xf_book_club | Story 201: "Sandcastles for Pele" by JL

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Story 201: "Sandcastles for Pele" by JL

Of all the XF fanfic authors I can call to mind, I tend to think of JL (the artist previously known as Jamie Lyn) as the one whose writing has undergone the greatest transformation over the years. Even accounting for the fact that her fics were posted over an almost ten year period, there’s still a remarkable transformation in her work, from the enjoyably dramatic and tempestuous fics of 1999, to some rather more somber, subtle, and conceptually complex fics in later years.

This week’s fic, "Sandcastles for Pele," was recced by

selynne. It’s going to be another one of those times when I’m reading along with those of you who haven’t read this fic before. I can, however, at least tell you that it’s post IWTB fic, and that at least part of it takes place in Hawaii - a long way from the DC-basement days of old. In the author's notes JL says, "If I had to describe it, I would say that it is... not at all what you think it is." Going by my memory of some of her other fics, I doubt she’s overstating things.

Send feedback, give us your recommendations, and please do come back for the discussion.

Read Sandcastles for Pele.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Guh... been looking for this one again for sometime. Thanks for linking to it. Will be having fun on the reread. It's a nice fic :).

I'm glad we could help out. This story is also archived at Gossamer, as are most of the stories we discuss here at the book club.

The best place I've found to ask if I've been unable to locate a fic is The X-Files Lost and Found Message Board. It is rare for no one there to recognize a fic, even if all you have is a vague storyline.

Maybe I should post a link to it in the sidebar.

@ wedelah1: That's good to know :). I go there once in awhile to read some fic, just forgot the name of this one, since it's been awhile since I read it again.

Thanks for the link... :)

I guess now I really do have to delurk. Um, hello. :)

I recced this fic because I love it so, because it's as pitch perfect, character-wise, as any of the best work I've ever read in this fandom (IMO), and because it doesn't seem all that widely known, which is an egregious error that I felt a ridiculous desire to correct.

I've always felt that this story really "fixed" things after IWTB, at least for me. Just brought it all back together, brought the characters back to how I remember them and returned their attention to the greater story of their lives. That alone is enough to make me happy, but of course there's so much more going on here, too. There are so many great lines that I can't even begin to choose a favorite. One of them has always been: "Scully's size was her dirty secret, her Trojan horse, and objects in mirror were much more badass than they first appeared."

LOVE. IT.

Even accounting for the fact that her fics were posted over an almost ten year period, there’s still a remarkable transformation in her work.

That is such a great point, and one of the things I most enjoy about this author. I'm kind of a writing nerd, and I'm really fascinated by that gradual change that happens in some people's work.

I first jumped on board with this fandom right after movie #1 came out, and I read a TON of fic between that time and the show's final episode (seriously, it's embarrassing how much). Whenever I see a familiar name from "back in the day" pop up with something new, I'm always really curious to see if there's a difference, if someone who was writing fic in 1998 or 2000 has changed in an any appreciable way 10+ years later. A writer like JL went from (very definitely) good to incredibly good (again, IMO). Other authors, to my surprise, seem to be writing almost the exact same stories in the exact same way, even all these years later, and that isn't always a good thing.

Ultimately, this is one of those beautifully written, insanely well-crafted stories that's always an absolute pleasure to read. I also highly recommend JL's "The Game" and "Team Building," featuring what has to be my favorite version of the Mulder-Scully family, EVER.

@ selynne: Yea she really has a handle on the characters' interaction pretty well. Another good one I read was 'A Bed Made of Crop Circles' by Innisfree. It's an adult fic, but one that captures the characters' interaction well too. It's my second favorite behind this series.

Welcome to

xf_book_club, and thank you for de-lurking to suggest a story and to discuss it with us. I love all of our regulars but a new pov is always welcomed. I've been without regular internet access since a week ago Saturday (I'm posting this from my local Starbucks) so I'm just looking at the comments.

I first jumped on board with this fandom right after movie #1 came out, and I read a TON of fic between that time and the show's final episode (seriously, it's embarrassing how much).

