My review of Small Lives Awake by Jesemie's Evil Twin

[whitewriter]

located here via the wayback machine

The story is a domestic tale of S inviting M to a week away at her brother Charlies for Thanksgiving.

The story starts off with Mulder/ Scully friendship that turns softly into smoldering RST.

There's a small town old timey mini x-file included ; and deliciously painful conversations that sound so life like and true to character.

I especially like the one where Scully is reminiscing about past Thanksgivings at her mother's place and has a terse conversation with Bill.


Oh and the prose:

Plugging the nozzle into the tank hole gives her a
penetrating sense of visceral manliness. She's taken
to swaggering around the cramped for the holidays
Stop-n-Saves. The parking lots are always full of
sales-flyer-tumbleweed and rolling plastic supersize
soft drink cups.

Much love for this fic. Thanks wendelah1 for the rec!

I'm digging around JET's gossamer page. There's only one on there that's long-ish that I'm thinking to try next.

Comments

[whitewriter]

Ah. I get it. You couldn't suspend reality for the episode.

I remember it well (having rewatched it last year) - and whilst I have liked a few cop procedurals in my time (X-files being my fave) - and also; least by the book, so to speak of any of them - I guess I manage to suspend my disbelief for most of it. He does act like an incompetent ass for the whole episode (which honestly: I never really noticed it in that way until I read your review)- Lazy writing: the authors placed all their focus on ensuring we all felt that emotional connection about M and his sister and that Le Roche could have been what happened to her
(etc.) more so than the whole hello Mulder: your an FBI agent, with responsibilities beyond your own personal life.

I feel like this (Mulder's reckless abandon, unreliability, single-minded focus) has come up in a (recently read) fanfic or two about why S had reservations about starting a relationship with M. -- but the authors (in my opinion)aren't usually very good at articulating it very well. They focus more on his addiction to work and the "cause" rather than specific personality traits. I suppose; in most times the focus is on the outcome (both on the show, and in fanfic).

Sure, he went to Antarctica - but he brought back Scully.
Sure, he killed the DOD guy - and pretended to be dead for a few days to smoke out the truth -- but he got the cure for Scully.
-- and going to the ?? some mountain in Canada- [had to look that up on wikipedia] -- to look at the frozen alien body - since when did the FBI have jurisdiction in Canada?

This is probably why the x-files was so good when I was 13.

I was verryyyyy naieve about anything. Rewatch it in my 30s... and I was yelling at the screen for all the hilarious things (all medical related though- The cop stuff washes over me) I never noticed. Like Mulder laying on a bed "on ecmo" (you can see his face he's not ventilated)- or this scene from, I think its Biogenesis https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ylfjui07t2cau8/Screen%20Shot%202020-09-07%20at%207.01.48%20am.png

I guess that's why X-files is so ripe for fanfiction. The show missed left so many things open whilst also simultaneously allowing an "anything goes" attitude.

S10 and 11 were ass though. I just couldn't get past how so unlike the original series it was - everything was just wrong, and therefore unenjoyable.