Story 15: "How to Fake An Orgasm" by V. Salmone (R)

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Our next story, nominated by threeguesses, is How to Fake An Orgasm, in which we learn that there may be women in the world other than Scully. Or maybe not.

TITLE: How to Fake An Orgasm
AUTHORS: Punk and Sab, writing as V. Salmone
CLASSIFICATION: S, M/O, MSR
DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully and the X-Files are the property of Ten-Thirteen Productions and Fox. No money has changed hands, nor do I expect it to. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy writing it.
RATING: R for sexiness and language
SPOILERS: general for season six
CONTACT: punkm@teleport.com, iamfrequent@gmail.com
WEB: http://home.teleport.com/~punkm/punkandsab.html

SUMMARY: Mulder, Scully, and the other woman.

Let us know what you think, and let the authors know what you think. Also, remember that next week is our Short Story Week. Do you have something that you'd like to nominate? Let us know about that too.

Comments

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

So, let's start by talking about the genre of Mulder/Other stories. In my opinion, these are really, really hard to pull off successfully. Writing compelling original characters in fanfic is always difficult, and you have the additional danger that your original romantic interest is pretty much automatically under suspicion of being a Mary Sue. It's a thankless genre. Either Mulder ends up with Scully in the end (in which case why are you even bothering?) or Mulder ends up with the other woman (in which case the Scullyists are probably going to kill you).

The best Mulder/Other that I've read is probably Syntax6's "Isometry," because the romance isn't the whole point of the story. Punk Manuverability's "Venture Forth" was way too Mary-Sueish for me. And Tesla's "Flying Under the Radar" was very interesting, but we've discussed its Scully-bashing ending already. Enough said.

As I recall from my last reading of this story, it is a pretty decent example of the genre, certainly better than average. Now I'm going to have to re-read it and see whether I have any more specific comments. But it seems to me that you can't talk about a story like this without talking about the genre too.

[basepair.livejournal.com]

I highly doubt Mulder would ever take a two-hour lunch.

[wendelah1]

I guess I am going to swim against the tide here to say that I enjoyed reading this very much. I am also a fan of the the authors and I was not disappointed by this at all. I am clearly in the minority in enjoying Mulder/Other and Scully/Other stories, whether they lead to MSR or not, as long as there is no Mulder or Scully bashing taking place. I suppose the point of writing and reading these stories is the point of any fan fiction: to enjoy the ride. It is clearly not that popular a genre, but I like it.

I like the idea of portraying Mulder and Scully as more like normal people, who date other people, and try to have a social life. It makes sense to set this story during a time when the X-Files has been taken away from shut them. I agree that X-Files Mulder would not be taking two hour lunches. However, Shit Detail Mulder, who is hating working for Kersh, and doing those background checks, seems like a good candidate for a two hour lunch and some serial dating.

The story is full of delightful Mulder/Scully banter, with many classic moments, like this one, when Scully catches Mulder playing computer games.

Scully reached a hand around and pulled Mulder's monitor to face her.
The wrong Tetris shape slid down the screen to balance inappropriately
on a growing center tower. "Well, thank god you're taking care of the
Tetris portion of our assignment," Scully said, spinning the monitor
back toward Mulder. "I was really hoping you'd take it off my hands."

One of the things I like best about this story is that Mulder doesn't get all of the funny lines.

I like the little running joke that Scully is having trouble with her phones. Her answering machine isn't taking messages from "Doug," who appears early on and then conveniently disappears into thin air. Her cellphone keeps calling Mulder's cellphone, which makes Susan Anthony giggle and say it must be lonely. Nice bit of foreshadowing there.

It is pretty clear almost from the start that Mulder is more in love with the idea of being in love with Sue than he actually is in love with her. I don't feel sorry for her. She knows what she wants from a relationship and when it is clear that Mulder isn't going to give it to her, she dumps him. She can take care of herself. A cute, funny woman like her will meet someone better suited to her in no time. Since deshenka brought it up, I can contrast Sue Anthony with Cassidy Neill in Blair Provence's "Banging Your Head Against a Red-Haired Brick Wall," who just doesn't get it, and spends a lot of time planning her wedding to Mulder and wondering why he isn't confiding in her and acting like a normal boyfriend. I don't feel sorry for Cassidy either, but by the story's end, I do want her to wake up and get a life, the sort of life she deserves. A life she is not going to get hanging around waiting for Mulder.

