Unicorn wars but the unicorns swap places with the bears!! not sure if anyone has thought of this idea, but i just thought what if the bears were just as vicious as they were in the movie, but instead they weren't the ones to evolve, but the unicorns did instead.

By Hook or by Crook (2)

May 1st, 2270

“Hello, Izuku.” “Hi, dad.” Izuku hadn’t exactly been dreading this conversation, but he hadn’t been looking forward to it either. He’d hoped his mom would do all the talking, having to break the news to his friends had been hard enough. For him. Most of them seemed to have gotten quite the kick out of it. “How are you? Your mother told me you’ve been having a rough couple of weeks.” “Mh.” “Still upset over that visit?” “Mh.” “Speak, son. Sulking doesn’t translate well over the phone.” His father chided gently.

Izuku sighed. “The doctor said I’m never going to get a quirk. I’m sorry.” “Whatever for? It’s not like you have any choice in the matter. Quirks are innate, surely you know that.” “Yes, I do.” Izuku said, staring at the paused frame of All Might’s debut video on the computer screen. The reflection of his own miserable face was superimposed with the triumphant silhouette of the hero. “But I’m sorry anyway. You have such a cool quirk… and mom’s useful too. I could become a great hero with one of them, but I’m never going to get any.” “Again, that’s none of your fault. And I wouldn’t be so sure of that anyway.” “Uh?” Izuku gulped, gripping the phone tightly. “Y-you don’t think I’d make a good hero?” “No, that’s not what I mean.” His father chuckled. “I mean that I wouldn’t lose hope just yet. You’re very young, there’s still plenty of time for your quirk to manifest.” “But the doctor said that all quirks appear before one is four years old. And I’m four. And I have the extra toe joint-” “Tsk! Some doctor they assigned you. As if one could unerringly guess the nature and development of something as unpredictable as a quirk with a single test. An x-ray, of all things. Ancient technology.” “The doctor said there was a study...” “I have an extra toe joint too, you know.” Izuku’s father laughed hearing his son’s surprised gasp. “Studies like the one your doctor mentioned draw conclusions based on the analysis of hundreds, thousands of cases. Those conclusions may hold true for the majority of them, but there are always outliers. Having that oh-so-precious joint and a quirk is indeed rare, but not unheard of.” “B-But…” Izuku’s eyes burned with the feeling of impending tears. He hadn’t expected his father’s reaction to be like this. No one had even remotely doubted the validity of the doctor’s opinion. No one. It almost hurt to hope. “I’m also too old…” “My own quirk didn’t show until I was… fifteen? Maybe sixteen. Way older than you are, anyway. Another important point to consider, don’t you think?” Izuku sniffled. Then cried, quietly. His father remained silent as the boy let the tears flow freely, wiping them on his arm now and then. There was a tangled ball of emotions deep in his chest, that he couldn’t quite unravel. After a couple of minutes though, the sobs abated and he felt better. Better than he had been feeling before his mom handed him the phone. “...Do you really think the doctor was wrong?” “You shouldn’t believe everything doctors tell you. My personal physician keeps calling me ‘the peak of biological and anthropological evolution’, but that’s because he’s been fishing for a raise for years. Clearly you’d expect a Darwinian champion to be able to walk under the sun without protection for more than five minutes without turning into a peeling tomato.” “Uh? Does that really happen to you?” “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that I’m albino? My skin is very sensitive to sunlight, and it burns easily. I have atrocious eyesight too.” “I didn’t know that.” Izuku winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry. That sounds terrible.” “Not nearly as much as you think. I have plenty of skills and tools at my disposal to compensate. It isn’t an inconvenience at all these days, although it did cause me some grief when I was a child.” His father’s tone got softer. “Sometimes it does feel like our bodies are our own worst enemies, doesn’t it?” Izuku hummed in assent, very much agreeing with the sentiment. “I’m happy it doesn’t hurt you any more.” “And I’m glad you didn’t inherit this nuisance from me.” A sudden thought made its unwelcome way in Izuku’s head. “If… If I didn’t inherit your skin and eyes… maybe I won’t inherit your quirk either…” “Izuku.” His father’s tone was kind but firm. There were times when his presence, even just through his voice, felt way more real and solid than that of many people Izuku habitually shared a room with. “Your ability will emerge one day, I’m positive of that. Just give it time and don’t agonize over it.” Izuku nodded, even though he realized that wouldn’t translate well over the phone either. “...Okay.” “Now, what else have you been up to in this past month, other than brooding over a criminally incompetent diagnosis?” Not much, honestly, but Izuku told him anyway. As he kept chatting, his heart grew lighter than it had been in weeks. Mom did always say that his father was a good listener.