I didn't watch the series while it was first run. I watched episodes at random on the Syfy channel and stayed up late to tape them on Fx (I think?). It was a revelation. I was lucky in a way that the fandom was reinvigorated by the movie; if not for that, I doubt this community would have thrived as it has, so I am grateful that it was made.

I also read a ton of fanfic. And boy is there a lot of fanfic in this fandom, some of it good and even more that's not so good.

Looking over the comments so far, it looks like opinion is mixed on this story. Please don't be put off by the seemingly negative response. There are more watchers than participants, even more lurkers, and many more people who just want fic recs. I am certain there are many people who loved it as you did, people who never would have read this story had you not taken the chance and nominated it. So thank you for that.

Predicting what will be loved here and what won't is something I've never been able to do. For example, I was shocked that so many people hated Ambress's "The Leap," since it's one of a handful of MSR romances I've read with genuine pleasure. I still love it.

Anyway, I have to admit that I was not predisposed to like this story mostly for how it handled William's storyline. I'm still trying to figure out why that offended me so much (and I admit I was really angered by it, both times that I read it) and when I do, I'll try to comment here about it. It did give me some food for thought, however. Since that element didn't bother you, I was wondering why you thought it worked and what you thought his death was meant to achieve, especially given Mulder and Scully didn't even know their son had died. His parents (who were also presumably infertile) were left childless and grieving for the son they'd raised from a baby, whereas Mulder and Scully were rewarded with boundless fertility for no apparent reason that I could see, without even having to come to terms with losing William. I'm still aghast at the implications of this ending. Help?

I didn't really click with the writing right from the start, to be honest. Everything's a little flowery and overdescribed for my taste. In a longer fic like this one, I think too much description can drag. The repetition of the scenes with the red dot of light got grating.

Yeah, I guess it was supposed to be a little shout-out to "Paper Hearts," but it didn't work for me. I thought it was just because that is my least favorite episode ever.

I didn't really understand why Scully was SO shocked to be healthy, at the end. I mean, she went from terminally sick to in perfect health with no real explanation before. Is it so strange that she'd be completely healthy? I'm also not so sure about the doctor's dialogue.

"You're more than welcome to go wandering up and down the coast getting second, third, fourth, and fifth opinions for whatever strange reasons you deem necessary. I have no doubt you'll get the same results each time, although if the hunt for those results is what gets you off, then by all means, knock yourselves out."

That's, uh, quite a bedside manner.

I don't understand what kind of insurance they have that would be willing to let them go out of network for such extensive non-emergency care. Using a half a dozen tissues isn't much of a nosebleed. I've had much worse. If the doctor really thought there was a bleeding problem, Scully'd be heading back to the hotel with a couple of tampons hanging out of her nose, with instructions to avoid strenuous activity and come back the next day, but I guess that wouldn't be really conducive to spontaneous "why don't we do it in the road" sexing.

The work-up they have had to have done for Scully even be given that result is the kind of thing you'd do on a fertility patient, which she was not. She was being worked up for a recurrent nasopharyngeal tumor (In Hawaii. When they live in West Virginia? Or was it Virginia? It it were me, and I thought I was dying of cancer, I'd head straight to the airport when that storm was over and get my ass into Johns Hopkins, which is in Maryland, a neighboring state, and even more important, is the top hospital in the USA.) Why would they be doing any tests on her reproductive organs? She's in her forties and not trying for another kid, not at that point.

I guess the medicine isn't any worse than what the show gave us.

comment 1/2

Well, there really isn’t any sense in attempting to sugar coat it: I didn’t like this fic at all. Which I honestly wasn’t anticipating, because JL has three or four fics from the second half of her fanfic writing days that I like very much.

Before going any further, I want to give my apologies to

selynne, because reccing something only to have it criticized at length really sucks (I know from experience) and it’s bound to suck even more when one is a new participant in the community. Please don’t let my rather emphatic negativity put you off.

Going by what I remember of IWTB, I think the characterizations in SFP are actually quite in character with the Mulder and Scully of that film. But I’ve never been able to make any sort of a connection between the characters in IWTB, and the Mulder and Scully of the series – they may as well be different people to me. So I guess what I’m saying is that I find the Mulder and Scully of SFP to be as completely and bafflingly OOC as they are in the second movie.

