The Darkness Within

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

I CAN POST ENTRIES ON THE BOOK CLUB! MWWWWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

*coughs*

Anywayyyy...

Wendy said I was welcome to post that here, so here we go.

~~~~~~~~~~

(First posted on Haven)

Moose and Squirrel - before being declawed and tamed by scores of fic writers intent on giving them the white picket fence happiness they were never designed for in the first place - were pretty dark and tortured characters to begin with. A given, considering how much crap they went through in the show.

Back in the days many fic writers explored that dark path and gave us many incredible stories, the quintessential one being, of course, the infamous Iolokus. Stories where the characters' traumas weren't swept under the carpet of True Love (TM) Hot Sex, Domestic Life and Fat Babies. Stories where bad things happened to good people.

They were stories such as:

Arizona Highway by Fialka
Secret World by Bonetree
Grace Realized by Michaela
Injuries to The Spirit by Mystphile
The Mill by Cofax

...to name just a few off the top of my head.

In these stories Mulder and Scully were flawed and damaged. Years of turmoil and horrors weren't cured with a kiss and a soft bed. They had issues with one another, they argued and fought. They could be unfair, cruel, monstrous even - their claustrophobic co-dependency toxic, yet unavoidable. They suffered, battled illnesses both mental and physical, and sometimes they even died. Some stories made a point of reminding us how dangerous their job really was - that the human monsters could be worse than the alien ones. But their spirit shone nevertheless through it all, pure and bright, that elusive spark of magnificence that made them - well, you know, THEM.

As a reader I always found those tales much more emotionally rewarding than those of the bunnies and rainbow - Mulder and Scully in love forever in their pretty house with their pretty children - aw, look he has his mother's eyes and his father's nose - variety.

No pain no gain, uh?

I guess my question is: have you read such stories? Do you enjoy them? Can you rec the ones that stayed with you?

~Fish~

Comments

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

I guess we have ourselves a Book Club challenge: find a baby fic that feels right (The Mooselet does not count).

I guess I must be one of the rare person who did not care for Machine of Freedom. Amal is an excellent writer, but as I explained in the feedback I once sent her, I had major issues with the characterizations, the original character and the ending.

I guess there must be a force that pushes writers to give Mulder and Scully the happy ending they never got. A path of least resistance or something.

Fathoms Five is gorgeous, I like it so much better than Parabiosis, which I think I didn't even read until the end (yeah, yeah, burn me at the stake, here's the matches...)

I should make an icon that says: "My fandom has Iolokus", because we're so damn lucky to have something that manages to be both so beautifully heartbreaking and insanely unhinged.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Amal wrote a darling X/Fringe crossover with a tiny Sadie. Oh, you want a title? Too bad. Ask W.

Mommy has to get Daddy out of jail. No drama.

[wendelah1]

The Old X Designation. It is such a cute story. I love it, I betaed it. Fringe/The X-Files crossovers! We need more of them! More, I say!

But I don't think it fits what she's looking for, plus it's in the Caseyverse and Fish doesn't even like "Machines of Freedom."

[wendelah1]

I guess we have ourselves a Book Club challenge: find a baby fic that feels right (The Mooselet does not count).

That sounds like an impossibility.

Fathoms Five is gorgeous, I like it so much better than Parabiosis, which I think I didn't even read until the end (yeah, yeah, burn me at the stake, here's the matches...)

No, I think you're right. "Parabiosis" has some nice lines, and I do love the ending, but overall, it's not a particularly great piece of writing, whatever the rest of the fandom might think. "Fathoms Five" is by far her strongest work. I'm sure she'd agree with me about the latter.

"I guess there must be a force that pushes writers to give Mulder and Scully the happy ending they never got. A path of least resistance or something."

Or greatest resistance? Because haven't they suffered enough at the hands of the Surfer God? Pushing back against the effed up status quo must feel empowering to the reader and writer, regardless of the quality of the writing itself.

I should make an icon that says: "My fandom has Iolokus", because we're so damn lucky to have something that manages to be both so beautifully heartbreaking and insanely unhinged.

YES. DO IT. Maybe we should discuss "Iolokus" again at some point? Polarizing fanfic is what generates discussion.

[rainatlas.livejournal.com]

Well. I just re-read "Fathoms Five" and I'm wondering if it doesn't actually fulfill most if not all of my baby fic fantasies. Of course, there's no baby per say, and there's the whole issue with Scully - which is the point of the story in the first place - BUT, Penumbra does such an superb job painting a picture of the family life Mulder and Scully have had together with William. It's comforting to imagine them in the seemingly distant future, having lived their lives in a way that is perfectly suited to them post-X-Files, all intellectually quirky and middle-aged and with a dog, surrounded by love, in a world sans threats of monsters and colonization and people on the hunt for them lurking around every corner. Scully's immortality is a threat, certainly, a supremely emotional one, but it's also quiet, and not without hope.

I'm not suggesting this is a happy endings/picket fences story by any means, but I somehow, oddly, still find it COMFORTING.

I also have to stress that I didn't feel this way the first time I read it. It was thought-provoking and emotional. I had to turn it over in my mind a few times. I don't know if I'm justified in feeling so satisfied given Scully’s despair. Perhaps lately I've just been reading a combo of too much angst and disappointing baby fics.

[wendelah1]

I didn't find the story comforting at all. But we X-Philes have to take our comforts where we can.

The graphic violence at the beginning was too disturbing for me to contemplate a reread so I will make no further comment except to say that Penumbra herself might have found it comforting. Something in her original author's notes and the absence of a warning is what makes me think that.

I went into a fugue state the first time I read it and I am not joking. That's how disturbing I found it.

[rainatlas.livejournal.com]

I went into a fugue state the first time I read it and I am not joking. That's how disturbing I found it.

That's fair. I may have felt similarly the first time I read, too. I definitely felt that way about cucumberspy's "Telephones."

I can't force you into a re-read but I definitely recommend it if you can manage. I saw the story very differently in subsequent reads when I was already over the shock of the beginning. (I might have even skimmed through the morgue scene.) I would be interested to know if others felt the same. I wish I'd been around for the book club discussion. It's such a beautiful and poignant story.

[wendelah1]

I can't force you into a re-read but I definitely recommend it if you can manage. I saw the story very differently in subsequent reads when I was already over the shock of the beginning. (I might have even skimmed through the morgue scene.) I would be interested to know if others felt the same. I wish I'd been around for the book club discussion. It's such a beautiful and poignant story.

It is a beautiful and poignant story. I did force myself to reread it for the discussion. I gave it the glowing praise it deserves, but I can't imagine rereading it ever again. I feel the same way about many of the stories on my angst list.

You can still comment on the old posts. Not everyone who participated in the discussion is still around but some of us are, and we will most likely comment back.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

I think it's a very scary story. And the warm domesticity of it adds heartbreak to fear. I've always been convinced that immortality is no blessing.