#mytharc

[heronroseeros]

my favorite thing about the x-files is that i never really know what is happening. even when we see meetings of all the old-ass white men and they explain exactly what is happening, I don't know.

the characters say stuff all the time and sometimes things happen, then no complete conclusion is every truly reached.

the whole show is an unreliable narrator. and it is such a unique flavor. so tasty.

[deathsbestgirl]

txf mytharc: pilot

preface: what you can expect from this series of mine.

i’m likely going to talk about each mytharc episode in full (at least nearly). the point of this isn’t to focus on mulder and scully, but there will still be a lot about them. we mostly see the mytharc through their eyes, and their partnership & experiences are a major part of that (and i think at this point, it’s clear i never shut up about them!). so for those that don’t really care about the mytharc, you might still find things to enjoy. at the end of each post, i’ll do a little summary of episode connections. i’m doing this as i rewatch so i will not have watched the future episodes yet – so please forgive any mistakes in details! i’m also pairing this with reading myth x: one fan’s interpretation of the the x files mytharc, and i’ll include some pieces that helped me unravel certain things, or that i’m simply keeping in mind as i rewatch! but mostly, this is just me enjoying the show. it’s what i think about when i watch. if it’s not your cup of tea, i completely understand. i do welcome discussion, but i make no promises to engage. i’m just sharing my little thoughts on this show that i really, really love.

sharing has gotten more difficult for me, but i truly enjoy it. just asking everyone to be kind & thoughtful, because i’m putting a lot of my time into this and i’m sensitive about it lol

something i get caught up in every time i watch the pilot is what csm & the syndicate were thinking (specifically in regards to assigning scully to the x files with mulder — i will probably talk about this over & over).

in the pilot we don’t even know about the syndicate. we meet section chief blevins, and other men with no names. including csm, who doesn’t even speak. he stands there looking stressed and smoking, observing scully and listening intently to the whole exchange. at the beginning, it’s hard to imagine how deep this goes, how widespread the government conspiracy is and it’s what makes it so fun for me to go back. we have so much more information later on, and we can take it back when we rewatch. there are so many connections to be made and although a lot of it doesn’t line up perfectly, i think it’s way more in line than people say. for me, there are several reasons that fit in with the world of the x files. first, there are so many unreliable narrators, people dealing in lies and coverups, only letting mulder & scully and whomever see what they want them to see. they purposely feed certain beliefs, and stifle them at other times. csm’s goals are muddled: he wants mulder on his side, he’s trying to save the human race/shape it into his own creation. he pretends to be a chess master, but as he says in sixth extinction/amor fati: he is one man.

the pilot starts with a cold open, a young woman running through the woods in her pajamas. we see a male figure and a bright white light. next thing, the young woman is lying dead on the forest floor as a team documents the scene and tries to identify her. detective miles identifies here as karen swanson and walks away, as the other investigator shouts “it’s happening again, isn’t it?”

next we follow special agent dana scully into the hoover building and to blevins office. he peppers her with questions about her fbi experience, if she’s heard of fox mulder and the x files. she’s young and open and maybe a little too honest. every time i try to write about the pilot something i always end up writing: scully understood what these men wanted her to. i don’t think it’s what csm wanted, but it might be what the syndicate wanted. scully was expected to debunk the x files, and if she did, they would probably reward her with whatever promotion or job she wanted within the fbi (or better, recruit her to the syndicate?). but as will consistently happen, they underestimated her. i’m not sure any of these men could have predicted what her & mulder would come to mean to each other. i don't think they could grasp her honesty or goodness, her ethics & morals, her complex beliefs & sense of justice. they live in a world where everyone is selfish & cruel, where they do what is “necessary” or what they're ordered to, where people will always choose themselves above others, but that is not scully. and it isn’t mulder.

