Not that the plot of this story isn't ridiculous, but it's so well constructed and the extraneous characters - Roger, Brian Yates, Revere, even CSM - are so well constructed that even though they play minor roles, they're always complete, whole people with unique, believable voices. Especially Roger. I didn't skip through anything on this one... these characters were so fresh and darkly funny and the plot was so satirically ridiculous.
The original characters are one of the joys of two of my favorite Kel fics--Basketball Therapy and The Beginner's Guide to Tight Rope Walking. The plot is ingenious, by turns funny and tragic, a difficult range to pull off, especially in a short novella.
I also loved the examination scene. It was dark humor to the max. Here you've got two characters who love each other, want each other, and Scully finally gets to touch Mulder's penis, but the context is so ridiculous that they are both completely miserable. She has to get a kind of sick pleasure out of making him squirm in this scene, asking her 'medical history' questions in a detached, professional capacity.
I know I got a charge from imagining her doing it. It is the opposite of intimacy, and it confounds the reader's expectations of what this first encounter "should" be like. Scully is so clearly doing it just to comfort him. He is in emotional distress, yet he can't tell her why because he is so humiliated by the incident, so traumatized by the near-miss.
I love this story so much!
The original characters are one of the joys of two of my favorite Kel fics--Basketball Therapy and The Beginner's Guide to Tight Rope Walking. The plot is ingenious, by turns funny and tragic, a difficult range to pull off, especially in a short novella.
I also loved the examination scene. It was dark humor to the max. Here you've got two characters who love each other, want each other, and Scully finally gets to touch Mulder's penis, but the context is so ridiculous that they are both completely miserable. She has to get a kind of sick pleasure out of making him squirm in this scene, asking her 'medical history' questions in a detached, professional capacity.
I know I got a charge from imagining her doing it. It is the opposite of intimacy, and it confounds the reader's expectations of what this first encounter "should" be like. Scully is so clearly doing it just to comfort him. He is in emotional distress, yet he can't tell her why because he is so humiliated by the incident, so traumatized by the near-miss.