#The Fox Dissertation

[margindoodles2407]

you are yet to tell us your fandom-controversial takes on the corrie guard and their poor marshal commander

I require this to be rectified posthaste (take your time lol)

Ask and ye shall recieve, friend-o (I spent three days on this)

(@whyoneartheven Hola. You'll also probably want to see this)

DISCLAIMER. Hello there. I urge you, if you are currently reading this dissertation, to perhaps- either now or later- step aside to read this glorious fic, which not only changed my brain chemistry in indescribable ways but also shaped at least 90% of my perception of Fox as a person. I am contractually obligated to warn you, though. That it's a T- rated fic. And it's a hard T. There is some dark subject matter here. However. If you are okay with that. PLEASE READ IT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE OH MY FORCE GO READ IT GO READ IT NOW I AM LOSING MY MIND IT'S SO GOOD IT'S SO GOOD IT'S SO GOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDD:

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3653110 (you're going to have to copy and paste the link but i swear it works)

And Now, Your Scheduled Programming.

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Commander Fox

By MarginDoodles2047

What I see in Commander Fox is a man who is, fundamentally, deeply kind.

I see a man who was once a little boy, the youngest of his batch of brothers, and with a red giant for a heart. I see a little boy whose heart was huge and warm and beautifully bright, who loved like it was breathing, who gave and gave and gave without a thought to himself. I see a boy whose heart's deepest darkest desire was to be a medic, whose hands ached to heal and not to hurt, who wanted to fix what was broken and stitch back together what was ravaged and ragged and ruined.

I see a boy who could not ever see that dream become more, because he was created to lead armies to victory, no matter how high the blood-price.

I see a youth who worked like a madman to prove himself, and whose efforts were finally rewarded with the promise that he'd never have to see the battlefield he hated so much. I see a youth ecstatic at the thought that he'd spend his days protecting, for Coruscant, the beating heart of the Republic, was his to guard and to defend. I see a youth who spent his last night on Kamino with bright, excited eyes and a giddy racing in his huge, warm, bright heart, because he, of all his brothers, the youngest, little Fox'ika, had been deemed fit to spill his blood for the Supreme Chancellor himself.

I see a man who stepped off the transport, who took his first steps onto the planet-city, hand locked in his best friend and co-Commander's, with eyes still shining and a smile that could put the ecumenopolis's own glittering brightness to shame.

I see… that smile start to fade, as the days and weeks go by.

Because I see what Fox could not, not at first: I see the decadence, the degeneracy, the decay that lay just beneath that shimmering facade. I see the minds of people from all corners of the galaxy, some noble but most twisted and corrupted, as they go about their petty lives squabbling and backrooms-dealing in the name of Democracy but really for their own gain. I see the inflated, fragile egos of countless humans and aliens who are more than willing to treat their fellow beings as objects to use and discard when they're done with them.

Most horribly, I see at the center of it all the deceptively gentle smile and cruel beady eyes of a man in blood-red robes, who spins this web of corruption and abuse around him like a very patient spider that finds himself delighted to have caught a very earnest and very naive white-and-crimson-armored beetle right in the center of it.

I see a man who finds his entire world ripped out from under his feet, yet still a man who tries to make the best out of a bad situation for weeks. I see a man who fights back against every snide comment, every attempted backhanded slap, every derogatory sneer of Clone, with the fire from his red-giant heart flaring in his eyes and burning in his voice, yet who- increasingly exhaustedly- turns nothing but his innate kindness and warmth and empathy on his terrified younger brothers, despite being terrified himself. I see a man who is so determined to be cheerfully rebellious, even to the face of the most powerful man in the Galaxy---

But when he holds the broken, badly-concussed body of his best friend and right-hand man, the body of a brother beaten and battered and barely-alive as a punishment for his defiance, I see a man who resolves then and there that as long as he is Marshal Commander of the Coruscant Guard, no one but he will take the blows and the bruises and the fractures and the insults and the absolute hell that is the Senate.

I see a man whose heart is huge and warm and whose beautifully bright light is flickering and sputtering like a dying candle, who loves like it's breathing, who gives and gives and gives without a thought to himself.

I see him give his body to the blows and the slaps and the throwing and the names. I see him give his gentleness, his comfort, his protection to his brothers. I see him give everything he has to make sure the politicians' attentions are on him and never on his Guardsmen.

I see the sweet little boy get buried under layers of callouses, to be dug out only for the suffering men he's sworn himself to protect. I see him cut himself off from his batch-brothers, firstly because he feels they'd never understand or believe him and secondly, because he doesn't want that spider of a man to have any more leverage over him than he already does-- because I see a beskar will that only one person can bend and twist like taffy, I see a man hewn from marble that only one person can toy with like a marionette on a string.

I see once-dark curls shock themselves full of silver and once-bright eyes go dim and dull and sunken. I see too-sharp cheekbones and a once-smooth young face get violently gashed in half from eyebrow to mouth-corner, just because. I see black eyes and deep hematomas expertly hidden under layers of drugstore concealer and violent electric burns expertly hidden under the layers of his armor. I see the scars that are tokens of thoughtless cruelty and deliberate torture alike.

I see a man who spends his nights on Coruscant with exhausted, weepy eyes and a panicked racing in his shrinking, cooling, flickering heart, because he, of all his brothers, the oldest, Commander Fox, has been deemed fit to spill his blood for the Supreme Chancellor himself.

(I see, one particularly bad night, a glass of something dark and burning. Over time, I see that glass turn into two glasses. Then a bottle. Then three bottles. Then five bottles and a sobbing, heartbroken man slumped over his cluttered desk- a man who dried to drown his terror and his grief but instead finds himself drowning in them and a sea of cheap Correllian alcohol.)

I see it all, and I see it… go unnoticed, because what the Senate, the Media, the Public, sees is a perfect, polished Marshal Commander whose black-brown and silver curls have never a hair out of place, whose bleak eyes can hold perfect and even intense contact with those of their focus, whose sharp split face is nonetheless clean-shaven and unblemished and even- in its own macabre way- handsome when it's not hidden under his helmet, whose bruises and scars are rendered invisible and whose hands never shake and whose never-raised voice is measured and even and soft and always, always, polite.

Fox is not the only one I see, though. I see Command Batch, increasingly concerned regarding little Foxy's clipped, too-polite monosyllables and terse responses. I especially see Wolffe and Cody, angrily sad and deeply worried, respectively, about the change that has come over their vod'ika. I see Rex's relationship with Fox grow cold and distant and strained for reasons he's not entirely able to fathom. I see Thorn, worrier that he is, the only one able to really get through to his superior, his best friend, his brother, the only one who knows the extent of the wreck that Fox has become. I see the Guardsmen, from the oldest surviving veteran to the freshest most innocent shiny, ready to die for their Marshal Commander because he's the only one who makes them not want to die from the torture that is their job.

I see the Chancellor, who really doesn't care about him, because, in the grand scheme of things, he's nigh-inconsequential to his master plan, yet who keeps him around because isn't it fun to have one person on whom he can inflict all the mental and physical and spiritual torture he likes, because he has no safe space or confidante that could protect him? One person he can tell that plan to because he has no one to tell and stop the coming darkness? One person who can know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who the Dark Lord of the Sith is, because even if he did have someone to tell, who would believe that the kind, soft-spoken, grandfatherly Chancellor, who's so respectful of all his troops and fights so hard for the rights of the GAR, could possibly be the great evil behind the entire war?

I see Commander Fox.

I see a man who was once a little boy, the youngest of his batch of brothers, and with a red giant for a heart. I see a little boy whose heart was huge and warm and beautifully bright, who loved like it was breathing, who gave and gave and gave without a thought to himself. I see a boy whose heart's deepest darkest desire was to be a medic, whose hands ached to heal and not to hurt, who wanted to fix what was broken and stitch back together what was ravaged and ragged and ruined.

I see a man whose red giant heart is breaking, bursting at the seams. I see a man who still loves like it's breathing, who still gives and gives and gives without a thought to himself, but whose breathing is turning asthmatic and whose well to give from is by no means infinite. I see a man who still, in his heart of hearts, is trying to be a medic, trying to play doctor to a division that is horribly broken and fumbling with his own mangled hands to stitch back together a division that is ravaged and rugged and ruined almost beyond repair.

I see Commander Fox, and he's running out of time.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

i think it is fascinating that the first time we see mulder have sex (in 3) and the first time we see scully have sex (in never again), both of them approach it fundamentally as an act of self-harm.

mulder, wracked with the grief of losing his partner, trying to save this woman he just met as an act of penance, while scully's necklace dangles around his neck.

scully, processing that she does not have much longer to live, feeling terrified and frustrated, once again trying to force herself into doing what society expects of her, as if that will bring the happiness she has been denied.

i just think it's neat.

[expatesque]

would you ever do a phd?

Hahahhaha neverrrrr. I deeply dislike that kind of super narrow, detailed research - I would do 5 more undergrads but never a PhD.

[emmg]

I don't think Bioware fully comprehends the absolute chaos it’s about to release by handing us, the unapologetic mage-bangers, Emmrich "well done, my dear" Volkarin after the emotional war crime that was the Solas romance.

It’s like they’re handing us an emotionally healthy daddy figure wrapped in a big ol’ “yes, praise me harder” bow and just expecting us to behave.

AO3? Oh, it’s about to be a bloodbath. A flood of unholy praise kink is going to rain down like mana from horny heaven. The poor voice actor? He’s got no idea what’s coming. Fans, barely coherent, will be sobbing in his DMs, pleading for him to record lines like, "darling, sweet thing, apple of my throbbing loins,” because suddenly that’s the only thing keeping them going.

And you just know the fics are gonna go there. We’re talking steamy, full-blown, knee-weakening sex scenes so detailed you’ll practically hear the slapping sounds through your screen. Every silver hair, every wrinkled brow is going to get worshipped like it’s the goddamn Holy Grail. Emmrich? He’s not just a mentor now, no—he’s the silver-fox sex wizard of everyone’s dirtiest, most depraved dreams.

Bioware, you’ve dragged us through the emotional meat grinder with Solas, and now you’re tossing us this emotionally sane and well-adapted snack with decades of good coping mechanisms? Oh, baby, the sex scenes are gonna be biblical. I’m talking hands-on-bookshelves, robes ripped off, candles flickering like we’re summoning a demon but, surprise, it’s just Emmrich praising your efforts in bed like you’re acing your dissertation. It's gonna be 'well done, my dear' while you’re doing ungodly things to that silver fox, and he’s stroking your hair like you just unlocked a new achievement.

Me? Oh, honey, I’ll be on the front lines like a horny general leading the charge into the unholy lands. November 1st? I’m not just showing up, I’m rolling in with a pre-written, fully locked-and-loaded stash of smut so scandalous, my Orthodox ancestors will not only crucify me—they’ll disown me in the afterlife. I’m gonna make them turn in their graves so hard, we’ll solve the energy crisis.

