#welcome to our group chat scully

[fandom-oldpodcast]

About the Podcast

Fandom Old is meant to be a fun, conversational podcast about fandom from the perspective of folks who’ve been here a while (or from folks who feel like old fannish souls). We’ll rant, trade wisdom, and reminisce about times gone by.

I’m personally a history nerd, so I’m especially interested in uncovering and recording fandom history as experienced by you (and really any fan in any historical fannish spaces, especially ones I didn’t experience personally because of my age, identity, or chosen fandoms). Fans (and fandom) are endlessly interesting to me, and I’d like to capture and share the parts that might have been forgotten or overlooked.

Main Themes / Topics

Below is a non-exhaustive list of topics I and others have suggested for the main theme of an episode. If you’d like to be a guest to talk about one (or more!) of these topics (or about something not listed here), please let me know so I can send you info!

Aside from the first topic, these are in no specific order:

What does it mean to be Fandom Old? (Episode 1)

Dana Scully, MSR vs. No Romo Usenet Wars, Chris Carter is Trash

The Gossamer Archive

Webrings (AKA The Era of Chaotic Fandom)

Portmanteau Ship Names

Our Fandom Lexicon / Our Favorite Fannish Terms

Character/Reader POV fics

Mary Sues

“Problematic” ships / fandom / purity culture

Tumblr Dashcon 2014 (and the Ball Pit)

Fanfiction.net

Fan-written Alternate Seasons

LiveJournal

MsScribe Saga

Fanfic Disclaimers (and why we don’t need them anymore, AKA AO3 rocks)

Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and The Era of Vindictive Canon Owners

How discovering a fandom real-time v later changes understanding of canon

ALSO: please spread the word! I obviously have my fannish spaces here and on Twitter, but I'd love to chat with people outside those bubbles, especially folks that have been around fandom for a while and have stories to tell.

EDITED TO ADD:

Hey y’all — especially to the trans men who’ve rightly commented on this — I need to apologize to you. The original post had a screenshot of the convo that spurred the idea for the podcast in my group chat in which I mentioned just women and non-binary folks.

I wanted to share where the idea came from, and I didn’t consider that it would exclude folks who I definitely don’t want to exclude. I’ve removed the screenshot. Thank you very much for pointing this out, although I’m very sorry you had to.

I hope you’ll forgive my thoughtlessness — I understand it didn’t feel good to see that and I really regret that I caused those feelings, because I absolutely welcome you.

To be absolutely clear: I’d love for all genders to be guests or listeners (or to contribute however you like)!

[cutie1365]

A Kid from Queens Part 15

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Info: CA: Civil War Era. Tony Stark enlists his daughter to find the web slinging spider in Queens.

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: n/a

(no Far From Home spoilers)

A/N: There’s one part where maybe pretend you have an ‘A’ initial, this idea was written more for my OC on Wattpad, so I’m sorry, but I kinda love it so I didn’t wanna change it.

Masterlist linked in my bio. Taglist in the reblog.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

“Where are you headed all dressed up?” Tony asks as you’re leaving your room at the compound.

“All dressed up? Dad this is a suit.” You laughed him off, he walked with you as you were making your way towards the front to board the jet.

“Alright Scully, where are you headed? Did I miss a memo for a shareholder meeting or something?” Tony asked.

Ever since you’d presented the information to him about the Mayor, he had been extra protective. But you’d done as he suggested, you turned the information over to the FBI. They suggested that for the time being, you keep up with Thomas and the family for appearances sake, to not cause suspicion. You told this to your father. What you didn’t tell him was that the FBI invited you to aid in the investigation, due to your proximity to the case you’d be useful. Also considering they were likely stealing from a government warehouse that was half Stark owned and maintained. You’d be a good person to have on board, and your commitment would be minimal. You’d publically stay with Thomas until they told you it was time to distance yourself, meaning they’d found something or want to provoke the family into making a mistake and slipping up, hopefully exposing a hole in their network they could exploit. You thought it was a good idea, you also thought it would be best for your father’s nerves if you didn’t tell him the full story.

