#dana pls

[bomikalover]

Promo Pic This, Bloopers That. You know what I want?.....DANA’S VLOGGING CHANNEL SHE PROMISED US DURING SEASON ONE!!!

[mybitterbisexualarse]

THIS WAS ONLY THE 1ST EPISODE...HOW IS IT GOING TO GET WORSE....IM SO FUCKING SCARED RIGHT NOW

[rosenkranz-does-things]

some more mr and mrs Spooky studies because the lighting in the first couple seasons is just incredible and i couldn't resist

[tiredactivist]

nothing in the show prompted them having photoshoots like this…like this is fully them

[fortycumber]

just two regular work partners standing very close to each other.

[amoeba-proteus]

[bonafidehero]

Love how Skinner is in on the delusion of their relationship. Like when either one of them come to him asking for help to save the other he does that stare deeply in their face thing for just a little too long, like he knows exactly what they’re asking and why they’re asking it. He's like are they in love? YES! Are they together? NO! Are they married? YES.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

my favorite scully moments from s1

when she gets SO mad at mulder's assumption that werewolves are real in episode 19 that she yells about how "no one can change into an animal! >:(" and gets out of the car

talking to her friend in episode 5 who says something like “isn’t that guy you work with cute?” to which she responds “he’s a jerk. no, he’s not a jerk…” lmao. crush behavior.

when she deserved the nobel peace prize in episode 10 for not slapping mulder upside the head after getting roped into treating horrific burn victims AND THEN coming back to his room where he immediately jumps into a new alien rant

(and, earlier in the same episode, when she showed up across the country to bail his ass out for breaking into another top secret facility… have we all thanked her for dealing with this nonsense?)

pretty much every scene in episode 13 broke my heart, but i was especially moved by her asking her mother if her father was at all proud of her (to which she receives the non-answer "he was your father")

when jack gets shot in episode 15 and the other doctors say it’s not worth trying to save him, she tells them to keep trying or she’ll do it herself (angry doctor mode <3)

when she learns about the guy who somehow managed to grow salamander hands in episode 16 and she is SO shocked and pleased by this fact. regardless of the implications (nerdy doctor mode <3)

despite her lack of belief in the existence of spirits, she tells the girl who is being protected by her deceased loved one in episode 6 to "tell him you love him" which had me crying

she’s always running around reading stuff from files and each time it makes me SO happy. like yes girl tell us why that guy’s autopsy was super suspicious!

that time in episode 17 when one of mulder’s weird alien buddies takes her $20 and rips it up she gets so mad (which is entirely understandable and I would be too!)

anytime she interacts with an animal (dog, horse, monkey... she assumes they are all friends)

taking the time to talk about losing her father with both of the victims in episode 19 who lost their family members as well

when phoebe decides to show up and kiss mulder right in front of scully in episode 12, she does her absolute best to look away because she's a very good friend

and after phoebe finally leaves, she decides to get revenge on mulder by knocking at his door and doing a phoebe impersonation: “aren’t you going to take me for lunch?” ohhh yes that was deserved! more scully being british please! it's good for the soul!

[agent-troi]

scully and mulder's dynamic visibly changes after the onset of the season of secret sex

i've been thinking about how dd and ga deliberately played season 7 like mulder and scully were sleeping together, and i think there's solid evidence of that in the differences in how scully reacts to mulder appearing to show interest in another woman before and after the season of secret sex begins (i'm using millennium as the before/after divider bc i think that's what dd and ga decided, but this is based on my vague memory of a reddit comment about it which is how i first learned that the season of secret sex was a thing)

so overall there's an undercurrent of insecurity, borne of scully's uncertainty regarding precisely how mulder feels about her and what her place is in the hierarchy of things that are important to him in his life, that exists in the pre-millennium incidents and is glaringly absent post-millennium:

before millennium:

(i'm not gonna include phoebe/fire here bc i don't think scully's awareness of her feelings had yet risen to the point where she'd be truly jealous, i'd characterize her in that ep as largely protective of mulder and unwilling to let him deal with phoebe's games alone. it also helps that he's clearly not happy phoebe is back in his life again, unlike his much more positive reaction to diana)

war of the coprophages- the second scully finds out about bambi, she immediately hops in her car and drives up to miller's grove to join mulder, bc letting him investigate cockroaches alone was fine but god forbid he spend quality time investigating an x-file with an attractive female scientist who isn't herself- that's their thing!!

syzygy- to be fair the planetary alignment situation was exacerbating her- and mulder's- behavior here, but her jealousy of and hostility to detective white were still real, even if she would've been able to rein in her emotions better under normal circumstances.

diana fowley arc- i think this speaks for itself, lol

alpha- this is an interesting period in their relationship: after most of the diana shit is over, but before the tension between them is fully resolved (a process which to me begins with milagro/the unnatural and ends with amor fati, but that would be its own post lol).

