#anti x-men days of future past

[velvet4510]

What The Sequel(s) to X-Men: Days of Future Past Should Have Looked Like

I haven’t even seen X-Men: Apocalypse or X-Men: Dark Phoenix start to finish but thanks to this app i know practically the entire plots of both films and i’m just so utterly appalled by them. Not just with the way they mess up the timeline (Jean & Scott as teenagers and Warren as a young adult in 1983?? Excuse me?? No way Logan’s time shenanigans altered people’s birth dates, what??) But also with the way they just butcher every character arc - Charles being selfish? Erik settling down with a human instead of continuing to fight for his cause and make up for his 10 years of inactivity? Giving Erik an OC daughter JUST to kill her 2 seconds later rather than focus on his fatherhood story with Peter? Erik and Ororo siding with Apocalypse to destroy the whole world? Hank turning on Charles when he alone stood by Charles post-beach divorce all those years? Raven being ungrateful to Charles for creating a better world for mutants? Trying to convince us that Charles was somehow in love with Moira and Erik was somehow in love with Raven? The X-Men throwing Charles out of his own house?? WHAT IS THIS?????

Frankly I don’t get why the writers tried (and failed) to give us more Jean and Scott and Ororo when we got plenty of them in the other movies and we know thanks to the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past that Charles will still eventually recruit them. Jean and Scott’s very presence at the end of that film shows that the sight of Logan’s memories of Jean’s original fate prompted Charles to NOT repeat his other self’s mistakes and instead use a better approach to help Jean that enabled her to keep the Phoenix under control and not hurt Scott. That’s all we need to know about them in the new timeline. We don’t need to see Charles messing up yet again when it comes to Jean when that ruins a huge layer of the meaning and impact of DOFP’s ending.

James McAvoy himself pointed out how unnecessary it felt to recycle characters from the original trilogy when the X-Men in the comics are full of plenty of other characters that could’ve been introduced in a DOFP sequel instead. He’s absolutely right.

But here’s what I really think: if any sequels to DOFP just HAD to be made, they shouldn’t have tried to stuff in even more characters. If they HAD to include another old character we’d seen before, it should’ve been Kurt Wagner and Kurt Wagner only. Why? Because he’s Raven & Azazel’s son. And this would only add to the parenthood theme already present through Erik & Peter, and Charles & his students; add a new dimension to Raven as a character as we explore how she feels about being a mother, and what happened that caused her to be separated from her child; and add a new dimension to Hank as we explore how he feels about potentially being a parental figure to Kurt as a result of following his heart toward Raven.

The sequel(s) should’ve focused on developing the relationships that actually had been established/hinted at, and those that would naturally branch as a result:

Erik & Peter as father and son

Raven & Kurt as mother and son

Charles’ parental relationship with his young students

Charles & Erik getting back together

Hank & Raven getting back together

Hank dealing with being Kurt’s possible stepfather

Charles & Raven reconciling as siblings once again

Charles & Peter as stepfather and stepson

Charles & Kurt as uncle and nephew

Alex seeing all of this and being reminded of his bad relationship with his own parents that led him to get locked up before Charles and Erik found him, emphasizing Charles’ place in his life as his true “father,” and foreshadowing Scott by revealing he’s not in touch with his family (meaning he doesn’t know he has a much-younger brother)

Erik bonding with Kurt and making Kurt comfortable through being the only other native German speaker in the group

Erik & Hank dealing with their rocky post-DOFP relationship; Hank giving Erik a proper calling out for sending Charles into such a depression for a decade and for trying to kill Raven

Erik bonding with Charles’ other students and slowly realizing there is a place for him at the school

(Logan may or may not work as a character in such a sequel. But whether he has a big or small role, it must be acknowledged that Raven, not Stryker, saved him from the Potomac at the end of DOFP. So now he is on a different path, and is NOT Weapon X. Either he’s still at the mansion or went his own way with the open possibility of returning; I think the latter makes more sense since he’s such a loner and considering he wouldn’t remember the events of DOFP, he’d be pretty overwhelmed. Plus his explained absence would allow space for the film(s) to focus more on the other characters.)

Regardless, any villain(s) of those hypothetical sequels should’ve been the kind of antagonist(s) whose threat inevitably brought those aforementioned characters together and, in the process, fleshed out those relationships.

Also, no stupid 10-year time jumps between every movie. Keep it to 5-7 years after DOFP, at the most.

Think of the emotional impact that would bring:

Charles & Raven dealing with the fact that she chose not to come to him for help when she became pregnant

Hank & Raven discussing Raven’s history with Azazel and both of them admitting they went to great lengths to try to get over each other but nothing worked

Raven exploring motherhood and her feelings about either having abandoned Kurt as a baby or accidentally losing him, and Hank supporting her in this

Erik exploring his newfound fatherhood, and Charles supporting him in this

Peter’s feelings toward his dad for being absent from his life for so long and also for being a terrorist

Kurt’s feelings toward his mom for being absent for so long, and possibly for intentionally leaving him

Peter & Kurt becoming besties and bonding over being super-fast travelers who have spent too many years not knowing one or both parents

Hank wishing things had been different with Raven and that Kurt could’ve been his son and thinking about stepping into a stepfather role for Kurt

Erik & Peter perhaps getting stranded/separated from the rest of the group and forced to bond while trying to find their way back

Erik saving Peter’s life in battle, cementing their new bond

Hank fully embracing his Beast form (mutant and proud) in battle while protecting Raven and Kurt

Raven, Hank & Kurt as a badass blue family

Erik finally deflecting a bullet successfully to save Charles

Charles & Erik fighting side by side once again and realizing they’re better together than apart

Erik & Hank managing to find some common ground as they both have been unexpectedly thrown into fatherhood (see, no need for female fridging!)

Erik coming up with Quicksilver as Peter’s superhero name, at least getting the chance to name his son in this way

Basically the whole group becoming a big family

Perhaps closing with a flash forward a few years: Erik & Raven are now teachers at the school; young Scott arrives at the school and meets Alex for the first time; Charles & Erik hear about young Jean and head out to meet her; Hank & Raven manage to discover Logan’s location and head out to bring him back to the mansion - tying into the finale of DOFP

Those are just a few things that could’ve, and should’ve, been prioritized in a sequel to DOFP.

[rowinablx]

The reason I think why Days of Future Past's visual effects have aged so well is because they didn't just shoot in a green screen area, they shot in sets and on location as much as possible and had the actors do choreography fighting with the Sentinels.

Also the screen isn't full of visual noise to distract you. When Colossus's wrist is twisted and his head crushed, when Sunspot and Bobby's necks are snapped, when Blink is stabbed, when Warpath is killed, all you see is what you need to see.

Unlike Endgame where there's so much happening it's distracting, Days focuses on what needs to be focused on

But noooooo Endgame is the superior movie NOT

[mcmusing]

Previously, on X-Men: The Hypocrisy Games....

OMG, Charles, we're not kids! We inexperienced rubes are totally ready to stop WW3! Ugh, you're always so overprotective!

OMG, Charles, they're just kids! How could you put a heavily trained fighting force in danger?! You have no regard for our safety!

Why do I have to stay covered up during the segregated '60s? The world should worship my blue!

How dare Charles create a world that worships my blue in the integrated '80s-90s? Ew, better cover up.

[i-am-kind-of-lost]

X Men: Days of Future Past goes harder than any MCU movie ever did or will.

[irontragedyreview]

I was waiting for the official translation of this chapter because I wanted to know what meaning they were going to give to this phrase and since I don't know Japanese the most accurate thing I will get is the official translation.

At first I was going to take just Shoto's panel but in the end I decided to also take the previous one because the phrase "there's sure to be a period of chaos the books don't talk about", this phrase plus the way Shoto talks about the lack of a symbol and how a person like Afo born or emerges from them, it’s something that left me thinking and a little uneasy, because while I understand what Shoto says, it makes me wonder how much these kids know about their history.

What I'm trying to get is that the concept of Horikoshi's pre-Quirk society isn’t original, in fact it can be found literally in the X-Men comics, I would even say that you don't even have to go to the comics, The X-Men movies of the early 2000s showed us the pre-quirk society of bnha, the first scene of that movie is Jean Gray speaking in front of Congress against the anti-mutant registry, throughout this debate the question that makes Jean's words lose power is "Are mutants dangerous?", the question itself is unfair because Jean answers is that everything has the potential to be dangerous, even a teenager driving a car, the reply is that those cases can be regulated but mutants are an unknown and therefore a danger as they can’t be controlled. The original trilogy has this presentation to a society fearful of mutants, the end of the trilogy is the invention of a cure against the X gene, which is discovered through the experimentation of a mutant child (Chisaki arc). This is later taken up in the films that focus on being prequels, in X-Men days of future past where we meet Dr. Trask whose introduction is him explaining how the evolutionary chain of the human being was, how those more evolved ended exterminated their less evolved ancestors, the mutants here are the next evolutionary step and all those born without the X gene are the least evolved, who in Trask's words will only follow the same path as their ancestors before.

Now, whoever reads this will say "why is this story important and what does it have to do with Shoto's words?" Well, it's that Shoto's words, plus the panel that refers to those events that are outside the books, they make me wonder how the UA students know history, because they live in a society where the supremacy of the quirk is what is imposed, they didn’t live in first stages and we know little or nothing about how this stage is told to the generations that followed. Afo, Yoichi, Kudo and Bruce were born in the first glimpses of quirk society, however there is something that is interesting and that is that Kudo doesn’t represent a front against discrimination to people with quirks, they were a revolutionary army againts Afo, Yoichi himself never thinks about the discrimination and mistreatment of quirk people in the society in which he grew up, which is incredibly strange considering that he witnessed his brother killing a group that planned to kill them for recognizing that Afo belonged to that new generation of people. The pre-Quirk society carried out practices of discrimination and perhaps even death of people they considered dangerous, the majority of quirkless people in the old society were terrified of the quirks and their response was to attack the unknown. Ofc, we can only talk about Japan since we don't know what happened throughout the world, from what we can see the glowing baby was not considered dangerous in China, or perhaps there were certain quirks that were less inconvenient than others but in Japan we can see that there were groups against people with quirks.

Now, returning to Shoto's words, the big problem of the society in which Afo was born is not the lack of symbols, the chaos of pre-Quirk society was based on fear and discrimination of an unknown other. The times after the first stages are unknown to all readers, we only know what Horikoshi said, we also know that the society where Toshinori grew up and decided to become a symbol of peace was also very different. All Might is presented to us in the manga as the first symbol not only of peace but also as the first symbol of society, although Banjo is one of the first group of heroes who aren’t what we know as vigilantes (please correct me if I'm wrong). ), it isn’t until All Might and his long career that the society of heroes as we know it now is consolidated. All Might is the symbol and only pillar where this society stands and that explains how weak a symbol that shapes society can be, because once AM can no longer act as such, that is when society breaks down. In the movie Catching Fire there is a very interesting conversation between Snow and Katniss, where Snow tells her that Katniss' behavior cannot be ignored, because if people thought they could face the Capitol without fear, eventually the system would collapse and Katniss responds "what a fragile system if it collapses because of a few berries"

With all this I’m trying to say that having a symbol or not does not end up being a factor of true stability, AM or rather Toshinori renounced every aspect of his personal life to become the symbol of peace and bear the weight of society, but his figure was the only thing that kept society in order, the symbol of peace was fragile and only hid a broken and corrupt society, this isn’t AM's fault, the problem is that when Shoto talks about the lack of a symbol doesn’t finish internalizing that society with a symbol didn’t work either, because the symbol was only represented in a man and when he could no longer take his place, Endevor could have been the number one hero but he isn’t a symbol at the level of AM, no hero could fill that place.