“I guess someone doesn’t read their emails. But no, Linda has me judging the annual robotics competition at MIT, so it’s Back to School for me.” You spoke, digging through your purse, making sure you had everything, your suitcase should have already been on the jet, but you were only going to be gone for a few days.

Tony nodded, as if he now remembered seeing something about that somewhere. He saw the jet on the tarmac, ready to take off any minute as you both stood before the glass entrance of the compound.

“Alright Animal House, no toga parties.” He hugged you goodbye, you chuckled at the thought of a bunch of engineers throwing a toga party.

“I’ll try my best. I’ll be back in a few days. Oh, and tell Wanda I left a box of clothes for her in my room. And I made a prototype of an upgrade for Rhodey’s braces that I left in the lab for you to do some testing on.” You began to ramble off things for him, knowing there was a low chance he’d remember everything.

“Alright mother hen, you don’t want to be late.” He hugged you once more, shooing you off.

You made your way to the jet, as Tony watched you from a distance. His little girl, all grown up. He hadn’t seen you this happy in a while, it brought a smile to his face. Ever since he’d practically ordered you to stay away from Peter, he noticed a change in you. You spent so much time in the lab, tinkering on things to take your mind off of life. You were rushed around from interview to interview, dress fitting to dress fitting, and photoshoot to photoshoot. He noticed the toll it was taking on you. He hated seeing you so run down, and nearly considered giving the kid a chance. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad, it worked for him and Pepper, it might just be able to work for them. He’s a good kid, but he’s not willing to take a chance yet, not when it comes to his daughters safety. He’s kept you safe for a long time, and he didn’t want to ever see you hurt again.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

As you arrived in Boston, after a quick flight, a car was waiting to take you the rest of the way to MIT.

The car pulled into the familiar streets where you’d resided for a few years when you were younger. You hadn’t been back in years, yet it all looked the same. Near the entrance you spotted some of your old professors chatting, likely they were also judges.

“Y/N.” One greeted you, his expression somewhere between surprise and joy.

“Dr. Greenfield, it’s nice to see you again.” You smiled, shaking his hand.

“You’re all grown up now aren’t you. You know, I still remember your first day in my class. I had to go home and rework half of my lesson plans.” He chuckled at the memory. You remembered sitting in his class, answering all his questions that were meant to stump the class. He was a sweet older man, and you were happy to be here with him now.

You chatted and caught up for a few more minutes before you were invited inside to check in and meet the teams. You were given a metal name plate that you slipped on. Dr. A. Stark, it read.

You met the other 5 judges and mingled for a bit while the teams were still setting up in their prospective rooms. Some were industry experts, some were old professors of yours. Each judge had been assigned to a team, to mentor and offer insight and guidance before the final judging in two days time.

When a facilitator led you into a room of five boys standing in front of their invention, you weren’t met with the warm welcome you were expecting.

“Gentleman, I’d like to introduce you to your mentor Dr.-” The facilitator was cut off by one of the boys, he seemed to be the ringleader of the group.

“No, no, our mentor is Dr. A. Stark. Anthony Stark. Not some...” He waved his hand at you, trying to think of the best descriptor, “Vogue cover girl.”

You’d had a nice day so far, you were willing to let it slide, but when he opened his mouth and spoke to you with such disrespect, you were going to make him wish he’d called in sick today. The facilitator, likely a student committee volunteer, had her mouth hung open slightly in shock, she didn’t know what to do. So you stepped forward towards the boys, and that’s exactly what they were.

“You got Dr. A. Stark. Y/N (I’m sorry my OC has an A initial) Stark. My father actually doesn’t have a PhD. But I’ve got two. One of them in Electrical Engineering from this fine university.” You raised your hands motioning to the school around you, stepping closer once more, and oh if looks could kill. “But if you don’t want my help, I’m sure there are other teams who would be happy to have me...”

