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mararhodus · 4 months

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There's a lot I hate about My Struggle IV (the abrupt and meaningless deaths of Reyes and Skinner, the weird speech Scully gives about William at the end, William having to fake his death, the fact it feels like a Part 1 to a 2 parter, etc, etc,) but, in what might be my hottest X-Files take, I ultimately think that Mulder loading Cancer Man full of bullets and walking off into retirement with Scully and their unborn baby might be the closest thing to a happy ending that this show could've had.

I swear to God though, if that new book that's coming out next summer doesn't retcon Skinner's death into him just being a wheelchair user or something, I will be deeply, deeply disappointed.

#x files #i want to rewatch #my struggle iv

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carefulfears · 8 months

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going insane at this post saying:

The series ends with an older brother knowing that he's saved his younger sibling.

and chris carter saying:

[jackson] does know the truth. and i think that when he comes to mulder, and says "you're not my father"...my reaction to that was, do we believe him? who is protecting whom?

because it makes me think that jackson knew that scully was pregnant. the final line of the series goes out of its way to speak of mulder as a father, and jackson knows the truth. he knows who his father is. he's trying to protect him. and "scully and her boy have a bond beyond you, beyond science," he's been seeing scully in his head and in his dreams and in his visions since he was a child. he knows who she is and can feel what she feels. the last shot of the franchise is jackson coming out of the water, smile on his face, and he's a 17-year-old kid who is completely alone and being shot at, but he's also, maybe, succeeding. ultimately, this series does end on a big brother.

#i'm aware that everything is very convoluted and ridiculous by this point esp with scully's pregnancy #if you can't engage with discussion of the material as it is can you please just not interact at all because i'm too tired and #have too much going on. thanks.#txf.txt #my struggle iv #jackson

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chavisory · 8 months

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I know a lot of people have very strong negative feelings about the "My Struggle" episodes of the X-Files revival, particularly about the finale, and I did, too, especially before I kind of figured out what I thought their intent was.

I still don't like how it ended. I still think there were more reconciliations we were ultimately meant to see happen in season 12.

But, if you accept my conjecture about how those episodes were meant to be viewed, that "My Struggle IV" has to be understood at least partly as representing Jackson's POV, about what he knows, and doesn't know, and how he sees himself, then you know what?

The series ends with an older brother knowing that he's saved his younger sibling.

#the x files #the x-files #i want to believe #jackson van de kamp #samantha #my struggle iv

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lilydalexf · 11 months

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👽 Random X-Files Fic Rec

These fics wonderfully explore the complicated relationship Jackson (William) is trying to establish with Mulder and Scully at the same time Mulder and Scully are building a worrisome but wonderful bond with their soon-to-be-born (and then-born) daughter. These two stories run in parallel to one another, but they're best read in this order as they were originally posted. (skuls later wrote a long related fic, phantom weights, currently unfinished and unlikely to be finished.) Title: proelium and pervicacia Author: skuls (@ghostbustermelanieking) Summary: Post finale: Mulder and Scully connect with their son in an unconventional way. / Scully's pregnancy post season 11. Length: 7,577 words / 8,350 words Classification: Post-ep Rating: Teen and up Spoilers: My Struggle IV Favorite line: Talking to her son still feels so incredibly new; it feels wrong to be so casual. She feels like there should be more angry accusations on his part, more tearful explanations and apologies on theirs. Read the stories: proelium and pervicacia

#fic rec #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #my struggle iv #skuls

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frogsmulder · 2 years

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81. “It’s cold, you should take my jacket.” Fluffff, extra bonus points if the one saying the other should take their jacket is sick/on an ambulance stretcher/clearly needs it more than the other.

It Ends As It Begins

Mulder and Scully share coats on their very first and very last case together; there isn't an ambulance but i feel like there should be for the pain (cw: character death and emotions (it's not mulder or scully tho)) 2.2k words; rated t; tagging @today-in-fic

Part 1 Fluff:

The rain assaulted the ground in big angry splotches. Sodden, soaking wet, trees drooped low with the weight of water on their branches; their boots churned over new dirt, squelching as they climbed to the top of the hill. From there, they could see how the downpour flooded the rest of the graveyard, the streetlights eerie globes of dim light in the distance. Below them were the empty graves of Ray Soames and Karen Swenson, slowly swelling like wells of misfortune.

