x-manson-annotated - Tumblr blog

[x-manson-annotated]

Podclops

Since Scott has canonically been an amateur radio announcer and really enjoys it....what if he had a podcast?

Somewhere out there is a dedicated audience of 20 who have no idea the guy who puts out an hour of very detailed and enthusiastic discussion about a make of airplane every month is the same guy who’s on the news blowing up cops

[x-manson-annotated]

Upper Deck Marvel 80th Anniversary (2018)

#134 Callisto

[x-manson-annotated]

X-Manson Annotated Chapter 4 - Part Two - MORLOCKS

This is a small section focused on an interview with Callisto. This will tie into a section discussing the economics of the Westchester area surrounding Xavier's School. I am not an economist, so if any take interest in the next part, i encourage them to chime in if any of it makes sense.

*I think Callisto is very aware of the fact that she's a butch lesbian.

**Pay attention to that, because she will not shut the fuck up about how they're named after "The Characters from HG Wells' Novel the Time Machine."

*See.

**Judgemental Interviewer.

*** Passing Privilege in mutant communities.

** I'm not sure how this is, because later in the story it seems like the area was more expensive because of the school and because of Worthington's business ventures in the area.

[x-manson-annotated]

After X-Manson

I'm planning on doing more annotations for other fics after I finish up X-Manson. I'm open to suggestions, but I have a few picked out in the meantime.

Number one on this is another horror fanfic called, "Shadow over Westchester" by Kerri S.

The second fanfiction that i'm considering is X-Men the Early Years by L. Burke. Which is not a horror fanfic, but a slice of life fanfiction set with the original five x-men. I will likely do that one seeing as X-Manson has been a non stop horrorshow from the jump.

If anyone has any suggestions for fanfics to cover or fanfics of your own, I'd love to annotate and try to work out what's happening in them.

I'm going to try to reach out to as many of the original authors as I can for some of these. But some like L.Burke, Doctor Benway, and Kerrie S. seem unreachable at the present moment.

[x-manson-annotated]

This issue is going to come up in this chapter.

I feel like a horny version of this girl-fight cover would be super popular.

[Uncanny X-Men #183, 1984]

[x-manson-annotated]

Addendum:

I forgot to add that all of the horsemen of apocalypse are people that both in the story and in the comics are people that Charles Xavier has had direct beef with.

X-Manson Annotated Chapter 4 - Part One - CABLE AND COLOSSUS

This section will primarily focus on Cable, but what little it tells us about Piotr and Illyana Rasputin will be discussed throughout this section. Not to bet around the bush, but this section's as rough as it gets. Trigger and content warnings below:

tw rape, tw animal death, tw cannibalism, tw necrophilia, etc.

The first quote here makes me think of a thing Warren Ellis said in his book, "Planetary". He described people who come from this background, this grey, unknown quantity as being "Twilight People".

Piotr's abilities are potentially tied to where he was born? So, mutations have an environmental factor that is associated with the physical makeup of where they were born/raised.

This is coupled with radiation. It seems that this is taking it's cues from the Silver Age interpretation of mutation where they're created by radiation rather than it being evolution/a latent gene.

Illyana Rasputina.

Not Piotr's bio sister.

Possibly not his sister in any sense.

This is the first time she's been mentioned?

Is it possible she is his sister and she simply didn't die at the site? Or at all?

Possibly all of them?

Cable and The Six Pack.

If this is going by the comics their group would have consisted of:

Cable

G.W Bridge

Garrison Kane

Grizzly

Hammer

Domino

The only surviving member is of course, Domino as we'll later see. However, this is somewhere that I fall short. I don't like 90s marvel. 90s Cable is a blank spot for me.

But from what i've learned, Only Cable, Grizzly and Domino are mutants.

Hammer, G.W Bridge, and Garrison Kane are human. Garrison being a human-cyborg.

So, this opens up the possibility of people having cyborg enhancements in this setting. though, this all might take place before Kane had the opportunity to have his limbs replaced.

Domino, Neena Thurman. I'm not sure if her name was given by the time of this being written in 2000.

Twelve Years. Earlier on into the story we have Kitty's narration say that she's lived in her room in Canada for over ten years.

