#this time with more xmfc interactions

[cryhavok]

i.

the prison gives him back his clothes.

alex didn’t even know they had kept them, but they give them back in a wide plastic bag that says summers, alexander on it in black sharpie.  for a long moment he just holds the bag in his hands, staring at the blue denim peeking out from under the soft grey cotton of the t-shirt he was wearing the day they arrested him.

DANVILLE HIGH SCHOOL, the front reads in faded black letters.

alex’s numb hands pull it over his head.  they must have laundered it.  it doesn’t smell like his cold fear sweat.  It doesn’t smell like the gardenia perfume haley was wearing, or the blood-ash of the garage he destroyed.

just fabric, that’s all.

ii.

the outside air on the other side of the prison fence tastes subtly different than the outside air of the yard.  the sun is brighter.  the colors are more vibrant.  without the shackles that usually come with being outside, his wrists feel too light, and he keeps them very close to his sides and squints against the too-muchness of the world.

“how does it feel, alex?” says charles, behind him.

alex tries to say, good, i think.  but the words get stuck in his throat.

“why don’t you go pull the car around, charles?” says erik, as alex stares wordlessly into the fenceless space ahead of them.

iii.

three hours in the car and alex is beginning to get a headache.  there’s too much movement.  there’s too much sound.  he’s gotten so used to his world being 80 square feet of concrete that the constant bombardment of information from all of his senses has set his nerves to jangling.  mercifully, instead of talking to him, charles and erik have been arguing for about two and a half hours about something so far over his head he hadn’t bothered to listen past the first five minutes.

he sits in the backseat, and closes his eyes, and leans his head into the side panels of the car so that the rhythmic hum of the engine drowns out most of the soft music on the radio and the voices from the front seat.

iv.

at a diner in springfield, ohio, alex orders a club salad because he doesn’t remember the last time he ate a vegetable that he could recognize.  it leaves him still hungry, but he’s so fucking happy it’s not meatloaf that he almost doesn’t care.

erik catches him eyeing his leftover fries.

“get something else,” he says.  “charles is paying.”

alex realizes it’s been maybe four hours since he spoke, except to order.  “---uh,” he says, and looks past him to charles, who he catches in the middle of rolling his eyes, but who nods once he realizes alex is waiting for permission.

he gets a chicken sandwich.

he remembers to say thank you this time.

v.

charles puts a hand on his shoulder once.

alex is immediately overwhelmed with a screaming sense of wrongness, and jerks away like he’s been stabbed.  all of a sudden he doesn’t feel human; like he’s too big for his skin, like he’s tearing out of it, like his lungs can’t pump air fast enough to keep him steady.  “don’t,” he says.

“i apologize,” charles replies, and doesn’t touch him again.

vi.

at the cia compound is the first time alex has talked to anybody his age in over a year.

hank uses the word “penultimate” in their first conversation and alex wonders if hank is weird or if this is a thing people normally say and he’s just forgotten.  darwin claps him on the back, doesn’t apologize when he flinches away, doesn’t give him anything like a wide berth.  when alex stares too long at angel’s tattoos she gives him a smile over her shoulder that makes him blush and then steps hard on his foot.

raven says, “high school?” and raises her eyebrows.

alex looks down at his shirt, which is grass-stained from lying down on the grass outside after the cia officers had given him the talk about the terms of his release.  “oh,” he says.  “yeah.  i---need new clothes.”

“anyone know where the mall in this town is?” darwin asks.

vii.

“well,” says hank, “at least it smells clean.”

alex gives him a look.  it’s not his fault he had to wait; he’s not allowed to go outside without the cia’s say-so and charles wasn’t here with the money, anyway.

he also gives darwin the look, because he’s laughing so hard he’s doubled over.  “oh man,” darwin wheezes, once he’s gotten his breath back, “you look like erik lehnsherr’s closet threw up on you.”

angel and raven walk in and their eyebrows go up on almost perfect sync, raven’s pulling together in the middle and angel’s arching high and unimpressed up her forehead.

“oh baby,” angel says, after the two of them have been quiet for almost thirty seconds, “what did you let him do to you?”

“they’re just clothes,” alex protests.

“terrible clothes,” raven agrees.

viii.

when sean arrives four days later he brings two six packs and a wide white grin.  alex is settling enough that he manages to smile back, although it probably looks stupid and painful on his face, stretching muscles he’s not used to using.

“better than prison, isn’t it?” charles asks him, smiling.

alex guesses maybe he doesn’t know that he hasn’t mentioned that to anybody, or that maybe he doesn’t understand why it’s the sort of thing that he would rather keep hidden, but it still feels a little bit like a blow to the stomach, the sudden silence that falls behind him.

“obviously,” erik says, when alex fails to respond, his voice bone dry.

he can tell by the look on charles’ face that he knows he’s fucked up, but it’s kind of too late for that, so he just says, “yeah,” and goes to sit down on the couch again.

“so what’d you do?” asks angel.  hank and sean look relieved somebody else asked.  darwin is watching his face.  raven is looking at charles.

“fucked up,” he replies.

“that’s a shitty answer,” she says.

alex puts his coke down on the table with a loud clunk. “---well, it’s a shitty question.”

ix.

“hey,” says raven.

“hey,” he replies.  he’s getting better at returning greetings.

“what’s your favourite colour?” she asks.

“blue, i guess.”

she smirks.

“why?”

“because we need to get you different shirts, and apparently you’re not allowed off the grounds without an agent or charles.”

“yeah.”  he holds up his beer, which sean handed him but which he hasn’t drunk from.  “i’m... not supposed to have this, either.”

“what size are you?”

“---medium?”

“okay.”  she pauses.  “you know, he didn’t mean to tell everyone like that.”

“i know,” alex says.  they sit quietly on the back steps for a while, looking at the cia agent standing thirty feet out, watching them.  he tries to synthesize his thoughts into one complete sentence and comes up with:  “he still did, though.”

x.

“i’ve read your trial proceedings,” says erik, casually, when they’re alone in the sparse white room with a microwave and a refrigerator that serves as a kitchen.  “most killers i’ve met tried harder to escape justice.”

alex tries to decide if he hates or appreciates the bluntness of killer.  “i did what they said.”

“did he deserve it?”

does anyone deserve to be turned into a haze of blood droplets and bone fragments?  even if they were out to kill him?  even if they were out to kill haley?  what deserves the death penalty? alex wonders.  what is worth becoming the executioner?

“i don’t know.”

it was an accident.

erik raises his cup to his lips.  “next time, be sure.”

 xi.

“hey, alex,” raven says, “come here.  i need a partner.”

alex looks up from the pinball machine.  “what?”

she throws a pool cue at him, which he only barely catches before it hits him in the face.  “charles and erik are trying to hustle me.  i want to teach them a lesson.”

erik grins widely at him when he appears in the doorway and says, “alex, why don’t you break?”

the first game goes so badly that it’s clear everyone is trying to throw the game or just really bad at pool---alex sinks the winning shot after nearly 45 minutes.  the second is faster, but only barely.

the third---best out of three, charles had said cheerfully---takes barely ten minutes and quickly turns cutthroat when the shooting on the eight ball begins.  “don’t these have metal in them?” charles asks, weighing the cue in his hand.

