Story 164: "Human Credentials" by Scarlet Baldy

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Recently, while reading Human Credentials for the first time, I had such a strong desire to discuss it that I knew immediately I was going to post it here at some point. Then, while going through our recs page, I was pleased to find it had already been recced quite some time ago by tiger_bay.

Human Credentials picks up after FTF, in an AU season 6, when a mysterious lead prompts Mulder, Scully, and Diana to set out on an adventure that will challenge their humanity and take them to the ends of the earth, possibly in more ways than one. The fact that this fic is over 400K tends to suggest it's a story with a fair amount going on. That's an understatement. There's not a lot that isn't going on in Human Credentials. It incorporates the mytharc in a way that makes a powerful and surprising amount of sense, and it makes excellent use of nearly every major secondary character from the show, as well as bringing in at least one intriguing original character. On top of that, it has the kind of dark, controversial Mulder and Scully characterizations that are sure to spark discussion. And there's a fair amount of hot sex too.


Human Credentials


A Few Specifications and Caveats:

Regarding Diana Fowley: Her role is mainly in the first third of the fic, so if you aren't a fan of her character and you just can't see yourself making it through 400K of her presence, don't write this fic off! Human Credentials does give Diana her due, but it's still very much Mulder and Scully's show.

Regarding the sequel: There is one, and it's called Lendemains. It's an unfinished WIP, and it was written about a decade after Human Credentials. You may discuss it in the comments if you want to, but the 'official' rec is Human Credentials only. It's just easier that way.

Regarding our schedule: Because this fic is so long, we might spend more time on it than usual. If discussion is still going on after seven or eight days, or if people start posting saying they fully intend to comment but they need a little more time, then wendelah1 and I will hold off on posting a new fic for a few more days.

Regarding the content warnings: Heed them. Characters do some very troubling things in this fic. Things that will make excellent points for discussion, I think, but I don't want anyone getting blindsided.

Comments

[coldthermistor.livejournal.com]

Whoa. It's just...it's a really wild ride. I don't even know where to begin, but I'm quite amazed at how they picked up on so many of the possibilities, and fleshed them out - even before Biogenesis, they said?

Characterisation...hmm. It's very, very raw, IMO. A great deal of emotional intensity, but I guess that's the whole point, right?

fifty pages until lift-off.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I think I'm going to have to post focused comments dealing with specific aspects of the fic. Because I have no idea where to start.

One of the things I found strangest about this fic is that to me it seems to change so dramatically around page fifty. The first fifty pages really don't do a lot for me (I'll get back to the 'why' of this later). But everything seems to change during that scene in the oil reservoir.

The plot, for one thing, suddenly opens up in front of you, and it's pretty awesome. In fact, Human Credentials has one of the best "plot reveal" scenes I can remember reading in a fic. It's epic, it's horrifying, it's intriguing, it's vivid, it's personal to the characters, and despite how much it reveals, it doesn't take the legs out from under the fic - instead it seems to give the fic legs.

But it's more than just the plot reveal; the tone, the characterizations, the whole energy of the fic changes. During that scene things seem to come together and suddenly the fic feels intriguing and intense. I think at one point I actually laughed gleefully at how good the fic had gotten in a matter of pages, when up until that point I'd been very tempted to quite reading.

I do have a theory about this change in the fic. My theory starts from the belief that Iolokus had a tremendous influence on the writing of Human Credentials. Reading this fic gave me distinctly Iolokus-like sensations (i.e. "Oh my god, this is so creepy and so riveting!") and I think that Scarlet probably had the tone and characterizations of Iolokus very much in mind when she started writing HC. (the author's notes at the end of the fic seem to support this.) The trouble is, I don't think HC actually achieves that dynamic at first. It's too bound to canon, too tethered to Mulder and Scully's actual characterizations. So the first fifty pages are this constant push/pull between canon and the lean, mean fic I think Scarlet wanted to write, and instead of sharp, flinty, enticingly screwed up characters, Mulder and Scully come off as...well, he's an asshole and she's just sort of pitiful.

