X-Files Book Club

I can see what the author means about the "ragged" ending; it begins as though it will be a much longer fic and then just kind of slides to a halt.

It's an interesting character piece. I enjoyed the development over the story of the main character's (Richard's) voice.

I think Scully's obvious dissatisfaction with the life she's made for herself is interesting too, but I cannot see her making the move she does at the end of the story. We've seen her be withdrawn emotionally; we've seen her have difficulty expressing herself. We've never seen her chicken out of a difficult confrontation, no matter how hard she may find it. I think if she was going to leave her husband, she would tell him herself.

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I think if she was going to leave her husband, she would tell him herself.

Probably. But Richard isn't her husband (very deliberately, in her mind, I bet) - he's just some 'normal' guy she's shacked up with.

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I honestly don't see the distinction--I may have misspoken on "husband", but to my mind you can substitute "person she has some regard/feelings for", equally well.

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I honestly don't see the distinction--I may have misspoken on "husband", but to my mind you can substitute "person she has some regard/feelings for", equally well.

Kinda think that's the point. He's not the love of her love. He's not even the like of her life. He isn't someone she cares about enough to talk about her past with. He's just a filling station on life's long highway. She's using him, and then she's done.

As I said, our heroine doesn't look to heroic in this one.

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I understand your point logically, and in a story about solely original characters would probably find it more believable. But I don't see how Scully has gotten to this point. It's completely at odds with what I see as her character.

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wendelah1

I agree. I can't see her making the move that's implied by the ending either.

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I agree with

maybe_amanda that Richard is not someone Scully cares overly about. We know that he met her slumped in a lawn chair at a party, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other ... thin and sad. So I imagine that he was Mr. Nice and Normal, and since she'd uprooted her entire life for normalcy she probably felt she ought to seize normalcy when it presented itself to her. Which seemed harmless until they'd been seeing each other for a couple of months and there was still no real feeling in it for her. But Scully's never been a quitter so she just kept trying anyway. At least that's the sense I get from the way they treat each other in the fic.

Her primary reason for being with him has turned out to be empty, yet she's stayed this long, presumably because she hasn't yet been able to admit to herself that she can't be 'normal'. So I can see why she would feel some misplaced anger towards Richard, because he represents her failed attempt at a normal life. As Richard reflects: I didn't like the idea that her anger with me was in some way dependent upon her anger with [Mulder].

It would have been more considerate for her to have had a sit-down conversation with Richard and told him it was over, but he would have wanted answers she couldn't give. Also, Richard doesn't seem all that devoted to her either. He seems intrigued, but not in love or anything. If this was how she wanted to live, I couldn't do anything to change it. I could only decide it wasn't the way I wanted to live. That sounds as if he's prepared to move on, if that's what it comes to. Tough as Scully is, she's also vulnerable in ways Richard isn't. She's cold to him, but I don't think she's cruel. He's not a victim here.

The main thing I do wonder, though, is why she left no message whatsoever - not even her house key on the table. Any sign at all that she'd decided to leave him would be sufficient. It flat out makes no sense, unless she was taken from the house after all, as

zinnia03 suggests.

Or what about another chip-activation incident, like Skyland Mountain? Maybe Mulder came to tell her there'd been a rash of such incidents in other locations and he was worried it would happen to her again. *shrugs* Just a theory. This fic really does have me wondering where Punk originally intended to go with it.

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Full disclosure - I adore Punk.

That being said, I adore this story.

Why? Because it's not easy. It's not clean. It's not simple. Nothing gets wrapped up in 44 minutes. Our heroes don't end up looking too damned heroic.

I think what this story exemplifies how little you can actually know about someone you love, and it reinforces the old adage that says, "Where ever you go, there you are." Wherever Scully goes, it seems, she's there, too.

And how gorgeous is this:
............
She was grinning at her own cruelty.

"You probably scarred him for life!" Jules snickered.

I watched Dana's face shift suddenly, like it was trying to rearrange itself but was missing a piece. She was still smiling, but her eyes didn't belong to the grin.

"Yeah, I probably did."

She looked ready to cry, but it had gotten dark, and I think I was the only one who noticed.
............

Regrets? She's got a few.