And let’s not get it twisted—I’m going to worship this thin, emotionally available mage like he’s the last goddamn spellcaster left in Thedas. I’m talking tongue tracing every single one of his ribs like I’m mapping out the delicate lines of a cathedral—except it’s not sacred, it’s blasphemous as fuck. Forget holy water; it’s gonna be sweat, and I’ll be so deep into my thirst, my own character, Rook, will be doing things that’d make even the most depraved demon of desire blush. Every sliver of his body, every wrinkle, every bone—especially the bones—is getting the Rook Treatment™.

Bioware? You better brace yourself because I’m about to publish smut so audacious, so flagrantly wanton, even the Deep Roads will seem vanilla.

We’ve suffered. And now poor Emmrich’s going to be buried alive under the weight of all that… pent-up thirst. Welcome to the show, sweet necromancer.

[qveerthe0ry]

Cleansing in the Flame

Summary: Mulder comes out to Scully. Word Count: 11,218 Pairing: Fox Mulder x Dana Scully Rating: 18+ mdni Warnings: descriptions of gender dysphoria, mentions of transitioning, a little bit of internalized transphobia, trans male character, bisexual female character, amab terminology for afab genitalia, oral sex, vaginal fingering, premature orgasm, coming out, confessing feelings, canon divergent, season one A/N: Baby's first MSR fic! Really honestly I just wanted more trans Mulder fics so I'm being the change I want to see in the world I guess. Ao3 link

The first time Fox Mulder saw an issue of Playboy, his hair was still long and his parents still called him Sarah, and he was still a year away from puberty.

He remembers it like it was yesterday, not because of the naked women, but the way they made him feel. Like something was off. He knew he liked girls, and he knew that was frowned upon, so he kept it to himself when he developed crushes on his friends at school. 

It wasn’t that. It was disgust, actually. Disgust at the idea that what he saw on the pages was what he was destined for. Breasts, wide hips, hairless skin. It made him sick. Instead of eating dinner at the table with his parents and sister, he faked a stomach ache and then cut all of his hair off with the scissors in the bathroom.

His mother cried, his father told him he was too old to be pulling shit like this. He tried not to hold it against them, because they couldn’t possibly understand what compelled him to do it. 

So he told them. He told them over and over and over again, for years. He’d cut his hair himself, he’d refuse the frilly clothes, and finally, finally, something snapped. 

He got what he wanted. He got the wardrobe, he got the trip to his dad’s barber shop, he got the medications only someone like his father would be able to access. He got his records changed, and a new private school, and Sarah Mulder was dead, just like that.

The second time Fox Mulder saw porn, it was a grainy video one of his buddies found when he was fourteen. He also remembers that like it was yesterday. 

He spent every night that week staring at himself in the mirror with a pair of tube socks stuffed in his boxers. 

He got his hands on more porn as the years passed by. He was obsessed with studying the men, the way they acted, the way they treated women, the way women treated them. By the time he finally shipped off to Oxford, he was convinced he was ready to be the man he always wanted to be. 

It turns out, there was only a small subset of women who wanted the man he’d become. 

That’s really where it all began. Aside from Phoebe and the disastrous end (and beginning and middle, if he’s honest) of their relationship, he didn’t get much action. 

He lived in a fantasy world, inside his adult videos and the magazine subscriptions he couldn’t afford and the phone calls he definitely couldn’t afford. There were women along the way, but he knew quite well they would be temporary. 

Porn is forever. 

And he’d never been ashamed of it before. 

So why is he all of a sudden so embarrassed about it when Scully starts making jokes about his habit?

You know why, he thinks, late at night, as he relives all the mortifying ways she’s revealed her knowledge of his extracurriculars. 

Because Dana Scully’s perfect. So perfect. Everything about her. He’d fallen in love before he even met her, as he read through her dissertation with heart-shaped pupils. 

And then she came knocking on his basement office door and treated him like a human being and he melted at her nonchalant kindness. 

Yes, she makes it quite clear that she thinks he’s bat-shit crazy. Yes, she works hard to pick apart every word he says. He likes that. He never believed in the term opposites attract until he met her, but her grounded personality and level head made him realize it isn’t just a cliche. 

And she’s beautiful, of course. Which sucks so much worse. It would be so easy to ignore how well they work together if she wasn’t so goddamn enticing. He likes the way she makes him feel so big, always staring up at him, always so dainty under his palm. 

Her eyes freeze him in place more often than he’d like to admit, striking against her frizzy strawberry hair. She hates it, complains about the way it curls up at the ends. Mulder loves it. Sometimes, when she’s standing in front of a light source, all those frizzy ends create a halo around her head and he thinks maybe he could believe in god because she’s simply angelic. 

And her lips. Mulder’s favorite thing to do on his morning commute is to guess what color lipstick she chose for the workday. He likes it best when she wears none, or a clear gloss, because he imagines her nipples are the same dusky pink color. 

He tries really hard not to objectify her, tries to keep his private thoughts respectful. She’s the most powerful woman he’s ever met, and she uses that power for good, because she is good. He’s already afraid of corrupting her, and when his thoughts drift off to inappropriate places, he feels guilty. 

Not guilty enough to stop renting the same six redhead-starring videos from his local adult store, though. 

The worst thing is, there’s no way she’d ever fall in love with him. Aside from the fact that he’s a conspiracy theorist and she’s as factual as a scientist can get, aside from the fact that he’s a loner with weirdo friends and no real hobbies, she deserves someone normal. 

A normal man. Someone who can give her children, a normal life, not a pretend one like he still feels he’s living after all these years. 

He hasn’t told her. 

It’s why he’s been extremely protective of his medical records, why he’s denied her offer to take over his charts and be his doctor for convenience’s sake. It’s why he’s extremely grateful that he got top surgery so young and his scars healed so well that they’re virtually unnoticeable under his chest hair. 

A part of him, the self-loathing part, feels like he’s been lying to her this entire time. It’s just that they haven’t even been working together for a year, yet, and when is it a good time to come out to someone? They got so close so quick that now he feels she’ll be hurt that he didn’t tell her sooner.

And really, the biggest reason of all, is that if she doesn’t know, then maybe he can pretend that they’ll get together one day. 

It all comes to a head on a case, when he’s kicked Scully out and searched through the naughty channels and finally settled on one when she comes barging through his door with a file in her hand. 

The TV is facing the doorway, and he shuts it off quickly, but not quick enough. 

“Geeze, Mulder, I’ve been gone for five minutes.”

His face is hot, with shame, yes, but anger too. Mostly at himself, but a little at the fact that she didn’t bother knocking. 

“I didn’t think you were coming back.”

She huffs, a smirk playing at the corner of her pretty mouth, and it makes him feel tingly all over in the worst way. 

“I’m not a pervert,” he says, before his brain catches up with his mouth.

One meticulously plucked eyebrow quirks up.

“I never said you were.”

Mulder crosses his arms over his chest. Scully mirrors him with the file still in her hand. Her head cocks to the side and he almost misses the way her eyes flicker below his belt for just a millisecond before meeting his face again. 

He has to tell her, doesn’t he? He can’t keep going on without getting this off his chest. 

“I have to tell you something.” 

She finally closes the motel door behind her. His ears are ringing. He can feel all of his boiling blood pumping through every vein in his body. 

“What’s wrong, Mulder?” 

She settles in a chair next to the bed. She’s so perfect, god, it makes him want to throw up. Her blazer is gone, her crisp white shirt is unbuttoned a casual amount. He loves the way she doesn’t cross her legs when she sits in pants. Her knees always align with her narrow shoulders; it’s so Scully. 

Now, she sets her elbows on her knees, the file dangling between her legs as she looks at him expectantly. 

“I um… There’s something I want you to know. About me.”

The teasing look on her face dissipates. Her eyes widen and her brows draw together with concern, but she’s quiet as she patiently waits for him to continue. 

His throat feels thick and his palms are sweatier than ever as he searches for the right words, the right way to begin this conversation. 

“I uh… I wasn’t…” he huffs as he looks up at the popcorn ceiling above their heads. 

“Take your time,” she says, hushed and patient and calm, and her gentle tone is what gives him the strength to look over at her again. 

She looks worried. It’s what compels him to rip the bandaid off, to save her from the suspense. 

“I’m transgender.”

And he doesn’t even feel relief like he thought he would, because he still has another confession weighing on his shoulders. I’m also in love with you.

“Thank you for sharing that, Mulder.”

He opens his eyes without realizing he closed them in the first place. She looks calm. Eerily calm. Even more than that way that irritates him sometimes when he thinks he’s onto something big and she doesn’t see any concern. 

“You’re not… Surprised?”

He watches her bite her lip. God, how one woman can be so cute and sexy at the same time is so beyond him. His heart is racing for so many different reasons.

“I didn’t want to assume, but I am a medical doctor. I’ve uh… seen some things while you were in the hospital. Not like that— I mean, your charts.”

How?

“I’m sorry if I crossed a boundary.”

Mulder shakes his head.

“No, no. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

Scully sighs and stands, and in the second it takes her to sit on the bed next to him, he’s already begun to spiral.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Mulder.”

She’s sincere. He knows by the tone of her voice and by the way she brushes his hair from his forehead, always fussing over him. It makes his whole body feel overheated and clammy. 

“You’re not upset?”

She laughs, one of those indignant huffs that he’s so accustomed to. 

“Not at all. Why would I be?”

“I lied, I kept it from you. You’re supposed to trust me—”

“Mulder,” she whispers. He can’t meet her intense gaze, but she continues nonetheless, “I trust you with my career, my safety, my life. Something so trivial would never change that fact.”

When he finally works up the courage to look at her, she’s smiling at him, like he’s the one being silly. Maybe he is. Maybe he should have known that Dana Scully is actually perfect, no exceptions.

He works his lips up in the corners to hopefully resemble some kind of smile. It’s hard with how his heartbeat is deafening him, and how he kind of wants to cry. 

“I don’t see what this has to do with your porn habits, though.”

Perfect. She is so fucking perfect, he’ll never doubt her again. 

She’s grinning at him with her eyebrow cocked up, all smug and teasing, and he loves her so fucking much that it’s burning a hole in his chest. 

“It’s stupid, maybe. I just got into the habit of watching the men, you know? How they act, how they, uh, y’know. It’s like I’m studying.”

She stares at him for a beat and then giggles. A bubbly little noise she can’t contain, a noise Mulder wants to fall asleep to every night. 

“O-kay, if you say so.”

“Hey! That’s perfectly valid, is it not?”

“I wouldn’t say modeling yourself after men in pornography is valid, no. Mulder, this crap is misogynistic, patriarchal propaganda. They treat women like objects, like receptacles.”

He’s taken aback by her fiery bluntness. He’s half-aware that his jaw is hanging open like a jackass, but he’s looking for words to say and can’t grasp any. 

“Any man would benefit from treating a woman like a woman would.”

He finally has something to say, but as he sucks in a deep breath to respond, she halts him.

“And not from watching that junk made by men, for men.”

He nods. He’s not entirely sure why he hadn’t thought of it this way, but it all does make a ton of sense. It’s glaringly obvious, actually, clearing up the teenage fog in his brain that’s always surrounded his propensity for porn. 

