xf_book_club | Story 236: "A World to Save" by Geb

Entry tags:

post-col,
william

Story 236: "A World to Save" by Geb

To those who celebrated, I hope you had a happy Christmas.

If you were hoping for Christmas recs, sorry, I'm fresh out. Try our holiday tag. You can check out this Tumblr rec post, too. For the "access denied" Gossamer links, just highlight and hit enter.

Since the beginning of the month, I've been driving the

crack_van, doing one last set of recs for The X-Files before the community closes for good the middle of January.

"A World to Save" is one of the stories I posted to

crack_van. Since I reformatted this and put it up at Fugues, I thought it might be a good choice for discussion. It's Scully-centric, dark but not unrelievedly so, in the way so many post-colonization stories are. I think it's one of the best colonization stories out there, right up there in quality with "Life During Wartime," although vastly different in scope and content.

Read A World to Save. Let us know what you think, where possible, leave feedback for the author, and put your suggestions in the nomination post.

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Hm, a lot of the links in the Tumblr rec post don't seem to be working for me. ("Access denied")

Those are Gossamer links. You just have to highlight it and hit enter. I'm sorry. I thought that was common knowledge in the fandom. I'll edit it into the post.

Hm, I'd not heard of that. I guess it's been way too long since I've been to Gossamer! Thanks.

ok, I will say ... something. There are sure to be spoilers for the story below.

I thought it was certainly well-written. In a relatively short space, the author painted a vivid picture of Scully and her post-col world by gradually revealing bits of information and few but telling details. There were a few lines that really hit me in the gut with what Scully's reality is like in this universe (although you really need the context around them too):

"I don't use my blood for Joyce. That's where I draw the line. She's not my daughter. I can't bleed for all of them."

"I'm having trouble today. Some days I have a bad time." (sounds very Scully)

"'This isn't heaven, is it?' 'No, no it isn't.'"

Along the way, the author (through Scully) layers in pieces of the past - what happened to get where things are. But it's unclear how much of that the reader can trust. The thing I got hung up on (but not in the negative sense) was the idea that Scully's memories, especially regarding Mulder and their relationship, were not reliable. About 2/3rds into the story, when Scully is greeting the new arrival, she says "They destroy our memories on purpose...memories will come back slowly, eventually, piecemeal and incomplete. Dreamlike. She may think that memories are just imagination and that dreams are real, but eventually she will learn to live with it." So, at that point, we realize that everything Scully has described as remembering is under suspicion. She even admits at this point that she remembers a few basic things and "The rest is pure conjecture."

Even before we are told outright that her memory has been tampered with, we get hints that something is amiss. At the beginning, after her dream, Scully says "Enough, Dana. Enough of that. That's not the way it was." And then, later on, she reveals that she is missing three years (i.e., she can't remember them), between when Gabe was two and when he was five and they were brought to their current location in West Virginia.

Her memories of how Mulder reacted to Gabe when he was born and the changes that came along with that were painful to read, even if we're not sure how accurate they are. "He watched with his usual look of bewildered fascination and terror, as if that happily grunting bit of flesh attached to my breast was a giant tick rather than his son." "He never once told me he loved me." And the way Scully describes Mulder's disappearance, deliberately distancing herself from it, rings true as a way she would cope with his loss and the not knowing whether he left or was taken/killed. And it's how she is coping with not being able to trust her own memories of him, good or bad, even though she obviously misses him.

And to confuse things even more, Scully relates her escape from DC and then immediately retracts it as a lie. A made up memory is better than not having one at all, perhaps. And if she isn't sure of the memories she does have, maybe to her it isn't really that much of a leap to just making one up for something she can't remember at all.

So, again, it's well-written, and I think what the author has done with having us question every memory Scully relates is interesting. I don't love the story, though, because, basically, it bummed me out. It's terrible that Scully knows she cannot trust her memories, especially her memories of Mulder. And, I'm grumpy when things are bad beyond repair between M&S (even if it's in un-trustworthy memories). The story is definitely dark, and I'm not sure where I see any relief from that. I'm not getting it from the obvious place (I at least won't spoil that at this point in the discussion), but maybe I'm not looking from the correct angle. (This is what I meant when I said I got hung up on the memory thing.)

These are thoughtful comments, and appreciate your sharing them. I am stretched too thin right now to adequately address them. By Tuesday, I hope things will be under control so I can come back and continue this.

No stress, I'm not going anywhere :)

Out-of-control is still out of control. Maybe by tomorrow...

I'm back and I'm sorry I left you hanging. I'll comment and then post something else.

Stories about amnesia, stories where a character's memories are lost inevitably draw me in, especially if they result in calling into question the MSR status quo. I loved "Fugue", and "The 13th Sign." I loved dtg's "Dreamcatcher." Even "Sense Memory" has a little of that element. It's emotional catnip for me.

