I almost choked when I heard it. I use captions, so I could see I hadn't imagined it, and I was in absolute shock. I repeated "DANIEL?" in disbelief about 10 times, my hand on my mouth and my eyes wide. I looked at my husband to confirm I wasn't going insane. Then I stared into space for the rest of the episode.
X-Men '97 using Forge's real name was the last thing I expected. And the way they did it, too, so casually, in conversation. I'D BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR 30 YEARS.
You might think it's a small thing, but before X-Men '97 episode 10, so before yesterday, Forge didn't have a real name. He was introduced in 1984. Let that sink in: that's 40 years without a single Marvel writer bothering to give him a name.
The fans (myself included) came up with headcanon to justify the decision and sometimes made up names for him in fanfic, but no Marvel writer took the time to explain or rectify.
This was frankly insulting of them, especially when you consider Forge's constant presence in the comics, and the ridiculous number of names some other characters have. Also, and perhaps most importantly, Chris Claremont had already planned a name for him:
All Marvel needed to do was use this name to make it canon. Or perhaps ask Claremont if they could use it. (And if they didn't want to speak to Claremont, they could still just...make up another name. You know, that thing writers do all the time.) But no, even after the name was announced on Twitter, it still was never used, on panel or elsewhere.
Enter a simple piece of dialogue in X-Men '97, and boom, Forge has a name. It wasn't that difficult, was it? Such a small move, but it shook me like a bomb. It's a historic moment for the character, and for the people who love him as much as I do. It's like he was finally given the basic dignity he deserves.
I had imagined all sorts of scenarios in which his name would be revealed - all quite dramatic or emotional. But I guess the best way to retcon something that doesn't make sense is to pretend it never happened. So revealing his long-withheld name in conversation, natural like, is absolutely perfect. I love that Forge doesn't even react, because, you know, it's just his name, no big deal.
(I'm a bit sad that Ororo wasn't the first one to call him by his first name, but hey, you can't have it all.)
As far as I'm concerned, the name is canon now. '97 isn't the comics, but it's still Marvel, and that's good enough for me. I've waited long enough. And if the first name Claremont wrote is canon, then so is the last.
Which means: Forge has a full name. *SQUEEEEEEE*
I don't know who made the decision to use Forge's name or why, but I want to thank them. They righted a major wrong.
Now catch up, Marvel Comics. Everyone deserves a name. Even the monkey wrench repairman with non-flashy powers.
For Sexual Sunday, what special tricks does Forge have in bed?
"Absolutely none of your business."
[He can discharge an electrical current from the fingers of his prosthetic hand with very low ampage. Not causing any pain at all, it hyperstimulates the surrounding nerve endings when he uses his fingers in certain places...]
When there's no reaction from the blonde Forge visibly relaxes, exhaling a breath that he hadn't been aware he'd been holding in. He was being foolish, but past experience had taught him he could never be too careful when it came to Raven.
Reaching up to rub at his nose right where someone had broken it, the slight twinge of psychosomatic pain receding, he turns his gaze away from the blond and back to Sandra, her joke helping to ease his tension.
"I'm surprised this place is still standing." He responds wryly, shooting a wry grin at her. Building a personal energy shield would probably be a bit overkill for a bartender, but if she was exposed to problem customers it would only be fair, although maybe a whole-room stun-device might be better...
Shaking his head a little he nodded gratefully at the new beer, after the scare he'd just given himself he definitely needed it. "Sure is his lucky night." He adds, with an amused nod over his shoulder, rubbing his neck to ease the tension and taking a swill of his final beer.
The cherry stem pokes past the edge of the brunette's smile, a little red baton she's manipulating with her tongue to the rhythm of the song. She's got to admit, it is catchy... and admittedly, not one she'd think would be loaded onto a jukebox in this day and age.