“Well, Scully, it sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

And it’s fair game, right? He just came out to her and she scolded him for his porn choices with laughter. They can joke like this, right?

She freezes, though. Crosses her arms over her chest self-consciously. It makes him want to suck all the words back in and staple his mouth shut. 

“Maybe I am, Mulder.”

She shrugs, like it’s no big deal, but her wavering voice tells a different story. 

“You were dating that guy, though. The boring one.”

She rolls her eyes. 

“I’m bisexual.”

Jesus, she’s so good at making him feel like an idiot. It’s kind of hot. 

“Oh. Umm… thank you for sharing?”

And an ass. He always feels like an ass around her, but it’s reached a new level now. 

“I wasn’t trying to hide it from you, it just never came up.”

And now she’s defensive, great, how’d he manage to muck this all up so badly? 

“I didn’t say you were, Scully. I’m— look, I’m sorry, it was a bad joke. And you’re right. Maybe you could… uh… pass along some of those learning materials you were talking about?”

She glares at him, but her pretty little lips are trying and failing to suppress a smile. 

“For science, Scully.”

She giggles then, and sighs. Mulder figures the conversation is over, and he’ll go back to watching his shauvenistic entertainment while trying not to focus on the fact that Scully is nothing but a wall away. 

Instead, she flops back on his mattress, perpendicular to his crossed legs, and places a hand on his denim covered calf. Her gaze meets his, and her smile is soft and secretive and relaxed and beautiful. 

“I’m glad we came out to each other. It was kind of driving me insane, pretending to act all prudish when you’d make comments about hot women.”

Mulder’s stunned silent, which is a feat only Scully could accomplish. He’s rarely seen this Scully, laid back and unprofessional. He yearns for her to make an appearance at all times. It makes him feel a mix of horny and lovesick he’s never quite experienced at such a level. 

“I mean, it’s a miracle you never clocked me sooner. All those magazines I’ve caught you looking at? I’m only human, Mulder. I was bound to have a reaction sooner or later.”

He attempts to chuckle. Really it just sounds all garbled coming from his dry throat. 

“Maybe I suspected,” he finally says, shrugging, “I just didn’t think it was my business one way or another. And that guy— and your ex, whatshisface?”

“Ethan.”

“Ethan, yeah. Poor guy.”

Scully hums and looks away. 

“What about you? Any girlfriend? Boyfriend? You’ve never said.”

It’s sweet that she’s asking, even though he’s sure she knows the answer.

“No, no girlfriends,” he laughs softly, “you may be surprised to find I’m not many women’s type, Scully.”

Her dainty little hand squeezes his calf. 

“That does surprise me, actually.”

He blinks, watches her demeanor. She’s serious. He laughs again, harder this time. 

“Scully,” he groans, “what’s happened to my partner of sound logic and reasoning?”

“What?” Scully squawks, slapping his knee. “You’re a smart guy, handsome, steady job, kind. Charming even, sometimes, if you try really hard.”

He huffs but feels himself curling inward. Is she… flirting? Surely not. She’s just being kind, trying to make him feel better. Handsome???

“Yeah, it works for me up until date number three, then things get pretty awkward pretty quickly.”

Her hand is on his knee now, and her short thumbnail scratches little circles into his patella, and he wants to disappear. She hums and stares at him, and it isn’t pity that makes her gaze feel so heavy. It’s something else, something Mulder doesn’t even dare let himself think. 

“Seems kinda silly in the grand scheme of things,” she mumbles. Mulder hardly hears that mousey, tinny register. 

“What do you mean?”

She shrugs, looks down at where her hand is searing a fucking hole through his jeans and branding his skin. Mulder places his hand on top of hers, to encourage her or maybe just selfishly to feel her bare skin. 

“It’s just… I would see it as a net positive. Knowing your way around the… uh… equipment so to speak.”

Christ.

Of all the things he’d expect to come from her mouth, that’s so low on the list that it’s laughable. 

“Dana Katherine Scully,” he gasps. He has to cope with humor. If he doesn’t, he’ll melt into the mattress and become an x-file himself. 

She giggles. Giggles. The sound is so beautiful as it pierces the room and bounces off the gaudy wallpaper. 

He wants her so bad it’s pathetic. He has the sudden urge to kick a piece of gravel down the road and whistle a sad tune. 

“I’m just saying, if they were smart, they’d take advantage.”

“Are you?” 

Oh god oh fuck.

“Am I what?”

He clears his throat and looks away and lets his hand fall back into his lap instead of on her hand. 

“Mulder, am I what?”

“… Smart?”

His eyes are closed. He’s leaned his head back so far against the tacky motel bed headboard that his neck aches. He wants to run away, but he doesn’t want to stop feeling her hand on his knee, even above his clothes. 

It feels like hours before she responds. 

“I re-wrote Einstein, didn’t I?”

He pries one of his eyes open, looking down the bridge of his nose at her. She’s smirking, lifting her brow at him with her lips turned up and her cute nose scrunched like it does sometimes. 

“You certainly did.”

Mulder’s heart is pounding so hard against his ribcage that his chest aches. He’s stunned still, stiff against the mattress, under the heat of Scully’s palm. He chews on his lower lip as their gazes meet and it feels so much more heated than it ever has, the touch, their shared looks, their words. Dangerous and terrifying. 

He holds his breath as Scully bites her own dainty lips. He feels every one of her fingertips when she squeezes his knee, scorching but gentle. It twitches under her touch and he just barely keeps it together enough to swallow the noise that threatens his throat. She smiles at him, so bright in this otherwise dim, dingy room. 

He loves her. 

“Goodnight, Mulder,” she says. 

He deflates as her hand slips from his knee, as she sits up and the bed shifts when she stands. He’s slow to catch up with everything happening, the teasing and the look she gave him and her abrupt parting. He only realizes she’s leaving as she makes her way to the door with the forgotten file tucked under her arm. 

“Don’t stay up too late,” she laughs. 

He smiles and nods and lets his head thunk back against the headboard as the door closes behind her. He doesn’t turn on the TV, he doesn’t even undress or get under the covers. He just stares at the moldy popcorn ceiling until he dozes off. 

____

The drive home should be awkward. Mulder feels rejected. He feels like he overshared and overstepped and overshot. They should be uncomfortable. The air in the car should be tense and thick. 

And if it isn’t, then Scully should at least be pretending like nothing ever happened last night. But she’s not. That same air of ease and comfort she harbored after their shared coming out is still here. She laughs at his stupid jokes, and she makes some herself, and she playfully slaps his arm when he says something inappropriate. 

She is flirting. 

This is a Scully he’s never seen before. She’s acting like a schoolgirl. Or what Mulder imagines a schoolgirl would have acted like had he ever had an interaction with one in this way.

Mulder should clarify, unpack what they told each other, what it means for them. He doesn’t. Instead, he throws every tenth seed shell at her and lets his heart skip a beat when she giggles his name and crinkles up her face in mock-disgust. 

It’s eerie how stark the contrast is when they make it back to Hoover, how her sweet grin is replaced by a professional smile, how her pointy shoulders go from gooey and lax to nearly touching her ears. This is the Scully he expected on the drive home, yet he’s still jarred by it as they waltz into Skinner’s office for the briefing. 

It was a cut and dry case, there’s nothing for Mulder to be nervous about. But as Skinner drones on about the procedures and paperwork and expense reports, he can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever get to see that rare version of Scully again. If everything changed, or if nothing changed. 

His leg bounces up and down at a pace so rapid it could shake the entire building, yet he doesn’t even notice until Scully’s hand lands on his knee. Again. As he settles his heel to the ground, he thinks maybe Scully’s fingers could be imprinted on his kneecap. He’d welcome it, at least. To look down and see the reminder of her grounding presence molded into his skin? He craves it, actually. 

Instead, they slip away quietly and without ceremony into her own lap again. Skinner cuts them loose, and Mulder stares at his watch for far too long on the elevator ride down to the basement.

He swears with every tick of the second hand the air between them gets more dense. 

He stands purposelessly at his desk. It’s 4:08pm. 

“Think I’ll head home early. Not much I can get done in an hour anyway.”

He has to drag his eyes from his shoes to look at her. She’s draping her bag on the back of her chair, like it’s any other normal day. Something about it makes his insides squirm. 

“Oh, okay. I was just going to organize a few things.”

She shrugs, and smiles that soft, unguarded smile. 

“Cool… Thanks. I’ll see ya.”

He nods toward the door but doesn’t head for it quite yet. She steps toward him, just one little Scully foot forward. 

“Have a good weekend, Mulder.”

He holds his breath and turns on his heel and mumbles some semblance of a goodbye he can’t really hear as his blood rushes in his ears. 

One moment he’s unlocking his car door in the parking garage, and the next moment he’s standing in the middle of his living room. He can’t recall the drive home, or even changing into jeans, but he must not have eaten because his stomach grumbles as he collapses into his couch. 

The past 24 hours weigh him down heavily; he half expects to pop a spring or two in the ancient leather sofa. 

Now that Scully’s not glued to his side, his thoughts are swirling in a completely different direction. 

She knew. 

It’s been nearly four months since the first time Scully visited him in the hospital. She’s known for four months and never said a thing, never even looked at him differently. Never treated him differently.

Christ, maybe he should be more alarmed at how well she can hide things, or how his knack for profiling has slipped. 

All he can feel, though, is love. A sickening, overwhelming, all-consuming warm and fuzzy feeling that makes him nauseous, makes his breathing all quick and his pulse race despite his supine position. 

He thought he loved her before. Her intelligence and earnestness, her contradictions of faith, her loyalty to him and their work, it all completely chewed him up and spit out a lovesick Mulder. 

But now? 

Knowing she’s known this whole time and had so much respect for him that he couldn’t even tell? 

He closes his eyes and tries to tamper down the grin that splits his face so wide his cheeks ache. 

Dana Katherine Scully, the love of his life. He wants to shout it from the rooftops, he wants to doodle Fox Scully and Dana Mulder in a notebook to see which one looks better, he wants to tell her. 

He’s so caught up in imagining her holding a beautiful bouquet in an all-white pantsuit that he barely hears the faint knock at his apartment door. 

On autopilot, he peels himself off of the couch to answer it. 

It’s frankly alarming to see Scully standing in his hallway just moments after thinking about their wedding day. 

“I’m glad you’re here, I brought you something.”

He looks back into his apartment, untidy but not dirty, nothing extremely embarrassing anywhere visible, at least he hopes. She’s shifting from foot to foot when he opens the door wider and ushers her inside with a hand on her elbow. 

“You miss me already?” He jokes. 

His voice doesn’t even sound real. Completely foreign to his own ears. 

She rolls her eyes at him but smiles anyway, sets her purse down next to his phone on the table. 

She’s wearing jeans, and a soft sweater that makes Mulder wonder if her skin is even softer. She looks fantastic and she smells even better, a perfume he’s only caught a whiff of on occasion. And she’s in his apartment.

He lingers by the door as she rifles around in her purse. He’s not sure how long she plans to stay and doesn’t want to embarrass himself by assuming and settling on his sofa. 