July 1st, 2272 “They were talking about it on TV yesterday. It’s an old incident from some years ago, before All Might met Nighteye!” “I see...” “Not many people know about it, because there’s no villain involved, and villains make all the stories more interesting! But it’s a great story nonetheless!” Izuku rattled on enthusiastically, taking advantage of his father’s unresponsive compliance. “Uh-huh...” “So this boy was having some big troubles, I think, and he jumped into a river because he didn’t know what to do about them. But luckily All Might was around! Do you know what he did?” “He offered to cover all the expenses for the years of therapy the boy would need afterwards?” “Uh… They didn’t say that on TV. I don’t know. I think he just rescued him from the river.” “That doesn’t seem to address the underlying problem.” His father commented icily. “Daaad, you’re ruining the story.” Izuku chided him. “Anyway, the funny part is that this boy had a quirk that could turn water into vinegar, and he activated it in a panic while he was drowning.” “Mh. A peculiar quirk...” “So All Might got all drenched in vinegar when he dove in to save him. He made this very silly face in front of the cameras, it was great! And when the boy apologized for causing trouble, guess what All Might told him?” “I’m sorry I’m the living embodiment of this unfair, hypocritical society that has driven you to the brink of despair?” “No. He said,” Izuku continued, breezing past his father’s petty remarks with practiced ease, “It is I who should thank you. My skin’s looking ten years younger now.” “Oh my God…” The man groaned, and a loud thunk-crash noise accompanied his words. “Oh, come on!” Izuku giggled, covering his mouth with his free hand. “It’s so funny!” “Just because they’re called ‘dad jokes’ doesn’t mean I’m legally obligated to laugh at them.” “But it is funny! All Might’s the funniest! Did you know that he just wrote a joke book? It’s called All Might’s Gags and Jokes: A Compendium. It already has amazing reviews! They say it’s warm and relatable and cy.. cyclical…” “He wrote a joke book. A veritable Renaissance man, this one...” His father muttered. Izuku heard something clink in the background. Probably the pieces of whatever his father dropped. “Mom says she’ll buy it for my birthday!” Izuku added, swinging his whole body on his chair in sheer excitement. “That is such a poor use of your remittance. I’ll need to have a couple of words with her…” “It’s for my education!” Izuku enunciated with solemnity, straightening his posture. “There’s a whole chapter of American puns and word plays! It will help me learn English!” “If you want to learn English on your own so soon, please choose a decent source. Start with basic grammar and alphabet books, watch some subtitled shows and movies to get the hang of the correct pronunciation-” “I’m learning a lot from All Might already! The catchphrase he used when he was in college in California was I am here! When he’s surprised, he says Oh my goodness! When he doesn’t believe something, he says Nonsense!” Izuku parroted, taking great care of imitating All Might’s confident, surprised and disbelieving expressions respectively. They would be lost on his father, but he needed to practice them anyway. “If that’s a good American accent, I’m the next Symbol of Peace.” “Dad.” Izuku said, suddenly very serious. He had a very important question to ask, and it had been a long time coming. “Why do you always make fun of him? It’s like… It’s almost like you don’t like him at all.” The words sounded so wrong he almost wasn’t brave enough to say them. Izuku would have been mortified if anyone had moved such an accusation on him. “I suppose he has a sort of… charisma about him.” His father admitted ruefully. “I can’t say it strikes any chords with me though.” “Are you just jealous of him?” Izuku asked shrewdly. “Kacchan also talks a lot of trash about All Might, but it’s obvious he’s just jealous. It’s all right if you are, though, I mean, he’s so-” “I’m this close to hanging up, Izuku.” “But- but how can you not like All Might?! Everyone likes All Might! Boys and girls, children and grown-ups! From age 0 to 100!” “...I guess I just don’t fit the target demographic then.” Izuku huffed. “You’re so boring, dad.” “Says the one who’s been talking my ear off about the same topic for the last forty minutes.” The boy frowned, nibbling at his lip. “...Sorry. Am I annoying you?” “I’ll admit I may have hit my monthly tolerance limit of All Might trivia. Don’t worry about it though.” Izuku did in fact stop worrying, his father’s amusement clearly detectable in his voice. “I think I’ll be able to bear with your unabashed enthusiasm until you hit your mandatory disillusioned teenage phase. Then we’ll see if that obnoxiously cheery act of his will still resonate with you.”

