#kinda just want politicians to start dying tbh

[decolonize-the-left]

If Americans shouldn't vote for Biden what should they do instead? Vote for trump? Vote third party? Not vote?

(I know most people would probably ask you this in bad faith but I'm just really distraught at the state of politics and keep hearing people say "don't say he's the only option and don't support him" but there's never alternatives given and I don't know what an effective alternative could even be)

I think a good place to start that a lot of people are comfortable with is probably volunteering and petitioning for 3rd parties to make sure they Do have ballot access next year. So that ppl Can vote for someone else next year.

And yes, vote 3rd party this election. Or don't vote at all.

Besides that? Learn some basic defense and join protests. Support encampments and do things leftists say like join a union and organize your own community whether it be your schoolmates, coworkers, or all your friends and their friends.

Y'all see the news right?

Censorship and propaganda are rampant right now, along with transphobia and racism and even Nazis are back. Tensions are high to say the least and everyone is worked up about the election and Israel.

Figure out what you wish someone else would do and then do it. Is that de-arresting protesters? Organizing a bail fund, fighting cops and throwing tear gas back at them when they make things violent?

There's a lot to fight against and even more to fight for. Find what's worth fighting for (to you) and actually start fighting for it. Don't let cops or your principal or boss or anyone else stop you.

I think one of the most important things we can do right now is remind the government and those that serve the government that they won't take our rights so easily. That if they want to silence us then we're gonna make sure it'll hurt more than it'll help. That we can and will fight back.

And that's why it's so vital that we show them we won't settle either. We won't vote for Biden.

We settled for Clinton and look where that got us.

Does it feel like voting for more and more conservative blue candidates actually helped prevent harm? Or does it feel like you were manipulated and lied to?

Gonna be real, it feels like the government is a manipulative abuser and we're all it's gaslit victims who don't want to believe things are that bad just cuz he killed someone else instead of us.

Which is like...it doesn't mean good things for us that our government could do that and we'd rationalize it, you know?

How we want to get out of this fucked up dynamic is up to us. We work, we pay taxes, we listen to the governments rule of law, and still our government won't codify rights, our trans friends are being abused by the government, or it's banning apps with censorship. And the whole time it's telling us to shut up and be grateful it isn't worse.

Abusers never ever tell you that it could be better too. And they don't want you to know that. Cuz then you leave. And if you leave then they can't manipulate and abuse you.

So yeah. They'll shit on us for doing Anything that doesn't result in us staying, for doing anything that results in us choosing our own well being instead of theirs.

But that's what we need to do.

And you need support before you do that. That's what organizing is. It's like calling the besties who hype you up to leave your shitty ex. Except it's a bunch of people agreeing to support each other when they choose to stand up for something. Organizing is making sure there are people watching back and making sure if one of you is harmed or arrested that there'll be someone there to help bail you out.

The more people you have to bail you out, the less you have to worry about being outnumbered, spoken over, or physically stopped with force.

So yeah. Do that.

Organize. I hope I stressed that enough. The people on our front lines need us to be there for them as much we need Them to keep fighting for us.

Also since I'm here: make sure you and your friends don't talk shit about protesters even when they get violent and break shit. It's not abuse when the victim finally hits back at their abuser, it's self defense.

[wizardessheart-sideb]

Things That Got Cut: Tsukasa Edition

So now that Tsukasa’s route is now completely posted on Tumblr, I thought I’d do one final wrap-up on his route and talk about some of the things I ended up cutting from the route. This post has a lot of spoilers so be warned!

1. Introduction to Azusa in the beginning

Originally, I had it planned that the MC would meet Azusa (and Hisoka!) at Hidamari Market while getting dinner before getting to the Academy. I wanted this scene to set up Azusa’s insane work schedule while studying and give some backstory on the brothers moving to Gedonelune. I ultimately cut it because it was getting too long, not to mention it would’ve been hard to have that cute introduction with Tsukasa bc Azusa’s just there too. I actually did post what I had of it, though! You can read it here.

