downright anti-darwinian

[scullylegs]

Remember when Mulder asked Scully to go steady, she said yes and he took her to meet his friends?

[txf-fic-chicks-blog]

Post Colonization / AU Tuesday

Some authors write so beautifully, that we would happily and eagerly read their novel length description of paint drying.  Some authors are just that talented, that poetic, and we are lucky to have so many in our fandom. We had heard whispers of Revely’s writing here and there over the last few months, but hadn’t really listened.  Our fic queue’s were overloaded with fic to read, fic we were in the process of reading, and fic that we’d already rec’d and forgotten to close out of.  Revely has the ability to make even the most mundane daily task seem artistically brilliant, written to utter perfection. We finally took the leap, putting every other story we were reading on hold, and dove head first into today’s AU recommendation.  We were smitten with this writer’s changes to the end of the series, the emotional journey the reader takes with Mulder and Scully.  It’s a beautiful ride, philes, one we know you’ll enjoy. 

Title:  The Unfinished Universe

Author:  Revely

Rating:  PG-13

Length:  100K / word count: 51,000+

Synopsis:    A beautiful, literary story of Mulder’s return from abduction, to be reacquainted with Scully and William in a two-week journey from Oregon back to Virginia. Mulder adjusts to fatherhood & his changed relationship with Scully, while Scully muses about her prayers and personal anxieties. Together, they seek emotional and spiritual renewal.

Spoilers:  Through Badlaa

Possible Triggers:  None

[rottenette]

people are calling it sculder? smulder even???? girl its msr get the fuck out

[scullylegs]

[scullylegs]

Sometimes I think about how people fron the US and Europeans believe the world is limited to North America and Western Europe

[scullylegs]

[evilsanlang]

if you have brazilian friends please check in on them this friday and remind them to drink some water. if bolsonaro is condemned they're going to be out drinking all night

[evilsanlang]

it's happening

[geeseareassholes]

Majority in Brazil’s Supreme Court votes to convict Bolsonaro for attempted coup | CNN

A majority of judges in a five-member panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court have voted to convict former President Jair Bolsonaro of planning to o

BRASIL CAMPEÃO DO MUNDO!! 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷

[scullylegs]

I am drink already. Just a little bit. Tomorrow I'll drink some more

[scullylegs]

Post celebrativo da condenação de Jair Bolsonaro

[numinousmysteries]

I'm trying to be a little less precious with fic and throw some stuff out there that i'm not 100% about. might edit/delete/turn this into something else entirely at some point. but for now, it is what it is.

untitled. post-the truth. wallace (iykyk). explicit. angsty. [on Ao3]

Somewhere along the way, they've lost the plot. He isn't looking for his sister anymore. They aren't hunting down a cryptid or trying to solve a murder case. They drive with no map because there is no destination.

They ditched the SUV Skinner procured for them somewhere in northern New Mexico. It was too identifiable, too flashy. They're in an old sedan that fits them better now. Something late 90s. Something that could be from a field office motor pool in any city across the country. It's got New Mexico plates, dust around the rims, and 75,034 miles and counting. And counting. And counting.

They cross state lines, weave between highways and side roads with no rhyme or reason. If anything, their erratic, meandering path should make them stick out more, but after several days they wonder if anyone is even still looking for them. He starts to grow out a beard and wears an old baseball cap he found abandoned in a gas station bathroom. It bears the logo of a local hunting store. Local to where, they don't know.

"Your hair," he says, one night in a motel room bed, running his fingers between her auburn strands.

"I know," she says. 

The next day she buys a set of scissors and a box of blue-black dye at a Walmart. She does it in the bathroom of the next motel room. Even with shaky hands, she chops a straight line parallel to her jaw. She combs the front section in front of her face and cuts blunt, too-short bangs. Once there's less hair to deal with, she opens the boxed dye. Two rinses later, and she doesn't recognize herself. She squirts some on her eyebrows, too, even though the instructions warn against it, because her natural ones look too ridiculous with her new dark hair. Who cares if she goes blind?

"I like it," he says, when she finally emerges. There are inky black dye stains on the motel towel she has wrapped under her arms. She doubts it's the worst thing housekeeping here has had to deal with.

"I hate it," she says, glancing down to avoid eye contact with him.

"It's just temporary."

"The box says semi-permanent."

He smiles at her sadly and pats the bed next to him. She sheds the towel and lays down on top of it.

