xf_book_club | Story 95: "Iolokus" by Mustang Sally and RivkaT

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Story 95: "Iolokus" by Mustang Sally and RivkaT

A few days ago, someone was talking about fic and the phrase "most famous fic in our fandom" came up. I'm not sure what story she had in mind but surely "Iolokus" has to be a contender for that title. I have seen it nominated by many people for the best fan fiction novel, not just in our own, but in any fandom. I have also seen people say they couldn't finish it because Mulder and Scully were too "out of character."

The misspelled monster that started it all. Although I'm told it promotes heteronormativity in the end, we were more going for polymorphic perversity; you'll have to judge for yourself.

Summary: Painted across the barren and desolate reaches of Texas, the shadows of the Project put additional pressure on Scully and Mulder's already fragile relationship. After a hostage crisis raises more questions about the Project's breeding program, Scully begins her own investigation, leaving Mulder to choose between saving her and saving himself. Finally, the investigation leads to tragedy and Mulder and Scully find that more questions have been asked than answered.

The title reference was to an island mentioned in Medea, to which we turned for fairly obvious reasons.

Warnings: extreme violence, including the death of children.

There are four long sections to this behemoth. My first time through this fic I hadn't much knowledge of canon, so I am curious to see what I think of it now. Thank you to

sangria_lila for this excellent nomination. If there is enthusiasm to continue, I suppose we can forge through to the end or just quit with book one. It's your call.

Please leave feedback for the authors and then come back and let us know what you think. Nominations for next time are made here. Since

rivkat's site is down at the moment, the link is to the wonderful Fugues Fiction Archive. Of course, the story is also available at Gossamer.

Iolokus

Edit: Since Rivkat's site is back up, here is another link to the story: Iolokus.

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Yes, that's it exactly. She tells beautiful stories, but I don't always see them as stories about Mulder and Scully. But my gosh, when she nails them, she really nails them.

Yeah, some of the metaphors are over the top and just lose something after a point. But hey, having a story that's too clever still beats the hell out of bad writing.

I just finished Syadiloh, and find myself dissatisfied with it once again. It feels so heavy handed, especially the beginning. I get that the end is playing on the "OMG SCULLY HAS TWINS IN A CAR!" trope, but meh.

Note: I actually like the babies' names a lot, which I understand many people don't. I mean, Bram, Cordelia, and Miranda are maybe a little matchy in that they're all from Shakespeare, but it's hardly Romeo, Juliet, and Ophelia or anything. I like sensibly named children.

Edited 2009-11-04 19:40 (UTC)

I just finished re-reading Book 5 and posted my thoughts below so I'll keep this short, but I've actually never much care for it at all.There are some funny moments, but it's just all too much for my taste. I like the ending of Res Judicata much better, but without the twins. I would have liked the whole saga to end at the party.

Oh, the whole saga should end at the party. I just have a particular weakness for kidfic, and I love reading about Miranda.

Oh Syadiloh is supposed to be bad, and the saga as I see it properly ended in Res Judicata.

Where is Bram in Shakespeare?

Well! My bad. I could have sworn I remembered a Bram in The Merchant of Venice but I apprear to have been much mistaken. Okay then. Now I have no idea what the issue is with Bram and Cordelia. *laugh*

Miranda is one of the very few kids I absolutely loved reading about. She's just wonderful, and such a real baby. &hearts.

Bram Stoker, I'm thinking. Those two were shameless.

I meant the writers, not Mulder and Scully. But that works too. (I'm being flippant here. Shame was a big factor in the character development.)

Well I'm relieved, I thought I had stumbled across the Presidents of the Iolokus fan club here, lol.

I finally got through the whole thing, and like you, I can't see what others applaud. The story just really doesn't work for me on any level. Some of my biggest issues:

1. Obviously, the characterizations. I've posted about that already, so I won't repeat myself. But I've realized part of the reason I had such an adverse reaction to the characters is that they both sound the same to me. Their voices were nearly identical, in that they both sounded like the authors, not like individuals. The snideness of their voices, the bitterness, the language laced with metaphor - I concede it's difficult to write first person, but I think the attempt here wholly missed the mark.

2. The whole thing is so cruel and mean-spirited and just plain ridiculous, both in the external factors the characters are reacting to, and to the internal reactions of the characters themselves. It seemed like the plot became more convoluted and ludicrous just for the sake of being convoluted and ludicrous. I mean mass murder at a day care, casual and destructive sex, a fetus lab set on fire by the woman whose genetic material was stolen and manipulated, multiple Mulders, rape, near incest, sociopaths, serial-killers, a full-on custody battle, an exploding courtroom, pregnancy and cap it off with domestic bliss? This thing runs hot and cold and manic to the extreme.

