This was really well done – very steady. Very strong in the details, nice subtle world-building that tells you just enough to give you a basis for asking questions. Surprisingly low key for apocafic, and I mean than as a positive.
It’s interesting how much the general tone and feeling of XF apocafics vary, considering that they’re all sharing the same “things are not good” end of the spectrum. What felt different, and what I like, about this one is that it’s neither dramatic (i.e. fighting the aliens with bamfy tactics!) nor truly depressing (i.e. everyone on the planet is dead or dying). I like that whatever else has changed, Mulder and Scully remain troopers – exhausted but unbroken by the things they’ve seen, as ever, working away diligently together. I like that soundingsea has created a new world that’s clearly just a shorn off, patched up, nomadic version of the old one. This isn’t an apocalypse where the world ended; it’s one where the world changed. And not even such a radical change, as far as apocalyptic cataclysms go. I find that believable, and interesting, and even in a strange way a little bit comforting – this idea that, up to a point at least, humanity can weather an apocalypse, navigate an apocalypse, and still charge money for gas and sunflower seeds.
There was some hint that something big and bad and dramatic may yet go down (“time is wearing short and there's too much left to do.”), but the thing I wondered about more was how strong the force that’s brought on this change is – whether it can be brought to a halt, or whether the change will continue until the new world’s resemblance to the old world fades out.
The only thing I didn’t buy is that Mulder and Scully are only now having sex for the first time. Part of that is the way they’re characterized through the rest of the fic. To me they seem like people who are already sometimes having sex. But additionally, a sex interlude (even an intimate, understated sex interlude) just seemed out of place in this fic. IMO, this felt like the kind of fic where they speak their thoughts in the dark for a bit until they both fall asleep without any intention or awareness of drifting off, because they’re just that tired, and it doesn’t matter because the other will be there to discuss things properly again the next day.
Which is possibly rather too specific of an example to be foisting on someone else's fic, but that’s just the kind of fic this feels like to me. The Poignant Sex Interlude would be perfectly good writing, but IMO it seemed to belong to a different fic.
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2013-11-22 07:52 am (UTC)This was really well done – very steady. Very strong in the details, nice subtle world-building that tells you just enough to give you a basis for asking questions. Surprisingly low key for apocafic, and I mean than as a positive.
It’s interesting how much the general tone and feeling of XF apocafics vary, considering that they’re all sharing the same “things are not good” end of the spectrum. What felt different, and what I like, about this one is that it’s neither dramatic (i.e. fighting the aliens with bamfy tactics!) nor truly depressing (i.e. everyone on the planet is dead or dying). I like that whatever else has changed, Mulder and Scully remain troopers – exhausted but unbroken by the things they’ve seen, as ever, working away diligently together. I like that soundingsea has created a new world that’s clearly just a shorn off, patched up, nomadic version of the old one. This isn’t an apocalypse where the world ended; it’s one where the world changed. And not even such a radical change, as far as apocalyptic cataclysms go. I find that believable, and interesting, and even in a strange way a little bit comforting – this idea that, up to a point at least, humanity can weather an apocalypse, navigate an apocalypse, and still charge money for gas and sunflower seeds.
There was some hint that something big and bad and dramatic may yet go down (“time is wearing short and there's too much left to do.”), but the thing I wondered about more was how strong the force that’s brought on this change is – whether it can be brought to a halt, or whether the change will continue until the new world’s resemblance to the old world fades out.
The only thing I didn’t buy is that Mulder and Scully are only now having sex for the first time. Part of that is the way they’re characterized through the rest of the fic. To me they seem like people who are already sometimes having sex. But additionally, a sex interlude (even an intimate, understated sex interlude) just seemed out of place in this fic. IMO, this felt like the kind of fic where they speak their thoughts in the dark for a bit until they both fall asleep without any intention or awareness of drifting off, because they’re just that tired, and it doesn’t matter because the other will be there to discuss things properly again the next day.
Which is possibly rather too specific of an example to be foisting on someone else's fic, but that’s just the kind of fic this feels like to me. The Poignant Sex Interlude would be perfectly good writing, but IMO it seemed to belong to a different fic.