Finally she hums and spins around to face him, a videotape with a generic cover in her grasp. 

“What’s this?”

She pawns it off on him gingerly, and he turns it over in his hands. 

“It’s that learning material you requested. It’s my favorite, though, so it’s strictly a rental.”

He nearly drops it. It fumbles from one hand to the other on its downward path but he’s able to trap it against his stomach. His face feels hot for so many different reasons. He knows by the amused look on Scully’s face that she can see the red bloom across his cheeks and down his neck. 

Scully watches porn. 

Scully has a favorite porno. 

He feels as if he holds the proof of alien life in his sweaty palms. 

“I uh— thank— thank you.”

His voice hasn’t cracked this much since he was eight months on testosterone. 

Her gaze goes soft. Again, it isn’t pity. It isn’t anywhere near those looks he’s gotten from women past. It’s entirely new, and as she steps forward into his space he allows himself to imagine that maybe even a fraction of his feelings are reciprocated. 

She’s looking up at him through her lashes. He watches a tinge of uncertainty flicker across her face and he can’t let that happen. His arm feels leaden when he lifts it, so slowly, to wrap his hand around her slim waist. One half-step forward and his hand with the tape is brushing against her stomach, and he has to tilt his neck even further down to hold her gaze. 

“Scully—”

“I wanted to kiss you last night,” she says, and rolls her eyes at herself. 

Her words pour over him like a bucket of boiling water, acutely spreading heat throughout his jittery body. 

“Why didn’t you?”

“Bureau policy— Male and female agents can’t consort in the same motel room.”

She says it so matter-of-fact, like it’s obvious, like they haven’t consorted in motel rooms all across the country, pouring over case files spread across the scratchy comforters. 

But what weakens his knees the most is that she doesn’t think of him as some loophole, or technicality. He is a man to her, with no asterisks or footnotes. 

He clears his throat and swallows to try and force that lump down, but his words come out gravely anyway. 

“Do you still want to kiss me?”

She blinks slowly, and nods her head, and her eyes trace a syrupy slow line from his eyes to his lips. The heat of her body presses even closer to his, and if she were taller he knows he’d be able to feel her breath on his face. 

His grip on her waist tightens. He drops his head down even further and watches her lips curl into a smile just as he closes his eyes—

“Wait.”

He careens back. He expects to see something terrible in her expression, apprehension or displeasure or anger even. But when he blinks his eyes open she’s got that familiar exasperation littering her features. 

“Put the porno down, Mulder.”

He laughs, god, and feels so fucking relieved. He makes a show of carefully placing it down next to her purse, turning back with his hands raised like a cornered perpetrator. 

She’s slipping out of her pristine sneakers as she rolls her eyes at him, all icy blue and wide. She’s making herself comfortable. In his home. He takes a mental snapshot so he never forgets this moment.

Then her little socked feet carry her toward him once again, only stopping when she’s pressed against him entirely. She’s warm and fragrant and soft and it’s undeniable how easy it is to encircle her in his arms when she reaches to place her cold hands on his heated neck. 

“Maybe you should let me watch a bit of that tape first, y’know? For some instruction?”

He’s stalling. This is the moment he’s been waiting months for and he still can’t kick this nervous habit of joking around when he’s uncomfortable. 

She kicks it for him.

“Shut up, Mulder.”

No sooner than his name leaves her lips do they press against his. Her body’s plastered against him as she leans up on her toes to reach his mouth. There’s a sharp inhale and he’s not sure who it comes from, because his senses are dialed down to his lower lip that’s captured between her two. 

He melts into her, sags down to wrap his arms even tighter around her and encourage her to melt into him, too. 

And she does, nearly knocks him over with the way she leans her entire body weight into his. They fit so perfectly that it’s dizzying. There’s a comfort he feels that’s so new in a situation like this. Like he’s safe, like he’s home. 

Her lips are so warm and soft and wet. She takes from him, sets the pace, delivers this perfect push and pull that feels as natural as everything else does between them. He lets her, gives himself over to her and follows her steady, almost methodical lead. 

He’s so torn between thinking it’s finally happening, finally, after all I’ve imagined, she’s finally here and willing his brain to shut off so he can just be. It’s only when Scully is tumbling backward does he realize she’s been tugging them toward the couch.

Her grip is steady on the back of his neck as she sits. He bends over as much as he can and then kneels, one knee down then the other. Her legs bracket his body as he leans into her more, grips her hips and feels his thumbs swipe under her cashmere to find something even smoother. 

Her skin is soft and warm and the sound he makes should embarrass him. But the answering whimper she breathes into his mouth only eases him more. She bites down on his bottom lip and it goes straight to his lower gut, an alarming shockwave of arousal.

He pulls away. It takes summoning the strength of ten thousand men to slip his lips from between her pointy canines. They’re breathing like they’ve been on a chase, and Scully’s pupils are bigger than he’s ever seen them before.

He’s never felt so vulnerable in his life than he does right now. Under her heated gaze, under her heavy hands, he’s so torn between excitement and terror. And he knows that he has to lay all his cards down, before anything else happens, or he’ll end up closer to death than he ever has before.

“Scully,” he starts, “I can’t come back from this.” 

He shakes his head and squeezes her hips. 

She’s got a bit of mauve lipstick smeared at the corner of her mouth as her eyes get wider and search his own. 

“What do you mean?” 

Her whisper is loud in the otherwise silent apartment. 

“I— I’m… Crazy about you,” he swallows, “I don’t think I could cope with it, if this is just some whim for you.”

Her eyebrows draw together, and her nails scratch so gently at the back of his neck. He shivers, and his eyes close at the feeling. 

He holds his breath, just for a second, until he feels Scully’s warm lips brush his earlobe. 

“You’re not a whim for me, Mulder,” she breathes. 

When he exhales, the scent of her shampoo wafts into his face and does nothing to calm him down. 

“No?”

She shakes her head and leans back to meet his eyes. 

“You’re it, for me.”

He wants to cry. His lungs feel like they’re burning. He squeezes his eyes shut again, and Scully rests her forehead against his damp one. 

“Is that okay?” 

He laughs, a little huff of air that makes him wish he had an affinity for breath mints instead of sunflower seeds. 

“It’s… unbelievable.”

She laughs too, but it’s heavy and wet and unlike her usual airy giggles that he loves so much. 

He opens his eyes. Here, kneeling between her legs, he feels like he’s at the altar. Like his prayers are by some miracle being answered. 

He stares up at her, and he swears she emanates light. It’s blinding, her beauty. Her crystal blue eyes and her sultry lips and that cute fucking mole right next to her enticing Cupid’s bow that’s always hiding beneath concealer. The freckles on her cheeks that become more and more visible as the day goes on and her makeup fades. The way her hair goes whatever direction it wants to and shines no matter how dark the room is. 

He loves her so much, and hopes to whatever god is real that she’ll hear it even if he doesn’t dare speak the words yet. 

His hands are shaking as they slip beneath her sweater. She arches toward him, encouraging him, as her lips seal around his own again.

He drags them up the contours of her waist, lets his thumbs tease from her bellybutton up to her sternum. Her ribs are so small in his hands, and he marvels at it for quite some time before he continues up. 

The webs between his thumbs and forefingers brush the underside of her breasts. She’s not wearing a bra. Of course she isn’t. She shouldn’t ever. Her tits are so perfect and perky and round and Mulder throbs in his jeans when he feels the light weight of them in his palms. 

She pushes them out for him, and makes noises into his mouth he’s only ever dreamed of hearing. 

Her eyes are shut tight when he pulls back. 

“Off?” He asks, his voice raspy and heady and quiet. 

Her eyelids flutter open so slowly as she nods and grabs the hem of her sweater. He sits back on his heels to watch as she reveals, inch by tantalizing inch, the textbook definition of porcelain skin. 

He presses his palm against the fly of his pants as he notes a faint birthmark on her hip bone, and the cutest little divot above her bellybutton. He wants to eat it all up, sink his teeth into all this uncharted Scully territory. Her ribs protrude a bit as she lifts her shirt higher, and then those small, round breasts bounce as they’re released from the cashmere. His mouth opens as he discovers her nipples are darker than her lips, devours the sight of her dusky areolas and erect nipples. 

His tongue involuntarily runs across his lower lip as he eyes the dark, coppery curls under her arms. When she finally gets her sweater over her head, her hair just tickles her pale, bony shoulders. He doesn’t know where to look. His eyes dart all over, frantic and hurried, until they land on her face. 

She looks shy, more bashful than he’s ever seen her before, and that just won’t do. He surges forward to kiss her quivering lips and groans as he takes her breasts in his hands once more. 

Her nipples are so full and stiff against the meat of his palms. He rolls them under his hands and she grasps his wrists to encourage him with a soft gasp. 

He mumbles her name as his kisses trail from the side of her mouth to her sharp jaw. She makes a questioning noise, like she doesn’t know what he’s on about, like she doesn’t realize this is the single greatest moment of his entire stupid life. 

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

His confession is panted across the hinge of her jaw. He hears her scoff above him. He raises one eyebrow sky high as he pulls back to look at her. 

“What, you think I’m lying?”

“I think you’ve seen plenty of beautiful women, Mulder.”

He blushes a bit at her subtle dig, but scoffs right back at her and shakes his head. 

“None of them could touch you.” 

He looks her right in the eyes as he says it. It’s such an objective truth. He spares her the details of his search for a Scully look-alike at the adult movie store, and how anytime he watches porn the only thing he can think about is how he wishes it were himself with her instead of two strangers. 

Her hair covers her face as she tilts her head down. He slides his hands from her tits to her neck, cradles it in his palms as she still hangs onto his wrists. He swipes her hair behind her ear and she finally looks up at him. Her face is so flushed, so cute, and gorgeous, and he’s in absolute awe that she’s here with him like this. But she’s smiling, and her eyes are shining, and she kisses him breathless for what feels like the first and the millionth time. 

He feels every inch of her soft skin. Her hips and her waist and the dimples on her lower back that he’s been dreaming of since their first case. The knobs of her spine, her sharp shoulder blades. Her tongue runs circuits around his mouth, learning every crevice, every tastebud, until he pinches her nipple and she arches and gasps his name with her head thrown back. 

Fuck. 

She’s said it a million times by now, hasn’t she? But like this, with her eyelids all heavy and her breath coming in labored, it’s nothing short of life-changing. He takes the other one between his lips in hopes he can make her say it like that over and over again.

Her fingers card through his hair and tug a bit, no bite behind it, but fuck if it doesn’t get him even more wet than he already is. It’ll be an embarrassing mess in his briefs if they make it that far, but even that thought sends him reeling. He can’t wait any longer, he’s parched for the taste of her. He grinds against the heel of his hand once, twice, then moves it to the waistband of her jeans.

Before his gaze even travels up to meet hers she’s nodding and lifting her hips, encouraging him. He wills his shaking hands to get steadier as he works her button through its hole, then pulls her zipper down. Her hands push at her jeans just as his do. When she arches her back and lifts her hips and he tugs her pants down, the smell of her arousal hits his nose like a freight train.

