Story 216: "How a Resurrection Really Feels" by Idella

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Our next fic, "How a Resurrection Really Feels" by idella, was written for the 2008 xf_santa gift exchange, and recced by newo_fic.

Idella did not write prolifically for the XF fandom, but the fics she wrote are written with an intriguing intensity that makes them a heady and memorable reading experience - especially "How a Resurrection Really Feels," which vividly and unflinchingly addresses the issue of Scully’s immortality. The warning containted in the headers is spoilery, but it’s a dark fic and it packs a real punch, so be sure not to skip the warning if you’re the sort to find such things as one warns for devastating.


Read "How a Resurrection Really Feels".

Also available on AO3.


On another note, I suppose it’s time for me to officially acknowledge my absence from the book club over the past several weeks: my participation has dwindled and I must announce that I’m no longer operating as a co-moderator for this wonderful and enduring community. However, I will not be disappearing irretrievably into the ether. In fact, wendelah1 - who has diligently and proficiently moderated the community for several years, and continues to do so - has kindly agreed to allow me to continue posting recs, simply on a less regular basis. It’s been an honor, and a lot of fun, to co-mod for this community. I only wish that I’d gotten involved sooner and stayed longer.

To the many fanfic writers and fanfic commenters who have contributed to xf_book_club, and to the innumerable fanfic writers and fanfic commenters in our truly epic fandom: You guys are the best.


Signing off,

Amyhit

Comments

[memories-child.livejournal.com]

I love this fic! I'll be back to comment properly once I've reread it.

Also, I'm sorry to hear you've stepped down as co-mod but I'm glad you'll be sticking around.

[wendelah1]

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can be doing with darkfic right now, so I think I'll skip this one. Sorry to see you stepping down as co-mod, amyhit, although I'm glad to hear you'll still be around :).

[wendelah1]

It's a great story. Maybe you'll feel up to it another time.

[firefish.livejournal.com]

I really liked this. It was dark without being grim. And dealt well with the immortality storyline, which I haven't read much of but can be very hit or miss.

[wendelah1]

Spoilers for the plot
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I'm glad to know you liked it. I think it's a brilliant story, probably her best for this fandom and one of the best treatments of Scully's immortality that I've read.

But I'm afraid I disagree about it not being grim. It has a markedly different tone initially from Penumbra's "Fathom's Five," a fic I also greatly admire. Her Scully is more balanced in her response to the realization that's she's immortal. She carries out her attempted suicide to prove to herself what she already believes to be the case, and she's relieved, initially. She embodies this interesting mix of denial and belief that seems very Scully-like. She doesn't question how or why it happened. She likes the idea that she'll be able to learn everything she ever wanted to know, that she'll get to understand and contribute and never run out of time. This reaction seems perfect for Scully, as is her reaction to seeing the gray people. She collects data, verifies her observations. It isn't until she loses the one person she can't imagine living without that the downside of immortality hits home. She's become a fixed point in time, as Doctor Who is fond of saying. She doesn't change, and she can't alter anyone's fate; she can only watch as those around her pass from this world, without the comfort of knowing she will see them again in the afterlife. She's TXF's equivalent of Doctor Who's Jack Harkness, except--perhaps--she won't age.

Random fic prompt: Someone should write a DW/X-Files cross-over, Dana Scully &/Jack Harkness, immortality.

Anyway, any story where Fox Mulder is murdered and dies in his partner's arms qualifies as grim to me.

[firefish.livejournal.com]

Ha, now that you mention it, it seems bizarre to describe a story where a character dies as not being grim, so I guess I best elaborate on that. When I read this story, I don't feel that utter desperation and emptiness that I would from a well written apocalyptic fic, or other fic where a character dies in the course of duty for example. To me, there is this feeling that death is an inevitability – albeit an inevitability that Scully will not achieve (and that she eventually comes to terms with) – and therefore that one of the characters submits to this inevitability, although much too young, seems natural.

I think the idea of immortality is depressing one – who would want to live forever? And I think that the author does manage to get some of that across, but I never really feel her hopelessness with the fullness of the 'grimness' of such an existence. The way I have reacted to this story, which is to take these huge, depressing situations and not feel the fullness of them (or rather to not feel them as overwhelmingly sad), speaks partly of my own emotions and partly of how the author has written the story.

Though, it may turn out that I am one of the few who found this to be a palatable darkness!

[newo-fic.livejournal.com]

I don't feel that utter desperation and emptiness that I would from a well written apocalyptic fic, or other fic where a character dies in the course of duty for example.

YES! This is a big reason why I love this fic. It doesn't leave you feeling gutted the way so many character death fics do.