So, is it the lack of symbol that allows chaos to be generated? Or is the function of a symbol to create stability? What happens when the symbol is more revolutionary and generates chaos or confrontation? This is where I may sound controversial but Afo could have been a symbol for the people he "helped", in a twisted way he was a symbol of refuge for people who were rejected and found with him a place to belong or even a solution to be found, someone that could take away the quirk that made them different in that society, Tomura is a symbol for those who didn’tt fit into society, we saw that when in the previous chapters he said that he wanted to be the hero of the villains, when we saw panels of people who said "Yes, Shigaraki destroys everything", Spinner is a symbol for the discrimination of heteromorphs even though Horikoshi neglected the issue.

So, in bnha there are symbols, the problem is that the heroes lost the symbol that gave stability to the society that they know, the society was sustained by covering its problems and creating its villains through the rejection and indifference of those who didn’t fit. The society of pre-quirks didn’t become chaos due to the lack of symbols but due to the systematic mistreatment of a minority where fear led to violence, Afo knew how to take advantage of those expelled at the time. It’s for all this that I wonder how much the UA students know about history and the formation of society, of course there could have been sides represented, for example like Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, who could be symbols in that pre-quirk society but these wouldn’t have avoided chaos, since it’s formed by the discrimination of others considered different. The society of heroes in bnha doesn’tt need a symbol embodied in a person, it isn’t the lack of a symbol that generates chaos but the system, symbols can often be functional to the perpetuation of the same, instead of corrections to their shortcomings.

[thorias]

Since season 2 looks to be so jam-packed with stuff, I thought it would be fun to try to break down the episodes using the stories continuing from season 1 and the spoilery bits we learned from D23 and... yeah, there's a lot here.

I'm just making educated guesses right now, but I could easily see this happening in the show.

2x01 - Ancient Egypt. 'Rise of Apocalypse' adaptation. The team helps En Sabah Nur defeat Rama-Tut and Rogue makes her Faustian deal with him to get Remy resurrected. Bishop shows up at the end to collect everyone.

2x02 - The Future. 'Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix' adaptation. Scott and Jean spend some time raising teenage Nathan and are warned of the horrors that would be unleashed upon the world if Apocalypse were to ever rise to power. Bishop and the others show up at the end and the X-men return to the present.

2x03 - Present day. Bottle episode focusing on Forge's makeshift team, presumably consisting of some combination of Cable, Havok, Polaris, Iceman, Colossus, Archangel, Shadowcat and Emma Frost. They deal with the continuing fallout of Genosha/Asteroid M/the EMP and the ensuing chaos as Graydon Creed is poised to win the presidential election. Apocalypse begins positioning his chess pieces. The new Four Horsemen (let's say Deathbit, Madelyne/Pestilence, Shaw/War and Dazzler/Famine) make their first appearance and give the team a thrashing. The X-men return from the past/future at the end.

2x04 - The X-men are reunited, get caught up on everything they missed while they were gone and find Jubilee wherever she is. Magneto attempts to mend fences with Lorna, but it goes horribly since he did after all try to wipe out all life on Earth while she was, ya' know, on Earth. She doesn't forgive him, but convinces him to turn himself over to the authorities and answer for his crimes. Mags' second trial goes much worse for him than the first one did and he's thrown in a plastic prison like in X2; the last we see of him for a while (probably wishful thinking on my part, but you never know). Rogue leaves to search for Deathbit.

2x05 - Rogue confronts Deathbit. It goes horribly. She tries to absorb the Death persona out of him like she once did for Archangel, but Apocalypse has accounted for her powers this time and Deathbit is immune to them now. She's forced to fight him, shocked by Deathbit's ferocity and resentment toward her and not yet understanding what she needs to do to break Apocalypse's hold on Remy. The battle ends in a stalemate. Rogue is left confused and heartbroken as Deathbit escapes.

2x06 - Wolverine spotlight. Logan travels to Japan, searching for a way to get his adamantium back (I don't like this happening so soon, but we can assume from the D23 sneak peek that it'll probably go this way). He seeks out Lady Deathstrike since her father created the adamantium bonding process and has to fight Sabretooth for it.

2x07 - Nightcrawler spotlight. With the election looming, Kurt confronts his half-brother Graydon. It goes horribly. Mystique reveals herself, having infiltrated Graydon's campaign months earlier. Kurt tries to make peace with his family, but neither of them are interested in peace. The episode ends with Mystique assassinating Graydon and her continued allegiance to Apocalypse is revealed. She then takes Graydon's form and replaces him, meaning Apocalypse would control the White House if Mystique/Creed wins the election.

2x08, 9 & 10 - On the eve of the election, Apocalypse makes his move, committing acts of terrorism, giving Mystique/Creed more ammunition for the anti-mutant campaign Creed was running on, which Apocalypse has been secretly fomenting in order to provoke a human/mutant war. Xavier aides Rogue as she faces Deathbit again, allowing her to confront Remy on the psychic plane. He recreates the gala scene from 'Remember It' in Deathbit's mind, so Rogue can undue that little blunder by dancing with Remy this time and finally confessing her true feelings. Remy learns that Rogue had chosen him, not Magneto, and that she really does love Remy, which gives him the motivation to fight off the Deathbit persona. Meanwhile, the X-men battle the remaining Horsemen and Apocalypse. They're losing badly until a re-adamantiumed Wolverine, Xavier and Rogue, with Gambit, now free of Apocalypse's influence, arrive to turn the tide. Poccy is defeated, and with his machinations revealed, the public is swayed and President Kelly is re-elected.

Afterward, Gambit is back with the team, though he's left with trauma and PTSD from his death and resurrection. Xavier and the X-men are lauded as heroes in the media, so public perception is back on their side and things are looking up for a change... but unbeknownst to everyone, something is not right with Xavier as we get our first hint of Onslaught for season 3.

I think this accounts for every storyline we've confirmed so far, (or most of them at least) but that's just the stuff we've heard about. Who knows what else they've got in store for us that they haven't revealed yet. I'm crossing my fingers that we get longer episodes in s2 because they're definitely going to need more time to cover all this.

[s10127470]

My Wolverine and the X-Men Rewrite (Part 1)

I'm sure many of you are familiar of Wolverine and the X-Men, as it was the last major animated series based on Marvel's merry band of mutants before X-Men '97 came out....

And before Marvel entered their infamous "anti-mutant" phase of the 2010s.

(If you don't count the X-Men Anime, which was a mini-series.)

Premiering back in 2009 on the somehow still-existing Nicktoons Network, the series is about the X-Men disbanding after a mysterious explosion results in the destruction of the Institute and the disappearance of Charles Xavier and Jean Grey.

About a year later, the team ended up reuniting for two major reasons.

The MRD (short for the Mutant Response Division), a government-supported organization created for the detainment and subsequent registration of existing mutants, begin capturing mutants from all over the country. Not only that, but they’ve even taken humans as prisoners as well just for helping mutants.

Charles Xavier, who the team find out is actually alive but in a coma resting on Magneto’s island nation of Genosha. Xavier is able telepathically communicate with the team from, in the words of Squidward….

Essentially, the explosion resulted in Xavier’s psyche being flung 20 years into the future. And Xavier himself won’t be awakened from his coma until those 20 years pass. Meanwhile, in the future, Xavier is awake, but finds himself constantly trying to survive as the future he’s in is absolute shit.

Being a loose adaption of Days of Future Past, the future Xavier’s in is one where the Sentinels have conquered the world after a war that broke out between the Master Mold program and Genosha.

In the end, nobody won.

As in this future, humanity has essentially been wiped out and mutants are on the verge of extinction, being placed in concentration camps.

But there is some hope....

Xavier in the future has formed a new X-Men team as it’s revealed that all of the original team are now dead. This new team consists of the likes of Bishop (who’s was one of the many mutants unfortunate enough to be born into this life instead of being a police officer from the distant future), an older Domino (whose present self is an enemy of the X-Men as she’s a member of the Brotherhood), and Marrow (who isn’t a member of the Morlocks).

Since Xavier is able to communicate with his past X-Men, he wants them to ensure that this future never happens.

So now, the reunited X-Men must face on the MRD, stop whatever plans Magneto has up his sleeves this time, and prevent the dark future from happening.

And all with Wolverine being the leader.

Yep! Wolverine is the leader of the X-Men as of right now as Cyclops is not doing so well….at all.

But in addition to those two, the rest of the X-Men consists of Storm, Beast, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Shadowcat, Angel, Forge, and newcomer Emma Frost.

WAXTM is notable things for two things.

It was also shortest-lived of the shows, only lasting 1 season of 26 episodes, which ran through the year of 2009, from January 23rd to November 29th.

This would be the sort-of beginning of an all-new shared animated universe known as the Yostverse, which consisted of the Hulk vs. Films, Thor: Tales of Asgard, and most notably, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The reason I say sort-of beginning because one of the shows that’s supposedly a part of this universe is The Spectacular Spider-Man, which came out almost a year before this show did. But that’s a discussion in itself.

Ever since its cancellation, WAXTM has gained a following and has become one of the many animated shows that got cancelled too soon and has led thousands of fans clamoring for a revival.

And to this day, people consider the show an underrated gem.

But I'm gonna have to come out and say it.....

Wolverine and the X-Men is not exactly a good show....

It's not bad by any means, but does have a lot of flaws.

And while it did do some things right, it wasn't quite to the extent of X-Men Evolution and especially X-Men: The Animated Series.

So today I want to discuss how I would rewrite the show. Keeping what worked about the show and either strengthen or removing what didn't.

And for this rewrite, be prepared to expect changes in characterizations, looks and even voices!

For the first part of this rewrite, we'll be covering the first three episodes of the show, Hindsight: Parts 1, 2 and 3.

And for this version of the show, all 3 of episodes would premiering on the exact same night: January 23rd, 2009.

Essentially, Wolverine and the X-Men's premiere in this AU would be a full-on TV movie!

This would be similar to what Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends did as when they first premiered, they had the first three episodes packed into a TV movie.

And one last thing, I would like to credit synergysilhouette as my main inspiration for this post, as he also shared his own idea on rewrite Wolverine and the X-Men as well.

So with that being said, let's get this party started!

First thing we need to get out of way that this show would not be called "Wolverine and the X-Men".

As that title is undoubtedly emblematic of the show's greatest flaw: the focus on Wolverine.

