i wonder how much of her life Scully spent trying to fit herself into roles that felt too small for her. like from what we know of her pre-pilot (smoking cigarettes in secret, rewriting Einstein, choosing FBI academy over a career in medicine, sleeping with older instructors, gaining credentials that most people her age could never dream of etc.) indicates someone who is simultaneously excelling and rebelling, leaping between disciplines and expanding her interests at a rapid pace. she’s clearly worked hard to succeed within extremely competitive and male-dominated institutions but there are already signs than she’s testing the boundaries and isn’t satisfied with simply checking the right boxes to advance her career. ambitious as Scully seems from the outside, her curiosity and her integrity prove much stronger motivators for her than professional acclaim (this gets spelled out pretty definitively by Squeeze).
so i think Scully before the pilot was chronically understimulated and always on the edge of feeling truly trapped or bored. but her tendency to act out is tempered by an equal tendency to fold back inward and assume the role she believes is expected of her — she is Starbuck and she repeatedly assumes that role in many of her endeavors and relationships, treasuring it at first but eventually resenting it as well. so Scully wants more of something but what more is there? what except to keep going along the path she’s fought to make her own? she’s not doing what her father wants or what her teacher wants but she’s still unsatisfied. until she’s standing in a cramped basement arguing with a strange man about aliens and feels like she can breathe freely and think freely for the first time in a long while
I think that is why she loves the xfiles so much. It challenges her, mulder challenges her. Not in a way that minimizes or diminishes her value or intelligence but in a way that says "you are far too smart to believe that this all there is." Its why he withholds certain case details. He profiled the fuck out of her when he read her thesis. This incredibly smart determined woman who rebels in strange ways not because she doesnt like conformity but because she needs the challenge she needs the thrill of curiosity. She wants to know all the secrets of the world. He leads her in that pilot episode because when he read her thesis he didnt see the skeptic he saw a beautiful mind that matched his own. That didnt shun away from the mysteries of the universe but pulled back the curtain to sit down and understand it.
And she fell hard for it. Because it both excited and challenged her in a world that has at times been too easy, too simple. She loves her job not because she is just a badass fbi agent but because the xfiles really are a new exciting challenge everyday and Mulder is in some ways that figure to challenge her but also he treats her as an equal (until never again when he is just a giant dick). They disagree and they argue but as minds coming together to explain the crazy to make sense of the nonsensical.
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This is my second Spooky Award post. It's apparently a series! My post about Spookys 1998 is here.
The Spooky Awards were the annual awards given to X-Files fan fiction from 1995-2004 (except for 1997). They were voted on by fans and were always a bit contentious. You can read more about this at Fanlore or my previous post on the topic. The award categories changed pretty drastically changed them every year: look how different 2000's are from 1998's!
But ... this was apparently a loaded topic. Check out this lively discussion about what the Spookys' categories should be in 1999. Also, there were apparently no 1997 awards because of ballot stuffing during the 1996 Spookys, which seems like it was a whole exciting fandom drama! But I digress.
Originally I was going to focus this post on the 1999 Spooky Awards because, you know, they came consecutively after 1998 (and because @amplifyme won a lifetime achievement award that year! did y'all know that? it seems deserved for sure, although she must have been awfully youthful to be getting a lifetime achievement award).
But once I looked over the full list for 2000, I couldn't resist choosing 2000. Nearly every fic on the list is familiar to me. These are some masterpieces. This had to be one of the high point years for fic, at least in my book. So many of these are still on my rec lists! (And not just mine!) I mean, right?
Some trends I notice for the winners of this year: lots of angst. XF fic always includes angst, but oof, 2000's winners had so much. More angst than smut, I would say, although there's smut, too. This is interesting because in 2000 canon, of course, we're in season 7 and things are generally lighter and flirtier. Well, I guess Sein und Zeit / Closure, Orison and the season finale are plenty angsty, and there are fics here about those episodes.
I also notice a 2000 trend for post-apocalyptic fic and fic with clever and grim twists. Of course, in canon, the mytharc is pointing to likely colonization at this point, there were lots of 90s alien invasion stories in general. And who knows, maybe we have some general turn-of-the-millenium apocalyptic vibes in the air, too? Pop culture of the late 90s / early 2000s also really liked clever plot concepts and twists (See: Se7en, Sixth Sense, Usual Suspects, The Others). So these make sense as fanfic elements.
At any rate, I present to you ... the XF fandom's Spooky Award Winners of 2000. (I will get back to 1999, I promise! And the others!) I do have to split this up in two posts because of link limits, but I will link the second part below. Let me know what you notice / think.
