#small potatoes

[platinum-iridium]

you know, in that episode where the shapeshifter is impersonating mulder and goes over to scully's place and opens with asking her why they don't really talk, my first thought was wtf is he talking about but then in subsequent episodes i really paid attention to how even when talking about the most personal shit, all they do is deflect, depersonalize, and intellectualize their feelings in that order. and it's just so crazy because they'll trust the other with their health, their safety, their future, their freedom, and their damn lives but can't extend that trust to their feelings. it's insanity. i'm obsessed

[azure-firecracker]

I, like most people I’m sure, spent most of Small Potatoes laughing hysterically, but the more I think about it, the sadder the climactic scene makes me.

(And yes, I do think Scully knew something was up even though she may not have been sure what. You can see that she’s not leaning back into that kiss at all).

But I just feel so much for Scully in this scene. Because yes, she gave up on having a “normal” life ages ago. We know she’s drawn to the strangeness and charm of Mulder’s quest, maybe more than she’s willing to admit, and that she’s willing to sacrifice normality and conventions for that. But I don’t think that means she doesn’t want normality.

Mulder, I think, is someone who would be content if he never did anything other than search for aliens. And I think Scully would be content that way too, but I also think there’s a small part of her that wants to go on dates and drink wine and make scrapbooks and exist away from the danger where things are easy. And she knows Mulder can’t give her that, that the odd and dangerous is an intrinsic part of him, but still she wishes for balance.

(Fanfic does a great job of giving them more normal moments. In fact, it does such a great job that I forget how few there are in the show. But Eddie was right - they usually don’t talk. They’re connected more deeply than maybe anyone else could be. But they don’t talk).

The inherent tragedy of Mulder and Scully’s relationship is that Scully wants to be seen and valued, and though Mulder does see and value her above all else, he doesn’t show it in a way she always understands. She thinks she’ll always play second fiddle to his quest, and doesn’t see the moments where he reveals he’d throw the whole thing away for her sake. He runs off without her time and time again, and she’s left to pick up the pieces and do the less glamorous parts of the job, without seeing the lengths he goes to to keep her out of danger.

Scully is such a closed-off person that she wants to just exist comfortably and without fear and feel like she’s important. And though Mulder gives her that in some ways, it’s never quite in the ways she understands. She doesn’t know how much she means to him - I think that’s pretty evident.

And now she’s dying. The job she sacrificed all hope of normalcy, of being seen and valued exactly how she wants to be, for, is slowly killing her. And here comes someone she thinks is Mulder, wine in hand. And he finally gives her what she’s been craving - a shred of normalcy. A space she can be herself, be seen, be loved without everything being tied up in desperation and danger and fear.

It’s everything she wanted from Mulder that he couldn’t give her.

But it was all a lie.

[thirddagger]

Watching the legendary Small Potatoes (s4 e20 lol blaze it) and I don't know what emotion I'm experiencing because it's adjacent to second-hand embarrassment but either way it's excruciating because that MAN is not my MAN give me MY REAL MULDER BACK

Kudos to David Duchovny for being A Different Man because of acting powers that are making me almost physically ill, but like damn the classic Mulder-falling-off-the-desk clip is when Van Blundht is pretending to be Mulder, like the clip of him smiling through the door peephole and the showing off in the mirror, and yes it's still David Duchovny but that Is NOT Mulder my favorite sci fi agent man

[bakedbakermom]

txf+text posts (16/?)

@phillippadgettwrites i need you to know that note has been bouncing around my head like a dvd screensaver for WEEKS

[thexfileswithoutcontext]

yes

[caridrea]

[twogravesinsomecemetery]

thinking about how Scully probably sprinted back to the Workplace Therapist after small potatoes and literally had a manic breakdown in her office like "Omg so Mulder tried to sleep with me except it wasn't actually him it was his clone and I was super uncomfortable the whole time except I lowkey wanted it to happen even though we're supposed to be work partners and actually I WOULD like him to sleep with me bc i've had a major crush for years and also i'm dying of an incurable brain tumor and i don't have a lot of time left to admit my feelings even though I don't WANT to admit my feelings bc I could never tell him that I didn’t want to sleep with him because I do ACTUALLY want to sleep with him and i'm super mad it was his clone and I can't believe ACTUAL Mulder broke the door down and stopped the whole thing from happening even though I didn't want it to happen anyway. why are you looking at me like that. Which part of this is not making sense to you"

