My last week of recs from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sequentialcrack! This week was rarer movieverse characters.
Title: Against the Dying of the Light
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kaydeefalls
Fandom: X3
Characters/Pairings: Colossus
Length: 3500
Warnings: None
Spoilers: X3
I hated X3 with a passion, but I loved the vast amount of fic that came out of it. The movie had so many plot holes and confused motivations and bizarre logical faults that writers had a field day with the fic. Here, kaydeefalls examines a character who had almost no characterisation in X3 at all, Colossus. All he does in X3 is be in the background and then fight – and this fic turns that on its head, casting Peter (or Piotr) as an observer, someone who knows very clearly what people think of him and why he was recruited to the X-Men: to fight. He is in between the teachers and the students, someone who fights with the adults but is treated like a student; he listens to Magneto and considers his options; he thinks about the future when everyone else is focused on today. This is a fantastic portrait of a young man caught up in a secret, violent war and how that affects the way he grows up.
Title: By Any Other Name
Author: Yasmin M
Fandom:X2
Characters/Pairings: Lady Deathstrike
Length: 500
Warnings: None
Spoilers: X2
X2 showed Yuriko Oyama's life as a horror story – implanted with adamantium blades, constantly mind-controlled by Stryker, forced to fight enemies she doesn't even know, let alone hate. Yasmin M goes further inside that story, to see who Yuriko Oyama was before. We see her almost break free once in the movie, to be immediately drugged into submission, and the horror on her formerly blank face as she starts to realise what's going on. On a story level, this is a terrifying loss of identity and volition; on a meta level, a great answer to the question of why an actress of Chinese-Hawaiian descent played a character with a Japanese name.
Title: Let's Do It
Author:
lady_krysis
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Characters/Pairings: Darwin/Alex
Length: 1300 words
Warnings: Explicit sexual content
Spoilers: X-Men: First Class
This fic is pure fun. Darwin has the power to adapt to anything, so why not adapt it to having the best sex ever, anywhere he wants? In a pool! In mid-air! In SPAAAAACE! Alex may not be quite as enthusiastic, since there's always the possibility that he might actually die but Darwin is unstoppable. This is a delightful piece of sexy fluff that charmingly overcomes lingering resentment at certain plot points in canon; both characters and reader will have a really good time.
Title: Damselfly
Author:Rubynye
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Characters/Pairings: Angel/OFC, Emma, Erik, Azazel, Mystique
Length: 4300 words
Warnings: None
Spoilers: X-Men: First Class
One of the many unresolved issues at the end of X-Men: First Class was Angel's wing injury, and this fic picks up that issue and runs with it. Angel needs help restoring her ability to fly, and she seeks out an entomologist to assist her. That entomologist is frustrated grad student Phoebe Cay – stuck typing her professor's notes when she wants to be studying – and Phoebe is quickly drawn into Angel's dangerous world. This fic contains great sweetness between Angel and Phoebe, but there are other forces at work, from prejudice to chauvinism to the agenda of the Brotherhood. Phoebe learns of an entire new world just beyond her window and the dangers and opportunities there; Angel has grown a little since the frustrated young woman of the movie, and not entirely in the ways that her new team might expect. A very satisfying story that seems like the start of a new world for many of the characters – even though this story stands alone, I would love to see more of the fractious, angry Brotherhood, and tender, thoughtful Phoebe.
Title: Carry That Weight
Author:selenak
Fandom: X-Men movieverse/Alias (comic)
Characters/Pairings: Jessica Jones, Mystique
Length: 4300
Warnings: mentions of rape
Spoilers: Alias, X1, X2
Jessica Jones is a foul-tempered, foul-mouthed private investigator, but one thing she hates is deception. Mystique, of course, operates on deception, so when Jessica Jones gets wind of something odd going on in Senator Robert Kelly's office, she investigates in her usual stubborn way.
This is a complicated and quite painful story, as Jessica ruthlessly insists on the right of Senator Kelly's wife to know who she's sleeping with, no matter the cost to Jessica or her tentative friendships in the mutant world. Jessica's own past influences the story heavily, but that same bullheaded drive for justice that lets her be close to fearless also means that she's trying not to be unfair to mutants either – if she goes public with her suspicions that Senator Kelly is a shapeshifting impersonator, the Mutant Registration Act will be passed and things will get dramatically worse for innocent people. Instead, Jessica has to assume the risk herself, and her aggressive approach leads to a confrontation with Mystique that goes to unexpected places.
A terrific, complex fic with no easy resolutions or forgiveness, only a ferocious drive for knowledge and fairness, and a cool-eyed examination of what the isolationist stance of mutants really means.