Anyway, great story. :D

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bmerb.livejournal.com

Yes yes yes! Everything you just said. I love most of what Punk has written and this is high up there of her pieces for me.

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zinnia03.livejournal.com

After reading it, I'm still not sure I know what's going on, but in a good way. The story raises more questions than it answers.

And the end? My first thought was that Scully had been taken. She hadn't just "disappeared". That maybe Mulder had come to warn her, not to ask her to come back. It seems like it could go either way.

infinitelight said: I cannot see her making the move she does at the end of the story. We've seen her be withdrawn emotionally; we've seen her have difficulty expressing herself. We've never seen her chicken out of a difficult confrontation, no matter how hard she may find it.

That's what makes me think she may have gone unwillingly, or perhaps expected to be back before Richard got home. But she's obviously changed since being in the FBI; it sounds like she has lots of fights with Richard:

We were fighting about our upcoming vacation when the doorbell rang.

It was one of the more pointless fights we'd had, but I was determined to at least make it a memorable one.

It seemed like Mulder went out of his way to be personable in the story. He charmed Jules and Mark, and was pleasant to Richard. Richard expects some posturing, and comments that he didn't get the macho grip from Mulder that he expected. Scully is the one who appears completely unreasonable. And, as if she realizes that Mulder made a good impression, she tells a story that puts him in a bad light. As if she's trying to convince herself that she made the right decision.

It is an interesting character study and as Punk says, the ending is one way it could have gone. I do wish there was a bit more of it.

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coldthermistor.livejournal.com

Actually, I liked the ending, in a sense. TBH, it reminded me of what I see as one idea in One Breath that I really really liked - yes, I know, think of it as an analogy, I guess. I'm not going for a direct similarity here ;)

I felt the part of One Breath that really did it for me was the resolution of the X thread, so as to speak. Mulder either spends the night with Scully, or he goes after those people who put her on that respirator. He doesn't have two options about it, and it shows. One thread gets left hanging, undeveloped, or shrivelled: he goes back and finds his apartment trashed, and that's just it. Period. We never ever get to see anything along that line again. And that's something I find interesting/that I liked about the ending in this one. To me, anyway. And that's that it felt like we were on the edges, alienated, watching Scully make a choice. And once that happens, endings don't happen *neat*. There aren't clean resolutions. Bits are left hanging there, and we don't really know what happens, but in the end, it all leads back to some resolution that we (guess?) that Scully might/might not have reached.

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wendelah1

There are a lot of different interpretations of Scully's character being floated here. Some are quite negative.

"She's so difficult, with the never talking and expecting people to read her mind."

"She's using him, and then she's done."

Some are a little more sympathetic.

"And the end? My first thought was that Scully had been taken. She hadn't just "disappeared". That maybe Mulder had come to warn her, not to ask her to come back. It seems like it could go either way."

That was my first thought, too,

zinnia03.

"There aren't clean resolutions. Bits are left hanging there, and we don't really know what happens, but in the end, it all leads back to some resolution that we (guess?) that Scully might/might not have reached."

"But I don't see how Scully has gotten to this point. It's completely at odds with what I see as her character."

I'm guessing more than a few readers are with

infinitlight on this one.

If you like stories which can can be read many different ways and you're comfortable with having to do a lot of the work at the end, well, this is certainly the story for you.

Leaving aside the problematic ending, what is interesting to me is what no one has yet addressed: what led Scully to this place in her life. Given everything that happened to her, why did she choose to leave then? What was the tipping point? Why did she choose Richard? And why did he choose her? Was she really just using him? Are relationships between adults ever that simple? Or is there more going on here than Punk got around to writing?

I can imagine Scully walking away from the FBI and Mulder at this point in her life. The last six months have been crap. She was abducted (again) and nearly died (again). Mulder ditched her (again) and nearly died (again). She nearly loses Skinner. Diana and Spender still had the X-Files. She and Mulder were on indefinite shit duty, and Mulder wasn't doing anything that led her to believe that would change. And then she gets shot, in the abdomen and nearly dies (again!). I'm not sure anyone who hasn't been through something similar can appreciate how painful that shooting must have been to experience and to recover from. My sense is she's still not recovered from it, at least emotionally, at the time this story takes place.

