Fox Mulder

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This article is about Fox Mulder. For other characters, return to the full character list.

This article is set at an unspecified time between S1-5 of The X-Files, and as such does not contain information from the later seasons. During verses set in the later seasons, assume that canon information is accurate unless specified otherwise.

Fox William Mulder (born 13th October, 1961) believes in things beyond the understanding of modern science. After the disappearance of his sister when he was young, and his discovery of the X-Files a few years into his FBI career, he threw away a promising career as a criminal profiler to focus solely on investigating unexplained phenomena and trying to prove the existence of things that most think to be fantasy.

Department Head of the X-Files Unit, he and his partner, Agent Scully, investigate crimes with unexplained elements to them from their office in the basement of the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Over the years, Mulder has investigated a whole range of unbelievable events - including vampires, werewolves, ghosts, alien abductions, and a top-secret government conspiracy that dangerous individuals will do anything to protect.

Mulder is impulsive, stubborn, and smarter than he may first appear. He's very resourceful, and he's highly unlikely to drop a lead once he believes that he has one.

Mulder is in his early 30s. He has short brown hair, green eyes, and a boyish look to him. He has a scar on the upper left of his chest from a bullet wound. Due to a baseball injury when he was young, his right pupil is slightly bigger than the left, and he often wears sunglasses to protect the eye. He is also short-sighted, sometimes wearing reading glasses to make up for it. Usually, Mulder is seen wearing his work clothes - a plain black or navy suit and tie. In his spare time, he dresses a lot more casually - typically, in a plain t-shirt and jeans.

Though other areas of his life may be a chaotic mess, Mulder takes care in his appearance. He likes to look good, and he very much thinks of himself as a cool guy.

Bill and Teena Mulder
Mulder's parents. William 'Bill' Mulder spent some time in the military before spending the majority of his career working for the State Department, working on numerous highly classified projects. In 1973, following the disappearance of their daughter, Bill and Teena Mulder divorced.

In 1995, Bill Mulder was assassinated in his home by Alex Krycek, a former colleague of Mulder's. Subsequently, Mulder began to learn about his father's involvement in a top secret government conspiracy, and that he had a hand in the disappearance of his sister.

Samantha Mulder
Mulder's sister. Samantha was four years younger than Mulder. In 1973, when she was eight and he was twelve, Samantha vanished from their family home. This event affected Mulder for the rest of his life.

Despite an unusually large search operation (due to Bill Mulder's connections), there was no evidence pointing towards where Samantha went. The investigation into her disappearance was eventually dropped, and the lack of closure (and lack of communication within the family) drove Bill and Teena to divorce.

In 1989, Mulder underwent deep hypnotic regression therapy to attempt to access repressed memories in the hope that it would reveal some new information about his sister. He recalled a bright light outside and a presence in the room, and remembered that he had been paralyzed and unable to respond to his sister's called for help. He concluded that his sister had been abducted by aliens, which ultimately led him to his discovery of the X-files.

Though he still has yet to find any solid evidence, Mulder remains convinced that his sister is out there somewhere, and that he will one day bring her home.

Mulder spent his childhood in Martha's Vineyard. Other than his first words ("JFK"), he was a reasonably normal child. He enjoyed sports (especially baseball) and playing outdoors, as well as magic, science fiction, and mysteries. For a long time, he was obsessed with NASA and wanted to become an astronaut when he grew up.

After his sister's abduction when he was twelve, everything changed. His perfect life quickly fell apart. Samantha couldn't be found, nobody would talk about it, and his parents soon divorced.

Though what had happened to his sister weighed heavily on his mind, Mulder continued his normal childhood. In 1983, when he was 22, Mulder studied at Oxford University (Jesus College) in the UK. He studied Psychology, Philosophy, and Linguistics (choosing psychology and philosophy as his two topics). Mulder was well-liked, did well with the ladies, and was even on the university rowing team for a while. He graduated top of his class in 1986.

In 1986, when Mulder was 25, he entered the FBI Academy. He graduated later that year with honours, and with an exceedingly promising career as a criminal profiler ahead of him.

Over the next few years, he worked in first the Investigative Support Unit, and then the Violent Crimes Section. In 1988, he began work for the Behavioural Sciences Unit, where he worked for almost three years before he stumbled across the X-files.