Not only do they seem OOC for that first while, but I don't really find them attractive characters. Drugged-up hot-mess Scully making passes at her partner while he's with another woman? Not buying it.

Here I refer back to Iolokus' modus operandi: Scully was the pivotal factor in making the dynamic of that story work. Right from the beginning she was cold, furious, driven - she just wasn't quite right inside. The change in Mulder's character almost seemed to be a response to the change in Scully's character. But in HC all of that is backwards. At first it's Mulder's character that is outwardly different: he's with Diana, he's getting better. Partially as a consequence of that, Scully is going to pieces. She's in pain for many other reasons too, but it's Mulder's abandonment of her that sets her off kilter and disrupts her coping mechanisms so that she falls apart.

When Scully and Diana set off for Africa it does a bit to improve the fic's dynamic. The adventure is then afoot, and it's hard not to admire a fic that takes the characters across continents chasing conspiratorial leads. Plus, without Mulder around Scully does seem to pull herself together. But it isn't until the scene in the underground oil reservoir that HC feels like it becomes what it was aiming to be all along, and I think mostly that's because the black oil mindfuck breaks the fic from canon once and for all. It turns Scully into someone cold, furious, driven - not quite right inside. And though doctor Ali does a lot to reverse the effects of the black oil, Scully and Mulder are changed, and there's no going back. The nature of the world, as they see it, is different than it was.

Of course Scarlet is welcome to tell me I'm wrong about the Iolokus thing. It's just a theory.

a really troubling sex scene.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I'm going to talk a lot about the sex scene in the hotel in Tunisia, because it mars Human Credentials for me. HC has so many good things going for it, so I did my best to pretend that scene wasn't what it was. But ultimately it stayed in my mind throughout the rest of the fic. That scene is like a bullet wound to the chest that mysteriously doesn't bleed. It just happens. It should be a HUGE deal, but it's hardly even acknowledged afterward.

After much reflection, I don't think it was rape. There is no one specific reason why it wasn't rape, but a few things together make the difference:

-They'd had sex before.
-They were actually having sex only a minute before.
-It was sex that Scully initiated fairly forcefully.
-At no point does she specifically say no/don't/stop/let me go.

There are also extenuating circumstances that complicate things: Scully recently shot a man in cold blood. She is emotionally vacant during the scene. Mulder is, in a way, attempting to wake her up from the effects of the black oil. And then there's the critical line:

She gave up struggling for a moment to catch her breath. Her body relaxed under his and became suddenly soft and inviting.

Her hips pushed up slightly against his.

Does that slight lift of the hips indicate desire? Is it reasonable to think Mulder would not have taken her without that slight movement? Does such a tiny indication count for anything when Mulder had no way of knowing, in the first place, whether it meant "take me" or "get off of me"?

Like I said, none of these things preclude rape, but all together it's enough that in this case I don't think it's rape. Scully is not trying to get away from him to keep him from fucking her. She's trying to get away from him to keep him from seeing her.

However, the specific language of the scene definitely doesn't help the "It's not rape" argument. Everything on Scully's side of the scene says Victim. She "escapes" from his grip, she "stumbles" off him and "backs away", she runs for the "shelter" of the bathroom, she fights to "break free" of his grip, she tries to "crawl" away. Once Mulder takes her she's described as "limp," "pliant," and "soft." Then, when it's over she's described as a "doomed butterfly". Meanwhile everything on Mulder's side of the scene says Aggressor. His rage is "hard" and "unyielding," he goes after her, his fingers are like "talons" on her arm, he asks her, "Where the fuck do you think you're going," and then tells her, "You're not going anywhere". Everything about his behavior says, "I'm angry with you and I'm taking control of you whether you like it or not." He takes her (arguably he forces himself on her) out of fury, and out of the desire to control her.

Sounds like a rapist to me.

