One final thing I want to talk about, regarding YPR, is Vaughan's choice to refer to Mulder as Scully's "best friend." I keep turning that over in my head, trying to decide how I feel about it. I want to like it. I definitely like fics that emphasize how much Mulder and Scully mean to each other even beyond their romantic feelings. In hindsight, that may have been one of the best things about the much beloved Parabiosis, the way it so clearly depicts Mulder and Scully's relationship as multifaceted, with such a strong chord of both professional and intimate friendship--and then love as something that essentially suffuses their friendship without subsuming it. So yeah, I'm a big fan of Mulder and Scully as "best friends." But I don't think I like the way YPR uses that idea. For one thing, it feels a bit forced - a "tell not show" kind of attitude. For another, it reinforces that Mary Sue vibe I get from Scully. Because crushing on, lusting after, falling in love with your best friend -- well that's just so normal, so relatable, really. I myself have never fallen for my best friend, but I know six or eight people who have. Which is why it's one of the most Mary Sue/Marty Stu plotlines there is!
Whereas Mulder and Scully seize on the idea of "partners," and from quite early on they begin using it as their way of explaining - to themselves, to each other, and to the rest of the world - what their relationship is. It's a catch-all term, a way of never having to unpack the idea of what they are to each other. So hearing Scully in YPR repeatedly define them in another way - as "best friends" - kind of throws me off. Because maybe they are best friends, but that was never, in my mind, how they chose to define themselves.
Part 2/2
One final thing I want to talk about, regarding YPR, is Vaughan's choice to refer to Mulder as Scully's "best friend." I keep turning that over in my head, trying to decide how I feel about it. I want to like it. I definitely like fics that emphasize how much Mulder and Scully mean to each other even beyond their romantic feelings. In hindsight, that may have been one of the best things about the much beloved Parabiosis, the way it so clearly depicts Mulder and Scully's relationship as multifaceted, with such a strong chord of both professional and intimate friendship--and then love as something that essentially suffuses their friendship without subsuming it. So yeah, I'm a big fan of Mulder and Scully as "best friends." But I don't think I like the way YPR uses that idea. For one thing, it feels a bit forced - a "tell not show" kind of attitude. For another, it reinforces that Mary Sue vibe I get from Scully. Because crushing on, lusting after, falling in love with your best friend -- well that's just so normal, so relatable, really. I myself have never fallen for my best friend, but I know six or eight people who have. Which is why it's one of the most Mary Sue/Marty Stu plotlines there is!
Whereas Mulder and Scully seize on the idea of "partners," and from quite early on they begin using it as their way of explaining - to themselves, to each other, and to the rest of the world - what their relationship is. It's a catch-all term, a way of never having to unpack the idea of what they are to each other. So hearing Scully in YPR repeatedly define them in another way - as "best friends" - kind of throws me off. Because maybe they are best friends, but that was never, in my mind, how they chose to define themselves.