[deathsbestgirl]

thinking about this and the unscripted memento mori kiss. in memento mori, mulder goes to kiss and stops, scully makes the decision to kiss him. small potatoes...they've held the silence and this is a sudden change. they haven't held the same physical affection since memento mori. this is not what they agreed to in their silence.

the millennium kiss is a little different. mulder is thinking about it, and he just looks at scully until she turns. she goes for it and she's ready. they're on the same page, and the world didn't end.

[daiyanerd]

Small Potatoes is a fave of mine, and while watching it I thought it would be funny as the Soiderman meme lol. It’s a pitty we never got the animated series that apparently had been discussed.

One thing that puzzles me:

Clearly wearing black slacks - so

Where did her pants go??? 👀

[okanadafreakingfan]

All I can think about is buggy saying “Arlong babyyyy~ you don’t gotta worry about me I’m small potatoes!” And now all I want is for buggy to call me a smoll potato

[is-on-its-way]

We've got a big potato

Post-Episode: s04e20 Small Potatoes

Part of the Scully is a human Series

Summary: Small potatoes ending with Mulder making light of the fact that Scully was almost sexually assaulted by Van Blundt just didn't sit right with me. So here's their very uncommunicative conversation about it.

🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔

(They walk down the hall together, neither looking very happy. Scully's arms are folded, but then she unfolds them and puts her hands in her coat pockets. Mulder is fiddling with his sleeves and looking down at the floor as he walks.) SCULLY: I don't imagine you need to be told this Mulder, but you're not a loser. MULDER: Yeah, but I'm no Eddie Van Blundht either. Am I? (He glances quickly over at her. She doesn't respond and stares straight ahead. Mulder continues to fiddle with his hands and looks ahead as well.

They had reached the car outside in the parking lot before Scully spoke. 

She whipped around on him and looked him straight in the face as he startled at her anger. He had been so caught up in his own thoughts and self pity and confusion at everything Eddie had just said and everything Scully had done he hadn’t noticed how livid she had become. 

She took a deep breath, the breath before she‘d let him have it. For what, he truly did not know.

“That man attempted to rape me Mulder. For you to suggest I would ever have chosen him...”

His eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up in panic. “Scully, I didn’t mean…” He started but she cut him off.

“He looked exactly like you and he had your voice and…” she trailed off and looked away from him blinked and frustrated at the tears blossoming in her eyes 

“How could you think it was me? “He whispered looking at the ground next to her.

He had been burning to know since the police had carted a dazed Van Blunt out of Scully’s apartment, having been on the receiving end of a pretty good punch in the jaw from Mulder “You know me, we’ve spent four years together. Why couldn’t you tell me apart from that... that…” He wanted to say loser, but truth be told, he’d never been more certain he was the loser of the situation. “criminal?” He finally finished.

She brushed her cheek quickly and looked back at him. “You want to know why it was so easy? Because he didn’t talk about the work and I thought..." She spluttered in embarrassment, then restarted "Because he seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say… in my life.” He cheeks were bright red now.

“I am genuinely interested in what you have to say Scully. Always.” his voice choked on the last word. He felt a deep shame bubble up in his chest. 

How could she believe it was any other way? He wanted to know everything about her. Her deepest feelings on every subject, he just, had a hard time finding the words to start a conversation. They were closer that anything he'd ever experienced with another human being, but in some ways felt like strangers still. He was always so excited to talk to her about their work because she was the only one who would listen, the only one just as invested, she'd made that clear. Anything he found his first thought was always her. He would guess at what she would say or think or feel about it, he could hear her voice so clearly in his head.

But that wasn’t enough anymore and that terrified him. He wasn’t enough. Illness can make a person reevaluate their life. He was terrified she’d leave the x files, leave him alone and his life would be transformed back to that empty lonely place it had been before her. Worse, because he knew what it was to have her now. And she was sick, possibly… he couldn’t even think it. 

