xf_book_club | Story 162: "Inventing the Mulders" by prufrock's love

Is there a sequel to this story? I'm not really a Pru fan, but I rather enjoyed this. I'm not sure about the characterization in the beginning- I don't feel like Scully would go on a date with another man, even if she wasn't into it. But Mulder and Scully's relationship here is portrayed in a very interesting way. I thought that the ending was very much in line with my own ideas about the characters- they need each other, despite everything working against them.

No, this is a one-off. Her other season nine au, "The 13th Sign," which we read a couple of years ago, doesn't fit into this timeline.

I'm personally happy she left it where she did, thereby letting the reader fill in the rest. The people who want a hearts and flowers happy ending can write one in their heads. The people who think this is as good as it gets, until colonization happens and then it gets much worse, can imagine that ending in our twisted little brains.

I'm not sure about the characterization in the beginning- I don't feel like Scully would go on a date with another man, even if she wasn't into it.

I think in this universe Mulder and Scully had a baby together, but were never together, together. She asked Mulder to be the sperm donor, maybe it worked and then he got abducted, and the rest of the season eight time line unfolds. So the agreement all along was they were going to have this baby, but it was hers to raise. Her choice to be a single parent. Mulder, after all, still had his quest.

"I thought it would be different, Mom," she had admitted last week.
"I know I said I'd do it alone. I was ready to do it alone to raise a
child alone. And I know it's not fair to be angry with Mulder, but I
almost wish he'd never have been there for me if he wasn't going
to stay."

"He didn't go because he wanted to, Dana," her mother had
reminded her, unintentionally being as irritating as the voice of
reason always was.

"I know that too," she'd answered tiredly, fastening a sleeping
toddler into his car seat.

They're not a couple. So--why wouldn't Scully go on a date if the opportunity presented itself? She's a relatively young woman, and they aren't together that way. The interesting thing to me about this story is that they aren't together. Furthermore, she's not happy about it, and neither is he. This is a great set-up! And I am not aware of anyone else trying to write it.

So I'm confused here. If you take out the emotional distance prufrock creates between them at the beginning of the story, symbolized by her going on the date, there is no plot to hang this on. There is no story to tell. What would it be about? If Scully isn't going on a date, i.e. trying to have a life, what is she doing? Just hanging around, moping, waiting for him to show up? I would argue that structurally speaking, and as a character arc, this is a more interesting way to go.

Very good point there. I think I must be rusty on the close-reading thing.

I think in this universe Mulder and Scully had a baby together, but were never together, together. She asked Mulder to be the sperm donor, maybe it worked and then he got abducted, and the rest of the season eight time line unfolds. So the agreement all along was they were going to have this baby, but it was hers to raise. Her choice to be a single parent. Mulder, after all, still had his quest.

I missed this one out. Thanks. Now it makes more sense.

This is what my partner thinks really happened in the series, BTW. He says it's more interesting this way than if they were actually together earlier on, and he prefers to think that they just have a really screwed up friendship that's not platonic but also doesn't involve sleeping together.

Basically, UST bunnies everywhere.

Anyway, having just re-watched all 9 seasons with my partner's UST-goggles on the couch next to me made me like this story a lot more than the first time I read it.

He says it's more interesting this way than if they were actually together earlier on, and he prefers to think that they just have a really screwed up friendship that's not platonic but also doesn't involve sleeping together.

That's sort of what I thought, actually :P Turns out I'm a sucker for the UST bunnies.

I love the UST in The X-Files. It's unequaled, imho. The RST in canon just seemed to mess up the show. Sometimes I like the RST better the way it's portrayed in fanfiction.

RST in canon?

At this point, I should probably warn that I've watched only up to Season Five (damn you, university!) So I'm vaguely clueless about RST...I think. The alternative is to admit I just can't pick up RST at all.

Oh shit. I didn't realize... Forget everything I've said here. Do I need to start putting "spoilers in the comment threads" again? Maybe I do. Just don't read any more comments on this post. Okay?

