![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bunny attack! (an impromptu drabble)
title: scopophilia
author: julie levin russo
fandom: X-Files
pairing: Scully/anonymous gender-neutral cameraperson who never appears onscreen
rating: PG, for an oblique reference to sex
words: I didn’t quite make it in at 100, so it’s my signature 123
(...standard disclaimers...)
[We watched the ep "X-Cops" at our screening for TV class tonight (yes, I am a nerd) and it was just so brilliant and I’d forgotten how in love I am with Scully. So this is the procrastinatory result. Written in about half an hour because wow am I sleep-deprived — which is a shame because I think it would make an excellent longer fic. Any takers?]
(When she looks at you, all she sees is a camera. When you look at her, all you see is an image.)
As it turns out, you and Special Agent Scully are staying at the same hotel. When you sidle up to her at the bar, she doesn’t recognize you without the camera obscuring your face. It’s easy enough to look her in the eye, to brush your fingers against hers, and make her resistance to your film crew into a joke.
(Where others see the world in its fullness you see qualities and intensities of light.) The glow through your room’s window is neon and greenish. Later, you slip out of bed naked to film it coloring her skin as she sleeps.
author: julie levin russo
fandom: X-Files
pairing: Scully/anonymous gender-neutral cameraperson who never appears onscreen
rating: PG, for an oblique reference to sex
words: I didn’t quite make it in at 100, so it’s my signature 123
(...standard disclaimers...)
[We watched the ep "X-Cops" at our screening for TV class tonight (yes, I am a nerd) and it was just so brilliant and I’d forgotten how in love I am with Scully. So this is the procrastinatory result. Written in about half an hour because wow am I sleep-deprived — which is a shame because I think it would make an excellent longer fic. Any takers?]
(When she looks at you, all she sees is a camera. When you look at her, all you see is an image.)
As it turns out, you and Special Agent Scully are staying at the same hotel. When you sidle up to her at the bar, she doesn’t recognize you without the camera obscuring your face. It’s easy enough to look her in the eye, to brush your fingers against hers, and make her resistance to your film crew into a joke.
(Where others see the world in its fullness you see qualities and intensities of light.) The glow through your room’s window is neon and greenish. Later, you slip out of bed naked to film it coloring her skin as she sleeps.
which is a shame because I think it would make an excellent longer fic. Any takers?
You want someone else to write it? (I'm not suggesting me, btw - I'm just clarifying).
Until January.
Lynne actually encouraged me to talk about this piece at the end of seminar today, which was entertaining. The way the (fictional) present yet invisible body of the cameraperson occupies the position of the viewer watching through the camera, allowing the viewer to enter into the text and collapsing the boundaries between the spaces inside and outside of the TV -- this fascinates me. It's quite a novel (as you say) way to write a Mary Sue fic, if I do say so myself. (Have you seen this ep recently?)
Fictocriticism! Yay! Did you use the word? Did everyone look at you like you were weird? It's cool that you used that as a critical tool - I LOVE the idea of Mary Sue at the critic. That would make a GREAT paper.
Yeah, I saw that ep recently - I was watching some seasons 7 eps earlier this year and I rather like that one.
I'd indeed love to find/see more Mary Sues that occupy the critical position, rather than the (stereotypical) fangirl fantasy-fulfillment position. *ponders*
I loved that ep, because I was all like "look look, Scully *is* real!" Hee.
It has a perfectly fine pedigree - but I understand that you need to be able to refer to it if you are to use it. If I wasn't so terribly lazy I would look under all these stupid books lying about the place and see if I could find that one with the essay on fictocriticism... Which is kind of impossible because half of them have found their way into my sister's room and that's a black hole in there.
God - we really have to get the cleaner in this week...
-H
(Where others see the world in its fullness you see qualities and intensities of light.)
It is a great idea for a longer fic, but it also stands so well on its own too!
(So maybe I will turn it into a longer fic, someday? I am rather obsessed with the whole idea. Shoo bunny!)
Lovely.
I love the connection of cameraperson to viewer. I love the cameraperson's one-sided recognition. I want her to never realize that the person at the bar is also the person behind the camera.
