amyhit

Do you sometimes read a fic and find yourself completely riveted, thinking, "This is what I would have written if I could have written it"? I'm not talking about the dismissive declaration of, I always wanted to be a writer/doctor/astronaut, in which the unavoidable implication is, Oh, I could do that if I really wanted to. What I mean is, do you ever find in a fic, not just the confluence of another person's belief's about the characters with your own beliefs, but a recognition of how you think; something of a world view, really. That the way the author approaches meaning is familiar, almost the way your own voice is familiar? And it has nothing to do with usurping credit or patting yourself on the back by proxy (not to say you can't do the latter, should you want to *g*). It's about the feeling of being at one with something that is not your own.

I hope this is something other people feel. It's a very intimate thing in my experience, and it's always invaluable when it happens. It's also one of the things that I find I can experience within the context of fanfiction but that I rarely, if ever, find in the reading of original fiction.

A few weeks ago wendelah1 posted Yellow Balloon by Zyllah in xf_book_club. It's become my favorite S8 vignette - exquisite, subtle, brave, wrenching. This afternoon I remembered Wen having mentioned that it was a shame the author had only written two X-Files stories. So I went to read the second one. Click the pic if you'd like to do the same. It's about 14K, it won't take long.



It's late S7 - low key and gorgeous and thinkish, and Mulder and Scully are all carefully tangled up in themselves and each other, and I'm so in love with it (plus, Jabberwocks!) I really don't want to mince this one up to post a fragment, so no snippet-accompaniment this time.

Care to share one of your own "This Fic is What My Brain is Like On the Inside" fics with me?

And I quote:

FIC: He made one last attempt at stalling her, trying to make her think rationally. "But Scully, don't you want our first time to be special? Filled with love and tenderness and, well, maybe in a not-so-public place?"

ME: AHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHA! HA! HA, HA. HA.


What's even better? This fic was written in such a way that I really can't tell how serious the writer is. They might not be joking at all. It's a jokey sort of fic, but it's not outright satire, and the writer also uses the term (oh god, it actually pains me to type this) "love tunnel", and seems pretty serious about it. So yeah. Laughter.


***

Also, I bought The Book. Which book? THIS BOOK. My reasonably affluent relatives sent me birthday money belatedly and I managed to dash out and purchase it before my common sense could take over and convince me that $72.00 for one book is being frivolous to the point of insanity. I now own it, and you know what? NO BUYER'S REMORSE FOR ME, I'VE GOT A BAJILLION PAGES OF MULDER AND SCULLY IN HIGH-GLOSS, HIGH-RESOLUTION GORGEOUSNESS AND I'M FUCKING THRILLED ABOUT IT!

I love that full page shot of them in the FTF hallway. I think it's probably not from an actual take, but maybe from one of the times when they kept the camera rolling and just tried to get oriented and take the scene again without cutting. I'm pretty sure they do that, and I'm pretty sure that's what this picture is, because Scully is in the foreground, sort of looking off at a slight angle, not quite at the camera, and she still looks very much like she's Scully not Gillian, and Mulder is in the background, but he's facing the other way so all you can see is the back of his head. It's just this perfect encapsulation of a moment that is, creatively speaking, half formed. It has one foot in the fictional world and one foot in the world of 'Creating A Motion Picture' and both of those worlds are familiar to us, but oh so foreign, too.

Does everyone who buys the book get cue cards from the same episode? Mine were from The Host.

The embarrassment of rereading your own old, melodramatic, out of character fanfic?

Like getting drunk and storming across town in the middle of the night to make a desperate pass at the object of your obsession. Being strangely unable to stop cutting him* off with proclamations of your ardor every time he tries to talk. Then throwing up on him, just as your voice is getting really shrill on that one final 'but I love you!'

The embarrassment of having someone beta your old, melodramatic, out of character fanfic?

Like his best female friend - who has become your friend by proxy - coming to your house the next day and finding you with vomit still in your hair. She has come to return your purse, which you left at his house last night. You ask her in because you both know she's 'heard about what happened'. You cry and can't stop yourself from asking her if she thinks you ever had a chance with him at all. She is very nice not to mention that you are wearing his shirt. The one he says went missing months ago.




It's actually this bad. But then it's also kind of freeing, because after you've confronted that fic and exposed it to the light, you realize it's actually nothing like this at all. Unless your beta reader is mean and tells you Mulder and Scully are going to memorize your fic to quote for laughs at FBI functions. My betas have been lovely.

