#but even then at least it was a magneto planet

[cera-writes]

"Ma chère, you are mine." 🃏part 5

pairing: Remy "Gambit" LeBeau x F!Reader Tags: slow burn, angst, jealousy Remy never thought there'd be someone else besides Rogue who'd just waltz into his life, but there you were.

Days had passed. Threats were getting worse by the day as mutants and humans couldn't come to a middle ground. If Genosha had taught you anything, it was that mutants would never truly be free. Not here. Not on this earth.

The X-Mansion had been destroyed all in a matter of days too. Zombie sentinels had infiltrated the mansion, nearly killing anything they saw in their path. Luckily, you and Nightcrawler had teamed up and took down at least a room full by yourselves.

You had been trailing Rogue and Professor X that night as you walked the path towards the lake. You were in your own headspace, thinking of every event that had led you here to this moment. It seemed as things were only getting worse ever since Remy had brought you back from the dead.

You and Remy hadn't really spoken much since the day before, but you had managed to catch up with Kurt, whom you had greatly missed in the meantime, and had kicked ass during the times in between.

Just as you were kicking a pebble off the beaten path, the sky opened up. The planet's magnetic field hummed in response as flashes of lightning rained across the sky like chains. You stopped in your tracks, gazing up at the sight before you. It was Magneto. Shit.

The metallic whirring sliced through the air, shattering the tranquil serenity of the X-Mansion grounds. The aurora borealis cascaded around the sky amidst his grand entrance.. He was encased in his iconic helmet, his metallic form radiating an intimidating power.

A low gasp escaped your lips. You hadn't expected him to arrive with such dramatic flair. Below him, Rogue and Charles stood frozen, a tense conversation unfolding between them. You watched with bated breath.

The rest of the X-Men followed close behind you, making a beeline for Charles and Rogue. Remy and Kurt joined your side and the three of you ran towards the confrontation about to play out.

"Looks like the search came to us," Logan inquired, claws at the ready.

Xavier wheeled closer to Magneto, who was now standing on the pier.

"Please. Not this Magnus. Be reasonable." Charles pleaded, looking towards his old friend as if trying to reason with him.

Magneto crossed his arms, "I am not the one who needs to be reasoned with, Charles."

Charles frowned, "there is a large asteroid hovering over my home that begs otherwise."

"Your home?" Magneto nearly scoffed at his words.

Magneto started to levitate as if to gain power over Charles. "When you abandoned us for your Shi'ar Bird-Queen, you bequeathed it to me, asked me to walk your path."

A crackle of lightning flashed in the sky.

"Are you prepared to walk mine?"

Charles gestured around him. "Magnus, your path leads to total destruction for both humans and mutants. You must undo the damage you've done."

Magneto simply frowned in disagreement. "Will humanity undo Genosha?"

His gaze then flickered to yours. Your heart still ached for those that couldn't have been saved, no matter the sacrifice.

"Old friend, you should've seen it. It was just as you said that day in the bar., a promise realized."

You glanced over at Rogue, who had a look of sadness and perhaps even conflict brewing in her green eyes.

Charles spoke once more, "we have a plan to stop Bastion, but we must also repair Earth."

Magneto's eyes were closed in deep thought. "I promised a boy a future free of fear, only to watch his eyes be vaporized inside his tiny skull, because he believed in me," Magneto then flew slowly back down towards all of you, passed Charles, "in the dream you had me sell."

Then, he addressed each of you. "How many more of your bones will pave the way to Xavier's future, where we simper like beggars for tolerance?"

You felt a pang of guilt and sympathy, especially upon remembering the children that died senselessly on Genosha.

"Your professor's dream is dead. So I offer a new one."

Rogue looked up at him, as if contemplating his next words.

"A home to replace what they stole from us. A new Genosha. We have gotten here by walking this man's path. We are left but with two choices. Cling to this dying world, or rise to your future and look down upon this fallen pigsty planet."

Professor Xavier then spoke up again, "We are not gods, Magnus."

Magneto countered, "Gods abandon those who believe in them. Mutants do not. Decide... my X-Men."

What happened next really caught you off guard. Rogue. She was joining Magneto and you nearly reached for her but contemplated what Magneto was offering. He was right, in a way. Mutants would never co-exist peacefully with humans. A new Genosha sounded like paradise. But to let innocents die? You could see his reasoning, but you couldn't allow yourself that luxury. You wouldn't let anymore innocents suffer.

"Rogue, no!" Kurt protested, but Rogue was walking closer to magneto now.

"Chere! Whattaya doin'?" Remy reached out for her but she brushed him off.

"In genosha, I made a choice. To lead our kind to a new age. I stand by that choice." She admitted.

"Rogue, do not turn your back on family." Storm pleaded.

"You were gone, gal. None of you 'cept Kurt, Remy, and Eclipse were there the day Genosha fell. Hell, Eclipse even died to save more innocents from bein' killed in cold blood. I'm surprised you ain't joinin' the club sugah," she glanced at you with a look of sorrow and contempt. Your best friend was ready to leave and switch sides just like that. You almost couldn't believe it.

"Rogue, you can't just abandon the X-Men like this! Abandon us... abandon me," you pleaded, forcing back the lump in your throat.

"Sometimes, sacrifices are needed sugah. You oughta know." she answered before flying up to join Magneto's side.

"So who dies next professor? Jean? Ha. been there done that. Who knows where Bishop is? And hell, Morph was barely on the team for thirty minutes before we tossed them to the wolves. And Remy... I always thought maybe we had somethin' but some things just ain't meant to be," She glanced between you and Gambit and you felt sick. Utterly and distraught-fully sick at her words.

"Jubilee, Roberto... I will not see anymore mutants die."

Another crackle of lightning and thunder clashed ahead as if mixing with the onslaught of emotions flying around in the air.

"So...that's how it is then? What about what we talked about? I thought we came to an understanding. You're just gonna abandon us? Just like that?" You shook your head in disbelief, tears welling in your eyes.

"Some things are better off this way," Rogue answered, turning away from you. You glanced over at Remy who had just as much hurt behind his eyes as you did.

"Please don't do dis' chere." Remy pleaded.

Roberto was the next one to take a stand with Magneto and Rogue, equally catching you off guard. Jubilee, hurt, tried to stop him.

"My mom handed me over to the prime sentinels, Jubilee. They collared me, my own family. What's left here?"

You spared a glance at Jubes, who looked grief stricken at Roberto's words as he turned from her.

"Me..." she said barely above a whisper.

He flew up towards Magneto and Rogue, joining them.

"The offer was made. The door is open."

And with that, Magneto flew the three of them away, leaving the rest of you down on Earth.

The silence after Magneto's retreat was a physical thing, a thick, suffocating blanket snuffing out the vibrant life that had pulsed through the X-Mansion grounds mere moments ago.

Rogue's words echoed in your mind, a cruel melody replaying on a loop. Sacrifice. Some things are better off this way. Each phrase was a searing brand, a betrayal that left a raw, exposed nerve throbbing in its wake. You did what you had to to save everyone at the expense of your own life. But Rogue? She was being reckless.

Beside you, Remy remained rooted to the spot, his face an unreadable mask. You reached out, your hand hovering over his arm, unsure if a touch would offer solace or shatter the fragile shell of his emotions. Finally, Nightcrawler materialized beside you as the smell of brimstone invaded the air around you.

"Well, cher," Remy finally rasped, his voice rough with a barely concealed tremor, "that went about as well as tossing a snowball in the Sahara."

You swallowed the lump in your throat, the sting of unshed tears burning your eyes. "Rogue..." you whispered, your voice barely a breath.

Remy let out a humorless scoff, "Always had a soft spot for the bad boys, didn't you, cher?"

His words were laced with a bitterness that stung, but you knew his pain mirrored your own. The anger was a simmering ember beneath the surface, threatening to erupt at any moment.

Nightcrawler, ever the optimist, squeezed your shoulder gently. "We'll get them back," he said, his voice firm despite the tremor in his hand. "We just need a plan."

The three of you trudged back to the X-Mansion, tailing the others who were either walking or flying ahead. Professor Xavier remained behind, lost in deep thought.

Remy kicked a pebble across the path, the crunch a jarring counterpoint to the oppressive silence. His jaw was clenched tight, a muscle flickering in his temple betraying the storm brewing beneath the surface. You ached to reach out, to offer comfort, but the words stuck in your throat, choked by the rising tide of your own anger and grief.

"Looks like the prodigal daughter's finally come home," Kurt muttered, his voice laced with a bitterness that surprised you. "Except this time, she's brought the wrecking crew with her."

You winced. Kurt, ever the optimist, the heart of the team, even he was tainted by the fallout. A wave of nausea washed over you, a physical manifestation of the fracturing you felt deep within the X-Men.

"It ain't all sunshine and rainbows with Magneto, cher, believe me," Remy finally growled, his voice a low rumble. "But hell if I understand what Rogue's thinkin'."

You wanted to scream, to rage against the injustice of it all. But the anger curdled within you, a bitter cocktail laced with a despair so profound it threatened to drag you under.

"Maybe she has a point," you choked out, the words scraping raw against your throat. "Maybe... maybe there is no future for mutants here."

Remy stopped short, his head snapping towards you. His eyes, usually sparkling with mischief, were now a storm of hurt and confusion. "Whatchu sayin', cher? You think we're jus' gonna give up? Give Magneto the win?"

You flinched under the intensity of his gaze. Giving up. Was that what you were doing? But the fight suddenly felt hollow, a pointless struggle against an ever-growing tide of hate.

"I don't know, Remy," you admitted, your voice barely a whisper. "I just... I just don't know what to believe anymore."

Kurt placed a hand on your shoulder, a silent gesture of comfort. "We'll figure it out, Meine Beste," he said, his voice gentle despite the tremor in it. "We always do."

But the usual conviction was missing from his words, replaced by a weary uncertainty that mirrored your own. As you continued your trek back to the X-Mansion, the once familiar building now loomed ahead, a stark symbol of the shattered dream within its walls. The future you'd fought for, the future you'd believed in, felt like a wisp of smoke, fading into the twilight sky.

Reaching the mansion doors, you paused, the weight of the decision before you pressing down on you. Step inside, and you'd face the wreckage of your team, the shattered trust, the gaping wound left by Rogue and Roberto's betrayal. But turn away, and what then? Was there even a future for mutants outside of Xavier's dream?

With a deep breath, you pushed open the doors, stepping back into the remnants of a fractured family, the weight of a thousand unspoken questions a heavy burden on your heart. The fight for a peaceful future wasn't over, but for the first time, you truly questioned if it could be won.

[thorias]

SEASON 2 WISH LIST:

-Madelyne is resurrected as a Horseman along with Gambit: I think there's a better story to tell with Madelyne being brought back (at least temporarily) than staying dead. The X-men having to fight her too would give Cyclops and Cable a more personal stake in this Apocalypse storyline, not that they really needed one, but still...

I said in another post that I wouldn't want to dilute the "Saving Gambit" story by making a bunch of other X-men Horsemen as well, but if it's just Madelyne, then I think it's okay. And I wouldn't expect Madelyne to survive this story anyway, since, aside from tying up a couple loose threads with the Summers family, her arc is basically finished now.

Plus, I just kind of like the idea of giving Deathbit a buddy in the spurned lover department; that could be fun.

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-Sabretooth returns. Logan (sans adamantium) has to fight him... and loses: I've always liked the idea that Sabretooth would probably beat Wolverine in a fair fight, (dude is like 3x Logan's size after all) but it's never been a fair fight since the adamantium basically made Logan unstoppable. But take the adamantium away and suddenly Wolverine is the underdog for a change, which makes the match-up a lot more interesting. And what's even the point of doing the bone claws story if it's not to see how Logan deals with being in a weakened state like this?

Granted, I want to see this for selfish reasons since Sabretooth is one of my favorite villains, but come on! Victor is long overdue for a W against Wolverine, and if he can't get it now, then I'm calling BS lol.

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-Mystique returns, working for Apocalypse: I think Demayo shot down the Val-Cooper-is-Mystique-in-disguise theory, (correct me if I'm wrong about that) but it would be pretty ridiculous if we didn't see her in season 2 since she worked with Apocalypse in XTAS on multiple occasions.

Plus, there's a ready-made story there with her and Rogue. In the 90s cartoon, Mystique wanted to get Rogue back as her daughter so badly that she was even willing to turn Rogue into a Horseman to do it. So just imagine if Mystique had a hand in convincing Apocalypse to resurrect Remy as Deathbit, or at least helped him pull it off, because she saw this as a way to get back into Rogue's good graces. That would add some really interesting pathos to a story that's already super emotionally charged.

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-Costume changes: I get that Marvel has toys to sell, but the different suits the team got in season 1 ain't it. Sorry, they're just not. The only one who pulled it off was Storm. Everyone else got a serious glow down. I actually felt low key embarrassed for Scott and Jean trying to make those retro costumes from the 60s/80s eras work; there's a reason those designs stayed in the past, you guys.

And I even like Rogue's green & white suit in the comics, but in the show it just looked awkward with the gloves being a different shade of green than the rest of it. I'd take just about any of her other costumes over this one.

Either change the suits again or go back to the old versions because I'm not feeling these current ones at all.

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-Magneto has a reunion with his kids... and it doesn't go the way he wants: We saw in the season 1 finale that Mags' separation from his children is something that's at least been bothering him, (though not enough for him to lift a finger to save them from being killed along with everyone else on Earth if he succeeded in destroying the planet's electromagnetic field, but I guess we're blaming that on bad writing) so I want him to meet his kids in season 2... only for it to go as horribly as it possibly could.

It would be both ironic and hilarious if Magneto is hoping to patch things up with his kids, only for Pietro and Lorna to try to fight and arrest him the instant they see him (X-Factor doesn't seem to be a thing anymore, but let's say they're still government employees and have the authority to arrest criminals/terrorists) because he did after all murder millions of innocent people with that EMP AND try to murder every other living thing on the planet, including them.

I mean, let's not kid ourselves, there's no way this family reunion is going to be a happy one after what he did. SOMEBODY has to hold Magneto accountable for that, and his own children doing it is about the most fitting thing that I can think of.

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-A big story arc for Gambit: Romy fans got gipped in season 1, and even if you're just a Gambit fan, you still had to settle for scraps with him only playing a major role in one episode, which coincidentally was the one where he got killed off. Yes, the stage is set for Deathbit to have a really compelling story in season 2, but that's going to depend on how it's done and frankly, after I got burned so many times in the first season, I'm skeptical that the writers will give this the care and attention it deserves.

Demayo said it was "key" that Remy died thinking he didn't deserve to be a hero and that Rogue had chosen Magneto instead of him. These things have gone unaddressed in the show since then, so I'm going to assume they're being saved for the Deathbit story and THE PAYOFF FOR THIS BETTER BE DAMN GOOD.

I want to see all of Remy's low self-esteem, self-loathing and resentment over the Rogneto debacle get twisted into a dark rage that Deathbit throws back in everyone's faces. AJ himself said that Remy didn't feel valued by the X-men or Rogue when he died, so use that! Make it part of the story! Make them own up to it. Force Rogue to confront her own feelings about how she handled that situation, (so far, she's been avoiding doing this) so it can factor into how they bring him back.

I know a lot of us assume that freeing Remy from Apocalypse's influence is going to come down to Rogue finally telling him that she loves him. And, yeah, that should be a big part of it, but it shouldn't be the only part. That's fine as far as Rogue is concerned, but Remy needs an arc too, and I just want it to be worth the wait after they put us through all this.

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-Deathbit vs Magneto: This needs to happen. Aside from the fact that Romy fans will have been clamoring for it for a long time, frankly, both characters are going to want it too. Mags will no doubt view Deathbit as the reason why he can't get Rogue back, and Deathbit... well, we all know what his reasons are; he'll likely want to take Magneto apart just for the pure satisfaction of it.

Now since Magneto's so OP, Gambit wouldn't stand much of a chance in a straight fight under normal conditions, but we know Apocalypse evolves/enhances mutants' powers when they become Horsemen, so imagine if he unlocked Gambit's Omega potential, so Remy has his New Son powers now, or at least a heightened version of what he had before. So Magneto goes in brimming with confidence that he's going to wipe the floor with his rival for Rogue's affections, but then in a shocking twist, Deathbit breaks out his newly enhanced power set and turns the tables on him.

Do I really want to see Mags get taken down a peg and humbled by Gambit? Sure. But narratively, this makes a ton of sense to do. Since Demayo loves Magneto so much, I highly doubt it will happen, (certainly not with this outcome at least) but I think it would be super satisfying for fans.

[bardly-working]

Why did all the X-Men suddenly get supremely stupid?

Why did…

Xavier think that splitting the team in two and mind controlling Magneto was a better option than, like, saying “hey, the sentinels are still active actually so if you do still care about the few mutants left you should help with this”?

Logan go for a killing blow on Magneto when it was repeatedly stated that they need Magneto’s powers to fix the planet?

Xavier even bring Logan, a guy who famously has a metal fucking skeleton, to fight Magneto?

Xavier bother trying to convince the President to let him talk Magneto around if he wasn’t going to bother to actually try and talk Magneto around, but rather run in blasting?

everyone start acting like Magneto being in charge of the X-Men wasn’t ultimately a huge success? (because it was! not only did they neutralize an enemy, but they convinced him to stand trial for their crimes AND they won recognition for Genosha by the UN!)

none of the X-Men mention to Magneto that destabilizing the earth’s magnetic field is going to destroy the world in 12 hours, killing every mutant still remaining, even though doing so might have gotten him to help out?

the writers lay the foundation in the last episode for at least one human finally recognizing in the last episode where Magneto was coming from and why he is doing what he’s doing… only for the mutants to go “no actually that guy is irredeemable and we should kill him immediately, no more talking despite the fact that we actually really need his help and cooperation”?

Not only were these just idiotic moves strategically, but they barely make sense thematically!

I get that they want Magneto to be a straight up villain again. I get that Magneto is a villain. And I absolutely get that he has just altered the earth’s magnetic field in a big bad way and that needs to be addressed immediately (though there was barely mention of how the EMP blast was necessary to deactivate the humanoid sentinels). But if the writers want us to side against the guy they’ve spent the entire season making us side with, why are they only saying “think of the poor infrastructure lost in his EMP” and not even bothering to mention the lives that must have been lost in that blast? They’re making the X-Men look like absolute idiots by having them charge in with no intent to have a real conversation, and they’re making the damage Magneto did sound trivial by just focusing on property.

This feels like FATWS all over again. (－‸ლ)

[magneticallyyours]

Hi! I have a Erik Lehnsherr x reader fic request.

First of, you're doing god's work, we need more Magneto x reader fanfiction

So, the request - Erik x gender neutral reader, where Erik applies his "mutants are different and therefore special" kinda worldview on the gender identity of the reader? Like, the reader is like "You believe mutants shouldn't change from how they were born as, would you accept me when I need to change from how I was born due to my gender" and he is like "well, you were born genderqueer, so you're not really changing, you're just being yourself".

Fluff (with possibly little smut if you want to, idk, whatever you're comfortable writing about & you feel would suit the storyline)

Thank you!

Of course, I hope this is what you meant with the ask! Also it's the least I could do for all the Erik enjoyers out there, we're all starving. Thank you so much for the request, I hope you enjoy this. <33

𝙀𝙧𝙞𝙠 𝙇𝙚𝙝𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙧 𝙭 𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧-𝙉𝙚𝙪𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 || 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙧𝙚

WARNINGS: None, just fluff.