Scully and Richard have been together a year, more or less, when Mulder comes knocking at the door. Afterward, Scully reveals to Richard at least the immediate reasons she left and tells him she just couldn't do it anymore. She goes on to say she doesn't like to talk about it because she misses it, meaning she misses her work and misses Mulder, too, probably. Maybe. She probably feels guilty, too, though she doesn't say that to Richard.

Richard has some issues of his own: a bossy twin sister and a fairly recent nervous breakdown, to name but two. If china's fragility is the dominant metaphor here, you could say he's been broken but he's put himself back together, plus he's smart and funny and wields a mean vegetable. And he's used to catering to difficult women, that much is clear. I don't see Richard and Scully's relationship as healthy exactly, but perhaps it could be, if they were both committed to it. It's clear to me that he is, but as it turns out, maybe she isn't.

Or maybe something else is in play here? After hearing what Mulder came to say, she wakes up the next morning and tells her lover she's not going in to work, which is so unusual that he's taken aback. When Richard comes home, everything is still there--except her.

Edited Date: 2011-05-31 06:50 pm (UTC)

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Richard has some issues of his own: a bossy twin sister and a fairly recent nervous breakdown, to name but two. If china's fragility is the dominant metaphor here, you could say he's been broken but he's put himself back together, plus he's smart and funny and wields a mean vegetable.

I've been thinking about the way Richard's life and Scully's are at odds. Richard is learning how to 'keep it real' - how to have a more down to earth life and enjoy life more. But for Scully, reality is her old job - 'keeping it real' is facing monsters, aliens, assassins, and spooks. Ignorance is bliss, and Richard has the bliss of being able to put himself back together in his normal life. Scully can never have that bliss - she knows too much, has seen too much and gone through too much. Her past demons aren't merely culinary.

I find Richard's past interesting because I imagine he thinks he has something in common with Scully. Like him, she left her career and is trying to pursue a different path, and I bet that was something he thought they could connect on, their past careers. Richard couldn't have known that what they seem to have in common is actually at the heart of what places Scully unreachably far from him.

I'm not sure if the background we get on Richard was intended to convey any of this, but it's what I got from it.

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wendelah1

I think I have to go with

infinitlight on this one. That doesn't sound like Scully to me. She's admitted to Richard that she's not happy, which he already knew anyway, that she wishes she hadn't left the FBI, and that she's only with him because she wanted "a normal life." That's as close to the truth as he's likely to get. So she's done the hard part of breaking up. She apparently left everything behind, even left her car sitting in the garage. Would Scully have done that without a compelling reason? Would she leave the people who depend on her at the hospital without giving notice? Maybe we're supposed to imagine she can at this point in her life. I'm still unconvinced.

"Sorry to have surprised you like this, but I had to see Scully, and if she knew I was coming, she wouldn't have talked to me."

The obvious question that Richard doesn't ask Mulder or Scully is why? What was so important that Mulder felt like he had to intrude where he knew (or assumed) he wouldn't be wanted? It never gets answered. And without knowing why, it's impossible to make sense of the ending without in effect writing one of your own.

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The obvious question that Richard doesn't ask Mulder or Scully is why? What was so important that Mulder felt like he had to intrude where he knew (or assumed) he wouldn't be wanted?

I would like to know that too! Over the course of the series we see Mulder struggle with Scully's involvement with the X-Files. He needs her, but he feels guilty about what her involvement does to her (the "Go, be" speech from FtF, for example). It seems like him coming to see her must have been precipitated by something really important happening--but we never find out what it was, or what he thought about before going to see her.

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tiger-bay.livejournal.com

One of the reasons I like this story is that there is as much we don't know as we do. Why did Mulder come, what did he say that made Scully leave? (I don't go for the abducted scenario...her behaviour was more indicative of one who was mentally distancing herself, the evidence feels pretty conclusive). And indeed, why was she with Richard in the first place? Was it her attempt to find a "normal" life? The story she told Richard, was that true?

Maybe she was undercover and torn about having treated Richard so badly? But if so, what was so nefarious about Richard and his family that she needed to be so deeply undercover in the first place?