2. Tsukasa’s hatred of authority and politicians

In a few places (off the top of my head, it was the first time Tsukasa and the MC walk to class and then when Tsukasa is talking to the MC I think in chapter 6?), I had Tsukasa go off on little tangents about how he thinks most politicians are two-faced and that he has a disdain for policies/things that are meant more to show off to or intimidate other countries but aren’t really helpful to citizens (they were talking about the weather system. That whole scene was originally a lot longer). I ended up cutting this because although I do headcanon Tsukasa to hating authority and being cynical when it comes to politics, ultimately this didn’t really fit into the story and while the conversations happened organically (at least imo), they weren’t really doing anything for the story so I took them out. Remnants of those parts remain, but I deleted the majority of these scenes.

3. There was going to be a sex scene, sort of?

In my outline and basically from the beginning, I had been planning on a “fade to black” scene. It would have been in chapter 10-1, right before the MC goes off the the Spring of Unicorns. The scene would’ve been an ambiguous line leading into a tasteful fade to black and then the MC waking up with a brief mention of them getting dressed before leaving.

Not gonna lie, this is something that got cut more bc I was lazy than for any other reason. I was writing the scene and for me, it wasn’t leading to that and frankly I didn’t want to rework the scene. The whole scene was supposed to play out a bit more tragically, with Tsukasa realizing his body is shutting down and he’s dying. It was a lot more of Tsukasa feeling panicked and scared but trying not to make the MC scared or worried. And then from there it would’ve lead to the fade to black.

4. There were going to be more scenes with Azusa, Aika, and Dorian

These never got written, but I was planning to have some some scenes with them to foreshadow the climax and establish their vibe, since if you didn’t read Isabelle’s, you wouldn’t know they’re all flirty with each other. I cut the scenes just because they didn’t fit right into the route and instead I just put a few one-off lines to establish their deal.

5. Aika’s subplot got entirely cut

Aika would’ve had a subplot showing her character growth. She would’ve started off being more selfish and not willing to help the MC with studying or anything, tbh. I cut these parts bc frankly, this isn’t Aika’s route and it just wasn’t working with the route so I cut it. A few of these exchanges were written, but after a certain point I just stopped and I don’t have the dialogue saved from those moments. 

And then of course, there’s some smaller things that got cut.

6. There was going to be a potions class scene like in Isabelle’s route. It would’ve been fluff with Tsukasa.

7. Isabelle was initially present for the climax. I took her out bc she was unnecessary. 

8. Clive and Isabelle’s weird discourse was originally that awful hot take on Twitter that was like “calling someone a himbo is pedophilia.” However, I realized that if you hadn’t previously seen the context on that idiocy, this “hot take” discussion would’ve just been weird and not funny so I changed it. It then went to “six-year-olds can be abusers” but again, if you hadn’t seen that stupid Lilo and Stitch discourse, it would’ve been weird. So me and my friend brainstormed some purposefully stupid and funny hot takes. The ones that I wrote but ended up not choosing were:

Clive calling Dorian a himbo and Isabelle telling him why he’s wrong

a watered down himbo discourse with “calling someone a himbo isn’t infantilization”

catboys and catgirls have to be inherently different species bc they both serve different purposes (tbh i don’t even know what I meant now that i’m looking at the dms)

making catboys use cat doors is ethically okay bc they have the flexibility of a cat (not gonna lie i kinda wish i’d picked this one instead).

9. Tsukasa’s dislike of rules/court life also got cut.

But yeah! A lot of stuff got changed along the way and I hope you guys enjoyed a look into what didn’t end up making it into the final route!

[allbeendonebefore]

I was kind of under the impression that this is just a widespread thing in Alberta, especially because of the Angus Reid fractured federation survey (I cant include the link here, but you can Google it, its from January 24th 2019). When got back into Hetalia, I imagined the dynamics kinda changed to this, which would be pretty bad tbh. I hope its not that aggressive in Alberta, I will never be able to go check tho, too expensive :( I loved the bad french btw

i see you guys sending these asks super late at night and i wonder whether any of you sleep - idk where you’re writing from and i may be on the west coast but are you guys ok wherever you are? I just woke up but I have my tea and if I’m not caffeinated now I surely will be as I answer this.

