#coppersunlight

[deathsbestgirl]

and here's a fic about it !!!!

[mulderno]

Hi friends, I’m still figuring things out over here and getting used to the changes since I last used tumblr consistently in like 2014, but I did wanna throw it out there rn that I’m trying to participate in fictober this year. I only have day one posted right now but am working on two and three and will hopefully have done by the end of the day.

You can read here on my ao3 if you’d like :)

[tumblemumbler]

Don't be shy, drop some fic recs?

Ok ok, I’m always afraid to do this because I hate to forget one and then the author doesn’t get acknowledged but I will do my best. Many of these are already listed by @enigmaticxbee who has heroically compiled numerous lists of fanfic recommendations by category. Many others out here doing that work (thank you!!), so this is very much just a “some things I loved” list. Most are explicit because I love me some smut.

love you but you’re green by wtfmulder - an incredible combination of nostalgia and sex

Contact High by Penumbra - I’m new to the game here, but it’s my understanding that this is a Classic Must Read and it’s for good reason

Suncadia by SisterSpooky1013 - one of the first ones I read, a case file and a getting together story that gave me a whole range of feels and got me excited to read more x files fics

Destined Reckoning by Spark_a_Flame - an AU crossover with a Stephen King book I’ve never read, but it didn’t matter. I’m always here for some post apocalyptic Mulder and Scully

Dropped Call by Phillip_Padgett - the absolute glorious smut this human writes is unbelievable. This is one of my favorites but there are no bad choices, every story is a banger (ha. Hahaha. Sorry)

Tremors in the unshakeable ground by coppersunlight - I’m not alllll about the angst, I’m more of an occasional partaker, but this filled a deep need I didn’t know I had for some goddamn Diana Fowley accountability

Shine On by cecily_sass - every once in awhile I read something with a premise I don’t even expect to like just because I know the author is good, and this one hooked me very quickly. It’s hard to describe what is so compelling: the words, the character choices, I don’t even know, just go read it.

from this morning forward by thursdaysinspace - a charmingly realistic look at how m&s do the hard work to find their way back to each other in the revival. Sweet, sexy, and gives the characters credit for all the effort it takes to make love last.

The X Files - Slip of the Tongue by Skinfull - every week I await the new installment, like a perfect little treat the universe is giving us for being fans

Si Hoc Legere Potes, Liberaliter Educatus by Aloysia_Virgata - so many great ones from this author, but this one cracked me up and gave me some feels too. A little revival therapy

Love and Bearclaws by Edie_Rone - short, sweet, and so so cute. A perfect little vignette

Throwing Good After Bad by oohnotvery - a clever twist on a common trope of the two of them going undercover together. Twists and turns and sex, oh my!

Takeout Interruptus by lonegunga1 - you need an ao3 login for this one. Just a cute funny slice of life in early MSR

Honestly there are so many more so my sincerest apologies to the authors I have read and enjoyed and didn’t properly get into this list - the fault is in my memory not in their work. Hopefully I have left them a comment at one point so that they feel appreciated! Also, all these authors have written many good things, go down those rabbit holes it’s the best.

One bonus, which is not actually X Files at all:

The Adventure of the Lady Detective and the Writer by mldrgrl - a romance saga between Stella from The Fall and Hank Moody from Californication. I was very skeptical and now I am a complete convert, this ship is genius.

[teiasviago]

Scully getting her tattoo in “Never Again” for coppersunlight

bonus:

[xfilesfanficexchange]

you already have

Author: coppersunlight For: @maybe-its-beyond-words​ The evening following the OPR hearing and subsequent conversation on the National Mall, Scully struggles to fall asleep, plagued by the emotional turmoil she hasn't yet had a chance to process. Despite Mulder's role in many of her anxieties surrounding the whole ordeal, she finds that he is still her best source of comfort. Ao3 Link

#XFFlickedSwitch2023 12/27

[carefulfears]

this is perhaps very annoying but im slowly making my way thru the seasons and would love any s1-s3 era fics <3 always love your fic recs and hope you have a lovely day!

hey pumpkin!! never annoying, thank you so much!!

