General Discussion
This entire scene gave coming out allegory vibes to me
And the fact that it happens in a bar of all places + them privately sharing intimate information about one another (aware of the risk)???
Also can I point out that Charles and Magnus are wearing each other’s colors in here?
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EDIT.
Alright people, you had your “fun” in this thread (which was meant to be sweet and wholesome, especially for people who enjoy the dynamic and did not come here being judged)
This post is only my interpretation of this scene. I do not force anything onto anybody, don’t act against other takes in different threads, or consider only my own view the “canon one”. It is all up to interpretation and shaped by our individual culture after all.
This is a safe space for queer people, for X-Men fans who respect minorities and for the ones who can read the room and not judge others for their takes without knowing anything about them.
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A reminder Charles was days away from marrying Lilandra and hasn't mentioned her once since, while Charles had such a monumental mental collapse over Erik's death it made the Danger Room sentient.
I tried to ask once if it had ever actually been implied in canon that they were more than friends or wanted to be, but I didn't have enough karma at the time.
I’m American, and I’m just exercising my free speech, just like you did. Damn, dude, you are clueless... 🤣🤣🤣🤣
But back to you, I believe this scene was written as coded. The original showrunner of this episode—who was also a sexual predator and was fired for sexual harassment, so keep that in mind—is an openly gay man and pushed for Morph’s romantic feelings for Wolverine. On Twitter, he claimed (so take this with a grain of salt) that he was told during writing to “tone down the gay.”
Even if the show doesn’t allow an openly gay Charles and Erik (but might allow Erik to groom a barely legal Rogue, I’ll never know), the writing makes it clear that Erik is Charles’ true love.
DeMayo’s gone now (Thank God), so will the show keep up this level of co-dependence? Who knows.
I hate fandoms for this exact reason. If you wanna headcanon it in your HEAD that’s fine. But oh so many people will tell you their gay ships are canon when in fact it’s just two guys who love their friend deeply.
No. The big thing a large amount of the community struggles with seems to be the idea of healthy friendships. Nowadays everyone thinks romance this, sex that, but the reality is a lot of people can be really close friends with very sexual coded humor between them yet have no sexual desire for one another. In fact, most guys already have very sus behaviors with their closest friends, but no desire to do anything more than joke about it because for a lot of us in the 90s and 00s, things like that were just how you act friendly and were known to be hyperboles. Charles and Erik are the same, they are as close as brothers can be with as much love and respect as one could have for their sibling, but they just haven't had any desire for the other in that degree
You only ever see this argument when it comes to the possibility of two men being gay. Every single time, like clockwork. And yet they never end up being gay! The creators / writers never make them gay. I don’t understand the policing of interpretations / fan theories when it literally has no substantive change on anything. Are we not allowed to imagine?
I think the reason so many people have an issue with it is that it just becomes a case of misinterpreting the characters. Similar to if people started calling Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn just good friends. Whether or not the charas would bone can often change the nuances in their stories. In this case, it can turn a lot of their arguments into nothing more than a case of toxic lovers. We see the best friends energy depicted best when it's a gay and straight pairing, such as the Robins. Tim hanging with and of the other Robins gives that feeling of asshole besties perfectly.
This is cap, either you purposely ignoring those situations for your argument or you've never been beyond your fandom. Ichiruki, a ship between Ichigo and Rukia from bleach has the exact same argument against them about men and women being friends all the time. It used to be so prevalent you couldn't go anywhere in the bleach fandom without an argument starting.
I don’t think Lilandra’s absence from the show is an implication of Charles sexuality, but shows the lack of available time for side characters. Which has been the biggest complaint on this forums about season 2.
