Story 95: "Iolokus" by Mustang Sally and RivkaT

[wendelah1]

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.

Comments

[sister-spoooky.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm late to the party, but the fact that I felt compelled to make an lj account and comment when this thread is almost certainly dead says something about Iolokus.

I get where they're going with it. Really. And in a lot of ways, I appreciate what they're trying to do in letting Mulder and Scully actually experience the trauma of everything that's happened to them. I like seeing Scully having some agency, too, since so often it seems like she's just along for the ride, having bad things happen to her instead of being an active player in her own storyline.

That being said, I just can't get behind the characterization. So much of what makes Mulder and Scully good partners, lovers, and characters is that even when things are terrible, they draw upon each other's strengths to get them through, but Iolokus completely undermines that. It's as though all of their worst qualities have become their defining characteristics. Their mutual trust, respect, and friendship have been traded in for a miserable codependence and an angry desire to consume and hurt the other. And tastes of that - that would be understandable, given the circumstances, but their entire existences, both together and as individuals, have been squashed in favor of making them as bitter and spiteful as possible. They aren't themselves, but charicarures of rage meant to star in misery porn.

I really struggle with Mulder being characterized as a literal sociopath. Mulder, who on many occasions has bonded deeply with and wept for the people he encounters in his investigations. Mulder, who was handed the people who were responsible for Scully's abduction and the perfect opportunity to kill them, but decided not to because that wasn't who he was or wanted to be. Mulder is arrogant and often too caught up in his own world to truly be there for Scully, but a sociopath? Hardly.

And then there's Scully, who stands up for women and is by all means a compassionate individual suddenly taking sexual advantage of a prisoner... And Mulder, when he's intensely drugged and in no real position to be initiating a sexual relationship. These consent issues are not only treated flippantly in the story, but they're wildly out of character for Scully.

There are elements of the relationship dysfunction that are, deep down, pretty spot-on, but they're executed to such extremes that it seems at times as though Mulder and Scully are enemies. There's certainly legitimate despair between them - they both need something from the other that they probably won't ever fully get. But at the same time, there's genuine affection and warmth and respect, and there's no evidence of that here.

I'm all for flawed characters and messy relationships and spiraling downward in response to trauma, but there still has to be balance. Almost no one is their worst self 100% of the time, and those people certainly aren't out fighting in the name of what's right and good. Mulder and Scully are human beings, and snuffing out all of their light isn't a meaningful, or realistic, way to write them dealing with trauma. Mean, sarcastic quips don't count as lightening things up.

All in all, it just seems like deeply dysfunctional despair told in a million flowery metaphors and attempts at symbolism. In it's desire to show Mulder and Scully unraveling, it completely loses track of the basics of who these characters are. In attempting to create complicated, messed up characters, this story ironically just creates shallow, angry vessels who share little more than a name with Mulder and Scully. Iolokus is all heavy-handed bitterness and fire with no nuance.

No thread is ever dead

[wendelah1]

Welcome sister_spoooky.

It's been at least two years since I read "Iolokus" from beginning to end so I can't respond to every point you've made. I get why the characterizations didn't work for you--heck, they didn't work for a lot of people, even some people who love the fic. (Read through the comments for reader-responses from some of the fandom best-known writers.) The darn writers for the series couldn't keep them in character half the time. Describing "Iolokus" as "all heavy-handed bitterness and fire" without nuance is oversimplified, although I will grant the fic is purposefully short on subtlety. *g*

The fic was written out of anger, in reaction to events of the series through season five, in particular what was done to Scully. She's abducted by Duane Barry and Donnie Pfaster; she's given cancer; she's turned into a guinea pig by the Consortium doctors, who commit medical rape by stealing her ova and using them to make human/alien clones. But that wasn't enough for the writers: in Christmas Carol/Emily, Scully gets to discover that they've used her ova to make a very sick little girl, just so that Scully can suffer, suffer and suffer some more. I'm getting angry myself, just thinking about it. I can't imagine watching it unfold in real time. (I first watched the series in order in 2006-07 when the slimsets were released on DVD.)

This story is wildly ambitious, and to my mind, the writers mostly succeed at what they're attempting to do: they want to show us how angry and insane Mulder and Scully should be, given all that they've been put through by the damned writers. It's not comforting and it's not easy reading. That's a good thing, imho, given the issues they're dealing with. But--if you make it all the way to the end, to Syadiloh 1 and 2, we (and Mulder and Scully) get rewarded for our suffering, and that alone makes it worthwhile.

The complete Iolokus Series is now at AO3, as well as at Gossamer. I should edit the post to reflect that.

If you want me to add you to the community roster so that you can post unscreened, I'd be happy to do so. I have commenting set to screen non-members for spam prevention.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. It means a lot to know that people are still reading the fic and finding the community.