Scully felt the tendrils of her baby hair glued to her cheeks, thick droplets roosting on her eyelashes and more trickling down her neck. Her trousers were soaked already uncomfortably heavy and sticking to her skin with claws of cold; her jacket wouldn’t hold out much longer and the chill that had taken root in her bones despite her adrenaline would soon spread. She gasped as water poured down her nose and over her lips, laughing, exhausted, delirious: Billy Miles? She couldn't understand it but she believed him: somehow she believed him. Looking up at him, at his eager smile, the way his eyes caught the dim streetlight, full of excitement, her heart raced with only one thought that made sense at that very moment. Maybe working with Mulder wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe she could even grow to love her job. She spluttered and laughed again, her actions beyond her control. Dipping her head she sheltered her face from the rain and from his gaze she could feel on her. She could feel heat rising to her cheeks despite the temperature outside: inside she was starting to burn up. Although she was not watching him, she heard his chuckle and saw him step closer into her space. Surprised, her gaze instantly found his and they froze altogether too close. Barely inches apart. A spark crackled in her stomach and one behind his eyes. Then: a scream…

There was a light, a brilliant white light that flooded the forest. Leaves whirled and eddied around Billy Miles as he held Theresa Nemman. An ear splitting silence screeched after the light, leaving a ringing in his ears as it faded. The wind had stopped. The rain had stopped. The ground beneath his feet stopped shaking, yet he still stumbled forward like an inexperienced sea-farer. His cheeks ached with the size of his grin. Scully. He needed to tell Scully.

The water pounded against her back and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to drown in its warmth. Beyond the motel bathroom the rain still rattled against the pain but the sound was distant and inconsequential. Scully wiped her face and ran her hands over her hair, breathing in the calming smell of the lavender shampoo. She smiled to herself half in wonderment, not quite yet ready to believe: Billy Miles. Stepping out of the bathroom, towel clamped tightly around her, was like walking into the arctic naked. Shivering, she dressed in her flannel pyjamas and retreated under the damp covers of the bed. She tossed and turned, shrinking into a foetal position, crawling away from the icy edges of the bed. Sleep was always just out of reach no matter how heavy her eyelids grew, how her body ached with fatigue, how yorns stuck in her throat. With barely a functioning thought she dragged her lead limbs out of bed and towards the door. One more thought and she would have turned around. There was only that feeling of amazement and laughter still trapped within her, buzzing around. That and the weary cold.

The lights were off and Mulder lay on his bed, starting up into the darkness. A quiet surveyed the room, only his breathing and the rain dappled the silence of the late night. Yet inside his mind, it was far from calm. Thoughts hummed like a thousand insects buzzing around a lamp; the light of which was this new partner. Scully listened to him. Scully believed him. Scully was smart and brilliant. He forgot how much he could enjoy other people’s company. Her smile, he caught like a butterfly in a jar: rare and camouflaged but beautiful. The impression, like art, moved something within him he would never forget but couldn’t quite place and was unsure he wanted to just yet. His heart thrummed with wings of its own: the adrenaline of the case still fuelling his insomnia.

Disturbing the buzzing in his head, there was a soft knock on his door, the second one of the case. With begrudging movements, he stumbled to the door in the dark, the rain somehow growing louder with each step. A tiny woman tumbled into him when he held the door open, clutching her arms around her waist, teeth chattering.

"Scully?"

"Mulder…" She paused, suddenly unsure what to say now that she was here. She gnawed at her still trembling lip, a flush colouring her fair complexion despite her obvious chill.

Mulder, breaking from his daze, scrambled to his suitcase, the contents of which were already spilling over the edges in an eruption of crumpled shirts and suits. Scully turned to follow him in confusion, the thought she couldn't express frozen in the tip of her tongue. Most of his clothes were ruined, the only exception being the set he had saved for their flight out. It wasn't fancy and it was barely warm but he had to do something. He handed it to her. "Here, you should have my jacket."

"Mulder, I'm not going to take your clothes from you, you need them for tomorrow."

"It's only a jacket. And anyway, what was your intention coming here if not to steal my clothes," he jested with a nervous laugh.

"I… I don't know." Despite her embarrassment a miniscule smile pulled at the corner of Scully's mouth. She ducked her head– a poor attempt to disguise her amusement– and licked her lips as if to clean them of their betrayal.

