Penumbra (X-Files fan)

Fan
Name:	Penumbra
Alias(es):	penumbra23, The_Mythopoeic
Type:	fan writer
Fandoms:	The X-Files
Communities:
Other:
URL:	penumbra23 at LiveJournal Author: Penumbra at Gossamer Penumbra's X-files Fanfiction (author page, defunct)
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Penumbra is an X-Files fanfic writer.

original website

Penumbra's Words: 2020

Comments from 2020: Old School X Interview: Penumbra:

The first fic I wrote was HORRIBLE. I put a link to it on my site, so that people can get a little hit of schadenfreude. Those early stories were on shaky footing. I had no confidence in myself. I felt intimidated writing about sophisticated, highly-educated career people when I was none of those things. Heck, I was cleaning motel rooms. I’m still none of those things, but, through Mulder and Scully, I’ve lived that life a little bit, and it was fun.

The third story, ‘Contact High’, was all sex and drugs. I’d done acid and shrooms, so finally, a subject I could assert some authority over! I decided to just go for it. That abandon was a breakthrough, and Penumbra came into being. But there was so much going on inside me, it was hardly harnessable; as stories like ‘Vespers’ and ‘Black Hole Season’ show, it was like getting on a horse that you can’t control and just clinging to its neck as it gallops.

This time around, in my latest incarnation, I feel that I have a better perspective on Mulder and Scully, more of an even footing. I’ve been through a lot, and in ’Hotel-Zero’ , I wanted to demonstrate not just how to survive, but how to survive as yourself. I wanted to maybe create a sort of handbook for how to keep your head above water. Life is hard for all of us, people are hard on us. You need to keep a singular perspective on yourself, and allow no one modify it.

[...]

I’ve had two separate experiences, with a seven-year hiatus, and I wouldn’t have missed either of them for the world. Belonging to an obscure hive mind has been one of the most interesting and rewarding (not to mention super-secret) facets of my life, and that will always be my overall takeaway as an X-Phile.

However, as the fandom imploded there was understandable backlash against the whole Penumbra thing. The panegyric was just too much, the style definitely overblown. I posted ’Fathoms Five’ as things were melting down, and there was real outrage. People were boycotting it as a political statement. Oh, we were all so raw — the X-Files was ending and IWTB was a heartbreaker. At that point I’d been working on 'Heuvelmans’ for a couple of years and was forced to admit I couldn’t finish it, nor would it be well-accepted if I did. So you can sort of see the baggage I was carrying when I left the fandom, not to mention the creative angst.

Fan Comments

[Penumbra wrote] several stories that were just so big, historical, epic stories. Such great works, all of them. A lot of her stuff was just so big. She would update the minute that the X-Files broadcast ended on TV. So every Sunday night, you'd get two installments of the X-Files. You'd get, from nine to ten I think it was, the X-Files broadcast. I would go right to the computer, refresh, refresh, refresh, and at 10:02, the latest installment of the latest Penumbra novel. And it was—that was great. When I found that, that was terrific. Penumbra also did this wonderful thing where—not the name of her website, but the search term that brought it up on Google was "increasing workplace productivity". So the best way to find her website, her own personal website, was to type into the search engine—I don't even know when Google started, but when, whatever search—Yahoo!, probably, just type into Yahoo! "increasing workplace productivity" and her website would be the first result. So that was great. And then when she stopped, that was very sad.

--Fan Fiction Oral History Project with Nightflier, 2012

Fanfic

• Without the Bee; archive link (as Starbuck) ("What if the bee had slept through the hallway scene?") (1998)
• Agents of Change: Return from Antarctica; archive link ("It picks up when Mulder rescues Scully from the alien ship in Antarctica and follows their attempts to return to the base. Wonderful adventure, vivid descriptions!") (November 1, 1998)

• Contact High (August 1999)

• Black Hole Season (winner of three 2000 Spooky Awards) (January 2000)
• Vespers (September 2000)
• Parabiosis (listed on "Classics (or, Your Fanfic Education is Not Complete Until You've Read ...)") (November 2000)
• Honeymoon Video (March 2000)

• The Cretan Paradox (October 2006)
• Blue-Sky Conjecture; archive link (unknown date)
• Free Beer Night at the Astrodome; archive link (2011)
• Fathoms Five (July 2009)
• Upsidaisium (∩dsᴉpɐᴉsᴉnɯ) (July 2010)
• other small snippets mentioned and/or linked here (unknown dates)
  • random smut biscuit
  • Fathoms Five Outtakes and gag reels
  • Octopods; archive link
  • Maundy Thursday
  • Untitled Snippet
  • World’s Tiniest Zombie Fic
  • The Inscrutable Pair
• Heuvelmans' On the Track (June 2020)