You turned on your heel and made one strutt towards the door before whipping around once more.

“By the way, you’re going to need the help, because I can spot six errors already from here. Seven if you count that sloppy rotary potentiometer.” And with that, you spun towards the door once more and didn’t look back at what you were certain were five speechless boys nearly shaking in their boots.

You’d certainly inherited a flair for the dramatics from your father, but this time it was merely a facade. Deep down you were on the verge of tears. This was your livelihood, you didn’t care if the civilian population thought you were some brainless covergirl, but you at least thought the people in your own field would respect you. The opinion of five students shouldn’t have hit you as hard as it did, but it now had you questioning everything. Every move you’ve made since that damn photograph came out.

You were leaning on the wall in the stairwell, if you were going to cry, you were going to make sure none of them saw you do it. You suddenly heard the large metal door open next to you, and a student looked at you in shock.

“Dr. Stark?” He asked, he wasn’t one of the boys from before, he must have been on another team. You knew he wasn’t like the others, he at least seemed to recognize you and your title.

“That would be me.” You smiled, lifting yourself off the wall slightly.

“I read your paper on nanoparticle technology. I think it’s completely revolutionary, I mean the implications alone... I just, it blew my mind.” He smiled, you watched as he spoke so passionately, waving his hands about as he spoke. A smile slowly spread to your face as well. In his excitement, he’d forgotten to introduce himself. He was tall but lanky, with a dirty blond mop of hair resting on his head, and deep blue eyes.

“That was my doctoral thesis from a few years ago. Back then the idea was completely theoretical, but even today at Stark Industries we’re developing prototypes using only nanotech.” You stated proudly.

“How’d you get around the deterioration objective?” He asked, with a slight tilt of his head.

“A housing unit that harnesses palladium and vibranium to almost charge the particles.” You explained, enjoying watching his eyes pop as you explained. It was refreshing talking to someone who spoke your language.

“That’s brilliant. It’s really such an honor to meet you. I know my team and I would be grateful if you would be able to spare a few minutes to look at our design? Our mentor is just... well he doesn’t have your experience.” He rubbed the back of his head nervously.

“I’ll see what I can do.” You smiled, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Harley, Harley Keener.” He shook your hand with a smile.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

Taglist in reblog

Please comment, like, and reblog!

Sorry this chapter is a little shorter, I’ve basically got the next one written but I thought it might be too long to combine them. Don’t worry Peter’s coming in soon!

[pjstafford]

FWNPR. (A X-Files fan fic short)

Mulder sits and remembers the sounds of the end. The click, click, click of her high heals as Scully walked around the house gathering her belongings in silence, the muffled sob as she turned for one last look, the click of the door as she closed it softly. He sits through the night until the sun is about to rise. He simply sits and thinks. He focuses on the sounds of the end because clearly they are important. He focuses on the sounds of the end because the next thing he does will be the first thing of his new life. He focuses on the sounds of the end to not relive the last fight and the multitude of fights and all the horror of their life together and all the good. He focuses on the sound of the end rather than getting on the computer.

Occasionally he glances at the computer. He knows that eventually his compulsion will compel him to the website where he has spent so many hours over the last few years. For now he fights the compulsion in deference to the last fight he had with the love of his life before the sounds of the end, but he has no delusions that he will give up the site for good. In fact, as he sits, he begins to imagine the warmth of the site. In the back of his mind the click, click of her heals and the loneliness he feels becomes shaded by the delayed gratification he knows he will feel when he finally replaces it with the his hand on the mouse and the sensation of clicking to see the welcome page on the screen. Perhaps, as wrong as Scully is about everything else, she is correct that he is addicted.

“I’m not chatting with a woman or women, Scully. I swear it”.

He can no longer escape the sounds of the last fight.

