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xf_book_clubI meant to post this next story a week ago. Where has the time gone?
I debated whether or not to even post this here as it's long and kind of angsty. Okay, it's very angsty. On the Prufrock Reader Torture Scale, with zero being angst-free (there is no angst-free prufrock story as far as I know, at least none that I would recommend) and ten being "Negative Utopia" or maybe "The Wasteland," this rates at least a seven. It is neither season eight fic nor is it season nine, but William is there and so is Mulder so I am classifying it as season nine, AU, PG-13.
I have no idea why I like this story as much as I do, given that I hate babyfic and season nine, but prufrock writes a lovely, believable Mulder, negotiating his way through fatherhood under the worst possible circumstances, plus there's some mytharc thrown in for good measure.
You can't send the author feedback because she disabled her email address even before she quit writing fic. But you can let us know! Love it? Hate it? Even a one line review would gladden my heart. Leave suggestions for next time here as always. I promise we will get to them eventually.
On the eve of the demise of geocities, something amazing happened. Someone decided to try to save it all and move it to their own servers. Seriously. They are calling it "reocities." To see if a geocities site has been put back up by this wonderful, wacky person, just type in the old url, substituting an "r" for the "g" and voila, there it will be, maybe.
Courtesy of Reocities, here is "The 13th Sign".
I love the internet.
I debated whether or not to even post this here as it's long and kind of angsty. Okay, it's very angsty. On the Prufrock Reader Torture Scale, with zero being angst-free (there is no angst-free prufrock story as far as I know, at least none that I would recommend) and ten being "Negative Utopia" or maybe "The Wasteland," this rates at least a seven. It is neither season eight fic nor is it season nine, but William is there and so is Mulder so I am classifying it as season nine, AU, PG-13.
I have no idea why I like this story as much as I do, given that I hate babyfic and season nine, but prufrock writes a lovely, believable Mulder, negotiating his way through fatherhood under the worst possible circumstances, plus there's some mytharc thrown in for good measure.
You can't send the author feedback because she disabled her email address even before she quit writing fic. But you can let us know! Love it? Hate it? Even a one line review would gladden my heart. Leave suggestions for next time here as always. I promise we will get to them eventually.
On the eve of the demise of geocities, something amazing happened. Someone decided to try to save it all and move it to their own servers. Seriously. They are calling it "reocities." To see if a geocities site has been put back up by this wonderful, wacky person, just type in the old url, substituting an "r" for the "g" and voila, there it will be, maybe.
Courtesy of Reocities, here is "The 13th Sign".
I love the internet.
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RE: Re: Way late to the game
Date: 2016-10-24 01:12 pm (UTC)You know I've read so much fanfic now that I think I forget Mulder's heroic nature in canon somewhat. Being quite the Scullyist leaves me at times at odds with Ditch!Mulder and Secrets!Mulder so perhaps I read in more arrogance than is strictly there, or find those fics that relate that a bit more appealing.
I'll give this one a reread with your comments in mind and maybe with the sequel included sometime and see what I think. And I'll go back and read more Nascent fanfic. Because it's my fave!
Re: Way late to the game
Date: 2016-10-24 06:08 pm (UTC)I don't believe that Mulder was immediately attracted to Scully either. But I can easily believe in a Mulder who could, in a haze of nostalgia/grief/despair over losing her again, look back on their first trip to Bellefleur and believe he had loved her--a little--even then. Because that's how people's minds work, isn't it? Memories are notoriously unreliable. We rewrite how we feel about our personal histories depending on our current circumstances.
This is an AU, written after the series ended in 2002. I can't speak for prufrock's love but when writing an AU, I feel particularly free to experiment with characterization because I am literally creating another universe whose characters are from the get-go acknowledged to be different from canon.
Your anger about Scully's memories being erased in this fic is understandable. I consider myself a Scullyist, too, and it definitely gave me pause, as did estella-c's comment above that returning Scully minus the memories of her time on the X-Files was a gift to Mulder. That's a creepy observation, frankly, and unfair to both the characters and the writer. YMMV.
Nevertheless, this fic resonates with me like few others do. I think the tragedy of her abduction and the resulting memory loss makes the romance palatable to me. Without it, it's just another happily-ever-after MSR fic, and in all honesty, I cannot abide most of them. To feel true to the series, the characters need to earn their almost-a-happy-ending, even in fanfic.
I kinda hated IWTB at the time (my feelings have softened after rewatching it on a small screen) but this scene felt right even back then.
I think CC nails it here: the darkness inevitably does find Mulder and Scully. I think prufrock's love gets that in a way that many fic writers do not. And I don't think she's angry about it in the way that, for example, Rivkat and Mustang Sally are. I think she just sees it as part of the package. Her AUs are always at least as tragic as the series itself.
RE: Re: Way late to the game
Date: 2016-10-24 08:00 pm (UTC)