#i don't dislike it in ruin! i think it works fine for what it is | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

causenessus · 5 days ago

Text

present

part 0.3. HOY NO ESTARÉ

“que está pasando (what's going on) / ya no encuentro a los demás (i can't find the others anymore) te hice daño, me hiciste daño (i hurt you, you hurt me) hay un túnel largo (there is a long tunnel) y no se a donde voy (and I don't know where I'm going) / ya no tuve tiempo para decir adiós (i no longer had time to say goodbye)”

life should be about those domestic moments.

those small moments that aren’t really that small.

if you just focused on the present–what was right in front of you–nothing could be considered small. not the breaths you took continuously, one after the other, or a crosswalk sign that gives you the "go ahead" light to walk safely across a street and continue on with your day.

unfortunately, she didn’t have the luxury of enjoying those unappreciated moments.

for her, she lived to ruin others.

her job wasn’t the problem. it was the fact that she couldn't say that she was better off than those who crossed her. she ended her days coming home to a lonesome, tarnished life of her own.

perhaps she was selfish to think she deserved better; this was the price for living in the darkness. it was a part of her that had been there since she was a child, the ever-winding shadows curling along her skin proof of their persistence.

a haunting reminder that even if she did ever find light in her life, her shadow was always behind her.

but that night between her and chuuya after dazai had left proved different. that had been a small moment. the blank space at the end of a page of a book, once a chapter has ended but there was still room left for things to be said before the next part began. since then, showing up at each other’s doors late at night had become a common occurrence.

they talked about small things and big things. of things that they may have hesitated to say, but said anyway. and there was never any judgement, only small brushes of the hands, and looks that said more than words.

it confused her. she couldn’t understand why she kept telling him things about her, whether they be of the past or just something in the moment that was bothering her. it was as if his gaze simply drew the words from her mouth the moment it landed on her and he was waiting for her to speak. she often ignored the meaningless negative emotions and annoyances she felt throughout the day in the event that it caused her to develop a sense of self-pity. yet, the way he listened to her made her feel as if they weren’t measly problems—as if maybe it was okay to sometimes admit something was bothering her.

but it was uncomfortable to be placed in such a foreign situation where she was not only sharing her thoughts but also being validated for them. despite how much she disliked the idea of trying out something new, though, she couldn't bear to pull away from the boy who never failed to show up at her doorstep the next night no matter what they had discussed on the previous one. it was an intangible feeling that underlay what she understood to be a feeling of safety she associated with him, allowing her to trust him with her emotions. there was so much she couldn't understand about what she felt she almost wanted to tear her heart out and be done with all these complex paradoxes called emotions—

“whaddya thinking about?” olive green eyes came into view, a boy’s face inches away from her own.

she swatted his face away, the ruminating mood she'd drifted into ruined, “don’t worry about it.”

he huffed, falling back into step next to her before she heard the faint sound of his teeth chattering. he crossed his arms around his body while turning his head to look at their surroundings, unable to stay focused on the task in front of them for longer than a second. “it’s cold, are we almost there?”

“it’s just up ahead. you’ll be fine as long as you don’t make snarky comments in front of the man we’re meeting, earnest,” she sighed, seeing her own breath appear in the cold air as she exhaled. working with earnest was like having a child of her own, which she didn’t say happily. she couldn’t tell if mori actually wanted her to train him or if he just needed a babysitter for the boy.

earnest was sweet, but as a new member who had come all the way from america, it was to be expected. he was reckless and naive, not quite yet understanding how the city of yokohama worked nor was he patient enough to wait to figure it out. he had worked for a criminal organization before, but his affiliation with them had ended with him in prison and then on the other side of the world. so maybe she couldn't be entirely angry at his immaturity; he simply didn't know any better, and perhaps that's why mori had placed him in her care. but that didn't mean she'd take pity on him just because he'd had a rough start—they all had.

they entered the building, shutting the door silently behind them. “they’re on the third floor,” he whispered from behind her.

“just as planned,” she responded, scanning their surroundings before taking another step forward. “nothing else?”

“nothing out of the ordinary so far,” he shook his head, eyes still closed with his palm pressed to the wall of the building. like her's along with many others, his ability had practically been made for criminal activities.

she lifted the silver briefcase in her hand higher, starting to climb up the flights of stairs that would bring them to the meeting spot. she hadn’t bothered to check what was inside (she sincerely hoped she wasn't wrong to trust that earnest had done the bare minimum of double checking the contents of the briefcase before showing up at her door like a puppy who'd just been told he was going for a walk— in which the only real difference in this situation was that he'd heard the word "job" instead of "walk" and it still elicited a reaction all the same) but whatever various objects were inside clinked quietly as they fell to one side of the case.

“this is so stupid,” she heard behind her, “exchanges are so–”

she hushed him, her free hand not holding the briefcase reaching back to where he was following close behind to swat at his face again. sometimes trade jobs were boring, yes, but sometimes they could get heated. his complaints could wait until after they had finished the transfer.

arriving at the third floor, only illuminated by the moonlight spilling through the windows on the side of the building, she waited for earnest to finish making it up the stairs before she turned the corner.

a table waited at the center of this hallway too, the blue shine of the moon outside framing it in a sort of spotlight. she placed the briefcase on the table with the handle and locks facing away from her, stepping back just as a stern-faced man stepped out from behind a wall near the table. his light brown hair reached just past his ears and was slicked back, framing an ordinary face. he was nothing special or crazy intimidating, he was most likely just a simple runner for his organization. what caught her off guard in the next moment was the accent he spoke with, saying something she didn't entirely catch. it was heavy and could barely be considered japanese, leaving her to wonder who'd let this poor man show up to an exchange with the port mafia all by himself when he could barely speak their language. but she couldn't say much with an american of her own standing a few feet away, so instead they nodded to each other and she waited half a beat before turning around.

earnest continued to stand still, eyes on the man who had taken to opening the briefcase to examine what was inside. she brushed past him, giving him a look that told him to follow before walking back the way they came.

he trailed behind her a few seconds later and they made their way down the first flight of stairs, not before he gave one last glance down the hallway they’d just came from. she looked back at him with a face of concern. “what’s the matter? you’re suddenly quiet and acting all paranoid. did you see a ghost?” it was a lighthearted tease, but she nonetheless paused at the beginning of the next flight of stairs to hear what he had to say.

“i… just thought i knew him,” earnest answered, no longer sounding bored or whiny.

she quirked a brow, “oh? from where?” she asked, turning back to face the last flight of stairs.

“hold on,” he grabbed her arm, placing his other hand on the wall and closing his eyes as he’d done when they’d first entered the building. “there’s someone waiting down there.” his eyes shot open, “we need to find another way out.”

for whom the bell tolls was an ability that allowed earnest to see the layout of any building he was in and single out the best places for ambushes within them. it was a double-edged sword, used both to his advantage and plotting where to sneak up on someone, and also to predict and detect if perhaps anyone was instead waiting to attack him from those same spots.

in the short time she had worked with earnest, it had proven quite useful. he’d been right every time he’d warned her or described a building, sometimes even predicting things that were more specific than she thought could be produced by his ability. yet, she couldn’t help but question what he’d said, worried that perhaps his shakeup from the exchange minutes ago was influencing his decisions, “it’s just one person, why?”

he’d tugged her arm down a hallway to their left as if he knew this place like the back of his hand, yet they both knew it was his first time in here. but it was her’s, too, and all she could do was trust his guidance. “they’re planning to destroy the whole building– and everyone in it,” he answered, eyes wide and breathing uneven. his grip on her sleeve remaining tight, “there’s an open window this way, the fall won’t be detrimental, and i saw a manhole on the side of the building. we’ll take it–”

the hair stood up on the back of her neck as she felt a presence behind her. quickly pulling the pistol from a holster on the side of her hip, firing three shots in the direction of the feeling.

earnest flinched at the sound, brows knit with raised anxiety and panic but her eyes were focused on the figure that stumbled out of the doorway where they’d been just been moments ago. while normally she would have stayed to take care of the assailant, she’d never seen earnest so scared and she could feel the unease, too. something wasn't normal about the situation. she should have noticed from the moment she'd saw the man who she'd left the briefcase with; his lack of speech and fluency gave it away; they had been fooled. whatever was in that briefcase hadn't mattered in the slightest. their true objective seemed to be taking the lives of her and the boy beside her.

she spun back around, this time being the one to grab onto earnest and pull him along as they started to run. the window he'd mentioned before was just ahead, the countless closed doors they passed becoming a blur as they sprinted down the hallway, trying to reach their exit.

this was a building owned by the mafia– it’s why it had been chosen as the exchange point. how had nothing seemed to have been out of the ordinary if these people were somehow planning to destroy it? how had earnest not noticed anything from the start? the only reasonable explanation she could come up with was that it had to be an ability, and they needed to escape this building before even thinking of fighting back.

“[y/n]–”

“hold on,” she cut him off, hearing a shot from behind her, and the whirl of something pass by her ear, so close it grazed her cheek. she fired several more shots back in retaliation through gritted teeth, “we’re almost there.”

she let go of earnest’s hand to run forward, giving her time to check that nothing was waiting outside the window before she slipped out of it, earnest following quickly behind. she watched the window while earnest shakily stood back up from the fall. a dark figure look out the window down towards them, but they didn’t follow.

a hand tugged at her’s, “i think we should leave. it’s not a good idea to try to fight them,” earnest looked her straight in the eyes. he didn’t seem completely terrified anymore and she trusted his intuition after the trap he'd just saved both of them from.

“let’s go, then.”

earnest had been right to suggest for them to leave. the day after, the news blared with pictures of the building that looked alarmingly like the one they’d been in last night. in fact, it was the one they’d been in not even eight hours ago, and now it had vanished without a trace. there was no debris or ash left over; the building hadn’t been blown up or left behind any evidence of destruction, it'd simply disappeared. all the was left behind was the concrete base the property had been built upon as if the building had never existed in the first place.

earnest found her in the morning, his skin pale and eyes bloodshot. “it’s the guild,” he stammered, “they’re…they’re here.”

she’d only heard of the american organization briefly, from reports and news articles she’d happen to glimpse by and from the stories earnest had told. it was the same group he’d originally come from, after all. “i believe you,” she spoke calmly, looking him in the eyes. “but why would they come here? what do we have that they can’t get in their own country?” she began to guide him down the hall away from her office. she had a feeling he already knew, but mori would want to hear earnest’s explanation if by some chance their boss hadn’t already predicted every outcome.

“it’s because of me, [y/n]-san. i– they framed me. they want this… book. and i helped them– and then they got me arrested once they were done with me. i–”

“earnest, calm down.” his head shot up at the sound his name coming from her mouth, and something in her clicked when she saw the look on his face. she stopped walking, and he followed suit, “don’t do it. you wouldn’t be able to handle them all on your own.” unlike yesterday, his eyes weren’t wide with fear for his safety nor were they lively and upbeat as they were normally. they were instead filled with anger and vengeance.

“they threw me into jail,” he tried to argue, “they came here knowing i was here, too. they’re here to finish what they started with me [y/n]-san. i won’t let them.”

“you won’t survive,” she shook her head. “if you didn’t want to fight even just one of them yesterday, how do you plan to take them all on? come on, we’re going to see mori-san. you’re not the only one with grudges, earnest. the guild tried to kill us and destroyed one of our buildings. the mafia won't let them get away with something like that. wait for a minute, see what both sides plan to do next, and you can fight when you’re more in control of your emotions.”

the fire that had sparked in his eyes seemed to slowly go out as he looked towards the floor. “you’re right,” he took a step back from her.

she hadn’t thought she was speaking harshly too him; he’d endured much worse than her chastising his recklessness this time around, yet she must have struck a nerve if he’d switched up this quickly. “earnest, please.”

“no…you’re right. I just need to think about this,” he said, refusing to look back at her. he was starting to remind her of someone she’d know years ago who’d been too desperate as well. he'd been too impatient to reach for the stars to wait for the right timing, and she knew how that story had ended. she had ended it. subconsciously, her nails were digging into her palms as her hands clenched into fists. she held herself back from saying anything else, knowing it wouldn't help. what he needed now was time. she needed to be patient, and to keep an eye out for him, to make sure he didn’t slip through her fingers the way he had all that time ago.

“think about it,” she said, voice barely above a whisper, and her eyes shut tight as if just continuing to stand there pained her. and it did, a little bit. “and please…just tell me if you go, okay?”

when she opened her eyes again, he was already gone.

prev. | m.list | next

extras <3

i'm so sorry i actually lowk don't like when ocs suddenly appear in x reader works I DO NOT CLAIM EARNEST HEMMINGWAY AS AN OC MAKING HIM A CHARACTER WAS THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE BUT NO CANON CHARACTER IN BSD FIT THE ROLE I NEED HIM TO PLAY

never really thought there'd come a day where i was arguing about disowning an earnest hemmingway oc but here i am

don't come at me for anything regarding earnest hemmingway I don't know anything

also i'm so sorry if any lyrical translations are incorrect </3 I am trying my hardest between reddit posts and lyric websites to find correct translations for songs in languages I'm not fluent in but if anyone who knows better than me a better translation do not be afraid to yell at me and let me know :3

thank you for reading!! happy new year <3

taglist: @kameyyy @miiyas @saoirseyun @phoenix-eclipses @writingandmusing @strawberryuri @viovya (form to be added to taglist! <3)

21 notes · View notes

kynimdraws · 9 months ago

Text

INFO POST

Name: Kylee (they/them). 30+

A totally normal Korean American mostly known for my drawings, specifically my Pokemon nuzlocke comics. But I will talk about other things on occasion because I do have periods of being fixated on certain topics. I also am a doctor!

Interests: Pokemon, League of Legends (everything except the game lmao), Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Animal Crossing, Mother series, Korean history/culture, character design

General FYIs:

General inquiries/commission work/etc should be sent thru kynimdraws [at] gmail [dot] com! Tumblr messaging/asks/etc is not 100% reliable

I will not follow NSFW accounts but I am fine talking/interacting with them. There may be suggestive shitposting but I like keeping my content on the SFW side

I am VERY picky about who I follow/interact with online. Fandom content in particular is a minefield for me aka I have many things I dislike and don’t want to see, even if it might be a popular thing in media that I otherwise enjoy. Therefore, I will unfollow/block/mute liberally. There are times I accidentally block a blog bc I mistake them for bots. So if you got hit with that, just send me an ask or email me

I am very open about what I like and dislike, and none of those things are a direct attack on your sensibilities. I have never gone out of my way to directly send hate or whatever have you if I end up seeing shit I don’t like. My complaints in my little online space ain't a personal attack on you.

My ask/submission box/DMs are open for criticisms if you have any issues you want to resolve in private. No one is perfect and I may have done ignorant shit that needs to be pointed out. I have deleted or edited posts in the past if people tell me what I did wrong. PS I get that some of my stuff may upset you, but try to act civil when pointing shit out please.