June 2nd, 2274 “His normal body temperature is about two degrees higher than the average. Around 38-39 °C.” “And what can you deduce from that?” Izuku’s father goaded. The boy stared at the scribbles in his notebook in deep thought. “Uhm… that it’s difficult to tell if he has a fever or not?” His father laughed, but not unkindly. “I wouldn’t think so. You just said yourself that that is his normal temperature. Therefore, I wouldn’t call Endeavor’s doctor unless his thermometer read more than 39.5 °C, probably.” “Right.” Izuku nodded. That was obvious, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t he understood that on his own? His father didn’t seem to mind his blunder though. “Try again.” “I think…” Izuku’s eyes were just about to bore a hole into his rough sketch of the hero’s costume. He gave up after the silence started to make him uncomfortable though. “...I don’t know. What can I deduce from that?” “Hm… You did bring up an interesting point. Do you know how fever works, Izuku?” “Yeah. Your body temperature rises when you’re sick. If it rises too much, you can get in serious trouble, you could even die. It never really gets that bad though.” “But why does it rise? What does your body accomplish by doing that?” “Uh…” Izuku frowned. He was sure he’d read or heard something about that, but the details escaped him at the moment. “To help you fight off the sickness, right? You feel worse at first, but it actually helps you get better.” “Exactly. Most bacteria and viruses that infect men thrive and multiply optimally at around 37 °C, which is the average person’s normal body temperature. But the growth of these microorganisms is hindered when the environment gets too hot. That is the principle that makes fever useful for humans. As your body gets hotter, it debilitates the invasors, so that your immune system can remove them more easily.” “..Oh.” It was a pity that his father called him only once a month, Izuku could have easily listened to him for hours every day. He always had so many interesting things to say about so many different subjects, and he always exposed them so neatly. “So. Can you deduce anything new now?” “Uh, uhm… He… I guess he...” Izuku snapped out of his reverie. Right, this was a conversation, not a lesson. He went over the new information in his head as quickly as he could. Higher temperature than normal... Fever... Microorganisms... Immune syst- Oh! “He heals quicker than- no, wait! He doesn’t get sick at all! Because he’s always too hot for the microorganisms! They can’t grow in his body!” “Excellent reasoning!” His father’s warm praise made Izuku’s chest swell with pride. “Obviously he isn’t completely immune to any and all infections, there are lots of exceptions to the mechanism I just explained to you. But yes, I do believe it’s safe to assume that our esteemed Flame Hero suffers from the occasional seasonal maladies far less often than the general population, if at all.” “That’s so cool…” Izuku immediately added the new data to his notes, almost breaking the tip of the pencil in his enthusiasm. “Is that what you wanted me to deduce? Or did you explain that just because I brought up the fever thing?” “I was actually thinking of something else. But, on second thought, it may be too technical a topic for an eight-year-old.” “...Can you tell me about it anyway?” “Of course.” Izuku would never not be grateful for the patience his father had, never denying him any clarification on anything. He was just about the only adult who never got tired of his questions. Even his mom sometimes hid her fatigue behind a mildly insincere I don’t know. “High heat isn’t exactly conductive to the activity of human cells either. That’s one of the reasons why you feel exhausted and achy when you have a fever, your body struggles to keep doing what it’s supposed to do above its normal temperature range. But Endeavor not only is at peak condition at 39 °C, he can also withstand open flames with a much higher temperature. This suggests that his cells must be fundamentally different from the average person’s on a biochemical level, that his quirk must provide some particularly efficient cellular mechanism to prevent heat damage. One example might be some dedicated enzymes to protect proteins from denaturation, but now I’m entering mere speculation.” A pause. “Did you follow me?” “...Kind of.” Izuku said, kind of lying but not entirely. He had followed most of that. He scrawled and circled a couple of terms he hadn’t grasped - Biochemical - Enzymes - Denaturation - on the page. He didn’t want to waste his father’s time by asking him to explain the meaning of words he could easily look up later on his own. “The gist of it is that Endeavor’s Hellflame has at least two facets. Not only ‘creating fire’, but also ‘not incinerating himself’. The first trait would be a fatal liability without the second.” “Got it!” Izuku cheered. Now that he had understood completely. “You sure know a lot about quirks, dad! Like, a lot! About anything, really!” “For the sake of intellectual honesty, it must be said that it isn’t difficult to impress a primary schooler.” His father laughed. “I’m just older than you.” “How much older?” Izuku asked, realizing for the first time that no one had ever told him his father’s age. “Oh, by a lot. Centuries.” Izuku cackled. “You can’t be that old. You still go to work. Our neighbors are 80 and they’re already retired.” “I do try to keep a youthful outlook on life. But yes, quirks fascinate me quite a bit. And they make for the perfect topic to distract you from your incessant yapping about All Might.” “Speaking of All Might-” “No, I-” His father sighed theatrically. “I just walked into this one, didn’t I?” “Yep.” Izuku grinned. “What about his quirk? Do you know anything about it? He never gives straight answers when people ask him about it…” “That may be the single sign of intelligence he’s ever displayed. The more your enemies know about your quirk, the easier it is for them to find your weaknesses. I’m surprised the other pro heroes aren’t as reserved.” “I wonder why All Might does that, though. His quirk is… pretty obvious.” Izuku pondered. “It just makes him strong. Very strong. Like, the strongest ever. But that’s it.” “Allegedly, yes. But as you noticed yourself, if raw power was all there was to it, there would be no reason to skirt around the issue in interviews, no?” “So there must be something else… What do you think it might be?” “I think it would be no less than cruel to deprive you of the thrill of carrying out your own research.” Izuku let out a dissatisfied moan, and his father chuckled. “You are already so very proficient at it. Your mother told me you’ve already filled a whole notebook with hero and quirk analyses.” “Oh, ehr… It’s just stuff I read here and there…” “Mh, I’ve heard enough of your ‘stuff’ to know that there’s more than random factoids in that head of yours. In fact…” Izuku felt his cheeks warm for the compliment. “I think you’ve gotten old and judicious enough to be trusted with my emergency number.” “Uh? What emergency number?” “It’s a phone number I’ll always answer to, on any day and at any hour, in case you may find yourself in a bad situation. Hopefully you’ll never need it, but better safe than sorry. Now…” His father’s voice raised slightly, drowning out Izuku’s impending interruption. “Can I rely on the fact that you are aware that desperately wanting to tell me that All Might saved a kitten from a meteor does not qualify as an emergency?” Izuku pouted. “I know what an emergency is, dad.” “Good. Ask your mother to give you the number then. Don’t save it on your phone or write it anywhere. Memorize it, and be responsible with it.”