It’s a mark of how much the fic wasn’t working for me, that when Scully got that nosebleed my first thought was, “Oh thank GOD. Maybe this will shock Mulder and Scully into being themselves again.” No such luck. Considering how inherently dramatic and painful the circumstances of this fic were, it’s almost unfathomable how Mulder and Scully could have wandered through it all in such an inane fashion.

I find Mulder’s reaction to the potential return of Scully’s cancer incredibly selfish. Was I supposed to sympathize with him because he had to face the possibility of losing Scully? I would have, if he hadn’t been so self-involved the whole time. Scully had just realized she might be dying imminently, but every time she tried to deal with the situation in the way she needed to, by talking about it and facing the worst, all he would think about was his desperate need to not be forced to face the fact that he might lose her. That’s is just not what you do. The more you love the person and the more it’s going to wreck you if they die, the more you forget what you need at the moment and focus on helping them as best you can.

The x-file would have been okay if they’d been pursuing it in some other context (during a tropical vacation or something), but the extreme seriousness of Scully’s situation in this fic made the rather hokey, non-serious x-file seem badly out of place.

Edited 2012-03-26 05:55 (UTC)

comment 2/2

My least favorite part of the plot, though, was when it ties in William, or should I say William’s death. I’m not sure what the point of it was supposed to be. Scully has some kind of weird spiritual brush with her son, which she apparently doesn’t remember later. Then he dies, she comforts his grieving mother without knowing that it’s William who’s just died, and then she goes off and learns that she’s healthy as a horse. Um, yay? Am I supposed to be glad for Scully that she got to have a spiritual meeting with her son before he died? Am I supposed to think that the universe is merciful because Scully gets to be there for her son’s death but doesn’t have to actually know he died? The narrative doesn’t seem overly concerned about the fact that WILLIAM JUST DIED, and I can’t figure out why, because it’s a tragedy. And the way he dies at the same time as Scully is magically healed kind of makes it seem like his life was traded off for Mulder and Scully’s chance to go on and be healthy as horses together and have babies that they actually keep. Which seems deeply unfair and just- icky.

The writing style and pace, considered separately from SFP’s content, weren’t bad. I do think JL is a good writer, and her facility with words is apparent in the fic. She knows what she’s doing. But like

infinitlight, I found the writing a bit too overdescribed (good word, btw). And I also agree that Scully’s extreme shock at discovering she’s totally healthy is a bit OTT. I think Scully would be shocked for a moment, and then probably go quiet and need some time to absorb, rationalize, and accept. (I bet she’d continue going in for routine check-ups though, just in case.) It seems like the fic was trying really hard to play up the whole, “OMG, it’s a miracle!” angle. Which is an attitude that kind of fits with the hokey mystical x-file, but not with the seriousness of the characters or their situation.

SFP seems like it was aiming to contain some of everything; to be funny and mystical and profound and angsty and sexy and nostalgic and tragic and peaceful and happy and romantic. But instead of a poignant and intense emotional tapestry, it felt like a muddled and overly-busy emotional swamp water.

I am, I believe, almost in agreement with amyhit, which will probably be a relief to both of us. My feelings toward Jamie Lynn as a writer have always been conflicted in an unusual way. Which I'll get to later.

There are good things and bad things. The trajectory of the story--the common panic at the possible reappearance of Scully's disease, the decision (with a desperately manic cheerfulness) to recreate the old M/S argumentative engagement with the supernatural, the stop-time during the wet car journey, the final happy ending--I have no problem with. It might have been done in an appropriately sombre tone overlaid with a brittle denialist cheer. The magical red light from "Paper Hearts" was nice, and I liked the magical out-of-time experiences in which the spray-paint X from ep 1 reappears. Generally speaking, I like magic.