Her scent wipes any last bit of restraint from his tiny little brain. He buries his face between her legs with a pathetic little noise and breathes her in. Her hips twitch under his firm hold. His brain goes startlingly quiet, and all he can focus on is the thin, cotton material of her panties that are soaked against his stubbly chin, and the salty, earthy aroma that’s caused it.

It’s Scully. It’s her very essence. His partner, his best friend, wet and needy and writhing against his face. He whines and digs his fingernails into her perfect skin and leaves irritated streaks down her hips as he hooks into the elastic around them. 

Her grip on his hair gets more insistent with his hesitation to come up for air. The sharp tinge of his scalp would only egg him on if it weren’t for how hot it is that she’s impatient for this, too. He tugs the unassuming black fabric down her legs and swears he hears a chorus of angels singing when her thighs part for him. 

Gorgeous, just like everything else about her. Her little mound is covered in darker curls, with striking highlights of that red he loves so much streaming through here and there. She’s swollen beneath those, trimmed for easy access, a fact that sends his mind into a frantic flurry that comes and goes like the wind. Wet, too, so wet that she’s leaking onto the leather of his couch. He hopes it fucking stains, hopes he’ll never be able to wash it out. 

Her folds cascade so beautifully and gracefully; Georgia O’Keefe couldn’t dare to dream of recreating it. And at the very tip of her, as if she couldn’t get any fucking cuter, is the smallest little clit he’s ever laid eyes on. It’s protruding from its hood, taunting him, calling to him like a siren. 

“Mulder.”

His eyes dart up to meet Scully’s. Her face is blood red, and she’s squirming, and he wonders exactly how long she had let him gawk at her pussy. 

“Sorry, sorry. Just— Getting acquainted.”

He smirks when she whimpers, and gasps when her fist twists in his hair.

“I won’t beg,” she pants, but even that sounds like a plea. 

He huffs and gets his arms under her thighs as he shakes his head. 

“I’m the one on my knees, here. Jesus, Scully.”

His cock is harder than it’s ever been in his entire life. He’s already on edge, and he’s shifting his hips so it drags against the fly of his jeans, as subtle as he can manage. 

Her nails scrape his scalp. He bends his elbows inward and rests his hands on either side of her pussy, his thumbs spreading her just slightly, just enough to make her gasp. It’s all he can do to watch with awe as her cunt flutters around nothing and her clit pulses before he lowers his face. 

He starts with just the tip of his tongue, light as a feather, to trace the slightly stubbly outer lips. It doesn’t stop her from jolting in his grasp and whispering curses he’s never heard from her before now. It very quickly becomes not enough, for both of them, so he teases down to dip into her cunt and taste all the juice that’s made her so messy. She shifts under his hands, and he gets it, but he can’t give up so easily. He wants to savor this, and her.

He rolls the tang of her over his tongue and swallows before he licks a flat stripe up. The feeling of her folds parting against his tongue nearly makes him come. Supple and smooth and so fucking delicious. He moans when he finally feels her tiny little pearl against his taste buds, then again when she grinds up into his mouth. 

His own hips jolt. Shamelessly, he grinds them again and again as he rolls his flat tongue against her. The friction is just not quite enough to get him there, and it’s fucking torturous.

He moves one hand down to his fly just for a second, just to ease the pressure and throbbing.

“That’s so good,” he hears. 

He lifts his eyes but not his face, drowning in her and unwilling to come up for air. But when he finds her eyes locked on his hand at the front of his jeans, he can’t control the noise he makes. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath through his nose to will himself away from the edge that’s blindsided him. 

“So hot, touching yourself like that,” she pants. 

He whimpers as her clit slips from between his lips. 

“I’ll come,” he warns her. 

His voice is strange and strained to his own ears. 

But she just moans and arches up into him. 

“So come.”

It feels like his whole body bursts into flames. His hips jerk against his hand and all he can do to stave off the embarrassment is envelop her clit and groan around it as he unravels. He hangs on to his last wit and works his tongue against her to the rhythm of his writhing against his palm. 

And she talks him through it, tells him how hot it is, how good he is. She’s a menace, she’s evil, and he’s so fucking in love with her. He wonders briefly if he accidentally wrote ‘I have a praise kink’ in black sharpie on his forehead as he begins to come down. But of course he didn’t, she just knows, because she’s perfect.

“Please make me come,” she finally says, and it cuts straight through any post-orgasmic haze to kick him into gear. 

He lifts his hand to his mouth and wets two of his fingers. He circles her wetness with them and glances up for her permission. He’s nervous, all of a sudden, that he won’t know what she likes, that he can’t please her, that maybe this whole thing is a big mistake. 

But when he sees the look on her face, a look he’s never seen on her before, the doubt fades to the background. She nods her head and tilts her hips to urge him to continue.

He does. He slips two fingers into her and groans at how warm and wet and tight and smooth she feels. Her head falls back against the couch and her hand that’s not gripping his hair like a vice cups her own perky breast. His eyes close and he locks in, finds her perfect bud at the same time his fingers stroke over the rough, swollen spot inside of her. 

He can feel her clenching around him, her walls tightening and releasing around his fingers in rhythmic pulses that mesmerize him. He gets so lost in it, the feeling of her squeezing him and her clit throbbing against his tongue and her noises.

They aren’t like any noises he’s ever heard, not in porn or with the handful of women he’s slept with. They’re breathy and quiet, but not shy. She’s not holding back, he can tell, but she’s not exaggerating. She gasps and moans and hisses his name through her teeth. Her hips rock up into his face and his hand, her own still coiled tightly in his hair. He’ll never get tired of this, no matter how many times she lets him.

It’s that thought that has him doubling his efforts— that he gets to do this now. She said so, that he’s it for her. He taps his fingers harder and faster against her g-spot and shakes his head back and forth with his tongue hanging from his mouth. 

She cries out, loud enough that he worries about the thickness of his apartment’s walls. 

“Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop—” she begs, “I’m gonna come— Mulder!”

She comes, hard. 

Her juices trickle down the palm of his hand as she writhes and shakes against him. Her thighs clamp around his ears and muffle the mewling sounds coming from her. He continues his pace as she tugs his hair and doesn’t slow until he feels all of her muscles start to loosen up. Even then, he works her aftershocks out of her gently and slowly until she physically pushes him away. 

Panting just as hard as she is, Mulder rests his head against the thin, pale skin of her thigh. It’s hot under his cheek, under his lips. He drags his eyes up from the scene of the crime to gauge her reaction, praying she hasn’t yet come to her senses— that she never does, when it comes to him. 

Her head’s still thrown back as her chest heaves up and down. He can’t help but to stroke her sweaty skin with his fingertips. The skin of her hip is smooth and tacky, and she jolts at the sudden touch and then squirms a bit on the damp leather. He watches with amazement as she settles and goosebumps break out across her skin. He sighs and looks back up at her when he finally feels her gaze. 

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Her blacked-out eyes search his for a moment before she giggles that fucking giggle that gives him butterflies. 

“Mulder,” she starts, her laugh fading, “you’re crazy.”

He smiles probably too wide and chuckles against her thigh. 

“So I’ve heard.”

She shifts in a big way, and he finds himself mourning the feeling of being pressed against her before he’s even gone. But she just leans forward to grab his face in her hands and then kisses him. 

Her tongue seeks out every inch of his mouth, stealing her taste from him. He lets her, whining as she licks behind his teeth, gripping her hips so he doesn’t float off into space. When she’s satisfied she’s erased all evidence of herself from his mouth, she pulls back with the most beautifully dazed expression on her freckled face. Her thumbs swipe back and forth over his cheekbones and it makes him feel full.

“Your knees,” she whispers. 

“I don’t remember having knees,” he mumbles. 

She shakes her head at him and tugs on his shoulders. He follows willingly, pursing his lips at the funny face she makes when his knees indeed crackle and pop. He settles beside her, acutely aware of how completely naked she is and how he hasn’t lost a single article of clothing. He grabs for the blanket on the back of his couch, but he stops when she rises to her knees beside him and straddles his denim-clad thigh. 

“We can’t both get bum knees,” he warns, even though he grasps her waist loosely. 

She scoffs at him as he looks up at her. He’s beginning to really love looking up at her. 

“Mulder… Can I make you come again?” 

A sudden icy coldness rushes through his veins when she asks. He thought maybe he’d slid under her radar, coming in his pants like a teenager. Like maybe she’d declare that enough for the night, and they could snuggle and he could pretend that he wasn’t different from any other man she’d ever been with, just for a little while longer. 

And even though he knows she’s not like the previous women he’d been with— settling, bargaining, apathetic— well, that’s really all he’s had experience with. 

“You don’t have to,” he starts, but she cuts him off with just one look alone. 

“I know I don’t.”

I want to. 

It goes unsaid. It doesn’t need to be said. 

She’s stroking his neck with the thumb of one hand and the other rests on his chest. Her lips are parted, and the heat of her center is extremely apparent even through his jeans. 

So he nods in affirmative, and no quicker is she reaching for the hem of his white tee shirt. His breath picks up again, and she gingerly works the hem up, up, until he’s lifting his arms and letting her tug it over his head. He can’t shake the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop as she presses on his shoulders and urges him to lie back on the sofa. 

She properly straddles him and leans down to kiss him so gently that his rib cage twinges. He scratches his nails up her arched back and tries to relish the purring noise it coaxes from her. 

But then she’s pulling back. He watches her hands like they’re holding a loaded weapon as they smooth over his chest. She twirls the wiry hairs there before she traces the faint scars under his pecs. Her touch is so tender it nearly tickles. He’s torn between eyeing her fingers and her face, gauging her reaction. He comes up short of anything but admiration, especially as she tosses all her hair to one side of her neck to lean down and kiss them.

He can’t breathe. He feels like if he does, all of this will wither away into the ether and he’ll wake up alone on his couch. She trails her kisses down the center of his chest, and he strokes her hair and tries not to tear up at how precious she is to him. 

As her lips find his navel, he shudders and stops her with his hand on her cheek. 

“Scully— I uh… Things might be different than what you’re used to. Below the belt.”

She smiles a bright smile with a hint of sass. 

Stupid, he thinks, she’s a fucking doctor.

“I want to learn you, Mulder.”

He closes his eyes and sighs, sweeps his thumb across the constellations on her cheek. 

“Okay,” he whispers. 

His stomach muscles jump under her lips each time they press against his skin. He keeps his eyes closed and his hand glued to her face, feeling her jaw working as she litters little love bites into his Adonis belt. 

He jolts again when her hand grazes his cock to unbutton his jeans. 

“Can I?”

He finally works up the courage to look down at her. Her eyes are pleading, a deadly mix of adorable and downright naughty. 

“Please, Scully. I want you to.”

She hums and drags the zipper down. He throbs at the featherlight touch, and he feels a fresh sprinkling of sweat start to prickle at his temples. 

She tugs his jeans down, and he lifts his hips and pushes his underwear along with it with a gasp. 

Being so exposed like this normally makes him feel vulnerable and scared and insecure and inadequate. But with her hot breath at the crook of his knee and her lips turned into a smile and her eyes focused on his own, he just feels warm, cozy, content. 

