Story 197: "Get Up Mulder" by Tesla

[wendelah1]

This story was nominated by write_out but it's one of my favorites now, too. Confession time: the first time I read it, I thought Mulder was being a little whiny. But I love him better now, so it's all good. Tesla's writing is smooth as silk and no one writes a better Mulder voice. Enjoy!

NEW: "Get Up, Mulder"
Author: Tesla
Rating: PG-13 for language
Keyword: MSR, spooning, post-movie

Summary: Mulder recalls the trip back

Spoilers: To "Fight the Future"

Mod note: It says "MSR" but I think it's noromo friendly.

Now I really need to give tesla321 her own tag. Seriously, is there anything of hers we haven't read? See, we do use the suggestions from our nomination post, so go suggest some more, please.

Read "Get Up, Mulder".

Comments

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Okay, well. Hmm.

What I like about this fic is the premise. I’ve always liked FTF Antarctica gap-filler fics, and this is certainly one of the better ones, at least plot-wise.

From the edge of the crater in the ice, to an international weather station (Where? That’s what I want to know), to a cargo vessel, to an airplane bound for Caracas, to another airplane bound for D.C. The details tesla fills in do a pretty good job of grounding the radical situation Mulder and Scully have found themselves in, at least considering how short the fic is. Scully coughing up goo, Mulder being violently seasick, Mulder telling Scully he was shot in the head, them having to wait in Caracas for Scully’s passport to arrive, those are all parts I like. (Not wild about being told Scully is shitting goo, though. Some things I genuinely believe are better kept ‘off camera’.) I also find it interesting the way they keep knocking against each other emotionally, instinctively hanging onto each other while everything around them is transient and foreign.

The problem is, I really don’t care for this Mulder characterization. The whole fic feels like Scully fussing over him, and him being fussy and difficult, when he’s not being suddenly stricken by moments of frat-boy lust.

This was clearly a point where a nice guy would
let go of his partner's firm little ass, and wake
her up. But Mulder had already warned her he
wasn't nice, right?

Ew. It’s not that his hand is on her ass, or that he wishes to keep it there. Those things are understandable. It’s the way it’s phrased: “firm little ass” and the way he justifies copping a feel. “You’re fault, Scully, I warned you I’m a prick.”

He does have some nice moments (like when he is worried about her respiration and Scully catches him with his ear to her chest, that’s a sweet moment and I thought the fic could have made a lot more of it). But for the most part, when he’s not being a prick or showing his concern, I find him rather boring. He doesn’t have the kind of rich inner life that I look for in a Mulder characterization.

Also, he calls Scully “honey,” at which I think my brain actually made a needle-scratch sound.

I don’t know what I think of Scully’s characterization. I like that she seems fairly on the ball in this fic, but her persistence in doctoring Mulder gets kind of boring, especially when for the most part he just does his best to wave her off. And I don’t recall there being a single description of her fixing anyone with an incisive look, or studying them with an intent gaze, or any such thing. She doesn’t do anything "stoic" or "stern" or "determined" or "deliberate" or "careful" or "cautious"; there are certain descriptors commonly used in reference to Scully (far more of them than I’ve listed, of course), and this fic seems to have almost none of them. Minute to minute I’m mostly fine with her characterization, but by the end, as a whole, it just feels wrong.

One other thing that confuses me is this:

Mulder felt frightened, really frightened, by how
close everything had been. And yet, Scully had
not seen the ship. She saw a crevasse of snow and
dirty ice, she saw Mulder passed out beside her,
but she didn't see the ship.

And it had only been seconds. Seconds. One late
connection, one wrong turn, if he had even sat
down once to think about he was doing, one or
both of them would be dead.

I like that it's a moment of serious reflection on the epic danger they just faced. But this seems to be implying that if Mulder had stopped or been held up for a moment at any point in his journey to Antarctica, he would have been too late, which is (probably) not the case.

[littlegreen42.livejournal.com]

Ew. It’s not that his hand is on her ass, or that he wishes to keep it there. Those things are understandable. It’s the way it’s phrased: “firm little ass” and the way he justifies copping a feel. “You’re fault, Scully, I warned you I’m a prick.”

Yeah, that part bothered me, too.

Also, he calls Scully “honey,” at which I think my brain actually made a needle-scratch sound.

