Story 196: "The Lure of the Fox" by Caroline O'Callaghan

[wendelah1]

This week's story was nominated by badforthefish. Go Fish!

The Lure of the Fox
By Caroline O'Callaghan
Rating: NC-17 I suppose, but it's nothing too bad (not sure what she means by that...I guess we'll have to wait and see.)
Classification: Mulder/Scully Romance. Mulder and Scully pursue a serial killer who calls himself 'The Fox

Comments

[badforthefish]

The Annex has the whole story in one big text file, it may even be a revised version. I notice a "but" had been removed from the first paragraph

[estella_c]

Don't feel bad, Fish. I think we've all had the experience of reccing something we wish we hadn't.

Anyhow, I've been saying for a while that examining a failed fic *can* be as interesting as analyzing a good one. Why was it popular? (You sort of answered that.) What does it provide for a fan that a fic like ESF or FF does not. Sometimes literature is not quite what we're after. Particularly in fanfic, riddled as it is with shipping.

You get to talk about fictional quality and also about fan psychology.

Of course a good copy-edit does prevent frustration.

[badforthefish]

Eh, thanks. I'll be more careful next time. It wouldn't matter so much if it was short, as it is, I feel kinda bad you lot are going to have to suffer through pages after pages of the damn thing.

Fanfic is like food. Sometimes you enjoy a delicate well balanced meal but sometimes you can go for junk food. And again, it's not like we had a lot of choice back in the days.

[wendelah1]

Thanks for telling me that the link wasn't to a complete version.

Yeah, I agree that sometimes dissecting a flawed story can be more interesting than discussing a really good one. I have to work this weekend; in fact, I have to go get dressed for work now, so I won't have much to say until next week.

"Life During Wartime" is an exceptional story, one we aren't likely to see the likes of again in this fandom and probably not the best point of comparison. Maybe "Arcadia"? Is that the one that has camping in it? Or maybe "Camping"? Which is a parody, right?

[badforthefish]

Thanks for telling me that the link wasn't to a complete version.

My bad hon', the fredfarm.com one was the link I gave in the nomination post. I hadn't noticed it was truncated.

I haven't read "Arcadia" or "Camping". I'll have a look for them.

[wendelah1]

It said on the header at Gossamer that it was a parody; however, it was written in 1995 so I wonder how much fic was even around to parody? For what it's worth, I thought Oklahoma was a parody and it was completely serious.

[wendelah1]

I just can't see Scully referring to herself as a "pathetic nerd," even in her private thoughts. Maybe when she was a teenager she might think that. Maybe. But this just felt unrealistic to me. Also, why would Scully worry that a guy who's dedicated his life to proving the existence of extraterrestrials, and who hangs out with a trio of computer geeks, would think she's a "pathetic nerd"?LOL

[wendelah1]

The story has many promising elements, but as you (and the rest of the group) have already pointed out, the writing is really clunky. I read/skimmed through the entire first section and it did surprise me in a couple of places. Maybe I should have seen it coming but I was not expecting the good sheriff to make a pass at Scully. I was also not expecting the Consortium to be involved in this case, so that was an interesting twist to the plot.

I agree that AKA J's time-travel story was a little over the top but I liked Abaddon's Reign.