The X Files – Mulder and Scully together! In real life!

This tiny little piece tucked away on very bottom of The Courier-Mail website caught my eye: X-Files together? The truth is out there. What could that mean? I’ve got a fairly high level of X-Files obsession in my past, so even if it was linkbait, I was prepared to give away my click for the possibility of new information. After all, imagine if they were filming a new movie?! Woweee!! (Sorry, did I just say that out loud?)

So I clicked. And was fed this headline: “The truth is out there: Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny reportedly hook up“.

OMG! At loooong last! My imagination immediately started galloping away, dragging logic and rational thought in its wake.

You see, I was a ‘shipper. A what? I hear you ask. A ‘shipper. And here comes the deep dark truth of just how sad I was during my teens and early 20s. The X-Files fans, or X-Philes as we somehow got monikered, could be split into two camps – the ‘shippers and the… well, non-shippers. The ‘shippers, or pro relationSHIP camp (get it, relationship = SHIP) were constantly lobbying for the writers to join Mulder and Scully in unearthly matrimony. Or at least to give us some steamy sex scenes to sate our ‘shipper desires.

The non-shipper camp declared, some would say rather intelligently, that a union between the two lead characters would spell the end, a la Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis in Moonlighting. A la House and Cuddy. A la Sam and Diane.

Then there was the fan fiction. I’m no expert, but I reckon X-Files fan fiction may be where the whole fan fiction movement started. People would write the stories they wanted to see, starring Mulder and Scully. Of course, the ‘shipper writers would write romance stuff and the non-shippers would write sci-fi alien stuff. I recall there was one website called The Gossamer Project, which featured some very high calibre writing. And if you didn’t already know it, the hottest selling book of the modern era, 50 Shades of Grey, started life as a fan fiction starring Edward and Bella from Twilight. Yup. True story.

If I’m really going to confess, I may as well go the whole hog. I have an X-Files memorabilia collection that would stun most right-thinking people. Yup, it’s sizeable. I have books, fiction and factual, magazines, comics, desk diaries going back to 1997, collector cards and posters – all in mint condition. Oh yeah, and I even have the ticket stubb from the time I flew from London to New York to see the world premiere of the first X-Files movie. Now you’re worried, aren’t you.

Soooo, when the news broke that Mulder and Scully were FINALLY together, well, you can see why I clicked, can’t you?

I’m so happy! They’re together! How romantic. Wait. How weird. They reportedly hated each other at various points during filming, and the TV show was 20 years ago. How weird would it be to start dating someone you worked with 20 years ago?!

I went right to the source of all credible Hollywood gossip – Perez Hilton. It seems Anderson’s rep confirmed this week she is divorcing husband #3 Mark Griffiths, adding fuel to the fire. Sadly, Perez says nice, but no. “Mulder’s reps firmly denied any interest in dating Scully.”

But why? She’s so lovely! Check her out in this 2011 interview on The Project.

But Duchovny has always missed a good thing right in front of him, hasn’t he? Case in point, his divorce from the lovely Tea Leoni. Ah well, never mind, a die-hard ‘shipper can still dream, right?