❝ I won't give you any folksy crap about 'we take care of our own', but we do kinda take care of our own. No one messes with us, not even - Hey, Misty! Can you take care of them, and close out this tab when he's all done? I'm gonna step away some. ❞
What the bartender was about to say is cut off as a woman in a similar t-shirt comes strolling out from the back. Sandra's quick to offer the baton to the redhead and, thankfully, the incoming redhead is quick to 'take the baton' and set up at the bar for the rowdy folk now singing, almost harmonically, in unison: 'LET ME SEE THAT THONG!'
With that headache passed along to someone else, Sandra was free to pull the half-crushed pack of menthols from her apron. ❝ God, finally... what was I saying? ❞
A single hand against the counter top, the brunette vaulted it in a single, fluid motion and landed on the other side, already in stride toward the door.
❝ Doesn't matter, I guess. M'gonna step out back and take a break. If you're not here when I get back, I guess I'll catch you next time, Maker. ❞
She smiled, something warm and worn well on her tired features, before fishing a lighter free and - Click! Drag. - stepping away.
Forge's mouth twitches in response to the lyrics, an amused look thrown at the blonde dancing with her admirers. The noise is such that he's half-distracted until the sudden flash of inhumanly quick motion, his head snapping around at that familiar sobriquet, eyes wide with shock.
His heart's hammering in his chest as he watches Sandra walk away, all the certainties of the last few months evaporating to be replaced with an all-consuming worry.
Part of him wants nothing more than to walk out the front door and not look back, pack up and get as far away from this town, from her as possible. It's what he should do, and he even gets up to to do it, but then hesitates. A niggling feeling that comes from someplace that he can't fully repress wants him to follow her, accompanied by the rationalisation that Mystique had been known to blow up buildings full of people to get her way. Would she do that here? He doubted it, but it wasn't a certainty and that was enough to make walking out the front door not really an option.
So after a minute and maybe more like two he finally turns and moves with a stiff reluctance toward the back door, leaving the raucous noise of the bar behind and stepping out into the cool night air, his nose crinkling at the smell of tobacco smoke.
"That's a dirty habit, but not as dirty as pretending to be my bartender for god knows how long." He observes, careful to close the door behind him so that no poor unfortunate wandered out and heard more than might be safe for them. Back still toward her and arched with tenseness, he lets out a long slow exhale, deliberately not looking at her but down at his feet.
"What do you want Raven?" There's always a reason when she intrudes into his life, always something she needs and a lie to cover it. As much as she changed she never really did.
Old military training had Forge noting the door open and something else entirely had him darting a couple of glances at the stunning blonde as she headed over to the jukebox. Not that he had any intention to do anything else, looking back to the bartender with a wry smile.
"Yeah seems so. Thanks Sandra, nothing you can't handle?" He'd become enough of a regular that he'd started letting his guard down slightly around her lately, offering to upgrade the bar's dishwasher and starting to talk a little rather than keep to himself, and the thought of the bar getting smashed up in a fight was enough to have him concerned for her.
But she was surely right, there were too many men eyeing the new arrival andthat tattoo just wink? Surely it was his mind playing tricks on him, unless...he stiffened abruptly, face taut with suspicion. There was someone he knew who'd had her fun with tattoos before, but surely not, surely she wouldn't be here...no it must have been his imagination...but he had to be sure, or at least try to be.
"Not very subtle are we?" He murmured under his breath, quiet enough that nobody else would hear, but confident that Raven's sharp hearing would pick it up. If it was her and he was really hoping that the tattoo winking had simply been his imagination. Degrees of paranoia was her lingering gift and something he would never entirely be free of.
❝ Please, ❞ The woman behind the bar scoffed, already working on another perfect pour of Forge's preferred poison. ❝ You should've been here when the Super Bowl got interrupted by another alien invasion. Now that was worth some backup. ❞
The glass is filled to the rim, a healthy barrier of foam settling atop the dark amber and providing the perfect little visual punctuation as she laughed and set it down before him.
Behind her, the blonde found her 'war cry' and let it ring out through the bar. The opening melody of violins called to the air, Sisqo's Thong Song immediately bringing a chuckle to Sandra's lips, and a swell of competition in the locals.
