xf_book_club | Entries tagged with au

amyhit.livejournal.com

We're back into the angst, this week, with a couple of vignettes that fill in some of the blanks the previous fics have hinted at about Mulder and Scully's past assignations, and the days of their early relationship. First up is "The Fall of Our Summer", a post ep for Drive, which Kyber originally posted to

xf_is_love in 2009. Second we have "Poems", a post ep for Wetwired, and the second to last instalment in the KvsS7 universe.

The Fall of Our Summer

Poems

Only one more KvsS7 fic to go. Hopefully you've been fascinated, intrigued, or otherwise drawn in by the story so far, and you'll tune in five (or so) days from now, to reach the end of the road with us.

wendelah1

Though summer is now over, we are continuing our leisurely reading through the series, "Khyber versus Season Seven." Discussion is winding down finally on the last post, but there are some new comments up, including an informative summary of the two longer stories by

amyhit (thank you!).

Next up for consideration are two post-eps: "Amnesia," written for Brand X and "Vapor Trail," for Je Souhaite. These are both short, so I think we'll get through them a lot quicker. Both are rated Teen and above, I'd say, though check his intros to be sure. Spoilers for those episodes and for "All Things."

"Amnesia"

"Vapor Trail"

If the Internet Archive is having a bad day, the entire series can be found at Gossamer.

wendelah1

For those of you who are just tuning in, we are the midst of reading Khyber versus Season Seven. This is where the AU turns really AU, with his first complete episode. It's "broadcast" in two parts; substituting in for "En Ami" is Part One: "Home from the War."

After that cliff-hanger, we'll watch a rerun of "Paper Clip" from Season Three, followed by his post-ep, "Coyote Luck." Do not skip this section; it provides crucial information to the viewer/reader.

Finally, we'll take a look at his second full episode, which is swapped in place of "Chimera," Part Two: "Where I End and You Begin."

Warnings: High end of R for violence and mature subject matter. If this was TV, it would definitely have to be HBO. If you have any concerns about triggers, please PM me.

"Home From the War"

"Coyote Luck"

"Where I End and You Begin"

Since his fandom emails are all apparently dead, I've been unable to reach him. If anyone in the audience has a real-life email address for him, maybe you could let him know we're reading his fic here. If the Internet Archive is having a bad day, all of these stories are available at Gossamer.

amyhit.livejournal.com

khyber@citizensofgravity.com
DISTRIBUTION: Ephemeral, Gossamer, please ask for anywhere else.
RATING: PG-13 for mature content
CATEGORIES: V,R
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully something.
SPOILERS: S7, lots.
SUMMARY: Post-ep for "First Person Shooter." "And Mulder's
falling down on his end of the deal by doing a lousy job of making
the bed; it's impossible to convince myself that this really
is nothing."

Disclaimer: 1013 owns and is sorely neglecting significant
creative capital borrowed in this story.

Author's Notes: Part of Khyber VS 7. Thanks to Mims and
Samiam for early reads. This story was posted a week ago at:
http://www.alanna.net/Khyber. I *strongly* recommend reading
"Collapsar" and "Weret-hekau" first.

3. How Gravity Works on Planet Spooky

And if you have any suggestions for fics you'd like us to read once we get back to our regular schedule, please head over to the recs page and toss 'em out there.

amyhit.livejournal.com

Because the book club has been such a ghost town recently,

wendelah1 and I were considering going on a brief hiatus. Then I mentioned I'd been thinking about rereading "Khyber vs. Season Seven," and Wendelah suggested we read it here, rather than going on hiatus. So for the next month we're going to be kicking back, relishing the end of summer, sipping imaginary iced tea (or real iced tea (it could be love)), and reading KvsS7 at a pace that is decidedly not breakneck.

For those of you who don't know, KvsS7 is a series of ten stories written by Khyber, the majority of which are set in S7. Most of these stories are vignettes, though there are a couple of longer fics, and they all take place in the same slightly alternate universe. Khyber's aim was (among other things) to craft a retelling of S7 by replacing some episodes and adding onto others, so that in theory a reader could watch S7, intersperse it with his KvsS7 instalments, and wind up with a finished product that functioned as a successful alternate outcome for the season (and perhaps for the entire series). Sadly he never finished the KvsS7 project, but even unfinished the KvsS7 stories are complex, intelligent, and often strikingly intense. They feature a Mulder and Scully who are in character yet subtly different from canon, and a story universe that is written with a level of stunning realism TXF rarely attempted to achieve.

