#anti waldron

[prettywitchiusaka]

Not gonna lie, while I wish Clea was in more of MoM beyond a cameo, I'm actually kind of glad she isn't the more I've thought about it.

Putting aside the fact that Michael Waldron is (apparently) SO media illiterate/lazy he thought the emotional core of DS1 was Stephen and Christine's lost romance (it wasn't), I really don't wanna know what Clea Strange would be like in his hands.

Much like her hubbie, Clea's one of those characters that, in the wrong hands, can come off as incredibly unlikeable. There's a lot more layers to her character than one might initially think, and I don't think has the skill to write a character like that, nor does he have the desire to learn how to write nuanced characters properly.

At best, his Clea would be bitchy and hypocritical. At worst, she'd probably be another one of Waldron's patented sexy, over-powered murder bot with no personality beyond being angry (he wants to fuck), and be bitchy and dismissive of Stephen for no reason until it's time for them to fall in love which...yeah, I don't know if you guys heard, but that's not how things are in the comics. Clea falls in love with Stephen for his inner beauty; she sees that he's a brilliant, brave and compassionate man and she loves him for that, and always will. More over, he's the man who taught her to love and she grew through their relationship as much as he did. To do anything else would be an insult to her character.

P.S. I know I keep going back to the "Waldron's horny" jab over and over, but come on! Look at how he writes Sylvie in Loki Season 1, and how he writes Wanda in MoM, and tell me Waldron doesn't have a fetish for that kind of woman.

[breckstonevailskier]

WandaVision writers room vs. DSMoM writers room

In the writers room for WandaVision:

“We wanted to pay Wanda the respect of taking her mental health seriously. We had a grief counselor come and speak to the writers of the show, which was really helpful making the story of Wanda's pain.” - Jac Schaeffer

“In a negative way, Wanda Maximoff could be distilled into female hysteria. But the way I like to think of her arc is through mental health. We’re in this amazing time of embracing mental health, and it becoming less taboo to use the language of depression, panic and anxiety.” - Elizabeth Olsen

“She has to choose between this false world she's created, and the safety and happiness of innocent people. And Wanda Maximoff is, in her core, a hero.” - Jac Schaeffer

Meanwhile, in the writers room for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:

"All of WandaVision, we get to see her go bad, as the best villain ever, the Scarlet Witch. [...] I had a strong perspective on making her a villain from the get-go. [...] 'Why are we letting some other movie get the best villain ever?'" - Michael Waldron

----

Yeah, see the disconnect there? 🤔 Watching the Scarlet Witch episode of MPower out now on Disney Plus, it's honestly just sad seeing Elizabeth Olsen and the writers of WandaVision discussing how they wanted to provide a nuanced and sympathetic treatment of Wanda’s mental health, and avoid certain sexist tropes that have long plagued Wanda in the comics, only for Multiverse of Madness to play these sexist tropes straight. 😡🙄

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Your thoughts on this video essay?

I couldn't agree more with OP.

I really like his quote here: "Creativity at the end of the day is really problem-solving. Generally the more difficult the challenge, the more that forces you to stretch your imagination to think up solutions."

That's the main thing lacking in MoM. The lack of creativity is insane considering the movie was supposed to be focused on magic and the multiverse. They come up with crazy powers because they look cool and they don't care to explore them, explain them, or give them any meaning besides "it looks cool on screen."

Wanda's powers add absolutely nothing to the story or her character. She all of a sudden knows what to do and how to do it, and those powers only show up once, the implications of the things she can do are irrelevant.

That's another thing, the flaws are far more interesting than the powers themselves. They made Wanda so hilariously OP that she has no limitations to her magic, she has no weaknesses at all - which in turn makes her character completely forgettable: we don't see her descend into the Darkhold's corruption and she has no weaknesses either. Her only role in MoM is to be the villain, she has no arc.

To quote OP, the more a character struggles the more compelling their journey is. But the characters in the movie have no limitations: Wanda can use her magic as she pleases, America doesn't get tired of travelling through universes, Stephen uses a bunch of spells but he seems to be well at all times...

And don't get me started on the spells. We see a bunch of them that look great on screen but we don't know anything about them, we don't know the names, we don't know what it takes to cast them, nothing. At least DS1 gave us a few things but MoM? Nothing.

It's funny the OP mentions the sling rings though because Mordo literally says in the first movie that they can be used to travel the multiverse:

But they retconned that because it didn't line up with their new narrative. They could have worked around it but.... it's easier to ignore it, apparently.

