X2009 recommendations
1. Title: Ceviche
Characters: Keiichi, Kotori, Kamui, Fuuma
Summary: Kaui returns to Tokyo for the first time…in 2009.
Rec: Kamui returns to Tokyo in 2009 instead of 1999 and has his first reunion with Kotori and Fuuma. Signs that this takes place ten years later are skillfully woven into the background with the constant mention of modern technology. The three characters meeting act like one imagines they might as adults instead of their teenage selves. If you didn’t know the X background story, this would be the believable first meeting of some old friends after a long time with all the memories and the awkwardness. Instead there are very subtle hints everywhere of what is to come. Sweet and somehow all the more chilling for all the potential realized.
2. Title: From Whence We Have Fallen
Characters/Pairing: Subaru Sumeragi
Summary: The Japanese built to withstand earthquakes. Subaru reflects on those things that remain.
Rec: Ten years later Subaru visits Rainbow Bridge to reflect and remember and mourn. The juxtaposition of this world’s disaster with the Hiroshima bomb is skilfully done as is the choice of the point of view character, the one always left behind. While there have been stories of Subaru as the sole survivor before it is the exquisite use of language and imagery that makes this story stand out
3. Title: And, In The End...
Characters/Pairing: Nokoru Imonoyama, Suoh Takamura, Akira Ijyuin
Summary: "Gentlemen," Nokoru said, "it has been an honor, and my pleasure, to have known you." And then the world ended.
Rec: The Clamp Campus Detectives always seemed out of place in as grim a world as X. Here the idea is taken to the conclusion. What if they were to witness the end of the world? And what then? Apart from some clever story structuring what shines through is what makes each of the three uniquely themselves and what binds them together in their brotherhood, even at the end of the world and after.
4. Title: Three
User ID: Caeli
Characters/Pairings: Seishirou/Subaru, Fuuma/Kamui, Arashi/Sorata
Summary: Ten years later, five individuals return to Tokyo.
Rec: Ten years later five survivors return. Subaru’s story is pretty much as you’d might expect but the author gets prop for how she resolves the Fuuma / Kamui relationship and Arashi and Sorata with kids is just too sweet, as Sorata would be the perfect dad. Also some nice sense of humor here.
5. Title: Going to the Wars
User ID: Cassiopeiae
Characters: Lady Sumeragi, Kakyou
Summary: When Subaru becomes the Sakurazukamori, Lady Sumeragi knows what she must do.
Rec: Lady Sumeragi’s reaction when she realizes Subaru has turned his back on his heritage and is lost to her. This fic beautifully realizes this often maligned character, her grace , her air of understatement and proper demeanor and all the emotional turmoil and heartbreak underneath. A poetic and heartbreaking piece.
6. Title: And To The Victor, The Bills
User ID: Chamaleontis
Characters/Pairing: Nokoru, Suoh, Akira
Summary: Ten years may have repaired Tokyo, but the Tower of Nokoru's paperwork still threatens.
Rec: Another lovely little Clamp Campus Detectives fic playing on the relationship between Suoh and Nokoru who even when older will try to shirk his duties. Nice little in-jokes and lovely crack.
7. Title: Under Construction
User ID: Camelopardalis
Characters/Pairing: Imonoyama Nokoru / Kasumi Karen
Summary: Survivors who had learned not to mind that each called somebody else's name in orgasm. [playing with a concept from AKK's "36°"]
Rec: Very atmospheric fic with a great use of colors. A more serious take on Nokoru surviving and rebuilding the city and the idea that sometimes the person you end up with is not the one you love the most, even if, in Nokoru’s case, the object of that love is rather unexpected.
8. Title: End of the Line
User ID: Cephei
Characters/Pairing: OCs and the Sakurazukamori, hints of past S&S
Summary: There's never a good way to say goodbye.
Rec: Probably the least anonymous fic here as it is the sequel to a very well-known and understandably beloved series of fics about a group of OCs interacting with Subaru & Seishirou. This story takes the series to a logical yet heartwrenching conclusion. And somehow, despite his actions, Subaru still manages to be the most tragic character of all, with his sense of isolation being starkly juxtaposed to thee sense of camaraderie of the OCs.
9. Title: Drowned
User ID: Corvi
Characters: Subaru, in Subaruzukamori form; obliquely, Seishirou & Hokuto.
Summary: He can't tell if the typhoon is pointed at Tokyo or not, yet.
No one can.
Rec: A post X tale where Subaru tries to combine both his lives as Sumeragi and Sakurazuka head while solving a case. The characterization of Subaru as burned out and the parallels to the culprit’s state of mind and emotions are well done. The descriptions, such as Seishirou being a meaningless disaster in Subaru’s life much like the looming storm in the tale are striking.