If anyone'd like to share their own squirming, cringing, hiding-under-cushions, scrunching-their-eyes-closed-tightly, emitting-high-pitched-noises-of-discomfort type responses to their past works of fanfic (or even original writing), please feel free to do so. I'm not looking for you to pity my neurotic behavior, but if you can relate, well, the more the merrier, right?


*male pronoun usage for convenience only.
+ Random Factoid: that guy I'm quoting, Douglas Engelbart, invented the computer mouse.

**Warning for reminiscing about the angst of days gone by.
**Also, a little bit of current angst.


"I don't care if it's honest, if it's fun," said Big Red.
"I don't care if it's fun, if it's real," said Kym.
"I don't even care if it's real," said Debbie. Not everyone knew what she meant.
-- Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues



( Drawerfic as it Pertains to Isolation, Evolution, and Identity )

Run-Ins with Fanfic in the Past 24 Hours:


My Father (we are idly discussing shipping tropes): One of these days Scully is going to decide to make some extre money and join a hotline.

Me: ...um...

My Father: What?

Me: ...someone's...already...done...that... . And the Red Shoe Diaries crossover, too.

My Father: They have?! (amused) And you've read this.

Me (lying through my teeth): No, no-- but these things do have synopses, you know.

***

I was checking out a archive for German fanfic when my eyes caught these words in one of the fics: Jetzt! Endlich, endlich!

I was about to back click, but pause, having my suspicions. Then I catch another line further down: Ja!, oh ja, Scully hatte ja so recht:

Me, suspiciously: Okay, is this porn?!

***

Also, apparently this >> Akte X << means The X-Files in German. I was rather proud of myself for intuiting that with the first link I tried.

***

THERE IS A WEBSITE FOR THE JEBUSLUG! WORSHIPPING THE JEBUSLUG!
(There is also an entire filking archive.)

***

Archive Note: Not Close Enough by Lysandra (MSR, Angst! Ooh, the angst! Ooh, the season three angst! It's enough to make me break out into smut! Er ... song. (NC-17)

Me: I WILL NOT BE SEDUCED BY THE PROMISE OF A BISCUIT! DO NOT BE RIDICULOUS! NO, WAIT, STOP! Please stop...? Fine, but I'm not going to read you until I'm done doing normal-people things -- so there!

*


Anyway, that's-- that's what I did today, pretty much.

Prologue

I very much feel there are things (situations) that can be written about in fanfic, which visually should be left to the imagination. I've been hesitant to post this sketch for that reason. I can only say that when I drew it I meant nothing but respect for the characters. I was drawing a situation in which they happened to be naked, not drawing a situation because they were naked.

( Cut for nudity )

The Scene:

"Our mummy has gone to Albuquerque."

"Mulder..." she growls and sighs. His arms around her slippery body
ride out the upheaval. She speaks with exasperated precision. "A
cadaver stuffed with natron reanimates and locomotes its way to New
Mexico. How's it going to get there, Mulder, thumb down a dromedary?"

The mirror he wedged over the faucets is fogged, but in a water
streak he can partially see her face, her eyes heavy-lidded, color in her
cheeks. His dark head is above hers, his arms are crossed beneath her
chin. She turns her head and idly licks a drop of bath water from his
shoulder.

This isn't real, he thinks.

This cannot possibly be happening.


Notes: The first time a recs page turned me on to Parabiosis, I quite reading after the first scene because I wasn't really interesting in reading that much RST in one go. I thought the whole fic would go on chronologically from the first scene. You know what they say about assumptions. They keep you from reading really good fanfic.

Fanart Notes: I drew this forever ago. Almost two years ago now, I think. It feels very separate from me. It actually turned out far better than I was expecting it to at the time. If there's one thing I'd like to change it's to have Mulder's attention drawn downwards more. I do kind of love how when I was adjusting the brightness and contrast after uploading this the eraser smudges showed up a sort of scuffed pinkish color. It actually didn't look like that on the page, but I liked the effect so I kept it.

I know this is pointless and unpleasant, but sometimes when something bothers you, talking about it helps. Or so I've heard.

( Release? Release like 'acquittal', release? But he confessed. )

David Gray, will you please come and, just, um, maybe have coffee with me some time? His new album, Draw the Line is out, and it is unspeakably lovely. Perhaps not quite as unspeakably lovely as Slow Motion, but considering that Slow Motion is my favorite album in existence, I figure I can stand it if his new one is only 95% as good, ballpark figure. I've been listening to Jackdaw and Kathleen all afternoon.


