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

[a-is4addiction.livejournal.com]

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.

[zinnia03.livejournal.com]

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.

[tiger-bay.livejournal.com]

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?!

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

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.