I'm pretty sure some of these straight up don't exist in the XF fandom (e.g. The coffee shop AU, the teacher/student AU, the chem lab partners AU) And yeah, "French," WTF? There's a pretty epic Sherlock fic in which Sherlock is a French tennis player, but in the XF fandom? Hmm, let's go with La Belle Dame Sans Merci by MustangSally, because it has a french title, and it was the only french fic title I could think of. (I haven't read the fic though.)
The One Fic that's So Sad Even the Title Makes You Cry: For me, it's I'm Damaged as I'm Sure You Know by crookedhalt, though For The Weary by threeguesses has also been known to bring the waterworks. But the fic that takes the top spot is definitely a Sherlock fic, Make Whole What Has Been Smashed by Charlie J.
Which fic is it for you?
Convenient Mistletoe: Woot! Mistletoe Madness by Syntax6. Is that the one you were thinking of? (I bet it was.)
500,000 Words and They Still Haven't Kissed: The closest I can think of (unless we count gen fic) is Universal Invariants, which took maybe 60,000 words for them to kiss (and. it. was. AWESOME).
Dramatic Car Accident Scene: Didn't Bonetree do a fic like this? ...Goshen?
The High School AU: Well...there's Friends Even in Childhood by Penny Daza, but I don't think any of it takes place at school. I don't really remember the fic much.
The Entire Fandom Has Read This AU: I find this question interesting because the XF fandom has a very different definition of AU than a lot of fandoms have, especially more recent ones. Most newer fandoms only really consider a fic an AU if the characters meet under entirely different circumstances and a lot of other things are different. Whereas in the XF fandom AUs were pretty much anything that deviated from canon in a definite way. So by XF fandom standards, the most popular answer to this would probably be Iolokus. Whereas by greater fandom's standards it might be something liiike...Paracelsus? Or Pru's baseball one maybe?
Of Course You Have Lube in Your Pocket: This is so very specific to slash fandoms, I think. I can't think of a single fic at the moment in which M&S even use lube (which, granted, is not a particularly realistic portrayal of het sex, from what I gather, but that's neither here nor there).
Platonically Sleeping in the Same Bed: Does a tent count? Because if so then Parabiosis! In which they keep to their respective sides of the sleeping bag, "like octopi in jars." *cuddles fic*
ETA: Oops, sorry, I didn't notice that you'd posted this to the XF book club. I thought it was in your journal. (I was scrolling my flist like a zombie. t's 4AM here, which accounts for my not realizing the obvious.) If I'd realized, I wouldn't have been talking about Sherlock fics, since obviously this is an XF discussion.
I haven't read the sad ones you mentioned, so they are added to my list for when I would like to cry. ha. Mine is 7 Days in May. I feel like I should re-read it, but I haven't been able to make myself do it. It made me sad for weeks the first time I read it. Maybe at this point, I have built it up more in my head than is merited, though. Paracelsus definitely made me cry the first time through, as did Water's Edge, but I have re-read them without any tissues.
Dramatic Car Accident Scene: Didn't Bonetree do a fic like this? ...Goshen?
Yes, Goshen, which was then followed by several long stories in a "secret world" universe (I think that's what it was called). Pretty good. (Also long.)
I agree, the AU categorization covers a wide range of "alternative-ness" but I guess for bingo purposes that is a good thing - more to choose from.
Do you know why "7 Days in May" is such a sad story for you, I'm just curious? These things are very personal so you don't have to say, of course.
Mulder and Scully end up together, they still have William, they get a vaccine for the alien virus, nobody dies, and the world doesn't end. As prufrock's love stories go, it's a walk in the park.
Well, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound so bad :) I can try to explain but I think it might not make sense. (And if I got over myself and re-read the darn story, then it might make the whole thing moot anyway.)
Trying to be objective, I think context played a big part. I read it near the beginning of my fic-reading and hadn't read anything of such high quality yet (except for the first part, The 13th Sign) and certainly nothing that made me take the story and characters so seriously. Also, if I had read, eg Paracelsus, before 7 Days in May, then I may have had more perspective on the way prufrock's love writes Mulder and that could have been enough to create just a tiny bit of distance on my part. (When I did read her historical AUs later, I definitely found similarities in her Mulders across stories, including that he is an unreliable narrator and often what he narrates and thinks and even claims to feel are not the whole truth, but of course you don't find that out right away, and it took multiple stories for all the implications of that to sink in for me.)
Less objectively, I remember getting to a line very near the beginning of the story where it says that six years have passed and Scully still doesn't remember her time with Mulder on the X-Files and basically things haven't really worked out between Mulder and newScully. I almost stopped reading right there. Then through the whole story (again, from my sketchy memory of details), Mulder is still trying to deal with the fact that Scully isn't the same person and basically mourning one version of her while trying to relate to the 'new' version, and Scully is dealing with the fact that she is constantly disappointing him by not being who he wants her to be. Mulder keeps having these dreams/hallucinations where he interacts with "his" Scully (so no wonder he can't possibly get beyond losing Scully to be able to potentially appreciate the Scully that does still exist) and those scenes kept playing over in my mind after I finished the story.
