xf_book_club | Story 98: "Untitled Random Case File #4664" by Jess Mabe

I hadn't thought about this fic for a while before we started discussing Malus Genius, and I got to thinking about fics I'd liked that were mostly humorous (I don't think I've ever liked a fanfic that was played completely for laughs (1)--part of the fun of Untitled Case File is the more serious snark just below the surface).

One of the things I like so much about fanfic (and I think we talked about this in the Iolokus discussion) is the glimpse into writers' imaginations. The sky is the limit in fanfic--want Mulder and Scully to get married, have lots of tiny babies and go shopping for curtains? Just write it and it's real. Want them tortured and to psychologically have to pick their way back to health? Want them to open that connecting door between hotel rooms? Want them to get in a spaceship and fly through the galaxy? All you have to do is pick up a pen and it happens. And what's truly amazing to me is that so many people have done it, for no payment and just for fun. People think up stories that would never have crossed my mind (the once-ubiquitous "FBI formal dance" stories spring to mind) and things that I would have loved to see on the show (post-colonization), and things I daydreamed about myself while waiting in line or procrastinating on writing essays (casefiles, mostly. I don't have a very good imagination (and a pretty low sense of romance, I suspect), which is part of why I love to read. Other people will imagine for me).

Fanfic (when I'm in a good mood :) teaches me how powerful stories are. The sky is the goddamn limit, if you'll excuse my French, and it excites me and delights me and takes me to new places. Kickass.

So the reason I liked this story is because it draws out so much of what fanfic writers like to do. It feels like we are right there with Jess, writing the story, meeting M & S, and yeah, wincing at the way we, as fandom, have treated them :). (I love this:

Mulder glared at me.

"Oh wonderful," he said. "Another cancer case. Can't you people just leave it alone?".)

Untitled Case File reads like a very much smartened-up version of the kind of thing I'd make up in my own head, only funnier and, you know, done by someone who can write. I can't resist stories that mess around with format and style, that don't follow the conventions everyone else is taking. Even when stories like this don't work for me, I respect the writer for trying to do something new and exciting.

I like irreverancy and even parody of the show, when it's done right, and I think this fic toes that line very well. The time-tags (also mocking fanfiction writing), Mulder's rambling and Jess (the character)'s monologue, "the obligatory sickly redneck who can't
act".

(1) As soon as I wrote this down I remembered a deliberately bad fic that I found really funny, but I can't remember the title of it, just a few lines.

And as soon as I posted *this*, I remembered the name of the funny "bad" fic. It was Wedding Fit for a Princess, by campylobacter. ("My sister looks just like an angle" has been a running joke between an online friend and myself for years now.)

First off,

infinitlight, everything you've just said about fanfic is absolutely charming and lovely, and i couldn't agree more. for all of the reasons you've highlighted, fanfic has been a fulfilling and fabulous source of interest and entertainment for me for years, and frankly, i feel i would be a significantly different person, conceptually, were it not for fanfic. and reading what you have to say makes me wonder (delightedly) how many others could say the same.

Even when stories like this don't work for me, I respect the writer for trying to do something new

i think this is the camp i fall into. i read this fic a while ago, and i'm not sure if i'll reread it so as to be able to discuss it properly, because while it tickled me, it didn't thrill me. i tend to be much more sensitive to the absurdity and clumsiness of humor than to it's complexities and charms. even so, i feel that fics like this are a more profound testament to how solid and prescient fandom and fanfic is/are than is commonly recognized.

the simple fact of the existence of fics like this indicates how vital, creative, divergent, and expansive fandom is. if straight-up meta is the history and science of fandom, then meta-fiction strikes me as being fandom's philosophy. and is awesome. *g*

I'm sorry you've decided not to reread this. I'm interested in your reaction to it as a fan fiction writer, not just a reader. I was hoping more of the writers who I know lurk here would come out of their shells and expound on this gutsy, funny story.

--part of the fun of Untitled Case File is the more serious snark just below the surface).

This is a smartly written story by a writer who is not shy about revealing her reasons for writing fan fiction.

"I had this terrible case of writer's block. It had lasted nearly five years at that point and I was feeling a little less than confident about my prose. I read an article in Entertainment Weekly about fanfiction and I was really into the show, so I thought I'd go check it out. I got hooked, and all these ideas started popping into my head. So I wrote a story called 'Goblins and Ghosts' and posted it. And suddenly, all these emails came in telling me how much people had enjoyed it and that I was a really good writer. It was like my writer's block had never existed. I just... I think I owe the novel I'm working on to fanfiction. It saved me. You both saved me."

