Story 163: "China" by Punk Maneuverability

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Punk Maneuverability is one of the X-Files fandom's long-time authors. A quick scroll of her Gossamer page tells me she did most of her writing for this fandom in 1997, but she continued to write XF fic for close to a decade. China, posted in 2006, is one of the last XF fics she's posted to date.

It's a short AU in which Scully has made a drastic change in her life, one that has left both she and Mulder's lives torn asunder. I don't want to say too much more about the plot, because part of what makes this fic intriguing is the way the reader doesn't immediately know exactly what's going on. I picked this fic because, though they are very different fics, the central tension of China is very similar to that of last week's rec: Scully's discontent and her desire for a "normal life".

China by Punk M

You can also find the author at runpunkrun, and you can find our recommendation page over here.

Comments

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was... painful. I'm glad this type of scenario never happened on the show. I could see her doing exactly that, and I've never cared for it. I always feel for the person left behind.


Also, I really want to smack Scully sometimes. She's so difficult, with the never talking and expecting people to somehow read her mind. They're trying their best, woman!

***

Darnit, I miss them now. Again.

I need to finish my XF re-rewatch. If I can just get my bleepin' DVD player to cooperate...

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

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 We've seen her be withdrawn emotionally; we've seen her have difficulty expressing herself.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.

[maybe-amanda.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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.

All over the map... Part 1

[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.

All over the map... Part 2

[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.

[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.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

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?

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

"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.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

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.

[maybe-amanda.livejournal.com]

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.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

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.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I went and found where Punk had posted China on her LJ, to see if she said anything revealing about it in the comments. She did say a couple of things, though not overly revealing. In case anyone else is curious I'm going to post those bits below. If you don't want to know, or just don't care, don't read on.


"The last scene is the part I slapped on. I honestly don't remember where I was going with this. I remember a vague plan to have Richard call her from work and her not being there. I don't know if she was going to leave or not, or if she was going to say goodbye if she did. I just had to put some kind of closure on it though, otherwise we would have ended with Richard feeling sulky about the fruit shopping. *g*"

"At the most, Scully might have told Richard that Mulder needed her for a case or was trying to get her to come back to the FBI. The reader probably wasn't going to know any more than that because we can guess, not the specifics, but we could easily come up with a reason or two (He needs her for a case!/He can't live without her!/He loves her!), and then choose our favorite."