I try to tag all my things whenever I can. Again, send me a message if anything bothers you. I am all for good debate but if you send me excessive hate or threats bc I have different opinions about matters that are trivial, I will block/delete them.

If you wish to use any of my hcs, please credit me. And if you are comfortable with it, send me the works so I can check them out! Or @ me if that is easier.

---

FIRE EMBLEM FYI: Specifically for 3Houses/3Hopes because I need a separate one for this franchise specificially given how many crazy things I got due to being involved in this fanbase via my fanworks:

DO NOT try to convince me to like or tolerate Byleth/student ships, ESPECIALLY the ones with the lords (aka CIaude, Dimitri, EdeIgard). I already summarized why I don’t like FE3H Byleth ships with student chars here. While the spinoff game FEW3H has now removed that teacher/student problematic situation, the fandom keeps putting the FE3H elements into the FEW3H fanworks (i.e. remembering Byleth from “another life” trope)...so no thanks!! DO NOT SHOW ME IT!!!

As for the Byleth ships with faculty members, my response is here so don’t try to bait me about that topic either thanks.

I do not care whom you ingame S-support. 3Houses limits the dating-sim part of the game to that character, so I cannot care less about how you play the game. The main issue I have is when people treat Byleth the “character” as a legit ship material when I personally think they are a cool character ruined by fans who are too obsessed with badly executed self insert otome tropes bc they self-project super hard onto them. Just to be clear, any FE3H or FEW3H OC/Canon >>>>>>Byleth ships personally. Even Byleth-sonas that remove the teacher/student aspects are better than canon FE3H!Byleth

Please don't drag FE VA statements as some sort of “gotcha” on my opinions like this post here. IDC what other people prefer with ship shit, that’s their problem and not mine. I am not gonna bother them about it. So don’t bother ME about it.

---

Links to check out:

Myths of Unova + Episode Grey (Pkmn White/White2 Comic)

Tales of Sinnoh (Pkmn Diamond Comic)

Art Site (Portfolio)

Twitter

Instagram

#psa post #pinned info post lol #updating this for myself and also to use the “do not reblog” feature from the get-go this way

63 notes · View notes

baradorable · 7 months ago

Text

Marvel is about to introduce a villain called the Krakoan, who is an X-Man gone rogue. It's pretty obvious that this villain is actually Hellion. And people are split on that. Some feel that it's out of character for him. Some prefer him as a hero, or don't want him to have his character ruined, ala Nature Girl or Beast.

But who IS Hellion? If you're willing to sit through my long-ass post about him, odds are you already know and love him. But let's pretend that you don't know who he is. I'll talk about where he started, what might have lead him to becoming a villain, and why everybody will be investing in #HellionWasRight stocks in a few months.

And if we're all wrong, and Hellion is not the Krakoan? Well, no one will give a shit about the Krakoan anymore anyway, so no big deal.

First off, what is a "Krakoan?"

We'll get to that. But for now, you just need to know that the X-Men had an island nation called Krakoa. Now it's gone and it's all because no one listened to Hellion, despite him being right about everything that has ever happened.

Who is Hellion?

I'm letting you all know right now: this is blatant Hellion propaganda. Everything I said is coming from a place of heavy, heavy bias. But there will be some objectivity, in that Hellion is objectively perfect.

It's tough to summarize Hellion, because who he is has changed over the years. Though some writers might forget this, he's actually a fairly nuanced mutant who has undergone notable shifts in his character.

Introduced in New Mutants (2003) #2, he basically starts off as Draco Malfoy, if Draco was trying to bang Harry Potter.

Julian Keller, AKA Hellion, was a spoiled rich kid from California with advanced telekinetic abilities. Something that will stick out immediate is that he was hilariously petty. Like he would take any opportunity to insult people he dislikes, often for no reason. Half of his dialogue is him choosing to be a jerk to anyone outside of his social group, starting drama, or otherwise being a generic early 2000's bully archetype.

And it was amazing. Seriously, he had some of the funniest lines in the book.

He was so over the top and crude that he ended up being hilarious. He was classist, exclusionist, and a little sexist. When presented with the option of Bullying Others, and Literally Anything Else, he would choose bullying.

Julian was Emma Frost's protege and star pupil, so naturally he shares a lot of that bitchy charisma. When the school was divided into Harry Potter house-style squads, Emma put Julian in charge of his own squad, the Hellions. She also let the Hellions pick their codenames. Guess which codename Julian picked.

Emma advised him to be humble after he and his squad won a school competition. What was the very first thing he did once he got the trophy?

You would hate him so much if he were real. He's every 13 year old boy in 2003. Look at him exposing Elixir's affair to Elixir's girlfriend, solely out of pettiness.

I'd post more, but I already hit the image limit. Which is a shame, because I wanted to share the panel of him making fun of Josh for his parents abandoning him.

Hellion's original creators had this to say about him.

Back when we were working on New X-Men, we had a message board called “The Grind Stone” on the site X-Fan. One of the fans there consistently referred to Julian as “shnasty.” That person defined it as a combination of sexy and nasty. Urban dictionary these days refers to it as shitty, hot and nasty. We think that works for Julian, except when we wrote him he didn’t look like shit - not ever. He just acted like it. Once we left, he got a little more disheveled for a while, and probably better embodied the full modern version of “shnasty.” Either way, we think that’s his secret. He can treat you like shit but then turn around and be a gentleman. He sometimes acts like hot garbage but looks fine doing it.

He's catchy, offensive, brutal and gross, but with youth appeal. And if his character was just that, then bravo. He's hilarious. He wouldn't need depth to be an icon. He'd just be this little gremlin of a being, showing up and delivering devastating one-liners like some proto-Chanel Oberlin. But that's not all to his character. Despite being a supporting character in a book about teen drama, he was actually a complex character.

He's a great leader and strategist. He could lead a team, he was willing to be pragmatic and bend the rules, and his plans helped his team beat out every other student during that aforementioned school competition. It was a team effort, but Hellion knew his friends' strengths and how to get them working well.

He has a natural charisma that draws people to him. He's the big man on campus for a reason. It's best exemplified in New X-Men (2004) #5, where he sees all the other students turning their backs on a mutant called Wither.

Wither had unintentionally killed his father when his death touch power first manifested. The authorities would come bearing down on the school, looking to arrest him and have him face the law for his actions. It was an accident, completely out of his control, and Wither has been wrestling with the guilt ever since. Now there was a chance that he would be thrown in jail for it.

Wither was vulnerable and in pain, but it seemed like so many people were turning against him. Hellion, who had previously been bullying Wither for his powers, saw the scorn, gossiping and scrutiny Wither had been getting from the rest of the student body. And he had to stand up and say something.

He gives a rousing speech to everyone in the cafeteria, pointing out how many of the people who were mocking him had caused others harm with their powers in the past. He derides them for not helping out of of their own, and that any one of them could be next on the chopping block if they let Wither go without a fight. If they're not willing to support each other, they're terrible mutants.

His radical speech gets one person comparing him to Magneto. And that's not entirely wrong.

Hellion and the Hellions (along with another mutant, Wind Dancer) would work together to try and bust Wither out of police custody. It was a stupid plan that would only create more problems for them, and it would ultimately be worse than what actually happened: Wither would face trial, where he would be found innocent in the murder of his father. Wither would be free and no longer be in trouble with the authorities.

But that's the thing with Hellion: he's passionate. He might will think with his heart over his head when it comes to mutant rights. Especially when it comes to those he cares about. He's quick to take the hostile and violent path if he thinks it's right. Despite being an asshole, he's a bleeding heart who will go to the extremes for those he loves.

Wither and Hellion would go on to have a life-long friendship spanning months, as Wither would leave the school, get statutory raped by an immortal vampire witch, become a villain and die shortly after M-Day.

Hellion was always looking down on humans - and why shouldn't he? They're not part of his social group, he's not really one of them. But while he'd call them apemen and flatscans, he didn't believe in killing. In fact, he was opposed to killing even in self-defense.

That last part would change over time. But that's only because this cruel world stole every last bit of innocence and joy out of him.

Or how about the time the villainous Kingmaker offered him and his friends all their wishes, in exchange for working for him? He and his friends would eventually chose to give up their dreams and stop the Kingmaker's plans, because that was the right thing to do. Because the Hellions are heroes.

Over the years, Hellion would mature as a person. There would be less emphasis on him bullying others, and more emphasis on him enduring tragedies, fighting for the sake of others, struggling with anger and abandonment, and be forced to make more radical moves against the world. While he doesn't look that jerkish spark of his (and some writers would roll him back to a generic bully character whenever the plot called for it), he would become a lot more mature than he was at his debut. He was no longer a high school bully, but an anti-hero of young man with a talent for leadership, a lot of charisma, and big heart that got him into trouble.

Since we're on the subject of friends, let's delve more into some of his relationships. A key part of understanding his character is seeing how he treats others.

Hellion and the Hellions

So New Mutants (2003) and its sequel book, New X-Men (2004) primarily focused on the New Mutants squad. Hellion and the Hellions would be so popular that they would get their own mini and eventually become main characters. But the early books were centered around the New Mutants.

The Hellions are antagonists, the Slytherins to their Gryffindors. Except their dynamic is a lot more complicated than you'd think.

The New Mutants are lead by Wind Dancer, who is also Hellion's first love interest. While Wind Dancer has a huge heart and a knack for bringing out the best in others, the team would fall apart over personal drama. Bitterness, resentment and insecurity would bubble for a long time, culminating in the group briefly splitting up. It would take a lot of work getting them to resolve their issues and be friends again.

This is where the Hellions act as foils. Sure, they might antagonize the New Mutants. Hellion might tease some of them. But the group functions way better as a unit, and they don't have the same interpersonal drama as the New Mutants. They're a cohesive team of friends who support each other.

The Hellions got to star in their own mini, and it delivered on the friendship. In the first issue, we see Hellion picking a fight with airport security for his friends' sake. Instead of going for a more peaceful route, he's quick to order his team and bust out their powers. When Dust chases security down to try and reason with them, he's annoyed that she put herself at risk.

The series is peppered with moments between the various Hellions, which is really nice. I recommend it not just for Hellion, but for the whole Hellions squad. Every one of them is a unique character, and I think they deserve love. There's a reason why New X-Men would revolve more and more around the Hellions.

You won't be surprised to know that Hellion doesn't make fun of fellow Hellion, Mercury, when she's feeling some heartache. Without any sense of sarcasm or irony, he sits down with her and has a heart to heart. No ulterior motives, no gotcha - Hellion is there to support his friends.

One fun thing about Hellion is that he's a huge hypocrite. He will regularly insult others outside his group of friends. But he would rarely hurt his friends, and he'd be the first to defend him. This is most evident in New Mutants (2003) #8, Surge's introduction issue. He's quick to accept his friend Anole's strange mutation and chides Elixir for not being as accepting. In the next couple of pages, he insults a homeless girl, tells her she smells bad and refuses to offer any sort of help.

When M-Day happens and Prodigy got depowered, Hellion kicked him while he's down and belittled the guy. He mocked him for being human now. But when he found out that his beloved Wind Dancer is depowered, he tried to comfort her and disregarded everything he previously said about Prodigy. Because Julian holds his friends to a completely different standard than he does others.

He has an incredible amount of loyalty and empathy, but much of that is reserved for his own inner circle. He might be slow to warm up to someone, but once you're in, you're in for the long haul. Unless you really mess up or your name is Josh.

Mutants as a whole are part of that circle, in a way. He won't be friends with every mutant, but he would defend them all with his life. Even though a lot of them don't appreciate his efforts.

Emma Frost

His relationship with Emma is pretty good: she encourages his rowdy behavior because she sees potential in him. He has that same spark, attitude and guile she does. She recognizes that he has the potential to be a great leader, and he does everything he can to meet her expectations. She tends to be lenient on him. She'll bail him out of trouble. When others write him off or turn their backs on him, she's standing with him. But in return, she makes it clear that she expects nothing short of amazing out of him.

Boy, I sure hope nothing ruins this bond.

Prodigy

Speaking of people who don't appreciate Hellion. David Alleyne, AKA Prodigy, was a frequent target of Hellion's bullying. Julian would mock Prodigy for having a lame power [Being able to temporarily absorb skills and thoughts from others around him], and sometimes it would get under David's skin. He really knew how to dig into Prodigy's insecurities and hurt him with them. In turn, Prodigy was always ready to fight back against Hellion and put him in his place whenever he could.

Here's Prodigy's then-girlfriend kissing Hellion, right in front of him.

This is horribly out of context, I just thought it was funny to bring up.

The two would butt heads constantly. Over the years, more tragedies would be thrown at them. They'd mature and function better as a group, but there would always be tension between them, for one reason or another. Both of them are opinionated, and their opinions tend to differ.

Why am I bringing Prodigy up? Prodigy will be a main character in the upcoming NYX book, which is where the Krakoan will debut. The two don't have the most meaningful relationship, but it could easily come into play at some point in the book.

Wind Dancer (Sofia Mantega)

Sofia Mantega was the primary character of New Mutants (2003) and much of New X-Men (2004,) She was the Harry Potter that this Draco Malfoy wants to bang. Sofia was the newcomer to the world of mutants. She was confident, outgoing and stuck to her principals. Despite being very gentle, amiable and friendly, she was strong-willed. She knew how to stand up for herself and others.

Julian and Sofia flirted throughout New Mutants. There was an instant rapport between the two. But that doesn't mean it's all smooth sailings. One of my favorite examples of this comes from issue 3. Julian reached out to Sofia, and she says she liked dancing. As they made plans to go somewhere, Laurie Collins (Wallflower) passed by. While Sofia eagerly makes lunch plans with Laurie, Julian dismissed Laurie and called her a freak.

Sofia responds by hitting Julian's ear with compressed air, making him lose his balance. She and Laurie walked away, leaving him behind.

Sofia knew Julian was a bad boy and a jerk, and she'd stand up to him when she saw him doing something she disapproved of. But she still liked him. She was never afraid to give him a taste of his own medicine, and he loved her for it.

From their first meeting in issue 2, we saw what there were similarities between them. The most obvious would be their powers: they could both fly, and Sofia's power lets her manipulate objects with the same precision as a telekinetic's psychic force.

Like Julian, Sofia was great with people. Unlike Julian, she wasn't one to discriminate. While Julian was quick to brush off and demean Wallflower, Sofia was quick to befriend her.

During class, Julian was quick to tell newcomer David Alleyne (Prodigy) to stay away from Kevin Ford (Wither,) because his powers were dangerous. Meanwhile, when Wallflower worried about how lonely Wither was, Sofia invited him to hang out with them. She dismissed Wither's concerns about his powers. She wasn't afraid to be his friend.

