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

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.