i don't often read early-series but

here are some s1-3 fics from my favorite writers:

the mummy by audries: set post-s1, mulder and scully on a field trip to a museum. captures that perfect early series best best best friends-ism that i adore so much. as always, the character work is subtle and moving.

unknown by kittenscully: "in another time, he thinks, they’d have been pioneers together, leaving behind family and safety to go west hand in hand. too restless to settle anywhere."

post-darkness falls. two adventurers quoting lovecraft, wrestling with stars.

friction by kittenscully: post-fire, post-phoebe. mentions of diana. i love the subtle build-up of this one. the imagery, and the respite. i love that stupefied moment mulder always takes when someone is kind, and how it is embodied here.

madness by kittenscully: i know, i know, y'all can just click their page and scroll. but every time i think of phoebe, i think of this fic. post-syzygy, works through the detective white issue. "it's something about how trusting he is, she thinks."

transient luminous events by @seek-its-opposite: completing the trio of my three favorite writers, this post-abduction story doesn't waste a word. one of the rare creators that can balance worship and contrition, and the ways that devotion is often both, this work is a much needed quiet break after the tension of irresistible.

last frontier by @seek-its-opposite: "she had forgotten that she told him but isn’t surprised that he remembers. when his mind trains on her it’s like being a slide in a microscope, exposed but lit from within."

alaska, and parasitic betrayal. newly discovered desperation beneath ice.

outsiders by @swinging-stars-from-satellites: a unique perspective on arguably the series' best episode, there are several lines in this post-pusher one shot that catch my breath.

(the following are my favorite NSFWs, proceed responsibly babes)

soft focus by kittenscully: WALK WITH ME...walk with me. canon divergence, post-abduction. beginning in gentle hesitation, giving way to guilt and penance, following through to absolution and relief; no one writes smut like them, no one writes MSR like them, no one writes like them.

bellefleur, oregon by kittenscully: remember in the pilot when scully had mysterious marks on her back and she got scared and dropped her robe in mulder's motel room and he looked her over in candlelight and told her she was okay and gave her his bed and sat below her on the floor and told her about samantha and his life and neither of them knew each other or trusted each other but they bared themselves to each other anyway, physically and emotionally, over and over? yeah, me too...this story asks the brave question "what if then they fucked raw?"

mariette field, idaho by kittenscully: remember in the second episode when mulder and scully were so newly obsessed with each other and they went to idaho and bickered in motel rooms? well-

custom-made heel armor by coppersunlight: something lovely from one of my good friends, this post-wetwired first time AU understands trust as eroticism. the sisyphus reference, the fish tank mention, it's easy to see why i adore the girl behind this story.

enjoy!

(you can find the rest of today’s recs here)

[deathsbestgirl]

blood oranges by syntax6

triptych by iconicscullyoutfits

incrementum by lepusarcticus

tremors in the unshakable ground by coppersunlight

folie imposée & photosensitivity by seek_its_opposite

intervention by katy_kt_katie

grief is the price we pay for love by sarie_fairy

words of lust & words of love by OnlyTheInevitable

grief by ScullyLovesQueequeg

close to knowing by o666666

there is no way to make this story interesting by sunbleachedflys

and that one witchy casefic i can never remember the title of or who wrote it 😭😭 think it's set during the cancer arc

And Death Shall Have No Dominion by Jean Helms is having a moment on here, @thexfileswithoutcontext, @deathsbestgirl and @fringephile have all posted/asked about it and I absolutely love that this classic fic has stuck in so many people's brains. It's so good and is such a good reminder of how lucky we are to have literal decades worth of brilliant fic writing in this fandom. I'd love to know what other fics have lodged in people's brains in the same way!