(aside that maybe isn’t necessarily relevant but the thought always pops into my mind: it’s very interesting to me that they have this meeting with her and just send her down to mulder’s office. there’s no meeting with mulder, scully and their superiors together. all of it strikes me as a punishment for mulder, and a test for scully. i really think there’s something of interest to them in scully’s background. scientist, medical doctor, navy captain’s daughter, semi practicing/lapsed catholic. in theory, she could have been a perfect fit for the syndicate. but i really think most of them lack an understanding of people, of humanity. they deal in the worst of humanity – and mulder & scully are the best of humanity.)

initially when i started this (my little notebook) i was going to focus on just csm. but lately, the mytharc has gripped me. i don’t typically rewatch those episodes, unless i’m watching the entire series or a season in full. or a specific arc (like the cancer arc of course). but i’ve been slowly watching the mytharc episodes and they all connect, intricately, weaving a complicated web of truths & untruths & half truths. it’s so detailed and convoluted and maybe confusing. and so i wanted to go piece by piece. as i’ve said before, i don’t think everything lines up perfectly, and it isn’t supposed to. this is a global conspiracy, we learn things as mulder & scully do. they are largely on the outside of it, trying to break in to expose the truth & hopefully dismantle it. they are continuously misled, misdirected, stonewalled. there are many different projects with experimental science developing different defenses/giruses/andmtidotes, with different goals. evidence destroyed or stolen, tampered with. they are manipulated and used and discarded and returned and nearly killed as the syndicate sees fit at the current time. but so many things connect back to the pilot. the writers may not have had a show bible, but they most certainly looked back to pick up different threads and carry them through.

after scully’s meeting, we follow her down into mulder’s basement office. scully knocks on the door, opens it when he responds and takes in the whole atmosphere. he jumps right into it, letting scully know he’s aware of what her assignment is, that he looked into her background, and starting in on the case. in mulder’s way, he starts testing scully too, and i think she passes every single one. even if she’s saying things he doesn’t really want to hear. at the least, she takes him seriously (enough) to give rebuttals and show she cares. i’m not sure mulder has ever distrusted a single soul, but at least scully earns it.

the few things we learn about the case, what makes it an x file: the marks on the girl’s back, the compound in the surrounding tissue, no clear cause of death. and the fact that there’s a string of these killings in bellefleur, oregon with similarities to other cases in shamrock, texas and sturgis, south dakota.

mulder poses two questions, the first:

maybe what you can explain to me is why it’s bureau policy to label these cases “unexplained phenomenon” and ignore them.

scully has no answer, but i do think this starts her mind rolling. right here she’s put on the path of radicalization, in her scully way. the second:

when convention and science offer us no answer, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?

and i think this moment sets up their roles. scully responds with “the girl obviously died of something. if it was natural causes, it’s plausible that there was something missed in the post-mortem. if she was murdered, it’s plausible there was a sloppy investigation. what i find fantastic is any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. the answers are there. you just have to know where to look.” mulder, the believer, turning to the fantastic. scully, the skeptic, turning to science. this is my favorite thing about them, it builds the way they communicate and is a huge part of building trust between them. it’s also a major part in how they get to know each other. it’s always been one of my favorite things about them. it’s built on listening, not just pushing their beliefs or agenda. they always incorporate what the other says – as in, scully tends to shape the science & investigation around his theories. it gives her a place to start and build from. and scully’s science refines mulder’s theories and gets them closer to the truth.

it very quickly becomes one of the ways they depend on each other, setting up expectations they don’t yet understand the implications of and will take them years to rewrite (still built on the trust blooming from this first scene).

as soon as they’re in oregon, even still on the plane, the weirdness starts. unexpected turbulence, radio interference, inhuman like corpse unburied, the metal implant in the nasal cavity. mulder isn’t surprised by the turbulence or radio static, he marks the spot with an x. scully is just confused and baffled by his behavior (i love it). during the autopsy, they’re a little combative. my favorite moment is when mulder tells her:

i’m not crazy, scully. i have the same doubts you do.

this is an important moment for scully. he cares what she thinks, and she does take him seriously. i think it’s easy to think that she doesn’t, she does dismiss his ideas initially. but she’s still following him, peppering him with questions. they talk it through every time, and that’s special. it only gets stronger.

when mulder lifts peggy o’dell’s shirt to find the marks on her back, scully is so angry (she’s afraid) and she storms out of the building – mulder immediately follows her. she doesn’t believe these are alien abductions, she doesn’t know yet what the marks are, what the experience is. she has questions and she wants answers, she wants the truth. scully doesn’t believe his theory of alien abductions, and he asks her “do you have a better explanation?” and this is the first time he directly asks what she thinks. to me, this is the scene that really determines their dynamic. what mulder takes from this conversation is scully really does want the truth, she cares. and that’s important. and scully asks: “what were they doing in the forest?” cut to mulder and scully in the forest, scully pocketing dirt, detective miles coming upon them. (he listened to her, and the next step in their investigation becomes trying to answer that question!)

