X-Men Men First Class WIP: Late Bloomer (30/?)
THIS IS PART OF A WIP. As mentioned before, there's lots of it. You may start from the beginning if you wish but don't say I didn't warn you.
Chapters 1-28:
Late Bloomer on
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Chapters 1-28:
Late Bloomer on
( Read more... )
I think it's the focus on children that makes it all so much more terrifying than most of canon. Comic and movie!verse events that pit villains against trained, adult X-Men is a fun rout, but the idea of experiments on children and children getting murdered and Erik, basically a kid himself, turning to violence and extremism to solve that problem is so sad and cruel and real. It feels like he has so much more to lose than he does in canon, though obviously he kinda does. I'm scared they're going to have go underground or live off the grid eventually and half of me just wants them to be happy and go to MIT and live in a tiny apartment and grow herbs in a window-box. BUT THAT WOULDN'T MAKE AN EXCITING STORY, WOULD IT.
Cannot wait for the next part. Need to write more of the Twin Crossover Of Awesome while I'm pumped up.
P.S. poor Steve, though I did chortle a bit. Dammit, Tony, why you gotta be Tony. Stop breakin' dem hearts.
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*grin* Oh come on, you love the creepy. You are the queen of creepy.
I'm really enjoying playing with a young Erik and his feelings - yes, they're usually grown-ups and they're usually quite driven, and it's interesting to try and write it from the point of view of someone who has a nice life and nice family and would really prefer not to have to deal with this overwhelming shit when he just wants to go to college and grow up and do normal things, but can't just sit back and let it happen. He does have a lot to lose... and I guess even without off-the-grid potential this kind of cause is really hard, life-long work. *pets him* Poor baby, I feel bad.
Stryker's smart, he knows you have to get 'em while they're young and helpless.
(And in my head Steve and Tony end up in a happy, committed and monogamous - aside from threesomes, etc - relationship. It just takes a while...)
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Ok it's true, I love the creepy. The creepy is my home.
It makes it much more poignant, that he's so young and has so much potential as a functioning and law-abiding member of society, but he doesn't want to be part of that kind of society. And it hits home because it's the sort of thing I think most people in the Western world feel when they're growing up and they start to realise there is still bigotry and corruption that a person tacitly becomes part of if they choose to live in 'normal' society. That's hard, man, it's the weight of existentialism and I think most people know they have to either ignore the problems, or go into the forest to live a totally self-sufficient life (which TBH isn't an option for most people due to startup costs and social obligations) or just try to change wrongdoings within their own sphere of influence, which in itself is often extremely hard. Blah blah blah, ramble ramble I'm getting preachy again.
STRYKER YOU'RE SO MEAN I HATE YOU :(((( *SOB* LEAVE CHARLES ALONE.
Haha for sure they do. It takes a few years and a lot of fuckups and a few revelations on Tony's part, but they get there. In the end how can Tony resist Chris Evans' sweet bod Steve's personality.
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Yeah, exactly on the weight of the world. All these causes that morally you should really give up your life for / work tirelessly towards, etc, etc, but we're all like most of the people in LB-world, and how Erik would like to be... able to put it aside. Unfortunately Erik's issues make him feel responsible for fixing EVERY SINGLE THING that's wrong with the world, protecting everyone in danger and righting every wrong. Sucks to be him. Goddamn knight in shining armour.
*sigh* It's depressing how much my own existential guilt is showing in this fic.
Hee, yep, can't say no to that... personality. Also, after a little while having his mind expanded in Tony's company, Steve actually overtakes him in the filthy-and-kinky stakes. Still looks like butter wouldn't melt, but Tony knows different.
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It's the funny thing about canon!erik, both in the films and comics; is he really doing what he's doing (and all the harm to others that goes with it) because he honestly thinks it's the right, just thing to do, or is there an aspect of power-hungry megalomania to it? Because much as some of his actions suggest the latter, it seems SO hard to believe that Xavier in all his forms would ever be friends with the latter interpretation of Erik. Certainly in the movies, Xavier is one of the few people who literally knows Erik's deepest thoughts - heck, in FC it's conceivably only a few months from "i know everything/I won't stop you" to "WHEEEE I'M ERIK LENSHERR BLOWING UP THE NAVY and possibly getting my name spelt wrong". It seems crazy that Charles wouldn't have picked up right at the beginning if Erik had the seeds of the next Fuhrer inside him.
YAY EXISTENTIAL GUILT AND BEING HUMAN. If you don't have...you will eventually :D
Hahaha yay Tony and Steve! If you ever write their story, I will read the hell out of it.