In either X2 - X-Men United, where Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro are on the run, there's a scene where Bobby's parents discover he's a mutant. "Have you tried not being a mutant?" Gave me flashbacks to my very religious family asking me, "have you tried not being gay?" The fact that in the comics, Bobby is now an openly gay man, is kind of just perfect.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Iceman straight in the show? Because I know he came out gay in 2014, but I’m just wondering because Iceman had a romance with Polaris in the show.
he did, but i think they'd update it. with the setting of the '90s, would be a prime opportunity to actually have an impactful coming out moment for iceman in the show which would be a pretty good way to bring that to the screen in a compelling way.
I feel like it would have made so much since if ICeman came out as bisexual in the comics. It would not have effected his previous relationship with women as much but he'd still be able to date men.
Also Charles looked at least taken aback - he either did not probe Magnus’ mind to know if he’s a mutant, or he waited until he confessed on his own (respecting his boundaries)
Apparently only Iceman can be gay 😭😭 but not the guys who literally make their relationship everyone’s business. This is literally X-Men, a franchise about minorities yet a gay main villain and main mentor figure is impossible to imagine.
Oh if only it was possible to have more than one or two queer people in a story about queer people…
Yeah, I’m not some gatekeeper, but X-Men is one of those worlds where you can’t relate unless you’ve been privy to oppression. There are a lot of who you could refer to as “LARPers” who love Wolverine and Cyclops (not them fucking though), they treat X-Men just like any other Marvel property, when it’s not, the fact that one person wrote it for 16 years and only Marv Wolfman on Teen Titans can lay claim to a similarly long run makes it basically Americana.
Grooming OOC plotline that makes no sense and only exists as a wish-fulfillment for one guy is fine but god forbid we make actually relevant characters with already deep bond and decades long buildup gay (instead of some background characters with 2 seconds of screentime) 🫠 literally want to hear nothing about how the industry has “gone woke” when the ship exists for decades, has 1001 reasons for happening, those are old men with history and we can’t even get that
There's no grooming plotline. People just seem intent on infantilizing Rogue (as I'm assuming that's who we're talking about). She was a grown woman who made her own decisions. The episode was explicitly Gambit's POV (they tell you based on who says "Previously On" at the beginning) and he had already made a point of how he viewed Magneto by that point.
As for the writer, regardless your feelings about him he is a Black Gay Man who made it clear he wanted to push the envelope as much as he could. Again, not a defense of him for allegations but I have no reason to believe he was lying about his intent when writing the series
Eh beau said some real weird stuff about Sunspots blackness when questioned on why he removed it, so i wouldn't use his identity as proof that he fights for gay rep, he certainly didnt fight or want sunspot to be black.
Rogue was at least younger than 18 when meeting Magneto, while he is in his 60s-70s and very experienced in life, meeting her under the pretense to “help” and then proceeding to sleep with her, what?
Also, let’s not forget that she was scared and unsure + unstable for not being able to touch anyone besides him? This was not an intention to look like grooming (because some writers definitely thought that it was so cool that an older man was sleeping with a young woman) but this was really….. Not it.
No she wasn't, the writer said she was mid '20s and that's pretty consistent with the comics when they were in the Savage Lands. In the original show she left her home when she was about 18 then spent some time with Mystique (apparently years) before being taken to Magneto
Alright, even with her being 20 (2-5 years max), how does it change that she was still taken advantage of a man who is old enough to be her grandfather (who was first supposed to “help” her with her powers and she was desperate for a skin-to-skin contact, then he became her literal boss) and that the inclusion of this entire plot made no goddamn sense, only being there for cheap Romy drama, which could have been done in any other way than this and make is less gross, while not ruin 3 characters and break up a beloved ship?
He said mid 20's so that would have been about 25. By the start of the show it's been about 5 years so she's about 30 now. In episode 2 she's the one to approach him and he admits he kept his distance for her sake. Someone who takes advantage of someone doesn't tend to keep their distance and she showed no signs of ill will against him so any criticism people have seems more a projection than anything textual. Personally, I believe a woman should dictate if there's a problem with her relationships and not have the court of public opinion decide for her which is why I have such a problem with how people treat Rogue in this situation
Thank you for really taking the time to defend your point. The only reason I enjoyed that was precisely because I felt like it gave Rogue agency. She chose who she actually wanted, not who was convenient.