So, again, it's well-written, and I think what the author has done with having us question every memory Scully relates is interesting. I don't love the story, though, because, basically, it bummed me out. It's terrible that Scully knows she cannot trust her memories, especially her memories of Mulder. And, I'm grumpy when things are bad beyond repair between M&S (even if it's in un-trustworthy memories). The story is definitely dark, and I'm not sure where I see any relief from that. I'm not getting it from the obvious place (I at least won't spoil that at this point in the discussion), but maybe I'm not looking from the correct angle. (This is what I meant when I said I got hung up on the memory thing.)

This is how I can tell I'm not a shipper in the conventional sense of the word. I get bummed and impatient about bad writing, especially when the fic been recced everywhere.

But enough about me.

Whether she is having true memories of Mulder's reaction to her pregnancy and the birth of their son or if she's filling in the gaps in her memory with inventions from her subconscious, her feelings about things between them couldn't have been good. If they'd been good, presumably her subconscious would be supplying her with more pleasant half-truths. Better lies. I think she felt emotionally abandoned by him even before he disappeared from her life.

Or maybe she's emotionally distanced herself from a loss so painful it can't be faced head-on by telling herself another kind of lie. "You didn't really lose him because you never had him in the first place."

There's a lot of ambivalence here, even about her son's resemblance to Mulder.

My son thinks he lives a whole secret life outside of me. He thinks I don’t know about what he and Joyce do in the pine grove by the amphitheater, about the picture of his father he keeps in a drawer, about his various sorties outside the perimeter fence. His rashness and his secrecy are hauntingly familiar to me. I wonder if somehow I raised him this way, so that I wouldn’t forget what it was like.

I guess for me the light in the darkness comes from Scully's strength of purpose in the face of so much loss and suffering.

But now, They come up against my nature. For fourteen years it has been in the interest of my nature to stay here and make sure that my son grew to adulthood. He is an adult now, much as I hate to admit it. The proof is growing in Joyce’s womb. And now there is another child that I must protect, a world I must save. And so, I put on my coat and walk out into the rain.

She's going to try to save her grandchild, with the help of a plumber. I have no doubt but that she will succeed, or die trying. Reading about this sort of resilience, seeing Scully's willingness to persevere against the odds doesn't make me feel depressed at all.

Mulder told me that the Torah says if you kill one person, you kill a whole world because you have also killed that person’s children and his children’s children and so on. And, if you save one person, you save a whole world.

I have only been trying to keep my child alive. I have only been trying to save a world.

This quote speaks to me, too.

I do see Scully's strength of purpose and her willingness to persevere against the odds and that is very much Scully, but I guess for me it seems more like grim determination and less like something I can find hope in. (Maybe I see a global sense of hope for the world there, but not as much a sense of hope for Scully personally.) But maybe my impression of this part of the story is unfairly influenced by my being saddened by Scully's feelings / pseudo-memories about Mulder.

As an aside, I am really new relatively-speaking (to reading fanfic and to this community), so I don't know exactly how shippers are conventionally defined. I certainly don't think a romantic relationship should have been overtly introduced into the show (any more than it was, and whether TPTB even did that well is another story), but the fic stories I like best are those that have an M&S that get along (as partners, friends, and/or something more) as they solve a case and/or those that explore how M&S get to a place where they get along without ignoring the character flaws and quirks that make getting along difficult for them (all the better if a case is going on at the same time). And sure, I like the stories where the getting along is wrapped up in a (non-sappy & at least somewhat realistic) romantic relationship. I feel like there were enough terrible things that happened to both M&S and I don't like it when their relationship is yet another thing that causes them pain. Of course there are terribly-written msr stories that I skip over. And there are a lot of well-written stories that don't fit this criteria that I have appreciated, been drawn into, and loved. But, the stories that I like to go back to and reread and call my favorites tend to cast the M&S relationship (at whatever level) in at least somewhat of a positive light. If this makes me a conventional shipper, I am ok with being lumped in with the masses :)

As an aside, I am really new relatively-speaking (to reading fanfic and to this community), so I don't know exactly how shippers are conventionally defined. I certainly don't think a romantic relationship should have been overtly introduced into the show (any more than it was, and whether TPTB even did that well is another story), but the fic stories I like best are those that have an M&S that get along (as partners, friends, and/or something more) as they solve a case and/or those that explore how M&S get to a place where they get along without ignoring the character flaws and quirks that make getting along difficult for them (all the better if a case is going on at the same time).

I often like those stories, too. I wish there were more of them that I liked. I love Kel's writing for this reason. Her characters, her plots, the writing. It's all good AND her fic mostly fits with canon, too, which is always a plus. If you haven't, you should check out her fic at Gossamer.