"It's cold. You should take my jacket," he reiterated, shaking his outstretched arm to bait her.

She mumbled her thanks and sheepishly put his jacket on. Steadily, she warmed into the extra layer but tried not to take too deep breaths lest she let herself drown in his smell. Without thinking, she collapsed onto his mattress, nose pressed deep into the collar, and arms hugging in the warmth. Slowly, a creeping flush of cold ice seeped through her, pooling in her gut. With tentative calculation, Scully peered up at Mulder, all too aware of the implication of her actions.

Mulder had his hands on his hips, the implications lost on him, or simply of no consequence; she wasn't sure which was first. But his earnest smile reassured her and warmed her in ways his clothes could not.

He stepped towards her.

She tilted her head.

He took another step and knelt down before her hands outstretched but not touching her, yet. He nodded towards her, inquiring.

She furrowed her brow, but answered in kind.

Mulder wrapped his hands around her biceps, paused for a breath entirely unsure how or why this was happening, and began to rub her arms. His thoughts chased each other in their wings; he dodged them as best he could to avoid knowing that painful sting of an epiphany. In his hands, the friction was warming her. She shuffled away from him and dread slicked through his veins but it was only to wrap the bed covers around herself. Only at that point did he look up to see her.

Scully's face was ashen white, freckles showing through like ink splattered paper. She still gnawed on her lips, tinged blue. Only in the crystal aqua of her eyes was their warmth; a heat that made it hard to breath yet very easy to smirk.

In the morning, they never mention their midnight smiles, yet never forget them either.

Part 2 Angst:

He should be crying. He feels like crying but he's frozen, even his tears. His heart falls in his chest like a rock landing in the bottom of a ravine with a dull thud. Mulder collapses at the harbour edge, the cold bleakness of the night swallowing him whole. His knees should sting from the impact but he doesn't feel a thing.

He is gone.

His son is gone.

Even though he never really knew him, he knew he was here in the world, sharing the same planet as him. Summer days, he used to look skywards and picture the same sun’s generous warmth bathing his son. At night, the waxing and waning of the moon would watch them both. If Mulder looked up at those times, there was the treasured comfort that he could see the same sky as Jackson; know the same heaven as his son here on this tiny rock hurtling through space. He knew they were together in some way amongst the sea of the stars.

The night ripples on the black water of the harbour, thick, dark clouds disguising thousands of stars. Along the bay, a thousand lights of the city twinkle at the water’s edge instead. Mulder can’t take his eyes from the water, as if staring hard enough he, has the power to pull their son up through the murky depths. The sensation of the metal in his hand slowly swims into his consciousness; he flinches, dropping the gun to the ground with a clatter that rings through his ears like an explosion. He could have been there sooner, shot first, saved Jackson. That’s what fathers were for, wasn’t it? Protecting their sons? He once had the love and pride of a father, but that like everything else was misplaced. That was not the role he played, he realised: he never was a father in any meaningful way. The final pebble in his chest crushes to sand and blows away on a broken breath. The emptiness now in the world stares back up at him in his reflection. He looks and feels hollow.

His son is gone.

Behind him, Mulder is vaguely aware of Scully's footsteps growing louder and quicker. The harbour becomes more blurry with every step he hears, feeling deep down he has failed all of them. The lights tremble behind his tears and he gasps suddenly, having forgotten to breathe. The brine in the air tastes bitter. “He’s gone.” With heavy, wounded breath, he repeats himself incredulously. “He’s gone, Scully.”

A creeping silence settles between them; the night itself mourning their loss, their pain.

Mulder looks at his palms turned face-up in his lap. The blood on them. Somewhere, he has an inkling that he is in shock. Scully kneels down in front of him, blocking his view of the water. She takes his hands and wraps them in hers, holding them close to her heart. Her eyes are as wet as the blue ocean when she looks at him. She runs a hand through his hair and pulls him in to meet her forehead. Like two stone ar he's they stand supporting each other whilst they both crumble. They both know they have to move but neither of them want to. Eventually, Scully drags them both to their feet. She places a palm against his forehead and feels he is cold, his face ashen, his lips blue.

"Here, take my coat."

He looks at her blankly.

"It's cold," she offers not quite by way of explanation– they both know it won't do much– yet Mulder knows her well enough not to protest. “It’s cold, you should take my coat.”

