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🥏 Where to find good XF fanfics

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@lilydalexf has an encyclopedic knowledge of fics and continues to be an invaluable resource. You'll find a boatload of themed fic lists, individual rec posts and helpful answers to anon asks.

@txf-fic-chicks-blog seven years of almost daily recs, with well-written blurbs and a lot of fun, run by @kateyes224 and @piecesofscully. Look out for their themed days: "Casefile Monday", "Tumblr Tuesday", "Editor's Pick Wednesday", "Post-Ep/Missing Scene Thursday", "Novel Length Friday", "Smut Sunday", and the very cool "Because You Watched"

@msrlibrary a well-tagged library of MSR fics; each entry includes a short excerpt and a nicely chosen image from the show.

@201daysofxfiles a rewatch blog by fandom veteran @wendelah. Each episode in season 1-7 is paired with its own fic rec post.

@enigmaticxbee an aesthetically pleasing and neatly organized rewatch blog that is packed with great content, including excellent fic rec lists categorized by season, story type, trope, and more. Each episode guide sometimes features related fic recs.

@thatfragilecapricorn30 posts one fic rec every Friday, accompanied by a nice writeup.

@randomfoggytiger curates many fic rec lists sorted by often fun and creative categories.

@cecilysass has a google doc titled "fics I love", which is a fantastic fic list categorized by story type, complete with thoughtful blurbs. She's also shared two episode-related fic rec lists on Tumblr: here and here.

@pookie-mulder writes a monthly fic journal with good recs.

**self-promo plug** I post fic recs on my Tumblr blog @fine-nephrit under #nephrit's fic rec. Plus, I reblog others' fic recs that I come across!

#x files #txf #the x files #txf fanfic #x files fanfic #msr

kateyes224

So... scully is not Mulder's "type"? What about Mulder? Is he her type?

Hooooo boy. This is an interesting question, Anon, so forgive my long-winded diatribe complete with photos, but this topic fascinates me because Scully’s romantic history was written mostly by men, and therefore very BADLY. So in answering this question I’m going to rely largely on canon, but also the more fleshed-out, three-dimensional Scully I’ve come to know through fanfiction and fanon as well.

As far as Scully’s physical type goes, I’m guessing Fox Mulder breaks the mold, and we have a few men to compare him to that supports that assertion. Here are the men we KNOW she was romantically involved with:

Ethan Minette (Scully’s boyfriend in the Pilot who was eventually written out):

Jack Willis (one of Scully’s instructors at the FBI Academy):

Daniel Waterston (One of Scully’s professors while she was in medical school):

Notable mentions go to Rob (the father of a child who Scully agreed to go on a date with and whom she presumably met while at her godson’s birthday party in The Jersey Devil):

Ed Jerse (who she agreed to go on a date with because she was presumably attracted to him, and who wouldn’t be):

And Sheriff Lucius Hartwell (who admittedly was a vampire, so Scully may have been affected by him because vampires are supposed to be “charming” and “seductive” but I kinda have a thing for Luke Wilson so I’m gonna include him for funsies):

I don’t think I’m forgetting anybody (and I’m deliberately leaving out Phillip Padgett because I don’t think Scully was attracted to him. Fight me.). There’s an argument to be made that Scully was also eventually attracted to Walter Skinner, John Doggett, and/or Monica Reyes, but that’s a post for another day.

So, let’s be real, most of the guys pictured above are not the GQ models that this guy is:

HOWEVER, emotionally and mentally, Mulder abso-freaking-lutely fits the mold for Men Dana Scully Falls For. Scully has a lot of Daddy Issues, as evidenced by what little we saw of the Ahab/Starbuck relationship in Beyond the Sea and One Breath, and I think that that manifests itself, as it often does, in the relationships she cultivates with the other men in her life. Scully tends to be attracted to men in positions of power who can be domineering and overbearing. Scully eventually ends up rebelling against these men because inevitably they think they know better than she does what’s best for her.