I kind of hand-waved that away by thinking, "Oh, well, Mulder has a head injury and is not really himself right now..." But I, too, had a "needle-scratch" moment when I read that. I actually had to double-check to see if I was reading it right!

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I actually had to double-check to see if I was reading it right!

Hahaha! Yeah, I actually said "honey" out loud, in disbelief, without evening meaning to.

Anyway, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks these bits seem off.

[wendelah1]

The problem is, I really don’t care for this Mulder characterization.

This is not Mulder at his best, I grant you. It's true, there is a complete absence of a rich inner life. He's lying on the ground unconscious, and these are his uncensored thoughts and memories during that interval, being punctuated by Scully yelling at him to get up. His brain is not being filtered, so it's all right out there, including Scully's "firm little ass" and her unguarded remarks about what her stools look like. (She was still in shock and I gather wasn't filtering much either at that point.) The memories themselves are not exactly stellar. He was also in shock, suffering from a head injury, exhaustion, dehydration, and hypothermia. He'd just drunk a cup of coffee laced with whiskey, too.

And I don’t recall there being a single description of her fixing anyone with an incisive look, or studying them with an intent gaze, or any such thing. She doesn’t do anything "stoic" or "stern" or "determined" or "deliberate" or "careful" or "cautious"; there are certain descriptors commonly used in reference to Scully (far more of them than I’ve listed, of course), and this fic seems to have almost none of them.

But the story is very tightly written in third person, limited to Mulder's POV. He wouldn't be remembering her as any of those things right now. He's lying unconscious, with his memory being jogged by her yelling at him; he's remembering events that happened while he was falling asleep or barely conscious or tossing his cookies.

I like that it's a moment of serious reflection on the epic danger they just faced. But this seems to be implying that if Mulder had stopped or been held up for a moment at any point in his journey to Antarctica, he would have been too late, which is (probably) not the case.

There was a deadline—I looked it up—96 hours to administer the vaccine to Scully. I'm hard pressed to see how he made it there at all, let alone within 96 hours. They barely got far enough away from the ship in time to miss being buried by the avalanche created by the ship taking off. And both the thought and his memory of it are being generated under less than ideal circumstances. Even if his fears aren't logical and objectively true, couldn't he still be feeling them, lying on that cot right after they've arrived at say, McMurdo Station? He's still afraid they're going to take her from him, too. He's remembering it, that moment of pure fear, knowing that he could have failed. He's so afraid, he's putting himself between her and the door, lying down next to her on the cot.

Taking a deep breath, Mulder picked up his pillow and took the one step to her bed. "Then move over. If someone else wants to get you, at least I'll know about it." And, surprisingly, she slid over against the wall, pulling down the rough blanket and stiff cotton top sheet as she moved.

This moment of vulnerability between them makes my throat catch.

But if the fic didn't work for you, well, it didn't. You might change your mind. I know I liked the story much better this time around.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Re: your first paragraph, if a character is behaving and/or thinking in a way that I feel is OOC, then the “but they’re under duress” reasoning holds no weight with me. It is perfectly possible to write a character under duress who is not behaving/thinking in an OOC manner. Extreme situations do not make characters different people.

There was a deadline—I looked it up—96 hours to administer the vaccine to Scully.

Yes, of course he was cutting it close. But the fic makes it sound as though he had only seconds - maybe a minute or two at most – remaining to administer the injection. Nowhere does FTF indicate this is the case. The point where timing becomes truly vital is after he’s administered the antidote. Up until that point, he’s in a mad hurry, but we really have no way of knowing exactly how much extra time he could have theoretically taken to get there.

[wendelah1]

Re: your first paragraph, if a character is behaving and/or thinking in a way that I feel is OOC, then the “but they’re under duress” reasoning holds no weight with me. It is perfectly possible to write a character under duress who is not behaving/thinking in an OOC manner. Extreme situations do not make characters different people.

Maybe your characters don't. I disagree. People behave differently when they are under stress. Why wouldn't/couldn't characters? We've had little access to Character Mulder's inner thoughts (except as mediated by CC) so how do you really know this is out of character for him? In my opinion, you don't. You don't like what's he's thinking, or maybe you don't like his feelings or his reasoning, so you've decided it's out of character. That holds no water with me.

