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The Magneto/Rogue/Gambit love triangle is not only great because of how #telenovela it is, but because it puts Rogue into a dilemma that forces her to make character-defining choices and grow as a person. It’s classic Want vs Need. Rogue wants physical intimacy, mistakenly believing that it is necessary for love, but needs to realize that real love is so much more than that. “Some things are deeper than skin.”
This is an example of how to do a romantic subplot that actually serves the narrative and character development. Plus, the chemistry that Rogue has with both Magneto and Gambit feels natural instead of forced (seriously idk how they managed to make Magneto x Rogue genuinely hot).
I know a lot of folks like to argue about the morality of the situation and make it all about Gambit and his hurt feelings, but I find that to be a boring way of looking at it. This subplot isn’t about a man getting his heart broken, it’s about a woman learning about love for the first time.
We gotta remember that Rogue is incredibly inexperienced when it comes to love, and the little experience she does have is colored by pain and regret. The first time she kissed her first boyfriend, her powers almost killed him. That’s obviously going to traumatize you. Then she met Magneto, the only person she could safely touch* and explore her sexuality with, but that relationship was never going to pan out for obvious reasons. After that, she was afraid of getting romantically involved with anyone.
Rogue and Gambit maintained a casual flirtation with undercurrents of real passion and yearning for a deeper relationship, but Rogue understandably kept him at a distance — she couldn’t forgive herself if she hurt him. Gambit understood this, and for his part, was afraid of getting into a serious relationship because he felt that he was unworthy.
Magneto is the catalyst who forces Gambit and Rogue to do some necessary introspection and be honest about their feelings, instead of playing this endless game of “will they or won’t they.” For Gambit and Rogue to build something real together, they need to step out of their performative roles as Scoundrel and Cher. Of course it’s messy, and dramatic, and confusing, and frustrating, and heartbreaking. But that’s love. “There is no love without sin.”
In fairness to all three of them, I think they handled the situation as maturely as they could, with honest communication about what they wanted. There’s no deception or manipulation here, just three people trying to navigate a messy and emotionally-charged entanglement.
As for Magneto, I think he genuinely cares for Rogue and loves her in his own way. But I feel like he’s using her to fill the void left in his heart by Charles. I don’t think he’s secretly “evil” or anything like that — but Gambit is right to be skeptical of his motives.
Overall, once Magneto and Gambit come back (AND THEY BETTER COME BACK OR ISTG MARVEL — ), they’ll get necessary closure, and Rogue and Gambit will offically become the power couple they were always meant to be.
*I’ve seen people wonder why Rogue doesn’t just wear one of those mutant suppression collars so she can safely touch Gambit. Idk how the comics deal with that issue and I don’t remember if the original 90s cartoon did, but the way I see it, it’s not just about the physical act of touching. It’s about intimacy. Being able to be your full, truest self with another person. Having to wear a collar that was made to oppress your people in order to experience a basic human pleasure would be degrading and take away from that intimacy.
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With how much focus she has received since the beginning of the Krakoa era, what are your thoughts on Storm ? And do you agree on the perception that she's becoming something of a Mary Sue?
I’m going to start with a mini-rant about the Mary Sue.
To the extent that there is any validity to the term at all, it is solely and exclusively within the realm of fanfiction. A Mary Sue is an OC (original character) whose supposed annoying omni-competence is really secondary to the main problem with the character, which is that they warp the narrative away from the main characters of the source material - Kirk and Spock or Picard and Data stop doing things that drive the plot, and instead just stand around asking "where's Poochie?"
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Outside of fanfiction and in the realm of the media that gives rise to fanfiction, a prominent character who is incredibly talented and powerful and who makes the plot center around them is called a fucking protagonist - so no, Rey isn’t a Mary Sue, Carol Danvers isn’t a Mary Sue, Katniss Everdeen isn't a Mary Sue - none of them are Mary Sues and anyone who claims otherwise is showing that they have deep-seated Issues with female protagonists in their fiction.
