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

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.

Re: All over the map... Part 1

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

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.