“are you really accusing me of cheating?” erik replies.  “we’re on the same side, charles.”

alex clears his throat. “---do they?”

“no.”

“good,” says raven, and neatly whacks the last ball into the left side pocket.  “because if there were it would be really embarrassing when you lost.”

“uh,” says alex. “raven, you---”

“you forgot to call a pocket,” finishes erik.

raven drops her cue on the table.  “fuck,” she curses.

charles smiles at her.  “you’ve flown a little too close to the sun, darling.”

“that’s big talk from someone who won on a technicality, charles,” erik points out.

xii.

alex has gotten used to working out every day, because it was one of the only things to do in the cell, and the cia gym is better than the barbell he had.  so now he runs in the mornings and visits the gym in the evening.

“hey,” says darwin, sitting on the bench across from his, “throw me that.”

“throw it?”

darwin just holds out his hand, so alex heaves the weight at him, then grins when his arm blurs out of sight to catch it before it hits his chest, muscles turning to grey steel to stop the momentum and then quickly turning flesh-colored again.

xiii.

sometimes when alex can’t sleep (because everything is too loud, or sometimes too quiet, or too much or too little like prison) he goes to sit in the hallway.  that’s where he knows angel or darwin will come along eventually, in or out of their rooms.  if it’s darwin he’ll sit down on the floor across from him and talk about something pointless; if it’s angel she’ll stand up against the wall next to him and tell him it’s time to go to bed and get the fuck out of the corridor.

sometimes he goes to sit in the main room, which is where sean or raven might be still hanging out if it’s not too late---him with a pack of cards, her with a grin and a hand patting the cushion next to her.

infrequently erik can be found in the kitchen late at night.  alex doesn’t try him very often, but sometimes just sitting in silence with somebody is what he’s looking for.

he knows where to find charles and hank, too.  he mostly uses the knowledge to avoid them.

xiv.

“i’ve seen other guys who were in solitary way longer’n you turn out fine,” says darwin one evening in the gym, although it sounds like a lie to alex.

in the first few weeks after solitary, he finds himself uncomfortable with mostly everyone except erik and darwin---erik is an exception because he appears to expect exactly nothing of alex in the way of social interaction, and darwin is an exception because he doggedly insists on treating alex like a person even when he doesn’t really feel like one.

at the breakfast table in the morning after alex grabs two apples and only eats one of them, erik doesn’t put down his newspaper or look up.  “you’ll adjust to this.”

xv.

the truth is, it does get easier.  it gets easier in leaps and bounds at first---after the first day when speaking is too hard to comprehend, the first weeks where being accidentally brushed against feels like getting hit, it gets easier.  all of it.  dealing with charles, who is still overwhelming on the best of days.  dealing with people in general.  not having a bolt on his door keeping him in.  he gets used to these things so quickly that he almost doesn’t remember how it unnerved him in the beginning to be in a shower that wasn’t built for a crowd.

the easing plateaus eventually.  things like talking at a normal cadence are still hard.  being touched still makes him want to crawl out of his skin, mostly.  but after a while he doesn’t need erik to talk to charles so he doesn’t have to.  he doesn’t need raven and angel to tell him when they’re being sarcastic anymore.

alex throws the DANVILLE HIGH SCHOOL t-shirt in the trash.

he tugs on the blue plaid raven got him instead.

[gerec]

Speaking of Charles/Erik/Shaw, there are very few fics writing about it. Shaw will always be the manipulative bastard(like the ao3 tag), while poor Erik and Charles will be the victims trying to get away from his control...

I find something interesting, why will there be more Charles/Shaw instead of Erik/Shaw fics, they don't even interact in the movie! Or do they have more contacts in comics. Just wanna know.

Well there aren’t a lot of fics with those three in that configuration that isn’t straight up dirtybad porn :D As for why there’s so much Charles/Shaw (a lot more than Erik/Shaw) in the fandom given they don’t even interact in the movie...I think it’s a combination of a) putting two characters together in fic because the character dynamics would be interesting to explore, and b) Shaw being the big bad in XMFC (vs. Trask or Apoc etc), during the time when fandom was at it’s height and the bulk of stories were written. And since we love to collectively torture Charles as a fandom, it was natural to have Shaw/Charles show up in all sorts of stories (particularly aus). Plus the guy is a charismatic sociopath, and those are fun to write ha!

[paradisecost]

hc. erik // main timeline 

ALRIGHT this bad boy is just over 1700 words long but I urge you to read it if you’re at all interested in interacting with my Erik. He is extremely canon-divergent in that DoFP, XMA and DP did not happen. I used to be fine with both DoFP and XMA but the more I think about them the more I’m like “wow, those plots are fucking ridiculous” and I’ve chosen to uh, throw them out the damn window. DP on the other hand was just unabashedly horrific fcKJNFKDNF.

TW: Non-graphic mentions of the following: the Holocaust, kidnapping, child abuse, child death, burning alive, imprisonment and isolation, and murder. Ya boy’s been through HELL but these are just mentions, as in ‘this thing happened- moving on’.

Early life // v: doomed from the start

December 31st, 1929

Erik Magnus Lehnsherr is born, presumably somewhere in Poland, to Jewish German parents. His mother nicknames him ‘Max’ when he is very young, and his father and friends soon pick up on it too.

He befriends Magda Eisenhardt at school as a young boy. The two become close, but are separated during the war, long before Erik is taken by Schmidt. Each assumes the other to be dead.

September 1st, 1939

Germany invades Poland; WWII begins.

Erik’s mutation manifests in short bursts throughout the next few years in moments of stress or anger, made worse by the overall traumatic and stressful living conditions associated with being Jewish at this time. His parents are the only ones to witness his mutation, and are desperate to keep it hidden for Erik’s own safety. Erik’s mother considers it a gift from G-d, and one he must use wisely.

Unknown date, 1944

Erik and his family are sent to Auschwitz. Erik’s mutation manifests fully when he is separated from his parents, distorting an iron gate in an attempt to reach them. He is subdued by the surrounding guards via a blow to the head and taken to Klaus Schmidt (later Sebastian Shaw), a German doctor and mutant. 

Schmidt instructs Erik to move a coin as proof of his mutation, shooting Erik’s mother in front of him when he fails. Erik destroys the surrounding room with his powers in a fit of rage, as well as killing the guards present. His rage quickly turns to grief, however, and he breaks down, allowing himself to be comforted by Schmidt, who claims they’re going to ‘unlock his gift with pain and anger’. Needless to say, the resulting years in Schmidt’s grasp are not pleasant.