I love your icon, by the way.

Edit: You can assume any story past season five has spoilers for you.

Edited 2011-05-22 20:47 (UTC)

No, don't worry about it! I love spoilers, that's why I'm here and all. The idea RST might crop up later is absolutely exciting. (Well, more so than the possibility that I was just to thick to pick up on it!)

And thanks :)

Oh, that's such a relief to me. Well, you've come to the right place for spoilers!

See, I hate spoilers. LOL. Seriously, I help mod a community for people who were trying to avoid spoilers before the movie came out. I don't read movie reviews or book reviews until afterward. I like forming my own opinions and I like being surprised.

Heh. To each their own, I guess (:

The more I look at this though, the more I love the...friction in the fic, for some reason (*Valiant attempt to get on-topic*) I don't know, I just liked the idea that they both have different priorities very much - and that Scully's a lot bigger on family than Mulder is, particularly when he's still got his quest bugbear.

I love the friction in this story, too. And I think it's supported in canon. I think Scully always has been more interested in having a life than Mulder. I keep thinking about the conversation in "All Things."

SCULLY: Look, we're always running. We're always chasing the next big thing. Why don't you ever just stay still?

MULDER: I wouldn't know what I'd be missing.

Mulder is a restless guy.

Good point. I don't know why, but I guess that works with me, sort of. The feel of this story *is* of two people with different priorities, trying to make things work. And the uncertainty just gels with the feel of the X-Files, IMO.

That theory works well for me if you subtract out All Things and that kiss in Existence. Plus so many people have said that DD and GA decided to play seventh season as though they were in a romantic/sexual relationship. This was news to me but I have a hard time with the shipping thing as we know.

I think it is vastly more interesting for them to have a friendship that's not platonic but also not sexual. How does your partner think they got from there to the relationship we see in IWTB, where they clearly are together that way?

His argument re: All Things is that they don't show Mulder and Scully falling asleep or waking up together - they show Scully asleep on the couch and Mulder asleep on the bed, so they were faking us out in the first part of the episode - nothing actually happened. Re: Existence, yeah, I think he's blocking that out.

He hasn't seen IWTB yet, and I'm not sure he ever will. If he does, I bet he'll just block it out too. Hey, no shame - it isn't part of my headcanon either...

His argument re: All Things is that they don't show Mulder and Scully falling asleep or waking up together - they show Scully asleep on the couch and Mulder asleep on the bed, so they were faking us out in the first part of the episode - nothing actually happened.

But at the beginning, in the teaser, she's putting her clothes back on... She's at Mulder's house, and she's putting her clothes on. So yeah, she started out sleeping on the couch, but at some point she got up and took off her clothes. So...why was that, if it wasn't for sex? Don't get me wrong. I'm more than willing to buy this theory, but at the same time, if I'm watching the episode, I can't ignore what I see. The interesting thing to me is that she doesn't look blissed out which you would think she might, if only because she'd had a profound religious experience. She doesn't even look happy.

Personally, I think they had probably had sex a few times over the years, but it never turned into a regular, conventional, romantic relationship, because that's just not who they are.

He hasn't seen IWTB yet, and I'm not sure he ever will. If he does, I bet he'll just block it out too. Hey, no shame - it isn't part of my headcanon either...

I'm sympathetic to this. And it works very well for this story.

Some days, I prefer to ignore everything that happened after season five. Some days, I can't make it past season one.

But at the beginning, in the teaser, she's putting her clothes back on... She's at Mulder's house, and she's putting her clothes on. So yeah, she started out sleeping on the couch, but at some point she got up and took off her clothes. So...why was that, if it wasn't for sex?

I believe that he argues that she just took a shower. Which - you know, seems a little silly to me (I don't usually take a shower at a friend's place if I fall asleep after a late night staying over; I go home and shower there) but, eh, whatever makes him happy!

Sorry, butting in here, very rude but can't resist. But....as far as I recall you see her zipping up her skirt, not exactly getting dressed. She could have had a pee!

