Complicated Shadows

Zine
Title:	Complicated Shadows
Publisher:
Editor:
Author(s):	Kassandra
Cover Artist(s):
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	first part (July 1, 1997), the second part (August 28, 1997), third part (December 31, 1997)
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	X-Files
Language:	English
External Links:	online version at IOHOonline version at Fugues Fiction Archive
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Complicated Shadows is a gen, Skinner and Mulder-centric X-Files novel by Kassandra.

It was edited by Youkneek.

Description of an online version: "Mulder suffers from severe depression. Mulder’s journals on recovering emotionally and mentally from a three-year abduction, alien experimentation, sexual abuse, and Scully’s death. Great, witty, Mulder characterization. Mulder/Skinner friendship, Mulder/other. Rated R for disturbing imagery."

Parts

• Complicated Shadows
• A Different Light
• Deus Ex Machina

Publication History

It was first posted to the X-Clusive website in July 1997.

In the fall of 1998, the rec site IOHO made a positive recommendation for Complicated Shadows. This rec included an excerpt from the fic. This set off a very complicated number of heated discussions and angry accusations, all which publicly played out at alt.tv.x-files.creative. Things that contributed to this storm of reaction: a history of personal tensions among several BNFs (Hindy, Kassandra (the author, using the name Sheare Bliss), CiCi Lean, and others), accusations of Scully Bashing (which had become more prevalent due to what some fans felt to be Scully's changing characterization on the show itself), misogyny, plagiarism, shipping wars, personal grievances with translated to anonymous squealing to owners of domains which resulted in TOSing, discussions of Fair Use (and the use of the quoted text of a fic on a rec site, which led to the supposed refusal to remove it by a website owner), and much more.

In 2000, the three stories in the "Complicated Shadows" trilogy were posted in full to IOHO, though by a post by the author on January 6, 2000 makes it unclear if it was with her approval.

Comments by Fans, and By the Author

1997

Just read Complicated Shadows, by Sheare Bliss and found it is a very good story, very well written, and picking up things from Gethesame on in a very appealing way!

Fine work, Sheare.

Congratulations

Hi All, Just finished reading Bliss' A Different Light", Skinner's point of view on Mulder's ordeal in "Complicated Shadows." What a terrific story! I can't wait until Sheare follows up with a story on Mulder's super baby - she's made me into a Skinner fan.

Thanks SB !

Skinner . . . ah, yes. The Surly Pectoral God. Well, looks a lot like the Ruler to me - seeking to creator order, finding constructive uses for the Dragon, and responsible and controlled. I liked him better more ambiguous, when he might not necessarily tilt towards M&S but would always seek to balance competing needs and virtues. What can I say? I'm a gray-territory creature. My favorite Skinner is Sheare Bliss's Complicated Shadows character - rich, warm, wonderfully caring, but also balancing precisely between the Jeffersonian virtue of individual knowledge and power, and the Machiavellian virtue of leadership and control. Being a hero, in the archetypal sense, does not necessarily mean one represents Virtue and Right as it's usually understood. You might be Lear instead of Superman. But it's a manifestation of certain qualities relating to self and place in the world.

1998

[Poly]:

"Complicated Shadows" and its companion pieces "A Different Light" and "Deus Ex Machina" by bliss. A story not for the faint at heart and with a Mulder/Skinner friendship so intense that makes most slash stories look pale in comparison The bliss stories can only be found in the XClusive Archive http://evosworld.simplenet.com/x-clusive/bliss.htm

Binah, Texas Gal:

Awww, it's just the trio of usual suspects crying out, "Not me! And it wasn't my good buddy either!"

Now, I AM getting suspicious. Heck, this may just be some strange advertising campaign for their works. We've already been prompted to read two stories from the militant anti-Scully noromo trio ( The End & Complicated Shadows), practically promising that we'd weep from the beauty of their prose. After rant.html, I've had enough.

