Story 140: "Our Mulders" and "Our Scullys" by Punk Maneuverability

[wendelah1]

Fourteen stories in 28 days. Are you ready?

Our first selection is the perfect way to start our mini-fic marathon. "Our Mulders" was nominated by littlegreen42. Written way back in 1997, it is the first in a group of short-short stories Punk came to name the "Ours" series. "And in changing them, we made them ours." I see it as a love-letter to Fox Mulder and to fan-fiction writers for The X-Files.

"Our Mulders"

Posted two years later, "Our Scullys" is a little darker, a little more painful to read, at least for me, and surprisingly prescient, given the ending of the series.

"Our Scullys"

The links are to Archive of Our Own, where you can read the rest of the series, and everything else Punk has written, too.

Comments

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Yes, I also agree with littlegreen42 about the differences between MulderTorture and Scully Torture. The distinction is even evident in the fact that we have the term MulderTorture in the first place, and there isn't really a Scully equivalent.

there may be many people who experience catharsis on the same level through Scully. It might just be because I identify more strongly with Mulder that I see things this way. But I think there is good reason to believe that Mulder, in all his emotionality, might be more receptive to any feelings that we might want to project onto him.

I definitely experience catharsis more strongly through Scully. Part of that is, as tiger_bay has said, simply because she is a woman. But it isn't just that. In Our Mulders Punk says Mulder "taught us about ourselves." In Our Scullys Punk says "we pulled at her to fill our spaces." They're both ways of saying approximately the same thing, but in Our Scullys there's more urgency, more of an imperative. That's how I feel. I feel through Mulder too, but with him it's more like something I tap into, and not something that seems to come immediately and directly from myself.

And for me, contrary to littlegreen's point (while I think it is no less true for many), it's the closeness I feel with Scully that makes me more particular about how she is depicted. If they describe her 'wrong' it's more like they're describing me wrong. It's easier for me to see Mulder as a 'tool' (pun and freudianism both intended and not intended *g*) than it is for me to see Scully as one. I think this confirms part of what tiger_bay was positing above.

[littlegreen42.livejournal.com]

That's interesting that you don't want Scully described "wrong" because you identify with her, because I also get offended about her being described incorrectly, but I don't feel like I identify with her. But I think I do, on some level. She is probably a lot like me in that she's more logical and cerebral than a woman is "supposed" to be, and it can be very refreshing to have that represented in the popular media.

I was going to say something about how maybe Mulder's more malleable aspects come from the fact that he's not as "rigid" as Scully, but when I thought about it, I realized that he is rigid. He's just as locked into his ideas that "the paranormal is at work and I will hear no different!" as Scully is about science and rationality. In fact, I might even go a little farther than that and claim that Mulder's more rigid. I feel like Scully's more open to considering other ideas than we give her credit for. But Mulder remains stuck in his own way of thinking pretty much throughout the entire series. Maybe the impulse to see Scully as rigid is two-fold: 1. as a woman, we expect her to be more "open," so that when she shows any indication of rigidity, we might see it more strongly than it appears, and 2. Scully's attributes are in some ways stereotypically "male" in nature, and men are supposed to be more stable and unemotional, and thus more "rigid." So, in short, there is some sexism at work here.

Wow, did I ever ramble! But this is an interesting discussion. :)