other than introducing himself to karin as "fox" (maybe as a way to appeal to her preference for canids lol) and thus implicitly giving her permission to call him by his first name (which she proceeds to do throughout the episode), mulder doesn't seem to show much in the way of attraction to her.

even when he touches her hand to move the mouse, he's more interested in what's on the screen than in paying attention to her:

karin, however, is visibly affected by the contact, a fact which scully immediately notices:

later in the car, they have this convo, the last line of which is so heavily laden with diana subtext it's not even funny:

scully's reaction to karin is similar to her reaction to phoebe in that she's motivated mainly by wanting to protect mulder from his own naive, trusting nature, and from someone she believes is seeking to take advantage of it, rather than being motivated primarily by jealousy and defensiveness. she doesn't really believe that karin is a genuine threat to her relationship with mulder, but with diana still fresh in her memory she can't afford to not be vigilant. hence why she confronts karin alone later:

here scully demonstrates that she somewhat empathizes with karin (mulder is also someone who challenges her, makes her feel fulfilled and happy and alive). karin's response indicates that she has correctly deduced the basis of scully's dislike/distrust of her, and also acknowledges scully is the dominant one as it relates to the territory (mulder) that they are sparring over.

scully looks away at karin's "feminine wiles" comment, revealing the nagging insecurity about her place in mulder's life that diana's arrival exacerbated and that will continue to plague her until amor fati.

after millennium:

rush- when mulder looks back at chastity in the hallway, scully's reaction is to possessively grab mulder's sleeve and pull him away into the interrogation room:

and his response is to laugh and say "what?" like he doesn't know he belongs to her and only her.

keep in mind this happens just before they interrogate tony reed, and right after they finish interrogating him this shit happens:

i already made a post last week about how insanely flirty they are in this episode, but this scene!!

she's pouting and giving him big doe eyes and playing with his tie!! at work!! in public!! she feels comfortable staking her territory in such an obvious way (also playful rather than hostile) bc she's not longer insecure about her place in his life!! i can never be normal about this i'm sorry ssdfgksdgsjdkfhkjsdf

first person shooter- when mulder checks out jade blue afterglow as she's leaving, he leans so far over in such an obvious, exaggerated way, almost as if he's deliberately trying to get a rise out of scully, but all she does is raise her eyebrows at him and lean over to block his view (while smirking):

and then he says he's "feeling the great need to blast the crap out of something", an almost direct quote of scully's line from their convo in the autopsy room right before they went down to the station:

and her response is to SMILE at him!!

pre-millennium scully would absolutely not have reacted this way in this situation. just like in rush, the insecurity that previously haunted scully whenever mulder seemed to be close to or interested in another woman is utterly absent here. they're joking and teasing and enjoying each other's company like they've always done, but there's a different dimension to it now. pre-millennium mulder would never have made a show of checking out another woman like that right in front of scully (unless a planetary alignment is affecting his behavior ofc lol), and pre-millennium scully would never have found it amusing.

(side note: people were debating on twitter a while back about whether this scene was ooc for mulder, and tbh i'm not sure what my own opinion is bc to me the whole episode has an air of... unreality? idk but it gives me similar vibes to post-modern prometheus, like maybe it's real or maybe it's just someone telling a story or it's somewhere in between, and it's also got that same unserious feel idk how else to describe it)

anyway, back to my main point, which is: dd and ga are damn good actors in the way they were able to subtly telegraph this shift in mulder and scully's dynamic. one might be able to argue that the insane flirting throughout season 7 isn't by itself evidence of the season of secret sex bc on some level they've always been like that, but to me these specific interactions provide important clues that the nature of their relationship has changed.

[ghost-go-roasty-mctoasty]

Moodboard for when someone leaks the ENTIRE FUCKING EPISODE AND YOU SEE A SPOILER EVEN THOUGH YOU WANTED TO PATIENTLY WAIT TILL THE 21ST

[sentientsky]

[battii-art]

Rhapsody

[gingerteaonthetardis]

The X-Files Season 1 + close talking

[tiredactivist]

If Scully had an instagram (present day).

[thanx-files]

Okay so I have shown that I fully do not know what’s going on in this show at any given moment, but I just finished s02e03 (Blood) I have a hunch about something:

This wasn’t just an experiment, it was also a setup. The message on Mulder’s phone at the end said “ALL DONE” and “BYE BYE” like this was a performance for HIM. They made SURE he got sprayed. What better way to finish the X-Files for good than to have Agent Spooky imprisoned for murder?

Is Mulder’s suspicion rubbing off on me? Maybe. Do I have a good sense of what details are going to be important later in this show? Almost never. But I trust no one.

[spiderlovergirl]

I love the partnership dynamic in X Files

The 100% believer who has a paranormal explanation for everything…

And the skeptic who’s forced to work with them (which subsequently makes them question their own reality)