It's 9 pm, what the hell am I doing in bed?

[itsallovernow]

Laying under the covers shivering, that's what.

Cough is getting worse, making my whole body ache. No gas means no hot water, no heat, and no stove. If someone finds Mike in a stove, they'll consider my justified. Plus, I feel like a loser calling my friends and saying, "Hey, can I come use your shower?" Which is the next course of action as my frigging Y membership apparently expired without my knowledge.

Oh cat, why won't you eat the expensive stinky wet food I bought you. Why won't you FEEL better and eat your supper. Poor squishie, indeed. Plus, mama had to pay the taxman so you can't go back to the vet until payday!

I am deeply tempted to do a full rewatch of the X-Files from the beginning. I believe I have videos of the first season still. I wonder if I have all 7 seasons. (I'm not tempted to watch 8 or 9, largely because I think that the S7 finale made a perfect ending, not for any deep seeded resentment).

So, favorite eps? Favorite seasons? Favorite fics that still make you feel all dark and squishy inside? I read EVERYTHING, back in my lurking, not understanding fandom or fangirls but desperate for more M/S angst and tension days. It's crazy to me that some of the people I most adore are people that I met because I caught sight of them in Farscape fandom when I got brave enough to dip my toes into that and fell, fawning, into their orbits. I knew who iamsab and cofax7, not to mention haphazardmethod or fialka or denyeverything1, were before I ever met them, and they're just as amazing in person as they were back in their heady XF days when I just read from afar!

Comments

[vonniek.livejournal.com]

Awww, The X-Files. You never forget your first fandom.

Favourite season: S2 had better arcs, but S3 has more awesome standalones

Favourite eps: Jose Chung's From Outer Space (it's pretty much my favourite ep of anything ever, really), Clyde Bruckman, of course, Anasazi for mytharc, and Bad Blood for comedy. Tithonus from later seasons. ("How could you have too much life?")

Fave novel-length fic is still probably fialka's "Arizona Highways". Occasionally, I still re-read Kipler's stuff. "Strangers in a Strange Land" and "Waiting" in particular. OH, MAN, the cancer-arc stories.

Some of my oldest friends in LJ land are from TXF as well, although several of them, I didn't get to know until much later when our paths crossed in another fandom.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Clyde Bruckman!! I still... so much love. Just so much love.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Come shower! Any time! Also feel free to use my gas for any water-boiling, pasta-making, dish washing, or steak grilling you might need! Come by tomorrow if you want! xoxo

Also, ahem, xf2orbust just in case anyone down here from the good old XF days, reading these comments, needs a place to set up camp...

Me, favorite eps: Wetwired, Detour, Humbug, Dreamland I and II, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, Biogenesis/Sixth Extintion/Amor Fati, Requiem. Oh, and Never Again. *g*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

My computer is too slow for Hulu.com (where I was going to watch Fame. Yes, I have no pride). I'm gonna break out the S4 boxset.

I may come take advantage of your shower tomorrow!! i'll call you!

[ropo.livejournal.com]

My favorite season might be 6. Because I'm crazy and like the funny. I will try to think of some fics that I wouldn't be embarrassed to rec, 'cause I'm all about the guilty pleasures.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I love seasons 6 and 7. Actually, I love them all until 8 or 9:)

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Six is my favorite season, too. Just, end to end, a little more grown up, a little edgier, with a little more humor and a little less Carterian angsty voiceovers...

Oh, season 6! *hearts*

Join my comm, Robbie!

[angstville.livejournal.com]

I have the eternal debate - the S2 Abduction arc or the S4 Cancer arc. The fic - definitely the cancer arc. And that includes allllll the post-Geth fic. That was one AWESOME Summer!

I hope you and your critter are feeling better soon!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I hope we do to.

[cofax7]

Oh, the cancer arc stories! "Grace Realized"! The first piece of fic to ever make me cry! Oy.

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

I was a post-movie convert, when my sister made me take her to see it. (And I had spent two weeks prior to that, sick, watching rented VHS tapes of XF because I figured I'd better know what I was getting into. *g*) The first episode I actually ever caught was...wait for it...The Pine Bluff Variant. I was SO CONFUSED.

I have a great fondness for seasons 3 and 5, but I think my favorite is season 4. Because not only does it have some of my favorite episodes, it has the absolute gut-punch of Gethsemane, and the uber-angst of the cancer arc.

Favorite episodes include Memento Mori, Bad Blood, Clyde Bruckman's, Jose Chung's, Dreamland I/II, Detour and Pusher. I also have a bizarre fondness for Unruhe - I think it's the photos, but it might be the icepick lobotomy.

And while I was exhausted by the lingering presence of an obviously unplugged David Duchovny, I actually liked a lot of seasons 8 and 9. I mean, it wasn't the same, but I liked the Doggett & Reyes show. I kind of wish they would have just ended XF with season 7 and done a spin-off from there. I think my faves from the last two seasons were John Doe and Audrey Pauley, both in season 9.

[scrubschick.livejournal.com]

Fav fic: Anything by DashaK (and she's put her site back up! SQUEEE!), but especially Red Valerian and Blinded by White Light. Oh, and the Jitterbug Perfume series.

JET's Night Giving Off Flames. Kills me every damned time.

MustangSally and RivkaT's Iolokus. Angst and fucked up Mulder and Scully and babyfic!