Is Storm a Mary Sue?
Even if we weren't talking about the most prominent black woman character in fiction, I would consider this question pretty damn offensive, both because no one would ever ask this question about a male character and - in a franchise packed to the gills with hyper-powerful women who make the plots revolve around them and who even get the complementary Love Triangle - no one sends me asks about any of those (white) women.
But to answer your question: no, Storm is not a Mary Sue - she's the main character of the X-Men.
See, when Chris Claremont took over X-Men in 1975, he did so with a brand-new cast of characters, the so-called "All-New, All-Different X-Men." In no small part because they were far more diverse and more colorful than the O5 (suburban WASPs one and all), most of these characters would become break-out stars and the core of the X-Men from that day to this.
However, Claremont didn't vibe with all of the All-New X-Men equally: he had Sunfire quit the team (repeatedly), he killed off Thunderbird for shock value (a death that has only been reversed this last year), he would have killed off Wolverine if John Byrne hadn't stopped him (Claremont would later turn around on Logan once he worked out his voice), etc.
But one character that he vibed with right from the beginning was Ororo Monroe. From the very beginning, Claremont's Storm is the most powerful of the All-New X-Men, both in terms of her powers and in terms of her personality, being the only person who can face down Logan. At the same time, she's complicated by her struggles with crippling claustrophobia caused by the Suez Crisis-induced trauma of her childhood.
After a few years, Claremont tired of the African Nature Goddess routine and had Storm experience an almost total transformation that nonetheless was completely grounded in her character. Feeling overly limited by the total emotional control required of her powers, Ororo undergoes a subtextual lesbian awakening in Tokyo's underground punk scene and emerges out the other side a free spirit, leader of the X-Men, and Queen of the Morlocks.
In his most audacious move in LifeDeath I and II, Claremont had Storm lose her powers thanks to Forge's anti-mutant tech - and then defeat Cyclops in a duel for command of the X-Men without her powers - and then regain her powers in an epic cycle that saw the X-Men die and be reborn as outlaw heroes in the Australian Outback.
In sum, Storm was clearly Claremont's favorite character and, as a result had the most interesting character journey over his 16-year run on X-Men.
Storm in Krakoa
And then Storm basically lay fallow for almost thirty years. In no small part due to the pioneering work done by Claremont with this character, later writers were frankly too intimidated to touch the character and so starting in the 90s, Storm was increasingly sidelined in the comics in favor of the characters that were commercially "hot" at the time - Wolverine and Gambit, especially.
In the 2000s, the most significant thing to happen to Storm was her marriage to T'challa. While I think Reggie Hudlin had mostly good intentions with this decision - he wanted to create a black power couple at Marvel and thus put together Marvel's most prominent black man and black woman into a relationship - the result was to make Storm a supporting character in Black Panther comics, rather than a main character in X-Men comics.
I would argue that it is only recently with the advent of Al Ewing as a major writer in the X-office with S.W.O.R.D, X-Men Red, and Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants that we've gotten a writer who's not afraid to write Storm as she deserves to be written - as the most powerful of the X-Men, the Regent of Arrako and the Voice of Sol, the standard-bearer of Magneto's legacy, and a woman trying to balance the demands of two planets and her own desires.
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A LOT of X-Men fans are super delusional and it’s actually worrying.
I recently had an argument with an X-Men fan when I said that Al Ewing’s Guardians of the Galaxy team had the best ratio of queer characters in Marvel at the time. This fan responded by listing off a buncha mutant characters, most of which are both not canon queer and not on the last X-Men team.
To be clear, here’s the latest GOTG & X-Men line ups.
Since Doom is a guest star, the Guardians have 10/16 while the X-Men have 1/8. That’s roughly 62% vs 12%. The Guardians clearly have a better ratio.
When I pointed this out they said, and I quote, “well the concept of X-Men automatically makes you f@ggy.” When I pointed out that NO, being an overall allegory of all oppressed groups does not translate to actual representation, they said “isn’t that all fiction.”
