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

[hesychasm]

These stories! I will always love Dance Card because that's my college in the flashbacks -- I wish I still had the feedback I sent about it lo these many years ago. *waves at fellow alum iamsab, should she ever see this* (Also, funny now because I just used it in one of my stories, and people who recognized the setting professed to feeling...skeeved? disoriented? something...because it was too close and familiar. Which I think is a common reaction to reading fiction about a place you know very well.)

That said, these stories are disorienting in other ways. They're very much not my personal canon for Scully, and I think the author note to Dance Card pretty clearly encapsulates why: it's a self-insertion story. You could, I think, handwave Scully-in-the-past having a unique and different voice, but even Scully-in-the-present doesn't ping true to character. The story does hit the correct bullet points (Scully's emotional uncertainty about risking her heart with Mulder, or with anyone; how she thinks Mulder doesn't appreciate her), but there's too much of the author mixed up in how the story gets there.

Still, Sab's such an excellent writer, and I remember how refreshing and new these stories felt when they first came out -- I'd never read anything by her before and these felt like a new style, a new spin on some old fanfic tropes. The dialogue and inner monologues have some great energy, and the OCs jump right out -- I admire fic writers who can do OCs well, who can create new people I actually find myself intrigued by (especially when I was just looking for a nice first-time fic for two very specific someone elses!).

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

If I was searching for fic to read on my own and saw that author's note, I'd almost certainly backbutton. Maybe I'd keep reading in hope of finding entertaining badfic.

Well, it's definitely not badfic. Technically I guess it's a decent story? I admit I have trouble deciding whether I think it's "good" because I'm searching so hard throughout the text for something resembling Scully. I can't really understand the impulse for a good writer to write a reasonably interesting personal memoir, change the names, and post it on the internet as X-Files fanfiction, I have to admit.

Maybe I'm being too harsh because I thought Paul was a dick, and Nick and Laura and whoever-all-the-others-were, were not interesting. I did like the paragraph where Scully is reflecting on Paul and his wife's future ("Somewhere there were plane tickets to Aruba or Sydney or Florence; somewhere there was rice, and a car with tin cans behind it."). If not for her voice throughout the rest of the story, that paragraph *would* sound like Scully to me.

I did only read "Dance Card". Maybe I'll go read the sequels and see if my opinion changes.

[mushfromnewsies.livejournal.com]

I love this little trio of fic, even though it definitely seems to be self-insertion fic, and I don't see real-Scully at all. 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... 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.

But I love these-- especially the third, Moonshine, which for all its original-character third POV kind-of-Mary-Sueing, is just a damn good time! It's fun, and awkward, and funny to see Mulder and Scully kind of deflated, no longer mythic, from the POV of other characters. I could never tell if Sabine was just really invested in making her narrator's perspective realistic, or if she was working out her own not-so-latent resentment of Scully (or the kind of person she wrote Scully to be, which is far colder IMO than Scully actually is in canon). Kind of weird. But again, fun, and engaging. I always remember Sabine and these three fics, because I remember first reading Sabine maybe six or eight months into my hardcore fic-reading, XF fandom life. I was fifteen, and I read her fic, and even though I was kind of turned off by it, or I disagreed with it and felt like she was twisting canon, I still enjoyed it; and what's more I actually kind of enjoyed it *for* being twisted. Normally (and still today, for most fic) that is totally opposed to my reading instincts, but I can appreciate it here.

Dance Card Casting Call

[wendelah1]

Instead of reading the stories, I spent all day deciding how I'd cast the episode/movie/fantasy, looking for actors in the right age range.




For Paul, I finally decided on Clive Owen. He looks darkly handsome, smart and moody; someone who can be charismatic one minute, and a complete asshole the next. (Remind you of anyone, perchance?) I picked Maura Tierney for Laura. I know this is not Maura in 1999, but look at the glasses! Plus, she can play smart and self-deprecating and vulnerable and distancing, all in unison. I chose Maria Bello for Robin, who has an important role in the last story, "Moonshine," even though her hair isn't quite right. What's more important is that she can play someone with warmth and goodness and just plain common sense, except for her own love life. She's also dead sexy. (Yes, they both did play doctors on ER.) The cap from "Unruhe" of Mulder and Scully is from season four rather than six, but the mood fits the story like it was made for it. Scully looks preoccupied and tense, first about Paul's upcoming wedding, then afterward about having slept with Mulder, while looking beautiful as always. Mulder looks on edge. He's concerned and worried about Scully, naturally, but also puzzled over what, if anything, he did wrong.

I'll try to actually read the stories tomorrow.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

This one will be tough, which probably means long. I may be arguing against myself.

I liked these three a lot. I know they go against the definition of what most require in fanfic; the Marysue is obvious and admitted and the material lacks aliens, conspiracies, and most of what the show was about. The Scully characterization, in particular, is far from most people's Scully.

I don't have a Scully. This one is close enough for me because I truly feel that it's fair to pack in lots of stuff to fill holes that canon left exposed. And I also feel that too narrow a perception of character is limiting. People can surprise you, and surprise is interesting.