[wendelah1]

Okay. Because I felt gutted. I burst into tears the second time I read this and I knew it was coming. Maybe (as always) I over-identify with Scully. The worst thing (besides losing him) is that because of her intense relationship with Mulder, she's so set apart from the people in her life, from the other people who cared for him and care about her, she can't grieve with the other mourners.

He wouldn't have wanted this, she thinks. He would have wanted something simpler and happier, something Frohike wouldn't have had to wear a suit to. She opens her folder and tries to smooth out her crumpled papers. Mulder's name swims up at her from her hand-written notes, but she's not going to need them, she realizes. She's not going to give these—these scavengers Mulder through her eyes. They don't deserve it, not the ones who didn't know him. All of the qualities she respected—loved, Dana—in him, his intelligence, his imagination, his compassion, were twisted by these people into an oddity, not a man. They can remember him for the wrong reasons if they want to; she doesn't care. She won't forget him. "I won't forget him," she tells the congregation. She won't.

She's so consumed by her loss that she won't acknowledge theirs. She 's not part of this community of mourners. She is not a part of any community now. It's been the two of them together for so long that she's been transformed. Now she's half of a broken whole, and the knowledge of her own immortality has become a curse. I'm not saying she's wrong exactly to feel this way but she's never been more aware of how alone she's become, and the full impact of his loss still hasn't hit.

[newo-fic.livejournal.com]

I guess I should clarify; I feel gutted for Scully. I totally agree with your observations of Scully and what she's going through. She can't convey what she is feeling to these mourners because they will never be able to understand what they had and what his death now means. For so many reasons.

But I, as a reader, who was absolutely stunned to see Mulder murdered, didn't feel betrayed by the events because idella didn't turn it into a saccharine moment. I feel like she stayed true to who Scully was and how she would handle such an event. For lack of a better word, she didn't make it mushy. She respected Scully and her relationship with Mulder to not let Scully go down the mushy path, but was still able to convey how gut-wrenching this would be for Scully, both in this moment and after, in her future without him.

I'm terrible at putting into words what I mean/feel, so hopefully this will make sense :)

[wendelah1]

The story isn't maudlin, it doesn't resort to manipulating the reader with phony sentiment, or distorting the characters to make them more conventional. If that's what you mean, then I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis. I get impatient with saccharine stories and I sense you do too.

Fish wanted us to read "Grace Realised" by Michaela and I haven't posted it because the character death in it feels too emotionally manipulative to me. (If you're reading this, sorry Fish) If you feel up to it, maybe you could give it a once over and see what you think.

[newo-fic.livejournal.com]

The story isn't maudlin, it doesn't resort to manipulating the reader with phony sentiment, or distorting the characters to make them more conventional. If that's what you mean, then I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis.

Yup, exactly what I mean. I love to analyze and break down stories and ask myself questions, but I'm absolutely terrible at giving written word to what's floating around in my head and heart.

It has been ages since I read that story (in fact, I'm pretty sure the series was still on the air when I read it), and I remember very little about it. I'll try to track it down and give it a look.

BTW, so sorry to just now see this. Holidays and family and house projects and what have you.

[mogster495.livejournal.com]

Why do you have to make me cry so early in the morning?

Scully coming to terms with her immortality stories are always so sad because you know she is going to lose him.

She could become a theoretical physicist; she's always liked chalkboards, and she could stand on a stool to reach the top. She could solve the mysteries of the universe, not the mysteries of Middle-of-Nowheresville, U.S.A. She'll tell him when she leaves, when it doesn't matter as much, she says to herself, but somehow she never gets around to leaving.
That line is so Scully, she would think to study another field of science with her new found gift.

[newo-fic.livejournal.com]

One of the biggest reasons that this story works so well for me is that it is one of the few fics that contains the incident (don't want to be too spoilery) near the end that actually works extraordinarily well. Many fics I read that deal with that issue tend to be pretty sappy and just don't feel in character... but idella makes it work and work well.

I really like how Scully deals with this new knowledge. She is far enough along in the series at this point to be able to accept that this is possible, it has happened to her, and yet she approaches it with some sort of scientific method, focusing on the positive benefits that come with this ability, only to be sucker-punched by the events at the end.

I just love the way idella wrote this; capturing the characters' voices, her pacing and flow, etc... Definitely one of my favorites.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

When I first read this fic I was blown away. But oddly, whatever it was that was so enthralling on the first read didn’t draw me in when I reread it earlier today. However, I still think it’s a very good fic. Scully’s immortality is an ambitious possibility to explore, and I like the way Idella doesn’t take Scully out of the normal progression of events in order to reveal her new nature. I like the way she discovers it gradually, in bits and pieces, while going about her normal life (such as it is).

I also like that the writing of the fic has a contemplative quality, as though the emotions of the piece have been muted, but are still coming through as a resonance under the surface of the narrative. Which contributes to the sense that Scully’s outward life has become disconnect from her inner life – which of course it has.

