informed, always, if her condition progressed or worsened. When she didn't, it shook his foundation, plunging him into the insane actions of Demons. She, meanwhile, thought she had focused Mulder's gaze ahead on his mission without having to look back and worry about her-- and part of that was to convince herself, too, that her cancer wasn't as problem enough to focus on. However, Scully realized her own misinterpretation when Mulder's constant, fixated gaze became more and more apparent (Tempus Fugit, Max, and Zero Sum.) Her veil of strength began to falter in Elegy-- which cast her conviction in science into doubt-- and Demons-- when Mulder's near-suicide underscored how lost he had become (permanently, she feared. Gethsemane almost proved her correct.)

Bleeding into Season Five

Detour was Scully's attempt to build on this new enlightenment; though she withdrew when Mulder's main focus remained captured by creatures that go bump in the night. Mulder, meanwhile, still carved out moments to share those creatures with her, requesting a song while in shock and signaling for a dance in a black-and-white. Emily backtracked Scully into guilt after the funeral-- the sandbagged coffin destroying Mulder's previous heartfelt speech and her hard-won peace; but her Redux II transformation never truly left, popping up again in All Souls when she sought out and opened her heart to Mulder once again.

Why was Scully less forthwith to her partner during S5 after all the progress of S4? Because, besides Emily's death and visitation, Mulder was going through an intense personal crisis (post here); and Scully wasn't willing to send him spiraling backward into the near-disastrous patterns of Demons and Gethsemane by adding to his stress. She spent most of S5 in damage-control; but, of course, that can only go so far before she, too, was burnt out (and that just so happened to be The End.)

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!