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

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

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.

[wendelah1]

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.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

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.

[wendelah1]

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.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

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.

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

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

Very curious about this. What did I miss?

[wendelah1]

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.

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

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