 The Schmidt years // v: doctor’s orders

1944

Erik is held captive by Schmidt for the next six years, subjected to frequent physical and psychological abuse in order to ‘strengthen’ his powers and improve his control over them. By the time he is seventeen he is capable of harnessing his abilities to perform to Schmidt’s standards, but lacks fine control over his mutation when not in a heightened emotional state. Throughout 1944 he is forced to work as a Sonderkommando alongside this. At the end of the war Schmidt takes him to a private facility in Germany, where Erik remains captive for the next several years.

Despite severe conditioning and traumatic bonding towards Schmidt, he makes a number of escape attempts throughout these years, as well as at least two attempts on Schmidt’s life.

Late 1949

The facility is bombed for reasons unknown to Erik. Erik escapes during the chaos, using his mutation to destroy anything and everything that stands in his way. As he flees, he looks back to see Schmidt absorbing an explosion. This is how he knows Schmidt is still alive afterwards, as well as having his longstanding suspicions confirmed that Schmidt, too, is a mutant.

Recovery and family years // v: we will not suffer here

1950

Having been on the run lest Schmidt attempt to track and hunt him down, Erik finally stops running for one reason only: by sheer chance, he reunites with Magda Eisenhardt. Both are overjoyed to see the other alive, and they marry the same year. Erik begins using the name Max Eisenhardt instead of his birth name. The two are impoverished and starving half of the time, but they make it work: Max manages to find steady work here and there, and the two settle in Vinnytsa to build a home and a family together. 

Summer, 1951

Anya Eisenhardt is born. Max takes work from anyone that will have him as he struggles to keep the family afloat, but the sheer relief of being alive and in a position where people may help them if things take a downturn is more than worth the struggle. Later in life, Erik considers these years the happiest of his life.

Late 1956

Their home in Vinnytsa is set on fire after Max magnetically hurls a crowbar at his boss for refusing to pay him when he and Magda are desperate for the money. Max is not present when the fire is first lit: he runs home upon seeing the smoke, and discovers that Anya is still stuck inside the house. Max attempts to save her, using his powers to tear the house apart, but it’s too late. In his grief and rage, Max lashes out with his powers, murdering his boss, the people responsible for the fire, and numerous innocent villagers in the process. When he calms and tries to go to Magda, she flees in terror, calling him a monster. Unbeknownst to Max, Magda is pregnant with twins at this time.

The Nazi-killing years // v: red right hand

Early 1957

With nothing left for him in Vinnysta and at a loss for what to do with himself, Max opts for the thing that living with Magda and Anya had allowed him to set aside: revenge. He begins his hunt for Schmidt, reclaiming the name Erik Lehnsherr in an attempt to shed the ghost of his former life with his family. He resolves to find Schmidt or die trying, and becomes unable to visualise a future outside of that.

Unknown date, 1957

Somewhere far away, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff are born, without Erik’s knowledge. Magda Eisenhardt dies soon after giving birth to them, and they are taken in by an elderly couple who raises them as their own.

1957-1962

Erik tracks Schmidt by hunting down former Nazis associated with him. He leaves a bloody trail across Europe in his search, leaving no survivors, and never settles in one place for long.

 XMFC timeline // v: first class

Early 1962

Erik attempts to kill Schmidt, now known as Sebastian Shaw, nearly drowning in the process of trying to drag his submarine up from the depths of the ocean. He is saved by Charles Xavier, working with the CIA. He allows Charles to bring him on-board the CIA’s ship, practically refusing to speak to anyone other than Charles and questioning him endlessly on his mutation as well as other mutants.

1962

Events of X-Men: First Class. Erik and Charles work together to locate other mutants, and the first group of X-Men are formed. The mutants work to hone their abilities, primarily with Charles’ assistance; Charles teaches Erik that pain and anger are not the key to unlocking his gift, and to help him, accesses a memory of Erik’s mother - one that, along with most of Erik’s memories from before 1944, had been repressed. Erik also forms a bond with Raven/Mystique, claiming that mutants should not have to hide who they are in order to be accepted by society.

October 28th 1962

Erik kills Sebastian Shaw with the coin he was ordered to move as a child. Erik proceeds to form the first incarnation of the Brotherhood of Mutants, taking the name Magneto. 

 Brotherhood years // v: rise up!

November 20th 1962

Magneto and the Brotherhood free Emma Frost, who joins them.

Following the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy administration authorizes the Central Intelligence Agency to establish Project WideAwake, a covert task force to investigate other X-Gene cases and their prevalence across the United States. While its mission strictly revolves around identification and research of mutants, it exercises paramilitary autonomy from the President’s mandates.

Edwin Partridge, a former Major General in the U.S. Army and a far right-wing activist, gains (through his contacts in the military) proof of mutant involvement during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

July 1963

Azazel and Angel are killed by Project WideAwake agents. Emma Frost is later killed by Sentinel prototypes.

November 22nd 1963

JFK is assassinated. Magneto has nothing to do with this because frankly it’s a stupid plot point, but is wanted for various terrorist actions related to pro-mutant shenanigans.

January 22nd 1964

Project WideAwake operatives are tasked with locating and apprehending Magneto. He is captured soon after.

February 11th 1964

A private trial takes place, which Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy are present for. Magneto is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in a federal correctional facility without the possibility of parole, sparking the ‘Free Magneto’ movement.

 Imprisonment // v: isolation

1964-1973 Erik is imprisoned with only brief escapes over the course of nine years.

Early 1971 Having destroyed several prisons during the 60s, Magneto is finally permanently subdued by Trask Industries. He is placed in a specialised prison in the Pentagon, 1,320 ft below the Earth’s surface. It is composed of industrial-grade polymers and concrete.

1971-1973 Erik is kept in solitary confinement in prison (though he has been more or less stuck in one prison or another since 1964). He begins to speak almost exclusively in Yiddish and German, conversing with what he believes are ghosts of his parents (for whom he speaks Yiddish), and Schmidt (for whom he speaks only German). These are, of course, hallucinations, which he has experienced throughout his life in times of intense stress.

 Post-prison recovery years // v: the quiet years

1973 to unknown/variable date

Magneto escapes, somehow. He goes into hiding for a long-ass time and attempts to live a quiet, ordinary life, whilst also recovering from the isolation/prison-induced trauma of the past nine years. Charles Xavier is aware of his escape but chooses not to reveal it to the world so long as Erik does not resume his previous occupation of, uh, global mutant terrorist. At some point, Erik secures a safe haven for mutants on the island of Genosha, where he helps to build a self-sustaining community there.

Default timeline, aka mainverse // v: mutants are the future

Unknown/variable dates (these can literally take place at any time period after 1980 or so; the default is the present day)

Erik acts alone. The Brotherhood no longer exists, and Erik no longer lives in Genosha, though he visits it frequently and assists with its upkeep and maintenance when needed - as well as being more than willing to defend it, if necessary. Erik deals with threats to mutantkind as he sees fit, but is generally not the uh… comic-book villain he was post-XMFC. He and Charles Xavier are in contact with one another, and in some instances, Erik visits the school for a multitude of reasons.

