your hands are stained
with the blood of kings and gods.
everything you touch turns to ash
and fades away.
you are left only with yourself.
everyone else is gone,
by your hand or their own.
you wander through the stars
in search of yourself.
you create and destroy.
you bring life and end it. you find pieces of yourself
underneath rocks on far-off worlds,
( places you've never been,
yet feel like home, because you have
none to call your own. )
Irene found this new technical world much different than what she was used to, of course being the person she was she migrated toward other mutants. She knew that’s where she’d be as she made her way Genosha. She knew most of her kind were still hunted and all these new things where implement, her visions had shown her so. She most definitely wouldn’t let anyone catch her especially with what her powers could do and predict. She took a moment to sit on the edge of an open stoop. “You wouldn’t be able to point a blind woman towards some food would you?” she asked the person walking right in front of her.
i r e n e a d l e r .
mystique has been stalking . . . watching her from afar, trailing after her in one form or another. shifting from person to bird to sewage rat to alley cat — anything to stalk and prowl the woman she once called her LOVE.
the woman who betrayed her.
the woman who ruined everything to which raven darkholme devoted her entire livelihood.
— for every trial and tribulation mystique became a HUNGRY GHOST, a shell of the person she’d once been, clawing her way to the betterment of mutantkind through ─── whatever deluded plan she’d concocted this time. and yet for an individual who’d overcome over two centuries worth of wars, who’d endured famine and plague, witch hunts and hate crimes, NOTHING ever seemed to break her as much as IRENE ADLER : first in her death, and then in the legacy of BETRAYAL that was left in its wake.
❝ i should let you starve, ❞ her words are sharp, bitter, breathed though the mouth of a middle-aged wall street worker whose listless body she’d deposited in a dumpster three blocks back.
she strides forward now, teeth bared, eyes narrowed ( her destiny ) . ❝ ─── i should kill you again, ❞ ( but i spent my entire life thereafter trying to bring you back ). ❝ right where you stand. ❞ ( but i won’t. ) ❝ you deserve it. ❞ ( but i can’t. )
❝ ───── what are you doing here, irene? ❞
( please don’t leave me again. i need you. )
🎬 for me to use a line from the last movie I watched as a starter
📹 for me to use a line from my favorite movie as a starter
📚 for me to grab the book nearest to me, flip to a random page, and use the first line of dialogue I see as a starter
🎧 for me to shuffle my playlist and use the first line of the next song as a starter
🎶 for me to use my favorite line of the last song I listened to as a starter
📺 for me to use a line from the last TV show I watched as a starter
💻 for me to use a line from my favorite TV show as a starter
🎵for me to shuffle my playlist and use my favorite line of the next song as a starter
😊 for me to make a starter based off the first thing in your wanted plots tag
😉 for me to make a starter based off the first thing in my wanted plots tag
💋 for a shippy starter
😡 for an angsty starter
👊 for an argument/fight starter
🌈 for a random encounter starter
🏩 for a nsfw starter
📫 for a text message starter
💀 for a dark starter
🍬 for a fluffy starter
✕ — wasn’t that raven darkholme wandering the streets of new york, 1973? civilians know them as mystique and see them as a villain. as far as i know, the one hundred and fifty+ year old stands with the x-men (sometimes), and are rumoured to be pretty deceptive & misanthropic. ( julianne moore / gender-fluid / typically she/her )
hey everyone, i’m sophia!! i’m trash and neglected the intros for all my babies soooo i’m finally getting to them now!! anyways, i’m super excited to be here at 1973hq & i hope we can all be good friends!! <3 sooo. more about my first baby aka my murder!baby under the cut
LEVEL 1: INTRODUCTORY INFORMATION ABOUT MY MYSTIQUE //
im not even gonna touch the mceu version of mystique ok thx
therefore shes gonna be combination of comics mystique and a bunch of my own headcanons — soooo
LEVEL 2: SURFACE LEVEL MYSTIQUE — THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY //
( skip this part if youre familiar with the mcu its basically a shortened version of her bio )
the binch is oLD ok??/ old af. probably several centuries old. i’d say 200 years old at minimum but its never really been disclosed
don’t even get me started on wtf i think happened to her to fight just to survive at age 12 when her mutation kicked in bcus,,, yike
her entire life has been characterized by betrayals. whether it be mystique betraying someone else (most likely) or her being betrayed by someone else (in the case of destiny)
her n destiny met in the early 20th century. destiny asked her to help decode her prophecies and to stop the terrifying ones from being fulfilled. they fell in Luv. they are partners. gay ass partners. (the original idea for mystique n destiny was for nightcrawler to be their canon kid. via mystique in a males body. but this was retconned bcus of homophobia thx but i’d personally love this hc if we get a kurt & it’s ok w/ them anyway )
anyway after ww2 she met sabertooth n had her first (canonically recorded) kid, graydon. who. lo n behold, she abandoned.
