Intriguing Possibilities (X-Files zine)

Zine
Title:	Intriguing Possibilities
Publisher:	Criterion Press
Editor(s):
Date(s):	May 1995
Series?:
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	X-Files
Language:	English
External Links:
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cover by Laura Miles

Intriguing Possibilities is a 188-page het X-Files anthology of fiction by Cheryl Cohen and Annie Reed. The cover is by Laura Miles.

This is a self-contained universe that extrapolates from facts given in the series. The sequel is Sanctuary.

Another zine in the "Intriguing Possibilities" universe is Neon.

From the Editor

Cheryl and Annie initially sent me Devil's Advocate as a submission for The Skeptic and The Believer, my X-Files genzine. When I read it, I realized that not only was it part of a standing universe, but I wanted to read the other stories. When I read those, I realized that I wanted to publish the entire series (sans Double Vision, which another editor already had dibs on) in one zine, and to bring it out in time for MediaWest 15, in May 1995. So what if I only had two months to do it, along with seven other zines? Cheryl thrives on controversy; I thrive on stress. I'd better.... And here it is. I think you'll enjoy not only the stories, but the development of Scully and Mulder as they go through all sorts of hell -- er, have some rather interesting adventures - and run into some very interesting situations. And now I'm anxiously awaiting Sanctuary....

From the Author: Cheryl Cohen

No way!

You can't do that.

It'll never work.

It's the story of my life. Why do I go against the grain? Why do I always have to take the opposing view against what appears to be the prevailing accepted belief? My demon husband says that it's because I thrive on controversy, that I will hold on to the belief in an idea with the tenacity of an angry wolverine if I'm convinced I'm right. That sounds so noble and romantic. Maybe I'm just stubborn and pigheaded with a tendency toward masochism. Whatever the reason, most of my stories are written with a distinctive romantic flair.

Yes, my friends, believe it or not, there is life after sex. Two people who trust, respect, and love each other can work together without becoming total bumbling idiots. This did not seem to be a popular idea at the time I began to express my creativity in regard to X-Files fiction. I have to admit that in the first story that I wrote, I chickened out and only used my initials and screen name. Never having written a fictional story before, I was a little leery of my talent in that area and the responses of whoever might read the damn thing. But I figured, what the hell. You won't know until you try and I've always been one to at least give something new my best shot. Thus Bokor Holiday was born. I donned my asbestos suit and awaited the flames but lo and behold, to my surprise, the expected third-degree burns turned out to be only a minor singe and people actually liked what I had written. Go figure.

Uh oh. Now I had to tell demon hubby what I was doing because my e-ail started filling up and all sorts of writing paraphernalia began appearing in unexpected places. Rineholt Handbook for Writers suddenly took up residence in the bathroom, replacing Time, People, and Newsweek. My other half voiced his concern over what he thought was an 'unnatural obsession' with a bizarre, fictional TV program. It turns out that it wasn't the writing that bothered him so much as the fact that I didn't get paid for doing it. This is not the first time that my creative urges conflicted with his materialistic philosophy of "If it doesn't make money, it's not worth doing." Oh well, he'd have to get over it. He didn't, but that's another story.

Please keep in mind that what I write is my interpretation of the characters and what their relationship would evolve into if it were allowed to continue. There is no denying that these two individuals have grown and continue to grow in their respect, loyalty, trust, and affection for one another and I can't think of a better foundation for a more intimate relationship than these basic qualities. Whether or not Chris Carter will ever deal with this aspect of his universe is unknown - probably not. But this is my universe, my world, and! can do what I want with it. Isn't power grand?? My first desire is, and always has been, to tell a good story, to entertain. The relationship between the characters is secondary, though equally important. This is not a perfect union. Just like real life, there are arguments, misunderstanding, clashes of will, and hurt feelings but in the end, there is also caring, giving, and an underlying commitment that supports them through all the rough spots.

I would like to apologize for any incongruities right up front. I endeavor to be accurate but as with most people, I am not an expert on everything. If you find a mistake, I don't mind being told. Next time I'll know. Personally, I think people have become too engrossed in trivia. Unless there is a glaring mistake in something I'm watching or reading, I can let it slide in favor of the enjoyment of the story as a whole. I don't have time for nitpicking.

