Story 110: "Gutless" by Magdeleine

[wendelah1]

Yep, this is the one with the talking parrot, a pretty good casefile, and Scully having "Mulder Awareness Days." The author refers to the latter as Uber-UST in her summary. I think the term "parrotfic," not to be confused with parrotfic, might have originated here. "I mean why read babyfic when you can read parrotfic, right?" Truer words were never spoken, er, written, Autumn. There is a talking parrot in a Syntax6 story that I bet is a little shout-out to "Gutless." At least, I think it is a parrot.

If you don't find this to your taste, try "Bonemeal," which is a very different kind of story. You can find it on her author's page at Gossamer, along with "Gutless" broken into smaller bites. "Bonemeal" deserves its own discussion, but it's so short, I doubt we'll ever do it formally. If anyone knows if this writer changed fandoms, has a different email address, and is perchance still around somewhere, please let us know. Thanks to an anonymouse, you can go leave Magdeleine comments on her story at Archive of Our Own. You can read her fic for The Office there, too.

This story was suggested by amyhit as being one that would generate discussion. I guess it's time to read it and find out.

"Gutless"

Upcoming attractions: "Fathoms Five" by Penumbra, "Melancholia" by Jeylan, and "This House is Burning" by Tesla. If you don't like those, you can always go post your own suggestions at the nominations post.

Comments

Re: I HAVE A QUESTION

[wendelah1]

I guess you missed Chapter 15b. See Part 4 at Gossamer. I guess I'd better fix this link, too. It looks like Doc's site is down. Are you reading the fic at Gossamer or at AO3?

I just looked over Chapter 15 at AO3. The entire climax of the story, most of chapter 15 and 15b, is missing! I'll try emailing her but my guess is she's gone from fandom.

This is beyond frustrating. The same thing is true of Bonetree's fic. There's a chapter missing. People import their stories but don't proof them.

Re: I HAVE A QUESTION

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

I think I read it at AO3, so that would explain that for sure. Thanks for responding :)

Re: I HAVE A QUESTION

[wendelah1]

I'm sorry for the confusion. I changed the link to Gossamer and PM'd the author. Now I'm trying to think if I've steered people to the AO3 copy anywhere but here.

It's obvious that I'm going to have to read through anything that has been reposted from Gossamer before linking to it. I'll recheck but the last time I looked, Bonetree's fic hasn't been fixed.

Re: I HAVE A QUESTION

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

read it. well then, THAT was very very different. interesting but bizarre and metaphorical i suppose, but certainly different, and helped the story conclude for sure.

Re: I HAVE A QUESTION

[wendelah1]

Well, yeah. The entire climax of the story is missing at AO3. The resolution of the X-File, the reason that Scully shot the parrot, the Tolchuk-induced dream that both Mulder and Scully were having--it's all missing! That's nearly all of chapter 15, in fact.

Thank you for asking the question. I'd have never known otherwise.

It's a much stronger story now that you've read the entirety, don't you think?

Re: I HAVE A QUESTION

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

DEFINITELY stronger. And oddly, I kind of like the whole strange knife fight thing. Metaphorically anyways, and very true to the bizarre way that dreams often seem to work. Wasn't totally sold on all aspects of this fic, but I did like the casefile and the story overall. Glad I asked too!

Re: I HAVE A QUESTION

[wendelah1]

I thought the dream worked well, especially given that they were under the influence of the Tolchok at the time. Everything that happens before Chapter 15 makes better sense once you know that Scully and Mulder were being influenced by supernatural forces.

I found I liked this story even better the third time through and I certainly can't say that about most fanfic.