It's entirely possible that I missed some of the potential hope towards the end because I was fairly emotionally distraught and just so hung up on how terrible it all was. But what I got was that there was a tentative positive step in the MS relationship and they were going to get to work fighting the fight. Which is good, but no fix for Scully having lost a chunk of herself and Mulder having essentially lost Scully. (However. I caught a lot of things I missed in the historical AUs on re-reads partly because of my similarly distraught state in the first readings of those and partly because of the way prufrock's love layers things in so that you don't find out really important pieces of information until very late in the story that really color the preceding events. So, back to my first point, I should probably just stop being a baby and re-read the story.) Anyway, I remember getting to the end of the story and just wanting the author to take it back, take it all back! And, really, it kind of haunted me for weeks.
Also, I was pregnant and maybe hormones were involved? (just kidding) ok, long tangent over.
I'm not advising that you reread it. But my take on the ending was quite different. Maybe it would help if I share it?
Spoilers for the ending to 7 Days in May. * * * * * * Mulder believed that she'd been touched by the alien healer, who'd brought all of the other people back from the dead. He believed that her memories were beginning to return and that her fertility was restored--hence his desire to have another child with her. Scully didn't believe in aliens, let alone that she'd been healed but there was some evidence--to Mulder--that this was the case.
I agree that what broke them up in the first place was in part his inability to move on and accept who Scully became after her abduction. That was sad, especially since that part could have happened without any alien interference. People sometimes lose their memories as they age, from various degenerative brain diseases. Hard as that would be to accept and live with, I can't imagine Mulder not accepting that tragic loss of memory. I think he should have been able to get with the program the first time around.
But there was no question in my mind that by the end of the story they were back together, that Mulder believed her memories were returning, and moreover that they'd agreed to have another child, save the world and live happily ever after.
The nice thing is they're characters in her story so we can imagine any sort of continuation we want after the curtain falls. In real life, it's a total crap shoot. You never know what sort of hand you're going to get dealt the very next day.
One small piece of advice. If the ending to this story threw you for a loop, don't read "Fugue" by Rivkat.
Mulder believed that she'd been touched by the alien healer, who'd brought all of the other people back from the dead. He believed that her memories were beginning to return and that her fertility was restored--hence his desire to have another child with her.
Yes, this is basically what I thought happened but I didn't fully realize it at first because I was just too caught up in being upset and then when it did sink in, it was like it was too late or something (for me, emotionally-speaking). Thank you for confirming :)
I think he should have been able to get with the program the first time around.
prufrock's love does a great job of writing a Mulder who is really good at getting in his own way like that.
so we can imagine any sort of continuation we want after the curtain falls
or read another fic and give them a different adventure altogether.
I remember getting to a line very near the beginning of the story where it says that six years have passed and Scully still doesn't remember her time with Mulder on the X-Files and basically things haven't really worked out between Mulder and newScully. I almost stopped reading right there.
For what it's worth tri_sbr, I definitely would have stopped reading then and there. Except that I never read 7 Days in May in the first place, because The 13th Sign turned me off so much for the same reasons you talk about in your comment re: 7 Days in May. So I totally get where you're coming from on this. I couldn't even begin to get past the fact that Scully had forgotten her time on the X-Files, and I didn't want to get past it. Objectively, The 13th Sign is well written, well plotted, and way better than anything S9 threw at us, but the memory loss premise made it a non-starter for me.
So actually, tri_sbr and I had somewhat opposite reactions to this fic universe, even though we felt similarly about it. tri_sbr found it devastating, as I undoubtedly would have if I hadn't basically refused to accept it to begin with. My response the whole time I was reading was basically "Nope. Nope. Why would I want to go with you on this one? Well, I'm not going to, so."
On the other hand, I really liked Fugue by RivkaT, which wendelah1 mentions in her reply. The thing about Fugue is that it's straight up horror, and I think it/the author knows that. So while it made me feel a bit sick inside, I admired it because that was what it was aiming to do. The fic and I were on the same page there, and by the end of the fic there wasn't really any thought that things could ever be okay again. Whereas with The 13th Sign I felt like the fic and I were on completely different pages; I couldn't understand why it was taking the tack is was, and I couldn't understand why I would want to go along for that ride.
hmm, interesting to hear the compare / contrast on our reactions.
My response the whole time I was reading was basically "Nope. Nope. Why would I want to go with you on this one? Well, I'm not going to, so."
I think I am much better at doing this now after reading a lot more fic (well, I still tend to read or at least skim the story if I start it as opposed to stop reading, but there are more instances where I refuse to go along completely for the emotional ride). When I read 7 Days, I hadn't read nearly as many stories, and it was much easier to get totally caught up in it (and I guess I'm a sucker for prufrock's love's writing style too).
Regarding Fugue, I looked it up and apparently I did already read it, but it (obviously) didn't make nearly as much of an impression on me. I think my reaction was kind of similar to yours except I wouldn't say I really liked it but maybe 'I liked it ok.' Like when I read Iolokus, I felt rather detached from the story so the horror / sadness / other terribleness felt like it was happening around me, not inside of me where it would really hurt (if that makes any sense at all).
