a rose bi any other name

My thought is it starts after the kiss in Millennium. Something about that not "ending the world" shifted something imo.

Guess I’m abandoning this clearly failed attempt. But leaving it here as a reminder that it is never a good idea to start with something difficult after not having touched a pencil in years. That I very deliberately killed the perfectionist I once was. And I’m only half discouraged, half depressed, half angry at myself. I was better when I was twelve. No matter. "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better” Samuel Beckett wrote. I’ll be eleven again.

A (by me) interrupted kiss between Mulder and Scully, in case it was not clear. I love them. Much more than myself.

He didn’t become “Spooky Mulder” at twelve years old. He was a teenager whose sister disappeared, and later an adolescent at high school and college who, to the best of our knowledge, never bothered much with the unexplained. I wonder about adult Mulder: already brilliant, already wounded, already inclined toward extreme pattern-recognition, undergoing hypnosis and suddenly “recovering” a memory that gives shape to the central loss of his life.

Before that, what did he believe had happened?

We know his family never recovered. We know he went on to Oxford, became a psychologist, entered the FBI, and was considered exceptional before he became marginal. But the psychological path between those points is almost entirely negative space.

Later, was he trying to become respectable? Was criminal profiling a way of mastering the incomprehensible through intellect? Was holding onto the X-Files a way of pushing back against a father whom he, possibly, subconsciously, already suspected — secretive, compromised, dealing in darkness — while Fox had made up his mind to drag everything into the light?

Dana Scully in homage to St Brigid of Kildare

Mulder, on the phone at 3am: Scully have you ever realized that the white pedestrian symbol looks just like the sighting of Bigfoot on the Patterson-Gimlin film?

Scully: ohmygod Mulder please go to bed

What the x files is really like:

Mulder, on the phone at 3am: Scully have you ever realized that the white pedestrian symbol looks just like the sighting of Bigfoot on the Patterson-Gimlin film?

One of my favorite things about “Emily” is from the second Mulder shows up, he and Scully create this beautiful found family unit. Like her mom and brother have spent a whole episode being terrible to her and so when Mulder arrives on the scene their bond is even more obvious.

i mean can you imagine how fucking cool a buffyverse show set in 1970s new york with a slayer like nikki wood as your titular character would be? there is sooo much unexplored about her.

was she called while she was pregnant, before, or after? who is robin's father? why isn't he in the picture? what was her day-to-day like; she clearly didn't have much help seeing as she was out late slaying with her young son. what was her interpersonal life like —that made her finally give into spike???

and besides the captivating character exploration that this show would present, can you imagine the rockin soundtrack potential? the costuming, the set design!? and i'm gonna need it to be shot on film (with good lighting and og btvs effects).

rating: teen | word count: 1.5k | @today-in-fic & @xf-fic-fix

Like many elite families in coastal Massachusetts, Bill and Teena Mulder insisted that learning an instrument would be an essential part of their children's education. The violin had grown in popularity in their circles, and when Fox was six years old, he gained a brand new children's violin, handcrafted with warm maple wood, and a teacher who lived right down the street.

He had enjoyed playing it and liked the rhythm that his hands fell into once he learned a new song. Samantha, barely two years old, had sat on their mother's lap, managing to sit still long enough for her brother to play his infant renditions of "Hot Cross Buns" and "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star." He hadn't been too terrible—at least, that's what his teacher had said.

When Samantha was of the age to start her musical education, she had also insisted she wanted to learn violin, like Fox, despite their mother's encouragement for one of her children to take up the piano as she had.

Nevertheless, Sam got her way, even if she didn't have the same gift for the violin that her older brother did. She got frustrated, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

"You probably just need to practice, Sam. Come on, let's practice together."

They'd play together, something simple like "Mary Had a Little Lamb," which seemed to help. It then became routine for the family to have both the children play. Bill and Teena reveled in the praise the neighborhood gave them.

During the winter of 1973, after Samantha had disappeared, his grandmother flew up from North Carolina to spend Christmas with them on Martha's Vineyard. In that way only grandmothers did, she seemed to know that the house was quiet, and there'd be no life within it if she wasn't there.

"Fox, darling," she had said on day one of her visit. "Why don't you pull that violin out? Some music might do us all good."

The tears flew forth, and his grandmother drew him up into her arms. She spoke no further of the violin.