cyclops' empty nest syndrome.

23. he/him. queer trans guy. I'm VERY normal about Scott Summers (1061 read appearances and counting).

[manicpixiemeatboy]

Finally got around to remaking my Tumblr!

I have been meaning to make one for a few months now to archive my art on a site with an actual tagging system, and I finally got around to it! I will try to post an older art I still can stand to look at least once a day. :) @_sadmeat on twt btw.

[knightlessconviction]

Fall in love with a god NOW

[crowpunkco]

[ID in alt - source post]

[pink-darkboy]

judas is no less holy than jesus; he needed to sacrifice the man he loved so that the world might be saved. his betrayal was an act of g-d. (x)

[ambrozians-deactivated20250909]

scott and ororo on being one.

sources: self recognition through the other / x-men (2019) #17 / wikipedia / x-men unlimited (1993) #1 / mabel: matroyashka by becca de la rosa & mabel martin / house of x (2019) #5 / uncanny x-men (1963) #154 / fatima aamer bilal

[ffverr]

Ok so let me add my two cents to this and say how it isn't a good reference to Ororo and Scott's dual or history.

To do that I'll also compare McKay's reference in Avengers (2024) #18, which is a just the proliferation of a fanon cliché at best, with Hickman's reference in House of X and Powers of X, which actually understands the context of the source material.

Storm and Scott's dual in issue #201 of Uncanny X-Men happens in a very specific context that both modern writers and fanon either forgot, don't know or misinterpreted it over time.

I-The necessary context:

Jean grey dies

Scott is deeply hurt by that

Over something like a dozen issues he decided to actually leave the X-Men as he doesn't feel up for it anymore.

The leadership of the team is naturally passed down to Storm that has always acted as a second in command to Scott. He often asked her opinion on plans and she often found last resort solutions when he was backed up against a corner.

On his "hiatus", Scott meets Madelyne Pryor. They fall in love, get married and Maddy is pregnant with a child as we learn when they reappear on the team in the mini: Alpha flight Vs X-Men.

Storm acts as leader of the team but goes through many changes, like losing her powers, which rattles her to her core and gives her some insecurities about her place in the X-Men and as a leader.

An Asgard adventure tells the story of Storm and the new mutants getting kidnapped by Loki.

This emergency makes the rest of the X-Men call Scott back to the team's leadership for a rescue mission.

Madelyne is brought to Westchester to wait for the return of her husband.

After the X-Men's comeback from Asgard, The trial of Magneto is happening in Paris, where they are attacked by evil Mutants. They're immediately teleported to that emergency.

Charles Xavier almost dies, but is at the last minute rescued by the Star Jammers and his love interest Lilandra in order to get emergency care.

Charles is stranded in space, and no X-Men knows if he's even alive

This hurts Cyclops enormously.

During this long absence on the X-Men, Madelyne gives birth to their child, Nathan, alone at xavier's mansion as Scott is gone fulfilling his momentary duty.

After their return, Madelyne feels like this huge absence from Scott and his half frequent comebacks to the team is making her lose him bit by bit.

So, with Charle's status as presumed dead, Scott, very paranoid and depressed, does the only thing he sees fits at the moment. Come back as leader because the team needs him without Charles around. This is Scott's pathetic attempt at regression to familiarity as Charles being dead and him becoming a father is a COMPLETELY new and very scary situation he's not sure to handle.

Becoming a leader again is a delusional idea considering he has pledged his presence and loyalty to his wife and newborn, in ALASKA, and Storm is already leader of the team.

Madelyne, with her insecurity over her husband's presence in their family, begs Storm to challenge him in a duel in order to banish the thought of leadership from Scott's head.

II- THE MISCONCEPTION ABOUT THE DUEL:

Storm didn't initiate it! She did not challenge Scott because she thinks she's a better leader than him or because she wanted to prove herself or gain the leadership for the first time.

She was ALREADY leader and completely agreed with Madelyne that Scott had to stick to his new family and responsibility as a father and husband.

Thus, she complies with Madelyne's request and beats Scott in a duel for leadership.

#201 Uncanny X-Men

He snaps out of his delusional state ( in which he couldn't even bring himself to communicate with Madelyne or be happy about the birth of his kid). He feels completely lost and dejected and comes back to his family. His relationship with Madelyne becomes distant and strained.(This plot continues in X-Factor).

Storm continues being leader of the X-Men and goes through her own hardships and journey for self determination.

So, no. Mackay's vision as this moment in time being "Storm can't go back to being under Scott's leadership because she's better than him or too cool to be a part of an X-Men team she doesn't lead" is utter bullshit.

III-Text, meta and fanon:

This fanon vision of the duel and later history between the characters just further carves the drift between storm and her friends that is already prevalent because of how many writers like to dehumanise Ororo as a character and limit her personal relationships to the X-Men to a maximum.

Her and Scott have a deep friendship built out of mutual respect and their shared grief over Jean's passing.

God loves, man kills

She doesn't believe that her and Scott "can't go back to getting orders from one another" that's just a misconception....

The truth is, neither one or the other would mind taking orders from each other considering they work insanely well as co-leaders. (As they did during their time on the team as leader and second in command from #94 to Scott leaving the team)

The Meta problem :

The issue, of course, is meta-textual, and shouldn't be baked into the text.

Storm hasn't "outgrown" being on an X-Men team or being submitted to hierarchy. This is just mixing up meta textual and text.