By the time I'd finished, I was blushing again. He was staring at me with
those incredible gray/brown/green eyes and he seemed to see into the center
of my soul.

She takes some well-aimed blows at the conventions of fan fiction: Scully's eyebrow, Mulder's propensity to babble, Mulder's eye color, Scully's strawberry-scented hair and eccentric wardrobe choices, Mulder's suits and how they--hang. Then there's the sex.

"You could stay here," Scully said, her voice all sweetness and light. "It is a suite, after all."

"Stay here?" I gulped. She moved to where Mulder was sitting on the couch
and straddled him. She wasn't wearing any underwear.

"Sure," she said, in between sliding her tongue over his ear. "We don't
mind. In fact, we'd just love it if you.... would."

I couldn't breathe. Were they really proposing what I thought they were
proposing? It's amazing what seven years of public coitus can do to a
couple.

Yes. Sexual fantasy is the bread and butter of fandom. As the popularity of certain writers has amply demonstrated, all some readers want is plenty of sex and a happy ending. I think there is no doubt that Jess Mabe's most popular stories are the PWPs but her serious stories are much, much better and much more memorable. Okay, the money shot in "The Airport" is pretty memorable, too. When your audience is constantly clamoring for smut, it's got to be tempting to keep writing it, even if that isn't going to further your goals as a writer.

The longer I was around them, the harder it was becoming to keep the case
rated PG. I know smut attracts more attention, but damnit, I was going for
credibility my first time out. And it wouldn't have hurt to have been
noticed by the more... legitimate channels. But Jeez, the were doing
something to me. All that whispering, the long, lingering looks... the way
he stood right behind her, so close their clothes touched.

Maybe I was writing the wrong kind of story. Not for them, you understand,
but for me. I called a buddy of mine, who's been doing this for years.

"You gotta get the two of them into bed," she said, practically purring.
"You have no idea how big he is. And her... well, let's just say she's not
above a little kink, if you know what I mean. They seemed to get off on
being watched."

She also examines the complicated relationship between the fan fiction writer and her characters, who aren't really hers, at least not hers alone. This passage in particular had me squirming, and not in the good way.

"It's like this... see, I like fanfiction, I really do. In it I get to be
stronger, tougher, sexier than I do on the show. I speak my feelings and
show my heart. I get laid occasionally." She laughed and squeezed my knee.
"But Mulder... well, fanfiction writers seem to love torturing him. The
injuries he has to endure, and the lengthy, draw-out recoveries... and then
there's the fact that he's often portrayed as a bumbling idiot, dropping his
gun all the time."

I found myself reviewing my own stories, trying to see if I had tortured Mulder, or subjected him to unnecessary medical procedures. So far, my conscience is clear, though I did kill off William in one story, off-stage, but still. Anyway, I haven't done anything worse to the characters than what has already been to them in canon.

"I didn't really mean it," he said sadly. "I was just mad that she was
trying to break up. I had just told her I loved her..." He broke off for a
moment and I could see them both lean forward expectantly.

He looked up, right into Mulder's eyes, and delivered the line exactly as
I'd instructed.

"I mean," Billy said. "You tell the woman you love her and she just blows
you off. How would you feel?"

Mulder's face turned a peculiar shade of gray. He glanced nervously at
Scully, who was studiously avoiding his gaze, then turned to look at me. I
have to admit, the look hurt.

There's a reason he makes the big bucks.

"I'd imagine that was difficult for you," he said at last, voice dripping
venom. "But that doesn't mean you can threaten someone, that you can
therefore go on to hurt them."

Scully was staring at me now, and I was beginning to feel the early twinges of author guilt. I reminded myself that this sort of torture was sanctioned by the Big Guy. He did it to them all the time, right? She looked away and I stopped blushing.

"But I didn't do anything to Diane," Billy said earnestly. If he'd noticed
the effect his remark had on them, he didn't show it. God, why couldn't they
all be this good? "I was just mad, I swear."

"I understand," Scully said at last, moving forward, "that your mother,
father and sister have all died of various cancers?"