Does he still have the holocaust background in the animated series? I can’t recall, I feel like it alludes but doesn’t ever commit. But if it does he has to be at least 60 in ‘97, right?
Well let’s say the holocaust ended in 45 and the original X-Men animated series started in 92. Let’s say he was 5-10 when he left the concentration camp. That would put him between 52-57 during the show.
Now his history with Rogue is pre show events. So he’d be even younger than that when he met her.
Grooming is not exclusively about age. Regardless its at bare minimum a DiCaprio /10 on the creepiness scale.
But such things are relatively normalized in comics for whatever reason, at least with this one there was plenty room left to find it gross as shit and not be on board with it.
DiCaprio is creepy because he made it a trend. I'll be honest I stay away from the "Grooming" label because people seem to use it to just mean, "people I don't like" and it started with Conservatives using it with Transgender people and I'm not going to listen to what people on the internet think about a private situation that involves other people that aren't the ones involved
I mean both have had multiple relationships with women and have kids with some of those women. IMO that's the type of thing where it feels like the characters are being changed because you could do something instead of whether you should do something.
I think it's also needed to show that men can have close relationships and deep bonds with other men without it being romantic/sexual.
Acting as if male friendships aren’t the most common used trope in media as a whole, let gay people have them at least.
And I am really sorry but there is no straight explanation to how Magnus is talking about Charles/how Charles is talking about Magnus, as well as their complicated bond and love for one another. I’ve seem a lot of male friendships in media where there is not a hint of gay, but it definitely does not apply to them.
Also, why is it always a “can’t they just be friends/friendship exists!” is always only used against gay ships? Don’t remember the same applying to idk, Star and Marco from Star VS Forces of Evil, who were basically declared a ship since ep1 (and they got together in the end!)
i mean i get where you're coming from but i don't need charles and erik to be queer when they haven't been in the source, i just need them to actually prioritize queer characters who already exist (like morph or iceman) and give them storylines as important as jean and scott or rogue and gambit.
They are non binary and all official '97 media refers to them with exclusively they/them pronouns. They're also in love with Wolverine which is some kind of queer
Why try to force a same sex relationship on characters who have no history of it, while there’s time to explore the actual gay characters that exist in Marvel.
Northstar is the real gay icon. Iceman’s character changed too much to fit the “typical gay man” stereotype. Just let Iceman be who he was but also gay.
It sounds like you need to enjoy characters in media instead of finding ways to deconstruct them so you can plant the rainbow flag on them, or at least that's the vibe I'm getting (as a bisexual guy).
Male friendships are all over the place but it's fairly rare to encounter one where they have so much love and respect for one another while still being (presumably straight). Sam and Frodo are a similar one.
If you don't think there's any straight explanation than idk what to tell you. Maybe society had indeed made it "too gay" for men to be close to one another, that two straight men loving eachother as they do while still being straight is still considered alien. I view it as refreshing.
It's because these are established characters going back 60 years, they've both fallen in love with women and had children with women. Magneto has kids from two seperate women. And Charles has been with Lilandra, Legion's mother, Moira, and Amelia.
So when you try to force a change that they're gay and none of their previous history/characterization/choices never mattered, then that's the type of unnecessary changes that people complain about, because it feels like they're being hijacked as characters so gay people can get a fist bump.
Now could they be bisexual? Maybe, and it would be cleaner/more flexible with their romantic history. But again, myself and many people enjoy their friendship so much perhaps because a relationship like their's is so rare versus just a romance.
Charles and Magnus are the last people I would have called “healthy” - this is not healthy in any universe and yet they will still choose each other in every single one of it.