December 3rd, 2275 Sorry for the long silence. I had an accident on the job and I won’t be able to speak clearly for a while. We can talk with the included devices. Use your ring finger to activate them. Usual days, usual hours. Hisashi That short note held the first words Izuku had received from his father in the last five months. The first month he hadn’t phoned, Izuku had felt slightly disappointed, but understanding. His father was a busy man, surely something very important must have been requiring his full-time attention. It was fine, Izuku was confident he could manage to sweet-talk him into a double-length call the following month to make up for that. The second month, he had started to worry. His mother hadn’t heard from his father either. It was unprecedented not to hear from him for such a long time. Since Izuku could remember, his father had never skipped one of their monthly calls. They often talked on the first day of every month, and he kept trying to contact them exactly once each following day if his calls were missed. He never failed to reach them past the third day. He always called from a hidden number, so trying to get hold of him was not an option. The third month, Izuku’s mother had decided to use the emergency number. She hadn’t been able to get through to her husband, but the polite colleague of his who had picked up had reassured her that he was indisposed but overall fine, and would get in touch with them as soon as possible… which could still take a while. Curiously, the coworker had also instructed them to collect a sample of their fingerprints and send them to a specific address. Izuku had been mystified by the request, but his mother had readily agreed, commenting that it was “not the strangest thing Hisashi’s ever asked for”. The silent wait that followed had been a little uneasy, but not harrowing. Izuku and his mother reread the message a couple of times before opening the box they’d just been delivered. Inside were only the two mentioned devices with their respective chargers, snuggled among waterproof packaging and stuffing. They looked very much like ordinary mobile phones, except they had no buttons or ports on any side. Some quick experimentation proved that they could be turned on simply by pressing the indicated finger on the touchscreen. The display showed a very minimalistic chat interface, with a fixed red dot on the top left corner. No amount of tapping on the screen could bring up the virtual keyboard though, which was puzzling. There was no way to access the rest of the phone’s functions, if it even had any. It was the third day of the month, so technically still within the familiar communication window. Izuku kept poking and prodding at the buttonless phone for the whole afternoon until eventually, shortly after dinner, the red dot at the top of the chat became green. A minute later, a message popped up. Hello, Izuku. Izuku almost dropped his cup of hot chocolate in excitement, which was quickly replaced by frustration because he still couldn’t type anything in any way. How was he supposed to- Speak. I can hear you. “...Oh! Nice!” Izuku exclaimed. “Hi, dad! How are you? What happened?” I’ve been better. I got decked by a hysterical ape. Izuku frowned. “That’s not funny. Mom and I were very worried.” That wasn’t really a joke. What? What even- “...How? Did you break into a zoo or something…?” Sorry, you’re right. Let me rephrase. I had a violent disagreement with a brute. “Oh…” Izuku was about to ask for further explanations but he waited. The three bouncing dots at the bottom of the screen signalled that his father was still writing. We will have to communicate like this for a while. I hope it isn’t too much of an inconvenience for you. Judging by how long it took him to type even the shortest messages, Izuku thought it was going to be much more of an inconvenience for his father. He felt sorry for him. “No, not all. Is it… is it really bad? Shouldn’t you come home so we can help you get better? It sounds like you won’t be able to work anyway…” I’ll receive better medical treatment here, and I can still get some work done while I recuperate. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll recover fully sooner or later. Izuku picked at the lint of his blanket, choosing his words carefully. “You could… come home anyway. Even if you could work. When you’re feeling a little better. So we could spend some time together.” The three bouncing dots reappeared, but Izuku kept talking. He already knew what his father’s answer was going to be, but he wanted to take advantage of the delay to get a few more words in. “Some of my friends have parents that work far from home too. They’re away a lot, but… they do come back to visit sometimes. Usually for the holidays. At least… At least once.” At least his friends had actually met their fathers once in their whole lives, Izuku completed only in his head. You know how things stand. My job doesn’t afford me this kind of free time. “...What do you even do that won’t let you ever do anything?” Izuku muttered, out of sheer petulance. That was another familiar point of contention, to which his father replied with the same, word-for-word justification he always used. Every detail concerning my activities is classified by the government. We’ve