I relay all this because, while valuing headcanon/subtext over canon/text is a general fandom problem, it is SPECIFICALLY a problem with X-Men fandom.
The concept of Marvel’s mutants is being a fantastical catch all for all oppressed groups, and the team of mutants called the X-Men has always mostly been composed of textually white, cishet, and abled characters.
Is there queer subtext for some of the mutant characters on the X-Men? Yes! But subtext is NOT the characters actually representing an oppressed minority. The X-Men has been coasting on subtext for decades and so many, SOOOOOO MANY X-Men fans will insist that the subtext and headcanons built from that subtext are good enough.
It’s not the 80s anymore. Subtext is not good enough anymore. A team about a fake minority of humans CAN AND SHOULD represent actual minorities. It’s not actual representation until it’s TEXTUAL representation, and to act otherwise when we’re almost a quarter into this century is hurting everyone.
#x men#x men meta#representation#representation matters#marvel comics#marvel#marvel meta#x men comics#fandom critical#mutants#marvel mutants#allegory#subtext is not text#headcanon is not canon
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Cyclops gets such a rough deal man. imagine having brain damage that caused you to uncontrollably shoot laser blasts out of your eyeballs destroying everything in sight that you had to worry about literally 24/7 and also you had to supervise teenagers throwing cars at each other because your father figure and his ex are taking leftist infighting to the streets and also on top of that whenever you show any amount of concern over this situation people are like "jeez what a buzzkill. loosen up control freak. why can't you be all chill and cool like wolverine" meanwhile wolverine is having his amygdala forcibly removed by the us military for the third time this month
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A funny thing that comes up when you're reading very early All New All Different X-Men is how much mileage Claremont is milking out of the rest of the team being bewildered when Wolverine abruptly turns out to Have Traits. Wolverine's backstory has been basically completely fleshed out for as long as I've been reading comics, and I think his collective gestalt image in the fandom as a result is that he's that one grumpy uncle on the team who everyone knows really well at this point, but when you're reading the early ANAD stuff it's a cavalcade of the rest of the team going "Oh my GOD those are fused to your goddamn skeleton we thought they were built into the gloves," "Oh my GOD you're fluent in Japanese for no obvious reason," "Oh my GOD you have a first name and a social circle outside this team," etc.
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Thank you Beau DeMayo
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So. That PowerPoint I joked about making? Turns out I am even more passionate about this than I thought.
#dani moonstar#mirage#new mutants#x men#marvel comics#meta#if everyone who rb'd my rictor pp could also rb this i'd appreciate it
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Imogen, to me, has the same thing going on that makes Jean Grey such a difficult character to get right (and tbh, to engage with). A lot of people who have written Jean Grey over the years don’t get her or how to do stories with her, in my opinion. But a character like that can be fascinating, if approached with honestly based not in metaphor but in the universe in which she exists.
Because yeah, it sucks to be her but you’re not doing the character honestly or interestingly if you’re not also grappling with the fact that she is scary, and dangerous, and it’s reasonable to be frightened of her or worried for your autonomy around her. And on top of that, she's dealing with her own curiosity about her powers, and occasional hubris. And while this curiosity and sometimes recklessness is understandable and incredibly interesting to watch and engage with (from my perspective it's what makes me enjoy characters like this, because it is such a compelling flaw), these are also not neutral actions without consequences even as they are also understandable and even in some sense relatable.
#anyway#meta#imogen temult#this is addressing a LOT of things I've seen this weekend and majorly disagreed with in the most roundabout way possible lol#critical role#oh to steal a Wednesday Club line#for those of you who don't know Jean Grey is one of the X-Men and commonly referred to as Dark Phoenix
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Michael Zulli: Death, Dream and Hob
Now, I know fandom bends over backwards to make this about Dreamling and often slots its meaning in during/after The Wake (or at least hinting at it because of the meeting with Death), but I honestly can’t see it?
