A Den of Infamy and Chickens

X-Men Movieverse Ficathon

2009-11-30T19:17:17Z

Wow, what is the secret to xmmficathon? It seems to produce some of the most consistently awesome fic out of any ficathon I follow. Everything is worth a read, but the fics that really stood out to me are below.

The Light Gets Into Your Heart by st_aurafina (Rated PG, Emma, Scott, Jean). This story was written for me, and it's amazing. It bridges the gap between Origins: Wolverine and the rest of movieverse, focusing on Emma and Scott after they arrive at Xavier's school.

Passing by lonelywalker (Rated R, Henry McCoy). A really thoughtful story about Hank during X-1. Features a really interesting take on mutant politics and the Charles-Erik split from a student perspective, as well as an awesome Hank/Mystique relationship.

Fighting Fair by ion_bond (Rated PG-13, Mystique, Pyro, Magneto). Rewrites X-3, starting with Erik not abandoning Mystique after she is hit with the cure. An incredibly satisfying read, as it takes some of the most interesting elements of the Brotherhood and the Omegas in X-3 and treats the characters with far more respect than the filmmakers did. It's written from the perspective of Pyro, meaning it is snarky and funny to boot.

Hide a Hundred Girls In Your Hair by lilacsigil (Rated PG, Jean, Mystique). Really chilling fic about Jean and Mystique post-X3.

Symbiotic Metamorphosis by brighteyedcat and cousinshelley (Rated PG-13, Mystique). Mystique's first interaction with Erik and the school. Features an incredibly crafty, intelligent Mystique, and a fully realized, interesting original character.

So Say Goodbye, It's Independence Day by handyhunter (Rated G, Warren Worthington III). This is about Warren finding a place at Xavier's school after X-3. Lots of awesome hijinks, and a standout Jubilee.

Cost Plus by smirnoffmule (Rated PG, Rogue, Bobby, OCs). Written from the perspective of a clerk in a store where Rogue and Bobby go shopping for Christmas gifts. It's a really interesting peek into how mutants are perceived by the outside world.

Round's On Me by iambickilometer (Rated PG, Logan, Kurt). This is a really fun story that translates the Logan & Kurt friendship that I so love in the comics into the movieverse.

Brotherhood [X-Men Movieverse, gen]

2009-11-29T00:27:49Z

Title: Brotherhood
Recipient: Karabair/likeadeuce for xmmficathon 2009.
Request Used: Scott has a brother who's not at the school. What happened with that?
Rating: PG
Summary: Scott has to help out his younger brother, Alex, who is in totally over his head. Alex, on the other hand, is not in over his head, his brother just needs to butt out.
Notes: Thanks to Aaron for the beta.

Scott was on his way to get his little brother out of a jam. Which, when he thought about it, was kind of cool. Since they had grown up separately, with Scott bouncing around foster homes before finding his way to Xavier's while Alex was raised in the perfect nuclear suburban family, there hadn't been a lot of opportunities for them to fill the typical sibling roles. Ever since the Professor had sent him on this trip, Scott had been practicing what he would say in his head, trying to find the perfect words to convey the fact that he loved and respected his Alex, but he was mildly disappointed, too. The perfect speech to get Alex to change his course of action, but to feel like he was doing it of his own accord.

Trying to squeeze fifteen years of lost big brother time into one talk is probably not going to work out too well, Jean's voice reminded him. It wasn't actually Jean, of course; she was immersed in her med school studies at Columbia and it was unlikely that she would take a breath until the winter holiday. He often heard Jean, though - her voice was the medium for what he thought of as his "sensible self," reminding him of things he really needed to hear in Jean's trademark gentle, wry tone. Of course, it resulted in confusion on the rare occasions that the real Jean projected a thought to him; but what wasn't confusing when you were in love with a telepath?

His sensible side was right, of course. He was putting too much into this little intervention, or whatever it was. Professor Xavier had received a tip from a friend in Boston that a mutant group from MIT was planning a counter-protest of an extreme anti-mutant rally and there were rumors they had planned some extreme measures of their own. It turned out that the leader of the mutant group was one Alex Summers, student of Geoscience and brother of Scott. Xavier thought it would be a good idea to send Scott to talk to Alex and try to steer him towards more peaceful political action before things got out of control. Ororo had come along to provide backup. Scott conceded that there were times when a pretty girl could probably be more persuasive than he could, no matter how good his speech was.

Ororo broke the silence of the car's interior. "I had barely even remembered that you had a brother, Scott. And I definitely didn't know he was a mutant until today - why have I never seen him at the mansion?"

Scott shrugged. "Alex is that rare mutant kid who has never needed a place like the school. After our parents died, he was adopted by this couple who have always been amazing to him, as far as I can tell. When his powers manifested, they were totally supportive. I still remember the letter he sent to me after he found out he was a mutant - 'Dear Scott, Turns out I'm a mutant! We were on this ski trip in Aspen and I was on this killer slope and one second I was losing my balance, and the next second this stuff comes blasting out of my hands! The doctor Mom and Dad took me to says it's plasma. I broke my leg, but it's still totally sweet, right? Love, Alex.'"

Ororo snickered.

"At this point, he had no idea I was a mutant. He thought I just had a weird eye condition and that Xavier's was a special education school. All technically true, I suppose, but it was pretty awkward admitting I'd been lying to him for so long. Especially after he'd been so open with me."

Ororo asked, "Is he that...open with everybody?"

Scott nodded. "I think so. Alex has never lacked confidence, that's for sure."

***

Alex did not seem that confident when they found him, meeting with other mutant students on the porch of the derelict house where he rented an apartment. He looked positively stressed, and his mood didn't seem to improve when Scott and Ororo stepped out of the sports car and joined the group.

He looked startled, in fact. "Scott! This is...a surprise. Since when are we spontaneous?"

Scott smiled slightly. "I can't just pay my little brother an impromptu visit?"

"Not if you want me to believe you haven't been replaced by a shape-shifting alien or an android sent to murder me. The last time we had dinner, it involved two months of planning, and I seem to remember a typed itinerary."

"OK, you got me. I'm here for a reason. Can we talk in private?" Scott glanced warily at the other kids on the porch - a pink-haired vicious-looking girl, a hulking kid with skin the color of paper, and a tall, beautiful girl with lime green hair.

Alex rubbed at his temple. "Now is not really a great time. But, sure, I can give you a few minutes - let's go up to my room."

As they walked up the interior stairs to Alex's apartment, Scott noticed that the green-haired girl had followed them, though Alex didn't seem to think anything of it. They settled themselves on the motley collection of living room furniture, most of which looked like it had spent some time on a curb in the recent past. Scott glanced significantly from the girl to Alex.

"I'm Lorna," she introduced herself before Alex could take the hint. "And you must be Scott," she said, her gaze pausing on his red-lensed glasses. "I've been looking forward to meeting you. Are you here for the action?"

Alex piped in, "Lorna and I have been seeing each other for a while now, and she and I co-founded M.O.M. Whatever you came here to talk about, she can hear it."

"Mom?" Ororo asked.

"Mutants of M.I.T," Alex replied. "You saw some of the group downstairs, preparing for tomorrow's action."

Alex didn't catch it but Lorna noticed Ororo's expression. She rolled her eyes. "I know, I know, it's a lame acronym but it's all we could agree on. That Sarah girl wanted it to be the 'Mutant and Inter-gene Liberation Front, so we're lucky we ended up with what we did."

At this point, Scott realized that things were already not going quite how he had planned them, so he took time to introduce Ororo and exchange pleasantries about their trip from New York. He ran through what he was going to say again in his mind - firm, a little disapproving, but respectful. But not too firm or disapproving, Jean's voice reminded him, or you may sound like an ass. Words of wisdom, as always.

"Tomorrow's 'action,'" Scott began, "is actually what we came to talk to you about. We heard some rumors that it should be a pretty big thing."

Alex's tone was a little cautious, but obviously proud. He had put a lot into this group. "I hope so. This anti-mutant group, the 'Friends of Humanity' is pretty out there - their rallies always involve burning mutants in effigy and really hateful speeches. They get people really stirred up against us - they're toxic."

Ororo nodded her head. She and Scott had heard all about this kind of anti-mutant fanaticism but thanks to the isolated nature of their school, they had never had to face much of it themselves. "So you're planning a counter-protest," Ororo said.

Lorna responded, "We've done counter-protests before, but they're not that effective. We stay behind our fence, hold our signs, and the bigots yell and use us as examples of 'freakishness'. Sometimes they throw rocks and things at us, but we can't fight back because the cops are just waiting for one of us to step out of line so they can throw us all in jail. What we have planned for tomorrow is much more active."

This was the entry point Scott had been waiting for. "Alex, I had really hoped you knew better than this. Violence is not the answer; that's not how effective change -"

Alex interrupted him. "Who said anything about violence? Our plan is to make sure their rally is a total disaster."

"And how are you planning to do that?"

Alex and Lorna looked at each other. "Stink bombs and, er, electrical interferences? Uh, we're still working out the exact details," said Alex.

Scott scoffed. "You honestly think you can pull that off without it escalating into violence? You're going to get arrested, or worse! And the coverage will give all mutants a bad name."

"As though we don't have a bad name, already!" said Lorna, outraged. "And anyway, what do you know about the problems that mutants face? You can both pass for baseline human but instead of working for greater understanding, you just hide away in your little country estate."

Scott turned toward Alex with surprise, and Alex answered the unspoken question. "Yes, I told her about your little school; don't act so shocked. And she has a point - I don't have time to get all Washington/Du Bois with you here. I have actual work to do."

"I really think that's a poorly chosen analogy, Alex - "

Alex put an end to the conversation by rolling his eyes, standing up and walking for the door.

"Wait," Ororo said. "Could I join you guys? I think I know just how to make sure this rally is a disaster."

This was just too much for Scott. "Ororo!"

She turned to him and spoke calmly. "Don't you ever want to do something, Scott? I've listened to your arguments, and I'm not convinced. You should have worked on your speech longer."

***

Scott knew he should feel guilty about feeling so smug that the "action" was shaping up to be a complete disaster. That's a complicated web of feeling there, mister, Jean's voice pointed out. Which it was. But the smugness and the absence of guilt and the guilt over the absence of guilt remained. He was watching the rally from the sidelines, in his role as conscientious objector.

As Lorna had foreseen, the Friends of Humanity seemed happy that the mutant protesters were in attendance at the rally, giving them a target for their venom. The more active of the anti-mutant activists were lobbing rocks and trash in their general direction while bored cops stood by. M.O.M. was, predictably, having trouble getting its act together. Someone had gotten lost on the way to the protest and the leaflets were missing. Meanwhile, surreptitious usage of stink bombs seemed to have done little to disgust the crowd. Some of the mutants were restless from the lack of progress and Scott worried that violence couldn't be far away.

Then the camera crews showed up and Scott pulled his ball cap low over his face. He wished that he could just grab Ororo and get out of there. If there was one thing they didn't need, it was live footage of a mutant riot. He had resolved to walk over and try to put a stop to things when Ororo took charge. Clouds rolled in overhead and the temperature began to slowly drop. A spattering of cold rain pelted protesters, counter-protesters, news crews, apathetic police and conscientious objectors alike.

The Friends of Humanity leadership, now that the cameras were rolling, decided to start the main event. "My fellow—SKREE—mans!" a man on stage said into a recalcitrant microphone. "For too—SKREEEE—erated the pres—SKREEEE—ants in our great—SKREE!" The crowd, progressively getting colder and wetter, didn't seem too impressed by the feedback-riddled speech. Already some of the people in the lightest clothing were peeling off, heading for a conveniently nearby Starbucks. Unnoticed by anyone, Lorna was focused on the sound system.