[paramecie]

Okay I need to talk about dark phoenix under the cut because I have so many opinions. I’ll stay vague at first and then get into real spoilers at the end, with what I didn’t like and what I liked

IN GENERAL

- THE MUSIC WAS INCREDIBLE. Not surprising since it was composed by Hans Zimmer, but it truly gives an incredible mood to the movie.

- I feel like it’s one of the most feminist superhero movie I’ve ever seen? Not in everything, but the women were _central_ to the story and the men ... well. You could get rid of all the men in the story (except maybe for Charles) and you’d still get the same movie. A nice change, if you want my opinion.

- Jean Grey is one of my favourite character and I LOVE Sophie Turner; so this movie was completely my kink lol The entire cast is amazing, but she truly gave everything she’s got in this movie, and it shows. 

- there’s not a lot of cherik scenes, but the few we have are GOLD. 

- the fights were excellent! We get to see them all fight together, and it works so well.

- SPACE !! The scenes in space looked AMAZING.

.

TRUE SPOILERS !!!!!! 

 !!!!

!!!!!

What I didn’t like : 

- Charles looked like he didn’t care that much about Raven’s death. He didn’t even scream her name, or rush towards her, he just looked ... cold. I guess they wanted to focus on Hank’s grief first because they needed to explain why he would want to kill Jean, but it did strike me as weird and it made Charles look uncaring.

- The scene where Jean force Charles to walk up the stairs. It made me really uneasy. 

- @akasanata mentioned a good point : all three of the main women characters died (more or less) at the end, which is ... not good. At all. Chastain’s character had to die, I hardly see how they could have done it differently, but I have mixed feelings about Jean’s maybe-death and Raven. 

- Erik getting angry over Raven’s death felt a bit forced, as did Hank and Erik bonding over their love for Raven ... but ah I kinda accepted it now? The end of xma showed that Erik considered Charles and Raven as his last surviving family, and he said just before to Jean that he was tired of losing loved ones; even if Erik changed and calmed down, he’s still Erik at his core and he’s always reacted with anger after losing someone.

- More backstory about the aliens would have been nice, but tbh I only wanted to see all the mutants interacting with each others so I couldn’t care less about the villains lol. They could have just put an alien wearing a “I’m the bad guy” t-shirt and I would have been satisfied.

- They still can’t make people fly without it looking ridiculous eh. All the scenes where Raven, Erik, or Ororo were flying looked cheap.

- Quicksilver ???? I mean, I’m glad they focused on the women, but he’s Erik’s son and as far as we know Erik still doesn’t know? 

- Scott. Sorry mate, I just don’t like you, you have the charisma of an oyster.

What I liked : 

- Jean. The movie focused on Jean’s struggles, and did an amazing job at showing her internal conflicts. It’s her battle, she got rid of the threat on her own and didn’t need help, only reminders that people loved her.

- CHARLES AND JEAN’S RELATIONSHIP. It was the highlight of the movie, seriously, she’s his daughter, period. 10 years old Jean was adorable. When she says “I know. You did it out of love.” to Charles ??? YES. THAT SHIT RIGHT THERE.

- Refusing to tell a 10 years old girl that his father rejected her is completely understandable, Charles was right to keep it from her, she was a child. But from Jean’s point of view, she had to deal with the guilt of killing her two parents for years, only to discover that one of them is still alive? Yeah, I’d be pretty pissed if I were her. Charles also points out that the cosmic force in her makes Jean incredibly full of rage, she’s not exactly rational at this point. 

- When Jean asked Charles if he’s going to kill her and he replied with a broken voice “oh Jean, never. Never.” GOOD. EXCELLENT. 

- ERIK. My man. Listen, I hated Erik’s characterization in every movie except xmfc, and now I can said that I finally liked another one. Erik living in Genosha in this dusty shack? YES. Erik actually saving humans from Jean? YES. 

- ERIK ACTUALLY LISTENED TO CHARLES AND CHANGED HIS MIND. He listened to Charles for the first time, can I get an AMEN. 

- Erik’s fight in the train scene ??? HOLY SHIT. The casual way he uses his power, the ease, the way he moves, everything was excellent. It was actually ... incredibly hot lol. I feel like we’ve never been given a scene like this with Erik before? Anyway, I’ll take a 24hours loop of this moment, please.

- Erik protecting Charles and Jean by blocking the door with metal scraps! YES! That’s WHAT WE WANT!!

- Kurt’s fighting was also excellent. Truly shows his potential. 

- We get to see Charles using his powers to fight too !

- the kitchen scene between Hank and Charles was incredible, in my opinion. Hank feels guilty, he’s desperate and angry, so it does make sense for him to lash out at Charles - you’re not coherent when you’re in mourning, and Charles had been the last disagreement between Hank and Raven. Charles is right when he said that Hank’s not being fair- but Hank’s lost in his grief and can’t see past his guilt and anger. Charles has never been good with grief either, but he deals with it differently : he tries to ignore it, or to numb his feelings (often with alcohol). So we have these two people, mourning in completely different ways;  it’s not surprising that they got angry at each other.

- Erik’s little speech to Jean about how revenge never got him anything and just made him hurt those he cares about ? I never expected Erik to actually say it in canon.

- Speaking of Erik’s speech to Jean, the way Erik repeated “whose blood is this??” more and more urgently BROKE MY HEART. The panic in his eyes and voice ! You can see that he starts to worry about what Jean has done, that he’s suspecting that something went really wrong and he’s thinking of Charles, Raven, all the ones he cares about in the school.

- JEAN’S “I HAVE TO PROTECT MY FAMILY” killed me, IT KILLED ME GUYS

- THE FUCKING ENNNNNNNNNNNNNND !!!!! “Jean Grey school”?? YES. Hank as director ?? YES. Charles retiring in Paris? YES. ERIK FINDING HIM IN PARIS??? YES. BRINGING A CHESS BOARD WITH HIM? YEEEEES

AND THEN

Erik reminding Charles that Charles saved his life and gave him a home once, and Erik wants to do the same !!!!!!!!!!!! “You saved my life and offered me a home, i want to do the same for you” OH MY GOOOOD THEY’RE GOING TO LIVE TOGETHER I can’t BELIEVE And Charles is like, so ready to cry, he’s so touched by Erik’s words, and then their little banter ashfjgjglhkjf I DIED

- Also, there’s actually an easter egg in french? Like, the café they’re in is called the “café des vieux copains” aka “café of old friends” and they’re in the “rue de la paix” aka “Street of Peace”. Nice. 

Charles’ characterization (I feel like it deserves a category on its own because I don’t agree with most posts I’ve seen about it) : 

- I didn’t expect to like Charles’ character arc. I LOVE Charles and, if he’s not perfect, he’s always been driven by his love for others and mutants and that’s like, the core of his character. Hence why I’d never accept a world where he’s become vain and selfish ... and it just so happens that it’s fortunately not how I felt he was portrayed in the movie.  

