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The Nursery Files Past Challenges Page
Don't forget, TNF challenges are open to all writers or would-be writers, not just people currently archived on this site. Anyone who writes a fic for a challenge is welcome to submit it, and it will be linked or archived here.
I've decided to reopen all the past challenges without deadlines (so you can submit whenever you get the urge to do a challenge fic), but with one restriction: all additional entries for challenges on this page that are over 50kb in length must be hosted on your own website(or posted at fanfiction.net since they don't seem to mind linking), and will be linked here. If you don't have a website, this is as good a reason as any to create one =) I recommend geocities free sites for new website builders, as you don't need to know any HTML to create a basic page.
Those under 50kb in length may still be submitted the same as fics on the new challenges page.
If you write a fic for one of the the challenges below, please include the challenge name in your e-mail's subject line.
Current Challenges:
Newest Challenge - November 4th,, 2005
GillyX29's Birth Scene Challenge
Here is a challenge offered by a guest, GillyX29. Gilly has been looking for fics that are "replacement scenes" for Existance, namely that have Mulder delievering the baby instead of Reyes. Below are the elements of her challenge.
Elements:
* Your fic begins with Mulder and Scully getting into her car in "Essence" and goes on from there.
* There has to be a long and detailed labor and delivery, which includes: Scully whining, Mulder talking to the unborn baby with his face down on her belly, and he calls Scully sweetie or honey at some point.
*Mulder also has to deliver the baby.
Challenge fics:
Our Existance by Devin
FBI Deliveryman by Pattie
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There are very few Thanksgiving fics, and I think we need more. We also need more fics with Doggett and Reyes as parents, so let's throw the two things together for this MSR & DRR Thanksgiving challenge =)
Elements:
* Set the fic at Thanksgiving 2005
* Mulder, Scully, Doggett and Reyes have dinner together, anywhere you like. There may be other guests. The two couples do not have to be friends with each other, but it's nice if they are.
* Doggett and Reyes have at least one child - and want more than one.
* finish this sentence: Mulder, his eyes full of mischief, looked at [D&R's child] and said " ".
* Someone brings something surprising to dinner. What?
* Give at least one character something to be really thankful for.
There you have it. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Challenge fics:
And For All Of You To Share It With by Pattie
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In just a couple of weeks millions of children are going to be going back to school. With that in mind, here's a brand new challenge.
Elements:
- It's a character's first day of (elementary or middle) school. This character can be: a. the child of an X-Files character b. an X-Files character as a child c. an original character.
- Something strange is going on in or around the school.
- The child, or an X-Files character, or both investigate the goings-on.
- Somewhere along the way the child gets in trouble with parent or teacher.
If you need some inspiration, I recommend reading "Small Fries" by Kel
Challenge fics:
Hey, Mr. Delmar, It's Me! by Pattie
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Someone made a request at Lost and Found that turned out to be hard to fill. Why is it that in 90% of fics with second children, Mulder and Scully have a girl? Let's even the balance a bit =)
Elements:
- Set your fic after Existence; how long after is up to you so make the story post-series or AU after season 8.
- Mulder and Scully have another baby, this one a boy too
- Tell us how it was possible to conceive this second miracle(?) baby.
- Tell us how William feels about being a big brother. Happy? Jealous of his little brother?
- Someone else in the X-Files universe has a child too. Tell us who. (Reyes, Skinner, one of the gunmen, Marita?)
- This baby boy is different in some way from William. How?
Challenge fics:
Miracle by
Jennis524
Coming Home
by YappiChick
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There are three "new" challenges going on - there'd only be one, but I forgot to ever post two of them here on the website, so three it is. After summer's over (September 21st, 2005) these challenges will officially become "old" and be moved to the page linked above - but as with the other challenges, you can fic for them any time. The advantage of beginning postage before 9/21 is more people are likely to see the inks to the new page than the old, and we all like to find readers...
stock photo
The Nursery Files Lazy Hazy Days of Summer Challenge
June 26th, 2005
It's been summer for a few days now, so to celebrate the hot hazy weather, we're hosting a new Nursery Files challenge. Your fic can be about any X-Files character(s), any length (Vignette to Novel,) any genre - humor, angst, casefile, family fic etc - and any rating, and just as long as it's about kids in some fashion.
