#gerec rants

[gerec]

Oh no you do not just show up to a 10+ year old fandom and loudly proclaim you can't find any good fics!

[jackyjango]

43 and 44 please!

Thank you so much for the ask @gerec! :D

43. Talk about a positive experience with fanfiction or the fanfiction community that you will always remember.

Something relating to the fanfic community comes to mind: I said something in a fandom space which was received very negatively (the intention with which it was received was exactly opposite to what I was trying to convey) Anyways, not important. That was also a day when a reputed psychologist made me feel like shit. Anyways, I tried to correct the misunderstanding but it didn't happen. A person I didn't know reached out to me non-judgementally and listened to what I had to say and reassured me when I needed somebody. I rarely visit that space these days, but there's always a message from that person asking if I'm okay. That's so random and so sweet that I'll always remember it. :)

44. Rant about something writing related.

I can actually count the number of books I've read in my life. And that's something considering the fact that I can read in 3 languages. I have read so little in my life that it's a shocker for even me that I know words to write at all.

>>Fic Writer Asks

[lyricfulloflight]

I thought I was the only one who thought Tarantino was an overrated hack lol. High five!

Big high fives @gerec!

Tarantino is totally the by-product of an industry funded by men, critiqued by men and awarded by men.

I’ve tried to watch a number of his films and I can never make it through them.  Its just violence dressed up well.  And some people seem fooled into thinking his films mean so much, but he just seems like a guy who likes violence and knows how to moves set pieces around and get good performances from actors and has somehow convinced people his films aren’t just the glorification of violence.  Not my thing at all.

Also in interviews the man comes off as smug asshole who thinks he’s the coolest person in the room.  Very unattractive imo.

Thus ends Lyric’s Tarantino rant.

[gerec]

Hi Ger, me again! I'm curious if you have any ideas/thoughts/wishes/fantasies about the continued X-Men movie/tv-verse. Storylines you'd like to see explored? Old cast members brought back? New cast members/characters? Do-overs of particular storylines? Personally, I've been so disappointed by a lot of the latest X-Men tv/film content that I've lost my capacity for dreaming - but i bet you'd have some awesome takes!

Oh man I have so many opinions about the state of X-Men bear with me!

First of all, shout-out to X-Men 97 because it was AMAZING and managed to give almost everyone on the team a great character arc and compelling motivation, and managed to deliver some pretty iconic stories in just 10 episodes (Ep. 5 is an absolute knock-out punch; the tension that builds throughout the 37 min to its explosive end is some of the best story-telling I've ever see for X-Men - really great stuff). Having said that, the pace was a bit too much, too fast - we basically got like 5 of the all time top 10 X-Men stories crammed into one very short season lol. Slow down! Let the storylines cook!

I didn't start reading X-Men comics until the start of the Hickman run with House of X, so I can't really compare how it stacks up to past eras but I was BLOWN AWAY by its premise and the promise of a new normal where mutants stopped fighting each other and got a chance to live together in peace (mostly without human interference). I wanted to see the inner workings of their ruling council, how they build and manage a brand new nation-state, and explore Krakoa's geo-political impact on other nations of the world. It started out with SO MUCH PROMISE, and there were a couple of years of mostly interesting stories but then they decided to end it all with mutant genocide (again) and reverting to status quo (again) without really answering those big questions they asked at the beginning of the era. 'Mutants will be persecuted' and 'Mutants always lose' is TIRED and TIRESOME and I'm so disappointed I've stopped reading the comics completely. Marvel let these poor people be safe and happy for longer than a minute and stop killing them with giant robots I'm begging you!

As I mentioned in my other post, I'm not really invested in the MCU's version of the X-Men - and I certainly don't want to think about a new cast lol - so I've not been giving future content a lot of thought. I'm more interested in how they're going to explain/fit X-Men in the current MCU; whether they'll bring them in from another verse like they're supposedly doing with the Fantastic Four, or somehow magic a convoluted reason why no one has ever heard of them in 616 (or why none of them showed up to help with Thanos). Whatever they do I'm sure it will be aggressively fine, because the MCU has long moved past the point of taking risks and making interesting choices (or bothering with good characterization and story-telling) for the sake of 'continuity' and 'building the verse' and 'making more and more money'.