WORDCOUNT: 902 words

Summary: Your partner, Erik, is always emphasizing the idea of staying 'as yourself', as he thinks mutants shouldn't change for human acceptance and stay just as they were born. It seems you took his words quite literally, leading to an interesting conversation.

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It was one of those days where you found yourself alone with Erik. It wasn't always that you two found the time to sit idle like this. The times that you did, you made sure to make full use of it. The brotherhood had a pretty busy schedule as you could imagine. Always something or the other to do. They had to stay on their toes at all times, of course. The humans couldn't be trusted. They were among the most wanted on the planet by now, you guessed. That was the conversation you were having with Erik, coincidentally. A pair of smooth, metal orbs hovered in circles above his palm as he spoke, gazing at them absentmindedly.

“Because of their fear, they have slaughtered our kind in droves. Naturally, the inferior species grows wary of those above it. We have evolved, far beyond their understanding. With their burning hatred for us, coexisting with them is an impossible, and frankly idiotic dream,” He spoke with disdain, shaking his head. Passionate rants like these were quite common to hear from Erik, or Magneto as he preferred now. “We shouldn't change. We have nothing to be ashamed of. From birth, we are special just as we are. If anything, humans have to change, by going extinct. Survival of the fittest is the natural order of this world,” Erik sounded matter of fact, meshing the orbs together and apart to keep himself busy as he continued. “For so many years they have oppressed us, in fear that we may be, simply put, better than them. That was always the case, unfortunately. I suppose it is their hubris.” There it was, that same line. We shouldn't change, he'd say. You'd overheard him say the same to Raven at the start. To embrace her true form, to be comfortable in her own skin. Because if she couldn't even accept herself, how could she hope for society to do the same? For weeks now, the question had been simmering in your mind. Did the same apply to you? It kept you up at night. You tiptoed around asking him upfront. Fearing the worst.

“You're awfully quiet today,” He mused out of the blue, breaking you out of your stupor. “Is something worrying you?” The orbs were abandoned, returning to his desk as he turned to fully face you, eyes boring into yours. Eyes as cold as a December morning, with a hint of warmth reserved only for you. They always managed to put you on the spot, like a deer caught in headlights. “I wanted to ask you something,” you began, taking it slow. He didn't say anything to interrupt, simply nodding slightly as he intently listened to you. “When you say that we shouldn't change… to stay as we are from birth, Does that- apply to me, too?” He seemed to think for a beat before answering. “Well, yes, of course. It applies to all of us. But in what sense?” He pressed. “As you know, I changed from the gender I was assigned at birth. I'm genderqueer, Erik. Didn’t I change, too? Doesn't it apply?” You couldn't manage much more than that as you waited to see what he'd say in response. “I don't think you've changed,” was all he said, making you raise an eyebrow in confusion. “But-” He cut you off, it seems he isn't done yet. “You didn't change anything, my dear. You were born as yourself, and as that you remain. It's all a construct. You're still- well, you. You're being yourself. It doesn't matter to me what those humans assigned to you when you were born. You decide who you are, not them.” His hand was on yours, gripping you tight enough so it was comforting, yet intense at the same time. He hadn't once broken eye contact. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”

There were a few beats of charged silence, filled with unblinking stares. You could hear your heartbeat in your ears just slightly, suddenly picking up every subtle noise in the room, from your breathing to the Newton's cradle on his desk. “You're blushing, you know. If this was what was troubling you for so long, you should've told me sooner.” He sighed again, adoration crossing his features for a split second before he continued. “I love you for you, and I hope you don't forget that,” his voice dropped, and so did your stomach. “I love you too, Erik-” You'd began, but he'd shushed you with a kiss instead. And gosh, what a kiss it was. All consuming, he kissed like a man starved. Every single time. It never failed to astonish you. It was intense, like everything about him. Your arms hooked around his neck, as he caged you in with his. Time seemed to have lost all meaning, as at one point you weren't sure how long you held the kiss. It didn't seem to matter, because the next thing you knew, you were on your back on the table with Erik on top of you. You tried to brace yourself, hearing a dull thud as you craned your neck to see what it was. The Newton's cradle had gone crashing to the floor, rolling across the floor. You reach for it, only for your arm to be pulled back by Erik. He tsked. “Let's focus on you, hmm?”

[grahambaham]

Something that has always annoyed me is the habit of many fans to declare that a villain of a certain piece of media is in the right when they are most definitely not.

A few examples that I can think of right now are Thanos, Magneto and Doom. What. The. Fuck.

First of all, Viktor Von Doom barely even has anything to be right about. The guy’s goal in life is to get as powerful as possible and use that power to rule the world or whatever, prove to everyone he’s smarter than Reed Richards (he is not) and to inflate his own ego as much as is psychically possible. Though that last one could be a result of the first two I guess. He basically wants the basic ass stuff all villains want, even if it’s not what they’re focusing on specifically. There is nothing for him to even be right about, my guy. Alright so the wanting to rule the world thing isn’t for his ego, though it helps. It is because he has a fucking god complex and thinks he’s the only one who can truly do it and properly protect the Earth from any future attacks. Everything about Doom basically boils down to his ego.

Now, I understand how Megneto, otherwise known as Max Eisenhart (Erik Magnus Lehnsherr is just an alias), can be a sympathetic villain. He’s gone through a lot and when very simplified his goal seems fairly noble. Dude just wants to protect mutants, make sure they’re safe and living their best lives or whatever. The problem is that he believes mutants are the superior species and treats humans how you might treat a mosquito. He wants to eradicate them completely, and so the world would be there for mutants to rule over and live happily ever after or whatnot. Any of that sound familiar to you? Yeah… Anyway, the point is that even though we can understand how he might’ve come to the point where he’s willing to do such horrible things, that does not mean he is right at all. People seem to think that the humans deserve it for the way they’ve treated mutants, even though there are a lot of good ones who most certainly don’t do that shit AND so many of them are children too. Because you do know that Max would legit murder even the little toddlers? Not for any reason other than ‘they’re human’. So yeah, he was not in the right. He was not the good guy all along or whatever. He is a villain and a horrible person who has also been treated horribly their whole life. Those two things can both be true. Having a bad childhood does not excuse your shitty actions though.

Last and certainly least we’ve got Thanos. First of all, that fucker did not give a shit about overpopulation or whatever in the comics. Bro wanted to court Death so he went around murdering people and destroying planets to impress her. Not very noble of him, I gotta say. Now as for the MCU, his goal is in fact to kill half the universe so more people could get more resources because he’s seen the way the poor live because of that lack of food and other things essential to living. Now, instead of using that infinite fucking power that he had in his hands to create more shit to give to everyone or, I don’t know, anything else? They’re called INFINITY stones for a reason? This fucker instead decided to just commit genocide real quick. I genuinely believe the only people who think this loser was right are actual children. Twelve years old at the most. Because there is no way in holy hell that grown men and women think Thanos was good and smart to use the INFINITE POWER IN HIS HANDS to just KILL A BUNCH OF PEOPLE INSTEAD OF SAVING MORE BY JUST WISHING FOR MORE RESOURCES OR FUCKING WORLD/UNIVERSE PEACE OR WHATEVER THE FUCK? Thanos is secretly twelve years old and hasn’t gained any critical thinking skills yet, I swear to fucking god.

So yeah, I guarantee whichever villain you think was right was not in fact right, they’re simply easy to sympathise with or their cause is. But if their way of making that sympathetic idea come true is murdering/torturing/conquering etcetera, then THAT MEANS THEY AREN'T RIGHT AT FUCKING ALL.

Good night.

[callmearcturus]

just some things i love about the XMAU triumvirate

RAVEN

she is literally The Reason the timeline is different and she is the fulcrum of the changes and is the most important person, i'm not remotely kidding

I really really hate the trope of "smart, level-headed female character who is too good for these dumb men" but Raven's arc from the first movie to the fourth actually justifies it. she starts off lost and stuck in Charles' shadow in XMFC, is emotional and confused and angry and alone in DOFP, is a free agent and a very very reluctant hero in XMA, and by the time she reached DP she's so fucking wise and mature, it's actually CHARACTER PROGRESSION

she did need a push at the start, and when someone helps her grow emotionally, she actually repays that by returning the favor. Erik gave her a way to live without Charles and helped her learn pride in herself, and in return she's the one to be Erik's better angel in XMA after Charles royally screws that shit up. even just the invocation of her is the thing that wakes Erik up from his rage spiral in DP.

likewise, she is the one who over and over and over again voices the Charles You Fuck-Up chorus against Charles. in XMA she calls him tf out for his rose-colored glasses because she's out in the thick of it, she's the boots on the ground where he is not. in DP, she drags his ass for his respectability politics and ego-stroking, and she's fucking right.

taking a character who literally had to hide their identity for most of her life and then making her a literal hero-- all of the younger mutants look up to her, her appearance on TV changed everyone's lives, Ororo literally brings her up the second anyone glances at her painting of Raven. and the clear discomfort Raven feels about that, having tripped into being... kind of what she herself needed growing up, and her complicated feelings about it.

SHE IS LITERALLY THE PERSON CHARLES THINKS HE IS. she is a symbol of the worth of mutants, she is the foot soldier who rescues people in danger and brings them to safety, and when someone is off the deep end and NEEDS to hear the right thing, Charles fucks it up EVERY TIME but Raven doesn't.

she's vulnerable she's a bitch she's a diplomat she's a smuggler she's serving cunt she's got a bigger dick than you she's the ultimate girldad

her makeup and prosthetics in DP are genuinely beautiful, they finally figured out a solution for JLaw's apparently allergy to most techniques and she looks so cool

Ranking Amongst Jean Grey's Dads: Best Dad. Tough love, turns a blind eye when you're doing shots and having a party, probably drives a motorcycle, turned Ororo queer. Will show up to bail you out of jail if you get a trouble but will only ground you for a week.

