#small potatoes

[thexfileswithoutcontext]

yes

[daiyanerd]

Small Potatoes is a fave of mine, and while watching it I thought it would be funny as the Soiderman meme lol. It’s a pitty we never got the animated series that apparently had been discussed.

One thing that puzzles me:

Clearly wearing black slacks - so

Where did her pants go??? 👀

[okanadafreakingfan]

All I can think about is buggy saying “Arlong babyyyy~ you don’t gotta worry about me I’m small potatoes!” And now all I want is for buggy to call me a smoll potato

[deathsbestgirl]

okay. writing about why never again should come before leonard betts is actually hard. because it's really just a few small moments in leonard betts make more sense if they're after never again, and it's so much better to go to memento mori right after the reveal at the end of leonard betts.

never again ends with silence. mulder cutting off his sentence. if it were going to happen, it would be then. but it doesn't, and so the silence persists.

leonard betts has a similar feel to arcadia, where they're trying to get on the same page, slip back into their roles. mulder uses humor at crazy moments, and scully pretends not to think it's funny and stays focused on the case.

in the end, she sits alone in the car in silence. waiting for mulder. he tells her she did a good job, she should proud. a verbal validation he doesn't often give, something she craves & loves, a little taste of something she wanted from him in never again. and she can't enjoy it because she's terrified. scully believes leonard betts and she just wants to go home.

it really strikes me the way there's no physical comfort. in paper hearts, scully was fierce. she tried so hard for mulder and failed. but in the end, he leans into her, they hug, she pets his head. in never again there was no comfort either. mulder was petty and he didn't understand. this time he's kinder when she was attacked, but there's a physical distance that isn't typical.

then in memento mori, she calls only mulder. scully tells him so tenderly. she has no idea what to do, and she know what this will do to mulder. he's with her when they go to skinner so they can officially open a case on it & investigate. when she doesn't explain it to skinner, mulder steps in for her. he tries so hard to be strong when they both know he isn't. but scully is being forced to face something she's left buried. now she can't.

in the hospital, she calls mulder to ask him to bring her stuff & call her mom. she writes letter after letter to mulder. begging forgiveness, telling him she'll only get through this because she knows he's out there, following his own path.

but their path is the same. he will follow her to her death.

they have never been as physically affectionate as they are in memento mori and the reduxes.

in elegy, she sees the ghosts, an omen of her impending death. when she finally tells mulder, he's hurt. he wants to be there for her. in demons, he believes she's dying and that he can't save her, and they both deserve answers. he doesn't want to live without her, he can't keep on his search for the truth without her. but he also won't ask her to follow him into this and he only calls her when he can't remember what happened, there's blood & he's in shock. she knows his suicidal tendencies, it's exactly what has her so worried. who will be there for him when she's gone?

mulder + scully know exactly what they have. scully will give him everything she has, even when it's only her dignity so that he won't rot in prison for something he had to do. mulder will follow her to end of the earth, to the grace without any hesitation.

small potatoes is so painful because of the unspoken agreement not to address their feelings. "mulder" shows up at scully's apartment, and she gives in. she's soaking up the attention she's always wanted from him. they don't kiss, she doesn't move to bridge the gap, she just waits. and then the real mulder comes crashing in and the pain is face is clearly visible. he knew exactly where van blundht was going. it wasn't even a question.

mulder isn't heartbroken that van blundht had a chance with scully and he doesn't, he's heartbroken because they chose silence and now she has a deadly cancer.

in detour, scully makes an attempt to open the door and mulder flees. he knew what was on her mind, but he still can't take it from her. she can't even be mad, but the silence persists and the gap grows.

there's nothing they won't do for each other, but leaving their feelings unsaid hurts them. to the point scully thinks all she's done is hold him back. and in fight the future, he finally says so many of the things she has desperately needed to hear. and she clings to her skeptic role because it still wasn't quite enough. their kiss was interrupted and they don't bring it up and fowley is present, driving another wedge.