He wanted to hurt the stranger who had taken up residence inside her and stolen her will to fight

This may be rationalization, but it's not justification. It's not okay to force oneself on someone because you don't like the way they're behaving. Yes, Mulder has a very good reason to be alarmed with Scully's behavior, but that doesn't give him license to do what he does to her.

The implications of this scene are only complicated further when we later find out that Scully probably experienced it much the way a female animal in heat experiences being violently taken by a male. It explains why she was so unfazed by it, and it supports the idea that when Mulder was on top of her she probably did feel desire for him to take her. But who knows how Scully - the un-numbed Scully - would have reacted to the same scene. Once her humanity was restored, shouldn't she have been horrified that Mulder would do that to her?

No matter how I consider this scene, I end up strongly wishing it had been written a little bit differently. Written as it is, I can't accept what Mulder does. Only circular logic gives the scene an air of acceptability:

1. Scully is okay with it, therefore it must be okay.
2. Mulder only did it because he loves her.

Take that away and you're left with the facts: he pinned her helplessly to the floor, screamed at her, and brutally fucked her limp body until she bled.

*make a face* Okay, more positive comments to come - I swear.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

reading, reading, reading...

Okay, now the positive stuff, mostly.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Okay, why is it so much easier to criticize articulately than to praise articulately? Why do I like HC? For all the reasons I said in the main post:

It has a fantastic plot. I think this is by far HC's best quality. What it does with the mytharc is just fantastic. Multiple alien colonizations over hundreds of millions of years! A really awesome explanation for the black oil! (it's actually oil!) Aliens triggering human evolution in order to use our bodies as hosts! Except for the part where we're all screwed because really they only want more evolved individuals like Gibson Praise! (we actually get an explanation for Gibson Praise!) Sure there are many loose ends HC doesn't incorporate or clear up, but that's because the mytharc was a huge mess that never had any real consistency or continuity. CC just threw out plot twists like spaghetti at a wall and saw what stuck. HC manages to grab onto a few of the most interesting and important elements of the mytharc and piece them together into something that A. makes a lot of sense, and B. is REALLY SCARY. Which is another item at the top of my list of Things I Love About This Fic: it's genuinely horrific. It kind of crept up on me - something's not right, something's really not right - and then the scene in the oil reservoir revealed so much more, and humanity was suddenly so much more fucked, than I was anticipating. And the great things is, I actually believe it - unlike on the show, where I was most often incredulous and underwhelmed by developments in the mytharc.

Another thing I really love is that in HC the mytharc has a more organic feel to it. The focus isn't on high alien technology, it's on something pervasive and primordial. That's a big part of what makes it believable: we're not doomed because the grey's are going to come and slice our high rises in half with laser beams. We're doomed because, essentially, they're infinitely more virulent than we are. I mean, does it get creepier than the thought that Darwinism has been engineered to lead us to enslavement and slaughter? That every human alive is an instrument of their own defeat?

It uses the secondary characters very well, but it's still all about Mulder and Scully. Any fic that delivers TLG, Krycek, Marita, Skinner, and a really interesting original character, and actually gives them interesting things to do - without taking my attention away from Mulder and Scully - earns major point in my book. Just because all secondary characters are essentially tools working for or against Mulder and Scully, doesn't mean they have to be poorly written. They can be people while they're being tools. (Oh, is that insensitive? *g*)

Yes, I left Diana out of that list of characters. I admit, the thought of she and Mulder together makes me gnash my teeth. But aside from that, I don't think HC handled her character all that well. More than ever, she seemed like a plot device to stir up trouble between Mulder and Scully. And I don't like the amount of cattiness between she and Scully. Rather than validating Diana's character, it just seemed to drag Scully down with her to see who could out-bitch who. Plus, as happy as I was that her role was mainly restricted to the first part of HC, it felt quite lopsided that she played such a large role in the beginning, and no role in later chapters. It made me wonder if perhaps Scarlet originally planned to involve Diana more, but got sick of working her in during the first part and just decided to write her out.