in the car, she shows mulder the dirt. he asks if it’s a campfire (it does look a lot like ash). but scully tells him it was all over the ground. right after, the car loses power and they lose nine minutes. scully doesn’t witness the time change but mulder is ecstatic.

this all leads to the motel room scene. scully has marks on her back and she can’t see them and the marks on peggy o’dell scared her. you could see it in her face, even through her anger & annoyance with mulder. the fact that she goes running to mulder, clearly afraid and vulnerable…it showed something else to mulder. this moment lets him see beyond ‘scully’s a spy” and her disbelief/skepticism. mulder cares about people, and he cares about scully despite himself. so when she turns into his chest, he puts his arm on her shoulder. shocked at her vulnerability, the way she seeks comfort from him. mulder lets her stay in his room, gives her a blanket to curl up on his bed as he sits below her and tells her about samantha.

usually this scene is discussed because of the intimacy between mulder & scully, but we learn a lot about the mytharc here too. samantha “disappeared from her bed one night” and there was no evidence, no contact, and no one would talk about it. he went to oxford, got recruited by the bureau. (while they’re having this conversation, someone is lurking outside the motel room.) he finds the x files and he was allowed to indulge because of his success and connections. mulder tells scully:

i’m telling you this, scully, because you need to know, because of what you’ve seen. in my research, i’ve worked very closely with a man named dr. heitz werber and he’s taken me through deep regression hypnosis. i’ve been able to go into my own repressed memories to the night my sister disappeared. i can recall a bright light outside and a presence in the room. i was paralyzed, unable to respond to my sister’s calls for help…listen to me, scully, this thing exists…the government knows about it, and i gotta know what they’re protecting. nothing else matters to me, and this is as close as i’ve ever gotten to it.

he covers sam’s abduction, how he found the x files, why he’s allowed to work on them, and the first inkling (for the audience) of a government conspiracy.

this is when mulder gets the call about peggy o’dell. (scully’s jump at the phone ringing is striking. she was so focused on mulder and what he was telling her, everything else faded away.) they go to the scene and mulder is shocked to hear peggy was running – “on foot?” just really cracks me up. as he’s focused on talking to the man driving, scully is taking a look at peggy’s body and makes note of the time on her watch, which is stopped. but just then, mulder learns ray soames’ corpse is missing. when they get back to the motel, it’s on fire with scully’s laptop, pictures and evidence inside.

theresa nemman approaches them in the chaos, they take her to a diner to hear what she has to say. she talks about finding herself in the woods, not knowing how she got there. she tells them she has the marks on her back too. she’s afraid she’s going to die too. her nose starts to bleed, like peggy’s did earlier, and as scully jumps up to grab napkins for her, theresa’s father, dr. nemman shows up with detective miles to take her home. this is when they realize det. miles’ is billy’s father.

mulder & scully have a brief conversation, brimming with their frustrations of losing their files & evidence, being denied access to a girl who needs help and wanted to talk, realizing how much these men are concealing. scully’s putting together dr. nemman’s & det. miles’ involvement. “they know” vs “they know something” – leading to mulder’s ultimate question (at this moment lol) of what’s in the other graves. when they go to check, the graves have already been dug up. the only other bodies already taken. at the graves, mulder puts together that billy miles is responsible. scully starts to follow his thoughts. he talks about time being stopped, he pauses “you think i’m crazy” and scully…she’s silent for a moment before telling him about peggy o’dell’s watch. another huge moment to me. she doesn’t believe it’s alien abduction, but she starts to understand the way mulder’s mind works, the connections he makes and the subsequent leaps. she doesn't keep this information from him despite it feeding a theory she doesn't agree with.

they head over to see billy miles. mulder talks to the nurse and scully starts to examine billy, finding his feet dirty, covered in the same dirt she found in the forest. a boy, who has been in a coma for years, completely bedridden and seemingly unaware of what’s happening around him. and scully is ready to run with this. he was out in the woods!!! and another important moment, mulder grounds her. reminds her of what she needs to do, her reports, procedure. and i think this is the moment that cements their roles – but shows they can also switch as need arises. mulder didn't understand how much he needed the science & evidence until he had someone ready to find it. so they go back out to the woods to get another sample of the dirt. that’s when they hear theresa scream and they go running. det. miles hits scully over the head and goes running after mulder, holding him at gunpoint as theresa continues to scream. and i love this moment too, because mulder appeals to this man’s better nature, urging him not to let billy kill another person. mulder stops him from shooting his son too. we see the marks on billy’s back, as a white light starts to overtake the scene with leaves blowing like a cyclone around billy & theresa. when the light finally fades, billy is conscious again, theresa is safe and the marks are gone from billy’s back. instantaneously.