Challenge Requirements:
* Study the picture above. This is a snapshot of your opening scene. Write an opening scene based on the picture.
* Have a character say something to at least one of the kids in the picture. (tell a story, ask a question, offer a piece of advice, whatever)
* Have a character be reminded by the kids playing of a memory, wish, or dream.
That's it. Hey, summers are supposed to be lazy, so we're not going to burden you with requirements.
Send links to your completed work, or your work in progress, by September 15th, 2005. If the fic is less than 50KB and you have no website to archive your fic on, feel free to send it to neoxphile@aol.com . Resultant fics will be linked here as they come in.
Challenge Fics:
The Last Pose of Summer by Pattie
Memories in the Twilight by Pattie
Creations Untouched by Gillian Leigh
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Green Goo Fetus Challenge
As I rewatched Emily a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that I’ve never read a fic in which Mulder does something besides gawk at the little gooey-green fetus. Not one. So let's do something about that.
Here’s your challenge:
Write a fic in which Mulder does something with the bottled fetus in the picture bellow. Make it a missing scene, a flashback, a memory, whatever you’d like.
But the events of your fic must take place more than a day after that part of Emily. In your fic tell us:
what Mulder did with it between the scene and your fic
what Mulder ultimately decides to do with it.
decide if it’s the offspring of some character (doesn’t have to be Scully) or completely genetically independent of them all.
Possible takes on it - Angst, MSR, AU, babyfic, Mulder/Scully/Skinner/Krycek/Spender/Fowley/CSM/Teena/whoever torture, mpreg, Snark, holidayfic, drunkfic…basically, anything you want.
Challenge fics:
Erlenmeyer Injustice by Pattie
Cloned Injustice by Pattie
coming soon: Misbegotten Sons by NeoX
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"He's My Mommy" Challenge
Does anyone else play the Sims 2? One of the features of that game is that poor unsuspecting men are abducted by aliens…and always returned pregnant. A few days later they bring forth their usually green-skinned offspring and raise them up like any other offspring they might have. All this has a point, and it's coming up =)
To my knowledge there exists only four non-slash Mpreg stories. (Okay, there's one abandoned WIP I suspect was going to become slash, but didn't get that far so I don't know if that's slashy or not.) Four! Out of 87 zillion fics. This is a woeful situation, and I think, nay demand, that it be rectified post haste.
This challenge is offered as an opportunity for veteran writers to impress us anew, and as an invitation for new writers to get their feet wet. Yes, you there, the people who read and talk about fics but don't write them for us to read and talk about. I know you're out there, thinking " I want to write fic, but I'm afraid of what people will think." Start with something silly and irreverent, and if people don't like it, tell them that you meant for it to be bad. Badfic has a special place in most people's hearts, anyway.
Not that it has to be bad fic. You might write a completely serious, completely scientifically plausable male pregnancy story that'll tug on the heartstrings and make us all better people for having read it.
Now that you're all excited about writing this work of art/badfic, here are the challenge's requirements:
* A male character (Mulder, Skinner, Doggett, Kersh, one or all of the Gunmen, CSM, the Bounty Hunter, Bill Scully Jr or Bill Mulder etc) has an odd experience.
* Which leaves him pregnant
* There should be a flashback that sheds some light on his knocked up status.
* The fic's plot ends only after you've devised a way to extract the fetus at the end of pregnancy
That's all for requirements. The baby can be as human or inhuman as you like. Of course, knowing how Scully et all feels about the victims impending parental status is good, if you'd like to include that angle.
Oh, the baby *can* have two daddies, if you like, but not as a result of a slashy relationship. Unlike het fics, the slashy Mpreg is fairly well represented already.
