#villain chris is a juicy concept

[tiredsurvivoronmain]

If I cannot live in a world without you, I will become you

[olderthannetfic]

My first proper fandom! I got into it in 1994, just after the Christmas hiatus in first season. I was 13 and deeply earnest.

(Yes, this means I had a bunch of meta fights on alt.tv.x-files. Some things never change!)

I discovered the concept of fic and a lot of very dirty Mulder/Scully stories via usenet. Somewhere in there, I discovered slash, though it was such a non-event that I honestly can’t remember it. Discovering fic, however, was like the heavens opened and a lightning bolt hit me in the head.

(Ironically, this is the exact opposite of how these two experiences are described in most fandom history stuff.)

The X-Files was like Highlander: plenty of geeks liked it right away, but it took the introduction of a slashable side character to make the m/m part of the fandom explode. That character was Ratboy. Now that many years and innovations in spellcheck have passed, I can call him by his actual name, Krycek.

(No, really, we called him “ratboy” on usenet because we couldn’t spell for shit.)

Escapade had X-Files in the program every year from 1995 to 2003 and only once thereafter. This was a huge fandom in its day but its m/m ships lack the staying power of some of the other big slash fandoms of the 90s. If I had to guess why, I’d say that the enduring X-Files fandom is more interested in Scully than in Krycek or the other possible m/m ships for Mulder.

For context, AO3, bastion of oldschool slash, has 8,251 works for Mulder/Scully, but only 1,869 for Mulder/Krycek.

The X-Files holds a unique place in fandom history:

First, it coined the term ‘shipping’.

Second, it started its own big fanfic archive prior to the founding of Fanfiction.net. Gossamer is still up today, giving us a level of access to 90s fics that isn’t found in almost any other fandom. (Though I hear a lot of the slash fic was in more private places?) Many fandoms produce reams of gen casefic at their height, only for it to completely disappear because it hasn’t attracted the same desire to preserve as often-attacked slash fic has. Not so for The X-Files!

I can tell you that babby’s first fanfic (well, that I remember) was:

Mason - Willis, Cordelia & Company

Rated PG | 68K | Category X | Archived 95-06-15 Spoilers: None Keywords: None. Summary: Mulder and Scully are assigned to protect a four year-old who has special powers.

That “K” doesn’t mean it’s 68,000 words. No, in ye olden tiems, this meant it was 68 kilobytes. The story is actually only about 11k words, and you can still read it today.

Let’s hear it for fandom archivists!

The big question for slash fans was always whether to take a turn in the het side of things or to find a guy to pair Mulder up with.

Krycek was the obvious choice, whether written as his canon villainous self or with more of the woobie vibe he had while pretending to be good. As the series progressed, there started to be more Mulder/Skinner shippers. That ship was one of the first places in fandom I remember seeing a lot of enemas and fisting as well as daddy kink and attempts at realistic BDSM.

Escapade panels included:

1995 - no description

1996 - To Slash or Not To Slash (With a juicy M/F partnership on screen, is slash a cop out?)

1997 - Find Mulder a Mate (Fox Mulder. Pouter extraordinaire. Wears red Speedos and trusts -- almost -- no one. LONELY. Where to find him a mate? In his beloved yet female partner? In his acerbic yet balding boss? In his one-armed enemy? In the world of crossovers? YOU decide.)

1998 - The Men (and Woman) in Mulder's Life (Can he ever truly love? Or does he have too much on his mind to even consider dating anyone?)

1999 - Mulder: Character or Caricature? (Sixth season finds The X-Files, itself, mocking Mulder's strange, if endearing habits. So, what does that say about him? Has overexposure sent a true original into the dreaded realms of media caricature, or is there still hope for him? )

2000 - Alex Krycek: Psycho Extraordinaire, or Simply Misunderstood?

2001 - Who Does Chris Carter Think This Krycek Person Is, Anyhow? (This is a time when we look at the show and think, "Wait. Chris Carter doesn't understand the concept of 'canon'," What's up, Chris? Even ignoring the (obvious) slash elements, you're wasting a valuable character here.)

2002 - XF: History Of (Or why Chris Carter should be shot in the head. Sorting out the show's scattered and contradictory history, both of human/alien relations and of characters like Krycek, Skinner, the Mulders, and the Spenders. Starting point: best theories from canon.)

2003 - Is the truth still out there? (Is XF fandom 'really' dead? Has Scully done the autopsy? Or did CC mess up canon so badly that there is nothing left for us to work with (except some great characters, some of whom might be dead)?)

2016 - Reopening the X-Files. We have more canon! Do we care? And what have we seen so far? Discuss the new season and its promises and pitfalls.

X-Files on Fanlore

X-Files on AO3

X-Files on FFN

The Gossamer Archive