There's a fair amount of hot sex. As terrible as this sounds, when Mulder and Scully are characterized the way they are in HC, as people who spend a lot of time hurt and angry with each other, it's kind of vital that they also be screwing a lot, and that the sex is hot. Because it's basically the only way the reader has of gauging that when push comes to shove, Mulder and Scully are still a united front. True, it's dysfunctional, but there's just something deliciously cathartic about two people who can be furious with each other and still want to fuck each other.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

First of all thank you for selecting my story for the book club, I'm very flattered.

Before I address specific issues pertaining to this fic, I would like to put this story back in its context:

I started writing HC around September/October 1998. The first chapter was published on December 15th 1998 and the last in April 2000.

I never meant for it to be so long. It was initialy supposed to be a short story based on the rather crude: "what would it take for M&S to have sex in the FBI parking garage?". Nope, there were no grand scheme planned.(I think this goes a long way to explain why Amyhit felt such a change of tone after the first fifty pages. More on this later.)

It was my first story. My only previous attempt at fanfic had been to add Skinner's inner monologue on a transcript scene from the "Red & The Black". And although I will always be proud of HC, there are many things that I would change now, if I ever revised the story.

Now about the story itself.

I found it very interesting to hear Amyhit say how she felt the fic changed dramatically around page fifty. I guess that's how long it took me to find my voice, and that at the beginning I didn't dare step too far away from canon. I am indeed a rabid Iolokus fan but I am also very aware that it is not given to everyone to take this particular brand of crazy and make it work.

I guess the beginning of the story revolved on "what if Scully's traumas had really taken their toll? What if Mulder, instead of being the crazy one, was the one getting better, what would their dynamic be like?" But I was an unexperienced writer back then, and I agree with Amy when she says: instead of sharp, flinty, enticingly screwed up characters, Mulder and Scully come off as...well, he's an asshole and she's just sort of pitiful. Though I'm still quite fond of the ending of that "Scully high as a kite" scene.

Anyway, the fic was supposed to end after the parking garage scene. But somehow, it didn't and became a completely different creature altogther. And I'm very proud of the fact that the show, came up with the concept of aliens being responsible for human evolution AFTER Cat - my then awesome beta scientist - and I, had used the idea for cornerstone of HC.

I also agree that the Scully/Diana interactions were at times too bitchy and heavy handed. This was just plain cheap and sloppy wirting.

Now about *that* sex scene in Tunisia. (copying and pasting some of the stuff I've discussed with Amy in a pm.)

Do I think it's rape? No I don't think it is, because:

A) they were in the middle of having sex.
B) Scully, or whatever was controlling Scully at the time did try to escape when she felt exposed, but the minute she felt Mulder still hard above her she stopped fighting and Her hips pushed up slightly against his . She stopped fighting then, yes she didn't participate but that's only because there was no longer any need to. The alien inside her had what it wanted: coitus.

I have to admit I debated many times about whether or not I should "sanitize" this scene and tone done the violence of it.

.../...

[(Anonymous)]

Oops, Fish posted. I am deliberately not reading her.

I respect the hell out of Human Credentials. The writer announced her infatuation with a new and argument-inspiring example of fanfic--I told Wendelah that Iolokus "blew the doors off" expectations--and proceeded to display the sincerest form of admiration by trying to write in its nontraditional "tradition." This made her vulnerable to all sorts of accusations, including those of character-assassination and blatant imitation. Screw that. I don't intend to pile on.

For one thing, amyhit is right in pointing out that this is a nifty story-line. Few have dealt so well with the mytharc artifacts that CC left in such disarray. The lake of black oil is a wonderful passive villain. Character assassination? Got it right here. Complete rationale thrown in for free.

Mulder is drawn a bit outside the guidelines, though, predating modern feminism as I do, I'll leave the rape issue to others. Diana is sympathetic, which makes for a nice change, and the hard time that Scully gives her in claiming her lover is our first hard hint that the iron, as they used to say, has entered into her soul. (Where do I get these expressions? Haven't a clue.) Walter was great: the camel, not the AD, though he was okay too. Ali was a most fascinating sacrificial scientist. Krycek--ah, Krycek. Turning noble, and where did it get him? A cold, cold hell.