But the one thing that made me always question whether or not something DID happen in All Things is the fact that at she leaves she never so much as glances at Mulder. It just seemed so odd to me....even if she had had sex without being madly, passionately in love, she still would have had sex with her best friend which surely would warrant SOME departing expression: a look at least?

Plus I am in denial about the whole episode because if it WAS supposed to have been their "coming together" it was hideously manipulative to be so coy about it. I am not the biggest fan of riotous sex on the telly (well, depending....) but we could have had SOME chance to feel the action.

So really the only times I believe it is when good authors write good stories about the whole damn episode....

Actually she's pulling on a sweater. You can see her bare stomach and everything. Looking at this on my computer, which makes everything crystal clear compared to my TV set, I can even see a point where she turns to look at Mulder and her face softens a little (there is even the beginning of a smile in the corners of her mouth--Gillian is such a subtle actress), then the camera pans over to follow her gaze. Watch it again.

I'm not fond of "All Things" either--obviously--but I accept it as canon that they had sex that night. I'm not convinced it was their first time, however. I firmly believe she would have spent the night if it was their first time, rather than leave him to wake up alone.

mumble, mumble, you must be right. I'll have to watch it again, it's been a long time.

Still, I found it manipulative but no surprise there. And I did enjoy it anyway even as I threw my slippers at the screen shouting my little head off...

Very good choice. And I agree that this is among the best of Prufrock's Love's fiction, which often arouses conflicting feelings in me.

Though interesting, sure, it is also very unhappy in an arrested development way that was typical of many episodes, I suppose.

I disagree, if I understand you, that Mulder and Scully were never together in "that way," although they obviously aren't now. The sperm donor issue remains unaddressed, but Mulder refers to a "that night" and they are obviously exchanging romantic signals and gestures. Maybe sex is on-again-off-again, as he implies.

The problem now is that Mulder *can't* give up the quest and Scully *can't* give up wanting him to stay home with the family, no matter what the original single-parent deal was. It's ironic that she is left in a relationship like yet very unlike the one Maggie had with Ahab, who was at sea so much of the time.

This is magnificently written. The woman can turn a phrase and make it look easy.

She does have, is seems, a continuing fixation on menstruation.

She'd already discovered her G-spot, mastered lip liner, and she'd found Mr. Right immediately after giving birth to his child, but at least it wasn't Scientific American or Working Mother.

This is the line that makes me think that they didn't start having sex until after William was already conceived, and born. I think it's a more interesting plot that the one we were given with the miracle/alien baby.

It seems completely plausible to me that Mulder can't give up the quest and that Scully wants him to be home, which she knows is irrational. But--she loves him. She's afraid. She's aware that he's on his own, without her to watch his back, and that she chose this. And he chose it, too. It's just not going the way they planned.

I simply love this story. I really do. It feels just like their relationship should feel with the added complication of a baby. It's a mess. No wonder TPTB had her give William up.

It's a very good story, really. But I can't "love" anything that's so morose. It's the way my brain is built.

I love it because it's a fixit fic that doesn't fix anything. Yeah, I suppose it is a downer if you look at it that way, but it's so truthful, so original. It's breathtaking, dammit.

I disagree, if I understand you, that Mulder and Scully were never together in "that way," although they obviously aren't now.

I agree with you here. I'm just not sure when we're supposed to think they got together. Mulder says, I was the platonic friend with good genes. Look but don't touch. You made the rules and I played by them. And then that changed and I got to be a real father. That makes me think it was before William was born, maybe even before he was conceived. I see this fic as being canon compliant to the implication of 'all things' and Per Manum. They tried the IVF, then they had sex, then Requiem happened, and everything after. Though I agree with

wendelah1 that in the ITM universe they were never together as a couple in the decidedly exclusive sense.

Though interesting, sure, it is also very unhappy in an arrested development way that was typical of many episodes, I suppose.

THIS.

She does have, is seems, a continuing fixation on menstruation

Very curious about this. What did I miss?