As the rain and the resident mistress of magnetism did their work, and the Friends of Humanity failed to fix the P.A. system, boredom took its toll on the crowd. Seeing the crowd gradually disperse, the speaker took a different approach. "So, without further ado—SKREEEEEEEEEEEK!!! Oh, let's just set the damn—SKREE—ire." Microphone abandoned to a few catcalls, the leadership of Friends of Humanity coalesced around a large mutant effigy bearing, predictably, two heads, each with a moronically evil expression. Triumphantly, they hoisted up the effigy and the crowd, damped and dampened, gave a cheer. This was normally the climax of a rally but right now the protesters weren't worried about burning it prematurely. With great ceremony, the effigy was paraded before the cameras before it being hung in the designated "Effigy-related Free Speech Zone".

"Friends of humanity!" a man shouted, eschewing amplification. "I give you—the mutant menace! The freaks that want to go to school with your kids! May this country one day wake up and give them what they deserve!" More cheers. A lighter was set to the base of the effigy. The flickering flame promptly went out. The lighter was tried again and again. Each time it would spark but the flame would go out before reaching the effigy. Frustrated, the Friends tried other lighters. They doused the effigy with copious amounts of lighter fluid. Nothing was working as the rain came down harder and colder. No one except Scott noticed the young man with snow white hair and an MIT chemistry shirt who was watching the effigy with a fixed intensity.

It was amazing. Scott had to hand it to Alex—the protest had been broken up. The Friends of Humanity leadership were cursing and ranting and blaming mutants for the weather and the sound system and the fire-resistant effigy and the conveniently located Starbucks. The camera crews and the protesters were packing up and clearing out.

"Goddamn mutants!" shouted a frustrated Friend. He picked up a handy chunk of concrete and hurled it, striking Alex in the shoulder. "Goddamn freaks!" Immediately, the scowly pink-haired girl had abandoned her assigned position as lookout and sign-carrier. Popping sharp bones out of her shoulders, she advanced on the seething Friends, both threatening and creepy. The police were suddenly mobilized, although against her or the rock-thrower, it was impossible to tell.

Scott realized that he had been correct. There had been no way to prevent violence but he no longer felt so smug about it. The action had been so amazing, draining the anger and hateful energy out of the crowd so subtly, so easily, denying them the spectacle and conflict the protesters so obviously craved. And now.

This doesn't seem like a time to be a conscientious objector, Jean's voice suggested. That was true; now was a time to be a hero.

***

They were sitting in Alex's living room again, going over the post mortem for the twentieth time. "I knew that Sarah girl was trouble," Alex repeated. "I don't even know where she came from - I know she doesn't go to M.I.T. I was just so focused on being inclusive of all mutants, I didn't ask enough questions!"

Lorna tried to calm him. "You can't blame yourself for that; there's nothing wrong with wanting to create a safe space." She was leaning back in her chair, engaged in what was obviously a favorite nervous activity - contorting a spoon into various shapes in mid-air. Ororo and Scott gave each other a glance - this was one of Mr. Lensherr's favorite party tricks.

Alex cleared his throat. "Well, I've got to hand it to you, Scott. You uh, you really came through. If you hadn't blown Sarah's bone knives out of her hands..." Silence fell as Alex's discomfort permeated the group. He was admitting that his older brother had been right while he, the wayward younger brother, had been wrong. Scott had an entire speech worked out for this circumstance. He decided it was crap.

"Would you guys like to come up to visit us at the school sometime?" he said instead. "Like, in the next couple of weeks?"

Alex looked up in surprise. "Visit your mutant ivory tower? You're not afraid the Friends of Humanity or someone will follow me there and ruin things for you?"

Scott shrugged. "Maybe we need to have our 'ivory tower' ruined a little. Maybe we do spend too much time thinking and not enough time acting. I think M.O.M. has a lot that it can tell us. And I think the Professor would really like to meet you...both of you." Scott knew this would be true, though he definitely would need to prepare Xavier for the shock of meeting someone with abilities so close to those of his old friend.

A smile spread across Alex's face. "Yeah, Scott, I think that would be really cool."

That's what being a big brother feels like, Jean's voice echoed in his mind. And he smiled to himself, knowing it to be true.

Yuletide! Yuletide! Yuletide

2009-11-14T23:53:26Z

Dear Yuletide Writer-Person,

Thank you for writing for one of my requests, and I hope you have fun with it! First off, I fully believe that optional details are optional. If you have an idea for a fic that you love, please run with it - I think people generally have the best fest experiences when they go with their instincts rather than worrying too much about their recipient's every whim. If you write a story about the characters below, I'm pretty much guaranteed to be giddy, so don't bother too much about me.

That said, if you want to learn more about the kind of fics I like, I collect recs on my Delicious account. I'm very sporadic in my fic writing, but what I have is listed in this entry.

In general, things that I like to read are: plot, porn (though I prefer the former to the latter if it comes down to a choice), gen, femmeslash, slash, het, silliness, banter and other entertaining forms of dialogue, hookups without tons of emotional encumbrance, comfortable established relationships, adventures, time travel, AUs of all varieties, crossovers, backstory, future-fic, superpowers (particularly, the way superpowers affect elements of a character's everyday life, including the sexual), enthusiastic consent.

Things that I do not enjoy as much include: non-con, animal harm (I believe any book in which the dog dies should come with a warning label), angst.

My specific requests are below:

Astro City: Infidel/Samaritan. These two have the perfect hero/archenemy relationship - completely opposing worldviews but with a ton of respect for each other. I'd love slash here, but gen would be great too. I'd like to see a memorable dinner, or something set in one of the many crazy timelines they create or maybe something that involved characters from the greater Astro City universe (I pretty much love all of the Astro City characters and would like to know more about them, so I'm not picky).

I am completely in love with the Samaritan one-shot, and the Infidel and Samaritan relationship it introduced. Anything that gives me more of these two will make me enormously happy.

(Note: I feel like the Astro City creators walk a pretty fine line with Infidel's character. I ultimately feel like they do a good job with making him a fully realized character, and that Samaritan's actions are cast in a light that is almost as morally ambiguous as his own. However, there is something troubling about the use of Orientalist imagery here, and his opposition to Samaritan, the all-American white dude. Basically, I'm looking for a story that continues to show him as an intelligent human being, not one that uses ooky stereotypes of his racial or religious identity.)

Nextwave: Elsa Bloodstone/Tabitha Smith. Anything that keeps within the tone of the series - i.e. silliness is encouraged, nothing too serious. Femslash is awesome, or gen with crazy missions or cracked out backstory. Possible things I would like to see: Tabitha forcing Elsa into her version of a girls' night out; an ensemble series-style story complete with an enemy from the stranger parts of the Marvel universe; Tabitha and Elsa meet up post-series, intentionally or not.

I really loved the interactions these two had in the comic - there personalities couldn't be more different, but they are brought together by a love of violence and explosions. By the by, if you should decide you want to bring in some goofiness from the edges of Marvel, my favorite resource for this is The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe. (Note: I'm not saying you need to use this; I am saying you can waste days of your life perusing this site (and I have).)

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (comic): Orlando/Mina Murray/Allan Quatermain. I really want to read more about the polyamorous adventures of Orlando, Mina and Allan. I would love to read something set in any one of the time periods and places this basically immortal trio lives through. Expanding on one of the episodes alluded to in the appendices (travelogues, Black Dossier, Minions of the Moon, etc.) would be fun, as would having them interact with some literary/pulp character or event we haven't yet seen in the comics proper. Or if you want to scrap all that and just go for the sexy fun-times, I wouldn't object.

I love the fluidity of this trio - they are constantly evolving and adapting, I think, not only because of the way Orlando's gender transitions, but also because they are immortal - they take the way that any long-standing relationship evolves over time to new extremes. Also, what I love about League is that you can set fic in any time period after the beginning of the series (and before, for Orlando), and it's not AU. You can write basically any crossover, and it's not AU. So, have fun with absolutely no constraints, I say.

Daredevil (movie): Foggy Nelson. Foggy is a delightfully laidback, funny breath of fresh air in the Angsty World of Daredevil. Suggestions of things I'd potentially like to see: a day in the life of Foggy; backstory with Foggy and Matt setting up the law firm or their first meeting; Foggy/Matt UST or slash.

There can never be enough Foggy fic - anything that focuses on him will make me happy, just so long as he's his ebullient self. Foggy angst would make me cry! Foggy solo fic would be awesome, as would fic that incorporated Matt.

The Internal Infernal Outbreak [Middleman, gen]

2009-10-25T03:59:41Z

I wrote something! Let's see if I remember how this whole posting thing works.

Title: The Internal Infernal Outbreak
Fandom: Middleman
Characters: Wendy, The Middleman, Lacey, Tyler, Noser
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,900
Summary: Halloween is supposed to be a time for sexy costumes and confrontational spoken word performance art. But when a Middleman-in-training is invited to the party, things are sure to not go according to plan.

Notes: Written for mirandir for yuletide New Year's Resolution 2009. Thanks to Aaron for the beta. Takes place prior to the Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse, and contains no spoilers for it.

Wendy Watson was standing in the loft occupied by a group of artists who were equally young, though slightly less photogenic than her roommate and herself. The occasion was a Halloween party, so the room was packed with sexy nurses, sexy librarians, werewolves, and sexy werewolves. Thanks to her job, this was the least weird day she had had in weeks, even with the sexy lobster waving at her from the opposite corner of the room.

Her adorable boyfriend walked across the room towards her, making the evening complete. He was made slightly less adorable by the Lucha Libre mask covering his face, but the drink he handed her balanced it out.

"The punch offerings were Blood Red and Ectoplasm Green. I chose the red, knowing your thirst for blood is unquenchable."

"And that I find the thought of consuming Slimer highly disturbing. Well done," she replied, touching the rim of her plastic cup to Tyler's.

Tyler took a quick survey of the room. "Lacey and Noser still aren't here?"

Wendy shook her head. "No, Lacey wanted to make a late entrance, to assure the largest possible audience. Halloween is the perfect opportunity for confrontational spoken-word performance art, you know."

Tyler nodded, as though this were a statement as obvious as "Romero's zombies are a potent critique of the excesses and prejudices of American culture."

At that moment, Noser strolled through the doorway wearing a t-shirt, jeans and his guitar, and strummed a chord loud enough to silence the room, while Wendy quickly cut the power on the stereo. This was Lacey's cue, as she entered to face her audience wearing a white rat costume covered in fake blood. Her performance was impassioned, and she made wide gestures using the large claws at the tips of her rodent digits.

When her piece was finished Lacey received a round of light applause and the party resumed. She strode triumphantly to where Wendy and Tyler had been watching with Noser.

"Well?" Lacey asked, when she reached the group.

"Awesome!" Wendy responded. "Hard-hitting and...visceral."

"Totally," Tyler agreed. "Though I'm still a little unclear on the zombie rat part."

Lacey looked shocked. "I'm not a zombie rat! I am the sins of animal testing inflicting its damage on the soul of our society! Didn't you hear my piece?"

"I did," he tried to assure her. "And it was great; I just got a little confused in the middle, I guess."

Wendy placed a hand on her best friend's shoulder and tried to explain. "I think your dramatic entrance was a little late, Lace. The Blood Red and Ectoplasm Green punch has been circulating pretty hardcore." She made a gesture to point out a half-clothed group scribbling on pieces of paper and passing them around a table.

Lacey gasped. "They're playing Strip Exquisite Corpse?! That never happens until everyone's really wasted!"

Wendy could tell Lacey's face had settled into full-on pout mode behind the hideous bloody rat fangs. "Hey, don't worry about it," she said. "It was still a kick ass performance - and I'm sure I'm not the only one in the room who's going to have nightmares in which I reap my much-deserved punishment for my tacit support of the laboratory-industrial complex."

"Really? Thanks, Dub Dub, that means a lot. I'm already making plans for next year -"

Lacey's triumphant announcement, complete with a triumphant fist-in-the-air maneuver, was interrupted by a piercing scream. All eyes in the room turned to the source of the disturbance - a girl who had been talking to Mohawk Mitch, the party's host, when his head had started making a 360-degree turn on his shoulders.

