#Memento Mori Again
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OMSB - Memento Mori Again
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how to say "I love you" in x-files [28/?] ⤷ 4.18 — “Max”
#once again NOT gazing at Scully#i literally did the whole conversation before reconsidering and changing to just two 🙄#my gifs#em.txf#txf ily#the x files#txfedit#dailytxf#msr#msredit#useremsi#useralf#usergeorgette#usernessa#singinprincess#usergabriella#userairi#userveronika#poangpals#dw i know there are a million more memento mori moments#i'm just keeping up a bit with where i'm actually at in my watch
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two lovers reunited
my illustration for memento mori, a free digital curse of strahd zine
#illustration#curse of strahd#godfrey gwilym#vladimir horngaard#dungeons and dragons#memento mori#thanks again to mod sergei for organizing this very cool project! please go and check out all the other great artists and writers as well#my art
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a plant pot. no drainage holes so I guess not that kind of plant pot
I completely forgot I was carving this one and left it half finished for like two weeks lol. thankfully I wrapped it really well and it was still soft enough to carve
#it felt so good to do pottery again#a whole nine days away was too much lol#reserved#pottery#ceramics#ceramic#sgraffito#ceramic art#underglaze painting#video#planter#plant pot#skeleton art#skeletons#human skeleton#human skull#skull#death#memento mori#rot with me
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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.
#txf#the x files#msr#dana scully#fox mulder#david duchovny#gillian anderson#mulder x scully#parallels#mulder and scully#hollie blabbling#txf pilot#txf the red and the black#txf s1#txf s5#txf squeeze#txf aubrey#txf s2#txf home#txf s4#txf never again#txf memento mori#txf tempus fugit#txf demons#the x files fight the future#txf s6#txf dreamland#txf the unnatural#txf biogenesis#txf s7
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Even though I am personally not religious, one of my favorite character traits of Scully was her faith despite being a hard nosed scientist. If you had to define her religious beliefs how would you? Would you consider her a hard core catholic, a catholic in name only or something else?
I look forward to a 1000 word prompt XD
The Journey of Scully's Faith, in Brief
Oh, yeah, Scully and her religion.
*cracks knuckles*
Faith was Scully's albatross until all things, a tug-of-war between her initial belief and secondary rationalization.
ATHEISM, AGNOSTICISM, AND THE FEAR OF HER BELIEFS
During the first half of the 90s, religion represented, to Scully, everything she was afraid to believe in: her father's ghost mouthing The Lord's Prayer, her Catholic mother's psychic dreams, her partner's and sister's convictions running concurrent with her struggle against faith.
She began Season 1 as an atheist-- more so than Mulder, perhaps-- using the rigidity of science to explain her world. Even though she wore a cross around her neck, Mulder didn't assume Scully was religious; and Maggie backed up that assumption in S2's Ascension, explaining, "I gave" [Scully's cross] "to her for her birthday." The religious iconography, then, was a memento of Scully's mother, not of her faith... which becomes particularly telling during her Season 3 and 4 struggles.
Why?
CHILDLIKE FAITH
Scully had a proclivity to believe in the supernatural, the unnatural, and the paranormal before, as she states in Quagmire, "I grew up and became a scientist." Science, then, is a shield against the unexplained: in other words, Scully fears what she can't quantify, so turns to science to deny her problem's existence. "Mulder, it doesn't matter," she insists when he prods about the cause of her cancer; "Mulder what difference would it make?" she rebuts whenever he wanders too far into the realm of hypothesis.
Beyond the Sea and Revelations hit upon the same raw nerve. Luther Lee Boggs preyed upon her repressed doubts, calling her a liar when she denied she believes and telling her that all liars "go to hell." Kevin Kryder was saved only through her acceptance, shall we say, of God's hand working through her. In both cases, religious belief-- be it her father's ghost mouthing The Lord's Prayer or a sweet-smelling saint her partner can't detect-- terrifies her.