An X-file is a case that has been designated unsolved, no matter how much evidence there may be of an explanation. Mulder's first X-file was that of his sister, having requested it in the hope that he could discover a previously unseen detail in the case that would finally lead to her location. At first, he thought that the files seemed like nonsense. However, Mulder quickly became fascinated by them and, fueled by his own extraterrestrial experience, began reading all the files he could, as well as researching the topics held within them.

Though the files were a project outside of the FBI mainstream, Mulder kept pursuing them, soon convincing those above him to allow him to head up a unit specifically focusing on investigating X-files. Two factors helped him achieve this: firstly, there were high hopes for Mulder's career, and his curiosities were being entertained in the hopes that he would move on from them as soon as he had exhausted the search for his sister, and secondly, he had connections within Congress that backed up his petition.

For the most part, Mulder worked alone. In 1991, he worked with his then girlfriend, Diana Fowley, on a few X-Files. However, it was not until 1992, when Dana Scully joined the unit, that he worked with somebody full-time on the project.

The X-Files Unit's office is in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, D.C. It is dimly lit, cluttered, and full of all kinds of supernatural, paranormal, and extraterrestrial books, memorabilia, and evidence.

Needless to say, Mulder has quite the reputation within the FBI. Nicknamed 'Spooky', he's known for his outlandish theories and belief in extraterrestrials. However, his reputation isn't all bad - Mulder is also known for his skills as a profiler, the numerous monographs and criminal profiles that he has written, and, at one point, he was thought of as the best analyst in the Violent Crimes Section.

Despite his positives, very few agents actively want to work with him. Mulder, and his ideas, are regularly laughed at, both behind his back and to his face. He is aware of this, but he doesn't care. In fact, part of Mulder enjoys playing into the 'spooky' persona that has been assigned to him.

Outside of the FBI, Mulder also has a reputation among UFO enthusiasts. In his spare time, he has been known to write articles for Omni. All his writing has been under pseudonyms, but that has not stopped conspiracy theorist groups from being able to work out who he is, and some have even gone as far as tracking him via the public record of his FBI expenses. Of course, this is partly Mulder's own fault, as the pseudonyms he uses do not tend to be particularly strong ('M. F. Luder', 'Marty Mulder', and so on).

Outside of work, Mulder has a few interests. He enjoys researching the paranormal and occult, and has written articles for magazines on these topics. He is also a fan of classic films/television - especially science fiction and horror - and regularly watches old films during the evening.

Mulder enjoys sports. He exercises regularly, including jogging and swimming, and he's a keen baseball fan. However, Mulder does not tend to actually go to baseball games. Instead, he enjoys memorising scores and statistics from the matches, including from games that happened decades ago.

He enjoys 'adult media', and has a number of VHS tapes and magazines that he isn't at all subtle about, leaving them out in the office. He is subscribed to Hanky Panky magazine, which provides photos and articles with a science fiction twist.

His apartment is in Alexandria, Virginia - about 20 minutes drive from his work. While on the surface it does not appear too messy, this is because he's shoved everything into his bedroom, which he is using as a storage closet. Subsequently, Mulder does not actually have a bed, and sleeps on his sofa instead.

Mulder does have friends. He gets on well with his partner on the X-Files, Scully, and he is also friends with a group of conspiracy theorists named the Lone Gunmen that assist him on cases from time to time.

Some other facts about Mulder are:

• He is red-green colourblind
• His favourite snack is sunflower seeds (which he eats incorrectly)
• He has pet fish. Scully feeds them for him when he's out of town. Many people are shocked that he's managed to keep them alive
• He has a phobia of fire, though he is fine with it when it is controlled
• To try and shut his mind down and allow himself to see cases more clearly, he watches Plan 9 from Outer Space. One year, he watched it over 42 times
• He dislikes his first name, and even tried to make his parents call him Mulder
• He has a photographic memory
• When working, he keeps a second gun in an ankle holster in case he loses his main gun (which happens surprisingly often)
• He can pick locks

This article describes common pre-established verses. Other verses are available but must be discussed prior to any threads. Individual interactions occur in their own separate universes unless otherwise discussed. Please send an IM if interested in plotting any interactions.

Set at an unspecified point between S1-5, Mulder follows the majority of information described on this page.

Set post S9, but pre-*The X Files: I Want to Believe*.

Set post S11.