Comments | xf_book_club: Story 203: "Living with the Dreaming Body" by Punk M

amyhit in xf_book_club

Story 203: "Living with the Dreaming Body" by Punk M

Apr 20, 2012 18:12

After the considerable word count of our last fic, now seems like a good time to take a bit of a breather with a nice short read. This week's fic was recommended by lightlack. It takes place sometime not too long after the events of "Christmas Carol" and "Emily" when Mulder and Scully end up back in San Diego on a case. The fic is focused on Scully and how ( Read more... )

season 5, r, short, msr

Comments 32

xfdryad April 21 2012, 02:51:11 UTC

Le sigh.

It's just so perfect and gorgeous.

wendelah1 April 27 2012, 01:25:14 UTC

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Is there any passage that stood out for you?

xfdryad April 27 2012, 13:37:35 UTC

She knew the size of this man's heart, knew its scope and weight, knew
its dreams like she knew her own. He was her parity bit, her decoder
ring, the only language she understood anymore. His palm was warm
on her back and she imagined his touch glowed red against her skin like
a Kirlian rainbow in the shape of his hand.

Sighing, she curled herself around him where he sat next to her,
creating some mystical symbol formed with the two of them, with her
skepticism and his wonder and all the things that were shared in the
space between them.

"Scully," he whispered.

"I can't have children."

"I know," he said, and it seemed his heart was breaking in his voice.

"It's okay," she said, because she wanted it to be okay. She was tired of
living under its weight, tired of pretending this hadn't happened to her.
She wanted it spoken, understood between them so they could put it to
rest. She could not have children. She could not have his children.

He touched her cheek. "It's not okay."As an infertile woman who's only child was conceived ( ... )

bardsmaid April 21 2012, 03:35:26 UTC

Punk's work is always such fun.

wendelah1 April 27 2012, 01:23:42 UTC

Yes. There is always something to admire in her stories.

write_out April 21 2012, 13:44:27 UTC

wendelah1 April 27 2012, 01:22:54 UTC

That is a lovely excerpt. There are a lot of nice lines in this fic. She's a great writer, one I admire.

islandofwords April 27 2012, 00:47:33 UTC

Oh, this story. It's so poetic, the writing is so good. I'm new to the fandom and the group (I've just started season six actually. I'm reading fic between eps because the UST is killing me), but this is so good. I've read a couple of recs from here; you guys give me hope ( ... )

wendelah1 April 27 2012, 01:32:19 UTC

Welcome to xf_book_club, and to The X-Files fandom.

I like the first passage you quoted very much. Punk seems to be implying that Scully is working through her feelings about Mulder in her dreams.

amyhit April 27 2012, 06:29:16 UTC

Welcome!

Anyway, I love the contrast of dreaming and awake, how they sort of bleed over.

Me too. And I like that the style of the writing is so matter of fact, even while Scully is stuck in the confusion of it all. I mean I love strange, poetic, fever dream type writing as much as anybody, but the fact that this fic manages to keep from going that route while still getting across how partially dislocated from reality Scully has been feeling is quite good.

Grumpy Noromo Checking In (better late than never) wendelah1 April 27 2012, 02:52:26 UTC

I always hate to be the odd fan out. I wanted to like this story more than I did. It feels off to me. I will try to explain.

I love Punk's writing. She uses language to shape graceful, flowing sentences, and there many passages in this story to quote as examples. The comments before this one covered some of them.

But I like some of her simpler stuff, too. In the opening paragraph, I like this description of Mulder:

He radiated his special brand of flat, nervous concern.

Which leads into this line:

"It's in San Diego," he said, quiet and careful.

Simple stuff but lovely. Just enough description, just the right words. Her Scully in this beginning section is just right, too.

Things start to go awry for me in the next section.

She'd known she couldn't have children even before Mulder had told her. Her periods were reluctant and unreliable, as if her body was unwilling to give up any more blood. She'd gone to the doctor, fearing worse things than infertility. She'd left fearing infertility.

Okay. So did she know she was unable ( ... )

amyhit April 27 2012, 07:24:07 UTC

So did she know she was unable to have children or did she fear it?

I think the implication is that she left the doctor’s office fearing infertility and had to wait for the results that would tell her for sure.

I wanted a little more emotion from her about this deception.

I was not happy with Mulder about this either, but he never deceived her. He did not divulge important information to her, but that’s very different. If she’d asked, “Mulder, am I infertile?” and he’d said no, that would’ve been deception. As it was, the only difference it could’ve made that he didn’t tell her was that she might have lived a little bit longer without the knowledge of what she’d lost. I still feel strongly that Mulder did the wrong thing by not telling her, but I don’t find it unbelievable that she would have forgiven him, seeing as he clearly meant to do the right thing, and was mainly guilty of being unable to further crush the morale of a woman fighting a virulent form of cancer. Plus, in this fic Scully knew about her infertility before Mulder ( ... )

wendelah1 April 27 2012, 08:02:21 UTC

I'm sorry but I stand by my statement. Mulder may not have lied to her, but he did in fact deceive her. He withheld crucial information she was entitled to about what happened to her during her abduction. That is so unethical it makes my head spin. Her abduction was a federal case. Do you think if any other FBI agent had had that information in his files it would have been withheld from her? He had no right to do that. She could have filed a complaint on his ass. He took a vial of her ova--evidence I might add--did who knows what with it--and told her nothing until she mentioned she was seeing a fertility specialist, which happened several years later. That was also unethical and almost certainly illegal, too. I don't even want to get into the paternalism inherent in his decision-making process and how disrespectful it was of her autonomy. If someone had done to me what he did, I don't know that I would be able to trust them again, let alone fall in love with them. This story doesn't help me to understand that at all and I think is a ( ... )

amyhit April 27 2012, 10:30:56 UTC

Mulder may not have lied to her, but he did in fact deceive her.

the definition of "decieve" is, "to cause to believe what is not true." Mulder does not cause Scully to believe what is not true, he merely does not enlighten her to a certain truth she has a right to know. it is factually incorrect to say that he deceives her.

He took a vial of her ova--evidence I might add--did who knows what with it--and told her nothing until she mentioned she was seeing a fertility specialist, which happened several years later. [...] This story doesn't help me to understand that at all and I think is a failure on Punk's part that she doesn't address it, at least not to my satisfaction.Hmm. I suppose in part I agree with you, though I don't think it's Punk's failure at all. I think she was merely sticking to canon. Canon blatantly overlooked Mulder's actions, either because the writers were being deliberately mysogynistic (I doubt it), or because they were just that pathetically out-to-lunch when it came to understanding the ethics of female ( ... )

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