A Scully Fest Challenge
Feb. 13th, 2014 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scully_festI know it's only Thursday the 13th here in my time zone but since it's just after midnight in London and it's been Friday for hours and hours already in Australia, I am declaring ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
scully_fest officially open.
The rewatch starts tonight in my timezone with "Beyond the Sea." Check the schedule post for your timezone and don't forget to cast your votes for the TBD on February 23.
Back in the day, there was an X-Files community, meaning a mailing list, called Scullyfic. In 2001, the list administrator Jill Selby issued a challenge: write a 155 word story about Dana Scully. You can read the stories that resulted at Scully in 155. The fics are not all exactly 155 words: some are a little longer, some shorter.
In honor of her upcoming 50th birthday, we thought it would be fun to issue the same challenge to thescully_fest members. You can post the stories as a comment to this post, either in a comment or a link. You can post your story on your day if you signed up for one. Or if you'd rather, you can wait for her birthday free-for-all day.
Oh heck, post whenever the muse strikes, but let's try to stay close to the 155 word limit.
Remember, if you track the post, you'll get all of the comments to your email or inbox.
In conclusion, SCULLY FEST!
scully_fest officially open.The rewatch starts tonight in my timezone with "Beyond the Sea." Check the schedule post for your timezone and don't forget to cast your votes for the TBD on February 23.
Back in the day, there was an X-Files community, meaning a mailing list, called Scullyfic. In 2001, the list administrator Jill Selby issued a challenge: write a 155 word story about Dana Scully. You can read the stories that resulted at Scully in 155. The fics are not all exactly 155 words: some are a little longer, some shorter.
In honor of her upcoming 50th birthday, we thought it would be fun to issue the same challenge to the
scully_fest members. You can post the stories as a comment to this post, either in a comment or a link. You can post your story on your day if you signed up for one. Or if you'd rather, you can wait for her birthday free-for-all day.Oh heck, post whenever the muse strikes, but let's try to stay close to the 155 word limit.
Remember, if you track the post, you'll get all of the comments to your email or inbox.
In conclusion, SCULLY FEST!
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Comment here with Questions
Date: 2014-02-14 05:32 pm (UTC)Re: Comment here with Questions
Date: 2014-02-14 10:45 pm (UTC)Re: Comment here with Questions
Date: 2014-02-15 09:44 pm (UTC)Re: Comment here with Questions
Date: 2014-02-17 04:02 pm (UTC)Re: Comment here with Questions
Date: 2014-02-17 04:21 pm (UTC)Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 07:25 am (UTC)Starbuck had reason and God on his side, to no avail. Captain Ahab won't, can't, listen.
He gave her a copy on her tenth birthday, the one she reread every year. It kept them connected, even when—circumstances—made that otherwise difficult.
He'd been proud when she got into Stanford, disappointed when she accepted the FBI's offer. She felt hurt, yet ashamed of her need for his approval.
She loved this job. She solved mysteries and brought criminals to justice. It took brains and guts to do it well.
"He'll come around," her mother'd soothed. She was right—he had. His apparition's words were garbled but the message now seemed clear.
He was her father, after all.
Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 08:37 am (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 05:18 pm (UTC)I'm going to try to write one for each episode of the rewatch.
Wish me luck with the Bug and Pus episode.
Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 09:24 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 09:42 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 08:25 pm (UTC)I've never done this. As Estella says above it's so short!
But hey, I might give it a go.
Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 09:38 pm (UTC)I'm going to try to write another one for the latest episode of the rewatch. Wish me luck.
If you need a beta, I am always around.
Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 09:23 pm (UTC)You inspire me.
Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-15 09:41 pm (UTC)Yes, I think there is an episode where she even tells him he's like Ahab, chasing the great white whale of truth. The conversation on the rock where they talk about Moby Dick.
Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-16 12:39 pm (UTC)This is wonderful.
Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-16 06:54 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-16 01:37 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "The Message"
Date: 2014-02-16 06:54 pm (UTC)Scully in 155: "Rewired"
Date: 2014-02-16 11:10 pm (UTC)I miss you.
She doesn't say it out loud but the words fill her head. The emotion they carry take too much space within her chest. She breathes in deeply, painfully. Some visits are easier than others.
A warm hand closes on her shoulder.
She straightens up but does not turn around.
“I didn't mean what I said,” she tells him.
“I know. That's all right, Scully.”
No. None of this is all right. Her paranoid meltdown gave voice to the ugly things between them they never address. He didn't pull the trigger. Neither did she, and yet -
Her hand leaves the tombstone.
She catches his arm. “Let's go home, Mulder.”
Re: Scully in 155: "Rewired"
Date: 2014-02-16 11:20 pm (UTC)I would disagree with her assertion that she should be the one who is in the grave. Melissa didn't deserve to die but neither did Scully. But it works as an expression of guilt.
I always thought Scully might feel angry at Mulder because of her sister's death, even if she didn't want to.
