#dreamshaper

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.)?

ATXC, and mailing lists. I don't actually remember the names of all the mailing lists! I can picture myself sitting in my kitchen on my computer, and what the emails looked like--the font, the signature lines--but not the names. I can even remember specific conversations we had! One of them must have been Scullyfic, because I remember the first meetup being planned. Is that right? Was it the Scullyfic meetup? [Lilydale note: Probably was Scullyfic. There was a big email flurry when the first Scullyfic mailing list meetup was being planned.] My mind was absolutely blown by the idea of a fan con. Now I've led panels at a dozen of them.

I remember some of the arguments, too. It's funny that some of them are the same arguments I still see here and there, like whether or not criticism of a fanwork is valid. Real Person Fic being this unbelievably shameful thing you had to ask to be shown, and the doyennes of the fandom would have given you the cut direct at Almack's if they'd found out, you know?

This was also the era of AIM and ICQ. mIRC too, right? I spent a lot of time in channels. I absolutely loved when people started to be more open about themselves in chats. I was always so interested in how fandom fit into people's lives. Some people I talked to were moms, college students, people who had interesting careers, and they all just found ways to make fandom work for them. They had a need and were meeting it, despite the pressures of their offline life.

I don't know how to explain the impression that made on me, but--it normalized fandom. That seems obvious, maybe, but I hadn't known this was something you could integrate into your everyday life.

It also normalized the idea of women taking their own needs as primary, in a way that went beyond what I was exposed to in my home life, or through the feminism of the 1990s. There was this wild intersection of the--the domestic and intellectual life of women, and the playful life of women, just making itself known to me in a way I'd never seen before. That was enormous. Absolutely a foundational experience for me.

My experience was that ATXC and email lists were like, these surface-level interactions where people figured out, roughly, if your mind ran on a similar track to theirs, and then you were invited to make deeper relationships in more private corners of the internet. Social media filled both functions at once, I think, for a while. But the privacy was missing. I'm not surprised that Slack and Discord are starting to fill that private corner gap--everything old becomes new, etc.

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

UST and monsters. This is still an unbeatable combination for me!

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I loved romance novels--I read so many of them. Somehow, before we even had a computer at home, I started to tell myself romance novel stories with Mulder and Scully as the lead characters. This was how I talked myself to sleep--I wasn't a good sleeper. Then when I got online and did whatever search led me to ATXC, I was just shocked. Shocked! Can't do the surprise justice, in this era where fanfic is relatively mainstream. Other people had also independently invented this thing I loved! But they wrote their ideas down! I jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

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

It's like my relationship to my childhood, frankly. Foundational, but I don't think about it all that much on a daily basis, right? I smile and reblog gif sets. I get nostalgic. I get embarrassed by social mistakes I made. I feel the way many of us do about memories from our teenage years. I wouldn't be who I was without it, but I'm not still in it.

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

I was. I've spent 20 years in fandom! I did some beta work for someone who'd started writing slash--The Sentinel. The actual Sentinel, not just an endless loop of Sentinel AUs based on Sentinel AUs based on etc. I had some idea at the time that I was queer, but this was my first real exposure to romances that weren't straight. So I tore my way through the early 2000s slash fandoms as they developed: The Sentinel, Due South, Stargate Atlantis. Popslash, where a mix of good writing and absurdity ruled. Bandom, where I met my wife. Since then, many smaller fandoms.

It's hard to compare any of these things to each other, let alone to the X-Files. In each one, I was lucky enough to find a circle of women who were strong beta readers and good friends. I never wrote as much or for as long as I did in the X-Files.

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

I watched the new episodes. I've shown friends important episodes--I remember that a few years ago, another friend and I tried to hook a third friend on the show by binging some favorites--mostly shippy MOTW, so it was like, Arcadia, Triangle, Bad Blood. Fun stuff!

We finish watching and I'm like, well? And? And she says, that was fine, but I'm more of a man-pain, secret babies kind of person? I'll never forget it. She had no idea but she'd hit the nail on the head! We were wheezing with laughter. We went back and watched mytharc episodes, which was much less fun for me, but much more interesting to her.

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

I don't read X-Files fic often. I look at new things sometimes, and I've reread a few old classics, but my reading taste has changed so much. I still love straight romance, but it needs to be fast and sharp in a way that is hard to find.

I read fic in other fandoms when I have time. In the past few years, I've finished a degree, had a daughter, renovated a small Victorian and then sold it and bought another one during this pandemic--so time has been short. Currently I read some Untamed fic, some Good Omens fic, Magicians, Schitt's Creek...a sampler. Whatever friends are writing, whatever they recommend.

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

I never have a favorite of my own fics. I'm never satisfied. The second I post something, I'm always full of regrets. I've written fics that did very well and still hated them a month later. People have asked me over the years to move more of my stuff off Livejournal and onto ao3, but I do it really reluctantly and only by specific request. Everything's ephemeral! Let the old works diminish, and go into the West!

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 have no oldies to dust off. I do periodically think of X-Files stories I would tell, but I don't have enough time for current interests--and so it goes.

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

I do. I was most recently writing in The Magicians fandom. I posted a couple new stories in an old fandom last year--I'd written Good Omens fic fifteen years ago, and then again for the Amazon adaptation. I have a pile of original novels in various stages of completion, but I'm never happy with them. One day I'll figure myself out, perhaps, or I'll just keep writing myself this and that and leaving it all in a drawer.

What's the story behind your pen name?

So AOL had a character limit for user names--I think it was 10. I was a teenager at the time I was coming up with the one I'd use for fandom, so I went with Dreamshaper. It was kind of literal, in the sense that I was going to share the stories I'd been telling myself to help me sleep. But the character limit meant I went with Dreamshpr, which I later liked because of the alternate reading of Dream*shipper*. A reminder to the younger fans that we were the original shippers!

I would also come up with new pen names when I wanted to experiment with a fic that didn't fit my usual style. I don't remember any of them. I probably did that a dozen times, so, sorry to those poor completely abandoned stories.

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

Giddygeek on tumblr and ao3. I'm most active on twitter, but largely about my domestic life with dips into fandoms or original writing; message me on tumblr if you're an old friend who'd like to reconnect elsewhere.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just gratitude--I'm so glad that I found people to share an obsession with, and that they were good people, at a time in my life where that made a significant difference to me. I don't know where I'd be now without my time and my growth in this fandom!