My primary problem with HC is in the area of tone, which is an extraordinarily hard thing to talk about. The combination of dire circumstance, self-hating behavior, and wisecrack is one that Iolokus pioneered, but it's really, really hard to do. Trying as I was to empathize with Scully's quest for normal happytimes, I was repeatedly thrown off by lines like "she now had the vital statistics to enter a Miss Dachau 2000 competition. His pity was not a crown she was willing to wear" or "She liked that. A lot. Although it would probably take the nation's supplies of Pentholotal (sic) to get her to admit it." Then there's "I needed that asshole to kick my ass." Exaggerated metaphors and the like can sometimes capture that agonizing link between pain and hilarity. But it's a fine, fine line, and failed hilarity can cause pain. And can leave the reader thinking that it's not a good idea to
flaunt what you don't got.

The sex? Pretty good, though I've found that reading carefully kinds of kills it for me. But the one thing that I can't forgive is Mulder and Scully fucking against the wall of the parking garage. Never! Dumb, distasteful, morally and physically questionable, totally nonerotic. Walter should have fired their asses! Yes, the camel too!

Guess I have piled on a bit. But I do consider Human Credentials a brave, exciting, and historically interesting piece of fiction.

I forgot to mention

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I noticed that HC has a fairly 'male gaze' when it comes to Scully, and it does, at times, bother me. She's kind of given the comic-book-heroine treatment, in that she's totally awesome, but also seen and often discussed in a very gendered way. Frohike is more of a lech than ever, Mulder is frequently using size qualifiers when he thinks of her, Skinner is the unwitting voyeur to Mulder and Scully's sexual coupling, so naturally we get a male voyeur's appraisal of Scully's sexual appeal, Krycek kisses her unresponsive mouth in the oil resevoir, and then later takes a lascivious delight in the fact that he's more in control of her sexual responses than she is.


All of these things have explanations: Frohike is harmless. Scully really is physically little. Of course Skinner is going to enjoy the view when it's placed right in front of him. Krycek is an invertebrate scum-sucker whose moral dipstick is about two drops short of bone dry.

I'm not saying there's anything specifically wrong with how HC treats Scully, I'm just saying that the entire HC universe seems to, well, ogle her a fair amount. And hey, I ogle Scully too. She's hot, no doubt about it. But not only is her sexuality put fairly front and center in HC, she is also constantly placed in situations where her own body, and even her own feelings, are out of her control and in someone elses.

The show does that a fair amount too, but the show doesn't make it sexual. There are times when the show actually neglected to recognize Scully's sexuality, but for the most part it was a good thing, because by desexualizing Scully they desexualized the nature of her victimization. For the most part, it wasn't about that. It was about humans being treated as objects, much more than it was about Scully the woman being treated as an object.

And like I said, Scully kicks ass in HC and I really like that. Baby her and you'll be peeing through a catheter. But just because she's extra tough in HC - she fights off the bad things that are done to her, and shrugs off the ogling - doesn't mean she's being treated fairly.

I _also_ forgot to say

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

That last line?

The cloud is buzzing...

kljdaiojeljdkad!!!! I'm breaking out the keysmash, which I never do, because that ending is AWESOME. I'm really glad you didn't go on to write Lenedemains right away, because that means most people who read HC got to have that as their last line, and it's one for the book.

Oh, one other kind of strange thing: when I started reading Lendemains I had two initial impressions. One was that it was in first person, the other was that it no longer reminded me of Iolokus. I find this amusingly backwards, because Iolokus is in first person not third.

[lightlack.livejournal.com]

Breezing in and out with only two things to say:

Fifty-four comments! GotDAMN, the last time I was here we were still at thirteen!

And this: Krycek is an invertebrate scum-sucker whose moral dipstick is about two drops short of bone dry. <--- is the most amazing thing I've read all week long. Possibly counting last week, too.

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