He rolls onto his side to face her and runs a hand down her chest, her flat abdomen, her mons.

"The carpet no longer matches the drapes," he says flatly.

She smiles but can't muster up the energy to laugh. She misses her son. Their son. She knows Mulder misses him, too, but they don't talk about it. Talking about it would make it real—it would mean their son exists somewhere out there without them. It would mean she really did give him up. So instead they focus on details. Driving. Hiding. What they'll do when they run out of cash. They act like there isn't a boy with half of each their DNA somewhere in this vast country who's about to celebrate his first birthday.

Mulder missed the first ten months of their son's life. They'll both miss the rest of it.

"I'm sorry," she says, quietly, looking up at the pockmarked ceiling and not at him. She isn't talking about the hair dye.

He doesn't tell her it's alright. That he would have done the same thing. Because none of that is true.

Instead, he kisses a trail up her torso. She thinks he'll kiss her lips next, so she tilts her chin to face him but he skips her face entirely and pulls her body up so her back is against the wall and her ass is resting on top of the headboard.

He kneels in front of her and forces himself inside her. She gasps as he stretches her. She isn't ready for this but she wants it just the same. He doesn't hesitate before withdrawing his ramrod-straight cock entirely and then slamming back inside her. She wants it to hurt. She feels herself tearing and she knows she's going to bleed. None of this feels good. It's exactly what she needs. She pulls on the taut muscles of his lower back, pulling him in again even harder. He doesn't face her—she knows he can't—just buries his head in the side of her neck and bites down hard on her skin. She's going to bleed. She's going to bruise. It's what she deserves.

Her med school instructors instilled in her the importance of never separating the soul from the body. She was taught that however quantifiable the human form became through scans or lab reports, it was still part of a person with wants, desires, and fears. The best doctors, she was taught, treat the person, not the body.

Now, she just wants to be a body. A soulless rag doll who doesn’t deserve the dignity she once gave to corpses. 

She squeezes her eyes shut and lets him slam her body against the wall. They're both quiet, but the sound of the headboard slapping the thin motel room wall will certainly be noticed. Who cares, she thinks. With a grunt, he comes inside her. Buried deep within her, she thinks she hears a sob, but before he has time to say anything, he pushes off her and lurches to the bathroom. She hears the shower turn on.

Sliding down the headboard, his cum leaks out of her onto the off-white motel room pillowcase. It's tinged milky pink with blood from where her thin inner flesh tore. She did want it to hurt.

[scullylegs]

[deathsbestgirl]

How are they any different from any other couple? They are not. How are they special? I don’t see it. Why do you all hold them up as some high status couple when they simply are not and could easily be replaced with other people.

you can think what you want but you're wrong (:

there's not an answer to this that will satisfy you, dearest troll.

once again saying i love every phase of their relationship as it is in the show. partners, best friends, romantic, broken up, family. so like. basically, that's why.

[scullylegs]

Rainha 👑

[scullylegs]

Valeu, Flavinha

[scullylegs]

Obrigada por tanto!

[scullylegs]

[actual-changeling]

This was supposed to be a short little Folie à Deux meta, but several hours of writing, thinking, and script research later, and suddenly here we are.

Welcome to this glimpse into my insane mind.

So! Let's go on a little journey and discuss the ending of season five, because Folie à Deux not only sets the foundation for The End but actively makes it so much worse than it could have been.

In the previous episodes, Mulder has been ditching her and blowing her off more and more, he keeps doing things behind her back without telling her, they keep having fights about belief vs. hard facts, and then, at the beginning of that episode, what happens?

MULDER: I must've done something to piss him off. SCULLY: What do you mean? MULDER: Get stuck with this jerk-off assignment or have I finally reached that magic point in my career where every time somebody sees Bigfoot or the Virgin Mary on a tortilla I get called to offer my special insight on the matter? SCULLY: You're saying "I" a lot. I heard "we." Nor do I assume that this case is just a waste of our time. MULDER: Not yours, anyway. There's no reason both of us should go to Chicago. I'll take care of it. SCULLY: Mulder! MULDER: I'm monster boy, right?

He actively and intentionally breaks them up against her will. Mulder is making decisions for THEM without consulting or listening to her, and what can she do except let him run off like he so clearly wants to.

Now, what do you think she takes away from that?