that’ll be a trend, fyi, better watch out for that
but graydon turned out to be a mutant hating human so thats fun
then mystique from our time went back in time in attempt to assassinate graydon (which doesnt, in the end, work),,,, also fun
then she gets married to a wealthy german count,,, uses her power to start seducing other people, when she meets azael who manipulates and seduces her. has nightcrawler via azael ,, its cool
raven murdered her husband and was then regarded by her townsfolk n as a demon. she escaped but abandoned kurt,,, also cool
she adopts raven then. and actually genuinely loves her. (more on this in the next section)
she founds the 3rd version of the brotherhood n they do more terrorist shit good job mystique #magnetowasright
sike mystique betrayed magneto and turned him into the government, turned the brotherhood into the freedom force, n started working for the gov. working for freedom force is when destiny died and that triggered one of mystiques many breakdowns (also more on this below)
she was v depressed at this time and taken advantage of by the shadow king. raven let herself be brainwashed by the government into thinking she was her own government handler to take down the shadow king. didnt work. he torments her the rest of her life. yike.
she had nanotech put into her head so the government could force her to work for x-factor, while with them she finds out destiny during their partnership had other partners and kids she didnt know about and one was a mutant
graydon has this mutant savagely beaten. before mystique can kill graydon for this, hs followers kill him n turn him into a martyr. super fun. cue operation zero tolerance.
mystique went undercover as the senators wife for a while n used her connections to the fbi to do shadier shit
she then ran away and took some random chicks form and became a model and made a ton of cash — u go girl
except this kinda sucked for her because she moved into a penthouse suite which in the neighbouring building had skulls plotting to take down mankind. they framed her for a murder, her powers stopped working, n she was arrested
the government eased all her alternate identities and froze all her assets and access to the money she and destiny saved up for decades. cue another mental breakdown
then she finds out destiny was responsible for founding the anti-mutant conspiracy mystique spent her whole life trying to stop, and that destiny also didnt give medical attention to mutant kids who were deformed from their mutations
long story short she has an even worse breakdown n goes completely nihilistic, realizing she cant change the world for the better, she remakes the brotherhood and impersonates moira mctaggert to get her research on the legacy virus
a bunch more shit happens with raven ending up in the care of homeland security. xavier makes a deal with her and breaks her out. everyont thought she tried to kill xavier,,, when she didnt actually,,, because xaviers a shady fuck,,, but oh well. rogue disowns her for it. leads to another mental breakdown.
because of this she decides fuq u xavier and creates a mutant kid identity for herself known as foxx and joins the xmen to stop rogue and remy’s relationship
she helped the x-men during this time n also helped save rogue’s life via the messiah baby. but once again her intentions are misconstrued
she snaps again and impersonates bobby drake’s girlfriend & gets the poor boy hospitalized
norman osborn then recruited her to the dark x-men, injected her with nanites, then helped logans soul to hell, but then changed her mind and helped get him back. when he got back tho he uh. well. killed her. her and sabretooth were both resurrected by the hand (more on this later)
mystique then rejoined the brotherhood, impersonated alison, and took her place as mutant liaison for shield, harvesting her DNA to make MGH (mutant growth hormone)
LEVEL 2.5: MYSTIQUE’S PLACE IN THIS VERSE
i imagine she went back in time to 1973 under the guise of helping people & being “reformed” but in reality she was also doing shady mystique shit on the side and probably trying to tie up some loose ends, whether it be with graydon, the shadow king, destiny, or someone else. or probably a combination
anyways now shes staying w/ the x-men part time and playing Good Girl for now. she wants to show everyone that shes reformed n better n just wants to do things for the betterment of mutant kind. wants 2 get their trust too
shes pretty. level headed right now i’d say. betsy braddock helped her during one of her mental breakdowns by telepathically realigning her fragmented psyche — she’s still mystique n still awful but not as chaotic anymore. and less prone to attack rogue or other people aimlessly. it’s much more goal oriented now.
