#Mulder's Love Story

[randomfoggytiger]

Mulder's Love Story, S1 (Part 1): Instant Camaraderie to Easy Friendship to Unbreakable Trust

My own meta thoughts down below~!

What hasn't been said about the Pilot? All I will add is that I never read romance into Mulder's actions-- just sheer desperation for a friend and confidante, so much so he grabbed onto Scully's good manners, quick mind, and fairness within their first interview. His openness was won with her mosquito scare, and his faith in her abilities was tested and won in the graveyard.

Deep Throat showed him what the limits of her patience were and what an incredible backup she was in an emergency.

By Squeeze he was both unapologetically territorial and afraid she was unconvinced by him and his "Spooky" theories, one step away from boxing the whole package back down in the basement to travel further up the floors. He was immensely relieved to find she was not only ride-or-die for the Truth but also perfectly capable of weathering its many unexpected twists, turns, and gray areas.

In Conduit, Mulder was not afraid or ashamed to show how raw and unresolved Samantha's loss still was; and even trusted Scully's final call to pull him back from the grave and the Morris family.

The Jersey Devil tapped into the territorial streak of Squeeze but with more stakes: Scully couldn't have a life and be as dedicated to the work as Mulder. He knew this, mourning her absence until the siren call of the next lead made him forget his manners and barge into her personal time (ala Elegy, Chinga, etc.)

Shadows was the first time Mulder invited Scully out on a little fun activity outside of work (the Liberty Bell) even though the tourist site was likely already closed. On the heels of The Jersey Devil and right before Ghost in the Machine, it's easy to read this as his attempt to firmly establish Scully as his little buddy in and out of work (like the deep friendship he had shared with Jerry Lamana ala the deleted script, here on @x-files-scripts's page.) Scully's "I'd settle for a life in this one" teasingly echoes her "I would like to have a life" and his "I have a life" from their previous case.

Ghost in the Machine was the first of many of Mulder's "pasts" getting exposed to Scully, i.e. Jerry Lamana (who had asked Mulder to be his best man at his wedding), Phoebe Green (who had tormented Mulder during their dating years), and Reggie Perdue (who had been Mulder's mentor), Bill Patterson (who had been Mulder's authoritarian teacher), Diana Fowley (who had-- and was-- a tool of the Consortium to reign him in), etc. It sets the tone for Mulder's repeated failed disclosures to Scully, which makes her feel lopsided and unincluded in his inner circle (this ep., Fire, The End, etc.)

Ice was a heavy-hitting game-changer: it's the episode that tested Mulder and Scully's trust by stretching it to almost impossible limits; and yet, they persevered and succeeded. From here on out, Mulder's trust in his new partner is unshakeable and unbreakable (except for a brief stint of drugged-up madness in Anasazi.)

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[ibringyouasong89]

OH GOD! OKAY! It's happening! @randomfoggytiger has released another meta post series! This is not a drill! Get ready to have your minds blown and your hearts turned into scrambled breakfast goods!

[ovenproofowl]

bad blood is one hell of an episode. it literally opens with mulder straight-up murdering a regular teenager via stake-through-the-heart and he and scully are like pretty sure the FBI is going to be sued and they're going to be doing some serious jail time. except both of them remember the story differently. scully's story is predictably logical and straight-forward. the killer was drugging his victims before bleeding them out, mimicking a vampire attack by wearing fake fangs (which are proven to be fake. this is crucial. this kid was wearing plastic fangs when mulder stabbed him. in the chest. with a wooden stake.) what is also crucial is that mulder was a victim of this murderer's attack and so he was tripping hard when scully intercepts the killer. mulder - whilst tripping balls - is convinced that the killer has glowing eyes and flew across the room before running out the door. and so - whilst tripping balls - he gives chase and ends up stabbing the kid through the heart with a wooden stake.

