My review of 13th sign by prufrockslove
Jan. 15th, 2021 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whitewriterSo here's how I always imagined the MSR portion of XF to work with canon.
It begins mostly with somewhere mid s7, maybe somewhat close to Arcadia, but closer to The Unnatural (how many times I imagined this in the past- that all it takes is one rewatch to bring it all back to the present), -- similarly to how Pru described it:
"wild and passionate and perhaps ill-conceived"
However with less of the -- Scully being so unsure about wanting to fall into the chasm with a man who couldn't promise her a solid foundation and being worried about hitting the ground (and essentially there getting hurt) angst.
In other words, my (mental only) version felt more like how s9 went (hopelessly romantic and positive. to an extent, minus the whole M hiding "to save them") - after all, it would be less weird to ask someone to help you conceive with IVF if you were already in a relationship with them, rather than not with them (after all, with IVF and frozen ova, you would never ask for them to just implant the egg only, and do the other bit au natural : it's always going to involve sperm in a cup). Plus Scully's lack of "immaculate conception" issues in s8 clearly mean that something was brewing in the background.
Prufrock's explanation in part one as detailed on AO3 is so delicious, and beautiful, and haunting it's replaced my mental version completely. I found it a painful read but just couldn't stop.
The kicker comes when we realise, mid way, a key plot point...
- CUT READING HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED HARD -
That she was doing Kersh a favour to reinstate Mulder. This bit hit me hard.
It came right after when Skinner handed to Mulder, Scullys badge for safe keeping.
I literally wept a tear here and then : in the next paragraph, that tear got sucked back into my eye when it was revealed what really happened:
She chose to put herself in danger for just "2 hours" which ended up turning into a very dangerous days long assignment away from her son. That she did it in secret because she knew M wouldn't have let her do it, if he had known about it.
To only then, get her abducted for the 2nd time.
Then we get another solid 2 hours of reading about M pining about her, and looking for her, and reminiscing about everything (and all with canon weaved in just magically).
To then, have him and Maggie Scully sorta half heartedly battle over Will's care...
To then, have the most unrealistic part of the story be revealed: S is returned but her memory has regressed to **pre x -files **.
This is where pru unfortunately lost me.
So let's get this.
S is in the mindframe of pre s1.
She has never met M. She doesn't remember 7 yrs of their partnership, or having a baby.
And essentially she now has a lover, and a child she never knew she had...
and she's to sorta "walk back " into this, without much help from her mother.
Too unrealistic.
If pru had just brought her back say, to mid s1 timeline, I'd probably buy it. But essentially she's with a stranger and a baby she likely wouldn't have been interested in conceiving at that point in her life (pre s1).
Then it becomes reminiscent of Ioiolokus except in Pru's version, M finds the lab and destroys it (and with consequences he proposes re: the future and William being more valuable now that they don't have more genetic material to work with since he broke the lab) and pre s1 Scully just going along with all of it... like some clone...
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for it to be revealed that it wasn't really her but that it was a clone of Scully and that the real Scully was either dead, or you know. Still out somewhere. (Would Mulder be satisfied with a clone of S? What would he do... still look for the original?... and if he found the original, what happens then....)
I sped read my way to the end of this one just because I wanted to see where it would end, but it just ended quietly, romantically, on a beach in Martha's Vineyard.
If it had been M that this happened to, I'd be more accepting I think. Because whilst his character went through a lot in the series I don't feel like M fundamentally changed. He started out as a believer. He was always a believer. He came to love his sidekick at some stage, realising nothing beats unwavering support in a kick ass package.
Whilst Scully grows from a straightforward little scientist doctor, into an investigator who has had to stretch her mind into the paranormal and accept it as the only explanation. She's only who she is because of the events of the 9 yrs. Without those events, she wouldn't have changed, she'd be much the same.
Despite those events, I think M would still have been the same old believer he always was.
So this is a hard one for me to scorecard.
It was an absolute gem for the first 75% of the story.