ERIK

might be the greatest character of all time? he's really high up there, y'all.

lets just lay it out: he's a Jewish holocaust survivor who speaks at least four languages and works as a nazi hunter and is the reason the bullet curved (he was trying to save Kennedy actually). his Magical Girl Power-Up Sequence is tearing Auschwitz apart with his powers, he can control the magnetic fields on the entire planet, he floats in a Sad Snowglobe Of Magnetic Angst. he also becomes a foundry worker with ginger scruff and flannel shirts who sings polish lullabies to his daughter. he also is called in to talk to invading American soldiers and basically tell them Come Back With A Warrant and is savvy enough to avoid letting said soldiers get hurt on his land bc he knows the political ramifications. all of that is FACTUAL.

The first time we hear him speak English, his voice drops into that chasm-deep baritone and I literally went "oh no"

This Bitch Rehabilitated Himself. We joke about how Magneto Was Right but the reality is more complicated. He is certainly more right than Charles, but the gap in his ideology is intersectionality, which is wild given his origin story is Gddamn Nazi Hunter and when he decides to quit The Revolution, he becomes a laborer. All of the elements of his past, warrior to lab rat to revolutionary to dad to laborer, they all synthesize into what he finally becomes. He's a leader who is just as comfortable citing legal precedent and playing spymaster as he is constructing houses.

Punct: "Arc, do you just have a thing for public servants?" Me: "Shut the fuck up. Yes. Shut up."

The sheer physicality of how he uses his powers, how when he is tearing the planet apart, he is serene and calm and when he's in one-on-one combat he's physical and full of motion and feels like he's been doing this for his entire life.

Look: the fight on the train in DP is hot as hell. also it works as an encapsulation of his morals. when threatened, he is ruthless and efficient and brutal. when he's the last man standing between Jean and the villain, he seals the way behind him and prepares to die with a smile and a quip. Erik decides what needs to be done and does it, and if its a thankless, inglorious death, he's ready for it.

The entire dynamic of Raven and Erik. The respect, the love, the fact they definitely fucked and that's behind them but it was important to them both. In DOFP, Erik tries to kill Raven to save the timeline, and the moment her death isn't needed, he goes to her like "Yep, I did that because I thought it was right. Now its not. Here's a bunch of information you need to know." AND IT'S THAT FUCKING SIMPLE. The way Raven views Erik as almost a known quantity, someone reliable and predictable, the trust and understanding they have, SLAYS ME.

HE IS THE ONE WHO HAS TO REHABILITATE CHARLES XAVIER. In the end, it's Charles who has fucked up his life so thoroughly that he needs love and guidance to find his way again, and it's Erik who shows up and is determined he will take Charles home and accepts the responsibility of that decision.

Ranking Amongst Jean Grey's Dads: Second Best Dad, and that's including the time he lowkey tried to murder her. He's STILL second best dad. He's like the dad who didn't get custody in the divorce but when something Bad happens, the kids go to him because they trust him to help them. He can and will help you bury the bodies. He's also easier to be emotional with bc if you get angry, he's ready for it, unlike your Other Dad. And if you need to cry, he'll let you cry on him without asking you over and over "are you alright darling, do need anything, you know if you wanted to speak to a therapist i know seventeen of them" like your Other Dad, no Erik's just like "okay?" and doesn't make it a federal fucking issue. also raven probably has a motorcycle but erik definitely has a motorcycle.

Charles Fucking Xavier

the fakest bitch in the world, the self-loathing king, the addict who can't stop hurting himself, the martyr of martyrs. MCAVOY DID NOT NEED TO BRING THIS MUCH GAME TO THIS ROLE AND YET HE DID.

what makes the XMAU timeline so good is that they somewhere decided "actually, Charles is a liar" and he's not kind of a liar, he's THE liar, and it all pays off in Dark Phoenix when his carefully constructed world comes crashing down around his head.

He never understood how much he loved and needed Raven until she was gone. When she's gone and he finally recognizes who she is, sees her as more than his ward, it's the moment he most needed her. Charles is, at his core, even more than the blunt force metaphor of DOFP, an addict. He needs people to temper him and to tell him no. Left with Hank (basically living which his drug dealer and enabler), he becomes a bitter, fucked up mess who has lost all the joy in his life. He goes from the guy who is SO EXCITED TO SEE NEW MUTATIONS to calling Peter "a pain in the arse," he's just SO cold and lost and bitter and it colors everything about him.

Erik and Raven had this thing he wants, this certainty and understanding of who they each are. When he finally becomes The Professor in XMA, it feels like a pure performance. He can't drink and drug himself to death in the new world Raven has created, so he is going to be the Professor and he has all these little habits and bits of patter that feel constructed to create this shell for him to fill out and become.

AND THIS PRETTY MUCH IS CONFIRMED IN DP because Charles can't do it Erik's way and can't do it Raven's way, so he needs to win in his way, this perfect PR performance of Professor Charles Xavier who can fill your mind with "Help is on the way" at any moment. He will make the world love them because he doesn't know how to handle any alternative. But its the same knife's edge he's been balanced on since the beach in Cuba, the same edge he's been balancing on since Raven was on TV pointing a gun at Trask, the same edge he falls off in DP when he loses Raven, loses Jean, and just like that, the entire world decides to put him and the people he loves into camps. It was ALWAYS right under his feet, and his tightrope walk was always doomed to fail because to keep it going, he would have to sacrifice anyone and everyone who couldn't keep up the same facade he does.

Because Charles is angry. My gd, he is angry. YOU WANT WHAT I HAVE? YOU WANT TO FEEL WHAT I FEEL?!

He lost Raven and blows up at Erik to try to blame him only to get told tf off for abandoning everyone he was meant to care for. He lost Erik because Erik would not become the right kind of charismatic leader and he left Erik in prison for a fucking decade. He lost Raven again for ignoring the realities outside of Westchester, ignoring vicious violent injustices. He lost Erik again because his secondary mutation is the ability to say the wrong thing at the right time. He lost Erik again when he became such a fake-bitch that Erik moved to a remote island just to get away from TV news and magazines lmao. And he lost Jean because he's a liar, even if he's a liar for love. ALL OF HIS CAREFUL PLANS AND NARRATIVES FAIL IN THE END. THEY RENAMED THE SCHOOL AND SENT HIM OUT ON A LONG SABBATICAL TO FIGURE HIS SHIT OUT.

but i love him. he's a complete fuck-up who needs to have people around him to stop him, but I love him because he's wanted to be a dad when he was 12 years old, he finally learns how to say he was wrong, he sits at Jean's bedside and comforts her when she's scared, he non-consensually overwrote jean's memory. he did it to cut out the fact her father hated her and blamed her for her mother's death. he believes in Jean and trusts her in a way only Raven and Scott do in the end. Jean puts him through one of the most grotesque, de-humanizing things imaginable and he still immediately offers himself up to her to look into his heart and trusts her, still trusts her when he should not

he's a fuck-up and loses everything for what is without a doubt his mistakes. and he lives through it. so he has to keep going. and Erik's going to help him.

he once (falsely) accused Erik of taking Raven and abandoning him. in the end, Erik shows up and refuses to leave him. because Charles is a fuckup but the love is there and will always be there. Because I think Charles is only able to hurt people so much because he loves them so much. Anger is just love left out and gone to vinegar.

Ranking Amongst Jean Grey's Dads: Third Best, Second Worst Dad. Gd, he sucks so much. He got Raven killed, he lucked out of not getting Jean killed, he gets kicked out of his own fucking school, even Hank the guy who was his live-in drug dealer for years calls him to the mat. Still better than John Grey, who decided his eight year old child was a murderer and handed him off to a rich stranger and never looked back. Fuck that guy.

anyway you reached the end so i'm here to tell you that the best XMAU movie is DOFP. then Dark Phoenix. then XMFC. then Apocalypse. yes, I'm serious.

[rei-ismyname]

Ororo, how did you get here?

I wonder if we'll get a solid, in character explanation for why Storm would become a cop (Avenger) again. I'm writing an analysis on From The Ashes (so far) and while I'm clear-eyed about where most characters and books are at, I really need to know if they're even going to bother explaining why Storm would leave Arakko (oh yeah, there's still a million mutants on the red planet) and if they do to what degree. Sure she can just bail off screen but it'd be deeply out of character. She's a member of the Great Ring (or at least she was, occupying Magneto's empty Seat of Loss after she yielded the Regency to Lodus Logos.) She's the most impactful political and cultural figure in a generation. She was the leader of the winning faction in the Genesis War. She had a lover, who was caring for two orphans. I think they were living together. She was happy. I can't recall any ties to Atlanta, but it doesn't really matter. Without serious explanation she's going to look fickle, like she's shirking her duty. A duty she chose, too. Fought multiple wars over. She's getting a solo book, there's totally room to do it properly.

The other big ting for me is Magneto. The First Krakoan age put him through the ringer - his character arc was objectively given the most attention and subjectively the most satisfying. Even without Uncanny X-Men #700 he was poised to shake up the status quo but when you include his chat with Charles that's a promise. A promise that needs to be paid off. Not just any old promise either - it's an ideological breakthrough five decades in the making! He's been kept in the background so far and I haven't really been able to judge whether that promise is being kept or not. I hope so but my expectations are low. It would be such tonal whiplash I can't even think of an analogy.

Interestingly both Max and Ororo were Of Arakko last time we got a close look. Magneto died defending Arakko, he has friends there. He is literally one of the society's heroes for slaying Tarn the Uncaring and The Hour Of Magneto/Judgement Day.