and of course this is the x files and so while scully and mulder are arguing over who gave who the hardest time in their percieved series of events, it turns out that mulder was right. the kid was a vampire and the stake didn't actually kill him. the fangs were fake because he was copying the sorts of vampires that you see in books and on tv. he was a real vampire.

and it's not just the kid. there are bunches of vampires, including the sheriff. the whole town are just. vampires. the lot of 'em. and the second they're found out, they just up and leave without a trace.

sometimes the extent to which mulder turns out to be right in this show is borderline ludicrous, it's amazing, I love it. but what was even better was that the biggest point of contention between scully and mulder's stories wasn't even the vampire thing, it was whether or not the sheriff was actually hot.

[geekabilly006]

what do we think of favourite character masterlist.. don't answer please don't answer

character bingo dawg 🤠🤠

[carefulfears]

tbh i think a lot of the conflict in never again comes from mulder's complete unwillingness to recognize scully's "sunk cost" or the permanence and depth of her involvement.

she asks, "why don't i have a desk?" and she's saying, i am here. i belong here, i take up space here, i am settled here. why don't our lives reflect that?

but in a room with one desk and one nameplate, there is one casualty.

so he says, "you were just assigned, this work is my life."

when you're just assigned, you can still leave.

a year later, after antarctica, he tells her, "i'm not gonna watch you die, scully, because of some hollow personal cause of mine. go be a doctor."

but mulder is "professionally in denial," he wants to believe, he'll search for something that he will never find and try to save someone that he will never save for the rest of his life; so when she asks "why don't i have a desk?" and she says "it has become mine," he freezes like a deer in headlights.

when you're just assigned, you can still leave. that aspect of choice (fate vs. free will) is critical, but he needs her to stay. he doesn't want to do this alone, like he tells her in that hallway a year later. so they sit in silence.

she was not just assigned. she's lost family members. she's lost time. she's lost health and autonomy and faith. she's nearly lost her life. and she's committed, over and over. she's followed, over and over. she has given, over and over. she has chosen, over and over and over.

but he can't separate the inherent loss in this journey from his own "hollow personal cause," so he nails himself to the cross over and over, and they sit in silence.

it reminds me of years later, after she buried him, when she walks him back into his apartment after six months gone. and she tries to tell him how hard it was. what it was like to hear that he was missing, to search for him, to find him dead. what it's like to have him back.

she looks a suicidal man in the eye and tells him that his life is her "answered prayer," and she cries and whispers "mulder..." when he dismisses it with a joke.

he cannot acknowledge how unbelievably difficult that was for her, to lose him, because it would mean acknowledging that it matters whether he lives or dies. it would mean acknowledging that it matters when he goes running back out that door that night, leaves her "completely beside herself" and once again praying.

he cannot acknowledge that this work has become her life, that she is irrevocably enmeshed in this world, and therefore he denies her recognition that she deserves a place next to him there. he denies her recognition that what she's invested matters, that this is more than an assignment, that she has sacrificed and contributed. so she burns the truth into her back, and they sit in silence.

[arrolyn1114]

The cultural impact of this show is absolutely amazing. Mulder and Scully were my first ship and 30 years later still my favorite ship and always will be. They are without a doubt the best love story in the history of TV and I will die on this hill.

[doesnotloveyou]

Easy guide to watching the X-Files! If the plot focuses on...

a man; he's fatally dangerous, and probably doomed

a woman; she is exceptionally powerful, and probably doomed

teenagers; there will be violence

a child; there will be mind-bending psychological games

an animal; he didn't mean nuthin by it

nature; run

[bmpmp3]

one of my favourite character relationship dynamics, platonic romantic or anything, is when two characters are absolutely the bestest of best friends and when one is hurt or something the other will scream and cry and wail and explode and when the other is in danger then the first one will go on some kind of silent terminator-esque rampage about it. besties (do no separate)

[baronessblixen]