But that sort of thing takes a subtle style, and that Jamie Lynn never had. Her busy descriptions and explanations, her constantly introduced memories during overintense moments, her tendency to go purple when she should go silent--well that's par for JL's course. The contradictory and maddening thing is that she has talent. She has a prodigal and underexamined and IMO carelessly used talent that tends to give you thrills that are often undercut by winces.

I'll resurrect an old notion of mine: there's a difference between talent and taste. It's possible to have one without the other. I liked, for instance, a paragraph preceding the final scene in which Mulder describes a dangerous moment when he was too distraught to notice a DC bus almost killing him. It was a nice, clean insight into early Mulder. One could claim it wasn't necessary, but many nice things aren't. The problem with the prose throughout SFP and elsewhere is that the reader never knows when a mood will be destroyed by a careless word. The writer has an odd relationship with words: she seems to get so passionately caught up in a scene that she reaches blindly. I quote: "her hands mirrored Mulder's," "voice laced with fear," "Scully [sitting upright in a car seat] reeled as if he'd hit her." Scully "doubled back, nearly falling to her knees in the sand." Mulder shakes a person "as he might shake a container of juice." Something or other "filled Mulder with a thread of hope."

None of these phrases bear examination. Hands may be doing the same thing but mirror? I voice may sound afraid, but you can't lace it as you would a mixed drink. People seated do not reel, although they may flinch; reeling implies flailing about and maybe falling over. Speaking of which, people may double back, but if they fall they fall on their ass and not their knees. And threads can't fill anything; they're too skinny. This is just absent thinking, not paying attention to the word before putting it into play. I am reminded of a famous (to me) phrase by a famous (to most) fic writer: "Mulder's mouth leaves them all in the dust." Now think about that for a moment. Mouths in the dust. Let's all hydrate, unless one would prefer something stronger.

Adequate talent; inadequate taste.

I am aware of sounding bitchy, but the fact is that word usage is my little baby and it makes me just so...

Babies. Right. Those who found the inclusion of William here are correct in being disturbed. His ghostly visitation and death are presumably symbolic, but they aren't, they're just kind of teasing. What is the point of William dying, and the point of his adoptive mother's agony? Why does Scully not recognize the name "Van der Camp?" Why should William's mother's pain lead in any way to Scully's joy at being healed and freshly procreative? What moral symbolic scheme is being played out here? Not a coherent one. And I don't understand what Mulder's reluctant "forgiving" of his father has to do with anything.

Okay, yelling, shutting up. Let's just say that, in my estimation, there are bones of a good story here but it would take a more thoughtful, careful writer to generate the flesh. And I hope to God that the actual author never sees this.

Generally speaking, I like magic.

I generally do too, and what’s strange is that I think JL has put the mystical and mysterious to good use in some of her other fics – particularly in her darker fics. Before reading SFP, I would have said she had an excellent ability to interweave existential crisis and otherworldly experiences. SFP doesn’t detract from her other fics, of course, but I do find it a disappointment, and a confusing one at that.

I'll resurrect an old notion of mine: there's a difference between talent and taste.

I agree with this distinction, but I don’t actually think that JL lacks taste. Not consistently, anyway. As I have said and will continue to say, JL has written fics which I feel are subtle and tasteful. “Choose” is one of her most down-to-earth fics, and also one of my favorite of hers. “How to Do Like This” is suffused with grief, but is also genuine and grounded and not lacking in taste. “Ghosts” is more odd and less grounded than HTDLT, but the writing still pulls together so that the ideas and emotions complement each other. Actually, I don’t think JL’s ever missed the mark nearly to the extent that I feel she missed it with SFP.

None of these phrases bear examination. […] I am aware of sounding bitchy, but the fact is that word usage is my little baby and it makes me just so...

I disagree with you here, but mostly just on principal. For the most part, I agree that the lines from SFP you’ve quoted are not the most effective, and I do think JL could have chosen her words better. But I disagree with the notion that hands can’t mirror, that a voice can’t be laced with emotion, or that a sitting person can’t reel. I vehemently believe in the flexibility of language, and in the value of using words in untraditional ways, and I’m not comfortable with presuming that in every one of these cases, JL was just being careless. In some of them it does seem quite clear that she didn’t think it through, but in others the word may have been chosen specifically because it was not a usual way of putting something. And while I’m perfectly comfortable saying that the way a line is written doesn’t work for me, I don’t think it’s fair to say, conclusively, that the line doesn’t work period, because there’s bound to be somebody for whom it does.

Amyhit, I'm not comfortable presuming she chose her language carelessly either. I can't read her mind. It's enough for me to say it doesn't work. As for the language being okay for some other reader, that's fine too. Of course, I think they're wrong, but I'm as entitled to think that as they are to love this story. I do think if a writer is to use language imaginatively, she had better use it well. JL's sentences are cluttered and her phrases don't sound right. The words she chooses in each instance listed by EC are at best a distraction from the story she's trying to tell, and her use of the word "reel" is just wrong. I don't care if she has all the talent in the world. Her taste is not on trial here. I'm willing to give her all the freedom you want a writer to have. But this story doesn't work, and one of the reasons is her use of language.

I never made it all the way through "Choose" because I found the idea of Mulder lecturing Scully on physics to be a sticking point.

Babies. Right. Those who found the inclusion of William here are correct in being disturbed. His ghostly visitation and death are presumably symbolic, but they aren't, they're just kind of teasing. What is the point of William dying, and the point of his adoptive mother's agony? Why does Scully not recognize the name "Van der Camp?" Why should William's mother's pain lead in any way to Scully's joy at being healed and freshly procreative? What moral symbolic scheme is being played out here? Not a coherent one. And I don't understand what Mulder's reluctant "forgiving" of his father has to do with anything.

As a writer, I am aware of making choices when I create a universe. The choices JL made here are, well, disturbing in their implications. Having William die, while his mother lives? Having his parents suffer and grieve while Mulder and Scully get to pop out the babies, blissfully unaware of the death of their son? Is this supposed to be a resolution to the William arc? I'd prefer we left it unresolved.

I don't know what moral purpose was served in having Mulder forgive his father either and in any case, what does that have to do with anything that follows? Calling this symbolic universe incoherent seems too kind to me.

So it's actually by total happenstance that I stumbled over this today, in a moment of total boredom at work. And am responding to a two-year old post because...I know not why. No, that's not quite true. I guess it's because I want to say, first, that I'm glad people are still reading fanfic. I'm glad X-philes are still out there, still congregating on the net and writing and reading. Also, I appreciate all these comments (critical or not) and thought I'd give you some background, for what it's worth:

When I started writing fanfic I was 17 years old. I think someone upthread said some of my early stuff was good? It's not. It's sooo not. It is in fact so bad that I can't even re-read it, for fear of wanting to throttle 17 year old JL. I was an angry kid. Naieve, painfully awkward, incredibly insecure, ignored by boys, desperate for attention. I grew out of all that nonsense, but I kept on writing, occasionally returning to fanfic whenever I felt blocked or over-emotional or drawn to a David Duchovny teacup photo (we all know the one) and/or found myself trying to piece together a real-life puzzle. And in 2008 (around the time the movie came out) I had just lost my job (literally two days post market-crash.) So I think, in total, I saw IWTB like 17 times. Mostly because I had nothing else to do besides job-search and scream into a pillow about the futility of job-searching. It made me nostalgic, I think, for a time (a simpler time? did I really just type that? Christ I'm old) when I didn't have to worry about the shit I had to worry about.

So I wrote this, much like all my other fics, without any sort of guidance or beta-reader or editor beyond myself. Which was an enormous mistake. HUGE. As a writer in real-life now (of comedy mostly, not so much novels) I know how stupid that is. You NEED an editor. But I was incredibly insecure, very young, and had no idea what i was doing or who I was as a writer. Mostly, fanfic was for me a way of finding my voice. Figuring shit out. Figuring out what did and did not work. Even in 2008, ten years later, that's what it was. Especially as I tried to figure out the specifics of comedy and character and plot. Figuring out who *I* was as opposed to who I wanted to be. What style worked for me, what didn't... in the end what I realized was that it was okay for me to be me. And that it was okay to let go of fanfic.