Unlike Wendy, I can see Sabine's collegiate Scully, complete with midnight raves, cigarettes and unrequited agony. I can focus well enough. Canon Scully is a self-described child rebel. And I am able and willing to kidnap a bit of Gillian Anderson's crazy past to enhance the image. Where I do run into some trouble is seeing sixth-season Scully still fighting tears over a man she never even slept with. FBI Scully is very young, unconvincingly so. But then I found the whole Daniel Waterston thing unconvincing too.

First key word: youthful. This trio of fics is something of a contradiction. It is magnificently written, full of imagination and special verbal effects, and I believe some are underestimating Sabine's talent. She is a mature writer. At the same time the stories are full of teenager-strength angst, feelings that conventional canon Scully would not express except occasionally about more life-transforming things like losing, gaining, again losing a child and a lover. This is a stormy, Bronte-esque Scully, and frankly I couldn't always believe her. But it didn't make me stop reading. Because when a writer like this displays her wares, you at least look.

(Everybody Having a Good Time is a whole other subject. Should be labelled "danger: high explosive.")

I liked all these pieces but I think I liked "What Happened After That" best. Scully is released from her self-punishing evil spell, and here's where the New York in Winter magic happens. She wants sex with Mulder, I think, because she sees it as a rite of passage and a reward for surviving the test. Plus she sees him suddenly as we see him: a stud and a prince among men. I am so glad there is no talking-to-death of the lovemaking. It is what it is, so we have a whole evening of future complicated romance to enjoy.

Other key work: context, as in "out of." As an msr fan who is easily bored, I relish the extreme possibilities The X-Files opens for us. I favor time-travel fics, undercover fics, alternate universe fics, crossover fics, fics in which oc's are doing the observing and the talking (unless they are just saying "those two love each other" over and over). I love fresh pov's, and "Dance Card" and its siblings read very fresh and original to me, the irony being that they aren't new. DC might as well be time-travel, with its backstory, and it might as well be alternate universe, with its bright lights, big city ambiance. And there's an oc as in love with Scully as Mulder is; examining the ship under a different light is erotic.

The final key word is personal. I have a personal liking for the combination of characteristics that these stories share and a tolerance for the flaws. I would never think of trying to coopt anyone else, Fish least of all. Because she has teeth. (Yes, fish have teeth. Don't confuse them with chickens.)

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Well, running around at night smoking and chalking does not strike me as much of a rebellion either, nor is "hyperintellectual" meant to be taken all that seriously: smart kids who studied and quoted poetry did by their very bonding separate themselves from most American students of the time, who were into business and football and did not aspire or *want* to be intellectuals. It's really just a matter of self-perception. And as I've said before, a hint from canon is a go-ahead to any extreme theory. Why not? Which I guess is my question about a lot of fic.

Scully is remembering but also imagining herself. Before she settled down and got serious about corpses and the FBI. I agree that Mulder was probably her major rebellion. But he was an earthquake of a rebellion, as I'm sure most would agree. The fissure in the stone was there.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

This was one of the first XF fics I ever read, in that brief window of time when I was already reading XF fanfic but hadn’t actually watched more than one or two random episodes of the show yet. At the time I really liked the vivid writing - stylistically haphazard, oddly aesthetic. I also liked the mood of the story, the constant tension between excessive caution and emotional recklessness.

But wow, Dance Card is REALLY hard to read now that I actually know anything about Scully’s character. The writing is still really good, but I can’t help gritting my teeth the whole way through. Also, I’m a lot more annoyed at Paul for being a dick, and at “Dana” for being foolish enough to go for a guy like that.

Dance Card’s characters have this internal lack of definite structure that is intriguing, but is also nothing whatsoever like X-Files characters. The writing itself has a similar sort of “character”. It makes me think of when little kids pick up several felt markers at once and swirl them all over a blank page. As opposed to the X-Files narrative, which is more like a chaotic network of etch-a-sketch scribbling – all straight lines and corners.

I haven’t even finished reading this yet, but I really have to take a break. It’s not every day that a good writer knowingly and openly writes self-insert fic, and the effect is…a lot to adjust to. The funny thing is that I would probably still like this story quite a bit as original fiction; if only the names in use were something other than Scully and Mulder.

[wendelah1]

Today I went looking for a recipe for chocolate-dipped peanut butter balls. Let me explain. After finishing the last of the stories, "Moonshine," I was prompted to reread Kel's "A Neurotic Need for Validation," which proved to me that you can take the same basic premise as Sab's story and write it so that everyone stays in character (and in their clothes). There are no absurd scenes to contend with that begin, "Mulder, let's have an affair." I can barely imagine anyone speaking that sentence, let alone Agent Scully saying it to Agent Mulder. There are countless moments like that in these stories, as previous posters have already noted. I've been trying to talk myself into liking Sab's trilogy better than I do just because she's so talented, but I admit I still feel let down by the writing by the end.

Why would someone this good write this particular story? I think she said it in her author's note. I think she's experimenting, playing with the characters and having a fine time doing it. And if you can accept that at face value and enjoy this fic for what it is: a well-written original story with Mulder and Scully's names attached to two of the characters, it's actually pretty entertaining. If you can't, there are plenty of other stories out there to read instead.