I don't know if I'm convinced that (ahem) GeckoLiz is VaDentata1, but if we get another 'advertised' little grenade I'll know which way to jump. --

Binah, Texas Gal Extraordinaire

Sheare Bliss:

Okay, I'm going to tell y'all a little story. About a year or so ago, I wrote a story called Complicated Shadows. It was posted to the X-clusive page, and was queued up to be posted to EMXC. The first post went through on EMXC and the very next day, two people posted to a semi-public/semi-private mailing list making scarcely veiled accusations of plagiarism with regard to someone else's story. I had been a member of said mailing list. I had friends on said mailing list. That same day I received a long accusatory email from said someone.

I was stunned. Thematically and stylistically and in terms of plot, Shadows had no relationship to the second story. The only similarity was that the first post of Shadows mentioned a sexual psychopath who liked to use the trappings of the S&M underculture. The similarity was strictly that, the S&M underculture. I sent the entire text of the story to the author who had written the accusatory note to me. She read it and sent me several emails retracting the accusation privately, apologizing, etc. By that time, I was upset enough to withdraw permanently from the community, having seen my name smeared with an untrue accusation. And not one of the three parties retracted this accusation until nearly a week later. By that time, I had pulled the story from EMXC, XAPEN and Jeannine Ackerson's mailing list, I was that upset. It actually took more than a week for the author to post to the mailing list and admit that she had suggested to her two friends that the story was plagiarized, and that something needed to be done. It took just under a week for the two accusers to admit their own responsibility and apologize to the mailing list and retract the accusation.

I have never heard from some of the friends I had on that mailing list, despite the retractions.

My point? Be very damned careful before you suggest plagiarism. I posted recently to comment on similar themes and an identical title. I think Mare will tell you I never suggested plagiarism--in fact, I had written to her privately before posting just to point the similarities out--and warn her of a potential conflict or confusion. I didn't post exceptionally clearly in my original post, but took pains to make sure that it was apparent I was not accusing Mare of plagiarism in my second post.

Plagiarism is: to use and pass off as one's own the ideas or writings of another.

That's according to the dictionary--American Heritage, for inquiring minds.

It isn't style.

Ideas? Well, that's trickier. Proverbs tells us that there is nothing new under the sun. Despite our undeniable human ingenuity, there's what a friend of mine calls the bottleneck syndrome. Given a certain set of circumstances, there are a limited number of potential plots. So, if you're wanting to pair Skinner sexually and emotionally with someone from the show, you can go the slash route with Mulder/Krycek/or any one of the Lone Gummen/Tom Colton--you see what I mean. The possiblities are limited. It becomes worse if you aren't looking at slash. You've got Scully/his secretary/Lucy Kasdan/AD Cassidy (and that's only after the movie).

Bottle neck. You could introduce him to his right hand, I suppose, but the emotional intensity might suffer.

Do you see what I'm saying? If I could write romance without having it turn into twisted farce, I'd probably be in the same bottle neck.

Be careful. The reputations and feelings and relationships you damage with not so subtle accusations might be your own.

Authors? We also need to be careful. Yeah, it's really irritating to find that someone's done your idea, only differently, only in some way that you don't like. If you believe it to be true, posting in public support of these accusations is more honest than taking the private email route, but it's no less painful or damaging for everyone involved.

How about we all try to be more sensitive to each other and approach these things privately before friendships and associations are damaged beyond repair.

Please.

bliss

Sheare Bliss: My name is neither VDentata nor iwonders. As for being the only person having a quarrel with Lisby, I am not quarreling with Lisby. Trust me on that one. Neither am I the only person she has baited, inflamed, attacked, or enraged in recent months.....at least three people of whom I am aware fall on that list.

Am I to suppose that you are, perhaps, the person who suggested that the unauthorized use of Complicated Shadows text was an appropriate use of the Fair Use Doctrine? Shall I suggest that to the world at large in an open forum?

It did seem strange that it didn't go up until August 30th--right around the time Cici was TOS'd, now that I mention it. My, my, and the first thing to go was the Socks Shoppe. I wonder who among us entertains an irrational dislike for 'the cult of the dead lab rat'?

bliss

CiCi Lean:

If we are going to make baseless accusations around here, well, I have plenty of my own. Listen, guys. My personal, *gut-intuition* list of suspects in my TOSing, is also pretty short. In fact, it's excrutiatingly short.