What about a head-canon where, when William's twin sisters 3 or 4, he dresses them up for Halloween as a UFO and Antarctica (or something representing it)? Dagoo is even dressed up as an alien. William's just recently heard the story about Mulder's and Scully's misadventure there, and thought this would be funny. Mulder finds it hysterical. Scully's like OMGGG 🙄💕

So adorable! And the kids want to know how they made it home and they start bantering about it again 😁

[marsixm]

im trying to wrap my head around why i dont get enthusiastic about reddit style fiction (not a dig but a descriptor) like scp and shit like that, bc its not that i can’t enjoy them but i think its like… when stuff is framed as if it were real, but its fiction, its like, well KNOWING its fiction eliminates a huge element of the intrigue, but also, crucially, i like character-driven stories, or at least stories WITH characters. but i also like it when things are interesting for said characters to experience, like, i want the ghosts and monsters and conspiracies but i want the characters to be character-ing, yknow? not that i dont enjoy slice of life and… what would u call the first thing, non-character specific horror? idk? but i prefer when its both. its like i love kirk and spock but also i do enjoy watching them Experience Situations when i watch star trek. i enjoy the idea of spooky national forest monsters that arent real but experiencing it alongside a character would be better, and i want more trans and gay characters whose lives are clearly trans and gay but i want a plotline to unfold too

[randomfoggytiger]

Mulder's Love Story, S1 (Part 3): From "You'll Have to Trust Me" to "A Change Is Coming for You and Me"

My meta thoughts below~.

E.B.E.: This is the episode wherein we learn that, while Mulder is the "only one I trust" for Scully, he hadn't yet quite learned to return that sentiment. Scully's possessive quality is exclusionary (icing out Krycek, fuming at Detective White, sneering about Bambi Berenbaum, throwing daggers at Diana Fowley, etc.) while Mulder's obsessive quality is inclusionary (Max Fenig, TLG, Chuck Burks, Krycek, and anyone willing to listen and believe in him)-- credit to @perpetually-weirdening's post. Deep Throat's betrayal prompts Mulder to firmly close the loop of his trust: he and Scully share the inner circle; and others are only allowed in the outer circles.

Miracle Man: A strange peek into Mulder's psyche (and Scully's by religious proxy, as she was still a lapsed Catholic, possibly agnostic.) He is, at first, unwilling to share more of his trauma with Scully-- painful truths are more easily confessed in the dark-- but she draws it out of him; and his building confidence in his partner increases with the care and compassion she shows while deftly handling his disclosures.

Darkness Falls: As I stated here, this episode is the flip-switch for Scully (from deep friendship to conscious love); but not for Mulder. Instead, their adventure in the woods brings Mulder's attention full force to the fact that his actions could have cost Scully her life; and that ugly realization carries into Tooms and the rest of the series.

Tooms: Here is where, I believe, Mulder begins to unconsciously love Scully-- though his awareness doesn't click into place until One Breath-- because of her steely determination and feckless loyalty. Friendship switches to deep affection in the car; but he doesn't put the two and two of his conflicting emotions together until months of separation and abduction add up to four. He confirms Scully's loyalty twice (and once accidentally with the iced tea pun): Mulder's "you'll get the next mutant" and "a change for us" ringing out as his own "til death to us part." In essence: Mulder bound himself to Scully when she tied herself to his mast, both of them vowing to succeed or perish together (he doesn't say this out loud, of course, until FTF.)

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[handgiven]

this is a happy birthday short story for fox mulder @spookyagentfmulder && just a general happy day story for herald who deserves all the love that people have been giving him 💛💛

I saw you in a blazing light. I could not quite figure it out for what it was. A part of me assumed it was just the brightness of your mind, the way it warped and twisted itself in order to reflect on the universe. I could tell that much about you while the first couple of words from your mouth still hung fresh in the air, like apples for the picking on a lovely old apple-tree which only ever grows where you have lived and loved once. A part of me knew there was more to it than that. That you were but a man yet there was something else about you, otherworldly. Or there would be. Whenever I tried to touch it, it went out of focus. The only thing I knew about it was that overwhelming sense of warmth and love.

