Story 198: "five things that never happened to dana scully" by threeguesses
The next fic was nominated by lightlack and enthusiastically seconded by myself. It’s written by threeguesses, who is one of my favorite writers to come out of the pre/post IWTB era. Her writing in this fandom was not prolific, but her stories have always stood out (at least for me) for their powerful concepts, enthralling emotional currents, and the deceptive
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I agree, whether it was intentional or not, this fic feels more like a commentary on the canon itself than a real story.
Naturally, I thought the "happy ending pillow talk" seemed pretty unlikely, but not the least unlikely of the five. The one that really didn't work for me this time around was number four. "I always wanted you to marry me" is such a poignant truth, so cut-to-the-chase. It is certainly cut to the chase, but it doesn't sound like something Mulder would say to her ever, which is what makes it metafic, at least to me. I don't think marriage was ever what he wanted with her, and I sure don't see her ever wanting to marry him. That's so-conventional-so not them. (The only way I could make that work was to transport them to an AU in an alternate universe on an entirely different show, where they cease to be the Mulder and Scully of our "The X-Files." I still love them, wherever they are.)
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I think what charms me is how *unlike* the Mulder we know it is. I really like different takes on the same characters. As I once said to you, we are stuck with the same two except for occasional forays into Diana or Krycek or CSM country.
There is no way to preview this, so I apologize for screwed-up ital.
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I think what charms me is how *unlike* the Mulder we know it is.
Yeah, these really are characterization AUs rather than the usual setting or plot point AUs, which is why they feel more like commentary than fic to me. They're so far off from our show that they obliterate it. It's pretty damn clever of her.
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I don't think so. I think the characters are different because their lives are different. In the context of these circumstances, I find the characterizations very believable.
Although I do seem to have been misunderstanding part 4 all this time. I always thought Mulder was crying and Scully was choked up at the end because they both knew they were never going to stop, and Mulder suggesting it in a moment of impulsivity, like it was really going to happen, was painful. Clearly I was wrong.
So maybe I do find that section a bit OOC. But I find the dynamic between them so believable and lovely that I can almost ignore the whole "let's quit and get married!" thing. Though if ever there was a Mulder marriage proposal I didn't hate, it'd be this one. The way Mulder says it just works for me. It's one of the most vulnerable things he's ever said, and he tosses it out like a casual suggestion, using the same basic words he used to suggest they go into teaching. Yup, that's exactly how Mulder would do it, I think.
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