It's pretty obvious that the original series was riding on the coattails of the X-Men films, which Wolverine was not only the most popular character of, but the essentially the main character (and the only one that really mattered, much to the detriment of basically everyone else.).

Made more obvious with the fact that it premiered just four months before his long anticipated solo film.

Yeah, we all know how well that turned out....

Apparently, when WAXTM was first conceived, it was initially meant to be solo cartoon for Wolverine.

At least in the eyes of the executives...

But to the directors and producers, this was meant to be another X-Men cartoon.

In the end, the two sides essentially came to a compromise: the show would have the X-Men as its main cast, but Wolverine would be the focal character of the show.

Everyone has already said it before, but it does bare repeating.

The X-Men are suppose to be an ensemble. It shouldn't focus on just one character and essentially make everyone else irrelevant.

For this rewrite, the show's name would be changed to "X-Men Destiny", which I feel like fits perfectly with the premise of the series.

Next we come to the tone and style. This was another area where the influence from the films is quite obvious.

Just like the FOX films, Wolverine and the X-Men is notably more serious and gloomy than most other X-Men media, even the comics at some points.

It's somewhat melodramatic and there's rarely ever a sense of levity or humor to lighten things up

I'm admittedly not a fan of this style. I understand the X-Men are a little more serious when compared to other characters of the Marvel universe, but I don't think they need to be this overly serious.

I feel like the core of the X-Men, in spite of the all bullshit they deal with, they still persevere and keep their heads up no matter what.

So for this version of the show, the tone will be a little more light-hearted.

There will actually be humor present and some characters will be the resident comic reliefs.

But don't worry, the show will still take itself seriously when it needs to.

But another area the show would see change in is the art-style.

For this version of the show, the character designs would be done by ZyalahDoodles.

She’s an artist here on Tumblr who has done some redraws and redesigns for WAXTM.

I really like her style. It strikes that balance between being similar to the original art style while still being somewhat different. And if anything, it’s actually an improvement over the original style, especially when look at characters like Quicksilver. 

Like Jesus Christ, he was hideous in the original!

I know he’s suppose to be Magneto’s son, but you didn’t need to make him look as old as him too! 

Like Zyalah’s Quicksilver can actually get it.

If you want to check out more of her art, here’s the link to her page below.

Next we come to the roster.

Overall, it's largely the same as in the original except we would see the addition of one more character.

And that's none other than the steel-skinned gentle giant himself, Colossus!

Not only because he's one of my favorite X-Men, it's also because he's honestly kind of deserves it.

For those who don't know, despite only appearing in the prologue of the first episode, Colossus was weirdly in a lot of promotional material and merchandising for the show.

Apparently he was suppose to return to the X-Men following the explosion, but the producers decided not to do that and just save him for the planned season 2.

I'm guessing that the promotional material and merchandising started production during the early development of the show and before everything got finalized.

And thus, it's why a lot of this stuff still shows Colossus as a main character.

It's similar to what happened with The Simpsons, as during its early years, a lot of merchandising featured Bart famously wearing a blue shirt instead of his trademark red shirt.

But now that we got our roster out of the way, let's talk about the characters.

Specifically, their voices, appearances and ages.

In terms of voices, just about everyone still have their respective VAs in this version....except for two of the X-Men.

Those two being Iceman and Rogue.

Iceman would be voiced by Jason Marsden, replacing Yuri Lowenthal.

But don't worry, Yuri would be still in this version of the show, but as a different character (who we'll get to shortly).

And Rogue would be voiced by Melissa Disney, replacing Kieren van den Blink.

As for appearances, synergysilhouette brought up how a little wonky the builds of the characters were.

Like some of the males had buff upper bodies but surprisingly thin torsos and legs, and the females were pretty paper thin.

Like, we're talking almost VivziePop thin, specifically in the leg area.

The only part of them that wasn't thin were their chests....

Who designed these girls? Greg Land?

So yeah, in this version of the show would fix some of those designs.

Particularly putting a little more meat on the females.

I guess you could say I made them....

But for the builds of the X-Men.

Wolverine has a stocky and muscular build.

Cyclops is lean but athletic.

Emma Frost has an hourglass figure with a more top-heavy build.

Storm also has an hourglass figure, with an all-around build.

Beast...basically looks the same as he does in the original show.

So does Nightcrawler, Angel, Colossus, Iceman, Shadowcat and Forge (expect he'll actually have tanned skin)

And Rogue has a similar build to Storm.

Apart from the builds, the X-Men look largely the same as in the original show.

Though Cyclops and Rogue would definitely be getting a serious hairdo.

Since let's be real, their haircuts were pretty awful in the original show, especially Rogue's.

Cyclops' new hair would look just how it does in Zyalah's piece I showed earlier, and Rogue would have much longer hair.

As for heights, the X-Men are pretty accurate to those from the comics.

Yes, and that does include Wolverine.

However, there is one exception to this and that's with Beast.

I've always felt that Beast definitely should be a much taller character than he actually is.

(He's canonically 5'11)

But despite that, in the more recent comics, he's always shown as being bigger than most of the other X-Men.

So here, Beast is like 6'5.

As for their outfits...

Wolverine, Storm, Emma, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Angel, Rogue and Forge would be wearing the exact same outfits they did in the original show.

Beast as well, but he would also be sporting goggles this time.

(He just looks so right with them).

Iceman would wearing a modified version of his outfit from the show.

It would have a light blue and dark blue color scheme, short pant-legs and no shoes.

Shadowcat would be wearing her outfit from the Astonishing X-Men run.

And Cyclops, well....

This what he'll be wearing.

If you collected any Marvel merchandising during the 2000s, you've most definitely seen this look before.

It's kind of like an combination between his 90s outfit and his Astonishing outfit.

And in all honesty, it's really cool looking.

But weirdly enough, he's never wore this any iteration outside of the merchandising.

So I figured.....

Finally, we come to the ages of the X-Men.

I'm reason I'm bringing this up is because of the episode, Breakdown.

In that episode, we take a look into Cyclops' past, and just like in the comics, the X-Men originally started off with the original five.

And we can clearly see that they're teenagers.

But this becomes an issue when take Iceman into account.

In the second episode when Wolverine and Beast come to recruit him, the latter mentions to his parents that Iceman is now 18.

Which would mean that three years have past since the X-Men formed.

And since the estimated age difference between the original five is that Beast is older than Cyclops, Jean and Angel by 2 years and Iceman is younger than them by 2 years, that would mean that Cyclops, Jean Angel are around 19-20 and Beast is around 21-22.

And yeah, there's is no way in hell that's the case.

I could definitely see them being in their 20s, but like mid-to-late 20s.

Definitely not early 20s!

Here, it would be established that the X-Men have been around for about 8 years, including after the explosion.

As for the ages of the team.

We all know Wolverine is old as hell!

Cyclops, Jean and Angel are 24.

Emma is 29.

Storm is 26.

Beast is 27.

Nightcrawler is 22.

Colossus, Rogue and Forge are 20.

And Iceman and Shadowcat are 18.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's go ahead and talk about the episodes themselves!

Hindsight: Part 1

This episode is largely the same, but there would be a few changes.

-All of the X-Men would be present in the prologue. Iceman would training in The Danger Room with Shadowcat, Colossus and Nightcrawler, Forge would be working on a new device while ignoring the cries for help from the four after getting trapped, and Angel would be seen spending them with Storm.

-We would get the establishment of where everyone else is once Wolverine and Beast reunite. Cyclops has living in a rundown apartment by himself, Storm moved back to her village in Kenya, Angel has been working at his father's company, Iceman and Shadowcat moved back in with their parents, Colossus moved back to his family's farm in Russia, and nobody's heard from Nightcrawler or Rogue. As for Beast, he's been hanging at what's left of the mansion with Forge, working together to see what caused the explosion in the first place.

-Speaking of Forge, he would be helping out Wolverine and Beast with their break-in. And also, and more importantly, Forge's characterization is much different. Here, he's basically like Sokka and Velma, being the team's resident tech-genius and total smartass.

-Pyro wouldn't be one of the mutants freed when Wolverine, Beast and Forge free the prisoners. Instead, his place would be taken by Jubilee (voiced by Janice Kawaye). She would end up staying with the X-Men, kick-starting one of the storylines for this series. As for her characterization, it's pretty accurate to how she is in the comics. In terms of overall physical appearance and age: she's about 15, has a slightly petite build, black hair in a bob-cut style, pink lips, brown eyes, stands at 5'1, and wears a modified version of her classic 90s outfit. It's largely the same, except with a navel-bearing shirt, fingerless gloves and sneakers.

Hindsight: Part 2

Once again, largely the same with a few changes.

-The Brotherhood has two new additions from the original version in the form of Pyro and Gambit. Yep! Gambit is a member of Brotherhood in this version of the show, as it would set up his eventual turnover to the X-Men and his romance with Rogue. And in typical Gambit fashion, he'll definitely be laying his Cajun charm on Rogue immediately. As their voices, all of them remain the same except for Quicksilver, Toad and Pyro. Quicksilver would be voiced by Yuri Lowenthal (I told you we would be coming back to him!), Toad would be voiced by Danny Cooksey, and Pyro would be voiced by John Kassir. Also, Toad will be British. Yeah, remember when he used to have a British accent?

-Cyclops' characterization. One of the biggest flaws of the original show was how Cyclops was characterized. In the original, he was intolerant, depressed grub. I get that he's grieving over the loss of Jean, but man. It's hard for us to feel sorry for the guy when he's constantly being angry and angsty. He may've not been done as dirty when compared to the Fox films, but this version of the character isn't too far behind. But here, Cyclops is will actually remain as the leader of the team, and his big story of the season (apart from the obvious) is him grappling with whether or not he still has what it takes to be leader again. And along with that, he isn't gonna nearly as angry and angsty as he was in the original. However, he will still be grieving and his depression will be shown in a way where we actually sympathize with him. This would be first shown when Wolverine tries to recruit him and after blasting him out of his room. And although he starts off looking down at Wolverine angry at first, but once he leaves, his expression eventually turns into one of regret.

Hindsight: Part 3

Just like with the last two, it's mostly the same with one notable exception.

-When the X-Men meet Emma for the first time, their reactions are a little different. Angel isn't smitten by her at all, as he already has a special somebody (i.e. Storm). But Iceman still is. But he's not the only one. The other would be Shadowcat. Yep! In this show, Shadowcat and Iceman are both, in the words of NSYNC....

Well that's all I have for now.

Let me know what you guys think about this rewrite. And if you could, give me some ideas on how the rest of the series should play out!

But anyway, I'm gonna go play some X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse....

Peace out, yo.

[senka-mesecine]

Please. Barnes is jealous that the reader is talking to another soldier. (sorry if my english is wrong)

I Oughta Be God.

Robert Barnes x Reader.