I have no idea what she means. I don't think you missed a thing. I saw no reference to menstruation here or in any of her other fanfic. The bottom line is that Edna dislikes prufrock's love's work on principle while admiring her skill. Edna reserved the right to complain about anything that didn't meet her narrow specifications. It's a quirky approach to reviewing to say the least but I miss her anyway.

Reading her many reviews and responses without ever having had real time interaction and I miss her too...

Wait I know this is a once off, BUT... it does dovetail nicely into Dr Scully's School For Exceptional Boys (I think that is the title?) in which S & M had been meeting covertly as S raised William, spending time together, and then as in canon, S gave up William causing an apparently unresolvable rift. Anyway, seems to dovetail nicely to me, although maybe that wasn't written or posted when this story (ITM) was shared and discussed?

Count me among those who was thrilled to see Prufrock posting her stories to Ephemeral/Gossamer.

Whatever reasons Scully has for dating -- did her mother set her up? Did she do it simply so she could tell Mulder that she had a date? -- I think this is a clue:

He was simply The Date – as in 'No, Mulder, I won't be
home tonight – I have A Date.' Like a Pottery Barn vase, he was
intended for decorative use only.

and:

"You look nice," Mulder said lightly, following her. "Hot date?"

"Sweltering," she answered, meaning to draw blood. Years of
experience told her she had.

Scully in this story seems conflicted about everything. She both wants Mulder and wants him to be safe, but will never ask him to stay for good.

Some nights he'd just be there, looking like a dark, brooding angel
and smelling like 'want' the same way Skinner smelled like
'honor' and Doggett smelled like 'loss.'

"How long?" she'd ask each time she watched him walk into her
apartment and each time she watched him walk out.

..."I don't know," he told her the last time, his leather jacket creaking
as he shrugged it on, then leaned over to pick up his wallet, keys,
and gun from the nightstand.

Maybe that last time was when she decided, half-heartedly it seems, to try to move on and go on a date.

"Soulmates filing separately" is a quote from another Prufrock story but it seems to fit here, too.

The sense I get from this story is that they tried to be together -- the hopeful ending of "Existence" fits that. What happened between that time and when this story is set comes out in dribs and drabs.

Neither are happy with the situation but neither will come out and say so -- instead they take shots at each other, until Mulder finally says what's on his mind:

I was the platonic friend with good genes. Look but don't
touch. You made the rules and I played by them. And then that
changed and I got to be a real father. Now, you're still making the
rules and you're still changing them and this time you won't even
tell me what the hell the rules are except that you don't want me
anymore!

I don't see Mulder's outburst changing things between them, however. In the end, though Scully decides to let him stay that night, the larger issue is still there, and likely always will be.

If only...if DD had decided to continue on with the final season of XF even as an occasional presence, this would have made a very interesting episode and added a realistic underlying conflict for the season. Mulder was off somewhere unspecified for unspecified reasons, never to be referred to except in the most vague and infuriating ways. Well, spilt milk and all that.

In case it wasn't clear, I love this story. I'm a happy endings kind of gal in general, as unrealistic as that is in XF, but I like this kind of story that doesn't sugar coat the difficulties and the frailties and humanity of these characters.

Maybe that last time was when she decided, half-heartedly it seems, to try to move on and go on a date.

She can't ask him for what she wants because she knows what the answer will be. She's always known. Surely that was one of the things that kept them apart for seven years--Scully's barely acknowledged desire for a life apart from the X-Files. It comes up again and again in the series. To me, Mulder just isn't a stay-at-home kind of guy, certainly not as long as the truth is out there. Maybe not ever.

The sense I get from this story is that they tried to be together -- the hopeful ending of "Existence" fits that. What happened between that time and when this story is set comes out in dribs and drabs.

Yeah, the story is very well-constructed to feed the reader just enough information. And it's all shown. No lengthy exposition required, or endless internal monologues. She makes it look easy but it's not.

I don't see Mulder's outburst changing things between them, however. In the end, though Scully decides to let him stay that night, the larger issue is still there, and likely always will be.

