Story 183: "All the Children Are Insane" by MustangSally

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

In The X-Files fandom there are debatably no two authors more closely associated in the minds of fanfic readers than RivkaT, the author of our last fic, and MustangSally, who are indelibly linked by their co-authorship of "Iolokus". Which is why this week we're going to be reading "All the Children Are Insane," perhaps MustangSally's most widely read solo fic.

It's a vignette set in the summer after S5, with sex, angst, and the burnt-office base notes of existential crisis. The posting date stamp on "All The Children Are Insane" is June 18th 1998, just one day before Fight the Future hit theaters. To me the writing has always hummed with the captured tension of that summer, the fever pitch of fannish excitement and anxiety.

All the Children Are Insane

mustangsally78 is still around; sending feedback never hurts. And as always, our recommendations thread is over here.

Comments

[wendelah1]

ATCAI Scully doesn't have Iolokus Scully's horrifying medals on her chest. She hasn't gone through enough fires to justify her being this callous and rude.

And this is what bugs me here. A burnt office is not good enough an excuse to justify SarcasticBitch!Scully.

Scully doesn't have a mean streak in canon. So if you want to give her one, you need to give enough material to the reader to justify such a change of behaviour. Otherwise you'll lose their suspension of disbelief. Iolokus aced this. ATCAI, not so much.

Hold on just a minute, folks. It's not just a burnt-up office she's dealing with here. Let's recap some of shitstorm of season five. Diana Fowley is back, and if you think Mulder's relationship with her is confusing and/or infuriating to the fans, imagine how Scully must be feeling. They've already closed down the X-Files. They're talking about breaking up the partnership and transferring Scully to Bumfuck, Montana. Plus what about the death of Emily?! And finding out all of her ova were extracted?! And nearly getting burnt to a crisp at that bridge because of the chip that was put in her neck to save her from dying of cancer.

I think she's got plenty of reasons to feel cranky, and bitchy isn't much of a stretch either. Plus, isn't she just bitching to herself for the most part? Isn't that allowed or does the complete control have to extend to her inner self as well as her persona? The only line spoken aloud that I could find skimming through this that one could conceivably say was bitchy is this: ""Now." She orders in a tone that makes my legs start to tremble, "Don't screw around - fuck me."

Given the situation, the line seems like what any woman might say to the guy who is about to--fuck her. What should she say? "Make love to me, Fox darling." I'm just sayin'.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I think she's got plenty of reasons to feel cranky, and bitchy isn't much of a stretch either.

Yeah, but this fic doesn't sell me on that the way Iolokus does.

The only line spoken aloud that I could find skimming through this that one could conceivably say was bitchy is this: ""Now." She orders in a tone that makes my legs start to tremble, "Don't screw around - fuck me."

I don't think ATCAI Scully is particularly bitchy. And I definitely don't have a problem with her saying "fuck me". I'm not wild about the "don't screw around" part, I think in combination with "fuck me" it's overly gruff, but that's not really the point either. It's her whole inner voice that doesn't sound the least bit like Scully to me. As hazel75 said, she sounds more like Skinner than herself. She's got this inward macho swagger thing going on.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

Hold on just a minute, folks. It's not just a burnt-up office she's dealing with here.

Yes, you're right and you make some very good points here, Wen, but as amyhitsay it doesn't sell me on that the way Iolokus did. Maybe a few lines on how Scully had changed following all the crap that happened to her would have made her attitude more 'buyable', I don't know.

Hmmm...I'm not sure how far deep in her inner voice Scully's control extends, she *is* a serious control freak.

And I would buy a "fuck me Mulder" (and you know I would NEVER want a "Make love to me,Mulder" line!!!) but the "don't screw around" bit just seemed unecessarily crude and I'm just not buying Scully saying it, not even drunk.

Yeah, like amyhit said there's a macho swagger to her tone that is indeed unScully.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where to put this comment, so I've chosen you, amyhit.

I like a tough Scully, tough if it isn't canon, screw canon, fuck that CC shit (see, it's easy, and my family is full of protestant ministers). After all, she's just thinking all this stuff. No character need be 100% consistent with what was provided on the screen. Fanfic, is seems to me, was created to correct what we saw and were forced to endure.

MOREOVER, if we must deal with text, let's not forget that Scully had a military father and at least one military (and judgmental) brother. Don't we think she's heard a bit of bad language? And can't we imagine that her militaristic upbringing has resulted in more than professional determination and deportment and the ability to cope with paperwork?

People come in layers, like onions. And fic writing is not the same animal as tv screenwriting.

Of course, this may be another case of me not taking a story seriously enough. I think of the burnout and bitterness in ATCAI as an excellent excuse to jump into bed. Moreover, it suddenly occurs to me that Scully's top sergeant command for sex is exactly what's needed to inflame hesitant Mulder, and maybe her inner self is suddenly getting that too.

[write-out.livejournal.com]

Yep, I was just going to post something almost exactly like this. Season 5 shitstorm indeed. I think the burning was just the final straw.

I didn't take anything Scully said (internally or outloud) as mean or bitchy. She's drunk, she's pissed, she's cracking jokes (working at a salon) and she's basically had enough.

[wendelah1]

Yeah, she's thoroughly pissed and pissed-off.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

The next time I saw him I was
going to waste his skinny, wrinkled, dried up, hemorrhoid-ridden,
incontinent old ass. I was going to make him look down the barrel of my
Smith & Wesson and inhale lead.

Maybe I could write a
book about it and retire to a nice inbred, paranoid, provincial town in
Maine with killer dolls or something. I could write mysteries like
Patricia Cornwall, only I'd get the science right

That's feels pretty mean and bitchy to me(even if richly deserved). But yeah, she's drunk so there's no way to be sure if the mean streak I can feel here is just a product of her cracking bad jokes and being simply pissed off.

[write-out.livejournal.com]

To me that's just a pissed off and drunk Scully who's reached the end of her rope and not out of character meanness. (damn, maybe that means *I'm* a bitch!)