I gotta say though, it's slightly annoying that the video is so focused on Wanda. I swear a lot of people think MoM was her movie but uh... it was supposed to be Stephen's. Exploring her powers could have been cool but what about Stephen's skills and abilities? We saw him training in the first one, we should have been on a journey with him to see how much he has learned, how much the fight with Dormammu taught him, the stuff he found out while checking those 14,000,605 different futures in Titan.... but we got none of that.

I will say that OP's idea to make Wanda's power only work on the living so Stephen possessing the corpse of Defender Strange in the end actively negating her power? Yep, that sounds pretty cool.

[breckstonevailskier]

*cough* Michael Waldron *cough*

I see posts go by periodically about how modern audiences are impatient or unwilling to trust the creator. And I agree that that's true. What the posts almost never mention, though, is that this didn't happen in a vacuum. Audiences have had their patience and trust beaten out of them by the popular media of the past few decades.

J J Abrams is famous for making stories that raise questions he never figures out how to answer. He's also the guy with some weird story about a present he never opened and how that's better than presents you open--failing to see that there's a difference between choosing not to open a present and being forbidden from opening one.

You've got lengthy media franchises where installments undo character development or satisfying resolutions from previous installments. Worse, there are media franchises with "trilogies" that are weird slap fights between the makers of each installment.

You've got wildly popular TV shows that end so poorly and unsatisfyingly that no one speaks of them again.

On top of that, a lot of the media actively punishes people for engaging thoughtfully with it. Creators panic and change their stories if the audience properly reacts to foreshadowing. Emotional parts of storytelling are trampled by jokes. Shocking the audience has become the go to, rather than providing a solid story.

Of course audiences have gotten cynical and untrusting! Of course they're unwilling to form their own expectations of what's coming! Of course they make the worst assumptions based on what's in front of them! The media they've been consuming has trained them well.

[gloriousburden]

I’ve been trying to keep this blog about appreciating OG Loki instead of any negativity, but goodness is the series the bane of my existence. Imagine looking up your favorite character, and having to scroll past every result that comes up.

Imagine the only part of the fandom/community you can enjoy being a small side of Tumblr away from the main tags.

You cannot relate to anyone on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, etc..

A subdivision on Tumblr of a fandom is all you have!

Finding decent Loki merch is hard enough as it is, but now you need to look out for hourglasses, and the colors orange and brown.

This is all because of the series. This is why us anti series blogs/OG Loki fans are so “cruel” and “evil.” This is why it’s so serious to us. It’s weird to feel alienated where you should feel like you belong.

Many of us lost the fandom that we once knew and loved. It’s not just about the series or how Loki is miswritten, its about us losing the connection we once easily had with others. You shouldn’t have to constantly explain yourself to others who are supposed to be in the same fandom as you.

I share a fandom with people who don’t understand the source that spawned the fandom in the first place. I share a fandom with people who’s only knowledge (of the character we’re all supposed to know and love) is ship fanart, fanfiction, fan theories, and headcanons. I share a fandom with people who take lighthearted Tumblr posts from years ago that jokingly state that Loki is around 16/17 years old seriously and as canon. I share a fandom with people who refuse to think critically.

It’s not just a fictional character or movies. It’s something we are passionate about, and it’s hard to share those passions with others who do not understand a fraction of any of it.

I’m very grateful for this side of Tumblr and I hope that one day we could have our fandom back. You shouldn’t have to make an entire subdivision of a fandom in order to see things about the characters ORIGINAL and DEFINITIVE appearances.

Fuck the series as well as anyone who groups OG Loki with the variant. Makes things a thousand times harder. I can’t even watch edits because you’ll think it’s an edit of TDW Loki… but then here comes clips of that variant. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Girl if I have to see that clip of the variant bent over a table one more time… I think i’m gonna lose it.

Certain sides of Pinterest, old Tumblr posts/blogs that have been inactive since 2014, and Google’s/YouTube’s “Before:Year” feature my beloveds. Blogs on dedicated to OG Loki my beloveds. Thor 2011, The Avengers, and Thor The Dark World my beloveds. My oomfs/mutuals my beloveds.

[alwida10]

After the … horrible*cough* … most deep and tragic, but certainly not satisfying conclusion of the Loki series, I would like to randomly cite one of the writers of Thor (2011) with a random advise for aspiring and established script writers. 🙂

That’s all. 🙂

[breckstonevailskier]

Congrats to Wanda for killing this group of hero-coded villains. 😍

Killing people like the Illuminati is the kind of thing heroes were meant to do. 😂

[prettywitchiusaka]

Wait...Waldron thinks Stephen and Christine's lost love was the emotional core of DS1?...Really!?

Look, I know people can have different readings of a piece of fiction, but Waldron's writing a screenplay, NOT an essay. How did he misinterpret the first Doctor Strange THIS badly!?