We're going to start with the vignettes "Collapsar" and "Weret-Hekau," which are post eps for Millennium and Theef. In approximately five days we'll post again, and continue to post at about that pace until we've covered all ten fics. This does not mean discussion on the previously posted fics must stop, it's just for the sake of organization.

KvsS7 was a weighty concept and a remarkable project, and the resulting fics are sometimes lovely, sometimes horrifying, and often breathtaking. I hope you'll give this fic universe a try, and tell us your thoughts and opinions. This is definitely the sort of fanfic to provoke thoughts and opinions.

1. Collapsar (post Millennium)

2. Weret-Hekau (post Theef)

ETA: I just now realized we actually have covered "Collapsar" here before, about two years ago, as some readers may remember. I even participated in the discussion. Memory fail, amyhit. I'm not going to link you to that discussion, since we're going to be reading the whole thing through this time, and I think it would be nice to get some fresh comments, if we can, without anyone feeling daunted by the prospect of repeating something someone else said back in 2009. However, I'm sure anyone who is interested will be able to find the post in question with a few clicks of a mouse.

amyhit.livejournal.com

Recently, while reading Human Credentials for the first time, I had such a strong desire to discuss it that I knew immediately I was going to post it here at some point. Then, while going through our recs page, I was pleased to find it had already been recced quite some time ago by

tiger_bay.

Human Credentials picks up after FTF, in an AU season 6, when a mysterious lead prompts Mulder, Scully, and Diana to set out on an adventure that will challenge their humanity and take them to the ends of the earth, possibly in more ways than one. The fact that this fic is over 400K tends to suggest it's a story with a fair amount going on. That's an understatement. There's not a lot that isn't going on in Human Credentials. It incorporates the mytharc in a way that makes a powerful and surprising amount of sense, and it makes excellent use of nearly every major secondary character from the show, as well as bringing in at least one intriguing original character. On top of that, it has the kind of dark, controversial Mulder and Scully characterizations that are sure to spark discussion. And there's a fair amount of hot sex too.

Human Credentials

A Few Specifications and Caveats:

Regarding Diana Fowley: Her role is mainly in the first third of the fic, so if you aren't a fan of her character and you just can't see yourself making it through 400K of her presence, don't write this fic off! Human Credentials does give Diana her due, but it's still very much Mulder and Scully's show.

Regarding the sequel: There is one, and it's called Lendemains. It's an unfinished WIP, and it was written about a decade after Human Credentials. You may discuss it in the comments if you want to, but the 'official' rec is Human Credentials only. It's just easier that way.

Regarding our schedule: Because this fic is so long, we might spend more time on it than usual. If discussion is still going on after seven or eight days, or if people start posting saying they fully intend to comment but they need a little more time, then

wendelah1 and I will hold off on posting a new fic for a few more days.

Regarding the content warnings: Heed them. Characters do some very troubling things in this fic. Things that will make excellent points for discussion, I think, but I don't want anyone getting blindsided.

amyhit.livejournal.com

Punk Maneuverability is one of the X-Files fandom's long-time authors. A quick scroll of her Gossamer page tells me she did most of her writing for this fandom in 1997, but she continued to write XF fic for close to a decade. China, posted in 2006, is one of the last XF fics she's posted to date.

It's a short AU in which Scully has made a drastic change in her life, one that has left both she and Mulder's lives torn asunder. I don't want to say too much more about the plot, because part of what makes this fic intriguing is the way the reader doesn't immediately know exactly what's going on. I picked this fic because, though they are very different fics, the central tension of China is very similar to that of last week's rec: Scully's discontent and her desire for a "normal life".

China by Punk M

You can also find the author at

runpunkrun, and you can find our recommendation page over here.

wendelah1

Last year, something remarkable happened. Prufrock's love, a beloved but famously reclusive author, started re-posting her fanfic to archive them at Gossamer. Understandably, this caused quite a stir. In the wake of losing so many XF fanfic sites over the past several years, a process accelerated by Yahoo's closure of Geocities, it showed a lot of love for a fandom she had presumably left behind long ago. Well, that's how I choose to interpret it, anyway. She hasn't re-posted everything by any means, but hey, it's a start.

"Inventing the Mulders" is one of the stories she hasn't archived yet, or at least it hasn't shown up on her page at Gossamer. This is a shame since I think it's one of her best. It's an unsentimental look at how season nine might have played out, had it been better written and still had David Duchovny making an occasional appearance. Do I betray my biases? So be it.