If you like this premise and want to read a different take on it, give "A Neurotic Need for Validation" a try. It's funny and sweet, even though its back-story for Mulder is a tad implausible. (I can imagine him working at a "Haldol Hilton," and I can picture him shacked up with one of his grad school professors, but putting shingles on a roof? That may be going too far.) In a sort of turnabout, while investigating a non-existent case as cover for an agenda of a personal nature, i.e. bringing Scully along as his "date" to an ex-girlfriend's wedding, Mulder accidentally finds an x-file, and then ditches Scully at the wedding ceremony to pursue it. Even though she has come to work the bogus case Mulder has dreamed up, once she's at the wedding Scully gets caught up in the events, meeting his ex-girlfriend, chatting up his old friends, and thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to snoop around in his absence. The Mulder/Scully banter is classic, the original cast of characters is well-drawn, there is a real and scary x-file for Mulder to discover, and everyone stays blessedly in character. I have only one complaint about "A Neurotic Need for Validation," which is that the recipe for the yummy sounding chocolate peanut butter candies described at the end of the story should have been posted as an addendum. But now that I've found the recipe, this story is officially perfect.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

It seems that I have finally achieved my least recognized, most self-destructive goal. Everyone at Book Club is mad at me.

I admit I tend to overstate at times, but let me try to explicate my overstatement. There is a lot of what Wendy referred to as "disapproval" of fics by members with specific notions of how characters should be interpreted. They stick around, though, so obviously--as amyhit said--they enjoy disagreements and find them fruitful. But disapproval is a word that makes me wonder. We all have a certain point where fanfic becomes other than fanfic, and this story probably hits a barrier and possibly crosses it. But why? Is it because it's Marysuefic? There are Marysuefics out there by the dozens, popular ones, the difference is they aren't "announced" as such. (My favorite example would be "Dance.") Is it badly written? No. Is it canon-noncompliant. That has been implied. Well, we certainly have no proof that Scully acted out at school, or harbored a secret pash, but we have no proof of a lot of things that happen in fanfic unchallenged. Scully saw herself as a young rebel, though probably no one else would think her very dangerous. Anyhow, and we go round and round on this, canon is cherrypicked about as much as the Bible. We like the Scully who slept with DW or we don't. We like the Scully who puts Mulder in an asylum in the one about the Big Bug or we choose to ignore it. She's downright mean in "Oubliette" but she doesn't get called out. She is scientifically rigorous or willfully blind. Canon supports many interpretations. It's useful when we want it to be, but it provides something of a glass crutch.

My boring old mantra: Scully (or Mulder, or anybody) is ooc when you, me, anyone doesn't like what they do or how they act. That is the flame that heats the Iolokus opposition. They don't like that Scully. You can always find a reason for a like or dislike; that's the complex and not-yet defined nature of fanfic. But I just wish everyone would try to remember that the personal preference is in literal fact what we talk about most of the time. We're all educated ladies here, we can all talk a good talk, but we're essentially defending turf. Even I, though maybe I see this a bit more clearly because I don't write fanfic. No dog in the fight.

I'm not talking rights here. As if. We have rights to opinions and rights to fight for them. But maybe we could work on being more relaxed when we come up against a Mulder or Scully--especially in this all-female group a Scully--that shocks our sensibilities. You can come up with a reason for disapproval, but it's not that hard to come up with reasons, or excuses, for the opposite.

Maybe we can trade out the terms approve/disapprove for like/dislike.

I intended no harm with my temper tantrum. I'll just take a little time out. Carry on.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Okay, okay, if you're going to get hypersemantic. Let me suggest something,a suggestion that is harmless and familiar to those who've checked the prereqs for Critic 101. How about those who state opinions, as all do, try to give reasons for these opinions. They could be from fanon or they could be a pointing out of sloppy, inconsistent writing, or they could be more personal: something happened to me once that made me really hate what she just did, although I guess she had a right, etc. We often do this, though not always, and I believe that It might inspire juicier conversation and honest evaluation. I'm not trying to throw my (increasing) weight around. It's a suggestion.

I tried to say that I find new perceptions of the characters as expressed through other characters--an example being a college buddy observing Scully as a wedding guest at an overelegant wedding--give me fresh thrills after too many years of reading about too few people. You might consider that a personal, not especially sexual, kink. Everyone has them. Come clean and share. We're not doing academic stuff here, though we borrow terms and sometimes pretend, but the more psychological investment the yeastier our talks could become.

And maybe we might consider why the Marysue immediately emerged and became famous. Fanfic! Not yet fully defined as to nature or purpose.

I don't have a dog in the fight. How can you say that? You know I'm a cat person. I'm not insisting on any approach, though I guess you took my "it's all personal" pretty seriously, possibly as a insult. Personal is not bad. This is fanfic, not a doctoral dissertation on mythical motifs in Fox television. We just might have more to discuss if we--unpack our first responses.

I bow to your further displeasure.