Why would it terrify her? Because religion isolated her.
CONFUSION AND ITS ISOLATION
We know Scully has attachment issues. We see them explored in A Christmas Carol when she poured her heart out to the social worker-- admitting she kept her heart largely unattached for fear of losing yet another person in her life-- but we know Scully isn't a detached person, either. We know that Scully's greatest fear was being betrayed by Mulder. That was explored in Wetwired, when she collapsed in her mother's arms, confused and sick at heart. We know that Scully grew more and more isolated in her partnership with Mulder; but she adapted to and respected that isolation after years of professional betrayal.
In regard to religion, why would Scully feel isolated? The Scullys are a religious family: her mother dangled reminders in her life with cross necklaces and priest visits, her father prayed as his soul departed, and Bill buried her daughter in his local church.
Because religion, Scully believed, isolates her from herself.
When Scully changed her course from medical school to the FBI, her parents heavily disapproved. That disapproval heavily affected her, even if Melissa helped her work past her hang-ups, even if Scully chose to reframe her transfer as "an act of rebellion." In truth, Scully found "other fathers" to hitch her wagon to, "rebelling" only when she spotted another patch of grass that promised greener pastures. The FBI patted Scully on the head and encouraged her to sign up (pre-Pilot); Mulder patted her on the head and encouraged her to stick around (Squeeze), Ed Jerse patted her on the head and encouraged her to take a walk on the wild side (Never Again), and Daniel Waterston patted her on the head and encouraged her to come back to him (all things.) Every decision that drew Scully away from an old belief was caused by a single-minded focus on one aspect of herself: her parents' pride and joy as a doctor, Daniel Waterston's pride and joy as his med student, the FBI's pride and joy as a field agent, Mulder's pride and joy as his partner, Ed's pride and joy as his salvation. And in each case, Scully grew isolated and paranoid because she lost touch with herself as a whole; and usually fled (if temporarily) to what she considered a 'freer' freedom.
How does this apply to religion? As a child, Scully was a good little Catholic girl who smiled at her mother's cross gift; but was also a bad little Catholic girl that smoked her mother's cigarettes for attention. In medical school, Scully was a good little med student who preened under her teacher's adoration; but was also a "bad" little Catholic woman who "grew up and became a scientist." Before recruitment, Scully was a good little scientist who fled from Daniel Waterston's deception; but was a "bad" little lapsed Catholic that (unintentionally) broke up a home. In Quantico, she was a good little field agent who learned all her lessons; but was also a "bad" little by-the-books student who openly dated her Academy instructor. And she was a good little partner who helped Mulder investigate impossible cases; but was also a "bad" little scientist for "holding" him "back."
In short, Scully hadn't allowed herself to fully accept the dichotomous nature of humanity. She must either be a good little Catholic girl or be someone who wants to explore her wild side. Until Revelations, she believed one must believe in God or science; and science gave her clearer answers that squelched her anxieties.
But then, Beyond the Sea, One Breath, and Revelations happened. Scully was unable to articulate or fully understand what her experience "beyond" had been in One Breath, only that it wasn't something to fear. It forced her to brush up against sentiments lingering from Beyond the Sea, to begin to admit there was a simmering belief she wasn't ready to acknowledge.
Revelations in particular tossed Scully from agnosticism back to belief-- and, again, she feared that belief. "Afraid that God is speaking; but that no one's listening" was a distancing tactic she acknowledged in Irresistible, a way to separate from the emotions broiling uncontrollably below the surface. But it also revealed how effortlessly Scully slipped back into a belief in God-- and that she equated that belief with missed cues and punishment.
Why did Scully think religion is tied with punishment, and how did that isolate her from her other potential believers?
MOTHER MAGGIE
Maggie is the key.