Does that mean I should name someone publically, without proof?

Hell, no.

Because *if* I'm proved wrong in the end, I'll be know as an even bigger asshole that the person who did the deed. And, rightfully so.

And... there could even be a good argument made that naming the person EVEN WITH PROOF might not be a wise or appropriate thing to do. I'd have to carefully make even *that* decision when that time comes.

Because once I do it, there's no turning back.

Guys, bliss isn't the scapegoat whom y'all can point fingers at for every ill around here, just because she's stated opinions many of you don't agree with or has had private arguments with some of you.

So, how about we stop pointing fingers at people, and deal with things that we *know* to be true?

Hmmm?

CiCi Lean

I am not fighting with Lisby. I wrote politely to have her remove unauthorized text of mine from her web page, she refused on First Amendment rights, and I've subsequently made the decision to remove my bliss fiction from the net to prevent what I see as further abuses. Since I informed her and her Webmistress of such removal, I have not heard from her, nor do I intend to communicate with her. bliss

Sheare Bliss:

Diana Williams posted two excellent messages on Copyright and Fair Use earlier in the Copyright Infringement argument with Hester, some days back. In one, she stated that anything you publish on the 'Net is essentially copyrighted, but that you may not be able to prevent people from making copies. Her second message lists several sites. I went to these sites out of curiosity to see if there was, in fact, any action I could take to get the excerpt of Complicated Shadows taken down from a certain web site.

[snipped]

The excerpt of my work is a small part of the whole, and therefore cannot be proven to violate my copyright. Now, there is some argument on what percentage of a work CAN in fact be used within parody or satire, so I again welcome comment from any attorney with a working knowledge of Fair Use

[snipped]

Obviously, in my case, I published my works for free, there was no question of marketing them. Hence, my solution to the Gordian knot was simply to reclaim control of all my work by removing it from the 'Net. In my case, the party in question has kept both the recommendation and the excerpted text up and is apparently happy to refer readers to work which no longer exists. However, I do believe that I will have legal recourse should she or anyone else choose again to archive it.

Sheare Bliss:

Oh, and for the record, dignifying any accusations as lunatic and patently false as the kind that have been aimed at me in recent days by a denial is absurd. Stillwater wrote to me to ask me let this rest, but I see that Laura and Marlene still have some sort of bizarre ax to grind. In fact, I did make a denial in answer to Laura's pot stirring post up in the Unfounded Accusations thread. Facts are just too difficult to deal with, apparently.

Throughout Lisby's alleged travails, the last communication I had with her was a one line message on September 12th, I believe stating that I would be grateful if she would remove *the quoted excerpt*, not the page or the recommendation.

I posted publicly to SlashX on three occasions, asking that the matter be kept between me and Lisby and establishing my position. As for Hindy, I have no idea where her head is at or why she persists in making subtle hints that I am persecuting her, when I just flat don't care.

On the day that Cici Lean was TOS'd permanently, I wrote to Hindy privately asking her if she'd had anything to do with it, primarily because the [[Socks Shoppe]] went first, she's been public about her animosity to what she calls 'the cult of the dead lab rat', and semi-public about her animosity to Cici.

Please note, this was PRIVATE, not on the newsgroup. She responded by telling me to 'beware crossing her path'. Since then, I have not had private contact with her, nor do I intend to.

Lisby:

Sheare Bliss has used this forum to imply that it is my hobby to bait and flame. All I say is, I double dog dirty dare someone to produce evidence of that. I understand that Bliss has now devoted an entire site to proving that somehow I am responsible for "abuses" that made it necessary for her to pull her writing from the Web. I haven't gone to the site and I am not going to. She and her supporters have wasted enough of my time.

To set the record straight, the "abuse" I committed was the use of two paragraphs from her story, Complicated Shadows, on an IOHO recommendation page. On this page, I said that CS was my favorite piece of fan fiction and that everyone should go to eXclusive and read it. I did not archive the story. I did not even provide an active link to eXclusive. I used the two paragraphs to illustrate what fine writing she is capable of.

