I know this is a tiktok trend, but I wanted to share over here too! This is Rhiannon. My X-Men OC. Sensitive topics under the cut involving drinking, abuse, and addiction. I figured this would give me a good window to talk about her backstory and whatnot. This shit LONG AND ANGSTYYY!!!! Spoilers for X-Men 97 season one. Major character death, uhh... Idk what other warnings to give...
Backstory below 🌪🌪🌪
Okay, so! The timeline for hee is kinda wacky. Bear with me. It's X-Men TAS, X-Men 97, and also Deadpool & Wolverine.
Rhiannon was born to Daryl and Lucille Hicks on July 21st, 1975, in Southshore, Kentucky. Lucille left Daryl when Rhiannon was two years old and Daryl fell into alcoholism and addiction. The owner of the local bar, Carolina, had his second child, Anessa, a year later. Daryl is very absent, but Rhiannon and Anessa play in the back room at the bar while Carolina works. She isn't motherly at all, but she's not leaving a 3 year old to take care of a baby. At least not down the street.
Daryl gets another woman pregnant, a hooker, and she leaves him with Callie when Rhiannon and Anessa are 6 and 3 respectively. Then Daryl meets an angel of a woman. Rehab nurse. Michelle. They date for a few years and get married. Daryl has really cleaned up his act, things are going well. Michelle tragically passes while giving birth to Thomas (Tommy).
Rhiannon, at thirteen, drops out and never goes to high school. Taked odd jobs for money and takes care of the kids because Daryl is drinking and using again. He is becoming physically abusive as well, and Rhiannon takes the lashings for the other kids.
She's sixteen when he tries to sell her off to the local pimp. Rhiannon panics and fights, obviously, and in that moment of stress, unleashes her mutation. Her mutation being, aerokinesis. Then in that small, poor, trailer park, she is no longer welcome. Not even as a product. People here hate mutants. Even Rhiannon feared them herself.
So she leaves home with one thing in her mind. The radio, she had heard because they didn't have a tv in the house, about some mutant school in New York somewhere. So she starts walking. And hitchhiking. She left home in May and made it to the city in August. She turns seventeen on the road.
On August 17th, she got a little hungry. So she made an attempt to pickpocket some man on the street. Unfortunately, that happened to be Scott Summers. Rhiannon ran, Scott and Jean chased after her after Jean said she felt a major disturbance from Rhiannon. They get ahold of her and ask her some questions before bringing her home to the mansion.
Rhiannon begins to train under Ororo, who she is wildly intimidated by. She's actually terrified of everyone there, including herself. She's terrified of Logan and Gambit mostly. By the time Hank is out of freaking jail, she's kinda calmed down and is mostly okay with him.
She gets really bad uncanny valley from Remy. His eyes actually scare the fuck out of her. She will not look at him. Not that she looks up anyways, her head is always hung and she's ways staring at her feet. Poor girl is terrfied.
In the episode "Days of Future Past" in the original cartoon (yes I've timelined it, you haven't?) Bishop makes his first appearance and makes claims that the downfall of the future is Gambit's fault bc he killed Senator Kelly. For those of you who havent watched it. Basically the team takes Bishop's side over Remy's with arguments like "We may not know Bishop at all, but we don't know anything about you either." And basically saying the evidence could go either way.
Remy storms out, mad as hell, Rhiannon coincidentally happens to be near the War Room and pokes her head in (the trailer park in her is nosy as hell.) And she asks what's going on and who Bishop is. And they give her the rundown on what just happened. And something deep in Rhiannon's chest just squeezed. So she kinda chewed them out for believing a stranger over someone they've shared a roof with for years, not only that, someone they literally risk their lives with every day. And Rhiannon felt like if they could just turn away from him, what stopped them from turning on her too?
All that mess from a girl who hadn't barely held a conversation with him, btw. Logan ends up teading Remy about it (since Remy had already left the room, he didn't know she had defended him.) And he's all "That's weird? She's petrified of me?" Episode concludes with Remy being innocent and it was Mystique (my opp) trying to frame him for it. Kelly was rescued, all was well. As 90s cartoons often were.
Couple weeks of Rhiannon's defense eating at his mind, Remy finally asked her why. She said she didn't know. But still, they formed a bond nonetheless. A close one. He really brought her out of her shell, and she gives him like all the credit for her finding herself.
July 4th, 1993. Rhiannon gets a call at the mansion from a very, very panicked Callie. Daryl had just pawned off Anessa to that same pimp from years ago. So Rhiannon, amidst the preparations for a 4th of July celebration at the mansion, runs off and Remy of course comes with her. Because something is really bothering his actual legitimate best friend.
He flies the jet for her, Rhiannon gives him a very angry and colorfully worded rundown on the situation while still somehow being incredibly vague. They land and she runs to her old house. Remy is chasing after her and seeing the actual poverty she used to live in, but he makes no comments. Rhiannon kicked down the door to her old trailer and is screaming to find Daryl, completely wrecking the place. Throwing things, breaking everything. A storm tore through that house. Daryl wasn't there and when she realized that, she began to sob. Remy finds her in the house and comforts her, then Callie very shyly pokes her head out from the one bedroom in the house. Rhiannon sees her, runs to her, holds her, and begs her to tell her where 1. Daryl is. And 2. Tommy is. Daryl is at the bar, Tommy is with a friend. Rhiannon tells Remy to get Callie and Tommy back to the jet and then find her when they're settled, then she bolts out the door again.
