[stumbling back, blinking]

Well, I think I can say with some justification that the aforementioned AU reads very much like something that's entitled "Apprentice Wizard and the Unicorn 2: The Grand Wizard meets Prince Alex".

FayJay, if you want the quintessential X-Files fic, read the Iolokus series by Rivka and Mustang Sally. WARNING: this goes into some damned weird freaky places and graphic unhappy sex seems to be their rason d'etre. But the last two sections of the story are plot-ful, and nifty and frequently funny and the Gunmen are lovely, and if your psyche is up to it you won't regret reading it.

Iolokus rocks hard. And I don't read X-fic at all. But it was recommended so much that I finally did. Worth it.

Teppy, you keep claiming to be vanilla. You must be that incredibly rich and tasty premium-ice-cream-sold-in-little-packages French vanilla. Cause I don't claim to be vanilla and Iolokus squicks me in some large places.

Oh, it squicked me in some places, but it was still good writing. And I loves me some angst. I loved Cicatrix, too, and that was squicksome in places.

Good writing is good writing.

I gave up on Iolokus mid book 3 when things finally started to look up, out of sheer exhaustion. I've been meaning to pick it up again for the longest time. I did love what I've seen of the Mooselet.

Another excellent XF novel that explores a similar theme (reproductive manipulation of Scully) is Fialka's Arizona Highways, which damn near broke me when it first came out chapter by chapter. Wonderful writing, flawed and incredibly human Mulder and Scully circa mid season 6 (Two Fathers/One Son), and tons of angst, without quite hitting the squick-o-meter of "Iolokus". Even after 2 years, it still tops my multifandom fanfic top 10 hit parade.

When Scully turned up pregnant on the show, my nephew was incensed that it was a boy. "No! It's supposed to be a girl! The Mooselet!" And, of course, the Gopher King Sings Songs of Love. I've got the last two segments saved on my hard drive. Note to self: buy the freakin' cd burner already.

Could someone do me a favour? I'd like to read a post-Tara death Willowfic called Widow's Pique.

So if one of you guys could write it, that would be great.

Ta, ever so.

I just read [link] offa the BFA list. It's a really nice post-Grave Spike-in-Africa crossover piece that you don't really need to know much about the X-Files to get. Spike POV, not too long.

1) Fay, dearie, it's been done a few times, although it tends to have a strong BDSM, well-I'll-just-throw-you-off-the-balcony-hmmm? flavor to it. What with the handcuffs and all. The more common perspective, I think, is to treat that scene as background for a Love Forgives All epic. I have no specific recs for either scenario, because I tend to find both of them laughable, but I'm sure you can find what you seek at the Basement Dana linked to.

2) When they say AU in the X-Filesverse, they really mean it. I'm sorry to say I have run across medieval X-Files, and unicorn-y fantasy X-Files, and what-if-it-all-took-place-in-a-prison, whaddya-mean-prisons-are-gender-segregated X-Files, and Willliam Gibson-y X-Files, and so on. I think any time Skinner is re-written as a cruel but lonely duke in his high castle, it's time to hang up your internet connection.

3) I have always thought Tikkun Olam is a stronger story than the Iolokus series. Iolokus has other things going for it, namely a gigantic, detailed, and occasionally cruel parody of fanfic cliches and specific fandom people, but a lot of that is hard to discern if you weren't around when it was published. In ten years, Iolokus will be sort of a headscratcher, but Tikkun Olam will still be a good, if mindbendingly complex, story. And it's less annoyingly shmoopy.