Story 7: "Tikkun Olam" by RivkaT and MustangSally

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Since we had a rather long interlude with no story at all (my fault!), wendelah1 and I have chosen a special bonus story. So here it is, "Tikkun Olam" by RivkaT and MustangSally, one of the controversial classics of the fandom. Hopefully it will provoke some discussion.

This story is rated NC-17 and is not for sensitive or impressionable souls. I'm not kidding. But it's really good.

"Deaths and disclosures, universal and particular, denouements both unexpected and inexorable, transvestite melodrama on all levels including the suggestive. We transport you into a world of intrigue and illusion ... clowns, if you like, murderers -- we can do you ghosts and battles, on the skirmish level, heroes, villains, tormented lovers -- set pieces in the poetic vein; we can do you rapiers or rape or both, by all means, faithless wives and ravished virgins -- flagrante delicto at a price, but that comes under realism for which there are special terms."

Interesting discussions:

Usenet thread on prologue

Spoilerific Usenet review thread

Comments

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

Maybe I shouldn't start off the discussion, because I only read the first 1/3 or 1/4 before I got tired. But I will!

I stopped because I guess I could just tell where it was going -- a dark trip to a world where none of the characters actually like each other and everything unravels in ugly and violent ways. "Interesting" and "a mindfuck," maybe, but at some point I can't recognize the characters as themselves, and I know things will just get worse and worse (so the tension of "will they fix this? CAN they fix this?" dissipates), and I might as well be reading something else... I realize that other people can be sustained in it, however, and maybe at one time I would've had the interest/patience. It's too bad, because these two authors can teeter on the line between "edgy" and "too much," and still produce very engaging stories, but I think they fell off on this one.

[bardsmaid.livejournal.com]

...at some point I can't recognize the characters as themselves...

This is always one of the tipping points for me, and unfortunately I'm picky enough that I hit this point much more quickly that most readers. When I read fic, it's because I want to peer more deeply into the characters I know so well, and care about. Once they morph into variations, I lose interest... which makes me pretty unfit for fic reading, for the most part, I guess. I'm not out to spoil anyone's party, btw; it's just how it hits me personally.

Even when I'm up for some XF theater-of-the-absurd, as I was the other night when I reread the Krycek humor classic My Little Demons (http://www.iyam-fic.com/ratales/mylittledemons.html) (wherein Krycek is visited by God, who insists that Krycek clean up his act and turn his life around), lack of clear canon characterization grates on me. If only Krycek sounded like, well, the real Krycek, I was thinking as I chuckled my way through the story, this would be perfect.

I'm hopeless, I know.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I read fic for two reasons, I think. The first is exactly as you say, "to peer more deeply into the characters I know so well, and care about." The second is a little more complicated, and has to do with wanting to see the way other people see the show, with taking a basic source text and seeing it infused with a different authorial vision. If that vision is strong and consistent I am willing to forgive shifts in characterization that would be unforgivable in a weaker text. Think of the many ways that Arthurian legend has been told and retold over the years; think of the way that good cover versions of songs bring out qualities that you never would have noticed in the original. In my more grandiose moments I want to see fanfiction as the modern equivalent of myth; as Henry Jenkins once said, "fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations indead of owned by the folk." So looking at the genre in that way, I expect writers to use the original text as a jumping-off point, as the departure rather than the destination.

There are many different ways of writing fanfic. I get the feeling that you and wendelah1 are far more interested in canon-compliance than I am. You both are concerned to write stories that can help to justify the twists and inconsistencies of the show, and tie it more closely in a consistent whole. I am more likely to just say, "oh, I never believed that episode anyway." So our philosophies are sort of different!

Hope I haven't gone on for too long; I didn't mean to lecture. I just wanted to explore how it was that I was willing to forgive stories like this, given that I view characterisation as being very important to me. The answer seems to be that I actively like alternate versions of an original text. I like those changes in mood and style that show a really strong author has got hold of the reins. I like thinking, "it could have been like this."

[wendelah1]

When I am writing, I am very concerned with trying to stay close to canon. Although I do have some ideas for AU, they are more plot-driven, than character-driven. I will read anything, though, as long as it is entertaining. This story was certainly that.

[bardsmaid.livejournal.com]

Hope I haven't gone on for too long; I didn't mean to lecture.

Oh, no. Quite to the contrary, it helps immensely to understand how other people approach fic, so thanks for taking the time to explain how you see this.

Personally, I'm not just interested in canon-compliance; it's an absolute pre-requisite for me. Which I guess explains my puzzlement when I first read fic and couldn't quite understand why people were enthusiastic about stories that I just couldn't get into because they presented the world of the XF (and more importantly, the characters) as, well, not the ones I'd been watching on-screen.

All of which explains a lot, I think, about why I rarely read fic. The vast majority of authors and readers are, I believe, like you--interested in alternate approaches to the subject matter.

All this doesn't mean, of course, that I don't have my own selectivity when it comes to canon. I have not just episodes, but entire seasons that I'd prefer not to believe, which is why my Sanctuary series begins in early Season 6 and veers off in its own direction. Likewise characters: to me, the Seasons 2-5 Krycek who intrigues me (by turns nervous, cocky, manipulative, terrified) is a very different animal than LateSeasonsKrycek, who is inscrutable, calm, always in control... and who holds no interest for me at all.