But really I think Scully did leave the X-files, did make great efforts to find her normal life, but Mulder's arrival - and maybe whatever he said to her too - unravelled all of that. Scully is terribly upset because she knows she cannot make her "normal" life work, however lovely Richard might be. It's her coldness and emotional distance from Richard which is the most hurtful for him, her leaving was just the inevitable conclusion that doesn't surprise even him. It is uncharacteristic of Scully, to a point - the abandonment without a word is, but not her reserve, her lack of explanations and sharing. It's who she is taken to the extreme.

So Richard is the hero of this story, not Scully and Mulder is a catalyst to Scully's actions, an all-pervasive presence more in the abstract than in reality. Not the usual XF fanfic. It's daring and it's intriguing, but given all of that I can see why it might have been hard for PM to find an easy resolution to it, hence the hanging threads.

What else I love about this, is that through following the link I found one of her stories which I had never read before and made me actually weep with laughter. If you haven't read "Lost in Translation" then do, especially if you need some cheering up.

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OMG thank you for making me reread this! I had absolutely forgotten this hilarious tidbit. And I just finished watching Jet Li in "Hero," and the synchronicity is just...just... The mind goes into spasm.

You live for these moments. Well, when you're me.

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Wow. I really like this story, and found it more satisfying than "Inventing the Mulders." The personal preference is a little mystifying, as they are both extremely well-written. I think it's got such a zingy originality, presenting one of those trouble-under-the-surface party scenes with off-center characters, almost like an undiscovered Noel Coward. Well, no laughs. Maybe normaled-down Pinter. Whereas ITM has only the lugubrious tones of Mulder and Scully disagreeing.

We *know* that Mulder and Scully disagree and will continue to, but we shippers are easy to figure out. We contend that they are in love and will end up together. And so far as I can see, Punk gives us that option.

The title is a super one, having the shimmer of multiple connotations. But there are story problems. Scully is quite cruel here, being tormented by her own bad decision, and that's extreme--as in Iolokus--but I can roll with it. The shape of C is odd, with much attention given to a character who is essentially deserted by his girlfriend, the writer, and all us readers. He deserves better, but damn, we know Mulder has the charisma. This is almost an extended reworking of that Scullydate in The Jersey Devil. Scully tries the normal and it bores her. But hers is a destructive mistake and now, whatever happens, she will carry the guilt.

I mentioned the shape. The whole sequence of Richard describing the restaurant and buying fruit and placating his sister: it felt like a setup for a novel. That, I think, is why many feel that the ending is ragged; so many things are described to no particular point. The restaurant stuff almost had a Marysueish quality.

Well, I liked it anyhow. Punk's prose is always agile and fast and captures the imagination. And I have developed a theory that writers who excel at comedy are capable of genuine pathos. All I have to do is line up Punk Maneuverability, Jess Mabe, and Kel. Can we think of others?

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wendelah1

You found this story more satisfying than "Inventing the Mulders"? Wow. I admit I am surprised. As explained above, I found this a pretty unsatisfying ending, even for one that was tacked on for posting amnesty. No, it was not the fruit that bothered me. But then I liked Richard's restaurant and his lovely pears and his bossy sister. I thought he had plenty of charisma. Au contraire, I felt the ending was ragged because it didn't explain or resolve anything. It just drove the plot off a cliff.

We *know* that Mulder and Scully disagree and will continue to, but we shippers are easy to figure out. We contend that they are in love and will end up together. And so far as I can see, Punk gives us that option.

Oh really? I don't see any evidence of a happily-ever-after ending in the making here.

So Scully leaves her boyfriend because Mulder has charisma? Everything is jolly except Scully feels guilty and why shouldn't she? She is cruel. That sounds like your ending. Not Punk's. The problem with her ending is we don't really know what happened. All we can do is guess. It's like an XF fanfiction Rorshach test.

Sure. Fine. Whatever.

I think have the same problem with her Mulder/Skinner story, by the way.

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I have admitted to many reservations about this story, including the unresolved ending. I don't see how "drove the plot off a cliff" differs substantially with "so many things are described to no particular point."

