Story 240: "Rainbow Sign" by Vehemently

[wendelah1]

I've been reading a lot of fanfiction this past weekend, trying to figure out what to post. I kept ruling things out: too schmoopy, too earnest, too long, much too long, an excess of Mulder-torture, an excess of Mulder-worship, an excess of thinly veiled misogny Scully-hatred. Too many adverbs

Comments

[lanalucy]

I've run into the same question with old JAG fanfic. I go to find something I loved, and I have to rejoin an old yahoogroup to find it in the message archives. It's too bad we can't create some sort of public archive on AO3 for fic we love. I know, it would be wrong to publicly archive something of someone's else's, and I wouldn't do it without permission, but I wish we could. AO3 spans fandoms and looks to be in it for the long haul. If wishes were horses...

Thanks for the ongoing recs.

[wendelah1]

You're welcome.

I hear you. Just last week, I was going through someone's rec posts, looking for Gilmore Girls fanfic. I kept finding stories that sounded good, but the author had deleted their journal. Just like that! Gone! Poof!

The thing is Gossamer hasn't been updated in over a year. Maybe it's nearly two years now. The owners of the site are busy people. It makes me anxious even thinking about the possibility of that archive going away but it easily could. There is a lot of fanfic there that can't be found anywhere else other than the Wayback Machine, and that's assuming the author had a website back in the day.

[lanalucy]

We need a library of congress cache for fanfic. :D

Yeah, people get busy, people grow out of their fandom interest, people become "serious" writers and disavow all knowledge of their prior fanfic persona, and let's face it, people die. Sigh.

AO3 has that orphan account thing. Too bad authors who don't want to be known for their fanfic can't archive it that way. I'd even volunteer to do some of that - post and orphan fics for authors. Wonder how we could make that happen?

[wendelah1]

I don't know how to make it happen. A couple of years back I tried to talk an author into orphaning her fic at AO3. She wasn't interested. She took down her website and blocked it from being displayed on Wayback. She had her fic removed from Gossamer and from Fugues and a few other sites with active management. Ironically, I recently found a sizable cache of her fic on Wayback that had been archived on an old, long defunct rec site. I know she has stories still up in a couple of other old archives too. It's really hard now to erase all traces of an old fandom identity if you were popular and recced

[wendelah1]

It's a treat for me, too. I love Vehemently's writing but somehow I'd missed this story. It fits into canon. Mulder and Scully both seem perfectly in character. The writer likes both characters, just the way the are. I am less keen on stories that have a not-so-hidden agenda: get them into bed together, turn them into each other's soul mates, turn the series into a romance novel, turn it into a sit-com. There is nothing wrong with that kind of fic; it's just not what I'm in the mood for lately. I'm in the mood for fic that extends canon. I want to read excellent genfic casefiles and x-files. I'm even okay with non-explicit MSR, as long as it's not the sole focus of the story.

[wendelah1]

The Two Fathers/One Son arc was such a game-changer, and yet the events of that episode never really seem to come up again, which provides all manner of fodder for fic. Mulder and Scully wind up playing cutesy in Arcadia immediately afterwards, with absolutely no mention of the fact that the conspiracy as they know it is dead, and, more shocking to me, that Mulder gave up. He was ready to throw in the towel and line up with the people who got the world into this mess to begin with. Thank god Scully had more sense.

It is a game-changer, and the episode that 1013 came up with, "Arcadia," was absurdly out of place, given what had just happened to the characters. I hated that episode for a long time, just for that reason. It felt cruel, like the writers were making light of what had happened. It makes me wish they'd had a continuity bible, one which the writers had to be familiar with and follow.

You most likely haven't read this as it's RPF (but genfic). Elapses addresses the disconnect between TF/OS and Arcadia in On Masculinity"

[femmenerd]

In some ways, this story works as meta, or rather episode commentary, or well, a logical extrapolation of threads dropped or tangled in canon.

It has me thinking about the episode tag as a "genre," and the role they play at different points in the life cycle of a fandom. This one is very well written & insightful, but requires relatively detailed recall of the episode in question and its series context in order to be most legible. This isn't necessarily a criticism, just an observation.

