salarta

whiteqweenfrosty:

This website has got A LOT of shit to say about so-called “abusive” romantic relationships (which are usually just toxic relationships between 2 AWFUL people) in fiction, but all I hear are CRICKETS when it comes to abusive parents!

Actually, it’s not crickets; It’s all of you acting like it’s cute or some, like “awww they love them” or “awww, they’re a family” or “I LOVE this crazy fam!!1!”

@ the Marvel fandom & the Riverdale fandom – fucking STOP IT!

I see the Magnus family was referenced in the tags, so this is my thoughts and response to that.

First, I should mention my grasp of Magneto’s effect on his kids is limited to around when Polaris was re-confirmed as his daughter and after. Even then, what I know of dynamics with the twins is limited. There might be details I don’t know.

I think most interest in the Magnus family is a mix of its best moments and how good it could be if done well. That doesn’t absolve Magneto of any wrongdoing, but it demonstrates why interest exists where it is.

Here’s my experience with Polaris. There was one person who privately told me they absolutely hated when Magneto was written as siphoning power from Lorna without her permission. I didn’t like it either, but I didn’t say much at the time because I wanted to give the writer a chance. If we took that as Magneto in character, that would be an abusive scene that people had problems with. But, I took it more as something the writer chose to do. NOT because I think Magneto wouldn’t do it, but because I think Lorna wouldn’t have been stupid enough to fall for it again when it’s been done to her before.

Likewise, anyone that followed my comments on X-Men Blue knows that I had a LOT of complaints about Lorna’s treatment. Most of them center on Havok, but there were plenty of times I complained about Lorna reduced to “daughter of Magneto” as well, and how several scenes ignored her character history for Magneto’s benefit.

At least with Polaris, ultimately, what it comes down to is this. Polaris and Magneto haven’t been written enough together to say “their relationship is always X” (abusive, loving, whatever). Of what HAS been written, the spots that could be called abusive are more an issue with writer choices than genuine character problems.

Havok is a different story.

With Havok, we have literal decades of Lorna treated poorly around him. We have toooooons of evidence to this fact. When I wrote a whole post on this topic, I struggled to decide which of the worst moments should have their panels and pages in the post.

Any time I have to decide which material to omit instead of exhaustively scrounging for hours for a handful of examples is a bad sign.

Almost all of the times Lorna is written anywhere near Havok end up with the same result, too. She ends up treated like a lesser supporting character for his stories. Even in X-Men Blue #8-9, which Marvel advertised as Lorna’s big return, most of the story ended up hyping up Havok and establishing a story of “Lorna can be used as a plot device for a Havok redemption story arc.”

The story could have brought up all the times Havok doubted her, held her back, undermined her progress, e.g. having Pietro spy on her, convincing her to leave the X-Men, leaving her at the altar. Instead, it focused all on the idea of Lorna viewing Havok like he’s some perfect godly angel from on high that she must admire in ways Havok constantly never did for her.

Compare that to Magneto, where wiping her memory of the plane crash can be perceived as an attempt to let her live a happy life growing up, or where he joins in the mission to rescue the Starjammers (especially Lorna) from space.

In the very little time Magneto does stuff with Lorna, the treatment has been hit and miss. But in the decades of Lorna around Havok, it’s been almost all bad for her.

And she never gets anything out of it with Havok. Association with Magneto got her the Genoshan princess and genocide survival storylines, the two things I love most of her history. Even though I loathe most of how she was treated on Blue, it could be argued Magneto got her onto a flagship title by association. But when Havok went to Uncanny Avengers, Lorna got nothing out of it. When Marvel did amalgam covers for X-Men’s 50th anniversary in 2013, Havok was put on one of the covers, but not Polaris.

From me, that’s why you see a lot of complaints about the abusive “romantic” (not really) relationship but not an abusive one with her dad. Because there’s a massive history to call upon for the “romantic” one but very little for the parental one.

EDIT: Oh, by the way. There are things I’d like to see for stories with the Magnus family. One of my most common suggestions/requests if Lorna and Wanda dealing with the harm Wanda did to Lorna in stripping away her powers on M-Day. Lorna suffered through a lot of horrors because of M-Day, after having already been through tons of them before M-Day. Another thing to keep in mind.

echolalaphile:

spatscolombo:

So I accidentally learned today about this thing where lots of people ship Carmen Sandiego and Waldo from Where’s Waldo?

And on the one hand I love it, because it’s silly and hilarious and you can learn about it and giggle and move on OR you can think about it for a long time and get really into it and that’s a great thing about the Internet

But it really grinds my gears that all the fanart visions of the couple I could immediately see on google showed this really conventionally gendered arrangement where Waldo is like leading/supporting Carmen or rescuing her?

And it’s like exCUSE ME I get that they’d be a cute couple because they’re both hard to find, and because why not, but like she’s an ex-detective criminal mastermind unbound by time and space and he’s a tourist who can’t find his map they are hard to find for VERY DIFFERENT REASONS and you cannot convince me that fucking adorable bespectacled soft butch brings-a-walking-stick-to-the-beach dazed and confused WALDO would be in the driver’s seat of that operation I mean GOD

Right, i mean obviously you can’t find Waldo because CARMEN SANDIEGO STOLE HIM.

darlingtholland:

just-a-lovely-lost-soul: