wendelah1 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wendelah1) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
xf_book_club2009-09-03 09:19 am
wendelah1) wrote in xf_book_club2009-09-03 09:19 am
Story 91: "The Fractured Landscape" by Zuffy and Littljoe
Welcome back! I hope you had a great August holiday.
In light of some recent discussions I've had about character POV, and whether or not writing a character unsympathetically accurately represents how an author feels about the character, especially in season 8 fic, I decided to read some season 8 fic. Just to get my biases out of the way, I haven't read much of it because I kind of hate season 8. Okay, I really hate season 8. But we aren't here to discuss that, we're here to talk about fan fiction!
Synopsis: How does the tense and chilly Mulder of 3Words turn into the relaxed and confident man joking about "the pizza man"?
The authors rate this story PG-13 for language.
If anyone has season 8 fic they would like to recommend we discuss, you may make those suggestions here. If you think reading season 8 fic is a terrible idea and want to read something else, you can make that suggestion at the same place. I know I've skipped over some of your suggestions, but I promise we'll get to them eventually.
Give feedback to the authors and then tell us what you think about the story. Heck, you can even tell us what you think about season 8 and/or author POV versus character POV in season 8 fic. Come prepared with supporting examples of your thesis. Joke. Just read the fic. Although, I would love to read meta about that topic if there is any, she said wistfully.
"The Fractured Landscape"
In light of some recent discussions I've had about character POV, and whether or not writing a character unsympathetically accurately represents how an author feels about the character, especially in season 8 fic, I decided to read some season 8 fic. Just to get my biases out of the way, I haven't read much of it because I kind of hate season 8. Okay, I really hate season 8. But we aren't here to discuss that, we're here to talk about fan fiction!
Synopsis: How does the tense and chilly Mulder of 3Words turn into the relaxed and confident man joking about "the pizza man"?
The authors rate this story PG-13 for language.
If anyone has season 8 fic they would like to recommend we discuss, you may make those suggestions here. If you think reading season 8 fic is a terrible idea and want to read something else, you can make that suggestion at the same place. I know I've skipped over some of your suggestions, but I promise we'll get to them eventually.
Give feedback to the authors and then tell us what you think about the story. Heck, you can even tell us what you think about season 8 and/or author POV versus character POV in season 8 fic. Come prepared with supporting examples of your thesis. Joke. Just read the fic. Although, I would love to read meta about that topic if there is any, she said wistfully.
"The Fractured Landscape"
The Bad - part 1
he thinks, Scully moving out of the life they had built, out toward something called normal when she knows that "normal" doesn't apply to anyone any more, least of all to them. She used to know.
this bothers me the most, probably, of anything in the fic. I don’t believe that scully was leaving work for a normal life (and if she was, then I don’t want to know, frankly) and I also don't think that mulder would be that cynical in how he thought of her. It’s almost condescending of him to think this way, and I can take a lot from mulder, but condescension is not something that suits him.
not that it mattered because she couldn't be pregnant. There shouldn't be a baby. They couldn't have what they wanted. She'd picked up his hand and started to draw it toward her. How do you know? he wanted to ask, but instead he smiled because he knew what was required.
this is the other prominent representation of what bothers me about the M/S dynamic in this fic (and in canon, and in a lot of other S8 fics). I don’t like that he seems to feel this obligation. I don’t think that scully expected things of him. She’s never really expected things of him before. She’s wanted things, demanded, but it was always a sort of unspoken or spoken negotiation process: working things out in a way that was sensitive to each other. And now mulder thinks, ‘well but she’s a MOTHER now, so she’ll have all sorts of MOTHER priorities that I’ll have to fit myself to. Argh.
Besides, I tend to take the ‘Parabiosos’ approach to the pregnancy story line, in thinking that mulder kind of knew. Or that even if he didn’t know in words, something in him felt that scully was pregnant. So that waking up and finding her pregnant was sort of like remembering something that happened in a dream - you already knew, but you’d buried it again.