-

wonderful gif by @woman-with-no-name

-

-"You done waxin' poetic with that boy?"-

-"Sir?"-

-"Waxin' poetic. You just about done?"-

Sergeant Barnes's voice halts you mid stride and you stop to look at him, unable to immediately process what it was he meant only for it to hit you like a stray bullet; You did the unthinkable and supposedly broke all conduct protocol. You took the effort to show some human empathy towards one of the short timers whose toes literally threatened to decay inside of his own boots due to the long marches and the potent cocktail of near constant humidity. One thing these men needed was some kindness and you intended to show it to them to maintain some vestige of humanity among the ranks, wanting to lead by quiet day-to-day example, deciding to stand your ground on the matter. This was a question of morale. -"Tropical ulcer. Jungle rot."- You explain matter-of-factly, hugging your equipment close to your chest almost as a shield of sorts, introspective enough to confess to yourself that the man frightened you even while he was there indulging in the seemingly unassuming hobby of sitting down, playing cards with a couple of his eerily silent men, heads kept down, like he slightly frightened them too. -"I have to talk to him about it, sir. I'm sorry. The nature of it is purely informative."- You add, portraying the blunt banality of the topic. People around here needed to understand the illnesses they suffered from and how to prevent them from happening again in the future. It was literally your job, outside of helping them, to explain deterrent measures.

Sergeant Barnes didn't seem to agree.

-"Y'need to be treatin' him and makin' sure his toes don't go fallin' off and stickin' to his goddamn boots like paste. Not talkin'. Ain' no talkin' gonna fix him now."-

His heavy drawl is there laced with ample sarcasm dripping through like poison almost like he intended to imply your patient was done for, long since dead already, written off and that there was no helping him; now that --- it pushes your buttons hard and even though you knew he cared for his men in his own strange way, the callous way he talked about potential harm reeked of unnecessary cruelty. You tended to let a great many wry remarks around camp go in through one ear and out the other, but however calm you intended to be, you decide to cut the crap for lack of a better word. -"I didn't realize speaking to the men on base is against regulations or forbidden, sir, all due respect."- You retort, calmly --- as calmly and as kindly as you could so the point would be more poignant, not blurred by a freakout. Barnes gives you a look. Strange and half lidded that could almost be translated as sure is if I say it is. A deck of playing cards still in his hands, you gulp, feeling the need to clarify yourself once he says nothing more, minding his game instead, for the moment anyway. His sudden silences tended to make you nervous. Was impossible to know what he was thinking. -"I'm talking to you right now, sir, aren't I?"- You ask, trying to alleviate the tension; if the rules were the same for everyone technically you were wasting valuable time going back and forth that you could've been spent preparing Morepenicillin, Metronidazole and a general cocktail of anti-fungal antibiotics for that poor private's foot.

-"I own your ass out here. You belong to me, beaut."-

He shoots back suddenly, focusing his gaze back at you.

Your breath hitches.

Was nothing new, Barnes telling people he owns them, flat out.

He did it on a near daily basis, in fact.

When he says it to you, though ---

Beaut. The general scrambled nature of your brain right about now allows you to process that he's called you beaut ten seconds later than the actual moniker was uttered, leaving your mind in chaos as you tried to quickly deduce and decide if he was mocking you, being sarcastic again, trying to put you down or ---

The men seated around him around him are as silent as the grave. No snickering.

They weren't even looking at you, hyperfocused on their respective stacks instead.

-"I'm the only one y'all should be talkin' to and that includes you more than anyone."-

Barnes assesses himself and for some reason you find yourself tongue tied, unsure what to say to that without directly arguing with your superior, your better instinct overshadowed by some chemical in your brain that irrationally made you weigh the idea. Resent it yet weigh it. The idea of only ever talking to Barnes. You legs cannot move from where you were standing. You felt that you could only really move if he told you. He tilts his head, lips pressed into a hard line, setting down his cards on the table from the box he was seated on. Full House. Suddenly, the load of medications, needles and syringes you were carrying, having felt weightless a moment ago feels as heavy as a boulder in your arms now. What was this conversation even? -"I oughta be God to you."- He looks straight at you then and you could swear your legs were on the verge of crumbling from underneath you. The company of men around him falling into such a deep state of general quietude you could practically hear them all breathe around a makeshift table of beer cans, ashtrays and cigarette buds. Unwittingly and intrusively you imagine Barnes as a shadow looming over the jungle perimeters like God himself, swallowing you whole, finding a rare mercy when he nods his head wordlessly, giving you dismissal. Only then do you feel your legs move. Once he allows them to. His command that you spare your words only for him seemed non-enforceable but he nonetheless gives the order with such quiet gravitas you believe it to be.

Almost like a sort of magic.

-"Understood, sir."-

You mutter, getting the hell on out of his presence as fast as you could.

Fearing you could get burned if you stayed.

W --- what was that?

Did he really give you a direct order to never speak to anyone but him ever again?

[velvet4510]

Why Magneto’s Storyline in X-Men: Apocalypse is The Worst (it’s not just Cherik)

Ok I just need to vent because this has been chewing away at my brain for far too long.

Cherik is far from the only reason why Erik’s family plotline in X-Men: Apocalypse is some of the stupidest, sloppiest, and most character-ruining pieces of writing I’ve ever seen. Haters may say “oh you’re just upset because he married someone who wasn’t Charles.” But, like, aside from the fact that the original timeline already established that Erik’s top priority was always the fight for mutantkind and he had no interest in settling down - whether that had anything to do with his feelings for Charles or not - the problems with the Apocalypse writing go WAY beyond just him & Charles:

Erik would never abandon his cause at this point. By the end of DOFP, Erik has just been imprisoned for a full 10 years thanks to the JFK situation. Meaning he has spent a full decade being forcibly inactive in the fight for mutants. And he just learned that all of his fears about humans and mutants came to pass in the future to the level where a time-traveler had to be sent to change the past. And he was so set on averting that future that he tried to kill his friend and the sister of the man he loved, and then made a whole speech on international TV begging for the mutants of the world to fight alongside him. This is the POLAR OPPOSITE of a man who would feel like settling down and walking away from the fight within the next decade. The Sentinels being cancelled did NOT make mutant life easy overnight; Stryker was still up to no good, and there is no way that there weren’t others like him doing the same. Yes, Raven’s actions made a very positive difference, but I think we have enough brain cells to agree that this did not mean things for mutants immediately became sunshine and rainbows to the level where Erik - the most (understandably) paranoid character in the X-Men series - would even consider taking a break, let alone giving up the fight permanently. Knowing what he did about the possibilities of the future would’ve made the Erik we know double down on his commitment to his cause and follow up on his actions in Washington.

Erik wouldn’t risk starting a young family at this moment in his life. Erik was a Holocaust prisoner, his people were massacred, his mom was shot when he couldn’t move the coin, and then Charles was shot when Erik accidentally deflected a bullet into him, and then every member of his Brotherhood save Raven were captured and killed. Not only is this more than enough grief for one character to have, but the man wouldn’t dare risk having a new family of his own when everyone he’s ever loved has gotten hurt (largely because of him), and when he’s an international fugitive. That is no time to risk being selfish, and he would know. He would’ve been the first to realize that a potential spouse and child would also end up killed, and so he’d avoid that altogether. In fact, he wouldn’t even consider it, because, as mentioned, he wouldn’t leave his cause behind. You know, if he was actually in character.

Magda is a human. At this point, Erik hates humans. Again, he has just been imprisoned by humans for 10 years for trying to save a mutant, and he just learned that in the future, humans would’ve wiped out mutants, exactly as he feared. Everything that happened in DOFP would only further inflame his already-passionate hatred of humans. He is not in the mental state to even begin to consider Charles’ philosophy and give a human a chance at a relationship, let alone marry a human.

The family lives in Poland. The country where Auschwitz is. The country where Erik and his family and people was imprisoned, tortured, and executed. The country where Erik had to watch Shaw kill his mother. Basically the LAST country in the freaking WORLD that Erik would want to ever see again, let alone spend the rest of his life in. Erik is fluent in multiple languages - he is shown to easily converse in French and Spanish in First Class - and has been all over the world thanks to his Nazi hunting, so if he really needed to flee the U.S., there were a hundred other countries he could’ve gone to and blended into (Canada, France, Mexico, anywhere in South America, heck, he even could’ve discovered Genosha during this time). But in the original timeline, he didn’t leave the U.S. at all despite being a national fugitive after escaping his plastic prison, and he never did get caught again, so….

Erik’s first meeting with Magda is completely OOC for him. Erik mentions that he told Magda who he was the first night they met and he trusted her then. EXCUSE ME??? Erik Lehnsherr does not trust strangers. Erik Lehnsherr does not tell the complete truth about himself and his past to just anyone; look at how deeply Charles had to probe before Erik opened up to him. This stupid line was obviously shoehorned in just to make their relationship seem like perfect soulmates and thus ensure it is doubly tragic when she gets thrown in the fridge 5 minutes later (more on that in a sec). Obviously the intention is for the audience to go “aww, he instantly trusted her, she instantly accepted him, this is true love…” Give me a break. You’re really telling me that Magda met this stranger one night, found out he was none other than the international fugitive who apparently killed the U.S. president and just tried to kill another president on live TV, and went “oh, no problem, honey, let’s make a baby and live the cottagecore dream!” That’s some BS if I’ve ever heard it, and I’m convinced the writers subconsciously knew it; there’s a reason that is revealed in a throwaway line rather than shown onscreen, because then nobody would’ve bought it.

Fridging. Magda and Nina exist in the movie for one reason and one reason only: To get brutally killed and give Erik even more grief and trauma so that he’ll seek revenge on the entire world, aka do what the plot demands of him, aka have the same journey as he did in First Class (more on that in a sec). That’s all. Neither of them are any more than one-dimensional plot devices. They are not characters at all. Magda isn’t even named in the actual movie (he doesn’t even say her name when she dies) - it’s so obvious they didn’t even know what her name would be when they made the movie. This is textbook fridging, and one of the worst examples of it of all time. It’s all the worse considering that Erik never met Magda in the original pre-DOFP timeline, meaning Magda originally most likely lived a long happy life and died old in bed. But now, she gets fridged just because the writers didn’t know what more to do with Erik. It’s misogyny of the highest level.

A parenthood story for Erik was already set up. DOFP already hinted at Erik being a father, with Peter’s comment about his mom. So if the writers wanted to show Erik as a father, and to include Magda, they already had a solution that would seamlessly flow from the previous film - make Erik and Peter’s relationship one of the centerpieces of the story, and let Magda be Peter’s mom! (You know, like she is in the comics!)

It doesn’t contribute anything new to Erik’s character development. From a screenwriting POV, this is unforgivable. May I remind you that Erik’s entire storyline in First Class revolved around grief and trauma for the loss of his family and people, especially his mom, and seeking revenge for it. Giving him a wife and daughter just so they can get killed too adds absolutely NOTHING to his character development. It’s merely retreading everything that already happened in his arc: he loses his family and goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. Completely superfluous, right down to Charles insisting that there’s good in him beyond the pain. The redundancy becomes apparent even in the dialogue, where Charles literally says “I told you since I first met you there’s good in you too.” The script itself can’t help but point out that all of this has happened before and literally nothing new has been added to Erik’s character arc.

