#msr

[mulderscully]

THE X-FILES | 1.01

[dannyfantomb]

you cannot truly comprehend shipping if you havent seen the xfiles. they were literally the blueprint

[katebeckets]

how to say “I love you” in x-files [12/?] ⤷ 3.16 — “Apocrypha”

[izzy-g-art]

Little doodle to celebrate the anniversary of the X Files!

[jessiesjaded]

The X Files pilot aired 31 years ago today, on the 10th of September, 1993.

[hvnniedraws]

xfiles comics

[mvlderfox]

[sagan-starstuff]

XF Meta: Scully's Medical Training Timeline

At the request of @randomfoggytiger, I wanted to do my damnedest to make Scully's education and training timeline make even a little sense. I'm a physician (specifically a specialist in adult infectious diseases), and it's fairly clear to me that CC and Co probably didn't actually talk to any doctors about how medical training works. Love my girl - I'm a Scully Effect kid, I don't think I'd be a doctor at all if it weren't for the inspiration of Dana Scully. But her timeline is...iffy at best.

Disclaimer: My medical school and post-med school training occurred from 2009-2018, Scully's occurred in the 1980's-90's. From what I can tell, the durations of many residencies and fellowships don't seem to have changed much, but I can't say that for certainty for all programs at all institutions. I am also from the US, so I cannot speak to medical training in other countries.

Our girl was born in 1964, and so unless she skipped a grade (which some schools would do if students were classified as "gifted" or otherwise exceptional, she would have graduated from high school at age 18 in 1982 and went straight to college. Let's assume she didn't skip a grade, for the sake of argument.

You have to have a Bachelor's degree to apply to medical school. These degrees typically take 4 years, though if someone arrives at college with credits from dual-enrollment high school classes or AP exam credits OR if they take summer classes some people can complete them in 3 years. I don't know what the availability of dual enrollment or AP classes was like in the early 80's (and like CC, I'm too lazy to do the research to find out), so we can assume that Scully graduated from college in 1986.

Medical school is 4 years long - no shortening this at that point in time, and even now in almost all cases. So that puts medical school graduation in 1990 IF she's following a traditional timeline and went straight from college to medical school.

Now, if someone is going to go into practice they have to do a residency in at least one of a variety of specialties (Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, etc.) in order to be board certified and practice independently. There are very, very few job options in clinical medicine if you DON'T do a residency, so if you want to practice, you have to do it. Residencies can be anywhere from 3-5 years, depending on the specialty. You can also further subspecialize after a residency by doing one or more fellowships (typically 1-3 years depending on the fellowship) before sitting for your board certification exams and starting independent practice. For example - after medical school I did a 3-year residency in adult internal medicine, then a 2 year fellowship in adult infectious diseases to be eligible to sit for the boards and enter my specialty, so 5 years further training after medical school before I could get a job, get board certified, and practice.

Scully is a forensic pathologist. She would have had to do a 3 or 4 year pathology residency (both were options at the time) followed by a 1 year forensic pathology fellowship. You CANNOT perform autopsies right out of medical school, if you are going to be a forensic pathologist you HAVE to do this training. So, following a traditional timeline this puts her as having completed forensic pathology training in 1994 or 1995. Pilot starts March 7th, 1992, so this is loooooong after she's canonically already an FBI agent and teaching at the academy.

But our girl's a smart cookie, so let's take a little leeway with her timeline. Let's say she skipped a grade some time in K-12. This puts high school graduation in 1981. Let's say she ALSO graduates with a bunch of AP credit and does summer semesters and finishes her undergraduate degree in Physics in 3 years. This puts her as starting medical school in 1984, with graduation in 1988. She'd still need to do that pathology residency and forensic pathology fellowship - let's assume a 3 year residency, then 1 year fellowship, so she'd finish training in 1992.

Still doesn't fit.

Let's go totally off the rails here - we know Scully was recruited out of medical school to the FBI, so she didn't do a traditional residency at all - UNLESS the FBI has an internal forensic pathology residency. It would HAVE to be accelerated in some way - some programs combine residency and fellowship by giving less elective time and more focus to the fellowship content. It's not common but they exist. Let's say in theory the FBI has an accelerated forensic pathology residency that takes 3 years, in addition to the 20 weeks of the FBI academy training. This has her finishing residency AND FBI academy training some time in 1991.

This is the ONLY way she could have finished forensic pathology training AND the FBI academy with enough time to be a fully certified forensic pathologist and FBI agent with some time left to teach at the FBI academy before being assigned to the X-Files on March 7th, 1992.

I can suspend my disbelief enough to be on board with this. You'd have to be pretty damned special, which we know she is, to get recruited out of medical school by the FBI. Maybe they even developed the accelerated combined residency/fellowship just for her! She's Dana Katherine Motherf***ing Scully, people!

Now, IWTB is where things get REALLY unbelievable. (Disclaimer: I have not watched IWTB since seeing it in theaters in 2008. I'll get around to rewatching it someday soon. Probably with a bottle of wine. Not a glass. A bottle.)

Mulder and Scully go on the run in 2002. We don't know how long they were in the wind, but by 2008, she's been allowed to resume a career and is practicing at Our Lady of Sorrows. Clearly in pediatrics - but general pediatricians sure as hell don't do stem cell transplants, so she'd almost certainly have to be a pediatric oncologist. We aren't told what her specialty is specifically, but that's what she'd have to be to do a stem cell transplant.

(That scene in the OR isn't even what stem cell transplants LOOK LIKE but that's a rant for another day, back to my point.)

