Yes, though it's been a number of years. I can't remember who recced it to me. Maybe I read it off the Lost and Found list. I'm rereading it now. I can't believe it was written in 1997.
Dreamcatcher is a solid, involving piece of work. As a shipper I find casefiles dull unless there is some form of relationship volatility. I was occasionally impatient reading this, but I wasn't bored
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Response part onewendelah1June 23 2010, 16:07:35 UTC
I think the rarity of female serial killers is certainly part of what makes them appealing to writers. I haven't read much of dtg's other work so I hadn't realized she's written another female serial killer story. This is The X-Files, so spirit/demonic possession can't really be dismissed as laughably implausible the way it could be if this was NCIS fic.
Mulder tilts his head at the sheriff. "They agree with Sheriff Kessler that the change in her was dramatic and very abrupt. It's only in retrospect that they were able to pinpoint the time." Mulder gives the sheriff a nod, passing the verbal baton
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Response part twowendelah1June 23 2010, 16:10:16 UTC
Mulder and Scully are in a holding pattern here, with Mulder the amnesiac profiler cleared for government work but not ready to resume a love relationship he can't bring to mind. It should be awkward and it is, though maybe not awkward enough.
It seems pretty awkward to me, not to mention painful, at least for Scully. The plot ending as it begins with emotional pain and no hope for a resolution is undoubtedly why I like this story as much as I do. Crazy as it sounds, I might like it less if it had been finished, especially if I wasn't happy with the ending. I suspect one of the reasons it wasn't finished is that dtg couldn't conceive of a way to bring it all together. I'd still be thrilled if she did resume writing.
Because I am a masochist, I found what she had written on Wayback and reread it. "The Footsteps of Angels". God, I'd forgotten what a cliffhanger she'd left us with.
marionravenwood recommended "Possession" which I did read. It's well-written, but it ends too quickly and too predictably for my taste. I also found the emotional aspects
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Re: Response part twoestella_cJune 23 2010, 19:00:47 UTC
When I wrote "in bad" I really meant "in bed." But you probably know that.
I persist in thinking that The X-Files flew as it did because it was *really* about relationship. And I like fics that are about the Ship, but that doesn't mean I prefer "pure romance." The very phrase makes me feel clammy. Relationship is a big term, an umbrella term, and that's (for me) what the R in MSR stands for. No one ever explained the acronym to me, so I did it all my own self.
You know this too. Anyhow, I'm off topic.
Fact is, I forgot the possession explanation, which indicates it didn't ring true to me. It didn't show up in Michael's personality or in the writing style.
Also forgot "The Footsteps of Angels." Probably should have checked on that.
apparently also having a kink for amnesia plotsbmerbJune 7 2016, 19:17:06 UTC
Ok so I started with the epilogue to Tabula Rasa and got so sucked in I had to read the entire thing. TOTALLY. SUCKED. IN. Perturbing and mytharch-ish with subtlety to relationship and emotion. Ahhh... Hoping Dreamcatcher is as interesting and disturbingly satisfying. I'm assuming you have read Fugue by Rivkat? It's somehow reminiscent of this, or rather this of that since Fugue was written earlier. I like this post Je Souhaite AU more than CC's canon, disturbing as it is.
And, one year I asked Rivkat for a better resolution to the fic. That scene at the end with Scully on the floor after her encounter with the CSM haunted me.
I think I said in another comment that I might like "In the Footsteps of Angels" better for being unfinished, especially if it turned out I wasn't happy with the resolution. This way I am free to imagine an ending that I'm happy with. It would be tricky to come up with something that tied the three stories together, resolved the serial murders (if that's what they turn out to be, jury's still out on that), and got Mulder back his memories without destroying him in the process. I think they'll have to go back to New Mexico again...
Re: apparently also having a kink for amnesia plotsbmerbJune 9 2016, 00:34:26 UTC
wow, YOU are the reason she wrote Devoutly to be wished??? OMG thank you! I read Fugue back in the day and was SO disturbed, seriously, that I haven't been able to bring myself to read it in its entirety again to this day.
I HAVE read the new resolution piece you asked for, as well as the alternative version where Mulder never regains his self, but Scully does (which of course suits me better since I'm a ridiculously devoted Scullyist despite never being an official member of the OBSSE back in the day). *Whew* How cool that you were the reason she wrote that??
I read and enjoyed Dreamcatcher quite a lot. The casefile, the M/S interactions, the amnesia, all of that works for me. It felt like the case itself was wrapped up a bit abruptly for my taste. I couldn't quite buy or perhaps even follow the author's underlying reasoning for Michael's serial killings and how they connected to those from Grotesque, BUT... overall I enjoyed the whole thing so much that this was fairly minor. Went on to read the available chapters of In The Footsteps Of Angels and now of course I'm in pain since there is no conclusion in sight. The author left a note on her website from 2013 claiming she was going to finish it, but nothing. Any chance she finished it and its archived elsewhere???
Re: ARGH! CLIFFHANGER!wendelah1June 8 2016, 17:37:35 UTC
No. It was never finished. This story is the reason I no longer read WIPs. (You can see my reasoning. This cliffhanger was so painful. I thought about it for months afterward.) As I periodically do, I sent her an email recently telling her I was thinking about the story. I'm still hoping she'll find her way to completing it. I haven't heard back. Some time ago she told me she has a complete outline but who knows what happened in the interim? She actually took the chapters down at one point and put them back up when she began working on the fic again. I don't know what happened.