AMA about X-Men!!!

[gerec]

The worse thing about losing the X-Men movie verse to the MCU besides the beautiful, nuanced relationship between Prof X and Mags is the X-Men theme music it fucking slaps...

I mean do you remember the ending of XMA when the new team is inside the Danger Room and Mystique and Beast are training them and the music swells and the fucking Sentinels come out of the wall??? Like ...I don't care what problems that movie had that scene was FIRE.

[gerec]

ikeracity replied to your post “Like I 110% guarantee I’ll be watching Dark Phoenix opening weekend...”

SAME. I know I'm going to see it opening weekend and possibly that thursday it premieres but.....I'M STILL GOING TO BITCH ABOUT IT

Magneto: “Are you Charles’ Jean or are you the Phoenix?”

You and Me:

[gerec]

For the record, I live in Toronto and there are no paps camping out at Pearson International airport. So if you arrive and there are pap shots...you called them yourself lol.

[gerec]

Fandom Rant Incoming

Legit I feel like I’ve been transported back in time to 2014, after Days of Future Past just came out because I’m seeing the EXACT SAME BULLSHIT happening now that happened then. 

Here’s me giving zero fucks.

TWICE in less than ten hours I’ve seen an anon ask sent to a popular writer’s blog with the same message - ‘There’s Xavierine all over my blog, why do people ship them I don’t understand??? Where’s the Cherik love?’ Where’s the Cherik love? Are you shitting me? Are you really fucking for real here? Because Cherik is THE guarantuan ship in this fandom and has been since at least the days of XMFC, and there are like TEN people total that ship Xavierine so I have no idea where this is coming from. Last I checked there’s 11,000+ Cherik fan works on AO3 alone, not to mention all the content all over tumblr with fanart and gifsets and snippets and headcanons.

‘Oh but I’m not doing anything bad, I just sent an innocent ask about my favorite ship’ - NO. You sent an anonymous ask to a blog with a guaranteed wide audience, to try and get that kind person to agree with you that Xavierine sucks and to validate Cherik as the ultimate OTP. Does that make you feel better? To trash what other people love? Because let’s not kid ourselves you ‘hate’ that ship because it’s all about Cherik for you, so other people shouldn’t be ‘flooding tumblr’ with content you don’t like right? We shouldn’t feel free to enjoy Charles (or Erik) with other pairings and enjoy the slight bump in popularity that’s happening right now because we finally got some good material to play with? 

You might wonder why I’m ranting about this, and I’ll happily say now what I said back in 2014:

If YOU don’t like Xavierine or any other non-Cherik ship you can EASILY blacklist or unfollow or block the content. Poof, the problem goes away. But I CANNOT get away from your passive aggressive bullshit unless I unfollow all of my favorite Cherik blogs, because you’re spamming them with your needy asks about how ‘not enough people are doing this thing that you love omg horror’. 

Do kindly fuck off.

[gerec]

Is it wrong that I think Magda/Erik was forced in XMA? Erik told his entire life story to her the FIRST day they met then married her and gave up on his cause to be 100% peaceful. They never explained why he would randomly engage in wildly OOC behavior. he's not the kind of person to share everything so freely or so quickly it was like they rewrote him in the beginning of XMA just to remind people cherik will never be canon. I think it was nice seeing Erik so happy but it made 0 sense plot wise

Well I happen to agree that there was a lot wrong with the way they used Magda in XMA, by fridging her (and Nina) to give Erik man pain so they could justify his stupid alliance with Apocalypse. It’s an insulting trope, doubly so in this case since we’re talking about a character who has already lost both parents as a child, been tortured by a sadist and survived the horrors of a concentration camp as his people were slaughtered around him. Apparently this still wasn’t ENOUGH PAIN to justify the man’s distrust of and anger towards humanity in general so let’s give him a wife and kid and kill them off! It’s LAZY and PREDICTABLE and a huge reason why XMA’s plot makes very little sense.

I will never stop saying how much they fucked up by not making CHARLES one of the Horseman instead of Erik ugh.