She pursed her lips looking hurt avoiding his gaze. Her chin crinkled betraying her fight not to come to tears. 

“Let’s just forget it okay Mulder?” She glanced back at him quickly “Please?”

“Yeah, okay Scully, if thats what you need.” He swallowed, he couldn’t let this end like this.

He grabbed her arm as she walked away from him to the car and stopped her. She turned only halfway back to him.

“Scully I never meant to imply… Im sorry, I know he took advantage of you. Im so glad I got there in time.”

She searched his face, her own inscrutable, and then nodded at him, eyes softening. "You always get there in time." She gave him a small smile and he let his hand drop from her arm as she started to the passenger side of their car.

@today-in-fic🙏

[azure-firecracker]

Excuse me I did not know that David Duchovny had such comedic skills!

[all-eyes-lead-to-the-truth]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Small Potatoes (4x20)

“Well, what do you want to talk about?” she asked, swirling her wine around in her glass.

Usually, when he did this, Eddie had to tread delicately on a path someone else had already laid before him. Sometimes it was a Herculean task to get to learn little details about the women he was pursuing because it would be stuff their husbands would never ask. 

But this was different. 

It didn’t take him long to realize he’d initially misread the situation when he saw them at the clinic. Based on the look Dana Scully shot him when he tried to hold her hand at the airport, he knew he was navigating territory Fox Mulder had yet to conquer.

It didn’t make any sense to him. Such a good-looking guy, an agent of the Federal Beurow of Investigation, couldn’t get with his hot, nerdy partner? When he was watching them earlier, they seemed so into each other, like they were two people living in their own little world. It was something he usually only saw with couples in love.

“Earlier, you uh- you said you’d be Eleanor Roosevelt if you could be someone else for a day. Why her?” 

“I thought you said it couldn’t be a dead person,” she teased, giving him a pointed look.

He shot her a soft smile. “I want to hear why you chose her though.”

That wasn’t even a lie, he really did. Eddie saw through the window the way Mulder’s face contorted into something akin to revulsion when she answered, presumably in response to the First Lady’s appearance. It was the same expression Amanda had when she talked about him. Yet Dana didn't seem to judge a book by its cover.

“Well,” she started, taking a deep breath. “I think she’s an admirable woman. She has a lot of beautiful qualities that I would love to embody.”

“She continued her husband’s work after he fell ill right? Motivated him to keep going when no one else would, even going so far as to take on some of the load herself despite the criticism she received?” For the first time, he was grateful one of the women from the clinic loved watching the History Channel.

She nodded, seemingly pleased. “They were a great team.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you already embody a lot of the First Lady’s admirable qualities.”

She looked caught off guard by the compliment, but recovered quickly, a dusting of color on her cheeks the only giveaway that his assessment had an effect on her.

“You never answered your own question,” she stated into the hollow round of her wine glass.

“Hmm?”

“Who would you be?”

A small exhale of laughter escaped through his nose before he could catch himself and it didn’t go unnoticed. “What?” she pried.

Eddie raised the glass to his lips and pretended to take a sip to buy time. Who wouldn’t he rather be? He wanted to be someone who was funny, someone smart, someone who was loved — but at the end of the day, he truly did want to be Eddie Van Blundht. He just wished other people would want that too.

Sure, he wasn’t attractive in the conventional sense and maybe he didn’t have a fancy job working at the Federal Beureaw of Investigation, but he wasn’t all bad.

Setting the glass back down, he remembered something he’d seen in Mulder’s apartment and it seemed as good of an answer as any. 

“Elvis,” he answered.

“Elvis?” she deadpanned, her amusement showing itself in a slight grin.

“Have you heard the voice on that man? And his moves?”

“I would just like to state for the record that you also chose a dead person,” she remarked.

He shrugged in mock surrender. “My love for the King goes beyond the grave. But what about you? What type of music are you into?”

“Oh, um,” she paused, contemplating her answer. “I’ve always been a fan of R&B. Dennis Edwards, Stevie Wonder, Al Wilson–”

“What about Al Green?”

“Of course,” she replied with an earnest grin. “I have all his albums.”

“You should put them on!” he encouraged.

“Now?”

“Why not?” he countered, pleased when she nodded her head in acquiescence and got up.