Maybe it's ironic that I love this show and these characters yet I'm a realist. Even if I don't buy the plot (and I don't, in many many cases, even in tv canon) what I value in these stories is the honesty of the character's reactions and their relationship to one another. In this story they were manipulated, pulled and pushed around, knocked down and put through hell and back, just because the author's could do it. Their relationship was so warped and destructive and dysfunctional, and they were both entirely miserable the entire time. The premise of the characters was so skewed from the beginning, that I saw nothing approaching honesty in their thoughts, actions, feelings or reactions.

Well, not entirely true: the only thing I found honest in this story was the relationship between Mulder and his daughter. It brought out the characteristics in him I could actually recognize - his kindness, humor, patience, affection, tenacity.

3. Enough with the sex scenes. I'm not going to lie, I enjoy a good sex scene as much as the next person, but not when it's destructive or emotionally vacant, and certainly not when there's about 30 of them that are more or less the same thing repeated and do nothing to further the plot or the emotional maturity of the story. It becomes a chore to read.

So, to put it bluntly, I didn't enjoy reading it. CC and co put them through enough misery, that I like to see them find a little peace and happiness, to heal -- not in a sentimental, schlooppy, overly poetic way, but in an honest way, that's true to the characters, to their spirit and intelligence.

And I get that that's not what this story was about. SO.. (long rambling post about to come to an end, I promise ;) ) I'm glad I gave it shot, but now it's time to move on with my life. I'm glad others got so much enjoyment from it, and I'm just going to have to resign myself to the fact that I'm not one of them.

-Katie

*laugh* I agree. Anything's possible with the four of them.

Obviously, rereading Iolokus was a joy for me rather than a chore. Tastes vary wildly in this particular case.

I've read many highly thought-of and well-crafted fics in which Mulder and Scully cope bravely and respect each other and behave pretty much as heroes are meant to behave. The writers took the show, the characters and their readers seriously. Glad to have read them.

Probably won't again.

Part of the attraction of Iolokus, for those who dig it, is the transgressive thrill of kicking over the traces. Its writers treat Mulder and Scully very roughly, loading calamity upon calamity almost to the point, as Scarlet said, of parody. They are imagining the absurd situation of the characters as a cosmic joke, which really it it. (Have you ever tried to describe the X-File storyline to a non-fan? Including Mulder's three(?)deaths? And gotten the "c'mon!"?) It's loony, unbelievable stuff, and it will break your heart if you let it. But fans are not always forced to take it seriously. Sometimes the best response to a cosmic joke is to cap it.

Sally and Rivka may have manhandled their heroes, but at least they gave them good dialogue.

I think it's important to remember that Mulder and Scully do manage to love each other. Even in the real world, love is something that psychically injured people have to work hard to achieve. Their relationship is a long battle. It is triumphant. That much is serious.

There's an element of light-hearted fantasy along with the angst that charms me personally. The multiple Mulders idea gives me a chance to see Mulder (and DD) in so many roles, and Scully complimentary adversorial ones. It's role-playing to the max, and very sexy. (Destructive, emotionally vacant sex scenes are fine with me, though I'd point out that anger is an emotion. For many reasons, actually, I think an Iolokus reader should pace herself. It's a frantic ride.)

I'd like to get in touch with Kate.

I was offline while this discussion was going on, and when i came back it was all too MUCH for me to fling myself into after the fact so i snagged a bunch of everyone's comments into a word file and started, sort of, "disputing" with those comments - for my own edification, of course. now i want to post my thoughts, in my own journal, but i'm not very comfortable with doing that unless i can contact the people i'm quoting and disagreeing with and let them know i'm doing it. it seems unfair otherwise.

Kate, if you come back and see this, would you maybe drop me a line or something? or if anyone else knows anything about her - email address and whatnot? please and thank you. Sorry i can't post this somewhere else - somewhere more appropriate, but there isn't really anywhere else for it.

Hey! Welcome back. We have missed you. I was pretty much offline during most of the discussion, too, due to family problems. I'd still like to hear your thoughts on Iolokus. Kate hasn't left us an email address anywhere that I have found. I wonder if she's at Haven? Try leaving her a comment on the next post. She read and loved one of my favorite stories, "Bone of Contention" and left a long comment on it.

Hello from the future! I just started reading Iolokus today (yup, it took me SIX YEARS), and as I googled for a current link, I found this. You're famous!

Someone on USA Today mentioned us, too. (shakes head) I liked flying under the radar.

We've added to the lurker population but not the participants, alas.

Let me know what you think. I reread it--just the first section--on a long plane ride a few years back. It still held up for me.

