Chronicle X Interview with RivkaT

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Chronicle X Interview with RivkaT
Interviewer:	uncredited
Interviewee:	RivkaT
Date(s):	1999 or 2000
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	X-Files
External Links:	interview is here; copy
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Chronicle X Interview with RivkaT was conducted in 1999 or 2000 by the Chronicle X archive.

Some Excerpts

Obviously the strong yin-yang characterization matters a lot, and the fact that the XF is like a box of chocolates -- lots of variety with concomitant excitement and disappointment. I'm just hoping we'll avoid more of those waxy "strawberry" episodes this season.

I think people like to be teased with hints of a larger plan, just as they like to be teased with hints of a steamier relationship. I also think that the XF plays on the tension inherent in pervasive disillusionment with and distrust of government. Warning -- high-falutin' babble ahead.

The problem is this: When there's evidence everywhere that powerful figures do not deserve our trust and anyone we rely on may betray us, how do we make decisions? The answer is that reflexive distrust leads inevitably to blind trust. We see this in Mulder, whose distrust is so all-pervasive that he trusts *everyone who gives him some cockamamie story*! And this isn't a contradiction. It's the natural consequence of the distrust that has stripped away the traditional signals of trustworthiness, such as having a good reputation in the community or having a coherent narrative to explain an event. XF viewers are to M&S as Mulder is to his sources: we're supposed to trust M&S just because they're the protagonists and we hear the "bad" music when their antagonists appear. But we don't really know if M&S are saving humanity or standing in the way of its ruthless but correct saviors. In my work, I tend to explore the personal aspects of this -- how do you know who *you* are, and whether you can trust yourself and your perceptions?

[Fannish accolades] makes me laugh maniacally. Okay, so it's evoked long-suppressed ambitions to write fiction. There's nothing more satisfying than having people respond that your writing made them feel strongly, even if they didn't agree with your character interpretations. And when I'm feeling down I look back at my favorite feedback. Don't tell me you don't do it too.

[On being a cyber-celebrity] Feeling like I have to live up to an image. I got one response recently -- "usually you're so good, but this was awful." It hurt. I responded politely but now my inner cyberbitch wishes I hadn't. And it's funny, because I think my technical skills have improved a lot over time. That feedback fed back into my anxieties, since the worst problem I have is trying to figure out if I've written something worth reading. My writing is entirely composed of problems. I ramble, I digress. I skip important parts of the story because I don't want to bother writing them. I can be quite opaque when I don't try. So I rewrite, rewrite, get beta feedback, and give up. No creative work is ever finished, it is only abandoned.

A close friend from high school knows [I write fanfic], and also my significant other. As far as I'm aware, my other non-XF-writing friends don't know, and I don't want them to. I fear being labeled as weirder than they already think I am. Also, my SO's reaction wasn't exactly encouraging. Shaky and trembling, I gave him 'Acadia,' and he was [long pause] dumbfounded, I guess is the nicest way to describe it. Then I gave him Iolokus I, and warned that it was a lot rougher than Acadia. He asked, "rougher than a story in which a woman is slowly dying across every page?" I said yes. Also, he hates the X Files. Every time we discuss it he imitates Scully yelling "drop it!" which he thinks is her modal line. And he didn't approve of the sex scenes in Iolokus.

As long as I can see some canonical evidence that supports a character interpretation, I'm willing to speculate and add data until a fully formed character comes through. Smoochies turn me off unless they're incredibly well-justified -- this ain't Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a damn shame too given the average writing quality of the two shows. "Fox" and "Dana" *really* turn me off unless a court order is involved. I can accept almost every possible romantic/sexual pairing, I guess, although I find M/K implausible unless the author makes clear that the relationship is anything but healthy. On the other hand, that could be said of my taste in MSRs as well. My personal prediliction is for partnership-focused stories in which the partners have to interact in some way with the rest of the world, instead of just staring into one another's eyes, and my preferred view of Moose and Squirrel is the following: They put the "fun" in dysfunctional. They could say "this hurts me more than it hurts you" and it would be true. They are best friends and perfect strangers, and this understandably frustrates them somewhat. I suspect that my view is influenced by the fact that I joined XF fandom at "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" -- still the best episode ever, by the way -- and only saw the fluffier early versions in reruns.