Mulder and Scully’s dialogue has a good rapport to it, and I find the scenes before and after she shoots herself to be particularly vivid and memorable. I think they’re what I’ve always most like and most remembered about the fic. In fact, my favorite lines of the fic are the last line of the first scene: “Her last thought is of Mulder, blinking at her steadily, waiting to hear what she has to say next,” and the first line of the follow-up scene: “Scully wakes up late the next afternoon in a pool of blood.”


However, there’s one big factor that prevents me from connecting with HaRRF. It was something that nagged at me when I read the fic the first time, but I didn’t realize what it was for a while: I simply don’t think Scully would react to her immortality the way she does in HaRRF.

It makes her feel like she's floating on air at first, this surfeit of life. It's all the excitement of selecting college courses without the heartbreak of being able to choose only so many. She's going to be able to do everything she's ever wanted to do, know everything she's ever wanted to know. She's relieved, though, when her high-strung excitement tapers off after a week, leaving her with a more low-key feeling of satisfaction.

This sounds like how I would react to discovering I was immortal. This sounds like how Mulder might react to immortality. But, IMO, this is not at all how Scully would feel about it. I genuinely believe she’d be horrified, that she’d think it was an aberration, and that her existence was against the laws of both science and God. So the ease, and even pleasure, with which she accepts her immortality, and the way she soon begins to change her life (or plan on changing her life) around her immortality makes her feel like someone else to me.

Obviously this is all entirely subjective - but then so is almost everything we discuss here.

HaRRF offers a distinctive and well-written depiction of Scully discovering her immortality, but it’s not something I can reconcile with my perception of her character.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Hi, it's the latelady. Is this necroposting? I like that word.

This and Fathoms Five are the only two EternalScully! stories I've read. No, I lie, I read "Age Cannot Wither" and didn't like it. But I don't think it's an accident that there are so few. It's really heavy stuff.

I tend to agree with wendelah and amyhit that Scully's reaction to immortality is so unconvincingly blissful. Scully is the designated Christian in canon, and I think it inevitable that religion drives a big bus into a scenario like this. The test-suicide (so eerily like the opening of FF) is almost jolly. But there's an interesting trajectory to her life as it follows. Scully revels in knowing that she won't have to waste time on paperwork or standing in lines forever; why is she wasting time on them now? If her options are open, why isn't she opening them? The answer is, I think, that she loves her partner and his investigative spirit too much to let go of her job, though that never seems to occur to her.

It is only after Mulder's shocking death that she admits--in a fleeting inner thought--that she loved him. He is gone. Never again. I believe that the truth of immortality reveals itself to her at the funeral. It means that you are alone. Community is impossible. All relationships will henceforth be contingent, superficial. How do you make a genuine friend and say, "incidentally, I'm going to live forever." How can you love someone who ages beyond your ability to share the experience? Penumbra's Scully, surrounded by a loving family, lives with this horror in her soul. Her only hope is that her son will find a way to allow her to die. That's dark, all the darker by being modulated in the context of pleasant, comfortable, sometimes humorous experience. But we don't know what Idella's Scully will do with her despair. She's just discovered it.

This is a wonderful, wonderful story. Idella is a terrific writer. And what makes her terrific here is that she knows better than to sugarcoat a tragedy.

[wendelah1]

I don't think amyhit and I did agree about the Scully characterization.

Scully's Christianity is not terribly Orthodox.

I agree, she doesn't leave Mulder because she doesn't want to leave him. However, as much as Idella's Scully loves Mulder, she is not in love with her partner. Idella is a noromo, just as I am.

Scully's options are open, true, but it's not like there's any need to rush, which explains her lassitude adequately to me. It's like being newly retired. Suddenly it seems as though there is all the time in the world, which is an illusion for the rest of us. And as it turns out, something of an illusion for her too.

It is a wonderful, wonderful story, one of my all time favorites.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Well, we agree that it's a wonderful story. And I was mistaken about your take on Scully. But I realize I see this differently from you. I perceive Scully--and remember that her religion is something she will never repudiate--as refusing to examine the implications of her situatiion. Instead she fantasizes about the perks, and I find that inauthentic. If she is anxious for experiences, she should be throwing herself into them. But she loiters in the Files with her partner. You and Idella may feel that she is not in love with him. I prefer to believe she is, but it hardly matters as her attachment has bound her to him. I think her final epiphany of isolation is very terrible and very moving. Love is love, and endless life without it is the very definition, a religious one in fact, of hell.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

1)Amy, we'll miss you as co-mod, but I'm glad you'll still be around. Don't go too far, darling. ♥

2) Double buggeration, I LOVE that fic but I have a horrendously busy week coming (job application) so will probably be necroposting.