Story 255: "atlas" by sohmer

[wendelah1]

Commenting is fixed, thanks to LJ support.

Since my last post, Fox made the announcement that The X-Files is coming back for six episodes, date as yet to be determined. I hope Chris Carter has some idea of how to bridge the distance between IWTB and whenever he decides to set these six episodes. From past experience, my guess is he won't. It will be up to our fanfic writers to fill in the gap.

As it happens, our next story is gap-fic for the period between "The Truth" and the second movie, by a fine, new-to-the-fandom writer. It's episodic, character-driven, and written in third person omniscient, which almost never works for me in fic. It works here--the transitions feel seamless and naturalistic. Sohmer understands these characters, and writes them with unusual empathy and intelligence. I loved this fic and I hope you do, too.

Rating: Teen
Warnings: Author chose not to use archive warnings.
Characters: Dana Scully/Fox Mulder
Word Count: 3697
Summary: "This is how they live: shadow people on an edge of reality, here but not, shapes phasing into the periphery, deeper into some ghosted liminality."

Read atlas.

Comments

[melissaisdown.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the rec. I just read this. I like the length of it - about 9 pages. The transition from scene to scene felt natural and communicated the restless transience that's at the center of the story. M & S both seemed in character -- I could definitely see Scully smoking a cigarette on the upper peninsula, and I could also see her cutting her hair. I think it's interesting that Mulder is the one who wants to go find William and I can't decide if it's written for us to believe that Mulder needs direction, something to pursue -- or if it's just paternal longing/desperation. But Scully saying No is completely believable, and reminiscient of Emily, in my opinion--Scully considering the child's suffering, thinking that he/she is better off uninvolved in M & S's lives.

I also like the thing they do with their hands under the sheets. I think it will be the thing I remember the longest from this story, it's something I could see them doing. Hopefully, maybe, they will in the reboot.

[wendelah1]

They both seemed completely in character to me--and doing that while keeping them in transition from the end of the series to IWTB is hard stuff. Plenty of writers (including myself, it could be argued) fell short of this goal. I can only think of a handful that succeeded, even partially.

I liked this approach to the problem of William far better than most. I absolutely believe that Scully would put a stop to it if Mulder suggested they try to get him back. It's a moot point whether or not William would have been safer if she'd kept him or gone on the run with Mulder. It's what Chris Carter wanted. It's what got filmed.

They're no longer his parents. He's someone else's child. Seeing him again at this point, having to give him up again would be ruinous for everyone concerned. Taking William away from the only family he's known would be cruel. But plenty of fanfic writers have done it without blinking and I wouldn't put it past Chris Carter.

I think it's interesting that Mulder is the one who wants to go find William and I can't decide if it's written for us to believe that Mulder needs direction, something to pursue -- or if it's just paternal longing/desperation.

Couldn't it be both? People's motivations in real life are seldom one-dimensional.

But you're asking what the author intended us to think. For that, we have to return to the text.

“He’s our son,” he states factually, but confusion soon gives way to heady desperation, and she feels him lost in this strange labyrinth he had left her to navigate. “Our son, Scully.”

He's asserting his ownership of the child, first of all. The patriarchy rears its ugly head. Then he remembers whom he's talking to, and adds her back into the equation. Really, I think he's trying to negotiate with her on her terms, her turf--the realm of facts, not feelings--but this is Mulder so the feelings are still there, with William only the latest in a long chain of losses going all the way back to Samantha. Mulder hasn't been a whole person since he lost his sister. His life has been a quest, not just in search of her and for the truth, but to fill the deep well of emptiness inside him. Scully made him a whole person, or so he believed at the time. I'm not sure it works that way. For a psychologist, Mulder can be remarkably obtuse about human nature.

But then he was taken away by the spaceship in Oregon. He was experimented on and tortured unmercilessly. The story makes it clear that he's having flashbacks--a symptom of post-traumatic stress. Even with Scully there at his side, he's a black hole of longing and regret and fear and uncertainty. Going after William, like searching for the truth about Samantha, is the most convenient way of displacing that unresolved pain, and the most familiar coping mechanism in his repertoire.

Scully knows what's going on here, better than Mulder. After all, she's an abductee as well. Samantha was Mulder's sister. His search for the truth was always firmly rooted in the emotional underpinnings of that loss. (This is an unpopular view but I've always thought that Mulder's first attachment to Scully was as a substitute for Samantha.) Until "Closure" there was never any sense that Mulder could or would be stopped from looking for her.

But now Scully can put her foot down because William isn't just Mulder's son, he's hers. The patriarchy be damned. She may have given him to other parents to raise but she hasn't given up her need to protect William, even from his father if necessary. Plus, Mulder was trying to argue his case using facts, using logic. Naturally, he was going to lose. Maybe, deep down, he didn't want to win. Maybe, he knew all along that Scully would never go along with his half-baked plan.

I think I know what story I'm going to post next.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

I liked this analysis of "Atlas" (why Atlas?) I think better than I liked the story itself. A few strong points are made--the rootless existence they have consigned themselves to, the determination of Scully to allow her son a separate life balanced off against Mulder's wish to claim him. I suppose Scully is Atlas. She's the tough one.

The bit that appealed to me most was the mysterious woman tinkering with the AC and offering cigarettes. That scene was quite well-done. I wanted to know more! Was she like the evanescent nurse in "One Breath?" If so, telling Scully to take time for herself seemed a weak intervention.

