X-Files Flash-Fanwork Challenge for Three Weeks for Dreamwidth

[amalnahurriyeh]

Welcome to the X-Files creative challenge for 3W4DW! This is a place to write, draw, or otherwise produce SOMETHING AWESOME in celebration of the X-Files, and all of the awesome characters and scenarios we love so much.

What sort of works are eligible?

Any X-Files or crossover X-Files fanwork can be posted here.

How Should Prompts Be Formatted?

There should be only one prompt per comment.

An X-Files only prompt should include characters/pairings and prompt. Use a slash for a romantic/sexual pairing, and & or the word "and" for a friendship pairing, like this:

Monica Reyes, Ouija boards

Fox Mulder/Alex Krycek, leather

Dana Scully and John Doggett, watching NASCAR

A crossover prompt should contain character names and fandom along with prompt, like this:

X-Files/Fringe, Dana Scully and Walter Bishop, Mad Scientists Union

X-Files/Doctor Who, Fox Mulder/Tenth Doctor, tall drink of water

Those are some crap prompts, Amal.

Bite me. So leave some of your own.

Do prompts need to be claimed? Can prompts only be used once? Can I write for my own prompt?

No, no, and yes, in order.

How do I fill a post?

Post your fill as a reply to the original prompt. If it won't fit in a comment, link to your journal.

How should fills be formatted?

Please put the title, prompt, and rating in the subject line. If you want to warn or provide content notes, please do so in the first line of the post. Images that are NSFW should be posted in full elsewhere and should have a SFW thumbnail on the challenge page.

Is there a deadline?

The challenge will open on April 26th, and run through May 15th for the three_weeks_for_dw festival. You may start filling prompts as soon as they are posted, and may continue posting prompts until May 13th. Because this is a 3W4DW challenge, please keep all posted fanworks on DW-only for 21 days after posting, although it is perfectly fine to post links elsewhere.

I heard a rumor there would be prizes.

Participants in the challenge can earn points for Philedom Olympics 2011, for leaving prompts, making fanworks, and leaving comments.

I have another question!

Ask me in the question thread!

Comments

QUESTIONS

[amalnahurriyeh]

Post a comment to this comment if you have questions!

Re: QUESTIONS

[pukajen]

Can we start posting fic right away?

Not that I have one written or anything, just an inquiring mind.

[amalnahurriyeh]

Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, "we watched the plumes paint the sky gray/as she laughed and danced through the field of graves/then i knew everything would be alright, would be alright" (Grapevine Fires, Death Cab for Cutie)

[amalnahurriyeh]

I mocked this prompt above, but IDGAF:

X-Files/Fringe, Dana Scully and Walter Bishop, Mad Scientists Union

[amalnahurriyeh]

Samantha Mulder, She didn't just run away from the Spenders' house because of the testing.

[amalnahurriyeh]

Monica Reyes/John Doggett (or Monica Reyes & John Doggett), I don't care what you say, that's not a goddamn tamal.

[littlegreen42]

Bill Mulder, He no longer understands his son.

Bill Mulder, He no longer understands his son.

[pukajen]

ill Mulder, He no longer understands his son. Word Count: 476


He no longer understood his son, this boy on the brink of manhood who was quiet and brilliant and wanted to go to school thousands of miles away. Wanted to put an ocean between himself and everyone, everything he knew.

As Bill swirled the scotch in his glass, he once again glanced at the small stack of papers sitting on the coffee table; the acceptance letter, a student visa applications, housing suggestions, tuition breakdown, medical forms, clothing recommendations, required reading, and on and on.

The manila envelope had arrived three days ago and Bill had yet to call his son and let him know that Oxford wanted him.

“What’s so god-dammed wrong with an American school?” Bill muttered, angrily swigging back the contents of his glass. Years of working for the greater good had cost him his daughter, the destruction of his marriage and loss of his wife, the animosity of various friends and family, and now this.

Getting too his feet, as stiff and slow as an old man, Bill walked over to the liquor cabinet and sloshed another three fingers of scotch into his glass. He no longer felt the burn as the alcohol made its way down his throat, the same way he told himself he no longer truly felt the ache in the knowledge that his son was leaving.

This quiet shadow of the boy he’d seen the last Sunday of every month, the intense and somewhat spooky young man who picked apart every detail until nothing was left but the carcass of the truth. How had Fox not learned that some questions were better not asked, that tact was the better part of valor, and sometimes it was better to ignore the obvious?

Looking back, Bill knew that even before that awful day when Samantha was taken Fox was already starting to change. There had been, still was, a depth to his son that had not come to Bill until much later in life.

They rarely saw eye to eye, even back when Fox had been a child theirs was an acrimonious relationship. These days they couldn’t even talk about baseball anymore without the subtext running treacherously deep.