I think I am much better at doing this now after reading a lot more fic (well, I still tend to read or at least skim the story if I start it as opposed to stop reading, but there are more instances where I refuse to go along completely for the emotional ride). When I read 7 Days, I hadn't read nearly as many stories, and it was much easier to get totally caught up in it (and I guess I'm a sucker for prufrock's love's writing style too).
First off, I hope I didn't make you feel you had to defend yourself for having fic feels. I didn't mean to!
But yeah, my reaction to that fic universe probably did have something to do with when I was reading it - i.e. right near the end of my days as a diehard X-phile. My first year or so in a new fandom is always when I have the most intense fanfic-reading experiences, because I'm not inured to anything yet, and I haven't learned fandom's rhythms and patterns, so I'm way more likely to be caught off guard by something.
Like when I read Iolokus, I felt rather detached from the story so the horror / sadness / other terribleness felt like it was happening around me, not inside of me where it would really hurt (if that makes any sense at all).
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. It also sort of pertains to what I was saying to Wendelah in a comment down thread, which is that I experience horror and sadness in fanfic in very different ways, stemming mainly from the fact that horror is a psychological experience first, which then sort of wicks out into an emotional reaction. Whereas sadness is, first and foremost, just this deluge of emotion.
A horror story has to worm its way into my head, whereas a sad story often feels like it's pulling something out of me that was already there.
Which may also be why I'm more likely to get angry with sad fic, because I often feel like all it / the author is really doing is pushing an emotional button that's predictably present and easily pushed.
First off, I hope I didn't make you feel you had to defend yourself for having fic feels. I didn't mean to!
not at all! and I think you said it better than I did:
My first year or so in a new fandom is always when I have the most intense fanfic-reading experiences, because I'm not inured to anything yet, and I haven't learned fandom's rhythms and patterns, so I'm way more likely to be caught off guard by something.
(except that I'm not in any other fandoms and probably won't be). In fact, I nodded in agreement with this entire comment.
ETA: Oops, sorry, I didn't notice that you'd posted this to the XF book club. I thought it was in your journal. (I was scrolling my flist like a zombie. t's 4AM here, which accounts for my not realizing the obvious.) If I'd realized, I wouldn't have been talking about Sherlock fics, since obviously this is an XF discussion.
That's not a problem. I didn't post any rules for this discussion.
WTF? There's a pretty epic Sherlock fic in which Sherlock is a French tennis player, but in the XF fandom?
LOL. A French tennis player--Sherlock? That's amazing! I am certain there is no French tennis player AU in X-Files fanfic, although it wouldn't surprise me to find one in X-Men or SPN-RPF.
The High School AU: Well...there's Friends Even in Childhood by Penny Daza, but I don't think any of it takes place at school. I don't really remember the fic much.
Ha ha! Someone on my flist actually wrote one of these--it's short, too, thank God, well-written, and not at all explicit. High school kids having sex isn't terribly sexy imho, so that works for me, too. She does a good job of recreating their friendship and co-dependency, I think.
Two Out of Three (Ain't Bad) (3026 words) by sarken Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The X-Files Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully Additional Tags: High School AU Summary: "He said, and I quote, 'I don't date good girls, freshmen, or virgins. And, face it, Danes, you're all three.' Does that satisfy your curiosity, Mulder?"
Dramatic Car Accident Scene: Didn't Bonetree do a fic like this? ...Goshen? Maybe? I honestly don't recall the fic though the name is familiar. There is a car accident scene in "Laws of Motion."
The Entire Fandom Has Read This AU: I find this question interesting because the XF fandom has a very different definition of AU than a lot of fandoms have, especially more recent ones. Most newer fandoms only really consider a fic an AU if the characters meet under entirely different circumstances and a lot of other things are different.
This is interesting: Alternative Universe - Fanlore. I love the Fanlore article because it has a taxonomy of AUs! God, I love fandom.
Whereas in the XF fandom AUs were pretty much anything that deviated from canon in a definite way. So by XF fandom standards, the most popular answer to this would probably be Iolokus. Whereas by greater fandom's standards it might be something liiike...Paracelsus? Or Pru's baseball one maybe?
I might go as far as saying that in XF fandom, what's AU is in the eye of the beholder. Because by the strictest definition, any story in which Mulder and Scully become a couple before season seven is an AU. And I don't think that's most shipper's definition. Certainly any fanfic in which Mulder and Krycek walk off into the sunset together and live happily ever after is an AU in my eyes but I doubt that the M/K slash community would see it that way.
But Iolokus works best for that square because it's an alternative characterization AU (even Rivkat and Mustang Sally concur), that is in the taxonomy, and everyone has read it and/or has an opinion about it. There are people who haven't read any historical AUs so I don't think Paracelsus would work for XF fanfic.
I had to divide my comment into two parts it got so long-winded. Part the Second:
Of Course You Have Lube in Your Pocket: This is so very specific to slash fandoms, I think. I can't think of a single fic at the moment in which M&S even use lube (which, granted, is not a particularly realistic portrayal of het sex, from what I gather, but that's neither here nor there).