However I feel let down by the last 25%.
what a conundrum.
At least I don't have to work night shift next week.
It begins mostly with somewhere mid s7, maybe somewhat close to Arcadia, but closer to The Unnatural (how many times I imagined this in the past- that all it takes is one rewatch to bring it all back to the present), -- similarly to how Pru described it:
"wild and passionate and perhaps ill-conceived"
However with less of the -- Scully being so unsure about wanting to fall into the chasm with a man who couldn't promise her a solid foundation and being worried about hitting the ground (and essentially there getting hurt) angst.
In other words, my (mental only) version felt more like how s9 went (hopelessly romantic and positive. to an extent, minus the whole M hiding "to save them") - after all, it would be less weird to ask someone to help you conceive with IVF if you were already in a relationship with them, rather than not with them (after all, with IVF and frozen ova, you would never ask for them to just implant the egg only, and do the other bit au natural : it's always going to involve sperm in a cup). Plus Scully's lack of "immaculate conception" issues in s8 clearly mean that something was brewing in the background.
Prufrock's explanation in part one as detailed on AO3 is so delicious, and beautiful, and haunting it's replaced my mental version completely. I found it a painful read but just couldn't stop.
The kicker comes when we realise, mid way, a key plot point...
- CUT READING HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED HARD -
That she was doing Kersh a favour to reinstate Mulder. This bit hit me hard.
It came right after when Skinner handed to Mulder, Scullys badge for safe keeping.
I literally wept a tear here and then : in the next paragraph, that tear got sucked back into my eye when it was revealed what really happened:
She chose to put herself in danger for just "2 hours" which ended up turning into a very dangerous days long assignment away from her son. That she did it in secret because she knew M wouldn't have let her do it, if he had known about it.
To only then, get her abducted for the 2nd time.
Then we get another solid 2 hours of reading about M pining about her, and looking for her, and reminiscing about everything (and all with canon weaved in just magically).
To then, have him and Maggie Scully sorta half heartedly battle over Will's care...
To then, have the most unrealistic part of the story be revealed: S is returned but her memory has regressed to **pre x -files **.
This is where pru unfortunately lost me.
So let's get this.
S is in the mindframe of pre s1.
She has never met M. She doesn't remember 7 yrs of their partnership, or having a baby.
And essentially she now has a lover, and a child she never knew she had...
and she's to sorta "walk back " into this, without much help from her mother.
Too unrealistic.
If pru had just brought her back say, to mid s1 timeline, I'd probably buy it. But essentially she's with a stranger and a baby she likely wouldn't have been interested in conceiving at that point in her life (pre s1).
Then it becomes reminiscent of Ioiolokus except in Pru's version, M finds the lab and destroys it (and with consequences he proposes re: the future and William being more valuable now that they don't have more genetic material to work with since he broke the lab) and pre s1 Scully just going along with all of it... like some clone...
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for it to be revealed that it wasn't really her but that it was a clone of Scully and that the real Scully was either dead, or you know. Still out somewhere. (Would Mulder be satisfied with a clone of S? What would he do... still look for the original?... and if he found the original, what happens then....)
I sped read my way to the end of this one just because I wanted to see where it would end, but it just ended quietly, romantically, on a beach in Martha's Vineyard.
If it had been M that this happened to, I'd be more accepting I think. Because whilst his character went through a lot in the series I don't feel like M fundamentally changed. He started out as a believer. He was always a believer. He came to love his sidekick at some stage, realising nothing beats unwavering support in a kick ass package.
Whilst Scully grows from a straightforward little scientist doctor, into an investigator who has had to stretch her mind into the paranormal and accept it as the only explanation. She's only who she is because of the events of the 9 yrs. Without those events, she wouldn't have changed, she'd be much the same.
Despite those events, I think M would still have been the same old believer he always was.
So this is a hard one for me to scorecard.
It was an absolute gem for the first 75% of the story.
However I feel let down by the last 25%.
what a conundrum.
At least I don't have to work night shift next week.
