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forest-of-stories · 6 years

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The “Evolution” of a Problematic Shipper

[I’ve been working on this lengthy post, which is about my early adventures in X-Men: Evolution fanfiction, for a very long time. So, here it is, friends. Please note a content warning for some discussion of abuse, mostly in fiction. Also, my individual recollections are my own, and extremely subjective; others might remember the fandom differently than I do.]

Quite a few years ago, I wrote about how X-Men: Evolution was “the first fandom in which I participated heavily: watching the show as it aired, obsessing with other fans about the stories and relationships within, and writing reams and reams of (mostly very bad) fic.” I still think that this is somewhat true; XME certainly inspired me to do all of those things more publicly and enthusiastically than I ever had before, especially where my One True Pairing was concerned.

For those who don’t know, X-Men: Evolution, which ran from 2000 to 2003, was essentially an animated High School AU of the X-Men comics in which our heroes lived and trained at the Xavier Institute but attended classes at their local high school. For the first couple of seasons, mutants weren’t public knowledge as they are in the comics or movies, so a few characters used their powers for the first time without understanding what was going on.

The second episode, “The X-Impulse,” introduced viewers to (this world’s version of) Kitty Pryde, a lonely, sheltered fifteen-year-old who was terrified of her newly awakened ability to walk through walls, and to Lance Alvers, a juvenile delinquent whose own powers caused him to make awkward faces and terrible puns (and also earthquakes, I guess). When they met, Lance seemed happy and excited to meet someone else with super-powers, but he quickly developed a plan to manipulate Kitty into helping him in his criminal shenanigans. He presented himself as helpful and supportive, gained her trust, and, when she refused him help him, became aggressive and violent toward her and her family. The episode ended with Kitty recruited by the X-Men and Lance joining the bad guys, and the two of them spent the rest of the season as enemies.

Watching this episode for the first time as a teenager, I knew that Lance’s behavior toward Kitty was wrong and abusive. And yet, there was something about their early interactions that captured my imagination. Maybe it was the fact that, whatever else might have happened, he was the first person to show her how to find confidence and joy in her powers. Maybe it was the hug that they shared, or his line, “Once you own it, nothing can own you,” or the possibility, thwarted though it might have been, that they could have formed an understanding despite very different backgrounds and attitudes. I liked forbidden romances, and I liked flipping the script to make unquestioned heroes seem villainous and villains seem sympathetic, and I liked when characters rebelled against controlling authority figures and communities, which is how I reimagined the X-Men when I first started writing about them. I’m not saying that I explored any of those ideas well, but they were what started me writing: at first in collaboration with a friend from summer camp, who still deserves a lot of the credit, and then on my own. I posted my solo stories on Fanfiction.net, where this fandom would enjoy some remarkable popularity that I’m not sure has ever transferred to any other platform.

I wrote about Lance infiltrating the X-Men (with psychic shields in place), and having to choose between his original mission and his romance with Kitty, whose own commitment to her team and its mission was starting to waver. I wrote about her trying to figure out her identity beyond her friends’ expectations of her, even as Lance tried to be a better and less destructive person. I wrote about Charles Xavier mind-controlling Kitty into dismissing Lance and falling back into unquestioning loyalty, giving way to several well-received sequels in which some of the characters tried to free themselves and each other from Xavier’s telepathic chokehold. I wrote without much direction or concern for established continuity and characterization, and assumed the whole time that the show would never explore what I saw as the unrecognized potential of my OTP. When canon actually went there, I was as surprised as anybody.

After Lance had spent the entire premiere of Season 2, “Growing Pains,” acting like a complete jerk to Kitty and her friends, his destructiveness endangered her life, and he saved her. They became romantically involved soon afterward, and he became noticeably less of a jerk toward her and slightly less of a jerk toward others. The series of fics that I was working on had decisively departed from continuity by this point, but I still incorporated elements of the season premiere into the installment that I was posting at the time. And my fellow Lance/Kitty shippers, believing that canon had vindicated us, were transported with joy.