Secondly, I'm glad you liked my little theorywank drabble :) *still bouncing*
Hmmm, what if she never figured out she was screwing one of the camera crew? I am pondering...
What if she realized it, like, during or afterwards? That would be sort of a mindfuck.
Ooh, during would be good. If she realizes afterwards, then she has to deal with that, and what I'd want to see from that story is how she deals with it. If she realizes beforehand, then it means she wants to have sex with the cameraperson, and what I'd want to see from that story is why does Scully want to have sex with the cameraperson? But sometime during...well, it's not like she did it because the cameraperson was the cameraperson (my kingdom for a decent gender-neutral pronoun (1)), but she didn't not do it because the cameraperson was the cameraperson either. Which is interesting. And kind of hot in its ambiguity.
Although I hadn't even been thinking of it as what Scully was doing. I was kind of thinking along the lines of our other comment conversation, so I was thinking of the cameraperson aligned with the viewer, in that the cameraperson gets to have this relationship with her whole life, and Scully never knows. (Filming her while she sleeps goes well with this.)
(1) - I'm trying to keep the cameraperson gender neutral but...I initially kept thinking of the cameraperson as a camerman, because you don't see a hell of a lot of camerawomen. But that could work for the Scully-not-realizing. If she's not paying a lot of attention to the camerapeople, and all she really sees is faces obscured by a camera, maybe she just assumed that it was men filming her all along, and it's only later on that she realizes she was being watched by a woman.
linking to our other conversation, just for personal reference
i'm trying to keep the cameraperson gender neutral
heh, well, of course she's a woman in my mind. if I did write a longer story I'd probably come down definitively on that side of things. I was trying to watch the episode carefully: you see several male members of the crew and one cameraman, but I'm pretty sure there's one cameraperson present who never ends up onscreen. so I like your theory (though one could of course make the opposite argument...)
Yeah, I think you would have to come down definitively on the gender in a longer version of this, if only because it's difficult and kind of annoying to sustain gender neutrality in longer stories. Plus, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of the cameraperson being a camerawoman. For one thing, if Scully is assuming they're all men, then it makes it even more plausible that she wouldn't recognize the woman at the bar as the person behind the camera. For another, it opens up some more fun meta-ish stuff: Scully has been assuming she's being filmed/watched by men, and what kind of reaction does that cause, and how does that change when she realizes that a woman has been filming/watching her too?
You need to bump this up the priority list. I am way eager to read it.
There is so much stuff to be explored in this drabble. I love it.
There is so much stuff to be explored in this drabble. I love it.
yaaaaay!
I too am very fond of the camerawoman idea, of course. also for the meta-ish reason of the audience's traditional alignment with the feminine, heh.
ooh, she could be a butch woman! because if you're going to make up a mary sue, might as well make her butch (because there certainly aren't many of those on television). and this would aid in the whole her assuming the crew is all male and thus not recognizing the woman as one of them scenario. and the gender dynamics thicken...
You need to bump this up the priority list. I am way eager to read it.
aw, thanks! I'll see what I can do (but at this point there's no hope till at least the summer :P )
My issues with butch aside: totally awesome idea! I was kind of picturing her Olivia-ish to begin with.
Yayyy! (Eff. What about spring break?)
never!! but at least you got a cat out of it, that's nice :)
yay! and this would be for-real butch, not Olivia-ish pseudo/TV-butch.
(and yes, I have to reply to your longlong comments too, it's on the LIST...)
What about spring break?
I usually spend it doing homework, ugh. I need that week to catch up.
I figured it would be real butch--I just meant I was already heading down that road with the Olivia thing anyway.
(Haha, yeah, sorry about that. I posted them, then immediately read your post about LJ comments and their tendecy to take up your time by multiplying, and I was like, "Oh...shit.")
Ouch. That's harsh.
I like dogs better anyway...
sorry about that.
aaawww, no problem. I figured (since you're the girl who's been known to resurface with random replies *months* later [also, the cat thing]) that you were joking *g*