As discussed above, Scully strove for acceptance from her parents or from "other fathers"; and that played an important role in her journey towards personal growth. But Captain Scully was but one-half of the picture. Scully's father served as the cattle prod for professional approval-- he modeled complete focus on climbing rank and keeping emotional burdens out from plain sight-- while her mother served as an emotional and religious one.
Maggie was the one person she could "always trust" and truly felt safe with in Wetwired. It was her mother she turned to for reassurance in Beyond the Sea, it was her mother's sins she smoked on the porch, it was her mother's gift she continued to wear when science dominated her beliefs. But Maggie has never been particularly stringent herself in her religion-- smoking cigarettes (during a time period when everyone did, but the point remains), believing in supernatural dreams, inviting the unbeliever "Fox" to mourn with the family, embracing her son's successful IVF baby in A Christmas Carol, and celebrating her daughter's out-of-wedlock baby in Essence.
It's what Margaret Scully represented, not Maggie herself, that Scully feared: unquestioning, childlike faith.
Unfortunately, we are never given closure to the dynamic Maggie provided. Other than a brief appearance in S8's Essence-- Scully's unruffled independence and Maggie's confidence in her daughter's confidence-- we're never shown that final conclusion. Alas.
A QUESTIONER AT HEART
Again, Scully couldn't reconcile the dichotomy of human nature with her (flawed) perception of religious "good and evil." Good people who do wrong, she presumed, have faltered and must repent. By that metric, evil people who do right do it for the wrong reasons. Moreover, Scully viewed a faith in God through one lens; and thought that if one did not completely believe in everything they didn't understand-- childlike faith-- then God was "speaking to them; but that no one's listening." That she wasn't listening. And what happens to those that know better but aren't listening? They are punished, because they are evil.
Scully is a questioner at heart; and Scully came to believe that questioning her beliefs, that failing to believe in things she couldn't understand, was tantamount to disbelieving in God. That's why her religious episodes can be difficult to rewatch: when facing an Almighty God, Scully cowered into complete, blind obedience-- "Perhaps that's what faith is"-- before casting off those shackles and fleeing back to denial and avoidance. But she couldn't shirk her belief, deep down, no matter her rationalizations.
A RETURN TO BELIEF, AND LIMBO
Post Revelations, Scully left the matter largely alone, resolving to finds answers to her own questions "because of my own reasons" in Memento Mori-- a courageous step for someone who usually put her own needs second.
However, the doomed inevitability of Elegy-- another agency-robbing experience Scully couldn't explain-- set her back; and she continued dodging both her mother's priest and her partner's complicated questions in Gethsemane. Scully would feel like a coward if she ran to God for strength after her absence, but she would also feel like a heretic if she questioned the nature of God's existence.
Maggie became crucial to the cancer arc narrative: it was she who kept trying to reach her daughter, to show her that God wasn't taking account of what she had or hadn't done, what she did or didn't fully believe. Scully finally cracked in Redux II, begging her mother to explain why she still clings to God but denies him-- part of her inability to understand and quantify that dichotomy-- but Maggie didn't understand what Scully was talking about, and tried to soothe her, instead. Scully ended up clinging to Maggie, clinging to Mulder, clinging to the priest before she clung to God, viewing even Mulder as a truer believer than herself.
Season 5, Fight the Future, and Season 6 left Scully in limbo. (A Christmas Carol and Emily were about her daughter and the supernatural, not her faith or belief in God.)
The series didn't return to this topic until Biogenesis, The Sixth Extinction, and Amor Fati, a three-parter that focused on the possibility of aliens creating Earth (or having a hand in its creation.) This changed the wide interpretation of her religious texts and tossed Scully back into fearful questions and self-doubt. She cried in Amor Fati because she "doesn't know what to believe or who to trust"-- a verbal slip back into that feeling of isolation that drove her from religion in the first place. (Diana Fowley was formerly evil, but she died saving Mulder. Did that make her a good person who did wrong, or an evil person who did something right?) Mulder, transformed from his own experience, gave her courage and became her touchstone, regardless.