See? It’s not just because of Cherik. Erik’s story in X-Men: Apocalypse is an atrocity in basic screenwriting and character development, on every level. And I will never accept it.

(Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels this way…)

[rowinablx]

Days of Future Past having a higher score on Rotten Tomatoes than Infinity War but lower than Endgame is my villain origin story

[mcmusing]

From the beginning, he always offered her love, acceptance, safety, forgiveness, and loyalty.

By the end, she only offered him disdain, ridicule, disregard, bitterness, and abandonment.

[spottheantisemitism]

Days of future past and the paper thin allegory

Of all the X-stories stories to hit you with the “this is an allegory for racism”, Days of Future Past is usually not one. Instead it’s more focused on the apocalypse and oppressive dystopia than how we got here and how do we change history The prequel however focuses on racism and tyranny and focuses on Kitty/Kate Pryde as her world falls apart. Making a young Jewish woman the lead in a story about a country falling into tyranny was indeed Claremont’s vision and the intended allegory (he does the Jews-Mutants parallel with Magneto as well) but what is never explored is the implications of that allegory nor any actual Jewish culture. The prequel fixes that

If you follow me at my main @gerrysherry you’ll notice the last panel is my banner. For good reason. This comic was make during a surge of racism and antisemitism in the summer of 2023.

There is a long running joke in the fandom that Xavier and Magneto in fighting each other rather than the anti-mutant bigots is allegorical for how real life marginalized people fight each other instead their oppresors.

In the prequel Magneto makes the metaphor quite clear. He speaks not of his worries but also his experience as a Holocaust survivor. And the writers managed to in one sentence change what “days of future past” means. It’s no longer “days of future past” in the sense that Kate is reliving the past (as was the case for the 80s original story) but that society is a whole is returning to 1940s era bigotry and oppression.

notice also how when it’s a ghetto the sign is green when it’s turned into a camp the sign turns red. I thought that was clever.

I never understood this scene when I read it last year but this year I can sort of understand. If you spent years pushing me out of your activism and scapegoating me, I’m not joining your coalition to fight the president now.

and yes Stryker’s administration is clearly commentary on the 2016-2020 Trump administration down to him being a demogogue figurehead serving with no term limits and it’s his cronies that run the country. Marvel isn’t predicting the future it’s just that second verse is the same as the first. Again the future is the past.

Kitty’s wedding to Peter in Chapter 2 is officiated by her Rabbi who sneaks out to perform a ceremony in secret. Historically many Jewish weddings were performed in secret and I’m sure the parallels are intentional.

they are also marrying in the rubble of the X-mansion symbolizing them clinging to the past. But this is done not simply out of nostalgia but also because they have no where else to go.

Magneto’s dying words are great. Days of Future Past Magneto post internment is a lot more calm and pragmatic than his 616 comics counterpart but he still feels like Magneto (even moreso than recent comics which mellowed him out TOO much). And the fact that it’s Yiddish rendered in Latin script (as opposed to the Hebrew alphabet) rather German like in X-men ‘97 or Polish like in X-men Apocalypse really speaks to the thought the author put in. Yes Magneto is a German-Polish Jew but do you really expect me to believe he sees either German or Polish as his native language? “This is a Holocaust survivor who just spent the last years of his life interned, he will not see freedom but his fellow prisoners will, what language shall his last words be in? Yiddish obviously”

What I love about this comic is that this comic uses past horror not exploitatively but in a sense that past events form patterns and can recur. Those who do not learn history repeat it.

the past informs and warns the future and in the convoluted time travel set in place in the comic, the future can inform and warn the past.

[racefortheironthrone]

Are there any notable examples of anti-mutant prejudice towards the X-Men coming from within the superhero community?

This is a great question!

This gets to the complicated nature of how mutants fit into the Marvel Universe. I've always been a vocal proponent of the idea that, far from the mutant metaphor only making sense if it's in its own little bubble where mutants are the only people with superpowers, the mutant metaphor actually functions better in the context of the Marvel Universe, because it allows you to explore more complicated and more subtle ways that prejudice functions.

While there are plenty of super-villains who have quite blatant anti-mutant prejudice, you don't tend to get that same kind of overt bigotry towards mutants among super-heroes. Partly, this is because bigotry is a very unheroic character trait, but it also has to do with the way that the way that Marvel historically portrayed the spillover effects of anti-mutant prejudice.

Following in a kind of Niemöllerian logic, it's almost always the case that groups that hate and fear mutants also end up hating and fearing non-mutant superheroes. Thus, Days of Future Past starts with the Sentinels being turned on mutants, but it ends with the Sentinels wiping out the Avengers and the Fantastic Four too - because the same atavistic fear of "the great replacement" applies to both mutants and mutates. Likewise, the same forces that line up to push through the Mutant Registration Act inevitably end up proposing a Superhuman Registration Act, because once you've violated the precepts of equality under the law for one minority group, you establish a precedent to do it to another.

Instead, I would argue what you see in the case of anti-mutant prejudice among superheroes is explorations of liberal prejudice. This takes many different forms: in Civil War, you see Tony Stark insensitively try to wave the bloody shirt of Stamford in the face of a survivor of the Genoshan genocide or Carol playing the good liberal ally but ultimately trying to get mutants to set aside their own struggle in favor of her own political project. (For someone who's spent a good deal of time working, and living with, the X-Men, occasionally against the interests of the state, Carol does have a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth. Hence in Civil War II, you see Carol essentially goysplaining the dangers of creeping authoritarianism to Magneto.)

In Avengers vs X-Men, you see the Avengers acting like they know the Phoenix Force better than mutants and ultimately prioritizing the safety of mankind over the efforts of mutantkind to reverse their own extinction. This is where the "Avengers are cops" meme in the fandom comes from. (I would argue that Captain America is badly mischaracterized in the latter event - we know which side he's on when the interests of mutants and the interests of the state come into conflict.)

The common thread here is that anti-mutant prejudice among superheroes emerges as a kind of unthinking, unreflective callousness brought on by a worldview that thinks of humans as the universal default of lived experience - while thinking of mutants as a somewhat annoying special interest group that fixates on their particularist grievances rather than working for what the heroes consider to be the common good.

For a more intimate version of how this plays out, I think the Fantastic Four are a great exploration of how "well-meaning" liberals can massively fuck up when they don't do the work of examining their own biases. We've seen this since the very beginning: in Fantastic Four #21, Kirby goes out of his way to depict uber-WASP Reed Richards blithely assuming that the "free market of ideas" will take care of the Hatemonger, while the subtextually Jewish Ben Grimm knows that the way to deal with a mind-controlling Hitler clone wearing purple Klan robes is deplatforming-by-way-of-clobberin'.

Then later on, we see Reed Richards debate Congress out of passing a Superhuman Registration Act, while saying nothing about the Mutant Registration Act - even though he has a mutant son who is directly threatened by it. (See that adorable blond moppet with the slur scrawled across his face in the fictional advertisement above? That's Franklin Richards.) This is why I have a crack theory that Franklin's biological father is actually Namor rather than Reed, which is why Reed so consistently shows a passive-aggressive hostility to his son's mutancy.

At the same time, Sue also has her blindspots when it comes to mutant rights. In the underrated FF/X miniseries, Susan Storm acts like an understanding and supportive parent to Franklin - right up until someone suggests that Franklin might want to come to Krakoa and explore his mutant identity, at which point she goes full Karen and starts lashing out with her powers. Chip Zdarsky, the writer, explicitly compared Reed and Sue to liberal parents who support gay rights in the abstract until their kid comes out as trans and wants to spend time in LGBT+ spaces.

[tcwmatchmakingau]

The Beauty In All, Part One

Editor's note: written by @deejadabbles

Pairing: Echo x GN!reader Rating: General Audience (but minors DNI) Summary: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice- still shame on you, don't take advantage of my kindness! After so many times of falling for people who mock and manipulate your kind nature, you thought that love, true love, was simply not in the cards for you. Thankfully, Right to Love is here to make sure you and a lucky ARC trooper get your happy ending together. A.N: did you know there's giant garden in the senate building that has tons of different nature environments? I just loved the idea of a reader working there and tending all kinds of exotic and dangerous plant life. Tiio is my Corrie Guard OC and Maura is a matchmaker OC that will show up a lot in my future fics for this AU! Word Count: 2853

Warnings: Mentions of past bad relationships and toxic exes.

His eyes were staring at you with that expectant intensity again, just a shade off of his infamous tooka-eyed stare. If it wasn’t for the fact that you were able to hide behind the felucian ficus you were pruning, you probably would have caved instantly.

“I don’t know, Tiio,” you hummed, looking down at an unhealthy leaf, rubbing it between your fingers and trying not to get lost in memories of previous attempts at romance. “Wouldn’t something like a matchmaker make the whole process seem…” you scrambled for a word and settled for, “robotic?”

Tiio’s eyes went wide, “No, not at all! Oh, vod’ika,” he stepped around the ficus, catching you on the other side so he could keep his gaze on you, “If that’s what you’re worried about, I promise it’s not like that!-”

He paused and looked around, making sure his suddenly loud words didn’t draw too much attention. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be in the garden when he was off duty, but the other guards had gotten too used to him swinging by to chat with you at the end of his shifts to really care. After all, what good was working in the senate building if you can’t enjoy the few luxuries it has?

When he turned back to you, he spoke calmly again, “It’s not like they just take a few basic facts about you and put them in an algorithm or something. It’s done with real people- people who actually care about others finding love and connections.” Tiio ran his hand through the halo of curls around his head, and when he got that far-away look, you knew who he was thinking about, “they want you to find someone who’ll see you for you, who shares values and interests,” then he gave a sigh, a dreamy sigh of content adoration, the kind of sigh only someone deeply in love is capable of making. “Someone who’ll treat you the way you’re supposed to be treated.” That’s when his eyes snapped back to yours, “That’s what I want for you, vod, I think it’s the perfect way to find someone who actually deserves you!”

The determination in his eyes made you smile, Tiio always had a way of making you feel appreciated. Of course, he just insisted that it was ‘returning the favor’, a reference to the event that sparked your friendship in the first place. 

Being the head arborist of the Senate Botanical Garden meant that you saw and interacted with the Coruscant Guard every day. During the war, you had been witness to numerous counts of senators and civilians mistreating clones, and like any decent being, it had infuriated you.

About a year into the war, when anti-clone protests had really reached a head, you had asked the children in your volunteer herbology class to help you with a little project. Armed with a barrow overflowing with flower crowns and letters from the children who made them, you spent a whole day passing them out to the guards as a show that there were some out there who appreciated and supported them.

Many troopers took a shine to you after that, and Commander Fox once mock-complained that his men were always begging for guard posts in the garden because of you, but Tiio had become closest to you in the following time. Now, he was one of your best friends, an amazing listener who always reminded you of your self-worth, he was someone who reminded you why it was so important to stay gentle and kind, even when the galaxy tried to make you hard and jaded.

