Story 93: "Moment of Inertia" by Pteropod
Sep. 23rd, 2009 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wendelah1 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xf_book_clubIt's been a long time since my last entry here, for which I apologize. I've been very preoccupied with the impending closure of Geocities fan sites. In any case, this week's story was nominated by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amyhit. For those readers who are utterly uninterested in season 8 fic and wish we would just get on with it already, that's okay. Just nominate something else and we'll move on, I promise.
"Pteropod's might be the best if you're looking for fics that get into the nitty gritty dynamic of S8 in terms of Doggett's presence and how that stirs things up," wasamyhit's terse yet intriguing description of the fic. That sounds good to me, so let's go read it, shall we?
She is alive, fecund, fertile as springtime and burgeoning
with life, a miracle mother-goddess with baby-soft skin and
hair that needs cutting every three weeks. She waxes rotund
with life but the watering can sits empty under the sink,
halfway hidden behind the dish soap and a box of Brillo pads.
She watches her plants die, day after day, and sleeps on the
sofa more nights than not.
- - -
He reads through the X-Files in a weekend, and finds them
full of bullshit, absurdity, brilliance, and death.
He feels entitled at first, reading files about garbage
monsters and brain-sucking teenagers as if they were written
just for his entertained eyes. The cases are ridiculous,
impossible, documented in ass-covering reports with words
like 'allegedly' and 'postulate'.
He reads file after file without connecting them to his
world, and then he reads about Dana Scully getting shot in
the gut by Special Agent Peyton Ritter.
He drops his head to his hands and thinks that she'll want a
new partner no more than she wanted to lose the old one.
"Moment of Inertia"
Here is her site, way-backed: Pteropod's X-Files Website. Since this story is not at Gossamer, I'll archive it myself at Fugues Fiction Archive, where Fox Estacado has made me a co-maintainer, as soon as I can figure out how to work the interface.
Give feedback to the author, if you can find her, that is, then let us know what you think.
amyhit. For those readers who are utterly uninterested in season 8 fic and wish we would just get on with it already, that's okay. Just nominate something else and we'll move on, I promise. "Pteropod's might be the best if you're looking for fics that get into the nitty gritty dynamic of S8 in terms of Doggett's presence and how that stirs things up," was
amyhit's terse yet intriguing description of the fic. That sounds good to me, so let's go read it, shall we?She is alive, fecund, fertile as springtime and burgeoning
with life, a miracle mother-goddess with baby-soft skin and
hair that needs cutting every three weeks. She waxes rotund
with life but the watering can sits empty under the sink,
halfway hidden behind the dish soap and a box of Brillo pads.
She watches her plants die, day after day, and sleeps on the
sofa more nights than not.
- - -
He reads through the X-Files in a weekend, and finds them
full of bullshit, absurdity, brilliance, and death.
He feels entitled at first, reading files about garbage
monsters and brain-sucking teenagers as if they were written
just for his entertained eyes. The cases are ridiculous,
impossible, documented in ass-covering reports with words
like 'allegedly' and 'postulate'.
He reads file after file without connecting them to his
world, and then he reads about Dana Scully getting shot in
the gut by Special Agent Peyton Ritter.
He drops his head to his hands and thinks that she'll want a
new partner no more than she wanted to lose the old one.
"Moment of Inertia"
Here is her site, way-backed: Pteropod's X-Files Website. Since this story is not at Gossamer, I'll archive it myself at Fugues Fiction Archive, where Fox Estacado has made me a co-maintainer, as soon as I can figure out how to work the interface.
Give feedback to the author, if you can find her, that is, then let us know what you think.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 03:22 am (UTC)I feel a little embarrassed about that description now, as Yellow Balloon upstaged this fic quite a bit, in my books, and they both occupy the same niche in my mental filing cabinet. It's a shame no one came to talk about that one. Maybe this will work out better. I promise (no, I actually promise) that I'll come back and talk about this one, no matter what.