He hears a scuffing sound up close and freezes, then realizes that it is only his hands still rubbing across his jeans. He lets out his breath and it's at that moment that he spots a glint off a windshield and realizes that she's moved the car closer to the gate. She's safe and is waiting for him
and this felt manipulative and weak to me: “SCULLY’S GONE!!! oh, wait, never mind.” it’s not that it seems OOC, because I’m sure they both live in constant fear of this happening - it’s just such an obvious way of showing us how freaked mulder is that it annoyed me more than anything.
(on to the good...)
Re: The Bad - part 1
As to possible condescension on Mulder's part, I guess that all depends on what you believe his reasons for thinking this way might be. I can buy him assuming that a normal life is what Scully is aiming toward now, because she's certainly behaving very differently from how she was the last time he spent time around her. Also, if there's one cripple to S8 above all others (in my mind), it's that Mulder and Scully clearly aren't talking. About anything. That means assumptions are going to be flying around worse than ever, and when so much other crap is going on, that's going to make a mess even messier.
And now mulder thinks, ‘well but she’s a MOTHER now, so she’ll have all sorts of MOTHER priorities that I’ll have to fit myself to. Argh.
I didn't read it that way at all. I read it as "what was required" is yet another assumption on Mulder's part, simply because, again, Scully isn't talking, and he has no idea what else to do. If Mulder strikes me as anything once he's come back, it's "at a loss", to put it lightly. What now? No one has any answers for him, even Scully, which I think both confuses and angers him, and again he has nowhere to go with these emotions. So, I can buy him clamming up and behaving in a way that he thinks Scully might expect or want him to, and I don't think her being pregnant really has anything to do with that.
As to Mulder knowing Scully is pregnant... that's honestly one of the only two problems I have with "Parabiosis", much as I adore it. I don't buy that Mulder would ever willingly walk into that light, knowing he was about to be abducted (all I can ever respond to that with is "Why, why, WHY?"), and I don't buy that Mulder could somehow magically know that Scully is pregnant. How could he? As far as he or Scully know, it's just not possible. Not only that, but supposedly they've already attempted to get around her assumed infertility via IVF, which also didn't take. I see Mulder as an inherently hopeful person, but that doesn't necessarily mean he believes in the impossible just for the hell of it. It feels very much to me like something they both believed to have closed the door on, until Scully's revelation at the end of "Requiem". YMMV on all of this, obviously.
Re: The Bad - part 1
Well, yes and no, Part 1
It feels really odd to be defending this fic to you instead of the other way around. The ending is one of the things I like best about the story. The first time I read "Parabiosis" and was able to finish it, I had the same exact reaction. I didn't believe that Mulder could have walked willingly into that circle, especially if he suspected Scully was pregnant.
So I did it. I re-watched Requiem, and then re-read the ending of "Parabiosis." I think that what is happening at the end isn't that Mulder is willing to go. He was trapped, just like I remember, from seeing the episode the first time. What he is feeling both in the episode and in the story, when he steps toward the gathering of abductees in the clearing, I believe, is resignation. That this is his Fate, his destiny, and he is going forward, with hope and courage, into his future, whatever it may hold for him.
I didn't cry the first time I watched Requiem. I was too shocked, I suppose. I didn't cry the first time I read the ending of "Parabiosis," either, I guess my anger kept me from feeling the sadness. I did cry when I watched the second time, because of knowing the eventual outcome, and because, for me, the show I loved really ended there, with Mulder's abduction. I can see now how the ending to "Parabiosis" fits into the ending of Requiem and complements it perfectly. Yeah, I thought it was great.
As far as why Mulder would just know that Scully was pregnant, he has hunches all of the time, about things far less believable than whether or not a supposedly infertile woman could conceive. Why couldn't he have a hunch about that? We know that Mulder and Scully tried to have a child using IVF but "Parabiosis" was written and posted well before Per Manum aired. The way I read it, Penumbra sees Mulder as wondering if Scully's contact with the alien ship might have affected her fertility. Penumbra even has Mulder asking whether or not they need to use birth control, since Scully is still having her menses (not possible without taking hormones, by the way, IMHO, if she truly had no ova). I think this works fine for the story as a whole, and for her characterizations of Mulder and Scully. That it might contradict canon now doesn't detract from the power of the story.