Josh Foley (Elixir), a former Purifier recruit, came to the school after previously turning them down. While Prodigy iwa quick to turn against him, Sofia listened to how Elixir's own family turned against him for being a mutant. She related to him and gave him a second chance.

While Prodigy and Sofia would be co-leader of the New Mutants squad, Sofia was the glue that held them together. However, her caring side did get her into trouble: she followed Julian and the Hellions on a mission to bust Wither out of police custody; she wanted to help, but didn't know what to do and needed some guidance.

Speaking of the Wither incident, it briefly took a toll on Julian and Sofia's relationship. She at first helped the Hellions, but Sofia would ultimately side with her squad and turn against the Hellions, feeling like it was the right thing to do. Julian saw it as a betrayal. It soured their relationship for a bit, though the two would make up in a later arc, when a protective Hellion helped the New Mutants deal with a ghost. He was there for her, even when they were not on speaking terms.

Imo, this was the crux of Julian and Sofia's relationship: they were both popular, charismatic and and good with people. They were passionate about helping those they care about. The difference was that Sofia opens her heart up to more people, while Julian cares more about his inner circle.

The relationship helped to humanize Julian and show that, despite his attitude, there was a lot of good in him. Even if most people couldn't see it. This girl saw that he was a good person and she stuck by him, but she also didn't let him get his way or take advantage of her kindness. And that helped make him a better person.

Conversely, Julian was a fun foil to Sofia. He could give her advice, be there when she needed someone to talk to, and he'd never treat her like he treated her squad. He was a jerk, but he had the purest intentions with her. He was the first student she met at the school, and he was there for her through the good and the bad.

Julian also has a pet name for her: Beautiful. He uses it a few times. And yes, it's important to mention this fact.

It was a very pure, wholesome relationship. Two high school sweethearts who were also on rival teams. Sofia brought the best out of Julian, and Julian bettered himself for her. They butted heads, had their ups and downs, and would let their emotions blind them. But in the end, they loved each other.

Gee, I hope some witch doesn't swoop in and ruin everything with a magic spell.

The two would end up falling out, but they weren't really over each other. After Sofia left the school, we'd see her still dream about being with her friends and kissing Hellion. Meanwhile, Laura would catch Julian muttering Sofia's name in his sleep.

Wolverine/X-23 (Laura Kinney)

"You were dead the second you touched Julian Keller." - Laura, to Lady Deathstrike

When it comes to Laura romances, there are two that are popular with fans: Jubilee/X-23, and Hellion/X-23. Opinions on Laura's other ships tend to range from decent-ish, to mid, to terrible. Hellion/Laura (also known by their combo name, Helix) is, by far, the most popular ship. To this day, 13 years after the pairing was torpedoed, it retains an active fanbase. And they were never officially a couple!

So when Laura first came to Xavier's School of Witchcraft and Mutantry, she wasn't in a good place. She was a former child soldier who was only taught to kill. She was a former teen prostitute who was constantly being abused by others. She had and lost friends. She was forced to kill her own mother. She was barely allowed to feel her own emotions. And right when she meets Wolverine - her father/the man she was cloned from - she's dropped off at a school full of strangers. In the middle of a crisis, where students were being hunted down and killed. Everyone treats her with suspicion and fear, and Emma Frost is doing everything in her power to get her out of the school entirely.

And then there's the school bully. Right off the bat, he was dismissive of her, cracked jokes at her expense, and even teased her a bit. He lets her hang out with his group, but he's not very sympathetic to her trauma. Of course, he wasn't projecting images of her dead mother into her head, so he was better than Emma here.

Things turned around when the students were asked to fight against each other, in order to determine who is strong enough to be on the New X-Men team after M-Day. Emma used this opportunity to try and have X-23 taken out of commission. She wanted Hellion to ensure she got hurt.

Instead, Hellion ended up protecting her. Emma was furious. She picked Surge as team leader over him out of spite, and made it clear that he was very disappointed in Hellion.

Over the course of New X-Men, their relationship would evolve into a close connection. Julian would be protective of her. He would risk his life for her. He pushed his powers to the absolute limits and had Emma break away any mental restraints on them, so he could use them to save her life.

Through her crush on Julian, Laura began to truly experience many of her emotions. All her friends at school helped her process and grow, but the growing romance between these two kids was especially endearing. Despite being partly scared of her, Hellion would stand by her. He'd even go on to call her his best friend. When everyone else treats her with suspicion, or they suspected her of falling back to her violent ways, he was the first one to jump to her defense and see the absolute best in her.

Let's not forget the time Laura was ready to kill her arch-enemy, Karima. She knew Karima was to dangerous to let live, and she told Hellion that they had to kill her. But Hellion declined. He wanted him and Laura to be better than that. Hellion wanted to help break her out of that way of thinking.

Their dynamic sort of shifted as things went on. In that Hellion becomes this sort of damsel in distress who gets horribly injured and needs to be saved by Laura. She even went to Hell with a demon in order to save him. The most notable example of Hellion's Tragic Love Interest-ification is the time Lady Deathstrike shanked Hellion.

Laura totally lost it and beat Lady Deathstrike's ass.

These were two broken people. They suffered so much throughout their short lives. But then they found each other. They were broken together, but they found happiness. They bought out the best in each other, and showed the other that they are more than the tragedies they've endured.

There are a lot more nuances to the relationship, such as Hellion being more accepting of Laura's quirks and insecurities, how some fans interpret their dynamic as a play on traditional gender roles, how Laura was portrayed in their dynamic, how it styles over every other Laura romance. You can ask pretty much any Helix fan about the relationship, and they'll all have different aspects on the pairing. Some I haven't listed or even considered. I'm really just covering the barest essentials.

I just hope no writer comes in and ruins their relationship.

Other Loves: Ships that Pass in the Night

Hellion dated Shark-Girl for a bit, and once flirted with Armor. He also took three of the surviving Stepford Cuckoos to the school dance, at the same time - though he immediately ditched them for Wind Dancer. However, years later, one panel had one of the girls casually mention that they were going on a date with him.

Remember Prodigy's blue-haired girlfriend? She was the homeless girl Hellion had previously bullied. The two would have some animosity over the years, largely due to them being two stubborn, strong-headed individuals. Neither of them liked to take the other's crap, though to be fair, Hellion was usually the one causing trouble. The two would eventually be the New X-Men team together, and they would come to respect and care for each other. While there wasn't an actual romance between them in the main continuity, the two were shown to be married in one future, in the non-canon Battle of the Atom mobile game.

There was also that time he and Diamondback briefly flirted.

Fun fact: Hellion has a thing for powerful women. Women who can take charge, or are outspoken, are in control, or otherwise strong. If they can kill him, he can bed them. While all of his love interests have different personalities, they're all powerful women in one way or another.

Also, Wind Dancer and Shark-Girl are both Latinas. Laura (at the time) and the Cuckoos were also clones, of Wolverine and Emma Frost, respectively. (Well, I SAY clones, but technically none of those characters are clones in the strictest sense. It's a whole thing, but oddly enough they still share that in common.) Point is, the man has a type.

Ready for yet another fun fact: Hellion went on a date with all three Cuckoos at once. At best, Quentin Quire got with only one of them. He managed to officially date that Cuckoo, as opposed to just going on dates. But Quire was also responsible for another one of the others Cuckoos dying, which I feel cancels it out.

My favorite Hellion ship, you ask? Thank you for asking, reader. And to be honest, I don't know. On paper, the tragic romance of Helix is compelling and dramatic. It's very easy to see why the ship endured nearly 20 years later. It'd be a slam dunk... if Hell-Dancer wasn't so compelling, charming and sweet. For me, these two ships are usually neck and neck.

I'm also partial to Surge/Hellion, and a bit of Hellion/Rockslide. There was also a fake leak going around back in the day, claiming something along the lines of Emma hooking up with Hellion and getting impregnated by him. Fans on Tumblr were going mental over it, even if no one took it seriously. I love that for us. I love that for them. Sometimes you don't want a good romance. Sometimes you want to see nuclear fallout. It's like watching MILF Manor, but it's even more gross. You know it's bad and it's not something you would even enjoy watching. But you still want to see the mess it creates.

The Keller Family

What kind of people would create Hellion? Looking at how their son turned out, they must have done a great job. Only super-parents could have crafted perfection, right?

Actually, no. It turned out that Hellion is perfect, amazing, and the best character in all of fiction, DESPITE them.

We got the first red flag when Parents Week rolled around. Julian manipulated his teacher Northstar into getting him out of work duty. He gave a sob story about how his parents don't want to see him, though as Anole pointed out, his parents really didn't come to see him. Julian casually waved this off, stating that his parents were busy skiing in the Alps.

Hellion was not only bragging about manipulating someone, but he was bragging about his parents blowing off their own son to have fun. He only focused on how they're doing something cool and elitist. At that point in time, they had likely not seen or spoken to their son in months. He was aware how the situation would be seen as unacceptable by others, but was seemingly incapable of recognizing it on a personal level.

In the past, his parents spent 10 thousand dollars on Julian's 12th birthday party. Hellion casually stated that L.A. parties hard to compete with, meaning that this type of excess was normal for people in the area. Considering he mentioned "competing" and his parents would be shown to care about their image, I wouldn't be surprised if all this attention was not just about Julian having a great birthday, but also making the Kellers could look good. Hell, when you get to know his parents more, you could argue that his parents only cared about looking good.

They were powerful and had connections, to the point where Hellion was able to casually call up the Department of Homeland Security to help him out. Hellion clearly got his Trust Fund Baby attitude from.

Hellion's parents would debut in the 2004 mini, New X-Men: Hellions. (That's right. Hellion's Hellions book walked so Krakoa's Hellions book could run.) They were immensely disappointed in their son causing a scene at an airport, using their connections to get out of it, and bringing his friends to their house without telling them.

Julian's father was shown to dislike his son's mutation. He didn't like that his son had to go to the Xavier Institute, and he was glad that his son mutation was easy to hide. While he was angry at his son for using his powers and making a scene, it was clear that he only cared about how it affected the Kellers' image.

Hellion's mother was a little more understanding. She was softer spoken. While she compared him unfavorably to his older brother James, she was fine with her younger child walking his own path. But she also sided with Daddy Hellion, because they worked too hard and didn't want their son to risk their assets.

Hellion's parents had cut Hellion out of the will. The family business and all of their money would go to James. Hellion and his friends were welcome to stay at the house, and Hellion was still family. But no way were they letting their twerp kid make them look bad or endanger their comfy lifestyle.

Then they left Hellion and his friends to go on vacation.

The moment Mama and Daddy Hellion left, Julian enlisted the help of his friends to root through their personal belongings to find something to use against his parents. Despite originally telling his friends that his parents were self-made billionaires, he made his thoughts clear to them once they cut him off. No one could make so much money, so quickly.

We got a rough timeline how things went down: they were making about 30k a year, 18 months before Hellion turned 12. Around that time, their company went international and became incredibly profitable. Considering Hellion was stated to be 16 at this time, this means that they became international moguls and billionaires in less than a decade.

So what was the source of their success? It turned out that they used magic to perform a dark ritual, summoned an evil being known as the Kingmaker, and then formed a sort of Faustian bargain with him for all their wealth and power.

Hellion and the Hellions summoned the Kingmaker, at first not actually thinking it would work. But nah, it worked. Kingmaker would offer all of them their hearts desires. But as we covered earlier, the kids eventually chose to give up on their wishes to stop his evil plans.

Hellion's parents were extremely pissed at Julian for running afoul with their benefactor. Mama Hellion reminded her son that they couldn't protect him from someone as powerful as the Kingmaker. But Hellion dismissed him and pointed out how his parents were the ones who got in bed with a villain, and the Kingmaker would more likely go after them, since Hellion and his friends were strong enough to beat him up.

Yet despite being disinherited, being treated like the family shame for being born a mutant, and finding out his parents teamed up with bad people for their own personal gain, Hellion still wanted to be there for them.

Despite Hellion's loyalty, his family would never return it. In fact, this would be the last thing he would ever say to them. Because they would eventually cut him off completely, sell their house and not even tell him where they moved to. They would abandon their son when he needed them most.

At least the other guardians in Hellion's life weren't letting him down, right?

Abandoned!

We have a character who thrives through his connections with others. But what happens when we take them all away?

Just after the Hellions' big summer blow-out against the Kingmaker, M-Day happened. M-Day - also known as Decimation, which should give you a good idea of what it entailed - saw the Pretender (AKA the Scarlet Witch, AKA the Scarlet Bitch, AKA the Harlot Witch) saying, "Haha no more mutants, eunh 😜" and depowering the vast majority of mutants. Their numbers, previously in the thousands (being in around the millions before the Genosha genocide) were now in the very, very, very low hundreds. Cerebro clocked a 91.4% remaining reduction in the mutant population.

To be fair, Wanda was going through some things at the time, and it's not like she was in the right mindspace after others were taking advantage of her mental breakdown for their own personal gain. She was a victim. But to be unfair, it's also the start of everything going wrong for Hellion.

Xavier's school was absolutely wrecked by this. The vast majority of students were depowered, some of them dying as a consequence.

Among the depowered students was Prodigy, and Hellion was quick to swoop in and make fun of him for it. Including stating that Prodigy didn't belong with them at the school, now that he was human. He assumed Prodigy was ready to abandon the mutants now that he could be "normal."

Unfortunately, Wind Dancer overheard what Hellion said. As it turned out, she'd also been depowered by the Pretender. She turned the situation back around on Julian and asked if she was less "Beautiful" to him now, and not worthy of being loved in his eyes. Angry, Wind Dancer stormed off and stopped talking to Hellion.

Once again, hypocrisy. Julian would think that about Prodigy, and he was ready to make things harder for him. Hellion would never see Sofia as anything less, whether she be human or mutant. The thought wouldn't even occur to him. Julian loved Sofia. He'd never hurt her on purpose. But through his own attitude and carelessness, he ended up hurting her the most.

At that time, Wither was also going through some things. He accidentally mangled his crush's arm with his death power, and that drove her further into the arms of Wither's rival, Elixir. Already heartbroken that over the torment his powers had brought him, Wither became more withdrawn.

Hellion was stuck trying to reach out to both Wither and Wind Dancer, but he couldn't be fully there for both of them at the same time. He was unable to reach out to Wither and stop him from running away from the school. They would not see each other again until Necrosha, half a decade later in real time. By then, Wither would be their enemy.

Sofia also quietly left without telling Julian. The two would never even see or speak to her for over 14 years IRL.

But that wasn't the end of it. Tag, one of the Hellions and Julian's best friend, also felt hurt. Julian was so worried about Wither and especially Sofia, he completely neglected to see Tag's pain. He had also been depowered, and was worried he didn't belong with them anymore. Tag, along with most of the other depowered students, would leave the school. He and many other kids boarded a schoolbus and prepared to leave their old life behind.