Before Wendy could do anything - or decide what she could do - her Middlewatch went off. She decided to take the call, as the surrounding partygoers were distracted by the eminently weird spectacle in front of them. The Middleman's voice boomed at her, "We need you to report to the agency immediately - the H.E.Y.D.A.R. has picked up a spike in omega-naught goetiacon particles in the warehouse district, which could manifest itself in -"

"Full-on Linda Blair-style histrionics? Heads spinning on the axis, shouting expletives like a sailor with Tourette's syndrome?" Wendy interrupted.

"That's uncanny, Dubbie! And highly specific."

"I am on the scene, boss."

He beamed at her, pride evident in his voice. "I'm impressed with your initiative! Though I have concerns as well, I don't want you to get in over your head. You are still a Middleman-in-training, you know. But we can discuss that later. Do you need backup, or do you have the situation under control?"

Mitch chose this moment to projectile vomit green goo, spraying the entire party, including Wendy. As she did her best to wipe the substance out of her hair she said, "I think I could go for some backup."

***

The Middleman arrived at the loft in his standard Eisenhower jacket ensemble; a Halloween party was one of the few places where this outfit looked completely normal. It had only been a few minutes since Wendy had spoken to him, but the room had quickly devolved into an even more chaotic state - five more partygoers had started exhibiting possession-like symptoms, and the others were slumped, quivering in terror, around the room, while furniture flew around the room and blasphemic screams echoed through the air.

"Pazuzu's playground! I thought you had this under control, Dubbie!"

Wendy responded in a low tone of voice. "I've contained the area - nobody's left since the outbreak started. But my hands are sorta tied by the constraints of not wanting my friends to know I'm a superhero sidekick."

Before they could continue, Lacey, Noser and Tyler approached them. "Hiii, Wendy's boss," Lacey drawled, her animal attraction to the Middleman undeterred even by the ongoing demonic apocalypse.

"Good evening, Lacey. It's a pleasure to see you, as always."

As they spoke, a potter's wheel swept by on a dangerously low circuit of the room, and the group made a synchronized dive for the floor.

"I must compliment you on your costume," he continued as if nothing unusual had just happened. "I've never seen the sins of animal testing inflicting its damage on the soul of our society depicted with such depth. Even on such a traditionally frivolous holiday, you work for the greater good."

Lacey beamed at the compliment.

The Middleman turned to shake hands with Noser. "Mr. Noser, you chose to eschew the costume tradition?"

Noser shook his head. "Nah, Wendy's boss, I'm The Band."

"Oh, obviously. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding." His attention next shifted to Tyler. "And I'm guessing this is Mr. Ford; the wrestling garb is an interesting choice."

"I'm owning some pain tonight," Tyler explained. The Middleman and Noser nodded at him in manly understanding.

Wendy decided to cut in. "Look, boss, it's great that you were able to stop by -"

"I was in the neighborhood doing some work for a client, and I remembered you had invited me," he replied, looking very pleased with this alibi.

"Could we speak in private?" Wendy asked, and led him to the kitchen, which was currently occupied only by the remains of the snacks and punch and a possessed girl Wendy recognized vaguely as a printmaker who had started art school a couple of years after Lacey and herself. The girl was jabbering in reversed Latin and rocking back and forth.

The Middleman began the conversation. "You should have mentioned that your friends were here with you, Dubbie. Our Federal Trade Commission badges aren't going to do us any good here."

"I know!" Wendy concurred. "It's problematic - we're just going to have to do this as ourselves, but incognito. I have a theory on what's going on here. Have you noticed that the victims seem like they're ill? Like they're not nearly so interested in collecting our souls for Satan as they are with how much their tummies hurt - they look miserable, and they're not violent. I think - "

Suddenly a blender on the counter above the printmaker turned on, rising menacingly off the counter and spewing green punch and ice into the air. Revolving slowly for a moment it seemed to be readying itself for a telekinetic charge.

"Galloping ghosts! Hit the deck!" The Middleman promptly dodged to one side as the blender flew at them but Wendy, having had a little bit too much Blood Red punch, barely reacted as the blender crashed into her skull.

"Oh fu -"

***

"Where am I? How long have I been out?" Wendy mumbled as she regained consciousness. She felt her head, sitting up on a vomit-spattered sofa. As it turned out, she had been out long enough for the others to get the situation well in hand. Art students were wandering out of the loft looking dazed and a little ill, but there were no signs of telekinetic or other supernatural activity.

"Well, Dubbie, you've been out long enough for us to get the situation well in hand," the Middleman said. He was on the floor next to the sofa gingerly holding the hair of a not-so-sexy-werewolf puking into a trashcan. "Hearing the commotion over your... accident, Lacey and Mr. Noser came into the kitchen, at which point Lacey perspicaciously noticed that the containers of fruit punch base were produced by Rusty Nickel Co, a corporation with record of notorious malfeasance in the areas of animal testing and quality control. In light of your own perspicacious observations, I immediately suspected - "

"Slimer!" Wendy interrrupted.

"Excuse me?"

"It was the Ectoplasm Green punch, right? I knew there was just something not right with that stuff."

"Indeed. After that it was as simple as getting a sample to Ida, confirming that the punch had been made with actual ectoplasm - doubtless for some evil scheme we have yet to fully unveil - and receiving an antidote in return. Your friends believe it was a particularly virulent case of food poisoning. There will be some cleaning up to do here, but no permanent damage, except for the Slip 'n Slide; I doubt that will ever be used again."

Wendy was thinking this was a pretty big loss - that Slip 'n Slide had seen some good times - but the Middleman interrupted her thoughts. "Are you feeling ready to go yet?"

"And where would we be going now?"

"To the Rusty Nickel factory, of course! This deed is only half done, Dubbie - who knows how many omega-naught goetiacon outbreaks we could be dealing with if we don't roll these oats here and now."

Wendy bowed to the inevitable. "A Middleman's work is never done - gotcha. Can I at least go change my clothes first?"

Her boss nodded. "If you insist, but I think the costume is festive. I especially like the little booties," he smirked.

"Save it. The Robin outfit seemed cute when I picked it out - a little joke with myself if you know what I mean - but it kind of loses its luster when I'm doing actual sidekicking."

"I would imagine any outfit loses its appeal after being doused with ectoplasmic vomit." He looked at the sickly werewolf, helping him stagger to his feet. The werewolf mumbled some kind of thanks and stumbled away. "Shall we make our excuses, then ride off to save the day?"

And that is what they did.

scoured @ 2009-08-07T12:23:00

2009-08-07T16:53:08Z

Last week I officially finished my Master's, which is very freeing (though there is an element of "So, now what?" there, too). This week I've mostly been taking some time away from the computer, to do things like clean my house and read books. That's also been very freeing, as I feel like I've been chained to my laptop since I began my degree.

This weekend, however, will be computer-heavy. I have plans to glut myself on marvel_crossing fics (they look amazing!), and hopefully work on some cliche_bingo fic. And think about xmmficathon. My assignment is awesome - I'm having a lot of trouble deciding which of the prompts I want to write, because I have ideas for pretty much all of them.

In other news, Jeff Parker is writing Spider-Man 1602. While the post-Gaiman 1602 has been a little lackluster (though I did enjoy 1602 Fantastick Four for the most part, I will never forget New World's issue upon issue of Hulk fighting dinosaurs), I have hopes for this. Parker always seems to capture all of the stuff that is fun about comic books. I am hoping that the mask is a cover-only thing; it really looks kind of terrible in terms of the 1602 aesthetic, imo.

Also, Marvel, what is this about this being the "final" 1602 story? You mean other than the story about Fury and Cap after they go through the portal, right? The story where they gather up a motley team of heroes in hiding (consisting of characters from Young Marvel and Wolverine, because he lives forever) and they take down Purple Man's evil empire? Because that's my dream comic, and I'm not taking no for an answer on this one.

Thoughts of the Now...

2009-07-29T04:42:03Z

1) Yesterday, I washed and conditioned my hair before making an appointment and going to the salon, where my stylist washed and treated my hair with SOMETHING AMAZING and mysterious and...the point is, I need to stop touching my hair. It is becoming a problem.

2) I believe I convinced the owner of my neighborhood liquor store to carry my favorite bourbon, and this probably ranks as my greatest achievement of the month (bonus: I feel like this will still probably be true at the end of the week, when I am slated to have completed my Master's. Everyone should have the privilege of tasting this bourbon.)

3) I am going to go curl up with a drink and a book, and determinedly not think about PowerPoint until tomorrow. I have a dream in which I have achieved financial success beyond my wildest expectations, and I summon someone to the side of the pool where I swim in my collected wealth Scrooge McDuck style, and I pay this person to create my PowerPoint presentations, so I never have to do this dirty work ever again. This dream, for what it is lacking in internal coherency, certainly creates a picture.

There's a sort of evil out there...and we've always been here to fight it.

2009-07-25T19:00:20Z

For the "fannish top five" meme, st_aurafina asked for "five superheroes who could make a life in Twin Peaks." Which is...possibly the greatest prompt in the history of prompts. I daydreamed about this the entire time I was writing the not-a-thesis OF DOOM.

1. Smax (Top Ten)

Smax would do just great in Twin Peaks. It's pastoral, like his home world, and pretty strange, like his home world. The residents don't pry into each others' sex lives, so his relationship with his sister would be no big deal. And Smax is a good cop - Harry would have him deputized pretty much immediately. People would probably talk about the fact that he's blue at first, but I think they'd get over it quickly enough.

2. Huntress (Birds of Prey - TV)

I could see Helena escaping New Gotham after something particularly bad went down, and ending up in a place like Twin Peaks. She would work at the Double R or maybe tending bar at the Great Northern, because she has bartending experience. She would pretty much hate Twin Peaks at first - she's very much an urban dweller. I think that once she figured out there were always French Canadians who are up to no good to beat up on, though, she'd be fine.

3. Squirrel Girl (Marvel)

This is pretty much a gimme - woods=squirrels=armies to help Squirrel Girl in her campaign for goodness. We know that she is happiest away from big cities like New York, and I could see her coming to Twin Peaks after hearing about the plight of the Pine Weasel. Squirrel Girl vs. the Packards!

4. Mina Murray (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

OK, so it's canon that Mina has been to Twin Peaks, which is where this comes from. In discussing this with the boy, however, this got expanded into a personal fanon in which Mina Murray is the founder of the Bookhouse Boys (The other day we watched the episode in which Harry tells Cooper about the Bookhouse Boys and he keeps referring to all past and future members as men, which rubbed me the wrong way. So, I now believe that Mina founded them, and they changed the name and retroactively purged all feminine influence later. Don't judge!).

5. Scott Summers (X-Men)

When things go down the tube in his life, Scott tends to run. Sometimes to a place where nobody knows him and he can perform physical labor (like a fishing boat). I envision Scott running to Twin Peaks to work at the mill some time. (I know they burned down the mill, but it or something similar has to get rebuilt eventually, because 90% of the town worked there. Why do we not see a major recession after the mill burns down? This has always bothered me.) This will work very well until his life catches up with him, as it always does, and he goes back to the X-Men. He will always have pleasant memories of that pie, though. Everyone does.

scoured @ 2009-07-21T12:00:00

2009-07-21T16:04:48Z

Stolen from mekosuchinae:

Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post. Probably with pictures if possible.

The meme is necessary to occupy my breaks from working on the horrible not-a-thesis. (Today I spam my journal, tomorrow - when it is due - I REGRET.)

Femslashy Delight

2009-07-21T14:33:33Z

femslash09 has been making me so very happy! There are still a few stories rolling in, but here are my recs so far.

Royal and Important by bossymarmalade (Merlin, Gwen/Morgana) - This is the story written for me, and it is delightful!