About three weeks ago, Bliss sent me an e-mail that--despite what she claims--was not polite. In it, she told me that my recommendation of CS was "hypocritcal in the extreme." She demanded that I remove the entire recommendation page. I told her no on First Ammendment and Fair Use grounds; I also assured her that I was absolutely sincere in my statements on IOHO. I asked her to be at peace and know that I wished her no harm. But my refusal began this entire saga of story pullings and nasty MSTings, Debbilmouse guest books signed by "Lispyhater," etc. Friends of Bliss's have written to me, promising revenge for "driving a better writer than you off the Web." Someone signed the IOHO guest book telling me to "grow up" because I would not take down the page and the quote. I assure you, writer, that I *am* grown up. Let me prove it.

Bliss told me I was a hypocrite for recommending CS because she refuses to let go of an old misunderstanding. She clings to the notion that I have accused her of plagiarism. What I did was question the similarities between the first chapter of CS and my unifinished story, Lessons, for which she betaed. (We were both part of a group of Internet writers who betaed for each other.)

After many exchanged e-mails, I thought Bliss and I had sorted all this out. I apologized to her privately at least three times for the stupidity of my notion. When she chose to remove CS and her other fiction from the Net, I begged her not to. Literally. She told me that she was leaving the Internet because she was "disenchated with the X-Files Community" and wanted to devote herself to other writing projects.

I posted the following message to our test group. Please note the date. Also note that I've removed the names of people who should not be dragged into this. I also removed two paragraphs that dealt with one of the omitted individuals and with list business. [see original post for the letter, as well as many responses to this comment]

After this post I communicated with Bliss only a few times. Aside from bumping into her in an IRC chat room, I also sent her e-mail praising CS's companion piece, In A Different Light, and asking if there would be more. She wrote me back, civilly, to say that there would not be. That was that and life moved on. Until three weeks ago, when she demanded that I retract my recommendation and remove her quote. I can only assume that in the year since this unfortunate screw-up on my part, Bliss has come to believe I am--I dunno--evil incarnate? Apparently everything I say is a lie.

I'm going to let you all be the judge. However, I will say this one more time for the public record: I do not believe that Bliss plagiarized my story. I do think that CS is a truly fine piece of fan fic. I am very, very sorry that I cannot say so on my own site without driving her into a froth. I am sorry that while I can separate the writer from the fiction, she cannot.

I told Bliss that if she wore me down to the point where I would remove the recommendation and quote, I would put an explanation in its place. That is what I intend to do.

So, there it all is. Bliss is not a plagiarizer and her quote is no longer on my site, despite my Fair Use right to incorporate it in my positive review. As far as I am concerned, this issue is over. I am going on with life and I hope Bliss is able to do the same.

1999

[fan]:

I have to second Anna Otto's opinion. COMPLICATED SHADOWS was brilliant, and it's a damn shame it's gone but what can you do?

[WickdZoot, original author]: my sense of honor [at having this story recced at IOHO ] was diminished by the backstory behind the rec.

2000

[Lisby and Marlene]:

We are extremely honored and proud to be able to bring you three stories that we have wanted to recommend for several years: Complicated Shadows, Different Light, and Deus Ex Machina. All three, by WickdZoot, form an epic of delicious and devastating proportion that have lingered in Lisby's mind ever since she first read them two years ago. We sincerely want to thank their author for allowing us to archive them on our site. It was the best start for a new millennium that we could receive. If you have never read the trillogy because you couldn't find it, you've got no excuse now. Head on over to our Best Of pages and wallow in these classics. Set in a post-Gethsemane AU, Mulder slowly recovers from an extended, terrible capivity with Skinner as his friend and supporter. There's an in-depth alternate view of the entire X-Files mytharc, too, taking into consideration everything that occurred until Gethsemane and heading in its own unique and terrifying direction.

What are you still doing here? Get reading! <G>

And yes, for those who are gaping, this means there is peace in our time. <VBG>

http://home.earthlink.net/~iwonder

Lisby and Marlene

[zoot (Sheare Bliss, original author)]:

And by golly, we are enjoying it, too! <bowing in lisby's direction>

I personally thank all those who tried to bring this pot to a boil again. Just goes to show it's an ill wind that blows no good.

zoot