I have some thoughts about why Domino is being held under such strict imprisonment outside of the cult.

First, there's the matter of her power. She has supremely good luck, is it possible that she wants to be here? Do they know about this and have been trying to arrange things so she can't escape?

Then there's what she knows. She's one of the few people involved who survived everything, without being executed by the state. She's also limited in what she can talk about with the Interviewer (possibly a different interviewer than the one we've been seeing).

I think she knows more about a Weapon X-like program that created Logan, Kane, and perhaps even Cable than she's letting on.

See, she's not officially allowed to talk about certain things. I think this last comment is her saying that it doesn't matter if she says anything about them, they'll both be killed by higher ups in the government.

Okay. Here's a breakdown of what I've got concerning all of this.

*Sometimes from the future, sometimes from the past - Comics Nathan being born in the present, but taken to the future, only to return as an adult.

*Canaan. New Canaan is the dominant nation in the future he was raised in.

*The personal space station from and to the future is Graymalkin.

I kind of hate Cable, even in comics.

The first highlighted portion makes me think of this joke by @waitingforthet:

It seems that Cable is making up his whole deal as he goes along.

Feels like a comment on the nature of 90s anti-heroes that were springing up in the wake of characters like Cable and X-Force. Deniable, murderous mercenaries. Disposable ideas. Characters like tissue paper.

Grant Morrison has a quote about this in their book Supergods where they discuss how it was kind of born out of a time when there wasn't an active war that the U.S was participating in. I wish I had a physical copy of the book with me because they explain it more eloquently than I can.

It tracks that people would develop anti-psi protection in a world where psychics are a known and dangerous quantity. I want to know more about this tech that Cable's got. I think him being from the future is kind of bullshit, so I want to know where he's gotten it from.

Also, Jesus christ! I think if broken down, you might be able to see this as Doctor Benway inserting shock for the sake of shock. This becomes a lot more frequent later in the story. But, Jesus.

Nathan count continues to stand at 2.

Joseph being an alias he used feels interesting. I don't know if i'm close, but the interviewer's reaction makes me think that it has some connection to Joseph the clone of Magneto. Maybe some version of him exists, either not as a clone or completely unconnected to Erich.

*The part about him being both the messiah and the messiah's dad will unfortunately come up again later.

*En Sabbah Nur. Also coming up later.

The Four Horsemen:

Erich Lehnsherr - (War, because he's actively trying to stop war.)

Gabrielle Lehnsherr [Haller] - (Famine? Because she was trying to help relocate refugees into the U.K?)

Amelia Voght - (Pestilence because she runs the W.H.O)

Various - Death.

Candidates for Death:

John Kelly

Daniel Cohn-Bendit?

The Professor.

Let's get Cohn-Bendit out of the way, I think this is referring to him:

he was an active politician around when Benway was writing, so it's possible he would have known about him. I don't know if he was included because of Cohn-Bendit's writings from the 70s or from the accusations of him raping minors.

Skipping past all the real world awfulness, I'd like to turn our attention to The Professor:

I think that this isn't in reference to Xavier at all. But in reference to Truett Hudson/Professor Thorton of Weapon X.

Luck Powers in action.

See, i've been saying this from the very beginning about the damn Pate and sausages. They aren't vegetarian. That Grundy woman from chapter one and everyone at the open house ate people meat!

*This is what makes me suspect that it isn't the same interviewer.

**Here, I've developed a theory about why Cable is acting like this:

What if. He is half right and Scott and Jean are his parents. And he is from the future and all that other horseshit. But, here's the rub: He isn't Cable he's Stryfe.

*That was creepy? Not the cannibalism or the animal death, or the multiple murders? Cable and Xavier being weird at eachother with sentences was creepy?

Also, another random shock moment that doesn't really do much for the story. It's terrifying, yes. It's deeply upsetting, yes. But what is it actually doing for the story?

[x-manson-annotated]

Once again, thank you for your contributions to this project. It really helps to hear other people's thoughts on these stories @darkfiremaster.

Reading your first comment, I can see that interpretation of the text. In the moment, it just felt very victim-blamy of Tarot to say it.