A Verb for Falling in Love by pirateygoodness (Gossip Girl, Blair/Serena)

Five Times Vanessa Sees Jenny and One That She Doesn't by jaina47 (Gossip Girl, Vanessa/Jenny)

Hermione Granger and the Amazing Outfits of Luna Lovegood by likeadeuce (Harry Potter, Hermione/Luna)

Love you good and strong (while our love is good and young) by wintercreek (Firefly, Kaylee/Inara)

You're the Other Side of the World to Me by queenzulu (Firefly, Kaylee/Saffron)

Happy Campers by second_batgirl (X-Men Comics, Kitty/Jubilee)

Memory, hither come [X-Men, Jean/Emma]

2009-07-20T01:35:04Z

Title: Memory, hither come
Author: scoured
Recipient: shyath for femslash09
Fandom: X-Men Comics
Pairing: Jean Grey-Summers/Emma Frost (background Jean/Scott, Emma/Tony Stark)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2,800
Summary: Jean and Emma are trapped in a prison of their own making.
Notes: Set during Grant Morrison's New X-Men. Huge thanks to lilacsigil for the beta. The characters belong to Marvel Comics.

The worst thing about being trapped in close quarters with the psychic form of the woman trying to steal her husband is the lack of control, particularly in a place where her control is normally absolute. Or maybe it's the loneliness, knowing it's just her and someone who doesn't care about her. No, scratch that, the worst thing is just being trapped in close quarters with the psychic form of the bitch trying to steal her husband.

"You know I can hear you, right, Jean darling?" Emma asks.

"You don't hear anything I don't want you to," Jean responds.

That isn't really the case, though. Since the Shadow King exiled them to this shared prison on the astral plane, they can't hide anything from the other, really. They have been sitting, shoulders grazing, in what their minds seem to have negotiated as neutral ground - a bench on the grounds of a school that is some combination of the Massachusetts Academy and the Xavier Institute. It is their curse to be trapped together - their astral forms tied while the surroundings they are able to create are limitless.

The school grounds are beautiful - a large brick mansion with ivy crawling up its sides, an Olympic-size swimming pool, an arboretum that Emma thinks of as the Danger Grotto, and manicured lawns as far as she can see. Mutant children who they both know to be grown or dead in the waking world are happily existing here. Jubilee and Angelo seem to be preparing a practical joke for Paige in the arboretum, while young Hank and Warren argue with Bobby, who has iced over the swimming pool again.

Jean has been this close to Emma's psyche before, when she transferred her mind into Emma's body during Fitzroy's attack ages ago. That had a different feeling, though, because Emma had retreated to a safe, isolated spot deep in the recesses of her mind then. Emma had remained quiet and unobtrusive - Emma's mind had been a peaceful place.

"Are you really having nostalgic thoughts about the time you commandeered my body? I thought the story was that you played puppeteer out of necessity, but it certainly sounds like you enjoyed it."

Jean scowls. "That's not at all what I was thinking, Emma. Even when you have complete unfettered access to my thoughts you manage to misinterpret everything. Always twisting things to your own ends."

"Even I can't twist what's already twisted," Emma replies.

They fall silent and watch the children. Catseye and Roulette seem to have had a disagreement with Boom Boom and Rictor. Catseye is moving forward in her feline form, the ground is beginning to shake, and both Jennifer and Tabitha have their hands forward in poses that suggest energy discs and explosions are imminent. Jean is still steaming about Emma, and has to admit she's curious about who is going to win here. She wonders what the ethics are regarding preventing the children from fighting when the children are just constructs of her and Emma's minds.

Before she has to make a final decision on if she needs to step in, Leech comes forward to power everyone down and defuse the situation.

Emma speaks up. "Why are we here? Watching our consciousnesses battle it out in the form of our students indicates something about our psyches that I don't really feel like analyzing. You have all the fiery powers of the cosmos at your disposal; couldn't you get us free?"

"Not without burning a Phoenix-shaped hole through your mind."

They are silent again, and Jean can feel the nervous energy, the fear, escaping from the other woman despite her best efforts at containing it. "I'm not going to do it, Emma."

Emma's avatar is every bit as obdurate as the woman herself, but Jean can feel the release and the accompanying suspicion behind the exterior.

"The Phoenix wants me to, I won't...can't lie to you. It's telling me that Scott is in danger. The Shadow King was attacking all of us -- we were just targeted first."

That statement hangs in the space between them for a few seconds, until Jean continues.

"I'm holding it back, but you have to understand, the Phoenix cares about Scott, as much as the Phoenix cares about anything. The Phoenix does not care for anyone who tries to get between it and Scott - it puts up with me, as an avatar, but it really does not like you. Tread lightly, Emma."

Emma narrows her eyes and speaks. "You and your all-powerful cosmic force don't frighten me, Jean."

"I wish I could always say the same," Jean murmurs.

They are quiet for a long time, to the extent that time exists in this space. Here there is no weather, no light-dark cycle, no need to eat or sleep or breathe, and the only activity is that created by their own minds. It is equally possible they sit there for five minutes or five days. If it were anyone else on the bench beside her, Jean would find this comfortable. Emma's shoulder touches hers, emitting warmth and moving up and down with the breathing Emma persists with because it makes her feel physical and human.

The kids are having a picnic. Paige and Warren lie on the grass, while Monet and Jetstream play a super-powered game of frisbee nearby. Scott and Sally are preparing sandwiches on a blanket, while Taki and Artie wait nearby with hungry expressions.

Emma has to intrude upon the peace. "I'm bored. This is all very transcendental, but I am a woman of action."

"Yes, I'm aware of what happens when you get bored," Jean replied. "You cause trouble." An image of Emma in a black nightie, carrying a bottle of champagne, glimmered across the landscape. Emma did not have the decency to project shame.

"What do you propose we do to stave off your ennui?" Jean knew that Emma would not have made this declaration if she didn't already have something in mind. She had let her attention slip for a while, though, and had no idea what it might be.

"I propose a game," Emma says, mischief in her voice.

"We will not be playing Truth or Dare."

"Of course not, Jean; we're not schoolgirls. We're two of the most powerful minds on the planet. I want us to play a game of memories. For example..."

The school grounds faded away, replaced by an infinite nothingness. Their bench had transformed into a plush, red velvet couch that would not have been out of place in the Hellfire Club.

"Let's say that you propose the category, 'a perfect meal.' I would then show you this." Their couch now looks over the patio of a beach-side restaurant. Jean osmoses from Emma that this is Antibes. Emma is seated, cleavage spilling from white silk, across the table from Tony Stark. Jean raises an eyebrow and Emma smirks. The Emma at the table takes a dainty bite of tuna carpaccio, and Jean is suffused with the taste of it, the fish and its sauce resting on her tongue for an instant before it's fully consumed. This is why the Astral Plane is dangerous - a telepath can have anything she wants here, have experiences fuller and more varied than any that could be found in a person's lifetime otherwise.

"Your turn, Jean. A perfect meal."

Jean knows this game is probably a bad idea. But the part of her mind that can't back down from a challenge, particularly a challenge from Emma, convinces her this is all harmless fun.

The French Riviera fades and is replaced by a dimly lit diner, complete with their crimson sofa. New York at night can be seen through the window over a younger Jean's shoulder. She is sitting in a booth with Scott, Hank, Bobby and Warren. Hank is pink-skinned, and Warren has his wings restrained under a shirt - he leans forward so they aren't pressed against the seat behind him. Bobby and Hank are playing a very complicated-looking game with some coasters, while the others look on in amusement. All of that is swept aside, though, when the food arrives. They all have identical white plates with identical cheeseburgers and fries set in front of them.

Everyone else begins reaching for condiments, but Jean only has eyes for her burger. She picks it up, and the Jean sitting on the couch watching can smell the beef approaching her face. They both close their eyes as the younger Jean takes a bite, pickles crunching between her teeth.

"A cheeseburger? Really?"

Jean turns to Emma. "Those were the best burgers I've ever had. We used to go into the city every chance we got, just to get those."

Emma rolls her eyes. The word mundane resounds from her, but all she says out loud is, "Okay, my turn to choose."

"You chose the last one."

"No, I didn't. Remember, we hypothetically made it your choice. Except, it wasn't hypothetical, since I knew it was what you would choose." That word is still echoing in their minds, and Jean is getting angry, but she calms herself. She is trying to learn to choose her battles.

"Fine, Emma. Your choice."

She replies, "A hot day."

The diner (where Scott is mediating a ketchup-related argument between Warren and Bobby) fades, and is replaced by the sands and water of St. Barts. Jean and Scott lie on chairs, their fingers intertwined, baking in the sun. They are both in their swimsuits, sweat glistening on their skin. Emma is clearly more interested in this memory, leaning forward slightly and biting her lip, immersing herself in the memory's warmth.

This, their brief moment of honeymoon before she and Scott were swept off on yet another errand to save the world, is not something Jean would have chosen to share with Emma. The proximity of their minds makes it difficult to maintain her privacy fences, though, and this is the first thought that jumped into her head at Emma's words. This game is more dangerous than she had initially thought.

"Your turn," Jean says, eager to get Emma away from this place, this image of her and Scott looking so vulnerable.

A small, wicked smile passes across Emma's face as the scenery becomes that of a cramped college dorm room. The air is filled with a late summer humidity so thick Jean is almost surprised it isn't visible. If it were, it could obscure the picture in front of her, of a young Emma, still blonde, but noticeably without surgical enhancements, straddled across the lap of a girl Jean doesn't recognize. They are both stripped to their underwear, sharing a desk chair.

Jean is determined not to let Emma think she is embarrassed, or at all interested in this image. She can feel Emma waiting for her reaction, so she attempts to exude a stony indifference. It's difficult, though, in the face of Emma kissing and biting her way down the girl's neck and chest, in this room filled with the girl's low moans as Emma's hand works its way into her panties. As with the other memories, she could feel everything the subjects feel here, but she stubbornly refuses to; it would feel like letting Emma win.

"Really, Emma? This is the first thing you think of for 'a hot day'?"

"We didn't have air conditioning, and it was one of those blasted New York heat waves. We stripped to our underwear to cool off, but we didn't end up doing ourselves any favors with our choice of activity. Or rather, there were many favors involved, but none helped us cool down."

Jean rolls her eyes. "Droll as usual." She does her best to think of something innocent. "New category - a day with a good book."

Jean is satisfied when the stifling heat of the dorm is replaced by the institutional cool of a library. She revises her opinion, though, when she registers the distinct sound of Emma mewling and moaning, and fully takes in the scene in front of her. Selene is kneeling in front of Emma as she leans back against a bookshelf. Jean was already in a precarious position after the previous memory, making it doubly difficult not to notice the way Emma's chest moves above her corset, the look of intense satisfaction on Emma's face, the electricity extending throughout Emma's body, to the tips of her fingers and toes, as she orgasms.

She is angry now, but struggles not to show it. "Don't you have any memories that don't revolve around sex? This seems a little shallow, really."

Emma smirks, and it's obvious she knows she's getting to Jean. "These are just the most memorable, darling. What immediately comes to mind."

Jean quickly takes her turn to erase this scene, but the damage has been done and continues. No matter what she proposes, Emma parades her sexual greatest hits, and Jean becomes increasingly drawn in.

The game can finally be called to an end, Jean thinks, when Emma shows her a scene of the two of them, limbs entwined and lips joined. "I think you lose, Emma. This is a game of memories, and this never happened. I would certainly remember."

Emma's hand reaches to the back of Jean's neck, and she says, "It's just not a memory yet."

The small distance left between their astral forms is closed and Jean knows she should resist, that she loathes Emma, and she will definitely regret this as soon as it's over, but she gives in. She welcomes Emma's thighs straddling hers and Emma's lips crushing against hers, and Emma's hands pushing her shoulders back against the velvet of the sofa.