Glaring at the phone, Bill knew he needed to make the call, to let Fox know that Oxford had accepted him, but part of him knew that as soon as he did the small pieces of the boy he understood would be gone forever. This changeling of a child who wanted nothing more than to explore the frailties of the human mind, who read poetry, and remember every detail but those that matter the most, was little more than a stranger to him these days.

Finishing his glass of scotch, he reached for the phone.

Bill Mulder no longer understood his son, but he suspected that maybe he’d never really known him anyway.

[littlegreen42]

Fox Mulder/Diana Fowley, She loves him, but she's tired of being second to his quest for The Truth.

"Consorting With the Enemy," Fox Mulder/Diana Fowley, PG-13

[wendelah1]

She loves him but she is tired of being second to his quest for The Truth.

She would never forget the look on his face.

"I can't believe you took this job without even consulting me." He stared at her. "Berlin. You're transferring to Anti-terrorism." He set his fork down next to his untouched plate and left the table. She could hear the bedroom door slam closed. When he reappeared, he looked composed again. He had changed into an old Knicks teeshirt, running shorts and Nikes.

"This isn't easy for me either," she began.

"Stop it," he said. "You've already decided. You're leaving me."

Diana swallowed hard. "Yes."

"So there's nothing to discuss."

"Fox..."

"I'm going for a run." He closed the front door, more carefully this time. She put the rest of the food away, cleaned up the kitchen and went to lie down on their bed. Eventually she fell asleep waiting up for him, still in her blouse and skirt, the briefing materials for her new assignment stacked neatly by her side.

He came in late, after two in the morning, smelling like scotch. The mattress shifted as he moved closer, waking her with a start. She'd been dreaming. As he kissed her neck and massaged the tension from her shoulders, she moaned softly and turned over, opened to him. He made love to her carefully, tracing slow patterns with his hands and his tongue. His skin tasted like salt. His mouth tasted like ashes.

He was gone in the morning. Off to Texas, according to the note he left on top of her papers. Cow mutilations, lights in the sky. Little green men. What did it matter, now that she'd made her choice.

He didn't show up again until the day of her scheduled departure. Her bags had been packed for a week. She told him the truth and then she called a cab. He was too self-absorbed, too obsessed with his work, too consumed with his unofficial assignment—the X-Files. All of which was true, it just wasn't the only reason she was leaving him.

At the end, only she said the words. He shook his head. "This isn't the end. You'll be back, Diana." He stacked her matching luggage in a neat row by the curb, kissed her quickly, then walked back to the apartment.

No tears. You chose this. You knew what was at stake.

Was it self-deluding to have believed that given more time she could have recruited him to her cause? She stared at the eyes-only dossier on her lap. Perhaps so. Fox Mulder was a very--principled--man. Not that it mattered in the long run. His place in the Project was secured, thanks to his family connections.

Not so for her. Hers would have to be earned.

[littlegreen42]

Fox Mulder, The moment when he stopped being "Fox" and became "Mulder."

[littlegreen42]

Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, "He's a jerk. He's not a jerk. He's obsessed with his work."

[azurelunatic]

Mulder/Scully, uncomfortable, improbable, and impossible places to have sex.

[st_aurafina]

Skinner/Scully, love in the workplace

[st_aurafina]

Totally cribbing off amalnahurriyeh, with the Fringe/X-Files thing:

Broyles & Skinner, interdepartmental paper chase

[st_aurafina]

X-Files/Criminal Minds, Mulder/anyone from the BAU, "Didn't you used to be a big name around here?"

[dustyasymptotes]

X-Files/Hanna, First meeting. "Sometimes, children are bad people too."

[dustyasymptotes]

X-Files/Hanna, Super soldiers, post-col. "Adapt or die."

[dustyasymptotes]

Mulder/Scully, time travel sex.

[dustyasymptotes]

(sex optional)

[dustyasymptotes]

Mulder/Scully "And you raise your arms up to the sky./Raised high, you make a Y./There is no fear, there is no pain inside./As the sun still shines on these drying lines.../This is how you remember yourself./Arms raised to heaven, needing no help./This is how you remember yourself." (How You Remember, Azure Ray)

[dustyasymptotes]

Reggie Purdue and Fox Mulder, that unpublished mystery novel.

"A Haunting" - Reggie Purdue and Fox Mulder, that unpublished mystery novel.

[amalnahurriyeh]

(This may not be quite what you were looking for...but, well, it's where I went.)

An agent he doesn't recognize brings it down in an interoffice mail envelope. "We found it when we were cleaning out Reggie's desk," he said, half-embarassed. "Somebody on the unit said you should have it."

"Thanks," Mulder says, and drops it on his desk, along with everything else down there. He doesn't crack it open until late; Scully's gone home, and he's alone with the whirr of the floor-buffer in the hallway. But he knows what he'll find in it: the type-written manuscript of Reggie's novel.

