Collector's Edition: Fox Mulder Is a Father (Fan-Favorites)
In honor of Father's Day, I wanted to collect other fans' favorite "Mulder as a father" fics.
Thank you to all who participated!
Loose chronological order below~
@spooky-jordan's Picks:
rivkat's and MustangSally's Iolokus 3 (Iolokus 03 - Vix te Agnovi 1/3, Iolokus 03 - Vix te Agnovi 2/3, Iolokus 03 - Vix te Agnovi 3/3) and Iolokus 4 (Iolokus 04 - Res Judicata 1/3, Iolokus 04 - Res Judicata 2/3, Iolokus 04 - Res Judicata 3/3)
"I'm getting really tired of that song, Scully. Really tired. You didn't ask to be abducted, you didn't ask to have your ova taken, and you didn't ask for the cancer. You didn't choose to have Miranda, and when she inconvenienced your life you dumped her with Emerson and Aileen. You didn't provoke George into stalking you and you certainly didn't *aid* him when he tried to strangle you," I continued, trying to keep my voice under control even though it was crackling like a cheap stereo speaker. "When things don't go your way, you cave like a house of cards."
Parts 3 and 4 of the infamous Iolokus is stuffed with Mulder and Scully as parents: both of them unpacking their traumas, fighting for custody of their daughter, and settling into the life they're building together.
@calimanc's Picks:
Revely’s The Unfinished Universe (Gossamer)
They have a private evening ritual - nose to nose on the bed they practice telepathic communication.
Scully disappears into the motel bathroom for their soft-shelled display of male bonding, shutting the door behind her with aggravating finality - boys' side, girl's side. Mulder immediately stops casting out brain waves and begins to wonder what she's doing in there. She's awfully quiet. The baby just dozes and tries to nurse Mulder's nose until he manages to work one of his fists into his mouth.
AU-- Post-Requiem Mulder is returned a year later, bonding with his lioness partner and months-old son on the drive back to D.C.
Anjou’s (Ao3) Ghosts (mulderscreek), The Ghosts of Christmas Past (mulderscreek), and The Ghosts of Future Past (mulderscreek)
By the time that the running stroller Mulder had purchased arrived, Will had begun to stand up voluntarily. He wanted to walk, but he was still hesitant, afraid that a show of independence would mean he wouldn't get taken care of anymore. To keep William moving forward, Mulder started including him on some of the loops. This time, Scully sat on the steps and read and they waved at her as they ran by. Mulder loved the way Will's tiny hands extended out from the hood of the stroller as he laughed at the wind. By the end of the third day he was demanding "Again!" when Mulder was all tuckered out. Mulder would take him out of the running stroller and sit him on the red earth while he stretched out. By the end of the week, William was mimicking Mulder's movements. When the tiny running shoes that Mulder had ordered for William arrived, Will began to walk around their trailer and demand to dance with his parents before dinner.
Mulder, Scully, and William (who was saved via Skinner's heroic sacrifice) hide away in motels as she tirelessly works to prevent the anticipated invasion.
@samucabd’s Picks:
Donna’s Goodbyes/Hellos (Gossamer)
"Is it safe for you to be here Mulder? I . . . you can't know how much I've missed you, but is it safe?"
"As safe as anywhere Scully. He insisted we come."
Her surprise was obvious at that. "He insisted?"
"He says you're in danger. We've come to get you."
Post-Existence Scully hands William over to Mulder and tells them to go into hiding. Jeremiah Smith, the incoming invasion, and their friends, allies, and family all pitch in for a "happy ending."
Christy’s (mulderscreek)
Interstice (Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 01 - Saturday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 02 - Sunday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 03 - Monday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 04 - Tuesday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 05 - Wednesday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 06 - Thursday" by Christy)
Intellectually, he knew her love. He could see it every day, as they tried to coax another bite of puréed peas past Liam's stubborn lips; as they poured through old files in Doggett's cold basement office; as they sat together on the couch at night, each armed with a red pen, wading through stacks of papers and quizzes.
Mulder left the bedroom, his gaze darting around the family room in search of Scully's shirt. Finally he found it, a puddle of light blue silk on the floor beside the couch, and draped it across his shoulder, still smelling her perfume.
He lifted their coats from where they hung over the back of the couch, then hung them in the closet. After snatching his boots up by the laces, he found Scully's shoes, one near the door, the other kicked halfway under the couch. Gathering everything into his arms, Mulder went back into the bedroom.
It's William's first Christmas, with the Scully family (and their issues) in tow.
