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

[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.

Re: Bill Mulder, He no longer understands his son.

[wendelah1]

Theirs is certainly one of the most problematic relationships in the series. I'd never conceived that Bill Mulder might not be proud and happy that his son was accepted to Oxford, but you have made a convincing case.

I now must stifle the urge to quote Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse."

Re: Bill Mulder, He no longer understands his son.

[littlegreen42]

I really enjoyed this. It's kind of heart-breaking, because you can see that Bill does have affection for his son, in that he's clearly upset about Mulder going away. However, he's channeling these feelings into bitter anger. He realizes that his son is a stranger to him, but he doesn't really seem to be admitting to himself that part of this might be his own fault.

Re: Bill Mulder, He no longer understands his son.

[amalnahurriyeh]

This is really interesting. I had always imagined the break came later than this--but to see the relationship crumbling at this early age is heartbreaking. And yet Bill knows he has to let his son go. Sigh.