You say the reader is left with work to do. I suppose you're right, in a way, but I don't feel compelled to do it; mysteries are mysteries. Scully's inner life is as hard to penetrate here as her spiky, enigmatic demeanor and I have no problem with the eerie feeling it leaves us with. There is, after all, always more fanfic.

I didn't say "happy ever after," just "end up together." As for charisma--there, I think we bump up against the unique nature of fanfic. Mulder looks like David Duchovny; what does Richard look like? I realize appearance isn't *everything*, but in tv/film fanfic it is powerful. Plus, to the polite cypher that is Mulder in "China" we can add the rich history of canon, with all the genius jumps, jokes and neuroses that make up this iconic character. (I too am sick of the word "iconic," but, darn it, I'm thinking The X-Files owns it.)

While patient Richard has a twin sister, a breakdown, a restaurant and a deteriorating grasp on a difficult lover. He seems like a good guy, though there's actually not too much evidence. He's probably a better bet for long-term than Mulder. But this is *Mulder,* this is *the X-Files,* and this is *fanfic*! If we are to take a major interest in Richard, he must at least be cast! (What do you think of Tom Selleck?)

Have I made myself sufficiently unclear?

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wendelah1

I love Tom Selleck but he's too old for this part. How about Jon Stewart? He and GA had great chemistry, too.

So Punk's fic gets a pass here because of the unique nature of fanfic? Because David Duchovny is a hunk? Because we all love the show? So how come no one else gets one?

The difference between driving the plot off a cliff (a pop-cultural reference to Thelma and Louise, see--I watch movies, too) and describing things to no particular point is that you are complaining about the little details not adding up, and I'm bitching specifically about the ending. Although I admit these two issues are not unrelated, I don't think the problem with the ending is the fruit or that Richard is insufficiently characterized, I think it's the ending itself.

The whole point of a mystery is to solve it, elegantly and completely, and in such a way that the reader thinks, of course! I should have seen that coming! The mystery can remain unsolved for poor Richard--but the reader should get more consideration.

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I don't see any evidence of a happily-ever-after ending in the making here.

I don't see a happily-ever-after, but it would seem that Scully is probably going back to the X-Files, and to Mulder. That's all I need in order to feels things are shifting in a less hopeless direction, while still feeling very apprehensive about what's to come.

I felt the ending was ragged because it didn't explain or resolve anything. It just drove the plot off a cliff.

It did lack resolution, but despite loose ends the ending felt natural (and quite effective) to me, because it signalled the end of Scully's attempt at a "normal" life, and presumably her return to the work. And since the entire story was based on the premise of her having left the X-Files, having her return to them feels like a logical place to leave things. It gives the story a bold, simple arc. The only loose thread I object to is that Scully left nothing at all to indicate she left of her own volition.

I do think you've asked all the right questions about this fic,

wendelah1. It just doesn't bother me that they're questions we don't get answers for.

"China," OTOH, has a kind of light weirdness about it, a vaguely threatening but still diverting approach that makes good use of an "other" POV.

estella_c, now that I'm reading the comments, I realize I could have cut a lot of my first comment down and just pointed at yours. I agree with you about pretty much everything you've said about this fic. As to the fruit not bearing fruit (hee!), I know what you mean. I attribute it to the fact that China was supposed to be a longer fic in which character development would have been necessary.

On the other hand, there are things I do like about the seemingly pointless Richard exposition - even though I agree that it is a flaw over all. I like that it gives his character legitimacy in his own right, and makes his POV feel intriguing, rather than like a flimsy device. His relative solidity keeps me seeing Scully from the outside, as he sees her, without slipping into her character. And the more I learned about his life the more I got the eerie feeling that Scully was terribly out of place, which struck me as the main tension of the fic. I kept seeing her in a sever black suit throughout the fic, a dark presence, even though I know she was probably dressed in something casual. I think inside she was still black-suited as ever.

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I think you're onto something about comedy and pathos (I also thought of Lysandra and Livia Balaban). Writers who can do good comedy seem to be able to turn their hands to any other category particularly well.

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Also David Hearne.

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There's maybe amanda.

You know that line from some famous old actor: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."

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"Gets a pass"? What is this, night court? I liked the story, though I know it's flawed. (Most here consider it abruptly ended, and I think the writer admitted as much.) I wasn't so fond of "Inventing the Mulders," though I could recognize its expertise.

