Rerun Request: "To Carthage Then I Came" by Annakovsky

[wendelah1]

Thanks to all who voted in my poll re: story reruns. Although the turn-out was low, the trend seemed clear enough: the vast majority of voting members were fine with reruns. If you feel differently, now is your time to let us know. I'll leave the poll open until I figure out how to close it. Ahem.

Originally suggested by emily_shore, we first discussed "To Carthage Then I Came" April 19, 2008. Most recently, maybe_amanda nominated it. In her words: "It's short. It's haunting. It raises a lot of questions. It gives us very few answers."


To Carthage Then I Came


The link is to annakovsky's journal, so leave her a comment or send her a PM, then come back and let us know what you think. As always, suggestions for next time are welcomed at the nomination post.

Comments

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

What a great piece of writing. I appreciated it better when I reread, but I don't plan to read it often. Because it burns.

Mulder's paranoia always correlated with actual real-X-File-life threats, so we don't think of him as, well, warped. But this story--so starkly told, like a cautionary folk tale or a classic tragedy--displays the incest nightmare that for all we know is one from which he actually woke up sweating.

The conclusion eerily displaces Scully from wife to sister. She's the new Samantha, as impossible to possess as the old had been. And for all we know, or for all canon tells us, Mulder had sex just once with her too. And was punished for it.

This is a fic to visit, not to live in.

FCTIC was discussed at Fic_Talk. Not here, I don't think, though Wendy can tell us.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Um, that should be TCTIC. I was just telling someone that acronyms are fusing my brain.

[wendelah1]

We did discuss it here, just a long time ago, in the first year of the community. I posted a link to it up in the body, but here is one just for you: CLICK ME! There are a few of us from back in the day who are still hanging in here. You know, I'd forgotten we discussed it at fictalk. Maybe I said something brilliant there that I can cannibalize.

It looks like some of us were scratching our heads and wondering why there wasn't more incest fic in the XF fandom.

Mulder's paranoia always correlated with actual real-X-File-life threats, so we don't think of him as, well, warped.

Actually, I do kind of think of him as warped. But I think I know what you mean.

But this story--so starkly told, like a cautionary folk tale or a classic tragedy--displays the incest nightmare that for all we know is one from which he actually woke up sweating.

I think my first reaction to finishing this story was to burst into tears. I don't think I did much better this time around. I was obsessing about the ending all day at work. It does feel like a tragedy, doesn't it?

The conclusion eerily displaces Scully from wife to sister.

Yes, and right from the beginning, she's just as lost to him as Samantha ever was. He's been on the run for years. Years. Before the story even begins. Alone, no contact with anyone from his past, not even Scully, except through those PO Boxes.

This is a fic to visit, not to live in.

Amen to that.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

This is embarrassing. Guess I should actually read the words you actually write.

About the incest thing. Nobody mentioned it on the first go-round, but I'm thinking by now most of us have read 1,000,009's Gingersnaps for Oedipus. Also brilliant.

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

This is a fic to visit, not to live in.

This expresses exactly what I feel about it. Even thinking about the story to write up my comment above brought it all back, just how... well, disturbed I was the first time I read it.