He was pictured as stressed, nearly close to a burnout. I mean, can you picture the amount of pressure he’s under? For the first time in three decades, he managed to do what he dedicated his life for : to make a world where mutants and humans coexist, where mutants are accepted and loved ! It’s exhilarating, and yet terrifying. He knows better than anyone that one small mishap could tip the balance to their disadvantage and destroy everything he’s worked for, could endanger all mutants all over again. And because it’s Charles, he bears the burden of this terrifying possibility all by himself, because that’s how he always did it - protect the others, shoulder the weight of their burden alone. 

In the beginning of the movie, he’s happy, pleased that everything worked out, and yet you can see that he’s definitely not okay - he drinks a lot, has a temper, makes more and more rash decisions about his x-men. Raven calls him out on it, but he refuses to see the truth because then he would have to admit that he can’t actually control everything and keep the perfect world they created. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we don’t see him teaching anymore; he has to focus on their public image, on keeping their fragile balance with humankind, and this is slowly taking over what he loves : teaching. 

I see the Charles’ character arc in xmdp as Charles slowly realizing that he can’t protect everyone, that his desire to control everything didn’t keep Raven and Jean alive, and accepting that he has to delegate and trust others to do their best to keep mutants safe. Anyway, he NEEDS to rest, he needs to mourn, and I thought that his retirement was the best ending we could have for him ! 

[irelise]

Ask a reader meme: A8, A9, B5, D10?

A8: What was your first fandom? Are you still in that fandom now?I can’t remember too well! It was either Justice League (the animated series) or Lord of the Rings. For Japanese fandoms it’s either Cardcaptor Sakura or this super obscure series called Detective School Q. I’m not really actively in any of those fandoms now but I’d still dip into Ao3 if nostalgia suddenly rears up, or reblog stuff if anything catches my eye!

A9: Who was your first ship? Eeerk, again one of those I can’t remember so well since they’re all jumbled up together! For the series I listed above - Hawkgirl and Green Lantern from JL (oh my fucking god did i hate what they did to Shayera in JLU??? FUCK OFF WITH THAT), Legolas and Gimli who I didn’t ship exactly but I was super interested in seeing explorations of their relationship, Touya/Yukito/Yue from CCS!

B5: Which story have you read more than any other? How many times?Iiiiiii......honestly don’t know! I re-read stories because I love them, but also for inspiring my own writing. Some authors just absolutely nail the voice of certain characters and their relationships so I tend to re-read their fics while I’m writing my own. Notable examples include Boden’s Mate (and anything from kaydeefalls really) for the Charles/Erik relationship, Anarchy in the UK for Charles’ voice,and lately I’ve been reading Continuing Education since it has a very specific flavour of the dynamics between Charles/Erik and Shaw that’s similar to my current project

.......and of course there’s a few dirtybadwrong fics i come back to every now and then because you can never have too much dirtybadwrong :scheme:

D10: What is one story idea you really want to read but no one has written yet? I HAVE NO IDEA, THE XMFC FANDOM IS SO PROLIFIC. There are a few story ideas that I’m super invested in which are likely to remain forever WIPs, probably the main one being this Charles/David 8 fic because Charles’ interactions with androids and the questions of how humans and androids are different yet the same are so fascinating???

I’m honestly a huge sucker for (relatively) canon-compliant fic especially in a fandom like XMFC where there are just these huge, gaping chasms of time between each installment of canon. I’m preeeetty sure these ideas have been written already but damn would I really like some more fic set around DoFP dealing with Charles’ struggles against depression and addiction, or fic exploring how Charles/Jean/Erik might have formed their own little weird family pre-XMDP.

[hclistic]

➰ ➰

@tcmbstoned [here]

i wrote the first connor walsh (on tumblr at least), which i started to drop bc of school and bc everyone started writing him and seemed to be getting more interacts so in time i just let that blog decline.

i also wrote newt geizler but heavily based in a marvel setting. it was fun, especially since i had like 2(?) other marvel blogs at the time, not to mention i think xmfc came out during that period. and funnily enough the whole blog happened bc of a meme like this (at least the “what character would you like to play?” question).

[ruinaa-arc-blog]

JOSEPHINE’S RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET !

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

mun name: august ooc contact: tumblr im’s is probably the best, i don’t really use skype anymore and i don’t have a discord, either.

who the heck is my muse anyway?:

josephine is a mutant living outside of new york city. she’s been married to roman bragin for a couple of years now, and together, they have four children –– ridley, isabel, and twins andrew and ellie. she’s head of a support group for mutants who have been victims of experimentation and slowly getting more involved in mutant-centered interest groups. 

points of interest:

hmm! josephine isn’t super recognizable, really, but she is a familiar face at a mutant-run and employed diner called patsy’s. she doesn’t work there as often as she used to because of her children, but she does spend some time there, still, and will continue to. 

what they’ve been up to recently:

i’ve recently changed a lot on my blog in terms of timeline and backstory things, and i haven’t been here very much either, but! she’s been busy raising a family and continuing to pour most of her energy into her support group and the subsequent need for resources and recovery. her life has calmed down a lot these days, though she does still manage to get herself into situations she likely doesn’t belong in. most recently, she’s been letting karen page stay at their home as a sort of hideaway. 

where to find them:

at home, at patsy’s, at shilah’s apartment, at roman’s school, various locations around new york city. 

current plans:

i don’t have anything really concrete at the moment because i haven’t really been here properly in a while but i want to get some things started! i’m always open for plotting and prefer having some sort of framework beforehand. i also want to focus more on writing and storytelling and pushing jo’s narrative forward instead of allowing her to become stagnant like i fell into the last few months. 

desired interactions:

definitely more friends –– josephine does have a pretty limited friends’ circle, but she becomes emotionally invested in people really quickly and does like to –– not take care of them, but offer a lot of her support and time and energy. her closest friend is shilah, and she does spend the majority of her free time with him in some capacity, but i would like for her to have other friends, too, –– casual or close-knit or anywhere in between! 

also, if your character needs a mother figure in any sort of way, josephine is your gal. she’s the Mom and the Mom Friend. 

double also, other mutants. i used to be really xmfc-based but because of interactions and timeline things and how things pan out, i’m more generally xmcu/marvel based now, so it opens the door for more. 

triple also, i do love a good antagonist. 

offered interactions:

i’m really open to anything! i can’t.....think of anything super specific right now other than.....jo is a good egg who has a deep desire to help people and be better and she’ll also throw herself into the ring for you if you need it, really.

anything else?:

i am not always here!!! i just started a full-time job that includes quite a bit of night and weekend work during showtimes so my schedule isn’t always reliable. i try to be here as much as i can/when i want to be, but sometimes it’s hard. please be patient with me and i will always be patient with you.

tagging: hmm all the usual suspects have already been tagged but @hellkitten, @glacierfront, @dirtypaw, @sihren, @tirelessheart, @accipitrinae, @thrumind, @soulmissed & i think most of y’all have already done this, so! 

