#piper sargasso

[hazellvsq]

the problem is that piper belongs in a late 90s/early 2000s grungy character-driven tv drama (my so called life, freaks and geeks, dawson’s creek, daria) and hazel belongs in a subversive gothic novel (jane eyre, passing, autobiography of my mother, wide sargasso sea) and jason belongs with the original argonauts. i think rick did understand this on some level but had trouble incorporating this into his own writing style.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Piper Sargasso

Piper Sargasso has 25 stories at Gossamer, but don’t miss her website where the fics each have cover collage art. If you are a fan of Mulder/Scully romance, there are a lot of MSR fics to read that are set in different seasons of the show. But like the show that never stuck to one type of story, Piper’s stories have variety, so you can also find AUs and /Other.  Big thanks to Piper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It does, but I love that people are still into it! Writers back in the day put so much work and love into their writing, and it's nice to know that the stories are still being appreciated to this day. As for my own stories, it puts a huge smile on my face to know there are still people out there checking them out and hopefully enjoying them.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was such a positive period of my life. I made some amazing friends who became something like older sisters (and some brothers) to me, even though I was a little ridiculous when I was in my early to mid-twenties. It was also a much-needed confidence booster. I was a pretty shy person and loved writing, but never had the nerve to show anything to anyone. My first fanfic was completely horrible, but because of it I made my first XF friend and super beta, Mimic117. Between her guidance and the encouraging words from my Yahoo group I was able to do something I really loved and felt great about myself and my abilities for the first time. That will stay with me forever. That first story was truly atrocious, but it was a catalyst for great things in my life when I needed them the most.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I remember trying this cool new thing called an AOL chat room, but they were more interested in perving on each other than talking about the show. Once I knew about fanfiction I kept seeing that some of my favorite authors kept mentioning IWTBXF in their notes, a Yahoo group named I Want to Believe. I looked it up, joined, and with great trepidation made my introductory post. Everyone was so warm and welcoming, and talking to my favorite authors in the group was a little like meeting a celebrity and finding out that they're awesome in real life. After IWTBXF fell apart, an off-shoot called Beyond the Sea was created with almost all of the original group transferring over. I stuck to my little family there and didn't branch out into much else, other than the rare dip into Haven. Ephemeral and Gossamer, of course.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Mostly the overwhelming feeling of acceptance and confidence to write, something I was sorely lacking before in my life. I fell in with the best group, that's for sure! They made me feel like being a professional writer could be an achievable goal.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

The commercial advertising. The pilot spoke to my supernatural-loving, angsty 15 year-old soul. I watched it religiously every week. There was nothing like it. It was off-beat, but serious (most of the time) and fulfilled my insatiable craving for the paranormal and weird. You just couldn't get that from Melrose Place and Beavis and Butthead, you know? It definitely helped that David Duchovny was adorable and the character of Scully was the strong and intelligent icon we needed in the 90's and beyond.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

In high school I had a friend who was as obsessed with the show as I was. Maybe more, since she once had a slumber party that was exclusively to binge watch her taped episodes (the other girls who wanted to mess around with spells and the Ouija board weren't thrilled that she couldn't be swayed away from it) and she often drove me from play rehearsals in her convertible with the top down and the theme song blasting to the heavens, much to my delight and mortification. A couple years after we graduated she told me about the piece of fanfic she wrote. Insert a record screech here. What?! You mean there are thousands of stories dedicated to my favorite show? And hundreds more get added every month?! I was obsessed. If I could've stopped working and slept at my computer desk I would have.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Sadly it's nonexistent these days. I have great memories and it holds a big piece of my heart, but I haven't been active in a long time. I would love to see a huge revival, and would definitely want to be involved in that in some way, were it to happen.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I read a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction for a while, but I never could expend the kind of energy and time I did for the X-Files fandom. It came at a perfect time in my life, and so far nothing else has measured up to it.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Besides XF characters? Off the top of my head I really love Hermione Granger, Buffy Summers, Elizabeth Bennet, and Claire Fraser for their sass and strength of character, Severus Snape for his complexity, and Christina Ricci's version of Wednesday Addams for her pure awesomeness. She's pretty much my spirit animal.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I do occasionally. I watched the series from season 1-7 so many times that I started to burn out, but I get on my X-Files kicks sometimes and binge it again.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

