The Woman in Seat Thirty-Eight

Fanfiction
Title:	The Woman in Seat Thirty-Eight
Author(s):	Melanie Mitchell
Date(s):	June 19, 2001
Length:
Genre(s):	gen
Fandom(s):
Relationship(s):
External Links:	The Woman in Seat Thirty-Eight on AO3
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Woman in Seat Thirty-Eight is a due South story by Melanie Mitchell.

It was nominated for a Serious Duck Award, along with another Mitchell story called Chicago, 1968.

The story was archived at Racine Street, and possibly at DSA before that.

Reactions and Reviews

Discussion at Due South Reporter

A year after the story was published, it, and other stories by Mitchell, caught the attention of some BNFs.

Comments are from Reporting in from Racine Street (July 25-28, 2002).

Speranza: (I can't believe I'm adopting this word, sigh)--"squee" (sigh) of "I'm in love with a writer" and I don't know where else to post about it. But I'm in love with a writer.

Here's today's insight about why I'm totally loving this Mitchell lady:

She writes women.

Oh my god, how I have been missing this. I didn't even know I was missing this! But I'm reading The Recommendation and The Woman In Seat Thirty Eight and I swear, I'd forgotten, fictionally speaking, that women are *people.* This is a humiliating admission for me to make here in public as a feminist and everything, except hey, I'm probably the only person still on this page at this point, y'all having moved on with your lives. But I haven't moved on--I'm sitting here going, "My god, where are the women?" Now, yeah, I know the answer to this question, cause I'm a slasher and a lover of first-time scenarios and where the female POV is supposed to be in there, I just don't know. But I'm feeling a deep and profound need for more of this. And I'm also worried that I can't do it--can I make Thatcher as real as Mitchell made Francesca and Victoria and Stella in these stories? Can I write a Frannie like this? The end of Woman In Seat Thirty eight gave me delicious, happy shivers of the best kind--actually, a lot of these endings do, this woman knows how to write an ending--that's really akin to the kind of shiver I get from a good slash story. Can this kind of thing be integrated into slash stories? Has anybody done it? I know Surfgirl, another writer I love, did a couple from Thatcher's POV but are there others? If there are, can somebody mail me or post here? Does anybody else care? Am I all alone in this?

Pacing around the comments page here, like a weirdo, feeling all revelatory and in love, Speranza.

kassrachel: I'm totally with you. I just read "The Woman in Seat Thirty-Eight" (having conveniently watched [the episode] Victoria's Secret last night for the first time) and I'm totally blown-away.

Not to mention, if someone had told me I was about to go all shivery with delight over a story that practically doesn't have Fraser or Ray in it, I would have laughed at them. But now I'm impressed. :-)

Pouncer: I've read The Woman in Seat 38 and some of her shorter works (seeing as I have to be in bed soon). I keep finishing them with tears in my eyes! A Burning Question, especially. ~sniff~ I can't wait to have time to read her longer works.

[Melanie Mitchell, the author]:

(the author peeks out from behind the curtain)

I've often described feedback as an addiction. Every message provides a "high" that can last from several hours to a week or more. And when that high wears off, you hunger for more, more, MORE! Since I haven't written anything in a while, I was never expecting to get such a major buzz from stories that I wrote such a long time ago. ;-)

The last thing I ever would have expected to find on the internet is a message with the subject line, ". . . I'm loving Melanie Mitchell too." How in the world do you answer that adequately? Liviapenn, Speranza, Kassrachel and Pouncer, I have been floating around for the last 24 hours and I cannot begin to thank you for this heavenly intoxication.

Liviapenn, I also want to thank you for the rec you posted on your site for "Chicago, 1968." I smiled at your description of it as not being anyone's "usual thing"--you've captured something of my own bemusement about my stories' non-conformity with the usual fic genres.

Speranza, you were very kind about the way I use female characters. You asked (about fic in general), "My god, where are the women?" I am not at all surprised that there are so few stories that focus on the female characters of DS, because I happen to think that DS gave its female characters very short shrift. Elaine, Frannie and Thatcher existed primarily to lust after Fraser. Louise and Stella existed primarily to rebuff Ray and Ray. The women had virtually no character development outside of their relationships with the male leads.

(One of these days I'm going to have to add this complaint to the Rants page on my website.) In the mean time, Eyrea, I'd love to take "The Women of dS" out for a test drive--can you tell me where to find it?

Anyway, I have to assure you, Speranza, that I wouldn't be able to write Thatcher, either--she doesn't "speak" to me and I've had no inspiration to use her.

I also want to add praise for my fellow RacineStreet authors who were mentioned in the announcement. Jo March has a gift for describing her settings in rich detail that makes me green with envy, along with a talent for writing complicated mystery plots. And The Moo, who is a very new writer, has a wonderfully wacky sense of humor to leaven the heavy emotions in her stories.

Again, my heartiest thanks for all the kind words. I wuv you, too!

Melanie

Since I haven't written anything in a while, I was never expecting to get such a major buzz from stories that I wrote such a long time ago.

Well, you know, you could fix that by, say, writing something. (cough) I mean, just a thought. A totally unbiased suggestion. Maybe some new fic, maybe....?

I am not at all surprised that there are so few stories that focus on the female characters of DS, because I happen to think that DS gave its female characters very short shrift. Elaine, Frannie and Thatcher existed primarily to lust after Fraser. Louise and Stella existed primarily to rebuff Ray and Ray. The women had virtually no character development outside of their relationships with the male leads.

Okay, yeah, sure, but by the same argument you could almost say--*almost*, all right?--that the Rays exist as foils for Fraser and that Welsh is there to facilitate the case plots. I mean, yes, it's true, and I'm not really arguing that the women don't get it worse (don't they always) but that's what we *do* around here, right? We flesh stuff out, and certainly canon gives us cues and facts to work with, glimpses of things that can be grist for fanfic. I did a bit of that in my story "The Border Between Life and Death," going back and doing the Stella-RayK backstory, but that's the most common thing that gets done (at least on the RayK slash side of the fence--actually, fence is a bad metaphor, what with only two sides. In the northeast corner of the DS paddock?) because fleshing out his marriage can help you understand RayK's character and help you set up your F/K slash story. But you've really got me thinking now about what might be possible with the other women characters, even supposing I hold to my own slash aim of writing better romance between the guys. I just feel like I've had a fictional blind spot that your stories suddenly made me see. Like--wow. Possibilities.

(Because I think its too often felt, on the slash side of the so-called fence, that including women in your narrative somehow will ruin your m/m romance juju. But that can't be right. Also, just thinking aloud here, what an odd idea that is in terms of sexuality--I mean, is it that on some level we believe that the slash love many of us want to write about is so fragile that it can't withstand the presence of real, live women?)

Just--part of the excitement of reading your stories, Melanie, was that I came away not only with pleasure but with a lot to think about. So thank you, thank you. --Ciao, Speranza