The "complicity" of the masters is interesting, it does tie to Shinobi's fantasist story where he mentions all of Emma's most loyal students. Maybe they were named in other parts of his letters.

The Mary Kay Letourneau Case. I'd heard about it, but until today I didn't know the specifics of it. Yeah, I can see that being an influence on the writing of that section.

I can definitely see that. It's very interesting how that acts as a parallel. I was thinking about her age of apocalypse self where she had bits of her brain surgically removed so she wouldn't be psychic. But, her losing her ability to feel and her psychic powers after an attempted suicide does track with Morrison's use of her experiencing a profound trauma.

It's rather unfortunate that this didn't result in a diamond mutation. Or perhaps fortunate, because then I don't think she would have had a chance in court.

Maggie? The little mutant girl with the big eyes?

*Also he for sure reads like one of those weird twitter fascists who's obsessed with being an aristocrat. It's also quite notable that a good number of them, like the guy who supposedly created Q-Anon fled the country.

Jim Watkins lives in The Philippines as opposed to our terrible boy, Sebastian living in Thailand. Probably spaced out on a bunch of homebrewed amphetamines.

You make a good point here, as well. It's possible that Shaw was going there to play into the sex tourism aspect that people in the West know Thailand for.

X-Manson Annotated Chapter Three - Part 9 - THE ACCUSATION

I'm going to level with you. If you weren't already put off by this story, this section might seal the deal for you. This section deals with Emma Frost being placed at the center of a scandal where she is accused of sexually abusing her students. It's awful, but it is integral to understanding the world of this story. This will be the last section of Chapter 3.

tw for that, and tw for mentions of attempted suicide.

I'd like to know who this "Weedy Looking Man" is. My assumption is it is the X-Manson version of Trevor Fitzroy.

Like i said, this section isn't pretty. I am of the mindset that nothing happened, but this section will bring to the mind of some people the Satanic Panic and Q Anon conspiracy theories popular among the right wing.

Shinobi Shaw, the son of Sebastian Shaw.

*also, Doug and Marie-Ange are insufferably cute.

**Pot's legal in the United States as of 1990.

This feels like an outlandish parody until you realize that conservative media is exactly like that.

"She knew what could happen to teenaged girls" What the fuck does that mean? That feels close to "Well, you saw what she was wearing. She probably wanted it." It's a cryptic, weird thing to say.

This feels like a reflection of something you would see a lot of later in the 2000s. Ultimate Marvel used to do this thing where psychics would read minds and there would be a joke of "Oh, stop thinking about me naked." or "I wasn't thinking about it until you told me not to think about it." Shit like that. This feels like a more realistic take on how that might feel with someone with psychic powers. It isn't some kind of fun jokey thing for them. It's horrifying.

*I'm detecting a reoccurring argument between them with this line from Marie-Ange.

**That's an incredibly strange way to speak about someone, Douglas.

***She's not wrong for thinking that.

But let's focus on the thirteen students who put forward accusations against Emma.

I can't imagine who they might be. Possibly this world's version of the Hellions, sans Marie-Ange?

What were they arrested for?

Holy shit, Disney is not pissing around when it comes to copyright in this universe.

This makes sense about why Xavier kept his class sizes on the smaller end. Easier for him to be more personable and manipulate the students.

I wonder how much of that is coincidental and how much of it was orchestrated by Xavier.

The system failing to work.

She finds it difficult to maintain romantic connections if she doesn't have access to her psi-ablities? Difficulty reading the emotions of others? Autistic Emma Frost?

A full lobotomy with a gun killed her psychic abilities?

It's interesting that there are still mutant education systems in place in public schools.

I have no idea who this man is meant to be.

Also the "Roy Cohn Professor of American History" Roy Cohn? like the lawyer and all-around bastard who adored Joe McCarthy.

The Hinckley Law. This immediately puts me in mind of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. Reagan was never Presiden in this Au, so is it possible that Hinckley attempted to assassinate him when he was running for Governer of California?

Furthermore...Did Ronald Reagan destroy Hinckley's personality?

You can tell this is fantasy because the American Left is presenting a unified front against Conservatism.

Mary Jo Kopechne was a mutant with gills!

