First, I conceived of this idea a while ago, but I was in the midst of writing "First Times" and didn't want to distract myself from what I consider my magnum opus; further, I had a lot of other side projects at the time which required attention, as well as a demanding job. This year, I have fewer time constraints, and the timing worked out for me to at least attempt writing this story in sync w/ the NCAA tourney.

Second, I originally planned to write this story in such a way as to reflect the actual tournament outcomes: my wife and I would each fill out a bracket, and then I would write each chapter to reflect the results. Thus, even I wouldn't know what would happen in each chapter. This seemed like a bit of a logistical nightmare, from a writing standpoint, and more than a little unfair to Jubilee, since my wife doesn't follow basketball at all. One of the fun things about the tournament is that anyone can get lucky and do better than a supposed "expert" - heck, a friggin' octopus filled out a perfect bracket a few years back - but I decided to just plan things out like I normally would and write the story.

Third, unlike most of my other X-stories, I'm not too concerned with continuity or canon. This is unusual for me. The other "pairings" in the story were decided mostly on a whim (besides canon Jean/Scott and fan-preferred Kurt/Kitty). The story itself is a chance for me to write a story that focuses on characters who didn't get much love from the show-writers and who don't get many fanfics devoted to them.

Fourth, unlike my last few X-stories, which were broody or angsty pieces, this story is intended to be pretty much just for fun. It's about as close to PWP as you'll see me get; what I've got is what you might call an "excuse plot," where the plot is pretty thin and serves as just an excuse for sex to happen.

If you got here from the link in my A.N.'s, just skip the next bit and shoot your questions, comments, complaints and suggestions at me. My muse is on a review-only diet, it seems, so any and all contributions to my muse-chow pile are welcome. Go on, hit me with your best shot!

If you are like me and stumble on these forums by chance, no prob! The story link is Secret Bit of Right From Wrong. To let you know what you might be jumping into, I'll sum up the story. It's mostly a romance story between a de-powered Steve Rogers (Captain America) and an OC. Just to warn you, the OC has had a tendency towards Sue-dom, so I'm building a back story to give her faults and quirks, but it's an uphill battle. The backstory has some abuse, violence, and non-con regarding supporting characters, but it will not be explicitly shown in the main body, just referenced to explain the OC's weirder quirks. At a future point, some violence/distress may enter the story, but by no means is it the main focus. The story idea was started by otaku330, as a challenge. Otaku is also a beta for some of it, but more betas = less time obsessing = more time writing, so if you want to beta, please let me know!

So, lets get reviewing/replying!

Author: AnonGrimm

Summary: Logan and Jean on a solo adventure. The shadow of Cyclops still hangs between them as they struggle to survive in a world much more suited to Logan's brutal nature than Jean's reasoning mind. She must deal with his violent nature and he must deal with keeping them both alive. In the midst of it all, they struggle with the long felt want between them – the love Logan would openly declare if she allowed it, and the lust for him she fights to deny. This story occurs after Uncanny X-Men #394 (and will no doubt jump off the canon cliff into non-canon fan fiction with gusto at that point).

Rating: Adult++

Pairings: Wolverine/Jean Grey

Feedback: I'd love to hear from you. If you have a question or would like to discuss the story, I will check here periodically and reply as soon as I can. Please review the story in the review panel, too; but I can't reply to you there, so look here for a response afterward.

Story URL: http://xmen.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600005250

Thanks!

I'm fully willing to admit that this may not have been my best work thus far, so I'm pretty glad to have maintained a 4-star rating as of 10/29/11. I thought I might give some background on how this story came to be.

A few years ago, my then-girlfriend, now-wife, wanted me to write a story featuring Pyro, since she thinks Aussies are, shall we say, 'fair dinkum'. I decided to write the story using Jean, since she's one of my favorites and a lot of fun to write. I have a thing for sexy redheads - the wife included!

I wrote a few other stories, which appear elsewhere on this site, to get into practice, a process needing a few years by now, before I felt like I could do a story like this any justice. This story was ambitious, I thought - it's something of a crack pairing, and rather than PWP, I wanted something that might make a modicum of sense. But how?