Re: Well, yes and no, Part 1
And now that you remind me of the ship theory from Amor Fati (the very theory I subscribe to, even!), I suppose it isn't such a great leap after all. At least, not in the context of "Parabiosis". In the context of this story and S8, once we learn of the fact that the events of Per Manum did indeed take place... I find it harder to reconcile. I suppose because, I can see Mulder second guessing his theory once they're led to believe that the IVF doesn't take (since they don't find out, until she's already pregnant, that they were likely lied to by Parenti and co.).
I think this works fine for the story as a whole, and for her characterizations of Mulder and Scully. That it might contradict canon now doesn't detract from the power of the story.
Yes, agreed, and thanks for bringing me around there. I think I was confusing my reading of this story and S8 on the whole (for which I can't reconcile the leap) with my original reading of "Parabiosis", where it does work.
Well, yes and no, Part 2
Also, if there's one cripple to S8 above all others (in my mind), it's that Mulder and Scully clearly aren't talking. About anything. That means assumptions are going to be flying around worse than ever, and when so much other crap is going on, that's going to make a mess even.
They aren't talking but then talking never was their strong suit, was it?
If Mulder strikes me as anything once he's come back, it's "at a loss", to put it lightly. What now? No one has any answers for him, even Scully, which I think both confuses and angers him, and again he has nowhere to go with these emotions. So, I can buy him clamming up and behaving in a way that he thinks Scully might expect or want him to, and I don't think her being pregnant really has anything to do with that.
Actually, I think her pregnancy has a great deal to do with how confused and alienated he feels. She has changed dramatically in the time he has been gone, and not just physically. I think it has been argued that the Scully of that season is barely recognizable as the same character, and I think the pregnancy and everything it symbolizes is responsible for that. This is not a normal pregnancy. Imagine how out of control it feels to have a separate being taking over your body, changing it, using it. Trust me, it feels pretty invasive, even if entered into willingly. This was an unplanned, supposedly impossible pregnancy, so you can take the loss of control and magnify it one hundred fold. Scully seems infinitely more vulnerable than Mulder has ever seen her. Mulder has no idea what's going on. Is it his? Is it even hers? Is it even human? It's the elephant in the room and no one is talking about it, which only goes towards creating more distance between them and anxiety for both of them.
I think the writers here do a great job of getting into Mulder's head: about the pregnancy, his abduction and its aftermath, and the events of Three Words.
Re: Well, yes and no, Part 2
Talking never was their strong suit, no, but there's a very marked difference between the brand of communication that exists between Mulder and Scully in S1-S7 vs. S8 and S9. Sure, the truth is that the writing has just taken a nosedive overall, but since that's canon as it's presented to us, I have to mark that difference, whether I like it or not, as significant.
I do think the pregnancy is a factor (which is why I probably should have edited that comment when I looked back on it and felt that doesn't "have anything to do with it" didn't really articulate what I meant). And a major one, even. I just don't feel that it's the only one, and that Mulder is reacting to Scully as he is only because of the pregnancy, which was what
I do think the writers do a great job, definitely. I just read another story of Zuffy's that tackled the mess that is S8 ("Hieroglyphs of Memory") and it pretty much blew my mind with how successful and engaging it was.
Re: Well, yes and no, Part 2
Maybe we should add that to the reading list, then?
I don't think it's the only reason either, but I also don't think it should ever be underestimated. If Scully wasn't pregnant maybe she would have pressed harder to find Mulder. She seems so passive during that whole season, which really annoyed me. Can you imagine season seven Scully putting up with Doggett's crap? She'd have eaten him alive. Instead of crumpling into a widdle ball when Mulder says "I don't know how I fit in here," she'd have told him (and shown him *cough*).