Besides archiving her fic, she's posted an email address. You can send feedback now to prufrockslove [at] yahoo [dot] com. Please do so, then come back and let us know what you think.

The story is PG-13, no warnings. Read Inventing the Mulders.

wendelah1

First, thank you to

amyhit for posting a story and moderating discussion in my absence. She noticed that nothing had been posted for...quite some time, pm'd me and came to my rescue. If there is anyone else out there who wishes to post their own recs, rather than have me do it, please let me know. I am the moderator, but this is our community. As always, the nomination post is awaiting your suggestions.

No discussion of fanfiction set during the early seasons is complete without "Universal Invariants." Yes, you've all heard of the story and most of you have probably read it, too. If you are like me, you've read it more than once, especially Chapter 12. *cough*. In "Universal Invariants,"

syntax6 takes the canon from season one and early season two, adds an au twist, throws in a tasty casefile, mixes in plenty of UST, Mulder/Scully banter and some angsty relationship stuff, and presents us with a fanfiction classic.

In this story, the twist is this: what if Ethan's scene hadn't been cut out of the pilot and Scully had been allowed to have a life of her own, apart from Mulder and the X-files? How would the storyline have been changed? How would it have stayed the same? This story is long and engrossing, so give yourself plenty of time. If you haven't already done so, don't forget to send the writer feedback!

Read "Universal Invariants".

wendelah1

We are still talking about "Butterflies All Tied Up." Discussion is being moderated by

amyhit, who bravely agreed to post the story. Please jump in, as I love to be told when I'm wrong. Come on, long-time lurkers, you know you want to.

Throughout our little first time sex scene series, I've continued to puzzle over what makes a sex scene -- sexy -- to me. This story isn't exactly a "guilty pleasure" story, since those mostly involve Mulder/Scully/Krycek and/or paddling (giving a whole new meaning to the term "crackfic"), but I will say I found the sex scene really hot. The first time I read it, I thought I was going into ventricular fibrillation, my heart was beating so rapidly. As always, sexy is in the eye of the beholder, so no guarantees you'll require resuscitation. It's also a great noir mystery story, full of twists and turns.

From the author's note:

Q. So what's this story about, anyway?
A. It's a noir-ish tale where good people may do bad things, bad people may do good things, and sometimes it might not be possible to tell the difference. The lucky ones live to tell about it.
Q. Yeah, but do Mulder and Scully get to have sex and stuff?
A. Yes.
Q. Wait, that was too easy. This sex, do they have it with each other?
A. Totally possible.
Q. When they're not having sex, what are they doing?
A. They're caught up in a murder that cuts very close to home. The investigation reveals truths about each other that they may never have wanted to know.

Read "Bait and Switch", then come back for discussion.

Since all of her stories are not at Gossamer, here is her website: home of the slugslayer.

Never fear, someday I will resume recs from the nomination post, so keep them coming.

wendelah1

I thought it might be fun to read more "first-time" stories. During last week's discussion of "On a Star-Spangled Night," the subject of Mulder's behavior towards Scully came up. One person even called his actions "predatory." Another member commented that she'd rather read depressing sex stories than fluff. I think "A Bitter Taste on the Tongue" fits the bill nicely. This is not my favorite first-time story, but it comes close. It is very hot and very dark, and since Mortimer is such a great writer, for me at least, it was surprisingly convincing.

Warnings: if you think you might need one, pm me, please.

You can read "A Bitter Taste on the Tongue" at Fugues Fiction Archive.

You can also read it via the Wayback Machine here.

Please us know what you think, and leave your suggestions at the nomination post.

wendelah1

I meant to post this next story a week ago. Where has the time gone?

I debated whether or not to even post this here as it's long and kind of angsty. Okay, it's very angsty. On the Prufrock Reader Torture Scale, with zero being angst-free (there is no angst-free prufrock story as far as I know, at least none that I would recommend) and ten being "Negative Utopia" or maybe "The Wasteland," this rates at least a seven. It is neither season eight fic nor is it season nine, but William is there and so is Mulder so I am classifying it as season nine, AU, PG-13.

I have no idea why I like this story as much as I do, given that I hate babyfic and season nine, but prufrock writes a lovely, believable Mulder, negotiating his way through fatherhood under the worst possible circumstances, plus there's some mytharc thrown in for good measure.

You can't send the author feedback because she disabled her email address even before she quit writing fic. But you can let us know! Love it? Hate it? Even a one line review would gladden my heart. Leave suggestions for next time here as always. I promise we will get to them eventually.

