So. The Psylocke I play has one difference from the one in 616. When Jamie rebuilt her (remember he did more than resurrect her, he literally restrung every thing about her), he made her look more like she did before the Hand tampered with her.
This is a look inspired by Rhona Mitra, the actress. I am still tampering with it. In the wrong movement, it looks almost too simian. But then I question myself, thinking that I am just used to oversized SL eyes..
Anyway, it might change a little, but I like how it looks so far, enough to take a break from editing the shape (I love making shapes!).
Let me get a little bit more story on some Betsy things I was thinking about lately.
1) I play Claremont's Psylocke. Only he & Carey have proven to make her interesting (Uncanny XForce is alright, but if she wasn't in it I'd loathe it. haha). What this means is that, I follow Claremont's version of what happened to her in all things. with the Hand. (aka, NOT the body swap rubbish that was written by Fabian Nicieza after Claremont left the title). It was all cosmetic surgery, essentially, to make Psylocke appear as something other than caucasian. (There is no Kwannon. Though I loved her uniform haha). Also, Claremont's version of Betsy come back. He had wanted to bring her back caucasian, British, but Marvel would not let him. Jamie would have brought her back as a "version" of herself that he knew & loved, his sister, in her original unaltered beauty, not the version he hardly saw. he gives the darker hair she's always wanted, & poof. There you go. That's explained.
2) It was gradually growing & then just hit me the other day: How Betsy is used is very racist & manipulative on Marvel's part. She is perceived as "Asian" (artists that draw her are never given a clear answer if she is Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.. so of course, recently at least, people have just been starting to say Japanese) & suddenly she is associated with everything Asian culture (as if it were all one big thing). She is pictured with kanji & with japanese towers or even Shinto motifs behind her. But the woman is still British! Claremont had planned to explore what it is like to be inside the body of someone of another ethnicity. Not just the personal things that would affect such a character (as in, your family not recognizing you, you looking in the mirror) but other things that reach further than that (like, noticing the racial assumptions of others now heaped on you. The perceptions of others has changed. Racist or miseducated others, mind you, but it would have been a wonderful read). He never got to of course because he stopped writing for Marvel at that point when Jim Lee practically drew the plot for him & told Chris to just write whatever fits. So my other huge reason for deciding to portray Betsy as herself (& it can be done, since iti s vague how she is portrayed when written by Claremont for the most part. Especially after she left the Uncanny series. So reason 2 boils down to: her brother would have restrung her into life in a form he knew & loved (neither body was used in this. Of course after Claremont left again, & that terrible writer Matt Fraction brought Betsy into 616 out of the dimension hopping New Exiles, Marvel wrote it all away by saying she was brought back in her "Asian" body, & then the entire miniseries by Yost is about how her "British" body is destroyed. Two stories going on at once really..) So reason 2 boils down to, not only her brother bringing her back in a form he knew & loved, but that I refuse to play a prejudicially portrayed (since Claremont left the main title in the 90s at least) version of this character.
3) I've written maaaany posts on this entire blog that details more reason behind this, that say it all much better than I have here haha. But I was just posting this to have a helpful starting off point for anyone that is interested. (I haven't written for a different Betsy blog in a long while)
> Basically, this Betsy has the same powerset, everything, that Betsy did in her "only teke, immune to mind powers" phase. The only difference is that she is in her original caucasian-appearing form (There is no Marvel in sim forcing me to keep her that way because it provides
"cast diversity". Please, Marvel, create a genuine Asian character, pick an actual ethnicity not just some vague "Asianness", & go with that.) But I won't side with the racism!!
**Any questions: read more on here, or chat. :) **
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