#but if I'd tried to make it be it would've been another three weeks 😫

[magnetos-dynasty]

hello! this is a bit of random question but you're the biggest comics lorna stan i know so i'm curious... what did you think about marco/eclaris on the gifted, and how would you feel about him/it bleeding over to the comics? the show is long over now, so i don't necessarily think it's something marvel is likely to do, but i really liked him/them as a pairing (and imo it's way better than what 616 lorna has actually going for her re: romance). i don't know that much about lorna in the comics, though, so i wonder if it could even work out there, with her background being so different from the show

[So sorry it took me 37 years to respond to this, I hope you see it, anon.]

First, let me start with -

I have never been so flattered in my life, thank you 😭

Anyway, on topic.

I didn’t actively ship Marcos/Lorna in the show for personal reasons completely unrelated to the quality of the pairing, but I did love their dynamic.

Any adaptation would have to deal with certain issues of plot, but given a bit of creativity and the nature of comics that’s a pretty small hurdle. Since Marcos is original to the show, his backstory could be easily manipulated as necessary.

Easiest option, you just swap out “…and after becoming disillusioned with the cartel, Marcos was approached by Lorna Dane [and Proudstar] to join the Mutant Underground”, with “…after becoming disillusioned with the Thieves’ Guild, he was approached by Lorna Dane to join the X-Men,” and you’re pretty much good. (Or X-Factor Investigations, or the Krakoan citizenry, what-have-you. Whatever team she’s on at the time. If I had free choice I’d put him on one of the 2012-2015 X-Factor teams, but that ship has, y’know, flown.)

I think the aspects of their dynamic that I like in the show would actually translate over perfectly to the comics (and, uh, make for a better relationship than basically any other she has in the comics).

- Marcos respects Lorna, on all levels. He respects her physical power (and is fully aware that she is far more powerful than he is), but also -

- He respects her agency and right to choice. That’s, uh, something that tends to be an issue for Lorna, in the comics, from every side. The X-Men put her in a mutant-suppression collar; Magneto manipulates her and uses her as a battery; people on all sides keep alternately magically causing and “curing” her mental health issues; etcetera, etcetera. Beyond the mechanical use of powers to remove agency, most of her friends and family - and especially people she’s paired with romantically - tend to treat her as though she doesn’t have a right to free choice, or the capacity to choose “correctly”.

- He respects her as a person with a severe mental illness. He provides support as necessary, but also knows and accepts that not everything a mentally ill person feels or thinks is because of their mental illness - they can have “”“real””” emotions and thoughts too. And having an illness doesn’t mean a person should automatically be treated as incompetent to make decisions.

- He supports her, on all levels.

- He recognises that she is awesome and sexy and the absolute shiz and that is #relatable content.

- None of that means that the relationship is perfect and boring.

In fact, some of the things that make the relationship good are also the ones that, when taken too far, cause problems. Respecting your partner’s agency is great! But if your partner blows up a plane takes your kid and runs away to join a terrorist organisation… uh, an organisation that’s a bit further along on the freedom fighter to terrorist scale than yours is… it’s fair to request that a bit of discussion be had.

And he is, himself, very far from perfect, which is very Good And Important. They take turns reminding each other about that whole morality thing, and how ends do not necessarily justify means, but also sometimes you need to remember about the bigger picture and not sacrifice many people for a single person.

Which would fit perfectly with comics!Lorna.

(Overall, Lorna really doesn’t need to be in the ‘which one’s the crazy amoral one and which one’s the perfect long-suffering partner sacrificing for them getting nothing in return’ pairing cliche. And The Gifted did a fairly decent job of avoiding that, across the show as a whole.)

In conclusion look at this scene and picture how much better it would have been with Marcos “simp” Diaz instead of Alex “can’t remember my girlfriend’s a girlboss bc I’m too busy hanging out on my undeserved moral high-horse” Summers. Thank you