Tiio knew you, and your past, your heartbreaks and string of lovers who took and took and took from your wealth of kindness without giving you a drop of true devotion in return. And he knew how hard it was for you to trust someone like that again, especially after the last one.

So, if Tiio, who was even more protective of your heart than you were, thought this was a good idea, then maybe…

“I know that look!” Tiio was smiling now, realizing he was winning you over and when you tried to hide among the foliage again he laughed. “Listen, I won’t push you, vod’ika, but I really think this is a good idea. I just know one of my brothers will make you happy, and Right To Love will make sure you find the perfect one.”

You reemerged from the leaves, unable to hide how flatter and flushed his words made you. “Sure you aren’t just determined to prove that clones ‘do it better’ than natborns?” you said in a playful tone, paraphrasing something he and some of your other clone friends had said once while discussing your past relationships.

Tiio had the good grace to look away bashfully, “Maaaaybe?”

A laugh made its way out of you at that, “Alright, Tiio, you win. I’ll schedule my appointment when I get home tonight,” and you laughed again when Tiio whooped in triumph.

Dating and love always had risks, and maybe this avenue of dating wouldn’t be any different, but if that was the case, you weren’t any worse off, right?”

You knew that it might be a slow day for the matchmaking service. One of your days off coincided with a day that most were busy at their standard jobs, which was by design. There was never a day when Coruscant wasn’t bustling at all hours, but days like this made shopping and other chores just the slightest bit easier. 

There was only one other client in the waiting room, a twi’lek male who seemed to be calm in a way you couldn’t fathom right now. You were fidgeting with the questionnaire they had handed you, struggling to concentrate on answering the questions in the thorough, thoughtful way you wanted to.

When a woman’s voice called out the twi’lek’s name you even jumped in your seat. Maker, why were you so nervous?

About that moment is when you caught the eye of the man behind the front desk, he was smiling at you, in a warm and understanding way that said he had seen your kind of reaction often. When the other client disappeared behind an office door, the man spoke up.

“Having trouble with your questionnaire?”

You looked away from him, opting to stare at the form in question instead, “Something like that…”

There was the sound of chair wheels rolling on the floor, then of steps coming towards you. When you looked up he had just put his hand on the back of a chair near you. “Mind if I sit?”

“Oh- not at all, please,” you waved your hand in invitation, and he immediately took the chair.

He was a clone, not too young like some of the “shinies” you'd met in the senate building, but not one of the older ones like Fox from what you could tell. His haircut looked like he needed to trim it every few days to maintain, even if he only wanted to show off the aurebesh tattooed across his head.

“Do you wanna know a secret?” he asked, something twinkling in his eyes. You raised an eyebrow at him but nodded, and he leaned in a little closer to you, “everyone who comes in here is nervous, some are just better at hiding it,” he said in a dramatic, stage whisper.

That made you laugh, and the thing that had your insides in a vice grip seemed to loosen it’s hold just a little. “Oh yeah? You’re just talking about natborns like me, right? Can’t imagine something like this,” you wiggled the questionnaire, “shakes men of your training.”

“Oh I wouldn’t say that,” he chuckled, then jabbed a thumb at the wall across from you both, which had the service’s slogan painted in cheerful lettering: ‘Love is a battlefield where we fight for you!’. “Our saying is right, and this is a battlefield we were most definitely not trained for. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to calm one of my brothers down while sitting in these very chairs. And don’t even get me started on easing their nerves before their first dates!”

That time you both laughed together and your shoulders felt lighter now too. “I’m sure you’re very skilled at that- at calming people, I mean, Mr…?” You asked, realizing he hadn’t given his name when you walked in.

“No need for a ‘Mr’, just call me Kix.”

“Well, Kix, your brothers are lucky to have someone like you to help with this new step in life.”

He gave a little shrug, “I hope so. I’ll be able to help them more when I get my degree in counseling.”

“You’re studying to become a therapist?” you couldn’t hide the excitement in your tone. You knew the clone rights and personhood act had a whole section to it regarding mental health resources, which was amazing, yes, but, everything had flaws. Tiio had mentioned that, as well-meaning and helpful as natborn therapists were, there were some aspects of their lives that no one but another clone would ever quite understand. “That’s wonderful, I’m glad your brothers have someone like you working so hard to help them.”

Kix let out a little noise that might have been a cough or a hum or something else. He might have been a little flustered by your comment. If he had been, he recovered quickly and said, “That’s my hope and in the meantime, I volunteer here.” He shook his head at that, trying to get his thoughts back on track. “But we’re not here to talk about my life’s story. I just wanted you to know that it’s okay to be nervous, and, if I could offer some advice?”

“I’d love any you have at this point.”

He tapped at your list of questions yet to be filled out. “Don’t overthink these, okay? I know it’s tempting to get into your head and overanalyze every answer, or worry that you’re not being accurate, but chances are, you know yourself well enough to give us any information we need, without too much trouble.”

You hadn’t realized just how stuck your own breath felt in your chest, until you let out a cleansing sigh at his words. Wow, if Kix was this good now, he was going to make a spectacular therapist. 

“Alright,” you said with a nod, “I’ll get out of my head and just say what feels natural!”

“There you go!”

If Kix had any other advice to give, it was lost when the feminine voice from before called his name from the office and he had to excuse himself. With some (not all, but some) of your nervous energy calmed, you turned your focus back to the file in front of you. At one point the other client walked through again, taking his leave, right before someone else came in for their appointment. Thankfully it didn’t take a horribly long amount of time to finish the rest of the questions and pass it off to Kix.

Now there was just the waiting. 

You didn’t know what the process was, exactly, or even how many matchmakers were there right now, but it felt like time was crawling by as you waited for someone to call you back to the offices. Eventually, you had to distract yourself by playing a game on your personal datapad, and that at least kept some of your wandering, anxious thoughts at bay.

The moment you heard your name, your head snapped up to see a woman standing beside the reception desk. She was dressed in a flowy blouse with wide sleeves and flared pants, giving her a more casual look than you’d expected. Her dark hair framed her face in waves and her smile was warm, reaching her eyes as she said, “I’m Maura, and I’ll be taking care of you while you’re here at Right to Love. Are you ready to start?”

You gave a nervous noise as you stood, “I thought I’ve already started with that whole personality quiz,” you joked.

All Maura did was widen her smile before waving for you to follow her. Her office was towards the back and inside she had obviously made an attempt to make it feel warm and inviting. Soft-looking, romantic pictures hung on the wall and the dark wood of the furniture made it feel more cozy and less sterile. There was also a stuffed tooka and a handmade blanket on one of the guest chairs.

She gave you a chance to settle into the cushioned chair, before she got down to business. “So, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you. While reading your answers, I couldn’t help but notice a certain…pattern. If you’re comfortable with it, may I ask what some of your previous relationships have been like?”

You weren’t sure if she was just that good, or if maybe you were just too obvious. Still, you supposed if she was going to help you find love, she needed to know your experience with it.

“They’ve been…” Kriff, how do you even put it? “Unfulfilling…? No, no, that's not the right word.”

Maura looked perfectly patient as she watched you flounder, “Take your time, my dear.”

Not being able to hold her gaze, you found yourself looking over at the tooka plushie in the seat beside you as you gathered your thoughts. You didn’t want to come off as someone who couldn’t admit their faults, or as if you couldn’t recognize when the blame was yours, so, you chose your words carefully.

“I…tend to attract people who don’t appreciate certain parts of me…” When she didn’t interrupt you, you went on. “See, I always try my best to see the good in people. I always want to give out second chances, I want to give them a space to grow and be happy,  those things are really important to me. I want to be someone who sees the beauty in the world and a lot of my partners have mocked me for that.”

Maura tilted her head. “They think it’s a negative trait, not something to be admired.”

“They think I’m naive-” your eyes met hers again, finally getting some certainty in your tone. “I’m not, though. I refuse to give in to this stereotype that just because someone’s nice and wants to see the good in others, that that means they’re stupid or don’t know how cruel the galaxy is. I do know how cruel it can be, that’s the whole reason I want to see the good, I don’t want to just give up and think there isn’t any good, and become cruel and jaded too. What kind of galaxy does that give us then?” Suddenly, you snapped your mouth shut. “Sorry, I kinda rambled, didn’t I?”

“Not at all. Please, keep going, this kind of honesty is what I want from everyone who comes here!”

A smile to match hers made its way onto your face. “I’ve just had a lot of partners who make me feel like I have to change for them, or like my views on the world somehow made me childish.” You swallowed hard then, smile fading as the memories of fights with your last partner came back to the surface. “Or, they’ve taken advantage of my good nature.” Some relationships left scars, deep ones. “I think I’ve gotten to the point where I’m scared of risking that again. Scared that my next date will be with someone who sees those parts of me, and just sees them as something to manipulate to their advantage.”

You hadn’t noticed that you grabbed the tooka plush until it was in your lap and you were practically hugging it. Maybe that was the reason it was there, talking about love and relationships did mean a certain kind of vulnerability after all.

Maura called your name again, gently, warmly, and you met her patient gaze again. “You’ve obviously been through a lot with past relationships. But I promise you, we do extensive screening here, and I’m going to make sure we find someone who can appreciate those parts of you.” She leaned back in her chair then, looking thoughtful, “I’ll also say that I admire your emotional intelligence. Whoever called you childish obviously doesn’t know the meaning of the word, you’re quite mature, my dear.” She hummed and stared at nothing in particular for a moment, “Give them a space to grow…” she repeated your words to herself almost absentmindedly, then sat up straight again. “Alright, I have a few more questions, but, I’ll say this now: I’m going to make it my personal mission to find someone who will care for you as deeply as you obviously care for others.”

That made your face warm, though you weren’t sure why. It was her job (well, volunteer work) to find you someone to love, but that specific vow made you feel…reassured. Cared for.

Maybe, you really were in good hands here at Right to Love.

[earth-18104]

Young super heroes

Since I already made a list of characters for the X-Kids, might as well make one for other Young super-heroes groups. In my universe, Earth-18104, things are almost the same as the original universe, this includes the heroes, but I changed some things based on their ages to fit in my universe and make more sense.

This is list main goal is just to help me keep track of everyone’s ages while I write :P Here is the list of students of the Xavier's Intitute.

• The Power Pack.

The first group of young superheroes, outside the X-Men, was the Power Pack, the siblings Alex (12), Julie (10), Jack (8) and Kate Power (6). In 2009, while their parents were trying a new efficient source of power, the Anti-Matter Engine, the siblings encountered an alien that claimed that his some planet was destroyed by the same energy source their parents had found. Before his death, the alien passed his abilities to the children. 

After that, the Power Siblings became the Power Pack and went on different adventures as superheroes, while their parents remained clueless about their powers for the next years. The original members were just Alex as Zero-G, Julie as Lightspeed, Jack as Counterweight and Kate as Energizer.

In 2016, with the opening of the Future Foundation, Reed Richards’ new group of heroes, the Power Siblings split to different teams. Alex (19), Jack (15) and Kate (12) joined Richards and his “students”, while Julie (17) went along with the Runaways. 

