This was so good. And 'good' in a different way than I usually mean it. This was a must read. It didn't feel like an addition to fanon. This was something I'd felt about the story but never been able to define exactly, until I read it, at which point it was stunning only in how naturally it filled in a part of the story.
I love each and every part. I love the way each part makes so many implications, but the writing remains so objective, leaving the reader to make the connections and feel about it what they will.
There are fics out there which focus on the suffering of characters who were swept aside and forgotten in canon, but often those fics are deliberately out to emphasize the way the show neglected to give such characters the treatment they perhaps deserved. there's a sense that the author is saying, "Hey, CC, just because they're not your heroes doesn't mean their pain means nothing."
But Untold, remarkably, manages to emphasize the way people got chewed up and spit out by the conspiracy. it emphasizes the neglect of the Consortium to value human life, without making it about the show's neglect. it's the way everything is taken, if not in stride, then simply as matter of fact, that i find so smart and so chilling; that attitude that says, "Of course there is a human cost. There always is, where these things are concerned."
And, upon further consideration, I realize that one of the most effective things Untold does is place Mulder and Scully on the same level with any of the other victims. It does this by not naming them. Mulder is, heartbreakingly, just a boy. Scully is just a woman, a green agent. We know who they are, but by denying them names it's forcing us to recognize them in the same 'class' as all the others, who are "just people". Which in turn forces us to draw back and look at the conspiracy in all its massive, enduring complication - something i feel isn't done enough. something i certainly don't do enough, anyway, because it can be hard to get the bigger picture into focus. one needs a fic like Untold to give such a Boschian panorama (http://stateofformation.resolvedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/HieronymusBoschHellD1.jpg) as TXF a bit of order.
One question: who are Mike and Jason Holloway? Were they canonical characters, or are they Melymbrosia's additions?
If conspiracy means "breathe together" would condeletum (destroy together) not be more accurate?
I love each and every part. I love the way each part makes so many implications, but the writing remains so objective, leaving the reader to make the connections and feel about it what they will.
There are fics out there which focus on the suffering of characters who were swept aside and forgotten in canon, but often those fics are deliberately out to emphasize the way the show neglected to give such characters the treatment they perhaps deserved. there's a sense that the author is saying, "Hey, CC, just because they're not your heroes doesn't mean their pain means nothing."
But Untold, remarkably, manages to emphasize the way people got chewed up and spit out by the conspiracy. it emphasizes the neglect of the Consortium to value human life, without making it about the show's neglect. it's the way everything is taken, if not in stride, then simply as matter of fact, that i find so smart and so chilling; that attitude that says, "Of course there is a human cost. There always is, where these things are concerned."
And, upon further consideration, I realize that one of the most effective things Untold does is place Mulder and Scully on the same level with any of the other victims. It does this by not naming them. Mulder is, heartbreakingly, just a boy. Scully is just a woman, a green agent. We know who they are, but by denying them names it's forcing us to recognize them in the same 'class' as all the others, who are "just people". Which in turn forces us to draw back and look at the conspiracy in all its massive, enduring complication - something i feel isn't done enough. something i certainly don't do enough, anyway, because it can be hard to get the bigger picture into focus. one needs a fic like Untold to give such a Boschian panorama (http://stateofformation.resolvedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/HieronymusBoschHellD1.jpg) as TXF a bit of order.
One question: who are Mike and Jason Holloway? Were they canonical characters, or are they Melymbrosia's additions?