Fan Fiction Rec: The "Invincible" Trilogy (Queer as Folk)
It seems like some of the best fics are ones with a plot that sounds like a really outrageous and unusual idea but which the writer actually manages to make work. For example, "How To Be Dead", which is about Vic being a ghost, up until now is still the best QaF fic I've ever read. And now R.C.'s stories in her "Invincible" arc are about Justin fighting evil as a super hero called the Solar Flare - yes, for real - and the trilogy is really something refreshingly unique and daring, somehow simultaneously well-written and just fun in its ridiculousness.
I enjoyed the first story mainly for the interesting possibilities it presented, but the trilogy gets better as it goes on. When I read "Invincible" my brain actually started spinning with fleeting ideas of how awesome a story could be about Justin as a super hero having an enemy who is actually Brian and neither of them knowing each other's real identities, which of course would be kind of reminiscent of the impossible to pursue but impossible to resist romance between Batman and Catwoman, because Brian and Justin are such complete opposites in many ways as super heroes and their respective villains often are. So it was much to my delight when R.C. actually symbolically portrayed this kind of difference between Brian and Justin's "powers" later on, as Rage comes to life only when the Solar Flare has been weakened, coming out in the darkness of suffering and despair after the sun has set. Just like a good comic book, it is full of powerful images, and even has a few very beautiful panel illustrations in the second two parts.
Title: "Invincible" Trilogy
Author: R.C. McLachlan (mclachlan)
Characters/Pairings: Brian/Justin, basically everybody else in there somewhere
Rating: R
Summary: It's not as if you asked for this.
Links: "Invincible" - "Identities" - "Indestructible"
Also recommended by this author:
"Set the Fire to the Third Bar" - Brian, alone at the loft after the prom while he's waiting to find out if Justin is going to survive, remembers how Justin used to try to get him to come on the roof and watch the sunset with him. The fact that Brian refused to every time is a perfect representation of him not having cared enough for what he now might lose; every sunset means that time is passing, and now the time Brian has had with Justin may be all he will ever get. Even though we know Justin comes out of it all right, reading this, the very possibility that he may not have lived is devastating.
(Since the link to download the song this fic is named after is expired, I re-uploaded it here.)
I enjoyed the first story mainly for the interesting possibilities it presented, but the trilogy gets better as it goes on. When I read "Invincible" my brain actually started spinning with fleeting ideas of how awesome a story could be about Justin as a super hero having an enemy who is actually Brian and neither of them knowing each other's real identities, which of course would be kind of reminiscent of the impossible to pursue but impossible to resist romance between Batman and Catwoman, because Brian and Justin are such complete opposites in many ways as super heroes and their respective villains often are. So it was much to my delight when R.C. actually symbolically portrayed this kind of difference between Brian and Justin's "powers" later on, as Rage comes to life only when the Solar Flare has been weakened, coming out in the darkness of suffering and despair after the sun has set. Just like a good comic book, it is full of powerful images, and even has a few very beautiful panel illustrations in the second two parts.
Title: "Invincible" Trilogy
Author: R.C. McLachlan (mclachlan)
Characters/Pairings: Brian/Justin, basically everybody else in there somewhere
Rating: R
Summary: It's not as if you asked for this.
Links: "Invincible" - "Identities" - "Indestructible"
Also recommended by this author:
"Set the Fire to the Third Bar" - Brian, alone at the loft after the prom while he's waiting to find out if Justin is going to survive, remembers how Justin used to try to get him to come on the roof and watch the sunset with him. The fact that Brian refused to every time is a perfect representation of him not having cared enough for what he now might lose; every sunset means that time is passing, and now the time Brian has had with Justin may be all he will ever get. Even though we know Justin comes out of it all right, reading this, the very possibility that he may not have lived is devastating.
(Since the link to download the song this fic is named after is expired, I re-uploaded it here.)