We see that play out with Mulder, too, because he’s an authority figure (as the Agent who runs the X-Files division), he’s brilliant, he’s driven, and he’s passionate. He also has a tendency to act alone (read: ditch her) or to keep things from her because he believes it to be in her best interest to do so (See: End Game, Emily, Per Manum). He’s protecting her. Keep in mind, Mulder is also working through his own family history by trying to save every woman he comes into contact with because of his own issues with Samantha, but again, another post for another day.

Where Mulder differs from all of her previous relationships, however, is that he respects Scully enough to let her make her own decisions, to be her own person. He pushes her, it’s true, but he pushes her to be better, to do better, to think outside the rigid little boxes she compartmentalizes her life into, and he does so in a way that she finds challenging, if not exasperating. He teaches her to wonder at the mysteries of the universe, not just to explain them away.

Is Mulder Scully’s type? I think the argument can be made that yes, he is, and no, he isn’t. He might not be what she thought she always wanted, but he became what she never knew she needed.

#xf meta

come back we miss you!!

🥺 ❤️

#asks

cecilysass

hi!! do you know of any msr fics that explore scully’s mildly ESP-like abilities? it wouldn’t need to focus on canon events but i’m referring to abilities like how she saw her dead dad, just had a feeling that mulder was alive in early s3, had a vision of albert hosteen in her apartment, saw two dead people in elegy (no one else saw two and i wonder if she was able to bc she already kinda could without being near death, so that was amplified), saw emily in all souls etc

Wow, I was really surprised I wasn't able to think of / find more fic about this, because you're right: there is totally some canon suggestion that she's got some psychic ability (and that it runs in the family). Yet most of the psychic fic I can come up with offhand is about Mulder. A few suggestions, none of which are really spot on: - I did think right away of Perihelion, the recent official X-Files novel by Claudia Gray. Scully does have some kind of telekinesis in that novel, but it has another plot explanation that is not related (that we can tell) to her previous psychic sensitivities. That novel takes place post-revival and is pseudo-canon, and it is a pretty good read. I do recommend. - I recently wrote a fic called The Tethers Loose where Scully also seemingly has a psychic power, but it also has a plot explanation that isn't related to the prior canon incidents.

-And if I make my bed in Sheol by threeguesses is a really, really beautiful, exquisitely written, absolutely devastating fic in which Scully can see / talk to the dead, but I don't know if this is exactly following up on your request either. I don't want to spoil it by explaining why. It's short; you can give it a try and see.

-I'm told the Goshen series has some continuing psychic Scully content, but I haven't read it yet. (I saw on a Reddit thread it did, and then my friend @xfmaweezy, who absolutely loves it, confirmed that it does.) This sounds like it might be the one that is the closest to what you asked for. Surely, surely there are more Psychic!Scully fics. I can think of so many good plots for these. Obviously she would be in huge denial about any ability and might not realize she had it for years. Also, it seems like a really obvious possible mytharc plot that Scully was chosen to be a donor for the hybrid program and/or was successful in the hybrid program because her family had some genetic predisposition that lends itself to ESP. Like maybe having an especially high percentage of alien DNA or something. Surely someone has written these plots before! I'm sorry not to be more helpful. Can anyone help out? @randomfoggytiger @lilydalexf @fine-nephrit

#And if I make my bed in Sheol is among my all time favorite #xf fic recs #other people's list

scullysflannel

what happened in season 8 that made all the x-files writers forget about abduction by human beings. why are the only two possibilities alien abduction or mulder running away. what about the old classic “the government did it.” on the “the government did it” show

#txf meta

scullysflannel

season 8 kicks off by equating scully to a wife who joined a man on the island of his obsession for decades, just the two of them, leaving her to carry his scent to her grave. and in basically every episode from then until mulder's return, the people around her can't seem to access what's really going on with her. being known by mulder has made scully unknowable to everyone else

#txf meta

scullysflannel

redux i is the ultimate test of how deep the x-files has its hooks in you. the whole episode is written like chris carter is trying to hit the word count but if you’re locked in you should be watching with your chin in your hands. it should only hit you later that you just had an emotional reaction to an episode with lines like "to tell her story, to weave her tale"