My real problem is a matter of taste. I simply don't enjoy the fanciness of the style. A line like "it passes like second-hand smoke, an unreal dreamscape buzzing at the nape of her neck" to describe a haircut seems to be trying too hard. And why "second-hand" anyway? Smoke is smoke. Unless you're trapped in a burning room.

[wendelah1]

Why "Atlas"? It's a word with more than one meaning, which is helpful if you're choosing a single word title. It's a story about people who are on a journey, who are trying to find their way. An atlas is a book of maps, useful for journeys. Atlas is also the name for the Titan who holds up the planets, including Earth, for all eternity as his punishment for siding with the older gods against the Olympians.

I think both Mulder and Scully have been forced to shoulder heavy burdens because of their role in fighting the Consortium, fighting colonization. They're both strong people, in their own, complementary ways.

The title works for me.

My real problem is a matter of taste. I simply don't enjoy the fanciness of the style. A line like "it passes like second-hand smoke, an unreal dreamscape buzzing at the nape of her neck" to describe a haircut seems to be trying too hard. And why "second-hand" anyway? Smoke is smoke. Unless you're trapped in a burning room.

It is a matter of taste. I like her style. It suits the story she is telling. The line isn't about the haircut itself so much as it is about the character's state of mind. Why secondhand smoke? Secondhand smoke has a different connotation than ordinary smoke. It's more specific, it comes from cigarettes, when you breath it in, it's not something that you're doing to yourself, it's not of your choosing. Someone else is doing the smoking and you're getting to breathe in their pollution. Smoking has a specific and very negative association in TXF universe because of the Cigarette Smoking Man, aka Cancer Man. "Second-hand smoke kills." Need I go on?

Cutting is something people do as a way of coping with emotional pain, feelings like sadness, rage, guilt, self-hatred, emptiness, and so on. It's also a way of taking back control when your life otherwise feels out of your control. She's cutting her hair, which is socially acceptable, rather than cutting into her skin, or burning herself, which is not, but the need is the same. She may not be trapped in a burning room, but she's trapped. The fact that it's partly because of choices she's made along the way isn't much comfort.

Smoking can also be something people use to cope. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs but it's also a drug that simultaneously calms you and makes you more alert. The mysterious smoking woman? I think she's whatever or whoever you want her to be. But I don't think she's analogous to Nurse Owen in "One Breath." For one thing, I'm pretty sure Scully has never told Mulder about Nurse Owen.

Maybe instead of being her guardian angel, she's Scully's shadow self, appearing out of nowhere, offering her a cigarette. Maybe it's bad advice but what advice would be better? Don't take the job? Use condoms? Run away just as fast you can and don't look back? When you're in a classic no-win scenario, "taking a moment" may be as good as it gets.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Your alternate definition of the title cleared it up for me. They're tracing a map.

The style still bothers me. It's a mundane thing: getting a haircut. To call in multiple (and familiar) connotations to convey something subtle to the reader is, I think, overthinking on the part of the writer. But this vague existence to which God Carter consigned M&S is irking the entire fandom and getting in the way of creativity. I say ignore it and create your own situation, but it's an individual call. I suppose canon remains canon, GD it.

This forthcoming series will change things. If not necessarily for the better.

[wendelah1]

The style still bothers me. It's a mundane thing: getting a haircut. To call in multiple (and familiar) connotations to convey something subtle to the reader is, I think, overthinking on the part of the writer.

I don't see how a writer can over-think something. Every word is supposed to matter. Maybe you meant something else? Maybe you think she's using the wrong words?

Getting a haircut can be a mundane thing, and perhaps it is for you, but it isn't for everyone, and it certainly isn't in every situation. When I cut my hair after being accepted into nursing school, it was a kind of rite of passage for me. I had long hair, well past my shoulder blades, and it had taken me years to grow it that long. When my husband started working for The Man and got his first corporate haircut, it was a big deal. Other haircuts that aren't mundane: a little boy's first haircut, Samson's hair being cut, the buzz-cut soldiers were traditionally give upon entrance into the military, a novice cutting her hair and taking her final vows.

Maybe that element of characterization doesn't work for you but it's quite deliberate--and she is not the only XF writer to have used it.

But this vague existence to which God Carter consigned M&S is irking the entire fandom and getting in the way of creativity. I say ignore it and create your own situation, but it's an individual call. I suppose canon remains canon, GD it.

He'll never be able to please everyone--the fan lists of demands are extensive and often mutually exclusive. Yes to William. No to William. Yes to the myth-arc. Monsters of the Week are only acceptable episodes. Some fans are happy that they're bringing back the old favorites, like Cancer Man. Personally I never want to see that old fart's face again. Some people are happy we are getting any new canon at all, some people are refusing to watch because we aren't getting a 20 episode season. (Yes, really) I'm sure if CC is following the internet chatter, he's wondering why he ever agreed to this in the first place.

I see the messy canon as a source of creativity not an impediment. YMMV.

[bmerb]

Replying here as I can’t get the comment function to work on LJ (or at least not via mobile browser). I really appreciated this one when I first read it, and again when I read it just now. Tried to find the author’s other fic but it looks like only a little has been waybacked, not nearly enough as I was enjoying their writing. Any idea if there is somewhere else to find it? They had a series of drabbles where only 9 of 14 were waybacked.

[wendelah1]

Commenting here is fine. More than fine. I don't plan to back up comments from Live Journal again. I should close down commenting--on LJ--and redirect readers here, but I've been preoccupied. I wish I could tell you differently but after the fic was deleted from AO3, what made it to the internet archive is all we have left.

I enjoyed their writing, too.