One of my favorite parts of phase 2 (and indeed one of the few moments I resonated with IDW Prowl) was when the neutrals were coming back to Cybertron and Prowl said that he refused to let Autobots be pushed aside and overruled after they were the ones who fought for freedom for 4 million years (the exact wording escapes me atm).
And I mean, that resentment still holds true even once the colonists come on bc like. As much as it's true that Cybertron's culture is fucked up, and as funny as it can be to paint Cybertronians as a bunch of weirdos who consider trying to kill someone as a common greeting not important enough to hold a grudge over.... The colonists POV kind of pissed me off a lot of times, as did the narrative tone/implications that Cybertronians are forever warlike and doomed to die by their own hands bc it just strikes me as an extremely judgemental and unsympathetic way to deal with a huge group of people with massive war PTSD and political/social tensions that were rampant even before the war?
Like, imagine living in a society rife with bigotry and discrimination where you get locked into certain occupations and social strata based on how you were born. The political tension is so bad there's a string of assassinations of politicians and leaders. The whole planet erupts into an outright war that leads (even unintentionally) to famine and chemical/biological warfare that destroys your planet. Both sides of the war are so entrenched in their pre-war sides and resentment for each other that this war lasts 4 million years and you don't even have a home planet any more. Then your home planet gets restored and a bunch of sheltered fucks come home and go "ewww why are you so violent?? You're a bunch of freaks just go live in the wilderness so that our home can belong to The Pure People Who Weren't Stupid And Evil Enough To Be Trapped In War" and then a bunch of colonists from places that know nothing about your history go "lol you people are so weird?? 🤣🤣 I don't get why y'all are fighting can't you just like, stop??? Oh okay you people are just fucked up and evil and stupid then" ((their planets are based on colonialism where their Primes wiped out the native populations btw whereas the Autobots and OP in particular fought to save organics. But that never gets brought up as a point in their favor)) as if the damage of a lifetime of war and a society that was broken even before the war can just magically go away now that the war is over.
Prowl fucking sucks but he was basically the only person that pointed out the injustice of that.
And then from then on out most of the characters from other colonies like Caminus and wherever else are going "i fucking hate you and your conflicts" w/ people like literal-nobody Slide and various Camiens getting to just sit there lecturing Optimus about how Cybertronians are too violent for their own good and how their conflicts are stupid, with only brief sympathetic moments where the Cybertronians get to be recognized as their own ppl who deserve sympathy before going right back to being lambasted.
Like I literally struggled to enjoy the story at multiple points because there was only so much I could take of the characters I knew and loved being raked over coals constantly while barely getting to defend themselves or be defended by the narrative so like. It was just fucking depressing and a little infuriating to read exRID/OP
ALSO. what's really interesting about thor not picking up on loki's situation in the avengers is that thor leans in the right direction for a moment, but doesn't pursue it. who showed you this power?
there are a few different audience interpretations of what's happened to loki - coercion and threats; torture; influence by the sceptre; influence by the tesseract; outright mind control; any combination of the above...
but all of these options are variations of one particular theme. there are also many other possibilities, and thor hasn't seen what we've seen to lead us in this direction. thor has very little to go on at all, because he still doesn't have all the pieces to explain loki's original breakdown in thor one, and since then there's been an entire missing year in which literally anything could have happened. it's pretty much an open question to him.
but among all the different confusing details that get thrown at thor, "where did loki get an army?" is the vital question and the key. a year is probably not long enough to build one himself - so was loki given it? (implying subordination.) did he bargain for it? (implying equality.) did he steal or win it? (implying some kind of mutiny or coup.)
and thor identifies the right question, AND jumps to the right explanation, the one in which loki is being used, but then... seems to just give up.
i think this is partly because thor fears it, but he doesn't know it. he's assuming this of loki not because he actually sees specific evidence of loki being coerced/exploited/etc, but because he is naturally inclined to see loki as powerless, because of their abusive family background. if he's not controlling loki, then surely someone else must be...
and i'm just speculating now, but i think it's possible thor gives up on the idea because he kind of knows he's doing this. assuming loki is being controlled again means assuming loki is as he's always been, and, to a certain extent, absolving loki. but then he goes - actually, i can't afford to assume this. he is clearly NOT the same. there are just too many possibilities, and he's too unwilling to communicate, so i need to start from the ground up if i want to find the truth.
which is kind of darkly ironic. thor instinctively suspects a pattern of revictimisation in loki because of his own abusive mindset - but also because of his abusive mindset, he doesn't understand how that revictimisation could arise from vulnerabilities actively inflicted on loki, rather than an Inherent State of Lowliness in loki, so he doesn't see how it's actually objectively likely, and he dismisses it as... old habits? maybe even wishful thinking, in a way? he tries to look past his biases, and he looks past useful information instead.
When you start a magnet war with your depressed boyfriend in order to pavlov him into brushing his teeth every day but it backfires and now you've pavlov-ed yourself too <3
Hsr’s lore/story/gameplay/shorts the game itself has no business being as good as it is honestly im not even mad at the gacha anymore im in it for the plot like this is peak scifi to me how? Why? We just dont know but they are fucking cooking in that studio
“The past continues to haunt the group. Tanya and Ram seek out support from outsiders to cope with the death of their parents. April tries to keep Charlie together as the guilt threatens to bury him.
Meanwhile Quill is not worried about her past, but her future, as her baby’s arrival draws closer, with the implications for her own fate still unclear…”
We return to the third installment of our main series, as Quill's big day arrives with a brand new edition of Episode 3: Life Cycles, written by Ellie J (@bazwillendinflames)!
meeting an old friend for a coffee couple of weeks ago we had to formally declare that we both like each other and think that we should hang out more cause we’re fucked in the head like that