X-Clusive

Archive
Name:	X-Clusive
Date(s):	May 22, 1997-September 28, 1998
Archivist:
Founder:	Yvonne Harrison
Type:
Fandom:
URL:	homepages.ihug (early 1997, now offline, not Waybackable), Lobos (main site, 1997, now offline, not Waybackable) plug (plug site, 1997, Wayback link), Simplenet (Simplenet, 1998)
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X-Clusive was an X-Files fanfic archive.

The site opened in May 1997 with these authors archived: Livengoo, Joann Humby, Kipler, Ruefrex, CiCiLean, Luvmulder, Lonegunguy, Westshore, Sheare Bliss, Anonymous, Vickie Moseley, Amanda Summers, and Laura Maher.

The site closed after much frustration and controversy.

A site created in reaction to "X-Clusive's" closure is Xclusively Our Opinion.

Introduction

Yep, I decided this page needed a motto. So you'll see some pages with the words "Quality, not quantity." on them. This is to convey the purpose of this website. When you decide to pop over to X-Clusive for a look, my guarantee to you, the reader, is that you'll find only top quality fan fiction on this site. That means fanfic that features a plot, dialog, Mulder and Scully acting (for the most part) like Mulder and Scully and of course, the English language will remain unsullied by spelling mistakes and bad grammar (well, except for this editorial :-)... Sheare Bliss has re-posted A Different Light to me with some additions, so you need to re-read the story.

The automated mailing list is up and active, but as yet, there's not a whole lot of activity. That will hopefully increase now we have some stories to talk about :-)

Lastly, a note on some of the authors. Anonymous and Sheare Bliss are now exclusively with X-Clusive (I've always wanted to say that). Anonymous' stories are still listed on Gossamer but any new stories debut on this site only. Sheare Bliss is no longer listed on Gossamer. If you are maintaining your own website I would ask you to please ask the authors for permission before posting their story. They have made a decision to be listed exclusively on this site for a reason and I would like to think that their decisions are respected. This isn't intended as a note about copyright works, or anything of that nature but a plea for some simple politeness.

Editorial Policy

And now for a little policy statement just to clear a few things up. This is not an 'anti-shipper' page. There are authors listed on this site who also write romance. However, I choose not to list romances on this page because I do not enjoy romances (whether X-Files related or published by Harlequin or whatever). I find the romance form irritating despite having tried to read a number of them and actually write one - and that's just my own personal taste. As Webmistress I figure I get to have some influence on this site :-) X-Clusive's basic policy is to list the best fanfic authors in my opinion. Not whether the author won a Spooky Award or whether someone is listed on all of the Shipper sites. It is fanfic that I have personally enjoyed and I think deserves some attention because the authors are great writers. That's it in a nutshell.

"What You Can Expect To Find..."

Each author has their own page which lists their stories. For any existing stories I have a link directly to the Gossamer archive. New stories are stored at this site until the authors post the stories to the mailing lists and alt.tv.x-files.creative. In the case of the exclusive X-Clusive authors :-), the story remains on this site. The authors on this site care about their work and tend to spend a long time on revisions - so you'll have to be patient and unfortunately, it means new stories won't be debuting on a regular basis (in fact, I'll be surprised if a new story gets posted every month).

What you won't find on this site are the following general categories:

Mulder/Scully romance (okay, maybe the odd bit of UST, maybe even the odd romance writer but absolutely definitely NO romance stories...).

Poems.

Songs or any story containing song lyrics (unless there's a very good reason).

Filk songs.

Anything containing explicit sexual content, unless it serves the purpose of the story (in other words, your chances of finding pure unadulterated smut here are virtually non-existent).

A New Home

Hi All - - Some of you may have been noticing that accessing X-Clusive over the past month has been something of a nightmare... Unfortunately, the Lobos server not only lost its ISDN connection but it now terminates calls on a random basis. Soooo... X-Clusive now has a new home thanks to Laura Bruchard. For anyone out there who are X-Clusive readers, you can now access the site at this address...

http://traveller.simplenet.com/x-clusive

Yvonne :-)

Site Closure

Hi Everyone - - Not that a great majority of you will care :-) but I have officially closed down X-Clusive. Basically I have lurked on the newsgroup for about a year and have avoided posting any opinions to the group in an effort to remain neutral, because I believe that's my job as a webmistress. Sadly, the newsgroup (in my opinion) has lurched slowly but steadily down hill. I'm not really a fan of the X-Files any more and this latest flame war has proved wearisome enough for me to finally call it quits. I've also noted that despite my request posted on various author's pages that other websites e-mail the authors for permission to link or copy the story, the request is usually ignored.

