Limited Release (XMFC)
Aethel recorded Limited Release by rageprufrock. The recording is well done: clear and easy to listen to with a fun intro and cover. Limited Release is one of my favorite fics. It's well written like everything rageprufrock writes and it has wonderful touches of humor:
"I truly have a very noble and impressive reason for missing our date," Charles remembers saying, looking up at Erik's too-tight expression and Moira's worried face, "but mostly I hope that you won't be so mad at me you won't give me another chance because I've been practicing with Raven and I can talk about normal things not including genetics and I was planning on being incredibly charming and sexually permissive."
The story is an ensemble piece, shifting points of view from Alex to Erik to Charles to Angel and so on through whole gang. The different stories open up this alternative universe to the reader where mutations are known but mutants are more tolerated than accepted. Erik leads the special mutant FBI task force, including Angel, Armando, Raven, and Shawn. Charles is a geneticist, mutant integration activist, and Erik's partner. Alex is a hapless criminal, desperately searching for his missing brother, Scott, with Hank's help.
It's an excellent story but I have a particular love for it because it takes Charles seriously as a disabled person (partially paralyzed in a failed assassination attempt) without making the story be about his disability. (Charles had always thought sex could be funny on top of being fun, but he had never really anticipated being over thirty and snapping a cock ring into Erik's eye by accident.) Limited Release was the first XMFC story I read that did that (though I've read several others since then) and it cemented my love not just for this story but for the pairing.
"I truly have a very noble and impressive reason for missing our date," Charles remembers saying, looking up at Erik's too-tight expression and Moira's worried face, "but mostly I hope that you won't be so mad at me you won't give me another chance because I've been practicing with Raven and I can talk about normal things not including genetics and I was planning on being incredibly charming and sexually permissive."
The story is an ensemble piece, shifting points of view from Alex to Erik to Charles to Angel and so on through whole gang. The different stories open up this alternative universe to the reader where mutations are known but mutants are more tolerated than accepted. Erik leads the special mutant FBI task force, including Angel, Armando, Raven, and Shawn. Charles is a geneticist, mutant integration activist, and Erik's partner. Alex is a hapless criminal, desperately searching for his missing brother, Scott, with Hank's help.
It's an excellent story but I have a particular love for it because it takes Charles seriously as a disabled person (partially paralyzed in a failed assassination attempt) without making the story be about his disability. (Charles had always thought sex could be funny on top of being fun, but he had never really anticipated being over thirty and snapping a cock ring into Erik's eye by accident.) Limited Release was the first XMFC story I read that did that (though I've read several others since then) and it cemented my love not just for this story but for the pairing.