Days of Becoming, Epilogue (Chapter 44)

[talktooloose]

Title: Days of Becoming, Epilogue, Chapter 44: “Oh! You Pretty Things!"
Author: Talktooloose
’Verse: X-Men movieverse
Betas: mofic and lux_apollo. One last time, thanks!
Disclaimers: Marvel and 20th Century own the X-Men, but often get it wrong. I own my original characters, for all the profit that brings. I also get it wrong, but I don't charge people for it.

Series Summary: This novel focuses mainly on the paths Iceman and Pyro take on their way to adulthood and how they discover and deal with their love for each other. It is a novel about what Joni Mitchell calls ”the dream's malfunction” and how we can learn to make our own dreams when our heroes fail us. Other X characters (including ones from comicverse and elsewhere) and OC's play prominent roles and the action begins before X1, continues through the events of X2 and X3 and concludes in the aftermath of that movie. This novel does not take X-Men Origins: Wolverine as canon.

I LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. Please use the comments link at the end of the chapter to bring you back here or drop me email to talktooloose CAT toothdemon FRAUGHT net. That oughta fool the spambots for now.

Here's the chapter!

Here's the DOB homepage for earlier chapters!

It's done at last. Pinch me. Please enjoy the final installment and, if you've been waiting for it leave WIP status, you can now begin this THING which took me four years to write. I wouldn't have made it without my betas, the wonderful encouragement of the readers, and the enthusiasm of the fandom.

If you're interested in receiving email about my upcoming (non fanfic) novel, please fill out the form at the end of the chapter.

I will be posting Endnotes to the book as well as a laid out pdf of the whole (with minor edits) in about two weeks. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all for reading. It's been a life-changing experience.

Comments

[lady-drace.livejournal.com]

Ok, I was one of the people waiting for WIP status to go away. Now I've read it and... WOW! That was basically my reaction. All the way.

So much good stuff I hardly know where to start! A wonderful mix of canon from the different verses and your own stuff. It all matches so perfectly!

About the characters:

Pyro's story rings true and you've gone a very different way with him than my head did after (and during) the movies. I like your John. I really do like him.

Your Bobby was perfect. To me, anyway. Every single word of his story is my canon.

So many wonderful OC's! Mike Haddad is my new hero and damn... is it dorky wanting to write fanfiction about an OC from another fanfiction??? HE MAKES ME WANT TO DO THAT! Actually, I think I'd love to explore all those amazing people at The Spiderhole. AWESOME!

Your Warren was totally not the down-trodden Ken-doll from the movie and it was refreshing to see a different variety.

Your Jones baffled me all the way. I confess, I see him completely differently, but he played his part nicely for your plot. But Hayward. *snicker* What a name. Is that movie canon?

Jubilee was wonderfully kick-ass and I love how you gave her a so much more important and fitting role. She got seriously jibbed in the movies.

I was somewhat confused for a good while about your Hank. But I like your idea of his mutation being not so... obvious at first. And it makes sense. Honestly. In the environment the movies lay out for their plot, the odds of a huge, blue, furry scientist becoming head of anything at all seem completely out there. I really doubt they would want someone so 'obviously' mutant in their government, no matter what his job might be.

All of the bad guys were nailed. Even Fred. Perfect!

About the ships:

John/Bobby is meant to be, so that was perfect, of course. *sigh* You even managed a happy end for them! I love you for that! It's SO hard to find good fic with believable happy ends for these two together.

Bobby/Lance was so fucking hot, all the way! Perhaps it was partly because it was so hush hush, but oh man... it got my motor racing like WOAH!

Mike/Jubes was so sad. I know you can't make a happy end for everyone, but damn... you made me sniffle when I realized it was completely over between them.

Bobby/Rogue was also perfect, even though your Rogue was from another perspective than my own head canon. But gosh, I don't want to be Bobby when she finally gets herself untangled from Remy and goes to whoop his ass for "forgetting" to tell her the Big Gay Secret [tm].

And now that we're on that subject, thank you SO much for throwing in the Rogue/Remy at the end! They are one of my all time favorite ships!

Same deal with Kitty/Peter, even though it was brief and one-sided.

Kitty/Warren threw me completely! I never saw it! But it works! (And it's hot. My god. Who knew Kitty could be so kinky?!)

Hank/Ororo. D'aaaww. That was so sweet. And Ororo is smart. She'll figure him out one day and shag his furry brains out, once she's done zapping his low-confidence ridden bum to kingdom come.

Jean/Scott was perfect.