Yeah, of course you have to blame the writing but as you say, it is canon and so I have to try to make sense of it. The major changes in Scully's life in season eight are (1.) Mulder's abduction, death and whatever you want to call the coming back from the dead thing he did and (2.) her pregnancy. If it was just about losing Mulder, you'd think she'd be getting back to herself once he came back but she never does. Grrr. Another reason to hate season eight.
Parenthood is often a make or break for relationships and it certainly does end up coming between them by the beginning of the (hated by me) season nine opener.
Re: Well, yes and no, Part 2
Oh, I don't mean to underestimate it, certainly. I just felt that saying "Mulder's condescending to Scully because she's pregnant" didn't fly with me.
Can you imagine season seven Scully putting up with Doggett's crap? She'd have eaten him alive. Instead of crumpling into a widdle ball when Mulder says "I don't know how I fit in here," she'd have told him (and shown him *cough*).
All I can do is agree vehemently with all of that, heh. Definitely.
Oh, I hate the S9 opener too. It damages both characters so much. "He's just gone." Yeah, thanks. That doesn't jive with the Mulder I know (or the Scully), sorry.
hastily joining the conversation late
zellie, when you originally brought up the difficulty you had with mulder going to his abduction in Requiem, and said you didn;t think he would ever have gone had he known of scully's pregnancy, i admit i was genuinely stumped. you had me. i KNEW what i felt/believed to be true, but when i tried to fit it together i wasn't sure that i wasn't wrong about him knowing. but then Wen came along and said this:
What he is feeling both in the episode and in the story, when he steps toward the gathering of abductees in the clearing, I believe, is resignation. That this is his Fate, his destiny, and he is going forward, with hope and courage, into his future, whatever it may hold for him.
that pretty much sums it up. and i think there is a sense of his wonder, that it has come to this, after all, which makes it appear that he is eager to go aboard, when really it's something else - fate, in a sense, destiny, and the understanding of destiny in the moment that it begins to become reality.
also, this, which is at the very heart of why everything after S7 in canon makes my insides hurt:
They aren't talking but then talking never was their strong suit, was it?
because everyone is always saying that they weren't talking and that it was eating them up inside, or just confusing them all the more (however you want to put it - it is a common argument in canon & in fanfic) yet it seems to me that the way mulder and scully have learned to cope with all of the horrific and complicated situations they face is by not talking. they come to their own terms, and there is a question as to whether they somehow sense exactly how they must adapt in order to fit with the other, or if the natural product of their adaptation simply fits well with the other's. either way, over the years they seem to fare remarkable well without directly addressing many of the problems that plague them.
"Mulder's condescending to Scully because she's pregnant" didn't fly with me.
no, no - the part where i said i felt mulder was being condescending was the part where he thought she was leaving the x-files to go have 'a normal life'. and then he says that at one time she had understood that wasn't going to be possible for either of them, but it seems she's forgotten.
i did disapprove of how this fic (and canon) seemed to have mulder behaving in regards to scully's pregnancy. but i don't think he wasn't condescending to her about the pregnancy - just - in the case of this fic - about her sense of loyalty to the work, and about her understanding of the situation.
finally,
so yes, i think this fic does a wonderful job of enriching canon. my qualms with it are entirely my own, and are not it's problem in the least.
Re: hastily joining the conversation late
i'd edit, but then i'd have to re-bold and italicize everything
Re: hastily joining the conversation late
Do they fare all that well? I would say that's up for debate. But I don't think they talk less in season eight exactly, it's more that the personal stakes have gotten so much higher, and that both Mulder and Scully have been traumatized beyond belief. A little more talking might have been helpful along the way, but I can't say how much. They seem very disconnected just when they need to be getting their acts together. But I'm more than willing to blame all of that on the series writers.
but at this point i realize it's because as of S7 i pretty much stop paying any attention to canon, as it pertains to characterization. i may follow the events that happen on the screen, but i then rework the implications of those events entirely.