[xfilesfanficexchange]

Think

Author: @spookyshhouse​ For: coppersunlight Afraid he might hear her thoughts, Scully confesses her feelings towards Mulder. Ao3 Link

#XFFlickedSwitch2023 24/27

[deathsbestgirl]

this is all because coppersunlight asked about a scully/belief post lmao my literal FAVORITE topic and i haven't found the one i'm personally looking for yet 😂😂

can only send asks from the blindspot blog and don't wanna go anon bc I want you to KNOW it was me but like daaaamn @perpetually-weirdening you're going HARD on the deep thought reblogs tonight 👀 love that for the rest of us 👌 thanks

[deathsbestgirl]

adding these tweets from coppersunlight!! i didn't write about it and i didn't think about that aspect for mulder at first, but literally yes!!

thinking about this too much and i'm going straight to requiem with it.

if mulder knew during en ami, had been going to doctors...with the way scully's cancer was interfered with, her infertility, her pregnancy. i think it makes sense that mulder was also being monitored & interfered with. csm would have known.

part of what i like about en ami is he's finally treating her as more than an experiment or as a way to get to mulder. he didn't want scully to tell mulder about this, it was a caveat for him telling her anything. he spends the time psychoanalyzing her and trying to make him see as more than a villain. he tries to humanize himself. tells her she can have the cure for cancer, all human ailments. he tells her how she'd die for mulder but won't let herself love him. everyone knows she would die for mulder, sacrifice anything for him, give him anything. and it goes both ways.

csm may know a lot, but he doesn't know everything. he can plan for a lot, but he can't plan for everything.

if what happened to mulder from biogenesis through amor fati is the cause of his brain disease, something csm stole, had surgically removed from mulder and put into his own brain...was there concern for himself? granted, it couldn't have worked. it was a failed experiment, but having part of mulder implanted into him that developed a disease?

he did want a cure. and if it did exist, he could have taken it for himself. leaving mulder & scully with nothing.

csm doesn't know everything and he needed to figure out what scully knew. if she knew, not only would she have been driven as a doctor & as someone who was infected with a deadly cancer, but she would want it for mulder.

in the end, scully leaves with a blank disc and csm (presumably) throws the real one into the water, unlikely to by seen again. but that doesn't mean he doesn't have the cure. something, i think he would be interested in. to save his chosen few should the need arise.

but before that can happen, mulder is abducted. i know most people interpret mulder's reaction as angry, and that's part of it. his fear, especially concerning scully's tendency toward belief (beyond the sea, all souls). i think it's more complicated than that though. he knows about his brain disease. he remembers scully's cancer too well, her abduction, emily. mulder knows what scully would sacrifice for him. he knows what she sacrifices for others & the world. her safety, her autonomy, literally anything she has to offer. he knows what he almost did to get her cure for cancer...if mulder told scully about his brain disease, if she went along with csm without even knowing about it. there's no telling what she would do if she did know.

(mulder didn't want her to be used again, the way they both have been. he knows the pain of manipulation. he knows how her abduction affected her, and himself. they both know loss at the hands of this conspiracy several times over. he doesn't want this to be scully's life.)

the audience doesn't always understand how crazy dana scully is, but fox mulder knows very well.

in requiem, mulder tells scully the cost is too high. not for all the reasons they've been told, but the personal cost. he's at a point where he's starting to believe it isn't worth it. he wants her to live, like she wanted him to live. well, differently. mulder wants her to pursue the normal life she doesn't have, that she left behind to stay on the x files & to be with him. mulder was going to keep scully safe, he wasn't going to let her be abducted again. he convinces her to stay, but scully won't let him go alone. someone needs to have his back.

i don't know if mulder knew he would be abducted, that they were taking abductees with the brain activity he exhibited on biogenesis through amor fati. either way, he gets taken and not her.

scully doesn't find out about his brain disease until after mulder's been abducted. she denies the possibility because he would have told her, like she told him. when doggett suggests he doesn't trust her, she throws water in his face in a crowded bullpen. scully finds gibson in the desert, wanders the desert in search of mulder. hoping he'll turn up, having dreams of what he's going through.

scully suffers without him, has her prayers answered when he returns from the dead. she saves him from becoming a monster, and his brain disease is cured. and what if...this is what was on the disc? turning these people into hybrids eliminated human vulnerabilities, cured diseases, brought them back from the dead.

csm couldn't actually have scully know that. is a cure that takes away your humanity worth it? would she have found a way to counter it? (well, yes because she did.)