And then a missile hit the bus, killing all inside. Hellion and his friends would get injured in the attack, trying and failing to save the other kids. Julian was just about to reach Tag and save him, only for the bus to explode and severely injure Hellion for his troubles.

42 children died in that attack. 15 of them were buried in the X-Men' own backyard because even their families didn't want them.

Well, at least the Marvel universe had a ton of heroes who could help out during these trying times. In fact, here comes Carol Danvers to... Oh no, wait. She's just here to try and get the mutants to help her side in the Civil War event. All the other heroes are too busy fighting each other to protect these kids. That's a shame.

At least the government stepped in with Sentinels, who would stand guard outside the mansion and protect the kids. And by that, I mean that they did absolutely nothing and completely failed at their jobs. Because assassins managed to sneak into the school and kill even more kids.

The remaining X-kids would go on to have several misadventures, including getting themselves involved in X-23's life when her old enemies come knocking, fighting a time-traveling Nimrod robot from the future, fighting alongside the adults to save a mutant messiah baby, and getting kidnapped by a demon (NOT the same demon that would go on to stab Hellion, who had already been stabbed by someone else before. Hellion wasn't even involved with this demon adventure.) I won't go into detail over all the horrible things that happened to Hellion and his friend, but know that a lot happened to them.

The kids were technically under the care of the X-Men, but the X-Men were too busy, were spread too thin, and were fighting the world from all fronts to focus on the kids. So the kid were largely left to defend themselves. This is best exemplified when, after the X-Men failed to protect the kids from several attacks, Surge dismisses their help. "We already know how to die."

One issue was dedicated to the kids trying to find out which among them was the youngest. They believed that the youngest of them would become a target, and therefore more likely to be killed. They singled out the youngest kid, but they truly believed that they were all going to die.

I bring this up because this was what the X-Men tragically considered a good day. At that point, a good day was one where nobody died, nobody was tortured, and nobody's soul was torn apart.

And this isn't me exaggerating. The X-Men were openly remorseful about how they failed these kids. They explicitly stated how the kids had serious emotional and psychological trauma. But despite everything, the X-Men cared for their students. They couldn't always be there for them like they should, but they were still their guardians. They would do anything in their power to make the world a better place for them.

So anyway, Cyclops disbanded the X-Men and shut down the school. The kids they previously failed were now scattered to the wind.

Emma left Hellion. As much as she loved him and wanted to keep him safe, she knew she had to keep him away from the X-Men. He needed to be kept away from the fighting and wars for as long as he could. Maybe now he could find some semblance of a normal life and keep himself safe? At the very least, Angel paid for his hotel and food for the time being.

Anyway, Hellion found out that his parents abandoned him, so he had nowhere to go. He was now homeless and had no support system, putting him in more danger than ever.

Hellion would seek out Magneto (not in hero mode at the time) to team up with him. Magneto calls him arrogant, but desperate to please. He refused to take him in and went on to say this:

"Everything you thought you were is gone, and the only thing you had left, the only thing you held on to so tightly was that you were an X-Man. Your teachers abandoned you. Your friends died. Your heart broke. Your beliefs shattered. The X-Men failed you. So, you find me, their greatest enemy. You love them so much that you want to hurt them. But I won't use you, and I won't kill you."

He says that Cyclops had given Hellion the gift of time. He had a moment of peace and a chance to be away from all the trouble, before war would come for mutants once again. At least for now, Hellion was safe.

Then Hellion was injected with the Legacy Virus (mutant AIDS) and used as a hostage in a wicked supervillain plot. Don't worry about it, it was just a small addition to the tapestry of suffering that is his life.

Hellion Was Right

After the X-Men disassembled and anti-mutant sentiment was on the rise, Hellion took a more radical approach to dealing with issues. He'd openly protest on the street, belittle and even attack mutant bigots and haters. He had enough of the X-Men kowtowing and trying to create peace with people who wanted them dead. No more worrying about the silent majority minority of well-meaning humans, no more trying to police their own or trying to achieve co-existence. Hellion was coming more radicalized.

Hellion's radicalization was bad. He resorted to extremes, violence and anger to hurt anyone who got in his way. His actions, while meant to help mutants, were sabotaging relationships between humans and mutants.

But let's be real: there will never, ever be co-existence between humans and mutants. In real life, the drama, threat and isolation mutants face are a big part of the mutant narrative. Take that away, and the franchise seems a lot less viable.

So Marvel will constantly throw in threats of violence and extinction at mutants. It ramped up to insane degrees by the 2000's, to the point where mutants were facing extinction for over 20 years real time, and things have only been escalating. Society will only grow to hate mutants more and more.

While Hellion's radicalism isn't necessarily right, Xavier's dreams of peace are objectively wrong. If anything, the X-Men are indirectly upholding the status quo. Yeah, they also prevent things from getting worse (Days of Future Past), but much of their strides end up being undone.

Mutants would almost achieve coexistence with mutants via their nation of Krakoa, in that the mutants basically bribed the world into tolerating them and attacking them less. While Krakoa would reach out and help humans with various matters, and the books would rely much less on extinction events for stories, things were nowhere close to perfect.

I'm going to say it: Hellion was right. The X-Men were wrong. Humans can't be reasoned with so easily. They need to force their view onto others. They need to fight humans for their rights. The only reasons why they don't? Aside from status quo, it's because the X-Men and other superheroes would step in and give some speech about peaceful co-existence being the right path, even though it's hard. Not knowing that things will objectively never get better because Marvel civilians are irredeemable.

Hellion wouldn't have helped mutants with his actions. But he couldn't make things any worse at that point, because the world turned against him long before he was even alive. No matter what, mutants were fucked.

But hey, it's not like mutants can live without humans. Coexistence is necessary for their survival. It's not like they have proof that mutants would thrive without the presence of humans. Yet.

Anyway, Hellion protested and Emma & her Dark X-Men arrested them. Emma betrayed the evil fascist government run by Norman Osborn, blah blah blah, it was all cool because Emma helped him. She also punched him in the face and put him through a lot of shit, but let's ignore that. It's island time.

The Hands Job

So the X-Men decided to make an island nation, where they gathered all the stray mutants they could and offered them sanctuary. This time, was Utopia. Next time, it would be Krakoa.

Hellion would return to the field. He'd fight the good fight alongside the X-Men, protecting mutants and humanity because it's the right thing to do. Despite everything that had happened to him, he still believed in the X-Men's cause. Or at the very least, he wanted to protect those he loved.

Anyway, a Nimrod Sentinel ended up blowing off his hands.

It really messed him up. Hellion got metal prosthetic hands to and made due by puppeting them with his telekinesis. He had the option of getting mechanized hands he could control more easily, but since he was deeply traumatized by machines, having little robots at the end of his forearms was the last thing he wanted.

To be fair on Rogue, she reached out to Hellion to try and help him. She'd offer to have him go on a trip with her and others to India, though he'd decline. He wasn't in the mood to have people gawk at his missing body parts. Which, fair.

Also, Hellion got stabbed by a demon-possessed Wolverine and Laura had to save him. It's only worth mentioning because Laura peaced out after this.

He was pretty pissed off that the X-Men could always come back from the dead one way or another, yet they couldn't fix his hands. He lashed out at the mutant messiah, Hope, for doing jack shit when it came to miracles. Really busting her balls.

So the X-Men got involved with rebuilding San Fransisco after the whole... everything that had been happening these last several paragraphs. Rogue decided that Hellion should come along and help them with reconstruction. And let's get something out of the way: the X-Men were sending Hellion on a mission while he is was, self-admitted, still on painkillers following his double-amputation. Rogue meant well; it was meant to be a safe, no-action mission where Hellion could get some fresh air and put his troubles aside. And hell, maybe he could have refused the mission at any time. But like??? This child, trained to be a soldier by the X-Men, just had his hands chopped off and was thrown into work while hopped up on drugs.

Just keep this in mind. Hellion had no business being there, but the X-Men thought it was a good idea.

So Hellion was pissed off, bullied Hope for being a shitty messiah, and wantonly blew up debris, endangering everyone around him. Before he could accidentally hit anyone, Omega Sentinel (some human lady with evil robot programming that makes her turn evil sometimes, whatever who the hell cares) turned evil and started beating up all of the X-Men. Just absolutely wrecking them. They had no chance.

She would turn on Hope and a little human girl in the area. Just as Omega Sentinel was about to kill them, Hellion intervened. A miracle happened, and he got a powerup (implied, but never stated or followed up on, from Hope.) He was strong enough beat the robot lady's ass.

And he did. Repeatedly. He lost his temper and just kept viciously attacking her, all while yelling about his hatred of the machines who ruined his life and took his hands. Omega would return to her senses, but she knew it wouldn't last. She begged Hellion to finish her off. She asked him to kill her, before she could turn against her friends and harm them. She wanted to die human.

And Hellion obliged. Omega Sentinel would be left comatose.

At any rate, he saved Hope's life. Considering she would be integral to the very foundation of Krakoa, Krakoa would not exist if Hellion were not around. Hope was also the key to saving the mutant species multiple times. Mutants would have been doomed to extinction if not for Hellion. Yeah, others saved Hope and had way more of a direct impact in restoring their species. But still.

It was a tragic affair, and as Julian recounted the events of the mission to Cyclops, he was clearly shaken up and unsteady. He insisted that he had no regrets and said that he wasn't going to apologize for what he did. But he was clearly not doing well.

Cyclops was pissed because he felt that Julian's level of violence was unacceptable. Also Omega was still a good person, despite being overwritten at the time. She was a victim in all this, too. Yet Hellion didn't even consider any other option but violence and death.

Though it's not like he actually had the luxury of options, considering Omega was annihilating senior X-Men, he only had a split second to save Hope and the girl from danger, and even his victim supported his actions with her dying breath. Hellion lost his temper and was flippant about his actions, but he did the right thing.

Hellion then delivered this take-down to Cyclops, basically saying how Cyclops is a hypocrite who did shit (including killing people!), but apparently it was okay when he did it? Things aren't all black and white, it's not like Cyclops was some crazy psycho who killed and always got away with it. But like... Hellion was right. Cyclops had a very "ends-justify-the-means" attitude at the time. He was a revolutionary who was fed up with the way mutants had been treated. It's just that Cyclops had main character privilege and Hellion didn't.

So yeah, the X-Men were shitting all over Hellion for saving them, an innocent child and the fucking mutant messiah, because he wasn't sad enough about it.

But wait, it gets better.

Hellion Was Right: Omega Sentinel

Hey, remember how everyone shat on Hellion for killing Omega Sentinel? How he refused to apologize for doing what needed to be done, when no one else would? Yeah, the X-Men really chewed him out for being so cool with killing for the sake of protecting innocent lives.

Anyway, Karima would come back as a major antagonist in the Krakoa era, after a future, fully-roboticized version of herself would travel to the past, take over her body and dedicate her life to ending the mutants and humanity. Something she nearly succeeded in, when she helped create the terrorist organization known as Orchis.

Rogue especially took this hard. She crapped all over Hellion for attacking Omega Sentinel in a fit of rage while she was down. She would later assault him over it.

Here's Rogue in 2024, after the X-Men finally defeated Omega Sentinel.

Hellion's only mistake was not finishing the job.

But despite all this, Hellion had morals. He would spend some time debating if he felt sorry for what he did to Omega Sentinel. Which goes against him confidentally telling Cyclops that he wasn't sorry about it. Coupled with this, Rogue going on to say that Hellion felt guilty and wanted to atone, and later stories showing him wrestling with the incident and verbally trying to justify his actions to himself, it's implied that Hellion did, in fact, feel guilty after all.

Also, Hellion would not talk to his friends and classmates about what had happened. After his battle with Omega Sentinel, he briefly passed by his friends. He didn't reach out to them, they didn't acknowledge him. Later, fellow classmate Blindfold would straight-up call Hellion a monster. Hellion was all alone.

Fractured But Whole

Before we continue, let's circle back to Hellion getting a power-up earlier. I said it was implied to be from Hope, performing some sort of miracle. But either she gave him a permanent power-up, or Hellion just unlocked his own natural talent. Because the same run later showed Hellion using his powers to remove an explosion out of someone's body, showing he can mentally manipulate heat and energy on a cellular level. Yeah, fellow X-Man Rachel used her telepathy to spot him, but for those keeping count: Hellion could move energy through people without harming them, move at subsonic speeds, create force barriers, shoot telekinetic blasts, control heat and energy, and work on a cellular level at minimum. Laura once told Julian to create a telekinetic bubble inside of a villain's brain or heart to kill them. Hellion was against this on principal, but he doesn't say he can't do it. Considering he could weave his energy into someone's body and remove a fucking explosion, I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that Hellion could bubble some jerk's brain.

Now keep this all in mind. The X-Men had one of the most powerful telekinetics alive. He was hurt, vulnerable, and becoming increasingly isolated due to the mistreatment and trauma he had been enduring. Which was largely made worse by the X-Men just being inconsiderate assholes. And despite everything that had happened, despite his growing cynicism with the world and his disillusionment with the X-Men, he still worked to be a hero. Surely this is the type of mutant the X-Men would want to nurture, help and encourage.

Anyway, Hellion was probation unless they needed to use his powers for missions.

Okay, Cyclops and friends were a bust. They treated Hellion like shit and degraded him when he needed help. Maybe he could find help from somewhere else?

So Cyclops and Wolverine broke up over (among other things) the ethics of raising child soldiers and letting these kids kill. Cyclops is pro child soldier, and Wolverine was against it. You'd think this might be in response to them letting down their students and helplessly watching as they got gunned down. But they go back to using them once this event is over, so it's kind of pointless when you think about it.

Hellion choose to side with Wolverine during the Schism. He joined the school Wolverine has built. He was still a brash bully, but he was supporting the more idealistic and good-natured path of righteousness Wolverine is offering. Despite Wolverine treating him like shit and his daughter breaking his heart, he believed in what Wolverine has to say.

Wolverine was suspicious of him and threw him into a special class with other troublesome kids, so Spider-Man could spy on them and see which one might be a traitor. Still better than being with Cyclops though. And Hellion even got to go on crime-fighting adventures with Spider-Man, protecting New York!

But then this was ignored and never acknowledged again. Hellion would never talk to Spider-Man again and this whole thing might as well not have happened.

Hellion would become a shut-in. Trapped in his smelly room, he pretty much cut off all contact with everybody. He made it clear to a belligerent, antagonistic Wolverine that he didn't want to be there anymore. But he couldn't leave, since people saw him as a threat and would come after him the second he stepped out. Wolverine takes the opportunity to antagonize the disabled child soldier war hero with PTSD, whose life he helped demolish. Wolverine even said that he didn't give a damn about Julian's troubles, and was only getting involved because people were complaining about Hellion being a ticking time bomb.