10. Title: Groundhog Day
User ID: Crateris
Characters/Pairing: Seishirou/Subaru
Summary: Subaru is young and naïve and beautiful, and Seishirou likes beautiful things.
Rec: Matching with the theme of beauty in Seishirou’s eyes the language is very visual, evoking art. And the ending is a wonderful twist.
11. Title: Reminiscence
User ID: Cygni
Characters/Pairings: Yuzuriha, Inuki
Summary: She’s been watching the TV screen before her for days now.
Rec: An odd angle, or so it seems at first, as the narrator watches video scenes of the Seals and tries to work out the meaning. The meaning both for the character and the world become clear in the end, showing an unusual and sad angle on a rarely used character, depicting her from a new side.
12. Title: Ever After
User ID: Eridani
Characters/Pairing: Fuuma, Kamui
Summary: The end is the beginning is the end.
Rec: More like a snippet from a post X future, told from the pov of a clueless Fuuma. Very lush descriptions.
13. Title: Wishes Granted
Author: Gruis
Summary: Life as the former antichrist can be strange. Happily, taking things out on innocent bystanders is still satisfying.
Rec: The promised day passing doesn’t automatically mean people go back to normal, in Fuuma’s case. He is kind of reminiscent here of Lucifer in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman stories who tells the relentless truth, making this story a potent mix of very dark humor and hopelessness.
14. Title: Mother of All
User ID: Horologii
Characters/Pairing: Seishirou/Subaru
Summary: She has watched over them all, they and their children and children's children. Yet only now... can she say that she has a family of her own.
Rec: The story is told from an unlikely POV - the (does it - doesn’t it exist?) tree of the Sakurazukamori, stressing its age and early on its lack of “humanity” (well it IS a tree) and the changes wrought by its / her guardians. And at the same time it manages to give glimpses into a sweet lovestory with an unexpected happy ending.
15. Title: Ghost of a City Past
User ID: Leporis
Characters/Pairing: Aoki, Kakyou, Yuzuriha, Fuuma, Subaru
Summary: Tokyo is rebuilt, and the survivors deal with the aftermath.
Rec: A melancholy story juxtaposing the rebuilding of the Babylon-like city and the fates and losses of the individuals that fought and suffered.
16. Title: Homework
User ID: Lyncis
Characters/Pairing: Subaru/Seishirou & Hokuto
Summary: Brains-racking - Our favorite trio is thinking too hard about a future involving astrology and Shakespeare...
Rec: A. original use of the prompt set during happier Tokyo Babylon. Subaru is cluelessly cute, Seishirou is his usually mix of a pervert and nice vet, heavily dropping evil hints and Hokuto gets more than she let on. Happy days…
17. Title: Shards of a Tenuous Life
User ID: Leporis
Characters/Pairing: Yuzuriha, Kakyou, Aoki, Yuuto, Subaru, Fuuma
Summary: It’s been ten years, but the final battle still haunts them.
Rec: Bittersweet impressions, full of hope and regret, of those who sacrificed themselves seen though the eyes of those who survived.
18. Title: All in a Day's Work
User ID: Monocerotis
Characters/Pairing: Kamui, Sorata, Yuzuriha, with Fuuma and Satsuki appearing… sort
Warnings: Cracky. Don't ask me why everyone's still acting like teenagers :D
Summary: “Getting bullied by little fourteen-year-olds? Poor little Kamui.”
Rec: A crack fic about how Nokoru keeps the Seals and Angels busy ten years after the promised day. And, yes, a ridiculous high-tech concept like the hooverboots totally fits in with the Clamp Campus seen in CCD stories. The dialogue and descriptions are for the most part spot on and seeing Kamui grumpy and suffering is too funny (unlike suffering Subaru who is rarely funny).
19. Title: Reminiscence
User ID: Monocerotis
Characters/Pairing: The little girl from Vol 14, Chapter 4, Fuuma.
Summary: Chihiro was young enough then that much of the devastation was blurred memories for her, but she remembered Ebisu best.
Rec: A story about how the citizens of Tokyo deal with their losses ten years later, focussing on the girl with the frog from Ebisu and just what made her special enough for Fuuma. Quietly sad, and yet oddly very hopeful.
20. Title: dead men and the dawning
User ID: Normae
Characters/Pairing: Tokyo Tower & a few X characters (Yuzuriha, Keiichi, Fuuma).
Summary: This is the nexus of all connections; it stands high with a singularly disinterested stare across the mutating city, for the scent of spilled blood has long since dissipated into the wind.
Rec: Tokyo Tower as the place is visited and thought about by some of the surviving cast characters. Gorgeous moody descriptions of the Tower as a character in its own right and some spot on characterization of the surviving Yuzuriha, Keichii and Fuuma.