I’m sure I’ve seen the survey you’re speaking of before and before I address it in any specific detail I just want to back up and re frame Why I’m Being Like This in regards to recent events and my orientation towards answering these questions in terms of Hetalia the way I do, because I think it’s the heart of how I answer.

the tldr of it is:

1. I have an opportunity to make interpretations of reality in unexpected and challenging ways, therefore widespread opinions don’t govern anything but my stupid gag comics in the simple sense that if everyone was represented by widespread opinion alone all the time, nothing would change and

2. if i can answer dozens of asks about ralph and oliver hanging out there’s absolutely no reason I can’t answer asks about ralph and jean hanging out, lol.

3. If you’d like a shorter, more concise “vision statement”, I have one on @battle-of-alberta here. (although now I notice the links don’t work on mobile so you’ll have to be on desktop for that one)

I’m assuming this will be long so cut time

(and yes, alas, the bad french is my legacy and I’m afraid it has not improved much although i swear i was an A student when i was actually taking it) (and no please don’t visit now, purely for pandemic reasons, it would be really expensive And you’d have a bad time) (and talking to me is free lmao) (I do not mean to say that you need to have feet on the ground to understand a place at all, i mean, at the moment I don’t lol)

headings because I say a lot

what even is hetalia

At the most basic level, Hetalia is a tool that can be used in a variety of ways. It can be for memorization, current politics at a glance or historical relationships in different settings. I use it for all of these things, of course, I certainly use it a lot in comics that take place in the much more distant past in @athensandspartaadventures. When I was writing that, I was in undergrad and AaSA was a tool to help me pass my exams, I didn’t think of how it might be read or interpreted by people who have lived in or experienced those places these days, or what kind of political and cultural tensions it might reveal. (Not to say that it has gotten me into sticky situations, exactly, but I am more aware of where things like that would arise now).

These days I look back on a lot of my experiences - both in IAMP/Hetalia and just as a person, and I think that if Hetalia is a tool it should be used with some awareness of intention and responsibility. Things in the fandom have changed as it became more mainstream and more well known and I think there’s a definite worry about screwing up or not representing Everything or not pleasing Everybody or not doing it Right. I have a simple, insufferably academic principle.

(That said, yes, you can still do it very wrong if you write a methodology.)

Still, it’s a comfort to me that I’m just doing the things the way I say I’m going to do them, and that is the underpinning of Inspired But Not Constrained By Hetalia. I don’t do things Himaruya’s way, I can’t do things the way IAMP would do them if it were running today because it’s not and things have changed, all I can do is do them how I would do them.

I have hurt people in the past because they sometimes couldn’t tell whether I was writing From an Albertan Perspective or not, and I’ve evoked some preeetty spicy comments over the last decade, and I realized that tone and perspective are something that really shapes how people understand and interact with my work and I’m trying to use that understanding in a conscientious way)

what even is alberta

So when you’re me and you’ve grown up in a province that is the Angriest in the country and the most Misunderstood in the country and the most Entitled in the country and nobody outside of maybe Saskatchewan has a good thing to say about you half the time and maybe you’re tired of that... you get kind of depressed thinking about how every year some kiddo comes on the internet ready to be excited about making or celebrating characters that represent themselves and No Matter Where They Go running into everyone else’s negative impressions first and foremost.

We joke about how everyone hates Toronto, though I’ve always understood it in a teasing way because I’ve never ACTUALLY met someone (outside of our current legislative assembly) who REALLY hates Toronto, but it does feel like I’ve encountered (directly or indirectly) people who do Genuinely hate Alberta and hoo boy is That a strange feeling. I mean, there’s an understanding that BC also ‘hates’ Alberta but half the people in BC are originally from Alberta so it’s a, uh, different feeling.

