God's Work

Fanfiction
Title:	God's Work
Author(s):	Jintian
Date(s):
Length:
Genre(s):
Fandom(s):	The X-Files
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God's Work is an X-Files story by Jintian.

Reactions and Reviews

A week or so ago, there was some discussion at Haven about whether or not it's okay to post public links to stories that are no longer easily found online because their authors took them down. Many people, mostly writers I suspect, felt it was disrespectful to do this, as it went against the known wishes of the writers. I am going to quote what I wrote there, cutting out the part that was a response to a specific post.

I am going to go out on a big limb here and come out on the side of the reader, on the one hand, and the work itself, on the other.

It seems to me that once a piece of writing has been posted, it takes on a life of its own, apart from whatever the author's intentions may have been. It still exists, whether it is on someone's harddrive or merely in someone's memory. It is a part of our collective fan history, too.

I am one of those people who goes around hunting down stories that are no longer easily found. I spent hours and hours hunting for a working link to "God's Breath" by Jintian so that I could post it at crack_van at Live Journal. When Jintian let her site go down and posted everything except her XF fic at Live Journal, I did send her an email, twice, asking why. She never answered me. I don't feel guilty in the slightest for posting that link to a wonderful story that deserves to be read.

I admit it freely, it is ultimately the work that matters to me, more than anything else. The work. The story. Not the storyteller. Not their feelings or their "rights." If that makes me a crummy fangirl and an untrustworthy fan of your work, then so be it. I love the art, not the artist. My feelings about the series are quite parallel. I love Fox Mulder. I think DD is an okay guy. I love Dana Scully. I think GA is a lovely woman and a wonderful actress. But I love their work in The X-Files. I love fan fiction, I love reading it and writing it. I love writing about it. Still and all, I have to admit my allegiance is to the work itself, and I think it always will be.