Story 183: "All the Children Are Insane" by MustangSally

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

In The X-Files fandom there are debatably no two authors more closely associated in the minds of fanfic readers than RivkaT, the author of our last fic, and MustangSally, who are indelibly linked by their co-authorship of "Iolokus". Which is why this week we're going to be reading "All the Children Are Insane," perhaps MustangSally's most widely read solo fic.

It's a vignette set in the summer after S5, with sex, angst, and the burnt-office base notes of existential crisis. The posting date stamp on "All The Children Are Insane" is June 18th 1998, just one day before Fight the Future hit theaters. To me the writing has always hummed with the captured tension of that summer, the fever pitch of fannish excitement and anxiety.

All the Children Are Insane

mustangsally78 is still around; sending feedback never hurts. And as always, our recommendations thread is over here.

Comments

Re: Hindsight is 20/20

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I think you have to count this as a winner, warts and all.

I agree with wendelah1 on this one. Our fandom wouldn't be the phenomenal thing it is if it weren't for fanfic writers and all their many different visions of the text, and fics like ATCAI were and continue to be excellent, stand-out contributions to the larger whole.

If anything, your fic is in a tough spot with us, because your writing in ATCAI - however rushed - is ultimately solid enough that we deem it worth discussing in depth, but perhaps flawed enough that it makes our task of picking the fic apart particularly fun.

my initial image was sex on the sofa with one foot dragging on the floor and it just being ugly and sordid.

That was a very stand-out image in the fic. I love the thought that it's the kernel the fic began from.

It's also really interesting that you say you'd imagine the fic being ugly and sordid. I think that actually helps my reading a little - gives me license to embrace my feeling that "this is kind of icky." I think a big part of my problem with the fic was that I could never get a sense of how I was meant to feel about it. The writing is an intermingling of hot and beautiful, sordid and ugly. For me the balance between the two qualities doesn't sit well. I feel like there needs to be more of one or the other. But the next best thing is knowing that the sordidness was not only intentional, but a focus of the writer. As someone who is kind of hung up on authorial intent, it helps me het an angle on the fic.

Anyway, thanks for talking with us. Having the author of our current fic show up is basically the ultimate chery on top of any discussion.