The Ten Greatest X-F Fanfics You've Ever Read

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

Have you ever struggled whenever you've ventured inside a new fandom to find the really good stories?

With the Revival attracting a whole new generation of fans, I thought it would be a good idea for us to list the X-Files fanfictions that made our hearts beat faster, the ones that blew our minds, those stories we never forgot, the ones we've kept coming back to, or remember fondly because they were SO DAMN GREAT.

Our fandom is blessed with so many talented authors, but with more than 35,000 stories on Gossamer (and these numbers date from 2007), more than 4,000 on AO3 and around 8,000 on FF.net, plus God knows how many floating about on Tumblr, how can newcomers be expected to find the truly good stuff?

The rules are simple: list a maximum of ten fics you love the most followed by a short explanation of why you do.
Is it the plot? The writing? The characters? Something else?
You can list less, but not more.
No "everything by [insert author's name]" please, we're looking for specific stories here.
Let's rec!
ETA: you don't have to pick different stories if they have already been mentionned by someone else. Your list is *your* list.

Comments

Faves - part 3 of 3

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

The Unfinished Universe by Revely // Another fic that I'm absolutely certain is spectacular, but which I don't remember very well anymore. Mainly what I remember is that Revely's writing has exceptional emotional intelligence. Her M&S are smart, but it's the depth of feeling in them that really shines through, especially in Unfinished Universe. I just remember it being very intimate and poignant and...delicate? Like, Scully and Mulder are attempting to mend a lot of really fragile personal fragments of themselves, and there's such care and gentleness in it, and also this deep, shared well of grief for everything they've been through and lost or nearly lost.


The Best Lies by Julie Fortune // The final two of my faves feel a little out of place, just because they're such relatively small fics, next to the previous fandom giants. I'm also a bit unsure about choosing The Best Lies over Fata Morgana as my favorite of Julie Fortune's fics, given that the latter is almost certainly the stronger-written and more substantial story. But I'm choosing The Best Lies, because it's so deliciously vivid in my mind. It lacks the length and complexity to be an episode, yet it has all the narrative punch to be a movie. Plus, the last scene is perfect, and beautifully captures the kind of painful, almost horrible UST I'm such a fan of - the complexity of Mulder and Scully's feelings for each other, and their feelings about themselves, and their interdependency which borders on unhealthy but also keeps them going.

On a separate note, I think of Julie Fortune as something of a stylistic sibling to Syntax6. Her fics are never as long and never as complex, but otherwise they're quite similar: strong, gripping plots; vivid, cinematographic prose; strong, capable M&S characterizations; and UST that's often more painful than it is sweet.


Waiting by Kipler // The shortest and least well known of my favorites, Waiting is an eerie Post-Gethsemane fic that was actually written during the S4 hiatus (rather than long after the fact), which is something I love about it. Waiting just...I read it and it stunned me. It's spare, it's vivid, it's creepy, and it's fascinating. I love the way the fic plays with the perception of time and of reality. I love that despite themes of death and grief and dying, the fic's aim is evidently to unnerve you and make you think, rather than to make you cry. And I really love Scully's characterization. First person POV is hard to pull off in fanfic, but in Waiting, Scully's POV is spot on, and a big part of the strength of the fic.