I personally believe we need to step back a bit here and consider that this was painted long before the TV show, and Dreamling wasn’t really a thing (at least not in these epic proportions, plus it was always fanon, not canon), hence we can’t really do art analysis through that lens.
If you just put the 1689 meeting (also drawn by Zulli) right next to it, it becomes, at least to me, so blatantly obvious that it is set in the same timeframe. Hob wears nearly identical clothes, so does Dream (also, some of the original comics have been recoloured).
The woman at the table next to them holding the mask? Hm, there’s a famous artwork by Colleen Doran in which Death holds a mask, and she definitely seems to be listening in here. Which she might, considering the conversation Dream and Hob had in 1689. Could obviously also just be a random person covering up smallpox scars 🤣
In the grand scheme of things, I don’t think it matters so much whether Hob already met Death or not and would recognise her, it’s the symbolism of talking to her at this point more than anything.
So would it be totally outlandish to think the missing glass is also for Eleanor? Hence the red roses as well, because Zulli hardly ever uses red roses for Dream apart from one exception (he does so for Daniel though)—they tend to be blue and always hold connotations to grief, I wrote about this before. Or better: Symbolic for all those who aren’t at the table with him? And that’s why Death is there? Both for those she has taken, but also because this is very obviously the point where Hob is at his lowest and might rethink.
I think we really have to think about where Hob is in his life here and not erase Eleanor and his kids again.
“To absent friends AND lost loves”, right?
And I can’t look at that angel holding the table and not get references to pregnancy/childbirth (Eleanor and the second baby died during childbirth).
As for the raven looking away/pointing away from the table: Foreboding? Because apart from being Dream’s ravens, ravens were also associated with Apollo, who was also the god of prophecy and an oracle himself. That’s why Apollo himself eventually released Orpheus from his existence as one—long story (plus, Aristeas, who was also Dream’s raven, was Apollo’s raven in Greek mythology. Plus Apollo was also Orpheus’ father in some retellings. It’s all interwoven, but I feel the foreboding is a significant thing here for exactly that reason).
And foreboding-foreboding, of course Death and Hob meet again, and by that time, Morpheus will be gone, and the missing glass is also for himself.
I wrote about Zulli and his symbolism a few times, it’s all linked in my pinned post, but the ruins are one of the less subtle references:
#the sandman#sandman#dream of the endless#hob gadling#neil gaiman#michael zulli#morpheus#death of the endless#men of good fortune#1689#sandman meta#sandman x art#sandman art analysis#queue crew
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‘But you were worried if you still felt how much he loved you, you wouldn’t be able to go through with your crusade.’
Yep, even today this line still plays like a pingpong ball between my mind and heart.
She sees right through him, like it’s her job!!! She says the things this man is afraid of formulating coherent thoughts about. She learned his defensive mechanisms because she’s been there with him, in a similar scenario before. And the fact that he is silently acknowledging it just shows how effortlessly comfortable they can be around each other.
I am (still) losing my mind over how this entire scene was written. It was so beautiful and deep, with a complete understanding of what made their connection in Savage Land (comics) memorable.
#rogue#magneto#anna marie#erik lehnsherr#x men 97#x men ‘97#rogneto#rogueneto#x men#marvel#textpost#meta#i just can’t shut up#they were done so right in that episode#i can talk about them for days#someone please help
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This post was making its way around last night, about how viewers could/should recognize when female characters in dramas are written by men, and how we as viewers can rejigger our minds around how we then see and interpret these female characters. I'm thinking of Cheum in Only Friends, and how she's been written by an all-male and all-queer team of writers.
Somewhat separately, I'm noting a reblog from my OF Sunday meta by @fromthedepthsandbeyond about how Thai audiences vs. international audiences are receiving Cheum. Holding myself accountable: in my original post that I just linked, I chunked up the deuces on Cheum (and I do still hope April dumps Cheum's ass).
But I gotta ponder what it means that an all-male team wrote Cheum. And as well, I gotta think about what it means for me to interpret a female character in a drama, generally speaking.
