House of Leaves

Artist/Song Title: Lamb - Butterfly Effect
Subject: The X Files, Scully PoV, Scully/Mulder, Vid-Challenge Season5 + Fight the Future: Recovery
Summary: 'And we'll take a trip to hell exponentially.' We just had a near-life experience! (Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club)
Length: 03:41 | Size: 47 MB | Format: 720x400 - AVI - zip
Links: mediafire, permanent link

Password: trustno1

Butterfly Effect from Astarte XX on Vimeo.

After two month of intense soul song searching and going meticulously through my music library and WHAM! Xandra saves the day without even trying. My gratitude was immense and groveling at her feet never felt so good. I was ready to despair and vid just about any song, which would resemble what I had in mind in the slightest and I have five projects set up to prove my desperation. Xandra talked me down from the abyss several times and then randomly gave me a youtube-link to a soundtrack song she remembered for no reason whatsoever. It came completely out of the left field, while I was ready to restore my sanity by watching some Community. I followed the link and found the sound cool, clicked through other tracks of Lamb till I hit the jackpot on the third track. 'Butterfly Effect' was everything I had in mind for S5 and then some. It connected instantly with my idea - the atmosphere was pitch perfect and then the lyrics came on and I was halfway to the moon and back.

My main problem with Season 5 is that the most iconic Scully moments are tied closely to Mulder and therefore a lot are either not real, she can't remember them later or she is unconscious for them. This is a common theme for TXF - not as bad as Arthur being knocked out whenever a magical rescue happens by Merlin. But close. You kinda have to give it to SPN that Dean and Sam always remember - everything, even hell eventually. In all horrific, bloody details.

But back to TXF: It felt like a hospital season for Scully, even with her cancer recovery in the mix. Although I don't think she was more often in a hospital than during any other season. Three to five times seem to be the annual quota. I think what tilts the impression is the way the camera lingers on Mulder's anguish every time she is down. We start out season 5 with him contemplating suicide even with Scully alive, because he feels responsible for her cancer and can't handle his guilt. Maybe I never got over that image. Maybe he never moved far from that in my opinion, because Scully became Mulder's lifeline after her return in season 2. If she would die, he would follow her into the dark shortly and that is beyond fucked up, but makes for very compelling TV.

I didn't want to cut out my favorite scenes for a narrow PoV, so I went for a more omnipresent one. Xandra and I hit a weird place with the first draft I sent her and her pointing out the PoV issues lead to the conclusion that we truly share a brain. Because me muttering on that I ended up with an universal Scully in Mulder's head PoV doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It would have been crazy nonsense for anyone besides Xandra, but my explanation was her own conclusion. Heh. I tackled the narrative this week and voila, here we are.

A few random things: It's hilarious how I still hate Diana on sight. My revulsion to her the first time around was even worse than Scully's. That didn't happen again on such visceral level for any fictional character, but it left a deep impression. I suppose another actress could have been more convincing for me in that role or a less dramatic entrance. Mimi Rogers did nothing for me and just made me question Mulder's bad taste in lovers further after Inspector Phoebe Green. I liked Spender more this time around. I know they set him up to replace Mulder, if DD would have pulled out after the fifth season and I wonder, how that would have played out. Scully's first meeting with Spender had an interesting dynamic to it, so I think it could have worked out fine. Another casual observation was the beauty of Scully's 'Mulder, for fuck's sake, please be the crazy one again'-expression and how it evolved over the season. She was uncomfortable in the believer-part of their relationship and was beyond relieved when Mulder finally decided that aliens were real after all. I know a lot of people grew frustrated with Scully's lack of conviction in the paranormal, but for me, she was trying to keep it real and not blindly believing in everything under the sun. Plus there was often a teasing undercurrent to her statements and she could solve cases on her own, she just preferred to play the sane woman to Mulder's crazy.