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xf_book_club2014-09-14 06:34 pm
badforthefish.livejournal.com) wrote in xf_book_club2014-09-14 06:34 pm
Entry tags:
The Darkness Within
I CAN POST ENTRIES ON THE BOOK CLUB! MWWWWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
*coughs*
Anywayyyy...
Wendy said I was welcome to post that here, so here we go.
~~~~~~~~~~
(First posted on Haven)
Moose and Squirrel - before being declawed and tamed by scores of fic writers intent on giving them the white picket fence happiness they were never designed for in the first place - were pretty dark and tortured characters to begin with. A given, considering how much crap they went through in the show.
Back in the days many fic writers explored that dark path and gave us many incredible stories, the quintessential one being, of course, the infamous Iolokus. Stories where the characters' traumas weren't swept under the carpet of True Love (TM) Hot Sex, Domestic Life and Fat Babies. Stories where bad things happened to good people.
They were stories such as:
Arizona Highway by Fialka
Secret World by Bonetree
Grace Realized by Michaela
Injuries to The Spirit by Mystphile
The Mill by Cofax
...to name just a few off the top of my head.
In these stories Mulder and Scully were flawed and damaged. Years of turmoil and horrors weren't cured with a kiss and a soft bed. They had issues with one another, they argued and fought. They could be unfair, cruel, monstrous even - their claustrophobic co-dependency toxic, yet unavoidable. They suffered, battled illnesses both mental and physical, and sometimes they even died. Some stories made a point of reminding us how dangerous their job really was - that the human monsters could be worse than the alien ones. But their spirit shone nevertheless through it all, pure and bright, that elusive spark of magnificence that made them - well, you know, THEM.
As a reader I always found those tales much more emotionally rewarding than those of the bunnies and rainbow - Mulder and Scully in love forever in their pretty house with their pretty children - aw, look he has his mother's eyes and his father's nose - variety.
No pain no gain, uh?
I guess my question is: have you read such stories? Do you enjoy them? Can you rec the ones that stayed with you?
~Fish~
*coughs*
Anywayyyy...
Wendy said I was welcome to post that here, so here we go.
~~~~~~~~~~
(First posted on Haven)
Moose and Squirrel - before being declawed and tamed by scores of fic writers intent on giving them the white picket fence happiness they were never designed for in the first place - were pretty dark and tortured characters to begin with. A given, considering how much crap they went through in the show.
Back in the days many fic writers explored that dark path and gave us many incredible stories, the quintessential one being, of course, the infamous Iolokus. Stories where the characters' traumas weren't swept under the carpet of True Love (TM) Hot Sex, Domestic Life and Fat Babies. Stories where bad things happened to good people.
They were stories such as:
Arizona Highway by Fialka
Secret World by Bonetree
Grace Realized by Michaela
Injuries to The Spirit by Mystphile
The Mill by Cofax
...to name just a few off the top of my head.
In these stories Mulder and Scully were flawed and damaged. Years of turmoil and horrors weren't cured with a kiss and a soft bed. They had issues with one another, they argued and fought. They could be unfair, cruel, monstrous even - their claustrophobic co-dependency toxic, yet unavoidable. They suffered, battled illnesses both mental and physical, and sometimes they even died. Some stories made a point of reminding us how dangerous their job really was - that the human monsters could be worse than the alien ones. But their spirit shone nevertheless through it all, pure and bright, that elusive spark of magnificence that made them - well, you know, THEM.
As a reader I always found those tales much more emotionally rewarding than those of the bunnies and rainbow - Mulder and Scully in love forever in their pretty house with their pretty children - aw, look he has his mother's eyes and his father's nose - variety.
No pain no gain, uh?
I guess my question is: have you read such stories? Do you enjoy them? Can you rec the ones that stayed with you?
~Fish~
no subject
That is a great list! Thank you! I have read a few of them, but my memory is fuzzy, I will need to revisit them. Idella's Resurrection is one of my all time favourite. My stomach does little flips every time I read it. The writing is so gorgeous.
Why is there so much happy-ending and/or William-obsessed fanfic being written now? Why is it so popular with the general readership, almost to the exclusion of anything else?
I am not sure I can answer this without sounding like an arrogant elitist bitch.
Oh well...
A)babyfic has always been a popular genre I don't think this is a recent phenomenon.
B)less writers means less quality writing. It means more pedestrian, predictable stories. The mediocre quality stuff that used to fade in the background back in the days because we had so many awesome writers to pay attention to is now back center stage because the fandom royalty has buggered off.
C)Again, I'll be an old fart and ask: is it possible that the current general readership is less well read than the old one and therefore less discerning? I've noticed the shift in various forums where I hang out, from Oh No They Didn't to TV Com, to Reddit - how less articulate people seem to be in general, than say, 15 years ago. In the old days, the computer savvy people tended to be the literate, highly educated kind. But today everybody is online. Therefore there might be a 'downward tug' in terms of readership desires and expectations, less TS Eliot, more Entertainment Weekly.
ETA: damn I really must go to bed, but I need to add this: I'm not saying happy fics or baby fics are inherently bad, but that bad stories often seem to fall in those categories. Am I making sense?
no subject
I suppose not. The pregnancy fics must have begun during the hiatus between seasons seven and eight. There were plenty of people writing Emily-related fics, I'd imagine. And I guess the fandom peaked right after the 1998 movie? It's been all downhill since then?