#no truer words #txf meta

xf-cases-solved

was wondering why so many msr shippers have been losing it for the gay hockey show, and then i remembered that "nine years of intense pining that starts with a sexually charged handshake and could probably be resolved with one or two actual heartfelt conversations but unfortunately everyone involved is the worst communicator you've ever met in your life, also they've been secretly fucking the entire time" is basically our lifeblood

#txf meta #agreeee

wintersnails

i think it’s great when fanfiction has some academic or literary quote at the beginning like yes i DO want my omegaverse porn with an introduction by William Butler Yeats thank you

#txf fic meta #lmao

wintersnails

assigning Scully to the X-files was the funniest thing the US government ever did because imagine you send this logical, rule-following scientist to spy on the Basement Weirdo but instead they fall in love and soul-bond so intensely that it’s actually a legitimate threat to national security. all the super-important super-evil government conspiracies are at risk because you (the US government) accidentally pulled the best matchmaking job in history and now they’re so in love and oh shit they’re breaking into another top-secret facility, they’re discovering evidence of another war crime, they’re gazing longingly into each other’s eyes next to a crashed ufo and it’s all your fucking fault

wintersnails

many such cases…

#txf meta #lol

livingchancy

this is still a really half baked thought but there is something I love about the strange and inconsistent writing of the x files especially when it comes to mulder’s character. there are also of course frustrating authorial/political reasons for the writing choices (for example a lot of it is just misogyny) BUT through mulder, my dearest lobotomized hypnotized institutionalized mulder, the incongruity can become really horrific and tragic and awesome. the experience of grief/psychosis/being suicidal really does feel like you’re being written by 50 different people all with irreconcilable ideas of who you are and what you want and how you should act. something something to be a character in genre fiction is cosmic horror, no matter what you do you keep waking up in this damn procedural

#txf meta

livingchancy

the fact that there’s this intense erotic undertone (complete with grabbing Mulder’s hand) to the red and the black scene where Scully is hypnotized to unlock memories of her alien abduction really is THE epitome of everything I love about the x files and I’m being dead serious

#everything is about alien abduction except for alien abduction which is of course about sex #<- prev tag #txf meta

blook-bog

Trying to read msr fic and it’s all like “scullly is so tiny and petite. And small. And feminine!!! Woman!!! And Mulder loves this” like hi 😭😭😭 can we be normal. I get that they have a height difference but Dana scully would kill u all for writing this I think.

#agreeee #txf fic meta

blook-bog

Sometimes I think I’m Doing Grief Badly and then I think about Fox Mulder and like. How he won’t even let himself have a first name. How Fox Mulder had to kill the person inside of him—Fox—that was responsible for the loss of his sister and the only part of him that’s allowed to exist is the one that searches for her.

#txf meta

wintersnails

Mulder truly the celibate slut representation we deserve. he doesn’t fuck, he watches 80+ hours of porn every week, awkward and bemused when woman actually flirt with him, drops sexual innuendos like his life depends on it, gets called a loser by absolute strangers, in love with his coworker, fled to find mothman when same coworker tried to seduce him, black turtlenecks™, doesn’t own a bed, woman find him hot until he starts talking, loses his shirt every few episodes, has a homoerotic Russian nemesis, feeds his fish instead of going on dates, draws big titty bigfoot, mopes when his girlfriend is out of town, once had sex on Sir Conan Doyle’s tombstone, meets up with a guy called Deep Throat but it’s not what you think, a ghost showed him her hole but it’s not what you think, undoubtably has ranked every cryptid by fuckability, that one vampire episode, basically the damsel in a bodice ripper, makes out with Scully’s forehead, visibly turned on whenever ufos are mentioned etc. etc.

#lmao #txf meta

ankh-morporkianpostalworker

Scully in episode 1: I don't really agree with Mulder on anything, but he seems earnest and like a nice enough guy. I think he honestly just needs a friend.

