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Largely since a major complaint towards the franchise is that despite the mutant cause being a metaphor for discrimination of all kinds.

Most of the prominent members of The X-Men are conventionally attractive, straight leaning, and most notably, white.

And those who actually oppose those standards don’t tend to get a lot of attention.

Granted, that’s also because of how ridiculously huge the cast is nowadays but still.

So today I wanted to share my concept about where core X-Men would come from in this AU.

Starting this off, we have the X-Men members who would still be from different parts of the world.

Nightcrawler would still be from Bavaria, Germany.

Colossus would still be from Siberia, Russia.

Wolverine would still be from Canada, though where specifically would remain unknown.

And lastly we come to Storm and Psylocke.

Storm is a pretty weird character because despite being famous for being originally from Kenya, she kinda isn't.

She was actually born in Harlem, New York to an African-American father and a Kenyan mother, and spent most of her childhood in Cairo, Egypt.

I always felt that was was kinda of a cop-out.

Having this character who was from this specific country, but really not in terms of their overall history.

But here, Ororo would be from her mother's ancestral home of The Kilimanjaro Valley, located on the borders of Kenya and Tanzania, with her father being from the latter of the two.

And then there's Psylocke.

Good lord this character...….

If you know Psylocke, then you how infamous she is for her needlessly convoluted backstory.

There's literally a reason why we haven't got a fully faithful adaptation of her yet.

Because nobody wants to do all that bullshit.

Sometime, it's really just for the best to change or streamline something.

Here, Psylocke would still be from Essex, England, but she would be half-English (from her father's side), and half-Japanese (from her mother's side).

Now we come to the members that would still be from The United States.

But even then, they would be reflect different ancestries and cultural backgrounds.

Since I feel like people tend to forget a lot of the time that The United States is a very culturally diverse country of indigenous peoples, centuries of immigration, and diverse ethnic groups.

Starting this off we have Xavier and the original five.

Xavier would be half Portuguese-American (from his father's side), and half Afro-Chilean-American (from his mother's side).

And he would've still be born in New York City.

Cyclops would be half English-American (from his father's side), and half Iñupiat (from his mother's side).

And he would've still been born in Anchorage, Alaska.

Beast would be half Scottish-American (from his father's side), and Chinese-American (from his mother's side).

And instead of being from Dundee, Illinois, he's from Ashland, Oregon.

Why I choose Ashland?

Well that was because for OG members, I wanted their homes to reflect something about their personalities and backgrounds from the original comics.

Ashland is famously home to the real-life Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the oldest and largest professional non-profit theatre companies in the nation.

And one of Beast's core character traits is his love for the performing arts, particularly Shakespeare.

Jean Grey would be half Angolan-American (from her father's side), and half Irish-American (from her mother's side).

And instead of being from New York (like most of the original five in the comics), she would instead be from Atlanta, Georgia.

Since the city is a powerhouse for urban streetwear, creative design, and independent boutiques.

And for anyone who really knows Jean Grey, she used to have a passion for fashion and wanted to be both a fashion designer and model.

Angel would be English-American.

Yeah, he's literally the whitest member of the original five.

And here, he's from Greenwich, Connecticut.

Since Angel is definitely from an old money background, and from what I've researched, most people from those kind of backgrounds can usually be found in the northeastern states.

And lastly there's Iceman, who would be half Irish-American (from his father's side), and Mexican-American (from his mother's side).

And here, he would be from Los Angeles, California.

Iceman is canonically both Irish-Catholic and Jewish, and LA houses two of the biggest communities of those religions in the country.

Next we come to Rogue and Gambit.

The former would still be from Caldecott County, Mississippi.

But she would now be half Italian-American (from her father's side), half Congolese-American (from her mother's side).

As Gambit, he's......literally the same as he was before.

Now we come to Bishop and Cable.

Just like the in comics, the former would be Australian-American, specifically of Aboriginal descent.

As for the latter.

Since he's Cyclops and Jean's son; Cable would a quarter English-American, a quarter Iñupiat, a quarter Angolan-American, and a quarter Irish-American.

And lastly there's Shadowcat, who would be Brazilian-American.

And here, she would hail from Miami, Florida.

I've been itching to do some redesigns of official media for a while now, and I felt inspired by @rucolaruquette's summer storms!

I know next to nothing about fantastic 4, and the only fantastic 4 media I've consumed is rucolaruquette's fanfiction, so please do forgive me if something is absolutely awfully and terribly wrong!!

I will be posting a deep dive on each individual design, detailing my thoughts and decisions while creating it.

My thoughts on the designs as a group: I wish I leaned more heavily onto the accent colors, and gave each character a different one. The brown is a little bit overwhelming, and it drowns out the blue. I do like how Scott sticks out a little bit with his lack of brown, since he's the "newer addition". The brown does also give off the vibe that they are shoving down the blue while appearing civillian. It would also serve as a nice contrast to the blue if I decide to do their uniforms one day. But I'm not sure, I think I'm just trying to justify a bad decision.

I'm happy with the placement of the blue accents. I like that they are all centered around the neck/chest, except for Scott. All of them are placed near the heart, like its a part of their identity, meanwhile Scott is still learning, so his is further away

I wish I pushed their sillhouettes even more. I tried to make them noticably different, but I think I really only succeeded with Ben and Reed, and Ben already has a very different sillhouette no matter what you do so his was basically a freebie for me. But also maybe Reed and Ben are SO different that the rest look samey in comparison.