The pear-shaped man is Sebastian Shaw. This feels like an accurate way to describe the man.

I feel like the molestations stopped around when Emma took over the school. Good god.

Sebastian, his nose heavy with clotted phlegm and coke: how can any red-blooded American man learn in the company of disgusting WHEMEN!

This feels like something from the McMartin Pre-School Scandal where kids were essentially coerced by law enforcement into making up bigger and bigger lies about satanic ritual abuse.

Example Below from the McMartin Preschool Trial's wikipedia page:

Some of the abuse was alleged to have occurred in secret tunnels beneath the school. Several excavations turned up evidence of old buildings on the site and other debris from before the school was built, but no evidence of any secret chambers or tunnels was found. There were claims of orgies at car washes and airports, and of children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their parents.

The Cuban cigar angle feels like a nod to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

*This reads like a modern day Trumper losing his shit.

**If you cared about your family's "Good Name" you wouldn't have named your son "Shinobi" you insufferable goddamn weeaboo.

Sebastian: the rich of america are entitled to live as kings! We are not unlike gods!

The mad philosopher Scalia. Is Antonin Scalia a supervillain in this universe?

*Again, you can tell this is a fantasy because we have the misfortune of having had Scalia on the Supreme Court.

Insane.

"That he knew of". I want to know more about what kind of Anti-Psi protection exists in this world.

All this kind of bums me out. I mean, i guess i'm happy about an au where Doug's doing kind of alright after a tragedy. But him becoming this big tech bro kind of sucks to me.

It's kind of cool that he turned Apple into a co-op. I guess.

[x-manson-annotated]

X-Manson Annotated Chapter 4 - Part One - CABLE AND COLOSSUS

This section will primarily focus on Cable, but what little it tells us about Piotr and Illyana Rasputin will be discussed throughout this section. Not to bet around the bush, but this section's as rough as it gets. Trigger and content warnings below:

tw rape, tw animal death, tw cannibalism, tw necrophilia, etc.

The first quote here makes me think of a thing Warren Ellis said in his book, "Planetary". He described people who come from this background, this grey, unknown quantity as being "Twilight People".

Piotr's abilities are potentially tied to where he was born? So, mutations have an environmental factor that is associated with the physical makeup of where they were born/raised.

This is coupled with radiation. It seems that this is taking it's cues from the Silver Age interpretation of mutation where they're created by radiation rather than it being evolution/a latent gene.

Illyana Rasputina.

Not Piotr's bio sister.

Possibly not his sister in any sense.

This is the first time she's been mentioned?

Is it possible she is his sister and she simply didn't die at the site? Or at all?

Possibly all of them?

Cable and The Six Pack.

If this is going by the comics their group would have consisted of:

Cable

G.W Bridge

Garrison Kane

Grizzly

Hammer

Domino

The only surviving member is of course, Domino as we'll later see. However, this is somewhere that I fall short. I don't like 90s marvel. 90s Cable is a blank spot for me.

But from what i've learned, Only Cable, Grizzly and Domino are mutants.

Hammer, G.W Bridge, and Garrison Kane are human. Garrison being a human-cyborg.

So, this opens up the possibility of people having cyborg enhancements in this setting. though, this all might take place before Kane had the opportunity to have his limbs replaced.

Domino, Neena Thurman. I'm not sure if her name was given by the time of this being written in 2000.

Twelve Years. Earlier on into the story we have Kitty's narration say that she's lived in her room in Canada for over ten years.

I have some thoughts about why Domino is being held under such strict imprisonment outside of the cult.

First, there's the matter of her power. She has supremely good luck, is it possible that she wants to be here? Do they know about this and have been trying to arrange things so she can't escape?

Then there's what she knows. She's one of the few people involved who survived everything, without being executed by the state. She's also limited in what she can talk about with the Interviewer (possibly a different interviewer than the one we've been seeing).

I think she knows more about a Weapon X-like program that created Logan, Kane, and perhaps even Cable than she's letting on.

See, she's not officially allowed to talk about certain things. I think this last comment is her saying that it doesn't matter if she says anything about them, they'll both be killed by higher ups in the government.