This is primarily a het fandom now, but we do have a small slash writing and reading contingent and TXF was once a big slash fandom. Not all, but many people who started out writing het ended up writing slash and then moved on to slash fandoms.
Heh. I wrote a story in which M&S use lube for the first or second XF Porn Battle, but I would agree they are exceedingly rare. I haven't read enough slash in XF fandom to know of a fic for that slot. For slash sex outside the bedroom, the go-to sex act appears to be blow-jobs in the XF fanfic I've read. It's certainly a lot easier to clean-up, but I doubt that's a consideration to many readers or writers of slash (or het for that matter!).:D
Platonically Sleeping in the Same Bed: Does a tent count? Because if so then Parabiosis! In which they keep to their respective sides of the sleeping bag, "like octopi in jars." *cuddles fic*
Ha ha! I had forgotten that scene. Yes, I would say that totally counts. We really should discuss that fic here.
The One Fic that's So Sad Even the Title Makes You Cry: For me, it's I'm Damaged as I'm Sure You Know by crookedhalt, though For The Weary by threeguesses has also been known to bring the waterworks. But the fic that takes the top spot is definitely a Sherlock fic, Make Whole What Has Been Smashed by Charlie J.
Which fic is it for you?
It's not "I'm Damaged As I'm Sure You Know" 'cause I don't remember reading it. Crookedhalt is veils? Or is this someone else? "For the Weary" is a very fine fic and certainly sad enough although "If I Make My Bed In Sheol" is a truer tragedy--to me. A death and a living death.
Maybe "One and Only, First and Last" by onpaperfirst? "Telephones" by cucumberspy was pretty devastating, too. And I thought "From Carthage Then I Came" was incredibly sad. I burst into tears the first time I read it and obsessed about it for an entire night and day. The second time we discussed it I wasn't much better off.
The saddest story in any fandom for me is still "Fireflies" by Ali Snow. Stargate SG-1. It's a wonderful story but man, the angst level is high in that one. Just thinking about it makes me weepy, so that fits my personal square.
500,000 Words and They Still Haven't Kissed: The closest I can think of (unless we count gen fic) is Universal Invariants, which took maybe 60,000 words for them to kiss (and. it. was. AWESOME).
Very awesome indeed. There has to be a longer-slow burn story out there but I don't know what it would be.
"Mistletoe Madness" was it for me, too. No one has done that trope better in any fandom as far as I'm concerned.
Someone on my flist actually wrote one of these--it's short, too, thank God, well-written, and not at all explicit.
Oh, sarken, I like her writing! I haven't read anything by her in aaages though - not since the windup to IWTB. I've bookmarked Two Out of Three and will read it later tonight.
There is a car accident scene in "Laws of Motion."
Somehow I've managed to completely forget that part. *scratches head*
This is interesting: Alternative Universe - Fanlore.
Hah, that's awesome! Thanks for the link.
I love Iolokus for being a characterization AU. There are so few AUs that deliberately explore characterization like that, and I think it's still the best I've ever read.
There are people who haven't read any historical AUs so I don't think Paracelsus would work for XF fanfic.
Yeah, they're not that widely read, really. In offering those as examples, I was just going by the strictest and most exclusive definition of AU, where pretty much everything is different. Back when I was heavily reading XF fanfic, I remember basically considering those sorts of fics novelties. Now I've gotten so used to them, in other fandoms, that looking back it seems fascinating that the XF fandom has so few.
It's not "I'm Damaged As I'm Sure You Know" 'cause I don't remember reading it Crookedhalt is veils? Or is this someone else?
Yeah, veils. I'm not sure if you would like "I'm Damaged." It bears a general resemblance (content-wise) to "Grace Realized" by Michaela, which IIRC wasn't your cup of tea any more than it was mine. I'm not sure why "I'm Damaged" works for me and "Grace Realized" doesn't. I think so much of it comes down to tone, writing style, and length. "I'm Damaged" is really short, sparely written, and I don't feel like it's reveling in its own tragedy - though maybe it is, a little, I don't know.
"For the Weary" is a very fine fic and certainly sad enough although "If I Make My Bed In Sheol" is a truer tragedy--to me. A death and a living death. Maybe "One and Only, First and Last" by onpaperfirst? "Telephones" by cucumberspy was pretty devastating, too. And I thought "From Carthage Then I Came" was incredibly sad. I burst into tears the first time I read it and obsessed about it for an entire night and day.
It's so very, very true that what provokes sadness in a person is incredibly specific to the individual. For me, "If I Make My Bed in Sheol," "Telephones," and "From Carthage Then I Came" are all excellent examples of horror fic. And horror is very distinct and largely separate from sadness, for me - they're very different kinds of distress. Horror subsumes sadness, so that I know there is tragedy in the story, but it's not the dominant sensation I'm left with. Where you cried after finishing "From Carthage Then I Came," my skin prickled and I felt nauseated and jumpy, but I wasn't the least bit inclined to cry. Same with "If I Make My Bed in Sheol." I actually prefer it to "For the Weary," but where FTW made me sob, IIMMBIS made me feel sick.