Sue Anthony is a fun, likeable original character. It is easy to see why Mulder was attracted to her. But as he confesses to Scully at the story's end, she was both too easy and too demanding. She does serve her purpose: to bring our hero and heroine into closer proximity to each other, so that Scully can make him tea that he doesn't really want, and so that Mulder can kiss Scully, which she does really want.

I also love the ending with Mulder in the laundromat taking off his jeans to add them to the washload while Scully watches him through the window, her nose pressed against the glass, like a little girl looking wistfully at a department store mannequin wearing an outfit she knows she will never own. But Scully can have Mulder; in fact, by this point she has had him, so she is no longer on the outside looking in.

She started to dial his number again, but changed her mind. Grinning at
the Santa, she crossed to the door of the laundromat. Inside, Mulder
was dialing, and Scully's phone rang from her pocket, but she didn't
answer it. She didn't need to, anymore, didn't need to stare through
foggy glass at the wonderful man with no pants who was her best
friend for life. She was right here. And she wasn't going anywhere.

Taking a deep breath, freezing her lungs, tasting snow and smiling, she
reached up and opened the door.

Her best friend for life. Ah shucks.

[22by7.livejournal.com]

this story would have rubbed me off the wrong way if the Scully characterisation had been a little off. i found it agreeably balanced and appreciated the evidence of her sense of humour.

the 'best friends/partners' angle always gets me. well, practically without fail. that, i think to myself, is as much of the truth that anybody can ever touch, never mind the little green (or grey) men. (oh soppiness!)

[hooves.livejournal.com]

Hm. I don't have much to say about this. Despite its length it seemed too wholly focused on using Mulder/Other to get to MSR, and that doesn't quite sit right with me. However, Sue was a likable enough character to start with; my issue was their rather abrupt break-up. I think it could have been written better, more in line with what we've seen of Sue in earlier parts of the story.

That said, Scully's jealousy was fairly low-key and I could appreciate that. It's not often that jealous!Scully makes an appearance and feels at all like a reasonable interpretation. In the canon her jealousy is obvious (to the viewer) but it's clear she makes an effort to try and chill out with it.

The other thing about this that didn't sit right with me was probably Mulder cornering Scully in the kitchen to kiss her the second time; her constant war at wanting it and not wanting it just...rubbed me the wrong way. It's not Scully's behavior here that bothered me so much as Mulder's, though; while I think she's generally a do-or-don't kind of person I understand the war in her head; what I didn't like was Mulder pushing her when it seemed obvious to me that she was hesitating. Like all of her physical responses were written in ways that made me picture her as small and cornered and I think if Mulder had her like that he'd probably back off, afraid he was acting like some kind of predator. This is especially important considering everything else that's happened to her in the years they've known one another. I couldn't picture him being so sure of her feelings for him that he'd push obstinately through that very obvious kind of barrier.

(And honestly, I was disappointed that he didn't hug her in that scene instead.)

I'm jumping around again, but I did enjoy the banter between the characters, the bit of flirting, Mulder happy in a relationship and leaving Scully behind to her lonely existence (so to speak). I kind of disagreed with Mulder's reasoning for wanting to be with Scully, but I have my own personal opinions about that, and why they might end up together (disregarding whatever canon will tell me later, of course--hah!), so that might be personal bias peeking in. Still, the writing was fairly solid, the characters were mostly IC, and Sue fell into the story charming and energetic. I think young!Mulder would have really loved her well, but S6 Mulder needs something different and specific in his life.

A bit confused about whatever happened to Doug, but I suspect that might be intentional on the author's part.

One last comment about Scully that I think needs to be said: the way she realizes she's not used to sharing, the way she feels about sharing in general? I liked that. It felt really in character and I think it's the kind of thing that she would definitely do. :D