eruthros | Interventions

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Interventions

So I was having one of those conversations you have with fannish friends. You know.

thingswithwings was telling me a story idea, and she said, god, what am I even doing, somebody's gonna stage an intervention any day now. And I, of course, pointed out that this was Stargate: Atlantis, and that you probably couldn't get an intervention for anything less than "the story in which Rodney and John sit in the office all day without talking to each other and just do paperwork," and perhaps not even then.

So, guys, what does it take to get an intervention in SGA? How far do you have to go?

Like, imagine your fannish friend who's been with you for the last three fandoms. You even bailed out of the X-Files at the same time! It has been so wonderful and lovely. But now she's gone a little bit off the rails in this wild and crazy SGA fandom.

[Poll #1090767]

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What is "Oklahoma?"

I once read a multi-part fic in which Mulder and Krycek were dragonriders on Pern. I think one of them was recovering from sexual abuse.

I now realize that this was not actually all that cracked-out, in the grand scheme of things. I mean, they could have been tulips. On dragonback.

Ha! Yes. A lot of things I thought were cracked-out when I was new in fandom turn out to be standards!

"Oklahoma" is a massive pre-series X-Files story. It's about, oh, 1000K. Mulder is investigating a serial killer (who kills children and quotes TS Elliot!) while slowly going completely bonkers. Suffice it to say that the old Mulder Torture Anonymous group? Gave it a 10/10 rating.

You might actually find it interesting, if you've got, like, twenty hours to spare. It's very 1996-fandom, but pretty well done (as I recall -- I was, in terms of fannish-age, SIX or something at the time, so I may be rose-colored-glassesing here). Also, it may fit into the whole buddy-cop thing you mentioned below -- it is a bit like that, with amnesia and going crazy and being kidnapped and so on. It was, for many years, my go-to story for comparisons -- "yeah, it was unpleasant, yeah, there were serial killers, but it wasn't OKLAHOMA, so."

It's available here, on quick google, and possibly also other places in better formatting.

ZOMG! I had forgotten the title, but it turns out I actually read some of this! Like, at least one chapter! Way back a billion years ago, before I had ever heard the term "hurt/comfort.'

HA. Well, it's more ... hurt/hurt, as I recall. With a lot of vomiting, Mulder being unable to eat, Mulder being drugged, Mulder being drugged by his friends, Mulder going crazy, Mulder reciting TS Elliot, and on and on.

It really was, as

panisdead says, a rite of passage in fandom. (Proving, I suppose, that we are all crazy people.)

Oh, Oklahoma.

Which led to the priceless summary of Iolokus, most of which I fail to remember, other than "and 90% less vomiting". Heh.

That is AWESOME.

I think I will use it all the time, now. "SGA fandom: it's got 90% less vomiting!" (Actually, that is SG1 versus Farscape. "We're like Farscape, with many of the same actors, and with leather pants, but with 90% less vomiting!" Also, 90% less writing. But I doubt they'd mention that.)

PS: I am now pondering tulips on dragonback. Would they fall off? Do they hold on with roots? What kind of Tulip would Krycek be? It is a quandary.

You know, at this point all I can really tell you is that it was set pre-X-Files, Mulder was tracking a serial killer in Oklahoma, it was unbelievably long, and people threw up a lot. Reading it was sort of a rite of passage in the fandom, or at it seemed so to me at the time. I believe I once sent one of the authors feedback on a different story and received a fifteen page treatise on why shipping Mulder and Scully was Wrong. (I mean, it was a friendly treatise, but fifteen. Pages).

See my comment above. I may have not finished due to vomiting; I'm funny that way. (Characters vomiting, not me. I miss the good old days, which may or may not ever have existed, when fic writers pretended that characters never used the bathroom for any purpose but sexy showers.)

1) Re: rite of passage, for serious. You had to have read it.

2) Re: plot, also there was a lot of TS Elliot. And I think possibly the Virgin Mary blessed Mulder 'cause he needed it? And then he was kidnapped by the bad guy? And also, didn't just throw up a lot but was anorexic sometimes too?

3) FIFTEEN PAGES? That is crazy-talk. Even if the actual treatise was brilliant!

I feel like this is a good place to bring up "Iolokus."

No, no, the framing epigrams there were, like, Walt Whitman!

I actually remember nothing about "Iolokus," except that there was poetry at the start of every chapter and there was a LOT of attention to Scully's maternal instincts. Also, I recall it making almost no sense, though that was true of basically everything that tried to deal with the X-Files arc.

I have fairly detailed memories of Mulder being tortured by one of his own clones. I think there were seven Mulder clones and, like, one was a serial killer, one was a prostitute, one was a soulless businessman, and...something else.

People placed a lot of significance on the story as meta-commentary on the show (so yes, it made no sense), and one of the defining examples--that I no longer remember why it was important, or how it was supposed to parallel--was that Krycek never actually appears onscreen, but is heavily present throughout the story nonetheless. He has sex with prostitute Mulder, of course.

Also, Scully has magical healing fertility-restoring sex with Marita. And Mulder has sex with Samantha, who has a clit ring. God, what else did I LEARN in grad school?

More than the show, even, Iolokus is commentary on the fandom. Also, both Mulder and Scully are really fucked up and crazy for most of it, which I enjoyed.

I think there were seven Mulder clones and, like, one was a serial killer, one was a prostitute, one was a soulless businessman, and...something else.

I bliev u hav mai Mulder-assassin. Surely there was a Mulder-assassin.

Is this a different Mulder than serial killer Mulder?

I think, yes. Because, there had to be one who turned out to work for The Man, right? Whereas the serial killer had long hair and a crazy neck tattoo, which he proceeded to flense off himself in order to convince everyone that he was the Realio Trulio Mulder, who did not himself have any crazy neck tattoos.

Wait, I distinctly remember the serial killer flensing original Mulder so he would be...mistaken for serial killer Mulder? So people would be unable to tell which one was which without restraints and a battery of psychological tests? Did he flense both of them?

Well, it was flense both their necks, or give the Realio Trulio guy a perfectly-matching tattoo. But yes, the idea was that they would be indistinguishable, the cops would kill the wrong guy, and Ebil SK Mulder would go home and do Ebil Things to Scully.

I am led to believe that the whole thing with the Catzilla, the pint of Ben & Jerry's, the superheroic nanny, the latkes, and the later birth of twins sadly does not constitute Ebil; therefore, the plan failed.

the whole thing with the Catzilla, the pint of Ben & Jerry's, the superheroic nanny, the latkes, and the later birth of twins

Whoa. I think I missed a sequel.

Oh yes! Everything but the twins (and possibly the latkes) happens in Iolokus 4. The twins are the subject of the ~~treacle monster~~ follow-up, that was Holidays spelled backwards.

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eruthros - 2007-11-21 01:56 (UTC) - Expand

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veejane.livejournal.com - 2007-11-21 02:02 (UTC) - Expand

Oh God! No! Don't make me re-live the '90's!!!

I got a treatise like that once, too, about something else. And it crashed Yahoomail due to its size. Its plaintext size.

The kicker was that I'm about 95% sure my original email made NO MENTION of MSR.

Your MSR tendencies were clearly implicit. I mean! You ... wrote them an email! So.

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