I actually prefer horror fic; I find that it's usually more sophisticated. It gets into your head and messes with your perceptions in complex ways. Whereas for me the best sad fic is usually extremely simple - e.g. "there is no cure for Scully's cancer, and she dies." The corresponding problem with sad fic, for me, is that I'm usually too aware that it's trying to push my buttons; I end up feeling manipulated, and that makes the sadness seem cloying, and then I get annoyed instead of sad.
The Absence of Memory by Narida Law still reverberates in my mind, more than ten years after I first read it. I can now read it without the punch in the gut feeling I got at the time, but it still makes me sad.
wendelah1 said Telephones, which was also very sad. Stories about despair are usually more upsetting to me than outright tragedy. Keeping with the phone theme, Cellphone by Marasmus is also very upsetting. I never even read Fathoms Five because just the spoiler warning upset me. Yellow Balloon by Zyllah is devastating.
Other fandoms: there's a Lie to Me* story called The place that you cannot yet know by blank, that is one of the saddest things I have ever read, fanfiction or not.
The One Fic that's So Sad Even the Title Makes You Cry: For me, it's I'm Damaged as I'm Sure You Know by crookedhalt, though For The Weary by threeguesses has also been known to bring the waterworks. But the fic that takes the top spot is definitely a Sherlock fic, Make Whole What Has Been Smashed by Charlie J.
Which fic is it for you?
Convenient Mistletoe: Woot! Mistletoe Madness by Syntax6. Is that the one you were thinking of? (I bet it was.)
500,000 Words and They Still Haven't Kissed: The closest I can think of (unless we count gen fic) is Universal Invariants, which took maybe 60,000 words for them to kiss (and. it. was. AWESOME).
Dramatic Car Accident Scene: Didn't Bonetree do a fic like this? ...Goshen?
The High School AU: Well...there's Friends Even in Childhood by Penny Daza, but I don't think any of it takes place at school. I don't really remember the fic much.
The Entire Fandom Has Read This AU: I find this question interesting because the XF fandom has a very different definition of AU than a lot of fandoms have, especially more recent ones. Most newer fandoms only really consider a fic an AU if the characters meet under entirely different circumstances and a lot of other things are different. Whereas in the XF fandom AUs were pretty much anything that deviated from canon in a definite way. So by XF fandom standards, the most popular answer to this would probably be Iolokus. Whereas by greater fandom's standards it might be something liiike...Paracelsus? Or Pru's baseball one maybe?
Of Course You Have Lube in Your Pocket: This is so very specific to slash fandoms, I think. I can't think of a single fic at the moment in which M&S even use lube (which, granted, is not a particularly realistic portrayal of het sex, from what I gather, but that's neither here nor there).
Platonically Sleeping in the Same Bed: Does a tent count? Because if so then Parabiosis! In which they keep to their respective sides of the sleeping bag, "like octopi in jars." *cuddles fic*
ETA: Oops, sorry, I didn't notice that you'd posted this to the XF book club. I thought it was in your journal. (I was scrolling my flist like a zombie. t's 4AM here, which accounts for my not realizing the obvious.) If I'd realized, I wouldn't have been talking about Sherlock fics, since obviously this is an XF discussion.
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I haven't read the sad ones you mentioned, so they are added to my list for when I would like to cry. ha. Mine is 7 Days in May. I feel like I should re-read it, but I haven't been able to make myself do it. It made me sad for weeks the first time I read it. Maybe at this point, I have built it up more in my head than is merited, though. Paracelsus definitely made me cry the first time through, as did Water's Edge, but I have re-read them without any tissues.
Dramatic Car Accident Scene: Didn't Bonetree do a fic like this? ...Goshen?
Yes, Goshen, which was then followed by several long stories in a "secret world" universe (I think that's what it was called). Pretty good. (Also long.)
I agree, the AU categorization covers a wide range of "alternative-ness" but I guess for bingo purposes that is a good thing - more to choose from.
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Mulder and Scully end up together, they still have William, they get a vaccine for the alien virus, nobody dies, and the world doesn't end. As prufrock's love stories go, it's a walk in the park.
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Trying to be objective, I think context played a big part. I read it near the beginning of my fic-reading and hadn't read anything of such high quality yet (except for the first part, The 13th Sign) and certainly nothing that made me take the story and characters so seriously. Also, if I had read, eg Paracelsus, before 7 Days in May, then I may have had more perspective on the way prufrock's love writes Mulder and that could have been enough to create just a tiny bit of distance on my part. (When I did read her historical AUs later, I definitely found similarities in her Mulders across stories, including that he is an unreliable narrator and often what he narrates and thinks and even claims to feel are not the whole truth, but of course you don't find that out right away, and it took multiple stories for all the implications of that to sink in for me.)
Less objectively, I remember getting to a line very near the beginning of the story where it says that six years have passed and Scully still doesn't remember her time with Mulder on the X-Files and basically things haven't really worked out between Mulder and newScully. I almost stopped reading right there. Then through the whole story (again, from my sketchy memory of details), Mulder is still trying to deal with the fact that Scully isn't the same person and basically mourning one version of her while trying to relate to the 'new' version, and Scully is dealing with the fact that she is constantly disappointing him by not being who he wants her to be. Mulder keeps having these dreams/hallucinations where he interacts with "his" Scully (so no wonder he can't possibly get beyond losing Scully to be able to potentially appreciate the Scully that does still exist) and those scenes kept playing over in my mind after I finished the story.