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SEE YES, THIS IS THE THING WITH ERIK. You're right, there's no way Charles would be friends (soulmates) with a megalomaniac. The only justification I see to it is that Charles has a few such tendencies himself, he just collects power in a vastly different way. But I see them both as very moral beings, they just start from a different set of absolute facts (about mutants, humans and the posibility of coexistence), and make different judgement calls about the most effective way to move forward (militant extremism vs political manoeuvring).
WHEEEE I'M ERIK LENSHERR BLOWING UP THE NAVY - now another thing I want on a t-shirt.
Again I'm having a lot of fun with this because - and I don't know if this comes across - in LB Stryker thinks what he's doing is justified too. The fact that he's a sadistic bastard who totally gets his kicks out of it is by the by, in his own mind he's morally in the clear.
I adore Steve/Tony in all forms, THEIR LOVE IS SO HILARIOUS. Can't wait for The Avengers and the resulting inevitable plethora of fic.
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Yeah, exactly, and come on. "There's good too, I've felt it". Either he's so desperate for a lay he's willing to flatter a sociopath, or Erik's not a terrible person. I'm willing to write fic for either interpretation, but I think James McAvoy would have mentioned by now if he was playing Charles as a sex addict.
I also think their differences lie in non-rational attitudes too; since Erik must be very desensitised to violence, he's willing to pay higher prices to do what he sees as the right thing. He's seen first-hand that massive, rapid social change isn't enacted by armchair philosophy and calling your local MP - it's catalysed by irrational, violently passionate people like Hitler. Charles is still coming from a position of privilege where he's never had to fight for anything the way Erik has. He's been given the best of everything in life (discounting very personal situations like his father's death, his mother's distance, etc), and he's always just had to ask nicely to get anything more. The behaviours and attitudes instilled in them are extremely deep-rooted and subconscious, even when they think they're arguing rationally with each other.
That's totally Stryker to a tee! Ugh ugh skeevey bastard. I could just see him in the last chapter, getting off on the power he had over Charles. Gross.
THE AVENGERS IS GONNA BE ACES. I AM SO EXCITED. amen
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Yeah, I guess I hadn't thought about the rise of Nazi-ism in light of extremism vs politics. And you're entirely right that their deep-rooted attitudes play a role, though I find it quite difficult to admit. I hate the idea of privilege, mostly because I feel like I'm... well, kind of it (not Charles-style, but basically nothing bad in my life except for the personal stuff). And I can't be sorry about it, even though it means a lot of my opinions are terribly naive. I just wish that everyone had it.
OMG LOOK, more existential angst. God dammit. I will divert my mind to RDJ's shoulder muscles.
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I'm totally right up there on the "all the privileges" scale too. I guess I think it's a really important idea not because I think people should feel bad about their privilege (that doesn't really help anyone) but more when it makes it easier for people to put themselves in others' shoes. It's such a problem when people dismiss social issues with the "Oh sure, in other countries women can't drive and homosexuals are executed but in the Western world, sexism and homophobia are dead" kind of attitude. Discussions of privilege are one possible way to make people see how constant, low levels of discrimination are still extremely harmful to non-privileged groups. But I'm a total ranty feminist who constantly gets into arguments about the problem of racism in my country, soooooo I shouldn't get started on this stuff.
Anyway, I absolutely LOVED Charles in First Class because I think they showed his privilege so well with him and Raven. It was so painful but real (IMO) and I love their relationship and I really hope they have lots of difficult interaction if there's a sequel.
And yeah, RDJ's arms. Shit son, deduce me a piece of that :DDDDD
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See, I wouldn't even have thought in terms of privilege when analysing the relationships in First Class. LJ is a bit of an eyeopener in man respects, not (quite) all of them kinky.
OK, back to RDJ's arms. Even if Iron Man weren't an utterly beautiful piece of fluffy superhero insanity, it would be worth it to watch him all greasy and sooty in a vest in full-on blacksmith mode. Yum.
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I saw Charles' privilege mentioned in someone's meta quite soon after I watched the film, and I guess it struck a chord with me. Though they probably wouldn't use that precise word, that's exactly what I think the writers were going for: that he just can't understand why hiding all the time hurts Raven, why she would want to be able to express her real nature, and that he's not doing this because he wants to oppress her or be a dick. He's just never lived that life. It doesn't even occur to him that the kind of pain she's feeling exists, because he's never felt it and it is really hard to imagine. Erik, with his holocaust experiences, knows exactly what it's like and Raven would just fall in love with that empathy so strongly. I honestly don't actually blame her for leaving, even though Charles is her only real family. Though I do blame her and Erik for killing loads of people later on, obviously. That's a bit rude.