On the eve of the demise of geocities, something amazing happened. Someone decided to try to save it all and move it to their own servers. Seriously. They are calling it "reocities." To see if a geocities site has been put back up by this wonderful, wacky person, just type in the old url, substituting an "r" for the "g" and voila, there it will be, maybe.

Courtesy of Reocities, here is "The 13th Sign".

I love the internet.

wendelah1

Last month, when I was going through the past recs for The X-Files at

crack_van in preparation for my turn "driving the van," I was startled to realize that "The Sin Eater" was not on the list. As good as it is, and often as it has been recced elsewhere, I would have thought that everyone would have read it by now, but then a friend, who has been in the fandom since the fourth season, told me she had just read it recently, so this is apparently not the case.

Not only is it a classic science fiction story, complete with time travel and alternative history, it is also a brilliant character study of Mulder, told from Scully's point of view, which illustrates just how much he would give up in order to save his partner's life. Though written in 1997, which certainly qualifies it for Fandom Classic status, there is a very contemporary feel to the writing.

( read an excerpt )

"The Sin Eater"

As I mentioned in my entry at

crack_van, Jane's site at AOL went down last year, leaving a number of her stories not archived at Gossamer, including "A Bitter Taste on the Tongue" (het-angst), and "The Jacuzzi Stories" (het-fluff), so if you like them, you might want to save them to your hard-drive. In the meantime, here is a way-backed link to her old site: Jane Mortimer Fan Fiction.

As always, please let us know what you think, and do give us your suggestions for next time.

wendelah1

This week's selection, nominated by

amyhit, is set in an AU where Fox Mulder was abducted instead of his sister. Samantha Mulder goes to Oxford, gets recruited by the FBI, and finds the X-Files. In "Dirty Water," we meet up with Special Agent Samantha Mulder and her partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, in Boston, where they have gone to investigate the reappearance of J. Edgar Hoover's secret files. In the course of the investigation, Samantha finds out more about her family's history than she wanted to know. In "Such Devoted Sisters," also set in the same universe, Dana has invited Samantha to spend Thanksgiving with her family. I enjoyed both stories and keep hoping Naraht will give us more of this fascinating AU. I believe "Such Devoted Sisters" is first chronologically in this series.

Please give the writer some feedback, then come back for the discussion. You can leave suggestions for next time in our nomination post.

"Such Devoted Sisters"

"Dirty Water"

wendelah1

Going back through the nominations post, I have discovered a few missed stories. I am posting one of them tonight, as part of a vague plan, a theme if you will. What is the one thing that many of us can count on doing over the holidays? That's right. Traveling. For the next three weeks, I will post stories that all have the element of travel. This week's selection, nominated by

memento1, back in March(!!), is a casefile by Sarah Segretti. I've never read it, so let's see what the author has to say:

Rating: R
Summary: Two mysterious and surprising cases -- plus encounters with manhole covers, ice cream and pigs -- lead Scully and Mulder down an unexpected path: the road home.
Category: XR
Spoilers: S7 and SR 819. In this universe, events in "all things" and episodes after "Brand X," especially "Requiem," do not occur

December Schedule: (tentative, subject to change at the whim of the mod)

Week One: 99 and 44/100 Percent Done
Week Two: TBA
Week Three: TBA, Part Two
Week Four: The least sentimental holiday story I can find.

As always, tell the author what you thought, tell us what you thought, and please, give us your suggestions, especially for travel and holiday fic, for next time.

wendelah1

This week's story was nominated by

hlbr but it easily could have been nominated by me. Kel is one of my favorite authors in The X-Files fandom. She writes superb dialog, her plots are tight, her characterizations are excellent, and her stories are by turns funny and suspenseful.

Making his third appearance in a Kel fic, FBI agent Jerry Luskin may be the best original XF fanfic character I have ever read. In this story he has retired from the FBI, hung out his shingle as a PI, and (gulp) hired Fox Mulder as an investigator. As Jerry will soon find out, you can take Mulder out of the FBI, but you can't take him out of the game.

The story goes AU after Requiem. Seasons 8 and 9 never happened. Mulder and Scully have a son named William, but he wasn't born in a ghost town or adopted by farmers or anything stupid like that. Kel, I love you.

So go, read it, feed the author. Then, let's discuss it.

The Beginner's Guide to Tightrope Walking at her author's page at Gossamer. Scroll until you find it.

Remember to make your nominations here for next time.

wendelah1

This week's selection is The Unfinished Universe by Revely.