MEDICAL BOARDS DON'T JUST LET YOU CHANGE YOUR SPECIALTY FOR FUNSIES.

(Deep breaths. Serenity now. Ok, let's do this.)

Scully would have had to do an ENTIRELY NEW residency AND fellowship in order to practice as a pediatric oncologist. Pediatrics residency is 3 years long. Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship is 3 years long. In order for this to be even remotely possible, she would have had to START residency in 2002 to finish fellowship by 2008 and start her job at Our Lady of Sorrows.

And she's a former FBI agent harboring a known felon, on the run from government officials and alien hybrids who want her and Mulder dead.

There is absolutely no way even the smallest, most hard-up pediatric residency program is going to accept her with that hanging over her head. I'm not going to get into all the details of how rigorous and stressful the post-medical school residency application and match process is, but even if she didn't apply until she KNEW it was safe to come out from underground, she'd still have to explain a multi-year gap in her resume/CV to the program directors. Multi-year gaps in career and training without a reasonable explanation like a medical issue, time off to care for an ailing family member, time off for research, time away in a different, legitimate career are NOT looked on kindly when applying for residency positions. She would have a HELL of a time getting into a totally different residency.

It could happen - if anyone could do it, she could. But there's absolutely no way there's enough time for her to complete that training by 2008.

"But sagan-starstuff, it's CC, it's X-Files, we know there was no show bible and no one but the fans gave a shit about continuity or things making sense, there's no logic just vibes"

I KNOW, OK. I KNOW. And I love this insane, beautiful masterpiece anyway. I love exploring the possibilities of how and when it all could have happened with my fellow insane Philes who work so hard to glean meaning and order from this perfect mess of a show.

But couldn't CC have talked to one (1) doctor about what medical training is like at some point between 1993 and 2018? Just one?

Anyway. Yeah. That's my meta. Scully's training timeline makes no goddamned sense. Compels me, though.

@randomfoggytiger, this is for you. Honorable mention to @precedex-files who I ranted about this with in messages a while back.

[xf-cases-solved]

shadow government says they hate mulder so bad and then literally hand deliver him his soulmate, like which is it??

[muldery]

ANNA’S 1K CELEBRATION ↳ 🎥 the x files episode i hate for @bakedbakermom

THE X-FILES (1993-2018) | S11E10 'My Struggle IV'

[scorpioninternetsurfer]

happy 31st anniversary to the x-files here’s a collection of my pilot memes

[mulderitsmeposts]

"And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?" [Everything -- Lifehouse]

If someone asks me what song reminds me of MSR it would be "everything" by lifehouse.

Also, happy 31st birthday to one of my favorite shows ever!

my msr playlist

[actual-changeling]

and on the other side is another life,

a version of me with a spark in her eyes that I don't have.

—'black hole fantasy' // the crane wives

soooo that new crane wives album huh. yeah. ouch. this edit is purely self indulgent

[frogsmulder]

Good Boys Don't Come

if he wants to be a good boy he'll only come when she says he can; 384 words; rated e; tagging @today-in-fic

Read on ao3

His legs are weak and his muscles ache as he stands in the middle of his bedroom, prey to Scully's pretty little mouth devouring him whole. Her tongue flicks around the head of his reddened cock, teasing him: the theme of the evening.

Caught off guard when he emerged from the shower, she began her advances with a sultry smirk and a hungry stare as she sauntered towards him. She had purred as she got on her knees, praising his physique as she took him in her hand. He tried to reach for her then, a steadying hand wrapped in her hair to ground him from the dizzying heights to which his mind and his cock was soaring. She had batted his hand effortlessly away, letting him know who was in charge. 

She expertly builds him up with long licks and that plush bottom lip dragging up the underside of his cock as she stares right at him with those mischievous blue eyes. He looks to the heavens with a sob, closing his eyes at the too powerful sight. Trembling, he groans and her fingers dig into the backs of his thighs–the cheeks of his ass, allowing herself all the greedy touches she denies him as she hollows her cheeks.

So close–he can almost taste the stars above. But then she slows and lets him go in favour of pressing tiny wet kisses to the insides of his thighs. A whimper of protest is dismissed with a stream of cool air from those pouty lips. 

Again and again she builds him up and pulls away. He wants to come so bad he's lost all thought of anything else. He's hot and heavy and tight and it's almost painful. In her mouth, he has become a quivering mess, the way she likes him best. He begs and pleads for her, God, anyone who will listen, to please please let him come. She kisses and nuzzles the side of his shaft, murmuring, “If you want to be a good boy you will only come when I say you can.”

He can't help it as he bucks and comes against her face, but by her devilish smirk and the way her tongue darts to the corner of her mouth to taste him, she doesn't mind. 

[enoughslices]

as much as i tend towards canon divergence and fix-it fluff, i'm also fully weak for a fic where scully tells mulder very early on that nothing can ever happen between them and then canon just canons because you just know that his autistic-coded ass would 100% be like: "well scully said once that nothing can happen between us so this shall remain so forever and always, like it's not necessarily what i would choose but i respect it and so i will operate in this mode until given different instructions." it's literally the only rule he follows.

[tbpickle]

Outsider's POV

If the viewers can see how these two act around each other, other characters on the show should too, right?! Are there any fics from their perspective?

I've read a few gems, but would love more please! =)

On The Outside by starwaler42 Perfect Opposites by @sisterspooky1013 - Not the Same by MissAnnThropic - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2214812/1/Not-the-Same Through Basement Walls by @msrafterdark Ice Water by @cecilysass