ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 builds upon lilo’s emotioned fan literacy by focusing in depth on X-Files fan, Madshrubbery’s early reading, writing, and popular culture practices with her family. She paints a rich picture of reading with her brother and parents as a child, watching Star Trek weekly in the TV room, and, intriguingly, travelling around the country and even into Canada to experience important battlefields with her father, a military history enthusiast. These experiences build the foundation for a writer who is singularly focused on the craft and accuracy of writing, rather than just the possibilities it provides for self-expression. The chapter follows Madshrubbery from her early literacy practices with her family, through her intensive engagement with X-Files fanfiction, through a horrendous sexual assault, and, finally, towards healing. Ultimately, Madshrubbery is a good example of the wide range of embodied literacy because she demonstrates a less common or perhaps fringe fan experience from what much of fan research has engaged with. In that way, then, she begins to demonstrate the ways in which we maintain yet change certain elements of our body routines and literacies over time and across the boundaries of certain life events and likes.