If XME were popular today, I believe that there would be a lot more pushback against Lance/Kitty, in both good and bad ways. Even at the time, the pairing was not universally beloved. There were probably those who thought that its dysfunctional beginnings outweighed any potential for functionality or sweetness, and there were definitely those who thought that both characters would be better off with someone else. It’s tempting to rewrite history with claims that “in my day, we shipped and let ship,” and it’s true that yesterday’s shipping conflicts didn’t use all of the same weapons that today’s do, but the fandom was still full of snarky, self-important brats who, no matter which side of any given argument we were on, believed that only we understood these characters and this world.

I say “we,” because I was not exempt from these behaviors. I’ve sometimes thought that participation in this fandom brought out some of my worst habits. But a lot of positive things came out of it as well. It gave me the inspiration and confidence to write more prolifically than I ever had before (or maybe even since), and a chance to explore ideas that became deeply important to me: perhaps most importantly, I don’t think I’d written so extensively or publicly about the horrors of mind control. Mutual devotion to our show and its fandom, and mutual conviction that Lance and Kitty were meant to be, connected me with a number of friends with whom I started exchanging emails and IMs and LiveJournal comments, and I’ve kept in touch with a couple of them to this day. And even though I didn’t always respond constructively to attention and validation, XME fandom gave me what I think fandom has given a lot of creative young people: a wider audience for my writing, and a community who cared about the lives and feelings of cartoon characters as much as I did, and in many of the same ways. My experience in this fandom was as uneven and as flawed (dare one say… problematic?), and often as delightful, as the show that inspired it.

And, for me, it had all started with Lance and Kitty. As the show progressed, and for years after it ended, I continued to write more canon-compliant one-shot stories about them: missing scenes or predictions for the future. Their relationship was a given in more or less everything I wrote, whether or not they were the focus, and even when I’d fallen deeply into other fandoms, I still regarded it with nostalgic fondness.

I think that a lot of us have faced an uncomfortable tension between our social consciences and our nostalgia for the uncomplicated adoration with which we viewed our “problematic faves” as children. I can’t provide a one-size-fits-all solution for that conflict. I don’t know if one exists.

“Although I'm not going to say that I never thought that I'd be engaging with XME again in any way,” I blogged in late 2013, as my local cartoon-watching group began the first season, “I was somewhat surprised that I had any feelings about this show left, or anything else to say.” But I did, and I said a lot of it in short ficlets of less than 500 words, which - since I was in graduate school at the time - were usually all that my energy levels would allow.

At around the same time, I started reading fandom-related posts on Tumblr, including the ones that stated or implied that redemption arcs in fiction, and/or shipping characters with people who had mistreated them, were universally bad because they would increase the likelihood of real-life abuse. It’s not like I had never thought about that aspect of Lance and Kitty’s relationship (I’d addressed it more than once in the intervening time), but something about phrasing of those posts - or maybe something about my own mental state when I saw them - sent me into a spiral of self-doubt. I wondered I would have to publicly apologize for and cast aside my affection for a pairing and a narrative that had been so deeply formative for me. I wondered if my friends would consider me an abuse apologist if I didn’t, or even whether I might secretly be one.

One of the reasons why it took me a long time to write this retrospective is that I wanted to avoid too many lengthy tangents or blanket statements about critical consumption of media, the toxic elements of “anti-shipping,” and the relationship between fiction and reality. I do believe that such a relationship exists, but it’s much more complicated than “impure fiction is dangerous, especially if people might be enjoying it in ways that are not politically conscious or wholesome enough.” Anybody who reads my blog knows that I am intensely critical of purity culture, and I do not believe in being unkind to real people on behalf of fictional characters (and I say this as someone who used to do exactly that). Also, if you were going to ask, “So you’re saying you support [taboo and/or illegal act]?” please don’t. I am not saying that, and we are not having that conversation. Not all “problematic” stories are interchangeable or should be talked about in the same way, and all of the issues that surround them are bigger and more complex than any individual character or romantic arc.

