After reading "Five Things That Never Happened to Dana Scully" last week, it seems appropriate that this week's offering is also about a "road not taken." Since three members separately expressed some interest in reading it, and because Sabine is an accomplished and entertaining writer, "Dance Card" is now on our dance card.
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Author's Note )
But I love these-- especially the third, Moonshine, which for all its original-character third POV kind-of-Mary-Sueing, is just a damn good time! It's fun, and awkward, and funny to see Mulder and Scully kind of deflated, no longer mythic, from the POV of other characters. I could never tell if Sabine was just really invested in making her narrator's perspective realistic, or if she was working out her own not-so-latent resentment of Scully (or the kind of person she wrote Scully to be, which is far colder IMO than Scully actually is in canon). Kind of weird. But again, fun, and engaging. I always remember Sabine and these three fics, because I remember first reading Sabine maybe six or eight months into my hardcore fic-reading, XF fandom life. I was fifteen, and I read her fic, and even though I was kind of turned off by it, or I disagreed with it and felt like she was twisting canon, I still enjoyed it; and what's more I actually kind of enjoyed it *for* being twisted. Normally (and still today, for most fic) that is totally opposed to my reading instincts, but I can appreciate it here.
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Only in so far as her choice of professions. Forensic Pathology was an uncommon choice for women back in the eighties when she would have done her residency. And of course, the FBI was not a common choice either. But I don't see Scully as a rebel without a cause and it is a little hard for me to see her running all over campus in the dead of night "chalking" when she could be studying.
What does seem in-character for Scully at least in Dance Card is how much she follows people around, but in a way that makes her seem really distant. Hard to explain.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Scully is reserved, but I think there is an underlying warmth that shows through all of the time, especially toward Mulder. I don't get where Sabine is coming from in suggesting she's cold. Not a risk-taker in the romance department by the time this story is set, but that's understandable.
I do think people had more latitude back in the day to create whatever versions of Mulder and Scully they wanted, as long they could write well. If the people who are participating here are representative of the remnant of the fandom (and I'm not meaning this as a criticism, just an observation), I don't think there is much tolerance for coloring outside the lines. I know it was controversial back in the day, but I don't think a fic like "Iolokus" even would be written today, let alone posted.
Normally (and still today, for most fic) that is totally opposed to my reading instincts, but I can appreciate it here.
And you might be one of the more adventuresome readers.
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Not sure. We had the Wicked X Witches, Godawful Trekfic (which expanded to XF and other fandoms) and the offshoot atxc discussion lists, which could get extremely volatile. Names were named and stories (and writers' personal characters and integrity, lol) were picked to pieces, sometimes in the interests of constructive criticism, sometimes not. It wasn't exclusively directed at "bad" fanfiction--very popular and objectively good writers were discussed widely too.
I'm not sure I'm current enough on XF fandom to be able to comment, but if anything I suspect the difference is just fandom output. For every Iolokus we had 400 less daring/less memorable fics.
That said, while the show was still being written the characters were more mutable. Now that there's no more canon (?), we can consider them more set in stone.
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I'm not sure I'm current enough on XF fandom to be able to comment, but if anything I suspect the difference is just fandom output. For every Iolokus we had 400 less daring/less memorable fics.
It seems like there was more range and imagination back in the fandom's heyday than there is now, but you are right, that can probably be accounted for by output. There were so many more writers back in the day. We are down to just a handful now, and I suspect it will ever remain so.
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It's good that people are still writing in this fandom at all. There are still a lot of good stories being written.
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It was here, on LJ, back in the day, before my time here. It was in one of those anon communities. The mod posted a different fandom every week and response was kind of tepid until she posted TXF. All hell broke loose. Everyone who ever participated in the fandom anywhere must have shown up at some point. It made me feel uncomfortable. I say critical things about fic here but I try not to be rude or make it personal. If I fail, I assume someone will let me know (looks around nervously).
I always thought the fanfic writer blacklist was horrible. Luckily not too many people took it seriously, but there was so much bile in the fandom for a time.
Can you tell me more about it. PM me if you want.
We are lucky to still have good fic being written for us.
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Are you talking about the fanfic_hate community? I actually loved that place. But what makes it okay, I feel, is that Iolokus stands trial, and Penumbra's writing stands trial, as well as a lot of less respected fics and authors, which kept it from feeling too much like bullying. I guess if I saw my fic being bashed there it might hurt. Then again, it might feel great, knowing anyone had noticed my fanfic enough to bash it. *shrugs*
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I didn't enjoy seeing how people in our fandom treated one another, especially when given the opportunity to be anons. I don't like hate communities, period. It was physically painful for me to read through, but once I started, I found I couldn't stop. Now that I've found the link, I'm feeling anxious and sick just thinking about it.
Another community I liked actually was started at the end of that round, the fictalk messageboard. So something good did come out of it for me.
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Fictalk...oooh, wouldn't touch that last thread with a ten foot pole. Seriously though, I'm sorry I found out about this place so late because I always felt we needed a place to be able to criticize fics without having the "You're So Mean" brigade use you for target practice. Which is why I'm very grateful for the freedom of speech we have here in the book club.
I thought the Wicked Witches gave a lot of good pointers, but the stories they chose to pick on were too easy targets. It was like kicking a puppy.
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The most recent lineup at their site was mostly lesser-respected fics and authors. With the possible exception of Tantric. Was Tantric respected?
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I was so proud to be on it. *G*
Yeah, there was a lot of bile and I only knew about ATXC. But at least it was out in the open. I wonder if there is no longer any flame wars because people are wiser, self censoring themselves or simply sneakier.
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Back in the days the majority of fics were tepid pedestrian affairs at best but we had a good pool of great writers who enjoyed "colouring outside the lines" and who were well received because of the quality of their writing. Sadly most of these people moved on to new pastures and as the fandom shrunk, the bulk of medicore fics just became more noticeable.
Then of course there is the Haven phenomenon. Don't get me started on that.
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