Which is why this story doesn't need a sequel, imho. Let the reader construct a happier ending--if they can.

I love this story, one of Prufrock's best I think.

The delicate push and pull that goes on between them, the resentment on Scully's part, her attempts - but not serious attempts - to move on from Mulder are so conceivable from the concept of how I think of them. Mulder does want to be a Dad, he probably would like the choice to stay at home more, but he is destined to save the world and he knows it. Imagine if there was no William: where would Scully be? Having a "moderately priced knock-off" type of life having dates with people she is not interested in? I don't think so....ultimately they are both where they have to be even if it is not really where either of them want to. No wonder they are so unsure and at such odds.

I really like the tendency to light irony in the writing. Self-deprecating humour is one healthy way to stave off self-pity and exceeding melodrama. Scully is OTT about William's health, but then she really wants an excuse to finish the date and get home. She bitches at Mulder because she is hurt and can't bear him leaving but not because she hates him. That is clear at the end.

So I don't think this story is morose. This story still has hope to me: they clearly love each other and adore William, it is the practical problem of having all that and being heroes too. If ONLY this was the worst that would happen, if ONLY Prufrock had written Season 9 - then maybe we could avoid the absolutely nonsensical tragedy of Scully giving up her baby. Pffah....what rubbish was that?!

Huh. It's been a long time since I read Inventing the Mulders. I quite like it - more the second time in fact - but it's not how I see Mulder and Scully.

I want there to be a genre called Realism MSR for fics like this one - fics that seem to start from the premise of saying, "If Mulder and Scully existed in the real world, it would probably go something like this." Fics where their soul mate status is dented and tarnished.

Usually I like this kind of realism more in early seasons fics, and increasingly less the later the fic is set, which makes ITM a hard sell. I'm a little surprised I like it as much as I do, actually. I like the style it's written in. I like that it's short, concise, and each scene is easy to visualize. I like that it fills in the blanks here and there, so that it's only by the end that I feel like I have a solid grasp of the big picture, but there's still a lot of smaller blanks left. I like that Mulder and Scully have a bond they can't break (even if they'd like to). I like Scully's cynical humor (she seems to have taken on aspects of Mulder's personality in his absence) and that her humor belies the depth of her pain.

I don't like...hmm.

I don't like the way Scully is put in a stereotypical wife position, relegated to waiting at home, taking care of their child, performing autopsies to no specific end, while Mulder is out risking life and limb - presumably working for the greater cause. Beyond that, I don't like that her discontent with the situation seems to be focused on Mulder's absence and how much she wishes he were there. I would have much preferred to see her turmoil over the fact that she's been effectively sidelined - she was his partner, his equal, and now she's a single working mother and he's a lone action hero.

I understand that one of them has to go fight the future and one of them has to stay with William and hold down the fort. I understand that Scully is better suited to stay and Mulder is better suited to go. But the way things are in ITM doesn't feel like a strategic decision made between equals. It feels more like Scully's right back to being Starbuck - asking her father how long he'll be gone, before he sails into the distance; as though she expects Mulder to have an answer.

Pru does a good job of conveying how difficult it is for Scully to be in her position of relative powerlessness. But the pathos of their situation - what ITM is built on - is not as unavoidable as it seems. It's largely the result of them both failing to work together. They could be partners working a two pronged attempt to fight the future. In S4 I wouldn't expect them to form such a united front, but in S8 and beyond I do. ITM is a poignant fic, Pru is a solid writer, and if she wrote more in this universe I would happily read it. But ultimately I think more of them - especially Scully - than this, than two+ years of settling for a knock-off life while Mulder accomplishes...nothing? Everything? Has she even asked?

That said, ITM is very much in the vein of S9, so I can't say it's OOC. But I fairly loathe S9, mainly for the same reasons I struggle with ITM. So maybe why I like ITM is because it outdoes S9. It does the same things S9 does, but at least it does them better - more poignantly, more realistically.