from scully's perspective, mulder didn't trust her in never again, and then she lives it all over again because of diana. he doesn't trust her judgment, reduces it to jealousy because they both know her feelings. and she's still unsure of mulder's because of this, and the ever persistent silence. even after one son, he doesn't accept it. only after amor fati, when he was able to hear diana's thoughts and she consequently dies for helping scully save him, does he understand that scully's right. and once again, gives a beautiful speech. between all of this there's been "you're my one in five billion" and "i love you" and "you saved the world scully" and the hallway/bee scene and they play baseball & flirt. until he says to her, looking into her eyes, that she was his friend, his constant, his touchstone.

scully never hears what he says to diana about her. which could have helped her. but she only saw him holding her hand, clinging to diana's shared beliefs, because he knows her. and like in never again, she feels invisible. she feels useless. she's holding him back.

it isn't until the end of amor fati that the tension breaks. things become lighter when scully feels more secure. when he starts giving her the attention she has always wanted, when he lets her take the lead on cases, when she's allowed to believe sometimes without it turning their world upside down.

it's just a better progression. never again shouldn't be about scully's cancer diagnosis & impending death. it's about her, her patterns, mulder. it's about her struggles with what's expected of her, what she should want and the reality of what she wants & chose. her fear that mulder is an authority, and that she gives him that authority.

[all-eyes-lead-to-the-truth]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Small Potatoes (4x20)

“Well, what do you want to talk about?” she asked, swirling her wine around in her glass.

Usually, when he did this, Eddie had to tread delicately on a path someone else had already laid before him. Sometimes it was a Herculean task to get to learn little details about the women he was pursuing because it would be stuff their husbands would never ask. 

But this was different. 

It didn’t take him long to realize he’d initially misread the situation when he saw them at the clinic. Based on the look Dana Scully shot him when he tried to hold her hand at the airport, he knew he was navigating territory Fox Mulder had yet to conquer.

It didn’t make any sense to him. Such a good-looking guy, an agent of the Federal Beurow of Investigation, couldn’t get with his hot, nerdy partner? When he was watching them earlier, they seemed so into each other, like they were two people living in their own little world. It was something he usually only saw with couples in love.

“Earlier, you uh- you said you’d be Eleanor Roosevelt if you could be someone else for a day. Why her?” 

“I thought you said it couldn’t be a dead person,” she teased, giving him a pointed look.

He shot her a soft smile. “I want to hear why you chose her though.”

That wasn’t even a lie, he really did. Eddie saw through the window the way Mulder’s face contorted into something akin to revulsion when she answered, presumably in response to the First Lady’s appearance. It was the same expression Amanda had when she talked about him. Yet Dana didn't seem to judge a book by its cover.

“Well,” she started, taking a deep breath. “I think she’s an admirable woman. She has a lot of beautiful qualities that I would love to embody.”

“She continued her husband’s work after he fell ill right? Motivated him to keep going when no one else would, even going so far as to take on some of the load herself despite the criticism she received?” For the first time, he was grateful one of the women from the clinic loved watching the History Channel.

She nodded, seemingly pleased. “They were a great team.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you already embody a lot of the First Lady’s admirable qualities.”

She looked caught off guard by the compliment, but recovered quickly, a dusting of color on her cheeks the only giveaway that his assessment had an effect on her.

“You never answered your own question,” she stated into the hollow round of her wine glass.

“Hmm?”

“Who would you be?”

A small exhale of laughter escaped through his nose before he could catch himself and it didn’t go unnoticed. “What?” she pried.

Eddie raised the glass to his lips and pretended to take a sip to buy time. Who wouldn’t he rather be? He wanted to be someone who was funny, someone smart, someone who was loved — but at the end of the day, he truly did want to be Eddie Van Blundht. He just wished other people would want that too.

Sure, he wasn’t attractive in the conventional sense and maybe he didn’t have a fancy job working at the Federal Beureaw of Investigation, but he wasn’t all bad.

Setting the glass back down, he remembered something he’d seen in Mulder’s apartment and it seemed as good of an answer as any. 

“Elvis,” he answered.

“Elvis?” she deadpanned, her amusement showing itself in a slight grin.

“Have you heard the voice on that man? And his moves?”

“I would just like to state for the record that you also chose a dead person,” she remarked.

He shrugged in mock surrender. “My love for the King goes beyond the grave. But what about you? What type of music are you into?”

