#txf s4

[bakedbakermom]

txf + text posts (15/?)

[cristinaricci]

THE X-FILES ↳ 4.10 | Paper Hearts

[that--funny--feeling]

Let me introduce you Dana "I've quit the FBI and become a spokesperson for the Ab Roller" Scully and Fox "I'm not wearing any pants right now" Mulder.

Mulder and Scully deep in their thoughts and not listening to the other through the seasons.

The X Files 4x02 // 7x17

Find other parallels here.

[celestialmega]

The X-Files - Demons by Kim Manners, R. W. Goodwin.

[alexa-crowe]

i don’t know how to feel / but someday i might

[icedteainthatbag]

mulder and scully in “the field where i died”

[x-files-scripts]

The X-Files - “Paper Hearts”

Written by Vince Gilligan

September 24, 1996 (WHITE)

Deleted scene: Scully consults the original Kurt Crawford...

Alternate ending:

[figureofdismay]

i want to know about the extreme outlier opinion on never again!

ooh, thank you for your interest and I hope I don't get myself in trouble with this lol!

So this opinion is in multiple parts.

The first part being the one most unpopular, which is that Ed Jerse was not to only man who was not Mulder that Scully, that Dana had a night or a mini fling with between Jack Willis and/or then getting assigned to the X files and when MSR got together (whenever you believe that might be), and probably not the only dangerous one to some degree.

She's got that thrill seeker side to her, which is to some extent satisfied by chasing Mulder around on the X files. But Mulder keeps her in a sexless box in his perceptions -- IMO this is partially self defense on his part because if he lets himself go there even a bit in thinking of her dating potential/as a potential romantic-sexual partner his already limited ability to hold onto any kind of boundaries would just collapse. And I don't think this sexless view of her is at odds with my belief that Mulder was in love with her within a few months of working with her and knew it, but he doesn't think he deserves a relationship like that and more importantly he doesn't think Scully wants a relationship like that with him, or maybe not with anyone at all because she's given up dating completely after Jersey Devil, and what they talk about is work and theory and science and case notes and things within the kind of fixed shadow of their partnership/the files. Thus he's got this view of her that's completely divorced from her hedonistic, risk taking, rebellious, attention seeking, obsessive side.

I believe her ruthlessly compartmentalized nature and her constant awareness of other people's expectations of her, especially the expectations of people in authority or pseudo authority combined with a need for a release valve and a clear thread of sensualism in her character make it highly likely that there were other times when she picked a near-stranger and acted out a role with him, letting herself act out parts of herself she doesn't often express and using him as a proxy for her conflicted and/or baser feelings towards the Ahabs and 'fathers' in her life in a very limited capacity that is both satisfyingly dangerous (near stranger, almost certainly someone she doesn't really trust or want to get to know, after all she's not looking for a real and lasting relationship) and very safe because she can just stop playing that character and stop seeing that man and he won't even have ever 'met' the person she is the majority of the time.

I don't think she does it a lot, but by 'never again' it had been 4ish very high stress years with Mulder and 5ish years since Jack Willis, which, since Ethan didn't make it into the Pilot, was her last relationship, so yes. Maybe once or twice a year there's a bit of an 'i'm crawling out of my skin i need to tempt fate' ritual. And since we see so little of their personal lives, not hearing about it doesn't rule it out, the reason we saw this time because it was such a disaster and became another X-file -- and because Jerse was so dangerous and violent, and because Mulder found out about it, that particular game stopped being interesting even in a self destructive way. Plus very soon she would realize she had cancer and would take stock of her life in a different way and get closer to Mulder on another level so there was less of a need for a pressure valve rebellion.

And I don't think that this idea cheapens her relationship with Mulder or means she was cheating on him if that did happen, because it would be about simple attraction and being not 'herself' and also a proxy thing for her feelings and frustrations about Mulder that she's too afraid of tarnishing his image of her to let him into directly. And if it would make Scully's jealousy of Mulder interacting closely with other women hypocritical, well, she's certainly allowed to be a flawed character and is shown to have double standards about a number of things.

Part 2 of my outlier opinion is that Ed Jerse isn't out of character for Dana. Going back to Jack again, instead of believing in possession, she thought he'd had a mental break after years of obsessive work and mutilated a cadaver and killed a guy and she was not surprised at all. She had a fairly long relationship with him while believing he had that level of instability and violence in him when pushed. That means Jerse lines up for her.

part 3 of my outlier opinion (I guess it is, I don't see it talked about directly afaik) is that the story is dark as fuck with Jerse and his ergot psychosis but at the same time the tone is not horror-bleak the way Blood is and many s2/s3 with similar types of plots, but more extremely darkly ironic or wry. Between Mulder in Graceland and the extended Rocky and Bullwinkle plot discussion, and the fact that all it takes is a divorce and an Evil!Rosie the Riveter tattoo to push this guy over the edge there's this air of like, pulp noir mundane and ridiculousness. Fandom generally treats it as this like this profound statement about Mulder and Scully's relationship and Mulder's selfishness and thoughtlessness and if he just brought her a bottle of wine and asked about her day a la Van Blunht in Small Potatoes she could've been flinging that fling with him. Except, no, she couldn't use him as his own proxy, so she'd have to crack herself open a lot more than she was ready to. But also it's a story about both of them spinning their wheels and not getting anywhere and ending up feeling dumb, it's absurdist, it's a comment that neither character is smarter than their narrative, it's not a statement about a fractured partnership.