Okay. Here's a breakdown of what I've got concerning all of this.

*Sometimes from the future, sometimes from the past - Comics Nathan being born in the present, but taken to the future, only to return as an adult.

*Canaan. New Canaan is the dominant nation in the future he was raised in.

*The personal space station from and to the future is Graymalkin.

I kind of hate Cable, even in comics.

The first highlighted portion makes me think of this joke by @waitingforthet:

It seems that Cable is making up his whole deal as he goes along.

Feels like a comment on the nature of 90s anti-heroes that were springing up in the wake of characters like Cable and X-Force. Deniable, murderous mercenaries. Disposable ideas. Characters like tissue paper.

Grant Morrison has a quote about this in their book Supergods where they discuss how it was kind of born out of a time when there wasn't an active war that the U.S was participating in. I wish I had a physical copy of the book with me because they explain it more eloquently than I can.

It tracks that people would develop anti-psi protection in a world where psychics are a known and dangerous quantity. I want to know more about this tech that Cable's got. I think him being from the future is kind of bullshit, so I want to know where he's gotten it from.

Also, Jesus christ! I think if broken down, you might be able to see this as Doctor Benway inserting shock for the sake of shock. This becomes a lot more frequent later in the story. But, Jesus.

Nathan count continues to stand at 2.

Joseph being an alias he used feels interesting. I don't know if i'm close, but the interviewer's reaction makes me think that it has some connection to Joseph the clone of Magneto. Maybe some version of him exists, either not as a clone or completely unconnected to Erich.

*The part about him being both the messiah and the messiah's dad will unfortunately come up again later.

*En Sabbah Nur. Also coming up later.

The Four Horsemen:

Erich Lehnsherr - (War, because he's actively trying to stop war.)

Gabrielle Lehnsherr [Haller] - (Famine? Because she was trying to help relocate refugees into the U.K?)

Amelia Voght - (Pestilence because she runs the W.H.O)

Various - Death.

Candidates for Death:

John Kelly

Daniel Cohn-Bendit?

The Professor.

Let's get Cohn-Bendit out of the way, I think this is referring to him:

he was an active politician around when Benway was writing, so it's possible he would have known about him. I don't know if he was included because of Cohn-Bendit's writings from the 70s or from the accusations of him raping minors.

Skipping past all the real world awfulness, I'd like to turn our attention to The Professor:

I think that this isn't in reference to Xavier at all. But in reference to Truett Hudson/Professor Thorton of Weapon X.

Luck Powers in action.

See, i've been saying this from the very beginning about the damn Pate and sausages. They aren't vegetarian. That Grundy woman from chapter one and everyone at the open house ate people meat!

*This is what makes me suspect that it isn't the same interviewer.

**Here, I've developed a theory about why Cable is acting like this:

What if. He is half right and Scott and Jean are his parents. And he is from the future and all that other horseshit. But, here's the rub: He isn't Cable he's Stryfe.

*That was creepy? Not the cannibalism or the animal death, or the multiple murders? Cable and Xavier being weird at eachother with sentences was creepy?

Also, another random shock moment that doesn't really do much for the story. It's terrifying, yes. It's deeply upsetting, yes. But what is it actually doing for the story?

[x-manson-annotated]

X-men | Prints

[x-manson-annotated]

X-Manson Chapter 3 Annotations Masterpost

Emma Frost

Doug Ramsey, Angelica Jones, and Vance Astrovik

Ariel

Logan

Betsy Braddock

Madelyne Pryor

The Raid

The Aftermath

The Accusation

The next set of annotations will be coming soon and will likely be twice as long as this. God fucking damn.

[x-manson-annotated]

X-Manson Annotated Chapter Three - Part 9 - THE ACCUSATION

I'm going to level with you. If you weren't already put off by this story, this section might seal the deal for you. This section deals with Emma Frost being placed at the center of a scandal where she is accused of sexually abusing her students. It's awful, but it is integral to understanding the world of this story. This will be the last section of Chapter 3.

tw for that, and tw for mentions of attempted suicide.

I'd like to know who this "Weedy Looking Man" is. My assumption is it is the X-Manson version of Trevor Fitzroy.