the ending scenes are billy under hypnotic regression with dr. werber. mulder in the room with them. scully, blevins, the other man from scully’s meeting, and csm observing. billy talks about the aliens, the tests, the implant. the tests didn’t work, and the aliens were destroying the evidence. killing the abductees…mulder and scully make eye contact through the glass. cut to scully reporting to blevins. she can’t substantiate anything, they have no evidence, how do you prosecute?? this is what blevins & company care about. but scully held onto one piece of evidence: the implant, made of a metal that could not be identified, the implant billy miles claimed was controlling him. she leaves it with blevins, and when she exits, she watches csm enter blevins’ office. she has no idea who this man is, but he has been present at crucial moments and she took notice. she doesn’t understand yet but she won’t forget him.

in the end, mulder calls scully late at night to tell her the case file on billy miles has disappeared. csm is walking into the pentagon storage facility, filing away the metal implant with others just like it.

the pilot really lays a lot of groundwork. the implants, the marks/scars. the abduction experience, time loss, electronic interference, hypnotic regression. deformed corpses. government connections. disappearing evidence, constant interference. samantha’s abduction.

episode connections (before i watch future episodes):

conduit: small detail, but the ash-like dirt reminds me of the sand & glass at lake okobogee.

duane barry: he has an implant in his nasal cavity, much like the one they find. later on, in the anasazi trilogy, we learn scully has a chip in her neck which later connects her to other female abductees and carries through to cassandra in patient x/the red and the black.

cancer arc: billy miles indicates the exact place scully gets cancer.

reduxes: blevins is exposed as the mole. for the first part of the first season, scully reports to him until the x files is reassigned to skinner’s jurisdiction. his involvement isn’t fully explored, but he doesn’t completely disappear.

deadalive: ray soames’ transformation – possibly a failed attempt of what happens to billy miles & others, and nearly happens to mulder. also similar to the bodies mulder finds in anasazi.

csm: he’s there for scully’s meeting with blevins, he is there at the end for billy miles’ hypnotic regression. he is the most prominent figure in the conspiracy, as far as what we see, with a direct hand in scully’s & mulder’s experiences.

samantha’s abduction: there are two different versions of her abduction. truthfully, i think they just changed the story to work better for them. BUT (as i’ve mentioned before) i think it fits well into the mytharc later on – within the framework of the show, i think it’s possible samantha was abducted twice. conduit, paper hearts, demons, and another episode.

myth x:

one thing i really do like about this book is that it breaks down all the players. each group of aliens are given a clear name (which appear in the show but was never completely clear to me until this time around). michelle bush purports that the aliens abducting the oregon teens are walk-ins, representing the divine. they’re supposedly good but don’t know how to go about their goals. in some ways, this rings true. it’s the walk-ins that “save” samantha from more suffering. it’s like the walk-ins cassandra spender believes are trying to help them. bush describes their goal as “reintegration of both halves of the whole (alien and human) using natural means; this results in a single sentience allowing a return to physical and spiritual harmony.” which on paper, doesn’t sound bad. but their methods are as harmful as any of the others (alien and human alike).

[xfiles-vibes]

One of the things that really strikes me when I go back and watch The X Files is how—despite not appearing in the series much at all—Samantha Mulder’s presence consistently haunts the show and its characters.

Her abduction first inspires and then continues to fuel her brother’s search for the truth over several years. Even characters who have never met her seem to know immediately who she is, such as the moment that Scully sees Samantha’s clone on the bridge in Season 2. Knowledge of the torturous experimentation she was subjected to as a teenager by the Cigarette Smoking Man haunts not only her brother Fox Mulder, but also the boy she was raised alongside: Jeffrey Spender. She is simultaneously grieved for by her parents, and also overlooked by them, both choosing lives of shame and secrecy, endlessly guilt-tripping their son into believing he was responsible for his sister being taken, saddling him with a guilt that will weigh on him for years to come.