Also, today I woke up to Richard Dawkins on CBC radio, talking about such delightful things as evolution, biology, and atheism. I have come to the realization that my entire outlook would likely be much better if I could make this a common occurrence. He was delightfully well spoken, and very polite. He did not sound frustrated in the least, which was a relief since well-spoken frustrated atheists are quite common. I thought he might be a bit of a brute about it, too, considering he did title his book The God Delusion. He didn't clam up in interview, but he wasn't the least bit arrogant either. There was an anecdote about autopsying a certain nerve in a giraffe's neck that was fascinating (and made me think of Scully and the elephant). Dawkins and the interviewer also had a moment regarding consciousness, in which he declared he felt he possessed it, and knew it as being a certain way, and because she seemed to be not unlike himself, he felt alright about assuming her conscious as well. And this could also be said of his dog. I felt very flattered there for a moment, the interviewer said affably. I want to go to this strange and wonderful place where accidentally insulting someone is rightly and thoroughly difficult. *sigh* I'm definitely keeping my radio tuned to CBC anyway.

STARGATE UNIVERSE

Not bad at all. One of the pitfalls, I feel, of BSG having been such a stupendous show, and having garnered such respect, is that it upped the bar to an almost hopeless height for new aspiring science fiction television programs. They can't all be BSG, but because BSG proved that such wonderful storytelling is possible, we began to have a much more critical view of science fiction. Campy and fun went 'out' and profound and intelligent came 'in'. This is how I saw it, anyway. So I find Stargate Universe (so far) to be refreshing in that it's not trying to be out and out brilliant, but it's not content to languish in the footprint of its predecessors either. The writing is sharper and leaner, and the camera work is hipper and prettier than SG-1 and Atlantis, but it still feels like a Stargate program. It doesn't divorce itself completely from its roots. It doesn't feel like a space program that's trying to prove to its audience that "space programs are cool, and cool people like them, we swear!" Tonight's pilot was simply two hours of interesting plot, and the introduction of characters that, while slightly dull (some of them) to my immediate judgment, have a really good chance of enduring and becoming much beloved.

Eli Wallace was an excellent 'lampshade' characters, humorously but naturally pointing out all of the Stargate universe oddities that have always seems kind of a stretch of the imagination to the uninitiated, but have never been commented upon.

And Dr. Rush.

Oh, Dr. Rush. You and I are going to get along famously, I can just tell.

I think the distaste I was feeling towards the Porn Battle was based on a lack of fanfic that was anything but porn. A writer who can manage to write a story in so few words is impressive. I've always perceived a drabble, ideally, to be similar to a story, in that it is attempting to formulate a structure for itself - to follow an outline of dramatic rise and fall, though more loosely and with less detail than a fully fledged story would incorporate. But there are some drabbles that are, well, invertebrate. They have no structure whatsoever. I don't think it was the smut that was getting to me. I love biscuits. I could consume a whole tray of them. But there is a difference between a smut biscuit and a smut...glob.

That said, the Porn Battle seems to have been a lot better these last two days. The novelty of the first one's worn entirely off, but then I was very new to LJ when the first one happened, so it makes sense that it seemed novel to me then. There have been a couple of really great pieces, and, above that, the overall quality of the fics seems to have gone up. Fics like the angry and sexy "Rumors" by soft_thrills, and the sexy and gentle "Balm in Gilead" by aloysiavirgata are what a really great porn battle runs on. They're succinct but complicated, with implications that stretch far out beyond their humble word counts - true drabbles. amalnahurryeh's fic "Taxi Ride" is a very fine smut biscuit with an edge, and though it's something of a fully fledged stand alone fic, it is perfect in tone for a porn battle - sexy and fun and kind of brazen, but not lacking in a slight sense of the underlying seriousness of the characters. scooly42's drawing, 'Supply Closet' was both delightfully cheeky and well within the bounds of good taste -- thoroughly evocative of ten different fanfic scenarios, without being overly demonstrative. Then there's bravenewcentury's fic "The Even-Numbered Pages Are the Past". The conflict for me, here, is that calling such a fic 'porn' seems so utterly absurd that it takes my brain a moment to know what to do with the fic when read in the context of a porn battle. But no matter how incongruous a porn battle is as a backdrop, a fic like this one - even just a drabble - when spurred into words by a porn battle, will never fail to make the entire porn battle seem worthwhile in my mind.