Okay, now to get back to the stories. Wonder of wonders. I was encouraged and a monster had been created. Initially, I had intended to write just one story to prove that I could do it. Well, I took a look at Bokor Holiday and figured that I didn't provide enough background information on how these two got together so I had to backtrack and write Taking Liberties. Even though I wrote this one after Bokor, it actually occurs before Bokor: Confused?? It's all right. I do almost everything backwards. This is it, I thought foolishly. This is the last one. Wrong. People started to e-mail me asking when the next 'installment' was coming out. "Installment?" I asked myself. "What am I doing here, a miniseries or something? Hey, that's not a bad idea." Oh no, I was hooked. I couldn't stop, my addiction was running rampant and my only therapy was to try it again. Code of Silence emerged full-blown in my brain while while taking my shower. I wanted to explore the repercussions of Sam's disappearance on Mulder's life. It seems of my best ideas come to me in the bathroom. Is there some significance in this? Maybe it's because it's the quietest place in the house even when the kids are screaming and my husband is pounding on the door, asking that stupid male question, "what are you doing?" I know what I do when I'm the bathroom, so what's the big mystery? It kinda makes you wonder what they do in there.

Child's Play came next. I experimented a little bit more with the physical aspect of Mulder and Scully' relationship. It was only about two small suggestive but non-graphic paragraphs that I felt was necessary to have the kid playoff of. It also explored Mulder's reactions to being responsible for a child again.

Boy what a rotten day. I began to wonder if fictional characters had these 'keep your ass in bed days' too. Why not? I was in the mood for something a little lighter this time, something a little different. We've all had those days. There was nothing I could do about it now so I settled for a little literary revenge instead with Mulder and the Stinking, Rotten, Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I 'm sorry, but I guess I put the poor guy through bad day hell and once I got started, it was difficult to stop.

Forgotten Souls came into being one day while I was driving through a particularly unsavory part of town. There were so many nameless people, so many lives we would never meet or touch. I found myself wondering about these peoples' stories, about how they came to be homeless or hopeless, or both. Did anyone really care or did we in our indifference, consider them to be expendable, something less than human? I wanted to portray Mulder's humanity and his empathy for others and willingness to help. Oh, this was a real difficult one to write, so sad in it's own way but also revealing and conducive of Mulder's quest for justice in a reality where justice is seldom served.

Oh geez, I really needed to lift my spirits now and When Pigs Fly seemed like an appropriate title. What would happen if you took a bachelor, stuck him with his cousin's 'tots of terror from hell' for the weekend? Poor Mulder is totally unprepared for this turn of events and would rather face a flukie than these three little darlings and their mangy mutt. Of course Scully's gonna have to bail his butt out of hot water again. Unfortunately, some of these little incidents were for real. Let me tell you about my exploding chicken sometime. The names have been changed to protect the idiotic. I guess I should omit Double Vision here because it was published somewhere else. It's an interesting tale that's a nice precursor to Oh What A Night so if you get a chance, give it a gander. Let me also say that this was the first time that I got up enough guts to put my full name on a piece. People noticed.

... One day during a bout with e-mail responses, I wrote to Annie [Reed] and said, in so many words, "Hey, how about writing a story with me?!! ] didn't know if she would go for it or not and writing a story through email seemed like a monumental task...but like I said, I'm a glutton for punishment. If anyone is interested in how it's done, I think maybe we wrote the book. This was another fun story centering around a Halloween Night in Hell. Yep, you guessed it. The tiny terrorists are back and ready to kick butt. Unfortunately, it's Mulder's butt that always seems to get in the way. A trick or treating alien, sibling rivalry, a pissed-off pooch, and an almost-potty-trained pint-sized person make the X-Files look like a collection of fairy tales. Scully comes along of course to soothe the bumps and make it all better. On the Edge was written as a fill-in piece to help explain Mulder's actions in the episode 3. The Morning After was a continuation of these musings. Sometimes my stories reflect some aspect of the show's episodes as a reference point but my interpretations may be different and may not travel in the same direction as the show itself.

