Story 258: "SN 1572" by prufrock's love

[wendelah1]

I'd been thinking about posting this so when it was nominated by an anonymous lurker, I decided to go ahead. It's a major new work by a talented writer. Dear Anon, thanks for the suggestion. I hope you will join the discussion.

Title: SN 1572
Author: prufrock's love
Email: prufrockslove@yahoo.com
Rating: NC-17
Classification: Novel, Post-colonization, Angst, Dark MSR, Other
Summary: After colonization and Earth's devastation, Scully remains in one of the few safe, walled colonies, remembering the past and praying for some future with Mulder. Whatever the hell Mulder has become.
Author's Note: A reworking of Negative Utopia

This fic follows the general outline of "Negative Utopia," which we read many years ago. If you want to see that discussion, here it is, along with a working link to the story: Story 76: "Negative Utopia" by prufrock's love. The changes to her earlier fic are more than substantial enough to warrant the re-titling. I loved "Negative Utopia," and, to be honest, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this fic. I am happy to report "SN 1572" is also an excellent story, though not without its flaws.

Read SN 1572.

After you've read the story, please come back and let us know what you think. The nomination post is always open for your suggestions.

Comments

somewhat spoilery response to story

[zinnia03.livejournal.com]

I have read many of the stories but seldom comment. Thanks for continuing to post these in the face of apparent apathy. I think we are out there but speaking at least for me, RL doesn't allow me much time to indulge myself in reading (I'm the half-hour before bed kind of reader these days), or even much brain space to think about the things I read when I get a chance to read them. This story I stayed up late to read over two evenings.

I didn't go back and re-read the original story but I remember it as being relatively short, sharp, and having a fairly hopeless view of the future. I was new to fanfic and devoured pretty much everything in my path at that time, but "Negative Utopia" is one that stuck with me.

I like this re-working of it for the way it fleshes out the post-colonization world. Also, it's unusual for Prufrock to write from Scully's POV - most of the stories I've read by her are Mulder POV. In them, Mulder often seems to view himself as somewhat inept and socially backward, so to see him through the filter of Scully - where she finds him almost as much of an enigma as he finds her -- is interesting.

I thought a lot of about the role of women in this story and correlating it to the kind of stuff that continues to happen in RL but I'm not very articulate about it. I can only observe that it seems that women will always be seen as a commodity -- something to be fought over and used not for their knowledge or skills, but as a mere fact of biology. And that a double standard still exists regarding women's choices. There seems to be a different perception of Lynne - where the concern is that she is being held against her will, and the pregnant woman outside the bunker (not even identified by name at first) who is pregnant and is "prostituting herself." The point is brought home many times that if Scully was not perceived to "belong" to Skinner, then some other man would lay claim to her.

I guess I could see Scully's decision in the end as a noble one -- to do her part to save the world -- to trade relative comfort and security for an uncertain life of great danger and no guarantees -- but that is a choice she has made over and over again to stay with Mulder.

Re: somewhat spoilery response to story

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you mentioned the women's choices aspect of the story because I have been mulling this over myself. To be honest I was quite perplexed that when Scully was presented with a patient she immediately believed to be in captivity, the first thing she said (to the men she believed were the woman's captors) was that she would not perform an abortion. I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing there, but I also found the "prostituting herself" phrasing confronting. I think because these instances are presented from Scully's point of view - if one of the men in the story spoke like this, it wouldn't be as noticeable to me.

Re: somewhat spoilery response to story

[wendelah1]

So, you don't accept that this Scully would refuse to perform an abortion on a rape victim? She's also portrayed as disapproving of polyamory and strongly against prostitution. Whether I agree with the characterization is another matter, but I think it's internally consistent. From the character's perspective, these practices are all immoral. For many people who believe abortion is murder, there is no exception to be made for rape. She believes that allowing women to trade sexual favors is degrading, for them, and for what's left of humanity. She doesn't want sex to be a commodity, she doesn't want women's value to be reduced to sex and procreation. From what I read in the text, she thinks procreation is immoral because if humanity survives, the alien colonists will return to harvest us again.

Re: somewhat spoilery response to story

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that I have trouble with Scully refusing to perform an abortion, it's that that is her first thought and first action, before consulting her patient, before examining said patient, and in this scene the most important thing to Scully is that (the people she believes to be) her patient's abusers know that she will not perform an abortion. I have trouble with this because it completely removes the autonomy of her patient and also puts the needs/requests of the abusers above her patient's needs.

And this might still be consistent with the character created in this story, but this is the kind of personal change that I think turns the Scully that we know into a completely different character.

My issue with her phrasing of her disapproval of prostitution is again not with the belief itself, but the fact that she phrases it like she disapproves with the woman's choices. It's the end of the world! Does that woman have a lot of other options in order to get food, shelter, survive? Scully herself has had to sacrifice some of her sense of self to survive - can she really judge another woman so harshly?

Re: somewhat spoilery response to story

[whithersoever.livejournal.com]

You've touched upon something that wasn't sitting right with me, also. I knew Scully didn't feel like Scully, but I was having trouble figuring out exactly why. I think your comment gets it exactly right.

Re: somewhat spoilery response to story

[wendelah1]

I didn't go back and re-read the original story but I remember it as being relatively short, sharp, and having a fairly hopeless view of the future. I was new to fanfic and devoured pretty much everything in my path at that time, but "Negative Utopia" is one that stuck with me.

I did reread it and your memory of it is accurate. It was much shorter, told only in the present, and the post-colonization world it portrayed was bleak and hopeless.

I like this re-working of it for the way it fleshes out the post-colonization world. Also, it's unusual for Prufrock to write from Scully's POV - most of the stories I've read by her are Mulder POV. In them, Mulder often seems to view himself as somewhat inept and socially backward, so to see him through the filter of Scully - where she finds him almost as much of an enigma as he finds her -- is interesting.

I haven't read everything, but I always thought prufrock's love wrote an unusually competent version of Mulder. And I don't recall him being mystified by Scully either. In the non-colonization fics of hers I have read, the romantic obstacle has always been Scully's desire for a normal life, not Mulder's lack of persuasive charms. I haven't read "The Wasteland" or the historical romance novel trilogy. I assumed the shippers hated the former because it ends with Mulder and Scully with other people, but didn't mind that one or both of them ended up dead in the historicals, since at least they're together, and in love? Well, there's something else keeping them apart in her sequel to "The 13th Sign," entitled "7 Days in May," but in general, the way prufrock's love sees them, the ball is in Scully's court.

She does write mostly from Mulder's POV, which is probably a good thing overall. "Inventing the Mulders" is an exception. I could be wrong but think prufrock's love adores Mulder unreservedly. I don't think she feels that way about canon Scully, exactly.

I do like that she's fleshed out the post-colonization world they find themselves in. She has the characters making difficult choices for somewhat different reasons, too. I'm going to try to pull my thoughts together on that later today.