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But why grade when there's a fandom debate going on?
So, in all the discussion about the Tiptree, some people asked what fanfic would meet the standards of exploring and expanding gender, and I've seen a couple of mentions of Iolokus.
First (and first big gender issue, not coincidentally): It's immensely flattering that people still remember the story. And yes, I think the stories – especially 1 and 3 – are quite good. The opening scene of Iolokus can't be beat for immediate tension, and I can say that without shame because MustangSally wrote it and sent it to me.
Second: I'm thrilled that people are willing to consider the story under the Tiptree standards, not just for quality, but for subject matter. Iolokus, the first story, was written in a white-hot fire of specifically feminist rage at what "Chris Carter" (standing in for the entire TV apparatus) had done to Scully in Christmas Carol/Emily. (Oddly enough, the thing that tipped me over the edge – Mulder's reference to "Miss" Scully – made much more sense when I rewatched last summer; I was able to read it as Mulder's attempt to help Scully present as an acceptable mother-figure by playing along with the CPS person's idea of mothering, rather than as Mulder's own casual dismissal of Scully's professional status. But that's not how I saw it at the time.) The story's title comes from Medea, which gives you an idea of how mad we were.
There are things I'd do differently now. Especially Scully and Marita; that was artificial and awkward and should have been cut. But I think Scully's reproductive vengeance was properly motivated and justified. I wouldn't call her sane, but I would call it a triumph of her strength and intelligence that she was functioning at all after what had happened to her, in canon and in our story.
By the end of the Iolokus series, we're firmly in heterosexual suburban utopia, albeit with plaster over the bullet holes in the walls. We were never quite serious about the end – but that's the big problem: how do you work on the XF with a baby not old enough to crawl? Mulder and Scully essentially concede defeat – they stop fighting the conspiracy – in order to buy the safety of their own miracle family. Could we have imagined something more? I have to say, I have difficulty imagining even Aeryn Sun continuing with constant firefights during her son's first year. Baby D is a wonderful hostage, even in his family's custody, because he requires his parents to withdraw (a lot of) energy from the outside world to take care of him. When I think of Iolokus now, I see it as something of a tragic ending. (At the time, I was so exhausted and relieved to be done that I didn't think much beyond that.) I don't think that makes the story a failure – it's not like lots of other writers, or people, have figured out a way to resolve that tension between the personal and the galactic.
Third: I'm always harping on the legitimacy and noninfringing status of fan fiction. Would I put my story where my mouth is and have Iolokus listed for something like the Tiptree? My answer is the same as the punchline to the old lawyer joke: Where's the catch? I understand people who fear exposure, but I dream of a day when our hobby is no more shameful than playing fantasy baseball. (And that's a gendered thing too, which may make the Tiptree a good place to start or maybe a far less useful place to start.) Yes, it could easily come up short in comparison with the best professionally edited and published works f/sf has to offer. At a minimum, most of those would have better punctuation than Iolokus! But fan fiction is not so different that it should be excluded, and works like Iolokus that are intended to respond to problematic aspects of the original text, like Scully's maternity, are fair uses, not copyright infringements, and I will fight for them.
So, in all the discussion about the Tiptree, some people asked what fanfic would meet the standards of exploring and expanding gender, and I've seen a couple of mentions of Iolokus.
First (and first big gender issue, not coincidentally): It's immensely flattering that people still remember the story. And yes, I think the stories – especially 1 and 3 – are quite good. The opening scene of Iolokus can't be beat for immediate tension, and I can say that without shame because MustangSally wrote it and sent it to me.
Second: I'm thrilled that people are willing to consider the story under the Tiptree standards, not just for quality, but for subject matter. Iolokus, the first story, was written in a white-hot fire of specifically feminist rage at what "Chris Carter" (standing in for the entire TV apparatus) had done to Scully in Christmas Carol/Emily. (Oddly enough, the thing that tipped me over the edge – Mulder's reference to "Miss" Scully – made much more sense when I rewatched last summer; I was able to read it as Mulder's attempt to help Scully present as an acceptable mother-figure by playing along with the CPS person's idea of mothering, rather than as Mulder's own casual dismissal of Scully's professional status. But that's not how I saw it at the time.) The story's title comes from Medea, which gives you an idea of how mad we were.
There are things I'd do differently now. Especially Scully and Marita; that was artificial and awkward and should have been cut. But I think Scully's reproductive vengeance was properly motivated and justified. I wouldn't call her sane, but I would call it a triumph of her strength and intelligence that she was functioning at all after what had happened to her, in canon and in our story.