Like with the show, I'll get nostalgic and need to consume all the fanfics my greedy little eyes can behold until I move on to something else. It can feel a little lonely though, if you'll excuse the drama. We're not in the heyday anymore, so it feels a little like walking through a ghost town. Many of the stories out there are suspended in time because the show ended, or people stopped writing.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I know I have dozens, but I'm drawing a blank. My ultimate favorite is any well-written MSR casefile with UST finally resulting in RST. Those are my unicorns!

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I have a silly one called Baby, It's Cold Outside that I sometimes read around Christmastime. It was a fluffy song-fic, but I can see the scene so clearly in my mind when I read it and it's just pure fun. I also like my Donnie Pfaster series. I can see the potential in my writing with those, which makes me feel I could really write something special someday. Plus, he's such an interesting little slimeball to write and read about. Bless his heart.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I still think about the two WIPs I haven't finished. I wrote myself into a corner with This Mortal Coil, and honestly I think it needs a total overhaul. I think Dana Scully's Diary would be a fun one to finish. I hate that I never finished them.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I think about writing fanfic now and then and I've had a couple original novels sketched out, but there are so many other demands on my time that I haven't gotten very far. I still plan to see the novels through, even if no one but interested friends and family read them.  

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I used to watch an episode and really study the actors' expressions and actions, always trying to find new angles to the stories we all know. A lot of times things would just come to me and I'd get so excited I couldn't sleep until I wrote a good chunk of it down.

What's the story behind your pen name?

The friend who introduced me to fanfic told me the best way to choose a pen name was to make sure it derives from the show. For a couple days I looked at the titles and summaries of episodes and agonized over just the right name. Finally Piper Maru and the summary from Triangle, which mentions the Sargasso sea, stood out and just clicked.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My now husband always knew, and he thought it was cool that I had a hobby that made me so happy, but he was never a reader. My parents found out when I was about 24 and my step-dad would tell EVERYONE about it, much to my horror. Most reactions were of the bland, "Oh yeah? That's nice." variety but I definitely got some weird looks from others. The worst was when I found out how much of my racier MSR stories my parents read. My step-dad thought it was hilarious and teased me a little. My usually open-minded mom was uncomfortable, but tried to be supportive. It's all fun and games until your daughter starts writing psuedo-erotica for anyone to see!

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Circe Invidiosa very generously hosts a page for me at http://pipers.invidiosa.com.

(Posted by Lilydale on January 26, 2021)

[neonjawbone]

It’s OC-Tober!! My favorite time of year, when I spend the month of October drawing a different character of mine every day, all the while posting free-to-read descriptions of them on my Patreon!!

2022 WEEK ONE

Cania Masticaire (she/her) // Marlow Archer (she/her) // Hugo Galamorda (he/him) // Catherine Greychess (she/her) // Sargasso Blackheart (she/her) // Hound Stabbinson (he/him) // Winona Redd and Piper Anastasia (both she/her)

You can follow along daily by following me on twitter, and you can support me making the stories these characters live in by pledging to my patreon!

[invidiosa]

Because no one was asking for it, my social isolating project was to get my old XF fanfic site back up and running. And it’s finally done! invidiosa.com houses XF fanfic by:

Rain

Helen Quilley

TLynn

Shelba

Folieadeux

Diehard

Oracle

Piper Sargasso

ML

Circe Invidiosa (that’s me!)

(ML’s fic catalogue is not compete; the site contains the stories she’d given me over the years before her passing)

Also included are old “Feature Author” interviews that were on the old fanfic rec site How Will It End.

Enjoy!