been over this. Don’t be childish. And that was usually the end of it. Any further questioning after the ‘classified’ thing invariably turned Izuku’s father into a slippery wall of smooth deflections. But, considering the current situation, Izuku felt like he could get away with a little more nagging, if he played his cards right. “I know you can’t say anything. But how about…” He physically leaned forwards, trying not to let his tension seep through his voice. “How about I try to deduce something? About your job. Just… for fun.” No new message showed up, not even the typing dots. Izuku decided that it was as much of an approval as he was going to get, so he started to voice his thoughts as they formed. “...Your job is classified by the government. So it’s important, very important, so important that other people can’t know about it.” When he was very young, Izuku had obviously interpreted it as irrefutable proof that his father must be some sort of secret agent. He had exposed his conclusion to Kacchan and his gang once. They had… not-so-respectfully disagreed. Izuku had never brought up the matter with them afterwards. “Your note said that you got hurt on the job. So someone you know from work punched you so hard that, even after five months, you still can’t talk well.” Izuku paused. That was… a scary idea. It dawned on him, for the first time since the beginning of this whole ordeal, that his father may have really dodged a bullet there. What kind of a brute could possibly want to injure someone that much…? Surely a criminal… A villain, maybe…? “Your job is dangerous, and it leaves you almost no free time. It also pays well.” That last item was admittedly a shot in the dark, Izuku didn’t really know much about money handling. But he had noticed that his mother never denied him a gift or a treat on the grounds of its cost (his vast collection of All Might memorabilia was a testament to that), like so many of his friends’ relatives were wont to do. She didn’t need a job herself, and Izuku remembered overhearing a conversation she had with Kacchan’s mom where she had said that they were ‘well provided for’. “You know a lot about a lot of stuff, especially about quirks and heroes. You know a lot of things about quirks and heroes that I couldn’t find anywhere on the internet.” Izuku paused, racking his brain for anything else that stuck out. Before he could come up with more points to make, his father finally wrote back. You sure put some thought into this. I’m impressed. The lack of reprimands was an encouragement in its own right. Now came the hard part. These were all facts that he already knew, now he had to put them together… and no matter how much he tried to come up with different possibilities, there was only one explanation that rang true in Izuku’s mind. “Dad… are you some sort of… undercover hero?” Izuku waited with baited breath for the dancing dots to turn into a complete message. Definitely not. ...Aw, shoot. Although I guess I do happen to deal with heroes quite often in my line of work. Izuku gasped. That was the first real piece of information his father had ever shared with him about his job! And wow, he worked with heroes! And whatever support he lent them had to be pretty vital if he was always so busy and tight-lipped. “So you’re like… a policeman? An informant that tracks down villains for the heroes to catch? Or an engineer bound by trade secret? Or-” Enough, Izuku. I’m supposed to be resting. I don’t think being given the third degree by my own son counts as such. Izuku deflated. So close to the truth, and yet so far… Maybe he could manage to get some other clue out of his father later. But… there was one more thing he simply had to ask. “...Have you ever met All Might?” I’m just going to ignore you after this. Well, it had been worth a try. Izuku finally relented, reasonably satisfied with the result of his investigation. “Okay, okay. Sorry. No more questions. And no All Might stuff. Not that I have much to tell you about him. He hasn’t really been around lately.” Hasn’t he, now? Uh, odd. It wasn’t like his father to miss an opportunity to dodge All Might gossip. Izuku supposed there’d be no harm in taking advantage of this atypical spark of curiosity. “Yeah. It’s been like this for a few months. Rumors say he’s abroad, working on some large scale mission. Something very secret, that’s why there are no articles on him in newspapers from other countries either.” I wasn’t aware of this. That’s very interesting. Although I couldn’t imagine anyone less suited to hushed-up operations. Izuku couldn’t help but snort. In light of the recent revelation, he wondered if his father was so unapologetically critical of All Might because he had worked with him and they hadn’t gotten along… which seemed kind of impossible. How could All Might be the unpleasant type of coworker? Or maybe his father really was just jealous because he couldn’t work with All Might often enough. A sudden thought occurred to the boy. “...Sorry, I guess you don’t want to hear about hero stuff now that you’re, uh… on forced vacation.” Actually, I’d love to. I’ve been a little out of the loop lately, I need to catch up with the news anyway. Fire away all the information you have. Izuku smiled. “Even about All Might?” Especially about All Might.