His eyes trailed over her form as she walked across the room and he felt the familiar coil of arousal twist in his gut. This was probably the most beautiful woman he’d spoken to in a long time, and he wanted this to go well.

While she was preoccupied, Eddie took the opportunity and leaned over to top up her wine, pretending to do the same to his untouched glass. It’s not that he wanted the women to be drunk by the time he made a move, he just found that it helped blur the lines between how they expected their husbands to be and what he would do for them. They were less likely to question why their husband's kiss felt different or why he was trying something new. It was just better this way.

He grimaced as droplets of wine fell onto the papers scattering the coffee table, and he looked back to make sure she was still preoccupied before snagging a couple of tissues and blotting the liquid. 

His attention was drawn to a legal pad sitting amongst the papers. In delicate, feminine scrawl, he made out the words “Doctor Appointment - Thursday at 8:30.” His confusion only deepened when he leaned over to throw the tissues in the waste bin and saw a few others stained a different shade of red. She didn’t look sick, but then again he knew better than anyone looks could be deceiving.

He quickly moved back into place when Al Green’s voice filled the room. “I haven’t played music like this in so long,” she admitted, walking back to him with a shy expression.

Suddenly he realized this might be easier than he thought. Maybe she needed this as much as he did.

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

@gaycrouton

[bakedbakermom]

Blood and Wine (read on ao3)

angst/cancer arc // rated T // 1k tagging @today-in-fic @ao3feed-msr

A missing scene. After van Blundht's arrest, Scully and Mulder say a lot while saying very nearly nothing at all.

Because Scully deserved to be pissed, and Mulder is a mess, and these two beautiful, wounded idiots don't know what to do anymore.

[carefulfears]

So what was going through Scully’s head when “Mulder” came over to her apartment with a bottle of wine in Small Potatoes?

y'all listen!!!! i've talked about this before but i maintain that this was just deeply embarrassing for her. like. dana scully is already a very embarrassing woman, we know this, it's fine, god still talks to her specifically, but i feel like small potatoes is like...the most embarrassing scully episode...through no fault of her own, obviously. but first of all, the way that she falls into it so quickly, and laps it up, but doesn't believe it. when she sees the wine bottle she literally asks, "who's that for?"

she asks what's going on, she asks if he's okay. she doesn't trust that he would want to just spend time with her without an excuse or a goal. (which...we know that it's not that he doesn't want to, it's more that he can't, but she doesn't feel that way. she wants to be wanted.)

her tone when he says "we never really talk much, do we?" and she answers "what do you mean like...really talk? no. no, we don't, mulder."

and they don't. you have to think of it in the context of never again, it hasn't been that long since philadelphia. in never again, she tried to talk to mulder about how she was feeling, albeit in a frustrated round-about way, and he blew her off. then she went away, met ed, and told him. the way she talks to "mulder" in small potatoes is closer to the way she talked to ed in the bar, just lighter and with more history.

season 4 is all about repression, and not saying what needs to be said, even when it might be your last chance. in the final scene of never again, the script notes: "if it were ever going to happen, it would be now," but that they maintain the silence. they maintain the silence, and then they're given a death sentence, a diagnosis. one that he "refuses to believe," so they maintain the silence more.

when who she thinks is mulder asks, "we never really talk much, do we?" it's not that they don't talk, that they aren't close, that they don't know each other. it's that they don't "really talk," like she says, in that quietly discontented way she answers "no, we don't."

it's in the way that she says "not everything is about you, mulder, this is my life." and the way that she asks if he's okay because he wants to spend friday night with her.

it's not that they "don't talk," or that they aren't best friends, or that they don't spend time together: it's that they don't get out of the car. they don't stop moving, not even long enough for her to be dying. it's that she feels like they don't talk, like so much remains unsaid in that maintained silence.

when he leans towards her, she sighs in surprise, but parts her lips. she's dying. she wants to be wanted. (the first thing she does after surviving, is show up at his door with wine.)

i call it embarrassing, but it's really just heartbreakingly sad. in the end, she sticks her hands in her pocket, stares at the floor, and tells him it's okay. maintains the silence.

[caridrea]

Los amoooo 🥰🥰