X2 recs
I am so bad! I haven't posted fannishly in a long, long time, maybe because I've been missing the new season of SGA and not really caring, and just generally out of squee right now. I'm squee-deficient. I thought -- was really looking forward to -- Superman Returns stuffing me full to bursting of squee, but yeah, that didn't work out so well. I'm still struggling to articulate my responses to the move, both positive and negative, but what I did, after seeing the dismal X3, was re-watch X2 to see if it was really that much better (YES IT TOTALLY WAS!!!) and hunt up stories to go with my jiving-to-X2 mood:
Overture by wax_jism, Bobby/John
This is a story I read years ago and loved forever. Wax captures John's inner voice so perfectly that he's fleshed out from a character with maybe 15 minutes of meaningful screentime to this boy saddled with a bushelfull of thorny, teenaged issues. She gives John an inner life that the movie only suggested, and her vision is so believeable that it influenced the way I saw his character when I re-watched the movie. It feels that powerfully true. The story also does one of my favorite slash tropes (*koff* boarding school boysex, yes!) to perfection.
For the Kingdom of Heaven by c_elisa, Hank gen
Harsh, insightful and clear-eyed look at the true meaning of what the Cure could mean in the world of the X-Men. Both the movie and the comics could learn from this story; it takes the Cure storyline from the world of politics and mutant wars and makes it achingly personal. Gorgeous in a low-key way.
His Terrible Sword by , mostly gen with pairings
There are things I dislike about this story (Logan/Marie is wrong, wrong, wrong) but the good things far outweigh the bad. This is just good storytelling; careful character development, delicate managing of the relationships and emotions, and everything working under the mastery of the plot. I just sat back and admired her craft, because it's a 400 KB story with the perfect blend of romance, action and character-building.
The bigger problem I have has to do with the juice of the orange; in the intro to A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess explains the significance of his title: "orange" is Malay slang for human being, a "clockwork orange" meaning a mechanical human, and Burgess's meaning is that the point of a human being is the juice of the orange -- without that sweet, pulpy tartness, you've only got a clockwork orange, something mechanical and programmable. I think "His Terrible Sword" is a good story, but I don't know if it has any juice inside.
going down series by astolat, Erik/Charles/Mystique
Chock full of the juice of the orange. Erik and Charles with Mystique their conduit in-between: this series of short stories reminds me of Hitchcock's best movies, of possessive, undeniable love that's been bent out of true and made even more compelling because of it. It's a love that's been repudiated and denied, but overwhelmingly powerful. And the best part of all is Mystique's slightly detached viewpoint as the outsider; she has her own feelings and thoughts about what exactly is happening, and her clarity is chilling.
Feed Me To The Tabloid Monster by trollprincess, Bobby/Marie
ahahahahahaa!!! Crack-fic! Mpreg! too fucking funny:
"Once upon a time, Frosty the Snowman and the original Mutant Hose Beast got hitched and decided to try making a very small person who cried. But seeing as how the original Mutant Hose Beast tended to shut down internal organ systems with a kiss, making a baby the usual way would be difficult. And to be honest, really painful to Frosty.
So Frosty's best friend, Hefty Smurf, suggested that the loving couple do something very gross with a turkey baster. This didn't go over well."
Overture by wax_jism, Bobby/John
This is a story I read years ago and loved forever. Wax captures John's inner voice so perfectly that he's fleshed out from a character with maybe 15 minutes of meaningful screentime to this boy saddled with a bushelfull of thorny, teenaged issues. She gives John an inner life that the movie only suggested, and her vision is so believeable that it influenced the way I saw his character when I re-watched the movie. It feels that powerfully true. The story also does one of my favorite slash tropes (*koff* boarding school boysex, yes!) to perfection.
For the Kingdom of Heaven by c_elisa, Hank gen
Harsh, insightful and clear-eyed look at the true meaning of what the Cure could mean in the world of the X-Men. Both the movie and the comics could learn from this story; it takes the Cure storyline from the world of politics and mutant wars and makes it achingly personal. Gorgeous in a low-key way.
His Terrible Sword by , mostly gen with pairings
There are things I dislike about this story (Logan/Marie is wrong, wrong, wrong) but the good things far outweigh the bad. This is just good storytelling; careful character development, delicate managing of the relationships and emotions, and everything working under the mastery of the plot. I just sat back and admired her craft, because it's a 400 KB story with the perfect blend of romance, action and character-building.
The bigger problem I have has to do with the juice of the orange; in the intro to A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess explains the significance of his title: "orange" is Malay slang for human being, a "clockwork orange" meaning a mechanical human, and Burgess's meaning is that the point of a human being is the juice of the orange -- without that sweet, pulpy tartness, you've only got a clockwork orange, something mechanical and programmable. I think "His Terrible Sword" is a good story, but I don't know if it has any juice inside.
going down series by astolat, Erik/Charles/Mystique
Chock full of the juice of the orange. Erik and Charles with Mystique their conduit in-between: this series of short stories reminds me of Hitchcock's best movies, of possessive, undeniable love that's been bent out of true and made even more compelling because of it. It's a love that's been repudiated and denied, but overwhelmingly powerful. And the best part of all is Mystique's slightly detached viewpoint as the outsider; she has her own feelings and thoughts about what exactly is happening, and her clarity is chilling.
Feed Me To The Tabloid Monster by trollprincess, Bobby/Marie
ahahahahahaa!!! Crack-fic! Mpreg! too fucking funny:
"Once upon a time, Frosty the Snowman and the original Mutant Hose Beast got hitched and decided to try making a very small person who cried. But seeing as how the original Mutant Hose Beast tended to shut down internal organ systems with a kiss, making a baby the usual way would be difficult. And to be honest, really painful to Frosty.
So Frosty's best friend, Hefty Smurf, suggested that the loving couple do something very gross with a turkey baster. This didn't go over well."