What are my implicit biases towards a female character to hold people around her accountable? To hold her brother accountable for making false rape claims against Boston? To hold herself accountable for calling Boston a slut and making judgements against his sexual predictions? To hold herself accountable for continuing to suggest to Mew that he date Top, because Top is top-tier?
What are my implicit biases that a female character in a drama would be written to transcend above the bullshit she is witnessing, to be a cipher of macro-level sensibility and to cut through everyone else's bullshit to speak on the truth of their shenanigans?
What are my implicit and/or explicit expectations that the older sister of a younger brother who lied about rape claims would hold that younger sibling accountable for his falsehoods?
I just wrote on a reblog from @ranchthoughts, as we head towards Saturday's finale, about my giving these characters the space and grace to be imperfect twentysomethings, and I think this ties into how I need to possibly adjust what in the heck is going on with Cheum. And I note that especially from @fromthedepthsandbeyond's thoughts on Thai vs. international interpretations of Cheum.
Could I generalize a Thai interpretation on Cheum as: Cheum is doing the best she can in what we assume to be a Thai/Asian society that still holds in expectation certain roles of peacekeeping that a female should uphold?
I might be able to safely make that assumption, with sensitivity to overgeneralization. (I've been thinking a lot about sexism in Asian families vis à vis my re-watch and re-rewatch of Bad Buddy lately -- and how Pat's traditional Thai-Chinese family upholds lingering notions of sexism towards Pat's younger sister, Pa.)
And could I generalize an international interpretation on Cheum as: we have made so much progress on women's equality, that Cheum should feel free to burn all these assholes down to ash for their inconsistencies and/or lies?
I think there's a tension there, in the interpretive lenses, that I'm playing around with, as I think about getting more open and accountable towards my biases of what I might expect out of a character like Cheum that was written by men.
I don't know, I'm feeling unsettled by this, because in a way, I want to know what Cheum, as a fictional storytelling device, was meant to achieve by way of her placement in the Only Friends story and script. She has extreme judgement against Boston, for instance, and.... I don't know where that judgement stems from, what it means.
Does it mean that guys (like Jojo and the OF team) assume that all women judge sex? I can't think that that's it, considering Jojo's past works, but... I don't know.
So, yeah. I'm struggling with this and pondering it. How do I relate to Cheum now that I'm thinking about her as written as a fictional narrative device by guys? Oof. I wonder if I should have recalibrated my expectations all along.
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P.S. I think this also touches on a thought I had a few weeks ago about implicit biases towards lesbians -- that a lesbian couple like Mew's moms could be wiser, sharper, and more attuned to their son's implicit angst towards Top; when clearly, when they first met Top, they weren't, at all. I thought that was a brilliant spin by the OF team on biases that we may have about lesbian couples, and what that meant for commentary about the general aloofness of Asian parents in fiction.
#only friends the series#only friends#only friends meta#lookjun bhasidi#cheum x april#april x cheum#what does cheum mean as a female character that was written by men
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The original Hellfire Gala and Immortal X-Men #13 pose telepathic democracy as a possible political system of the Krakoan state. Even if it won't be the new order in the comics, what are your thoughts about this type of rule? And is there anything interesting for our world inside that idea?
This is an excellent question...but because IXM #13 only came out today, I'll put my answer below the cut to avoid spoilers.
So ever since X-Men (2019) #21, it's been established that a single telepath of Jean Grey's power level can unite all Krakoa - some 200,000+ mutants - into a psychic demos that is capable of conducting not merely a plebescite, but a deliberative, participatory democratic vote complete with candidate statements and full debate, in an instant.
Given Jonathan Hickman's political writings in the past, it's pretty clear that this is a conscious fantasy of an ideal direct democracy, using Omega-level telepathy to solve what in the real world are inherent flaws of scale and organization. So for a good chunk of the Krakoan era, there's been this deliberate tension between this liberatory fantasy and the squalid reality of unaccountable oligarchy (especially once Kieron Gillen added Immortal X-Men to the narrative).