It's entirely possible that I missed some of the potential hope towards the end because I was fairly emotionally distraught and just so hung up on how terrible it all was. But what I got was that there was a tentative positive step in the MS relationship and they were going to get to work fighting the fight. Which is good, but no fix for Scully having lost a chunk of herself and Mulder having essentially lost Scully. (However. I caught a lot of things I missed in the historical AUs on re-reads partly because of my similarly distraught state in the first readings of those and partly because of the way prufrock's love layers things in so that you don't find out really important pieces of information until very late in the story that really color the preceding events. So, back to my first point, I should probably just stop being a baby and re-read the story.) Anyway, I remember getting to the end of the story and just wanting the author to take it back, take it all back! And, really, it kind of haunted me for weeks.
Also, I was pregnant and maybe hormones were involved? (just kidding) ok, long tangent over.
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I'm not advising that you reread it. But my take on the ending was quite different. Maybe it would help if I share it?
Spoilers for the ending to 7 Days in May.
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Mulder believed that she'd been touched by the alien healer, who'd brought all of the other people back from the dead. He believed that her memories were beginning to return and that her fertility was restored--hence his desire to have another child with her. Scully didn't believe in aliens, let alone that she'd been healed but there was some evidence--to Mulder--that this was the case.
I agree that what broke them up in the first place was in part his inability to move on and accept who Scully became after her abduction. That was sad, especially since that part could have happened without any alien interference. People sometimes lose their memories as they age, from various degenerative brain diseases. Hard as that would be to accept and live with, I can't imagine Mulder not accepting that tragic loss of memory. I think he should have been able to get with the program the first time around.
But there was no question in my mind that by the end of the story they were back together, that Mulder believed her memories were returning, and moreover that they'd agreed to have another child, save the world and live happily ever after.
The nice thing is they're characters in her story so we can imagine any sort of continuation we want after the curtain falls. In real life, it's a total crap shoot. You never know what sort of hand you're going to get dealt the very next day.
One small piece of advice. If the ending to this story threw you for a loop, don't read "Fugue" by Rivkat.
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Yes, this is basically what I thought happened but I didn't fully realize it at first because I was just too caught up in being upset and then when it did sink in, it was like it was too late or something (for me, emotionally-speaking). Thank you for confirming :)
I think he should have been able to get with the program the first time around.
prufrock's love does a great job of writing a Mulder who is really good at getting in his own way like that.
so we can imagine any sort of continuation we want after the curtain falls
or read another fic and give them a different adventure altogether.
Thanks for giving me an outlet for my issues :)
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For what it's worth tri_sbr, I definitely would have stopped reading then and there. Except that I never read 7 Days in May in the first place, because The 13th Sign turned me off so much for the same reasons you talk about in your comment re: 7 Days in May. So I totally get where you're coming from on this. I couldn't even begin to get past the fact that Scully had forgotten her time on the X-Files, and I didn't want to get past it. Objectively, The 13th Sign is well written, well plotted, and way better than anything S9 threw at us, but the memory loss premise made it a non-starter for me.
So actually, tri_sbr and I had somewhat opposite reactions to this fic universe, even though we felt similarly about it. tri_sbr found it devastating, as I undoubtedly would have if I hadn't basically refused to accept it to begin with. My response the whole time I was reading was basically "Nope. Nope. Why would I want to go with you on this one? Well, I'm not going to, so."
On the other hand, I really liked Fugue by RivkaT, which wendelah1 mentions in her reply. The thing about Fugue is that it's straight up horror, and I think it/the author knows that. So while it made me feel a bit sick inside, I admired it because that was what it was aiming to do. The fic and I were on the same page there, and by the end of the fic there wasn't really any thought that things could ever be okay again. Whereas with The 13th Sign I felt like the fic and I were on completely different pages; I couldn't understand why it was taking the tack is was, and I couldn't understand why I would want to go along for that ride.
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My response the whole time I was reading was basically "Nope. Nope. Why would I want to go with you on this one? Well, I'm not going to, so."
I think I am much better at doing this now after reading a lot more fic (well, I still tend to read or at least skim the story if I start it as opposed to stop reading, but there are more instances where I refuse to go along completely for the emotional ride). When I read 7 Days, I hadn't read nearly as many stories, and it was much easier to get totally caught up in it (and I guess I'm a sucker for prufrock's love's writing style too).
Regarding Fugue, I looked it up and apparently I did already read it, but it (obviously) didn't make nearly as much of an impression on me. I think my reaction was kind of similar to yours except I wouldn't say I really liked it but maybe 'I liked it ok.' Like when I read Iolokus, I felt rather detached from the story so the horror / sadness / other terribleness felt like it was happening around me, not inside of me where it would really hurt (if that makes any sense at all).
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First off, I hope I didn't make you feel you had to defend yourself for having fic feels. I didn't mean to!