Yes, as a character, Storm deserves to be pushed forward as a leader. It's a spot that suits her and puts her in a very interesting head space. It would be unfortunate for FANS and for the journey of the character to keep her subordinated to other leaders.

HOWEVER this isn't a feeling she has in comics. That just makes her relationship with Scott more bitter when in actuality, there is none of that.

Not to say they both don't enjoy a little fun teasing competition as "who's the best leader?" But it isn't that deep. It's not something they actually querelle about.

McKay's reference just feeds into the misconceptions about them and it sucks because they love working together! And this vision of their relationship just puts a useless drift between them that would, in the long run, take away their interactions from us.

IV-Hickman:

Hickman's reference though is quite good! Not perfect, but it holds an overall good understanding of that spot in their relationship. (And their friendship in general)

In hoxpox Scott says "Once, I thought I was strong -- a leader of mutants. And then you showed me what strong was."

This line stays up for interpretation. But for me, it's Scott recognising that at that time, because of Jean's death and Charle's presumption of death, he wasn't in the right headspace to be a great X-Men leader. He was still dealing with a lot of codependency of Charles and jean and didn't just yet actually stand on his two feet in a way that wasn't fragile, strained and harmful for HIMSELF.

Meanwhile, Storm had lost her powers! She was going through a very very hard identity crisis. Dealing with imposter syndrome and overall depression. But that didn't completely hinder her leadership like it did Scott. She rained in her problems and handled the team the best she could.

Scott running away from his responsibilities as a father because of how complicated his bond to the team's leadership and members is, wasn't real strength. But Storm dealing with these life changing moments and still holding her ground was strength.

And that duel taught him this lesson. And that's why Hickman's reference is great. Not because Storm is an objectively better leader than Scott or whatnot, but because the two of them learned lessons about personal strength and perseverance from each other.

Storm responding with "I learned it watching you" is the cherry on the cake because she did. To a certain extent, on a tactical aspect, Scott taught her a lot about leading missions and that's undeniable.

Anyways, ted talk done.

Stan Ororo and Scott! The greatest leaders of the X-Men! Don't pit them against each other and leave their friendship feeling odd and distant for no real reasons. They'll never grow over cooperating.

[filobooster]

hi tumblr i started reading xfactor lately and that’s literally it

[hellfiregaladisaster]

[simu-ladora]

[yakichoufd]

[beidak-art]

[tromlui]

Officially gatekeeping I’m afraid

[strangeblazer]

[thottacelli]

Another aspect of the Gaza Genocide that I want to talk about is the complicity of Internet banking and crowdfunding websites like GoFundMe.

I have seen multiple Gazans raise enough money to leave for Egypt, but the banks and the crowdfunding websites freeze their money or cancel their funds for "suspicious activity" or whatever. Every day that passes in Gaza supplies get more scarce, conditions get more deadly, and the price to cross into Egypt gets more expensive. I've seen people, like ghost-90 here on Tumblr, raise the full amount to get their entire family out of Gaza, but their money gets frozen for so long that the original goal is only a fraction of the price now needed to cross the boarder.

These financial institutions should not be allowed to get away with contributing to the death toll in Gaza. They are intentionally keeping people trapped in a kill zone by withholding money that is rightfully theirs.

I'm so pissed and angry that every avenue for relief for Palestinians is being cut of left and right. It is vile that Gazans are being extorted for 10s of thousands of dollars by the Egyptian gov just to save their family's lives, but even when they play by this corrupt game, the world still finds a way to make them suffer.

My heart is with every Palestinian for the rest of time, from river to sea you will all be free. 🇵🇸❤️

[thottacelli]

Some more information from killy, the organizer of ghost-90's crowdfund, about how fucked the process is for Gazans to actually get paid out by GoFundMe.

And this is just one story from one person who had a little visibility at the time. How many funds have been frozen that no one knows about cuz they don't have any visibility? How many do we not know about cuz the recipient died while waiting for their funds to be released?

These financial institutions have blood on their hands just as much as the bastards dropping the bombs.

And for the people in the notes saying that the banks are just fallowing the law, laws that allow free transfer of money to Western countries but heavily criticizes and restricts money sent to the Middle East (or really any country that isnt part of the West) is racist and imperialist. Fallowing racist laws is still racist. But I think y'all might be understating how much power the banks have in this situation, they are choosing to fallow these "laws" of their own volition.

Don't try to cover for multi-billion dollar organizations that are directly profiting off genocide and people's desire to save their families from brutal death.

[90-ghost]

I'm glad for your help and thanks to anyone still helping 🙏❤️

[luntfontanne]

“The Bulldozer Kept Coming”: A Girl Stares Down Death in Gaza

The extraordinary story of a 14-year-old, her mother, and what happened when the Israeli military came to destroy their house.

Suddenly, we heard a loud noise. The bulldozer was coming for our house. Mom stopped and told me, “I must go out and try to stop them because we’ll die under the bulldozer. I’ll try to go out and tell them that we are civilians. If they hit me and let you all out, then you leave after me. If they hit me and continue to demolish the house, know that I tried everything I could with my last hope that you would be safe.”

I started crying. Everyone told her to stop, saying the army would kill her. At the same time, we could hear the bulldozer approaching. Mom quickly went out and stood in front of it, exactly in its path, and started telling them that there were civilians, women, elderly, and children in the house. The bulldozer kept coming.

[wellnoe]

slightly extending the scott presence in uncanny x-men annual #16

[id in ALT]

[wellnoe]

"You know, you remind me an awful lot of someone."

(id in ALT)