Like i said, this section isn't pretty. I am of the mindset that nothing happened, but this section will bring to the mind of some people the Satanic Panic and Q Anon conspiracy theories popular among the right wing.

Shinobi Shaw, the son of Sebastian Shaw.

*also, Doug and Marie-Ange are insufferably cute.

**Pot's legal in the United States as of 1990.

This feels like an outlandish parody until you realize that conservative media is exactly like that.

"She knew what could happen to teenaged girls" What the fuck does that mean? That feels close to "Well, you saw what she was wearing. She probably wanted it." It's a cryptic, weird thing to say.

This feels like a reflection of something you would see a lot of later in the 2000s. Ultimate Marvel used to do this thing where psychics would read minds and there would be a joke of "Oh, stop thinking about me naked." or "I wasn't thinking about it until you told me not to think about it." Shit like that. This feels like a more realistic take on how that might feel with someone with psychic powers. It isn't some kind of fun jokey thing for them. It's horrifying.

*I'm detecting a reoccurring argument between them with this line from Marie-Ange.

**That's an incredibly strange way to speak about someone, Douglas.

***She's not wrong for thinking that.

But let's focus on the thirteen students who put forward accusations against Emma.

I can't imagine who they might be. Possibly this world's version of the Hellions, sans Marie-Ange?

What were they arrested for?

Holy shit, Disney is not pissing around when it comes to copyright in this universe.

This makes sense about why Xavier kept his class sizes on the smaller end. Easier for him to be more personable and manipulate the students.

I wonder how much of that is coincidental and how much of it was orchestrated by Xavier.

The system failing to work.

She finds it difficult to maintain romantic connections if she doesn't have access to her psi-ablities? Difficulty reading the emotions of others? Autistic Emma Frost?

A full lobotomy with a gun killed her psychic abilities?

It's interesting that there are still mutant education systems in place in public schools.

I have no idea who this man is meant to be.

Also the "Roy Cohn Professor of American History" Roy Cohn? like the lawyer and all-around bastard who adored Joe McCarthy.

The Hinckley Law. This immediately puts me in mind of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. Reagan was never Presiden in this Au, so is it possible that Hinckley attempted to assassinate him when he was running for Governer of California?

Furthermore...Did Ronald Reagan destroy Hinckley's personality?

You can tell this is fantasy because the American Left is presenting a unified front against Conservatism.

Mary Jo Kopechne was a mutant with gills!

The pear-shaped man is Sebastian Shaw. This feels like an accurate way to describe the man.

I feel like the molestations stopped around when Emma took over the school. Good god.

Sebastian, his nose heavy with clotted phlegm and coke: how can any red-blooded American man learn in the company of disgusting WHEMEN!

This feels like something from the McMartin Pre-School Scandal where kids were essentially coerced by law enforcement into making up bigger and bigger lies about satanic ritual abuse.

Example Below from the McMartin Preschool Trial's wikipedia page:

Some of the abuse was alleged to have occurred in secret tunnels beneath the school. Several excavations turned up evidence of old buildings on the site and other debris from before the school was built, but no evidence of any secret chambers or tunnels was found. There were claims of orgies at car washes and airports, and of children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their parents.

The Cuban cigar angle feels like a nod to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

*This reads like a modern day Trumper losing his shit.

**If you cared about your family's "Good Name" you wouldn't have named your son "Shinobi" you insufferable goddamn weeaboo.

Sebastian: the rich of america are entitled to live as kings! We are not unlike gods!

The mad philosopher Scalia. Is Antonin Scalia a supervillain in this universe?

*Again, you can tell this is a fantasy because we have the misfortune of having had Scalia on the Supreme Court.

Insane.

"That he knew of". I want to know more about what kind of Anti-Psi protection exists in this world.

All this kind of bums me out. I mean, i guess i'm happy about an au where Doug's doing kind of alright after a tragedy. But him becoming this big tech bro kind of sucks to me.

It's kind of cool that he turned Apple into a co-op. I guess.

[x-manson-annotated]

X-Manson Annotated Chapter Three - Part 8 -  THE AFTERMATH

We're almost at the end of this chapter. This post will cover the immediate aftermath of the raid and the last post for this chapter will discuss the accusations brought against Emma Frost and the Massachusetts Academy.

tw - depictions of child death, trauma, and eating disorders.

