Chivava

Femslash February couples meme

Day 23: the couple you like writing/creating content for most of all (and why)

Kitty and Illyana are two of my favorite X-men. I love Illyana’s dark magik, sarcasm, and angst about being unable to control her inner demons. I love Kitty’s sense of humor, cleverness - in computer science like in politics - and I love the girls’ flaws too.

One of the things who inspire me to write shippy stuff is the kind of relationship where there’s subtext, enough of it to really believe in the relationship, but it’s frustratingly not canon. And they have been this for too long. ^^ Well, first, in the whole Claremont arc.

(Also, Kitty’s been recently named “the queerest X-men” and sounds like a repressed bisexual, and Illyana never had a male love interest, and both lesbians and aro and/or ace people would like to have her but still she’s very probably queer. She’s got at least one lesbian and one bisexual alternate versions)

Also, I love the evolution of their relationship. The uneasy beginning, when for Kitty Illyana was “just” her boyfriend’s tiny sister she babysat, turned into a teenager by dark magics. Where for Illyana Kitty was “just” an alternate version of the mentor she had to kill.

Then them growing into teammates and best friends.

Well, with sort of competing teams, but still best friends, and I love what the plot did with their psychic link.

And then Illyana sacrificed herself and became an innocent child again, and Kitty was torn between being happy for her and losing her best friend, and honestly even if it stopped here I would have loved their story and ficced a lot (I have).

But they made Illyana come back! And even if at the beginning they were estranged first (lazy writing), then angry at each other (not lazy but I didn’t like it), and then Bendis had them reconcile, yeah! (then he shipped Kitty to space, not yeah)

So they have potential futures together. Lots of them. To be honest, when Kitty was leading the young X-men as “professor K” and Illyana was part of Magneto and Cyclops’ team, I had some hopes for them to be the Xavier and Magneto of next generation. They can be best friends and will always be, but they have also potential to be adversaries - but also to be a team by themselves. It didn’t go here, but Marvel is still the fandom of hundreds of AUs.

Some “canon AUs” for them:

So many possibilities!

Also, they have this “science and magic” vibe that I always love. And the contrast between their so weird lifes and very relatable personalities will always work for me.

(And I have a friend who ship them, so at least one person will read my fics. It really helps.)