Alt.tv.x-files.creative
From Fan History Wiki
On May 6, 1994, alt.tv.x-files.creative was created for the purpose of having a place for X-Files fans to post X-Files fan fiction. Between December 1994 and June 1995, Sonjia Wicke put out list of stories posted to alt.tv.x-files.creative
Seven slash stories were posted to alt.tv.x-files.creative in 1995. [1] In 1996, fifty slash stories were posted to alt.tv.x-files.creative. ( Rosalita: [2]) 350 pieces of slash were posted to alt.tv.x-files.creative. (Rosalita: [3])
In early July of 1997, there was a kerfluffle on alt.tv.x-files.creative regarding plagiarism and the policies of the X-Files Fan Fiction mailing list admins in how they dealt with those accusations.
In 1997, Entertainment Weekly ran an article this year which mentioned fan fiction. What follows is a quote from that article:
- Chris Carter may bar X-Filers Mulder and Scully forever from consummating their deep bond—but it's a common fantasy in the archives of fan fiction, where familiar TV and movie characters populate digital poems, scripts, short stories—even full-length novels—that span hundreds of websites and Usenet discussion groups. Readership figures are elusive, but fanfic's America Online index page has collected a half million hits in the past year.
Beginning in October 1998, the importance of alt.tv.x-files.creative in X-Files fan fiction community declined. Why did alt.tv.x-files.creative become less important to the X-Files fan fiction community? When did this trend start?
Megan in a post to alt.tv.x-files.creative dated December 18, 1998 of this trend:
- I think a lot of people got sick of trolls and off topic posts and ran to mailing lists. A lot of people gave up and went to other fandoms. Some people maybe were lucky enough to get inspiration and write and sell original fiction. And some people I know - some of my very favorite writers among them - left the community because of the show, the community, and the need to "get a life."
Lisby in a post to alt.tv.x-files.creative dated December 18, 1998:
- snobbiness has less to do with people recently abandoning this community than the epidemic of nasty behavior and intense negativism we've seen in the last year. People come here to this cyberspace to practice writing and to have fun. They don't come here to have their writing efforts rudely trashed, be rusticated via witchhunt, or be told they are utterly stupid if they don't agree that the show is going to hell in handbasket. Dealing with the endless nastiness drives people away or makes them become lurkers. I've been around ficdom awhile, and snobbiness used to be a real issue. It isn't now. Just plain ol' nastiness is.
On September 18, 1998, there was one of first reference to ActorFic on alt.tv.x-files.creative. It was a request for ActorFic featuring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. The response to this was polite but discouraging.
By October of 1998, authors like arcturus and FirePhile were posting badfic to alt.tv.x-files.creative. Given the context of the posts, it is relatively safe to assume that the term had been used for some time in that community and that it had gained a certain community cultural acceptance. In November, there would be a discussion, led by Vehemently and Dalakh, on the Usenet group that would discuss, among other things, one of the problems involving badfic: authorial intent. Some stories were labeled badfic and were thus enjoyable as badfic. Some stories were bad and the intent of the author is unknown. Is the author trying to write fan fiction and just doing a really poor job of it or were they writing deliberate badfic? This creates a problem for readers in trying to determine their response to reading the story.