Scully, I was a footnote from the beginning. When we invented
this family, all you wanted was a baby. Those were your terms –
take them or leave them, Mulder. It was 'your baby' – not 'our
baby.' I was the platonic friend with good genes. Look but don't
touch. You made the rules and I played by them. And then that
changed and I got to be a real father. Now, you're still making the
rules and you're still changing them

I think that's the answer: she has got what she wanted but what she wants now has changed from the original desire. Part of her may still be wanting to fight the future side by side with Mulder but she has committed herself to her child, to the life she thought she wanted. Maybe she feels let down simply by Mulder's absence, or maybe because she is not out there fighting with him (or a bit of both most likely) but she is not at the mercy of Mulder...she is not little Starbuck with Daddy, nor is she there to keep the home fires burning. She is looking after her adored child which she went through hell on earth for. She established her priorities and lives the consequences in typical Scully fashion. It's just that she'd never fully considered how much she would want Mulder to be a partner in that too. That's the way I see it anyway.

I worked through my children's infancy, daycare, blah, blah, blah, but if I had had to fight to give them life the way Scully has had to I might not have been half so keen. And that's just going to work and coming home to make the supper, not to risk my life with mutants and murderers right across the USA. It is utterly Scully to make a decision to commit herself wholeheartedly and responsibly to what she does.

It is in the vein of S9 because William exists. I would have preferred he didn't (just give me M&S fighting monsters anyday), especially as TPTB obviously couldn't think of anything better to do with him than to get rid of him. That's why I like this story: I can imagine a whole series stemming from this episode where they can resolve these (avoidable) issues, find a way for Scully to still fight the monsters....keep William intact with his Mummy and Daddy....real human beings faced with life-changing decisions in other words. Eewwwwww.... it sounds like a bloody tedious soap-opera put like that...ahem!

I just mean that Prufrock's scenario lays the ground for a Season 9 that doesn't need to heap more and more tragedy on it in desperate attempts to keep audiences engaged.

I think that's the answer: she has got what she wanted but what she wants now has changed from the original desire.

I think she got exactly what she wanted but it's not made her happy. So yeah.

I just mean that Prufrock's scenario lays the ground for a Season 9 that doesn't need to heap more and more tragedy on it in desperate attempts to keep audiences engaged.

1013's not big on realism. By contrast, this story is well-thought-out and well-executed, and even canon-consistent, no matter how you think William came about.

I don't believe in Soul Mates, myself.

This development does put a huge dent in their partnership, one which I doubt either of them could have foreseen. The truth is until you've had a kid, you have no idea how disruptive it will be. I sincerely believe Scully wanted a life, and in particular, that she wanted a kid. In this story, I believe she asked Mulder to donate sperm, with the proviso that she would take full responsibility for raising him, and Mulder agreed to those terms. In The Thirteenth Sign, he describes this scenario, so I think this is how prufrock sees the baby issue. So in this universe, the IVF worked and then Mulder got abducted. He came back before William was born and they got together shortly after the birth, when "the terms changed," and he "got to be a real father." I think the terms of their agreement were clear until she decided Mulder was "the love of her life shortly after giving birth to his child." "When he was acting sickeningly romantic," she adds rather sarcasticly. No, I don't think she can ask for things to change. She has chosen a different path. And really, he chose it too as soon as he agreed to make a baby with her. No matter how it came about, there are no do-overs in parenting. You've got the kid, and short of Scully's extreme solution to the William problem, someone has to be there to feed him dinner, read him a story and tuck him in. Keep him safe. She's at Quantico because it works better for parenting.

I'm not really disagreeing with anything you're saying. They are playing out exactly the scenario that would have happened if 1013 had a clue as to how real life worked. The strategic decision was made back when they agreed to make a kid, it's just that it didn't work out the way either of them expected it would. That's life for you.