“Oh, um,” she paused, contemplating her answer. “I’ve always been a fan of R&B. Dennis Edwards, Stevie Wonder, Al Wilson–”

“What about Al Green?”

“Of course,” she replied with an earnest grin. “I have all his albums.”

“You should put them on!” he encouraged.

“Now?”

“Why not?” he countered, pleased when she nodded her head in acquiescence and got up.

His eyes trailed over her form as she walked across the room and he felt the familiar coil of arousal twist in his gut. This was probably the most beautiful woman he’d spoken to in a long time, and he wanted this to go well.

While she was preoccupied, Eddie took the opportunity and leaned over to top up her wine, pretending to do the same to his untouched glass. It’s not that he wanted the women to be drunk by the time he made a move, he just found that it helped blur the lines between how they expected their husbands to be and what he would do for them. They were less likely to question why their husband's kiss felt different or why he was trying something new. It was just better this way.

He grimaced as droplets of wine fell onto the papers scattering the coffee table, and he looked back to make sure she was still preoccupied before snagging a couple of tissues and blotting the liquid. 

His attention was drawn to a legal pad sitting amongst the papers. In delicate, feminine scrawl, he made out the words “Doctor Appointment - Thursday at 8:30.” His confusion only deepened when he leaned over to throw the tissues in the waste bin and saw a few others stained a different shade of red. She didn’t look sick, but then again he knew better than anyone looks could be deceiving.

He quickly moved back into place when Al Green’s voice filled the room. “I haven’t played music like this in so long,” she admitted, walking back to him with a shy expression.

Suddenly he realized this might be easier than he thought. Maybe she needed this as much as he did.

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

@gaycrouton

[carefulfears]

So what was going through Scully’s head when “Mulder” came over to her apartment with a bottle of wine in Small Potatoes?

y'all listen!!!! i've talked about this before but i maintain that this was just deeply embarrassing for her. like. dana scully is already a very embarrassing woman, we know this, it's fine, god still talks to her specifically, but i feel like small potatoes is like...the most embarrassing scully episode...through no fault of her own, obviously. but first of all, the way that she falls into it so quickly, and laps it up, but doesn't believe it. when she sees the wine bottle she literally asks, "who's that for?"

she asks what's going on, she asks if he's okay. she doesn't trust that he would want to just spend time with her without an excuse or a goal. (which...we know that it's not that he doesn't want to, it's more that he can't, but she doesn't feel that way. she wants to be wanted.)

her tone when he says "we never really talk much, do we?" and she answers "what do you mean like...really talk? no. no, we don't, mulder."

and they don't. you have to think of it in the context of never again, it hasn't been that long since philadelphia. in never again, she tried to talk to mulder about how she was feeling, albeit in a frustrated round-about way, and he blew her off. then she went away, met ed, and told him. the way she talks to "mulder" in small potatoes is closer to the way she talked to ed in the bar, just lighter and with more history.

season 4 is all about repression, and not saying what needs to be said, even when it might be your last chance. in the final scene of never again, the script notes: "if it were ever going to happen, it would be now," but that they maintain the silence. they maintain the silence, and then they're given a death sentence, a diagnosis. one that he "refuses to believe," so they maintain the silence more.

when who she thinks is mulder asks, "we never really talk much, do we?" it's not that they don't talk, that they aren't close, that they don't know each other. it's that they don't "really talk," like she says, in that quietly discontented way she answers "no, we don't."

it's in the way that she says "not everything is about you, mulder, this is my life." and the way that she asks if he's okay because he wants to spend friday night with her.

it's not that they "don't talk," or that they aren't best friends, or that they don't spend time together: it's that they don't get out of the car. they don't stop moving, not even long enough for her to be dying. it's that she feels like they don't talk, like so much remains unsaid in that maintained silence.

when he leans towards her, she sighs in surprise, but parts her lips. she's dying. she wants to be wanted. (the first thing she does after surviving, is show up at his door with wine.)

i call it embarrassing, but it's really just heartbreakingly sad. in the end, she sticks her hands in her pocket, stares at the floor, and tells him it's okay. maintains the silence.