The brunette leaned down over the bar, reaching over to the garnish tray and pulling free a cherry as Miss 'Dumps like a Truck' kept the energy up, up and up.
Bright blue eyes flash and shine as they take in the auras of every single man in the bar checking their blonde host out. Including the aura of a particularly suspicious man who was whispering to 'himself'.
The gap that revealed them to each other is seized by a particularly dapper drunk in a blazer, who's quick to ask for her hand. She doesn't say 'no'. Why would she? Tonight was her night, after all.
When there's no reaction from the blonde Forge visibly relaxes, exhaling a breath that he hadn't been aware he'd been holding in. He was being foolish, but past experience had taught him he could never be too careful when it came to Raven.
Reaching up to rub at his nose right where someone had broken it, the slight twinge of psychosomatic pain receding, he turns his gaze away from the blond and back to Sandra, her joke helping to ease his tension.
"I'm surprised this place is still standing." He responds wryly, shooting a wry grin at her. Building a personal energy shield would probably be a bit overkill for a bartender, but if she was exposed to problem customers it would only be fair, although maybe a whole-room stun-device might be better...
Shaking his head a little he nodded gratefully at the new beer, after the scare he'd just given himself he definitely needed it. "Sure is his lucky night." He adds, with an amused nod over his shoulder, rubbing his neck to ease the tension and taking a swill of his final beer.
The beer in this place isn't particularly good, but Forge didn't particularly mind. He liked the old style ambience of the place and the country music that was played out of an old jukebox most nights, but live by a travelling singer ever Monday. Kearney, Nebraska wasn't a place that anyone would pick out on a map, and so he's found it a good place to lie low, set up a workshop in a suburb of the quiet town and get away from the chaotic world of the X-Men and X-Force for awhile.
Doing so had certainly helped his blood pressure, hours spent assembling devices he'd envisaged for years but never had the time to work on, almost therapeutic. With the clock ticking down toward eleven, he yawned, getting ready to call it a night and head home, a pleasant walk of several blocks in the cool night air.
The door to the bar swings open. Again, and again, people filter in and out of the place in a slow stream as the night plods on. Another 'easy shift' for the staff behind the bar, as it was shaping up to be just like any other night.
Soft clinking of a glass being pulled from a chiller, the bartender looks like she's getting ready to ask the man at her bar if he wants another. Then the door to the bar swings open again.
The entrant is a woman. Full-bodied blonde hair, half down in elegant curls. She scans the insides for a moment, before her eyes light up, and she makes her way toward the bar proper... and then past it, with a giggle, toward the jukebox.
Hands on the sides of the well-worn machine, she bent over to scroll through the selections. Lifting the ends of her dark blue jacket to reveal the very edges of a blue-scaled mermaid tattoo. Winking at whomever might've caught her eye.
The bartender cleared her throat, adjusting her glasses with her free hand and holding up the empty glass she'd procured with the other.
❝ One for the road? Figure it's about to get lively in here. ❞
Old military training had Forge noting the door open and something else entirely had him darting a couple of glances at the stunning blonde as she headed over to the jukebox. Not that he had any intention to do anything else, looking back to the bartender with a wry smile.
"Yeah seems so. Thanks Sandra, nothing you can't handle?" He'd become enough of a regular that he'd started letting his guard down slightly around her lately, offering to upgrade the bar's dishwasher and starting to talk a little rather than keep to himself, and the thought of the bar getting smashed up in a fight was enough to have him concerned for her.
But she was surely right, there were too many men eyeing the new arrival andthat tattoo just wink? Surely it was his mind playing tricks on him, unless...he stiffened abruptly, face taut with suspicion. There was someone he knew who'd had her fun with tattoos before, but surely not, surely she wouldn't be here...no it must have been his imagination...but he had to be sure, or at least try to be.