ANDY YUP, I AGREE ENTIRELY RE: RDJ'S ARMS AND GREASY, SOOTY BODY. CANNOT WAIT FOR AVENGERS. TONY/STEVE ON SCREEN AT THE SAME TIME WILL BE MY DOWNFALL.
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Oh god, poor Raven, but POOR CHARLES. Bumbling along so well-meaning. IDEK, I feel like if he'd just read some LJ posts himself... and I don't know how he could manage not to notice that there were people out there who felt that way, unless he was super-disciplined about staying out of people's heads. But in a way that's also a mark of privilege. He's never been pushed to the extremes that Erik and Raven have, so he can afford to be noble about his powers.
And no, I don't blame Raven for leaving either. I DO BLAME ERIK THOUGH.
Mmmmm, I actually only just saw Captain America - missed it at the cinemas and wasn't super-keen after reading the reviews, and OMG I ENJOYED IT SO MUCH. I someone had just told me that he pranced around on stage in a silly costume and everyone thought he was an idiot, I would have been right there.
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Yes, I think Charles would learn very fast if he had exposure to enough livejournal. I think he probably does learn all that by the time the first movies come around - in that way he outpaces Erik eventually, in being more adaptable and absorbing more from people's diversity. But I love First Class precisely because their flaws are much more evenly matched.
Trying to figure out how much he gets from people's heads is really hard, because it seems like he dances in and out of them at a whim, all the time. But I can't believe he could even survive a single day of that kind of emotional rollercoaster, so I think (at least in FC), there's a lot less emotional reading involved (like he's a 'low empathy' telepath at that stage of life, perhaps) and it's mostly just sound-bite surface-thoughts. In particular, my impression from First Class is that it actually takes more effort than it might seem - that it's something he has to focus to switch on rather than being a constant background noise. The big contradiction to that theory might be when he meets Hank, but IDK, I usually go with what his personality implies rather than trying to fit together actual examples from the film. He doesn't strike me as something who's constantly listening to everyone's emotional state, as he often misses what people are feeling (all his interactions with Raven being evidence there.) I do LOVE fics that play with different ideas about his telepathy, though, like when he finds crowds difficult or starts mimicking the emotions of those around him.
Haha yes, blame Erik. DAMN YOU, ERIK.
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Mmmm, definitely with the flawed Charles. The pub scene at the beginning had me completely O.O who-the-fuck-is-this-character, and I just knew that I was going to love watching him change.
LOW EMPATHY TELEPATHY YES YES YES. The sort of cerebral, detached scientific interest that slowly changes as he begins to feel real, deep emotions himself - love, pain, loss etc. I feel that his life hasn’t been particularly emotionally rich up to this point, no real relationships, repressing WHOLE lot family-wise, never lost anyone he particularly cared about (never cared particularly except for Raven). He can see emotions but he hasn’t ever felt them, so no wonder he looks at them a little clinically.
I love the different ideas of telepathy too, particularly the one that I’ve seen crop up a few times that he’s actually really shit at reading facial expressions (which might explain Raven, at least), he doesn’t like TV shows, etc. But in the film he seems very comfortable with the whle thing. The only (?) time we see him struggle is with Shaw and the coin, but that’s a bit extreme. I agree with you about the effort, and I think Hank can be explained by the fact that he does use it every time he meets someone, briefly and on purpose, like we’d look a person hard up and down to get an instant idea of who they are. And then he probably doesn’t look as intensely unless he wants someone.
And OMG the casual ease of that ‘get in the car’ trick might have been the creepiest part of the film for me. Screw Shaw, CHARLES IS THE BAD GUY.
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Yes, yes, I didn't think of it like that! An emotionally barren life with no real relationships (Raven's comment "I'm you're only friend", man, if you take that at face value that puts a whole different spin on him). No wonder he took Raven in. And then finding Erik, who has ALL THE FEELINGS, I can imagine that could break through to Charles and he would cling to that. He might even think that this is true love (or true friendship, whatever) solely because he's feeling/sharing these intense emotions for the first time - even though it's secondhand, and it could have been anyone, Erik just happened to be the first.
There's so many ways to take telepathy, I love it forever. But yes, in the film he clearly has no qualms - he reads minds willy-nilly and he seems to have few limitations (the coin thing is definitely an exception, and that's probably because Shaw was a) fighting for his life and b) might have had some practice resisting telepathy via Emma). That's why I suspect his limitations must be more subtle, like the low empathy thing - and that plays into the Hank revelation, because if he felt the emotional attachment to people's memories than SURELY he would have seen that Hank was hiding his mutation, jfc.
AND THE CAR THING OMG ARGHHHHHHH that still creeps me the fuck out :/ we need more dark!Charles fic.
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