LEVEL 3: MYSTIQUES PSYCHE //
ok so she identifies as gender fluid bcus she shape shifts forms but also because i imagine shes so sick of having sexualized herself all these decades to get what she wants that shes just fed up with gender norms and thinks theyre bullshit. she’s fine to go by she/her pronouns but she doesnt really identify as a specific gender in my head
she drinks but mostly absinthe and only w/ people she trusts. along those lines it’s similar for drugs but she loves a good high and a good hallucination
she has bouts of psychosis that her wiki defines as schizophrenia. it manifests in much more anger and aggression. hallucinations. delusions — especially presecutory and grandiose delusions — lack of pleasure (hence the nihilism), social withdrawal, and poverty of speech. her sense of identity becomes so fractured that she cant keep herself consistently in one body without it taking all of her concentration — and sometimes that isn’t even enough. she gets lots of mood and cognitive changes during these episodes — and completely loses her sense of self
despite her grandiose ego she’s actually very self conscious and refuses to look in a mirror. actually she’s scared of her appearance. she cant look at herself normally in fear of seeing a monster look back
this is also the reason she was so easily deceived by azael. he looked like a monster, too, and embraced her for how she is. he didnt make her change to fit another appearance that couldve been “more beautiful”
lastly, her motives for doing things??? are always for the betterment of mutantkind. over time this got very skewed and her belief became that the only way for mutants to actually live is for all humans to die. shes a terrorist through and through, but she loves mutants. she just has a personal vendetta against the x-men that’s grown over the years — her constantly being betrayed by people during her episodes of psychosis and the x-men never actually believing the real story (but also like. why would they??? shes often so awful too)
shes attempted suicide canonically in the past. she loses control of herself. it’s also heavily implied she’s been assaulted in the past. anyways shes a sad baby too
— so thats about it for my murder baby! yike this got a lot longer than i expected it to but anyways i cant wait to write her with all of you!! <3
「 THE MEME FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE HAPPINESS. ⋮ @mcgck. 」⋮
「 31 → your muse talks my muse out of committing suicide. 」⋮
❝ ── you don’t know what you’re talking about. ❞
her tone is cold, callous, perhaps even impassive. nothing gives way to the underlying storm of emotions, a HUNGRY BEAST gnawing at the very fragments of her soul — taking, devouring — nothing gives way except, perhaps, the gun to her head, hilt clutched with trembling fingertips.
who is raven darkholme today? who’s to say? not herself. she knows that for certain because she can, for once, bring herself to peer into the reflective surface of the bathroom MIRROR. and it is not an abyss of yellow that stares back, nor even the royal blue skin for which she’d become notorious ── no.
today, mystique is trapped in a body unlike her own. young. sixteen, seventeen at most, an adolescent girl with pallid skin and hollowed eyes, rickety hands clutching to her handgun like it could, ironically, save her life ────yet her mind screams to END IT.
she isn’t herself. this body isn’t her own. this mind isn’t her own. but her hold on reality slips, like the frigid sink water, through her fingertips and cascades DOWN. droplets of this aqua — whether tap water still or her own tears, mystique does not know — plummet to the bathroom floor, dropping like wingless angels on their cruel descent from heaven to HELL.
her gaze shifts to magik now. illyana rasputina. a name for herself to cling to. memories of another time. a better time. before she became this — a fractured, fragmented CHAOS of a creature. and still she wants to beg, PLEAD ── anything to stop the pain — this pain — because her body, of its own accord, is changing.
and suddenly she’s no longer some scrawny adolescent but illyana herself. it’s a momentary reprieve until she’s shifting again. a middle-aged man, balded by stress. again. a renown, algerian princess. again. a one legged prisoner of war.
again.
again.
again.
until she’s unravelling. spiralling. ( she wants irene. she wants irene but irene is gone and she will never, ever have her again. she wants anna. but anna doesn’t want her, does she? does she? she wants logan. but logan abandoned her in the desert with a gun and told her she knows what to do with it ── )
and she does. still cycling through forms, never settling on one, raven darkholme pulls the trigger.
B A N G !
and yet her body saves her. instinctively shifted thicker skin to stunt the bullet in its trajectory. not dead. not dead. not dead. ── but, oh, how she wants to be. how she wishes she could be.
❝ ────── just let me END IT! ❞
her voice is shrill, yet mangled by a gaggle of blood trailing down her visage, UNYIELDING in its flow towards her mouth, staining teeth crimson and pooling down her throat ── mystique chokes, sputters and swallows, on her knees she weeps a BLOODIED SONG of mourning ── for herself, for those she cares about, for a mind she can never really call her own, not ever again. TAINTED, just as her hands stained with blood, so too, her mind will never be the same.