The emotional core of DS1 is of a man learning hubris and accepting his own failings. Christine is a huge part of it, yes. She's not the main focus. My God, Waldron! Just stop! Go home! You're drunk!

“ could’ve been one hell of an incursion…”

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Not to bring up something painful, but I imagine that Benedict read the original treatment/synopsis/draft of the script which Scott had written, so that he knew how Stephen's arc should have played out. I'll bet in a place that he doesn't speak so publically about, he was as disappoitrde

Yeah, it does seem he's disappointed. I saw an interview on TV with him shortly before the release of MoM and he (quite literally) said he is very "protective" of Stephen's character and if you add to that all the tidbits he's been saying since then (that he's not sure Stephen has an arc in the movie, that he rewrote some scenes to make them more similar to Scott's script, when he implied they had been improvising things during filming, that it was tough after Marvel made so many changes, etc). I mean... he's a polite guy, he's not going to say it out front but between the lines? Dude's not happy.

He did mention Scott had showed him his original script (I don't know if a finished one or some draft) so it must have been hard for him, especially when he seems to care so much about Stephen's character - I still remember the day he gave an interview post-NWH to basically tell everyone off for calling Stephen arrogant 😂

Imagine going from Scott telling him "Hey Ben, I'm going to explore Stephen's mind and we're going to focus on him and his sister and hey you might get a scene with Donna!" to Waldron telling him "uh you're going to be treated like crap, Christine is going to say she never loved you and some heroes are going to kill one of your variants.... and I'll frame that as a good and noble thing!! I'm awesome, right?".

Poor Benedict... 🤦‍♀️

While we're at it try not to think that Waldron is writing the next Avengers movie so it's likely he will write Stephen again. Try not to think about that 😭😭

[agentoffangirling]

I will forever hate how Multiverse of Madness treated Strange's arc, I would wonder how they managed to miss the point that badly, but it's Michael Waldron so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised

Bc in the first Doctor Strange movie, Strange prided himself on perfection. Being the perfect surgeon, the perfect man, the perfect person for Christine. When he got in that accident and his hands were mangled, he wasn't just angry at the fact he could no longer perform, but that he was no longer perfect. He was forever broken

That was why the watch meant so much to him. It was given to him by Christine, sure, but even after the accident the face remained perfect. The watch mirrored Strange, it represented his old life; it was the one part of him that was still "perfect". When it was broken, he cried not just bc he loved Christine, but now it was flawed, just like him

By the end of the first movie, Strange has learned that he doesn't have to be perfect, and that he's okay with not being perfect. He doesn't need to fix the watch. He doesn't need to fix himself. Being flawed is fine

But they completely throw that out the window in Multiverse of Madness! Not only do we still have him pining over Christine, which hey, the first movie showed him getting over, but we have his whole perfection thing again. It's the exact same arc from Doctor Strange, only Waldron fumbled it all

They have him fix the watch. The watch that represented him, the watch that kept him humble, the watch that reminded him being broken wasn't a bad thing? They have Strange fix it and give it to America. Why? Oh, bc now he's over Christine

HE WAS OVER CHRISTINE A LONG TIME AGO. What was the point of this??

Giving it to America isn't that big of a deal, since it still represents humility and being flawed, but getting it fixed says: "yeah, I don't really care about keeping myself down-to-earth, I'm totally perfect la la la la la". Even if that wasn't Waldron's intention, it still comes off that way. He completely missed the point of the watch and assumed it only represented Strange's love for Christine when if he had just bothered to watch the first movie, he would've known this wasn't the idea of it

But hey, missing the point is Waldron's point, ig

[lokidanger]

They are besties, and they are *pissed*

[breckstonevailskier]

This is mostly talking about Michael Waldron. And how he ruined Loki and Wanda Maximoff through this subpar writing.

The writers in phase 4 saying things like "I never watched the phase 1 movies or read any of the comics" or "we made up the backstory during filming" sounds like "I didn't study or do my homework so you should be very impressed with this C+ project I've done."

[unhingedmarvelandclassicwhobuff]

I'm done bottling this up. I need to go on a rant about how much Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness insulted me the one and only time I watched it.

I’m still furious that the trailers didn’t spoil that Wanda was the villain, because if they had, I would’ve sworn never to watch the movie.

I liked the first 15 minutes or so fine, and got really excited when Wanda was introduced. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way my heart dropped when the reveal happened two minutes later.

It shocked me so much in the worst possible way that I totally zoned out and barely registered anything else that was said in that scene, or the next one for that matter.

