Mind Reading Trick This Way.
I had a day out with th_esaurus yesterday! We watched X-Men: First Class in the cinema and ate ice-cream and went to a private art exhibition where I pretended not to be aware of the fact that Matt Berry was standing next to me. It was a wonderful day.
So! X-Men: First Class!
I really, really enjoyed it. It's got its flaws, but I don't care, because it captured my heart and left me grinning at the screen in a way that films very rarely manage. I just really enjoyed it, all the way through. Watching it made me happy.
This is not entirely but in part attributable to the fact that, well...
Yeah, I thought you guys on my flist were exaggerating how gay this film was. You weren't. I was genuinely confused when Charles and MacTaggert kissed at the end. 'Wait, were they meant to have chemistry? Was there - oh, he's wiping her mind, that makes more sense.'
(On the one hand, I'm a bit sad that MacTaggert had her mind wiped; on the other, I love kisses that have ulterior motives in fiction. Such conflict!)
I was all for the Erik/Raven kiss, though. I didn't realise I wanted it at all until Erik walked in to find Raven in his bed, and by halfway though the scene I was going OH MY GOD GUYS KISS ALREADY I NEED YOU TO.
But I also needed Erik and Charles to kiss. I needed it quite a lot. Very early in their acquaintance we had 'YOU'RE NOT JUST WALKING AWAY FROM ME' and 'let me put my arm around you for no apparent reason in the back of this taxi', and then it built and built and built until I couldn't not 'ship them, and then it built even more.
That scene after the training montage, when Charles is trying to get Erik to move the satellite dish: Charles asks permission to tap into Erik's mind, and then he does, and it's possibly the most intimate thing I've ever seen.
(Incidentally, I found Charles's little fingers-to-temple mind-power-using pose really attractive and I'm not sure why.)
I generally find it quite difficult to get into films in a fannish way, in part because I feel it's too time-restricted a format to believably develop any sort of relationship between characters. The Charles-Erik dynamic was able to sidestep that quite neatly, because Charles's ability made it plausible for him to know Erik on a very intense level in a very short time.
AND THEN AT THE END ERIK GOES AND RECRUITS EMMA FROST BECAUSE CHARLES HAS LEFT A VOID IN HIS LIFE. This film is a love story gone wrong. That's what it is.
Here is a quote from James McAvoy about his character (source):
It is a little bit of a mini-tragedy that him and Magneto don't, you know, have sex and become married and become best friends.
Yes.
In the post-film discussion (over ice-cream, best day ever):
RD: What I want to read is Erik/Raven fanfiction where she turns into Charles.
Riona: I think I read a Lupin/Tonks fic like that once.
RD: Oh, dear.
Riona: ...where she turned into Charles Xavier.
As we went up the escalator at Liverpool Street, we noticed an advertisement, amongst all the others, saying only 'MIND READING TRICK THIS WAY', with an arrow pointing towards the top of the escalator.
There was no explanation.
We saw nothing unusual at the top.
There is nothing about this on the Internet.
I am a bit afraid that Derren Brown kidnapped us both as we stepped off the escalator and then made us forget about it. (Or maybe Charles Xavier?)
So! X-Men: First Class!
I really, really enjoyed it. It's got its flaws, but I don't care, because it captured my heart and left me grinning at the screen in a way that films very rarely manage. I just really enjoyed it, all the way through. Watching it made me happy.
This is not entirely but in part attributable to the fact that, well...
Yeah, I thought you guys on my flist were exaggerating how gay this film was. You weren't. I was genuinely confused when Charles and MacTaggert kissed at the end. 'Wait, were they meant to have chemistry? Was there - oh, he's wiping her mind, that makes more sense.'
(On the one hand, I'm a bit sad that MacTaggert had her mind wiped; on the other, I love kisses that have ulterior motives in fiction. Such conflict!)
I was all for the Erik/Raven kiss, though. I didn't realise I wanted it at all until Erik walked in to find Raven in his bed, and by halfway though the scene I was going OH MY GOD GUYS KISS ALREADY I NEED YOU TO.
But I also needed Erik and Charles to kiss. I needed it quite a lot. Very early in their acquaintance we had 'YOU'RE NOT JUST WALKING AWAY FROM ME' and 'let me put my arm around you for no apparent reason in the back of this taxi', and then it built and built and built until I couldn't not 'ship them, and then it built even more.
That scene after the training montage, when Charles is trying to get Erik to move the satellite dish: Charles asks permission to tap into Erik's mind, and then he does, and it's possibly the most intimate thing I've ever seen.
(Incidentally, I found Charles's little fingers-to-temple mind-power-using pose really attractive and I'm not sure why.)
I generally find it quite difficult to get into films in a fannish way, in part because I feel it's too time-restricted a format to believably develop any sort of relationship between characters. The Charles-Erik dynamic was able to sidestep that quite neatly, because Charles's ability made it plausible for him to know Erik on a very intense level in a very short time.
AND THEN AT THE END ERIK GOES AND RECRUITS EMMA FROST BECAUSE CHARLES HAS LEFT A VOID IN HIS LIFE. This film is a love story gone wrong. That's what it is.
Here is a quote from James McAvoy about his character (source):
It is a little bit of a mini-tragedy that him and Magneto don't, you know, have sex and become married and become best friends.
Yes.
In the post-film discussion (over ice-cream, best day ever):
RD: What I want to read is Erik/Raven fanfiction where she turns into Charles.
Riona: I think I read a Lupin/Tonks fic like that once.
RD: Oh, dear.
Riona: ...where she turned into Charles Xavier.
As we went up the escalator at Liverpool Street, we noticed an advertisement, amongst all the others, saying only 'MIND READING TRICK THIS WAY', with an arrow pointing towards the top of the escalator.
There was no explanation.
We saw nothing unusual at the top.
There is nothing about this on the Internet.
I am a bit afraid that Derren Brown kidnapped us both as we stepped off the escalator and then made us forget about it. (Or maybe Charles Xavier?)