Emma's breasts brush against her nipples, and it feels so right, and she can envision what it would feel like without the fabric in the way. Thought here is deed, dissipating their clothing in an instant - she was right, it is better without them.

"Eager are we, dear?"

"Don't talk, Emma, or I'll start to think about this too much."

That smile passes over Emma's face again as she says, "You and I both know you've been thinking about this plenty as it is."

Before Jean can respond, Emma covers her mouth with her own once again, and her hand moves to cup Jean's breast, thumb moving back and forth over her nipple, lightly back and forth until Jean is raising her hips, eager for something more.

Emma is enjoying this denial, Jean can tell. She's enjoying having something Jean wants for a change, and holding back. That isn't a game Jean wants to play, so she flips Emma onto her back, pins her wrists down with one hand, and closes her mouth over Emma's nipple. Her other hand employs itself inside Emma, and now it's Emma who is moaning and writhing under Jean. She can feel that Emma is close, and the plan had been to pull back at precisely this moment, but the thought of Emma spent and shuddering under her is overwhelming, so she continues, arching her fingers, thumb brushing against Emma's clit.

They've played by the rules up to this point, confined their actions to the bodies they've created, but Emma has never been one for regulations. Jean can feel mouth and fingers moving over her, though Emma's wrists are still held above her head, and her head is resting against the cushion, not against Jean's skin. The warm breath and invisible tongue between Jean's legs work her quickly to climax, but not before she has Emma arching into her hand and shaking against her. They collapse into a hot, limp heap.

***

Their rescue is a quiet affair from their end. One second they are peacefully sitting on their bench, watching the children play tug-of-war, the next they are in the mansion, which looks like it has suffered more than one explosion.

Everyone is eager to share their war stories, though Hank doesn't want to let Jean and Emma leave the medical bay, where their bodies have been resting since the Shadow King's initial attack, before he finishes his tests. Jean insists she is feeling well enough to embrace her husband, who doesn't look like he has slept in days. As she sits upright, she hears Emma's voice inside her mind. "And so, I live through another day without being consumed by the fires of the cosmos. My little game proved to be sufficient diversion, it seems."

Jean struggles to keep her anger from showing to the others gathered in the lab. "You were toying with me? You realize we will never speak of this again."

"Of course not," Emma replies, and the fact that she can make her thoughts sound so amused is a testament to her power as a telepath. "We will never talk about it out loud."

Writing in a scene like this was a requirement for getting the "Civil War" banner on the cover

2009-07-02T04:15:22Z

A brief sampling from comics I read last week:

Question: Am I the only weirdo who does not sleep in her underwear? Or is this just comic creator wishful thinking gone rampant?

A Harvest of Wild Oats, [X-Men/Firefly, gen]

2009-06-22T20:14:31Z

Below is my fic for multiverse5000.

Title: A Harvest of Wild Oats
Prompt: Marvel Universe/Firefly. It turns out that Corsair is Malcolm Reynold's father.
Characters: Alex, Scott, Nathan, Corsair, Mal
Rating: PG
Word Count: 6,000
Summary: What begins as an intergalactic fishing trip only manages to get more complicated.

Notes: Thanks to Aaron for the beta. Post-Serenity. For the X-folks, takes place after Alex's aborted wedding, when Cable was holed up drunk in a safehouse after demoralizing circumstances, and some time during New X-Men. I say this for general orientation, but any backstory is explained in the fic, so is not important for reading comprehension.

Alex wasn't sure what his father had expected. From his perspective, when four very dangerous looking men suddenly appear on someone's ship and claim relation, an eventual lowering of weapons and a cool, "I ain't got no father, and never have done" seemed like the most positive possible reception. He was sure Scott and Nathan would both agree with him. But there was definite hurt in Corsair's eyes at his son's denial - in his mind, there were extenuating circumstances to be considered.

Their interrogation started with the traditional stare down - a cool look from the first mate, Zoë, and a glower from the bruiser called Jayne. When that had little effect, Jayne growled, "You'd best start telling us the truth 'bout how you got on our ship and to what purpose, or I'm gonna start cutting the truth out of you. I got a thing for souvenirs."

Zoë turned to him and said, "Back down! You know I like to be the first to threaten them."

Scott leaned forward in his chair, readjusting his bound hands, and asked, "Which one of you is supposed to be the good cop?"

"Who said there was a good cop?" Zoë responded.

Alex turned to the pained-looking man on his right and said, "You realize this is the worst fishing trip ever, right, Dad?"

***

"A fishing trip? In space? Now's really not a good time for me to go off-planet, Dad, I just got back from Paris..."

"Which makes me think this is an excellent time. After Lorna's little episode at your wedding, this doesn't really seem like a safe time for you two to be sharing a planet. I just got both of my boys back from the dead, I'm not anxious to lose you again!"

Alex ran his hand through his hair and looked across the room at his brother, who was sorting through a stack of unfiled paperwork Kurt had left on Alex's desk. "Have you signed on for this, Scott?"

"Sure, why not?" Scott responded, looking up from a purchase order that Bobby had spilled a frappuccino thing on; Alex kept meaning to redo that and get the thing submitted to the trust. "It might be good to get away from the mansion for a bit. Relax, just get away..." he trailed off.

"Why were you guys filling out a purchase order for plasma cannons, anyway? I think those are S.H.I.E.L.D. exclusive. And why does this smell like mocha?"

Alex scrutinized his brother, but the ruby lenses kept him as unknowable as always. "Let's not sidetrack here. Since when are you keen to abandon your X-Men, your wife, and your solar system for a vacation? Something's up."

"Nothing's up. It just sounded like a good chance for us all to spend some time together away from the chaos and confusion of our teammates and, you know, everything."

Corsair clapped Alex on the shoulder and proclaimed, "Well that settles that!"

Alex wasn't feeling quite so settled, between Scott's suspicious vagueness and his own desire to hide out with Annie and Carter for a week or two, but his objections were forgotten with his father's next words.

"Now, we need to pick up my grandson, and we'll be ready to head out!"

"Grandson?" Alex sputtered. "You mean Cable? I'd heard he wasn't doing so hot these days..."

***

"Remind me why I'm here again, Havok. I try to reserve time-hopping for important reasons - being threatened with a strip search all for the sake of a forced family reunion hardly seems to merit it. I should have shut you three down to a comatose state as soon as I saw what you had planned."

Alex eyed his nephew - a man at least ten years his senior, with grey hair and wrinkles around the corner of his eyes. "I guess you're here because you didn't choose to do that. Maybe you really do want to spend more time with our family, get to know Scott and your grandfather better."

"Or," he continued, in response to Cable's increasingly skeptical expression, "maybe you were ready to get away from the whiskey bottle and that disgusting cabin - really, it smelled - and make a difference again. And you sensed you could do that; we wouldn't have gotten here without you, and it really means a lot to Dad."

Nathan leaned his shoulders back against the couch's orange upholstery, closing his eyes. "I've decided it's impossible to make a difference. That's what a lifetime of traveling through time trying to alter its courses has taught me. And here we've arrived at just more proof of that - all the work we put into saving the world, destroying the madmen who would destroy it, and where do people end up? Earth's uninhabitable, mutants are nonexistent, a ruthless empire is in control, and we're floating around in a tin can held together by spit and wishes."

"Would you like to know every element represented in Serenity?" a soft female voice cut in. "I could give it to you - any spit involved is incidental, and wishes have no place on the periodic table. But you don't believe what you're saying, anyway. Nathan, Cable, Dayspring, Askani'son, so many names, so many times, so many men all in one skin."

"A telepath?" Nathan said, letting a bit of astonishment creep into his voice as he stood up.

"And you were saying that mutants are nonexistent here," Havok said.

Nathan's eyes remained solidly on the girl, a tiny thing with an apparent ability to sneak about silently in boots. "She's not a mutant. Are you?"

"A mutant? The result of a base-pair sequence change in the DNA of an organism's, in this case a human's, gene or chromosome, from the others in its species? I've never seen a full-scale genetic analysis of myself - there could have been some flip-flopping."

"She's not a mutant," Cable confirmed. He stepped toward her, his steps echoing off the common room's walls, and reached a hand toward her temple. "Someone has been meddling here."

A well-dressed man walked in from the cargo bay doors. "Did she tell you that?"

"Not in words, no. But she's projecting all over the place. Once I tuned in to her frequency, if you will, there's no way to stop from knowing everything. And I mean everything - it was indicated to me that the Alliance were ruthless bastards, but they are monsters." Cable blinked repeatedly, as though clearing something from his eyes.

"So you're a reader? Like River?"

"A telepath, yes. But not like River. My telepathy comes from a genetic mutation - it's something I was born with. River's was created through men's experimentation, and they seem to have destroyed most of her ability to control it in the process."

Simon nodded slowly, "You're a mutant. I thought they must be myth, surely."

Alex stepped in here, "Definitely not a myth where we come from, though there are lots of people who wish that. Scott and I are mutants, too, as well as most of our friends and family back home."

"Are you all telepathic?"

"Thank God, no." Alex shot a look at Cable to make sure he hadn't caused offense, but he mostly seemed interested in his mental examination of River, who appeared to be examining him back. "It's messy enough knowing as many telepaths as we do - it's a useful skill, but I can't imagine what it would be like if we all knew each other's thoughts. No, I can create plasma blasts, and Scott shoots energy from his eyes."

"What kind of energy? And plasma blasts? You guys are walking weapons! Does the Captain know all this?"

Alex winced. He had apparently misjudged the situation a bit. "Not precisely, no. We didn't want to fight or cause panic, so we left a few things out when we explained ourselves to Zoë and Jayne. The plan was to show that we're trustworthy, and then let everyone know we weren't baseline human."

"You guys are playing with fire. I don't want to be the one to get you all thrown out an airlock or to see you harm those who try to do so, so I won't tell anyone. But, mutants."

Alex pressed, "You said there were myths about mutants here?"

Simon nodded. "History, really. But not the kind that anyone studies, or believes. When River began manifesting her abilities, I did research on paranormal abilities of all types, and there was talk of mutants that used to exist on Earth that was."

"What happened to them?" Alex asked, over the tight knot forming in his chest. This was a question he had to ask, but not one he necessarily wanted to hear answered.

Simon shook his head. "One day, mutants ceased to exist. They woke up and they were standard human beings again. Not a single one that still had powers, no new mutants born. They called it M-Day."

By this point, Cable's attention was firmly on them. He exchanged a look with Alex, a feeling of horror at this story. Was Cable right? Was it impossible to make a difference? How did someone go about altering something as nebulous as this?

Simon didn't seem to realize the nightmare he had just set loose upon the other men. He asked Cable, "So, you can see what they did to River? Can you fix it?"

Cable furrowed his brow. "Telepathy isn't something that needs to be fixed. It's a gift."

"Telepathy may be. Anxiety, nightmares, and an inability to moderate her emotions are not."

Cable nodded. "You certainly have a point there. The damage to her psyche is complex, and it would take me time to see if I could repair it. I'm not even sure if I should try - the danger of causing more damage is great, and I don't know if she could handle that."

Simon looked defeated.

"But," Cable continued, "I could try to teach her how to control her telepathy. If she could block out the thoughts and feelings of those around her, except for when she wanted to, it could do a lot to help with her other problems."

Simon and Nathan sat down, and Nathan outlined for the doctor exactly what his course of treatment would involve. They had apparently forgotten their subject, who settled herself on the floor against a wall, and continued her intense analysis of Cable. Alex was sure she must now know more about him than any of the rest of them did.

At a lull in their conversation, Simon turned toward Alex and asked, "So you said that you only left some things out of your explanation here. Does that mean you were telling the truth about that old pirate being Mal's father? Because that is a story I need to hear."