Edited 2011-05-25 02:52 (UTC)

The strategic decision was made back when they agreed to make a kid

But making one strategic decision (to have a child) does not mean the capacity for future strategic decisions stops or is lessened. Scully is just sort of enduring in ITM. Instead of them both being in constant communication, making it so that Scully can 'fight the future' from DC while Mulder is away - making it so that they're both more informed and effective - they're just throwing themselves along on their seperate paths.

she is not at the mercy of Mulder...she is not little Starbuck with Daddy

She's not at the mercy of Mulder, no, but all the things they've both worked so hard for and given so much for have now become his responsibility. She's at the mercy of her circumstances, and in ITM she doesn't do much to change that. She takes the passive role of waiting, yearning, asking futile questions about how long Mulder will be gone.

And if you want to argue that the only way to raise a child is to put everything else, no matter how important, far on the backburner, that's one opinion, but many parents will disagree. Not that I envy Scully her position. It's a tremendously difficult position and by wanting her to fight the future and be a mother I know I'm asking a lot of her. But my Scully never stops fighting, no matter what, and I don't believe ITM puts her in a position where she has to.

And if you want to argue that the only way to raise a child is to put everything else, no matter how important, far on the backburner, that's one opinion, but many parents will disagree.

I don't think that's what I'm saying. Scully still has to work for a living. She still has to do the work she's getting paid for. Now she has another job, being a single parent to William. There are only so many hours in the day. I think what she's enduring is the separation from Mulder. She's lonely. Does she think about colonization? Does she still see it as a threat? That's a good question. If she did, would she still have wanted to have a kid?

Not that I envy Scully her position. It's a tremendously difficult position and by wanting her to fight the future and be a mother I know I'm asking a lot of her.

Plenty of women are working and raising kids on their own in this country, with very little help from anyone. I don't know what it's like in Canada. One problem is I'm not really clear what "fighting the future" looks like in this scenario of prufrock's or even what Mulder does when he disappears for months at a time. But that's not what this story is about.

But my Scully never stops fighting, no matter what, and I don't believe ITM puts her in a position where she has to.

Yes, and I respect that. I like that version of Scully, too. I'm just not sure that canon!Scully is as committed to the fight as we'd like her to be. Prufrock's Scully feels much more like the woman who could have ended up in a Catholic hospital working as a pediatric neurologist or whatever she was doing in IWTB.

As much as I loved Machines of Freedom," particularly the way it wove together the most problematic elements of canon into a coherent narrative, I thought the amount of responsibility Amal put on Scully's shoulders was, to say the least, unrealistic. Mulder wants a kid so she has one. Okay. She is still working full time up until a few weeks before delivery. Hard, but doable, even in your forties. In her spare time, she's organizing the counterinsurgency? Well, it's no wonder she got a Nobel Prize...

It depends a lot on how realistic you want things to be. The X-files (as Wendelah pointed out earlier) is not big on realism, but that's one thing. Fanfic is another. And in this universe Prufrock has taken a realistic (yet still heroic) take on the Mulder/Scully day-to-day reality.

And if you want to argue that the only way to raise a child is to put everything else, no matter how important, far on the backburner, that's one opinion, but many parents will disagree.

No absolutely not. many of us have tried to raise children on the sort of basis that they fit into your life, not you into theirs. Except that this quickly turns unrealistic. So in the unreal world, yes, Scully can be a great parent, a great FBI agent, a great partner...effective, loyal, brave and capable - but in the setting of the realist context of this story, that would not be feasible. What happens if you try to have too many roles in life? you are good at none and rubbish at all. Scully, here, knows this and has chosen where her focus might lie. But Mulder has chosen a different set of priorities (I hasten to add, in my view not necessarily wrong within the context of his choices) and herein lies the rub.

But if we want un-realism, then sure, the whole ITM universe is mundane and relatively pedestal-denting. I think most of us got hooked onto the X-files mostly because , whilst still retaining entirely human characters, it represented the opposite of the every-day, it stretched the imagination - and ITM pulls all of that AU charge out of it and puts it into a very RL scenario. Which still could, in my view, be a valid springboard for typical M/S heroic and above-us-all antics in a rational Season 9.