Maybe it's a matter of tone. I'm not particularly an angst fan, to put it mildly, and I find the quarrelsomeness of "Inventing the Mulders" oppressive. {And what does the title mean, anyhow? Marriage is being considered?)

"China," OTOH, has a kind of light weirdness about it, a vaguely threatening but still diverting approach that makes good use of an "other" POV. It keeps us guessing till the end, and then stops. I admit this is disappointing, but the weirdness of the tone holds. No, the problem of the ending is not the fruit. The fruit is fine. It's just that the length of the exposition has led us to expect that the fruit would, you know, bear fruit.

Someone who feels that "the whole point of a mystery is to solve it, elegantly and completely" is someone who enjoys a good detective novel but has no use for fairy tales or horror novels. I like all of them.

We can't knock twenty years off Selleck? I'm in love with Jon Stewart, all right-thinking people are, but I'm not sure he has the requisite inner pain. Anyhow, once we sign up the talent, we're going to run into script problems.

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wendelah1

Look, I like the story, too. But why do you keep give "Inventing the Mulders" such a hard time? Scully sounds much more in character in it than she does in this story. What you describe as "quarrelsome" sounded to me just like how they were together most of the time in canon. Yes, of course, the title "Inventing the Mulders" is about their struggles at creating a family unit. He wore a wedding band, even though they weren't married in the traditional sense. She didn't, which speaks volumes, too. How could that process ever be easy for them? It's not easy under the best of circumstances for ordinary people. And how is it that "China" is not an angst-filled read? Scully is miserable from start to finish, except for when she's at the dinner party telling the story about Mulder and the manure and the cockroaches.

I am well aware that you don't like angst, yes. The problem is this is not a show that lends itself to light, weird yes, but not light, which is why we are quickly running out of non-angsty fic to read here... Help! We need more funny fic here!

Since my favorite movie of all time is The Wizard of Oz, and my favorite book of all time is A Wrinkle in Time, I cannot be fairly accused of disliking fairytales. Besides, even fairytales have real endings, and they aren't always happy ones, either.

Jon Stewart totally has the requisite inner pain. All of the best comedians and satirists do.

Edited Date: 2011-06-02 08:18 pm (UTC)

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I don't know why I resist "inventing the Mulders." I guess I feel it's more like homework than entertainment.

Which isn't fair, of course, because we're being serious here. "China" has angst, but it also has a sort of "alternate reality" quality about it--not what we normally call alternate reality--in that it escapes the claustrophobic difficulties canon presented us with. These difficulties give us a different scene, different characters, a different relationship to deconstruct and feel bad about.

I don't feel that bad about Richard. It's like an angst vacation. Heartless. Maybe.

Forgive my crack about fairytales. But I know you once said that you "hate fairies." Yes, you did. Internet obsessives are on the case as we speak.

I concede that Jon Stewart has inner pain. But I'm thinking Anthony Weiner has inner/outer pain. He's kind of cute.

You want more funny? Give me time.

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wendelah1

Most fairytales are not about fairies. Anyway, that whole there is another world which we mere mortals cannot see shtick gets old fast for me. Plus fairies are creepy. I'm sorry, they just are. Even in "Midsummer Night's Dream," they're manipulative and self-centered and--creepy.

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They are, they are. Hence the attraction.

You'd abhor Little, Big.

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I quite like this story, even though I question Scully's characterization. Personally I don't think there was ever a time when Scully would have left the X-Files, but that's just me. Still, the premise of her leaving makes for an interesting "what if" story, and I think S6 is one of the most believable times for her to have left, since that season was to full of disillusionment and discontent.

What really makes China work for me, in that context, is the way the story comes together in bits and pieces. I especially like Punk's choice to use Richard's POV. It makes the entire thing feel very foreign, knowing that we're seeing everything through the eyes of someone who is on the outside, and who is only now coming to realize he's on the outside. I really love that it's fragmentary, but that each little scene feels so vivid. And even though we're seeing through Richard's eyes, the normality of it all is surreal, as it must be to Scully.