The Kamar-Taj massacre legitimately made me want to vomit. I truly couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This couldn’t be fucking happening. And to think it was almost even worse if that horrific BTS footage of Wanda hacking the sorcerers to pieces in melee combat made it into the movie.

This may sound odd, but the visual of Wanda ripping herself apart to get out of the Mirror Dimension truly disgusted me, because I sincerely think it was intended to dehumanize her and make her look more like a monster. Again, it was like the movie was TRYING to personally insult me.

I wasn’t paying attention to anything that was happening with Strange and America when they got to the other universe. I couldn’t focus on anything at all because I was reeling from the shock.

I hate to admit it, but when the Darkhold got destroyed for a moment I hoped against everything that that would be it. But no, immediately after that she intentionally tortured some of the surviving sorcerers to make Wong talk. Again, I genuinely could not believe what I was seeing. How was this real?

The Illuminati massacre, like the earlier battle, insulted me in ways I truly cannot articulate. I feel like everyone involved was trying to insult me specifically with how evil they were making Wanda. [A part of me has grown to morbidly like this scene, however, as the Illuminati are full-on fascists, and with how much I've grown to hate Captain Carter it was darkly cathartic seeing Wanda bisect her, but still.]

During the final battle I was sincerely expecting either those demons to drag Wanda to whatever hell dimension they came from, or for America to do that instead. If that happened then the anti-Wanda whiners would feel even more vindicated about how she was "finally being properly punished".

The way she is written out rung completely hollow, because there was no indication whatsoever that she wasn’t being corrupted anymore. It just looked like she stopped because she wanted to. And again, I feel like the movie was trying to make me upset by saying "no, this is just how Wanda is".

I want to say I felt nothing when it looked like Wanda died, but the truth is it was just the final middle finger. I guess I should be thankful for small mercies since apparently she was originally planned to go on ANOTHER killing spree ending with Strange killing her.

So yeah, TLDR, Multiverse of Madness was the absolute worst movie watching experience I’ve ever had, and cemented itself as my most hated film of all time before it even ended. I made a conscious choice to never watch it again before I even got up from my seat. It truly felt like Sam Raimi and Michael Waldron were intentionally and maliciously ruining Wanda, and the fact that it was just sheer incompetence that caused this to happen is somehow even worse, because that's how little Marvel values this character.

And just for the record, my mom, who got into the MCU because of WandaVision, was also really excited for this movie, and she has no standards whatsoever, so the fact that even SHE hated the movie's treatment of Wanda speaks volumes.

Fuck Marvel, fuck Michael Waldron, and fuck the anti-Wanda losers while we're at it.

[sobeautifullyobsessed]

"Do not speak to me of sacrifice, Stephen Strange."

After all this time, this line still bothers me. A lot. And I find myself wondering if it was simply the writer's outright ignorance of the canon suffering that Stephen repeatedly experienced protecting humanity from Dormammu and during his excruciating search for a way to defeat Thanos--or did Waldr🤢n actually know Stephen's history and decide it wasn't relevant to the script he was writing?

Either way, I'll never get over it. While remaining entirely skeptical of how Stephen will be treated in possible future projects.

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

Though I've forever lost interest in the "Larry " show and didn't want to have anything to do with its second season regarding the MCU /Disney continue fuckery of Loki character.

I couldn't help myself in seeing how Loki "story" concluded, and honestly.... I feel like loki was far better off dead in Infinity War. Just seeing him holding all of the timelines together for eternity with that somber sullen look on his face. Carrying the burden of the Multiverse.

Like really? This is how Loki story ends,

I wish there's was a better Loki series made by someone who actually gives a shit about Loki as both an character and individual when it comes to his complexity and the nauauces of how he was originally written within the first two Thor films before the retconning of Taika Waititi and Mike Waldron. Anyone who had a true actual interest and care for his character similar to the previous movies and truly put a legit focus on him and his personal perspective.

I'm just so done with the MCU and what they've done with Loki and how his "story" ends. Please give me 2011-2013 Loki anytime of the day or a version of Loki not fucked over by Disney/MCU or anything other than the damn Larry show conclusion for Loki.

[prettywitchiusaka]

@valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn

Thank you!

I pick on Waldron’s writing, too, but at the end of the day I know that Feige is just as much to blame. You’d think that, being the (primary) producer on this film that he would’ve instructed Waldron to actually visit the set for Wandavision or ask for early copies or, hell, even ask Elizabeth Olsen for some insight into Wanda’s struggles.

But no, apparently Kevin is just okay with letting Waldron crap all over this film. Can’t imagine how much his bald head is sweating from that decision, now that we know the film cost an extra $100 million because of the re-shoots.

Idiot!

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness dir. Sam Raimi | 2022