The story of Alberta from everywhere else is always the story of that Angus Reid article and the memes and comments and listicles that spin out around mainstream media. Alberta is giving too much. Alberta is getting too little. Alberta is too stupid to understand that equalization payments are a good thing actually, and Alberta is too dumb to understand you don’t really need EI if you make enough money in six months to own a house and multiple vehicles Just Because you own a house and multiple vehicles. Alberta is destroying the environment for everybody. Alberta has a huge concentration of white supremacists. Alberta is the Texas of Canada* and has the conservative streak and bible belt to match. Alberta should get annexed by the US. Oh, but Banff! We like Banff, though.

And like I said, politicians use these widespread feelings to stir up the sentiments of people who can’t afford to travel, people who are naturally suspicious of mainstream news, people who have barely even left their hometowns let alone the province and have no other means of validating what they hear, but people who’s emotions are genuinely tied to real feelings of alienation that really exist and HAVE existed for generations. And when the so-called “laurentian elites” in ontario and quebec make fun of them for being uneducated red necks, well, you hit a wasps nest and expected what, exactly?

what even am i doing

And like I’m faced with this question every day I decide to pick up my stylus and badger you all with unsolicited comics: do I want this to continue? Do I want to wear the mask that fits? Do I want to stand aside and say #notallalbertans #notlikeotheralbertans and stand over here on the island** patting myself on the back for not? being? there? Do I say yes, you’re right, and stand aside and watch loud mouth white supremacists co-opt wexiters and let them lead the perception of the province I grew up in just because that is what’s currently happening? Do I acknowledge the widespread sentiment and then pick apart every other province to say Well Actually You’re Equally Problematic Hypocrites, So There?

Obviously I’ve been saying no for a while. I’m perfectly happy to acknowledge the reality and when I draw stupid gag comics like this or this you can tell (hopefully) from my style that it’s tongue and cheek. When I draw less stupid not-gag comics like this or this I am trying to explore the Real Sentiments in a way that doesn’t completely polarize the issue and spin it out of control. I’m more of the opinion that even though Current Sentiments do get in the way that as personifications they 1. have some perspective and as people they 2. have some interest in not throwing out a friendship that was a struggle to build up every time the polls change or some new radical party seizes power. I do a lot of research and I want that to be reflected in my understanding of each characters deep seated beliefs and motivations, but I don’t want to let either the history or the current realities dictate the future if I am going to try to do that myself. 

why even am i doing it for

So like really the heart of the matter is: I am writing what I write for my thirteen year old self. She was the me who moved back to Canada from the United States, who’s first introduction to living there was a hellish surge of nationalism after September 11th. Who’s defense against that was to hide behind a shield of Canada is Better, Actually and who returned to Alberta during the boom years to realize that, oh wait, the rest of the country thinks we’re assholes just like they think the United States is. Who spent her teenage years learning that, boom or bust, the widespread sentiment in and out of the province is just as narrow, shortsighted, self interested, and stubborn as her own fiction of What Canada Was Supposed to be Like. Who learned that propping up that image at the expense of her friendships was not worth it, that propping up that image at the expense of people who are suffering and dying under that image is not worth it. Who found herself rehashing the same sort of gut reaction defensiveness online because the Guilt and Apologizing on behalf of her province compared to others felt Really Heavy for a kid who didn’t have any clue what to do about it and was just there to have fun and learn some stuff.

So I’m writing for anyone else who finds themselves exhausted and saddened by coming online and seeing that the only way that people can imagine Alberta is as an antagonist. I’d like to challenge everyone to start to imagine it better. It’s my little “escape” from reality, and for me it’s much easier to talk to people here where the stakes aren’t as high and the grievances a little less personal.

I’m also writing (in a more secondary way) for everyone who’s ever looked at alberta from afar and wondered What is going On inside your Head and is it always This

(no comment at this time)

as always, I’m here to explain At The Very Least what goes on in My head because at the end of the day, that’s all I can do. And though there are some things that make me angry and emotional, I’m happy to explain why. Happy to answer asks or chat on discord or whatever, any time I have the time. :)

footnotes

*This is just a footnote to say something I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of my comments, but this is an annoyance that me and my Texas Tomodachi share lol

**You’ll notice angry Albertans online have a favourite tactic, and that’s pointing out hypocrisy. They can justify A N y T h I n G by calling another province a hypocrite “so there” (i.e. BC can’t claim to be environmentally conscious because of Victoria’s sewage problem or Site C) - and while I am interested in shattering the image of Alberta vs. the Perfect Rest of Canada a little bit, I feel like it’s a very lazy argument that is used to deflect and not to help. I think it is more useful to unpack the sentiment of Why Alberta Still Feels Taken Advantage of rather than mudslinging, and when the mud starts flying no one seems interested in addressing problems anymore.

[magicrested-a]

SEE LAST POST FOR CONTEXT

#im just thinking that like #wyatt kinda disappears again #but its not like he's kidnapped or anything #he just orbs out and never comes back after he sees piper dead #and like he only comes home RARELY and not long enough for his aunts to find him #and its just to get spells or trying to grab the BOS before it's defences fall #but yeah im thinking maybe he just RUNS #and hunts demons non stop #like he hunts them so bad that they're all on the run #that they actually start to go into hiding #but its mostly bc he's looking for who EXACTLY killed his mother #and eventually he goes to witches and whitelighters looking for answers #and he's so delirious that when they say they don't have answers #he doesn't believe them and that's how he starts killing 'good beings' #he literally tortures them and then just ends up killing them out of anger and frustration #and because he realises it just? makes him feel better #its not like killing demons killing 'good' beings just does something to him and he LIKES it #but at first he just keeps killing them for answers #and like his first human kills aren't actually for a long time #bc he doesn't HAVE a reason to kill them #until he starts to kill for fun which is probs in his take over stage

but like? yeah, he just is there killing demons and witches and whitelighters because its easier than dealing with his grief and fear. And eventually magic exposure happens because its like what happens in all hell breaks loose. He’s chasing a demon in the street and kills it and either its in front of people, like he’s literally lost all care about the rules or consequences, and he’s there with blood and ash and dirt all over him being brutal with a demon and for perfect symmetry a news team catches it just like they do with piper and prue vanquishing shax. (its that or something to do with phoebe like in morality bites idk yet). 

And his whole family are looking for him because they know hes NOT OKAY or ‘good’. Chris is just left behind by everyone and victor is literally the only one there to look after him. Like Paige and Phoebe even miss time with their own kids because they’re trying to bring Wyatt home to help him. But his power stops them from finding him and he just keeps killing until he finds the demon responsible for his mothers death. But that demon is the one that convinces him that he needs to take control of everything (or not look i have no idea bc i have such trouble with the idea that Wyatt willingly takes over just bc lol he wants to. like he isn’t the kind of character that would want to control the world. he’d just want to destroy it. he’s just chaos personified) in order to stop his family from dying. 

so maybe he takes over bc like look, the witch trials start and phoebe comes damn close to being killed. but this is when Wyatt just, ‘takes over’, he breaks in and its probs his first human kills. He kills that jury of reporters and politicians and it causes a war or something similar against him. And to protect himself, to protect his family he literally lets all hell free on the world as his army because demons are terrified of him, they follow him but they’re also happy bc once he stops killing them they get exactly what they’ve always wanted. but he uses them as his army because soldiers have no, literally no chance against them. And with the charmed ones broken, they can’t be stopped. 

tbh, i’m liking this the more i go on bc its the only thing that’s made the most sense and fit mostly with canon but also with whats been said in companions (like the comment from drew saying that leo was too busy to see chris because he was trying to find wyatt i think? or stop him either one) but it still needs a lot of work and i do want to chat about it to see what people think! but im more than likely going to go w/ this now. 