[sapphirescales]

also, another shout out, this time to my babes brogan @mutantism , nessa @cryhavok , and lindsey @cycloniic / @illuziion ! 

i talk abt how much i love and appreciate brogan on the daily but she’s honestly so good? i’m SO GLAD that she ended up playing erik? brogan’s writing style is my absolute fave on ANY of her blogs -- she has a way of being poetic without losing meaning. she brings such vivid imagery to life with such few, well-placed words. there’s always something to respond to -- and her dialogue has always been the Best, it feels so natural and easy to talk with and to, even when she’s writing characters that aren’t necessarily talkative. SPECIFICALLY wrt to her erik, though -- i gotta tell u we’ve been BLESSED! she has SO MUCH passion for erik, so much love for his identity and so much understanding -- balanced with critical analysis -- for his character and it comes through so strongly in her writing. discussing plots with her is always SO MUCH fun because there’s so much going on in each interaction that doesn’t necessarily make it to the writing, layers upon layers of things that she’s always building with me. i’m so, so lucky to be able to write with her and to be able to create with her and be part of her creative process even in a peripheral way.

nessa!!! is basically my Twin tbh; she was the one who watched xmfc with me all those years ago and without her insight and analysis i doubt i would’ve been able to really properly characterise raven. so much of the background for this blog, and this blog’s mainverse, is established because of nessa’s unseen hard work. hard work that she puts into EVERY blog of hers, and work that is largely unseen. her prose and drabble work is some of the best i’ve seen on this website, and i always go back to re-read her old drabbles and get emotional and nostalgic over how seamless and intricate her writing is. nessa taught me SO MUCH about how to really bridge my stories and i’m constantly awed by her ability to really write because every time i think i’ve seen it all, she somehow gets even better. specific to her alex, i love that she’s really made alex someone relatable -- her analysis of him throughout xm//fc made me rethink everything i thought i had understood about alex’s character. she’s given him so much life and made her alex really distinct from the rest of the fandom -- in the best way. her dialogue and her writing, which is different for every character, always leaves me either laughing myself to tears or outright crying. alex is so much fun to write with and for, and i’m so lucky that nessa decided to write him!

LINDSEY IS SO GOOD!!! she has abt 600 blogs and all of them are my fave. all of them. she’s SO talented and each one of her characters sounds unique no matter what muse she takes on. so much love and research goes into her characters and she loves them all SO MUCH which means that i end up loving all her characters so much. lindsey’s writing style is so good and clear for interacting with her, she always has such great ideas when it comes to rp and potential situations to interact -- she seems to never run out of ideas. i’m genuinely always SO EXCITED to see her on my dashboard, and i’m always SO EXCITED to interact with her, and i’m SO HAPPY she’s come back. specifically about her janos, he was a hugely undeveloped character in the movie who -- as far as i remember -- didn’t even have any spoken lines. he didn’t speak AT ALL, and so lindsey just took him and made him completely her own and honestly? that’s so inspiring. she took one of the v few men of colour in this movie and fleshed him out WAY past anything canon afforded him, and i couldn’t imagine anyone else capable of writing janos in such a thoughtful, interesting and creative way. wrt to luz, she’s so tiny and the Original Daughter -- part of the original ginger brigade. i love how she’s so representative of negative character growth -- how she goes from someone pure and good, to someone who embraces a more darker side of herself. luz’s abilities, luz’s tropes are something used quite often, esp in the xm//en fandom with ocs, but lindsey really gives luz a life and feel of her own and reinvents the tropes and makes them original and interesting again. all the details of luz’s life that she’s added -- all the npcs and the headcanons -- make luz one of my favorite original characters to write with on this website.

[nomoremetaphors]

WASTED POTENTIAL: X-Men: First Class��and the Death of Armando Muñoz

Or, How Racism F%#@ed the X-Men Movies

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am absolutely, ridiculously invested in the X-Men Cinematic Universe.  Or, more specifically, I’m invested in what the XMCU could have been, if it had been approached as a cohesive whole rather than a series of vaguely confused attempts at continuity and Wolverine cameos.

For me, the biggest moment of missed potential comes with the death of Armando “Darwin” Muñoz at the midpoint of X-Men: First Class.  People have talked, of course, about how his death was racist and doesn’t make sense -- because it was racist, and fundamentally, it doesn’t make sense.

To be fair, I don’t think the writers were being intentionally racist when they killed Armando off in the same scene where the movie’s only other black character defects to the side of the bad guys.  I don’t think they were being intentionally racist when they had a Nazi kill a black man, who, in the comics, is literally and demonstrably unkillable.

But they did these things, and these things were racist.

And to be honest, that racism kinda f%#@ed the franchise.  It’s not the only thing that did -- the decision to put ten year timeskips in between each movie of the second trilogy certainly didn’t help matters -- but I think that it’s the single bad decision that, if averted, would have changed everything.

Under the cut, I’ll discuss why Armando was such a significant character, and why his death shaped the direction of the franchise by destroying some pretty epic narrative possibilities.

(Trigger Warnings for: mentions of suicide, depression, trauma, real life racism, human experimentation.  Nothing more explicit than XMCU canon, however.)

Part One: Armando as Narrative and Thematic Lynchpin

For a character with roughly seven minutes of screentime, Armando has a huge amount of narrative and thematic significance, and his character relationships are some of the most fascinating in a film that is, by and large, about character dynamics and interactions.

Part 1-A: Armando and Alex, Charles and Erik, and Parallelism

First, you have to account for Alex Summers.  Alex is, narratively speaking, intertwined with Darwin, and I’m not just saying that because I ship the thing.  From the moment they’re both on screen together until after Darwin’s death, their stories are intimately connected.  Darwin’s death moves Alex irrevocably, though the final cut of the film fails to explicitly address that; it even has ripples to Alex’s own death, 21 years and 2 movies later, which visually and narratively echoes Darwin’s.

To make a long story short, Armando and Alex have a significant and almost immediate connection as soon as they interact.  Alex fears his mutation, and Armando sees everyone’s mutations as gifts.  In the next scene they're in -- Darwin’s last, unfortunately -- they've carved a space for themselves away from the rest of the group, playing pinball together.  Pinball, interestingly, was technically illegal, and therefore an underground practice, in most places in 1962.  It was, however, popular in Greenwich Village and Harlem, and given that Armando is from New York and Alex is a somewhat queer-coded ex-con, it makes sense that they’d be the ones playing.

That said, their body language speaks to a closeness that is deeply unusual given the short time they’ve known each other and the historical context in which this film takes place.  When things start to go south at the compound, Armando gets Alex’s attention not by saying anything, but by drawing his hand across Alex’s torso, physically directing his attention to the direction that Armando’s moving.