[valentinaonthemoon]

I just realised that most of these games are similar, but the wonderful @infinitestarsintheskye tagged me on this Catch Up Tag game some weeks ago and I’ll do my best to vary my answers 😊💜

Three ships: I’ll go with Leo and Piper from Charmed because I’ve been watching that and they’re cute; Dina and Garrett from Superstore because the show isn’t fixed on that ship and it’s ok, but I really want them to get together before it’s cancelled; and of course FitzSimmons, and if you’ve been following me, you might have known that already

Last song I listened to: “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???” by Bastille and Graham Coxon

Last movie: Before “The Mummy” (1999), I watched “Tutti Giù Per Terra”, translated in English as “We All Fall Down”, because I’m trying to relearn how to write movie reviews.

Currently reading: Technically I am also reading “Nicholas Nickleby” and “Wide Sargasso Sea”, but I’m... looking away right now

Currently watching: I already mentioned “Charmed” and “Taskmaster”, so I’ll tell you that I still have to watch two seasons of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” before finally catching up!

Currently craving: I’ve just had a lovely salad so -- apart from sleep -- nothing, really.

How’s it going?: I’m not feeling great, these days. I’ve had a problem with the bank some weeks ago, and dealing with it isn’t the easiest, mentally. The whole of last year didn’t really help. But I’ll get there, eventually. 😊

Thank you for thinking of me, Skye! (And for waiting a bit) ✨

The lovely @shoot4themoon tagged me in this little game back in January, thank you for waiting! 😊

Last song: “Honey” by KAYE

Last movie: “The Mummy” (1999), but I did cover my eyes during the parts with the scarabs because they are still creepy as they were when I was a child.

Currently watching: I started watching “The Durrells” some time ago and I’m enjoying it!

Currently reading: A collection of plays by Ibsen, and the autobiography of Enrichetta Caracciolo, which I discovered reading a collection of Italian women biographies.

Currently craving: Sleep

Thank you again for thinking of me for the tag! ✨

[deservingporcupine]

Meta for the Rainbow Book Exchange — Fangirl. Spoilers, I guess? 

Chapter 11 - Cath talking to Professor Piper. 

Okay, this is the part, in this whole book, that I have a big believability problem with. (It's not, like, a book ruiner or anything… but it is a pretty big thing, I think.) 

Because here’s the thing — it is utterly unbelievable to me that Cath is surprised by this, and by this reaction. 

Cath isn’t dumb. She would know that turning in fanfiction to a creative writing class is suspect. (Heck, for most of the school-run creative writing classes I’ve been in (though, granted, those were a while ago), even thinking about trying to turn in anything that could be considered “genre” felt wildly risky and borderline not-allowed.) Less than twenty pages later, while talking to Levi about fanfiction in the diner, it even says, specifically: “She was so used to keeping it a secret—used to assuming people would think she was a freak and a nerd and a pervert….” (p. 124) On page 107 it says, “all the arguments came easily to Cath; they were the justification for all fanfiction.” (“Borrowing… repurposing. Remixing. Sampling. … It’s not illegal.��) She’s been doing this a long time; she’s thought about this, she’s had to defend this… 

So why does she seem surprised? 

I can believe that Cath writes the story and turns it in (maybe she didn’t have time to do something else, or maybe she was just really excited about this particular story idea and thought it fit the assignment perfectly and knew that she would do a good job on it), but I can’t believe that she doesn’t worry about it at all (especially when she doesn’t get her paper back), and I can’t believe that she’s so utterly surprised and shocked by Prof. Piper’s reaction. 

And here’s something that could fix it: if we saw her worrying a bit about it beforehand, maybe rationalizing it — after all, there are TONS of what are essentially fanfiction assignments in all kinds of different classes, including history and English class and all… even creative writing classes, if the fandom is something like mythology. (I have SUCH a list, both from high school and college: newspaper based on The Hobbit; diary of Marie Curie for science class; epistolary retelling of To Kill a Mockingbird; alternate ending for Sense and Sensibility; myth retelling from Orpheus's lyre's POV for Latin class; the list goes on...) It would also help if they’d talked in their class about the complex, interwoven nature of inspiration and ideas and the way works play off one another in literature. 