[thecorteztwins]

@askprofessorx  SO I'M REALLY SORRY THIS IS A BIG FUCKING INFO DUMP but these are my muses and my ideas for what we could do with them and Charles

The Acolytes on this blog refers to Fabian Cortez, his sister Anne Marie, and their teammates Chrome and Delgado.At the beginning of the 90s, Magneto had basically retired and fucked off to live in space alone on the humbly named Asteroid M. Then all of a sudden, four mutants show up on his doorstep being chased by SHIELD agents and proclaiming loyalty to him. He lets them in. Three of them are sincere in their claims, but their leader, Fabian Cortez, has a plot. He starts manipulating Magneto, pushing him back into villainy, into doing things that scare the hell out of humans (like collecting fucking MISSILES) because "self-defense". This leads him into conflict with the X-men, who until now he'd actually more or less made peace with, and he sustains grievous injury from Wolverine. Psychologically, this makes him feel that much more isolated and rejected, making him that much more prone to Fabian's manipulation...and physically, he now needs to rely on Fabian's healing powers. Things get worse as Fabian also uses his ability to boost other mutants powers, because it's established that Magneto's powers are to blame for his mental imbalance, so more power equals more crazy for Mags. Fabian's plans all come together when Magneto gathers Xavier and the X-Men aboard Asteroid M, intent on brainwashing them to his side, and the governments of the US and Russia, motivated by Magneto's actions, decide that Asteroid M, and all those upon it, must be destroyed. Fabian, knowing this because THAT WAS HIS PLOT, gets in the only escape pod, leaving the others to die. The X-Men are able to escape, and offer a way out to Magneto and the remaining Acolytes, but Magneto chooses to stay, to use the last of his abilities to hold the asteroid together so the X-Men can make it to their ship...and the other Acolytes choose to stay with him and die at his side. So, why did Fabian do this? Why did he want to get rid not only of the X-Men but also his supposed "leader" Magneto, and his own team, his own sister? Power. Fabian had made Magneto a martyr now, instead of someone who abandoned his cause, and he used his name to rally a cult of new Acolytes, far more bloodthirsty and genocidal than the original squad had been...with himself leading them, of course. These new nasty Acolytes did a LOT of awful things, but Fabian got his when Magneto returned from the dead (typical!) bringing a super duper powerful mutant named Exodus with him who gave Fabs the boot.  Fabian flees to Genosha, kidnaps Luna (Pietro's daughter) to use as a human shield/hostage, demanding that Pietro, Wanda, Crystal (Luna's mom), and the Avengers all protect him from Exodus and Magneto or else he’ll kill Luna. He also gets the Genoshan mutants on his side (damn, this guy is charismatic!) and rallies them into causing a civil war so he can use the chaos to hide. Yeah, seeing the country “awash in a raging river of bloodshed!” is just to save his own slimy hide. What a charmer. Anyway, the good news for Fabian is that Magneto is braindead at this time due to Xavier finally whipping out the telepathic big guns on him after he ripped Wolverine’s skeleton out. The bad news is that Exodus is alive and well and shows up, kills Fabian. But Fabian doesn't stay dead. He comes back to caught more trouble, first with manipulating Joseph (Magneto's clone) and then when Magneto gets his mind back and becomes ruler of Genosha, Magneto comes back to recruit Fabian onto the Genosha cabinet (because as shitty as Fabs is, he's a good politician) and to be his personal battery since his powers are now depleted. Fabian starts secretly working to backstab Magneto AGAIN but then when Magneto's powers fully return, Magneto kills him. It mostly sticks this time. Mostly. He does show up during Necrosha though (an event where another villain mass-resurrected a bunch of mutants, of which Fabian was one, but that was a temporary thing) I play Fabian and the other original Acolytes as having been resurrected by unknown means (that's...not uncommon in Marvel tbh) Chrome, Anne Marie, and Delgado don't remember that it was Fabian who was responsible for their deaths, and have resumed their lives as terrorists with him as their teammate and leader. Naturally, Fabian doesn’t want them finding out the truth, and thus does everything he can to keep them from finding out Magneto is alive and at large, lest they seek him out and he tell them what really happened. Fabian himself also wants nothing more than to leave supervillainy at this point and have a normal life, not because he’s seen the light and turned good, but because he’s tired of getting beaten up and dying. Unfortunately, he doesn’t dare run for it, as he (rightly) believes