Random Things You Should Know About the Brotherhood in the Comics

Fun fact, there’s been more than one Brotherhood of Mutants, and not all of them were led by Magneto. He wasn't even in all of them! There's a lengthy list of members, some more widely-known than others, these are just some fun facts about a few of the more well-known members.

- Toad has one of the worst backgrounds in the Brotherhood. He was abandoned as a baby by his parents, probably due to his appearance, and grew up in an orphanage where he was bullied and tormented by the other children for the same reason. Toad is actually very intelligent in the comics (he's an expert with machinery!) but due to his shyness and learning disabilities as a child, he was considered to be mentally disabled. I'm not sure what specific learning disabilities he's stated to have had though. I'd really like to know though, so tell me if you do! Between this and the bullying, he dropped out of school at an early age.

He was later recruited by Magneto, and they developed an abusive relationship. Not romantic, mind you, but besides that the dynamics were the same. Toad believed that Magneto cared for him and became dependent on him, while Magneto physically battered him and verbally belittled him. Read more about it HERE

I like Magneto, but people who think Magneto is a good man aside from his villainy need to take a good look at how he treats his followers. He abuses all of them, including Wanda and Pietro, but Toad got it the absolute worst and actually has a form of Battered Spousal Syndrome as a result.

- Pyro and Avalanche are super duper best bro-friends in the comics and I love it so much. Also, while they may or may not actually be lovers, depending on how you want to interpret it (I generally see them as friends), they were used to metaphorically represent gay lovers in THIS issue.

- Pyro is not an aggressive fire-obsessed nutjob like in Evolution or the movies. He's not angry, he's not insane, he's not a pyromaniac. He's a very nice, normal dude who just also happens to be a fire-controlling super-villain. Besides terrorism, he's also an author who writes Gothic romance novels. I'm not making this up, it's canon and it's terrific and I love it so much.

- Pyro's first name in the comics is St. John, not just John like the movies. It's pronounced Sinjin, I think. He's Australian, maybe it's a more normal name there? Also, speaking of him being Australian, his buddy Avalanche is an immigrant from the Greek island of Crete, and Toad is from England, specifically York.

- Pyro once saved a group of children from a T-rex

- Daredevil once tricked the Blob into getting jealous that Pyro always got the girls on their Freedom Force missions so that the two of them would fight with each other, suggesting Pyro is probably a ladies man ;D

- Once, when Pyro thought he was going to die, he held Mystique's hand and said "Worse ways to go, than with friends" ;A;

- But Pyro did NOT in fact die then. His death would come later. He contracted the Legacy Virus, and his last act alive was saving the life of Senator Kelly, a man he'd once tried to assassinate. The strain of this good deed was too much on Pyro's weakened body, and he passed away with a plea to Senator Kelly to change things for the better. Kelly promised that he would, and he kept his word, changing his anti-mutant stance and working towards improving mutant/human relations instead. Sadly, this led to Kelly being assassinated by a human who felt he'd turned traitor.