[whovianderson]

Small Potatoes reaction: MSR edition

*inhale*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

“Scully, should we be picking out china patterns or what? THEY’RE SOOOO MARRIED

Not-Mulder: we never really talk much

Scully: what, like really talk? No, no we don’t

Not-Mulder: what’s stopping us?

They’re finally acknowledging it! Ohhhh this is going to have a lasting impact on their relationship, because Scully is realising that she DOES want to trust him with that side of things now that she’s been given the opportunity…

“I’m seeing a whole new side of you Mulder, I like it” on the surface, that hurts, because it’s obviously not him she’s seeing. But to be honest, I think Blundt is just channeling what he’s observed that the real Mulder wishes he could be.

OKAY NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT PART ARE YOU READY

OH

MY

FUCKING

GOD

THEY WERE ABOUT TO KISS WHEN REAL MULDER WALKED IN

✨SO HE KNOWS SHE WOULD KISS HIM✨

LET ME REPEAT THAT

✨✨HE KNOWS SHE WOULD KISS HIM✨✨

I WANT TO THROW UP

IM FREAKING OUT

AWKWARD FOR SCULLY

BUT

HOLY FUCK

OBVIOUSLY I WISH IT WAS THE REAL HIM, BUT COULD I HANDLE THAT?? PROBABLY NOT

God, they could barely look at each other in the next scene…

“Treat yourself, god knows I would if I were you” MULDER LISTEN UP

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[agent-troi]

Chapters: 13/13 Fandom: The X-Files Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, Fox Mulder & Dana Scully Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Bounty Hunter (X-Files), Eddie Van Blundht, Linda Bowman, Esther "Invisigoth" Nairn, Diana Fowley, Walter Skinner, Alvin Kersh, Joanne Fletcher, Maurice (X-Files) Additional Tags: Fictober, Doppelganger, Impersonation, Friendship/Love, Episode: s02e14 Die Hand Die Verletzt, Episode: s02e16 Colony (X-Files), Episode: s02e17 End Game (X-Files), Minor Violence, Missing Scene, Canon Rewrite, Episode: s03e23 Wetwired, Paranoia, Mytharc (X-Files), Episode: s04e20 Small Potatoes, Cancer Arc (X-Files), Shapeshifting, Angst, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Episode: s05e08 Kitsunegari, Fox Mulder Angst, Trust, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, references to suicidal thoughts, Guilt, Episode: s05e11 Kill Switch, Virtual Reality, Episode: s05e18 The Pine Bluff Variant, Undercover, Episode: s06e03 Triangle, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Episode: s06e04-05 Dreamland, Bodyswap, Episode: s06e06 How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, Illusions, Gift Giving, Episode: s06e20 Three of a Kind, IVF Arc (X-Files), Episode: s06e21 Field Trip (X-Files), Hallucinations, Episode: s07e02 The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in Love Summary:

Over the years, Mulder and Scully develop a set of secret codes to determine whether one of them has been replaced by an imposter.

In case you missed it: Security Questions is now complete! Reposting the completed fic in honor of the last day of Fictober (and Happy Halloween! 👻👽🎃🛸)

@today-in-fic​, @fictober-event​ @xffictober2023​

[cock-holliday]

Fox William Mulder

[randomfoggytiger]

Mulder and Stagnation, Scully and Autonomy

A bit I pulled from my next post on HTGSC:

“Where’s my partner?” 

Lyda sidesteps the question: “He believes in ghosts?”

“Yeah,” Scully unflinchingly responds. 

“You poor child. You must have an awfully small life, spending your Christmas Eve with him-- running around and chasing things you don’t even believe in.” 

Well that’s a perspective that Scully does and doesn’t hold: yes, Mulder’s single mindedness can be infuriating at times… but does she come across that way to him? It hits on that old, nagging insecurity: Phoebe Green and Bambi Berenbaum and Diana Fowley (and eventually Karin Berquist) can feed his theories and take her place and sneer at her skepticism; and Mulder will cling to their validation because he feels (she thinks) rejected by her. 

Does he feel rejected by her?  