One day, Laura came to visit him. Julian was quick to forgive her for leaving him on read for several months after he became an amputee and had his life destroyed. And to be fair, she was going through a lot of stuff on her own, which Hellion recognizes. He did briefly lash out at her in his anger, but quickly corrected himself and apologized. He also grabbed her arm when she tried to leave him without an explanation again - uncool, but he at least checked himself and let go when she told him to.

Gambit got involved to try and protect Laura... by threatening to blow off Hellion's arms and legs, to match his missing hands. Hellion was being an asshole, but keep in mind Hellion is a child soldier who had his arms blown off in the line of duty, and has spent the last few months being mistreated by pretty much every X-Man he has come across.

Hellion was also jealous of Gambit, but also worried that he was a groomer who was trying to put the moves on Laura. He was wrong, of course. But maybe he heard about a certain student named Foxx (aka Mystique,) who tried to frame Gambit a banging one of his students.

Hellion stalked Laura asked around and located Laura at the Baxter Building, where she would be spending the night babysitting Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman's two kids. They would get attacked and abducted by the Collector, leading to this whole adventure. It was a thing. Julian helped save her and the kids from dying in the cold recesses of space. Also Julian made fun of the Collector to his face multiple times.

But while this was going down, Hellion showed his insecurities to Laura. He knew she had her own issues, but he didn't know the extent of what she'd been going through. She didn't talk to him about them, and he would have liked that. He felt abandoned, and wondered if him being disabled now was one of the things driving her away from him. But she assured him that she didn't abandon him, and kept watch over him when he was injured and recovering.

When all is said and done, Laura was ready to part ways with Julian. But he didn't want to go without talking things out. He still loved her and wanted to be with her. But she didn't feel the same way and rejected him. Julian lashed out and accused her of being an unfeeling machine - something that would hurt her. She still cared for him, but her feelings for him had changed as the two of them had changed.

This whole debacle is very controversial with fans. Who was right? Who was wrong? How justified were either of them? Was Julian abusive? Was Laura unnecessarily cruel? Generally, people will agree that they both messed up. But who was more in the wrong usually depends on which character you stan more. Hellion's behavior near the end is never really justified, though many people at least understand where he's coming from.

Despite being a Hellion stan, I lean more towards Laura. Despite their mutual feelings for each other, she wasn't obligated to put her feelings aside to take care of him. Her life was also falling apart and she had her own struggles. Yes, she could have handled the situation better. But I don't blame her for focusing on her own life when she was drowning. And it's not like this girl, raised from birth as a tool and still coming to terms with her own humanity, pain and emotions, was capable of dealing with him in the best way, even though she wanted to.

But I can't be mad at Hellion because he suffered way more these last couple of months, didn't have the support Laura would come to have, and, oh yeah, he had his hands blown off by an evil robot. That didn't entitle him to lash out at her the ways he did, but he absolutely didn't deserve to be brushed off. Which is what Laura did, even if it was unintentional.

It was a failure to communicate. They both wanted different things. They had their own issues and that kept them from being there for each other. They were hurt by other people and situations, those warped them and made it harder for them to reconnect. Ultimately, the Laura and Julian we were seeing now, were not the same people they were when they met and fell in love.

I see the vision, but it still feels kind of abrupt and it looks like largely happened just to write out the romance, while not really doing anything to address their issues. It's a story about them growing apart, but not really making it feel like they grew apart. It just looks like Laura is avoiding Hellion even after he explains that her how her behavior also hurt him, but only Hellion's behavior is treated as heinous. And to be fair, grabbing onto someone the way he did, lashing out at them and poking at their insecurities around their humanities, is arguably worse than anything she did to him. But shutting yourself off from someone without explanation, ignoring them when they're begging for help, not showing much concern for their suffering and ignoring multiple pleas to be honest about their problems, is also pretty nasty.

Again, Laura wasn't obligated to deal with his baggage. And it's not like she was in the right headspace to help. But she was involved with Hellion's life and problems, and he was with hers. To ignore this connection was very insulting. Neither of these traumatized, PTSD-ridden child soldiers handled this complex emotional situation well.

So I get it. But the story was written in a way that downplayed Laura's faults and felt like it had to force the issue in order to make it work.

Anyway, Laura would get into a poorly-received, crappy romance with a time-traveling teen Angel from the past. She would also spend hundreds of years in a Vault with Synch as her only companion, where they'd fall in love under dubious circumstances, largely off-screen. She'd forget all this and Synch would accept this, then get back together with another version of Laura, who is also the "real" Laura, and an old MILF. But most fans don't care about old Laura or accept her as the "official" Laura, and she ends up dying, living inside of Synch's head and then dying again. So this whole paragraph means nothing.

But at least we would get a couple shots of Hellion looking at Laura through some bushes like a creeper, just to twist the knife and make sure that the ship was properly killed.

The Fart Cloud

Remember that time the Inhumans unleashed a stupid fart cloud onto Earth in the hopes of activating latent Inhuman genes in some humans? But the fart cloud was poisonous to mutant and started killing them? The X-Men had to hide their numbers in a Hell dimension for safety.

So Julian was poisoned by one of those clouds, and the X-Men totally failed to find and save him when he went looking for their help. Thanks again, X-Men. You're always there when Hellion needs you.

Hellion would visit the Inhumans on their Earth turf. Now dying from the cloud, he was determined to be a martyr. Let the Inhumans witness a person they'd harmed with their actions.

His powers wrecked New Attilan as he lost control over them, endangering everyone around them. Luckily, an Inhuman named Synapse was able to turn off his powers and stop him.

Synapse argued to the ruler of the Inhumans, Medusa, to help Hellion despite the damage he caused. Medusa didn't need convincing though; they were not going to persecute the infirm, and they were going to help this poor, suffering mutant as best as they could. He was going to get the best medical care and they would work tirelessly to see him recover.

Yes. The Inhumans who nearly gassed him to death treated him better than the X-Men. Hellion would be so grateful for their help, he would volunteer at their hospital as an orderly.

Not much would happen to Hellion after this. Despite being told (by everyone) that he was a dangerous mess they didn't want to deal with, Hellion... never really did anything beyond sometimes teasing classmates sometime, briefly date Shark-Girl, and help the X-Men whenever they asked. Many of his cameos consisted of him being in the background, having been beaten up by whatever villain the X-Men were facing.

Also, another fun fact: The X-Disassembled event saw the adults chiding the students as young, inexperienced kids who should stay out of real missions. Which was disrespectful to the kids who rose to the challenge when the X-Men failed them. But at least they weren't interested in using them as child soldiers.

Except one of the adults telling them this was Jean, who has their fellow student Laura as a member on her team. AND she had Laura's 12 year old sister, too. Hellion was notably absent from the majority of this conflict, since his very existence would undermine the adults' message entirely.

Also the school got blown up. It got blown up quite a few times while Hellion was a student. It got blown up so many times, the kids were cracking jokes about it. Surprisingly, none of those explosions were caused by him.

But just because Hellion wasn't active, doesn't mean he wasn't still pulling out Ws.

Hellion Was Right: Etc.

Hellion was right about a lot of things, but I can't sit here and list every single one of them in great detail. So here's a bulletpoint list of his other truths.

During the Utopia era, he knew that humans would eventually round up mutants and put them in camps. We know that happens in a few bad futures. This would also happen during the fall of Krakoa.

He knew the Brood were irredeemable monsters and hated Broo on sight. And in the end? Their only "redemption" was the X-Men to use them as weapons against the terrorist organization, Orchis. They could never truly be saved.

He ended up siding with Wolverine during the Schism, despite him and Logan hating each other. Guess who won the Schism in the end?

Right away, Hellion knew Wind Dancer was a catch. He also had a thing with Laura, dated Shark-Girl, and in an AU he married Surge. The man just can't stop picking Best Girls. He has a supernatural sense that allows him to figure out which girls are superior.

Remember that school competition, and Hellion bragged about how none of the other squads could ever hope to win it again? Shortly after Hellion and his squad won it, the school was hit by the mass depowering event known as M-Day. The majority of students were depowered and many were subsequently massacred by anti-mutant terrorists. Even when the school recovered, they never had these school-wide competitions again. So yeah, no other students would get to win that trophy.

Hellion had been open about his dislike of robots, after they took his hands. Who was behind Orchis? Omega Sentinel. Not only that, the group was primarily run by robots, and they wanted to wipe out all organic life - especially mutants, but they had plans to kill all organic life to preserve themselves. Humans would be their next target, after they finished killing off mutants.

Hellion thought it was weird how Wolverine kept picking up teenage girls as his sidekicks. He joked that Wolverine was a perv, of course Wolverine isn't a predator, he has no ill intentions with those girls, and some of them just dropped into his lap. But it's still pretty sus, even if no one else wants to point it out.

Northstar thought Hellion was making a mistake, picking Emma as his advisor over him. He thought Hellion needed the discipline. Considering Hellion thrived under Emma, she stood up for him when no one else did, and Northstar abandoned him just as the others did anyway... Yeah, Hellion made the right choice in picking Emma.

New Edit: I just saw this post. So you know how Hellion thought mutants should ignore past incidents and accidents, because they need to look out for each other and humans wouldn't judge them fairly? And then the X-Men were all, "NO, we need to listen to human laws!" Yeah, so anyway, the X-Men would basically say the same thing Hellion did, in the Krakoa era. Except now they had the power to enforce their will.

Hellion hated Quentin Quire and beat him up. No explanation needed.

The Gays Love Hellion (And Hellion Loves Them)

So weirdly enough, Hellion has a big LGTV fanbase. Which is weird, because he's from Academy X, not Fraternity X. Why would gay fans gravitate towards a straight, cis, masculine jock who regularly dominates others an- Oh.

Well, it goes beyond that. The X-Men in general have a huge queer audience. But Hellion has multiple factors working in his favor: he's sarcastic and has great quips, he takes after Emma Frost, he's canonically ripped, and he's had his moments of fanservice.

Most importantly, there was that one arc where he was on a beach for a mission. He thought the mission was casual, so he was the only one in swimwear, and nobody told him because they wanted to see him in short-shorts. He's smart, but that scene would go on to imprint himbo energy into the minds of many readers.

Also, he spent the entirety of the Age of X event with his tits out.

I don't find Hellion sexy at all, personally. He's not my type. But he IS a sex bomb. I can see the appeal regardless.

I'm iffy on the femme-y himbo depiction among fans. It's amusing, but I feel like it tends to paint a shallow picture of an otherwise manly, cool, intelligent and tragic character. But Hellion is perfect even if he's a himbo, he's perfect no matter what. I stan the alternate universe black Hellion who was like 5 years old and only appeared in the background of one panel, who may or may not be Hellion at all. He had metal hands, so I like to think he's meant to be Julian Keller.

Krakoa

So the mutants formed a mutant nation, an island paradise called Krakoa. It was this whole thing, it was great, I loved it. I recommend reading House of X/Powers of X if you haven't already. But the tl;dr is that mutants were able to resurrect the dead and give depowered mutants their powers back.

Hellion was given a sanctuary in paradise. The X-Men who had abandoned him had finally given him protection and safety. He had every single one of his deceased friends back, and they were there with him. The days of M-Day were a bad memory, there would be no school attacks, and he wouldn't have to live in fear of M-Pox. If he wanted to, he could die and come back with his hands, fully restored through the Resurrection Protocols.

You know who else came back? Wind Dancer. After fourteen real-life years, the two were finally reunited.

Hellion had regained almost everything he'd lost. All of his suffering was worth it, because he finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. All the work he put into helping the X-Men, saving Hope and working tirelessly to protect others has paid off.

But if this post has taught you anything, it's that Hellion isn't allowed happiness.

Krakoa would fall through the machinations of an evil organization called Orchis. Lead by such villains as Omega Sentinel and Nimrod, Orchis would frame Krakoa for crimes in biological warfare and sabotage, wanton murder of humans, and plots of world domination. The whole world stood back and did nothing as the mutants were attacked, scattered across the world and hunted 'till near-extinction. Many people even cheered Orchis on. Some governments even assisted them in making life more difficult for mutants. Mutants were rounded up, jailed, put under inhumane conditions, forcibly injected with "cures," and even murdered.

Where was Hellion during all of this? Well, he was in another dimension. Xavier had sent mutants through portals, per Orchis' demands. They wanted Xavier to telepathically force every mutant off the planet, or Orchis would use biological warfare to wipe out millions of humans. Wanting to spare humans, Xavier forced the majority of mutants through portals, which would end up leading them to the White Hot Room. The strugglers were left to deal with Orchis.

Hellion either went through those portals, or he had been killed during the Orchis genocide and gone through the Resurrection Protocols in the White Hot Room. He'd be there for several months, struggling to survive in a desert with 200,000 other mutants.

Hellion and most other named mutants would return to Earth, thanks to the X-Men. But also the X-Men and the ruling leaders of Krakoa were kind of to blame, since they failed to strike down Orchis earlier, despite them being a known threat. They tried some things, sure. But the plot basically forbade them from making any real progress against them until now. So yeah, the adults let Hellion down again. If they stopped playing by the rules and killed Omega Sentinel, they'd be happier.

Also, Krakoa would still exist beyond this point. Or rather, a splinter of the island nation would exist in the White Hot Room. It was shown that, without any humans or other groups coming down on them, they could thrive and grow as a healthy, enlightened and thriving nation. Mutants had the option of giving up life on their home planet to go to the White Hot Room's and have sanctuary, or stay in the trenches and spend their lives under constant threat of humans, aliens, demons and robots.

Look at Hellion at the start of his journey, and look at him now. He lost his friends, his loves, his wealth, his family, his identity as a leader, and any confidence he had from his body. The only thing he has left is his telekinesis.

The Villainous Path

Little hellions, kids feeling rebellious Embarrassed, their parents still listen to X-Men

So now we have a better picture of Hellion. He's a person with a big heart and a huge sense of loyalty, but he's been constantly let down by people around him. He's been kicked while he's been down, treated like a monster, and had the people he loves most walk out on him. His own insecurities, ego and attitude have held him back. And just when everything seemed to be turning around, just when he had everything he had lost... his home is taken away from him and he's left alone all over again.

You can see why Hellion wouldn't want anything to do with the X-Men after all of this. They took him in, but they treated him like shit and failed him constantly. He was constantly pointing out the truth, but they punished him for it and insisted that he was wrong.

But you can also see why he would have a grudge against a world who supported his peoples' genocide and the destruction of his nation. The same world that largely stood by and ignored his plight during those 2 other genocides he directly endured, and several others he would have been witness to.

Marvel's also on a sliding timescale, where their time passes much slower than ours. So bear in mind, he has probably been active in-universe for 2 to 4 years. 5, if you want to be generous. Everything you have read has been happening non-stop in a very short span of time.

Almost everyone around Hellion is terrible. He literally cannot count on anyone to help him out, because they are either grossly incompetent, unequipped to deal with things, or outright trying to kill him.

