Yellow Balloon (X-Files story)
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| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Yellow Balloon |
| Author(s): | Zyllah |
| Date(s): | 2001 or before |
| Length: | |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | The X-Files |
| External Links: | online here |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Yellow Balloon is an X-Files story by Zyllah.
Reactions and Reviews
Zyllah's lovely, lovely Yellow Balloon makes me remember why I'm so grateful to have started in X-Files.[1]
Upon first reading I found it a bit too, I don't know, wordy? Upon the second, I liked the bits of dialogue. It's reminscent of Penumbra, who is an author I really enjoy, but still found parts of it to be sort of static. Maybe that fits S8, which was certainly static. I'd recommend it for someone who likes this style of writing.[2]
I really liked it too.The images are as well done as anything I've seen in fanfic. No heavy adjectives are needed because the images tell the story.
Doggett's grief (about his son's death and the end of his marriage) and Scully's are quiet and understated. You read this with a click of recognition--yes, that's how loss feels.
Here's Doggett thinking about Scully:
He cannot imagine what she does with her time. Mulder's place is tombish, with a dust bowl desolation, and Doggett does not like to think of her there, communing with the fish, rifling his clothes.
Big rec for this one. I'm not an angst-fan but this isn't manufactured angst, it's canon-sadness, shown with more reality than we saw it on the show.[4]
I agree, this is a lovely story. I like the way the author weaves the experience of the two losses together, staying with canon, while still revealing more about the characters. It is a difficult task, and she did it beautifully.[5]
...this is a really, really good story. It's almost *too* good, as if the reader was obsessing over it line by line. Professional grade, so ignore my fussiness.I liked the careful attention paid to Doggett, who was an honorable man played by an honorable actor, and didn't deserve the anger focused on him.
Got to say that the I-want-a-child plotline and the brain-disease plotline were two of the lamest, least-defensible efforts by #REDIRECTTen Thirteen Productions to extend a problematic meal ticket. The fact that this story made them truly poignant proves the writer's talent.[6]
I first read this story while I was participating at a fanfic board called Fic Talk. It was the first time I had ever encountered readers actually talking about fan fiction. I wish I could tell you that it inspired this community but really, this place was emily_shore's idea. I just inherited it when she moved on (I hope temporarily) to new fandom pastures. Zyllah takes Doggett's tragic back story, the death of his son, and interweaves it with the canon of season eight, using vivid, emotional imagery. The link from Fic Talk was broken but luckily my google-fu is the best so I have located another link. It's at Gossamer, too, if this one ever goes dark.[7]
oh. my. god.this might be the best thing i've read that follows S8 canon. might just be.
Fiercely poetic but not verbose. Intelligent analogies and resonances, but nothing pedantic - nothing that 'takes the long way around' just to be more complex. it's not obscure because it's hip to be obscure - only because these things are obscure. how much do i love this fic (even with the tooth gritting mention of the MulderBrainDisease which i refuse to acknowledge as canon)? I LOVE IT SO MUCH.[8]
It is nearly perfect, isn't it? I don't think I realized just how good it really is back then, although I did say some nice things about it. Sadly, this woman has written only one other story for our fandom.[9]
This really is a fine story, closely observed and sensitive, reporting on a character and a situation that deserves attention and demands close observation respectively. I'm speaking for myself here, though probably not *just* for myself, when I deny much interest in either the character or the situation. It's just--season eight is dead to me. I can't help it. I want to climb into my time machine and return to season one. at [10]
... I don't think you are speaking just for yourself. I admit I was surprised that this story was so unremarked on this time around--I wonder how it was received back in the day? I imagine if it had been loved and cherished as it deserved for the quality of the writing, the author might have given us some more fic. Oh, well, nothing to do about it now. Surely, no one could hate season 8 anymore than I do, yet I still love this story. Like all great fic, it made me go back to the source, enabling me to see it with a fresh perspective. at [11]
I had no idea what was going on during season 8 (and from most reports no one else did either, but I mean I really had none because I stopped even attempting to regularly watch the show sometime around, um, season five or six?), but I still loved this story. It's about absences and how Doggett and Scully experience them and I'm trying to come up with something more descriptive to say and it's difficult, but the author's summary is "The ashes of the past blow into the present" and I'll just add to that that the writing grabbed me and has never let go.[12]
References
- ^ FR at Field Reports: excursions into the wild and woolly world of fanfic, December 18th, 2001
- ^ BluPhan at Fic Talk Message Board, September 2007
- ^ Em at Fic Talk Message Board, September 2007
- ^ Conundrum at Fic Talk Message Board, September 2007
- ^ Wendy at Fic Talk Message Board, September 2007
- ^ EleanorS at Fic Talk Message Board, September 2007
- ^ wendelah1 at xf_book_club, September 2009
- ^ amy hit at xf_book_club, September 2009
- ^ wendelah1 at xf_book_club, September 2009
- ^ estella_c at xf_book_club, September 2009
- ^ wendelah1 at xf_book_club, September 2009
- ^ Turned Vamp