Old School X Interview: Sarah Ellen Parsons
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Old School X Interview: Sarah Ellen Parsons |
| Interviewer: | Lilydale |
| Interviewee: | Sarah Ellen Parsons (SEP) |
| Date(s): | December 15, 2020 |
| Medium: | online, Tumblr |
| Fandom(s): | The X-Files |
| External Links: | at lilydalexf; archive link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Old School X Interview: Sarah Ellen Parsons was conducted by Lilydale as part of the series Old School X Interview Series.
Some Topics Discussed
- the writers' group, Yes, Virginia and Machete Beta
- personal vendettas and bad behavior by fans didn't completely mar the friendships and positivities
- X-Files Expo
- disillusioned and fandoms as bad ex-husbands
- bad ex-husband #1: X-Files
- bad ex-husband #2: Harry Potter aka J.K. Rowling and her statements about trans people
- bad ex-husband #3: Supernatural and the misogyny and the "Angel/Devil Christofascist stuff"
- intense communities formed by fandom
From the Interview
Social media didn’t really exist during the show’s original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?
I belonged to a couple of the largest lists and posted there and bitched about the show on usenet with everyone else. We had our own Yahoo group for beta. We all had crappy GeoCities websites that we programmed the HTML for ourselves and hooked through various fandom link circles to get traffic to our stories. But the main method of distribution was the lists.
Fun fact, I found a free page counter thing that I used at work one time through fandom. So fandom pays off in skillz.
Even without social media, we managed to get our stories in front of readers who would enjoy them. Where there’s a will, there’s always someone ready to step up and find a way.
What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?
Again, I have lifelong friends IRL that I got solely from fanfiction. That’s the best takeaway.
Fandom disappointed me because it, like everything else, is ruined by people’s egos, backstabbing, and petty people who get in positions of power and then use those positions to punch down or dictate. I was young when I was writing X-Files and I still had hope that people would rise to their better natures, so I got involved in various futile efforts to try to make people behave the way I wanted them to behave, I guess. I did a lot of public bitching that didn’t serve me or my friends well. I now put that effort into politics, where it does actual good.
What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?
X-files was made for me. It combined science fiction, mystery, horror. I love all of those genres. Plus there was Scully. No matter how sexist that writer’s room was, Scully was awesome. But you kept seeing bad writing. Even in the heyday seasons, like Season 3, there were really terrible eps that made you want to fix things.
I’m a lifelong speculative fiction fan and a published feminist science fiction author. I actually was published before I fell down the fic hole. I got involved in fanfic due to getting my fantasy novel turned down from every major publisher for being “too dark”. And I needed to get readers to see my stuff to prove to myself that I wasn’t terrible at writing. I got a ton of feedback and it was like market research to see what people wanted to read.
My time in fanfiction made me 100% a better writer than I was.
What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?
Nonexistent. I couldn’t even watch the latest season and I saw only 2 of season one of whatever that was before I gave up. I have never watched the second movie.
X-files is my first fandom bad ex-husband. I loved it SO MUCH, but it betrayed me.
Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?
I was deep into Harry Potter for a while, but I didn’t end up publishing anything in it. All my stories were novel-length and I was writing so much for work, I never completed anything. I called Snape/Lily when Prisoner of Azkaban was published and got Jossed by Rowling in one of my big ideas. (This is bad fandom ex-husband 2. JKR will never get a dime of money from me again because of her hateful stance on transfolk. I have RL friends who are trans and NO.)
I wrote fic in Supernatural. It was the obvious next thing after X-Files. However, the misogyny and bringing in all the Angel/Devil Christofascist stuff lost me. The ep where they declared all other religions other than Christianity as invalid and killed a Hindu god made me stop watching for good. I know enough Christofascists IRL that I can’t tolerate it in my fiction. (Bad fandom ex-husband 3)
[...]
Do you think you’ll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?
Funny you ask. I am currently reworking a plot idea I had for an X-Files fic into a contemporary M/M novel, which I will publish under a different pen-name. The plot is the idea I had for X-Files, the characters are very, very different other than one is uptight and the other more easy-going. But no more Mulder and Scully.
[...]
Where do you get ideas for stories?
I have too many ideas to count. I try to write them down when they come, so I won’t forget. At least the outline of the idea. Often a scene. I’ve been like this my entire life. I started writing novels seriously at 15. I wrote a 500 plus page one about Morgan Le Fay during breaks in high school because “Mists of Avalon” pissed me off so bad as I’d read the original source material and that was a Wicca recruitment polemic.
[...]
Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?
Half my friends ARE fic friends. Most of my friends know as does my brother, who thinks writing for free is dumb. This is universally agreed on by non-fic friends who know. My mother still doesn’t know about the fic. Just the “real” writing. I write under a pen name to keep it away from my job and my published work.
[...]
Is there anything else you’d like to share with fans of X-Files fic?
The community I loved has mostly moved on, but I think we left a legacy of solid work crafted out of our love for the show. Find a living community you love for a show you love. There are great people out there creating and get involved. It will be worth it.