I'd like to thank the various people who wrote so many nice notes to me about X-Clusive over the past two years and those who followed Netiquette to request permission to link and copy stories.

I'd also like to say a very big thank you to the authors who put so much effort into creating truly fabulous stories for everyone to enjoy. I've really had a great time creating pages for them and posting the stories on their behalf.

Thanks once more to everyone who have visited the site!

Yvonne :-)

After two and a half years of maintaining X-Clusive, I have decided to call it quits. This decision wasn't taken lightly and I feel sad at losing such a large part of my life, especially considering the effort (not to mention money) I've put into designing and maintaining X-Clusive. However, two years later I find myself with several reasons to move onto other projects. The primary reason I've decided to move on has been the vitriolic degeneration of the alt.tv.x-files.creative newsgroup, coupled with Sheare Bliss' request that I remove her stories from the website. This is not her fault so please don't send her angry e-mail (however, e-mail saying how much you enjoyed her stories would probably be appreciated :-) Her explanation for the removal of her stories is at:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/8812/explain.html

Sadly, having read some of the postings on a.t.x.c over the past year, it seems that things have spun out of control. Various older fandoms, such as Star Trek, have gone through similar problems on and off for decades and some time ago they coined what I thought was a rather appropriate term for the more dogmatic fans - 'Jackboot Fandom'. Jackboot Fandom is used to describe fans who seem hell bent on controlling everyone else and ignoring the etiquette of nice behavior. Or, as my good friend in the local comic shop humorously said after attending his first SF convention, "My God, you put people with no social skills and no lives into a room together and they term into total Nazis".

I originally created X-Clusive for Sheare Bliss, and other authors who I felt were being swamped in a tidal wave of romance and poorly crafted stories on the larger archives such as Gossamer. My own feelings were that quality authors were being missed as readers tried to work their way through the newsgroups, archives and mailing lists.

Unfortunately, the experiment has largely failed. X-Clusive has attracted a small but loyal gathering of readers who genuinely enjoyed the stories posted here, but the facts are:

a) The majority of readers seem to prefer stories that feature romance, erotica, slash and torture.

b) There is no reason for authors to post to X-Clusive if they can get their story read by 600 people on some of the bigger mailing lists.

Also, some other fanfic authors (not those listed on this site ) have always disagreed with my policy saying I practiced censorship and elitist tastes. Personally, my intentions have always been to try to run this website like a magazine, concentrating on providing quality fiction for the readers. A publisher does not accept poorly written stories that haven't been spell checked, or stories that do not match their intended purpose (for instance, I sincerely doubt Guns and Ammo would buy a romance story and I also sincerely doubt whether Guns and Ammo's refusal to buy it would constitute censorship).

I should also add that over the past year I have moved on from The X-Files. First I gave up writing fan fiction. Then I gave up watching the show. I never saw the movie. I'm selling my collection. The last step is the removal of this website.

I'd like to thank everyone who supported this website and who took the time to write to me. I'd especially like to thank the authors for agreeing to be listed on this website and for all their hard work in creating such wonderful stories.

It's been a blast gang.

Fan Comments

Hi Yvonne and people, I'd just like to let you know that I have enjoyed your X-Clusive site and will sorely miss it, as I just discovered it about 2 months ago. I never would of found stories by Joann Humby, Anonymous and LuvMulder if not for this site. Searching for a good story that I personally will enjoy within archives like Gossamer is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Maybe you or someone else can suggest/point us in the direction of another archive similar to X-Clusive. One of the reasons I practically liked this archive was because most of the stories were good psychological dramas, profiling or x-files with no romance (just my personal taste in the fic :) folks). If there is no archive that just contains this type of x-files fan fic genre, I think there should be.

All the Best

Sonja Blue