By the end of the Iolokus series, we're firmly in heterosexual suburban utopia, albeit with plaster over the bullet holes in the walls. We were never quite serious about the end – but that's the big problem: how do you work on the XF with a baby not old enough to crawl? Mulder and Scully essentially concede defeat – they stop fighting the conspiracy – in order to buy the safety of their own miracle family. Could we have imagined something more? I have to say, I have difficulty imagining even Aeryn Sun continuing with constant firefights during her son's first year. Baby D is a wonderful hostage, even in his family's custody, because he requires his parents to withdraw (a lot of) energy from the outside world to take care of him. When I think of Iolokus now, I see it as something of a tragic ending. (At the time, I was so exhausted and relieved to be done that I didn't think much beyond that.) I don't think that makes the story a failure – it's not like lots of other writers, or people, have figured out a way to resolve that tension between the personal and the galactic.
Third: I'm always harping on the legitimacy and noninfringing status of fan fiction. Would I put my story where my mouth is and have Iolokus listed for something like the Tiptree? My answer is the same as the punchline to the old lawyer joke: Where's the catch? I understand people who fear exposure, but I dream of a day when our hobby is no more shameful than playing fantasy baseball. (And that's a gendered thing too, which may make the Tiptree a good place to start or maybe a far less useful place to start.) Yes, it could easily come up short in comparison with the best professionally edited and published works f/sf has to offer. At a minimum, most of those would have better punctuation than Iolokus! But fan fiction is not so different that it should be excluded, and works like Iolokus that are intended to respond to problematic aspects of the original text, like Scully's maternity, are fair uses, not copyright infringements, and I will fight for them.
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I do understand the immense relief at finally finishing a large writing project such as that and, while I wish there was more to that unique universe you created with MS, I was content with your ending. And I will stand behind you in any fight supporting the rights of fanfic writers to practice and post their not-for-profit works and to fix what the original got wrong. God knows, they all get something wrong from a story-telling or simply an fan-interpretation standpoint.
I'm not up on the legalities but I'll support you and other fanfic writers until my dying day. You have brought me much joy. Thank you.
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Well, okay. You and Sally got pretty outrageous, period. :)
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Let me try again: Although many of Iolokus' virtues--including its genderbending and genrebending--were visible to me with minimal canon knowledge, (a) they were more visible after I'd learned more; and (b) I'm not sure they'd be visible with *no* canon knowledge.
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If I were doing a DVD commentary track now, I might talk about Scully as Job, one who curses G-d but refuses to die, and is rewarded in the end with a replacement family for the one she lost. It's never going to be enough, but she can live with it. What, after all, is her alternative?
You make an interesting point about the relevance of canon knowledge. Since we were writing for a fan audience, we didn't even consider it.
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What did make me stop reading the first time around (ok, you guys pretty much gave me an ulcer the first time I tried reading the story, I had to stop reading at " This
was the situation where I wanted to bash her head into a pulp and take
carnal revenge on her unconscious body. It occurs to me now that I
should have taken advantage of the situation when she was in a coma years
ago," because man, that was hard for me to take... but when I picked up the story again a year later? I started to understand the characters current mindframe and everything just felt right. Even the Mulder/Sam kiss was tough on the stomach but considering the fucked-up relationship that Mulder has with her "ghost" on the show itself, the story just sounds dead-on.
I usually find very few spelling problems with the story, one that I notice that happens a lot is Rousch being spelled different ways (Rouch, Roush, Roche).
BTW, I don't believe you watch Alias, but there was this one episode where Sydney finds her ova being experimented in a lab and she torches the whole place up, it totally reminded me of Iolokus and Medea.
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Mulder & Scully were very angry with each other in Iolokus. They had their reasons -- some good and some bad -- but we really tried to write them out of that anger, as if they'd actually been damaged by all the horrible stuff that had happened up to that point.
If I get a chance this summer I will go back and clean up the text a bit.
I'm not a big fan, but I did watch a bunch of Alias, and when that episode came on several people mentioned the Iolokus parallels!
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I really enjoy the angryScully and angryMulder, especially because I feel that their actions were justified and even when they could have been considered wrong (i.e. Scully abandoning Miranda), the story later showed the characters' struggle with their choices and also the consequences (Scully's actions almost causing them to lose the custody battle, etc).
What I believe makes Iolokus so wonderful to read (beyong the smut) is the wonderful original characters (Zippy, Miranda, Warwick, Ingveld, Emerson and of course, Catzilla). Capturing the show characters is, of course, extremely important, but it's these original characters that make the story epic to me.
ok, I'll stop the ass-kissing now.
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