#skitter from the current uncanny x-men also has a stutter

[slightlycomicobsessed]

@alicepooryorick i know this isn’t perfect but it is canon that dani becomes disabled after the demon bear saga and it’s actually written pretty well and she’s not treated as “lesser” for being in a wheelchair. if you’re talking about disability rep

[slightlycomicobsessed]

okay like. this is (definitely) a privileged take but like. one of the worst things i find about racism, especially in fandom/media, is that a lot of the time it just makes stories worse. for example, the new mutants. specifically dani moonstar. It's been explicitly stated, repeatedly that she is their leader, and that she is "on par with cyclops". it geniunely is written like she is meant to be scott's successor as x-men leader. and she has all the qualifications for it. she's smart, resourceful, strong, keeps her head cool in a fight. like she is the character you look for when you're looking for a new leader for the x-men.

except... this is never followed through on. it's even been acknowledged that she has a lot of "unused potential" (paraphrasing from Heir of Apocalypse).

in Simone's current Uncanny X-Men run, there are four new mutant characters. Skitter, Calico, Deathdream, and Ransom. And the current "leader"? Rogue. Who immediately fights these kids who literally are just asking for help. I know the editorial reason is so that the readers can see their powers, but I feel like Dani would've been such a good fit for these kids. I've stated this before, but it's clear that Deathdream's powers unnerve most of the other characters, but it wouldn't unnerve Dani, who has experience with Death, being a Valkyrie and having that "death sense" of hers. Calico and her have similar empathetic animal powers. Dani also lived in the mountains on her own for what was implied to be years, and so she would understand Ransom, too, to an extent. Skitter was ostracized for her stutter, and Dani was ostracized for her powers (at first). I just feel like editorial was throwing together popular household x-men names just because they could, and not heavily considering who would be the best for the role. (even if they wanted to keep Rogue, I think then it should've been Dani and not Jubilee who broke up the fighting. It feels like something she'd do.) and that's just one example. and like, it's so fucked, because you can tell all these incredible stories with poc characters, but people won't for some bullshit reason, and instead put the same 5-10 "popular" characters as the head of each run instead of giving lesser known characters a chance to shine.