Yeah, that's right. *AIR HORN* *PUMPS FIST* He cares about the Arakki and they care about him. He'd want to pay his respects to the Fisher King and generally see how it's going. He lost his place on the Great Ring when he died and Vulcan blew up his house, but neither are especially important. Both planet and culture are dear to him. After X of Swords, in that brief period when the Arakki were on Earth, it was Magneto meeting with Isca about teething problems. 'Twas Magneto who spearheaded the Terraforming Operation, handling the communication/logistics and harvesting enough iron to bring the planet to life from the Khyber Belt. While he was doing that, Ororo was fighting Nameless to the death for the Noontide Seat.

I could honestly go on, but my point is these two especially are invested. (Roberto Da Costa too, but it seems the New Mutants are represented by Magik alone and Cypher looking like an idiot.) If that continuity is disregarded I'm going to have a problem with it. Honestly, if Arakko is there and not being used in any stories I'll be scratching my head. How do you go from terraforming planets to hated and feared on Earth as anything other than a regression? The geopolitical implications of it being there pretty much break the world they're selling us. They're telling us it's so dangerous for mutants that they're developing secret hand signals and Underground Railroad'ing. At least some mutants would move to fucking Mars. All countries would be at Defcon 1. Did the entire galactic council just forget Sol exists?

I'll stop there, save some for the actual essay instead of the rant lol. If you're enjoying it I couldn't be happier for you. I am struggling to, though, and I'm very wary of heartbreak. Maybe that's on me for how I manage my expectations. We shall see.

[ask-the-four-lords]

Heisenburg ive got a few questions for one of the hottest men on the planet

Question 1 do u think u could beat magneto in a fight

Question 2 do u like bacon

Question 3 who's your most and least favorite of the 4 lords

Question 4 do u want help with your experiment's I have some really good ideas for some cyborgs

Question 5 which of the lords do u think u could best in a fight and which do u think u would tie with cause even I know u can't lose

Karl Heisenberg, hottest man on the planet, not just one of the hottest:

1: Oh fuck yeah! That guy is a fuckin' idiot! I have an army he has a stupid looking setta tights! He might have a shot in human form but I can become a god damn titan and the moment I do I'll tear him to shreds.

2: Dear god yes, it's easily top three, 'love that shit. Of course one of the few things I can't do is cook so a couple months back I programmed a machine to cook it perfectly, it's been like *mental math for an exact answer* half of my diet since. It's that or canned beans and military rations anyway. (I understand the intention I just wanted to write him ranting about actual bacon)

3. Here's my ranking list; my favorite of the lords is me. 2nd place is Donner, honestly I actually really like her, she's like the uh opposite of me which I guess is what makes 'er interesting. 3rd place is actually bitchius maximus, I absolutely fucking hate her but deep down I at least kinda respect her. My least favorite is Moreau, it's not that I don't like him, I actually, on a logical scale, am alright with him. He's probably the best guy o' the four of us, minus his love for that FUCKING MONSTER CROW HAG! But I just feel bad for him so I can never really manage to interact with him without feeling sick. It's the only thing that gets much emotion out of me these days, poor bastard.

4. It's very unlikely, but who knows, having a test subject or assistant could come in handy.

5. I know for a fact I could beat Donna, it'd be pretty damn easy if I'm being honest. I could definitely pulverize Moreau, he's pretty damn tough when it comes down to it, it's really all he has going for himself. But still he ain't got nothin' on me. Now unfortunately... *mentally prepares for multiple minutes* there's a solid chance I would tie with Lady D-Bag. It's a shame that'd really be impossible to get her in on the revolution hate her or not. Still, in the end I think if it was one of us, it would be me, because I'm Lord motherfucking Heisenberg. Who the hell do they think they are?!

[artbyblastweave]

I just finished a reread of Jonathan Hickman's FF and Avengers runs, since before I'd only ever been reading one half and had missed a lot of context, and them plus Secret Wars form one of my favourite extended marvel arcs ever made. Any thoughts about the storyline, or general perceptions you know others have had of it? I'm kind of curious whether it was loved or hated by the broader fanbase.

I enjoyed what I read of it, which was mostly the tail end- Secret Wars Proper and some of the stuff immediately leading into that. One thing that I appreciated about it, in a general sense, was that it posited the chickens finally, finally coming home to roost; the nature of the Marvel Universe is that the center is always gonna hold, because otherwise they can't keep selling comic books, but the subtext of every Marvel comic I read through the early-to-mid oughts, and during the Bendis-era Avengers-Disassembled-through-Siege mega-arc in particular, was that the planet was living on borrowed time due to the sheer volume of these self-righteous superpowered yahoos running around doing basically whatever they wanted. I'm principally a Wormblogger, I love Worm, and the fact that Worm actually acknowledged and depicted that collapse, after a decade-and-change of Marvel dancing around the idea, is a big part of why it hooked me so deeply. And thus, when you have an event about how reality is finally collapsing under the accumulated weight of all these retcons and reality-shifts and time-jumps and what-have-you, a story where the superheroes finally can't outrun the consequences of their actions via editorial mandate- well, it was cathartic. And the Battleworld, conceptually, was great. I enjoyed a lot of those tie-ins immensely; it was the summer of Fun Little Romps (even though it was markedly part of the defanging of the Marvel Zombies brand- but that's another post.) The downside, of course, is that it derailed the storylines of a bunch of different smaller books I was following at the time- Cullen Bunn's Magneto solo, Duggan's Deadpool Run, Punisher, Silver Surfer, The original run of Ms. Marvel. Like, I can't stress enough how early in the original Ms. Marvel run this event happened, like maybe the third or fourth TPB? She'd barely gotten going when Secret Wars hit. Some of these just awkwardly wedged a couple issues about the apocalypse in, but not all of these came back afterwards either. It's fully possible that at least a couple of these were flagging and the apocalypse was just a graceful offramp, but it still bothered me. It was the most exaggerated instance of the common complaint about crisis crossovers stepping on the toes of the ongoing storylines that I've ever experienced in real time, and you know, fair, it was at least a bit about that phenomenon, but it's not not annoying just because it's also self-aware!

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Hello, I'm a humble fanfiction reader from the ancient times, when there was only a fanfiction.net, and I just came by to tell you, how much I adore your One Piece Stories. They really help me to calm down before sleeping and make me smile when my little world is crumbling. ❤️ I saw your post about the voices telling you lies and I would like to help, or at least distract you. 😉 So, here are my silly questions for you:

1. If you were a pizza, what kind of pizza would you be?

2. If you could choose a new color for the sky, what color would you choose and why?

3. If the One Piece was a cookie, do you think Luffy would eat it? 🤔

4. Captain Kid vs. Magneto, who would win?

5. Why are planets round-ish? Only wrong answers please.

6. What is your take on fake-pockets on pants?

7. If you could talk to people for the rest of your life in only one way, what would you choose:

a) rap-batteling

b) Musical singing

c) binary code

d) R2D2 beep-bops?

8. If you were a pirate, what would you call your crew?

9. Kiss-Marry-Kill: Freddy Kruger, Michael Myers, Pennywise? (I know, that's a hard one.)

10. Bite Shanks in the buttcheek or suck on Mihawks toe?

Ok, that's it for now. I hope it helps, Love. Stay strong, I'm rooting for you! ❤️

HELLO FELLOW FANFIC VETERAN ♥️♥️♥️ I still have an account on fanfiction.net. Not active in the least bit, but it's there, with earlier iterations of some of my fanfics here, from when I was in my mid-teens. Sometimes I like to go read them and have a little cringe for old times' sake.

I'm always so glad to hear that any of my work offers comfort in anyway. I write partly as a comfort to myself, and it's the same reason I started sharing it here after being inactive in the fan fiction community for over a decade. Was still writing, I just figured out over time that I garnered more enjoyment out of writing for myself than for an audience, and only started posting again once I learned that I can write for myself and still share it with others.

The asshole voices significantly settled down after I put my metal playlist on full blast and laid down with my headphones on. There's just a lot going on right now and my brain was being way too loud about it. I actually finished a chapter last night but it was just...ugh. Couldn't focus enough to edit or type my author notes.

1. New York style pepperoni, no question. I love pizza in all its forms, but being from New York (originally, and I want to go back so bad I curse my family for ever moving to this hell-state) the classics win out.

2. Green. Because planet Namek.

3. He would not hesitate for even a SECOND. And to be totally fair neither would I.

4. Magneto, particularly Ian McKellan's Magneto. You do not F around with super-villain-Gandalf, I do not care who you are.

5. The round shape of planets is a natural defense mechanism against black holes, which are far less likely to swallow spherical planets because they prefer...a square meal AHAHAHAHAAA okay sorry that was fcking awful i'll stop now

6. Fake pockets are the root of all evil. Especially fake pockets that are just deep enough for me to catch them on my kitchen cabinet/drawer handles.

7. Definitely beep-boops, no contest.

8. I am a pirate though okay, like that's my crew's jolly roger there above my masterlist, I'm just not the captain or a crew officer or anyone important, probably a janitor or something, anyway yeah Hurricane Pirates

9. Kiss Pennywise (1990 It was my first ever horror movie ♥️), Marry Freddie (he's hilarious and I love him), kill Mikey (it's not that I DON'T enjoy the Halloween movies, just not as much as other 80s slashers)

10. I cannot handle feet, but I will more than happily bite Shanks on the ass, and I somehow doubt he would complain.

This has been delightful thank you so much, I was even able to develop a gods-awful planet joke out of it that I will be subjecting absolutely everyone to ♥️ ❤️

[positivelybeastly]

Is it to late to say that the X-Men have essentially lost any humanity they had?

"The X-Men are human, just as much as they are mutant - that's the way it's always been, regardless of how much anti-human sentiment various malefactors may wish to stir up.