"That's right," Billy said, his voice sad and a bit whispery. "All within a
few months of each other. Sometimes this world is so f****d up, you know,
man?"

Mulder sighed and drew one hand through his hair. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, I
do."

Scully looked at him quickly, then looked away. "Billy, how would you have
characterized your relationship with your family?"

"Well, sometimes we'd fight and everything, but we got along ok, I guess."

She nodded and wrote it all down.

"Let us know if you think of anything you think might be helpful," Mulder
said, handing Billy his card. "Anything at all."

We'd been in the car for nearly half an hour before I realized they weren't
speaking to me. Sometimes characters can be so childish, you know?

"I was just going for a good audience reaction," I stressed as we walked up
toward their suite.

Mulder gave me a look that said I could kiss my own ass. I left Scully
examining Billy's family's file, and Mulder sipping an Evian with a
disgusted look on his face.

Characters always have minds of their own but fan fiction characters are the worst.

Edited 2009-12-18 01:30 (UTC)

I think that "Unfinished Case File #4664" is the metafic of all metafics, just wonderful, and very hard to describe. So if I seem to ramble hysterically, please forgive.

This is a universe in which Mulder and Scully are both characters in a tv show *and* actual breathing people who must, presumably, be kept occupied and amused in the interstices of the foregoing. They depend on writers who exist in *our* world--Jess Mabe being one, and blessings on whatever career she is now pursuing--but also in theirs, where flukemen, sexual predation by enemies, and now cancer-conferring mutants also reside.

The set-up gives me shivers of Pirandellian delight.

In this complicated reality Mulder and Scully are stars, and they exhibit star behavior. Narcissistic and demanding, they also show the psychic wear of human beings who have been pushed and shoved by their fans into many torments and indignities. Once presumably innocent, they have been turned into sexual playthings and made to enjoy it. Manipulated, they now manipulate.

In my experience this is a unique idea, and Jess has plunked herself spang in the middle of it. No passive-aggressive MarySue, she appears under her real name and reveals her own story ambitions and secret fantasies. This is, of course, what all fic writers do, though somewhat less overtly.

There are numerous bits of sly series commentary on the way. I especially liked the elevator operator/writer who admitted to not watching the show. And the luxurious living arrangements and good weather, which all-powerful Jess can control with, at most, a fast rewrite. Though she soon realizes that her role in this scenario is less than goddess-like.

Probably some would be unhappy with this cynical view of our heroes. But everyone knows I'm a sucker for a laugh. And "Unfinished Case File" is absolutely rollicking, as well as being the most hardheaded view of fandom this side of Livia Balaban's "M. Luder: King of 'Set Troopers' Fanfic."

Probably some would be unhappy with this cynical view of our heroes. But everyone knows I'm a sucker for a laugh. And "Unfinished Case File" is absolutely rollicking, as well as being the most hardheaded view of fandom this side of Livia Balaban's "M. Luder: King of 'Set Troopers' Fanfic."

It is brilliant although I think it is funnier if you don't write fic. Is this a cynical view of her characters? Sure but I think Mabe's story hits hardest at readers and writers. It's pretty clear to me that Mulder and Scully are standing in for the demanding readership and their narcissistic writers. Mulder and Scully are still the innocents here. We are the consumers of kinky badfic! porn and the creators of Mulder Torture.

There is a "smack-down" going on right now on a Dreamwidth post that pits pairs of characters together, asking which of each pairing suffered the most painful childhood in fanon, not canon. Krycek was paired up with Kirk and was losing to him because as someone pointed out, being a survivor of and a witness to genocide trumps merely being a child assassin and surviving ordinary abuse. We really do seem to enjoy hurting the ones we love.

Well, sure, the slams are aimed at writers and readers if you "see through" the fic to the meta, which it is the nature of metafics to encourage you to do. But the corruption of our beloved characters into seductive exhibitionists struck me as darn funny. I have no writer's guilt, nor do I think of Mulder and Scully as real people, important as they may loom in our shared imagination.

Actually, they are palimpsests. So many good, bad, and mediocre writers have reinvented their motivations and behavior that they have taken on a thousand-layered richness. Maybe that's the definition of icon. Or demigod.

I love all the many layers of Jess: flippant through ironic to heartbreaking. As New Year's is coming up, I recommend "Resolutions," a smutfic that totally gets the job done. It might be possible to criticize its structure, but nobody says you *have* to.