In the end I want to say thank you for reading. Thank you for taking the time to discuss it, even if you didn't enjoy it, and thank you for the critique, which is welcomed, and for continuing to read and write this stuff. Fanfic saved my life in many ways when I was a teenager, and it saved my life again as an adult, adrift in New York City and wondering if anything would ever become of me, if I would ever go anywhere.

So, the author DID read this, but don't worry. The author is okay with it and is happy to say that she continues to grow as a writer. But first she is going to watch the World Cup USA vs. Belgium game while eating many tiny cupcakes.
- JL

This is a thoroughly admirable reply to a discussion that, even with time and distance, could not have been particularly pleasurable reading for you.

For my part, I want to apologize. You see, back when I was co-modding with

wendelah1 we generally tried to make sure that at least one of us had positive overall feelings about a fic before we posted it. That way we knew we weren't setting a story up to take too much of a beating. Unfortunately, Sandcastles For Pele was one of the rare instances where a fic was posted before either mod read it (my fault, not Wendy's). Like I said in my original comments: I'd read and liked several of your fics, and hadn't disliked any that I'd so far read, so it seemed like a safe call to put SFP on the block without a pre-read. As it turned out, I was wrong.

Reading back over our comments, I can certainly see how they may have made you feel the need to defend not just the quality of your writing, but also your motivation for writing what you did. That's something I'm also sorry for. Discussing fics as rigorously as we often did/do at the book club, it can be very difficult to make sure our comments always distinguish between a fic and its author. The distinction between "I didn't like the part where [x]" and "I didn't like that the author chose to do [x]" can seem very inconsequential at the time, but looking back, the latter often seems - much to the commentor's surprise and dismay - accusative. And while I suspect that my opinions about Sandcastles For Pele probably haven't changed much in two years, I certainly regret any point in my comments where my criticism of the fic directly or indirectly implied I was critical of you.

I think someone upthread said some of my early stuff was good? It's not. It's sooo not.

Hahaha. I can't recall if that was me or someone else. For the record, I actually did not lie when I mentioned "the enjoyably dramatic and tempestuous fics of 1999." I honestly think (or at least I honestly thought four years ago, which was the last time I read them) that Situational Claustrophobia is pretty adorable, and that The Way I Saw It, while certainly on the melodramatic side, is kind of delicious, in that super-cathartic-shipper-feels sort of way that I enjoy so much.

You will note, however, that I did not, strictly speaking, say they were "good." The difficulty, I find, with classifying a piece of writing as "good" is that it typically requires an absence of things that qualify as "bad." If something has more than a little "bad" in it, we're no longer comfortable with calling it "good." When in reality, some things that have more than a little "bad" in them also have more than a little "good" in them, and where does that leave them? And where does that leave us?

Those early fics of yours have their weaknesses, certainly, their bad as well as their good. But I took pleasure in reading them, for which I thank you. And for the record: my early fics make your early fics look like genius. Hell, most of my not-so-early fics make your early fics look like genius. :)

Also for the record, I should probably issue a general disclaimer that says that all sentiments expressed in this comment are mine and mine alone. I don't speak for the book club or any other participants in our discussion, nor do I mean to imply with my comment that the other participants in out discussion ought to share my sentiments (though they certainly may if they choose).

I hope whichever soccer team you were cheering for won their game, and that the many tiny cupcakes were delicious in their multitudes.

Edited 2014-07-02 10:52 (UTC)

It's probably only fair for me to admit that I haven't read JL's latest work. I do have a strong impression-memory of some of her early stuff, if not of the specifics. And I remember it being full of banter that I wanted very much to like--I'm a documented fan of banter--but found repetitively overcute. I shouldn't make assumptions about JL's mind-set or work habits, but it's painful for me to recognize a talent that seems so obviously misused. There almost seems to be a working policy that prose is not bettered by smoothing, pruning and reconsidering, but by adding more and more of what there was too much of already.