Alex spends the majority of that scene following Armando’s unspoken directions, actually.  If you follow Alex’s posture and eyes throughout the scene, you’ll catch several instances where he’s looking to Armando to see what to do next.  They even touch more than once during the fight.

Additionally, Alex winds up standing at Armando’s right hand during the pivotal part of the scene, when Shaw is making his “sales pitch” to the young mutants. You see Alex sway a little toward Armando, eventually positioned at his shoulder.  It’s all very King and Lionheart, and something that the small fanbase that ships them has caught onto.  

Then, we come to the biggest moment: when Armando makes the plan, communicates it to Alex with nothing but a look and possibly an offscreen touch, and pretends to defect with Angel.  You see the expressions shifting over Alex’s face as he goes from ‘betrayed’ to ‘understanding’ in the space of literally three seconds.  There’s a plan, and Alex is going to follow Armando’s lead.

This goes wrong, of course, because of Shaw’s mutation.  When Armando calls out Alex’s name -- his last word, actually -- and Alex uses his energy blast to try and kill Shaw, Riptide, and Azazel, Shaw uses his mutation to steal that energy, and to shove it down Armando’s throat.  When Shaw leaves with his lackeys and Angel, the scene’s ending focuses entirely on Alex and Armando.  Alex realizes that something is going horribly wrong, that Armando’s not adapting fast enough, and Armando looks at him, reaches out to him -- but neither of them says anything.

In my opinion, this character dynamic is a parallel and opposite to the Charles/Erik dynamic that so many people loved in XMFC.  They can communicate completely silently, and all their most important moments are silent, whereas Charles and Erik have their relationship take up the lion’s share of the dialogue in the film.  When Shaw uses Alex’s powers to kill Armando, Alex and Armando are trying to keep the team together.  When Erik accidentally disables Charles with a bullet from Moira’s gun, he’s taking up Shaw’s war and making Shaw’s offer to the team.

Touch, too, is used very differently in the two dynamics; for Alex and Darwin, it essentially begins and climaxes with touch, and ends with an inability to touch, and the utter destruction of Armando’s body.  When Charles and Erik’s relationship falls apart, Erik gets to cradle Charles in his arms before choosing to walk away from him.  

When you look at each character individually, you can also see clear parallels between Erik/Alex and Charles/Armando.  Erik and Alex are angry, with violence in their past: Erik’s trauma is pretty much the defining factor in the plot, and there is a deleted scene for Alex that explains that he once used his powers to defend himself from being brutalized in prison.  Armando and Charles are both de-facto leaders when the time comes to lead, and Armando is probably the closest thing to a functional adult among the young mutants; that said, actor Edi Gathegi has stated that he played Armando with his comic book backstory, which includes a history of depression and a suicide attempt spurred by a neglectful abusive mother, and the entire plot of Days of Future Past had to do with Charles’s inability to cope with the trauma inflicted on him by Erik and the ensuing decade of horrors that was the sixties for him.

Overall, whether intentional or not, the Alex/Darwin dynamic echoes and mirrors the Charles/Erik one, reinforcing the theme that solidarity is impossible -- likely an unintentional theme -- and the idea of the homosocial-bordering-on-homerotic relationship.

Part 1-B: Armando, his Powers, and the Historical Context

I also can’t write this post without pointing out that Armando is the first black male mutant of significance in the XMCU franchise, both in order of release and chronologically.  I cannot overstate, also, the relevance of a black man whose powers are literally just staying alive no matter what the world throws at him.  

People rightfully made a big deal about Luke Cage, another bulletproof black man in the Marvel pantheon, and how important it was to see him onscreen.  Right now, there is an ongoing and urgent public discourse about police brutality, and the way society undermines the personhood and the value of black lives.  

Armando’s death in X-Men: First Class makes no sense, because in the comics, he’s survived everything from being launched into space, dematerializing into an energy being, and being touched by a literal god of Death.  If anyone could survive Shaw, it would be Armando.  

Additionally, consider that this film is set in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It only predates Freedom Summer by two years, and the Civil Rights Act by three.  Armando’s blackness and his leadership role in the team matter, on a thematic and contextual level.  A team of mutants -- long an allegory for all manner of oppressed populations -- led by an unkillable black man in the 1960s has immediate political ramifications for the setting, and for the present.

But the film refuses to recognize these things by killing him off and minimizing his relevance after the scene immediately following his death.

After Armando dies, we see the morning after, when Charles, Erik, and Moira return to the smoking wreckage of the Virginia compound to find Angel gone, Armando dead, and the rest of the team deeply, deeply shaken.  We see, in the background, the crushed taxicab that used to belong to him.  Charles and Raven have a brief conversation, where she tells him that Armando is dead, “and we can’t even bury him.” 

Erik interjects with, “But we can avenge him.”  This draws Alex’s attention immediately, making him sit up after having spent the majority of the scene somewhat curled in on himself.

After that, the final cut of the film doesn’t include any reference to Armando whatsoever, even when it would have mattered.  A single deleted scene set during Alex’s training montage discusses Alex’s guilt or innocence in the matter -- Charles tells Alex that if he doesn’t get this right, he could kill one of his teammates.  Alex reacts by stopping, saying, “He asked me to cover him,” and storming out of the bunker he’s using to train.

I understand that Erik’s trauma is the fundamentally important one for the plot of this film, but wouldn’t the movie be thematically fuller and rounder if it dealt, even implicitly, with Armando’s death and the effect it had on the others, especially Alex?  After all, as I said before, Alex and Erik parallel each other in a lot of pivotal ways, from their dark pasts to their weaponized mutations.  

Part 1-C: Armando and the Death of Solidarity

I mentioned earlier that Armando’s death reinforces the theme that solidarity is impossible, and I’d like to expand on that.  I wrote a little bit about it in my thesis, Never Let Anyone Tell You Different, but essentially, a major unintentional problem with the X-Men franchise in general and the XMCU in particular is that it always splits mutants into good mutants and evil mutants, often refusing to recognize that there is a huge grey area in between, and that the allegory mutants represent makes this idea of good versus evil genuinely harmful.

Armando’s death is the first real fracture in mutantkind, and first, last, and only time anyone actively tries to maintain a sense of mutant solidarity, or to keep someone from joining the ‘evil’ mutants out of desperation, anger, or fear.  Armando’s attempt to keep Angel on their ‘side’ of Shaw’s war is literally the only time in the franchise that something like this happens -- for example, at the end of the movie, Charles chooses to not fight it when Raven tells him she’s leaving with Erik, and in X2: X-Men United, neither Bobby Drake or Rogue try to convince John Allerdyce not to leave and join the Brotherhood of Mutants.  Finally, in X-Men: The Last Stand, Logan seems fairly ambivalent on the subject of Rogue leaving the Institute to seek out a cure for her mutation.

Basically, the only attempt at maintaining a sense of communality among mutants, to fight that ever-present categorical dichotomy, fails.  And when it does, it also divides mutantkind sharply -- by the end of XMFC, the X-Men are all white men, though one is a non-passing mutant and one has a mobility disability.  The ‘evil’ mutants consist of two white women, a white-passing Jewish holocaust survivor, an Afro-Latina former sex worker, a non-passing mutant, and a Latino man.