First, I decided to set the story in the X-Men Animated Series universe - the storylines weren't quite as complicated as the comics, and since I own the series on DVD I could do research easily. I remembered that Animated Pyro wasn't Aussie, but English, which gave me something of an opening. Comics Pyro had been a journalist once upon a time, a writer; my Aussie not-quite-Pyro would be a writer still, but a poet in this case. Animated Pyro's real name is never mentioned, so I kept St. John Allerdyce for the Australian poet's name.

Next, how does Jean meet him? A trip to Australia seemed an obvious solution, but why would she go alone, without her one true love, Cyclops/Scott Summers? The Animated Series came in handy here, as there wasn't much exploration of the aftermath of the Dark Phoenix Saga. Also, there were 2 different Grey-Summers weddings, one before Phoenix and one after - the first may not have been legal, since a shapeshifter was masquerading as a priest, and therefore not ordained; the second was crashed by Sinister's goons on Apocalypse's orders. I figured that all the stress of that whole Dark Phoenix thing - including dying and being resurrected - might cause Jean to need a vacation... to Australia, which is on the other side of the planet from all the shit she's dealing with back home, including a man who (according to my interpretation of the character) never really dealt w/ her first presumed death when she took the M'Kraan crystal into the star and didn't return.

The poetry itself seemed the key, the force that would draw the two characters together, so that attraction could bloom and sex could be had. The idea for the PTSD-style flashbacks came to me just as I finished the first chapter, but in some ways I felt like they, and the overall theme of dealing w/ being raped (more or less - I never could quite settle on a term for what Mastermind did to her), dying, and having a second chance at life, were too ambitious for a sex story. I still think so, though I tried to work in that Jean wanted 'comfort sex', which is where I lost some of you readers.

I also ran into the problem of how to explain St. John's existence as an entity separate from Pyro, the terrorist mutant. I considered leaving them as one entity, and Jean being attracted to a villain, but her previous issues w/ villains, I thought, would kill any attraction on the vine. So I extrapolated that Pyro is the criminal half-brother of St. JohnAllerdyce, the Australian poet; both are mutants and have very similar, if not identical powers. I think maybe I didn't explore St. John's powers enough, but I frankly wasn't interested in doing so. Some of you got hung up on those facts - the two being separate, but just happening to be related - which strikes me as odd, since weirder shit has happened in the Marvel Universe (like the whole Phoenix thing in its entirety). Further, family members have had very similar powers canonically (Polaris and Magneto), and random family members pop up all the time (Polaris and Magneto or the Summers family, for starters).

The fact that Australia is nicknamed "Oz" opened up the whole idea that Jean was Dorothy, escaping to another place to avoid her problems at home, but finding out that it wasn't what she was looking for, and that what she was looking for was always there. That, of course, is also where all the chapter titles come from, with a few lyrics from Wicked added to the mix for some of the later/darker/more "complex" chapters toward the end.

Apologies if the above didn't interest you at all, but for some reason I thought it important to peel back the curtain, so to speak, and reveal the considerations I had in mind while writing this story. I doubt it'll change your opinions at all, but sometimes, as a writer, it's necessary to display one's methodology.

Author: AnonGrimm

Summary: Sabretooth runs into Tabitha Smith, a.k.a. Meltdown. After a difficult mission in San Francisco, the mutant group X-Force disbands, and Tabby takes the opportunity to strike out on her own, ending up in Seattle. Running out of money, she tries mercenary work, but balks when her client expects her to kill up in Alaska. He gives her the job of stealing something from a bad man out in the Yukon instead, and she reluctantly accepts. To her shock, her mark turns out to be Victor Creed. Her hang-ups about redemption lead her into danger again, but what game is Sabretooth really playing?

Rating: Adult++

Pairings: Sabretooth/Meltdown

Feedback: I'd love to hear from you. If you have a question or would like to discuss the story, I will check here periodically and reply as soon as I can. Please review the story in the review panel, too; but I can't reply to you there, so look here for a response afterward.

Story URL: http://xmen.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600090727

Thanks!