The answer Amor Fati underlined is that Scully had yet to believe in redemption: one could repent, she thought, but it wouldn't change who they were as a person. That thinking formed the cornerstone of her "good or evil" foundation and separated her from the capability to falter but not to fail-- to "sin" but to be "redeemed."
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Season 7 sets into motion the culmination of religious journey: Amor Fati (as we already discussed), Orison, and all things.
Orison would have been the perfect followup to Revelations: another demon, another series of supernatural signs that only Scully would understand. However, this time she would fail to put the pieces together, and resort to an action against God's will that would put into question the goodness of her soul. Problems with Orison (that it obliterated Irresistible's message, that its side plots cluttered an already cluttered episode, that Pfaster's "affect" on victims didn't match the reaction Scully experienced) aside, the episode didn't give the audience enough information to explain why Scully believed it was the Devil, not PTSD or a trauma reaction, that forced her hand. However, that was Orison's conclusion.
This, then, set Scully in motion to either follow an path of dark self-doubt or forge a new path of enlightenment. Or both.
We know she took the latter (all things) route, but another episode's potential was wasted in the journey from question to conclusion: En Ami. A road trip with the "the Devil in the flesh" would have been the perfect opportunity for Scully to try to prove the depths of her own goodness: putting her life at risk to obtain the cure for all disease. Scientific altruism and religious redemption combined. It would also prove how well CSM knew her, inside and out: using that lure to bait her away from Mulder (and, hopefully, to his own side.) En Ami could easily have discovered the lengths Scully would go to prove herself and the depths CSM's depravity and justification could sink to. Instead, it became a study in how little CSM understood his unknowing captive, and how little the writers understood why or when Scully chose to leap when told "Jump!"
Regardless, we arrive at all things.
ALL THINGS AND PEACE
all things was about enlightenment and self-love (for Daniel Waterston and his daughter-- also curiously named Maggie-- as well): Scully decides what she wants for her life, which voice she wants to hear. It's also the episode where God spoke back.
all things was a bit of a mixed message, especially considering Scully chose to remain Catholic ("my prayers were answered" in Season 8, lighting the church candles in Season 11, etc.) Gillian's episode had clear Buddhist leanings-- the god of "all things", i.e. the god in all things. God wasn't an active force so much as a peace of mind with the right choice (that choice being Mulder.) But it worked, too-- the ending, especially (which was written with the help of Chris Carter, actually. We'll give him a point for this one.) "Mm, I didn't say 'God spoke back'," Scully corrected, which illustrated that she, at last, straddled the dichotomy of her beliefs: a God that will lead but not directly speak. A God whose signs she chose to follow, not one who punished her if she went another way. "Life's just a path", Melissa told her before she ever stepped foot in the FBI (canonically after the Daniel Waterston debacle we return to in all things); and that message wound back around and stuck, seven plus years later.
But why did all things break Scully's fear of isolation through her beliefs (or religion, at large?) Her flawed perception of her mother's God was reworked, with Mulder as Maggie Scully's stand-in: God became a god of "all things", an entity that not only allowed her to make her own choices, ask her own questions, and harbor her own doubts, but also gave her space to decide and time to return.
That reframing of God then helped her to reframe humanity. Mulder came back from a wasted weekend trip to England, empty-handed; yet she simply guided him home, made him tea, and contentedly listened to him ramble about theories she might not fully believe. Scully no longer felt the need to combat his beliefs or justify her own: she knew, now, what she believed, and that was enough. (As an aside, The Unnatural and all things both end on the same note-- Mulder coming to an epiphany and long-windedly spelling it out until he realizes Scully already knows. Interesting.)
CONCLUSION
And thus, we have concluded Scully's journey of faith.
Any further point canon tried to make was simply a retread of better, more complicated resolutions.
Thanks for reading~
Enjoy!