My main issue with this story, besides the "resolution" of the William plotline, are the conflicts with canon. The passage where he recalls their meetings, I simply don't see when or how it could have happened. The only time they were separated was during season two. Scully was at Quantico, the Marine base in Virginia, teaching. Mulder was working at FBI headquarters in downtown Washington DC. I think it's fine to write little fill-in scenes; in fact, I like them. But this one doesn't work, because it doesn't fit with existing canon.

There is another canon error, a more serious one.

Mulder had a harsh, quick flash to a time when Scully had
gone missing; he had felt like a man left behind, the
remaining half of a love unrequited. He'd gone to purchase
a headstone for her, filled out all the forms, entered her
name in the tiny blank boxes. Name of deceased: D-a-n-a S-
c-u-l-l-y. No. Not again. Not ever again.

That never happened. This is what happened instead.

(We see Mrs. Scully and Mulder are sitting at a table.)
MULDER: It’s too soon, Mrs. Scully. We can’t give up.
MARGARET SCULLY: That day in the woods, I felt for my daughter. But at this moment, I know how my daughter felt.
(The door opens and Mrs. Scully stands up. A man walks in carrying something. She walks over and he lifts the cover off. Mulder walks over, looks at it, and turns away. It is a tombstone, and it reads:
" = DANA KATHERINE
======= SCULLY
= 1964--------1994
= LOVING DAUGHTER & FRIEND
"The Spirit is the Truth." JOHN 5:07")

Mulder didn't buy her headstone. Her mother did. He didn't fill in the forms. Her mother did, as her next-of-kin. Mulder told her mother it was too soon, saying, "We can't give up," which was the theme of the episode JL's scene references, that of all of the people who were close to Scully, only Mulder refused to give up. You could make that scene work for you, and have it fit into this story better than what JL made up instead. I just wish she'd done the research, looked at the transcript at least. She goes to a lot of trouble to write these little flashbacks and sprinkle them throughout the story. Instead of enhancing it, they end up being a distraction.

Probably if I'd liked this story, I'd be more forgiving of its lapses.

I originally thought the author had rewritten that piece of history for a specific purpose--i.e. that SfP was going to turn out to be an AU, for some reason that was important to the story. I guess she just forgot how the gravestone thing went, although I'd argue that that piece of canon is pretty important in understanding who Mulder is.

I just started reading "Laws of Motion" and in Mulder's POV, syntax6 reflects on the people that have tried to make Mulder say goodbye to Scully and how he feels incapable of doing so. This really resonated with me (syntax6 noted the fact that they never say goodbye to each other on the phone), I thought "yeah, that's Mulder" in a way that didn't come through in the scene in SfP.

I just started reading "Laws of Motion" and in Mulder's POV, syntax6 reflects on the people that have tried to make Mulder say goodbye to Scully and how he feels incapable of doing so. This really resonated with me (syntax6 noted the fact that they never say goodbye to each other on the phone), I thought "yeah, that's Mulder" in a way that didn't come through in the scene in SfP.

Clearly I think that piece of canon is important, too, since I included in a fic of my own. I think it's a crucial element of Mulder's character that he won't give up, and a crucial factor in their partnership for Scully! He is the only one who won't pull the plug during "One Breath," he makes "a deal with the devil" for a cure for her cancer, he goes to Antarctica to save her. Plus, why on earth would he be the one purchasing the headstone? They aren't married or even together as a couple. Her mother is her next of kin. That just doesn't make sense. To make an au, you can't just change one element. You have to change everything that relates to what you are altering about canon. Maybe if they had been involved? But would she even have been abducted if that were the case, or for the same reason, is the kind of thinking that goes along with an au. No, I think this was just a blooper. It's just a blooper I really dislike.

I agree with you, Mulder in Syntax6's fic is much more "my Mulder," and UI and LoM are two of the best examples of her work in that regard. Everything he does isn't right but it is always consistent with his character, as I see him anyway. One of the reasons I decided to read LoM next is because of the contrast between it and this fic. Syntax changes the date for Scully's abduction, putting it several months earlier ( but then 1013 gets it wrong, too, later in the series). And she was writing an au which allowed her to take more liberties with canon, and the date change in UI was important for the sequel, as you will see.

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Story 201: "Sandcastles for Pele" by JL

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