He takes it out of the paper envelope and stares at it for a while. It's heavier than he would have expected; the last page is numbered 377, which is impressive, he supposes. The typewriter it was typed on had its F key just slightly out of alignment. If this book were in a mystery novel, that would have to be the key, wouldn't it?

He puts it down on his desk. Should he read it? That it came to him now seems to suggest he should: this is some sort of last act of fate, putting it into his hands. But then--and this is the terrible part--what if it's bad? Wouldn't it be better to remember Reggie with his dream of a book, rather than be saddled with the knowledge that the final product was a dimestore failure?

He puts it back in the envelope and leaves it on his desk. Every night for a week, he takes it out of the envelope, considers whether tonight is the night he brings it home, or the night he drops it in the recycling bin. The latter seems wrong; the former seems dangerous.

He wonders if Reggie is haunting his basement office, waiting around to see what Mulder thinks of his book. He wonders if he's trapped in the pages on some metaphysical level, the last remnants of his consciousness made manifest in typewritten lines. He wonders if, maybe, he should really get some more sleep and stop watching Unsolved Mysteries.

Scully is hanging around his desk on Friday afternoon, shuffling through the disaster in search of the toxicology reports she'd ordered for their latest case. Her hand lands on the interoffice envelope. "What's this?"

He looks up from the file he's reading, and hesitates for a moment. The right answer is "nothing," but that's the wrong answer, too. "It's Reggie's novel," he says, unsure whether he'll regret it. "They found it in his desk. Somebody thought I should have it."

"That's sweet," she says, and picks it up. She opens the envelope and pulls out the manuscript, starts flipping through the pages. "Is it any good?"

"I don't know," he says, and she glances up. "I haven't had a chance to read it yet."

She studies him for a moment, and he wonders how transparent the lie is. She nods very slightly, and looks down at the pages. "Would you mind if I tried it? I have something of a weakness for the genre."

He hears an odd sort of kindness in the offer. "Really? I would have pegged you for the romance novel type."

She lifts her perfect eyebrow in response.

"Sure, take it," he says. "Let me know how it is."

She slides it back into the envelope and carefully twists the little red thread around the tacks to keep it closed. "I'll bring it back on Monday with a full report. Anyway, call me if you hear anything new about the Maine case, all right?"

"Yeah, okay," he says, and watches the envelope slot into her briefcase. "Have a good weekend."

She nods and leaves, and he watches the space behind her for a moment. For the first time since the thing arrived on his desk, he feels alone in his office.

[dustyasymptotes]

X-Files supporting cast (dry cleaners, lab tech, janitors, security desk), a day in the life.

[heartequals]

Fill! (fanart. ish.)

[dustyasymptotes]

Scully encounters a Truther.

[dustyasymptotes]

Mulder/Scully, living in a web 2.0 world.

This is so exciting! Apologies for filling up so many comments.

Drabble-ish (not exactly 100 words)

[flourish]

It seemed like a normal day at the office doing paperwork until Scully checked her mail and found something surprising.

"Mulder."

"Yes?"

"I do not want to be your friend on Facebook."

"C'mon, Scully, I thought we were friends. I thought we were, you know, legitimate friends."

"Mulder."

"What?"

"If we are friends on Facebook, my mother will want to friend you on Facebook."

"So? I like your mother. And that's a good idea, anyway. We're friends too."

"You are not friends with my mother! My mother doesn't know how to use the internet! She spends all her time posting comments about Bill and Tara's baby to the wrong profile!"

"So I could teach her."

"Oh God. Bill. See, and then you and Bill will get into arguments about politics."

"Why would we do that?"

"Mulder. Bill hates you. Bill is a Republican. You are not a Republican. He will post something about innocent fetuses who deserve life and you will bait him."

"No I won't."

"What made you wait so long to get a Facebook profile, anyway?"

"I thought the government was spying on us through them."

"Well, aren't they?"

"I've concluded that it's mostly the Zuck-man. Mark Zuckerberg. And I don't care if some pimple-faced kid knows my whereabouts. Besides, the Lone Gunmen joined last week. They claim to have found a way to booby-trap their information so it can't be deleted, viewed or downloaded without their knowledge."

"Mulder, do you really think that's possible?"

"No. I'm pretty sure that Frohike just wanted to hit on his old high school girlfriend. Sometimes the need to get in their pants outweighs the millstone of sensible security measures."

And what, after all, was there to say to that?

[ghostgum]

Skinner/Scully, feels like a million miles.

[ghostgum]

Scully/Mulder, soy milk sundae.

[pukajen]

Mulder/Scully, margaritas

[pukajen]

Mulder/Scully, sex on the beach