And yeah nothing about that whole scenario makes any sense, from the ending of DOFP where Erik is telling all mutants to come out of hiding, and then inexplicably meeting a human and deciding to tell her the truth upon meeting her and dropping everything he supposedly cared about (which by the way he bitched hard at Charles for ‘giving up’ on mutants on de plane remember?) to live a quiet life as a fucking lumberjack in the middle of nowhere. Nothing about movie Erik/Magda makes sense, and it’s a damn shame because I LOVED Magda and Nina and I thought Fassy and Caroline Bartzcek had GREAT chemistry.

I mean, they easily could have thrown in a line about how he had met Magda in the camps, and they’d somehow reconnected after the events of DOFP, which would have given immediate history and weight (and canon basis) to their relationship. Again, it comes down to the fact that she exists entirely to be sacrificed for plot, and it makes me so mad that it could have been 10 times better and made more sense if they’d just bothered to care just a little about her as a character in her own right. 

As for the Cherik part of it…I don’t actually think that Erik/Magda has anything to do with Cherik (or TPTB reminding us they’re not canon). Just like I don’t think Charles/Moira were there specifically to say Cherik isn’t a thing. These movies supposedly take place over 30 years, and they are both bound to have relationships with other people over the course of their lifetimes. I’m not the type of fan that says it has to be all Cherik and no one else because I just don’t think that’s the type of relationship these two have in canon….

[gerec]

I'm curious... What tags do you have blacklisted from Tumblr?

Well, as I sort of said in my last post I am REALLY selective about what shows up on my dash because I just don’t have time to slog through a) content that doesn’t interest me or b) stuff that sparks zero joy. So I am rather ruthless when it comes to blacklisting, even though 80% of it I’m perfectly fine with I just don’t want to see a deluge of it cross my dash lol (like Sebastian Stan, stucky, stony, any MCU ships really, and everything from harry potter to stargate to supernatural etc. etc. etc.) There’s also stuff I blacklist because they def. actively annoy me or I just don’t want to see, which includes Cumberbatch, Vikander, RPF, cherik that’s not cherik i.e. Phantom of the Opera cherik, reader inserts, Reylo, Reylo, Reylo lol).

(For a while I had Fassbender blacklisted too but then I realized I was missing out on cherik posts and he does look very very good as Erik bless the movie hair and wardrobe people).

[gerec]

jackyjango replied to your post “Okay I’ve slept on it and I’m slightly less annoyed about it so I’m...”

We don't have suffer from mediocre acting atleast, because I know for a fact that it's going to be phenomenal! Small mercies, I guess...

Yeah they have a phenomenal cast with great chemistry and they continue to give us these stories that are entirely predictable and done to death. I despair I really do.

I watched this last night with hubby and he was out by the first 30 secs (as in, not interested). He’s not as big of an X-Men fan as I am but he really loved FC and DoFP too (and X1 and X2). XMA left such a bad taste in his mouth he says I have to go see DP opening weekend by myself lol. 

What I feel like atm is a parent who is watching their delightful, talented child make the same mistake over and over and over again and can’t do a damn thing about it. And I have to sit there and listen to other people who don’t love them as much I as do judge them (rightly) by their faults and am torn in two between wholeheartedly agreeing and yet feeling the instinctive need to defend them because only I can criticize my beloved idiot child dammit! Yes. That’s the mood.

[gerec]

You know what would be funny? Writing dp fic before the movie comes out xD

I'm 1000% certain fandom would churn out a few dozen stories that would be infinitely better than what we’re going to get. 

[gerec]

Gerec’s 2019 Favorite Fics

In no particular order, here are my personal favorite fics from this past year. Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year’s!!!

terrible with the brightness of gold by brawlingdiscontent

The war is lost.