And sure, I like the stories where the getting along is wrapped up in a (non-sappy & at least somewhat realistic) romantic relationship.

That's why I'm certain I'm not a shipper. I don't mind if there's a romantic ending, depending on who's doing the writing, but I don't need one. I am interested in reading stories about their relationship but it doesn't have to end up with them falling in love. Or getting married. Or even liking each other. I just want to read interesting, well-written stories about them.

Probably my favorite in this genre is Syntax6. She can convince me that they could be a viable couple, and tell a good story, too. But there are others whose writing is such that I can be convinced, at least for the duration of the fic.

I feel like there were enough terrible things that happened to both M&S and I don't like it when their relationship is yet another thing that causes them pain.

This is completely understandable. It is a widely felt emotion in fandom. Trust me, I am the outlier here, not you. I had a discussion about this with a friend at Dreamwidth. Along with a handful of other people, I am a "fannish statistical anomaly." For the longest time, I honestly thought I was the only one who felt this way, but as it turns out, I'm not. They all have icons that say "fannish statistical anomaly." (I need one of those). But it does impact how I read fic, how I write it, and certainly yes, what ends up being discussed here. This is why I miss

amyhit so much. She was a Mulder/Scully shipper so she could bring that sensibility into the discussion.

Of course there are terribly-written msr stories that I skip over. And there are a lot of well-written stories that don't fit this criteria that I have appreciated, been drawn into, and loved. But, the stories that I like to go back to and reread and call my favorites tend to cast the M&S relationship (at whatever level) in at least somewhat of a positive light. If this makes me a conventional shipper, I am ok with being lumped in with the masses :)

This means among other things that there is a lot more fic you can enjoy. And it is a canon ship now, so it has that going for it. I had a version of this discussion with a Mulder/Krycek shipper a few months back. She and I feel exactly the opposite about that pairing. She only likes stories that end up with them together in a romantic relationship. To me, M/K is a ship that is doomed from the get-go. The only stories I like about them are stories that end exactly how they end up in the series. My favorite story is one she absolutely hated even though it was perfectly consistent with canon and had scorching hot sex scenes. I could post more happy-ever-after M/K fic for her but I'd only end up either saying it wasn't believable to me, or having to sit out the discussion altogether. It's a problem.

Edited for typo-sorry.

Edited 2014-01-20 17:18 (UTC)

I have read all (I think) of Kel and Syntax6's stories, and I agree, they are both absolutely fantastic writers and I have re-read many of their stories. I would be hard-pressed to name a favorite from either of them. I also have an addiction to re-reading Paracelsus (prufrock's love), Water's Edge (elizabeth rowandale), and Small Lives Awake (jet). So I guess I am just a hopeless romantic after all ;)

Done with random fic facts about me. Moving on to the next story...

I love "Small Lives Awake." It's comfort food fic for me. Though I love her writing, I've never been a fan of prufrock's love's historicals. The problem I think is with the historicals the characters don't seem anything like they do on the show, especially her Scully. I'm surprised you like her fic. She torments her characters and most of her stories end badly for them. She's my kind of writer.

Onward...

Well, paracelsus doesn't end so badly for them (after they go through a bunch of torment). I am honestly scared to read some of her other stuff though. I don't know if I can take the heartache if there isn't any silver lining.

"The 13th Sign" is great, plus it has a sequel, but you can only read "7 Days in May" at Gossamer. I'd stay away from her post-col fic "Negative Utopia." That 's a dark story. No silverlining in that one. "Inventing the Mulders" is good. There's an early season casefile that's good. It's NC-17 for very adult content, though it's not MSR. "Flesh and Blood." It's not anti-msr, it's partnershipfic. I really liked "Pascal's Wager," too.

Well, those are my favorites.

http://web.archive.org/web/20091026191244/http://www.geocities.com/prufrocks_love/index.html

Flesh and Blood - yes! I did read that one and really liked it. Also read The 13th Sign; 7 Days in May just killed me, ripped my heart out, haunted me for weeks. It was excellent, but I haven't been able to bring myself to re-read it even though I feel like I should. I will take your navigational advice for the others - thanks :)

Same here, I was busy writing for xf_santa but now that it's done, I'm going to read this one. I adore post-col stories.

I'm back, finally. Are you done?

Sorry! New job ate my fic reading time! I only managed to read half of it. What I read was really good. Great universe setting. Though I quite didn't buy the alien would go for the rich people rather than the useful ones. I mean surely wealth means nothing to them?

I hope I can find the time to read the rest.

I took it more to mean that the hybrid aliens didn't understand who would be useful to keep a post-apocalyptic society going. They were so focused on securing their own future by getting access to the miracle baby dna they didn't necessarily think it all through?

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Story 236: "A World to Save" by Geb

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