“You never leave the house, Mulder. You don’t come to bed with me. You don’t talk to me. We’re living together but we’re not sharing our lives together. I know you, Mulder, your obsessiveness and single minded pursuit of something..”

“You’re exaggerating, Scully. Of course, I leave the house. I do the shopping and pick up your dry cleaning. Of course, I go to bed with you. Of course I talk to you about your latest cases and hospital gossip. I just have to have something that my own. Occasionally I need to do something I find meaningful for me...”.

“Which you can’t share with me? That you can’t talk about with me? Is it an UFO site. Is it the damn search for the truth?”

“I know you don’t want to hear about aliens. You’ve made that clear “.

The sound of silence follows for a few minutes. Scully is forced to admit to herself that she did tell him she didn’t want to hear about aliens or monsters ever again. Mulder thinks briefly about why he doesn’t chat anymore with other believers; because Max and the lone gunmen are dead and the search for The Truth is dangerous and he doesn’t care about himself, but he does about Scully. He gave up this pursuit so meaningful to him for Scully, but he doesn’t tell Scully. Better she believes that he is still pursuing that then...

“This is different, Mulder.” Scully says the next words softly after one quick intake of breath. “Is it porn? Are you spending your time on online porn sites instead of in my bed?”

When Mulder doesnt answer, the sounds of the argument becomes the sound of the end.

Mulder realizes the sun is high in the sky. He can wait no longer for the sweet relief. The relief he could never talk about with Scully. He gets up slowly. Walks to the computer table. Sits down quickly with a release of breath. His hand moves to the mouse. Click, click, welcome. He sighs. FWNPR. Fathers with no parental rights. The site for the poor lousy sobs who were Fathers, damn it, but couldn’t see or didn’t know where their children were. Fathers who had abandoned their children. Fathers who had their rights taken away because they were in prison or drug addicted. Fathers who didn’t know the woman they had slept with was pregnant until the baby was given away.

He clicks now on his specific chat group. The online community he could not imagine going one day without communication. They talked about baseball and sex and what it felt like on father day. The category of men who had children that were given up for adoption while they were away-for whatever reason. They knew each other dirty secrets, their guilt, their anger, their attempts to pretend that life would ever be normal again. He couldn’t tell Scully about them, but these men all knew about Scully.

His fingers moves to the keyboard. “She left last night. I am completely alone.” He only starts to breathe normally when he sees a response on the screen. “None of us are alone, brother. We have one another. “

[skepticalspooky]

hellbent

msr | fluff | college au | one-off/stand-alone

hello i’ve never written a fic before but i guess i have now! please feel free to give feedback. i aim to please (probably). also this is pretty short so i apologize for that.

A lettermen-clad frat boy thrust an unidentifiable drink at Scully as soon as her shoe hit the weird linoleum floor. Who picks linoleum for a walkway? The vibe of the house was anxious yet somehow sexual and the acoustics made by linoleum didn’t help. Maybe wanting to experience a college party was silly. It seemed atrocious so far, with the plethora of half naked 20-year-olds and the overbearing smell of vodka and perfume and weed. Scully felt like she was in another dimension where time moved one hundred times faster than normal. A guy that she vaguely recognized from some class came up to her and tried his hand at catcalling, though it didn’t carry the intended effect seeing as he was five inches away and had to face the consequences. His hand gripped her back in a way that could be passed off as “flirting” but was more likely his attempt at keeping balance. Of course, Scully had to decline his offer of “test riding his dick” by stepping on his foot. It was unfortunate for him that she was wearing wide heeled boots. He retaliated by calling her a bitch which, much to his chagrin, had no effect on the answer she already made clear. Tugging on her two-sizes-too-big jacket, Scully decided to make her way into the calmer yard. There, she was met with the odd couple making out and a few groups chatting about things that won’t matter in 10, maybe even 5, years. But who cares? Why not live in the moment? Thinking about the deeper meaning of every move and every word and every person gets tiring. A prime example of someone living in the moment was the kid who just received an unbranded cigarette from a random. Or was it a cigarette? Scully had all the time in the world to think about it because this kid was blissfully unaware of anything but his maybe-cigarette and the stars. She even clocked a few glances thrown his way, out of intrigue or lust, yet he sat unwavering, hellbent on outer space. A scary and often forgotten part of her wanted him to be hellbent on her. Not necessarily sexually, no, but in some way or ways, she wanted his attention because it seemed so sweet. An even scarier part of her knew he would be hellbent on her if he knew her. An instinct maybe, or perhaps just hope. At this point, she figured out that she had been staring for a bit too long. He was staring straight back, eyes smiling in unison with mouth. Could he read her mind? She desperately hoped that wasn’t so. Scully hung on to every moment as this mystery boy made room on his blanket and pat a seat beside him, holding relentless eye contact. She could practically see her eyes widening in excessive disbelief and her face reddening just enough to be noticeable. Nevertheless, her feet floated her to his stupid checkered lawn blanket and forced herself down. One would expect the first words spoken from this mysterious college kid to be somewhat thought-provoking or even brooding. They were not.

