One Among You

Hooo boy Anon, that’s the biggest x-file of them all, isn’t it! I change my mind on this a lot (I am a relatively new fan to the series, I feel like that should be mentioned). Lately I’ve been leaning towards Millennium. After Millennium they were more openly flirty and seemed closer to each other, in my opinion. I mean, look at this telling face!

But sometimes I think the first time happened later in the season and that their flirting wasn’t because they were currently sleeping together but because they had only had their first kiss and the flirting was leading up to the inevitable. In that case I’d go with the more popular theory, All Things, simply because the evidence is quite obvious. But! If it wasn’t All Things, then hmm… I wish I knew when the Per Manum flashbacks fit on the season 7 timeline, maybe right before Requiem? I think that they slept together on the failed IVF night, but whether or not it was their first time I don’t know. I also believe that night is when she got pregnant, even though I obviously can’t be certain.

I’m sorry that this turned into a long-winded non-answer! I can’t make up my mind and I could always be swayed by a more convincing theory. I definitely think the first time was in season 7 and not in an earlier season and I doubt anyone could convince me otherwise - to me the Millennium kiss was a genuine first kiss!

Thanks for the question btw ;)If anyone else wants to weigh in, please go for it, I’d love to read your opinions!

The real ongoing X-Files of the series: the floor plans of Mulder’s and Scully’s apartments. There’s hardly a time where their residences aren’t shape-shifting in some way, if not outright defying the laws of physics. (I really shouldn’t worry about Scully’s apartment moving from the first floor to the third floor when half the time Mulder doesn’t even have a bathroom.) Since I started this blog two months ago, though, I’ve already had a handful of comments about the floor plans— so at least I’m not the only one who’s always trying to figure them out. Finally I just sat down, sorted through my screenshots of all the variations, and tried to find the geometric mean.

Metaphysics

Fatalism: Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose (3.4), Monday (6.14)  Interactionism: Shadows (1.5), Fire (1.11), Excelsis Dei (2.11) Determinism, compatibalism, and/or human freedom: Aubrey (2.12) , Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose (3.4), Syzygy (3.13), Wetwired (3.23), Talitha Cumi (3.24), Synchrony (4.19) Disembodied existence: Shadows (1.5), Beyond the Sea (1.12), End Game (2.17), Elegy (4.22) Personal agency/autonomy: Ice (1.8), Pusher (3.17), Hell Money (3.19), Kitsunegari (5.8), Empedocles (8.17) Personal identity: Lazarus (1.15), Born Again (1.21), End Game (2.17), The List (3.05), Apocrypha (3.16), Herrenvolk (4.1), The Field Where I Died (4.5), Dreamland (6.4), Dreamland II (6.5) Psychological continuity: End Game (2.17), Herrenvolk (4.1), The Field Where I Died (4.5) Reincarnation: Lazarus (1.14), Born Again (1.21), The List (3.5), The Field Where I Died (4.5) Time travel (see David Lewis): Synchrony (4.19) Parallel universes: 4-D (9.4)

Epistemology

Belief [This is a major theme in the entire series, but it is especially prevalent in these episodes] (see James, Clifford): Beyond the Sea (1.12), E.B.E. (1.16), Colony (2.16), Quagmire (3.22), S.R. 819 (6.9) Cartesian skepticism: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (6.6), Field Trip (6.21), Via Negativa (8.7) General epistemology: Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose (3.4), Jose Chung’s From Outer Space (3.20), Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (4.7), Demons (4.23), Bad Blood (5.12) Pragmatism: The Erlenmeyer Flask (1.23), Little Green Men (2.1), all things (7.17) Fideism: all things (7.17)   

Ethics

Animal ethics: Red Museum (2.10), Fearful Symmetry (2.18) Biomedical ethics: Eve (1.10), Colony (2.16) Divine command theory ethics: Revelations (3.11) Environmental ethics: Darkness Falls (1.19), Quagmire (3.22) Ethical subjectivism: Home (4.3) Ethics of scientific research: Demons (4.23) Kantian ethics: Home (4.3), Small Potatoes (4.20) “Lifeboat” ethics: Død Kalm (2.19) Moral relativism: Excelsis Dei (2.11), Fresh Bones (2.15), Hell Money (3.19), Teso Dos Bichos (3.18), Kaddish (4.12) Moral responsibility: Irresistible (2.13) Virtue ethics: Apocrypha (3.16), Avatar (3.21), Zero-Sum (4.21) Moral education: Home (4.3)

Philosophy of mind

Artificial intelligence: Ghost in the Machine (1.6), Kill Switch (5.11)

Philosophy of religion

Faith and reason: Revelations (3.11), All Souls (5.17) Religious ambiguity: Essence (8.20), Improbable (9.13)

Philosophy of science

Abductive inference (see Peirce): Pilot (1.1) Axiological & normative issues in scientific research: Ice (1.7), Young at Heart (1.15), Soft Light (2.23)  Folk theories and scientific explanations: Teliko (4.4) The “Unexplanable”: Without (8.2), Invocation (8.5), Dæmonicus (9.3) Paradigm shifts (see Kuhn): The Erlenmeyer Flask (1.23)

Political philosophy

Government’s proper role in society: Blood (2.3), Musings of a Cigarette Man (4.7), The Pine Bluff Variant (5.18) Freedom of Religion: Roadrunners (8.4)

Existentialism