With the futures of his people and his children at stake, former Crown consort Charles of Normandy awaits the arrival of England's new master, the fearsome Viking warrior, Erik Lehnsherr. (Inspired by 11th century historical events)

“For who could look upon the lions of the foe, terrible with the brightness of gold, who upon the men of metal, menacing with golden face, … who upon the bulls on the ships threatening death, their horns shining with gold, without feeling any fear for the king of such a force?” - Encomium Emmae Reginae

Quiet Like a Fire by kianspo

Charles has been in love with his best friend for years without realizing it. When he finally figures it out, Erik is married to a wonderful woman and has an adorable daughter, who thinks the world of Charles. Erik has the perfect life that Charles helped him build, so there is only one thing for it - get over his feelings. So what if his methods are unhealthy or if Erik has an opinion on the matter? Charles is determined to do the right thing.

rue de la paix by Ireliss

Post Dark Phoenix. Charles, Erik, and the winding road towards peace.

natural law by Ireliss

Sometimes, he has the unnerving sensation of being watched, but when he dips into the minds around him nothing is out of place. Too many late nights, Charles decides, thoughts circling back to his impending thesis defense.

It will be, he hopes, a first step in the future acceptance of his and Raven's kind.

AU where En Sabah Nur wakes before the events of XMFC. Charles plans for the future. So does En Sabah Nur.

Under the Same Roof by sebastian2017

Wanda and Pietro do /not/ want their father marrying Charles Xavier and changing up all their lives. No chance at all. Luckily, David doesn't want his father getting married, either. Perhaps an alliance will benefit them all.

preheat to 350 (just for you remix) by ikeracity

Charles realizes he's in love with Erik. But there's one tiny little problem: he just broke up with Erik.

right out of my mouth by dedkake

Charles’ back is a map of every single person he’s ever loved, even if only for one night.

Never a Place by kianspo

It takes some getting used to. Charles hasn’t seen Erik cheerful, actually cheerful without a homicidal intent of some sort in a very long time—perhaps never. Or. Charles takes Erik up on his offer while trying to process everything. Erik is remarkably patient until he isn't.

After the End of the World (One Bad Day) by kianspo

Set during and immediately after the events of X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Everyone deals with the aftermath of Jean's transformation and everything that comes with it in their own way. Could there be found a measure of peace and happiness after everything they've lost?

Space Drift by lachatblanche

The former-asteroid-now-space-station Graymalkin is home to its founder, Charles Xavier, his sister Raven, his chief-of-security Moira MacTaggart, and a host of individuals who may or may not be on the wrong side of the law.

It also, on occasion, plays host to Charles's space-wandering lovers, who also may or may not be on the wrong side of the law.

Three wheels of cheese and a Great White by ximeria

Charles and Erik were friends with benefits in college.

They went their separate ways and 18 years later, they run into each other in New York.

The sex was never a problem back in college - and sex was all it had been. But now Erik is a divorced father and Charles has admitted to himself he needs more than just sex in a relationship. So in their usual round-about way they try to navigate becoming friends after so many years. The whole quest is aided by Raven, Edie, Wanda and Pietro (and a large number of shark jokes).

Best Ex Ever by 1sttimefeeling

Charles wakes up drunk on the pavement of a gas station, phone dead. He finds a payphone but can only remember one number. Erik Lehnsherr's.

The problem? They broke up two years ago.

When the Spell Breaks by kianspo

Erik, a high-profile lawyer with a successful career, meets a 21-year-old grad student in a bar, and within a few short months marries him. He and Charles are blissfully happy, until Erik's boss runs a background check on Charles and discovers he's been cheating on Erik. Charles denies everything, as there was no affair, but Erik doesn't believe him and throws him out. As Charles tries to figure out how to survive and stay at school that he can no longer afford and makes a lot of bad if not plain dangerous choices, Erik has to fight his own battle of discovering the truth and winning Charles back.

And Hell Was Following With Him by Mnemo_ink

1962 On the eve of the battle of Cuba, Charles is left alone in the kitchen, thinking about his sister's angry words. But Apocalypse is awake and is coming for him.

The Way I See You by kianspo 

Charles is an FBI agent working white collar crimes, specializing in art theft. Erik is a master forger. It's all well and good, except no one knows that Charles and Erik used to be in love once upon a time. Years later, they meet again.

Sword and Sorcerer by TurtleTotem

Logan hates working with sorcerers, but Charles is offering enough gold to make him leave his comfort zone. He might be offering something else, too, if Logan is interested.

