Story 220: "Fragile" by Ophelia

[wendelah1]

It's too quiet around here, folks.

I just finished reading this next story, nominated by infinitlight. It's a carefully researched casefile, a very good one, if a little on the graphic side for me. (Damn. Why am I such a light-weight?) As it unfolds, it gets better and better, and has memorable climax and denouement. I'm classifying this as gen fic, Teen-for violence.

Title: Fragile
Author: Ophelia
E-Mail: OpheliaMac@aol.com
Rating: R--mature themes
Category: T, A
Spoilers: General Fourth Season, my own fanfic story, "Poison," and a story called "Favorite Child" by Lindsay, which gives an interesting interpretation on the choice the Consortium forced Bill Mulder to make.
Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST
Summary: Mulder and Scully are called in on a case described as an alien abduction, but Mulder suspects something both more commonplace and more sinister. Mulder angst, Scully angst, imaginary small town in Wisconsin angst.

You can try sending feedback to the author, although in my experience, fandom AOL addresses are mostly dead ends. Please let us know what you think. The nomination post is always open for your suggestions.

Read "Fragile"

Comments

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

This author's name stands out to me. I can't recall her other work offhand, but I remember she was really good.

He sat at his desk with his fingers laced together, peering over the rims of his glasses at Scully. In that pose, he looked rather like a disapproving high school teacher, she thought.

Purrrr...

Ahem. Onward.

"I am such a bleeding-heart loser," he said, and bowed his head as if in defeat.

Aw, Mulder, that's why we love you!

After gazing at it a moment, he dug out the case containing his reading glasses from his jacket pocket.

Adorable!

***

I overdosed on fic back in the day and I find it hard to read longer fics these days. It says a lot that this kept me reading all the way through! Random thoughts:

- I loved how it got inside the mind of a disturbed killer, the way the show did in early years.
- I loved Mulder explaining/acting out his theory of what happened to the girl. I'd forgotten how scarily brilliant Mulder could be with things like that.
- At first I wasn't sure I was buying the whole 'Mulder-might-have-violent-tendencies' thing. But as I continued to think about it, I guess if it was during the earlier seasons, we didn't know Mulder that well. And he was in the Violent Crimes Unit and did do the profiling thing, so I guess it's not as big a stretch as I first thought.

Scully had no doubt that he was sincere--he really felt for these people. He was going to bust them, no question, but he felt for them.

I love that about Mulder.

Without all that paraphernalia, and without the customary 2 1/2 inch heels, Scully was a little freckle-faced redhead with round cheeks and big blue eyes.

D'aaaww! That's our girl!

***

I wasn't much buying the 'I'm a loser' / weepy Fox thing, but the story as a whole was a good one. Creepy, funny at times, and full of the early season charm of these two people. I think it would've made a good episode.

Aw, the Scully Report at the end! Such memories. This made me miss our show all over again. And that's always a good thing.

[wendelah1]

Second attempt at commenting here. I think I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. I think she's a good writer, too. I definitely give her kudos for keeping me reading, as I'm far more likely to hit the back button as not these days. I agree, Mulder having violent tendencies is pushing the limit, but I think back when this was posted, writers had more leeway to create their own head canon than we do now after nine seasons and two movies. There's always Scully's reaction to Mulder in Grotesque as canon support. And Weepy Profiler!Mulder must have been a staple item, following in the wake of "Oklahoma."

"... but the story as a whole was a good one. Creepy, funny at times, and full of the early season charm of these two people. I think it would've made a good episode."

Well-said.

[mogster495.livejournal.com]

This story was good. The author really had a command of the subject matter and the characters. However, it was a little long winded.

Fan fiction is pretty cool because there is not a great need for exposition. The reader (usually) already has a lot of background knowledge, and lengthy character descriptions and observations are not necessary. I think this story could be trimmed a lot and still retain what's important.

That being said, 'Fragile’ is a very interesting and thorough story. I enjoyed it even if I skimmed some paragraphs.