Actually don't think anyone is disagreeing with anyone really. It's just about realism versus....the opposite. Pru gives us a chance to see the X-files through credible RL lenses which is rare in (good) fanfic and probably unheard of in Canon. It merits this sort of discussion.

Actually, I'm not sure that Mulder has entirely chosen his priorities...according to him, in this story, they have partially been chosen for him ,in his perception, by Scully. To whatever extent he might be getting that wrong as a result of him and Scully being at crossroads in their lives, it is not at the expense of their equality of partnership or human beings.

I agree that it's more about how much realism a person wants in her version of the story, though I do disagree with the insistance that Scully can't be a parent and fight the good fight. Wendelah's clearly right that there are only so many hours in a day, and I think that if Scully is working as a full time ME then it's going to be very nearly impossible for her to fit anything else into her life but that and parenting. But I see no reason for her to be working full time, and we have every reason to believe that there are much more important (globally effecting) issues at hand.

I agree that only a truly remarkable person could have a hope of being "a great parent, a great FBI agent, a great partner...effective, loyal, brave and capable -" while fighting to potentially save humanity from global disaster. But I don't believe it's impossible. It's improbably - deeply, deeply unlikely. But I never watched this show to see normal, regular, or average. Which is really what you're saying too, I guess. I'm just quibbling with the difference between "can't be done" and "probably can't be done", because if I was asking Scully to do something that was truly impossible then I would...well, I wouldn't do that. I do like a basic degree of realism in my texts, even if I prefer idealism over all.

Actually, I'm not sure that Mulder has entirely chosen his priorities...

Yeah, this is an interesting distinction, and one that I don't think the show ever really cleared up for us either. Many fans (particularly Scullyists) resent S9 Mulder for choosing to leave, because the show never really did anything to convince us of the necessity that he leave. It never told us what he was doing out there. I've always been of the mind that whatever he was doing (or at least trying to accomplish) was something that had to be done, and therefore he was doing the right thing by leaving, despite what it cost him (them).

Anyway, ITM puts us right back in that same S9 boat, with everybody kind of floundering.

I guess I should add that if it comes down to saving the world or being a great parent, I'm going to choose saving the world. Especially since by saving the world you're saving your own child too.

So maybe my argument, as its core, is not that Scully can be a great mom and a resistance fighter. Maybe she can and maybe she can't, but mainly my argument is that if she has to be a poor mom in order to fight, I still think that's the right choice.

Which is why I find S9, IWTB, and fics like ITM kind of beside the point. Though I appreciate ITM in a way I don't appreciate S9, because it is realistic, because it makes the most of S9, and because it does find (make) poignance even in the relative mundanity.

Edited 2011-05-26 23:49 (UTC)

guess I should add that if it comes down to saving the world or being a great parent, I'm going to choose saving the world. Especially since by saving the world you're saving your own child too.

That is actually a very brave and honest thing to say and deserves a response in the like: I don't think many parents could actually, when push came to shove, agree with it. In the abstract maybe, but not in reality. More imaginable perhaps if you had pushed a kid out that you hadn't particularly wanted or planned for, but Scully had.And Scully just wasn't the sort of person (think Emily) that would not take that responsibility enormously seriously. Typically she would end up being a better parent than most of us mere mortals would ever hope to be (although a little bit OTT on the "William's got a fever front").

For Scully to be a parent prepared to sacrifice her own child for the sake of the fight? That to me would make a Scully that I couldn't understand and hard to condone. To the extent that the very fact that she gives him up in S9, without apparently any attempt to find an alternative solution, is at once so unrealistic and so damning of her...

except we know Scully, and know this is outrageously OOC: that it is not her, that the fault lies squarely with those in command of the show, which makes us realize that by S9 they had really completely lost the plot.

And of course it wasn't the only completely ridiculous thing to happen in S9. I don't expect realism in my shows but I do expect some sort of fidelity to character and ambience and it failed on nearly every count. Some of the photography was good though....

Story 162: "Inventing the Mulders" by prufrock's love

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Realism MSR

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