Rogue and Gambit

It was in the mid of 90's when I saw this X-Men the Animated Series for the first time. I was then very obsessed about the mutants, especially Rogue.

When the first movie of X-Men came into the cinema, I was so excited because it was Rogue as the key role for the movie. Anna Paquin as Rogue, not only she was not voluptuous, she bore less and less resemblance to the feisty but sad, kind hearted but naive, lovable Southern I grew up reading. But the fact that her love interest was not Gambit devastated me the most. Because I loved him more.

Rogue and Gambit are endgame!

In her alternate earth, Rogue was with Magneto (damn the pedophilia author!), while Gambit stayed in love with her. Or with Iceman (Bobby), and the last couple was being adapted by the movies. Then a producer said that Channing Tatum will come to the picture as Gambit (Remy Etienne LeBeau).

After X-Men the Animated Series, there was X-Men Evolution where Gambit was not an X-Men, he stood for brotherhood of Magneto instead. I was like, damn it.

The fact that Gambit had been tossing his side around every now and then frustrated me. He had his own dark side, one of them including the genocide he accidentally took part (the Morlocks massacre). It haunted him in every step he took, it's rising a hope inside of me that he was a good man actually. It made his relationship with Rogue go on and off. He was one of Apocalypse horsemen once. He stood for Magneto once, though I believed it was only because of his job as a thief. Gambit was my hero back then, I've seen him reacted and worked through the grief and shock. I've seen him being stunned, depressed, angry and reckless and finally loved his great complexity. And won my heart by his genuine love and cared about Rogue though he seemed to flirt a lot.

Rogue and Gambit, with their 'You Can't Touch This' situation, had a dilemmatic relationship. You can only love, not even one touch nor kiss allowed. Rogue power was absorbing someone else's power and memory, her first boyfriend Cody was in coma after Rogue kissed him for her first kiss. She believed that she'd put Gambit in coma if she touch him. And the last thing she wanted was to hurt someone she loved. In the 9th episode of X-Men the Animated Series (the Cure) was then I realize her dilemma for the first time. It was too much for my age at that time (I was only 9 or 10 year old at that time), too young to understand about the non-platonic love.

I do hope that Marvel will do each of them justice. The question is, when?

Favorite quotes:
"I be the thief, chere...and there you go off stealin' my heart."
"The X-Men are heroes. I'm a thief."
"What is it that pulls a man apart, yet at the same time holds him together? It is his soul. And whether good...or evil...or some combination of the two...no man can escape the dictates of his soul."

And the last quotes, I think it's really fit for one of the presidential candidate we had here in Indonesia.

Jokowi or Prabowo

Yeah, yeah, I know. You've had enough about Mr. P vs. Mr. J for the presidential election on July 9th.

One of the black campaign was from a journalist, Allan Nairn. He was a foreigner, a foreigner that I believe he witnessed and survived the massacre at the Santa Cruz cemetery, Dilli, in 1991.

Then I went to his blog and his writings kicked me in my head, this foreigner knew too much about Indonesia while I, I never gave a thrice thought about lies in the history book I learnt back in my distant memory.

I had my second thought, a couple years ago. But relying only from Indonesian books put me on a dead end. The only thing I knew about September 30th, 1965, it was about internal conflict in Indonesian military. And a rumor about US was with Soeharto on that.

I was so confused about the election, which will be held 5 days again. And it is Allan Nairn, though I disagree about him "sharing" 'the truth' (I was thankful for his decision), who made me want to learn about history of my country since its declaration.

I hope I can decide my vote in time, I hope it's the right decision.