Fannish Fifty: Shadowcat

[apachefirecat]

Kitty Pryde was a First for many in many ways, just as she was a first for teenaged comic-book readers back in her day. When she first joined the X-Men, she was youngest on the team BY FAR. That didn't stop her from first leading a team of X-Men, when all their normal leaders were down or away for whatever myriad of reasons, at the tender age of FOURTEEN. I've watched this character grow up over the years, as have, of course, other readers too, but she has inspired me in so many ways. I am, in some ways, a leader. My husband and mother have both come to look at me to lead, whether or I want to or not, and I've many colleagues who look at me at work to lead. I've even had bosses who look at me to lead them... That may or may not hold true today... :)

But Kitty was a first for me in many other ways too. She was one of my first AOL names, the first one that actually stuck, which was Shdwct83. I knew very little about her character at the time, but I'd fallen into my first RPG in an AOL chat room and she was one of VERY few characters open. All I knew about her came from the back of a trading card!





But then, FINALLY, I fell across my first comic, and the rest, as they say, is History! I wasn't even that fond of the character when I first started RPing as her, tbh, but she grew on me in Excalibur and I freaking LOVE what they have done with her since! There are many who say that she's too dark these days, but to them I say think of Days of Future Past and consider the first mini series in which she was in, which was also the first series my late Daddy bought for me, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine.





She rapidly turned dark there (and she was still SO young), and yes, she was able to beat Ogun at that time, but she was able to beat him out of her love for Wolverine and her friends and family back home. She has watched so many of them suffer and die, come back to life and suffer and die again, and again, and again... It's no wonder there is so much darkness in her now. I'm NOT one of those who thinks she's gone too dark. In fact, the below is one of the pictures I use on my work PC as my laptop. I see it every day, and it inspires me EVERY DAY to keep being strong and never let the darkness of this world take me down, even if sometimes I have to answer its darkness with darkness and strength of my own!





I can honestly say my life would NOT be the same without this character!!





Please note that the following is VERY image-filled (heavy loading) and still under construction! This text will disappear once this post is "finished", but I'm probably going to return to it at later dates to add stuff. :)

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