It's not the pregnancy in and of itself that disturbs me. One can theoretically write good fic which includes that element. But you do need a plot of some kind. Mulder and Scully going to Lamaze classes together is not a plot. If Mulder and Scully are attending Lamaze classes and discover that they're being followed, and Mulder gets furious and starts investigating and Scully gets mad because he's putting himself in danger again, and calls Skinner and Doggett in, which makes Mulder even madder, then you've got a plot, and it even kinda fits into canon. (I didn't say it was a good plot. But at least you'd have conflict AND you'd have Mulder behaving like Mulder.) But no one is writing that sort of baby-and-pregnancy fic.
B)less writers means less quality writing. It means more pedestrian, predictable stories. The mediocre quality stuff that used to fade in the background back in the days because we had so many awesome writers to pay attention to is now back center stage because the fandom royalty has buggered off.
People do move on, and TXF seemed to attract more than its fair share of fandom serial monogamists, i.e. folks who can only be fannish about one show at a time. And that still doesn't explain why the popular kids are all writing babyfic.
C) Again, I'll be an old fart and ask: is it possible that the current general readership is less well read than the old one and therefore less discerning? I've noticed the shift in various forums where I hang out, from Oh No They Didn't to TV Com, to Reddit - how less articulate people seem to be in general, than say, 15 years ago. In the old days, the computer savvy people tended to be the literate, highly educated kind. But today everybody is online. Therefore there might be a 'downward tug' in terms of readership desires and expectations, less TS Eliot, more Entertainment Weekly.
Maybe. I love Entertainment Weekly and T.S. Elliot. You can love high culture and low culture. They aren't mutually exclusive.
I have another theory, stolen from a discussion about MCU in a friend's journal. It's not a locked post so I guess I can quote her?
She goes on to suggest that maybe this is the reason there are so many MCU coffee shop and high school AUs. That made me think about the fic being written in our fandom. The most popular XF story circulating on Tumblr is a college AU, where Scully is in medical school on the same campus where Mulder is getting his psych degree. It makes no sense whatsover--no real medical student would have time to chase all over after spooks and aliens with Mulder--but there is a lot of making out, spooning and wearing each others clothes. It appeals to the XF Tumblr demographic which skews very young and knows little or nothing about college in the USA or attending medical school anywhere. Maybe these fans love Mulder and Scully but since their sister wasn't abducted by aliens and they don't work for the FBI, they don't find much with which to identify. To get around that, they write AUs that they can relate to more easily: going to
high schoolcollege, having babies, and raising a family.I started writing a crackfic AU where Mulder and Scully are shelter cats so I kind of get the impulse.
no subject
Serial monogamists, eeh.
The popular kids are writing babyfic because the popular kids have got the imagination of a stunted cabbage on a frosty day. You know, I absolutely despise that apparently scarosanct writer's rule which advises to "write what you know" because, pardon my French, writing what you know is boring as fuck (which incidently is why I write Scully's POV more than Mulder's POV. I 'get' Mulder. Unlike Scully he holds no mystery for me therefore I don't find writing him as interesting as trying to figure out what makes the short redhead tick).
If we wrote what we knew we would have no alternate universes, no aliens invasions, no clones, no apocafic etc...
The popular kids write babyfic because it is easy and safe, and doesn't require much effort. It's the paparazzi effect of fic writing. Why bother hiking in a jungle for the elusive shot of a near extinct bird, when a pic of Jennifer Lawrence with her new beau will sell 10 times better? Why spend hours or months crafting something original or emotionally subtle when a story about Mulder and Scully changing diapers and arguing over lost toys will get you hundred kuddos?
As an old fart I blame society's instant gratification culture myself.
End of rant.
Kids today...
I'd agree with this. I'm in my late-twenties, if that offers any perspective at all. I remember several years ago being horrified when my friend, a school teacher, said spelling tests have become a nuisance. Kids rely so heavily on autocorrect and acronyms that they don't know how to spell. What?!
"The paparazzi effect of writing." Touché. It's refreshing to hear that someone else is disgusted with that part of our culture.
no subject
He wees on Mulder's leather jacket.
I kid you not.
Tis on Goss. http://tooms.gossamer.org/display.php?TightAssedCat.Manik
no subject
Y'know, I once floated a theory that there were so many chaste and senseless one-bed fics because of coed dorms. Officially an old fart, I think they were a bad, bad idea. Both the dorms and the fics.
I think anyone drawn to the whole SF/fantasy array of fiction knows instinctively that "write what you know" is nonsense. Write what you dig.
no subject
Because that 10/10 vision is a thing of the past for most of us...*sniggers*
We're only twenty one years old. Trek and Star Wars are way elderly-er than us. We've only started to have access to strong liquors.
Current fanfic you mean? The usual places: Ephemeral, A03, FF.Net.
I think the popular kids Wendy is referring to are the writers who get massive rec threads over at Haven.
Write what you dig.
Shovel? Or maybe a backhoe?
Fathoms Five
Re: Fathoms Five
RE: Re: Fathoms Five
Speaking of the mini-series, have you seen the latest trailer? So good!
Also, a hilarious actor from Portlandia and Silicon Valley, Kumail Nanjiani, does a podcast called x-files files. I'm on the road a lot, so I enjoy listening to him break-down the episodes. He usually has his friends as guests on his podcasts, which adds unique perspective and comic relief.