❝ ────────── w-walk — away, ras—putina — this— is for— the best — ❞
teetering on the verge of consciousness now, mystique curls up on herself, once again in that FETAL POSITION ever reminiscent of when azael broke her spirit — trapped her mind in her own, personal hell, forced to relive every shift, every change, every body she’d inhabited that wasn’t hers to take and yet she took — she ALWAYS takes. and now —? that hell isn’t just a figment of magic or manipulation but real — and mystique knows even if she survives this — there will always be that part of her that never would have wanted to.
and perhaps thats why trembling, bloodied fingers coil around her gun once more — this time pressing the gaping hole to the underside of her chin, index finger wraps, in second nature, around the trigger. around her, the room sways, a SCARLETT RAIN continues to spew from one temple. she’ll be DEAD within moments, anyway. it’s for the best. it’s for the best.
( the only way to stop a monster, is to kill a monster, isn’t it? )
I’ll use a random number generator and respond to…
1. Your character walking in on mine naked.
2. Your character walking in on mine on the toilet.
3. Your character walking in on mine having a tea party with stuffed animals.
4. Your character walking in on mine in the shower.
5. Your character walking in on mine waking from a nightmare.
6. Your character walking in on mine kissing a stranger.
7. Your character walking in on mine making a shady transaction.
8. Your character walking in on mine in a revealing costume.
9. Your character walking in on mine in bed with someone.
10. Your character walking in on mine being attacked by a masked assailant.
11. Your character walking in on mine waiting in bed for them.
12. Your character walking in on mine singing at the top of their lungs.
13. Your character walking in on mine watching pornography.
14. Your character walking in on mine in the middle of a mental breakdown.
15. Your character walking in on mine piss drunk.
16. Your character walking in on mine having a heart attack.
17. Your character walking in on mine having an embarrassing fall.
18. Your character walking in on mine throwing up.
19. Your character walking in on mine masturbating.
20. Your character walking in on mine… [mun’s choice]
The “locked in a room” trope forces characters to spend time together, often characters who normally wouldn’t. It can help them learn about each other and develop their relationship in a positive way, or it can be disastrous. Feel free to add more! Send one for our muses:
♬ : stuck in an elevator together
✎ : trapped in a room together during a quarantine
✘ : in a waiting room while they have loved ones in surgery
♢ : alone in a train car when the train gets delayed
♕ : adrift in a life raft
☾ : sitting next to each other on an international flight
✂ : stranded by a roadside together
☀ : sharing a jail cell
☂ : stuck in a basement after an earthquake
☮ : sharing a run away hot air balloon
❤ : locked in a closet by a friend who just wants them to get along (or possibly hook up)
₪ : touring an historical (possibly haunted) building, and they get locked in overnight
☹ : on a bridge; traffic has stopped completely due to an accident, and nobody’s going anywhere for a few hours.
Δ : stuck on a roof together
♒ : trapped by a spell or supernatural object (bonus points if you specify what the spell/curse is)
ஐ : pretending to be married because this quaint old couple’s bed and breakfast is the only shelter for miles, they only have one room, and they’re a bit old fashioned.
♘ : sharing a hospital room
✿ : stuck in a spaceship escape pod together
☢ : on a deserted island
❂ : in a bunker after the apocalypse
THE HOPE SERUM. a medical innovation whose marvel rivals perhaps even the mutant growth hormone. and the discovery of such a drug —? well. doesn’t that just leave raven darkholme with myriad options now? and even more still. genosha issued for themselves their own kill contract : with mystique now tasked to amass ( and destroy —— but that’s an irrelevant bit of information ) as much of the hope serum as possible, well. the excitement is palpable. a new way to ERADICATE the x-men — de-power them. then. destroy them. what’s best? they provided her with the perfect cover. raven darkholme playing hero. because raven, since her journey to 1973, has since become the manifestation of REFORM ─── that’s art. so she has no qualms, with her recently bestowed x-men status, to parade as herself down the decaying alleys of westchester, new york, citrine hues on the prowl for anyone with any information concerning the hope serum.
in one swift, decisive gesture she halts herself before the next passerby she recognizes ( whether they recognize her, however, is another query entirely ), arms folding across her chest, head tilted, brow arched.
❝ ─── have you seen this?! ❞ there’s a growl caught deep in her throat, almost feral, the embodiment of an insatiable wrath she truly does feel about the nature of the hope serum, as one manicured, azure finger JABS into a picture of the auspicious hope serum.
❝ ────── so much for mutant rights now. a serum to stunt mutant powers? it must be destroyed. any information you can provide me of the serum -- its composition, its location, its distributors -- will help mutants all around the world. ❞ she allows her facial features to soften then, the slightest facade of CONCERN etching in her features as she breathes out a ❝ please. ❞
