Chronicle X Interview with Kassandra

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Chronicle X Interview with Plausible Kassandra
Interviewer:	uncredited
Interviewee:	Kassandra
Date(s):	May 1999
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	X-Files
External Links:	interview is here; copy
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Chronicle X Interview with Kassandra was conducted in May 1999 by the Chronicle X archive.

Some Excerpts

Only one thing? Well, for one thing, I think that the characterization as written has degraded terribly. I'm not just talking about change and evolution, I'm talking about characters I found really appealing and complex being turned into cardboard cariacatures. I'd like to see both characters regain some of the natural complexity--although I have to say that this season has actually seen a bit more possibility in that direction. I nearly stopped watching completely during the early part of Season 5.

To be honest, writing fanfic is like eating a box of Godiva dark chocolate truffles. I truly appreciate and love my readers, who tend to write me wonderful, in depth, thoughtful notes that just make me purr. But the genfic was harder than the slashfic, for some odd reason. I have written some stories with truly odd premises in slash, and gotten a wonderful response, but writing slash for me seems to be about as easy as falling off a log. If there is truly a challenge, I think it's simply this--keeping both the characters truly as guys, as human, as flawed and complex as we all are. In too much slash, the characters are either feminized or turned into leather daddy/sub or are completely whacked out one way or another. I don't fault anyone who wants to write a dark slash story, but I find it kind of sad that they have these outrageous events or sexual behaviors, when everyday life can be full of darkness, too.

Oh, boy, that's a tough one. It depends on the phase of the moon. I've jokingly said that I'm a pairing slut, I've written almost anyone and everyone. (And yes, boys and girls, that means everyone, even the dreaded MSR.) I think Sk/M are my favorite, there's something about the chemistry that MP and DD have on screen together (probably because they're friends in real life) that just lends itself to exploring a deeper relationship with those two. They're both control freaks, both very well defended human beings, and getting beneath that to portray them making themselves vulnerable to one another is just very, very interesting. I sometimes like M/K, but honestly cannot see them overcoming the hostility and obstacles under ordinary circumstances. Now, with that caveat, I have to admit to loving Te's and Dawn Pares' and torch's and...well, you get my drift. I just can't write it, unless there are some extraordinary circumstances at the outset, such as in Long and Winding Road and Shock the Monkey. Or, for that matter, in Out of the Cold.

That I don't write for feedback, per se. I write because of the story itself. Or, sometimes, I write a story deliberately as a prezzie for someone. (Some of my favorite stories were written that way.) But I adore feedback, and I have to say, I adore the people who write to me, they send me such lovely, lovely notes, detailed and thoughtful, and those are the kind that make any writer just wriggle and purr in ecstasy. I mean, when someone picks out a bit that you were particularly fond of, it's just better than dark chocolate....