The separation between human and mutant is minor, a variation in chromosomes, and to proselytise that the X-Men have lost their humanity is, frankly, offensive.

My name is Henry Philip McCoy, I was born in Illinois in 1986, and I'm just as human as you are, regardless of what I may look like and what I can do."

"Humanity is a babbling, screaming broth of prejudice, violence, lesser intelligences - it's only by the foolish grace of soft hearted mutants that they survive. Divesting ourselves of what made us human was merely a divestment of what made us weak.

Freedom from their irksome, cruel laws; total separation from their squabbling, their illogic, their weakness; the assertion of our genetically assigned right to succeed them as the inheritors of this planet, this is what makes us strong. This is what makes us mutant."

So, like, X-Force Beast is a raving fucking lunatic, and I don't feel it's out of character for him to spout this kind of rhetoric - in his reinvention of himself as the necessary bastard for Krakoa, in his process of becoming a born again, hardline mutant rights 'champion,' I feel like it makes sense that he'd be very aggressive about being seen to be a separatist from humankind. It makes 'sense' from a security viewpoint, and it means less emotional ties to potential vulnerabilities, such as old friends, old colleagues - his parents.

That being said, I also do it because I want to remind everyone that Krakoa is very much a dystopia, no matter how pretty the palm trees are and how idyllic the life seems, and there is some fucked up shit that just crept in there. Every single time I heard a character say, oh, that's so human of you, or some variation on that theme, I wanted to start punching the X-Men in the head because fuck you.

But in a good way, to be fair, like, in the way that you hear an obvious cultist say a culty thing and you're like, wow, bro, you're in a fucking cult, maybe you should un-cult yourself before you wreck yourself.

I also feel like it bears pointing out that a lot of the X-Men did NOT do that - people like Jubilee, for instance, whose kid Shogo is just a straight up human, and I very much fuckin' doubt that Jean-Paul Beaubier got away with that kind of shit in his household. And as time went on, I think a good few of them stopped chugging the Kool-Aid and started to realise, hey, did we just become the baddies?

Like, that's the thrust of why Scott and Jean restart the X-Men proper after the team was disbanded, was that feeling of, we need to go out there and save people because regardless of what people can tell us about who or what we are, every mutant had human family that they cared for or loved at some point. Scott's parents were both human, as were Jean's. Hank's parents were two of the loveliest humans you could ever meet. Even Magneto had Anya Eisenhardt.

Most of the X-Men are still very, very human, regardless of how much they might want to occasionally pretend otherwise - hell, you could even point out that the 'least' human among them, people like Magik, aren't even inhuman because of their mutant gifts necessarily, but because of entirely OTHER things that happened to them to change the way they are (though, granted, in Illyana's case, it was at least partly related to her gifts, but you know what I mean).

If not for the Hellfire Gala Massacre, I'm pretty sure a big contingent of people, led by Scott and Jean, were going to plan a breakaway from the Quiet Council led structure of Krakoa and form a new government, or at least push for a reformation of society that was less. Gross. Which means it'll be interesting to see what bearing those trajectories have on what comes after the Fall of X arc is done.

[gerec]

Hello! Could you please rec the cherik funniest stories for me? I desperately need a laugh.

Thank you!

And because I don't want to just post angst recs, here's a very long list of my favorite cracky/humorous fics! Enjoy!!!

Protect, Serve, Troll by keire_ke

Erik's fire department has a special relationship with the local university. They visit often. Sometimes, there even is a fire.

Erik Lehnsherr's Guide to Parenting by keire_ke

Alex disapproves of school car washes, despite the abundance of wet bikinis on pretty girls. Erik doesn’t approve of his son shirking money-making duties.

Humane Society by smilebackwards

Once Erik finally allows himself to decide that Charles is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread, he spends the next week being incredibly bitter that he's Charles' cat and not his boyfriend.

Other Life Challenges by professor (series)

“Why am I here again?” Erik groans.

“I need you to lift things and glower at people over my shoulder when I tell people that it’s not ‘politically correct’ or a ‘war on Christmas’ to have a non-denominational winter holiday festival,” says Theresa Pryde.

Well, at least those are two things he’s good at.

Wednesday by Red

Getting confined to a nursing facility for a six-week course of iv antibiotics would have been dreadfully dull, had Charles not found a way to "occupy his time."

In which Erik Lehnsherr, retired nazi hunter, becomes the latest victim of Charles Xavier's charms.

Scenes from the Wild by nekosmuse

Erik Lehnsherr, world renowned wilderness survivalist, alongside his husband, Charles Xavier, survive the perils of the wild in order to bring you, Two Men, One Knife, an award winning reality survival series, available only on the Discovery Channel. Follow Erik and Charles as they travel to the world's most remote locations with only the most basic of supplies. Pitted against nature, this husband-husband team struggle to survive in some of the world's harshest climates while battling the planet's fiercest predators. Can they survive the Canadian North? Find out next season, on Two Men, One Knife

The O(l)dd Couple by winterhill 

Futurefic, fixit, fluff. In public, Erik and Charles are immensely powerful and charismatic world leaders. In private, they're a pair of stubborn old men. 

Assassination (It's Not For Everyone) by silverdawn89

In which there are guns, mayhem, cold-blooded torture, more guns, explosions, girls (and boys) in leather, even more guns, knives, chess, and just for a change, a fuckload of guns. Or to put it another way: assassin AU!

Timeline by Unforgotten

After Magneto of an X2-ish future succeeds in the unthinkable, Charles sends his consciousness back to 1962 to guide Erik away from the path that will lead to the genocide of the human race forty years hence.

Charles knows that Erik has always loved him, and intends to use this knowledge + sex to seduce Erik away from his ideals in his youth.

There's no way this well-thought-out, sensible, debugged and 100% bulletproof plan can possibly go wrong.

scandal of the century by joshriku

The headline reads:

STEAMY SEX TAPE BETWEEN MAGNETO AND PROFESSOR X LEAKED!

“All right,” Charles says. “I wouldn’t call it steamy, you know, that’s an exaggeration.”

“That is seriously not the point, Professor,” Jean answers.

(A sex tape is leaked. PR crisis ensues).

Bad Guy Saves the Day by ferretbaby

Total crack. How the 'divorce' could have been averted if Azazel and being pregnant worked in your favor. Also Charles is really pissed at Erik's penis.

Salem Center Mass by listerinezero

Erik Lehnsherr is a professional hitman and has no intention of attending his ten year high school reunion. But since he happens to have a kill lined up in the same town at the same time, he decides he may as well stop by. After all, his high school sweetheart, Charles Xavier, might be there. And it's not like he's spent the past ten years pining over Charles. Not at all.

How to Get a Midgardian Boyfriend: a Guide by Charles Odinson by cachinnation

The king of all Asgard had three sons, and of the three Odinsons, one was golden and tempestuous and kingly, and the other two were right headaches. After Charles, Odin stopped bringing children home.

True Story by Unforgotten

In which Charles and Erik meet for the first time at the urinal, and somehow years later end up basically co-parenting Erik's baby daughter.

[A How I Met Your Mother AU featuring Charles as bi!Ted and Erik as gay!Barney.]

Big Gay Mutant Miracle Baby by listerinezero

Erik is under the mistaken impression that Charles is somehow pregnant, and he's so happy that Charles doesn't have the heart to tell him that the bump he's caressing is just a food baby.

surely shifted my way by Traincat

The one where Erik and Charles get engaged, Raven is an x-treme wedding planner and the kids get way too involved. Oh, and there are doves everywhere. Modern slightly!AU, where everyone is together and alive and happy because it's weddingfic and weddingfic is allowed to do that.

Omega Online by miss_aphelion

Newly imprinted Charles is having trouble dealing with his overly protective alpha—so in desperation he seeks advice in an omega chat room. Emma Frost is more than happy to help, Raven isn't helping at all, and Erik can't stand to be out of touch with Charles for more than five minutes at a time.

Kidnappings, Hangovers, and Homecomings by listerinezero

Seven years after Cuba, Erik is miserable. His life is nothing like he expected it would be. He hates the Brotherhood, his subordinates are all idiots, and now, on top of everything else, he's been kidnapped. But when Charles comes to rescue him, Erik starts to think that maybe things might turn out all right for him after all.

We Welcome Our New Sexbot Overlords by professor (series) Robot!Erik falls in love, takes over the world, and keeps Charles in a giant birdcage. And then, it gets complicated.

Grin and Bear It by professor

The one where Erik hates bears, and falls in love with Charles -- who is a werebear. Hijinks and feels ensue.

Oysters and Champagne by listerinezero

Erik is the extremely talented, extremely scary chef at one of the top restaurants in New York, and Charles, the head waiter, is the only person with the balls to stand up to him. Their fights are the stuff of legend, and their argument over the Valentine's Day menu turns into one for the history books.

I thought you already knew by winter_hiems

“Wanda… did our dad… boink Professor X?” Wanda took a sip from her mug of coffee. “Pietro, our dad is still fucking Professor X. I thought you already knew. Literally everyone knows.” - Pietro finds out about his father and Charles Xavier. Apparently everyone else already knew.

drastic measures by goodmorningbeloved (3799steps)

Erik glowers.

“I can’t believe we’re back to this,” Charles says, like he wants to throw his hands in the air. He’s pouting a little bit. “Years of progress, and we’ve returned to you brooding. Don’t tell me I have to break out the terrible flirting again.”

Erik glowers a little less. “Flirting,” he repeats, bland but also maybe just very, very, very slightly, faintly, vaguely hopeful.

“Oh, yes,” Charles says absently, until something seems to strike him. “Don’t tell me you don’t…” He raises his left hand and brandishes the ring. “We promised ourselves to each other last week.”

--

Alternatively: Erik's memory is swiped clean of his and Charles's relationship.