In doing this, she is distracting herself: the alternative would mean doing nothing. Doing nothing would mean having to accept something. He lets her doctor him, take care of him: keep herself together. Even though it is too small for him, Scully drapes her coat over his shoulders and rubs his arms vigorously. Her cheeks turn rosy from the biting chill. That brings him out of his motionless stare and he looks at her, thawing somewhat in his expression. There is a warm empathy in her eyes, deeper than her doctoral persona, pulling him in through the dazed whir of everything cycloning around him. Like a lifeline, he latches onto her gaze and cries for help.

Scully makes his world still and calm; offers light and warmth. Mulder blinks slowly.

Their son.

A rock– His rock– His Touchstone. He can think clearly now she has a hold of him. The explosion of the gun is only a distant echo in his memory. Each fire is like a stab to the chest, but the searing pain is recognisable and the mists of panic clear. Tears slip down his cheeks. They sting.

Their son.

A tiny tremor of a shiver ripples through Scully and Mulder steps into her space, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her close so that the possibility of becoming one seems almost real. It's as if he can shield her from the pain they both feel, take it all from her so she mustn't feel the way he does now like shattered glass on the floor. He takes the coat from his shoulders and gently helps her back into it, kissing her forehead, kissing her cheeks, kissing her tears. She buries her face into his chest and he becomes the rock as she crumbles in the storm of the sea, her sobs but teardrops in the ocean that swallowed their son.

#fox mulder #dana scully #msr #xf fanfic #the x files #my writing #the pilot #my struggle iv #fluff #angst

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dunhamhairograpy · 2 years

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'My Struggle IV' Script: Scully's Morning Sickness

In the script, she's at the toilet not the sink.

#season 11 #my struggle iv #xfiles #thexfiles #xf bts #gillian anderson #mulder #scully #david duchovny #mulder and scully #dana scully

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backintimeforstuff · 11 months

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lil x-files confession

Season 8/9? wild. IWTB? would die without it. The entire revival? SO HAPPY IT EXISTS.

I feel like this is what it's like to have inner peace in the txf fandom and i'm coming clean now!! Breaking my silence and absolutely expecting to be thrown to the wolves. <3

I can look the end of my struggle iv straight in the face and grin like a fool and don't you wish that were you??

Am I completely fully aware that the canon is destroyed and it literally makes no sense? Yes. Entirely. Do I care? Nope. Not even slightly. I ADORE the closure that comes from it. it's such a hopeful happy ending and this is the hill i'm dying on :)) I have reached a state of contentment that will outlive God.

am i insane?? probably.

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enigmaticxbee · 2 years

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11x10 My Struggle IV

The one where... Mulder tracks down William and they have a final confrontation with CSM.

Tagline: Salvator Mundi

Best: Well, when I watched it when it first aired I wasn’t devastated by it the way I was by MSIII because my expectations were so low by this point, so that’s a plus?

Worst: Guys it’s so, so, so, so bad 😂 I can’t even pick out the worst part. I think GA’s reaction kind of sums it up, and I fully support her decision to never make more of CC’s X-Files.

This ending only highlights the hollowness at the core of the mytharc storyline. As the show went on the mytharc became less about discovering the truth and exposing a global conspiracy, and more about torturing our protagonists. And it’s all for nothing. Mulder and Scully never save the world, or prevent an alien invasion, or bring down the conspiracy, or even expose it to the world (Tad O’Malley ranting aside). They just suffer until neither they nor we as the audience can take it anymore.

In the final scene of The Truth, the original series finale, Scully tells Mulder that they only fail if they give up. They’re together, and they believe in the same thing, and that’s where the hope is. It’s small and personal, but it feels bigger.

Here I can’t shake the feeling that the show ends with their failure - to save their son (they even give up at being his parents, they forsake him so easily at the end), to save their old allies Reyes and Skinner, to stop the alien virus pandemic, to find the truth. And maybe the pregnancy was meant as a little ray of hope in this terrible ending, but to me it’s completely tone-deaf. Their relationship is the heart of the show and there isn’t even anything meaningful exchanged between them in the end. I just feel numb.

✔️ Flashlights

❌ Woods/Desert

❌ Slideshow

❌ Autopsy

❌ Evidence Disappears

✔️ Scully Misses It

❌ Mulder Ditch

❌ Sunflower Seeds

✔️ Voiceover: Jackson/William intro VO

❌ Catch Phrase

❌ Scully is a Medical Doctor

❌ Mulder is Spooky

✔️ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr! Wiiillliiaaaaaam!!!