I have no writer's guilt, nor do I think of Mulder and Scully as real people, important as they may loom in our shared imagination.

Maybe this is a writer's disease? I know I am not alone in this madness.

Thank you. I will check out "Resolutions." Although I am--skeptical--I love Jess Mabe's writing and trust your judgment.

estella_c said, But the corruption of our beloved characters into seductive exhibitionists struck me as darn funny. I have no writer's guilt, nor do I think of Mulder and Scully as real people, important as they may loom in our shared imagination.

to which

wendelah1 said, Maybe this is a writer's disease? I know I am not alone in this madness.

and i think this is precisely why i felt like i was straining when i read this fic. because as a reader i completely agree with estella, but as a writer thhat's not how i feel. as a fan and a person i feel that the single most important thing about fandom is that nothing is automatically undervalued, or judged based on a prejudice, or heaven forbid disallowed.

but as a writer i have a strong (-"drive" is too soft a word so i'm going to go with-) obsession to write the characters as they are, or as near to it as i possibly can. since conversing with

tree i have come to think of this as "presumptive consent"; that one is not doing anything to the characters that would be abrasive or degrading to them (though please don't quote her on that, because my interpretation of the term "presumptive consent" is my own).

usually, when reading fic, i am capable of seperating my writer's mind from my reader's mind, which is why i can adore stories like Iolokus, even though they alter the characters profoundly. but Jess has "plunked herself spang in the middle of it. No passive-aggressive MarySue, she appears under her real name and reveals her own story ambitions and secret fantasies." this makes it impossible to seperate writer's mind and reader's mind, because the fic is actively engaging both.

other fics like Our Scullys by Punk Maneuverability have a kind of reverence about them, whereas Untitled Random Casefile is, truly, irreverent. and while i firmly believe that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with this kind of irreverence - that it can actually be extremely constructive and important in the maintenance of a healthy fandom - as a writer i want to cringe away from this fic, because it is unnerving. like watching someone cut open a pair of bodies that look like Mulder and Scully, smiling, saying, "it's okay, look, i made these ones - it's not them."

Judging from the responses here, I think perhaps this is a fic that is easier to read if you're not also a writer! Which hadn't occurred to me.

I think being less invested in the characters from that point of view makes the criticism of fandom as a whole easier to take--I can distance myself far more easily from fandom as a reader (there being potentially thousands of anonymous lurky readers in fandom) than it would be if I was participating and putting my ideas and stories out there.

ike watching someone cut open a pair of bodies that look like Mulder and Scully, smiling, saying, "it's okay, look, i made these ones - it's not them."

Excellent simile, very fitting.

I noticed a long time ago that readers seem able to take a more inclusive or lenient view of canon and character than fic writers. In fact, many writers have a "personal canon" which includes what happened on the show--generally--as well as their own noble efforts to make sense of it all. And they hew to it with all their hearts and souls.

I respect this attitude, but I don't share it. Although I take aesthetic and ethical umbrage (what a line) to what some writers do to the characters, I don't feel protective towards them. (Though if someone had arranged a hit on Chris Carter back in the day and had asked for donations...)

Um, just joking. Respect the Net.

usually, when reading fic, i am capable of seperating my writer's mind from my reader's mind, which is why i can adore stories like Iolokus, even though they alter the characters profoundly. but Jess has "plunked herself spang in the middle of it. No passive-aggressive MarySue, she appears under her real name and reveals her own story ambitions and secret fantasies." this makes it impossible to seperate writer's mind and reader's mind, because the fic is actively engaging both.

Yes, that's it exactly! I couldn't take off my writer's hat! Thank you!

I was looking for and finally found the source of this quote:
"A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously."
~Albert Camus

I might need to revisit this again.

I distinctly recall an interview with Chris Carter in which the interviewer asked him which of the characters was "him", Mulder or Scully. He kind of blinked a bit and said "They're both me, of course.".

He kind of blinked a bit and said "They're both me, of course."

Ha ha! Great quote!

I'll just be over here, arriving to this post super-late and agreeing with everything you've said. (And in response to the debate that followed your comment, I'll simply say this: I'm a writer, albeit not a prolific one at all, and respect to the characters I know/recognize and their canon is always of utmost importance to me. However, I've never had any issue reading this fic, and I've certainly reread it, too.) I also very much enjoyed the other fic you mentioned at the end. I think these two are the only ones I bothered to save and label lovingly as "metafic" amongst my many favorites.