I just finished the first section, and it looks like I agree with most people. It's solidly written for sure, but it's so dark, and it feels really out of character for me. That doesn't mean I don't like it. I'm just struggling to wrap my head around these versions of Mulder and Scully, and battling my need to see them all shmoopy all the time. I'm going to start the second book tonight, so I'll let you know what I think after that.

Spoiler alert: If you stick it out to the end, it gets very shmoopy.

I had a sneaking suspicion. ;)

Nope. I made it through the third book and I just can't anymore. I hate it.

It's not just that the characters don't act like Mulder and Scully; they don't act like people. Every single character is a sex addict (Scully and Marita? Also, come on, you don't almost have sex with a serial killer just because he looks like your lover), and the level of violence and callousness is just...too much.

To wit: Scully is abducted, made infertile, had her eggs stolen, given cancer, tenuously cured, discovers that she has a daughter, has said daughter die in her arms, walks in on a room full of strangled schoolchildren, discovers that she has a warehouse full of monster-babies, kills said monster-babies, kills woman she slept with the night before, gets brutally raped, discovers that she has even MORE children, walks in on a room full of slaughtered pregnant women and dead babies (all of which are hers), rescues one but decides that she's not in great shape to parent and gives her up, witnesses her lover savagely ripping a man apart, is stalked by a serial killer and nearly murdered, finds a dead body in her bed, has psychic dreams of children being murdered, AND I'M PROBABLY FORGETTING SOMETHING. All this, and Mulder calls her a bitch every other paragraph because she doesn't want to cuddle? Fuck you, Mulder.

I don't care how they manage to end up together in the end, because they shouldn't. Mulder is a monster (even if they try to say that the twins were invading his mind or something), Scully needs to be a psych ward, and Miranda should be with more stable parents. It looks like the third book is about a custody battle; I hope the other couple wins.

Also, all the plot holes. I tried, I really did, but I'm done.

It's not for everyone. Life is too short to read fanfic--or anything--you don't enjoy.

Given the Grand Canyon-sized plotholes in The X-Files itself, the ones in Iolokus seem minor by comparison.

You don't think that Mulder and Scully would be just as crazy/monstrous/wacko as a result of everything that gets done to them by our esteemed friends at 1013? I think that's the point of the series--that no real person could remain sane. I think the writers were particularly outraged by the events of CC/Emily, especially coming so soon after the cancer arc. The sexual-acting out, child murders, and all of the other crazy bits are all there to provoke the reader into feeling outraged, too. It worked, just a little too well for many readers.

My personal take on it: I also think it's meant to be a slap in the face of ye olde Relationshipper contingent. I wasn't in the fandom back in the day, but if the Tumblr MSR folks are anything like them, I can understand where MS and Rivkat are coming from.

Spoiler Alert:

NO. You don't want the other couple to win, they're being manipulated by the Consortium.

Haha, you're right about the show—it's chock-full of holes too, and those bother me as well. I guess I can forgive those more easily because the actual plot is almost not the point of the X-Files. To me, it's a show about light in the darkness, about two good people who are imperfect but never stop trying. It's a show about characters, not events—which is why for most people, it tanked when the leads left the show. On the other hand, the fic is just unrelentingly dark. And its darkness is explained as a normal reaction to the horror of the plot, which makes me look harder at the plot itself. I do agree that in the real world, the litany of abuses that I mentioned in my last comment would drive a person insane. I just disagree that it would manifest like this, especially in the people we know from the TV series.

Also, the fact that they're going to end up together in the end bothers me tremendously, given that what I've seen of their relationship so far is incredibly abusive. I don't see any love in them at all. If you're going to hate-fuck each other because you blame that person for what happened to you, fine. But don't try to tell me that's love.

Well, I guess in the end, Rivkat and MS loved Mulder and Scully too much to leave them unhappy. I know exactly what you mean. All I can tell you is it's redeemed--they're redeemed--by the love they share for their child, and the sacrifices they're both willing to make for her sake. What's the lyric by Leonard Cohen?

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

I am always drawn in by stories about redemption--and that's what Iolokus is ultimately about.

Guess I quit right before the redemption part. :)

When I first read this fic several weeks ago I posted that I didn't care for it. However, I had only skimmed the story. A couple of days ago, I sat down and read the whole thing properly, and wow. How are two authors able to co-write so seemlessly? I only notice one voice when I read, so to speak, so the collaboration is incredible. Also, the prose is brilliant. Intelligent metaphors and a sense of humor at the same time. I'm now on the third installment, and I'm loving the world that the authors created for our characters. The authors have a unique perspective idescribing Scully's hesitation in her relationship with Mulder. They've fleshed out our beloved tv characters into real people, flaws and all. This is genius.

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Story 95: "Iolokus" by Mustang Sally and RivkaT

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Kate? Kaaaaate?

Re: Kate? Kaaaaate?

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Iolokus