Story 199: "Dance Card" by Sab (Sabine)

[wendelah1]

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.

SUMMARY: The road not taken.
NOTE: This is a true story, sorta. I mean, it happened to me, not Scully, but I figured I'd plug her in to the game and see how she played it out. So that's where it stops being a true story, but those little snowy highways and dogwoods and mistakes do exist, ten, fifteen years later. Oh, and in answer to your question, yes, I did write another story with another guy Scully meets named Paul. It's a good all-purpose name; whatcha gonna do? Album and book publication dates verified with Borders.com, Amazon.com, and Cdnow.com, so they should all be correct. German translations c/o Altavista's Babelfish; let me know if they got it wrong. All "chalking" quotes copyright J. Wilson Kello, with whom I spent four years of college chalking. He is not Paul.

That will all make sense after you read the story, I promise. "Dance Card" has two sequels: "What Happened After That" and "Moonshine," which could be subtitled "What Happened After What Happened After That." The links are all to Gossamer under "Sabine" if the links get broken; the first and third are also at Fugues Fiction Archive. Discussion on any and all of the three is welcome. Sab is iamsab here and Sab at AO3, but alas, these stories have never been re-posted to either location.

Leave feedback, leave suggestions, and come back for discussion, which is still ongoing for the last two fics we read, by the way. You guys are awesome.

Read "Dance Card".

Read "What Happened After That".

Read "Moonshine".

Comments

[wendelah1]

But there was a lot of fic (I feel) written similarly around this time, where the female author basically kind of inserts what she thinks Scully's interior life should be [usually, inevitably, her own internal life], into Scully. But then I never thought that Scully was much of a rebel or a deliberate non-conformist, soo...

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.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

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.

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.

[wendelah1]

I didn't mean to imply there wasn't criticism of fic back then. Did you ever read the X-Files fanfiction wank thread? If not, I'd try link you to it, but I think the owner deleted the community. The wank was epic. It ran for weeks. Months, even. I was rather taken aback by it. What was the motto on that icon of Khyber's? "My fandom invented this shit."

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.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

I think I missed that one! I usually try to keep my finger on the wank pulse, so to speak. It's an interesting fandom. 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.

It's good that people are still writing in this fandom at all. There are still a lot of good stories being written.

[wendelah1]

I think I missed that one! I usually try to keep my finger on the wank pulse, so to speak.

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.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

I'll PM. We're probably getting off-topic.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

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.

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*

[wendelah1]

Yes, that's the one. I'll send infinitlight the link. She might have already seen it, or maybe she missed it. It was way before my time on LJ, even before I was reading XF fanfic, period. I was linked to it by another writer.

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.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

I posted there, but I was totally, totally benign. You'd never recognize me. I finally urged people to praise good fic, because nasty putdowns were meaningless unless you actually had something fine to champion. The personal insults were gag-inducing.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

I found out about fanfic_hate a few years ago. And I went through the posts with horrified fascination. It confirmed a few things I suspected and helped me do a couple of F-List cuts without regrets. Of course I don't mean to condone personal insults, but I have a different cultural approach to these things than you lot - where personal insults are really not the end of the world. If a nasty piece of work has been taking advantage of the fandom relative anonimity to piss off fellow fans time and time again, and if this happens to go out in the open, I'm not going to point an outraged finger. There might not be a fire, but there sure as hell is enough smoke for making me stay well out of range.

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.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

The early X Witches went after fandom big names though. I think that's what got everyone's attention.

The most recent lineup at their site was mostly lesser-respected fics and authors. With the possible exception of Tantric. Was Tantric respected?

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

If you're talking about the Char Chaffin story, no. Well, not be me and significant others.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

Hey! I was on that blacklist! (If we're talking about the same one) Because I dared use Doggett as a character.
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.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

I think this is a Masses VS Select Few issue.

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.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

What's the Haven phenomenon? Is it to do with everyone reading/reccing the same stories?

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

Haven's fanfic folder has had a long standing rep for reccing mediocre stories. Don't get me wrong in spite of all its flaws and board divas I love Haven for the wonderful source of information that it is, but I keep seeing things recced in the fic folder that make me go "SERIOUSLY???" There is a hanful of "board favourite" authors whose names get mentionned almost every time someone asks for something, and...well, these people do nothing for me.

If I were a newbie, and would sample some of the recs there, I would probably think the X-F fandom is mostly crap. But YMMV.

[wendelah1]

Haven's fanfic folder has had a long standing rep for reccing mediocre stories.

The rep is deserved. There are some people there with terrible taste.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

IKR? And unfortunately they happen to be the vocal ones on this particular board, which is a crying shame because Haven gets a huge amount of traffic. Whenever I get a big spike of readership in my web stats it's always because some story of mine was recced on Haven.