In 2022, since the original Power Pack were all adults at this point, a new team was formed by Valeria Richards (15) as Brainstorm, Lunella Lafayette (11) and Devil Dinosaur, Jo-Venn and N’Kalla Grimm (11); and Jack Powers (25) and Franklin Richards (18) as their mentors. 

*Franklin Richards is older than his comic counterpart. The Infinity Gaulent Arc also happened in this universe and last six years, between 2004-2006. Franklin was one of the people turned into dust by Thanos, so he is also younger than he should be. N’Kalla and Jo-Venn are Ben Grimm and Alicia Reis adopted children.

• The Runaways.

In 2012, a group of teenagers, children of a group of super villains known as The Pride, discovered their parents’ evil plans and decided to escape together and frame their parents of murder. The “team” was formed by:

•  Alex Wilder (16), the leader, a big fan of superheroes.

• Nico Minoru (16), whose parents were dark wizards. She then became the holder of the Staff of One.

• Karolina Dean (16), whose parents were aliens exiled from their home planet, so she had her powers suppressed by a special bracelet.

• Chase Stein (17), the “brawn” of the team, who later gained the telepathic link to Old Lace, Gertrude’s dinosaur.

• Gertrude Yorkes (16), a smart and cynical girl, whose parents were time travellers and had genetically engineered a dinosaur, Old Lace, to share a telepathic link to her.

• Molly Hayes (11), the youngest of the group, also a fan of superheroes, who possessed super strength.

As time passed, the team lost some members and gained new, such as: the cyborg Victor Mancha; a skurll war prince named Xavin; Klara Prast, a girl coming from the past; Rufus the Cat and others.

*I thought the X-Men were weird, but the Runaways win this one.

• Young Avengers.

While the students of Academy X were facing the events after M-Day, a new group of superheroes was born. Nathaniel Richards (16) travelled back in time and ended up stuck in 2014. With so many tragedies happening in the last years, and knowing what future was coming, Nathaniel used Vision’s plan to recruit the next generation of Avengers to create the Young Avengers, looking for members that could replace the original Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

• Kate Bishop / Hawkeye II (18), was not what he was looking for initially, but with her stubbornness, she became an important member and then later the leader.

• Jonas Vision was created by Nathaniel using Vision’s old body, to assist him in his mission.

• Eli Bradley / Patriot (16), the grandson of Isaiah Bradley, the “Black Captain America”, received the original Shield and became part of the team.

• Theodore Altman / Hulkling (16), the unknown son of the Skrull princess Anelle and Mar-Vell, had the abilities to shape-shift since a young age, and decided to join the team to use his powers to be a hero. Years later, Teddy assumed the throne of the Skrulls and Kree alongside his husband, Wiccan. 

• Billy Kaplan / Wiccan and Tommy Shepherd / Speed (16) are the reincarnations of Wanda Maximoff’s sons, that had been created using the magic of the Darkhold, before being erased from reality. Billy and Tommy reincarnated in different families, but kept the same appearances as the ‘originals”, as well the abilities they never manifested.

• Cassie Lang / Stinger (14), is the daughter of Ant-Man II. Since she was a child, Cassie wanted to be a hero like her father, so when she saw the opportunity to join a team of Avengers, she went along, even if she wasn't invited at first.

The Young Avengers were not accepted by the older heroes, but they continued their journey as crime fighters for years, facing different types of dangers together. In 2015, during the events of Kang’s Dinasty, they were among the many, many heroes that went to fight the tyrant, and Nataniel had to face his alternative self.

In 2016, during the Skrull Invasion, the Young Avengers helped defend New York and its civilians. They were invited by Henry Pym to join his new Avengers Academy in 2017, but mainly declined, but in the same year, the events of Young Avengers: Children's Crusade, not long after.

In 2019, the original team split up, Nathaniel (21) went to stay with the Richards/Storm in the Baxter Building and joined the Future Foundation with Jonas, Cassie (19) and Eli (21) went to Avengers Academy. While Kate (23) became leader of the West Coast Avengers, she was still part of the team with Billy, Teddy and Tommy (21). But they also had new members for the new team: 

• America Chavez (18), who had the abilities of teleportation, and soon became leader of this new team.

• The reincarnation of God of Mischief, Loki and his underworld “servant” Leah, a witch.

• Noh-Varr / Marvel Boy (21), a Kree Warrior that fallen on Earth and became a hero under Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau’s tutelage. 

• David Alleyne / Prodigy (20), super genius, he was a former student at Academy X, but lost his powers after M-Day.

• Aña Corazón / Araña (15), one of the many ‘spider-people’ of New York, she joined the team on her free time. 

• Doreen Green / Squirrel Girl (21), a girl with the ability to communicate with squirrels, she has been trying to be a superhero since a very young age.

*I know that later Nate Richards / Iron Lad disappears and Jonas dies, but in this universe they stay. Nate is adopted by the FF and Jonas kinda becomes part of the family, and also Viv Vision is his sister too🙂

*Loki stays as a hero, he just grows normally like any kid, and him and Leah live together in New Asgard or somewhere else. In the comics, Aña and Doreen never joined the YA. Tommy and Billy also treat Viv, Vin and Jonas as siblings.

• Future Foundation.

Not really a team of superheroes, but more an agency to fund scientists and young genius that had potential, Reed Richards hoped that these individuals could plan a better future for the planet if he helped them and kept them in the right path. 

In 2016, the first members of the foundation were Richards himself, Susan Storm, Peter Parker, the reformed Dr. Olivia Octavius OC, Alex Powers (19) and his younger siblings Jack (15) and Kate (12), and the android Dragon Man. The younger members were: Valeria Richards / Brainstorm (9), Franklin Richards / Power House (12), the Moloids Tong, Turg, Mik and Korr, Bentley 23 (10), the Morlocks Artie Maddicks (20) and Dorian Leech (19).

Later, new members joined the Foundation, like Leech and Artie’s old friend, Takeshi Matsuya / Wiz-Kid (16), in 2017; Hunter Creed / Rescue (13) OC in 2019; Nathaniel Richards (21) and Jonas Vision in the same year;and Lunella Lafayette (10) in 2021, with Devil Dinosaur, of course.

*The Future Foundation is not a school or something like that, it is more like a program, if you show potential for science and other things related, Richards finances your project.

*Artie and Leech are older here, since the Massacre of the Morlocks happened in 1997, them and Wiz-Kid, were victims of the Snap, so they're is six years youngers than they should be, same thing to Franklin. Hunter Creed is one of my favorite OCs, he's just there :)

• Avengers Academy.

Following Norman Osborn’s plan of forming a new team of heroes, right after Dark Reign in 2016, the Avengers decided to open a place to train children with superpowers and protect them from the world, and so prevent them from losing control and becoming villains. So Henry Pym founded the Avengers Academy, a program similar to the Initiative.

Alongside Pym and other Avengers, Alex Powers (20), Julie Powers (19), Claudette and Nicolle St. Croix (27) were also instructor for the students. In 2017, the first year of the school, the students were:

• Humberto Lopez / Reptil (16), who has the ability to turn into different reptiles.

• Jeanne Foucault / Finesse (16), has the ability to master any skill. 

• Ken Mack / Mettle (17), suffered a transformation that gave him super strength and durability.

• Brandon Sharpe / Striker (17) who can manipulate and generate electricity.

• Mad Berry / Veil (17) is able to transform her body into gases.

• Jennifer Takeda / Hazmat (17), her unique biology can produce deadly substances.

The next year, the program received good results, so the school expanded and received new students: Aña Corazón / Araña (14), Jack Powers / Mass Master (17), Kate Powers / Energizer (15), Takeshi Matsuya / Wiz Kid (17), Joaquín Torres / Falcon II (14), Victor Alvarez / Power Man II (14), Ava Ayala / White Tiger (17), Kevin Masterson / Thunderstrike (16), Juston Seyfert / Sentinel (14), Michiko Musashi / Turbo (16), Jonhathon Gallo / Ricochet (18), Jimmy Santini / Batwing (14) and Emery Schaub / Butterball (15).

In 2019, Alani Ryan / Loa (18), Shela Sexton / Escapade (16) also joined the school, and after that, Brielle Brooks / Bloodline and Rebecca Marchand (18), in 2020, and in 2022, Norman Harold Osborn / Red Goblin (10) also joined.

• The Champions.

After their debut as superheroes, Kamala Khan, known as Ms. Marvel (17), the Nova Cadet  Sam Alexander, (15), and the new Spider-Man Miles Morales (16), started to accompany the Avengers on their missions, but soon became disillusioned by their behavior, believing they were not doing enough for the people. In 2021, Kamala Khan then formed a new team and became their leader. The first members, besides the original trio, were:

• Amadeus Cho (21), a young super genius that had suffered an accident with Gamma Radiation and became the new Totally Awesome Hulk, and later was called Brawn. His twin sister Maddy Cho sometimes joined the team as support.

• Hunter Creed / Rescue (15) OC, son of the villain Sabretooth, also a genius and former student at Jean Grey School, he helped with technology and equipments.

• Viv Vision, daughter of Vision, she is a sintezoide that helped the team with technology and to keep track of different events around the world in case the Champions need to help outside the country.

• Riri Williams / Iron Heart (16), a very intelligent girl who created her own equipments based on Iron Man’s armor.

The first team also had a young version of Scott Summers that travelled from another timeline, but he soon went back to the past and his actions created a different timeline. Later the team started operating globally, and new members joined:

• Nadya Pym / Wasp (19), Henry Pym’s lost daughter that has been raised in the Red Room since birth, she was brought to New York by Janet van Dyne, joined the team and took her place as the Wasp.

• Fernanda Rodriguez / The Locust (17), a young vigilante that inherited the tittle and armor of Red Locust from her family, to protect people in need.

• Victor Alvarez / Power Man II (19), student from the Avengers Academy, he gained super strength after absorbing the life force of the 107 people who were killed in a protest against Norman Osborn.

• Joaquín Torres / Falcon II (18), also a student from the Avengers Academy, he had suffered a transformation after being kidnapped by the Son of the Serpent and gained wings, becoming a hero working under Sam Wilson’s tutelage. 

• Rayshaun Lucas / Patriot II (17), Sam Wilson’s apprentice, he gained his own shield and has been training to be a hero one day.

• Qureshi Gupta / Pinpoint (14), who has the power to create portals, he became a superhero by himself back on his hometown.

• Abigail Boylen / Cloud 9 (17), a young human girl that once came in contact with an alien gas that gave her the ability to fly. At first, she was not interested in becoming a hero, but accepted being part of the team.

• Lana Baumgartner / Bombshell (19) was born with the capacity to create explosions and has been acting as a solo hero since she was young.

• Amka Aliyak / Snowguard (17), who gained the ability to turn into different animals after rescuing the Inua spirit, Sila.

At some point, Riri, the Cho twins, Nadya and Hunter helped Viv fix and reprogram her late brother Vincent Vision and bring him back, and later he became an honorary member of the team. One day, in 2023, during a mission, Viv went haywire and exploded, destroying Kamala Khan’s school and causing the authorities to pass a new Law, the Underage Superhuman Wellfire Act, that prohibited any individual under the age of 21 from acting as a superhero without supervision.