his sister would kill him as a traitor if he did, and he doesn’t think he can escape her by murdering her again either, since he’s learned nobody stays dead (but he still doesn’t want to go through death again himself because IT’S HORRIBLE) With that setup, we've got the enemies deal down pat. Anne Marie will try to kill Xavier on sight. She can't be talked to or talked down. Chrome, it's possible to engage, and Delgado is actually unlikely to try to hurt Xavier UNLESS Xavier is getting in the way of something they're doing. As for Fabian...he might well try to get Xavier to help him out of this mess. Convince him to wipe the Acolytes minds, or rewrite their memories so they think Fabian is dead, enabling him to escape them before they can find out it was him that betrayed them and Magneto. In an XMCU verse, none of this would have happened. I'd picture it instead as Fabian and the others being fresh Brotherhood recruits, with Fabian having all these schemes in mind to betray and usurp Magneto, but not having done it yet. We could have a plot where they capture Xavier, or the X-Men have captured them, or things like that. Finally, in Evo, they're not terrorists yet, they're just teenagers. Fabian and Anne Marie are a couple of mutant kids, and they're not bad either! So, possibly students. They've actually got their powers perfectly under control more or less, and are quite comfortable with them, but they're interested in meeting others like them...and, frankly, Anne Marie needs to be taught responsible use. Because she's growing up with the ability to control the minds and emotions of other people and no one can tell her "no" on anything and it's not that she's evil but she doesn't have a concept of things like telepathic ethics and telepathic consent so she's kinda super dangerous despite being a sweetheart with no malicious intent. I do the 616 verse a lot so I'd actually be more interested in the XMCU and Evo options? I haven't seen any of the films after First Class, but your About section says that's where your default verse is, after FC but before DOFP or XMA. Over on @mypralaya I've got Haven, aka Radha Dastoor, she's a villain who showed up in seven issues of X-Factor during the 1990s. She's a woman who from an early age felt a calling to help ease the suffering and pain in the world, and worked in the streets of her native India helping the poor, caring for the sick, etc. Great person, total saint. Unfortunately, she fell in love with some cad, he knocked her up and then left her. Then things got worse, because a top-class demon known as The Adversary (demons = pretty regular things for the X-Men to deal with in the comics, actually) possessed her unborn child and started feeding her some major lies. Fast forward twenty years. She's still secretly pregnant, eternally in her first trimester. Her child is a mutant, and she can access its immense powers. She also believes it speaks to her with a divine voice, but that's the Adversary, who has made her amass a cult dedicated to spreading chaos and destruction in hopes of bringing about the Mahapralaya, a sort of Hindu apocalypse after which a beautiful age of painlessness and peace and joy for humanity will come, ending suffering forever. But Haven herself was still a really nice woman who advocated for mutant/human peace as a public figure (international best-selling author + lecturer) and in fact greatly admired Professor Xavier. But the whole "secret terrorist cult causing mass suffering" brought her into conflict with X-Factor, despite her desire to have them as her friends and allies. There's no shortage of bad guys with good intentions in the X-Men, but Haven was especially unusual in that she was a pacifist villain. She actually never attacks the good guys, even when they attack her. In fact, she tries to help them---she rescues Polaris from government agents, she heals Wolfsbane of the Genoshan brainwashing she underwent as a slave, and tries to heal Multiple Man of the Legacy Virus (X-Factor blames her for his death when she fails) We're told her cult is doing all these horrible things offscreen, but it's kinda hard to root against her when she barely even threatens anyone onscreen. Her story ends when the Adversary decides it's time to be reborn into this world and Haven...does not survive that in canon. I decided that she does, because I felt she deserved a better ending. In XMCU, demons don't really fit with the canon, so she could be a human or a mutant. Either way, not a villain, because not being influenced (and I don't really play her villain incarnation anyway, I'm more interested in what comes after) so not an antagonist, but more likely a friend or staff member? I feel like the "inspired by Xavier" thing would also be different, because she's in her early 40s, so she'd be older than your Charles, and that could be neat to explore. I