Scully in episode 2: Mulder, my new best friend, has been captured by the US Army, so I will now commit several Class-A felonies and enter into an armed hostage situation to get him back.

#yep this is the show #txf meta #lol

xf-cases-solved

i've been doing my xfiles rewatch, but i've also been watching twin peaks for the first time with my partner (v weird that i haven't seen it before bc it's very much My Type of show, but w/e), and silence of the lambs was already my favorite movie. so since my personal aesthetic is apparently very specifically honed in on creepy and weird early 90s entertainment centered around fbi agents, here's a collection of random crossover thoughts i've had while watching these things, in no particular order:

-twin peaks, xfiles, silence of the lambs, except all the characters are shifted one plot to the left, so you have mulder and scully trying to figure out the death of laura palmer, clarice assigned to the xfiles division, and dale cooper having to make a rapport with dr. hannibal lecter

-separate thought: if mulder and scully met dale cooper, mulder would be absolutely delighted, and scully would want to put his head on a slab. this would just make mulder more delighted

cooper would be very pleasant to them both, but would find mulder's lack of self-care unsettling. mulder would be trying to talk about the case when cooper would interrupt him to tell him to try the mulberry pie and take a moment to savor it

he would also be able to follow scully's reasonings and would know all the references to scientific studies she makes, and would be like, "very clever! you're very intelligent!" not in a facetious way, he'd mean it genuinely, but then he'd still insist that his dream will lead them to the killer and she'd want to rip her hair out

-cooper to m&s, apropos of nothing: so how long have the two of you been in love?

-scully would not enjoy twin peaks. too rustic, too weird, too many affairs to keep track of

-mulder would love it for all the reasons she hates it

-if clarice and scully met they would get to know each other carnally, obviously. msr can still exist, but mulder has to be ok with being cuckolded by special agent clarice starling

he can watch sometimes, if wants ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-agent crawford would have one (1) conversation with mulder and would immediately write him off as insane and never talk to him again

-crawford and scully would get along fine

-clarice and cooper would be buds, bc even tho cooper is fucking weird, he would be very enthusiastic about how clever she is, and would talk her up constantly, and clarice would appreciate the validation and kindness (besides, she's pseudo friends with hannibal lecter, cooper's idiosyncrasies are nothing in comparison)

-hannibal lecter wouldn't be able to manipulate mulder, but he wouldn't be that impressed by him either. it would be a mutual disdain. they could potentially have a hannibal/will graham-esque relationship but eh

-as badly as a "quid pro quo" scene between scully and hannibal would slap, i can't imagine scully giving hannibal anything to work with. she wouldn't stick around to play games; she doesn't have time for it and would never be able to regard him as anything besides a monster

mulder would agree to take on the puzzles, and hannibal might give them to him, but he'd taunt him and send him on wild goose chases more than he does with clarice, bc mulder doesn't have anything he particularly wants, but he is vaguely curious to see if he can figure it out. (mulder WOULD figure it out, but only with the addition of scully's analysis and theories, not hannibal's direction alone)

-hannibal would not talk to cooper lol. cooper would figure out who buffalo bill is anyway, tho

-nobody at the fbi in the xfiles universe would know how to handle dale cooper. skinner especially would be very -squints- about it, bc he'd get results, but would just be so fucking Weird™️ about it, but in such a different way than mulder is weird

-the lone gunmen would be very sweet and protective over clarice. they would be very confused and vaguely unsettled by cooper

-clarice would be skinner's dream agent bc she would listen to him and value his input and rarely punch him in the face or hold him at gunpoint

-while i can picture clarice getting the hang of the xfiles, i have trouble picturing her in twin peaks (tho, do note that i haven't seen all of it so mb that would change)

-this isn't a headcanon so much as a v obvious observation, but they are all so fucking hot, what the fuck??

-final thought: dale cooper, clarice starling, dana scully, and fox mulder = dream blunt rotation

anyway those are some of the things i think about in my spare time

the end

#txf fanfic ideas #someone write this

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