[wendelah1]

Interesting observation. "Rainbow Sign" was written as a post-ep while the series was still on, so I think detailed recall of Two Sons/One Father is assumed. Is that not the usual way? When I've written post-eps and fill-in fic for TXF, Fringe and The Americans, I've always assumed prior knowledge of the episodes, whether the series was currently running, ended a couple of years ago, or just celebrated its 20th anniversary.

And I think of post-eps as a genre. I can't think of a way to write one without requiring knowledge of the series. Even for a longer, less plot-driven story like "Parabiosis," I got more out of reading it after I had rewatched season seven.

EDIT: I finally figured out what you meant by meta, or episode commentary, when I read your comment to her at Dreamwidth. (I'm a little slow sometimes.) It does work as that, especially when contrasted with the idiocy that 1013 came up with. I loathed "Arcadia" the first time I saw it for that very reason.

[estella_c]

This is a tight, grim, well-managed story that did little for me. Everything was so very, very professional. But of course it sums up the messy context of the show and the way our guys handled it.

There were very strong moments. Jeff Spender's fatal shooting. (Mulder's despised brother. For an enriching compliment, I'd rec Kel's "Hollow Day.") And then Mulder's realization that Diana Fowley had eluded this holocaust after inviting him in. (Do I have that right?) He is agonized, but silent. The lightest moment was when M escaped a drunken conventioneer by claiming to be traveling to an actuarial meeting. Scully gives him credit.

I am not critical; this is a piece of fiction that confronts what the show never did confront. I thought it was good. But its tone was solid and dark and its activity moved in a straight, predictable line. And I'm a pretty hard sell on stories I can't dance to.

[femmenerd]

I'm a pretty hard sell on stories I can't dance to.

I resemble this! What an apt description for those times when a story may be objectively "good" but the alchemy of it plus me just doesn't make gold.

[wendelah1]

"And then Mulder's realization that Diana Fowley had eluded this holocaust after inviting him in. (Do I have that right?)"

You can say anything you like here, as long as it isn't hate speech or a personal critique of the author's personality or lifestyle choices.

"And I'm a pretty hard sell on stories I can't dance to."

I can't please everyone every time. I wish I could. Get Kel to write more fanfic.

[bmerb]

Funny everything estella_c didn't groove with in this story made me do the happy dance. It fit so well into canon and helped sort through tangled messes that CC just dropped. Glad there is fic for all types!

[tri_sbr]

hmm, I find that I agree with parts of all three of the comments just above (from discordantwords, femmenerd, and estella_c: fantastic M/S dynamic for this point in the series, it made me wish I remembered more details of the episode, and Mulder's realization about Diana and the actuarial conference bit were two moments that stood out to me but overall I'm also a hard sell on this type of story.

in conclusion, I should 1) watch one son again (if not two fathers as well), 2) read this piece again, and 3) definitely read more fic by this author! I'm leaning towards just skipping straight to #3 :)

oh, an aside - one son is a season 6 ep, right? maybe change the tag?

[wendelah1]

"oh, an aside - one son is a season 6 ep, right? maybe change the tag?"

Good catch, thank you.

I think knowledge of the episode in question is assumed with post-eps, yeah. Her fanfic is all genfic, with the exception of "Sparks Fly Upward," which isn't exactly conventional MSR, to say the least. But none of her other stories require such detailed knowledge of an episode.

It's something I take for granted I guess, but I have watched this series so many times now that I just know most the canon, particularly for seasons 1-5. Even season six is pretty familiar. I just realized I've watched the 7th season four times all the way through from beginning to end, even though I don't much like it.

"I'm also a hard sell on this type of story."

Just out of curiosity, what was lacking for you? I know what was lacking for EC-sexiness and/or humor-but I don't know your taste in fic as well as I know hers.

[tri_sbr]

"what was lacking for you?"

That's a tough question. I did think the writing and characterization were good and it did make me want to read more of her work, so what gives, right? Sexiness and/or humor do often tip the balance for me too, but I'm almost afraid to try to pin it down better than that because I probably won't get it (whatever it is) exactly right and/or I'll end up contradicting myself. Just as there are stories that I really appreciate but don't love-love (like this one), there are also stories that I really like even while acknowledging that they are basically guilty pleasure stories