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crack_van2007-05-14 10:59 am
ficwize.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2007-05-14 10:59 am
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For the Kingdom of Heaven by c_elisa (Gen)
Fandom: X-MEN COMICVERSE - ASTONISHING
Pairing: No pairing, Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy aka Beast
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
c_elisa
Author Website: Intimate Structure
Why this must be read:
Putting aside the brilliance of this story for a moment (and it is brilliant!), this fic is a technical masterpiece. Told in the ever-so-difficult first person point of view,c_elisa manages to write the most pure, perfect and even more importantly, in character Hank McCoy that I've read. It honestly feels like we are in the head of the character in a way that will leave you utterly fascinated.
This fic is a character exploration piece and boils down to the question of how a man answers to his own conscience. Is it better to do the wrong thing for the right reason, the right thing for the wrong reason, or nothing at all? At the end of the day, what can you live with?
The story behind this fic will take your breath away. It deals with the "cure" for mutants in a way that X-3 utterly failed to do. The author weaves in complicated medical themes, religious persuasions, human foibles, and the compassion that is ever present in Dr. McCoy to tell a tale that made me sit back and have to take a deep breath. And then read it again and again and again. Go. Read. Love.
Author's Summary: Dr. Hank McCoy observes the cure.
There was a time when a child who came to Xavier’s burdened with a masochistic relationship with his religion might have been gently guided to a broader view. But the school is much larger now. If you find a particular child too annoying to bear, there is always another in just as much need. Victor spent his time at Xavier’s being hated by the other students, given the minimum acceptable amount of attention by the staff, and labelled “that dreadful crab boy” by Emma Frost, who has never forgotten a name in her life. Little wonder he wound up on television telling Bill O’Reilly that the cure is mutants’ only chance to avoid hellfire.
I feel we owe him something, though I am perhaps the worst person to discharge the debt. For one thing, I’m fairly sure he thinks I’m gay, thanks to certain regrettable statements I made to the press a few years ago. I really must learn to ignore the part of my brain that sees reporters as mice to be played with.
But there he lies, behind the one-way glass—a specimen in an aquarium. It is too late to dissuade him from this path. All I can do is try to ease it.
“Not quite what I might have hoped for in a facility,” Dr. Rao says, “but I think you’ll find everything in accord with the Geneva convention.”
“Move the bed,” I tell her.
“Excuse me?”
“The bed. You’ve put him facing the one-way mirror so he can spend the next two months staring at himself. Can’t you see he doesn’t like it? He doesn’t need a crick in the neck added to his other problems.”
“Oh.” She glances back into the room, or maybe she’s looking at my reflection. “We can do that.”
She thinks she’s buying me off, I know. She thinks that if she lets me watch over this process I will keep the X-Men from trying to stop it. She thinks if she dangles the hope of a cure, I will defend her, even if it’s against my own conscience.
The truth is I am sick to death of politics. I am sick of the false piety that says we must all be glad of whatever biology may make of us. If you find yourself at odds with your own body’s gender then it is perfectly acceptable to seek out some relief, but if a wayward gene makes you into a one-meter sphere of uniform density, you had better be a happy sphere or you’re a traitor to mutantkind. I think we ought to have a choice, although I fear that the choice will be used for the wrong reasons more than the right ones.
For the Kingdom of Heaven
Pairing: No pairing, Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy aka Beast
Author on LJ:
c_elisa Author Website: Intimate Structure
Why this must be read:
Putting aside the brilliance of this story for a moment (and it is brilliant!), this fic is a technical masterpiece. Told in the ever-so-difficult first person point of view,
c_elisa manages to write the most pure, perfect and even more importantly, in character Hank McCoy that I've read. It honestly feels like we are in the head of the character in a way that will leave you utterly fascinated.This fic is a character exploration piece and boils down to the question of how a man answers to his own conscience. Is it better to do the wrong thing for the right reason, the right thing for the wrong reason, or nothing at all? At the end of the day, what can you live with?
The story behind this fic will take your breath away. It deals with the "cure" for mutants in a way that X-3 utterly failed to do. The author weaves in complicated medical themes, religious persuasions, human foibles, and the compassion that is ever present in Dr. McCoy to tell a tale that made me sit back and have to take a deep breath. And then read it again and again and again. Go. Read. Love.
Author's Summary: Dr. Hank McCoy observes the cure.
There was a time when a child who came to Xavier’s burdened with a masochistic relationship with his religion might have been gently guided to a broader view. But the school is much larger now. If you find a particular child too annoying to bear, there is always another in just as much need. Victor spent his time at Xavier’s being hated by the other students, given the minimum acceptable amount of attention by the staff, and labelled “that dreadful crab boy” by Emma Frost, who has never forgotten a name in her life. Little wonder he wound up on television telling Bill O’Reilly that the cure is mutants’ only chance to avoid hellfire.
I feel we owe him something, though I am perhaps the worst person to discharge the debt. For one thing, I’m fairly sure he thinks I’m gay, thanks to certain regrettable statements I made to the press a few years ago. I really must learn to ignore the part of my brain that sees reporters as mice to be played with.
But there he lies, behind the one-way glass—a specimen in an aquarium. It is too late to dissuade him from this path. All I can do is try to ease it.
“Not quite what I might have hoped for in a facility,” Dr. Rao says, “but I think you’ll find everything in accord with the Geneva convention.”
“Move the bed,” I tell her.
“Excuse me?”
“The bed. You’ve put him facing the one-way mirror so he can spend the next two months staring at himself. Can’t you see he doesn’t like it? He doesn’t need a crick in the neck added to his other problems.”
“Oh.” She glances back into the room, or maybe she’s looking at my reflection. “We can do that.”
She thinks she’s buying me off, I know. She thinks that if she lets me watch over this process I will keep the X-Men from trying to stop it. She thinks if she dangles the hope of a cure, I will defend her, even if it’s against my own conscience.
The truth is I am sick to death of politics. I am sick of the false piety that says we must all be glad of whatever biology may make of us. If you find yourself at odds with your own body’s gender then it is perfectly acceptable to seek out some relief, but if a wayward gene makes you into a one-meter sphere of uniform density, you had better be a happy sphere or you’re a traitor to mutantkind. I think we ought to have a choice, although I fear that the choice will be used for the wrong reasons more than the right ones.
For the Kingdom of Heaven
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