After being left in the dark about his undercover mission in the episode before? After Mulder showing her, one way or another, that he does not want to work with her, that he's fine leaving her behind?

But alright, she stays behind, it's simply Mulder being Mulder.

She does the research he asks her to do. She shows up and helps out when he gets taken hostage. She listens to him, tries to understand, she's concerned because he hasn't been sleeping. She does the fucking autopsy even though he went behind her back and tricked her into it. She keeps looking and looking and looking, and by the end, she's not relieved that the case is finally done or that Mulder is no longer actively insane.

Folie à Deux—a madness shared by two, that's what she believes is happening to her, to them.

Shared by two. Scully thinks of them as a pair, a team, an "us" and a "we".

We all know what he tells her when she visits him at the hospital, but let's really really think about the consequences of it.

MULDER: Scully, you have to believe me. Nobody else on this whole damn planet does or ever will. You're my one in five billion.

Yeah, alright, that sounds intensely romantic and affirming of their partnershi— oh that?

Oh, that's Diana. No, I never told you about her even though she's arguably one of the most impactful people in my life. I found the X Files with her, she believes in my theories without giving me any resistance, we were in a relationship, she's back now and I am spending more time with her than with you while ALSO not paying attention to you.

If I will tell you about her now? No. But I WILL treat her like she's my partner and not you.

SCULLY: Say that what you're suggesting were even possible, who'd want to kill a kid whose abilities would offer you the ultimate advantage—I mean in business, in war, in anything? DIANA: Maybe somebody whose business is in keeping secrets. MULDER: Well, let's test him. I think the kid will stand up. Let's run a brain scan and a psych evaluation on him. (looking away) You know what to do, Diana.

Not a single word of recognition towards Scully after the shitshow that just went down with Gibson. Way to go, Mulder, way to go.

On top of that, it is worth mentioning that Fowley calls him by his first name and he calls her by hers. Scully can probably count the amount of times Mulder has called her "Dana" on one hand, and she doesn't call him "Fox" because, and I quote:

MULDER: And I... I even made my parents call me Mulder. So... Mulder.

So, Diana is an exception. Why? Why does she get to call him that? Why she but not Scully?

Why does she get to reappear in his life after leaving without an explanation and have Mulder welcome her back with open arms, offering Scully's position on a silver platter?

Scully needs to ask TLG for help and information about Fowley, and it makes everything so much worse. Within their work-relationship, she's the scientist, that's her job, that's who she is, that's why Mulder needs her, and Fowley isn't one.

Right?

LANGLY: She was there when he discovered the X-Files. She has a background of para-science.

Oh. Oh, okay. Sure.

A big thank you to @sentientsky for sharing the script, which gives us this wonderful additional information:

So, to summarize, she's hot, Mulder's type, has exactly the kind of background that someone working on the X Files needs, and they have an old dynamic to fall back into—a dynamic they fall back into period.

She goes through all that, stays up all night to make sure her evidence is scientifically sound, just for Mulder to not even back her up when Spender and Fowley challenge her.

The script actively states that this is what Diana has been waiting for during the meeting—to refute Scully.

Fowley questions Scully's capabilities as both an agent and a scientist during a meeting right in front of Mulder, and Scully looks at him. She waits for him to say something, to defend her like he usually would, but he doesn't.

He doesn't even look at her.

The betrayal she must have felt, ESPECIALLY after what he told her at the hospital. It's no wonder she writes off anything and everything he says to her when he's injured in some form after that experience.

She needs to make herself believe he was just talking like that because he was having some sort of episode, because what are the other options here?

One in five billion, until someone better comes along?

Until he no longer needs her to do something for him?

Until she has outlived her usefulness and has transitioned from being a vital part of their investigations to being annoying and overly sceptical?

Until it becomes clear that Mulder isn't the issue in their partnership, it's her? That all her fears and anxieties weren't so irrational, after all?

Because it's important to remember that this is the day after she saw him and Diana at the hospital.

After THIS:

How much do you wanna bet that she spent the last, what, twelve hours since seeing them trying to convince herself that it's not what she thinks?

That, of course, Mulder is still her partner. That they're still a team. That she is not an indulgence to Mulder or the X Files, that she belongs down in that basement just as much as he does.

You and me. Me and you. Right? ...Right??

The case goes off the rails, Fowley gets shot, Gibson gets kidnapped, CSM delivers a Star Wars line and later burns down their office.