Kristel Oxley-John's Aphrodesia.

Livia's God of Your Whims series.

Prufrock's Love's Promises to Keep.

Kelly Keil's Deus Ex Machina. Just fun.

I could go on all day. The IMTP seasons are 95% readable, too, if you haven't read any of them.

Favorite eps: Bad Blood, Post-Modern Prometheus, Clyde Bruckman, Jose Chung, War of the Coprophages, Syzygy, Small Potatoes, Three of a Kind, Triangle, Dreamland, Rain King, ... OK. I'm going to end up listing half the series. Stopping now. ;)

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

Perfect timing--I'm considering giving this show a try, and will need fic recs. *g*

Chris Carter, my icon spits its last breath at thee

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm not sure when I'll be ready to re-watch. But I'll sure as shit stop at season 7, because I agree it ends so spectacularly.

To quote Courtney Love: "They get what they want, and they never want it again."

That hasn't stopped me from rereading Iolokus on occassion ; )

Re: Chris Carter, my icon spits its last breath at thee

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

It was so strange as a viewer going from the unspoken tension of X-Files, the crazed mytharc, the overarching saying nothing language (which I adored, don't get me wrong) to Farscape where everything was hyper colored and crazed and words were so important and yet there were still all these intense subtleties.

Re: Chris Carter, my icon spits its last breath at thee

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Try going from that and having your only fandom outlet being a Yahoo list with a bunch of L33t 14-year-olds and David Hearne. It was like having 2 pots of coffee and a religious experience while being locked in a Hello Kitty themed room with the Ambassador of the Taciturn Sane.

Thank God Cofax and Fi finally took the Muppet acid started watching.

Re: Chris Carter, my icon spits its last breath at thee

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Hee - I've mentioned my deep and abiding love for you, yes?

Re: Chris Carter, my icon spits its last breath at thee

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

I adore D. Hearne, just want to say. But I think we were the only two who even knew what fic was. I almost added a Sanrio reference to "Like Scorpions for Chocolate".

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

:hugs: I hope you feel better soon.

Favorite XF ep was always Jose Chung's From Outer Space.

[denyeverything1.livejournal.com]

I had no idea you read my (and everyone else's) XF fic. Huh. *g* Also, mwah!

To oblige you, I dug up an old scullyfic post about favorite eps. It's based only on seasons 1-8 -- if I had taken season 9 into account, "Audrey Pauley" and "Release" would have to be considered for bests, along with "Provenance/Providence."

I started slotting episodes into "Good," "Bad," and "Indifferent," but the "Good" list was much to long (which yes, made me happy). Then I separated "Good" and "Great." Interestingly, I ended up with 26 "Great" and 25 "Bad." I love a bell curve.

25 is too long to list, so the winnowing continued. (These are in chronological order.)

Best (cutting this down actually hurt, and yes, I cheated with what I think are non-standalone arcs):

*Pilot* (Because you must start somewhere, and 9 years later I still love it.)

*Little Green Men* (Nothing about it I don't adore. Solidified my love for Mulder in a way even TFWID couldn't dissolve ;-)

*Duane Barry/Ascension/3/One Breath* (Very important that "3" is part of this arc! Where I learned to love angst.)

*Anasazi/Blessing Way/Paper Clip* (More "Holy shit" moments than anything before or since.)

*Jose Chung's From Outer Space* (The way, the how, the wow, of a Darin Morgan script. Brilliant.)

*ReduxII* (Where I believe the story was meant to stop, and where I would choose that the story *had* stopped, if I ran the world. And FOX. Though interestingly, I would have missed 4 more "Great" episodes…)

*Bad Blood* (Brilliant script, brilliant acting. Makes a casual viewer laugh, a long-time fan howl with delight.)

*Milagro* (Because it's all about writing, the act of creation, and the power of imagination, and it conveys those ideas in a unique way.)

*Field Trip* (For an X-File, just about perfect, even on the surface. What makes it great is the M&S interaction that powers their actions and experiences. Yowza.)

*Je Souhaite* (For the delighted look on Scully's face when confronted by her invisible corpse -- for that alone I would love it. But there's more! Great original characters, easy M&S interaction, Scully getting to act like a scientist. That's the icing on the cake.)

(Just missed the cut: Deep Throat, Miracle Man, Beyond the Sea, Darkness Falls, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, Grotesque, Pusher, Monday, Dod Kalm, Paper Hearts, Never Again, Small Potatoes, Memento Mori, Folie a Deux, The Pine Bluff Variant, Badlaa (no, I'm not kidding)

[haphazardmethod.livejournal.com]

Wow -- I'm reading this list and I still remember all these episodes by their title. I don't think I have ever fallen into a fandom deeper than I did this one. For me, Clyde Bruckman is up higher on the list because I loved how very kind Scully was holding his hand. And Excited!Scientist!Scully and her invisible body in Je Souhaite is another of my favorite mental images of her.

{{{Thea}}} I hope you're feeling better!!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Clyde Bruckman is far above Jose Chung for me, but it may just be that I loved Peter Boyle so much:)

And thanks honey, I'm slowly feeling better. At least I'm sleeping!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Yeah! I mostly agree with those, although I also think the story was meant to end at Season 5.

And hee - I totally read your fic (and, at the very beginning of our acquaintance, used to mercilessly prod Hap to prod you so that you two would finish "Fire Sale", which I was still desperate for:)