One Hundred One Night Stands. by Sophia_Bee

Charles has a rule. Never fuck the same guy twice. When he refuses to see Erik again after a one night stand, Erik goes about trying to get Charles to violate that rule using accents and disguises.

My Barbaric Darling by baehj2915

Erik is revivified caveman. Charles is the anthropologist(?) taking care of him. This is as ridiculous as it sounds. Romcom misunderstandings and prehistoric wooing ensues.

Charles Xavier's Baby by Gerec

Charles Xavier is pregnant. With a baby. Due to a previously unknown secondary mutation.

He might be a little freaked out.

Also, there's a fifty percent chance his ex fathered his baby. And a fifty percent chance the new boyfriend knocked him up.

[rodolfoparras]

I typically get very painful cramps and not much helps it😔💔 so I've learned to just do whatever my brain says I need for comfort and also let myself rage at silly things to feel better😋 I also learned painkillers don't help me much cause the amount I need to take to help the pain😭😭😭 bro I was on another planet😭 my friends sent me clips of me playing the game and you could tell I was not using my brain in the slightest💀

So yeah I gotta rawdog my period cramps😧

But !!!

I love Wren so every much, would love to draw him but I have the worst art block everything looked so bad😭💀 I sorta made a picrew of him? It's not that accurate as he's more grey, older, has shark teeth and his tail isn't so cat like but I worked with what I had💪

https://cdn.picrew.me/shareImg/org/202409/6453_09Fe4KRf.png

And I liked the idea of the all white ethereal glowing look so I'm making another X-Men oc!!!

https://cdn.picrew.me/shareImg/org/202409/6453_J7nNpcUh.png

Have nothing besides they go by Seer, non binary and they're sorta on Magnetos side (Their opinion of him suffers greatly as he sacrifices Rouge in the first movie :< ) They're like 19 and are basically Wren's little sibling !!! They grew up on the streets together, Wren would always take all the hits and cruel things people did because of their mutations :(

While Wren hates humans, he also doesn't want whatever innocent humans there are to suffer because of all the mean ones.

Seer, however, despises humans and can't see how they're worth saving because they witnessed everything those mean people would do to Wren but also never saw any other humans trying to stop or help. But Seer does start realizing Magnetos methods are a bit extreme.

Siblings on opposite sides😔💔 good angst trope but !!! Wren and Seer still text and call frequently, neither go out on missions either so they rarely get hurt or have to fight. But even if they did, both already told Charles/Magneto they refuse to fight each other and they also don't want them to get hurt :<

Wren would absolutely take a blast aimmed for Seer 😭 also Seer loves showing Magneto their favourite music/memes and Magneto is just... So lost??? He doesn't understand. But they're kinda like a silly grandpa grandchild duo. Seer gets along with Mystique a little more, she keeps more up to date with the trends😋

But back to the sillies !!! (Wren, Scott and Logan)

Wren doesn't sleep much, he doesn't really need to so he just doesn't ( He had to stay awake as a kid to keep Seer safe :< Wren can't bring himself to sleep because what if someone needs him?) So Wren just watches like those stop motion lego cooking videos while Scott is cuddled up to him, Logan somewhat cuddled but with his back turned so his claws don't potentially hurt Wren and Scott. Even though Wren would be fine, with Scott sometimes sleeping halfway on top of Wren, Logan doesn't wanna risk hurting him :<

But Wren always gives Logan extra cuddles since Scott always wakes up before Logan :> and Scott and Logan aren't huge on cuddling each other😭 like every so often they will but their love language is bickering and shoving each other🙄

One night though Wren actually lets himself fall asleep after Scott insisted he should at least try and bro he was knocked out🔥🔥🔥 passed out with his face buried in Scotts tiddies (me next me next!!) Wren still doesn't sleep much but if he does, his face is buried in Logan or Scotts tiddies🙏

-🌱

Sugae bee with all due respect I think I’m obligated to fight your period cramps there’s no other way around it I’m loading up my fists and it’s me against the devils river

Sugar bee the picrew is so cute!! I love love love his eyes and the little unicorn horn it’s the cutest combo ever 😭😭😭 and the all white x man is just as beautiful!! I think my favorite is the hair style and the horns!!

I cannot say I know much about the actual x man lore of the story to pitch in my thoughts on their backstory but I do have to say I love protective sibling tropes on opposite sides sm!!!! Especially when the show is about them meeting in some kind of middle ground!! And also it’s kind of sweet how wren has some sympathy for good humans while seer doesn’t have any towards any human because humans have always been so unkind to their brother

Also I love my two silly men getting loved by a wonderful little dude🥹 all three of them deserve all the cuddles in the world and I’m glad they’re getting it from each other 😤 AND WREN EVEN GETS RO SLEEPY IN LOGAN OR SCOTTS TIDDIES?? WHEN IS IT MYTURN

[govthookercoulson]

I find the OmniMan vs Homelander discussion to be frankly banal

And that's speaking as someone who, as an exercise, has figured out how to pit superpowers against each other to stalemate or win. I've figured out how to beat the Hulk with Quicksilver.

This is why I have telepathic blocks installed and why I am very paranoid around telepaths except Xavier (good and long time friend).

Anyway, a few issues here.

I'm not going to say OmniMan is not a problem. He is a potential Brightburn level problem. I respect him. I'd like to say I respect him from a long distance, but let's be honest, with a being like OmniMan, distance doesn't matter. I could be a star system away. I could be a galaxy away. Much like Superman: it would not matter.

When dealing with superpowers of THAT tier level, you have a lot of things to take into account. Weaknesses, if any (and is always at least one, no one is perfect, no one), but most vitally how their mind works. Defeating a superpower is ultimately an act of subversion. You have to bend their strength back inward even if you're using other superpowers in that chess game.

I have plans for the Hulk.

I have plans for Magneto.

I have plans for Xavier.

I have plans for Deadpool and his narrators.

I have plans for Superman.

The list goes on. Hell, Superman is actually deceptively easy and he needs to watch his fucking back because I know of at least two individuals that not only have multiple contingency plans to take Superman out, and one of them will enact those plans if he's just fucking bored that day.

But that's besides the point.

It's not just the superpower you're taking down. It's the superpower you're using to foil. And that is the issue of OmniMan vs Homelander.

When you're on the power tier of OmniMan, you have to be controlled and you have to have a plan. You also have to be able to adapt on the fly.

Homelander does not have that capability. With all the love in my Captain America worshipping heart, Homelander does not have the chops. He'll go in with a plan, get pissed, lose all strategy and be torn to shreds by OmniMan.

Because OmniMan is so, so top tier powerful that he'll keep his cool. And you better pray to every god you do or don't believe in he'll keep his cool.

We won't have a planet if he loses it.

I do not currently have a plan for OmniMan.

It keeps me up at night.

[currenthyperfixationcherik]

The man behind the X.

Cherik bingo fill: Professor X.

I may take this fill and turn it into a series of ficlets/one shots of these two flirting as they go about their activist-hero work.

Professor X was the best thing that ever happened to humanity, he is caring, kind, helpful, intelligent, complex and very attractive. Or at least that's what Erik defends tooth and nail every time he finds that asshole Charles Darkholme talking shit about him.

"On the other hand," Said the fucker with a smirk of superiority, "Magneto is the most reasonable, intelligent, funny, handsome, interesting and most divine man on this planet." Erik couldn't understand how Charles could have such different opinions of him and Magneto, being the same person. Of course, no one knows that, Magneto is an identity he adopted, not just as a mutant activist, but as someone who uses his powers to defend other mutants. In fact, because of identity issues, he has not said publicly that he is a mutant, he only declares himself an ally of the cause.

Someone who is also an ally of the mutant cause is this guy who keeps talking about Magneto as if he's a true wonder. Erik knows he isn't, no one could know Magneto better than he does.

"You say that as if the guy hasn't been responsible for the deaths of innocent people." Erik says pointedly, he remembers his early days all too well. "He's already done enough to repair that damage! He's already learned from his mistakes and has apologized for it." Again, it's a strange feeling to see Charles defending him from himself. "If we're going to complain about anyone, it's going to be Professor X." And again they go in circles. "That guy has gotten to where he is by sheer privilege, the guy is a millionaire, the Xavier family has continued to donate to make themselves look good but we know damn too well that they're no friends of mutants." He said with disdain. "The deaths he has caused are covered up with money and pure public image management, let's not forget that in their early days they experimented on mutants, and for all we know, they are still doing it anyway." Erik was bothered by the way Charles talked about the Professor and his family, as if he knew everything about their lives.

Erik had already had conversations with him, in fact, they were very good friends. Really good friends. 

He has told him about how he uses the money he has to push for laws and discourses that would improve the mutant lifestyle. The professor was quite honest about the money and told him how he helped the X-gene research to better understand it.

"Well he's accomplished more for mutants than Magneto." Erik says and Charles takes offense, "Don't you dare claim that this good for nothing is better than Magneto," he walked up to Erik with a defiant look, "If it wasn't for Magneto, more than half the mutant population would have already fallen victim to the anti-mutants and you know it!" Erik glared at him, "I don't know what kind of fixation you have with Magneto, but I swear he's not half as good as you think." Charles became even more infuriated, "And what would you know about what I think!" Charles stopped dead in his tracks trying to regulate his breathing. "No, you know what, it's not worth it." After saying that, Charles walked away leaving Erik a bit confused.

That afternoon, Magneto waited impatiently for the professor at their meeting place, but there was no sign of him. It had already been four hours since his discussion with Charles and two waiting for X, will X be a good nickname, he wonders as he continues to float through the buildings looking for his friend. In the distance, he could hear sobbing that could well be anyone's, but he had been looking for X for so long that maybe....

Charles.

Charles Darkholme was the guy who was crying when Magneto showed up. He could ignore it, but he was somewhat curious as to what was wrong with him.