Again: Mulder’s walls are his insecurity and terror that Scully will pack up and leave him one day; and Scully’s are that Mulder would be satisfied to rot in stagnation in his molding basement, rooting her down with him (an interesting foretelling of the episode Field Trip.) 

Her fear and equal confusion are twisted up with her warring belief and disbelief, too muddled for her to sift and resort her quaking emotions. 

“I can see it in your face, the fear," Lyda continues, "the conflicted yearnings. The subconscious desire to find fulfillment through another.” 

That part is true: Jack Willis to a degree, Mulder most definitely, and even more definitely Daniel Waterston. Scully eventually gravitates to Daniel because she feels unneeded by Mulder-- those doubts bleeding through since S1 into Never Again and into Milagro and finally concluding in All Things-- and her dutiful personality wants to be someone’s right hand man and the only twinkle in their eye. Mulder, for all his affectionate nature, forgets that Scully needs a moment after she loses her sister (talking about fate), her dog (moving on to his request), her rudder in the work (shuffling off to Graceland and giving her the wrong space) her Christmas Eve, and eventually her weekend. He almost loses her to men who need her to fix them-- Ed Jerse’s messed up life and crummy bar, Waterson’s damaged heart and broken relationships-- who have a way of crushing her rationality under the thumb of passion through obligation, who want to take the steering wheel of her life and turn it in their directions. It’s not until All Things that Scully realizes what Melissa meant by “life’s… just a path”: it’s one with a destination only you-- she-- can choose; and it causes her to fully take control of the reigns of her life and be at peace with her hands-off man Mulder. 

It took Scully forever to start a relationship with Mulder-- whether that’s The Unnatural or Millennium or All Things-- because she was ingrained in her habits, waiting for him to take control. But Mulder’s no Eddie van Blundht (no Ed Jerse, no Daniel Waterston); and they both realized it would take a miracle for him to do what his shapeshifter-self did. So: Scully, miraculously healed from cancer, reached out for another miracle… and Mulder completely missed it. This shifted her back into Starbuck mode; which led to her quiet reticence of S5 and her self-blame in FTF and her hints and thwarted hopes in S6. The relationship stagnated until Mulder got a clue-- in The Unnatural-- and it shifted irrevocably from there. 

[lilydalexf]

Vince Gilligan and Darin Morgan talk amusingly about The X-Files episode “Small Potatoes,” and Chris Carter chimes in about Mulder and Scully.

[xfilesfanficexchange]

Like Real People

Author: @contrivedcoincidences6​ For: @clokkerfoot​ Mulder was a couple minutes late in arriving to Scully's place and walked in on Scully and Eddie Van Blundht kissing. Scully is horrified but decides to take control of her own life, realizing she only has one. Ao3 Link

#XF1in5Billion2023 22/33

[bakedbakermom]

truly do not understand why mulder and scully didn't have some kind of code word setup for when one of them is acting SUPER WEIRD and the other suspects they may have been replaced with a shapeshifter, or hallucination brought on by a mountain-sized mushroom, or a mental projection from a crazed psychic bent on revenge. like honestly you guys. it happens so much.

[thexfilesbracket]

Small Potatoes - Five unrelated women in a small town give birth to babies with small tails. The prime suspect is a man who can shape shift into whomever he wants.

The Unnatural - Arthur Dale's brother recounts a tale about a talented alien baseball player who hid amongst an all-African-American team in Roswell, New Mexico, during the 1940s.

[deathsbestgirl]

thinking about this and the unscripted memento mori kiss. in memento mori, mulder goes to kiss and stops, scully makes the decision to kiss him. small potatoes...they've held the silence and this is a sudden change. they haven't held the same physical affection since memento mori. this is not what they agreed to in their silence.

the millennium kiss is a little different. mulder is thinking about it, and he just looks at scully until she turns. she goes for it and she's ready. they're on the same page, and the world didn't end.

[x-files-scripts]

The X-Files - “Small Potatoes”

Written by Vince Gilligan

March 13, 1997 (PINK)

Have Mulder and Scully been together too long?

Fake Mulder gives his best Travis Bickle routine...

Eddie Van Blundht tries to kiss Scully... “and it looks like she might let him.”

Mulder and Scully are self-conscious and embarrassed the morning after...