Anyway, if you’ve read this far, Samantha Mulder was done dirty and she deserved way better of an ending than what she got, especially after so many things in the show can be traced back to the mystery around her initial disappearance.

[mulderscreek]

Tiny Tuesday Question

If there had been a sequel episode to How the Ghosts Stole Christmas

[agent-troi]

I'D NEVER CONNECTED THE DOTS THAT THAT WAS SCULLY'S LITTLE FETUS SO I WAS, AS THE KIDS USED TO SAY, SHOOKETH.

Obviously, I saw it before with my eyeballs; but seeing and connecting the dots are two veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery different things.

....

....

...Now I'm sad about the Scully fetus, too. ://///////////////////

nobody talks enough about the scully fetus☹️☹️☹️ also was that the only one?? were there more??? were they emily clones or individual hybrids from their own series?? there neeeeeeeds to be more fic speculating about this bc canon just kinda mentions it and then it’s whoops on to the next part of the mytharc lol

[randomfoggytiger]

X-Files Fic That Irons Out the Mytharc: Amor Fati (Fated Love) Chapter 18

If anyone wants the mytharc to make sense post S7-- supersoldiers, factions, green and red blood, etc.-- all you have to do is read Chapter 18 (here) @touchstoneaf's epic Amor Fati (Fated Love) series , an AU after William's abduction in S9.

It's masterful, stretching backward and forward, knitting in the two alien factors warring since the Consortium went up in flames into a coherent and frightening threat for the future: two titans out for each others' throats and catching the human species in-between.

As an aside, if you want an amazing fic series that blend old school X-Files mythology with the new-fangled stuff (that was too convoluted to make sense of), her four-part (and still going) series is THE read. Amazing characterization. Amazing plot. All the characters in voice. Intelligence through the roof. PTSD and acceptance for Mulder, alone and on the run; PTSD and acceptance for Scully as she becomes a lioness for her son and Mulder, reuniting them on the road and helping them forge a life together. The three of them have each other as they flee, all factions hot on their heels. Absolutely stunning body of work.

I mean, look at her cover art (it's adorable and makes me chuckle):

Her notes in between chapters are spectacular (and wittily tongue-in-cheek) as well~. I particularly love her Diana Fowley Llama-Faced Crack-Ho quip; but more seriously, I enjoyed this abstraction:

""Note:  I checked the Latin, and there were three possible meanings for 'Amor Fati' for philes to choose from (probably to give us the chance to decide on our own). The phrase was originally used by Nietzsche to mean ‘love of one’s fate’ (as in to love all that had occurred in one’s life, good or ill, that made one who one is).  Considering the many painful speed-bumps hit by our heroes, this meaning is particularly apt for our intrepid duo.  The other form of ‘amor fati’, though, can be conjugated as ‘amoris fatale’; the fated love.  Nuff said.""  

Cannot recommend this series enough.

**Note**: I started reading Part 2, which focused solely on Scully already on the road (Part 1 was set the groundwork for the series and tied up all loose knots concerning the other characters, ex. the Scullys, TLG, Skinner and Doggett and Monica.) If you prefer to get into the meat of the story, start there: I've never watched S9 and found it was completely coherent without Part 1 as its primer.

[amplifyme]

Saw your tags-- yeah, I purposefully blind myself to mytharc past Two Fathers/One Son (is there even one?) It just simply didn't happen. Now that I think about it, the rest of S6-7 was basically resolving loose threads (very badly) until everything was all ship-shape by Je Souhaite.... oh BOY am I glad I wasn't in the fandom post Requiem. That is stressful just to think about.

Yeah, after TF/OS we got a jumbled mess of mytharc that made even less sense than everything that came before it. *rolling my eyes*

All I can remember of my reaction after watching Requiem when it first aired was being filled with immense anger. I've elaborated on the reasons why before, so I won't repeat myself. It was not a good time for many OGs.

[randomfoggytiger]

CC has spoken.