"Are you okay?" Charles wiped away his tears and was surprised to see Magneto standing in front of him. "I..." Charles looked down and hugged his legs. "No." It was a very direct answer, Erik could have left after that, but something in Charles made him see that it wasn't a good idea. "Can I help you?" He just nodded without looking at him. Magneto sat down next to him and Charles leaned against his shoulder, Erik never thought to see him so vulnerable with him. "Doesn't leading a double life burden you?" Charles asks him and Erik doesn't understand why that's the topic of conversation. "Sometimes," He replies not knowing why he lets the conversation pass "hiding that I'm a mutant is difficult when I come out as a civilian, kind of hypocritical if you know I advocate mutants proudly displaying their mutation." Charles looks at him and is silent for a moment. "I'm a mutant too."

Erik is startled, not only because he wasn't expecting a revelation of some sort, but because the guy he's always fighting with is also a mutant, Charles Darkholme is a mutant and one who worships Magneto but can't stand Erik Lehnsherr. "Oh... And why are you hiding it?" Charles smiles grimly as he fiddles with Erik's cape. "Darkholme isn't my real last name. Raven and her family were kind enough to let me use it." Erik feels like he's taking advantage of his anonymity by hearing all these secrets being revealed so casually, but he couldn't stay that way, not when he was learning that Charles and Raven aren't siblings, not when Charles was being openly vulnerable with him. Well, with Magneto.

"Does your family have anything to do with it?" Charles looks at him and bites his lip to keep from sobbing, unable to hold back his tears, he nods. The only response Erik has is to take Charles in his arms and let him cry.

A few minutes pass in which the only sound that can be heard is Charles' crying. When he was finally able to wipe away the tears, Charles looked into his eyes and smiled "Thank you Erik." Erik was about to give a simple answer until he noticed that Charles had called him by name, something he wasn't supposed to know. "How did you...?" Charles took his hand as he kept his gaze fixed on him. "I'm a telepath, I'm sorry for reading your mind without permission, I still have issues with-" Erik interrupted him gesturing for him to stop talking, "It's your mutation, you don't have to apologize for something that is natural to you. But I would like to ask how long have you known I was Magneto?" Inside, Erik was completely surprised, puzzled and with a lot of feelings he couldn't put a name to yet. Charles watched him silently as he thought about the answer, "When you told me your story, you told me to look into your mind." Erik looked at him confused, he couldn't have told Charles to do something like that, they didn't speak much to each other or know each other well, much less would he have the confidence to ask him to do something like look into his mind. As Erik was about to comment, Charles cocked his head to the side "Please think carefully about what I just told you."

Erik wants to beat himself up for taking so long to figure it out. Mutations don't usually repeat this much and Charles told him he's a telepath, who else is a telepath and knows Erik? Professor X. 

Charles is Professor X. 

That's why he knows those things about Erik.

Wait, so that means that Erik is...

While Erik was having his internal crisis, Charles watched him with curiosity. He found the situation so amusing that he almost forgot how bad he was feeling.

"You're Professor X." Erik finally said, and Charles chuckled under his breath. "I'm Professor X." As Erik thought about what to say to him, Charles reached over to grab his helmet, "What are you doing?" Charles took the helmet from him as he spoke, "I'm taking this thing off you, you don't need to use it on me anymore." Erik doesn't know why, but he blushed at those words. His view was no longer obstructed by the helmet and his gaze swept over Charles' face, his pink lips, his flushed cheeks, his eyes still red and swollen from tears and the blue color of his irises. Erik had seen it a hundred times before as they argued, had even come to wonder how someone could keep their lips like that almost all the time. But after today, Erik doubted he could ever see it the same way again. "Erik..." Charles looked into his eyes and he looked back at him. "I need your help." Erik's thoughts stopped and focused on what he had just heard. "My help?" Charles nodded and told him in detail about his situation.

"So the money you're using isn't part of the Xavier fortune?" Erik found himself processing everything Charles told him, "And your father's ex-colleague turned out to be one of the guys who keep funding the anti-mutant campaigns." Charles nodded, "The fucker wooed my mother, they're getting married and I can't do anything as Charles or the professor." Erik knew it was a big problem, especially since the Xaviers were known for mutant gene research, if the money and research were left in the hands of someone like Kurt Marko, it was a sure danger to all mutants. "Charles, does Marko know you're a mutant?" Charles nodded. The situation was bad in general, but Charles was in more danger. "Do you have a way out of there?" Charles shook his head, "Not until I'm of legal age to keep my share of the inheritance."

Erik was running out of ideas "Charles, I'm trying but I don't know how I can help you, I-" Charles rested his hand on Erik's lips. "Magneto, you have all the courage I don't have to do these things. Expose that bastard who keeps posing as an ally of our cause. I can give you the information and maybe support with the money I have. I can't do anything else and it's still a year and a half before I can escape his claws." Erik just remembered the faith Charles has always had in Magneto, in him. "Wait, what about Raven Darkholme, what part does she play in all this? You've been using her last name for at least as long as I've known you" Charles smiled a little at hearing Raven's name, "A family friend, mutant too. They've helped keep me out of the drama since my father died, turns out everyone knows Bryan Xavier has a mutant son, but no one has ever seen that son. It's the best thing to do to protect my identity." Erik nodded and Charles continued speaking. "But they can't do more, her parents worked for my father, now they work for Kurt. If they help me, it can cost them dearly."

Erik thought about what Charles told him earlier, about helping to unmask Kurt. "I'm going to help you, Charles. You don't deserve what you're going through." Charles looked at him and Erik could see the gleam in his eyes, "You're an angel, Erik." Charles walked over to him and without thinking kissed his cheek. Erik tries to pretend that he wasn't surprised, nor that he liked what Charles had just done. He looked at him smiling, as if he was clearly hearing all the thoughts that flitted through Erik's mind, and maybe that was happening. "I have to go, my family doesn't know I'm coming out to see you." Charles winked at him and Erik watched him not knowing what to do. Charles turned around to leave. "Wait, how are we supposed to do what you planned?" Charles stopped and turned to look at him, "Tomorrow we'll talk about it, it's a date." Charles yelled as he ran away down the emergency stairs of the building.

Erik blushed, was Charles hitting on him?

Whatever the case, he and Charles, or well, Magneto and Professor X had a mission of vital importance: unmask Kurt Marko before he did anything with the resources he would soon have.

Bingo Masterpost here!

[thevindicativevordan]

Comics this week ?

Superman Annual 2023 - People were calling this the best issue of Williamson's run yet, and they might be right. A great showcase of the Daily Planet crew like we haven't seen in ages, with Lois herself getting to be the main protagonist while Clark takes more of a backseat. Williamson's take on Livewire continues to rule, seems he realizes that she is the Anti-Lois and is just canonizing that by having her work at the Daily Planet! Even brought back Red Cloud, the villain who was the Anti-Clark to get Lois and Livewire to bond. Another thing I've been begging for- learning WHY Mercy is loyal to Lex and what her backstory is - seems to be in the cards too! I am somewhat concerned about all of the villains being "redeemed" - Parasite, Livewire, Silver Banshee, Lex, and Mercy are all being placed in this morally ambiguous territory that can't last, and of course there's also PKJ's use of Metallo. My expectation is that Williamson is playing the long game and moving these villains to where they can do the most damage when they revert to type. Livewire at the Planet, Parasite and Mercy with SuperCorp, Silver Banshee with Jimmy (ok I like that relationship and hope it lasts but we can't assume it will), and Lex in Stryker's. Even Metallo is at Steelworks Tower and could wreck havoc there. At least Toyman is back to being a child-killer, call me edgy but I prefer he be the mentally unstable psycho of the Rogues Gallery, and seeing Cat reach out to Moonlight because Cat has suffered in Metropolis too was a nice moment. Finally there's Brainiac getting ready to attack Metropolis to find something buried there, and the presence of Doomsdogs means he's connected to that Watters Doomsday oneshot. Williamson has been great on Superman and ass on events, I hope a Superman event brings out the best in him.

Danger Street #8 - Finally get a glimpse of the connective tissue here. The guy who sold the helmet to Warlord and Starman is presumably the same guy who created the Green Team and the Outsiders, and may even be the same guy who traumatized Lady Cop.

WildC.A.T.S. #10 -Can't remember if this book has had issues solicited past 12 or not, but I think I'll be hopping off by then. This was a fun, entertaining book and still is, but it hasn't bonded me with these characters outside of Grifter. Despite being a "reboot" Rosenberg clearly assumes that most readers already know who these guys are and I didn't coming in and I don't now. Given I need to cut back, this one is getting dropped.

Knight Terrors: Zatanna #2 - Zatanna badly needs a big story that gives her something to angst over besides her dead father. This was fine but I hate how everything keeps coming back to that.

Spirit World #4 - Spread of Xanthe taking on all the demons was breathtaking.

Scarlet Witch #7 - Good issue, glad we got to see what happens when someone shitty walks through Wanda's door and asks for help, but I cannot understand Marvel's approach to the Wanda/Magneto relationship. As her biological father I understand why she feels tied to him despite him being a deadbeat, but was he ever paternal to her at all? Turning him into some rando she merely thought was her dad makes the relationship nonsensical. He didn't raise her, he exploited her and her brother, he was a shit dad, she shouldn't feel anything for him much less his clone. Don't get why Joseph is back either, with Magneto dead are they planning to use Joseph to stand in for Mags for a while? Maybe next issue will make things more clear.

Immortal X-Men #14 - Jesus Charles get off the fucking floor. Shaw is a moron who got rewarded as a traitor deserves.

Avengers #4 - Appreciated T'Challa telling Sam to get off his back, not thrilled about more House of M/Disassembled references for Wanda. Awaiting to see what the Impossible City's deal is, whether it's someone we readers will know or not.