#{ or 'damn who died? worst party ever smh'}

[punmentionable]

*[Shows up 30 minutes late to his own funeral with afterlife starbucks-- ]

* “ -- what’s the wifi password? “

[orangedodge]

What’s the least toxic relationship Kitty has been in?

Well, the short and obvious answer isShan. Just look at her! She’s perfect. They’re perfect. Shan’s kids agree with me. These two just skip all of that dating and turmoil, get an apartment, and spend their miniseries essentially just already married to each other. Creator afterMarvel creator fails to see it though, and just throws Kitty backwith a revolving list of men named Peter, and leaves poor Shan all alone. SMH. SMH.

S.M. H.

Beyond that though, it ultimatelydepends on what you acknowledge as canon and what you choose toexclude. Kitty’s been around since the early 1980s, has appeared inthousands of comics written by dozens of people, each of whomhave had their own ideas for how the character should be written, andfor the most part have never spoken to one another. Outside of Shan,who, as noted above, is perfect, just about everyone has donesomething to Kitty (or had something done to them by Kitty), or has something else going on in the background,that would provide an unsettling undertone to any potentialrelationship, leaving a lot of material better off ignored orotherwise explained away.

For example, the Pete Wisdom/KittyPryde relationship, if you go by the known intent of Warren Ellis,has nothing particularly objectionable in it. After some initialpersonality clashes, which were more a dispute over professionalconduct than anything (he’s a cop at heart and a spy by trade, she’s a trained assassin trying to be a superhero–and it shows on both fronts), they get along fine. They’re supportive ofeach other, they spend a lot of time together and seem to genuinelyenjoy each others’ company, they take each others advice and rely oneach other for emotional and moral support when the rigors of their profession start to get to them. Kitty gets along withPete’s family, they each make an effort to get along with each others’friends. When the relationship falls apart in the later Ben Raab creative run, theypart relatively amicably, and remain supportive of one another evenyears later, and clearly still trust and value one another’s input.The main problem is Kitty’s age. She’s sixteen, and he’s in histhirties. That’s… a problem. Except, that’s not what Warren Ellisintended when he wrote Excalibur andthe Pryde & Wisdomminiseries—Ellis was writing a Kitty Pryde that wascomfortably in her twenties, and she wasn’t re-established as ateenager until after Ellis’ left. It’s like writing fanfic—yourstory isn’t really beholden to the stories other fans might writeyears later. It can stand on its own. And on it’s own, Kitty/Pete is fairly positive for a comic book romance. 

And then there’s Piotr Rasputin. Lord-y. To quickly summarize the worst of it: he dumped her days aftershe agreed to marry her kidnapper to save his life. She faked herdeath just so she could see if he would cry. She killed his sister.She pretended to be in love with him, so she could get close enoughto physically overpower him and force him to accept brain surgerythat she knew he did not want. He ambushed her boyfriend andtried to kill him with his bare hands. He left her to die alone in space(twice). He threatened to kill her kids if she didn’t date him, andthen set her on fire when she tried to stop him from killing themanyway. That’s all quite toxic! There is something that gets lost in allof that though: Marc Guggenheim thinks all of those things arestupid, and is pretending that none of it ever happened. As didKieron Gillen. And Joss Whedon. And Steve Seagal. And they kind ofhave a point. I mean, I’ll defend Jason Aaron and Warren Ellis, asthey were trying to deal with everything head on and just give itclosure, but a better idea may have just been to do what Seagal, andWhedon, and Gillen, and Guggenheim did, and just pretend it neverhappened in the first place. There’s not really an upside toacknowledging their years of mutual emotional abuse, after all, whenit actively ruins Piotr as a usable character. And if you ignore allof those issues, you’re left with the Kitty/Piotr relationship beingabout a pair of dumb kids who let things get too serious too young,backed off, and then (years later) bonded over shared personal traumaand started dating again.

Even with Illyana, who is Kitty’sliteral soulmate, you have to contend with the fact that Illyanawas raised (and abused) by Cat, who was a version of Kitty from analternate future. The same goes for Rachel, who by creator intent wasmeant to share a love with Kitty that crossed time and survived thedeath of universes—but it’s inescapable that Rachel was raised byWidget, who is another variation of Kitty. Illyana killed Cat, andWidget died for Rachel. How healthy is it, really, to be involvedwith someone who looks like your dead parent figure? Neither Illyananor Rachel seem to have problems separating Kitty from Cat and Kittyfrom Kate, but as readers there’s always going to be a serious squickfactor to deal with, and an air of “Damn it, Chris…”unless you just take the opportunity to brush over the earliermaterial, from before Chris Claremont’s (and Al Davis’) intentions towards thoserelationships seem to have solidified.

I can’t really say anything good aboutKitty/Peter Quill. They just gaslit each other for years, and turnedinto horrible people whenever they were around each other.  And BobbyDrake tried to kill her. Seth also tried to kill her, but he was atleast a villain.

The Peter Parker relationshipculminated in Kitty losing faith in humanity, burning her mother’shouse, and storming off to become a terrorist, so that one wasalso a wash.

Rigby Fallon was ultimately a pretext forKitty to force her current boyfriend to dump her. Doug Ramsey was a loveinterest but was never really officially in a relationship withKitty, being used more as a pretext for Piotr to become jealous over. Sarah Rushman was kind of a cute what-might-have-been, clearly teased, but then never referenced again. The same forKitty’s relationship with Ultimate Jessica Drew, which after years of winking and six issues of obvious buildup, would seemingly become a casualty of thepublishing house’s shameless cowardice.

The Jimmy Hudson/Kitty Pryderelationship was fairly unobjectionable. They were just two kids whogot bored and decided to date for a few weeks.

I’d say Kitty/Jimmy is probably theleast toxic overall, but of the major relationships I’d go withKitty/Pete Wisdom. As a self-contained Warren Ellis story, it doesn’treally include anything objectionable or unsettling. They both growas people (as opposed to regressing, like with Kitty/Quill andKitty/Bobby). That Kitty is an adult, within the Warren Ellis’universe, is totally unambiguous, and while there is a mild powerdisparity, it heavily favors the younger and less experienced party.And they remain a positive influence in each others’ lives yearsafter they break up.