And painfully hard. 

She looks up at him through those auburn lashes from between his legs and it’s surreal. He’s thought about this so much, but done so much mental gymnastics to make it work out in his head. Never did he ever think she’d just accept him as he is like she so lovingly does now. 

He strokes his fingers through her hair as her own glide up his thighs. He’s staring at her, and clocks the exact moment her eyes glance down to his crotch. But he doesn’t brace himself. He just watches as her eyes trace over his cunt, his cock. 

He’s always been pleased by it, the miracle of hormones and what they’ve done for his body and his mind. The way it shaped him into something much more masculine. His dick stands fairly proudly from its hood, enough that he feels it all day long, a euphoric, physical reminder that he’s not what he once dreaded he might become. 

It’s just that no one has ever understood it that way. Until now, at least, as Scully takes him between her thumb and forefinger. She’s so gentle yet clinical. If it were anyone else he’d feel a little freaked out. But it’s Scully, and she’s appreciating his body with her careful touch and curious gaze and her beautifully scientific mind. 

“Does this feel good?”

She’s stroking him perfectly, like she’s trained her entire life for it, like a madman. 

“You have no idea,” he tells her as his breath hitches.

She mumbles something into the sparse hairs on his upper thigh that he doesn’t quite catch.

“Hmm?”

“You’re incredible.”

He huffs, feels his breath get caught up in his lungs like they’re filled with tar. 

“I— hah, what? Why?”

She smiles all sweet and hums and squeezes his cock a little harder as she strokes it. He whines and his hips buck and her smile turns into a smirk. 

“Because I said so,” she tells him. 

He takes her word for it. Something about gift horses blinks in his mind before it’s erased entirely by the feeling of her dainty lips pressing a kiss to the very tip of his dick. 

“Oh my god,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“Can I suck it?”

“Oh my god,” he groans, “yes, yes please.”

It’s a heavy fucking feeling, the arousal and euphoria hitting him like a ton of bricks at those words coming from her lips.

Those perfect lips. The ones that part to make way for her small, pink tongue. He watches her stick it out, watches her eyes flicker down and then back up to meet his as she licks up the length of him. It’s white hot, blinding, like staring into the sun as he watches those lips wrap around his cock. 

He can’t do anything but stroke his fingers through her silky hair and try to remember to breathe. 

“God, Scully.”

She hums around him, closing her eyes, like she’s savoring some decadent dessert. The vibrations send sparks through his entire system. He tries really hard not to thrust up into her face. 

His eyes are glued to the way his cock disappears into her mouth and reappears again. She’s starting out slow and careful. Her tongue cradles the underside of him in a way that feels remarkably loving and tender. Her lips are softer than anything he’s ever felt before, sliding up and down him. The suction is perfect, not too much, not too little. She’s incredible, she’s everything. 

“It’s so good,” he breathes. 

He slips from her mouth. 

“Yeah?”

“Mmhm,” he nods.

“Good. Keep telling me what you like.”

His breath hitches again at her reassurance, and at the care she’s taking, and the sultry low register of her voice he’s never heard before. 

“Um… Fingers, too?”

She licks his cock, teasing little flicks of her tongue before she smirks. 

“You want me to fuck you, Mulder?”

He shudders. Christ. She’s fucking cheeky after an orgasm. 

He doesn’t remember wanting anything more than he wants this, ever. 

This isn’t something he’s ever asked of a bed partner. He’d either let them offer it, or go completely without. The fear of asking for too much from someone already expecting a different undercarriage always crippled him into settling. But it’s Scully, and she’s been so good to him, and the way she seems so into it turns him on beyond belief.

Just as he nods, she arches up, spreading her fingers and letting her palms slide up his torso. His chest is heaving when she reaches it, carding through the hair there briefly as she works her way up, up. He slams his eyes shut and groans when her dainty little hand wraps around his throat. No pressure, no squeezing, but the thought makes his prick twitch in the chilly air of his apartment. 

She bites her lip as she notices, but doesn’t say a thing, and for that he is eternally grateful. Another day. 

Instead, she reaches even farther to press her thumb to his bottom lip. 

“Open for me.”

He does, and before he can register what’s happening, he’s got two of her well-manicured fingers in his mouth. 

He moans around them, lifts his head to take them in as far as they can go. Their eyes lock in a gaze so heated Mulder feels himself blushing, despite having her appendages inside of him. Her pretty, light eyelashes flutter as he swirls his tongue around and between her fingers. 

“Fuck,” she sighs. 

He lifts his eyebrow and makes a questioning noise.

“You’re gorgeous,” she answers.

He nibbles her knuckles. 

Gorgeous? Cute, maybe. Handsome on a good day. But gorgeous? Says the most gorgeous woman he’s ever laid his eyes on. If he weren’t being promised the most quintessential blowjob of his life, he could die now, happy as a clam. 

Scully giggles his name and wiggles her fingers in his mouth to get him to let go, and so he does, reluctantly. They both watch a string of his slobber trail her fingertips, and then she’s pouncing up to kiss him. 

He’ll never get used to it, he’s sure. She hums into his mouth and licks along his bottom teeth and all he can do is let himself take it, lie back and enjoy every single second. 

She shifts on top of him a bit and he steadies her. His hands smooth over her naked sides but quickly clutch at her flesh when he feels her wet fingers circle his cock. His hips rock up into it, and he spreads his legs as wide as he can on the cramped couch. 

She takes the hint, pressing one finger into him achingly slowly. The difference is immediately stark. Her fingers are slender and short compared to his own, and so much more gentle than he’s ever felt. She slides the second one in right after, and his mouth goes slack against her own. 

Dana Scully is inside of him. 

“Fuck, fuck.”

“Okay?” 

“So okay.”

She chuckles against his jaw, her breath hot where she nips at his five o’clock shadow. She presses in and out of him at a torturous pace as she sucks his skin between her teeth. He shifts to give her more access and thinks mark me, everywhere, please. I’m yours.

Instead, she travels back down the length of his body. When he musters up the strength to open his eyes again, she’s smiling up at him. It’s sunny and light and beyond his wildest dreams. Then she crooks her fingers and that sweet grin turns into a smirk and he gasps and clenches around her. 

“There?” 

“Please.”

He is not above begging, apparently. His leg slips off the couch and he braces the ball of his foot on the floor. He rocks his hips into the rhythm of her curling fingers and tries not to shrivel at the audible evidence of how fucking soaked he is. 

Her free hand grabs his own one, lying useless on the couch beside him. She guides it to the back of her head and he nearly chokes on his own saliva. His fingers tangle through her hair just as she lowers her mouth onto him again. 

“Use my mouth,” she speaks against his cock. 

It’s so over. He’d be embarrassed if it were anyone else, surprised, even. But it’s her. Of course his cunt flutters around her fingers at her words. Of course his cock twitches in her mouth, against the rough buds of her tongue. 

His mind won’t quiet down as the watches her take him, a babbling brook inside his own head, how long he’s wanted this, how often he’s thought about, how desperately he’s ached for the sights and sounds and feelings right before him. He can’t stop thinking about how much better it is than he ever imagined, how every one of his nerve endings are ten times as sensitive under Scully’s ministrations. And, of course, like the greedy little bastard he is, he can’t help but to look forward to the next time despite the fact that he’s still fucking her mouth. 

He’s fucking Scully’s mouth. He’s using it, like she’d told him to do. And Scully’s fucking him. His grip on her hair turns his knuckles white, and she whines around his cock, and her eyebrows do that adorable thing they do a lot where they knit together. 

But then her two dainty fingers press hard and insistent, up against the spot she’s had no trouble assaulting, and the coil in his gut completely snaps. 

He cries out her name, and God’s name, and a plethora of obscenities he’s sure neither would approve of. He knows he’s being dramatic but he also knows he’s not completely in control of his body. All he can do is hold Scully’s head in place and grind out his orgasm against her mouth, against the gentle suckling of her tongue against his pulsing, twitching cock, and against her fingers that stay dutifully curled up and still, just for his pleasure. 

And to her credit, she only comes up gasping for breath once Mulder’s entire body goes limp beneath her. 

He’s wet, like, everywhere. His thighs are messy and every piece of skin that’s touching his cheap leather couch is covered in a sheen of sweat. His hair is damp on his forehead and his eyes, Christ, he’s got tears streaming down the sides of his face. 

He covers his eyes with his forearm when he realizes. He tries to take a deep, grounding breath too. Instead, it comes out all shuddery and broken. 

His voice is hoarse when he speaks up. 

“God, Scully.”

He chances a peek down at her and regrets it immediately. He watches her slip her fingers from him and promptly insert them into her mouth with a hum, like she’s savoring the remnants of a delicious meal. It makes him groan, and he doesn’t even have the energy to try and stifle it. As if that wasn’t punishment enough, she smirks around her own fingers like she’s just debunked his biggest theory yet. 

“Thank you,” she says, as both her hands fall to Mulder’s trembling thighs. 

He huffs instead of speaking what’s on his mind. But he thinks it, especially as she crawls up the length of him to kiss his bitten lips, and as she curls her body into his. He thinks it when she allows him to cover them both with his scratchy blanket, and as she rests her head over his rapid mess of a heartbeat. 

“This feels right, Mulder.”

It’s a quiet, secret whisper into the still of his apartment. He breaks the serenity with a hearty laugh, the kind that overwhelms your belly and bubbles up through your throat without permission. Along with it come the words that have been on the tip of his tongue for the last 24 hours.

“Scully, you’re crazy.”

Tagging some people I think would be into this!

@sp00kymulderr @for-a-longlongtime @perotovar @sin-djarin @seventeenpins @rebel-held @lotusbxtch @sixhours @amanitacowboy @starorbit-bliss @bby-got-books @demonsandbullets @mulderfrl

[blahblaheverythingisgay]

Which of the foxes is ugly hot? I want dissertations.

[farinhademandioca]

I wanna write a fic about fox's funeral SO BAD, about the Warriors grieving, and FUCK Ajax is trapped, I'm sure she would blame herself for not being there to protect her girls, blame Swan for not doing enough (she's not belive it at real ((and Swan blames herself enough)) ). Thinking about how the warriors reacted when they noticed that Fox wouldn't be back. to. home. never. makes me feel THINGS.

Fox was the youngest warrior, i only can see her the same way I see film Rembrandt, he is so fucking young compared to the others :(( she dont deserve this :((

But my final dissertation is on next week soooo none fics for me until 🕊️🕊️🕊️

[whencyclopedia]

Interview: Dithmarschen Republic

Located in what is the present-day German province of Schleswig-Holstein, the Dithmarschen Republic (1227-1559) was a republic by commoners who developed quasi-democratic institutions, including their own written constitution. Fiercely independent and freedom-loving, these peasants successfully defended their political independence against the forces of Holstein and the Scandinavian Kalmar Union as the Middle Ages came to a close.

House in Burg, Dithmarschen

Z thomas (CC BY-SA)

James Blake Wiener speaks to Dr. William L. Urban, a medievalist and the author of Dithmarschen: A Medieval Peasant Republic, to learn more about the Dithmarschers in this interview.

