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In which we meet the Allison of middle and high school and learn of her devotion to the X-files
So I've been wanting to do a post on The X-files and the movie and my late middle school and high school years, but I'm not quite sure how to word it.
As most people probably know, or could easily find out, the x-files premiered in 1993. At the time I was in fourth grade. A confirmed book worm, at the time I was reading everything I could get my hands on about para-normal phenomenon. Fictional stories about ghosts, possessions, and psychics as well as everything in the 000's of the library (yes I was and am dorky enough to memorize portions of the Dewey Decimal System). I saw the commercials and knew I would be interested but somehow got the idea that I was too young and it would be too scary so I didn't.
Flash forward four years. the show still nudged at the edge of my consciousness and I decided that I was going to become at fan. Yes, decided is the correct word. I brought a notebook and flash cards with me to lunch one week and tested all of my friends for psychic ability to commemorate my transition to fan of the show. That Sunday I watched for the first time. As I knew I would be, I was hooked, obsessed. I shared the obsession with my friend Becky. We watched every week, taped old episodes to catch up, discussed endlessly, walked around our respective neighborhoods after dark looking for UFOs, and possibly most importantly started signing our notes to each other as the characters. She was S.A.F.W.M, Ph.D. (Special Agent Fox William Mulder, Ph.D.) and I was S.A.D.K.S, Md. (Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, Md.)
Then I got the internet. And discovered usenet. And fanfiction. Of course I was pathologically shy, so I lurked, still do, but I read everything. During the summer I was only allowed to stay home with nothing to do for about two weeks, but those two weeks were spent up stairs in my father's study eating ice and reading through gossamer alphabetically. The whole time I strained to hear if anyone was coming because I was a good three years from the NC17 cut off date. At first, I remember avoiding all those fics, sure that the world would cave in somehow if I clicked. I was, of course, a very good girl. Then I accidentally hit one and the next page asked if I was over 17. Truthfully, I answered no, but it linked me through to the story anyway (clearly a difficulty in web design). The world didn't end. No big cavern opened an sucked me down. So I read. And read. And read. By the time I was actually 17 smut, PWP, and the rest were old hat.
Becky changed schools after eight grade, so I no longer had anyone to really discuss the show with. At some point, Kathy, the only person more obsessed than I was, handed me dossiers she had written up on each of the characters, asking for corrections. I changed Scully's eye color which lead to years of yelling “they're blue!” “they're green!” back and forth along the hallways of East High School. To which all I have to say is “They're blue!” On my own I continued to delight in the fact that my middle name was Kathryn and to compulsively wear the gold cross I got for my confirmation. Wow was I mad when I didn't get to go on the health class field trip to the morgue (or was it a biology field trip). People got to hold organs!
My senior year I started to lose interest. Mulder was gone, Scully cried all the time, and I had all sorts of other things to pay attention to. By the ninth season, my freshman year of college, I let the show play in background while I did other things. I couldn't tell you anything that happened that season, but the “damage” was done. I was majoring in Chemistry because science was everything, and Anthropology because forensic anthropology doesn't require four years of med-school focusing on the live people to be able to play with the dead people.
Well I haven't even gotten to my thoughts on the movie, but I will leave you with a link (not about the movie) to which all I can say is yes, just yes.
As most people probably know, or could easily find out, the x-files premiered in 1993. At the time I was in fourth grade. A confirmed book worm, at the time I was reading everything I could get my hands on about para-normal phenomenon. Fictional stories about ghosts, possessions, and psychics as well as everything in the 000's of the library (yes I was and am dorky enough to memorize portions of the Dewey Decimal System). I saw the commercials and knew I would be interested but somehow got the idea that I was too young and it would be too scary so I didn't.
Flash forward four years. the show still nudged at the edge of my consciousness and I decided that I was going to become at fan. Yes, decided is the correct word. I brought a notebook and flash cards with me to lunch one week and tested all of my friends for psychic ability to commemorate my transition to fan of the show. That Sunday I watched for the first time. As I knew I would be, I was hooked, obsessed. I shared the obsession with my friend Becky. We watched every week, taped old episodes to catch up, discussed endlessly, walked around our respective neighborhoods after dark looking for UFOs, and possibly most importantly started signing our notes to each other as the characters. She was S.A.F.W.M, Ph.D. (Special Agent Fox William Mulder, Ph.D.) and I was S.A.D.K.S, Md. (Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, Md.)
Then I got the internet. And discovered usenet. And fanfiction. Of course I was pathologically shy, so I lurked, still do, but I read everything. During the summer I was only allowed to stay home with nothing to do for about two weeks, but those two weeks were spent up stairs in my father's study eating ice and reading through gossamer alphabetically. The whole time I strained to hear if anyone was coming because I was a good three years from the NC17 cut off date. At first, I remember avoiding all those fics, sure that the world would cave in somehow if I clicked. I was, of course, a very good girl. Then I accidentally hit one and the next page asked if I was over 17. Truthfully, I answered no, but it linked me through to the story anyway (clearly a difficulty in web design). The world didn't end. No big cavern opened an sucked me down. So I read. And read. And read. By the time I was actually 17 smut, PWP, and the rest were old hat.
Becky changed schools after eight grade, so I no longer had anyone to really discuss the show with. At some point, Kathy, the only person more obsessed than I was, handed me dossiers she had written up on each of the characters, asking for corrections. I changed Scully's eye color which lead to years of yelling “they're blue!” “they're green!” back and forth along the hallways of East High School. To which all I have to say is “They're blue!” On my own I continued to delight in the fact that my middle name was Kathryn and to compulsively wear the gold cross I got for my confirmation. Wow was I mad when I didn't get to go on the health class field trip to the morgue (or was it a biology field trip). People got to hold organs!
My senior year I started to lose interest. Mulder was gone, Scully cried all the time, and I had all sorts of other things to pay attention to. By the ninth season, my freshman year of college, I let the show play in background while I did other things. I couldn't tell you anything that happened that season, but the “damage” was done. I was majoring in Chemistry because science was everything, and Anthropology because forensic anthropology doesn't require four years of med-school focusing on the live people to be able to play with the dead people.
Well I haven't even gotten to my thoughts on the movie, but I will leave you with a link (not about the movie) to which all I can say is yes, just yes.
no subject
The X-Files was my first online fandom. I participated a little, mostly in the shipper side of things. I read the newsgroup, joined lists, read fanfic for hours and hours a day. Gossamer is the best thing ever. My computer was filled with pictures, and wavs, and videos. A lot of which I still have. I still have at least three boxes of magazines that featured DD or GA or the show. I chatted excessively on IRC. I was totally the person going "OMG! They looked at each other! Did you see their hands touch? They are so in love!" lol
I also lost interest about the sixth season or so. I got married, had a kid, and just couldn't keep the obsession going. But I want to go back and have a rewatch of the whole thing. I remember begging my husband to watch the kid when the series finale aired, and then just sitting there going wtf? at the end.
The movie made up for it, but I still wish they'd ended it when DD left the show.
And I totally agree. They're blue!
no subject
I'm not sure that any of my subsequent fandoms have lived up to the memories of what when on in the x-files. I don't know if it's a first love sort of thing or if the x-files really did have better sites. I know I've never found another archive to rival Gossamer. Maybe it's because in x-files you only really needed to keep track of the shippers and noromos as opposed to the variety of ships in other fandoms (yes I know there were slashers and Scully/Skinner type people but they didn't really enter my consciousness at the time).
In retrospect, I agree that ending it when DD left would have been better than waiting out the extra two years. At the time I think I would have been crushed.
Yeah! someone else on the blue team.