Fic Recs! Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the X-Men.

So, this started out intending to be recs, but then I started talking about X-Men, and uh...well, there are mutlifandom recs, if you want to skip my rambling: X-Men, Pirates of the Caribbean, Final Fantasy VII, Firefly, House.

Watching X-III (I can't write it X-3, it's too much like a demented smilie) rekindled my love of the X-Men in new and mildly horrifying ways. I mean, the movie made me froth at the mouth. Literally. I saw it twice, and spent most of both times raging. But, my rage drove me to go to the source so as to not have my mind tainted by the wrongness of the third movie. (I hate Professor X beyond words, no matter the universe, by the way.) I've been spending the last few weeks reading the comics- New X-Men, mostly, because I tried starting from the very beginning with the original series, and the X-Men of the sixties and seventies give me hives. And everything was all well and good and entertaining, until I got to the X-cutioner's Song story arc of New X-Men. And then I found Cable. Which was, actually, a lot like finding Jesus. ...G.I. Jesus, in fact. (Thank you, Sixpack.)

Anyway, finding Cable led me to Deadpool, also known as Wade Wilson, the Merc with a Mouth. He has his own 69 issue series. (Why I love Deadpool: he gets his own specially colored speech bubbles; he doesn't believe in the fourth wall, and the fourth wall doesn't believe in him; he's covered all over in hideously deforming scars (!!); he has cancer (!!!); he keeps a blind old lady for a pet, or he did in the Kelly run of his series; he's in a long-distance relationship with Death; he is, at times, so amazingly idealistic it hurts, and yet he remains a complete and utter mercenary, no matter what; he started a riot at his own funeral; he and Cable are totally boyfriends.) And through Deadpool, I came full circle to the Cable and Deadpool series, in which Cable tries to take over the world and Deadpool hangs around making snarky comments and fucking shit up. Occasionally he and Cable fuck shit up together. They're kind of forcibly stuck on the buddy system because of a tragic accident in the first few issues involving a couple of wonky viruses, a teleporter, and a church full of blue skinned hippies.

I can't quite say why I love Cable so much- he's your standard misunderstood messianic antihero, and he's a Summers. But I like him anyway, even if he's kind of a Gary Stu, and he was created by Liefield (known to many Marvel fans as He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named). His sense of humor entertains me to no end, and his angsty past intrigues me.

So, yes. Cable. My love for Cable led me to X-Force, the team he led back in the nineties, populated by criminals and misfits. Sadly, I haven't been able to find any X-Force. I mostly want to read it to get a better idea of the dynamic between Rictor and Shatterstar, because I'm pretty sure I've already read all the decent fic about them on the internet. (Rictor- Julio Richter- is Mexican, can start earthquakes with his fists, and spent a chunk of his childhood being used as a weapon by a terrorist group. Shatterstar is an alien from Mojoworld 100 years in the future, is very good at fucking shit up, and spent his entire life being a a gladiator for a TV audience. They fight crime! And go on roadtrips to Mexico. And are very nearly canonically gay for each other.) I'm also a little bit in love with Sam Guthrie, because he's made of pure, distilled adorable, and I'm more than passingly fond of Theresa O'Rourke as well.

I swear I'm not just reading X-Men for the opportunity to wear my slash goggles. The Kelly run of Deadpool is some amazing storytelling (full of crack, yes, but amazing), and the Palmiotti and Tieri runs are quite good in places, as well. The Priest run isn't worth reading, aside from the running gag about Tom Cruise, and other people seem to like Simone's work with the series, but I personally can't stand her.

Mostly, I read these things to be entertained; if I wanted good literature, I'd read Warren Ellis or Alan Moore. But Marvel comics in general were an important part of my childhood and I missed them. I have fifteen years of back issues to catch up on. I love comic books. I love them with a rather surprising intensity, for me.