21. Title: Companion
User ID: Octantis
Characters/Pairing: Kusanagi, hints of Kusanagi/Nekoi
Summary: For the sake changing of the earth, he was destined to become one of the ones to destroy it and was thus fated to face against the one he loved.
Rec: A story about one of the less-used X character and the idea seems such a clever, Clampish one, I’m amazed it hasn’t been done before. Really cute in a sad way.
22. Title: Almost Nobody
User ID: Ophiuchi
Characters/Pairing: Aoki Yuka, Segawa Keiichi
Summary: She’s a cheerful but slightly troubled junior high school student. He’s her ridiculously genki social studies teacher. Together, they fight crime! fall off Tokyo Tower!
Rec: That’s one totally different at first sight, focusing on two minor characters, Keichi Segawa and Aoki’s daughter.Yuuka is having trouble with her mother moving on and Keichi ends up trying to help her. The characters are sweet and human and believable in their interactions.
23. Title: Disintegration of a man
User ID: Pegasi
Characters/Pairing: Seishirou/Subaru, one-sided Kamui/Subaru, Hokuto
Summary: Some things never change. Aspects of it do, however.
Rec: A story paralleling Subaru’s love for Seishiro and later Kamui’s feelings for Subaru after the end of X. The jumping between two timeframes is effective in the comparison and the development of Subaru and the ending is a shocker.
24. Title: Lost and Found
User ID Pictoris
Characters/Pairing: Subaru, Seishirou, Hokuto
Summary: The Sumeragi twin's first apartment was still inhabited when they moved in.
Rec: Subaru has to exorcise a dead abandoned cat while Hokuto and Seishirou are up to hijinks A classic Tokyo Babylon tale where what happens means so much more in the end and comes back to haunt Subaru and the reader in unexpected ways.
25. Title: Shattered Glass
User ID: Reticuli
Characters/pairings: Kotori/Kamui
Summary: Kotori had more than her fair share of regrets about 1999.
Rec: A great what if, namely what if Kotori had not sacrificed herself for her brother and Kamui to survive, giving in turn Kamui a clearer wish and the whole story changes. Told from Kotori’s pov. The brokenness of her and Kamui and finally the world around them is cleverly explored here.
26. Title: at the edge of the end of the world
User ID: Tauri
Characters/Pairing: Seishirou and his mother
Summary: This is how the sakurazukamori love.Rec: A lush description of Setsuka’s obsession and love for her son to be mirrored later in another relationship, depicting the parallels in her and her son.
27. Title: if a little dreaming is dangerous
Author: Telescopii
Pairing: Kakyou/Hokuto
Summary: The best love affairs are those we never had.
rec: Quiet and lovely, depicting the relationship between Kakyo and Hokuto, overlaid with a sense of doom when you realize just what she is up to.
28. Title: Sumerian
User ID: Trianguli
Characters/Pairing: Subaru: (implied seixsub, if you squint hard enough from 20 yards away)
Summary:
"I can't," Subaru replies sullenly. "I have to wait for the world to end."
Rec: A story where characters act cryptically and th whole horror of the situation becomes clear only in the very last paragraph, unless (unlike Subaru) you pay attention very well. Poor guy.
29.Title: Granted.
User ID: Tucanae
Characters/Pairing: Seishirou/Subaru. Hokuto mentioned but not present.
Summary: Oblivion is kind to him, for he is not a dreamseer.
Rec: Snippets and beautiful impressions of Subaru’s life from childhood to the Rainbow Bridge and beyond, showing the development of his obsession and what he loses. Gorgeously described as is the counterpoint. Poor lost souls.
30. Title: Minutes to Midnight
Author: Velorum
Rec: A story that focuses not on the character but on the background, a poetic look at Tokyo the city where everything is going to be (or already has been?) decided.
31. Title: How Soon in Now?
User ID: Volantis
Characters: Seishirou/Subaru.
Summary: ‘Subaru is dying and it feels glorious.’
Rec: A haunting clever piece, that examines how broken Subaru is through the clever device of giving him what he wants AFTER he’s become Sakurazukamori and showing that it just isn’t enough. Very cleverly done with a very fitting last sentence tying it back to Tokyo Babylon.
32. Title: Lady Sumeragi is Dying
User ID: Volantis
Characters: Lady Sumeragi.
Summary: Tea ceremony and harsh truths.
Rec: Lady Sumeragi’s reaction to the fate of her grandson. The story does a lovely job of getting inside her character, with the description of the tea ceremony, and her despair and sadness at realizing her grandson’s ultimate fate. Nicely constructed, if similar in structure to the previous story which is probably intentional.