A Neurotic Need for Validation

Fanfiction
Title:	A Neurotic Need for Validation
Author(s):	Kel
Date(s):	2001
Length:
Genre:
Fandom:	The X-Files
External Links:	posted here
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A Neurotic Need for Validation is an X-Files story by Kel.

Reactions and Reviews

I don't know if there is a rule about the poster not being the first commenter, but I am going first anyway. I really enjoyed this story. It was funny and sweet and gave us a slightly implausible back story for Mulder. I can imagine him working at a Haldol Hilton, and even shacked up with one of his professors (who could resist the man?) but putting shingles on a roof? That may be going too far. I can easily imagine this as an episode, I can even imagine some of the casting. For example, I think David Hewett would have made a good choice for Roger Pearson. I didn't feel that Scully didn't have enough to do in this fic; in fact, she gets to talk to nearly every character. In a funny sort of turnabout, Mulder, who is investigating the case as a cover for a more personal agenda, accidentally finds an x-file, and then ditches Scully. Even though she is supposed to be there to work the bogus case Mulder has dreamed up, she gets completely caught up in the melodrama of Mulder's past, and thoroughly enjoys the opportunity to snoop around in his absence. The Mulder/Scully banter is classic, the original characters are well-drawn. I have only one complaint about this fic, and that is that the recipe for the delectable sounding chocolate peanut butter candy described at the end of the story should have been posted as an addendum. I have been thinking about it ever since.

Kel is so hard to criticize. You look and look and get nothin.'

I think one of the things I really love about this atypical X-File--so raucous that even Vince Gilligan couldn't keep up, so sweet Darin Morgan would turn up his alienated nose--is that Kel puts Mulder and Scully in a context. Not only can she create original characters, she can convince us that our dark, lonely, existential heroes can hang out with them and feel better afterward.

Some of my favorite "transgressive" fic writers separate Mulder and Scully from all human support. Kel keeps them connected with the family. And don't we all *know* a Cousin Jane?

Kel knows how to throw away lines. I like how Scully (of course) won the paperwork contest because she worked for the government.

Not only can she convince me that they can hang out with these characters and feel better, but I can hang out with these characters and feel better. It is a Win-Win.

Cousin Jane was very funny. The bit where she had Scully, a total stranger, help her "on and off the pot" was classic. I liked how Pastor Quick Mickey was hitting on Scully but all she could think about was trying to get the dirt on Mulder.

I also thought it was pretty funny how regressed and self-absorbed Mulder became the closer it got to his ex's wedding. I think we all know that scenario. As you say, she takes these characters that we love, plops them down in a situation we can all relate to in one way or another, like a wedding, or an audit, then wraps it all up in an X-file.

I love my "transgressive" stories, too, but I can usually read that stuff only once. I loved "Iolokos," for example but I can't imagine ever reading it again. Although, I would probably get more out of it now that I have actually seen the entire series. Or most of it, anyway. I can read certain Kel stories over and over and over again, and still keep smiling.