I do, however, mostly read fic for the gay, because I'm still not familiar enough with the canon (the ridiculous, sprawling, multi-universed, ret-con-tastic canon) to appreciate much of anything else. So, a few recs:

Catalyst by Tangeriner. Longish, involved Ric/Shatterstar fic, taking place during some point in the canon which I know nothing about. Hilarious and poignant and all that other good stuff; also features a decent amount of Jamie Madrox, and really, you can't have too much Multiple Man. >.>

JB McDragon's Ric and Shatty page, including her three part "Contact" series, which gives me mild deja vu every time I read it- but only in that "Wait, I'm sure I've read this before" sense. (JB tends to revisit certain themes in her fic, across various fandoms- she's an amazingly talented writer, but this fact amuses me, regardless.)

Azurine's X-Men Fic, all of which is tasty and delicious. I'm especially fond of her Logan/Remy stuff, but she's also responsible for the infamous Spray Evenly Until Slightly Damp Ultimate Spiderman/Wolverine fic.

Jane St Claire's X-Men page, which is full of her fic and her collaborations with Te, all of which are pretty bloody amazing. There's movie and comic-verse stuff there, and I highly recommend all of it, especially the Ric/Shatterstar stuff and anything involving Rogue. (My next project: read GenX, so as to find out more about this "Chamber" fellow.)

A general X-Men thing that isn't exactly a fic:
Imaging the X-Men, a coffe table book by Jane St Claire. Pretty, pretty pictures. Of course, the movies have irreversably altered my preception of certain characters, but I like looking at pretty, pretty pictures, nonetheless.

A Reading from the Book of Mutants by evadne-noel. What if Mutants were a book in the Bible? It'd be awesome, that's what.

Things You're Not Supposed to See by navisx. Uh. Cable/Deadpool. Which, if you think about it too hard, probably will cause permanent scarring. This story is unashamedly cute, or as cute as a fully grown Cable and Deadpool can be.

And now, other things!
Pirates of the Caribbean

I've been on a Pirates of the Caribbean kick, too, though not because of the movie. The movie did, however, give me great cause for squeeing, even if it wasn't nearly what I wanted it to be.

Full Moon (1/2), Full Moon (2/2), Tides, Drowning (1/2), Drowning (2/2), Currents (1/2), Currents (2/2), by firesignwriter. Angsty Sparrington rendered awfully out of character and out of canon after the second movie, but we don't really care. Well written and tasty.

Pirate Vindaloo by hippiediva. A Sparrington novel, complete with illustrations. Occasionally not-worksafe illustrations. Rendered AU by the second movie, but brilliant with the characterizations and worldbuilding. Jack and Norrington get pressganged in Tortuga and end up sailing to India; they have to work together to get home. It's long and involved and it has a mostly happy ending (sue me, I like happy endings), and it's all around just a wonderful story.

The Loquacious Dead by cupiscent. Spoilers for PotC2 liek whoa. A bit of Norrington, a bit of Jack (just a bit), a bit of conversation.

Final Fantasy VII
Glass Slipper part 1 and part 2 by karose. This is...so wrong. And yet so good. Potentially incredibly squicky Rude/Reno with lots of in depthy Turks things and the most awesome and wrong take on Cinderella in the history of anything. And it won't be finished until Friday, which makes me so amazingly sad, you've no idea.

Poetry by gunmetal song. Reno and Rude, being themselves.

Snakes on the Highwind by cendrillo. I think the title speaks for itself, honestly.

50 sentences, Barret/Cloud by firefly99. No, wait, before you run away screaming, hear me out. I feel as though I've recced this before, but I'm too lazy to check. Either way, it's good. If you ignore the way the pairing might give you cancer, it stands on its own as an excellent example of the proper use of run-on sentences. Seriously. This is one of my favorite 50 sentences sets ever.

A Trio of delicious drabbles by aphelion orion. Cloud/Leon, Cloud introspection, Vincent/Cloud.

Firefly
Unchained Melody by Bonibaru. Jayne/Vera. ...Stop looking at me like that. Clearly Jayne's love for his guns is the only thing truly pure in his life. Also, I find it ironic that once, not so long ago, I found guns to be disgusting and terrible things. *sigh*

House
Deriving the Prime by rageprufrock. House/Cuddy/Wilson and a baby, and all of Pru's Housefic is awesome stuff, but this one is probably my favorite for obvious reasons.

I had other things, but now I'm getting bored so...that's all, forks.