***

Alex had never imagined that water could be that color. He lived a life in which he saw amazing things on a daily basis, but they were generally of the, "wow, that is an inventive way to kill my species" variety; nothing he had seen had prepared him for water so blue it looked like it came from a Crayola box. And the trees on the shoreline consisted of big blobs of the purest pink he could imagine, a color he never would have envisioned seeing in such quantity in nature.

"Errgh, why so much pink?" This, followed by a low, extended groan from the other end of the boat reminded him that not everyone found the scenery as inspiring as he did. Nathan hadn't yet gotten used to seeing sunlight again, and the long sobering up process combined with the rocking of the boat and the magenta flora was probably disorienting.

"Isn't this the greatest?" Corsair asked, as he cast his line. "This has to be one of the most beautiful spots I've found in all my travels. The weather's gorgeous, it's always quiet, you can see two moons when the sun sets and, best of all, no Shi'ar. There are apparently no resources here of interest to the Empire or to any of their rivals. Just beautiful."

Scott nodded silently and Alex smiled a bit. It was nice to have his dad and brother around when no one was shouting.

"There's only one fishing hole I can think of to match this one. The scenery wasn't so exotic, but it was even more peaceful. Trees clustered real thick around one side and you could just fall asleep there in the shade for hours. I sure would like to go back there, but that was when I got transported five hundred years into the future, you know. So, even if I could find the coordinates, who knows what the place is like now, right? They surely haven't terraformed it."

Corsair seemed to suddenly realize that two pairs of eyes and one set of ruby sunglasses were now pointed firmly in his direction. Even Cable had sat up and was staring.

Scott was the first one to speak up. "Can we review the part where you were sent five hundred years into the future?"

"I thought I told you about that." The confused expressions he faced indicated otherwise, so he continued.

"Well, the way it happened was this. The Starjammer was running low on fuel, like usual, so I took a shuttle out for a supply run. This was a long time ago, not long after we escaped from the Pits, and we were still in pretty hot soup with the Shi'ar. So a patrol recognized my shuttle and made pursuit. Things were looking pretty dicey, but then we got close to a jump gate, and I decided to go for it."

Nathan said skeptically, "You took a shuttle through a jump gate?"

Corsair chuckled. "Not my brightest moment. I knew it wasn't a good idea, but it was that or capture, and I couldn't be a prisoner again. Predictably, the jump malfunctioned. But I never would have predicted where I ended up. Five hundred years in the future, in a solar system I didn't recognize.

"And I was stuck there. No ship, no friends, and no possible route home. So I found a job at a ranch, herding cattle, mending fences. Mary owned the place and did a damn fine job running it. Eventually, we were running it together. We had a son, Malcolm.

"I was there for four years. I didn't think I'd ever get back so I set up a life there, and it was a good one. But the Starjammers never gave up on me. They went to every psi-powered being they could find. They kidnapped and bribed until they found one who was able to locate me, pluck me out of time, and bring me home. I went to sleep in my bed on the ranch, and woke up back home on the Starjammer. I never got to say goodbye."

The silence felt planet-wide - only the crickets were not still digesting Corsair's story. Alex noticed that he had a pull on his line that had probably started five minutes ago, and tried to bring the fish in.

Scott finally ended the quiet by saying, "A son? So, you're telling us we have another brother? Someone else who doesn't know you're alive?"

Corsair squinted his eyes, trying to think this one through. "Not really. That is to say, he won't be born for another five hundred years and by that point, I probably will be dead."

Nathan corrected, "You're thinking about time in a strictly linear fashion, when you've just demonstrated you know that is not the case."

"Weren't you nursing a hangover the size of my ship a second ago?" Corsair asked.

"The Askani have a proverb - pain is the whetstone upon which our clarity is sharpened."

Corsair muttered, "Seems to have a proverb convenient for every situation." To Scott he said, "Nathan is probably right - I do have another son, if you look at it in the broader sense. And not being able to explain things to him, to say goodbye to him, tore me up. But there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it; the whole episode was the result of an accident. I couldn't just travel through space and time to return to Malcolm and make amends, could I?"

At this, an idea sparked between Scott and Alex, who had ultimately lost both fish and line to the cerulean water, and it was time for the silent stares to be directed at Cable.

***

"You boys aren't too talkative, are you?" Mal had just entered the dining room to find Scott and Alex sitting across the table from one another, a bottle and glasses between them.

Alex smirked. "When we talk too much, it normally progresses to yelling fairly quickly. Also, my big brother has a secret that he is determined to keep quiet about."

"What manner of secret?" Mal asked.

Scott's lips settled into glower position. "A non-existent secret."

"Oh, a really good secret," Mal exclaimed. "This is shaping up." He pulled up a chair and poured himself a glass. It was the glass that sweet mechanic girl had intended for herself, after finding them the bottle. A mysterious explosion-like sound had been heard from the direction of the engine room, though, and she hadn't been seen since she ran off to investigate.

"Does this secret relate to the real reason you're on my ship? That is something I'm itchin' to know," Mal said.

Scott said, "We've told you the real reason we're here. Dad wanted to reconcile - that's all there is to it."

"And a bang-up job he's doing of it, too. He's popping up at me all over the ship, like the go tsao de bogeyman, wanting to clear his conscience at me."

Alex said, "You should give him a chance to tell his tale. It may not make you any better disposed toward him, but it is a killer story. And he tells it well."

Mal looked from one brother to another. "So you honestly believe this dung heap of a story about that man being my father? And in this scenario, you're my...brothers?"

Scott and Alex nodded.

"So what's the tough old guy who's been meditating with my pilot? My ex-convict uncle?"

"Nephew, actually. He's my son...from the future," Scott explained.

Mal let out a peal of laughter that echoed off the floors and wall of the ship. "You boys surely are entertaining. This keeps getting better and better."

Alex said, "You are definitely not the weirdest limb of the family tree - you've never even been cloned, to our knowledge."

Mal sipped his drink, then shook his head as he set the glass down. "You appear to be nice fellas, and I'm sure your pa has some nice points to him, when he's not jumping out at you in the corridors. But none of it changes the fact that I ain't got a father. I've done pretty well for myself without one thus far, and I don't see the benefits to obtaining one now."

Scott responded, his tongue loosening the more of the paint thinner he drank. "I hear you there. We thought Dad was dead most of our lives. Alex was adopted, I grew up in an orphanage. He didn't raise us, any more than he did you. But - well, I don't really know what the 'but' is - he's never been much of a father to any of us, but he's a good sort of guy. And if you can find some place in your life for him, it might be better than not having him."

Mal considered Scott seriously. "Well, I will take that under advisement. On to other matters; have you had enough of our rotgut to divest yourself of your secret? It seems to be weighing heavily on your brother, and I am a very good listener. I only make jokes when they're really funny."

Scott tilted his head back in an exasperated gesture, but started to talk anyway. "Maybe talking will help - I keep thinking that getting farther away will bring clarity to the situation, but that hasn't worked so far. See, Emma - that's another teacher at our school, Mal - and I..."

At that moment, Corsair burst into the dining area. Judging by his voice and smell, he appeared to have found his own source of drink tonight. He pointed a finger at Mal and stated, "I can't make you listen to me, and I certainly can't make you give a damn about me, and I'm done trying. So, take us to Shadow so I can see your mother, and I'll be out of your hair. I looked at the nav computer - we're right in the quadrant."

Mal pushed himself to his feet, rattling the glasses on the table. "I will say this once, and once only. I say this because I know you aren't from here - anyone else who suggested what you just did would be on his back right now."

Mal took a deep breath and continued. "My mother is dead. Everyone on Shadow is dead or gone - the Alliance saw to that. Shadow is an uninhabitable pit that should be removed from the maps because no one will be visiting there ever again."

***

"She was a beautiful woman," Corsair said in a low voice, almost a whisper.

Alex wasn't sure if this was a statement he was supposed to have heard, or if he should respond. He was sitting with his head leaning against a cool window, eyes closed so he didn't have to think about the limitless dark of space as they drifted through it. He didn't know how his father lived out here, in all this emptiness. Alex decided the most polite, safest route was to open his eyes, but remain quiet.

His dad apparently did want to talk, because he continued, though he didn't look directly at Alex or Scott. "Mary, she was a beautiful woman. Strong, like your mother was strong, but harder. Hard enough to keep a ranch full of men, including me, in line. But she had this wicked sense of humor...

"I've tried not to think about her too much. About the things she must have said and thought, after I disappeared. Because it's hard. Because Hepzibah would kill me if she ever found out the full story. And because it's all felt unreal since I got back. Like a dream you can't quite remember, you know?"

Scott said, "I know. Ever since my time with Apocalypse, I see these images, probably memories, but I don't want to believe they're memories, don't want to believe those things were done with my hands. You push them aside, because they don't make sense, and they don't give you anything useful for your daily life, so they fade. But it doesn't mean it didn't happen."

Alex nodded and chimed in, "Since I woke up from my coma, I keep remembering these dreams that are just too vivid to have been dreams. But are just too strange to be memories, and I don't know how it's possible they could be memories. Crazy things - I lead a team of heroes, and Storm is a vampire, and I'm married to..."

Alex glanced at Scott and decided a change in conversation was probably in order before he took things in a direction he did not want them to go. Admitting to insane, vivid dreams in which he was married to his brother's dead wife was certainly one such direction. "Anyway, I think I know what you're talking about. I try to forget it all because it just doesn't make sense."

He shouted in the direction of the cockpit, where Cable was piloting them towards the Shi'ar facility Corsair's sources had told them about. "Hey, Nathan! You've done more disorienting travel than all of us combined - how do you deal with the memories?"

"No way, Alex. I don't do heart to hearts - I'll leave the reminiscing and the awkward expressions of emotion to you guys."

***

Alex sat at one end of his dad's small bunk and watched his father fumble with the electronic device Simon had lent him. He was trying to shove the encyclopedia cartridge in a slot that was not close to the correct shape. After he dropped it, Alex picked it up and gently took the computer and got it set up.

"Shadow," he said. After selecting the right entry, they mulled over the images and listened to the sterile voice read them facts and figures.

"It's so empty," Corsair said. "If you didn't know what to listen for, you'd never even know they razed it. And it leaves out all the good things; where does it talk about the blue catfish we used to catch in the summer? Or Ezekiel, the hand who would, at least once a year, get stinkin' drunk and insist on riding a tour of the ranch in his undershorts?"

Mal's head popped in through the doorway. "If that pile of crap doesn't mention Ezekiel, it's definitely left out one of the most important features of Shadow. Every year, without fail. The only reason he didn't do it more often was due to it taking a full year for his legs to heal up."

"He was still doing that as you got older? The man must have been at least fifty last I saw him."

Mal nodded. "You could set your clock by him. And let me tell you, for a man his age, he kept himself up very nicely. I saw more of that man than I ever wanted to see on a consistent basis, and never an ounce of fat on him."

Corsair looked at Mal sadly. "Are you going to knock me out or shoot me now? I know you told me not to talk about Shadow, but..."

Mal waved his hand in a shooing gesture, as he leaned against the wall. "Nope, I had a realization that not everyone is a cold son of a bitch like me. It's been pointed out to me that you shouldn't shoot a man for reminiscing."

"Am I allowed to ask a question, then? Does she have a gravestone or a monument anywhere?"

Mal shook his head. "Ma died in one of the early raids, and we buried her there on the ranch. There was a little marker. But it was destroyed, along with everything else, later. They didn't leave a stone standing.

"I have to tell you, if you are the man who fathered me, which, I admit, is looking increasingly more likely seeing your familiarity with Zeke's drunken antics and all, then my mother would not have invited you to her funeral, as it were. She couldn't really string two nice words about you together."

Corsair nodded at his son. "That doesn't surprise me. I'd imagine disappearing without a trace doesn't do much for a man's reputation."