I don’t think I need to explain why that’s a huge, huge allegorical problem, but I will anyway: when you divide out morality by associating goodness primarily with white maleness, you’re prioritizing positive representation of white men at the expense of representing everyone else, and that has a demonstrable effect on the the way people perceive themselves and others.  We tell stories to define ourselves as human, and as parts of communities, and to learn how to be human, in a big way.

So, by killing off Armando, and with him, solidarity, the XMCU reinforces power structures that the entire concept of the X-Men as a mythos is supposed to oppose, which is, I’d say, not a good look.

Part Two: What Could Have Been

I want to take this time to talk, now that I’ve explained what’s wrong with the franchise as a direct result of Armando’s untimely murder, about what the XMCU could have been if he’d survived, or if he’d come back at some point after the attack on the Virginia CIA compound.

Option 1: No Death, XMFC-timeline goes off in other direction from the canon.  Armando survives the blast and goes on to lead the X-Men through the battle during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  He makes an impassioned plea for Raven to stay, and for Angel to come back.  They may or may not, and Charles still gets shot, creating a bittersweet but ultimately hopeful ending for the movie.

Option 2: Post-XMFC, does not take into account Days of Future Past. Armando reassembles himself after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and has to deal with his own trauma, as well as the trauma that the others have gone through in his absence.  He still takes up the leadership role, especially when Charles starts to spiral.  The X-Men debut publicly after the assassination of Kennedy.  Alex gets drafted for Vietnam, winds up involved in anti-war protests, and Armando, as a public figure, has to balance being a mutant with being a black man in America during this period.

Option 3: Days of Future Past.  Instead of being sent back to prevent Mystique from getting her revenge on Bolivar Trask, Wolverine goes back to the past to prevent Armando from being captured by Trask Industries.  His mutation is the one used by Trask to create the Mark X Sentinels that destroy mutantkind in the 2018-2023.  He either finds Alex also trapped there, or Alex plays an important role in getting him back; additionally, they have to break Magneto out of jail for Reasons.  In this option, Armando can have come back or never died at all.  This can deal, allegorically, with issues like the Tuskegee Syphillis Study and the Henrietta Lacks case.

Option 4: X-Men: Apocalypse.  The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse includes Armando as the Horseman of Death, as a reference to his time as a death deity in the comics and because he was the first mutant to die in Shaw’s war, which is really just a modern iteration of En Sabah Nur’s ‘survival of the fittest’ doctrine.  Alex is War, Charles is an unwilling Pestilence, and Erik and Mystique have to lead a group of scared teenagers against Apocalypse and his Horsemen.  This would be a film about Love overcoming the end of all things -- Erik and Raven’s love for Charles would save him, and the connection between Alex and Armando would eventually break them out of Apocalypse’s hold.  Community and solidarity would prevail over the insistent, selfish individualism advocated by Apocalypse, which can provide a look at the idea of solidarity among and within oppressed groups -- like, for LGBT people, the often uneasy coalition between the LGB and the T parts, and stuff like that.

Basically, any of the movies subsequent to XMFC can be reworked to be better, more topical, and more interesting with the addition of Armando Muñoz.  Armando is a potential lynchpin and turning point, and the fact that he was basically thrown out in favor of typical focus on whiteness has been a major contributor to the way that the XMCU has set itself up for failure on its allegorical and narrative levels.

People might say that dealing with the things I’ve mentioned here would make people uncomfortable or make the movie harder to sell, but I’d like to point out that Logan dealt implicitly or explicitly with refugees, the exploitation of female and Latina bodies, and the weaponization and abuse of children, and it has garnered hugely positive reviews and a box office of over $540million worldwide, making it the third most successful X-Men movie ever, and it’s only been out for a month.  

This is doable.  This is something that should’ve been done a long time ago.  And this is something that those in charge of the next set of X-Men films should consider when they sit down to plot out the next phase of the franchise.  The X-Men films are capable of doing incredible things, narratively speaking, if they just step outside the ‘traditional’ superhero mold, either by diverting narrative focus away from white men, explicitly engaging with topical social issues, or both.

Overall, the death of Armando Muñoz is perhaps the clearest example of how a lack of care has made the XMCU into the least successful of the three major superhero movie franchises, and interrogating the what-could-have-beens could pave the way for fixing the very real problems that have dogged the franchise since roughly 2006.

I hope that they do.  We deserve better than we’ve gotten, as the audience, and these characters deserve better as parts of our lives.

As always, Murphy out.

[irelise]

They’re probably breaking ten different school rules in the process, but there’s nothing the two of them enjoy quite so much as taking advantage of Hogsmeade weekends to Apparate some distance away from the castle and steal a few quiet hours alone. Their spot by the lake is quiet and intimate, and all the world seems to hush around them as they debate magic and philosophy and politics, Charles’ contentment wrapped snug around them, Erik letting his guard down just for long enough to rest his head against Charles’ shoulder as the gentle dusk falls.

I think HP AUs are always going to be my eternal weakness... good thing this fandom has so many of them! Here’s a link to a couple:

The Better Men by TurtleTotem i think this is basically the HP AU fic in this fandom \o/ Plot! Angst! Fluff! Really good plot! Really good relationship development, and I love the worldbuilding here - this is one of the coolest takes on Divination I’ve seen!

sing, slow it down by stickmarionette basically the fic that sold me on Gryffindor Erik and Slytherin Charles hnnngh. It’s a series of non-chronological little scenes that hint at a larger plot and are super intriguing - I’ve always been a huge fan of stickmarionette’s characterisation for Charles as a charming visionary that’s just a bit underhanded with a poor sense of boundaries. I love the Charles and Dumbledore parallels and the Charles and Emma friendship!

what passes between us (magic) by fallencrest if you’re in the mood for something more bittersweet - Charles and Erik from first year into their adult years. It has a very similar feel to XMFC, that initial heady sort of thrill of finding people like you and banding together, and then things start crumbling...

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis by bocje_ce_ustu Headmasters Xavier and Lehnsherr fuck, talk feelings, family, politics and wizarding uniity. All at the same time. Some very snappy dialogue, but it’s also very tender and intimate. It feels like a glimpse into a much larger world.

Of Chocolate Frogs and Charms and Candles by ninemoons42 Super sweet and mellow slice-of-life with first years Charles and Erik. Basically the literary equivalent of curling up with a cup of hot chocolate <3

You Bring Me Right Back Down To the Promised Land by juurensha Charles, Raven, and Erik grow up together. Mix of plot and slice of life and your usual teenage shenanigans (Erik’s metal spider chandeliers that terrify the shit out of his housemates, oh my god). Some of their years overlap with the years that the Harry Potter cast is at Hogwarts and it’s really cool to see the two casts interact!