So I am not suggesting that Lance and Kitty’s own romantic arc should not have happened, or that people shouldn’t enjoy it, when I point out that was built on some incredibly inappropriate behavior that reflects toxic cultural attitudes even if it doesn’t “normalize” or “promote” them, and I can understand why some people (including at least one of my Cartoon Night buddies) would see it as irresponsible storytelling. In “Growing Pains,” Lance harassed Kitty despite her trying to tell him off, used his powers in publicly destructive ways in order to hold her attention, and tried to keep her from leaving school with her friends. Even when his protective leap caused her to regard him as something besides an enemy, it seemed to be setting up an arc in which her love - or the possibility of her love - would make him a better person.

In reality, of course, it’s unrealistic at best for anyone to expect that they can “change” or “improve” the morality of a partner who has treated them (or others) badly. But it’s an enjoyable and compelling fantasy, as are the “opposites attract” and “forbidden love” aspects of the pairing, all of which we shippers ate up with a spoon. It’s vital for shippers to recognize the difference between reality and fiction, but it is not my place to assume - based solely upon the nature of the fantasy - that they’re unable to do so.

And, in-universe, I can absolutely understand why sheltered, idealistic Kitty might have given in to this fantasy. But it doesn’t play out in the way that she - or I - initially expected.

I’ve seen the Season 2 episode “Joyride” so many times that I didn’t have to rewatch it in order to write this essay. That’s the one in which Lance briefly joined the X-Men, in order to be close to Kitty and, hopefully, to become the kind of person that she might admire. The story was full of cute moments in which they flirted, bantered, and ultimately worked together to solve a crisis. It also spotlighted one of the biggest obstacles to their relationship, and despite what a lot of fanfic - including my own - suggested, that did not come from their respective teams’ objections. Professor Xavier even encouraged Lance’s potential for redemption (which didn’t stop me from reading, writing, and endorsing fic in which he regularly meddled in his students’ love lives), and the other characters reacted to the situation in a variety of understandable, if not always admirable, ways. No, the telling moment occurred when the team was running through aquatic rescue scenarios, and Lance cheerfully broke rank and “drowned” two other people in order to pull Kitty out of the water. Here was his entire approach to redemption and to their relationship, summed up in one gesture: he wanted to ensure her safety and well-being, but didn’t always care what or whom he knocked down in the process. This became even clearer toward the end of the season, when he tried unsuccessfully to chase her (and only her) away from a fight between their two teams, although her friends would still be in danger. This tension exploded in the third episode of Season 3, when Lance and his friends once again attacked the X-Men on school grounds, and Kitty shouted, “This is the real you, isn’t it?” Lance responded, “That’s right! I’m never going to be good enough for you!” (I typed that out from memory, too.)

Naturally, my fellow shippers and I were devastated by this development, and I, for one, wrote lots of angsty fic (often interspersed with the lyrics to late 1990s/early 2000s pop music) in which the former couple pined for each other despite having been Torn Apart By Circumstances. Years later, however, I’m proud of Kitty, and of the writers, for drawing that line in the sand, and for realizing that - although, as Charles pointed out, it would have been a good start - it wasn’t enough for Lance to be good for her. Whether or not this was an intentional writing choice, the later seasons reflected an awareness that he was primarily the one responsible for making himself a better person.

Yes, after Lance and his comrades joined the climactic battle even though he’d insisted at first that he didn’t care, he and Kitty got back together in the series finale. There were probably viewers who thought their reconciliation hadn’t been earned, as well as those who thought it had been. Obviously, eighteen-year-old Nevanna (by then in her first semester of college) was one of the latter. But I appreciate the time that they spent apart, and the fact that it came at least as much from from internal motivations as from external pressure, far more as an adult than I did as a teenager.