Classification: S/MSR/ This story wasn't AU when I started it,but now it is.
Spoilers: Through Badlaa
Feedback: revely_c@yahoo.com, or Revely@my-deja.com
A Note about the Timeline: This story contains spoilers for the first ten episodes of Season 8, but assumes that those episodes took place over the course of Scully's pregnancy (instead of just two or three months.) It also assumes that 'Requiem' took place in September, not May. Since this does not include spoilers for "Per Manum," it *really* doesn't include spoilers. Meaning, in this universe, the flashbacks from PM never happened.

Thanks to

lightlack for the nomination.

As always, let the author know what you think; let us know what you think; and please, give us your suggestions for next time.

wendelah1

This week's post was nominated by

wendelah1. That would be me. I read this story for the first time this year, although it was originally posted back in September 2000. It is rated PG for a couple of naughty words, the category is VRA, although I haven't a clue what that is supposed to mean. The author's summary says: "A minivan, some classic rock, and a trunk full of babygear. All is not as it appears." Yes folks, this is AU, MSR, babyfic and songfic. Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoy it, too. I don't know why Sarah Segretti never archived it but here it is:

( Belmont, Ohio, 3:36 P.M. )

Let us know what you think; let the author know what you think; and please, let us know your suggestions for next time.
Come on, people, we know you are out there! Please, I am at home on disability and I am lonely and bored! Don't make me beg...

Edit: as pointed out, by

tree, this story is also at Gossamer, ~~and on her webpage, which is somewhere out there in cyberspace. My bad, folks. I should have looked closer...~~ her webpage is now down. But Gossamer lives!

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: home, where else?
Current Music: I'd better not say

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X-Files Book Club

July 2017

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Page Summary

amyhit.livejournal.com - Stories 179-180: "The Fall of Our Summer" and "Poems" by Khyber
wendelah1 - Stories 177-178: "Amnesia" and "Vapor Trail" by Khyber
wendelah1 - Stories 174-176: "Home From the War," "Coyote Luck," "Where I End and You Begin," by Khyber
amyhit.livejournal.com - Story 173: "How Gravity Works on Planet Spooky" by Khyber
amyhit.livejournal.com - Story 171 and 172: "Collapsar" and "Weret-Hekau" by Khyber
amyhit.livejournal.com - Story 164: "Human Credentials" by Scarlet Baldy
amyhit.livejournal.com - Story 163: "China" by Punk Maneuverability
wendelah1 - Story 162: "Inventing the Mulders" by prufrock's love
wendelah1 - Story 134: "Universal Invariants" by Syntax6
wendelah1 - Story 124: "Bait and Switch" by Syntax6
wendelah1 - Story 120: "A Bitter Taste on the Tongue" by Jane Mortimer
wendelah1 - Story 94: "The 13th Sign" by prufrock's love
wendelah1 - Story 82: "The Sin Eater" by Jane Mortimer
wendelah1 - Story 77: "Dirty Water" by Naraht
wendelah1 - Story 67: "99 and 44/100 Percent Done" by Sarah Segretti
wendelah1 - Story 65: "The Beginner's Guide to Tight-rope Walking" by Kel
wendelah1 - Story 34: "The Unfinished Universe" by Revely
wendelah1 - Story 4: Belmont, Ohio, 3:36 P.M. by Sarah Segretti

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X-Files Book Club

The reading group for X-Files fanfiction

Entries tagged with au

Stories 179-180: "The Fall of Our Summer" and "Poems" by Khyber

Stories 177-178: "Amnesia" and "Vapor Trail" by Khyber

Stories 174-176: "Home From the War," "Coyote Luck," "Where I End and You Begin," by Khyber

Story 173: "How Gravity Works on Planet Spooky" by Khyber

Story 171 and 172: "Collapsar" and "Weret-Hekau" by Khyber

Story 164: "Human Credentials" by Scarlet Baldy

Story 163: "China" by Punk Maneuverability

Story 162: "Inventing the Mulders" by prufrock's love

Story 134: "Universal Invariants" by Syntax6

Story 124: "Bait and Switch" by Syntax6

Story 120: "A Bitter Taste on the Tongue" by Jane Mortimer

Story 94: "The 13th Sign" by prufrock's love

Story 82: "The Sin Eater" by Jane Mortimer

Story 77: "Dirty Water" by Naraht

Story 67: "99 and 44/100 Percent Done" by Sarah Segretti

Story 65: "The Beginner's Guide to Tight-rope Walking" by Kel

Story 34: "The Unfinished Universe" by Revely

Story 4: Belmont, Ohio, 3:36 P.M. by Sarah Segretti

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