“Your coat. I like it.”

Her coat. He liked it. Her two-sizes-too-big brown bomber jacket. The one with all the patches. He liked it.

“Thanks. I like your...” she couldn’t search fast enough and too many off-putting things were coming to mind, “glasses.” She did. They were nice round glasses. He only needed them for reading really, but he seemed to like them too. Truth be told, they were both a bit flustered. It felt different for two complete strangers to share this common timidness upon meeting, yet it was there. Oh, was it there. Perhaps one of them was thinking too much about what the other looked like under their cool jacket and cursed themselves for thinking about that having just met them. Maybe the other wanted to run their fingers through the other’s hair just because it looked so soft and oh my God could not believe they were being so weird right now. But that’s merely one interpretation of events, of course.

“I’m Fox, but Mulder is preferred.” Fox Mulder? My Lord did this kid’s reputation precede him. This was Spooky, Spooky Mulder, the guy who believed in aliens and shit! Scully never had a face to put with the name. Her intrusive but welcomed thoughts said it was a good face.

“I’m Dana- uh, Scully.” She couldn’t tell if she was stumbling over words (her own name of all things) or if she was subconsciously following that last name pattern.

He simply repeated her. “Scully.” It sounded pretty good coming from him.

“Nice to meet you, F- um, Mulder.” Again with the word stumbling? Then again, she wasn’t used to people going by their last name. Then again, she was formulating excuses like clockwork with this guy. He laughed. He was clearly struggling a bit here too. If only she knew his excuses. He was just nervous about this other thing, he was just hot because of the weather. Maybe they could exchange excuses sometime.

A necessary subject change, if you wanted to say they had a subject to change at all, came on a shooting star. It was unusual to see a shooting star with all the artificial light surrounding the pair, but there was no denying its twinkling as it shot across the sky only to shrink and fade away. “Do you ever make wishes on those things?” He sounded a bit gruff. Scully was still red. He wasn’t helping.

“Not really. It’s more of a fun phenomenon to me. But it shows me that I’m on the right track by living in the moment, I guess.” Was she rambling? She had four-ish sips of beer, does that lead to Scully mini-tangents? It was all another excuse and she knew it.

“Hm. That’s a different way of looking at it.” He paused a moment with no sign of elaboration. “I make wishes sometimes.”

“What do you wish?”

He didn’t answer, he just smiled. She didn’t pry.

“But your thing with being on the right track. I think I’m gonna use that now. Like, um, would I have seen that if I was arguing or staying in or something?”

“Yeah, exactly. You probably wouldn’t have. But you made the choices that led you to see it instead.”

He nodded. “Plus, it might make girls think I’m deep.” Scully laughed, but he was right. It kinda worked and she hated it. “But it makes me think about other things that are out there, too.”

“Like... like, aliens?” She could see the Spooky in him now. He seemed so serious about this that she almost moved away a bit. She didn’t.