- Just as Pyro was made American in the movies, Avalanche and Toad were made American in the cartoons.

- Toad's real name is Mortimer Toynbee in the comics, and Avalanche is Dominikos Ioannis Petrakis. In X-Men: Evolution, they were re-named Todd Tolansky and Lance Alvers, probably to make them easier for children to pronounce. Alias that the comics Avalanche has used include Dominic Janos Petros, Jon Bloom, Dominic Szilard, and Nick.

- Avalanche enjoys gardening and establishes a bar under the name "Nick" to get away from his life of crime.

- One of the Red Skull's S-Men claims to be Avalanche's daughter. Her name is Dancing Water and she's basically a woman made of water who has squid tentacles for legs. She can reshape her body at all, spray blasts of water from her hands, control any nearby water, and teleport via water. As far as I know, it's unknown if her claims of being his daughter are true, who her mother is, what her history is, and why she wants to help the Red Skull destroy mutants.

- Fred "Blob" Dukes is fat because of his mutation, and the X-Men make fun of his weight ALL THE TIME. Making fun of someone for being fat is pretty bad, but there are some X-Men for whom I can still see it as in-character, they're not all the nicest people. But making fun of someone for how their physical mutation effects them? I'd think they'd ALL know better than that. If it's not okay to do to Nightcrawler, it's not ok to do to Blob!

- Blob eating a lot is frequently a gag too and haha I get it, fat people are gluttons, real nice Marvel. Besides that being a cruel stereotype in a series supposed to be a statement AGAINST bigotry, let's go back to the fact that THIS IS BLOB'S MUTATION. He is going to be this size no matter what. And a bigger person or animal needs MORE CALORIES. That's why a bear eats more than a chihuahua! He is eating a lot because guess what, he would probably DIE if he did not, it's basic biology, but it's made into a joke at his expense by the narrative itself. It's so messed up.

- Blob has a super duper best friendship with Unus the Untouchable, they are mega bros and it is so sweet and it is made even sweeter by the fact that Blob is frankly a HUGE JERK (no pun intended) to everyone else. But Unus is his BFF!! Read more about their Brotp HERE!

- Lesser known female Brotherhood members: Lorelei, Phantazia, Mastermind (Martinique Jason), and Astra. When Magneto abandoned his second Brotherhood and they became the Resistants instead, a woman named Mist Mistress joined them, and Spiral joined Mystique's Brotherhood when they became Freedom Force. The more well-known female Brotherhood members are, of course, Mystique, Destiny, Rogue, and the Scarlet Witch. See a post on Lorelei HERE and on Phantazia’s tag HERE for more about these ladies!

- While Mystique has consistently been portrayed as Magneto's subordinate in the movies, this has NEVER been the case in the comics. In fact, they have never even worked together until VERY recently. In the comics, they both led different Brotherhoods, and Mystique was the LEADER of hers, not anyone's second-in-command. In fact, up until recently, she and Magneto barely even crossed paths; the only time I'm aware of them even meeting was in the 1980s when she arrested him at a Holocaust memorial (this was when she and her Brotherhood were working for the government as "Freedom Force" in return for being pardoned for their crimes) So, needless to say, they do NOT have the same relationship depicted in the movies! Currently, they're both X-men and serving on the same team. Yeah, weird.

-Sabretooth is on the same X-Men team that Mystique and Magneto are, but contrary to the first X-Men film, I don't think he's ever been a Brotherhood member. I could be wrong though. But considering Sabes led the massacre of the Morlocks, I have a hunch not...by the way, Riptide was part of that too, he's sure as hell not a Brotherhood guy in the comics. Magneto HATES the Marauders!

- Ah, ok, I checked TV tropes on Sabes: "Something of an associate to Mystique's Brotherhood, as he was never affiliated with the team's present-day incarnation, but was shown in a flashback as joining up with an earlier iteration, even declaring himself their leader before being betrayed and handed over to the authorities by Mystique the next morning. He also worked for Exodus's Brotherhood, and is usually affiliated with the Brotherhood in adaptations."