SPOOKY WINNERS 2000
Outstanding Short Story, Vignette or Poem
First Place - Black Hole Season - Penumbra
Second Place - Nobody's Son - Marguerite
Third Place - Cellphone - Marasmus
Outstanding Midlength Story
First Place (tie) Aquinnah - Anjou
First Place (tie) Strangers and the Strange Dead - Kipler
Second Place - Night Giving Off Flames - Jesemie's Evil Twin
Third Place - A Candle for Katherine - marasmus
Outstanding Long Story
First Place - The Dreaming Sea - Revely
Second Place - The Second to Last 7-Eleven - V. Salmone
Third Place - Malus Genius - Maybe Amanda and Plausible Deniability
Outstanding Novel
First Place - Arizona Highways - Fialka
Second Place - Blinded by White Light - Dasha K. (@dashakay)
Third Place - Blood Oranges - Syntax6 @syntax6
Outstanding Series
First Place - Life During Wartime - cofax, Maria Nicole and Marasmus - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8
Second Place - Intuitive Reasoning Series Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 - Mish
Serendipity Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 - Sue Schramm
Outstanding WIP
First Place - All the Way Home - syntax6 @syntax6
Second Place - Ersatz Promises - Suzanne Barringer and Suzanne Schramm
Third Place - Almost Home - Shoshana
Outstanding Angst Story
First Place - Arizona Highways - Fialka
Second Place - Night Giving Off Flames - Jesemie's Evil Twin
Third Place (tie) - Cellphone - Marasmus
Third Place (tie) - Strangers and the Strange Dead - Kipler
Outstanding Apocalypse / Post-Colonization Story
First Place - Blinded by White Light - Dasha K.
Second Place - Night Giving Off Flames - Jesemie's Evil Twin
Third Place - Life During Wartime - cofax, Maria Nicole and Marasmus - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8
Outstanding Crossover Story
First Place - Thanks of a Grateful Nation (The West Wing crossover) - Sabine
Second Place - Straight on 'Til Morning (Peter Pan crossover) - Brandon Ray
Third Place (tie) - Glass Hearts (The Sandman crossover)- David Hearne
Third Place (tie) - Mezzo Luna (Like Water for Chocolate crossover)- Michelle Kiefer
Outstanding Humor Story
First Place - Malus Genius - Maybe Amanda and Plausible Deniability
Second Place - Good Vibrations - Lysander
Third Place - Midnight Mark-up - Louise Marin
Outstanding Post-Episode Story
First Place - Black Hole Season - Penumbra
Second Place - Aquinnah - Anjou
Third Place - Nobody's Son - Marguerite
Outstanding X-File
First Place (tie) - Arizona Highways - Fialka
First Place (tie) - Blood Oranges - Syntax6
Second Place - Malus Genius - Maybe Amanda and Plausible Deniability
Third Place - Gutless - Magdeleine
Outstanding Scully Characterization
First Place - Arizona Highways - Fialka
Second Place - Blood Oranges - Syntax6
Third Place - Blinded by White Light - Dasha K.
Outstanding Mulder Characterization
First Place - Aquinnah - Anjou
Second Place - Arizona Highways - Fialka
Third Place - Night Giving Off Flames - Jesemie's Evil Twin
Outstanding Skinner Characterization
First Place (tie) - Abject - PD
First Place (tie) - Whom My Soul Loveth - Marguerite
Second Place - The Measure of My Days - Marguerite
Third Place - Six Months - Keleka
Outstanding Krycek Characterization
First Place - Crashing in the Same Car - Rachel Anton
Second Place - Useful Idiots - Brandon D. Ray
Third Place (tie) - My Little Demons - a frightened little girl
Third Place (tie) - Mapping the Veins - she who hides
Outstanding Other Series Character Characterization
First Place - Arizona Highways (Kresge) - Fialka
Second Place - Intuitive Reasoning Series (Karen Kosseff) Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 - Mish
Third Place - Getting Used to Gunfire (Maggie Scully) - cofax and Maria Nicole
Outstanding Original Character
First Place - Strangers and the Strange Dead - Kipler
Second Place - A Candle for Katherine - Marasmus
Third Place - My Favorite Word - Mish
Outstanding MSR UST
First Place - Strange Fruit - Punk Maneuverability
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Fascinated by this fanon concept of Scully not being Mulder’s type. Type??? That man has no type. His type is ‘person who will hang out with me in basement.’ He is much too lonely to have a type lol
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Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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