Under A Juniper Tree
SUMMARY: amyhit suggested "Five Times Scully Scares Mulder." I started writing the fic, but this was the only segment of it that came out how I wanted. It's a touch longer than a drabble. Both the title of the story and the mantra of Scully's roommate come from T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday. Thanks to scarletbaldy for looking this over on vacation.
( He's learning to navigate the jagged rocks of her coastline. )
( He's learning to navigate the jagged rocks of her coastline. )
Oh, you dear, dear lady. Thank you for this lovely feedback!
oh yes, this, this is exactly what i had in mind. and i see it as being enormously in character, which is just an added bonus with your writing, which i always admire and enjoy, but don't always identify with directly. this time, i do.
My relief at this is palpable. There were so many places to go with the prompt and none of the other scenes I jotted down felt right at all. Interestingly, I don't always identify with my writing either.
the way you manage to write the full scope of scully's character is remarkable. she is so tucked and folded and fortified that it can seem she is not a sexual being, and even that she was never younger than she is now - almost that she doesn't exist outside of the moment. you write her with the superior fullness of a person, yet manage not to lose the sense of her honed relentlessness - the immediacy of her.
You couldn't have said anything to make me happier, truly. I love them both and I don't think of myself as a Scullyist, but there are times when I just get her so much more than Mulder. I'm thrilled to know you see her so clearly in this story.
that last line packs a punch like a mouthful of gin - savoury and potent and a little bit toxic.
Bombay Sapphire is usually my drink of choice. So...awesome.
the other night, on one of our long walks about, my father and i got to discussing the nature of heroes and the heroic journey. my father said, essentially, "people will mistake true heroes for monsters. people will mistake monsters for heroes. we don't understand them - either of them. they are beyond our ability to understand, and there is something that strikes us as monstrous in that, or magnificent."
You and your father are rather splendid. ♥
what is most marvelous about your scully is that sometimes it really is hard to tell which one she is becoming, and will become, and which one i am, at the moment, in danger of mistaking her for. if you push a person hard enough, which way will they break? when i tossed you the prompt, i had thought, if you took it, you would write her this way - this frightening - but you often manage to write her better than i'd expect, which is the case here. i'm very glad you took the prompt.
Again, I must gush with thanks. Your first line is so wonderful, and is one of the reasons I adore writing her. I don't think she knows the answer herself, and many of the times I think of Scully as being the most vulnerable is when she's teetering on the brink of that dilemma. Especially with Mulder, when we can see her struggling whether to choose cruelty (Folie A Deux) or kindness (Paper Hearts). She has so much potential to go either way, and it's also one of the reasons I love Iolokus. I don't always agree with the characterization, but I love the exploration of what could happen if she were to completely let go and indulge the monstrous side of her hero coin.
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