We had was so much fun the first time that Annie and I decided to try again with the monumental undertaking of Devil's Advocate. We hadn't intended the story to be so long but I'm long winded, as you call tell by this meandering of thoughts, and Annie's a stickler for detail. We just couldn't help it. This one started out at the end of a chat session. Everyone had left the room except us and I said what if..." and she said, "How about..." and we just got into it again. This tale has just about everything: Sex, violence, romance, murder, unexplained phenomena, plot twists, turns, weird characters and situations. We are really sick puppies, but creative. George had Ira, Morgan had Wong, I've got Annie.

Right after Devil's Advocate I wrote a premise, actually the beginning of another story, Sanctuary, and sent it to Annie to review. She wrote back, "Do you just want opinions or is this a co- effort?" Well of course I didn't want to pressure her into another story, literally the same day we finished Advocate," so I said, unselfishly, "A co-effort would be nice...pause...ahem....that is, if you really want to..." Cough, grin. So here we go again.

Penciled Lines was a therapy piece (I had a bad case of writer's block. It doesn't happen very often) to take my mind off Sanctuary for a little while. I am happy to report that it worked.

So there you have it. My very first attempt at writing "author's notes." I hope I did this right, but I'm sure that if I didn't, I'll hear about it for years to come. Thanks Annie and the Sisters for your support and friendship. This effort is dedicated to all of you with my undying gratitude for putting up with me. Thanks to Kathy too for being willing to print all of this. -- Cheryl A. Cohen aka The Stinker

From the Author: Annie Reed

You know, the Internet is a wonderful thing. About a year and a half ago a friend of mine convinced me that I should sign up with America On Line. Of course, at the time I didn't know he'd be getting ten free hours for getting me on line, but that's another story. Soon I found a wonderful forum devoted to the X-Files and I began to make friends with people I'd never met, including Cheryl Cohen.

Without the Internet, Cheryl and I would never have known the other existed. See, she lives in Florida and I live in Nevada, not exactly next door to each other, and Nevada is not known as a Mecca for fanzines. I read a couple of Cheryl's stories on the creative board, and she was kind enough to deluge me with the others she'd written that I couldn't find. They made me laugh and they made me cry, and what can I say - I was hooked. So how did we form a writing team? Well, I asked Cheryl if she was going to writing a Halloween story featuring the MacLeod children, which I thought would be a natural for the little darlings. She asked me if I had any ideas, so I wrote back with the premise of Mulder and Scully taking the kids trick or treating and running into a real live alien. After all, what better night for an E.B.E. to blend in, right? She liked the idea and asked me if I'd like to write it with her. I was simply flabbergasted. At the time I'd only written two fanfic stories and Cheryl had written something like twenty million of them, and I wasn't sure if I was up to the task. But Cheryl had faith in me, so I said sure, let's do it. And that was how Oh What a Night was born.

By the time I finally got to meet Cheryl in person this July in Las Vegas, we'd already written three stories together, the last of which was Sanctuary, the one you're about to read, and we had just started our fourth project, titled Neon. I'm happy to say that we get along as well in person as we do in cyberspace. We both have just about the same wicked sense of humor. Cheryl's a little more boisterous than I am, and I'm a little more reserved, but I think we blend as well together as friends as we do on the page....

Contents

• Taking Liberties by Cheryl Cohen (5)
• Bokor Holiday by Cheryl Cohen (17)
• Code of Silence by Cheryl Cohen (28)
• Child's Play by Cheryl Cohen (38)
• Mulder and the Stinking, Rotten, Terrible Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Cheryl Cohen (49)
• Forgotten Souls by Cheryl Cohen (55)
• When Pigs Fly by Cheryl Cohen (73)
• Oh, What a Night! by Cheryl Cohen and Annie Reed (90)
• On the Edge by Cheryl Cohen (110)
• The Morning After by Cheryl Cohen (113)
• Devil's Advocate by Cheryl Cohen and Annie Reed (115 )
• Penciled Lines by Cheryl Cohen (186)

Reactions and Reviews

See reactions and reviews for Bokor Holiday.