X-Files: Fight the Future Hidden Track

In case y’all don’t know how fuckin EXTRA Chris Carter is, lemme tell you. On the X-Files: Fight the Future soundtrack (I’m old school, I still have my CD from 1998), if you let the final track from the Dust Brothers keep playing, after minutes and minutes of silence, at exactly 10:13, Chris Carter himself (yes, his droning, monotone voice, which will scare the shit out of you if you’re not expecting it) lays out what is probably the most coherent explanation of the first five seasons of the show’s mythology I’ve ever heard in my life. And yeah, it’s in the form of a stream-of-consciousness, hidden aside to the fans and is very much an info-dump. But it’s shockingly similar to Mulder’s ridiculous ass monologue for Tad and Sveta’s benefit in front of a seething Scully in the Unremarkable House in My Struggle I. And honestly, after watching Season 10, I have to believe that some of this is going to come into play again. 

He can’t completely retcon his own damn mythos, can he?

Anyway, here’s the monologue for you. It’s pretty great.

“The method, as they call it, though it was more so a germ-line procedure of singular meta-scientific complexity, had been given to them by the alien colonists as a quid pro quo. The Syndicate would help them to create a population of alien hybrids who would hide in plain sight, cloned from human ova and alien bio-material, so there would be a clone race immune to the effects of the black oil when the return to the planet began. For this, the Syndicate would be sequestered, granted a sort of immunity or asylum, given a place in the grander scheme.

“They were the Vichy government to the German “Final Solution”: collaborationists whose motivation was simple, self-directed survival. These cloning operations were spread across the country, the cataloging and record-keeping done through a complex intra-institutional system that connected to every branch of government, from the Social Security Administration to the Department of Defense.

“The operation, under the working title “Purity Control,” had been launched in 1948, its original conception the brainchild of German scientists given immunity themselves for war crimes, and allowed to continue the eugenic experiments that were Hitler’s dark legacy.

“The Syndicate had begun as a subset of a shadow intelligence agency whose original orders were to create plausible denial and an effective cover-up of Purity Control. But through 50 years, numerous U.S. and U.N. administrations, the principals began to wrest control, accumulating power and influence across international borders, such that - by 1990 - the operation ceased to have a member accountable to any one government and whose only orders would be taken from a man named Strughold, a German industrialist who had fled his homeland to northern Africa.

"These men, whose knowledge and access provided control of a foreseeable future, had, in spite of this, everything to lose. Their secret work, the cloning preparations and the cataloging, constituted their greatest vulnerability: exposure. Their detection would ensure not just their own demise but a far-reaching dissolution of social and religious order around the globe.

"To protect against this, the Syndicate employed methods of disinformation, using covert government programs that had been regrettably discovered, as a kind of smokescreen - a dodge or blind where the transgressions of Congress-accountable agencies served to hide their own more odious undertaking.

"They had even at times used the UFO phenomenon to create a hysteria that science and the intelligentsia denounced, so completely, as to make belief in believers seem ridiculous and completely discreditable.

"They had also, in a crisis, used a tool of the colonists themselves - alien bounty hunters who policed the cloning operations and enforced rule on the countdown to colonization. A double-edged sword whose cold-blooded tactics had helped to stem a leak or threat, but who also kept a watch on the Syndicate. A threat in itself, as the Syndicate had something to hide that not even the colonists knew of: a vaccine against the black oil, an inoculant against the substance in which the alien life force was held - in fact, the very medium of the life force itself.

"To guard this secret was perhaps even more critical than the truth of the existence of alien life, and of colonization. If the Syndicate’s own secret vaccine were discovered, the vaccine that would make themselves immune from the effects of the black oil, they would certainly be destroyed and the timetable for colonization stepped up. They would protect this secret with their lives. They would kill to protect it, as it symbolized the only hope they had of avoiding enslavement when the planet was overtaken.

"That they had been able to, over decades, conduct their work on the vaccine undetected was the result of a code among the Syndicate members that put honor and the future above personal politics. But now this code was beginning to break down, an incipient scramble for power beginning to develop. A threat from within that doubled the threat from without: from agents Mulder and Scully, and the X-files.”

[fine-nephrit]

🥏 TXF Fic Rec #42: "Universal Invariant" by Syntax6

It’s rare to find a novel-length, all-encompassing fic set in season 1. Today’s fic is exactly that: a celebrated classic exploring a ‘what if’ scenario where Scully’s deleted live-in boyfriend, Ethan, sticks around. The story begins with Scully’s assignment to the X Files in the ‘Pilot’ and concludes with her return from abduction in ‘One Breath’.

We get to experience the M/S dynamic right from the very beginning, watching their partnership evolve from suspicion to trust, with a repressed, burgeoning attraction. In Syntax6’s skillful hands, you know what that means: lots of delicious, in-character UST.