To be clear: you don’t have to like Lance/Kitty or pairings like it. When I say that I regard it differently now, I am not trying to assert that “my ship is Unproblematic after all, so there!” because it isn’t. Nor am I trying to suggest, “It’s okay that I had a Bad Ship, because I regret it now, and the rest of you are filthy sinners who should do the same.” I don’t, and you’re not, and you shouldn’t. Or, rather, how you feel about your past shipping, and what kind of person it makes you, is not for me to decide.

I loved and built upon this pairing both despite and because of its problems, and that is one of the reasons why I try not to condemn other people - as long as they maintain that all-important boundary between fantasy and reality - for loving and building upon stories that have similar problems, or different ones altogether.

I was sixteen when I first started writing XME fanfic. I’m thirty-three now. I can easily imagine some of you asking, “When are you going to get over these imaginary fake not-real cartoon characters and get a life, Nevanna?” That is, I hope that my friends, whom I love and who love me, aren’t thinking along those lines, but it’s certainly a question that I have asked myself more than once.

Even when I was cheerfully participating in fandom in my youth, I still feared that my obsessions with fictional characters were bad for me, a sign that I wasn’t equipped to deal with or care about “real life.” In one diary entry, I wrote with certainty that I would have to abandon my fannish interests entirely when I started college. If a large contingent of fans had loudly insisted that my interests were not only bad for me but bad for the world, that I was actively hurting others simply by writing about my chosen subject matter, that I was likely to enable or engage in actual criminal activity… I’m not sure what I would have done, but it probably wouldn’t have been what they wanted me to do, and it likely would have made me an even more unpleasant person to be around.

I tried my best to balance academic obligations with fandom and creativity when I did enter college, and sometimes failed spectacularly, but that owed as much to anxiety and poor time management skills, both of which are still everyday challenges for me, as it did to caring “too much” about stories. I eventually earned a master’s degree, and found a series of jobs, in a field that is just a bit concerned with making sure people get to read whatever they want. If I’m still “getting a life,” which I believe is an ongoing process, then my fandoms are just one part of it. And after all this time, X-Men: Evolution is still one of those fandoms. I find it easy and comforting and fun to write about these characters, and the only person who gets to decide whether I’m “over” them is myself.

The last time I wrote anything that focused specifically on Lance and Kitty was a little more than two years ago, and the fic didn’t shy away from the troubled history of their relationship. I have a preference for stories that at least acknowledge that history and the tension that comes with it, but I would never barge in and assume that because a content creator doesn’t check those boxes, they support real-life abusive relationships.

Would I still ship Lance and Kitty if I encountered them for the first time today? It’s difficult to say. Many aspects of their relationship are still things that I enjoy in fiction. But my early interest in them was based on a specific set of assumptions about the characters, their world, and even the purpose of fanfiction, as well as, yes, some amount of ignorance about how romance and attraction worked. I don’t want to enjoy their story, or others, solely in the way that I did when I was younger. Most of the time, I prefer the all the ways that I enjoy stories now.

As I said earlier, I’m not proud of some of my actions in the XME fandom. I regret sneering at the fanbase for another popular pairing that had dysfunctional beginnings, as if my OTP didn’t. (The two pairings didn’t even have any common characters, so it’s not as if they challenged each other as far as I know, not that my attitude would have been okay even if they had. I think I partly just enjoyed hating what so many people liked.) I regret participating in an LJ community that publicly mocked specific people’s writing. I regret sticking my nose into people’s reviews just to beg them to read my latest chapter, but not as much as I regret leaving at least one hostile review, with a very thin veneer of playfulness, when half of my OTP hooked up with another character in the middle of a multi-chapter fic. And, all of that aside, there is a much longer list of regrettable choices that I made as a writer. But I don’t regret looking at Lance and Kitty in their introductory episode and thinking, “There’s a story there, and I want to find out where it might go.”

#xmen evolution #all our faves are problematic #nevanna life #nostalgic fun times

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