Re: Scully in 155: "Rewired"
Date: 2014-02-16 11:31 pm (UTC)Scully knew the bullet that killed Melissa was destined for her. Add to this the usual Catholic and survivor's guilt. She might think none of them deserved to die but I think she's very aware that her sister died in her place.
And I am convinced she blames herself as much as she blames him. This is what I meant with the line about not pulling the trigger. Maybe I should have made it more obvious that the trigger in question was from the gun that killed Melissa.
Re: Scully in 155: "Rewired"
Date: 2014-02-16 11:50 pm (UTC)Yes, she is. They all are.
This is what I meant with the line about not pulling the trigger. Maybe I should have made it more obvious that the trigger in question was from the gun that killed Melissa.
I disagree. I think the hint of ambiguity works in its favor, especially in a story this short, adding in an extra layer of meaning.
Re: Scully in 155: "Rewired"
Date: 2014-02-17 10:15 am (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "Rewired"
Date: 2014-02-19 07:10 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "Rewired"
Date: 2014-02-24 11:15 am (UTC)Scully in 155: "A Woe that is Madness"
Date: 2014-02-18 05:52 am (UTC)The embarrassment and humiliation.
Afterward at the hospital, she could scarcely meet his eyes. It had seemed so real: the Smoking Man was talking with Mulder in the car. She'd seen them together, she'd swear to it. Except, everything Mulder'd done during the case she'd reinterpreted through the lens of her paranoia.
But there was a reason for that, a small voice insisted, which meant her distrust could not be so easily dismissed.
She didn't know which was worse, her loss of control or the residual worry that he still wasn't telling her everything. Why hadn't he said he was taking the transmitter to the Gunmen for analysis?
Would you have believed him if he had?
Her deepest fear was his betrayal.
And now he knew--and so did she.
Re: Scully in 155: "A Woe that is Madness"
Date: 2014-02-18 06:59 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "A Woe that is Madness"
Date: 2014-02-18 07:32 pm (UTC)This episode is a real mind fuck, isn't it? Because he does keep stuff from her, about his sources, about what he knows about the Consortium, and even about her own body.
Mulder makes me so damn mad.
Re: Scully in 155: "A Woe that is Madness"
Date: 2014-02-19 09:29 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "A Woe that is Madness"
Date: 2014-02-20 08:04 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "A Woe that is Madness"
Date: 2014-02-20 05:50 pm (UTC)"And now he knew-- and so did she."
For someone as private as Scully, having her innermost fears broadcast in such a public and dramatic way must have been devastating.
Re: Scully in 155: "A Woe that is Madness"
Date: 2014-02-20 08:06 pm (UTC)Scully in 155: "Big Day"
Date: 2014-02-19 07:26 pm (UTC)William loved bath time. Scully powdered and diapered him with care and put on the triceratops jammies he seemed to prefer. The evening after she put him down stretched endlessly, and when she tried to watch a classic movie her stomach churned.
She turned it off and went to bed. Hour after sleepless hour. She'd known that would happen. Twice she went to look at her baby. No drugs. She had to be clear. She considered a glass of wine. No, not that route. Please, she prayed to her saints and ancestors.
She remembered when she'd prayed to God.
When she fell into an early-morning fever dream she saw a small, vicious alien riding on William's mobile. She woke to sunlight and immediately had a photosensitive headache. She dressed William and sang to him.
What was that film. Citizen Kane. Mother of mercy.
At ten o'clock the social workers were at her door.
Re: Scully in 155: "Big Day"
Date: 2014-02-19 08:06 pm (UTC)I have never forgiven 1013 for William, but that's a discussion for another time and place.
Re: Scully in 155: "Big Day"
Date: 2014-02-19 09:26 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "Big Day"
Date: 2014-02-19 08:23 pm (UTC)This is so good.
Re: Scully in 155: "Big Day"
Date: 2014-02-19 09:24 pm (UTC)Scully in 155: "Rabbit"
Date: 2014-02-20 05:42 pm (UTC)Crawling with maggots, smooth fur mottled and ruined, brown eyes blank, the rabbit was proof positive that you couldn't take what you loved and put it in a box on the shelf to keep safe forever.
Melissa had helped her bury it; they'd stood in the California sunshine and held hands and whispered prayers over the upturned soil. She had once held him, given him a name. He had been hers, and then he hadn't.
She hadn't forgotten him. His face, his damaged hide, drifted into her consciousness at odd times. Her first day in gross anatomy, young and nervous, standing with a cluster of other med students in bright unsoiled lab coats; she had looked down at the corpse she'd been assigned and thought of her rabbit.
Her lab partner threw up. Her stomach held strong. She'd always been proud of that.
Re: Scully in 155: "Rabbit"
Date: 2014-02-20 08:10 pm (UTC)Re: Scully in 155: "Rabbit"
Date: 2014-02-21 11:16 pm (UTC)"Rabbit" by discordantwords
Date: 2017-04-10 09:22 pm (UTC)Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Dana Scully
Summary:
155 words. Scully reflects on her childhood pet.