Ethan plays a major role, adding to the emotional tangle. The ‘Other’ character is often reduced to a flat plot-device or crudely villainized, but Syntax6’s characters are always likable and sympathetic. She writes the best ‘/Other’ plot in this fandom, enhancing the journey to MSR.

It’s a lot of fun to see how the story neatly interweaves with canon episodes, a hallmark of Syntax6’s writing. What’s more, She’s best known for her case files, and there’s a strong original casefile tossed in the mix, which I enjoyed immensely. And we get another of her signature moves: a very hot, well-written sex scene with explosive intensity, placed at the perfect spot in the story. She really does it all, and makes it look effortless.

---

🥏 on author's site

author: @syntax6 length: novel, 80,000+ words season: season 1, early season 2 pairing(s): M/S UST, Scully/Ethan, Mulder/Other tags: AU, episode-related, casefile, angst, Mytharc, abduction arc, jealousy, amnesia, good OCs rating: explicit/NC-17

tagging @today-in-fic

[bisexualfbiagents]

Nine minutes, Scully. Do you remember the last time you were missing nine minutes?

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF THE X FILES Day 5: Favorite Arc Part One ➤ The Suspicious Crash of Flight 549 from Tempus Fugit (4.17) and Max (4.18)

[samanthamulder]

THE X-FILES (1993-2018)

SEASON FIVE — What do you hope to find? I mean, in the end.

[lilydalexf]

A few fics come to my mind that involve the mytharc and the Scully family in some way:

And Death Shall Have No Dominion by Jean Helms Mulder and Scully, off the X Files for now, investigate a possible bioweapons facility. What they find there puts their partnership, their investigative skills, their love and even their sanity to a test neither could ever have imagined.

Aurora by Steve Mills and Adam Webb Scully attends her great-uncle’s funeral and inherits a mystery for her to investigate, though certain powers don’t wish her to.

Frederick by @lilydalexf (me!) Angst of the Scully family variety. Everything is not as it seems.

Half-Life Universe by skuls (@ghostbustermelanieking) Mulder and Scully get a second chance.

Locusts by syn An unexpected death begins a terrible journey for Dana Scully and Fox Mulder; one that threatens to tear their faith, their beliefs and their partnership apart.

anyone know of any txf fics touching on the idea of Ahab/Bill Scully having also been tangentially linked to...... conspiracy things? or coverups? I feel like that old friend and neighbor from the base having information in piper maru/apocrypha took a step in that direction. as did the implication that Ahab advanced through the ranks with some alacrity if he was already a Captain in Scully's youth/adolescence -- i mean yes it could just be an extension of the Ahab nickname and/or the writer's room getting confused naval promotions, which. fair. the only reason i know anything about that is due to research i did in a past fandom, but I'm choosing to view it with this lens if you see what i mean. Also the fact that Scully is in those 'vaccination' records they found since before her abduction. I'm always unclear if that was meant to imply that 'everyone' was being indexed and filtered at that point or if it was meant to imply that Scully and possibly her family had been marked for the inclusion in the plot/conspiracy from well before her being linked to Mulder on the X-files assignment.

I just think it would be interesting to play with the idea that Bill Sr. did things or knew things or was actually in naval intelligence or something -- I remember from my time in aforementioned previous fandom with an ex naval intelligence officer turned criminal rogue character that they have their hands in more pies than most people think... at least in TV land. Obviously he's not directly involved the way the other father named Bill was but it would be interesting if he were wittingly or unwittingly involved in operations for the benefit of the syndicate people.

And it would be interesting if CSM/CGB put Scully onto the X-files with Mulder not to simply be an obstruction in his path and spy on him/take him down like they assume but because Ahab's service somehow put Scully in the net they cast for potential subjects/colonization survivors. That after CSM decided to move Diana under his personal control (take his son's girlfriend for himself) he offset that by pushing Scully at him in hopes that he'd be distracted and settle down with another intelligent, 'conspiracy-approved' woman/genetic line. (not bargaining on them both being obsessive workaholics.) And that maybe her abduction wasn't punishment for continuing to work on the files but was part of something that was already in motion whether or not she continued working with Mulder.