Here is a good man, I thought while I entertained your nibs at philosophy. Beautiful mind. A well of wonder to drink from, a heart pumping it full so effortlessly, like breathing. I wanted to touch you, even then. I wanted to be close to you while you explained things that to me were simply wrong. But it was all a part of the process. How else shall humanity learn besides exploring universal truths for themselves? How else shall you learn the truth about the you and the me unless I allow you to walk the steps? And walk the steps you did. I worried for you all the while, small and open to the greatness of the world.

Fox Mulder, the man who would be touched by an angel. It took you long enough. It took us long enough. The truth of the matter is I knew I was, or would be, in love with you by the time you finished your first sentence. I knew you to be a good and gentle man by the time you finished your second one. The third sentence seeped into the skin of my hands who felt that phantom affection and longed for a touch. Not yet, not yet. You cried the first time we met and I touched you then, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. I couldn’t tell if you knew. You didn’t, but perhaps in some way you did, because I knew, and because a part of me is a part of you now.

Do you ever think about that? The connection that became apparent before none of the things that make it up from the fabric of the universe even happened? The way my hand slipped into yours and your lips slipped against my lips and none of it ever felt like crossing a milestone but rather like settling into the predetermined order of things that sang the song of you and me since the beginning of time? The way I hold you now, sweaty and glowing and bare, and all of the before makes as much sense as all the after.

There is a piece of you inside of me, much like there is a piece of me within you. And that piece of me is the greatest act of love and kindness to myself I have ever done. The first selfish act in a line of many, all of them pertaining to the way you would be mine. The way I longed for you to be mine. The way I marked you now so that some time in the past, I would have known to look your way and not only that – I would have known that you were special. As for the piece of you… That piece hardly shines as brightly as that divine light of mine – in fact, it possesses a slightly dimmer space between my ribs – and yet when I think of it, when I think of you, I can do nothing but to engulf it in the light of my own all over again. I wonder if you can feel it. The way loving you has become a tic, an act embroidered into my mundane; running a hand through my hair, entangling my fingers into one another, and flooding the little part of your soul I have been given to guard with love.

[agentmulderrp]

"I wanted her to quit. I wanted her to have everything she deserved to have, I wanted her to have it all. Everything they've taken away from her because she chose to follow me.

I also wanted to be the one to give all of that to her. So I wanted to quit too, I wanted to leave it all behind and start over, the one thing I would never want to change, is to have her by my side, forever."

[carefulfears]

baby mulder 2 gonna be like 12 years old when jackson has his first baby and she becomes an aunt lmao

they’re so unserious. did y’all read this fic where baby2’s friends say her dad is old and mulder is like 😧😧 sjjcjdjf

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Whumpay Day 15: self-hatred

late s3 (idk what the timeline is like tbh, but according to fandom wiki page on Holly, Pusher happened in November of 1995??) | tagging @today-in-fic and @whumpay2022, tysm! :D

Scully is alone in the office in late February, 1996, when there's a hesitant knock at the door. It's Saturday, she's already got plans for the weekend — she's meeting up with Mulder tonight to catch him up on the case she's been studying while he was out complainingly recovering from a sprained ankle, then dinner with her mother tomorrow, because it's her birthday and Maggie wanted to do something. She only came into the office to collect some of her things that she'd forgotten the evening before, then got distracted trying to organize the scattered papers across the desk.

(She would love to blame Mulder for that, but the fact is that she leaves things behind, often untidy, almost but not quite as much as he does. It's a gamble as to which of them will eventually tidy things, though, and to how they'll be organized.)

She looks up, surprised to see someone else down here on a weekend, with the beginnings of a reproach on her lips if Mulder has decided to come in when he'd been expressly told — ordered by Skinner, Scully, and another doctor who'd agreed with her — to stay out of the office at least until Monday. Instead, Scully is surprised to see another agent she recognizes standing in the doorway and looking like she was about to head home.