But yeah, my reaction to that fic universe probably did have something to do with when I was reading it - i.e. right near the end of my days as a diehard X-phile. My first year or so in a new fandom is always when I have the most intense fanfic-reading experiences, because I'm not inured to anything yet, and I haven't learned fandom's rhythms and patterns, so I'm way more likely to be caught off guard by something.
Like when I read Iolokus, I felt rather detached from the story so the horror / sadness / other terribleness felt like it was happening around me, not inside of me where it would really hurt (if that makes any sense at all).
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. It also sort of pertains to what I was saying to Wendelah in a comment down thread, which is that I experience horror and sadness in fanfic in very different ways, stemming mainly from the fact that horror is a psychological experience first, which then sort of wicks out into an emotional reaction. Whereas sadness is, first and foremost, just this deluge of emotion.
A horror story has to worm its way into my head, whereas a sad story often feels like it's pulling something out of me that was already there.
Which may also be why I'm more likely to get angry with sad fic, because I often feel like all it / the author is really doing is pushing an emotional button that's predictably present and easily pushed.
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not at all! and I think you said it better than I did:
My first year or so in a new fandom is always when I have the most intense fanfic-reading experiences, because I'm not inured to anything yet, and I haven't learned fandom's rhythms and patterns, so I'm way more likely to be caught off guard by something.
(except that I'm not in any other fandoms and probably won't be). In fact, I nodded in agreement with this entire comment.
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That's not a problem. I didn't post any rules for this discussion.
WTF? There's a pretty epic Sherlock fic in which Sherlock is a French tennis player, but in the XF fandom?
LOL. A French tennis player--Sherlock? That's amazing! I am certain there is no French tennis player AU in X-Files fanfic, although it wouldn't surprise me to find one in X-Men or SPN-RPF.
The High School AU: Well...there's Friends Even in Childhood by Penny Daza, but I don't think any of it takes place at school. I don't really remember the fic much.
Ha ha! Someone on my flist actually wrote one of these--it's short, too, thank God, well-written, and not at all explicit. High school kids having sex isn't terribly sexy imho, so that works for me, too. She does a good job of recreating their friendship and co-dependency, I think.
Two Out of Three (Ain't Bad) (3026 words) by sarken
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully
Additional Tags: High School AU
Summary:
"He said, and I quote, 'I don't date good girls, freshmen, or virgins. And, face it, Danes, you're all three.' Does that satisfy your curiosity, Mulder?"
Dramatic Car Accident Scene: Didn't Bonetree do a fic like this? ...Goshen?
Maybe? I honestly don't recall the fic though the name is familiar. There is a car accident scene in "Laws of Motion."
The Entire Fandom Has Read This AU: I find this question interesting because the XF fandom has a very different definition of AU than a lot of fandoms have, especially more recent ones. Most newer fandoms only really consider a fic an AU if the characters meet under entirely different circumstances and a lot of other things are different.
This is interesting: Alternative Universe - Fanlore. I love the Fanlore article because it has a taxonomy of AUs! God, I love fandom.
Whereas in the XF fandom AUs were pretty much anything that deviated from canon in a definite way. So by XF fandom standards, the most popular answer to this would probably be Iolokus. Whereas by greater fandom's standards it might be something liiike...Paracelsus? Or Pru's baseball one maybe?
I might go as far as saying that in XF fandom, what's AU is in the eye of the beholder. Because by the strictest definition, any story in which Mulder and Scully become a couple before season seven is an AU. And I don't think that's most shipper's definition. Certainly any fanfic in which Mulder and Krycek walk off into the sunset together and live happily ever after is an AU in my eyes but I doubt that the M/K slash community would see it that way.
But Iolokus works best for that square because it's an alternative characterization AU (even Rivkat and Mustang Sally concur), that is in the taxonomy, and everyone has read it and/or has an opinion about it. There are people who haven't read any historical AUs so I don't think Paracelsus would work for XF fanfic.
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Oh, that is a cute fic; it made me smile. Thanks for the link.
There is a car accident scene in "Laws of Motion."
There is also one in Overnight Sensation; syntax6 likes them, maybe.
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Of Course You Have Lube in Your Pocket: This is so very specific to slash fandoms, I think. I can't think of a single fic at the moment in which M&S even use lube (which, granted, is not a particularly realistic portrayal of het sex, from what I gather, but that's neither here nor there).
This is primarily a het fandom now, but we do have a small slash writing and reading contingent and TXF was once a big slash fandom. Not all, but many people who started out writing het ended up writing slash and then moved on to slash fandoms.
Heh. I wrote a story in which M&S use lube for the first or second XF Porn Battle, but I would agree they are exceedingly rare. I haven't read enough slash in XF fandom to know of a fic for that slot. For slash sex outside the bedroom, the go-to sex act appears to be blow-jobs in the XF fanfic I've read. It's certainly a lot easier to clean-up, but I doubt that's a consideration to many readers or writers of slash (or het for that matter!).:D
Platonically Sleeping in the Same Bed: Does a tent count? Because if so then Parabiosis! In which they keep to their respective sides of the sleeping bag, "like octopi in jars." *cuddles fic*
Ha ha! I had forgotten that scene. Yes, I would say that totally counts. We really should discuss that fic here.