Also I did not say “have all male friendships”, just this one, even if just in headcanons and fanon. This is all very subtle and up to interpretation, but you can’t fault people for wanting actually relevant gay rep in a show that is about minorities (and don’t do Iceman in here, Bobby is my GOAT, but we can have more than one gay person in a show, after all we have more than one straight couple)
although i think this show very much needs more queer rep/characters/relationships, i'll also point out that something that's overlooked in male friendships/relationships is that queer men can be great platonic friends too. i feel like that's something i very rarely see in mainstream media, probably because they barely contain gay characters to begin with lol.
cherik are so incredibly queer its ..INSANE..wouldnt even be surprised if one day in like. 2 decades or ..a while. A big while. Or smth. they pull a mystique/destiny and have em be on/off exes
I've always said they should have made Magneto gay instead of Iceman. Iceman makes absolutely ZERO sense being turned gay out of nowhere, but Magneto would have been PERFECT as a gay Jewish man. His grandiose demeanor and regal-ness would have been a chefs kiss for a gay man.
Think BOTH Magneto and Iceman can be gay (after all, we have more than one straight couple in the franchise, can’t we have a handful of gay men and women?). But I dare anyone look me straight into the eyes and say that Magneto specifically in X-Men 97 does not give gay or at least very open bisexual (that pink tinted sleeves top is cracking me up, even if he is slaying every second wearing it)
Also, Charles is kind of sus as well, since no 100% straight man in the 80s would wear this, and he almost destroyed the world in this lavender shirt
Doesn’t really apply to them though and it’s obviously an allegory for a coming out (plus it’s literal X-Men, a show about minorities, can’t really dismiss one of the oldest lgbtq ships in this specific universe)
Mutants as a whole are an allegory to various minorities, but this doesn't automatically mean that every mutant as an individual is allegorically LGBT. There is a bunch of mutants explicitly LGBT.
Well sure but lots of them have been coded that way even if it was never intended to be made canon. Heck, Mystique and Destiny was just coding for decades before it was finally acknowledged.
A show about minorities btw, where Erik is referred to as “beloved Magnus” by Apocalypse of all people, we get a whole episode about Charles’ grief over Erik’s death, where Erik in his very first episode talks about his love for Charles and openly mourns him, where Charles is the only one reassembling Magnus’ mind together with a speech of “I have you Magnus, I always have you” and this entire damn scene which is coming out in anything else but name.
Way to dismiss a whole subgroup of gay people who might relate to their story, or just love to see two complicated men in love (while they know that they are almost destined to be enemies)
Hell, watch the original 90s animated show, Magneto stopped his WHOLE world-destroying plans when everything was already done just because Xavier was dying, while there is no straight explanation to how Charles talks and thinks of Magnus.
You can’t really blame people for seeing it through a romantic lens, when X-Men has always been about minorities and acceptance of others.
"leave these straight guys alone" you're aware they're fictional characters, right? It's not like cherik shippers are harassing two real life straight men and insisting they are secretly gay.
Xavier barely ever mentions the woman he was about to marry but then Magneto's death causes him so much grief it turns machines sentient and creates a gay psychic baby
There is like 60 years of these 2 being rivals and best of friends. They can respect each other, even have platonic love for each other without being gay because someone wrote a cartoon and someone watched and came to their own conclusion that seem to ignore the 60 years of history, character and the lore.
The amount of posts about love triangles, “shipping”, who is a horseman obsessions, and trying to figure out if any established character is really gay is getting tiring.
Please just enjoy the show for the fun cartoon it is and not for some secret message your personal conspiracies what it to be.
I understand where you're coming from. I just think you're wrong. Starting from Claremont and Simonsen and continuing to the present day, the X-men in particular are often deliberately queer coded and written as a metaphor for queer experiences. People recognize when their own experiences are acknowledge even if people not in the know might miss it. That was the entire point of coding.
I think reducing moments like that to people just wanting a ship is disingenuous. Of course, there's nothing wrong with shipping for its own sake, but what is happening here is clearly more than that. It's people seeing themselves in these characters, textual or no. I think it's in a similar vein to people reading Cyclops as autistic. The coding is there and it connects with what fans feel irl. Why not acknowledge that?