"Not very subtle are we?" He murmured under his breath, quiet enough that nobody else would hear, but confident that Raven's sharp hearing would pick it up. If it was her and he was really hoping that the tattoo winking had simply been his imagination. Degrees of paranoia was her lingering gift and something he would never entirely be free of.
The beer in this place isn't particularly good, but Forge didn't particularly mind. He liked the old style ambience of the place and the country music that was played out of an old jukebox most nights, but live by a travelling singer ever Monday. Kearney, Nebraska wasn't a place that anyone would pick out on a map, and so he's found it a good place to lie low, set up a workshop in a suburb of the quiet town and get away from the chaotic world of the X-Men and X-Force for awhile.
Doing so had certainly helped his blood pressure, hours spent assembling devices he'd envisaged for years but never had the time to work on, almost therapeutic. With the clock ticking down toward eleven, he yawned, getting ready to call it a night and head home, a pleasant walk of several blocks in the cool night air.
BOLD what your muse can do. italicize what they can do to some extent.
bake a cake from scratch | ride a horse | drive a submarine | speak a second language | dance | catch a fish | play an instrument | throw a punch | build a deck | ice skate | roller skate | unclog a drain | program a computer | change a flat tire | fire a gun | sew | juggle | play poker | paint | fly a kite | sculpt | write poetry | change a diaper | sing | shoot a bow and arrow | ride a bike | swim | sail a boat | do a back flip | play chess | give cpr | pitch a tent | flirt | stitch a wound | read palms | use chopsticks | write in cursive | use an electrical drill | braid hair | make a campfire | make a mixed drink | do sudoku puzzles | wrap a gift | give a good massage | jump start a car | roll their tongue | magic tricks | do yoga | tie a tie | skip a rock | shuffle a deck of cards | read morse code | pick a lock
KILLED SOMEONE UNDER ORDERS | HAD SOMEONE KILLED ON THEIR ORDERS | KILLED SOMEONE IN SELF DEFENCE | SPARED SOMEONE’S LIFE | Invented Something | Been Hungover | KISSED SOMEONE | SLOW-DANCED | Been In A Long-Term Relationship | HAD SEX | HAD SEX AND REGRETTED IT | HAD A ONE-NIGHT STAND | HAD A THREESOME | EXPERIMENTED WITH THEIR SEXUALITY | HAD A KID | Adopted A Kid | Wanted To Have A Family With Someone | DONE SOMETHING ON IMPULSE THEY REGRETTED | GONE TRAVELING | HAD A BOUNTY PUT ON THEM | Eaten An Insect | BEEN GROPED BY A STRANGER | Been Groped By Someone They Know | BEEN DUMPED | DUMPED SOMEONE | SMOKED | gotten high | FLIRTED WITH SOMEONE TO GET FREE DRINKS | PUT SOMEONE IN A HEADLOCK | WON A BET | LOST A BET | FORGIVEN SOMEONE WHO WRONGED THEM | INDULGED IN PETTY REVENGE | Hallucinated | Has A Noticeable Physical Defect | Gotten A Noticeable Scar | Been Permanently Disfigured Through Injury | KNEED SOMEONE IN THE GROIN | HAD AN UNATTAINABLE CRUSH | LAUGHED THEMSELVES TO THE POINT OF TEARS | BEEN KIDNAPPED | Been Brainwashed/Hypnotised | HAD A RECURRING NIGHTMARE | BEEN BULLIED | Bullied Someone | EXPERIENCED SURVIVOR’S GUILT | BEEN TIED/CHAINED UP | Given Someone A Massage | Received A Massage | BEEN BACKED UP AGAINST A WALL | SHOT SOMEONE | STABBED SOMEONE | SAVED SOMEONE’S LIFE | CHEATED ON SOMEONE | Been Cheated On | BEEN IN AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP | HAD A FRIENDSHIP WITH BENEFITS | Been In A Queerplatonic Relationship | Had A Stalker | BEEN BETRAYED | BEEN A TRAITOR | Been Possessed | BEEN IN A BAR FIGHT | BEEN THROWN OUT OF A BAR | BEEN ARRESTED | BROKEN OUT OF JAIL | BEEN TO A FUNERAL | Been To A Brothel | Had Surgery | BROKEN SOMEONE’S TRUST | BROKEN SOMEONE’S HEART | HAD THEIR HEART BROKEN | Broken/Damaged Something Out Of Anger | BROKEN/DAMAGED SOMETHING OUT OF SPITE | Gotten A Piercing | Gotten A Tattoo | USED A FAKE NAME | BEEN BEATEN UP | BEEN TORTURED/TORTURED OTHERS | BEEN ABUSED | Been Blackmailed | GOTTEN AWAY WITH A CRIME | FRAMED SOMEONE ELSE FOR A CRIME THEY COMMITTED | SHARED A BED PLATONICALLY | BEEN IN LOVE | Suffered From Sleep Paralysis | BEEN FORCED TO FLEE THEIR HOME | LEARNED A NEW LANGUAGE | JOINED A REBELLION | FOUGHT ON THE LOSING SIDE OF A WAR | FOUGHT ON THE WINNING SIDE OF A WAR | Become A Godparent | BECOME AN AUNT/UNCLE
𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘: @acertainfemininemystique
𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆: @sebastianshaw and anyone else who wants to
He can’t help but blush at that very sexy little smirk, but he covers it by helping her to her feet and leading the way out of the bar. Once outside and away from the gazes of any co-workers some of his anxiety fades and he half-wonders if he should let go of her hand, but screw it, it felt nice.
“My place is five minutes away on foot, or I could call a cab?”
He can’t help but blush at that very sexy little smirk, but he covers it by helping her to her feet and leading the way out of the bar. Once outside and away from the gazes of any co-workers some of his anxiety fades and he half-wonders if he should let go of her hand, but screw it, it felt nice.
“My place is five minutes away on foot, or I could call a cab?”
“Right...” He blinks and tries not to look chagrined because that makes absolutely perfect sense. He’s really not cut out for cloak and dagger work. But her mischievous grin and suggestion are enough to embolden him.
“In which case may I?” Rising to leave, he offers her his hand, pushing down any nerves to give her a charming smile in return.
“Right...” He blinks and tries not to look chagrined because that makes absolutely perfect sense. He’s really not cut out for cloak and dagger work. But her mischievous grin and suggestion are enough to embolden him.
“In which case may I?” Rising to leave, he offers her his hand, pushing down any nerves to give her a charming smile in return.
She’s pleased and so he is too, his heart turning his nerves to butterflies at the touch of her hand on his, her intent gaze all the encouragement he needs to tout his work. “Well I’ve made a camera baffler, it’ll loop security cameras within a two hundred foot radius and also a mutant scan blocker, which will make you appear human to that scanner Trask built. They’re in my workshop at home if you want to take a look.”
It’s only then that he realises he’s just accidentally invited her to his home, his blush intensifying as he mumbles a nervous, “I mean that’s just where they are...” Ok, he’s going to stop talking now.
HER EYES widen . it's a gadget that could be a game changer . usually she has to do that manually , and it takes ages . well - - - ' ages ' is maybe a bit of an exaggeration . she's gotten far better at it , over the years , but it's still moments where she risks getting caught . this eliminates that opening .
❝ is it ready now ? ❞ she asks , clearly eager . she can tell that the fact that he's just invited her over to his home has left him somewhat embarrassed , but she has the grace to gloss over it .
“Yeah, I tested it a couple of weeks ago.” In retrospect walking up to a government building with a mutant detector built into the security gate had not been a brilliant idea, but he’d been too absorbed in scientific curiosity to remember to be nervous.
But he is nervous now, particularly as he catches sight of a couple of colleagues eyeing him and Raven, the typically taciturn inventor rarely being seen with anyone, let alone a beautiful woman. “I uh should we leave together?”
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