Likewise, Scully or Reyes (or Diana, or Mrs Scully or Mrs Mulder or monster woman from Chimera…) might be the kid's mommy, as long as the dad is the one to lug the thing around for up to nine months. I say up to, since Emily gestated in a mere 3 months, so who knows what wonders science holds?
Rating, Genre, length, relationships of primary characters, gender and species of the baby, and setting are up to you.
Challenge fics:
Mr Mom by GothicSpook
Womb for Revenge by NeoX
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Mulder Babyfic Alternative Universe Challenge
Here is your challenge: Write a fic, that is set at the end of season nine. The alternative universe part comes in because it will replace at least parts of "The Truth" for certain, but if you wish it to replace "William" or "Jump the Shark" (JTS) as well, that's fine. Having "William" and "JTS" happen in your world is also fine, obviously. *However* everything up through "Improbable" must be cannon. (i.e. don't write a fic that begins its differences from what happened on the show at "Requiem" or "Existence" or "Trustno1" etc) Mulder went away at the beginning of the season still, though whether or not his return after a year has anything do with a trial is for you and your muse to decide.
In your fic Mulder will return from his year away, but he won't be alone. Accompanying him is an infant, male or female, and any age you like up through 18 months old. The baby's existence must be explained to any characters in the fic you think would care about it's sudden appearance. And the baby ISN'T William. (William can be *in* the fic, of course, as long as the other baby is there too). Actually, it could be more than one not-Will baby if that suits your plot.
Who is the baby, then? That's up to you. It could be a foundling, or clone/hybrid/genetic experiment, it could be related to Mulder (even his child) or another character, or a child he's looking after for another reason....any number of babies could end up in his hands for various reasons =)
So there are your requirements
* This fic must be new, in other words written for this challenge
* Mulder, at the end of season nine, comes back from after a year (you can begin the fic before he returns to DC, of course, as long as it starts after he leaves at the beginning of TINH I)
* And has a Not-William baby with him
* Explain baby's existence to at least 1 other character
The particulars like genre and rating are up to you entirely: Angst, Shippy/Drippy, Casefile, Snark(humor), Mytharc, MOTW, Horror, unbearably upbeat; G, PG, PG-13 or R rated (or NC-17 if you post at 3F); First person, third person...whatever suits you. It should be a stand-alone fic unless you can work it easily into a series you're writing already.
Send links to your completed fics to neoxphile@aol.com
The Nursery Files/DRipp's Summer
There are many MSR babyfics and MSR fic Covers in existence, but not too many of a DRR nature. So, in order to help remedy that lack DRipp and The Nursery Files decided to cosponsor a contest to get people thinking about creating fics and artwork with those elements. Thus, the idea for our summer contest was born.
7/2/05 The contest was a bust, but you can still do this as a challenge J
Who? What?
You, working by yourself or with a partner will create a DRR babyfic and accompanying Fic Cover.
If you would like to do both on your own, feel free.
If you would like to write a fic and find an artist to make the cover or vise versa that’s also allowable.
Or you could can co-write with your partner, and, if you can figure out the logistics, co-create the cover as well.
When? How? (AKA "The Rules")
* All entries must contain both a cover AND a fic.
Cover requirements:
- Must be a collage and/or manipulation
- Must have both Doggett and Reyes in it
- The cover must contain the title within it
Fic requirements:
- Must include both Doggett and Reyes, but may include any other X-Files characters in addition.
- Must include some element of Doggett-Reyes romance, though that theme does not need to be sustained from start to finish
- Must include their child. This child might be their biological or adopted or cloned-without-their-knowledge offspring, or any other variation one can come up with that makes them think of the child as "theirs."
- If one writes a pregnancy fic, the child in question must be born by the end of the fic
- Their offspring can grow as old as the writer wishes, but must have at least one scene (present or flashback) with the child as a baby.
- Any genre and any rating are acceptable.
- Any time frame is acceptable as well (pre/post/during series) and may be Alternate Universe if the author wishes.