Mal laughed. "I can tell you it does not. As a young pup I once asked about my father and she let out the longest string of curses I have ever heard, to this day. And I've been on the losing end of a war and spent my life among a wide variety of criminal types. Oh, and one evening Lyman - do you remember him? - made the mistake of asking..."

Alex had long been forgotten here, and decided to quietly make his exit. He needed to see Scott about making plans for their departure, anyway. He hoped it could go as smoothly as their trip here.

***

The four men stared out the window at the Shi'ar facility they were preparing to invade. It was small, but ominous - a floating metallic station that spoke of clandestine research and Shi'ar military guards just by its existence.

Scott turned to his father and said, "So your sources couldn't give you any more than this?"

"No, just that he'd heard the Shi'ar had a shard of the M'Kraan crystal here and had been doing some work on it. It's pretty heavily guarded, but not as much as the crystal itself."

Scott spoke to the group as a whole, "Just remember this is a stealth mission. We take out as few people as quietly as possible, until we get to the crystal shard and Nathan can do his thing."

Alex said, "We're all professionals here, Scott. We know what we're doing. Nathan, just how long do you think 'your thing' will take?"

"As long as it takes. If I had some chronogear I could project myself through time pretty quickly. But I've never used the crystal to channel my time-displacement powers before. I don't even know for sure that it will work - as the nexus of all realities, it should, but I can't make any guarantees. Add to that the fact that I'm taking three other people with me and I'll have to search for the exact time and place we're heading, and I'm not sure. Are we really doing this?"

Scott nodded first at Corsair, then at the others. "We're doing this."

The Shi'ar put up a good fight, but they really stood no chance against the combined experience of the four Summers men. Scott and Alex blasted and stunned, Nathan put hardened warriors to sleep without blinking an eye, and Corsair cut his way through lines of guards with his saber. More than one opponent was sent through a wall, which meant that the mission wasn't entirely as stealthy as had been planned, but it was probably more fun, too, if any of them would have admitted it.

When they finally found the room with the crystal shard, the other three guarded the door while Cable went to work. He had prepared them for the fact that it could be a long process, but they still weren't ready for the hour spent watching the hallways while Cable hovered mid-air in the lotus position in front of the crystal shard.

"Cable," Alex whispered. "I don't want to break your concentration..."

"Then don't," Nathan replied.

"The thing is, I think the reinforcements are here. Like, Shi'ar battleship reinforcements, that I can see out the window. So, if there were any way to make this go any faster, that would be good."

Cable opened one eye. "Do you think I'm dawdling? That I'm purposely stretching this out?"

Alex opened his mouth, but was saved having to formulate a response by the sounds of running footsteps in the hallway.

Cable had both eyes closed again and said, "I've found him, I think. But he's older, and there's no ranch. I'm trying to trace his journey back, find him earlier."

Scott said, "I think we'll choose an old brother over Shi'ar work camp, if I can speak for everyone!"

"All right, then, here goes!"

It turned out that Cable's thing was very disorienting. It left all of them, except Cable for whom this was business as usual, on the cold metallic floor of a ship, heaving.

From this vantage point, Alex saw a pair of boots wander in from the next room, then pause. He then heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked, followed by a voice on the intercom, calling for reinforcements. When the reinforcements arrived, they were all shouting in Chinese.

***

From across the cargo bay, Alex heard a string of words he was pretty sure would get you thrown through a window in Madripoor. He guessed Scott had probably just begun the little talk he had planned to have with Mal - the one in which he informed him about their mutant powers, and mentioned their thoughts on killing people, as well as on all guns not of the "stun" variety. From the way Mal's yelling continued, Alex was certain he and Scott were having their little talk.

Alex decided to seek out more serene pastures in the form of River and Cable, who were deep in conversation at the quieter end of the room. They stopped talking, out loud at least, as Alex approached. Emotion still played across River's face like sparks, leading him to believe the conversation had moved to a plane where he could not follow.

"Nathan," Alex began. "Have you given any thoughts to what Simon told us about the mutant apocalypse?"

Cable gave him a quieting look.

Alex continued, "Well, obviously, it would be hard not to think about it. What I mean is, what are we going to do about it?"

"What is, is," River piped in.

"Excuse me?"

Nathan smirked, "It's the central tenet of Askani philosophy. It teaches us acceptance and self-responsibility."

"Didn't the Askani send you back in time to kill Apocalypse and completely change the course of time? That doesn't say 'acceptance' to me."

"It is a complex, layered philosophy. I wouldn't expect you to understand without years of meditation and study.

"Besides," Nathan continued, "how would we fix this? The mysterious disappearance of the X-gene isn't something that can be solved with a simple killing, to my knowledge."

"So, you still think there's nothing we can do to make a difference?"

"No," Nathan glanced in River's direction, "we can make a difference, I think. Just not always in the ways we expect to. For instance, perhaps our very presence here, and absence from our own reality, is enough to change the course of these events. Who's to say?"

Scott approached the group and asked Alex to speak to him. They moved to the side and continued in low tones.

"I think I've convinced Mal not to murder us, though I think it's because he's convinced we're dangerous to him, not due to trust. I'm not making much headway on the gun issue, though - Jayne used the phrase, 'from my cold, dead hands,' and I believe him."

Alex shrugged, "We aren't going to change their ways with a few simple words. What is, is." He shook his head a bit to clear it and continued, "Why don't we just go in first. Between us and Nathan we should be able to get most everyone stunned and cleared away before anyone else feels inclined to start shooting."

"I suppose that might work, though they still make me nervous with that arsenal. Did you see everything they're packing?"

Alex clapped his brother on his shoulder, and said, "It'll be fine." There was a comfortable silence, and Alex continued, "So, you and Emma, huh?"

Scott shook his head a bit. "You must think I'm scum, right? I swear, it's only been mental, but it feels so..."

"Look, I just broke my girlfriend's heart as she was walking down the aisle, so that I could be with a woman whose son set up a telepathic romance for us while I was in a coma. And you and I, we're supposed to be the goody-goodies. I don't even want to know what Logan gets up to.

"None of us is perfect. And you'll still have the whole trip home to figure out what you're going to do. Assuming we get back to our own time, that is. If not, I guess all of us can set up a little life here, instead. I'm sure Dad can show us the ropes. That is," he said as Mal approached stormily with Corsair at his side, "if Mal doesn't hang us with them first."

Mal glared at all of the men who had turned out to be secret human weapons - that is, all the men except his father. "All right," he said, "we ready to do this thing?"

Cable nodded and said, "I've done my scans and River and I have plotted the location for the Alliance facility that seems to be housing this timeline's shard of the M'Kraan crystal. The biggest danger was always that the crystal shard had remained in our solar system, but it seems to have made the journey with humanity."

"Funny," Mal said, "the biggest dangers in my plans generally involve getting shot at."

The rest of the men gave Mal a curious look and Alex asked, "You're sure you and your crew want to be involved in this?"

Mal said, "We're there for backup at the least. Besides, this is what we do. It'll be a piece of cake."

Alex caught an amused expression that passed between Cable and River, which he thought probably meant things weren't usually as simple as Mal let on. But, he figured, they were Summers men - they always found their way home.

scoured @ 2009-06-20T22:37:00

2009-06-21T02:42:25Z

Today, I read the part of Count of Monte Cristo in which Franz first meets Dantès. Dantès invites him into his cave, where they role play and do hash.

I'm not sure anything could possibly top this, but I have 800 pages to go...

scoured @ 2009-06-10T23:00:00

2009-06-11T03:02:21Z

Does anyone have tips on writing Summers men? I am STRUGGLING.

scoured @ 2009-05-03T10:46:00

2009-05-03T14:52:41Z

As I was going through my journal reorganizing my Dreamwidth tags (they are very pretty, but I'm still not quite convinced I made it better rather than worse), I saw this meme, which I remember as being a lot of fun. I'm resurrecting it.

Give me two characters from two different fandoms with which I am familiar, and I will invent a relationship for them.

***

In other news, our Sunday plans revolve around Wolverine. I am so incredibly excited. I mean, I know I've already seen the best scene in the film (the one from the trailer where he takes down a helicopter with his claws, obviously) but it will be good to get it contextualized.

scoured @ 2009-05-02T13:16:00

2009-05-02T17:56:24Z

First off, PSA: claims are open for Multiverse, the space fandom crossover ficathon. This has always been one of my favorite ficathons to watch, but I have never participated because the list of eligible fandoms I was familiar with was too small (read: it was scary!). But, it is a much more low-stress set-up this year, with far more fandoms, and some of the prompts that have been submitted are just beyond awesome.

Secondly, st_aurafina asked me if, given the choice to travel to various alternate histories, which of three men (1602 Daredevil, Captain William Laurence, and Merlin) I would cliff, shag or marry.

Cliff

I think the illustration above (by Anke Eissmann) demonstrates adequately why Laurence gets the cliff. 1) No one could ever compete with that soul bond. 2) It doesn't matter if you cliff him, because Temeraire will always be there to catch him. Of course, I had better be safely off to another timeline ASAP, because I'm pretty sure Temeraire's next order of business would be to destroy the person responsible for Laurence going over the cliff.

Shag

I briefly considered cliffing Matt, but that seems unnecessarily cruel, since he's already had a lady-friend shove him off a bridge. Also, he's sexy and funny, and there's no evidence that involvement with him is hazardous to his health in quite the way it is in main continuity, as st_aurafina pointed out. He's definitely not the settling down type, though.

Marry

Merlin isn't really an ideal candidate for marriage, either, seeing as how he has the equivalent of a soul bond with Arthur, and nothing's really going to interfere with that. But he would definitely be the most fun and relaxing to be with of the three, which is really my primary consideration in a long-term relationship. He's protective and sweet to those he cares about and treats his mother well - I think it could work.

If you want to play, comment and I'll give you a set of three characters.

Tag: an organization tool I think about way too much, and a lame mutant power I think about too much

2009-05-01T13:56:41Z

Does anyone need a Dreamwidth invite? I have five - comment if you want one.

On that note, tagging thoughts:

I very lazily reordered my tags in DW's tiered system (which I love, btw), last week, but am going to do a serious reorganization very soon. Currently, they are set up in a way that I think is not intuitive from an outside view, but works for me. I have ordered fandoms by their media type, so "x-men" is now "comics:x-men," and that "comics:x-men" tag contains every post where I talk about X-Men, be it a fic, a rec, me laughing at Chris Claremont, etc. However, the "comics" parent tag does not apply to every post for a comics fandom, it is just for posts where I talk about comics I've read. Does that make any sense?

The more comprehensive and understandable system would be to divide up my tags so I have a "fic:x-men," "rec:x-men," tag, etc. and then maybe create a "fandom:x-men" tag so there is still one tag that contains every X-Men mention. But this system seems a bit cumbersome for my journal, since I post so sporadically and have the attention span of a gnat. The amount of tags that would apply to one post only hurts my brain.

What are your thoughts on tags? (It's interesting to note that I have been thinking far more about organizing content on my journal recently than creating content for it. This is possibly a feature of the library science brain.)

scoured @ 2009-03-30T22:57:00

2009-03-31T03:41:03Z

I've been working a lot recently, so not much else of note has been happening. The notable exception, however, was Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li at the dollar theater. (I use the term "dollar theater" in the colloquial sense. I was called out on this by a patron last week, when I told him that Revolutionary Road, which he asks me if the library has acquired every week despite the fact that it hasn't yet been released on DVD, was currently playing at the dollar theater. He seemed confused and said, "You mean the $1.50 theater?" This is an important distinction.)

Anyway, there is only one word to sum up Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li: EPIC.

The first thing I noted about this film as it opened was that Kristin Kreuk has again demonstrated that uncanny ability she seems to have over casting directors and other filmmakers. I say this because the character of Chun-Li was rewritten specifically to make her half-Chinese, and originally born in America in order to make her fit Kreuk's background more closely. I don't know what it is about this girl. The second thing that I noted was that the character of Chun-Li was rewritten so that her father pushed her hard to become a concert pianist specifically to make her an Asian-American stereotype. Thanks!