#asks#b0oker18#The Journey of Scully's Faith in Brief#mine#(I doubled your word count to 2.5k. XDD)#Scully#religion#Maggie Scully#S1#Beyond the Sea#S2#One Breath#S3#Revelations#S4#Memento Mori#Gethsemane#S5#Redux II#faith#S7#Amor Fati#Orison#all things#Mulder#Captain Scully#Never Again#Ed Jerse#Daniel Waterston#xf meta
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*tosses these into your enclosure*
eat up
#paper boy doing his duties again#will wood ig story#will wood#wwatt#will wood and the tapeworms#tna#the normal album#memento mori#memento mori: the most important thing in the world#will wood tna
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Wasted feelings
Broken meanings
Time is fleeting
See what it brings
Hellos, goodbyes,
A thousand midnights
Lost in sleepless lullabies
Heaven's dreaming
Thoughtless thoughts, my friends
We know we'll be ghosts again
Sundays shining
Silver linings
Weightless hours
All my flowers
A place to hide the tears that you cried
Everybody says goodbye
Faith is sleeping
Lovers in the end
Whisper we'll be ghosts again
Heaven's dreaming
Thoughtless thoughts, my friends
We know we'll be ghosts again
Faith is sleeping
Lovers in the end
Whisper we'll be ghosts again
#depeche mode#martin gore#dave gahan#andy fletcher#dm#new wave#2023 music#alan wilder#post punk#electronic#memento mori#mp3#ghosts again#music#audio archive
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god. the thing about mulder & scully's conversations in never again, is they're having two conversations at once. and sometimes they understand that, and sometimes they don't.
scully starts by asking him why she doesn't have a desk. and mulder tells her he always thought 'that was her area.' which disappoints her. because they're not on the same page. if she had a desk & a nameplate, the x files would really be hers too. that's hard for mulder to accept because a big part of him believes she shouldn't be there. not because she hasn't earned it or doesn't deserve it, hasn't proved herself, or that she doesn't really care about the x files. or actually, yes because of those things. she has dedicated herself and lost so much, she believes in him and the work, and he can't trap her down there with him. she's supposed to move up & move on, have that normal life she sometimes thinks she wants and mulder believes she wants.
but to scully, it's like there's no room for her. she's a visitor. she doesn't have evidence of her value, to the x files or to mulder.
then he gives her the assignment, acts like her superior instead of her partner. he tells her she was just assigned and this is his life. "and it's become mine."
now mulder's insecurities come out. part of him wants her to move on, but he can't let go of her either. she's made him a whole person.
then he tells her 'maybe it's good we get some time apart' and he doesn't tell her where she's going and he knows she'll go to philadelphia. i think he kind of expects to hear from her. but he's on vacation and she's working. 'at least she's there to keep an eye on things.'
and she's bothered again when he doesn't trust her judgement. it leads her to more questioning & doubts.
in the beginning, she took him at his word. she believed him and she thought she understood. she followed him, and chose him over & over again. not just the work, she chose mulder.
when she was on her deathbed after the abduction, ahab didn't convince her to live. mulder did. she had the strength of his beliefs. in irresistible, she trusts mulder with her life. but she has to be strong for him, she can't be vulnerable. she doesn't want to be someone he needs to protect, someone he'd destroy himself for.
at the end of never again, mulder is angry & petty and he doesn't seem to get it. but i think he understands when he goes to say "yes but it's become mine." it's their work. it's their life. they belong to each other.
but he didn't say it. they both know now, but they maintain the silence.
in leonard betts, i think you can tell mulder understood more than he did at the beginning of never again. he barely voices his theory, let's her say what he's thinking. when she asks for his help, he gives it. he tries to make her laugh. in the end, he validates her. she did good work!! be proud!!
scully's fear & disquiet at the end bring us to her strength & clarity at the beginning of memento mori. mulder's validation becomes him bringing her flowers at the hospital, learning he's the only one she's called. scully held her strength to tell him the facts, so carefully of her fatal diagnosis. his questions lead them to the x files, the other women abductees they met before.
mulder bolsters her, because she isn't as strong as she appears and she has always drawn on his strength, his beliefs.
they maintained silence, but through the cancer arc, they're forced to face exactly what they are to each other, as they continue leaving it unsaid. yet they become so physical, they go further for each other than they have in the past.
in detour, scully tries again. she's not dying anymore. she's in remission, she survived and she's ready. but mulder runs into the woods chasing an x file, and we see scully settle into painful acceptance. she can't be mad. everything's different but it's still the same.