I love this fandom!
sequentialcrack! This week was rarer movieverse characters. Title: Against the Dying of the Light
Author:
kaydeefallsFandom: X3
Characters/Pairings: Colossus
Length: 3500
Warnings: None
Spoilers: X3
I hated X3 with a passion, but I loved the vast amount of fic that came out of it. The movie had so many plot holes and confused motivations and bizarre logical faults that writers had a field day with the fic. Here, kaydeefalls examines a character who had almost no characterisation in X3 at all, Colossus. All he does in X3 is be in the background and then fight – and this fic turns that on its head, casting Peter (or Piotr) as an observer, someone who knows very clearly what people think of him and why he was recruited to the X-Men: to fight. He is in between the teachers and the students, someone who fights with the adults but is treated like a student; he listens to Magneto and considers his options; he thinks about the future when everyone else is focused on today. This is a fantastic portrait of a young man caught up in a secret, violent war and how that affects the way he grows up.
Title: By Any Other Name
Author: Yasmin M
Fandom:X2
Characters/Pairings: Lady Deathstrike
Length: 500
Warnings: None
Spoilers: X2
X2 showed Yuriko Oyama's life as a horror story – implanted with adamantium blades, constantly mind-controlled by Stryker, forced to fight enemies she doesn't even know, let alone hate. Yasmin M goes further inside that story, to see who Yuriko Oyama was before. We see her almost break free once in the movie, to be immediately drugged into submission, and the horror on her formerly blank face as she starts to realise what's going on. On a story level, this is a terrifying loss of identity and volition; on a meta level, a great answer to the question of why an actress of Chinese-Hawaiian descent played a character with a Japanese name.
Title: Let's Do It
Author:
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Characters/Pairings: Darwin/Alex
Length: 1300 words
Warnings: Explicit sexual content
Spoilers: X-Men: First Class
This fic is pure fun. Darwin has the power to adapt to anything, so why not adapt it to having the best sex ever, anywhere he wants? In a pool! In mid-air! In SPAAAAACE! Alex may not be quite as enthusiastic, since there's always the possibility that he might actually die but Darwin is unstoppable. This is a delightful piece of sexy fluff that charmingly overcomes lingering resentment at certain plot points in canon; both characters and reader will have a really good time.
Title: Damselfly
Author:
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Characters/Pairings: Angel/OFC, Emma, Erik, Azazel, Mystique
Length: 4300 words
Warnings: None
Spoilers: X-Men: First Class
One of the many unresolved issues at the end of X-Men: First Class was Angel's wing injury, and this fic picks up that issue and runs with it. Angel needs help restoring her ability to fly, and she seeks out an entomologist to assist her. That entomologist is frustrated grad student Phoebe Cay – stuck typing her professor's notes when she wants to be studying – and Phoebe is quickly drawn into Angel's dangerous world. This fic contains great sweetness between Angel and Phoebe, but there are other forces at work, from prejudice to chauvinism to the agenda of the Brotherhood. Phoebe learns of an entire new world just beyond her window and the dangers and opportunities there; Angel has grown a little since the frustrated young woman of the movie, and not entirely in the ways that her new team might expect. A very satisfying story that seems like the start of a new world for many of the characters – even though this story stands alone, I would love to see more of the fractious, angry Brotherhood, and tender, thoughtful Phoebe.
Title: Carry That Weight
Author:
selenakFandom: X-Men movieverse/Alias (comic)
Characters/Pairings: Jessica Jones, Mystique
Length: 4300
Warnings: mentions of rape
Spoilers: Alias, X1, X2
Jessica Jones is a foul-tempered, foul-mouthed private investigator, but one thing she hates is deception. Mystique, of course, operates on deception, so when Jessica Jones gets wind of something odd going on in Senator Robert Kelly's office, she investigates in her usual stubborn way.
This is a complicated and quite painful story, as Jessica ruthlessly insists on the right of Senator Kelly's wife to know who she's sleeping with, no matter the cost to Jessica or her tentative friendships in the mutant world. Jessica's own past influences the story heavily, but that same bullheaded drive for justice that lets her be close to fearless also means that she's trying not to be unfair to mutants either – if she goes public with her suspicions that Senator Kelly is a shapeshifting impersonator, the Mutant Registration Act will be passed and things will get dramatically worse for innocent people. Instead, Jessica has to assume the risk herself, and her aggressive approach leads to a confrontation with Mystique that goes to unexpected places.
A terrific, complex fic with no easy resolutions or forgiveness, only a ferocious drive for knowledge and fairness, and a cool-eyed examination of what the isolationist stance of mutants really means.
I love this fandom!