Fragile (X-Files story)

Fanfiction
Title:	Fragile
Author(s):	Leyla Harrison
Date(s):	October 1995
Length:
Genre(s):	het
Fandom(s):	X-Files
Relationship(s):
External Links:
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Fragile is an X-Files story by Leyla Harrison.

It was one of the first rapefic stories posted in the fandom, and it generated quite a bit of controversy and discussion.

Beyond Fragile is a rewrite of this story that Leyla wrote three years later.

Unspeakable Act is a prequel to both stories.

The whole set of stories are posted here.

Some Comments from the Author

1997

Leyla's comments at alt.tv.x-files.creative discussion about the appropriateness of "using rape as a plot point in fanfic":

Glad to see that someone agrees with my viewpoint of this. I've actually gone over the story I wrote about two years ago, Fragile, and been quite upset with how I dealt with much of it. I know that when I wrote and posted the orginal Fragile it was at a time in fanfic when Scully Rape stories were not common -- I don't think that there were any out there at the time. And I remember feeling like I was trying to present the situation in a realistic way and not just as a way to get Mulder and Scully together.

Rape and domestic violence are important issues to me as well. Very important. And I want to make sure that they are presented in a realistic way. Danielle is right -- Scully would not likely jump into bed with Mulder after returning home from the ER after being violated. She would need time to heal and to deal with the issues that the assault has raised for her. Mulder, as her partner and friend, would likely want to be there for her and support her emotionally.

As far as Mulder raping Scully -- I haven't seen these stories and am eternally grateful that I haven't. I think I would likely be ill. I'm not saying that as a criticism on the authors who wrote them. I'm just saying that the concept itself upsets me greatly. Especially if the whole point is for Scully to then fall in love with him, which I have an odd feeling is what the stories may be about.

I'm actually in the process of merging the three Fragile stories and rewriting them, for those of you who remember or even care. In the past two years since I wrote them, I've worked as a Rape Crisis Volunteer and have gotten a wider view of what goes on with rape victims. Not like I was blind to it before as this was a very personal issue for me, as anyone who read Fragile back them will recall. But I was writing the story based on my own feelings and emotions. I wanted to rewrite the story with a wider perspective, something that was more realistic to a larger group of people. So I'm adding things that weren't in the story to start out with. These things are not pretty, folks.

But as Sheryl said, this *is* fiction we're writing here. My personal opinion: I feel that even though we're writing fiction, there has to be a point where we show a little respect. It's one thing to not mention birth control because it would ruin a good sex scene. That, to me, is forgivable. But to use rape as a way to "create" a relationship between Mulder and Scully is not appropriate. The subject matter is *way* too serious.

Authors, please think about this. Consider it. Keep it in mind. I'm not saying that people shouldn't write rape stories. I'm just saying that you should think about your audience before you write and post something like that. I got way too many letters from people telling me that they were so relieved that I had written Fragile and made it real and not used it as a way to bridge a romance.

2000

Leyla talked extensively about this story in the 2000 Working Stiffs Interview with Leyla Harrison:

My first story was written before I even knew that there was an online XF community! I thought I was the only one who was sitting there dreaming up stories for Mulder and Scully that existed outside the boundaries of an episode. I didn't have a computer back then so I wrote the first twenty-five pages out in longhand and then started over and did the whole thing on my typewriter. I don't think I had any ideas of what I was going to do with the story once it was done, but I was very focused on getting it done. I wrote that first story (which, looking back, is *terrible* <g>) and then about six months later, discovered the Internet at a friend's house. It took me another six months to actually get a computer and get online, and then I finally wrote my first fanfic for public consumption.

There was backlash on the story from the beginning -- I posted the first part of a Scully rape story called Fragile. This was very early in the XF fanfic days, and I believe, looking back, that it was one of the first Scully rape stories that was posted (with the exception of Sound of Windchimes). The first chapter was posted late one evening, and within an hour I received my first feedback -- from an anonymous mailer service with a very nasty note attached, asking me, "Who do you think you are for writing such a horrible, disgusting thing about Scully? How dare you? (and a few expletives that I won't repeat here <g>)". I was horrified and actually a little scared. I couldn't reply since it was an anonymous mailer service, so I posted a message to the newsgroup saying how I really did not appreciate the note, or the person who hid behind it. I also wrote that I was just trying to write a story, to explore something new. I then promptly logged off and didn't log back on for three weeks. <g> I also abandoned the story.

When I did finally have the nerve to get back online, I found my inbox and the newsgroup filled with discussions about how I had the support of the community, that I should ignore the nasty E-mailer and keep writing. I was incredibly encouraged, and so I decided to continue the story. I did, I posted it, and that's how it all got started.

In watching The X-Files, one of the things I was immediately drawn to was the characterization of Scully. There weren't as many strong female "role model" characters on television at the time, as there are now – I think there are so many more out there now on various shows. But I admired Gillian Anderson because she played a strong female, and I admired that and definitely responded to that. One of the main reasons I wanted to write Fragile, I think, was the fact that I needed to dispel a notion -- the fact that rape can happen to any woman, not just the "weak" ones.

So, I thought to myself -- how would someone like Scully deal with the horror of rape? How would she be able to rally her emotional strength to deal with that kind of trauma? The answer, I learned quite quickly as I wrote, was that she would do what every woman does who is raped -- she would be affected by it in a variety of ways, both physically, emotionally, and sexually (since she was in the middle of a budding relationship with Mulder when it happened).

After the enormous amount of support I received after I went back online, I received, among the "I really liked your writing" feedback, letters from women who had been raped themselves. Letters from friends of rape victims. The courage that those letters showed to me was astounding and I was incredibly moved. I realized that there were a lot of women out there reading fanfic who had been touched by rape, and I ended up doing the bulk of the story for them. Sounds kind of odd since I didn't know any of them personally, and still don't, but it felt like I would have let these brave women down if I had just let it slide, or if I had Scully get "cured" from her ordeal by falling into Mulder's bed.

I didn't think about the impact that Fragile would have on the fanfic community until there was a little skirmish some months later about another rape story written by Little Jo (Shame). The basis of the plot was that Krycek rapes Scully in her home, and she has an orgasm (not from pleasure but simply because of the body's natural response); by the time Mulder comes to find her she has worked her way free and blown Krycek's head off. There were a lot of posts on atxc about how inappropriate and "wrong" it was for the author to have allowed Scully to have an orgasm, how that degraded her, etc.

I wrote to the author and we talked about "rapefic" and I posted a few angry replies to the newsgroup. I remember explaining at one point that the body often has no control over its physical responses and that the story was therefore not in any way degrading. I remember the topic died down a lot after that -- a few people wrote me later and told me that they were really glad I had mentioned that -- they "believed" me based on the fact that I had written Fragile. I found the whole thing kind of odd.

I've never liked the fact that rape is used as a plot device for romance, and yet it started to become very common in XF fic. I don't see too many changes in that -- I think most rape stories I have read still have Scully being violated and then falling into Mulder's arms for comfort. The way many of the stories are written, it leads to the assumption on the part of the reader that what we are reading is supposed to be a turn-on -- but then again, this is the world at large we are talking about here, and there's not much we can do to change people's views.