Part 4 is a little more out there and whatever but I do think Mulder's reaction is interesting. He's obviously hurt and completely baffled because he can tell Scully's given him very little of the actual framing of her distress and because 'i'm bored at my job' is both hurtful to him and something he can't conceptualize as leading to 'so i'll have a one night stand with a violent man' -- because that isn't her complaint, it's just what he heard. But in that last scene he doesn't read as angry or jealous, even the hurt doesn't exactly read as sexual jealousy. He's confused, he doesn't know what she wants, and he gets in some cheap shots with his annoyed. But there's an interesting tone to it. Maybe i'm reading too much in. I think there's a combination of trying to laugh it off/brush it off because he can tell she's feeling too exposed, and aside from the 'was the professional dissatisfaction worth all this??' he was curious. He'd caught a glimpse of the barest silhouette of her wild child side.

like a combination of 'so you slipped off your pedestal and bounced a little, so your halo got dented, so what' (paternalistic, dismissive, kidding) (reassuring) and 'oh, so she's a little like that? what else does she like? can a person get her like that without actually being on the verge of snapping?' He knows about Willis and Jerse now. It's more than one, and Willis is now certainly not a fluke. He's got to be sure there's some fascinating things brewing in her subconscious, and he's got the idea that her sexual side is one part girlish wounded bird, one part manic live wire, and one part intellectual 3D chess. He's curious about what that means for him and them. Curious about what she might be willing to do with him now that he's been reminded she'll do it with other people. He's even optimistic, I think, about what he could coax from her.

Probably also reminded to be cautious about what entanglements with him that he could accidentally 'manipulate' her into with some of his more demanding behavior, though. But like, even though they're both feeling bitter at that moment i do feel like there's a 'positive' in the kind of colliding worlds event of the episode in Mulder being reminded of Scully being a human woman with a carnal side.

And that is... I think the bulk of what I wanted to talk about re: NA? I think? My brain feels overcooked now. But I rewatched it to refresh my memory (i'm now in s5) but I stand by this. And also I think I need to break my custom and do post-episode fic about it, honestly.

[myceliumrave]

mitski's "i bet on losing dogs" // 4x10 paper hearts

[agent-troi]

mulder running after the van in unruhe is just so😭😭😭 i want to yell at him to just shoot the tires out bc he’s clearly not gonna be able to outrun it ffs

[loubetcha]

sorry i’ve been making so many posts but i just finished the gethsemane and redux episodes of the x-files and let me just say. bill scully shut your trap.

“well where is [mulder] dana?” ??? where have you been? you didn’t show up until this episode. “where is he through all this?” as opposed to scully saying “he’s been supportive through this time.” hmmm maybe you just don’t know your sister and don’t understand she can make her own decisions hmmm maybe you don’t actually know mulder and you therefore have no right to cruelly blame and guilt him and put him down?

he told mulder that he was “the reason for [her cancer]”, the very idea that would have driven mulder to suicide if it were true. but it’s not. if anyone has blind convictions it’s bill. i understand that he’s bitter and grieving but he doesn’t know mulder and clearly he doesn’t know his sister if he thinks she’s just been a marionette to mulder’s ambition. send tweet.

[bakedbakermom]

txf + text posts (14/?)

[cristinaricci]

THE X-FILES ↳ 4.10 | Paper Hearts

[that--funny--feeling]

We should just kiss like real people do.

Mulder's journey and the Truths that he found along the way.

The X Files 1x01 / 1x02 / 2x12 / 4x02 / 4x13 / 4x14 / 4x18 / 4x23 / 5x14 / Fight the Future / 6x05 / 6x06 / 6x19 / 6x22 / 7x02 / 7x04 / 7x11 / 7x17 / 7x21 / 8x17 / 8x21

My TXF posts and videos.

[celestialmega]

The X-Files - Home by Kim Manners, Glen Morgan, James Wong.

[alexa-crowe]

oh, my agony know that i will never marry baby, i’m just soggy from the chemo but counting down the days to go it just ain’t living

“Cancer” by My Chemical Romance

↳ a surprise gift for @frogsmulder & @swinging-stars-from-satellites bc you guys said something about mcr & msr during the cancer arc and i finally sat down to make it...