If everyone just listened to him, everything would have been fine... Or humans, machines and other heroes would have wiped them off the planet, and things would be even worse. But I choose to believe that Hellion had the right of way. After all, he'd been right about everything else.

Hellion proved himself to be a real hero, despite everyone doubting him. But he has also done things you wouldn't see most traditional heroes do, because he's cynical and willing to do harsher things if it means helping others. At the very least, he's firmly an anti-hero.

There is precedence for having him taking on an antagonistic role and going against traditional heroes. The context was always him doing what he thought was best.

So he could easily work as an anti-villain or antagonist; someone who will take the role of the heel, but still be sympathetic and have the capacity to be redeemed.

Right now, many fans are worried that that Hellion won't be portrayed sympathetically. That he'll be suddenly and drastically changed into a villain, solely there to cause trouble, do despicable things and be defeated. To be a strawman of what he once was. And to be fair, that's a fair worry; we recently saw a mutant, Nature Girl, go from a mild-mannered student supporting character, to a genocidal villain at the drop of a hat. Her character was irrevocably warped to facilitate a story. Anyone who liked her original characterization would be turned off by this change.

Or how about Benjamin Percy's take on Beast? The loveable furball was now a vile, manipulative, genocidal villain who would torture his friends for his own gain.

There was room for these characters to become darker figures - let's not forget how Nature Girl had a small story dedicated to her being painfully aware of the torture Christmas trees go through before they're tossed aside by humans, unaware of the pain they have caused. But these characters went from A, to B to Z. Things jumped wildly and they became extreme caricatures that barely resembled their original selves. And even if Beast did some questionable things in the past, no way would he naturally fall as far as he did under Percy's pen, much less so abruptly.

There's also worry that the Krakoan will be used as a strawman against Krakoa. He'd be used to portray the worst aspects of Krakoan culture and somehow prove to the audience that no, Krakoa was actually really bad and you should be glad that it's gone.

The Krakoan is specifically twisting the dream of Krakoa to rule the masses. I'm not paying too much attention to these, since preview blurbs are known to be inaccurate at times. But at the very least, they make it clear that what he's doing is not meant (out-of-universe, at least) to be an accurate representation of Krakoa. He's an in-universe example of Krakoa being misused and represented.

Despite this, if the Krakoan is Julian, I think he will be respected a bit. One of the writers of NYX, Jackson Lanzing, was asked about Hellion. He had this to say.

I think that's a pretty fair take on him. Lanzing acknowledged that he's not some simple character. Hellion has the potential to be a big player for mutants - for good or for ill - and that stems from him being somewhere in the middle of the Xavier-Magneto spectrum. He has some desire for peace and co-existence, but he's also not shying away from the reality he faces. If they're writing him, I fully expect them to portray this depth and nuance, even if it's on a small level.

They acknowledged his ties to David and Laura. The latter is important because there's a lot they could mine here beyond their romance. Hellion was there to show Laura a life outside of the darkness. He wanted her to be a better person and break free from her past as an assassin. While the writers might focus on the duo's romance, they should at least be aware that it's built on a foundation of seeing past the bad side of someone, and getting to the real, good person underneath.

Further, both writers are now on record as being big fans of Hellion. They not only like him a lot, but they clearly have a grasp on his character. I doubt they'd do something that would destroy his potential for future stories.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Hellion's villain era. I could be wrong and the writers could totally flub it. But for now, things are pointing towards him being treated with respect.

And if not? Well, he'll probably be right anyway. He's the new Cyclops/Magneto. As the saying goes, they were right. And Hellion has already proven that he has been right this whole time. If Hellion is reduced to some baby-eating monster, I would defend him. That baby was probably racist and had evil vibes.

From the Ashes

That's telekinesis, Kyle. How 'bout the power to move you?

The new relaunch will see other books release alongside NYX. And yes, they're going to be notably less popular because they don't have Hellion in them. But with Hellion's new role, who says he can't be a key figure in the world of mutants going forward?

Exceptional X-Men will feature Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost mentoring three new mutants. They'll be protecting these kids and guiding them through a world that hates and fears them, ensuring that they grow up to be heroes. Meanwhile NYX's main villain is likely one of their previous kids they trained, who they failed, mistreated and abandoned several times, who was explicitly stated to be unstable after his experiences on the field and under their care.

These kids are fucked. Hellion needs to come in and save them from the X-Men, before Kitty Pryde ruins their lives with her "help."

X-Men will feature Cyclops and his band of heroes (plus Quentin Quire), acting openly and proudly as mutants. They won't return to their evolutionary era, but they will still but heads with the government and are in a place that might put them in opposition with the mainstream opinion. From the looks of it, they will fight for their rights and do what they feel is right, even if it makes humans uncomfortable, because they need to be heard and- Oh wait. Hasn't Hellion been doing all of this from the get-go? Hmm.

Don't worry, I'm sure Cyclops will tell the Krakoan that his methods are super wrong and go too far, and that the X-Men are fighting for their rights the right way. Hurting innocent people to promote your cause is wrong! Then Cyclops and his team will get a few more innocent children killed before moving on to their next project.

What about Uncanny X-Men? Rogue's leading that team, and Gambit and Wolverine are on it. All three of them owe Hellion an apology. Jubilee's also there. She always busted Hellion's balls for how he handled his relationship with Laura... when she wasn't ogling his ass on the beach. Which was fair, but maybe she could apologize for not being a little sympathetic after his hands got blown off by an evil robot while fighting for their cause.

X-Factor will apparently pit the titular team against an underground mutant revolution, lead by Polaris. Hey, you think the Krakoan might want to get involved with that down the line?

Wolverine has a solo book. He can use the 5000 issues he'll get to beg Hellion for forgiveness. That's almost enough time to make up for how he treated Julian.

Dazzler's getting a mini. And guess who's going to be part of her crew? Hellion's exes, Wind Dancer and Shark-Girl. Wonder how they'd feel about him breaking bad?

And Now?

We wait see what comes next. We hope for the best, expect the worst, but know that this book will be the best of the From the Ashes era, simply because Hellion is gracing us with his presence.

I recommend reading more Hellion stories when you can. This post only touches on the basics. There are a lot of things I had to cut out. There are a lot of things that I missed, or didn't include because I they weren't as important to be as they might be to you. You might read things completely differently, even though I am objectively right because Hellion is perfect and could never do wrong. I might have purposely skewed things to favor Hellion because this post is Hellion propaganda. But whatever the case, you absolutely should follow my boy.

I had a whole section about Hellion's telekinesis. He's a telekinetic in a world filled with telekinetics who ALSO have telepathy and other powers. But he was able to stand out with how he varied in its use - he could create energy blasts and projectiles, fly at subsonic speeds, make things combust on a molecular level, and blast through just about anything. I cut it because I hit the image limit and didn't have enough space to show them, and they need to be shown because his powers are visually distinct. It was either keep them and cut out the tiddy pic, or keep the tiddy pic and cut out the displays of power. And I think I made the right choice.

#Marvel #x-men #hellion #julian keller #nyx #nyx 2024 #hellion was right

49 notes · View notes

animeyanderelover · 1 year ago

Note

I was so excited that I stayed up for this.

May I request hcs of ryuken (I have a slight obession of this man.) with a judge darling who over works themself to the point of passing out. Like they go to work earlier and come home later than him. And they leave the hospital going against medical orders and say to the nurse " Tell doctor Ishida that I am leaving since I have a hearing in 2 hours, if he wants to see me he can see me at home. " Thank you

Tw: Yandere themes, toxic relationship, possessive behavior, obsession, paranoia, controlling behavior

Judge darling who overworks themselves

◻️It truly is the definition of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Truly, if you wouldn't push yourself so much Ryuken could admire this all a bit more. After all he appreciates your hard work and your respectable job. After all both of you have jobs where you essentially hold control over someone else's life and Ryuken wants to admire that. But he just can't do that with the way you constantly go against the medical orders he places upon you. Your partner has a tendency to be a bit more controlling, especially since he is a doctor and the director of the hospital in this town. So of course he would react very sensitive when he finds out that you overwork yourself to the point where you skip sleep and faint due to exhaustion and a lack of proper nutritions. You can protest and claim to know the limits of your body all you want but you aren't the medic in this relationship. He is and so he knows best.

◻️This topic is sure to spark a lot of discussions and arguments between the two of you. You are extremely stubborn and refuse to listen to Ryuken whilst he just ends up belittling you for your attitude. You're acting like a little child in his eyes right now, one that doesn't know when to stop. He thought that you would know better than that but apparently he was wrong. Those arguments never end in a shouting match though because both of you think that you're above screaming at each other from the top of your lungs. Instead there are sharp glares thrown at each other, words dripping with sarcasm fired at each other and constant belittlements directed at each other. Ryuken would rather not spend so much time arguing and destroying the domestic bliss but you give him no choice. He won't back down and watch you ruin your health.

◻️He tries to approach this all logically for a while in hopes of reasoning with you. So he explains to you that if you were one day to seriously suffer from the constant days and nights of overworking yourself, you wouldn't be able to help all your clients and bring justice upon the court. Can't you see that your reckless behavior is also harming other people? If you don't want to do it for yourself, do it for your clients who need you in your best condition. Or do it for him, your husband who is very worried about your health. Even as he tells you this argument, he can't hide the sharp edge in his voice completely. He considers himself a patient man but even he is slowly losing his patience here because both of you have been quarreling like this for way too long now. And you still refuse to listen to the his advice. The advice of your husband and an actual doctor.

◻️Ryuken finally reaches a limit when he finds out that you constantly leave the hospital and go against medical orders despite having fainted prior to being brought there. He will absolutely not tolerate such neglectful behavior for one's own health. Fine. If you refuse to properly take care of yourself, he will have to take some measurements then. He starts meddling with your job as he talks to people you work with to bring them on his side and convince you to take a few steps back and relax from your constant work. He starts taking this matter more to the public and even if he dislikes sharing what is privately happening between you two normally, this is for your own good. He plans to make people aware of what you're doing and uses his influence as an actual doctor to strengthen their belief to trust his words that you need to slow down or else you might suffer serious consequences later on in your life.

◻️You hear words from your concerned colleagues soon after and storm angrily to Ryuken who calmly stands there and listens to your furious rant. He rebukes you for your accusations though as he explains to you that he only informed people about this because apparents his own words as your lover and doctor weren't enough. You really are too reckless for your own good but he won't allow anything to happen to you just because you are too stubborn to just sit down and rest for a while. You are worse than he is and that is already an achievement in itself. He additionally scolds you for leaving the hospital despite the medical orders for you to just spend a day or two there and rest. Are you even aware of the risks? Next time you will head the advice he gives you as your doctor.

◻️Ryuken is definitely persistent and you feel his influence in the people around you who try to encourage you to work less and take more breaks. This only adds gasoline to the flames and obviously you try to work even more as a protest. Only that you soon find out that Ryuken has stepped his own game up. He stays longer awake himself to catch you before you can leave for work again and when you scold him for getting too little sleep he quickly points out the sheer hypocrisy in your words as you have been doing the very same thing even longer than he has and even locks the door to the bedroom to prevent you from leaving. He uses the same strategy whenever you end up once again in the hospital as he makes sure to lock the door that would allow you to leave the room and tries to take as much time to stay with you in the same room to ensure that you take proper rest. As soon as you start an argument with him, you just receive this cold glare from him. You got yourself in this situation. If you would have just listened to him, none of this would have to happen. But he'll keep on playing this game you try to play until you learn your lesson.

#yandere bleach #yandere ryuken #yandere ishida ryuken

53 notes · View notes

r0t-t1ngxeyy · 6 months ago

Text

Tw: Loli/shotacon, proship, Levi x Luke, Dark romance/abuse/kidnapping, NSFW!!! and

the Lollipop joke..

Im not letting anyone in this fandom forget those two obey me fanfics on ao3 from like 2?? Years ago. Please tell me I'm not the only one who remembers them?? It was such a big thing for the fandom, Im so glad I read them before they got deleted because the memory is soo FUNNY HELP ?? I need opinions on these two fics, if anyone actually remembers them:(

Dia x Luci : The Red Means I love you

ABSOLUTELY TRAUMATIZING SHIT BRO WHAT IN THE DARK ROMANCE?? wouldn't even call that romance it was such a hard read. Stumbling across videos of it made on tiktok was probably the worst event that I experienced 👽 ON MY MOTHER THE SCENES WERE SO UNNECESSARY (but the adrenaline rush was pretty good ngl)

I read through that with my heart dropping with each new chapter bro?? I couldn't even read through the entire story. I'm pretty sure it's deleted now cus I've been searching for it to make a whole OM fandom lore post but heyy

To sum it up for the people who were fortunate enough to not read it;

Diavolo kidnaps Lucifer, and keeps him in some cage/almost prison cell area. I think he's chained up to the ceiling, I'm not so sure. It starts off with Dia being nice I think, trying to gain Lucifers trust and eventually have him submit but that shit doesn't work and all of hell releases. Lucifer endures some physical and sexual abuse and attempts to escape. But before he successfully escapes,he bumps into Barbatos who offers to help him

He does not help him. Infact, he locks him back up and informs Diavolo.

What the fuck

The most notable things I believe Dia did was clip lucifer's wings?? And pulled out his teeth (i think Barbatos actually did that I'm not so sure). But I can't really explain how gruesome and detailed the writing was. What's worse is that it also included how the brothers were reacting to Lucifer just disappearing. Very interesting fic, story wise it was fine and well written. It's just the plot in general was what the actual fuck??

LEVI X LUKE : i forgor the title and I'm very relieved that I did

VERY UNCOMFORTABLE READ BTW!! i hated summing this up so much

An absolute wreck, these fanfics were so well written I can't even hate the authors for what they did (the Dia x Luci one didn't deserve any hate imo, but this one?? Holy fucking shit??) This fic was so out of pocket, it ruined the way I saw Levi for a good while.

P.s!! Not the same author!!

WHAT I RECALL!!! aka summary?? Kinda...

So I think Simeon called Levi to look after Luke? Which is really fucking weird because Luke is an angel, sure he's depicted as a kid but if Micheal chose him to follow Simeon down to the Devildom for the exchange program then I'm pretty damn sure he can at least take care of himself without adult Supervision, but whatever. Nice plot, I hate it

Levi was totally against the babysitting thing and actually disliked having to look after Luke

Until

At some point, Luke wants to take a bath and Levi's like suree okay.

THEN ACCOMPANIES HIM TO GIVE HIM THE SAID BATH??? Obviously that's where this all downplays from what could've potentially been a found family fic to some proship shotacon fic. Levi gives him the bath and Luke gets

turned on... (I hate typing this out so much)

So, Levi gives him head. I fucking hate this with burning passion :(((

His mouth 'pops' when he stops which reminds him of a Lollipop!! And I quote this from memory:

Kinda like a Lollipop. Heh.. Loli.

