#sorry for the awks history lesson LKJDSF

[sapphirescales]

// I was wondering if you could tell us what specifics elements of X-Men: First Class inspired you to make Mystique?

omggg ok this is gonna sound AWFUL but ??? i actually was not inspired to make ravne at all initially ??? what happened is that i used to write xm/cu logan DKFJSADLFJ and then stuff happened and i was off in another fandom ( ... specifically,,, the te/en wo/lf fandom,,, ) and a then-friend of mine was telling me abt xm/fc ( which at that point, near the end of 2011, i still hadn’t even ? seen yet ? im a FAKE i know ) and how she was in the fandom and that there was a Lack of ravens and she wanted me to join her there and,,, tbh,,, things got p bad for me on my other blog ( if ur in the fandom/u Know me from back then, u know the issue, plus i also had sb who was,,, abusing me,,, and it was honestly. just. a shitshow. ) so i essentially like ??? i made myself write raven??? 

and i know! it sounds really bad! at that point in my life i had NEVER written any female muses, all my muses were male. ALL of them. i had gotten better in tht i wasnt like,, throwing women under the bus for slash ships anymore but. it was really difficult for me to relate to raven? though she’s definitely more relatable than xtrilogy raven who has like,,, 1 line per movie or something ,,, 

but it was really hard for me to relate to her! her story arc made little sense to me and, i think if you go back far enough on my old archive blog, you’ll see some. Truly. terrible and misinformed ideas that i had about what made raven the way she was ( that i have since revised and grown beyond but were essential to me at the time to start building my understanding of her ). but what i had to work off was this: 

self esteem/self image/confidence issues, 

a slightly dependent personality and, 

the transformation of that young girl we saw into the hardened mys/tique we see in the x-trilogy.

i did a watch by myself to figure out the story, then i watched it again with nessa and that’s where i started relating more to her, finding pieces that really connected to me. the way she swallows back her arguments in the oxford scene, her obvious jealousy, the way she makes such an effort to connect with hank’s awkward attention, how completely she turns at the end of xm/fc, her turning to erik for comfort and reassurance -- all these little things, subtle characterisation that spoke volumes to me, because i was looking for it. raven is, in her nature, a subtle person -- it only makes sense that her character arc would be something you need to reflect on. and that’s when i realised that her storyline is familiar to me -- it’s an inflated, slightly exaggerated version of one of the stories in my own life. the othering she’s faced her whole life because of how she looks, how deeply it cuts and affects her. 

so i guess in the end, tl:dr -- there initially wasn’t anything in xm/fc that drew my attention to raven at all. she was, to me, a flat and uninteresting character. but she’s someone i grew to love writing very, very much -- she’s my longest lasting rp muse -- and someone whose worth and story arc is something i found value in as i, myself, grew and changed and became more open to the message she was trying to convey.