JBW: Dr. William L. Urban, many thanks for speaking with me. As your main research interest is that of the Teutonic Knights and the Northern Crusades, I am curious to know how you first became interested in the history of the Dithmarschers. What was it that led you to Dithmarschen?

WLU: In a very real sense, this book began at the University of Hamburg in 1964-1965 when I met a retired school teacher named Maria Krüger. Of Dithmarscher extraction, she often entertained my wife and me for tea, with cookies and tales of her native land. At her suggestion, I later read some of the local color novelists in the library of the University of Kansas. Thereafter, I went to the works of serious historians where I discovered that the novelists’ descriptions of Dithmarschen and its people were not exaggerations.

I was lucky enough to be able to travel to the countries north of the Elbe. After cycling across Germany three times, I lived in Hamburg and the neighboring town of Ahrensburg for almost a year. This gave me the confidence I needed to write a very rough draft of this manuscript before turning to the revision and completion of my dissertation, which appeared in 1975 as The Baltic Crusade. In the same year, I received a Fulbright-Hayes research grant for supplementary studies at the Johann Gottfried Herder Institute and the Philipps University in Marburg/Lahn. The opportunity arose for me to visit Dithmarschen twice that summer and again in 1976. In 1976-77, the University of Chicago awarded me a part-time faculty research grant in its main library, the Regenstein Library, to further develop my manuscript in discussion with Prof. Karl Morrison.

In the fall of 1982, Monmouth College provided me with a student assistant, Janet Fox, who typed the manuscript into the computer for editing. In the summer and fall of 1983, I was back in Marburg/Lahn with the help of a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service and a sabbatical from Monmouth College. At that time, Professor Walther Lammers was kind enough to read the manuscript and discuss it with me at his home. I really appreciated his support and friendship. In January 1988, with the help of my wife and a new student typist, Kris Wang, I began a two-year editing process. Hardly a sentence remained unchanged. Eventually, after being tutored to use PageMaker by Daryl Carr and Marta Tucker, I prepared the manuscript for publication during my spring semester sabbatical. In June 1990, my wife and I took a car tour of Dithmarschen to visit places I had previously missed. In the fall of 1990, Monmouth College provided another small grant to cover the cost of preparing the manuscript for publication, and Erik Midelfort (with whom I had discussed the Dithmarscher project on several occasions in the past) responded to my request for a final reading with several helpful comments on the text.

JBW: It is true that there was a notable absence of feudalism and serfdom in nearby Frisia during the Middle Ages. Were the political traditions in Dithmarschen similar to what many historians would term as 'Frisian freedoms'? If so, how 'free' were the Dithmarschers?

WLU: There were many similarities, but the Dithmarschers had a more strongly developed clan system. This communal spirit made it possible to build dikes and canals, to develop a legal system capable of dealing with crime, land disputes, and inheritances; it also made it easier to raise a fighting force of men who could stand up to feudal cavalry and neighboring militias.

16-century Map of Dithmarshen

Abraham Ortelius (Public Domain)

This evolved over time so that local communities (Kirchspiele) became more important, and then the more prosperous farmers became a quasi-aristocracy that dominated the 48 representatives of the final government.

JBW: Many of the characteristics of Dithmarschen – the presence of clannish families, a militia, and a fiercely independent populace – strike me as similar to other medieval peasant republics, like that of the Old Swiss Confederation or the Icelandic Commonwealth. Are such comparisons worthwhile or even valid?

WLU: In my book, I tried to analyze why most peasant republics failed. The Swiss survived because they had geography and poverty on their side. That is, the mountain cantons were difficult to attack and hardly worth the effort, while the other members of the Swiss Confederation managed to negotiate the complex political and military challenges by raising a well-drilled military force large enough to defeat the regional powers, then providing mercenaries to more powerful neighbors who became allies.

What Dithmarschen lacked was numbers, and both the Dithmarschers and the Hanseatic League failed to see the advantages of allying against their common enemies as the Swiss had done.

JBW: Relations between Dithmarschen and the medieval Hanseatic towns, like Lübeck, were close. Was this so that they could protect their common interests in commerce while maintaining a degree of political independence?

WLU: Yes, but their common interests were limited. There were Dithmarscher fishermen, just as there were in Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen, but no international network of trading partners for selling their catch. There were also too many tensions, especially Dithmarschen traditions that bordered on freebooting (and sometimes crossed over it)! Dithmarschers defended their citizens even when they were in the wrong, which was not always the case with the Hansa.

JBW: John I of Denmark (r. 1481-1513) and his brother, Duke Frederick of Holstein, attempted to subdue the peasantry of Dithmarschen in the 1490s. At the Battle of Hemmingstedt in 1500, Danes and Holsteiners were soundly defeated by the Dithmarscher peasants. What ensured their victory of what was seemingly a more powerful and better organized military force?

WLU: First, the invaders did not have the money to pay their mercenaries and allies for a long war, so they needed a quick victory.

Second, dumb luck. The king sent his army north from Meldorf toward Heide along a narrow road on a dike, expecting that the good weather would last. Instead, a winter storm blew into the invaders’ faces, making it difficult to see until they finally blundered into fortifications the Dithmarschers had hurriedly thrown up across the road. When they trained their artillery on the redoubt, the wind, snow, and rain doused the wicks and ruined the power.

Battle of Hemmingstedt

Max Friedrich Koch (Public Domain)

Lastly, Dithmarscher fighting skills were more appropriate to this battlefield – they opened the dikes, waded barefoot and half-naked through the freezing water to get at the foe, and then pursued the panicked enemy relentlessly.

JBW: What became of the Dithmarschers following the Protestant Reformation? Moreover, how did they ultimately lose their cherished freedoms?

WLU: The Dithmarschers were very pious, but because they had always been suspicious of clergymen, they had limited their authority. Since they had long managed their local religious affairs themselves and used the churches for schools and political assemblies, they found the change to Protestantism easy, which is quite something.

JBW: Are there any unique characteristics of the medieval Dithmarschen Republic that merit further consideration and study? If so, what are they?

WLU: First, we should not think of every European society as an inferior reflection of England and France, but of each possessing characteristics that are still important today. Second, these characteristics can be good or bad, or both at the same time. People are complicated. Third, not everyone can be moved by what they see in others.

Dithmarschers admire Britons; Americans are liable to see in the Dithmarschers what they once were, and everyone can remember that freedom is not free but must be earned and defended by patriot blood.

JBW: Finally, if there is one thing that we ought to remember about the Dithmarschen Republic, what is it in your opinion?

WLU: Someone inscribed a motto on the organ in Hemme, Germany: "Dithmarsia libera fuit." The implication was that it could be again, and today it has become so again.

JBW: Dr. William Urban, many thanks for lending your time and expertise!

Professor William L. Urban was educated at Baylor University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Universität Hamburg. He received a Ph.D. 1967 at the University of Texas, taught at the University of Kansas and Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois, at Knox College, Fort Hays Kansas State College, the Estonian Institute for the Humanities, and the Eastern Michigan University Cultural History Tour in Europe. He was Director of the Arts of Florence, then the Yugoslav and Czech programs of Associated Colleges of the Midwest. He received a senior Fulbright grant for research at the Herder Institut in Marburg/Lahn, Germany; several DAAD grants, NEH grants for summer study, and a United States Military Academy Military History Workshop. He is a corresponding member of the Historische Kommission für ost- und westpreußische Landesforschung and the Baltische Historische Kommission. He has published The Baltic Crusade, The Prussian Crusade, The Livonian Crusade, The Samogitian Crusade, Tannenberg and After, Lithuania, Poland, and the Teutonic Order in Search of Immortality, The Teutonic Knights: a military history, Medieval Mercenaries, Bayonets for Hire: the Business of War, 1550-1763, Matchlocks to Flintlock, Mercenaries in Europe and Beyond, 1500-1700, Bayonets and Scimitars, Arms, Armies and Mercenaries, 1700-1789, and Small Wars, and their influence on the Nation State. With Jerry Smith, he translated The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, The Chronicle of Balthasar Russow, and Johannes Renner's Chronicle.

Continue reading...

[starleska]

Popping in to do a hear me out: Noisemaster from Cucumber Quest! Love this guy and the comic he's from! He's recently moved back into my skull after leaving, but the rent-free stay is back and it's SWINGING. I would ramble more but I'm scared of being impolite, I'm just going to leave my favorite panel of him here.

OOOOOOOOOOH oh my goodness what a cutie!!!!! hello Noisemaster!!!! 🥰💖 forgive the detour from the character himself, as i need to scream about the art for a moment!! this is my first time hearing of Cucumber Quest, but the second i saw this delightful fellow i thought 'his creator must have had some involvement with Deltarune'...and lo and behold! Gigi D.G. (@ggdgart) did indeed provide concept art for Chapter 2, and is an old friend of Toby Fox 🙈💖 i also just learned that Noisemaster's theme, which Toby made for Gigi back in the day, ended up being remade into Mettaton's theme(s)!! (i can also hear a touch of Lancer's theme in here too 😂).

i love when awesome creatives inspire each other!! Gigi's specific type of character design and those fabulous neon colours are so distinctive, look at how gorgeous their art is:

back to Noisemaster: oh, i am hearing you out loud and clear buddy 🙈💖 for such a tiny, goofy-seeming dude, i wasn't expecting him to have such a frightening presence...no wonder you can't get him out of your head 😳 you're really making me want to check out the webcomic properly now!!! hopefully this gets some more eyes on it, because it seems criminally underrated 👀 and oh my gosh what?? you're not being impolite at all, i love it when folks ramble!! :3c if it's like. a dissertation's length i may struggle to reply, but otherwise, go for it 😂

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: It’s a Trap

If you build a world, you may want it to have its own folklore. Given most of us aren’t Tolkien, who literally lived on this stuff, that can be intimidating. It shouldn’t be. After all, it’s amazing how much folklore boils down to, “Dude, if you see a pretty lady where no lady should be? It’s a trap.”

Yuki-onna, rusalka, pontianak, leannan sidhe - these are just a few of the femmes fatale that haunt folklore around the world. “Haunt” is a deliberate term; many of these creatures have multiple origin stories, and usually at least one of those is either a dead jilted lover or a woman who died in childbirth.

(And then you have the Chinese ghost brides, who never got the chance to be loved or mothers, making them even more scarily dangerous. There are good reasons Wei Wuxian recruited some to fight his enemies. Eep.)

People have written whole dissertations declaiming why these similar monsters crop up over and over again in human stories. I personally think that if you have to have a mundane explanation, you can boil it down to three factors. First, humans are human, and we all tend to find the same kinds of things scary. Second, without the barest minimum of a stable family life and care for expectant mothers, a culture won’t survive. Stories that warn you not to cheat on or abuse women, and to see those in childbed get all the help they need to survive, are a good idea. Third....

Guys. Be honest. If you see a lovely lady out alone and apparently unprotected, what’s your first reaction?

Right. You approach. And other, evil-intentioned guys know this. Which is one way Tribe A has ambushed and wiped out Tribe B to the last man for... well, probably longer than there have been tribes.