As was Charles/Erik for that matter. Perfectly dysfunctional, as it should be.

But! I'm horribly unresolved not knowing how it worked out with Andi and Raheem! You're killing me! *pulls out hair*

Plot:

It left me breathless. Even though I knew where most of it was going, I was still dizzy at every turn, as if it was all brand new. Totally, incredibly, undeniably AWESOME!!!!

So I stand up and applaud you for an incredible effort to bring this story to life and I kiss your boots as thank you for letting me take this journey with the characters.

Thank you! It was fantastic!

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you for your enthusiastic and detailed comment!

I'm not sure where my Jones came from... somehow that whole character emerged in my mind from his two lines of dialogue in X2. "Hayward" came from David Robert Hayward-Jones, David Bowie's birth name. If you were to write Jones, what would he be like?

Hank appears VERY briefly as an television pundit in X2, and he is not blue and furry. Like the comics-canon Beast, it appears from that detail that movieverse Beast also had a two-step mutation. Somewhere I have a longer bit of angst where Hank moons over Ororo, but it got cut.

Warren and Kitty... while it doesn't surprise me that Warren ended up with a kink or two, it is funny that Kitty is into joining him. Funny, but hardly unbelievable. BDSM is definitely an intellectual pursuit. Yeah, the one night she spent with Peter was definitely a bittersweet thing. Ditto the sadness that Jubes and Mike couldn't make it work. But that's life... they went in two different directions.

Hmm, Andi and Raheem. I confess to dropping the ball on that one. She mentions her boyfriend in the second half of the novel, and I imagine she means Raheem, but I never explored it. Sorry. Two many balls in the air.

Thank you for reading and for taking the time to comment. It came on a day when I needed to hear it!

[lady-drace.livejournal.com]

My Jones... Oh boy. I hardly know! I have a half assed plot bunny somewhere about him, but in my mind he's distanced from the others, feeling older than most of them, because he never sleeps. Meaning, he's had twice the awake time to consider things and mature somewhat. Even when spending a ridiculous amount of that time watching TV. And because of his close relationship with electronic devices, I imagine he'd feel out of sync with human company sometimes. Hehe, but thanks to you, his first name will always be Hayward in my mind. ;o)

I did notice Hank in X2, but the directors conveniently ignored that in X3. I assume they explained it away with some sort of holographic projector, like the one made for Nightcrawler in the comics. But still. Blah.

Oh I wasn't really surprised that Warren was a bit kinky. Anything to escape the oppressive environment of his father. I was much more surprised about his confidence and independance.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

I think there is something inherently Asbergers about a kid who mostly relates to the voices of electronics. The touching story for me is the way that Doug has to take care of him socially. No, they're not a couple, but there is a deep bond between them. I have a plot bunny about the two of them post-graduation living and working in an apartment with more money than they know what to do with. Doug has a girlfriend, but Jones is in danger of becoming even more remote.

Henry's changes to the more bestial are an effective mechanism in comicsverse, and I didn't want to rob him here.

One regret I have about Warren is the way the others react to him. There should be a piece about how one would relate to a billionaire. There must be awkwardness based on insane envy — based on the adulation our society heaps on the state of being rich. I think everyone would be a bit tongue-tied and sycophantic, only to kick themselves after for it. But, I think I'm probably right about Kitty being able to handle it. She's met very rich people, even if her parents are "merely" upper-middle class.

So, Warren't confidence? He had to build it himself. He comes from a long line of fiercely independent, competitive, combative men, and he was able to pull himself out of his pubertal dejection and find himself. Having his father as an enemy probably helped.

[lady-drace.livejournal.com]

Oh definitely, if you assume that Jones talk to the machines like you imagine, then I could also only assume that he would be distanced from other people and frankly very weird. But at least in the movies we don't actually get any information about Jones, other than he doesn't sleep and can control electronics. So we can all be very inventive about him and his story in our heads. :o)

With Warren we have the comics to base a more complete picture of his background, so unless you decide to ignore that verse completely, there is a lot more of his personality already built. He's totally believable!

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Yes, sometimes it's best when the source material is a bit vague. You can do whatever you like with it.

I found a cool, very stylized Angel origin (http://www.amazon.com/X-Men-Angel-Revelations-Graphic-Novels/dp/0785132945/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276527073&sr=8-13) GN at a comics sale yesterday. Enjoyed it a lot. Very erotic for one thing! Stretched, Modigliani-on-acid art, pervy priests, sadistic prep school thugs, gay crushes.