❌ Fox/Dana

✔️ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)

✔️ Casual Scully

✔️ Casual Mulder

❌ Trench Coats

❌ Bad Tie Watch

❌ Glasses Watch

✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Scully & Mulder

50 States: Tennessee x6, Virginia x23 & DC x110 (45/50)

Investigate: Apart

Solve Rate: 75%

❌ Bechdel Test: Only conversation between women was about William

MSR: 🐝🐝

Goriness: 👽👽👽👽👽

Creepiness: 👽👽👽

Humor: 👽

Rewatch Thoughts:

William check-in: William: …and then I just kinda became a criminal… Getting Jackson/William’s whole backstory in an intro monologue is… bad storytelling. I think he could have been an interesting, flawed but sympathetic character and I hate that this is the direction CC went with him - I want to love Mulder and Scully’s son!

Break-up check-in: Well, they end up in each other’s arms, and that’s the best thing I can say.

I really dislike the way the story is told bouncing around in time. It’s so choppy and disjointed 😫 Maybe to hide how little it makes sense…

So Reyes is trying to help them? It just seems like too little too late. Also it was in Scully’s vision that they met last season, we don’t even know if they’ve actually been in contact in this timeline.

In the original series finale Mulder was put on trial for the murder of a man that he supposedly killed while breaking into a government facility - something that based on 9 seasons we know he wouldn’t do. And here he just flat out shoots and kills at least 5 security guards that we see and whoever that old guy in the office was as… payback? This just isn’t my Mulder.

Once again splitting Mulder and Scully up for the last episode of the series 🙃

Oh goody more driving!

More time trickiness, showing us things like they’re happening concurrently when they’re not 🙄

Mulder getting to put his arms around his son for the first time in 17 years 🥺

I do kind of enjoy William dispatching this new conspiracy group like it’s absolutely nothing - the show has not made me fear them, or interested in them, they’re just annoying

The show apparently cares so little about Scully that we don’t even get to see Skinner tell her about CSM’s claims, or get to see her process what that might mean about her son, about what was done to her 🙃

Oh goody more running around in dark industrial sites - admittedly not something new to the show, but always my least favorite episode climax

Wiiillliiaaaaaam!!!

Reyes is unceremoniously dispatched.

Followed I guess by Skinner, although maybe he could have survived under the car?

I… how are we supposed to feel about any of this?

Even Mulder killing CSM, which should feel cathartic after everything, just feels 🤷🏻‍♀️ - I mean we saw his face blow up and he came back after that, so I have no faith CC wouldn’t bring him back again given the slightest opportunity!

And… in classic X-Files tradition Scully arrives after everything’s over.

I will just note once again that CSM says: That I am the one who made him? That I am William’s creator? Which supports my belief that William is absolutely still Mulder’s son.

Not that Scully gets the space to think that through after hearing CSM’s claims second hand from Skinner: William was an experiment… I carried him, and I bore him. But I was never a mother to him… WTF. I mean WHAT THE FUCK. She raised him for months. She carried him in her heart for 17 years. I guess you could put this down to shock, but I put the blame on bad writing.

Mulder: What am I now if I’m not a father… This might mean a little more if the show had actually explored what being a father meant to him a little more!

And then the pregnancy reveal. I can’t even explain to you how much I hate this. The dismissal of William as their child because now they have a chance for a real child they can raise together. The pregnancy of a 54 year old woman - even putting aside her infertility. That they only slept together in Plus One to set up this reveal. The idea that a future between them has to involve raising a child, like that’s the only way they can be a family, can be together. That a baby will solve their problems. That Scully’s only purpose on this show is to bear children for the Mulder family. Fucking hell.

We never even learned anything concrete about what William’s relationship was to the alien virus pandemic - did he stop it by killing off CSM and those other conspirators? The tagline was Salvator Mundi aka Savior of the World. But I guess we don’t even know if it’s still happening or not 🤷🏻‍♀️

#xf rewatch #xf fanart #msr #my struggle iv #msiv #the x files #the xfiles #thexfiles #txf #xf #xf mytharc #i want to believe #truth is out there #xf review #11x10 #revival

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