Anyway, thanks again for your explanation. All this just goes to show how very many approaches there are to fic, and how that translates into preferences and trends within the fandom.

[leucocrystal]

Very interesting stuff! I'm more in tune with bardsmaid though on this one; canon compliance is the sticking point for me. I suppose that's why so few of the fandom "classics" don't appeal to me at all (which would explain, as we've probably discussed before, why I can't drum up half the enthusiasm or interest it would take to ever finish, say, Iolokus).

I can admire those, I suppose, who try to veer from the norm and pave their own way, even if I don't have any interest in reading such things. I wish I could simply be entertained by this approach, as Wendy is, but there's always that niggling bother in the background that snags for me, every time.

[wendelah1]

I would rather have stories that were told well, than stories that complied with canon. I just want the writing to be great. I want to have my brain explode. My favorite writer on livejournal, who does not write in this fandom, by the way, is synecdochic. Her story for Stargate Atlantis, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose is the best story I have ever read in any fandom. I don't even like the show, but I love this story. I certainly don't ship the pairing, and I don't care if it is canon compliant, because that is not what this writer is about. She is about the language and the story, and the characters she is creating, which are infinitely more interesting than what the show was doing, anyway. I guess I love good writing and good story-telling more than I love any television show, even The X-Files. I will read anything if the writing is terrific. I don't just mean fan fiction, either. I read widely in any case, it is my favorite hobby, my first love. I need books like some people need water.

[leucocrystal]

I think it's just due to a different approach to reading in general. If I don't have an interest in the characters, the quality of the writing itself can only do so much for me. The same applies to original fiction. I OD'd quite a bit on reading when I was younger (as you know, I started quite early), so now I'm much more particular about what I like. Probably not the best approach, but it works for me.

[wendelah1]

I am asking this just to clarify. Reading no longer gives you pleasure, in and of itself. Only a fairly narrow subset of reading material of any kind holds your interest. Does that sound correct?

[leucocrystal]

Oh, I probably should've been more clear the first time around. I do still love to read, I'm just pickier than I used to be. I used to read just for the sake of reading, but now I'm much more discriminatory. Frankly, my new job environment perpetuates this, which is fine for me. It's not just good characters; I need interesting plot, well-done prose, or that rare kind of writing that sort of... transports you. Sadly, there's just not that much of this out there, that I've come across anyway.

That said, being picky has its perks. I rarely spend time on books that I don't enjoy, so when I do finish something, it's a good experience. Also, I don't rush read as much as I used to, either. It's more leisurely now I guess, and I never read more than one book at once.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Also, I don't rush read as much as I used to, either. It's more leisurely now I guess, and I never read more than one book at once.

I rarely read more than one book at a time, but I think that's only because I read so fast! Really I should try to train myself to slow down, but speed reading is so useful in my non-fictional life that it is hard to maintain two different speed settings.

[wendelah1]

I am always reading about twenty books at a time. I read very quickly, too, unless I am reading strictly for content. I read a little bit slower, then, I guess. I have a very good visual memory, or at least I used to.

If I didn't have anything else to read I would be reading the back of the cereal boxes. Fortunately, in my house that will never be a problem.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

It is definitely a dark journey and there is definitely a lot of unravelling along the way. I'll confess that I didn't read every scene with scrupulous attention and indeed there were some scenes where the scroll button never stopped moving. Having said that, I still thought it was a very fine story. RivkaT and Mustang Sally have always teetered on the brink of out-of-character, at least as I read the characters, but their writing is so interesting that I suppose I've been willing to grant them possession of their own X-Files subuniverse. They are out-of-character in a very consistent and pointed way, so that their alternate Mulder and Scully are (to me) worth approaching on their own terms. (By this I mean the basic Mulder and Scully in their works, not the AUs that appear.)

The plot of the story is actually surprisingly tight. Both the way it unravels and the way it is fixed end up being tied in very well, so when you get to the end you don't feel like you've been taken on that wild ride for nothing. That's my two cents anyway. Not that I'm trying to convince you to read the rest of it; just saying.

[wendelah1]

It is a dark story, but I think it was told very much on the surface of things. I never got very emotionally involved in the fates of any of the various universes, or in their versions of our characters. It felt very cold. It is a story that I can admire but not love, and not one that I can see rereading for pleasure. The closest novel that I can think of in tone might be "Lolita," which is techically brilliant, and very disturbing but which I also found to be quite cold. I thought that Jess M.'s "The Other Man" was a much darker story, and one that I felt very involved in and rather devastated by even the second time around.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I never got very emotionally involved in the fates of any of the various universes, or in their versions of our characters. It felt very cold.

That is a good point. Now that I think about it, I didn't get that attached to the characters either, and that is especially interesting because in "Iolokus" I really was. Even, or arguably especially, the original characters in "Iolokus" were compelling creations. You did get attached to them.

My surmise is that the characters weren't really the point of this story. It was all about the moral shape of the world, and like the sex, the characters just acted as bellwethers to demonstrate exactly how bad it had gotten. The story draws heavily on "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," and that play was not exactly about the characterization either.

I'm planning to write my own review of this story, by the way. Just that it's quicker to start by replying to other people.