“I can sense the skepticism, Scully!”

“Mulder, if you think that’s skepticism, you should hear my thoughts on the WOW! signal.” They could both feel eyes on them at this point, but surprisingly Scully didn’t care. She couldn’t not look into his eyes when he started talking about aliens and bigger meanings of things and, at one low point, Bigfoot. Scully even dropped the excuses and quietness and replaced it with a newfound comfort. He gave her goosebumps when he spoke about crazy theories in a smooth tone and it made her laugh, really laugh, when he rolled her eyes as she disputed him. He certainly was hooked on her sarcasm and questioning looks. Her prodding was like the missing piece to his mixed-up Mulder puzzle. Sometimes, when he thought she couldn’t see him because she was laughing away from him, he looked at her like he was hellbent on her. She could see him.

When she was done laughing, she would push away a loose strand of her scarlet hair. Mulder noticed this happen every time for about nine muffled song changes, not that he was counting. This time, he took the liberty of tucking the strand away himself, lingering on her jawline only a few seconds too long. Scully couldn’t do anything but look down at her shoes. The sound of car doors slamming and crickets chirping and distant songs and loud laughing made for a nice distraction. But the alcohol proved to override this effect. Rosy-cheeked Scully wanted to speak her mind and she was only a bit buzzed.

“I can’t believe I’ve never seen you before.” Mulder looked away from her when she spoke.

“I tend to stay out of the, uh, spotlight,” he replied after a few pointless moments, annunciating the T’s in “spotlight.” Scully nodded understandingly, yet she yearned for him to be in the spotlight. She figured it would be a nice change of pace. She didn’t say that. No, she wasn’t that brave yet.

“Talking to you is easy.” Wonderful, changing the topic and beating around the bush. Hey, it made Mulder smile.

“I feel the same about you. It’s nice having someone who... pays attention? I don’t know if that makes sense. I just feel like you’re listening.”

“I’m listening.”

“Am I talking too much?”

“Did you forget the part of our conversation where I talked about my 8th grade Halloween dance for ten minutes?” Another Mulder smile, but this one came with a laugh. Now his hand was on her hand and he was sitting closer to her than she thought and was that her heart she heard beating? Or was it his? A common theme returning, intrusive thoughts got the best of Scully and all she could think about were his lips. Lucky for her, his mind was racing too. He wanted to be pressed against her; soft yet tense, breathing yet unmoving. She wanted to know how his hair felt between her fingers and she couldn’t explain why because she didn’t need to. That’s how it was and that’s how it will be. Their brains sparked at the same time as they turned to look at each other at the same moment. In a “fuck it, this needs to be true” moment, Mulder moved his hand to Scully’s shoulder as he leaned into the space between them. Scully met him in the middle, her lips carefully finding his before he could reach her. It was different than she expected in the best way possible. His lips were soft but his face was contrastingly rough, and as she let her hand wander to his hair she found that it was soft too. Pulling away but lingering close, the two weren’t quite sure what to say. They’d just met and now they were swapping spit in some stranger’s yard. Less romantic than expected, but perhaps the fact that it was so thrilling and a bit spontaneous made up for it. She thought a kiss would be the cure, but Scully’s heart didn’t stop racing and she was fine with that. Mulder looked at her for the longest time as she thought. Visually, he was unaffected. Deep down, he felt he could run a mile. She seemed pretty perfect to him before and this confirmed it. Not once had he felt so connected to someone before. Sure, she disagreed with him on almost everything, but she listened and truthfully had some great ideas of her own. He loved that she could take an urban legend and it explain it fluidly and scientifically as if she was writing a revolutionary report in her mind. Maybe it was the beer or the group of assholes smoking in front of them. No, that’s wrong. It couldn’t have been. God, was it time to talk now? He didn’t know what to say and she obviously didn’t either. He went with the first thing that came to mind.

“How come we’ve never met before?”