(To the last man, but generally not to the last woman or child. Guess who might pass down warning stories?)

You can follow some of the same logic for creating other bits of folklore. Stories to warn against animals acting oddly. (Kelpies, pucas, all manner of foxes, tanukis, and other tricksters.) Stories to warn against freezing winters, or drowning. (Yuki-onna, jorigumo, ahuizotl, kappa, nix, shellycoat, water panther, so many others.) Stories to warn you never to give your word lightly, and never to break it. (Gawain and the Green Knight; every supernatural bride story ever.)

What kinds of hazards do your cultures face? What kind of monsters? Folklore should give information on how to stay alive, or what not to do. Bow politely to a kappa, so it’ll lose the water that holds its magical strength. Never call fairies, well, fairies. And if someone you think is dead calls your name, don’t answer.

Remember, folklore is meant to help a culture endure. So when you build a tale, keep in mind the words of Jack Sparrow on the Black Pearl. “No survivors? Then where do the stories come from...?”

[clingyduoapologist]

CLINGYDUOAPOLOGIST'S TOP 5 FAVORITE DSMP FAN-COMICS OF ALL TIME

OK NOW this is just a list of some of my personal faves, ones that make me literally feral so

Cheating a bit here but first off honorable mention to Boneless (?) by @thelostmoongazer

Idrk why i remember this one so fondly but it's really cute and always gets a chuckle out of me when I remember it, certified banger 👏

ALRIGHT ON WITH THE OFFICIAL LIST

5: A TIE BECAUSE I GENUINELY CAN'T TELL WHICH I PREFER BETWEEN Au in which Wilbur and Ghostbur merged when Wilbur was revived. AND Dreams I can’t remember both by @moldyhay

ugjughugh honestly i consider the ghostbur merging au more canon than the "limbo forever" stuff just because it makes so much sense to me and y'know what it's 2023 wilbur soot can't say shit to me @sootings fuck you

As for Dreams I can't remember like what else is there to say besides get me that fucking ccrime vaccine stat i don't have much time left

4: The Fox and the Grapes by @space-robinhood

Okay I am not the biggest c!fundy girlie but like COME ON, the way the fable just fits so perfectly, the art, the emotion in every facial expression, the fucking photo of fundy as a baby like I lose my fucking mind every single time I read this comic.

3: mentorly advice by @minecraftsz

Legitimately this was probably my fave dsmp comic for a while. "Shitpost that makes you cry if you think about it too hard about it" is a very specific and difficult-to-master niche of art and minecraftsz has written a dissertation on it in the form of this short comic.

2: friend sweater :) by @kettitrium

I go feral every time this comic comes on my dash like, the way it showcases c!tommy's personality so well, being resourceful, a bitch, and so painfully sentimental, it's brilliant. And the art itself is also gorgeous. Of all these comics, this one probably has my favorite art style.

1: Tommy by @space-robinhood

Like, what can I even say about this one? I literally almost tore my hair out just reading it while trying to copy the link to paste it here. Such a simple, small conversation, but one that manages to carry such a haunting theme of the loss of innocence. The final shot of Tommy standing with his back to the readers, his general's coat slightly tattered, a bow in his hands, it's such a poignant summary of his character, one that I will literally never be able to get over, probably ever. Go read it, then reblog it so I can read it again.

-

AND THERE IT IS my extremely based and awesome picks for some incredible fanworks. I see so many people regretting their time in the fandom recently, and I just wanted to share some of the awesome stuff we were able to do also i may have just wanted to compile all of these is one place so i don't have to do detective work to find them but shhh SO go forth and read and like and REBLOG and enjoy :D

[forever-fixating]

Summary: Henry Fox could write an entire dissertation based on how much information his twin nieces Penelope and Grace have told him about their favorite band, Austin Heat. The girls peppered him with neverending facts since he surprised them with tickets and meet-and-greet passes to their concert at Madison Square Garden last Christmas.

Henry Fox takes his nieces to a concert of their favorite band, Austin Heat. He gets a bit more than he bargained for when he meets singer and guitarist Alex Claremont-Diaz.

Follow the link to read part four on AO3!

Happy Red White and Royal Fourth!

[chaifootsteps]

thing is AUs are sometimes the lifeblood for fandoms when the media is smaller size-wise than its fandom's appetite

it'd take a dissertation length essay to explain the AU verses of something like Undertale, because the game wasn't super long and but it got popular enough that every character has a fandom and an AU-verse all their own, then AUs of those AUs. and Toby Fox just let his fans get on with it - the most he's ever said was that the sheer success of Undertale wasn't something he was prepared for, but he never policed what fans did

TADC only has two eps out so far but a huge fandom, so AUs are inevitable while more of the show comes out

there are some popular AUs for the hellaverse but they're kinda, idk, safe? it's hard to imagine someone writing an entire Stolas as Villain verse (or anything as creative as the numerous Undertale AUs) and it being something received as a creative exercise that people build on instead of the fandom attacking it as 'just something a hater made'

Oh, they would be furious if someone wrote a Villain Stolas verse and it really took off. Hell, someone wrote a small, gentle fix-it fic for Loser, Baby and it got absolutely mobbed with hate.

It's such a deep and fundamental lack of understanding of -- and outright disrespect for -- the way fandoms work, the transformative nature of fanfiction. It's not just about sticking your favorite ship in a coffee shop.

[vinelark]

🐝 because im a huge pretentious snob and i only like fandoms/ships where people write dissertation-length meditations upon the nature of grief or some shit like that but also it’s gay sex.

oh man, then i think you'll like anything @englishsub has ever written. the ones that immediately spring to mind based on your ask are 总有一天; a place to hide (can’t find one near) and 替我踏遍天涯; walk the edge of the sky for me. the first one is a mdzs/cql wangxian modern au, and the second is a postcanon shl wenzhou fic, and despite being vastly different they both grapple with grief and loss and finding yourself with more life to live than you expected, and someone to live it with.

(for stories that are lighter but no less impactful, some other ao3 user yiqie favs are 狐狸精的故事; the fox spirit's story and 在此恭迎夷陵老祖; to yiling laozu, the great and venerable.)

[fic rec ask game!]

[yamayuandadu]

I realized I forgot to post my second critical evaluation of Touhou-adjacent Matarajin hot takes meant to be a followup to this ask response a few months ago. Sorry. Time to remedy that.

My current lack of enthusiasm for Okina = Hata no Kawakatsu fan material comes from a somewhat similar place as my disdain for the reddit hot takes about Okina being Okuninushi (though it is obviously less severe). However, I’ll stress that this idea actually goes back to ZUN, instead of being a weird fanon invention - Kawakatsu comes up in the interview. 

More under the cut.

ZUN calls Kawakatsu “part of her [Okina’s] true nature” (as a side note, 0 idea what the interviewer means by claiming Kawakatsu has some special connection to komainu; I guess everything at least vaguely Korean is interchangeable?). The fact he refers to Okina “a god of silkworm breeding” in her bio and the dupion spell card seem like Kawakatsu nods, too - Matarajin has nothing to do with sericulture. ZUN’s statements, and the references to the tokoyo no kami episode in the game itself, led to a common fan idea that Okina is Kawakatsu outright - I’ve even seen weird theories about Okina being deified Kawakatsu. 

In reality there is no source presenting Matarajin as a deification of a real or at least legendary person; he might be a yaksha, a dakini, a “regular” Buddhist deity, even a fox (in a single relatively late source, but hey) but evidently not a deified human (the closest you can get is the speculation about Matarajin being perceived as a tengu). There is also no source directly equating Matarajin and Kawakatsu with each other save for one specific oddity. Konparu Zenchiku in Meishuku Shū identifies Kawakatsu as one of the manifestations of an universal deity he refers to as shukujin, a label which is sometimes applied to Matarajin elsewhere. However, he at no point mentions Matarajin. His disciple Zeami then went further, equating Matarajin with Daikōjin, who is in turn identified as Kawakatsu, but, once again, we are dealing with fundamentally supernatural Kawakatsu, not with the deification of a person. The references are essentially implicit, and we’re dealing with “both might be aspects of a single person’s highly personalized idea of an universal deity”, not “it’s widely agreed figure a is figure b”. For what it’s worth, much more recently Sujung Kim did suggest a network encompassing Matarajin, various Silla-related deities (like Shinra Myōjin),  the okina mask, the Hata clan and Kawakatsu specifically in her dissertation (Transcending Locality, Creating Identity: Shinra Myōjin, a Korean Deity in Japan; p. 204-205) but I haven’t really seen other authors bring this up, and she didn’t include a similar section in her subsequent Shinra Myōjin monograph if my memory serves me well. In her case it’s also not as straightforward as “Kawakatsu = Matarajin”, and crucially Shinra Myōjin, Matarajin’s actual Korean connection, is acknowledged; ZUN never brings him up and neither do any fan theories.

My other problem is that most of the Kawakatsu stuff is, frankly, boring. This is a bigger issue I have with the Asuka period Touhou aus though, tbh; nobody is adapting the stuff with immortal monks with laser eyes, immortality elixirs and Mononobe no Moriya being Devadatta, even though THAT’S the core of Shotoku legends. The equation with Kawakatsu essentially takes the complexity of Matarajin away since nobody interprets him the way Zenchiku and Zeami did, he’s consistently just a guy in Touhou hcs as far as I can tell. And that’s a bit boring. Especially when it effectively overshadows entire networks with liver-eating demons, underworld clerks, star deities, and Susanoo on top.

There’s also the question whether there is all that much Kawakatsu material to adapt in the first place. Can’t really do anything with the menreiki origin legend because it’s been done already, without Okina (I do think that was a mistake, but I doubt ZUN has even a slight idea that Okina will exist some day when he wrote Kokoro’s arc). The popular Edo period legend casting him as a reincarnation of Qin Shi Huang, while really fun, is not exactly easy to reconcile with any Matarajin background. There’s more promising material like legends considering him a manifestation of Bishamonten or Kōjin (under the name Ōsake Daimyōjin) but these require acknowledging the Matarajin connection is basically nonexistent.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Former Richard Nixon aide and Fox News personality Monica Crowley has been tapped by Donald Trump to be the United States’ next ambassador, assistant secretary of state, and chief of protocol. Crowley becomes the latest Fox News contributor/host, joining questionable picks such as Sean Duffy, Tulsi Gabbard, Sebastian Gorka, Pete Hegseth, Thomas Homan, Mike Huckabee, Keith Kellogg, Martin Makary, Janette Nesheiwat, Michael Waltz, and Vivek Ramaswamy in the next administration.   During Trump's first time in office, Crowley was tapped to be his senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council, but passed on the post after reports surfaced that her 2012 book "What the (Bleep) Just Happened" and her 2000 dissertation were filled with dozens of instances of plagiarism. Subsequently, Crowley registered as a foreign agent to lobby for Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, before landing back in the first Trump administration as a spokeswoman under then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Serial plagiarizer and former Fox contributor Monica Crowley has been tapped by Trump to serve as his ambassador and chief of protocol for his Administration.