*sigh* the only thing more neglected than S8 fic is S9 fic. not that i'm not a major neglecter myself.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 03:59 am (UTC)I think there is a lot more of season 8 fic to cover but it might just be you and me doing the reading. People like the AUs better, which is understandable, but I don't feel they quite get to the heart of the problem, although they do make me feel better. I was thinking about posting one of Prufrocks' season 8 AUs, maybe "The Thirteenth Sign," or "Inventing the Mulders," both of which I already have posted somewhere in case she lets her site go down. (shhh...don't tell)
I just finished a season 8 story by Marguerite, "How Glory Goes" that I ended up disliking intensely by the end. It was positively painful to read because it felt so voyeuristic and intrusive in its handling of Scully's grief after Mulder's death. I felt like the author was just wallowing in it. Ugh. Plus the whole Skinner is in love with Scully theme is nearly always an annoyance to me. Do we always have to approach characters that way? Is there no way to write adult relationships in fandom that doesn't involve bringing love and/or sex into the mix? What about portraying friendship and respect for a fellow agent, or how about empathy for another human being? Oh well. Rant over.
I'm going to read this fic, then all of the other little fics you recced and maybe post mini-comment reviews here.
*sigh* the only thing more neglected than S8 fic is S9 fic. not that i'm not a major neglecter myself.
Except for post-eps for William, which sometimes seems like the only episode people watched that season. I've never seen it; in fact, I've avoided watching most of season nine.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 04:28 am (UTC)Well, for my money you can keep on ranting, because IMO there's not nearly enough recognition of this point. The fact that fic nearly always veers to sex/romance is the reason I read so little of it. Human lives--including those of well--rounded fictitious characters--contain many beautiful facets, not all of which are centered around the aforesaid focuses. What a pity to put on blinders and neglect all those other gems.
As for Pteropod, she writes beautifully. And like Zuffy and Littljoe, she was another denizen of the Cave. Seeing this rec has made me all nostalgic.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 04:49 am (UTC)It is a pity. There just is never enough gen fic in fandom. But people write what they like to read. I'm just burned out on it myself. I'm like the movie reviewer who's seen too many movies. Sometimes I worry that I can't give romance, whether it's het or slash, a fair reading anymore.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 04:50 am (UTC)yes, rant away. i do like the presence of attraction and/or sexual love in a story, but it's a shame that any fic which doesn't cater directly to this aspect often seems to be fighting an uphill battle to find an audience at all.
Plus the whole Skinner is in love with Scully theme is nearly always an annoyance to me.
for me i think it all comes down to the complexity of the way it's being portrayed. it's not so much the over abundance of sex and romanticism that is annoying, but the tendency for people to act as though a feeling is only the one thing: Love, Desire, like saying 'apple' or 'banana'. i can certainly believe that skinner may be attracted to scully as a physically attractive female with admirable qualities, and even that he may be jealous of mulder and scully for have such an intimate and enduring relationship with each other (who wouldn't be jealous of that?) - but to slap a stamp on an entire situation and call it nothing but a one word emotion is kind of silly and cheep, and i see a lot of that happening in fanfic. i haven't read that marguerite fic (yet) though, so i'm not talking about it directly.
As for Pteropod, she writes beautifully.
she was one of the first fic writers whose work i read in this fandom, and Atomic Split is still, i think, my favorite Post Orison fic. the fact that I adored last weeks fic so much doesn't change how lovely Pteropod's fic is. i regret making it sound that way.
is she a Yes Virginian? i used to have a list of YV's noted for myself, because on the whole their fics are so dynamite, but i've lost the list.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 04:50 am (UTC)Badlands - J.S. Michel
http://www.geocities.com/js_michel/Badlands.html
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 04:45 am (UTC)This is so John Doggett:
He catches her drooling on the desk blotter at 6:40 one
morning, still in the outfit she was wearing the day before.
If he was her friend he'd suggest therapy. As it is, he
offers to get her coffee. She refuses, of course. She
doesn't drink coffee.
I love this bit because I'm one of those who holds on to voice mail and phone numbers of people who are long gone. It's as though you hope that this time, somehow, dialing that same number will produce a response. And it never does:
She paid for Mulder's cellphone service for three months, and
called his number every day. His voicemail message never
changed, and he never called back.
I love the way it incorporates the episodes. It feels like watching the eps on fast forward, but with all the behind the scenes and thoughts that we didn't get to see. Come to think of it, it was fic that helped me get through and make much greater sense of S8 & 9. I'm not one of the haters of the final two seasons, but they sure were difficult at times.
*****
I only wish I had both my memory and my information/bookmarks for S8 & 9 fic. There was some great stuff out there. Shame people chose to ignore it.