So it's absolutely fitting that Gillen ends the Quiet Council and brings about psychic democracy through a secessio plebis by Doug, the Five, and the people of Krakoa who provide both abstract legitimacy and the very real life energy that makes the Krakoan paradise a possibility.
It's a wonderful utopian vision, and Doug's only partially responsible for the fact that it's going to fail.
Conclusion
In the context of the Marvel Universe, I think psychic democracy is a brilliant idea, and I would like to see how the real work of democracy - the organizing and coordination and creativity it takes to turn a mass of individual political preferences into a coherent majoritarian policy agenda, the bureaucracy and expertise that is required to turn de jure into de facto, and so forth - would happen in this sci-fi premise. Even with the ability to run ideal democratic deliberation with zero time cost, it's not guaranteed that even an ideal process will lead to good outcomes. People are not perfect, and can make mistakes en masse as well as in groups of twelve.
Given that we're in the early stages of an event called "Fall of X," I think we may have to wait a while to see Doug's dream turned into a reality, but I think it will happen at some point.
"Is there anything interesting for our world inside that idea?" I think any well-executed science-fiction concept can make us think about our world and how it could be different and that's always a useful exercise. OTOH, without a psychic hivemind (and to be frank, the authorial fiat to make that hivemind solve problems in mass communication rather than create new ones), it's a little hard to see applicable lessons at the current moment.
#xmen#x men meta#krakoa#political science#political philosophy#jonathan hickman#spoilers#immortal xmen#immortal xmen spoilers#fall of x
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I sense people are gonna @ me with the Rogneto stuff (for some reason - I always get asked about the Rogneto stuff, I have no clue why).
Full disclosure - their relationship during the Mike Carey run didn't bother me that much, but over the years I've developed a lot more of an intolerance towards it, so I'm kind of over talking about it now.
If you wanna know how I feel about Rogneto, you can read some of my metas on it in the following posts:
• How would you compare Rogue's relationship with Magneto to her relationship with Remy?
• Why do you think Rogue ignored all the trauma Magneto had caused her and Remy in Antartica...
• The only thing I wish Rogue would've mentioned is how she was able to overlook the trauma Magneto caused her relationship with Remy when she chose to be with Mags....
• It seems you've been asked @ least 3x about Rogue's relationship with Magneto...
• Everybody seems to want to know what Rogue was thinking and why she chose Magneto in Legacy...
• Recently people have been asking Kelly Thompson about Rogue quoting Remy's Harbor Speech to justify her choice in sleeping with Magneto in Xmen Legacy #249....
• People often ask me about my thoughts on Rogneto...
• Rogneto actually has a long history, longer than Romy even...
These posts largely still stand.
I try to be reasonable about Rogneto. You sail that ship, guys. It's not for me. Please don't @ me with Rogneto stuff, unless you want a grown ass discussion about it. 😅
#Rogneto#Rogue#Magneto#marvel meta#X-Men 97#x men 97#I can't believe how many times I've been asked to talk about Rogneto#😅
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I love doodling fun feral bois
#Danny Phantom#DP#X Men Evolution#Nightcrawler#Kurt Wagner#Meta#MetaTheTrifox#MetaLatias#MetaLatias5
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I love how the nature of public domain characters means that the X-Men just periodically have to fight Dracula
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ok but the unspoken parallel of faith being attracted to angel to deflect from her obsession with buffy and lindsey being “in love” with darla to deflect from his obsession with angel is making me fucking INSANE
#to lindsey darla is like “safe” angel#aka she’s angel without the morals and without the penis#and to faith angel is just the default she would go to as someone who has had lots of sex with men#complicated deep feelings about a girl?? of course she would rather go for familiar and “normal” feelings about a guy!#they are both sUCH good ships it is unreal#fuffy#faith x buffy#lindsangel#lindsey x angel#angel x lindsey#buffy summers#faith lehane#lindsey mcdonald#btvs angel#btvs#buffy the vampire slayer#ats#angel the series#buffyverse#btvs meta#buffyverse meta
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