[wendelah1]

You may be right about the need for editing. Honestly, I probably skim more fic than I read these days. Most of us don't have the editing skills of a professional at our beck and call. I thought the ending was too long, for sure. I didn't need all of the Mulder/Scully relationship stuff at the back end, but at the time, that was probably a fic writer's bread and butter. Today, a beta might suggest she cut that back, wa--ay back. But she created real suspense. I mean, this was a really creepy story. I did wonder at how and why an FBI agent would call in someone from Washington to investigate the disappearance of his kid, "unofficially." But there was a lot of hand-waving of a similar nature in canon. A lot, a lot, a lot.

[mogster495.livejournal.com]

You can definitely tell when a fic was written just by reading it. That sentence is hilarious if you think about it but it is true. The style, tone, and characters from early XF fiction are way different than modern stuff.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

Varnish errors >:|

I've always liked this fic. I'm interested in what makes a casefile story work. I think it's important to have a case/mystery/bad guy character that is compelling, but for me it's just as important to learn something about the characters we already know, to see how this individual case affects them, or to feel their voices throughout. I liked the story of the killer and the nod toward Mulder as profiler. (I want to say Ophelia was a Thomas Harris fan, but I can't remember how I know that--maybe I sent feedback back in the day. I think Fragile definitely has an early Thomas Harris vibe. She mentions John Douglas's memoirs in her author's notes, heh. His books do seem to be the fanfic writer's guide to serial killers. (They're also wildly popular with Criminal Minds fanfic writers, but admittedly that's a show about profiling and in which characters are loosely based on Douglas and his coworkers in the early days of profiling.))

I liked this line and thought it was a good summary of the story:

Scully smiled back, relieved. "I'm glad to see you haven't lost
your sense of humor," she said.

He sighed, a little shakily. "Scully, if I ever lost the ability
to point at the world's stupidity and laugh," he said, "I would
probably never stop crying."

I see what mogster495 means about being able to date a fic by reading it. There are certain character conventions and stylistic conventions that were popular in the earlier fanfics. The "everything relates to Samantha" theme, the Charlie name-check at the end. I think overall the story and the character interpretations mostly hold up, still. Maybe not the Mulder sobbing scene, although I think the emotion in that scene rings true.

I like Ophelia's ear for dialogue:

"Some of the clothes draped over Dani's
chair smelled like cigarette smoke, too. Her parents don't
necessarily know she has these habits," she added. "My sister
used to get around my parents' dress rules by swapping stuff with
girls at school. She used to get off the bus in a knee-length
skirt and white button-down blouse, then run for the bathroom and
change into jeans and some half-transparent top."

"Did you rat on her?" Mulder asked, curious.

"No," she said, as if surprised that he'd ask. "I admit to
having been a spy and a snoop as a kid, but I wasn't a rat."

"Ah, so the attraction was merely to information for its own
sake," Mulder said. "How scientific of you. My sister would
have ratted on me."

"If you'd worn see-through girls' blouses to school, you'd have
deserved to be ratted on," she said.

I think that sounds exactly like them.

[wendelah1]

Varnish errors, yep. I keep thinking I should just bow to the inevitable and move this to DW. But there aren't that many people there who follow TXF. So here we sit.

I'm interested in what makes a casefile story work. I think it's important to have a case/mystery/bad guy character that is compelling, but for me it's just as important to learn something about the characters we already know, to see how this individual case affects them, or to feel their voices throughout. I liked the story of the killer and the nod toward Mulder as profiler. (I want to say Ophelia was a Thomas Harris fan, but I can't remember how I know that--maybe I sent feedback back in the day. I think Fragile definitely has an early Thomas Harris vibe. She mentions John Douglas's memoirs in her author's notes, heh. His books do seem to be the fanfic writer's guide to serial killers. (They're also wildly popular with Criminal Minds fanfic writers, but admittedly that's a show about profiling and in which characters are loosely based on Douglas and his coworkers in the early days of profiling.))

I think the most compelling sections of this are those told from the POV of the man who defiled the dead body. He was seriously twisted. I can see the influence of John Douglas and Tom Harris, for sure. For a casefile to work, you have to create suspense and if possible, a sense of foreboding. It's like you want to find out what happens so you keep reading but you dread it, too. If you can make the readers believe someone awful might happen to Mulder and/orScully, so much the better.