Holly Patton is willowy and dark-haired and gentle, and her unassuming nature and soft face would make her a good undercover agent if she weren't just as soft-spoken. Instead, she excels at the work she does in the Computer Records office. Scully has spoken with her a few times at mixers, or when relevant to a case; she interviewed the slightly younger woman when she was a victim of Robert Modell back in November. Now, prim skirt suit covered by a grey wool coat and a bag slung over her shoulder, Patton looks more casual than Scully has ever seen her, and distinctly out of place.

"Agent Patton," she says, surprised. "I didn't expect to see you here." She didn't expect to see much of anyone here, seeing as most people working today are tucked away in cubicles or haunting their bullpens.

Patton smiles and tentatively steps into the office. "You can call me Holly," she offers. "I'm not a field agent, after all."

"Alright." Scully smiles, ignoring her instinct to comment that field agents aren't any more important or respectable than those who spend their careers in the Hoover building.

Holly glances curiously around the office for a moment, then looks back at Scully. "It's your birthday tomorrow, right?"

Scully blinks. "Yes," she replies, and her quizzical look must give her away because Holly quickly shrugs and offers a sheepish smile.

"I work in records," she offers in explanation, and Scully nods, suddenly understanding a little bit. "Anyway, I um... I saw your car in the garage and wanted to come down and say happy birthday, and also thank you."

"Thank me?" Scully blinks, confused.

Holly adjusts the bag on her shoulder — fairly new, by the looks of it — and nods. "For being so compassionate after what happened with Robert Modell. I don't really understand what you and Agent Mulder do down here, but you stopped that man, and-" she hesitates. "And you were very kind to me."

Scully glances back down at the stack of unorganized papers she'd forgotten she's been holding, taps them on the desk to straighten them out, and sets them down. "Of course," she replies. "Nothing that happened was your fault, Holly."

"I know that," Holly says quickly, like she's still not sure of it. Scully suddenly thinks of Mulder flinching away from her touch after the events of that case like he thought he didn't deserve it. "But it felt like it was. I took a week off work just to try and deal with it because I felt so ashamed of what I did to A.D. Skinner." She hesitates to meet Scully's eyes, but eventually she does. "You told me several times when you questioned me that it was okay and I shouldn't hold any of it against myself, but I still did. I thought it was my fault for letting him control me. But then I thought, you know, if Agent Scully who doesn't even believe in mind control like that is believing and is telling me I'm not to blame for it..." She trails off with a shrug, and Scully stays quiet, listening. "I wanted to come talk to you before," she admits, "But I never had a good enough reason until now."

Scully bites her lip, thinking. "Thank you for that," she says quietly, because she's not sure what else to say.

She's never really considered her impact on others, only thinks of helping them; especially with others at the FBI, she mostly thinks of the too-common animosity toward Mulder. She thinks maybe she doesn't take into account enough those like Holly, or Agent Pendrell, or even Skinner. Their battle isn't meant to be against others; it's meant to be for others.

"You don't need a reason, though," she adds. Holly looks at her, confused. Scully smiles. "You're welcome to come down here anytime you want, even just to talk." She wants to remind her again that what Modell did to her wasn't her fault — she and Mulder had certainly been over that enough, and she has no taste for victim-blaming, even self-inflicted — but she doesn't; it's not the time, and she thinks, hopes, Holly already knows.

Holly returns her smile, brightening noticeably. "Okay," she says. "Maybe I will." She turns to leave. "Thank you again," she adds, pausing. "And I hope you have a really good birthday."

"Thank you," Scully says again, as she watches her leave as quietly as she came. Maybe that's all there really is to say.

[thats-h0w-th3-light-g3ts-in]

THE ONLY LOVE

STORY THAT MATTERS

Mulder and Scully

Beautiful by Bosson