Though sexy as all getout, leucocrystal dear, I don't think I'd define Resolutions as a metafic. It's just a smutfic. A holiday smutfic.

She was referring back to your first entry, where you referenced Livia Balaban's metafic. No one could mistake "Resolutions" for anything other than what is: a tasty smut muffin. (;

Ack yes, thank you for catching that. I've been exhausted lately and must be mixing up comments.

Yes, ack, I should have understood. But I am computerless at present and distracted. Happy New Year, All!

I found this to be a pretty peculiar read- maybe it's because I haven't been reading huge amounts of XF fic recently, but I didn't find it that funny, and even the bits I did find amusing were rather gauche. Mostly it just made me feel profoundly uncomfortable.

Maybe it is ridiculous, but I can't write anything unless I feel very strongly that the characters are real people, or as close to real as possible, and in trying to find out their stories and thoughts and feelings I have to take the same kind of care that I do when dealing with real people at my voluntary job. Jess's fic is obviously satirical but it just made me cringe to think about writing in this way- to treat Mulder and Scully like sockpuppets to be reshaped from hand to hand (or rather, keyboard to keyboard). Treating real people like that when you're trying to coax a story from them is damaging and deeply immoral, and just I can't help but transfer most of my reaction to that over to fictional characters.

Jess is a great writer, and I'm aware my feelings about this story are based more than anything on my personal experience, but I am unlikely to re-read this one, I think.

Also,

Mulder's really not into guys

Yeah right.

Treating real people like that when you're trying to coax a story from them is damaging and deeply immoral, and just I can't help but transfer most of my reaction to that over to fictional characters.

The story made me uncomfortable, though for slightly different reasons. I do imagine Mulder and Scully as real people, I always imagine my characters as real people, which is why I have such a hard time reading stories that torture or humiliate them. This is apparently an uncommon reaction among readers, and even many writers, since they are writing the stories I have such an aversion to. What I felt after finishing this was a need to look over the stories I had written, and even some I have been planning, for unwarranted character abuse, although considering what happened to the characters in canon in season eight and beyond, there isn't much that's off the table, is there? I wonder if stories got more extreme after that or if it had the opposite effect, with writers wanting to make up to the characters for what had been done to them?

Mulder's really not into guys

Yeah right.

Yeah, nice dig at those of us who read and enjoy slash. Vampire lady and Phoebe aside, for many seasons, there is little evidence that Mulder is into anything except his videos and his 1-900 numbers. There is certainly nothing to contradict Mulder having an interest in men, too.

I actually think, in a way (though this will obviously serve as a difference in opinion from the get-go), that this fic paints Mulder and Scully as more real than ever; they are out there in the universe (the same one we occupy and function in), and better yet, they know what we're up to. And they are of course, in turns, amused, very unamused, and exhausted by us. Considering the world of fanfic, I can't find this anything but clever.

I say this as someone who absolutely must see, even believe, the characters to be real in order to write them, and even to read them - but this is a state of mind, not a constant state of being, if that makes sense. It's something I can slip out of if, say, I end up finding myself reading a badfic, because Mulder and Scully, in my mind, really shouldn't have to exist in such universes. Good fic, however, makes them real again, and so on.

Edited 2009-12-21 18:31 (UTC)

It is very clever. I think I am with

amyhit in having trouble taking off my writer's cap and just being a reader who can let other writers play in our universe pretty freely, assuming they can write. I mean, this is not usually my issue at all. And I have no objection in theory to her writing anything she wants. It just that it makes me feel uncomfortable to read this; moreover, I think she means it to be uncomfortable, for both readers and writers, at least on some level.

Maybe you are just better than I am at compartmentalizing. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe I should work on it.

I think you're probably right re: Jess Mabe's intentions with the story. (She also wrote "The Other Man", right? Which also seemed to me to have very specific goals as to what the reader might feel while/after reading it.)

As to compartmentalizing, I'm not sure it's the best approach to life, but to reading and playing in fictional universes? I definitely think it has its merits. ;)

Story 98: "Untitled Random Case File #4664" by Jess Mabe

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It was just my imagination, running away with me

Just my imagination, part two

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One More Thing

Re: One More Thing

Re: One More Thing

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