Okay, what we're seeing here is Marie-Ange wasn't being a henpecking wife and stopping the interview out of nowhere because of what Doug was saying. There's some kind of physical or mental thing going on with Doug that we aren't privy to as readers or in Kitty's case, Viewers.

I was initially confused by what "Masters" are, turns out that in some private schools, Masters refers to the older students in a school.

This is a chilling scene, but I'm not entirely sure how Kitty is meant to be present in this psychic vision.

This is another big clue that Kitty is the one watching the documentary. I have a new thought about it. I think that they might have been physically present in the room. Cable and Xavier using psychic power to keep themselves hidden. That would explain Kitty's presence.

*What happened down in the pool?

That's not the brain healing itself, Doug. That's a trauma response.

this is a weird moment and I can see here why the interviewer would think that Emma manipulated him. Doug says this statement in a cryptic manner.

So...Here is what we know about whatever was happening in the basement pool.

Erich and Emma fly out and their helicopter is downed by an unknown mutant (in my opinion, Ororo).

Emma and Erich are captured and held there by some kind of force, likely by Cable.

David Lehnsherr and an unidentified baby are killed. Maybe more if the pool is full of blood.

Erich, Emma, and most likely Kitty witness the deaths.

Doug sees the very end of it and tosses in tear gas grenades, causing everyone to scatter.

Emma drags a catatonic Erich outside and into a car with Doug. They flee.

[x-manson-annotated]

Probably right.

X-Manson Annotated Chapter Three - Part 7 -  THE RAID

So, Ariel's arrival, Betsy's kidnapping, and The Raid all happened very close together.

Did Gabrielle mean to say the "Korean conflict" here? It's not listed among his accomplishments earlier in the story. But his resolution to the Vietnam War is mentioned.

*God Loves, Man Kills Reference. There's something real ironic about cult leader Charles fighting with a fundie with murderous intent.

**I'm not sure what Warren's thing in L.A is.

God Loves, Man Kills was released in 1982. So, we may be two years into the future, or here the events are still happening in 1980. I like to imagine most of God Loves, Man Kills still happens but nobody learns anything from it.

Vance needs to just shut the fuck up about The Avengers.

*another instance where the interviewer thinks Emma manipulated the students.

**Pricey trip in a cab, Doug.

Tarot is still a mutant in this AU. But there's no mention of her power. Does this mean that maybe instead of bringing to life figures from Tarot cards, she's a mild precog?

*What was left of the helicopter? Did someone destroy the helicopter?

**The Rolls pulls up with Xavier, Logan, Summers, and Grey

Everyone left at the house:

Piotr and Sean.

I have no doubt that either one could take out a helicopter on their own. But there is one factor that nobody has considered. Another person who could down a helicopter that isn't potentially being mind-controlled is Ororo. And nobody knew she was there.

*see there's a lingering after-effects of a storm blowing around, maybe Ororo's powers are less precise than in the comics.

*The armory is real and Xavier does have a room full of guns in the comics. My man's unhinged.

**The way that he's talking here with the door that opens onto a balcony reminds me of The Runaways where the group watches their parents in The Pride doing the human sacrifice. This predates that by several years, so they're probably both drawing on something from somewhere else.

I think this is the first mention of Cable.

Now our Nathan count stands at a possible 2.

This feels very comedic, definitely an "Oh Shit" moment.

Tear gas grenades. People crawling out of windows everywhere makes it feel like there are more people not identified by Doug or the documentary crew.

Marie-Ange Interruption Count: 1.

It's possible he was also forced to remember The Holocaust by either Xavier or Cable. Just like in the popular meme.

[x-manson-annotated]

X-Manson Annotated Chapter Three - Part 7 -  THE RAID

So, Ariel's arrival, Betsy's kidnapping, and The Raid all happened very close together.

Did Gabrielle mean to say the "Korean conflict" here? It's not listed among his accomplishments earlier in the story. But his resolution to the Vietnam War is mentioned.