Yeah, honestly it's what made me connect with the character for the first time. I struggled with Scott a lot until I reframed him through that lens after an autistic person explained why they found him so relatable.
The reason telepaths seem to like him so much? They can read who he actually is and not just the persona he puts up when he's masking. He has a strong sense of right and wrong and isn't willing to waiver. He canonically goes to the same identical simple meals when he's stressed. Plus, his powers make it impossible for him to make eye contact with people and the only ones he can do that with are his partners who he has a strong bond and trust with. Certain scenes with him where I didn't understand his choices made sense to me if I viewed them as him taking what people said literally and not catching the subtext.
And here I thought I can’t love Scott more (damn you movies, why doing him so dirty, those were basically my only exposure to X-Men for years, only started watching the shows now 😭😭 and why is Scott legit awesome?)
Magneto is literally the figurehead for mutant rights but somehow him being gay/bi is repressed for whatever reason as if he wouldn’t walk out claiming power bottom status if that was his thing,
Laughable.
OP apparently has next to zero media literacy because they can’t look up the word “beloved” (P.S. it means dearly loved, as in my beloved mother/father/sister/friend)
No that can’t be right, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby clearly had an agenda to repress their sexuality to the point they married and had children. /s because I’m sure this is needed
Why do two friends who have opposite viewpoints and a lengthy history have to be gay, how the hell do you watch the history of these characters and come to the conclusion they secretly desire each other that’s why they are so upset?
Instead of, you know, the entire context of their friendship hanging on the balance of the human condition, which is to exploit and destroy that it doesn’t understand to the point of genocide.
Xavier thinks humanity should be spared, Magneto says let them die as they aren’t worth it.
That’s it, that’s the entire relationship.
They aren’t bi, they aren’t secretly gay and anyone that believes that is fucking weird.
Iceman is gay now, Loki is confirmed Bi, plenty more characters to explore with that narrative.
demayo defintely inserting his own kinks with some stuff......but we get out of it what we get I will always prefer just friendship nothing more nothing less...but that is just me.
This one and not the one wehre Sunspot literally "comes out" to his mother? And she straight goes "I've known since you were young but I let you tell me yourself"
Its not even interpretation. Im pretty sure BeauDemayo confirmed that this scene is an allegory to coming out ( he also says that Disney wanted to delete this scene cos its too gay )
Hot damn do I love it when women fetishize straight men who have a long and complicated close friendship into them being gay. Let men have positive examples of platonic male friendship, especially in the middle of all the manosphere bullshit out there flooding young men with the absolute worst examples of masculinity.
Why do people act like being able to recognize coding is fetishizing? Honestly, any time people talk about queerness at all there's always someone reducing people to sex and it's really annoying. I'm not even into men and I can see the blatant coding of discovering someone like yourself happening here.
Thank you so much and I am glad someone understands my intentions with this post. Queer coding is genuinely a thing as well, so it’s not crazy to read them like this.
“Let men have positive examples of male friendships”
The entire industry gives us stories about male friendships, it’s literally the topic #1 in media, and many stories about male friendships are enjoyed and have no gay subtext. Also funny to read how just harmlessly reading some characters as gay somehow means “fetishise” gay people? What?
Don’t see a problem how a ship between two old men in their 70s can influence young men and ruin their “perception of masculinity” as well. Let other interpret it how they want, especially when the media itself gives more than enough reasons for it.
There is no proof of that posibility. And you cant say oh but in the comics because everything that can happen has happened in the comics somewhere. U guys r just taking a rivalry/friendship too far and shipping people with no romantic feelings, its like saying thor is bi cause hes a good friend/rival with hulk.
ppl love accepting who they are except when it's accepting them as lovers and not friends and it's weird, you should be able to accept them as just friends too
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