Song of Innocence (1/3, 2/3, 3/3) and Song of Experience (1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4)
His dad looked like a superhero, tall and dark and dressed all in black like a secret agent. A spy. His voice was magical, Will decided, soft and soothing as he questioned the injured deputy; then, as he said to Will's mom, "Will you just escort Deputy Wetzel to the hospital?" Will was too busy replaying the sound of his dad saying his name to hear the crazy theories that his mom pooh-poohed whenever she stepped out from behind the ambulance door, where she was hiding from the cameras.
But his dad didn't seem to mind the cameras, even laughing at them a few times during the hour-long show. Will smiled as he listened to them discuss the case, and his dad saying that bright pink was his mom's color. Will didn't think his mom owned *anything* pink.
Then it got exciting. His dad breaking the door down and his mom pulling a gun from somewhere inside the back of her jacket, her fingernails shining against the black metal of the gun grip. Then his mom doing an autopsy, something Will had wondered about for forever but had, of course, never been allowed to see.
Then the dawning in his dad's eye when he solved the mystery, dashing off heroically to save the deputy, his mom hot on his heels. They stalked through an old beat-up house, guns and flashlights in hand, and Will thought they were ten times better than Luke Skywalker because they were real.
He had watched the tape twice more that afternoon before his mom arrived, and then once again with her, crawling into her lap when she started crying, when his dad turned to face the camera head-on for the first time.
Will and his mom took the tape home with them that night, watching it together twice before he went to bed. And even after that, Will could have sworn he heard his dad's soft, gentle voice drifting from downstairs and into his room through the vents... although it could just have been the replay of Will's own memories.
He loved to watch how his dad moved -- his long strides, the fluid way he stepped across the screen -- but it was his dad's voice that stuck with him. Not the soft, reassuring tone or the private, teasing voice he used with Will's mom, but the strong, forceful way he spoke to the deputy, begging from the wrong side of a locked door for Wetzel to "cowboy up" and be a man.
Will had heard that same voice in his head ever since then, when he needed a push. "Cowboy up," his dad said, only it was Will he was talking to, not some stranger. "Cowboy up, Will," he mentally spliced together when he needed to borrow some of his dad's courage.
Post-NIHT Mulder returns seven years later with an implant and selective memory loss. As he heals up and tries to figure out what happened with Scully, his son works through the complicated emotions both are feeling.
Vickie Moseley’s Flight Into Egypt Series (Flight into Egypt 01, Flight into Egypt 02 - Making a Home, Flight into Egypt 03 - Making a Life, Flight into Egypt 04 - Games, Flight Into Egypt 05 - New Life, Flight into Egypt - Doing it Right 1/2, Flight into Egypt - Doing it Right 2/2, Flight into Egypt 07 - Going Home 1/2, Flight into Egypt 07 - Going Home 2/2)
Mulder watched Dana take their son's hand and help the little one make the sign of the Cross, then bowed his head as the prayer began. He couldn't help thinking of their conversation of the morning. Yes, he did feel safe in this place, among these people. But maybe Scully was right. They were still very much strangers, very much alone. It felt good to forget all the danger they'd lived for so long, but the danger was still there, waiting for them to slip up.
Mulder and Scully and William hit the road, becoming fugitives in a small mountain town in order to keep their families together. Of course, ghosts from their past will always find them; and, sooner or later, they have to face the complicated present.
Girlie_girl7’s A Day in the Life (A Day in the Life, 05 and A Day in the Life 12 - A Fractured Christmas Story and A Day in the Life, 14 - Christmas and A Day in the Life, 35 - Fox Mantle and A Day in the Life, 30 - The Shooting/A Day in the Life, 31 - Home Coming and A Day in the Life, 36 - Problem Child)
Mulder carries his daughter into his office all the while rubbing her dark, curly, head against his cheek. He pulls out the desk chair and switches on the computer then sits down with Katherine balanced on one knee. Scully has the baby dressed in a light blue, terry tank top and matching shorts, she kicks her white baby shoe against the desk as Mulder absentmindedly reaches down to still her foot. He brings up his email and begins to open and delete messages. He's just opened one from a UFO hotline when Katherine begins pounding the keyboard and jabbering. Suddenly the screen goes black and the computer shuts off.
"Katherine, you shut me down," Mulder says with a frown.
Mulder and Scully, their children, and her family experience the ups and downs of parenthood: be it holidays, illnesses, near-death experiences, grown bullies at school pickups, and restaurant shootouts. (Note: the stories linked above-- for brevity’s sake-- are mostly Mulder-centric. My favorite is "14 - Christmas": touchingly touch-and-go.)
Ending S3 with a supersized episode, controversy, & special guests!