Everything is so benign: Richard and his family and his nice kitchen and his fresh produce and REM on the sound system and a barbeque in the yard. There in the center of that stands Scully, with lots of less-than-benign baggage packed into the small space she takes up.

As to Scully's characterization, I find her behavior after Mulder leaves interesting. It gives me questions about how she's changed in the year (approximately) since she quit the X-Files. She comes back to the table smiling and laughing and rolling her eyes, which is strange. I'm used to Scully putting on a stoic face, but not faking a happy face, which is apparently what she's doing now. I find it eerie to see Scully faking it so blatantly, but not entirely unbelievable that she would, in her situation. By sharing the story of the cockroaches, it's hard to tell whether she's attempting to integrate her past life with her present one, or whether it's more of an attempt to make light of her past life, dismiss it, by joking about it. In any event, her levity has a backlash, and it's maybe the most poignant moment of the fic when Jules jokingly accuses Scully of 'scarring Mulder for life' and Scully crumples in an instant.

In an above comment someone suggests that maybe Scully was taken, rather than that she left. I never saw that in the story before, but this time reading it I thought that was a possibility. I still lean towards the "she left" explanation, but either way there are questions - small loose threads the fic leaves, that lead up to the big unanswerable dead end of her absence.

Richard lights the patio candle with a book of matches but realizes he's never been to the hotel they came from. Why would Scully be going to a hotel? To meet Mulder? Skinner? An informant? Who knows.

Mulder says he 'had to see Scully' - had to. What does that mean? He had to because he misses her? Or he had to because he needs her to help him with something important? Or he literally had to because people are after her? If the latter, then maybe she really was taken from Richard's house.

Plus we already know that she is paranoid about being spied on, because she goes on cleaning fits, evidently searching for bugs.

Finally there's the phone left off the hook and the hand print in the dust next to it. Does that suggest she was taken and that she tried to call for help? Or just that she left it off the hook because she didn't want Richard to be able to call and realize she wasn't there?

Then again, when Richard comes home the doors are all locked, which tends to suggest Scully locked them when she left.

I definitely feel there is an underlying creepiness about this fic, and I'm not sure whether it's because Scully's character is in a dark place, or because of the little hints that something else is going on. But I like that it leaves me guessing. Much like Inventing the Mulders, I'd read more of China if Punk wrote more, but I'm also happy with the fic as is.

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All these little details that you are conscientious in pointing out. I'm beginning to get W's disappointment.

I do like the story--I love the texture and tone of the writing--but I think I'd like it more if I could look forward to a sequel. It could be thrilling!

Maybe we could ask for one.

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I don't know where to put this so I'll put it here:

If someone already said this, I'm sorry.

Here's the thing about the ending.

The phone is off the hook and there's a handprint in the dust. Scully may have been the victim of a violent kidnapping.

The reason I do like the ending is that we are Richard, and just like him, we don't know what the hell is going on. A lesser writer might wimp out and tie it all up with a bow. Punk makes the harder choice - to unsettle the reader. Which is awesome.

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The reason I do like the ending is that we are Richard

This goes back to what I was messily trying to articulate about why I like all the exposition we get about Richard's life. And I agree.

I think the fact that we're told this fic was supposed to have a different ending has effected how we're thinking about it. It has effected how I think about it, anyway. When I first read China I didn't know the ending was tacked on, and I accepted the loose ends as deliberate. But when I realized the loose ends maybe weren't deliberate I started looking at everything more critically. It's one of those Watsonian vs. Doylist perspective issues.

The only thing I really wish is that Punk had made it so that the fic asked questions a little more clearly. Not much more clearly, just a little. If I felt like the fic presented me with a number of possibilities about what was going on - some of them more well defined than others - and none of them could be deemed conclusive, that would be ideal. As it is, I'm not sure if I'm even supposed to be confused.

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I don't buy the "tie it up with a bow" dismissal. Readers were unsettled, we the readers *are* unsettled, but this arrangement of aborted possibilities should still point more clearly toward resolution.

Scully could have been kidnapped, she could have gone back to the FBI, she could have joined an ashram, if they still exist. But I don't see what any of it has to do with Richard.

I was happy enough to enjoy the uncertainty, but if we're going in for *close examination*...I wish there were more information.

Drat. I seem to have switched sides.

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