But the fic makes it sound as though he had only seconds - maybe a minute or two at most – remaining to administer the injection.

No. That is not the case. The story showed he was afraid. He—was—afraid. And who wouldn't have been? Your logic is not the issue here. It's what he was feeling that matters, not the "objective truth."

Edited to say one last thing. I did not say that Mulder was under duress. I said he had suffered from physical trauma. Concussion. Exhaustion. Dehydration. Hypothermia. These are all a result of what he went through to save Scully, and a concussion is what he had suffered as he is lying unconscious, remembering the events of the movie. Perhaps people who have suffered from trauma don't have their basic characters change but their behaviors certainly can. They don't always act as their families expect. They say (and presumably think) inappropriate things, and so on. They don't reason well. They don't always make good choices.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

how do you really know this is out of character for him? In my opinion, you don't.

This Mulder is OOC for me, just as this Mulder is in character for you. I thought that was an assumption we all make every time we discuss the important but subjective matter of characterization. My assessment of him as out of character is equally as valid as your assessment of him as in character. The only difference is that I like my assessment better, obviously, and you prefer yours.

And ultimately, I form my opinion based on the same essential process of perception, reasoning, and yes, emotion, as you do.

[wendelah1]

Yes, of course.

My assessment of him as out of character is equally as valid as your assessment of him as in character. The only difference is that I like my assessment better, obviously, and you prefer yours.

Yes, and in principle, I agree with you. We all carry a version of Mulder around with us in our heads. Yours is as valid as mine which is as valid as Tesla's etc., which is why I find the out of character argument so frustrating. As a writer, this isn't exactly how I've written Mulder, but it's probably closer to my version than yours. But more than that, I do try to give a good writer, like Rivkat, like Tesla, some latitude to create the character they want, and I think you do as well, Scully in "Iolokus," being the obvious example of that, but I know there are others. This may be why I'm surprised that you aren't doing that here, giving Tesla some leeway within the context of canon and her plot. Brain trauma, shock, etc., exhaustion, they all offer a complex collection of possibilities which a writer can choose from.

I guess the bottom line is you don't like Tesla's choices here, and you are right, she could easily have chosen differently. As I said earlier, if the story doesn't work for you, it doesn't work, and that's true for every reader, including me. That's irrefutable.

I guess I'm a little sad, too, that the elegance of the story's structure (and of course, my insightful description of it *g*) carries no weight with you. It's been a long time since I've felt this—electrified—by that element, and I had hoped to convey something of that excitement in my analysis. Major Fail on my part, obviously. Maybe I'll do better next time. Onward?

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I do try to give a good writer, like Rivkat, like Tesla, some latitude to create the character they want, and I think you do as well, Scully in "Iolokus," being the obvious example of that, but I know there are others. This may be why I'm surprised that you aren't doing that here

What it comes down to is that I, like every fan, can only give as much leeway as I care to give. I cannot care overly much about this Mulder, because I don’t like him (and by “like” I mean respect/admire/connect to, etc.). He does not have the essential (and, naturally, difficult to define) qualities that I require of Mulder, in order for him to still be, essentially, Mulder.

You can change the toppings on a sundae, you can change the ice-cream flavor, you can change the size of the dessert, but you can’t substitute cake for ice-cream and still call it a sundae.

Iolokus’ Mulder and Scully were like gigantic tiger-stripe sundaes, doused in absinthe and flambéed, but they were still sundaes, i.e. they still contained enough of the quintessence of my Mulder and Scully that I could recognize them and connect to them. Which is something I can’t, and have only the faintest frustrated inclination to do, with the Mulder of Tesla’s fic. (And Scully’s only a bit better.)

Granted, this is a very silly analogy, but I think it holds up as far as it needs to.

I had hoped to convey something of that excitement in my analysis. Major Fail on my part, obviously.

I feel you did a good job, for your part. The trouble is that what you see as “the elegance of the story’s structure,” I see as simple gimmickry. You make the most of the story’s structure, and if that structure didn’t bore and vaguely annoy me I certainly would have commented on your insights.

Onward?

It’s only been five days since you posted this, so I wasn’t sure if I ought to wait a bit. But yes, I think we’re ready to move on. And there’s even a freshly nominated fic I’m excited to discuss.

[wendelah1]

Excellent. I am looking forward to it.