Chapter Text
“Mulder,” he answered his cell phone.
“Hey, it’s Frohike.”
“Hey man, what’s up?” Mulder asked as he watched Scully float down the stairs with their baby daughter in his arms. Motherhood suited her.
“Ya know how we regularly scan the internet looking for any activity regarding you three—”
“What did you find? Are we okay?”
“Yeah, man. You guys are fine—”
“Well, what is it? Frohike, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Hi, Melvin.”
“Hiya gorgeous. How are you today?” Frohike teased his longtime friend and crush.
“Fine. But what’s going on?” Scully placed their daughter in her walker and sat next to Mulder.
“Okay, well, remember after you two were on the COPS TV show in LA…how we noticed people on the internet had started writing stories about you?”
“Yes,” Scully giggled, whispering in Mulder’s ear, “remember the Chili’s story?”
“How could I forget,” he whispered back, nuzzling her ear.
“Well, it seems that people like writing about you two so much that they are starting to play a game, sort of, where they exchange ideas and write stories for each other.”
“Okay…” Mulder said. “I think I follow….”
“Like, say, the three of us all have an idea for a story. Our ideas go into a lottery, and we each get assigned one and write it for that person—sort of like Secret Santa.”
“And people are writing these gift stories about us?” Scully questioned.
“Yes. I’ll send you an email with how it works.”
////
Their baby down for a nap, Mulder and Scully cuddled around his laptop and opened the email from Frohike. They clicked on a link to previous exchanges and saw dozens of stories: tales of X-File-type cases with aliens and monsters and plenty of stories that were focused on their incredible romance.
“I want to try this, Scully. I’m a good writer.”
“Hmm. I can only imagine what you’d come up with,” she teased as they started to read the email from Frohike.
Are you contemplating joining an exchange?
“Yes, I am,” Mulder said aloud to his computer screen.
This is for all experience levels of writers; if you’ve written a thousand stories or if this is your first one, you are welcome here! We hope these exchanges will help foster a sense of community within the fandom as well as give writers the opportunity to expand their horizons by writing prompts they otherwise may not have explored.
Participants will get about a 1–2 week period to sign up and about six weeks to write after receiving their prompt (more details below). There is also one bonus event a year for people who want to challenge themselves; this exchange has a much higher word count and requires a lot more effort.
“The Fandom?” Scully said.
“I guess we really are popular,” Mulder said. “Oh, here are some rules.”
There are a standard set of rules that are always implemented. The intent isn’t to be a stickler, but these rules are set to make things as fair as possible. The old adage is true; all rules are made because something went wrong in the past. Here are the general rules of the exchange; they look very long, but that’s just my attempt to address any questions people may have.
1) Meet the word count.
For a standard exchange, the minimum word count is 2,000 words. Occasionally this will be shortened to like 1,000 words so people more comfortable with that can participate, but the general rule of thumb is 2k. For bonus exchanges, it is 15k as it is required to be a multi-chap fic. You must meet the word count.
2) You must follow the prompt you are given.
When you are signing up for the exchange, you are signing up to write a prompt someone is asking for. The randomization aspect is the fun of it. If you only want to write what you are accustomed to writing or your favorite topic, then you can do that any other time - part of the fun of the exchanges is having the opportunity to challenge yourself by writing something you may not be used to. I would never ask you to write something that makes you uncomfortable. In general, we ask that people do not request stories that ask for character death or anything that would obviously be triggering/taboo. But we understand that it is possible you might get a prompt that you feel uncomfortable writing; that’s not to say you got a prompt you think you’ll do a “bad job” with; we mean a prompt that is triggering in some way to you. Just let us know as soon as possible, and we will arrange a switch!
3) Try not to spoil the surprise.
If you have a question for your person, feel free to tell me and I can reach out to them as administrator. Even though you may not care if you know who has you, the person you have might want to be surprised so that’s why I recommend the mediator process.
4) Make an Ao3 account.
We are requiring that participants upload their stories to AO3. So if you don’t have an account, we recommend you start making one now. Each exchange gets an Ao3 collection where all the stories are compiled for people to enjoy. If you can’t make one in time, don’t want to make one, or want to participate anonymously, we can post it on the exchange account’s Ao3. It is just easier for people to find their fics when they are all in the same place, so it has to happen on Ao3.
5) Respect the due date.
There is a one-week grace period after the original exchange date.
Please give me notice so that I’m not hunting you down thinking you’ve abandoned the exchange. If at any time you need to drop out, we understand, no judgment, just let me know as soon as possible so it’s easier to find a replacement. There’s no shame in needing more time, but there is shame in creating a scenario where someone is waiting on a gift fic and I can’t get ahold of you. As long as there is an honest desire and effort to complete the fic, I am very accommodating with giving extra time. If you ghost me, I will consider that you are forfeiting your prompt.
6) Never publicly complain about your prompt.
Don’t post about how hard your prompt is or that it’s not the one you wanted. Even if it’s just venting about how stressed you are about writing it or whatever, it could make your person feel bad when they see it was their prompt you were working on, so keep it to yourself just to be kind.
7) Don’t steal prompts from the sign-up sheet and write them independently of the exchange.
If you look at the sign-up sheet, you are privy to seeing other people’s prompts. While I understand we do not own ideas, please do not be disrespectful and steal a prompt from the list and write the story someone else will be assigned. That is just rude and mean to the person working hard to write the prompt they were gifted.
8) Make sure to say thank you to the person who wrote your prompt.
You need to leave an Ao3 comment on your gift work. It doesn’t feel nice to have your gift go unappreciated, so don’t do that to someone else. I ask for it to be on Ao3 because not everyone participating is on the same social media sites and this way I can ensure it’s being done. Just like with writing, I understand reading is dependent on being able to find time, but please leave a comment within a week of the exchange. I am going to be enlisting someone’s help to keep track of this, so don’t neglect it.
“Are you really gonna do this?”
“Yeah. I think it sounds fun. And who knows you and me better than yours truly,” he winked.