 But yeah, if Cath had thought about that beforehand—and then decided, “oh, it’ll be okay, Professor Piper will understand.” (Which is a huge emotional risk for Cath, isn’t it. There’d be that sense of hope and daring, maybe a little bit defiant, and trying to reassure yourself, it’ll be alright, it’ll be alright… Thinking that she can trust Prof. Piper to get it, that she’s safe.) 

 And then SHE DOESN’T. (Like, at all. I love Prof. Piper, but rereading that scene, I almost question whether she even read Cath’s whole paper. She clearly doesn’t understand fanfiction and hasn’t thought about it at all, though it’s possible she’s considered it a little more before their future meetings. As, to be honest, she should; do I even need to mention things like Wide Sargasso Sea, or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead? See also one of my favorite quotes.) 

 And then Cath, who probably didn’t realize how subconsciously important this was to her (and maybe still doesn’t, consciously), would be obviously just crushed. (Partly because she was sharing something so close to her heart, partly because mother figure, etc etc etc.) Much like she is, anyway, but without that nagging problem of seeming dumb for being surprised that this was an issue. 

To me, this would also have the benefit of making her decision to tell Levi about it all, and talk about fanfiction with him, that much more poignant and brave — having just taken the risk of sharing this with someone, and having been shot down painfully, she still decides to do it again anyway. (I mean, this is what happened anyway, it would just be a little more emphasized, maybe.)

@rainbowexchange @thegracelane @bexlogic @jenndoesnotcare @bethanyactually 

[lilydalexf]

Fics like this exist! Here are some good X-Files fics with all of Mulder/Other, Scully/Other, and MSR. Enjoy! 2008 by Mystphile With the quest at an end, the X-Files closed in the year 2000. Our heroes went their separate ways. In 2008, they meet in Bloomingdale's and the past, present, and future are explored. Nine chapters take place in New York City; the last part takes place in Nova Scotia, with the influence of a ghost-like presence. An X-File, it was posted as "Scully's Haunting." The Actor by A.I. Irving After Mulder's soul searching in Apison, Skinner offers Scully the opportunity to make some changes in her professional and personal life. All the Pretty Flowers by Piper Sargasso I know heartbreak. Blinded by White Light by dashakay (@dashakay) What are we, but the sum of our memories? (Part 2: Open to White) Crossroads in Time by Avalon How many different lives would we be leading if we made different choices? Dr. Scully's School for Exceptional Boys by prufrock's love More than a decade had passed. Mulder had no reason to hole up in his apartment alone, wearing a Three Dog Night T-shirt with dried mustard on the hem and blue jeans that had seen better days. He wasn't "saving himself" for anyone. Especially not Her. Though she remained epically, beautifully, brilliantly kick-A-S-S. Twist by fran58 Scully lunches with her mother, UST and a do-re-mi, Mulder gets to climb a tree. Or: Mulder and Scully are confused and angst ridden. The Gunmen make an appearance.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted on Tuesdays. Here is a recap of all the interviews posted so far. Read them all!

If you are an old school author, I’d love to interview you. Send me a message!

UPDATED Masterlist of Old School X interviews

aka “Jake” Audrey Roget Bonetree bugs Chimerical Circe Invidiosa Dawn Dawson E. Rambo Dreamshaper Elizabeth Rowandale Finn Jenna Tooms JET Jintian Lydia Bower Mara Marasmus Mary Ruth Keller MaybeAmanda Michelle Kiefer MustangSally nevdull Parrotfish Penumbra Piper Sargasso Rae Sarah Ellen Parsons Sheryl Martin Sophia Jirafe RivkaT Slippin’ Mickeys Syntax6 Tabula Rasa Vickie Moseley VivWiley