- Length is left to the author's discretion.(no min/max)
Send links to your completed fics to neoxphile@aol.com
The Nursery Files Kid Resurrection Halloween Challenge
It's time for a new challenge at The Nursery Files! This one involves kids and Halloween.
Your challenge, if you chose to accept it is to write a fic incorporating these elements, the most significant of which are in bold:
* Your fic is set at Halloween and is spooky and/or funny.
* It involves at least 3 of the following agents: Mulder, Scully, Doggett, Reyes, Fowley, Spender, Skinner, or Krycek working together on a case. Or "together" if you're inclined to have them not get along. Case doesn’t need to be connected to the element below. (but it can be!)
* In your fic a dead child character from the series will (or seem to) come back to life. Your choices are: Emily, Luke or Samantha. If you need to involve more than one, or use original child characters too that's okay.
* A pumpkin is noticed along the way, and it holds significance to one character. Explain why.
* There’s a black cat in at least one sentence of the fic.
* Shippy/Drippiness is allowed but please keep it mild to moderate, and not the focus of your fic. (think "undercurrent" rather than "NC-17". At least for the link you submit…how many versions you write and put elsewhere is your business J )
* Bonus points for using the phrase "Mister Spooky Pants" or " Little Mister Spooky Pants."
* Timeframe, point of view, rating (G-R), use of other characters (William, Maggie, Marita etc) and length are left to the author's discretion. Also feel free to find a writing partner if you’d rather not fic alone.
Challenge fics:
Trick or...
by Donna
Return to Me
by MollyRocket
New! The Resurrection series
by NeoX .
Send links to your completed fics to neoxphile@aol.com
The Nursery Files Choose Your Own Christmas and/or Hanukkah fic Challenge
This will probably be the last challenge of 2004, since New Years isn’t too kid-friendly an idea for fics. Since it's plausable that the Mulders celebrated Hanukkah, that's an alternative to Christmas in this challenge.
For fun, let’s make this challenge a little more open-ended than usual. It’ll be up to you to pick one of the following from each lettered category and base a fic around it – sort of like those "chose your own adventure" books when we were young.
A – Holiday (pick one)
1 Christmas
2 Hanukkah
3 Both
B- Timeline (pick one)
1 A Christmas between 1960 and 1984 (pre-series characters' childhood(s)
2 A Christmas between 1992 and 2002 (series AU or missing scene)
3 A Christmas between 2002 and 2012 (post-series)
C – Premise (pick one or more)
1 Someone looks for or meets Santa
2A letter from one character to another
3 A reunion(at any time)or thus unrevealed pre-series meeting
4 A miracle, by a character’s definition, occurs on the 24th or 25th/during Hanukkah
5 Someone unexpected spends the holidays
6 Holiday shopping isn’t easy
7 William, who isn’t an only child, has an interesting day
8 A strange child teaches a character something about the meaning of the holiday
9 A holiday haunting/ MOTW
10 It *wasn’t* a dream [author defines "it"
D – Required elements (use all)
1 A juvenile character (one or more)
2 A Christmas stocking or menorah must be mentioned
3 Snow, or the dismay that there isn’t any
4 A holiday treat or tradition
E – Allowable characters (use any)
1 Mulders: Fox Mulder, Samantha, Bill and Teena
2 Scullys: Dana Scully, Maggie, Bill, Bill Jr, Missy, Charlie and any siblings’ offspring
3 Doggetts: John Doggett, Barbara and Luke
4 Reyes: Monica Reyes, any family you wish to invent for her
5 The Spenders: CSM, Cassandra, Jeffery
6 Others: Skinner, Krycek, Maritia, Gibson Praise, Emily Sims, William, any minor character who appeared in an episode
7 Original characters of your invention
There you have it. Pick one from A, one from B, as many as you want from C and E, and use all of D.
Rating (even NC-17 for this challenge), Genre, length, spoilers etc up to the author.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
NeoX
Challenge fics:
Send links to your completed fics to neoxphile@aol.com
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