I hate this fanfic so much, I don't claim it in this fandom,its a fic not a fanfic👽👽👽

And yeah, the rest of the story went on with Levi doing that bullshit!!! I don't think I read through the entire thing because curious kills the cat. I just saw some tiktok post about it and decided hey!! Im gonna look for it and read it.

I would've been fine without reading this fic, ever, i would've turned out the same as I am today LMAOO

30 notes · View notes

edvinception · 1 year ago

Note

No, but I can't with this fandom lol. Being so very mad that secondary characters dare to exist and fulfil their roles (the show couldn't really function without them) and that the actors may be included in the last season's promo for a bit. The shock, the horror, those bastards! And claiming agressively that noone cares about anyone else except the big five is not only very disrespectful to the people who all worked on the show and brought in their contributions, but just childish. Like I care. I care about what everyone's to say and I'm excited about it all but I feel like I maybe might be in the minority here.

I'm personally pretty annoyed with the negativity in the fandom.

I don't want it to seem like I'm against any kind of criticism or that I don't think people are allowed to talk about things they don't like because that's not the case. What bothers me is the way people choose to do it and it mainly boils down to two things; one: people speak of their opinions in a very negative and sometimes both agressive and insulting way instead of being constructive and civil and two: people talk about their opinions as if they are facts that everyone in the fandom agrees on and as if it'd some universal truth.

It's completely fine to discuss what you dislike but using terms such as "Lisa is gonna ruin the show" "Lisa is gonna mess it up" "Lisa cannot write to save her life" or whatever else I've seen is not discussing but hating. No need to be rude, mean and condescending. You don't like the storyline fine, be a grown up about it, have a nice attitude.

It's completely fine to dislike certain aspects of the show or the storyline as a whole but stop acting as if your opinion is the truth and everyone's opinon is the same as yours.

I understand why you make think you are alone in your opinons anon but trust me you are not. It's just that negativity is more visible and stands out more and some people speak loudly and frequently about their dislikes which makes it seem like it's everyone when in reality it's not.

I also think people have a tendency to exaggerate alot when they talk about the things they don't like. I do too, but I mainly talk in private about those things so I don't spread unnecessary negativity around.

But claiming that wilmon is sidelined for minor characters or that Lisa can't write comes as quite childish to me.

#ask

44 notes · View notes

eulchu · 2 years ago

Text

ok guys. let's have a real talk. let's ALL have a real talk and i don't mean just me and my anons . i hope this reaches all of our community even if you think i fucking suck.

fucking october didn't ruin us but i am so worried that this dumb tension just might. this is getting so ridiculous and out of hand -i barely understand what's going on myself. so im gonna need everyone to work together and do a collective reflection exercise.

i am gonna write out a series of points that i need u guys to think about before proceeding in this community:

- active blogs. you're burnt out. you're burnt out and you're so tired of trying to keep this community running that you're denying yourself a moment to feel your own frustrations as your own individual person. i get that . i get being under so much pressure that you can't catch yourself some slack, least you spiral out of control <- this is, however, really damn unhealthy 😭 it's ok to let yourself feel some disappointment!! some anger!! that's fine. it's up to you, however, what you do with it. this brings us to our next point.

- we NEED to acknowledge this if we wanna get better. ifl it's taboo and we're pushing the narrative so hard we're not giving ourselves enough space to breathe. it. is. okay. to. feel. disappointed. over. the. lack. of. dteam. content. i am the first person to shut down any self entilted prick who thinks they can expect something out of them. because they DON'T owe us anything. but truth is we are humans and, accordingly so, feel in consequence of our own expectations. i wanna break this part down in a few points:

it is OKAY to acknowledge that we are disappointed. denying one self's feelings never ended up ok for anyone. it is okay to acknowledge that we are not getting the content we were hoping for.

it is NOT okay to blame the dteam for it. this is where it gets tricky. the dteam are in charge of what type of content they put out. it will never be in our hands. at that point, if you don't like what they're doing. leave. i'm sorry. it's harsh. i'm not trying to be mean about it. i'd understand if you left! it's ok!

- before you leave, though, i want to ask you a question. why do dislike what they're doing so much? seriously, ask yourself that question. is the content that bad, in your eyes? if the answer is yes, i can't help you there. you've grown out of their content. there's no way around it.

- but is it actually bad, or is it just Not What You Expected? In which case, let's talk. Let's put things bluntly:

the dteam have waited years to be together. correct

upon living together, we have discovered that they are not very good at providing content because they put their friendship above content. i'm not sure if anyone had that in their bingo cards - but it's what happened. autumn was really rough on them & they've learnt to exist together off camera. me personally, i think it's sweet.

dteam and traveling: a fall out? :o . no. jesus christ 😭 the fact that this is the new narrative nauseates me. i don't think anyone in their right mind thinks that dteam are less close than they were when they were living apart.

Bringing back our initial point, the failure to meet our expectations can be mentally challenging. it will inevitably make us second guess a lot of associated ideas that we thought were true . if one of our expectations fails to be met, that's a fail in our mental plan. if we were wrong about this, who's to say we are right about anything else?

i'm not sure if there's some sort of denial of feelings here or if people are trying really hard not to think about this possibility because it makes them scared. i am inviting you to take a moment to really think about it and feel the initial dread of the question. it will pass fairly quickly.

the truth is that the dteam is FINE. they're fine, they share a house, they film videos together, and they go on these long ass hiatus when they're together because they would much rather spend uncesored time off-line.

my favorite point: for how parasocial we are, we don't give them nearly enough credit. the dteam are adult men. we have to put faith in their decisions. only they know what they're doing. they know what's best for them. we certainly don't.

- i wanna rescue this last point. their decisions are THEIRS. if we don't put trust in what they're doing, we're already failing the game. that means who they hang out with too. i get not liking someone ok? i get it. i don't like a lot of people either. no one is pointing a gun to any of their heads. if you think that any of them is doing something that you don't see fit you have problems and you need to grow up. it is not our place to dictate their lives and it will never be. that goes for the white-knighting too.

⚠️(this is a completely hypothetical scenario)⚠️

the truth is if tomorrow george decides to go back to the uk, for whatever reason. we would all have to fucking shut it. fan disappointment? yes. acting like george is an awful person for betraying his best friends? you're out of your fucking mind.

dream george and sapnap are grown up people with a strong friendship and communication skills. if you think that george would take the unilateral decision and not tell anyone until the day before you need to seek help. whatever decision the dteam take about their lives it's THEIRS and you need to put some fawking faith in what they're doing. they know what's up.

that goes for the fucking karl problem too okay? i don't like it either. whatever. it's not my place though?? dream isn't a baby who's been abandoned he's a grown ass man who knows what he's doing and if he still considers (if they ALL do) karl his friend that's his decision. if he thinks that karl's friendship management is fine that's his decision. we are not dream's friends nor his fucking therapist.

- the thing about dooming and content. the multishippers: is the dteam all there really is? i firmly believe that we all kove the dteam outside of each other. (mostly tackled in this post)

- dnf and the fandom. jesus christ i can't believe i have to make a point about this. i think it's important to remember that at the end of the day. it's just Not That Serious. it was never meant to be that serious. bringing back the "they're their own people" point, what the Fuck do some people think they're doing 🧍‍♂️

dnf know what they're doing they know the nature of their relationship better than we ever will. if they're just friends it's because they chose to if they . in the biggest plot of the century . come out of this with a s/o it doesn't mean they're cheating on each other, that dream/george was leading anyone on or that they're hurting each other???? are you CRAZY 😭 if they're dating they're dating if they're not they're fucking not but they're. not gonna be sad about it??? they're adult people in an adult relationship they know what tf they're doing. they hold each other's hearts impossibility close to themselves. there's nothing they would ever do that could hurt each other.

to wrap things up: after this reddit worthy post (congrats if you've made it to the end) i have something very important to ask of you guys.

i know it might be unfair but can we all compromise on detoxxing. completely. for like, a week. not posting neg at ALL. we can't enable doomers we can't enable bait anons. neg is only good for one thing: make anxious people paranoid as fuck.

so can we. for like a week. just not post anything /neg at all. can we block the worst of it. the unnecessary dooming. and not acknowledge at ALL. i get it's a huge mental toll on the active blogs - reading so much negativity SUCKS but i do believe that it's a better option than responding and enabling more people to send similar asks.

me personally, i am already saying it here: any dooming will get blocked in my askbox. i won't hate you for it. but this IS a warning that you need to get your shit together if you ever wanna have a chance at speaking in my askbox ever again.

um congrats if you read everything?😭 PLEAAAASE let's all make this place a better place again i know we can do it

U CAN ADD TO THIS POST IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY BTW !!!

#long post #rbs are appreciated 😭🫶

143 notes · View notes

fledbeast578 · 10 months ago

Text

Lostbelt Servants Often Don't Work as Chaldea Servants

I've reached a conclusion on why I dislike servant x Ritsuka pairings so much, and ended up spending a few hours thinking about some other thoughts.

When it comes to the gacha game format, you don't have enough time to develop every character equally, and certainly not the way fgo goes about it (Oh boy another lb6 centered event? You really shouldn't have Nasu...). As a result, oftentimes servants only ever get interludes (and sometimes events, but even those are shaky) to develop their bond with Ritsuka, and this is even worse for lostbelt/singularity villains, because they have to shed an entire dynamic and replace it with a new one. Sometimes this can work fine, or even improve the character, such as with characters like Cu Alter, Hessian Lobo, Jeanne Alter, Jason, and even arguably Avicebron, but oftentimes they can sort of... flounder.

Cu and Jeanne Alter succeeded because fundamentally there was that initial gap that comes from an enemy, not only because they were a villain but because we simply haven't developed a bond yet. So they showed us it, they showed Cu Alter learning to trust and rely on us in his interludes, we saw Jeanne do the same across multiple events. They didn't just abandon their old identity they had to built a new one off the corpses strewn by their old one.

Characters like Anastasia... don't get that, they get a facsimile of a bond developed because they don't want to restart from the very beginning of the relationship pole or be obligated to use all of their lostbelt characteristics.

So rather than showing Ritsuka and Anastasia growing a close bond and her developing a crush on him, we get one dream sequence where Anastasia confided in him that she kind of hates the people who killed her parents. Then it's just... "oh my master is utterly adorable" from her and then "Why don't you kiss her, master?" from Medea

None of this was earned or developed, at best it was implied because other people say similar stuff about Ritsuka, but notably, none of those scenes include Anastasia. They're writing this interlude like it's an alternate timeline where Anastasia was a main servant who watched you grow and develop similar to Mash (Thanks to @300iqprower for making me realize this). There is no unique relationship, there's no event where they were forced together, we just have to assume that at some point Anatasia and Ritsuka hungout a bunch and she got a crush on him.

It feels more like a filled in template for a servant-master relationship than anything actually developing. Why does Anastasia like Ritsuka? Because he's nice, trustworthy, and strong. Great, the same applies to Mash, Ushiwakamaru, Melusine and so so many other servants. There is nothing to me that says she would love Ritsuka for any reason unique to Anastasia, in the same way I can look at her and Kadoc and see why they love each other in the crypter manga. There's no Ritsuka discussing how he can relate to having his opportunity to grow into an adult ruined, there's no Ritsuka having to fight by her side for an extended period of time, there's no Ritsuka helping her come to terms with her family's death, it's just... nothing. It's Anastasia having a crush on Ritsuka because it's Ritsuka.

And like... we have to see this this with so many servants. As much as I love Barghest and find Melusine interesting, to a massive degree they were made worse after lb6. The desire to protect Fae Britain and Aurora respectively was an intrinsic part of their character, and when none of those exist, there's just a big hole in their motivations and relationships. But rather than write elaborate depictions of what changes in their personality there is, Melusine decides that Ritsuka is their lover and Barghest does... cooking? And also wants to fuck Master sometimes.

Worse than remaining stagnant a lot of lostbelt characters actively plateau. Stuck in a hell where all their characterization is dependent on the unique setting of a lostbelt, but also being physically unable to do anything with that setting because then they have to deal with the baggage associated with it.

This is to the point where the only characters who become better or remain well written after their lostbelts are overwhelming the ones who completely sideset this issue. Yu Mei-Ren and Qin? Popped into throne of spirits. Percival, Habetrot, Aesclepius, and Gareth? Literally completely different characters. William Tell, and Odysseus? Lostbelt fuckery. So they develop a new character from scratch and are forced to deal with that.

But a lot of servants don't get that. We know Melusine's past and generic character traits, the game implies (doesn't show) how they grow to like Ritsuka, so we don't get to see any more of that develop. Rather we get to see whatever they decide they would fit best for the present, which typically is uninteresting and repeated.

#fgo #ramble #character analysis

37 notes · View notes

i-carry-the-evilmortyabel-name · 2 months ago

Text

The Ship a certain Tag keeps seeing, aka a Crossover Ship: Mabel x Evil Morty

__________________________

Some created/collected dialogues that explains them:

Evil Morty: "I hate that you walked into my life, and I hate that I followed."

Mabel: "What's the hardest part of waking up and going to do your tasks?"

Evil Morty: "Finding the will to live."

Evil Morty: "I spent all of my time trying to find the one, but I didn't need to search for it, you were here right by my side this whole time."

Evil Morty: "I know it would end in a tragedy, I know there's a slim to no chance of it happening the way I want it to be and I know I would repeat this whole cycle all over again. I know it won't work, I know it won't work, I know it won't work... but I have to try."

Mabel: "Couldn't you pick anyone other than me?"

Evil Morty: "Believe me, I've tried."

Inspired from a post "Because in a strange way, you are better at what I do without even trying."

Evil Morty: "There are infinite possibilities where there is a happier and better version of what I am, but you still choose me, every time."

Mabel: "You were a wonderful experience."

Evil Morty: "You were... Everything."

Evil Morty: "Ready to face the unknown?"

Mabel: "With you? Always."

Evil Morty: "You've seen my true self and haven't run away."

Mabel: "They called it doom, I called it salvation."

Excerpt from a poem "You showed me how our love can transform the darkest, coldest realm into the happiest of homes."

"There'll never be, in another life where they're given the chance to try again, it's all gone now, all that's left are memories of what was and there'd never be room left for a what could be."

Evil Morty: "You are my normal, my home, for now I have something to return to, and to return for."

Mabel: "Love is the law, and your hatred is taught."

Evil Morty: "If you wanna break my cold, cold heart just say 'I loved you, the way that you were.'"

Evil Morty: "If there is even just a single timeline where I live long enough until my deathbed, where I am happier and safe with you, I would do everything in my power to reach for it, even if it takes an eternity."

Evil Morty: "I want to ruin your life, and when I'm gone, an empty hole that'll never be fixed is left."

Evil Morty: "You watch the display of fireworks, with fully focused eyes on a lifetime spectacle, while I remain a second thought, always by your side, as I watch you."