-As mentioned, Mystique was NEVER  subordinate to Magneto, she led her own independent Brotherhood as LEADER...and at her side was Destiny, aka Irene Adler. Implied to be the woman who inspired the Sherlock Holmes character of the same name (with the equal implication Mystique inspired Sherlock himself...hey, she's Raven DarkHOLME) Destiny was a blind mutant who could see visions of the future. She was also Mystique's lover. Yup. They could not be explicitly referred to as such during the 1980s due to the Comics Code, but Claremont did everything he could to convey to the readers they were couple. They lived together, were affectionate with each other, and even raised a child together...none other than Rogue of the X-Men! In fact, his original plan was that Destiny would be Nightcrawler's mother and Mystique would be his FATHER, having impregnated Destiny in male form, but of course Marvel wouldn't let him get away with that. He also managed to sneakily slide in characters referring to Destiny as "Mystique's leman"---an antiquated word for "lover" obscure enough to slip by editors.

It used to be a common trope in media to use same-sex desires and relationships for villains as a way to emphasize their wickedness. For instance, a movie would never allow a hero to do such a thing, but it could be suggested with villains because it cast homosexuality in a negative light, as something bad people do to show how bad they are, like showing them kicking puppies. Claremont, however, went the opposite route. He used Mystique's tenderness with Destiny to humanize her instead, using their relationship to show a capacity for goodness in Mystique rather than play up how evil she was. They were depicted as loving and normal together, not depraved and decadent and bizarre. They were downright domestic.

While Claremont did have a notable fascination with lesbians, as shown by his use of sexy evil women who would pursue young heroines with a thinly-veiled subtext of sexual creepiness, he didn't fetishize Mystique and Destiny at all. He could have made Destiny a hot leather-clad young dominatrix like Selene or Emma Frost, but she's actually an elderly woman. Neither she nor her relationship with Mystique are ever sexualized. There are some f/f scenes in the X-Men series where you can imagine Claremont wrote it with one hand, but there's never anything like that between these two. Speaking of Destiny being old, she and Mystique were together FOR LIFE. They met during the 1800s when Destiny was much younger, and while they do seem to have had sexual relationships with men during their time together (as evident by both of them having children and grandchildren) their true loves were always each other. Destiny aged slower than an average person, but she did get old, and yet Mystique still stayed with her even though she remained young and I just love them so much. Destiny eventually met her end not by old age, but at the hands of Legion, Xavier's son.

Also, sorry to turn this into a personal soapbox but I have to here: Tumblr is all about "uwu LGBT representation uwuuu" but don't actually give a fuck about an actual canon woman/woman couple, even though tumblr's X-fandom collectively threw a fucking SHITFIT over Cherik not being made canon in DOFP and each of them having a girlfriend/wife and it being the worst most homophobic thing ever and the women in question getting bashed despite them being involved with these same women in canon...but Azazel gets to totally replace Destiny, who is nowhere to be seen in the movies, and fandom doesn't make a PEEP. Fandom is cool with that. In fact, they love Azazel and love drawing him in a happy heteronormative family with Mystique. Tumblr likes to be “uwu support LGBT representation uwuuu” but they give absolutely no fucks about Mystique's bisexuality and Destiny's very existence being erased. I've seen so much fucking Azazel/Mystique/Kurt fanart, but I don't even see much of Destiny even in COMICS fanart.

I get that it's an AU, it's not the comics, but it just leaves such a bad taste of hypocrisy in my mouth considering how tumblr X-fandom AS A WHOLE flipped out about Erik and Charles having relationships with Magda and Moira instead of each other in DOFP , even though they had relationships with those women in canon and, despite all subtext, have never been confirmed as a canon same-sex couple like Mystique and Destiny have. But people were ready to go to WAR for them. But two women who are a CONFIRMED CANON QUEER COUPLE? Who cares, right? Seriously, if it's not hot young cis white men, NO ONE CARES, even when it's a case of a REAL CONFIRMED CANON queer character (two, in fact!) being erased in the films. They had a lifelong relationship together, they raised a child together, they have all these affectionate moments...there is so much Mystique and Destiny stuff in canon, and Claremont WANTED to put in more and wasn't allowed.

And now that we're in a time period where that could be allowed, I think it's a fucking TRAVESTY that this wasn't put in the movies to make up for what wasn't let into the comics, to finally let them be “out” while Destiny was still alive. But it's even bigger travesty to me that tumblr not only ignores this, it endorses the heterosexual ship that replaces it, and then pats itself on the back for being “progressive” when it comes to shipping two DUDES (especially if they can shit on women in the process---there was a LOT of bashing Moira and Magda both in fandom when DOFP came out). Seriously, I swear the reason some people are into slash is just because there's not any EW GROSS GIRLS in it.

Sorry I had to get salty but this really bothers me. Mystique's bisexual and had a lifelong relationship with another woman in which they raised a child together and the movies not only erase that, movie fandom just accepts it while patting themselves on the back about being progressive because they have fanon m/m ships.