Each Day Starts White by kianspo 

Somewhere in the middle of the road trip to recruit more mutants, Charles and Erik get caught up in a storm. That's how it begins, but it's not how it ends. It takes them about thirty years to discover that Genoshan sunrises are beautiful.

what a way to make a livin' by kaydeefalls 

According to his profile in Forbes Magazine, Erik Lehnsherr is a "visionary polymath engineer with strong strategic goals and reputation for being simultaneously difficult to work with and highly respected by his employees; however, potential investors are often put off by his extremist views on mutant rights, which gave MagneTech a rocky opening on the markets after going public in 2015."

According to Charles's sister, after listening to him rant about his boss Erik for twenty solid minutes: "Oh, my god, you want to bone him so bad."

(Erik is a high-powered CEO. Charles is his long-suffering PA. Tony Stark is shaking up their industry. It all goes about as well as you might expect.)

all your love is sunlight by ikeracity

Over twenty years ago, the world ended an inferno. From the ashes of what was once a modern world, survivors gathered what remained and slowly knit civilization back together. The Keep is one of the largest new cities in the north, ruled by the iron fist of a mutant named Apocalypse. He keeps an inner circle of favored mutants around him, a mixture of some of the most powerful mutants to walk the earth. But when his most prized treasure, Charles Xavier, escapes from the Keep, he sends wanderer and hunter Erik Lehnsherr after him.

An easy task, Erik figures. But soon enough, he discovers that Charles is much more of a handful than he'd bargained for. Their tumultuous meeting sets into motion a chain of events that will lead them deep into unfamiliar territory--in both the world and in matters of the heart.

Before You Attempt Me (Fair Warning) by kianspo

Charles helps Raven get ready for the prom. Surprisingly, that part goes well. The prom itself not so much. Erik cooks a lot of unhealthy comfort foods and is incredibly patient. Charles mostly frets about everything, until Erik does something neither he, nor Raven see coming.

[gerec]

R, W

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

HANK MCCOY AND CHARLES XAVIER! I love them so much, I don’t even care how co-dependent they were during the post XMFC years I just care that they had no one but each other and that HANK MCCOY STAYED AND TRIED TO BE A GOOD FRIEND TO CHARLES WHEN EVERYONE ELSE ABANDONED HIM AND HE IS SUCH A GOOD I LOVE HIM HANK DESERVES ALL THE COOKIES AND HAPPINESS AND ALSO A WOMAN (OR MAN) OF HIS OWN TO LOVE HIM AND TREAT HIM RIGHT!!!!

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

‘Love triangles’. I say this because I ABSOLUTELY LOVE a well written, nuanced, in character love triangle that makes you care about every single person in that situation and understand their reasons and motivations and that is HARD TO DO YO. And yet love triangles are 99.9% of the time a lazy fucking way for writers to inject drama and road blocks to their OTP’s path to true love and happiness, with the third character being poorly written/treated by the author AND GOD IT MAKES ME SO FUCKING MAD I WANT TO SPIT NAILS. I would forgive you for writing about donkey sex sooner than I would for writing a fucking shit ass excuse of a ‘love triangle’ (especially if you’re using one of my faves).

[gerec]

jackyjango replied to your post “dekudani replied to your post “So, what do you think of the trailer?...”

I don't have hopes for the story to go anywhere else. I remember seeing an interview a long time ago where someone (I can't remember who) said that after the reboots even though their paths take different routes, they go back to square one (not exactly the same but something along those lines if my memory serves me right). I admit that if they somehow haveCharles and Erik fighting together to save Jean instead of against each other, I'll still be excited for the movie...

See that’s my point - they shouldn’t have Charles and Erik on opposing sides at all!!! They should always be working TOGETHER to save Jean; Charles for obvious reasons and Erik because he’s all about protecting mutants!!! It’s the manufactured conflict between them that makes me shake my head, because WHY are they at odds over Jean again??? Magneto loves her powers, because Magneto is all about using your powers and embracing them! God my brain hurts thinking about it lol. 

[gerec]

It’s Dec 2016 and there are still people posting gifsets of interviews without links to the source. Why? I’m certain that 99.9% of the people who reblog want to actually watch the video too I just... WHY DON’T YOU INCLUDE A LINK TO THE SOURCE???

smh