Well, sure, the slams are aimed at writers and readers if you "see through" the fic to the meta, which it is the nature of metafics to encourage you to do. But the corruption of our beloved characters into seductive exhibitionists struck me as darn funny. I have no writer's guilt, nor do I think of Mulder and Scully as real people, important as they may loom in our shared imagination.

Actually, they are palimpsests. So many good, bad, and mediocre writers have reinvented their motivations and behavior that they have taken on a thousand-layered richness. Maybe that's the definition of icon. Or demigod.

I love all the many layers of Jess: flippant through ironic to heartbreaking. As New Year's is coming up, I recommend "Resolutions," a smutfic that totally gets the job done. It might be possible to criticize its structure, but nobody says you *have* to.