*God Loves, Man Kills Reference. There's something real ironic about cult leader Charles fighting with a fundie with murderous intent.

**I'm not sure what Warren's thing in L.A is.

God Loves, Man Kills was released in 1982. So, we may be two years into the future, or here the events are still happening in 1980. I like to imagine most of God Loves, Man Kills still happens but nobody learns anything from it.

Vance needs to just shut the fuck up about The Avengers.

*another instance where the interviewer thinks Emma manipulated the students.

**Pricey trip in a cab, Doug.

Tarot is still a mutant in this AU. But there's no mention of her power. Does this mean that maybe instead of bringing to life figures from Tarot cards, she's a mild precog?

*What was left of the helicopter? Did someone destroy the helicopter?

**The Rolls pulls up with Xavier, Logan, Summers, and Grey

Everyone left at the house:

Piotr and Sean.

I have no doubt that either one could take out a helicopter on their own. But there is one factor that nobody has considered. Another person who could down a helicopter that isn't potentially being mind-controlled is Ororo. And nobody knew she was there.

*see there's a lingering after-effects of a storm blowing around, maybe Ororo's powers are less precise than in the comics.

*The armory is real and Xavier does have a room full of guns in the comics. My man's unhinged.

**The way that he's talking here with the door that opens onto a balcony reminds me of The Runaways where the group watches their parents in The Pride doing the human sacrifice. This predates that by several years, so they're probably both drawing on something from somewhere else.

I think this is the first mention of Cable.

Now our Nathan count stands at a possible 2.

This feels very comedic, definitely an "Oh Shit" moment.

Tear gas grenades. People crawling out of windows everywhere makes it feel like there are more people not identified by Doug or the documentary crew.

Marie-Ange Interruption Count: 1.

It's possible he was also forced to remember The Holocaust by either Xavier or Cable. Just like in the popular meme.

[x-manson-annotated]

I can also see that. I think it's easy to feel bad for Scott in this moreso than say Hank or Warren because he feels more like he's being dragged along because he doesn't know how to say "no," or he's afraid of what happens if he does.

X-Manson Annotated Chapter Three - Part 6 -  MADELYNE PRYOR

In this section, we are faced by a Maddie Pryor who is not the Goblin Queen and has no noticeable connection to Nathaniel Essex. We also have more of an established timeline here.

Things we know: Most of what Maddie talks about takes place within the "Summer of '80" with some wiggle room for her and Scott knowing each other for a while afterward.

*It's interesting that Maddie isn't a pilot. Granted, she also isn't a clone of Jean, either (as far as we know). So it's possible that this naturally occurring Maddie simply lived her life normally and got a job working at a coffee shop in what I assume to be Croton, New Jersey.

**Scott's choice in hamburger is very particular. "rare and dripping". It brings to mind the cannibalistic nature of the cult. But him ordering it every time he comes through feels very true to form for any version of Scott Summers: Autistic Icon.

Maddie: Hey bud, have you ever tried the fish here?

Scott (internally): Oh god, a beautiful woman is taking to me. What's the protocol here, Summers?

*Stands up and walks away blushing like a maiden*

This is oddly adorable and right smack dab in the middle of a section that's going to be frought with incredible horrors both real and imagined.

Okay, this is set in the "Summer of '80" Scott is using the alias "Scott Drake". This is around the open house dinner at the school. I think Scott is using the alias because this is after Bobby's murder. If he's been down in the mud for 10 years then his death happens in 1980 and it's found when the school gets raided by the government and Avengers in the 1990 or thereabouts.

Scott drilling a hole through a quarter is kind of something that happened in the Claremont run, with Maddie, even.

*They're putting pressure on him because the cult thinks that he is supposed to be the father of a mutant messiah.

**What exactly does that mean in this universe? We'll come to know later that Xavier doesn't believe in this idea at all. So is it just a line of bullshit he's feeding to his followers that he can't psychically control?

***He's for sure lying about Charles being "The First Among Equals".

Jesus christ.

*It's very funny that after all the bullshit with Scott, she and Alex were a brief thing.

**The Nathan Count Stands at 1.

[x-manson-annotated]

[x-manson-annotated]

Man commits biggest fumble of the century