Absolutely, Ophelia's dialog was excellent, overall.

Thank you for reccing this.

[szgrey.livejournal.com]

I think the most compelling sections of this are those told from the POV of the man who defiled the dead body.

Me too. I'm trying to think why that is, and the best I can come up with is that those sections seem to gel more, maybe because they're not trying to do as much- so we get this pure, deeply creepy focalization through this twisted mind, while the other sections are trying to handle all the layers of Mulder's and Scully's characterization, relationship, dialogue, and the unfolding of the investigation. (Plus things (like the frequent references to particular episodes) that date it & sometimes feel clunky.) There's this wonderfully-crafted plot, with a well-drawn setting, good details, good dialogue, and for the most part it moves along really well, but sometimes it gets weighed down by things that might better be trimmed, like redundant-feeling explanations of what's going on in Mulder's or Scully's head. The Thomas sections aren't carrying that weight.

[wendelah1]

There's this wonderfully-crafted plot, with a well-drawn setting, good details, good dialogue, and for the most part it moves along really well, but sometimes it gets weighed down by things that might better be trimmed, like redundant-feeling explanations of what's going on in Mulder's or Scully's head. The Thomas sections aren't carrying that weight.

That explains a lot, actually.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Hi, late again. I liked this story. It had many strengths. It was well-plotted, the secondary characters were convincing (medical examiner without a sense of smell, heh), and considering I'm totally over serial killers it held my attention. And Ophelia's concepts of Mulder's and Scully's characters were mainly consistent with mine. He flirts; he won't allow himself to mean it; she plays counselor and comforter. Although I quite disliked the tearful quaking in his partner's arms in his skivvies that decorated the denouement. The influence of Oklahoma repels me.

Although there is wit in the author's commentaries I feel that the banter seems a bit, what?, maybe *raw.* It's probably a result of taking the ship so for granted after twenty years or whatever, but when Mulder gets funny here I just can't hear sly DD saying it. "I've gotten lucky already...."Not that way." "Alt.sex.FBI.redheads." Keeping his knowledge of French secret from "the French people'? It all sounds pretty high-school awkward. However, when M tells S that he owes her, her "I'll put it on your tab" rings true. Scully deserved better lines than she got.

Sorry to sound so critical. I really thought it was a respectable effort, and I'd never run across it before.

[wendelah1]

I was not fond of the weeping Mulder bits, either. The influence of "Oklahoma" was legion at this juncture in fandom. Thank heavens, by now we've moved past it, but that story was even mentioned in EW back in the day.

Some of the banter was a little immature sounding. Gosh, if banter isn't the hardest thing to write for them. They are so smart and so witty on the show. Not all of us measure up to Kel.

This was indeed a well-plotted casefile, up to Syntax6 standards in my book, minus the MSR that's practically mandatory now.

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

what is the influence of Oklahoma??

[wendelah1]

The influence was to fandom's idea of Mulder as victim. He's irrevocably damaged, his father beat him, he was psychotic when he was a child, when he profiles he goes nuts. When he profiles he vomits. When he profiles he doesn't eat or sleep, etc. I read part of it and gave up. It's way, way, way too long, there is far too much vomiting, and because its setting is pre-x-files, there is no Scully.

Here you go: http://fanlore.org/wiki/Oklahoma

On the series most of the time when Mulder is working, he's intense, he's focused, he's obsessed but he's completely functional.There is nothing in canon--except "Grotesque," which is only one episode, to support their fanon yet it was taken as gospel for a long, long time. It was a very popular story that influenced characterization in fic.

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

Huh. I remember him being pretty obsessed in Grotesque and not sleeping normally, but also remaining focused and rational. It doesn't seem out of line at all that his father would have beat him as a kid, that seems rather fitting with his cold, distant, dysfunctional interactions with his son, but I don't buy the "goes nuts and vomits a lot" part. Meh. I think I'll pass on Oklahoma. Thanks for explaining, I was feeling awfully confused!