She stays at his apartment for the night, and we see them interacting when Skinner calls, but Mulder is still not fully acknowledging her. He asks her about Fowley and any news regarding their assignments, but that's it.

No "how are you feeling about potentially getting fired, Scully?"

Now, there's this tiny but important part that they decided to cut, which emphasizes the emotional gap between them; it re-affirms what we have seen for way too many episodes.

Mulder cares about her, but he is completely taking her and the safety she offers him for granted. He is, and I mean this in the least negative way possible, essentially using her as a crutch—without even noticing. Scully notices, though, and in lieu of an explanation from Mulder, she is forced to draw her own conclusions.

I'm going to stay here (your life) if that's okay with you (if you still want me in it).

When they're standing in the ashes at the end, it's just as horrifying and terrible for her as it is for Mulder, and she clings to him for the both of them. She clings to him to keep him from breaking, and he doesn't hug her back.

Scully is giving him her everything, she's trying so incredibly hard to keep him in one piece and soothe his pain, but, tell me, who is taking care of her?

There's a limit, she has reached it, and Mulder doesn't even realize it.

Is he acting maliciously at any point? No, definitely not. However, he is carelessly cruel sometimes, doesn't communicate how much Scully means to him, and simply keeps taking and taking because she keeps giving.

Five years, and yet he still blames and distrusts her when she doesn't immediately jump onto his insect zombie bandwagon. Five years, and never once did he mention the person he found the X Files with. Fowley so easily takes Scully's place and she understandably feels rejected and unloved.

WE know he loves her, yes, but she isn't sure of that anymore. Loving someone comes with feeling comfortable around them and being yourself, yet he is incapable of fully understanding the responsibility they both have to keep each other safe from each other.

Scully is sacrificing herself to keep him from breaking and he does not even notice how she is falling apart right next to him.

[thursdayinspace]

I love the Millennium kiss for the way it is so gentle and happy and calm. There is no urgency behind it, it’s not a revelation, it’s not suddenly being hit with bottled-up feelings.

He looks and her and he loves her, utterly and completely. He doesn’t see the point of putting any walls up in this moment. He lets himself feel it because . . . because it’s what he’s feeling. There’s no “Oh god, I have to kiss her.” It’s: consequences be damned, this is the woman he loves and she’s right there next to him and his heart no longer sees the point of not doing this.

And she welcomes it so easily. There is barely a moment of surprise on her face. She’s ready. This is what they have always been to each other and there is no hesitation, no moment of “Okay, so this is happening now.” It just is. She has loved him for so long and in her heart she already knows that there’s no use denying it. If he leans in for a kiss, then yes, she’s going to kiss him back.

I love the way this kiss is done – the way all the sounds of the new year’s celebration fade into the background and the camera narrows the world down to only them, like nothing else exists. It captures the gentle energy of the moment so nicely. Because what has prevented them from doing this has always mostly been external factors, private and professional, but not emotional. But there are none here. They’re literally being faded out. It’s just them. It’s honestly perfectly done. Including the acting; you see them giving in to the moment, and I especially love the change of her smile after the kiss, going from “wow, this really happened,” to “did this really just happen?” It’s art. Everything about it.

This moment is not about being in love, it’s about loving each other. There is a difference. There is none of the fluttery excitement about being in love, the elation of it, the fantasy of what could be, the need, the straining towards each other. This is not their hearts jumping in their chests, their breaths hitching, their palms tingling with the need to reach out. This is quiet and soft. They already know. This is not “I need you like I need air,” this is not “I think of you every second of every day and miss you like crazy when I don’t see you for more than an hour.” This is “Did you know that I love you? Because I do.” This is “Nothing feels more right than being here with you right now.” This is exactly what they say to each other after the kiss: “The world didn’t end.” “No, it didn’t.”

It is not a storm. It’s the atmosphere of a gentle summer evening, nowhere to be but with each other. Life goes on, and it still will if they allow themselves to kiss, to admit that this is what they’ve wanted all along. Maybe, in a way, it is a revelation after all. It’s realizing that there’s no point in pretending.

They are truly happy in this moment. There is no doubt, there is no question about anything. This is who they are. This is pure and unfaltering love. Quiet, calm; the only motivation being that they want to. And that is what makes it so good: the only reason for it being “I can’t not tell you that this is the way I love you.” Of all their kisses, this is the happiest one. Their walls are down, and the world didn’t end.