The One Fic that's So Sad Even the Title Makes You Cry: For me, it's I'm Damaged as I'm Sure You Know by crookedhalt, though For The Weary by threeguesses has also been known to bring the waterworks. But the fic that takes the top spot is definitely a Sherlock fic, Make Whole What Has Been Smashed by Charlie J.
Which fic is it for you?
It's not "I'm Damaged As I'm Sure You Know" 'cause I don't remember reading it. Crookedhalt is veils? Or is this someone else? "For the Weary" is a very fine fic and certainly sad enough although "If I Make My Bed In Sheol" is a truer tragedy--to me. A death and a living death.
Maybe "One and Only, First and Last" by onpaperfirst? "Telephones" by cucumberspy was pretty devastating, too. And I thought "From Carthage Then I Came" was incredibly sad. I burst into tears the first time I read it and obsessed about it for an entire night and day. The second time we discussed it I wasn't much better off.
The saddest story in any fandom for me is still "Fireflies" by Ali Snow. Stargate SG-1. It's a wonderful story but man, the angst level is high in that one. Just thinking about it makes me weepy, so that fits my personal square.
500,000 Words and They Still Haven't Kissed: The closest I can think of (unless we count gen fic) is Universal Invariants, which took maybe 60,000 words for them to kiss (and. it. was. AWESOME).
Very awesome indeed. There has to be a longer-slow burn story out there but I don't know what it would be.
"Mistletoe Madness" was it for me, too. No one has done that trope better in any fandom as far as I'm concerned.
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Oh, sarken, I like her writing! I haven't read anything by her in aaages though - not since the windup to IWTB. I've bookmarked Two Out of Three and will read it later tonight.
There is a car accident scene in "Laws of Motion."
Somehow I've managed to completely forget that part. *scratches head*
This is interesting: Alternative Universe - Fanlore.
Hah, that's awesome! Thanks for the link.
I love Iolokus for being a characterization AU. There are so few AUs that deliberately explore characterization like that, and I think it's still the best I've ever read.
There are people who haven't read any historical AUs so I don't think Paracelsus would work for XF fanfic.
Yeah, they're not that widely read, really. In offering those as examples, I was just going by the strictest and most exclusive definition of AU, where pretty much everything is different. Back when I was heavily reading XF fanfic, I remember basically considering those sorts of fics novelties. Now I've gotten so used to them, in other fandoms, that looking back it seems fascinating that the XF fandom has so few.
It's not "I'm Damaged As I'm Sure You Know" 'cause I don't remember reading it Crookedhalt is veils? Or is this someone else?
Yeah, veils. I'm not sure if you would like "I'm Damaged." It bears a general resemblance (content-wise) to "Grace Realized" by Michaela, which IIRC wasn't your cup of tea any more than it was mine. I'm not sure why "I'm Damaged" works for me and "Grace Realized" doesn't. I think so much of it comes down to tone, writing style, and length. "I'm Damaged" is really short, sparely written, and I don't feel like it's reveling in its own tragedy - though maybe it is, a little, I don't know.
"For the Weary" is a very fine fic and certainly sad enough although "If I Make My Bed In Sheol" is a truer tragedy--to me. A death and a living death. Maybe "One and Only, First and Last" by onpaperfirst? "Telephones" by cucumberspy was pretty devastating, too. And I thought "From Carthage Then I Came" was incredibly sad. I burst into tears the first time I read it and obsessed about it for an entire night and day.
It's so very, very true that what provokes sadness in a person is incredibly specific to the individual. For me, "If I Make My Bed in Sheol," "Telephones," and "From Carthage Then I Came" are all excellent examples of horror fic. And horror is very distinct and largely separate from sadness, for me - they're very different kinds of distress. Horror subsumes sadness, so that I know there is tragedy in the story, but it's not the dominant sensation I'm left with. Where you cried after finishing "From Carthage Then I Came," my skin prickled and I felt nauseated and jumpy, but I wasn't the least bit inclined to cry. Same with "If I Make My Bed in Sheol." I actually prefer it to "For the Weary," but where FTW made me sob, IIMMBIS made me feel sick.
I actually prefer horror fic; I find that it's usually more sophisticated. It gets into your head and messes with your perceptions in complex ways. Whereas for me the best sad fic is usually extremely simple - e.g. "there is no cure for Scully's cancer, and she dies." The corresponding problem with sad fic, for me, is that I'm usually too aware that it's trying to push my buttons; I end up feeling manipulated, and that makes the sadness seem cloying, and then I get annoyed instead of sad.
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The Absence of Memory by Narida Law still reverberates in my mind, more than ten years after I first read it. I can now read it without the punch in the gut feeling I got at the time, but it still makes me sad.
wendelah1 said Telephones, which was also very sad. Stories about despair are usually more upsetting to me than outright tragedy. Keeping with the phone theme, Cellphone by Marasmus is also very upsetting. I never even read Fathoms Five because just the spoiler warning upset me. Yellow Balloon by Zyllah is devastating.
Other fandoms: there's a Lie to Me* story called The place that you cannot yet know by blank, that is one of the saddest things I have ever read, fanfiction or not.
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