Honestly, I do my best to pretend that everything from Requiem on never happened. Obviously for the purposes of reading season 8 fic, this little quirk of mine has been set aside. For now.
i think this fic does a wonderful job of enriching canon. I agree. Now I just need to figure out what to post next.
Here is my take, Part 1
I understand all of your objections. I'd rather not believe they ever tried for a kid at all. I liked them as partners not lovers/prospective parents. But this is canon, so unless we write AU, we are stuck with it. Zuffy is a canon compliant writer, I don't know Littljoe's work but I'd imagine she is too. So while we know how it all turned out, Mulder doesn't yet and so I don't think it unreasonable for him to think that Scully has changed. She looks different. She has a new partner. They aren't talking, about the baby, about what her plans are. You would think they might have discussed this when they were trying for a kid together, but maybe not.
It’s almost condescending of him to think this way, and I can take a lot from mulder, but condescension is not something that suits him.
He is angry at her, at Skinner, at the world for going on without him, isn't he? When I re-watched the episode Three Words after reading the fic, there was one scene that stood out in particular. It's scene seven where Skinner and Scully tell Mulder that his request to return to the X-Files has been denied and that Scully's new partner, Agent Doggett is going to be running them after Scully leaves. He intimates that Kersh is part of the larger conspiracy, and perhaps so is John Doggett. Scully defends Doggett.
SCULLY: Agent Doggett is above reproach, Mulder. He's being maneuvered just like you.
MULDER: Well, good. At least he's maneuverable.
Maybe I'm wrong and am misinterpreting the line, but I took that at least in part as a comment on Scully's lack of maneuverability due to her advanced state of pregnancy. From the look on her face after he said it, I think she did, too. I thought that was pretty condescending and even a bit cruel. I didn't like it one bit but it's canon.
Anyway, for better or worse, I think the story takes a realistic approach to the Mulder and Scully we meet in season eight, and gives Mulder a believable emotional journey.
And now mulder thinks, ‘well but she’s a MOTHER now, so she’ll have all sorts of MOTHER priorities that I’ll have to fit myself to. Argh.
Their relationship changed irrevocably as soon as he agreed to father her child. People do have expectations of one another as parents, as life partners, so I think is not unnatural for Scully to have certain expectations of him at this point. He may not be certain it's his kid but Scully is even if she hasn't said so in so many words. I have to assume they talked about what they would do in the event that the IVF had worked. Well, maybe not. That whole plot line so annoys me, I can hardly think straight, let alone type.
Besides, I tend to take the ‘Parabiosos’ approach to the pregnancy story line, in thinking that mulder kind of knew. Or that even if he didn’t know in words, something in him felt that scully was pregnant. So that waking up and finding her pregnant was sort of like remembering something that happened in a dream - you already knew, but you’d buried it again.
I think Penumbra does a great job of making that a reality in her fic. It works well in "Parabiosis." But I don't think that season eight Mulder acts like he knew, or that he is waking from a dream, I think he acts shocked and clueless and even hurtful, without meaning to, perhaps, but I think those feelings and actions are there. I think this fic reflects those feelings and actions. Is Mulder in season eight different from Mulder in seasons one through seven. I think he is, in some ways, at least. How could he not be, given what he's been through?
My take, Part 2
He feels dislocated in space and time. When the doctor asks him how he feels, he responds "Like Austin Powers." I think it is this disconnect that is the root cause of the season eight communication glitches between Mulder and Scully, even if the pregnancy is often the focus of them.
I think I'm going to go watch some season one now to clear my brain.
Re: My take, Part 2
That scene has always stuck with me pretty strongly, Wendy, so I know exactly what you're talking about. I hope it's all right to post some caps here, just a few of them can illustrate it pretty well:
Ouch. I find them hard to even look at, really. One of the biggest pet peeves of mine with S8 is how just about every storyline regarding Mulder (good and bad, i.e. the brain disease) is simply dropped like a hot potato. Abducted, buried essentially alive then dug back up? Sure, fine, whatever, let's move on to more cases! Ugh. Just... don't get me started, I'll rant all day.