#the x files#mulder and scully#dana scully#fox mulder#txf meta#never again#leonard betts#memento mori#cancer arc#detour
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#Depeche Mode#Dave Gahan#Anton Corbijn#Never Let Me Down Again#Barrel of a gun#Suffer Well#Ghosts Again#1987#2005#1997#2023#Music for the Masses#Ultra#Playing the Angel#Memento Mori#GIF
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HAPPY1...!
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Dave Gahan in GHOSTS AGAIN by Depeche Mode
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txf + hozier
cancer arc x "shrike"
bonus bc i couldn't decide which worked better
#giffing the cancer arc always hurts so good#never again#memento mori#redux#cancer arc#shrike#txf + hozier#hozier#txf#liwl makes a gif#txfedit#txf edit#txf gifset#xfiles#xf fanart#msr#txf s4#txf s5#Spotify
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🥏 TXF Fic Rec #31: "blackberry" by audries
A month after Philadelphia, a local cop lunges at Mulder, but Scully ends up with the black eye instead, and Mulder goes apeshit. Today’s fic shows how excellent writing can elevate a tropey prompt to the next level ��� into a new stratosphere, to unprecedented pinnacles, really. @audriesfic weaves words together like no other, making them dance. It’s by turns exquisite, funny, and heartbreaking. If post-“Never Again” and cancer arc angst is your thing, you cannot miss this one.
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🥏 on AO3 🥏 audio version on @audiofanficpod read by @red2007
length: short, 3,000+ words season: season 4, 4x13 Never Again, 4x15 Memento Mori pairing(s): M/S UST tags: vignette, episode-related, angst, humor, cancer arc, hurt/comfort rating: teen/PG-13
#x files#nephrit's fic rec#len: short#season: 4#4x13 never again#4x15 memento mori#ship: m/s ust#genre: vignette#genre: angst#genre: humor#genre: episode related#arc: cancer arc#hurt/comfort#rating: pg13#by: audries
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i run the risk of sounding like a #fakefan here, but i've never lied to you before and i do not intend to start now:
i've got 2 episodes left of s4 and i know it is beloved by fans... but i'm having such a hard time with the Unrelenting Sadness. i feel like i'm tuning into scully torture time each evening.
#there are a few really great episodes#in particular i found memento mori both crushing AND hopeful which made it easier to swallow#but holy fuck y'all#in my next episode writeup i get more into why exactly i find it so devastating compared to the other seasons#it's a mixture of the tragedy being non-fantasy related and the lack of lighthearted balancing content#again i do not wish to be a hater at ALL. if you like it i love that for you! i enjoy you loving things! and i welcome differing opinions#but damn!!!#if you love the season feel free to chime off! if you hate it chime off too! if you're neutral weigh in! i love to Discuss!#i generally consider myself an angst lover but apparently i have limits. i am learning so much about myself#txf#the x files#juni rambles
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The Seventh Seal, dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1958
Ghosts Again, Depeche Mode, dir. Anton Corbijn, 2023
#I'M SCREAMING Y'ALL DON'T EVEN KNOW#I still haven't watched this all the way through but GOD THIS MOVIE MEANS SO MUCH TO ME#anton you crazy bastard you've done it again#Depeche mode#memento mori#ghosts Again#anton corbijn#the Seventh Seal#ingmar bergman
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