mean, hell, maybe she could be a mentor figure to him, or at least a colleague in the same field (mutant/human relations) I'm guessing that it's rare for him to even meet a mutant who is older than he is, since he and Erik and the original X-Men/Brotherhood are kinda the OGs in the XMCU aside from Apocalypse. Then there's Shaw @sebastianshaw He's not a Kevin Bacon Nazi, he's not concerned with mutant supremacy, he's just concerned with money and power, to the point he'll happily throw other mutants under the bus to human bigotry if it makes him a profit. Seriously, this guy built SENTINELS for the government because it made him money, he gives no fucks about species solidarity. As for the Hellfire Club, rather than being a proto-Brotherhood, they're a worldwide social club for the wealthy elite. Most of its members (which includes the Starks, the Worthingtons, and the Braddocks) are just that, regular super-rich people who wanna hob-knob with other super-rich people at fancy parties, but behind closed doors, the Inner Circle that runs in (Shaw, Emma, etc.) are mutant bad guys bent on political and economic domination of the world. This has brought them in to conflict with the X-men several times, the most notable of which was the Dark Phoenix saga, in which the Hellfire Club recruited the telepath Mastermind to brainwash Jean into their service, resulting in her becoming the Dark Phoenix and the resultant horrors that followed, which ended in her death. Shaw's not liable to just attack Xavier, he's more like Delgado in terms of "I'm not after you, just don't get in my way" but there's still room for conflict there, as well as standard "good guy and villain have a chat" things like Xavier does with Magneto, with none of the affectionate history there. Shaw's shown to put himself on the same level of mutant influence as the likes of Xavier and Magneto  even if he's way overestimating himself (I mean, he's got a lot of economic/political influence on the world but he doesn't influence mutant culture like Magneto and Charles have, he's too private/on-the-down-low as a mutant) and to have opinions on that, as well as the typical 'thinks the heroes are fools wasting their powers' gig. He's also shown to be immune to Charles' telepathy, probably due to the same Hellfire Club technology that keeps Cerebro and other psychic stuff out of the building's walls, and even without it he's trained enough in telepathic resistance he was able to give Emma a very hard fight in trying to telepathically 'get' him.  So Charles can't just tell what he's thinking which makes for a more...normal/even conversation. Not that Charles goes around reading everyone's mind but like, Shaw is a bad guy, so it would be understandable if he tried just to be sure Shaw wasn't up to something, but he can't, so like...he's in the more normal person position of not being able to be sure. Also, he and Charles met in 616 before Charles formed the X-Men and before Shaw joined the Hellfire Club, but the details have never been revealed beyond that Charles embraced him as a friend and that the same young mutant (Tessa/Sage) saved both their lives, but Shaw rejected Xavier’s path and went his own way. In Evo, it's pretty easy to just introduce Shaw and the Hellfire Club as new foes on the scene, probably initially posing as a benign group with similar goals to Xavier, complete with a school of their own for young mutants (Emma Frost ran one in her Hellfire days in the comics) In XMCU...it's more complicated/difficult given the existence of Shaw there, but since that Shaw's real name is Klaus Schmidt, it's not impossible to say he stole this Shaw's identity or something, possibly along with taking/copying his powers via some kind of scientific experiment (since he doesn't display these abilities when he met young Erik) I also play Shaw's son @shinobixshaw and Fabian's son @malcortez. Shinobi is a 616 canon too, he "killed" his dad (Shaw got better) and took over his position in the Hellfire Club...and then proceeded to do nothing except drink and party and be lazy. Shinobi is not a serious threat in any way, even if he thinks he is, and thus really cannot make a decent antagonist, but he can certainly be annoying in his stupidity and arrogance and drunken shenanigans. Malcolm, on the other hand, is not from 616. He's from the Marvel Zombies universe, but has canonically access to a machine that can take him to other dimensions, including, oh, say, the XMCU! So it's perfectly plausible for him to be able to pop up in the mansion or wherever as a fish-out-of-water who needs help getting acquainted with this world. He's technically a villain in his own world, but his goals of "rule my village" won't really apply in any other world, he's just interested in his own home, not anyone else's. So he'd be more like a...very confused guest than anything else.