Story 7: "Tikkun Olam" by RivkaT and MustangSally

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Since we had a rather long interlude with no story at all (my fault!), wendelah1 and I have chosen a special bonus story. So here it is, "Tikkun Olam" by RivkaT and MustangSally, one of the controversial classics of the fandom. Hopefully it will provoke some discussion.

This story is rated NC-17 and is not for sensitive or impressionable souls. I'm not kidding. But it's really good.

"Deaths and disclosures, universal and particular, denouements both unexpected and inexorable, transvestite melodrama on all levels including the suggestive. We transport you into a world of intrigue and illusion ... clowns, if you like, murderers -- we can do you ghosts and battles, on the skirmish level, heroes, villains, tormented lovers -- set pieces in the poetic vein; we can do you rapiers or rape or both, by all means, faithless wives and ravished virgins -- flagrante delicto at a price, but that comes under realism for which there are special terms."

Interesting discussions:

Usenet thread on prologue

Spoilerific Usenet review thread

Comments

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Well, there are two different issues here. My view of the situation is that Mulder left his own universe, went through all of those other rapidly-deteriorating universes, and then returned to his own to live that same morning again. He is different, he has new memories, but the history of the rest of the universe hasn't changed. He is different; it is the same.

Perhaps that is the message? That what matters is how we live and how we go forward with life?

[wendelah1]

I do think that is what the message is: how we live matters.How, not who we love matters. I do believe that one person can change the world, in tiny increments perhaps, but it is change. The universe of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully has already changed. Weren't all of these multiple universes created from a series of choices? Mulder is the center of this universe, it seems. (Someone, somewhere is now screaming, I knew it! See, it is a sexist source text! just kidding.)

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

It became a different universe when he made his first different choice. Before that it was just in potentia. But now I'm getting philosophical!

[wendelah1]

You are making me work. In potentia, everything is possible. Yes, I agree, as soon as he made his first choice. But he had to have changed to make that choice? Yes, this is getting too philosophical. I agree that it is his action of choosing that made the change. Then they are in a different universe, a better one, by the smallest of increments. Every little bit counts here. We are having a duel of icons. You choose one of cold but theoretically infinite beauty, I choose "From Outer Space!"