Thank you also for saving these stories. Even though it's been way too long since I've read fic, it still seems sad to have them all disappear.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 06:00 am (UTC)The best fan fiction does enrich our experience of problematic episodes, doesn't it?
articulation is hard - 1/2
Date: 2009-09-28 03:51 am (UTC)i would even call it a theme, whether it was consciously or unconsciously done. there is also a fairly steady progression in how the characters cope with each other and with the world. they move from hermetic compartmentalization towards a kind of synthesis -- an acceptance of both order and chaos, between themselves, and between themselves and the greater environment.
From near the end of the fic: They've reached a sort of equilibrium, a certain comfort in the places where they sit and stand and the paths they take as they walk around in the office. In the beginning they stayed in their assigned seats but things have gotten looser, more at ease.
in the beginning, however, almost every word of the story comes back to the hard-line struggle for order and control.
-a pencil drops from the ceiling. scully tucks it away, barely acknowledging it.
-her apprehension over the time when her suits will no longer fit-- will not longer contain her.
-her rigid denouncement of certain foods.
-her fear of spilling her vitamins.
-her compulsive counting-- desperate delineation when alone with herself.
-she does Mulder's laundry.
-she folds his clothes.
it's fascinating that scully, who is very rational and is really quite a linear mind, is also facing this overwhelming onslaught of magical thinking. there is the sense, in reading this fic, that scully at first feels the universe itself will fall apart at the seams if she is not vigilant. she is projecting her own feeling of inner chaos, of falling apart at the seams, to an extent where that chaos colors every perception she has of the external world.
i think it's worth noting that in fighting internal chaos scully is also fighting her child. she dreads her swelling body, the pills she takes - dread not reverence is expressed - and the child itself isn't directly addressed at all for this first part of the fic.
Eventually the narrative describes her behavior this way:
She hasn't cared since Doggett landed in the basement office, has walked rote through the cases trying to brute-force her way into paranormality.
I was surprised to find how this emphasizes the similarity between the way Scully 'works' and the way Doggett 'works'. both of them operate with a kind of direct force behind their actions. they are coping with their grief in similar ways; through action. and indeed, his similarity to her and his dissimilarity to Mulder only serves to emphasize the extent to which Mulder just isn't there, and the extent to which scully finds herself unable to 'work' like he does.
even the way she and doggett begin to synthesize their experiences, in the second half of the fic, could be called linear. there is a sense of the 'meaning' of things, but the narrative makes only preemptive attempts to describe the nature of that 'meaning'. doggett thinks, a bullet passed through Dana Scully from front to back, and now one has traveled through him in the opposite direction.
front to back. back to front. linearity. fact.
and when scully sees doggett looking curiously upon the photograph on the posterboard, she tells him only the facts of what can be seen in the photo: "North Dakota, 1996 ... near Washburn. Up I-83 from Bismarck. November, I think. Very cold."
when scully finally says, It's funny sometimes. What you get to keep." that is a line that stands out in this narrative as being uniquely poetic. that it is said is indicative of a shift in within the character(s). it is an 'open' statement-- maybe the first one, maybe the only one in the fic. it is not about order, about now, about action. it is a reminiscence out of time.
articulation is hard - 2/2
Date: 2009-09-28 04:02 am (UTC)was appalled at the order she'd imposed. He'd come back to folded underwear where he was used to disarray and suddenly the idea was horrific, untenable, so she tossed it all on the bed again and filled the drawers haphazardly, shaking creases out of t-shirts and releasing the socks from their pairwise bonds.
she began with the intention of order, but she saw her behavior in light of who mulder is and reversed the process. her behavior at this point is irrational, but not compulsive the way it has been. she is thinking, rather than simply acting. She is not just 'an object in motion, staying in motion'. This trend continues:
Orion tips incessantly, poised for an interstellar cartwheel, and she wants to spend her days puzzling out the cosmos: can a spaceship travel faster than light, and if it could, where would it go?
the language here is almost oxymoronic. to 'tip' being precarious, chaotic, but 'incessant' being continuous, monotonous, and therefore not chaotic. scully longs to immerse herself in this 'permanent' chaos. (mulder's chaos?)
so that, through the course of the fic, while in the beginning Scully felt unable to hold herself together and unable to fill mulder's shoes (as she expresses in Badlaa), it is her empathy and her innate understanding of mulder that works to pull her back from what would appear to be a complete collapse. mulder's influence on her serves as mental anchor. she cannot in good faith apply the same brute force to mulder's life as she has been doing to her own.