The most noticeable thing about the movie is that it was created for moviegoers with the attention span of a gnat. I don't think a single scene lasted for more than two minutes. This means that the camera is constantly jumping between sets of characters and locations, often in different countries. It's an exciting pace, but it's disorienting. Also, some storylines could really use more than two minutes of explication, like the entire M. Bison story, which makes no sense as depicted. And while things like M. Bison's grand plan to transplant his soul into his unborn child in order to raze some Bangkok slums are rushed through, we occasionally get flashbacks to scenes from literally less than five minutes earlier. Because filmgoers are not able to piece together that men with a spiderweb tattoo might be related to the mysterious organization, "The Web."

The fights are generally pretty and plentiful, which is good. The way that they try to interpret Chun-Li's signature moves, though, is often pathetic. In particular, the Spinning Bird Kick looks like it was choreographed by the Ninja Turtles. I think that as long as they decided they were going to give Chun-Li CGI balls of chi (which really, what?) they could have computer-generated her something a little cooler for her most famous move.

They did a pretty good job of keeping Chun-Li's dialogue to a minimum so we don't have to watch Kreuk deliver too much wooden dialogue. However, the first half of the film is filled with completely unnecessary Chun-Li voiceover (and I mean completely unnecessary - like we watch her play the piano and the voiceover says "I played the piano"), so we do have to listen to Kreuk deliver plenty of wooden monologue.

M. Bison was genuinely creepy and really the only high point of the film. Chris Klein's Interpol agent Charlie Nash is skeezy like few have ever skeezed. It's fascinating to watch.

The high point of the film is when Chun-Li attempts to seduce one of Bison's (female) operatives through dance at a nightclub. It is one of the least sexy dances in the history of humankind - so stilted, and her face has this intense look of concentration, like she can force sexiness through willpower. In the theater, the boy and I started giggling during this scene, and then the laughter spread to our friends, and then to the other two sets of people in the theater (who, by their reactions, seemed to be genuinely enjoying other parts of the movie). I do not believe this was the scene's intention.

Honestly, this movie was beyond terrible, but I really enjoyed the two hours spent watching it. It's like, as I was watching it, it made no sense. And then I spent a lot of time talking the movie over, and realized it made even less sense than I originally thought.

Kings - Goliath (1x1-1x2)

2009-03-17T03:29:24Z

Watched the premiere of Kings last night. Really enjoyed it - I highly recommend watching it on Hulu or the NBC website if you didn't catch it.

The basic premise is a retelling of the story of David and Saul in a kingdom that's a sort of re-imagining of the contemporary U.S. Ian McShane (Al Swearengen of Deadwood) plays King Silas, and the show is worth it just to watch him monologue and manipulate. I'm hooked.

I was really just enthralled with the subtlety of the show - all of the Biblical parallels are there (Rev. Samuels "anointing" David with motor oil in his garage!) but, with the exception of the "David & Goliath" newspaper headline, they never really point to it. I didn't feel much of an, "Oh, aren't we so clever" vibe."

And the whole thing would be gimmicky if the characters and their actors weren't fully realized, but they are. Rev. Samuels is awesome - holy but not self-righteous - and General Abner has nailed the loyal but brutal angle (I loved the conversation between him and Silas over who they should whack). Jack is delightfully tortured and petty, and the scene where his sexuality is revealed was surprising and heartbreaking. And the Queen! Just as manipulative and tricky as her husband and her brother, but with that "I don't like to get involved in politics" veneer.

I found David to be not all that memorable, but likable enough, and I think he could grow into a character in which I'm interested. The spoilery full-season preview they showed at the end of the show hinted at that.

scoured @ 2009-03-12T14:24:00

2009-03-12T18:30:52Z

There's definitely a scary sf story in here: Scientists move a step closer to reading a person's mind.

It's actually much less scary than it sounds - through a lot of study they're able to recognize patterns in spatial memory, and they're hoping to apply it to Alzheimer's research. Still, it definitely triggers dystopic sf ideas.

Obligatory Watchmen Post

2009-03-09T03:07:09Z

Went to see Watchmen Friday night, and I have to say that I enjoyed it on the whole. I honestly never thought it would be possible to do such a faithful adaptation of that comic. And it was so pretty.

And the parts they cut were the parts I would have chosen - the side stories are great in the context of the book, but weren't really missed in the narrative flow of the movie. And I'm not sorry to see the giant psychic squid go. I like the ending they came up with - it made things neater, and sidestepped the fact that, to me, no matter how horrific and creepy that squid is in the comic (and it is both) there is a certain humor to the image of that squid. Rorschach was dead-on, Ozymandias was kind of lame, and I liked pretty much everyone else.

However, it was about halfway through that I realized that, despite everything that I liked, I still had a fundamental problem with the film that I think is largely attributable to Zack Snyder. My issue is that one of the themes of the comic is that the sexualization of violence is both problematic and pervasive, particularly in comics. But Snyder, as evidenced in 300 and here, sees nothing problematic about it; it's a part of his aesthetic. So there are these images that are taken straight from the comic but are decontextualized and tilted so that we're left with the message "Violence is HOT."

And then there are the race issues, which are present in the source material but seem worse on-screen. A factor is the removal of the psychiatrist's storyline, which I agree with from a narrative point of view, as the movie is already almost three hours long. But once he's marginalized even more, we're really confronted with a film where almost all of the characters of color are victims of violence, often at the hands of the white protagonists, and that made me feel pretty urky.

scoured @ 2009-02-23T16:55:00

2009-02-23T22:06:04Z

I had a very nice time watching the Oscars last night. Partially, this is because I kept my laptop open and read Merlin fic during the boring parts (and wow, those "past Oscar winners deliver love letters to the acting nominees" sections were tedious), but mostly it was because of the Hugh Jackman. I'm embedding the opening number here largely for my benefit (so I can easily go back and rewatch when the mood strikes), but also because if you haven't watched it yet, you should.

Honestly, "Hugh Jackman stays up all night building sets in his garage and hires dancers from Craigslist to create the Oscars opening" is an adorable premise. Also, the triumphant "I am Wolverine!" at the end was so delightful and unexpected.

As for the rest of the Oscars, they can mostly be summed up by this Tom the Dancing Bug comic (published last week).

His movements are inexplicably erratic...

2009-02-22T20:58:54Z

I don't generally watch the Oscars, because they are a supremely silly institution, but I will be watching tonight. That is, of course, due to Hugh Jackman, who will be hosting, singing and dancing. Which is a supremely awesome institution and much to be encouraged.

Hugh Jackman singing and dancing always leads me to think about Wolverine singing and dancing, so all week I have been thinking about X-Men Origins: Wolverine: The Musical. (Incidentally, what do you guys think of the Wolverine trailer? To me, it seems like the movie will be pretty terrible, but will involve lots of explosions and Wolverine growling, which is enough for me on some level.)

So, when my mind has wandered over the past week I have been distracted by things like this:

The Weapon X facility. Lab techs and military personnel pause in the middle of whatever they have been doing, at noises coming from Wolverine's tank.

Tech 1: Did he grunt?

Techs and Soldiers (to the tune of "Dr Zaius": He can grunt! He can grunt! He can grunt! He can grunt! He can grunt! He can grunt!

Wolverine (busting from tank): I can sing!!

***

And let's not even talk about the scenes of Wolverine and Sabretooth snapping and rumbling, West Side Story style.

On a final note, I apparently managed to miss the X-Men 3: The Last Standing Ovation trailer that came out before X-3, and I found after Googling "wolverine musical." If you also missed it, it made me giggle.

scoured @ 2007-10-21T21:23:00

2007-10-22T01:23:37Z

This is a meme where you ask about people's Interests (from their el jay profile). Comment on this post, and I'll pick seven of yours, and you explain them on a post you make. Then you post this on your journal and it becomes a never ending spiral... and good fun.

st_aurafina gave me a list for this meme ages ago and I'm actually posting it now. Sorry for the tardiness!

amoral priests
This is a character type that I've seen most often in anime/manga; the priest whose actions don't always seem to mesh up with his supposed religious beliefs. Some of my favorite examples are Nicolas D. Wolfwood from Trigun (the big cross is actually a gun...full of smaller guns),

and Sanzo from Saiyuki.

Of course, substitute in "preacher" for "priest," and you could count Book from Firefly.

I don't know if I would actually call any of these guys "amoral" now that I think about it; they just don't always demonstrate the ethics associated with their profession. I think "amoral priests" is a decent shorthand for the type, though.

cowboy bebop

Cowboy Bebop is an anime about bounty hunters. I don't know if there are actually words for how much I love Bebop so I won't even try. Instead, a list of things that Bebop has: spaceships, martial arts, gunplay, jazz, the smartest Welsh Corgi in the world, computer hacking, bonsai and cowboys.

dangerously low pants
For plenty of dangerously low pants, I direct you here.

gunnerkrigg court
Gunnerkrigg Court is a webcomic about a magical boarding school (it's really nothing like Harry Potter btw). It's incredibly charming and I am very invested in the relationship between the two main characters, Annie and Kat. I think this page works well on its own:

kurosaki family hijinks
This is a reference to the family of the main character in Bleach, Ichigo Kurosaki. His father, Isshin, is an odd man, as one can see here:

He dresses like that most of the time. And he ensures that his son is well-trained by surprising him with kicks to the head. It's a little hard to explain, outside of the wacky world of Bleach.

special agent dale cooper
If someone were to ask me to name my favorite character out of anything ever...then I would know that I had met a cruel, unreasonable individual. But then I would probably name Special Agent Dale Cooper, from Twin Peaks.

He's perfect. He's intensely interested in everything he sees and everyone he meets. He derives insane amounts of pleasure from cups of coffee and cherry pies. He has dreams about Tibet and then applies them to his police work in the Pacific Northwest. Whenever he makes a mistake, it is generally because he has allowed himself to care too deeply. Like I said, perfect.

xenogears
Xenogears is the best video game ever. The graphics are awful, the gameplay has serious issues, and the second disc contains scenes of a narrator describing for us the things they would have put into the game if they hadn't run out of time/money.

But. It also has giant robots, a huge cast of pretty people, and an epic plot centering around past-life romance. (Past-life romance is kind of one of my bulletproof kinks.) Also, it has Ramsus. This is Ramsus.

He's very pretty. Just for good measure, this is Ramsus' gear, Wyvern.

It's very pretty, too.

So, I don't know if anyone will read through that. But, I just rambled on about some of my favorite things ever. So I'm in a pretty good mood now.

Next on the list of LJ posts I need to make, Yuletide letter. Coming soon!

scoured @ 2007-09-20T22:57:00

2007-09-21T03:16:01Z

Did anyone else watch Gossip Girl last night? I actually really enjoyed it. Out of curiosity, I read the first book in the series earlier this week and thought it was pretty terrible but, as I had suspected it might, it worked better for me in a CW teen drama format. The pilot contained:

1. Pretty people wearing pretty clothes.
2. Snarky one-liners and
3. Kristen Bell doing a sassy voiceover. (Shouldn't this really be enough on its own? It's an established fact that Kristen Bell does good voiceover.)

Most notable for me was Blake Lively, who plays the main character, Serena. I kind of immediately developed a huge crush on her. As in, I may have run to the computer to look her up on IMDB and then added Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to my Netflix queue. (This is a possibility, I'm not admitting to anything.) See, the thing about this girl for me is not so much her looks, (she's very pretty, but in a "typical pretty blonde" sort of way, if you know what I mean) but it's her voice. I don't know what it is, but I could listen to her talk for ages.

I bring evidence! In video form! The first minute of this is really worth a look, as it contains a clip from my favorite scene from the pilot, and it highlights all of the things I point out above. The rest of it is an interview with Blake Lively, which is really cute, too.