Plus, frankly, it would be really interesting to know what Bill Jr. was up to. To explore the idea that he was also involved in some tertiary way via his own service. In a thought experiment where Ahab was useful to the conspiracy and his 3rd child got selected for further use in early screening, what would be the chances that his 1st born son was totally passed over? Not high, right?

I don't believe this is literally canon or that the intention was really there, but you could definitely make a plot like this out of some of the pieces they gave us and I feel like it would be an interesting perspective on Scully's relationship to her family, and the maybe-inevitability of her involvement in all this, and her ability to establish agency in spite of it. And it's a way to sidestep the 'mulder was being punished with scully's abduction' baggage that the show does and doesn't believe.

I've been really thinking about this lately, but I can't offhand remember any fics or meta tackling mytharcy things from this direction....?

[deathsbestgirl]

so i was just thinking about the pilot & mytharc again, and there a few things i didn't really talk about. it didn't exactly occur to me when i made my first post, but for some reason it just struck me.

at the end of the pilot, blevins asks "yes but how do you prosecute a case like this?" what the fbi/government is interested in isn't merely closed cases, people left better off than they were but punishment.

later in the series, i can't specifically remember when, but i think skinner says they can't hold these men accountable. there's no accountability for them. in tunguska/terma, scully tries to tell the board there's a larger issue of men within the government acting with impunity & no accountability — and they're completely disinterested.

and then i remembered flukeman and how they wanted to try him...when he wasn't even a person lol that isn't a mytharc episode, but that's what the fbi & government want. that's why the x files are x files. too often, there's no one to prosecute. it's usually when they have a serial killer case and the person is a human anomaly. the other instances the fbi/government accept is death of the perpetrator, human or otherwise.

sometimes i wonder if this part of the whole 'they're the worst fbi agents' — besides not following procedure, breaking some laws, and specifically "unorthodox methods of investigation."

the reason scully stayed on the x files & followed mulder is because the truth & victims are his priority. scully cares about that too. and as many others have said, that isn't what the fbi/government cares about.

[enoughslices]

Behold! I wrote a fun, fluffy little future fic in which William and Emily are normal, human, snarky adult children!

The Best by thefinestmuffins (my AO3 handle)

Rating: Teen and Up Relationship: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully Word Count: 5.1k Summary:

“When my card declines in therapy,” Will says with a loud sigh, glancing up mid-signature, “they’re going to pull out the NDA my mother made me sign.” Will shows Emily a shocking discovery in their parents' basement; Mulder and Scully have some explaining to do. (Or: how Emily and Will learn about the X-Files!)

Read it on AO3!

Tagging: @today-in-fic In case links break: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57869401

[limnsaber]

Re Amor Fati: what the fuck was that. I have more things to say and more things to think about and no idea how to say them.

I feel like that was the first time mytharc really faltered. Not that it was impervious before, but something abt it wasn’t on target this time

David Duchovny I know you have things to say what did you mean. I’m going to need to have that percolate for a minute

Spoilers (for the mutuals) below:

Mulder always throws in with CSM when he’s at his lowest

The sequence with Diana and Mulder’s faux dream world makes much more sense if Diana and Mulder had been married in the past

Really interesting stuff with keys, and the truth, Mulder’s idea of deserving and fate. Ultimately where I think mytharc is faltering is that it can’t deliver anything concrete, but it’s trying to, and in doing so it’s becoming more aligned with the Syndicate. I have to rephrase that. Hmm. It’s like this with Mulder’s dream too, there are things there he didn’t want and things there that he did. And still the truth is Scully

I think the extraterrestrial vessel was both things at once — extraterrestrial and a fraud. The Syndicate’s guys and Mulder’s dream land talk about God’s plan, and playing God, and the idea that everything was orchestrated is not the truth.

Though maybe Scully’s thesis might say otherwise. Not in the orchestration, but in… where was it. “Although multidimensionality suggests infinite outcomes in an infinite number of universes, each universe can produce only one outcome.” Hmm. Fate, again.

“Hold on.” “Let go.” AGHHHHH Scully… CSM when I get you.

Oh. One more thing. I imagine: when Mulder was lying on that table and Scully was pleading with him, even while he had just been cured of his paracognitive ability he heard I love you as clear as any truth he’d ever known.

[agent-troi]

731 is such a lowkey brilliant ep bc one of the syndicate head honchos themselves personally shows Scully only the parts of the whole truth that she would believe and that would also convince her to discount aliens entirely