But you never know. For the 20th anniversary, Syntax6 came back and finished "Original Sin," and that was after five years away from the fandom. It could still happen.
You are not alone in feeling the resolution of "Dreamcatcher" was unsatisfying. It was, however, atmospheric and scary, with Mulder and Scully stuck on the ice, and the last minute rescue. The symbolism of the dreamcatcher worked for me, too.
Re: ARGH! CLIFFHANGER!bmerbJune 9 2016, 00:40:33 UTC
That was one helluva cliffhanger, and I see how you could think about it for months afterwards. I have theories, and then theories of theories. And I'm not at all sure I like the psychiatrist. Maybe. ARGH! I want to see what she would have come up with, but I too am a little afraid. Maybe if many of us wrote to her it would be an encouraging nudge
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Re: ARGH! CLIFFHANGER!wendelah1June 13 2016, 08:15:18 UTC
I have suspicious feelings about the psychiatrist and the young FBI agent. It's unethical for the psychiatrist to disclose anything that Mulder confided, unless he believes that Mulder is a danger to others or has committed a dangerous crime. What is he up to? There's a problem with continuity, too. At the of "Dreamcatcher," they're sleeping together and seeming very connected but in "Footsteps" they seemed back to square one. No mention of returning to New Mexico although they talked about it in "Dreamcatcher." Instead Mulder has left BSU because he feels like he failed as a profiler and now he is leaving Scully?
I think there is a psychic connection between M and S at the end of "Dreamcatcher." He's unconscious and she's reading his mind.
Ok one more reading and something else popped out at me. The lake that was next to Michael's cabin was called Iktomi lake. The lake that fissured and dropped her through the ice, sending a web of cracks that nearly killed M & S. So that was certainly an interesting choice of names, because Iktomi means spider in Lakota, and is also the name of Spider, the archetypal trickster (who is NOT a heroic figure but more of a troublemaker and a lesson in bad behavior and consequences). The author has sadly conflated Dine (Navajo) traditions with Ojibwe in the case of dream catchers, and has added her own twist to it (the spirit that can embody those dreams). Often word searches online don't credit language of origin for various indigenous our words (just calling them "Indian") so I'm wondering if this is where the author got the name for Iktomi lake, and if she wanted specific implications... damn I so wish she had completed the final story of the trilogy!!! Thinking back to Tabulate Rasa Scully had a nightmare that same first night when
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Comments 17
Have you read "Possessions" by R.J. Anderson?
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Mulder tilts his head at the sheriff. "They agree with Sheriff Kessler that the change in her was dramatic and very abrupt. It's only in retrospect that they were able to pinpoint the time." Mulder gives the sheriff a nod, passing the verbal baton ( ... )
Reply
It seems pretty awkward to me, not to mention painful, at least for Scully. The plot ending as it begins with emotional pain and no hope for a resolution is undoubtedly why I like this story as much as I do. Crazy as it sounds, I might like it less if it had been finished, especially if I wasn't happy with the ending. I suspect one of the reasons it wasn't finished is that dtg couldn't conceive of a way to bring it all together. I'd still be thrilled if she did resume writing.
Because I am a masochist, I found what she had written on Wayback and reread it. "The Footsteps of Angels". God, I'd forgotten what a cliffhanger she'd left us with.
marionravenwood recommended "Possession" which I did read. It's well-written, but it ends too quickly and too predictably for my taste. I also found the emotional aspects ( ... )
Reply
I persist in thinking that The X-Files flew as it did because it was *really* about relationship. And I like fics that are about the Ship, but that doesn't mean I prefer "pure romance." The very phrase makes me feel clammy. Relationship is a big term, an umbrella term, and that's (for me) what the R in MSR stands for. No one ever explained the acronym to me, so I did it all my own self.
You know this too. Anyhow, I'm off topic.
Fact is, I forgot the possession explanation, which indicates it didn't ring true to me. It didn't show up in Michael's personality or in the writing style.
Also forgot "The Footsteps of Angels." Probably should have checked on that.
Reply
I'll get back on here after reading D!
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"A Shared Obsession"
And, one year I asked Rivkat for a better resolution to the fic. That scene at the end with Scully on the floor after her encounter with the CSM haunted me.
"Devoutly to be wished"
I'm sure there's an amnesia fic list somewhere.
I think I said in another comment that I might like "In the Footsteps of Angels" better for being unfinished, especially if it turned out I wasn't happy with the resolution. This way I am free to imagine an ending that I'm happy with. It would be tricky to come up with something that tied the three stories together, resolved the serial murders (if that's what they turn out to be, jury's still out on that), and got Mulder back his memories without destroying him in the process. I think they'll have to go back to New Mexico again...
Reply
I HAVE read the new resolution piece you asked for, as well as the alternative version where Mulder never regains his self, but Scully does (which of course suits me better since I'm a ridiculously devoted Scullyist despite never being an official member of the OBSSE back in the day). *Whew* How cool that you were the reason she wrote that??
Reply
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But you never know. For the 20th anniversary, Syntax6 came back and finished "Original Sin," and that was after five years away from the fandom. It could still happen.
You are not alone in feeling the resolution of "Dreamcatcher" was unsatisfying. It was, however, atmospheric and scary, with Mulder and Scully stuck on the ice, and the last minute rescue. The symbolism of the dreamcatcher worked for me, too.
Reply
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I think there is a psychic connection between M and S at the end of "Dreamcatcher." He's unconscious and she's reading his mind.
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