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

[wendelah1]

Last year, something remarkable happened. Prufrock's love, a beloved but famously reclusive author, started re-posting her fanfic to archive them at Gossamer. Understandably, this caused quite a stir. In the wake of losing so many XF fanfic sites over the past several years, a process accelerated by Yahoo's closure of Geocities, it showed a lot of love for a fandom she had presumably left behind long ago. Well, that's how I choose to interpret it, anyway. She hasn't re-posted everything by any means, but hey, it's a start.

"Inventing the Mulders" is one of the stories she hasn't archived yet, or at least it hasn't shown up on her page at Gossamer. This is a shame since I think it's one of her best. It's an unsentimental look at how season nine might have played out, had it been better written and still had David Duchovny making an occasional appearance. Do I betray my biases? So be it.

Besides archiving her fic, she's posted an email address. You can send feedback now to prufrockslove [at] yahoo [dot] com. Please do so, then come back and let us know what you think.

The story is PG-13, no warnings. Read Inventing the Mulders.

Comments

[tiger-bay.livejournal.com]

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.

[wendelah1]

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.