Join @dinalit @eggshellheart, @slippinmickeys, @scullymakesmefeelautopsyturvy, @red2007, & guest @aloysiavirgata as we break down Iolokus by @rivkat & MustangSally.
Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.
Interview with MustangSally
MustangSally has 33 stories at Gossamer. Even if you haven’t read it, you’ve probably heard of at least one of them, Iolokus, since it’s an X-Files fanfic classic. All her fics hit big and are well worth your time. I’ve recced some of my favorites here before, including And Dance by the Light of the Moon, All the Children are Insane, and Iolokus. Big thanks to MustangSally for doing this interview.
What's the story behind your pen name?
I could tell you but then I would have to kill you.
Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?
Yes and no. Yes, because life has moved on since the early nineties and the characters and the fans are in vastly different places now. Our current tech would make the premise of the X-Files impossible. No, because of the longevity of some of the Star Trek TOS work (there’s an archive of hard copy fanzines at the University of Iowa). Top-drawer authors started out in TOS fandom.
I’m just greatly saddened that my physical body is showing wear and tear while the fic doesn’t. Fic gets to stay smooth-skinned and muscular, captured at the peak of perfection.
What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?
At the risk of sounding atrociously trite, I think of the friends I made. I met some very remarkable women that I’ve been able to stay friends with online for over twenty-five years. We may have moved to Facebook and post entirely too much about our pets and which of our body parts has sagged this week, but we’re friends. It’s a furiously funny, feminist, and well-educated group of women with jobs in the highest levels of academia, finance, communications, and media. I’m amused by the fact that if I have a question about how a virus replicates, I can ask a PhD I’ve been drunk with in Las Vegas.
Back in the day, I had a job that sent me traveling around major cities in the US and UK. I could post on a message board and within ten minutes there were people I could go out for dinner and drinks with. We already knew we had something we could talk about for at least a couple of hours. Additionally, most of these people were women so there was an added level of security.
Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?
Well, it was mostly atxc and the Yahoo! groups mailing lists that spiraled out into Geocities sites and, eventually, LiveJournal. The amusing thing is that getting in on the ground floor of social media and the Internet has helped me get jobs! When I look at a new piece of software, I think, ‘this is hella easier than uploading to Geocities.’ We had to walk uphill both ways, in the snow, on dial-up, fighting off dinosaurs with our AOL CDs while writing HTML code.
What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?
DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS.
The past four years in politics have basically been the ugliest online kerfuffle the world has ever seen. I survived the Shipper Wars of ’96 and I thought those were brutal, but that was NOTHING. The only way to win an argument online is to not have the argument at all. Arguing with a troll is like mudwrestling a pig: You both get filthy and only the pig is happy.
Also, READ THE FUCKING TERMS OF SERVICE.
What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?
I had the most terrible straight-girl crush on Scully. I wanted to be her best friend, I wanted to BE her. I wanted to order Chinese food and paint each other’s nails and talk about bones. Scully and Princess Leia and I could all just hang out poolside with hot and cold running waiters and poolboys, drink margaritas, and bitch about how unfair it all was – if the stupid men would just get OUT OF THE WAY AND LET US DO OUR JOBS, the world would be so much better.
What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?
This question is really about Iolokus, isn’t it? You can’t fool me. [Lilydale note: I can neither confirm nor deny the motivation for this question, but I cannot complain about the answer.]
Simply put, I was enraged. The moment it was revealed that Scully’s ova had been used in experimentation, I lost my feminist mind. It was the most obscene defilement imaginable. Scully wasn’t nearly as angry as I was. What I thought needed to happen was for Scully to become a fiery force of vengeance against the MEN who had done this to her. Clearly, I was not going to get that level of satisfaction from the show, as I was imagining Kali-like carnage on a global scale. I emailed RivkaT (whom I did not know well at that point) with a proposition that we work together. Strangely enough, we didn’t meet face to face until we were well into the project, but we did talk on the phone quite a bit. The rules were simple – everyone had to be punished in truly horrific ways, and at some point, we had to see if we could write a car chase (only because that seemed impossible). Then it basically turned into a very twisted game of chicken to see who could be the most outrageous in terms of killing people off or writing really horrific things that fit within the structure of the narrative. I did, in the end, write the car chase, but RivkaT one-upped me by throwing in a helicopter (a FOX News helicopter, at that).
Really, RivkaT? A helicopter?
What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?
I am terribly proud of what I wrote, pleased that it brought pain and pleasure in equal amount to people, and, again, thrilled by the people I became friends with. I admit that I stopped watching the show when Scully announced her pregnancy. I could only see a long jump over a shark tank for the rest of the series. I haven’t watched the new episodes, either. It is complete in my mind and doesn’t need to be continued. I wouldn’t say no to having a reunion with some of my fic friends, although we’re still chatting online like everyone does.
Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?
Rivka and I wrote in the Buffy fandom for a few years, but then we moved on to real adult jobs that left absolutely no time for me to write. I’m in education, and I regularly sweat blood for fear that someone is going to find my old fic. The Buffy people were fun; there was a certain *shininess* to them that I really enjoyed. The X-men authors were just batshit and delightful, and some amazing stuff came out of Marvel fandom, particularly in the Thor/Loki and Steve/Bucky subgenres. I’ve learned to appreciate a good coffee shop AU and one famous Erik/Charles fic where all the main characters are crabs. Seriously, crabs—it’s hysterical. [Lilydale note: Other Crabs Cannot Be Trusted by groovyphilia currently has almost 2,500 kudos at AO3.]
Every few years, I’ll have a student try to explain to me what fandom is and I just smirk.
Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?
No. Not really.
Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?
I fell into an X-Men hole a few years back and had a great old time wallowing in the Cherik muck, and there was a flirtation with BBC Sherlock as well. Strangely enough, I became interested in A/B/O fics only because of what they were saying about the role of women in our society. The limitations on the male omegas seem absurd and then you realize those are the same limitations put on women all. the. time.
Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?
RivkaT very nicely formatted everything and put it up on AO3.
What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?
I will always be stupidly proud of how shocked and horrified people were by Iolokus. The truth of the matter is that Iolokus has Greek drama at its core. Scully is Medea, and the entire story is lousy with “blood on the threshing floor” and Dionysian rites. The everyday is subverted into horror, and wives and daughters will tear men limb from limb like the Maenads. Since I was ultimately disappointed with what Chris Carter did with the entire show, that approach seemed appropriate.
At a certain level, all fic is corrective fic. Like critic Anne Jamison said, “Irritated fans produce fanfic like irritated oysters produce pearls.” And because fic has fallen so much into women’s sphere, a pure form of correction is not just the death of the author but the MURDER, a new creation springing up from the spilled blood like Cadmus sowing dragon’s teeth.
Okay, that’s a bit much. Maybe I should just take myself back to the isle of Goth Amazons or something.
Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?
I had to write a self-evaluation and a reflection on pedagogy today. If that’s not fiction, I don’t know what the fuck is.
All my creativity is caught up in trying to pretend to be a normal middle-aged white woman so no one knows I am really a lizard.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?
Keep writing, keep reading, keep fighting the commercialization of narratives. As things grow more and more commodified, all our dreams and desires reduced to tchotchkes made in China, it’s a revolutionary act to separate your work from the marketplace. Be bold, take chances, turn the trope on its ear and kick it in the ass. Take everything the creators have done to make a work palatable to the unwashed masses and set it on fire.
I don't usually name my #guitars, but I have started calling this 1969 #Mustang "Sally". 😁 Seen here with my '65 Fender #Vibrolux #Reverb and '63 #DeluxeReverb. #Amp stands and #pedalboard by my friends at @atlasstands. #mustangmonday #mustangsally #thewickedpickett #wilsonpickett #guitar #fenderguitars #fenderamps #amps #amplifiers #vintageguitars #vintageamps #vintageamps #geartalk #guitarsdaily #vintagegear #guitargear #guitarphotography
Holiday story time! This fic is the end of the Iolokus series, and while you should read the first 4 parts because they are intensely awesome, you should be able to jump right into this group of 3 stories (if you don't mind major spoilers for the series, that is). They track Mulder, Scully, and family through Chanukah, Christmas, and New Year's Eve in a most delightful, engaging way.
Title: Syadiloh Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Author: RivkaT and MustangSally (@rivkat and @mustangsally78)
Summary: We came, we saw, we fried. / Christmas story. / On the eve of the millenium, Mulder and Scully are otherwise occupied.
Length: 5,652 words / 7,436 words / 6,257 words
Classification: Kidfic
Rating: Explicit
Spoilers: None listed
Favorite line: My faith was not in the mountain, or in the thunder, but in the still small voice I heard inside me, telling me that I could survive all the evils of the world as long as I could remember this moment and know why I fought.
Read the story: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
#Mustang-turday? I know it's supposed to be about #Strats today, but this is what I am playing. Sally, my 1969 Mustang into my '65 #Fender #Vibrolux #Reverb #amp. #geartalk #guitarsdaily #vintageguitars #vintagegear #vintageamps #vintagefenders #guitar #guitars #fenderguitars #competitionred #mustangsally #guitarphotography #straturday