She watches her plants die, day after day
but-- She gives his fish a once-a-week pellet
when she thinks of mulder, we see in her thoughts a kind of tenderness that is almost maternal:
Nobody sleeps here but the sheets are her excuse for coming over. They'll get covered in dust, make him sneeze, provoke an allergic
reaction, make his eyes water when he comes home and crawls into bed.
the fecundity that she couldn't access in the beginning of the fic -- She waxes rotund with life but the watering can sits empty under the sink... -- is now, very slowly, through strife, beginning to emerge. i believe that when doggett says at the end of the fic that she will survive, there is an insinuation that she will survive because of this fecundity. because of her child and because of mulder as well as because of her own strength; mulder and their child-- both of them held solely within her now. the end of this fic serves to make everyone felt as vital entities, rather than as variables, absences, potentialities.
i don't think all of this 'thematic' stuff^ was done on purpose, but i do think it goes to show that when a writer writes the unconscious mind is working under the surface, pulling things together, orchestrating, and to is certainly a process to be revered. *g*
um, one more thing
Date: 2009-09-29 01:10 am (UTC)that strikes me as highly oxymoronic in itself (and seriously awesome). time is inherent to inertia, yet the very definition of the word 'moment' excludes time! i could be wrong, but i don't think the title is referring to a specific point within the fic. i think it's referring to every point within the fic. inertia is the constant, and each scene is under its influence, and/or under the influence of an event that will change the specifics of inertia.
and then there are the things that inertia is irrelevant to. the things the characters are harboring within themselves: doggett's son. scully and mulder on a case, in a field - their hands about to touch.
ETA:
okay, so i didn't realize that Moment of Inertia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia) is actually a a principal in physics that dictates the measure of an object's resistance to changes in its rotation rate. (It can also apply to the bending of a plane.)
upon further reflection, I think my above speculating - that the title is referring to the entire fic and not to one specific moment - does apply in this context. however, apparently the title is not an oxymoron-- or at least, not when considered technically. oh the joyous intelligence of our fandom, in which people write things that you can delve into like this. *g*
Re: um, one more thing
Date: 2009-09-29 02:22 am (UTC)Yes, yes, and yes.
Re: um, one more thing
Date: 2009-09-29 01:55 pm (UTC)I liked that you pointed out that the theme may be unconscious on the part of the writer. People are always saying "the writer didn't mean it" as if that's the important thing. Writers work with both the conscious and the subconscious. Then the ball is in the reader's court to untwine.
You know who could appreciate this? David Duchovny. If, that is, he could be persuaded to take an interest in fanfic. Which, probably not.
Re: um, one more thing
Date: 2009-10-04 02:23 am (UTC)If, that is, he could be persuaded to take an interest in fanfic.
oh, if only we could get the rest of the world to let go of their fanfic prejudices. it's seriously difficult. i've been trying with several people, but they find it all so embarrassing, no matter what. if fame or fortune are in my future, i hereby solemnly swear to hold fanfic rallies and educate the public en mass. *g*
Re: um, one more thing
Date: 2009-10-04 04:20 am (UTC)You know, I think they are conducive to conversation. I'm just too preoccupied with other things right now to respond in kind, and for that I am sorry. Please don't stop sharing your thoughts on the stories. I will get back to this as soon as I can free up some time.
Re: um, one more thing
Date: 2009-10-04 05:06 am (UTC)i understand, and look forward to your having some free time, though i'm sure not half so much as you look forward to it. i wasn't insinuating anything before. i really meant it, and was trying to say that i understood and thought nothing of it if no one had the time to come back to this discussion. for me, a comment like, "this is great, i really love the line ----. i feel like Character A was really in character in particular." is something that, while relatively basic, is also excellent for sparking discussion, because it provides an 'in' for other people to get their own opinions rolling out. a lengthy comment in regards to meaning and theme doesn't invite other people's opinions in the same way. even if it is meant to.
i'm not sure if this is off topic or not. it's kind of a discussion of the discussion of fanfic, rather than the outright discussion of fanfic. *g*
Re: um, one more thing
Date: 2009-09-28 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-17 02:06 pm (UTC)I have a toddler whining at me or I'd go on, but I really like this one and the yellow balloon too!