While Remy is getting her siblings, Rhiannon is beating the shit out of Daryl at the bar to tell her where Jackson (pimp) is taking Anessa. He's slinging profanities at her this entire time. Then he breaks down crying, drunk, then Remy finally finds her when she's on the brink of killing Daryl. Then Daryl starts calling her weak and whatnot and Remy has to drag her out of the bar.
They find Jackson in his usual abandoned hotel and Remy fights him to distract him while Rhiannon searches for Anessa. Rhiannon grabs Anessa and they take all three kids back to the mansion (Rhiannon didn't ask permission at all, she didn't even tell Charles they had 3 more kids, she wasn't making the request, she wasn't leaving them again.) They get settled and have a nice little independence day. Also, at this time Anessa, Callie, and Tommy are 15, 12, and 4 respectively.
Remy and the team adore these kids and are all fairly close to them (Remy being significantly closer bc he literally helped rescue them.) So as the years pass, yk, everyone is family. Happy, happy, happy. Low conflict, happy ending 90s cartoon routine.
97 happens and whatnot. I choose to believe each season of the original series was one year, and I'm pretty sure 97 works on that logic too? Since 97 is more recent and whatnot, im not explaining episode per episode. But at this point we all know Remy died in the first season.
Rhiannon, 1. Watched it happen. 2. COMPLETELY spiraled. They were CLOSE. For FIVE years. He was her first hest friend, the first person who made her feel safe enough to explore her own personality and growth. He was close to her family (Tommy legit called him dad. Kid has a freakin Cajun accent despite being born in Kentucky and raised in New York. That's how close Remy is to Rhiannon's family.) So she is naturally inconsolable. So while Anna-Marie, is out kicking Captain America around (lol,) Rhiannon is drinking herself to death, taking pills, and confined to her bed OR she occasionally wanders and passes out on Remy's actual grave. Rhiannon, naturally, gets a little left behind with everything else going on with the team.
One night she almost overdosed, passed out, hit her head on the floor. (That's what our initial art piece at the top is inspired by.) Tommy, who is nine, was the one to find her. He gets help and Rhiannon is taken to the medical bay for supervision and detox. Remember this part, folks, if you've made it this far we ARE on the homestretch.
Rhiannon does her best to get clean, bc she couldn't imagine abandoning Tommy and the near death experience kinda scared her straight. More 97 stuff happens that in not typing bc do these bitches ever catch a break? They sure can't.
Rhiannon is in her room one night when she is abducted by, take your guesses now! Survey says!! TVA!!! So she's taken by the TVA. And now you're thinking, oh she got pruned, this is where Void Gambit comes in! You're wayyy ahead of yourself. She actually escapes through and open portal and they kinda let it slide bc they don't care where she is, she's gonna die.
Except she lived, and she lives in 10005. Across the hall from Deadpool and Blind Al, funnily enough. Wade has no clue, btw. To him, she's the chick that lives across the hall and does hair. That's all. So she lives there for about 8 years. Then the events of DP&W happen. And guess who was inconveniently walking into the hall just as Wade was getting grabbed by the TVA? Survey says!!! RHIANNON! DING DING DING!!
So he's making a joke out of this. Paradox hates Rhiannon, reveals to her that she was taken bc she didn't die that night and that she was never meant to get clean or survive. Which was heartbreaking information. Wade demands she gets a new suit with him, just for shits and giggles. Paradox gives Rhiannon her old uniform, JUST to torture her! Then Wade goes on his Wolvie hunt. Y'all have seen the movie. This repeatedly traumatized Rhia because she wants to go home, like HOME home. And she just keeps hoping maybe the next timeline is hers. Newsflash! It's not. So they end up with the worst Logan. Which is also so hard for her to be around bc she misses HER Logan.
Then it all get worse when they're pruned! And then guess what? It gets WORSE! Because obviously Laira still finds the car. They obviously still meet the resistance. Then she sees that card fly through that door all slow-mo like. And she turns her back to the door. The whole time she can't look at him, she is petrified. She is like so disassociated. Then Remy's dumb fucking ass only sees the back of a pretty girl's head and he's tryna flirt with her. (That and he's trying to comprehend why he feels this tugging toward her in his chest. He doesn't know who she is, and given that he doesn't have his own timeline, he didn't know that he was SUPPOSED to know her. But since he didn't get the timeline, he didn't get his Rhia. So he don't know what he's missing, all he knows is that she fills that space.) Meanwhile, Rhiannon is legit in shock.
She has a nightmare that night, runs outside to cope, he hears her scream, followed her outside. He really just wanted to calm her down, and he was successful and they basically pinky promise to have each other's backs during the fight at Cassandra's. And they do, Rhiannon actually goes all Mortal Kombat brutality on those freaking goons.
When its over, she's still high on adrenaline so she runs to him to check for injuries (he's literally fine.) And they have a cute little moment I guess, idk. Then they go back to 10005. She's about to ditch him and finally go and detox from the situation. Then she realized that he literally has nowhere to go and she will NAWT allow herself to abandon him like that. So she takes him in. And that starts their ROOOMATE ARC!!! Silly, mentally unwell, roommate adventures ensue. It takes a LOT of work for her mentally and she hides her past from him for a long time. But they eventually work through it. It's a SLOW, SLOW burn. But they DO eventually fall in love and whatnot. He takes such good care of her. So understanding. Big fat yearner. He don't care how long he gotta wait, he wants that lady. And he gets her eventually. Then they live happily ever after, the end.
Other timeline? What other timeline? She can't go home, but he helps her when she's homesick. They love each other. I'll post my art of them sometime.