Kamala was outraged and promised that the Champions would keep fighting. Then, more members kept joining the team: Cindy Moon / Silk (23), Kareem / Red Dagger (19), Anã Corazón / Araña (18), Tiana Toomes / Starling (18), Lunella Lafayette (12) and Devil Dinosaur, Robbie Reyes / Ghost Rider (19), David Alleyne / Prodigy (24), Valeria Richards / Brainstorm (16), Jo-Venn and N’Kalla Grimm (12), Sooraya Qadir / Dust (24) and Gabby Kinney / Honey Badger (13).

• Strange Academy.

In order to train new sorcerers, Doctor Stephen Strange opened his Strange Academy with the help of other powerful individuals, like Nico Minoru and Doctor Vodoo, accepting to teach any child with the abilities for mysticism and magic.

Some of the student, all with different abilities, were: the twins Iric and Alvi Brorson (15); Doyle (15), the son of the terrific Dormammu; a frost giant called Guslag (14) sent to the school by Loki; Emily Bright (15) who was born with the ability to control magic; Zoe Laveau (16), a young lady from a long lineage of female magicians; Despair (16) or Dessy, daughter of the demon S’ym; Germán Aguilar (15), who can create animal projections; Calvin Morse (14) that was later possessed by Mister Misery; and Shaylee Moonpeddle (15), a half-fairy young girl, and others.

• The Next Avengers.

Other possible future heroes, working solo or as members of these famous teams, are: 

• Mayday Parker, who becomes Spider-Girl in 2024, she was born in 2009.

• Kaelynn Alexander, Sam Alexander’s sister and daughter of a Nova, born in 2009.

• Eleanor “Ellie” Camacho, Deadpool’s daughter, possible mutant who hadn’t activated her powers yet, born in 2009.

• Davey Maddox, Multiple Man’s son, born in 2009.

• Dylan Brock and Sleeper, sons of Eddie Brock, Anne Weying and Venom, born in 2011.

• Norman Harold Osborn / Red Goblin, Harry’s Osborn’s son, current student at Avengers Academy, born in 2012.

• Danielle Cage, daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, born in 2015.

• William Nelson, Tigra’s son, born in 2016.

• Gerald Drew, Jessica Drew’s son, future hero named Black Mamba, born in 2016.

• Shogo Lee, Jubilee’s adopted son, who has the ability to turn into a dragon, born in 2019.

• Benjamin “Benny” Parker, Mayday Parker’s younger brother, born in 2019.

[fangirlingfromdownunder]

No Comfort in Demonic Possession

Summary - Part 26 in the Comfort series

Pairing - Dean Winchester x Reader, Reader x Sam (platonic), Reader x Bobby (father-figure), Andre (OG Character) x Reader (best friends)

Series Masterlist | Masterlist 

A/N: I just want to apologise in advance for any future delays in the chapters or scheduling. I will try my best to keep up; however, my university semester returns soon and so I will have a little less time on my hands, especially once my assessments start piling up.

You stand on the curb scanning the traffic frantically for a cab while listening to the dial tone on your phone. After way too many rings for your liking, Sam finally picks up.

“Hey, Y/N. What’s up? Dean piss you off already?”

“I don’t have time for your sibling rivalry right now, Sam. A demon took Dean. I gotta get him back. It’s all my fault it was a trap. I should’ve seen it. I’m so stupid.”

“Enough! If a demon took Dean we don’t have time for the guilt and blame game. Tell me everything, I’m on my way.”

A taxi finally drives past so you wave your arm out to get the driver’s attention. When the taxi driver pulls over you tell him the name of the hotel where you and Dean were staying and get in. You can hear Sam moving around and packing in the background but you continue knowing he can multitask. 

“We were investigating the chapel and we split up. We thought it would be fine. We thought it was a spirit that was after recently married men. At least that’s the information Andre gave us, but now I’m starting to think he’s been possessed since he called me a few days ago. It really would explain a lot. I just can’t believe I led us right into a trap.”

“Hey, you didn’t know. How could you? It’s gonna be okay, I promise. Just tell me what else happened.”

“When I was casing the chapel for EMF I got cornered by a demon who claimed she’s been tracking me since before I lost the baby. She said her boss wanted it, she was quite specific about wanting the Winchester heir. I never even thought about it that way, it was just our baby. But now I just have a thousand more questions that need answers before I can even consider trying again. I know you’ve got demon blood, but Dean?”

“We’ll figure it out. What do you know about Dean getting taken?”

“We split up and I haven’t heard from him. He’s not answering his phone. The demon said someone had him. I sent him straight into a trap.”

“There is no way you could have known. And Dean’s a damn good hunter too, he knows what he’s doing. And I promise even if it was a trap he won’t blame you. I guarantee he’s way more worried about you right now and is fighting his way back to you. In the meantime, just do what you can. Check on your friends and keep working. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Dean’s strong, he’s gonna be alright. We’ll find him, I promise. Just be careful and stay safe.”

“Thanks, Sam, I’ll be careful,” you say and then you hang up. 

As soon as the driver pulls up in front of your hotel you hand him a $50 note and jump out. You impatiently wait for the elevator, tapping your fingers on your thigh as you watch the little illuminated numbers count down to one. The second the doors slide open you slip in and press the number 12 and the close doors button. After what feels like an eternity the doors finally slide open again and you rush down the hall to Andre and Danny’s room and knock loudly and continuously, impatience and fear overtaking all of your senses. After a few seconds, the door swings open to reveal Danny. Relief washes over you briefly as you push your way into the room looking for Andre. 

“Are you okay?” Danny asks.

“Is Andre here?”

“He’s in the shower, why?”

“He hasn’t got any tattoos by any chance? One like this?” you ask as you lift your pant leg to show him the anti-possession tattoo on your ankle. 

“No, why? He told me a little about what you guys used to do, is he alright?”

“I think he may have been possessed by a demon, I’m not sure for how long or if he still is. I need to make sure he’s okay … Because it’s all my fault.”

“Possessed?”

“Yeah, demons can take over human vessels and make them do and say things that they normally wouldn’t. I think a demon is or was using him to get me here. But I promise I can exorcise it and he’ll be back to himself without any complications.”

“How can I help? How do we tell if he’s possessed?”

“Easiest is holy water, but I’m guessing you don’t have any of that on hand, so if he’s possessed he will flinch at the name of God. Just act natural and get him to come out here. If he is possessed I’ll exorcise the demon and he’ll be fine.”

While Danny goes into the ensuite to lure his boyfriend out you search the kitchenette for salt, you only find a few single-serve sachets, you just hope it’s enough. Then you pull out your phone and scroll through your files for the copy of the exorcism Sam gave you. Just as you find it Danny and Andre come into the room. 

“Cristo,” you say firmly as they walk in. When he doesn’t flinch you breathe a small sigh of relief. But you’re not entirely convinced so you turn back to the kitchen and fill a glass with water and then with your back still to them, you tip one of the salt sachets into the water. You swirl it around a few times and then turn back to the boys and hand the glass to Danny. He gives you a sceptical look so you subtly nod your head towards Andre and he holds the glass up to Andre’s lips to encourage him to drink it. You both watch him cautiously while he drinks it but his only reaction is to scrunch up his face in disgust. 

“I’ll have a glass sans the salt now if you please,” Andre says. Then he adds, “I’m not possessed anymore. The filthy bitch smoked out while I was in the shower.”

You nod and then show off your ankle tattoo again, “I told you to get one of these a long time ago.”

Andre nods with a grimace, “Yeah, you’re right. I think Danny and I have our afternoon plans sorted. Time to find a tattoo parlour. Are you good, where’s Dean?”

“He’s … following up on the case you uhh … the demon sent us. I’m gonna go meet up with him now. Do you mind if I borrow your car? I can drop you off at a tattoo shop on the way.”

“We can walk. There should be one on the boulevard. So, yeah, feel free to borrow the van,” Andre says as he walks over and hands you the keys. “I was conscious in there you know … I’m sorry about everything that was said. I wasn’t in control.”

“In control or not, I know how you feel about my choice of partner, the demon didn’t make that up. All things considered, it could’ve been much worse. Just make sure you both get that tattoo. You don’t have to hunt or want any part of this life but at least be smart and protect yourselves.”

They both nod and you walk out and make your way down to the car park to their hired van. On your way, you send Sam a quick text to say that your friends are safe and no longer possessed so you’re going to start looking for Dean. 

As you sit in the driver’s seat you realise you don’t even know where to start looking. All you have is the guy’s name from the marriage certificate earlier, but that’s also all Dean had when he left the chapel. Hopeless, depressing thoughts start to nibble their way into your heart and mind. In an effort to dispel them, you turn on the engine and just start driving. You know you won’t find anything sitting here in the hotel car park, the least you can do is drive around and try to find Baby. Even if the demons took him elsewhere it’s the best chance you have at retracing his steps and tracking them down. 

You spend the next hour driving up and down streets and through every hotel and motel car park you can find but unfortunately, there’s no sign of that beautiful Impala anywhere. With your heart racing and mind wandering to the darkest thoughts you pull over. Taking a few deep breaths you try to ground yourself and focus on the task at hand. 

You’re a hunter! You were a hunter before Dean and you can do this on your own now too. You’re good at your job, you can find him. 

Then after a few minutes of hyping yourself up, it’s like a lightbulb explodes in your head. You kick yourself for not thinking of it sooner rather than wasting time driving around endlessly. You pull out your phone and try to track the GPS on his phone. You wait a few seconds for it to ping, but nothing happens. In desperation, you try to call him again, but it goes straight to his voicemail. In a fit of frustration, you throw your phone onto the passenger seat and slam your hands on the steering wheel. Taking a few more deep breaths you try to calm yourself down and hype yourself up again. 

Come on, Y/N! Pull it together! Sam’s still hours out and Dean needs you! Dean wouldn’t give up if it was you, he’ll be fighting to get back right now, so keep fighting for him. 

Once you finish your pep talk you put the car back in drive and start towards the hotel hoping you can come up with a plan before you get there. By the time you park the van back in its allotted bay your only plan is to treat this like any other case and start back at the top. 

Back in your room you pull out your laptop and start researching Cooper Gary from that girl’s marriage certificate. That’s the last thing you know Dean was doing so it seems like the only place you can start. You figure he would’ve taken the hands-on approach and gone door to door asking about him (forcefully if necessary) but that’s never been your style if you can avoid it. It’s not that you’re conflict-adverse, I mean you’re dating Dean Winchester for Christ’s sake, almost every day includes conflict. You just prefer not to bring too much attention to yourself in public in an attempt to keep the difficult and awkward questions to a minimum and keep innocent minds innocent. 

As you scroll through the results that come up for Cooper Gary you reach out for the stuffed bunny sitting on the bed beside you and squeeze it close to your chest. It gives you the slightest comfort but really only serves to make your heart ache even more for the man that gave it to you. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

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