Story 9: "Young CSM" series by Plausible Deniability (NC-17)

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

This week's selection, nominated by yours truly, has no Mulder or Scully whatsoever. Well, it does have Mulder, but let's just say that he doesn't have a speaking part. It is a series of five closely linked short stories written by Plausible Deniability about the unfolding of the relationship between the Cigarette Smoking Man and Teena Mulder. Perhaps I'm cheating by picking five stories, but I console myself by thinking that the total length is not that great.

Author: Plausible Deniability

Address: pdeniability@hotmail.com

Category: SR

Rating: *NC-17* (sexual situations, mature language)

Spoilers: Concerns events hinted at in Talitha Cumi (3.24) and Patient X (5.13)/The Red and the Black (5.14); also contains a name and references to a pivotal incident from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (4.7).

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Somebody's Fool
You Don't Know Me
It's All in the Game
When I Fall in Love

Please share your reactions, whether good or bad!

Comments

[wendelah1]

I have to admit, this series made me feel more than a little uncomfortable. The first story, especially. That whole scene on the beach was very Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity, and as such, I just didn't know how to react. Am I supposed to feel, what for these people? We know who they are, we know what they did. Why should I care who or why they are screwing each other?

It is just too out of context of the series, without enough back-story for the characters to make me care about them. Why are they doing the bad things that they are doing is the question that never gets asked, so it never gets answered, not to my satisfaction, in any case.

It was very competently written as far as it went. I guess I just hated the subject matter, and the writer never gave me a reason to feel otherwise.

Next?

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Hmm, interesting. As you probably know already, I'm a sucker for CSM/Teena stories, and from what I've read this is generally considered to be the best of the lot. Your criticisms are, of course, perfectly valid ones. I don't know, maybe I'm more of a romantic than I like to admit to!

Anyway, let's choose something for next week that we both can agree on liking. Did you say that you had enjoyed "Oyster"? Or do you have something else in mind?

[wendelah1]

I am not sure I enjoyed Oyster, exactly. I was rather baffled by it. I don't think I understood what was going on. We could discuss it, certainly. You start,though. Do you want me to post it?

Maybe you are more of a romantic than I am. I feel unsure of what the author's intentions were, but I honestly was just hating both CSM and Teena Mulder by the end. They both seemed so self-centered. And cruel.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I am not sure I enjoyed Oyster, exactly. I was rather baffled by it. I don't think I understood what was going on. We could discuss it, certainly. You start,though. Do you want me to post it?

Well, it's your choice to choose and I'd like it to be something that you think you'll enjoy discussing. Either Oyster or something else completely. I leave it up to your judgment.

They both seemed so self-centered. And cruel.

They did indeed. Trying to think why this doesn't bother me, but it doesn't. I guess maybe I wasn't looking to like the characters?

[wendelah1]

There needed to be less graphic descriptions of their sex lives, too. The sex parts really made me feel icky. I can enjoy reading graphic descriptions of sex if it is supposed to be amusing or maybe romantic or even horrifying, if the plot calls for it. I just couldn't stand this. It was so weird. I kept thinking too much information, stop this now...

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Do you think that the "ew" had something to do with the characters involved? Or was it more that you didn't know how to feel about the sex given the fact that it was positioned as neither a romance nor a "Tikkun Olam" style morality tale? I suppose there was something fundamentally amoral about the tone, which I found interesting, but which may have disturbed you somehow...

[wendelah1]

I did know how I felt about the sex. I just didn't know what the authors's feelings about it were. I think that disturbed me as much as the sex itself, which was wrong, wrong, and wrong. Did I mention wrong? I like to think of myself as open-minded and unconventional, but I definitely ran up against my own prejudice against infidelity while I was reading this fic. I had a much harder time reading this than I did "Tikkun Olam." Absolutely much of the "ew" had to do with who the characters were. I would like to understand why Teena Mulder had an affair with this jerk. I don't feel like I gained any insight into her at all. Maybe I just didn't like what I saw. I think because I am a parent myself, and because I am much closer to her age than to any other character on The X-Files, I tend to cut her some slack. I assume better intentions perhaps than she deserves. I can't seem to turn her into the evil woman that so many fans seems to want to do, and I feel this story fit into that category. That seems too easy.