Mabel: "Can you kiss me like in the movies with our eyes closed and like it's the last thing you'll ever do?"

Taken from an old anime "Whatever happens, happens."

An original quote "She is destined to be a star, she shines so brightly, when only by herself."

__________________________

So I think this was bound to happen at one point, since I've been posting about the ship since June was it? Although I'm not trying to convince you guys to ship it at all, but you can read why I do so and you can find a way to respect it and if you have like criticisms about it, maybe I can admit that it is a good point that I didn't initially have thought of or address it too.

Yes, if you aren't sure what I'm talking about in here, it's about the Evil Morty and Mabel ship, which you can say, boo what is a M/F ship doing here!!! Get it out I don't agree with this ship because it goes against my headcanons!!! Well I'm sorry to say that our headcanons don't match with each other and that's fine! You can scroll away or even block me if you don't want my art and this idea clogging your tags cause you think it's embarrassing or you dislike it overall or in general with no reason because it's your feelings. it's not something I can be in control of so I'll just respect it.

I don't care how many people see this, I just needed to write it down because it's been stuck in my head and I never thought to explain why to anyone? Kind of a missed opportunity for all these times I've been just shoving all the art of it without even bothering to stop to tell what is it about the ship I liked, so here is the compilation! I would add and edit more as I finally compiled those that aren't spoilers to my AUs and the general vibes I get with this ship.

I sent this at my discord I only added a few more details about it so here it is!

I thought their dynamic a lot like, "Oh yeah they'd just randomly talk about the most existential and philosophical topics ever and the branches to topics that are random, may be related to the real world to things they've watched and lose the original topic in the process, Mabel mostly asking the questions which prompts him to answer however and whatever he could." I had the headcanon that Evil Morty's aesthetic was a STEM student goth academia with an evil scientist mix while Mabel is more of the decora and harajuku fashion alongside chaotic academia. Their energies may not match now but with constant interaction I'd like to think they'd end up adjusting and giving as good as they get, and the type to excitedly share about the new things they find whether a realization, story or concept. Mostly enthusiastic rambling on Mabel's side while Evil Morty would phrase it as a random fact in life that is serious and needs a discussion but it's relatively the same thing, communication goals!

I'm honestly confused on how they would've pined for each other because I never thought of it, I just went "Oh yeah they're together" like established already and then proceeded with that, but then now I have to justify, and most of my thoughts are "Maybe when he realizes that just because she has this cheery persona doesn't mean that's all she is, the fact she kept helping him time and time again in her own endearing way and wanting to be his friend even though he's been spraying water at her to go away and actually tried being harsh but she just responded with a rebuttal that catches him off guard which is a "point taken", I think he'd just get tired and accept her as a part of his life now but because of that single choice he did, because he started answering back, because he started opening up, because he grew comfortable with her, she already knows quite a bit about him, and he does feel a little lonely, so why not give it a try?"

Like a "You're not that bad, you're still annoying, but you're not so bad after all." Mabel sets his perspective to a twist and that he needs to find the profound in mundane or crazy.

One argument I thought about why Evil M would consider Mabel as someone he can date, I feel, is because he also is kind of lonely, besides relating to her a lot, they're like two lonely people who banded together and because I feel Mabel is also refreshing of a take because she's optimistic but she has that realism in it too that a lot of the cartoons usually lack in, the depth, and also because they both provide balance in the dynamic, especially in growing the things they lack at, Evil M with healthy coping mechanisms and socializing with a lack of agenda, basically teaching him communication, and enjoying life and the adventures because there'll be something new on the table, like giving him a difference in perspective that he needs to hear and being mindful and understanding other people because truthfully who he knows and studied so well is Rick's mind, that doesn't mean other characters he has them figured out either, that's why he sensed a threat in Summer, also because of the fact he mostly isolated himself and 'wants to be left alone' although humans don't work that way and he can't just program it out of himself, because Rick definitely tried that before and it must've ended disastrous.

For Mabel, it's the consequences of her actions, thinking or planning forward, more realism to her own actions and responsibilities, also giving her more reason to utilize her logic than just her own emotions, she also needs someone other than just Dipper in her life that she feels she can rely on and who she finds that she has some values that she can match with though in others she clashes, basically teaching her compromise(Evil M learns that too) since the lesson wasn't properly given to her satisfactorily but I think it gets addressed in a comic, which, okay, still part of canon but it mostly gets glanced at.

Also another thing to add about Mabel and Evil M, as I did say, they match each other's freak, which means, yeah they're both fucking weird and I'm pretty sure they don't care they are weird and accept each other as being weird too. Yeah and they feel like the world would never truly understand them and they find that: "Oh a person similar enough with me but still different enough from me that I can still have something to learn from them!" Like another thing of why they liked each other so much is "Wow you understood me and listened to me?"

Especially with how Evil M is still relatively a Morty, he had issues with people not giving a fuck about him so he just did not give a fuck back but then there's a person out there that decided to actually care and not because he gave her anything, but because she thought he was interesting and thought to approach him. And so she gave him something, and I know his first thoughts in this was to possibly use her, like "Oh she might be helpful in this situation" but she's just so damn surprising and infuriating at the same time because she can fuck shit up for him(this is why he doesn't like involving himself with others, they're too unpredictable) because I think she's both oblivious and really aware of what he's trying to do.

But then he's so fucking lonely and doesn't want to admit it and not going to lie Mabel acts sorta like a Prime Morty who's both aware of the dangers of an adventure but also can find ways to enjoy life that he envies and wants to have and it's not like he wants to interact with anyone else because that would mean sharing more to more people and so Mabel could suffice.

Also most people in the real world are so insufferable especially since their perspective to him is unappealing or lacking or so close minded that he really can't find interest in any of them, but Mabel? Well she always has something to say and catches him off guard, so why not just interact with her? Then yeah they ended up getting closer and since he's like "Well I could trust you with some information" and somehow he finds that he actually could with her, since she cares a lot about her friends and that she's agreeable at times but also conflicts with him and that's refreshing to him that she isn't much of a people pleaser as the others are.

Like finding out they could go with each other through thick and thin also they're both painfully human in a cartoon like world and makes mistakes also they are actually scared children who grew up too quickly and are really just wanting to get a piece of their normal back like yeah it may be from trauma but it also is because they just found out they work so well together. Also ngl they're actually big fucking drama queens Evil Morty just doesn't want to admit that he's a cringe theater kid too. (Hmmm 4th wall break wonder what that is /silly)

Like "I could never figure you out even though we empathize with each other's experiences, and that will always make you so appealing to me on how similar we are but we're two worlds apart." They're also like Rick and Evil M dynamic, when one is lacking this the other makes up for it! That and when they make effort, THEY WILL PUT EFFORT IN THE THINGS THEY DO.

Also what I really love about the whole if they'd be in a relationship and it's because Mabel would teach Evil M about love because she has it in spades, literally out here appreciating the little things and the big things and wanting to spend time with someone, but also because he spent most of his time surviving and now he has free time to do something else well why not do something because you want it and I mean, you have all the time in the world now. And also because I feel love is something that Rick never gave him, so then him loving someone is something he can call his own, fully, and not attached to something he got from Rick. Besides you know, fucking off to somewhere else and building a civilization where his needs are met.

And Mabel is very chatty, and likes spending a lot of time with someone if she loves them, and sure she may be the first to fall in love but Evil Morty like I said, would fall in love harder, because of how much time they end up spending time together, it's like impossible not to since she takes up most of his time, and he lets it happen. He probably ended up liking her romantically anyway because she's oh so stupid and smart and gives good ideas here and there and also cause she's genuinely nice to him.

Like I'm pretty sure if I made love logical it's gonna destroy the whole point of it being a mystery and most people don't know why it's so illogical too. Literally Mabel bounces back because she got a good support system and she's emotionally more fulfilled in life and now she wants to give Evil Morty a glimpse of what she sees despite the truth being fucking harsh.

This connects to my headcanon and semi-analysis about Evil Morty in the infodump where he's basically a depressed loser trying to distract himself saying he doesn't need anyone but humans don't work that way. My earlier ideas which kick-started this one was basically me viewing Mabel to Evil Morty as Diane is to Rick as Betty is to Simon and if people do even watch the Rick and Morty Anime, Elle is to Morty Prime.

Also my explanation for Evil Morty's actions that may or may be debated you guys can add more information I think so. Which would be down below this paragraph.

So like we know how evil Morty isn't that all that interested in power himself, he only uses it as a means to an end in the citadel, and I'm saying this that he only likes to reach his end goal most of the time, he would do ANYTHING, for that goal, and in here, the end goal was... Clearly going to be something, because okay, Evil Morty is a little bit aimless since it's kind of working as a multiverse to him which is without a Rick, and sure he's thriving, that's exactly what he wanted, but the thing now, is that he's absolutely clueless what to do next.

He can relax, he can do that, he has peace, yes, but the itch of every human being is there, the want or the urge to complete something new, because there's always going to be a new thing they will do after the next big thing they have done, the world doesn't stop just because you completed it, and that's where Evil Morty is lost on, he's in a world without Rick as the center, now what? He can be normal now, he tried that, he tried so hard being semi normal himself, but then it never worked out. So then all he yearned now was for a new experience, he already reached the top, sure, what's the point in that?

Another mountain conquered he had said, maybe all he needed was a distraction, and more, this is like the dilemma of immortality all over again, and I just love adding philosophical topics like that. He is to just be that person who's so tired that he is desperate to escape from one thing, like desperately running away from something and sure he does it but then I feel like it would come back and bite him again. Like okay, smartass, what next to? He tries to do the things that he wanted to do that he couldn't with what Rick has prohibited or restricted him to do by circumstances or explicitly told him, but then because of the environment he was raised in, it never gets erased.

He's the Rickest Morty for a good reason, he's like Rick, I think he knows that deep inside that he is. He's still broken by Rick, the things that are in the inside, they AREN'T healed.

Anyway, it's kind of said that Rick and Morty is like showing the dark side of improvement and I really liked that aspect of the show because it isn't easy, you get repercussions even though what you're doing for is yourself, and it's not like life cares about it too much to know that you're busy for it. And this, Evil Morty is improving, but at what cost? He did everything, should he have lost instead because it felt more like a pyrrhic victory if anything. What people forget is that he's a child, living in the hands of an abuser that was everywhere in his life, everything he knew, now it's gone and over, he's free isn't he? He finds threats to himself, eliminates it, which is what happened in the Season 7, Episode 5, he got the omega device. All he wants is leverage against people and to be left alone, but because of this freedom he chased so hard.

He's just surviving, mostly, at least what most of his life is, he doesn't admit that he's bored, and tries to distract himself — going somewhere, collecting materials, he knows he can just make an endless supply of them if he wanted and if he could, I just think he CHOSE NOT TO, because then he'd have nothing left to do. He found himself in a cage in freedom, being so free it's stifling and empty, it's too free with no limitations. Give someone an instruction to create the world and they wouldn't know what to do, they're overwhelmed by what they could essentially take that they never stopped to think, well, what do they want?

And... does it really matter? I think he's lonely, like incredibly so, and maybe nihilistic too, since that's what Rick kind of taught him in life, and since he did scan many of the Ricks' brain, he definitely knows that.

He probably doesn't know why he's living either, and even though he tries to further himself away from humanity, he's always going to be human anyway. He's so unbearably human else he wouldn't have escaped Rick, be done with dealing with him, he knows he's been wronged by them too many times to count. So he left the central finite curve. He cares for himself, at least.

So he survives, even if that's the barest minimum a human should give themselves. He's been given worse cards that he's satisfied with just so little. He's just wanting to find a purpose in a harsh world that doesn't care to give you one. He's been rebellious, at Rick, at people who've annoyed him and bothered him, maybe pure spite may keep him alive, but until when he realizes, well what's all this for? I think it was a blessing, to remain ignorant, because to me it feels like, you're either the rest of everyone, knowing less, or you just end up like Rick knowing more and feeling so alienated, feeling like a God or wondering, always wondering on an answer that'll never be answered.

He's the embodiment of "I put so much effort into this, I dedicated my entire life for this, that if I fail, what else is there to do?" Does he badly need therapy? Actually yeah, most people just call him an edgy bitch but he's kind of like every human there is after finding out nobody knows what they're actually doing and we're just getting more and more information but we truly don't know what to do with it, we just try to benefit from it. That guy's worth is equivalent to the plan in motion he placed in season 1, "What am I if I couldn't do it." And "What do you mean that's all there is?" "You fool, it's always been like that."

I rest my case, you guys can just take this as you will. I guess I adored it due to the potential it had also the tropes I could link to this that I think fits a lot of those that are common or even favored by people, the most common one yet is the opposites attract! Which was one of my main ideas for this ship. Also if you know MBTI, this is also a reference to the ENFP and INTJ duo. It could be romantic and it could be platonic that you make it to be but I kinda just want to see them in a setting where they're interacting which would never happen so fanart and fandom can just carry it instead!

Also ships I have compared or found similarities in though not exactly fully similar so you can envision it much clearer through examples: Pinky and Brain, Nana and Hachi, Furina and Scaramouche, Mitsi and Victim, My Melody and Kuromi, Shadow and Amy, Robin and Starfire, Miss Heed and Dr Flug(somewhat), Damian Desmond and Anya Forger, Galinda and Elphaba, Momo Ayase and Ken Takakura, Druig and Makkari, Hades and Persephone, Kim Dokja and Han Sooyoung, Homura and Madoka, Tobey McAllister and Becky Botsford, Saiki K and Teruhashi Kokomi, Eru Chitanda and Hotaro Oreki, Mamoru Chiba and Usagi Tsukino, Enid Sinclair and Wednesday Addams, (Kinda funny) Lucy Wilde and Felonius Gru. Maybe I would add more information in the future in this same post but that's most of my thoughts on the matter. Okay byeee~

Link to their playlist which were mostly recommendations: EvilMortyabel playlist

#mabel pines/evil morty #EvilMortyabel brainrot #EvilMortyabel #evil morty #mabel pines #gravity falls #rick and morty #evil morty/mabel pines #my roman empire because I built this for months #not this post #but the ship in general #golden retriever and black cat #the sunshine strong and heroic girl and fucked up white boy who lacks vitamin D #traumabuddies they just don't know it yet shhhh #someone once described it as #Girl who has a terrible track record for her crushes meets Boy who has horrible relationships with people he dated #they just both have terrible luck in romance... or in general #The 'Nothing matters in life...' and '💖Nothing Matters in life!!!💖' typa shit duo #kinda enemies to lovers cause they deffo clashed a bit at their opinions #they should die painfully and fully aware of what is happening as they slowly lose the light in their eyes /affectionate #intj x enfp #cheerleader x scholar #'I do all my homework when it is announced' and 'wait there was homework?'#“We have chemistry!” “I don't even go to school"#listener x yapper #hero x villain #ADHD x Autism

11 notes · View notes